I've thought about covering Mineta on 911myths before, but always decided against. It such an important story that I felt I had to cover it definitively, come up with something solid and new to prove my point. I've put in a couple of FOIA applications that might do just that, but nothing has come back yet.
To be honest, it's also seemed like an intimidating amount of work. People use Richard Clarke's timeline to support Mineta, bring in the "when did Cheney arrive at the PEOC?" line as well, and there's just a lot to do.
A couple of weeks ago, though, I wondered: if I were to do something on these issues now, without my FOIA documents, what would it look like? So I started work, and was surprised by just how many issues I discovered.
Let's take just one example: Richard Clarke's account of talking to FAA administrator Jane Garvey. He says Mineta hasn't reached the White House at this point, so Mineta defenders say it happened around 9:10. This is what Garvey is supposed to have said:
One obvious problem here is that Clarke has Garvey pointing to eleven "maybe hijacked" planes at 9:10. Does anyone else say that? I don't think so.
But another is the claim that the FAA were "frantically looking" for Mineta, they couldn't find him. That's especially interesting because Mineta says, in two separate accounts, that she was in his conference room for the second WTC strike at 9:03.
Mineta also says he heard of a phone call from her before he left his office, reporting that the Delta Airlines CEO had called to say he couldn't account for all of his aircraft. (An issue in itself. Why would he be saying that prior to 9:15?)
So what we're being asked to believe is that Garvey was with Mineta after 9:03 (if only for a few seconds), then had time to return to the FAA (admittedly just down the street), get briefed on the situation, call Mineta's office to pass on a Delta warning, then get to the point where they're "frantically looking" for him... all in 7 minutes? Am I the only person who finds that a little, uh, unrealistic?
Anyway, there's plenty more across three pages, if you're interested.
The Richard Clarke teleconference
Dick Cheney at the PEOC
Norman Mineta
They really need more cleaning up and wikifying, adding links etc, but that'll have to wait: real life calls. In the meantime, though, feel free to let me know if you spot any mistakes, or other details I can add.
To be honest, it's also seemed like an intimidating amount of work. People use Richard Clarke's timeline to support Mineta, bring in the "when did Cheney arrive at the PEOC?" line as well, and there's just a lot to do.
A couple of weeks ago, though, I wondered: if I were to do something on these issues now, without my FOIA documents, what would it look like? So I started work, and was surprised by just how many issues I discovered.
Let's take just one example: Richard Clarke's account of talking to FAA administrator Jane Garvey. He says Mineta hasn't reached the White House at this point, so Mineta defenders say it happened around 9:10. This is what Garvey is supposed to have said:
One obvious problem here is that Clarke has Garvey pointing to eleven "maybe hijacked" planes at 9:10. Does anyone else say that? I don't think so.
But another is the claim that the FAA were "frantically looking" for Mineta, they couldn't find him. That's especially interesting because Mineta says, in two separate accounts, that she was in his conference room for the second WTC strike at 9:03.
Mineta also says he heard of a phone call from her before he left his office, reporting that the Delta Airlines CEO had called to say he couldn't account for all of his aircraft. (An issue in itself. Why would he be saying that prior to 9:15?)
So what we're being asked to believe is that Garvey was with Mineta after 9:03 (if only for a few seconds), then had time to return to the FAA (admittedly just down the street), get briefed on the situation, call Mineta's office to pass on a Delta warning, then get to the point where they're "frantically looking" for him... all in 7 minutes? Am I the only person who finds that a little, uh, unrealistic?
Anyway, there's plenty more across three pages, if you're interested.
The Richard Clarke teleconference
Dick Cheney at the PEOC
Norman Mineta
They really need more cleaning up and wikifying, adding links etc, but that'll have to wait: real life calls. In the meantime, though, feel free to let me know if you spot any mistakes, or other details I can add.
