Original subtitles

Hi, Boston Center, TMU. We have a problem here.

We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York.

On September 11, 2001, America came under attack.

-Is this real-world or exercise? -No, this is not an exercise.

Killing thousands of Americans, more than we lost at Pearl Harbor.

This was an act of war.

I felt very much that we had indeed seen the face of evil.

This was a well-organized attack to severely damage our country.

This just in to our newsroom:

a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center.

It was a defining 24 hours that shaped a presidency,

the country

and the world.

We'd never had a crisis quite like this.

Of course we all were hurting.

We all were terrified.

Twenty years on,

those at the heart of government relive an historic day.

That 747 is not looking right.

Every plane had become a missile.

They're flying to the Capitol! Everybody go away…

They were coming after Washington. One of the targets might well be the White House.

With every minute of this extraordinary day captured…

The inner sanctum of the inner sanctum,

and the pilot is worried that someone could try to conduct an inside job

and take down Air Force One.

…and exclusive new interviews…

We're watching on TV.

There was nothing that could be done

from the center of power of the greatest power on Earth.

We needed to move the president. He could be a sitting duck.

This is the story of 9/11 as it's never been told before.

Did we miss something? Could we have connected the dots better?

3,000 people died on your watch.

By definition, you didn't do enough.

America's under attack.

And I'm watching a child read.

The one emotion that became harder and harder for him to keep in check was anger.

You know, the first plane was an accident. The second one was an attack.

And the third one was a declaration of war.

Hey. Just warming up.

Come on, Stretch. Come on.

Come on, Stretch. Let's go!

"Come on, Stretch. Let's go."

That was his nickname for me.

And so I put down my cup of coffee and, I guess, my notepad

and took off and caught up with him, and off we went.

He runs a 5K in 22-and-a-half minutes?

It was really a surreal experience.

There was a Secret Service agent running right behind us,

and another on a bicycle, with a submachine gun, in front of us.

Stretch Keil, Bush found out,

had been an NCAA all-American cross-country runner.

And then he was, "I can't believe I invited him to go running for me."

And the Bushes are very competitive.

They don't let their grandkids beat them at checkers.

So here he is, inviting somebody

who he thinks is gonna beat him running on the golf course,

and that's what he was preoccupied with.

How far did you go, altogether?

-About four and a half. -Four and a half miles?

Well, he spurred me on to new heights.

I knew he'd come back and brief you all, so…

Yeah. He held his pace from the moment we left.

-Thank you, Stretch. -Can we talk about tax cuts?

Not right now.

I remember saying to him,

"When you get back from the run, we'll do the CIA briefing,

and then we're going over to the Emma E. Booker School,

and it should be an easy day."

…degrees at 8:00. It's Tuesday, September 11th.

Primary day. And the polls are open in New York City.

As Hurricane Erin remains well offshore, we'll have sunshine today.

Giants lose their opener in Monday Night Football in Denver. Yankees…

What I remember most about the morning of September 11th,

it was absolutely spectacular weather.

Warm, not humid, skies were clear.

That kind of good weather gives everybody a little burst of energy.

You know, one of those late summer days.

The humidity of August is gone.

It doesn't yet feel like fall.

I never sit around in weather like that where I don't think back to that day.

Good morning. American 11 with you. Passing through 1-niner-0 for 2-3-0.

American 11, turn 20 degrees right.

On 9/11, I was in my office at the White House initially,

taking a briefing from the CIA.

There had been a report that al-Qaeda was getting ready to do something.

I don't think the intelligence was of sufficient specificity at that point

that you could say, "Well, this is what they're gonna do."

American 11, climb. Maintain flight level 3-5-0.

American 11. Boston.

This is Boston. I turned American 20 left, and I was going to climb him.

He will not respond to me now.

That summer, I think people described it as a summer of chatter. Of 2001.

We had a supervisors' meeting scheduled for 10:00 that morning,

and one of the things on my agenda for agent safety purposes was to say,

"If you're flying with your family,

one of the intel things that's coming up are hijackings.

So just be aware of what's out there," you know.

But…

Is that American 11 trying to call?

We have some planes.

Just stay quiet and we'll be okay. We are returning to the airport.

American 11, are you trying to call?

While American Airlines Flight 11 has just been hijacked,

in Florida, the president heads to an elementary school

after receiving his daily intelligence briefing.

There was nothing out of the ordinary in the briefing.

There were certainly no threat assessments.

There was absolutely nothing in the briefing about terrorism.

But al-Qaeda, by far, was the number one issue that was covered in those sessions.

There was no clarity about where or when or how.

It was just a lot of chatter about something big about to happen.

AP Network News. I'm Rita Foley.

A plane apparently has crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

We go live now to New York and our Robyn Walensky.

Robyn, what can you tell us?

Smoke is billowing out of the building

from the upper floors of Tower 1.

You can see the smoke for miles and miles.

The plane actually seems to be in the building.

We turned on the televisions in the solicitor general's office.

The commentary was confused. People did not know what had happened.

When they did speculate that it was an airplane,

they speculated that it maybe was an accident.

I'm sorry. You gotta go. Go! You gotta clear. Let's go.

Let's go. Gentlemen, let's go. Go, go, go.

My wife, Barbara, had boarded a plane that morning.

She'd put off her trip from September 10th

because my birthday was September 11th, and she wanted to wait one more day.

I began to have this sense of dread.

What about her airplane? Where is that plane?

As the presidential motorcade approaches the school in Florida,

the shocking news from New York is starting to filter through.

I don't recall it being a very long ride to the school.

But on the way, I called a very close friend in New York

to tell him that I had just gone running with the president.

And his voice sounded strange the minute he picked up the phone.

And he said a plane just hit the World Trade Center.

He said, "And my brother-in-law just moved to a new office in that building.

We're all trying to reach him."

In the press van,

the Secret Service agent we were with had left his two-way radio open.

And over it, we heard someone say

that Condoleezza Rice was waiting on a secure line to talk to the president

when he got to the school.

Suddenly, there was this palpable element of tension in the air.

The president finished shaking hands and went into the holding room.

There are secure phones set up in that holding room.

It's protected by the Secret Service. It's set up everywhere the president goes.

And Condi Rice, the national security adviser, was on the phone.

My assistant came in and said, "A plane has hit the World Trade Center."

I said, "Well, that's a strange accident." And I called the president.

Yeah, I thought it was pilot error.

I couldn't imagine anything other than a lousy pilot getting lost.

In other words, just an accident.

He'd been told a small twin-engine prop plane crashed into one of the towers

of the World Trade Center.

I was concerned, but I did not think of it as a national security threat.

And I didn't think that it should disrupt the president's day.

First thing that comes into a Secret Service agent's mind,

"Is the president in any danger here?"

"Is there direction of interest toward the president any way whatsoever?"

