INSIDE THE WAR ROOM

摘要

Dark, windowless and small, the White House Situation Room feels cramped even on quiet mornings. But as the President's top advisers filed in early on Sept. 12, their faces drawn and eyes puffy from lack of sleep, the room was jammed to capacity. Arrayed around the table was one of the most seasoned foreign policy teams ever assembled by a President, and every one of them had just been caught completely off guard. No one more so than George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. The day before, after hijacked planes obliterated the World Trade Center' and smashed into the Pentagon, George W. Bush had turned to an aide aboard Air Force One and barked, "Get me Tenet!" But the President didn't want Tenet's head. He wanted his help.