Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
They Let It Happen
[undated]
Note [added 2/8/09] While I am leaving this post up as-is and FWIW, the core point of it - the apparent "muzzling" represented by the 2001 order - seems to have been debunked. See Mike W's 9/11 Myths page. What I'd previously read as an exception to new restrictions was actually THE change to a MORE restrictive previous order. Good thing I had already called it a red herring, rather than hanging any weight on the issue. So for the record - the June 1 change can have had no direct role in impeding the 9/11 defense, and so it's implementation is not direct evidence of any LIHOP thinking. Apologies also for the late update.
---
As indicated by the swift fighter response in the Payne Stewart case, the Chain of Command was not ordinarily needed to get escort fighters off the ground – this could all be done automatically and at intermediate levels. But more tightly controlled actions, like issuing an order for these fighters to shoot down a civilian aircraft, constituted an emergency and had to originate with the President and pass through every link in the chain of command to the responsible fighter pilots.
But these guidelines, in effect since 1986, oddly changed just three months before September 11, extending the need for approval yet further down. A Defense Department directive of June 1 2001 stated: “In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses […] forward requests for DoD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.” [1] Aviation Week backed this up: “On Sept. 11, the normal scramble-approval procedure was for an FAA official to contact the National Military Command Center (NMCC) and request Pentagon air support. Someone in the NMCC would call NORAD's command center and ask about availability of aircraft, then seek approval from the Defense Secretary--Donald H. Rumsfeld--to launch fighters.” [2] In other words, the automatic scrambling of fighters was no more – the Secretary of Defense now had to personally sign off before fighters could be sent up, and specifically in response to a hijacking. Michael Ruppert wrote that this change in procedures “demonstrated a willful intent to centralize decision-making away from field commanders prior to the attacks.” [3]
But the 9/11 Commission’s final report states in its blameless way: “As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government […] The NMCC would then seek approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to provide military assistance […] The protocols did not contemplate an intercept […] On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” [4] They do not mention how recently and intentionally it had become so unsuited.
Of course “immediate response” actions were allowed without Rumsfeld’s immediate permission, and it appears some thought the attacks fit this exception – neither the Otis nor the Langley fighters, the first wave of defense (scrampled 8:52 and 9:30), were scrambled with Rumsfeld’s permission. He claims he never even arrived at the NMCC until 10:30 am. According to the Commission, Major General Larry Arnold, commander of the Continental U.S. NORAD Region said to one of his subordinates “go ahead and scramble [the Otis fighters], and we’ll get authorities later.” So the fighters were sent up, if slowly and with great confusion, and Rumsfeld’s procedure change becomes a red herring, if a telling one.
Sources: [5] Ruppert, Micheal C. Crossing the Rubicon. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada. New Society Publishers. 2004. Page 316
[6] Scott, William B. “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks.” Aviation week’s Aviation Now. June 3, 2002. Accessed April 27, 2003 at: http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm. (need subscription to read it now).
[7] See [5]. Ruppert. Page 337.
[8] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States. 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 17
Monday, February 9, 2009
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
WARGAME IV: VIGILANT WARRIOR
Update, 9/10/08: I wrote this post a long time ago when i was more "Truthy," but in fact there was probably NOT a wargame called Vigilant Warrior on 9/11 - see comments below. For reference purposes at least however I'll leave this post up. Just read "probable" as "faintly possible," and so on...
USA Today reported in April 2004 article also cited a NORAD press release: “Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft. These exercises tested track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures…” [1] These “mock hijacked aircraft,” otherwise called “live-flies,” are used sometimes in air-based war games involving hijacking scenarios. They are actual planes of a variety of makes, in the air (manned or under remote control), pretending to be hijacked for the benefit of effective training.
Ruppert asked some questions, some regarding live-flies, of Major Don Arias, NORAD press spokesman who was on duty and involved in the response the morning of 9/11. Arias at first dismissed Ruppert as part of the “grassy knoll” crowd, but later gave him some good information in a phone interview and follow-up e-mail. He confirmed Vigilant Guardian, and provided clues on the meanings of nicknames.
“Vigilant or Amalgam means it is a HQ NORAD sponsored exercise. Guardian means it is a multi-command CPX, or command post exercise (no live-fly). So on 9/11, NORAD was conducting a NORAD-wide, multi-command, command post exercise with no live-fly. Other exercise terms include: Warrior = JCS/HQ NORAD sponsored FTX, or field training exercise (live-fly).” [2]
Arias thus confirmed that JCS-connected “Warrior” exercises would involve live-flies faking symptoms of a hijacking. Ruppert further speculated that “warrior” and “guardian” exercises would be conducted jointly in an offense/defense simulation, a possibility he was unable to verify. But whatever its relation to the other war games, there is evidence of at least one “warrior” exercise taking place on the morning of 9/11.
Richard Clarke said in his book Against All Enemies that acting JCS Chairman Richard Myers told him in their videoconference on 9/11 “not a pretty picture, Dick… We are in the middle of Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD exercise.” [3] This does not seem to be a confused reference to the already admitted Vigilant Guardian, since that did not involve JCS – but a “Warrior” FTX would have Joint Chiefs involvement – and live-flies. Chalk up another (probable) exercise, this one putting extra “hostile” aircraft in the skies amid the attack.
Sources:
[1] Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon. p 345
[2] Ruppert, Crossing the Rubion. p 368
[3] clarke, Against All Enemies. p 5
USA Today reported in April 2004 article also cited a NORAD press release: “Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft. These exercises tested track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures…” [1] These “mock hijacked aircraft,” otherwise called “live-flies,” are used sometimes in air-based war games involving hijacking scenarios. They are actual planes of a variety of makes, in the air (manned or under remote control), pretending to be hijacked for the benefit of effective training.
Ruppert asked some questions, some regarding live-flies, of Major Don Arias, NORAD press spokesman who was on duty and involved in the response the morning of 9/11. Arias at first dismissed Ruppert as part of the “grassy knoll” crowd, but later gave him some good information in a phone interview and follow-up e-mail. He confirmed Vigilant Guardian, and provided clues on the meanings of nicknames.
“Vigilant or Amalgam means it is a HQ NORAD sponsored exercise. Guardian means it is a multi-command CPX, or command post exercise (no live-fly). So on 9/11, NORAD was conducting a NORAD-wide, multi-command, command post exercise with no live-fly. Other exercise terms include: Warrior = JCS/HQ NORAD sponsored FTX, or field training exercise (live-fly).” [2]
Arias thus confirmed that JCS-connected “Warrior” exercises would involve live-flies faking symptoms of a hijacking. Ruppert further speculated that “warrior” and “guardian” exercises would be conducted jointly in an offense/defense simulation, a possibility he was unable to verify. But whatever its relation to the other war games, there is evidence of at least one “warrior” exercise taking place on the morning of 9/11.
Richard Clarke said in his book Against All Enemies that acting JCS Chairman Richard Myers told him in their videoconference on 9/11 “not a pretty picture, Dick… We are in the middle of Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD exercise.” [3] This does not seem to be a confused reference to the already admitted Vigilant Guardian, since that did not involve JCS – but a “Warrior” FTX would have Joint Chiefs involvement – and live-flies. Chalk up another (probable) exercise, this one putting extra “hostile” aircraft in the skies amid the attack.
Sources:
[1] Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon. p 345
[2] Ruppert, Crossing the Rubion. p 368
[3] clarke, Against All Enemies. p 5
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
THE TERRORISTS "FAILED MISERABLY"
Another of these telling ironies was al Qaeda’s famous “miscalculation” regarding the effect of their attack on the American psyche. Bin Laden’s network had “intended to frighten our nation into chaos and retreat,” as the President himself explained bare hours after it happened. But of course, Bush intoned gravely, “they have failed; our country is strong.” Indeed, a wave of patriotism spread across the nation in the wake of the attack, like shockwaves radiating out from an epicenter at Ground Zero. Flags flew off the shelves nationwide as people showed their solidarity with the President, with the victims, with each other. “If it’s anything red white and blue it’s gonna sell” said one Wal Mart employee. Dan Rather said it well when he pointed out the irony: “the terrorists who set out to destroy America failed miserably. In fact, after September 11th, the nation was more united than ever.”
The idea continued well into 2002 at least. The Ad Council started a line of television spots to mark the first Independence Day after 9/11. These promoted the concept of “Freedom.” (Appreciate it, Cherish it, Protect it). In one particularly telling spot, a narrator intoned “on September 11th, terrorists tried to change our lives forever,” as a row of plain looking houses faded to black. Then the houses faded back in decked-out with American flags under a cloudy sky, over which the narrator intoned "they succeeded."
The spot’s writers certainly saw an irony in that, but the irony I see is a bit different, and I read different weather in those clouds. The attack “succeeded” not in intimidating America but, ironically, in boosting patriotism and jingoism – as well as flag sales, Bush’s popularity numbers, military recruitment, church attendance, support for a radical foreign policy of conquest, etc.
Is Osama bin Laden, or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or whatever deputies planned the ghastly attacks really that stupid that they couldn’t foresee the chain of events their actions would trigger? Were they not aware the attack might be seen as a “catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor,” or fail to realize who would benefit most from the political fallout? If not, their collective intelligence is clearly brought into question. If so, either the true motives of al Qaeda or their guilt for the attack must likewise come into doubt.
The idea continued well into 2002 at least. The Ad Council started a line of television spots to mark the first Independence Day after 9/11. These promoted the concept of “Freedom.” (Appreciate it, Cherish it, Protect it). In one particularly telling spot, a narrator intoned “on September 11th, terrorists tried to change our lives forever,” as a row of plain looking houses faded to black. Then the houses faded back in decked-out with American flags under a cloudy sky, over which the narrator intoned "they succeeded."
The spot’s writers certainly saw an irony in that, but the irony I see is a bit different, and I read different weather in those clouds. The attack “succeeded” not in intimidating America but, ironically, in boosting patriotism and jingoism – as well as flag sales, Bush’s popularity numbers, military recruitment, church attendance, support for a radical foreign policy of conquest, etc. Is Osama bin Laden, or Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, or whatever deputies planned the ghastly attacks really that stupid that they couldn’t foresee the chain of events their actions would trigger? Were they not aware the attack might be seen as a “catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor,” or fail to realize who would benefit most from the political fallout? If not, their collective intelligence is clearly brought into question. If so, either the true motives of al Qaeda or their guilt for the attack must likewise come into doubt.
