UQ Wire: 911 - George W. Bush's Interesting Day

UQ WIRE EDITOR'S NOTE: This is only a partial copy of this work. Just a taster. The original at the following link includes a very rich set of links to source materials, contains pictures, and is considerably longer. To read the full story of George Bush's interesting day see…
http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

"It was an interesting day." - President Bush, recalling 9/11 [White House, 1/5/02]

At approximately 8:48 a.m. on the morning of September 11, 2001, the first pictures of the burning World Trade Center were broadcast on live television. The news anchors, reporters, and viewers had little idea what had happened in lower Manhattan, but there were some people who did know. By that time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, the White House, the Secret Service, and Canada's Strategic Command all knew that three commercial airplanes had been hijacked. They knew that one plane had been flown deliberately into the World Trade Center's North Tower; a second plane was wildly off course and also heading toward Manhattan; and a third plane had abruptly turned around over Ohio and was flying back toward Washington, DC.

So why, at 9:03 a.m. - fifteen minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack - did President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op? No one knows the answer to that question. In fact, no one has even asked Bush about it.

Bush's actions on September 11 have been the subject of lively debate, mostly on the internet. Details reported that day and in the week after the attacks - both the media reports and accounts given by Bush himself - have changed radically over the past 18 months. Culling hundreds of reports from newspapers, magazines, and the internet has only made finding the "truth" of what happened and when it happened more confusing. In the changed political climate after 9/11, few have dared raise challenging questions about Bush's actions. A journalist who said Bush was "flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare" and another who said Bush "skedaddled" were fired. [Washington Post, 9/29/01 (B)] We should have a concise record of where President Bush was throughout the day the US was attacked, but we do not.
What follows is an attempt to give the most complete account of Bush's actions - from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska to Washington, DC.

Preparations

Bush's appearance at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September 11, 2001 had been in the planning stages since August [Booker web site], but was only publicly announced on the morning of September 7. [White House, 9/7/01] Later that same day, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi traveled to Sarasota and enjoyed drinks and dinner at a Holiday Inn only two miles down the sandy beach from where Bush was scheduled to stay during his Sarasota visit. [Longboat Observer, 11/21/01, Washington Post, 1/27/02]

On the night of September 10th, Bush stayed at the Colony Beach Resort - "an upscale and relatively pristine tropical island enclave located directly on the Gulf of Mexico, a spindly coral island ... off Sarasota, Florida." [AP, 07/29/01] Zainlabdeen Omer, a Sudanese native living in Sarasota, told the local police that night that someone he knew who had made violent threats against Bush was in town and Omer was worried about Bush's safety. The man was identified only as "Ghandi." A police report states the Secret Service was informed immediately. [Hopsicker, 7/22/02]

After a private dinner with various Florida politicians (including his brother Jeb) and Republican donors, Bush went to bed around 10:00 p.m. [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01, Washington Post, 1/27/02] Surface-to-air missiles were placed on the roof of the resort [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02], and an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane circled high overhead. [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 25] It's not clear if this type of protection was standard for the president or whether security was increased because of possible threats.

An Assassination Attempt?

Bush awoke a little before 6:00 a.m. on September 11, pulled on shorts and an old T-shirt and laced up his running shoes. [CBS, 11/1/02] At 6:30 a.m., Bush, a reporter friend, and his Secret Service crew took a four-mile jog in the half-light of dawn around a nearby golf course. [Washington Post, 1/27/02, Washington Post, 09/11/01]

At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony's guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled "poolside" interview with the president. They asked for a certain Secret Service agent by name. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn't heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president's public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01]

For the rest of this work see…
http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html

- Paul Thompson is a researcher based in California. He is the primary author of "The Complete 9/11 Timeline" ( http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/ ) of which this article is a component part. Allan Wood has assisted with the research for, and editing of, the 9/11 Timeline. He is also a member of http://911CitizensWatch.org. Any questions, comments, or additional information regarding this article can be sent to his email: aninterestingday @hotmail.com (remove the space). Thanks to Melissa Kavonic for assisting in the proofreading of the article

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