During the summer, I had asked the CIA to reexamine al Qaeda’s capabilities to attack inside the United States. In early August, the Agency delivered a Presidential Daily Briefing that reiterated bin Laden’s long-standing intent to strike America, but could not confirm any concrete plans. “We have not been able to corroborate some of the more sensational threat reporting, such as that … bin Laden wanted to hijack a U.S. aircraft,” the PDB read.*
On 9/11, it was obvious the intelligence community had missed something big. I was alarmed by the lapse, and I expected an explanation. But I did not think it was appropriate to point fingers or fix blame in the middle of the crisis. My immediate concern was that there could be more al Qaeda operatives in the United States.
I looked into the video screen in the Offutt bunker and told George Tenet to get his ears up, a term for listening to all the intelligence and running down every lead.
I also made clear that I planned to use the military in this war when the time was right. Our response would not be a pinprick cruise missile strike. As I later put it, we would do more than put “a million-dollar missile on a five-dollar tent.” When America responded to these attacks, it would be deliberate, forceful, and effective.
There was one more issue to cover on the videoconference: when to return to Washington? Secret Service Director Brian Stafford told me the capital was still not safe. This time, I put my foot down. I had decided to speak to the nation, and there was no way I was going to do it from an underground bunker in Nebraska.
On the flight back, Andy and CIA briefer Mike Morell came to see me in the conference room. Mike told me that the French intelligence service had provided reports of other operatives—so called sleeper cells—in the United States planning a second wave of attacks. It was a chilling phrase, “second wave.” I believed America could overcome the September 11 attacks without further panic. But a follow-on strike would be very difficult to bear. It was one of the darkest moments of the day.
As I was watching TV coverage on the flight home, I saw a photo of Barbara Olson. Barbara was a talented TV commentator and the wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson, who argued my side in the Florida recount case before the Supreme Court. She had been aboard American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that hit the Pentagon. She was my first personal connection to the tragedy. I reached Ted on the phone. He was calm, but I could sense the shock and devastation in his voice. I told him how sorry I felt. He told me how Barbara had called him from the hijacked flight and calmly relayed information. She was a patriot to the end. I vowed to Ted that we would find those responsible for her death.
The flight home also gave me a chance to check in with my parents. Mother and Dad had spent the night of September 10 at the White House and then left early on the morning of the eleventh. They had been in the air when news of the attacks came. The operator connected me with Dad. I could tell he was anxious. He wasn’t worried about my safety—he trusted the Secret Service to protect me—but he was concerned about the stress I would be feeling. I tried to put his mind at ease. “I’m just fine,” I said.
Dad put Mother on the phone. “Where are you?” I asked.
“We’re at a motel in Brookfield, Wisconsin,” she replied.
“What in the world are you doing there?”
“Son,” she retorted, “you grounded our plane!”
In an extraordinary feat, Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta and the FAA had overseen the safe landing of four thousand flights in just over two hours. I was hopeful that the terror from the skies was over.
I started thinking about what I should say to the country when I spoke from the Oval Office that night. My first instinct was to tell the American people that we were a nation at war. But as I watched the carnage on TV, I realized that the country was still in shock. Declaring war could further contribute to the anxiety. I decided to wait one day.
I did want to announce a major decision I had made: The United States would consider any nation that harbored terrorists to be responsible for the acts of those terrorists. This new doctrine overturned the approach of the past, which treated terrorist groups as distinct from their sponsors. We had to force nations to choose whether they would fight the terrorists or share in their fate. And we had to wage this war on the offense, by attacking the terrorists overseas before they could attack us again at home.
I also wanted the speech to convey my sense of moral outrage. The deliberate murder of innocent people is an act of pure evil. Above all, I wanted to express comfort and resolve—comfort that we would recover from this blow, and resolve that we would bring the terrorists to justice.
Air Force One touched down at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland just after 6:30 p.m. I moved quickly to Marine One, which lifted off for the ten-minute helicopter flight to the South Lawn. The chopper banked left and right in an evasive pattern. I felt no fear. I knew the Marine pilots of HMX-1 would get me home.
I looked out on an abandoned, locked-down Washington. In the distance I saw smoke rising from the Pentagon. The symbol of our military might was smoldering. I was struck by how skilled and ruthless the al Qaeda pilot must have been to fly directly into the low-lying building. My mind drifted back over history. I was looking at a modern-day Pearl Harbor. Just as Franklin Roosevelt had rallied the nation to defend freedom, it would be my responsibility to lead a new generation to protect America. I turned to Andy and said, “You’re looking at the first war of the twenty-first century.”
My first stop after landing on the South Lawn was the Oval Office. I read over a draft of my speech and modified a few lines. Then I went down to the PEOC, part of a hardened underground structure built during the early Cold War to withstand a substantial attack. The bunker is manned by military personnel around the clock and contains enough food, water, and electric power to sustain the president and his family for long periods of time. At the center of the facility is a conference room with a large wood table—a subterranean Situation Room. Laura was waiting for me there. We didn’t have a lot of time to talk, but we didn’t need to. Her hug was more powerful than any words.
