President Bush remarks to Mitch Daniels, the White House budget director, how the 9/11 attacks have enabled him to abandon his earlier promises to balance the US budget: “Lucky me, I hit the trifecta.” [Office of Management and Budget, 10/16/2001; New York Times, 1/17/2003; Star-Tribune (Minneapolis), 9/25/2003] In summer 2000, during his election campaign, Bush had assured voters his planned tax cut was affordable, and he pledged not to dip into the Social Security surplus. [New York Times, 8/30/2002] On August 24, 2001, he’d told a reporter, “I’ve said that the only reason we should use Social Security funds is in case of an economic recession or war.” [White House, 8/24/2001] On September 6, he’d stated three conditions that would permit a change of policy: “I have repeatedly said the only time to use Social Security money is in times of war, times of recession, or times of severe emergency.” [White House, 9/6/2001] Now, shortly after September 11, Bush alludes to these three conditions as he tells Daniels, “Lucky me, I hit the trifecta.” (A trifecta is a kind of bet that requires picking the top three finishers in a horse race.) As Daniels will comment in late November, “So [President Bush] and the economic team believe that running deficits in a time like this is acceptable.” [Office of Management and Budget, 11/28/2001] Bush will make similar comments during numerous public appearances in early 2002, telling roughly the same joke over and over. For instance: “You know, I was campaigning in Chicago and somebody asked me, is there ever any time where the budget might have to go into deficit? I said only if we were at war or had a national emergency or were in recession. Little did I realize we’d get the trifecta.” [White House, 2/27/2002; White House, 3/1/2002; White House, 3/27/2002; White House, 4/16/2002; White House, 5/10/2002; White House, 6/14/2002]
September 15-17, 2001: Media Reports Suggest Some Hijackers Received US Military Training
A series of articles suggests that at least six of the 9/11 hijackers trained at US military bases. [New York Times, 9/15/2001; Newsweek, 9/15/2001; Washington Post, 9/16/2001] 
Three of the alleged hijackers—Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Alghamdi, and Saeed Alghamdi—are revealed as having listed the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, Florida, as their permanent address on their driver’s licenses and car registrations, between 1996 and 1998. According to military records, the three used 10 Radford Boulevard as their address. This is a base roadway where residences for foreign-military flight trainees are located. Hamza Alghamdi was also connected to the Pensacola base (see 1996-August 2000). [Newsweek, 9/15/2001; Washington Post, 9/16/2001; Pensacola News Journal, 9/17/2001] Air Force spokesman Colonel Ken McClellan states that Saeed Alghamdi also attended the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. The Washington Post and Time magazine say he graduated from the Defense Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas. (It is unclear whether Alghamdi therefore attended both Defense Language Institutes, or if this is simply a reporting error.) [Washington Post, 9/16/2001; Gannett News Service, 9/17/2001; Time, 9/24/2001] According to a high-ranking Pentagon official, another alleged hijacker was a former Saudi Air Force pilot who may have received training in strategy and tactics at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama. [Los Angeles Times, 9/15/2001; Newsweek, 9/15/2001] A further hijacker—also said to be a former Saudi Air Force pilot—may have been given language instruction at Lackland Air Force Base. [Los Angeles Times, 9/15/2001; Newsweek, 9/15/2001] A man called Abdulaziz Alomari (the same name as one of the suspected Flight 11 hijackers) attended Brooks Air Force Base Aerospace Medical School in San Antonio, Texas. [Washington Post, 9/16/2001; Gannett News Service, 9/17/2001] Ken McClellan says a man with the name Mohamed Atta once attended the US International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama (see 1998). [Washington Post, 9/16/2001; Gannett News Service, 9/17/2001]
According to Newsweek, it is not unusual for foreign nationals to train at US military facilities. A former Navy pilot tells the magazine that during his years at the Naval Air Station in Pensacola, “we always, always, always trained other countries’ pilots. When I was there two decades ago, it was Iranians. The shah was in power. Whoever the country du jour is, that’s whose pilots we train.” Newsweek adds that the “US has a long-standing agreement with Saudi Arabia… to train pilots for its National Guard.” [Newsweek, 9/15/2001] The media stops looking into the hijackers’ possible US military connections after the Air Force makes a less than definitive statement, saying, “Some of the FBI suspects had names similar to those used by foreign alumni of US military courses. However discrepancies in their biographical data, such as birth dates 20 years off, indicate we are probably not talking about the same people.” [Washington Post, 9/16/2001]
Mid-September 2001: Evangelist Tells President Bush that Bush Is ‘God’s Man for This Hour’
A few days after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush invites a small group of evangelical, conservative Christians to the White House to discuss the theological implications of the attacks. James Merritt, president of the Southern Baptist Convention, says, “Mr President, you and I are fellow believers in Jesus Christ.” Bush nods. “We both believe there is a sovereign God in control of this universe.” Bush again agrees. “Since God knew that those planes would hit those towers before you and I were born,” Merritt says, “since God knew that you would be sitting in that chair before this world was ever created, I can only draw the conclusion that you are God’s man for this hour.” Upon hearing these words, Bush begins to cry. [Unger, 2007, pp. 218-219]
