Decision Points

stress I would be feeling. I tried to put his mind at ease. “I’m just fine,” I said.
    Dad put Mother on the phone. “Where are you?” I asked.
    “We’re at a motel in Brookfield, Wisconsin,” she replied.
    “What in the world are you doing there?”
    “Son,” she retorted, “you grounded our plane!”
    In an extraordinary feat, Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta and the FAA had overseen the safe landing of four thousand flights in just over two hours. I was hopeful that the terror from the skies was over.
    I started thinking about what I should say to the country when I spoke from the Oval Office that night. My first instinct was to tell the American people that we were a nation at war. But as I watched the carnage on TV, I realized that the country was still in shock. Declaring war could further contribute to the anxiety. I decided to wait one day.
    I did want to announce a major decision I had made: The United States would consider any nation that harbored terrorists to be responsible for the acts of those terrorists. This new doctrine overturned the approach of the past, which treated terrorist groups as distinct from their sponsors. We had to force nations to choose whether they would fight the terrorists or share in their fate. And we had to wage this war on the offense, by attacking the terrorists overseas before they could attack us again at home.
    I also wanted the speech to convey my sense of moral outrage. The deliberate murder of innocent people is an act of pure evil. Above all, I wanted to express comfort and resolve—comfort that we would recover from this blow, and resolve that we would bring the terrorists to justice.
    Air Force One touched down at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland just after 6:30 p.m. I moved quickly to Marine One, which lifted off for the ten-minute helicopter flight to the South Lawn. The chopper banked left and right in an evasive pattern. I felt no fear. I knew the Marine pilots of HMX-1 would get me home.
    I looked out on an abandoned, locked-down Washington. In the distance I saw smoke rising from the Pentagon. The symbol of our military might was smoldering. I was struck by how skilled and ruthless the al Qaeda pilot must have been to fly directly into the low-lying building. My mind drifted back over history. I was looking at a modern-day Pearl Harbor. Just as Franklin Roosevelt had rallied the nation to defend freedom, it would be my responsibility to lead a new generation to protect America. I turned to Andy and said, “You’re looking at the first war of the twenty-first century.”

    My first stop after landing on the South Lawn was the Oval Office. I read over a draft of my speech and modified a few lines. Then I went down to the PEOC, part of a hardened underground structure built during the early Cold War to withstand a substantial attack. The bunker is manned by military personnel around the clock and contains enough food, water, and electric power to sustain the president and his family for long periods of time. At the center of the facility is a conference room with a largewood table—a subterranean Situation Room. Laura was waiting for me there. We didn’t have a lot of time to talk, but we didn’t need to. Her hug was more powerful than any words.

    Back at the White House on 9/11, editing my address to the nation with (from left) Al Gonzales, Condi Rice, Karen Hughes, Ari Fleischer, and Andy Card.
White House/Paul Morse
    I went back upstairs, practiced my speech, and then headed to the Oval Office.
    “Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom, came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts,” I began. I described the brutality of the attack and the heroism of those who had responded. I continued: “I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice. We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.”
    I closed with Psalm 23: “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me.” I felt the speech was much better than the statements I made in Florida and Louisiana. Still, I knew I would have to do more to rally the nation in the days ahead.
    After the speech, I returned to the PEOC to meet with my national security team. I wanted to catch up on the latest developments and plan the next day’s