History Channel 9/11 special

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

So Kach, you really believe the second chart is what happened? Bush said "you bet"? Uh huh.

I don't think the captions on the chart are intended to be a complete transcript of conversations that day. To view them that way would be a distraction from the chart which looks to be accurate.

No numbers of actual fighters in this Wiki entry..........fustrating.

United States military and Department of Defense ongoing and scheduled operations and exercises for September 11, 2001
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_games_in_progress_on_September_11,_2001

On September 11, 2001, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was involved in an ongoing operation which involved deploying fighter aircraft to northwestern North America. The US Military and NORAD had also planned to conduct several military exercises and a drill was being held by the National Reconnaissance Office, a Department of Defense agency. The operations, exercises and drills were all cancelled following the September 11, 2001 attacks.

..an ongoing operation which involved deploying fighter aircraft to northwestern North America........just say ALASKA!

..The operations, exercises and drills were all cancelled following the September 11, 2001 attacks...........after the towers fell - Mission Accomplished?

[kach22i]

This is the end of this topic for me unless someone finds something better than this last find. I found this doing a Google search with the term "Operation Northern Vigilance NORAD " and clicking "I'm feeling lucky". I'm happy to find something that I can at least trust a little bit, and that the quote: "More than 350 American and Canadian military personnel were involved on that occasion" end-quote is close enough to what I can remember from nearly six years ago. Of course all 350 personnel would not be pilots or aircraft but that number is from "Operation Northern Denial" under Bill Clinton the year before.

Profile: Operation Northern Vigilance
Operation Northern Vigilance was a participant or observer in the following events:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=operation_northern_vigilance

September 9-11, 2001: NORAD Begins Northern Vigilance Military Operation

NORAD begins Operation Northern Vigilance. For this military operation, it deploys fighters to Alaska and Northern Canada to monitor a Russian air force exercise in the Russian Arctic and North Pacific Ocean, scheduled for September 10 to September 14. The Russian exercise involves its bombers staging a mock attack against NATO planes that are supposedly planning an assault on Russia. [BBC, 2001, pp. 161; NORAD, 9/9/2001; Washington Times, 9/11/2001] The NORAD fighters are due to stay in Alaska and Canada until the end of the Russian exercise. At some time between 10:32 a.m. and 11:45 a.m. on 9/11, Russian President Vladimir Putin will call the White House to say the Russians are voluntarily halting their exercise. [Washington Post, 1/27/2002] It is unknown from which bases NORAD sends fighters for Operation Northern Vigilance, and how many US military personnel are involved. However, in December 2000, it took similar action—called Operation Northern Denial—in response to a “smaller scale” Russian “long-range aviation activity in northern Russia and the Arctic.” More than 350 American and Canadian military personnel were involved on that occasion. [Canadian Chief of Defense Staff, 5/30/2001, pp. 6 ; NORAD, 9/9/2001]

The facts about this operation may not be known in our lifetime, if you don't find this at least a little fustrating then you have a thicker and more trusting skin than I do.

[varmint]

sort of relevant. this just came up on the msnbc website. the new report on intelligence before 9/11 has some interesting bits.

The report also criticized intelligence problems when Bill Clinton was president, detailing political and legal “constraints” agency officials felt in the late 1990s. In September 2006, during a famous encounter with Fox News anchor Wallace, Clinton erupted in anger and waived his finger when asked about whether his administration had done enough to get bin Laden. “What did I do? What did I do?” Clinton said at one point. “I worked hard to try to kill him. I authorized a finding for the CIA to kill him. We contracted with people to kill him. I got closer to killing him than anybody has gotten since.”

