Bush tells Congress: this is a war on terror, and it starts with al Qaeda
Nine days after hijackers killed 2,977 people in New York, Arlington, and a Pennsylvania field, President George W. Bush walked into a joint session of Congress on September 20, 2001, and named the moment. He told the chamber and a nationwide television audience that "our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there." The Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which had sheltered the group, became the immediate target. The phrase outlasted the speech; it defined American policy for the next two decades.
Bush's sentence became the operating charter for American foreign policy: it justified Operation Enduring Freedom about two and a half weeks later, the PATRIOT Act signed in late October, and a doctrine that stretched from Kabul to Baghdad. Congress had already voted the President broad authority to use force on September 14; this speech told the country what that authority was for. The sentence reorganized parts of American government and daily life, from new war powers to new domestic surveillance law.
