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SEPTEMBER 11 2001 : THE CRIMES OF WAR COMMITTED IN THE NAME OF 9/11
#22
The NORAD Tapes



The shock of panel members cited above was in reaction to new evidence that came to light, late in the investigation. The evidence was in the form of certain NORAD audio tapes, which for many months the government had refused to hand over. Thanks to a court order, however, the panel eventually obtained the tapes, which revealed serious discrepancies in the generals’ earlier testimony, given in May 2003. It goes without saying that the panel should immediately have subjected these tapes to exhaustive forensic analysis, to authenticate them, that is, to verify that they had not been retouched. The 9/11 report makes no mention of any vetting process, however, and, unfortunately, we must conclude it wasn’t done. This means that the procedures of forensic analysis which are routine in ordinary felony cases of murder and larceny were deemed unnecessary in the case of the greatest crime in US history. Such a glaring departure from procedures usually taken for granted in criminal investigations fatally undermines the 9/11 commission’s final report. Indeed, the omission is so grossly negligent it should have sparked an immediate public outcry. But there was not even a peep. The US media neglected to cover the story. Have we sunk to the level that we will swallow anything?



Based on what we currently know, there is every reason to suspect that the NORAD tapes were doctored before their release. Why would the pentagon do this? Obviously, to effect damage control. As embarrassing as the “new” information on the tapes turned out to be, the truth might have been infinitely more damaging. The pentagon had already changed its story, once. According to the original version of events, as reported by the press on September 11, 2001, NORAD quite simply failed to intercept any of the hijacked planes on 9/11. NORAD failed to put a fighter in the sky to defend the nation’s capital for nearly 90 minutes. Nor did this happen until after the pentagon had been hit. Two days later, General Richard Myers, acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, affirmed this version of events in testimony given on Capitol Hill. At which point it became clear that the pentagon had a serious problem on its hands. The facts were not only evidence of incompetence at the highest level, they were suspicious on their face because they smacked of a stand-down; which, if true, was treason. Within days the pentagon amended its story to allay such concerns. According to 9/11 panel member Bob Kerrey, this occurred after NORAD briefed the president on September 17, 2001.[xxxix] Kerrey’s point was that the White House instructed the pentagon to cover its tracks.



The following day, on September 18, 2001, the pentagon announced a new 9/11 timeline, essentially blaming the FAA for its failure to inform NORAD about the hijacked planes in a timely manner.[xl] For this reason–––we were told–––NORAD could not respond effectively on 9/11. This second account stood for three years, but had serious problems of its own. Not the least of which is that the story was improbable. It so happens that scrambling fighters is a frequent and routine practice. If a commercial or private aircraft deviates from its scheduled flight path by as little as two miles, or if there is a loss of radio contact, or if the plane’s transponder stops transmitting, FAA flight controllers will first attempt to contact the pilot and remedy the problem. However, if this fails the FAA is required to contact NORAD for assistance. If there is any doubt, the FAA’s policy is to assume the worst, in other words, an emergency.[xli] The FAA made 67 such requests of NORAD during one nine-month period alone, from September 2000 to June 2001, and in every single case NORAD responded by scrambling planes, without a hitch.[xlii] That’s an average of about two scrambles a week, more than 100 per year. The procedure, in short, is routine. It’s done all the time.



Why then, the sudden breakdown on 9/11, when for no apparent reason FAA controllers began to behave like a bunch of incompetent morons? Another problem with the pentagon’s account is that it is difficult to reconcile with the high degree of competence and professionalism the FAA otherwise displayed on 9/11, when the agency successfully shut down the entire US air traffic system in about three hours. During this period, FAA officials grounded 4,500 commercial and private aircraft without a single mishap. The feat was unprecedented, and all the more impressive given the conditions of extreme duress on 9/11. As the commission itself admits in its report, the FAA performed “flawlessly.”[xliii] Yet, we are expected to believe this same agency fumbled a simple phone hand-off to NORAD four times in succession on the same morning? Moreover, even if we assume that the pentagon’s version of events was correct, there is an added problem: Arguably there was still sufficient time to intercept three of the four “hijacked” planes, Flight 175 (which hit the south tower), Flight 77 (which hit the pentagon) and Flight 93 (which crashed near Shanksville).[xliv] The time from scramble-to-intercept normally takes no more than about 10 minutes.



