we went to afghanistan. went up to the mountains, change of vehicle, blindfolded. i calculated it was around midnight that bin laden finally showed up. mr. bin laden you declared a jihad against the united states. can you tell us why? he essentially said it was about american foreign policy in the middle east.

we said who is targeted? he said we're targeting u.s. soldiers and if american civilians get in the way, that's sort of their problem. what are your future plans? >> translator: you'll see them and hear about them in the media. god willing. >> i was like, okay, we just sat through an hour and a half of this guy ranting about the united states. he is going to attack the united states. but he is sitting in a mud hut in the middle of nowhere in afghanistan. how is he going to implement that? >> move back! move back! >> move it!

>> stand by, four one. >> we knew we had enemies naturally, but i always felt pretty safe here. i never, never in a million years dreamed that anything like this could happen to us. >> we believed in the system. and, you know, 9/11 was a shattering of faith. >> 3,000 people were killed. it was a mass murder, and there needed to be an investigation. >> surviving family members, nobody can deny that they have the ultimate claim to the truth

about 9/11. on september 11, 2001, osama bin laden carried out the deadliest attack ever perpetrated on american soil. leaving tens of thousands grieving their losses. >> my son graduated from the fire academy only six weeks before 9/11. he was a probationary firefighter at that time.

>> jazz and i had a wonderful relationship. she was 25 when she died. she was becoming a friend. >> lisa was a wonderful person. just a wonderful wife. she was the top lobbyist in the biotech industry. >> brad was 24 when he died. >> i can almost picture him gliding down the building and making it out safely some strange way because he was such an innovative, streetwise kind of a young man. >> the grief-stricken families of the victims dealt with their sadness in different ways. but they shared an insatiable desire to find out why this happened and if it could have been prevented.

>> i think just trying to make sense of it, you know, i read as much as i could tolerate in the newspaper. >> i wanted to know what had happened, why my daughter was dead, why 3,000 people were dead, and why our government wasn't able to stop it. it became like an obsession to find out all the information that i can find out that was related to 9/11. >> the internet led the families to a mountain of troubling evidence. >> initially, i was angry at the terrorists, and then i became angry at the government because i realized that more was known about this danger. >> it's not just one administration. it was both. na fall. (engine revs) the things it does to your parade.

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good afternoon. >> a if you months after the attacks, national security adviser, condoleezza rice, claimed to one could have foreseen the events of september 11th. >> i don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the world trade center, take another one and slam it into the pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. >> but the families' research showed this wasn't the case. >> there was information on the public record that the government was thinking about exactly that thing. there were only two possibilities. one, that she was lying. the other which is actually scarier, is that even though all this information was there, the national security advisor of the united states didn't know it. that really scared me. >> the families headed to capitol hill. >> i will summarize my testimony as follows. >> kristin, whose husband died in the attack, outlined their

findings before a congressional hearing. >> she started with proof that the government had considered this kind of attack. >> in 1993, $150,000 study was commissioned by the pentagon to investigate the possibility of an airplane being used to bomb national landmarks. >> she revealed that in 1995 the cia was told about a planes as weapons plot called ojinka. >> the primary objective was to blow up 11 airliners over the pacific. in the alternative, several planes were to be hijacked and flown into civilian targets in the united states. among the targets mentioned were cia headquarters, the world trade center, the sears tower, and the white house. >> then there was the phoenix memo written two months before september 11th.

>> an fbi agent in phoenix wrote an electronic communication identifying his concern that al qaeda associates and affiliates were in this country taking flight lessons. he recommended a number of things in his memos, sent it to fbi headquarters. >> i still look at that memo as the most important memo written in fbi history. >> it basically went to the bottom of the pile, nothing was done with it. there were numerous missed opportunities that happened that were not taken advantage of that were dots that were not put together. >> over 3,000 other human beings -- >> the families demanded a full federal investigation. >> how could this have happened? >> they wanted a 9/11 commission. >> our call for an independent investigation has nothing to do with politics. it has everything to do with seeking out the answers that we so rightfully deserve.

>> let's be very clear. the families were angry. they wanted answers, and they weren't going to accept anything but the truth. >> but the bush white house said no to a 9/11 commission. >> we made the determination at the time that there were more immediate things we need to do. >> the white house lobbied against the 9/11 commission's creation because they really didn't want a whole lot of information coming out because everywhere you looked, every rock you turned over, it stunk, and it looked real bad. >> some people felt that a commission would uncover misdeeds or carelessness of people in the administration that would be embarrassing to them. >> i was stunned. i was stunned. how could we not have an investigation?

why would there be a delay in this? it was something that we just could not understand. >> senators john mccain and joe lieberman supported the families in their effort. >> joe and i decided to introduce a resolution that called for the appointment of a commission. >> mccain and i, the families are punishing it, and then finally the administration said, okay, we'll support a commission. >> then there was a phone call from apparently vice president cheney to someone i think on the house side that the conditions were not agreeable with the white house. >> why do we not have one? why all talk and no action? >> after making headlines, the families made a surprise appearance at a meeting to discuss the commission. they faced down white house advisor nick caleo. >> we stood up and held hands and stared them down. >> we stood up and said, how can you look us in the eyes and tell us there's not going to be a commission?

there was silence. >> and we were, you know, basically put on the spot. >> it was a moment when, you know, truth and pain spoke to power, not just truth. >> the families had taken on the administration and won. on november 22, 2002, president bush signed the legislation mandating a 9/11 commission. >> thanks to the activities of the families, not me and joe lieberman, thanks to the families, we were able to bring it about. >> my capacity as the chairman of the commission on terrorist attacks in the united states, i'm honored and humbled to convene this first public hearing.

