Permanent Top Post by JM Talboo and Steve W.

By JM Talboo and Steve W.

Many people subconsciously make the mistake of only seeing the issues concerning 9/11 in black and white, as opposed to shades of gray. This is known as the black-or-white fallacy. In this case, the false dilemma is: 9/11 was either carried out by Al-Qaeda or it was "an inside job."

Just because the evidence suggests that rogue elements of the US government and intelligence apparatus, as well as other international intelligence agencies, were involved, doesn't mean bin Laden and Al-Qaeda hijackers weren't involved.

In the fight to uncover the truth about 9/11 we must contend with individuals and groups that distort, omit and lie about important details in order to defend the official narrative - the 911 truth debunkers.

 

The NORAD-stand-down, various whistleblowers ("debunkers" just assert they are all confused lying with no basis), and peer-reviewed studies of the physical evidence centered around the destruction of the 3 World Trade Center Buildings in New York, make a strong case that the attacks involved substantial inside help.

“I think it’s implausible to believe that 19 people, most of whom didn’t speak English, most of whom had never been in the United States before, many didn’t have a high school education, could have carried out such a complicated task without some support from within the United States” - Former Sen. Bob Graham on 60-Minutes 

We might be wrong about where we suspect this all leads, but the "debunkers" are wrong when many essentially argue that it's acceptable for 70% of 9/11 family members questions to have never been answered by the 9/11 Commission. So of course, most have no qualms about promises made to 9/11 family members being broken by the Commission to investigate all whistleblower claims, which a substantial amount of the public find highly-suspicious at minimum, with many regarding the evidence as suggestive of complicity to varied degrees.

The below link proves that many thousands of family members want a new investigation. Likely the amount of people killed that day is outnumbered by these 9/11 victim's family members.

 http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2014/03/thousands-of-victims-family-members.html

So again, these fine patriots known as 9/11 debunkers are just dandy with controlled demolition being ruled out by skipping key forensic tests. 

Truth Teller's Radio Episode 16 - 9/11/2018 JM Talboo Interviews Richard Gage about the 3000+ Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth:

http://truthtellersradio.blogspot.com/2018/09/truth-tellers-radio-episode-16-9112018.html

Are there more problems with the UAF/Hulsey/AE911Truth WTC7 Draft Report or the NIST WTC 7 Report? You Decide...

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2019/09/are-there-more-problems-with.html

Firefighters for 9/11 Truth Tribute Page:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2014/03/firefighters-for-911-truth-tribute-page.html

So it stands to reason, that these ilk feel the lack of air defense story is above scrutiny to the point that secrecy and rewards are warranted. So what if this tale consists of 3, or some contend 4, mutually contradictory versions of events and admitted lies. It makes perfect sense that the top officials from NORAD and the FAA received promotions, as opposed to having to provide documents with data that would prove that the jet fighters were acceptably responsive, given the past response time averages.

Unsurprisingly, the duh-bunk-turds hate even the best of the "Loose Change" films, but loose ends are no biggie.

The Washington Post reported on August 2, 2006 that:

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources... "We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. 'It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

So, if 9/11 didn't have an inside element, what's to stop such a scenario from taking place in the future when we get investigations that have attributes like these? 

It is therefore the purpose of this website to rebut the hollow claims of the so-called 911 truth "debunkers" and clarify what is known about the attacks for the benefit of those following the debate and also for the largely uninformed public. This site now features 9/11 truth related and not-so-related content. So please utilize our search feature (found also on the sidebar) to find a massive treasure trove of well-researched info on nearly every issue in the realm of 9/11 truth debate. 

Sorry that we don't allow any comments, but if you wish to communicate any thoughts you have about the published material please contact us here. Ad hominems will be ignored, but well-formed rebuttals may be addressed (and that is a subjective matter) provided we have not refuted the points therein numerous times on this blog already.

FAIR USE NOTICE

National Security Notice via Washington's Blog:

We are NOT calling for the overthrow of the government. In fact, we are calling for the reinstatement of our government. We are not calling for lawlessness. We are calling for an end to lawlessness and lack of accountability and a return to the rule of law. Rather than trying to subvert the constitution, we are calling for its enforcement. We are patriotic Americans born and raised in this country. [Four foreign countries also represented here at DTD]. We love the U.S. We don't seek to destroy or attack America ... we seek to restore her to strength, prosperity, liberty and respect. We don't support or like Al Qaeda, the Taliban or any supporting groups. We think they are all disgusting. The nation's top legal scholars say that draconian security laws which violate the Constitution should not apply to Americans. Should you attempt to shut down this site or harass its authors, you are anti-liberty, anti-justice, anti-American ... and undermining America's national security.

911debunkers.blogspot.com
911research.wtc7.net
911review.com
WTC7.net
ae911truth.org
journalof911studies.com

ATTENTION POTENTIAL 9/11 GRAND JURY MEMBERS! - The NIST 9/11 report, is inadmissible in a court of law in the United States, because it fails the *Daubert* standard + Listen to These Three NIST Whistleblowershttps://t.co/oUIAm46HPP@Develawpments @HillBenjamin @tmagasays pic.twitter.com/PZOxAEOc3b

— JM Talboo (@JM_Talboo) February 12, 2019

Team Tulsi Responds To 9/11 Truth Letter

In what looks to be an actual written response followed by an auto response they said...

Aloha John, Thank you for sharing that we have forwarded your message onto Tulsi and the team

Team Tulsi

Auto response starts right above this text

Related:

Here's My Letter To Tulsi Gabbard About 9/11 Truth... Will YOU Please Send One Too?:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2019/11/heres-my-letter-to-tulsi-gabbard-about.html

YouTube Removes Video For Hate Speech That Was A Robot Voice Reading A Breitbart News Article About ‘Whistleblower’ Tweeting ‘Coup Has Started’

This video is a robot voice reading a Breitbart news article. How in the world is that hate speech? Defeating nightmarish, ridiculous, Orwellian censorship should be our #1 Goal!

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2019/11/06/whistleblower-attorney-mark-s-zaid-tweeted-coup-has-started/

 YouTube Removes Video For Hate Speech That Was A Robot Voice Reading A Breitbart News Article About ‘Whistleblower’ Tweeting ‘Coup Has Started’

Related:

DEBUNKED: Why 'Hate Speech' Doesn't Exist!:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2016/12/debunked-why-hate-speech-doesnt-exist.html

Here's My Letter To Tulsi Gabbard About 9/11 Truth... Will YOU Please Send One Too?

Update: Team Tulsi Responds To 9/11 Truth Letter


https://www.tulsi2020.com/contact

Dear John-Michael,

Thanks for your note! My team and I read every email that comes in and your feedback, ideas, stories, prayers, hopes and dreams are important to us. This campaign is about lifting up the voices of the people. Your voice. Our voice.

Dear Future President,

Thank you for your 9/11 related efforts, but I assure you as an intelligent respected researcher/activist, 9/11 was an inside job to some extent. Even if we accept that bin Laden and gang were the masterminds of 9/11 it does not negate a slew of evidence indicating that they were allowed to succeed and had their results amplified. 9/11 very well could have been an inside and an outside job.

The physical evidence, NORAD stand-down, and whistleblowers, prove the case.

Please look into the info below. Thank you for fighting to stop the endless regime change wars.

Sincerely, 
JM Talboo

The below link proves that many thousands of family members want a new investigation and think 9/11 was an inside job to some degree. Likely the amount of people killed that day is outnumbered by these 9/11 victim's family members.

