that flight was united 93. a brave group of passengers tried to take back the plane from hijackers. it crashed, near shanksville, pennsylvania. my wife and i were on a helicopter. and flew to camp david to spend the night. we flew over the pentagon. you can see the massive hole left after the airline yek struck it. those are images you ll never forget. i m not emotional and not as people would allege. and the reality of the. attacks emerged. the president and vice president agreed on one thing. this was war. and there was need for a strong response. regime that harbors or supports terrorists will be regarded as hostile to the
united states. october 7th, the military launched operation enduring freedom. attacking al qaeda and the taliban regime in afghanistan. before the year was out, the taliban lost control of the country but the low-grade war would continue almost a decade, posing a serious challenge to american will, next, administration set its sights on iraq. a dangerous foe was believed to be building wupgs, and violating un sanks and dick cheney became a strong advocate for the war. there is no doubt that saddam hussien now has weapons of mass destruction. there is no doubt that he is amassing them to use against our friends and against our allies and against us. it was a radical turn from the first gulf war, when he said we should not spill american blood to force saddam from power. what changed?
locking them unat guantanamo bay. using enhanced interrogation techniques on a few terrorist leaders to make them talk. added up to aggressively pushed by vice president cheney and his staff. our commander in chief has power to win the war. it was not and is not unusual for the traditional view of the extent i has limits. one of the first major decisions was to try foreign terror suspects in special military tribunals. a decision pushed by cheney and shared with others in the administration. the military tribunals were authorized by the president in an order very not seen. and. nobody resigned. but cheney s critics increasingly depicted him as a secretive schemer, using the war as an excuse to shred the
faced with a different situation. all of a sudden, what is going on in that part of the world could have impact at home. iraq. vice president cheney said about worrying too much about united nations approval oo. yes. vice president asked and wanted are you going to take care of this guy or not? there was impatience. i was doing everything i could to avoid use of the military. on march 20th, 2003, the u.s. invaded iraq. three weeks into the war, saddam hussien fled baghdad. success on the battlefield kept the public behind the global war on terrorism. that effort included nonmilitary measures to protect america from further terrorist attacks. eavesdropping on phone calls and tracking their money,
giving situational awareness to the rest of my guys and checking on my younger guys and the grenade came in and right in the middle of us, i had no i had to react and i thought about my guys and just like my family here, and i reached over and grabbed the grenade and threw it and it took my hand. but the good part is the guys are still alive here today. right. and who is on your arm? on my arm, i have shot of this. i have the fallen rangers from second ranger battalion, all from the global war on terrorism and then since i had the real estate and i never want to forget those who paid the ultimate sacrifice in my lineage, i got the ones from operation urgent fury and operation just cause. wow. as well. tremendous. and, of course, special day at the white house. i guess as a 17-year-old, austin, it must have been really tough as you watched your dad go