Like all New Yorkers, Sept. 11, 2001 is a day Sen. Chuck Schumer will never forget.
“I was in Washington. I was in the Senate gym,” he recalled, when images of the twin towers engulfed in flames flooded the television screens.
“No one could imagine the depravity of Al- Qaeda and then the second plane hit,” he said. “I thought this must be World War III.”
As the then-freshman Senator rushed to his office on Capitol Hill, he saw another plane flying low over the Potomac River. It was making a deadly bee-line for the Pentagon.
A day later he was looking out over the smoldering wreckage of Ground Zero from the window of a military jet with Sen. Hillary Clinton. They were the only ones in the sky as passenger aircraft had been grounded.
“You could smell death in the air,” he said.
Schumer with former President George Bush and Giuliani on a tour of Ground Zero on September 14, 2001. Doug Mills/APSchumer credited President George W. Bush for authorizing a $20 billion relief package for the city and coming through with the cash during his presidency.
“There were people in his own party who told him to stop giving and he stuck by his word,” said Schumer, a Democrat and now the Senate Majority Leader.
Twenty years on, the war in Afghanistan that was launched to destroy Al-Qaeda and their Taliban hosts has come full circle. Last month the Islamic zealots recaptured the country and overthrow the US-backed government in Kabul.
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Though US military brass has painted a bleak picture of Afghanistan once again becoming a safe haven for terrorism, Schumer put the best face on it.
“I have talked to our military folks and some of the intelligence folks and had briefings and they are confident with all the electronic surveillance that they will be able to catch and prevent any type of action from Al-Qaeda or ISIS,” he said.
Schumer recalled that “you could smell death in the air” at the site of the attacks. Robert F. Bukaty/Pool via AFP/Getty ImagesHe added that it was “too early to tell” what kind of relationship the US might have with Taliban 2.0.
Schumer defended the Biden decision to pull out of Afghanistan, despite a chaotic withdrawal that has come under bipartisan criticism.
“There will be time for congressional oversight but the majority of people in America agree with President Biden. which is that endless wars should end,” Schumer said.