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2014/03/thousands-of-victims-family-members.html

9/11 Family Member Patty Casazza: Government Knew Exact Date and Exact Target - Guide to 9/11 whistleblowers:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2009/09/but-if-911-was-conspiracy-people-would.html

Firefighters for 9/11 Truth:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2014/03/firefighters-for-911-truth-tribute-page.html

Peer-Reviewed Papers:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2012/10/peer-reviewed-911-truth.html

Rogue Members of the US Government Involved in 9/11?

https://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2019/02/rogue-members-of-us-government-involved.html

Rogue Elements of US and Other International Intelligence Agencies Involved in 9/11?:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2016/03/rogue-elements-of-us-and-other.html

Foreknowledge and NORAD Stand-Down:

https://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2019/11/foreknowledge-and-norad-stand-down.html

They REALLY oughta know better - Critiques of claims made by several prominent and semi-prominent 9/11 debunkers:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2011/05/they-really-oughta-know-better_05.html

Related:

Tucker Carlson interviews Tulsi Gabbard and 2 family members--very different from his former interviews with Steven Jones and David Ray Griffin:

http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2019/11/tucker-carlson-interviews-tulsi-gabbard.html

Foreknowledge and NORAD Stand-Down:

Prior-Knowledge:

Pumpitout Radio - "9/11 FACTS not fiction"

Presidential Daily Briefing from August 6, 2001: Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US

Pat Curley of the Screw Loose Change blog has commented that, "The two paragraphs which do not appear historical in nature are also not very accurate in predicting 9-11; federal buildings in New York were not attacked and the attacks were not done with explosives."

Condoleezza Rice's bio on Wikipedia contains this tidbit:

Rice characterized the August 6, 2001 President's Daily Brief Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US as historical information. Rice indicated "It was information based on old reporting."[45] Sean Wilentz of Salon magazine suggested that the PDB contained current information based on continuing investigations, including that Bin Laden wanted to "bring the fighting to America."[46]

One commenter by the name of Brian Good on Pat's blog thanked him for his candor, "Thanks, Pat, for confirming that the 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US' memo actually did warn of new attacks, though Condi claimed under oath in the presence of the 9/11 widows that it did not."

Yes, there was a section that mentions "bin Laden supporters in the U.S. planning attacks with explosives," which as Pat pointed out, "the attacks were not done with explosives," meaning of course that it wasn't a bombing attack akin to the 1993 WTC bombing, but the memo also mentioned "suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks..." It then mentions that this included "recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York," to which Pat points out that the towers were not federal buildings, but the "recent surveillance" would be in addition to the "most attractive terrorist target" at the WTC as detailed by several reports dating back to the 1980s.

When we look at the PBD within a larger context we start to get a clearer picture of the situation.

Here is the list of mainstream news articles detailing ignored warnings, which first got me started into 9/11 research.

Here is some of the more specific information.

In November 2007, Patty Casazza, one of the four New Jersey widows known as the "Jersey Girls" who helped instigate the formation of the 9/11 Commission, revealed that whistleblowers told her "the government knew the exact day, the type of attack, and the targets." Let's look further into this outrageous claim: Whom could she have meant by "the government?"

As pointed out by to me Fran Shure at colorado911visibility.org this supports an earlier account:

David Schippers the former Chief Investigative Counsel for the US House Judiciary Committee and head prosecutor responsible for conducting the impeachment against former president Bill Clinton. Schippers stated that at the behest of several FBI agents he had attempted multiple times to warn US Attorney John Ashcroft, along with other federal officials, of the impending attacks weeks before they occurred, only to be stalled and rebuffed in each attempt. As summarized in the books The War on Freedom and The War on Truth by Nafeez Ahmed, who personally corresponded with Schippers, "According to Schippers, these agents knew, months before the 11th September attacks, the names of the hijackers, the targets of their attacks, the proposed dates, and the sources of their funding, along with other information."

The FBI command, however, cut short their investigations threatening the agents with prosecution under the National Security Act if they publicized this information.

Ahmed has stated, "In The War on Freedom, I merely laid out facts and lines of inquiry for an official investigation. The book was the first read by the Jersey Girls, informing their work with the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, and is part of the 9/11 Commission Collection at the US National Archives (a collection of 99 books, copies of which were provided to each Commissioner)."

Despite this fact, the account of David Shippers is nowhere to be found in The 9/11 Commission Report.

FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, in an open letter to the 9/11 Commission, reported that there was "specific information regarding a terrorist attack being planned by Osama bin Laden," that mentioned major cities, airplanes, approximate timeframe, and operatives already in place in the US. This was reported by FBI agents to Special Agent in Charge of Counterterrorism Thomas Frields at the FBI Washington Field Office, but was subsequently ignored.

Edmonds has recently reaffirmed these points as factual and provided the testimony of the agent who first raised them. As Debunking the Debunkers blog contributor Scootle Royale wrote, "Pat Curley is confident that if we were to ever see the unredacted testimony, it will bear no resemblance to what Sibel posted. Well, how about supporting the truth movement in a quest for a new investigation so we can maybe see it unredacted then? No? Didn't think so."

More on foreknowledge here.

Speaking of 9/11 foreknowledge often brings up the issue of how this all corresponds with the idea of 9/1 being an inside job. As I have pointed out, many people make the mistake of only seeing the issues concerning 9/11 in black and white, as opposed to shades of grey.

NORAD Stand-Down:

A stand-down is defined as "a relaxation from a state of readiness or alert." This certainly took place regarding air defenses on 9/11. One explanation offered was that the terrorists turned off the electronic device known as a transponder, which helps identify aircraft on radar.

As stated by the 9/11 Commission, "With its transponder off, it is possible, though more difficult, to track an aircraft by its primary radar returns. But unlike transponder data, primary radar returns do not show the aircraft's identity and altitude."

The commission failed to consider the fact that the US military has more than just ground radar at their disposal.

As defined by the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, AWACS is "a sophisticated detection aircraft, fitted with powerful radar and a computer, capable of simultaneously tracking and plotting large numbers of low-flying aircraft at much greater distances than is possible with ground radar."

On 9/11 an AWACS plane on a training mission in the Washington, DC, area was ordered to return to its base in Oklahoma limiting the communications and surveillance capabilities of NORAD’s Northeast Air Defense Sector.

In 2006 New Scientist magazine reported that "US military radar can track space debris as small as 10 centimetres across, and can sometimes see things as small as 5 cm wide if it is in just the right orbit."

The 35 USAF bases that were within range of the 9/11 flights unquestionably possessed highly-sophisticated radar.

Commercial airliners do not need their transponders turned on in order to be tracked by the US military. If America was being attacked by aircraft belonging to a foreign power, it is ridiculous to think these enemy aircraft would have transponders installed to help the US Air Force shoot them down. It is equally ridiculous to believe the US military lack the technology to track aircraft without a transponder signal.

Another excuse given by defenders of the official story is that NORAD only looked outward for threats, not inward. There is much evidence that looking inward was also one of their responsibilities, but in any event, there is at least one incident which proves NORAD could be tasked to defend any part of the skies over the United States and Canada, as well as much evidence that it is not the only time this has happened, but rather, the only time we have been privy to.

The Popular Mechanics book Debunking 9/11 Myths cites an article in a 2002 edition of the Colorado Springs Gazette, which claims that, "Before September 11, the only time officials recall scrambling jets over the United States was when golfer Payne Stewart’s plane veered off course and crashed in South Dakota in 1999."

Popular Mechanics adds, "Except for that lone, tragic anomaly, all NORAD interceptions from the end of the Cold war in 1989 until 9/11 took place in offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). . . . The planes intercepted in these zones were primarily being used for drug smuggling."

But an October 13, 2001 Calgary Herald article reported that before 9/11 fighter jets "were scrambled to babysit suspect aircraft or 'unknowns' twice a week."

