How Reflecting Absence Became America's Most Expensive Public Memorial [9/11 Commemoration]

It may have taken a decade, but New York finally has a fitting tribute to those who lost their lives in 9/11.

The process for choosing the new 9/11 Memorial became the largest design competition in history. More than 5,200 ideas from 63 countries and virtually every state of the union were submitted to the 13-member selection jury representing a broad cross-section of viewpoints—from world renowned architects to family members of those who died in the attacks—for review. Each submission was evaluated on its adherence to the memorial's mission statement with the winning submission, Reflecting Absence, coming from New York architect Michael Arad. And, with a $500 million budget, it is the most expensive public memorial ever created on US soil.

The memorial occupies approximately half of the 16-acre World Trade Center site and features two enormous waterfalls above reflecting pools set in the footprints of the original buildings. Its design is meant to convey a spirit of hope and renewal while commemorating the lives lost in both the 1993 and 2001 attacks.

As then-governor George Pataki stated at the unveiling of the design in 2004,

All that we do in Lower Manhattan is in memory of those we lost on September 11th and in the 1993 bombing. The entire 16 acre site will be a living memorial with Reflecting Absence as its centerpiece. This memorial will be a special place to remember the thousands of lives cut short and recall the spirit and love of freedom which prevailed. Future generations will be able to reflect upon the enormous loss and understand our pledge to never forget the heroes from the tragic events.

The memorial plaza actually acts as a living roof for the below-ground Memorial Museum and PATH Station some 70 feet below and is designed with a suspended paving system—essentially a series of concrete tables that support the plaza above a level of level of soil for the 400 swamp white oak trees growing there. This allows the site to be paved for easier pedestrian movement while preventing the soil from becoming compacted, which chokes off nutrient and water supplies to the trees' roots.

The trees that were selected almost all come from within 500 miles of the WTC complex, the rest harvested from Pennsylvania, Maryland, and areas impacted by the attacks. The swamp white oak (Quercus bicolor) was chosen specifically for its longevity—living, on average, 300-350 years—its natural beauty, with leaves that change to pink and gold in the fall, and its impressive height and resilliant nature.

The trees can grow to reach heights as tall as 60 feet in conditions similar to those on the plaza—though, being trees, they will never quite be the same height. Much like the cooling system for the WTC, a majority of the site's irrigation needs will be supplied by harvested rainwater stored in subterranean storage tanks. Within the park, the design calls for a small clearing called the Memorial Glade—for use in ceremonies and civic functions—as well as a space set aside for the Survivor Tree, a Callery Pear that somehow made it through the attacks and destruction of 9/11.

The centerpiece of the memorial is its twin waterfalls—the largest man-made falls on the continent—that flow into the voids left by the original towers. Eight pumps circulate 52,000 gallons of water every minute over their edges, which are covered in finger-like structures that cause the water flow in rivulets. Around the falls' run copper parapets listing the names of the 2,800 men, women, and children killed.

Under the plaza—directly under the South waterfall, in fact—resides the memorial museum. The museum presents a series of narratives about the attacks and encourages "personal encounters within an overall context of a historical narrative" through numerous artifacts and architectural exhibits, including the original WTC's Survivor Stairs, damaged slurry wall, and compromised foundations. In addition, two steel tridents from the original Twin Towers will be on permanent display within the museum's glass atrium.

The Memorial Plaza will open today, September 11th in a private ceremony for the victims families as part of the 10-year commemoration of the attacks. It will open to the public Monday, September 12th.

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How The CIA Became ‘One Hell of a Killing Machine’ [War]

No one views the CIA as anything resembling impotent. The drone strikes it operates are the most important counterterrorism tool the Obama administration uses, battering a Pakistan so intensely, in 2010 they struck an average of once every three days.

Osama bin Laden is dead as the result of a military operation the CIA commanded, highlighting the unprecedented coordination between CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC). In the words of the head of CIA's Counterterrorism Center, its central nervous system for counterterrorism: "We are killing these sons of bitches faster than they can grow them now."

