CIA officer Ben Bonk briefs Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush on the threat posed by Islamic extremist groups, telling him that Americans will die in a terrorist attack during the next four years, and to highlight the danger, he shows Bush a mock briefcase bomb he sneaked into the meeting. Bush was recently selected as the Republican Party’s candidate for the 2000 presidential election, and it is traditional for the CIA to provide a wide-ranging intelligence briefing to the Republican and Democratic nominees during a presidential campaign, to prepare them for the responsibilities of the White House. John McLaughlin, acting deputy director of the CIA, has come to Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, to conduct the briefing, along with three other agency officials, including Bonk, deputy director of the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. Three of Bush’s senior advisers—Condoleezza Rice, Paul Wolfowitz, and Josh Bolten—also attend the briefing.
CIA Officer Says Americans Will Die in a Terrorist Attack – During the final hour of the four-hour session, Bonk briefs Bush on terrorism. He tells Bush: “I can say one thing for sure without any qualification: Sometime in the next four years, Americans will die as a result of a terrorist incident.” [CBS News, 9/1/2000; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 198; Eichenwald, 2012, pp. 1-3] According to a book by CIA officer John Helgerson, Bonk specifically says that America’s next president will face “a terrorist attack on US soil.” There is then a “discussion of what certain scenarios could look like.” [Helgerson, 2013]
CIA Officer Says Islamic Extremists Are the Biggest Danger – Bonk tells Bush that numerous terrorist organizations are on the move, but the most dangerous are the Islamic extremist groups, such as al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad. He says nothing these groups have so far achieved compares to “what lay in store for America and its allies if the terrorists succeeded in their quest for chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear weapons, collectively known as CBRN,” according to journalist and author Kurt Eichenwald. Furthermore, Bonk says, “Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, [is] the group most likely to succeed.” It has “the deepest pockets and the most far-flung operational networks.” If al-Qaeda or another terrorist group got its hands on CBRN weapons, Bonk says, that group “would show no hesitation in using the weapons immediately to murder as many Americans as possible.”
Bush Is Shown a Mock Briefcase Bomb – Furthermore, Bonk says that terrorists “could easily slip compact bombs into a crowd without raising suspicion.” To highlight the danger, he has sneaked a mock briefcase bomb into the meeting. Although the device contains no poison gas, it is otherwise a real weapon, built by the CIA based on a design seized from the Japanese Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which killed 12 commuters in a poison gas attack on the Tokyo subway system in March 1995. Bonk let Bush’s Secret Service agents in on what he was doing, so they would allow him to take the mock bomb into the meeting, but Bush knows nothing about it. Bonk had the briefcase on the floor by his chair during the first three hours of the briefing and activated the mock bomb when his time to speak came. He now picks up the briefcase and carries it toward Bush. He pops it open and tilts it forward, so Bush can see the red digits of its electronic timer counting down. “Don’t worry,” Bonk says. “This is harmless. But it is exactly the kind of chemical device that people can bring into a room and kill everybody. And this one would be going off in two minutes.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 198; Eichenwald, 2012, pp. 2-3] Bush is apparently unimpressed with the mock bomb. According to Helgerson, “Such show-and-tell devices usually intrigued individuals and groups being briefed, but [Bush] gestured to the effect of ‘Get that out of here’ and wanted to settle down to serious discussion.” [Helgerson, 2013, pp. 152]
Between February and August 2001: Senior White House Officials Visit Bunker that Will Be Used on September 11 during Exercise
Joseph Hagin, the White House deputy chief of staff for operations, runs a training exercise for a number of senior White House staffers in which the staffers are made aware of and shown to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House where numerous government officials will go on September 11 to respond to the terrorist attacks. Josh Bolten, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, will later recall that at some time before September 11, “the other deputy chief of staff [i.e. Hagin] had run an exercise for a bunch of us on the senior staff of what happens in a crisis.” In the exercise, the senior staffers find out “who was supposed to go to the bunker [i.e. the PEOC]” in a crisis and they also visit the PEOC. Bolten will not say which staffers, other than him, take part in the exercise. [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013]
Exercise Possibly Held Shortly before 9/11 – He will also not say when the exercise is held, but presumably it takes place sometime after George W. Bush is inaugurated as president, near the end of January this year (see January 20, 2001). [BBC, 1/20/2001; CNN, 1/20/2001] It is possible it takes place just two weeks before 9/11: Mary Matalin, a counselor to Vice President Dick Cheney, will write that “a couple [of] weeks [before September 11], I had visited this underground dungeon [i.e. the PEOC] for my top-level security clearance training.” It is unclear, however, if she is referring to the exercise Bolten describes. [Carville and Matalin, 2014, pp. 140-141]
PEOC Is a ‘Nerve Center’ on September 11 – It is apparently fortunate that Hagin runs the exercise for the senior White House staffers, since numerous government officials, including Bolten and Matalin, will go to the PEOC on September 11 to respond to the terrorist attacks. [CNN, 9/11/2002; Mother Jones, 5/24/2009] That day, the PEOC will be “the nerve center for America’s response to the unprecedented attacks,” according to the London Telegraph. [Daily Telegraph, 9/10/2011] As a result of the “pretty casual training” that Hagin conducts, Bolten will say, “I did know the bunker and knew where to go” on September 11.
