Two good WSJ 9/11 articles

I posted this on the General forum, but the thread has died so I'm repost here.

Here's a very important 9/11 article from the Wall Street Journal. Too late to make it to Latest Breaking News:

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2004/wallstreetjournal040104.html

Kamikaze Terrorism Wasn't a New Idea

White House Statements Aside, Protective Steps Date Back Through Clinton Administration

By Scot J. Paltrow
The Wall Street Journal
April 1, 2004


WASHINGTON -- Despite official assertions that the U.S. had little reason to suspect before Sept. 11 that airliners would be used as weapons, there is new evidence that the federal government had on several earlier occasions taken elaborate, secret measures to protect special events from just such an attack.

The events that were protected included the 1996 Olympics and President Bush's inauguration in 2001. Planning for similar special protection for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Utah was under way at the time of the Sept. 11 attacks, officials say.

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As a consequence, a strategy for protecting airspace over special events was drawn up by the National Security Council staff for the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, in response to concerns about possible Iranian-backed terrorism. It included closing airspace over events to civilian air traffic, placing armed Air National Guard fighter jets on alert at a nearby base and launching on patrol a small air force belonging to the U.S. Customs Service, including jets, Black Hawk helicopters and a special radar-equipped plane. The customs service had the aircraft to interdict drug smuggling.

In addition, the plan was used for Mr. Clinton's second inauguration in 1997, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's 50th anniversary celebration in Washington in 1999, the Republican and Democratic conventions in 2000 and the Bush inauguration in 2001, according to former White House officials and Mr. Clarke's book. The plan's use for designated "National Security Special Events" was made official in a classified portion of a "presidential decision directive" that Mr. Clinton signed in 1998. Use of the plan at these events wasn't publicized, and officials were forbidden to talk about it.

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My comment: The mystery as to why New York City and Washington wasn't protected from an air attack on 9/11 deepens. With the unprecedented number of warnings coming in in the summer of 2001, many mentioning those cities as targets, especially NYC, why no air cover? Even the friggin' NATO anniversary celebration is protected from air, but not things like the World Trade Center? Four fighters to protect the entire East Coast, and no fighter closer than 200 miles of either city? It makes no sense.

The article doesn't mention it, but Bush's hotel in Florida the night before 9/11 was protected with an anti-aircraft battery. They knew something was up, but did absolutely nothing to protect New York or Washington.

It's getting harder and harder for anyone to doubt they had foreknowledge and let it happen.

Don't miss this one. It's from a couple weeks earlier:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=15469

Government accounts of 9/11 reveal gaps and inconsistencies
Date: Tuesday, March 23 @ 10:18:52 EST
Topic: War & Terrorism

Questions Arise About Who Put Nation on High Alert; A Threat to Air Force One? Panel Assembles Timeline
By Scot J. Paltrow, The Wall Street Journal
WASHINGTON -- Shortly after a passenger jet crashed into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers raced back to the military headquarters from a meeting on Capitol Hill. The four-star general, acting head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff that day, went directly to the Pentagon's command center. With smoke spreading into the cavernous room, he ordered the officer in charge, Maj. Gen. W. Montague Winfield, to raise the military's alert status to Defcon III, the highest state of readiness since the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

...

Scores of interviews with those who played key roles that day or directly witnessed events suggest that some official accounts of Sept. 11 are incorrect, incomplete or in dispute. Among other things, the commission is examining such questions as how long Mr. Bush remained in a Florida classroom just after the World Trade Center strikes, whether there really was a threat to Air Force One that day, how effectively American fighter jets reacted to the attacks, and who activated the national-emergency-response plan. The 10-member bipartisan panel, which plans to hold a public hearing tomorrow, is expected to issue a final report in July.