President Bush is reunited with his wife, Laura Bush, in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House, shortly after arriving back at the White House. [Bush, 2010, pp. 137-138; Bush, 2010, pp. 204-205] Bush arrived at the White House at 6:54 p.m. (see (6:54 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [CNN, 9/12/2001] He headed to the Oval Office, where he read through a draft of the speech he is going to deliver to the nation later in the evening and modified a few lines. He then headed down to the PEOC, where the first lady was waiting for him. [Bush, 2010, pp. 137-138] The first lady was taken to the PEOC after she was driven to the White House from the Secret Service headquarters, at around 6:30 p.m. (see 6:30 p.m. September 11, 2001). Bush walks into the PEOC at 7:10 p.m. and hugs his wife. [Bush, 2010, pp. 203-205] The first lady will later recall, “We were really glad to see each other, but also the enormity of what had happened in our country had really sunk in by then, and so we just comforted each other.” [Us Weekly, 10/15/2001] The president will describe: “We didn’t have a lot of time to talk, but we didn’t need to. Her hug was more powerful than any words.” Other senior government officials are in the PEOC, including Vice President Dick Cheney, who is there with his wife, Lynne Cheney. After their reunion, the president and the first lady “talked with the Cheneys a bit,” Laura Bush will recall. The president will subsequently head upstairs, practice his speech, and then go to the Oval Office to deliver it (see 8:30 p.m. September 11, 2001). The first lady will go to the White House residence (the first family’s living quarters). [Bush, 2010, pp. 138; Bush, 2010, pp. 204-205]
11:08 p.m. September 11, 2001: False Alarm Over Unidentified Plane Leads to Temporary Evacuation of President Bush to White House Bunker
After refusing the Secret Service’s instruction to sleep in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House, and going instead to his bedroom (see (Shortly After 10:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001), President Bush is awoken by someone telling him, “Mr. President, Mr. President! Incoming plane! We could be under attack! Come on! Right now!” Bush and the first lady get out of bed, and join everybody else heading to the PEOC. On the way down, they run into Andrew Card, Condoleezza Rice, and also Neil Bush—one of the president’s younger brothers—who apparently is staying at the White House at this time. About a minute after arriving at the PEOC, though, someone comes in and says, “Mr. President, good news! It’s one of our own!” Bush later says the incoming plane was just an F-16 fighter jet. The Secret Service still wants him to spend the night in the PEOC, but Bush refuses and goes back to the residence for the rest of the night. [Newsweek, 12/3/2001; Sammon, 2002, pp. 134-135; Woodward, 2002, pp. 36]
November 17, 2001: Laura Bush, State Department Decry Taliban Oppression of Women
Laura Bush, wife of President Bush, temporarily takes over her husband’s weekly radio address to condemn the Taliban’s policies toward women. The war in Afghanistan will benefit women, she says. “I’m delivering this week’s radio address to kick off a worldwide effort to focus on the brutality against women and children by the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the regime it supports in Afghanistan, the Taliban.… The severe repression and brutality against women in Afghanistan is not a matter of legitimate religious practice.… Only the terrorists and the Taliban forbid education to women. Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women’s fingernails for wearing nail polish.… [I]n Afghanistan we see the world the terrorists would like to impose on the rest of us.… The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women.… Because of our recent military gains, women are no longer imprisoned in their homes.” Mrs. Bush’s radio address coincides with the release of a State Department report on “The Taliban’s War Against Women,” which describes women’s losses of rights and opportunities under the regime. [White House, 11/17/2001; US Department of State, 11/17/2001; New York Times, 11/18/2001; Associated Press, 11/18/2001]