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the commission exists to understand what happened on september 11th and to protect our nation against future attack. our mandate is to look back to learn the vital lessons of 9/11, to look forward to make recommendations that leave the united states and its people safer. >> the commission conducted 12 public hearings over the course of 16 months to investigate the failures of 9/11 and uncover how they happened. as the summer of 2001 unfolded, america was on high alert against terrorist attacks.

>> but by september the alert had been canceled. >> is it fair to say that in the summer of 2001, the threat level approached or exceeded anything that you had previously been receiving? >> well, i think it exceeded anything that george tenet or i had ever seen. >> let me read you some of the actual chatter that was picked up in this spring and summer. "unbelievable news coming in weeks," said one. "big event" there will be a very, very, very big uproar." "there will be attacks in the near future." >> tenet told us that in his world, quote, the system was blinking red, close quote, and that by late july, it could not have been any worse. >> the predominant focus and threat of the reporting took us overseas, but we could not discount the possibility of an attack in the homeland, although the data just didn't exist with any specificity. >> they don't tell us when, they don't tell us where, they don't tell us who, and they don't tell

us how. >> based on their research, the families found this testimony hard to believe. >> i've got a question now i would like to ask you given to me by a number of members of the families. did you ever see or hear from the fbi, from the cia, from any other intelligence agency, any memos or discussions or anything else between the time you got into office and 9/11 that talked about using planes as bombs? >> to the best of my knowledge, mr. chairman, the -- this kind of analysis about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us. i cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst. >> i don't know whether she lied or not, but there was plenty of evidence floating around all over, richard clark's office and the anti-terrorism office and

the fbi that planes could possibly be used against the united states. >> clearly, they were giving warnings something was coming. >> despite the unprecedented threat level, on september 11th most americans were unaware of the danger. they were just going about their lives. >> quick drink of orange juice and off to the train station. >> good boy. want to go to work? i usually start around 5:30, quarter to 6:00 in the morning. i have a regular routine, and i start checking trucks right away as they come in. >> sue was just about eight weeks away from defending her doctoral dissertation in immunology. peter was on a business trip,

and he thought it would be a nice thing for her to take a little bit of a break and come out to california with him and for christine to go to disneyland. so they made it sort of a family affair. >> i spoke with them monday. she says, nama, i'm going to california. and she says, i'm going to see mickey mouse. then i want to see you, nama. >> by 7:00 a.m. that same morning, four hijacking teams had arrived at three different airports. logan in boston, newark in new jersey, and dulles in washington. the faa knew that terrorists were training for hijacking. in the early months of 2001, it passed along several high-alert warnings to the airports and airlines. >> the faa issued at least five civil aviation security

information circulars to all u.s. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking. >> some experts put the number of warnings to airports and airlines even higher. >> there were 12 warnings from the faa to the airlines about terrorists training for hijacking and that the u.s. aviation system was in the terrorists' sights. >> on top of that, between april 1st and september 10th of 2001, the faa's own security branch issued 52 internal warnings about bin laden or al qaeda. but nobody said a word about the threat to the people of the united states. >> why wasn't the american flying public warned? why didn't our government actually take more rigorous response to these warnings? >> the state department maintained a list of thousands of suspected terrorists called

the tip-off list. >> would you please stand and raise your right hand? >> the faa had their own no-fly watch list with only 12 names on it. >> were either of you aware of the existence of the tip-off roster? >> yes. but -- >> were you, miss garvey? >> i may have been aware. i can't tell you with certainty that i was aware pre-9/11. >> i guess this would apply to admiral flynn as well. is that correct? >> i regret to say that i was unaware of the tip-off list and was unaware of it until yesterday. >> you didn't ask for a list of suspected terrorists? >> you mean through tip-off? >> yes. >> no. we did not go to the state department and ask them to give us all 61,000 names so that they could be put on the watch list. for one thing, the airlines would not have been able to handle such a list.

>> they sure had no trouble handling their frequent flier lists. i mean, that's ridiculous. what about common sense? >> once they arrived at the airport, the hijackers got through ticketing without any trouble. >> one of the hijackers on flight 77 didn't even have a photo i.d. you or i probably couldn't get on a plane without a photo i.d. prior to 9/11, but they let a hijacker on a plane without a photo i.d. >> actual video of the hijackers from dulles airport shows them passing through security. >> the key on the dulles video is that it shows the violations that the airlines and security companies committed on 9/11. >> one hijacker set off the first metal deer and was hand wanded by a security screener. >> they are not supposed to use the hand wand until you check it on a metal object.

did you see that on any dulles videotape? absolutely not. >> another hijacker set off the alarms for both the first and second metal detectors and still was allowed to proceed. >> you must identify the source of every alarm. you can see they didn't do that because they set off the alarm when they walked through the security checkpoint. >> the faa had been told for years that airport security was weak. the flaws were exposed by department of transportation undercover red teams who regularly tested the system. >> we got through guns, knives, hand grenades, axes, bombs. >> there was report after report about how bad security was. and nothing happened.

