The Impact of September 11th on the UK Business Community
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The Impact of September 11th on the UK Business Community Bruce George, Mark Button and Natalie Whatford1 This paper discusses the impact of the events of September 11th on the UK’s business community, and the threat from what has been termed the ‘new terrorism’. It summarises and analyses the effect on different sectors of the community, ranging from the public utilities to the financial and insurance sectors, and examines how security has been affected by the impact of September 11th. It also makes reference to the British government’s response to the threat of the new terrorism, and to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee’s reports The Threat from Terrorism and Defence and Security in the UK. Finally, the paper seeks to outline a number of considerations on how the UK could be better prepared for terrorist attacks. Key Words: Terrorism; al-Qaeda; September 11th; business community; private security Introduction On 11th September 2001 the most destructive terrorist attacks ever occurred when two hijacked planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Center, a third smashed into the Pentagon in Washington DC and a fourth crashed in the countryside in Pennsylvania (probably on course for Washington DC). These attacks were perpetrated by al-Qaeda, and they have marked what could be described as a ‘new terrorism’ as they differ significantly from the aims and strategies of ‘traditional’ terrorists.2 There are many legal and academic definitions of different forms of terrorism, which there is not the space to consider here.3 However, some of the characteristics that distinguish ‘new’ from ‘traditional’ terrorism include: •
a determination to inflict mass casualties on innocent civilians;
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a willingness on the part of the perpetrators to kill themselves as well as their victims during an attack;
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an increased threat of the use of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical, biological, nuclear or radiological (CBNR) weapons; and
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the pursuit of radical, opaque, non-negotiable objectives.
While examples of some of these characteristics can be found amongst ‘traditional’ terrorists, what is new is the deadly concoction of them all combined. An important question is whether 11th September was a unique event that is unlikely to happen again, or whether it is a benchmark which al-Qaeda or another group will seek to surpass in future attacks. The US ‘war on terrorism’, joined by many other countries in Afghanistan, has done much to disrupt and destroy al-Qaeda, but it still remains a very potent threat. As the House of Commons Defence Committee concluded:
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Crime Prevention and Community Safety: An International Journal
… we can see no reason to dissent from the general view of our witnesses, and others with whom we have discussed these issues, that there is a continuing threat to UK interests posed by the existence of organisations or groups whose aim is to inflict mass casualties.4
It has therefore been prudent for the British government to
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