Blame it all on NORAD, sure

[geggy]

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon
Allegations Brought to Inspectors General

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 2, 2006; Page A03

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

Edited by Darat: 

Breach of Rule 4 removed.

 

[geggy]

9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. VF.com exclusive: Hear excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes. Click PLAY after each transcript to listen

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01

 

[Overman]

Funny, They are scrambling to cover up their ineptness, and doing a inept job at that even, and CTer's give them credit for pulling off the largest most cordinated coverup operation in history.

 

[geggy]

So you do think there is a cover up afterall?

 

[Arkan_Wolfshade]

Did you even read the Vanity Fair article with the transcripts?

"The real story is actually better than the one we told," a NORAD general admitted to 9/11-commission staffers when confronted with evidence from the tapes that contradicted his original testimony. And so it seems.

"When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was 'Somebody started the exercise early,'" Nasypany later told me. The day's exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a "traditional" simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum. "I actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour,'" Nasypany recalled. (The fact that there was an exercise planned for the same day as the attack factors into several conspiracy theories, though the 9/11 commission dismisses this as coincidence. After plodding through dozens of hours of recordings, so do I.)

n tape, one hears as Nasypany, following standard hijack protocol, prepares to launch two fighters from Otis Air National Guard Base, on Cape Cod, to look for American 11, which is now off course and headed south. He orders his Weapons Team—the group on the ops floor that controls the fighters—to put the Otis planes on "battle stations." This means that at the air base the designated "alert" pilots—two in this case—are jolted into action by a piercing "battle horn." They run to their jets, climb up, strap in, and do everything they need to do to get ready to fly short of starting the engines.

Meanwhile, the communications team at NEADS—the ID techs Dooley, Rountree, and Watson—are trying to find out, as fast as possible, everything they can about the hijacked plane: the airline, the flight number, the tail number (to help fighter pilots identify it in the air), its flight plan, the number of passengers ("souls on board" in military parlance), and, most important, where it is, so Nasypany can launch the fighters. All the ID section knows is that the plane is American Airlines, Flight No. 11, Boston to Los Angeles, currently somewhere north of John F. Kennedy International Airport—the point of reference used by civilian controllers.

ID tech Watson places a call to the management desk at Boston Center, which first alerted NEADS to the hijack, and gets distressing news.

08:39:58WATSON: It's the inbound to J.F.K.?BOSTON CENTER: We—we don't know.WATSON: You don't know where he is at all?BOSTON CENTER: He's being hijacked. The pilot's having a hard time talking to the—I mean, we don't know. We don't know where he's goin'. He's heading towards Kennedy. He's—like I said, he's like 35 miles north of Kennedy now at 367 knots. We have no idea where he's goin' or what his intentions are.WATSON: If you could please give us a call and let us know—you know any information, that'd be great.BOSTON CENTER: Okay. Right now, I guess we're trying to work on—I guess there's been some threats in the cockpit. The pilot—WATSON: There's been what?! I'm sorry.UNIDENTIFIED VOICE: Threat to the … ?BOSTON CENTER: We'll call you right back as soon as we know more info.
...
08:40:36DOOLEY: O.K., he said threat to the cockpit!

In order to find a hijacked airliner—or any airplane—military controllers need either the plane's beacon code (broadcast from an electronic transponder on board) or the plane's exact coordinates. When the hijackers on American 11 turned the beacon off, intentionally losing themselves in the dense sea of airplanes already flying over the U.S. that morning (a tactic that would be repeated, with some variations, on all the hijacked flights), the NEADS controllers were at a loss.

"You would see thousands of green blips on your scope," Nasypany told me, "and now you have to pick and choose. Which is the bad guy out there? Which is the hijacked aircraft? And without that information from F.A.A., it's a needle in a haystack."

At this point in the morning, more than 3,000 jetliners are already in the air over the continental United States, and the Boston controller's direction—"35 miles north of Kennedy"—doesn't help the NEADS controllers at all.

