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On September 11, 2001, a lawyer named Timothy Flanagan sat at a computer in a corner office of the White House, tasked with writing a declaration of war. The problem: nobody knew who the enemy was. President George W. Bush wanted congressional approval, not just to project unity but because the Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war. So Flanagan pulled up the last authorization for use of military force—the 1991 Gulf War resolution—copied it into a Word document, made cuts, deleted words, and hit send. The result was a single sentence, 60 words long, that would become the legal foundation for everything the United States has done in the war on terror: from Guantanamo Bay to drone strikes in Yemen, from secret renditions to SEAL raids. That sentence reads: "That the president is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations or organizations."
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:15) **The 60 Words That Changed Everything** - Introduction to the central mystery: how one 60-word sentence passed after 9/11 became the legal foundation for decades of war, detention, and drone strikes.
- 2 (01:27) **September 11th: The Attack and the Immediate Aftermath** - The episode opens with raw audio from the morning of 9/11, establishing the emotional and historical context for the legal response that followed.
- 3 (02:30) **Drafting the AUMF: A Template from the Gulf War** - The process of writing the 60-word sentence is revealed, showing how a lawyer copied and modified an old 1991 authorization for the Gulf War.
- 4 (04:42) **The Sentence in Action: A Decade of War** - A montage of news clips shows how the AUMF was used to justify drone strikes in Somalia, Libya, and Yemen, as well as indefinite detention at Guantanamo Bay.
- 5 (06:39) **Reading the Sentence Aloud** - The full 60-word sentence is read by Senator John McCain, establishing its dry, bureaucratic language that belies its enormous power.
- 6 (07:09) **Barbara Lee: The Lone Dissenter** - Introduction of Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the only member of Congress to vote against the AUMF, and her prescient concerns about its breadth.
- 7 (09:09) **The Gulf of Tonkin Warning** - The episode draws a direct parallel between the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the 2001 AUMF, showing how vague language led to the Vietnam War.
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Show Notes
We’re coming up on the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and it had us thinking about an episode we produced in 2014. It’s the story of one sentence, written in the hours after September 11th, 2001, that has led to the longest war in U.S. history. We examine how just 60 words of legal language have blurred the line between war and peace.
In the hours after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, a lawyer sat down in front of a computer and started writing a legal justification for taking action against those responsible. The language that he drafted and that President George W. Bush signed into law—called the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—has at its heart one single sentence, 60 words long. Over the last decade, those 60 words have become the legal foundation for the "war on terror." In this collaboration with BuzzFeed, reporter Gregory Johnsen tells us the story of how this has come to be one of the most important, confusing, troubling sentences of the last two decades. We go into the meetings that took place in the chaotic days just after 9/11, speak with Congresswoman Barbara Lee and former Congressman Ron Dellums about the vote on the AUMF. We hear from former White House and State Department lawyers John Bellinger & Harold Koh. We learn how this legal language unleashed Guantanamo, Navy Seal raids and drone strikes. And we speak with journalist Daniel Klaidman, legal expert Benjamin Wittes and Virginia Senator Tim Kaine about how these words came to be interpreted, and what they mean for the future of war and peace.
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EPISODE CREDITS:
Reported by - Kelsey Padgett
with help from - Matt Kielty
Produced by - Matt Kielty
with help from - Kelsey Padgett
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