The decision was made that the president's not in any danger at this moment.

So we decided to allow him to go on with the event.

Good morning. Hi.

-Hi. -How are you?

I remember when he came in.

Even as a seven-year-old, you know who the president is, right?

And I remember even feeling, that young, kind of, like, starstruck and giddy,

like I'm going to Disney World or something.

And I put my hand over my heart.

Like, when you think about patriotic things when you're that little, you know--

You do the Pledge of Allegiance every day. And I literally put my hand over my heart.

-Get ready. -"Cane."

-Yes, "cane." Get ready. -"Can."

Yes, "can." Get ready.

I am right here at the foot of the World Trade Center.

This, apparently, was a commuter plane.

It looks, from what we're seeing,

that it might have actually gone through one side and out the other.

It could well have been.

It hit with such force that the whole neighborhood really shook.

Joining us now on the line is an eyewitness

who is in the Empire State Building.

Bob Bradley, what do you see?

I saw this plane.

It didn't look like he was out of control, like there was any trouble with the plane.

It didn't swerve. It just landed directly in the building.

Like he wanted to fly into the building.

It's my responsibility to verify

that we have all the proper communications established for the president.

I asked my team if they could find a television.

I was calling the White House Situation Room to talk to my senior duty officer.

So I was chatting with him on the handset

and watched, as the rest of the country was watching,

at 9:03, when the second aircraft

impacted into the second World Trade Center tower.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God!

-Oh, my God. -Oh, no.

Oh, my God!

When the second plane hit, there was an audible gasp of air in the room.

It was two realizations, right?

One, the immediate death toll.

And then the fact that this was an attack on America.

The other thing going through my mind at that moment was…

"What are the chances of a plane coming and crashing into the school

where we were at?"

-Get ready. -"Smile."

Yes, "smile."

Sound it out. Get ready.

"Smile."

-What word? -"Smile."

Yes, "smile." Read these words…

Now it hits me, as I'm standing there next to the president,

that he's the only one that doesn't know the second plane has hit the building.

And it seemed like an eternity. It probably only lasted two minutes.

And that was when the chief of staff made the decision to walk in

and just go ahead and whisper it in his ear.

Andy Card comes up behind me and says,

"Second plane has hit the second tower. America's under attack."

And I'm watching a child read.

I was studying him intently, and his mouth was kind of drawn and tight.

For just a brief moment, there was sort of a startled look in his eyes.

You're literally seeing

the mindset of the president of the United States play out on TV.

Everything he thought he was about as a president

is changing right in front of you.

This is all happening in real time.

-"But." Get ready. -"But the…"

If you're leading an organization during a crisis,

it's really important to set a tone and not to panic.

I didn't wanna lurch out of the chair

and scare the classroom full of children.

And so I waited.

We felt that we needed to move the president

and just get him out of there.

He could be a sitting duck.

If somebody was able to plan flying into the Twin Towers,

they were certainly able to figure out where the president was.

We have got to consider that this situation could escalate,

so I'm pulling my guys to the left of the stage,

and we are planning to evacuate the building.

"But one day a car robber came…"

This is gonna become a battle with the president, I knew,

because, of course, he's not gonna wanna leave.

The lesson of a crisis, besides projecting calm, is to say something.

People all across the country just in disbelief and shock and horror.

There's always a void, and into that void comes,

in this case, what turned out to be a psychological tsunami.

Place them under your chairs, and thank you so much for coming today.

So I got up and calmly left and went back into the holding room.

I'll talk about it later.

The first thing I said was, "Get the FBI director on the phone,

get a line open to the vice president,

get a line open to the White House Situation Room."

And to Dan Bartlett, I said, "Get some remarks written for the president."

This was a mad scramble to pull together as much information we could

in order for the president to say enough

to demonstrate that he's got his arms around what's unfolding.

And none of us had this playbook.

It's not like there's a thing, they say, "Okay, this is happening now.

Crack this open and it's gonna give you the playbook of how to deal with this."

Wasn't there.

I asked the president, "With whom would you like to speak to first?"

And I said, "Sir, I have the vice president."

That first conversation mainly dealt with,

"Are we going to describe it as a terrorist attack?"

He and I both agreed an apparent terrorist attack.

And that sort of set the stage for everything that follows from that.

To me and Dick Cheney,

it was pretty obvious that this was a well-organized attack

to severely damage our country.

I was in the office.

My assistant came in, said, "Barbara's on the phone."

I was relieved she was alive.

But she told me immediately that her plane had been hijacked,

and then the line went dead.

This is John Thomas, Ops Manager.

I think we need to let everybody know this right away.

American 77 was just west of Charleston, West Virginia,

and disappeared off our radar scope.

We now believe that aircraft may have been hijacked.

What with the World Trade Center,

we could have another loose aircraft out there somewhere.

President Bush, he knew Barbara.

She was on television just two days earlier, defending him.

President Bush is right. Kids have got to learn to read, or they're lost.

The education issue is a centerpiece of his agenda. He's got an…

And his whole leadership of his administration knew who Barbara was.

Unaware of this third hijacking,

in Florida, the president and his aides are still scrambling for information

about the first two attacks.

Everybody was working the phones,

trying to ascertain what was happening.

Typically, at a time of hot, breaking news,

the press has access to a lot of things that the government doesn't,

'cause the press has cameras everywhere.

What TV stations are now broadcasting on the air is really important information.

A rebroadcast came on,

and the president whipped around to see where Dan was pointing,

as the plane hit the tower.

And you could feel the tension as people were stopping working the phones

to look, all of a sudden, for the first time for us.

There was just total disbelief.

And we went from a very calm, beautiful day

to one in which our world changed dramatically.

While the president absorbs the horror of the attacks in New York…

the crisis is escalating in America's skies.

We took steps at that point

to limit the amount of aircraft that could actually get airborne.

I ground-stopped everything in the country.

We had over 4,000 aircraft airborne.

I knew, at least I surmised,

that this was not the act of a deranged hijacker.

That this was a concerted action by a group of people.

As air traffic controllers deal with an unprecedented situation,

a fourth plane's cockpit is breached.

United 93. That traffic for you is one o'clock.

Twelve miles eastbound, 3-7-0.

Negative contact. We're looking. United 93.

Hey!

Mayday--

You got United 93?

It looks like he descended.

United 93, verify 3-5-0.

Do you have United 93 south of Chardon?

We hear some funny noises. We're trying to get him.

-Do you have him? -No.

With United 93 the latest plane to be hijacked,

President Bush prepares to address the nation,

still uncertain as to the full nature of the attacks.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America.

Today we've had a national tragedy.

This is the air traffic command center,

the TMO on duty in the West area.

I need to have all traffic management units do an inventory

of all airborne traffic.

Ensure that you do not have any aircraft that are not accounted for.

I had my staff ask all the facilities in the country

to identify for us any aircraft that they deemed suspicious.