Friday, October 12, 2007
THE CHAIN OF COMMAND ON 9/11 {masterlist}
 |
Tightly controlled actions, like issuing an order for fighter jets to shoot down a civilian aircraft, constituted an emergency and had to originate with the President and pass through every link in the chain to the responsible fighter pilots. As the 9/11 Commission explained, “prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense).” [2]
This Chain of Command was not ordinarily needed to get escort fighters off the ground – this could all be done automatically and at intermediate levels, as indicated by the swift fighter response in the Payne Stewart case. These guidelines, in effect since 1986, oddly changed just three months before September 11, with Rumsfeld asserting the sole authority to allow fighters to take off at all. This is covered in more in detail in the post "Muzzling the Defense?"
The 9/11 Commission’s final report later stated in its blameless way: “As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government […] The protocols did not contemplate an intercept […] On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen.” It became even more unsuited in the days and hours and even minutes before the attacks, and on the morning of September 11th, strangely, the National Command Authority’s chain of command seemed to sprout new links, swap out old ones, and seemed to not be anchored down to anything. The following posts deal with the US leadership response and the flailings and failings of a Chain of broken links.
- President Bush: “There’s one Terrible Pilot:” The accidental President Stumbles into 9/11.
- Vice President Cheney, the Roadmap Swap, and the “Effort.” Clarifying the Record. Did Bush hand Cheney the joystick to control the attacks?
- Cheney and the Shoot-Down Order: Who issued the order and when? 9:45, 10:14, 10:18?
- Link #2 AWOL: Psychic Rumsfeld’s Wanderings
- Myers the stand-in: How he responds "when things are happening."
- First Day Jitters: Sliney, Leidig, Myers: Three Defense Links Swapped out at the last minute at Joint Chiefs of Staff (ACTING Chairman richard Myers, as of ?:00 am, 9/11) Benedict Sliney at FAA Operations Center (first day as of ?:00 am, 9/11) and Leidig at the NMCC (see chart below - standing in as of 8:30 am, 9/11, as per a request from the previous day). This is spooky.
In the end, what we got was a startlingly "unprepared" and disjointed command authority that ran something like this:
Friday, July 27, 2007
WAR GAME 5: GLOBAL GUARDIAN
WAR GAME 5: GLOBAL GUARDIAN
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
They Let It Happen
Last updated July 27 2007
The Center for Cooperative Research patched together this description of the periodic exercise Global Guardian, directed from the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) center, a bunker set beneath Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska:
"[T]hree special military command aircraft with sophisticated communications equipment, based at Offutt, are up in the air the morning of 9/11. These E-4B National Airborne Operations Center planes—nicknamed “Doomsday” planes during the Cold War—are intended to control nuclear forces from the air in times of crisis. They are capable of acting as alternative command posts for top government officials from where they can direct US forces, execute war orders and coordinate the actions of civil authorities in times of national emergency. [...] Media accounts indicate Global Guardian is cancelled at Offutt shortly after the second WTC tower is hit (at 9:03 a.m.), with staff switching to “real-world mode.” However, even after Global Guardian is called off, the three E-4Bs remain airborne." [1]
The exercise's details and exact purpose remain vague, but it seems to be related to "Continuity of Government" exercises also carried out in the 1980s with E4-Bs and background officials like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. [2] Whatever the exercise really was, it was it was “in full swing” when the attacks began. Researcher Mark H. Gaffney looked into reports of the mysterious white plane seen and filmed over Washington DC has shown that this was almost certainly a whie, 4-engine E4-B, presumably one of the Global Guardian participants, though there appears to be a massive cover-up of the plane, which apparently must remain secret even after being filmed in broad daylight. [3]
By 2006 anyway, GLOBAL GUARDIAN, along with a space-oriented APOLLO GUARDIAN exercise, are "conducted in conjunction" with the more well-known Vigilant Guardian Exercise. [4] VG was also in full swing on 9/11, so it seems they were allied at the time, officially or otherwise. Gaffney also found that the exercise's being conducted at that time really is an unusual coincidence:
"In previous years the military always staged Global Guardian in October or November; and the 2001 exercise was likewise originally scheduled for October, according to various reports. Curiously, however, for reasons never disclosed, the Joint Chiefs changed the plan and conducted the 2001 exercise during the week of September 11. The following year the date reverted back. The 2002 Global Guardian came off in October, as in previous years, and this has continued to be the case." [5]
Total Coincidences?
CCR: "The Federal Advisory Committee (whose chairman is retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft) is aboard one of these Doomsday planes, being brought to Offutt to observe the exercise. [...] a small group of business leaders are at Offutt Air Force Base for a charity fundraiser event due to take place there later in the day, hosted by the multi-billionaire Warren Buffett. When the attacks begin, these visitors are having breakfast with Admiral Mies, the director of Global Guardian. After the second WTC tower is hit, Mies excuses himself from the group, presumably to assist in canceling the exercise." [7] Later in the afternoon, President Bush and Air Force One landed at Offutt "as a security precaution." It was his second landing since leaving Florida, and he convened a teleconference with the National Security Council from there. [7]
Sources:
[1], [6] Center for Cooperative Research. “Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, is Directing Global Guardian Training Exercise.” http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a900offutt
[2] "Between 1981 and 1989: Officials Airborne in Doomsday Plane." http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a81doomsdayplanes#a81doomsdayplanes
[3], [5] Gaffney, Mark H. "The 911 Mystery Plane - First in a Series." Rense.com. 4-5-7 http://www.rense.com/general76/missing.htm
[4] Global Security: Vigilant Guardian. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vigilant-guardian.htm
[7] "Bush Reacts to Attacks, Moves to Nebraska." By Mike Allen. Washington Post. Tuesday, September 11, 2001; 4:36 p.m http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/articles/bush091101.htm
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
They Let It Happen
Last updated July 27 2007
The Center for Cooperative Research patched together this description of the periodic exercise Global Guardian, directed from the US Strategic Command (STRATCOM) center, a bunker set beneath Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska:
"[T]hree special military command aircraft with sophisticated communications equipment, based at Offutt, are up in the air the morning of 9/11. These E-4B National Airborne Operations Center planes—nicknamed “Doomsday” planes during the Cold War—are intended to control nuclear forces from the air in times of crisis. They are capable of acting as alternative command posts for top government officials from where they can direct US forces, execute war orders and coordinate the actions of civil authorities in times of national emergency. [...] Media accounts indicate Global Guardian is cancelled at Offutt shortly after the second WTC tower is hit (at 9:03 a.m.), with staff switching to “real-world mode.” However, even after Global Guardian is called off, the three E-4Bs remain airborne." [1]
The exercise's details and exact purpose remain vague, but it seems to be related to "Continuity of Government" exercises also carried out in the 1980s with E4-Bs and background officials like Don Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney. [2] Whatever the exercise really was, it was it was “in full swing” when the attacks began. Researcher Mark H. Gaffney looked into reports of the mysterious white plane seen and filmed over Washington DC has shown that this was almost certainly a whie, 4-engine E4-B, presumably one of the Global Guardian participants, though there appears to be a massive cover-up of the plane, which apparently must remain secret even after being filmed in broad daylight. [3]
By 2006 anyway, GLOBAL GUARDIAN, along with a space-oriented APOLLO GUARDIAN exercise, are "conducted in conjunction" with the more well-known Vigilant Guardian Exercise. [4] VG was also in full swing on 9/11, so it seems they were allied at the time, officially or otherwise. Gaffney also found that the exercise's being conducted at that time really is an unusual coincidence:
"In previous years the military always staged Global Guardian in October or November; and the 2001 exercise was likewise originally scheduled for October, according to various reports. Curiously, however, for reasons never disclosed, the Joint Chiefs changed the plan and conducted the 2001 exercise during the week of September 11. The following year the date reverted back. The 2002 Global Guardian came off in October, as in previous years, and this has continued to be the case." [5]
Total Coincidences?
CCR: "The Federal Advisory Committee (whose chairman is retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft) is aboard one of these Doomsday planes, being brought to Offutt to observe the exercise. [...] a small group of business leaders are at Offutt Air Force Base for a charity fundraiser event due to take place there later in the day, hosted by the multi-billionaire Warren Buffett. When the attacks begin, these visitors are having breakfast with Admiral Mies, the director of Global Guardian. After the second WTC tower is hit, Mies excuses himself from the group, presumably to assist in canceling the exercise." [7] Later in the afternoon, President Bush and Air Force One landed at Offutt "as a security precaution." It was his second landing since leaving Florida, and he convened a teleconference with the National Security Council from there. [7]
Sources:
[1], [6] Center for Cooperative Research. “Before 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001: Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, is Directing Global Guardian Training Exercise.” http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a900offutt
[2] "Between 1981 and 1989: Officials Airborne in Doomsday Plane." http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a81doomsdayplanes#a81doomsdayplanes
[3], [5] Gaffney, Mark H. "The 911 Mystery Plane - First in a Series." Rense.com. 4-5-7 http://www.rense.com/general76/missing.htm
[4] Global Security: Vigilant Guardian. http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vigilant-guardian.htm
[7] "Bush Reacts to Attacks, Moves to Nebraska." By Mike Allen. Washington Post. Tuesday, September 11, 2001; 4:36 p.m http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/articles/bush091101.htm
Monday, June 18, 2007
FAILED AIR DEFENSE {masterlist}
AN AERIAL BALLET OF PERFECTLY SYNCHRONIZED FAILURES (updated 2/5/07)
“Is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of a screw-up?”
- Larry Arnold, NORAD Commander, upon hearing of the first hijack
“That was news to me. I thought we were still chasing American 11.”
- F-15 pilot “Duff” on hearing a second plane had hit the WTC
“Holy smoke, that’s why we’re here.”
