ROADMAP SWAP/CHENEY’S “EFFORT”

BEFORE AND AFTER MAY 8: CLARIFYING THE RECORD
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/They Let It Happen
December 17 2006

Office of What?

Dick Cheney: behind the scenes = behind it all? Who could NOT suspect that face?

There has been much attention and much confusion within the 9/11 Truth community centered on the mysterious mid-2001 “counter-terrorism task force” headed by Vice President Cheney and its possible role in the 9/11 attacks. From this has emerged three main takes: the passive LIHOP (Let it Happen on Purpose), active LIHOP (scramble defense on 9/11), and MIHOP (Make It Happen on Purpose) interpretations, each with their variations.

- Basic gist for a passive LIHOP theorist: Bush creates a task force to “prevent” terrorist attacks, tasking it to Cheney, whose pals want a “New Pearl Harbor.” Cheney gets the staff going just one day before 9/11 and so it fails to prevent the attack. Cheney’s stalling prevented implementation of previously recommended measures that could have stopped the 9/11 hijackers on the ground and so is evidence of allowance, which was also alleged – if not proven - over the original Pearl Harbor attack.

- Active LIHOP: In addition to maybe leaving the door open to the terrorists, Cheney prepared the field for the attack by scheduling several air-based military war games, some of which had fighter jets sent far away from the East Coast, and others whose similarity to the attack confused air defenses.

- Basic MIHOP (Make it Happen on Purpose) interpretation: Cheney used this task force to “prepare” for the attack by mobilizing FEMA Urban Search and Rescue teams to Manhattan the night before, presumably to facilitate evidence removal after the demolitions. And he arranged the war games, whose programming and possibly “live-fly” drones may have actually carried out the attack rather than just opening the skies. The “worst fears” being prepared for came true, and Cheney probably coordinated it all through his task force and an unidentified “Maestro.”

While all three and their various derivative theories are intriguing and have their evidence, I have a strong case to argue that these theories are seriously flawed. I myself was suckered in to the particular MIHOP interpretation at one point, seeing in it a neat way to tie the reviled Dick Cheney in with the war games of 9/11 and even the deployment of the FEMA rescue workers allegedly in Manhattan the night before the attack. Mike Ruppert was pushing the first half of that (but decidedly not the second), and it seemed intriguing and quite plausible. But the more research I do, the less clear all these links become. It’s not to say they aren’t there, just that if they are they aren’t as in the open as people seem to think. After I cover the flaws with both the LIHOP and MIHOP takes, I’ll propose a third interpretation of the import of this elusive agency.

There is a lot of confusion around the issue, enough so that people don’t even agree on what precisely to call the thing: Gregor Holland, in a 2004 piece from the New Zealand site Scoop (and later re-run by Prison Planet), explained that “the Office for Domestic Preparedness was the effort assigned to Dick Cheney by George W. Bush on May 8, 2001.” [1] But The Office for Domestic Preparedness (ODP), which Holland correctly cites as an entity within U.S. Department of Justice, was actually created at DoJ in 1998 “to develop and administer training and equipment assistance programs for state and local emergency response agencies.” [2] The Center for Cooperative Research got it much closer, reporting in their timeline “May 8, 2001: Bush entrusts Vice President Cheney to head the new Office of National Preparedness, a part of FEMA.” [3] A 2002 House of Representatives report made no mention of a Cheney role in Bush’s creation of the Office of National Preparedness (ONP) on May 8 “for greater coordination among federal agencies in responding to a terrorist attack." They also noted "the President located the ONP within FEMA,” not in the White House. [4]

Bush’s original May 8 order stated the ONP “will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management.” [5] The ONP were the front line water carriers to implement Cheney’s findings, and so there was clearly a higher level than them where these decisions were made, based not at FEMA but in the White House. As far as I can tell, this has no name, most commonly referred to as the “effort” that was indeed tasked to Cheney on May 8. It was neither ODP or ONP. The 9/11 Commission referred to this vaguely as “an effort looking at preparations for managing a possible attack by weapons of mass destruction and at more general problems of national preparedness.” [6] “Looking at” means a committee-oriented review process to give the ONP its direction, so I call this higher level “Cheney’s effort” or “the effort.”

