PT featured in USA Today, "Question of a lifetime: Families prepare to confront 9/11 masterminds"

Peaceful Tomorrows members Elizabeth Miller and Terry Rockefeller featured in USA Today article by Michael Loria.

November 11th, 2024

To read the full article, click here.

Our excerpts:

What would you say to the 9/11 terrorists who killed your father?

The question sounds theoretical and unrealistic, an opportunity that could never happen. But some survivors of 9/11 victims may soon get that improbable chance after 23 years waiting for justice. 

Elizabeth Miller, whose father Douglas Miller, a firefighter, died on 9/11, knows what she would ask.

“Do they have regrets? Do they wish things happened different? If they had the opportunity would they do it again? Or would they think about it twice?”

Plea deals that prosecutors negotiated with 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his al-Qaeda conspirators could soon give survivors of the attacks and relatives of victims the chance to finally confront the terrorist operatives.

For several 9/11 family survivors, even the possibility of asking questions is a long-awaited goal they hope can bring some closure and understanding of the motivations behind 9/11.

Miller heads 9/11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, a group that has advocated for the chance to ask the terrorists questions before they are allowed to walk out of the courtroom. The first question she and many family members have: How do the terrorists feel about the attacks today?

“Did they think this was the most successful thing they ever did? Because what happened was more war, more violence,” Miller told USA TODAY.

Other victims’ relatives fear either they or the al-Qaeda operatives will die before a trial happens. They want the chance to speak directly to KSM and the others to provide closure that has eluded them for decades.

Terry Rockefeller, a retired documentary filmmaker who lost her only sister on 9/11, hopes to voice some of her lingering questions about how the attacks were planned. She wants to know, for example, at what point the three terrorists knew the Twin Towers were targets if they knew at all.

She says the chance to ask questions represents the only opportunity she may ever have to put 9/11 behind her.

But more importantly, she sees questioning the trio as her only chance to make her sister’s killers understand the pain they caused.

"They deprived me of my sister," Rockefeller said. "How are they feeling being deprived of their families?"