Hell, Yes, They Knew: The Events of September 11, 2001: This Far and No Further

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The National Law Enforcement and Security Institute claims that the National Reconaissance Office is running a simulation that featured, among other things, a small commercial plane crashing into one of the NRO buildings after experiencing engine failure. It was not intended to simulate terrorist actions, but an accidental strike. The NRO claims to have cancelled the exercise once word of the WTC attacks reached them. The NRO officer in charge of the exercise, John Fulton, is a CIA officer assigned to head NRO's strategic gaming division. Another exercise, called "Vigilant Guardian," was also being held for several days, including September 11. The exercise involves the entire NORAD military and security structure, particularly the Northeastern Air Defense System (NEADS). Organizers claim that due to the exercise, the emergency response teams and procedures were primed and ready to respond even better than they normally would. "[F]ighter jets were cocked, loaded, and carrying extra gas on board" all over the Northeast. One would assume that their response time to the morning's tragedies would be better than normal, instead of dismally tardy or completely non-responsive. (National Law Enforcement and Security Institute/Killtown, From the Wilderness, AP/Yahoo!)
Either just before the hijackings took place or shortly thereafter, senior administration officials were administered Cipro, an anti-anthrax drug. The first anthrax mailing did not take place for weeks after the terrorist attacks on the WTC. The conservative activist group Judicial Watch will later sue the Bush administration to release documents showing who knew what and when, and why Presidential staff were protected while Senators, Congresspeople and others were not. Administration officials refuse to comment on why Cipro was adminstered or to exactly who, and deny knowing that any anthrax attacks from any sources were imminent. (Longboat Observer/Killtown, Judicial Watch/Killtown, NBC/CNN/From the Wilderness)
At the time of the attacks, Senators Porter Goss and Bob Graham, the ranking members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are having breakfast with General Mahmud Ahmed, chief of Pakistani intelligence, along with Sen. Jon Kyl and Pakistani ambassador to the US Mahleeda Lohdi. Ahmed will be fired a month later for his ties to Umar Sheikh, one of the 1993 WTC bombers. He is also known to have close ties to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. Goss is a 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing. (From the Wilderness)
Only eight aircraft are assigned "ready" duty for air patrol for the entire eastern continental United States. The eight are not regular military, but Air National Guard planes. None of the eight were in the air the morning of 9/11, but rather on the ground. (CCR)

6:00 AM: President Bush, fresh from a night at a luxury resort in Longboat Key, Florida, prepares for an early-morning run. He has a photo op scheduled at Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. A van with two Middle Eastern men pulls up to the resort, and the men try to get into the building, claiming to have a "poolside interview" scheduled with Bush. The Secret Service turns them away. Two days before, Afghani leader Ahmad Massoud had been assassinated by men using the same ruse. It is unclear whether this is any kind of assassination attempt. Around 8:50 that same morning, two Middle Eastern men in a van will be observed yelling "Down with Bush!" and shaking their fists out of the van's windows. They will be positioned to be able to see, and be seen from, the Bush motorcade going to the elementary school. The FBI will question the men, but nothing conclusive is learned. (Visual Journalism, CCR)
6:10 AM: United Airlines Flight 679, from Newark to San Antonio, takes off, carrying two Middle Eastern passengers, Mohammed Jaweed Azmath and Syed Gul Mohammed Shah (traveling under an alias). The flight is diverted to St. Louis after the first WTC attack. Shah and Azmath then board an Amtrak train for San Antonio, where there are arrested on board the train. They are carrying $20,000, hair dye, and box cutters similar to those reported belonging to the hijackers. While both are convicted of minor offenses, neither one is established as being directly connected to the terrorist attacks, and in 2002 both are deported to India. Their contact in San Antonio, Dr. al-Badr Azhami, is also arrested on 9/11, but is released without being charged two weeks later. (CCR)
6:45 AM: Employees of Odigo, Inc., one of the world's largest instant messaging companies, with offices two blocks from the World Trade Center, receive threat warnings of an imminent attack on the WTC less than two hours before the first plane hits the WTC. Law enforcement authorities have remained silent about any investigation of this. The Odigo Research and Development offices in Israel are located in the city of Herzliyya, a ritzy suburb of Tel Aviv which is the same location as the Institute for Counter Terrorism, which broke early details of insider trading on 9-11. (Ha'aretz/Killtown, From the Wilderness)
It is worth noting that some observers theorize that the Odigo warnings constitute evidence that the 9/11 attacks were, at least in part, orchestrated by Israeli intelligence. Proof of this is lacking, but there are some interesting circumstances: the Odigo warnings are one, as are the fact that many of the Arabs identified as being on board the planes were using stolen identities and therefore were possibly misidentified by authorities; some of those hijackers were seen in the nights before the attacks drinking and carousing in bars, actions contrary to devout Muslim belief. It is a fact that an Israeli spy ring, commonly known as "the art students," had some involvement in the events leading up to the attacks, though their intentions and actions are not known; what is known by the US government has been classified. It is also interesting that within hours of the attacks, Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak delivered a prepared speech using the attacks to denounce radical Islam and announcing a linkage between the attacks and the Palestinian insurgency in and around Israel. The extent and nature of Israeli involvement in the attacks is worth further investigation. (What Really Happened)
7:12 AM: Bush returns to his hotel, showers, and dresses for his photo-op. (Visual Journalism)
7:45 AM: Mohammed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari board American Airlines Flight 11. His bags, which are not loaded onto the plane, are subsequently found to have airline uniforms and other suspicious items stashed inside. At least two other hijackers use bogus uniforms to get aboard Flight 11. (CCR)
7:45 - 7:59 AM: All 19 hijackers successfully board their flights, though 9 are challenged by security and subjected to extra screening. Two of the hijackers, who are on terrorist watch lists disseminated to the airlines, are not challenged. Flight 11 departs Logan Airport at 7:59. (CCR)
8:00 - 8:20 AM: Bush participates in the daily briefing. Although the general subject of terrorism is discussed, nothing specific is broached, and no one feels the need to confer with National Security Director Condoleezza Rice in Washington. (CCR)
From 8 AM onward, a number of corporate CEOs are present at Offutt AFB at what ostensibly is a "charity event" inexplicably held at a secure Air Force base and hosted by Warren Buffett, the second richest man in the world. Many of these CEOs would have been in their offices in the WTC if not for this event. This base is the center of the nation's military defenses, and the same base that Bush will fly to later in the day. (CCR, San Francisco Business Times/Killtown)
8:13 AM: Flight 11 is hijacked around this time. Apparently the hijackers move so quickly that the pilots are unable to press the button that would have sent out a distress call. Pilot John Ognowski is able to press the talkback button intermittently, allowing some of the cabin chatter to be broadcast. The flight does not follow orders to climb to 35,000 feet, and Nashua, New Hampshire ATC official Glenn Michael says that at the time, the flight was considered to be a possible hijacking. This is correct procedure. At that moment, NORAD should have been notified of a possible hijacking; the agency is not notified until 8:38. (Boston ATC concludes that the flight must have been hijacked at 8:20. They do not notify NORAD either.) For the next 33 minutes, air traffic controllers monitor cockpit broadcasts which include suspicious comments such as "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you will be OK. We are returning to the airport. Nobody move," and "Nobody move, please, we are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves." (CCR, Boston Globe)
8:14 AM: United Airlines Flight 175, from Boston to Los Angeles, takes off. (CCR)
8:20 AM: Flight 11 begins to veer drastically off course. FAA rules state that if a plane makes an unauthorized course change of over two miles, fighter planes must scramble to meet and escort the plane. This does not happen. Also, American Airlines Flight 77 departs from Dulles Airport in Washington, bound for Los Angeles. (CCR)
8:20 AM: Boston's Logan Airport flight control decides that Flight 11, from Boston to Los Angeles, has been hijacked. The plane carries almost 24,000 gallons of fuel on board. Inexplicably, the flight controllers do not notify NORAD of the hijacking for up to 20 minutes, a flagrant violation of the rules, but consistent with the actions taken by other flight controllers who also fail to notify NORAD. (CCR)
8:21 AM: On board Flight 11, hijackers murder passenger Daniel Lewin, who is a former member of a top-secret Israeli counter-terrorist force. It is not clear if they knew Lewin would be on board, if Lewin tried to resist, or exactly what happened. At the same time, flight attendant Betty Ong uses a seat phone to call the American Airlines desk in North Carolina. She stays on the phone for 25 minutes until the moment of the crash. Ong claims that the hijackers sprayed something in the first-class cabin to keep others from the front of the plane. Ong's phone call is taped, but the FBI claims that only the first four minutes of the tape are audible, and refuses to allow the tape to be released. Another flight attendant, Amy Sweeney, calls AA ground manager Michael Woodward and speaks with him for 25 minutes. Woodward does not record the call, but takes notes which are later given to the FBI. Sweeney identifies four of the five hijackers, enabling authorities to run immediate identity checks on the four, including Atta and Alomari. Sweeney also says that she believes the hijackers bring a bomb "with yellow wires attached" into the cockpit, and that the hijackers have stabbed two flight attendants and a business class passenger.
Note: an FAA memo written on the evening of 9/11 suggests Daniel Lewin was shot and killed by a gun before the plane crashed into the WTC. The "Executive Summary," based on information relayed by a flight attendant to the American Airlines Operation Center, stated "that a passenger located in seat 10B shot and killed a passenger in seat 9B.... The passenger killed was Daniel Lewin, shot by passenger Satam Al Suqami." The FAA claims that the document is a "first draft" and declines to release the final draft, calling it "protected information." Lewin is later identified as a former member of the Israel Defense Force Sayeret Matkal, Israel's most successful special-operations unit. Sayeret Matkal is a deep-penetration unit that has been involved in assassinations, the theft of foreign signals-intelligence materials, and the theft and destruction of foreign nuclear weaponry, and is best known for the 1976 rescue of 106 passengers at Entebbe Airport in Uganda. Officials later deny the gun story and suggest that Lewin was probably stabbed to death instead. Lewin founded Akamai, a successful computer company, and his connections to Sayeret Mat'kal remained hidden until the gun story came to light. (CCR, ABC)
For 50 minutes, from 8:15 AM until 9:05 AM, with it widely known within the FAA and the military that four planes have been simultaneously hijacked and taken off course, supposedly no one notifies the President of the United States. (This has now been shown to be false.) It is not until 9:30 that any Air Force planes are scrambled to intercept (Air National Guard planes were scrambled at 8:52), but by then it is far too late. This means that the National Command Authority waited for 75 minutes before scrambling aircraft, even though it was known that four simultaneous hijackings had occurred -- an event that has never happened in history. (CNN/ABC/MSNBC/Los Angeles Times/New York Times/From the Wilderness)
At 8:25 AM, Boston air traffic controllers inform other air traffic controllers that Flight 11 out of Logan Airport had been hijacked. NORAD is not informed for 13 more minutes, at 8:38. At 8:43, NORAD is informed that a second airliner, Flight 175 from Logan, has been hijacked. (CCR)
8:35 AM: Bush's motorcade leaves for the school. (CCR)
8:37 AM: After unsuccessful attempts by air traffic controllers to contact the military, even an attempt to raise a military alert center in Atlantic City, New Jersey that had been closed, the FAA finally reaches the appropriate military office. "We have a problem here," the FAA's Boston Center tells NEADS, the North East Air Defense Sector. "We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to, we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out." The NEADS officer asks, "Is this real-world or exercise?" and the FAA responds, "No, this is not an exercise, not a test." (Washington Times)
8:42 AM: Flight 175 begins to veer drastically off its course, prompting the immediate response that it, too, has possibly been hijacked. (CCR)
8:42 AM: United Airlines Flight 93, from Newark to San Franscisco, takes off after a long delay. This delay may be why it was the only plane not to successfully strike its target. (Boston Globe)
8:44 AM: Two minutes before the first plane hits the WTC, Donald Rumsfeld says in a meeting in the Pentagon, "Let me tell ya, I've been around the block a few times. There will be another event." He then repeats it for emphasis, "There will be another event." Although many Pentagon officials are aware of the situation, according to Rumsfeld, he himself had no idea what was going on at the time he said this. He did not become involved in response meetings until 10:30, well after other officials had been working on the situation. Until the third plane hit the Pentagon, Rumsfeld, who was informed about the two Twin Towers strikes almost immediately, continued with his routine daily intelligence briefing. "Can you believe this?" Mindy Kleinberg, a wife of one of the Twin Towers victims, will later ask. "Two planes hitting the Twin Towers in New York City did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the war room to check out just what the hell went wrong? This is my President. This is my Secretary of Defense. You mean to tell me Rumsfeld had to get up from his desk and look out his window at the burning Pentagon before he knew anything was wrong? How can that be?" Her question will be answered by her friend and colleague Kristin Breitweiser: "It can't be." (New York Observer)

