Flight Official Ch.15

CHAPTER 15 - VICE PRESIDENT CHENEY
Summary
(1) Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta said in testimony and media interviews that he observed Vice President Dick Cheney in the PEOC shortly after 9:20 being given intermittent real-time information about Flight 77’s location as it approached Washington D.C. At the same time, Mineta spoke on the phone with FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger, who corroborated the same locations. Cheney then confirmed an order he gave before Mineta entered the room. Mineta inferred this to be a shoot-down order (Com-Mineta MFR, ABC-Mineta, MSNBC-Mineta), while others alleged it was a stand-down order, as we will discuss shortly. The 9/11 Commission omitted Mineta’s testimony from its report and removed it from its archives (MSNBC-Ventura).

Mineta’s timeline harmonized with numerous eyewitnesses and media reports which said that Cheney was evacuated from his office just after the second plane hit the World Trade Center at 9:03 and/or arrived in the PEOC before Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37. Sources included the New York Times, Telegraph, President Bush’s personal secretary Ashley Estes (CBS-Estes), White House Photographer David Bohrer (ABC-Bohrer), White House advisor Karl Rove (NBC-Rove), and White House Terrorism Advisor Richard Clarke (Clarke, ABC-Clark).

(2) Nevertheless, the 9/11 Commission said Cheney remained in his office until just before the Flight 77 impact and then sat on a bench in the tunnel leading to the PEOC talking on the phone with President Bush until nearly 10 AM (Com-pg. 39-40) despite the PEOC being equipped with all the latest communications technology for coordinating America’s defenses (NYT-Cheney). To support its narrative, the 9/11 Commission cited informal remarks by Bush, the Cheney’s, Rice, and classified Secret Service sources (Com-pg. 39-40, 463-464 FN 204, 208-210, 213). The 9/11 Commission staff did not believe Cheney’s account but was pressured by the White House not to convey their skepticism (Newsweek). The Chairman acknowledged a lack of certainty and documentation to corroborate the 9/11 Commission’s narrative (CBC-Hamilton).

(3) As we have already seen, numerous sources agreed that the FAA, the White House/Secret Service, and the military tracked Flight 77 in real-time during its approach to Washington D.C., which would logically have led to Cheney’s immediate evacuation to the PEOC by the Secret Service. However, the 9/11 Commission claimed the opposite, citing one interview with a low-level NMCC officer (Major Chambers) and one phone 10:34 phone call between a Washington controller and a NEADS technician that did not prove the 9/11 Commission’s narrative.

We have also already seen that numerous sources agreed that the FAA, the White House/Secret Service, and the military tracked Flight 93 in real-time during its approach to Washington D.C. and that Cheney passed on timely presidential shoot-down authorization to one or more fighters which were in a position to shoot down Flight 93 just before it crashed. (Two additional media sources which reported timely shoot-down authorization include CNN and U.S. News and World Report.)

However, the 9/11 Commission said the Secret Service did not become aware that Flight 93 was approaching Washington D.C. until about the time it crashed, citing alternative classified Secret Service sources and the NMCC teleconference “transcript” (Com-pg. 41. 464 FN 217). As we have seen, this “transcript” was completely rewritten by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Secretary’s office to make it “more accurate” than the original real-time transcript, which remains classified.

The 9/11 Commission also claimed Cheney did not receive presidential shoot-down authorization until he called Bush after entering the PEOC at 10 AM, despite there being no documentary evidence to confirm the existence of the call (Com-pg. 40-41, 464 FN 216). The 9/11 Commission then ridiculously claimed Cheney mistakenly ordered the shoot-down of Flight 93 about fifteen minutes after it crashed, while he, the Secret Service, the PEOC, the NMCC, and all parties on the NMCC teleconference somehow mistakenly believed they were tracking the location of Flight 93 in real-time as being first 60 miles then 80 miles from a NORAD fighter jet (Com-pg. 40-41). To support this sequence, the 9/11 Commission cited informal remarks by Bush, the Cheney’s, Scooter Libby, Ari Fleischer, and Josh Bolton. It also cited NMCC teleconference “transcript” (Com-pg. 464-465 FN 218-222).

Citing an interview with an unknown, undocumented, non-credentialed individual named Tim Grovack, the 9/11 Commission dubiously speculated that the NMCC teleconference participants must have been watching a projection of where Flight 93 would have been having it not crashed instead of its actual radar return (Com-pg. 41, 464 FN 217). Like John and Charles Thomas (who purportedly reviewed all Flight 77 evidence,) Tim Grovack’s name is found nowhere in the 9/11 Commission’s online MFR (Memoranda for the Record) archives (National Archives) or in its 145-page “Finding Aid” which purports to list all interview subjects and materials (Com-Finding Aid).

(4) Numerous notable individuals alleged that Cheney and/or the military may have deliberately stood down America’s defenses during the 9/11 attacks, echoing about 36 percent of Americans polled in 2006 (Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Chronicle).

Several of those individuals were members of the “Consensus 9/11 Panel” – an organization whose indictments of official 9/11 narratives have been covered by numerous media outlets such as NBC News, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Daily Mail, Telegraph, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, PR Newswire, and MarketWatch. The organization has analyzed a series of “Consensus 9/11 Points” upon which all members agree there are insurmountable inconsistencies between public domain evidence and current official narratives.

Consensus 9/11 Panel members have included:

David Ray Griffin (Nobel Prize nominee, theology professor, author of numerous 9/11 books)
Morgan Reynolds (Department of Labor Chief Economist under President George W. Bush)
Robert Bowman (directed the “Star Wars” missile defense program under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter)
Steven Jones (BYU Physics Professor, Principal Researcher for US Department of Energy’s Division of Advanced Energy Projects 1982-1991)
Andreas von Buelow (German Parliament member, and Secretary of State for the German Ministry of Defense) (Consensus 9/11)

Additionally, stand down allegations have been leveled by:

Barbara Honegger (White House Policy Analyst under President Ronald Reagan, Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, author of the famous 1989 political exposé, October Surprise) (Honegger)
Michael Meacher (British Cabinet Member and perennial Parliament Member) (Guardian-Meacher)
Jesse Ventura (former Minnesota State Governor) (Ventura, MSNBC- Ventura)

(5) Barbara Honegger (Honegger) and media reports by Washington Post, Time, and Telegraph asserted surface-to-air missiles were ready to shoot down airborne threats in Washington D.C., but the Defense Department (DOD) and White House Terrorism Advisor Richard Clark (Com-Clarke Test) made statements to the contrary. President Bush’s location was repeatedly protected by surface-to-air missiles in the months leading up to 9/11, including in response to reports that Al Qaeda was planning to assassinate him and other world leaders using hijacked commercial airliners (CNN, Los Angeles Times, Sarasota Herald-Tribune).

(1) Sources:
ABC News, 9/11/2002, “9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings,” interviews of Secretary Mineta and White House Photographer David Bohrer
ABC News, 9/14/2002, “Moment of Crisis (Part 2): Sept. 11 Scramble,” quoting White House Photographer David Bohrer
ABC News, 11/29/2003, “Cheney Wields Unprecedented V.P. Power” (includes excerpt of Richard Clarke interview with Ted Koppel)
CBS’ 60 Minutes II, 8/29/2002, “Interview with Ashley Estes”
MSNBC, 9/11/2002, “Norman Mineta 9/11 Interview” by Robert Hager
MSNBC, 3/8/2010, “Jesse Ventura Claims Gov’t Involved in 9/11”
NBC News, 9/11/2002, “Karl Rove: 9/11 Interview” with Campbell Brown
New York Times, 9/13/2001, “Inside the Bunker”
Richard Clarke, 2004 book, “Against All Enemies,” (pgs. 1-8)
Telegraph, 12/16/2001, “Revealed: What Really Went on During Bush’s ‘Missing Hours’”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing Transcript (Testimony of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta)

(2) Sources:
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/21/2006, “9/11: Truth, Lies and Conspiracy,” (interview of 9/11 Commission Chairman Lee Hamilton)
New York Times, 9/16/2001, “Text of Vice President Cheney's Remarks on ‘Meet the Press’”
Newsweek, 2/26/2006, “The Shot Heard Round the World”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 39-40, 463-464 (FN 204, 208-210, 213)

