I wouldn't know, I have never been there. It is just what I read.
The hijacked plane "was on a flight path directly for the White House
and it hit the Pentagon instead," White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer said. National security officials monitoring intercepted
communications speculated that the hijackers had trouble controlling
the plane and spotting the White House for all the trees on the South
Lawn, and so headed for the wide-open Pentagon instead, according to a
Secret Service official briefed on the situation.
__
WASHINGTON (AP) – Hopscotching across half the country while America
was under attack, President Bush vented his frustration with Secret
Service officials telling him Air Force One was at risk of a terrorist
assault.
"I'm not going to let some tinhorn terrorist keep the president of the
United States away from the nation's capital," he said during the
six-hour flight that took him from Florida to Louisiana and Nebraska
before returning to the White House. "The American people want to see
their president and they want to see him now."
White House counselor Karl Rove read the quote from several pages of
notes he took on a legal pad while Bush dealt with attacks in
Washington and New York.
Rove and other White House officials have slowly revealed details of
the journey to counter critics who have questioned whether Bush
overreacted by touching down at two Air Force bases before returning
to Washington.
Bush's top political strategist said some people raised questions with
him, but their doubts were dispelled "when they were told there was
specific and credible evidence of a threat" against the White House,
Air Force One and the president himself.
Bush was in Florida, visiting a second-grade class, when White House
chief of staff Andrew Card told him two planes had crashed into the
World Trade Center in New York. Bush stepped outside the classroom to
get briefed on the events, then spoke publicly to condemn the
terrorist strike.
Soon after, a plane slammed into the Pentagon. Bush and his entourage
were rushed aboard Air Force One.
The hijacked plane "was on a flight path directly for the White House
and it hit the Pentagon instead," White House press secretary Ari
Fleischer said. National security officials monitoring intercepted
communications speculated that the hijackers had trouble controlling
the plane and spotting the White House for all the trees on the South
Lawn, and so headed for the wide-open Pentagon instead, according to a
Secret Service official briefed on the situation.
Within that same hour on Tuesday, the Secret Service received an
anonymous call: "Air Force One is next." According to a senior
government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, the caller
knew the agency's code words relating to Air Force One procedures and
whereabouts.
"We want to get the plane up and we want to get it up very high," the
head of the Secret Service detail told Bush, according to Rove's
notes. They wanted to head toward the Florida panhandle to pick up
fighter jets scrambling to give Air Force One air cover.
Bush told Card, "I want to move on to Washington."
Vice President Dick Cheney, holed up in a secure bunker beneath the
White House, told Bush the threat should be taken seriously and he
should not return to Washington just yet.
Bush was told there were six planes unaccounted for, all potential
missiles. "The situation is not stable," the head of Bush's detail
told the president. Cheney's lead Secret Service agent, meanwhile,
told the vice president he had no choice but to remain inside the
complex because there was no time to bring a helicopter in and taking
him out by car through gridlocked streets was too risky.
After landing at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, Bush scheduled
a national security meeting at 4 p.m. – several hours away.
"I want to go back home as soon as possible," Bush said, according to
Rove, who was with the president all day Tuesday.
Replied the agent: "Our people are saying it's unstable still."
The president was told he could get to Offutt Air Force Base in
Nebraska more quickly than to Washington, thus allowing him to conduct
the national security meeting at a secure location and address the
public for a second time.
Off he went. |