- F-16 pilot “Lou” upon seeing smoke from the Pentagon
This post is to organize and link together all the related sub-posts on the ridiculously inadequate air defense during the 9/11 attack. The air-based wargames, which are referred to often in these posts, are covered seperately in the wargames masterlist. People still argue about whether our fighter defenses could have done anything if they had been better integrated. The answer depends on the presumptions one makes, but basically the answer is yes - there were procedures to defend the nation from roughly the 9/11 threat of suicide hijackings, but they have been magnified, obscured, and muddled by both sides in the post-9/11 debate. And they seem to have not been followed that morning.
This is a chart I made of the timeline of the attack and overall air defense during it - click the image to get a full-size, readable view (can also be saved and printed, 8.5 x 11").
> Status of air terror readiness as of 9/11: Could it be this bad on accident?
- Payne Stewart and Standard procedure: We had standard procedures for intercepting stray planes
- Rumors of a Stand-Down: Unprepared or Stood Down? (neither - this dichotomy is a false one).
- Muzzling the Defense: Rumsfeld's recent changes to fighter scramble procedures - ultimately a red herring?
- Warnings ignored?
- Fighter deployments decided on to defend the known primary zone of terrorism threats: notably inadequate.
- Commercial pilots' right to bear arms in the air rescinded in 2001? Post in the works...
> A Hobbled Defense in Action on 9/11
- Federal Attack Assistance? {masterlist}: The FAA's role in "dropping the ball" on 9/11, in several sub-posts: Sliney, the phantom Flight 11, the mistaken memo, etc...
- Phantom flights/radar inserts
- Radar blind spots
- Otis and Langley: Scrambling against the clock
- Heading and Speed: slowly away from the attacks
- Information shared with the defending fighter pilots: RIDICULOUSLY inadequate
> Permission to use deadly force to protect America: Negligently (?) denied
- No Such order recieved by the five defending pilots.
- Bush at Booker: Isolated accidents require no defensive orders, and Bush insisted on pretending it was an isolated accident until the last possible minute - and then still refused to issue the order for at least another hour. By the official story.
- Cheney and the Shoot-Down Order
“Is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of a screw-up?”
- Larry Arnold, NORAD Commander, upon hearing of the first hijack
“That was news to me. I thought we were still chasing American 11.”
- F-15 pilot “Duff” on hearing a second plane had hit the WTC
“Holy smoke, that’s why we’re here.”
- F-16 pilot “Lou” upon seeing smoke from the Pentagon
This post is to organize and link together all the related sub-posts on the ridiculously inadequate air defense during the 9/11 attack. The air-based wargames, which are referred to often in these posts, are covered seperately in the wargames masterlist. People still argue about whether our fighter defenses could have done anything if they had been better integrated. The answer depends on the presumptions one makes, but basically the answer is yes - there were procedures to defend the nation from roughly the 9/11 threat of suicide hijackings, but they have been magnified, obscured, and muddled by both sides in the post-9/11 debate. And they seem to have not been followed that morning.
This is a chart I made of the timeline of the attack and overall air defense during it - click the image to get a full-size, readable view (can also be saved and printed, 8.5 x 11").
> Status of air terror readiness as of 9/11: Could it be this bad on accident?
- Payne Stewart and Standard procedure: We had standard procedures for intercepting stray planes
- Rumors of a Stand-Down: Unprepared or Stood Down? (neither - this dichotomy is a false one).
- Muzzling the Defense: Rumsfeld's recent changes to fighter scramble procedures - ultimately a red herring?
- Warnings ignored?
- Fighter deployments decided on to defend the known primary zone of terrorism threats: notably inadequate.
- Commercial pilots' right to bear arms in the air rescinded in 2001? Post in the works...
> A Hobbled Defense in Action on 9/11
- Federal Attack Assistance? {masterlist}: The FAA's role in "dropping the ball" on 9/11, in several sub-posts: Sliney, the phantom Flight 11, the mistaken memo, etc...
- Phantom flights/radar inserts
- Radar blind spots
- Otis and Langley: Scrambling against the clock
- Heading and Speed: slowly away from the attacks
- Information shared with the defending fighter pilots: RIDICULOUSLY inadequate
> Permission to use deadly force to protect America: Negligently (?) denied
- No Such order recieved by the five defending pilots.
- Bush at Booker: Isolated accidents require no defensive orders, and Bush insisted on pretending it was an isolated accident until the last possible minute - and then still refused to issue the order for at least another hour. By the official story.
- Cheney and the Shoot-Down Order
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
PRE-9/11 PENTAGON PREPAREDNESS
OF FORESIGHT AND ANCHOR CHAINS
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud, January 23 2007
reposted 4/23/07
Although most Pentagon workers in the area hit on 9/11 were still sitting at their desks doing their usual work as Flight 77 came crashing through their office doors, there were well-established and practiced procedures for “exactly” such an event. The Washington Post reported shortly after 9/11 the account of a Pentagon medic who was sitting and reading the just-printed emergency response manual for what to do in case the building was struck by a civilian airliner at the precise moment that happened. [1] But unfortunately these procedures don’t seem to have helped much, given no radar track of the incoming plane, no warning, and thus no time given to implement any such measures.
Among the emergency drills they’d held was one in October 2000, less than a year prior as part of what the Military District of Washington News Service called at the time "several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room." Author Dennis Ryan provided photographs as well for one of the scenarios, the "Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise" (MASCAL) the mock passenger plane crashed into the mock Pentagon courtyard appears to be a big one but probably not a 757 as Loose Change claims. One participant explained as far-fetched as the MASCAL scenario may have seemed, “you have to plan for this. Look at all the air traffic around here.” [2] Navy Capt. Charles Burlingame was allegedly part of this drill, though the charge is unsubstantiated. If you don't know the significance of that already, check this post.
Whether the MASCAL crash was supposed to be an accident or an attack didn't seem to matter - it was all about the aftermath. But in the next noteworthy drill conducted eight months later, the preparations were getting more specifically 9/11-related. As US Medicine magazine, "the voice of Federal medicine," reported in October 2001:
"Though the Department of Defense had no capability in place to protect the Pentagon from an ersatz guided missile in the form of a hijacked 757 airliner, DoD medical personnel trained for exactly that scenario in May. In fact, the tri-Service DiLorenzo Health Care Clinic and the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic here in the Pentagon trained jointly in May to fine-tune their emergency preparedness, afterward making simple equipment changes that would make a difference Sept. 11 when the hypothetical became reality." [3]
This is amazing; according to this article, they were looking at a hijacked 757 strike four months before that happened on 9/11, preparations that "made a difference." Of course the best difference would have been to simply evacuate the building well before the plane arrived (35 minutes after it became clear the nation was under attack), or to have worked out air defense plans, perhaps with NORAD, to stop any such weaponized aircraft short of the building.
A possible third drill may have been planned to that end in conjunction with a proposed mid-2001 NORAD exercise simulating suicide hijacking attacks. USA Today famously reported on April 18, 2004 that "in the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, [NORAD] conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." While nearly all of these focused on threats coming from across the Atlantic, they had the 9/11 targets in mind. earlier drills had focused on such an attack against the WTC, in this case “the target was the Pentagon – but that drill was not run after defense officials said it was unrealistic.” [4] The original source for this is an e-mail from a former NORAD official obtained by the Project On Government Oversight, which explained that NORAD "wanted to develop a response in the event that a terrorist group would use an airliner as a missile to attack the Pentagon, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected the scenario as "too unrealistic." [5] This was in April 2001 POGO reports, a month before they prepared for defense against an unobstructed hijacked plane/missile hitting their building, and five months before 9/11, when they had no capabilities in place "to protect the Pentagon," but at least they had the aftermath covered well enough.
Buth even with just the two drills plus whatever else went in to the process, the Pentagon's bureaucracy had just enough time to get the emergency procedures ironed out and printed before the precise "unrealistic" scenario envisioned four months earlier came crushingly true. But there was apparently not enough time to fully integrate the plan with things like useful warning procedures - a tragically stalled process that would help illustrate Rumsfeld's charges that pre-9/11, the Pentagon was "tangled in its own anchor chain." How conveniently illustrative of his and his colleagues' known desire for a 21st Century "process of transformation" there.
Sources:
[1] Oil Empire. http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html
[2] Ryan, Dennis. "Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies." Military District of Washington News Service. November 3 2000. Accessed at: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/ContPlan.html
[3] Mientka, Matt. Pentagon Medics Trained For Strike. US Medicine. October 2001. http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=272&issueID=31
[4] as passed on by US Rep. Jan Schakowski: http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/press2004a/pr4_20_2004mis.html
Also at 9-11 Research: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/post911/commission/usatoday_noradx.htm
and the original still up at USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm
[5] Project on Government Oversight. "Joint Chiefs of Staff Rejected "Airplanes as Missiles" Scenario Five Months prior to 9/11." April 13 2004. http://www.pogo.org/p/homeland/ha-040401-homelandsecurity.html
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud, January 23 2007
reposted 4/23/07
Although most Pentagon workers in the area hit on 9/11 were still sitting at their desks doing their usual work as Flight 77 came crashing through their office doors, there were well-established and practiced procedures for “exactly” such an event. The Washington Post reported shortly after 9/11 the account of a Pentagon medic who was sitting and reading the just-printed emergency response manual for what to do in case the building was struck by a civilian airliner at the precise moment that happened. [1] But unfortunately these procedures don’t seem to have helped much, given no radar track of the incoming plane, no warning, and thus no time given to implement any such measures.
 |
Whether the MASCAL crash was supposed to be an accident or an attack didn't seem to matter - it was all about the aftermath. But in the next noteworthy drill conducted eight months later, the preparations were getting more specifically 9/11-related. As US Medicine magazine, "the voice of Federal medicine," reported in October 2001:
"Though the Department of Defense had no capability in place to protect the Pentagon from an ersatz guided missile in the form of a hijacked 757 airliner, DoD medical personnel trained for exactly that scenario in May. In fact, the tri-Service DiLorenzo Health Care Clinic and the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic here in the Pentagon trained jointly in May to fine-tune their emergency preparedness, afterward making simple equipment changes that would make a difference Sept. 11 when the hypothetical became reality." [3]
This is amazing; according to this article, they were looking at a hijacked 757 strike four months before that happened on 9/11, preparations that "made a difference." Of course the best difference would have been to simply evacuate the building well before the plane arrived (35 minutes after it became clear the nation was under attack), or to have worked out air defense plans, perhaps with NORAD, to stop any such weaponized aircraft short of the building.
