CBS has done a fantastic job of not re-airing the footage of Donald Rumsfeld at the 10th anniversary of the 911 attacks Donald Rumsfeld voluntarily discloses that as he walked out of the pentagon there were only "tiny shards of metal debris and nothing resembling an airplane crash".
Lamestream media "CBS" posted the following story on thie site which shows nearly all of the other interviews in full video form with the exception of the interview with Donald Rumsfeld. Not one sentence of the recapulation of CBS includes the most interesting part of the interview. The part where Rumsfeld himself says" There was nothing resembling airplane wreckage at the pentagon crash site on 911 2001.
INTERVIEW WITH FORMER SECRETARY OF DEFENSE DONALD RUMSFELD AT GROUND ZERO
BOB SCHIEFFER: On that day, 40 were killed in a thwarted attack in Shanksville, PA and 184 were killed when another plane plowed into the Pentagon. Donald Rumsfeld was sitting at his desk at the Pentagon when the plane struck...
DONALD RUMSFELD.....the building shook at the Pentagon. And-- and it-- we had been hit and I didn't know if it was a bomb or an airplane or what. So I went out of my office and ran down the hall until the smoke was so bad that you couldn't get any farther and-- and went downstairs and outside and there on the apron outside the Pentagon were the-- were just thousands of pieces of metal. Small pieces. Not big chunks of an airplane.
BOB SCHIEFFER: Well, I mean-- I-- if I remember, you actually helped-- some of the first responders to get people on the gurneys and--
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, at that point the first responders hadn't gotten there. These were just people from the Pentagon who came out and started helping and bringing people out of the burning building. And the flames were leaping up and the smoke. And-- and at that moment I just gave somebody a hand and-- and then when the first responders did come in I went back to my office and got about my business.
BOB SCHIEFFER: I thought one of the more interesting things is you did not close down the Pentagon that day. Why was that?
DONALD RUMSFELD: It was clear they had hit the seat of economic power in New York and the seat of military power of the United States in Washington. And another plane of course was probably gonna try to hit the seat of political power in the White House or the Congress. And I just made a decision that when the fire Marshall said evacuate the building, I said, "No, get the non-essential personnel out of there and-- and-- we'll leave it open." I didn't wanna-- I don't want the world to think that a group of terrorists could shut down the U.S. Department of Defense.
BOB SCHIEFFER: What was the hardest part of it for you that day, Mr. Secretary?
DONALD RUMSFELD: The hardest part, of course, was-- was when the plane was hit and we saw people-- people in the Pentagon family-- civilians and military-- who were being brought out burned and-- and dead and-- and-- wounded. The-- George Tenet called me the-- in-- in the morning and said he-- he-- he confirmed that it was al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. And at that point the president called and said, "Look-- it's gonna come to you and you should begin getting your people thinking through-- what we do next." And-- and-- the-- the hardest part was there was no roadmap. There was no guidebook. There was no-- no war plan on the shelf that-- the Pentagon had thought through, "This is what you do." .. So we had to begin to think through what we would do about it. And the president was very decisive. He said immediately, "We're not gonna pound sand. We're not gonna simply indict some people in absentia and-- and-- fire off a few cruise missiles. We're going to deal with this problem before something this bad or something worse happens to the American people. And we're gonna find ways to--to protect them."
BOB SCHIEFFER: Do you think-- in retrospect that it was an over-reaction that day?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Well, I don't at all. I think it was a measured reaction. You-- you begin thinking it through. And-- and what was clear is-- that-- free people-- we are vulnerable because we wanna be able to go where we want and say what we want. And-- and-- and that-- a terrorist can attack any time, any place using any technique. And it-- instead of 3,000 it could have been 300,000 with a chemical or a biological weapon. So the president was-- was right to say the-- the goal is not to retaliate. The-- or-- or it's not retribution. The goal is to protect the American people. And the only way to do that was to put pressure on terrorists around the world and make everything they do harder.
BOB SCHIEFFER: What are the things that if you could do it over, to make it absolutely perfect, what would you have done differently?
