NORAD issue addressed!!!!!! (HUGE!)

One of the commissioners, the woman on the commission, asked Rumsfeld about air defense plans and what they were. He confessed that planes are supposed to be sent up to intercept hijacked planes. The inference here is that THEY WERE SENT UP ON 9/11, and that a SHOOTDOWN ORDER WAS ISSUED, BUT THAT THE PILOTS DID NOT RECEIVE SAID ORDER!!!

This is huge! This means somebody either deliberately did not convey that order, there was a huge collosal fuckup (EXTREMELY unlikely given the severity of the circumstances), or A STANDOWN ORDER WAS ISSUED BY SOMEONE.

Rummy just gave the whole thing up, and he knew it. He looked sick, and if I am not mistaken his hands were actually shaking. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Myers tried to join in to help but was not of much use, and he looked freaked out too! So did Wolfowitz, WHO SAID NOTHING!

The gig is up and they know it.

she mentioned that at today's testimony they are not supposed to address what happened ON THAT ACTUAL DAY, so she stop short of asking him exactly why the pilots did not get the shootdown order. BUT SHE DID SAY "you will be back here to testify when we go into detail on the timeline of the day and we will address this issue again."

THE GIG IS UP! THE GIG IS UP!

This is when Bush was in charge. He is the one running for election, not Clinton. We need to know all about what he did and will do!

This one is only supposed to investigate background events leading up to 9/11, but there will be other testimonies as to what actually happened on the day of 9/11. If the commissioners pursue this angle that is when the lid will truly blow off for all to see.

I want to see them squirm.

Folks: For your writing/phone calling pleasure...


National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW
Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407

Washington Office*
Tel: (202) 331-4060
Fax It is vital to get these criminals under oath.
: (202) 296-5545

email: info@9-11Commission.gov

And don't forget your reps in Congress:

www.senate.gov

http://www.house.gov/writerep/

Or check my sig line for the TOLL FREE number for the Capitol Hill Switchboard.

asked and the answers demanded.

I empathize with your excitment but it's "jig" not "gig". You know, like a fishing bobber when it rises, that's what a jig is and it certainly looks up and there's something on the line. With Clarke due to testify tomorrow Bush and co. look ready to be skinned and filletted.

they just don't want to say so.

I think you are right, but it is beside the matter here. They were talking about airspace OVER THE PENTAGON, not in Pennsylvania.

he was non-existent prior to 9.11..

hasn't done much since either.....

ahem.

Early in the evening Bush said he was certain he would win Penn. and Florida. Which was odd as both were relatively close races... Tom was in Penn and Jeb in Fl. I wondered once the BBV stuff came out whether there was some election rigging in Penn too.. and Tom was rewarded for helping steal the election.

Pure speculation of course.

I got that distinct impression from the facial expressions and body language of Der Rummy. He looked a bit nauseated.

A shootdown issue was ordered, but that order either (a) did not make it to the pilots or (b) was overruled by a standdown order. Either way somebody OBVIOUSLY interfered to make sure those planes were not shot down and reached their destinations! At the very least, this proves LIHOP.

Verrrrrrrrrrry interesting.

I'm from the MIHOP camp and with LIHOP on the table we're just a heartbeat away from MIHOP.....wait until Clarke's testimony tomorrow!

Welcome to DU!!! :)

how does it prove LIHOP?

The shootdown orders were issued but someone interfered to make sure they did not reach the pilots (or, alternatively, standdown orders were ordered subsequent to the shootdown order). That means somebody intervened to allow it to happen. Thats LIHOP.

the possibilites that would bolster LIHOP, but there are other possibilities including orders were not received by the pilots in time (before the crash); pilots received the orders but planes were still on the ground; pilots did not receive the orders for other legitimate reasons. I don't think we have air tight proof of LIHOP yet. This needs to be fleshed out more.

How do you know that? It can't be through the process of elimination (since other possibilities remain) and unless I missed something, there is no evidence that somebody did indeed interfere.

And I still must ask, where is the evidence that someone interfered?

I'm afraid that I'm seeing once again the familiar trap of conspiracy theorists: if one outlandish explanation is possible, all others are to be dismissed even if they remain viable alternate explanations. Critical thinking goes out the window.

Are you under the impression that 'intercept' is somehow synonymous with 'shootdown'?

Because nothing could be further from the truth.