September 15, 2001-February 19, 2002: Significant Contradictions Given in Accounts of Flight 77’s Impact Speed
After Flight 77’s flight data recorder is recovered from the Pentagon wreckage (see September 14, 2001), Fox News reports that investigators say they are getting “good, solid readings” from it. According to this data, “the plane was going 345 miles per hour when it crashed.” [Fox News, 9/15/2001] Firefighters involved in the Pentagon recovery effort are also told the flight data recorder showed Flight 77 was traveling at 345 mph when it hit the Pentagon. [Washington Post, 9/19/2001] However, days later, CBS News reports that it has seen “new radar evidence” pertaining to Flight 77, and quotes unnamed sources describing the plane’s descent toward the Pentagon. CBS says the aircraft had “plowed into the Pentagon at 460 mph.” [CBS News, 9/21/2001] But when the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) publishes its “Flight Path Study” for Flight 77 in February 2002, this gives a significantly higher speed. The NTSB study is “based on information obtained from various sources of recorded radar of the subject aircraft,” along with “information from the flight data recorder.” It states, “The airplane accelerated to approximately 460 knots (530 miles per hour) at impact with the Pentagon.” [National Transportation Safety Board, 2/19/2002, pp. 2 
] The 9/11 Commission will later accept this figure in its final report. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 10 and 455] Yet this is 185 mph faster than the speed earlier claimed to have been revealed by the flight data recorder. The reason for this discrepancy is unknown. All of these alleged speeds are above the Federal Aviation Administration’s speed limit of 287.5 mph for aircraft flying below 10,000 feet. [Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 2/24/2002]
September 15, 2001: CIA Director Presents Bush and his Cabinet with Extensive Plan for Combating Terrorism Worldwide
President Bush meets with his advisers at Camp David for a day of intensive discussions about how to respond to the 9/11 attacks. CIA Director George Tenet has arrived there “with a briefcase stuffed with top-secret documents and plans, in many respects the culmination of more than four years of work on bin Laden, the al-Qaeda network and worldwide terrorism.” With him is his deputy, John McLaughlin, and counterterrorism chief Cofer Black. Also in the conference room with them, among others, are Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell. For his 30-minute presentation, Tenet gives out a briefing packet titled “Going to War.” His presentation covers several key components for the fight against terrorism: Tenet advocates substantially stepping up “direct support of the Northern Alliance,” the main Afghan opposition group, as part of a strategy to create “a northern front, closing the safe haven” of Afghanistan. His idea is that “Afghan opposition forces, aided by the United States, would move first against the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, try to break the Taliban’s grip on that city and open up the border with Uzbekistan. From there the campaign could move to other cities in the north.” Tenet also explains that the CIA had begun working with a number of tribal leaders in the south of Afghanistan the previous year, and these could be enticed to joint a US-led campaign. The plan includes “a full-scale covert attack on the financial underpinnings of the terrorist network, including clandestine computer surveillance and electronic eavesdropping to locate the assets of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups.” The CIA and FBI would work together to track down bin Laden supporters in the US. A key proposal is a recommendation that the president give the CIA “exceptional authorities” to destroy al-Qaeda. Tenet wants a broad intelligence order allowing the agency to conduct covert operations without requiring formal approval for each specific operation, thus authorizing it to operate without restraint. Tenet and his senior deputies would be permitted to approve “snatch” operations abroad. Journalist Bob Woodward calls this “truly exceptional power.” Tenet has with him a draft of a presidential intelligence order—a “finding”—that would give the CIA power “to use the full range of covert instruments, including deadly force.” Another proposal is that, with additional hundreds of millions of dollars for new covert action, the CIA could “buy” intelligence services of key Arab nations including Egypt, Jordan, and Algeria. These could act as surrogates for the US. As Bob Woodward points out, this “would put the United States in league with questionable intelligence services, some of them with dreadful human rights records. Some had reputations for ruthlessness and using torture to obtain confessions.” Tenet calls for the initiation of intelligence contact with certain rogue states, such as Libya and Syria, so as to obtain helpful information about the terrorists. (Subsequently, by early 2002, Syria will have emerged as one of the CIA’s most effective allies in the fight against al-Qaeda (see Early 2002-January 2003).) He has with him a top-secret document called the “Worldwide Attack Matrix.” This details covert operations in 80 countries that he is recommending or are already underway. “Actions ranged from routine propaganda to lethal covert action in preparation for military attacks.” As Woodward describes, this proposal represents “a striking departure for US policy. It would give the CIA the broadest and most lethal authority in its history.”