(3) Sources:
CNN, 9/4/2002, “‘The Pentagon Goes to War’: National Military Command Center”
National Archives Website, “9/11 Commission Memoranda for the Record (MFRs)”
U.S. News and World Report, 8/31/2003, “Pieces of the Puzzle – A Top-Secret Conference Call on September 11 Could Shed New Light on the Terrorist Attacks”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 40-41, 463-464 (FN 216-222)
9/11 Commission, undated, “The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States; Finding Aid: Series Descriptions and Folder Title Lists”

(4) Sources:
Associated Press, 9/1/2006, “Religious Book Points 9/11 Finger at Bush”
Barbara Honegger, 9/6/2006, “THE PENTAGON ATTACK PAPERS; Seven Hours in September: The Clock that Broke the Lie”
Consensus 9/11 Website, 2021, “Panel Members”
Consensus 9/11 Website, 2020, “Point MC-3: The Claim about the Time of Dick Cheney’s Entry into the White House Bunker”
Daily Mail, 9/5/2006, “Fury as Academics Claim 9/11 was ‘Inside Job’”
Daily Mail, 2/9/2007, “An Explosion of Disbelief”
Guardian, 9/6/2003, “This War on Terrorism is Bogus,” by Michael Meacher, British Parliament Member and Environment Minister (Cabinet Member) 1997 to 2003
Guardian, 9/5/2006, “Who Really Blew Up the Twin Towers”
Los Angeles Times, 8/28/2005, “Getting Agnostic About 9/11”
MarketWatch, 6/5/2012, “Expert Panel Reports False Accounts of U.S. Political and Military Leaders on 9/11”
MSNBC, 3/8/2010, “Jesse Ventura Claims Gov’t Involved in 9/11”
NBC, 11/16/2005, “Questioning What Happened on 9/11”
New York Post, 11/24/2001, “Blame U.S. for 9/11: ‘Plots’ Thicken in Shocking Poll”
New York Times, 9/2/2006, “2 U.S. Reports Seek to Counter Conspiracy Theories About 9/11”
PR Newswire, 3/1/2006, “Experts Call for Release of 9/11 Evidence”
PR Newswire, 5/6/2011, “Obama Says ‘Justice Has Been Done’: Bin Laden Scholar Says No”
PR Newswire, 9/9/2011, “New Investigative Panel Releases 13 Consensus Statements of Evidence Opposing the Official Account of 9/11”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/3/2006, “The Conspiracy to Rewrite 9/11,” (opinion)
Telegraph, 11/20/2003, “German Sept 11 Theory Stokes Anti-US Feeling”
Washington Post, 9/8/2006, “The Disbelievers”
Washington Post, 10/2/2010, “9/11 Conspiracy Theories Rife in Muslim World”

(5) Sources:
Barbara Honegger, 9/6/2006, “THE PENTAGON ATTACK PAPERS; Seven Hours in September: The Clock that Broke the Lie”
CNN, 7/18/2001, “Genoa Braces for G8 Summit”
Department of Defense, 2007 (completed; published 2013), “Pentagon 9/11,” pg. 152
Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001, “Italy Tells of Threat at Genoa Summit”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002, “The Day Before Everything Changed, President Bush Touched Locals’ Lives”
Telegraph, 9/16/2001, “Israeli Security Issued Urgent Warning to CIA of Large-Scale Terror Attacks”
Washington Post, 12/12/1983, “Magazine Says White House Protected by Ground-to-Air Missiles”
9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004, Public Hearing Transcript: Testimony of Former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, National Security Council Richard A. Clarke

Extensive Evidence Says Cheney In PEOC Before 9:20; Gives Orders Concerning Flight 77
As we learned previously, in testimony before the 9/11 Commission and in media interviews, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta stated that Vice President Dick Cheney was already in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) when he arrived there at 9:20 and that Cheney was given continuous real-time information about Flight 77’s location as it approached Washington as Mineta simultaneously spoke on the phone with FAA deputy administrator Monte Belger, who corroborated the same location.

When Flight 77 was just ten miles from the White House, Cheney angrily confirmed an order he had given concerning the plane before Mineta entered the room. Mineta inferred this was a shoot-down command, but never knew this with certainty. Here is part of Mineta’s exchange with the 9/11 Commissioners:

Hamilton: “I wanted to focus just a moment on the Presidential Emergency Operating Center… I think you were there with the vice president… I think it was by the president, that authorized the shooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to be controlled by terrorists, were you there when that order was given?”

Mineta: “No, I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, ‘The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out.’”

“And when it got down to, ‘The plane is 10 miles out,’ the young man also said to the vice president, ‘Do the orders still stand?’ And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, ‘Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?’ Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant.”

Hamilton: “The flight you're referring to is the…”

Mineta: “The flight that came into the Pentagon.”

Hamilton: “Let me see if I understand. The plane that was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away, there was an order to shoot that plane down.”

Mineta: “Well, I don't know that specifically…”

Roemer: “I want to follow up on what happened in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center… you had not been in the room when the decision was made – to what you inferred was a decision made to attempt to shoot down Flight 77 before it crashed into the Pentagon. Is that correct?”

Mineta: “I didn't know about the order to shoot down. I arrived at the PEOC at about 9:20 a.m.”

Roemer: “So when you arrived at 9:20, how much longer was it before you overheard the conversation between the young man and the vice president saying, ‘Does the order still stand?’”

Mineta: “Probably about five or six minutes.”

Roemer: “So about 9:25 or 9:26. And your inference was that the vice president snapped his head around and said, ‘Yes, the order still stands.’ Why did you infer that that was a shoot-down?”

Mineta: “Just by the nature of all the events going on that day, the scrambling of the aircraft and, I don't know…”

Mineta told the same narrative and filled in more details in a 2002 MSNBC interview with Robert Hager. Here is part of that exchange:

“So we went running down and went into the PEOC which is the bunker, as you know, under the White House… I started to establish a direct line to the FAA to find out what was going on, and the Vice President and I were across from each other on the conference room table in the PEOC… it was probably about 9:27… someone said, ‘Mr. Vice President, there's a plane 50-miles out.’

So I was talking to Monte Belger, the Deputy Director of the FAA, and I said, ‘Monte, what do you have 50-miles out?’ He said, ‘Well, we have a target, bogey, on the radar, but the transponder's been turned off, so we have no identification of this aircraft…’ So then someone came in, the same person came in and said, ‘Mr. Vice President… the plane’s 30-miles out.’

“…And so then the person came in and said, ‘Mr. Vice President, the plane's ten miles out,’ and so I said, ‘Monte, where is it?’ and he said, ‘Well, I'm not really sure…’ And then pretty soon he said, ‘Oh-oh, we just lost the target.’ And so a few moments later, someone came in and said, ‘Mr. Vice President, there's been an explosion at the Pentagon.’”

Likewise, Mineta stated on an ABC News special in September of 2002:

“Someone came in and said Mr. Vice President, there’s a plane out 50 miles. And so I said, Monty, what do you have? He said, well we’re watching this target on the radar, but the transponder’s been turned off. So we, have no identification. Someone came in and said, Mr. Vice President, the airplane's 30 miles out. The fellow came in and said, it’s ten miles out… He said, uh-oh, we just lost the bogey, meaning the target went off the screen. So I said, well, where is it? And he said, well, we’re not really sure.”

Mineta’s account of Cheney’s exchange with his aide, and its omission by the 9/11 Commission, was likewise reported by the Washington Post, BBC, MSNBC, and the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times). Former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura pointed out to MSNBC that the 9/11 Commission went so far as to remove Mineta’s testimony from its video archives.

Mineta’s timeline also harmonized with numerous eyewitnesses and media reports that Cheney was evacuated from his office just after the second plane hit the World Trade Center at 9:03 and/or arrived in the PEOC before Flight 77 hit the Pentagon at 9:37. These reports were not surprising since it was generally understood at that point that America was under attack and the Secret Service’s job was to protect the highest officials. Here are several examples.