White House Staffers Were Often Unaware of the PEOC – It is also apparently quite unusual for White House staffers to know about the existence of the PEOC. Steve Ricchetti, who served as deputy White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, will tell Bolten that during the Clinton administration, “it had been in some cases months and years before people were briefed on the existence of [the PEOC]… because nobody ever thought the US itself would be under attack.” The PEOC, Bolten will comment, “was kind of an artifact of the bygone Cold War era and of no particular use to a current White House.” [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] Its use by government officials on September 11 will in fact be its “first test in an actual emergency,” according to CNN. [CNN, 9/11/2002] “[N]o one alive remembers using it for its intended purpose,” Matalin will write, “which only drew our attention to the fact… that [9/11] was a unique event in our nation’s history.” [Carville and Matalin, 2014, pp. 141]
Between February and August 2001: President Bush Cancels a Plan to Upgrade the White House’s Emergency Operations Center
President Bush cancels plans to upgrade the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House where numerous government officials will go on September 11 to respond to the terrorist attacks.
Congressman Thinks the Upgrade is Unnecessary and Too Expensive – During the Clinton administration, as part of their efforts to improve the procedures for Continuity of Government, the military and the White House came up with plans for a secret, large-scale upgrade to the PEOC. In the first months of the Bush administration, early in 2001, these plans are shown to Representative Bill Young (R-FL), the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. The intention is for Congress to unofficially approve the funding for the upgrade outside the normal appropriations process, so as to keep the plans secret. Young, though, is unhappy about the project. He thinks it is too expensive and the scenario it is aimed at dealing with too unlikely. He consequently calls Bush directly and complains about it. Bush, although he is unaware that a plan to upgrade the PEOC even exists, agrees to cancel the project. [Graff, 2017, pp. 353] Josh Bolten, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, will later describe the current indifference about the PEOC, commenting that before 9/11, the operations center was “an artifact of the bygone Cold War era and of no particular use to a current White House.” [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013]
Cancellation of the Upgrade Means Communications Are Poor on 9/11 – However, on September 11, the PEOC will play a crucial role. That day, numerous government officials will go to it to deal with the attacks. [CNN, 9/11/2002; Mother Jones, 5/24/2009] Consequently, the failure to upgrade it will apparently limit the government’s ability to respond to the crisis. Vice President Dick Cheney will find that, while he is in the PEOC, his calls to Bush keep dropping off and he will complain that the communications in the operations center are “terrible” (see (Shortly Before 12:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [Clarke, 2004, pp. 19]
Center Was Created for Surviving a Nuclear Attack – The PEOC was set up during the Cold War to enable government leaders to survive a nuclear attack on the US. [Mann, 2004, pp. 295] Located under the East Wing of the White House, it consists of a main hallway lined with bunk beds, a large operations and communications room, a small executive briefing room, and a main command center. In the middle of the command center is a conference table, long enough for about 16 officials to sit at. A number of drawers around the table hold secure telephones. There is a row of chairs along the wall for support staff and two large television screens are built into the wall closest to the entrance. A locked vault door leads into the PEOC and people have to use a telephone to ask the duty officer inside for permission to enter. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 337; Graff, 2017, pp. 331-332]
Planned Upgrade Is Reportedly Richard Clarke’s Idea – White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke will claim that the plan to upgrade the facility was his idea. When he visits the PEOC around midday on September 11 and Cheney complains to him about the “terrible” communications, he will reply, “Now you know why I wanted the money for a new bunker.” “The president had canceled my plans for a replacement facility,” he will comment in his 2004 book Against All Enemies. [Clarke, 2004, pp. 19]
Between 8:50 a.m. and 9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001: Former Clinton Administration Official Calls Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff and Tells Him about the White House Bunker
Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff, receives a phone call from Steve Ricchetti, who served as deputy White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration and who checks whether Bolten is aware of the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House where numerous government officials will later convene to respond to the terrorist attacks. With White House chief of staff Andrew Card traveling with President Bush in Florida, Bolten is the acting chief of staff at the White House this morning. He has run the senior staff meeting and, after the meeting ends, returns to his office and sees the coverage of the first crash at the World Trade Center on television. Also, when he gets back to his office, Bolten will later recall, “the phone was ringing on the inside line on a number that I don’t think I’d given out to anybody.” “I probably wasn’t even aware I had an inside line,” Bolten will add. He answers the phone and finds the caller is Ricchetti, who he will describe as “a very nice guy who I didn’t know well,” but who had been “very kind to me in the transition.” Ricchetti asks Bolten, “Are you watching TV?” Bolten says he is and Ricchetti asks, “Do you see what’s going on?” Bolten