Speaker 1: Good morning, sixty degree is at eight o'clock. It's Tuesday,
Speaker 1: September eleven. Here's what's happening against primary day and the
Speaker 1: polls are open. In New York City, September eleven, two thousand,
Speaker 1: a m s the beginning of another day along the
Speaker 1: eastern seaboard Yark Stock Exchange, where we could be in
Speaker 1: for a solid open to the trading day stock into future.
Speaker 1: Then one minute later am New York City. This justin.
Speaker 1: You were looking at obviously a very disturbing live shot
Speaker 1: there that is the World Trade Center. And we have
Speaker 1: unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has crashed into
Speaker 1: one of the towers of the World Trade Center. American
Speaker 1: Airlines Flight eleven crashes into the World Trade Center's North Tower.
Speaker 1: Minutes later, United Airlines Flight one slams into the Trade
Speaker 1: Centers South Tower. We're gonna take a look at videotape
Speaker 1: just moments ago of the second plane hitting the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center. That is spectacular pictures. Met two was a
Speaker 1: passenger plane. Perhaps some type of navigating sister M or
Speaker 1: some type of electronics would have put two planes into
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center within it looks like about eighteen
Speaker 1: minutes of each other. Meanwhile, here in Los Angeles, a
Speaker 1: plane crash into a New York landmark. Good morning, this
Speaker 1: is the six o'clock news Here on k f I,
Speaker 1: I'm Ken Gallagher. Smoke is pouring from the upper floors
Speaker 1: of the north building of the Twin Towers of the
Speaker 1: World Trade Center in New York. Right now. C NBC
Speaker 1: is reporting a witnesses a plane hit the building and
Speaker 1: that evacuations have been ordered. CNN is reporting the plane
Speaker 1: appears to be a commercial jet, perhaps a seven thirty.
Speaker 1: The Build Handle show on k if I AM six
Speaker 1: forty was already into its second hour. The popular morning
Speaker 1: host had learned of the attacks during a commercial break.
Speaker 1: Good morning, everybody, six o nine caf I AM six forty.
Speaker 1: More stimulating talk radio, Bill Handle, and a pleasure to
Speaker 1: have you with this if you have not yet heard.
Speaker 1: A few minutes ago, a airplane crashed into one of
Speaker 1: the World Trade Centers, followed by a second plane that
Speaker 1: crashed into the second World Trade Center. We now have
Speaker 1: both buildings on fire, and it it's hard to say
Speaker 1: at this point but that that cannot be an accident.
Speaker 1: This is out of a movie. The airplane was aimed
Speaker 1: for and was timed to do the maximum amount of
Speaker 1: damage and to hurt and kill and maim the most
Speaker 1: number of people. Bill, we do have a bulletin from
Speaker 1: Associated Press that says a plane has now crashed into
Speaker 1: the Pentagon. This is the worst nightmare for American security
Speaker 1: forces and the people of the United States. We it's
Speaker 1: this is war. Uh. It appears some group or another
Speaker 1: has declared full scale war in the United States. At
Speaker 1: this point, we're just sitting back and wondering when the
Speaker 1: next one is going to happen. One of the World
Speaker 1: Trade Center buildings just collapsed. The entire building collapsed. There
Speaker 1: is nothing left of it. The whole thing just came down.
Speaker 1: The whole building is now down. The second building now collapsing.
Speaker 1: This is unbelievable. We do know that Somerset County Airport
Speaker 1: outside of Pittsburgh, a plane did go down just north
Speaker 1: of the airport. We are in it together. We have
Speaker 1: been attacked. As a people. All we know, we can
Speaker 1: safely say that today war has been declared on the
Speaker 1: United States of America. You can't even imagine the number
Speaker 1: of people that have died. Probably the worst day, one
Speaker 1: of the worst days in our collective history. This will
Speaker 1: be one of the days you remember for the rest
Speaker 1: of your life. One thing I promise you, it will
Speaker 1: never be the same in this country again. Within the hour,
Speaker 1: in American Airlines flight would also strike the Pentagon. A
Speaker 1: United Airlines slight would also crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, and
Speaker 1: both World Trade Center towers would collapse to the ground.
