What if President George W Bush was visiting the World Trade Center on that fateful day in September 2001, instead of the school in Florida? Would the added security of a presidential prevented the attacks? If he below the impact floor or in the south tower he would have been evacuated (& be a higher priority than anyone else). How would the US’s response been different with President Cheney?
I doubt there’d be much difference, my belief is that all the important presidential decisions are made by group, and Bush was just one member of that group.
Well, another scenario would be that President Bush was in the White House and the White House had been attacked instead of, or as well as, the Pentagon. That also would have left the US with President Cheney in charge.
I’m not privy to Secret Service procedures, but I would imagine that had Bush been in the tower on 9/11, there would have been fighters in the air as a precautinon and the planes would have been shot down.
I was about to say that the presidential security wouldn’t have made a lick of difference, and then I read this. Are you saying that fighters follow the president around wherever he goes, and that they would have shot down commercial airliners flying over New York? It’s not like they were expecting anybody to fly a plane into the World Trade Center. I know I wasn’t.
I think those that know wouldn’t say but I would not be at all surprised if there were fighters in the vicinity whenever he’s out of the White House. As to whether they would have actually shot down the first plane, that’s quite difficult to guess at.
I don’t doubt that there is some kind of coverage but I doubt that they would have made a difference. The fighters still need to get permission to launch, especially over a city, and from what I recall of the 9/11 incident the air controllers didn’t realize what was going on until after the SECOND plane hit…not fully. The were getting bits and pieces of data, so some controllers/supervisors knew more and some less than others. But as a whole they weren’t sure what was happening. Knowing that, I have a hard time seeing someone going out on a limb and ordering the fighters to shoot down a US passenger plane full of civilians OVER one of our major cities. Who would have those kind of balls?
I think this was addressed in one of Tom Clancy’s books (I don’t remember the title), where a Japanese national manages to fly his plane into the Capital building while the President, House and Senate are all there to confirm a new VP. Events simply happen too fast, and the last ditch effort by the Secret Service to shoot the thing down with Stingers is like spitting in the wind…it has no real effect since you can’t stop a plane that big when its that close.
-XT
Air Force One has a fighter escort. Was that implemented after 9/11 or was that always the case? Reporters on the plane commented how surreal it was to look out the window and see two fighter planes off the wings.
Depending on where the president was in the building, I’m sure Secret Service would have scrambled to get him out ASAP. IIRC, after Reagan was shot, Bush 41 said he was hustled away without his feet touching the floor.
I remember a USA Today article that said 99% of the people who could get out of the Towers did get out. I think if the President were above the impact, I’m not sure he would have survived.
If Bush was not in the building, I’d put the odds at zero. If he was in the building, still no more than 25%. Shooting down a commercial jet in a populated area would be hard to pull off. What you’d be doing is sacrificing the plane load plus the people where the debris would land and start a major fire. This to avoid what was up till then unimaginable to most of us. A fighter, if mobilized, would likely have tried to escort to plane to airport.
Offhand, I’d say there would have been no realistic chance of the President surviving if he had been in a target area of the first tower - no security plan would have covered shooting down commercial aircraft flying over NYC. But undoubtedly if he had been in the second tower when the first was hit, he would have been immediately evacuated from the area even when authorities still thought the first crach was an accident.
If President Bush had been killed, it obviously would have heightened the outrage over the attack. But realistically, the attack itself pretty much brought the nation up to a full response - there wasn’t much room left for additional anger. And I’ve never seen much evidence of any major differences of opinion on policy between Bush and Cheney, so I imagine President Cheney would have followed most of the same courses of action that President Bush did.
I assume you mean you’d put the various odds of someone having the balls to call the shoot at 0 or 25%, not Bush’s survival (which I didn’t really address). That said, I agree with you mostly that pre-9/11 most folks really wouldn’t have thought it through and probably would have hesitated to shoot down a plane load full of civilians over a major US city. Hell, even today I bet there would be some hesitation…though not nearly as much.
Whether they tried to escort the plane or not I’m not sure…I’m not sure WHAT they would have done in the time they had, especially if the plane wasn’t really responding to the air controllers calls and the pilots and those in charge were unsure what was really happening. I THINK the Secret Service can pre-empt the decision process in the event they feel their charge is in danger, but I don’t know if that would extend to ordering a shoot down of a suspected plane. More likely IF they even got word in time before the first plane hit, they would have tried to move the president out of harms way. Depending on where Bush was in the first building would say a lot as to his chances of survival. If he was on the top of the building or near the impact floors he’d almost certainly have died (and Chaney would be President…think about THAT for a moment :eek: ). Had he been below the impact he almost certainly would have lived (thought others who lived might have died due to security hampering them getting out I suppose).
-XT
I just thought of one more thing. If Bush had been killed and Cheney had become President, we’d need a new Vice President. The next senior office in the executive branch is Secretary of State. Colin Powell, with military and foreign experience, would have been a natural choice to move up a spot and assume the Vice Presidency.
If Bush was killed Cheney would have taken the same actions. I don’t think there is any doubt about this…silly question, imo.
Yeah, the only point where this gets interesting is the 2004 elections. Cheney doesn’t have near the electability of Bush, just due to the fact that he doesn’t appeal personally to the large segment of voters that Bush does and isn’t near as good a presidential candidate.
Tack on all the health problems and Cheney is virtually unelectable to a second term. I think Cheney would recognize this immediately and probably would declare himself a “one term” President by choice early after assuming office.
I think John Kerry still gets the Democratic nomination but the Republican one is up in the air. I think Bush’s death would be huge political capital for the Republican party. Bush would definitely be a martyr, remember before 9/11 Bush wasn’t really very polarizing. He was made fun of a lot especially for his “Bushisms” but he also really hadn’t done anything of enough importance to get people to the level of disgust they have for him now.
Either way of course the 2004 elections don’t really change things today, either. Because whoever won (the Republican nominee or Kerry) the Iraqi occupation would certainly continue on the path it’s currently on.
Nah- I think right after Cheney took the oath, he’d turn to Powell and say “Clean out your desk.”
I think it is pretty well documented that Cheney (and Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Libby et al.) wanted to drop the whole idea of the getting the U.N. on board and were pushing for a U.S. alone strategy, from early on.
Powell demanded a meeting with Bush and Rice and he convinced to give the U.N. a bit more of a chance, a call Cheney counseled strongly against. Hence Powell and Uranium claims and Bush speeches and last ditch U.N. Inspections and diplomatic manuevrs that all came to naught.
I don’t know how that changed History, if at all. But those events unfolded differently with Bush alive than they would with Cheney in charge.
Seriously. They knew 2 planes had been hijacked for almost an hour and yet were unable to put any jets up (even when 2 other planes were already not responding)which is a routine procedure to surround the planes, trying to make contact. This doesn’t need a presidential order.
Negligence? At the least.
As for the question, he wasn’t meant to die, so he wouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Having assumed office under those circumstances, Cheney would have made it a major priority to maintain continuity in the government. Any Vice President becoming President would. If Johnson didn’t fire Robert Kennedy then Cheney wasn’t going to fire Powell.
I remember LBJ and Dick Cheney is no LBJ. There is one fundamental difference. In 1964, LBJ wanted to get elected. He couldn’t afford to dump RJK no matter how he despised him. If Cheney took over the presidency (officially, anyway) he’d have no such problem since he has neither electoral ambitions nor a personality to ruin.