says, “Yes.” Ricchetti then asks, “Do you know about the bunker?” [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] He is referring to the PEOC, a bunker under the East Wing of the White House that is protected by vault doors and was designed to withstand the effects of a nuclear blast. [New York Times, 9/16/2001; Associated Press, 10/5/2010; Daily Mail, 10/19/2011] Fortunately, Bolten visited the PEOC during a training exercise and so he knows what it is and where it is located (see (Between February and August 2001)). After the call ends, Bolton will head to the White House Situation Room to see if he can find out more about the crash at the WTC (see (9:03 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Apparently influenced by his conversation with Ricchetti, he will later head to the PEOC and then spend much of the rest of the day there with Vice President Dick Cheney and other government officials (see (Shortly After 9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Ricchetti “did a very graceful thing in calling me and trying to alert me to [the PEOC],” Bolten will comment. [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013]
9:03 a.m.-9:05 a.m. September 11, 2001: Deputy White House Chief of Staff Learns of Second Crash at WTC and Goes to Tell National Security Adviser Rice about It
Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff, learns of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center and then, according to his own account, goes and tells National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice what has happened. With many of President Bush’s senior staff members, including White House chief of staff Andrew Card, traveling with the president in Florida, Bolten is the acting chief of staff at the White House this morning. He has run the senior staff meeting and, after the meeting ended, noticed the coverage of the first crash at the WTC on the television in his office. He’d thought the crash was a “freak accident,” he will later comment. “But then,” he will say, “the TV pictures kind of made me wonder.” Bolten went down to the White House Situation Room to see if he could learn anything more. The Situation Room, according to Bolten, “is supposed to be the information nerve center of the White House, where they are monitoring all of the TV stations, all the intelligence sources.” It is “where the Defense Department and CIA and everybody funnels in information to the president and to the White House.” After he enters the Situation Room, Bolten learns of Flight 175 hitting the second WTC tower, presumably seeing it live on television at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). “[I]t was at that moment that I realized this is not an accident,” he will recall. Bolten will say that he then heads into the conference area of the Situation Room, where Rice is conducting a meeting with her senior directors. After he enters the room, Rice says, “Here’s Josh Bolten,” and then starts introducing him to her senior directors. Bolten will say he gives Rice “the timeout signal” and asks her to step outside the room with him. He then tells her, “A second plane has hit; this is not an accident, it is an attack.” [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] Rice, however, will contradict Bolten’s account. In interviews in which she discusses this morning’s events, she will make no mention of Bolten coming into her senior directors’ meeting. She will say she learns a second plane has hit the WTC not from Bolten but from her executive assistant, Tony Crawford, who comes into her meeting and hands her a note that tells her about the crash (see (9:04 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [White House, 10/24/2001; White House, 11/1/2001; BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 
; White House, 8/6/2002] Bolten will say that after he tells Rice about the crash, the two of them head upstairs to Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and talk to Cheney there (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013]
Shortly After 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001: White House Officials Reportedly Converge on Vice President Cheney’s Office, but Accounts Conflict
Vice President Dick Cheney sees the second plane hitting the World Trade Center live on television while meeting with his speechwriter John McConnell. He later claims that several other officials then come and join him in his White House office: National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, political adviser Mary Matalin, and his chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who has come across from the Old Executive Office Building next door to the White House. [Meet the Press, 9/16/2001] According to journalist and author Stephen Hayes, “As word of the attacks spread throughout the West Wing, many White House officials migrated to Cheney’s office.” As well as Rice, Libby, and Matalin, these include Sean O’Keefe, the deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget; Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff; and counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 332] However, other accounts contradict this. Clarke claims that when he arrives at the White House shortly after 9:03, he sees the vice president and Rice, but the two are “alone in Cheney’s office” (see (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (It is possible, though, that the other officials only arrive after Clarke ends his brief visit to the vice president’s office.) [Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2] In numerous interviews where she discusses her actions this morning, Rice makes no mention of heading to Cheney’s office after the second tower is hit. [O, the Oprah Magazine, 2/1/2002; BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 ; Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/11/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; New York Times, 9/11/2002] Also, according to some accounts, the Secret Service evacuates Cheney from his office shortly after the second attack occurs (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [New York Times, 9/13/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002] Cheney claims that President Bush phones him around this time, while he is still in his office. [Meet the Press, 9/16/2001] But according to White House adviser Karl Rove, who is with the president in Florida, Bush is unable to reach the vice president because Cheney is being evacuated from his office (see (9:16 a.m.-9:29 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002]