On September 13, 2001, the New York Times reported:

“At 9:03 a.m. Tuesday, as Vice President Dick Cheney was staring at the TV screen, the second hijacked airliner exploded against the Twin Towers. At that moment his Secret Service detail grabbed him and hurried him down to ‘PEOC.’”

In December of 2001, the Telegraph stated:

“A squad of Secret Service agents stormed into the office of Vice President Dick Cheney… Cheney… was seized by the arms, legs and his belt and physically carried through 150 yards of corridors, then taken by lift, down to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center…”

In August of 2002, 60 Minutes II aired an interview of President Bush’s personal secretary Ashley Estes in which she said:

“…the second plane hit…at that point, I kind of looked out into a hallway and saw the Vice President with Secret Service… had kind of lifted him up, underneath his arms, and running with him.”

In September 2002, ABC (Moments of Crisis) reported:

“Just after 9 AM… two or three [secret service] agents came in and told [Cheney], ‘Sir, you have to come with us’, according to David Bohrer, a White House Photographer who was there… They took him into an underground bunker known as PEOC, the President’s Emergency Operations Center.”

Also in September 2002, White House advisor Karl Rove told NBC News that when President Bush tried to call Cheney from Florida immediately after exiting the classroom (before 9:15), he couldn’t get through because Cheney was being transported to the PEOC. He stated:

“When [the President] walked in [to the holding room next to the classroom]… He said, "We're at war. Give me the Vice President… but the Vice President… was being moved literally, grabbed by his belt, lifted off the floor and grabbed by a Secret Service agent and moved to the bunker because the plane was approaching the White House.”

In the earliest pages of his 2004 book, “Against All Enemies,” perennial (since the 1980s) White House Terrorism Advisor Richard Clarke wrote that just after the second plane hit the World Trade Center, he briefly talked to Cheney his office before seeing eight secret service agents in Cheney’s outer office “ready to move to the PEOC.”

As we saw previously, Clarke’s book also implied that Cheney was in the PEOC when he sought shoot-down authorization before the Flight 77 impact and he stated this outright in a November of 2003 interview with Ted Koppel of ABC News.

Sources:
ABC News, 9/11/2002, “9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings,” interview of Secretary Mineta
ABC News, 9/14/2002, “Moment of Crisis (Part 2): Sept. 11 Scramble,” quoting White House Photographer David Bohrer
ABC News, 11/29/2003, “Cheney Wields Unprecedented V.P. Power” (includes excerpt of Richard Clarke interview with Ted Koppel)
BBC, 9/8/2002, “Clear the Skies”
CBS’ 60 Minutes II, 8/29/2002, “Interview with Ashley Estes”
MSNBC, 9/11/2002, “Norman Mineta 9/11 Interview” by Robert Hager
MSNBC, 3/8/2010, “Jesse Ventura Claims Gov’t Involved in 9/11”
NBC News, 9/11/2002, “Karl Rove: 9/11 Interview” with Campbell Brown
New York Times, 9/13/2001, “Inside the Bunker”
Richard Clarke, 2004 book, “Against All Enemies,” (pgs. 1-2, 6-8)
St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times), 7/4/2004, “Of Fact, Fiction: Bush on 9/11”
Telegraph, 12/16/2001, “Revealed: What Really Went on During Bush’s ‘Missing Hours’”
Washington Post, 9/8/2006, “The Disbelievers”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing (Transcript: Testimony of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta)

Commission Concludes 10 AM Arrival Despite Little Evidence and Distrust for Cheney
As stated, the 9/11 Commission omitted Mineta’s testimony and all other early-arrival evidence in its final report. Instead, it said only that there was “conflicting evidence” about when Cheney arrived in the PEOC, but concluded it was probably about 9:58. The report stated on page 40:

“There is conflicting evidence about when the Vice President arrived in the shelter conference room. We have concluded, from the available evidence, that the Vice President arrived in the room shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58.”

In support of this statement, Footnote 213 on pg. 464 cited several items:

Bush and Cheney’s private, off-the-record, not-transcribed, not-under-oath, meeting with the commissioners on April 29, 2004.
White House transcripts of media interviews with President Bush, Vice President Cheney, his wife Lynn Cheney, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
Lynn Cheney’s personal notes.
A Secret Service 9/11 timeline memo, which only specified Lynn’s White House arrival, not the Vice President’s PEOC arrival.
A 9/11 Commission staff interview with Secret Service agent Carl Truscott on April 15, 2004
The September 11, 2001 PEOC Shelter Log Book.

Regarding number 5, Carl Truscott’s interview was replaced in the 9/11 Commission online archives with a “Withdrawal Notice” document citing “Restricted Access.” In fact, nearly all Secret Service-related original notes, timelines, and interviews cited by the 9/11 Commission (which are cataloged in the “Subject Files of Dana Hyde, 2002-2004” series of the National Archives website) have been replaced with a “Withdrawal Notice” document citing “Restricted Access.”

Regarding #6, private citizen Aidan Monaghan filed two FOIA requests (numbers 20080330 & 20080331, also cited by the Chicago Sun-Times) for the public release of the White House PEOC logs from 9/11. The Department of Homeland Security replied:

“A review of the Secret Service’s systems of records indicated that there are no records or documents pertaining to your requests in the Secret Service files.”

So, from a public record perspective, the 9/11 Commission’s account depends entirely on informal remarks by Bush, the Cheney’s, and Rice.

It is worth also noting that, according to Newsweek, none of the 9/11 Commission staff members who investigated Cheney’s actions believed his narrative, but they were overruled concerning the final report content due to influence from the White House. Newsweek stated:

“…none of the staffers who worked on this aspect of the investigation believed Cheney's version of events. A draft of the report conveyed their skepticism. But when top White House officials, including chief of staff Andy Card and the then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, reviewed the draft, they became extremely agitated. After a prolonged battle, the report was toned down.”

Furthermore, 9/11 Commission Chairman Lee Hamilton had an interesting conversation with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation journalist Evan Solomon in which he said (perhaps pretentiously) he did not remember Secretary Mineta’s testimony. However, he then admitted that some of Cheney’s account could not be corroborated. Here is part of that exchange:

CBC Journalist Evan Solomon: “Questions about foreknowledge, especially as to when Vice President Dick Cheney knew when he went down to the protective bunker… the Secretary of Transport Mineta testified in front of the Commission that he in fact talked to Dick Cheney at 9:20 am. Cheney claims he hadn’t been there… until close to 10 am. That was eventually omitted from the final report… Can you tell us a bit about what Secretary of Transport Mineta told the Commission about where Dick Cheney was prior to 10 am?”

9/11 Commission Chairman Lee Hamilton: “I do not recall… we think that Vice President Cheney entered the bunker shortly before 10 o’clock. And there is a gap of several minutes there, where we do not really know what the Vice President really did. There is the famous phone call between the President and the Vice President. We could find no documentary evidence of that phone call.”

Sources:
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 8/21/2006, “9/11: Truth, Lies and Conspiracy”
Chicago Sun-Times, 8/22/2009, “The Deep State Does Not Respond to FOIA Requests”
Department of Homeland Security, 5/2/2008, “File Numbers: 20080330 and 20080331” (letter to Aidan Monaghan by Craig W. Ulmer, Special Agent in Charge; Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts Officer)
Newsweek, 2/26/2006, “The Shot Heard Round the World”
9/11 Commission, 4/15/2004, “WITHDRAWL NOTICE; ACCESS RESTRICTED; Carl Truscott USSS Interview, Handwritten Notes”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 40, 464 (FN 213)

Commission Says Cheney Remained in Office, Lingered in Tunnel One Hour Before Entering PEOC
One body of evidence indicated Cheney was evacuated to the PEOC shortly after the second WTC impact at 9:03. The 9/11 Commission said Cheney did not enter the PEOC until around 9:58. So what did the 9/11 Commission say Cheney did from 9:03 to 9:58? It said he stayed in his office until 9:36 and then sat in the underground tunnel that leads to the PEOC on a long phone call with President Bush (pgs. 39-40).

