US History Series: After Attacks of 9/11, Bush Launches 'War on Terror'
''It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated,'' the 43rd president declared after hijackers struck the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. He was still in his first year in office.05 September 2007
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Correction attached
And this is Steve Ember with THE MAKING OF A NATION, a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States. Today, we tell about the first term in office of President George W. Bush. Mister Bush dealt with the most deadly terrorist attack against the United States in history.
Other hijackers on United Airlines Flight Seventy-Seven crashed the plane into the Pentagon, the Department of Defense headquarters near Washington, D.C. The plane exploded against a wall of the huge five-sided building where more than twenty thousand people worked.
Search and rescue operations began immediately. Hundreds of rescue workers recovered people and bodies from the wreckage. Aid was organized for victims and their families. President Bush stood in the wreckage of the World Trade Center and promised that the attacks would be answered.
The bombers struck in and around the Afghan capital, Kabul. Ethnic tribal groups of the Afghan Northern Alliance then led a ground attack. By November the Taleban began to collapse in several provinces. Taleban forces fled Kabul and the city of Kandahar. The military offensive defeated the Taleban and ousted them from power. It also captured a number of Taleban fighters and al-Qaida terrorists. But the war in Afghanistan was not over. And the leader of al-Qaida, Osama bin Laden, had not been captured.
In October, Congress passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act. It provided the government with more power to get information about suspected terrorists in this country. Critics said the legislation invaded citizens' rights to privacy. Civil liberties groups charged that it gave law enforcement and other agencies too much power.
VOICE TWO:
And this is Steve Ember. Join us again next week for another VOA Special English program about the history of the United States.
Correction: The plane that hit the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, was American Airlines Flight 77, not United Flight 77, as stated in this program.