[thmiley]

This is a smokescreen. NORAD didn't need their radar units pointed at the U.S. That's what air traffic radar is for.

No one has explained adequately why the U.S. Air Force did not intercept the hijacked jets on 9/11. There was a huge gap in time between the time the jets shut off their transponders and turned off course and the time they crashed into their targets. Every one of those jets could have been intercepted by military fighter jets.

Remember golfer Payne Stewart's ill-fated flight?

Either the jets were ordered to stand down (get your tinfoil hats on!) or the military was asleep at the switch and thus criminally negligent. Either way, heads should roll.

Most likely, though, they will cover up individual failures or criminal conspiracy. Accountability and Washington, D.C. don't mix.

[aristeides]

Either the jets were ordered to stand down (get your tinfoil hats on!) or the military was asleep at the switch and thus criminally negligent.

I heard parts of the hearing on C-SPAN yesterday. It turns out there was a NORAD exercise the morning of 9/11. I suspect initial reports of what was going on that morning were discounted as being part of the exercise.

But that raises the question: how were the terrorists able to learn and take advantage of the timing of that exercise? Just as we've had to wonder how they later that morning showed knowledge of White House codes and communication procedures.