Chapter 4 … The New Pearl Harbor by: David Ray Griffin
THE PRESIDENT’S BEHAVIOR: WHY DID HE ACT AS HE DID?
Disturbing questions about the official account have been raised not only by the four aircraft
crashes of 9/11 but also by President Bush’s behavior on that day. Although the questions that
critics have raised about that behavior are legion, I will focus on those that seem most disturbing.
The president’s schedule that day called for him to visit an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida,
where he was to listen to students read as a “photo opportunity.” He arrived at the school shortly
before 9:00 AM, at which time, according to at least one version of the official account, he was
told that a plane had flown into the WTC. Since it was by then known that this plane as well as
two others had been hijacked, one would assume, critics point out, that the president would also
know this. Allan Wood and Paul Thompson state the problem thus:
The first media reports of Flight 11’s crash into the World Trade Center began
around 8:48, two minutes after the crash happened. CNN broke into its regular
programming at that time…. So within minutes, millions were aware of the story,
yet Bush supposedly remained unaware for about another ten minutes.>1
Critics find this difficult to believe.
The members of the president s traveling staff, including the Secret Service, argues Barrie
Zwicker, “have the best communications equipment in the world.” Accordingly, says Zwicker,
within a minute after the first airliner hit the World Trade Center, the Secret Service and the
president would have known about it. >2 In fact, Thompson points out, Vice President Cheney
evidendy let the cat out of the bag. During his interview on “Meet the Press” on September 16,
Cheney said: “The Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after
the World Trade Center was…”—stopping himself, Thompson adds, before finishing the
sentence.>3 So, the Secret Service personnel in the presidents motorcade, including the ones in
his own car, would have known about the first attack on the WTC before the motorcade arrived at
the school at 9:00. Indeed, it is even part of the official account that Ari Fleischer, the White
House press secretary, learned about the first attack on the way. Having cited that story,
Thompson adds: “It would make sense that Bush is told about the crash immediately and at the
same time that others hear about it. Yet Bush and others claim he isn’t told until he arrives at the
school.” Thompsons implied question, of course, is that if President Bush knew about the crash
before arriving at the school, why did he and others pretend otherwise?
The vice presidents inadvertent revelation about the open lines between the Secret Service and
the FAA creates an even greater difficulty, critics point out, for another part of the official
account. Upon learning that a plane had hit the WTC, President Bush reportedly referred to the
crash as a “horrible accident.” >4 However, Zwicker’s complete statement, only partially
summarized above, includes the point that by that time, the Secret Service and the president
would have known that several airliners had been hijacked. So how could President Bush have
assumed that the first crash into the WTC was an accident? Giving voice to the disturbing
question raised by this story, Thompson asks: “[Are] Bush and his aides putting on a charade to
pretend he doesn’t know there is a national emergency? If so, why?”>5
In any case, the president was then reportedly updated on the situation via telephone by his
National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, who would presumably have made sure that he
knew not only about all the hijackings but also that the Director of the CIA, George Tenet, had
already concluded that the hijackings were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden to carry out terrorist
attacks.>6 But the president reportedly told the school’s principal that “a commercial plane has hit
the World Trade Center and we’re going to go ahead and…do the reading thing anyway.”>7
Critics find this incredible. If the hijackings were unanticipated occurrences, as claimed, with one
of the hijacked airplanes having already completed its terrorist mission, the country was suffering
the worst terrorist attack of its history. And yet the Commander in Chief, rather than making sure
that his military was prepared to shoot down all hijacked planes, sticks to his planned schedule.
The strangeness of this behavior is brought out well in a summary of the situation by Wood and
Thompson:
At approximately 8:48 AM…,the first pictures of the burning World Trade Center
were broadcast on live television…. By that time, the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace Defense Command
(NORAD), the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, the White House,
the Secret Service, and Canada’s Strategic Command all knew that three
commercial airplanes had been hijacked. They knew that one plane had been flown
deliberately into the World Trade Center’s North Tower; a second plane was wildly
off course and also heading toward Manhattan…. So why, at 9:03 AM—fifteen
minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack—did
President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute
pre-planned photo op?>8
Bush’s behavior is made even more astounding by the fact that his Secret Service would have
had to assume that he was one of the intended targets. Indeed, one Secret Service agent,
seeing the television coverage of the crash of the second airliner into the WTC, reportedly said:
“We’re out of here.”>9 But if one of the agents actually said this, he was obviously overruled. At
the same time, by contrast, Cheney and Rice were reportedly being rushed to bunkers under the
White House.>10 And yet, “For some reason, Secret Service agents [do] not hustle [Bush]
away,” comments the Globe and Mail ”Why doesn’t this happen to Bush at the same time?”
