Congressman Jim Maloney Speaks Out About American Tragedy
WASHINGTON — Representative Jim Maloney (D-5th District) said he was in a meeting with Connecticut energy corporations talking about energy issues at the Hall of States, an office building on Capitol Hill, when news of a plane’s crashing into the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan reached him around 8:45 a.m.
Maloney finished the meeting and drove toward his office a few blocks away and saw smoke rising from the Pentagon across the Potomac River. When he called his office by cell phone to get an update on what was happening he was told that his staff had received orders to evacuate the Capitol and its office buildings.
Maloney headed for the Democratic campaign headquarters, three blocks from the Capitol, and spoke from there about the terrorist attacks here and in New York City earlier in the day.
Once he arrived at the democratic headquarters south of the Capitol, he met with his chief of staff and press secretary. Because of blocked roads and grid-locked traffic, Maloney decided not to return home to his apartment on Capitol Hill but to remain at the party headquarters for the rest of the day.
Maloney sent most of his Washington staff home, but called his Waterbury office and instructed it to remain open and provide constituents with updated information about the events in New York and Washington.
“The United States ultimately will very quickly recover from these attacks as a nation, but it’s just a cowardly, murderous assault mostly on absolutely innocent people,” said Maloney of the people behind the attacks.
At 4 p.m. Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R- Ill.) and minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) made a joint conference call to members of Congress to announce that President Bush and leading Congressional leaders were safe and secure, Maloney said. The two leaders also said that Congress would reconvene today (Wednesday) at 10 a.m. and vote on a resolution condemning the terrorists and sending their condolences to families of the deceased.
Maloney said security measures were taken on Capitol Hill, including an intensive sweep of the complex Tuesday night by law enforcement officials. The facility was scheduled to reopen by 9 a.m. on Wednesday.
When Maloney was elected to Congress, he knew that a tragic, political event similar to the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy was always a possibility. However, he said, he “didn’t think that anyone was prepared for a terrorist attack against a civilian facility where ordinary people going about their ordinary lives are suddenly subject to a mass murder.”
Maloney said the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Anti-Terrorism, of which he is a member, would undoubtedly broaden its focus and look at issues of terrorism and public security. Maloney also expected that members of Congress would receive formal briefings from the FBI and other national security officials.
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) released a statement on the terrorist attacks. “This is a tragedy of catastrophic and unimaginable proportions,” he said. “These attacks are unparalleled, heinous and cowardly. My heart and prayers go out to the victims and their families at this most difficult and terrible time.”
“No terrorist act will undermine our national resolve to stand up to those who would seek to intimidate the United States from acting as a moral voice advocating international justice and democracy. Nor should those who have perpetrated these despicable acts think that they will be safe anywhere around the globe from our determined efforts to apprehend and punish them to the maximum extent of the law,” said Dodd’s statement.
