Bush's Press Secretary Ari Fleischer Tweets Events Of Sept. 11

Note: This story was first published on Sept. 11, 2014. Mr. Fleisher has posted this commentary every year since.

By John Dodge

CHICAGO (CBS) -- In a dramatic retelling of the events of Sept. 11 from the perspective of a White House insider, President Bush's press secretary on Thursday used a format unavailable at the time: Social media.

Ari Fleischer tweeted the developments of the terror attacks as if Twitter had existed back then.

Some of the tweets are written as if he would have been tweeting live, while others provide a historical perspective.

An alert on his pager set forth the events that day.

In the first minutes, the White House team believed the first plane to strike the World Trade Center north tower was an accident.

President Bush then entered the classroom at a Sarasota, Fla., elementary school to read to the students. Just a few minutes later, the second plane hit the south tower.

The president was later criticized for not leaving the room right away, but Bush explained that he didn't want to appear to be in a panic.

Today, Fleischer tweeted some fascinating photos of what happened behind the scenes at the school.

Once the White House team was on board Air Force One, the Secret Service did not want Bush to return to Washington, fearing that additional attacks were imminent.

Suddenly, there was intelligence that indicated that "Angel"--the code name for the plane--was about to be attacked.

The president called Vice President Dick Cheney, who was at the White House, several times and was quite blunt.

Here is a copy of Fleischer's notes shortly after the attacks.

Fleischer is continuing to tweet this afternoon, and you can follow the feed here.