Now, it's Bush's war
A new world disorder challenges the president in word and deed
Suddenly, George W. Bush has been thrust into the role he was least prepared for: wartime commander in chief. And even if he seems ill-suited for his new duties because of inexperience and lack of charisma, he has quickly grasped the challenges ahead and the stakes involved. "I think about the families, the children," President Bush haltingly told reporters in the Oval Office two days after the terrorist attacks, as his eyes welled with tears. "I'm a loving guy. And I am also someone, however, who's got a job to do and I intend to do it. And this is a terrible moment, but this country will not relent until we have saved ourselves, and others, from the terrible tragedy that came upon America."
In a flash, the world had been transformed, and with it Bush's presidency. The attacks forced him to set aside the original agenda that he has assiduously pursued since January, including education reform and overhauling Medicare, and to make the war against terrorism Job 1. Bush underscored his resolve last week in a number of ways, contacting scores of foreign leaders to build an antiterrorism coalition and setting in motion plans to call up thousands of military reserve troops. He also sent Vice President Dick Cheney to stake out a command post at Camp David. White House aides say the move was designed to prevent terrorists from attacking the two leaders at the same location. Still, it sent a discordant message at odds with the administration's goal of restoring a sense of normalcy.
By Friday, Bush had hit his stride. He delivered a moving address during a prayer service at the National Cathedral in Washington and visited the still-smoking site that had once been the World Trade Center. With tangled wreckage and tons of collapsed walls across the street from where he stood, the president chatted with firefighters, cops, and other rescue workers. At one point, hundreds of firefighters and police officers began chanting, "U.S.A., U.S.A.," as Bush climbed atop the back of a burned-out firetruck and thanked them for their heroism. He helped retired firefighter Bob Beckwith of Queens onto the truck with him and threw his arm around the 69-year-old volunteer. A group about 20 yards away shouted that they could not hear the president, even though he was using a bullhorn. "I can hear you!" Bush shouted to them. "The rest of the world hears you and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."
Shaky start. "This is clearly a defining moment not only for America and the world but for George W. Bush," says Ken Duberstein, former White House chief of staff for Ronald Reagan. Perhaps the best parallel was Harry Truman's sudden succession to the presidency after Franklin Roosevelt's death at the end of World War II. Like Truman, Bush also faces serious doubts about whether he is up to the job.
On that score, it was more than a little disheartening that he got off to such a shaky start in the hours after the terrorist attacks. White House Chief of Staff Andy Card pulled him aside at an elementary school in Sarasota, Fla., with news that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. A few minutes later, Card told him another plane had crashed at the same site. "We're at war," Bush told his traveling aides.
But during the next few hours, his response was essentially private as he organized the government instead of using his bully pulpit to reassure or rally the nation. In fact, he didn't return to Washington until 10 hours later. After cutting short his visit to Florida, he decided not to fly back immediately because the security situation was so unclear. Hundreds of commercial aircraft were still in the air, and no one knew if other suicide missions were underway.
After stopping at two Air Force bases, Bush's patience finally wore thin. "I want to go back to Washington as soon as possible--now," he snapped to aides. "I don't want any tinhorn dictator terrorist holding me outside Washington."
En route home, Air Force One was escorted by two F-16 fighter jets, one at each wing. And as Marine One, the president's helicopter, raced from Andrews Air Force Base to the White House, Bush looked out a window, across the vast panorama of official Washington, and saw dark smoke billowing from the Pentagon. "You're seeing the face of war in the 21st century," Bush sadly told aides. It would be his war.
This story appears in the September 24, 2001 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.