Friday, April 13, 2007

9/11, Mineta, and the conspiracists

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about whether Vice President Dick Cheney or President George W. Bush issued an order on the morning of Sep. 11 to shoot down commercial aircraft that were unresponsive and threatening to crash into occupied buildings or areas.

Norman was the sole government official in a position to know who seemed to testify that Cheney or Bush did issue the order. (He was in "the bunker" below the White House, aka the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, with Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and other top officials.)

Lee Hamilton [of the 9/11 Commission]: I wanted to focus just a moment on the presidential emergency operating center. You were there for a good part of the day. I think you were there with the vice president. We had that order given, I think it was by the President, that authorized the shooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to be controlled by terrorists. Were you there when that order was given?

Mineta: No I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who'd come in and say 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 still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

I mentioned before that Mineta's testimony was left out of the final 9/11 report. It has been pointed out to me since that Mineta's testimony stood in contradiction to that of FAA, NORAD and Pentagon officials, which might explain its exclusion from the report. Simply because he was outnumbered, I mean. But it's worth noting, and some conspiracy-minded folks do note it, that if Mineta was right -- that is, if there was a shoot-down order in place "during the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon" -- that would put those responsible for our air defenses rather squarely on the hot seat, because several sensitive questions are therefore raised.

If the Pentagon was tracking Flight 77, the Pentagon plane, for some time, why didn't they shoot it down? If they and NORAD didn't have jets or ground-based missiles close enough to do so, and that seems clear, why weren't they close enough? It had been about 45 minutes since the first WTC tower was struck, during which time jets were scrambled (from Cape Cod) to intercept any New York-bound hostile aircraft. (Those jets arrived minutes too late to catch the second WTC attack.)

Posted by Evan Hughes at 01:27 PM

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