8:46 AM: American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Within minutes, the FAA informs the Secret Service of the strike. That evening, Bush informs the world that "immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans." This is a flat lie. Also at this time, Flight 77 veers off course. Again, regulations call for immediate fighter plane response. No aircraft are scrambled. (CCR)
8:46 - 8:52 AM: Two F-15 fighters are scrambled from Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod. The F-15s were approximately 10 minutes away from Manhattan. Had there not been a 14-minute delay in scrambling the two fighters, they could have been in a position to engage the second airliner that hit the WTC. According to the two pilots, Daniel Nash and Timothy Duffy, they are on the tarmac walking towards their planes when they get the order to scramble, and by the time they get strapped in a minute or so later, they are green-lighted to take off. Yet according to OAFB records, there's a six-minute gap between the time the scramble order is given and the time they launch. Even more interestingly, three F-16s assigned to Andrews Air Force Base in Washington are in the air, flying a mission in North Carolina. They are just over 200 miles away at the moment. Instead of being called to fly to New York and begin patrolling the airspace, they are not immediately contacted. When they are, they are ordered to land at AAFB and only later are they sent back up. The three fighters could have been over New York City before 9:00 a.m., possibly in time to intercept Flight 175. (Visitors to Andrews AFB's Web site after 9/11 were informed that not only were there no planes available at the base for patrol duty at the time, but that the base had no planes stationed at it whatsoever.) The upshot is, no planes were scrambled for 38 minutes after the first hijacking was reported. (CCR)
8:47 AM: Flight 175 changes its transponder code without authorization. (Washington Times)
8:48 AM: The American media begins announcing the news of the first WTC strike. (CCR)
8:50 AM: FBI director George Tenet, breakfasting with senator David Boren, is informed of the first strike. According to Boren, the messenger used the word "attacked," and Tenet almost immediately said, "You know, this has bin Laden's fingerprints all over it." (CCR)
Between 8:46 and 8:55 AM, members of Bush's entourage are informed of the first strike while driving to the school, including press secretary Ari Fleischer and a number of reporters. Congressman Dan Miller, who was driving to meet the motorcade at the school, is informed of the strike on his cell phone. Yet Bush will later claim that he had no knowledge of the strike until after he arrived at the school. In fact, a member of his motorcade, Deborah Loewer, leapt out of her car and ran to inform Bush of the attack as soon as the motorcade came to a stop, but according to her, he already knew. John Cochrane of ABC News reports before Bush arrives at the school: "Peter [Jennings], as you know, the president's down in Florida talking about education. He got out of his hotel suite this morning, was about to leave, reporters saw the White House chief of staff, Andy Card, whisper into his ear. The reporter said to the president, 'Do you know what's going on in New York?' He said he did, and he said he will have something about it later. His first event is about half an hour at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida." This establishes that Bush was informed about the first strike well before he arrived at the school. Bush will later insist that he is first told by Karl Rove while inside the school building. (Telegraph/Killtown, Vision TV, Emperor's Clothes, CCR)
Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers sees the first strike on television. Myers will be acting chairman of the US military on 9/11 because his boss, Gen. Henry Shelton, is in Europe. According to an interview later that day, he claims that he was told that a small plane has crashed into the WTC, and elected to continue with his scheduled breakfast meeting with Sen. Max Cleland. He says that he remained unaware of the situation through the second strike, until he leaves his meeting around the time Flight 93 strikes the Pentagon. Yet, in Congressional testimony, he states that he is aware of the strikes as they happen, and says that he made the decision to launch aircraft after the second strike. Obviously one or both of his statements is a lie. Myers claims not to have been informed about the second tower strike until well after it occurred. He waited until 9:40 to order the scrambling of American aircraft. Gore Vidal writes, "...[A]s if by magic, the commanding general of NORAD -- our Airspace Command -- was on the line just as the hijackers mission had been successfully completed except for the failed one in Pennsylvania." Myers waits for an hour and twenty minutes after the first strike, and fifty minutes after the second, to order aircraft to launch. (Note that some aircraft were launched without Myers's authorization.) (Observer/9-11 Congress)
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is quick to respond. Conservative pundit Tucker Carlson later makes the damning comparison between Giulani and Bush's responses: "Rudy Giuliani was in midtown when the first passenger plane slammed into the World Trade Center. He made it to Barclay Street just in time to see the second plane hit. It was clear by this point that a coordinated terrorist attack was under way, but Giuliani didn't flee to a fortified bunker. He didn't argue that it was his duty to remain safe so he could continue to lead. He understood that the first requirement of leadership is being there, that nothing sends a stronger message to the troops than a general at the front. He understood that the symbolism is more important than any single decision a leader can make, more important even than the life of the leader." Throughout the day, Giuliani will be highly visible in and around the sites of the attacks. Many credit Giuliani with providing the leadership that so many Americans needed during the aftermath of the attacks, while Bush was nowhere to be found. Carlson continues, "Meanwhile, here in Washington, there was also smoke in the sky. But there was no Giuliani, no credible leader who could go on television and say to the panicked population: 'I've been to the scene. It's horrible, but things are under control. The world is not ending.' It was ten hours before George W. Bush returned to the city. This was a terrible mistake, as the White House now recognizes. The excuses Bush's handlers have offered are either ludicrous (terrorists were planning to ram Air Force One with a passenger jet), or embarrassingly revealing (the Secret Service wouldn't allow the president to come home). The truth is probably more straightforward: Under great pressure, Bush took the wrong advice. But there's another truth: Under great pressure, Giuliani is a better natural leader." (New York Metro/Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
8:50 AM: A United Airlines manager in Chicago receives news that an attendant on Flight 175 has called a UA mechanic in San Francisco with news of the hijacking. (CCR)
8:52 AM: In the air at last, F-15 pilots Duffy and Nash are ordered to intercept Flight 11, which has already struck the WTC. According to Duffy, they were going at top speed (1100 mph+) in their attempt to intercept the airliner, which would have put them over Kennedy Airport at 9:02, with bare seconds to intercept Flight 175. Yet according to NORAD, they flew less than 600 mph and arrived in New York airspace at 9:11, well after the second plane crashed. (CCR)
8:54 AM: Bush's motorcade arrives at Booker Elementary School. After their arrival, Rove takes Bush aside and tells him about the first crash. Bush responds, "What a horrible accident!" and speculates that the pilot may have had a heart attack. Sources differ as to whether Rove told Bush that it was a commercial airliner or a private plane that struck the building. Days later, Bush will change his story again, and claim that chief of staff Andrew Card was the first to inform him of the strike. Either way, the news doesn't seem to faze him. According to one reporter on the scene, "From the demeanor of the President, grinning at the children, it appeared that the enormity of what he had been told was taking a while to sink in." If we are to believe Bush, then he is apparently one of the very few government officials who isn't aware that this was a deliberate attack and not an unfortunate accident, and that at this point, three commercial airliners are known to have been hijacked. Minutes later, he is contacted by Condoleezza Rice, who updates him on the situation. According to Rice, Bush continues to refer to it as an "accident." Bush takes Principal Gwen Tose-Rigell aside, informs her of the "accident," and says he intends to go ahead with "the reading thing anyway." (Visual Journalism, CCR)
8:56 AM: Flight 77, which has turned off its transponder, disappears from radar after turning back eastward towards Washington. NORAD, which is required to be informed immediately, isn't contacted about the disappearance for 28 minutes. And again, fighter planes are not scrambled to locate the missing jet. It is discovered by the 9/11 commission that the military is mistakenly informed by the FAA's Boston Center that Flight 11, which has already crashed into the WTC, is still in the air and headed for Washington. (CCR, Washington Times)
Bush later makes the following statement: "And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on, and I used to fly myself, and I said, 'There's one terrible pilot.' And I said, 'It must have been a horrible accident.' But I was whisked off there -- I didn't have much time to think about it." He has repeated the story on other occasions. This story is full of holes. Bush did not have access to a television until at least 15 minutes later. The video of the first plane strike was not broadcast until the next day. He couldn't have meant that he saw the second plane hit, because he was reading to the schoolchildren when Card came in and whispered that the second plane had struck the WTC. Bush tells the story more than once, but the story is impossible on its face. By 8:40 at the latest, NORAD knew that Flight 11 was hijacked, and by 8:43, they knew Flight 175 was hijacked. Bush had just been briefed by his National Security Advisor on the situation. It strains credulity to think that he could still believe that "one terrible pilot" was responsible for the situation. (CCR)
8:58 AM: A controller at the FAA's New York Center tells another New York controller, "We might have a hijack over here, two of them." Two minutes later, a New York Center manager tells the FAA Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, "We have several situations going on here. It's escalating big, big time. We need to get the military involved with us." (Washington Times)
9:00 AM: United Airlines Flight 23, from New York to Los Angeles, does not take off as scheduled. The pilots inform the passengers that the flight has been cancelled. Three Middle Eastern men refuse to get off, and argue with the flight crew. Security is called, but the men escape before security can arrive. In June 2002, a Canadian NORAD general speculates that a fifth hijacking may have been prevented. (Globe & Mail/From the Wilderness)