Correspondingly, Cheney told Tim Russert of “Meet the Press” five days after 9/11 that just after the 2nd impact, Condoleezza Rice, political adviser Mary Matalin, and his chief of staff Scooter Libby joined him in his office to discuss counter-terror measures.

Next, according to the 9/11 Commission Report (citing the publicly available “President’s Daily Diary” from 9/11), around 9:15 Cheney was one of four people President Bush briefly spoke with on the phone from Florida. (The other three were National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, New York Governor George Pataki, and FBI Director Robert Mueller.) However, White House Advisor Karl Rove was standing right beside Bush during those calls and he told NBC News in September 2002 that Bush only got through to Rice, Pataki, and Mueller, since Cheney was already in the PEOC.

Next, the 9/11 Commission said the Secret Service evacuated Cheney from his office at 9:36 after a tower supervisor at Reagan National Airport called the Secret Service at 9:33 and said “an aircraft [is] coming at you and not talking with us.” To support this sequence, the report cited a series of restricted access Secret Service sources in Footnotes 208 and 209 – a memo, a timeline, a briefing, and interviews. Of course, this narrative implies the White House/Secret Service was completely unaware of Flight 77 approaching Washington D.C. until 9:33. We will discuss this claim in more detail shortly.

Next, instead of entering the PEOC, Cheney purportedly “paused in an area of the tunnel [which leads to the PEOC] that had a secure phone, a bench, and television” where he “saw television coverage of smoke coming from the Pentagon.” He also “asked to speak to the President, but it took time for the call to be connected.” To support this, in Footnote 210 the report cited a Cheney media interview and Bush and Cheney’s private, off-the-record, not-under-oath April 29, 2004 meeting with the commissioners.

This is a strange narrative because, as Cheney pointed out on “Meet the Press,” the PEOC was right down the corridor and brimming with communications technology which allowed decision-makers “to see all the stuff coming in, receive reports, and then make decisions in terms of acting with it.” So why spend about 20 valuable minutes in the middle of the attacks – from just after 9:36 until just before 9:58 – down the hall, particularly if it took so long to be connected?

Sources:
NBC News, 9/11/2002, “Karl Rove: 9/11 Interview” with Campbell Brown
New York Times, 9/16/2001, “Text of Vice President Cheney's Remarks on ‘Meet the Press’”
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 39-40, 463-464 (FN 204, 208-210)

Secret Service Receives Early Warning of Hijacked Airliner En Route to Washington; Numerous Sources Corroborate; Commission Denies Lest Cheney Remaining in Office Becomes Implausible
As we saw previously, just after the second WTC impact at 9:03, the senior Secret Service agent in charge of coordinating the President’s movements, Nelson Garabito, established an open, direct line with his counterpart at the FAA headquarters in Washington, Terry Van Steenbergen, according to their interviews with the 9/11 Commission staff.

The two immediately agreed that the White House needed protection and all incoming aircraft should be considered hostile and Steenbergen informed Garabito that two additional planes were considered potential hijacks (almost certainly referring to Flight 77 and 93) and one of them had already turned around and was heading toward Washington D.C. This could only refer to Flight 77. Steenbergen then had his subordinates immediately, successfully contact Langley and Andrews Air Force to request fighters be scrambled. Also, Garabito called down the PEOC and received presidential shoot-down authorization, which he passed to Steenbergen. Finally, the two tracked Flight 77’s real-time position during its final approach to Washington D.C. As a reminder here, are the key excerpts from their interview notes:

Garabito Statement: “In EOC [Emergency Operations Center] for 9am meeting; second plane struck… Immediately called Terry Van Steenbergen at FAA - he said there were 4 planes believed to be hijacked and 2 outstanding - believed to be traveling to DC. Nelson… contacted the PEOC and placed on speaker…”

Garabito Interview Notes: “Recalls 3 separate groups of info reported by FAA prior to crash: (1) two unaccounted for planes, possibly hijacked, in addition to those that crashed into WTC; (2) one of the unaccounted planes was heading to DC (3) the unaccounted for airplane toward DC was 30 miles out and coming in fast and low.”

Steenbergen Interview: “…Nelson Garabito of the Secret Service… was calling [Steenbergen] from the White House [Secret Service] JOC [Joint Operations Center]… within 30 seconds of the 2nd plane hitting the Trade Center… all inbound planes were considered hostile.”

Steenbergen Interview: “[Steenbergen] had the three people in his office call over to Andrews, Langley… to see if they would launch some fighter pilots… Karen [Pontius] had worked at Andrews AFB, she made the call over there. Scott Hagen called his liaison at Langley AFB. [Steenbergen’s] staff had achieved what they were asked to do. He remembers he was confident that Langley was going to launch. This occurred before the plane crashed into the Pentagon.”

Steenbergen Interview: “Steenbergen said we needed fighters airborne… National Command Authority needed to give access to shoot down an aircraft. He told Nelson that he needed to get that, if fighters were going to launch to fire… Two minutes after Steenbergen suggested Garabito seek authorization to shoot, he responded that the Vice President had authorized the use of lethal force.”

Steenbergen Interview: “[Steenbergen’s subordinate] Scott [Hagan] went into the TSD [Air Traffic Situation Display] room while Steenbergen stayed on the line with Garabito. Scott said he had AAL 77 spotted on the TSD [Air Traffic Situation Display]. According to Steenbergen, ‘Scott watched it come around the Potomac out the window.’ He was yelling out to Van Steenbergen where the thing was.”

It is remarkable that the 9/11 Commission Report claimed the Vice President was not evacuated to the PEOC even after Garabito learned there were two hijacked planes believed to be heading toward Washington D.C. The explanation given was that this information was not passed on to the agents in charge of protecting Cheney. Footnote 208 stated:

“Shortly after the second attack in New York, a senior Secret Service agent charged with coordinating the President's movements established an open line with his counterpart at the FAA, who soon told him that there were more planes unaccounted for – possibly hijacked – in addition to the two that had already crashed. Though the senior agent told someone to convey this information to the Secret Service’s operations center, it was either not passed on or was passed on but not disseminated; it failed to reach agents assigned to the Vice President, and the Vice President was not evacuated at that time.”

The Secret Service’s failure to pass along a warning about two possibly hijacked airliners heading toward Washington D.C. shortly after two other hijacked airliners had struck the World Trade Center would be hard to accept even if that warning only came through one channel – Steenbergen and Garabito. However, this was not the case. As we saw previously, the FAA established the hijack net teleconference at 8:50, four minutes after the first WTC impact, which was certainly joined by the Secret Service and White House Situation Room before the NMCC joined belatedly at 9:20. As a reminder, here are several key statements we have seen regarding the hijack net and the White House/Secret Service’s involvement with it.

FAA Crisis Management Supervisor Mike Weikert led the hijack net. His 9/11 Commission staff interview memorandum explained:

“At 8:45 AM, he [Weikert] and his colleague… were paged simultaneously… He got an initial brief… He told [his colleague], ‘Let's open up the nets and fire up the command center.’”

“He [Weikert] relied on the [hijack net] personnel to use a checklist to alert relevant parties to the primary net. FBI, State Department, White House situation room, DOD… There was some effort to get the military on one of the nets. It was an open question: ‘Does anyone have contact with the military right now?’ It was Monte Belger that was framing the question at the time… Roughly 9:20 the [NMCC] line was activated.”

Likewise, the staff interview memorandum for FAA Emergency Operations Staff Manager (formerly FAA liaison to Air Force) Dan Noel’s stated:

“…the tactical [FAA hijack net] net was established at 8:50…”

During the May 23rd, 2003, 9/11 Commission public hearing when Commissioner Ben-Veniste read aloud an FAA document entitled, “FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11th, 2001,” prepared by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey and two “high level individuals at FAA, Mr. [Lynn] Asmus and Ms. [Linda] Schuessler.” Per Ben-Veniste, the document stated:

“Within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center, the FAA immediately established several phone bridges that included FAA field facilities, the FAA command center, FAA headquarters, DOD, the Secret Service and other government agencies. The U.S. Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters phone bridge and established contact with NORAD on a separate line.”

