President Bush and the 9/11 Attacks 2000 Election A)As Clinton’s presidency came to a close, Democra

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问题                     President Bush and the 9/11 Attacks
                            2000 Election
A)As Clinton’s presidency came to a close, Democrats nominated Al Gore, Clinton’ s vice president, as their nominee, and the Republicans chose George W. Bush, the governor of Texas and son of former President George H.W. Bush.
B)Florida had traditionally been a Democratic-leaning state, but explosive population growth in the late nineties had brought many social and economic conservative Cubans to southern Florida. The growth had left Florida very evenly split among the parties.
C)On election night, the news media first predicted Florida to go to Gore, then to Bush, and then decided that the race was too close to call. Florida law provided for an automatic recount when votes differ by such a small margin, and when Florida decided that Bush had won, Gore sued Bush to force further recounts in several Florida cities. Bush counter-sued, and the case went to the Supreme Court of the United States. In a 5-4 decision, the Court decided that the state of Florida must recount all the votes in all the Florida cities and not just those for which Gore had sued. As Florida was required by the Florida Constitution to certify its election within days of the Court’s decision, there was not enough time to recount the entire state. Thus, the final state count stood, with Bush winning Florida by 537 votes.
9/11 and its Effects
D)Less than a year later, on September 11, 2001, terrorists hijacked four airline jets. Two of the aircraft were flown into the World Trade Center towers in New York City, resulting in their collapse and the deaths of thousands of occupants and rescuers. Another was flown into the Pentagon, the U.S. military headquarters in Washington, D. C. The fourth airliner crashed in Pennsylvania as a result of resistance by the passengers. Its intended target is believed to have been the U.S. Capital in Washington, D.C. Approximately 3, 000 people died in the attacks, known as "9/11".
E)Responsibility for the attacks was soon attached to Osama Bin Laden, the leader of al-Quaeda, an Islamic terrorist group with training camps in Afghanistan. There had been many smaller terrorist attacks aimed towards Americans by al-Quaeda before 2001, including the bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998.
F)The attacks, while shocking and deadly, suddenly ended the period of sharp division after the 2000 election. Over the following year, America experienced a period of unparalleled political unity among the public and elected officials alike. Americans more readily expressed pride in their country and rallied to fight the terror led by the attacks. George Bush received praise from across the political world for his leadership following the attacks and his swift invasion of Afghanistan.
The War on Terror
G)Directly following the September 11th attacks, Congress drafted and overwhelmingly passed the USA Patriot Act, which was signed into law on October 26, 2001. The law, while forcing citizens to give up some rights, strengthened the government’ s ability to gather information and convict suspected terrorists. Hundreds of accused terrorists have been charged and approximately half have been convicted. There have, however, been reports of abuse of the law, which went under reexamination by Congress in 2005.
H)In response to the attacks, the United States declared a symbolic war on terrorism. The first target in the war was Afghanistan, where the Taliban government was believed to be hiding Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. After the Taliban refused to turn Bin Laden over, American and British forces began bombing strategic Taliban centers on October 7. The invasion was swift, and major fighting had ended by the middle of 2002. The Taliban government was eliminated, and the Afghanis soon participated in their first democratic processes in many years.
I)In his 2002 State of the Union speech, Bush named Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as a part of the "Axis of Evil", a phrase he partially invented from the World War II Axis Powers. President Bush specifically named these three countries because they were all described as evil states, either fostering terrorists or trying to obtain nuclear weapons.
J)The successful invasion of Afghanistan was the first time that the newly adopted Bush policy had been carried out. The Bush policy stated that there was no difference between a terrorist and one who supports a terrorist, and that the U.S. would practice strikes against perceived threats to American security(acting alone if needed), as it was the United States’ duty to spread freedom and democracy to the rest of the world.
War in Iraq
K)As a result to a perceived security threat verified by intelligence(which has now been found to have been unreliable), President Bush and a number of allies, believed by the President as the "coalition of the willing", began the invasion without U.N. approval. On the night of March 17, 2003, President Bush gave Hussein and his two sons, Uday and Qusay, a final notice to leave Iraq in 48 hours or face an invasion. After the passing of the deadline given by the President, the invasion of Iraq began. The invasion lasted only a short time, and the Iraqi government and military collapsed within three weeks.
L)After months of searching, Hussein was finally captured on December 13. Weapons of Mass Destruction were never located in Iraq. Continued suicide bombings and the ongoing American casualties led to a steady decline in American popular support for the war.
M)The invasion of Iraq is considered by many to mark the end of the political unity following the September 11th attacks. Although both the public and Congress favored going to war by overwhelming majorities, a substantial minority expressed reservations about invading. Many feared that the administration lacked a plan for rebuilding once the war was over. Still others worried that an invasion would push away U.S. allies. On February 15, just one month before the invasion commenced, millions protested worldwide, including hundreds of thousands in 150 U.S. cities.
The Iraqi government collapsed in three weeks after the invasion.

选项

答案K

解析 题干关键词为Iraqi government collapsed和three weeks。文中K段提到,The invasion lasted only a short time,and the Iraqi government and military collapsedwithin three weeks,与题干意思吻合,故选K。
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