>> the faa did not want us to tell congress. they did everything they could. they tried to have the report classified. >> the whole system of faa security was so flawed, it was just a matter of how the terrorists wanted to do it. >> the main reason security was so bad? many told the commission it was money. >> the nature of what was happening in the civil aviation industry in the united states at that time did not put terrorism high on the list of priorities. >> every time the government proposed an actual add-on or separate tax item for security, the airlines opposed it. they said that security doesn't sell tickets. >> there were strong, very strong counterpressures to control security costs because

it was a cost center for the airlines. >> if the question is was there sort of direct lobbying either by the airlines or by congress on any specific safety or security, the answer would be no. >> how can you sit there and say that the airlines were not lobbying? what are they paying these high-priced lobbyists for? >> there's a lot of excuses out there, but the end result is people made choices not to focus on terrorism, and whether it was administration or agencies, they all failed. >> the faa, jane garvey, flynn, mineta, i think they're traitors. i called them to their face and that's the way i feel. they are welcome to sue me if they don't like it. [alarm beeping] ♪ ♪

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after they made it through security, the four hijacking teams took their seats, mostly in first and business class. once their planes were in the air, they sprang into action.

on american flight 11 en route from boston to l.a., terrorists took over the cockpit. then they made two announcements that were overheard by air traffic control and other pilots. >> we have the plane. just stay quiet and you'll be okay. we are returning to the airport. >> nobody move. everything will be okay. if you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. just stay quiet. >> the hijackers turned off the plane's transponder making it difficult to track. >> flight attendant betty ong used an air phone to call american airlines reservations. >> ma'am, what seat are you in? >> we're -- we just left boston, we're up in the air. we're supposed to go to l.a. and the cockpit is not answering their phone. >> okay, but what seat are you sitting in? what's the number of your seat? >> i'm in my jump seat right

now. at 3r. >> okay. you're the flight attendant? >> critical minutes went by as ong was repeatedly asked the same questions. >> i'm sorry, did you say you're the flight attendant? >> hello? >> yes, hello. >> what is your name? >> you're going to have to speak up. i can't hear you. >> sure. what is your name? >> okay. my name is betty ong. i'm number three on flight 11. >> okay. >> and the cockpit is not answering their phone. >> for approximately 23 minutes, betty patiently told us she thought they were being hijacked because two or three men gained access to the cockpit and the cabin crew didn't communicate with pilots. >> and our number five, our first class passengers -- our first class galley flight attendant and our purser -- and we can't get into the cockpit. the door won't open.

>> this is operations. what flight number are we talking about? >> flight 12. >> no, we're on flight 11 right now. >> flight 11. i'm sorry. >> who are you, hon? >> she gave her name as betty ong. >> at 8:25 a.m. boston controllers realized flight 11 had been hijacked. 13 minutes passed before they called the military's northeast air defense sector to intervene. >> we have a hijacked aircraft headed towards new york, and we need you guys to -- we seed someone to scramble some f-16s or something to help us out. >> is this real world or exercise? >> no, this is not an exercise, not a test. >> fighter pilots at otis air force base in massachusetts were

ordered to battle stations, but they waited for neads to tell them where to go. while they stood by, american airlines flight 11 crashed into tower one of the world trade center at 8:46 a.m. >> i was in an elevator somewhere between the 78th and 101st floor when suddenly i felt it drop by the explosion and then felt it plummeting. the elevator burst into flame. i began to beat into the flames, burning my hands, arms, and legs in the process. >> we have a breaking news story to tell you about. apparently a plane has just crashed into the world trade center here in new york city just a few moments ago. >> the elevator came to a stop on the 78th floor.

the doors opened, and i jumped out. i still remember this. i very calmly took my bag, put it at the side of the main elevator bank thinking that i would come back to get it later. and started to look for the fire exit. >> people in the other tower felt the plane's impact. >> my office is in the basement level of number two trade center. i felt the shock, actually knocked my coffee to the floor, and i proceeded over to one world trade center to assist in the evacuation and rescue. >> from his office in tower two, 24-year-old brad fetchet called his father. >> dad, i want you to not be worried. i want to remind you i'm in tower two, not tower one. they are telling us things are okay. >> my husband asked brad to call me at home. here is the recording of his call left on my message machine at home around 9:00.

>> hey mom, it's brad. i just wanted to call and let you know, i'm sure you heard or maybe you haven't heard that the plane crashed into world trade center one. we're fine. we're in world trade center two. i'm obviously alive and well over here. i think we'll be here all day. i'm not sure if the firm is going to shut down for the day or what, but give me a call back later. i called dad to let him know. love you. >> hearing his voice is a double-edged sword because i love hearing his voice, but i hate hearing the message. and i hate thinking about the circumstance he was in. i wish i could have protected him.

>> like brad, brian clark was in tower two. >> i had wandered over toward the north windows where a number of our brokers were standing at the glass, and they had begun to see people jump. >> somebody fell. >> a lot of those people had a choice to make. either they're going to stay in a position where they are going to be burned or they're going to jump. and a lot of people made the decision to jump, and they did. tremendous amount of people jumped. >> oh, my god! >> they're jumping. >> because it's probably so hot up there.

>> while david headed upstairs in tower one, stanley evacuated the other tower. >> so we ran out of the office, the president, the ceo, human resources, all these big shots. the elevator came. we went down. not a word is said. >> in the meantime an announcement came over the public address system in the south tower urging people to stay in place. >> the strobe lights flashed, the siren went whoop, whoop, your attention, please. building two is secure. there is no need to evacuate building two. if you are in the midst of evacuation, you may use the re-entry doors and the elevators to return to your offices. >> the port authority directed my son's company to stay put in their office. "that the building is safe and secure." i wouldn't remain in my home if the home next door was on fire, and i didn't understand the mentality of having people

remain in a 110-story building. >> as we're about to exit the building through the turnstile first, the security guard looks at me and says, where are you guys going? i said i'm going home. why? i saw fireballs coming down. no, your building is safe and secure. go back to your office. >> what's going on? >> and less than one minute this elevator zoomed back up, and we are on the 78th floor again. at experian, we believe credit isn't just a score. it's a skill. and like anything else, you can get better. so we make it easy for you to spot trouble in your report. or know if fraud is hurting your fico score. and if you need it, a dedicated fraud resolution agent can help you set things right. after all watching over your credit is one of the most important skills of all.

