Fun with the 9/11 "official story"

[stickdog]

At 9:49 EDT, over 45 minutes after the second WTC tower was hit by a second hijacked passenger plane and 12 minutes AFTER Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, an ATC guy asks an FAA guy if he's going to call for military assistance to intercept Flight 93 -- which has obviously been hijacked and is rapidly approaching Pittsburgh.

And the FAA guy says, "Sigh. Oh God, I don't know."

Then the ATC guy says (to paraphrase), "Dude, wake the fuck up!"

And the FAA guy says, "Sigh. Everybody just left the room."

Who in the name of God was that FAA idiot? Why hasn't he been fired and why hasn't whoever let him field that call been fired as well?

[Bluebear]

1. And the panel says they covered themselves wit h glory?

I noticed that "Oh God I don't know"....it was like someone asked him if he wanted pizza or Chinese for lunch.

[stickdog]

2. More fun with the 9/11 "official story"

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=5449156

Not only was Rumsfeld bypassed in the normal chain of command for such a shoot-down order, but the command from Vice President Dick Cheney that the airliners be "taken out" did not reach the fighter planes until after the last ill-fated airliner had crashed in Pennsylvania, the special commission said.

"The secretary did not become part of the chain of command for those orders to engage until he arrived in the NMCC (National Military Command Center). At 10:39 AM EDT (about 2 hours after the first hijacked plane hit the WTC and over 95 minutes after the second hijacked plane hit the WTC), the vice president tried to bring the secretary up to date as both participated in the Air Threat Conference," the report said.

Here is an excerpt from the conversation between Cheney and Rumsfeld:

Cheney: "There's been at least three instances here where we've had reports of aircraft approaching Washington -- a couple were confirmed hijack. And, pursuant to the president's instructions, I gave authorization for them to be taken out. Hello?"

Rumsfeld: "Yes, I understand. Who did you give that direction to?"

Cheney: "It was passed from here through the operations center at the White House, from the (shelter)."

Rumsfeld: "OK. Let me ask the question here. Has that directive been transmitted to the aircraft?"

Cheney: "Yes, it has."

Rumsfeld: "So we've got a couple of aircraft up there that have those instructions at the present time?"

Cheney: "That is correct. And it's my understanding they've already taken a couple of the aircraft (hijacked airliners) out."

[CompassionateLiberal]

3. Yet Only 20 Min to Respond to Payne Stewart's Learjet?!

A Case for Comparison

An example of how the air defense network normally responds to domestic emergencies is illustrated by the well-reported 1999 case of Payne Stewart's Lear jet. When the golfer's jet failed to respond to air traffic controller communications, F-16 interceptors were quickly dispatched. According to an Air Force timeline, a series of military planes provided an emergency escort to Payne's stricken Learjet starting about 20 minutes after contact with his plane was lost. 2

This contrasts with the long periods of time apparently hijacked planes roamed the skies of the Northeast on September 11th without any interceptions. 83 minutes elapsed between the time that Flight 11 veered off course and the Pentagon was hit, and 112 minutes elapsed between the time that contact was lost with Flight 11 and Flight 93 crashed. According to the official story, not a single fighter was scrambled in time to intercept any of the four jetliners. At least 28 air stations were easily within distance to protect New York City and Washington DC. 3 None of them did. Note that, if anything, intercept times for the four jetliners should have been far shorter than for Payne Stewart's jet:

Stewart's jet merely failed to respond to communications. Each of the four jetliners, in addition to going silent, veered dramatically off course and switched off their transponders.
Stewart's jet went off course in the South, which has fewer air defense stations than the NorthEast corridor.
Air traffic controllers more carefully monitor large passenger aircraft in crowded air corridors than small private aircraft.
Stewart's jet went off-course at 45,000 feet, 10,000 feet higher than jetliners fly.
After the first hijacking, the air traffic controllers, the FAA, and NORAD should have been prepared to respond immediately to subsequent off-course aircraft.

http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/analysis/norad/

[Hoping4Change]

5. What an interesting observation.

BTW Welcome to DU :hi:

[Slickriddles]

10. When Did Cheney Become the Prime Minister

This whole idea of Cheney calling the shots (quite literally) based on a cell phone call to the obviously shaken C-in-C whichnobody seems to have taken notes on is extremely troubleing. What's worse though is that the pilot seemed to accept the Vice President's intrusion into the Chain of Command. And I think what's worse still is that this gets mentioned in the hearings and repeated on the news and nobody bats an eye. Cheney is effectively some kind of wierd co-President. No wonder King George II doesn't dare go testify without the Veep. Slick

[Hoping4Change]

14. Cheney wanted to keep Bush out of the picture.

10:32 a.m. Cheney calls Bush and tells him of a threat to Air Force One. He is told it would take between 40 minutes and 90 minutes to get a protective fighter escort up to Air Force One. His plane turns toward Louisiana soon after.

Many doubt the existence of this threat. For instance, Representative Martin Meehan (D) says, “I don't buy the notion Air Force One was a target. That's just PR, that's just spin.”

