http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm

Posted 4/18/2004 10:22 PM  Updated 4/19/2004 3:08 PM

NORAD had drills of jets as weapons
By Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.

One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.

NORAD, in a written statement, confirmed that such hijacking exercises occurred. It said the scenarios outlined were regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises.

"Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft," the statement said. "These exercises tested track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination and operational security and communications security procedures."

A White House spokesman said Sunday that the Bush administration was not aware of the NORAD exercises. But the exercises using real aircraft show that at least one part of the government thought the possibility of such attacks, though unlikely, merited scrutiny.

On April 8, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks heard testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that the White House didn't anticipate hijacked planes being used as weapons.

On April 12, a watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, released a copy of an e-mail written by a former NORAD official referring to the proposed exercise targeting the Pentagon. The e-mail said the simulation was not held because the Pentagon considered it "too unrealistic."

President Bush said at a news conference Tuesday, "Nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale."

The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country.

Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries.

But there were exceptions in the early drills, including one operation, planned in July 2001 and conducted later, that involved planes from airports in Utah and Washington state that were "hijacked." Those planes were escorted by U.S. and Canadian aircraft to airfields in British Columbia and Alaska.

NORAD officials have acknowledged that "scriptwriters" for the drills included the idea of hijacked aircraft being used as weapons.

"Threats of killing hostages or crashing were left to the scriptwriters to invoke creativity and broaden the required response," Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley, a NORAD official, told the 9/11 commission. No exercise matched the specific events of Sept. 11, NORAD said.

"We have planned and executed numerous scenarios over the years to include aircraft originating from foreign airports penetrating our sovereign airspace," Gen. Ralph Eberhart, NORAD commander, told USA TODAY. "Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised."

NORAD, a U.S.-Canadian command, was created in 1958 to guard against Soviet bombers.

Until Sept. 11, 2001, NORAD conducted four major exercises a year. Most included a hijack scenario, but not all of those involved planes as weapons. Since the attacks, NORAD has conducted more than 100 exercises, all with mock hijackings.

NORAD fighters based in Florida have intercepted two hijacked smaller aircraft since the Sept. 11 attacks. Both originated in Cuba and were escorted to Key West in spring 2003, NORAD said.

"Tony Blair has no plans to change the chain of command system [which existed pre-911] under which he has to give personal authorisation to the RAF to shoot down a hijacked commercial airliner threatening London or other British cities, a government source said yesterday. After the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, the Government reviewed its own special emergency alert system, which provides a 'fast and robust' link between the military and the Prime Minister, and concluded that no changes were needed....The chain of command in Britain for a decision requiring prime ministerial authorisation in the event of a hijacked airliner would involve a four-stage process, but officials emphasised that Mr Blair would be in a position to make a judgement in a matter of minutes. Using the emergency communications systems — 'not a telephone call' — [Air Chief Marshal Sir John Day] would then go up the chain of command to Geoff Hoon, Secretary of State for Defence, and Admiral Sir Michael Boyce, Chief of the Defence Staff. Tornado air crews on highest readiness for defending British airspace from 'enemy' aircraft can take off within five to ten minutes of being scrambled and would already be in the air, heading for the hijacked plane, by the time Mr Hoon was in touch with the Prime Minister. The government source said the Prime Minister was always instantly contactable under the special communications system wherever he was, at home or overseas. An RAF source said that even if an airliner was hijacked at Heathrow and then turned east towards London, there would still be time to act.... In the event of a hijacked airliner approaching Britain from the Channel or the North Sea, ground-based and airborne air defence radars would plot the flight path and give an indication of any sudden divergence towards an unexpected destination."
Blair Controls Response to Hijack
London Times, 29 Sept 2001

".....[on 911] in no case was there apparently enough time after the FAA's warning for fighter planes to reach the hijacked airliners. More puzzling, there were 45 minutes between air traffic controllers losing contact with the third airliner, which took off from Dulles airport just outside Washington, and its crash on to the Pentagon."
Israeli security issued urgent warning to CIA of large-scale terror attacks
London, Daily Telegraph, 16 September 2001

