Mankato Free Press

By Mark Fischenich
The Free Press

Tom Maertens was waiting for the start of a staff meeting of the State Department’s counterterrorism unit on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001.

The No. 2 guy in that unit, Maertens joined his colleagues in watching CNN reports of a “small plane” crashing into one of the World Trade Center towers in New York City. The assumption in the room was that it was the act of a suicidal private pilot.

“As we were watching, the second plane hit and there was no question,” said Maertens, who is now retired in his hometown of Mankato.

Terrorists had struck.

“There’s a certain shock,” Maertens said. “And then you have to go to work.”

The FBI is in charge of counterterrorism within the United States. Maertens’ unit was focused on overseas. But on that day, everybody was assigned to protecting a nation under attack.

Going up the steps

Before long, another hijacked jetliner slammed into the Pentagon. Planes remained unaccounted for and people working in potential additional targets the White House, CIA headquarters, the Department of State headquarters were jumpy, he said.

Newscasters soon issued reports of a car bomb exploding outside the State Department building — the one Maertens was working in. The report ultimately proved false, but the building was evacuated.

“Everybody went beating feet toward the steps,” said Maertens, who knew he had to travel against the crowd and against any instinct toward self-preservation. “I was going up the steps to the operations center.”

Within a couple of hours the core of Washington, D.C., had been virtually evacuated. The people remaining behind were the counterterrorism officials such as Maertens, intelligence agency workers and other key government employees.

“I got a call from the counterterrorism people at the Pentagon that we’d worked with,” he said. “Their office was one of the offices that had been hit. ... They crawled out under the smoke, but they had no place to work.

“One of the guys turned out to be the guy who was the best man in my wedding.”

Maertens found a spot for the military guys to set up in the State Department.

And in the building’s operations room, more and more agencies were represented at places around the long tables as the government struggled to understand what had happened, whether more attacks were coming and who was responsible.

“There are sort of endless requests for information starting with the secretary of state,” Maertens said of then-Secretary Colin Powell. “‘What do we know?’’’

As far as basic facts of what was happening in New York and in the nation’s capital, the officials in the State Department operations room knew little more than average Americans watching television reports.

One thing the counterterrorism experts knew but couldn’t yet prove was who was responsible. Anyone involved in counterterrorism was all but certain — it had to be bin Laden, Maertens said. The report had been written earlier that year that Osama bin Laden was “determined to strike within the United States.” And the intercepted communications between suspected terrorists had picked up dramatically since June.

“Just on the volume of the chatter, we knew something was coming,” Maertens said.

Emotion and uncertainty

Despite his unique position, part of Maertens’ response on Sept. 11 was like most every other American. Unease about whether more attacks were coming. Horror and anger about what was happening to his fellow citizens. A desire to reassure loved ones.

Like countless other people in New York and Washington that morning, one of Maertens’ early efforts was to let his loved ones know he was OK.

“I called my wife and said ‘Yeah, everything’s fine,’” he said. “I called my parents (who live in Mankato) right away because I knew the lines would get all jammed up.”

Then he focused on work. But as did people across the nation, one eye was on the television monitors as more reports came in on the carnage.

“It was on in the background everywhere,” he said. “Even this task force, you have to have those TVs in the room.”

That day and in the weeks of 16-hour workdays that followed, Maertens and his colleagues communicated with allies around the world — providing and looking for information. They tried to develop a plan to force the Taliban, which governed Afghanistan where bin Laden was holed up, to arrest him or — more realistically — expel him and get him on the run.

They worked to assess the relative level of danger in each of thousands of reports of suspicious people and alleged plots coming in to the FBI and other federal agencies.

“We did the best we could,” he said when asked to pass judgment on their performance.

Retiring, but not shy By April 2002, Maertens had retired. His life had been “eat, sleep, work” for months. He’d put his time in, working at embassies in Moscow, Ethiopia and Panama where the facilities had been attacked by protesters and where revolutions and coups had occurred during his time of service.

He said he knew he wasn’t indispensable.

But Sept. 11 and the Bush administration’s reaction to it has changed his retirement as well.

Maertens watched as Richard Clarke, Bush’s former director of counterterrorism, went public with criticisms of the administration’s handling of terrorist threats leading up to 9/11 and its decision to invade Iraq — despite no evidence of ties between Saddam Hussein and the Al-Qaida attacks.

When allies of the administration attacked Clarke, Maertens came to his former colleague’s defense. Clarke did more than anyone to warn about the danger bin Laden presented and more than anyone in the Bush administration to coordinate the immediate response to the 9/11 attacks, Maertens said in interviews and opinion columns.

“That was outrageous,” Maertens still says of the attacks on Clarke. “He’s not a very likable guy, but he’s a very competent guy.”

Ever since, Maertens has been writing columns and agreeing to interviews where he is often critical of the administration and of the Republican-controlled Congress. America’s foreign policy continues to head in dangerous directions, he said.

And Maertens believes Congress needs to further investigate the post-9/11 response by the administration. As for how the unforgettable day five years ago will ultimately be remembered in history books will hinge on information yet to come, he said.

“I think it would be hard for historians to sort out all the events that followed,” Maertens said. “... We don’t even have all the facts yet.”