9-11 Interview with George W. Bush (Full Episode) - Documentary Special - National Geographic.

September the 11th was a monumental day in our nation's history, a significant day and it was obviously, it changed my presidency. I went from being a president that was primarily focused on domestic issues to a wartime president. Something I never anticipated nor something I ever wanted to be. I started my morning off with a morning run and I can remember running on the golf course of this resort where I was staying and it was pretty dark. And I'm sure some of the people associated with the hotel looked out the window and saw these headlights illuminating a path for a runner saying who is this nut out there running? So I went for a good long run. Got back and got my security briefing and I remember clearly of how normal it seemed. I can't remember the exact topics but there was nothing out of the ordinary. And then went to the school to tout this curriculum. It was all part of our plan to highlight education reform. This just in to our newsroom, a plane has crashed into the World Trade Center. I had been notified that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. At first I thought it was a light aircraft and my reaction was man, either the weather was bad or something extraordinary happened to the pilot. I then informed some of my staff members to provide help to New York City, whatever help they needed to take care of this incident and then walked into the classroom. The classroom was full of kids who were reading. And in the back of the classroom was a full press corps and staffers and some adults. And I'm intently listening to the lesson and I felt a presence behind me. And Andy Card's Massachusetts accent was whispering in my ear, a second plane has hit the second tower, America is under attack. My first reaction was anger, you know, who the hell would do that to America? And then I immediately focused on the children and the contrast between the notion of an attack and the innocence of children clarified my job and that's to protect people. Instantly after that the press corps started getting the calls and it was like watching a silent movie. In the back of the room reporters were on their cell phones, they were getting the same message I got. Which meant that a lot of people would be watching my reactions to this crisis. So I made the decision not to jump up immediately. I didn't want to leave the classroom, I didn't want to rattle the kids. I wanted to project a sense of calm. I was immediately escorted out of the classroom to the holding room and started making some phone calls and watched footage from New York City. Disaster in New York City this morning, both towers of the World Trade Center have been hit by aircraft, both are in flames, both suffered explosions. Obviously I was horrified like everybody else but unlike everybody else I had a job to do at that particular moment. I had been in enough crises as governor to know that the first thing the leader of an organization or state or country has got to do is project calm. Because if the leader is not calm it's likely many others won't be calm either. So I hastily scribbled a statement and went into a classroom full of parents who were expecting to hear the president say man what a great reading program you have. Instead heard the president say America has been attacked. Please ensure all cell phones and pagers are off at this time, thank you. Ladies and gentlemen this is a difficult moment for America. A lot of times the president is placed in a bubble or a capsule. In this case I was able to see the reactions of our fellow citizens, the shock, the concern, the horror, the worry. Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. And I didn't linger much in the classroom after I'd given my statement because the Secret Service was anxious to get me on the move. I was immediately whisked away from the school, put into the armored limo that always follows the president. We're flying down the highway. Many of the senior members of my team who were in the west wing were hustled into what's called the PEOC, an underground bunker in the White House. Condi Rice was there, of course Vice President Cheney was there. So I immediately tried to make contact with them and did. Although I must tell you the communication system was not very effective. I told them I'd stay put, they'd be hearing from me and I'd be heading home. And Condi calls me from the secure bunker and says a third plane has hit the Pentagon. Also there is a fire and an explosion at the Pentagon this morning. The very seat of our nation's defense apparently been targeted for another terrorist attack. I remember thinking the first one was likely an accident, the second one was an attack, and the third plane was a declaration of war. Right now it looks like a war zone. The first task at hand was to respond to the attacks and to prevent other attacks from happening as best as we could. I got to the base of the plane and the whole situation looked different. People were armed, the stewardesses at the top of the stairs were sad and concerned and frightened. I remember giving a big hug and saying everything will be alright. And I said let's go to Washington, I wanted to be in Washington D.C. as a commander in chief at a time of war. And I needed to be in the capital making the decisions necessary to protect the homeland and recover from the initial attacks. Once we got on that plane they cranked Air Force One up and took us straight up. We're headed toward Washington and I feel the plane back. And Andy Card, Eddie Morenzo, the head of the Secret Service, came and said, you're not going back to Washington. I said, what the hell are you talking about? I'm the President of the United States, we're going back, I need to be there. And President Bush is not returning to Washington, the White House is not saying where he is heading, but the President was out of Washington at the time. I wasn't happy about it and I told him, we're going to Washington. And then they held their ground because they felt it would be irresponsible for me to