|
PENTAGATE |
|
THE OFFICIAL PARADOX The official version raises a certain number of questions that have not escaped many political leaders. The latter are aware that nearly three-quarters of an hour elapsed between the interruption of the transponder and the crash of the plane. Why, then, wasn't the plane intercepted by military fighters? Why didn't the Air Force protect Washington? The military on the defensive Having just been appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs-of-Staff by President Bush, General Myers was auditioned, on 13 September, by the Senate. The Armed Services Committee was meeting to confirm his appointment. This hearing had been scheduled for some time and did not focus on the reaction of the army to the attacks of 11 September. However, the general was also questioned about this matter. Myers tried then to clear the military of responsibility for the events. In order to explain why flight 77 was not sht down, he let it be understood that the orders to the fighters to take off were given "to the best of my knowledge, after the Pentagon was struck." [1] Without fear of contradiction, he also asserted that, "When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked. [...] At the time of the first impact on the World Trade Center, we stood up our crisis action team. That was done immediately." But General Myer's statement did not close the debate entirely. According to his remarks, the military did in fact wait nearly three-quarters of an hour before ordering fighters to take off. Two days later, on 15 September, NORAD issued a contradictory press release. It published the chronology of the times at which it said it had been notified of the hijackings by the FAA and had given the takeoff orders to the fighters: NORAD said it hadn't been informed of the hijacking of flight 77 until 9:24 am and then had immediately given orders to two F-16's to take off. These were effectively in flight by 9:30. Too late to prevent the crash that occurred at 9:37 (the previous estimations by the Pentagon spoke of 9:38, those of the Washington Post, CNN, ABC and CBS timed it at 9:41 am). This version of events lets all of the responsibility for the disaster be borne by the FAA, for having waited twenty-nine minutes before warning the military authorities. But it also seems implausible concerning the military's reactions. When the transponder cut off, why didn't the military locate the plane themselves and engage the interception procedure as is common practice for them? Doesn't the army have its own radars? Because if certain civilian radars couldn't "see" the planes whose transponders were cut off, this is not the case of military radars, which pick up all types of aircraft. Why were fighters sent from Langley base in Virginia, and not from Saint Andrews? The first is 105 miles from the Pentagon, whereas as the second is only 10 miles. Why were two F-16's sent rather than F-15's? The first fly at 1,500 mph, whereas the second are faster, at 1,875 mph. Why were the slower planes chosen? Why were fighters sent instead of a missile? Shouldn't the military have attempted to destroy the plane? If they had wanted to destroy a hostile aircraft, they had missiles available that were much faster. Moreover, independently of the interception of flight 77, the crisis situation called for maximum air defense protection over the capital and thus the positioning of fighters in flight over Washington. This elementary precaution fell to the Presidential airbase at Saint Andrews. It could have prevented the attack on the Pentagon, but it was not carried out. Yet, a half-hour before the attack on the Pentagon, General Eberhart, commander-in-chief of NORAD, had activated the SCATANA plan and taken control of the New York airspace in order to position fighters there. For the military, from the moment when they were alerted of flight AA 77's disappearance, it was no longer a question of knowing whether they were facing a simple technical incident. The factual elements that they disposed of were sufficiently precise: several tens of minutes after terrorist attacks using airliners as missiles, the transponder of a plane is cut off, the pilot fails to respond, the aircraft deviates from its flight course, and lastly, heads at high speed towards the country's capital. The job of the military could not be clearer: shoot down the hostile aircraft as soon as possible. The version presented by NORAD had perhaps as its objective to let the FAA take the responsibility. But doesn't it also show without ambiguity that the army had no intention of shooting down a plane headed for Washington, despite whatever menace it seemed to represent? The president comes to the rescue of the military The day after the publication of this chronology, Vice President Dick Cheney tried to justify the military's incapacity by the fact that shooting down a civilian airplane would be "a decision left up to the President". [2] By insisting on the gravity of the decision, as it implicated the death of "American citizens", Dick Cheney let it be understood that the president would not have taken it hastily. And the Vice President insisted on the risks that weighed on George