Back at the White House on 9/11, editing my address to the nation with (from left) Al Gonzales, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, Ari Fleischer, and Andy Card. White House/Paul Morse
I went back upstairs, practiced my speech, and then headed to the Oval Office.
“Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom, came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” I began. I described the brutality of the attack and the heroism of those who had responded. I continued: “I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
I closed with Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” I felt the speech was much better than the statements I made in Florida and Louisiana. Still, I knew I would have to do more to rally the nation in the days ahead.
After the speech, I returned to the PEOC to meet with my national security team. I wanted to catch up on the latest developments and plan the next day’s response. I told them we had been given a mission that none of us had sought or expected, but the country would rise to meet it. “Freedom and justice will prevail,” I said.
The meeting ended around 10:00 p.m. I had been up since before dawn and going full speed all day. Carl Truscott, the head of the Presidential Protective Division, told us we would be sleeping in a small room off the PEOC conference room. Against the wall was an old couch with a fold-out bed inside. It looked like Harry Truman himself had put it there. I could envision a restless night battling the cramped mattress and the steel supporting rods. The next day would bring important decisions, and I needed sleep to think clearly. “There is no way I’m sleeping there,” I told Carl.
He knew I was not budging. “Sleep
in the residence,” he said. “We will come get you if there are any problems.”
Sleep did not come easily. My mind replayed the images of the day: the planes hitting the buildings, the towers crumbling, the Pentagon in flames. I thought of the grief so many families must be feeling. I also thought about the heroism—the flight attendants on the hijacked planes who calmly called supervisors to report their status and the first responders who raced toward the flames at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Just as I was about to doze off, I saw a figure silhouetted at the bedroom door. He was breathing heavily and shouting: “Mr. President, Mr. President, the White House is under attack! Let’s go!”
I told Laura we needed to move fast. She didn’t have time to put in her contact lenses, so she held on to me. I grabbed her robe and guided her with one arm while I scooped up Barney, our Scottish terrier, with the other. I called Spot, our English springer spaniel, to follow. I was barefoot and wearing running shorts and a T-shirt. We must have made quite a sight.
The Secret Service hustled us out of the residence and down to the underground shelter. I heard the slam of a heavy door and the sound of a pressurized lock as we entered the tunnel. The agents rushed us through another door. Bang, hiss. We hustled down the final corridor, past the staff seated outside, and into the PEOC.
After a few minutes, an enlisted man walked into the conference room. “Mr. President,” he said matter-of-factly, “it was one of ours.” An F-16 fighter had flown down the Potomac squawking the wrong transponder signal. A day that started with a run on a golf course had ended with a scramble to the bunker to escape a possible attack on the White House.
When I woke up on September 12, America was a different place. Commercial aircraft were grounded. Armed vehicles patrolled the streets of Washington. A wing of the Pentagon had been reduced to rubble. The New York Stock Exchange was closed. New York’s Twin Towers were gone. The focus of my presidency, which I had expected to be domestic policy, was now war. The transformation showed how quickly fate can shift, and how sometimes the most demanding tasks a president faces are unexpected.
The psyche of the nation had been shaken. Families stocked up on gas masks and bottled water. Some fled cities for the countryside, fearing that downtown buildings could be targets. Others who worked in skyscrapers couldn’t bring themselves to go back to work. Many refused to board a plane for weeks or months. It seemed almost certain that there would be another attack.
There is no textbook on how to steady a nation rattled by a faceless enemy. I relied on instincts and background. My West Texas optimism helped me project confidence. Occasionally, I spoke a little too bluntly, such as when I said I wanted bin Laden “dead or alive.” The people around me helped a lot during those trying days. The team at the White House was steady and a source of inspiration. Laura was a rock of stability and love. My brother Marvin and sister Doro, both of whom lived in the Washington area, stopped by frequently for meals. Mother and Dad offered constant support. My family gave me comfort and helped me clear my mind.
I also drew strength from my faith, and from history. I found solace in reading the Bible, which Abraham Lincoln called “the best gift God has given to man.” I admired Lincoln’s moral clarity and resolve. The clash between freedom and tyranny, he said, was “an issue which can only be tried by war, and decided by victory.” The war on terror would be the same.
I set three goals for the days immediately following the attacks. First, keep the terrorists from striking again. Second, make clear to the country and the world that we had embarked on a new kind of war. Third, help the affected areas recover and make sure the terrorists did not succeed in shutting down our economy or dividing our society.
I went to the Oval Office on September 12 at my usual time, around 7:00 a.m. The first order of the day was to return phone calls from the many world leaders who had offered their sympathy. My first call was with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Great Britain. Tony began by saying he was “in a state of shock” and that he would stand with America “one hundred percent” in fighting terror. There was no equivocation in his voice. The conversation helped cement the closest friendship I would form with any foreign leader. As the years passed and the wartime decisions grew tougher, some of our allies wavered. Tony Blair never did.
