Guardian: Hijackers fly into Pentagon? No chance, said top brass

Mods: Story is not brand new, but the Guardian report is from today, and it shows that the foreign press picks it up.

The Guardian, April 15

Five months before the September 11 attacks, US military planners suggested a war game to practise a response to a terrorist attack using a commercial airliner flown into the Pentagon, but senior officers rejected the scenario as "too unrealistic".

In a press conference on Tuesday night, George Bush claimed that his administration could not have foreseen the use of aeroplanes as mis siles by terrorists. "We knew he had designs on us, we knew he hated us. But there was nobody in our government, and I don't think the prior government, that could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale," he said.

That claim was questioned in a report published yesterday by the September 11 commission, which pointed to a string of intelligence reports in the 1990s suggesting that al-Qaida was contemplating such ideas, including, in 1998, "a possible plot to fly an explosives-laden aircraft into a US city".

"Before September 11, Norad regularly exercised its response to possible hijacks, but never with the intent of lethal engagement, because planes were normally landed safely by their pilots and the hijackers would begin negotiations.

Some comments:
1) The Bojinka plot to fly planes into buildings was not only known through one dubious source, as described in this article, but also through a trial of Ramzi Yousef (Source).
2) Norad obviously exercised the reaction to hijackings. Why then was the response so shockingly slow on the day of 9/11?

Rummy had in the summer of 2001 ordered that any response had to be first referred to him -- and he was likely hiding under his bed.

govt' *if* we get nuked? (reference: that secret 'emergency govt' that they have all planned out in all hell breaks loose...)

How on EARTH can the DOD tell the president, "we will take x task over from now on"? Chimp can either be viewed as the CIC or not, he cannot have it both ways...

no one told me...

someone else was taking care of that...

I will let you know when they tell me (in re to EVERYTHING... esp answering the q about who we will turn sovereignty over to. Um gee, wouldn't the president like want to INFLUENCE the development of that??? Like have some ideas of his own? oh noooooo, general abazid and bremer will let him know.... who's running this show???)


/end of rant. Chimpy doesn't do anything as president. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. He has zero responsibility for anything... It's amazing....

All kinds of commentators and pundits kept repeating that "nobody could imagine that anyone would do this", "nobody could envisage an act so evil", etc. That didn't seem like an unreasonable way of looking at it at the time.

Now, we are discovering that indeed plenty of people had imagined this exact scenario, or scenarios very much like it. So, now I wonder if those pundits were just ignorant, like me, or if they knew something and were just blowing smoke for the * administration.

right after 9/11?

I remember the morning of 9/11 quite well. The big surprise was that the buildings collapsed. Nobody expected that. As for plane into buildings, this was not a surprise. Shocking and horrific, yes. Surprising, no.

My husband said, "Osama bin Laden's been trying to knock down those buildings for ten years."

It was NOT a surprise. And we didn't even have access to the PDB.

All those media talking heads who twittered "what a surprise!" were probably told to say that. Except that everything is a surprise to those airheads. They're probably surprised when the sun comes up each morning.

Like "Batman Forever" (1995), where a helicopter was flown into the Gotham Statue-that-looks-like Liberty.

No one could imagine such a thing. :eyes:

If I recall wasn't there an episode of the X-files spinoff "The Lone Gunman" that was based on a shadow government consipiracy to fly a remotely controlled plane into the World Trade Center and then shift the blame on terrorists. I believe I had seen that posted here on DU before.

Yeah here a link to more information

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Lone%20Gunmen/The_Lone_Gunmen_Episode_1.htm

that the original Boston Herald story included, was that WHITE HOUSE officials gaves the thumbs-down to the exercise. So Bush wasn't just ignoring the threat, he was actively working to aid it.

http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Contingency_Planning.html

Washington, D.C., Nov. 3, 2000 — The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard. Defense Protective Services Police seal the crash sight. Army medics, nurses and doctors scramble to organize aid. An Arlington Fire Department chief dispatches his equipment to the affected areas.

Don Abbott, of Command Emergency Response Training, walks over to the Pentagon and extinguishes the flames. The Pentagon was a model and the "plane crash" was a simulated one.

