Posted on 09/10/2006 4:23:55 PM PDT by Wolfstar
PRESIDENTIAL NEWS OF THE DAY: President and Mrs. Bush, and the American people, begin observances of the 5th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorists attacks. Excerpt from the AP story by JENNIFER LOVEN, as published on Yahoo News a short time ago.
Bush, wife lay wreaths at ground zeroNEW YORK -- President Bush and his wife Laura stood in somber silence on Sunday after laying wreaths at the ground zero site where the twin towers of the World Trade Center once stood. They honored the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on a tour that will take them to all three sites of devastation on the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
The Bushes set floral wreaths adrift in ponds of water that mark the former location of the north and south towers. They uttered no words, and walked hand-in-hand on the floor of the cavernous pit, after a slow procession down the long, flag-lined ramp from the street level four to five stories above.
The Bushes then attended a service of prayer and remembrance at nearby St. Paul's Chapel.
The 240-year-old Episcopal church, across the street from the site, escaped damage and became a center of refuge for weary rescue workers.
They were the first stops of nearly 24 hours of observances at the three sites where terrorists wrought death and destruction and transformed his presidency. Nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the attacks.
On Monday, the anniversary, he was to visit with firefighters and other emergency workers at a firehouse in lower Manhattan; attend a ceremony at the field in Shanksville, Pa., where one of the hijacked planes hurtled to the ground; and participate in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Pentagon.
He also was to speak to Americans during a prime-time address Monday night from the Oval Office.
Accompanying the president and first lady at ground zero were New York Gov. George Pataki, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Rudy Giuliani, who was New York mayor at the time of the attacks.
September 11, 2001, presidential pre-attack timeline, and a little known incident that may have been a foiled assassination attempt...
The President flew to Sarasota, Florida, on September 10th. He stayed at the Colony Beach Resort located on a coral island in the Gulf of Mexico off Sarasota. After a private dinner with his brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush, other Republican politicians and activists, the President went to bed around 10:00pm.Surface-to-air missiles were placed on the roof of the resort (Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02), and an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane circled high overhead (Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism—From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 25). The Secret Service does not make public its detailed security practices, so the public record does not clarify if this type of protection was standard for presidents at the time, or whether security was increased because of possible threats on the life of President Bush in particular. However, an incident the following morning suggests it was due to threats.
On the morning of September 11, President Bush awoke a little before 6:00am. About a half-hour later, he took a four-mile job around a nearby golf course accompanied by a reporter friend and his Secret Service detail.
At about the same time GWB was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony’s guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled “poolside” interview with the President. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn’t heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the President’s public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. (Longboat Observer, 9/26/01)
The Secret Service may have foiled an assassination attempt. Two days earlier, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan’s Northern Alliance, had been murdered by a similar ruse. Massoud's assassination is widely believed to have been timed to remove the Taliban’s most popular and respected opponent in anticipation of the backlash that would occur after the 9/11 attacks. (BBC, 9/10/01, BBC, 9/10/01 (B), Time, 8/4/02, St. Petersburg Times, 9/9/02)
After his jog, GWB showered, then sat down for his daily intelligence briefing around 8 a.m. While the President was being briefed, the planes that would be hijacked began taking off. American Airlines Flight 11 was first, leaving Boston’s Logan Airport at 7:59 a.m. The others soon followed, except for United Flight 93, scheduled to leave at 8:01, but which was delayed on the runway for about 40 minutes. Around the same time the Flight 11 hijackers were stabbing passenger Daniel Lewin (about 8:20) the President’s briefing ended and he prepared to leave the Colony. Accounts of when his motorcade left for Emma Booker Elementary School vary from 8:30 to 8:39. He arrived at about 9:00am.
