The statements made by government officials are easily summed up by the acronym, 'CYA'. They were incompetent in being prepared for a scenario like this, and tried to pretend that it hadn't been imagined in the first place.
In the wake of 9/11, administration officials - Bush, Condoleeza Rice, Rumsfeld, Cheney (in the rare event that he actually addressed the public) consistently lied, regardless of whether they were lying about WMD intelligence (the lack of WMDs in Iraq relative to the administrations claims weren't the result of bad intelligence, they were the result of intentionally misrepresented intelligence). Somehow, lying to cover up incompetence is dismissed by you as a non-item.
Regarding 9/11, they consistently made non-believable claims about what they knew beforehand, for example claiming no knowledge of the "Bin Laden determined to strike" memo. We'll get more into what they might have known in a bit. Suffice to say, it looks like your giving them a pass for lying, as you believe it was lying to cover up incompetence. If being warned by intelligence reports about an impending attack and doing nothing to stop it is incompetence, then i'll agree with you, except for the part that it's not a big deal.
Is it a big deal if evidence was destroyed?
"
WASHINGTON - At least six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners on Sept. 11, 2001, made a tape recording that day describing the events, but the tape was destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it, the Transportation Department said today.
The taping began before noon on Sept. 11 at the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, in Ronkonkoma, on Long Island, but it was later destroyed by an F.A.A. quality-assurance manager, who crushed the cassette in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in different trash cans around the building, according to a report made public today by the inspector general of the Transportation Department."
Key 9/11 Tape Destroyed by F.A.A. Official
(it links to the original NY Times article)
That's part of it...the other part, involving NORAD conducting exercises about such a scenario, contains one major difference that is cited in the very article you linked me to:
"The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country. Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries."
Now, since the article you quoted affirms that NORAD had no protocol for intercepting threats that originated from flights inside the country, let's hear your explanation of government statements and how they related to what happened that day. Mine involves them not being prepared in the slightest for such a scenario, and wanting to cover their incompetence. Your article even supports it. Now, let's hear your 'alternate' explanation in light of that.
My "alternate explanation" is that they were aware of the threat of planes being used as weapons, and that Condoleeza Rice flagrantly lied about it.
This article describes an exercise simulating emergency responses when a plane would crash into a building because of mechanical malfunction. The fact that it was to occur that day is a coincidence, but it had nothing to do with terrorists intentionally flying planes into buildings, nor preventing a plane from hitting a building.
And what is your explanation for this in relation to the events on 9/11?
It's hard to say. There were several reports that indicated that the simulation caused some confusion with air traffic control on 9/11. Those that think it's more sinister (i.e. that it was more than gross incompetence rather some involvement of the administration) say that the exercises on that day helped create the environment which allowed the attack to succeed.
Yes, it is...because you have not provided anything that shows 'foreknowledge of the attack'. You failed to mention that NORAD was not responsible for attacks that originated inside the U.S., and hence were not prepared for. Then you cited a drill about a plane crashing into a building from mechanical failure, so one agency could test for emergency response AFTER the plane would hit.
And then you make the leap to call it 'foreknowledge' of THE attack. You haven't shown any such thing, but you don't mind being very loose with the language. Explain yourself, please.
"
And the C.I.A. repeated the warnings in the briefs that followed. Operatives connected to Bin Laden, one reported on June 29, expected the planned near-term attacks to have dramatic consequences, including major casualties. On July 1, the brief stated that the operation had been delayed, but will occur soon. Some of the briefs again reminded Mr. Bush that the attack timing was flexible, and that, despite any perceived delay, the planned assault was on track.
Yet, the White House failed to take significant action. Officials at the Counterterrorism Center of the C.I.A. grew apoplectic. On July 9, at a meeting of the counterterrorism group, one official suggested that the staff put in for a transfer so that somebody else would be responsible when the attack took place, two people who were there told me in interviews. The suggestion was batted down, they said, because there would be no time to train anyone else."
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/11/opinion/the-bush-white-house-was-deaf-to-9-11-warnings.html?_r=0
Some government officials were told not to fly on 9/11 (Mayor Willie Brown), and others, like Ashcroft were not flying on commercial planes for a few months due to "threat assessment":
Ashcroft Flying High - CBS News
Other Pentagon officials canceled travel plans the day before 9/11:
"
Three weeks ago there was another warning that a terrorist strike might be imminent. But there was no mention of where. On Sept. 10, NEWSWEEK has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."
http://www.newsweek.com/bush-were-war-152089
The adminstration was definitely warned, failing to respond to the warnings doesn't exempt one from possession some foreknowledge of the attacks.
Bush Warned of Hijackings Before 9-11 - ABC News
No matter what side of a 5-sided building the plane hit, the odds were the same: 20%. But if you know about the final minutes of that flight, you already have an explanation for why it hit there. The hijackers overshot (either intentionally or accidentally) the Pentagon, and did an arced descent. A maneuver like that makes them come in close to the ground, and is much easier to hit the Pentagon than trying to dive-bomb into it. From the direction they were coming, that turn and descent allowed them to keep manual focus on the target, and dictated they would hit on that side of the building.
