Former PM John Howard on September 11

0:00Well 25 years ago today, a group of al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four aircraft in the United States. Two planes crashed into the Twin Towers in New York City, one into the Pentagon, while the fourth was overrun by its passengers, crashing into a field in Pennsylvania. In a moment, you'll hear from former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and Kevin Rudd, the first, the sounds of how September 11, 2001 unfolded. This is a special report from News Channel 4. Good morning, everybody. I am Jane Hansen and I'm a studio this morning to bring you some news. We are looking at a picture of the World Trade Center, and we have an eyewitness on a telephone who tells us that he has seen an airplane crash into the World Trade Center. And we heard this roaring engines coming. We looked up and there was a plane. Next thing you know is we heard a boom. We ran up to the corner and hit right into the World Trade Center. Can you tell us what kind of an airplane is it?

1:02It's a how to be a 737 and how to hit the World Trade Center. It was a big, big plane. We can now confirm a second plane has crashed into the second tower of the World Trade Center. We can't even hear people around, simply can't understand what happened. People are just standing around, talking to each other, nodding their heads. Oh, it's going! There it goes, it's going. It's going down now, it's going down now. They're at collapses. Oh. It just collapsed. Oh, those poor people. Oh, God. The plane has rescue crews began converging as people desperately tried to get out of those buildings, some 50,000 people working in the Trade Center towers here in Manhattan as they were trying to get out the South Tower collapse.

2:03Police officers told everybody to form a human chain and we held on to each other. He stabbed the flash of light and he direct us to building five and we went out building five. You see people believing and what was it? You want blood? He's blood? Everybody's bleeding. People laying all over the floor. It's horrible. Better wait. It's better where? Better in there, okay. You okay? Better. You okay? Better. Better. You okay? Okay. Then it was like this course and then boom. It was all the dust and it was black. I mean, pitch black. I don't know if anybody could survive being on the street at that time. Commercial jetliner crashed into the Pentagon earlier this morning, which is of course the headquarters of all the military for the United States was on fire as a result of this crash and then collapsed. Today our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly terrorist acts.

3:05The victims were in airplanes, were in their offices, secretaries, businessmen and women, military and federal workers, moms and dads, friends and neighbors. Thousands of lives were suddenly ended by evil, despicable acts of terror. I'm just going to keep going. I'm not going to lose hope. And I'm going to go as long as I have to until I buy that because I know he's going to come back to me. We've been going to different hospitals, leaving them on poles and trucks and we've been in hospitals all day, it's yesterday, so if anybody could help us, there is again. It's fun. Some of the sounds of that day were almost 3,000 people died in the attacks, including 10 Australians and thousands more have died in the years following, mostly due to illness. John Howard was a Australia's Prime Minister on a visit to the United States on September

4:0611, 2001. I spoke to him earlier, reflecting on this time. John Howard, welcome back to Radio National Breakfast. It's a great pleasure to be with you. The day, September 11, 2001, you were in Washington, D.C. Who told you what had happened and what did they tell you in that initial stage? With my press secretary, Tony Aliere, I had gone to Washington to give an address to a joint sitting in Congress to mark 50 years of Anseltredi. And I'd been out for a morning walk and when I got back, I had a discussion with Tony about what might come up at a news conference I was having in a little while and he said, Oh, by the way, terrible accident in New York, a plane has hit one of the twin towers. Or the terrible. Anyway, I thought a little more about it and went inside and was getting ready.

5:06Tony banged on the door and said, I'll put on your television set, another plane has hit the other tower. We knew then it wasn't an accident, it was something worse. What did you think this attack meant for Australia in those initial first years? I just, I didn't subdivide. I just knew that it had meant a lot of the whole world. And it certainly meant that I quickly came to realise just how important our association with the American was because this powerful country had been attacked in a trocess-cruel manner and it meant that the world would never be the same. What was the situation like in Washington, D.C.? Because of course an aircraft also struck the Pentagon. I understand you were taken to the bunker of the White House. Amidst the shock and horror, the American reaction was calm and deliberate. My wife and our second child, Tim, our eldest son had left the hotel a little earlier in the morning to go

6:14to have a look at the Pentagon. Of course we were alerted to and no doubt heard from the police who were accompanying them and what had happened and they turned around and came back. And of course it was while I was having my news conference that the plane hit the Pentagon. And I'd been to the Pentagon the afternoon before and I'd met for the first time the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, who I grew to like a lot. And it was just extraordinary. After the news conference was over, we pulled back the curtains. They'd been drawn because of the clear lights and you could see the smoke rising. I was told later that my wife and son were alerted and told they had to meet me in the bunker of the Australian Embassy. And that's where I went and where a lot of Australians went. And it was there that I had a news conference and I read out largely. It was really the news conference and let out the letter I'd sent to President Bush who I had met for the first time in person the day before, expressing horror and understanding and compassion

7:23and determination to stand with our American friends in the face of such an audacious attack. In the wake of September 11 in a speech to Parliament, you invoke the ANSIS treaty and soon after sent Australian Special Forces to Afghanistan. How much did this moment define the US Australian Alliance at that time? Well, the decision to invoke ANSIS was made the day after the attack. The Americans' County made available Air Force 2 and that transported our party from Andrews Air Force base in Washington to Hawaii picked up there by Quattas plane. And while we were flying to Hawaii, I spoke on the phone to Alexander Downer and it was Downer who said to me, why don't we invoke the ANSIS treaty? Now, ANSIS had been really built as a mechanism whereby America would come to our aid or in New Zealand's aid if we were attacked. And we, nonetheless, it provisions provided for reciprocity.