The Roadmap Swap and the LIHOP take
Before I relate more on the May decree, we need to understand the timing “coincidence” I call “the Roadmap Swap.” It began on January 31 2001: Bush was just sworn-in as the 43rd President, with Cheney and all the PNAC people looking for their “new Pearl Harbor” on his coattails. That day, an elite panel was just completing its own assessment of the threat of such catastrophic events in the coming decades: The U.S. Commission on National Security in the 21st Century. Created by President Clinton and House Speaker Newt Gingrich in 1998, and co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D) and Warren Rudman (R), the commission unveiled their new report “Roadmap for National Security: Imperative for Change” at a press conference. Among the excerpts read live by Gary Hart on January 31 2001 was this ominous prophecy:

“States, terrorists, and other disaffected groups will acquire weapons of mass destruction, and some will use them [...] Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers. […] Our military superiority will not entirely protect us” [7]

According to Hart, Congress began to take the commission’s suggestions seriously in March and April, and started introducing legislation to implement some of the recommendations, one of which was the creation of something called a “Homeland Security Department.”” [8] The commission scheduled another meeting for May 7, hoping some administration officials would attend this time. Instead, the meeting was cancelled and replaced with a brand-new policy review process. Hart said of the ultimate end of his commission “frankly, the White House shut it down […] The President said ‘please wait, we’re going to turn this over to the Vice President.” [9]

As National security Adviser Rice later explained, “The vice president was later, I think in May, tasked by the president to put together a group to look at all of the recommendations [from] the Gilmore report and the Hart-Rudman report and so forth and to try to make recommendations about what might have been done.” [10] This is where the May 8 decree comes in, apparently timed to answer the questions raised by the cancellation of Hart-Rudman’s scheduled meeting the previous day, and Bush’s statement seemed to address what they had probably meant to talk about. “No governmental responsibility is more fundamental than protecting the physical safety of our nation and its citizens,” the one-page release stated, so “I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm.” Bush explained that the responses to a successful WMD attack were widely tasked to various agencies, a recipe for disaster. He expressed the need for these responses to become “seamlessly integrated, harmonious, and comprehensive.” [11] The release offers very little insight into Cheney’s role, mostly dedicated to explaining the new ONP, which Bush asked FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh to create.

Much has been made of the relevance of this swap, comparing the slow pace of Cheney’s effort compared to the urgency recommended by the Hart-Rudman Commission. Paul Thompson concluded in The Terror Timeline (2004) that the January report put forth fifty suggestions to "stop terrorists inside the US,” but every one was “ignored by the Bush administration.” Former Senator Gary Hart (D) later implied to Salon in April 2004 that the ONP/Cheney effort was created to prevent Congress from acting on his commission’s findings – though the purpose was left unexplained. [13] Apparently Al Franken made a big deal of satirically calling the Bush response to the Hart-Rudman plan “Operation Ignore.” Dave Pierre at the “Frankenlies” website took issue with this: “Franken leads many readers to believe that the commission’s report was some urgent call for President Bush to revamp the entire national security infrastructure immediately,” and that their refusal to do so may have contributed to 9/11. But Pierre aptly pointed out that “the Commission’s report clearly took a long-range outlook on how the United States should approach its national security," specifically, over 25 years. "In fact, the commission wrote, ‘We propose significant change, and we know that change takes time.’” [14]

In other words, if the roadmap swap really was meant as a delaying operation, either to deny a bi-partisan plan in favor of the Cheney/PNAC model, or to keep the road to 9/11 unobstructed - it was hardly needed. No recommendations were really expected except in the span of years and election cycles, not four-month cycles. If the Commission’s plans had been allowed to run their course, 9/11 would still have occurred. Scratch the passive LIHOP take, Cheney’s effort has nothing to do with it.

Hands-On Management?
Then to the active LIHOP and MIHOP interpretations: The few mainstream reports I’ve seen paint Cheney's effort as strictly paper-pushing review, but many in the Truth movement see something more sinister. For example, in Crossing the Rubicon, Mike Ruppert takes the stance that this task force put Cheney in “a quiet but unequivocal hands-on management role, before, during, and after 9/11.” He flatly asserts that the May 8 Order “placed Dick Cheney in charge of planning, preparing for, and coordinating all US response to the terror attack,” response that went well beyond FEMA ground response to the strikes and up into the military level of the air defense. [15] Considering the aberrantly poor response that then happened four months later, this is a damning charge.

