Behind the backdrop of a huge American flag, President George W. Bush took the stage to address a joint session of Congress. “In the normal course of events, Presidents come to this Chamber to report on the state of the Union,” he began. “Tonight, no such report is needed. It has already been delivered by the American people.” Nine days earlier two passenger planes simultaneously hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists crashed into and brought down the two World Trade Center buildings in New York. Bush set the events in context, and rallied the country in search for a response. He would take the fight to the enemy, he said. He would win the “war on terror.”

On this day, September 20, in 2001, President George Bush marked the start of the “War on Terror” – a phrase he coined – in his speech. “Our war on terror begins with Al Qaida, but it does not end there,” he said. “It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated.”

Bush was supremely confident of America’s rightness — in that same speech he declared “Every nation in every region now has a decision to make: Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.”  His reassurance of an America unjustly wounded and unwavering in her pursuit of the enemy reassured many of the people. As he put it, “Freedom and fear are at war. The advance of human freedom, the great achievement of our time and the great hope of every time, now depends on us.”