He later gave the 9/11 Commission a quite different account about which building was expected to collapse.

The 9/11 Commission did not ask him about the apparent contradictions, so the account he gave the Commission must be considered the official story.

Giuliani and his companions then found that the van could get no farther than Barclay Street, at which point the Police Commissioner notified him that 7 World Trade (which housed Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management) had been evacuated, so they would instead set up a command post at 75 Barclay Street. Giuliani told the Commission that, after going inside 75 Barclay Street and while waiting to talk to Vice President Dick Cheney on the phone:

“I heard a click, the desk started to shake, and I heard next Chief Esposito, who was the uniformed head of the police department … say, ‘The [South] tower is down, the tower has come down.’ And my first thought was that one of the radio towers from the top of the World Trade Center had come down. I did not conceive of the entire tower coming down, but as he was saying that, I could see the desk shaking and … then all of a sudden I could see outside a tremendous amount of debris and it first felt like an earthquake, and then it looked like a nuclear cloud. So we realized very shortly that we were in danger in the [Barclay Street] building, that the building could come down. … So the police commissioner and I, and the deputy police commissioner, we jointly decided that we had to try to get everyone out of the building.” [1]

So Giuliani and his team left the Barclay Street building, because “if something happened and the building crashed, you’d virtually have all of city government gone.” [1]

1. He did not tell the Commission that he had been warned that the World Trade Center was going to collapse.
2. He told the Commission that he and his people left the Barclay Street building for fear that this building might collapse.

The Peter Jennings Interview

Giuliani’s Claim about Other Building Collapses

Who Told Giuliani that the World Trade Center Was Going to Collapse?

The Fire Chief Who Expected the Towers to Fall

When Giuliani was challenged to explain why he had not told people in the towers that they were going to collapse, he claimed that he “didn’t realize the towers would collapse” and that “No one that [he knew] of had any idea they would implode.” This is in stark contrast to Giuliani’s statement to Peter Jennings that he was told that the Twin Towers were going to come down.

How Giuliani knew that WTC Buildings I and II were going to come down is a question that has not been asked publicly of Giuliani by the mainstream media or any government body. This is a question that must be asked of Giuliani, while he is under oath.

NORAD is the US-Canadian military agency responsible for defending North American airspace. Its traditional operating procedures – according to which planes are to be intercepted when they deviate from their courses, turn off their transponders, or permanently lose radio contact – were not followed on 9/11.

As the commander-in-chief of NORAD on 9/11, General Ralph E. “Ed” Eberhart was ultimately responsible for all of NORAD’s failures on 9/11 – most importantly, the failure to intercept hijacked airliners before they could strike the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. The fourth airliner, UA 93, which was reportedly headed towards the nation’s capital, may have been shot down by NORAD, but NORAD has denied this. Accordingly, the official story about 9/11 is that NORAD was four-for-four in failing to intercept hijacked airliners that day.

Nevertheless, in spite of NORAD’s disastrous failures under General Eberhart’s leadership, he was never held accountable or even criticized. Indeed, he was promoted shortly after 9/11 and later called a “9/11 hero.” [1]

Unlike others, such as Gen. Richard Myers and Gen. Henry Shelton, Eberhart has not written an account of his actions on 9/11. Likewise, he was seldom discussed by the 9/11 Commission. Accordingly, we do not know much about his actions that day. But enough has been said and reported by officials and the media to add up to an official story about his actions.

An examination of the evidence shows that Eberhart, rather than being considered a “9/11 hero,” may well be the opposite. This evidence can be divided into two categories:

1. Eberhart made several contradictory and implausible statements.
2. Eberhart also caused delays by virtue of his actions and omissions.

1. Eberhart made several contradictory and implausible statements:

2. Eberhart caused delays through further actions and omissions

Eberhart made several statements that were clearly false and others that were at least highly implausible, including:

• that he decided it would be all right to drive to the Operations Center because things had “quieted down”;
• that the airliner pilots had squawked the hijack code;
• that he could not use his cell phone during his drive to the Operations Center;
• that the military exercises would have delayed NEADS no more than 30 seconds;
• that he had only recently learned that the 9:24 AM scramble was based on a false report about American 11;
• that he called General Myers while the latter was on Capitol Hill.

Eberhart also caused delays through his actions and omissions:

• by turning INFOCON down to the least protective level;
• by taking 45 minutes or longer to drive to the Operations Center with a cell phone that reportedly did not work (which meant that Eberhart – like Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Myers, Shelton, and Winfield – was reportedly incommunicado during the attacks);
• by ordering interceptor pilots to “battle stations,” which meant that the pilots wait in their jets with the engines off, so they were not ready to scramble immediately;
• by delaying to implement SCATANA until after the attacks were over;
• by arranging multiple military exercises for 9/11, with at least one of them being “sim over live,” then not ordering removal of these confusing “sims” until after the Pentagon attack.

Finally, in agreeing with The 9/11 Commission’s statement that NORAD’s 2001 timeline was false, Eberhart implied that the military (under his control) had given a false account.

In short, Eberhart did nothing effective in response to the 9/11 hijackings – despite being present in the military’s teleconference as those hijackings were in progress – except to delay responses.

