On Thursday, February 9th, 2006, President George W. Bush said that

“We now know that in October 2001, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September the 11th attacks, had already set in motion a plan to have terrorist operatives hijack an airplane using shoe bombs to breach the cockpit door and fly the plane into the tallest building on the West Coast. We believe the intended target was Liberty Tower in Los Angeles, California. Rather than use Arab hijackers as he had on September 11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed sought out young men from Southeast Asia whom he believed would not arouse as much suspicion." The president went on to say, "As the West Coast plot shows, in the war on terror we face a relentless and determined enemy that operates in many nations - so protecting our citizens requires unprecedented cooperation from many nations as well. By working together, we took dangerous terrorists off the streets. By working together, we stopped a catastrophic attack on our homeland."

There is no Liberty Tower located in Los Angeles.

The photos of the building flashed around the country by an unquestioning media are of Library Tower ( www.glasssteelandstone.com/US/CA/LosAngelesLibraryTower.html ) - and the White House later issued a correction admitting the mistake. With his entire administration at stake over the controversy of maintaining surveillance on American citizens without first obtaining court orders, it's hard to imagine Bush making such an error - especially when the speech was so clearly designed to offset the controversy.