Blake Hall
Once in a blue moon, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request unlocks or uncovers a part of our past that was previously hidden and … it’s a dud.
No one cares. It’s not interesting. Whatever the case may be, it quickly fades and is forgotten, and is probably filed away in the stacks of paperwork and itemized paraphernalia somewhere in the catacombs of Washington, DC (or something like that).
The FOIA request that unsealed the following photographs, however, is not one of these boring, banal cases.
Summoned by documentary producer Colette Neirouz Hanna, they were released by the National Archives Friday and capture President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and staff on September 11, 2001, in the thick learning about the attack on the United States that came in the form of planes crashing into the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon just across the Potomac in Virginia.
As you may recall, Bush was in Florida when the planes first hit, and it was Cheney who coordinated the first course of action from DC. When Dubya finally got back into town, he met his staff in a secure bunker under one of the wings of the White House.