9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean judged Tenet's admission "one of the most appalling comments we heard." But as it turned out, Tenet's timetable was prescient. A remarkable Washington Post story explores the rejuvenated CIA, which one veteran calls "one hell of a killing machine."

CIA's fleet of 30 Predators and Reapers - the Post gives the total - get the most attention, and understandably so. But it's easy to forget that the drones are a lagging indicator. Every intelligence operation, even the ones that go wrong and kill civilians, is the result of the CIA's cultivation of a network of spies it didn't possess back during Tenet's testimony. Drone strikes need spotters; the CIA has them in a group of Pashtun informants who cross the Afghanistan-Pakistan border with news of militant activity.

It's never been publicly acknowledged. But without that network, it's impossible to understand the massive and sustained rise in drone strikes. The Post reports that the program "has killed more than 2,000 militants and civilians since 2001." That's not really the whole story. The vast majority of those kills have come since 2008, according to data collected by the New America Foundation, with only 112 estimated deaths maximum occurring between 2004 and 2007. Last year, the drones killed as many as 993 people; the body count is as high as 453 so far in 2011.

Why? Two reasons. First, President George W. Bush relaxed secret restrictions on special operations and intelligence activities in Pakistan. And second, the spy network that Tenet didn't have came to fruition. Waziristan tribesmen described getting money to plant homing beacons for drones in the houses of targeted militants. al-Qaida and Pakistani Taliban mouthpieces started sounding paranoid about infrared devices powered by 9-volt batteries and tattletale chips planted in SIM cards. Unlike earlier in the decade, the CIA had data about where the terrorists were and their "patterns of life" - or, at least, data about people it thought were terrorists.

Touring the Counterterrorism Center's Pakistan-Afghanistan Department - note the listed order of those countries - the Post observes, "Every paid informant is given a unique crypt' that starts with a two-letter digraph designating spies who are paid sources of the CTC." It's replicating that bureau's work with an "equivalent department for Yemen and Somalia," the major centers of the U.S.' expanding shadow wars - which have already featured drone strikes.

Then comes the tight collaboration with JSOC. So-called "Omega" or "Cross Matrix" teams comprised of CIA and JSOC operators travel Afghanistan and Iraq in civilian clothes and cars. Mostly they meet with their local sources of information. But on "at least five occasions," the Post reports, they've tested their ability to sneak into Pakistan undetected to execute raids - "early rehearsals" of the bin Laden hit.

They're also not so into apprehending terrorists. While the CIA still maintains secret prisons like the one Danger Room pal Jeremy Scahill exposed in Somalia, President Obama ordered most of the "black sites" closed in 2009. As former JSOC commander William McRaven recently testified, there aren't any long-term detention facilities for terrorists anymore, leading to improvised solutions like the brigs of U.S. warships. When the CIA's Pashtun snitches get used for attacking terrorists, they're "‘more kill-capture' than capture-kill," the Post reports.

That raises the biggest question of all surrounding the new post-9/11 CIA. If it's acting like a military organization, shouldn't it have the (relative) transparency and accountability of a military organization? Most members of Congress don't have the security clearances necessary to know anything at all about CIA operations, preempting effective oversight. Congress is basically reliant on the CIA to check its own work, content to believe the CIA director when he says that the drones kill terrorists, not innocent people. Meanwhile, the Post reports that CIA proxies have "used more indiscriminate means, including land mines, to disrupt insurgent networks."

Two analysts who've closely studied the drone program, Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann, recently argued in Foreign Affairs that the military should take over the drones in order to introduce accountability into their operations. It wouldn't impact the drone operations at all: Air Force pilots fly them for the CIA, the Post confirms. But it would bring the shadow wars at least marginally out of the shadows.

At the same time, the 2011-era CIA is the direct descendent of the CIA that existed on April 14, 2004. It was a moment of abject humiliation for the agency, called to account for 9/11 even after warning the Bush White House in the spring and summer of 2001 that it was perceiving an imminent, unspecified terrorist attack. The 9/11 Commission accurately channelled a sense of outrage around the country over the fact that the CIA lacked - to strip it of euphemism - a killing machine. Now the agency has built one. Will new director David Petraeus be willing to give it up?

Photos: Noah Shachtman, CIA

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