W. Bush himself, whose plane was also a target according to the Secret Service. Everyone could imagine that on a day of such panic and confusion, it was not impossible that a decision had been a little late in coming. However, the Vice President's claim is false. In the first place, he assimilates the interception of an airplane with the decision to shoot it down. Intercepting an aircraft means that the fighters establish visual contact with the plane and give it orders with luminous signals. Shooting down a plane means that fighters already positioned receive the order to open fire. Secondly, Dick Cheney claims erroneously that this order could only be given by the President himself. The interception of a suspect civilian aircraft by fighters is automatic and does not require any kind of political decision- making. It should have taken place on 11 September, when the transponder was cut off. Whether or not they received the order to shoot down the plane, the fighters should have taken off immediately. The order to open fire comes at a second moment. But one greatly wonders what regulations Dick Cheney is referring to in order to claim that this decision belongs to the President. Because the regulations concerning airplane hijackings and the destruction of flying vehicles in fact confide that responsibility to the Secretary of Defense: " [With the exception of urgent requests needing an immediate response and foreseen within regulations the NMCC [National Military Command Center] transmits all requests for military assistance to the Secretary of Defense for accord.]" [3] The official responsible in these matters is thus the Secretary of Defense "with exceptions". These exceptions are none other the necessity of saving human lives faced with imminent danger. "[It is possible to formulate to any element in the chain of command 'Requests needing Immediate Response'. These arise from imminently serious conditions where only an immediate action taken by an official of the Department of Defense or a military commander can prevent loss of lives, or mitigate human suffering and great property damage.]" [4] In other terms, the decision to shoot down flight AA 77 was not up to President Bush. It did not depend either on Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld. This decision belonged first of all to the military officials, in the front ranks of whom was General Ralph Eberhardt, commander-in-chief of NORAD. The further one progresses in the investigation, the more the military have difficulties in justifying the official version. The new military chief of staff pretends not to know this. NORAD tries to buy time but doesn't manage to explain the absence of a military response. And lastly, the Vice President tries to make people believe that it involved too high a level for the order to be given immediately. Each new statement poses new questions. We will see that the more the phantom plane approaches the Pentagon, the more the explanations of the military become incoherent. The Pentagon fails to react Five extremely sophisticated antimissile batteries protect the headquarters of the army of the United States from any airborne attack. How can one explain the fact that this anti-aircraft defense was not used? According to a Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant-Colonel Vic Warzinski, the military had not been expecting such an attack. "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way", he claimed. [5] This explanation is simply not credible: the Pentagon knew full well that an unidentified flying vehicle was speeding toward Washington. On 11 September, in fact, communications between civilian air traffic controllers and the various federal authorities functioned perfectly. Besides, the controllers were not only in direct contact with the Pentagon, but also with the White House. From 9:25 am, the control tower at Dulles airport observed a vehicle flying towards the capital. "Dulles controllers spotted an unidentified aircraft speeding directly toward the restricted airspace that surrounds the White House", reported the Washington Post. [6] One of these controllers, Danielle O'Brien, who we already quoted above, confirmed this episode and added, "it was just a countdown. Ten miles west. Nine miles west ... Our supervisor picked up our line to the White House and started relaying to them the information, [that] we have an unidentified very fast-moving aircraft inbound toward your vicinity, 8 miles west. [...] And it went six, five, four. And I had it in my mouth to say, three, and all of a sudden the plane turned away. In the room, it was almost a sense of relief. This must be a fighter. This must be one of our guys sent in, scrambled to patrol our capital, and to protect our president, and we sat back in our chairs and breathed for just a second [...] We lost radar contact with that aircraft. And we waited. And we waited. And your heart is just beating out of your chest waiting to hear what's happened [...] And then the Washington National [Airport] controllers came over our speakers in our room and said, 'Dulles, hold all of our inbound traffic. The Pentagon's been hit.'" [7] Vice President Cheney confirmed, moreover, that "the Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA, they had open lines," once the World Trade Center was hit. [8] For another thing, the FAA officials were constantly present within the Saint Andrews military base, which is entrusted with the protection of the capital. "Federal Aviation Administration personnel at Andrews are responsible for the airway facilities and air traffic control over and around Andrews," explains the base's Internet site. "The FAA men and women control and service the vast and complex network of air navigation and air traffic control facilities as part of the national airspace system. Their mission is the safe movement of air traffic in the nation's airspace." [9] The military in Washington were thus immediately given the information available to the FAA, twelve minutes before the attack. But the army did not have to wait for the FAA's warning to know that a vehicle was heading for the capital. It possesses in fact several very sophisticated radar monitoring systems, incomparable with the civilian systems. The PAVE PAWS system is, for example, used essentially to detect and track objects difficult to pick up such as missiles flying at very low altitudes. PAVE PAWS does not miss anything occurring in North American airspace: "The radar system is capable of detecting and monitoring a great number of targets that would be consistent with a massive SLBM [Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile] attack. The system must rapidly discriminate between vehicle types, calculating their launch and impact points in addition to the scheduling, data processing and communications requirements." [10] Contrary to the Pentagon's claims, the military thus knew perfectly well that an unidentified vehicle was headed straight for the capital. Yet the military did not react and Pentagon's anti-missile batteries did not function. Why? The close-range anti-aircraft defenses at the Pentagon are conceived to destroy missiles that attempt to approach. A missile should normally be unable to pass. As for a big Boeing 757-200, it would have strictly no chance. Whether an airliner or a missile, an explanation needs to be found. Is the military technology of the United States totally inefficient? Or was it in fact sabotaged? If it was a missile involved, a hypothesis might be formulated that would explain the absence of reaction from the defense system. Each military aircraft in fact possesses a transponder which is much more sophisticated that those of civilian planes, and notably permit it to declare itself in the eyes of its possessor as friendly or hostile. [11] This system is indispensable to identify the numerous aircraft over a battlefield and to ensure that only enemy vehicles are destroyed. An antimissile battery will not, for example, react to the passage of a friendly missile. It is not impossible that that was what happened at the Pentagon on 11 September 2001. To continue defending their version of the attack on 11 September, the military are reduced to denigrating themselves, by making us believe in their own incompetence. And each new step, each new question renders even heavier the role of the army in these events. The fuse Strangely, only NORAD is presented under the media's spotlights. The entire responsibility is attributed to it for the air defense system on 11 September 2001. It is thus solely to NORAD that any blame attaches for an eventual dysfunction of these defenses. Yet, this organization, set up by the United States with Canada to protect all of the North American airspace, only executes the decisions taken by the National Military Command Center (NMCC) at the Pentagon. It is in fact the NMCC and not NORAD that centralizes all information concerning plane hijackings and directs military operations. The regulations that we have already quoted and which are authoritative in the matter of plane hijackings is very precise on this subject. "[The NMCC [...] constitutes the coordinating authority between the Department of Defense, the FAA and the commanders in the field. [...] These services, the unified command posts and the US elements of NORAD are responsible for the application of these guidelines as well as any other directive, law or international legislation concerning air piracy ( hijacking) or derelict airborne objects.]" [12] This directive from the chiefs of staff is perfectly integrated by the FAA which makes clear in its own regulations that, "[Military escort will be requested by the FAA official responsible for hijack situations, who will work in close contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC)]" [13] That morning, the NMCC was wide awake when the Pentagon was hit by a flying apparatus ... It was even in a state of maximum alert. For more than half an hour, the procedure for Management of Crisis Situations had been activated and the NMC was the nerve center of all military activities. "Well, the terrible moment was actually earlier at about 8:40, 8:45 when we realized a plane and then a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. And immediately the crisis management process started up," explained the assistant to Defense Secretary, Victoria