Gail Sheehy: Rummy AWOL on 9/11 due to PNAC's need for "new Pearl Harbor"?

[Stephanie]

Paul Thompson posted this Mother Jones article in LBN and I think it's really important. This is the strongest argument for LIHOP I've seen in such a (relatively) mainstream publication. Sheehy has been covering the Jersey Girls in their quest for truth about what really happened on 9/11, so I have to assume that her suspicions are theirs. WHY did Rummy sit on his hands all morning? Why didn't he DO something? FINALLY someone is willing to look at PNAC as a motivation for LIHOP. My deepest thanks to Gail Sheehy, a brave and wise woman.

Who's in Charge Here?

What the 9-11 Commission Report does not explain is why, on the morning of September 11, 2001, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and other top officials were essentially missing in action.

By Gail Sheehy
July 22, 2004

<snip>

Even before the 2000 presidential election, Rumsfeld commissioned a “blueprint for maintaining global U.S. pre-eminence” along with his future deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, and future-Vice President Cheney, as well as President Bush’s brother, Florida governor Jeb Bush. The plan shows that Bush intended to take military control of Persian Gulf oil, whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power, and intended to retain control of the region even if there was no threat.

The report, written by the neo-conservative think tank Project for the New American Century, also advocated “regime change” in China, North Korea, Libya, Syria, and Iran. An unnamed British member of Parliament was quoted as saying of the report: “This is a blueprint for U.S. domination--a new world order of their making.” The report also complained that the changes it recommended were likely to take a long time, “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” In the summer of 2001, when security agencies were regularly warning of a catastrophic attack by Al Qaeda, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s office “sponsored a study of ancient empires—Macedonia, Rome, the Mongols—to figure out how they maintained dominance,” according to the New York Times.

Hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld was given information that three of the names on the airplane passenger manifests were suspected al-Qaeda operatives. The notes he composed at the time asserted that he wanted the “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. at same time. Not only UBL. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” He presented the idea to Bush the next day. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke later wrote in his book Against All Enemies, “At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq.”

Shortly after 9/11, Rumsfeld set up “a small team of defense officials outside regular intelligence channels to focus on unearthing details about Iraqi ties with al-Qaeda and other terrorist networks.” In May, 2002, Time reported that “Rumsfeld has been so determined to find a rationale for an attack that on 10 separate occasions he asked the CIA to find evidence linking Iraq to the terror attacks of September 11. The intelligence agency repeatedly came back empty-handed.”

###

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/07/07_400.html

Isn't it time these questions were asked in the campaign? The 9/11 Comm. Report does not exonerate Bush, Cheney & Rummy. Instead, it says that because the President failed to act on 9/11 warnings (for whatever reasons....) we should have an intelligence czar to take over that duty from him. This position was never necessary when we had a competent and well-intentioned President.

Isn't it time to talk about PNAC and the MOTIVATION the Bush admin had to ignore the warnings and do nothing to stop the attacks? Do Kerry/Edwards dare bring this up? Or, which of their attack dog surrogates will?

[DeepModem Mom]

1. Whoa! Thanks for posting -- n/t

[Stephanie]

2. Maybe this was already posted but I hadn't seen it

I think it's pretty stunning that she comes right out and says it. Go Gail Sheehy!!!

[sadiesworld]

3. kick

[graphixtech]

4. ex- Canadian Defense Minister asks 'WHY" failure? (pics)

(Paul Hellyer photos credit Kyle Hence)

An interview with Paul Hellyer,
former Defense Minister of Canada

The following interview was conducted by Kyle Hence of 911CitizensWatch.org and Bill Douglas of 911Visibility.org, on May 27, 2004, at the International 9-11 Inquiry in Toronto, Canada.

(Paul Hellyer held the Canadian office equivalent to Secretary of Defense in the U.S., and was Deputy Prime Minister, the Canadian equivalent to Vice President.)