Additionally, during his June of 2004 testimony, FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger explained:

“The hijacking net is an open communication net run by the FAA hijack coordinator… for the purpose of getting the affected federal agencies together to hear information at the same time. That's the purpose of the hijack net… [T]he fundamental primary source of information between the FAA, DOD, FBI, Secret Service… [and] every other agenc[y] [and] the airlines… is the FAA hijack net…”

Further, Vice President Cheney stated on NBC’s Meet the Press less than a week after 9/11 (transcribed by the New York Times):

“The Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was [hit].”

Similarly, Secret Service agent Barbara Riggs during a 2006 interview at Cornell University stated:

“Through monitoring radar and activating an open line with the FAA, the Secret Service was able to receive real time information about other hijacked aircraft. We were tracking two hijacked aircraft as they approached Washington, DC, and our assumption was that the White House was a target.”

Also, Richard Clarke in his 2004 book, “Against All Enemies,” said the Secret Service tracked Flight 77 as it approached Washington D.C. because they utilized “a system that allowed them to see what FAA’s radar was seeing.”

As we have also seen previously, numerous credible sources corroborated the general usefulness of the FAA’s hijack net for providing timely information concerning Flights 77 and/or 93 well before the 9:33 phone call from Reagan National Airport, which the 9/11 Commission claimed prompted Cheney’s evacuation from his office at 9:36. These sources included Garvey, Belger (firsthand witness), Weikert (firsthand witness), Asmus, Schuessler, Steenbergen (firsthand witness), FAA, NORAD, Eberhart, Scott, McKinley, Arnold (firsthand witness), Air Force, Marr (firsthand witness), Powell (firsthand witness), Winfield (firsthand witness), Myers (firsthand witness), Wolfowitz (firsthand witness), Riggs (firsthand witness), Cheney, Mineta (firsthand witness), Garabito (firsthand witness), and Clarke (firsthand witness).

However, the 9/11 Commission claimed no useful information regarding Flights 77 or 93 was ever shared over the FAA hijack net for the entirety of the attacks. To support this claim, the 9/11 Commission cited one interview with a low-level NMCC officer, Major Charles Chambers, who by his own admission only monitored the call “periodically” despite it being the only, formal, required channel by which the FAA could obtain military assistance for over three decades (per Monte Belger’s June of 2004 testimony).

Both Major Chambers and one or more FAA representatives told the 9/11 Commission staff that no transcript of the hijack net existed, but Transportation Department Inspector General Kenneth Mead told them it did exist (per the memorandum from the staff’s site visit to FAA headquarters) and was taken into the custody of the Justice Department and restricted from release to the public. FAA Administrator Monte Belger likewise told them he had received “prepared chronologies regarding the primary [hijack] net”, but was forbade by the Justice Department from publicizing them. Furthermore, when the 9/11 Commission (via Rutgers Law School and the New York Times) in 2011 selectively publicized numerous 9/11 audio clips and transcripts from the FAA/NORAD/FBI etc… it became evident that numerous entities that participated in the FAA hijack net recorded their communications. Therefore, the content of the FAA hijack net could have been largely or completed reconstructed from them.

Supporting its claim for the 9:36 evacuation of Cheney, the 9/11 Commission Report on pg. 27 quoted one 9:34 AM phone call exchange between a NEADS technician and a Washington air traffic controller about Flight 77 being “lost.” The 9/11 Commission pointed to this call as evidence that neither the military nor the White House Teleconference participants knew anything about Flight 77’s approach to Washington D.C. before it hit the Pentagon. However, this phone call by itself did not come close to debunking the numerous aforementioned FAA/military/White House/Secret Service entities which testified or reported their early awareness of Flight 77’s hijack and whereabouts.

Sources:
Cornell University, Spring 2006 Alumni Newsletter, “President’s Council of Cornell Women: Spotlight On: [Deputy Director of the Secret Service] Barbara Riggs”
FAA, 9/11/2001, “Chronology ADA-30, Sept. 11, 2001.”
New York Times, 9/16/2001, “Text of Vice President Cheney's Remarks on ‘Meet the Press’”
New York Times, 9/7/2011, “Newly Published Audio Provides Real-Time View of 9/11 Attacks”
New York Times, 9/7/2001, “The 9/11 Tapes: The Story in the Air”
NORAD, 9/18/2001, “NORAD’s Response Times”
Richard Clarke, 2004, “Against All Enemies,” pgs. 1-7
Rutgers University Law Review, 9/7/2011, “Full Audio Transcript”
U.S. Congress, 10/25/2001, “Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on Role of Defense Department in Homeland Security” (Transcript: NORAD’s Commander General Eberhart’s Testimony)
9/11 Commission, 2/6/2003, “Memorandum for the Record: FAA OPS Center Visit”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing Transcript: Commissioner Ben-Veniste reading FAA document entitled, “FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11th, 2001,” prepared by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, Mr. Asmus, Ms. Schuessler)
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing Transcript: Testimonies by NORAD Major General Larry Arnold, NORAD Colonel William Scott Testimony)
9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003, “USSS Statement and Interview Reports,” (Nelson Garabito interview notes)
9/11 Commission, 3/30/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with Terry Van Steenbergen”
9/11 Commission, 4/15/2004, “WITHDRAWL NOTICE; ACCESS RESTRICTED; Nelson Garabito USSS Interview, Handwritten Notes”
9/11 Commission, 4/20/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with [FAA Deputy Administrator] Monte Belger” (including handwritten notes)
9/11 Commission, 4/28/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with [FAA Emergency Operations Staff Manager] Dan Noel”
9/11 Commission, 5/7/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with FAA Manager Michael Weikert”
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004, Public Hearing (Transcript: FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger Testimony)
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 27, 36, 39-40, 464 (FN 208)

Commission Claims Cheney Gave Flight 93 Shoot Down Order After It had Already Crashed
As stated, the 9/11 Commission said Cheney entered the PEOC around 9:58 after spending about 20 minutes in the hallway on the phone with Bush. Shortly after entering, he quickly called Bush again, at which the President purportedly “signed off” on fighter jets shooting down incoming commercial airliners that would not divert course.

To support this claim, the Commission in Footnotes 213-215 cited a Cheney media interview, staff interviews with Condoleezza Rice and Cheney’s military aid Michael Cochrane, and Bush and Cheney’s private, off-the-record, not-under-oath, April 29, 2004 meeting with the Commissioners. However, the Commission added, citing Footnote 216, that “there [was] no documentary evidence for this call” found in sources such as the White House switchboard phone log or the PEOC Shelter Log. Michael Cochrane said this call occurred “just after” Cheney entered the PEOC; Rice estimated five minutes after. However, the 9/11 Commission claimed this call which it could find no documentary evidence of must have occurred 12-17 minutes after Cheney entered the PEOC! This claim was crucial to its narrative that Flight 93 was never close to being shot down, as we will see shortly.

But first, it is worth reminding here that the 9/11 Commission’s narrative that Cheney did not receive shoot down authorization until around or after Flight 93 crashed at 10:03 is in direct contrast with numerous firsthand accounts. For example, Richard Clarke said in his book that he received presidential shoot-down authorization from Major Michael Fenzel who was with Cheney in the PEOC as Air Force One was getting ready to take off in Florida. (Air Force began being boarded between 9:42 and 9:45 and took off at 9:54, according to page 39 of the 9/11 Commission Report.) Clarke then passed this on to Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers. Clarke wrote:

“[Fenzel said:] ‘Air Force Once is getting ready to take off… Tell the Pentagon they have authority from the President to shoot down hostile aircraft, repeat, they have authority to shoot down hostile aircraft.’ …I was amazed at the speed of the decisions coming from Cheney and, through him, from Bush… [Clark said to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Myers:] ‘DOD, DOD… the President has ordered the use of force against aircraft deemed to be hostile.’”