8:25This was clearly an attack on the metropolitan power of the United States. So we decided that what we should do is take advantage of that opportunity and we invoked it. And I had to get that in doors by the Cabinet, which I was able to do without any argument when I got back to Australia. And I made it plain that that's what we were going to do. So that's when ANSIS was invoked. Afghanistan ended up being Australia's longest ever war and cost lives and billions of dollars. Australian forces eventually left in 2021 when the US left Afghanistan. How do you reflect on the nature of the war and the mission when it began and the nature of the war and the mission at the end of the conflict? Well, there was no doubt that the attack of the 11th of September had been organised by Al Qaeda. Some have been loud and the boss of that outfit out of Afghanistan. There was plenty of evidence of that and we felt that it was only right that we should join Americans in fighting to clear the Taliban out of Afghanistan.

9:33Now, the Americans didn't need our military help. They didn't need anybody, but they were very happy to have our help. And they also had very significant help from the British. And that proved to be the case in both the longer term in Afghanistan and later on in Iraq. I think we did the right thing. I was unhappy with aspects of the ultimate withdrawal from Afghanistan. It did look rather chaotic at the time. But the truth is that we did oversee, particularly this is a tribute to the Americans, improvements in women's education, opportunities for women, and a very considerable improvement in civic life. Now, not all of that has been maintained and the Taliban are now back in. There are a lot of people who are being suppressed and badly treated. But overall, I don't have any regrets. I think we did the right thing in going into Afghanistan. At the start of this year, previously confidential cabinet papers were released, which shows the Defence Department warned you that the risk to special forces outweighed any strategic interest in going back into Afghanistan.

10:44This is in 2005, while both Treasury and the Finance Department expressed concern that there was no exit plan. Why did you decide to redeploy Australian troops anyway in 2005? Well, because in the end, governments make decisions based on a balance of considerations. And one of the considerations was the alliance, and also a determination on my part and that of my government to maintain a strong deterrent attitude towards terrorism. When we look at Iraq, you've previously defended the decision of Australia joining the war in Iraq, despite revelations that intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in the country were incorrect. How do you reflect on that decision? Well, I don't regret that decision for a moment. And you've got to remember, although there were no physical manifestations of weapons of mass destruction discovered there were plenty of plans, there were plenty of programs.

11:48We were advised on the strengths of all the intelligence advice we had that they existed. And in any event, the biggest worry we had about Iraq was that Saddam Hussein would give weapons of mass destruction to some outlaw terrorist organization, and we would never know what might materialize in that. I think when you take all of those considerations into account, we can gain, say, the validity of the decision we took to join the Americans in bringing it down Saddam. You've previously said that one reason why Australia's alliance with the US is so strong is that quite there's only really been one country that stood beside them in every major conflict since World War I and that's Australia. Looking at the United States current war in Iran, is Australia's response adequate in your view? Oh, yes. I don't think you'd compare what's happening in Iran with, for example, what happened in Korea or Vietnam, which was a two major land wars in our part of the world since World War II.

12:59I don't think any further activity by Australia at a military level is required in Iran and in any event it's not been raised, it's not been asked for, and I don't think the Americans are looking for it. You're listening to Radio National Breakfast and I'm speaking with former Prime Minister John Howard. Mr. Howard, following the September 11 attacks, Australia enacted multiple anti-terror laws, some of the toughest among Western nations. A study published by the Afro-Dekin Institute found these terror laws led to quite the over surveillance of Muslims in Australia. Do you think these laws have unfairly targeted Muslim issues? No, I don't. I'm not sure that that is the overall concluded view of all the agencies that have got a skin in that game. I don't believe in targeting any group in Australia because of their religious beliefs, but I do believe that Islamic terrorism is an issue. It's a problem, and we can't ignore that.

14:06And there's plenty of evidence of that. 25 years on from the United States launching its war on terror. Is the world a safer place? How do you see that picture? Well, let's go back a step. America launched its attack on terror, as you call it, because of the attack by terrorists on America. That was the beginning of it. It was the attacks on the morning of the 11th of September, 2001, that shattered the illusion, if it existed as an illusion, that we lived in a world free of terrorism. That act in those hours created the tension of terrorism around the world. And I know from personal experience of talking to many Americans that for months after that attack, the biggest fear they had was when and where would the next attack occur. Many people thought on the day of the 11th of September that, well, we've seen the United States attack. Will the next attack be on London or will it be on Tokyo or Paris? Sydney?

15:11It was entirely new and different and horrifying and terrifying world. Just finally, Mr. Howard, the September 11 attacks and the days and months that followed. How does that sit as one of the challenging times in your time as Prime Minister? Well, it was obviously without parallel because the world was transformed from being one free of terrorism to one that lived in constant fear of the eruption of terrorism. And that itself was enough to transform the ambience in which we existed and the atmosphere in which we governed. Mr. Howard, thank you very much for joining me on breakfast. Pleasure.