9/11

As Bob says, two-and-a-half years later (I say "late"), the Wall Street Journal is finally asking the questions.

As that suggests, despite intense attention paid to Sept. 11, public understanding of that day -- how government officials responded, what went smoothly and what didn't -- remains shrouded in confusion and misunderstanding. The independent commission appointed to study the terror strikes has said it considers piecing together a minute-by-minute picture of that day's events crucial to its task of deciding whether the country needs to take further steps to prepare for potential future crises.

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.

...Regarding Mr. Bush's statements that he had ordered troops to a higher alert status himself, [White House Communications Director Dan] Bartlett said the president provided a "description that the public could understand" and spoke in "broad strokes." Gen. Myers [who actually made the decision and gave the command] and the Pentagon declined to comment.

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Depends on the definition of a lie, doesn't it?

The public is too stupid to understand: "General Myers raced back from the White House minutes after the plane crashed into the Pentagon and gave the order to go on high alert"? That stroke from General Myers to Bunnypants the Oaf of Office is definitely broad - a major stroke. Oars clean out of the water, I think. Brush larger than the canvas. Always taking the credit and never the blame. That's our hero leader.

During a town-hall meeting in Orlando on Dec. 4, 2001, Mr. Bush said that after the attacks, "one of the first acts I did was to put our military on alert.

...At the Dec. 4, 2001, town-hall meeting in Orlando, Mr. Bush said, "I was sitting outside the classroom, waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, 'Well, there's one terrible pilot.' " Several weeks later, he said essentially the same thing at another public event in Ontario, Calif.

Actually, no scenes of the first plane hitting the Trade Center were broadcast on television until late that night, when amateur video footage became available. The TV in the room where Mr. Bush waited wasn't even plugged in, according Ms. Rigell, the principal. "It's just a mistaken recollection" on the president's part, his spokesman, Mr. Bartlett, said in an interview. "There were lots of things going on fast at the time."

So fast, that he hung around the schoolroom and finished up his little photo op even after being told that two planes had hit the twin towers and that "America is under attack".

In explaining Mr. Bush's movements, top White House political strategist Karl Rove has said that as late as 4 p.m. on Sept. 11, there were still reports of civilian jetliners aloft and unaccounted for, posing a separate threat to Air Force One. In an interview published Oct. 1, 2001, in the New Yorker magazine, Mr. Rove referred to reports of "three or four or five planes still outstanding" at 4 p.m.

But Benjamin Sliney, the senior Federal Aviation Administration official in charge of nationwide air-traffic control that day, said in an interview that there were no such reports. He and an FAA spokeswoman said that at 12:16 p.m., the agency informed the White House, Pentagon and other arms of the government that there weren't any additional hijacked jets aloft, as all commercial planes had landed or been diverted away from the U.S.

Other government officials said in interviews that Mr. Bush received a briefing before 1 p.m. while at an Air Force base in Barksdale, La., during which he was told that the skies were clear of any potentially hijacked planes. Mr. Bartlett said in an interview he didn't know where Mr. Rove got the information about planes still being in the air in the late afternoon of Sept. 11.

He made it up, of course. Like so much other shit these asshats tell us.

[North American Aerospace Defense - NORAD] fighters stationed at Langley Air Force Base near Hampton, Va., conceivably might have reached the Washington area in time to shoot down the hijacked plane that hit the Pentagon, Capt. Craig Borgstrom, one of the pilots who scrambled from Langley, said in an interview. But the three fighters in Virginia remained on the ground for a full 50 minutes after [NORAD] had learned from the FAA that passenger jets had been hijacked, and 27 minutes after the second World Trade Center tower had been hit, according to Norad. The independent panel, formally known as the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, has said it is investigating the cause of that delay.

...Mr. Bush has said repeatedly that he issued...a shoot-down order, but the White House hasn't publicly disclosed when he did so. The commission is trying to determine precisely when the order came, said Philip Zelikow, its executive director.

Mr. Zelikow said the panel's investigation also includes why the shoot-down order, whenever it was given, applied only to hijacked planes headed for Washington. This limitation meant that if there had been additional hijacked planes headed for other targets, fighters couldn't have tried to stop them.

Several independents have long since pieced together the facts and the timeline, official or not. Numerous links are on my web page here.

And I can answer the question as to at least one step we need to take to prepare for potential future crises:


Click graphic and sign petition

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.