On That Day: The Definitive Timeline of 9/11

by William M. Arkin

Overview

“A maddening, essential study in misinformation, jingoism, bad intelligence, and other hallmarks of the recent American past.”—Kirkus (starred review)
 
Anyone who experienced the attacks on September 11 cannot forget the imagery: the smoking, falling towers, the Pentagon smoldering, the Shanksville crash site, the first responders.
 
But there is an invisible story hidden in the wreckage, one that required years of patient investigation and the piecing together of a sequence from many scattered sources. By establishing the most definitive timeline of how that day unfolded, William M. Arkin shows how the US government failed in the face of the unprecedented attack. It is a story of laughable airport security, vulnerable airspace, blind intelligence, poor communications, muddled orders, Pentagon chaos, and presidential isolation. Everything about the emergency procedures of the governments—from White House security to continuity of government to military alerts—went wrong.
 
On That Day is a stunning, nightmare journey through a government reeling in confusion while many civilians performed individual acts of heroism. It is a chilling exposé of government negligence and overreach, and a constitution in crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541701076
Publisher:	PublicAffairs
Publication date:	08/17/2021
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	714,870
File size:	28 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

William M. Arkin is an American political commentator, best-selling author, journalist, activist, blogger, and former United States Army soldier. He has previously served as a military affairs analyst for the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. He is the author of several works of non-fiction including  Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs and Operations in the 9/11 World and American Coup: How a Terrified Government Is Destroying the Constitution.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations xiii

Introduction 1

That Day 13

Chapter 1 A Routine Tuesday 15

Chapter 2 "We Have Some Planes" 40

Chapter 3 "We Have a Hijacked Aircraft" 55

Chapter 4 The North Tower Is Struck 65

Chapter 5 "America Is Under Attack" 88

Chapter 6 Goodbye, Pet Goat 104

Chapter 7 "An Apparent Terrorist Attack on Our Country" 118

Chapter 8 Washington Attacked 131

Chapter 9 "Let's Roll" 163

Chapter 10 Continuity of Government 180

Chapter 11 "Cleared to Engage" 196

Chapter 12 Defense Condition 3 236

Chapter 13 A President Missing in Action 266

Chapter 14 "Weapons Free" 290

Chapter 15 "We're at War" 303

Chapter 16 A White House Restored, a Nation on Edge 313

Chapter 17 "Evil, Despicable Acts of Terror" 333

Mohammed Atta's Final Letter 345

Personalities Mentioned in the Timeline 353

Acronyms 357

Acknowledgments 361

Editorial Reviews

A maddening, essential study in misinformation, jingoism, bad intelligence, and other hallmarks of the recent American past.”—Kirkus, Starred Review

“Beginning in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly warned the White House that Osama Bin Laden was planning terror attacks inside the USA. The Bush administration did not nothing. The disaster that unfolded on 9/11— from the first minute of the day through the last — has now been meticulously recorded in Bill Arkin’s new book. If you want to understand what happened, this is the place to start.”—Thomas Powers, author of Intelligence Wars: American Secret History from Hitler to Al-Qaeda.

“Arkin has compiled a detailed account of the events of that day related to the attacks, resulting in one of the most important historical documents of the year.”—Booklist

“This book takes readers much deeper behind the scenes, in the White House, near the Pentagon and in the air above, and it’s not necessarily good news. Unique about this book is readers don’t usually see such in-depth, government-based reporting on 9/11 and the days afterward.”—The Daily (Galveston County)

From the Publisher

★ 2021-05-25
A damning account of the federal government’s response to 9/11 and the two-decade war that ensued.

National security expert and commentator Arkin works from a vast, meticulously assembled, million-word dossier he has assembled on the 9/11 attackers and from the government record to deliver a chronicle that reveals several essential institutional breakdowns. One was the failure to honor “continuity of government” regulations that require those in the constitutional succession to the presidency to travel to safe locations in the event of attack. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert complied while, “when the condition presented itself for the government to take action to increase its survival, leaders brushed the apparatus aside.” Another failure was to communicate effectively with both the nation’s allies and Russia. American military movements following 9/11 were so sudden and inexplicable that Russia interpreted them as signaling the outbreak of war between the superpowers. Meanwhile, Arkin notes, Donald Rumsfeld scribbled a revealing note just hours after the attacks: “Best info fast. Judge whether good enough to hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Osama bin Laden]. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” Clearly, then, the Bush administration was looking for a pretext to go to war with Iraq. The war that ensued, under the larger rubric of the war on terror, was undeclared. Even the rules of engagement on the day of the attack and its aftermath were ambiguous and variously interpreted—though Arkin reveals that it was generally understood that U.S. military aircraft were free to fire on civilian airliners suspected of posing threats. Whatever the case, Arkin writes in this relentlessly revealing narrative, 9/11 ushered in a war that has not stopped since, “evidence of the overreaction of a frustrated and humiliated Washington.” Nothing has improved in the years since, and the author clearly shows how the government’s failures on 9/11 were only recapitulated with Covid-19 as an exercise in feckless action.

A maddening, essential study in misinformation, jingoism, bad intelligence, and other hallmarks of the recent American past.

Kirkus Reviews