The president reportedly is much pleased with Tenet’s proposals, “virtually shouting ‘Great job!’” [Woodward, 2002, pp. 74-78; Washington Post, 1/31/2002; Kessler, 2003, pp. 234] He will grant all Tenet’s requests by the following Monday (see September 17, 2001). Tenet had presented a cruder version of the CIA plan at the White House two days earlier (see September 13, 2001).
September 15, 2001: President Bush Tells Neoconservative Adviser that US Will Attack Iraq after Afghanistan
During a morning meeting with advisers at Camp David, President Bush indicated that he wanted to focus on attacking Afghanistan first, and then look at the issue of attacking Iraq later (see September 15, 2001). During the lunch break, he sends a message to the neoconservatives in attendance that he does not want to hear any more about Iraq that day. But one of the neoconservatives there is Richard Perle, who holds no government position but heads the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon. According to Vanity Fair, Perle will later claim that the morning discussion about Iraq “had planted a seed. Bush told Perle at Camp David that once Afghanistan had been dealt with, it would be Iraq’s turn.” [Vanity Fair, 5/2004]
September 15, 2001: Head of ISI Argues Pakistan Should Side with Taliban, but Musharraf Agrees to Help US as Opportunistic Necessity
On September 15, ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed returns to Pakistan from the US, and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf holds a meeting with Mahmood and about a dozen other senior officers to discuss how Pakistan should respond to the 9/11 attacks. Musharraf will later recall that the group “made a dispassionate, military-style analysis of our options,” aware that on his decision hung “the fate of millions of people and the future of Pakistan.” For six hours, Mahmood, Lt. Gen. Muzaffar Usmani, Lt. Gen. Jamshaid Gulzar Kiani, and Lt. Gen. Mohammed Aziz Khan argue that Pakistan should not help the US at all in its imminent war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Mahmood states, “Let the US do its dirty work. Its enemies are our friends.” The Guardian will later call this “a stunning display of disloyalty.” However, Sharifuddin Pirzada, Musharraf’s legal counselor, and a high-ranking Pakistani army officer will claim in a 2007 book that Musharraf in fact did not disagree. He tells his advisers, “Pakistan has been deluged by terrorism for decades. We have learned to live with it. The Americans, too, should get used to the taste of blood.” But Musharraf also sees a strategic opportunity to manipulate the situation for Pakistan’s benefit. Pirzada will later recall, “Musharraf saw that for Pakistan it was 1979 all over again.” This is reference to the start of the Soviet-Afghan war, that led to billions of dollars in aid for Pakistan. “‘We should offer up help,’ Musharraf said, ‘and, mark my words, we will receive a clean bill of health.’” [Guardian, 5/25/2002; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 313-314] Musharraf eventually silences the dissenting generals by suggesting that if Pakistan does not agree to the US demands, Pakistan’s long-time enemy India will gladly take the place of Pakistan in assisting the US. That evening, Musharraf speaks to Wendy Chamberlin, the US ambassador to Pakistan, and tells her that Pakistan has agreed to all of the US demands. However, he strongly hints that Pakistan needs immediate economic relief and an end to US economic sanctions in return. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 30-31] Musharraf has already offered the US unconditional help in its fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban (see September 13-15, 2001 and (Between 7:00 and 11:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). But just four days after this meeting, Musharraf gives a speech on Pakistani television implying that Pakistan’s alliance with the US is only a temporary and opportunistic necessity. He says, “I have done everything for Afghanistan and the Taliban when the whole world was against them. We are trying our best to come out of this critical situation without any damage to them” (see September 19, 2001).
September 15, 2001: Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz Suggests Striking Iraq Immediately; President Bush Decides to Focus on Afghanistan First
President Bush and his top advisers meet at Camp David to discuss how to respond to the 9/11 attacks. Attendees include: CIA Director George Tenet, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, FBI Director Robert Mueller, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz. [Washington Post, 1/31/2002; Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 232] There is discussion on a paper submitted by the Defense Department submitted the day before depicting Iraq, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda as priority targets (see September 14, 2001).