Speaker 1: In just under two hours, two thousand nine nine people
Speaker 1: were killed, in some twenty five thousand more injured. President
Speaker 1: George dub You Bush was at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida.
Speaker 1: When he heard the news. He meet his first public
Speaker 1: comments from a classroom. Today, We've had a national tragedy.
Speaker 1: Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in
Speaker 1: an apparent terrorist attack on our country. I have spoken
Speaker 1: to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York,
Speaker 1: to the director of the FBI, and I've ordered that
Speaker 1: the full resources of the federal government go to help
Speaker 1: the victims and their families, and and to conduct a
Speaker 1: full scale investigation to hunt down and to find those
Speaker 1: folks who committed this act terrorism against our nation. Will
Speaker 1: not stand it. I'm Steve Gregory in Los Angeles, and
Speaker 1: this is nine eleven, two decades later. The attacks of
Speaker 1: nine eleven forever changed America. It also marked the beginning
Speaker 1: of the War on Terror, with it the creation of
Speaker 1: new agencies like the Department of Homeland Security and the
Speaker 1: Transportation Security Administration, which implemented sweeping changes to how Americans
Speaker 1: would travel nine eleven, two decades later, we'll go behind
Speaker 1: the scenes with those who were in the inner sanctum
Speaker 1: of agencies that made life changing decisions on our behalf,
Speaker 1: and we asked the question, is America safer today than
Speaker 1: twenty years ago? Thanks very much you all. Um, it's
Speaker 1: got a brief statement and then a few people who've
Speaker 1: got some important information we want to get out today.
Speaker 1: I'd just like to say a couple of things. Um.
Speaker 1: First and foremost, the Department of Defense is open for business.
Speaker 1: We're here, we're operating, and we're functioning very well. Our
Speaker 1: priorities this morning today are to care for the injured
Speaker 1: and the dead and their family lease, to work closely
Speaker 1: with the President and the National Security team, to ensure
Speaker 1: the safety of the American people and our men and
Speaker 1: women in uniform around the world, and to determine who
Speaker 1: was responsible and what the course of action will be
Speaker 1: a couple of things I want to say up front.
Speaker 1: Victoria Clark was the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public
Speaker 1: Affairs at the Pentagon on nine eleven. She worked for
Speaker 1: Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and says she remembers the davividly.
Speaker 1: The first thing in the morning, the thing that struck
Speaker 1: all of us before anything had happened, was what a
Speaker 1: beautiful day it was. September in the DC area can
Speaker 1: be really muggy and hot and cloudy and just terrible,
Speaker 1: and it was a stunningly beautiful, crystal clear blue sky morning.
Speaker 1: And that's what everybody was talking about when we first
Speaker 1: came to work, and most people would show up at
Speaker 1: six maybe six thirty in the morning. And prior to
Speaker 1: the first plane hitting the World Trade Tower in New York,
Speaker 1: we were getting ready for a regular briefing later that morning,
Speaker 1: which was going to be on a weapons collection program
Speaker 1: and the Balkans uh some missile defense tests that will
Speaker 1: becoming up pretty standard stuff, and it was not expected
Speaker 1: to be an extraordinary day in any way. So then
Speaker 1: when did you know something was wrong? When something something
Speaker 1: wasn't right and there was an emergency. The first plane
Speaker 1: hit the World trade towers and and most offices in
Speaker 1: the Pentagon, like a lot of places in d C,
Speaker 1: have multiple televisions. In my office, big briefing table, multiple TVs,
Speaker 1: and we were we could see the news and the
Speaker 1: when the first plane hit the first tower, and if
Speaker 1: some people thought something was up, but most of us thought, oh,
Speaker 1: it was a traffic plane or maybe a commuter plane
Speaker 1: that accidentally had hit the building. When this and I
Speaker 1: got up on my phone and called the Secretary of
Speaker 1: Defense as chief of staff kind named Larry Grita, and said, hey,
Speaker 1: you guys watching this, and he goes, yeah, we are.