"Whatever the explanation for the huge [911 defence] failure, there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of reprimands. This further weakens the 'Incompetence Theory.' Incompetence usually earns reprimands. This causes me to ask - and other media need to ask - if there were [air force] 'stand down' orders."
'What really happened on Sept. 11th?'
Barrie Zwicker, Straight Goods, 27 January 2002

"On July 5 of last year, a month and a day before President Bush first heard that al Qaeda might plan a hijacking, the White House summoned officials of a dozen federal agencies to the Situation Room. 'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon,' the government's top counterterrorism official, Richard Clarke, told the assembled group, according to two of those present. The group included the Federal Aviation Administration, along with the Coast Guard, FBI, Secret Service and Immigration and Naturalization Service. Clarke directed every counterterrorist office to cancel vacations, defer nonvital travel, put off scheduled exercises and place domestic rapid-response teams on much shorter alert. For six weeks last summer, at home and overseas, the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness -- and anxiety -- against imminent terrorist attack. That intensity -- defensive in nature -- did not last. By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert.... "
Before Sept. 11, Unshared Clues and Unshaped Policy
Washington Post, 17 May 2002

"....at the time of the attacks the US had just four fighter pilots on alert covering the north eastern United States. US pilots were forced to take to the skies without any weapons......."
Clear the Skies
BBC Online, 29 Aug 2002

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the United States last summer that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S. targets."
Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks
Fox News, 17 May 2002

"Among the Russian documents Vreeland says he retrieved was one describing impending terrorist attacks in the United States, naming Osama bin Laden as an agent and the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as likely targets...... If his claim is true, then why is the US hounding this man, and why does he fear for his life if he is extradited? Perhaps because Russian foreknowledge of September 11th is a can of worms best left unopened."
Did 'Rogue' US Agent Vreeland Warn CSIS Of September 11?
'Frank' magazine, Canada, 16 October, 2001

"On Sept. 10.... a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."
Bush: ‘We’re At War’
Newsweek, 24 September 2001

"CIA Director George Tenet met with President Bush at least eight times in the 42 days before the catastrophic terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, a CIA spokesman said Thursday, correcting Tenet's testimony that he hadn't talked with the president during the entire month of August.... Tenet's contacts with Bush during that period are significant because the CIA director was the highest ranking U.S. official who was aware of both the FBI's arrest of flight student Zacarias Moussaoui in Minnesota and the CIA warning to Bush that Osama bin Laden was 'determined to strike' inside the United States. The CIA warning memo to Bush on Aug. 6, 2001, also noted that the FBI had detected 'patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks.'.... Tenet learned of Moussaoui's arrest on Aug. 23 or Aug. 24 in a CIA memo entitled 'Islamic Extremist Learns to Fly,' investigators disclosed Wednesday.... Former Acting FBI Director Thomas Pickard, who served as acting director for 10 of the 11 weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, told the inquiry Tuesday that he had learned of Moussaoui's arrest in Minnesota on the afternoon of Sept. 11 -- after the attacks. Word of Moussaoui's arrest never reached the White House National Security Council's interagency Counterterrorism and Security Group, former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke testified on March 24. After the Sept. 11 attacks, FBI agents obtained the legal go-ahead to examine the hard drive on his laptop. It contained information on using crop-dusting airplanes."
CIA's Tenet did speak to Bush before 9-11, spokesman says
Salt Lake Tribune, 16 April 2004