A later account calls the threat “completely untrue,” and says Cheney probably made the story up. A well-informed, anonymous Washington official says, “It did two things for . It reinforced his argument that the President should stay out of town, and it gave George W an excellent reason for doing so.”

Why wouldn't Air Force One already have a fighter escort, and why would it take so long for new planes to arrive? Does Cheney also delay a fighter escort? Why does he apparently lie to keep Bush away?

You gotta eyeball

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=bushon911 (SCROLL DOWN TO 9:00 AM)

[Kazak]

16. Yeah, no shit!

Welcome to DU! :toast:

[Kazak]

18. Sorry, it bears repeating...

FUCKING HELLO! Earth to the human race, come in HR.

[merh]

8. Wonderful point, I wonder if the press will ever pick up on that...

You should get that to Randi Rhodes.

[ant]

15. the "20 minutes" thing is not true

At 0927:18 EDT, N47BA acknowledged the clearance by stating, "three nine zero bravo alpha." This was the last known radio transmission from the airplane.

About 0952 CDT, a USAF F-16 test pilot from the 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin Air Force Base (AFB), Florida, was vectored to within 8 nm of N47BA.

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm

The "20 minutes" claim doesn't take into account the different time zones.

[Sterling]

29. I dont think you read the link?

All times are posted in EDT. For the entire incident. You are wrong.

[ant]

36. which link?

I quoted directly from mine, and the times are as given. The 20 minutes between loss of contact and interception is between times from two different time zones.

In fact, when I went back to my link I noticed that the footnote offers an explanation, saying the time of interception, 0952 CDT, was "about 1010 EDT, the accident airplane crossed from the EDT zone to the CDT zone in the vicinity of Eufaula, Alabama."

http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/2000/AAB0001.htm#P66_7141 (footnote 7)

So it was more like 40 minutes, not the 20 claimed. I should've been more careful and made that clear in my first post, but the 20 minutes claim is still incorrect.

[Justice]

45. Still, consider it was a private plane, not commercial, and

no sense of criminal danger, just lost contact.

With Flight 11, they knew hijack, Betty Ong told them passengers were killed. They also knew other planes were veering off course. The alarm bells should have been ringing off the hook.

[ant]

49. that's fine

I've never said they didn't scramble fast enough for the hijacked airplanes, I was just pointing out that the 20 minutes thing is not true.

My first post in this thread was all about the unavoidable confusion and chaos that arises from complex situations and how that contributes to mistakes. Another thing that contributes to mistakes is not knowing the basic facts of the situation you're dealing with. I just like to make sure we all have our facts in order before we start drawing conclusions from them.

The 20 minutes thing is not true, and now we know, and knowing is, as we all know, half the battle. :-)

[Slickriddles]

4. Since when is Cheney Vice Commander-in-Chief

It seems to me that Cheney overstepped his constitutional authority on the morning of 9/11. I heard a tape today on NPR where a pilot received shoot-down instructions and was told the order came from the Vice-President. The Vice President however is not in the chain of command, not according to the US constitution at least. The President is Commander-in-Chief and as long as he is functioning no authority devolves to the Vice President. Did I miss something?

[Hoping4Change]

7. Have you seen the 9/11 Timeline and its accounting of

Cheney? Links on the right hand side of the page.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project

BTW Welcome to the Underground slickriddles. :hi:

[ant]

12. I was wondering about that

It struck me as odd that the VP would be the one to give that order.

[BeFree]

6. Backup a bit

* can push the red button at any time, right? But even after he knows America has been attacked, the vice* is the one calling the shots! Hello!

And Cheney gets it screwed up: "...a couple of the aircraft out." And the official story remains that: "We didn't do Nothing!"

"We didn't do anything to prevent it from happening or stop it once it started" Official 9/11 story. So far.

[ant]

9. the very scary notion...

...that nothing could've been done is something people have a hard time accepting. "Someone should've been able to stop this" comforts us in that it assumes the world is not as chaotic and random as it might be. There are people in charge who can protect us. The reality is that that's just not true.

Could the government have prepared for hijacked airplanes being used as missiles? Of course. It could have also prepared for truck bombs set off simultaneously across the country. It could have also prepared for a contamination of the water supply in several cities at once. There are probably a bazillion different terrorist attack scenarios and it strikes me as simply impossible to prepare for all of them.

What's more, the very essence of terrorism is that it strikes at your weaknesses. We can prepare for X, Y, Z, but that simply means the terrorists will carry out F, G, H. Prepare for F, G, H, and they'll explore B, W, R. You can have general emergency response plans and things like that, but when it comes down to details....

Take the order to shoot down, for instance. While I personally suspect the plane in PA was shot down, I think it's perfectly understandable that those who received those orders were a bit hesitant. It's one thing to shoot a plane down in an open field, it's quite another to shoot it down over a major metropolitan area. So you save the people in the Towers and in the Pentagon - what about those poor souls who are underneath the plane? In that case we'd just have a different set of faces greeting us from the "victims' families" section.

