5) Air Defense Failures – The US air defense system failed to follow standard procedures for responding to diverted passenger flights.
Timelines: The various responsible agencies – NORAD, FAA, Pentagon, USAF, as well as the 9/11 Commission – gave radically different explanations for the failure (in some cases upheld for years), such that several officials must have lied; but none were held accountable. Despite normal intercept times of between 10 and 20 minutes for errant domestic flights, the airliners commandeered on 9/11/01 roamed the skies for over an hour without interference.
- Failures to Report – According to NORAD’s timeline the FAA reported errant airliners after inexplicable delays.
- The FAA took 18 minutes to report Flight 11’s loss of communication and deviation from its flight plan.
- The FAA took 39 minutes to report Flight 77’s deviation from its flight plan.
- Failures to Scramble – Interceptors were only scrambled from distant bases after long delays.
- Despite the fact that Flights 11 and 175 were headed for New York City, no interceptors were scrambled from nearby La Guardia, or from Langley, Virginia.
- Despite NORAD’s having received formal notification of the first hijacking at 8:38, no interceptors were scrambled from Andrews to protect the nearby Pentagon until after it was hit at 9:37.
- Failures to Intercept – Once in the air, interceptors flew at only small fractions of their top speeds, assuring they would fail to intercept the airliners.
- The two F-15s scrambled from Otis AFB to chase Flight 11 flew at an average of 447 mph, about 23.8% of their top speed of 1875 mph.
- The two F-16s scrambled from Langley to protect the capital flew at an average of 410.5 mph, about 27.4% of their top speed of 1500 mph.
- Failures to Redeploy – Nearby fighters on routine patrol duty were not redeployed to intercept the airliners, nor were fighters that belatedly reached Manhattan sent to defend the capital.
- Two F-15s flying off the coast of Long Island were not redeployed to Manhattan until after the second Tower was hit.
- The two F-15s scrambled from Otis AFB to protect Manhattan could have reached the capital in 9.6 minutes once they arrived over New York City. That was still 34 minutes before the Pentagon was hit.
- Was there an air defense standdown?
6) Pentagon Strike – How was it possible the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began? Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation”s capital? How did Hani Hanjour, a man who failed as a Cessna pilot on his first flight in a Boeing, execute a difficult aerobatic maneuver to strike the Pentagon? Why did the attack strike the just-renovated side, which was largely empty and opposite from the high command?
“Here we’re talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center.” (Reproduced exactly as it originally appeared) – Donald Rumsfeld
- Wide-Open Target
The Pentagon — the heart of the military establishment of the world’s greatest super-power — was hit after ample warning without being protected by any defensive action.- The 9:37 strike was well over an hour after the first signs of a hijacking and 34 minutes after the South Tower strike confirmed that an attack was underway.
- The Pentagon is within 11 miles of Andrews Air Force Base, which apparently had two combat-ready fighter wings on 9/11/01.
- The attack plane was monitored on radar as it approached the capital.
- Unlikely Super-pilot
Alleged Flight 77 pilot Hani Hanjour was not up to the task.- The spiral dive approach to the Pentagon was such an extreme maneuver that experienced air traffic controllers thought it was military jet. The tree-top final approach skimmed objects in the yard and crashed the plane into the first floor of the building. Experienced pilots have wondered if any human pilot could have executed the maneuver.
- Hani Hanjour was considered incompetent by his flight school instructors, and was denied rental of a single-engine plane. (Source)
- Evidence Vacuum
Authorities systematically confiscated or destroyed the evidence.- Video recordings from adjacent businesses were seized by the FBI shortly after the attack and have never been seen since.
- Only two video segments have been released by the Pentagon from all the security cameras that monitor its periphery. Neither clearly shows the attack aircraft.
- Investigators were not allowed access to the crash site until well into October.
- More Than Just a Crash
Was the crash engineered?- Eyewitnesses reported the smell of cordite.
- Several eyewitnesses reported that the jetliner exploded before reaching the facade of the Pentagon.
- Portions of the facade where the wing ends and tail of a 757 would have collided show little gouging. Were these parts shredded by explosives before they reached the facade?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88JQL4esHFg
7) Wargames
- US military and other authorities planned or actually rehearsed defensive response to all elements of the 9/11 scenario during the year prior to the attack – including multiple hijackings, suicide crashbombings, and a strike on the Pentagon.
- The multiple military wargames planned long in advance and held on the morning of September 11th included scenarios of a domestic air crisis, a plane crashing into a government building, and a large-scale emergency in New York. If this was only an incredible series of coincidences, why did the official investigations avoid the issue? There is evidence that the wargames created confusion as to whether the unfolding events were “real world or exercise.” Did wargames serve as the cover for air defense sabotage, and/or the execution of an “inside job”?
8) Flight 93 – Did the Shanksville crash occur at 10:06 (according to a seismic report) or 10:03 (according to the 9/11 Commission)? Does the Commission wish to hide what happened in the last three minutes of the flight, and if so, why? Was Flight 93 shot down, as indicated by the scattering of debris over a trail of several miles?