9:04 a.m. September 11, 2001: National Security Adviser Rice Learns of Second Attack, Realizes It Is Terrorism
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice is informed of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center and immediately realizes it is a terrorist attack. Rice’s executive assistant, Army Lieutenant Colonel Tony Crawford, informed Rice of the first crash shortly before 9:00 a.m. while she was in her office at the White House, but, Rice will later say, she had thought it was a “strange accident” (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Rice had gone down to the conference area of the White House Situation Room for her daily meeting with her top aides. [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Bumiller, 2007, pp. xi-xii] According to her own later recollections, a few minutes into this meeting, Crawford comes in and hands her a note saying a second plane has hit the WTC. Rice will comment: “I thought, ‘My God, this is a terrorist attack.‘… I knew right away, right away, because that—that couldn’t be coincidence that two planes had hit the World Trade Center that morning.” She gets up and tells Anna Perez, her communications counselor who is with her in the meeting, “Find Dick Clarke,” referring to the White House counterterrorism chief. [White House, 10/24/2001; PBS Frontline, 7/12/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002] According to Perez’s later recollection, Rice also tells the others in the room about the second plane hitting the WTC. [White House, 11/1/2001] After saying to her staff, “I have to go,” Rice abruptly heads out. [Newsweek, 12/30/2001] However, Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff, will contradict Rice’s account and say that he, not Crawford, alerts Rice to the second crash at the WTC. Bolten will recall that he learned of the crash while in the Situation Room and then, realizing it was not an accident, walks into the conference area where Rice is holding her meeting. He asks Rice to step outside the room for a minute and then tells her, “A second plane has hit; this is not an accident, it is an attack” (see (9:03 a.m.-9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Vice President Dick Cheney, Bolten, and Clarke will indicate that Rice initially goes from her staff meeting to Cheney’s office (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [NBC, 9/16/2001; Clarke, 2004, pp. 1-2; C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] But in her own recollections, Rice will make no mention of this, saying that she goes straight from the conference area to the Situation Room’s operations center, intending to assemble a crisis meeting of the national security team (see (9:05 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [O, the Oprah Magazine, 2/1/2002; PBS Frontline, 7/12/2002; BBC Radio 4, 8/1/2002 ; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; Bumiller, 2007, pp. xii]
Shortly After 9:36 a.m. September 11, 2001: Deputy Chief of Staff Heads to the White House Bunker, Prompted by Call from Clinton Administration Official
Josh Bolten, the acting White House chief of staff, heads to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the White House, after seeing Vice President Dick Cheney taken there by his Secret Service agents. Although Bolten is the deputy White House chief of staff, because White House chief of staff Andrew Card is traveling with President Bush in Florida, he is the acting chief of staff at the White House this morning. He was with Cheney when Secret Service agents entered Cheney’s office and then hurried the vice president away to the PEOC (see (9:36 a.m.) September 11, 2001). However, no one evacuated Bolten from the office. “You know, deputy chief of staff, you don’t have a Secret Service detail… nobody was watching out for me,” he will later comment. Fortunately, Bolten learned where the PEOC is located and that he was supposed to go there in a crisis during a training exercise (see (Between February and August 2001)). Furthermore, he was reminded of the existence of the PEOC by Steve Ricchetti, who served as deputy White House chief of staff during the Clinton administration, when Ricchetti phoned him earlier this morning (see (Between 8:50 a.m. and 9:02 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Therefore, at some time after Cheney is evacuated from his office, Bolten makes his way down to the PEOC. [C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] The time at which he arrives there is unclear. According to notes taken by I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Cheney’s chief of staff, Bolten is in the PEOC at approximately 10:00 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 4/5/2004] He will spend much of the rest of the day there with Cheney and other government officials. [CNN, 9/11/2002; C-SPAN, 10/6/2013] The PEOC, according to the London Telegraph, will become “the nerve center for America’s response to the unprecedented attacks.” [Daily Telegraph, 9/10/2011]
After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Group of White House Staffers in New York Heads Back to Washington
A number of White House staffers who are visiting New York make their way back to Washington, DC, following the attack on the Pentagon. About 15 members of the White House staff, including Joseph Hagin, the deputy chief of staff for operations, and Captain Michael Miller, the deputy director of the White House Military Office, are in New York conducting the “survey trip” for President Bush’s appearance at the United Nations General Assembly later in the month (see September 10, 2001).