I have respect for Ruppert’s works and have in the past considered myself a fan, but in this case at least I’m not so sure he has adequate evidence to back up this claim. For example, Ruppert decided the order tasked Cheney’s effort with coordinating “planning and training” against terror threats, a central part of his linking Cheney with the war games of 9/11, at least one of which posed a hijacking threat. But the release actually tasks the ONP, not Cheney, with “planning, training, and equipment needs” of local first responders, and placed naither in charge of scheduling war games.

So the nation's response to a WMD attack was to be looked at, tinkered with, and perhaps indirectly run by the enigmatic Dick Cheney - shortly after his colleagues at the PNAC had noted the utility of a “catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor.” Four months later the worst terrorist (non-WMD) attack in Human history occurred, seamlessly sliding through all defenses and causing catastrophic (and catalyzing) harm to the American people, with a death toll on par with the “old” Pearl Harbor. While all this seems somewhat beyond the realm of coincidence, especially considering the relative rapidity of these events lining up within one year, to imply direct connections between them at this point seems premature. In the days before the attack, the coincidences would only get more precise and chilling, but not necessarily more relevant.

Abbot Helms “The Effort”

Admiral Steven Abbot, Director of Cheney's "effort," in October 2001

The 9/11 Commission explained that after the May 8 announcement creating Cheney’s effort and the ONP “the next few months were mainly spent organizing the effort and bringing an Admiral from the Sixth Fleet back to Washington to manage it.” [16] Cheney's first hire in June was his point man on coordinating the effort, Navy Admiral Steven Abbot, who has now become one of Mike Ruppert’s “persons of interest” in 9/11. He is a Rhodes scholar with an impressive military career, being a top commander in Europe during the conflict in Kosovo, and just retired as he got his new call to duty. Cheney also hired an embryonic staff of two to assist Abbot: researcher Carol Kuntz, who started her review right away, and Col. John Fenzel III, formerly director of Cheney’s secretive Energy Task Force and now Abbot’s staff director. [17] They were to report to Congress on their findings by October 1, a deadline that must have seemed impossible as September dawned and they still had no staff to direct and no base to operate from.

The 9/11 Commission reported “the Vice President’s task force was just getting under way when the 9/11 attack occurred.” [18] In fact Abbot, Fenzel and Kuntz were finally given White House security clearance and got to work on the day before the fateful attack. [19] Abbot told the Congressional Quarterly in 2004 “I didn’t begin to work full time [on the effort] until early September. I got my pass to the White House complex on the 10th of September.” [20] What, if anything, did this staff do in the next 24 hours?

While Abbot’s official job was purely review – that is, research and recommendation - he did bring his connections and his many skills to the table. Ruppert found that Abbot was a trained fighter pilot, insanely experienced with a variety of craft, routinely hired as a test pilot for new technologies, and generally one with supreme understanding of managing the air dimension. Thus, Ruppert reasoned, Abbot may be an excellent candidate for Maestro, the coordinator of air-based exercises on 9-11 that “jump-started” response to the attack. [21]

Ruppert claims Abbot had also previously been in charge of the National Military Command Center (NMCC) beneath the Pentagon, the war room that sat empty of leadership on 9/11 while Rumsfeld and Myers ignored the attack. The acting NMCC Director that morning had been Captain Charles Leidig, asked to stand-in the day before for 90 of the 111 minutes of the 9/11 attack. Both having been from the Navy, Ruppert wondered “if Leidig and Abbot had ever served together or if Abbot had any influence in Leidig’s placement in the NMCC,” a placement which was, after all, requested bare hours after Abbott punched in for his first day of work at the White House. [22] No matter what to make of it all, this Cheney-Abbott-Leidig seam sewn into the fabric of the 9/11 story just about 24 hours before the actual attack is a highly curious and intriguing coincidence and makes Ruppert’s overall case start to make sense.