Considerable evidence points to Eberhart as having been derelict in his duty. [36]

A formal investigation should be launched to see if there is any other conclusion that could be reached.

Factual Evidence Contradicts the 9/11 Story

The official account of the events of September 11, 2001, has been used:

• to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have resulted in the deaths of over a million people; [1]
• to authorize torture, military tribunals, and extraordinary rendition; and
• to suspend freedoms guaranteed by the American Constitution such as habeas corpus in the USA, and similar freedoms in Canada, the UK, and other countries.

The official claims regarding 9/11 are contradicted by facts that have been validated by a scientific consensus process, and which include the following points of “best evidence”.

The 50 Consensus Points are divided into the ten categories below, which in turn link to the individual 50 points:

Point G-1: A Claim Regarding Osama bin Laden

Point G-2: A Claim that there was No Insider Trading in Put Options before September 11, 2001

Point TT-1: A Claim about the Destruction of the Twin Towers: Impact, Jet Fuel, and Fire Only

Point TT-2: A Claim about the Destruction of the Twin Towers: Impact, Fire, and Gravity Only

Point TT-3: A Claim Excluding Explosions in the Twin Towers

Point TT-4: A Second Claim Excluding Explosives in the Twin Towers

Point TT-5: The Claim that the World Trade Center Dust Contained No Thermitic Materials

Point TT-6: The Claim that There Was No Molten Steel or Iron in the World Trade Center Buildings

Point TT-7: Why Did the Twin Towers Collapse? The Seismic Evidence

Point TT-8: Why Did the Twin Towers Collapse? The Physical and Testimonial Evidence

Point TT-9: The Claim of Widespread Infernos in the South Tower vs the FDNY Radio Transcript

Point WTC7-1: The Claim that WTC 7 Collapsed from Fire Alone

Point WTC7-2: The Claim in NIST’s Draft Report that WTC 7 Did Not Come Down at Free Fall Acceleration

Point WTC7-3: The Claim in NIST’s Final Report that WTC 7 Came Down in Free Fall Without Explosives

Point WTC7-4: Did the Official Simulation of the Fall of WTC 7 Match the Observed Collapse?

Point WTC7-5: World Trade Center Building 7: NIST’s Analysis of the Collapse Initiation Is Not Valid

Point WTC7-6: The Fraudulent NIST Claim That There Was No Steel Recovered from Building WTC 7 for Analysis

Point WTC7-7: Foreknowledge of the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7

Point WTC7-8: The Omission of Evidence that Barry Jennings and Michael Hess Experienced an Explosion in WTC 7 the Morning of 9/11

Point Pent-1: Why the Attack on the Pentagon Was Not Prevented: The First Official Account

Point Pent-2: Why the Attack on the Pentagon Was Not Prevented: The Second Official Account

Point Pent-3: The Claim Regarding Hani Hanjour as Flight 77 Pilot

Point Pent-4: Was There Foreknowledge by Officials that the Pentagon would be Attacked?

Point Flt-1: A Claim Regarding Hijacked Passenger Jets

Point Flt-2: The Claim that Flight 93 Crashed Near Shanksville, Pennsylvania

Point Flt-3: Were Hijackers Responsible for Changes to September 11 Flight Transponders?

Point Flt-4: Unexplained Black Box Anomalies for the Four 9/11 Planes

Point ME-1: Did Military Exercises Show that the Military was Prepared for Domestic (as Well as Foreign) Hijackings?

Point ME-2: The Claim that the Military Exercises Did Not Delay the Response to the 9/11 Attacks

Point MC-Intro: Overview of Contradicted Claims about Key Military and Political Leaders

Point MC-1: Why Was President Bush Not Hustled Away from the Florida School?

Point MC-2: The White House Claim as to How Long President Bush Remained in the Florida Classroom

Point MC-3: The Claim about the Time of Dick Cheney’s Entry into the White House Bunker

Point MC-4: When Did Cheney Authorize the Shoot-down of Civilian Planes?

Point MC-5: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld’s Behavior between 9:00 and 10:00 AM

Point MC-6: T he Activities of General Richard Myers during the 9/11 Attacks

Point MC-7: The Time of General Shelton’s Return to his Command

Point MC-8: The Activities of Brigadier General Montague Winfield between 8:30 and 10:30 AM

Point MC-9: The Activities of General Ralph Eberhart during the 9/11 Attacks

Point MC-10: The Activities of NYC Mayor Giuliani on September 11, 2001

Point H-1: Mohamed Atta’s Mysterious Trip to Portland

Point H-2: The Claim that ‘Able Danger’ Failed to Identify Mohamed Atta’s Probable Presence in the US in January 2000

Point H-3: The Claim that the Hijackers Were Devout Muslims

Point H-4: The Claim that Mohamed Atta Had Become a Fanatically Religious Muslim

Point PC-1: The Alleged Calls of Todd Beamer, Flight UA 93

Point PC-1A: The Todd Beamer Call from UA Flight 93: A Serious Problem in the Timeline

Point PC-2: The Reported Phone Calls from Barbara Olson

Point PC-3: Cell Phone Calls from the Planes: The First Official Account

Point PC-4: Cell Phone Calls from the Planes: The Second Official Account

Point Video-1: The Alleged Security Videos of Mohamed Atta during a Mysterious Trip to Portland, Maine, September 10-11, 2001

Point Video-2: Was the Airport Video of the Alleged AA 77 Hijackers Authentic? Official 9/11 Videotaped Evidence

On the morning of 9/11, President Bush was visiting a grade school in Sarasota, Florida. When it appeared that hijackers were going after high-value targets, the head of the Secret Service detail allowed President Bush to remain at the school for 30 minutes, and to make a television address to the nation, thereby letting any terrorists know that the President was still there.