A possible third drill may have been planned to that end in conjunction with a proposed mid-2001 NORAD exercise simulating suicide hijacking attacks. USA Today famously reported on April 18, 2004 that "in the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, [NORAD] conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." While nearly all of these focused on threats coming from across the Atlantic, they had the 9/11 targets in mind. earlier drills had focused on such an attack against the WTC, in this case “the target was the Pentagon – but that drill was not run after defense officials said it was unrealistic.” [4] The original source for this is an e-mail from a former NORAD official obtained by the Project On Government Oversight, which explained that NORAD "wanted to develop a response in the event that a terrorist group would use an airliner as a missile to attack the Pentagon, but the Joint Chiefs of Staff rejected the scenario as "too unrealistic." [5] This was in April 2001 POGO reports, a month before they prepared for defense against an unobstructed hijacked plane/missile hitting their building, and five months before 9/11, when they had no capabilities in place "to protect the Pentagon," but at least they had the aftermath covered well enough.
Buth even with just the two drills plus whatever else went in to the process, the Pentagon's bureaucracy had just enough time to get the emergency procedures ironed out and printed before the precise "unrealistic" scenario envisioned four months earlier came crushingly true. But there was apparently not enough time to fully integrate the plan with things like useful warning procedures - a tragically stalled process that would help illustrate Rumsfeld's charges that pre-9/11, the Pentagon was "tangled in its own anchor chain." How conveniently illustrative of his and his colleagues' known desire for a 21st Century "process of transformation" there.
Sources:
[1] Oil Empire. http://www.oilempire.us/wargames.html
[2] Ryan, Dennis. "Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies." Military District of Washington News Service. November 3 2000. Accessed at: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/ContPlan.html
[3] Mientka, Matt. Pentagon Medics Trained For Strike. US Medicine. October 2001. http://www.usmedicine.com/article.cfm?articleID=272&issueID=31
[4] as passed on by US Rep. Jan Schakowski: http://www.house.gov/schakowsky/press2004a/pr4_20_2004mis.html
Also at 9-11 Research: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/post911/commission/usatoday_noradx.htm
and the original still up at USA Today: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm
[5] Project on Government Oversight. "Joint Chiefs of Staff Rejected "Airplanes as Missiles" Scenario Five Months prior to 9/11." April 13 2004. http://www.pogo.org/p/homeland/ha-040401-homelandsecurity.html
Tuesday, June 5, 2007
THE HIJACKERS {masterlist}
This post is to link and organize all the posts dealing with the 9/11 hijackers. This does not claim to be a complete or comprehensive list by any means, just a few things I found in my research. Most of the research is a little old, and I'm less-versed in recent developments, but some observations herein are worthy of note. But really for me this is an afterthought - no matter where the attackers came from and how they really attacked, it was the US government and military that were tasked with defending America - and they failed with curious precision.
[click picture to enlarge - open in a new window to match names to faces as you read other posts]
> Identity: who are they and where did they come from?
- The Miracle Passports: Implausibly Tying the Attackers Directly to the Scene of the Crime
- The Three Abdul Almoaris: The cases of confused identity regarding the alleged hijackers are many and well-covered elsewhere. Here I'll cover one telling case I haven't seen anyone else take on. Not that I've really looked. I'd rather keep my illusion of a "hot exclusive story:"
- Strategy and Tactics: The Five Hijackers Trained by the US military?
> Immunity: how did they get here and how did they avoid arrest?
- The Hijacker Express Lane: How'd they get in the country? Through the wide open side door.
- The Buried Reports
- Mission Improbable: Violations of Operational Security that "miraculously" didn't unravel the plot.
- Atta Boy: The Man We Love to Hate and all his glorious idiocy
Applying for a USDA loan to finance the attack
> The Terrorland Connection: Florida and 9/11
- Terrorland I: Daniel Hopsicker reveals a Floida Perfect Bush Circle
- Terrorland II: The Dutchmen Come to Town/Government Work?
- Terrorland III: Learning to Fly
- Terrorland IV: The Dutch Boys Become an Embarrassment
- Terrorland V: Map of coincidence: Fly the Friendly Skies of Terrorland
> No Hijackers
- If not a sucide pilot, what else could have been flying the airplane missiles of 9/11? There's at least one possibility that is "remote" but plausible.
- The Evidence: the audio record is the only serious obstacle
- Ulterior Motives: De-blaming Arabs, blaming Jews, etc.
- The Dangers: Why the no-hijacker theory could be another baited honeytrap
[click picture to enlarge - open in a new window to match names to faces as you read other posts]> Identity: who are they and where did they come from?
- The Miracle Passports: Implausibly Tying the Attackers Directly to the Scene of the Crime
- The Three Abdul Almoaris: The cases of confused identity regarding the alleged hijackers are many and well-covered elsewhere. Here I'll cover one telling case I haven't seen anyone else take on. Not that I've really looked. I'd rather keep my illusion of a "hot exclusive story:"
- Strategy and Tactics: The Five Hijackers Trained by the US military?
> Immunity: how did they get here and how did they avoid arrest?
- The Hijacker Express Lane: How'd they get in the country? Through the wide open side door.
- The Buried Reports
- Mission Improbable: Violations of Operational Security that "miraculously" didn't unravel the plot.
- Atta Boy: The Man We Love to Hate and all his glorious idiocy
Applying for a USDA loan to finance the attack
> The Terrorland Connection: Florida and 9/11
- Terrorland I: Daniel Hopsicker reveals a Floida Perfect Bush Circle
- Terrorland II: The Dutchmen Come to Town/Government Work?
- Terrorland III: Learning to Fly
- Terrorland IV: The Dutch Boys Become an Embarrassment
- Terrorland V: Map of coincidence: Fly the Friendly Skies of Terrorland
> No Hijackers
- If not a sucide pilot, what else could have been flying the airplane missiles of 9/11? There's at least one possibility that is "remote" but plausible.
- The Evidence: the audio record is the only serious obstacle
- Ulterior Motives: De-blaming Arabs, blaming Jews, etc.
- The Dangers: Why the no-hijacker theory could be another baited honeytrap
THE BOJINKA COVER STORY {masterlist}
This is to link the few posts that will collectively explain a disturbing possibility that the US government essentially scripted out the 9/11 attacks nearly seven years before, planted the idea into the early body of knowledge about the terrorists later to be called al Qaeda, and then reported as a precedent once a similar attack was carried out on 9/11. The plan was again recycled, this time exactly, as the London terror threat of 2006 that banned all liquids from flights after fears of a ten-plane attack using liquid bombs - precisely the idea behind the original "Operation Bojinka," uncovered in early 1995.
Admittedly, this is a bit off the Let it Happen tangent of the blog here as a whole, integrating best with a MIHOP interpretation. But I'm not sure where else to put it, and I'm already covering the hijackers here, so here it goes.
Bojinka intro: From the "cover story" chapter IV of my book "Scenario 12-E: The Philosophy, the Technology, and the Cover Story Behind Shadow 9/11."
----
The Perfect Story
Now we have clarified that at the flip of a few switches, it would be technically possible for otherwise ordinary commercial flights to be turned into flying tombs, sealed off from the outside world and locked into their final flight plan by people who would be sitting safely somewhere else, perhaps sipping lukewarm coffee. But what would the eyewitnesses say?
What was needed was the tactic, the fingerprint, to mask the operation and steer the blame in the desired direction. The cover story was already well-developed in advance, not by a government agency or think-tank, but by the natural flow of world events (or at least by some collaborative effort between the two). And the direction of the blame was towards Eurasia and the one enemy in particular who was safely camping out in the heart of that central continent – Afghanistan.
To all eyewitness accounts, Shadow 9/11 would appear like a bin Laden attack, fitting with preconceptions. Ah, the preconceptions… The writers of that Lone Gunmen pilot, as they scratched it out in 2000, had to wonder “if I were a right-wing-faction-type, and I wanted to convince people we’d been attacked by a “tin pot dictator” how would I do it?” When we disregard the PC bias on TV that filters out racial references, it’s pretty clear this would be an Arab dictator, probably bin Laden, maybe supported by Saddam Hussein. What did these sci-fi writers decide? Apparently the same thing the planners of Shadow 9/11 decided.
The cover stories for both Scenario 12-D and for Shadow 9/11 may have been lifted straight from al Qaeda’s famous Operation Bojinka, an early airliner-centered terrorist plot discovered in the former U.S. colony of the Philippines in early 1995. In an interview after the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed claimed that the 9-11 attacks he allegedly financed were a revived and streamlined version of this six year old plot. Like no other single story, this one looks like the taproot of September 11’s infamous tactic. But the exact degree of foresight, what was known by whom, is a matter of great contention, and the factual record is left fragmented. There are weird forces at work here.
- Bojinka I:Phase One: A Loud Bang in Manila Ramzi Yousef, a chance explosion, a pope spared, and the origins of the plot in the Philippines, early 1995.
- Bojinka II:Phase Two: The Evolution How Bojinks DIDN'T lead to a prediction of the 9/11 tactic - simultaneous suicide hijackings - even though it clearly should have.
- Bojinka III:Before Bojinka: Corder, the GIA, and Cetron’s Scenario The Pentagon report that laid out the Bojinka threat just days before it was discovered in terrorist minds.
- Bojinka IV:A Real and Repeated Threat Before 9/11, suicide hijackings were actually real and didn't need to be imagined. The only thing different about 9/11 is this one wasn't stopped.
- Bojinka V: Florida 2001: Bojinka Becomes 9/11?
- Bojinka VI: Brzezinski's Bombshell/What Was Left Out: A prominent article on bojinka by Zbigniew Brzezinski's nephew, and the general deletion or minimization of the suicide airliner hijacking element.
- Bojinka VII: Professed Ignorance, Maintaining the Focus "I don't think anyone could have predicted..."