Clinton appeared to have been referring to a December 1999 Memorandum of Notification (MON) he signed that authorized the CIA to use lethal force to capture, not kill, bin Laden. But the inspector general’s report made it clear that the agency never viewed the order as a license to “kill” bin Laden—one reason it never mounted more effective operations against him. “The restrictions in the authorities given the CIA with respect to bin Laden, while arguably, although ambiguously, relaxed for a period of time in late 1998 and early 1999, limited the range of permissible operations,” the report stated. (Scheuer agreed with the inspector general’s findings on this issue, but said if anything the report was overly diplomatic. “There was never any ambiguity,” he said. “None of those authorities ever allowed us to kill anyone. At least that’s what the CIA lawyers told us.” A spokesman for the former president had no immediate comment.)

i guess bill was part of the conspiracy too.

[Rick Lee]

Originally Posted by kach22i

The facts about this operation may not be known in our lifetime, if you don't find this at least a little fustrating then you have a thicker and more trusting skin than I do.

You mean in your own lifetime, you'll never be convinced there was no conspiracy. Nothing in the world will ever convince conspiracy nuts their beliefs are wrong. Though sometimes, a cigar really is just a cigar. Absence of evidence to such people is even further evidence of the ingeniousness of the conspirators. Show me a human tragedy in the last 100 yrs. for which there are not multiple conspiracy theories. They can't all be conspiracies. Well, I guess anything that happened after the creation of the Internet can be. Bush got blamed for the southeast Asian tsunami, for cryin' out loud. Some people will never ever be satisfied and there's no point trying.

[kach22i]

You want wild varmint, I'll give you wild.

Operation Amalgam Virgo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amalgam_Virgo
Operation Amalgam Virgo is a CINCNORAD joint task counter-terrorist and field training exercise ......... early June of 2001. .........Osama Bin Laden was pictured on the cover of the proposal for the exercise.

.............and

http://911exposed.org/Almalgam.htm



Don't even Google "Operation Northwoods".

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

You mean in your own lifetime, you'll never be convinced there was no conspiracy.

I never said there was a conspiracy nor gave an outline for one, I just wanted to know how many fighters Cheney sent into to Canada and Alaska that week.

[FOG]

Kach,

Where do you think Kadena, Osan Kunsan, Iwakuni and Atsugi are? Much further than Alaska.

The question still stands of so what? Look at the fighters and tankers on the East coast at the time and tell me they did not have a couple of magnitudes excess capacity. Langley, Oceana, Cherry Point, Seymour Johnson and Beaufort for the active duty. Add in the USAFR and ANG units.

350 personnel are 20 and less than 30 fighters worth for the NORAD exercise. Less than 1/10th those sitting on the ramp on East coast.

What looks bad is when someone gives any weight to the aircraft in Alaska.

S/F, FOG

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by FOG

350 personnel are 20 and less than 30 fighters worth for the NORAD exercise.

I love this forum as a resource, these are the first figures I could make sense of - thanks.

I never claimed the 14 fighters avaliable in the lower 48 states, and the 6 fighters stationed in Canada (total of 20 from what I've read) were not up to the task.

An approx. 25 fighters used in "Operation Northern Denial" even if doubled for "Operation Northern Vigilance" would still be just 50 fighters.

How many fighters including National Guard protect us now or back in 2001?

Taking the 1/10 figure.......10 x 25 = 250 on the east coast, right?

So about triple that?

3 x 250 = 750 fighters

At some point we could look at production numbers and aircraft lost numbers, and aircraft stationed overseas to know how many are stationed in the lower 48 states.

I'm no expert, I just want to know.

[Rick Lee]

Does it really matter how many fighters were wherever? If Cheney was pulling the strings, he would not have had to send them anywhere. Everything could have just been let to play out as it did, since no one - before that day - would ever even think about ordering shootdowns on civilian airliners. We could have all the jets scrambled and shadowing the hikacked planes and none would have been shot down. I'm not even sure we have to stomach for it today.

[URY914]

My dad used to say: "Somethings can't be explained."

[FOG]

Kach,

Those on the NORAD exercise were irrelevant. The costs to maintain airborne and strip alerts are high. Very few places maintained strip alerts at the time. Even maintaining a capable window of 60 minutes is expensive.

