Marc A. Thiessen: I was at the Pentagon on 9/11. Here's what surprises me 25 years later.

In a reflective account marking 25 years since Sept. 11, 2001, Marc A. Thiessen says he was working in the Pentagon’s E-Ring when American Airlines Flight 77 hit the building. He describes no evacuation alarm, the sudden shaking and smoke, and later repeated false reports that triggered evacuations without additional attacks arriving. Thiessen argues that while follow-on plots—including attacks targeting U.S. Marines in Djibouti, the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, and a plan to fly a passenger jet into the Los Angeles Library Tower—were ultimately disrupted after arrests and interrogations of al-Qaeda figures such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM), some outcomes still surprise him. He highlights KSM’s ongoing lack of justice decades later, noting the 2008 plea offer and referencing KSM’s own confessions in a March 10, 2007 military commission hearing.