The Secret Service is charged with protecting the President. One of the unanswered questions, wrote the St. Petersburg Times, is “why the Secret Service did not immediately hustle Bush to a secure location.” The 9/11 Family Steering Committee asked: “Why was President Bush permitted by the Secret Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school?”

The 9/11 Commission Report merely said, “The Secret Service told us they were anxious to move the President to a safer location, but did not think it imperative for him to run out the door.”

This break in protocol suggests – even if it does not prove – that the Secret Service, at some level, knew that the President was not in danger.

In addition, the White House, during the week of the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, described Bush’s visit to the school room in afalse way (see Point MC-2), which later had to be corrected after a videotape of the event emerged.

However, a number of witnesses – including Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, White House photographer David Bohrer, and Cheney himself (on Meet the Press) – reported that Cheney was in the PEOC before the Pentagon attack. Most important was Mineta, who reported that Cheney had given responses to questions from a young officer, as a plane approached the Pentagon, about whether the “orders still stand.” Cheney’s reply that they did stand can best be understood as Cheney’s confirmation of a stand-down order.

However, counter-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke’s book Against All Enemies, which appeared in 2004 several months before the publication of The 9/11 Commission Report, portrayed Rumsfeld as being in the Pentagon’s video center in the Executive Support Center from shortly after the second WTC attack until after the attack on the Pentagon. Also, Robert Andrews, a deputy assistant secretary of defense, stated independently that, after the second WTC attack, Rumsfeld went across the hall to the Executive Support Center to join Clarke’s video conference.

It appears that the accounts given by Secretary Rumsfeld and the 9/11 Commission were false.

• The 2004 book Against All Enemies, by counter-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke, portrayed Myers as having, along with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, gone to the Pentagon’s video center at roughly 9:10 AM – it was shortly after the second (9:03) attack on the World Trade Center – which would mean that Myers could not have been on Capitol Hill at that time.
• Thomas White, the Secretary of the Army, indicated that Myers was in a breakfast meeting with Rumsfeld from 8:00 AM until 8:46 AM (when the first plane hit the WTC).
• The 2009 book by General Hugh Shelton, for whom Myers was substituting that morning, portrayed Myers as being in the Pentagon when it was hit.

It thus appears that the account given by Myers and the 9/11 Commission was false.

After learning of the second WTC attack, he ordered his crew to return to the Pentagon. According to Shelton, he was almost immediately given permission to return to the USA, returned to Andrews Air Force Base by roughly noon, and reached the Pentagon shortly thereafter.

However, the claim that Shelton’s plane returned to the Pentagon shortly after noon is contradicted by several facts:

• The Speckled Trout flight navigator reportedly said that the plane, having not quickly received clearance, had to go into a holding pattern over Greenland (for two hours) and again over Canada.
• The flight tracking strip indicated that the Speckled Trout did not land at Andrews until 4:40 PM.
• A military assistant traveling with Shelton stated that they drove from Andrews to the Pentagon in the “late afternoon.”
• General Myers stated that Shelton had arrived at the Pentagon at 5:40 PM, having “just returned from an aborted European flight.”

It appears that this part of General Shelton’s story is not true.

For two years it was both assumed and reported on television that Army Brig. Gen. Montague Winfield,the Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) at the National Military Command Center (NMCC), was in charge the morning of 9/11.

But in July 2003, the 9/11 Commission was told that between 8:30 AM and roughly 10:00 AM, Winfield had been replaced – at his own request, to attend a meeting to discuss the ratings of Air Force officers – by Navy Captain Charles Joseph “Joe” Leidig, who two months earlier had been made the Deputy for Command Center Operations and in August had qualified to stand watch in Winfield’s place.

However, this account raises several puzzling questions, including these

• Why did Brig. Gen. Winfield present himself, in CNN and ABC programs in 2002, as the DDO during the attacks?
• Why was Brig. General Winfield not called back to the NMCC after the second attack on the Twin Towers (which made clear that America was being attacked)?
• Why did General Richard Myers, who had been the acting chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,describe Winfield – in a memoir published in 2009 – as the “duty officer in charge” of the NMCC on the morning of 9/11?

These unanswered questions suggest the untruth of the claim of the Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission that Leidig, rather than Winfield, served as the DDO during the 9/11 attacks – even though it is not clear why, if this claim is untrue – the Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission made the claim.

• All six men were officials who had positions from which they could have affected the outcome of the 9/11 attacks.
• The 9/11 Commission gave an account of each man that is contradicted by considerable evidence.