On tape, amid the confusion, one hears Major James Fox, then 32, the leader of the Weapons Team, whose composure will stand out throughout the attack, make an observation that, so far, ranks as the understatement of the morning.

08:43:06FOX: I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise.
Less than two minutes later, frustrated that the controllers still can't pinpoint American 11 on radar, Nasypany orders Fox to launch the Otis fighters anyway.

08:44:59FOX: M.C.C. [Mission Crew Commander], I don't know where I'm scrambling these guys to. I need a direction, a destination—NASYPANY: O.K., I'm gonna give you the Z point [coordinate]. It's just north of—New York City.FOX: I got this lat long, 41-15, 74-36, or 73-46.NASYPANY: Head 'em in that direction.FOX: Copy that.

08:46:36NASYPANY: Hi, sir. O.K., what—what we're doing, we're tryin' to locate this guy. We can't find him via I.F.F. [the Identification Friend or Foe system]. What we're gonna do, we're gonna hit up every track within a 25-mile radius of this Z-point [coordinate] that we put on the scope. Twenty-nine thousand [feet] heading 1-9-0 [east]. We're just gonna do—we're gonna try to find this guy. They can't find him. There's supposedly been threats to the cockpit. So we're just doing the thing … [off-mic conversation] True. And probably right now with what's going on in the cockpit it's probably really crazy. So, it probably needs to—that will simmer down and we'll probably get some better information.PLAY | STOP

American 11 slammed into the north tower of the World Trade Center four seconds into this transmission.

In light of this news, someone asks Nasypany what to do with the fighters—the two F-15s from Otis Air National Guard Base—which have now just blasted off for New York at full afterburner to find American 11. (The flying time at full speed from Cape Cod to New York is about 10 minutes.) Pumped with adrenaline, Nasypany doesn't miss a beat.

08:52:40NASYPANY: Send 'em to New York City still. Continue! Go!NASYPANY: This is what I got. Possible news that a 737 just hit the World Trade Center. This is a real-world. And we're trying to confirm this. Okay. Continue taking the fighters down to the New York City area, J.F.K. area, if you can. Make sure that the F.A.A. clears it— your route all the way through. Do what we gotta do, okay? Let's press with this. It looks like this guy could have hit the World Trade Center.

As the tapes reveal in stark detail, parts of Scott's and Arnold's testimony were misleading, and others simply false. At 9:16 a.m., when Arnold and Marr had supposedly begun their tracking of United 93, the plane had not yet been hijacked. In fact, NEADS wouldn't get word about United 93 for another 51 minutes. And while NORAD commanders did, indeed, order the Langley fighters to scramble at 9:24, as Scott and Arnold testified, it was not in response to the hijacking of American 77 or United 93. Rather, they were chasing a ghost. NEADS was entering the most chaotic period of the morning.

etc

 

[Shrinker]

So geggy are you coming around to the idea that the military tried to stop the planes crashing, and that the 9/11 Commision tried to find out what actually happened on that day, and that the popular press are not afraid to expose wrongdoing when they see it? That seems to be the point of your post.

 

[Cylinder]

It was not NORAD that screwed the pooch - the best warning they got on Sept. 11 was the 8 minute lead time for AA11. NORAD was notified of AA 77 only three minutes before it impacted the Pentagon. For both UA175 and UA93, NORAD was notified that they were hijacked only after they had crashed.

There was some confusion at the AOCs, but that was because of conflicting information handed to them by the FAA centers.

 

[gumboot]

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim?

Most CTers, from what I have seen, claim the "dozens of NORAD exercises" on 9/11 (one, actually...) amounted to a "stand-down" of NORAD. You don't even know what your own people are saying...

-Andrew

 

[Cuddles]

9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. VF.com exclusive: Hear excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes. Click PLAY after each transcript to listen

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01

Would shooting down a fully loaded comercial jet in the middle of New York really have helped matter? I don't have 30 hours to listen to the tapes, but I would assume that any discussion on whether to shoot them down would last so long that it would be irrelevant by the time a descision was reached. As quite possibly happened.