And even all these thoughts are post 9-11. Honestly, the people who run the country are still people, and if you want a clue to what people were thinking I think it's best reflected by that one guy who, when told that they needed F-16s to deal with hijacked planes, replied along the lines of, "is this an exercise or real world?"

Yes, there were breakdowns and there was confusion, and those should certainly be addressed, but there are limits to the precision and effectiveness human institutions can have, especially when confronted with a situation many would've considered simply outlandish just a few hours earlier. It is completely understandable to me that people didn't know what to do or, when they did know what to do, they didn't know how to do it.

The short version of this post is that shit happens and there's not much you can do about it. You can fasten your seatbelt and hit the brakes in time to avoid hitting that kid who darts out in front of you, but then the bus that just ran the stop sign strikes and kills you. Not every horrible thing can be stopped or avoided. That's just life.

[Corgigal]

13. ah yeah okay

Beautifully written by the way however people did know what to do that day. It's wasn't as unusual as you think and it's been on the books for years. See 10-2-6.

http://www.faa.gov/atpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1002.html

[ant]

19. they did that

From what I can see, that link contains instructions about notifying the appropriate people when a plane has been hijacked and getting escorts to them. That seems to be what people were trying to do. Confusion arose when they lost track of the planes, no one knew where to scramble the jets to, and it turned out there were several hijacked planes.

Besides, there's a lot of talk in that link about notification and escorts, but what then? Like I said, having general response plans in place is necessary, and that's exactly what you linked to: a general response plan. As far as I can tell it doesn't detail what to do once you're escorting the plane. I found no mention of shoot downs there, for instance, much less shoot downs over a major city.

To be clear, I am NOT saying mistakes weren't made. The fact that certain people were still looking for a plane after it had hit the towers is certainly unbelievable to me. I'd think someone somewhere would've had CNN on and could see what had just happened. However, some of those mistakes could not possibly have been avoided. Nothing can ever be 100%, and as hard as it is for people who lost loved ones to face that, that's just the way it is. The moment those hijackers took over the planes it was set in stone that lots and lots of people were going to die. If not those in the towers then those on the ground - the planes had to end up somewhere.

If anything, the mistakes that deserve real scrutiny are the mistakes that let those guys take over those planes in the first place. Did the 9/11 commission investigate airport security at all or is that not part of their mission? I haven't heard much about that.

[Corgigal]

23. that is what the FAA did

the controllers did what they were trained to do. However for some unknown damn reason we couldn't find a fighter plane within 50 miles of NYC who could respond. This is not the role of the FAA but of NORAD to ensure security of the airspace.
This was not a general response plan, that was the SOP. Not a plan, it is accomplished in this country probably daily. I have seen escorts, and I have seen escorts of possible drug runner planes. This is the first time I have ever heard of not scrambling an escort. First time.
They didn't lose the planes either. Of course they sure as hell wants us to believe that. Of course I was an Air Traffic controller and was once stationed at a NORAD facility so I'm a bit biased.
Forget shoot down, can't do a "shoot down" until you scramble.

Things sure as hell fell apart that day but we still aren't getting the full story. Maybe we never will.

[ant]

28. maybe we're both wrong

the controllers did what they were trained to do. However for some unknown damn reason we couldn't find a fighter plane within 50 miles of NYC who could respond. This is not the role of the FAA but of NORAD to ensure security of the airspace.

From the Wash Post:
The military was not notified about United Airlines Flight 93 until after it crashed and did not learn about United Flight 175 until the minute it hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center. And for 36 minutes, the FAA lost track altogether of American Airlines Flight 77, which was able to turn around and fly east toward the Pentagon, undetected by radar.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50791-2004Jun17.html

I will completely fault the FAA for not reporting the hijacked planes as soon as they knew they were hijacked. On that point, assuming they knew about the planes earlier, there is no excuse. If SOP is that you notify ASAP about a hijacking, then that's what they should've done.

They didn't lose the planes either. Of course they sure as hell wants us to believe that.

According to the commission they did, in fact, lose track of one of the planes. I see no reason to think the FAA would cry incompetence in order to protect NORAD. I'd think they would quite happily pass the blame on this one.

What's more, they were also chasing a bunch of hijacked planes that didn't actually exist. Again, even when scrambled, no one knew where they were scrambling to.

Things sure as hell fell apart that day but we still aren't getting the full story. Maybe we never will.

Another consequence of chaos.

[stickdog]

27. Why are you trying to confuse the issue?

Flight 11 was reported hijacked at 8:24 and hit the WTC at 8:46. What are the chances that a plane that was reportedly hijacked would hit one of the tallest buildings in the world by mistake?

Flight 175 was reported hijacked at 8:43 and hit WTC at 9:03. What are the chances that two planes that were reportedly hijacked would hit one of the tallest buildings in the world by mistake?

The FAA notified NORAD that Flight 93 was a possible hijack well before 9:20. Flight 93 hit the ground at 10:06. Supposedly when Flight 93 hit the ground, not a single fighter had even been scrambled in its direction.