If not, your explanation of how what Rummie said 'means' what you're saying it means is a little tough for me to follow.

And believe me, I know just about EVERYTHING that's out their concerning 9/11 (hence my handle), yet I still don't see how Rummie's saying that 'planes are supposed to be intercepted' means, well, anything you're saying it means.

Please elaborate?

Thanks!

:hi:

I hope my TiVo caught it for later viewing.

If he knew that all along, how come he's never said anything before?

has our corporate whore media EVER asked any of the BIG QUESTIONS ???

I'm not so sure that one hasn't been asked.

I mean about the flight being shot down in PA.

but I don't remember a reporter ever actually asking about it. Remember, those "press conferences" are phony and the questions are pre-screened.

You traitorous scumbags.

How could you?

The Wheel of Karma is turning.

There is no question left. That was it right there. Why weren't those airplanes shot down? Rumsfeld had no answer for it, and you know that if he did he would have given it. THEY ARE CULPABLE!

He didn't give them. After the first hit, somebody gave orders to stand down. Somebody in the military chain of command is gonna take the fall now.

"Is he not the Sec of Defence? Isn't it his job to make sure those pilots know exactly what to think? Isn't that what the military is about?"

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=1273769&mesg_id=1274366

it went poof. Just like that.

Gorelick hinted at further questioning, though.

I changed the channel and missed it. POOP!!!
I couldn't help it . . . looking at that man is just too creepy! Makes my skin crawl. :puke:

Powell on, Rumsfeld comes up after Cohen

I turned off Rumcrumbum earlier....he's harder to take than Pres. Cheney or his organ grinder monkey

might have to tape him this time....LOVE to see him sweat

which is so much a bunch of lies I can hardly stand it. However you have to understand aviation a bit to understand why it is. When I find the hard copy of Rummys answers I can post it and I can show you why. However Rummy did confess how its routine for planes to scramble for hijacked airlines. Of course Myers mentioned how they changed the protection of our airspace after the end of the cold war. Anyway, this will make all you fliers feels sooooo much better-NOT.

edit:for spelling

At least the one over DC airspace, anyways. He let the cat out of the bag and there is no putting it back in there now. They are done for and you could tell they knew it by looking at their faces. JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED!

I am finding it hard to believe he would ef up that bad.

intercepted over DC airspace? That was the plane that Barbara Olson was on who is wife of Ted Olson...weird and so "coincidental.":scared:

They scrambled jets for Payne Stuart's pipercub BEFORE the damn thing and they couldn't figure out how to do it for a few goddamned 747s?!

That dog won't hunt!

The jig is up? Is it really that easy?!

He is an utter miserable failure.

The air defense of Washington DC is not an "option" - it's a requirement.

It's you're JOB #1

You irresponsible incompetent piece of shit.

Fuck You Rummy - you're Fired!

Culpability.

Someone prevented the shootdown orders from getting to the pilots or overrode those orders once they were received.

I'll bet dollars to doughnuts....

He must have called someone after his wife, Barbara Olson, contacted him via cellphone from one of those planes.

called her husband.

Only Cheney, the Chimp and a few other very high ranking DOD types had that authority.

I remember reading an exchange (somewhere! senior moment ! ack!) from 9/11 where Cheney was in the situation room at the WH.

He was asked if the rules of engagement for shoot down had changed - he growled "I don't remember changing those orders"

Cheney either really fucked up or LIHOP.

I think so....

The Great 9/11 Coincidence
Jon Rappoport
May 13, 2003

On August 22, 2002, the Associated Press ran a story about 9/11. "Agency planned drill for plane crash last Sept. 11."

"...one US intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 <2001> in which an errant aircraft crashed into one of its buildings."

The same morning. As. The 9/11 attacks.

According to the NRO, their exercise was canceled when the real thing began. Barbara Honegger, who worked in the White House under Reagan, points out another coincidence. Researching press reports, she found a 9/16/01 Washington Post story about the pilot of AA flight 77 that, on the morning of 9/11, was said to have crashed into the Pentagon.

The pilot, Charles Burlingame, an ex- F4 Navy flyer, had, as his last Navy mission, helped craft Pentagon response plans in the event of a commercial airliner hitting the Pentagon.

Pilot drafts plan for response to Pentagon hit. Pilot winds up on plane that hits Pentagon.