As Professor David Ray Griffin pointed out in his book Debunking 9/11 Debunking, "Twice a week would be about 100 times per year, and 'babysitting' is not what planes would do with jets suspected of smuggling drugs into the country."

Furthermore, a 1994 United States General Accounting Office report on continental air defense states, "Overall, during the past 4 years, NORAD’s alert fighters took off to intercept aircraft (referred to as scrambled) 1,518 times, or an average of 15 times per site per year. Of these incidents, the number of suspected drug smuggling aircraft averaged one per site, or less than 7 percent of all of the alert sites’ total activity. The remaining activity generally involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress."

As the New York City Activist blog pointed out, "Admittedly this is the early 1990′s, not 2001, and the quote is from a report which recommended trimming down the force. But still it casts a lot of doubt on the Popular Mechanics claim that intercepts were a rare occurrence."

And as Griffin points out in Debunking 9/11 Debunking, "In this account NORAD made 379 interceptions per year, 354 of which 'involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft in distress,' not intercepting planes suspected of smuggling drugs. Besides the fact that 1992 was part of 'the decade before 9/11,' it is doubtful that the pattern of interceptions would have changed radically after that."

A Canadian government performance report on their arm of NORAD for 1999-2000, the same period as the Payne Stewart flight, relevant to military operations in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks, backs up Griffin’s statements. The report states, "If required, 'unknown aircraft' are intercepted and identified by aircraft dedicated to NORAD. Over the past year, NORAD has intercepted 736 aircraft, 82 of which were suspected drug smugglers…"

While not addressing these reports, Mike Williams of the “debunking” website 911myths.com states, "The Popular Mechanics claim that there was one intercept of a 'civilian plane over North America' in the decade before 9/11 still seems quite absolute, but then that just means it wouldn’t take much to disprove it. Just find a media report of an intercept, an interview with a pilot who was intercepted when they accidentally flew too close to the White House, anything like that... How difficult can it be?"

Being that Williams only provides two examples of other intercepts for comparison on his webpage concerning the Payne Stewart incident, and that he could not find all the information needed to draw firm conclusions on these, he should know that finding any detailed statistics on such matters is difficult.

The aforementioned entry on the New York City Activist blog highlights the following from the 2004 Complaint & Petition to the NY Attorney General (Spitzer at the time) for a new criminal investigation into 9/11:

Also necessary would be data on cases of errant planes or unknowns in which no scramble orders were issued. Of special interest would be the prior performance within NORAD’s Northeastern Air Defense Sector (“NEADS”), which is headquartered at Rome, New York. Such a cumulative analysis–with special attention to cases when passenger planes deviated from course in the air-traffic control zones within which the 9/11 attacks occurred–would provide indispensable context for serious research into the subject of air defense response on September 11. This data is currently unavailable to the public, and there is no indication such an analysis was undertaken by the Kean Commission.

When 9/11 researcher and activist Aidan Monaghan sent a Freedom of Information Act Request to the FAA he was informed that, "...The FAA does not track or keep information about the request for support of NORAD for intercepting aircraft throughout the National Airspace System."

When Monaghan tried obtaining FOIA information from NORAD he was advised that they are not subject to the FOIA because they are a bi-national organization between the U.S. and Canada.

Perhaps those in government are the ones worthy of the question, "How difficult can it be?"

When Williams was asked in an interview to give his "strongest argument" against a NORAD stand-down he stated that, "I would point out the Payne Stewart intercept time of over 70 minutes, and the pre-9/11 confirmation that NORAD only had 14 fighters on alert at one time, none of which were at Andrews Air Force Base."

First off, as is pointed out in Paul Thompson's article "The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11," "We know details of a 1999 fighter scramble, because famous golfer Payne Stewart was aboard a runaway Learjet. With the pilot unconscious, NORAD used fighters from a number of bases outside NORAD’s official seven bases to follow the plane as it crossed over several states before finally crashing."

Let's address the second point first just for fun. As reported by Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine, after the second strike on the WTC, "Calls from fighter units… started pouring into NORAD and sector operations centers, asking, ‘What can we do to help?’" One of these bases was Syracuse, which offered to have planes in the air with some weapons within ten minutes. Paul Thomson notes that, "Even if fighters didn’t take off from Syracuse until 9:20, that still would have been enough time for those fighters to reach Washington before Flight 77 did, if they had been ordered to protect that city." Sadly, fighters from Syracuse did not take off until over an hour and a half after their offer to help.

William's admits on his page concerning Andrews that they "had some pilots and fighters, just not sufficiently prepared." This refers to their excuse for not launching fighters until 95 minutes after the second WTC crash because they were loading missiles, however, the first two planes to launch only had guns available.

Just as with Syracuse something could have been done much earlier. David Ray Griffin is quoted on William's page as stating "Fighters loaded with bullets, but no missiles, could have provided considerable protection. Even fighter jets completely unloaded would be better than no fighters at all, given their ability to deter and, if all else failed, ram an airliner headed towards the Pentagon, the White House or the Capitol." William's doesn't focus on this though, instead he rebuts Griffin's other argument that the "arming never happened," which it did, but not for another 33 minutes after the first two planes took off.

Regarding Griffin's former point, the article "IGNORAD - The military screw-up nobody talks about" by former U.S. Navy intelligence officer Scott Shuger also notes that there are other techniques fighters could have used with a hijacked plane, Shuger states:

It can first rock its wingtips to attract attention, or make a pass in front of the plane, or fire tracer rounds in its path. So even though on 9/11, the NORAD pilots working the first three airliners didn't have shootdown authority (they got it only after the Pentagon was hit), they would or should have been ready to try these other techniques, which might well have spooked or forced the hijackers into turning, which might have given the fighters a chance to force them out to sea. And even if the hijackers decided instead to fly right into a fighter in their way, wouldn't an airburst have killed fewer people than two collapsed flaming skyscrapers did?

As it turned out Shuger knew what he was talking about. Almost 8 months after his January 2002 article AviationWeek.com reported that:

Within minutes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon on Sept. 11, Air National Guard F-16s took off from here in response to a plea from the White House to 'Get in the air now!' Those fighters were flown by three pilots who had decided, on their own, to ram a hijacked airliner and force it to crash, if necessary. Such action almost certainly would have been fatal for them, but could have prevented another terrorism catastrophe in Washington.

These or other heroes like them could have and should have been in the air much sooner on 9/11, but don't take my word for it.

In the 911blogger.com article "The 90-Minute Stand Down on 9/11: Why Was the Secret Service's Early Request for Fighter Jets Ignored?" Captain Brandon Rasmussen from Andrews is quoted as stating that, "We were relieved to actually be given permission to go up and do something, instead of feeling totally helpless. I mean, we are fighter pilots, just like guard dogs chomping at the bit, ready to go."

All this being said, the fact that NORAD's force had been cut down to 14 fighter jets and that Andrews wasn't more prepared is problematic enough. As "Loose Nuke" commented on the 911 Blogger article:

On pg 2 of Note 13 it says, 'Wherley had no properly armed planes at Andrews. His units were not air defense units.' There's a 'summer of threat', warnings of a planes as missiles attack, CIA and FBI knew operatives were in the country, nothing was done to disrupt the plot, and nothing was done to harden security, nothing was done to defend the nation's capital. Rather, it appears some took action to leave the capital open to attack.

Back to the Payne Stewart incident, on Willams' old webpage on the subject he states that, "To be fair, if the first fighters had been closer (as they were on 9/11) then the response time would have been better."

His new page on the subject no longer contains this line. So much for being equitable!

