The second season of 24 was first broadcasted from October 2002 to May 2003. To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

The season's storyline starts and ends at 8:00 AM.

The second season (2002–2003) takes place a year and a half later and follows the work of now-President David Palmer and agent Jack Bauer to stop terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb in Los Angeles. Season two must take place after 2001, since it is set in September, and references are made to sending terrorists to Guantanamo Bay for interrogation, which was not done until 2002. Also, President Palmer's Cabinet includes the Department of Homeland Security. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Dennis Haysbert as David Palmer David Palmer is a fictional character played by Dennis Haysbert as part of the television series, 24. ... The mushroom cloud of the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945 lifted nuclear fallout some 18 km (60,000 feet) above the epicenter. ... It has been suggested that the corresponding part of this article or section be merged into Camp Delta. ... Dennis Haysbert as David Palmer David Palmer is a fictional character played by Dennis Haysbert as part of the television series, 24. ... The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is a Cabinet department of the federal government of the United States that is concerned with protecting the American homeland and the safety of American citizens. ...

Major subplots:

• Kim is on the run, having rescued a child from her abusive father
• Kate Warner suspects that her sister's Middle Eastern fiancé is a terrorist
• President Palmer faces traitors in his own cabinet, who attempt to remove him from power to advance their own agenda
• George Mason, Special Agent in Charge of CTU, is dying of radiation exposure
• Jack's personal anguish: worried about Kim; develops a heart condition after being tortured by terrorists

The season starts and ends at: 8:00am (LA time); the action begins in Seoul, South Korea (midnight, Seoul time). Child abuse is the physical or psychological maltreatment of a child. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... A Cabinet is a body of high-ranking members of government, typically representing the executive branch. ... Official CTU Seal The Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) is a fictional U.S. government agency in the television action series 24. ... The radiation warning symbol (trifolium). ... Heart conditions can be either acute or chronic, and either congenital or acquired. ... The Iron Maiden of Nuremberg was an infamous and rarely used torture device. ... Seoul is the capital of South Korea and was, until 1945, the capital of all of Korea. ...

The first sixteen hours deal with finding and disposing the nuclear bomb. After the bomb is disposed of safely, the story focuses on the United States' retaliation against the people responsible for constructing it. A recorded conversation between a terrorist involved with the bomb and high-ranking officials of three Middle Eastern countries (which are never specified) is used to implicate those countries in the plot. However, Palmer is reluctant to order military action against them until he has absolute proof that the recording is genuine. Several members of his staff then vote to relieve Palmer of his position under Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment, believing his hesitation to be a sign of indecision and weakness. The Vice-President then orders military strikes against the three countries to continue. Wikisource has original text related to this article: Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution Amendment XXV (the Twenty-fifth Amendment) of the United States Constitution clarifies an ambiguous provision of the Constitution regarding succession to the Presidency, and establishes procedures both for filling a vacancy in the office...

Jack, Michelle and Tony race to find the evidence that the recording is a forgery, and they eventually discover that a group of American businessmen fabricated it in order to wage war with the Middle East so that they could benefit from rocketing oil prices that would result. The strikes are called off and Palmer is reinstated as President after the proof is produced, thanks largely to his wife Sherry Palmer (who risks her life). The seven cabinet members and vice president tender their resignations (Palmer does not accept them), and Palmer then tells his staff that he believes that the strictest evidence of hostile intent is required before waging war. The President does relieve his Chief of Staff, Mike Novik, who did not support David until the eleventh hour. The entire storyline has thinly veiled references to President Bush's foreign policy in the Middle East following the September 11th attacks and the "three Middle Eastern countries" could be a reference to the Axis of Evil. A vice president is an officer in government or business who is next in rank below a president. ... George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is the 43rd and current President of the United States. ... The September 11, 2001 attacks (also referred to as 9/11) were a series of coordinated suicide attacks upon the United States of America carried out on Tuesday, September 11, 2001, in which nineteen Arab hijackers took control of four U.S. domestic commercial airliners. ... The term axis of evil was used by United States President George W. Bush in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002 to describe regimes that sponsor terror. The states Bush gave in his speech were Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. ...

Like the first season, the second ends with a surprise twist. The nuclear bomb situation is resolved without massive loss of life, but President Palmer collapses after being attacked with a biological weapon, presumably in an assassination attempt. Viewers were forced to wait until the third season to see whether Palmer survived the attack. The sudden shift from a nuclear to biological threat also foreshadows the third season, which initially centers around the threat of an engineered virus being set loose on the general public. Biological warfare, also known as germ warfare, is the use of any organism (bacteria, virus or other disease_causing organism) or toxin found in nature, as a weapon of war. ...

There were several large plot threads left unresolved from the second season into the third and fourth seasons, most notably the characters of "Max" and Trepkos, two men who seemed to be the driving force behind the day's events, as well as President Palmer's assassination attempt. How the assassination attempt ties into a war for oil is something that never quite fit together, and many have suspected that they may have had some larger and more sinister goal in mind. They were never seen again, and the only clue to their fate is a cryptic hint given by Wayne Palmer in the premiere of season 3. However, it has been revealed that the events directly preceding season 3 will be chronicled in the upcoming video game, currently in production. Presumably, the fates of Max and Trepkos will be dealt with, as well as how several of the characters at CTU in the third season began working there. Official CTU Seal The Counter Terrorist Unit (CTU) is a fictional U.S. government agency in the television action series 24. ...