Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz had a crucial role to play in the military’s response to the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, and yet he did nothing to help protect his country until the attacks were over and it was too late for him to make a difference to the outcome of the crisis.
As the second-highest-ranking official in the Department of Defense, Wolfowitz surely had critical duties to perform and should have promptly taken action when America came under attack. Furthermore, since he was at the Pentagon when the attacks occurred, he was in a good location to help the military respond to them. And yet he appears to have reacted to the catastrophic events with indifference.
He continued with a previously scheduled meeting after he learned about the crashes at the World Trade Center. Even when the Pentagon was attacked, 34 minutes after the second crash at the World Trade Center occurred, he initially made no effort to help the military respond to the crisis, even though more attacks could have been imminent, which he should have been trying to prevent.
Astonishingly, Wolfowitz has claimed that when he felt the Pentagon shake and heard a thud when it was hit, he did not realize an attack had taken place there. Instead, he said, he thought there had been an earthquake.
He only became involved in the military’s response to the crisis when, after initially being evacuated from the building, he went to the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center (NMCC). But it appears that by the time he reached the center the attacks would have ended and so any actions he took would have been inconsequential.
The indifference exhibited by the deputy secretary of defense when he learned of the attacks and his failure to take action when he should have been doing everything in his power to help protect America are quite chilling. And yet Wolfowitz has never had to explain his lack of response to the crisis on September 11. We therefore now need to look closely at his actions that day and contemplate why he behaved as he did.
It is plausible that Wolfowitz’s inaction was simply due to incompetence. However, statements Wolfowitz made in the years following 9/11 indicate that he actually felt the attacks were beneficial for the United States. We surely must consider, therefore, the disturbing possibility that he may have known in advance what was going to happen on September 11 and wanted the attacks to succeed. Consequently, when the attacks occurred, he deliberately avoided doing anything that might help stop them before all the intended targets were hit.
WOLFOWITZ WAS AT THE PENTAGON WHEN THE ATTACKS BEGAN
Paul Wolfowitz was attending a meeting in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s private dining room at the Pentagon when the attacks began on September 11. The meeting, which had commenced at 8:00 a.m., was attended by a number of members of Congress and various military officials, and was intended to discuss defense budget proposals. [1]
Shortly before it ended, Rumsfeld was given a note, which informed him that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. (This plane was American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the North Tower at 8:46 a.m.) Rumsfeld has commented that he assumed at the time that the incident was an accident. [2] Therefore, the secretary of defense and those with him “went on with our breakfast.” [3]
None of the meeting’s participants appear to have diverted from their schedules after the meeting ended, at around 9:00 a.m. “We all went on with the day’s business,” Secretary of the Army Thomas White recalled. [4] “We all proceeded back to our offices,” Vice Admiral Edmund Giambastiani Jr., Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant, said. [5]
Wolfowitz went to his office, just a short walk away from Rumsfeld’s office, where he was due to attend a routine meeting. It is unclear whether he was alerted to what had happened in New York during the meeting in Rumsfeld’s private dining room. He was certainly informed about the incident, though, after he entered his office. Someone there mentioned that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The television was turned on and, Wolfowitz described, those in the office “started seeing the scenes of what was taking place up in New York.” [6]
Even though the cause of the crash was unclear at that time, we might reasonably expect Wolfowitz to have taken a close interest in what had happened right away. While the crash may have turned out to have been an accident, he surely should have considered it possible that the incident was a terrorist attack and have acted accordingly.
In fact, Victoria Clarke, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, noted, “Even in the accidental crash scenario, the military might be involved in some way.” [7] And yet the deputy secretary of defense made no attempt to take action in response to the crash. “Like so many other people, I didn’t quite believe what was really happening,” he has remarked. [8]
WOLOFWITZ SAW THE SECOND CRASH ON TV BUT CONTINUED HIS MEETING
Wolfowitz and those with him then saw the second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crashing into the South Tower of the World Trade Center live on television, at 9:03 a.m. “We started seeing the shots of the second plane hitting,” Wolfowitz recalled.
It was then clear that America was under attack. And yet Wolfowitz still did nothing in response to the crisis. “I sat here thinking that something terrible was going on in New York,” he recalled. “But,” he commented, “it was up there, not here.” He therefore continued his meeting as if nothing unusual had happened. “There didn’t seem to be much to do about it immediately and we went on with whatever the meeting was,” he said. Wolfowitz and those with him apparently carried on with the meeting until 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was attacked.