9:03 AM: United Airlines Flight 175 crashes into the south tower of the World Trade Center. Millions of people watch this happen on live broadcasts. Lorie van Auken, the wife of one of the victims, will later say of watching a videotape of Bush in the classroom, "I couldn't stop watching the President sitting there, listening to second graders, while my husband was burning in a building." (CCR, New York Observer)
9:03 AM: According to NORAD, Nash and Duffy are still 71 miles out of New York City when the second strike hits. Nash claims to be able to see smoke pouring out of Manhatten as he approaches the city. The pilots are not told about the second crash, and instead of being ordered to patrol the city's airspace, they are told to circle off the coast of Long Island. Minutes later they are told to fly into Manhattan and assume patrol duty, which they do for the next four hours. Nash points out that even if they could have intercepted Flight 175, they couldn't shoot it down, because only the President could give that authorization, and Bush was busy reading to children in Florida. At the same time in Sarasota, a Marine accompanying Bush informs the county sheriff that they will be leaving momentarily. Yet instead of leaving, Bush chooses to stay for another 31 minutes. (CCR)

Bush continues reading after being informed of the second attack

9:03-9:06 AM: Bush enters Sandra Kay Daniels' second-grade classroom for a photo opportunity to promote his educational platform. He poses for pictures with the children and faculty members, then steps aside as the teacher leads the class through a short reading drill. All together, about 150 people are inside the classroom. Bush later claims that while this is going on, he is deciding what he will say about the WTC crash. At this point, he still insists that he believes the plane crash was accidental. As the children are retrieving their books from under their seats, Card enters the room and whispers to Bush: "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." Bush says nothing and begins listening to the children read "The Pet Goat." (CCR, Visual Journalism)
9:03-9:08 AM: NORAD decides to close off airspace over New York, Boston, Newark, and Washington, grounding flights in and out of these cities. However, no fighters are scrambled to patrol Washington airspace, even though they know that Flight 77 was last seen heading back towards that city. (CCR)
9:03 AM: or thereabouts: Secret Service agents burst into Dick Cheney's White House office and carry him and his wife to the secure underground bunker, known as the PEOC, or the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. Condoleezza Rice is also advised to retreat into the bunker. Rice has designated counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke the "crisis manager;" Clarke will recommend that Bush not return to the White House until the crisis has passed, and Clarke implements a secure videoconferencing network hookup between senior officials throughout the country. Shortly afterwards, under Clarke's direction, the nation's borders are closed, all commercial and private aircraft are grounded, and the military is put on DefCon 3, its highest alert level in nearly 30 years; and the Russians were notified. "Damn good thing I did that," Clarke later writes in his memior, Against All Enemies, as he is informed by Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, "Guess who was about to start an exercise of all their strategic nuclear forces?" Clarke's videoconferencing hookup in the PEOC is repeatedly interfered with by Lynne Cheney's insistence on turning down the volume and turning up the volume of a television tuned to CNN. Around the same time, calls from fighter units up and down the East Coast begin pouring in, volunteering to assist. Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) Commander Robert Marr supposedly orders everything up top as quickly as possible, ordering the mobilization of every Air National Guard unit immediately. The commander of NORAD, Canadian Major Gen. Eric Findley, supposedly issues similar orders for the units under his command from his office in Colorado. Yet other accounts say that these calls for mobilization don't take place for an hour yet. It is a fact that the first planes covered in these orders didn't launch until 10:44, from a unit in Syracuse, New York. (CCR, New York Times)
A few minutes later, the DC Air National Guard unit at Andrews Air Force Base begins to scramble its F-16s. A half hour later, these planes are still on the ground being outfitted with missiles when the third plane strikes the Pentagon. According to the DCANG's mission statement, they are to provide units "in the highest possible state of readiness" at all times for the defense of the capital. After 9/11, the mission statement as posted on the DCANG Web site is changed to say that it merely has a "vision" to "provide peacetime command and control and administrative mission oversight to support customers, DCANG units, and NGB in achieving the highest levels of readiness." Obviously they did not achieve their earlier mission objective. (CCR)
9:06 - 9:16 AM: Bush continues with the reading exercise in the Sarasota classroom. When Card tells him about the second strike, the class is "in transition" between exercises. Bush remains silent for a few moments, then settles in to listen to the children read. While the children read, Ari Fleischer holds up a sign that reads, "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET." Except for the contact he has in the school, Bush is temporarily cut off from the decision-making process, specifically from the ability to authorize a shootdown of a hijacked airliner. Note: while many media accounts have Bush leaving the classroom at 9:12, the videotape clearly shows him staying for several minutes past that time. (CCR, Visual Journalism)
9:09 AM: NORAD orders a battle stations alert at Langley AFB, Virginia. The actual order to scramble does not come until 9:27, and the first plane leaves the ground at 9:30. At this time, authorities were tracking 11 planes that were either significantly off course or off the radar; they were considering the possibility that any or all of the 11 planes had been hijacked and were now on kamikaze runs towards their targets. The first pilots in the air have no specific targets and little information; they follow a "generic" flight plan that takes them east, over the Atlantic Ocean. (CCR, Washington Times)
9:12 - 9:16 AM: Bush leaves the classroom. Instead of being in a hurry to leave, he is "openly stretching out the moment," making small talk with the students and even briefly discussing his education policy with one child. Author Bill Sammon, who will write a glowing account of Bush's response to the attacks, will later write that Bush was smiling and chatting with the children "as if he didn't have a care in the world" and "in the most relaxed manner imaginable." A Bush aide asks the press to leave; a reporter asks, "Mr. President, are you aware of the reports of the plane crash in New York? Is there anything...?" Bush responds, "I'll talk about it later." However, Bush is still in no hurry to leave. According to Sammon, Bush "stepped forward and shook hands with [classroom teacher] Daniels, slipping his left hand behind her in another photo-op pose. He was taking his good old time. ...Bush lingered until the press was gone." Bush's advisors will later explain that he did not leave immediately because, without all the facts, he did not want to risk upsetting the schoolchildren. Advisor Karl Rove later states, "The President thought for a second or two about getting up and walking out of the room. But the drill was coming to a close and he didn't want to alarm the children." Consider that the country was under attack in a manner not seen since the Pearl Harbor bombings of 1941. Consider that Bush's own safety was at risk -- the school is less than 4 miles away from Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport, and a plane hijacked from that airport could have been crashed into the school, killing him, his staff, and well over 200 innocent adults and children, with no way for US security to stop it. Consider that Bush's schedule had been known since September 7, an attempt by suspicious Middle Eastern men had already been made to accost the President, and the Secret Service had already been informed of a person in town who had made violent threats against Bush. Yet instead of responding to the situation and cutting short the photo op, Bush, or someone, decides to make every effort to keep him on his original schedule. (CCR)
9:15 AM: According to the interviews with Bush and Cheney by the 9/11 commission, Bush speaks to Cheney by phone at this time. It is unclear how the phone call fits into the documented evidence of Bush's movements during this time period. It is also hard to fathom how Bush could discuss the two plane attacks on the WTC with Cheney and then stay on schedule at Booker Elementary for 15 more minutes, laughing and talking with children and teachers. (Washington Post)
9:16 AM: NORAD is informed by the FAA that Flight 93 may have been hijacked (at the moment, it has departed from its flight path and was circling back over western Pennsylvania, apparently en route to strike Washington, DC). No fighters are scrambled, though it is possible that some fighters originally sent to intercept Flight 77 may have then been sent towards Flight 93). Had fighters been scrambled immediately, they could have reached Washington within 7 minutes, giving them a chance to intercept both Flights 77 and 93. (CCR)
Later on, a very different story will be told, most prominently in the New York Post. According to the Post, "A federal agent rushed into the room to inform the president of the United States. President Bush had been presiding over [Daniels's] reading class last 9/11, when a Secret Service agent interrupted the lesson and asked, 'Where can we get to a television?' Daniels then claimed that Bush left the class even before the second crash: 'The president bolted right out of here and told me: "Take over."' When the second crash occurred, she claims her students were watching TV in a nearby media room." While dramatic, this story is filled with errors. The Secret Service was watching the second plane crash live on television in an adjacent room at 9:03. Andrew Card, not a federal agent, slipped quietly into the room to whisper the news to Bush -- he did not "rush" dramatically in. Bush didn't "bolt" out of the room with the dramatic command, "Take over;" instead, he dawdled along, chatting with children, until 9:29. (New York Post/CCR, CCR)

Here is a link to a downloadable video of Bush at the elementary school for five minutes after he is informed by Andrew Card of the second WTC strike. (The Memory Hole)

