by anotherdrew » Sun Sep 24, 2006 9:39 pm
for the norad drills info, one of Rupert's main sources, per page 308, is: Barbara Honegger.<br><br>here's a quote from CtR:<br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>Normal FAA procedures for responding to even minor deviations from air traffic control protocols were followed routinely and without complication 67 times between September 2000 and June 2001 before a new convoluted order was released by the Pentagon on June 1, 2001. That order inserted the Secretary of<br>Defense into a decision-making and action protocol, normally the domain of senior military commanders.<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><!--EZCODE CODE START--><pre> Michael Guillaume[In re:] scramblingSun Jun 9 13:11:30 2002I am a pilot and I know what happens to me when I lose my transponder.The controller’s console immediately alerts him to the fact, sincehe no longer has my transponder code and altitude. This causes hima great deal of trouble, and very shortly I get trouble also. I am usuallyinstructed to stay below 3,500 feet and return to the airport. Thereason for the concern is that I am a hazard to navigation. Now imaginethe situation in the Air Route Traffic Control Center (commonlyabbreviated to ‘center’). This is in the northeast corner of the US, thebusiest airspace on the planet. Each controller has a wedge shaped sectorthat he is responsible for. His airspace is also bounded by altitudelimits. Commercial flights, referred to as heavies, are always underpositive control.They must constantly be in communication with the controllersin order to maintain legal separation. If one of these heavies loses itstransponder, it causes instant problems for more than one controllersince altitude information is lost. The controllers still have a skinpaint, or passive echo from the airframe, but the blip now shows upon all consoles for that sector, not just the original one that was handlingthe altitude range of the flight. If that same flight losescommunication with the controllers as well, the controller workloadtakes another giant step upward. Keep in mind that this is in an areathat is normally stretched to the breaking point with controller overload.This flight is now a hazard to air navigation, and the controllers’primary function of separating the planes is in jeopardy. The procedurefor lost communication emergencies is simple: follow your lastThe Attacks 311clearance. If the flight under discussion follows its last clearance, thecontrollers can predict where it will go and can still keep other flightsout of harm’s way. If in addition to losing communication andtransponder the flight starts to deviate from its last clearance, thewhole system is in an emergency condition. Alarms all over the countrywould be going off. One interesting piece of information is therecording of controller and pilot conversations. These tapes are a matterof public record and are written over after a few days unlesssomething interesting happens. These tapes would show the responseof the system. Where are they?So we know that the traffic control system would be in panic modewithin two to three minutes of the initial events. We know that OtisAir Force Base is only five minutes from Manhattan by F15. We knowthat the controllers always had a passive return from the planes andcould vector an intercept. The last Airman’s Information Manual Ibought has a date of 1989 and it describes intercept procedures. So weknow that intercepts have been routine low-level events since at leastthat time. We know that there is an Air Defense Intercept Zone justoffshore for the entire Atlantic Coast. This zone is constantly beingpatrolled. In general fast movers [fighter aircraft] would not need tobe scrambled. They can be diverted from routine patrol and trainingflights for the intercept. I know from experience that early morningflights are every pilot’s favorite. You preflight the plane in the dark andtake off. Even in a Cessna, breaking out into the bright clear sunshinefrom the dark earth below is a kick. In an F15, doing Mach 1 straightup would make it impossible to stop grinning. The odds are thatmany flights would be on patrol just offshore. It would be mostimprobable that even one commercial flight could go [astray] morethan ten minutes without being intercepted. The intercepting planewould slowly close from the left and take station slightly above andahead of the errant heavy. At this point he would rock his wings andexpect the other plane to do the same as a form of non-verbal communication.After this he would perform a gentle turn to the left andthe intercepted plane is required to follow. If this does not occur, thereare many actions, short of firing, the fighter can take to prevent thecommercial jet from harming either itself, any other plane, or anyground structure.Interceptions are routine daily occurrences. The fact that they didn’thappen under extreme provocation raises some serious questions. Ihope [former FAA Inspector General] Mary Schiavo will ask them.<!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>1</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--></pre><!--EZCODE CODE END--><br>1 KPFK Listener forum, <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?id=165346&article=10650.">disc.server.com/discussio...cle=10650.</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> This is just one of hundreds of similar statements from certified instrument-rated pilots that surfaced after 9/11, and it is consistent with interviews I have done with pilots since 9/11.<br><!--EZCODE HR START--><hr /><!--EZCODE HR END--><br><!--EZCODE CODE START--><pre> <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Cheney to Oversee Domestic Counterterrorism Efforts</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>President announces new homeland defense initiative</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->President Bush May 8 directed Vice President Dick Cheney to coordinate developmentof US government initiatives to combat terrorist attacks on the United States...