A large number of government employees gather at the office of DaimlerChrysler in Washington, DC, after being evacuated from the White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, and continue their operations there. [Automotive News, 10/8/2001; Politico, 9/9/2011] The White House and the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to it were evacuated at 9:45 a.m. (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Washington Post, 1/27/2002] After they left these buildings, many staffers went north to Lafayette Park, across from the White House, but were unsure what to do.
DaimlerChrysler Manager Wants Staffers to Come to His Building – Anita McBride, the acting director of White House personnel, calls her husband, Timothy McBride, who is vice president of Washington affairs for DaimlerChrysler and works at the company’s office a couple of blocks from the White House. “I knew he would know what to do even more than I,” Anita McBride will later comment, “and his immediate instinct was to bring everybody there” to the DaimlerChrysler building. Anita McBride tells her husband she is on the way to his office. She then gathers together the White House staffers who are around her and heads there. [Politico, 9/9/2011; National, 9/11/2011]
Equipment Set Up for Staffers to Use – Most of the DaimlerChrysler employees are leaving the building as the White House staffers are arriving. But before they go, they set up their computers, phones, televisions, and other resources for the White House staffers to use, and also order food for the staffers. Timothy McBride served as assistant to the president for management and administration during the administration of former President George H. W. Bush and, in that position, was responsible for many emergency procedures. “So I did have the benefit of being able to anticipate some of what the [White House] staff might need to carry on their functions,” he will comment.
Secret Service Secures the Building – After the first staffers arrive, other White House employees learn that their colleagues have assembled at the DaimlerChrysler building and go to join them. [National Journal, 8/31/2002] Soon, 72 members of the White House staff have made it to the building, the largest number of White House employees currently gathered in a single location. [Politico, 9/9/2011] They include speechwriters, photographers, and people from communications, the National Economic Council, Cabinet affairs, and legislative affairs. [National Journal, 8/31/2002] Members of the Secret Service lock down the building and ensure that only people with White House passes are able to gain access. Anita McBride calls the White House Situation Room and lets officials there know who is at the DaimlerChrysler building. Arrangements are then made for a few senior staffers to return to the White House (see (12:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001).
White House Employees Continue Their Work – The staffers who remain at the DaimlerChrysler building quickly set up operations and continue their work. The building becomes “a White House annex,” Anita McBride will comment. [Politico, 9/9/2011; National, 9/11/2011] Some of the staffers discuss how the government can continue to function, and put together checklists of the things various federal departments and agencies should do. [Bridgeland, 2012, pp. 5] Speechwriters David Frum, John McConnell, Matthew Rees, and Matthew Scully work on a speech for President Bush to deliver from the Oval Office this evening. They are assisted by another speechwriter, Michael Gerson, who is at his home in Alexandria, Virginia, but is able to communicate with them by phone. [Frum, 2003, pp. 117, 120; PBS Frontline, 7/7/2004; Draper, 2007, pp. 140]
Officials Consider How Previous Crises Were Managed – Ken Mehlman, the White House political director, instructs Brad Blakeman, the deputy assistant to the president for appointments and scheduling, and Barry Jackson, the director of the Office of Strategic Initiatives, to go on the Internet and research what, if any, significance the date of September 11 has in the Muslim world. Mehlman also instructs Blakeman and Jackson to research how former Presidents Bill Clinton, George H. W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan responded to crises during their presidencies. And he directs Logan Walters, the president’s personal aide, and Ashley Estes, the president’s personal secretary, to come up with a schedule based on how crises were managed during past presidencies. [Draper, 2007, pp. 140-141]
Staffers Stay at Building until Late Afternoon – Secret Service agents periodically brief the White House staffers on what is happening in Washington and elsewhere. The staffers will remain at the DaimlerChrysler building until about 5:30 p.m., after word is received that the president is heading back to Washington. The speechwriters will then go to the White House while the other staffers will go home. [National Journal, 8/31/2002; Politico, 9/9/2011]
January 29, 2002: Bush Labels Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an ‘Axis of Evil,’ Ending Cooperation with Iran
President Bush’s State of the Union speech describes an “axis of evil” consisting of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. Osama bin Laden is not mentioned in the speech. [US President, 2/4/2002] Bush says: “States like these and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.” Bush goes on to suggest for the first time that the US might be prepared to launch pre-emptive wars by saying, “The United States of America will not permit the world’s most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world’s most destructive weapons.” [Vanity Fair, 5/2004] When Bush advisor Richard Perle was asked one month before 9/11 about new challenges the US faced, he replied by naming these exact three countries (see August 6, 2001). Michael Gerson, head of the White House speechwriting team at the time, will later claim that, as Newsweek will later put it, “Bush was already making plans to topple Saddam Hussein, but he wasn’t ready to say so.” Iran and North Korea are inserted into the speech in order to avoid focusing solely on Iraq. The speech is followed by a new public focus on Iraq and a downplaying of bin Laden (see September 15, 2001-April 6, 2002). Prior to the speech, the Iranian government had been very helpful in the US fight against the Taliban, since the Taliban and Iran were enemies. [Newsweek, 2/12/2007] At the time, al-Qaeda operatives had been streaming into Iran from Afghanistan following the defeat of the Taliban. Iran has been turning over hundreds of suspects to US allies and providing US intelligence with the names, photographs, and fingerprints of those it is holding. [Washington Post, 2/10/2007] Newsweek will later say that it is “beyond doubt” the Iranian government was “critical… to stabilizing [Afghanistan] after the fall of Kabul.” But all this cooperation comes to an end after the speech. Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Hossein Adeli will later say that “Those [inside the Iranian government] who were in favor of a rapprochement with the United States were marginalized. The speech somehow exonerated those who had always doubted America’s intentions.” [Newsweek, 2/12/2007] In August 2003, reporter Jeffrey St. Clair will write that “the Axis of Evil [is not] an ‘axis’ at all, since two of the states, Iran and Iraq, hate… each other, and neither [have] anything at all to do with the third, North Korea.” [CounterPunch, 8/13/2003]
January 25, 2003: Libby Presents Early Draft of Powell UN Speech to Several Top Officials
Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, presents the latest draft of a paper that is meant to serve as a rebuttal to Iraq’s December 7 declaration (see February 5, 2003) to Condoleezza Rice, Stephen Hadley, Paul Wolfowitz, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage, Michael Gerson, and Karen Hughes. The paper, written with the help of John Hannah, is supposed to serve as the basis for the speech Secretary of State Colin Powell will deliver to the UN Security Council on February 5 (see February 5, 2003). In his presentation, Libby says that intercepts and human intelligence reports indicate that Saddam Hussein has been attempting to conceal items. He doesn’t know what items are being hidden by the Iraqis, but he says it must be weapons of mass destruction. He also claims that Iraq has extensive ties to al-Qaeda, and cites the alleged meeting between Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi Intelligence agent (see April 8, 2001) as one example. While Armitage is disappointed with Libby’s presentation, Wolfowitz and Rove seem impressed. Karen Hughes warns Libby not to stretch the facts. [Bamford, 2004, pp. 368; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 175]