9:17 AM: The FAA closes all New York City area airports. Bush prepares to leave the classroom, as the children put away their books. He thanks the students, complements them, and answers a student's question about his education policy. A reporter attempts to question Bush about the WTC strikes; a Presidential aide cuts the reporter off by asking everyone to leave the classroom, and Bush says, "We'll talk about it later." Bush informs Principal Tose-Rigell about the attacks and why he has to leave. He and his staff then enter an empty classroom and begin discussing the strikes. Bush was originally scheduled to stay in the classroom until 9:20; he is still very close to his schedule. (CCR)
9:18 - 9:29 AM: Bush discusses the situation with his staff in the empty classroom. A television in the room is turned on to a national news broadcast about the strikes. Bush makes notes for a speech he will deliver about the attacks outside the school. He also calls Rice, Cheney, and New York Governor George Pataki. He is not asked to authorize any shootdowns by fighter planes, nor does he give permission for such. (CCR, Visual Journalism)
9:21 AM: NYC's Port Authority shuts down all bridges and tunnels in the city. (CCR)
9:24 AM: 28 minutes after flight controllers lose Flight 77 from their radar screens, the FAA informs NORAD that the plane may have been hijacked. Flight 77 was also off its flight path and heading for Washington, D.C. CNN notes that "after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) warned the military's air defense command that a hijacked airliner appeared to be headed toward Washington, the federal government failed to make any move to evacuate the White House, Capitol, State Department or the Pentagon." A Pentagon spokesman says, "The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way." Unbelievably, even Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his top aides in the Pentagon claim to have been unaware of any danger up to the moment of impact 14 minutes later. Most senators and congresspeople are in the Capitol building, which is not evacuated until 9:48. Only Vice President Cheney, National Security Advisor Rice and possibly a few others, are evacuated to safety a few minutes after 9:03. Yet, since at least the Flight 11 crash, military officials in a the National Military Command Center, on the east side of the Pentagon are urgently talking to law enforcement and air traffic control officials about what measures to take. Hard to believe that, outside the staff of the NMCC, everyone in the Pentagon, including the Secretary of Defense, remains uninformed, yet that is their story. (CCR)
9:25 AM: Barbara Olson, a political columnist and passenger on Flight 77, calls her husband, Solicitor General Theodore Olson. She says that the plane has been hijacked by Middle Eastern men using knives and box cutters, and that the passengers have been herded to the back of the plane. He informs her of the two WTC strikes, and she wonders why no one seems to be taking charge. While in the middle of the conversation, the call is abruptly cut off. It lasted around a minute. Olson is extremely contradictory about details of the call; he sometimes claims there were three calls, not two (she calls again around 9:30); he is extremely vague about the timing of the call(s); he claims at various times that his wife was in the bathroom, next to the pilots, or next to both pilots; that she is calling collect or on her credit card; that she is calling from her cell phone or a seat phone; and other details. While it's understandable that emotional distress may have caused discrepancies in Olson's memory, it's also worth noting that Olson and his wife were key players in the disinformation campaign against former President Clinton, and that Olson has said before that he has no qualms about lying to the public. The call is the only one known to have originated from Flight 77, and the only one to mention box cutters. After the call is cut off, Olson then calls the Justice Department to inform them of the call. It is unclear whether the people he spoke to were aware of the hijackings. (CCR, Boston Globe)
9:26 AM: FAA head Jane Garvey issues a "group stop," essentially grounding all aircraft in US airspace. A limited number of military flights are allowed to remain in the air, but all other military launches -- including fighter intercepts -- are forbidden. An hour later, the FAA will authorize military and law enforcement flights to resume. At this point, 4,452 planes are aloft; around 500 land in the next 20 minutes. (CCR)
9:27 AM: NORAD orders three fighters scrambled from Langley, Virginia, to intercept Flight 77. Langley is 129 miles away from Washington; ready aircraft at Andrews AFB, 15 miles from the capital, are not scrambled. The three Langley fighters are launched six minutes later. Cheney and Rice, in the White House bunker, are informed that Flight 77 is 50 miles outside of Washington and en route to an unknown target in the city. Aboard Flight 93, passenger Tom Burnett calls his wife, informs her of the hijacking, and tells her to call the authorities. Later versions of the call were edited to omit Burnett's claim that one of the hijackers had a gun. Burnett's wife immediately calls 911. Burnett's is the first of around 30 calls that were placed from the airplane. A minute later, FAA operators hear the sounds of screaming and scuffling coming from the plane. followed by voices speaking in Arabic. (CCR)
9:28 AM: The last official transmission from Flight 93 is recorded. A minute later, the Cleveland-based FAA controller hears "a radio transmission of unintelligible sounds of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin." A second transmission is broadcast, with sounds of screaming and someone yelling, "Get out of here, get out of here." Then comes another transmission: "Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board." Between 9:34 a.m. and 9:38 a.m., the controller observes Flight 93 climbing and moves several aircraft out of its way. Then another transmission comes from the plane. "Uh, is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands (unintelligible). Please remain quiet." Before it crashes, it is spotted "waving its wings" by another aircraft. (Washington Times)
9:29 AM: Outside the school, President Bush tells reporters that "an apparent terrorist attack" is underway. Even though Flight 77 is known to be hijacked and en route to Washington, no orders are given to evacuate any government buildings or for residents and workers to seek shelter. Bush was scheduled to speak with reporters about his education policy at 9:29, which puts him exactly on his original schedule. His schedule was a matter of public record. Considering the fact that the school was only a few minutes away from a major airport, the possibility of Bush being an assassination target from a plane hijacked in Florida never seems to enter anyone's mind. The fact that he is sticking to his schedule 79 minutes after the first hijacking and 43 minutes after the first attack on the WTC makes it seem that he, his security advisors, and the Secret Service are unconcerned about his being a target. (CCR, Visual Journalism)
9:30 AM: Three Air National Guard F-16 fighters launch from Langley AFB. Flying at or near their top speed of 1500 mph, they should have reached Washington in six minutes, well before Flight 77 crashed. Yet they did not. 13 minutes later, when Flight 77 strikes the Pentagon, the three fighters are still outside of Washington. At this time, the hijackers inform the passengers to call their families, as they are going to strike the White House and everyone on board is going to die. Barbara Olson calls her husband again. Her husband is vague and contradictory about the contents of this second call. (CCR)
9:32 AM: Air traffic controllers at Dulles International Airport in Washington report that Flight 77 is on their radar and headed for Washington. According to official records, it has been "lost" for 37 minutes. This does not explain how, 7 minutes earlier, Cheney and Rice were given specific information about Flight 77's heading and distance from the city. (CCR, Washington Times)
9:32 AM: The NY Stock Exchange is closed.
9:33 - 9:38 AM: Flight 77 approaches the Pentagon, but is too high; it makes a difficult high-speed descending turn to come back around. It passes within a few miles of the White House (leading Ari Fleischer to later state, incorrectly, that the plane headed for the White House). The Secret Service keeps a battery of Stinger ground-to-air missiles on the rooftop ready to defend the building from aerial attack. It is clear that the Stinger battery had a good chance of destroying Flight 77 while it was still in the air; however, the missiles remain unfired, and the jetliner flies past the White House en route to the Pentagon. (CCR)
9:34 AM: Bush's motorcade departs the school, en route to Air Force One, which is being readied for flight at Sarasota-Bradenton International Airport. While en route, the entourage learns of the Pentagon strike, and is told that Air Force One could also be a target. Although a number of fighter planes are available in Florida to escort Air Force One, none are alerted. Air Force One will leave Sarasota without a fighter escort. Also, Tom Burnett calls his wife Denna a second time, and gives her further information about conditions aboard Flight 93. (CCR)
9:36 AM: Flight 93 files a new flight plan, with its destination now Washington DC, and turns over western Pennsylvania to head back towards the capital. Also, a C-130 who is very close to Flight 77 is ordered to turn and follow the plane as it flies into Washington. (CCR)
9:37 AM: Passenger Jeremy Glick calls his wife from on board Flight 93. Glick's call is patched in to the FBI. Glick keeps the phone line open until the plane crashes. (Boston Globe)
9:38 AM: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, in conference with Republican congressman Chris Cox, is apparently unaware of Flight 77 approaching the Pentagon. Rumsfeld is talking about the WTC strikes, and says just before the plane crashes into the building, "Believe me, this isn't over yet. There's going to be another attack, and it could be us." This will be the second time Rumsfeld has predicted a strike within minutes of it occurring. (CCR)

The Pentagon, moments after the plane strike

9:38 AM: Flight 77 crashes into the Pentagon. It strikes the only portion of the building that had been renovated; the renovation efforts include strengthening the structure to withstand bomb blasts, and the installation of a sprinkler system. That portion of the building was much less crowded than usual due to the renovations. Had the jet struck a different area of the building, the death toll and level of damage could have been much, much higher. According to NORAD data, the fighters en route to DC from Langley are still 105 miles away, which means they could have been flying no faster than 180 mph. One of the pilots, codenamed "Honey," tells a different story. He claims to have originally been ordered with his strike group to fly to New York, but when he reported seeing black smoke from Washington, was informed of the strike on the Pentagon and ordered to assume patrol duty over Washington. The other two pilots claim that they were ordered to Washington all along. NORAD is of no help in clarifying the discrepancy; NORAD dispatcher Major James Fox says he sent the F-16s up without specific targets or destinations. The C-130 that has been following the jetliner flies remarkably close to the Pentagon, and is described by one eyewitness as seeming to "guide" the jet towards its target. However, the C-130 pilot, Lieutenant Colonel Steve O'Brien, claims that he never properly locates the jetliner due to the "East Coast haze," says that he can just barely make out the outline of the Pentagon at the time of the strike, and is ordered to leave the area. Before departing, O'Brien reports to air traffic control that it "looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir." (CCR, Washington Times)
9:38 AM: Rumsfeld feels the impact as the plane strikes relatively near his office. He begins giving injured people first aid, and assists in loading ambulances until 10:30. (CCR)
After 9:38 AM: Minutes after the Pentagon strike, Secret Service agents command Andrews AFB pilots to "Get in the air now!" Remember, Andrews pilots were put on alert 35 minutes beforehand; Cheney was informed 11 minutes before that a hijacked jetliner was coming in to Washington. Yet only now are the Andrews planes scrambled. Washington is declared a "free fire zone" by the White House, allowing planes to use deadly force if necessary. The first two F-16s leave the ground armed with only non-explosive training ammunition; one pilot later states that, had all else failed, he was prepared to ram a hijacked jetliner if need be. Media and official reports of which planes arrived in Washington at what times are extremely contradictory and unclear; one source, USA Today, apparently bought the story told by the revised Andrews AFB Web site that the base, one of the largest in the continental US and the primary base for protection of Washington, had no planes stationed there whatsoever. At least one NORAD source claims that no Andrews fighters were ever put on alert.
An interesting alternate take on the Pentagon strike is provided by the news and opinion site Sign of the Times. Their theory is that "something else" besides a 757 -- perhaps a missile or a bomb -- caused the devastation to the building. Their case, though unproven, is bolstered by the following facts and assertions (many of which are contradicted by government-provided evidence):
- Very little wreckage from anything resembling a plane was found at the crash site. "Buildings don't eat planes," says one observer. "That plane, it just vanished. There should have been parts on the ground. ...Where were the parts?" A reporter notes that if the plane struck the building at the angle claimed by the government, the wings should have torn off and been visible on the ground. "I mean, the wings would have shorn off. The tail would have shorn off. And yet there's apparently no evidence of the aircraft." While Pentagon spokespersons insist that evidence of the downed plane is there, if "not very visible," there is no damage on the ground just outside the blast area -- the grass looks virtually undisturbed. If, as CBS asserted, the plane hit the ground outside of the building and skidded into the outer ring of the Pentagon, the ground certainly shows no evidence of that.
- Footage taken of the site minutes after the strike shows a gaping hole torn into the side of the Pentagon, but no crashed airplane whatsoever. Windows scant feet from the strike area remain unbroken.
- The first eyewitness statements indicate that something far smaller than a 757 struck the Pentagon. Some characterize the object as "like a missile." Steve Patterson, of Pentagon City, says he saw what appeared to be a commuter jet streak by his window seconds before the impact. Patterson says the engine was far too high-pitched sounding for a jetliner, and looked as though it might seat 8 to 12 people. He characterizes it as flying so low that he thought it was going to try to land on I-395. Don Wright, another eyewitnesses, corroborates Patterson's description of the "commuter plane." Others say the hole in the Pentagon is far too small to have been caused by a jetliner, and say that what they saw sounded and looked more like a missile or small aircraft.
- One eyewitness says he heard a second, larger explosion happen seconds after the first. Another says he believes the explosion was caused by a bomb because he could "smell the cordite."
- The Pentagon is divided into five concentric rings, outer ring E through inner ring A, and into five wedges, 1-5. The strike occurred in the outer wall of Wedge 1, which was undergoing major renovations and repairs which would have been completed in a few days. The aircraft penetrated rings E, D, and C, before finally coming to rest in an open-air service passageway. The authors of this site ask, "Can a Boeing 757 punch neat holes in steel-reinforced concrete walls?"
- The outer E ring collapsed 20 minutes after impact. Severe, if localized, fire damage is also evident. The question remains: what happened to 60 tons of aircraft and 5,300 gallons of jet fuel? Such an impact from a jetliner loaded with fuel should have been far, far more devastating.
- The strike was filmed by a Pentagon security camera, which captured a single image of something coming in for a strike -- something considerably smaller than a 757, though the image is extremely blurry. The top of the fuselage could have been no more than 20 feet off the ground, a feat of low-altitude flying virtually impossible for even the best 757 pilot to manage for any length of time. Officially, the 757 was flying at 530 miles per hour at around 2 feet from the ground, a stunt-quality feat of low-altitude flying. According to Dulles Airport air traffic controller Danielle O'Connor, because of its "speed, the maneuverability, the way that it turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that it was a military plane." The FBI claims that hijacker Hani Hanjour was piloting the plane. According to flight instructor Rick Garza at the Arizona flight school he attended, Hanjour could not fly at all; he called Hanjour and his colleagues "clueless."
- Other cameras filmed and videotaped the strike, including a security videocamera on the ceiling of the nearby Sheraton Hilton. Shocked employees watched the video several times before the FBI confiscated it as part of their investigation. The FBI has never released the video. Gas station owner Jose Velazquez, whose station is very near the Pentagon, believes his security cameras recorded the strike, but doesn't know for sure, as the FBI descended on his stations minutes after the strike and confiscated all the film. Virginia's Department of Transportation has videocameras that would have filmed the plane as it flew just above Route 27 towards the Pentagon, but those films, too, have been confiscated and never released.
All of the above allegations are documented in the "Pentagon Strike" film available at the Sign of the Times Web site.