Paul Hellyer:
Why didn't you know this was going to happen? You spend billions and billions with spooks all over the world and surely you should have known what was going on. And, so I began to be concerned about that. And then questions were raised by others. Why did the President just sit in the schoolroom when he heard the news? Why did he not acknowledge that he already knew what was going on? As a former Minister of National Defense, when the news came out I had to wonder. Why did airplanes fly around for an hour and a half without interceptors being scrambled from Andrews ? Is it Andrews right next to the capitol?

Kyle Hence: Yes, that's correct.

Paul Hellyer: With a quick action alert they should have been there in five minutes or ten minutes. If not, as the Minister of National Defense, which in the United States is the Secretary of Defense, I would want to say "why not?"

Kyle Hence: Does it disturb you, or do you have concerns about your neighbors to the south that there's been no inquiry at a defense level relative to the specific failure to scramble jets?

Paul Hellyer: I think the inquiry has been very shallow and superficial. And I would like to see a much tougher more in-depth inquiry. The evidence is that some people were allowed to fly out of the United States after the attack when American citizens were not allowed to fly in. And Canadians had the pleasure, I guess in a sense, of the company of tens of thousands, several tens of thousands of them in Canada for a few days, especially in Newfoundland where the people were most gracious in looking after them. But why were some members of the Bin Laden family allowed to fly out of the United States? Why?

There are so many questions. What is going wrong here? Or was there something going wrong? How much did they actually know?
(more)

Kyle Hence: It seems like there's a fundamental lack of accountability and transparency, especially now in the wake of 9-11. Does that concern you in regards to what's happening in America with the Patriot Act, and the projection of American military power?

Paul Hellyer: Oh, very, very much so. I'm very disturbed about a lack of transparency. Everyone talks about it, and no one is willing to come clean, as it were. I just had lunch, interestingly enough with the designer of the Avro Arrow which was cancelled more than 40 years ago and one of the things we were discussing were the lies that people in government and the Air Force told at the time. And I guess this makes me all the more suspicious. If they lied about that, what else were they lying about? So, we were agreeing that you had to get behind the superficial and the spin and try and get at the truth. It's very difficult. It takes a lot of time.

But, we have to try and get the truth. Because unless we do, as the good book says, "seek the truth and the truth will set you free." And I think that's what we've got to try to do and I hope that somebody has the courage and the persistence to keep at it until we can get it.
(more)
http://www.septembereleventh.org/alerts/hellyer.php

http://www.911Truth.org/index.php


http://www.septembereleventh.org/forum/ubbthreads.php

[Nashyra]

5. Kick

[Dover]

27. NOBODY in our government WANTS the truth. Not Dems or Reps.

Because while there may be big differences on methods and procedures, there appears to be little disagreement about going into Afghanistan or even Iraq. And clearly the U.S. needed a good reason to go to Afghanistan....so they created one.

[enough]

6. Excellent article.

The "unanswered questions" sidebar is also good.

Why oh why weren't these questions being asked in September 2001? It's enough to make you believe in mass hypnosis.

[Stephanie]

9. The unanswered questions not covered by the Report, sidebar to the article

1. Who financed the attacks? Was the Saudi government involved?
   
   
2. Did airline managers try to cover up the hijackings—at a time when lives could still have been saved?
   
   
3. Why hasn’t anyone been fired or even reprimanded for the government’s failure to prevent or effectively respond to the attacks? Where was the leadership?

[DoYouEverWonder]

7. Here's Wolfowitz account of what he and Rummie did on 9-11

Wolfowitz and Rummie were together in a meeting in the Pentagon that morning. Wolfowitz's story goes from the WTC getting hit, to things were a little fuzzy, to Rummie running out to save the victims. The fuzzy part is the crucial half hour, where he admits that "There didn't seem to be much to do about it immediately and we went on with whatever the meeting was."


Paul Wolfowitz

One is, where were you on September 11th? Were you at the Pentagon when --

Wolfowitz: I was in my office. We'd just had a breakfast with some congressmen in which one of the subjects had been missile defense. And we commented to them that based on what Rumsfeld and I had both seen and worked on the Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, that we were probably in for some nasty surprises over the next ten years.

Q: Oh, my gosh.