Although his office was on the opposite side of the Pentagon to where the attack occurred, the deputy secretary of defense felt the building shake when it was hit and, he recalled, heard “a dull, thud-like noise.” And yet Wolfowitz has claimed that, despite presumably having realized earlier on that America was under attack, it did not occur to him that the noise and the shaking were the result of the Pentagon being struck. Remarkably, he said, he initially thought they were caused by an earthquake. “I didn’t put two and two together,” he commented. “My first reaction was an earthquake,” he said.
And even though his country had been attacked three times in less than an hour, the deputy secretary of defense still made no attempt to get involved in the military’s response to the crisis and apparently wanted to continue his business as if nothing unusual had occurred. “It was clear something had happened, but it still wasn’t clear that there was anything to do,” he has commented.
Wolfowitz only got up to leave his office when he heard someone say a bomb had gone off on the other side of the building and the Pentagon needed to be evacuated. “Pretty quickly” after the attack on the Pentagon occurred, he recalled, a “few people” came into the office and told him to get out of there. He also recalled that the Marine sergeant who worked outside Donald Rumsfeld’s office was “very anxious” to get him away from the Pentagon. He was evacuated from his office by his “security people” and taken out of the building. [9]
General Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has recalled bumping into Wolfowitz outside the Pentagon at this time and Wolfowitz saying he was “relocating for continuity reasons.” [10] Wolfowitz was taken to the parade ground in front of the building, where many other Pentagon employees had gathered. From there, he presumably would have been unable to do much to help the military respond to the attacks, even if he had chosen to take action. But about 10 minutes after he left the building, he received an instruction, apparently from someone in Rumsfeld’s office, to return to the Pentagon. [11]
WOLFOWITZ RETURNED TO THE PENTAGON AFTER EVACUATING
After he re-entered the building, Wolfowitz may have gone to the Executive Support Center (ESC)–a secure communications hub with a video teleconference facility, located on the third floor of the Pentagon. The ESC is “the place where the building’s top leadership goes to coordinate military operations during national emergencies,” according to Victoria Clarke. [12] Clarke, who went to it following the attacks on the World Trade Center, said that Wolfowitz “came in” at some point that morning. [13]
Wolfowitz has only recalled, however, that, after returning to the building, he went to the National Military Command Center. [14] The NMCC is “a communications hub, a switchboard connecting the Pentagon, the civilian government, and the combatant commanders,” according to Myers. [15] It was also “the focal point within [the] Department of Defense for providing assistance” in response to hijackings in U.S. airspace, according to military instructions. [16] Other key officials, such as Rumsfeld and Myers, went to it in order to respond to the crisis that morning. [17]
Once he was in the NMCC, Wolfowitz appears to have finally started taking action in response to the terrorist attacks. He became one of the “small number” of people who were in the “command group” in the center, he recalled, and he participated in “discussions by secure video conference.” [18]
However, the fourth and final plane to be hijacked that day–United Airlines Flight 93–apparently crashed in a field in Pennsylvania just after 10:00 a.m. Therefore, by the time Wolfowitz did anything to help protect his country, the attacks were likely already over and there would have been nothing the deputy secretary of defense could do to influence the outcome of the crisis.
WOLFOWITZ WAS TAKEN TO A SECURE LOCATION
After spending some time in the NMCC, Wolfowitz told Donald Rumsfeld he ought to leave the Pentagon. But Rumsfeld refused to do so and ordered Wolfowitz to go instead. Wolfowitz was therefore flown by helicopter to Site R, the alternate command center inside Raven Rock Mountain, on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. [19]
Site R was a duplicate of the NMCC and was intended to serve as the Pentagon’s primary command center if the NMCC was destroyed in an attack or needed to be evacuated. [20] Wolfowitz was unhappy about being sent there, though. [21] “He didn’t want to leave” the Pentagon, Edmund Giambastiani commented. [22]
Furthermore, after he reached the alternate command center, Wolfowitz had difficulty participating in the government’s response to the attacks since, he described, “equipment [there] didn’t work” and “communications didn’t work.” [23] He recalled that he consequently “spent most of the afternoon being virtually out of touch with everything that was going on.” [24]
At around 4:00 p.m., he decided that he “could be useful somewhere else” and suggested to Rumsfeld that he go to “Langley”–presumably referring to the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia–and “get briefed on what we knew about what went on” during the attacks. Rumsfeld told him to go ahead and do this. Wolfowitz was therefore driven away from Site R, but he then decided he should just go home. He therefore went to his home and stayed there for the rest of the day. [25]
WOLFOWITZ WAS SECOND IN COMMAND AT THE PENTAGON
Paul Wolfowitz, as we can see, appears to have only taken an active role in the military’s response to the catastrophic events of September 11 after the terrorist attacks ended. His inaction before that time is particularly alarming because, as deputy secretary of defense–the second-highest-ranking official in the Department of Defense–he surely had critical duties he needed to attend to from the outset of the crisis.