<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>— White House Press Release, May 8, 2001</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END-->... Therefore, I have asked Vice President Cheney to oversee the development of a coordinatednational effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting ourpeople from catastrophic harm. I have also asked Joe Allbaugh, the Director of theFederal Emergency Management Agency, to create an Office of National Preparedness.This office will be responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the nationaleffort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management.Specifically it will coordinate all federal programs dealing with weapons of massdestruction consequence management within the Departments of <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Defense</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END-->, Health andHuman Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and otherfederal agencies….<!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em>— Official Statement of President George W. Bush, May 8, 2001 Office of the Press Secretary, The White House</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--></pre><!--EZCODE CODE END--><br>Here's a basic write up of what is accepted 'facts':<br><!--EZCODE LINK START--><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigilant_Guardian#Global_Guardian_and_the_September_11_Attacks">Vigilant Guardian & Global Guardian</a><!--EZCODE LINK END--><br><br><!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>from the 9/11 Commission Report:</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br><!--EZCODE QUOTE START--><blockquote><strong><em>Quote:</em></strong><hr>"On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian, which postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. We investigated whether military preparations for the large-scale exercise compromised the military's response to the real-world terrorist attack on 9/11. According to General Eberhart, "it took about 30 seconds" to make the adjustment to the real-world situation. Ralph Eberhart testimony, June 17, 2004. We found that the response was, if anything, expedited by the increased number of staff at the sectors and at NORAD because of the scheduled exercise.<br>See Robert Marr interview (Jan. 23, 2004)."<hr></blockquote><!--EZCODE QUOTE END--><br><br>hard to see how the "commission" could have found that the excercises 'speeded up' responce, the responce was completely slow and a-typical. Now just recently we've had commison members comming out and saying there were serious problems with the militaries replies but that they didn't go after it, this seems like a case were they just "took their word for it" in obvious contradiction to the evidence at hand.<br><br>let's review a bit from CtR:<br>Starting in April of 2004 it all fell into place. First, the June 2001 Joint Chiefs of Staff Instruction quoted at the beginning of this chapter surfaced on the website of the Defense Department’s Defense Technical Information Center.4 That demonstrated a willful intent to centralize decision-making authority away from field commanders prior to the attacks. As it turns out, the change in procedure had already been indirectly confirmed in a June 3, 2002, story in Aviation Week and Space Technology, and almost everyone missed it. That story quoted the order without disclosing that it had been put in place just ten weeks before 9/11. The wording was a near verbatim quote of the Joint Chief ’s Instruction. One exception in that order (Reference D) did leave some decision making in the hands of field commanders in certain exigent circumstances, but the thrust was a radical shift away from long-standing NORAD policy.<br>Further research into this change would disclose more evidence showing that, just a month before that, all counter-terror response planning and organization (with a focus on weapons of mass destruction) had been placed under the control of Dick Cheney.5<br>Then there were the exercises themselves.<br>Vigilant Guardian was named or referred to in several news stories including Aviation Week, Newhouse News Service,6 and on two official web sites.7 The official websites indicated — and this was later confirmed to me in my own queries with NORAD — that details of Vigilant Guardian were classified and not available for release. A Vigilant Guardian exercise focusing on cold war-era threats was, according to an official site, conducted by NORAD once a year. But a close look at what NORAD told the press described a Vigilant Guardian that was vastly different from an exercise preparing for a Russian attack. In their post-9/11 statements, NORAD officials described details of Vigilant Guardian that seemed to be describing something else altogether.<br>Aviation Week reported, “Senior officers involved in Vigilant Guardian were manning NORAD command centers throughout the US and Canada, available to make immediate decisions.”8 This confirmed the geographic scope of the exercise. Vigilant Guardian was played up in the press as though it had facilitated a quicker response. It did anything but that.<br>That Vigilant Guardian had a direct impact on the Northeast Air Defense Sector in which all four hijackings occurred was confirmed in a December 2003 original story by NJ.com, a New Jersey-based service also summarizing all major stories published by New Jersey press outlets.