Condoleezza Rice Expresses Deep Remorse at Pentagon 9/11 Ceremony
Condoleezza Rice said she carries “deep personal remorse” over the government’s failure to stop the September 11 attacks, speaking at a Pentagon ceremony marking 25 years since the assault. George W. Bush also reflected on 9/11 ahead of the anniversary.
WASHINGTON — condoleezza rice said Friday that she carries “deep personal remorse” over the U.S. government’s failure to prevent the September 11, 2001, attacks, speaking at a Pentagon ceremony marking 25 years since the assault. The former national security adviser addressed families of the dead as the country again revisits what officials knew before al-Qaida struck.
Rice’s remarks came as former President George W. Bush also reflected on 9/11 ahead of its 25th anniversary. The two figures were central to the national security response that followed the attacks, and both remain tied to a day that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.
Rice faces the memory head-on
Rice, who served as Bush’s national security adviser on 9/11, told families at the Pentagon that officials failed to recognize the danger in time. According to the Yahoo report, she said: “Those of us in authority on that day did not see the nature of the danger in time to prevent the attack of 9/11.”
She added, “We did what we knew to do, but by definition, it was not enough.”
The former secretary of state then turned directly to the victims’ families. “I want to say something deeply personal,” she said. “I will always carry deep personal remorse for the pain that you, the families of the fallen, still feel, and for the trauma that our country endured.”
That line landed hard. Quietly. At the Pentagon, where the attack on American Airlines Flight 77 killed 184 people aboard the plane and inside the building, the anniversary ceremony carried a blunt reminder of the scale of the loss.
Why the 25-year mark still matters
The 25th anniversary has reopened a painful chapter for families and for former officials who were in charge when warnings went unheeded. Rice later testified before the 9/11 Commission about what the Bush administration knew about al-Qaida before the attacks, and she has faced scrutiny for years over whether warning signs were missed.
That history explains why her words matter now. For the families in attendance, the ceremony was not just another memorial. It was a moment when one of the most visible officials from that period acknowledged the failure in personal terms, not bureaucratic ones.
Rice also said she remains grateful the country did not suffer another attack on the scale of 9/11 in its immediate aftermath.
CNN reported that Bush and Rice were both reflecting on 9/11 ahead of the anniversary, underscoring how the attack still frames national security debates more than two decades later. The Pentagon ceremony marked 25 years since al-Qaida hijackers crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the military headquarters, killing 184 people there and aboard the plane.
Rice’s appearance also revived a familiar question in Washington: what officials learned, when they learned it, and what they failed to do. That question has shadowed every major 9/11 milestone since the attacks, and it remains part of how the country measures the cost of that morning.
The ceremony ended with the same number that has defined the day from the start: nearly 3,000 killed in coordinated attacks across three states.
