A jury ruled this week that the New York Port Authority was negligent in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, which killed six people and injured 1,000. In that incident, terrorists detonated a van full of explosives in the parking garage of the World Trade Center. The verdict was reached because a 1985 Port Authority report that warned that the World Trade Center was a likely target for terrorist attacks.[1]
That security report demonstrated that the agency’s claim that it did not know the World Trade Center was a target “strains credulity”, in the words of one judge. The report had identified the Lincoln Tunnel, Kennedy International Airport, and the World Trade Center as likely targets, and recommended enhanced security measures be taken at each location. Electronic monitoring equipment was installed in the first case, and security drills carried out in the second, but when it came to the garage, the recommendations, which included vehicle searches and barring non-tenants, were ignored because they might have disrupted commerce.[2]
But if the Port Authority was negligent, how much more so the FBI, which had a mole planted in the terrorist group that committed the ‘93 bombing and was well aware of the plot? Not only were they aware of a bomb plot, but they had an opportunity to thwart the attack. A plan was conceived within the FBI to have their informer, Emad A. Salem, supply the terrorists with phony ingredients to build a fake bomb. But the plan was called off and the terrorists were allowed to build a real bomb, which they then packed into a van and drove into the basement of the World Trade Center.[3]
[1] Samuel Maull, “Jury Faults Port Authority in ’93 WTC Bomb”, Associated Press, October 27, 2005
https://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-5372520,00.html
[2] Andrew Jacobs, “Trial Begins Against Port Authority in ’93 Attack”, The New York Times, September 20, 2005
https://select.nytimes.com/gst/
abstract.html?res=FB0F14FB3D540C738EDDA00894DD404482
[3] Ralph Blumenthal, “Tapes Depict Proposal to Thwart Bomb Used in Trade Center Blast”, The New York Times, October 28, 1993; Page A1
https://www.yirmeyahureview.com/archive/terrorism/93wtc/
tapes_depict_proposal_to_thwart_bomb_used_in_trade_center_blast.htm
