A friend of mine flew sky cap over DC for some months after 9-11. We were then prepared for internal threats. His job was to shoot down any threat regardless of where it came from.
I don’t know which is more frightening, the fact that our armed forces are so inflexible they cannot say “the nation is under aerial attack, fly cover and shoot to kill anyone that does not answer or approaches _________.” Or that they never thought of an internal threat even after war games FROM EVERY ANGLE are supposed to be practiced for.
In my opinion, it was a stand down order, they knew it was coming and wanted it to happen. Nobody they gave a care about died.
The military was decimated after Bush I, and Clinton was too busy spending the Peace Dividend to worry about military readiness. It wouldn’t be any better today, except for 9/11.
We have been at war for 15 years now, but we had been turning swords into plowshares for a decade prior to 9/11. After Gulf War I, Washington acted as if that was The Last War. Both administration’s made debilitating cuts. With the exception of the post-Vietnam era, our military had never been in worse shape.