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New Documentary: Condi Rice Yelled at Bush on 9/11
Updated: 1 hour 6 minutes ago
(Sept. 7) — Condoleezza Rice shouted on the phone at President George W. Bush during the initial chaos after the 9/11 attacks and ordered him to stay away from the nation’s capital. Then she hung up on him.
In a History Channel documentary that will be shown Thursday, two days before the ninth anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Rice says she got a phone call from the president after the second jetliner rammed the World Trade Center in New York. He was visiting a school in Florida and said he was coming back to Washington, where the Pentagon was struck by a third plane and rumors spread of a car bombing near the State Department.
No way, Rice told him.
Chaos on 9/11 White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card tells President George W. Bush about the attackz on the World Trade Center in New York on Sept. 11, 2001. Bush was visiting a school in Sarasota, Fla., on the morning of the terrorist attacks. According to a new documentary, Bush wanted to return to the nation’s capital, but Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, ordered him not to. Chaos on 9/11 Rice, center, listens as Vice President Dick Cheney, right, speaks to Bush by phone from the White House operations center after the attacks. In the documentary, “9-11: State of Emergency,” Rice recalled that she insisted Bush not return to Washington right away. ”I said, ‘You cannot come back here. The United States of America is under attack, you have to go to safety. We don’t know what is going on here.’” She said she raised her voice at Bush and then hung up on him when he persisted. Chaos on 9/11 Bush was kept away from Washington for hours before he returned later that day and gave a televised address to the nation. Here, Rice awaits his arrival at the White House. Bush was “quite annoyed with me, to say the least,” about their phone exchange, Rice said. Chaos on 9/11 Bush confers with Cheney at the White House after his return. Rice said that the bunker where she, Cheney and others took shelter after the attacks started to run out of air, and some people were kicked out because they “weren’t essential.” At another point, secure communication systems failed and Bush had to talk with staffers on an unsecured line, she said. Chaos on 9/11
”I said, ‘You cannot come back here. The United States of America is under attack, you have to go to safety. We don’t know what is going on here.’”
When the commander in chief persisted, Rice says she put down the phone. “I said to him in a raised voice, and I had never raised my voice to the president before, I said, ‘You cannot come back here.’ I hung up,” Britain’s Independent reported today.
“The president was quite annoyed with me, to say the least,” she said.
The documentary, “9-11: State of Emergency,” also contains interviews with military leaders including former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, rescue workers, military members and survivors of the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks.
Rice describes a chaotic White House struggling to function in an underground bunker as communication systems failed and the president was forced to communicate with staff over an unsecured line.
The bunker where she hid with Vice President Dick Cheney and other staff began to run out of air.
”There were so many people in the bunker that the oxygen levels started dropping, and the secret service came in and said we’ve got to get some people out of here, she said, according to London’s Daily Mail. “‘They literally went around telling people that they weren’t essential and they had to leave.”
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(“Stop reading about goats and get on the plane! Fly anywhere! Go see Warren Buffet in Omaha for all I care! Just don’t come back here until the op is over and we have your story all figured out!” And NO drinking today, dammit! )
