Regarding Mineta's testimony, the 9/11 Commission Report contradicted Mineta in saying that Cheney arrived at the White House 38 minutes after Mineta:
The hearings of May 22-23, 2003 were the second public hearings of the Commission and the first to focus on the actual events the day of 9/11. Secretary Mineta recounted to the Commission his experience on the morning of 9/11 from the time he was notified of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center, to his experience at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) along with Vice President Cheney and staff.
Unlike Secretary Rumsfeld who claimed to be "out of the loop", and General Myers who, astonishingly, was not disturbed from breakfast with Max Cleland, Mineta was able to provide a full account of his experience that morning. Mineta testified that he arrived at the PEOC at 9:20 a.m. and that Vice President Cheney was already present with his staff. "The 9/11 Commission Report" states that Cheney himself arrived at the PEOC at 9:58, a stunning 38 minute contradiction to Mineta's testimony.
Mineta's PEOC testimony was also edited out of the 9/11 Commission video archive.
When questioned about this, representatives at the National Archive stated that the video may have been lost because of a 'snafu'. Following is a brief summary of the scrubbed video along with links to recently obtained C-SPAN video.
There was good reason for the quizzical expression on Hamilton's face. Secretary Mineta had thoroughly trashed previous accounts of the PEOC activities that had been published in the press.
Mineta ultimately expressed the obvious, that the standing order was an open question only Cheney could answer. The fact that "The 9/11 Commission Final Report" discarded his testimony has never been explained.
If Mineta's testimony is to be taken into account, and there is no apparent reason why it should not be, questions about the timing of events the morning of 9/11 come into focus.
Most obvious is, if the standing order given by the Vice President prior to the aircraft hitting the Pentagon was not a shoot down order, then what was it?
Perhaps it was the danger of this question, and the danger that Cheney would have had to commit perjury to uphold the timeline reported in the mainstream press, that caused the Vice President to testify to the Commission along with the President in closed session, with no transcript, no witnesses, and no public accountability.
On June 23, 2006, Mineta suddenly announced his resignation from the Cabinet. The resignation came just one day after Professor Jim Fetzer of
Scholars for 9/11 Truth had appeared on Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, in which Fetzer suggested Mineta's 9/11 Commission testimony was proof of Cheney issuing a standdown order.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHkXB6jNn4Y
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/06/23/politics/main1746607.shtml