In a new interview, former President George W Bush has defended his decision to invade Afghanistan after 9/11. A new documentary “9/11: Inside the President’s War Room” recently aired on BBC. These are his first comments before the approaching 20th anniversary of September 11, 2001.
During the September 11 attacks in 2001, 2,977 people were killed, 19 hijackers committed murder—suicide, and more than 6,000 others were injured.
President Bush’s ‘War on Terror’ began in the aftermath of the plane crashes on the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The main architect of the terror attack, Osama bin Laden of the Al Qaeda, who was of Saudi origin, took refuge with the Taliban who were ruling Afghanistan. Two decades later, the Taliban are back in power, while America lost about 2,800 military troops and trillions of dollars in the war defending us against Al Qaeda.
However, former president George W. Bush said that his decision to send in troops to Afghanistan, after the terror attack was not made in anger. He said that they were sent to protect Americans.
President Bush also told the filmmakers that he made some big decisions that started with the big thought of America being at war. He said that those decisions were not made out of anger but were made with a goal in mind that was to protect the American people.
When asked whether he believed that his actions after 9/11 made the world a safer place former President Bush said that there weren’t any attacks on America. He said that he would let historians sort all that out. He said that he was “comfortable” with the “decisions” he made.
Former President Bush told the BBC that there was a call on the switchboard that said, “Angel’s next.” Bush said that Air Force One’s code word was Angel, and the protection detail was increased as the government was afraid that someone in the president’s circle could conduct an inside job and threaten the then president.
President Biden, on Tuesday, said that the withdrawal was necessary as Trump had already made a pact with the Taliban. The Taliban’s powers and strength increased tremendously after the pact. Biden said that he would deal with threats from Afghanistan with forces than need not be based in Afghanistan. Incidentally America is the second super power to withdraw from Afghanistan. Decades ago, the Soviet Union also had to leave Afghanistan in 1989 more than a decade after it invaded the country, twelve years before America.
This year, the nation has faced domestic terrorism acts and incidents such as the January 6 insurrection. Many corporates from meat packers to energy corporations to ferry makers in the U.S. have faced ransomware threats reportedly originating from Russia and China. In the past two decades threats are changing and cyber security, nuclear proliferation and stealth weapons are the new threats that have to be tackled and can be done without sending soldiers overseas.
