Reply #3: Whenever Cheney "criticizes" re National Security, be reminded of the 911 testimony of Norman Mineta

[tiptoe]

 
excluded from the White House 911 Commission Report:

• Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta provided provocative testimony before the 911 Commission. He testified that he went down to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the White House at about 9:20 on 9/11/01. Vice President Cheney was there and in charge.

• “During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, "The plane is 50 miles out." "The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to "the plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the Vice President, "Do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

• What orders? Evidently there were orders NOT to scramble military jets to intercept the plane, since the plane was known for 50, 30, and 10 miles out and yet never intercepted. The commission did not ask such questions, did not include Mineta’s testimony above in the 9/11 Commission Report ­a glaring omission (Griffin, 2005), ­and removed the video of Mineta’s testimony from the 9/11 Commission website.

• Mineta seems an honest man. The testimony of Secretary Mineta strongly motivates further questioning under oath of the principals here and of this unidentified young man.