Dawdler In Chief: The Suspicious Behavior Of George W. Bush During The 9/11 Attacks
Dawdler in chief: The suspicious behavior of George W. Bush during the 9/11 attacks
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publ...cle_2403.shtml
By Matthew Everett
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Sep 11, 2007, 00:42
"Sandy Kress, Bush's unpaid education advisor, was puzzled. Bush was always on time. But on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, he seemed to want to linger, talking about politics and mutual friends in Texas." [1] So wrote Ronald Kessler in his account of the Bush presidency, A Matter of Character. The time in question was around 8:30 a.m., a quarter of an hour after American Airlines Flight 11 had broken communication with air traffic controllers. The 9/11 attacks were now underway. While many odd things took place that morning, Kress's observation highlights another curious detail: On September 11, 2001, President Bush was running late.
This would be of little significance were it not for the fact that this behavior was completely out of character for the president. Bush is not known for dawdling. For example, earlier in 2001, CNN's congressional correspondent Jonathan Karl talked of "Bush's reputation for being punctual." [2] According to David Frum, a former speechwriter for the president: "Bush is famous for his punctuality." [3] Sandy Kress has called him "a very punctual person." [4] According to the Washington Post: "Bush's staff, his friends, his family, his wife" all describe him as "an intensely disciplined and focused individual," who "puts a premium on punctuality." [5] The London Times stated it more bluntly: "There has probably never been a president, there may not have been a human being, who observes punctuality with the sort of fanaticism that President George W. Bush brings to every aspect of his life." [6] That was not, however, the case the morning of September 11.
Early morning
As he began that day, there was little that appears unusual in the president's behavior. He'd arrived at the Colony Beach and Tennis Resort on Longboat Key, Florida, at 6:30 p.m. the previous evening, being in Florida as part of an effort to place a national spotlight on education. Bush went to bed early, as was his custom. [7] He'd gotten up just before 6 a.m. the morning of September 11. At 6:30, he went for his daily jog, going four-and-a-half miles around the Longboat Key Golf Club, accompanied by several Secret Service agents, and joined part of the way along by Bloomberg News White House correspondent Richard Keil. After returning to his hotel, the president ate breakfast, showered, and got dressed. Then, for the next hour, he met in his penthouse suite with a series of advisors, including -- at just after 8 a.m. -- receiving his daily CIA briefing. Reportedly, "The heightened threat of terrorism was mentioned this morning," during the briefing, "as it had been nearly every morning since George W. Bush took office." With his CIA briefer the president discussed the latest developments in the Middle East, particularly the Palestinian situation. [8] So far, so good.
Bush only appears to have begun acting out of character after 8:15, which happens to coincide with the time the attacks were beginning, when Flight 11 broke contact with air traffic control. [9] At that time, Bush met with Sandy Kress to go over the details of his planned 9 o'clock visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in nearby Sarasota, where he was set to take part in a reading program demonstration and then address parents and teachers. Also in the meeting were Bush's senior advisor Karl Rove, White House chief of staff Andrew Card, and Secretary of Education Rod Paige. Bush was scheduled to leave the resort at 8:30 a.m. for the drive to the school. But, Kress has recalled, he "was just sitting back and wanting to talk for a bit." According to Kress: "I've never known him to be late. But I remember we finished the briefing on that fateful day, and we continued to talk for another ten minutes about people and politics in Texas. The time to leave came and passed." Kress added: "That struck me as unusual." [10] It appears that Bush was dawdling.
After finally leaving his penthouse suite, the president took the elevator down. Despite the fact that he was now running late, he stopped to have his photo taken with a hotel maintenance worker as he stepped out of the elevator. According to journalist and author Bill Sammon, Bush only then got into his limousine to head for Sarasota after "much shaking of hands and posing for pictures and saying pleasant things to local VIPs who had been invited to the Colony to see him off." For the second time, it appears that George W. Bush was dawdling. Sammon, who was traveling with the president that morning, reported that Bush set off for the school at 8:39 a.m. [11] The president "famous for his punctuality" was running nine minutes late.