Wolfowitz: I can't remember, then there was the sort of question of what kind of nasty surprises? I don't remember exactly which ones we came up with. The point was more just that it's in the nature of surprise that you can't predict what it's going to be.

Q: Do you remember then the impact of the plane into the Pentagon? Or had you first heard stories about New York? What was --

Wolfowitz: We were having a meeting in my office. Someone said a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then we turned on the television and we started seeing the shots of the second plane hitting, and this is the way I remember it. It's a little fuzzy.

Q: Right.

Wolfowitz: There didn't seem to be much to do about it immediately and we went on with whatever the meeting was. Then the whole building shook. I have to confess my first reaction was an earthquake. I didn't put the two things together in my mind. Rumsfeld did instantly.

Q: Did he really?

Wolfowitz: Yeah. He went charging out and down to the site where the plane had hit, which is what I would have done if I'd had my wits about me, which may or may not have been a smart thing to do. But it was, instead the next thing we heard was that there'd been a bomb and the building had to be evacuated. Everyone started streaming out of the building in a quite orderly way. Congregated on the parade ground basically right in front of the Pentagon which would have been about the worst place to have a crowd of a couple of thousand people in that moment if we'd again had our wits about us. But we were out of the building anyway.

Q: Let me ask you then about the next couple of days. There is --

Wolfowitz: Just to complete it. We went back into the building and that was an experience I won't ever forget. There was a huge fire, there was smoke gradually filling -- not all, just the small number of us who were basically in the command group. Rumsfeld was there and General Myers who was still the Vice Chairman at that point. The Chairman was on his way back from overseas and I was there. We were in the National Military Command Center and there was this acrid smoke gradually seeping into the place. Rumsfeld simply refused to leave. He finally made me leave, which I was not happy about.

I went up to this bizarre location that was prepared to survive nuclear war.

Q: Really?

Wolfowitz: Yes.

Q: In the Pentagon.

Wolfowitz: No, no. Way out of town.

Kellems: That's why he left, was to separate them.

Q: I see.

Kellems: To provide continuity.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/tr20030509-depsecdef0223.html

[Stephanie]

8. The second tower is hit, and he & Rummy went on with their meeting.......

What else do you need to know? Two towers hit, four planes hijacked, obviously an attack against the country, for the first time ever on our own soil, and they just continuted their meeting.

May Paul Wolfowitz rot in hell. Blood on his hands!

[ljm2002]

10. No kidding!

Again and again, these people hide their complicity right out in the open. And with the compliant media, they get away with it.

Has anyone in the media ever asked the question outright: given that a second airplane hit the WTC, given that we already knew there were at least 4 airplanes hijacked -- how could it be that the chain of command did not spring into action and do what they could to stop further damage?

The only person who could order jets to be scrambled was Rumsfeld, per his order of June 2001 (another coincidence?). But he and Wolfowitz saw the second plane hit the WTC and lazily thought, well, not much we can do, let's just continue on with our meeting...

The only person who could order shootdowns was *Bush, who lazily continued on with his reading opportunity.

As much as I and others here may believe LIHOP / MIHOP, we really don't need it. What is already known -- via their own words, and via videotape -- is damning and *proves* *criminal dereliction of duty* on that morning, by the chain of command that we citizens count on to protec us! Wolfowitz's words regarding himself and Rumsfeld, along with the Booker School video of *Bush, ought to be enough to impeach their asses right now.

[KittyWampus]

11. Well, I Brought This Up As A Thread And It Was Ignored

Rumsfeld was the only one AUTHORIZED TO SHOOT DOWN PLANES besides Junior.

And it was Rumsfeld who CHANGED THAT PROCEDURES TO THAT POLICY shortly before 9/11.

[ljm2002]

12. Even when we think we're ignored...

...people read it. No worries, the important thing is that the word gets out. Thank goodness Gail Sheehy has written this article. I think it's extremely important. Especially because it drives home the point that these people were criminally negligent on that morning, without having to explore any potential deeper involvement.

