National Commission On Terrorist Threats Upon The United States

The audio clips were riveting. Presented during the last morning of the 911 Commission’s public hearings, tape of the hijackers’ cabin announcements picked up by air traffic controllers left no doubt of their Middle Eastern origins. Even more telling was a clip of a phone conversation between a dithering controller and his military contact as they debated scrambling interceptors.

But why were they confused? Routine procedures in place for decades saw fighters launched to intercept stray aircraft 67 times - or every five days on average - in 10 months leading up to June 2001. [Stand Down]

Ken Smith was one of the first tenants in the World Trade Center in 1979. Smith told Radio Free America, “It was known to all the tenants of the WTC that the WTC was a ‘No Fly’ zone. If you came within 12 miles of the WTC, flying outside of a pattern where you were supposed to be, you were warned to back off. If you came within five miles, they would threaten to shoot you down. If you came within three miles, they could shoot you down.”

Smith recounted how a friend flying a small plane “got warned away and they almost blew him out of the sky 20 years ago, because he was showing somebody a close view of the towers.” [All Fall Down]

Other worrying discrepancies, as well as outright lies told by key military witnesses to the media and the commission complete a long-delayed whitewash of events that have brought death and misery to hundreds of thousands of people, including the victims of some 40 nations murdered in the World Trade Center and Pentagon - as well as innocent Afghan and Iraqi families still dying from US gunfire, aerial bombing and the lingering lethality of radioactive munitions.
The Twelfth Public Hearing of the 9/11 Commission was held on June 17, 2004. Five hours was devoted to the last big question regarding the military and FAA response to the rapidly unfolding events of 911. Let’s answer some of them now:

FBI Phoenix memo and German news account of BND intelligence warnings of impending hijack attacks against key US landmarks

1. Having spent hundreds of billons of tax dollars on homeland defenses – and with warnings of impending aerial hijacking attacks coming in for months from intelligence agencies around the world - why did it take so long to launch fighters on Sept. 11?

Despite many unheeded warnings, says the US victims’ Families Steering Committee (FSC), “Our country should have been able to defend itself from an air attack. One cause may have been the deviations from normal hijacking protocols by the FAA and NORAD. Standard intercept protocols were fatally delayed.”

Another problem cited by the FSC and my audio book, Stand Down, is that the acting head of the Joint Chief of Staff gave orders not to be interrupted from a routine meeting on the Hill. General Myers was not notified that the country he was in charge of defending was under attack – until the last strike on the Pentagon was carried out.

Stand Down and the FSC also point out that numerous military exercises held on Sept. 11 ensured that “mass confusion ensued when these exercises coincided with the terrorist attacks.”

The commission also failed to ask why 9 of the alleged hijackers pulled aside and questioned for suspicious ID and other irregularities were allowed to board their flights.
[FSC]
2. Did the 911 Commission receive full cooperation from NORAD and the FAA?

On the contrary, the 911 commissions investigating the Sept. 11 attacks was forced to issue subpoenas to both government agencies. Members of the 10-member panel complained that they had encountered "serious delays" in obtaining information from the Defense Department. "We are especially dismayed by problems in the production of the records of activities of NORAD and certain Air Force commands on Sept. 11," the panel reported. [New York Times Nov8/03]

A second subpoena served on the Pentagon was similarly unsuccessful in attaining records concerning whether NORAD responded quickly enough in dispatching interceptors on Sept. 11. [Washington Post Nov8/03]

ARSR-4 RADARS

3. What about this unanswered question from the FSC: “Was NORAD aware of the four hijacked planes veering off course even before being reported by the FAA? If not, please explain why NORAD, which monitors 7000 flights a day, was unable to track the four aberrant flights.”

Top military commanders insist that the hinterlands of the USA were “terra incognita” on Sept. 11. As the man in charge of tactical air defenses, Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, told the 911 commission: “We couldn’t see into the interior of the country, we couldn’t talk to our aircraft that were airborne to the interior of the country and we did not have a command and control system that would absorb the number of radars.”

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley reassuringly added that since 911, “We have incorporated the radars that were there all along so that our military controllers can now see them, see those tracks of interest.”

Both statements are false.

