Feb. 2002

War in Afghanistan, anthrax, unprecedented powers of detention: the public mind moves from one shock to another, appearing to accept the government’s lead.

Now after five, six, seven months, a new world beacons; or perhaps, the old world, from a different vantage point.

For those of us determined to think for ourselves, (and question government pronouncements) the leap to blame Bin Laden, (with little substantial evidence) and the pretext for bombing yet another poor country, was unsatisfactory -right from the start.

Yet this has become a "new reality" which we now have to deal with, taking us further from the events of Sept. 11^th with each passing day.

The curtain seems to be descending on the big, unanswered questions that was on virtually everyone’s mind during, (and for weeks after) the attack:

Somehow, the terrorists got through.

Even politicians in Washington, (normally staunch defenders of the security apparatus) were initially compelled to express this:

An obvious thing.

This didn’t happen in a vacuum.

"They" got through the protective shield we call government, the military.

To touch on but one example:

The hijacked planes should not have been able to reach their targets.

There were safeguards in place, and they were not implemented.

As this report will show, a glaring lapse in routine procedure was repeated at virtually every level of civilian air defense, in relation to all four planes.

Alongside the acts of terror, there existed an unprecedented negligence –on the part of those entrusted with the protection of American skies.

Without such an lapse, the attacks of Sept 11^th simply would not have been successful.

Whether this negligence was intentional, or coincidental, the sheer scope of it, (as we shall see) cries out for a full public inquiry; yet the government has strictly avoided opening itself to public scrutiny; instead, it has used the tragedy to wrap the protective ring of secrecy around itself, even tighter.

The congressional committee of review, for example,

The focus of this committee is to "increase the roughly $30 billion intelligence budget," "rescind the 1995 restrictions on the C.I.A.'s use of unsavory covert agents" and so on. (ibid)

In other words, the assumption is,

As this report will clearly show, (fully-referenced to official documents, statements, and mainstream media reports) this assumption is utterly wrong.

That this basic reality has been effectively ignored, (in the rush to identify the attackers) is all the more reason that an open, public investigation be initiated.

In our brief moment of grief following this horrific crime, we found it virtually impossible to discuss the scope of internal incompetence which must have accompanied it; and our government, media, (and other centers of influence) seem to have found it convenient to inflame our anger –diverting our attention from the outstanding, obvious questions:

The sacred role of the citizenry, as the watchdogs of government, was temporarily put on hold.

It’s now clear that our governments want no part of a public investigation.

There will be no blame found, no calling to accounts –simply an increased budget for police surveillance, covert operations, and state power.

It appears that we, the public, must examine the evidence for ourselves; and yet, the passing of time in the weeks and months following, may have made such an inquiry seem impossible to us, passe, perhaps even irrelevant.

So I ask you, dear reader, for but a few minutes more of your time: to briefly take a step back with me, unto a morning and a day when our world seemed to change forever.

I ask you to re-examine, one more time, the events and information which have passed across our view screens so quickly, their significance seeming to fade in the absence of meaningful debate.

Allow me to lay before you the result of five months intense research: carefully referenced, summarized, that the essential points may be grasped with a clarity and ease, hitherto elusive.

Consider this contention:

According to The New York Times, (Sept 15)

Further, according to CNN’s Garrett, (on the scene)

Just after 9:30, the President excused himself from the classroom to make a statement that a "terrorist attack on America has occurred." (CNN, "Breaking News, 9:31)

So, for almost thirty minutes after President Bush was officially updated about this for the the third time, he remained sitting in a classroom of children, (apparently, reading a book about goats).

Does this not seem rather negligent?

As we shall soon see, officials would repeatedly claim that the President was the only one who could order a domestic airliner to be shot down.

Why did he remain sitting in the classroom? Why did he even GO into the classroom in the first place? -if he had already been informed, not once but twice, of an unprecedented attack on America?

Was he not told the whole story?

Three months later, on nationwide TV, President Bush tells a captive audience,

This is a very interesting statement for Bush to make, seeing as the first plane, (at that time) was not actually caught on network TV -striking the tower. Only the second one was.