The first media reports of Flight 11’s crash into the World Trade Center began around 8:48, two minutes after the attack happened. The President was informed either during the motorcade trip to the school or as he stepped out of the limousine (reports and recollections vary). The President later recalled what he was thinking at the time: “I was concentrating on the program at this point, thinking about what I was going to say [about the plane crash]. Obviously, I felt it was an accident. I was concerned about it, but there were no alarm bells.” At 9:03, at the same time the program at the elementary school started, Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
Chief of Staff Andrew Card was in a nearby room when he heard the news of the second attack. He waited until there was a pause in the reading drill to walk in and tell the President. The children were getting their books from under their seats to read a story together when Mr. Card came in (Daily Mail, 9/8/02) and whispered to the President: “A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack.” Accounts vary between 9:05 and 9:07am as to when this historic moment occurred.
WOLFSTAR'S NOTE RE TIMELINE: Accounts of the specific timing of events always vary somewhat during and after emergencies. People use different instruments to note the time -- different watches or clocks, many of which run somewhat fast or somewhat slow.
In addition, as any criminal lawyer knows, human memory is notoriously unreliable for retaining details, particularly of shocking events. This is why eye witnesses to crimes are rarely believed without corroborating physical and circumstantial evidence.
Leftist enemies of President Bush have tried viciously to use the slight discrepancies in different accounts of the timeline that morning to paint a portrait of President Bush as clueless, inattentive, negligent, even cowardly during those first minutes and hours of and after the attacks. So I have deliberately started the above timeline with the little-known probable assassination attempt earlier that morning to make it as clear as possible why the President could not simply dash, willy nilly, from the school to wherever. The Secret Service first had to have a plan of action as to where to take the President to ensure not only his safety, but continuity of government given that the nation's capitol city was also under attack, over 3000 planes were still in the air at the time, and no one knew how many more were being hijacked.
For those who are interested in a straightforward, contemporaneous, totally non-political timeline, here's a good one from CNN's archives. It was posted at 12:27 PM EDT (1627 GMT), September 12, 2001.
HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT TRANSCRIPTS: Unless otherwise noted, all transcript links are to the official WhiteHouse.gov web pages, most of which also contain video and audio links to the events.
Sept. 11, 9:30am EDT, Remarks by the President After Two Planes Crash Into World Trade Center, Emma Booker Elementary School, Sarasota, Florida. (In addition to the transcript, this page only contains an audio link.)Sept. 11 (time not recorded on WH web page), Remarks by the President Upon Arrival at Barksdale Air Force Base
Sept. 11, 1:47pm EDT, Press Briefing to the Pool By Ari Fleischer aboard Air Force One en route to Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska
Sept. 11 (time not recorded on WH web page), Press Briefing by Karen Hughes, Counselor to the President, at National FBI Headquarters
Sept. 11, 5:30pm EDT, Press Briefing to the Pool By Ari Fleischer aboard Air Force One en route to Andrews Air Force Base
Sept. 11, 7:15pm EDT, Press Briefing by Attorney General, Secretary of HHS, Secretary of Transportation, and FEMA Director
Sept. 11, 8:30pm EDT, Statement by the President in His Address to the Nation
VIDEOS: Caution...these are not for the faint of heart and probably are not suitable for very young children.
This is an excellent but heart-wrenching video set with tragic irony to Ray Charles' tune "What a Wonderful World."Other videos can be found here.
Some people are also not very bright. I say this in all seriousness. The average IQ is about 90-100. On a bell curve, a sizeable number of people would fall both below and above that point. It helps sometimes to realize that a sizeable portion of the population has a below 90 IQ.
OK, tears in the eyes...
Amen.
Thanks for the link. Most appreciated.
Very much agree with this sentiment.
5.56mm
I love any father-son photo of President Bush and his dad, but this one is special. You can really see the depth of the bond between them as his father reaches out his hand. You can tell Dubya is holding on tight.
Good evening, and thanks. :)
Ok, I can barely take this. I've been avoiding it the last few days because I didn't want to cry....again. Whooboy.
.
9/11 Lifesaver RICK RESCORLA, R.I.P.