The Phantom Plane



To remedy these problems, in July 2004 the 9/11 Commission introduced a third version of the story that put the blame even more emphatically on the FAA. The panel “corrected” the timeline, in effect, declaring that the FAA wasn’t merely late in making the hand-off, no, it failed altogether. This absolved the higher ups at NORAD and the pentagon of any serious negligence. The report mildly rebukes the military, but even this slap of the wrist is not aimed at the generals, but rather, at the scrambled fighter pilots, who, we are told, misunderstood their assignment, or somehow got their signals crossed.



The new version can be summed up as follows: NORAD couldn’t respond effectively on 9/11 because it had no warning that Flights 175, 77 and 93 had been hijacked. As for Flight 11, get a grip, because what I’m going to tell you is so bizarre you probably won’t believe it. Neither did it. But I am not pulling your leg. The panel’s new and revised timeline is supposedly based on a previously unknown transmission, found on the NORAD tapes. This transmission allegedly proves that in the one case where the FAA did alert NORAD, i.e., the case of Flight 11, the FAA got it wrong and passed incorrect information. This sent NORAD on a wild goose chase after a nonexistent plane. Someone at the FAA mistakenly concluded that Flight 11 was still in the air–––did not hit the WTC–––and was heading south toward Washington. Based on this false information, NORAD scrambled jets from Langley Air Force Base, near Hampton, Virginia, to intercept Flight 11, now deemed a threat to Washington. The fighters were armed, and the intercept was supposed to happen near Baltimore. This, we are told, explains why there were no fighters available to defend the nation’s capital when Flight 77 mysteriously appeared on the radar screens just six miles SW of Washington. By then, of course, it was too late. Oh, and by the way, when the error was finally discovered and the fighters were rerouted to the capital, the military learned, to everyone’s great surprise, that the jets were NOT were they were supposed to be, i.e., near Baltimore. No, they were out over the Atlantic Ocean flying in circles in a holding pattern, at least 150 miles from Washington.[xlv] By the way, a similar mix-up occurred in the case of the fighters scrambled from Otis AFB on Cape Cod to defend New York City. Instead of patrolling the skies over Manhattan, they ended up in a holding pattern off Long Island, more than 115 miles away![xlvi]



This whopper is the third (and now official) version of events as presented in the 9/11 Commission Report. Unfortunately, since we have no assurance the NORAD tapes were vetted we can have no confidence in their authenticity, and, it follows, no confidence in this “corrected” story. Beyond this fundamental problem, the revised timeline is not credible for many reasons. For example, there is powerful evidence that the FAA never lost track of Flight 11 on the morning of September 11, 2001. According to multiple reports, air controllers tracked Flight 11 on radar all the way to the World Trade Center, and were well aware it had crashed.[xlvii] For example, Boston flight controller Mark Hodgkins later said, “I watched the target of American 11 the whole way down.”[xlviii] This flatly contradicts the official story.



The 9/11 report also fails to provide even one checkable source substantiating the existence of the phantom plane. The report claims that the story was corroborated “from taped conversations at FAA centers, contemporaneous logs compiled at NEADS [the Northeast sector of NORAD], Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD; and other records.”[xlix] All of which sounds impressive, but where are these transcripts and records? They do not appear in the final report, nor have they been made public. Without a verifiable source, why should we believe the panel?



