9/11 Remembered: An Evening with Michael Morell

Michael Morell explains Bill Clinton’s strategy about Osama bin Laden

Nearly 200 people gathered to hear former CIA director Michael Morell in conversation with documentary filmmaker David Taylor in Leesburg, Virginia, on Wednesday, September 9. Morell and Taylor walked the assembly through a structured timeline of events as they happened on September 11, 2001. Morell was President Bush’s daily intelligence briefer at the time and spent that day with President Bush as events unfolded and information was gathered and shared.

Morell recounted that the morning started normally, with nothing about terrorism threats appearing in the CIA briefing he gave the president that morning. By the time the entourage arrived at Emma E. Booker Elementary School for the president’s first engagement of the day, however, a commercial airliner had already hit the first tower in New York City.

Morell learned about the event from Ari Fleischer, the White House Press Secretary at the time. Morell told the attendees that, at first, everyone thought it was an accidental collision and the advice given to the president was to continue with the day as planned. When the second plane hit, Morell said it became obvious the nation was under attack. The focus shifted immediately to protecting the president and the elementary school, since it was public knowledge where the president was visiting that day.

In a stark play-by-play, Morell recounted the entourage being spirited onto Air Force One and whisked into the air. The plane traveled over half the United States that day, working to keep the president safe while information was gathered and analyzed. Morell described D.C. Air National Guard fighter jets that joined the flight path as Air Force One returned to Washington, D.C., at the end of the day. Morell could easily see the faces of the pilots in the jets; they flew that close to the wingtips. A military member on Air Force One explained to Morell that those pilots would be expected to give up their lives if missiles were fired at Air Force One.

Taylor discussed the 9/11 Commission Report and offered Morell the chance to add his thoughts. Morell did not hold back, explaining that he felt the report ignored important pieces of data and intelligence known at the time. Morell explained that during the Clinton presidency, Vice President Al Gore led a White House Commission on airline safety. The commission released a multi-page list of improvements needed inside airports, planes and the airline industry in general to ensure the safety of U.S. skies. With disappointment, Morell added this report was ignored because the airlines opposed the changes – until the weeks after 9/11, when all the recommendations were put into practice at once.

As a high-ranking government official in the years after 9/11, Morell was proud of the way our government protected its people, remarking, “In the post-9/11 period, there were multiple threats over multiple years and not a single one happened – because of your government.”