9/11 25 Years Later: Remembering the Ordinary Americans Who Died on 9/11

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Brian Lehrer (0:41)

Brian Lehrer on WNYC as we continue our special coverage on this 25th anniversary of the September 11th attacks with Mike Kelly now, longtime columnist with the Bergen Record, which many of you see these days at northjersey.com.

He's got a new book out called After Ground Zero, Everyday Americans and the Unhealed Scars of 9-11, which traces the stories of dozens of people who were at the World Trade Center that day and their family members and how the attacks would come to shake their lives. We should say that Mike himself came to lower Manhattan from Jersey on the afternoon of the attacks, thinking he would be doing some firsthand reporting to meet a deadline, not realizing, I think it's accurate to say that the reporting he began that afternoon would come to shape his career. He has since reported from places including Iraq, Israel and Gaza and more, and he's also reported on the health effects of 9-11, the lawsuits we've been talking about this morning, the creation of the 9-11 Commission by the federal government, what it found and what didn't find and more, including he's got serious questions about the role of Saudi Arabia in the 9-11 attacks. So in the book, he tells the story primarily through the lives of 26 families who were directly affected. Again, the new book is called After Ground Zero, Everyday Americans and the Unhealed Scars of 9-11, and he's actually joining the show today from the 9-11 Memorial Ceremony at the World Trade Center, which I believe he's attended almost every year since the attacks. Mike, thanks so much for being with us today.

Mike Kelly (2:22)

Thank you, Brian. I'm so glad we could connect on this very, very solemn day.

Brian Lehrer (2:29)

We can hear the ceremony a little bit in the background. So can you set the scene for us? You've been attending these anniversary events nearly every year for the past 25 years. Does anything this year feel different because of the round number anniversary?

Mike Kelly (2:46)

You know, it's interesting you say that, Brian. I've been talking with some of the folks here. And, you know, we see each other every year. I've been to, I think I've been to every one of these except for one or two.

And I was talking with one and a number of people, and they've said almost the same thing. That is, it's harder this year because it's suddenly hitting them that it's been 25 years. And we still have several key questions about 9-11, which remain unanswered, the health issue, which your previous guests talked about at length. And then the questions of who's totally responsible for this and the evidence about the involvement of several government officials from Saudi Arabia is, is the evidence is substantial and it's profound and it really deserves attention.

Brian Lehrer (3:39)

Well, I'll let you go there. I mean, I think the conventional wisdom is that Osama bin Laden was more of a dissident. He was Saudi, but more of a dissident from the Saudi government with their relationships with the United States and that sort of thing. So what other questions are you asking?

Mike Kelly (3:58)

The real question here, Brian, is I think, don't think of this as an official policy of the Saudi government. The evidence that I've seen, and again, this is just purely my conjecture and the conjecture of folks who have analyzed this, and is that there were some rogue elements within the Saudi government. And a lot of this is religious based on a very, very radicalized view of Islam. And some of those folks got involved with the hijackers. Now what we don't know is what these Saudi government officials knew of the hijacking plot.

But what we do know is that these Saudi officials helped the hijackers mostly with logistical and financial help.

And that included helping them to rent apartments, open bank accounts, rent cars, that sort of stuff. It really comes down to, I think, a very basic question, and that is this. How did 19 hijackers, none of whom spoke English, none of whom had ever been in the United States before, how did they manage to come to the United States and, again, open up bank accounts, rent apartments, rent cars, buy sunglasses, join gyms, in other words, fit into life here so seamlessly and easily? And the evidence that we've seen so far, and again, it's barely trickling out from the file, the FBI, the evidence we've seen so far is more than eye-opening. It's extremely alarming.