Deputy secretary of defense is a powerful position. By law the person who holds this post “takes precedence in the Department of Defense immediately after the secretary [of defense].” [26] According to the United States Government Manual–the official handbook of the federal government–while the secretary of defense “exercises authority, direction, and control over the Department of Defense,” the deputy secretary “is delegated full power and authority to act for the secretary of defense and to exercise the powers of the secretary on any and all matters for which the secretary is authorized to act pursuant to law.” [27] Roswell Gilpatric, deputy secretary of defense from 1961 to 1964, described the individual who holds this post as “a junior partner and alter ego for the secretary [of defense].” [28]
WOLFOWITZ WAS FIRST IN THE ‘LINE OF SUCCESSION’ TO REPLACE RUMSFELD
Furthermore, it was crucial for Wolfowitz to promptly get involved in the military’s response to the 9/11 attacks because if Donald Rumsfeld had been killed or incapacitated in the attacks he would have been required to take over the secretary of defense’s duties. This is because the deputy secretary of defense is first in the “line of succession” to assume responsibility as the acting secretary of defense if this is ever necessary. The deputy secretary is required by law to “act for, and exercise the powers of, the secretary [of defense] when the secretary dies, resigns, or is otherwise unable to perform the functions and duties of the office.” [29]
It was in fact, reportedly, this requirement that led to Wolfowitz being ordered to leave the Pentagon and go to Site R on September 11. Journalist and author James Mann stated that the decision to activate the alternate command center and Rumsfeld’s decision to send Wolfowitz there were “an echo” of what is known as the “continuity of government plan.” [30] Rumsfeld explained that on September 11, “Defense Department officials executed our continuity of government plans … to ensure that at least some of America’s leadership in all branches of the federal government would survive an enemy attack.” [31]
“That’s why [Wolfowitz] left, was to separate [Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz] … to provide continuity,” Kevin Kellems, Wolfowitz’s special adviser, commented. [32] In other words, positioning Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld at different locations meant that at least one of them would be sure to survive and be able to carry out the duties of the secretary of defense if the Pentagon was attacked a second time.
In light of this consideration, we can see that Wolfowitz’s failure to promptly take action in response to the attacks could have had serious consequences for the military chain of command. In particular, because Wolfowitz stayed in his office after learning of the crashes at the World Trade Center instead of leaving the Pentagon or going to a more secure location within the building such as the ESC or the NMCC, he, along with Rumsfeld, could have been killed or incapacitated if the area of the building they were in had been hit when the Pentagon was attacked. (Rumsfeld, like Wolfowitz, stayed in his office after learning of the attacks on the World Trade Center. [33]) If both men had been killed or incapacitated when the Pentagon was hit, America could have been left without a secretary of defense to command the military at this critical time, while it was under attack.
And since Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz both stayed at the Pentagon for at least an hour after it was hit (the decision to send Wolfowitz to Site R was only made “sometime after 10:37” a.m., according to Edmund Giambastiani [34]), both men could have been killed or incapacitated, thereby possibly leaving the country without a secretary of defense, if the building had been attacked a second time.
WOLFOWITZ HAD YEARS OF EXPERIENCE WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT
We need to determine why Paul Wolfowitz failed to take action to protect his country on September 11. Surely the Pentagon’s second in command should have been actively involved in the military’s response from the outset of the crisis. Why then did he do nothing to help for the entire time the nation was under attack?