Clearly, the President is giving the impression that he was not then aware that this plane crash was a terrorist attack; but is this, in fact what we would expect from the commander-in-chief?

As supreme commander, the President is tied into civilian air defense through the secret service.

There are time-honored, standard procedures -whereby, the command-center in the Pentagon, radar defense, the National Security Council, and the President are quickly informed of any national emergencies, including hijackings.

As Vice-President Dick Cheney says on the Sept. 16th edition of "Meet The Press,"

We common folk might be forgiven if we think it only natural that a person might need a few minutes to collect their thoughts; but the commander-in-chief is no ordinary person. In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision on his part could cost thousands of lives; and it's precisely for this reason that he has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to insure that he is among the first to be informed, not the last.

Only at 9:30 did the President finally confirm what the FAA, the military, and the secret service had already known fifty minutes before -and what the entire television-watching world had known for forty.

His inaction is most unsettling, in the light of the following events.

This fact, (based on the actual radar reports from government and private industry) was likely the source of the above statement, that,

Thus, when Flight 77 started to go off-course, the Air Traffic Control officials, (ATC) who were watching the plane, were also aware that another plane on the east coast had been hijacked-confirmed.

Thus, two other planes were officially confirmed as hijacked, by the time that Flight 77 had begun to go dramatically off-course.

Within minutes, these officials would be informed that Flight 11 had crashed into the World Trade Center.

They should have been extremely concerned.

Flight 77 managed to return to it's proper westward course, after flying about twenty miles north, then west, then south; yet officials should have still been on a high state of alert.

At any rate, according to the above source,

This was as clear an expression of a national emergency as these officials had ever known; and yet, although "military officials in a command center on the east side of the [Pentagon] were urgently talking to law enforcement officials about what to do," (N.Y. Times, Sept. 15, ibid) air traffic control continued to watch Flight 77 on the radar screen without any fighters scrambled to intercept it.

That is:

Let’s also be absolutely clear about what is meant by "interception."

So, it is a matter of routine procedure for fighter-jets to "intercept" commercial airliners, in order to regain contact with the pilot. Just how routine, and how quickly they routinely respond, is still open to question; yet we should be clear that it is not necessary that a hijacking be declared, for the military to be called in.

"Intercept" and "shoot-down" are two entirely different commands.

The question of whether an airliner may have to be shot down, (and who might give the order) is completely irrelevant to the fact that fighter-intercepts should have been ordered into the air, at the first sign that a national emergency was underway.

Let's now review the course of events in the light of the above regulations:

If accompanied by lost radio contact, the standard procedure here would seem to include notifying military authorities of a possible emergency.

According to our above radar map,

Flight 77 went about fifteen miles off-course, and was off-course for approximately ten minutes.

The fact that the plane returned to its orginial course, suggests that contact with the pilot had not been lost; yet given the fact that Flight 77 went so far off-course after Flights 11 and 175 had been hijack-confirmed, should have motivated ATC/FAA officials to contact higher authorities, to make a report, to inform NORAD and/or an appropriate Air National Guard (ANG) base.

Apparently not.

Then, when the ATC officials (watching Flight 77) were informed, (likely by 8:48) that Flight 11 had struck the World trade Center, (8:46) surely NORAD should have been informed that this other plane had been, (or was) off-course/in trouble.

Still nothing was done when transponder contact with Flight 77 was lost, even after Flight 175 had hit the World Trade Center at 9:02.

Flight 77 was visible on various radar screens, heading back towards Washington -for another 23 minutes, before the FAA informed NORAD that the plane may have been hijacked.

Shocking, unbelievable: is it not?

What were these officials doing?

According to the above-mentioned Newsday article,

The most sophisticated air-traffic communications system in the world: regional radar systems, national satellite radar, command centers in the Pentagon: essentially, not responding.

Flight 77 continued to fly towards Washington, unopposed.

When the FAA finally informs NORAD, the plane is little more than thirty miles outside the Capital. (10)

And yet, Andrews Air Force base is located right on the outskirts of Washington, (ten miles away) and is home to two 'combat-ready' squadrons:

The mission of 121 Fighter-Wing reads, in part,

Is this not rather astounding?

A few days later, another version began to appear in the mainstream press:

The Emperor's-Clothes site, (www.tenc.net ibid) claims that the Andrew's AFB website was "down" after Sept. 11, and re-emerged a few weeks later -with the descriptions of the battle-ready fighter squadrons removed.

Also curious, what appears to be the reputable, well-documented website of the American Federation of Scientists lists the top speed of the F-16 fighters as 1500mph; which means that, according to NORAD and CNN, the fighters from Langley flew at less than half their top speed. (720 knots, about 650mph)

Now, at this point, we don’t know exactly where the breakdown in communication occurred.

By the above information, it would appear that ATC and the FAA were more at fault than NORAD, (though not appreciably); and yet, these communication timelines come to us largely from NORAD.

We don’t know, for example, whether or not ATC and the FAA notified NORAD early on, and whether NORAD simply lied about it -and that the military end was largely or solely responsible for the breakdown in communication.

What we do know, however, is that by official NORAD statements, there was at least a thirty-five minute delay between the time when planes should have been ordered to scramble, and when they actually were.

If routine procedures had been followed, Flight 77 would not have made it to Washington.

The fourth hijacked plane, meanwhile, "was being tracked by the Pentagon," (according to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz) "and could have been shot down." (NY Times, Sept 15, ibid)

That plane, (Flight 93) crashed into rural Pennsylvania at about 10:10.

If true, and since George Bush didn’t immediately excuse himself from the classroom, (at 9:00 am, or 9:05 at the latest) -to assume his role as commander in chief- then we must include his actions in with the above list of organizations: guilty of criminal incompetence.

The fact that his negligence would have made no difference, (i.e. no planes in the air, even if the President was on duty) matters not.

Moral authority begins with admitting one’s own mistakes: only then can one be forgiven them.

The fact that the President has completely overlooked his own ineptitude in this affair, while declaring holy war on nations and citizens alike, strongly suggests that not only is an incompetent at the helm of the most-powerful nation on earth, but a morally incompetent one as well.

True, it’s not an uncommon occurrence for the U.S. or the president to be threatened. It’s extremely uncommon for such a "threat" to be taken so seriously that a U.S. President is barred from Washington for nine and one-half hours during a national emergency.

Translation?

The Washington Post placed this vacuous absence of a response on page eight.

Does it not sound as if we deserve some answers about,

Does it not sound as if civilian defense was on holiday? –or out to lunch?

How can we be so certain of the attack’s perpetrators -when the officials blaming them don’t want to admit that somebody on our own end screwed up so badly, as to allow an attack to occur?

Is an examination of one’s own mistakes (first) -not the foundation of moral leadership?

To sum up thus far,

Fundamental questions, left unanswered.

The government, (and the mainstream media) do not want to discuss a glaring, criminal negligence which occurred under its watch.

When we look at the other hijacked flights, however, (11, 175, and 93) our concern must deepen considerably; for here, we see the same, shocking pattern of neglect and incompetence.

For details, see Unanswered Questions, Part 1B, linked below.

Then, when we examine the nature of the FBI investigation, Part 1D, the official explanations, the media coverage, we see the same pattern yet again: critical questions left unanswered, dubious filler material put in place.

We are talking about a system-wide, repeat pattern of negligence and cover-up, operating at a very high level of government: fully documented, from government and mainstream media sources.

There's no need for wacky conspiracy-theories here, or wild assumptions.

It simply needs to be addressed, if we are to take any steps toward real security.

As our governments and media have proved themselves all too willing to gloss over the uncomfortable questions, I sincerely hope that you will take it upon yourself, dear reader, to become fully informed about what may be the most telling event of our time.

Tell others what you know.

9) (CNN, Sept 16, ibid) At the same time, 9:25 the FAA, in consultation with the Pentagon, had banned all takeoffs around the country.

NOTE: these last two links have gone dead. Researchers may yet be able to locate the original articles by visiting "freeworldalliance," or by doing a "google" search on "Gary North."