head back into a city that had just been attacked when in fact we didn't know what else might come. I got Air Force One over here at the Bruton sector and he's been given clearance to go where he wants to, so be on standby, he may be heading your way. Okay, thanks a lot. He's about five minutes from Crestview and we don't know what he's going to do when he gets there. Alright, thank you. When the third plane hit the Pentagon, the magnitude of the attacks grew dramatically. I came to the conclusion that we were at war. The White House has been threatened with a terrorist attack. These incidents are happening so quickly, relatively speaking, that my first focus was what can we do to stop attacks and how do we respond to those that happen. If I could break in for just a moment, this late word just coming in to us, the FAA has closed off all airports across the country, no takeoffs. We realized that the enemy was using commercial aircraft or aircraft to attack us. All airports nationwide shut down. And the best way at that point in time to protect our country was to force every airplane down. And therefore, any airplane left up would be viewed as potentially hostile. Not only was I having trouble communicating with people on the ground, the images of the attacks were kind of flickered back and forth on the TV. I was very frustrated, of course. We'd be flying through these TV zones and you'd see images of 9-11, of the incidents on 9-11. And then as we got out of the covers, they'd die off. There was a lot of sadness on Air Force One. We'd seen the images of people dying and I just knew the heartbreak that was ravaging families. The most powerless I ever felt was when I was watching people jump to their death on TV and there was nothing I could do about it. We didn't know if there were other planes that had been hijacked. So the first decision I made on Air Force One was to give our Air Force orders to shoot down commercial aircraft that did not respond to orders to land. It would have been awfully difficult for an Air Force pilot to shoot down a commercial airliner full of our citizens. And yet that was the decision I made because I thought it was the best way to protect the country at that point in time. I was informed that the fourth plane, Flight 93, went down in a field in rural Pennsylvania. And for a moment I thought that plane might have gone down because of the order I had given. It took a while for us to get the information on Flight 93, but eventually we learned about the heroics of the passengers on that airplane. It became apparent we were facing a new kind of enemy. This is what war was like in the 21st century. You really don't know what it's like to be a wartime president until the moment occurs. I never campaigned on, you know, please elect me, I'll be the kind of wartime chief you'll be proud of. The war came upon us unexpectedly. And at that point in time, you just deal with the issues. And there's a certain gravity, of course, that comes when you start making decisions that involve life. This wasn't one of these moments where you can weigh the consequences or think about the politics. You decide. And I made the decisions as best I could in the fog of war. But I was determined. Determined to protect the country. And I was determined to find out who did it and go get them. Okay, I'll just show Air Force One westbound. He's radar contact 2577. Yeah, don't question about where he's going. Just watch him and there's no flight plan in right now. We're not going to put anything in. Copy that. Thank you. I was frustrated I wasn't at the command center in Washington. I was frustrated that I was flying around the country. I was frustrated we'd been attacked. And I was frustrated the communications system wasn't working any good. But in a moment of crisis like this, it's important not to be frustrated. It's important to be focused on the task at hand, which was to gather information and make decisions. In this case, on how to protect the country and respond to the attacks. Then the president was actually moved. We don't know where the president is. He was out of Washington at the time of these terror attacks. He was in Florida and then he was moved. One of my concerns, like the concerns of other husbands and our wives, was was my spouse okay? Was Laura okay? And my second concern was were our girls okay? It took a while to find her. She was in a secure location. And it was awesome to hear her comforting voice. And she had talked to the girls and they were secure. So that was a relief for me. As I flew around, it dawned on me that we were the only plane left. I looked out the window and we had armed escorts. Because you don't want the president flying back into an environment that is dangerous. And if something were to happen to me, it would have been a major blow for the terrorists. Because it would have killed the president of the United States in a time of war. And so I said all right. Reluctantly said all right. And we headed to Barksdale Air Force Base in Shreveport, Louisiana. You got anything I wanted? No, you can have whatever you need, brother, because we don't have anything. We landed at Barksdale and it was surreal. Because Barksdale was in the midst of an exercise that utilized armed bombers. And so we landed on this base full of armed bombers that were being heavily guarded by armed troops. And it was like flying in the midst of a combat zone itself. And we got in a vehicle and the kid driving the thing is going, felt like 100 miles an hour. I mean we're bouncing along, charging along. Finally I told the guy, I said slow down, Al Qaeda's not here. That's about as humorous a moment as the day had. The American people are getting inundated with pictures of collapsing buildings and smoldering Pentagon. People jumping to their death. It's just unspeakable horror on their TV screens. And they needed to know that the president was one, safe, and two, along with the government on top of the situation. All major branches of the United States government evacuated this morning. The Pentagon has been evacuated. And the scene here is just one right