Honegger states that Dick Cheney was ultimately in charge of the NRO exercise on the morning of 9/11. He was in the White House Situation Room for that purpose.

How do you like all these apples?

The limited hangout on this would be: "The hijackers had found out about the upcoming 9/11 mock exercise. They ran their op on top of that, hoping the confusion between Real and Mock would keep the US government from responding to the actual attacks."

Or, one could take this another step: NRO uses many CIA employees. Some element of the CIA was involved in the tactics of the actual 9/11 attacks. All the above coincidences certainly defy the laws of probability. Since AP eventually ran a story right out in the open about the mock exercise, one would think the Hill would have exploded in outrage. A hearing would have been held pronto. The "bizarre coincidence" would have become front-page news for a week or so.

What are the details of those exercises? And don't they put the lie to the Bush/Condi claim that they couldn't possibly in their wildest dreams ever, ever, ever have imagined anything other than a conventional hijacking (which they should have dealt with, anyway)?

The White House could have completely frozen at the switch. The WSJ reported Gen. Myers gave the order to put the armed forces on alert more than an hour after the Pentagon was hit.

It's an either/or that's proven. Either the White House froze in the hours of the 9/11 attacks, or they let the attacks through.

Either one is grounds for impeachment.

But surely you can admit that it simply defies all logic than in a circumstance such as 9/11, after two planes had already hit the WTC and the Bush Admin. knew what was happening, they would actually fail to give the shootdown order. No way, no how. I'll agree it can't prove it in the court of law, but it proves it in my mind.

It's a personal preference thing.

Maybe they LIHOP and maybe they didn't; I'm still not convinced. But the sheer incompetence is staggering enough.

unless he want to be called either a traitor, a conspirator or a just plain incompetent. He can't call Kerry an elitist or a flip-flopper anymore--WE'VE HIT THE TRIFECTA!

:headbang:
rocknation

...no order to shoot down was ever issued? I ask that because I don't think that Bush has the backbone to give that order. That fits his cowardly character to a tee. It might also explain why none of "the boys" gave a real answer. They didn't want to expose the boss for the coward he is.

Just a thought.

Rumsfeld admitted they were. Then when he was asked whether the pilots received it or not Rummy started mumbling and looking scared and said somethingt to the effect of "well I never talked to any of them so I don't know if they did." BULLSHIT! These fucking criminals MURDERED 3000 Americans in cold blood.

Rummy claiming that they ordered is not borne out by the evidence, right? (The pilots received no such order.) It makes just as much sense, or more sense actually, to assume that the order WASN'T given and Rummy lied about it to cover the boss, IMO. If Rummy admitted that no order was give, then he would have to explain why. I doubt that he wants the world to know that the Boss was curled up in a fetal ball in the back of AF1, getting an IV of courage. ;)

Rummy is UNDER OATH, so to lie is to open himself up to perjury charges. Would he do that for the President? I don't think so. Besides, it just defies reason that shootdown orders would not be issued, especially since IT DOESN'T HAVE TO BE THE PRESIDENT THAT OKAYS IT.

The issue here is that shootdown orders were issued (according to Rummy) yet did not reach the pilots (since they didn't shoot the planes down). SOMEONE interfered to make sure those orders did not reach the people that were in a position to act on them. That is LIHOP right there.

He'll lie to cover ass, whether 9-11 was incompetence, LIHOP or MIHOP.

more like an eightball of valium/compazine

thanks for the huge laugh in the midst of learning about this sordid agglomeration of thieves, liars, and traitors which infest our nation's corridors of power, ALL because we have a media that's SO far in bed with them that, what....can't even think of a proper analogy

"I don't know their thoughts" is right up there with "how do you define 'is'" (no offense ;) ).

An truthful non-answer to a non-question..I don't know anyone's thoughts but my own.

Everything they say has enough nuance that they can't technically be caught in a lie.

They are master liars. They must have lawyers vetting every single word that they say.

The Wall Street Journal said Monday that Gen. Myers gave the order to increase DEFCON alert status over an hour after the Pentagon was struck.

There you have it. No defense plan for DC. No domestic defense plan for US whatsoever. No order to go on alert till long after the 9/11 stikes had already happened.

The White House either completely paniced and froze under fire or literally let the attack happen. It has to be one or the other, and either one is absolute grounds for impeachment. You choose. Gross Negligence, Gross Incompetence, or Criminal Indifference to the murder of thousands of citizens.