Speaker 1: We're checking in. And then as we're both talking and
Speaker 1: we're watching the TVs and respective offices, the second plane
Speaker 1: hits the second tower, and then you instantly knew it
Speaker 1: was not an accident. You instantly knew it was a
Speaker 1: terrorist attack. And equally instantly, the apparatus in the building
Speaker 1: that spins up around crises started to spin up, so
Speaker 1: key people went to what they call the Executive Support
Speaker 1: Center in the middle of the building. The Secretary of
Speaker 1: Defense was at the time getting his regular CIA briefing
Speaker 1: that morning, and he wanted to get some more information
Speaker 1: from her before he came into the support center where
Speaker 1: some of us were, and so he was in his office.
Speaker 1: We were in that center when we felt the plane
Speaker 1: hit the Pentagon, and that the Pentagon is a very
Speaker 1: large building, but even in the center of the building,
Speaker 1: on the third floor, you could feel this enormous thump
Speaker 1: in the building actually moved a little and it was
Speaker 1: muffled but incredibly loud noise. Did you know something was wrong? Yes, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you knew something was wrong. We knew the building had
Speaker 1: been attacked. Despite the fact is this still strikes me
Speaker 1: as crazy, even twenty years later, despite the fact that
Speaker 1: we were there working on the crisis management, if you will,
Speaker 1: of two commercial airliners hitting the World Trade Towers and
Speaker 1: we felt this enormous thump and heard that noise. My
Speaker 1: first thought was not that it was a plane, because
Speaker 1: prior to nine eleven you just don't think of large
Speaker 1: planes slide into buildings. My first thought was that must
Speaker 1: have been a car bonb because there had been rumors
Speaker 1: of different things going on around Washington, d C. At
Speaker 1: the time. After the two planes hit the World Trade Towers,
Speaker 1: so my first thought was it must have been a
Speaker 1: car bomb or something like that, and it actually was
Speaker 1: the Secretary of Defense himself, who was our first eyewitness
Speaker 1: outside when it happened, when it hit, when the building
Speaker 1: was hit, he asked people didn't know what had happened.
Speaker 1: He went outside the building himself and he was on
Speaker 1: the scene very early, helped some injured people get away
Speaker 1: from the wreckage, helped get some of them to ambulances,
Speaker 1: and then he came back in and joined us. And
Speaker 1: he was the first one who was our eyewitness of
Speaker 1: the fact that it was a plane. And we're talking
Speaker 1: about Donald Use. Was that typical for someone like him
Speaker 1: to I mean, when you got someone in that Yes,
Speaker 1: very typical of him, not typical of most people at
Speaker 1: that level. And uh, I talked about this the other
Speaker 1: day at his service um over at Arlington. We're in
Speaker 1: the building and we're trying to figure out what happened,
Speaker 1: and all the communications apparatus are are spinning up, and
Speaker 1: he couldn't get an answer from anyone, so he went
Speaker 1: outside the building to find out for himself. Very common sense.
Speaker 1: So what happens to Nixon? How on earth? Because this
Speaker 1: was this was new for modern day America, this was
Speaker 1: new for us. It was They like to say that
Speaker 1: America for two hundred years plus was blessed by unique
Speaker 1: geography and really good neighbors, and in conventional warfare, we
Speaker 1: were pretty well positioned. Um asymmetrical warfare, which is something
Speaker 1: that the Secretary and the rest of us have been
Speaker 1: talking about for months and months and months, is a
Speaker 1: very different thing. And this was the first real life
Speaker 1: example of asymmetrical warfare on our on our turf. How
Speaker 1: on earth do you take a message of what had
Speaker 1: just happened, And you said yourself you were you were
Speaker 1: working on a response to what had happened in York.
