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Was it all just a dream?
God bless you, Florida! Thank you!
Did the last four years not really happen?
Look, there's Ben Affleck. He's often in my dreams.
And the Taxi Driver guy. He was there too.
And little Stevie Wonder, he seemed so happy...
... like a miracle had taken place.
Was it a dream?
We want Gore!
Or was it real?
It was election night 2000, and things seemed to be going as planned.
In New York, Al Gore is our projected winner.
The Garden State is green for Gore.
We project Mr. Gore the winner in Delaware. This state has voted with...
Excuse me, one second. I'm sorry to interrupt.
Mike, I wouldn't do this if it weren't big.
Florida goes for Al Gore.
CNN announces that we call Florida in the Al Gore column.
Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election...
... in favor of the other guy.
Fox News now projects George W. Bush the winner in Florida...
...and thus it appears the winner of the presidency of the United States.
All of a sudden, the other networks said:
"Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true."
All of us at the networks made a mistake...
...and projected Florida in the Al Gore column.
It was our mistake.
What most people don't know is that the man in charge...
... of the decision desk at Fox that night...
... the man who called it for Bush...
... was none other than Bush's first cousin John Ellis.
How does someone like Bush get away with something like this?
Well, first, it helps if your brother is the governor of the state in question.
You know something? We are gonna win Florida. Mark my words.
You can write it down.
Second, make sure your campaign chairman...
... is also the vote-count woman and that her state hires a company...
... to knock voters off the rolls who aren't likely to vote for you.
You can usually tell them by the color of their skin.
Then make sure your side fights like it's life or death.
This talk about legitimacy is overblown.
President Bush! President Bush!
And hope the other side sits by.
And even if numerous independent investigations...
... prove that Gore got the most votes...
If there was a statewide recount, Gore won the election.
... it won't matter, as long as all your daddy's friends...
... on the Supreme Court vote the right way.
While I strongly disagree with the court's decision, I accept it.
What we need now is acceptance.
We have a new president-elect.
It turns out none of this was a dream. It's what really happened.
On the day the joint session of both the House of Representatives...
... and the Senate was to certify the election results...
... AI Gore, in his dual role as outgoing vice president...
... and president of the Senate...
... presided over the event that would officially anoint...
... George W. Bush as the new president.
If any congressman wanted to raise an objection, the rules insisted...
... that he or she had to have the signed support of just one senator.
Mr. President, and I take great pride in calling you that...
...I must object because of the overwhelming evidence...
...of misconduct, deliberate fraud and an attempt to suppress voter...
The chair must remind members that under Section 18 of Title 3...
...United States Code, no debate is allowed in the joint session.
Thank you, Mr. President. To answer your question...
...the objection is in writing, signed by a number of members...
...of the House of Representatives, but not by a member of the Senate.
Mr. President, it is in writing and signed by several House colleagues...
...on behalf, and myself, of the 27,000 voters of Duval County...
...in which 16,000 of them are African-Americans...
...that was disenfranchised in this last election.
Is the objection signed by a member of the Senate?
Not signed by a member of the Senate.
The Senate is missing.
It is in writing and signed by myself...
...on behalf of many of the diverse constituents...
...especially those in the 9th Congressional District...
...and all American voters who recognize that the Supreme Court...
...not the people of the United States, decided this election.
Is the objection signed by a senator?
Unfortunately, Mr. President, it is not signed by one single senator.
I have no authority over the United States Senate...
...and no senator has signed.
Mr. President, it is in writing and signed by myself and several...
...of my constituents from Florida. A senator is needed, but missing.
Is the objection in writing...
...and signed by a member of the House and a senator?
The objection is in writing, and I don't care...
...that it is not signed by a member of the Senate.
The chair will advise that the rules do care...
...and the signature of a senator...
Not a single senator came to the aid of the African-Americans in Congress.
One after another, they were told to sit down and shut up.
It's a sad day in America, Mr. President, when we can't find...
...a senator to sign the objections...
- The gentleman will suspend... - New Democratic senators won't sign.
- I object. - The gentleman will suspend.
Inauguration coverage, 2001...
...on a nasty, but it could be worse, kind of day in Washington.
- What do we want? - Justice!
- When do we want it? - Now!
On the day George W. Bush was inaugurated...
... tens of thousands of Americans poured into the streets of D. C...
... in one last attempt to reclaim what had been taken from them.
They pelted Bush's limo with eggs...
Stay back! Get back!
... and brought the inauguration parade to a halt.
The plan to have Bush get out of the limo for the traditional walk...
... to the White House was scrapped.
Bush's limo hit the gas to prevent an even larger riot.
No president had ever witnessed such a thing on his inauguration day.
And for the next eight months, it didn't get any better for George W. Bush.
He couldn't get his judges appointed, he struggled to pass his legislation...
... and he lost Republican control of the Senate.