Thompson asks. “Why doesn’t the Secret Service move Bush away from his known location?”>11
The reason for pressing this question is that, as Wood and Thompson point out: “Hijackers could
have crashed a plane into Bush’s publicized location and his security would have been completely
helpless to stop it.”>12
This apparently unconcerned behavior, critics point out, continued for almost an hour. The
intelligence expert James Bamford has written:
[H]aving just been told that the country was under attack, the Commander in Chief
appeared uninterested in further details. He never asked if there had been any
additional threats, where the artacks were coming from, how to best protect me
country from further attacks…. Instead, in the middle of a modern-day Pearl
Harbor, he simply turned back to the matter at hand: the day’s photo op. >13
This photo opportunity involved, as indicated above, the president’s listening to second graders
read a book about a pet goat. After Bush had been in the classroom a few minutes, his chief of
staff, Andrew Card came in and whispered in his ear, reportedly telling him about the second
attack. But the president, after a brief pause, had the children go ahead with the reading
demonstration. To emphasize the strangeness of this behavior, Bamford adds this reflection:
As President Bush continued with his reading lesson, life within the burning towers
of the World Trade Center was becoming ever more desperate…. Within minutes,
people began jumping, preferring a quick death to burning alive or suffocating.>14
While this was going on, the president was listening to the students read: “The-Pet-Goat. A-girlgot-
a-pet-goat. But-the-goat -did-some-things-that-made-the-girls-dad-mad.” After listening to
this for several minutes, President Bush made a joke, saying: “Really good readers, whew! These
must be sixth graders!”>15
Another person who has found the contrast between the presidents behavior and what was
happening in New York troubling is Lorie van Auken, whose husband was one of the victims of the
attacks on the towers. Having obtained the video of the presidents session with the children, she
watched it over and over, saying later: “I couldn’t stop watching the president sitting there,
listening to second graders, while my husband was burning in a building.” Also, noting that the
president had just been told by an advisor that the country was under attack, she wondered how
the president could make a joke.>16
Besides joking, the president lingered, not at all acting like a commander in chief with an
emergency on his hands. Indeed, according to a book called Fighting Back by the White House
correspondent for the Washington Times, Bill Sammon—a book that presents the White House
perspective on most issues and generally provides an extremely sympathetic account of the
president >17—Bush was “openly stretching out the moment.” When the lesson was over,
according to Sammon’s account, Bush said:
Hoo! These are great readers. Very impressive! Thank you all so much for showing
me your reading skills. I bet they practice too. Don’t you? Reading more than they
watch TV? Anybody do that? Read more than you watch TV? [Hands go up] Oh
that’s great! Very good. Very important to practice! Thanks for having me. Very
impressed. >18
Bush then continued to talk, advising the children to stay in school and be good citizens. And in
response to a question, he talked about his education policy.” Sammon describes Bush as smiling
and chatting with the children “as if he didn’t have a care in the world” and “in the most relaxed
manner imaginable.” After a reporter asked if the president had heard about what had happened
in New York, Bush said, “I’ll talk about it later,” then, in Sammons words, “stepped forward and
shook hands with [the classroom teacher] Daniels, slipping his left hand behind her in another
photo-op pose. He was taking his good old time…. Bush lingered until the press was gone.”
Sammon, in fact, refers to the president as “the dawdler in chief.”>20
Amazingly, perhaps stung by the criticisms of the president’s behavior, the White House put out a
different account a year later. Andrew Card, Bush’s chief of staff, was quoted as saying that after
he told the president about the second attack on the World Trade Center, Bush “excused himself
very politely to the teacher and to the students” and left the classroom within “a matter of
seconds.”>21 In an alternative wording of the new story, Card said, “Not that many seconds later
the president excused himself from the classroom.”>22 Apparently, say critics, the White House
was so confident that none of its lies about 9/11 would be challenged by the media that it felt safe
telling this one even though it is flatly contradicted by Sammons pro-Bush book and by the video
tape produced that day, which, as Wood and Thompson put it, “shows these statements are lies
—unless ‘a matter of seconds’ means over 700 seconds!”23
In any case, back to real history, the president finally left the classroom at 9:16 to meet with his
advisors, reportedly to prepare his television address to the nation, which he delivered at 9:29.
