September 11, 2001 changed the lives of the American public forever. It also changed the lives of the American Soldier, Soldier's families, and the families of the victims of that day. Since then, we have been trying to keep terrorism from our soil and trying to heal the mental wounds that day left on all of us. Terrorism is a crime that extends worldwide and it will always be a crime that we will have to protect our society against. Prior to September 11, 2001, the National Committee on Terrorism released the report titled Countering the Changing Threat of International Terrorism that identified Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Sudan, and Syria as sponsors of terrorism. This report concluded that immediate steps were needed to investigate and gather intelligence on terrorist activity and who was sponsoring them. It also stressed that all legal avenues to intervene and prosecute terrorist activity must be taken to include to include actions against their sponsors that were identified in the report. Since the initiation of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the floodgates have opened in the way of crime, a power struggle for control of the country and other illegal opportunities for various groups to take control. With the onslaught of the American invasion into Iraq, what was once a functioning society with law enforcement, a military to be called upon if needed, and a working government, chaos took over. Although many disagree with the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, it is that very dictatorship that maintained the county and prevented what is now a disruptive society full of crime and a society that knows nothing but to look out for themselves.

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