Smoke billows from one of the towers of the World Trade Center as flames and debris explode from the second tower, Sept. 11, 2001 (Image: AP). 6 min readSep 11, 2026 06:20 AM IST First published on: Sep 11, 2026 at 06:20 AM IST
It was the most perfect September morning that Washington could serve up: Bright, sunny, just enough chill in the air to wash away the summer’s humidity. I wasn’t eager to spend the next few hours in a windowless basement for my intel briefing, and I wouldn’t have to: The morning bottleneck at my office was all outgoing. I asked the guard what was happening, and he pointed to a pillar of smoke in the southwest sky. From what had, until about 10 minutes ago, been the exterior wall of the Pentagon.
Senators and staffers alike packed into any restaurant with a TV, to watch footage of . Only much later would we learn that we’d been the bullseye of the fourth plane, which passengers and crew intervened with to force it to crash in Pennsylvania. Its target had been the Capitol building itself, and the SCIF in which my briefing was scheduled was located directly beneath the rotunda.