I actually considered closing the airspace at that point,

but I hesitated, thinking about the chaos that would ensue.

Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center.

Barbara got back on the phone,

and I had to tell her about the two airplanes

that had been flown into the World Trade Center.

We exchanged a couple of words of affection,

and the line went dead again.

And now, if you'd join me in a moment of silence.

Please sit down. Keep remaining sitting.

We have a bomb on board.

Calling Cleveland Center. You're unreadable.

Say again, slowly.

United 93 may have a bomb on board.

Can you give additional information

why you believe there may be a bomb?

He's screaming that on the frequency.

Okay.

I've gone from a classroom with a child reading

to believing America's under attack in a pretty brief period of time.

May God bless the victims, their families and America. Thank you very much.

We have got to leave Sarasota and get the president to a safe place.

We're gonna get to the plane as quickly as we can,

because the safest location for the president at this time,

until we know what's going on, is to get him up in the air.

We immediately exited, went to the motorcade,

and the call was made: We're gonna go at a high rate of speed.

We're gonna shut the intersections down with physical barriers

to make sure suicide attacks, everything, is not a concern.

It really hit me when I was in the limousine heading out to Air Force One.

I was immediately surrounded by serious protection.

We were going like the bat out of proverbial hell.

And I looked to my left, and I realized

we were bracketed by four police cars, two in front and two in back.

You know, sort of covering our flanks.

The Secret Service said,

"We were worried about a car bomb intercepting the motorcade,

and we wanted to cause the bomb to go off 15 or 20 feet further away

and give the president a greater chance of survivability."

Sort of a sobering moment.

With concerns growing over the president's safety…

the vice president, too, now gets even closer protection.

The door burst open,

and one of my Secret Service agents, Jimmy Scott, came in rapidly.

He put one hand, his right hand, on my belt in back,

the other hand on my shoulder,

and literally picked me up and moved me towards the door.

The agent had told me that there was a plane coming in.

It was unclear how far out it was, but at 500 miles per hour,

it doesn't take long for something to arrive on your doorstep.

Huntress ID. How can I help you?

Our latest report, the aircraft VFR six miles southeast of the White House.

Six miles southeast of the White House?

Yep. Six southwest.

Jimmy took me out into the hallway,

down the stairs in the West Wing.

The agent was instructed to take us down

towards what they call the PEOC, the emergency center.

I knew Jimmy, and I knew these guys are trained.

And if he's moving like that, I'd better follow.

I didn't have much choice, anyway.

Aircraft is moving away.

Moving away from the White House?

-Yeah. -Deviating away.

You don't have a type of aircraft, don't know who he is?

Nothing. So I have no clue. None.

And there was a lot of confusion as to what was happening,

a lot of confusion as to where the planes were.

Part of the problem, at that point,

was to discern, what is the scope of this attack?

With an unknown plane now over the Capitol,

air traffic controllers enlist a cargo aircraft, call sign Gofer 06,

to try to identify it.

Gofer 06, traffic is eleven o'clock

and five miles northbound, fast moving.

Type and altitude unknown.

Gofer 06. We have the traffic in sight, twelve o'clock.

Do you know what kind it is? Can you see?

Looks like a 757, sir.

The first item that comes to mind is,

they're coming after Washington, not only New York.

That traffic is still in a descent now,

and looks like he's rolled out northeast bound.

You don't have time to say, "Oh, my goodness. What's happening to us?"

Every plane had become a missile.

-Washington, this is Gofer 06. -Gofer 06, go ahead.

It looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir.

-See what happened up there? -Yeah. It went into the Pentagon.

Looks like it went into the Pentagon.

Plane into the building.

I went into the Situation Room

to try to reach the National Security Principals…

-Keep going back. -…going back. Keep going back.

Colin Powell was in Peru for an Organization of American States meeting.

They said George Tenet, the CIA director, had already gone to a bunker.

And they said, "We can't reach Secretary Rumsfeld.

His phone is just ringing and ringing and ringing."

And we looked on television, and a plane had hit the Pentagon.

Then I called the president. He said, "I'm coming back."

And I did something I had never done before and would never do again.

I raised my voice at the president of the United States.

I said, "Stay where you are. We're under attack."

Okay, all units responding over to the Pentagon,

you need to be careful.

Possible terrorist attack.

It was at that moment that I realized we were at war.

You know, the first plane was an accident, the second one was an attack,

and the third one was a declaration of war.

Oh, my goodness.

We're looking at a live picture from Washington,

and there is smoke pouring out of the Pentagon.

I'm sitting in a government office, two miles from the Pentagon.

I knew what was coming, and then I saw it.

And then I knew that my greatest fears were true.

That that had to be the American Airlines plane that Barbara was on.

We don't know whether this is the result of a bomb

or whether it is yet another aircraft

that has targeted a symbol of the United States' power.

It was a helpless feeling,

that this incomprehensible thing had happened to this country.

It was a dreaded sense of horror.

When I got word that American 77 had struck the Pentagon,

that's when I shut down everything.

The order was to land all aircraft at the nearest airport,

regardless of their final destination.

Stand by. Everybody, stand by. This is the Command Center.

The Command Center requests, as soon as possible,

they want all aircraft on the ground.

All aircraft, regardless of destination, land as soon as possible.

That was the last step that I could take to get control of the airspace.

I thought, "Well, if we get everyone out of the air,

we'll be able to deal with the few that are left."

I couldn't imagine there would be that many left that may be a problem.

It would appear now, that

perhaps this nation is under attack

from some unknown source.

I would say, without question.

We're looking at pictures here, now.

Looking at Washington, we're seeing from the Executive Office building,

which is being evacuated now, along with the White House--

we're seeing columns of smoke across the river at the Pentagon rising.

I remember it just looked chaotic, watching it from home.

I knew I had to get to the office, but I didn't know how to get there.

They were shutting down downtown Washington.

I was on the phone with my chief of staff, who ran my office at the White House,

and she said, "Karen, I've gotta go. They're telling us to run."

And I said, "Well, then go!"

The assumption was that

one of the targets might well be the White House.

And the Secret Service told everybody to evacuate.

-Everybody, back. -Everybody not essential, let's go!

This is the real thing. Let's go.

The intensity and the volume of the voices kept escalating.

The calls for us to get moving, to get out, to get out.

Scatter, scatter. Please go home.

I remember making eye contact with a woman

who's part of the Secret Service, and I remember her screaming at me,

"Take off your heels and run."

That 747 is not looking right.

Twelve o'clock high. He's turning hard. Shit.

-Hold it. -They're flying to the Capitol!

Everybody go away from the Capitol.

The streets of Washington, there were cars stopped in the middle of the road,

still running, doors open.

People were running everywhere. There was smoke.

It was Mad Max.

…all of you, back and away.