Moreover, after mentioning these sources the report immediately contradicts itself by conceding that it “was unable to find the source of this mistaken FAA information [that Flight 11 was still airborne]”[l] No source? What then, are the alleged records cited above? The report never resolves this inconsistency. Worse, it contradicts itself again by admitting that the investigation was unable to find a single reference to the phantom plane in any “public timeline or statement issued by the FAA or Department of Defense.”
These admissions do nothing to boost our confidence. On the contrary, they fuel our suspicions. Perhaps the phantom plane does not appear in any of the timelines for the simple reason that the story is a complete fabrication. Certainly the generals did not breathe one word about the phantom plane during their previous testimony before the 9/11 panel in May 2003. This would explain NORAD General Larry Arnold’s embarrassing moments before the panel in 2004, the day of his final appearance, when panel members had to coach him about the phantom plane to help him “remember.”[lii] No wonder the commissioners were shocked and outraged, as reported by the Washington Post, the story I cited above. Shock would certainly be my reaction if I learned that someone had deceived me. Of course, thanks to Phil Zelikow’s editing skills the final report makes no mention of any of this. Instead, we learn that NORAD’s earlier account was merely “incorrect.”[liii] In the absence of verifiable evidence, however, should we believe the report? I think not. In fact, there is every reason to suspect that Phillip Zelikow and his team participated in the deception.



Let us be very clear. The pentagon’s account was not merely “incorrect,” it was a lie. This was the conclusion of Senator Mark Dayton (D -MN), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who after reading the just released 9/11 Commission Report accused the pentagon of the “most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence that I’ve ever witnessed in the public sector.” According to Dayton, the generals “lied to the American people, they lied to Congress, and they lied to your 9/11 Commission.”[liv] Of course, Sen. Dayton was laboring under the belief that the military lied to conceal its incompetence. But what if the motive was quite different? What if the generals lied to conceal their complicity in the 9/11 attack–––or their guilty role in staging it? That would explain their unreserved acceptance of the new timeline, as well as their previous “incorrect” testimony.



There is no doubt that the generals lied about Flight 93 when they insisted it crashed near Shanksville, PA, since overwhelming evidence indicates the US military shot down the plane. The official story is a eulogy for dead passengers who, we are told, bravely sacrificed their lives to save Washington. It all sounds so patriotic, but wait a moment. Have we forgotten our Greek drama and our Shakespeare? Effusive flattery and praise for murdered victims has long been a staple in high crimes involving treachery. (The king is dead. Long live the king!) Something about this threadbare tale is just not right. It stinks of self-serving artifice. It is also convincingly refuted by the pieces of Flight 93 that were found scattered over at least six square miles, and by the conspicuous absence of wreckage at the alleged crash site. And what of the dozens of local eyewitnesses who reported evidence of a midair explosion? Were they all high on psycho-tropic drugs? The plane was carrying bags of mail, which reportedly fell like confetti. David Ray Griffin has covered this body of evidence very thoroughly in his able study of the 9/11 report, and there is no need to review the details, here.[lv]



The generals also lied about NORAD when they claimed that its mission was solely to defend against external threats. For which reason–––we were told–––NORAD was blind on 9/11. General Eberhart gave this lame excuse during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, and General Myers repeated it to the 9/11 Commission. On that occasion Myers said: “We were looking outward. We did not have the situational awareness inward because we did not have the radar coverage.”[lvi] One of the 9/11 panel’s (few) finer moments occurred when member Jamie Gorelick rose to the occasion and challenged Myers on this point. Gorelick, a former counsel to the Department of Defense, correctly pointed out that the NORAD charter says no such thing. In fact, NORAD is charged with “control of the airspace above the domestic US” in addition to defending against external threats. Yet, incredibly, the final report obscures the significance of Gorelick’s important point, and meekly takes the general at his word.



The generals also lied when they claimed that NORAD could not track the hijacked planes on 9/11 after the transponders went off because of antiquated 1970-1980’s era radar equipment. Every member of the commission should have erupted with outrage at this brazen lie, since even during the Cold War NORAD’s primary radar was fully capable of tracking hundreds of planes or missiles simultaneously over the continental US.

