Panel on 9/11 Calls Pentagon Not Prepared

[fearnobush]

New Yprk Times
WASHINGTON, June 15 - The independent commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks has found that the Pentagon's domestic air-defense command was disastrously unprepared for a major terrorist strike on American soil and was slow and confused in its response to the hijackings that morning, according to officials who have read a draft report of the commission's findings.

The officials said the draft, which has been circulated in recent days among commission members and at the Pentagon in preparation for public release of the report at a hearing on Thursday, summarized the response of the military, the Federal Aviation Administration and other agencies with this passage:

"On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen. What ensued was a hurried attempt to create an improved defense by officials who had never encountered or trained against the situation they faced."

The report, they said, suggests - though it does not say explicitly - that a more organized response by the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, might have allowed fighter pilots to reach one jetliner and shoot it down before it flew into the Pentagon, more than 50 minutes after the first of the hijacked planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York.

Instead, the report finds, an emergency order from Vice President Dick Cheney authorizing the hijacked planes to be shot down did not reach pilots until the last of the four commandeered jetliners had crashed into a field in western Pennsylvania, after a struggle between terrorists and passengers aboard that plane.
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<http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/16/politics/16panel.html?hp>

[PartyPooper]

1. I read on DU that the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was shot down.

The debris field was not consistent with what the government reported. And, one of the engines was found several miles away from the central crash site.

According to what I read, among other things, this impact scene would account for the aircraft having being shot down.

Honestly, I just don't know what or whom to believe anymore.

:crazy:

[stevebreeze]

2. they were confused as to what to do?

I disagree with HL Menken. You can underestimate the intelligence of the American public. At least I sincerely hope the public won't buy this load of crap!

[preciousdove]

6. The super technology plane that went down in China

It was said by former pilots of such planes that standing orders were to destroy the plane and go down with it if necessary. Only a direct order to land in China would change those orders. Was that some kind of a dry run for 911? I have heard it said it was some kind of illicit technology deal.

[stickdog]

8. I've got an idea!

How about intercepting the suspected hijacks with fighter planes, just like we used to do for all suspected hijacking BEFORE 9/11?

Boy, I guess I'm the smartest person in the world for coming up with that!

[JohnyCanuck]

3. And the ongoing 9/11 war games exercises had nothing to do with it,

even though they "coincidentally" were exercises simulating hijackings and a wayward aircraft crashing into a building.

“I have an on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD that on the day of 9/11 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (Richard B. Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack Field Training Exercise (FTX) which involved at least one (and almost certainly many more) aircraft under US control that was posing as a hijacked airliner”.
Mike Ruppert – June 5, 2004, editor of FTW www.fromthewilderness.com

On September 11, 2001, Richard B. Meyers, the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has thus far claimed he was in a meeting with Senator Max Cleland, and was “unaware” of the ongoing 9/11 attacks until after the Pentagon was struck.

<snip>

On September 11, 2001, the Air Force was in its second day of annual wargame drills, titled VIGILANT GUARDIAN, designed to test national air response systems, which incidentally involved hijacking scenarios. In addition the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which is staffed by military and CIA personnel, and is in charge of most American spy satellites, was running a drill for the scenario of an errant aircraft crashing into its headquarters. NRO headquarters also happens to be located just four miles from Washington’s Dulles airport – where Flight 77 (the flight said to have hit the Pentagon) originated...

<snip>

Did war games conducted by the Air Force, NORAD, NRO and others on 9/11 unintentionally cause this unprecedented ‘confusion’, or does all of this point to more disturbing conclusions about what happened that tragic morning?

http://inn.globalfreepress.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=387

[shraby]

4. We do know one thing now....

our administration is incapable of telling the truth on anything

[fearnobush]

5. Yes, the 911 commission is a whitewash to hide the truth from us.

As we know, the questions asked during these up coming hearings will be designed to place no blame or fault on the chimp. This commission is a real joke.

[stickdog]

7. We spend 500 billion a year on defense.

But we can't scramble a single fighter jet toward Flight 93 more than 100 minutes after the first hijacked plane hits the tallest building in the USA?

[stickdog]

9. What bullshit.

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 over 100 minutes after the first hijacked plane hit the WTC, over 60 minutes after second hijacked plane hit the WTC and over 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 has been our standard operating procedure for the last 30 years. 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?

[DoYouEverWonder]

10. They were confused?

Oh that's a comfort, not.

The world's strongest, best and brightest military in the world couldn't figure out what was going on, while the average Joe knew by 9:05 that America was in the midst of an ongoing terrorist attack? What's wrong with this picture?

[ze_dscherman]

11. Rumsfeld had changed the directives for interception June 1st.

"This June 1st update to the orders stopped all military
assistance in its tracks UNTIL approval from Donald
Rumsfeld (the "Secretary of Defense") could be granted --
which, by his own admission, it was not. Rumsfeld claimed
total ignorance of the inbound aircraft that attacked the
Pentagon (on the opposite side of the building complex,
where a construction project had been underway).*

In this manner, fighter planes were held up from
immediately responding to the hijacked commercial jets on
September the 11th.

The flight base commanders were ordered by the June 1st
"Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction" to wait for "approval"
from the Secretary of Defense before they could respond to
hijackings, where they would have routinely responded in
the past.
"

http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=891

[KDLarsen]

12. LIHOP - bordering to MIHOP

Seriously - what the heck was that order supposed to be good for?

Not to mention, had they even been able to scramble fighters to intercept the other aircrafts (haven't got the timeline for when Boy George left the school), they wouldn't have been able to do jack as long as Boy George was still reading his favourite book.