Posted on 09/10/2002 2:20:12 AM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON - Reliving the instant that changed the country and his presidency forever, President Bush remembers the faces of the children in the Florida classroom when he learned of the Sept. 11 attacks."I'm being briefed about a reading program that works, and I was looking at these little children and, all of the sudden, we were at war," he told CBS. "So I had to maintain my composure.
"I can remember noticing ... the press corps beginning to get the calls and seeing the look on their face, and it became evident that ... the world had changed."
Bush reminisced about that fateful day in a one-hour interview to air tomorrow night on "60 Minutes II." It is the only interview he has given as part of the Sept. 11 anniversary remembrances.
In excerpts released by the network yesterday, Bush disclosed that Air Force One was thought to be a target of the Al Qaeda terrorists. That prompted the pilot to post an armed guard at the cockpit door until the Secret Service double-checked the identity of everyone on board the 747 jet.
Those fears turned out to be a false alarm but persuaded the Secret Service to keep the plane airborne for several hours until returning Bush to Washington that evening.
Bush said the heartbreak and anger of families of victims of the Trade Center attacks when he met them in New York on Sept. 14 are still among his most painful memories nearly a year later.
"There was a lot of blood lust," he said. "People were, you know, pointing their big, old hands at me, saying: 'Don't you ever forget this, Mr. President. Don't let us down.'"
Referring to senior military officials who feared he would respond with cruise missile strikes instead of a more robust retaliation, Bush said: "There's a lot of nervous Nellies at the Pentagon ... I think they're all probably taking a step back and saying, 'Is this guy going to lead us?' I never asked them what they thought because ... I knew exactly what had to be done."
Bush said he demanded a war plan from the Pentagon the day after the attacks. He said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld argued for "making sure we had what we called 'boots' on the ground - that if you're going to go to war, than you've got to go to war with all your assets."
God Bless President Bush !!!!
This article is from Tuesday's Daily News.
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