His approval ratings in the polls began to sink.
He was already beginning to look like a lame-duck president.
With everything going wrong, he did what any of us would do.
He went on vacation.
Oh, no!
In his first eight months in office before September 11 th...
... George W. Bush was on vacation, according to The Washington Post...
... 42 percent of the time.
If I hit every shot good, people would say I wasn't working.
It was not surprising that Mr. Bush needed some time off.
Being president is a lot of work.
What about these folks that say that you're taking too long of a vacation?
They don't understand the definition of work, then.
I'm getting a lot done. You don't have to be in Washington to work.
It's amazing what can happen with telephones and faxes.
Thank you so much.
- Is this to Destiny and Bubba? - Yeah.
What are you doing the rest of the day?
Karen Hughes is coming over. We're working on some things.
And she'll be over here. We're working on a few things, a few matters.
I'm working on some initiatives. We're... You'll see.
There'll be some decisions I will have made while I'm here.
We'll be announcing them as time goes on.
The first time I met him, he had some good advice for me.
Governor Bush, it's Michael Moore.
Behave yourself, will you? Go find real work.
And work was something he knew a lot about.
- Anybody want some grits? - Yeah.
Relaxing at Camp David. Yachting off Kennebunkport.
How you doing?
Or being a cowboy on the ranch in Texas.
I love nature, getting in the truck with my dogs.
Oh, hi.
George Bush spent the rest of August at the ranch...
... where life was less complicated.
Armadillos love to dig the soil looking for bugs.
And...
So I went out there the other day, and there was Barney...
...buried in this hole, chasing an armadillo.
It was a summer to remember.
Afterward, he left Texas for his second-favorite place.
On September 10th, he joined his brother in Florida...
... where they looked at files and met important Floridians.
He went to sleep that night in a bed made with fine French linens.
Do you suppose he's pretty confident...
...on those numbers on Iraqi security forces?
Make me look young.
Yeah, I've got a little, sort of air noise.
Yeah, just don't turn it up too much. I don't want to blow my head off.
I got a mike here if they want to use it.
Testing, one, two. This is the Oval Office. Testing, one, two.
Testing, one, two. This is the Oval Office.
Testing, one, two, three, four, five.
We have something that has happened here...
...at the World Trade Center. We noticed a flame...
...and an awful lot of smoke...
This is horrible.
- Oh, my God! - Oh, my God.
Oh, my, dear.
Let's go! Let's go, back! Come on, let's go!
Oh, my God!
Save their souls, Lord. Save their souls, Lord.
Oh, they're jumping.
On September 11 th, 2001, nearly 3000 people...
... including a colleague of mine, Bill Weems...
... were killed in the largest foreign attack ever on American soil.
The targets were the financial and military headquarters...
... of the United States.
If anyone has any idea or they've seen him or knows where he is, to call us.
He's got two little babies. Two little babies.
As the attack took place, Mr. Bush was on his way...
... to an elementary school in Florida.
When informed of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center...
... where terrorists had struck just eight years prior...
... Mr. Bush decided to go ahead with his photo opportunity.
- Good morning, boys and girls. - Good morning.
Good morning.
Read this word the fast way. Get ready.
- "Mad"! - Yes. Get ready.
- "Calf"! - Yeah.
Get ready to read the words on this page without making a mistake.
When the second plane hit the tower...
... his chief of staff entered the classroom...
... and told Mr. Bush, "The nation is under attack."
Not knowing what to do, with no one telling him what to do...
... and no Secret Service rushing in to take him to safety...
... Mr. Bush just sat there...
... and continued to read My Pet Goat with the children.
Nearly seven minutes passed with nobody doing anything.
As Bush sat in that Florida classroom...
... was he wondering if maybe he should have shown up...
... to work more often?
Should he have held at least one meeting since taking office...
... to discuss the threat of terrorism with his head of counterterrorism?
Maybe Bush wondered why he had cut terrorism funding from the FBI.
Or perhaps he just should have read the security briefing...
... that was given to him on August 6th, 2001...
... which said Osama bin Laden was planning...
... to attack America by hijacking airplanes.
Maybe he wasn't worried, because the title of the report was too vague.
I believe the title was "Bin Laden Determined...
...to Attack Inside the United States."
A report like that might make some men jump...
... but, as in days past, George W. Just went fishing.
As the minutes went by, George Bush continued to sit in the classroom.
Was he thinking, "I've been hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Which one of them screwed me?
Was it the guy my daddy's friends delivered a lot of weapons to?
Was it that group of religious fundamentalists...
... who visited my state when I was governor?
Or was it the Saudis?
Damn. It was them. I think I better blame it on this guy. "
In the days following September 11 th...
... all commercial and private airline traffic was grounded.
The FAA has taken the action to close all of the airports in the United States.
Even grounding the president's father, former President Bush...