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in sarasota, florida, president bush was told about the first plane crash as his motorcade arrived at an elementary school at approximately 8:55 a.m. he called national security advisor condoleezza rice and asked to be kept informed. 45 minutes earlier, united flight 175 had taken off from boston to los angeles. at 8:14 a.m. pilot victor saracini overheard the hijackers from flight 11 on his radio. >> nobody move. everything will be okay. >> two minutes later, united flight 175 was hijacked.

>> in easton, connecticut, lee and eunice hanson got a phone call from their son, peter, who was aboard the plane. >> when i first heard lee answer the phone say, hi, peter, i said, what's he calling for? and then i heard silence on his part. >> he said, dad, the airplane's being hijacked. i think my first thing was, come on, peter. he said, no, it's being hijacked. he said, i don't think the pilot is flying the plane even now. he said, you ought to call united airlines and let them know, he says, because they may have turned off the equipment that can warn them of a hijacking. and he said, i'll get back to you.

>> the controller responsible for united 175 was looking for the already-crashed american flight 11. he didn't notice that united 175 had now veered off course. within ten minutes of united 175's hijacking, a third plane, american flight 77, traveling from dulles to los angeles came under attack. steven push's wife, lisa raines, was on board. >> she was going on a business trip, a one-day business trip to california. >> at 8:54 american 77 began deviating from its flight plan, first with a slight turn toward the south. two minutes later it disappeared completely from indianapolis radar.

>> the controller who lost flight 77 assumed it crashed. >> he believed american 77 had experienced serious electrical and/or mechanical failure and was gone. >> meanwhile in new york, an air traffic control manager tracking united flight 175, tried to report its hijacking to her superiors. she was turned away. >> the manager tried to notify the regional managers and was told that the managers were discussing a hijacked aircraft, presumably american 11, and refused to be disturbed. >> finally, another manager from new york soon realized there were several hijacked planes. he contacted the faa command center in herndon, virginia. >> we have several situations going on here. it's escalating. we need to get the military involved with this. >> just as military assistance was requested, controllers in boston finished reviewing the

first transmission the hijackers had sent from flight 11. they, too, realized that the hijackers had more than one plane. >> you still there? >> yes, i am. >> i'm going to reconfirm with -- with downstairs, but the -- as far as the tape seemed to think that the guy said that we have planes. now, i don't know if it was because it was the accent or if there's more than one. but i'm going to reconfirm that for you, and i'll get back to you real quick. okay? >> appreciate it. >> they have what? >> planes, as in plural. it sounds like we're talking to new york that there's another one aimed at the world trade center. >> there's another aircraft? >> at 9:02 a.m. new york terminal approach spotted and unidentified plane on their radar. >> down who he is? >> we just -- we don't know who he is.

we're just picking him up now. >> the controllers saw that the plane was in a rapid descent. it was flight 175 headed straight for downtown manhattan. >> all right. heads up here. looks like another one. >> aboard the flight, peter hanson called his father again. >> he said it looks like they're going to crash into a building somewhere. >> i just happened to raise my head and i'm looking out towards the direction of the statue of liberty. what i saw was this giant aircraft coming towards me eye level. >> he said, don't worry, dad, it will be quick. and then he just said, oh, my god. oh, my god.

oh, my god. oh, my god. oh, my god.

>> i had the television on, and the plane hit the building, and all i said was, oh, no. just like that. >> half our family is gone. >> stanley and brian were above the 80th floor of the tower that was just hit. >> in an instant our room fell apart. >> and the bottom wing is wedged in my office door 20 feet from where i am. >> excuse me, it's closed. >> top u.s. officials said, quote, that this was clearly

terrorist-related. >> as i was watching tv, the plane flew into tower two, and so i knew then that brad was in tower two, and i was just trying to calculate, you know, where he was in the building and where the plane had hit. >> i said to the police commissioner that we're in uncharted territory. we've never gone through anything like this before and we just have to do the best we can to keep everybody together, keep them focus. >> mayor, what's the situation? >> the situation is that two airplanes have attacked apparently -- what? all right. let's go north then.

>> two airplanes -- >> come with us, come with us. let's talk a little later, okay? >> the port authority was the agency responsible for the world trade center, but as the proportions of the disaster became clear, new york's police and fire departments also rushed to the scene. >> my son, jonathan, who is a new york city firefighter, called that morning to say turn the tv on, and then he said, dad, we're going to the world trade center. i said, okay, be careful. he said, okay. >> those men that responded here looked out the windows of those fire trucks, they looked up, they saw what the hell they were going to go into, and what did they do? they went into it. they went into it. >> several floors of fire would have been beyond a fire extinguishing capability of the forces that we had on hand.

