Four days after the United States invaded Afghanistan, President George W. Bush appeared in the East Room of the White House for a prime-time news conference to address a nation gripped by fear and anger about the 9/11 attacks. Although most Americans supported Bush’s decision to go to war, there was widespread uncertainty about how the conflict would unfold and how long it might last.
Bush, then 55, had been in office for less than nine months. That evening, on Oct. 11, 2001, he sought to reassure the country that U.S. officials had learned hard lessons from the past and that they were determined not to get bogged down in an ill-defined war in a faraway land.