That's 100 minutes after the first hijacked plane hit the WTC, 63 minutes after second hijacked plane hit the WTC and at least 45 minutes since Flight 93 was reported as a suspected hijack.

So 100 minutes into a national emergency and we still can't get a single plane scrambled in Flight 93's direction?

Don't you think the surviving relatives deserve an explanation other than "we were confused"? Isn't ANYONE responsible for this incredible demonstration of incompetence? Sending fighters to intercept hijacked planes was our standard operating procedure before 9/11. Certainly, shooting it down would have been another matter, but why wasn't a single fighter even scrambled in Flight 93's direction?

[ant]

30. you're wrong

First of all, I'm not trying to confuse the issue. I'm trying to tease apart the multitude of issues in play here.

Second, you say:
The FAA notified NORAD that Flight 93 was a possible hijack well before 9:20. Flight 93 hit the ground at 10:06. Supposedly when Flight 93 hit the ground, not a single fighter had even been scrambled in its direction.

But according to the Wash Post:
The military was not notified about United Airlines Flight 93 until after it crashed and did not learn about United Flight 175 until the minute it hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50791-2004Jun17.html

So on that point you are also wrong.

And finally, you said:
Don't you think the surviving relatives deserve an explanation other than "we were confused"?

For those mistakes where there is such an explanation, yes, they deserve that. We all do. I believe I've made it clear a few times now that this is not an all or nothing situation. I have not once said that everything that went wrong that day was simply the result of confusion, so don't put words in my mouth.

All I've said is that some mistakes are just that, mistakes, and there is no one to blame and nothing that could've been done. It's sad, yes, but that's just the way things go sometimes.

[stickdog]

40. No, you're wrong.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_911=ua93

9:16 AM EDT

The FAA informs NORAD that Flight 93 may have been hijacked. No fighters are scrambled in specific response, now or later (there is the possibility some fighters sent after Flight 77 later head toward Flight 93). Although this is what CNN is told by NORAD, its not clear why NORAD claims the flight is hijacked at this time (and NORAD's own timeline inexplicably fails to say when the FAA told them about the hijack, the only flight for which they fail to provide this data). However, there may be one explanation: Fox News later reports, “Investigators believe that on at least one flight, one of the hijackers was already inside the cockpit before takeoff.” Cockpit voice recordings indicate that the pilots believed their guest was a colleague “and was thereby extended the typical airline courtesy of allowing any pilot from any airline to join a flight by sitting in the jumpseat, the folded over extra seat located inside the cockpit.” Note that all witnesses on the plane later report seeing only three hijackers, not four. So perhaps one hijacker tenuously held control of the cockpit as the original pilots still flew it, while waiting for reinforcements? Could this have happened before 9:00, when Flight 93 got a warning to beware of cockpit intrusions (see (After 9:00 a.m.))? F-16 fighters from the far-off Langley Air Force Base could reach Washington in seven minutes if they travel at 1100 mph, the speed NORAD commander Larry Arnold says fighters traveled to reach New York City earlier in the day. Note that the crash of Flight 77 is still 22 minutes away, so fighters scrambled to protect Washington from Flight 93 would protect it from Flight 77 as well, but none are sent at this time.

[ant]

48. ah, confusion

9:16 AM EDT

The FAA informs NORAD that Flight 93 may have been hijacked. No fighters are scrambled in specific response, now or later (there is the possibility some fighters sent after Flight 77 later head toward Flight 93). Although this is what CNN is told by NORAD, its not clear why NORAD claims the flight is hijacked at this time (and NORAD's own timeline inexplicably fails to say when the FAA told them about the hijack, the only flight for which they fail to provide this data).

While the CNN article cited as a source for this does quote the timeline as you have, it also states:
Officials at the Pentagon also said that they were never made aware of the threat from hijacked United Airlines flight 93 until after it crashed in Pennsylvania.
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.hijack.warning/

That's consistent with what the commission found.

In any case, that strikes me as two contradicting statements in one article. Which one to believe?

The Post article I cited earlier also contains this:
Panel investigators also tersely concluded that authorities with NORAD repeatedly misinformed the commission in testimony last fall about its scrambling of fighters from Langley. NORAD officials indicated at the time that the jets were responding to either United Flight 93 or American Flight 77. In fact, the panel found, they were chasing "a phantom aircraft," American Flight 11, which had already struck the World Trade Center.

I'm not sure if that's relevant to the specific point you're making above, but I do think it's generally relevant that NORAD's earlier statements about what they did when were not accurate.

If you want to argue that they lied then and are lying now, I can accept that, but at best that means we don't know what happened at all, which makes it rather difficult to figure out who's responsible. (No doubt they might want it that way, but it doesn't change the basic fact that without an accurate understanding of the situation we can't really evaluate it.)

[Sterling]

35. Yes the "official version" turned out worse than what we speculated.

Most scenarios I have seen based on media reports leaked from the office of lies suggested they had resonded faster. Yes this is too much to believe. And the fact is anti aircraft would have worked fine. No planes need be involved. Its moot.

