Category: Mindy Finn
Terrorism Tragedy
By Mindy Finn
WASHINGTON – Rep. James Maloney (D-5th) was attending a meeting yesterday on energy issues at the Hall of States, a few blocks from the Capitol, when he was told about an airplane crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City.
As the meeting broke up, Maloney thought to himself “one plane might be an accident, but two planes means something is wrong.” He headed in his car to his office a few blocks away and spotted smoke coming from the Pentagon on the other side of the Potomac River. Maloney called his office by cell phone and was informed that his staff had received orders to evacuate the Capitol building immediately.
Maloney headed to Democratic campaign headquarters, located a few blocks from the Capitol, where he met his press secretary, and his chief of staff. His chief of staff, Janice Morris, had ret rieved her 20-month-old baby girl Claire with her because she ran and got her from the Capitol day care center when she was directed to evacuate her office.
Maloney sent the rest of his D.C. staff home, but he called his Waterbury office to instruct the staff there to stay open to provide his constituents with information and services.
Maloney described the disaster as “clearly, the largest and most damaging terrorist attack in terms of loss of human life in the history of the United States.”
“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.
Maloney said it was too early to tell who was behind the attacks, but he acknowledged that everyone will first suspect terrorist groups from the Middle East.
At 4 p.m. Maloney participated in a conference call conducted by house leaders Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R- IL) and Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO). They announced that Congress would reconvene this morning at 10 a.m. after an intensive security sweep of the Capitol.
When Maloney came to Washington, he said he knew that a tragedy could occur comparable to the Kennedy assassination he recalled from his boyhood. However he “didn’t think that anyone was prepared for a terrorist attack against a civilian facility where ordinary people who go about their ordinary lives are suddenly subject to a mass murder.”
Maloney predicted that this event would provoke tighter security across the country and said the anti-terrorist subcommittee of the House Armed Services Committee, of which he is a member, will undoubtedly take a look at security and terrorism issues in light of these events.
Sen. Christopher Dodd (D, CT) also released a statement. “Let me say in the strongest terms that 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.
