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At the 2004 GOP convention, you said that shortly after the attacks, you spontaneously


remarked, American Airlines Flight 77


8:20 a.m. American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 bound for Los Angeles, takes off from Washington Dulles International Airport. It has four fl ight attendants, a two-man fl ight crew, and 58 passengers. Five of them are terrorists.


8:54 a.m. AA Flight 77 deviates from its assigned course, turning south. The aircraft transponder beacon is deactivated.


9:34 a.m. Offi cials at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport advise the Secret Service that an unidentifi ed aircraft — later determined to be AA Flight 77 — appears to be heading toward the White House.


9:37 a.m. AA Flight 77 slams into the Pentagon at approximately 530 miles per hour. Its 64 passengers and crew die instantly.


“Thank


God George Bush is president.” Do you feel the same way now under President Obama?


I feel totally differently. The rea-


son I said, “Thank God George Bush is the president,” in the middle of Sept. 11 is that . . . we needed a presi- dent who would respond quickly and strongly to this attack, because I had thought that America was respond- ing too weakly to the terrorist attacks we had seen in the early ’90s. I thought our response to the


[USS] Cole was pathetic. I thought our response to the bombings in Africa was extremely tepid compared to what should’ve been done. So I had an instinct that President Bush . . . would change the dynamic where we had been sitting ducks. And he did.


I mean, it’s no secret that I Pentagon SOURCE: The 9/11 Commission Report


say is it’s possible, and therefore we have to be ready for it.


It’s not outside the realm of pos- sibility that there could be a WMD attack or some biological attack of massive proportions. And of course, there have been attempts to do it. We can’t be ignorant of the fact that there were attempts in the last 10 years to attack us that were foiled either by good intelligence or by luck: Like the attempted attack on Christmas Day two years ago, like the attempted attack in Times Square about a year- and-a-half ago.


opposed Obama and supported John McCain. I saw John a few months ago, and I would be a lot happier and feel a lot safer if he were president of the United States, both with regard to the security of the United States and the economy of the United States. I do give Obama credit for some things that he accomplished that I’m very happy about, that is, capturing and bringing Osama bin Laden to justice. I think that displayed the very best of President Obama. I also think his failure to lead in many areas dis- plays the weakness of Obama.


What’s your evaluation of Pres ident Obama’s leadership?


I would say in my lifetime he


is the weakest leader we’ve had in the White House. The only one who would challenge that is Jimmy Carter, and he’s weaker than Jimmy Carter.


Even Jimmy Carter presented


fi nancial plans and took his own proposals to Congress. He didn’t wait for Congress to endlessly debate before took a position. The president


ON UNITY: “


I believe America learned the lesson of unity. And I believe that if, God forbid, we had another attack, we’d be just as united.


sees himself more as a referee than a leader. But the Republicans are on one gridiron, the Democrats are on another gridiron, so you can’t referee the darn thing.


Where were you when you heard of bin Laden’s demise, and what was your reaction? I was watching Geraldo Rivera on Fox . . . I saw a little blurb on the screen saying that the president was going to hold a press conference at 10:30 p.m. . . . and I became alarmed. I was wondering, What could it be on a Sunday night?


I never remember any president addressing the nation on a Sunday evening at 10:30.


So once we actually revealed that we had captured him, that he had been killed during the capture, I was very relieved that [bin Laden] was caught because that was something that was hanging out there, that I think disturbed all of us who were involved in Sept. 11, because you want to see this man brought to justice for the horrible crimes he committed. I thought that everything about how the president went about it was correct . . . that’s something you have to be really proud [of], how America handled it, the way the SEALs han- dled it, and the way the Bush admin- istration handled it in helping to develop the information that fi nally led to the capture of bin Laden.


You’ve taken a special interest in the 9/11 families. How are they healing? Yes, I just fi nished talking to one


of the family members who lost his brother on Sept. 11. They’re dealing with it in different ways. I’ve learned this as part of Sept. 11: People deal


SEPTEMBER 2011 / NEWSMAX / 9|11: A DECADE LATER 55 ”


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