CHAPTER 22 - THE DRILLS
Summary
(1) During the 9/11 attacks, NORAD was in the midst of a days-long exercise known as “Vigilant Guardian”, which simulated multiple hijackings (Com-NORAD Exercises). When the NEADS Head of Operations learned of the first 9/11 hijack, he thought it was part of the exercise (Vanity Fair).
Thirty hours of audiotape from the NEADS’ control room released to Vanity Fair (used in the production of the 2006 Hollywood film United 93) revealed that the NEADS crew engaged in chases of multiple phantom hijackings due to exercise-related misinformation that peaked during the actual attacks. The Commander of NEADS at one point received reports of 29 different hijackings. NEADS technicians asked the question “Is this real-world or exercise?” over and over. When NEADS officers learned the second hijacked airliner hit the World Trade Center they thought it was only one of the false blips that were deliberately inserted into military radar screens as part of the exercise (Vanity Fair).
The erroneous phantom Flight 11 report to which the 9/11 Commission tried to attribute the Langley scramble (Com-pg. 26-27, 34) appears to have been caused by the exercise (Vanity Fair), but the 9/11 Commission claimed it could never find out how the false report originated – only that the blame lay with the FAA rather than the military (Com-pg. 26).
Simultaneous to Vigilant Guardian was another large drill called Global Guardian, plus five additional drills that accompanied it. Each drill involved all levels of command. This made 9/11 the busiest morning of aerial military exercises in United States history, even though each of these drills was traditionally run in October or November. Many of the fighter jets and pilots that were typically on call in the northeastern United States were unavailable during the 9/11 attacks because they were supporting exercises in Alaska, Canada, and other regions of the United States (Consensus 9/11). However, the 9/11 Commission did not disclose this information or suggest that the drills negatively affected the military’s response to the attacks.
In fact, the 9/11 Commission ridiculously claimed that the exercises helped NORAD respond more effectively (Com-pg. 458 FN 116). NORAD Commander General Eberhart (Com-Eberhart Test) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers (Congress-Myers Test) claimed likewise. By contrast, the Consensus 9/11 Panel said the exercises’ impact should be re-investigated (Consensus 9/11) and Barbara Honegger (White House Policy Analyst under President Ronald Reagan) suggested the exercises may have been planned to facilitate a deliberate military stand down (Honegger).
(2) Tangentially, while it may be a striking coincidence for a real-life terrorist attack to take place at the same time as a drill simulating a similar or identical attack, 9/11 is not the only time this has happened. On the morning of July 7th, 2005, terrorists executed suicide bombings of three underground train stations across London during rush hour. At the same time, over 1,000 people in the public and private sectors were simultaneously running an exercise that simulated precisely the same scenario that unfolded in real life (BBC Radio).
There were several other strange or suspicious facets of the bombing as well. All four bombs used in the attacks were high-grade military explosives (London Times, Guardian). When Al Qaeda purportedly claimed responsibility for the attacks on a popular Islamic militant website, the statement contained an implausible error in one of the Quranic verses it cited (NBC). Prime Minister Tony Blair repeatedly refused to commission a government investigation into bombings (Financial Times, BBC). Two of the bombers had been under surveillance by British intelligence for a year before the bombings (BBC). And the purported mastermind of the bombings filed a lawsuit claiming British intelligence forced him into a false confession by torturing him and threatening to rape and murder his loved ones (BBC, Guardian, Daily Mail).
(3) Interestingly, military planners know full well that exercises can be used as a cover for real operations. In fact, the massive 1983 Cold War exercise known as “Able Archer 83,” nearly led to a real nuclear exchange between NATO and the USSR (National Security Archive (x2), Slate).
