View source for Washington 9/11

14:30 Saturday 10th September 2011 [[BBC Radio 4]].

== Director ==
[[Dirk Maggs]]

== Producer ==
[[Richard Clemmow]]

== Written By ==
Not Known

== Produced By ==
[[A Perfectly Normal production]] Ltd

== 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.

11th September 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 ==
President George W Bush [[William Hope]]

Vice President Dick Cheney [[Stuart Milligan]]

Secretary of Defence 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 [[William Roberts]]

Secretary of State Colin Powell [[Nathan Osgood]]

== Production Crew ==
Not Known

== Recorded at ==
[[The Soundhouse]] Ltd London, England

== Recorded on ==
Not Known

== Music composed & Arranged ==
Not Known

== What Others Said ==
"Tense and vivid...The casting is excellent...Dirk Maggs directs tautly."

'''The Guardian'''

== Comment by Dirk Maggs ==
None yet

== Comment by David Williams ==
None Yet

== Running Time ==
1 Episode 45 minutes long

== Other Items ==
Nothing yet

== Cast Pictures ==
Nothing yet
[[category:2011]]