The air quality
Just a week after the Twin Towers fell, the head of the US Environmental Protection Agency declared the air in Lower Manhattan safe to breathe. However, files released by Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s office last week confirmed that 10 months after the attacks, health officials were still finding evidence of carcinogens like asbestos. The records, rediscovered only last year, suggest that city officials knew toxic chemicals were present yet continued to tell the public the air was safe. More people have died from 9/11-related health problems than those who were killed during the attacks themselves, according to the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund – and 25 years later, that number continues to rise.
The trials
As part of the Global War on Terror, the United States imprisoned close to 800 people in a military prison at Guantanamo Bay, under legally controversial circumstances. Fifteen people remain there, among them Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Pakistani national accused of masterminding 9/11. After years of wrangling about the admissibility of his testimony, which was obtained in part via torture, his trial is finally set to begin in 2028. To date, just one person has been convicted of involvement in 9/11, Zacarias Moussaoui, a French national of Moroccan origin who pled guilty in 2005.
The displacement
Roughly 38 million people have been displaced by wars the US military has fought since 9/11, according to Brown University’s Costs of War project. Millions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia have fled abroad or to neighboring countries as refugees, while others were displaced within their own countries. Iraqis account for the largest share, with more than 9 million people forced from their homes. The effects have endured long after the height of the US invasion and occupation: as recently as March 2023, more than 1 million Iraqis remained displaced.
