9/11 Twenty Years On

“It was a gorgeous, low-temperature, low-humidity, early September day. And we’d boarded the motorcade for a routine education event, at a Florida school. And as we left the motorcade, I got a page from an aide in Washington telling me that an airplane had hit the World Trade Center. And I just thought, There’s some type of accident, maybe it’s a small plane, it’s likely a small aircraft.

“And then, minutes later, I was at the school with the president as he was reading to the children. And I got a second page that the second aircraft had hit the second tower. And I knew immediately that it had to be terrorism. I knew immediately that something big was underway.”

The images have become emblematic: a shocked President George W. Bush being told that al-Qaeda terrorists have knifed two jetliners into an icon of American financial might. His frozen expression, eyes locked in laser focus as he processes the report being whispered in his ear, would symbolize the reaction every American had upon first seeing the incredible sight of Manhattan’s proud skyline being turned into a funeral pyre.

But for Ari Fleischer, part of the president’s inner circle as he reacted to the unfolding horror, a different scene stands out.