...on a flight forced to land in Milwaukee.
Thousands of travelers were stranded, among them Ricky Martin...
...due to appear at tonight's Latin Grammy Awards.
Not even Ricky Martin could fly. But really, who wanted to fly?
No one, except the bin Ladens.
We had airplanes pick up...
...Osama bin Laden's family and other Saudis...
...and transport them out of the U.S.
The White House approved planes...
... to pick up the bin Ladens and numerous other Saudis.
At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes...
... carried the Saudis and bin Ladens...
... out of the U.S. After September 13th.
In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members of the bin Laden family...
... were allowed to leave the country.
Osama's always been portrayed as the black sheep in the family...
...that they cut off all relationship with him in 1994.
It's more complicated than that.
Osama has had contact with other family members?
Right. In the summer of 2001, just before 9l11, one of Osama's sons...
...got married in Afghanistan, and several family members...
...showed up at the wedding. - Bin Ladens?
That's right. So they're not cut off completely. That's an exaggeration.
We now welcome to Larry King Live...
...Prince Bandar, ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the U.S.
You had about 24 members of bin Laden's family, and...
- Here? - In America. Students and...
His Majesty felt it's not fair for those innocent people to be subjected...
...to any harm. On the other hand, we understood the high emotions...
...so, with coordination with the FBI, we got them out.
This is retired FBI agent Jack Cloonan.
Before 9/11, he was a senior agent on the joint FBl-CIA...
... al Qaeda task force.
I, as an investigator, would not want these people to have left.
I think, in the case of the bin Laden family, it would have been prudent...
...to hand the subpoenas out, have them come in, get on-the-record.
You know, get on-the-record.
- That's the proper procedure? - Yeah.
How many people were pulled off airlines after that...
...coming into the country who were Middle Eastern...
...or they fit a very general picture.
We held hundreds of people for weeks and months at a time.
Did the authorities do anything when the bin Ladens tried to leave?
No. They were identified at the airport.
They looked at their passports, and they were identified.
That would happen to us if we left the country.
- Exactly. - Interview, check the passport.
- What else? - Nothing.
I don't know about you, but usually...
... when the police can't find a murderer...
... don't they usually wanna talk to the family members...
... to find out where they think he might be?
You don't know where your husband is?
If you hear anything, let us know.
Can you come downtown, give a statement?
- How long? - You've got time.
Mine's worth money. Yours isn't.
- Send a bill. - I asked you a question.
- Answer them. Don't ask them. - I pay your salary, cop.
Sit down. I'm gonna earn it.
Yeah. That's how cops do it. What was going on here?
We need to know more about that.
It needs to be the subject of an investigation.
What happened? How did it happen? Why? Who authorized it?
Lmagine what those poor *** were feeling...
...when jumping off that building to their death.
Those young guys and cops and firemen...
...that ran into that building, never asked a question.
And they're dead. And families' lives are ruined.
- And they'll never have peace. - That's right.
And if I had to inconvenience...
...a member of the bin Laden family with a subpoena or a grand jury...
...do you think I'd lose sleep over it? Not a minute.
No one would question it. Not even the biggest civil libertarian.
- No, no. It's just... - No one would question it.
You know, you got a lawyer? Fine. Counsel? Fine.
Mr. Bin Laden, this is why I'm asking. It isn't because I think you're anything.
I just want to ask you the questions that I would anybody.
- Right. - And that's all.
None of this made any sense.
Can you imagine in the days after the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing...
... President Clinton helping to arrange a trip...
... out of the country for the Mc Veigh family?
What would have happened to Clinton...
- ... if that had been revealed? - Burn him! Burn him!
Prince Bandar, do you know the bin Laden family?
- I do, very well. - What are they like?
They're really lovely human beings. He is the only one I never...
I don't know him well, but I met him only once.
What was the circumstance under which you met?
This is ironic. In the mid-'80s...
...if you remember, we and the United States...
...were supporting the mujahideen...
...to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets.
He came to thank me for my efforts to bring the Americans, our friends...
...to help us against the atheists, the Communists. Isn't it ironic?
He came to thank you for helping bring America to help him.
And now he may be responsible for bombing America.
- Absolutely. - What did you make of him?
- I was not impressed. - Not impressed?
No. I thought he was a simple and very quiet guy.
A simple and quiet guy, whose family just happened to have...
... a business relationship with the family of George W. Bush.
Is that what he was thinking about?
Because if the public knew this, it wouldn't look very good.
Was he thinking, "You know...
... I need a big, black marker"?
In early 2004, in a speech during the New Hampshire primary...
... I called George W. Bush a deserter...
... from his time in the Texas Air National Guard.
In response, the White House released his military records...
... in the hopes of disproving the charge.
What Bush didn't know is that I already had a copy...
... of his military records, uncensored, obtained in the year 2000.