It's also worth noting that Abbot’s whereabouts and actions during the attack have not been publicized as far as I’ve seen. He was not questioned by the 9/11 Commission in any of their twelve public hearings, and was not even mentioned by name in their final report, referred to only as “an admiral from the Sixth Fleet,” (his name is in the footnote for this, citing a previously existing book by Steven Brill.) The Commission either never asked after him or he never returned their calls. As the man leading Cheney’s new preparedness task force, to be absent from all accounts as the biggest lack of preparedness in history happens on his second day on the job – and to remain unquestioned and virtually unnamed - that’s certainly anomalous, and raises the question of what skill set he was really using that morning.

A Post-9/11 Script Written in a Pre-9/11 World
While all this is speculation, what is known is that the attack gave Abbot and some of those around him a quick promotion; Cheney’s effort was the seed that would become the previously recommended Homeland Security Department. A White House spokeswoman later stated “the president was able to very quickly after September 11 stand up the Office of Homeland Security [since] a great deal of work had already been put into this issue.” [23] This was mainly the work that Carol Kuntz had overseen in mid-2001, and even in retrospect looks like a logical follow off of the Hart-Rudman Commission’s recommendations. Thus it should not be surprising that a White House press release from October 29 announced that Abbot was being promoted to the new Office of Homeland Security, as its Deputy Director, directly under Tom Ridge. [24]

So essentially what happened is previous ideas on securing the homeland were taken in together by Cheney’s effort, reviewed by Abbot’s crew, and, after the attack that clarified its need, used to set up the Office of Homeland Security and eventually DHS. Thus on May 8, Bush essentially tasked Cheney to create the Department of Homeland Security, which wouldn’t even make enough sense to do outright until after 9/11. This may be a coincidence, as the government certainly would argue if asked, but it is a rather spooky seam of foresight I think. Thus far it’s been largely eclipsed by these charges that Cheney’s effort was precisely the mechanism for allowing or orchestrating the attacks. It was probably no more responsible than its counterpart the USA PATRIOT Act, also clearly written before 9/11 considering its haste of production and signing into law as soon as it made sense - one month after the attacks, and a few days after the Anthrax Scare that had cleared capitol Hill.

Recall as well that a plan for the war in Afghanistan and a global campaign against al Qaeda was placed on Bush’s desk September 9. According to Paul O’Neill and others, the war in Iraq was largely planned before 9/11. The Patriot Act was written, and as we’ve just seen, the skeleton at least of the DHS was set up shortly before 9/11 as well. These are facts, and whether Bush gave Cheney the joystick to control the actual attacks or not, the general thrust of the Post-9/11 world was already set. You tell me: what does effort thusly directed in the months between Bush’s coronation and the “catalyzing event” really imply? Let It Happen? Make It Happen? Or simply It Will Happen?

Sources:
[1] Holland, Gregor. "UQ Wire: Long Debunked Rumor Validated by Giuliani: FEMA in NYC prior to 9-11 for Project TRIPOD terror drill, scheduled for 9-12." Scoop, Independent News. June 3 2004. http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0406/S00031.htm
[2] "Office for Domestic Preparedness." Federation of American Scientists. http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/doj/ojp/index.html
[3], [13] "Profile: Office of National Preparedness." Center for Cooperative Research. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=office_of_national_preparedness
[4] The Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, & Emergency Management Hearing on The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of National Preparedness. April 11 2002.
http://www.house.gov/transportation/pbed/04-11-02/04-11-02memo.html
[5], [11] "Statement by the President: Domestic Preparedness Against Weapons of Mass Destruction." For Immediate Release, Office of the Press Secretary. May 8, 2001. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/05/20010508.html
[6] 9/11 Commission Final Report, page 40.
[7] US Commission on National Security/21st Century, New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century, (1999), p. 141
[8] Paul Thompson and the center for Cooperative Research. The Terror Timeline. 2004. Page 98.
[9] See [8] Page 89.
[10] NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES Ninth Public Hearing
Thursday, April 8, 2004 Hart Senate Office Building Washington, DC CHAIRED BY: THOMAS H. KEAN
http://news.lp.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/911comm40804tran.html
[12] McCaleb, Christopher. "Disaster agency to coordinate terrorism response." CNN. May 8, 2001. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/ALLPOLITICS/05/08/senate.terrorism.02/
[14] "Operation Ignore"? Someone is ignoring some facts." http://www.frankenlies.com/lies/commission.htm
[15] Ruppert, Michael C. Crossing the Rubicon. 2004. Page 412.
[16] 9/11 Commission Final Report, Page 204.
[17], [20], [23] Rood, Justin. "Cheney Task Force on Terrorist Threats Never Met Before Attacks." Congressional Quarterly. April 15, 2004. http://page15.com/2004/04/cheney-task-force-on-terrorist-threats.html
[18] 9/11 Commission Final Report, page 204.
[19] See [8]. Page 106.
[21] See [15]. Pages 418-421.
[22] See [15]. Page 420
[24] “Gov. Ridge names Deputy Director of Homeland Security.” White House Press Release. October 29, 2001. Accessed August 5, 2005 at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/10/20011029-6.html

