Then-President George W. Bush recalled a televised statement he made from an elementary school in Florida on the morning of September 11, 2001, after hearing of the first attacks of the morning. ” ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. …Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent […]
Category: quotes
9/11/2001
On the morning of September 11, 2001, “Confusion reached such a high level that the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] admitted to the White House officials who wanted to bring the President [Bush] back to Washington that the agency could not account for seven planes. In fact, four of those planes turned out to be the […]
9/10/2001
“We have found no indication of any further discussion before September 11 among the President and his top advisers [Since August 6, 2001] of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI [Director of Central Intelligence] Tenet visited President Bush in Crawford, Texas, on August 17 and participated […]
9/10/2001
“The intercepts [of al Qaeda plotters, made by the National Security Agency (NSA) on September 10, 2001] were the main reason President Bush so readily pointed to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda as the terrorists who planned and carried out the [9/11] attacks. The intelligence community, through anonymous spokesmen, said analysts were not sure […]
9/10/2001
On September 12, 2001, Acting Director of the FBI Thomas Pickard received a letter from Attorney General John Ashcroft. “It was a denial of his request for more money for the counter terrorism division. The letter was dated September 10, 2001.” – Philip Shenon, The Commission, Page 248 […]
9/10/2001
“On September 10, 2001…two messages in Arabic were intercepted in the course of transmission from Afghanistan to Saudi Arabia. Both rang the al-Qaeda bell and were retrieved for translation and analysis. When they were read two days later one said, ‘Tomorrow is zero hour,’ and the other, ‘The match begins tomorrow.’ ” – Thomas Powers, […]
9/10/2001
“No president eight months into his term had ever had a lower approval rating in the polls than George W. Bush had on September 10, 2001. Within weeks his approval rating was higher than that ever enjoyed by an American president.” – Ian S. Lustick, Trapped in the War on Terror, Page 62 […]
9/10/2001
“Attorney General John Ashcroft made terrorism a second- or even a third-tier issue, and as late as September 10 [2001], turned down a request from the FBI to increase its counterterrorism budget by $58 million.” – John Miller, Michael Stone, and Chris Mitchell, The Cell, Page 297 […]
9/10/2001
“The FBI issued 216 internal threat warnings about the possibility of an attack by al Qaeda between January [1] and September [10] 2001, while the National Security Agency reported 33 intercepts indicating possible al Qaeda attacks.” – Ahmed Rashid, Descent Into Chaos, Page 59 […]
9/10/2001
“As the summer dragged on and it became increasingly clear that al Qaeda was going to strike against the U.S., possibly within the U.S., [President] Bush tasked the CIA and the military to come up with a strategy to invade Afghanistan and neutralize bin Laden. The plan, completed on September 10 [2001], was lying on […]