It is time to prosecute Don Rumsfeld for treason!
it's past time:
911truth.org
(scroll down to "DONALD RUMSFELD ON 9/11")
As U.S. secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld was on 9/11 second in the military chain-of-command behind the president. Yet details of what he did during the attacks are sketchy and from what we currently know, he did nothing in response to the crisis until it was too late to make a difference.
According to Rumsfeld, on the morning of September 11 he was hosting a breakfast meeting at the Pentagon for some members of Congress. He told them that "sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months there would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people again how important it is to have a strong healthy defense department."11 Soon after, someone walked in and gave him a note saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Yet Rumsfeld apparently was not moved to take action. "[W]e adjourned the meeting, and I went in to get my CIA briefing," he has said.12 Whilst in his office with the CIA briefer, Rumsfeld says he was told of the second plane hitting the WTC. Yet he went ahead with a meeting in his private dining room at the Pentagon with his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and U.S. Representative Christopher Cox, to discuss how to win votes for Bush's defense plan.
During this meeting, Rumsfeld was apparently oblivious to the fact that an airplane was heading towards Washington. However, he made another prediction: "let me tell you, I've been around the block a few times," he told Representative Cox. "There will be another event." For emphasis, he repeated: "There will be another event."13 Just minutes later the Pentagon was hit. Rumsfeld says: "I went outside to determine what had happened. I was not there long because I was back in the Pentagon with a crisis action team shortly before or after 10:00 a.m. On my return from the crash site and before going to the executive support center, I had one or more calls in my office, one of which was with the president."14 Rumsfeld didn't enter the National Military Command Center within the Pentagon though until 10.30. Brigadier General Montague Winfield says: "For 30 minutes we couldn't find him. And just as we began to worry, he walked into the door of the National Military Command Center."15 As the 9/11 Commission conclude: "The Secretary of Defense did not enter the chain of command until the morning's key events were over."16 Nor is Rumsfeld on the record as having given any orders that morning.
Yet, according to military procedure, if the Federal Aviation Administration were to notify the National Military Command Center of a hijacking, with the exception of "immediate responses" the NMCC was required to "forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval."17 Of course, 9/11 would easily come under the heading of "immediate responses." All the same, Rumsfeld has yet to be asked whether he was contacted in line with this military procedure and, if so, what did he do in response?
Interestingly, since 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld has made statements suggesting why he may have wanted an event like 9/11 to occur. For example, in a televised interview two years after the attacks, he described how he thinks about what a senior leader in the Gulf told him, that maybe 9/11 was "a blessing in disguise," and a "wake-up call" for the world to deal with the growing threat of terrorism. Rumsfeld said he agreed with this, that 9/11 was indeed a 'wake-up call.'18 He wrote a similar thing in his prepared testimony to the 9/11 Commission:
"Think about what has been done since the September 11th attacks: two state sponsors of terrorism have been removed from power, a 90-nation coalition has been formed which is cooperating on a number of levels… All of these actions are putting pressure on terrorist networks. Taken together, they represent a collective effort that is unprecedented -- which has undoubtedly saved lives, and made us safer than before September 11th.19
ENDNOTES
11 From "Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Larry King." Larry King Live, CNN, December 5, 2001. Transcript at: defenselink.mil.
12 Ibid.
13 From "Chairman Cox's Statement on the Terrorist Attack on America." September 11, 2001. Online at: cox.house.gov.
14 From "Day One Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearing." Washington Post, March 23, 2004. Online at: washingtonpost.com.
15 From "'The Pentagon Goes to War': National Military Command Center: A look at 9/11 at the Pentagon's National Military Command Center." American Morning With Paula Zahn, CNN, September 4, 2002. Transcript at: cooperativeresearch.org; "9/11: Interviews by Peter Jennings." ABC News, September 11, 2002. Transcript at: cooperativeresearch.org.
16 The 9/11 Commission Report: The Full Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Executive Summary. 2004, p. 15. Online at: 9-11commission.gov.
17 See Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A, June 1, 2001. Online at dtic.mil. Due to the fact that this new procedure was introduced just three months before 9/11, several individuals have questioned whether this new instruction, requiring secretary of defense approval in responding to hijackings, was introduced deliberately so as to hinder the interception of the hijacked planes on 9/11. However, this requirement was not new: The previous instruction for dealing with hijackings, dated July 31, 1997, also required approval from the defense secretary. See: dtic.mil.
18 The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, September 10, 2003. Transcript at:
pbs.org.
19 "Testimony of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Prepared for Delivery to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." March 23, 2004, p. 21. Online at: 9-11commission.gov.
Jesse |
