Rumsfeld: Terrorists Didn't Shut Pentagon

As bells tolled today at Ground Zero, the Pentagon, and in a Pennsylvania field, politicians gathered on the Sunday talk shows to offer up their memories and interpretations of 9/11. “It was clear they had hit the seat of economic power in New York and the seat of military power of the United States in Washington,” Donald Rumsfeld told Face the Nation. But with the Pentagon in flames, and a fire marshal calling for an evacuation, Rumsfeld decided to keep it open. "I don't want the world to think that a group of terrorists could shut down the US Department of Defense. I went back to my office and got about my business.” Elsewhere on the Sunday dial, as per Politico:

• Michael Bloomberg on the Ground Zero memorial: “We want to remember. We want to memorialize. We want to give families a place to go. And that's what this memorial behind me will do. And it will do it in a wonderful way," he said, adding that "we have an obligation to look forward."
• Paul Wolfowitz on Iraq and Afghanistan: “If we come home too fast, I think we’ll get hit again in some way we can’t predict. And if we get hit again, we’ll be at war again.”
• Rudy Giuliani on the good that came from 9/11: "It made us more realistic about the threat that we faced. I think we have much better intelligence today. I think spiritually we're stronger. We have to remind ourselves of that. We were attacked with the worst attack in the history of this country and we survived it."
• Giuliani on 2001 and 2012: “I'm gonna put my thinking off for a couple of weeks until I get over the emotion of this and see where everything stands. I understand the realistic problems I'd have getting nominated. So I have to take that into consideration. And around 9/11 I don't like to think about politics as much.”

(More 9/11 anniversary stories.)