[Slickriddles]

17. At the Mercy of Fate?

As a historian I'm disbarred from using the "shit just happens" argument. I suppose some things just happen, but your schoolbus is certainly not one of them. The driver runs the stop sign. There's agency. In the case of 9/11 I accept the difficulty of planning for everything that some group might want to attempt. But look at these two factors: 1) The Department of DEFENSE by it's own admission was "postured for an external threat" which is a way of saying we were NOT defending the United States. The reasons for this go back at least to the whole Cold War containment policy. This didn't just happen. 2)In the early 80s the late President Ronald Reagan in an extremely nasty anti-union, anti-working people move fired an entire cohort of experienced Air Traffic Controllers and they were replaced by less experienced Controllers who were forced to work in a non-union environment. The labor movement has a word for the people that take the jobs of fired union workers. It didn't just happen that it seems as though these air traffic guys could care less what was going on.

[BeFree]

20. And the FBI

Several FBI agents gave a heads-up about people taking flying lessons without intent to land or take-off.

Then there was the warnings from overseas intelligence about airliners being used as weapons.

Remember the August 6, POTUS CIA briefing?

"We didn't do nothing" -- Official Story.

[ant]

39. now THAT I'll give you

I mentioned this elsewhere, but it seems to me that the only real way to have saved lives that day would've been to prevent the hijackings in the first place. I do believe 1000% that the administration and our federal agencies dropped the ball way before 9/11. On that point you will find no argument from me.

[ant]

22. devil is in the details

As a historian I'm disbarred from using the "shit just happens" argument. I suppose some things just happen, but your schoolbus is certainly not one of them. The driver runs the stop sign. There's agency.

Maybe his brakes failed. Maybe he got distracted by a disruptive passenger. You never know.

Like I said, I think we like the thought of agency because it's comforting.

1) The Department of DEFENSE by it's own admission was "postured for an external threat" which is a way of saying we were NOT defending the United States. The reasons for this go back at least to the whole Cold War containment policy. This didn't just happen.

I completely agree that this is unacceptable, but I don't know that it would've changed much of what happened that day. To say you're "postured for an internal threat" is fairly meaningless. What is that posture? What are you postured for, exactly? Again, there a many, many, MANY different scenarios you would have to prepare for, and, again, terrorism is such that it strikes precisely at those you have NOT prepared for. Terrorists do their homework.

2)In the early 80s the late President Ronald Reagan in an extremely nasty anti-union, anti-working people move fired an entire cohort of experienced Air Traffic Controllers and they were replaced by less experienced Controllers who were forced to work in a non-union environment. The labor movement has a word for the people that take the jobs of fired union workers. It didn't just happen that it seems as though these air traffic guys could care less what was going on.

I've seen no evidence at all to suggest these guys "could care less" (I assume you mean "couldn't care less"). I hear confusion, surprise, even fear, but I don't hear what you're hearing. Could you point me to specific exchanges or quotes that you think reflect your characterization?

[Slickriddles]

37. The Devil

I don't really know if the devil is in the details or in the generalities. I'm not really looking for a philosophical discussion of a bumber sticker,:) it's just that my training gets me looking for the actors. Who last fixed or inspected the brakes? Why didn't that kid take his Ritalin? I'm willing to agree to disagree on this, but I'd like to say that agency isn't all that comforting.

On the Department of Defense I'm trying to say that for 50 years or so offense has been the "best" defense. So the Pentagon has basically been looking "over there" for the threats (and also getting involved in offensive operations.) the military academies and the planning and the "posture" (whatever that means) have slid away from the primary task of defending the US.

On the controllers: first "ah, he could care less" is the way they say it in Brooklyn where I grew up. There is a quote from one of them who, when asked if the military should be brought in says something like Oh God I don't know...everybody just left the room.
My point though, has more to do with the unintended consequences of Reagan's action. When he fires that cohort he helps to destroy an institutional culture that might have been able to connect today's controllers to experience in the 50s and 60s. I don't know that that would help, but it seems that firing the whole bunch was just idiocy.

[ant]

42. I read that differently

it's just that my training gets me looking for the actors. Who last fixed or inspected the brakes? Why didn't that kid take his Ritalin? I'm willing to agree to disagree on this, but I'd like to say that agency isn't all that comforting.

Maybe a squirrel chewed through an important wire under the bus.

Seriously, I see your point about how everything can be traced back in time, probably infinitely, but I do think it's comforting for people to think that bad things can be avoided. If you just have your car inspected all the time, always wear your seatbelt, make a full stop at every stop sign...sometimes no matter what, there are things beyond your control. We can agree to disagree, though, since it is basically a philosophical point and I'm getting tired and ready for bed.

I agree with you on the DOD point.

On the FAA, though, that's what my subject line refers to:
There is a quote from one of them who, when asked if the military should be brought in says something like Oh God I don't know...everybody just left the room.