Thompson comments: “The talk occurs at exactly the time and place stated in his publicly
announced advance schedule—making Bush a possible terrorist target.”>24 And not only Bush.
When Andrew Card and Karl Rove were later asked why the president had not left the classroom
as soon as he had word of the second attack, their answer, Wood and Thompson point out, was
that he did not want to upset the children. But, they ask, “why didn’t Bush’s concern for the
children extend to not making them and the rest of the 200 or so people at the school terrorist
targets?”>25 Might the answer be that Bush knew that there was really no danger?
In any case, the president and his people then went in their scheduled motorcade on their
scheduled route to the airport, during which they reportedly learned that the Pentagon had been
struck and also heard that the president’s plane, Air Force One, was a terrorist target.
Nevertheless no military escort was ordered. “Amazingly,” says Thompson, “his plane takes off
without any fighters protecting it,”>26 This seems especially surprising given the feet that there
were still over 3,000 planes in the air over the United States and there was no way to know at
that time how many airlines had been hijacked. For example, about an hour later, Thompson
reports, the FAA had said that there were six missing aircraft— a figure that Cheney
subsequendy mentioned—and at one time eleven flights were suspected of having been
hijacked.>27 According to Karl Rove, furthermore, the Secret Service had learned of “a specific
threat made to Air Force One.”>28 So, why had fighter jets not been ordered from one of the two
nearby military bases, which have fighters on 24-hour alert?>29
The strangeness of the president’s behavior, given the apparent circumstances, has not gone
unnoticed by family members of the victims of the attacks of 9/11. For example, Kristen
Breitweiser, whose question about how a plane could have struck the Pentagon was quoted
earlier, also said:
It was clear that we were under attack. Why didn’t the Secret Service whisk him
out of that school? He was on live local television in Florida. The terrorists, you
know, had been in Florida…. I want to know why he sat there for 25 minutes.>30
Much attention at the time was given to the fact that once Air Force Onebecame airborne at 9:55,
President Bush remained away from Washington for a long time, perhaps, speculated some
commentators, out of fear. Indeed, some reporters who criticized the president on that score lost
their jobs >31—which may account for why the White House could later be confident that the
news media would not challenge any of its fabrications. In any case, the real question, the critics
suggest, is why there was apparently no fear during the first hour. The implied question is, of
course, a disturbing one: Did the president and at least the head of his Secret Service detail
know that he was not a target?
The idea that the Bush administiarion had advance knowledge of the attacks is further suggested
by a statement later made by Bush himslef: “I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in,”
he claimed, “and I saw an airplane hit the tower—the TV was obviously on, and I used to fly
myself, and I said, There’s one terrible pilot.” >32 Given the fact that according to the official
story, Bush did not have access to a television set until at least 15 minutes later, >33 this
statement raised questions. An article in the Boston Herald said:
Think about that. Bush’s remark implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we
all know that video of the first plane hitting did not surface until the next day.
Could Bush have meant he saw the second plane hit—which many Americans
witnessed? No, because he said that he was in the classroom when Card
whispered in his ear that a second plane hit.
Pointing out that Bush had told this story several times, the writer asked: “How could the
Commander-in-chief have seen the plane fly into the first building—as it happened?”>34
This is an excellent question. But it is simply one of many excellent questions mat have been
raised by individual reporters and then allowed to die by the rest of the news media. They have
not pressed for an answer.
Thierry Meyssan, however, has suggested a possible answer. Pointing out that “according to his
own declaration, the President of the United States saw pictures of the first crash before the
second had taken place,” Meyssan emphasizes the fact that the pictures reportedly seen by Bush
could not have been “those accidentally filmed by French documentary-makers Jules and Gédéon
Naudet,” because “their video was not released until thirteen hours later.” On the morning of
9/11, therefore, Bush could not have seen the pictures of the first crash that we have all seen
time and time again. Therefore, Meyssan suggests, the pictures must
have been secret images transmitted to him without delay in the secure
communications room that was installed in the elementary school in preparation for
his visit. But if the US intelligence services could have filmed the first attack, that
means they must have been informed beforehand.>35
Meyssans suggestion, in other words, is that although the president did not see the plane fly into
the first building “as it happened,” he did see it, as he claimed, before he went into the classroom.