And there is one glaring difference between the records released...
... in 2000 and those he released in 2004.
A name had been blacked out.
In 1972, two airmen were suspended for failing to take...
... their medical examination. One was George W. Bush.
And the other was James R. Bath.
In 2000, the documents show both names.
But in 2004, Bush and the White House had Bath's name blacked out.
Why didn't Bush want the press and the public...
... to see Bath's name on his military records?
Perhaps he was worried that the American people would find out...
... that at one time, James R. Bath...
... was the Texas money manager for the bin Ladens.
Bush and Bath had become good friends...
... when they both served in the Texas Air National Guard.
After they were discharged...
... when Bush's dad was head of the CIA...
... Bath opened up his own aviation business after selling a plane...
... to a man by the name of Salem bin Laden...
... heir to the second-largest fortune in Saudi Arabia...
... the Saudi Binladin Group.
W. At that time was just starting off in the world as a businessman.
Because he's a guy who's always tried to emulate his father...
...he went into the oil business. He founded an oil company, Arbusto...
...which was very good at drilling dry holes that nothing came out of.
But the question has always been, "Where did this money come from?"
Now, his dad was rich. His dad could have done this for him...
...but his dad didn't do this for him.
There's no indication Daddy wrote a check to start him off in his company.
So where did George W. Bush get his money?
I'm George Bush.
One person who did invest in him was James R. Bath.
Bush's good friend, James Bath, was hired by the bin Laden family...
... to manage their money in Texas and invest in businesses.
And James Bath himself, in turn, invested in George W. Bush.
Bush ran Arbusto into the ground...
... as he did every other company he was involved in...
... until finally one of his companies was bought by Harken Energy...
... and they gave him a seat on their board.
A lot of us suspected through the years that there has been...
...Saudi oil money involved in these companies:
Harken, Spectrum 7, Arbusto Drilling, all the Bush companies.
Whenever they got in trouble, there were these angel investors...
...who flowed money into the companies.
The question is, why would Saudis, who had all the oil in the world...
...go around the globe to invest in this lousy oil company?
And the thing is, Harken had one big thing going for it...
...which is that George W. Bush was on its board of directors...
...at a time when his father was president of the United States.
When you're the president's son and you've got unlimited access...
...combined with some credentials from a prior campaign...
...in Washington, D.C., people tend to respect that. Access is power.
And I can find my dad and talk to him any time of the day.
Yes, it helps to be the president's son...
... especially when you're being investigated...
... by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In 1990, when Mr. Bush was a director of Harken Energy...
...he received this memo from company lawyers...
...warning directors not to sell stock if they had...
...unfavorable information about the company.
One week later, he sold $848,000 worth of Harken stock.
Two months later, Harken announced losses of more than $23 million.
The James Baker law partner who helped Bush...
... beat the rap from the SEC...
... was a man by the name of Robert Jordan...
... who, when George W. Became president...
... was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
After the Harken debacle, the friends of Bush's dad got him a seat...
... on another board, of a company owned by the Carlyle Group.
We looked at which companies gained from September 11 th.
We turned up this company, Carlyle Group, a multinational conglomerate...
...that invests in heavily government-regulated industries...
...like telecommunications, health care and particularly, defense.
Both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush...
...worked for the Carlyle Group, the same company that counted...
...the bin Laden family among its investors.
The Carlyle Group was holding its annual investor conference...
...on the morning of September 11 th...
...in the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington D.C.
At that meeting were all of the Carlyle regulars...
...James Baker, likely John Major, definitely George H.W. Bush...
...though he left the morning of September 11 th.
Shafiq bin Laden, who is Osama bin Laden's half brother...
...was in town to look after his family's investments in the Carlyle Group.
All of them together in one room, watching...
...as the planes hit the towers.
In fact, the bin Laden family was invested...
...in one of their defense funds, which ironically meant...
...that as the U.S. Increased defense spending, the bin Laden family...
...stood to gain from those investments through the Carlyle Group.
Our commander in chief, President George W. Bush.
With all the weapons companies it owned...
... the Carlyle Group was, in essence, the 11 th largest...
... defense contractor in the United States.
- Thanks a lot. - It owned United Defense...
... makers of the Bradley armored fighting vehicle.
September 11 th guaranteed that United Defense...
... was going to have a very good year.
Just six weeks after 9/11...
... Carlyle filed to take United Defense public...
... and made a one-day profit of $237 million.
But sadly, with so much attention focused...
... on the bin Laden family being important Carlyle investors...
... the bin Ladens eventually had to withdraw.
Bush's dad, though, stayed on as senior adviser...
... to Carlyle's Asia board for another two years.
As unseemly as it seems to know that George H.W. Bush...
...was meeting with the bin Laden family...
...while Osama was a wanted terrorist, well before September 11 th...
...it's very discomforting for Americans to know that.