10) July 10 Meeting – In the fall of 2006, Bob Woodward, no enemy of the Bush Administration, in his book ‘State of Denial’ brought to light a third, and perhaps most glaring, intelligence failure of the Bush Administration in the months immediately before the September 11th attacks. On July 10, 2001, CIA director George Tenet telephoned then National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice to set up a meeting in which he told Ms. Rice of an impending terrorist attack:
“On July 10, 2001, two months before the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, then-CIA Director George J. Tenet met with his counterterrorism chief, J. Cofer Black, at CIA headquarters to review the latest on Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization. Black laid out the case, consisting of communications intercepts and other top-secret intelligence showing the increasing likelihood that al-Qaeda would soon attack the United States. It was a mass of fragments and dots that nonetheless made a compelling case, so compelling to Tenet that he decided he and Black should go to the White House immediately…..Tenet hoped his abrupt request for an immediate meeting would shake Rice. He and Black, a veteran covert operator, had two main points when they met with her. First, al-Qaeda was going to attack American interests, possibly in the United States itself. Black emphasized that this amounted to a strategic warning, meaning the problem was so serious that it required an overall plan and strategy. Second, this was a major foreign policy problem that needed to be addressed immediately. They needed to take action that moment — covert, military, whatever — to thwart bin Laden…..Tenet and Black, however, felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off.”
11) Government Hid and Destroyed 9/11 Evidence
- Judge and Prosecutor Destroy Evidence –For example, it was revealed in May that the judge overseeing the trial of surviving 9/11 suspects conspired with the prosecution to destroy evidence relevant to a key suspect’s defense. And see this. (The Defense Department has also farmed out most of the work of both prosecuting and defending the surviving 9/11 suspects to the same private company. And the heads of the military tribunal prosecuting the 9/11 suspects said that the trials must be rigged so that there are no acquittals.)
- Destruction of Physical Evidence – The former head of fire science and engineering for the agency responsible for finding out why the Twin Towers and World Trade Center 7 collapsed on 9/11 (the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology) – who is one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and safety engineers, with a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering – wrote that evidence necessary to determine the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Centers was being destroyed. And see this. In addition, the official investigators themselves were largely denied access to the site and the evidence contained there, or even access to such basic information as the blueprints for the World Trade Center. The government has also refused to release the computer models showing how the trade centers fell, making it impossible for anyone to double-check its assumptions. Whether you believe the Twin Towers and World Trade Center building 7 were brought down with explosives or by airplanes and fires, destroying evidence prevented engineers and scientists from figuring out what went wrong … to prevent skyscrapers from collapsing in the future.In addition, the government has refused to release many of the videos and photographs taken on 9/11 in response to Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) inquiries. And lawyers and researchers who have reviewed videos produced by the government in response to FOIA requests have told Washington’s Blog that the government produced intentionally degraded versions which make it impossible to see or hear details.In direct violation of federal law regarding crime scene protocol, the WTC debris pile was virtually locked down and illegally cleared of all pertinent evidence. No FEMA, industry experts, fire/arson investigators, nor any structural engineers were allowed to gather evidence for later laboratory investigation. They were given limited access to walk around segments of ground zero, to observe and take notes on the debris pile. But to suggest that this cursory review was sufficient examination to comprehensively detail the reason for the Towers’ collapse, or to lucidly comment on perhaps the greatest crime in our nation’s history, is scientifically absurd. The debris and steel were immediately shipped to China and India to be recycled.
- Black boxes – The FBI long ago found and analyzed the “black box” recorders from the airplanes which hit the Twin Towers, but has consistently denied that they were ever found. And see this.
- Pentagon Lies – The 9/11 Commissioners concluded that officials from the Pentagon lied to the Commission, and considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements.
- Soviet-Style ‘”Minders” – The chairs of both the 9/11 Commission and the Official Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 said that Soviet-style government “minders” obstructed the investigation into 9/11 by intimidating witnesses (and see this). In other words, the minders obstructed witnesses from openly and candidly talking about what they knew.
- Destruction of Air Traffic Control Tapes – The tape of interviews of air traffic controllers on-duty on 9/11 was intentionally destroyed by crushing the cassette by hand, cutting the tape into little pieces, and then dropping the pieces in different trash cans around the building as shown by this NY Times article (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view) and by this article from the Chicago Sun-Times.
- Undermining Investigation – President Bush and Vice-President Cheney took the rare step of personally requesting that congress limit all 9/11 investigation solely to “intelligence failures.”The administration also opposed the creation of a 9/11 commission. Once it was forced (by pressure from widows of 9-11 victims) to allow a commission to be formed, the administration appointed as executive director an administration insider, whose area of expertise is the creation and maintenance of “public myths” thought to be true, even if not actually true, who was involved in pre-9/11 intelligence briefings, and who was one of the key architects of the “pre-emptive war” doctrine. This executive director, who controlled what the Commission did and did not analyze, then limited the scope of the Commission’s inquiry so that the overwhelming majority of questions about 9/11 remained unasked (see this and this).The administration then starved the commission of funds. The government spent $175 million – over $300 million in today’s dollars – investigating the Challenger space shuttle disaster. It spent $152 million on the the Columbia disaster investigation. It spent $30 million investigating the Monica Lewinsky scandal. But the government only authorized $15 million for the 9/11 Commission.The government also failed to provide crucial documents to the 9/11 investigators. And see this.The government refused to share much information with the Commission, refused to force high-level officials to testify under oath, and allowed Bush and Cheney to be questioned jointly. Moreover, as reported by ACLU, FireDogLake, RawStory and many others, declassified documents shows that Senior Bush administration officials sternly cautioned the 9/11 Commission against probing too deeply into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.The 9-11 Commission took this warning to heart, and refused to examine virtually any evidence which contradicted the administration’s official version of events. As stated by the State Department’s Coordinator for Counterterrorism – who was the point man for the U.S. government’s international counterterrorism policy in the first term of the Bush administration – “there were things the (9/11) commissions wanted to know about and things they didn’t want to know about.”
Continued on next page…
