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posted by janrinok on Monday September 12 2016, @01:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the follow-the-rules dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @03:43AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 12 2016, @03:43AM (#400502)

    Don't know how that one made the list.
    Air Force One, like essentially every USAF aircraft can do air-to-air refueling [wordpress.com] and can stay airborne until the pilot|flight crew is exhausted.

    -- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday September 12 2016, @12:36PM

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday September 12 2016, @12:36PM (#400667) Journal

    Yeah, that was the first thought through my mind. "WTF? AF1 can't do midair refueling? Huh? I know that I've read that one or another of the president's planes CAN do midair refueling!" I was allowing for the possibility that maybe the refueling capable craft had been retired or something. In for repairs? Maybe it was at the beech with the little beech craft? But, however I looked at it, it just didn't make sense. Air Force One has first dibs on fuel, no matter where it is, and the Air Force will get the fuel to it.

    • (Score: 2) by EQ on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:58AM

      by EQ (1716) on Tuesday September 13 2016, @01:58AM (#401065)

      There were no refuelers in the air near where it was flying, and there was thought to be a threat against Airforce1 so they were circling out over the Gulf of Mexico, a few hours flight time from where most tankers are based (central part of the US). When they landed at Barksdale, they didn't identify on radio (other than IFF), and Barksdale had no official clue of who it was except for deducing the fact that it was the only large military aircraft likely flying at that time.