Just before sunset on Sept. 11, 2001, the worst day America has known, I snuck past police barricades and made my way to the roof of a high-rise building about eight blocks from ground zero – the closest I could get – and stared at the landscape of horror.

Smoke shrouded the 16-acre site. Twisted metal columns jutted from an enormous crater, all of it blanketed in white ash. The only flecks of color came from the yellow stripes on the coats of rescue workers.

Finally away from deadlines, it was supposed to be my moment to grieve. But I just stood there, my mind racing. Why did this happen?

It wasn’t until 9 days later, on my day off, that I let pent- up emotions flow.

Images flashed in my mind. Dazed New Yorkers walking aimlessly, carrying photographs of missing loved ones. The woman with streaks of mascara on her face who told me her fiancé would be found. Groups of strangers standing around a TV propped on milk cartons on the sidewalk, shrieking in unison as they watched a replay of planes crashing into the towers.

On the first days, we thought survivors would be plucked out of the rubble alive. Throngs of reporters from all over the world stood outside hospital ER entrances, waiting for the miracle stories we all desperately wanted to hear.

We waited in vain. The miracles families prayed for never came.

People say 9-11 is the day America lost its innocence. To me, it was the beginning of a wake-up call. Terrorism was a problem over there. But this, the first major attack of civilians on U.S. soil, prompted us to start asking questions.

Why, indeed, did this happen?

For many of us, it sparked the beginning of our education on the collusion between government and multinational corporations.

On the surface it seemed that the federal government, under both the Clinton and Bush administrations, was asleep at the wheel – very much the way the Bush administration was when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans.

Bush claimed we’d bring back Osama bin Laden “dead or alive.”

But the more we learn about the ties between the Bush family and the bin Ladens, questions like this one pop up: Did Bush really want to capture him?

With fewer than 50 ground troops surrounding the massive Tora Bora region in the mountains of Afghanistan where bin Laden was hiding, ground commanders pleaded for 800 more soldiers, according to Gary Berntsen, the CIA field commander whose book “Jawbreaker” goes into amazing detail about the botched paramilitary operation. Bernt-

sen and other ground commanders said the U.S. let Osama bin Laden get away.

Was this because of President George Bush’s close ties to the bin Laden family?

In 1978, Bush and Osama bin Laden’s brother, Salem bin Laden, founded Arbusto Energy, an oil company based in Texas.

Several bin Laden family members invested millions in The Carlyle Group, a private global equity firm based in Washington, DC. The company’s senior advisor was Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush. After news of the bin Laden-Bush connection became public, the elder Bush stepped down from Carlyle.

Interestingly, on Sept. 11, 2001, members of the Carlyle Group – including Bush senior, and his former secretary of state, James Baker – were meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C., along with Shafiq bin Laden, another one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers.

While all flights were halted following the terrorist attacks, there was one exception made: The White House authorized planes to pick up 140 Saudi nationals, including 24 members of the bin Laden family, living in various cities in the U.S. to bring them back to Saudi Arabia, where they would be safe. They were never interrogated.

Five years later, and we’re still asking questions. We may have lost our innocence but we’re also losing, thankfully, our ignorance.

Cindy Rodríguez’s column appears Tuesdays and Sundays. Contact her at 303-954-1211 or crodriguez@denverpost.com.