The website
http://www.RickRescorla.com
The Pictures
http://www.RickRescorla.com/The%20Statue.htm
The Thread
http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
The History Channel TV Special
'The Man Who Predicted 9/11'
10 am & 4 pm, Monday, 9/11/06
http://www.History.com
Do you remember seeing it live at the time? I do. It was a remarkable, spontaneous moment. GHWB clearly sensed that his son needed the support at that moment.
When that very long day, September 14, 2001, was over, President Bush was totally drained.
"America will never fully appreciate how powerful an ally she has in one good man. Maybe the history books will tell some of the story, but the legacy he leaves behind and how many people owe him their lives is too big for anyone to know. Nothing on this side of eternity can give him his due."
. . . your beautiful and prescient statement needed to be posted again!
Well, good night, everyone. It's 6:00pm here in Los Angeles. Time for dinner and to feed my critters.
My recollection of the morning of September 11th:
It started out as just another day to get ready to go to work. As usual, I stop in for a morning cup of coffee at the local gas station 2 miles from home. During those 2 miles, the news was on in my car and reporting of the first airplane to hit the first tower. My gut feeling at that time was that this was no accident. The news didn't say what type of plane but I knew at that moment we were being attacked. When I got to the gas station, I walked in the door and the owner of the gas station asked me if I heard about the pilot who accidently flew their plane into the Towers. My immediate reply was that this was not an accident and that we were being attacked and it was terriorsts. He laughed at me. I didn't say anything more but paid for my coffee and got back in my car. By that time, the 2nd plane hit the other tower and by that time I was going nuts driving in my car. It was very eerie driving to work, no traffic, gray overcast. I was constantly looking into the sky even though I was traveling in a very rural area and no where near New York, Washington DC and Pennsylvania. Just little old me going to work in Wisconsin. I just could not imagine what that part of the country was dealing with. I phoned a friend that I knew that didn't work, woke her up and yelled at her to turn on her tv. We were both crying as she was describing to me what was on tv. By the time I got to work, the Pentagon got hit, there were rumors that a bomb blew up at the State Department and the White House was being evacuated. My boss didn't know if he should close the office. We didn't get much work done that day as everyone was trying to get on the internet. We didn't have a tv so our the radio was practically the only news source we had. The internet was hardly working. Everyone walked around like zoombies. It wasn't until I got home later in the day and saw on tv the damage that took place that I realized just what a devastating day it turned out to be.
I will never forget September 11th, 2001. Thank God for our President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of Defense rumsfeld and Secretary of State Rice along with other members of President Bush's cabinet. Thank the good Lord for members of our military and their families.
From a very humble and greatful American.
That may be true but there an unfortunate number of intelligent people who believe that President Bush is responsible for the attacks in some form. And it disappoints me that people who are truly smart can believe such a ridiculous conspiracy theory.
Thank you for your amazing poem . . . it says it all!!!
As you will discover, there is a world of difference between 'smart' and 'wise' . . . the former describes many college professors, the latter does NOT!!
I was not able to see it live. Unfortunately, most of my floormates were liberals and when they did refrain from changing the channel when President Bush came on (which was not often), they were so loud about shouting out stupid insults and laughing we couldn't really see him anyway. That was one night when it would have been nice to have my friend Chris there. He's a lot like a young Dubya, handsome Texan Republican with a big smile and a cowboy hat, although I don't think Dubya did the cigar thing. Oh well, at least we have your pictures to capture the moment.
Today and tomorrow are always hard for me. I'm sure they're hard for everyone to sit and watch all the footage and the horrior over again. Very emotional to watch. All I can say is God Bless America, and our President and First Lady. I'm just glad Laura's with him tonight. He needs her so much, and she needs him. I saw him talking to the press after visiting somewhere (Forget where. Forgive me) but he looked like he was about to loose it right then and just start bawling. He can hold Laura tightly tonight and let it all out. :-( I feel bad for him and Laura having to deal with all the pressure. But, THANK GOD we have them and not some horrible people who we can't stand. Anyway, I had to say all of that lol
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