THE THREE LEGS OF TRIPOD

This mysterious drill is substantiated by two explicitly-linked legs of admission by involved parties, and a possible third leg that has remianed unexplained but could bring the wholeconstruct of TriPOD - and the official 9/11 - crashing down. Though widely de-bunked, the third leg is worth considering together with the others here.

Leg One: OEM Release
On May 22, 2002, NYC’s Office of Emergency Management (OEM, an earlier creation of Mayor Rudy Giuliani) issued a press release regarding a drill carried out that day in Lower Manhattan. Called Trial Point of Dispensing (TriPOD), it was the first of this name, designed to streamline “distribution of medication in the event of a biological attack” by terrorists or those rogue dictators developing weapons of mass destruction. The six-hour drill was set up around a mock “griage” (greeting and triage) center, sorting volunteers play-acting as possibly contaminated citizens, to work out any kinks before it happened for real. This seemed a prudent move given the harsh and frightening post 9/11 world the authorities insist exists just beyond their protection, but it had been originally planned in the barely-pre-9/11 world. According to the OEM release, the drill had originally been scheduled for September 12, 2001. But the attacks on Manhattan obviously superceded its first enactment. [1] The attacks also superceded and destroyed the OEM's "bunker," which was housed on the 23rd floor of Tower 7. WTC 7, of course, was damaged in the massive collapse of the twin towers, engulfed in flames from its giant diesel fuel tanks sitting atop a power station, and collapsed later that evening.

Leg Two: Giuliani's 9/11 Commission appearance:
Former New York Mayor and OEM creator Rudy Giuliani later confirmed TriPOD in his May 19, 2004 testimony before the 9/11 Commission. They chose not to re-publish his written statement and subsequent questioning, but his full comments, along with a dramatic minute-long audience mutiny, were recorded in the C-Span video, still viewable at their archive. The video has “America’s Mayor” explaining his choice for a new command center after losing the OEM bunker. He selected Pier 92. “And the reason pier 92 was selected as the command center was because on the next day, on September 12, Pier 92 was going to have a drill. It had hundreds of people here from FEMA, from the federal government, from the state, from the state Emergency Management Office, and they were getting ready for a drill for a biochemical attack. So that was going to be the place they were going to have the drill.” [2] Giuliani really wants us to know there was a drill scheduled and it was a drill about divvying up medicine in the event of a biological attack, just like OEM said TriPOD was for, so clearly he’s talking about TriPOD. Note that the command center at the Pier already had FEMA people there at the time of the attack, in preparation for this drill - not later on, in response to the attack.

But the “very distinguished” Giuliani’s account conflicts with FEMA’s earlier insistence they had no people in place before the attack, a denial necessitated by a chance slip and a bit and an old mystery.

Leg Three: Tom Kenney
Skeptics initially marveled at a “slip” from FEMA worker Tom Kenney, part of the Urban Search and Rescue division on duty at Ground Zero the day after the attack. He was interviewed by CBS’ Dan Rather, who introduced him as "Tom Kennedy - Kenney, a rescue worker with Urban Search and Recsue, which is part of FEMA." In the brief interview on Wednesday, September 12, Kenney said “we’re currently one of the first teams that was deployed to support the city of New York for this disaster. We arrived on late Monday night and went into action on Tuesday morning. And not until today did we get a full opportunity to work the entire site.” Kenney’s was not an anomalous team either, but “one of the first,” meaning that multiple FEMA teams were deployed to New York City “late Monday night,” just hours before 9-11, indicating that someone knew.