Do you copy? You need to move back and away.

As America's skies close for the first time in US history

and fear grips the Capitol,

a further threat now causes concern for the president's safety.

As we arrived at the airport,

we began to get intel that Air Force One could be a target.

There could be someone at the end of the runway that could be a threat.

Someone with a stinger missile

or some kind of high-powered rifle, even.

There was an incredible push

to get everybody on the plane as quickly as possible.

They are yelling at us, "Move it, move it, move it," to board more quickly.

I do remember actually feeling scared as I ran up the steps

and having the disjointed thought,

"I've never been scared being with a president before."

I remember some of the air force personnel greeting me at the door,

and they were shaken badly.

So Colonel Tillman said to me,

"I can turn around and fly the other direction,

but it'll be the steepest takeoff you will ever see a 747 take,

and you need to make sure the president's sitting down."

I said, "I'll take care of that. Just do it."

The decision was made to go ahead and rotate

to counter the threat at the end of the runway

and to max perform the aircraft.

So we used full power.

The plane was extremely light, minimal passengers.

The goal was to get airborne, move away fast.

My seat was 20 yards or so away, and I'm standing there,

and I'm the only one who's not seated with a seat belt.

So, I'm standing there with the president,

and the engines just screamed, and we were screaming down the runway.

And I'm going, "This is unbelievable. The plane doesn't take off like this."

And I put my foot against the president's desk and my backside against the bulkhead

and just pressed myself in there.

The president, he leaned over with his arm.

And we were taking off at an angle that I never want to experience again.

I went partially weightless.

I mean, I was petrified.

It was a very emotional experience for everybody.

I tried to be cool, calm and present.

But some people were hyperventilating or--

"But what are we gonna do?"

And kind of contagious with fear,

and I didn't want that to infect the decision-making process

that the president was gonna have to go through.

So we did keep some people away.

I was just trying to gather information

so I could then begin to make rational decisions.

The president said to me, "I want you to call George Tenet"--

the director of CIA, my boss--

"and I want you to tell George that I want to be the first to know

if he learns anything about who did this."

With the president desperate to learn more about the attacks,

he immediately faces a new challenge.

We had real problems aboard Air Force One that day

with the communications equipment.

The phone that was supposed to connect the president to the vice president

and others in the bunker below the White House kept conking out.

I remember the president holding the phone out in endless frustration.

So we would not have full-time communications.

TV reception. Air Force One didn't have satellite TV.

And so we could get TV coverage

as we would fly over cities where the ground-based antenna

put out a sufficiently strong, powerful-enough signal

that we could pick it up at 40,000 feet in the sky.

As we're going through these different local TV zones

and it'd be on, it'd be flickering and--

What was eerie about it is that it wasn't a constant picture.

The TV came on, we were all riveted to it

because we were getting new, fresh information.

And then, as we would fly along and the signal would fade,

the screen on the TV would fade to gray.

Amazing to think that one of the worst places to be to get information

was the place where information should have been set up, by design,

to flow the best to the president of the United States.

Now, by chance,

just 73 minutes after the attacks began,

the television signal on Air Force One holds steady

long enough for a picture to form.

Take two. Take two, in two, one.

This is as close as we can get to the base of the World Trade Center.

You can see the firemen assembled here, the police officers, FBI agents.

And you can see the two towers--

Huge explosion now raining debris on all of us. We better get out of the way!

Oh, no!

-Oh, my God! -Oh, no!

Oh, God!

Oh, shit. Oh, man.

Oh, man!

-Oh, sh-- -Go! Come on!

Look out behind you.

Oh, shit.

Those images are seared in my mind.

There was no noise on Air Force One except the plane flying.

I was horrified.

And it was sickening.

-Stay right where you are. -Stay where you are, man.

Stay where you are.

We were all transfixed, you know?

All you could do was watch in horror, and nobody said anything.

Just the thought of all the deaths

that could have taken place in that one instant.

What I saw was a man who was doing his level best

to keep all the various emotions in check.

The one emotion that I think became harder and harder for him to keep in check

was anger.

This brewing of…

"You think you're gonna get away with this?"

I knew if we were under attack,

my job as president was to protect the country.

And I didn't know who they were yet.

One thing on the to-do list was to kick their ass.

I wanted to go home to DC.

I'm commander in chief,

and I wanted to be at the center of the action.

I said, "We can't do that.

Until we can secure the White House and DC,

we're gonna have to go someplace else."

There's no way we're gonna take him into an unsecured area.

I suggested we go west, not east.

All of a sudden, I feel the plane turning away from northeast.

And I called Andy, said, "Andy, let's get to DC."

He said, "It's highly recommended we don't."

I told the president we're gonna go to Barksdale Air Force Base,

get a little more information of what's going on.

We can tape a message for the American people.

They're already under an exercise

calling for them to be on the highest level of alert.

But the president was adamant that he wanted to go back to Washington.

He was telling me,

"I am the president of the United States. We are going back to Washington, DC."

And I said, "You don't wanna make that decision right now.

I don't think you wanna make that decision right now.

I think we have to know more."

And he said, "I am making the decision right now!"

I had a conversation with the president,

and my recommendation was, to him, that he not come back yet.

Washington was under attack, as well as New York,

and that it was important for the two of us, the president and vice president,

to stay separate.

Andy Card on the plane and me on the phone

pretty well persuaded him,

"Not yet. Not yet."

Because we just didn't know.

There was no doubt in my mind, and in theirs,

that I was the commander in chief.

That's why it was vital that I have a team of people who understand

the chain of command and the role of the president.

But, needless to say,

continuity of government became an essential element for the security forces.

We were just very happy that the president agreed

not to really force the issue to go back to Washington, DC,

and that when we went to Barksdale, it would give us a chance to regroup,

and we could put a plan together on what we were gonna do.

…865. We have the traffic below us.

Number 56865, Cleveland Center, roger that.

I have a question for you. We have a Boeing 757.

Can you see him up there, sir, and tell me an altitude if that's able?

Southeast bound.

We've got him.

He's behind us and only about a thousand feet above us.

There is now only one known hijacked flight remaining in the sky.

Controllers track it by talking to another plane.

Okay, he's descending. He's getting closer to our altitude.

We have him in sight, yes.

Number 56865, I advise you to stay away from that aircraft.

Go north fast as you can.

But it's not just controllers struggling with limited information.

It's also those inside the White House bunker.

It was very much the fog of war.

There were specific flight numbers being thrown around

of flights that were of concern.

We were getting regular reports about how many were still in the air,

how many were unaccounted for.

Plane going here and a plane going there.

I had reports that a car bomb had gone off at the State Department.

Was a lot of information flying around,

and a lot of it's not valid.

Okay, what's he doing now, sir?

It appears he might be turning a little to the north. Does that concur?

That's concurred. Looks like he's rocking his wings now.