<br>NORAD also has confirmed it was running two mock drills on September 11 at various radar sites and command centers in the United States and Canada, including air force bases in upstate New York, Florida, Washington, and Alaska. One drill, Operation Vigilant Guardian, began a week before September 11 and reflected a cold war mind-set: Participants practiced for an attack across the North Pole by Russian forces.9<br>The story never named the second drill, and the assertion that it was strictly a cold war-type exercise is belied by direct statements of many of the principals involved that day. The NJ.com story also raised another chilling issue. Investigators at the September 11 commission confirm they are investigating whether NORAD’s attention was drawn in one direction — toward the North Pole — while the hijackings came from an entirely different direction.10<br>Vigilant Warrior was specifically mentioned by former White House counterterrorism advisor Richard Clarke in his 2004 bestseller Against All Enemies. At the beginning of the book Clarke describes a series of conversations with key officials that occurred after the second tower had been hit as he chaired the White House’s Crisis Strategy Group (CSG) during the first minutes of the attacks.<br>“[FAA Administrator] Jane [Garvey] where’s Norm?” I asked. They were frantically looking for Norman Mineta, the Secretary of Transportation, and, like me, a rare holdover from the Clinton administration. At first FAA could not find him. “Well, Jane, can you order aircraft down? We’re going to have to clear the airspace around Washington and New York.” “We may have to do a lot more than that, Dick. I already put a hold on all take-offs and landings in New York and Washington, but we have reports of eleven aircraft off course or out of communications, maybe hijacked.” [Emphasis added]… I turned to the radar screen. “JCS, JCS. I assume NORAD has scrambled fighters and AWACS. How many? Where?” “Not a pretty picture Dick.” Dick Myers, himself a fighter pilot, knew that the days when we had scores of fighters on strip alert had ended with the cold war. “We are in the middle of Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD exercise, but … Otis has launched two birds toward New York. Langley [Air Force Base] is trying to get two up now… It was now 9:28 [emphasis added]11<br>[NOTE: Clarke’s book was edited by the White House for some months prior to publication. The ellipsis (three dots) after the word “but” in Clarke’s paragraph above are a direct quotation from the book suggesting the possibility that the White House had deleted whatever Clarke had written here.] 338 crossing the rubicon<br>As the chart in the preceding chapter shows, according to data provided by the FAA, NORAD, and many press accounts, by 9:28 it was known that all four flights had been hijacked and that flight 77 had been headed towards Washington for some time.<br>This was the only reference to Vigilant Warrior I was able to find. Earlier references stored on the Web disclosed a 1996 exercise in the Persian Gulf with the same name, but nothing since. I knew that the names assigned to exercises had significance but did not know how names were allocated. Why would Myers indicate that a Persian Gulf exercise, not reported on anywhere else, had any bearing on domestic response on 9/11?<br>But if Clarke’s account is accurate, the name was confirmed directly to him by the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Military exercises are often linked, and according to several sources, when names are partially shared during simultaneous exercises this indicates a connection between them. The juxtaposition of the words “Guardian” and “Warrior” suggest opposing forces in a wargame exercise with one side playing the aggressor and another side playing the defender. The fact that Jane Garvey indicated that as many as 11 aircraft were out of radio contact or off course was the most startling revelation. Was it an indication that one or more of them could be connected with the war games? Northern Vigilance was an exercise being conducted on September 11th as reported only by Canada’s Toronto Star in a story dated December 9, 2001. The story had a great deal to say about how 9/11 unfolded.<br>Northern Vigilance, planned months in advance, involves deploying fighter jets to locations in Alaska and northern Canada. Part of the exercise is pure simulation, but part is real world. NORAD is keeping a close eye on the Russians, who have dispatched long-range bombers to their own high north on a similar exercise….<br>The Federal Aviation Administration has evidence of a hijacking and is asking for NORAD support. This is not part of the exercise. In a flash, Operation Northern Vigilance is called off. Any simulated information, what’s known as an “inject” is purged from the screens… “Lots of other reports were starting to come in,” [Major General Rick] Findley [Director of NORAD operations] recalls. “And now you’re not too sure. If they’re that clever to co-ordinate that kind of attack, what else is taking place across North America?”… [emphasis added]12<br>The reference to “injects” was chilling. No other mainstream press (especially in the US) had mentioned that false radar blips had been inserted onto radar screens on September 11th. But on whose screens? Where? A major anomaly in official 9/11 accounts had been officially ignored.<br>The only brief response I received from NORAD’s public affairs office when I tried to sort out the various names and identities of the wargames contained the statement, “To help clarify, NORAD did issue a news release entitled “NORAD Maintains Northern Vigilance” on 9 SEP 01.” The e-mail response directed me to a NORAD web page where I found the following:<br>The North American Aerospace Defense Command shall deploy fighter aircraft as necessary to Forward Operating Locations (FOLS) in Alaska and Northern Canada to monitor a Russian air force exercise in the Russian arctic and North Pacific Ocean. [emphasis added]13 So the fighters had been pulled north and west, away from New York and Washington. <p></p><i>Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=anotherdrew>anotherdrew</A> at: 9/24/06 8:59 pm<br></i>
