Presidential and Congressional responses as a nation reels after the attacks

Vows of national unity were declared by public figures who shortly before were bickering over who squandered the federal budget surplus and whether government money should be expended on stem-cell research. Rescue services at the PentagonAlan Heath Before the airborne catastrophes, President Bush insistently drummed on education reform as his top priority; he was visiting a classroom in Florida when the first crash occurred. Administration officials later explained that “credible” evidence indicated that the White House and the Presidential Air Force One were targets of the hijackers, and that the long way around back to Washington was dictated by the Secret Service—a claim that briefly evoked patches of scepticism even as the country moved toward unity.