(1) Sources:
Barbara Honegger, 9/6/2006, “THE PENTAGON ATTACK PAPERS; Seven Hours in September: The Clock that Broke the Lie”
C-SPAN, 3/10/2005, “Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Budget Hearing,” (Transcript of Representative Cynthia McKinney’s Exchange with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers)
Consensus 9/11 Website, “Point ME-2: The Claim that the Military Exercises Did Not Delay the Response to the 9/11 Attacks”
Vanity Fair, 10/17/2006, “9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes”
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004, Public Hearing Transcript: NORAD Commander General Eberhart and Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Myers Testimonies
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pg. 26-27, 34, 458 (Footnote 116)
9/11 Commission, undated, “NORAD EXERCISES Hijack Summary” spreadsheet (National Archives website, 9/11 Commission Series, Team 8 Files)
(2) Sources:
BBC 5 Drive Radio Program, 7/7/2005, Interview with Visor Consultants Managing Director Peter Power
BBC News, 5/2/2007, “Blair Rejects 7/7 Inquiry Calls”
BBC, 6/25/2009, “British Man Details Torture Claim”
CNN, 11/6/2013, “July 7 2005 London Bombings Fast Facts”
Daily Mail, 5/28/2009, “MI5 Hit by New Claim of Torture Collusion as Briton to Sue Home Secretary Over ‘Beatings’”
Daily Mail, 6/25/2009, “‘If I Didn't Confess to 7/7 Bombings MI5 Officers Would Rape My Wife,’ Claims Torture Victim – 7/7 Bombings”
Financial Times, July 2005, “Blair Rejects Calls for Probe Into Bombings”
Guardian, 7/11/2005, “Terror Cell ‘Capable of Further Attacks’”
Guardian, 6/25/2009, “Briton Claims He Was Tortured As 7/7 ‘Mastermind’”
NBC, 7/7/2005, “Islamic group Claims London Attack”
Sunday Times (London), 7/12/2005, “Terrorist Gang ‘Used Military Explosives’”
(3) Sources:
National Security Archive, “The Able Archer 83 Sourcebook”
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 533, 10/24/2015, “The 1983 War Scare Declassified and For Real”
Slate, 4/13/2017, “The Week the World Almost Ended”
NORAD’s Response to Attacks Obstructed By Exercise
During the 9/11 attacks, NORAD was in the midst of a days-long exercise known as “Vigilant Guardian”, which simulated multiple hijackings. Two days before 9/11, the exercise simulated the hijacking of a civilian passenger jet by terrorists planning to blow the plane up with explosives over New York City, per a spreadsheet in the 9/11 Commission archives entitled, “NORAD EXERCISES Hijack Summary.” Another civilian passenger jet hijacking simulation was scheduled for the morning of 9/11. Per Vanity Fair, Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Nasypany, Head of operations at NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) headquarters later stated:
“When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was, ‘Somebody started the exercise early… The hijack’s not supposed to be for another hour.’”
Thirty hours of audiotape from the NEADS’ control room released under subpoena by the 9/11 Commission and later analyzed by Vanity Fair revealed that the NEADS crew engaged in chases of multiple phantom hijackings due to exercise-related misinformation that peaked during the actual attacks. Vanity Fair stated:
“For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes, but one of a heated chase after more than a dozen potential hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and continued well into the afternoon and evening.”
Likewise, acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Myers testified in June of 2006:
“…we fought many phantoms that day. There were many phantoms… We got many aircraft calls inbound that morning that turned out to be phantoms.”
Similarly, NORAD Battle Commander Bob Marr later told Newhouse News:
“At one time I was told that across the nation there were some 29 different reports of hijackings.”
Vanity Fair pointed out that the question, “Is this real-world or exercise?” can be heard over and over on the NEADS tapes. An exasperated Major James Fox, leader of the Weapons Team, said at 8:43 AM:
“I've never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise.”
At 9:04 AM, when NEADS officers were told that a second hijacked airliner impact the World Trade Center, one of them replied, “I think this is a damn input, to be honest.” – referring to the false blips that were deliberately inserted into military radar screens as part of the exercise.
Vanity Fair also quoted multiple exchanges between NEADS and the Boston Center concerning the phantom Flight 11, implying that the false report was attributable to the exercise. However, as we discussed previously, the 9/11 Commission dubiously claimed it was unable to find the source of the false report – only that the FAA was to blame for it rather than the military.