George H.W. Bush is a man who has, obviously, incredible reach...
...into the White House.
He receives daily CIA briefings, which is the right of any ex-president...
...but very few ex-presidents actually exercise that right. He does.
And, I think, in a very real way they are benefiting from the confusion...
...that arises when George H.W. Bush visits Saudi Arabia...
...on behalf of Carlyle and meets with the royal family...
...and meets with the bin Laden family.
Is he representing the United States of America?
Or is he representing an investment firm in the United States?
Or is he representing both?
This company is about money, not conspiracies to run the world...
...or engineer political maneuvering and things like that.
It's about making money, and it's about making a lot of money.
And they've done very well.
I could get you on-the-record on this question.
In the White House view, there is no ethical conflict...
...in former President Bush and former Secretary of State Jim Baker...
...using their contacts with world leaders to represent...
...one of the most well-known military arms dealers, the Carlyle Group?
The president has full faith that his family will conform...
...with all proper ethics laws and will act properly in their conduct.
Okay, let's say one group of people, like the American people...
... pay you $400,000 a year to be president of the United States.
But then another group of people invest in you, your friends...
... and their related businesses, $ 1.4 billion over a number of years.
Who are you gonna like? Who's your daddy?
That's how much the Saudi royals and their associates...
... have given the Bush family, their friends and their related businesses...
... in the past three decades.
Seems like a very nice reunion with friends.
Is it rude to suggest that when the Bush family...
... wakes up in the morning, they might be thinking...
... about what's best for the Saudis instead of what's best for you or me?
Because 1.4 billion just doesn't buy a lot of flights out of the country.
It buys a lot of love.
Sooner or later, this special relationship...
... with a regime that Amnesty International condemns...
... as a widespread human-rights violator...
... would come back to haunt the Bushes.
Now, after 9/11, it was an embarrassment.
And they preferred that no one ask any questions.
Investigation should have begun on September 12th.
There's no reason it shouldn't have. Three thousand were dead.
It should've gotten started immediately.
First, Bush tried to stop Congress from setting up...
- ... its own 9/11 investigation. - It's important for us...
...to not reveal how we collect information.
That's what the enemy wants. And we're fighting an enemy.
When he couldn't stop Congress, he then tried to stop...
... an independent 9/11 commission from being formed.
The president's position was a break from history.
Independent investigations were launched after Pearl Harbor...
...and President Kennedy's assassination.
But when Congress did complete its own investigation...
... the Bush White House censored 28 pages of the report.
The president is being pressed by all sides to declassify the report.
U.S. Officials tell NBC News most of the secret sources...
...involve Saudi Arabia.
We've given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton.
We haven't gotten the materials we needed...
...and haven't gotten them in a timely fashion.
Will you testify before the commission?
This commission? You know, I don't... Testify? I'd be glad to visit with them.
What it will do is, the hole that's in my heart...
...and has been in my heart since September 11 th...
I lost my husband of 15 years. I am now by myself.
I need to know what happened to him.
I know what I got back from the autopsy.
That man was my life, and I have no plan.
I was taking a class, and they asked me...
...what was I gonna do in the next five years.
And if I'm not doing something with this, I don't know what reason...
...I have to live. So it's very important.
Very important. Okay.
Okay.
Ignored by the Bush administration...
... more than 500 relatives of 9/11 victims...
... filed suit against Saudi royals and others.
The lawyers the Saudi defense minister hired...
... to fight the 9/11 families?
The law firm of Bush family confidant, James A. Baker.
So right here in the center of three important American landmarks...
...the Watergate Hotel and office building...
...the Kennedy Center over there...
...and the embassy of Saudi Arabia.
Yeah.
How much money do the Saudis have invested in America, roughly?
I've heard figures as high as $860 billion.
- Eight hundred and sixty billion? - Billion.
- That's a lot of money. - A lot, yeah.
And what percentage of our economy does that represent?
It seems like a lot.
Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street in American equities...
...it's roughly 6 or 7 percent of America.
They own a fairly good slice of America.
Most of that money goes into the great blue-chip companies.
Citigroup, Citibank, the largest stockholder is a Saudi.
AOL-Time Warner has big Saudi investors.
So I read where, like, the Saudis have a trillion dollars...
...in our banks of their money. What would happen...
...if they pulled that trillion out?
A trillion dollars? That would be an enormous blow to the economy.
Can I speak to you for a moment, please, sir?
- How are you doing? - Good, how you doing?
Steve Kimball with the Secret Service. We're just ascertaining information.
Are you doing a documentary on the Saudi Arabian Embassy?
No. I am doing a documentary, and part of it is about Saudi Arabia.
Even though we were nowhere near the White House...
... the Secret Service had shown up to ask us what we were doing...
... standing across the street from the Saudi Embassy.
- We're not here to cause any trouble. - Okay.
