Casualties of the September 11 attacks
2,974 victims were confirmed to have died in the initial attacks; this includes Sneha Anne Philip, a doctor, who in 2008 was ruled to have died on 9/11. In 2007, the New York City medical examiner's office began to add people who died of illnesses caused by exposure to dust from the site to the official death toll. The first such victim was a woman, a civil rights lawyer, who had died from a chronic lung condition in February 2002. In September 2009, the office added a man who died in October 2008, and in 2011, a male accountant who had died in December 2010. This raises the number of victims at the World Trade Center site to 2,753, and the overall 9/11 death toll to 2,996.
United Kingdom–United States relations
67 Britons were among the 2,977 victims killed during the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City, the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, and in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on September 11, 2001, which were orchestrated by al-Qaeda. Following the 11 September 2001 attacks, there was an enormous outpouring of sympathy from the United Kingdom for the American people, and Tony Blair was one of George W. Bush's strongest international supporters for bringing al-Qaeda and the Taliban to justice. Indeed, Blair became the most articulate spokesman. He was the only foreign leader to attend an emergency joint session of Congress called immediately after the attacks (and remains the only foreign leader ever to attend such a session), where he received two standing ovations from members of Congress. During this session of Congress, President George W. Bush stated matter-of-factly that "America has no truer friend than Great Britain".