An interesting read nonetheless.
“newly unclassified documents” - I see Obama is trying to hurt the US/GOP/Bush/Trump again.
The Continuity of Government plan is totally unconstitutional.
It’s a good thing that this generation of politicians and news media types didn’t exist during WWII. I don’t see a “need to know” basis for these details. Oh wait, I forgot about our enemies’ need to know. Whew, at least someone can make use of this information./s
wow
Of all the circumstances, the inability for high ranking government officials to communicate is the most troubling.
Everything else can be expected to devolve to absolute chaos in such a situation, but no ability to communicate could have lead to a much more tragic outcome.
Putin knew we were preparing to go to DEFCON 3 but couldn’t reach Bush. That sure is a fuster cluck.
It wasn’t a Sunday, it was a Tuesday.
This article is by William Arkin, the guy who called US soldiers in Iraq mercenaries.
My original comments were deleted before I could save them at FR but ARKIN is a leftist shit. Check out his anti-defense exposures of American weapons systems, nuclear weapons supposed storage sites, and overseas contingency plans.
He was affiliated with the Marxist-created Institute for Policy Studies for a long time. Check him out at www.keywiki.org, www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org and even www.wikipedia.com.
His claim that U.S. officials in the chain of command were literally out of the picture is not true. He admits that VP Cheney was in the White House’s underground security facility (with communications abilities).
Secy of Defense Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon and as newly released film shows, he went outside to assist the injured.
Pres. Bush was airborne from Sarasota Florida to Barksdale AF Base for refueling before Air Force One headed to the underground Strategic Command headquarters (I believe it is in Nebraska).
The communications problems were mainly with the FAA and other airports but a key FAA official ordered the grounding of all airborne aircraft (about 4000) in order to clear the air. Any craft remaining after that was considered a possibly hijacked craft until determined other wise.
The big fiasco was the 1944-95 “stand down” orders the Clinton Administration gave for the Cold War readiness forces (1/3 nuclear bombers airborne 24/7; 1/3 on ready alert, and the rest to fly as a second wave if necessary).
There were no armed military aircraft in DC (Andrews or Bolling AF Bases). They had to come from far away Otis AFB and Langley AFB. A pilot took off from Andrews in an unarmed plane (female pilot) who decided that if she caught up the plane (FL 83?) in Pennsylvania, she would ram it.
The pilot from Langley got to within either radar or actual long distance visual range of Fl 83? but had to turn back because he was literally out of fuel. He landed and was refueled (I recall he had some jerry-rigged missiles or machines installed on his F16) but the plane had gone down and he wasn’t needed.
Never heard of any shoulder-fired missiles by Pentagon defense people. They would have been on the roof of the Pentagon immediately when they got notification that a second plane was headed towards DC. NADA.
We were unprepared for this aerial assault that FBI JohnO’Neill (SAC special office, NYC) had warned about it for years. He was right but he died in one of the WTC buildings. He was their chief security officer after being literally ousted by FBI director Louis Freeh and his toadie Tom Pickard. That’s where the real story is.
Take anything by Arkin with a grain of salt, two aspirins, and healthy skepticism. He’s not on America’s side.
I was watching the news coverage of that day, and those in DC were watching the Pentagon burn, another plane come over low and slow, and wondered why THERE WAS NO AIR COVER???? Ponder that, figure out who could have pulled the protective measure, and why. Unprepared my butt ocks. They were fully prepared and not even surprised. By they, I mean the high officials in the government and military.
And I question the judgement of anyone who would reveal the number of active nukes we had ready at a given moment...even in the past.
Nothing really new or explosive. Depending on .gov to keep ya safe will always fail ya. Nor is everyone on a sop or follows it. One would hope .gov has a ‘real’ plan now for various contingencies and various problems resolved.
it
That's definitely unsurprising. Senior people tend to have a real problem following contingency plans like that. They usually just go off and do what they want.
And yet there was a female pilot in an F-16 who was supposedly sent on a kamikaze mission to intercept Flight 93 because there wasn't a single armed fighter jet at Andrews Air Force Base.
I assume that every story we hear about what transpired that morning is at least 80% bullsh!t.
“There were live nukes on the tarmac at U.S. airbases”
Gee, do ya think?
“Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to speak to Bush to know why the U.S. was preparing to go to DEFCON 3 — but the White House couldn’t put him through to Air Force One. Bush had no way to receive phone calls.”
I was watching a documentary yesterday on the history channel where Condi Rice claimed to have called Putin and discussed exactly that. Condi claimed she had a moment of reflection during that conversation that the cold war was truly over because Putin had stopped some planned military exercises, and was watching the events unfold on the news waiting to hear from someone in our government.
I’ll tell you something I learned: I watched the replay of the Today show from 9/11. That morning, David Gregory gave a very “official sounding” report saying that Bush was informed of the attack on his way to the school for an education event.
We now know, from the video tape, that this was flat out wrong.
Gregory was SUPPOSED To be covering Bush, but obviously wasn’t with him. So, he had to make up some kind of report, when asked by his bosses.
What a putz.
bump
"We're the Only Plane in the Sky."
That article gave a much more detailed view of the communications methods. Here's a relevant excerpt:
Master Sgt. Dana Lark: We had limited communications, that’s for sure, but the president and Air Force One were never without secure communications. We just had two lines—one for the president and one for the mil aide. We were never out of touch entirely. All the other staff or the other Secret Service agent, we just couldn’t provide them the calls they needed. There were a couple times when the vice president wasn’t available, but we never lost communications with the ground.Andy Card: One of the president’s first thoughts, from Sarasota to Barksdale, was Vladimir Putin.
Gordon Johndroe: [Putin] was important—all these military systems were all put in place for nuclear alerts. If we went on alert, we needed Putin to know that we weren’t readying an attack on Russia. He was great—he said immediately that Russia wouldn’t respond, Russia would stand down, that he understood we were under attack and needed to be on alert.
Ari Fleischer: Putin was fantastic that day. He was a different Vladimir Putin in 2001. America could have had no better ally on September 11th than Russia and Putin.