Editing Donald Rumsfeld (section)

===September 11, 2001 attacks===
[[File:The Pentagon is functioning.jpg|thumb|"The Pentagon is functioning" was the message Rumsfeld stressed during a press conference in the Pentagon briefing room barely eight hours after terrorists crashed a hijacked commercial jetliner into the Pentagon. Rumsfeld is flanked, left to right, by [[United States Secretary of the Army|Secretary of the Army]] [[Thomas E. White|Tom White]], [[Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff]] General [[Hugh Shelton]], and Senators [[John Warner]] (R-VA), and [[Carl Levin]] (D-MI), the Ranking Member and Chairman of the [[Senate Armed Services Committee]].]]

On [[September 11 attacks|September 11, 2001]], [[al-Qaeda]] terrorists hijacked commercial airliners and crashed them in coordinated strikes into both towers of the [[World Trade Center (1973–2001)|World Trade Center]] in [[Lower Manhattan]], New York City, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. The fourth plane crashed into a field in [[Shanksville, Pennsylvania]], and its target was likely a prominent building in [[Washington, D.C.]], most probably either the [[U.S. Capitol Building]] or the [[White House]].<ref>{{cite news |author=Shuster, David |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna14778963 |title=9/11 mystery: What was Flight 93's target? |date=September 12, 2006 |work=NBC News |access-date=November 13, 2011 |archive-date=March 2, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130302105940/http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14778963 |url-status=live }}</ref> Within three hours of the start of the first hijacking and two hours after [[American Airlines Flight 11]] struck the World Trade Center, Rumsfeld raised the defense condition signaling of the United States offensive readiness to [[DEFCON|DEFCON 3]], the highest it had been since the [[Yom Kippur War|Arab–Israeli war in 1973]].<ref>{{cite report |url=https://www.911commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf |title=The 9/11 Commission Report |page=326 |date=July 22, 2004 |access-date=May 29, 2019 |archive-date=June 23, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190623164504/https://911commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>

Rumsfeld addressed the nation in a press conference at the Pentagon, just eight hours after the attacks and stated, "It's an indication that the United States government is functioning in the face of this terrible act against our country. I should add that the briefing here is taking place in the Pentagon. The Pentagon's functioning. It will be in business tomorrow."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=1613|title=DoD News Briefing on Pentagon Attack|publisher=United States Department of Defense|date=September 11, 2001|access-date=July 5, 2020|archive-date=July 29, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729230343/https://archive.defense.gov/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=1613|url-status=dead}}</ref>