Fourth in a series
Friday, September 14
The entire Cabinet, meeting at the White House for the first time since the terrorist attacks, stood and applauded when President Bush entered the room. Caught by surprise, Bush choked up for a moment, the second time in two days he had lost his composure in front of others.
The show of emotion worried Secretary of State Colin L. Powell. He knew that in a few hours, the president would be speaking at Washington National Cathedral, and he thought the country and the world needed to see a strong president. Powell, who by tradition as senior member of the Cabinet sits next to the president, jotted a note. Dear Mr. President, it said, what I do when I have to give a speech like this, I avoid those words I know will cause me to well up such as Mom and Pop. Then, with some trepidation, Powell slid the note along the table.
Bush picked up the piece of paper, read it, and smiled. "Let me tell you what the secretary of state told me," Bush said, holding up the note for the rest of the Cabinet to see. "Dear Mr. President, don't break down!"
The room erupted in laughter, shared by both Powell and the president.
"Don't worry, I've got it out of my system," Bush said. He recalled in an interview last month that he appreciated the suggestion. "It was a gentle moment on his part."
It was also one of the few moments of levity on a day that was to be the most gut-wrenching of Bush's presidency. Bush would have to find his public voice, with scripted and unscripted words. He would have to speak to and for the entire nation. And he would have to find a way to move everyone, including himself, through a day of sorrow and consolation – to war.
The president likes to open every Cabinet meeting with a prayer, and asks a Cabinet member to prepare one ahead of time. On this morning it was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. Among the things that Rumsfeld prayed for was the "patience to measure our lust for action."
Bush assured the meeting that he and the war cabinet were developing plans for a military response that would be effective, and then went around the table asking for updates.
Powell described the diplomatic offensive. Like Bush, Powell saw the attacks as an opportunity to reshape relationships throughout the world. But, he told the Cabinet, this was coalition-building in which the United States would have clear definitions of what it expected from its partners, including intelligence-sharing to help in freezing the terrorists' finances and assistance in the military campaign. "This is a long war," he said, "and it's a war we have to win. We are engaging with the world. We want to make this a long-standing coalition."
By that morning, he had already made 35 calls to world leaders, with another 12 ahead of him that day. "I have been so multilateral the last few days, I'm getting seasick," Powell joked.
Rumsfeld updated the group on the damage to the Pentagon and announced that the military alert status had been reduced one notch, to DefCon 4. On Sept. 11, the Pentagon had moved to DefCon 3 for the first time since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. The highest possible alert status, DefCon 1, would be used in time of war.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft said the Justice Department later that day would identify the 19 hijackers aboard the four crashed airplanes, and Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta described the status of the nation's air travel system. Mineta reported that flights were beginning to resume that day, but at just 16 percent of normal.
Led in prayer by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, right, President Bush joins his cabinet in bowing their heads before beginning
their meeting on Sept. 14. (Eric Draper - The White House) |
Bush concluded with a reminder that while the focus of the administration now was the war on terrorism, they should not ignore domestic priorities. He said he still hoped to be able to sign by year's end an education bill, a patients' bill of rights and legislation giving him greater authority to negotiate trade agreements.
"This should not stop us from getting our agenda through," he said. In light of the unity expressed at his meeting two days before with congressional leaders, he added, there was a renewed opportunity for progress. "We need a nice spirit of cooperation," he said.
Powell had taken the lead in contacting foreign leaders, but that morning, Bush made two calls of his own.
The first was to Tony Blair in London, his second call to the British prime minister in three days. Bush thanked Blair for the outpouring of support from his country and for sending along a five-page memorandum on Sept. 12 outlining the prime minister's thoughts on how the campaign against terrorism should be shaped and executed. The memo mirrored the president's views.
Shaping world opinion was crucial in Blair's estimation. He argued for presenting evidence linking Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network to the Sept. 11 attacks, and also recommended focusing on the terrorist camps in Afghanistan as a way to draw attention to the role of the Taliban regime in nurturing the terrorist network. In the memo, he proposed giving the Taliban an ultimatum. He focused on the need for an alliance with Pakistan and said it would be important to try to improve relations with Iran, which was on Afghanistan's western border and was a nation that had actively supported terrorists.
Blair also urged stepping up support for the Northern Alliance, the amalgam of opposition forces fighting the Taliban, and to make those forces part of the military campaign. And he reiterated that Bush could continue to count on unswerving support and solidarity from the British.
Intelligence continued to point directly at bin Laden and al Qaeda, and Blair said the immediate task should be to concentrate on the terrorist leader and on Afghanistan. But he and Bush agreed that al Qaeda would have to be pursued far beyond Afghanistan.
The president then outlined his thinking about how the action would unfold. It was a variation of what he had told his war cabinet on the night of Sept. 11, but this time Bush used a new metaphor. He described the campaign as a series of circles emanating from a pebble dropped in the water.
"We focus on the first circle," Bush told Blair, "then expand to the next circle and the next circle."
The discussion turned to the Taliban regime. Should we issue them an ultimatum – and if so, what should be the terms, Bush asked.