Clarke related the same exchange in a 2003 interview with ABC News anchor Ted Koppel, although was less precise in his language. In that interview, he said he spoke to Cheney directly rather than speaking with Major Fenzel as an intermediary. Clarke stated:

“I picked up the phone from the situation room and asked the vice president, ‘We have fighters aloft now. We need authority to shoot down hostile aircraft.’ And I thought that would take forever to get that authority… The vice president got on the phone to the president, got back to me, I would say within two minutes, and said, ‘Do it.’”

Similarly, page 68 the Air Force official 9/11 record quoted NEADS Commander Colonel Robert Marr as stating that his superior, NORAD Continental Commander Major General Larry Arnold, received shoot down authority before Flight 93 began turning back toward Washington D.C. shortly after 9:30 (per the National Transportation Safety Board’s Flight 93 path study). Marr stated:

“We don’t have fighters that way and we think [Flight 93 is] headed toward Detroit or Chicago. I’m thinking Chicago is the target and know that Selfridge Air National Guard Base (Mich.) had F-16s in the air. We contacted them so they could head off 93 at the pass. The idea is to get in there, close in on him and convince him to turn… As United Airlines Flight 93 was going out, we received clearance to kill if need be. In fact, Major General Arnold’s words almost verbatim were: ‘We will take lives in the air to save lives on the ground.’”

Plus, we have already seen that Brigadier General Montague Winfield and Acting Chairmen of Joint Chiefs of Staff General Myers likewise shared public firsthand accounts of having received shoot-down authority from Cheney in the NMCC before the Flight 93 crash and nearly shooting it down. Brigadier General Winfield stated on a September 11, 2002 ABC News special:

“We received the report from the FAA that Flight 93 had turned off its transponder, had turned, and was now heading towards Washington, DC. The decision was made to try to go intercept Flight 93. The Vice President briefed into the conference that the President had given us permission to shoot down innocent civilian aircraft that threatened Washington, DC. …We started receiving reports from the fighters that were heading to, to intercept. The FAA kept us informed with their time estimates as the aircraft got closer and closer… the closure time came and went, and nothing had happened… everything was very tense in the NMCC. We had basically lost situational awareness of where this airplane was. It was about, you know, 10:03 that the fighters reported that Flight 93 had crashed.”

Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Myers in his 2009 book, stated:

“Army Brig. Gen. Montague Winfield was the duty officer in charge of the center that morning… he was participating in a conference call linking the NMCC, North American Aerospace Command (NORAD), and the White House… We learned that there was apparently a fourth hijacked aircraft, United Airlines 93… ‘NORAD estimates the aircraft is headed toward Washington,’ Winfield said. ‘Vice President Cheney has forwarded the President’s authorization to go Weapons Free [permission to shoot down] if that plane is confirmed hijacked and threatens the White House or the Capitol.’”

A near shoot-down of Flight 93 was discussed by firsthand witness Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz on PBS NewsHour and it was reported by media outlets such as the Associated Press (citing eyewitness testimony by a New Hampshire flight controller), CBS News, and the Washington Post. Cleveland air traffic controllers might have served as additional eyewitnesses had they not been gagged by the authorities, according to the Independent.

Additional media outlets likewise reported that Cheney received shoot-down authorization shortly after the Flight 77 impact. For example, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr stated in September of 2002:

“It is now 9:40, and one very big problem is out there: United Airlines Flight 93 has turned off its transponder. Officials believe it is headed for Washington, D.C. …On a secure phone line, Vice President Cheney tells the military it has permission to shoot down any airliners threatening Washington.”

Likewise, U.S. News and World Report stated in August of 2003:

“[Regarding] President Bush’s unprecedented order to shoot down any hijacked civilian airplane… Pentagon sources say Bush communicated the order to Cheney almost immediately after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon…”

Now let’s return to the 9/11 Commission’s narrative. The Report claimed that at 10:02 the Secret Service for the first time began receiving information from the FAA that Flight 93 was heading toward Washington. This was despite accounts from numerous sources that the White House/Secret Service was warned of Flight 93 long prior, including Garvey, Belger (firsthand witness), Weikert (firsthand witness), Asmus, Schuessler, Steenbergen (firsthand witness), FAA, NORAD, Eberhart, Scott, McKinley, Arnold (firsthand witness), Air Force, Marr (firsthand witness), Powell (firsthand witness), Winfield (firsthand witness), Myers (firsthand witness), Wolfowitz (firsthand witness), Riggs (firsthand witness), Cheney, Mineta (firsthand witness), Garabito (firsthand witness), and Clarke (firsthand witness).

To support its 10:02 alert claim, the Commission cited in Footnote 217 a restricted access Secret Service record, timeline, and interview. And it cited the transcript of the NMCC’s “significant event” teleconference. As we saw previously, the NMCC foolishly initiated this teleconference at 9:29 rather than participating in the pre-existing FAA hijack net or the White House teleconference. Furthermore, this transcript was not really a transcript at all. The October 2003 memorandum cover page for this “transcript” contained the following caveat:

“The entire transcription was redone by USD(I) [Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence] staff in conjunction with Joint Staff because there were many inaccuracies in the original.”

The original NMCC transcript was transcribed from audiotapes that recorded everything as it happened in real-time. So how can it possibly be the case the entirely rewritten version generated by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Defense Secretary’s staff was more accurate? This bizarre claim defies credulity. Ten years after 9/11, the New York Times reported that both the audio recording and the original transcript of the NMCC were still classified despite containing only small portions of sensitive material that could easily have been redacted.

Moving on, as stated the 9/11 Commission claimed the undocumented Bush-Cheney PEOC phone call happened 12-17 minutes after Cheney entered the PEOC (in contrast to the accounts of Condoleezza Rice and Michael Cochrane.) This point was crucial to its narrative that Flight 93 was never close to being shot down. The 9/11 Commission then said an aide told Cheney that a fighter jet was first 80 miles then 60 miles from Flight 93 – not realizing that it had already crashed at 10:03. After the “80 miles out” announcement, Cheney authorized fighter aircraft to “engage” Flight 93, and then called Bush on Air Force One between 10:18 and 10:20 to confirm that Bush wanted to shoot it down. After the “60 miles out” announcement, the aide again asked for authorization for the fighters to engage, which Cheney repeated. To support this narrative, the 9/11 Commission cited in footnotes 218-223 (pgs. 464-465) informal remarks by Bush, the Cheney’s, Scooter Libby, Ari Fleischer, and Josh Bolton. It also cited the NMCC teleconference “transcript.”

As we saw earlier, this same exchange was reported by the Washington Post four months after 9/11, although the article put it shortly after 9:55. The article stated:

“9:55 a.m… Once airborne, Bush spoke again to Cheney, who… recommended that Bush authorize the military to shoot down… civilian airliners… In the White House bunker, a military aide approached the vice president. ‘There is a plane 80 miles out,’ he said. ‘There is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?’ ‘Yes,’ Cheney replied without hesitation... The plane was now 60 miles out. ‘Should we engage?’ Cheney was asked. ‘Yes,’ he replied again. As the plane came closer, the aide repeated the question. Does the order still stand? ‘Of course it does,’ Cheney snapped… It took the Pentagon almost two hours to confirm that the plane had not been shot down, an enormous relief.”

A glaring question that arises from the 9/11 Commission’s narrative is how the FAA and Secret Service could have been tracking Flight 93 as being first 80 then 60 miles from NORAD’s fighter jets long after Flight 93 had already crashed? The 9/11 Commission speculated:

“The FAA may have been tracking the progress of United 93 on a display that showed its projected path to Washington, not its actual radar return.”

To support this dubious claim, the Commission cited in Footnote 217 an interview with someone named Tim Grovack. No title or credentials were given. The name Tim Grovack does not appear anywhere in the 9/11 Commission’s Memoranda for the Record (MFRs) online archives, nor is it listed anywhere on the 9/11 Commission’s official 145-page “Finding Aid” which purports to list all interviews that were conducted.