========================
According to critics of the official account, in sum, the behaviour of President Bush on 9/11
reinforces the conclusion, inferable from the fate of the four crashed airliners, that government
and military officials at the highest level had advance knowledge of, and conspired to allow; the
traumatic events of that day.>36 With regard to our list of possible views, furthermore, the critical
account of the president’s behaviour seems to eliminate the first five possible views, according to
which the White House had no expectation of any attacks. The behavior of President Bush and
his Secret Service seems to imply at least the sixth view, according to which the White House
expected some sort of arracks. Furthemore, if we accept Meyssans conjecture about Bush’s
statement that he saw the first WTC crash on television before entering the classroom, the
seventh view—according to which the White House had foreknowledge of the targets and the
timing of the attacks—is suggested. That view is also suggested by the evidence that President
Bush and his Secret Service seemed to know that they would not be targets of the attack.
For the critics of the official account, this conclusion for some sort of official complicity is made
even stronger when the events of 9/11 are seen in me larger context provided by information
about relevant events both prior to and after 9/11. This larger context will be the subject of the
second part of this book.
Bush and his Secret Service seemed to know that they would not be targets of the attack.
For the critics of the official account, this conclusion for some sort of official complicity is made
even stronger when the events of 9/11 are seen in me larger context provided by information
about relevant events both prior to and after 9/11. This larger context will be the subject of the
second part of this book.
FOOTNOTES for Chapter four
1Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, “An Interesting Day. President Bush’s Movements and Actions
on 9/11,” Center for Cooperative Research (www.cooperativeresearch.org), under “When Did
Bush First Learn of the Attacks,” citing New York Times, September 15, and CNN, September 11,
2001. (This article will henceforth be cited simply as “Wood and Thompson,” followed by the
heading under which the material is found.)
2Barrie Zwicker, “The Great Deception,” Vision TV Insight, MediaFile (www.visiontv.ca), February
18, 2002, cited in Ahmed, 166.
3Thompson, “September 11″ (After 8:46 AM), quoting “Meet the Press,” NBC News, September
16, 2001.
4CNN, December 4, 2001, Daily Mail, September 8, 2002, and ABC News, September 11, 2002,
cited in Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
5Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
6Time, September 12, and Christian Science Monitor. September 17, 2001, cited in Thompson
(Between 8:55-9:00 .AM). A few minutes after 8:46, CIA Director Tenet reportedly learned from a
cell phone call that the WTC had been “attacked” by an airplane, after which he said to Senator
Boren, with whom he was having breakfast: “You know, this has bin Laden’s fingerprints all over
it” (ABC News, September 14, 2002, cited in Thompson [After 8:46 AM]).
7Associated Press, August 19, 2002, quoted in Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
8Wood and Thompson, introductory discussion.
9Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 10, 2002, quoted in Thompson (9:30 AM).
10New York Times, September 16, 2001, Telegraph, December 16, 2001, ABC News, September
14, 2002, and Washington Post, January 27, 2002, quoted in Thompson (After 9:30 AM).
11Thompson (After 9:30 AM) and (9:06 AM), quoting Globe and Mail September 12, 2001.
12Wood and Thompson, under “Why Stay?”
13James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New
York Anchor Books, 2002), 633, cited in Thompson (9:06 AM).
14Bamford, 633.
15Bamford, 633, and Time, September 9, 2001, cited in Thompson (9:06-9:16 AM).
16Gail Sheehy, “Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush,” New York Observer, August 21, 2002.
17Sammons sympathies are further shown by another book published at about the same rime, At
Any Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election (Washington: Regnery, 2002).
18Bill Sammon, Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism: From Inside the Bush White House
(Washington: Regnery, 2002), 89-90, quoted in Wood and Thompson, under “When Did Bush
Leave the Classroom?”
19Tampa Tribune, September 1; St. Petersburg Times, September 8; and New York Post,
September 12, 2002, cited in Wood and Thompson, under “when Did Bush Leave the Classroom?
“
20Sammon, Fighting Back 90, quoted in Wood and Thompson, under “When Did Bush Leave the
Classroom?” and “Rewriting History.”
21San Francisco Chronicle, September 11, 2002, quoted in Wood and Thompson, under
“Rewriting History.”
22MSNBC, September 9, 2002.
23Wood and Thompson, under “Rewriting History.”
24Thompson, 9:29 AM.