Kenney must have misspoken, everyone said at the time. According to the Snopes website attempting to debunk this “urban legend,” the Boston Herald called Kenney's wife, who explained that her husband went there on September 11, not the day before. “She explained that he was under extreme stress and […] that it was typical of her husband to confuse dates.” The Snopes website then struggled to explain his reference the three separate days: “Kenney simply mixed up his days of the week, saying Monday when he meant Tuesday and Tuesday when he meant Wednesday.” [3] Mike Ruppert offered a believable reason for this: “He gets called up, drives many hours to New York and then works for fifty hours straight. For him 9/11 was the first day of his work week and he misspoke. That's it.” [4] So his statement on Wednesday September 12 should have been: “we arrived on late Tuesday night and went into action on Wednesday morning. And not until today did we get a full opportunity to work the entire site.” The problem is not the names of the days but what seems to be a clear reference to three distinct days. If the interview happened on the 12th, one of those days fell before 9-11. He was reportedly instructed not to speak with the media any more after this, which could explain why the Herald talked to his wife instead of to Kenney himself.

After TriPOD was first mentioned but before Giuliani verified FEMA's role in it, John Dougherty took the story on for World Net Daily in November 2002. He cited another researcher's FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to verify the deployment status on 9-11 for a “Tom Kennedy.” The researcher got no records, then got the name right, re-submitted his request, and got written proof, from FEMA itself, that FEMA "had no personnel in place Sept. 10, 2001." Dougherty concluded “if there were any doubts that those allegations were false, they have now been put to rest as a result of this research.” [5]

Thus this has never fully been resolved – and with the the TriPOD revelations, it appears there was an effort being made to explain why FEMA people actually may have been sent on the evening of the 10th. Kenney may well have known his days of the week after all, and OEM’s admission and Giuliani’s forceful reiteration may be an attempt to turn a dangerous seam into the third leg to prop up the “TriPOD” story. The Scoop site from New Zealand ran a story on this later picked up by Prison Planet that linked Kenney and TriPOD, though the exact connection was left unclear. They wondered if Giuliani’s written statement not being published was because “Rudy said something wrong.” The piece continued: "major questions exist as to why FEMA would deny being in New York City prior to 9/11 without mentioning the 9/12 bioterror drill. These questions must now be addressed as the initial suspicions of those who learned of the Tom Kenney statement have been clearly validated." [6]

If the OEM and Giuliani can speak so freely about FEMA teams being in Manhattan before the attack, why the earlier secrecy and tortured logic over Kenney’s comment? Recall here that Kenney was introduced by Rather as part of the Urban Search and Rescue division, who would not have had much of a role in a drill regarding distribution of medicine. The USR division’s job, according to their website, is “the rescue of victims of structural collapse,” which has everything to do with 9/11.

The possibility that the 9/11 response was set up the night before – and that TriPOD was merely a cover – would unravel 9/11 like nothing. I have resisted the "temptation" to contact Kenney – I’m sure he either a) has been harassed enough and has nothing to say because he really did just mix up his days or b) has too much pressure on him to say anything contrary. I'm 90% sure what answer I'd get but not so sure I'd know what to make of it anyway and and besides, I already have enough red flags next to my name on the watch lists. In fact considering all this, my enthusiasm waned. Though I had enjoyed reviving a previously de-bunked seam, I was left less than sure of it and ready to let it go.