In fact, US military defenders and air traffic controllers in the United States share the same radars. Known as the Joint Surveillance System, this billion-dollar network of long range Air Route Surveillance Radars provides total air defense and air traffic control for the continental United States. On Sept. 11, “real time” radar coverage of the entire US eastern seaboard and its approaches were available at all times to both FAA and USAF control centers using an overlapping mix of older ARSR radars with a range of 200 nautical miles and their Model 4 replacements that can locate and track aircraft out to 250 sea miles. [Stand Down]

East Coast air route radars on Sept. 11

8:14
Two controllers discuss the fact that the pilot of American Airliners Flight 11 is out of contact. There is silence for 10 minutes until a hijacker's voice is heard. "We have some planes," it says. "Just stay quiet and you will be OK. We are returning to the airport."

8:19
The transponder transmitting identification and flight data from Fl 11 suddenly stops transmitting.

4. What happens when transponders fail in flight?

At jet speeds, the specter of mid-air collision makes every second of response time is vital. Automatic alarms on every radar screen within range would have alerted FAA controllers – as well as NORAD and NEADS battle staffs sharing the same scopes – that something was seriously wrong onboard Fl 11.

Already in progress on the morning of Sept. 11, a nationwide defense drill against simulated air attack would have picked up the loss of Fl 11’s radar “data block” immediately. Charged with protecting America’s industrial, political and population heartland, the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) commanded eight armed alert fighters on 15-minute stand-by to escort wayward aircraft. But many more fighter jets were available to fly interceptions for the day’s practice drill.

Because of what the Pentagon calls, “bizarre coincidence,” on Sept. 11, 2001 NORAD was three days into Operation Vigilant Guardian. Held twice a year to tweak NORAD’s continent-spanning surveillance and interception web, North American air defenses that morning were aggressively alert and battle staffed, with key officers needed to make immediate decisions stationed in the "battle cabs" of each interlinked US Air Force command post.

The same officers were also perfectly placed to issue orders blocking US air defenses. According to the FSC and other sources, some air bases and military pilots pleading for orders to intercept the developing attacks were told to stand down.

We also know that despite the end of the Cold War and close ties with America’s new Russian ally, Operation Vigilant Guardian directed the attention of US air defenders to a simulated Soviet threat coming in over the North Pole.

Richard Ben-Veniste, one of 10 members of the 911 commissions, earlier pledged to pursue this suspiciously timed air defense exercise, “very, very diligently,"

And the former Watergate prosecutor did so, asking Gen. Arnold under oath on May 23, 2003:
“ Sir, given the awareness of the terrorists’ use of planes as weapons, how was it that NORAD was still focusing outward in protecting the United States against attacks from the Soviet Union or elsewhere and was not better prepared to defend against the hijackings scenarios of a commercial jet, laden with fuel, used as a weapon to target citizens of the United States?” [911 Commission Testimonies: Remarks of NORAD Personnel May 23, 2003]

Maj. Gen. Arnold admitted that “back to 1998” the Pentagon’s top brass were calling Osama bin Laden “the most dangerous man in the world. And our focus, with the demise of the Soviet Union Warsaw Pact, was that we felt like the greatest threat to the United States would come from a terrorist…or rogue nation.”

As Major Arias told the News Herald in June 2001, “The Cold War is over.” So who gave the orders for focusing US air defenses on the North Pole on Sept. 11?

5. Isn’t it true that America’s air defenses looking out for external threats were not expecting an attack from within the continental USA?
" It was initially pretty confusing," Gen. Myers later told the military press. "You hate to admit it, but we hadn't thought about this." [American Forces Press Service Oct23/01]

But they had.

Pentagon crash drill, Oct. 24-26, 2000

As John Arquilla, a Special Operations expert at the Naval Postgraduate School put it, “The idea of such an attack was well known. It had been wargamed as a possibility in exercises before Sept. 11, 2001.”

Just 11 months before - between October 24 and 26, 2000 - NORAD had trained “for a passenger plane crashing into the Pentagon". [Mirror Nov13/03; Associated Press Aug22/02; Monterey Herald July18/02]

The FSC investigation also found that NORAD exercise Amalgam Virgo One, which took place in June 2001, featured a picture of Bin Laden on its cover.

Col. Alan Scott told the commission that Operation Amalgam Virgo simulated a cruise missile “launched off a rogue freighter in the Gulf of Mexico.” But the 911 investigators believed that Amalgam ’02 - which was in the planning stages prior to September 11th - 2001, involved a “hijacking scenario.”

In another “bizarre coincidence”, even as the doomed Flight 77 took off from Dulles International on the morning of Sept. 11, the super-secret National Reconnaissance Office operating all U.S. spy satellites was conducting a simulated emergency drill in which a plane from Dulles International crashed into their building. [AP Aug 22/03]

FEMA Training Manual cover.