out of one of those movies. Holding their heads, looking up at what's left of them, shaking their heads in disbelief. I made my statement. They refueled the airplane. We trimmed down the traveling party on Air Force One. And we're headed to Offutt Air Force Base. Freedom itself was attacked this morning by a faceless coward. And Freedom will be defended. The full resources of the federal government are working to assist local authorities to save lives and to help the victims of these attacks. Our military at home and around the world is on high alert status. The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake, we will show the world that we will pass this test. That is President Bush. Now that, by the way, just to point out what is going on, was actually taped earlier. The president made that statement. It was videotaped. We just heard it. And then the president was actually moved. He apparently is being obviously well protected. The decision was made to go to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska by the military and the Secret Service because they figured this was the safest place for me to be. Very secure bunker there. There's a lot of communications there. When we landed it in Nebraska, we got hustled off to the secure bunkers. They had a conference room in it and I had assembled my national security team via the video conferencing tools at Offutt. And I got a report for how each department was responding to the crises. My question was who did it? The head of the CIA, George Tenet, believed it was the Al Qaeda. They had the earmarks of an Al Qaeda attack. But Tenet wasn't that definitive yet. So my first indication it could be Al Qaeda was during the national security meeting in Offutt Air Force Base. It's during this moment that I made the decision I'm going back to Washington over the objections of just about everybody else. I'd had it. I'd said I need to get home. A lot had developed. It was important to wrap the day up with a presidential speech assuring people that the government was functioning and responding and that we would take the appropriate actions necessary to protect our country. And I damn sure wasn't going to give it from a bunker in Nebraska. I wanted to give it from the Oval Office. I didn't want the enemy to have the psychological victory of a president speaking from a bunker in the heartland of our country. And not speaking from the capital that had been attacked. So I told the head of the Secret Service and others I'm coming home. And they prepared the flight and off we went. Air Force One, turn left at the end. Contact ground point A. Air Force One copies. Air Force One, you're best approved. President Bush arrived back in Washington a few moments ago to essentially a silent city, Washington, D.C., much like the lower part of Manhattan. As we lifted off out of Andrews Air Force Base on Marine One, I could see the smoke of the Pentagon. And I remember thinking, here I am, the commander-in-chief in a war zone. We'd been attacked by an enemy right here in the heart of our capital. The Marine One pilot took evasive action, flying this thing as if we are in a war zone. And we came pretty close to the Pentagon. It was an eerie sight to look down. And the contrast was unbelievable. Between a vibrant city and a city that had been shut down because of an attack. President Bush is back at the White House. He went directly to the Oval Office. We're now told we'll be speaking about an hour from now at 8.30. There was a debate in Washington about whether or not we should declare war. And I made the decision not to declare war that night. I did make it clear that we were going to protect the homeland. We were going to bring justice. I headed back to the White House, to the PEOC. The Vice President was there and a couple of other senior staffers were there. And I saw Laura. I gave the big hug. We didn't need to say a lot. The hug was all that was necessary. 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. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. I felt I needed to strike the right balance between comforting and grieving and going on the offense. The search is underway for those who are behind these evil acts. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them. So the Oval Office speech was as close to a declaration of war as we could get without declaring war. This is a day when all Americans from every walk of life unite in our resolve for justice and peace. America has stood down enemies before and we will do so this time. I had a long day. I knew I needed rest. And I couldn't sleep. I was thinking about the images, thinking about what I needed to do, thinking about the day, thinking about the next day. And I heard a guy breathing heavily. And it's Mr. President. Mr. President, you've got to come now. The White House is under attack. I grabbed Laura. I grabbed Barney, the Scottish terrier. Spot the Springer Spaniel follows and off we go. Agents in front of us. Agents behind us. And Laura and me. People armed with automatic weapons. And we're hustling along and finally get back into the secure bunker. And an Air Force enlisted personnel comes walking around. And he's consoling us. What the hell's going on? He said, oh, don't worry, Mr. President. It's one of ours. I think it was an F-16 fighter that had been protecting the capital, was flying back to Andrews and had the wrong transponder signal on. And so the whole system thought it was the final aircraft coming to the White House. So a day that began in Florida with a jog ended with Laura, me, Barney and Spot trudging back upstairs to get in our own bed and finally get some rest. I don't think I could have possibly understood. I don't think it was possible to anticipate the days ahead. I knew they'd be emotional. I knew they'd be consequential. And I knew I had to do my job, but I wasn't exactly sure how they would unfold. On September the 12th, after recovering from the initial shock of the day, people realized that we were in a different kind of war. There's a group of thugs who used American assets to kill thousands of citizens