Why did it take Bush so long to address a frightened nation on 9/11?

savemefromdumbya

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Sep-10-06 08:15 PM
Original message

Why did it take Bush so long to address a frightened nation on 9/11?

Bush was supposedly told by Card that there had been an attack at 9am and he sat paralyzed and when he finally did leave the school, he didn’t act like a man in a hurry. He took off round the country in Airforce 1 without military fighter protection! Knowing that there are such things as telephones or even video transmissions Bush could have addressed a frightened nation from the school at 9am that there had been an attack.

"Claims of Bush’s ignorance become harder to believe when one learns that others in his motorcade were immediately told of the attack. For instance, Kia Baskerville, a CBS News producer traveling with Bush that morning, received a message about a plane crash “as the presidential motorcade headed to President Bush’s first event.” Baskerville said, “Fifteen minutes later I was standing in a second grade classroom ”—which means she got the news at about 8:47—right as the story was first being reported.

Senior presidential communications officer Thomas Herman said, “Just as we were arriving at the school, I received a notification from our operations center than an airliner had struck one of the towers....”

Some people at the school also heard of the news before Bush arrived. Around 8:50, Tampa Bay’s Channel 8 reporter Jackie Barron was on the phone with her mother, who mentioned the first news reports. At almost the same time, Brian Goff, a Fox reporter from Tampa, heard the same thing on his cell phone. Associated Press reporter Sonia Ross was also told of the crash by phone from a colleague. Florida Congressman Dan Miller, waiting in front of the school as part of the official greeting party, was told by an aide about the crash at 8:55, before Bush arrived.

The previous night, Colony Resort manager Katie Klauber Moulon toured the presidential limousine and marveled “at all the phones and electronic equipment.” Karl Rove, Bush’s “chief political strategist,” who presumably was riding with Bush, used a wireless e-mail device on 9/11 as well. There seems to have been ample opportunity and the means to alert Bush.

If Bush wasn’t told while in his limousine, he certainly was told immediately after he got out of it. US Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, was traveling in the motorcade when she received a message from an assistant back in Washington about the first crash. Loewer said that as soon as the car arrived at Booker, she ran quickly over to Bush. “It’s a very good thing the Secret Service knows who I am,” Loewer later said. She told Bush that an aircraft had “impacted the World Trade Center. This is all we know.”

Booker principal Gwen Tose-Rigell was waiting for Bush outside the school. “The limousine stops and the president comes out. He walks toward me. I’m standing there in a lineup; there are about five people. He walks over and says he has to make a phone call, and he’ll be right back.” The phone call was with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. From a room with secure communications, Rice updated Bush on the situation. The fact that Bush immediately said he had to make an important call strongly suggests he was told about the situation while in the motorcade before he enetered the classroom!

The explanation? George Bush had no intention of upsetting the schoolchildren who had come to read for him.”