These six accounts provide, therefore, a remarkable fact: that the 9/11 Commission has evidently given false accounts of the behavior of six officials occupying positions from which they could have affected the outcomes of the 9/11 attacks.

This interlocking evidence clearly points to the need for further investigation into the roles of key government and military officials on September 11, 2001.

• On the morning of 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld held a breakfast meeting with members of Congress at the Pentagon, which lasted until about 9:00, [1] and as that meeting was breaking up, they learned that “the first plane had hit the World Trade tower.” [2] Authorities believed this crash to have been due to a pilot error. [3]
• “He [Rumsfeld] returned to his office for his daily intelligence briefing.” After he was “informed of the second strike in New York … he resumed the briefing while awaiting more information.” After the Pentagon was struck, Secretary Rumsfeld went to the parking lot to assist with rescue efforts. [4]
• “Secretary Rumsfeld was not in the NMCC [National Military Command Center] when the shootdown order was first conveyed. He went from the parking lot to his office, where he spoke to the President [shortly after 10:00], then to the Executive Support Center, where he participated in the White House video teleconference. He moved to the NMCC shortly before 10:30, in order to join Vice Chairman Myers.” [5]

As that summary shows, Rumsfeld was in meetings when the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon occurred.

With regard to the Pentagon in particular, the military, as The 9/11 Commission Report pointed out, “never received notice that American 77 was hijacked.” [6]

• The military might have learned that American 77 (which, according to the 9/11 Commission, crashedinto the Pentagon) was in trouble, possibly hijacked, if any of the people dealing with the crisis had been involved in the White House video teleconference, which was conducted from the Situation Room by counterterrorism coordinator Richard Clarke. However, the 9/11 Commission reported: “We do not know who from Defense participated, but we know that in the first hour, none of the personnel involved in managing the crisis did.” [7]
• Rumsfeld in particular, as the summary shows, was not involved in Clarke’s video conference until a few minutes after 10:00.

Moreover, Rumsfeld also could not have had anything to do with the crash of United 93, which occurred at 10:03, for two reasons:

• Rumsfeld, as the summary shows, did not enter the NMCC until 10:30.
• “By the time the military learned about [United 93’s hijacking], it had crashed.” [8]

Claims made about Rumsfeld in The 9/11 Commission Report, which reflect claims made by Rumsfeld himself in 2004, have been contradicted by several authoritative sources:

1. Richard Clarke, the national counterterrorism coordinator, wrote a best-selling book, Against All Enemies [9]– which came out in March 2004, several months earlier than The 9/11 Commission Report. Clarke’s book contradicts claims that would be made in this Report about Rumsfeld’s activities on 9/11 between 9:00 and 10:00 AM.
   • Reporting about his video conference, which evidently began at roughly 9:10, [10] Clarke wrote: “As I entered the Video Center … I could see people rushing into studios around the city: Donald Rumsfeld at Defense and George Tenet at CIA.” [11] So, whereas Rumsfeld and the Commission say that Rumsfeld went from his breakfast meeting to his office for a CIA briefing, where he remained until the Pentagon attack, Clarke said that, shortly after the second WTC attack, Rumsfeld went to the Pentagon’s teleconferencing studio.
   • Clarke indicated, moreover, that Rumsfeld continued to participate in the videoconference: After the Pentagon attack,Clarke could “still see Rumsfeld on the screen.” [12] A little later, Clarke wrote, “smoke was getting into the Pentagon secure teleconferencing studio,” and “Franklin Miller urged him [Rumsfeld] to helicopter to DOD’s alternate site,” but Rumsfeld replied: “I am too goddam old to go to an alternate site.” So “Rumsfeld moved to another studio in the Pentagon.” [13]

   Clarke’s account of Rumsfeld’s location from 9:10 to 9:45 seems more plausible than the account provided by Rumsfeld and The 9/11 Commission Report, because:

   • Clarke’s account, if false, could have been proven wrong by the videoconference tape.
   • It is not plausible that, after being told of the second attack on the World Trade Center, the Secretary of Defense would have continued listening to a CIA briefing.
   • It is not plausible that, if the 9/11 Commission could have contradicted Clarke’s account of Rumsfeld, it would have failed to do so. Instead, it simply did not mention it. [14]
2. Robert Andrews, the Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations and Low Intensity Conflict, gave a lecture in 2007 that contradicted the Rumsfeld-9/11 Commission account of Rumsfeld’s movements: [15]
   • Knowing that Rumsfeld had gone to the Executive Support Center (ESC) to join Clarke’s video conference after the second WTC attack, Andrews stated, he rushed to the counter-terrorism center [CTC] to get materials that Rumsfeld would need. [16]
   • Then, after feeling and hearing an explosive event in the Pentagon, Andrews rushed back to the ESC, where he served as Rumsfeld’s advisor during the White House videoconference. “I was there in the Support Center with the Secretary when he was talking to Clarke on the White House video-teleconference, and to the President,” Andrews said. [17]
3. A third authoritative source contradicting the official account of Rumsfeld’s activities was Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, in an early April 2002 interview with military historian Dr. Alfred Goldberg, [18] who would later be the first author of Pentagon 9/11. [19] Wolfowitz gave a report inconsistent with the 9/11 Commission’s claim that Rumsfeld had not gone into the NMCC until after United 93 had crashed:
   • Wolfowitz stated that after the Pentagon attack, he and others were told to go outside the building, but that they were allowed to go back in within “less than ten minutes” – which means, if the Pentagon was attacked at 9:38, he was referring to going back in at roughly 9:50.
   • Wolfowitz reported: “We went into the NMCC, where the Secretary was, and General Myers. General Shelton was in Europe.”
   • He next said: “We proceeded with discussions by secure video conference. One issue was what to do about the plane over Pennsylvania, getting orders to get fighters up to intercept it, and the Secretary getting approval from the President to shoot it down.” [20]

   This report by Wolfowitz contradicted two central elements in the account of Rumsfeld’s locations provided in The 9/11 Commission Report:

   • Whereas the 9/11 Commission claimed that Rumsfeld did not go into the NMCC until 10:30, Wolfowitz reported talking with Rumsfeld there before 10:00.
   • Whereas the 9/11 Commission claimed that the military did not learn about UA 93’s troubles until after it crashed, Wolfowitz reported that he and Rumsfeld, along with General Myers, had discussed “what to do about the plane over Pennsylvania.”

The 9/11 Commission also absolved Rumsfeld from any involvement in the crash of UA 93 by claiming that the military did not know anything about UA 93 until after it had crashed, and that Rumsfeld was not in the NMCC prior to 10:30. Paul Wolfowitz, however, indicated that he discussed what to do about UA 93 with Rumsfeld and Myers before 10:00.

Testimonies by Richard Clarke, Robert Andrews, and Paul Wolfowitz, accordingly, provided very strong evidence that the 9/11 Commission made false claims relevant to Rumsfeld’s behavior. Further investigation of Rumsfeld’s actual behavior on the morning of 9/11, therefore, is needed.

Vice President Cheney reached the Presidential Emergency Operations Center “shortly before 10:00.”  [2] At 10:02, he “began receiving reports from the Secret Service of an inbound aircraft – presumably hijacked – heading towards Washington.”  [3] Although this aircraft was United 93, the Commission said, this was not known at the time, because the military did not learn about the hijacking of this flight until after it had crashed.  [4]

Through a military aide, Cheney gave authorization to shoot civilian airplanes down at “some time between 10:10 and 10:15,” again “probably some time between 10:12 and 10:18,” and then obtained confirmation from President Bush by 10:20.  [5] Reporting that Richard Clarke had “ask[ed] the President for authority to shoot down aircraft,” the 9/11 Commission wrote: “Confirmation of that authority came at 10:25.”  [6]

Shoot-down authorization came, therefore, far too late to affect the fate of United 93, which crashed at 10:03.  [7]

Considerable evidence indicates that the shoot-down authorization came not at some time after 10:10 but closer to 9:50, therefore early enough for the military to have shot down United 93:

1. The fullest evidence appeared in counter-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke’s 2004 book, Against All Enemies.  [8]
   • Just before the Pentagon attack, Clarke wrote, he told Major Michael Fenzel, his liaison to Cheney, that he wanted authorization for “the Air Force to shoot down any aircraft – including a hijacked passenger flight – that looks like it is threatening to attack and cause large-scale death on the ground.”  [9]
   • Fenzel called back rather quickly. (Clarke said: “I was amazed at the speed of the decisions coming from Cheney and, through him, from Bush.”) Fenzel’s call back came after the Pentagon attack but before Air Force One took off from the airport in Florida, which would mean between 9:38 and 9:55.  [10]
   • Fenzel said: “Tell the Pentagon they have authority from the President to shoot down hostile aircraft, repeat, they have authority to shoot down hostile aircraft.” Clarke reported that he then said: “DOD, DOD … the President has ordered the use of force against aircraft deemed to be hostile.”  [11]
2. A 2003 U.S. News and World Report article, discussing “President Bush’s unprecedented order to shoot down any hijacked civilian airplane,” stated: “Pentagon sources say Bush communicated the order to Cheney almost immediately after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon and the FAA, for the first time ever, ordered all domestic flights grounded.”  [12] This report, reinforced by the previous and following points, would put the shoot-down authorization shortly after 9:45.
3. Barbara Starr, CNN’s Pentagon correspondent, said in a 2002 program reliving the events of 9/11: “It is now 9:40, and one very big problem is out there: United Airlines Flight 93 has turned off its transponder. Officials believe it is headed for Washington, D.C. … On a secure phone line, Vice President Cheney tells the military it has permission to shoot down any airliners threatening Washington.”  [13]
4. In 2002 and 2003, a number of military leaders stated that they received the shoot-down authorization while United 93 was still aloft.
   • Colonel Robert Marr, the head of NEADS, said: “[W]e received the clearance to kill if need be.”  [14]
   • General Larry Arnold, the commander of NORAD within the Continental United States, said: “I had every intention of shooting down United 93 if it continued to progress toward Washington, D.C.”  [15]
   • Brigadier General Montague Winfield, the deputy director of the National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, reportedly said: “The decision was made to try to go intercept Flight 93. … The Vice President [said] that the President had given us permission to shoot down innocent civilian aircraft that threatened Washington, DC.”  [16]

   In spite of all of this evidence, The 9/11 Commission Report, published in July 2004, declared: “By the time the military learned about [United 93], it had crashed.”  [17] On the basis of this claim, the 9/11 Commission declared that the above-cited statements by Marr, Arnold, and Winfield were “incorrect.”  [18]

   However, besides contradicting these statements, the 9/11 Commission’s claim conflicts with an FAA memo to the Commission of May 23, 2003.

