ANDREW NEIL: Twenty years after 9/11 Condoleezza Rice says the Warfare on Terror has been gained… and I feel she’s proper

Monday would be the twenty second anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist assaults and, regardless of the passage of time, most of us will immediately bear in mind the place we had been on that fateful day when the dreadful information got here via.

I used to be in a automotive with my producer heading for the TUC convention in Brighton, the place then prime minister Tony Blair was scheduled to talk that afternoon.

As I used to be all the way down to anchor BBC TV’s dwell protection of the Labour convention just a few weeks later, I assumed there may be some attention-grabbing traces to select up from Blair’s look earlier than the commerce union barons.

We had been about half an hour out of Brighton when the classical radio station soothing our journey south interrupted its programming to report {that a} airplane had collided with considered one of New York’s Twin Towers. The preliminary impression was that it had been an accident.

‘However they’re saying it’s a shiny, sunny morning,’ I remarked to my producer. ‘Doesn’t sound like an accident to me.’ We sped up.

On the day of the terrorist assaults, I used to be in a automotive with my producer heading for the TUC convention in Brighton, the place then prime minister Tony Blair was scheduled to talk that afternoon, writes ANDREW NEIL

By the point we reached the BBC’s makeshift newsroom within the Brighton convention centre, one other airplane had hit the second tower. That put an finish to any speak of accidents.

The convention had been surprised into silence by the point Blair took to the stage. He defined that he must return to London pronto as there have been rumours that our capital, too, might be below assault, however added that he knew the TUC would wish to specific its sympathy and solidarity for the President and the American folks.

The convention rose as one in a tumultuous standing ovation to do exactly that.

‘If he’s heading again to London, I’m going again, too,’ I mentioned to my producer.

As I descended the again stairs, I ran into Blair, who broke away from his safety element to have a fast phrase.

‘ America effectively, Andrew,’ he mentioned, getting straight to the purpose. ‘What do you assume has occurred?’

‘No query in my thoughts, Prime Minister,’ I replied. ‘It’s Al-Qaeda.’

‘Why are you so positive?’

‘As a result of it’s been a long-standing ambition of Al-Qaeda to take down the World Commerce Centre. Key figures behind the 1993 bomb assault on the Twin Towers had hyperlinks to it.

‘The van with the bomb was positioned below the North Tower at a spot they calculated would ship it crashing into the South Tower, destroying each and killing 1000’s. That assault failed. This one has succeeded.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ mentioned Blair. By now his safety group had been getting impatient, anxious to bundle him out of the constructing.

‘You’d higher go,’ I mentioned.

However as he turned away to proceed down the steps I shouted: ‘Prime Minister!’

He turned to take a look at me, nonetheless strolling away.

‘Bear in mind, shoulder to shoulder with America,’ I mentioned.

He nodded. ‘Shoulder to shoulder,’ he repeated.

That night time, again residence in London I watched Blair broadcast to the nation.

‘Tonight, we stand shoulder to shoulder with America,’ he intoned gravely. I allowed myself a quick smile on a grim day.

By that point, I’m positive Blair had been briefed on the unmistakeable hyperlink with Al-Qaeda. The mastermind of the 1993 bombing, Ramzi Yousef, had frolicked at an Al-Qaeda coaching camp in Afghanistan.

His uncle, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, had given him recommendation and assist and, within the aftermath of 9/11, it was rapidly established that the uncle had been the principal architect of that way more devastating and, alas, profitable assault.

Color guard at a Pentagon Employees Memorial Observance ceremony happened on Friday

Over 20 years later, at a convention in London this week, I bumped into Condoleezza Rice, President George W. Bush’s savvy Nationwide Safety Adviser and Secretary of State, two consecutive high-powered positions that gave her a front-row seat all through his presidency as he waged his Warfare on Terror.

When she was requested if we had now gained that warfare, Rice replied that, broadly, we had, at the very least relating to Islamist terror in opposition to the West.

It appeared like a daring declare for the reason that world nonetheless seems to be awash with terrorist assaults. However on reflection, and with a number of caveats, I concluded she was proper.

America, in fact, has made many grievous errors alongside the way in which to this victory of kinds. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003 was a catastrophic mistake, a serious setback which unleashed a complete new wave of terrorist assaults.

President Biden’s abject scuttling from Afghanistan two summers in the past, making the return of the Taliban inevitable, will need to have emboldened Islamist terrorists all over the place.

And they’re nonetheless energetic, from the no man’s land that’s the Iraqi-Syrian border to the huge desert lands of the Sahel that stretch throughout Africa from the Atlantic to the Pink Sea.

However the extremists of the Sahel are extra involved with combating home conflicts and terrorising native harmless civilians than waging warfare on the West.

Even the Taliban appear extra anxious to suppress Afghani girls as a part of their medieval agenda than to recreate the secure haven the nation as soon as was for Al-Qaeda.

US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice says the Warfare on Terror has been gained, at the very least close to Islamic terror on the West

The Center East, so lengthy the breeding floor of a lot of the terrorism that has bedevilled us, is more and more dominated by the affluent Gulf states which wish to be often known as beacons of prosperity and sources of funding fairly than crucibles of barbarism.

The United Arab Emirates has already made its peace with Israel. I perceive Saudi Arabia will quickly do the identical, maybe earlier than the 12 months is out. Why would they nonetheless wish to be tainted by terrorism?

So the terrorists’ capacity to plan, entry the assets and safe the logistics required for ‘spectacular’ assaults, like 9/11, has been severely eroded — and to that extent the Western world is, certainly, a safer place than it was.

Open, democratic societies will at all times be susceptible to the rogue ‘lone wolf’ working on restricted assets and with out a help community. They will nonetheless inflict atrocities on us, as we sadly found on that horrendous Could night time within the Manchester Enviornment six years in the past.

However, total, main terrorist assaults on Western democracies are in steep decline and lengthy could that proceed.

It isn’t unrealistic to hope, or foolishly cavalier to assume, that Islamic State and its ilk are going the way in which of the IRA or Eta, the terrorist separatists of Spain’s Basque area.

Each cruelly and needlessly murdered many individuals however, ultimately, they didn’t achieve imposing their goals on democratic governments — and the wiser heads amongst them got here to phrases with the futility of their violence.

Terrorist wars don’t cease in a single day. Who is aware of what bloody eruptions may nonetheless be inflicted upon us? However the greater risk to our democratic lifestyle as of late shouldn’t be terrorism however a revanchist Russia and an aggressive China.

The ‘Tribute in Mild’ ceremony is examined in New York forward of the anniversary on Monday

We’ve come a good distance since 9/11 and, regardless of the self-inflicted setbacks, there’s progress to rejoice.

And classes to study. Above all, that successful the peace is as necessary as successful the warfare — maybe much more so.

America and its allies gained the warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq however misplaced the peace in each locations, thereby prolonging the Warfare on Terror. In stark distinction, America misplaced the warfare in Vietnam however gained the peace — the Vietnamese at the moment are considered one of America’s most necessary political and financial allies within the Pacific Rim.

On Monday, as we bear in mind those that misplaced their lives on that horrible day 22 years in the past, we are able to take some consolation from realising we’ve got, ultimately, largely gained the warfare on Islamist terror.

Successful the peace — which suggests eradicating as greatest we are able to the situations that permit terrorism to take root and even flourish — will probably be that wee bit tougher.