Staffers Learn of Crashes while Visiting US Mission to the UN – Earlier this morning, they went to the US Mission to the United Nations for some preliminary meetings with the mission staff about the president’s forthcoming visit. In a conference room there, shortly after Flight 11 hit the World Trade Center (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001), Miller informed Hagin of the crash. After seeing the early coverage of the incident on television, Hagin called the military aide who is with the president in Sarasota, Florida, to check if he was aware of what had happened. The military aide told him, “We’re on it.”
Staffers Taken to Police Station – After the White House staffers watched the second plane hitting the WTC live on TV, a State Department security officer told Hagin: “Sir, you need to get out of here as quickly as possible. There are reports of other planes inbound into the city.” The White House staffers were then taken by the Secret Service to a police station in Midtown Manhattan, where it was thought they would be safe. From there, Hagin called Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff for policy, who is at the White House. As the attacks were considered to be “just a New York incident” at that time, Hagin will later recall, Bolten and his colleagues decided that Hagin “should go down and be with the mayor, and… be the federal face in New York for the time being.”
Some Staffers Fly toward Nebraska to Meet President – The New York City police and the Secret Service had been trying to work out how to get Hagin to Ground Zero. But when the Pentagon is attacked at 9:37 a.m. (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001), they decide that the White House staffers should return to Washington. The staffers are driven to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware. There, they are split up. Eight of them, including Hagin, get on a military plane and head toward Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska to meet the president, who has been taken to the base (see 2:50 p.m. September 11, 2001). However, as they are flying over Missouri, they learn that Bush has decided to come back to Washington (see (4:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001 and (4:33 p.m.) September 11, 2001). Therefore, their plane turns around and heads to the capital.
Hagin and Other Staffers Return to White House – After they land at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, the staffers are driven to the White House. The time when they arrive there is unstated, but it is presumably around late afternoon or early evening. At the White House, Hagin goes to work immediately. [National Journal, 8/31/2002; Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/20/2003] As the deputy chief of staff for operations, he is a key member of the White House staff. He is responsible for the management and administrative functions of the White House, plans all of the president’s travel, and oversees the president’s schedule. [Cincinnati Enquirer, 10/10/2002; Washington Post, 7/4/2008] Hagin will recall that, after reaching the White House, he is “very involved in the continuity of government and just how, operationally, we were going to deal with this.” He will remain at the White House for the next two days. [National Journal, 8/31/2002; Cincinnati Enquirer, 1/20/2003]
Between 10:10 a.m. and 10:18 a.m. September 11, 2001: Vice President Cheney Authorizes the Military to Shoot Down a Suspicious Plane Approaching Washington
Navy Captain Anthony Barnes, deputy director of presidential contingency programs for the White House Military Office, asks Vice President Dick Cheney if the military is authorized to engage a suspicious aircraft that is approaching Washington, DC, and Cheney says it is. [White House, 11/19/2001; White House, 12/17/2001] Communicators in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House have received reports from the Secret Service about a suspicious aircraft that is presumably hijacked and is heading toward Washington (see 10:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41] Meanwhile, Barnes, the senior military officer on duty in the PEOC this morning, was called by a general at the Pentagon who wanted permission for the military to shoot down this aircraft (see (Shortly Before 10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001). In response to the request, Barnes goes into the PEOC conference room to ask the vice president to provide this authorization. [Summers and Swan, 2011, pp. 141; Graff, 2019, pp. 164-165]
Cheney Is Told that a Suspicious Aircraft Is 80 Miles Out – He tells Cheney there is an unidentified aircraft approaching Washington that is not squawking a transponder code and is believed to be hijacked. [9/11 Commission, 4/16/2004; Cheney and Cheney, 2011, pp. 3] He says the plane is 80 miles out and asks Cheney for authorization to engage it. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41] “I posed this question to the vice president exactly the way it was posed to me,” Barnes will later recall. “I asked for confirmation on what I was being allowed to pass back to the general,” he will say. [Summers and Swan, 2011, pp. 141-142]