The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, as the crash was called, was just one of several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room.

On Oct. 24, there was a mock terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident to name just some of the scenarios that were practiced to better prepare local agencies for real incidents.

To conduct the exercise, emergency personnel hold radios that are used to rush help to the proper places, while toy trucks representing rescue equipment are pushed around the exercise table.

Cards are then passed out to the various players designating the number of casualties and where they should be sent in a given scenario.

To conduct the exercise, a medic reports to Army nurse Maj. Lorie Brown a list of 28 casualties so far. Brown then contacts her superior on the radio, Col. James Geiling, a doctor in the command room across the hall.

Geiling approves Brown's request for helicopters to evacuate the wounded. A policeman in the room recommends not moving bodies and Abbott, playing the role of referee, nods his head in agreement.

"If you have to move dead bodies to get to live bodies, that's okay," Abbott says as the situation unfolds .

Geiling remarked on the importance of such exercises.

"The most important thing is who are the players?" Geiling said. "And what is their modus operandi?"

Brown thought the exercise was excellent preparation for any potential disasters.

"This is important so that we're better prepared," Brown said. "This is to work out the bugs. Hopefully it will never happen, but this way we're prepared."

...more...



A plane crash is simulated inside the cardboard courtyard of a surprisingly realistic-looking model Pentagon. This "tabletop" exercise was designed to help emergency relief personnel better prepare for disasters when they occur.

and the CIA was planning to do a simulation on the morning of September 11, 2001 that involved a plane crashing into a government building.

http://www.nlsi.net/hs-alc-info.htm

John Fulton - Intelligence Networking & Analysis

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. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day. Information is the most powerful tool available in the homeland security effort. At the core of every initiative currently underway to protect our country and its citizens is the challenge of getting the right information to the right people at the right time. How can so much information from around the world be captured and processed in meaningful and timely ways? Mr. Fulton shares his insights into the intelligence community, and shares a vision of how today's information systems will be developed into even better counter-terrorism tools of tomorrow.

John Fulton’s 25 years in the intelligence community has contributed to his recognition as an expert in risk & threat response analysis, scenario gaming, and strategic planning. He is on staff for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), currently serving as Chief of the Strategic War Gaming Division of the National Reconnaissance Office, and as a member of U.S. Joint Forces Command's Project Alpha - a prestigious "think tank" for advanced concepts related to such issues as homeland security. He formerly served as the mission director for our nation's satellite imagery program as well as replacing Army Astronaut Same Gemar as the Director of the National Security Space Master Plan for the U.S. Department of Defense and Intelligence Space Communities under the auspices of the Deputy UnderSecretary of Defense (Space).

His counter-terrorism and homeland security responsibilities include advising the Director Central Intelligence Staff for Homeland Security, the U.S. Marshall's Office, and collaboration with the National Security Council.

In the private sector Fulton has developed a number of patents related to positioning, "smart GPS " applications, communications, and audio/video technology. He oversees the development of public & personal safety applications of these capabilities through SafeSTAR projects, and contributes to the strategic planning and conceptual design of the SafeSTAR Homeland Security Command Center.

Then WHY did they do the simulation of it??? And.. if a screenwriter for a t.v. show can imagine it, and why can't they?

Didn't they ever read about WWII Kamikaze pilots?
Didn't they at least watch the movie "Midway"?

Every day we hear about more "underlings" who warned about the danger, only to be ignored. This is nothing new in our bureaucracy. My father complained about it when he worked for the Bureau of Mines during the Nixon regime, and the government started hiring business administration experts to head departments they knew nothing about.

since Chimpster took over.

The criteria for heading a department seems to be (1) born-again Christian and avid fan of "Left Behind" series and (2) friend of Poppy.

Again, it is so difficult to determine whether or not it was gross negligence and incompetence or LIHOP. At some point the negligence becomes criminal, though, resulting in LIHOP by dereliction of duty, at the very least.

on the upper left hand corner of page 63 of the pdf found at the link below:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf

then ask yourself the very question that you posed.

The answer becomes crystal clear.