 

[geggy]

Now that it's been publicly established that NORAD lied in their timesheet and the fact Pentagon covered it up, which both are treasonous offense (like anyone will be held accountable for it) what reasons do you have to believe in the commission report?

 

[twinstead]

Now that it's been publicly established that NORAD lied in their timesheet and the fact Pentagon covered it up, which both are treasonous offense (like anyone will be held accountable for it) what reasons do you have to believe in the commission report?

Is it ever possible for you to take off the conspiracy glasses for just a second at least and view anything objectively?

 

[Bronze Dog]

Now that it's been publicly established that NORAD lied in their timesheet and the fact Pentagon covered it up, which both are treasonous offense (like anyone will be held accountable for it) what reasons do you have to believe in the commission report?

You speak as if the government was one monolithic entity where every part has the same attributes as every other part.

 

[aggle-rithm]

So you do think there is a cover up afterall?

That's right! Until you blew the lid on it, NORAD had successfully convinced everyone that they had, in fact, successfully stopped the terrorist attacks on 9/11. They didn't count on the genius of geggy, though, to thwart their nefarious scheme!

 

[aggle-rithm]

Now that it's been publicly established that NORAD lied in their timesheet and the fact Pentagon covered it up, which both are treasonous offense (like anyone will be held accountable for it) ...

Do YOU have an alibi?

Where were YOU on 9/11?

 

[aggle-rithm]

9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11?

The same way any large beauracracy does: Slowly.

Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim?

It could if they had gotten there in time, which they apparently didn't.

Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up.

Like, they said they ordered pepperoni pizza for lunch, but from the tapes you can totally hear them say "sausage".

VF.com exclusive: Hear excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes. Click PLAY after each transcript to listen

http://www.vanityfair.com/features/general/060801fege01

Or click the "close" button to ignore it and get the hell on with your life.

 

[Hellbound]

Now that it's been publicly established that NORAD lied in their timesheet and the fact Pentagon covered it up, which both are treasonous offense (like anyone will be held accountable for it) what reasons do you have to believe in the commission report?

Treasonous?

Really, geggy, do you EVER do ANY research into anything, or do you just post whtever makes you feel better and assume it's fact?

 

[geggy]

A team in the 102nd Fighter Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, finishes loading dummy missiles onto two fighters that are going to fly a training mission over the Atlantic. They take off sometime before the second WTC tower is hit. Shortly after that hit, the fighters on the training mission are recalled. The implication is that the fighters are then refitted with actual weapons instead of dummy ones.

http://www.capecodonline.com/special/terror/capecodders8.htm

Otis is the base from which the two F-15s launch in response to the first hijacking (Flight 11) at roughly the same time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5233007

 

[Gravy]

A team in the 102nd Fighter Wing at Otis Air National Guard Base, Cape Cod, Massachusetts, finishes loading dummy missiles onto two fighters that are going to fly a training mission over the Atlantic. They take off sometime before the second WTC tower is hit. Shortly after that hit, the fighters on the training mission are recalled. The implication is that the fighters are then refitted with actual weapons instead of dummy ones.

http://www.capecodonline.com/special/terror/capecodders8.htm

Otis is the base from which the two F-15s launch in response to the first hijacking (Flight 11) at roughly the same time.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5233007

Geggy, my ever-fixéd star of ignorance, are you suggesting that the two alert F-15s did not take off for New York at 8:52?

Do explain.

 

[geggy]

One of the pilots of these F15s nicknamed Nasty is reportedly standing in for the usual "alert" pilot, who is "scheduled for training" on 9/11.

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/21/ithought21.htm

 

[Gravy]

One of the pilots of these F15s nicknamed Nasty is reportedly standing in for the usual "alert" pilot, who is "scheduled for training" on 9/11.

http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/21/ithought21.htm

Your point? And please address my question above.