Will the commission pursue it that far? I don't know. I suspect not because it will complete shake everyone's confidence in the government period, not just the Bush Administration. But I can guaran-fucking-tee you that if the commission were to pursue it they could prove culpability.

We have a candidate who's had career intel people flock to his side because of the evil stench emanating from the WH. They are defectors. We're going to hear a lot from them. Clarke, Wilson, Rand Beers. These guys aren't kidding around.

Which is illegal and a big part of what they are covering up- only the Pres. has the authority to order a plane shot down. That's why they made such a big deal about the photo of the Coward supposedly giving the order to shoot it down.

Cheney probably gave the order to stand down and NOT shoot down the other planes, or at LEAST the one that hit the Pentagon.

them to hesitate? Remember, she spoke to Ted Olson, the U.S. Attorney General via cell phone.

Something about it just STUNK.

way too many problems with that call.

I can't believe that bastard would use his own wife's death for political gain, but, well, yes I can. Knowing these evil people.

I think the idea that it made the Bushies hasitate is interesting but I have never really believed that call was made and am not yet convinced she was actually on the plane. The whole thing is just to scripted to be true.

Too difficult to completely hide a person of her fame. She was on the plane, she died, along with everyone else.

But the phone call, just like most of the other phone calls (Todd Beamer, etc.), are crap. Made up fairy tales designed to entertain the masses.

...even more so than the Private Lynch story. I think Ted Olson was involved with corroborating the Barbara Olson call, wasn't he?

But who's to say it was actually Barbara on the other end of the line?

Who's to say he's even telling the truth? Jesus, the first thing he did was call a reporter and tell them what happened. Is that your first response when your wife calls from a hijacked plane that just crashed into the Pentagon? You call a reporter?

That whole story stinks to high heaven.

The "why" is easier to assess. He must have guessed what his wife's fate would be once the first plane hit the WTC. And he must have known what the standing military orders were in cases like this. So, he would have wanted to let the powers that be know that Barbara was on one of those planes. How does he do that? The quickest way would be to get the information on the airways. A t.v. reporter would have been the best option. The next would be to try to reach Cheney or Bush, which couldn't have been an easy thing to do because of heavy traffic on the phone lines.

But I think the Solicitor General of the US probably has a fairly direct line to the top two guys, don't you?

Calling a reporter strikes me as wanting to "get the story out" as quickly as possibly. It just seems suspicious. I can't quite put my finger on why, it just is.

that was all a big f***ing lie

.

*

The beginning of the story was posted yesterday
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=437384

But this was there, too:

The Air Force has disclosed that on Sept. 11, no fighters that were armed and on alert were stationed closer than 130 miles to either New York or Washington. At Otis Air Force Base in Massachusetts, two F-15 fighters scrambled upon receiving word of a hijacking -- at almost the same moment that the first jet hit the World Trade Center. Their distance from New York meant the fighters had almost no chance to intercept the second jet that hit the Trade Center 16 minutes later, according to Brig. Gen. Donald Quenneville of the Massachusetts Air National Guard.

Officials with the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad), the joint U.S.-Canadian force responsible for protecting continental air space, said in interviews that fighter basing on Sept. 11 reflected Cold War-era fear of attacks from overseas, not from hijacked domestic airliners. Since Sept. 11, the Pentagon has said it has moved additional fighters closer to Washington, New York and other major cities to protect against domestically launched terrorist attacks.

Norad fighters stationed at Langley Air Force Base near Hampton, Va., conceivably might have reached the Washington area in time to shoot down the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon, Capt. Craig Borgstrom, one of the pilots who scrambled from Langley, said in an interview. But the three fighters in Virginia remained on the ground for a full 50 minutes after Norad had learned from the FAA that passenger jets had been hijacked, and 27 minutes after the second World Trade Center tower had been hit, according to Norad. The independent panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, has said it is investigating the cause of that delay.

(snip)

Once they got in the air, the Langley fighters observed peacetime noise restrictions requiring that they fly more slowly than supersonic speed and take off over water, pointed away from Washington, according to testimony before the commission. (Gen. Quenneville of the Massachusetts Air National Guard said the fighters from Otis Air Force Base ignored peacetime rules because the lead pilot concluded they faced an extraordinary situation.)