Clarke. "A couple of us had gone into the secretary's office, Secretary Rumsfeld's office, to alert him to that, tell him that the crisis management process was starting up. He wanted to make a few phone calls. So a few of us headed across the hallway to an area called the National Military Command Center." [14] It was thus at the NMCC, in the heart of the Pentagon, and not at NORAD, that the actions of 11 September were coordinated. It was to this strategic center that the FAA fed all information concerning the hijacked planes or susceptible of being relevant to them. It was to this nerve center that information came about the flying object heading for the capital. Yet it's NORAD that is presented in the media as the sole body responsible. As for the NMCC, it almost never gets mentioned. It all looks as though NORAD served as the scapegoat, ready to take the blame for an eventual failure of operations on 11 September. At the NMCC, the highest military authority is the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On September 11, this function was still being carried out by General Henry Shelton. But at the time of these events, he was en route for Europe, "somewhere over the Atlantic", said the armed forces' information service. [15] In his absence, it was thus his deputy, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who assured the continuity of the defense of the United States. From February 2000, this man was General Richard Myers, of the Air Force, who had been appointed several day's earlier as Chairman in replacement of Henry Shelton. Yet General Myers was not there, either. He even greatly emphasized his absence during the events, declaring that he watched the attacks on television, "like watching a bad movie". [16] During the attacks, he was in the Capitol building where he saw a television reporting that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. "They thought it was a small plane or something like that," he explained. He then entered the office of Senator Max Cleland with whom he had an appointment. Then the second tower was attacked. "Nobody informed us of that," Myers said. "But when we came out, that was obvious. Then, right at that time, somebody said the Pentagon had been hit." It was only after the events that the general arrived at the National Military Command Center. * * * According to the information released by the army, on 11 September 2001, the only parties responsible were NORAD and its commander-in-chief, General Ralph Eberhart. Along the way, one forgets that the National Military Command Center, in the heart of the Pentagon, was the nerve center of all operations. The armed forces' information service insists on the fact that the outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Henry Shelton, was "somewhere over the Atlantic". And the new Chairman, Richard Myers, claims for his part that he watched the attacks on television. That day, a lot of military officers weren't responsible. The fact remains that the disappearance of American Airlines flight 77 continues unexplained, as does the firing of a missile at the Pentagon, the insider trading committed before September 11, the collapse of tower no. 7 in New York and the fire in the White House annex. In order to find what happened to the plane, its crew and its passengers, we are obliged to turn to the military. But their explanations continue to pose problems. To each question raised, they are in an awkward position and have to answer with technical failure, coordination problems, temporary incapacity, transfer of responsibility, absence of commanders, etc. In the end, the greatest army in the world is obliged to confess that it's also the most incompetent. ________________ 1. Senate audition of General Myers, 13 September 2001. Excerpts published in 9/11: The Big Lie. 2. Interview with Dick Cheney on 'Meet the Press', NBC, 16 September 2001. 3. The regulations were modified three months before the attack.
First version: 'Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects', Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 31 July
1997 (CJCSI 3610.01): 4. 'Military Support to Civil Authorities (MSCA)', DoD Directive
3025.1, 15 January 1993: 5. 'Air Attack on
Pentagon Indicates Weaknesses', Newsday, 23 September 2001: 6. 'On Flight 77: "Our Plane Is Being Hijacked"', Washington Post,
12 September 2001: 7. 'Get These Planes on the Ground', ABCNews, 24 October 2001: 8. 'Meet the Press', NBC, 16 September 2001, op cit. 9. See the official presentation of the base on DCMilitary: 10. 'PAVE PAWS, Watching North America's Skies, 24 Hours a Day',
official site: http://www.pavepaws.org/ 11. See notably the presentation of the AN/APX-100(V) transponder: 12. 'Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects', op cit. 13. 'Special Military Operations', Order 7610.4J, 3 November 1998,
including the modifications of 3 July 2000 and 12 July 2001: 14. Interview with Victoria Clarke, WBZ Boston Saturday, 15 September 2001: 15. 'Myers and Sept.
11: We Hadn't Thought About This', American
Forces Information Service, Defense Link, Department of Defense,
23 October 2001: 16. Myers and Sept. 11: 'We Hadn't Thought About This', op cit.
|