Regardless, using a roughly 76 minute starting point for a refutation is fine because these events are barely comparable. Stewart was flying a 6-8 passenger Learjet 35, not a large commercial airliner, which was not flying over densely populated areas, did not have its transponder turned off, and was on autopilot as opposed to having terrorists at the helm clearly attacking the country.

The third strike on 9/11 at the Pentagon took place at 9:38 a.m., 44 minutes after Flight 77 veered off course at 8:54 a.m. This is a conservative figure, and judging from William's own page on the subject, one with which he would agree. By this time the first tower had already been struck. Although many government officials would claim that they thought the first strike was just an accident, couterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke wrote in his 2004 book Against all enemies that a member of his White House staff told him that, “Until we know what this is, Dick, we should assume the worst.” And in Bob Woodward's 2002 book Bush at War it was reported that when CIA Director George Tenet learned of the strike he was told specifically that, “The World Trade tower has been attacked,” after which he immediately suspected bin Laden.

The reaction of these officials should have been universal and hence the moment Flight 77 deviated from its course it should have become a target for interception. As noted on Wikipedia:

The Bojinka plot was a planned large-scale Islamist terrorist attack... to take place in January 1995...

A report from the Philippines to the United States on January 20, 1995 stated, "What the subject has in his mind is that he will board any American commercial aircraft pretending to be an ordinary passenger. Then he will hijack said aircraft, control its cockpit and dive it at the CIA headquarters."

Another plot the men were cooking up would have involved hijacking of more airplanes. The Sears Tower (Chicago, Illinois), The Pentagon (Arlington County, Virginia), the United States Capitol (Washington, D.C.), the White House (Washington, DC), the Transamerica Pyramid (San Francisco, California), and the World Trade Center (New York, New York) would be the likely targets. This plot eventually would be the base plot for the September 11, 2001 attacks, only hitting the World Trade Center (which was destroyed) and The Pentagon (which suffered partial damage).

Furthermore, Williams neglects to mention the fact that the jets already in the air which failed to reach the first two strikes were not redeployed towards the deviating planes headed for the capital. This would have guaranteed interceptors reaching Flight 77 before it crashed into the Pentagon.

To put it all another way, if the military can get to a Learjet in roughly 76 minutes when they are not being waged war on, then 44 or more minutes should be sufficient when they are. These points hold all the more true for the fourth plane to perish that day.

Based on a timeline provided by NORAD, on September 17, 2001 CNN reported that at "9:16 a.m.: FAA informs NORAD that United Airlines flight 93 may have been hijacked." The 9/11 Commission would later claim that NORAD is first notified about Flight 93 one minute after it had already crashed at 10:07 a.m. However, the initial report is supported by statements from two NORAD commanders that they were already tracking the flight when it changed direction at 9:36. This would mean that the military was tracking the flight for 50 minutes as opposed to zero! (Update on this point) This is just one of many such changes made in the 9/11 Commission's third mutually contradictory version of events.

During testimony given to the 9/11 Commission, then Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta had the following exchange with 9/11 commissioner Lee Hamilton regarding the plane coming into the Pentagon:

MR. MINETA: ...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?"...

MR. HAMILTON: The flight you're referring to is the --

MR. MINETA: The flight that came into the Pentagon.

MR. HAMILTON: The Pentagon, yeah.

The 9/11 Commission would assert that the military "had at most one or two minutes to react" to Flight 77 before it hit the Pentagon, however, Mineta's testimony indicates that they had 10 to 12 minutes, leading many to suspect the orders were stand-down orders. They omitted Mineta’s testimony from both their final report and the official version of the video record, however, they did imply Mineta was mistaken, stating that the discussion between Cheney and the aide occurred later than he claimed, and that it was referencing a shoot-down order for Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

So, were the orders for a stand-down or a shoot-down? As pointed out by 9/11 researcher "jimd3100":

Even if the 9-11 Commission is correct, when they claim he arrived at 10:07 (according to the White House) Mineta makes it clear the order was given before he got there. There was no shoot down order given before 10:07. The 9-11 Commission seems to admit this.

...It seems very clear from the evidence that no shoot down order was given until 10:20 and none relayed to the military until 10:31. Which means if an order was given before 10:20 there is no reason to believe it was a shoot down order. Which would seem to indicate it was a stand down.

Now thanks to recent research by "jimd3100" we know that a one Douglas F. Cochrane was the naval aide Mineta was referring to. When 9/11 researcher Jeff Hill followed up and phoned Cochrane, asking him what the orders were, Cohrane replied that he was "really not prepared to talk about this subject at all." Jeff then pleaded with Cohrane to ease his mind about whether the orders were stand-down orders, to which Cohrane replied that he had "nothing further to add" to the information already publicly available. Hill then asked Cohrane if he thought answering his questions would get Cheney in trouble, Cohrane paused, and then stated that "The 9/11 Commission Report is the authoritative narrative on the events surrounding 9/11."

As it turns out, it is against the law for Cohrane to say anything else because his interview with the 9/11 Commission has been classified.

We need to be allowed to view Cohrane's testimony, but even if he says the orders were shoot-down orders, the fact remains that after seeing the second tower struck at 9:03 AM the National Military Command Center realized there was "a coordinated terrorist attack on the United States," but yet shoot-down orders were not relayed to the military until 10:31.

Updates on These Points:

Lack of 9/11 Air Defence Explained?

Mineta Testimony Debunked - The Truth... That's Still Classified
The Washington Post reported on August 2, 2006 that:

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several commission sources... "We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. 'It was just so far from the truth. . . . It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

It is often claimed that 9/11 skeptics are quote mining the 9/11 Commissioners, as to suggest that they agree with our case, but this is the real logical fallacy. Kean admitted they were lied to and he did not know why. He can think that the 9/11 Commission's story of astounding incompetance is correct all he wants, but the fact remains that his report failed to tie up “those loose ends" and prove that ineptitude is all that was at hand.

As David Ray Griffin has stated:

...Although this explanation has been widely accepted, is it really believable? If our military had been guilty only of confusion and incompetence on 9/11, it would have been strange for its officials, by saying that they had been notified by the FAA earlier than they really had, to open themselves not only to the charge of criminal fraud but also to the suspicion that they had deliberately not intercepted the hijacked airliners. We are being asked to believe, in other words, that Scott, Arnold, and the others, in telling the earlier story, acted in a completely irrational manner--that, while being guilty only of confusion and a little incompetence, they told a lie that could have exposed them with being charged with murder and treason.

Equally counter intuitive is the fact that the top officials in charge of NORAD and the FAA on 9/11 were rewarded for their supposed incompetence with promotions instead of charges of perjury.

But "debunkers" will protest that the NORAD audio tapes prove the official story, no matter how implausible.  In response to David Ray Griffin, slate.com published the following and quotes the real purveyor of 9/11 myths, James Meigs of Popular Mechanics.

And what about other physical evidence that debunks the interception theory, specifically the NORAD tapes, which document the chaos and confusion of American air defenses that morning in painstaking detail? Griffin's response is that the tapes have likely been doctored using morphing technology to fake the voices of the government officials and depict phony chaos according to a government-written script. It's not surprising, he says, that after 9/11, mainstream historical accounts would be revised to fit the official narrative.

"This is a self-confirming hypothesis for the people who hold it," Meigs says. "In that sense it is immune from any kind of refutation and it is very similar to, if you've ever known a really hardcore, doctrinaire Marxist or a hardcore fundamentalist creationist. They have sort of a divine answer to every argument you might make."