At public hearings last May, members of the Sept. 11 commission from both political parties raised questions about whether a faster response by the Langley fighters could have put them in range to stop American Airlines Flight 77 before it plowed into the Pentagon, and at least prevent the deaths of 125 people on the ground. Norad has said that commanders now have broader authority to suspend peacetime restrictions under certain emergency conditions.

-- at almost the same moment that the first jet hit the World Trade Center


OH NO my friend, they knew (controllers and NORAD) probably 30 mins earlier. The minute the transponder was turned off.

Yet none of the planes were shot down, except for (I believe) the one over Pennsylvania. Why? Did it take them more than a fucking hour to get their shit together, even though the planes had to have scrambled LONG AGO? I don't think so. Clearly a standdown order was given by somebody. I really hope the commission pursues this.

The way I heard it it was the planes that were scrambled after the fact, after the pentagon was hit the fighters were in the air over DC, the shootdown order for planes over DC only was issued, the pilots had to clear with a 2 star before shooting.

Of course, by then it was too late.

Is there a transcript anywhere of the hearings? Because I know what I heard, and it was that the planes had a chance to shootdown one of the airliners and did not.

73?

Rumsfeld starts here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/politics/23CND-PTEX.html?pagewanted=64

It begs the question- WHY were planes scrambled in DC nearly an HOUR after the 2nd Trade Tower was hit?

describes it in his book. After the towers were hit. He said planes weren't ready like in the cold war and some were doing a drill.

You find a pilot and you stick him in a fucking fighter jet. If it takes you ten minutes (max) that would still have meant that at least the jetliner that hit the Pentagon should have been intercepted and shot down.

but I also feel that Clarke is very credible and it made me feel very confused on the subject because I always believed that they deliberately did not send them up. Could something have been going on behind Clarke's back, possibly. I don't think he is lying though.

But the problem was that there were no jets able to intercept in time, they stalled the interception and issued the shoot down order for planes in DC air space after it was too late. There weren't fighters there ready to do something with no shoot orders, they just weren't there.

I am not sure why she was pressing on the question other than to highlight that the order was issued too late, to get the time line straight or maybe to verify info she had gotten from other sources or in closed sessions.

He can't be accountable for this issue because he was in the schoolroom having the kids help him with the big words in that book.

A commercial of that footage with a timer going would be wonderful; hope MoveOn is working on that.

Posted yesterday on DU, sorry I cannot find the link. It's split-screen with Bush in the classroom on the left, and horrendous footage of the WTC on the right, with a timeline and clock with moving hands.

It is absolutely devastating. Longer than a typical commercial. In fact several DUers thought is was too much and shouldn't be used, becasue of the hideous nature of some of the footage.

I hope someone can get back to this link. I've searched on everything I can think of.

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/true911.html

:headbang:
rocknation

waitring for the gallows.

Very pale and resigned.

They KNOW they fucked it up bigtime and Rummy, who is a miserabley whining preppy nazi, looked stupid as hell.

They KNOW they were supposed to keep this secret and he fumbled saying he had not talked to the pilots and had nNO IDEA whether they knew they had the authority to shoot down the hijacked missiles.

...so I can enjoy it later.

Link: http://www.c-span.org

:shrug:

i watched this and i'm heavily into 9/11 research and am veryc lose to MIHOP, but i don't think rumsfeld said anything that special here.

maybe i'm off though.

he said planes were up over DC and they had the shoot-down order -- but at that point all four planes had crashed.

so there wasn't actually hijacked planes to shoot down.

(i believe 93 was shot down by the way ...)

rumsfeld did mention several international flights that hit the hijack button.

i know of one that evening, korean air, but several was news to me.

Hell, he said shrubbie gave the order to cheney to pass along and shrubs was still in the damned classroom reading goat stories until it was too late.

That was the question Rummy couldn't answer.

And the fact we are not getting attempts to clarify by the panel is scary.

until a reporter called this past weekend and read a section in which Wolfowitz is quoted by Clarke.

Wolfowitz said he tried to get the book on Sunday but couldn't...

Clarke's book publication was held back for 3 months while White House lawyers checked it for classified info.

I can't believe the most corrupt crowd ever to inhabit the White House didn't have access to that book during the 3 month period.

They won't admit it of course, but who else thinks they combed through every syllable?