8:37
FAA Boston Center contacts NEADS, saying, “We need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.”

“Is this real world or an exercise?” asked the military liaison officer?

“No, this is not an exercise,” responded the FAA official. “Not a test.” [BBC June 18/04]

8:40
But according to NORAD, Tech. Sgt. Jeremy Powell at NEADS headquarters in Rome, N.Y., takes the first call from Boston Center regarding Fl 11 three minutes later. Powell notifies NEADS commander Col. Robert Marr Jr. of a possible hijacked airliner.

6. How did the Air Force respond to word of the first hijacking?
According to his May 23 commission testimony, Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, commander of the Continental U.S. NORAD Region at Tyndall AFB in Florida, was informed by Gen. Marr about the suspected hijacking while in the middle of exercise "Vigilant Guardian."

As acting Northeast Air Defense Commander, Gen. Marr had already ordered two F-15s on alert at Otis Air National Guard Base on Cape Cod to battle stations. "The fighters were cocked and loaded, and even had extra gas on board," Gen. Arnold was told.

Gen. Arnold - who scheduled retirement came soon after Sept. 11 - asked his staff if this was part of the exercise. “We do do hijacking scenarios,” he explained to the commission.

Assured this was no drill, Gen. Arnold testified that he told Gen. Marr “to go ahead and scramble the airplanes and we’d get permission later.”

Otis ANG F-15 “Strike Eagle”

7. Who flew the first interceptions and how fast did they fly?
Personal phone calls to Lt. Col. Timothy “Duff” Duffy and his wingman Maj. Daniel “Nasty” Nash at the 102nd Fighter Wing have already warned the Otis F-15 drivers that an airliner out of Boston has been hijacked. As both pilots don their flight gear, NORAD claims the FAA violates longstanding procedures by waiting 29 minutes after losing radio contact with Fl 11 before finally notifying the air force. At least one Boston Center controller disputes this, saying the air force is notified immediately, as regulations required. [Stand Down]

Both heavily armed “Strike Eagles” lift off as Tower One is hit.

According to Gen. Arnold, instead of following instructions from the ground, Lt. Col. Duffy “self-elected to hit the afterburner and to speed up his way towards New York.”

An airliner pilot in his off-duty time, Duffy “had a bad feeling” about the suspected hijacking. Consequently, he jammed the F-15's throttles into afterburner and the two-ship formation devoured the 153 miles to New York City at supersonic speeds. "It just seemed wrong. I just wanted to get there. I was in full-blower all the way," Duffy later said. [Aviation Week & Space Technology June3/02]

Gen. Arnold confirmed the F-15s from Otis were traveling about 1,200 mph. “Our pilots were coming at about 1.5 Mach, which is, you know, somewhere - 11 or 12 hundred miles an hour.” [Dateline NBC Sept23/01; Aviation Now.com Oct1/02]

8. Did they break many windows?
Flying flat-out, the twin sonic booms from the Otis F-15s would have come like thunderbolts - cracking plaster, shattering windows, and reassuring even the terrified that deliverance from imminent peril was at hand. Alas for the many who died and the many more who grieve them, no one in the most populous flight corridor in the United States reports hearing any sonic booms as the pair of F-15s cruise past, flying slower than the airliner they were supposedly chasing.

It takes the jets 19 minutes to reach New York. Flying at top speed they should have been over Manhattan in less than 12 minutes.

Instead, according to an official Pentagon news release, interceptors launched late from distant bases flew to defend their nation at a fraction of their top speeds. In a stunning admission, NORAD noted that for all interceptions flown against the hijackers on Sept. 11, “Flight times are calculated at 9 miles per minute or .9 Mach.” [NORAD news release Sept. 18/01]

9. Isn’t .9 Mach around 500 miles per hour?
The F-15 can exceed Mach 2! In straight simple arithmetic, America’s air defense chiefs admit in writing that every interception flown by the world’s hottest air-combat aircraft was flown at less than a third of the planes’ top speed.

Air National Guard head, Maj. Gen. Paul Weaver later contradicted “Nasty”, “Duff” and Gen. Arnold, stating, “The F-15 pilots flew ''like a scalded ape, topping 500 mph but were unable to catch up to the airliner.”[St. Augustine Times Sept16/01]

Scalded ape? Airliners fly at 500 mph. An F-15 can fly almost four-times faster.

"We've been over the flight a thousand times in our minds and I don't know what we could have done to get there any quicker," “Duff”, later lamented.

