Twenty years after the attacks of September 11, 2001, director Adam Wishart gathered the people who were in the room with President George W. Bush that day and asked them to walk through it hour by hour. 9/11: Inside the President's War Room is the result: a 2021 documentary told from the vantage point of the White House.
What is 9/11: Inside the President's War Room about?
The morning begins with the president at a school visit and ends with him addressing the nation from the Oval Office. In between, the film follows a single thread: what did the president and his closest advisers know, when did they know it, and what did they decide to do about it? Bush recounts the moment he was told a second plane had struck, the decision to keep him moving rather than return to Washington, and the calls made from Air Force One. Around him, the vice president, the national security adviser, the secretary of state, the transportation secretary and the press secretary each describe the piece of the day they were responsible for, from grounding every aircraft over the country to shaping the first public statements. First-person accounts and archival material together rebuild the timeline, with the focus kept on decisions taken under pressure.
About the cast
The interviewees are the senior figures of the Bush administration in 2001: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Norman Mineta, Ari Fleischer, Joshua Bolten and Ted Olson. Each speaks on camera about their own role and recollections, without a narrator summarising for them.
Context & significance
Produced as a British and American co-production for the twentieth anniversary of the attacks, the film belongs to a body of anniversary documentaries but is narrower in scope than most: it is not a history of the attacks or of what followed, but a close account of one working day inside the executive branch. Its ninety-minute running time is spent almost entirely with the officials themselves, which makes it a useful companion for viewers who already know the broad outline of September 11 and want the view from the decision-makers' side. Because the participants are recalling events two decades on, it is as much a record of how they remember that day as of the day itself.
Watching 9/11: Inside the President's War Room on Ktime
9/11: Inside the President's War Room is available on K-Time with a Persian dub and Persian subtitles. A free K-Time account login is all you need to stream it, and the whole experience, from browsing to playback, can be used in Farsi.