9/11: Inside The President’s War Room

BBC1, 8.30pm

The attack on the US by Al Qaeda on September 11, 2001 first claimed thousands of American lives before vastly greater numbers died in the ensuing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

That course of events was shaped by the decisions of President George W. Bush, and so there is historical purpose to this documentary film as it reconstructs the hours of that fateful day through the eyes of Bush (right) and those around him.

Today, Bush is candid, though still insistent that he feels ‘comfortable' with the orders he gave in the aftermath of 9/11. The archive footage reminds us of how the day started as a beautiful September morning, before garbled reports of a collision in Manhattan gave way to increasing horror as the magnitude, devastation and evil of the attack quickly emerged.