A few hours after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, President Bush spoke with CIA briefer Michael Morell. ” ‘Who do you think did this?’ Bush asked. ‘There are two terror states capable, Iran and Iraq, but both have everything to lose and nothing to gain,’ Morell said. ‘If I had to guess I’d […]
Category: quotes
9/11/2001
“At Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, President Bush convened the first meeting of the National Security Council for the terrorist crisis at 3:30 p.m. [on September 11, 2001]. [CIA director George] Tenet reported with near certainty that bin Laden was behind the attacks. Passenger manifests showed three known al Qaeda operatives had been on […]
9/11/2001
“According to [Vice President Dick] Cheney’s Meet the Press interview with Tim Russert on September 16 [2001], [on the morning of September 11, 2001] the Secret Service evacuated him from his office in response to ‘a report that an airplane was headed for the White House…which turned out to be Flight 77.’ As Cheney told […]
9/11/2001
“The attacks of September 11 [2001] represented the greatest failure of intelligence since the Trojan horse. Each of the nation’s spy agencies was responsible in part, but after an eighteen-month investigation, the evidence presented…shows that the FBI in particular had multiple opportunities to stop the devastation of 9/11 and simply failed to follow through.” – […]
9/11/2001
On the evening of September 11, 2001, “The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, issued a denial [of bin Laden’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks] through a spokesman in Kandahar [Afghanistan], Abdul Hai Mutmain: ‘Mullah Omar condemns this act. Mullah Omar says Osama is not responsible. We have brought peace to this country and we […]
9/11/2001
As the hijackers checked in at Dulles International Airport (Washington, D.C.) on the morning of September 11, 2001, Hani Hanjour was “flagged by CAPPS [Computer-Assisted Passenger Prescreening System], and the Hazmi brothers [Nawaf and Salem] were flagged by the American Airlines ticket agent because one of them had no photo identification and could not understand […]
9/11/2001
At 9:56 a.m. on September 11, 2001, “The president [Bush] leaves Sarasota, Florida. He later says that he doesn’t make any major decisions about how to respond to the 9/11 attacks until he’s in his airborne command center. This means, in effect, that the commander in chief takes almost fifty minutes after being informed that […]
9/11/2001
“Four hours after a third airline crashed into the Pentagon on September 11 [2001], [Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld asked his staff how the United States might be able to ‘go after Iraq as a response.’ ” – Ian S. Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror, Page 63 […]
9/11/2001
On the afternoon of September 11, 2001, President Bush spoke from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska with his advisers in Washington, D.C., via videoconference. ” ‘We’re at war,’ Bush began. ‘We will find these people and they will suffer the consequence of taking on this nation. We will do what it takes.’ ” – […]
9/11/2001
On the morning of September 11, 2001, “At 9:25, [Federal Aviation Administration’s head Jane] Garvey, in an historic and admirable step, and almost certainly after getting an okay from the White House, initiated a national ground stop, which forbids takeoffs and requires planes in the air to get down as soon as reasonable. The order, […]