on our own soil. That was a new reality. One of the things that changed on September the 11th is the notion that we were protected by oceans. In the past, conflict would take place in remote lands. We felt pretty secure at home. It became apparent that the shock was profound. People were afraid to go to work. People were afraid to leave their homes. Airlines weren't flying. The banks were closed. I mean, our society, in many aspects, just shut down. The task at hand was one to recover from the attacks, save lives in the rubble if possible, dig through the damage done, and secondly was to begin to help the nation heal psychologically. Going to the site of the death, I was going to the Pentagon. It was part of the healing process. Thank you, sir. I was deeply concerned that a second wave, a second attack, as a result of some sleeper cells in the United States, would inflict tremendous psychological damage. I knew we felt we could recover from the first wave of attacks, but the second wave of attacks would have been unbelievably devastating. So we were deeply concerned about further attacks. What became apparent to me is that we needed more information on Al Qaeda. It became apparent to everybody. At some point in time, in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, I thought about why didn't we know this? I knew we needed to figure out what went wrong, and so to prevent other attacks, but I didn't want to start the finger pointing and say to our intelligence communities, you fouled up, you should have caught this, why didn't you know? My attitude was that we now have a job to do, and that is to go find these people and bring them to justice, and therefore we needed our intelligence community looking forward, not backward. There's a lot of speculation about whether or not Iraq was involved in the attacks or not involved in the attacks. As I recall, the first real discussions about Iraq and their involvement or potential involvement in the attacks took place on September the 15th at Camp David, and I made the decision that we would deal with Iraq later on. The task at hand was Al Qaeda, which was in Afghanistan. I felt it was important to go on the offense. As I said, we're going to bring them to justice before they hurt us again. We will find them. During that period of time, I uttered the rather infamous phrase, Osama bin Laden dead or alive. People criticized me for that, maybe some in my own household for being a little blunt, but at that point in time, I was determined to send a message to the enemy, to our allies, and to our own country that the United States should be relentless in our pursuit of justice. September the 11th affected my presidency, and it caused me to make many decisions, some of which were extremely controversial, were designed to protect the homeland. I didn't have a strategy. I was living day by day. I realized on September the 11th I was a wartime president. On September the 12th, I acted in my duties as a wartime president. President Bush has just now landed in New York City, and then he will be transported to Ground Zero to view the death and destruction caused by Tuesday's terror attack. We headed down into the site itself, the site being the place where the Twin Towers had stood. From the air, it looked like a giant scar, but when you actually got to the site, it was like walking into hell. There was still smoke in the air, water on the ground, it was dim, it was dark, and all your senses were on alert. It was an ugly scene. And there were firefighters, police men and women, and rescue workers lining the way in. I decided I was going to shake every hand. I got a look in everybody's eye. I could see bloodshot eyes from people that were working overtime. As I worked my way down, people started saying, you know, you get them. There was palpable blood. These workers were interested in finding out whether or not we were going to go and find that enemy and bring him justice. That's what they wanted to know. Just before I got up on this pile of rubble, that turned out to be a destroyed fire truck, somebody handed me a megaphone. I didn't have any prepared remarks, but I knew I could cobble something together in front of the crowd that would comfort and reassure them. I want you all to know, I can't go any louder. I want you all to know that America today, America today is on bended knee in prayer for the people whose lives were lost here, for the workers who work here, for the families who mourn. This nation stands with the good people of New York City and New Jersey and Connecticut. I was up there trying to say something about how we cared about them and the country was supporting them. I kept screaming, I can't hear you, I can't hear you. And I yelled back through the megaphone, I hear you, the world hears you and the people who did this will soon hear from us. I can hear you and the people... The terrorists never won. They may have thought they won. They inflicted terrible damage on people's lives and on our economy. They were never going to defeat America. They just didn't understand us. They didn't know that we were a nation of compassionate, kind people who were very courageous and would not yield to their barbaric tactics. On September the 11th, thousands of our citizens lost their life and I vowed that day that it wasn't going to happen again. I was in a restaurant in Dallas, eating dinner with Laura. The Secret Service told me I had a phone call from the White House coming in in about 20 minutes. I decided to take the call at the House and President Obama called me, told me that Osama bin Laden had been killed. And my response was I congratulated him and the special operators that conducted a very dangerous mission. Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden. And so I was grateful. I didn't feel any great sense of happiness or jubilation. I felt a sense of closure and I felt a sense of gratitude that justice had been done. Eventually, September the 11th will be, you know, a date on the calendar. It'll be like Pearl Harbor Day. For those of us who lived through it, it'll be a day we'll never forget.