Congress Reads `My Pet Goat' as Planes Hit the Twin Towers in New York 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. --------------------------------- Peace activists often ask why the 9/11 truth movement insists on making the truth about terrorism a central component of anti-war agitation. One answer is that we bring up 9/11 frequently because Bush and Cheney do -- they incessantly parrot slogans about the "global war on terror" and "the lessons of 9/11." Bush claims that he is fighting terrorists in Iraq so that the US will not have to fight them over here. He raves that, if US forces pull out of Iraq, the terrorists will follow them back home and launch attacks on US territory. There can be no doubt that 9/11 is the foundation of Bush's castle of warmonger lying -- the fountainhead, motivation, and legitimation of the entire policy of unilateral aggression. To ignore the centrality of 9/11 to Bush's every move is like trying to fight Hitler without mentioning anti-Semitism. Attacks on Bush that do not include 9/11 truth are simply impotent, and will not be effective.