'We Will Rally the World'

"I do believe there is the image of America out there that we are so materialistic, that we're almost hedonistic, that we don't have values, and that when struck, we wouldn't fight back," he said in the interview. "It was clear that bin Laden felt emboldened and didn't feel threatened by the United States."

Many months earlier, in the formative stages of his new administration, Bush had talked with his prospective secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, about their shared belief that America's deterrent strength had been eroded through misapplication of the country's military power. Rumsfeld recalls saying to Bush that whenever the United States was attacked or threatened, the Clinton administration had followed a pattern of "reflexive pullback." Rumsfeld said he believed that U.S. power was needed to help discipline the world.

"I left no doubt in his mind but that, at that moment where something happens, that I would be coming to him to lean forward, not back. And that I wanted [him] to know that," Rumsfeld said. "And he said, unambiguously, that that is what he would be doing, and we had a clear, common understanding."

However, until the attacks of Sept. 11, Bush had not put that thinking into practice. For months, his advisers had been developing a plan to fight terrorism, and specifically bin Laden and al Qaeda. Among the proposals was one by the CIA for expanded covert action against bin Laden. Its cost was $ 200 million.

But formal recommendations had never been presented to the president. Nor had he demanded them.

"I know there was a plan in the works. . . . I don't know how mature the plan was," Bush said in the interview.

What was his state of mind about bin Laden?

"There was a significant difference in my attitude after Sept. 11. I was not on point, but I knew he was a menace, and I knew he was a problem. I knew he was responsible, or we felt he was responsible, for the [previous] bombings that killed Americans. I was prepared to look at a plan that would be a thoughtful plan that would bring him to justice, and would have given the order to do that. I have no hesitancy about going after him. But I didn't feel that sense of urgency, and my blood was not nearly as boiling."

Just before 8 a.m., CIA Director George J. Tenet and a top aide arrived at the White House for the president's daily intelligence briefing. Vice President Cheney and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice joined them in the Oval Office.

Bush's father, the former president and former CIA director in the Ford administration, had once told him that the morning intelligence briefing was one of the most important things he would do every day as president.

As a new president without significant foreign policy experience, Bush had taken intelligence seriously from the start of his administration and invited Tenet for regular 20- to 30-minute sessions most mornings. It was a departure from the previous administration, when President Bill Clinton used to receive his briefing in writing.

Tenet's briefing for Bush this morning included a review of available intelligence tracing the attacks to bin Laden and his top associates in al Qaeda. One report out of Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban, showed the attacks were "the results of two years' planning." Another report said the attacks were "the beginning of the wrath" -- an ominous note. Several reports specifically identified Capitol Hill and the White House as targets on Sept. 11. One said a bin Laden associate -- erroneously -- "gave thanks for the explosion in the Congress building."