"Of course, sir. Please give them my regards. If there is anything that I can do or get done let me know." I stood and waited while President Bush climbed to his feet. As we walked towards the door I said, "I am flying to New York tomorrow to see the damage. You are welcome to come with me."
"No, I think that would be too soon."
"Yes, sir." At the door I turned the President over to Frank and found myself facing Scooter Libby. "Mr. Libby, what brings you here?"
Scooter was a bit more deferential this afternoon. "Mr. President, you said you wanted to begin calling back some of the various heads of state this afternoon."
"Yes, I did. Thank you for the reminder. Come in. Do you have a list? What's the procedure?" This was a first for me! How the hell do you dial up the Queen of England?! What, do you dial the Operator, and then when you get the switchboard, ask for her extension?! I took the list from Scooter and glanced down it, and then looked back at him. "You'd better have an interpreter on hand. Marilyn says I can't even speak English, only Southern. I sure can't speak some of these languages!"
I had told him the other day I would speak to the top ten countries, and the State Department could handle the rest. On the list – Russia, Israel, England, France, Germany, Canada, Mexico, Japan, China, and Saudi Arabia. I went over to my desk and sat down, and gestured for him to sit as well. I grabbed a pen and crossed off Saudi Arabia. "Screw the Saudis. They're half the problem." I thought for a second and jotted down, "India. I assume they called? What the hell time is it in some of these places?" India and Russia were somewhere on the other side of the world!
Scooter glanced at his watch and then said, "It's 2:30 now. India is ten hours ahead of us, so that makes it after midnight..."
"That would be crazy!"
He continued with a nod, " ... Moscow is plus nine, Israel is plus seven, and then we work down from there."
"Okay, let's start with Israel and work our way west. We'll budget ten minutes each and hope for the best. Now, what do we want me to say?"
He blinked at that, and then we figured out a standard response. So far, everybody had been saying how sorry they were, they were offering assistance, they hoped for the President's quick rescue, and looked forward to meeting me at my earliest convenience. The response: thank you, we appreciate the offers and the State Department will coordinate any international assistance, we are also hoping for President Bush's rescue, and I look forward to meeting you. He had already told the White House bull pen to start warming up the interpreters.
In general, the calls went about as expected. The only thing out of the ordinary was in the first call, with Ariel Sharon. He offered some very valuable intelligence assistance and I promised to make sure the CIA cooperated and worked with them. Then I informed him that Wolfowitz was gone.
"So I have already heard. He is still pushing that ridiculous theory that Iraq is involved? Good! He's more trouble than he's worth!", said Sharon
This had all been on speakerphone, and I glanced over at Libby for his reaction. He was visibly shocked. "That was the gist of our disagreement. Mister Sharon, I don't have the time to talk to you right now, but I look forward to meeting with you soon to discuss this and other security issues."
"And I with you, Mister President."
After I hung up, I looked at Scooter. "Scooter, when this is settled down some, we'd better plan on a summit meeting between me and Sharon. These guys have been fighting these crazies since before you and I were born, so maybe we should listen to them every once in awhile." Then I grabbed the list. "Who's next?"
Most of the leaders I spoke to spoke better English than I did, but if it wasn't their native language, we had translators on the line anyway. We took a break after Europe and North America, and then hit China and Japan after dinner. Meanwhile, I had various aides coming in and out and phone calls from various people about everything else. When did I want to discuss the flight ban? When could I discuss the latest intelligence? When could I discuss military responses? What were my travel plans for tomorrow? What was the latest information from Ground Zero?
Somehow in the midst of all of this, I managed to make a limo drive over to Arlington to see the destruction. Colin Powell was present and he showed me around while the television cameras rolled. The stench was overpowering, a mix of jet fuel, burned tires, melted asphalt, construction fire – and burned flesh. There wasn't anything to do or say, but I had to say something to the workers. They had already rigged up a gigantic flag and I said something patriotic and martial, about how we wouldn't let this stand and how justice would be done. I was just winging it, but they were cheering like crazy. Then I told Colin that when this was over, that flag was to be in a museum somewhere.
There must be something in the American psyche about raising the flag in a disaster. After a disaster, natural or man-made, one of the first things we do is raise a flag. I remembered that was one of the first things I saw when we climbed out of the school in Springboro. Somebody had dragged out a spare flag and was running it up the now bare flagpole.
It was late when I got back to the Naval Observatory, well after the dinner bell had rung. Marilyn and the girls were still up, and I gave them the rundown, and then my wife handed me a phone and a slip of paper. Charlie had called from Camp Lejeune, where he was on alert. I called him back and it was good to hear from him. He wanted to know when they were going to deploy to kill the crazies, so I told him to settle down. When I needed the Marines, I would let them know.
No way was I invading half the Islamic world! We lost thousands of American soldiers, sailors, and marines doing that on my first go, and I did not need to include my boy with the list!
Chapter 140: Oath of Office
Friday, September 14, 2001
Thursday morning, we got up early. The girls needed to get back into a regular schedule with school, so Marine Two flew them all home to Hereford at the crack of dawn, with Stormy in her travel cage. Actually, it flew all of us to Andrews and dropped me off first, and then flew to Hereford. This was some crazy fucked up schedule. I knew that sooner or later it would calm down, but right now we were just winging it and making it up as we went. I kissed my family good-bye and waved as they flew away, and then climbed up the stairs to Air Force Two.
It was a fast flight to New York. The President normally gets priority routing, but with no planes flying, there were zero delays. It was spooky. We really needed to get air traffic flying again! With me on the trip were the Three Amigos, the guys from CIA, FBI, and the Secret Service, who spent the trip up briefing me on what they were finding. It had been two days now, and the results were impressive. The flight manifests for the four flights had been examined, and every single passenger and aircrew member was being investigated, with most of them already cleared of any involvement. On every flight there were four or five individuals, all men, with very sketchy backgrounds and personal histories, and everybody was zeroing in on them. Likewise, links were being found between these names and the names the CIA had in their files.
What I was seeing was the first-hand results of what I knew would be found. The FBI is a huge organization. At the lowest levels, where the agents and the first line supervisors are massed, they have extremely smart and dedicated people and amazing technology, and the ability to flood a problem and pick apart every last little piece. Unfortunately, once it climbs up the ladder, very quickly the organization turns into a bureaucracy much more interested in covering its ass. I knew what they would find, that the hijackers had taken flying lessons in the U.S. and had raised a number of red flags in doing so, but when the reports had gone into the system, they had swirled around the bowl and been filed and ignored.