[Stephanie]

13. I think I saw that thread - do you have a link to the policy?

I remember that he changed the procedure and invested all the power in himself. So it's even more suspicious that he was out of the loop on 9/11. Here's Gail Sheehy on this:

The commission’s staff report had earlier cited the legal chain of command in case of hijackings: “If a hijack was confirmed, procedure called for … the President to empower the Secretary of Defense to send up a military escort, and if necessary, give pilots shoot-down orders.” The final report confirms the same chain of command and adds this detail: “The president apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00”--more than an hour after the first World Trade Center tower was hit, 20 minutes after the Pentagon was attacked, and moments before Flight 93 was wrestled to the ground by passengers. And even in this brief conversation, the urgent question at hand doesn’t seem to have come up: The report states that “no one can recall the content of this conversation but it was a brief call in which the subject of the shootdown authority was not discussed.”

The President emphasized to the commissioners that he had authorized the shootdown of hijacked aircraft. But the final report states flatly that “there is no documentary evidence for this call.” It notes that neither Cheney’s chief of staff nor his wife Lynne, both of whom were taking notes that morning, made note of a call between the President and Vice President. Only when a military aide rushed into the White House bunker to announce--erroneously, as it turned out--that Flight 93 was 80 miles away from Washington, did Cheney apparently take it upon himself to give the order for fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane.

[TacticalPeek]

14. Kick.

:kick:

[Stephanie]

15. I think this is a very good day to introduce people to PNAC and LIHOP

Those who have seen F9/11 should be ready to hear about this today, now that Ridge has promised us more people will die in NYC.

[Octafish]

21. PNAC: Project for the New American Century

The project outlines plans to ensure the United States is on tope of the world in the 21st century, like in the 20th. Not a bad idea, if it's the America that ended the Depression, beat the Fascists and the Communists, and got men to the moon. Now that nation, our nation, the United States of America is run by gangsters, members of a transnational criminal enterprise -- an event that not even Ian Fleming dared imagine.

America ‘Pearl Harbored’

Fanatical Warhawks Drafted Blueprint for Bloody U.S. World Domination Years Ago

The cabal of war fanatics advising the White House secretly planned a “transformation” of defense policy years ago, calling for war against Iraq and huge increases in military spending. A “catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor”—was seen as necessary to bring this about.

Exclusive to American Free Press
By Christopher Bollyn

The huge increases in U.S. military spending that have occurred since the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, were planned before President George W. Bush was elected by the same men who are pushing the administration’s “war on terrorism” and the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Billions of dollars in additional defense spending are but the first step in the group’s long-term plan to transform the U.S. military into a global army enforcing a terroristic and bloody Pax Americana around the world.

A neo-conservative Washington-based organization known as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), funded by three foundations closely tied to Persian Gulf oil and weapons and defense industries, drafted the war plan for U.S. global domination through military power.

CONTINUED ...

http://www.americanfreepress.net/12_24_02/America_Pearl_Harbored/america_pearl_harbored.html

AFP has printed some excellent articles on all manner BFEE. I don't know about the editorial policies and I don't care. All I want is the Truth.

[Stephanie]

30. Thanks Octafish!

Waiting for my Frog March. Want to see these neo-con idiots in JAIL for the havoc they've wreaked.

[LunaC]

25. The Whispering Campaign is a great introduction

Anyone wanting to help spread the word, please see the link below.

[Octafish]

29. The Truth is what members of the BFEE fear more than anything.

Thanks to your work, you're giving them one heck of a good scare -- one person at a time. Great resource! Thank you.

You also might enjoy The Project for and Old American Century:

http://www.oldamericancentury.org/

[DemBones DemBones]

16. Who had shootdown authority before Rumsfeld had rules changed?

Did someone LOSE authority to order shootdown when Rumsfeld got it? (And, if so, who?) Or was it previously an authority held only by the president?

[Stephanie]

19. I'm looking for that - I can't find it

I know I saw it somewhere.

[maryallen]

20. Yes, someone lost this authority ...

Previously, military officers in certain command positions could order pursuit/shoot-downs of suspicious airplanes on a case-by-case basis.