- Bojinka VIII: Operation Brzezinski? the Brzezinski article and the word "Bojinka" get me thinking to a bizarre and probably useless observation that still gives me a chill and I thought it worth sharing. (coming soon)
--------- -----------
Admittedly, this is a bit off the Let it Happen tangent of the blog here as a whole, integrating best with a MIHOP interpretation. But I'm not sure where else to put it, and I'm already covering the hijackers here, so here it goes.
Bojinka intro: From the "cover story" chapter IV of my book "Scenario 12-E: The Philosophy, the Technology, and the Cover Story Behind Shadow 9/11."
 |
----
The Perfect Story
Now we have clarified that at the flip of a few switches, it would be technically possible for otherwise ordinary commercial flights to be turned into flying tombs, sealed off from the outside world and locked into their final flight plan by people who would be sitting safely somewhere else, perhaps sipping lukewarm coffee. But what would the eyewitnesses say?
What was needed was the tactic, the fingerprint, to mask the operation and steer the blame in the desired direction. The cover story was already well-developed in advance, not by a government agency or think-tank, but by the natural flow of world events (or at least by some collaborative effort between the two). And the direction of the blame was towards Eurasia and the one enemy in particular who was safely camping out in the heart of that central continent – Afghanistan.
To all eyewitness accounts, Shadow 9/11 would appear like a bin Laden attack, fitting with preconceptions. Ah, the preconceptions… The writers of that Lone Gunmen pilot, as they scratched it out in 2000, had to wonder “if I were a right-wing-faction-type, and I wanted to convince people we’d been attacked by a “tin pot dictator” how would I do it?” When we disregard the PC bias on TV that filters out racial references, it’s pretty clear this would be an Arab dictator, probably bin Laden, maybe supported by Saddam Hussein. What did these sci-fi writers decide? Apparently the same thing the planners of Shadow 9/11 decided.
The cover stories for both Scenario 12-D and for Shadow 9/11 may have been lifted straight from al Qaeda’s famous Operation Bojinka, an early airliner-centered terrorist plot discovered in the former U.S. colony of the Philippines in early 1995. In an interview after the attacks, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed claimed that the 9-11 attacks he allegedly financed were a revived and streamlined version of this six year old plot. Like no other single story, this one looks like the taproot of September 11’s infamous tactic. But the exact degree of foresight, what was known by whom, is a matter of great contention, and the factual record is left fragmented. There are weird forces at work here.
- Bojinka I:Phase One: A Loud Bang in Manila Ramzi Yousef, a chance explosion, a pope spared, and the origins of the plot in the Philippines, early 1995.
- Bojinka II:Phase Two: The Evolution How Bojinks DIDN'T lead to a prediction of the 9/11 tactic - simultaneous suicide hijackings - even though it clearly should have.
- Bojinka III:Before Bojinka: Corder, the GIA, and Cetron’s Scenario The Pentagon report that laid out the Bojinka threat just days before it was discovered in terrorist minds.
- Bojinka IV:A Real and Repeated Threat Before 9/11, suicide hijackings were actually real and didn't need to be imagined. The only thing different about 9/11 is this one wasn't stopped.
- Bojinka V: Florida 2001: Bojinka Becomes 9/11?
- Bojinka VI: Brzezinski's Bombshell/What Was Left Out: A prominent article on bojinka by Zbigniew Brzezinski's nephew, and the general deletion or minimization of the suicide airliner hijacking element.
- Bojinka VII: Professed Ignorance, Maintaining the Focus "I don't think anyone could have predicted..."
- Bojinka VIII: Operation Brzezinski? the Brzezinski article and the word "Bojinka" get me thinking to a bizarre and probably useless observation that still gives me a chill and I thought it worth sharing. (coming soon)
--------- -----------
Friday, May 18, 2007
LICENSE TO KILL: DENIED
On September 11, two F-15s were sent from Otis AFB in Massachusetts to protect Manhattan from further hijacking attacks. They weren’t scrambled until 8:52, six minutes after the first impact, and didn’t arrive at the scene until 9:25, 23 minutes after the second impact, and they reportedly didn't learn of any impact at all until they got there after the NY leg of the attack was complete. One of the pilots, code-named “Nasty,” lamented to the BBC “for a long time I wondered what would’ve happened if we’d, uh… been scrambled in time.” [1]
I would like to invite you to wonder along with him; imagine for a moment that the two Otis fighters had been scrambled “in time,” sent in the right direction, and flew full-blower. Imagine them arriving in Manhattan at, say, 8:54, just after the first plane had hit the WTC. They would be circling nervously in their F-15s, seeing United 175 coming in fast and low. Imagine the fighters rushing out to intercept it, ready to scatter the airliner over some farmer’s field before it scattered itself against and into the South Tower. Imagine them on the scene, ready to act and deal with the nightmares later, and prevent the second catastrophic collision and alleged jet-fuel-induced collapse that killed so many.
Now imagine they were left without legal authority to fire; imagine them asking and asking again as the hijacked airliner came into view “permission to engage?” and receiving the reply “do not engage.” We’d like to think they would pull the trigger anyway, and “take lives in the air in order to preserve lives on the ground,” the standard response in such an un-standard case. But it’s also possible they may have done their job and follow orders, even though the protocols mandated that they watch powerlessly as United 175 passed them by and slammed explosively into the South Tower. That would not look good for the government.
In fact, that would have been the situation if the pilots had been scrambled sooner. Every source agrees on this point; the fighter pilots sent to defend the skies were never instructed (and thus never allowed) to fire on airliners until long after all the targets had crashed. In fact, this itself may be the best clue in understanding the botched reaction up to that point. If not for the unlikely string of synchronized failures that kept all fighters well away from the hijacked planes, the lack of authorization would have been absolutely crucial and a political liability to say the least.
The Langley pilots did receive a vague order at 9:55 from the Secret Service to protect the white House. Recollections vary: “I want you to protect the White House” - ”The White House [is] an important asset to protect” - “Be aware of where it is… it could be a target.” [2] This was not taken by the pilots as a clear shoot-down order, signed off on by the proper authorities. Fifteen minutes later, in fact, the pilots were told they had “negative clearance to shoot.” [3] Jere Longman concluded that after patrolling Washington for hours “both Honey and Lou said that no one had given them any orders to shoot down a commercial airliner.” [4]
New York flight control mentioned to Otis pilot Nasty “if we have another hijacked aircraft we’re going to have to shoot it down.” He knew this was conversational and “not connected to the chain of command.” [5] “Only the President could make that decision,” Nasty explained to the Cape Cod Times, “and he was indisposed at a public event,” referring to his now-famous reading exercise at a Florida elementary school. [6]
Sources:
[1] “Clear the Skies.” BBC Video. 2002.
[2] 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 436.
[3]See [2]. Page 453.
[4] Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew who Fought Back. New York. Harper Collins. 2002. Page 222
[5] See [2]. Page 440.
[6] Dennehy, Kevin. “'I Thought It Was the Start of World War III'” The Cape Cod Times. August 21, 2002. Accessed November 13, 2004 at: http://www.poconorecord.com/report/911-2002/000232.htm.
I would like to invite you to wonder along with him; imagine for a moment that the two Otis fighters had been scrambled “in time,” sent in the right direction, and flew full-blower. Imagine them arriving in Manhattan at, say, 8:54, just after the first plane had hit the WTC. They would be circling nervously in their F-15s, seeing United 175 coming in fast and low. Imagine the fighters rushing out to intercept it, ready to scatter the airliner over some farmer’s field before it scattered itself against and into the South Tower. Imagine them on the scene, ready to act and deal with the nightmares later, and prevent the second catastrophic collision and alleged jet-fuel-induced collapse that killed so many.
Now imagine they were left without legal authority to fire; imagine them asking and asking again as the hijacked airliner came into view “permission to engage?” and receiving the reply “do not engage.” We’d like to think they would pull the trigger anyway, and “take lives in the air in order to preserve lives on the ground,” the standard response in such an un-standard case. But it’s also possible they may have done their job and follow orders, even though the protocols mandated that they watch powerlessly as United 175 passed them by and slammed explosively into the South Tower. That would not look good for the government.
In fact, that would have been the situation if the pilots had been scrambled sooner. Every source agrees on this point; the fighter pilots sent to defend the skies were never instructed (and thus never allowed) to fire on airliners until long after all the targets had crashed. In fact, this itself may be the best clue in understanding the botched reaction up to that point. If not for the unlikely string of synchronized failures that kept all fighters well away from the hijacked planes, the lack of authorization would have been absolutely crucial and a political liability to say the least.
The Langley pilots did receive a vague order at 9:55 from the Secret Service to protect the white House. Recollections vary: “I want you to protect the White House” - ”The White House [is] an important asset to protect” - “Be aware of where it is… it could be a target.” [2] This was not taken by the pilots as a clear shoot-down order, signed off on by the proper authorities. Fifteen minutes later, in fact, the pilots were told they had “negative clearance to shoot.” [3] Jere Longman concluded that after patrolling Washington for hours “both Honey and Lou said that no one had given them any orders to shoot down a commercial airliner.” [4]
New York flight control mentioned to Otis pilot Nasty “if we have another hijacked aircraft we’re going to have to shoot it down.” He knew this was conversational and “not connected to the chain of command.” [5] “Only the President could make that decision,” Nasty explained to the Cape Cod Times, “and he was indisposed at a public event,” referring to his now-famous reading exercise at a Florida elementary school. [6]
Sources:
[1] “Clear the Skies.” BBC Video. 2002.
[2] 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 436.
[3]See [2]. Page 453.
[4] Longman, Jere. Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew who Fought Back. New York. Harper Collins. 2002. Page 222
[5] See [2]. Page 440.
[6] Dennehy, Kevin. “'I Thought It Was the Start of World War III'” The Cape Cod Times. August 21, 2002. Accessed November 13, 2004 at: http://www.poconorecord.com/report/911-2002/000232.htm.
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
LIHOP vs. MIHOP {and MIHOP masterlist}
LIHOP vs. MIHOP: to the uninitiated, it looks like a discussion about where to eat pancakes, but is really one of the long-running debates among those who reject the official story of 9/11 – did they Let it Happen on Purpose or Make It Happen on Purpose? Originally I saw that the military’s defenses failed with curious precision and let the attack happen. Bolstered by the immediate and brazen capitalization on the tragedy, this was my first and most lasting impression. But later I came to see the merits of a MIHOP explanation, the basic idea of which is if you want it done right, do it yourself. The former I came to call the "New Day of Deceit" construct, the latter became "Shadow 9/11."
