November 7, 2010
Shoestring911′s Blog

The National Military Command Center (NMCC) is the most secure part of the Pentagon and, at the time of the 9/11 attacks, was “the focal point within [the] Department of Defense for providing assistance” to law enforcement efforts in response to aircraft hijackings in U.S. airspace, according to military instructions. [1] In response to the attacks on New York and Washington, the job of the NMCC, according to the 9/11 Commission, was “to gather the relevant parties and establish the chain of command between the National Command Authority–the president and the secretary of defense–and those who need to carry out their orders.” [2]

The NMCC therefore had a critical role to play that day. And yet evidence reveals that emergency actions conducted from the center were totally inadequate. Numerous obstructions occurred, including technical problems and outside agencies failing to provide the center with the information it required. Furthermore, a number of military leaders were particularly slow in reaching the NMCC, from where they could assist emergency response efforts, and only arrived there after the attacks ended and it was too late to make a difference.

The evidence currently available is insufficient to draw firm conclusions from. But the sheer number of factors that hindered the actions of those in the NMCC, combined with several oddities, raises the possibility that a deliberate and coordinated attempt was made by treasonous U.S. government and military insiders to sabotage the center’s ability to respond to the 9/11 attacks, at a time when its rapid actions were imperative.

THE U.S. MILITARY’S ‘WORLDWIDE NERVE CENTER’
The NMCC has been described as “a communications hub, a switchboard connecting the Pentagon, the civilian government, and the combatant commanders.” [3] It is a maze of offices, cubicles, and conference rooms in an area of the Pentagon where offices of the military’s Joint Staff and many top officials, including the secretary of defense, are located. The center is designed to operate in an emergency, and has its own electrical, heating, and air-conditioning systems. [4]

The NMCC’s primary task is to monitor worldwide events for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Its other main missions are providing a strategic watch component and providing a crisis response component. At the time of the 9/11 attacks, it was operated by five teams on a rotating basis, with each operations team typically having 17 to 20 personnel on duty and performing a variety of functions. [5]

OFFICERS LACKED URGENCY IN RESPONSE TO FIRST CRASH
The morning of September 11, 2001, the NMCC was receiving live feeds from numerous television stations, which its personnel were monitoring, and those in the NMCC learned of the first plane crashing into the World Trade Center from TV news reports. [6] This was reportedly the first time they learned anything of the crisis in the skies over America that morning. [7]

NMCC personnel supposedly didn’t realize that the crash was a terrorist attack. Operations officer Dan Mangino has recalled, “At first, we thought it was a terrible accident.” [8] Major Charles Chambers recalled, “My instinct was that the pilot had used the towers to point himself towards the area, lost consciousness, and autopilot had done the rest.” Therefore, at that time, “Our interest in the crash … was no different from anyone else’s in the country.” [9]

The operations team’s response was to continue monitoring media reports and make notifications up the chain of command, simply telling senior Pentagon officials that a plane had crashed into one of the WTC towers. [10]

Read the rest of this entry »

George Bush thought 9/11 plane had been shot down on his orders
Memoirs reveal former US president gave order to shoot down any hijacked planes before United Airlines flight 93 crashed

by James Meikle – Friday 29 October 2010
guardian.co.uk

George Bush initially believed the only plane not to reach its intended target during the 11 September attacks had been shot down on his orders, according to leaks from the former president’s memoir of his two terms in office.

Bush reveals that he gave the order for any further suspected hijacked planes to be shot down after the first aircraft were flown into the World Trade Centre in New York during the 2001 terror attacks.

He at first thought the crash of United Airlines flight 93 in Pennsylvania had resulted from this instruction, although it later emerged that passengers had stormed the cockpit as hijackers flew the plane towards the Capitol building in Washington.

The memoir, Decision Points, is due to be published on 9 November, in the aftermath of the US midterm elections, and Bush is already lined up for interviews on the Oprah Winfrey and NBC Today shows.

The Drudge Report website says the very personal book opens with the line: “It was a simple question: ‘Can you remember the last day you didn’t have a drink?’” as Bush deals with the well-known issue of his alcohol consumption.

His drinking has previously been said to have come to an end when he woke up with a hangover following his 40th birthday celebrations.

In a chapter about stem cell research, he describes receiving a letter from Nancy Reagan detailing a “wrenching family journey”, but says: “I did feel a responsibility to voice my pro-life convictions and lead the country toward what Pope John Paul II called a culture of life.”

Bush goes on to describes an emotional July 2001 meeting with the Pope, who had Parkinson’s disease, at the pontiff’s summer residence.

The Pope reportedly recognised the promise of science but implored Bush to support life in all its forms.

At the pontiff’s funeral in 2005, Bush – after a reminder from his wife, Laura, that it was a time to “pray for miracles” – said a prayer for the ABC news anchor Peter Jennings, who had cancer.

The book is said to stay clear of criticising Barack Obama, and a source told the Drudge Report: “You will find the president strong, loving life, and ultimately at peace with the decisions he made.”

Two Days Before 9/11, Military Exercise Simulated Suicide Hijack Targeting New York
by Kevin Fenton
historycommons.org

The US military conducted a training exercise in the five days before the September 11 attacks that included simulated aircraft hijackings by terrorists, according to a 9/11 Commission document recently found in the US National Archives. In one of the scenarios, implemented on September 9, terrorists hijacked a London to New York flight, planning to blow it up with explosives over New York.

The undated document, entitled “NORAD EXERCISES Hijack Summary,” was part of a series of 9/11 Commission records moved to the National Archives at the start of the year. It was found there and posted to the History Commons site at Scribd by History Commons contributor paxvector in the files of the commission’s Team 8, which focused on the failed emergency response on the day of the attacks. The summary appears to have been drafted by one of the commission’s staffers, possibly Miles Kara, based on documents submitted by NORAD.