As Kevin Ryan wrote in his January 2013 Article, "The Case Against Ralph Eberhart, NORAD’s 9/11 Commander":

The fourth and final story from NORAD was the official account given by the 9/11 Commission Report, now supported by NORAD.  In this explanation NORAD received “no advance notice” on any of the last three hijacked airliners.[11]  Instead of 20 minutes of notice on Flight 175, and 14 minutes notice on Flight 77, and 47 minutes notice on Flight 93, we were told that NORAD was not notified about any of them until it was too late.  The military was off the hook entirely.

All the evidence for notifications and response, which had constituted the official account for nearly three years, had been thrown out the window.  In place of these documents and testimonies, new explanations were given for why the scrambled aircraft never reached the hijacked airliners. These included unbelievable claims of communication failures and misdirection of the scrambled jets, as well as the introduction of a never-before mentioned “Phantom 11” scenario.[12]

The 9/11 Commission Report account was supported two years later by an article in Vanity Fair. [13]  Allegedly, the author of the article was given privileged access to audio tapes that were not available to the public.  Although the newly revealed “NORAD tapes” ostensibly bolstered the Commission’s new timeline, credible explanations were never given for throwing out the years of testimony and evidence that supported entirely different timelines.

The activistnyc.wordpress.com blog responds to the "debunkers" and demonstrates why Griffin believes what he believes, but also why his view of how the tapes were manipulated isn't necessary to conclude the tapes are not the end of the story.

10:10:31
NASYPANY (to floor): Negative. Negative clearance to shoot.… Goddammit!…
FOX: I’m not really worried about code words at this point.
NASYPANY: Fuck the code words. That’s perishable information. Negative clearance to fire. ID. Type. Tail.

A page on antiwar.com claims that Michael Bronner’s Vanity Fair article has “debunked” two “conspiracy theories,” including “(2) That the air force was ordered to ‘stand down’ on 9/11.” What???? Admittedly, since none of the hijacked planes were ever intercepted, one could dismiss the no-shoot order as irrelevant. But there was indeed such an order. The mere existence of such an order was anything but “debunked” by Bronner’s article. To “debunk” that, one would have to claim that tapes were voice-morphed – with no conceivable motive.

A Prison Planet article, NORAD Tapes Only Intensify Implausibility Of 9/11 Official Story by Paul Joseph Watson, August 2 2006, says:

Despite the lies of Cheney in his subsequent TV interviews and statements given under oath to the 9/11 Commission, those shoot down orders never arrived, even after United 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania.

A reasonable summary.

Another Prison Planet article, NORAD Tapes Expose Lax Military Attitude On 9/11 Air Defense by Paul Joseph Watson, August 4 2006, deals with the lackadaisical attitude of the Navy air traffic controller who was in charge of the two planes from Langley Air Force Base. Watson says, “NORAD tapes released this week which shed light on the negligence of the U.S. military in providing adequate air defense on 9/11 contain a conversation with a Navy air traffic control operator that provides another smoking gun for the assertion of a deliberate stand down policy on the morning of the attacks.” Of course, the Navy ATC himself probably just didn’t know what was going on. But why didn’t he know? Why wouldn’t he have been told?

Also on Prison Planet is an interesting article about Robin Hordon: Boston Air Traffic Controller Says 9/11 An Inside Job by Paul Joseph Watson, Thursday, December 14, 2006.

On 911Truth.org I found 9/11 Live or Fabricated: Do the NORAD Tapes Verify The 9/11 Commission Report? by David Ray Griffin. The contents of this article are similar to what Griffin says about the NORAD tapes in Debunking 9/11 Debunking.

Griffin’s main point is that the tapes themselves are suspect. For one thing, the tapes contradict many previous accounts, by many different officials, including people in both the FAA and the military.

Furthermore, the 9/11 Commission’s tapes-based account differs from all previous accounts in an amazingly consistent way, consistently placing 100% of the blame upon the FAA, whereas all previous accounts consistently do not place 100% of the blame upon the FAA. According to the 9/11 Commission’s tapes-based account, the military was not informed at all about any of Flights 175, Flight 77, or Flight 93 until after they had crashed. On the other hand, in all previous accounts, from the military as well as from the FAA, the military was notified about at least Flights 175 and Flight 77 (and, in many accounts, Flight 93 too) before they crashed. In all previous accounts, the military also tried to do something about each flight they heard about before it crashed. Also, according to the 9/11 Commission’s tapes-based account, the fighters from Langley were scrambled not in response to any real hijacked plane, but only in response to “phantom Flight 11,” a false FAA rumor that WTC 1 had been struck by something other than Flight 11, and that Flight 11 was still in the air and on its way to Washington, D.C. According to Griffin, “phantom Flight 11″ had never been mentioned in any previous reports.

So, if the tapes are genuine and all previous reports are false, then it is understandable why the FAA would have lied earlier, to cover its own ass. But, Griffin argues, why would military officials lie to cover the FAA’s ass, at the expense of opening themselves up to charges of incompetence or worse? (It is also very unlikely that military officials could have honestly forgotten that they were informed too late to do anything about any of the hijacked planes.)

Furthermore, Griffin finds it incredible that the FAA could actually be as incompetent as the tapes portray. I’m not as incredulous as Griffin is about the possibility of false alarms, such as “phantom Flight 11,” on such a panic-inducing day as 9/11. But it does seem very unlikely to me that anyone in the FAA would have been so extremely lax about reporting any abnormal behavior by either Flight 77 or Flight 93 after both WTC towers had been hit, at which point it was clear that there was a coordinated attack. It also seems very unlikely to me that anyone in either the Boston FAA Center or the New York FAA Center would have been lax about communicating with the military about Flight 175, after Flight 11 crashed into WTC 1.

Griffin then suggests that the tapes could have been fabricated via voice-morphing. This is possible, but I think it more likely that some of the timestamps may have been massaged a bit. Doctoring the timestamps would have been simpler to accomplish than a convincing voice-morph.

Griffin also endorses the idea that phone calls from the passengers on Flight 93 may have been voice-morphed. That’s an idea I personally find very hard to believe. As far as I am aware, no families or co-workers of the passengers have ever expressed any doubts about the authenticity of those calls. And a convincing voice-morph would have required lengthy voice samples plus familiarity with the person’s idiosyncrasies. That being the case, it seems to me more likely that the “cell phone” calls were in fact Airfone calls, and that the cell phone vs. Airfone issue was merely an error in early reports.

Back to the NORAD tapes. It should be noted that the tapes do not include absolutely everything that happened. They do not include conversations amongst the high-level officials, for example. Only on some phone lines were conversations recorded. In addition, perhaps there might have been some cherry-picking of the conversations that were recorded.

Griffin writes, regarding his belief that the NORAD tapes were fabricated:

But Would All Those People Participate in a Lie?

There is, to be sure, a rather obvious objection to this hypothesis: If the NORAD and FAA tapes as described by Bronner have both been altered, then many military and FAA personnel would know this. Surely at least some of them would speak up? Surely not everyone would be willing to be complicit in such an enormous fraud by remaining silent!

However–and this could turn out to be the most important implication of the new story–it is now known that members of both the FAA and the military are capable of such deceit and complicity. On the one hand, if the new story is true, then many people in both the FAA and the military knew the old story to be false and yet supported it–whether actively or by their silence–from 2001 to 2004. On the other hand, if the new story is false, then many people in both the FAA and the military know this and yet have supported it–whether verbally or merely by not challenging it–since the publication of The 9/11 Commission Report in July 2004. Given Bronner’s portrayal of some of the people at NEADS, to be sure, it is not pleasant to think of them as consciously participating in an enormous lie. But we have no choice, because if the new story is true, then they were complicit in an enormous lie between 2001 and 2004. And if so, we have no reason to believe they would not participate in a new, improved lie.