Blair said he believed an ultimatum was essential and that it would have to be put together carefully. The Taliban should be given no opportunity to wiggle out of the terms: give up bin Laden and his key lieutenants, shut down the training camps and allow international monitors into Afghanistan for verification.
Speaking at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., Bush said the conflict that others began would end "in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing." (J. Scott Applewhite - AP Photo) |
The two men also discussed the effort to build an international coalition against terrorism, the role of Pakistan, Russia and moderate Arab nations, and shared with one another their conversations with other leaders. Bush said the United States expected full cooperation from Pakistan, and that it would be needed long after bin Laden was captured or killed.
In his memo to Bush, Blair had emphasized the importance of making a concerted effort to restart the peace process in the Middle East as a way to solidify support in the Arab world for the war on terrorism. Now Bush said that he had had a good talk with Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia and that he would be talking to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon later in the morning. Bush said he hoped to use the call to Sharon to impress on the Israeli leader the importance of seizing the moment in the Middle East.
Blair had one other piece of advice, growing out of his own experience during the war in Kosovo. You've got to decide what you're going to do and then you've got to focus very single-mindedly on it, Blair told Bush.
The president said he agreed 100 percent.
Bush then called Sharon in an effort to prod the Israeli leader to take steps to try to reduce the violence that threatened to destroy any hopes of peace in the Middle East. Bush believed that Israel ultimately could be one of the principal beneficiaries of a global war on terrorism and wanted Sharon to see that as well. It was not clear that Sharon understood Bush's message.
Around lunchtime, the presidential motorcade left the White House in a driving rain for a ride of about 12 minutes north to the cathedral. Bush had practiced the speech early that morning and made a few last-minute changes. But he was generally happy with the draft he had received the night before.
Chief speechwriter Michael Gerson had assimilated Bush's advice from their meeting on Thursday. From his own reading of history, Gerson had concluded that a presidential speech about war was a delicate balancing act in which it was crucial to offer people confidence and resolution without seeming arrogant. The speech that he had prepared along with White House counselor Karen P. Hughes and others in the speechwriting office attempted to do that.
Almost from the start of the crisis, Bush had described the conflict in the starkest possible terms, as one of good versus evil, light versus darkness. It was Gerson's belief, gained from the experience of working with Bush for more than two years, that the president's language and confidence were rooted in his religious faith and his belief that all things happened for a reason. Gerson believed they had found the proper way to include an affirmation of that faith in the speech.
An extraordinary group awaited Bush at the cathedral for the service, which had been planned largely by first lady Laura Bush and Hughes. The speakers included a Protestant minister, a rabbi, a Catholic cardinal, a Muslim cleric and the Rev. Billy Graham. Former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were there, as was former vice president Al Gore. The audience included the Cabinet, much of the Senate, many members of the House, Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and many other top officials. Seated next to Bush and his wife in a tableau that linked both generations and the presidency were Bush's mother and father.
1 p.m.
War Speech in a Cathedral: 'A Steadfast Resolve to Prevail'
Former President George Bush reaches for his son's hand at the National Cathedral memorial service. (Tim Sloan - AFP Photo) |
"We are here in the middle hour of our grief," Bush began. He said Americans would read the names of the dead and "linger over them and learn their stories" and weep. But he assured the audience that the grief, tragedy and hatred were "only for a time." Already, he added, the nation had learned what a poet once said, "Adversity introduces us to ourselves." He quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt's phrase, "the warm courage of national unity," which produces "a kinship of grief and a steadfast resolve to prevail against our enemies."
There was much in the speech meant to comfort, but the most memorable line – which originated with his team of speechwriters and was quickly adopted by the president – came when Bush spoke confidently about what was to come. "This conflict was begun on the timing and terms of others," he said. "It will end in a way, and at an hour, of our choosing."
A war speech in a cathedral was perhaps risky, even jarring, but it delivered the message Bush wanted. When he finished and returned to his seat in the front row, his father reached across Laura Bush and squeezed his son's hand.
At the end of the service, the congregation stood and sang "The Battle Hymn of the Republic." National security adviser Condoleezza Rice believed she could almost feel the whole church stiffen with determination. She later realized the service had helped her make a transition from abject sadness about what had happened on Sept. 11 to a feeling of defiance toward the terrorists.
Gerson was in tears during the final hymn, and when the congregation boomed out the words "terrible swift sword," he felt that the country already was at war. When the service ended and the presidential party walked out of the cathedral, the grayness and rain of the morning had lifted and they were greeted by brilliant sunshine and blue skies.
A number of the president's advisers later called the cathedral speech the pivot toward war. In an interview last month, Bush said that he saw the speech in less far-reaching terms. "I saw it as a moment to make sure that I helped comfort and helped get through the mourning process," he said. "I also really looked at it from a spiritual perspective, that it was important for the nation to pray."
Bush agreed that some of the language was "very tough," and said it "reflected my mood." But he added, "To me, the moment was more, it really was a prayer. I didn't view it as an opportunity to set the stage for a future speech. I believed that the nation needed to be in prayer. . . ."
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