'The Silence Of George Tenet' - Click Here

"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says 'while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'.... it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11.  It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested. It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that 'al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House'... Instructive leads prior to 9/11 were not followed up. French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui (now thought to be the 20th hijacker) was arrested in August 2001 after an instructor reported he showed a suspicious interest in learning how to steer large airliners. When US agents learned from French intelligence he had radical Islamist ties, they sought a warrant to search his computer, which contained clues to the September 11 mission (Times, November 3 2001). But they were turned down by the FBI. One agent wrote, a month before 9/11, that Moussaoui might be planning to crash into the Twin Towers (Newsweek, May 20 2002). All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate. Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority? The former US federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, has said: 'The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence.'..... the PNAC blueprint of September 2000 states that the process of transforming the US into 'tomorrow's dominant force' is likely to be a long one in the absence of 'some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor'. The 9/11 attacks allowed the US to press the 'go' button for a strategy in accordance with the PNAC agenda which it would otherwise have been politically impossible to implement. The overriding motivation for this political smokescreen is that the US and the UK are beginning to run out of secure hydrocarbon energy supplies. By 2010 the Muslim world will control as much as 60% of the world's oil production and, even more importantly, 95% of remaining global oil export capacity."
This war on terrorism is bogus
The Guardian, 6 September 2003

"Loftus recently received an FBI translation of a highly classified and encrypted Al Qaida document, circa 1997-1998, which was retrieved and decrypted from a computer laptop following the Embassy bombing in Africa. The document was written by Osama Bin Laden’s military commander, Mohammed Atef, under his nom de guerre, Abu Haf, and reveals extensive knowledge of the supposedly secret pipeline negotiations [in Afghanistan], and their potential economic worth to the Taliban, Pakistan and the U.S.... in January 2001, Vice President Cheney allegedly reinstated the intelligence block and expanded it to effectively preclude any investigations whatsoever of Saudi-Taliban-Afghan oil connections. Former FBI counter-terrorism chief John O’Neil resigned from the FBI in disgust, stating that he was ordered not to investigate Saudi-Al Qaida connections because of the Enron pipeline deal. Loftus has confirmed that it was O’Neill who originally discovered the AL Qaida pipeline memo after the Embassy bombings in Africa. O’Neill gave an overview of the Enron block to two French authors who will soon be publishing in the United States. The FBI is currently investigating Loftus’ links to John O’Neill, and is also refusing FBI agent Robert Wright permission to publish his own findings about the Enron block. Loftus asserts that the Enron block, which remained in force from January 2001 until August 2001 when the pipeline deal collapsed, is the reason that none of FBI agent Rowley’s requests for investigations were ever approved. As numerous British and French authors have concluded, the information provided by European intelligence sources prior to 9/11 was so extensive, that it is no longer possible for either CIA or the FBI to assert a defense of incompetence. It is time for Congress to face the truth: In order to give Enron one last desperate chance to complete the Taliban pipeline and save itself from bankruptcy, senior levels of US intelligence were ordered to keep their eyes shut and their subordinates ignorant. The Enron cover-up confirms that 9/11 was not an intelligence failure or a law enforcement failure (at least not entirely). Instead, it was a foreign policy failure of the highest order. If Congress ever combines its Enron investigation with 9/11, Cheney’s whole house of cards will collapse".
What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11
Press Release, former federal prosecutor, John Loftus, 31 May 2002

"FBI and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September 11....the restrictions became worse after the Bush administration took over this year".
FBI claims Bin Laden inquiry was frustrated
London Guardian, 7 Nov 2001

"Two veteran FBI investigators say they were ordered to stop investigations into a suspected
terror cell linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and the Sept. 11 attacks.... even after the [1998 African embassy] bombings, Wright said FBI headquarters wanted no arrests."
Called Off the Trail?
ABCNews 19 Dec 2002

"There's so much more. God, there's so much more. A lot more."
FBI agent, Robert Wright, who is being officially prevented from telling the public about how his efforts to investigate al-Qaeda pre-911 were blocked by his supervisors
'Called off the trail?' - ABC News, 19 Dec 2002

