Mineta put up on one of the TV monitors a feed of where every airplane across the entire nation was. Navy Commander Anthony Barnes was on duty that morning, and in his first-ever interview, he recalls that he looked around and saw National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, White House Communications Director Karen Hughes, Cheney aide Mary Matalin and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta: “Mr. Within minutes, Vice President Cheney and other officials arrived. Still, the facility is staffed 24 hours a day, and that morning the team on duty had been gathering for its normal Tuesday morning staff meeting when the towers were struck. READ MORE: Inside the Government's Top Secret Doomsday Hideouts In the years since, the bunker has been updated technologically and while officials and presidents had used it as part of drills and exercises, it had never been used for its intended purpose-until 9/11. Harry Truman expanded the facility dramatically for the Cold War as part of a large White House renovation during his presidency. Roosevelt in the event of a surprise German attack on the capital. The White House bunker, known officially as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), dates back to World War II, when officials set up a modest bunker for Franklin D. Vice President Cheney with senior staff in the President's Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), the Cold War-era bunker under the White House. READ MORE: 9/11 Timeline The scramble to safety Did he actually have the authority to give the order? And did he and President Bush connect before or after Cheney ordered the fighters into battle? One particular moment of that first hour in the bunker would prove among the day’s most controversial moments: that order from Cheney authorizing fighter jets to shoot down hijacked airliners. officials who were with the president and vice president that day-as well as culled official oral histories conducted by the Pentagon and other institutions in the wake of 9/11-to create one of the most detailed pictures yet of the national decision-making that unfolded that morning. The most immediate questions revolved around how many planes remained in the sky, how many had been commandeered by hostile forces-and what to do about it.Īs part of the research for my new book, The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11, I interviewed dozens of top U.S. During the first hour there, confusion reigned as the team watched the news unfold on TV and struggled to gather reliable information about the unprecedented attack from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon. With word that radar had spotted a plane heading straight for the White House, the executive mansion was evacuated and Secret Service agents quickly hustled Cheney and a handful of other high-ranking administration officials down the basement corridors to a Cold War-era underground bunker. Moments after the second plane crashed into the World Trade Center’s South Tower at 9:03 a.m., it became clear America was under attack. Vice President Dick Cheney watching the news of the attacks on the World Trade Center in his office on September 11, 2001, before being led to the underground White House bunker. That left Vice President Cheney, positioned in a bunker beneath the White House, in the decision-making hot seat. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, meanwhile, became unreachable after the Pentagon itself had been struck. Bush, who began the day at an education event in Florida, was sequestered in the skies on Air Force One, frustrated by scant information, spotty communication and handlers determined to keep him safely away from the capital. But in the first hour following the attacks of September 11, 2001, when it was unclear how many passenger jets had been weaponized by terrorists-and then aimed at America’s seats of power-that’s exactly what happened.Īccording to what historic record exists from that chaotic morning, however, it’s unclear that the decision came directly from someone in the operational chain of command, which runs from the President to the Secretary of Defense down to military commanders. It’s hard to imagine an American leader authorizing the shoot-down of civilian aircraft.
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