Editor's Note: This is one of many "conspiracy theories" promulgated by various people and organizations concerning the aspects of the 9/11 attacks. Some offer more evidence, of one sort or another, than others, but as yet, none have offered conclusive proof of their claims. The entire cottage industry of alternative theories that have sprung up about the 9/11 attacks is in large part due to the secretiveness of this administration concerning the attacks, and the failure of this administration to offer an acceptable explanation of either the nature or the machinations of the attacks. While I certainly do not endorse any of the conspiracy theories out there, and have no intention of summing them up in this page, I do not challenge the motivations of those who insist that other explanations besides the half-baked, almost insultingly sketchy offerings from the administration are needed. (Sign of the Times)
9:43 AM: Bush's motorcade arrives at the airport. He boards the plane; security searches of the passengers' baggage delays Air Force One's departure until 9:55. According to Andrew Card, while enroute to the airport, Bush is informed that Air Force One is a possible target, information that is later proven to be false. (CCR)
After 9:44 AM: One F-16 later claims to receive a garbled message indicating to him that the White House is a possible target, and for him and his fellow pilots to stay alert. None of the pilots are given orders to shoot down any jetliners. (CCR)
9:45 AM: The White House is ordered to be evacuated, a full 59 minutes after the first WTC strike, 40 minutes after Cheney and Rice are ordered underground, and 29 minutes after the government was aware that one or more hijacked planes were en route to Washington. Also, Tom Burnett tells his wife that some of the Flight 93 passengers have decided that there is no bomb on board, and that they are concocting a plan to resist the hijackers. Fellow passenger Todd Beamer, who has had trouble with his phone, eventually gets a Verizon customer service representative on the phone, and tells her of the situation. FAA head of operations Ben Sliney orders the US's entire air traffic system shut down (media reports that Bush ordered the shutdown are erroneous). FAA head Jane Garvey and Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta concur. (Mineta tries to take credit for the order, and FAA officials beg reporters to maintain the fiction that Mineta issued the order, not Sliney, as noted below.) 3,949 flights are still airborne; within an hour, 75% of them have landed. A Washington Post reporter maintains that Mineta didn't even know of the shutdown order for 15 minutes, and that the FAA begged the reporter to keep quiet about it. By now, an hour has passed since the first attack, and Bush has done nothing whatsoever to take charge of the situation. (CCR, Slate/Eric Alterman and Mark Green)
9:45 AM: Plagued by problems with the phones, and at times trying to use a personal cell phone, Bush manages to contact Cheney for the second time since the attacks began. "sounds like we have a minor war going on here," Bush reportedly tells Cheney, according to the 9/11 commission report issued in June 2004. "I heard about the Pentagon. We're at war...somebody's going to pay." Cheney passes along the Secret Service recommendation for Bush not to return to Washington. Ten minutes later, Air Force One lifts off from Florida without a fixed destination: "The objective was to get up in the air -- as fast and as high as possible -- and then decide where to go," the commission report notes. (Washington Post)
9:47 AM: Flight 93 passenger Jeremy Glick tells his wife that the men on board have decided to rush the hijackers and retake the plane. (Boston Globe)
9:48 AM: The Capital Building begins evacuation, including third in succession Speaker Dennis Hastert. Flight 93 is later reported as being en route to target the Capital; had the plane not been delayed 40 minutes before takeoff, it would have struck the Capital before anyone had been evacuated, possibly killing most of Congress. (CCR)
9:49 AM: The first F-16s, from Langley, reach the Pentagon. These fighters are armed with air-to-air missiles and are authorized to shoot down any unauthorized planes. Minutes later, F-16s from Andrews arrive in Washington.
9:53 AM: The NSA intercepts a phone call from Afghanistan to the Republic of Georgia. The caller tells the recipient, one of bin Laden's operatives, that he has heard "good news" and that another target is to follow. FBI director George Tenet tells Rumsfeld about the phone call two hours later. (CCR)
9:54 AM: Aboard Flight 93, Tom Burnett tells his wife that the passengers are ready to make their move. In early accounts of the phone call, Burnett sounds despondent, saying that he thinks they will all die; later versions are much more upbeat. He specifically mentions that the attempt will be made over a rural area. He says, "I know we're all going to die. There's three of us who are going to do something about it. I love you, honey." (Boston Globe)
9:56 AM: Air Force One, with no fighter escort, departs Sarasota. (Homestead AFB and Tyndall AFB could have scrambled planes within five minutes, and had them join Air Force One minutes later; no planes from either base are asked to scramble to escort the President's plane. Fighters did not enter Sarasota's air space till well after an hour after Air Force One departed.) At least half of Florida's air traffic is still airborne when the President's plane takes off. After Air Force One is airborne, Bush talks to Cheney on the phone. Cheney recommends that Bush authorize the military to shoot down any plane under control of the hijackers, and Bush responds, "You bet." Obviously little thought is being given to the efforts of Flight 93's passengers to retake the plane. In Washington, the Secret Service orders the F-16s to protect the White House "at all costs." (CCR, Visual Journalism)
9:56 - 10:40 AM: Air Force One achieves its cruising altitude and begins to fly in circles, while Bush, Cheney, and the Secret Service argue about whether or not to allow Bush to return to Washington. Bush later says, "I wanted to come back to Washington, but the circumstances were such that it was just impossible for the Secret Service or the national security team to clear the way for Air Force One to come back." This does not jibe with his statement of May 21, 2002, that his primary concern was getting himself "out of harm's way." (CCR)
9:56 - 10:06 AM: From his bunker, Cheney gives the green light for fighters to shoot down Flight 93. At least one F-16 from the Washington patrol route heads off towards Pennsylvania to intercept the jetliner. Another source claims that the closest fighters were two F-16s on a training mission near Detroit; these fighters, though unarmed, are ordered to close with the jetliner and crash into it if ordered. As the fighters approach Flight 93, Cheney is asked twice more if the jetliner should be shot down, and both times Cheney says yes. The head of the Air National Guard, Major Gen. Paul Weaver, has claimed that no ANG fighters were ever sent to intercept the passenger plane. Pilots who flew patrol duty over Washington later claim that they knew nothing about Flight 93, and continued to fly their patrol routes until they were ordered back to base. No explanation of this discrepancy is available, but it is obvious that fighters from somewhere were sent to intercept Flight 93. (CCR)
9:57 AM: Fighting breaks out aboard Flight 93. Passengers apparently use a food cart to batter their way towards the cockpit. After a brief struggle, according to analysis of the audio tapes from the jetliner, the passengers may have succeeded in retaking the plane. (Boston Globe)
9:58 AM: Flight 93's Todd Beamer winds up his phone call with his wife, and prepares to jump the hijacker in the back of the plane who claims to have a bomb. Beamer puts the phone down but leaves the line open. His famous last words, "Are you ready, guys? Let's roll!" are the last words his wife hears him speak. At the same moment, passenger Edward Felt, who has been hiding in the forward bathroom, calls 911, reports the hijacking, and claims that he hears an explosion and sees white smoke. His phone suddenly goes dead. Months afterwards, the FBI will seal the copies of the phone call, and deny that any explosions or smoke were reported from the jetliner. The person who took Felt's phone call is prohibited from speaking to anyone about the call. Although both Beamer's and Glick's phones remain open, no more voices are heard over either phone; the last sound from the cockpit voice recorder is the sound of wind, suggesting that the plane had been holed and is depressurizing. (Boston Globe)
9:59 AM: The south tower of the World Trade Center collapses. (CCR)
10:00 AM: A report that a car bomb has gone off outside the State Department building in Washington proves to be false. (CCR)
10:01 AM: Fighters from a Toledo, Ohio air base are scrambled. Although the base has no fighters on alert, they manage to get planes aloft in 16 minutes. NORAD later claims that it only scrambled planes from the seven bases in the NORAD defensive network, but Toledo is not part of that network. (CCR)
10:02 AM: The Sears Tower in Chicago begins evacuation procedures. Other prominent buildings will begin evacuating their inhabitants an hour later. (CCR)
10:02 - 10:06 AM: A CBS TV reporter says that two F-16s are closely tailing Flight 93. A flight controller in New Hampshire tells the media shortly afterwards that he tracked at least one F-16 flying very close to the jetliner. Eyewitnesses in the area of the crash see the plane flying low, rocking from side to side, and heading south just before it hits. One witness, a local mayor, claims that he knows of two witnesses who heard missiles fire before the plane hit."This one fellow's served in Vietnam, and he says he's heard them, and he heard one that day." Local law enforcement officials tell witnesses that they "know" the plane was shot down, and the depressurization of the airplane explains the wide debris field. Many eyewitnesses claim to have seen a second plane, a small, white craft with rear-burning engines, very near to Flight 93 before it went down; at least one source says the second plane circled the crash site twice and flew off. FBI investigators told witnesses that they could not have seen a second plane, and refused to countenance the stories. The FBI later claims that the plane could have been a Fairchild Falcon 20 business jet that was ordered to drop to 5,000 feet and direct rescue teams to the crash site. ABC-TV reported that moments after the crash, "a fighter jet streaks by." (CCR)