25Wood and Thomspon, under “Why Stay?”, citing MSNBC, October 29, 2002, and ABC,
September 11, 2002.
26Thompson (9:34 AM) and (9:56 AM). Air Force One took off at 9:35 AM. It would be a t least 90
minutes before it had an escort (Wood and Thompson, under “When Does the Fighter Escort
Finally Arrive?”).
27Thompson (9:30 AM) and (10:42 AM), citing Time, September 14, Los Angeles Times.
September 17, 2001, and USA Today. August 13, 2002.
28New Yorker, October 1, 2001, cited in Wood and Thompson, under “Air Force One Departs
Sarasota.” As Wood and Thompson also point out (under “Were There Threats to Air Force One?
“), a little later in the day, Dick Cheney originated, and then Karl Rove and Ari Fleischer spread, a
story that a threat against the White House and Air Force One was received from terrorists who
used the secret code for Air Force One, which suggested either that there was a mole in the
White House or that terrorists had hacked their way into White House computers. This story, first
published by William Safire of the New York Times (September 13, 2001), spread throughout the
media, although there was considerable skepticism, based on suspicion that the story was
created to dampen down criticism of Bush for remaining away from Washington for so long (St.
Petersburg Times, September 13, and Telegraph, December 16, 2001). When Ari Fleischer was
pressed for credible evidence on September 15, he replied that that topic had already been
exhausted. Finally, on September 26, CBS News laid the story to rest with this explanation:
“Sources say White House staffers apparently misunderstood comments made by their security
detail.” Slate magazine gave its “Whopper of the Week” award to Cheney, Fleischer, and Rove
(Slate, September 28, 2001). Unfortunately, Thierry Meyssan, having evidently missed the
retraction, based his most speculative theory on this bogus report (9/11: The Big Lie, Ch. 3:
“Moles in the White House”). But he can perhaps be forgiven, since CBS, evidently forgetting
about its own debunking, revived the story a year later (CBS, September 11, 2002, cited in Wood
and Thompson, under “Rewriting History”).
29Wood and Thompson, under “Air Force One Takes OffWithout Fighter Escort.” 30Kristen
Breitweiser’s comments, made on Phil Donahue’s television show on August 13, 2002, are quoted
in Thompson, “Timeline,” August 13, 2002.
31Washington Post, September 29, 2001, cited in Wood and Thompson, introductory discussion.
32CNN December 4, 2001, quoted in Thompson (9:01 AM).
33Washington Times, October 7, 2002, quoted in Thompson (9:01 AM).
34Boston Herald, October 22, 2002, quoted in Thompson (9:01 AM).
35Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 38-39. Other revisionists have suggested that images of this crash
might have been transmitted to the president’s limousine, so that he would have seen them
before arriving at the school.
36President Bush is not the only high official, furthermore, whose reported behavior that day has
raised serious questions. Critics have also found the reported behavior of General Richard Myers,
then Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs, suspicious. See Israel and Bykov, “Guilty for
9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers” (www.emperors-clothes.com), who say that Myers “offered three
mutually contradictory cover stories.” See also Ahmed, 164-66.
Chapter 3 of “The New Pearl Harbor” … By: David Ray Griffin
CHAPTER THREE
FLIGHT 93: WAS IT THE ONE FLIGHT THAT WAS SHOT DOWN?
The main problem raised by the first three flights—aside from the question of the identity of the
aircraft that hit the Pentagon—was the fact that aircraft that should have been shot down were
not. The fate of UA Flight 93, say critics, presents us with the opposite problem: A plane that
should not have been shot down was. Paul Thompson’s timeline provides evidence from which he
draws this conclusion.
