Bush explains slow reaction to 9/11 attacks

LOS ANGELES - Former US president George W. Bush says his apparent lack of reaction to the first news of the Sept 11, 2001, attacks was a conscious decision to project an aura of calm in a crisis.

In a rare interview with the National Geographic Channel, Bush reflects on what was going through his mind at the most dramatic moment of his presidency when he was informed that a second passenger jet had hit New York's World Trade Center.

Bush was visiting a Florida classroom, and the incident, which was caught on TV film, has often been used by critics to ridicule his apparently blank face.