10:06 AM: Flight 93 crashes into a field just north of the Somerset, Pennsylvania airport. Official government documents indicate that the plane crashes at 10:03; the cockpit voice recorder ceases at 10:02. Media reports have the plane crashing as late as 10:10. Seismic studies from the US Army indicates that the plane actually crashed at 10:06. Some family members, who were allowed to hear the cockpit recordings, feel that the tape was edited, and that the final three minutes were removed from the tape. A part of one engine is found over a mile away; one investigator calls that fact "intriguing," since the Sidewinder air-to-air missiles used by the F-16s would have targeted the heat source of the engines. (Boston Globe)
10:08 AM: Bush is informed of the crash of Flight 93. His first question is, "Did we shoot it down, or did it crash?" Several hours later, he is told that the plane crashed. (Visual Journalism)
10:10 AM: The US military is ordered to Defcon Three, the highest alert status in 30 years. Rumsfeld is credited with giving the order, but by his own account he is involved in helping the wounded at the Pentagon crash site. (CCR)
10:12 AM: CNN reports an explosion at Capital Hill. This report is later proven to be false. (CCR)
10:13 AM: Federal buildings in Washington begin evacuation procedures; so does the United Nation building in New York. Some, but not all, federal buildings in Washington are evacuated beginning at 10:22. Two minutes later, the FAA reroutes all inbound transatlantic flights to land in Canada. (CCR)
10:15 AM: Part of the Pentagon collapses. (CCR)
10:28 AM: The second tower of the WTC collapses. (CCR)
10:30 AM: Rumsfeld finally enters the command center in the Pentagon. According to Brig. Gen. Montague Winfield says later that they were beginning to worry that he may have died in the crash by the time he appeared. All told, Rumsfeld was incommunicado for over an hour after the strike on the Pentagon. (CCR)
10:32 AM: According to the White House, Cheney calls Bush and warns him of an imminent threat to Air Force One. Cheney says that fighter escorts won't be available for 40 to 90 minutes. Cheney calls again at 10:41 to reiterate the warning. Three minutes later, Air Force One turns towards Louisiana, to eventually land at Barksdale AFB. No evidence of a threat to the President's plane ever surfaces; the entire story turns out to be fabricated by the White House. According to one expert observer, the specious threat did two things: it reinforced Cheney's argument that Bush should stay out of Washington, and gave Bush a strong reason for doing so. Apparently the closest thing to "proof" that can be offered is the inability of the FAA to locate three planes still aloft. One of the three planes turns out to be Flight 77, which struck the Pentagon an hour before (sources at the FAA claim that at this time, many officials still thought the Pentagon had been struck by a helicopter or a private plane); the other two planes land without incident, though one was reported to have crashed in Kentucky and was reported as such to the White House before the report could be confirmed to be false. (Visual Journalism)
10:39 AM: From his bunker underneath the White House, Vice President Cheney gives authorization for military aircraft to shoot down hijacked planes. "Pursuant to the president's instructions, I gave authorization for them to be taken out," Cheney tells Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, who is at the Pentagon. Cheney adds, "It's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out." Apparently Cheney is in error about aircraft already being shot down, though speculation about Flight 93 being shot out of the sky is never settled. The claim that Cheney authorized the shoot-downs is not made available until the 9/11 commission releases its report in June 2004, and is based on the interviews with Cheney and Bush. No notes from other officials or other documentation can be found to substantiate the claim. Newsweek magazine reports that commission staffers did not believe Cheney's account that he called Bush to get his approval for the shoot-down order. (Washington Post, Houston Chronicle)
10:45 AM: All federal buildings are ordered to be cleared. By this time, NYC Mayor Rudolph Giuliani is very prominent in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, visiting the sites, assisting in rescue attempts, and giving interviews. Giuliani is credited with providing the visible leadership that many Americans needed in the hours after the attacks. (CCR)
10:55 AM: Mark Tillman, the pilot of Air Force One, is informed that the plane is in danger from a rogue jetliner coming directly for them, a threat that is later determined to be false. Tillman hauls the aircraft into a steep climb, pulling it well out of the normal traffic patterns. Other than this evasive maneuver, there is very little Tillman or anyone else can do to defend Air Force One until fighter escorts appear. While a number of fighters do eventually appear to escort the President's plane, it is unclear when they first showed up. It does not make sense that fighters couldn't be on hand to escort Air Force One from the moment it took off; two of the seven bases already on alert, Homestead AFB and Tyndall AFB, are in Florida and certainly close enough to provide support almost immediately. Instead, the first two fighters to appear alongside Air Force One are Texas Air National Guard F-16s. By 11:30, six fighters are escorting Air Force One. (CCR)
11:00 AM: Skyscrapers and tourist attractions all over the US are ordered closed.
11:08 AM: A Korean jetliner is mistakenly reported hijacked as it approaches the western US. It is escorted into American airspace by two fighters, who inform the pilots that the plane will be shot down unless they comply with directions. The jetliner lands safely in Whitehorse, Canada, without incident. (CCR)
11:30 AM: General Wesley Clark, former NATO commander, says on live television that only one terrorist group, Osama bin Laden's, could have been responsible for the day's events. Clark says later that the morning of the attacks, he receives several phone calls urging him to say publicly that "this is connected. This is state-sponsored terrorism. This has to be connected to Saddam Hussein." Clark says he is willing, but needs proof. He receives no proof, but says he does receive "a lot of pressure to connect this and there were a lot of assumptions made." Clark is not specific about who makes the phone calls, but says they come from "people around the White House." (CCR)
11:45 AM: Air Force One lands without incident at Barksdale AFB in Shreveport, Louisiana. The official reason was that Bush needed to make a public statement, but behind-the-scenes reports indicate that the decision may have been made to get Bush out of the skies and on the ground as soon as possible. By noon, Bush arrives at Barksdale HQ in a Humvee, escorted by heavily armed outriders. Reporters traveling with Air Force One are not allowed to report where they are.
While cruising the southern American skies, Bush discusses the situation with Donald Rumsfeld by phone. "It's a day of national tragedy," he tells the Defense Secretary, "and we'll clean up the mess and then the ball will be in your court and [Joint Chiefs chairman] Dick Myers's court." (CCR, Bob Woodward)
12:00 noon: Sen. Orrin Hatch, a member of both Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees, reports that his briefing by the FBI led to the conclusion that bin Laden and al-Qaeda are behind the attacks. Five minutes later, FBI director Tenet informs Rumsfeld of the intercepted phone call to an al-Qaeda operative in the Republic of Georgia. Rumsfeld is not convinced; his notes show that the lead is "vague," that it "might not mean something," and that there is "no good basis for hanging hat." (CCR)
12:16 PM: The US skies are clear except for authorized law enforcement and military traffic. (CCR)
12:36 PM: Bush records a speech that will be broadcast 28 minutes later; Bush writes the speech on a napkin while being held in a secure and secret location somewhere in Barksdale AFB. The speech contains little information, except that security measures are being taken and that the perpetrators will be found out and punished. Many observers note that Bush appears strained, white-faced, and frightened. (The author of this timeline wrote shortly after the speech that "Bush appeared to be sitting in a warm pile of his own excrement.") (CCR)
12:58 PM: The remainder of Bush's time at Barksdale is spent on the phone with Cheney, arguing where he should be sent next. Just before 1, he agrees to be flown to Nebraska. More rumors of "credible threats" against Air Force One are circulating. (CCR)
1:00 PM: Bush receives reports that a hijacked plane is en route to his ranch in Crawford, Texas. The reports later turn out to be baseless; in fact, at 12:16, the US skies were determined to be "clear," with only about 50 flights still airborne, and all of those following their original flight plans and under close scrutiny. However, the reports give more reason for Bush to stay hidden. (CCR)
1:04 PM: Bush puts the military on high alert all over the world. (CCR)
1:27 PM: A state of emergency is declared in Washington DC. (CCR)
1:30 PM: Bush and a small entourage leaves Barksdale AFB for Offutt AFB in Nebraska. (CCR)
1:44 PM: The Navy sends aircraft carriers and guided missile destroyers to Washington and New York. Fighter planes are patrolling much of the country by now. (CCR)
2:00 PM: F-15 pilot Daniel Nash lands his F-16, where he is told that American fighters have shot down a fourth airliner over Pennsylvania. He states that he later learns the report is incorrect. (CCR)
2:40 PM: Rumsfeld learns from the CIA's study of flight manifests that at least three of the hijackers are known members of al-Qaeda. He begins planning retaliation. In his notes composed at this time (which are leaked almost one year later), he writes he wants the "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL. [Usama bin Laden] Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not." Note his immediate intention to link the attacks to Saddam Hussein (and the implied realization that Hussein is not involved), the intention to "go massive" and attack whether "things" are "related or not." (CCR)
2:50 PM: Bush lands at Offutt AFB, where he is escorted into an underground bunker built to withstand nuclear weapons. While in the bunker, he teleconferences with Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, CIA Director Tenet, Secretary of Transportation Mineta, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, and members of the National Security Council. During the conference, Tenet informs Bush that the attacks look like the work of al-Qaeda terrorists. The conference ends around 4:15. (CCR, Visual Journalism)
Later in the day, weapons are found planted on board three other US airplanes. A US official says of the hijackings: "These look like inside jobs." US officials are investigating if the hijackers had accomplices inside the airports' secure areas. Penetrating security doesn't appear to have been that difficult: Argenbright, the company in charge of security at all the airports used by the 9/11 hijackers, had virtually no security check on any of their employees, and even hired criminals and illegal immigrants. Security appears to have particularly abysmal at Boston's Logan Airport, even after 9/11. (CCR)
4:00 PM: Osama bin Laden's possible involvement is reported on CNN by a national security correspondant, who credits unnamed administration sources with the information. (CCR)
4:33 PM: Bush leaves Offutt AFB on board Air Force One, en route to Washington. It is on this flight that the famous photo of Bush speaking to Cheney on the phone, the photo used in Republican fund-raising efforts, is snapped. It is revealed in May 2002 by the Washington Post that the picture will shortly be used for fundraising efforts by the Republican Party, which offers "a specially commissioned, individually numbered and matted" reproduction of this "defining moment" for $150. One can be forgiven for thinking of infomercial marketing techniques. (CCR, Frank Rich pp.46-7)

