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New details have emerged about the communications and protocol failures that happened in the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, including the breakdown of the "continuity of government" plan among the presidential successors:
Based on a review of newly unclassified documents, memoirs and other published accounts, and interviews with U.S. officials, NBC News has learned that:
- Three dozen live nuclear weapons were aboard U.S. Air Force bombers at three airbases when al Qaeda struck New York and Washington.
- Because of inadequate communications equipment and procedures, top U.S. officials couldn't talk to each other or to anyone else. Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to speak to Bush to know why the U.S. was preparing to go to DEFCON 3 — but the White House couldn't put him through to Air Force One. Bush had no way to receive phone calls.
- After Bush left Florida, where he had been reading a book to schoolkids, his plane was low on fuel but for hours had nowhere to land.
- Most of the top 10 people in the president's line of succession, including Vice President Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, either refused to follow the protocol and go to their designated secure sites, or were out of the country, or were never contacted.
- Now-disgraced Speaker of the House Denny Hastert, third in line, observed protocol and was taken to an underground bunker in the Blue Ridge Mountains. But that left him out of touch with all other top government leaders.
- Attorney General John Ashcroft was in a government plane and tried to return to Washington, but was turned away by the FAA.
- Education Secretary Rod Paige, 16th in line to the White House, was left on the tarmac in Sarasota, Florida. He rented a car and drove back to Washington.
[...] Perhaps the biggest newly uncovered secret is that on the morning of 9/11, when Al Qaeda struck New York and Washington, the Pentagon's annual "Global Guardian" war game was in full swing. Three dozen real nuclear weapons had been loaded onboard intercontinental bombers in North Dakota, Missouri, and Louisiana.
[...] With U.S. forces worldwide going on alert, the U.S. ambassador to Moscow, Alexander Vershbow, called the White House Situation Room: Russian President Vladimir Putin "wanted to speak with Bush." Coincidently, the Russians were in the middle of their own nuclear war exercise and their intelligence had now detected telltale signs of enhanced American force posture. For 30 minutes, White House communicators tried to establish a secure line between Air Force One and the Kremlin, finally giving up. Russian-speaking National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice then got on the phone with the Russian president to agree on a cooperative stand-down.
This will be great fodder for my alternate history novel featuring President John Dennis "Denny" Hastert.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @02:13AM
Around here, the local TVs and web news seem focused in the the twin towers, barely mentioning other WTC buildings. And nothing about Pentagon or the other airplane. Videos and pictures of airplanes hitting the towers and creating holes bigger than them, towers collapsing, people running, people digging the rubble... all the NYC "spectacle". But the things outside NYC are missing.
Any idea? Simplication to keep the drums going?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SomeGuy on Monday September 12 2016, @02:53AM
Yes, that is exactly what it is. The media doesn't care about facts or history, they care about raking in advertising dollars, so they feed the public the minimum to keep them scared and tuned to their channel.
Over the years, they have hardly said anything at all about that fourth plane that went down in the field. And the story they tell about passengers rebelling and forcing it down never sounded quite right.
Anyway, I dare say there are probably more surprising and unpleasant facts out there about what happened, but you won't hear about them unless they are the kind that bring in advertising dollars.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Monday September 12 2016, @04:48AM
The pilot who followed protocol to shoot that plane down died of a heart attack a week after saying so in an interview. But don't take my word for it; do your own research and come to your own conclusions.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 12 2016, @12:29PM
Uhhhhhh - citations, please? I've heard a couple rounds of the rumor mill saying that plane was shot down, but that doesn't really add up. The wreckage was confined to such a small area, it's not possible that the craft was shot down from altitude. The plane that was shot down in Ukrainia rained bits and pieces down on square miles of real estate.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @05:18PM
first the coroner was questioning stuff. after getting a good talking to, he's nothing but reverence. nothing to see here folks, move along.
(Score: 2) by dry on Tuesday September 13 2016, @03:16AM
Shortly after 9/11 someone posted a bunch of citations on the green site. I went to most of them, mostly small newspapers, and the evidence was that the plane was lost at altitude with pieces of wreckage on the other side of a mountain, there was also a story about the young air-force pilot dieing from a heart attack. The evidence seemed to point to , in no particular order, the plane being shot down, the plane breaking up trying to evade being shot down, and the plane breaking up during the passenger revolt. Unluckily the citations vanished not long after. I also remember the news reports about the plane being shot down.
There were a lot of weirdness's about 9/11, whether a full blown conspiracy or more likely, a bunch of big egos refusing to look at/consider the evidence or worse, thinking "let it happen". Just look at this story about how unready the upper echelons were.
(Score: 2) by Squidious on Monday September 12 2016, @02:21PM
The two F-16s scrambled to take out flight 93 were unarmed because they had just finished a training exercise. The pilots were prepared to crash their fighters into the passenger jet, one at the cockpit and the other at the tail. But the passengers rushed the cockpit and flight 93 went down before the F-16s completed their plan.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/f-16-pilot-was-ready-to-give-her-life-on-sept-11/2015/09/06/7c8cddbc-d8ce-11e0-9dca-a4d231dfde50_story.html [washingtonpost.com]
The terrorists have won, game, set, match. They've scared the people into electing authoritarian regimes.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @05:05PM
the washington post you say? consider that conspiracy theory thoroughly debunked then. give me a break...
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Monday September 12 2016, @02:30PM
Over the years, they have hardly said anything at all about that fourth plane that went down in the field.
Other than making a couple movies about it...
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday September 12 2016, @03:51AM
About 87% of the victims were in or around the WTC, not counting people and hijackers on the planes. There's also a lot more video footage of the WTC attacks than the Pentagon, including obviously, good coverage of the second plane.
Also, people watching the news that day were watching continuous footage of the WTC, and many caught the second plane live. That makes the event that much more memorable.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @06:21AM
> Any idea? Simplication to keep the drums going?
Because there is practically no footage of all the other sites.
WTC hits, collapse and rebuild have tons and tons of video to pick from.
It does not take a conspiracy to explain why the proportions of coverage
are equal to the proportions of available source material.
Its like complaining that the tens of millions of people eating McDonalds are brainwashed sheeple.
No, its just that McDonalds is freaking everywhere and convenience counts for a lot.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @05:27PM
there was plenty of footage of the pentagon missile strike and probably more of wtc 7 controlled demolition, but it was confiscated by the feds. The lease holder larry silverstein is on video saying it was a controlled demolition but that's not what the 9/11 commission report says nor the media, nor boot licking idiots.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p34XrI2Fm6I [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by TheRaven on Monday September 12 2016, @09:41AM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @05:42PM
Simply because the news media are based in NY, and historically, anything that happens in NYC is greatly exaggerated in importance. Think back on a top 10 list of greatest sports moments in football and baseball. How many of them involve NY teams? Most of them. Winning on a walk-off home run happens occasionally, but Bobby Thompson's "shot heard around the world" is one of the greatest. And the "Greatest Game Ever Played"? The 1958 game that involved the Giants at Yankee Stadium. Didn't you know that the whole reason the Knicks won the 1970 championship was because Willis Reed "inspired" his team by playing with bad knees? He scored four points in that game while Frazier scored almost 40, but it was this single most heroic act ever seen before or since!
Crash land an airplane in the Hudson River and get a movie made about you. Do it anywhere else in the world and it is not even front page news and no movie deals.
That's what we get with having all the media in NYC. They elevate the commonplace to the most incredible events ever seen!