- You know. Is that...? - No, that's fine.
We just wanted to get some information as far as...
What's going on, yeah.
I didn't realize the Secret Service guards foreign embassies.
- Not usually, no, sir. - No. Do they give you any trouble?
- Saudis? - No comment on that.
Okay, I'll take that as a yes.
Good. Thank you very much.
It turns out that Saudi Prince Bandar is perhaps...
... the best-protected ambassador in the U.S.
The U.S. State Department provides him with a six-man security detail.
Considering how he and his family and the Saudi elite...
... own 7 percent of America, it's probably not a bad idea.
Prince Bandar was so close to the Bushes...
... they considered him a member of the family.
They even had a nickname for him: Bandar Bush.
Two nights after September 11 th, George Bush invited Bandar Bush...
... over to the White House for a private dinner and a talk.
Even though bin Laden was a Saudi...
... and Saudi money had funded al Qaeda...
... and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis...
... here was the Saudi ambassador, casually dining with the president...
... on September 13th.
What were they talking about?
Were they commiserating or comparing notes?
Why would Bandar's government...
... block American investigators from talking to the relatives...
... of the 15 hijackers?
Why would Saudi Arabia become reluctant...
... to freeze the hijackers' assets?
The two of them walked out on the Truman Balcony...
... so that Bandar could smoke a cigar and have a drink.
In the distance, across the Potomac, was the Pentagon, partially in ruins.
I wonder if Mr. Bush told Prince Bandar not to worry...
... because he already had a plan in motion.
You come in September 12th...
You come in September 12th...
...to plot our response to al Qaeda. Let me talk about the response...
...you got from top administration officials.
On that day, what did the president say to you?
The president, in a very intimidating way, left me and my staff...
...with the clear indication he wanted us to come back...
...with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9l11.
They planned to do something about Iraq before they came into office.
Did he ask about any other nations other than Iraq?
No, not at all. It was, "Iraq, Saddam, find out, get back to me."
Were his questions more about Iraq than al Qaeda?
Absolutely. He didn't ask me about al Qaeda.
And the reaction you got from the defense secretary, Rumsfeld...
...from his assistant, Paul Wolfowitz?
Donald Rumsfeld said... When we talked about bombing...
...the al Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan...
...he said, "There are no good targets in Afghanistan.
Let's bomb Iraq."
And we said, "But Iraq had nothing to do with this."
That didn't make much difference. The reason they had...
...to do Afghanistan first was, it was obvious al Qaeda attacked us.
And it was obvious that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.
Americans wouldn't stand by if we'd done nothing on Afghanistan.
The United States began bombing Afghanistan...
... just four weeks after 9/11. Mr. Bush said he was doing so...
... because the Taliban government of Afghanistan...
... had been harboring bin Laden.
We will smoke them out of their holes.
We're gonna smoke them out.
- We'll smoke him out of his cave. - Let's rush them and smoke them out.
For all his tough talk, Bush really didn't do much.
Well, what they did was slow and small.
They put only 11,000 troops into Afghanistan.
There are more police here in Manhattan.
More in Manhattan than there are U.S. Troops in Afghanistan.
The president botched the response. He should have gone after bin Laden.
The U.S. Special Forces didn't get into the area where bin Laden was...
...for two months. - Two months?
A mass murderer who attacked the United States...
... was given a two-month head start?
Who in their right mind would do that?
- Dang! Anybody say "nice shot"? - Nice shot.
Hell of a shot.
Or was the war in Afghanistan really about something else?
Perhaps the answer was in Houston, Texas.
In 1997, while George W. Bush was governor of Texas...
... a delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan flew to Houston...
... to meet with Unocal executives...
... to discuss the building of a pipeline through Afghanistan...
... bringing natural gas from the Caspian Sea.
And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract...
... the same day Unocal signed the pipeline deal?
A company headed by a man named *** Cheney. Halliburton.
From the point of view of the U.S. Government...
...this was kind of a magic pipeline...
...because it could serve so many purposes.
And who else stood to benefit from the pipeline?
Bush's number-one campaign contributor, Kenneth Lay...
... and the good people of Enron.
Only the British press covered this trip.
Then in 2001, just five and a half months before 9/11...
... the Bush administration welcomed a Taliban envoy...
... to tour the United States...
... to help improve the image of the Taliban government.
You have imprisoned the women. It's a horror, let me tell you.
I'm sorry to your husband. He must have a difficult time with you.
Here is the Taliban official visiting our State Department...
... to meet with U.S. Officials.
Why would the Bush administration allow a Taliban leader...
... to visit the United States, knowing that the Taliban...
... were harboring the man who bombed the U.S.S. Cole...
... and our African embassies?
Well, I guess 9/11 put a stop to that.
When the invasion of Afghanistan was complete...
... we installed its new president, Hamid Karzai.
