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Pattsle, good point. The 911 was one of those paradigm moments where it was realized that all our defenses pointed outward, including all the radar systems that guard the coasts, etc. Air Force had really no system covering the US, except for the ATC system and the two were not compatible.
Also, remember that this country was at peace, the cold war was over, the Democratic Congress had early extracted the "peace dividend" out of the military to use for social purposes. This had diminished military readiness (reduced navy, air force, bases etc) and intelligence capacity by releasing most of the CIA type agents and using satellites, etc. to save even more money (yes, this is all in the record). We didn't have many arabic speakers in the CIA at the time. These decisions were of course based on the fact we were at peace and threats were managable. So under those facts. it is clear that fully armed aircraft in Washington DC, well withing the continental US, were not necessary. What was the threat? If the nuclear option was used against DC, which is what we always expected, what good is an F16 with missiles?
We went to war status literally overnight. It is certainly easy to criticise those directing the government back then from today's perspective. Seems pretty obvious now, right?
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