It might be argued that Wolfowitz’s inaction was simply due to incompetence. This possibility seems unlikely, though, since Wolfowitz had years of experience working for the government, which included serving in senior Pentagon positions, before 9/11. He was deputy assistant secretary of defense for regional programs from 1977 to 1980 and under secretary of defense for policy from 1989 to 1993. [35]
Furthermore, just months before 9/11, he appeared to recognize that the U.S. needed to be prepared to deal with surprise attacks. During a speech on June 2, 2001, he discussed the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in December 1941. He proposed that it was necessary to replace a “poverty of expectations” with “an anticipation of the unfamiliar and the unlikely.” By doing so, he said, it would be possible to overcome “the complacency that is the greatest threat to our hopes for a peaceful future.” [36] And yet despite having this remarkable foresight of the kinds of challenges that lay ahead for America, he displayed an apparent inability to deal with “the unfamiliar and the unlikely” when, little over three months later, the nation again came under attack.
Since incompetence seems an unlikely reason for Wolfowitz’s inadequate response to the 9/11 attacks, we need to consider if there is a more sinister explanation. For example, might Wolfowitz have known in advance what was going to happen on September 11 and wanted the attacks to succeed? If so, his inaction when the attacks occurred could have been a deliberate effort to do nothing that might help stop the attacks before all the intended targets were hit.
WOLFOWITZ QUICKLY DETERMINED WHO WAS TO BLAME FOR 9/11
Supporting the possibility that Wolfowitz had foreknowledge of 9/11 is the fact that the deputy secretary of defense was apparently able to establish what had happened on September 11 and who, according to the official story, was to blame within hours of the attacks, before any proper investigation had taken place.
This detail was revealed by Larry Di Rita, a special assistant to the secretary of defense who accompanied Wolfowitz to Site R on September 11. Di Rita recalled a video teleconference that Wolfowitz participated in while he was at the alternate command center and commented, “It is remarkable to me how much [the teleconference’s participants] started to piece together in so short a period of time what [the attack] was and what the likely responses needed to be.” He continued, “Not so much, ‘We’ve got to go to war in Afghanistan,’ but, ‘This is very likely al-Qaeda.'” “It was quite impressive the degree to which these decision makers [and] policy makers had a sense of it,” he remarked. [37]
It is possible that Wolfowitz was able to “piece together in so short a period of time” what had happened and that al-Qaeda was supposedly to blame for the attacks due to quick thinking and well-informed analysis. It is also possible, though, that Wolfowitz’s ability to rapidly determine what had happened was a result of the deputy secretary of defense having foreknowledge of what the attacks would entail and who would be blamed for them.
A detail that supports the contention that Wolfowitz may have wanted the 9/11 attacks to succeed is the fact that he apparently wanted the U.S. to adopt a more aggressive military stance at that time. Wolfowitz is a “foreign policy hawk who believes the United States should use its superpower status to push for reforms in other nations,” according to the Associated Press. [38] It is possible, therefore, that he wanted the U.S. to be attacked so as to create a pretext for military action.
Di Rita described how Wolfowitz’s desire for a more hawkish foreign policy was evident on September 11. Recalling the video teleconference Wolfowitz participated in while at Site R, he commented, “Everybody [on the teleconference] was operating with a clear sense that we had to respond in a very dramatic way.” He also said that as early as the afternoon of September 11, while they were being transported from Site R back to Washington, DC, “[Wolfowitz] and I were doing rough sketches of what we thought we were going to need to prosecute a war in terms of the budget.” [39]
WOLFOWITZ CALLED 9/11 ‘AN EXTREMELY VALUABLE WAKE-UP CALL’
Furthermore, in the years after the attacks, Wolfowitz indicated that he thought 9/11 had some benefits for the U.S. He told the San Francisco Chronicle, “9/11 really was a wake-up call” and opined, “If we take proper advantage of this opportunity to prevent the future terrorist use of weapons of mass destruction, [then] it will have been an extremely valuable wake-up call.” [40]
And in an interview with James Mann, he similarly suggested that 9/11 could wake America up to the threat of terrorism and thereby lead to a bigger attack being prevented. “For me, September 11 was a transforming event,” he said, “in the sense of seeing that terrorism had the potential to kill not just three thousand people, but three hundred thousand or three million.” [41]
If Wolfowitz had foreknowledge of 9/11 and felt, before September 11, that an attack on the U.S. would have some benefits, might he have decided to do what he could to ensure the 9/11 attacks were successful so as to bring about these supposed benefits? If so, this could help explain why he did nothing to help protect his country when the attacks occurred.