Bush speaks to Cheney aboard Air Force One

5:20 PM: Building 7 of the World Trade Center complex collapses from ancillary damage. The building houses the mayor's eighth-floor bunker, built after the 1993 attack on the WTC. The command center stores over 130,000 gallons of oil. At the time of the bunker's construction, many objected to the inclusion of the oil, noting that if the WTC were attacked again, the oil would detonate, endangering buildings around it and poisoning Lower Manhattan with deadly PCBs. This is exactly what happens. (CCR, Amy and David Goodman)
5:30 PM: Unexplained explosions are noted in Kabul, Afghanistan. (CCR)
6:30 PM: Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld gives a press conference. (CCR)
6:54 PM: Bush arrives at the White House after landing in Air Force One and being shuttled to the White House by helicopter. (CCR, Visual Journalism)
7:00 PM: Secretary of State Colin Powell arrives in Washington from Lima, Peru. For the first time since the bombings, he is able to discuss the situation with Bush. Powell says that "communications problems" stopped him from being able to talk to anyone in the administration until he arrives in person. Insiders speculate that Powell is clearly out of favor with the administration, and no efforts to include him in the situational discussions were made until his arrival. (CCR)
8:30 PM: Bush addresses the nation a second time, this time from the White House, and tells his listeners, "Today, our nation saw evil." In his brief speech, he uses the word "evil" four times, setting the tone for the months and years to come. For the first time the so-called "Bush Doctrine" is introduced, where "no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them" will be made. US intelligence is unsure as yet who carried out the attacks, so Bush refrains from naming names or making specific allegations, but already he slants public perception by saying, "America was targeted for attack because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world," ignoring the US's role in global politics, particularly in the Middle East. (It is later determined that Bush's first suspicions centered around Iraq, and his entire planning for national retribution will target the Hussein regime of that country. Bob Woodward writes in his book about the invasion of Iraq, Bush at War, that "[t]he president wanted to kill somebody.")
This is the set-up for his simplistic assertion, which he still maintains, that America was attacked by "evil" enemies "who hate freedom." On September 12, he will assert that the US was attacked "because we embrace freedom." On September 13, he will assert, "These people can't stand freedom. They hate our values. They hate what America stands for." And in a commemorative service at the National Cathedral on September 14, he will say, "They have attacked America because we are freedom's home and defender." Interesting that Bush is sure of the motives of the attackers before he learns their identities. On September 14, after officials acknowledge that al-Qaeda is the most likely source of the attacks, Bush will inform the public that al-Qaeda "is a large, broad organization, based on one thing: terrorizing. They can't stand freedom. They hate what America stands for." Bush fails to note that many al-Qaeda members are former Afghan mujahedeen, typically characterized by the US government and the Western press as "freedom fighters." (CCR, Visual Journalism, David Corn, Peter Singer)
8:30 PM: Search warrants for various Florida addresses are issued. (CCR)
9:00 PM: The National Security Council meets in a full session, and Bush meets shortly afterwards with a smaller group of advisors. The consensus is that al-Qaeda is responsible for the attacks. Tenet informs Bush that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are essentially one and the same, and Bush responds that the US is through with the Taliban. (CCR)
10:21 PM: Bush goes to bed. His diary entry for the day includes the words, "The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. ...We think it's Osama bin Laden." (CCR, Killtown)
11:30 PM:: The Secret Service wakes the Bushes and hustles them into a secure bunker on the basis of a report that another plane may be heading for the White House. The report is a false alarm. (Visual Journalism)

The three terrorist strikes on 9/11 cost the country $33.4 billion in structural damage alone. Airline travel was suspended for days, the country's nuclear power stations were sealed off, Mount Rushmore, the NYSE, and Disneyland were closed, New York City's mayoral primary was rescheduled, telephone service across the Northeast were disrupted, major league baseball games were canceled, the Capital was evacuated, most government offices in Washington were closed until further notice, and the military was placed on high alert. (Lewis Lapham)

"'Bring 'em on,' the man said. He is not a brave man, but he plays one on television. When it came his turn to fight in a war, he hid behind Daddy. Then he had another drink and hid from the National Guard. Then he had another drink. When our nation was attacked on Sept. 11, he hid in an airplane, flying to and fro around the country. While our nation was crying for leadership, he was making sure the coast was clear. He later had his minions blame the Secret Service." -- Harley Sorenson, (San Francisco Chronicle)

"Is it luck that aberrant stock trades were not monitored? Is it luck when 15 visas are awarded based on incomplete forms? Is it luck when Airline Security screenings allow hijackers to board planes with box cutters and pepper spray? Is it luck when Emergency FAA and NORAD protocols are not followed? Is it luck when a national emergency is not reported to top government officials on a timely basis? To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck." -- Mindy Kleinberg, husband of one of the WTC victims, (9-11 Commission/Truthout)

Satirist Michael Moore asks the cogent question of the media's lack of curiosity about the connections between the Bush and bin Laden families, "If, after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it was revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican Party and the media would have done with that one? Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, like, 'What is that all about?' Be honest, you know the answer. They would have asked more than a couple of questions. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Gitmo." (Michael Moore)

The map linked here shows the flight paths of the four hijacked aircraft as they flew over some of the most heavily militarized areas of the United States. As Russ Kick of The Memory Hole asks, "The flights went through some of the most heavily militarized parts of the country, yet nothing could be done to stop them?" (The Memory Hole)
An NPR reporter is told by Congressman Ike Skelton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, that he was recently told by CIA Director Tenet that an imminent attack of this nature was likely. This directly contradicts what Tenet has said to the American public. (From the Wilderness)
In his 2002 book See No Evil, CIA agent and author Robert Baer writes, "Even by the standards of the terrorists involved, the scale of assault was unimaginable. The point, though, is that we didn't even try to find out what was headed our way." In 2004, former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, a Middle East and terrorism expert, writes in his book Imperial Hubris that Baer is wrong. "Not only was the scale of the 11 September attack imaginable," Scheuer writes, "but Mr. Baer and other intelligence officers -- often at the risk of their lives -- had spent most of a decade gathering and analyzing the intelligence that, had it been used fully and honestly, would have allowed all US leaders and, indeed, all Americans to know what sort of storm was approaching. Those officers knew a runaway train was coming at the United States, documented that fact, and then watched helplessly -- or were banished for speaking out -- as their senior leaders delayed action, downplayed intelligence, ignored repeated warnings, and generally behaved as what they so manifestly are, America's greatest generation -- of moral cowards." (Michael Scheuer)

Card lies about events of 9/11

Chief of Staff Andrew Card, who accompanies George W. Bush to Florida, later relates his explanation of the morning's events. "I was with the President in Sarasota, FL on 9/11. Just as the President was entering a room with elementary students, we were informed about a single plane hitting one of the World Trade Center Towers. The President and I thought it was a horrible accident -- a pilot heart attack or something. Once the President was in the room with the students, I received a call from the Situation Room that another plane had hit the second tower. I gathered my thoughts, deciding that the President should know, and succinctly -- two facts, one editorial comment. I walked into the room, trying not to be disruptive to the young students and whispered in the President's right ear, 'A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack!' I then stepped back so as not to invite a discussion. The President waited for an appropriate moment to excuse himself from the room. We then gathered in an adjoining room to learn more about the situation. It was an unbelievable day."
Much of this statement has now proven to be false. There are at least seven different versions of exactly how and when Bush was told of the first attack, all from various administration sources, including Bush himself, who has claimed at times to have watched the first attack on TV, a claim that is demonstrably false. It seems apparent from video evidence and other documentation that Bush was informed while exiting the motorcade and preparing to enter the school. Card claims that he and Bush first thought it was a "horrible accident," but again this is disproven by the FAA's contact with the Secret Service, which informed Bush's entourage that a hijacked plane had crashed into the WTC and at least two more planes had been hijacked. Card also states that the President waited for an appropriate moment to excuse himself, when he gathered his staff to discuss the situation. This is also false; according to the videotape made at the school, Bush listened to Card's whispered message and continued reading. He then talked with the students, talked with the teacher, and posed for photos, all of which took over twenty minutes, before he finally conferred with his staff and decided to leave for Lousiana. (SFGate/Killtown)
Senator Orrin Hatch reveals that the US government has been monitoring bin Laden's communications, and overheard two bin Laden aides celebrating the attacks. "They have an intercept of some information that included people associated with bin Laden who acknowledged a couple of targets were hit." Rumsfeld denouces the report as an unauthorized release of classified information. Asked why there is such a delay between the time of the communications and the receipt of the intercepts, the head of the NSA explains that bin Laden, who is currently holed up in a cave in Afghanistan, "has better technology" than the US intelligence community, which is allocated $30 billion a year. (CCR)

US media manipulates coverage to falsely show Arabs rejoicing over attack

American television news channels repeatedly show video footage of what is described as Palestinians rejoicing over the 9/11 attack. According to Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at New York University who investigated the issue, the footage was filmed during the funeral of nine people killed the day before by Israeli authorities. He says "to show it without explaining the background, and to show it over and over again is to make propaganda...and is irresponsible." (CCR)

Bush and bin Laden family members watch coverage of attacks together at Washington hotel

George H.W. Bush and members of the bin Laden family, including Shafig bin Laden, brother of Osama, watch the events of the day unfold together during an investors' meeting of the Carlyle Group, along with James Baker III, Frank Carlucci, and others, at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Washington, D.C. The Carlyle Group is a company closely associated with officials of the Bush and Reagan administrations, and has considerable ties to Saudi oil money, including ties to the bin Laden family. Between military and construction contracts and oil company connections, the Carlyle Group has made millions off the events following 9/11. (Greg Palast, Killtown)
Within hours of the attacks, Governor Jeb Bush of Florida declares a state of emergency. He is the first governor to do so, even before New York or Washington. (CCR)