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in sarasota, florida, president bush greeted a class of second graders. >> good morning. >> good morning, mr. president. >> at 9:05 a.m., two minutes after the crash of the second plane in new york, an aide interrupted the president to give him the news. >> andrew card whispered to him, quoted, a second plane hit the second tower. america is under attack, close quote. the president told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an

excited reaction at a moment of crisis. >> this is a difficult moment for america. >> the president made a brief statement before leaving for the airport. >> today we've had a national tragedy. two airplanes have crashed into the world trade center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country. >> as the president addressed a stunned nation, the third hijacked plane, american airlines flight 77 from washington to l.a., had been flying undetected for approximately 28 minutes. the faa wasn't focused on that flight. incredibly, it was still looking for flight 11, which had crashed into tower one of the world trade center 45 minutes earlier. >> faa military boston center, just had a report that american

11 is on its way and it's heading towards washington. >> american 11 is still in the air? >> yes. there's definitely another aircraft that hit the tower. that's the latest report we have. i can try to confirm and i.d. for you, but i would assume he's somewhere over either new jersey or somewhere further south. >> okay. so american 11 isn't the hijack at all then, right? >> no, he is a hijack. >> american 11 is a hijack? >> yes. this could be a third aircraft. >> tape after tape played for the commission showed that communication between the faa, its air-traffic control centers, and the military was a mess. >> the technician who took this call from the faa immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander. he in turn reported to the battle commander. >> okay, american airlines is still airborne, 11, first guy. he's headed towards washington. okay. i think we need to scramble langley right now and i'm going to take the fighters from otis and try to chase this guy down if i can find him. >> the mission crew commander

issued an order at 9:23, quote, okay. scramble langley. head them towards the washington area, unquote. >> fighter jets took off from langley air force base in virginia, but due to miscommunications and a lack of specific target information, they flew in the wrong direction. >> rather than them going to washington, they flew east over the atlantic ocean. >> at 9:27 a.m., 24 minutes after the world knew america was under attack. pilot jason doll on united flight 93 received the first hijacking warning from his airline. less than a minute later, hijackers were inside his cockpit. >> boston center asked the command center to issue a nationwide cockpit security alert, but such an alert was not issued, and a quarter of an hour later, the cockpit in united 93 was breached.

can you explain that decision? can any of you explain that decision? >> mr. white was the senior person at the command center. he might be the best able to do that. >> i wasn't aware of that request. this is the first i have heard of it today. i wasn't in a position that day to have heard that request. i was -- have always been under the assumption that we did issue a verbal warning to the air carriers about cockpit security. i don't know if we -- if we even made a decision or if there was ever a determination made why we shouldn't send an advisory out. >> after hijackers took over flight 93, controllers heard screams and the sounds of a struggle over the radio. >> this was followed by a second radio transmission with sounds of screaming and someone yelling, quote, get out of here, get out of here, end quote. >> ten minutes later there was a

third radio transmission from flight 93. >> this is the captain. would like you to remain seating. there is a bomb on board and we are going back to the airport. please remain quiet. >> the controller responded, quote, united 93, understand you have a bomb on board. go ahead, end quote. the flight did not respond. >> united 93. united 93, do you still hear cleveland? united 93, united niner-three, do you hear cleveland? >> while flight 93 flew on without radio contact, flight 77 with hijackers at the helm closed in on washington, d.c. >> several evident dulles controllers observed a primary radar target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed, end quote, and notified reagan airport. faa personnel at both reagan and dulles airports notified the secret service. >> at the white house the secret

service rushed the vice president to the president's emergency operations center beneath the building. >> there were just a million things going on at once. it was literally like a beehive of activity. >> meanwhile, american flight 77 was headed in the direction of the white house. suddenly it made a 330 degree right turn and began a rapid descent toward the pentagon. at 9:37 a.m. american flight 77 crashed into the pentagon.

>> we're looking at live pictures of the pentagon where there is billowing smoke. we are hearing again unconfirmed reports that this was the result of a plane crashing. >> i was 15, 20 yards from the point of impact. there was no way to describe for you the panic that just grips your heart. i was tossed around like a rag doll. i'm on fire, burning. the word terror is correct.

>> at the same time in new york stanley remained trapped on the 81st floor of tower two. >> i saw somebody waving a flashlight all around and around their head. >> all of a sudden coming out of a hole if you like in a wall, wide-eyed and very animated, waving his hand was a stranger. >> a collapsed wall of sheetrock separated the two men. >> i reached down and somehow got under his arm or around his neck somehow and heaved him up. >> and he pulled with such force i just flew over on the other side, flew over and i knocked this man over. i landed on top of him. and i reached down and i grabbed this man, i hugged him and i said, look, you're my guardian angel and i gave this man a kiss. >> this stranger gave me this big kiss and i said, i'm brian,

and i'm stanley, he said, that's how stanley and i met. >> and this man put his hand lovingly around my shoulder, come on, buddy, let's go home. >> as brian and stanley searched for an escape route, hundreds of others were still trapped above the fire in the twin towers. >> my first question to the chief was can we get helicopters up to the roof and help any of those people? and pete pointed to a big flame that was shooting out of the north power at the time, and he said to me, my guys can save everybody below the fire, but i can't put a helicopter above the fire. >> but with no other way to go, many people headed up. >> people thought they could go to the roof because people went to the roof in 1993.