They let the cat out of the bag. The only thing they can do now is hope and pray that the commission won't act on it because they don't want the American public to really know what happened.

He fucking ought to tremble.

been thrown out or "voted out" (if they lose by 1%, that means they got clobbered by 10%).

If we've learned one thing from watching tyrants, it is that they operate ALWAYS on the, "Yeah, what are YOU gonna do to stop me."

And that the appearence of them being stopped lulls the opposition, allowing them to get away with it again...

We cannot rest UNTIL THEY ARE STOPPED. And we can NOT afford wishful thinking like that right now.

Just my opinion...

I'm not gonna believe the Bushes are not going to pop back up to torment us again until the bubbles stop rising to the surface of the tub.

(on edit) ...and if the music suddenly gets real quiet, RUN!

Remember, they all were thrown out in 1992, and here they are back in power, pursuing the same idiotic policies...

Newsweek magazine reported on September 24, 2001, that senior US military officials had, on September 10, cancelled their flight schedules for September 11. The reasons advanced were "security concerns".

Go ahead! Read the back issue at your library. It's there in black & white.

THEY KNEW!!!


:kick::kick::kick:

rumsfeld had to give the order. How much proof is needed?

There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as Secretary of Defense, in a document called: "CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"

www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf

1) Determine whether or not the assistance needed is reasonably available from police or commercial sources. If not, the DDO, NMCC, will notify the appropriate unified command or NORAD to determine if suitable assets are available and will forward the request to the Secretary of Defense for approval in accordance with DODD 3025.15, paragraph D.7 (reference d)."

The N.E. section of the U.S., especially around Washington D.C. is among the most heaviest defended airspace in the world. Way down south a little more then a year before 9-11 a single small plane wondered off course and was literally surrounded by military fighter jets in 26 minutes of ground control losing contact with that flight.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/oct99/crash26.htm

Four simultaneous hijackings, an unprecedented event in world history, would be noted at all levels of the air defense command and control structure, and they (The * scum team) claim there was no time to intercept any of the four doomed aircraft. Bullshit!



LIHOP. There is no other plausible answer.

One hour, 26 minutes. They went from the eastern time zone into the central time zone so the times, often reported as 26 minutes, was actually one hour and 26 minutes.

http://www.takebackthemedia.com/pentagoon.html

:headbang:
rocknation

...have known this for three years. What does it tell you that they didn't even discuss it until they HAD to?

Requires RealPlayer...

Cut and Paste in your browser. Segment 4 of 4, Time mark 3:45

rtsp://video.c-span.org/jdrive/smil/ter032304_cmsn.smi

Otherwise, go to http://www.c-span.org/ and look for:

Sept. 11 Commission Hearing - Day 1 (03/23/2004)

I was flipping channels and decided to watch a bit to see if I could confirm what I had heard on the DU - that it is a whitewash. Yes, they rattled; rattled indeed. I was very excited because I thought, HERE WE GO, ONE OF THOSE HUGE UNANSWERED QUESTIONS. Rummy & Co. were absolutely PATHETIC.

I'm trying to figure out why this is a big deal.

that they'll just say, by way of making an excuse for this, that they didn't shoot down the jet because they didn't want a big commercial aircraft crashing in some random spot in metro D.C. after they shot it down? I'm not definding them, but it seems like a somewhat plausible explanation, at first look. Devil's advocate--prove me wrong, please.

fuck up "extremely unlikely"???? On what planet? I guarantee you on 9/11 morning nobody knew WHAT the hell they were doing. THAT'S the big secret nobody wants to get out. All the technology, all the supposed know-how...fuggedabowdit. When the shit comes down like that, nobody knows nothing. Buncha guys looking at radars or screaming into phones going WTF?

I didn't get a chance to see the earlier hearings, but I did read the transcript. I remember reading and gasping........! It's a VERY LONG thing to read, and I sat her one night and was glued to my screen. All the things I thought about NORAD all these years was FALSE!

All Rummy's testimony did today was confirm the proir testimony to the commission.

I hope this will be in their final report!

Of course, who is going to take the hit????? I don't know, but I think I can tell you, it's not going to be Bush, Rummy, Wolfy, Perle, Cheny or Rice.

stand down.

Read this, and tell me otherwise:

Mineta: There was a young man who had come in and said 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?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And.

Hamilton: The flight you're referring to is the.