The crucial items in the first part of this timeline are the following: Flight 93 departed from Newark
41 minutes late, at 8:42 AM. At 9:27, one passenger, Tom Burnett, called his wife, telling her
that the plane had been hijacked and that she should call the FBI, which she did. At 9:28, ground
flight controllers heard sounds of screaming and scuffling. At 9:34, Tom Burnett again called his
wife, who told him about the attacks on the WTC, leading him to realize that his own plane was
on “a suicide mission.” At 9:36, the plane turned toward Washington. At 9:37, Jeremy Glick and
two other passengers learned about the WTC attacks.>1 At 9:45, Tom Burnett told his wife that
he did not think, contrary to the hijackers’ claim, that they had a bomb, and that he and others
were making a plan. By this time, which was 19 minutes before the plane went down, the FBI was
monitoring these calls. At 9:45, with the FBI listening in, passenger Todd Beamer began a long
phone conversation with a Verizon representative, describing the situation on board.>2 Shortly
after 9:47, Jeremy Click told his wife that all the men had voted to attack the hijackers, adding
that the latter had only knives, no guns (which would, in combination with the conviction that the
hijackers did not really have a bomb, have increased the passengers’ belief that they could be
successful).>3 At 9:54, Tom Burnett called his wife again. According to early reports, he said: “I
know we’re all going to die. There’s three of uswho are going to do something about it.”>4
However, according to a later more complete account, he sounded more optimistic, saying: “It’s
up to us. I think we can do it,” adding that they were planning to gain control of the plane over a
rural area.>5
The following incidents in Thompson’s timeline suggest to him that the plane was shot down after
it became evident that the passengers — among whom were a professional pilot and a flight
controller >6 — might gain control of the plane. At 9:57, one of the hijackers was heard saying
that there was fighting outside the cockpit. A voice from outside said: “Let’s get them.” At 9:58,
Todd Beamer ended his phone call by saying that the passengers planned “to jump” the hijacker
in the back of the plane, then uttered his famous words: “Are you ready guys? Let’s roll.”>7 At
9:58, a passenger talking on the phone to her husband said: “I think they’re going to do it. They’re
forcing their way into the cockpit.” A little later, she exclaimed: “They’re doing it! They’re doing it!
They’re doing it!” But her husband then heard screaming in the background followed by a
“whooshing sound, a sound like wind,” then more screaming, after which he lost contact. >8
Another passenger, calling from a restroom, reportedly said just before contact was lost that he
heard “some sort of explosion” and saw “white smoke coming from the plane.”>9 (Months later,
the FBI denied that the recording of this call contained any mention of smoke or an explosion, but
the person who took this call was not allowed to speak to the media.>10) The person listening to
Jeremy Click’s open phone line reportedly said: “The silence lasted two minutes and then there
was a mechanical sound, followed by more screams. Finally, there was a mechanical sound,
followed by nothing.”>11 According to one newspaper report, moreover: “Sources claim the last
thing heard on the cockpit voice recorder is the sound of wind — suggesting the plane had been
holed.”>12 Thompson believes that this record shows that the plane was indeed “holed” — shot
down by a missile or two — after it seemed that the passengers were gaining control of it.
Thompson is also suspicious about the tape of the cockpit recording and the official crash time.
Relatives of victims have been allowed to listen to this tape. It begins at 9:31 and runs for 31
minutes, so that it ends at 10:02. This would be close to the time of the crash — if the crash
occurred at 10:03, as the US government claims. However, a seismic study concluded that the
crash occurred slightly after 10:06, leading the Philadelphia Daily News to print an article entitled
“Three-Minute Discrepancy in Tape.” Thompson asks: “What happened to the last three or four
minutes of this tape?”>13 And this was not, Thompson reports, the only record of this flight that
was missing. On October 16, the government released flight control transcripts of the airplanes —
except for Flight 93.>14
With regard to the suspicion that the plane was shot down, it is significant that according to news
reports, it was shortly after 9:56 that fighter jets were finally given orders to intercept and shoot
down any airplanes under the control of hijackers.>15 Shortly thereafter, a military aide reportedly
said to Vice President Cheney: “There is a plane 80 miles out. There is a fighter in the area.
Should we engage?”, to which Cheney responded “Yes,” after which an F-16 went in pursuit of
Flight 93.>16 It was also reported that as the fighter got nearer to Flight 93, Cheney was asked
two more times to confirm that the fighter should engage, which Cheney did.>17 Also, Brigadier
General Winfield of the NMCC later said: “At some point, the closure time came and went, and
nothing happened, so you can imagine everything was very tense at the NMCC.” >18
Furthermore, when President Bush was told of the crash of Flyght 93 at 10:08, he reportedly
asked: “Did we shoot it town or did it crash?” >19 These reports, which are contained in
Thompsons timeline, suggest to him that the intention to shoot down Flight 93 was in several
minds.
Reports of fighter jets in the area add to his suspicion that Flight 93 was indeed shot down.
Shortly before the crash, CBS television reported that two F-16 fighters were tailing the flight.
