Remembering a day of terror from inside the White House



On September 11, 2001, Anita McBride was a senior administrative official in the White House. Later, after serving in the US State Department under Colin Powell, Ms McBride became chief of staff for First Lady Laura Bush during her husband's second term.

It was a very rare perfect day in Washington. I was with colleagues at the White House mess, the restaurant that senior staff can use in the West Wing of the White House. We were having breakfast when another colleague came in to say that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Of course, neither of us thought it was anything other than some small airplane that had an accident, and how horrible.

But then Secret Service came to say we had to evacuate people. Without really understanding what was happening, just knowing that obviously there is some connection to this plane that hit the World Trade Center, staff started being evacuated from the West Wing. It felt like it took less than five minutes. Then the agents came back and said: "Get everybody out. Get out of the building. Run!"

None of us really knew what we were doing or where we were going. Then I saw Secret Service agents open up a small closet in the hallway of the West Wing that I never knew existed in all my years working at the White House - and I had worked there three different times in three different administrations over a 20-year period. It contained weapons. As the agents armed themselves and yelled for everybody to get out, we evacuated people north to Lafayette Park across from the White House.

My husband's office was just two blocks away. He had been the personal aide to the former president Bush, when he was head of the White House military office. So I knew he would know what to do even more than I, and his immediate instinct was to bring everybody there.

The DaimlerChrysler offices that day became a White House annex. The Secret Service came and locked down the building so only people with a White House pass would have access.

It was shocking watching the images on the television. It was quiet at times. It was sombre at times.

I don't remember people acting in anger. I think they were acting instinctively to try to make contact with relevant colleagues throughout the government that they needed to be in contact with or were being given direction to be in contact with. People wanted to do something to feel valuable and useful.

I had two young children at home. My daughter was one. My son was four. My father was living with us. He was an immigrant to this country from Italy. I remember getting home and seeing him watch these images on TV over and over, and him saying to me, in his broken accent, "You know, I never thought I would see anything like this happen to this country."

It is a moment I have replayed over and over in my mind. Immigrants come here for a better life. They have left poverty or conflict. They didn't come here, particularly my father's generation, thinking that anything like that was ever going to happen here.

That day changed the way all of us live, and we're never going to go back to Pre-9/11. We never will.

* As told to Omar Karmi

COMPANY PROFILE

Company: Bidzi

● Started: 2024

● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid

● Based: Dubai, UAE

● Industry: M&A

● Funding size: Bootstrapped

● No of employees: Nine

COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Almnssa
Started: August 2020
Founder: Areej Selmi
Based: Gaza
Sectors: Internet, e-commerce
Investments: Grants/private funding
Joker: Folie a Deux

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Lady Gaga, Brendan Gleeson

Director: Todd Phillips 

Rating: 2/5

The%20specs
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Tree of Hell

Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla

Director: Raed Zeno

Rating: 4/5

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6

Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher:  Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5

Jigra
Director: Vasan Bala
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
Rated: 3.5/5
TRAP

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Saleka Shyamalan, Ariel Donaghue

Director: M Night Shyamalan

Rating: 3/5

The specs
 
Engine: 3.0-litre six-cylinder turbo
Power: 398hp from 5,250rpm
Torque: 580Nm at 1,900-4,800rpm
Transmission: Eight-speed auto
Fuel economy, combined: 6.5L/100km
On sale: December
Price: From Dh330,000 (estimate)
SPECS
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UPI facts

More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions

THE SIXTH SENSE

Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: 5/5

How to protect yourself when air quality drops

Install an air filter in your home.

Close your windows and turn on the AC.

Shower or bath after being outside.

Wear a face mask.

Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.

If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.

Our legal consultant

Name: Dr Hassan Mohsen Elhais

Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.

Earth under attack: Cosmic impacts throughout history

4.5 billion years ago: Mars-sized object smashes into the newly-formed Earth, creating debris that coalesces to form the Moon

- 66 million years ago: 10km-wide asteroid crashes into the Gulf of Mexico, wiping out over 70 per cent of living species – including the dinosaurs.

50,000 years ago: 50m-wide iron meteor crashes in Arizona with the violence of 10 megatonne hydrogen bomb, creating the famous 1.2km-wide Barringer Crater

1490: Meteor storm over Shansi Province, north-east China when large stones “fell like rain”, reportedly leading to thousands of deaths.  

1908: 100-metre meteor from the Taurid Complex explodes near the Tunguska river in Siberia with the force of 1,000 Hiroshima-type bombs, devastating 2,000 square kilometres of forest.

1998: Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 breaks apart and crashes into Jupiter in series of impacts that would have annihilated life on Earth.

-2013: 10,000-tonne meteor burns up over the southern Urals region of Russia, releasing a pressure blast and flash that left over 1600 people injured.

ADCC AFC Women’s Champions League Group A fixtures

October 3: v Wuhan Jiangda Women’s FC
October 6: v Hyundai Steel Red Angels Women’s FC
October 9: v Sabah FA

THE SPECS

BMW X7 xDrive 50i

Engine: 4.4-litre V8

Transmission: Eight-speed Steptronic transmission

Power: 462hp

Torque: 650Nm

Price: Dh600,000


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