Driving to school
As the president's motorcade headed toward Sarasota, Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Yet, supposedly, no one informed Bush of this until he arrived at the school, nearly 10 minutes later. Robert Plunket, a journalist with Sarasota Magazine who was waiting at the school that morning, later commented: "It mystifies me why they didn't call the president -- he's totally surrounded by state of the art communications equipment and nobody tells him." [12] Journalist and author James Bamford has said: "Despite having a secure STU-III phone next to him in the presidential limousine and an entire national security staff at the White House, it appears that the president of the United States knew less than tens of millions of other people in every part of the country who were watching the attack as it unfolded." [13]
In spite of the delay in setting out, the president's limousine arrived at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School at 8:55 a.m., in time for the 9 o'clock appointment. As Bush later remarked: "We're on time -- I like to stay on time; I like to be crisp." [14] As soon as the motorcade stopped, Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, briefed the president. Loewer had been in a vehicle behind the president's and, unlike Bush, learned of the WTC crash during the journey, in a phone call from the Situation Room. "As soon as the motorcade stopped," Loewer has said, "I ran up to the president's limousine and I briefed the president and [chief of staff Andrew] Card of just that information. [Bush] asked me to keep him informed and I said, 'Yes, sir, Mr. President.'" [15]
Waiting at the school was a small greeting committee, which, among others, included two Republican congressmen, Adam Putnam and Dan Miller. A White House staffer had informed them that the president had an important call to take from Condoleezza Rice. According to Putnam, they had been told: "When he arrives, and he'll be here in a minute, he's going to walk past you. He's not being rude; he's just got to take this phone call." Yet in spite of apparently having already been informed of the crash at the WTC (by Loewer), Bush seemed far from eager to take the call. According to Putnam: "Well, he comes up and does not go past us. He stops and talks with us, having a good chat with the teacher of the year." (This was Edwina Oliver, who was also part of the greeting committee.) Andrew Card said: "Mr. President. You have a phone call from National Security Advisor Rice you need to take." According to Putnam, Bush "says OK. [But he] goes on talking with the teacher of the year. 'I'll be right there.' Card comes back to him, grabs him by the arm and says, 'Mr. President, you need to take this call right now.'" [16] For the third time that morning, George W. Bush was dawdling. Florida Lieutenant Governor Frank Brogan, another member of the greeting committee, described: "The president stepped away from our group and spoke quietly into the phone for a minute or two. When he returned, he said he had just learned that a plane had collided with one of the towers of the World Trade Center. While this was terrible news, there was no hint of the magnitude of what was happening, so nobody was unduly alarmed." [17] Recalling the incident, Dan Miller said: "I don't think he was aware at the time, maybe, of the seriousness." [18]
Based on what he was initially told about the crash, the president has claimed he'd thought it was due to "pilot error." He'd said to Andrew Card that the pilot "must have had a heart attack." [19] Bush later recalled: "I was concerned about it, but there were no alarm bells." [20]
The photo op begins
At around 9:02 a.m., just before the second aircraft hit the World Trade Center, President Bush entered the second-grade classroom of teacher Sandra Kay Daniels, where 16 young children were waiting to read to him. After being introduced to them, the president sat down and the children commenced their reading demonstration. [21] Then, at around 9:05-9:07, Andrew Card entered the room and walked across to where Bush was sitting. He leaned down and whispered in the president's ear, reportedly telling him: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." [22]
After delivering this extraordinary news, Card stood up and immediately backed away, taking up a position next to Frank Brogan at the side of the room. According to Bill Sammon, based on his exclusive interviews with the president:
Bush wondered whether he should excuse himself and retreat to the holding room, where he might be able to find out what the hell was going on. But what kind of message would that send -- the president abruptly getting up and walking out on a bunch of inner-city second-graders at their moment in the national limelight? Bush might look rattled, or worse, panicked. The last thing the nation needed at this moment was a panicked president. Such an image might even play into the hands of the attackers. No, better to remain calm and sit tight for now. Bush sensed that his demeanor would be almost as important as his actions in these first crucial moments. [23]
So, rather than excusing himself from the classroom and assuming his critical responsibilities in helping to protect his country, "The president briefly turned somber before he resumed reading." [24] As James Bamford described:
Having just been told that the country was under attack, the commander in chief appeared uninterested in further details. He never asked if there had been any additional threats, where the attacks were coming from, how to best protect the country from further attacks, or what was the current status of NORAD [the North American Aerospace Defense Command] or the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Nor did he call for an immediate return to Washington. Instead, in the middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he simply turned back to the matter at hand: the day's photo op. Precious minutes were ticking by, and many more lives were still at risk. [25]
Now that it was clear that America was under attack and needed its president immediately, it is far more difficult to dismiss George W. Bush's continued dawdling as some kind of accident. As the Arlington Heights Daily Herald pointed out: "on that day, Bush's presence made even the planned reading event a perceived target." In fact, according to the Daily Herald: "Because the well-publicized event at the school assured Bush's location that day was no secret, the dense White House security urged school officials to send students home." [26] Apparently, they did not do this right away, as the president remained at the school for over half an hour after the second attack occurred.
If Bush himself was unwilling to excuse himself from the classroom, surely his Secret Service agents should have removed him from there. They were there, after all, for the purpose of protecting him. As the St. Petersburg Times reported: "Police and Secret Service agents were on the roof, on horseback and in every hallway" of the school for the president's visit. [27] In fact, according to the Tampa Tribune, the reason the classroom of Sandra Kay Daniels had been selected for the visit was "not because [she and her students] fulfilled some complicated formula; her classroom merely was situated next to the school's north door, making it easier to organize elaborate security." [28] Yet, now there was an urgent need for elaborate security arrangements to be implemented, the Secret Service was as complacent as the president. "For some reason, Secret Service agents did not bustle [the president] away," wrote Canada's Globe and Mail. [29]
According to author Philip Melanson, who was an expert on the Secret Service, as soon as the second plane hit the World Trade Center, the Secret Service should have whisked Bush out of the school. Melanson said: "With an unfolding terrorist attack, the procedure should have been to get the president to the closest secure location as quickly as possible, which clearly is not a school. You're safer in that presidential limo, which is bombproof and blastproof and bulletproof." [30]
Commander in chief
According to the U.S. Department of Defense: "Orders for military operations emanate from the National Command Authority -- i.e., the president and the secretary of defense. The president, as commander in chief of the armed forces, is the ultimate authority." [31] Which leads us to another reason why Bush should immediately have been evacuated. As Melanson continued: "In the presidential limo, the communications system is almost duplicative of the White House." Therefore, Bush could have done "almost anything from there, but he can't do much sitting in a school." [32]
So, with America under attack, the commander in chief of the armed forces remained motionless in a classroom. According to Bill Sammon, as he sat there, "The president's mind raced with more questions. How could this have happened? Who could have perpetrated such a diabolical crime? No, this was more than a crime. This was war, plain and simple. Someone had suddenly declared war against the United States of America, the mightiest nation on earth." Bush later told Sammon: "Victory clicked into my mind. The one thing that became certain is that we wouldn't let this stand. I mean, there was no question in my mind that we'd respond. I wasn't sure who the attacker was. But if somebody is going to attack America, I knew that my most immediate job was to protect America by finding him and getting them." [33] Yet if George W. Bush indeed realized it was his "immediate job" to "protect America," then his actions in the subsequent minutes are devastating.
End Part I
