Bush addresses the nation from the White House. [Source: White House]From the White House Oval Office, President Bush gives a seven-minute address to the nation on live television. (Bush 9/11/2001; CNN 9/12/2001; Woodward 2002, pp. 31) He says, “I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.” In what will later be called the Bush Doctrine, he states, “We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them.” (US President 9/17/2001; Balz and Woodward 1/27/2002) Washington Post reporter Dan Balz will later comment that this “those who harbor them” statement “set the tone for where the administration was going both with Afghanistan and, I think, with Iraq.” Bush’s speechwriter at the time, David Frum, will later say: “When he laid down those principles, I don’t know whether he foresaw all of their implications, how far they would take him. I don’t know if he understood fully and foresaw fully the true radicalism of what he had just said.” Neoconservatives see hope that the words could lead to an invasion of Iraq. Author and former National Security Council staffer Kenneth Pollack will comment, “It does seem very clear that after September 11th, this group seized upon the events of September 11th to resurrect their policy of trying to go after Saddam Hussein and a regime change in Iraq.” (PBS Frontline 2/20/2003) Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived back from Peru too late to influence the content of this pivotal speech (see (Between 7:40 p.m. and 8:40 p.m.) September 11, 2001).

Before going to sleep, President Bush writes in his diary, “The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today.… We think it’s Osama bin Laden.” (Balz and Woodward 1/27/2002)