Quickly enough I decided both were more likely than the official story, both meant we were in deep trouble and people needed to be alerted, and both share the common thread "On Purpose." So I set to defining and exposing that purpose but found the sheer volume of possible ulterior motives made such a cataloguing a daunting task. It’a also redundant; everyone has seen from minute one how this was America’s New Pearl Harbor, our own finest hour emerging from the darkest, and clearly Bush’s defining moment, his only claim to mass public loyalty.
So seeing that purpose was clearly established, I returned to the method: Allowed or Orchestrated? The name of this page may indicate a LIHOP leaning, and that is indeed where the evidence herein points. But in fact I’m a LIHOP/MIHOP fence-sitter; and it must be noted that their Letting It Happen doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility of their also Making It Happen. LIHOP in fact is a necessary sub-set of a mechanically engineered inside job; it would do no good to make it happen if you then let normal defense protocols stop the plot in mid-flight. So either way, unless I’m wrong and it was just an unprovoked surprise attack that accidentally benefited them so, they had to have purposefully Let It Happen. If you don’t believe me, read at least three posts from this site and then reconsider.
It’s nigh impossible to prove that defenses were scuttled on purpose. So far as I know there is not even one charge from anyone in the defense system claiming an outright military stand-down.But to strongly indicate a purposefully thrown defense is not too hard at all. In many cases, all one need do is read a few lines of the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report and make the connections they were unwilling to. Others take deeper research, and a little imagination run by factual and common sense checks goes a long way.
The reason people have so gravitated to MIHOP theories is the possibility of finding hard proof of such. Slow fighter scrambles and inadequate deployments don’t necessarily prove anything, but if we could verify that a missile hit the Pentagon, or that the WTC attack planes were drones fitted with missile-firing pods, we’re clearly looking at someone closer to home than foreign terrorists. But the main problem with such evidence is it either doesn’t exist or is impossible to verify in the sea of fakes, which I regularly take on over at The Frustrating Fraud.
So, for evidence of a LIHOP scenario, either stand-alone or as a subset of a MIHOP operation, read anything on the site. As for the good arguments for a MIHOP explanation – which almost by definition are unprovable – there are some I felt worth covering on this and my other pages.
On the Mechanics of Shadow 9/11:
- A Plane IS a missile: On Raytheon’s August 2001 perfection of a new remote piloting system for airliners.
- Vialls, Von Buelow, Home Run: A Questionable, self-referrential tag-team bring us an intriguing but unprovable charge: a secret airliner remote control system in place since the 1970s.
- Flight 93 and the audio record: the prime stumbling block of the no-hijacker remote-control theory.
- A remote control airliner as a tool in an inside job worked its way into a pre-9/11 TV program – flown into the WTC BY the Pentagon, no less.Scenario 12-D: Another X-File
- Getting the drones in the air? The War Games of 9/11 {masterlist}
- Northwoods 2001?: The curious revelation of Northwoods decades later and just months before 9/11 and the Acting JCS Chairman caught in the thick of conspiracy theory crossfire.
Questioning the Official Perps:
- The Hijackers {masterlist}: a partial compilation of the problems with the official perpetrators, lending weight to the possibility that they were not as reported and possibly not even on the planes.
- A Fabricated threat? Bojinka {masterlist]: The 9/11 tactic was the telltale sign, leading back to Operation Bojinka, a plot found in an ‘al Qaeda’ brain in the Philippines in the first days of 1995. Just a few days earlier the same threat was written up by a Pentagon adviser and then deleted until after 9/11. Is this the cover story to mask Shadow 9/11 and direct blame to the Arabs?
- Threats of war and other such provocations in Afghanistan in the months before 9/11. Did this play any role in the long-planned attack? If so does this transform LIHOP to MIHOP?
Quickly enough I decided both were more likely than the official story, both meant we were in deep trouble and people needed to be alerted, and both share the common thread "On Purpose." So I set to defining and exposing that purpose but found the sheer volume of possible ulterior motives made such a cataloguing a daunting task. It’a also redundant; everyone has seen from minute one how this was America’s New Pearl Harbor, our own finest hour emerging from the darkest, and clearly Bush’s defining moment, his only claim to mass public loyalty.
So seeing that purpose was clearly established, I returned to the method: Allowed or Orchestrated? The name of this page may indicate a LIHOP leaning, and that is indeed where the evidence herein points. But in fact I’m a LIHOP/MIHOP fence-sitter; and it must be noted that their Letting It Happen doesn’t necessarily exclude the possibility of their also Making It Happen. LIHOP in fact is a necessary sub-set of a mechanically engineered inside job; it would do no good to make it happen if you then let normal defense protocols stop the plot in mid-flight. So either way, unless I’m wrong and it was just an unprovoked surprise attack that accidentally benefited them so, they had to have purposefully Let It Happen. If you don’t believe me, read at least three posts from this site and then reconsider.
It’s nigh impossible to prove that defenses were scuttled on purpose. So far as I know there is not even one charge from anyone in the defense system claiming an outright military stand-down.But to strongly indicate a purposefully thrown defense is not too hard at all. In many cases, all one need do is read a few lines of the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report and make the connections they were unwilling to. Others take deeper research, and a little imagination run by factual and common sense checks goes a long way.
The reason people have so gravitated to MIHOP theories is the possibility of finding hard proof of such. Slow fighter scrambles and inadequate deployments don’t necessarily prove anything, but if we could verify that a missile hit the Pentagon, or that the WTC attack planes were drones fitted with missile-firing pods, we’re clearly looking at someone closer to home than foreign terrorists. But the main problem with such evidence is it either doesn’t exist or is impossible to verify in the sea of fakes, which I regularly take on over at The Frustrating Fraud.
So, for evidence of a LIHOP scenario, either stand-alone or as a subset of a MIHOP operation, read anything on the site. As for the good arguments for a MIHOP explanation – which almost by definition are unprovable – there are some I felt worth covering on this and my other pages.
On the Mechanics of Shadow 9/11:
- A Plane IS a missile: On Raytheon’s August 2001 perfection of a new remote piloting system for airliners.
- Vialls, Von Buelow, Home Run: A Questionable, self-referrential tag-team bring us an intriguing but unprovable charge: a secret airliner remote control system in place since the 1970s.
- Flight 93 and the audio record: the prime stumbling block of the no-hijacker remote-control theory.
- A remote control airliner as a tool in an inside job worked its way into a pre-9/11 TV program – flown into the WTC BY the Pentagon, no less.Scenario 12-D: Another X-File
- Getting the drones in the air? The War Games of 9/11 {masterlist}
- Northwoods 2001?: The curious revelation of Northwoods decades later and just months before 9/11 and the Acting JCS Chairman caught in the thick of conspiracy theory crossfire.
Questioning the Official Perps:
- The Hijackers {masterlist}: a partial compilation of the problems with the official perpetrators, lending weight to the possibility that they were not as reported and possibly not even on the planes.
- A Fabricated threat? Bojinka {masterlist]: The 9/11 tactic was the telltale sign, leading back to Operation Bojinka, a plot found in an ‘al Qaeda’ brain in the Philippines in the first days of 1995. Just a few days earlier the same threat was written up by a Pentagon adviser and then deleted until after 9/11. Is this the cover story to mask Shadow 9/11 and direct blame to the Arabs?
- Threats of war and other such provocations in Afghanistan in the months before 9/11. Did this play any role in the long-planned attack? If so does this transform LIHOP to MIHOP?
Monday, May 7, 2007
BUSH, CHENEY, AND SECRET SERVICE COMMUNICATIONS
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
They Let It Happen
last updated 5/7/07
A year after the attack, CNN retold Vice President Cheney’s version of what happened. Cheney was in his proper office in the West Wing when he heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Unlike everyone else whose reactions I’ve looked at - with the notable exception of counter-terrorism “Czar” Richard Clarke - Cheney had an inkling this may not be a simple accident. “He watched TV and hoped that his instincts were wrong.,” CNN reported. He explained “it was a clear day, there were no weather problems, and then we saw the second airplane hit in real time. At that moment, you knew this was a deliberate act. This was a terrorist act.” [1]
Shortly after this, his Secret Service agent “all of a sudden materialized right beside me and said, 'Sir, we have to leave now.' He grabbed me and propelled me out of my office, down the hall, and into the underground shelter in the White House." [2] So while, as many noted, the Secret Service was allowing the President to linger in the open at the schoolhouse, they were “propelling” Cheney to safety in an underground bunker. While both men were on the East Coast, they seemed to be operating in two different time zones.
This underground shelter was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). From the previously unused but well-equipped PEOC, as CNN explains, the Vice-President “directed the U.S. government's response” to the attack. The actions Cheney took “included moving key members of Congress to a secure location and having the Secret Service bring his wife, Lynn, to the bunker.” [3] Somehow, these radical moves failed to halt the attack.
Cheney’s account actually offers little in the line of useful action, focusing more on talk of raw emotion – agony and impotence and rage – just like the rest of us – after he saw the second plane hit on the TV - just like the rest of us. But Bush talked to Cheney on a regular cell phone instead of a secure phone, which wasn’t working right. Cheney’s information seemed partial and confused. The 9/11 Commission, based on Cheney’s private testimony, decided Cheney suffered major communications problems that hampered a response. [4] CNN described the PEOC’s performance on 9-11 “a day of crisis with some hitches.” For example, “Cheney wanted to track TV reports of the devastation and listen in on communications with the Pentagon.” But, as aide Mary Matalin recalled, “you can have sound on one or the other and he found that technically imperfect.” [5]
But we know he was in the presence of Secret Service agents during the entire crisis, and the evidence indicates their communication abilities were widespread and efficiently used. Cheney seemed to slip on this once, telling Meet the Press, on September 16 “the Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was ...” [6] He cut himself off there and shifted gears. What this means is that after the first plane hit, and we would presume soon after, the Secret Service knew, and were listening in on, at least, the FAA’s communications by about 8:50. The second plane was already confirmed hijacked by FAA and NORAD and headed to New York by this time.