Speaker 1: Now it's in your backyard, per se. Where do you
Speaker 1: even begin to craft a message like that? Well, the
Speaker 1: I was about to say the good news, and I
Speaker 1: was trying to be careful with words I use because
Speaker 1: they sounding disrespectful. But if you're work in a place
Speaker 1: like the Pentagon, you always are working on crisis plans,
Speaker 1: You're working on contingency plans. You work in a place
Speaker 1: like the Pentagon, you know bad things can happen, and
Speaker 1: so you can't always predict exactly what they will be.
Speaker 1: But you want to have plans in place for how
Speaker 1: will we make sure we perform the functions were tasked
Speaker 1: with performing. So to your point, my department, the Department
Speaker 1: of Public Affairs, was tasked with helping to craft the messages,
Speaker 1: make sure they get communicated and as timely a fashion
Speaker 1: as possible. Make sure the media covering the Pentagon have
Speaker 1: as much access as possible. Make sure we're coordinating with
Speaker 1: other key agencies in the administration, So the White House,
Speaker 1: State Department, Cia, etcetera. And I had a wonderful My
Speaker 1: senior military assistant was a wonderful Army colonel named George
Speaker 1: Ryan Dance, and weeks and weeks and weeks before and
Speaker 1: I eleven, he had developed a crisis management plan for us.
Speaker 1: He had had us exercise it and practice it. And
Speaker 1: one of the many things he focused on was we
Speaker 1: had all, even twenty years ago, had gotten very reliant
Speaker 1: on our computers and our and our phones and things
Speaker 1: like that, and doing everything electronically, and he was worried
Speaker 1: that there might something might happen where we might not
Speaker 1: have access to our cell phones, it might be harder
Speaker 1: to communicate. He made us all carry around with us
Speaker 1: hard copies, paper copies of all the key people we
Speaker 1: would want to reach in case of emergency. People, we
Speaker 1: worked with, people of the other agencies, the media, and
Speaker 1: we carry them on us when we walked around. We
Speaker 1: had them in our cars and we had them at home.
Speaker 1: So sure enough, when it happened, and there was so
Speaker 1: much going on everywhere, of course, including Washington, cell phones
Speaker 1: weren't working, some commns lines were down, but we had
Speaker 1: those pieces of paper with key numbers on it, so
Speaker 1: we were able to coordinate with the people with whom
Speaker 1: we really needed to be coordinating. And there's the same
Speaker 1: in the military. First reports are always wrong, So in
Speaker 1: terms of what we talked about and when we communicated
Speaker 1: via the media, we tried very very hard to say,
Speaker 1: this is what we know right now. Things can change,
Speaker 1: but this is what we know now. Here's what we're
Speaker 1: thinking in terms of where these attacks may have come from.
Speaker 1: Here's what we're doing right now, to try to get
Speaker 1: all the planes that are in the air at the
Speaker 1: time on the ground, those kinds of things. We kept
Speaker 1: it as factual as possible. But the thing that was
Speaker 1: so so important to us, it's important to the Secretary
Speaker 1: and all of us, was making sure everybody knew the
Speaker 1: American people, publics around the world, and the terrorists knew
Speaker 1: they weren't successful. They never stopped the Department of Defense
Speaker 1: that key people in the building continue to operate NonStop.
Speaker 1: We were able to function and prevent further attacks and
Speaker 1: plan a response despite their best efforts. So going forward,
Speaker 1: and it sound like you, guys, whether it's fortuitous or not,
Speaker 1: you already had your your template in place, and you've
Speaker 1: already gone through this rehearsal. So do you think that
Speaker 1: was probably a big help for you, then you could
Speaker 1: imagine tremendously helpful, tremendously helpful. And again George Ryan Dance,
Speaker 1: former Army colonel, brilliant guy, such so well organized. The
Speaker 1: thing he really emphasized to all of us was, I
Speaker 1: know what your core responsibility is. So we had a
Speaker 1: couple of deputies who did most of the day to
Speaker 1: day liaison and logistics with the Pentagon Press Corps. Pentagon
Speaker 1: Presscore was a hundred people or so whose offices were
Speaker 1: literally in the Pentagon building itself. Uh, And they got
Speaker 1: evacuated like most people did, from the building. And so
Speaker 1: the two deputies, Tim and Brian Whitman got about a
Speaker 1: quarter mile away from the building and essentially took over
Speaker 1: a gas station and set up a briefing area there
Speaker 1: set up a media center, if you will. It was outdoors,
Speaker 1: and that's this place from which the media could operate.