And a flight controller, ignoring an order to controllers not to talk to the media, reportedly said that
“an F-16 fighter closely pursued Flight 93…. [T]he F-16 made 360-degree turns to remain close to
the commercial jet.”>20 The existence of a fighter plane in the area is supported, furthermore, by
many witnesses on the ground. Accorting to a story in the Independent, “At least half a dozen
named individuals…have reported seeing a second plane flying low…over the crash site within
minutes of the United flight crashing. They describe the plane as a small, white jet with rear
engines and no discernible markings.”>21 The FBI claimed that the plane was a Fairchild Falcon
20 business jet.>22 But, said one woman:
It was white with no markings but it was definitely military… It had two rear
engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler…. It definitely wasn’t one of those
executive jets. The FBI came and talked to me andsaid there was no plane
around…. But I saw it and it was there before the crash and it was 40 feet above
my head. They did not want story.>23
Her assertion, which is supported by the consensus reported by the Independent, is further
supported by statements quoted by Thompson in which several other people say that they had
seen a white plane, with some of them adding the details about rear engines and the lack of
discernible markings.
Even stronger evidence that the plane was shot down is provided by witnesses who heard
sounds. One witness said that after she heard the planes engine, she heard “a loud thump” and
then “two more loud thumps and didn’t hear the plane’s engine anymore.” Another witness heard
“a loud bang.” Another heard “two loud bangs” before watching the plane take a downward turn.
Another heard a sound that “wasn’t quite right,” after which the plane “dropped all of a sudden,
like a stone.” Another heard a “loud bang” and then saw the plane’s right wing dip, after which the
plane plunged into the earth. And the mayor of Shanksville (Ernie Stull, see the german
Wisnewski video Aktenzeichen 911) reportedly said that he knew of two people who “heard a
missile,” adding that one of them “served in Vietnam and he says he’s heard them.” Thompson
concludes that while some of the accounts have conflicting elements, they “virtually all support a
missile strike.”>24
This conclusion is undergirded still further by reports about the location of remnants from the
plane. For one thing, a half -ton piece or one of the engines was reportedly found over a mile
away. One newspaper story called this fact “intriguing” because “the heat -seeking, air-to-air
Sidewinder missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the Boeing 757’s two large
engines.”>25 Also consistent with one or more missile strikes, Thompson points out, is the fact
that witnesses reported seeing burning debris fall from the plane as far as eight miles away, with
workers at Indian Lake Marina saying that they saw “a cloud of confetti-like debris descend on the
lake and nearby farms minutes after hearing the explosion.”>26 And debris, including what
appeared to be human remains, was indeed reportedly found as far as eight miles from the crash
site.>27
The inference that Flight 93 was shot down is additionally supported by subsequent statements
made by military and government officials. One F-15 pilot reportedly said that after returning from
his assignment to patrol the skies over NYC in the early afternoon, he was told that a military F16
had shot down a fourth airliner in Pennsylvania.>28 This rumor was sufficiently widespread
that when General Myers was being interviewed by the Armed Services Committee on September
13, Senator Carl Levin, asking Myers whether the Defense Department took action against any
aircraft, mentioned that “there have been statements that the aircraft that crashed in
Pennsylvania was shot down,” adding: “Those stories continue to exist.” Although Myers declared
that “the armed forces did not shoot down any aircraft,”>29 Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of
Defense, reportedly said that “the Air Force was tracking the hijacked plane that crashed in
Pennsylvania…and had been in a position to bring it down if necessary.”>30
Thompson believes that the government decided that it was necessary — but not because the
hijackers’ mission was going to succeed. Thompson asks why fighter pilots were given
authorization to shoot down hijacked airplanes only after Flight 93 was the only one left in the
sky.>31 This is, of course, the disturbing question raised by the evidence Thompson presents
about this flight. His implicit answer, given the evidence that the passengers were successfully
wresting control of the plane away from the hijackers, is that this was the one plane that was
likely to be landed safely — which would, among other things, mean that there might be live
hijackers to be interrogated. Thus interpreted, the evidence about Flight 93 provides further
reason to conclude that the failure to shoot down the previous three flights was not due to
incompetence. This evidence suggests that when the authorities wanted a flight shot down, they
were not hindered by lack of either competence or coordination.
The evidence from this flight suggests, like the previous ones, active involvement of US military
leaders in planning the attacks. In this case, they apparendy also had to take remedial action
because of an unexpected development. With regard to the possible levels of official complicity
listed in the Introduction: Insofar as the revisionary account of Flight 93 (and/or Flight 77) is
accepted, all the possible views lower than the fifth one are ruled out.