[LunaC]

24. NORAD’s military commanders

See post #23

[enigmatic]

17. Excellent Article..m/m

[Disturbed]

18. 911 Commission Failed

to answer a whole lot of questions.

[Algorem]

22. BIG.

[LunaC]

23. It's about damn time!

I've been jumping up and down about this for AGES! I'm relieved that the PNAC, perpetrators and agenda are being identified in the press but there's LOTS the article leaves out.....


THIS is the sequence of events I want explained:

In May 2001 the U.S. State Department met with Iran, German and Italian officials to discuss Afghanistan. It was decided that the ruling Taliban would be toppled and a "broad-based government" would control the country so a gas pipeline could be built there.

http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/7969.pdf.
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex20867.htm


Even as plans were being made to remove the Taliban rulers from power, Colin Powell announced a $43 million "gift" to Afghanistan.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-091701scheer.column
http://www.cato.org/dailys/08-02-02.html


Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in the UAE received a call that Bin Laden supporters were in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives. It was rumored that Bin Laden was interested in hijacking U.S. aircraft.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf


In June 2001 the decades-old procedure for a quick response by the nation’s air defense was changed. NORAD’s military commanders could no longer issue the command to launch fighter jets because approval had to be sought from the civilian Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing7/for_the_record_ashley.pdf


In July 2001, the private plot formulated in May for toppling the Taliban was divulged during the G8 summit in Genoa, Italy. Immediately after the conference, American, Russian, German and Pakistani officials secretly met in Berlin to finalize the strategy for military strikes against the Taliban, scheduled to begin before mid-October 2001

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,556254,00.html
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/features/fex20867.htm


In September 2001 the "catastrophic and catalyzing" modern-day Pearl Harbor envisioned years earlier by the White House members of the PNAC came to pass when the WTC and Pentagon were attacked with U.S. aircraft as Rumsfeld sat passive and unresponsive. Immediately, the finger of blame was pointed at Osama bin Laden, a former CIA operative with ties to Afghanistan. Suddenly, the U.S. "gift" of $43 million to the Taliban in May was cast in a new light. Coincidentally, Pakistan had participated in the plan to attack Afghanistan and the chief of Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agency was later linked to a 911 hijacker after wiring him $100,00 just days before the WTC fell. Pakistan's ISI also had a long-standing working relationship with the CIA.

http://cryptome.org/rad.htm
http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=8830
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO109C.html
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=1454238160
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1266317,00.html


In October 2001, with flags waving, crowds cheering, and anthems playing, the "War On Terror" and the hunt for Osama began when Afghanistan was attacked right on schedule of July's secret meeting


Shorrtly afterwards, public focus was diverted to Iraq while the OSP maneuvered in the background. You already know the rest of the story.


For lurid details on the PNAC coup of the White House and the Rise of the Neocons see "The Whispering Campaign" link below and please help spread the word!

[Stephanie]

28. Thanks LunaC

You can find more articles on PNAC here.

[Snazzy]

26. Niger fake Iraqi nuke info floated on Oct. 15, 2001

According to the Senate.

Had we even started bombing Afghanistan by then? (Think we just had, but enough google for the day).

That's why I think you'll find that the Josh Marshall and related info will be significant. Took a few months to get going, but it started right away. They even had the Iraqi Ambassador to Rome going there the week before 9/11 in one of the several forgeries.

Neocons, SISMI or the CIA itself could have created this disinfo (I'll stick with the last till someone points out national treasure Hersh being wrong, but it is complicated). But that's just particulars.

It reinforces something we all know, but the general public doesn't: there was no effort to let inspections work. In fact, this was done to undermine the credibility of the UN process. The WH was blood thirsty for Iraq, from day one as Rummy said, further confirmed on day 34 per the Senate report.

That's the serious and factual points. Here's my couple of glasses of wine: As far as the Italians, and some MIHOP/LIHOP--I wonder about the G8 in Genoa, held in July. Was a plan launched to attack Iraq then? They met on the subject of Iraq and on the subject of Iraq doing nukes (IAEA) which was poo-poo'd by those in attendance. Did the whole fake documents thing maybe get cooked up before 9/11 then and there?