Bush makes statements in his 9/20 address TRANSCRIPT: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/bushaddress_092001.html VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wPuY5hI96U
He goes from investigation to ideology in 3 paragraphs. He appears to suggest that investigation is not required because his administration knows who is responsible. Bush has a clear vision of how to take action, but there is a kind of "black hole of knowledge" so that ordinary Americans are left to speculate as to the source of Bush's certainty. Bush is clear how 9/11 fits into his strategy going forward, but Al Qaeda can't explain to anyone how the collective punishment event of 9/11 fits into a strategy.
One wonders: if Al Qaeda carried out the attack and if Al Qaeda had on 9/12/2001 the capacity to carry out more 9/11-type attacks, then why didn't they use that opportunity to issue threats against the American administration? Why not take the opportunity to influence the aftermath? Even if Al Qaeda did not have such capacity, surely Osama bin Laden could have bluffed at least for a while and taken the opportunity to publicly discipline the American administration in front of the American people and explain how 9/11 was retribution or blowback.
There were no public threats from Al Qaeda before OR after 9/11. If you (google: "9/11 demands") it is still difficult to understand how the terrorists wished to influence American foreign policy. Al Qaeda never explained anything to anyone. No agenda-setting, no issue-pushing, and no attention-grabbing aside from vague threats. This means that Bush has little to react to, so he must tell ghost stories to the American people. Pretty pathetic.
The three paragraphs are below:
Americans have many questions tonight. Americans are asking, ``Who attacked our country?''
The evidence we have gathered all points to a collection of loosely affiliated terrorist organizations known as al Qaeda. They are some of the murderers indicted for bombing American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and responsible for bombing the USS Cole.
Al Qaeda is to terror what the Mafia is to crime. But its goal is not making money, its goal is remaking the world and imposing its radical beliefs on people everywhere.