Unconstitutional "shadow government" formed

Shortly after the attacks, a "shadow government" is formed. Initially deployed "on the fly," executive directives on government continuity in the face of a crisis dating back to the Reagan administration are put into effect. Under the rubric of the "Continuity of Government" plan, approximately 100 midlevel officials are moved to underground bunkers and stay there 24 hours a day. Officials rotate in and out on a 90-day cycle. When its existence is revealed, some controversy arises because of the exclusion of any Democrats from it. In fact, top Congressional Democrats had never even heard of it until Washington Post journalists broke the story in March 2002. One administration official claims the entire plan was devised "on the fly" in the hours following the attacks; in reality, the plans are similar to those developed by Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld during their tenure in the Reagan administration. Cheney's extended absences from Washington during the following year is part of the COG operation. The plans will be modified and extended by the Department of Homeland Security in the following years. (CCR, Washington Post)
Former Israeli prime minister Benjamin (Binyamin) Netanyahu, when asked what the 9/11 attacks mean for relations between the US and Israel, replies, "It's very good." Then he edited himself: "Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy." A week later, the Village Voice states, "From national networks to small-town newspapers, the view that America's terrible taste of terrorism will finally do away with even modest calls for the restraint of Israel's military attacks on Palestinian towns has become an instant, unshakable axiom.... Now, support for Israel in America is officially absolute, and Palestinians are cast once again as players in a global terrorist conspiracy." (CCR)
From his jail cell, Zacarias Moussauoi watches coverage of the attacks, and cheers. Within an hour of the attacks, the Minnesota FBI asks again for a search warrant to search Moussaoui's computer and belongings. Inexplicably, higher FBI authorities still try to block the warrant, saying that the connections between Moussaoui and the hijackings are mere coincidence. That afternoon, a federal judge approves the warrant. The search confirms the connections between Moussaoui and al-Qaeda, and discover plans for an attack using crop dusters, but no direct connections between Moussaoui and the hijackers are uncovered. Other connections between Moussaoui and Mohammed Atta, and between Moussaoui and a Malaysian terrorist group affiliated with al-Qaeda, are discovered. (CCR)
Amy Goodman writes, "Within hours of the attack, evidence began emerging that suggested that this was yet another case of what has come to be known as blowback -- how backing despots in far-off places inevitably comes back to haunt us at home. If we learn anything from September 11 and the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, it should be that there will be a price to pay every time our government backs thugs and torturers abroad -- or becomes one of them." (Amy and David Goodman)

Bush admits not returning to Washington in concern for his own safety

Instead of trying to immediately return to the White House, as had been previously asserted by the White House, George W. Bush admitted on Tuesday, May 21, 2002, that he was primarily concerned with getting himself "out of harm's way." As reported in the Los Angeles Times, "Bush's initial conduct on Sept. 11 came under scrutiny because he did not immediately return to Washington. When the first airliner crashed into the World Trade Center, he was in Sarasota, Fla., to speak on education reform. Bush and his entourage flew to two highly secure Air Force bases -- one in Louisiana, the other in Nebraska -- before arriving in Washington that evening. 'I mean, I was trying to get out of harm's way,' Bush said." (CCR)

Bush lies about his actions on the morning of 9/11

After September 11, Bush spins a tale for the American people that David Corn terms a "deceptively simplistic explanation of this catastrophe." Bush explains the attacks as being caused by America's love for freedom. "America was targeted for attack," he repeatedly said, "because we're the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world." Corn calls this "a comic-book interpretation of the event that covered up complexities and denied Americans information crucial for developing a full understanding of the attacks. ...Osama bin Laden was a would-be conqueror of the world, a man motivated solely by irrational evil, who killed for the purpose of destroying freedom." The reality is much more complex. State Department terrorism experts as well as private experts concluded that "bin Laden was motivated by a specific geostrategic and theological aim: to chase the United States out of the Middle East in order to ease the way for a fundamentalist takeover of the region." Bin Laden struck at the US over its Middle East policies, not because of a villainous hatred for freedom and prosperity. "Rather than acknowledge the realities of bin Laden's war on America, Bush attempted to create and perpetuate a war-on-freedom myth." (The Nation)
Bush will tell the nation more lies than the above after 9/11. He will say a few days after the attack, "No one could have conceivably imagined suicide bombers burrowing into our society and then emerging all in the same day to fly their aircraft -- fly US aircraft -- into buildings full of innocent people." Administration officials will perpetuate this story for months. They are wrong, and they know it. Terrorism experts had briefed both Clinton and Bush officials on the very possibility for years. Similar plots, most memorably "Operation Bojinka," had been thwarted in the past. Literally hundreds of warnings about just such strikes had been passed along to the US government before 9/11. (The Nation)
The lies will continue. In November 2002, Bush will say, "We must uncover every detail and learn every lesson of September the 11th." However, he and his administration will expend a tremendous amount of energy doing the exact opposite. His White House will refuse to turn over crucial information about a pre-9/11 intelligence briefing to the intelligence committees, and his administration will refuse to allow the committees to tell the public what intelligence warnings Bush had received before September 11. Even more memorably, Bush will refuse to declassify the 27-page portion of the committees' final report that detailed the connections between the attacks and Saudi Arabia. After the attacks, Bush told the nation again and again that his Administration was doing everything possible to secure the nation. Again, Bush will lie in saying these things. His administration has not yet moved to address the most serious and gaping security concerns facing America, including vulnerabilities at chemical plants and ports and a huge shortfall in resources for first responders. (The Nation)
Philip Taubman writes, "Until September 11, 2001, American spy agencies were still largely creatures of the cold war, designed to collect intelligence about static espionage targets like Soviet airfields, missile bases, shipyards, and easily identifiable military activities such as the movement of tank divisions and fuel tankers. High-flying spy planes and sophisticated spy satellites, when properly utilized, were ideal instruments for monitoring the Soviet Union and its allies, verifying compliance with arms control agreements, and warning the United States if hostile military forces were being readied for war. But the spy machinery of the cold war -- and the lumbering government institutions that were built to operate and maintain it -- are not well matched to the task of gathering intelligence about terrorist groups. Terrorists are everything Soviet military forces were not: invisible, elusive, improvisational, and cunningly creative. Spy satellites can provide pictures of their training camps and intercept their communications if they are careless about the telephone systems they use, but satellites cannot supply the kind of round-the-clock surveillance that is required to detect unfolding plots, and they offer no help in recruiting sources inside terror cells. These are jobs that can only be performed by seasoned spies who have studied the languages, customs, and operational practices of groups like al-Qaeda and have cultivated allies within the intelligence services of countries like Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel that are more knowledgeable about Islamic terrorist organizations. Such spies, known as case officers at the CIA, are in short supply in the Agency's clandestine service after years of insufficient investment in human spying.
"Over the years, the high cost of building spy satellites, and the tendency to see them as a magic potion that would solve most intelligence problems, led Washington to neglect other aspects of the spy game. ...The CIA, which began upgrading its antiterrorist capabilities before the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, will be scrambling for years to assemble the army of expert field agents and covert operatives that the country must have if it is to dismantle terror networks and prevent further attacks. ...Ironically, one of the reasons Washington was unprepared for Osama bin Laden was that over the years it had come to rely heavily on spy satellites and other sophisticated hardware. The machines, which were made for tracking Soviet missiles and tanks, were not as adept at monitoring terrorist plots. The high cost of building and operating satellites also consumed such a large chunk of the intelligence budget that more conventional espionage activities tended to be shortchanged. This included the maintenance of a worldwide corps of experienced field officers who might have a chance to penetrate terrorist groups. And the giant intelligence organizations which grew up around spy satellites were hobbled by senseless bureaucratic rivalries and independent reporting channels that impeded efforts to pull together signs of terrorist activity when they were detected by different agencies." (Philip Taubman)
Before September 11, communications intercepts obtained by the National Security Agency were allowed to pile up, untranslated and unread, because the NSA did not have nearly enough Arabic translators to process the information from the Middle East and Central Asia. A number of conversations picked up from Afghani sources on September 10 were not translated until September 12; the conversations alluded to a major terrorist strike scheduled for the 11th on American targets. It is possible that the conversations, though they did not include specific information about the location and nature of the upcoming attacks, may have alerted US intelligence enough to allow the attacks to be prevented. (Philip Taubman)
In mid-October, former Green Beret Stan Goff writes of his inability to believe the 9/11 scenario as told by the US government and the American media. "Follow along: Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plans, all the while on FAA radar. The planes are all hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10 AM Eastern Daylight Time. Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read. By around 8:15 AM, it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handing teachers. By 8:45, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the World Trade Center, Bush is settling in with children for his photo ops at Booker Elementary. Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously, an event never before seen in history, and one has just dived into the world's best know twin towers, and still no one notifies the nominal Commander in Chief. No one has apparently scrambled any Air Force interceptors, either.
"At 9:03, United Flight 175 crashes into the remaining World Trade Center building. At 9:05, Andrew Card, the Presidential Chief of Staff whispers to George W. Bush. Bush 'briefly turns somber,' according to reporters. Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second graders read about a little girl's pet f*cking goat, and continues this banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington, DC. Has he instructed Chief of Staff Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they already have figured out; that there's been an attack by hijacked planes on the World Trade Center. There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No. At 9:30, when he makes his announcement, American Flight 77 is still ten minutes from its target, the Pentagon. The Administration will later claim they had no way of knowing that the Pentagon might be a target, and that they thought Flight 77 was headed to the White House, but the fact is that the plane has already flown South and past the White House no-fly zone, and is in fact tearing through the sky at over 400 knots. At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 degrees over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC.
"Now, the real kicker: A pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral, descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of this building at 460 knots. When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on I-40 at rush hour by buying her a video driving game.
"...There is a story being constructed about these events. My crystal ball is not working today, so I can't say why. But at the least, this so-called Commander-in-Chief and his staff that we are all supposed to follow blindly into some ill-defined war on terrorism is criminally negligent or unspeakably stupid. And at the worst, if more is known or was known, and there is an effort to conceal the facts, there is a criminal conspiracy going on. Certainly, the Bush de facto administration was facing a confluence of crises from which they were temporarily rescued by this event. Whether they played a sinister role or not, there is little doubt that they have at the very least opportunistically pounced on this attack to overcome their lack of legitimacy, to shift the blame for the encroaching recession from capitalism to the September 11th terror attack, to legitimize their pre-existing foreign policy agenda, and to establish and consolidate repressive measures domestically and silence dissent. In many ways, September 11th pulled the Bush cookies out of the fire. And given them the green light to begin constructing a long-term scenario within which to establish fascistic control measures at home and abroad as a citadel for the ruling class in the catastrophic conjuncture that we are entering based on the end of oil. ...If the official story is a lie, and I think the circumstantial case is strong enough to stay with this question, then we really do need to know what happened. And we need to understand concretely what the motives of this administration are. And we need to understand more than just their immediate motives, but where the larger social forces that underwrite our situation right now are headed. I do not think this administration is engaged in the deliberative process of a political grouping that is on top of their game. They are putting together some very deliberative technical solutions in response to a larger situation that it slipping rapidly out of their control." (Narco News/Pravda)
Amy Goodman writes, "We will never know exactly how many people died on September 11, 2001. Those who were uncounted in life go uncounted in death. Numerous undocumented immigrants who worked in and around the World Trade Center simply vanished. Their families are still afraid to come forward because of what could happen. They could be detained or even deported because of the increasingly close relationship between police and immigration authorities. Some companies were not willing to come forward to name the undocumented workers they had employed for decades. We will never know the names of these missing." (Amy and David Goodman)

Back to Hell Yes, They Knew | On to Subsequent Events

THIS FAR AND NO FURTHER

A Timeline of Events Surrounding the Radical Right's Attempt to Subvert American Democracy

Written and Compiled by Black Max