Though I'll never give up entertaining possibilities, the most compelling argument I’ve seen to drop the issue entirely is from Mike Ruppert, who tried in mid-2004, as Crossing the Rubicon was coming out, to put this rumor to rest himself. He stated that “the "FEMA-Kennedy arrived in NY on Sept. 10th" myth is pure poison and absolutely incorrect.” Though he made too big a deal over the name confusion, he made a strong case, actually getting off his ass and calling multiple people involved with Kenney's fire team (on loan to FEMA, we learn). They all confirmed that they left on Tuesday night and sent him photos and videos of the send-off that featured Kenney and profuse 9/11 response imagery that would have made no sense the previous night.“This erroneous story is dangerously useful for the cover-up," Ruppert summarized, "and it's time to give it the axe.” [7]

Sources:
[1] New York City Office of Emergency Management. “TriPOD (Trial Point-of-Dispensing) Drill.” Accessed January 15, 2005 at:
http://www.nyc.gov/html/oem/html/other/sub_photos_pages/tripod.html
[2] “Eleventh public hearing of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.” May 18-19, 2004. Testimony of Rudolph Guiliani. C-Span archive video location (accessed January, 2005):
http://www.cspan.org/search/basic.asp?ResultStart=1&ResultCount=10&BasicQueryText=Giuliani+9-11+Commission&image1.x=0&image1.y=0&image1=Submit
[3] Mikkelson, Barbara and David Mikkelson. “Monday, Monday.” Urban Legends Reference Pages. Last Updated October 1, 2002. Accessed January 15, 2005 at: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/fema.htm
[4] Ruppert, Michael C. “TRIPOD II AND FEMA” http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060704_tripod_fema.html
[5] Dougherty, Jon. “9-11 Net Rumor Finally Put to Rest.” World Net Daily. November 27, 2002. Accessed February 19, 2005 at: http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29793
[6] "Long Debunked "Rumor" Validated by Giuliani: FEMA in NYC prior to 9-11 for Project TRIPOD terror drill, scheduled for 9-12." Scoop. June 29 2004. http://prisonplanet.tv/articles/june2004/062904longdebunked.htm
[7] See [4].

STAND-DOWN: DE JURE OR DE FACTO?

September 13, 2001: The nation is still staggering, in deep shock over the most devastating act of terrorism in American history. With the body count still not finalized but sitting near 6,000 (well-down from initial estimates of 20,000), General Richard B. Myers, Vice-Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), sits under oath in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee. This is his confirmation hearing, scheduled weeks before, to be promoted to the post of JCS Chairman, the highest U.S. military post. It was surely a bittersweet event for him. He had already started his tenure as acting JCS Chairman two days earlier - on the morning of September 11th. He had been standing in for his superior Henry Shelton, who had just that morning left on a trip to Europe on prearranged but unspecified business. [1] In the hearing, this curious coincidence was ignored, but Chairman Carl Levin (D-MI) asked the candidate about the failed military response during the attack, with which Myers was closely involved.

Levin: “Was the defense department asked to take action against any specific aircraft? […] And did you take action against – for instance, there has been statements that the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania was shot down. Those stories continue to exist.”
Myers: “Mr. Chairman, the armed forces did not shoot down any aircraft. When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked. But we never actually had to use force.”
Levin: “Was that order that you just described given before or after the Pentagon was struck? Do you know?”
Myers: “That order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the Pentagon was struck.” [2]

With his first-hand knowledge of what happened only two days earlier, he maintained that his military did not scramble any fighters in response until after the Pentagon was hit by the third hijacked plane of the morning at 9:37. This was thirty-five minutes – at least - after a second hijacked airliner plowed into the World Trade Center at 9:03, clarifying to everyone we were at war – and quickly losing. How could the mightiest Air Force on Earth be so slow responding to such an urgent emergency?

This was not merely Myers’ confused recollection; the next day, Major Mike Snyder, a spokesman for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), backed him up on this point. According to the Boston Globe: “[Snyder] said the fighters were not scrambled for more than an hour after the first hijacking was reported, by which time the three buildings were struck […] Never before had a hijacked airliner been steered into a skyscraper, Snyder noted, in trying to explain the lack of immediate response.” [3]

So on September 14, that was the official story, confirmed by both Myers and Snyder, by both the JCS and NORAD, and generally taken as fact. Even long after this official story had changed, then-Mayor of New York Rudy Giuliani would confirm this original assessment. He told the 9/11 Commission in May 2004 that he was told he just minutes before the first World Trade Tower collapsed at 9:58 that fighters had just been scrambled to protect New York “twelve minutes ago.” [4] By this account, the jets were airborne at about 9:46, exactly an hour after the first attack in New York.