I really didn't hear that as "oh, whatever." I heard a guy who maybe wasn't in a position to be making that sort of decision and didn't know what to do. Someone else mentioned that whoever let him take that call should be held accountable, and that I can actually see. Clearly he wasn't the guy who the other guy should've been talking to, and that was a breakdown that probably didn't have to happen.

However, I don't believe the breakdown was due to a lack of concern, and I certainly don't believe it was Reagan's fault. In fact, it's interesting that while you argue the DOD was still stuck in the Cold War and not thinking ahead enough, you also say:

When he fires that cohort he helps to destroy an institutional culture that might have been able to connect today's controllers to experience in the 50s and 60s.

So on the one hand we have an institution stuck in the past and on the other we have an institution too disconnected from the past. I think both points are valid, mind you - it's important to balance an understanding of history with an understanding of what the future might hold - but I suspect hindsight plays an important role (though again, not the only role) in helping us determine what that balance should be for any given situation.

[Slickriddles]

47. Squirrel as agent

Maybe a squirrel chewed through an important wire under the bus.


Squirrels can be agents.


However, I don't believe the breakdown was due to a lack of concern, and I certainly don't believe it was Reagan's fault. In fact, it's interesting that while you argue the DOD was still stuck in the Cold War and not thinking ahead enough, you also say:

When he fires that cohort he helps to destroy an institutional culture that might have been able to connect today's controllers to experience in the 50s and 60s.

I'm not saying it is Reagan's fault, just that he took an action years ago, that left a group of workers in an extremely stressful job with a tremendous amount of responsibility and none of the protections that come from a union. I don't blame the workers. It is a long range factor admitedly but a factor nonetheless. Finally, I knew I was getting in trouble with the institutional culture argument, thus "I don't know if that would help"


I don't know if you're still up, but I find the idea that "Shit Happens" leads to a passivity on the part of people and an acceptance of the way things are. A "Whaddya gonna do?" attitude. I like DU, goodnite. Slick

[ant]

50. still here...

...and just to clarify:

I find the idea that "Shit Happens" leads to a passivity on the part of people and an acceptance of the way things are.

I see your point. If I were to argue that everything is just random and chaotic, I could see giving up, but, as usual, it's not an either/or situation. It's like that AA statement about knowing what you can control, knowing what you can't control, and having the wisdom to know the difference. (Maybe they say "change" rather than "control," but for my purposes they're basically the same thing.)

What about those people whose houses get hit by meteors or people who get struck by lightening? Where's the agent there?

You can certainly take steps to minimize the risk, to reduce the chance that chaos will result in mistakes - that's the whole point of SOPs, I believe - but you can't eliminate those things completely. Hell, we can't even predict the weather.

However, I will be searching under my car for squirrel chewed wires tomorrow. :)

Assuming I get up at all...I'm not even going to check for responses elsewhere, I'm just going to go to bed.

[Slickriddles]

56. Funny you should mention the serenity prayer

I've been in recovery for a long time, and it took me forever to notice that it's laid out backwards. You need the wisdom to tell the difference before you know what's worth trying to change, what isn't. I have no faith so I don't move mountains -- I go around them or climb them depending on how energetic I feel. I don't attempt to move them. I don't do anything about meteors either including worrying. But I hope WE can change some things that I can't. We can probably (I hope) change the Party that has the White House this November. I don't think we'll reform Capitalism anytime soon, but the social structure doesn't just happen, it's not a "natural" phenomena. It isn't a single actor that creates this structure or keeps it from changing. The more people that think "oh, this is the way it's always been and who knows why" the less likley that change will occur. Zen-socialism?

[bpilgrim]

21. apples vs oranges

the logic of comparing one system that has security in place - our skies (NORAD being just one of the systems CONSTANTLY monitoring and READY) - vs another that doesn't have any - trucking industry - is ludicris.

to many systems FAILED and a LOT of folks wanna know WHY with DETAILS not some sappy cliche stretched into a fairy-tale :evilgrin:

peace

[ant]

24. again, details

Based on what I heard on NPR earlier, NORAD was prepared to defend against cruise missile attacks from the sea. I think they said that's what some of the scrambled jets were initially thinking about. So what if instead of airplanes there had been surface to air missiles taking out airplanes? What if terrorists arranged for hot air balloon rides where they dispersed deadly chemicals from above? Even if I stick to just apples and apples, there are lots of different ways to defend the skies. It all depends on what you're defending against, and the smart enemy knows what you have and have not prepared for.

Look, all I'm saying is that it's easy to point fingers after the fact, and I'm not even saying that certain fingers shouldn't be pointed. I'm just saying that a certain amount of confusion and chaos is unavoidable, espcially under these types of circumstances, and we have to be able to evaluate those factors the best we can in order to minimize them in the future. We also have to be willing to accept that they can not be completely eliminated. Human beings are not and will never be perfect.

[bpilgrim]

26. fairy tales

again the SKIES are protected AND there ARE procedures to DEAL WITH just such threats that where EASY TARGETS really...

so WHY did the SYSTEM fail?

that is the KEY question and yes i want DETAILS not a FAIRY-TALE.

peace

[ant]

32. why did the system fail?