Sources:
ABC News, 9/11/2002, “9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings” (Interviews of Transportation Secretary Mineta and Brigadier General Montague Winfield)
ABC News, 11/29/2003, “Cheney Wields Unprecedented V.P. Power” (includes excerpts of Richard Clarke interview by Ted Koppel)
Associated Press, 9/13/2001, “Passengers May Have Thwarted Hijackers”
CBS News, 9/12/2001, “Feds Would Have Shot Down Pa. Jet”
CNN, 9/4/2002, “‘The Pentagon Goes to War’: National Military Command Center”
Cornell University, Spring 2006 Alumni Newsletter, “President’s Council of Cornell Women: Spotlight On: [Deputy Director of the Secret Service] Barbara Riggs”
Department of Defense, 9/11/2001, “Air Threat Conference and DDO Conference”
Drs. Alfred Goldberg and Rebecca Cameron, 4/19/2001, “Pentagon Attack Interview with Paul Wolfowitz” (transcript)
Independent, 8/13/2002, “Unanswered questions: The mystery of Flight 93”
Leslie Filson, 2003, “Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission,” pg. 68, published by Tyndall Air Force Base Public Affairs Office
National Archives Website, “9/11 Commission Memoranda for the Record (MFRs)”
National Transportation Safety Board, 2/19/2002, “Flight Path Study – United Airlines Flight 93”
New York Times, 9/7/2011, “Newly Published Audio Provides Real-Time View of 9/11 Attacks”
New York Times, 9/7/2001, “The 9/11 Tapes: The Story in the Air"
NORAD, 9/18/2001, “NORAD’s Response Times”
PBS News, 9/14/2001, “Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz Interview with PBS NewsHour”
Richard Clarke, 2004 book, “Against All Enemies,” (pgs. 1-8)
Richard Myers, 2009, “Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security,” pgs. 151-152
Rutgers University Law Review, 9/7/2011, “Full Audio Transcript”
Senate Armed Services Committee, 9/13/2001, “U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Holds Hearing On Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman of The Joint Chiefs of Staff,” (testimony by General Richard Meyers and remarks by Senator Max Cleland)
U.S. Congress, 10/25/2001, “Senate Armed Services Committee Holds Hearing on Role of Defense Department in Homeland Security” (Transcript: NORAD’s Commander General Eberhart’s Testimony)
U.S. News and World Report, 8/31/2003, “Pieces of the Puzzle – A Top-Secret Conference Call on September 11 Could Shed New Light on the Terrorist Attacks”
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, 10/20/2003, “Subject: 9-11 Air Threat Conference Call Transcription”
Washington Post, 1/27/2002, “America's Chaotic Road to War”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing (Transcript: Testimonies by NORAD Major General Larry Arnold, NORAD Colonel William Scott Testimony)
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing (Transcript: Commissioner Ben-Veniste reading FAA document entitled, “FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11th, 2001,” prepared by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, Mr. Asmus, Ms. Schuessler)
9/11 Commission, 7/28/2003, “USSS Statement and Interview Reports,” (Nelson Garabito interview notes)
9/11 Commission, 3/30/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with Terry Van Steenbergen”
9/11 Commission, 5/7/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with FAA Manager Michael Weikert”
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004, Public Hearing Transcript: FAA Deputy Administrator Monte Belger Testimony
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pgs. 39-42, 464-465 (FN 213-222)
9/11 Commission, undated, “The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States; Finding Aid: Series Descriptions and Folder Title Lists”

Allegations of a Cheney Stand Down Order
Some have argued that what Transportation Secretary Mineta heard around 9:25 was not a shoot-down order, but a stand-down order, either to fighter jets or to surface-to-air missiles. One such organization called the “Consensus 9/11” and its members have been occasionally covered by numerous media outlets (NBC News, New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, Telegraph, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, PR Newswire, MarketWatch, etc…).

The Consensus 9/11 organization has included members such as:

David Ray Griffin (Nobel Prize nominee, theology professor, author of numerous books on 9/11)
Morgan Reynolds (Department of Labor Chief Economist under President George W. Bush)
Robert Bowman (directed the “Star Wars” missile defense program under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter)
Steven Jones (BYU Physics Professor, Principal Researcher for US Department of Energy’s Division of Advanced Energy Projects 1982-1991)
Andreas von Buelow (German Parliament member, and Secretary of State for the German Ministry of Defense)

The organization further includes about two dozen other government officials, journalists, scientists, and researchers who are purported to be experts of 9/11 history. The organization’s website dives into a series of “Consensus 9/11 Points” upon which all members agree there are insurmountable inconsistencies between public domain evidence and the current official narrative. The organization argued on its website that Cheney’s reply to the young man “can most naturally be understood as Cheney’s confirmation of a stand-down order.”

Similarly, in 2006 Barbara Honegger (White House Policy Analyst under President Ronald Reagan, Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, author of the famous 1989 political exposé, October Surprise) alleged:

“It is significant that the 9/11 Commission Report ignores the testimony of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta to its own commission and did this only for the testimony of Secretary Mineta. The clear reason for this blatant and targeted censorship is that Mineta’s eyewitness testimony is extremely dangerous to the official cover story.”

“The portion of Mineta’s testimony that is particularly dangerous is his claim that Vice President Cheney, in charge in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) beneath the White House since before Mineta arrived in the PEOC at 9:20, insisted to an incredulous ‘young man’ that ‘the orders (given earlier by Cheney to this same individual) still stand’ when the man told Cheney that the presumed plane they had been tracking as a blip on a screen was 50, then 30, and finally just 10 miles from Washington – orders which could only have been not to shoot down the plane. Otherwise there would have been no reason for the agent to ask Cheney if they ‘still’ stood, despite the plane’s being almost upon the capital where Cheney himself was.”

Also, in September of 2003, British Cabinet Member and perennial Parliament Member Michael Meacher wrote for the Guardian:

“Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not?”

“There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft. It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.”

“Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If so, why, and on whose authority?”

Further, MSNBC quoted former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura as writing:

“…Charles Lewis… deputy inspector for the city of LA… remembers: ‘The first thing I noticed was that the guards — and that day they were the LA World Airport Police and the FBI — were very upset and agitated because apparently no one [from FAA] had notified NORAD [North American Aerospace Defense Command]. They were making calls and demanding to know why not. Eventually word came back that NORAD had indeed been notified, but they had been ordered to stand down.’”

“The stand-down order that Charles Lewis heard about was confirmed by none other than Norman Mineta, transportation secretary at the time. According to the 9/11 Commission, Cheney didn’t arrive underground at the PEOC (Presidential Emergency Operations Center) until almost 10 AM. Mineta, however, said the Vice President was already down there when he arrived at about 9:20 AM. Richard Clarke and Cheney’s photographer indicated the same thing. That was before the Pentagon had been hit, and Mineta recalled a young man coming into the PEOC three times to tell Cheney how far out the plane was from Washington. After the third report, according to Mineta, the young fellow asked, ‘Do the orders still stand?’ and Cheney responded, ‘Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?’ The 9/11 Commission chose to ignore Mineta’s testimony and went so far as to remove it from the video archive.”

“Instead, they had Cheney ordering, almost 45 minutes later than Mineta said, the inbound aircraft be shot down. Except, by then, all four planes had already gone down. That was cover-up number one by the 9/11 Commission… I tried to talk to someone from the 9/11 Commission, but got turned down multiple times. They simply said, we stand by our report.”

Also, a 2006 Ohio University and Scripps Howard News Service poll cited by the Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Post, and San Francisco Chronicle pointed out that 36 percent of Americans thought that U.S. officials “either assisted in the 9/ 11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks.”

Finally, regarding claims that not only Cheney, but also Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers, and Winfield were not engaged in any timely military response, the Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch reported on the Consensus 9/11 panel’s position in the following way:

“New evidence shows that the September 11th activities of former President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld were falsely reported by official sources. The 20-member Consensus 9/11 Panel analyzed evidence from press reports, FOIA requests, and archived 9/11 Commission file documents to produce eight new studies, released today.”