My best guess is that there were 300-400 active duty fighters on the East coast at the time. Taking a real swag and go maybe 200-300 reserve and guard fighters.

Problem is they are not ready for combat. War loads, briefing, etc. that takes time. Mostly getting the ordnance ready and loaded onto a jet. Then flying to an area, followed by the VID. Next getting permission to fire after discussion of where the aircraft would come down. This is after the word has been passed

S/F, FOG

[URY914]

I would agree that the time it would take to scrabble jets to intercept airliners makes it impossible to have caught up to the airliners in flight. I didn't believe we had armed fighters sitting on the flight line waiting for the red phone to ring.

It was not like the old black and white USAF SAC films where the bomber crews are playing cards in the bunker and the horn goes off, they grab thier flight jackets, run to the Dodge Power Wagen 4x4's and haul ass to the flight line. The planes are running and they are off the ground in 30 minutes.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

since no one - before that day - would ever even think about ordering shootdowns on civilian airliners.

What?

Several of the war games going on that day dealt exactly with that posibility - WTF!

From one of the links:

June 1, 2001 Pentagon order that for the first time inserted the Secretary of Defense into the chain of response for issuing military intercept orders for errant planes

............I read in one of the links that from June 1 to September 11 there were 72 cases of planes going off course and that Rumsfeld had to be notified of each and every occurence. I can't blame Rumsfeld for not caring about the skys, but he put himself in a position to bottle neck things with the Secret Service in my opinion.

Again I'll say I find it fustrating not knowning what really went on that day. Details than many might say don't matter, do indeed matter to the curious, and I'm naturally curious.

[FOG]

URY,

Alerts 30-60 minutes are easy, stood a Noble Eagle alert for 5 straight months w/only one night off and the most relaxed was 60 minute alert.

Five minutes is rough, basically cockpit alert w/power to the bird and ready to start. Rougher than airborne alert on the aircrew but far easier on maint., and other money.

I believe there were a few places that had 15/30 minute alerts at the time but they were in no position to intercept. Maybe the Maine boys if launched immediately and a couple of pre-positioned tankers (right).

S/F, FOG

[URY914]

OK, you can get in the air in 15-30 but than you got to find that bird and get clearance from everyone to shoot. Not going to happen.

[FOG]

URY,

Sorry I didn’t covey the sarcasm of the Maine boys making. I haven’t run the numbers but it would still be iffy if launched immediately, already had two different tanker tracks right where you needed them to get there, conduct VID, then get permission to engage. Don’t forget the coordination of airspace between ATC and GCI happening during this.

An Eagle finding the target isn’t much of a problem in the scenario/case of the 9/11 flight tracks. The only thing that would have been simple.

Odds are probably close to me winning the next lottery.

S/F, FOG

[Rick Lee]

I don't care if Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld had all agreed on orders for civilian airliner shootdowns months in advance of 9/11. It wasn't going to happen that day given the timeline and information available at that time. I would have a hard time imagining a realistic scenario in which we would do something like that in time to make a difference. Some countries take their airspace security very seriously and wouldn't think twice about it. We're not one of them. Remember, even though the Russkies shot down KAL 007, they didn't know about Matthias Rust until he landed in Red Sq. And I don't think they would have hesitated to take him out even after the KAL 007 incident.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I don't care if Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld had all agreed on orders for civilian airliner shootdowns months in advance of 9/11.

Me either and I see no benefit in maintaining a condition of denial that 25 or more jet fighters were sent to the artic circle that day in a war game against Russia.

Considering all the recently brewing dispute over Arctic resources I expect to see more war games of this type including those underwater.

[Rick Lee]

I don't have time to weed through it now, but this site is usually an almanac for what is deployed where and when. www.globalsecurity.org

[kach22i]

I'm in line and in step, life is much better now.