Daniel Wolfram
Former President George Bush revisited the events of 9/11 alongside former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the eve of the 25th anniversary.
Today is the 25th anniversary of the tragedy that occurred on 9/11, 2001, in New York and Washington D.C., when planes crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The president at the time was George W. Bush, who was in an elementary school classroom in Florida during the attacks.
He just revealed a new untold story about that fateful day.
Getting the news in a classroom in Florida
Former President George W. Bush recently shared new details about the day in 2001 that changed the world. Speaking alongside former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice at Southern Methodist University in Dallas ahead of the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Bush reflected on that tragic day.
The famous photograph of an aide whispering in Bush’s ear about the attacks is immortalized. The former president talked about how he felt in that moment.
“America is now under attack. I didn’t have much time to process that, but it was pretty clear to me that if we were under attack, then my job was to defend the child that was reading to me, and her family, and her country,” Bush said. “And so it was a moment of clarity.”
Flying blind
In the chaotic aftermath of the attacks, government officials had to make drastic decisions without having the full picture. Every plane circling the US had suddenly become a potential weapon.
“You have to understand the hard decisions this man had to make, just like that,” Rice said. “And one of them was what would happen if a plane were not properly identified. Because every plane had become a missile.”
Rice added that shootdown orders were issued. “You had given the order, through the vice president, that should a plane not squawk properly, it should be shot down.”
“Yeah, I thought the same thing,” Bush replied.
Moments of panic
These moments of panic also triggered false reports inside government command centers. “We thought initially that Flight 93 had been shot down…” Rice said. In reality, passengers on the fourth hijacked airliner, which was intended to crash into the White House, had fought back and caused it to crash in a Pennsylvania field.
Later, Bush was rushed into the White House basement after Secret Service agents warned him that they were under attack. A misidentified jet had triggered the panic.
A young airman soon reassured the president. “Don’t worry, sir, it was one of ours.”
“So Dan Caine (an American general) was flying back to Andrews Air Force Base,” Bush explained in a joking manner. “And he had the wrong transponder signal on. And the whole mechanism said ‘final attack.'”
Here are the full remarks from George Bush and Condoleezza Rice.
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