Cheney Authorizes the Military to Shoot the Plane Down – Cheney responds immediately and decisively, telling Barnes that fighters can engage the inbound aircraft. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41; Cheney and Cheney, 2011, pp. 3] “Yes, take it out,” he will recall saying. [Foundation for Constitutional Government, 9/30/2014] But according to Barnes, he says, “If you can confirm there’s another terrorist aircraft inbound, permission is granted to take it out.” [Summers and Swan, 2011, pp. 142] Cheney will explain why he decided so quickly that the military could shoot down the aircraft, saying, “As the last hour and a half had made brutally clear, once a plane was hijacked it was a weapon in the hands of the enemy.” [Cheney and Cheney, 2011, pp. 3] At 10:14 a.m., presumably as a result of hearing Cheney giving his authorization, a military officer in the PEOC tells participants on the air threat conference call convened by the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon that the vice president has confirmed that fighters are cleared to engage hijacked aircraft (see 10:14 a.m.-10:19 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 42]
Officer Again Asks for Authorization to Engage the Aircraft – A short time after receiving Cheney’s authorization for the military to engage the suspicious aircraft, Barnes returns to the conference room to repeat his request. He says the plane is now 60 miles out and, for a second time, asks Cheney to give his authorization for the military to engage it. [White House, 11/14/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41; Gellman, 2008, pp. 120] “For me, being a military member and an aviator—understanding the absolute depth of what that question was and what that answer was—I wanted to make sure that there was no mistake whatsoever about what was being asked,” he will explain. “I am confirming that you have given permission,” he says to Cheney. [Graff, 2019, pp. 164-165] Again, Cheney agrees to the request. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41; Cheney and Cheney, 2011, pp. 3] “Yes, if it won’t divert, take it out,” he says. [Foundation for Constitutional Government, 9/30/2014] According to Josh Bolten, the deputy White House chief of staff, Barnes then asks Cheney to give his authorization for a third time. “Just confirming, sir, authority to engage?” Bolten will recall him saying. But according to the Washington Post, Barnes asks, “Does the order still stand?” Cheney, sounding annoyed, replies, “I said yes,” according to Bolten. But according to the Washington Post, he snaps, “Of course it does.” [Washington Post, 1/27/2002; CNN, 9/11/2002; Hayes, 2007, pp. 338] After receiving the shootdown authorization from Cheney, Barnes goes and passes it on to the general who called him to request it (see (10:18 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Summers and Swan, 2011, pp. 142; Graff, 2019, pp. 165]
Bush Has Already Given Shootdown Authorization, Cheney Will Claim – Cheney will claim that he talked to President Bush about “rules of engagement” for fighter pilots and Bush gave his authorization for them to shoot down hostile aircraft during a call made before the vice president talked to Barnes about the issue (see (Shortly After 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [White House, 11/19/2001; White House, 12/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 40] “I had a conversation with the president earlier about what the rules of engagement would be with our airplanes,” Cheney will say. [Foundation for Constitutional Government, 9/30/2014] He will recall telling Bush, “We’ve got to give the pilots rules of engagement,” and recommending that “we authorize them to shoot,” and Bush replying, “Okay, I’ll sign up to that.” Therefore, Cheney will explain, when he authorized the military to engage the suspicious aircraft, he simply “passed on the decision the president had already made.” [White House, 11/19/2001] However, the 9/11 Commission Report will state that “no documentary evidence for this call” was found and some 9/11 Commission staffers will be highly skeptical about Cheney’s claim (see June 15, 2004). [Newsweek, 6/27/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41; Shenon, 2008, pp. 265] The first time Cheney talks to Bush to get his authorization for the military to shoot down hostile aircraft, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, will be in a phone call at 10:18 a.m., shortly after the vice president gives his permission for the military to engage the approaching aircraft (see 10:18 a.m.-10:20 a.m. September 11, 2001). [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 41, 465; Gellman, 2008, pp. 121-122]