"Powell felt Cheney and his allies - his chief aide, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz; and Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith; and what Powell called Feith's 'Gestapo' office - had established what amounted to a separate government."
Bush ordered secrecy on war plans, book claims
Guardian Weekly,  22-28 April 2004

"In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities. The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba's then new leader, communist Fidel Castro... The Joint Chiefs at the time were headed by Eisenhower appointee Army Gen. Lyman L. Lemnitzer, who, with the signed plans in hand made a pitch to McNamara on March 13, 1962, recommending Operation Northwoods be run by the military. Whether the Joint Chiefs' plans were rejected by McNamara in the meeting is not clear. But three days later, President Kennedy told Lemnitzer directly there was virtually no possibility of ever using overt force to take Cuba, Bamford reports. Within months, Lemnitzer would be denied another term as chairman and transferred to another job... Even after Lemnitzer was gone, he writes, the Joint Chiefs continued to plan 'pretext' operations at least through 1963. One idea was to create a war between Cuba and another Latin American country so that the United States could intervene. Another was to pay someone in the Castro government to attack U.S. forces at the Guantanamo naval base — an act, which Bamford notes, would have amounted to treason. And another was to fly low level U-2 flights over Cuba, with the intention of having one shot down as a pretext for a war.... Ironically, the documents came to light, says Bamford, in part because of the 1992 Oliver Stone film JFK, which examined the possibility of a conspiracy behind the assassination of President Kennedy. As public interest in the assassination swelled after JFK's release, Congress passed a law designed to increase the public's access to government records related to the assassination. The author says a friend on the board tipped him off to the documents. Afraid of a congressional investigation, Lemnitzer had ordered all Joint Chiefs documents related to the Bay of Pigs destroyed, says Bamford. But somehow, these remained. 'The scary thing is none of this stuff comes out until 40 years after,' says Bamford."
U.S. Military Drafted Plans to Terrorize U.S. Cities to Provoke War With Cuba
ABCNews 1 May 2001

"The Bush Administration began making plans for an invasion of Iraq, including the use of American troops, within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001 -- not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks, as has been previously reported. That's what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider.... In the book, O'Neill is quoted as saying he was surprised that no one in a National Security Council meeting questioned why Iraq should be invaded. 'It was all about finding a way to do it. That was the tone of it. The president saying 'Go find me a way to do this,' says O'Neill in the book.... "
Saddam Ouster Planned Early '01?
CBS News, 10 January 2003

Why They Are Really Doing It
GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS LOOMING
Click Here

Including

The Silence Of George Tenet - 911 And The Israeli-Russian Connection - 18 April 2004
From Macedonia To Enron - Rice Must Explain Pre-911 National Security Priorities - 5 April 2004
American Sponsored Islamic Jihad In Yugoslavia - 27 March 2004
Is Bush Camp Preparing Another 'October Surprise' For The 2004 US election? - 21 March 2004
911 Inquiry Must Investigate US Military Command, Intelligence Services, and Cheney - 24 Feb 2004
Hutton And The Libyan Black Gold Rush - 8 Feb 2004
Hussein Kamel And The Big Anglo-American Deception - 4 Jan 2004
Iraq: British Government admits to 'Operation Mass Appeal' - 28 Dec 2003
Iraqgate 2003 - Dr Kelly and 'Operation Rockingham' - 19 Oct 2003
A Vision For Transforming America - 24 March 2003
This Is Our Prime Minister - 23 Feb 2003
What Is Happening To Britain And America? - 9 Feb 2003
The 911 Omar Sheikh Files - 2 Jan 2003
'October Surprise 2002' - Life After The US Constitutional Coup - 31 Oct 2002
What Did Britain Know About 911? - 28 Aug 2002
Why Did Bush Not Act On Sept 11? - 9 May 2002
World Peace Offered From Hiroshima - 22 April 2002
Did Sept 11 victims die for Enron? - 8 March 2002
CIA provided funds to financiers of Sept 11 bomber - 18 Nov 2001

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