It became clear with a CBS News broadcast that very night that this was actually not the case, that two fighter pilots had been sent at 8:52 from Massachusetts, and soon we had confirmation of another pair sent from Langley AFB in Virginia at 9:30. So why the early confusion?

I don't know the reason for this incongruity, but I do know the effects. On September 11, NORAD knew as of 8:40 (by their own account) that American 11 was (possibly) hijacked and headed to New York. Three minutes later, they learned a second airliner, United 175, was also (possibly) hijacked. As of 8:46, when flight 11 hit the Word Trade Center, they knew what kind of (possible) hijackings these were – just as UA175 changed course and headed for New York itself. Fighter interception should have been a no-brainer at this point, and authorization to shoot to kill should have been sought swiftly to defend future targets. Yet fifty-one minutes later, the new JCS Chairman tells us under oath, NORAD hadn’t got a single fighter off the ground? Honestly, that doesn’t even make sense. It looks like a stand-down.

Rumors began to spread of just this possibility, and persisted well past the reports on 9/14 and after that fighters were scrambled. In September 2003 Michael Meacher, former British Environment Minister, wrote an article for the Manchester Guardian called “This War on Terrorism is Bogus.” He pointed out that no fighters were scrambled from the nation’s premier Andrews Air Force Base, only ten miles from the Pentagon, during the course of the attack. Meacher wondered “was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority?” [5]

It’s a good question; Andrews is the nation’s premiere Air Force base, home of Air Force One, and touchdown point for world leaders visiting the U.S. It is in many ways the central staging ground for the most elaborate airspace defense in the world – yet no fighters were sent from there until well after the attack was over with. Mark R. Elsis of StandDown.net. put it “there is only one explanation. Our Air Force was ordered to stand down on 9/11.” [6]

I had always found a direct stand-down order a possibility, but too simple of one – did Meacher and Elsis mean an indirect, de facto stand-down or a direct, de jure one? A formal stand-down order is an order, official, total, and enforced as such. Are we really to believe that of the hundreds of pilots ready to take off and help in such a crisis, all told by their superiors to stay on the ground, none would be angry and courageous enough to speak up? Even I, in my profound cynicism, find this hard to swallow. A de jure stand-down seems unlikely to me, and a simplistic argument that looks for an easily identifiable smoking gun of complicity.

Mike Ruppert took this line as well in mid-2004: “There never was a stand down order issued. That would have been way too incriminating and risky a piece of evidence. And it also might have been ignored by eager fighter pilots who had trained their whole lives to respond to a hostile aircraft killing Americans. There are several statements that the "new" NORAD procedures transferring scramble authority to Rumsfeld on June 1, 2001 were ignored by several NORAD commanders on 9/11 including General Larry Arnold. That's exactly what I would have expected.” [7]

However, a close look at the facts reveals an air defense system not just broken but peculiarly broken on that “fateful” morning, with the same net result as a de facto stand-down order. That is, stand down or no, the defense was as ineffective as if there had been, and it hardly seems any less purposeful than Meacher or Elsis suggests.


Sources:
[1] Balz, Dan and Bob Woodward. “America's Chaotic Road to War: Bush's Global Strategy Began to Take Shape in First Frantic Hours After Attack.” Washington Post. January 27, 2002. Page A01. Accessed November 6, 2004 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42754-2002Jan26
[2] General Richard B. Myers, Senate Confirmation Hearing. Senate Armed Services Committee. September 13, 2001. Accessed August 5, 2005 at: http://www.attackonamerica.net/genrichardbmyerssenateconfirmationhearing9132001.htm
[3] Johnson, Glen. "Facing Terror Attack's Aftermath: Otis Fighter Jets Scrambled Too Late to Halt The Attacks" The Boston Globe. September 15, 2001 Third Edition Page A1. Accessed at: http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/bg915.htm
[4] Thompson, Paul and the Center for Cooperative Research. The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day, Minute by Minute. New York. Regan books. 2004. Page 439
[5] Ruppert, Michael C. Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada. New Society Publishers 2004 P. 309
[6] Chertoff, Benjamin et al. “Debunking 9/11 Myths.” Popular Mechanics, March 2005. http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=3
[7]Ruppert, Michael C. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060704_tripod_fema.html