Every leader who called expressed support. Jean Chrétien of Canada said simply, “We are there,” a promise that had been upheld by Canadian citizens who welcomed thousands of stranded Americans after their flights were diverted. Silvio Berlusconi of Italy told me he had “cried like a little boy and could not stop,” and pledged his cooperation. Jiang Zemin of China, Gerhard Schroeder of Germany, and Jacques Chirac of France promised to help in any way they could. Junichiro Koizumi, prime minister of the nation that struck America at Pearl Harbor, called the events of September 11 “not an attack against just the United States but an attack against freedom and democracy.” For the first time in NATO’s fifty-two-year history, the members of the alliance voted to invoke Article 5 of the charter: An attack on one is an attack on all.
The coalition of the willing in the war against terror was forming, and—for the time being—everyone wanted to join.
After my calls, I had a CIA briefing and convened an NSC meeting in the Cabinet Room. George Tenet confirmed that bin Laden was responsible for the attacks. Intelligence intercepts had revealed al Qaeda members congratulating one another in eastern Afghanistan. I made clear this would be a different kind of war. We faced an enemy that had no capital to call home and no armies to track on the battlefield. Defeating them would require the full resources of our national power, from gathering intelligence to freezing terrorists’ bank accounts to deploying troops.
The meeting gave me an opportunity to speak to the press. I was ready to make the declaration I had postponed the night before. “The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror,” I said. “They were acts of war.”
A half hour later, I met with the congressional leadership from both parties. I laid out two concerns. The first was complacency. It seemed hard to imagine at the time, when the pain of 9/11 was so fresh, but I knew the public would eventually move on. As elected leaders, we had a responsibility to stay focused on the threat and fight the war until we had prevailed.
My second concern was about backlash against Arab and Muslim Americans. I had heard reports of verbal harassment against people who appeared to be Middle Eastern. I was mindful of the ugly aspects of America’s history during war. In World War I, German Americans were shunned, and in some extreme cases jailed. In World War II, President Roosevelt supported placing huge numbers of Japanese Americans in internment camps. One was Norm Mineta, who had been interned as a ten-year-old boy. Seeing him in the Cabinet Room that morning was a powerful reminder of the government’s responsibility to guard against hysteria and speak out against discrimination. I made plans to convey that message by visiting a mosque.
With Norm Mineta. White House/Eric Draper
Members of Congress were united in their determination to protect the country. Senator Tom Daschle, the Democratic majority leader, issued one cautionary note. He said I should be careful about the word war because it had such powerful implications. I listened to his concerns, but I disagreed. If four coordinated attacks by a terrorist network that had pledged to kill as many Americans as possible was not an act of war, then what was it? A breach of diplomatic protocol?
One of the last people to speak was Robert Byrd, the eighty-three-year-old Democratic senator from West Virginia. He had served through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Vietnam War, the end of the Cold War, and countless other challenges. His eloquent words inspired the room. “Despite Hollywood and TV,” he said, “there is an army of people who believe in divine guidance and the Creator. … Mighty forces will come to your aid.”
Late in the afternoon of September 12, I made the short trip across the Potomac to the Pentag
on. The building was smoldering, and there were still bodies inside. Don Rumsfeld and I walked the crash site and thanked the work crews for their devotion. At one point, a team of workers atop the building unfurled a giant American flag. It was a sign of defiance and resolve, exactly what the nation needed to see. One of the last groups I met was the morgue team. Joe Hagin brought them over. They were covered in dust after performing the saddest duty of all. I told them how much I appreciated the dignity they brought to their work.
Visiting the Pentagon on September 12, 2001, with Don Rumsfeld. White House/Eric Draper
The experience at the Pentagon convinced me I needed to go to New York as soon as possible. Joe told me there were some serious problems with that idea. The Secret Service wasn’t sure the area was secure. The advance teams did not have time to prepare for a presidential event. No one knew what the environment at Ground Zero would be like. These were valid concerns, but I had made up my mind. I wanted New Yorkers to know that they were not alone. I took the attack as personally as they did. There was no substitute for telling them face to face.
I decided to break the news Thursday morning. Ari Fleischer had suggested that we invite the press into the Oval Office to witness my phone call with New York Governor George Pataki and Mayor Rudy Giuliani. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of the good citizens of your part of the world, and the extraordinary job you all are doing,” I said. Then I dropped the surprise. “You’ve extended me a kind invitation to come to New York City. I accept; I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”
I agreed to take a few questions from the press after the call. They asked about the safety of the aviation system, the whereabouts of bin Laden, and what I was requesting from Congress. The last question came from a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor: “Could you give us a sense as to what kind of prayers you are thinking and where your heart is … ?”
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