Pentagon Rejected Pre-9/11 Hijacking Exercise (Whoops)

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/politics/14PENT.html?ex=1082520000&en=28dfc1934cfa2c34&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

WASHINGTON, April 13 — At least five months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, air defense planners proposed a war-game situation in which a terrorist group hijacked an airliner and flew it into the Pentagon, but the Joint Staff rejected the idea, Pentagon officials said Tuesday.

Pentagon officials on Tuesday played down the significance of the proposal, which they said was made at a planning conference before the training exercise in April 2001, and was not based on any specific threat. The exercise was intended to test the military leadership's ability to function at undisclosed sites outside Washington in an emergency, and the hijacking did not fit the war game's objectives, the officials said.

"Several fictitious scenarios were posed, and this scenario was rejected, as were many others," said Bryan G. Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

The proposal was described in an e-mail message disclosed on Monday by the Project on Government Oversight, an advocacy group, and was confirmed by military officials. The message was written Sept. 18, 2001, by Terry Ropes, identified as a former member of the North American Aerospace Defense Command, or Norad, which is responsible for defending United States airspace.

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eom

This appears to be another glaring example of this statement from Contradicta being, shall we say "counter-intuitive"...

Ugh.

Julie

http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm

"On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team at the CIA were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building."

Do you find that in contradiction to the NYT article? I do. In fact one of the mockumentaries about 911 had the Airforce using the drill as an excuse as to why interceptors were not immediately available to respond that morning.

The Pentagon rejecting the idea of terrorists hi-jacking and intentionally crashing, Condi's statement of "whodathought".
Maybe the Pentagon blew off the idea, so they found a loophole to run the excercise under the auspices of an "accident".
Who knows, but both point to the lie that the idea of terrorists using planes as missles never crossed their "beautiful minds".

Check out this Pentagon site before it disappears!!
Click on the photo to see all of the photos related to a Pentagon "crash" simulation.
http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html

Check out this thread!
NORAD was running a simulation of a plane crashing into a building on the MORNING OF 911!!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&a...

On 9/11, CIA Was Running Simulation of a Plane Crashing into a Building
http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm

Someone has done an "impassioned" analysis of all Condi's LIES at the hearing, and it covers the crash simulation at the Pentagon, halfway down the page. (warning...strong language)
http://www.americaoverthrown.com/rice.html

Let's hope this story breaks on national TV soon!

I meant to reply to the original post. I wasn't directing that statement at you.

from "The Failure to Defend the Skies on 911" http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/main/essayairdefense.html

Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins figured it would be a long day.
Sept. 11 was Day II of "Vigilant Guardian," an exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide. The simulation would run all week, and Deskins, starting her 12-hour shift in the Operations Center as the NORAD unit's airborne control and warning officer, might find herself on the spot.
Day I of the simulation had moved slowly. She hoped the exercise gathered steam. It made a long day go faster.
8:40 A.M.: REAL WORLD
In the Ops Center, three rows of radar scopes face a high wall of wide-screen monitors. Supervisors pace behind technicians who peer at the instruments. Here it is always quiet, always dark, except for the green radar glow.

AT 8:40, DESKINS NOTICED SENIOR TECHNICIAN Jeremy Powell WAVING HIS HAND. BOSTON CENTER WAS ON THE LINE, HE SAID. IT HAD A HIJACKED AIRPLANE.
"IT MUST BE PART OF THE EXERCISE," DESKINS THOUGHT.

AT FIRST, EVERYBODY DID. Then Deskins saw the glowing direct phone line to the Federal Aviation Administration.
- "Amid Crisis Simulation, 'We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack'"
by Hart Seely, Newhouse News Service, January 25, 2002
http://www.unansweredquestions.net/timeline/2002/newhousenews012502.html