Battle Stations

"I have to tell you that during that period of time, we were at battle stations."

— Condoleezza Rice, March 22, 2004

"And the president of the United States had us at battle stations during this period of time. He expected his Secretary of State to be locking down embassies. He expected his Secretary of Defense to be providing force protection. He expected his F.B.I. director to be tasking his agents and getting people out there. He expected his director of central intelligence to be out and doing what needed to be done in terms of disruption. And he expected his national security adviser to be looking to see that, or talking to people to see that that was done."

— Condoleezza Rice, testimony before the Sept. 11 commission, April 8, 2004

"I just don't think, based on everything I know, and I was there, that there was anything that anyone in government could have done to have put together the pieces before the horror of that day."

— Presidential adviser Karen Hughes, April 2004

A former Bush aide who remains close to the White House said the use of the term "battle stations" by Rice was an overstatement as it is understood in what the White House constantly calls "the post-9/11 world." The former aide, who refused to be identified to avoid angering the president and his staff, said that some members of Bush's senior staff did not know the extent of the information he had been given about the al-Qaida threat, and that even those in his inner circle did not imagine "the scale, the precision, the magnitude" of the strikes on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

"In a pre-9/11 world, it was like, 'Check it out and see what you find and get back to us after Labor Day,' " the former aide said. "It wasn't just the president who was on vacation. It was the whole government." …

The most extended treatment of security issues in the month of August 2001 came on the 24th … Bush did mention Rice at the session — but only to say that she and White House counselor Karen Hughes had "briefed" him on the Chandra Levy matter after the two aides watched then-Rep. Gary A. Condit's television interview about the missing intern.

— from "Bush Gave No Sign of Worry In August 2001," by Dana Milbank and Mike Allen in The Washington Post, 4/11/2004

During a period of heightened threats to our national security, our national security adviser did not have time to call together a principles meeting to discuss the urgent threat of al-Qaida.

Yet she did have time to brief the president on a congressman's affair with an intern.