I think we got that answer today, don't you? It was a combination of people not following procedures (FAA not notifying NORAD until it was too late, for instance) and general confusion about what the situation actually was (NORAD chasing phantom planes, for instance). On that second point, better communication could've helped minimize the confusion, but I will continue to say that it can never be eliminated.

Fairy tales are controlled and predictable. Life is not.

[stickdog]

33. Dude, I just checked by email logs. I'm in an email group with a lot of

bigwig muckety mucks.

I was listening to NPR when the reports of the second tower being hit came in, watching the event on TV by 9:15, and I was reading my email al the while.

By 10:06, I'd sent out 6 different emails in response to the 139 messages that clogged my inbox. I'd also read or skimmed all 139 messages during that time, trying in vain to bring up CNN.com all the while.

But somehow our entire 500 billion dollar a year defense system couldn't get a single fighter jet, armed or unarmed, scrambled in the direction of Flight 93 during that entire hour?

That isn't shit happens. It's just a load of shit.

[stickdog]

25. What a load of bullshit!

Every moment of air traffic control is a potential crisis moment. Every time a plane veers off course, it's a crisis. Every time there was a suspected hijacking over the last 30 years, STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE was to contact NORAD to scramble a fighter.

During a confirmed national emergency in which planes were being used as weapons of mass destruction, only a brain-dead moron (or an active conspirator) would be confused about whether or not to ask for military assistance immediately.

If there was actually such a level of confusion that we couldn't get a single fighter scrambled in Flight 93's direction more than 100 minutes after the first known hijack hit the WTC, the leaders ultimately responsible for this egregious dereliction of duty need to be fired or at least demoted.

Yet not a single individual has been demoted or fired. Not one has even stepped forward to accept responsibility.

Why not?

Consider:

Flight 11 was reported hijacked at 8:24 and hit the WTC at 8:46. What are the chances that a plane that was reportedly hijacked would hit one of the tallest buildings in the world by mistake?

Flight 175 was reported hijacked at 8:43 and hit WTC at 9:03. What are the chances that two planes that were reportedly hijacked would hit one of the tallest buildings in the world by mistake?

The FAA notified NORAD that Flight 93 was a possible hijack well before 9:20. Flight 93 hit the ground at 10:06. Supposedly when Flight 93 hit the ground, not a single fighter had even been scrambled in its direction.

That's 100 minutes after the first hijacked plane hit the WTC, 63 minutes after second hijacked plane hit the WTC and at least 45 minutes since Flight 93 was reported as a suspected hijack.

So 100 minutes into a national emergency and we still can't get a single plane scrambled in Flight 93's direction?

Don't you think the surviving relatives deserve an explanation other than "we never considered such a thing"? Sending fighters to intercept hijacked planes was our standard operating procedure before 9/11. Certainly, shooting it down would have been another matter, but why wasn't a single fighter even scrambled in Flight 93's direction?

What, were all of our fighter pilots reading children's books along with Bush that morning?

[Sterling]

31. "Exercise or real world"

They were conducting drills that day based on a 9-11 type scenario. Maybe that is what he was talking about. We also have anti aircraft weapons that could have done the job so planes are really moot.

[stickdog]

34. Hey, Sterling. I knew the 9/11 Commission would be a complete whitewash,

but I'd thought they'd at least try to present us with a (mostly unsupported and unattributed, of course) narrative less laughable than Oswald's "magic bullet."

Apparently not.

[Warren DeMontague]

51. Why would you think that...

When The Warren Commission more than established the extreme level of snow job that the American People would be willing to buy.

[ant]

38. moot in terms of what?

Even with anti-aircraft you're still shooting planes down over major cities, i.e., I see dead people.

And, again, it's clear from the reports that part of the problem was NORAD not knowing where these planes were or even how many there were. The problem was more fundamental than response - it was an inability to accurately assess and/or communicate the situation to begin with.

[stickdog]

52. Once again, that's bullshit. The ATCs knew what was happening and

they promptly told the FAA.

And in some cases they went straight to NORAD and NEADS -- just as you'd expect ANYONE with a brain to do!

But 100 minutes into a national emergency and we can't get a single fighter scrambled in Flight 93's direction?

Why no firings? Why no demotions? Why not even a mention of who was responsible?

Without even the threat of accountability, with everybody perfectly ready to blame nouns like "confusion" and "chaos" and "surprise" rather than THE PEOPLE WHO BLEW IT, there's no incentive for anybody to tell the truth about WHO WAS AT FAULT.

Because ultimately, SOME PEOPLE (not nouns) were at fault that day. We had the pilots. We had the fighters. We had the radar. We had the information. We had a Standard Operating Procedure for handling hijackings that said to scramble fighters to intercept them. So who dropped the ball?

[thebigidea]

11. I just heard that right now on the CSPAN replay... jawdropping...

I bet that moron was promoted.

"Oh God, I don't know."

AHRHRGHHHHH!