Consensus 9/11, citing various military records, pointed out Vigilant Guardian was not the only exercise running that day. Another was Global Guardian. Consensus 9/11 described Vigilant Guardian and Global Guardian as:
“…command level (high level) exercises that ran together, involved all levels of command, and were designed to exercise most aspects of the NORAD mission… [They were] sponsored by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff… [and were] traditionally held in October or November.”
Further, there were “five related aerial drills that accompanied” Vigilant Guardian and Global Guardian (such as Amalgam Warrior, Apollo Warrior, and Crown Vigilance). The result was the busiest morning of aerial military exercises in United States history. Consensus 9/11 summarized:
“The rescheduling from October to early September of seven aerial drills… resulted in an unprecedented number of simultaneous drills that morning.”
Consensus 9/11 further documented that many of the fighter jets and pilots that were typically on call in the northeastern United States were unavailable during the 9/11 attacks because they were supporting the exercises in Alaska, Canada, and other regions of the United States. However, the 9/11 Commission did not disclose this information or suggest that the drills affected the military’s response to the attacks. Consensus 9/11 stated:
“The Department of Defense and the 9/11 Commission failed to report all but one of the exercises that occurred that morning. They also denied that such exercises slowed down military responses to the attacks.”
This statement cited footnote 116 on page 458 of the 9/11 Commission Report, which stated:
“On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian… We investigated whether military preparations for the large-scale exercise compromised the military’s response to the real-world terrorist attack on 9/11. According to General Eberhart, ‘it took about 30 seconds to make the adjustment to the real-world situation. Ralph Eberhart testimony, June 17, 2004. We found that the response was, if anything, expedited by the increased number of staff at the sectors and at NORAD because of the scheduled exercise. See Robert Marr interview (Jan. 23, 2004)”
Regarding the footnote’s mention of NORAD Commander General Eberhart’s testimony, during the June of 2004 hearing, Commissioner Roemer read Eberhart the transcript of one of the early instances when NEADS had to clarify whether they were dealing with an exercise or a real-world hijack. Roemer then asked Eberhart how the exercises affected the military’s ability to respond to the attacks. In response, Eberhart claimed the simultaneous exercises actually helped. The claim was plainly contradicted the general mood of confusion and disbelief at such a coincidence among NEADS personnel captured by the tapes analyzed by Vanity Fair. And it obviously omitted the aforementioned heated chases of around a dozen phantom hijackings and false radar blips. Here is part of that exchange:
Commissioner Roemer: “General Eberhart, a question about our training posture on the day of 9/11… FAA says at 8:38 in the morning, ‘Hi, Boston Center, TMU, we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York…’ NEADS says, ‘Is this real world or an exercise?’ My question is, you were postured for an exercise against the former Soviet Union. Did that help or hurt?”
General Eberhart: “Sir, my belief is that it helped because of the manning, because of the focus… I believe that focus helped. The situation that you're referring to, I think, at most cost us 30 seconds…”
Similarly, during a March of 2005 defense budget hearing, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney asked the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers:
“The question was…whether or not activities of the four war games going on September 11th actually impaired our ability to respond to the attacks?”
In his response, General Myers omitted the fact that many fighters and pilots were unavailable due to the exercises. He also omitted the fact that all NORAD bases were required to be ready to have fighters airborne within 15 minutes at all times (per Major General Craig McKinley’s testimony) and were typically airborne in just 5 minutes (per sources at Otis Air Force Base interviewed by the Cape Code Times). Instead, he ridiculously claimed that the exercises “enhanced” the military’s response and that without them it would have taken 30 to 120 minutes to find available personnel! Myers stated:
“The answer to the question is no, it did not impair our response, in fact General Eberhart who was in the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command as he testified in front of the 9/11 Commission I believe – I believe he told them that it enhanced our ability to respond… [A]ll the battle positions that are normally not filled are indeed filled [for these exercises]; so it was an easy transition from an exercise into a real world situation. It actually enhanced the response; otherwise, it would take somewhere between 30 minutes and a couple of hours to fill those positions, those battle stations, with the right staff officers.”