   • This memo said that in an FAA teleconference with the military that had begun “minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center” – hence shortly after 8:46 AM – the FAA had “shared real-time information … about … all the flights of interest,”  [19] which would have included United Flight 93.  [20]
   • 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, putting the FAA memo in the Commission’s record, said that it provided evidence that the “FAA was providing information as it received it, immediately after the first crash into the Towers.”  [21] But the 9/11 Commission dealt with this memo by simply omitting any reference to it in The 9/11 Commission Report.

The Commission’s claim about the time of the shoot-down authorization was not the only part of the official account of the shoot-down authorization that was problematic: The press focused on the Bush administration’s claim that Cheney had transmitted authorization received from the President (rather than declaring it on his own, which would have been illegal), about which even the 9/11 Commission was skeptical.  [22]

More important to the truth about 9/11, however, was the 9/11 Commission’s claim that the shoot-down authorization was not given by Cheney until 10:10 or later, hence after United 93 had crashed. This claim is contradicted by reports from Richard Clarke, U.S. News and World Report, Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr, the FAA, and three military officers: Col. Marr, Gen. Arnold, and Brig. Gen. Winfield.

Moreover, the 9/11 Commission’s 10:10-or-later claim presupposed the Commission’s claim that Cheney did not enter the PEOC, where he took charge, until almost 10:00, and this claim is contradicted by abundant evidence, as shown in Point MC-3.  [23]

Any new investigation needs to ask why the 9/11 Commission made a claim about the time of Cheney’s shoot-down authorization that contradicted a great deal of evidence.

Vice President Dick Cheney took charge of the government’s response to the 9/11 attacks after he entered the PEOC (the Presidential Emergency Operations Center), a.k.a. “the bunker.”

The The 9/11 Commission Report said [1] that Cheney did not enter the PEOC until almost 10:00 AM, which was at least 20 minutes after the violent event at the Pentagon that killed more than 100 people.

Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta told the 9/11 Commission that, after he joined Cheney and others in the bunker at approximately 9:20 AM, he listened to an ongoing conversation between Cheney and a young man, which took place when “the airplane was coming into the Pentagon.” [2]

After the young man, having reported for the third time that the plane was coming closer, asked whether “the orders still stand,” Cheney emphatically said they did. The The 9/11 Commission Report, by claiming that Cheney did not enter the PEOC until long after the Pentagon was damaged, implies that this exchange between Cheney and the young man – which can most naturally be understood as Cheney’s confirmation of a stand-down order – could not have occurred.

However, testimony that Cheney was in the PEOC by 9:20 was reported not only by Mineta but also by Richard Clarke [3] and White House photographer David Bohrer. [4] Cheney himself, speaking on “Meet the Press” five days after 9/11, reported that he had entered the PEOC before the Pentagon was damaged. [5]

The 9/11 Commission’s attempt to bury the exchange between Cheney and the young man confirms the importance of Mineta’s report of this conversation.

• The Secret Service is charged with the protection of the president. In a book about the Secret Service, Philip Melanson wrote: “With an unfolding terrorist attack, the procedure should have been to get the president to the closest secure location as quickly as possible.” [10]
• The presidential visit had been highly publicized, and one journalist had written, in fact, that “Bush’s presence made … the planned reading event a perceived target,” because “the well-publicized event at the school assured Bush’s location that day was no secret.” [11]
• Given this fact, combined with evidence that many planes had been hijacked and that terrorists were going after high-value targets, [12] the Secret Service should have assumed that a hijacked airliner may have been bearing down on the school at that very moment, so the President should have been removed immediately. Indeed, as soon as the second strike on the World Trade Center was seen on television, the Marine carrying the President’s phone said to Sarasota County Sheriff Bill Balkwill: “We’re out of here. Can you get everybody ready?” [13]
• However, this Marine’s instructions were evidently overridden: The head of the Secret Service detail allowed Bush to remain at the school 30 minutes longer to make his previously scheduled television address to the nation at 9:29, thereby letting any terrorists know that he was still at the school. [14]

This break in protocol indicates that the Secret Service, at some level, knew that the President was not in danger.

While Myers was waiting in Cleland’s outer office, a television report gave him the impression that the World Trade Center had been hit by “a small plane or something like that,” so he and Cleland went ahead with their meeting. [4] Soon, having learned from a staffer that the second tower had been hit, they ended their meeting. Returning to the exterior office, they learned from TV that flames had erupted in the WTC. [5]

While watching the TV coverage, Myers received a call on his military aide’s cell phone from General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD, saying that he was working with the FAA to get all planes grounded. Myers then got a call from his executive assistant, who said that a major hijacking seemed to be underway and recommended that Myers “return to the Pentagon as soon as possible.” [6] “As we raced away from Capitol Hill,” [7] Myers wrote, “the Pentagon was hit … [b]efore we even got to the 14th Street Bridge.” [8]

At 9:46, NORAD staff “reported that they were still trying to locate Secretary Rumsfeld and Vice Chairman Myers.” General Myers returned to the National Military Command Center (NMCC) “shortly before 10:00,” at which time he joined the NMCC’s air threat conference call [9]– which had begun without him at 9:37. [10]

General Myers, accordingly, was not in the Pentagon during the attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon. With regard to the hijacking of United Flight 93 (which, the 9/11 Commission claimed, crashed in Shanksville PA), Myers could not have ordered fighter jets to bring it down, because “[b]y the time the military learned about the flight, it had crashed.” [11]

Questions about the accuracy of the accounts provided by The 9/11 Commission Report (2004), along with Myers in 2004 and later years, are raised by:

• Contradictions with accounts provided by Counter-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Navy Captain Charles Joseph Leidig, General Hugh Shelton, and Army Secretary Thomas White;
• Inconsistencies with accounts Myers had provided in 2001;
• Implausibilities.

A. Contradictions

1. The official account of General Myers’ activities during the attacks contradicts the account that had been provided in counter-terrorism coordinator Richard Clarke’s 2004 book, Against All Enemies, [12] which had appeared several months before the publication of The 9/11 Commission Report, and which described Myers as being in the Pentagon during the attacks. Describing the beginning of the White House videoconference, which his account suggests began at approximately 9:10, [13] Clarke wrote:
   “As I entered the Video Center … I could see people rushing into studios around the city: Donald Rumsfeld at Defense and George Tenet at CIA.” [14]

   “Air force four-star General Dick Myers was filling in for the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Hugh Shelton, who was over the Atlantic.” [14]

   Shortly before 9:28, Clarke reported, he had this exchange with Myers:

   [Clarke:] “JCS [Joint Chiefs of Staff], JCS. I assume NORAD has scrambled fighters and AWACS. How many? Where?”

   [Myers:] “Not a pretty picture Dick. … We are in the midst of Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD exercise, but … Otis has launched two birds toward New York. Langley is trying to get two up now.” …

   [Clarke:] “Okay, how long to CAP [15] over D.C.?” …

   [Myers:] “Fast as we can. Fifteen minutes?” Myers asked, looking at the generals and colonels around him. It was now 9:28. [16]

   Accordingly, Clarke’s account – which was not mentioned in either The 9/11 Commission Report or in Myers’ 2009 book, Eyes on the Horizon – was contradicted by the account given by Myers and the 9/11 Commission.

2. The official account of Myers’ activities was also contradicted by statements made in 2002 by Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, with regard to two points:

   1. In an interview conducted by Alfred Goldberg (who would later become the first author of Pentagon 9/11, a major study published in 2007 [17]), Wolfowitz gave a report that contradicted the claim, made by Myers and The 9/11 Commission Report, that Myers had been away from the Pentagon until he returned “shortly before 10:00”:
      • Wolfowitz stated that after the Pentagon attack, he and others were told to go outside the building, but that they were allowed to go back in within “less than ten minutes” – which means, if the Pentagon was attacked at 9:38, he was referring to going back in at roughly 9:50.
      • Wolfowitz reported: “We went into the NMCC, where the Secretary was, and General Myers. General Shelton was in Europe.”
      • Wolfowitz next said: “We proceeded with discussions by secure video conference. One issue was what to do about the plane over Pennsylvania, getting orders to get fighters up to intercept it, and the Secretary getting approval from the President to shoot it down.” [18]

      This report by Wolfowitz, therefore, contradicted the claims by The 9/11 Commission Report that (a) Myers was not in the Pentagon when the building was attacked and that (b) the military, led by General Myers, had not been informed about United Flight 93’s troubles before it crashed.

   2. In 2001, Wolfowitz – as well as Myers himself – contradicted the claim about United 93 that would be made by The 9/11 Commission Report – that the military did not know anything was wrong with it until it crashed.
      • Wolfowitz, answering a question on the PBS “NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” said: “We responded awfully quickly … and, in fact, we were already tracking in on that plane that crashed in Pennsylvania. I think it was the heroism of the passengers on board that brought it down. But the Air Force was in a position to do so if we had had to.” [19]
      • Also in 2001, Myers said at his confirmation hearing: “[I]f my memory serves me … we had launched on the [airliner] that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania … [W]e had gotten somebody close to it, as I recall.” [20]
   3. One of the claims by Myers and The 9/11 Commission Report that was contradicted in the interview of Wolfowitz – that Myers was not in the Pentagon during the attacks – was also contradicted in a 9/11 Commission document labeled “Secret Memorandum for the Record.” [21] This memorandum, which was dated a year earlier than The 9/11 Commission Report, reported statements that were made in 2003 by Navy Captain Charles Joseph “Joe” Leidig, who about two months before 9/11 had assumed duties in the NMCC as Deputy for Command Center Operations. [22] According to this document:
      • Leidig said that, on the morning of 9/11, he served as the NMCC’s Deputy Director of Operations (DDO) in place of Brigadier General Montague Winfield from 8:30 until Winfield relieved him some time after 10:00.
      • During a discussion of Delta Flight 1989, which occurred between 9:23 and 9:26, [23] Leidig was “certain that the Vice Chairman [of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] was in the room at the time. He [Leidig] recalled looking at him and saying there is a recommendation to evacuate the Sears tower in Chicago. He remembered General Meyers [sic] saying that was a good idea.” [24]

      According to this memorandum, therefore, Captain Leidig supported Wolfowitz’s report that Myers was in the Pentagon, not somewhere else, shortly before the Pentagon attack.

   4. The claim by the 9/11 Commission and Myers that he was not in the NMCC until “shortly before 10:00,” and hence was not there immediately after the Pentagon attack, was contradicted by the officer he was replacing that day, General Hugh Shelton:
      • In Shelton’s 2009 book, describing what happened on the plane that had been taking him to Europe – but which he, after learning about the attack on the Pentagon, turned around – he wrote: “Meanwhile, Dick [Myers] was on the phone, and the first report was that a hand grenade had just gone off in the Pentagon parking lot. … Since our connection was encrypted, he was able to give me a complete status report from the NMCC.” [25]
      • Continuing his discussion with Myers, Shelton added: “I need you to call Ed Eberhart … at NORAD and let him know that we’re coming back on Speckled Trout, and that I would consider it a personal favor if he would see to it that the Chairman and his crew are not shot down on their way back to Andrews.” Myers replied: “Will do.” [26]
   5. Thomas White, the Secretary of the Army, indicated that General Myers had been at a breakfast meeting in the Pentagon from 8:00 until 8:46, when the first plane hit the World Trade Center (not in Senator Cleland’s office on Capitol Hill). [27]
      • White told Frontline: “Don Rumsfeld had a breakfast, and virtually every one of the senior officials of the Department of Defense—-service chiefs, secretary, deputy, everybody, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And as that breakfast was breaking up, the first plane had hit the World Trade tower.” [28]
      • By “chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff,” White had to mean Myers, the acting and soon-to-be-confirmed chairman, because General Hugh Shelton, the outgoing chairman, was on his way to Europe. [29]

B. Inconsistencies

1. The official story about Myers, which was based on The 9/11 Commission Report and Myers’ statements in 2004 and later, contradicted assertions Myers had made in 2001:
   1. Official story, 2004: Myers learned of the Pentagon attack while being driven back to the Pentagon. [30] September 13, 2001: Myers learned of the attack while still in Senator Cleland’s office. [31]
   2. Official story, 2004: While Myers was being driven back to the Pentagon, he was called by General Eberhart. [32] October 2001: Myers received the Eberhart call while still in Sen. Cleland’s office. [33]
   3. Official story, 2004: The Eberhart call to Myers came before the Pentagon was hit. [34]
      October 2001: The Eberhart call came after the Pentagon was hit. [35]
2. Senator Cleland’s stories also contained inconsistencies:
   • At the confirmation hearing in 2001, Cleland said to Myers: “It’s a good thing we were meeting here [on Capitol Hill] and not us meeting in the Pentagon because about the time you and I were having our visit … at just about that very moment, the Pentagon was being hit.” [36]
   • In 2003, Cleland said that just at the moment after “Myers rushed out of [his] office, headed for the Pentagon … the Pentagon was hit.” [37]

C. Implausibilities

1. In a 2001 interview, Myers said that while he was meeting with Cleland in his office, the second tower was struck, but “[n]obody informed us of that.” It was only when they finished their meeting and came out of the inner office, Myers said, that he and Cleland realized “that the second tower had been hit.” [38] It was “right at that time,” Myers added, that “somebody said the Pentagon has been hit” [39] – thereby indicating that the meeting had lasted until almost 9:37.
   • But the idea that nobody – neither Cleland’s secretary nor anyone at the Pentagon or otherwise in the military – had notified him (the Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff), so that he did not know anything about the second attack until just before the Pentagon was struck, is implausible.
   • This realization likely motivated the later version of his story, according to which a staff person from the outer office told Myers and Cleland about the second WTC attack right after it occurred. [40]
2. In a 2003 speech, Senator Cleland said: “The first plane had already hit the World Trade Center and Gen. Myers bolted from his seat. We rushed into an adjoining office as we saw on TV the second plane slam into the second tower. Gen. Myers rushed out of my office, headed for the Pentagon. At that moment, the Pentagon was hit.” [41]
   • There were 30-some minutes between these two attacks.
   • Cleland’s account was implausible, because it suggested that there were at most 10 minutes between the two attacks.

In light of the above problems –

• the contradictions between the 2004 accounts by Myers and the 9/11 Commission, on the one hand, and the accounts by Richard Clarke, Paul Wolfowitz, Captain Leidig, General Shelton, Thomas White, and, even the Myers of 2001, on the other;
• the inconsistencies between the earlier and later stories told by Myers;
• and the implausibilities in the accounts by Myers and Cleland –

the evidence suggests that the official account about Myers – according to which he was not in the Pentagon during the attacks and also could not have been involved in a decision to bring down United 93 – is false, and should be further investigated.