Mineta: The flight that came into the Pentagon.

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm

Note how Hamilton steers Mineta away from the topic. He doesn't even ask what the orders were.

What were the orders? The orders could not have been to shoot down, because Cheney did not have the conversation with Bush in which he recommended a shoot down until nearly 20 minutes after the Pentagon was struck. And Mineta's testimony describes events before the crash of Flight 77.

From the timeline:

After 9:56: After flying off in Air Force One, Bush talks to Vice President Cheney on the phone. Cheney recommends that Bush authorize the military to shoot down any plane under control of the hijackers. "I said, 'You bet'" Bush later recalls. "We had a little discussion, but not much."

The order to shoot down the planes came AFTER the Pentagon was struck.

Now, logically, just because we can rule out a shoot down order doesn't give us conclusive proof that "Do the orders still stand?" "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" must refer to a stand down, but it does make the exchange that much more suspicious. And what else, in the context, could be the explanation?

The meaning of "the orders" is understood between Cheney and the aide. The orders remain unnamed in front of Mineta. "The Orders" is clear enough for them to avoid confusion. And since confirmation was requested, it's likely they were outside Standard Operating Procedure.

The aide, who's been counting down the approach, is compelled to confirm the order with Cheney as the plane is almost upon the target, suggesting the order was extraordinary. Since nothing was done to impede the aircraft, Bush did not authorize shoot down until 20 minutes later, and Cheney said, heatedly, that the order stood, I'm inclined to think the order was to do nothing. This interpretation is, I think, supported by the aide's second guessing Cheney.

Here's an earlier thread in which this was discussed:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1103706

the orders were to NOT shoot.

MR. HAMILTON: We thank you for that. I wanted to focus just a moment on the Presidential Emergency Operating Center. You were there for a good part of the day. I think you were there with the vice president. And when you had that order given, I think it was by the president, that authorized the shooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to be controlled by terrorists, were you there when that order was given?

MR. MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said 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?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And --

MR. HAMILTON: The flight you're referring to is the --

MR. MINETA: The flight that came into the Pentagon.

MR. HAMILTON: The Pentagon, yeah.

MR. MINETA: And so I was not aware that that discussion had already taken place. But in listening to the conversation between the young man and the vice president, then at the time I didn't really recognize the significance of that.

And then later I heard of the fact that the airplanes had been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but those planes were still about 10 minutes away. And so then, at the time we heard about the airplane that went into Pennsylvania, then I thought, "Oh, my God, did we shoot it down?" And then we had to, with the vice president, go through the Pentagon to check that out.

MR. HAMILTON: Let me see if I understand. The plane that was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away, there was an order to shoot that plane down.

MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifically, but I do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or from Norfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about the orders specifically other than listening to that other conversation.

MR. HAMILTON: But there very clearly was an order to shoot commercial aircraft down.

MR. MINETA: Subsequently I found that out.

MR. HAMILTON: With respect to Flight 93, what type of information were you and the vice president receiving about that flight?

MR. MINETA: The only information we had at that point was when it crashed.

MR. HAMILTON: I see. You didn't know beforehand about that airplane.

MR. MINETA: I did not.

MR. HAMILTON: And so there was no specific order there to shoot that plane down.

MR. MINETA: No, sir.

MR. HAMILTON: But there were military planes in the air in position to shoot down commercial aircraft.

MR. MINETA: That's right. The planes had been scrambled, I believe, from Otis at that point.

MR. HAMILTON: Could you help me understand a little the division of responsibility between the FAA and NORAD on that morning?

MR. MINETA: Well, FAA is in touch with NORAD. And when the first flight from Boston had gone out of communications with the air traffic controllers, the air traffic controller then notified, I believe, Otis Air Force Base about the air traffic controller not being able to raise that American Airlines flight.

**********

After reading this what struck me is that Mineta thinks there was an order to shoot down live before the Pentagon was struck....

That said everything is very messy and unclear. What exactly he means is a bit of a mystery.

I hate to say it but this leads me to feeling a little concerned. There should be professional investigators and lawyers running these question lines at this stage. Witnesses must be pinned down and made to answer the question.

Instead we have conversations between politicians. Each patting the other on the back.

To a large extent this is down to the way the National COmmission's Exec. Dir. - i.e. Condi's good mate - is organising the secretariate.