I would add that, if voice-morphing were not done but only the timestamps were altered, then a lot of people might not even notice the changes, or might honestly just assume that both their own and everyone else’s memories were wrong.

In David Ray Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposed, he writes:

And for what's it's worth there is an individual online who claims there exists proof of the tapes being manipulated, who wrote:

My name is david . and i would like to pass information about what happen on 911, 2 days before (sept 9th and 10th) but i would rather post a mp3 which will cover alot of info. my lawyer told me i should wait until there a new investigation, and its very dangerous for me to post, blog, or even tell anyone what happen. this is very hard for me to write it down. or on video. before i start let me give you some back ground. 1 i am a DJ, re mixer, and producer. for over 18 years...

the NORAD tapes was recorded on a Digital Audio Tape recorder. when loose change got of hold of the NORAD tapes on mp3 which is a no no because its WAY better if you get a copy of dat to dat not mp3 !!! because when you record 24 people at the same time its lock it will never go off (synchronisation) every producer know this. if you play one by one using windows media player its not cutting it. on a adat you have timings hr, min, sec, (timing is a key thing ) what they did they moved sections, fade,cut, paste,adding distortion,and a filter. my lawyer has 4 of the names on who manipulated the NORAD tapes which all 4 are in deep S@@@ because 2 of them are cia the other 2 have no clue. basically Evidence tampering.obstruction of justice also Obstruction of criminal investigations. i have the names but i cannot tell no one i leave it as that there so much about this case its mind blowing. i even got death threatS as soon I GOT THE NAMES. my lawyer is trying to contact other prosecutors around the country to round up other well know producers and Engineers. as soon a new investigation kicks in i have to testify with other producers and witnesses. i will explain more please chill out and if i were you guys contact EVERYONE AS MUCH YOU CAN FROM alex jones , loose change cats,we are change, you name it. because after i post the mp3 im gonna have to request that this topic must be deleted. on the 5th of sept . forgive my writings much love NJ1

Adding to the point made about the tapes not including everything that happened is an article by "Shoestring" on 911blogger.com entitled, "What Do NORAD's 9/11 Computer Chat Logs Reveal?," where it's noted:

In an August 2006 Vanity Fair article based on the recordings, Bronner therefore referred to these "NORAD tapes" as "the authentic military history of 9/11." [3]

However, the NORAD tapes are not the only record of the actions of NORAD and its Northeast Air Defense Sector on September 11. In her recent book Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama that Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11, commercial pilot and author Lynn Spencer revealed the existence of other crucial documentation. Yet, more than seven years on from 9/11, this record remains unreleased to the public and its contents are almost completely unknown.

Spencer described how, at around 9:25 a.m. on September 11, Master Sergeant Joe McCain, the mission crew commander technician at NEADS, received a call from the Continental U.S. NORAD Region (CONR) headquarters at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. Major General Larry Arnold and his staff at Tyndall had been trying to gather information about the ongoing crisis, and wanted to know the transponder codes for the two fighter jets that had been launched in response to the first hijacking. The CONR officer that made the call told McCain to "send [the transponder codes] out on chat." By "chat," he meant NORAD's computer chat system. [4]

NORAD'S COMPUTER CHAT SYSTEM

According to Spencer, the chat system used by NORAD that day was "similar to the chat rooms on most Internet servers, but classified." It had three chat rooms that could be used by anyone with proper access. One room was specifically for NEADS, and connected its ID, surveillance, and weapons technicians to its alert fighter squadrons, and was where NEADS received status reports on fighter units and their aircraft. Another chat room was for CONR, and was where its three sectors--NEADS, the Western Air Defense Sector (WADS), and the Southeast Air Defense Sector (SEADS)--communicated with each other and could "upchannel" information to CONR headquarters. The third room was the Air Warfare Center (AWC), where senior NORAD commanders from the three NORAD regions--CONR, Canada, and Alaska--communicated with each other. Although NEADS was allowed to monitor this room, it could not type into it. [5]

Furthermore, when a training exercise was taking place, one or two additional chat windows would be open specifically for communicating exercise information, so as to help prevent it being confused with real-world information. [6] This fact is of particular significance, as the whole of NORAD, including the staff at NEADS, was involved in at least one major training exercise the morning of 9/11. The annual "Vigilant Guardian" exercise has been described as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States," and was scheduled to include a simulated hijacking that day. [7]

In regard to how the NORAD stand-down was achieved, many have speculated that inaction by an intentionally AWOL chain of command, combined with the four wargames that were conducted on 9/11, caused deliberate confusion.

In a 911blogger.com piece entitled, "Discussion with Miles Kara about 9/11 air defense." the following exchange with researcher Paul Schreyer is relayed [Kara was a staff member of the 9/11 Commission]:

Paul Schreyer: Vigilant Guardian - the fake inserts on NORAD radar screens. Are you sure, that this was "value added", as you write about the impact of this exercise? I think this was "noise added".

Miles Kara: Vigilant Guardian had not started up that morning when Cooper called. But NEADS was poised, the Battle Cab was operational, and additional assets were available without the need to recall anyone. That was a major plus as they expanded operations that morning. Plus, Nasypany could immediately talk to Marr, in fact could turn around and see him behind glass in the Battle Cab. When the electronic feed started up Nasypany recognized that immediately and gave orders to suppress the feed, orders that were carried out instantly. You can surmise all you want that it was "noise added" but you are simply wrong, based on the NEADS tapes, primary source information. Take the time to reread my Nasypany series to understand how well NEADS functioned that morning, over all.

Paul Schreyer: Just to understand you right: do you say there were no fake inserts on NORAD radar screens that morning?

Miles Kara: Just briefly at NEADS, a matter of seconds until Nasypany took action to suppress the feed.

Paul Schreyer: If it is right what you say, that the feed of fake inserts on the radar screens was suppressed immediately, than why all the chatter at NEADS as for example "I think this is a damn input" (9:04), "turn your sim switches off", "let´s get rid of this damn sim" (9:30) and so on? At what exact time was the feed suppressed?

Miles Kara: Read my article again, the one where I discuss, in detail, the times that the exercise is mentioned. (http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=4685) It was only when I did the research for that article that I correlated Nasypany's order with the immediate reaction by the head of the Surveillance Section.  Before that I was not aware of the sequencing of those comments.  The comment that "I think this is a damn input" is simply a muse at the time, based on years of experience in dealing with both exercises and real world.  You need to review my work on Vigilant Guardian to gain a sense of how NEADS balanced real world and exercise events concurrently.  They were well practiced in the art and knew exactly what they were doing.  Outsiders can never gain an appreciation for how professional NEADS was that morning, they performed very well, given the lead times they had, or lack thereof.  The best perspective so far is my Nasypany series.

Paul Schreyer: You mention in your article the "turn your sim switches off" dialogue at 9:30. And you suggest that the sim feed startet just in that minute. How do we know that it hadn´t started well before?

Miles Kara: We know this.  The exercise had not yet started, and never started.  We know that the Surveillance Technicians did not acknowledge any exercise feed on their scopes, prior.  We know that Nasypany's reaction was instantaneous and we know from his experience and professionalism that he would have noticed it earlier if it had occurred.  We also know that any such electronic feed had to support an exercise inject.  There was no such inject, at least as of the time that Cooper called, since the exercise had not yet started.  What we don't know is the time that the first inject was supposed to occur.  It may be that I can sniff that out from the other channels and perhaps a written scenario somewhere, but I don't really see the need to do that.

Similarly, the "War Games" page at 911myths.com states:

Many prominent 9/11 researchers claim that the US air defence system would have prevented the 9/11 attacks under normal circumstances, but were unable to do so because air traffic controllers, the FAA and NORAD were confused by "war games" that were running at the same time...

...There’s a distinct lack of evidence for any of these exercises adversely affecting the response to 9/11, or even to contradict the NORAD and 9/11 Commission view that they actually helped.

However, there is a substantial amount of evidence indicating that things were not as easily managed as Kara and 911myths let on. And there are certainly experts "well practiced in the art," just like those mentioned by Kara, who think things could have got very intentionally confusing that day.  In a press release posted on 911truth.org entitled, "Expert Panel Reports False Accounts of US Political and Military Leaders on 9/11," it's noted that:

The 20-member 9/11 Consensus Panel analyzed evidence from press reports, FOIA requests, and archived 9/11 Commission file documents to produce eight new studies, released today.

The international Panel also discovered that four massive aerial practice exercises traditionally held in October were in full operation on 9/11. The largest, Global Guardian, held annually by NORAD and the US Strategic and Space Commands, had originally been scheduled for October 22-31 but was moved, along with Vigilant Guardian, to early September.

Although senior officials claimed no one could have predicted using hijacked planes as weapons, the military had been practicing similar exercises on 9/11 itself -- and for years before it.

The Panel, discovering widespread reports of confusion and delays in the defense response, looked into who was overseeing the air defenses after the second Tower was hit at 9:03 AM.

Going to the report itself, we learn that, "Although the 9/11 Commission mentioned only one military exercise – Vigilant Guardian – that was scheduled for 9/11, evidence shows that at least 12 exercises had been scheduled for that day."

9/11 researcher Dr. Webster Tarpley puts the number of exercises taking place on 9/11 at 22.

(Note: I strongly disagree with many of Tarpley's conclusions about 9/11 and his unfounded allegations against several other 9/11 researchers.)

The first bio listed on the 9/11 Consensus Panel is that of "Dr. Robert Bowman, former head of the Department of Aeronautical Engineering at the US Air Force Institute of Technology, and the Director of Advanced Space Programs Development (“Star Wars”) under Presidents Ford and Carter."

The WhatReallyHappened.com page, "War Games: The Key to a 9/11 USAF Stand Down," notes that Dr. Bowman who is "so decorated with medals and honors they could fill a patriotic Christmas tree... has inside knowledge of military protocol, and has stated that it is apparent to him that the massive military exercises that took place on September 11, 2001 were intentionally staged to confuse civil defenses."

The panel, whose members also include a retired US Navy fighter pilot who subsequently spent 27 years as an airline pilot, as well as a U.S. Air Force pilot who served for 31 years, continues their report:

One would expect that having so many exercises would have caused some confusion, which might have slowed down the military response. Indeed, statements to this effect have been made:

According to a summary of a 9/11 Commission interview with Canadian Lt. Gen. Rick Findley, who was at NORAD as the Battle Staff Director at Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (CMOC) on September 11,2001, there was, following the second attack on the Twin Towers, “confusion as to how many, and which aircraft, were hijacked. There was no situational awareness that was directly credible, and CMOC was relying on the communications over the phone lines with its operations sectors. Findley opined that AA 11 was reported still airborne and headed towards Washington, D.C. because of the added confusion of many hijack reports.” - Source

At Andrews Air Force Base outside Washington, DC, FAA Air Traffic Controller James Ampey, stationed at Andrews Tower, reported in a 9/11 Commission interview that there were an unusually high number of aircraft taking-off and landing at Andrews that morning because previously scheduled military exercises were underway. The radar screens were showing “emergencies all over the place.” - Source

General Larry Arnold, commander of NORAD’s Continental U.S. Region, said: “By the end of the day, we had 21 aircraft identified as possible hijackings.” - Source

Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke: “There were lots of false signals out there. There were false hijack squawks, and a great part of the challenge was sorting through what was a legitimate threat and what wasn’t.” - Source

FAA Deputy Administrator, Monte Belger, said: “Between 9:20-9:45 there were many confusing reports about various aircraft being unaccounted for.” - Source

An independent study in 2011 gave detailed accounts of nine falsely reported hijackings on 9/11, plus nine other reported aircraft emergencies.

This study by 9/11 researcher "Shoestring" is the most important reference, it begins:

Although it has been widely reported that four commercial aircraft were hijacked over the United States on September 11, 2001, what is less well known is that while the terrorist attacks were taking place and for many hours after, numerous additional aircraft gave indications that they had been hijacked or, for other reasons, were singled out as potential emergencies. More than 20 aircraft were identified as possible hijackings, according to some accounts, and other aircraft displayed signs of emergencies, such as losing radio communication with air traffic controllers or transmitting a distress signal.

Reports about these false alarms have revealed extraordinary circumstances around some of the incidents and bizarre explanations for how they arose. For example, it has been claimed that the pilots of one foreign aircraft approaching the U.S. set their plane's transponder to transmit a code signaling they had been hijacked simply to show authorities that they were aware of what had been taking place in America that morning. Another aircraft reported as transmitting a distress signal while approaching the U.S. was subsequently found to have been canceled, and still at the airport.

There may be innocent explanations for some of the less serious false alarms, such as those simply involving the temporary loss of radio communication with the plane, which is a common occurrence and happens on a daily basis. But, viewed in its entirety, the evidence appears highly suspicious and raises serious questions. Why, for example, were there so many false alarms on September 11? Why did so many of them involve false reports of hijackings or aircraft falsely signaling that they had been hijacked? The details of specific incidents that have been reported, which I describe below, show that these false alarms must have been something more than just the results of confusion caused by the terrorist attacks.

MILITARY EXERCISES INCLUDED SIMULATED HIJACKINGS
One possibility to consider is that some of the false alarms related to training exercises taking place on September 11. There is evidence supporting this contention.

Read the entire report here:

http://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2011/04/many-false-hijackings-of-911.html

Here are the key points and few excerpts on the lesser reported issues suggesting, "the confusion caused by the exercise" was "intended to paralyze the military," from another of Shoestring's reports:

'Real-World or Exercise': Did the U.S. Military Mistake the 9/11 Attacks for a Training Scenario?

NEADS STAFFERS THOUGHT ATTACKS WERE PART OF THE EXERCISE

NEADS PERSONNEL THOUGHT THE EXERCISE WAS CONTINUING, WELL AFTER THE ATTACKS BEGAN

COMMANDERS THOUGHT HIJACKING WAS PART OF THE EXERCISE

OFFICER WHO HELPED DESIGN EXERCISE MISTOOK ATTACKS FOR SIMULATION

NEADS PERSONNEL JOKED ABOUT THE ATTACKS

NEADS PERSONNEL INDICATED THAT 'REAL-WORLD' REFERRED TO LIVE-FLY EXERCISE EVENTS

NEADS OFFICER HAD 'NEVER SEEN SO MUCH REAL-WORLD STUFF HAPPEN DURING AN EXERCISE'

EXERCISE RESEMBLED 9/11 IN DAYS BEFORE ATTACKS

MOCK AIR TRAFFIC CONTROLLER IN EXERCISE USED NAME OF KEY CONTROLLER WHO RESPONDED TO 9/11 ATTACKS
Another remarkable aspect of Vigilant Guardian is that in the days just before September 11, the actor playing the air traffic controller who gave NEADS information about the simulated events said their name was "Colin Scoggins," even though it was unusual for a mock controller to give their name during an exercise. And then, on September 11, the real Colin Scoggins--an employee at the FAA's Boston Center--happened to be the key person calling NEADS with information about the actual attacks, even though it was not his usual role to perform such a duty. This curious apparent coincidence could surely have made it more likely that NEADS personnel would mistake the 9/11 attacks for part of the exercise.

