Terrorism, War on International

Ongoing United States–led international campaign aimed at apprehending or destroying individuals and groups judged to have been involved in the planning or the execution of acts of terrorism. The war on terrorism was declared by President George W. Bush soon after the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001. The campaign has so far included a wide range of aggressive measures, from military action against Afghanistan and Iraq, to financial restrictions against countries or groups thought to harbor terrorists, to legal initiatives and enhanced intelligence-gathering operations.

In the evening of September 11, 2001, President Bush announced his intention to launch a long-term offensive—a war on terrorism—against the individuals who planned the hijackings that were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, as well as the countries that gave them support and shelter. Within less than a month, a U.S. led coalition began an air assault on Afghanistan, the country that had been sheltering suspected September 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. A year and a half later, another U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq, in the second major armed conflict since the war on terrorism began.

Meanwhile, on the financial front, a concerted international effort has blocked numerous financial assets linked to terrorist entities. The United States, as well as many other countries, also has passed an impressive volume of antiterrorist legislation. Since September 11, the list of targets in the war on terrorism has expanded to include not only individuals and groups linked to al-Qaeda, but also other, unrelated groups that have been officially labeled terrorist organizations. The war on terrorism continues around the world and, according to virtually every political and military leader (including President Bush), it is likely to last for generations.

Institutional Changes

In analyzing the circumstances of the September 11 terrorist strikes, a special commission (the 9/11 Commission) deplored the “failures of imagination, policy, capabilities and management” that prevented the government from apprehending the attackers while they were still in their planning phase. As early as September 2001, policymakers in Washington, DC, began addressing those problems.

Seven days after the terrorist attacks, in a drastic departure from pre-9/11 legal standards, the Justice Department initiated a series of regulations allowing it to detain noncitizens suspected of terrorist activities for an unspecified period of time. Two weeks later, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act, a highly controversial piece of legislation that, among other things, improves the ability of law enforcers to identify, track down, and collect evidence on suspected terrorists operating on U.S. territory. By the end of the year, more than 750 terrorism suspects had been detained by the U.S. authorities. In August 2002, following an earlier presidential order, military tribunals opened in Guantánamo Bay (Cuba), ready to try terrorism suspects being held there. Within less than a year, the U.S. government gained a new executive-level department—the Department of Homeland Security, established by law in November 2002.

Financial Measures

According to the Bush administration, one of the measures taken by the president in the war on terrorism was to direct government agencies to block the flow of money suspected of funding terrorist groups. To that end, three organizations were formed. The first, the Foreign Terrorist Asset Tracking Center, became active less than a week after the 9/11 attacks. It was designed to dismantle terrorist financial bases and shut down their fundraising capabilities by creating financial profiles of known terrorist groups and taking steps to close down their sources of money.

...