This inquiry is not being run to find the truth. It is being run to create such huge amounts of smoke that the truth becomes almost impossible to discern in the haze.

And that sucks.

Still.... it is getting better.

that congress has NOT been evacuated until after the Pentagon attack.

I was watching C-Span when congress did get evacuated and they were freakin out. Left like sitting ducks. Complaining as they were running out of the building......

Anthrax shut that up.

Guess who would pick the rep. of congress if it was a major catastrophe?


So who did or didn't get a shoot down order, remained in the VP hands while the flight in PA was headed toward DC and Cheney knows congress has not been evacuated. The plot thickens.

what they could have done if congress had been wiped out.

It would be interesting to see who was NOT there that morning.

DELETE, IGNORE

At first I didn't consider the alternative views on 9/11. I usually don't read partisan books like Frankens latest, but I picked it up for cheap off a friend. The section where he explained how Clinton left the Bush Junta one of his most seasoned terrorism experts changed my mind. They completely ignored him. They let it happen.... on purpose... like anyone that lets anything happen (LIH?).

They are stepping the tracks of nationalism that the Nazi Party set with the burning of the reichstag. I think it is clear that they needed this to fit thier own personal agenda. Bushs bullshit wasn't working before, now everyone has a distraction, and small shit like Bush loosening already loose environmental standards, etc....

Fuck Bush. Fuck the two party system, really, but fuck Bush

the age old question with this crowd.

Has the word been put out?

For the night-owls. Cohen on now. Rummy up next.

But sort of misses the mark nevertheless.

She will be on the Washington Journal tomorrow morning so that will be interesting.

At least she is asking some of the right questions.

al

RUMSFELD: When I arrived in the command center, one of the first things I heard, and I was with you, was that the order had been given and that the pilots -- correction, not the pilots necessarily, but the command had been given the instructions that their pilots could, in fact, use their weapons to shoot down a commercial airliners filled with our people in the event that the aircraft appeared to be behaving in a threatening way and an unresponsive way.

GORELICK: Now, you make a distinction there between the command and the pilots. Was it your understanding that the pilots had received that order?

RUMSFELD: I'm trying to get in time because...

MYERS: Well, I think -- my understanding, I've talked to General Eberhart, commander now of NORAD, and I think he's briefed the staff. And I think what he told the staff, what he told me, as I recall, was that the pilots did -- at the appropriate point when the authority to engage civilian airliners was given, that the pilots knew that fairly quickly. I mean, it went down through the chain of command.

RUMSFELD: It was on a threat conference call that it was given, and everybody heard it simultaneously. The question then would be -- the reason I am hesitant is because we went through two or three iterations of the rules of engagement. And in the end, we ended up delegating that authority to, at the lowest level, I believe, to two stars.

MYERS: Right.

RUMSFELD: And the pilot would then describe the situation to that level. To the extent that level had time, they would come up to General Eberhart. To the extent Eberhart had time, he would come up to me. And to the extent I had time, I might talk to the president, which in fact, I did do on several occasions during the remainder of the day with respect to international flights heading to this country that were squawking "hijack."

GORELICK: I'm just trying to understand whether it is your understanding that the NORAD pilots themselves, who were circling over Washington, as you referred to in your statement, whether they knew that they had authority to shoot down a plane. And if you don't know, it's fine to say that. You mentioned them in your statement, and I would like to know if you know the answer.

RUMSFELD: I do not know what they thought. In fact, I haven't talked to any of the pilots that were up there. I certainly was immediately concerned that we did know what they thought they could do.

------------

Whatever happened to military debriefings?

where these questions will be covered.

This was the first I had heard about a hearing devoted specifically to the day's events, in other words, the timeline. It made me feel better about why no one has yet asked, for example, who gave the order to let the Saudi royals and the Bin Ladens fly out of the country when no one else could fly.

THAT will be a very interesting hearing.

eom

I could not bear to watch, as soon as heard the rummy name come up I had to :puke:

So many consistencies by that man on so many different levels, I take it that this hearing is under oath.

Criminal court with cross examination is what is needed here, hopefully later :kick:

There are so many liars building on other liars lies in this administration that it would be a perplexing question just who the first person would be to put on the stand and start to unravel all the lies that have been perpetuated.

Al Franken's book was so much of an understatement :D

Testify that the Airforce was ordered to Stand Down?