Award-winning journalist Eric Boehlert has commented on Wolfowitz’s striking lack of response to the attacks on September 11. “One peculiarity I’ve always wondered about is why Paul Wolfowitz … was so completely clueless the morning of the deadly attacks,” he wrote. “As the events unfolded live on television and senior administration officials scrambled to make sense of the horrific events, Wolfowitz appeared to be in a haze,” he added. [42]
Since Wolfowitz was one of the most powerful men at the Pentagon, his behavior on September 11 needs to be investigated thoroughly. We surely need to find out the reasons for this man’s chilling inaction at probably the most important time of his professional life, when his country was under attack.
NOTES
[1] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, April 19, 2002; Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS, Campaign Against Terror. PBS, April 22, 2002; Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron, part I. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, July 18, 2002; “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview With Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair.” U.S. Department of Defense, May 9, 2003; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, p. 428.
[2] Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown: A Memoir. New York: Sentinel, 2011, pp. 334-335.
[3] Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 428.
[4] Thomas White, interview by PBS, Rumsfeld’s War. PBS, August 12, 2004.
[5] Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron, part I.
[6] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron; Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS; “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview With Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair.”
[7] Torie Clarke, Lipstick on a Pig: Winning in the No-Spin Era by Someone Who Knows the Game. New York: Free Press, 2006, p. 218.
[8] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS.
[9] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron; Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS; “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview With Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair.”
[10] “Memorandum for the Record: Interview of General Richard Myers.” 9/11 Commission, February 17, 2004.
[11] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron; Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS.
[12] Torie Clarke, Lipstick on a Pig, p. 219.
[13] Victoria Clarke, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, July 2, 2002.
[14] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron; Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS.
[15] Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security. New York: Threshold Editions, 2009, p. 151.
[16] Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A: Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects. Washington, DC: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, June 1, 2001.
[17] “Memorandum for the Record: Interview of General Richard Myers”; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 43-44.
[18] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron; “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview With Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair.”
[19] Stephen I. Schwartz, “This is Not a Test.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 2001; Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron; Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron, part II. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, August 1, 2002; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon, p. 441.
[20] Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, p. 174.
[21] “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview With Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair.”
[22] Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron, part II.
[23] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron.
[24] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by PBS.
[25] Paul Wolfowitz, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron.
[26] U.S. Code Title 10, 10 USC § 132 (2017).
[27] Office of the Federal Register, National Archives and Records Administration, The United States Government Manual 1999/2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1999, p. 177.
[28] Shannon E. Mohan and Erin R. Mahan, Deputy Secretaries of Defense, 1949-2017. Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2017, p. ii.
[29] U.S. Code Title 10, 10 USC § 132.
[30] “Secret ‘Armageddon Plan’ in Motion on 9/11.” ABC News, April 25, 2004.
[31] Donald Rumsfeld, Known and Unknown, p. 338.
[32] “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview With Sam Tannenhaus, Vanity Fair.”
[33] “Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ‘Deserted His Post’ While America Was Under Attack on 9/11.” Shoestring 9/11, May 25, 2017.
[34] Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., interview by Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron, part II.
[35] “Paul Wolfowitz: Deputy Secretary of Defense.” U.S. Department of Defense, March 16, 2005; “Paul Wolfowitz Fast Facts.” CNN, December 15, 2017; “Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.” White House, n.d.
[36] “Commencement Address at the U.S. Military Academy, West Point.” U.S. Department of Defense, June 2, 2001; James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush’s War Cabinet. New York: Viking, 2004, p. 291.
[37] Lawrence Di Rita, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Stuart Rochester. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, June 27, 2002.
[38] “Bush Picks Wolfowitz to Head World Bank.” Associated Press, March 17, 2005.
[39] Lawrence Di Rita, interview by Alfred Goldberg and Stuart Rochester.
[40] “Wolfowitz Interview With the San Francisco Chronicle.” U.S. Department of Defense, February 23, 2002.
[41] James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, p. 363.
[42] Eric Boehlert, “Why Was Wolfowitz so Clueless on the Morning of 9/11?” HuffPost, September 15, 2006.