Your attempt to make this a smoking gun is puzzling...are you suggesting that in the process of killing everyone on board, and 125 people inside the Pentagon...that they were simultaneously hitting the recently reinforced part of the building because they paradoxically wanted to MINIMIZE casualties? Did someone set the cap at 125?
Which brings up another mine vs. yours question and explanation. Mine says that the hijackers flew the plane into the Pentagon. If you think the plane was flown into the reinforced part ON PURPOSE, then who was flying the plane? First you can explain why they're simultaneously killing everyone on board and 125 people in the building, while somehow trying to minimize deaths by hitting the reinforced portion, and then explain WHO was doing this and why.
My explanation was that it was the hijackers, bound by the direction they were coming from and bound by needing to hit it in a manner that is less difficult to execute (instead of a dive-bomb).
Let's hear yours! The one that you think has fewer assumptions and greater explanatory power.
Hey, look at that. My explanation also says that hijackers flew a plane into the Pentagon! Go and show me where i claimed anything else! How, in any way shape or form, does that take away from the numerous evidence of foreknowledge?
My attempt to make this into a smoking gun? No, it's
another suspicious coincidence.
You seem to be the one to disregard the all the other evidence and make me being able to explain motives or specifics into the end-all-be-all for this.
Oh, you mean that when 9/11 happened, and the administration made a bizarre connection between Iraq and 9/11...which wasn't true, and then claimed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, which turned out not to be true...that this shows that they were involved in the planning or foreknowledge of 9/11?
If that were the case, why, as I've asked many times, didn't the administration simply blame the attacks on IRAQIS IN THE FIRST PLACE, instead of blaming it on terrorists from Saudi Arabia, our ally, and then also not bothering to plant WMDs in Iraq so we wouldn't look like total idiots in the end?
Interestingly, Bush administration officials STILL don't believe they looked like total idiots regarding the Iraq/Bin Laden connection or WMDs. They seem pretty content to lie flagrantly to the public and see no consequence for their actions.
Your question is a non-starter. Bin Laden was the name given to the faceless threat of "terror" that needed to be eradicated. If we simply said it was Iraq, then we'd invade Iraq, and it would be over. By having our enemy be "terror", the war has no geographical bounds and won't be completed after merely toppling the Iraq regime. I do like how you try to get me to defend a position i've never taken. Kudos.
We would both agree that the administration used 9/11 as a pretext to invade Iraq, and I'm sure we would both agree that it was an unjust war that increased the threat of terrorism...but this hardly shows planning or foreknowledge of the attacks on their part, or else they could have taken some very elementary steps to avoid looking like total idiots, and avoided the non-sequitur blame game, and at the very least...planted WMDs as well.
I completely think there was some cover-up going on...about incompetence. Now, let's hear your explanations for these things, and compare them with mine.
In particular, the most important one will be your explanation of the issues you raised involving the Pentagon. Put it up against mine, and let's see what happens.
Btodd
No, the most important one will be the overall news and context, and trying to highlight any one item as the make-or-break item is a red herring. You've dismissed the vast evidence of foreknowledge and the lies about that knowledge afterwards as simple incompetence, and don't even seem concerned about it. If their incompetence and failure to respond to warnings had been publicly acknowledged, rather than dismissed by 9/11 falsers such as yourself, perhaps we would have been spared a 2nd term of George W. Bush (not that Kerry would have been much of an improvement).
Some, with more direct knowledge than i, offer a less tempered evaluation of the events:
"
A former Boston Center air traffic controller has gone public on his assertion that 9/11 was an inside job and that Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon tracked three of the four flights from the point of their hijacking to hitting their targets. In an astounding telephone interview, Robin Hordon claims air traffic controllers have been ignored or silenced to protect the true perpetrators of 9/11
...
"On September 11th I'm one of the few people who really within quite a few hours of the whole event taking place just simply knew that it was an inside job, and it wasn't because of the visuals, the collapses, whatever....I knew that it was an inside job I think within about four or five o'clock that afternoon and the reason that I knew is because when those aircraft did collide and then we got the news and information on where the aircraft were and where they went....if they knew where the aircraft were and were talking to them at a certain time then normal protocol is to get fighter jet aircraft up assist," said Hordon.."
Boston Air Traffic Controller Says 9/11 An Inside Job
"Bowmans experience as a fighter pilot made him extremely skeptical of the governments 9/11 narrative. Based on his experience, Bowman knew that every time a commercial plane goes significantly off-course, a military fighter plane shows up next to it within about ten minutes. The fighter pilot rocks its wings as a signal to follow me and get back.
He wondered how four allegedly hijacked planes flew through Americas skies for nearly two hours without being harassed by US air defenses."
Sept. 11 American Scholars Symposium - Part 3/7 - YouTube
"The truth about 9/11 is we don't know the truth...and we should."
