"Today we've had a national tragedy. Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent terrorist attack on our country." --President Bush, September 11, 2001

President Bush addressed the nation from the Oval Office in a televised speech the evening of September 11, 2001, denouncing what he called "evil, despicable acts of terror" earlier in the day that took thousands of lives at the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in the nation's capital.

In his immediate response to the attacks, President Bush said, "I have spoken to the Vice President, to the Governor of New York, to the Director of the FBI, and have ordered the full resources of the federal government to help the victims and their families, and to conduct a full-scale investigation to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act."

"The pictures of airplanes flying into buildings, fires burning, huge structures collapsing, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness, and a quiet, unyielding anger. These acts of mass murder were intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat. But they have failed; our country is strong," Bush said.

In the search to find those responsible and bring them to justice, "we will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them," Bush said.

President Bush also told reporters and the American people that "the resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake: We will show the world that we will pass this test."

Complete White House Transcript