>> civilians were not informed that rooftop evacuations were not part of the port authority's evacuation plan. >> when they got to the roof, the doors were locked. >> they were not informed that access to the roof required a key. the port authority acknowledges that it had no protocol for rescuing people trapped above the fire in the towers. >> on the streets people were leaving the area as fast as they could. >> i saw people running. i saw people fleeing, which is exactly what we wanted them to do. we wanted to get them out of the area. >> on that day, that brooklyn bridge that separated brooklyn from manhattan, that was the bridge that really came to separate heaven from hell. because you can't beat

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it was now 9:40 a.m. with the twin towers and pentagon in flames, the presidential motorcade was rushing to a sarasota airport. >> the vice president was in contact with the president. >> the president told the vice president, quote, sounds like we have a minor war going on here. i heard about the pentagon. we're at war, somebody is going to pay, close quote. >> by the time air force one took off, hijackers had been flying united flight 93 for nearly 30 minutes. at 9:46 and two minutes later command center updated faa headquarters that united 93 was now, quote, 29 minutes out of washington, d.c., end quote. >> affirmative. he said there was a bomb on board. >> by 9:49 a.m. the faa had known for more than 15 minutes that united 93 was a possible

hijack. three passenger jets had already crashed into american landmarks. still, no one at the faa requested military assistance for flight 93. >> they know that the trade tower and the pentagon was struck and they don't tell the military command there's a fourth plane hijacked and in the air and at this point turned around and headed toward washington? i mean, it's just incomprehensible. >> do we want to think about scrambling aircraft? >> oh, god, i don't know. >> that's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next ten minutes. >> you know, everybody just left the room. >> they just dithered for minutes, precious minutes, just not wanting to pick up the phone when they knew we were under a terrorist attack. >> when you listen to the faa tapes, it's just incredible that these people were so incompetent in their jobs.

>> it was just -- it was bone chilling to listen to that recording. >> as the faa attempted to coordinate the crisis in the air, flight 93 had reversed its westerly course. it was now headed toward washington. for six harrowing minutes the passengers of flight 93 battled their hijackers for control of the plane. at 10:03 a.m., it was all over. united flight 93 crashed in a field in shanksville, pennsylvania. >> okay, there is now -- on united 93. >> yes. >> there's a report of black smoke in the last position i gave you, 15 miles from the johnstown. >> from the airplane or from the ground? >> they're speculating it's from the aircraft. >> it hit the ground.

that's what they're speculating. speculation only. >> i also want to give you a heads up. >> go ahead. >> united 93, do you have information on that. >> he's down. >> he's down? >> when did he land? >> he did not land. >> oh, he's down. >> yes. >> somewhere up northeast of camp david. >> not one from faa headquarters requested military assistance regarding united 93 nor did any manager at faa headquarters pass any information it had to the military. >> thank god the passengers on 93 took the plane over, but a plane was heading to washington, d.c., faa headquarters knew it, and didn't let the military know. >> there was only one set of fighters orbiting washington, d.c., during this time frame. the langley f-16s, but the langley pilots were never briefed about the reason they were scrambled. as the lead pilot explained, no one told us anything. >> the nation owes a debt to the

passengers of united 93. their actions saved the lives of countless others. >> at the end of the day, the question remained, could any of these flights have been intercepted by the military before they crashed? >> would it have been physically possible if everything had gone right in terms of communication and of information and communication of orders for the military pilots to have shot down either the plane that hit the first world trade tower, the plane that hit the second world trade tower, or the plane that hit the pentagon? >> you assumed that faa told us as soon as they knew. >> right. >> and if that is the case, yes, we could shoot down the airplanes. >> all right. thank you, general. xwxexe

it appears to be what people already describing as a highly sophisticated coordinated attack. >> as the government struggled to respond to the sudden

attacks, terrorism experts quickly identified bin laden as the perpetrator. >> i knew immediately it was bin laden when the first plane hit. who else had the motive and who else had the ability? >> by september 11th, 2001, osama bin laden's al qaeda terrorists had been attacking american interests for almost ten years. first, they were suspected of hitting the world trade center in 1993. >> we heard the explosion. the building rattled. the whole thing shook. >> it was shocking when the world trade center was hit, and it was really a tragedy, but i don't think many people recognized that this was a harbinger for worse things to

come. >> five years later, bin laden's operatives bombed two american embassies in africa killing more than 200 and injuring 5,000. >> president clinton and i have said we will not rest until we find some solution for this terrorist problem. our memory is long and our reach is far. >> after the embassy bombings, the clinton white house launched missile attacks at al qaeda camps. but bin laden survived. the clinton administration had

other chances to kill bin laden. one was in 1999. >> osama bin laden was visiting a camp in the southern part of afghanistan in kandahar province. a desert camp where there were princes from the united arab emirates, and it was an excellent chance. we knew when he was going to be there. it was a very isolated area. there would be no collateral damage to civilians. >> but the commission learned that foreign policy concerns complicated matters. >> according to cia officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike might kill an emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with bin laden or close by. >> what i did was to call the director of central intelligence and say that i had finally been presented with satellite photography of the facility, and it was very clear to me that this looked like something other than a terrorist camp.

it looked like a luxury hunting trip, and i asked him to look into it personally. >> the national security council instead decided to call the government of the united arab emirates, tell them that we knew bin laden was in the desert, and that we also knew that they were hunting and maybe it would be a good idea that they didn't hang around. >> the decision ultimately was george tenet's, and george tenet recommended no action be taken. >> the next time the satellite went overhead, all that was left of the camp was a pile of burning garbage. i found it very upsetting that -- on the most selfish level that the choice was not to protect my children, but to save the head of this arab hunting camp whose family was about to buy some number of billions of dollars of u.s. fighter aircraft.

>> then bin laden struck again. in 2000 al qaeda terrorists used a small boat to bomb the "uss cole" refueling in yemen. 17 american sailors died. >> smart people working in counterterrorism cases knew early on there was no doubt about it, that it was an al qaeda operation driven by bin laden. >> there wasn't an uproar and essentially a decision was made to put it off to the next admission and deal with it. >> it wasn't a priority. >> people were focusing on other things. >> doing absolutely nothing on the "uss cole" was a response that people took note of. >> no one did anything after the "uss cole." that must have made al qaeda feel kind of empowered.