The 9/11 panel should have vigorously pursued this vital question. But, once again, incredibly, they unreservedly accepted the pentagon’s explanation; and so does the final report.



The Botched Langley Scramble



The 9/11 commission reached its all time low, however, in its handling of the fiasco of the scrambled pilots. The report suggests that the lead pilot from Langley misunderstood his orders.[lvii] The report contradicts itself, however, because another passage concedes that the pilot was never briefed. As the pilot himself explained: “I reverted to the Russian threat,” meaning that in the absence of an order he reverted to “plan B”, a default or backup order.[lviii] This explains the holding pattern over the Atlantic Ocean. (Were the fighters from Otis flying in circles off Long Island for a similar reason?) But why would the panel fault the pilot? The issuance of orders is not the responsibility of the pilot, but the commanding officer. Evidently, the 9/11 panel members had never heard of a thing called the chain of command. Here was a golden opportunity to find the truth. The key to what happened on 9/11 lay within reach. All the panel had to do was interrogate the pilots closely and trace the orders (or lack of them) up the food chain. But where are the transcripts of these crucial interviews with the pilots? Conducted in private, they are conspicuously absent from the 9/11 report. Nor have they been made public. Why not? There can be only one reason: to shield the guilty, i.e., certain high-ranking officers, from scrutiny and accountability.



Incredibly, the report also faults the FAA for the botched scramble.[lix] This would pass the laugh test, were the matter not so grave, since we know that once the FAA makes a phone hand-off to NORAD in such cases, the responsibility for the intercept then rests with the military. In short, the fighters scrambled on 9/11 were under NORAD’s control, not the FAA’s. This statement in the report is sheer obfuscation, and, given the panel’s mandate “to provide the fullest possible account,” amounts to malfeasance. There’s no other word for it.



Of course, an evildoer familiar with NORAD’s radar system would have known its weaknesses, and how to exploit them. This might explain why honest technicians at NORAD were confused on September 11 by phony blips on their radar screens, blips generated as a result of military drills. We know that at least 10 and as many as 15 such exercises were underway on the morning of the attack.[lx] Fighters had been dispatched to northern Canada, to Iceland, and to North Carolina, sharply reducing the number available for scramble in the event of a real emergency. The 9/11 Commission Report mentions several of the drills, but studiously avoids delving into them. This is very strange, since at least one of the exercises involved crashing a hijacked plane into a building. The panel should have investigated the drills, and brought the facts to light, but it chose not to go there. More serious omissions.



The panel also failed to explain why fighters were not on highest alert at Andrews Air Force Base, located just 10 miles from the Capitol. The base has always been Washington’s port of exit/entry for US presidents and diplomats. Three squadrons of fighters are based at Andrews, and their role has always been to defend the nation’s capital. One of these squadrons even boasted on its web site that its mission was to “provide combat units in the highest possible state of readiness.”[lxi] This particular squadron was away in North Carolina on 9/11, involved in a drill. But what about the other two? Inexplicably, the 9/11 panel failed to explore this question. Curiously, on September 12, 2001, the day after the attack, someone altered the squadron’s web site, amending the above-cited passage to reflect a lower state of readiness. Was this a blatant attempt to destroy evidence of a stand-down?[lxii]



Did VP Cheney Order a Stand-Down?



The most compelling evidence of a stand-down, however, came to light quite unexpectedly during the 9/11 Commission hearings. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta told the panel how, at 9: 20 AM on September 11, he entered the command center located under the White House, where he joined Vice President Cheney, who was already present. A few minutes later Mineta overheard an exchange, but failed to comprehend its significance. On May 23, 2003 Mineta told the commission what happened:



MR. MINETA: There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, “The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out.” And when it got down to, “The plane is 10 miles out,” the young man also said to the vice president, “Do the orders still stand?” And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders s...


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RE: SEPTEMBER 11 2001 : THE CRIMES OF WAR COMMITTED IN THE NAME OF 9/11 - by globalvision2000administrator - 01-06-2023, 08:38 PM

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