Top House chairman warns Congress against ‘complacency’ 25 years after 9/11
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House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Andrew Garbarino has expanded on his warning to Congress, marking the 25th anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks by stressing that lawmakers must act on threats pre-emptively rather than only after tragedy strikes. The New York Republican, who was a high school senior watching the attacks unfold in his government class, said the failures of 2001 stemmed from intelligence agencies operating in silos and not sharing information, and he wants Congress to break that same "reactive" habit before another catastrophe occurs.
Garbarino, who represents Long Island's south shore in New York's 2nd Congressional District and sits on the committee overseeing the Department of Homeland Security, said his constituents still bear the "scar" of losing loved ones that day and that more people have now died from 9/11-related illnesses, including cancers affecting first responders who were in their early twenties in 2001, than died on the day itself. He noted the impact extends nationwide, with nearly every congressional district having someone enrolled in the World Trade Center Health Program, funding for which Trump signed legislation earlier this year to shore up after a projected shortfall.
- Garbarino urges Congress to be pre-emptive, not reactive, on security threats
- More people have died of 9/11-linked illnesses than on the day itself
- Trump signed legislation this year to fund the WTC Health Program
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Congress created the House Homeland Security Committee after the September 2001 attacks to oversee how the United States prevents and responds to threats such as terrorism. Andrew Garbarino, a Republican from New York, now chairs that committee, and his own district on Long Island lost residents in the attacks, giving him a personal as well as political stake in how the anniversary is marked.
The 25th anniversary has prompted renewed debate about the lessons of 9/11, particularly the finding that government agencies failed to share intelligence with one another beforehand, which allowed the plot to go undetected. It has also drawn attention to the attacks' lasting toll, including the rising number of deaths from illnesses linked to exposure at the World Trade Center site, which are now supported through a federal health programme.
This background matters because it explains why a congressional committee chairman is using the anniversary to comment on how lawmakers approach future threats, rather than simply reflecting on the past.
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