>> by the time of the "cole" bombing, bin laden's 9/11 plot was well under way. hijackers were settling down in america and learning to fly airplanes. >> they lived in rooming houses. they lived in motel 6s. >> mindy, who lost her husband in the world trade center, presented evidence to the commission that revealed serious immigration violations. >> i am holding in the hand some of the applications of the terrorists who killed my husband. all of these forms are incomplete and incorrect. had the ins or the state department followed the law, at

least 15 of the hijackers would have been denied visas and would not have been in the united states on september 11th, 2001. >> while the hijackers made their preparations for the 9/11 attacks, the white house changed hands. once in office president bush decided not to immediately respond to the "cole" bombing. instead, the commission learned he'd ordered the development of a long-range plan to eliminate bin laden. >> thank you very much. secretary powell. >> mr. chairman, president bush, and all of us on his team knew that terrorism would be a major concern for us. he wanted a thorough strategy to go after al qaeda. >> he made clear to us that he did not want to respond to al qaeda one attack at a time. he told me he was tired of swatting flies. the president says, i have no hesitancy about going after him,

but i didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling. >> every morning that summer bush received a president's daily brief or pdb outlining security threats to the united states. >> isn't it a fact, dr. rice, that the august 6th pdb warned against possible attacks in this country, and i ask you whether you recall the title of that pdb. >> i believe the title was bin laden determined to attack inside the united states. now, the pdb -- >> thank you. >> no -- >> i will get -- >> i would like to finish my point here. >> i didn't know there was a point. >> you asked me whether or not it warned of attacks. >> i asked you what the title was. >> you said did that warn of attacks? it did not warn of attacks inside the united states. it was historical information

based on old reporting. there was no new threat information and it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the united states. >> ultimately, nobody in the government was able to stop bin laden's plot.

by 9:30 a.m. thousands of people at the world trade center were fighting for their lives. brian clark and stanley were descending tower two from the 81st floor. on the 31st floor, they found a conference room with working phones, but it didn't do much good.

>> brian picked up the phone and he's frantically dialing 911. >> she said hold on a moment, you're going to have to tell my supervisor, click, so i was on hold. i must have waited 30 seconds before somebody else, i don't know if it was a supervisor or not, came on. i told them the story as well, and the second person said, well, just a minute. you'll have to -- i'll have to get -- click. i'm on hold again. >> it was a wholesale failure of the 911 emergency system. people were told hold on. people were told to call back. people were told stay where you are. when that was the worst thing to do. on that day the entire system collapsed. >> 911 operators were in the dark about the magnitude of the disaster. they were unable to pass along useful information to panicked callers.

>> i would have to say 911 was overwhelmed, and should it have been larger, should it have been anticipated? yes, it probably should have, but it wasn't. >> to make matters worse, the police department, the port authority, and the fire department couldn't share vital information. >> the radios, we didn't have a channel we could communicate with the police department on. >> the way in which the fire department and the police department communicate is different because generally they have different missions. the best answer is they should have radios that are interoperable so that in an emergency, both of them could be switched onto the same channel. >> but in the interim -- >> those radios do not exist today. >> so when the police department helicopter surveyed the situation, the fire department didn't get that information.

>> the chiefs in the north tower were forced to make decisions based on little or no information. >> one of the most critical things in a major operation like this is to have information. we didn't receive any reports of what was seen from the helicopters. it was impossible to know how much damage was done on the upper floors, whether the stairwells were intact or not. >> people watching on tv suddenly had more knowledge of what was happening 100 floors above us than we did in the lobby. >> by now brian clark and stanley made it to the ground floor of tower two. >> the only people we saw were the firefighters and the cops and the ems workers. >> the two men were told to get away from the building as fast as they could. >> stanley stopped, and he looked back at two world trade center.

>> and i'm looking at brian and said, this building is going down now. >> huge explosions. >> oh, my god! >> the whole building collapsed!

the whole building collapsed! >> get out of here!

>> the whole event only took ten seconds, but it just seems to expand in your mind when you're seeing it. it was the tower that we had just exited and where our company was up on the 84th floor. >> then i heard on the radio something i'll never forget. the transmission said, tower two is down. all units evacuate tower one. i couldn't believe it. what do you mean tower two is down? i mean, it's the world trade center. >> the first tower to be hit was still standing. port authority cop david limb was helping evacuees on the 35th floor. >> and now the people i was with were they upset, of course. i just told them we had to keep

going, and we started heading down again. >> at 10, 08 a.m., an nypd helicopter pilot reported that tower one wouldn't last much longer. >> i got down to the fifth floor, well, one more flight down was as far as we got. and the building started coming down. >> it was like an onrushing locomotive or an avalanche.

i guess my final thoughts were about my family. i thought about my wife, my kids. excuse me. i hope they would think well of me for what i did. i was very fortunate. when the debris stopped falling -- excuse me. >> take your time. first i thought that i had died. i heard nothing, i saw nothing. but then i heard a voice. it was a voice, who's here? we couldn't see each other.

it was totally black. we were alive. we were virtually standing on top of what was left of the world trade center. when i say that, you have to picture a straw and a pancake. we were in that straw. >> david limb and a handful of others were standing inside a lone stairwell that had somehow withstood the collapse. >> eventually i remember ladder company 43 are coming around the corner. never thought i'd be so happy to see firemen, you know, and they came, they threw us ropes. >> as david limb was treated for his wounds, lee arrived at the trade center to search for his missing son, jonathan. >> we walked down the street,

and many of the people were still just moving away from it and walking, bleeding, walking up the street. i just had a sinking feeling that we might have a problem trying to find jonathan. >> stanley and i talked for 45 minutes finding out about each other's families and so on. he gave me his personal business card. i put the card in my shirt pocket. >> he jumped into a cab -- >> and this feeling came over me that stanley doesn't exist. he was a guardian angel sent to get me.

and then i remembered the business card and i reached in my pocket and pulled out the business card and of course there was a stanley or there is a stanley. it would have been a marvelous story if there was no business card in there, but i knew stanley was real and i put the card back and i still carry it in my wallet. crazy. hey honey, yes, dear. you're washing that baked-on alfredo by hand, right? yes, dear. dish issues? cascade platinum powers through your toughest stuck-on food. so let your dishwasher be the dishwasher. this turned out great. cascade.