Now recall the last sentence of the aforementioned 9/11 Commission Report footnote:
“We found that the response was, if anything, expedited by the increased number of staff at the sectors and at NORAD because of the scheduled exercise. See Robert Marr interview (Jan. 23, 2004)”
NEADS Commander Colonel Robert Marr’s interview memorandum is a 9-page publicly available document. While the memorandum states that he was involved in planning Vigilante Guardian exercises and that NEADS was ready for the exercise to begin on the morning of 9/11, there is nothing in the document that suggested Marr believed the exercise “expedited” or in any way helped NEADS respond to the attacks.
Consensus 9/11 concluded that the military and 9/11 Commission together helped cover up the detrimental impact the exercises had on the military’s ability to respond. Its website stated:
“Had the 9/11 Commission reported the full extent of the exceptional number of exercises it knew were operating that morning… statements by Eberhart… and Myers – that the exercises did not, by causing confusion, slow down the military response – would have seemed implausible… [T]his evidence suggests that:
The Pentagon, after creating conditions that confused the military response to the attacks, sought to cover up its creation of these conditions, and that
The 9/11 Commission facilitated this cover-up by not making public the information held in its records cited…”
(Note: Consensus 9/11 also listed Marr along with Eberhart and Myers because it mistakenly attributed the last sentence footnote 116 to his interview. In fact, the sentence was the 9/11 Commission’s own claim and there is nothing in Marr’s interview memorandum to support it.)
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 a deliberate military stand down by certain parties in the U.S. government and stated:
“Scrutiny should also be leveled at the scriptwriters for the NORAD… emergency response exercises planned for and held on 9/11…”
Sources:
Barbara Honegger, 9/6/2006, “THE PENTAGON ATTACK PAPERS; Seven Hours in September: The Clock that Broke the Lie”
C-SPAN, 3/10/2005, “Fiscal Year 2006 Defense Budget Hearing,” (Transcript of Representative Cynthia McKinney’s Exchange with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers)
Cape Cod Times, 9/15/2001, “Local Reservists Await the Call”
Consensus 9/11 Website, “Point ME-2: The Claim that the Military Exercises Did Not Delay the Response to the 9/11 Attacks”
Newhouse News Service, 3/31/2005, “Commander of 9/11 Air Defenses Retires”
Vanity Fair, 10/17/2006, “9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes”
9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003, Public Hearing Transcript: Major General Craig McKinley Testimony
9/11 Commission, 1/23/2004, “Memorandum for the Record: Interview with NEADS Commander Colonel Robert Marr”
9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004, Public Hearing Transcript: NORAD Commander General Eberhart and Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Myers Testimonies
9/11 Commission, July 2004, “9/11 Commission Report,” pg. 458, Footnote 116
9/11 Commission, undated, “NORAD EXERCISES Hijack Summary” spreadsheet (National Archives website, 9/11 Commission Series, Team 8 Files)
The 7/7 London Train Station Bombings
While it may seem like a striking coincidence for a real-life terrorist attack to take place at the same time as a drill simulating a similar or identical attack, 9/11 is not the only time this has happened. For example, on the morning of July 7th, 2005, terrorists executed suicide bombings of three underground train stations across London during rush hour. The attacks killed over 50 people and injured over 700. Later that day, Peter Power, Managing Director of the crisis management firm, Visor Consultants, gave a stunning BBC radio interview in which he explained that over 1,000 people in the public and private sectors were simultaneously running an exercise that simulated precisely the same scenario that unfolded in real life. Here is part of the exchange:
Power: “At half past 9 this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing up right now.”
Host: “To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise?”
Power: “Precisely.”
