Something I posted years ago. It shows that we have every reason to believe that NORAD and the FAA lied under White House direction. I will update the link to historycommons as soon as archive.org is back up and running. - Jon
I'm researching this because of this statement from 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091701topsecret#a091701topsecret
A briefing is held at the White House on this day, which is apparently attended by a representative from the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey will note, during a 9/11 Commission hearing, that “it feels like something happened in that briefing that produced almost a necessity to deliver a story that’s different than what actually happened on that day [of September 11].”
If you watch everything Kerrey has to say, he puts a lot of the blame on the FAA, defends the military, and Gen. Ralph Eberhardt said there was no collaboration to cover-up anything.
Starting at 2:06:00...
http://www.c-span.org/video/?182320-1/september-11-commission-hearing
Here are most things having to do with the 9/17/2001 meeting with the White House from John Farmer’s book… The […] between paragraphs indicates that the following quote is on a different page. I’m looking at this through kindle which doesn’t give page numbers..
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This view—that timely notice had been passed regarding United 93, that the fighters had been scrambled in response, that the president had issued the authorization to shoot the plane down, and that that order had been passed to the pilots, who were tracking United 93—quickly became official orthodoxy. His assertion that by the time United 93 was heading for Washington the fighters were tracking it and the shoot-down authorization had been given, was repeated on September 17 by Vice President Cheney during an appearance on Meet the Press.
As administration officials struggled in public to explain what had happened and when, personnel from both the Department of Defense and the FAA worked to piece the story together, preparing for a briefing at the White House on September 17. An e-mail sent from NORAD’s Continental Region Headquarters in Panama City, Florida, just before midnight on September 16 commends the NEADS personnel “who dug up the requested information from your logs and tapes,” and indicates that the information has been passed “to the proper FAA office,” which will be “using this information to brief the White House tomorrow.” The e-mail then asks for follow-up information about “United 93, 1408Z [Zulu time, i.e., 10:08]” and “Which center calls with information that UA93 . . . is heading for Cleveland? . . . 1415Z [i.e, 10:15]” and “Who reported to NEADS that aircraft had crashed?”
On the basis of information contained in the NEADS logs, which had been forwarded, and on transcripts obtained from the FAA’s Cleveland Center, among others, the FAA compiled on September 17 a Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events; this document was used to brief the White House. The FAA Summary, completed at 6:30 a.m. on the 17th, references explicitly the NEADS logs, noting, for instance, that at 8:40 “Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) logs indicate they were notified by the Federal Aviation Administration of the events concerning AA 11,” and that at 9:05 “Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) logs indicate they were notified by the Federal Aviation Administration of the events concerning UA 175.”
With respect to the other two flights, however, the Summary provides no notification times to NEADS or NORAD whatsoever. With respect to American 77, the Summary records that at 9:33, “an Operations Supervisor . . . advised the White House Office of the United States Secret Service of an unknown aircraft heading in the direction of the White House, fast moving. Meanwhile, a controller was providing the same information to controllers working at the [Reagan National Airport] Traffic Control Tower.” The Summary makes no mention, however, of the notification to NEADS at 9:33 that American 77 was “lost,” or of the notification to NEADS at 9:34 of an unidentified large plane six miles southwest of the White House, both of which are in the NEADS logs that the FAA reviewed.
The Summary’s discussion of United 93 reflects a review of the transcripts from Cleveland Center but makes no mention of the 10:07 call in which Cleveland Center notified NEADS that United 93 was hijacked with a “bomb on board,” which was duly noted in the NEADS logs and referenced specifically in the e-mail from CONR to NEADS late in the evening on September 16. The only entry recorded at 10:07 was that “a Falcon Jet reported observing puffs of smoke in the vicinity of UAL93’s last known position.” The FAA Summary was clear, however, that the hijacking occurred at 9:28, quoting from United 93’s transmission of the attack as it occurred.
Thus, the FAA and NORAD went into the White House briefing on September 17 with notification times for American 11 and United 175, but with no notification times recorded for American 77 and United 93, despite the evidence contained in the transcripts and the logs. The Summary also reflected a time at which the FAA was notified that the Otis fighters were scrambled, but gave no account of the scramble of the fighters from Langley Air Force Base. Nor was any mention made of the mistaken report that American 11 was still airborne and heading for Washington.
The agencies’ chronologies had changed by September 18, the day after the White House briefing. On September 18, the FAA generated another timeline; this document was for internal use. The September 18 chronology identified a time for the FAA’s notification of the military regarding American 77: 9:24. With regard to the FAA’s notification of the hijacking of United 93, the FAA’s September 18 chronology indicates “N/A.” That same day, NORAD issued a press release concerning its actions on 9/11. NORAD’s press release also identified 9:24 as the notification time for American 77, and cited that notification as the trigger for the scramble of the Langley fighters. The press release reads:
FAA notification to NEADS 9:24
Fighter scramble order 9:24 (Langley AFB, Hampton, VA, 2 F-16s)
Like the FAA’s September 18 document, NORAD’s press release of the same date lists “N/A” as the notification time for the United 93 hijacking. The NORAD release explains that United 93 was discussed on an “open line” between FAA and DoD, then states:
Fighter scramble order (Langley F-16s already airborne for AA Flt 77) Fighters airborne (Langley F-16 CAP remains in place to protect DC).