In other news, Zelikow sounds like an incredible douchebag. Well, I guess you'd have to be to work with Condi Rice.

[TomNickell]

41. And this means, What?

What we see is chaos and confusion. Expected, since these folks had not been prepared for the events that were actually happening.

-Should- they have been prepared?

Yes.

Was the FAA, NORAD, Air Force, Air National Guard involved in a Vast Conspiracy?

Nope.

Did Bush et al fail to heed warnings?

Very probably?

Was this deliberate?

Who knows?

Was it due to ideology and incompetence?

Very probably.

[thebigidea]

44. well, even a cautious interpretation of this calls for heads to roll

so incompetence is rewarded?

[stickdog]

46. At minimum, it means the FAA guy and whoever put him "in charge"

should have been immediately dismissed.

Instead, we don't even get to know the FAA fuck-up's name. He and his superiors suffer NO consequences. He's merely used as a facile illustration of the "chaos and confusion" that the 9/11 Commission's report (and your constant vigilance) will try to change into 9/11's "magic bullet."

There is no incentive for truth without accountability.

[RBHam]

54. Indeed. Why was Dick Myers promoted for his "failure"?

Why was the head of the FBI's National Security Law Unit that blocked Colleen Rowley's investigation rewarded?

Excerpt:
The Star Tribune's Greg Gordon reported last week that at a quiet little ceremony earlier this month, Marion (Spike) Bowman was one of nine people in the bureau to receive an award for "exceptional performance." The award carries with it a cash bonus of 20 to 35 percent of the recipient's salary and a framed certificate signed by the president.

What does this have to do with Rowley?

Bowman heads the FBI's National Security Law Unit. That's the unit that blocked Minneapolis agents from pursuing their suspicions about Moussaoui.

Bowman received the big pats on the back (and cash) a few days before the House and Senate Intelligence committees turned in their reports of pre-Sept. 11 intelligence failures. The committees said that Minneapolis agents deserved honors for their work and that those who performed poorly should be disciplined. The National Security Law Unit was singled out by Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., for inept performance.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3547688.html

There is no accountability for failure - rather there seems to be a culture of rewarding it. Unless, of course, as Mike Ruppert stated, "This wasn't an intelligence failure, but an intelligence success." Then, of course, the rewards and promotions make sense.

And there's this story, snuck out in the back pages of the compliant New York Times last month, which is just TOO much...

Tape of Air Traffic Controllers Made on 9/11 Was Destroyed

NATIONAL DESK | May 7, 2004, Friday
By MATTHEW L. WALD (NYT) 624 words
Late Edition - Final , Section A , Page 29 , Column 2

Excerpt:
"A quality-assurance manager at the center destroyed the tape several months after it was made, crushing the cassette in his hand, cutting the tape into little pieces and dropping them in different trash cans around the building, according to the report. The tape had been made under an agreement with the union that it would be destroyed after it was superseded by written statements from the controllers, the report said.

The quality-assurance manager told investigators that he had destroyed the tape because he thought making it was contrary to Federal Aviation Administration policy, which calls for written statements, and because he felt that the controllers "were not in the correct frame of mind to have properly consented to the taping" because of the stress of the day."

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F0091FFE3C580C748CDDAC0894DC404482

I'm such a conspiracy theorist! Why would I think such wild, insane thoughts! I must truly be looking for the tiniest, most abstract minutiae to justify my paranoid delusions! Stop me before I think again!

[stickdog]

55. You're just a hobbyist. Anything you find that's suspicious, can't be.

See, any REAL conspiracy or cover up wouldn't be suspicious.

So the fact that this smells like rotten fish means that it's all 100% true.

Or something like that ...

[GumboYaYa]

43. I went over the report in detail tonight. the big question I have is

what the hell was going on at Langley AFB. According to the report AA Flight && deviated from its flight plan at 8:54 and disappeared from radar at 8:56. The Indianapolis Control center thought the plane had crashed and contacted the different agencies to notify them that the plane was missing. At 9:08 The Indy center contacted Langley AFB and notified them that the plane was missing. At 9:09 fighter planes were put on battle stations because of the lack of fuel of the planes over New York (so they clearly knew of the two planes that had already crashed in NY). At 9:10 AA77 shows back up on Radar based opn the radar records, but no one notices it until 9:32 when Dulles airport sees it coming into DC airspace at a high rate of speed. During that period Langley scrambles its fighters at 9:23 and they are airborne at 9:30, but they fly in the wrong direction to intercept AA77.

Does Langley have a Radar system? The whole story depends upon believing that AA77 was lost to every Radar system on the east coast for 36 minutes while it approached DC. 14 of those minutes are attributed to technical failures. How in the hell can no one notice AA77 on the Radar for 22 minutes after we have already been attacked twice? Why did it take 20 minutes from being told AA77 was lost to get fighters off the ground when they were already at battle stations? It looks to me like someone at Langley seriously dropped the ball on this one. Who was in charge at Langley that day?

[althecat]

53. I've been asking an ATC some questions about related matters here...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1808155&mesg_id=1808155