There were several other strange or suspicious facets of the bombing as well. For example, London Sunday Times (and Guardian) reported that all four bombs used in the attacks were “high-grade military explosives”.
NBC News reported that while Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attacks on a popular Islamic militant website as retaliation for Britain’s involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the statement “contained an error in one of the Quranic verses it cited.” MSNBC translator Jacob Keryakes insisted:
“This is not something al-Qaida would do.”
Next, the Financial Times reported the week after the bombing that Prime Minister Tony Blair refused to commission a government investigation into bombings. This article appears to have been removed from the Financial Times archives, but the following excerpt is widely quoted on the internet:
“Tony Blair will on Monday reject Conservative demands for a government inquiry into last week's London bomb attacks, insisting such a move would distract from the task of catching the perpetrators.”
Additionally, BBC reported that at the end of the year-long trial of two of the bombers – Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer – evidence emerged that the British intelligence service MI5 had “watched and followed… [them] a year before the attacks as part of their surveillance…” When this came out, Parliament Member once again called for a government inquiry into the bombings, which Blair once again rejected, saying it would “undermine the security services.” The BBC further quoted Blair as telling Parliament:
“I don't think it would be responsible for us... to have a full, independent, further inquiry, which would simply have the security service and the police and others diverted from the task of fighting terrorism.”
Finally, in 2009, numerous outlets (BBC, Guardian, Daily Mail) reported that British citizen and civil servant Jamil Rahman – who confessed to having masterminded the bombings – filed a lawsuit against the British government for his having been intermittently tortured and threatened for two years into making a false confession of involvement in the plot. The BBC quoted him as stating:
“They stripped me naked and said that if I didn’t say what they wanted me to say, they would rape me and my wife and burn her and other family members. They told me to say I was al-Qaeda and the organiser of the 7/7 [London suicide] bombings. They threatened my family. [The MI5 officers] they go to me: ‘In the UK, gas leaks happen, if your family house had a gas leak and everyone got burnt, there’s no problems, we can do that easily.’”
Sources:
BBC 5 Drive Radio Program, 7/7/2005, Interview with Visor Consultants Managing Director Peter Power
BBC News, 5/2/2007, “Blair Rejects 7/7 Inquiry Calls”
BBC, 6/25/2009, “British Man Details Torture Claim”
CNN, 11/6/2013, “July 7 2005 London Bombings Fast Facts”
Daily Mail, 5/28/2009, “MI5 Hit by New Claim of Torture Collusion as Briton to Sue Home Secretary Over ‘Beatings’”
Daily Mail, 6/25/2009, “‘If I Didn't Confess to 7/7 Bombings MI5 Officers Would Rape My Wife,’ Claims Torture Victim – 7/7 Bombings”
Financial Times, July 2005, “Blair Rejects Calls for Probe Into Bombings”
Guardian, 7/11/2005, “Is This Just the Start?”
Guardian, 6/25/2009, “Briton Claims He Was Tortured As 7/7 ‘Mastermind’”
NBC, 7/7/2005, “Islamic group Claims London Attack”
Sunday Times (London), 7/12/2005, “Terrorist Gang ‘Used Military Explosives’”
Able Archer 83
As an additional aside, military planners know that exercises can be used as a cover for real operations. In fact, Ronald Reagan’s Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger once stated:
“The difference between a realistic exercise or maneuver and what could be preparations for an attack, that line is sometimes quite blurred.”
He was speaking from experience, having overseen the massive 1983 war exercise known as “Able Archer 83,” which simulated a first-strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union and even involved a real radio-silent airlift of 19,000 U.S. troops into Europe. Declassified documents obtained by the National Security Archive at George Washing University over 30 years later revealed that the Soviet Union suspected the war game may be a cover for a real attack. As a result, the drill nearly led to a real nuclear exchange between the superpowers.
Sources:
National Security Archive, “The Able Archer 83 Sourcebook”
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 533, 10/24/2015, “The 1983 War Scare Declassified and For Real”
Slate, 4/13/2017, “The Week the World Almost Ended”