In the September 9 scenario, the fictitious terrorists’ goal seems to have been to kill New Yorkers with the rain of debris following the plane’s explosion. However, in the exercise, the military intercepted the plane and forced it away from the city. When the terrorists realized they were not near New York, they blew the plane up “over land near the divert location,” leaving no survivors. The military unit most involved in this scenario was NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), which also played a key role in the air defense response to the 9/11 attacks, two days later.

Read the rest of this entry »

Debunking Popular Mechanics?: PM Book Alleges FAA Source For Statistical Data; FAA Concedes No Such Data Records Exist.

by Aidan Monaghan

Beginning on page 22 of a Popular Mechanics 2006 book entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths, containing a forward comment by Republican presidential candidate John McCain, an attempt is made to clarify the role played by potential military aircraft intercepts during the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Citing unnamed sources, part of this section reads as follows:

When contacted by Popular Mechanics, spokesmen for NORAD and the FAA clarified their remarks by noting that scrambles were routine, but intercepts were not – especially over the continental United States.

However, according to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Freedom of Information Act response dated March 3, 2008, the FAA concedes that records for the information alleged in part by Popular Mechanics’ unnamed FAA source, do not exist.

Former congresswoman calls out Bush for 9/11 response
The Online Edition of the Arizona Daily Wildcat
by Jackson Crews
10/4/07

Former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney condemned the Bush administration’s handling of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks during a speech in front of more than 70 people yesterday at the First Christian Church.

Speaking on a range of issues, McKinney, a Democrat, drew loud applause several times, particularly after critizing how the administration responded to the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center towers in New York City.

“How in the world can we sustain the injuries from Sept. 11th and not even ask any questions about what happened that day?” she asked.

She said members of Congress received “talking points” in the days after the attack urging them to tell their constituents that “(the attackers) hate our freedom.”

“I thought that the failure of the Bush administration to protect the American people on Sept. 11, in and of itself, constituted high crimes and misdemeanors.”

McKinney wanted to impeach Bush, but her mother persuaded her not to follow through.

“I hand-wrote articles of impeachment, but my mother said, ‘Leave it alone, Cynthia, because they will kill you,’ ” McKinney said.

Several times she addressed the close presidential elections in 2000 and 2004.

“In 2000 – don’t let anybody fool you into thinking that Ralph Nader was the cause of the Democrats losing the election,” she said, receiving a round of applause.

“The bottom line is that the Republicans stole the election, and they stole it off the hopes and the dreams of black and brown people in Florida; and then, in 2004, they did it again.”

Yesterday marked McKinney’s second visit to Tucson. It was organized by Claudia Ellquist, co-chair of the Arizona Green Party.

McKinney hinted that she might again run for public office, this time as a Green Party candidate.

“If I am a candidate, it would be for only one reason: to provide an opportunity for the American people to vote their values, for a change and to also know that that vote … will institutionalize another seat at the public policy-making table.”

Read the rest of this entry »

The Military Drills of September 11th: Why a New Investigation is Needed
by Elizabeth Woodworth
Global Research, September 27, 2007

Information regarding military exercises is classified and difficult to research. Though there was unusually high and confusing drill activity on 9/11, this strange coincidence has not gained much public notice. This essay quotes military officials from their own magazines, and compares their statements to what the 9/11 Commission wrote about the so-called surprise factor, and also to the Commission’s position that the drills aided the response.

Though both the 9/11 Commission Report and members of the Bush Administration repeatedly stated that the use of planes as weapons could not have been predicted, other official sources indicate that military exercises had been underway to counteract this very possibility.

1. Was it a Surprise that Hijacked Planes Were Used as Weapons on 9/11?

The element of surprise has been widely given (and quoted) as the reason why the 9/11 attacks were so successful against the world’s greatest military power.

Before proceeding to the statements on both sides of the issue, the context for these attacks should be understood in light of three defense procedures which were unusually and significantly changed in the months preceding 9/11:

1. A May 8^th 2001 Statement by the President gave responsibility for coordinating, training and planning all national defense programs related to weapons of mass destruction to Vice President Cheney, whose office was not part of the National Command Authority. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta testified before the 9/11 Commission that he was present and observed Dick Cheney in the Presidential Emergency Operating Center tracking the position of Flight 77 for many miles as it approached the Pentagon.¹ “Based on Norm Minetta’s testimony and other information, it appears that the military have regarded Cheney as a ‘Deputy Commander-in-Chief’. They also understand that he is the real power behind the throne…It appears that Vice President Dick Cheney was in charge of all the many air defense exercises that took place on the morning of September 11, 2001.”²

2. The 1997 hijacking scramble protocol CJCSI 3610, which distinguished emergent situations (requiring immediate action between the FAA and the military) from non-emergent situations (requiring decision input from the highest levels of the DoD) was rewritten June 1, 2001, as ordered by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.³ As a result, the number of fighter-interceptor scrambles fell from the usual average of 7-8 per month before the rewrite, to zero during the 3.3 months before September 11^th, and to zero on September 11^th itself.⁴

3. Changes in the dates of annual and semi-annual military air defense exercises resulted in an unprecedented concentration of air drills on September 11th, and included hijackings and drills in which planes hit buildings. These will be explored later.

The transfer of two line defense roles to senior members of the Bush-Cheney Administration, paired with the concentration of air drills on the day itself, raise serious questions regarding the success of the attacks.

Read the rest of this entry »