An intriguing dimension of this story is that Flight 93’s fate was evidently due to the fact that it
was 41 minutes late departing from the airport. All four flights were scheduled to leave at about
the same time and were hence probably intended to hit their respective targets at about the same
time. The other three planes were fairly well synchronized departing only between 10 and 16
minutes late. But because Flight 93’s departure was 41 minutes late, by the time the hijackers
took control of it the two planes headed toward the WTC had already hit their targets Passengers
making phone calls from Flight 93 learned, therefore, that their flight was on a suicide mission.
Unlike the passengers on the two flights headed for the WTC, accordingly, the passengers on
Flight 93, knowing that they were headed for certain death if they remained passive, decided to
try to gain control of the plane.>32 Had the plane not been so late leaving, the passengers may
not have tried this, so this plane might also have hit its target.
Had it hit its target, furthermore, we might well look back upon Flight 93s mission as in some
respects the most devastating one. Evacuation of the US Capitol building did not begin until 9:48,
which was 23 minutes after an unidentified aircraft had been spotted flying across Washington
and 10 minutes after it had hit the Pentagon. What if Flight 93 had been more nearly on time?
Thompson says: “It is later reported that the target for Flight 93 was the Capitol building, so had
that flight not been delayed 40 minutes before takeoff, it is possible most senators and
congresspeople would have been killed.”>33 Thompson is perhaps trying to motivate them to
undertake a more far-reaching investigation into the events of 9/11.
Also, given the fact that the other main hypothesis about Flight 93’sintended target is that it was
the White House, critics also wonder why it was not evacuated sooner. According to many news
reports, both Vice President Cheney and National Security Advisor Rice were taken to the White
House’s underground bunker by the Secret Service at about 9:03. >34 However, it was over 40
minutes later, at 9:45, when a general evacuation of the White House was begun.>35 If it was
thought at 9:03 that Cheney and Rice were in danger, why were not the other people told to
leave at that time? At the very least, why was the White House not evacuated shortly after 9:25,
when the air traffic controllers at Dulles reported a fast-flying plane headed toward the White
House? This question is even more pressing insofar as the official account of Flight 77 is
accepted, according to which the passengers were told that they were all going to the because
the plane was going to crash into the White House.>36 Had that been true, people working in the
White House, instead of people working in the Pentagon, would have been killed, since the
evacuation of the White House did not begin until seven minutes after the Pentagon was struck.
We have, accordingly, still another disturbing question: Was there a plan to have deaths in the
White House or the US Capitol Building as well as the Pentagon and the World Trade Center?
A Reminder Of Obama’s Attitude Towards The American Military
A while back President Obama abandoned his proposal to require
veterans carry private health insurance to cover the estimated $540
million annual cost to the federal government of treatment for injuries
to military personnel received during their tours on active duty.
So he made this statement because he was pissed about it:
“Look, it’s an all volunteer force,” Obama complained. “Nobody
made these guys go to war. They had to have known and accepted the risks. Now they whine about bearing the costs of their choice? It
doesn’t compute..” “I thought these were people who were proud to
sacrifice for their country, “Obama continued. “I wasn’t asking for
blood, just money. With the country facing the worst financial crisis in its history, I’d have thought that the patriotic thing to do would be to try to help reduce the nation’s deficit. I guess I underestimated the
selfishness of some of my fellow Americans.”
“out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh” … (Matt. 12:34)
So, if any folks question why he’s taking so long as to how to lose the war in Afghanistan, refer to the above concerning how he really feels towards those ‘in harms way’.
Pentagon launches probe of Fort Hood rampage
Fort Hood Slayings Prompt Full Pentagon Review
Army To Investigate Whether It Missed Warning Signs
WASHINGTON — Worried that the Army may have missed red flags about the alleged shooter in the Fort Hood massacre, the Pentagon probably will open an inquiry into how all the military services keep watch on other volatile soldiers hidden in their ranks, officials said Tuesday.
Link here
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a thorough investigation into the Fort Hood shootings to examine if warning signs were missed and to ensure such a rampage never happens again.
click below for more:
Pentagon launches probe of Fort Hood rampage.
Cartoon by: Dana Summers
It’s appalling that those that knew the guy was a very real and potential threat didn’t do anything.
Lindsey Graham takes Eric Holder to task for endangering America
Credit to the Pesky Emotional Republican for this one:
