New NSA docs contradict 9/11 claims

[ehrnst]

102. I can answer a couple of your questions.

Anyone collecting or cleaning up debris at the Pentagon had to have a security clearance - at a very high level. A friend of mine was one of those people - he was called to come over to the Pentagon, given a hazmat suit, and instructed to start picking up any debris that might be classified. He was not trained to provide security - he was instructed to only search the ground for items that could be classified. So that would explain some of the personnel that you described.

Rumsfeld was running around the building telling everyone to find some link to Iraq.

The highways near and around the Pentagon are major arteries out of DC. DC is surrounded on 3 sides by water. To shut down those arteries would have prevented any evacuation of the city - which had started already. By the time I had made it out of the city into Arlington later that day, roads heading into DC were indeed blocked. I walked from the Metro past the blockade of National Guard, and saw a US Postal worker with a truck asking them what he was supposed to do with his truck full of mail if he could not get to the post office three blocks away.

I don't know about the seats. My neighbor Lennie was in one of them. He was on the phone with his wife in the last minutes of his life.

Edited to add: I'm aware of the controversy surrounding the number of cell phone calls made from flight 77. I only know what Karen told me much later.