Who was Hamid Karzai?
He was a former adviser to Unocal.
Bush also appointed, as our envoy to Afghanistan...
... Zalmay Khalilzad, who was also a former Unocal adviser.
I guess you can probably see where this is leading.
Faster than you can say, "Black gold, Texas tea, " Afghanistan signed...
... an agreement with her neighboring countries...
... to build a pipeline carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea.
Oh, and the Taliban?
Oh, they mostly got away.
As did Osama bin Laden and most of al Qaeda.
Terror is bigger than one person.
And he's a person who's now been marginalized.
So I don't know where he is.
I just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.
Didn't spend much time on him? What kind of president was he?
I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office...
...in foreign policy matters with war on my mind.
With the war in Afghanistan over and bin Laden forgotten...
... the war president had a new target:
The American people.
We've got an unusual terror warning from the feds to tell you about.
Fox News has obtained an FBI bulletin...
...that warns terrorists could use pen guns, like in James Bond...
...filled with poison. - Good evening.
America is on high alert tonight, just four days before Christmas.
- A possible terror threat. - As bad as or worse than 9l11.
But where? How? There's nothing specific to report.
Be on the lookout for model airplanes packed with explosives.
The FBI is warning ferries may be considered particularly at risk...
...for hijacking.
Could these cattle be a target for terrorists?
- Fear works. - Fear does work, yes.
You can make people do anything if they're afraid.
And how do you make them afraid?
Well, you make them afraid by creating an aura of endless threat.
They played us like an organ.
They raised the orange, up to red, then they dropped it back to orange.
I mean, they gave these mixed messages, which were crazy-making.
The world is changed after September the 11 th.
It's changed because we're no longer safe.
Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots.
We have entered what may prove to be the most dangerous...
...security environment the world's known.
Take your families and enjoy life.
Terrorists are doing everything they can...
...to gain even deadlier means of striking us.
- Go down to Disney World in Florida. - It's like training a dog.
You tell him sit down and roll over at the same time, dog doesn't know...
...what to do. American people were being treated like that.
It was very, very skillfully and ugly, in what they did.
We must stop the terror.
I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers.
Thank you.
Now watch this drive.
All right. You give me another one.
They will continue, in my view, as long as this administration is in charge...
...of every once in a while, stimulating everybody to be afraid.
Just in case you forgot.
It's not gonna go down to green or blue. It's never gonna get there.
There clearly is no way that anyone...
...can live constantly on edge like that.
The reality facing American families...
...is they're not as safe as they used to be.
Drug dealers and users looking for their next fix.
Gangs who roam the streets in search of their next victim.
And the growing threat of terrorists means the need for protection...
...is ever greater. And now that protection is here.
Zytech Engineering, LLC has developed and tested a safe room...
...finally affordable to the average American citizen.
Protection formerly obtainable only by the wealthy or powerful.
Heck, you can be sitting in here, drinking your finest Bordeaux...
...and enjoying life, while chaos is erupting outside.
Every family in America should prepare itself...
...for a terrorist attack.
Now to escaping from a skyscraper. John Rivers is the CEO...
...of the Executive Chute Corporation. Good morning to you, John.
- Good morning, Matt. - Tell me about the product.
It's an emergency escape chute. It's an option of last resort.
How high do you have to be in the building...
...for that chute to actually take effect?
You only have to be on the 10th floor or above.
They can put this on themselves?
Right. They can put this on themselves in as easy...
...as about 30 seconds. It's real easy to put on.
- Here. - Sorry.
That's okay. Real easy to put on, but...
When you first get this chute, you're gonna wanna put it on...
...and try it on a few times yourself. - Jaime's having trouble putting that on.
Is this something that you honestly think, in a moment of panic...
...that someone can operate properly?
Oh, yeah. It is. This is actually... Jamie's probably never...
...put this thing on before in her life.
It's okay. It's something that, when you get it...
...you're gonna wanna put it on several times.
Despite the raising of the terror alert level, residents here continue...
...with their Christmas errands.
Frances and her family do some last-minute holiday shopping...
...knowing al Qaeda is planning to attack.
She says being in Saginaw doesn't make her feel any safer...
...than if she was in New York City.
Midland is close by...
...and I said, "Detroit's not that far away."
I said, "That could be something... And Flint could be something... Be...
...concerns for people around here." - You never know...
...where they're gonna hit. Never know.
But one potential target specifically mentioned by the terrorists...
...has security officials baffled. It's tiny Tappahannock, Virginia...
...population, 2016.
Such an attack could generate widespread fear...
...that even here in rural, small-town America, no one is entirely safe.
On the news there was an alert in Tappahannock.
- What did the FBI tell you? - Well, they contacted me by phone.
Basically let me know about this, were it Tappahannock.
- That's how it started. - In the so-called chatter they pick up...
