9/11 – A look at some of the cover stories…

2002-01-16

Richard Moore

Bcc: Jared

Friends,

The article below dissects some of the cover stories which
have been issued to explain the lack of air response on
9/11. The story for General Myers is one of the most
unbelievable I've seen. If you recall the drama of the day,
with the whole world transfixed in horror, then you know
that there's no way the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs could
have been left in a routine meeting during the whole affair.

The point is not just to show that the cover stories are
fabricated, although that's the focus of the article.  The
real opportunity is to go on to examine why a cover story
would be needed.  In a game of Tomb Raider, this opportunity
would be a beckoning new door to the next level of the game.
And that's just what it is in reality.

yours,
rkm
http://cyberjournal.org

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From: •••@••.•••
Date: Fri, 11 Jan 2002 05:19:46 EST
Subject: 9-11: Nothing Urgent
To: •••@••.•••

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9-ll: Nothing Urgent
by George Szamuely
Research & documentation by Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel
[Posted 9 January 2002]
=======================================

On the morning of September 11, the present Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard B. Myers, was having
a routine meeting on Capitol Hill with Senator Max Cleland.
Just before the meeting began,

"While in an outer office, he said, he saw a television
report that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. 'They
thought it was a small plane or something like that,' Myers
said. So the two men went ahead with the office call."
--'American Forces Press Service' 23 October 2001 (1)

The meeting went on for some time. While the two men chatted
away, a second hijacked jet plowed into the World Trade
Center's south tower and a third one into the Pentagon. And
still they went on with their meeting.

"Meanwhile, the second World Trade Center tower was hit by
another jet. 'Nobody informed us of that,' Myers said. 'But
when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that
time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit.'

"Somebody thrust a cell phone in Myers' hand. Gen. Ralph
Eberhart, commander of U.S. Space Command and the North
American Aerospace Defense Command was on the other end of
the line 'talking about what was happening and the actions
he was going to take.'
--'American Forces Press Service' 23 October 2001 (1)

Meanwhile, in Florida, it is clear from the public record
that by the time President Bush left his hotel he knew about
the attack on the first WTC tower. John Cochran, who was
covering the President's trip to Sarasota told , told Peter
Jennings on ABC TV:

"He [the President] got out of his hotel suite this morning,
was about to leave, reporters saw the White House chief of
staff, Andy Card, whisper into his ear. The reporter said to
the president, 'Do you know what's going on in New York?' He
said he did, and he said he will have something about it
later." --'ABC News' Special Report 11 September 2001 (2)

And then he went to an elementary school in Sarasota to read
to children for half an hour.

No urgency. Why should there be? Who could possibly have
realized then the calamitous nature of the events of
September 11? Besides in one of the planes, the hijackers
had switched the transponders off. So how could anyone know
what was going on? Yet September 11 was not so
unprecedented. Passenger jet hijackings have happened
before, and the US government has prepared detailed plans to
handle them. On September 11 these plans were ignored in
their entirety.

According to the 'New York Times,' air traffic controllers
knew at 8:20 a.m.:

"that American Airlines Flight 11, bound from Boston to Los
Angeles, had probably been hijacked. When the first news
report was made at 8:45 a.m. that a plane might have hit the
World Trade Center, they knew it was Flight 11." (3)

There was little ambiguity on the matter. The pilot had
pushed a button on the aircraft yoke that allowed
controllers to hear the hijacker giving orders.

Here are the FAA regulations concerning hijackings:

"The FAA hijack coordinator...on duty at Washington
headquarters will request the military to provide an escort
aircraft for a confirmed hijacked aircraft...The escort
service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by
direct contact with the National Military Command Center
(NMCC)." (4)

Here are the instructions issued by 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...forward
requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for
approval." (5)

In addition, Vice President Cheney told Meet the Press on
Sept. 16 that only the president has the authority to order
the shooting down of a civilian airliner. "And you have to
ask yourself," Cheney said, "'If we had had combat air
patrol up over New York and we'd had the opportunity to take
out the two aircraft that hit the World Trade Center, would
we have been justified in doing that?' I think absolutely we
would have.... It's a presidential-level decision, and the
president made, I think, exactly the right call in this
case, to say, 'I wished we'd had combat air patrol up over
New York.'" (6)

The U.S. is supposed to scramble military aircraft the
moment a hijacking is confirmed. Yet Myers continues to chat
on Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld works
undisturbed in his Pentagon office and the president reads
to schoolchildren. Myers' first statement to the Senate
Armed Services Committee on Sept. 13, that no fighter planes
had been launched until after the Pentagon was hit, was
therefore scarcely surprising. Senators were a little
incredulous. And the day before, Dan Rather asked on CBS
News:

"These hijacked aircraft were in the air for quite a
while...Why doesn't the Pentagon have the kind of protection
that they can get a fighter-interceptor aircraft up, and if
someone is going to plow an aircraft into the Pentagon, that
we have at least some...line of defense?" (7)

Good question. Clearly another, more comforting, story was
needed and on the evening of Friday September 14 CBS
launched it:

"CBS News has learned the FAA alerted US Air defense units
of a possible hijacking at 8:38 Tuesday morning, and six
minutes later, at 8:44, two F-15s received a scramble order
at Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod. But two minutes later,
at 8:46, American Airlines Flight 11, the first hijacked
jet, slammed into the World Trade Center. Six minutes later,
at 8:52, the F-15s were airborne and began racing towards
New York City, but the fighters were still 70 miles away
when the second hijacked jet, United Airlines Flight 175,
hit the second Trade Center tower. Shortly after that blast,
the F-15s reached Manhattan and began flying air cover
missions over the city.