>> do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? >> i do. >> i do. >> thank you very much, sir. >> as the hearings went on in early 2004, the families learned more about what happened on september 11th, but they also grew frustrated with the lack of cooperation by many witnesses. >> a lot of the hearings we heard people that had clearly done their own investigation within their agencies, and then when they were asked a specific question said they'd have to get back to the commission. >> i will have to get back to you on that.

>> i'd like to double-check it before i say it here. >> that occurred before i began my tenure. what i know about it is after the fact. >> they were not willing to publicly disclose anything that might hold them accountable. >> you just cannot have a mass murder like this that the government wasn't able to stop without having someone held accountable. >> but instead we got speeches about how we're perfect, we did everything right. nothing could have been done better. >> our anger should clearly be directed and the blame should clearly be directed at one source and one source alone, the terrorists who killed our loved ones. >> and that just intensified our anger and drove us on to try harder to get answers. >> more than anything else, the families wanted accountability from their government. >> i'd like to call the hearing back to order. >> then as the hearings neared their conclusion they go it, sadly from only one man. the man who had been in charge of counterterrorism in the clinton and bush administration.

>> i welcome these hearings because it is finally a forum where i can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11. to them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you. those entrusted with protecting you failed you, and i failed you. we tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed. and for that failure i would ask once all the facts are out for your understanding and for your forgiveness. >> it was the first acknowledgment that our government had failed. that was what made the apology

important to me. >> i was struck by his apology, not because he was apologizing, but because it was the first time i had ever heard anyone apologize for take responsibility for what happened. >> someone had finally just admitted they made a mistake and said they were sorry. you know, we hadn't heard that before. [ clock ticking ]

time. you only have so much. that's why we want to make sure you won't have to wait on hold. and you won't have to guess when we'll turn up. because after all we should fit into your life. not the other way around. ♪ nearly three years after the attacks, the commission the families had fought so hard for

released its final report on the events of september 11. >> today we present this report and these recommendations to the president of the united states, to the united states congress and the american people. >> the collision mammission mad of recommendations, including tightening american borders, increasing preparedness before the next attack. sharing information among agencies. creating a director and a national terrorism center. >> any one who said that the commission was not going to come up with anything new under the sun, which is one of the things the white house told us what wrong because clearly we didn't have the director of national intelligence, and we would not have had a director of national

intelligence if it was not for the commission. >> and that september day we were unprepared. we did not grasp the magnitude of a threat that had been gathering over a considerable period of time. as we detail in our report, this was a failure of policy, management, capability, and above all a failure of imagination. >> the ground truth about 9/11 is that we blew it. this government blew it. and it wasn't just one administration at fault. >> i've seen some of these wonderful, wonderful surviving family members take on the administration, take on the congress, and they won. >> i think they changed the course of history.

>> the small group of family members that pushed for the economi commission to be established and for the 9/11 issues to be legislated are now going to push for these reforms to be implemented. >> it's the most important thing i can do for my wife's memory is to make sure that she didn't die in vain. >> we close, most importantly, by thanking the families who lost loved ones on 9/11. you demanded the creation of this commission. you've encouraged us every step of the way. as partners and as witnesses. from your grief, you have drawn strength.

>> among the casualties on 9/11, 60 were police officers, and 343 were firefighters. >> to this day, i have no information about what happened to my son and the entire engine company that was lost with him. i continue to seek to find out what really happened to my son on 9/11. >> we lost our son. we lost our daughter-in-law and this little 2 1/2-year-old angel. that's our loss.

>> she was a child, they say you lose your future. her children would have contributed something wonderful, because that's what she was like. >> when brad died, my husband and i lost a son and our dreams for his future, a wedding, a daughter-in-law and grand children. >> we have a different family now than we9/11. i had have a different marriage. it doesn't go away with a band-aid. you live with it the rest of your life. >> it was about 11:30 at night, i got a phone call, lee, we have your son. over on the side was a stokes basket, and my son was in it. he was covered with an american flag. i went over to my son. i knelt down. i spoke to him.

i still have to feel him from head to toe. to satisfy my own curiosity. then, with the help of my son brendan and some of the men from squad 288, we picked up my son and we carried him up the hill. >> because of the country we live in, forgetting sometimes is easy. we become complacent. i speak for thousands of people, and people say to me, well, what should we do in and i say to them very nicely. i say i'm not going to pick on you, but how many of you after hearing about the 9/11 commission results and that the government maybe wasn't going to act on it, how many of you called your congressman, your

senators in your states and demanded they act on it? raise your hands. well, you know what the results were. i was lucky if i got one or two. complacency, but what can we do as a country? don't say to yourselves, well, that's an issue that happened in new york city. it didn't happen in new york city. it happened in the united states of america. it happened on our soil.

♪ didn't think it was real, i didn't think it was possible.