Arkansas Advocate: 25 years later, Asa Hutchinson reflects on Sept. 11 attacks

Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson, accompanied by his wife Susan, speaks to reporters and friends and supporters at the state Capitol on Nov. 10, 2023, after filing papers with the Secretary of State to run for president in Arkansas. | Arkansas Advocate photo by John Sykes

By AINSLEY PLATT | Arkansas Advocate

Asa Hutchinson had been leading the Drug Enforcement Administration for a month when he was in New Mexico on Sept. 10, 2001 for a 90-minute debate about marijuana legalization with that state’s governor. 

The world changed the next day, and eventually so did Hutchinson’s mission.

Hutchinson, a former two-term Republican governor, had a front-row seat to the changes the U.S. went through in the months following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. He went from leading the country’s drug enforcement efforts to becoming one of the first top officials at the Department of Homeland Security that was formed in response to the attacks, which occurred 25 years ago.

That morning, Hutchinson and his staff expected to fly back to Washington. But when they woke up, it was to the news that a plane had rammed into the World Trade Center in New York. It was one of four hijacked planes that crashed into the Trade Center, the Pentagon and a rural field in Pennsylvania. 

“We went ahead to the airport, knowing I needed to get back to Washington, and the second plane goes in,” Hutchinson told the Arkansas Advocate in an interview this week. “And of course, at that time all of the commercial aircrafts are grounded, and so we had no means immediately of getting back. President Bush wanted me back, and so sent a military aircraft for me.”

That was how Hutchinson ended up in his home state of Arkansas that day. As the military plane refueled at Little Rock Air Force Base, Hutchinson said he checked in with his children in Washington, his wife in Arkansas and with the Department of Justice. He learned the Barbara Olsen, wife of then-Solicitor General Ted Olsen, died on the flight that crashed into the Pentagon, calling that the moment “when it got really personal.” 

It didn’t get easier. The DEA’s headquarters overlooked the Pentagon. Some of his staff witnessed the plane’s crash. The explosion that followed the crash shook the building’s foundations.

“The emotions were raw,” Hutchinson said. “It was a difficult day for everyone.”

Hutchinson, a former federal prosecutor who had served as a congressman in northwest Arkansas’ 3rd Congressional District, had been sworn in as DEA’s top official in August 2001. Changes began to happen at the DEA following Sept. 11, as agents began asking their informants about possible terrorist threats instead of about drugs. 

“All of a sudden, security at every level of American life has become a priority,” Hutchinson said. “On 9/11, the shift happened quickly, and with increasing intensity over the last 25 years.”

Sept. 11 unleashed a national reckoning about security and how to protect the country, and saw the passage of controversial surveillance powers via the PATRIOT Act. Months after the attacks, Congress approved legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Agency. 

Hutchinson was nominated and confirmed as the department’s first undersecretary for border and transportation security, overseeing TSA and other agencies in 2003. He remained with the department until 2005, returning to Arkansas for an unsuccessful run for governor. Hutchinson went on to win the 2014 governor’s race..

But Hutchinson said the most important thing for people to understand about those days was how America and the world responded. The nation’s allies in Europe “came to our defense,” while Americans united in a way that hadn’t been seen since the attack on Pearl Harbor, he said. 

“We are divided today, and while it takes an emergency sometimes to unite us all, there are ways that we can reflect on the spirit of 9/11, our response at that time, and say, as a nation, we can do better,” Hutchinson said. “It didn’t matter whether you’re Democrat or Republican or independent. After 9/11, we were together, united, seeing what needed to be done to make sure that our freedoms were strong and our country was protected.”