President George W. Bush’s address to a joint session of Congress following 9/11 - Sept. 20, 2001

A little more than a week after the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush delivered an address to the nation before a joint session of session of Congress. On 9/11, al Qaeda hijackers commandeered four commercial airplanes and crashed them into the World Trade Center towers in New York, the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C. and a Pennsylvania field, killing thousands.

In the address, Bush demanded the Taliban in Afghanistan, “Deliver to United States authorities all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land. ...Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities.” He also underscored that America’s fight was with al Qaeda, not the the religion of Islam, saying “The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends. It is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.”

Here is Bush’s full address as he delivered it on September 20, 2001.

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