Pushing their twin throttles fully forward past their detents into afterburner would have helped. Instead, utilizing only 27% of available thrust, both F-15’s were “eight minutes/71 miles” away, according to NORAD, when Flight 175 struck the South Tower with 56 souls and more than ten tons of fuel onboard. [Christian Science Monitor Mar8/02]

10. Even launching as late as they did, flying at top speed, could the Otis jets have intercepted Flight 77 before it struck the South Tower?
911 commissioner John Lehman put this question to Gen. Larry Arnold: “I just wanted to make clear, there was no possibility, given the lateness with which you were notified from FAA of a possible hijacking, that those airplanes in full afterburner, flying supersonic could have gotten there in time to intercept either of those two planes. Is that correct?

“That’s correct. That’s correct,” Gen. Arnold replied. “Even the pilot accelerating to 1.5 mach, moving pretty fast, was still eight minutes out by the time the second aircraft had crashed into the tower.”

But NORAD officially states that both pilots flew no faster than 500 mph.

Launched per regulations as soon as radio and transponder contact was lost with Flight 11, with both sets of throttles hammered to the stops the fastest fighters on the planet would have intercepted Flight 11 over the Hudson River at least six minutes from Manhattan. [Boston Globe Sept15/01]

Even launching as late as they did - on the FAA’s first officially acknowledged phone call to NORAD at 8:40 - the Mach 2.5 fighters could have easily reached Flight 175 before it reached the World Trade Center.

Maybe they did. According to Master Sgt. Maureen Dooley, Boston Center was following a blip thought to be Flight 11 as the air force warrant officer “grasped for a way to get the plane’s tail number” from the nearby F-16 pilots she was talking to at the time. If the jets were close enough to read the airliner’s tail number, why are they officially listed as arriving eight minutes after impact? [FSC quoting Newhouse News Service story, “Amid Crisis Simulation We Were Suddenly, No Kidding, Under Attack”]
8:41
United Airlines Flight 175’s last communication with the New York ATC. One minute later, it veers sharply from its flight plan course. [Boston Globe 11/23/01]

With their mandate to monitor developing “situations” using the Joint Surveillance radar system, national military commanders at NEADS and the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon would have seen Flight 175 turn abruptly south - just as they had watched on radar in October 1999 when pro golfer Payne Stewart’s Learjet strayed off course on a charter flight to Dallas. [CNN Oct26/1999]

In that legendary intercept, a fighter out of Tyndall, Florida was diverted from a routine training flight to check out the Lear, whose pilot had become incapacitated, trapping Stewart in the stratosphere. An F16 was reportedly sitting off the left wingtip of Payne’s pilotless business jet within 19 minutes of the FAA alert. [ABC News Oct25/99]

8:46
American Airlines Flight 11 impacts the north side of the World Trade Center Tower 1 between the 94th and 98th floors at a speed 500 miles per hour.

8:50.55
The US Military Command Center is on the phone to FAA headquarters asking, “Do we want to think about scrambling aircraft?”

“God, I don’t know,” comes the stammered reply. “That’s a decision somebody’s gonna have to make probably in the next 10 minutes.” [BBC June 18/04]

11. With the WTC already burning and another hijacked jet inbound, why this agonized phone debate?
Good question. FAA Order 7110.65M instructs controllers, to "Consider that an aircraft emergency exists [when] there is unexpected loss of radar contact and radio communications with any aircraft."

Once this decision is made, no higher-level orders are needed for standard fighter escorts to be ordered aloft. "The escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the National Military Command Center.’ [FAA Order 7610.4J 7-1-2]

According to a former radar defense operator I spoke with, military radar operators at more than a dozen sites along the US East coast “look at everything in the air.” This former radar tech said his Maine radar outpost “often” scrambled interceptors on its own authority, without waiting to hear from the FAA or their own higher command. Sometimes, he says, they scrambled on flocks of birds. And once on dolphins reflected on clouds. But the jets always went up. [Stand Down]
But instead of following routinely practiced procedures, on Sept. 11, FAA officials had to first contact the NMCC and request air support. The NMCC then had to call NORAD's command center in Colorado and inquire about the availability of aircraft. Final approval to launch fighters had to come personally from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
[American Free Press July10/03]

Instead of launching fighters within minutes of receiving an alert from FAA or military radar operators, this time-consuming procedural maze was put in place by Rumsfeld’s written instruction to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 1, 2001:
" In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses...forward requests for DOD [Department of Defense] assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval."--CJCSI 3610.01A, 1 June 2001
[http://www2.faa.gov/ATpubs/ATC/Chp10/atc1002.html]

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