Speaker 1: That was the place where I went at least once
Speaker 1: or twice during the day just to do very brief
Speaker 1: readouts to them about what we knew at the time
Speaker 1: and what we were planning on. And my core function
Speaker 1: very much was staying close to the Secretary offense, working
Speaker 1: with him and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the
Speaker 1: Vice Chairman at the time on what is it we
Speaker 1: want to say, how do we want to say it,
Speaker 1: Who's going to be saying it? I did some of
Speaker 1: the preliminary briefings during the day, and then we decided
Speaker 1: that we wanted the Secretary and the Vice Chairman and
Speaker 1: Senator Warner and Senator Levin to brief the media. We
Speaker 1: got them back into the building, and my other main
Speaker 1: responsibility was coordinating with my counterparts at the White House,
Speaker 1: State and c I, A and so, and then there
Speaker 1: were others who were focused on ascertaining who on our
Speaker 1: staff might have been injured or missing. So everybody in
Speaker 1: the department had a key function. It was made very
Speaker 1: clear to them that they understood it, and so because
Speaker 1: of that planning on nine eleven, when that happened, they
Speaker 1: were able to execute really well. And here's the thing, though,
Speaker 1: you didn't know if this was the beginning of something
Speaker 1: bigger or if this was it. I think that's also
Speaker 1: got to be very daunting, is that. I mean, are
Speaker 1: the attackers done or is this going to keep going
Speaker 1: on all day long or all night long? Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it was maybe halfway through the day, and we were
Speaker 1: working in a we we had to move a couple
Speaker 1: times during the day because despite how huge that building
Speaker 1: is and despite where we were was relatively protected, there
Speaker 1: was a lot of smoke in the building. The plane
Speaker 1: itself from the wreckage continued to burn for a few days,
Speaker 1: and there was a lot of smoke in the building,
Speaker 1: and we would try to move from one place or
Speaker 1: another to get to a place with better ventilation. And
Speaker 1: at one point Secretary of Defense frum Spelled and the
Speaker 1: then vice chairman then became later became chairman, Dick Myers,
Speaker 1: were working on a few things and there were maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of dozen people in that room who had
Speaker 1: stayed with them throughout the day, and the Secretary looks
Speaker 1: up to General Meyers, to your point, we didn't know
Speaker 1: if they were going to be more attacks. We didn't
Speaker 1: know what else might happen. The Secretary looked up and
Speaker 1: he says, there are a lot of people here and
Speaker 1: they should they should all get out if they want to.
Speaker 1: And General Myers looked at him and said, sir, they're
Speaker 1: gonna stay here as long as you're here, and if
Speaker 1: the building goes down, they'll go down with you. When
Speaker 1: did you get a sense that the attacks we're going
Speaker 1: to change policy and that things moving forward we're going
Speaker 1: to forever be different. Oh? Immediately, absolutely, immediately, And by
Speaker 1: that I mean constant communication with policymakers on Capitol Hill,
Speaker 1: other people in Washington, d C. And the National Security apparatus,
Speaker 1: and again for months and months and months prior to
Speaker 1: nine eleven, even before became secretary Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld
Speaker 1: and others and those of us who worked with them
Speaker 1: were saying, Hey, we know it doesn't seem like there's
Speaker 1: much going on out there in the world, but things
Speaker 1: are changing, and we're not facing conventional threats like the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union. We're facing these unconventional threats and they are growing,
Speaker 1: They are growing in capacity, they are growing in desire
Speaker 1: to do something back to the United States, and so
Speaker 1: we need to transform this military, which was set up
Speaker 1: for twenties twi century warfare. We need to change it
Speaker 1: and transform it to face these twenty one century threats.