Richard Clarke also testified in his book Against All Enemies that at about 9:40, Brian Stafford, Director of the Secret Service “slipped me a note. “Radar shows aircraft headed this way.’” Clarke explained “Secret Service had a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.” [7] The 9/11 Commission also has backed up direct Secret-Service-FAA communications in their final report. [8] The Secret Service knew all these things and were just a “hey, you!” away from Cheney’s ear and Bush’s.
The communication abilities of the Secret Service also, apparently, extended into the military chain of command, their contacts to the very front lines of the battle. Recall that it was the Secret Service who called the Langley fighter pilots around 9:55 and told them to “protect” the White House (though with no mention of precisely how). [9] They also called Andrews Air Force Base, near the Pentagon, shortly after 9:03 to request fighter jets, which didn’t get any off the ground until 10:42. [10]
So the Secret Service - and thus both Bush and Cheney - were as in the communications loop as they wanted to be. There was two-way access to all information from FAA, regional Air Force bases, and even the actual fighter pilots, and probably also NORAD, NMCC, etc. So why, with access to a bird’s eye view of the situation and universal communications at Cheney’s and the President’s fingertips, wasn’t an adequate defense marshaled? The story that the phones didn’t work well that day, that Cheney couldn’t talk to the Pentagon and get his intelligence briefings from CNN at the same time, etc. does not pan out well. Something else, probably something sinister, had to be behind this curiously long roster of excuses.
[1], [2], [3], [5] “Cheney recalls taking charge from bunker.” CNN. September 12, 2002. Accessed at: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/11/ar911.king.cheney/
[4] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 40.
[6] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 375.
[7] Ruppert, "Crossing the Rubicon." Page 427.
[8] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 41.
[9] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 436.
[10] Thompson and the CCR. Page 458.
They Let It Happen
last updated 5/7/07
A year after the attack, CNN retold Vice President Cheney’s version of what happened. Cheney was in his proper office in the West Wing when he heard that a plane had crashed into the WTC. Unlike everyone else whose reactions I’ve looked at - with the notable exception of counter-terrorism “Czar” Richard Clarke - Cheney had an inkling this may not be a simple accident. “He watched TV and hoped that his instincts were wrong.,” CNN reported. He explained “it was a clear day, there were no weather problems, and then we saw the second airplane hit in real time. At that moment, you knew this was a deliberate act. This was a terrorist act.” [1]
Shortly after this, his Secret Service agent “all of a sudden materialized right beside me and said, 'Sir, we have to leave now.' He grabbed me and propelled me out of my office, down the hall, and into the underground shelter in the White House." [2] So while, as many noted, the Secret Service was allowing the President to linger in the open at the schoolhouse, they were “propelling” Cheney to safety in an underground bunker. While both men were on the East Coast, they seemed to be operating in two different time zones.
This underground shelter was the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). From the previously unused but well-equipped PEOC, as CNN explains, the Vice-President “directed the U.S. government's response” to the attack. The actions Cheney took “included moving key members of Congress to a secure location and having the Secret Service bring his wife, Lynn, to the bunker.” [3] Somehow, these radical moves failed to halt the attack.
 |
But we know he was in the presence of Secret Service agents during the entire crisis, and the evidence indicates their communication abilities were widespread and efficiently used. Cheney seemed to slip on this once, telling Meet the Press, on September 16 “the Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was ...” [6] He cut himself off there and shifted gears. What this means is that after the first plane hit, and we would presume soon after, the Secret Service knew, and were listening in on, at least, the FAA’s communications by about 8:50. The second plane was already confirmed hijacked by FAA and NORAD and headed to New York by this time.
Richard Clarke also testified in his book Against All Enemies that at about 9:40, Brian Stafford, Director of the Secret Service “slipped me a note. “Radar shows aircraft headed this way.’” Clarke explained “Secret Service had a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.” [7] The 9/11 Commission also has backed up direct Secret-Service-FAA communications in their final report. [8] The Secret Service knew all these things and were just a “hey, you!” away from Cheney’s ear and Bush’s.
The communication abilities of the Secret Service also, apparently, extended into the military chain of command, their contacts to the very front lines of the battle. Recall that it was the Secret Service who called the Langley fighter pilots around 9:55 and told them to “protect” the White House (though with no mention of precisely how). [9] They also called Andrews Air Force Base, near the Pentagon, shortly after 9:03 to request fighter jets, which didn’t get any off the ground until 10:42. [10]
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[1], [2], [3], [5] “Cheney recalls taking charge from bunker.” CNN. September 12, 2002. Accessed at: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/ALLPOLITICS/09/11/ar911.king.cheney/
[4] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 40.
[6] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 375.
[7] Ruppert, "Crossing the Rubicon." Page 427.
[8] 9/11 Commission Final Report. Page 41.
[9] Thompson and the CCR. "The Terror Timeline." Page 436.
[10] Thompson and the CCR. Page 458.
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
FAA II: THE PHANTOM FLIGHT 11
NORAD’s third “incorrect” story to the 9/11 Commission was their testimony that the Langley fighters, scrambled eight minutes before the Pentagon was hit, “were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77, United 93, or both.” This certainly makes sense: there were planes targetting Washington. The jets that should have been sent for them were sent. But they were not sent up for that reason. As late as 9:35 no one in the defense system was aware of any real designs on Washington – or so says the Commission. Instead, they decided, “the notice NEADs received at 9:24 was that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, DC.” [1]
It was to intercept this ghost target that the Langley fighters took off at 9:30. The commission cited a taped NEADS call, conversations within the FAA system, contemporaneous logs from NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD, among others. “Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense. The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.” [2]
Here is the transcript of this call, placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21:
“FAA: Military, Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still
in the air, and it’s on its way towards—heading towards Washington.
NEADS: Okay. American 11 is still in the air?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: On its way towards Washington?
FAA: That was another—it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That’s the latest report we have.
NEADS: Okay.
FAA: I’m going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he’s somewhere over, uh, either New Jersey or somewhere further south.
NEADS: Okay. So American 11 isn’t the hijack at all then, right?
FAA: No, he is a hijack.
NEADS: He—American 11 is a hijack?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: And he’s heading into Washington?
FAA: Yes. This could be a third aircraft.” [3]
The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander, who reported to the NEADS battle commander: ”Okay, uh, American Airlines is still airborne. Eleven, the first guy, he’s heading towards Washington. Okay? I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I’m gonna take the fighters from Otis, try to chase this guy down if I can find him.” The Otis pilots were not dragged from their just-established patrol of Manhattan, but they also were nearly sent after this non-existent target.
The Commission ultimately found themselves “unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” So let’s trace it back, based on the information that they had. In their report they note that the call was placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21, and in turn ”Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airorne .” [4] So at some point prior to 9:20, someone at the national HQ in DC called this in to Boston, responsible for tracking these flights and already in contact with NEADS.
There are numerous possible explanations for this false report, and it wouldn’t have been the only one of the day. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, who told him at 11:30 that there were six aircraft still unaccounted for. [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down.
One explanation for these phantom flights centers on the presence in the radar system of false returns inserted for the morning’s war game Northern Vigilance. It’s unclear where these blips were showing up and on whose screens, but they were allegedly purged at about 9;00 am, as it became clear the US was under air attack and a clean slate was needed. Not that it helped much.
There are other possibilities as well. I’m guessing if this particular report of the Ghost Flight 11 is ever is explained, it’ll be something innocuous sounding, like this:
A controller at Boston center got a printed report – not a radar return – that American 77 was unaccounted for, missing from radar, possibly crashed or possibly headed to DC. But in the chaos after having seen American 11 disappear, he turns the 7s into 1s (optically easy to do, especially if the 1s are printed with pronounced serifs). He sees American 11 is missing from radar and possibly headed to DC and reports it as such. No radar track, so he can only guess – it was in New York, headed to DC… looking to the south of there...
But it could well be something more concrete than that, though we have to venture into weird land for the next post to see this possibility. Next: Mistaken FAA Info: Some or The?
Back to FAA Masterlist
It was to intercept this ghost target that the Langley fighters took off at 9:30. The commission cited a taped NEADS call, conversations within the FAA system, contemporaneous logs from NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD, among others. “Yet this response to a phantom aircraft was was not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense. The inaccurate accounts created the impression that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.” [2]
Here is the transcript of this call, placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21:
“FAA: Military, Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still
in the air, and it’s on its way towards—heading towards Washington.
NEADS: Okay. American 11 is still in the air?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: On its way towards Washington?
FAA: That was another—it was evidently another aircraft that hit the tower. That’s the latest report we have.
NEADS: Okay.
FAA: I’m going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he’s somewhere over, uh, either New Jersey or somewhere further south.
NEADS: Okay. So American 11 isn’t the hijack at all then, right?
FAA: No, he is a hijack.
NEADS: He—American 11 is a hijack?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: And he’s heading into Washington?
FAA: Yes. This could be a third aircraft.” [3]
The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander, who reported to the NEADS battle commander: ”Okay, uh, American Airlines is still airborne. Eleven, the first guy, he’s heading towards Washington. Okay? I think we need to scramble Langley right now. And I’m gonna take the fighters from Otis, try to chase this guy down if I can find him.” The Otis pilots were not dragged from their just-established patrol of Manhattan, but they also were nearly sent after this non-existent target.
The Commission ultimately found themselves “unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.” So let’s trace it back, based on the information that they had. In their report they note that the call was placed from FAA’s Boston Center to NEADS at 9:21, and in turn ”Boston Center had heard from FAA headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airorne .” [4] So at some point prior to 9:20, someone at the national HQ in DC called this in to Boston, responsible for tracking these flights and already in contact with NEADS.
There are numerous possible explanations for this false report, and it wouldn’t have been the only one of the day. FAA Administrator Jane Garvey told Richard Clarke, after the first two planes had crashed, “we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [2] Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said “we probably had maybe about ten unaccounted for planes.” [3] Florida State Congressman Adam Putnam, who was aboard Air Force One with President Bush, who told him at 11:30 that there were six aircraft still unaccounted for. [4] In his bunker beneath the White House, Cheney had at least two possible run-ins with ghost planes, which he aggressively ordered shot down.
One explanation for these phantom flights centers on the presence in the radar system of false returns inserted for the morning’s war game Northern Vigilance. It’s unclear where these blips were showing up and on whose screens, but they were allegedly purged at about 9;00 am, as it became clear the US was under air attack and a clean slate was needed. Not that it helped much.
There are other possibilities as well. I’m guessing if this particular report of the Ghost Flight 11 is ever is explained, it’ll be something innocuous sounding, like this:
A controller at Boston center got a printed report – not a radar return – that American 77 was unaccounted for, missing from radar, possibly crashed or possibly headed to DC. But in the chaos after having seen American 11 disappear, he turns the 7s into 1s (optically easy to do, especially if the 1s are printed with pronounced serifs). He sees American 11 is missing from radar and possibly headed to DC and reports it as such. No radar track, so he can only guess – it was in New York, headed to DC… looking to the south of there...
But it could well be something more concrete than that, though we have to venture into weird land for the next post to see this possibility. Next: Mistaken FAA Info: Some or The?
Back to FAA Masterlist
Tuesday, May 1, 2007
THE PROJECT’S PHASED TAKEOVER: 9/20-10/11/01
ONE MONTH OF "MORAL CLARITY"
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
Posted 4/30/07
For whatever It’s worth, it was the 102nd birthday of the late neocon intellectual godfather Leo Strauss when, on September 20th 2001, as President Bush prepared to give an address to a special joint session of Congress pitching the “War on Terrorism” to a stunned nation, the PNAC delivered an open letter to Bush entitled, humbly, “Lead the World to Victory.” [signed by Kristol, Bauer, Cropsey, Cohen, Gaffney, two Kagans, Perle, Podhoretz, Schmitt, etc.] Full text available here.
The letter lauded Bush’s tough response to the attack and his framing of it as a war, and praised the administration’s public assertions that the campaign would be fought on many fronts, and early hints that it would not be limited to al Qaeda. They encouraged this thinking and suggested some of their own ideas as to what other fronts should be opened; for starters, they offered Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, and, of course, Iraq, with a hint of more threats to come. These suggestions bore more similarity to an Israeli wish-hit-list than any realistic response to the nine-day-old 9/11 attacks. The proposals of the letter could have just as easily been passed on by Cheney, (and probably already had been) but they wanted it to look open, and perhaps more importantly, to bring their ideas to the attention of the stunned and suggestible public on the same day Bush was going public with his own guaranteed war proposal. It was a highly visible formal entreaty to cover for pre-arranged back-room deals that became evident as Bush spoke that evening.
The nation drew in a breath and listened; just nine days after the attack, and after much discussion with his august advisers, Bush already knew the shape and scope of the war at hand. He informed his fellow Americans that “this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the Air Wars above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat… Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.” IWith his fatwa “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” Bush charted a clearly unilateralist direction – we were going this way, others would either follow or hold back at their own risk, a clear nod to the PNAC’s Concept of unilateralism (or, more accurately, multilateralism via “global leadership”). He had almost certainly read the Project’s letter well before he spoke, and had likely already acceded to all of its major proposals.
The following day, Charles Krauthammer’s essay “Voices of moral obtuseness” appeared in Time, arguing the same case as the PNAC’s letter. He had, in fact, signed the letter. Krauthammer lamented that “in the wake of a massacre that killed more than 5,000 innocent Americans in a day, one might expect moral clarity,” but we were instead hearing criticism of U.S. policy, what he saw as a relativist, liberal “we had it coming” attitude. He was of course right in his observation that the attack was an “event of blinding clarity,” although I’m not sure he sees the irony in that phrase. Krauthammer noted the earlier dissolution of anti-war and isolationist sentiment following the attack on Pearl Harbor, an analogy that had to have his colleagues at the PNAC smiling as they set about implementing their "process of transformation."
One month after the attack, Bush delivered a speech at the wounded Pentagon, offering a more concrete assurance of his dedication to the PNAC vision. On a dreary Thursday morning, October 11th, 2001, he reassured the Project, on at least four key points, that 9-11 was indeed the fulfillment of their year-old report Rebuilding America’s Defenses.
1) He noted “as Americans did sixty years ago, we have entered a struggle of uncertain duration.” This was perhaps code for “new Pearl Harbor.”
2) Perhaps in response to the PNAC’s call for increased ”defense” budgets, Bush assured them “in the missions ahead for the military, you will have everything you need, every resource, every weapon, every means to assure full victory for the United States and the cause of freedom.”
3) Bush reassured them that “brick by brick, we will quickly rebuild the Pentagon.” It’s interesting to note that the Pentagon did not need to be rebuilt, just repaired. But he didn’t say repaired; he said the Pentagon would be re-built, possibly code for a Rebuilding America’s Defenses. And it would be done “quickly,” as in the desired speed of the “process of transformation.”
4) The report had called for the U.S. to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.” A year and a month later, Bush reassured them and the world that “we have a unified country. We have the patience to fight and win on many fronts.”
It appears the PNAC was essentially quite pleased with the direction the Administration was taking, following their road map to the expansion of the Pax Americana and to continued “American global leadership.” Bush in turn seemed pleased with the response to the attack that the PNAC had prepared a year before it happened. Of course, they all had to understand the irony that this road map would not have been followed so quickly, as the Project had earlier noted, without the realization of the “new Pearl Harbor.” It turned out well for the Project; their laboriously crafted roadmap was being followed, and they set about refining its details and positioning the military’s machinery to start moving by it. By the time of Bush's 10/11 speech, bombs were already falling on Afghanistan, troops and aircraft carriers were soon moving to all the other pushpins on the Pentagon’s big map, and the plan to take Iraq was put into motion. Their “New American Century” had begun with a bang.
Adam Larson/Caustic Logic
Posted 4/30/07
For whatever It’s worth, it was the 102nd birthday of the late neocon intellectual godfather Leo Strauss when, on September 20th 2001, as President Bush prepared to give an address to a special joint session of Congress pitching the “War on Terrorism” to a stunned nation, the PNAC delivered an open letter to Bush entitled, humbly, “Lead the World to Victory.” [signed by Kristol, Bauer, Cropsey, Cohen, Gaffney, two Kagans, Perle, Podhoretz, Schmitt, etc.] Full text available here.
The letter lauded Bush’s tough response to the attack and his framing of it as a war, and praised the administration’s public assertions that the campaign would be fought on many fronts, and early hints that it would not be limited to al Qaeda. They encouraged this thinking and suggested some of their own ideas as to what other fronts should be opened; for starters, they offered Hezbollah, the Palestinian Authority, and, of course, Iraq, with a hint of more threats to come. These suggestions bore more similarity to an Israeli wish-hit-list than any realistic response to the nine-day-old 9/11 attacks. The proposals of the letter could have just as easily been passed on by Cheney, (and probably already had been) but they wanted it to look open, and perhaps more importantly, to bring their ideas to the attention of the stunned and suggestible public on the same day Bush was going public with his own guaranteed war proposal. It was a highly visible formal entreaty to cover for pre-arranged back-room deals that became evident as Bush spoke that evening.
The nation drew in a breath and listened; just nine days after the attack, and after much discussion with his august advisers, Bush already knew the shape and scope of the war at hand. He informed his fellow Americans that “this war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the Air Wars above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat… Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen.” IWith his fatwa “either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists,” Bush charted a clearly unilateralist direction – we were going this way, others would either follow or hold back at their own risk, a clear nod to the PNAC’s Concept of unilateralism (or, more accurately, multilateralism via “global leadership”). He had almost certainly read the Project’s letter well before he spoke, and had likely already acceded to all of its major proposals.
The following day, Charles Krauthammer’s essay “Voices of moral obtuseness” appeared in Time, arguing the same case as the PNAC’s letter. He had, in fact, signed the letter. Krauthammer lamented that “in the wake of a massacre that killed more than 5,000 innocent Americans in a day, one might expect moral clarity,” but we were instead hearing criticism of U.S. policy, what he saw as a relativist, liberal “we had it coming” attitude. He was of course right in his observation that the attack was an “event of blinding clarity,” although I’m not sure he sees the irony in that phrase. Krauthammer noted the earlier dissolution of anti-war and isolationist sentiment following the attack on Pearl Harbor, an analogy that had to have his colleagues at the PNAC smiling as they set about implementing their "process of transformation."
One month after the attack, Bush delivered a speech at the wounded Pentagon, offering a more concrete assurance of his dedication to the PNAC vision. On a dreary Thursday morning, October 11th, 2001, he reassured the Project, on at least four key points, that 9-11 was indeed the fulfillment of their year-old report Rebuilding America’s Defenses.
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2) Perhaps in response to the PNAC’s call for increased ”defense” budgets, Bush assured them “in the missions ahead for the military, you will have everything you need, every resource, every weapon, every means to assure full victory for the United States and the cause of freedom.”
3) Bush reassured them that “brick by brick, we will quickly rebuild the Pentagon.” It’s interesting to note that the Pentagon did not need to be rebuilt, just repaired. But he didn’t say repaired; he said the Pentagon would be re-built, possibly code for a Rebuilding America’s Defenses. And it would be done “quickly,” as in the desired speed of the “process of transformation.”
4) The report had called for the U.S. to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars.” A year and a month later, Bush reassured them and the world that “we have a unified country. We have the patience to fight and win on many fronts.”
It appears the PNAC was essentially quite pleased with the direction the Administration was taking, following their road map to the expansion of the Pax Americana and to continued “American global leadership.” Bush in turn seemed pleased with the response to the attack that the PNAC had prepared a year before it happened. Of course, they all had to understand the irony that this road map would not have been followed so quickly, as the Project had earlier noted, without the realization of the “new Pearl Harbor.” It turned out well for the Project; their laboriously crafted roadmap was being followed, and they set about refining its details and positioning the military’s machinery to start moving by it. By the time of Bush's 10/11 speech, bombs were already falling on Afghanistan, troops and aircraft carriers were soon moving to all the other pushpins on the Pentagon’s big map, and the plan to take Iraq was put into motion. Their “New American Century” had begun with a bang.
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