The principal anxiety in the bunker was

how many planes were out there that had been weaponized by terrorists

and were headed for other targets around the United States,

and how do we deal with it?

Because we had no idea.

He's rocking back and forth.

Thank you, sir.

You don't find it written in any manual,

what to do in a situation like this.

Essentially, we were flying by the seat of our pants at that point.

I was sitting right across from the vice president

when the military aide came in

and reported that another flight was headed south toward Washington.

It was presumed to be a hijacked flight.

Turned out to be, I think, United 93.

He asked the vice president for permission for military aircraft to engage.

That's when the vice president used a very military term.

"Take the track."

Everybody in the room knew what that meant.

"Shoot down that aircraft."

There was a silence as people absorbed

the order that had just been given.

I got on the phone and talked with the president.

Got his approval that that's what we wanted to do.

We didn't know how many more planes were in the sky,

how many were hijacked.

I made the decision.

Was I happy about it? No.

But was I comfortable in making the decision? Yes.

United Nine-Three. Have you got information on that yet?

Yeah, he's down.

-He's down? -Yes.

When did he land? Because we have confirmation--

He did not land.

He's down-down?

Yeah, somewhere up northeast of Camp David.

One of the watch standards came in and said,

"The track has been eliminated."

And the vice president said, "The plane's down?"

And he said, "The track's been eliminated."

The vice president looked at me, and he said, "Did we take that track?"

And I said, "I don't know."

We had every reason to believe that, in fact, we had taken down that aircraft.

As the occupants of the bunker try to establish

whether United 93 has been brought down by their own actions,

suddenly their focus turns again to New York.

An hour ago, there were people at the gas pumps

who turned to look at the smoke coming from the city.

Folks stepping out of bodegas and stores to look.

Now people are gathering in large groups.

In fact, in one corner, I saw a group of people actually holding hands and praying.

As I stand on the Manhattan Bridge, which is closed--

It is open to pedestrian traffic.

Some people are walking across, but there's just no way for them to…

As I look out, something is-- It looks as though the building is going--

Is that the building going down?

Is that the second building of the World Trade Center going down?

Yes, that is the second tower. That is the second…

It didn't implode even. It just melted.

My brain could not process what I was seeing.

This was a major attack on the United States.

And it was pretty clear-cut that this was gonna be a very heavy loss of life.

That was a searing moment.

We're watching on TV, and there was nothing that could be done

from the center of power of the greatest power on Earth.

But from that room, we needed to figure out

what we could do to help prevent anything further from happening.

At this moment of national tragedy,

from Air Force One to the bunker,

the government is struggling to regain control.

The communication devices down there were inept.

If we had a screen--

We couldn't tell what was going on outside

because if we had our visual, we had no sound.

If we had sound, we had no visual.

And it was terrifying.

The country didn't know what was going on, and we didn't know.

And it's a very scary time.

The government was not well prepared for this moment.

The bunker itself was antiquated.

The furniture and technology were probably at least 20 years old.

I remember the commander of the bunker facility pulling me aside

when the oxygen in the bunker started to get dangerously low

because there were too many people.

Everybody started dozing off. I'm like, "Something is wrong here."

Well, we had exhausted our oxygen

and were breathing in our own CO2 and such.

We were, like, poisoning ourselves.

We ended up having a lot of people leave and go someplace else.

We didn't need you in that site.

As the administration battles with the limitations of the bunker,

word of an imminent threat to Air Force One comes in

and is immediately shared with the president.

There was a call that said, "Angel's next."

And Angel was the code word for Air Force One.

A shiver goes through everybody.

Who's got the code word for Air Force One?

So when Air Force One's pilot, Colonel Tillman, heard about this,

he posted at the base of the steps that lead up to the cockpit

an air force security officer

with instructions that no one is to go upstairs.

Think about that.

The inner sanctum of the inner sanctum,

and the pilot is worried that someone in the president's circle

could try to conduct an inside job and take down Air Force One.

We're trying to figure out exactly how we could be attacked.

At this point, it was to assume the worst case.

Somehow, we're gonna be attacked airborne. So we had to be ready for it.

Once we found that the president was a target,

we take no chances.

We've taken all the weapons away, we believe, right.

We've done everything we can to.

But you never know.

The president's in the front of the aircraft.

You have staff and Secret Service in the center of the aircraft,

and the media and all the guests are in the back of the aircraft.

So, we had the agents come up to the front of the aircraft

and stand close to the president's cabin

and make sure no one could come up to the front of the aircraft.

Even your most senior White House staff members were not allowed to come up there

unless the president called them up there.

As security is tightened onboard,

there are still real fears about an external attack.

Air Force One is filing a random route, by the way.

Okay.

We don't know where they've decided to go,

but they still don't have a fighter escort.

-They still do not? -That's correct.

Holy cow.

In that moment,

there was a bull's-eye on us.

And we certainly don't know the scope of this entire attack.

We don't know if we're in the beginning of it, the middle, or near the end of it.

Most people would say one of the safest places you'd ever feel

would be with the president of the United States.

It was the first time that really came under question.

You're like, "Maybe this is not the best place to be."

And then, all of a sudden, we get this radio call.

It was a flight of two F-16s. "We are your cover."

And that was the greatest feeling ever because they're our folks,

and they're coming up and joining on the wing.

I was kneeling on one knee,

my arm on the ledge beneath the windows, looking out.

I'm sure people think that Air Force One's followed by fighter planes all the time,

but very rarely in the United States.

And, I mean…

That really hit home.

It just wasn't--

It just wasn't something that I'd contemplated.

Why does Air Force One need a fighter escort?

It turns out it was a terrible series of errors.

The caller never used the word "Angel." They said, "Air Force One is next."

One of the intelligence officers did what came routine to them.

They used the word "Angel"

and passed that down to the bunker underneath the White House,

where the vice president was,

who passed it up to the president, saying, "Angel is next."

The amount of information that is wrong

when you are in a moment of crisis, the filters are down,

people let information through just in case, is staggering.

We have a report now that a large plane crashed this morning

in Western Pennsylvania, a Boeing 767 jet.

We don't know if this is somehow connected

to what has gone on in New York and Washington.

As the public learns that a fourth plane has crashed, United 93,

the administration is still trying to discover

if its actions have brought it down.

I remember the vice president being on the phone with the Pentagon, saying,

"You must know whether or not you engaged a civilian aircraft."

And they kept saying, "We can't confirm. We can't confirm."

The Pentagon must have scrubbed that question every which way

to make sure we were getting the right answer.

Finally, we were told, "No, we did not shoot it down."

United 93 had, in fact, crashed

well before any shoot down order was even issued.

It was the passengers, not the government, who had confronted the hijackers.

As it turned out, the passengers onboard

were able to move more quickly and effectively than we could.

People rushing the cabin, sacrificing their own life

to save the lives of a lot of people.

