Washington 9/11

14:30 Saturday 10th September BBC Radio 4.

Director

Dirk Maggs

Producer

Richard Clemmow

Written By

Not Known

Produced By

Perfectly Normal Production

Synopsis

A story of chaos and confusion at the White House: Dick Cheney takes control from the presidential bunker while George W Bush is stuck on the presidential plane high above the US.

September 11th 2001 dawned bright and clear on the East coast of the United States. At 8:46 am President George W Bush was in Florida promoting his education policy and Vice President Dick Cheney was in Washington when a Boeing 767 - American Airlines flight 11 - crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower.

It was the first of four commercial planes used as weapons that day in attacks on New York and the capital that led to the loss of thousands of lives and changed the world. This is the dramatized story - reconstructed from multiple documents and memoires - of how Bush, from his plane Air Force One circling high above the United States, and Cheney, in the White House bunker, responded in the first few hours after the 9/11 attacks and how the decisions they took that day set the course of the Bush presidency and triggered the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

Michael Eaton's drama reconstructs a chaotic day, when communications failed, protocols were abandoned; radar signals were misinterpreted and rescue aircraft came close to being shot down. It was a day that united America and saw tremendous acts of personal sacrifice and courage, but alongside the immediate response to the crisis there was also a hidden tussle for power and control, with some of Bush's key lieutenants moving swiftly to press an agenda that would determine US foreign policy for the remainder of the Bush presidency and put in place -'The War on Terror'.

Cast

Character	Actor
President George W Bush	WIlliam Hope
Vice President Dick Cheney	Stuart Milligan
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld	Garrick Hagon
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice	Tanya Moodie
Chief of Staff Andrew Card	Richard Laing
Major Robert Darling	Philip Rosch
Laura Bush	Lorelei King
CIA Director George Tenet	Bill Roberts
Secretary of State Colin Powell	Nathan Osgood