Speaker 1: And prior to nine eleven, not a lot of people
Speaker 1: wanted to hear that and was understandable. Nineties were relatively
Speaker 1: quiet and relatively safe for us, So it was hard
Speaker 1: to imagine unless you really knew what was going on.
Speaker 1: It was hard to imagine something terrible could happened. It
Speaker 1: was hard to imagine asymmetrical warfare terrorism on our shores
Speaker 1: because it was something that we had just never experienced
Speaker 1: before in a big way. So I've been talking about
Speaker 1: it for months. Nine eleven really drove home the point.
Speaker 1: And so immediately, for instance, conversations with Congress, Okay, here's
Speaker 1: what we have to do in terms of modernizing the army,
Speaker 1: the Navy, giving special forces, give special forces more of them,
Speaker 1: more actually in special forces, special operators, give them the
Speaker 1: resources and the time and the support they need. Things
Speaker 1: like that started to be put in place pretty quickly.
Speaker 1: When was the talk underway that the Department of Homeland
Speaker 1: Security was something that was needed. When did that come about? Well,
Speaker 1: I knew and this is just me speaking to personally,
Speaker 1: I knew that there would be increased procedures airports, TSA immediately.
Speaker 1: Knew that was great, happen immediately. And then when the
Speaker 1: country one of the when investigations were done there, if
Speaker 1: there was intel out there that said this was going
Speaker 1: to happen, why wasn't there further investigation? Could we have
Speaker 1: prevented it? Those sorts of things. People said there was
Speaker 1: a breakdown of communication and a lack of sharing of
Speaker 1: information around from some of the agencies and so, and
Speaker 1: I disagree with this. The answer to failures in some
Speaker 1: of these government agencies was to create a new one.
Speaker 1: And I, personally, this is Tory Clark, not anybody else personally,
Speaker 1: don't think that's necessarily a good idea. I seldom think
Speaker 1: that the answer to poorly executed government is more government.
Speaker 1: So but fairly quickly, the changes in safety procedures almost immediately,
Speaker 1: and then creating homeland Security, which intellectually makes sense, I
Speaker 1: get it. Probably within months. I was talking to somebody
Speaker 1: else to he's a military analyst, and his characterization was
Speaker 1: that homeland security wasn't necessarily something we needed, but that
Speaker 1: we as a country tend to create bureaucracy on top
Speaker 1: of bureaucracy, and sometimes too much is is too you know?
Speaker 1: Too much in this case. Um So, in terms of
Speaker 1: looking back now twenty years later, Homeland Security, was it
Speaker 1: the agency that we needed where there are people far
Speaker 1: smarter than I am, I don't think so. I don't
Speaker 1: think so. I think what we needed was better co
Speaker 1: ordination among the existing agencies, and I think that probably
Speaker 1: was going to happen anyhow. And I think you add
Speaker 1: another bureaucracy, you add more layers, you tend to slow
Speaker 1: things down, tend to water things down. So I don't
Speaker 1: think so, but I'm not an expert. Do you think
Speaker 1: the t s A was something that was necessary for
Speaker 1: us as opposed to adopting the Israeli security model? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think it probably was because things had to be
Speaker 1: done quickly. It's always easy to look in the rear
Speaker 1: view mirror. Oh that happened, Let's make sure that doesn't
Speaker 1: happen again anymore. But I think it was necessary, and
Speaker 1: I think they had to stand it up fairly quickly,
Speaker 1: So I think so when you look back at this tory.
Speaker 1: Is there something in your head that you observed or
Speaker 1: thought or did yourself that you wish you could go
Speaker 1: back and have a do over. Yes, it's a little amorphous.