"But to the south, a new danger and a new response. At 9:30,
three F-16s were launched out of Langley Air Force base in
Virginia, 150 miles south of Washington. But just seven
minutes later, at 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 hit the
Pentagon. The F-16s arrived in Washington just before 10:00
and began flying cover over the nation's capital." (8)

This story, which has now, with slight modifications, become
the "official" NORAD version, raises more questions than it
answers.

F-15s have a cruising speed of 577-mph, (9) while F-16s have
a cruising speed of 570-mph. (10) . Both planes can fly much
faster, though there is a rapid drop in fuel economy.

According to CBS, three F-16s scrambled from Langley at 9:30
and arrived in Washington at 10:00. The distance from
Langley Air Force Base to the Pentagon is 129 miles - not
150, as CBS stated. If these F-16s took half an hour to get
to Washington they were flying at 4.4 miles per minute, 258
mph. That's less than half their cruising speed. It's a
fifth of the maximum speed for these F-16s, 1500-mph.

Talk about a lack of urgency!

And since Washington, D.C. is little more than 200 miles
from New York, the two F-15 fighters from Otis would have
had time to get to DC, intercept Flight 77 and grab a
breakfast on the way.

And then of course, there is the small matter of Andrews Air
Force Base. It is, after all, but ten miles from the
Pentagon. As Matthew Wald wrote in the New York Times on
September 15th:

"During the hour or so that American Airlines Flight 77 was
under the control of hijackers, up to the moment it struck
the west side of the Pentagon, military officials in a
command center on the east side of the building were
urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control
officials about what to do." (11)

Why didn't they order planes from Andrews put in the air to
protect Washington D.C. and to intercept American Flight 77
long before it reached the U.S. capital?

(1) 'American Forces Press Service' 23 October 2001 "Myers
and Sept. 11: 'We Hadn't Thought About This'" by Sergeant
1st Class Kathleen T. Rhem, USA. Full text posted at:
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Oct2001/n10232001_200110236.html
backup at: http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/myersafrts.htm

(2) 'ABC News' Special Report: "Planes crash into World
Trade Center" (8:53 AM ET) Tuesday 11 September 2001 To see
the quotation in the full transcript, go to:
http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/abc911.htm#mybust

(3) 'New York Times' Saturday 15 September 2001 "AFTER THE
ATTACKS: SKY RULES; Pentagon Tracked Deadly Jet But Found No
Way to Stop It" by Matthew L. Wald Full text with quotation
is at: http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/nyt915.htm#mybust

(4) FAA Order 7610.4J 'Special Military Operations'
(Effective Date: November 3, 1998; Includes: Change 1,
effective July 3, 2000; Change 2, effective July 12, 2001),
Chapter 7, Section 1-2, "Escort of Hijacked Aircraft:
Requests for Service" Full text posted at:
http://faa.gov/ATpubs/MIL/Ch7/mil0701.html#7-1-2

(5) 'Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction
3610.01A,' 1 June 2001, "Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and
Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects," 4.Policy (page 1)
PDF available at:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf
Backup at: http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/3610_01a.pdf

(6)'NBC, Meet the Press' (10:00 AM ET) Sunday 16 September 2001.
Full transcript at:
http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/629714.asp?cp1=1
Backup transcript at:
http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/nbcmp.htm

(7) CBS News Special Report (12:00 Noon PM ET) - September
12, 2001 "Aftermath of and investigation into attacks on
World Trade Center and the Pentagon at
http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/cbs12th.htm

(8) To read the new cover story floated by CBS on 14
September go to
http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/changes.htm#a

(9) Website of the 88th Communications Group,
Wright-Patterson AFB OH,
http://www.wpafb.af.mil/museum/research/fighter/f16a.htm

(10) From 'Popular Mechanics' Website, 'The Weapons Of
Enduring Freedom,' at
http://popularmechanics.com/science/military/2001/9/weapons_of_infinite_justice/

(11) 'Pentagon Tracked Deadly Jet but Found No Way to Stop
It,' 'New York Times,' September 15, 2001, Section A; Page
1; Column 1
http://college4.nytimes.com/guests/articles/2001/09/15/868107.xml

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Richard K Moore
Wexford, Ireland
Citizens for a Democratic Renaissance 
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