Two years later, University remembers Sept. 11 attacks

The United States is the world's superpower. But two years after Sept. 11, it still has a long way to go to resolve the issues brought up by the attacks, a panel of political experts concluded yesterday in front of a full audience in Dodds Auditorium.

The panelists reflected on the subject — "Two Years After 9/11: How Far Have We Come?" — discussing the steps the United States should take to improve domestic and foreign security.

"[In 2002,] President Bush acknowledged that now America is most threatened not by invading states but by failing states," said Robert Orr '92, the executive director for the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government.

"Never has this president been so right in what he said and never has he been so wrong in how he has implemented it," Orr added.

Orr, who recently returned from an independent review of postwar Iraq at the request of Defense Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld '54, was joined on the panel by Anne-Marie Slaughter '80, Wilson School dean; Christopher Eisgruber '83, a Wilson School professor specializing in law; and Christopher Kojm '79, deputy executive director of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

The panel represented the intellectual part of the University's remembrance of the attacks.

Orr spoke about faltering reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. He called for an increased emphasis on security, increased funding for reconstruction and perhaps sending more U.S. troops into both countries.

He said that the United States could not accomplish its goals in these countries alone but must "build the international capacity to address concerns about terrorism."

"There are a lot of people who want to help rebuild shattered countries," he added. "We need to support them and provide them with the resources to do just that."

The United States has also faced domestic challenges since Sept. 11, particularly in drawing the line between establishing effective security and infringing upon civil rights, Eisengruber said.

Some of the actions taken by the federal government after the attacks, such as the passage of the USA Patriot Act and the president's executive order authorizing military tribunals for those suspected of terrorism, "no doubt went to excess," Eisgruber said.

"We now have time to reflect more fully on what has happened and what should be done to adjust to terrorist threats and still preserve civil liberties," he said. "Up to now we have failed to create the mechanisms to adapt old civil liberties to our new environment. We have to learn to shape and limit our tools [of justice] so that they are fair to our neighbors who are subject to them."

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Despite the problems the United States has faced in the post-Sept. 11 world, the government is committed to evaluating and learning from its mistakes, terrorism expert Kojm said. Kojm has been working to assess the attacks themselves, examine U.S. actions over the past two years and make policy recommendations in the future.

The two years since Sept. 11 have been years of challenge and change, but they have also been years that have brought many Americans closer to people of other countries, Wilson School dean Anne-Marie Slaughter '80 said.

"The fear and loss and vulnerability [of Sept. 11] should lead Americans to realize how alike we are to people in other countries and lead us to fight, listening to people in these countries," she said. "Two years later, I'm not sure where that balance is being struck. The lessons of Sept. 11 have to do with the way we are part of the world."