Thus, the government emerged a day after the White House briefing with a unified account of the actions of the FAA and the military regarding the final two flights, American 77 and United 93. It was, moreover, an account that fit together nicely with the account provided publicly by Deputy Defense Secretary Wolfowitz and Vice President Cheney.
[…]
It quickly emerged that there was a problem with using 9:24—the time that had been settled on by both the FAA and DoD after the White House briefing on September 17, 2001—as the notification time for American 77, and as the event that triggered the Langley scramble. The representation that the Langley fighters were scrambled to meet the threat posed by American 77 puzzled Commissioners John Lehman and Richard Ben-Veniste in particular, who asked why, if that was the case, the radar reconstruction offered by the military showed the Langley fighters heading east, away from Washington, and then toward Baltimore, not Washington. If NORAD had received information that a third flight was heading east toward Washington, Commissioners Lehman and Ben-Veniste wondered, why didn’t the Langley fighters fly directly to Washington? (In fact, as we have seen, once the NEADS MCC received that information, he did precisely that, declaring AFIO—Authorization for Interceptor Operations—and heading the fighters directly to Washington.)
[…]
Commissioner Ben-Veniste noted as much at the Commission’s June 17, 2004, hearing when questioning General Arnold: “I’m not going to go through it, but it is disturbing to see that there were efforts made at after-action reports which were available shortly after 9/11. There were communications which our staff has received with respect to e-mails that reflect some of the facts on a nearly contemporaneous basis with the 9/11 catastrophe that reflect a story that, unfortunately, is different from the one which was presented to this Commission earlier.”
Specifically, the Commission staff obtained the e-mail referenced earlier, sent late in the evening of September 16, 2001, from Brigadier General Doug Moore at CONR, under General Arnold’s command, to NEADS. General Moore’s e-mail commends the person at NEADS who retrieved the relevant information “from your logs and tapes,” and indicates that it has been passed to the FAA, which would be using it “to brief the White House tomorrow” (i.e., on September 17). The e-mail then asks for follow-up information about, among other data points, United 93.
This e-mail is significant because it reveals that someone at NEADS had searched the relevant logs and tapes during the first week after 9/11 and identified the correct notification time for United Flight 93. That time, which was some five minutes after the plane had crashed, appeared in no timeline released officially or discussed, other than perhaps General Weaver’s statement on September 14 that “There was no notification for us to launch airplanes [to respond to United 93]. We weren’t even close.” As we have seen, however, General Weaver’s only public comment was quickly displaced in the official version of events by the version first espoused by Paul Wolfowitz, in which the military was portrayed as tracking United 93 and prepared to shoot the plane down if it approached Washington. Obviously, this version becomes impossible if the first notification the military received that United 93 was hijacked came after the plane had crashed; the military could never have tracked the plane. The day after the White House was briefed—on September 18—NORAD released its official timeline. Before then, NORAD’s Office of Public Affairs prepared a draft release. As the Commission staff advised the Department of Defense Inspector General’s office, the existence of the draft release, dated September 16, 2001, was revealed in interviews during the 9/11 Commission staff’s visit to NORAD Headquarters. The draft release originally listed 9:16 a.m. for FAA notification of American Flight 77; this time did not appear in the final release of September 18. For United Flight 93, the time 9:16 is typewritten as the notification time. Between the September 16 draft and the September 18 final release, both times were changed. In the final release, the “No specific time available” for American 77 is changed to 9:24. The 0916 notification time for United 93 is deleted, and is replaced with the “N/A” entry mentioned above. The public affairs director told Commission staff that he deleted the 0916 notification time because he “lost confidence” in its accuracy, although he could not remember why he lost confidence at the time. He did not remember who told him that notification on American 77 occurred at 9:24. Thus, the Commission uncovered evidence both that the military was looking at the proper data to have discovered the truth during that first week, and that the notification times were being scrutinized closely, if not manipulated. Given that by September 16 the staff at NEADS had identified 10:08 as the notification time for United 93, as reflected in General Moore’s e-mail, it is a fair inference that NORAD “lost confidence” in 9:16 because it was informed of the correct time. Why, we wondered, if NORAD had “lost confidence” in 9:16 as the notification time for United 93 as early as five days after 9/11, had that time reemerged as the notification time in testimony before the Commission as late as May of 2003? Could it have been an effort to explain the direction the Langley fighters took without having to mention the mistaken report concerning American 11?
[…]
Thus, the Inspectors General looked into how the FAA’s September 17 report was put together, and criticized the fact that no times were recorded for American 77 and United 93 despite the ready availability of those times. They apparently never considered, however, that the document was used to brief the White House on September 17, or that by the day after the White House briefing the agencies both cited 9:24—a time that General Arnold would later testify he “always knew” was incorrect—as the notification time for American 77 and, thus, as the reason for the Langley scramble. They never questioned why the 9:16 notification time for United 93 was discarded before September 18 as unreliable but later reappeared in public testimony. They never asked whether the White House briefing played a role in shaping the story and, if it did not, what did account for the agencies’ account of the notifications for American 77 and United 93. We may never know now the true “story of the story.” But it is impossible to conclude honestly, from the two Inspector General reports, that the official version of the events of 9/11 was the result of mere administrative incompetence; too many questions remain unanswered.