“Official sources claimed neither Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Joint Chiefs of Staff Acting Chairman General Richard Myers (filling in for General Hugh Shelton), nor war-room chief General Montague Winfield were available to take command until well after the Pentagon was struck about 9:37. Yet emerging documents and memoirs show that top leaders were engaged earlier…”

Sources:
Associated Press, 9/1/2006, “Religious Book Points 9/11 Finger at Bush”
Barbara Honegger, 9/6/2006, “THE PENTAGON ATTACK PAPERS; Seven Hours in September: The Clock that Broke the Lie”
Consensus 9/11 Website, 2021, “Panel Members”
Consensus 9/11 Website, 2020, “Point MC-3: The Claim about the Time of Dick Cheney’s Entry into the White House Bunker”
Daily Mail, 9/5/2006, “Fury as Academics Claim 9/11 was ‘Inside Job’”
Daily Mail, 2/9/2007, “An Explosion of Disbelief”
Guardian, 9/6/2003, “This War on Terrorism is Bogus,” by Michael Meacher, British Parliament Member and Environment Minister (Cabinet Member) 1997 to 2003
Guardian, 9/5/2006, “Who Really Blew Up the Twin Towers”
Los Angeles Times, 8/28/2005, “Getting Agnostic About 9/11”
MarketWatch, 6/5/2012, “Expert Panel Reports False Accounts of U.S. Political and Military Leaders on 9/11”
MSNBC, 3/8/2010, “Jesse Ventura Claims Gov’t Involved in 9/11”
NBC, 11/16/2005, “Questioning What Happened on 9/11”
New York Post, 11/24/2001, “Blame U.S. for 9/11: ‘Plots’ Thicken in Shocking Poll”
New York Times, 9/2/2006, “2 U.S. Reports Seek to Counter Conspiracy Theories About 9/11”
PR Newswire, 3/1/2006, “Experts Call for Release of 9/11 Evidence”
PR Newswire, 5/6/2011, “Obama Says ‘Justice Has Been Done’: Bin Laden Scholar Says No”
PR Newswire, 9/9/2011, “New Investigative Panel Releases 13 Consensus Statements of Evidence Opposing the Official Account of 9/11”
San Francisco Chronicle, 9/3/2006, “The Conspiracy to Rewrite 9/11,” (opinion)
Telegraph, 11/20/2003, “German Sept 11 Theory Stokes Anti-US Feeling”
Washington Post, 9/8/2006, “The Disbelievers”
Washington Post, 10/2/2010, “9/11 Conspiracy Theories Rife in Muslim World”

Accounts Disagree Over Whether White House Protected by Anti-Aircraft Missiles
In December of 1983, the Washington Post, citing an article by Time Magazine, reported that the White House was protected at all times by ground-to-air missiles and that security personnel monitoring planes arriving at or departing from National Airport would have less than one minute to fire said missiles if a plane suddenly changed course and targeted the White House. The article stated:

“A cache of ground-to-air missiles intended for use in protecting the president against a surprise attack from the air is hidden near the White House, according to a report published this week in Time magazine. The report… says that security officers… monitor all aircraft using National Airport and that they have less than a minute to decide whether to fire the missiles if any plane deviates suspiciously from an established flight pattern.”

Similarly, the Telegraph reported just five days after 9/11 that the Secret Service is “believed to have a battery of ground-to-air Stinger missiles” ready to defend the White House.

However, seven months after 9/11, in a case of apparent amnesia, the Washington Post reported that the notion of missiles protecting the White House was an “urban legend.” The article cited anonymous sources who argued the tradeoff of being able to shoot down a plane approaching the White House was not worth the resulting spread of fuel and debris. It stated:

“There has long been an urban legend that Stinger missiles are mounted on the White House roof, but sources said that has never been true. Shooting down a plane approaching the White House would only scatter burning fuel and wreckage over the District.”

However, this statement could also have been a straw man. First, the 1983 reports said nothing about missiles on the roof of the White House – they only said somewhere “near” the White House. Secondly, such missiles would not only serve as protection from aircraft, but against other missiles and any other type of conceivable air threat.

In any event, awareness of the need to protect the President in this manner was also present in the days leading up to 9/11. For example, according to CNN and the Los Angeles Times, during the July 2001 G8 summit in Genoa, Italy, anti-aircraft guns were stationed at the airport and President Bush stayed overnight in a U.S. aircraft carrier after officials were warned that Islamic terrorists might attempt to kill Bush and other world leaders by crashing a hijacked airliner into the meeting location. Similarly, the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (regional newspaper where President Bush stayed the night before the 9/11 attacks) reported in September of 2002 that the Secret Service had installed surface-to-air missiles on the roof of the resort where President Bush was staying.

Similarly, Barbara Honegger (White House Policy Analyst under President Ronald Reagan, Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, author of the famous 1989 political exposé, October Surprise) wrote in 2006 that the Pentagon was likewise protected by “anti-aircraft missile batteries.”

On the other hand, White House Terrorism Advisor Richard Clark testified before the 9/11 Commission in March of 2004 that there were no permanent anti-aircraft weapons protected Washington D.C., to his chagrin. He stated:

“We then tried to institutionalize [an air defense system] for Washington, to protect the Capitol and the White House… It would have involved missiles, anti-aircraft guns… Secret Service developed all the plans for that… [and] was a big advocate for it. But they were unable to get the Treasury Department… to approve it, and I was unable to get the Office of Management and Budget to fund it.”

Similarly, the Wall Street said of Clark’s book released the same month:

“…[a] book by… Richard Clarke…[says] in the late 1990s [the Clinton administration] failed to push through a proposal to extend… [airborne threat] permanent protection of the skies over Washington… because federal agencies whose cooperation was needed balked.”

It is curious at Clarke did not comment to the 9/11 Commission on prior media reports, such as the aforementioned 1983 Washington Post and Time articles, that anti-aircraft missiles had indeed been protecting the nation’s capital for over twenty years.

In any event, in 2007, the Defense Department completed the book, “Pentagon 9/11,” which was eventually published in 2013. The project was initiated and overseen by the Defense Secretary’s office (the same entity which completely rewrote the real-time NMMC teleconference transcript to make it “more accurate”). The preface described the book this way:

“The OSD [Office of the Secretary of Defense] Historical Office initiated the project… more than 1,300 people… participated in oral history interviews… this account represents the most comprehensive effort to date to capture what occurred at the Pentagon on 9/11.”

On page 152, the book asserted:

“The Pentagon did not have an antiaircraft system on the roof of the building or the grounds.”

On the other hand, recall the statement we saw earlier from Secret Service agent Barbara Riggs when she spoke to Cornell University:

“We were tracking two hijacked aircraft as they approached Washington, DC, and our assumption was that the White House was a target. While the White House was evacuated, the Secret Service prepared to defend the facility.”

Riggs’ statement indicates that the Secret Service was prepared to defend the White House before the Flight 77 Pentagon impact. Since there were reportedly no fighter jets in the vicinity to make such a defense, this statement could be interpreted to refer to surface-to-air missiles near the White House, such as those reported by the Washington Post and Time in 1983.

Sources:
Barbara Honegger, 9/6/2006, “THE PENTAGON ATTACK PAPERS; Seven Hours in September: The Clock that Broke the Lie”
Cornell University, Spring 2006 Alumni Newsletter, “President’s Council of Cornell Women: Spotlight On: [Deputy Director of the Secret Service] Barbara Riggs”
CNN, 7/18/2001, “Genoa Braces for G8 Summit”
Department of Defense, 2007 (completed; published 2013), “Pentagon 9/11,” pg. 152
Los Angeles Times, 9/27/2001, “Italy Tells of Threat at Genoa Summit”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002, “The Day Before Everything Changed, President Bush Touched Locals’ Lives”
Telegraph, 9/16/2001, “Israeli Security Issued Urgent Warning to CIA of Large-Scale Terror Attacks”
Wall Street Journal, 4/1/2004, “Kamikaze Terrorism Wasn’t a New Idea”
Washington Post, 12/12/1983, “Magazine Says White House Protected by Ground-to-Air Missiles”
Washington Post, 4/4/2002, “Flight Crew Made Numerous Errors”
9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004, Public Hearing Transcript: Testimony of Former National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, National Security Council Richard A. Clarke