Threat of Another Terrorist Attack ‘Is Higher Now’ Than in Months Before 9/11, Expert Says

It was 23 years ago Wednesday that terrorists hijacked four U.S. commercial airline flights, turned the planes into weapons, crashed them into the World Trade Center towers, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania, and in the process killed nearly 3,000 people. Today, America is at risk of another equally as deadly terrorist attack, a national security expert says.

The threat of another 9/11-type terrorist attack on America “is higher now than it was in the months and years preceding 9/11 for a couple of reasons,” says Robert Greenway, director of the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. 

First, Greenway says the terrorist threat level against the U.S. is high because of “our posture abroad, our approach to our adversaries, … [and] our neglected military capacity and capability and focus.” 

But America’s greatest vulnerability to another terrorist attack, he says, is “the fact that we’ve invited terrorist organizations to exploit our open borders, and now they are really hiding within our own population and enjoying the benefits and concealing themselves in their activities inside of our own borders.” 

Greenway deployed in support of Operation Relentless Pursuit and Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001 in the war on terrorism. He also served as a senior intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, and then on the National Security Council. 

Listen to our interview with Greenway marking the anniversary of 9/11 on today’s edition of “The Daily Signal Podcast.”