And I still marvel at that kind of character.

Every time I think about it, it just makes me tear up

about the sacrifice that they made that day in Shanksville.

Jim Kallstrom,

former official of the FBI in the New York office, is on the air.

Jim, what do you think?

Well, my first thought is of the tremendous casualties.

The death toll is just overwhelming.

It's a day that, 50 years from now,

our children will be taught about,

when we went to war on American soil with terrorism.

I realized, by the way, just as you mentioned it,

something else that is very important at the moment.

And again, I don't mean to say this in melodramatic terms.

Where is the president of the United States?

The president of the United States led-- I know we don't know where he is.

But pretty soon the country needs to know where he is.

America's largest city is devastated,

its military headquarters burning

and its president now a long way from home.

Instead of going to DC, we went to Shreveport, Louisiana.

Frankly, there was some humor during this day,

and one of them was when we landed,

I thought we were coming out of a Dr. Strangelove set on a movie.

They were having a bomber drill.

So, we had loaded bombers.

And we're put into some kind of vehicle.

There was no armored limousine for the president.

A blue Dodge minivan pulled up to take the leader of the free world to safety.

I don't think I've ever seen a president of the United States ride in a minivan.

And there was a military driver who apparently was so scared

that he just took off out of there.

We're flying down the tarmac,

and I told the sergeant driving, I said,

"Man, I don't think there's any al-Qaeda on this base,

so why don't we just take our time and get to the headquarters."

That was the most danger I'd been in all day.

And we get to the commander's office,

and we go in there.

He had very good communications.

We communicated back to Washington, DC.

The conversations back are really to understand,

"What other intelligence are we seeing?

What else should we know?

And are any of our enemies trying to take advantage of this?"

This is a period of great uncertainty.

And as we began to heighten our defenses,

we wanted to make sure that the Russians understood

we weren't aiming any of that weaponry at them.

I was concerned that the Soviets had an exercise underway that day.

And we didn't want to have them misunderstand

what was happening over here.

If we alert our forces and the Russians alert theirs,

and we alert and they alert,

it's not long before you're actually at a state of war

when things just start to happen.

A lot of this defense business is automatic.

It's built to minimize human error,

and that obviously has the tandem effect of excluding humans

when they need to be inserted into the process.

So I had a phone call with President Putin, and

I said, "Mr. President, our military forces are going to be going up on alert."

And he said, "Don't worry. Ours will be coming down.

We've canceled exercises."

And I remember thinking, or almost chuckling to myself,

"Of course you know that our forces are going up on alert. You can see it."

But recognizing right at that moment that the Cold War was truly over.

Putin had reacted in the right way.

In a crisis of this magnitude,

it's essential that leadership continually try to reassure the people.

And I don't think you can overdo it.

In the immediacy of a crisis.

And so, therefore, it was essential

that I speak on a regular basis as we gathered facts.

I was looking at him with a reporter's eye but also as an American.

I wanna reassure the American people…

the full resources of the federal government…

I found myself looking at his face as much as I was listening to the words.

And I think that was probably true of most of the people in that room,

reporters or not.

I won't say he looked haunted,

but the severity of what was happening registered clearly on his face.

God bless.

Then we were off again.

But ABC's Ann Compton is on the telephone.

We may be scrambled out of here-- Are we leaving?

Okay, Peter, so we are leaving, and I think--

-Where you going, Annie? -Peter, I have no idea.

Still insisting on a return to Washington,

President Bush orders a quick departure from Barksdale.

I remember getting into Air Force One.

They shut those doors quick.

And we're airborne.

I wanted to go back to Washington.

And there were some objections.

He was telling me, "We're going back to Washington, DC,"

and kind of ordering me.

And I'm saying,

"I really don't think you wanna make that decision right now," again,

which I had repeated over and over and over and over to him.

Boy, he got angry with me. He got very, very angry with me.

I might have chewed him out a little bit.

But I wanted to get home.

But I was being told by the security apparatus that it's unsafe.

I remember him saying, "I'm not gonna run from these guys."

He wanted to fight. He was ready to fight, right?

As supervisors, you've got to be able to tell the president no.

By law, Air Force One flies at the discretion of the Secret Service.

So we had to explain to him it's our job

to keep the office of the president of the United States safe,

and it's really not your call.

Yeah, he was fit to be tied.

And he basically acquiesced more than approved.

The most important thing is that we were then able to go

where we could have even better security and communication.

Offutt Air Force Base is an hour and 15 minutes north,

and there are facilities there that will allow us to bring together

all the important officials of the government together

in a secure video conference.

Now the president was not happy about this

and made it clear that this was their last dodge.

So, quicker the better.

How the president now spends his time today,

what he is seen to do, is absolutely vital.

Not just to the country, but to him.

It's a critical time for him.

He said that the nation is being tested. The new president is being tested as well.

The main thing he has to do, for most Americans,

is communicate to them that he's in charge,

that he intends to take control of this situation

and, as he said, hunt down the people who are responsible for it

and punish them.

I saw how America was reacting.

You know, I'm really not a very angry person,

but I was angry that people killed Americans.

But you can't make rational decisions when you're angry.

As president, it's really important you don't decide

till you fully understand the environment and the facts.

The president asked to see me in his office.

Alone, he said.

President then looked at me and said, "Michael, who did this?"

I told him that I had not seen any intelligence

that would take us to a perpetrator,

so he was gonna get my best estimate, right?

Not finely analyzed intelligence.

And he said, "I understand the caveat, now move on."

It's a very, kind of, George Bush thing to do.

So I said, "Mr. President, there are two nation-states

who have the capability of doing this.

Iran and Iraq.

But neither one of them has anything to gain,

so I don't think it was one of them."

I told him that I thought when we got to the end of the trail,

we would find al-Qaeda, and we would find bin Laden.

And I told him, "Mr. President, I am so confident in that,

that I would bet my children's future on it."

Then he just sat there for almost five minutes.

My job changed.

Let me rephrase that. My job became crystal clear.

I thought, "If it's al-Qaeda, what do we need to do to bring them to justice?"

When we got to Offutt, one of the first things the president said is,

"I wanna go back to Washington, right now."

So, the idea was, "Let's go down into the bunker, get briefed."

But it was on his mind from the moment he arrived.

"I wanna go back to Washington."

Ann Compton, who's been with the president all day,

is on the phone from Nebraska.

And we don't wanna lose her, if we can have her.

Annie, can you hear me?

-Yes, Peter, I can, and-- -What are you doing in Nebraska?

Well, we didn't know where we were till we landed.

President Bush is here at the home of the Strategic Command,

and he has disappeared down the rabbit hole, Peter.

Down through a red brick, small building,

down into an underground bunker,

where the president is going to chair a National Security Council meeting

by teleconference.

Here he was at Offutt Air Force Base,

and all of this was going on, and he couldn't get back.