Push to Attack Iraq – Rumsfeld has already suggested that the US should use 9/11 as an excuse to attack Iraq (see 10:00 p.m. September 11, 2001 and September 12, 2001). Now Wolfowitz pushes for regime change in Iraq, claiming that there is a 10 to 50 percent chance that Iraq was involved in the attacks. [Woodward, 2002, pp. 83; Vanity Fair, 5/2004; Washington Post, 7/23/2004] Attacking Afghanistan is uncertain at best, Wolfowitz argues, with the likelihood that US troops will get mired in mountain fighting. In contrast, Iraq is, in author Bob Woodward’s words, “a brittle, oppressive regime that might break easily. It was doable.” According to Woodward, chief of staff Andrew Card believes that Wolfowitz is doing nothing more than “banging a drum” and is “not providing additional information or new arguments.” [Woodward, 2002, pp. 83; American Conservative, 3/24/2003] Powell will later recall that Wolfowitz argues that Iraq should be attacked because it is ultimately the source of the terrorist problem. Wolfowitz “was always of the view that Iraq was a problem that had to be dealt with. And he saw this as one way of using this event as a way to deal with the Iraq problem.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 335] Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin will later recall that the discussion about possible Iraqi involvement in 9/11 “went back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The [CIA] argued that that was not appropriate, not the right conclusion to draw at this point.” Secretary of State Colin Powell supports the CIA on this. Then, according to McLaughlin: “At the end of all this deliberation, the president says, ‘Thank you all very much. This has been a very good discussion. I’m going to think about all of this on Sunday, and I’ll call you together Monday [September 17] and tell you what I’ve concluded.” [PBS Frontline, 6/20/2006]
Focus on Afghanistan First – Bush will later tell reporter Bob Woodward that, in his own mind, he made the decision not to immediately attack Iraq in the morning on this day. He wants to focus on Afghanistan first. [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 335] Wolfowitz will later recall in an interview with Vanity Fair: “On the surface of the debate it at least appeared to be about not whether but when. There seemed to be a kind of agreement that yes it should be, but the disagreement was whether it should be in the immediate response or whether you should concentrate simply on Afghanistan first. To the extent it was a debate about tactics and timing, the president clearly came down on the side of Afghanistan first. To the extent it was a debate about strategy and what the larger goal was, it is at least clear with 20/20 hindsight that the president came down on the side of the larger goal.” [Vanity Fair, 5/9/2003] In his 2002 book Bush at War, Woodward will write, “Bush’s advisers wondered if they would ever find a way to end the talking and pull the trigger.” [Roberts, 2008, pp. 106]
September 15, 2001-April 6, 2002: Bush Shifts Public Focus from Bin Laden to Iraq
On September 15, 2001, President Bush says of bin Laden: “If he thinks he can hide and run from the United States and our allies, he will be sorely mistaken.” [Los Angeles Times, 9/16/2001] Two days later, he says, “I want justice. And there’s an old poster out West, I recall, that says, ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive.’” [ABC News, 9/17/2001] On December 28, 2001, even as the US was declaring victory in Afghanistan, Bush says, “Our objective is more than bin Laden.” [Associated Press, 8/21/2002] Bush’s January 2002 State of the Union speech describes Iraq as part of an “axis of evil” and fails to mention bin Laden at all. On March 8, 2002, Bush still vows: “We’re going to find him.” [Washington Post, 10/1/2002] Yet, only a few days later on March 13, Bush says, “He’s a person who’s now been marginalized.… I just don’t spend that much time on him.… I truly am not that concerned about him.” Instead, Bush is “deeply concerned about Iraq.” [US President, 3/18/2002] The rhetoric shift is complete when Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers states on April 6, “The goal has never been to get bin Laden.” [Evans, Novak, Hunt & Shields, 4/6/2002] In October 2002, the Washington Post notes that since March 2002, Bush has avoided mentioning bin Laden’s name, even when asked about him directly. Bush sometimes uses questions about bin Laden to talk about Saddam Hussein instead. In late 2001, nearly two-thirds of Americans say the war on terrorism could not be called a success without bin Laden’s death or capture. That number falls to 44 percent in a March 2002 poll, and the question has since been dropped. [Washington Post, 10/1/2002] Charles Heyman, editor of Jane’s World Armies, later points out: “There appears to be a real disconnect” between the US military’s conquest of Afghanistan and “the earlier rhetoric of President Bush, which had focused on getting bin Laden.” [Christian Science Monitor, 3/4/2002]
September 15, 2001 and After: Laser Technology Used to Map WTC Ground Zero
EarthData, a geospatial imaging company, is tasked by New York authorities with producing maps of Ground Zero using “light detection and ranging” or “lidar” technology. Lidar is similar to radar but uses a laser light instead of radio waves to measure elevation. This information is then merged with GPS data to produce a color-coded map. EarthData will make daily flights over the area for several months starting mid-September to provide rescuers and removal workers with up-to-date representations of Ground Zero. [New York Times, 9/23/2001; New York Times, 10/2/2001] The Library of Congress will later present some of the maps in an online exhibit which also includes aerial photography and video fly-through simulations of the World Trade Center, both before and after the attacks. [www.loc.gov, 2004]
