‘It was all hands on deck’: how the CIA responded to 9/11

Veterans recall chaos and confusion as the attacks unfolded – followed by a ‘war on terror’ that left agency with a tarnished reputation

A generation of spies had lost an enemy but not yet found a role. Then came 9/11.

A decade after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, al-Qaida’s devastating attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 announced to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) that the long era of battling communism, for which it had been founded, was officially at an end.