RICHARD MYERS CONFIRMATION HEARING: The King of Amnesia
cooperativeresearch.org
Selected quotes from the question and answer period. I note that this man is being confirmed to lead this nation's military forces. What we will see here is a pattern of dissembling, deceit, deliberate obtuseness and obfuscation.
The Senators cited here include Sen. Carl Levin (D. MI) and Sen. Bill Nelson (D. FL). Questions from the Republicans on the Armed Services committee that day were servile, pointless and disrespectful of role Congress should be playing in a democracy. They have not been included because of their essential uselessness.
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LEVIN: Can you tell us about what percent of the Pentagon's work space is out of commission? Do you have any estimate of that?
MYERS: I don't know the exact square footage, sir.
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LEVIN: Was the Defense Department contacted by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency after the first two hijacked aircraft crashed into the World Trade Center, prior to the time that the Pentagon was hit?
MYERS: Sir, I don't know the answer to that question. I can get that for you, for the record.
[[NOTE TO READERS: I have not been able to secure this reply in the intervening 30 months since 9/13/01. If anyone has seen this or has a URL to share, I would love to get Gen. Myers responses to these many unanswered questions into my dossier on 9/11. Thank you.]]
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NELSON: The second World Trade tower was hit shortly after 9:00. And the Pentagon was hit approximately 40 minutes later. That's approximately. You would know specifically what the timeline was.
The crash that occurred in Pennsylvania after the Newark westbound flight was turned around 180 degrees and started heading back to Washington was approximately an hour after the World Trade Center second explosion. You said earlier in your testimony that we had not scrambled any military aircraft until after the Pentagon was hit. And so, my question would be: why?
MYERS: I think I had that right, that it was not until then. I'd have to go back and review the exact timelines.
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BILL NELSON: Perhaps we want to do this in our session, in executive session. But my question is an obvious one for not only this committee, but for the executive branch and the military establishment.
If we knew that there was a general threat on terrorist activity, which we did, and we suddenly have two trade towers in New York being obviously hit by terrorist activity, of commercial airliners taken off course from Boston to Los Angeles, then what happened to the response of the defense establishment once we saw the diversion of the aircraft headed west from Dulles turning around 180 degrees and, likewise, in the aircraft taking off from Newark and, in flight, turning 180 degrees? That's the question.
I leave it to you as to how you would like to answer it. But we would like an answer.
MYERS: You bet. I spoke, after the second tower was hit, I spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart. And at that point, I think the decision was at that point to start launching aircraft.
One of the things you have to understand, senator, is that in our posture right now, that we have many fewer aircraft on alert than we did during the height of the Cold War. And so, we've got just a few bases around the perimeter of the United States.
So it's not just a question of launching aircraft, it's launching to do what? You have to have a specific threat. We're pretty good if the threat's coming from outside. We're not so good if the threat's coming from inside.
[[RGD: Standard operating procedure for the FAA and NORAD at this time was to intercept and commercial or general aviation that was deviating from flight plan and which the air traffic controllers could not reach for corrective procedures. Why Myers fails to mention this has me completely baffled. He must know this fact about standard procedure.]]
In this case, if my memory serves me -- and I'll have to get back to you for the record -- my memory says that we had launched on the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. I mean, we had gotten somebody close to it, as I recall. I'll have to check that out.
I do not recall if that was the case for the one that had taken off from Dulles. But part of it is just where we are positioned around this country to do that kind of work because that was never -- it goes back to Senator Collins' issue. Is this one of the things that we'll worry about. You know, what's next?
But our posture today is not one of the many sites and the many tens of aircraft on alert. We just have a handful today.
[[NOTE: At this time, the Andrews AFB website was "down". When it came back up a few days later, two National Air Guard squadrons had mysteriously disappeared from the website. A red flag? Sure is to me.]]
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LEVIN: Thank you, Senator Nelson.
General Myers, just a very brief request. When I asked you what time it was that the FAA or the FBI notified the Defense Department after the first World Trade -- the two crashes into the World Trade Center and you indicated you didn't know the time. Could you ask someone on your staff to try to get us that time, so that we will have that either before this session here or for executive session?
MYERS: Mr. Chairman, I just did that.
[[RGD: We are still waiting for anything definitive on this topic in the public literature on this subject. The FAA and NORAD have provided conflicting testimony to the Kean Commission. I've seen nothing from Myers' staff on the matter.]]
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BILL NELSON: Mr. Chairman, may I, just for the record? Commenting from CNN on the timeline, 9:03 is the correct time that the United Airlines flight crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center; 9:43 is the time that American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. And 10:10 a.m. is the time that United Airlines flight 93 crashed in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
So that was 40 minutes between the second tower being hit and the Pentagon crash. And it is an hour and seven minutes until the crash occurred in Pennsylvania.
LEVIN: The time that we don't have is when the Pentagon was notified, if they were, by the FAA or the FBI or any other agency, relative to any potential threat or any planes having changed direction or anything like that. And that's the same which you will give us because that's . . .
MYERS: I can answer that. At the time of the first impact on the World Trade Center, we stood up our crisis action team. That was done immediately.
So we stood it up. And we started talking to the federal agencies. The time I do not know is when NORAD responded with fighter aircraft. I don't know that time.
LEVIN: Or the time that I asked you for, which was whether the FAA or FBI notified you that other planes had turned direction from their path, their scheduled path, and were returning or aiming towards Washington, whether there was any notice from any of them, because that's such an obvious shortfall if there wasn't.
MYERS: Right.
LEVIN: And in any event, but more important, if you could get us that information.
MYERS: It probably happened. ,b>As you remember, I was not in the Pentagon at that time, so that part of it is a little hazy. After that, we started getting regular notifications through NORAD, FAA to NORAD, on other flights that we were worried about.
And we knew about the one that eventually crashed in Pennsylvania. I do not know, again, whether we had fighters scrambled on it. I have to . . .
LEVIN: If you could get us those times then. We know you don't know them.
MYERS: But we'll get them.
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TTBOMK, we are still waiting for these answers......
30 months is a long time to remain patient, IMHO. |