...they wasn't sure Tappahannock. There's a Rappahannock County...
...Rappahannock River. - There is a Rappahannock...
A place called Rappahannock. They got it mixed up.
This is Tappahannock, not Rappahannock.
- Is there any target around here? - Not that we can think of.
- It can happen anywhere. - Wal-Mart.
A big spaghetti supper in here.
Wal-Mart, probably.
Do you feel extra suspicious of outsiders?
Oh, everybody does that.
That's just something that happens.
When I look at certain people, I wonder, "Oh, my goodness.
Do you think they could be a terrorist?"
- Never know what's gonna happen. - Right.
It could happen right now.
Never trust nobody you don't know.
And even if you do know them, you really can't trust them then.
From Tappahannock to Rappahannock...
... to every town and village in America, the people were afraid.
And they turned to their leader to protect them.
But protect them from what?
Meet John Ashcroft.
In 2000, he was running for re-election as senator for Missouri...
... against a man who died the month before the election.
The voters preferred the dead guy.
So George W. Bush made him his attorney general.
He was sworn in on a stack of Bibles.
Because when you can't beat a dead guy...
... you need all the help you can get.
During the summer before 9/11...
... Ashcroft told acting FBI director, Thomas Pickard...
... that he didn't want to hear anything more about terrorist threats.
Mr. Watson had come to you and said that the CIA was very concerned...
...that there would be an attack.
You said that you told the attorney general this fact repeatedly...
...in these meetings. That correct?
I've told him at least on two occasions.
And you told the staff, according to this statement...
...Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore.
- Is that correct? - That is correct.
His own FBI knew that summer there were al Qaeda members...
... in the U.S. And bin Laden was sending his agents to flight schools...
... around the country.
But Ashcroft's Justice Department turned a blind eye...
... and a deaf ear.
But after 9/11, John Ashcroft had some brilliant ideas...
... for how to protect America.
The Patriot Act, adopted by Congress and signed by Bush...
...six weeks after the attacks...
...has changed the way the government does business.
The Patriot Act allows for searches of medical and financial records...
...computer and telephone conversations...
...even for the books you take out of the library. But people we spoke to...
...say they're willing to give up liberties to fight terrorism.
- Maybe that's a good thing. - It's sad, but it has to be done.
Yes, something needed to be done.
These are the good people who make up Peace Fresno.
A community group in Fresno, California.
Unlike the rest of us, they received an early lesson...
... in what the Patriot Act is all about.
Each week, they meet to discuss matters of peace.
They sit around, they share stories, they eat cookies.
Some have more than one.
This is Aaron Stokes, a member of Peace Fresno.
The other members liked him.
He had come to the meetings, he went with us.
We go out on Friday nights and stand on a very busy corner in Fresno.
And he had gone with us, he had handed out fliers.
He went with us in June to a WTO protest.
Then one day, Aaron didn't show up to the meeting.
My friend Dan and I were reading the Sunday newspaper...
...and when I picked up the paper, in the local section...
...Aaron's picture caught my eye.
The article said that a sheriff's deputy had been killed...
...and I saw it had a name that wasn't the right name...
...that said that he was a member of the sheriff's antiterrorism unit.
That's right.
The photo of the man in the newspaper...
... was not the Aaron Stokes they had come to know.
He was actually Deputy Aaron Kilner, and he had infiltrated their group.
Sheriff Pierce made it very clear that, yes...
...Aaron Kilner was assigned to infiltrate Peace Fresno...
...that he was able to infiltrate organizations...
...that are open to the public.
You could understand why the police needed to spy...
... on a group like Peace Fresno.
Just look at them.
A gathering of terrorists if I ever saw one.
This is Barry Reingold, a retired phone worker...
... from Oakland, California.
Barry likes to work out in the gym.
Somewhere between his cardio and his strength training...
... Barry got political.
We were up in the gym, and it was after we were working out...
...and a number of us were talking about 9l11 and Afghanistan...
...and bin Laden, and someone said, "Bin Laden's a real ***...
...for murdering those people." And I said, "Yeah, that's true.
But he'll never be as big an *** as Bush...
...who bombs all over the world for oil profits."
Barry didn't have to worry about the police spying on him.
His fellow weightlifters were more than willing to turn him in.
I was taking a nap, and I guess it was 1:30, 2:00 in the afternoon.
And they came to my place, and I said, "Well, who's there?"
And they said, "The FBI." I said, "The FBI? Why are they here?"
Yes, the FBI had come to see Barry. And they weren't there to Jazzercise.
The FBI said, "Have you been talking to people about 9l11 and bin Laden...
...and oil profits and Afghanistan?" I said, "A lot of people are talking...
...about these things."
I feel my rights have been, you know, trampled on.
I mean, if you have something to say to me in the gym, well, then, fine.
Don't tell the FBI, and they come to my apartment while I'm taking a nap.