CONTROLLER WAS 'THE ONLY ONE' GIVING NEADS INFORMATION DURING 9/11 ATTACKS
While an actor calling himself "Colin Scoggins" gave NEADS information about simulated exercise events in the two days before 9/11, apparently by coincidence, the real Colin Scoggins served as a key liaison between the Boston Center and NEADS on September 11. Scoggins has said he made "about 40" phone calls to NEADS that day. [37] Robert Marr said Scoggins was in fact "about the only one that was feeding us information [during the attacks]. I don't know exactly where he got it. But he was feeding us information as much as he could." [38] According to Lynn Spencer, other than the calls from Scoggins, NEADS's only source of information on the hijacked planes was "the coverage on CNN." [39]...

Therefore the unlikely and unusual situation arose that during the exercise on September 9 and September 10, and also during the attacks on September 11, NEADS was given key information by someone calling himself Colin Scoggins. The question arises as to whether this created any confusion during the 9/11 attacks, causing some NEADS personnel to think information coming from the real Colin Scoggins was part of the exercise. While the person answering calls from Scoggins on September 11 may have recognized that the caller had a different voice to the actor playing Scoggins on the previous days, other NEADS personnel could have been unaware of the different voices, and only have heard from their colleagues that a particular piece of information came from "Colin Scoggins."

PREVIOUS EXERCISES INCLUDED SCENARIOS SIMILAR TO 9/11 ATTACKS
It was not just exercise events during the previous few days that may have resulted in confusion at NEADS on September 11. What could also have increased the likelihood that NEADS personnel would mistake the 9/11 attacks for part of the exercise is the fact that during the previous two years, these personnel had participated in other exercises based around scenarios closely resembling what happened on September 11.

For example, the previous Vigilant Guardian, held in October 2000, included a scenario in which a pilot planned to deliberately crash an aircraft into a skyscraper in New York. The simulation involved an individual stealing a Federal Express plane with the intention of using it for a suicide attack on the 39-story United Nations headquarters building. [44]

Another exercise NEADS took part in, called "Falcon Indian" and held in June 2000, was based on the possibility of a "Communist Party faction" hijacking an aircraft bound from the western to the eastern United States. The fictitious hijackers intended to crash the plane into the Statue of Liberty, located close to the Twin Towers, in New York Harbor. [45]

Remarkably, one NORAD exercise, held at an unspecified time in the two years prior to 9/11, was based on the possibility of a hijacked aircraft being used as a weapon and deliberately crashed into the World Trade Center. [46] Furthermore, NORAD has stated that most of the four major exercises it held each year before 9/11 "included a hijack scenario." [47] So, although most of the personnel on the NEADS operations floor were unaware beforehand what the exercise was going to entail on September 11, they might surely have wondered if the plane hijackings and the attacks in New York that day were simulated, since these events so closely resembled scenarios played out in previous exercises.

EXERCISES INCLUDED MOCK TV NEWS REPORTS
One might think that television coverage of the 9/11 attacks would have convinced those at NEADS that they were dealing with actual terrorist attacks rather than simulated ones. However, there is evidence that casts doubt on this assertion.

It is known that simulated television news reports had been used in training exercises before 9/11. For example, a two-day exercise was held at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, in June 2001, called "Dark Winter," based on the scenario of a smallpox attack on the United States. This exercise, according to New York magazine, included "simulated news clips from an imaginary cable news network called NCN." [48] Whether NORAD exercises prior to 9/11 included simulated television footage is unknown. But this possibility should certainly be investigated.

The possibility should also be investigated that NEADS personnel mistakenly thought television news reports of the 9/11 attacks were video created to make their exercise seem more realistic. Unlikely as it might seem, evidence shows this scenario is plausible.

It has been reported that volunteers taking part in another military exercise on the morning of September 11 did incorrectly think that television coverage of the attacks in New York was video footage created for their exercise. That exercise, called "Timely Alert II," was held at Fort Monmouth, an Army base about 50 miles south of New York City, and was based around a simulated biochemical terrorist attack at the base. Exercise participants later recalled that "when they first saw live footage of the events unfolding at the World Trade Center, they thought it was some elaborate training video to accompany the exercise." One training officer was told by a participant, "You really outdid yourself this time." [49] If workers at Fort Monmouth could make this error, surely those at NEADS could have done so too.

After careful examination, I believe Kara may very well be right concerning the false radar blips never making it onto screens that day, but here is the other side of that argument. Compare and contrast. But the contention at 911myths.com of there being "a distinct lack of evidence for any of these exercises adversely affecting the response to 9/11" [shared by Kara] is bunkum.

Conclusion from the 9/11 Consensus Panel:

Because of the rescheduling of military exercises normally scheduled for different times, there were an extraordinary number of exercises underway the morning of September 11, 2001.

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.

Had the 9/11 Commission reported the full extent of the exceptional number of exercises it knew were operating that morning, the above-quoted statements by military officers such as Eberhart, Marr, and Myers – that the exercises did not, by causing confusion, slow down the military response – would have seemed implausible.

Any new investigation should probe the fact that, taken together, this evidence suggests that:

(1) the Pentagon, after creating conditions that confused the military response to the attacks, sought to cover up its creation of these conditions, and that

(2) the 9/11 Commission facilitated this cover-up by not making public the information held in its records cited above.

But the Arabesque: 9/11 Truth blog perhaps put it best:

NORAD commander-in-Chief Ralph Eberhart was asked by the 9/11 Commission if these war games "helped" response to the 9/11 attacks and responded nonsensically, "sir, my belief is that it helped because of the manning, because of the focus, because the crews - they have to be airborne in 15 minutes and that morning, because of the exercise, they were airborne in six or eight minutes. And so I believe that focus helped." This was clearly a ridiculous statement; if the war games "helped" response to the attacks, why were none of the planes intercepted during the attacks; what "response" was there at all? In fact, there is very strong evidence that these drills hindered response since they moved air defenses away from New York and Washington, added "injects" to radar screens, and created general confusion.

After much research, I still find these expert opinions the most compelling.

Former U.S. Army Air Defense Officer and NORAD Tac Director, decorated with the Purple Heart, the Bronze Star and the Soldiers Medal stated that "there is no way that an aircraft . . . would not be intercepted when they deviate from their flight plan, turn off their transponders, or stop communication with Air Traffic Control ... Attempts to obscure facts by calling them a 'conspiracy Theory' does not change the truth. It seems, 'Something is rotten in the State.'"

"I knew within hours of the attacks on 9/11/2001 that it was an inside job. Based on my 11-year experience as an FAA Air Traffic Controller in the busy Northeast corridor, including hundreds of hours of training, briefings, air refuelings, low altitude bombing drills, being part of huge military exercises, daily military training exercises, interacting on a routine basis directly with NORAD radar personnel, and based on my own direct experience dealing with in-flight emergency situations, including two instances of hijacked commercial airliners, I state unequivocally; There is absolutely no way that four large commercial airliners could have flown around off course for 30 to 60 minutes on 9/11 without being intercepted and shot completely out of the sky by our jet fighters unless very highly placed people in our government and our military wanted it to happen. - Robin Hordon, Former FAA Air Traffic Controller at the Boston Air Route Traffic Control Center, located in Nashua, NH, 1970 - 1981. FAA certified commercial pilot. FAA certified Flight Instructor and certified Ground Instructor. After leaving the FAA, he had a 12-year career in the field of comedy ending up as artistic coordinator for "Catch A Rising Star" in Harvard Square in Cambridge, MA.

Related:

Debunking the Debunkers on Pumpitout Radio
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