And he was really, kind of, caged.

That was the sense I had of his frustration.

He couldn't be where he needed to be.

Throughout the morning,

the moves to protect the president have compromised his access to information.

But now, 75 feet underground

and six hours since the first plane struck,

he finally receives up-to-date intelligence.

George Tenet was on the screen and was briefing the president

about information that we had uncovered

just in the last few hours.

Did we know it was al-Qaeda?

We thought we did.

The CIA director confirmed that we did.

George said, "We know that al-Qaeda did this."

He said, "Mr. President, we'll confirm in the morning, but we know."

And the president said, "How do you know?"

And that was when George said

those manifests had people who were on our watch list.

The president turned around and looked at me.

And I could tell by the look on his face that he was saying,

"I thought I told you that I wanted to be the first to know."

And it was a look of disappointment in me.

President Bush practically came through the television screen, and he said,

"We are at war against terror,

and from this day forward, this is the priority of our administration."

That was the first thing he said to all of us.

I did need to make sure that they knew who was in charge.

I'm not suggesting anybody was peeling off,

but teams function better when the leader, in this case, asserts himself.

And I wanted them to know that we needed a plan to deal with it

and that everybody had a role to play.

I remember him saying to the FBI director,

"Your job just changed.

You're accustomed, at the FBI, to catching the bad guys after a crime is committed.

Your job is now to prevent the terrorists from launching another attack."

I called George Tenet's executive assistant,

and he told me the information that CIA had developed

on al-Qaeda that day was embargoed from leaving the building.

And I said in a very loud voice, and with some swear words,

"Embargoed from the president of the United States?"

Long pause at the other end.

And I said, "Just send it to me right now."

And I slammed the phone down.

The president specifically asked George if he thought there would be more attacks.

And George Tenet told the president, "I think we're done for today."

When the president had heard all the information that he was presented,

and he was done asking questions,

he stood, he slapped his hand on the table,

and he says, "We're going home."

I decided to go back to Washington.

The idea was to give a speech to the nation.

And giving a speech to the nation

from a bunker in the middle of Nebraska was not my vision of leadership.

I said, "If I'm gonna give a speech to the nation,

it's gonna be from Washington, DC. And I'm coming home."

On the way back, the president came back on Air Force One,

stopping first in the Secret Service cabin,

thanking them, patting them on the shoulder.

And he stopped at the door to the press cabin.

He waved away our reporters' notebooks. Didn't wanna be quoted.

And then he said, "We're gonna get those thugs."

And I'm looking out the window of Air Force One,

and it's this beautiful, golden afternoon.

And there was this sense that the worst is over.

It was a day full of a lot of sadness.

And I knew that Mother and Dad would be worried about how I was feeling.

And I finally found 'em.

And Mother got on the phone,

and I said, "Mother, where are you, by the way?"

She said, "We're outside Milwaukee."

I said, "You gotta be kidding me. What're you doing there?"

She said, "You grounded our plane."

And so… It was typical Mother.

And was I concerned about 'em? You bet.

But once I knew they were safe, I was fine.

The president felt a sense of relief,

a sense of, "I'm excited to get back to Washington."

I think a lot of folks felt a sense of relaxation that it was over.

And I felt like, "I don't know if we really know what's going on," right?

I mean, we feel that way, that it's over.

We do have the escort from the F-16s,

but do I really know the whole terrorist event's over?

The concerns of the Secret Service deepen

when new intelligence suddenly emerges,

raising tensions again.

Flying back,

CIA headquarters securely faxed a package of materials to Air Force One.

There was a piece of intelligence

that had been provided to us by a European intelligence service

that said that what happened that morning was the first of two waves of attacks

against the US homeland.

Was this all part of their plan to get us back to Washington

so that the second wave could happen?

The president had just gone through the worst attack on the United States

in American history.

And here, his intelligence briefer was showing him a piece of intelligence

that suggested that there might be a second wave coming at us.

He didn't say anything that suggested that this hit him hard,

but I could tell just by the look on his face.

I spent a lot of time worrying about further attacks. A lot.

We felt pretty secure.

And all of a sudden…

a group of killers was able to penetrate our so-called defenses

and kill 3,000 people in one moment's notice.

As the prospect of further attacks occupies the president,

the effects of the initial strikes continue to unfold.

A third building in the World Trade Center complex is in danger of collapse.

Here we go. There it goes.

Shit.

Are we-- Is this-- Were there people down there?

A third World Trade Center building has now collapsed,

the 47-story building number seven.

CBS News correspondent Cami McCormick is there.

Suddenly everyone started screaming,

people started running, panicking because it looked like--

it looked like just a wall of dust coming for us.

The fear on the streets of New York

is matched by the mood of many aboard Air Force One.

I think, just based upon the unknown,

I did have a few moments of real concern that I would never see my family again.

Precautions were being taken on many levels

that had me and, I'm sure, others concerned

that we might not make it through the day.

I remember Colonel Dick Tubb, who is the White House doctor,

he kind of went around to all of us and was giving us these pills.

I looked at him. I said, "Doc, what's this?"

And he says, "It's Cipro. Just take it."

Cipro is a prophylactic against anthrax.

But we had to be ready for everything.

So I take the pills.

I kinda looked around and I said,

"I didn't see anybody else take all the pills."

And so I looked down, and I picked it up,

and it says, "Take one pill each day for the next seven days."

I'd just taken all of them.

And I said to myself-- and I went, "You dumb SOB. You just killed yourself."

I literally thought I'd just killed myself.

Obviously, I came out the other end of this okay.

And so it became a recurring joke about me attempting to OD on Air Force One on 9/11.

As concerns over a second wave of attacks linger,

more shocking news filters through to Air Force One.

An extraordinary piece of information on the Pentagon crash.

Our understanding is that Barbara Olson was on the plane.

A frequent commentator on CNN and the wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson.

When word is broken on the media that Barbara Olson has died, Ted Olson's wife,

it was the one moment where it was sorta hard to keep it together.

It was…

so personal.

Most of the people who worked in the White House knew Ted Olson

and Barbara Olson.

I remember Harriet Miers was a good friend of hers.

And when we learned the news, with all the things going on,

saw the president walk over and put his arm around Harriet

to comfort her in her moment of grief.

I went to bed that night around midnight,

and there was a note on the pillow from Barbara.

"Ted, I love you more than I ever thought it possible to love.

You are my best friend, lover, everything to me.

Happy 61st birthday.

And know that I am thinking of you as you read this.

Sleep well, and I will celebrate with you on Friday.

All my love, Barbara."

Almost nine hours after leaving Florida,

and having flown over 3,000 miles,

the president finally arrives at Andrews Air Force Base

just outside Washington.

The routine was to get off of Air Force One, get on Marine One.

There's always a sense of aura, delight. Not anymore.

You could actually feel just a cold, hard tension.

There was a palpable sense of fear in the air.

There are two Marine Ones.

One is kind of the dummy one.

You're supposed to not know which one the president's on.

I was on the second one,

and I wanted a sign that said, "No, he's on the other one."

We'd fly at treetop level, zigzagging,

because it would be harder for a stinger missile to find us, I guess.

And we zigzag, and we get down to the Potomac River,

and you see the smoke billowing out of the Pentagon.

It was a surreal moment because the Capitol was vacant

except for military checkpoints on major thoroughfares.

And the Pentagon was smoldering in the background.

And it was a war zone.

And it's an image I'll never forget.

Meant I was a wartime president, and I was heading into the zone.

The president looked out his window,

and he said, "The mightiest building in the world is on fire.

That's the 21st-century war you just witnessed."

He said it out loud to no one in particular.

He was collecting his thoughts.

This was a different kind of war.

In the past, America had fought war against nation-states.

They had a capital. They had armies-- standing armies or navies.

In this case, we're at war with a shadow state.

The president and I had talked

about him addressing the nation that night.

I just remember him feeling like

it looked like he was just being chased around the country

and that that did not project the strength and reassurance that people needed.

And so, he was frustrated by that.

The president needs to move forward in a determined fashion…

to deal with the enemy.

When you speak from the Oval Office,

it's a big deal.

We started working on it pretty quickly.

Presidential addresses to the nation typically have a bit more time,

you know, days to be put together.

And this had to be done in hours.

There were pretty tense moments getting ready for the address to the nation.

Clearly tired and stressed-out people

trying to figure out what the next steps were.

This was the first attack on the territory,

the sovereign, homeland territory of the United States,

since the War of 1812.

I felt very much that we had indeed seen the face of evil.

And any moment, it looked as if there might be another attack.

The country was still in shock.

And there was a real struggle or tension about, is it reassurer in chief?

Or commander in chief? Do we need to start hitting the war drums?

The speech, I think, at the beginning, had more reassurance than he wanted.

He wanted a little bit more steel, which is what he got.

President basically has to set the tone,

and George Bush did.

He knew what he wanted.

The changes were necessary to avoid what happened to us on 9/11.

To minimize the risk.

The job of a president is to protect the American people from harm.

Some presidents don't need to worry about that, and some do.

Turns out I was one that did.

Two minutes.

It was very emotional for me

to see the president coming back into the Oval Office.

He was different.

He was a war president.

Dead fly.

-One minute. -Thank you.

I remember thinking,

"Gosh, I was in that office, the Oval Office, three days ago.

And wow.

The curtains are the same. Carpet is the same. Nothing's the same."

Good evening.

Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life,

our very freedom came under attack

in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.

The victims were in airplanes or in their offices.

Secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers,

moms and dads, friends and neighbors.

There were certain things that we felt he had to say immediately.

Things that he wouldn't get a second chance to say.

And the Bush Doctrine,

"If you harbor a terrorist, we'll treat you as a terrorist,"

was one of those things.

We understood that this was bold.

That it had implications.

And so I took the sentence out

and took it to him, and I said, "Do you want to say this?"

And he said, "Yes. I have to say it now."

The search is underway for those who were behind these evil acts.

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.

The inclusion of the Bush Doctrine in the president's speech was an open question

in the minutes before the speech was given,

because it's a very big deal

for the United States to announce that if you're harboring terrorism,

you are now an enemy of the United States.

Killing thousands of Americans, more than we lost at Pearl Harbor.

This was an act of war.

I was the guilty party.

I wanted to be as aggressive as necessary in order to achieve our objective.

And that was to keep the country safe.

Of course we all were hurting. We all were terrified.

War is not something you wanna get into if you can avoid it.

But we tend to be an aggressive nation.

Especially when we have been aggressed against.

When I'm asked about some of the things we did with speed,

I want to say to people, "What would you have done?"

We didn't have time for a lot of consultation

about how we were gonna handle it.

None of us will ever forget this day,

yet we go forward to defend freedom

and all that is good and just in our world.

Thank you. Good night. And God bless America.

Nobody knew then where this was going to end up.

But, one way or another, we were going into battle as a nation.

How, where, and what that would be,

how long it would take,

how big or how small the effort would be, were the things that nobody knew.

We did everything we knew to do.

But 3,000 people died on your watch.

Did we miss something? Could we have connected the dots better?

It just gnaws at you.

And you can never quite get over it

because, by definition, you didn't do enough.

The attack took place.

You know, I've thought about it a lot.

If there's more we could've done,

I'd like somebody to point it out to me what it is.

You can only act on the intelligence you got.

There was a onetime, vague mention of terrorists using airplanes,

but it was not actionable intelligence.

Okay, thank you very much. Let's go, guys.

Thank you. Let's go.

All right. Sad day.

Thanks.

After the longest three days of his presidency,

George Bush flies into downtown Manhattan

to see for himself the scene of devastation for the first time.

As we approached New York, probably five, eight miles out,

the smoke was blowing south.

And the cabin of that helicopter became filled

with this awful, awful smell.

You know, burnt plastic, burnt rubber.

And… And…

human bodies.

No one says a word,

and the pilot of Marine One circles that pillar of smoke.

And we can look down and see the rescue workers.

And then we go over and we land down by Wall Street.

We were the first group that had been down to Ground Zero

other than emergency services personnel.

It was almost like Pompeii.

A sandwich cart abandoned, covered with this dust.

Sandwiches still in it.

Meals still sitting on tables from several days before.

It was just like everything had been frozen in time.

It was like going into hell.

There was a fog of-- There was a stench of death.

Sloshing through water…

It was really, really overpowering.

After we left Ground Zero, we went to the Jacob Javits Center.

And we stop, and the Secret Service opens the door.

And the president gets out, and the advance man is there,

and president says, "What's this?"

"We've gathered some of the families of the policemen and firemen

and emergency workers that are missing down at Ground Zero.

We thought you could say something to them."

It was unbelievably disheartening in many ways

because there were families

who were waiting for their loved ones to come out of the rubble.

And I had just seen the rubble and knew that nobody was coming out.

And so my job there was to provide comfort as best as I could

to people who hoped for the impossible.

The last person I saw was Arlene Howard.

Arlene held this badge.

Her son, George, was off duty that day,

but when things started rolling, he showed up.

Got up, put on his uniform, and went into those buildings and died.

And she took the badge from his corpse, from his dead body,

and gave it to the president of the United States and said,

"I"--

"I want you to always remember."

It meant never forget. Never forget the victims.

It took 20 years

for the date to become meaningless to a lot of people.

And yet, to the people that went through it, it's not.

And that badge reminds us it's not a meaningless date.

Personally, I think it strengthened my faith.

And it certainly strengthened my faith in the American people,

because I saw America at its best.