“On Sept. 19 and 20 [2001], the Defense Policy Board, a prestigious bipartisan board of national security experts that advises the Pentagon, met for 19 hours to discuss the ramifications of the attacks of Sept. 11. The members of the group agreed on the need to turn to Iraq as soon as the initial phase […]
Category: quotes
9/20/2001
“To [U.K. Prime Minister] Tony Blair’s urging, during a dinner at the White House on September 20 [2001], that the focus ought to remain on overthrowing the Taliban, [President] Bush responded, ‘I agree with you, Tony. We must deal with this first. But when we have dealt with Afghanistan, we must come back to Iraq.’ […]
9/19/2001
“In the early afternoon of September 19 [2001], a call came from Logan Emergency Operations Center saying that the private charter aircraft was going to pick up members of the bin Laden family. ‘We were in the midst of the worst terrorist act in history,’ [director of aviation at Boston’s Logan Airport, Tom] Kinton said. […]
9/19/2001
“On September 19 [2001], [President] Bush declares war: ‘Our war on terror…will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.’ However, the Visa Express program, through which Saudis are allowed to get a visa without even appearing at a consulate, is allowed to continue.” – Craig Unger, House […]
9/19/2001
In a session convened by Chairman of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle on September 19, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said: “It was important to topple the Taliban as quickly as the U.S. could, but that would not be enough. The United States needed to do more to demonstrate that there were serious […]
9/19/2001
In a message to combatant commanders in the counterterrorism campaign, on September 19, 2001, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said he was looking for three objectives: ” ‘1. Targets worldwide, such as UBL [Usama bin Laden] Al Qaida cells in regions outside Afghanistan and even outside the Middle East. …It will be important to indicate […]
9/19/2001
“Soon after 9/11, the President [Bush] had declared that the war [on terror] was not directed against Islam. In reiterating that point, [Secretary of Defense Donald] Rumsfeld [in a memo written on September 19, 2001] explored the idea that the war on terrorism was, in part, a civil war within the world of Islam: ‘The […]
9/19/2001
“Sep 19, 2001: Late on this day, the agency [Federal Aviation Administration] permitted limited resumption of general aviation Part 91 operations under Visual Flight Rules (VFR). Exceptions included flight in Enhanced Class B (ECB) airspace, meaning that VFR flying was not allowed over, through, or ‘under the shelf’ of the Class B airspace category surrounding […]
9/19/2001
According to an article in The New York Times on September 19, 2001: “All of bin Laden’s statements [following 9/11] received wide dissemination around the world, yet in the Middle East a commonly held view remains that the Trade Center attacks were not the work of Arab terrorists, but the work of–you guessed it–the Jews. […]
9/19/2001
“[A] hard-line Islamic cleric in Karachi [Pakistan] who condemned the terrorist attacks in the United States as ‘wrong’ for killing innocent people changed tack abruptly and issued a religious decree, or fatwa, calling for a ‘holy war’ against an American military operation from Pakistan and against [President] General [Pervez] Musharraf. ‘It is un-Islamic for any […]