Speaker 1: And by that I mean, well, I'll just I'll just
Speaker 1: say it and then maybe you can help me figure
Speaker 1: out how to say it more articulately. But I wish
Speaker 1: I could have done a better job of helping people
Speaker 1: think outside the box and not be hampered by their
Speaker 1: their frames of reference from previous things that had happened.
Speaker 1: And so, for instance, you know, we had never really
Speaker 1: thought of planes being used as weapons, commercial planes full
Speaker 1: of filled with passengers, um being used as weapons. Well,
Speaker 1: what are we not thinking about now? What are we
Speaker 1: not thinking about in terms of dangerous to this country
Speaker 1: and different kinds of dangerous? Think about cyber warfare, think
Speaker 1: about what China and Russia are have been trying to
Speaker 1: do to mess us up. To put it bluntly, um,
Speaker 1: so try to say it again. So I wish people
Speaker 1: would not be hampered, would not be hamstrung by frames
Speaker 1: of reference that are always looking in the rear view mirror,
Speaker 1: and instead could say, Okay, we we think we know
Speaker 1: about this, and we think we know about these threats,
Speaker 1: what else are we not thinking about? And I guess
Speaker 1: the only thing that surprises me is that we continue
Speaker 1: to be surprised when these things happen. I am not
Speaker 1: an expert. I'm not steeped in what is going on
Speaker 1: right now in Afghanistan. I know it's a tragedy, but
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who have been on
Speaker 1: the ground over there have been saying for quite some time,
Speaker 1: this can get bad, very very quickly. But people didn't
Speaker 1: want to hear that. They didn't want to hear that.
Speaker 1: I think we have to force ourselves to hear things
Speaker 1: we don't want to hear, and force ourselves to think
Speaker 1: outside the box and really consider what else are we
Speaker 1: not focusing on that we should be What are we missing?
Speaker 1: Just when we think we have a grasp of of
Speaker 1: all the threats that are out there and what we
Speaker 1: have to be doing about them, we got to stop
Speaker 1: our else and Okay, what else? What are we missing?
Speaker 1: Because we're probably missing something? Segueing into you as a
Speaker 1: communications professional, Oh, how would you rate the job you did?
Speaker 1: I'll leave it to others to give it a grade.
Speaker 1: I think, given the circumstances at the time, and for
Speaker 1: months and months afterwards. I think we did a pretty
Speaker 1: good job. And I say we because I had a
Speaker 1: fantastic team, best staff I've ever had anywhere, fantastic team.
Speaker 1: I had a boss, Sectary Rumsfeld and his his partner
Speaker 1: Dick General Myers, who were smart and enlightened and understood
Speaker 1: that we needed to be very forward leading and engage
Speaker 1: with the media and Congress in the public as much
Speaker 1: as possible. So I was enormously benefited by having a
Speaker 1: great staff and having enlightened leadership above me. Toy, I
Speaker 1: leave you with this last question. Are we safer today
Speaker 1: than we were twenty years ago than we were yesterday?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. I wish I could answer differently,
Speaker 1: but I don't think so. I think we've gotten a
Speaker 1: little complacent. You've got a little complacent. I think, as
Speaker 1: I said earlier, people aren't willing to really think outside
Speaker 1: conventional wisdom to say, what else are we dealing with
Speaker 1: out there? And it might require sacrifice on our part,
Speaker 1: it might require changing the way we do things, but
Speaker 1: we need to do it. And I think there are
Speaker 1: probably threats out there that you and I have never
Speaker 1: heard of, and I think those in charge these days,
Speaker 1: need to spend more time communicating what's going on. You
Speaker 1: might not want to hear it, but you need to
Speaker 1: know that these things are going on and we have
Speaker 1: to make changes to address them. Coming up in episode two,
Speaker 1: Very Spooky, I mean it felt like the in the world,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you. Finding a place for thousands
Speaker 1: of planes to land nine eleven, Two Decades Later is
Speaker 1: produced by Steve Gregory and Jacob Gonzalez and is a
Speaker 1: production of the Cafie News department for I Heart Media
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