DONALD RUMSFELD: The thing where we I think fell way short was in understanding that-- this is not something that's gonna be solved with bullets. It's something that'll take all elements of our country competing with the ideas of the radical Islamists...until we're able to compete with that as we did in the Cold War and-- and-- against communication and in favor of free political systems and free economic systems, it-- we won't know how long it'll last or what the outcome will be.
BOB SCHIEFFER: When you wake up on 9/11, what will you be thinking about?
DONALD RUMSFELD: Oh, I'll be thinking' of-- remembering the people that died and their families and friends. And-- and the wonderful young men and women who volunteered to serve our country and go wherever the president decides they should go. And-- and do it with such patriotism and such courage and-- and sacrifice.
INTERVIEW WITH NEW YORK CITY MAYOR MICHAEL BLOOMBERG AT GROUND ZERO
BOB SCHIEFFER: I spoke earlier with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg who told us the city IS prepared...
MAYOR BLOOMBERG: New York is probably the safest city in the world. We have 1,000 cops dedicated just to intelligence and counterterrorism. We have more Urdu and Pashtu speakers than the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. put together. We have 3,000 cameras. We have all sorts of stuff. We spend $8 and a half billion a year on our police department alone. And then, there are other people that help as well. So, I think-- I don't think that you and I should worry about it. If you see something, say something. Leave it to the professionals. But you are safe...We will heighten up a little bit more. But, you know, at some points, you've got every cop you have out there. You can't hype up anymore. You just-- it put-- I think it crystallizes it in your mind a little bit. You focus a touch more. But our professionals do that for a living. And we've gone through ten years when we've stopped a lot of terrorist attacks. And, for all we know, we stopped an awful lot more than that, where people just said, "Oh, it's that-- they're too on top of things. I don't want to go near it."
Below is the CBS summary of the interview with Donald Rumsfeld on Face the Nation 911 remembered 2011:
(CBS News)
The hardest part of living through the 9/11 terrorist attack on the Pentagon, former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, was seeing members of his "Pentagon family" hurt. After struggling with that, the hardest part, he said, was determining how to respond.
"There was no roadmap," Rumsfeld said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "There was no guidebook. There was no war plan on the shelf that [said], 'This is what you do.'"
Rumsfeld told CBS News chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer that then-CIA Director George Tenet called him that morning and confirmed that the attack was the work of al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. Then, President Bush called him and told him to think about what to do next.
"The president was very decisive," Rumsfeld said. "He said immediately, 'We're not gonna pound sand. We're not gonna simply indict some people in absentia and fire off a few cruise missiles. We're going to deal with this problem before something this bad or something worse happens to the American people. And we're gonna find ways to protect them.'"
Rumsfeld called the Bush administration's response to the events a "measured reaction." He pointed out that a terrorist could strike at any time with any kind of weapon, like a chemical or biological weapon that could kill hundreds of thousands.
"So the president was right to say the goal is not to retaliate - or it's not retribution," he said. "The goal is to to protect the American people. And the only way to do that was to put pressure on terrorists around the world and make everything they do hard."
Still, the former defense secretary said the administration "fell way short" in understanding that the fight against al Qaeda would take more than bullets.
"It's something that'll take all elements of our country competing with the ideas of the radical Islamists, until we're able to compete with that as we did in the Cold War... in favor of free political systems and free economic systems," he said. When it comes to that fight, he said, "we won't know how long it'll last or what the outcome will be."
Rumsfeld described the morning of Sept. 11, 2001 to Schieffer. He recalled running out of the Pentagon and seeing thousands of small pieces of metal strewn about. He and others in the Pentagon helped rescue people from the burning building until first responders arrived. When a Fire Marshall told Rumsfeld to evacuate and close the building, he insisted on keeping it open and only evacuating non-essential personnel.
"It was clear they had hit the seat of economic power in New York and the seat of military power of the United States in Washington. And another plane of course was probably gonna try to hit the seat of political power in the White House or the Congress," Rumsfeld said. He said he thought at the time, "I don't want the world to think that a group of terrorists could shut down the U.S. Department of Defense."
In this interview Donald Rumsfeld recounts a slightly different experience:
