Myths & Mysteries
Myths & Mysteries
November, 2002
Conspiracy theorists have long been the butt of jokes in American popular culture. A combination of paranoia and vivid imagination has made them a favorite topic of comedians for decades. The work of these conspiracy nuts is normally viewed more as entertainment than information, somewhat like the "news" stories in supermarket tabloids.
If this is true, then why pick on these poor fools? Why not leave them to their fate as part of a lunatic fringe that will never be taken seriously? The reason is that a conscientious conspiracy buff can present his case in such a way that it may be taken at face value. He can research his topic thoroughly, provide numerous references to legitimate sources, and carefully craft his words so he comes across as being articulate and well educated. It is this type of conspiracy theorist who is especially dangerous. Impressionable readers who read such pieces uncritically are likely to be taken in by their carefully crafted professionalism. Behind this slick facade, however, can often be found a cauldron of inaccuracies and outright lies.
Conspiracy theories are similar to pseudoscience in a number of respects. The same sort of logical fallacies are often found in each, from ad hominem attacks to circular reasoning. Occam's razor has no place in a conspiracy theory. The more unnecessary entities are added to an explanation, the more it affirms the theorist's belief that a massive, complex conspiracy exists.
In addition, conspiracy theories are almost by definition unfalsifiable. Any evidence against the theory is dismissed, because, as far as the conspiracy buff is concerned, the conspirators planted the evidence. A classic example is the hype surrounding the supposed "UFO Crash" at Roswell. It doesn't matter that newly unclassified documents reveal that the incident had a perfectly logical, terrestrial explanation. UFOlogists want to believe in a conspiracy to hide evidence of alien life, so they dismiss the evidence as part of a government cover-up.
Whenever a significant event occurs, there are conspiracy nuts coming out of the woodwork to explain to us what really happened. This is the case with an article written by Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, called "An Interesting Day: President Bush's Movements and Actions on 9/11". It appears on the website for the "Center for Cooperative Research" which, as far as I can tell (the page describing the purpose of the site is extremely evasive), is an alternative news source. The central thrust of this article is that President Bush's actions were unusual and inappropriate for circumstances surrounding the September 11 terrorist attacks. It states that investigations are needed to explain certain irregularities, implying that a bizarre conspiracy of silence was in place that day.
Although this article is clearly well researched and contains links to its sources, it is at its core a journalistic train wreck. Many of the reference links are broken, point to dubious web sites, or refer to articles that simply do not support the statements made. Numerous attempts are made to mislead and confuse the reader, while maintaining a veneer of accuracy and professionalism. In my opinion, the twisted logic of this article trivializes one of the most traumatic incidents in our nation's history. In the paragraphs that follow I will attempt to work through the baffling mish-mash of ideas that comprise the work.
One caveat before I begin: It may seem, at times, that I am attacking a "straw man" position, an argument that the authors did not make. This cannot be helped, for one of the rhetorical tricks they use is to avoid making an explicit argument. They simply hang questions in the air (29 rhetorical questions, by my count) and let the reader come to his own conclusions. At times, I must guess at the argument being made. If I have guessed wrong, I apologize.
The piece begins with the flat-out assertion that the President, NORAD, the FAA, the Pentagon, and numerous other American and Canadian agencies knew at the time of the first World Trade Center impact that this was a deliberate attack carried out by hijackers, and that more hijacked airliners were in the air. The authors spend the rest of the article attempting to support this incredible claim, all the while making thinly veiled personal attacks against President Bush:
"So why, at 9:03 a.m. - fifteen minutes after it was clear the United States was under terrorist attack - did President Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op? No one knows the answer to that question. In fact, no one has even asked Bush about it."
This is the first of many arguments from ignorance employed in the piece. "We don't know why this happened; ergo, a conspiracy." The oft-repeated cry, "no one knows", is a call to arms for someone else to do the legwork. It is not the authors' place to even guess at what motivated the President and others to do what they did; it is their job simply to plant the seeds of doubt by making vague accusations. If no evidence is found of impropriety, the authors would still be safe in their ivory tower, insisting that the evidence is there for anyone brave and persistent enough to find it.
After the brazen introduction, the authors say:
"In the changed political climate after 9/11, few have dared raise challenging questions about Bush's actions. A journalist who said Bush was "flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare" and another who said Bush "skedaddled" were fired. "The implication here is that the government stepped in to quell dissent, doing away with rabble-rousing journalists who dared to question the President, and thus perhaps reveal the conspiracy. The only problem is that these are not questions, but editorial comments. The journalists were clearly not attempting to uncover any deep, dark secrets; they were merely stating their opinions. The employers of these journalists were probably more influenced by wrathful readers than the government when they made their personnel decisions. After all, many of these readers had rallied around the President in the patriotic fervor that characterized the days following the attacks.
The next step taken by the authors to win the hearts and minds of the readers is a detailed account of Bush's activities in the 24 hours prior to the attacks. They were searching for something - anything - to point to the President's foreknowledge of the attacks.
"Bush's appearance at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September 11, 2001 had been in the planning stages since August [Booker web site], but was only publicly announced on the morning of September 7. [White House, 9/7/01] Later that same day, 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi traveled to Sarasota and enjoyed drinks and dinner at a Holiday Inn only two miles down the sandy beach from where Bush was scheduled to stay during his Sarasota visit."Was Bush's appearance at the elementary school part of a larger plot in which the government was in complicity with the hijackers, who met at a location tantalizingly close to where the President would be just four days later, coincidentally, on the same day the visit was announced? Why else would the hijackers travel to Sarasota, except, perhaps, to meet with the CIA, the NSA, or (dare I say it) the Illuminati? Perhaps the authors are suggesting this, perhaps not. If not, it is difficult to understand why such mundane details would be included here. If so, it is difficult to understand why the authors do not simply tell the readers what's on their minds -- unless, of course, one takes into account the fact that this is the work of conspiracy theorists. Vague implications are one of the hallmarks of such people.
"After a private dinner with various Florida politicians (including his brother Jeb) and Republican donors, Bush went to bed around 10:00 p.m. [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01, Washington Post, 1/27/02] Surface-to-air missiles were placed on the roof of the resort [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02], and an Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) plane circled high overhead. [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 25] It's not clear if this type of protection was standard for the president or whether security was increased because of possible threats."Again, the authors argue from ignorance in order to plant the seeds of doubt and suspicion in the reader. Why isn't it clear if "this type of protection was standard for the president"? Couldn't the authors have checked this out? Perhaps they did, and found nothing out of the ordinary. Perhaps the reason that it is "not clear" is that the authors made it that way.
(The authors did not mention another possibility, that security was heightened because of the President's proximity to a hostile nation -- Cuba -- whose leaders would have known where Bush was staying.)
Next, the authors describe a "close call":
"At about the same time Bush was getting ready for his jog, a van carrying several Middle Eastern men pulled up to the Colony's guard station. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled "poolside" interview with the president... He told the men to contact the president's public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01] The Secret Service may have foiled an assassination attempt. Two days earlier, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, had been murdered by a similar ruse."It makes no sense that, even if these "Middle Eastern men" wanted to assassinate the President, they were acting in concert with the hijackers. Imagine the difficulty of pulling off the September 11 attacks if the President had been assassinated that morning by a group of Middle Eastern men. The terrorists' strategy depended heavily on American complacency, a condition that would not have existed if an assassination had just occurred. Perhaps the authors were correct, and this WAS an assassination attempt. However, it clearly was not related to the terrorist attacks, and is therefore no more relevant than what the President had for breakfast that morning.
"Nearly three hours after the incident at the Colony, another Longboat Key resident reported a run-in with possibly the same men. At about 8:50 (when reports of the first World Trade Center crash were first broadcast), while standing on the Sarasota bay front waiting for the presidential motorcade to pass by, this man saw two Middle Eastern men in a dilapidated van "screaming out the windows 'Down with Bush' and raising their fists in the air." The FBI questioned the man, but it's not known if this was the same van that had visited the Colony. [Longboat Observer, 9/26/01]"If these men were terrorists, then their training was sorely lacking. In order to be an effective terrorist, one must keep an extremely low profile until ready to act. Background searches on the 9/11 hijackers turned up very little that would have placed them under suspicion. In order for surprise to be attained, the attacker must be someone who blends in seamlessly with his surroundings. This is not readily achieved by driving down Main Street screaming anti-American slogans.
The authors then relate several stories about Muslim informants mysteriously disappearing in the wake of the attacks, utterly failing to draw any type of connection between these events and anything else in the article. After this, they begin to focus on what President Bush knew and when he knew it on the morning of September 11.
"After his jog, Bush showered, then sat down for his daily intelligence briefing around 8 a.m. "The President's briefing appears to have included some reference to the heightened terrorist risk reported throughout the summer, but contained nothing specific, severe or imminent enough to necessitate a call to [National Security Advisor] Condoleezza Rice." [Telegraph, 12/16/01] While Bush was being briefed, the planes that would be hijacked began taking off."This is one of many passages that suggests, without overtly asserting, that the President was or should have been aware of what was going on. At times it seems that the authors cannot decide whether to slam the President for his lack of extraordinary prescience or label him a conspirator who knew about the attacks but failed to act, either by design or through incompetence. It doesn't appear to matter to the authors which viewpoint they support, as long as it places Bush in the worst possible light.
"At approximately 8:13, Flight 11 was instructed by air traffic controllers at the FAA's Boston Center, in Nashua, New Hampshire, to climb to 35,000 feet. The plane did not obey the order and its transponder was turned off. Air traffic control manager Glenn Michael said, "we considered it at that time to be a possible hijacking." [AP, 8/12/02] According to FAA regulations, that was the correct decision: "Consider that an aircraft emergency exists ... when ... there is unexpected loss of radar contact and radio communications with any ... aircraft." [FAA Air Traffic Control Regulations, Chapter 10, Section 2-5 ]"The authors say, "that was the correct decision". What decision? The air traffic control manager merely considered the possibility of a hijacking, one of many possibilities to explain the strange sequence of events. Let us look for a moment at the authors' interpretation of FAA regulations. First, an "aircraft emergency" can be many things other than a hijacking. Second, loss of a transponder does not render a plane invisible to radar, it simply makes it more difficult to identify. Third, radio communications were lost only temporarily, and thus, according to FAA regulations, there was not sufficient cause to consider this an emergency. The regulations quoted here say simply that if an aircraft unexpectedly disappears, then air traffic controllers may assume the worst. This seems patently obvious, and does not mean that a contingency plan was in place to cover the specific events of September 11.
"If air traffic controllers believed Flight 11 had been hijacked at 8:13, NORAD should have been informed immediately, so military planes could be scrambled to investigate."This is one of many leaps of logic taken by the authors. There is a big difference between believing something has happened and considering the possibility that something has happened. Besides, regulations do not call for alerting NORAD if it is believed to be a hijacking, it must be a confirmed hijacking. Imagine the cost of deploying fighter jets every time an air traffic controller sees something out of place on the radar screen. Such action might seem reasonable in hindsight, but nothing in the political and domestic climate of pre-9/11 America suggested that NORAD should be called at the first sign of unusual activity.
"...NORAD and the FAA both claimed NORAD was not informed until 8:40 - 27 minutes later....Is NORAD's claim credible? If so, the air traffic controllers (including Mr. Michael) should have been fired and subject to possible criminal charges for their inaction. To date, however, there has been no word of any person being disciplined at any institution at any level for what happened on 9/11."There was no reason to discipline them. They were not responsible for the terrorist attacks. The authors apparently think that all government agencies are staffed by supermen who can instantly and flawlessly analyze a situation and respond appropriately. They continue:
"If NORAD's claim is false, and it was indeed informed within the time frame outlined in FAA regulations that Flight 11 may have been hijacked, that would mean NORAD did absolutely nothing for almost thirty minutes while a hijacked commercial airliner flew off course through some of the most congested airspace in the world. Presumably, that would warrant some very serious charges. Again, no one associated with NORAD or the FAA has been punished."Serious charges are not made according to the presumptions of conspiracy theorists. Failure to get the optimal outcome at a critical moment is neither proof nor evidence of wrongdoing. Sometimes, in spite of their best efforts, human beings do not always achieve favorable results. The authors seem ignorant of this simple fact.
This passage is simply an attempt to show that the FAA and NORAD were either incompetent or were somehow involved in the terror attacks. The authors, of course, do not go out on a limb and say which possibility they believe to be true.
"According to phone calls made by fight attendants Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, the hijackers had stabbed and killed at least one passenger and two flight attendants by about 8:21. [ABC News, 7/18/02, Boston Globe, 11/23/01, AP, 10/5/01, Los Angeles Times, 9/20/01] (One hijacker may have been riding in the cockpit and begun the hijacking earlier.) After 8:21, both women apparently remained on the phone with American Airlines' headquarters for 25 minutes, until their plane crashed into the World Trade Center's North Tower. [ABC News, 7/18/02, AP, 10/5/01] These calls make NORAD's supposed ignorance of a crisis even more dubious."The flight attendants did not call the FAA. They called the airline's reservation desk. The authors do not mention how long it took the airline to forward the problem to the FAA. Doubtless, the airline wanted to make sure the claim was legitimate before they involved federal authorities. The sense of urgency seems lacking in hindsight, but remember that, at the time, there was absolutely no precedent for a hijacker to use an airliner as a guided missile. The situation simply did not seem that dire at the moment.
In spite of this lack of foreknowledge, the military actually responded with extraordinary speed once the gravity of the situation was known. Twelve minutes after NORAD was informed of a possible hijacking, they had planes in the air and on the way to New York. This was an extraordinary accomplishment considering the attack came with no warning in peacetime.
"Around the same time the Flight 11 hijackers were stabbing passenger Daniel Lewin - at 8:20 a.m. - Bush's briefing ended and he said good-bye to the Colony's general manager."This somewhat passive-aggressive passage is an example of the clever tactics used by the authors to create an overall impression that the actions of the President and the terrorists were somehow linked. By juxtaposing the timelines of two completely unrelated sequences of events, they again seek sow the seeds of distrust in the reader. More subtle Bush-bashing follows:
"Accounts of when Bush's motorcade left for the school vary from 8:30 to 8:39.... Whenever he left, the motorcade traveled quickly: "The police shut down traffic in both directions, leaving roads utterly deserted for Bush's long motorcade, which barreled along at 40 mph, running red lights with impunity." [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, pp. 37-38]"Did the authors perhaps prefer that the President take the bus like us ordinary schmucks? Note how they are able to turn a quote from an outside source into an editorial comment affirming their dislike for Bush.
"Why does it matter when Bush left the resort and arrived at the school? Because this is the crucial time when Bush was first told, or should have been told, of the attacks."This is simply wrong. It was not known that the World Trade Center crash was an attack until later. As far as anyone knew at the time, it was simply a horrific accident.
"Official accounts, including the words of Bush himself, say Bush was first told of what was happening in New York City after he arrived at the school. However, this statement does not stand up to scrutiny. There are at least four reports that Bush was told of the first crash before he arrived at the school."Again, it was not known what was happening in New York at that time, other than the fact that there had been a plane crash. The historical significance of what was happening was simply not known by anyone at the time. Some people knew that there had been a hijacking, others knew that one or more planes were off course, others knew that a plane had crashed. No one, at this point, had put all the pieces together. If they had, it would have been an extraordinary feat of deduction, given the unexpected nature of the day's events.
"The first media reports of Flight 11's crash into the World Trade Center began around 8:48, two minutes after the crash happened...within minutes, millions were aware of the story, yet Bush supposedly remained unaware for about another ten minutes. Claims of Bush's ignorance become harder to believe when one learns that others in his motorcade were immediately told of the attack."Note how the authors manipulate the facts by their careful choice of words. Supposedly, others in the motorcade were told of an "attack" when all that was known at the time was that there had been a plane crash. They may have been told of what proved to be an attack after more evidence presented itself, but few would have characterized it as such at the time. The central fallacy being perpetrated here is the belief that "news" of something entails understanding of something. This reminds me of the time I first heard of the Oklahoma City bombing on the radio. When I first heard the news, I did not think of it as being a noteworthy event. I pictured a small, one-story building such as a post office, manned by three or four employees (this was, after all, Oklahoma!). On 9/11, the news may have filtered down to the President and his staff like this, becoming more detailed and more alarming with each report:
"Meanwhile, CIA Director George Tenet was told of the crash a few minutes after it happened. A messenger gave him the news as he was eating breakfast with former Senator David Boren in a Washington restaurant three blocks from the White House. Boren says Tenet was told that the World Trade Center had been attacked by an airplane: "I was struck by the fact that [the messenger] used the word attacked." An aide then handed a cell phone to Tenet, and Tenet made some calls, showing that at least some at the highest levels of the Bush administration were talking about an attack at this time. Tenet then said to Boren, "You know, this has bin Laden's fingerprints all over it." [ABC, 9/14/02]"Think of whom we are talking about here: The Director of the CIA! It's his job to be paranoid. Certainly, there may have been some people who suspected that the crash was a deliberate attack. Since 9/11, terrorism is widely suspected whenever a plane crashes!
The comment about Bin Laden was not surprising either, coming from the CIA Director. After all, Bin Laden had sworn for years that he would bring down the World Trade Center.
"Given all this, how could Bush have remained ignorant? Could he have been out of the loop because he was in a car? No. The previous night, Colony Resort manager Katie Klauber Moulon toured the presidential limousine and marveled "at all the phones and electronic equipment." [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01] Karl Rove, Bush's "chief political strategist," who presumably was riding with Bush, used a wireless e-mail device on 9/11 as well. [Newsweek, 10/14/02] There seems to have been ample opportunity and the means to alert Bush."Opportunity and means, yes. Justification? Not necessarily. It was not known that this was a terrorist attack.
"Even though Flight 175 left about the same time as Flight 11, it appears to have been hijacked much later. At 8:41, its pilot was still talking to ground control [New York Times, 10/16/01], but at 8:42 it sharply veered off course, and a flight controller noted that its transponder had been turned off and communication cut. [Boston Globe, 11/23/01, New York Times, 10/16/01] One minute later, at 8:43, NORAD was notified the plane had been hijacked. [NORAD, 9/18/01] The hijackers turned the transponder back on but used a different signal code. This allowed flight controllers to "easily" track the plane as it flew toward New York City. [Washington Post, 9/17/01] At about 8:46, Flight 77 began to go severely off course. According to regulations, a fighter is required to be dispatched if a plane strays from its official course by more than two miles or 15 degrees [MSNBC, 9/12/01]. As the adjacent map shows, Flight 77 returned to its proper course for a time, but its last radio contact occurred at 8:50. [Guardian, 10/17/01] Supposedly, NORAD was not officially notified that Flight 77 has been hijacked until 9:24 [NORAD, 9/18/01], but the New York Times reported that by around 8:50, military officials at the Pentagon were already discussing what to do about Flight 77. [New York Times, 9/15/01] Note the difference in notification times: 27 minutes for Flight 11, 1 minute for Flight 175 and 38 minutes for Flight 77."The discrepancy in times proves nothing but that it took some people longer to catch on than others. According to FAA regulations, a hijacking must be confirmed before a request is made for military escort. Again, a lot of different people were monitoring a lot of unusual activity. No one had yet put all the pieces together.
"Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, said, "The Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center was ..." [Meet the Press, 9/16/01] Cheney never finished his sentence (interesting in itself - did he say too much?), but it seems safe to say that his next word would have been "hit." Cheney's statement makes it clear the Secret Service knew the extent of the situation well before 9:00 am."The authors seem to delight in harping over insignificant details such as Cheney's failure to put the final word on a sentence. Here they want to create the impression that open lines were set up immediately after the first plane hit at 8:46. This is not what Cheney said. He said they were set up at some unspecified time after the World Trade Center was attacked. Perhaps Cheney somewhat exaggerated the speed at which the Secret Service became involved, for obvious political reasons. However, since he did not specify a time, the authors' claim that his statement "made it clear the Secret Service knew the extent of the situation well before 9:00 am" is unfounded. In fact, no one but the hijackers knew the extent of the situation before 9:00 am.
"Intelligence agencies were suffering "warning fatigue" from so many warnings of an al-Qaeda attack [Independent, 9/7/02], some specifically mentioning the use of hijacked airplanes as missiles."Undoubtedly, they specifically mentioned many other things that did not happen. The authors seem to think that "warning fatigue" should make the intelligence agencies more alert to possible danger, when in fact the opposite is true. Anyone who remembers the childhood tale "The Boy Who Cried Wolf" understands this simple truth.
"Bush himself was given an intelligence briefing a month earlier entitled "Bin Laden to Strike in US," and it contained a warning from the British government that the US should expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda."I have no reason to doubt this. However, did the briefing bring up the possibility that al-Qaeda would use the hijacked planes as guided missiles? Probably not, or the authors would have said as much. And was possibility of hijacking the focal point of this briefing, or was it buried in a mass of other information about possible dangers? The President is a busy man. He is briefed on many, many things. It is possible that he was briefed on several other, completely unrelated problems that could have led to a plane crash. Why suspect terrorism when nothing like this had ever happened in American history?
"So with the clear knowledge that three planes had been hijacked, with one of them already crashed into the World Trade Center, who would have possibly assumed that Flight 11's crash was an accident?"The authors do not say who had "clear knowledge" that three planes had been hijacked, nor when they had this knowledge, but I will assist them. According to the FAA, the third hijacking was confirmed and NORAD alerted at 9:24. It cannot be said that there was "clear knowledge" of three hijackings before this time.
"Yet that is precisely what the official story claims. There are a number of different "official" accounts, but all of them stress that Bush wasn't told until after he arrived inside the school (contrary to the account of Captain Loewer) and that it was assumed to be an accident (contradicting Tenet being told that it was an attack)."Captain Loewer said that she told President Bush the news outside the school. Other accounts say he was told inside the school. Does it really matter? The point is, he was told soon after his arrival at the school, even though, at that time, there was no reason to believe it was anything other than an accident. It matters little what Tenet was told. How does the fact that someone thought it was an attack "contradict" what was assumed by a group of people hundreds of miles away? Certainly there was a difference of opinion over what had happened, but since nobody knew what had happened at this point, no real conflict existed.
"Bush later recalled that it was Card who first notified him...At a press conference later that day, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer also claimed it was Andy Card who first informed him...In other accounts, it was advisor Karl Rove who first told Bush. According to photographer Eric Draper, who was standing nearby, Rove rushed up, took Bush aside in a corridor inside the school and said the cause of the crash was unclear...One account explicitly says that Rove told Bush the World Trade Center had been hit by a large commercial airliner. .. However, Bush later remembered Rove saying it appeared to be an accident involving a small, twin-engine plane...In yet another account, Blake Gottesman, Bush's personal assistant, while giving the president some final instructions as they walked to the school, remarked, "Andy Card says, 'By the way, an aircraft flew into the World Trade Center.'""It is not inconceivable that more than one person informed Bush of the news. It is possible that he was notified multiple times, whenever new information presented itself. The authors here have unreasonable expectations about the memories of these witnesses. Details such as when the President was told, where he was when he was told, who told him, and the exact information he was given is not likely to be remembered with perfect accuracy by everyone involved. These details simply aren't that important.
"Booker principal Gwen Tose-Rigell was waiting for Bush outside the school. "The limousine stops and the president comes out. He walks toward me. I'm standing there in a lineup; there are about five people. He walks over and says he has to make a phone call, and he'll be right back." ... The phone call was with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice...Rice updated Bush on the situation...The fact that Bush immediately said he had to make an important call strongly suggests he was told about the situation while in the motorcade."...or perhaps he was told as soon as the motorcade arrived, as several witnesses recalled.
"...some accounts have Andrew Card saying to Bush as he gets out of his limousine, "Mr. President, you really need to take this phone call," thereby implying that Card knows what's going on, but Bush doesn't. "The authors may be making this implication, but I am not sure how they arrived at it. The phrase "you really need to take this phone call" implies merely that the President had a phone call he needed to take.
"As National Security Advisor, Rice had to have had as much information as anyone. By the time she spoke to Bush, she must have known that three planes had been hijacked and that the country was under attack."Why must she have known this? No one else did. The third hijacking would not be confirmed for twenty minutes or so, and it wasn't clear that "the country is under attack" (as opposed to the World Trade Center alone) until the Pentagon was hit.
"We know very little about the conversation - only that Rice later claimed, "[Bush] said, what a terrible, it sounds like a terrible accident. Keep me informed." [ABC News, 9/11/02] One reporter noted: "Bush did not appear preoccupied [after the phone call] ... There was no sign that Rice had just told [him] about the first attack [on the World Trade Center]." [Cox News, 9/12/01 (B)] Tose-Rigell was then summoned to a room to talk with Bush: "He said a commercial plane has hit the World Trade Center, and we're going to go ahead and go on, we're going on to do the reading thing anyway.""The authors, of course, use the word "claimed" to imply that Rice was lying about the conversation. There is no reason to doubt Rice's recollection if we know "very little" about the conversation between Rice and the President. In fact, there is nothing here that does not support the official version of events, that neither Bush nor anyone else in the administration knew the country was under attack. As far as anyone knew at that point, a tragic accident had occurred, and these statements support that position.
"One local reporter notes that at this point, "He could and arguably should have left Emma E. Booker Elementary School immediately, gotten onto Air Force One and left Sarasota without a moment's delay ... But he didn't." [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/12/01 (B)] The only possible excuse is that Bush was completely clueless as to what was happening."I am sure the local reporter to whom the authors are referring is a fine journalist, but this does not necessarily qualify him to second-guess the actions of the President of the United States. And, although it would be accurate to say the President was ignorant of what was going on (as just about everyone else in the world was), the word "clueless" implies incompetence when such a judgment is unwarranted.
"Sure enough, at a press conference on the evening of 9/11, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was asked by a reporter, "And then this morning, when Andy Card told him about the first accident, was Andy Card or Condi Rice or any of those aware of the hijackings? What did they know when they --" Fleischer cut in and replied, "No, at that point they were not." [Knoxville News Sentinel, 9/11/01] So supposedly, 15 minutes after the first crash, none of Bush's aides, not even Rice back in Washington, DC, knew a thing about the hijackings that had been reported to NORAD 20 minutes earlier? This simply is not plausible."Actually, it is quite plausible, since the connection between the hijacking and the crash had not been made at that time. It took time, of course, for the different government agencies and departments to compare notes and piece together what had happened. Perhaps the President should have known more. By definition, though, it is plausible that the administration did not know about the hijackings, because that is exactly what happened.
"Bush's own recollection of the first crash only complicates the picture. Less than two months after the attacks, Bush made the preposterous claim that he had watched the first attack as it happened on live television. This is the seventh different account of how Bush learned about the first crash (in his limousine, from Loewer, from Card, from Rove, from Gottesman, from Rice, from television). On December 4, 2001, Bush was asked: "How did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?" Bush replied, "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it.""News reports referenced by the article indicate that Bush watched the television coverage of the attacks, including replays of the crashes themselves, after he left the classroom at 9:12. When the President was waiting to go into the classroom, no such footage existed yet. Perhaps his memory was a little muddled, or this might have been merely one of his famous slips of the tongue. It makes little difference, really, whether he heard about the initial crash from television reports or from one of his aides. These are inconsequential details. Besides, there is no inherent conflict in the statements that six different people told him about the crash and that he saw it on television. The President had seven different sources of information. So what?
"Unfortunately, Bush has never been asked - not even once - to explain these statements. His memory not only contradicts every single media report, it also contradicts what he said that evening. In his speech to the nation that evening, Bush said: "Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans." [White House, 9/11/01] It's not known what these emergency plans were, because neither Bush nor anyone in his administration mentioned this immediate response again. Implementing "emergency response plans" seems to completely contradict Bush's "by the way" recollection of a small airplane accident."By "the first attack", Bush could have been referring to the attack on the World Trade Center as opposed to the attack on the Pentagon. Remember, it was not known until the second plane hit that it was an attack. And, about the fact that Bush was never asked to explain his statements -- why would anyone ask him to explain something so trivial? He misspoke, or misremembered a minor detail in what was arguably the most chaotic day in history. It would have to be a very slow news day for a reporter to dig into something so meaningless, and it would be a long time before any slow news days presented themselves.
The authors then describe Bush's visit to the classroom:
"The event was to begin precisely at 9:00, but the call pushed it back to about 9:03. Bush was introduced to the children and then posed for a number of pictures. Daniels then led the students through some reading exercises (video footage shows this lasted about three minutes)...At 9:03, Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center. News of this traveled extremely rapidly. In fact, some of Bush's Secret Service agents watched the second crash live on television in an adjacent room....Chief of Staff Andrew Card was in a nearby room when he heard the news. He waited until there was a pause in the reading drill to walk in and tell Bush. ...Accounts vary as to when Card gave Bush the news. Some say 9:05 [Salon 9/11/01, New York Times, 9/16/01 (B), Telegraph, 12/16/01, Albuquerque Tribune, 9/10/02], and some say 9:07. [Washington Post, 9/11/01, Washington Times, 10/8/02] ABC News reporter Ann Compton, who was in the room, said she was surprised by the interruption and "wrote [the time] down in my reporter's notebook, by my watch, 9:07 a.m.""President Bush began at 9:03, posed for a few pictures, and looked on while the teacher conducted a reading session. Two minutes hardly seems adequate to accomplish this, so the 9:07 time seems more reasonable.
"So what did the Commander in Chief do with the knowledge that the United States was under attack? He did nothing. Bush did not say one word. He did not ask Card any questions. He did not give any orders. He did not know who (or which country) was attacking, whether there would be more attacks, what military plans had been taken, what military actions should be taken - indeed, he knew virtually nothing about what was going on outside the room."What did the authors expect him to do? Jump to his feet in front of a classroom full of children and scream, "We're all going to die!"? It is important to remember that President Bush is not just a leader, but a politician. As a leader, he needed a moment to ponder what he had just been told. As a politician, sitting in front of hordes of reporters and cameras, he had to remain calm and deal with the situation in a manner that reflected positively on him. Perhaps he could have handled it better. Perhaps not. Only someone who has been in that position -- and no one else has -- could say for sure. Had he left immediately instead of five minutes later, it probably would not have made much difference.
"Even stranger, as one newspaper put it, although the nation was under terrorist attack, "for some reason, Secret Service agents [did] not bustle him away." [Globe and Mail, 9/12/01] "If there were a protocol in place for the Secret Service to "bustle him away" in a situation like this, they certainly would have done so. Perhaps they didn't think he was in imminent danger. If so, they were correct.
"Military pilots must have "permission from the White House because only the president has the authority to order a civilian aircraft shot down." [CNN, 10/26/99] But if retaliatory strikes needed to the authorized, Bush was not available. If one of the planes had to be shot down to save more lives on the ground, Bush was not available. Although several fighters had been dispatched to defend New York City, the pilot of one of the planes flying to catch Flight 175 later noted that it wouldn't have mattered if he caught up with it, because only Bush could order a shootdown, and Bush could not be reached in the classroom. [Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02]"The claim that he "could not be reached" is unfounded. One of the sources referenced by the article says that 42 new phone lines were added to the school to accommodate Bush's visit. Besides, the source listed here (the Cape Code Times) did not say that Bush could not be reached. It said merely that he was at a public event at the time of the attacks, and this was a quote from a fighter pilot who was neither there nor had a direct line to the President. Besides the fact that, prior to September 11, shooting down a civilian airliner was unthinkable, such an order must have seemed akin to closing the barn door after the horse had escaped. Until the Pentagon was attacked, there wasn't a sense that the sky was filled with lurking, invisible suicide bombers. Vice President Cheney asked him for authorization to shoot down airliners when he got to Air Force One. If he felt it were necessary before that point, he could have called the President at any time.
"Secret Service agents and other security personnel had set up a television in a nearby classroom. They turned on the TV just as Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center. According to Sarasota County Sheriff Bill Balkwill, who was in the room, a Marine responsible for carrying Bush's phone immediately said to Balkwill, "We're out of here. Can you get everyone ready?" [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02] But he must have been overruled by someone, because Bush did not leave."It is not particularly surprising that a person in charge of carrying a phone was "overruled". Besides, we do not know who he meant by "we". Unfortunately, the reference supplied is to a dead link. (I'll ignore the obvious inconsistency that Bush was supposedly "unreachable", and yet he had a Marine assigned to him to carry his phone!)
"Meanwhile, Secret Service agents burst into Vice President Cheney's White House office. They ... propelled him down the steps ... toward an underground bunker. Accounts of when this happened vary greatly, from 9:06 [New York Times, 9/16/01 (B), Telegraph, 12/16/01] to after 9:30... The one eyewitness account, by White House photographer David Bohrer, said it happened just after 9:00. [ABC, 9/14/02 (B)] It's easy to see why the White House would have wanted this event placed at a later time (after Bush's initial statement to the nation rather than after the second crash) to avoid the obvious question: if Cheney was immediately evacuated, why wasn't Bush?"This obvious question has an equally obvious answer: Cheney was in Washington, which was under threat of attack. There was no reason to believe that Bush was in any danger in Florida. As it turned out, of course, he wasn't.
"After Card told Bush about the second plane and quickly left, the classroom was silent for about 30 seconds or so. [Tampa Tribune, 9/1/02] The children were about to take turns reading from a story called The Pet Goat. [AFP, 9/7/02] Bush picked up the book and began to read with the children. [Tampa Tribune, 9/1/02] In unison, the children read out loud, "The - Pet - Goat. A - girl - got - a - pet - goat. But - the - goat - did - some - things - that - made - the - girl's - dad - mad." Bush mostly listened, but occasionally asked the children a few questions to encourage them. [Washington Times, 10/7/02] At one point he said, "Really good readers, whew! ... These must be sixth-graders!" [Time, 9/12/01]"The authors try to create the impression that the President was totally unaffected by the news he had heard and was wasting a great deal of precious time. The sources linked to the article tell a different story. Bush's demeanor changed almost immediately, and he was clearly preoccupied. The teacher, in fact, described his departure as sudden: "whoosh, he was gone!"
"Who was really in control? Certainly not Bush."Actually, Bush was firmly in control. It was his decision to wrap up his public appearance gracefully in order to avoid a panic (or to avoid the perception among the press that he was panicking). The fact that Card gave Bush the news briefly and immediately withdrew demonstrates that he was leaving the next move up to his President, and appropriately so.
"In the back of the room, Press Secretary Ari Fleischer caught Bush's eye and held up a pad of paper for him to see, with "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET" written on it in big block letters. [Washington Times, 10/7/02]"Ari Fleischer was doing his job as Press Secretary. So? There is a reason that the President keeps a press-savvy person nearby in such situations. Of course he is going to advise the President at such a critical moment. That's what he was there for.
"Some person or people had overruled the security who wanted Bush evacuated immediately, even as Vice President Cheney was taken from his White House office to a safe location."If by "the security" they mean the phone-toting Marine, I have already addressed this.
"Bush's security overruled Bush on security matters later in the day on Air Force One, but who overruled them that morning?"Bush's security did not "overrule" him, they advised him. The President wisely heeded their advice.
"Nearly every news account fails to mention when Bush left the classroom after being told America was under attack. Three mention 9:12 a.m. [New York Times, 9/16/01 (B), Telegraph, 12/16/01, Daily Mail, 9/8/02] Remaining in the classroom for approximately five to seven minutes is inexcusable, but the video of Bush in the classroom suggests he stayed longer than that. The video contains several edits and ends before Bush leaves the room, so it also doesn't tell us exactly how long he stayed. One newspaper suggested he remained "for eight or nine minutes" - sometime between 9:13 and 9:16, since Card's arrival is uncertain. [Tampa Tribune, 9/1/02]""9:12 AM" is an exact time and it is obtained from three independent sources. "Eight or nine minutes" is a ballpark figure from a single source. It is puzzling that the authors find the latter more credible.
The video "suggests" it was longer than five to seven minutes? Interesting that the authors failed to tell us exactly what the interval was even with the edits. If it were longer than five or seven minutes, then that would prove something conclusively. If not, then it proves nothing.
"The only source to describe what happened next is Fighting Back by Bill Sammon...Sammon's conservative perspective makes his account of Bush's behavior at the end of the photo-op all the more surprising. Bush is described as smiling and chatting with the children "as if he didn't have a care in the world" and "in the most relaxed manner imaginable." White House aide Gordon Johndroe, then came in as he usually does at the end of press conferences, and said, "Thank you, press. If you could step out the door we came in, please." A reporter then asked, "Mr. President, are you aware of the reports of the plane crash in New York? Is there anything...", But Bush interrupted, and no doubt recalling his order, "DON'T SAY ANYTHING YET," Bush responded, "I'll talk about it later." But still the president did not leave. "He stepped forward and shook hands with [classroom teacher] Daniels, slipping his left hand behind her in another photo-op pose. He was taking his good old time. ... Bush lingered until the press was gone." [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. 90] "Notice how the authors slip their own interpretation of events in with quotations from Sammon's book. They imply that Bush was "ordered" not to say anything by Ari Fleischer, and that was his motivation for withholding information from the press. Could it also be that he didn't know anything yet? And that he didn't want to upset the children in the room?
Again, perhaps he could have handled this better. In different circumstances, he might have handled it better. However, the fact that he was unable to immediately seize upon the perfect, ideal response to this unexpected turn of events is not a serious indictment of the President.
After harping for a while longer over the question of whether Bush should have left the premises immediately, the authors ask these rhetorical questions:
"Why hasn't Bush's security staff been criticized for their completely inexplicable decision to stay at the school? And why didn't Bush's concern for the children extend to not making them and the rest of the 200 or so people at the school terrorist targets?"Even if the terrorists knew that Bush was in the school, his departure would not protect the school from being a target. How would the terrorists know the exact location of the President? The authors seem to have a very high opinion of al-Qauda's intelligence capabilities.
"At 9:16, NORAD was notified that Flight 93 had been hijacked, and at 9:24 it was notified that Flight 77 had also been hijacked and was heading toward Washington (though, as discussed above, the hijacking was known long before this). [NORAD, 9/18/01]"This depends on your definition of "known". According to FAA regulations, NORAD is to be contacted when a hijacking is confirmed. The hijacking of Flight 77 was apparently not confirmed until 9:24.
"No media report has suggested that the possible shooting down of hijacked airplanes was discussed at this time, however. It appears the discussion was not broached until after 9:55. [Washington Post, 1/27/02, CBS, 9/11/02] At about 9:26, it was either FAA head Jane Garvey or FAA administrator Ben Sliney (and not Bush) who decided to halt all airplane takeoffs in the US. [Time, 9/14/01, USA Today, 8/13/02]"The authors do not know exactly who ordered the planes grounded, but somehow they know it wasn't Bush. It is possible that someone issued these orders based on the President's wishes. In fact, one of the cited articles states that Garvey acted "almost certainly after receiving an okay from the White House".
"Additionally, no evidence has appeared suggesting Bush had a role in ordering any fighters into the skies."An order from the President is not required to put fighters in the air. When a hijacking is confirmed, there is a contingency plan in place to scramble fighters without waiting for orders from above.
"By 9:35, Bush's motorcade was ready to take him to the Sarasota airport where Air Force One was waiting. [Telegraph, 12/16/01] At 9:37, Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Bush was informed as his motorcade got near the airport. (Apparently Bush could be reached by phone in his limousine at this time.) "Not surprisingly, since Bush was never out of phone contact (remember 42 extra lines and the phone-toting Marine?).
"A year later, Chief of Staff Andrew Card recalled that, "As we were heading to Air Force One... [we] learned, what turned out to be a mistake, but we learned that the Air Force One package could in fact be a target." [MSNBC, 9/9/02] This echoes the report mentioned above that "terrorists targeted the president and Air Force One... maybe even while they were on the ground in Sarasota ..." [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/16/01] This only increases the strangeness that Bush wasn't immediately evacuated at 9:03 as some of his security had recommended."What would have been strange would be the evacuation of the President and his staff at the recommendation of a man whose job was to carry a telephone. It would have been even stranger if anyone had had foreknowledge of a threat to Air Force One at 9:03, when they did not receive notice of the threat until after 9:30. And, it is especially strange that the authors would think it significant that a report that "turned out to be a mistake" was "echoed" in a local newspaper.
"Bush spoke by telephone to Cheney as the motorcade raced to the airport. [St. Petersburg Times 9/8/02] Supposedly, during this call Bush issued an order to ground all flights within the country. [Sarasota Magazine, 11/01] The FAA did shut down the nationwide air traffic system at around 9:45. [MSNBC, 9/22/01, CNN, 9/12/01, New York Times, 9/12/01, Newsday, 9/10/02, Washington Post, 9/12/01] But other reports state that it was FAA administrator Ben Sliney who made the decision without consulting anyone."Given the fact that four people are claimed to have given the order, it is not unlikely that more than one person actually did give the order. Since Sliney acted without orders from above, how would Bush know that an order had already been given? I imagine the conversation going something like this:
Bush: "I want all flights grounded."Initiative, especially in times of crisis, is a valued asset in American culture.
Cheney: "It's already been done."
Bush: "Good!"
"...The idea that Bush made the decision is even less plausible. In fact, there is no evidence at all to suggest that Bush had by this point made even one decision relevant to his security or that of the country."It is only the authors' prejudice towards President Bush that would make this implausible. "No evidence at all" that the President had made relevant decisions? There is, in fact, plenty of evidence. The authors just choose to ignore it.
After complaining that Bush did not react quickly enough, the authors then accuse him of being too hasty in his departure on Air Force One:
"...incredibly, Air Force One took off without any military fighter protection. This defies all explanation. Recall that at 9:03 a.m., one of Bush's security people said, "We're out of here. Can you get everyone ready?" [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/02]"I recall that. An unidentified marine carrying a phone said it. It is no more significant here than it was earlier in the piece.
"Certainly, long before Bush left the elementary school at 9:35 a.m., arrangements would have been made to get fighters to Sarasota as soon as possible. Not only would it have been advisable to protect Air Force One, but it would have been only sensible as another way to protect Bush on the ground from terrorist attack even before he left the school. In Florida, there were two bases said to have fighters on 24-hour alert, capable of getting airborne in approximately five minutes... Fighters left bases on the same alert status and traveled similar distances to reach Washington, DC, well before 10:00, so why were the fighters delayed in Florida? [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 9/9/02]"Again, Washington was under threat of attack. Florida was not. Also, it is not simply a matter of getting fighters in the air; refueling planes would have to be available as well. The authors expected fighter jets to be able to swoop down and perform guard duty until Air Force One was ready to take off, then serve as an escort. Unlike fighter planes in the movies, the real fighters eat up a great deal of fuel in a short period of time. Pilots must make careful decisions about where they will go and how fast they need to go to get there.
As with Bush's delay in the classroom, perhaps this could have been handled better. Perhaps it would have been more prudent to get fighter escort to Air Force One more quickly. As it turned out, however, Air Force One was never in any real danger, so the point is moot.
"An administration official claimed, "The object seemed to be simply to get the President airborne and out of the way." [Telegraph, 12/16/01] But without fighter cover this makes little sense, because the sky was arguably more dangerous than the ground. At the time, there were still over 3,000 planes in the air over the US [USA Today, 8/13/02 (B)], including about half of the planes in the region of Florida where Bush was. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/7/02] Recall, too, that the Secret Service learned of a threat to Bush and Air Force One "just minutes after Bush left Booker Elementary." Karl Rove, also on Air Force One, confirmed that a dangerous threat was known before the plane took off: "They also made it clear they wanted to get us up quickly, and they wanted to get us to a high altitude, because there had been a specific threat made to Air Force One.... A declaration that Air Force One was a target, and said in a way that they called it credible." [New Yorker, 10/1/01]"The hypocrisy of the authors is difficult to believe. First, they berate Bush for not moving quickly enough when the scope of the attack became known. Then, they say he should have sat on the ground in a highly flammable vehicle, waiting for protection from what was believed to be an imminent attack (that belief, of course, proved to be false). Even if an airborne terrorist had been lurking in the skies around Sarasota, he would have a much easier time destroying Air Force One on the ground than trying to locate and overtake it in the skies, with an experienced military pilot at the controls.
"Once he was airborne, Bush talked to Cheney again and Cheney recommended that Bush "order our aircraft to shoot down these airliners that have been hijacked." [CBS, 9/11/02] "I said, 'You bet,'" Bush later recalled. 'We had a little discussion, but not much.'" [Newsday, 9/23/01, USA Today, 9/16/01, Washington Post, 1/27/02] However, even though only Bush had the authority to order a passenger plane shot down [CNN, 10/26/99], the order was apparently given before Bush discussed it with Cheney. One flight commander recalled, "After the Pentagon was hit, we were told there were more [airliners] coming. Not 'might be'; they were coming." A call from someone in the White House declared the Washington area "a free-fire zone," meaning, according to one of the responding fighter pilots, "we were given authority to use force, if the situation required it." [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 9/9/02]"If there is a point being made here, I am unable to determine what it is. Cheney asked Bush for the authorization to use deadly force to stop further attacks. Bush agreed. A call came from the White House declaring Washington a "free-fire zone". Cheney was in the White House. The only question is, how long after the Pentagon attack was this order given? The authors do not say.
"Is the lateness of this discussion merely political spin to reduce speculation that Flight 93 had been shot down? Flight 93 was still in the air after the Bush authorization, and fighters were given orders to shoot it down if necessary. [ABC News, 9/11/02] NORAD knew at 9:16 a.m. that Flight 93 was hijacked [NORAD, 9/18/01], but supposedly fighters weren't scrambled until minutes before it crashed at 10:06 a.m."Once again, rhetorical questions are cast upon the winds in the hopes that someone will find an answer. The authors apparently can't be bothered.
"In his comments at Booker, Bush said he was immediately flying back to Washington, but soon after takeoff, he, Cheney and the Secret Service began arguing whether it was safe to fly back to the capital. [Telegraph, 12/16/01] Andrew Card told Bush, "We've got to let the dust settle before we go back." [St. Petersburg Times, 9/8/02] The plane apparently stayed over Sarasota until the argument was settled. Accounts differ, but until about 10:35 a.m. [CBS, 9/11/02 (B), Washington Post, 1/27/02], Air Force One "appeared to be going nowhere. The journalists on board - all of whom were barred from communicating with their offices - sensed that the plane was flying in big, slow circles." [Telegraph, 12/16/01]"If Bush, as the authors contend, was not in charge, and was "obeying orders" from staffers such as Ari Fleicher, why would there be an argument at all? Clearly, Bush wanted to return (for political reasons, perhaps), but others convinced him that having all the key figures in one place would make it easier for the terrorists to "decapitate" the government by taking out all its leaders at once.
The implication here is that Air Force One should not have been in a holding pattern; it should have been on its way to Washington. The reason the authors must present this as an implication instead of a flat-out accusation is that it directly contradicts what they said earlier: that Air Force One should have stayed put and waited for a fighter escort.
"Around 10:55 a.m., there was yet another threat to Air Force One. The pilot, Colonel Mark Tillman, said he was warned that a suspect airliner was dead ahead. "Coming out of Sarasota there was one call that said there was an airliner off our nose that they did not have contact with." Tillman took evasive action, pulling his plane even higher above normal traffic. [CBS, 9/11/02 (B)] Reporters on board noticed the rise in elevation. [Dallas Morning News, 8/28/02, Salon, 9/12/01] The report was apparently a false alarm, but it shows the folly of having Bush fly without a fighter escort."What the authors describe here is standard procedure for any pilot whenever another plane is believed to be too close. By keeping air traffic separated by discrete altitudes, the FAA avoids accidental collisions. Need I mention that this was one of many false alarms and "might have been's" that the authors present as evidence for incompetence, malfeasance, or whatever it is that they are accusing the Bush administration of?
"On September 13, New York Times columnist William Safire wrote - and Bush's political strategist Karl Rove confirmed - that there was an "inside" threat that "may have broken the secret codes [showing a knowledge of presidential procedures]." [New York Times, 9/13/01] Had terrorists hacked their way into sensitive White House computers? Was there a mole in the White House?"Made up" is a gross misrepresentation. It was believed that there was a serious security breach that had allowed terrorists to gain inside information into White House operations, but this belief was based on a simple miscommunication. When a Secret Service agent reporting to a superior passed on information about a threatening phone call, he used an internal code word that was mistakenly believed to be part of the call itself. The authors find it hard to believe that there could be any mistakes made in the midst of the chaos surrounding September 11. I do not.No. It turned out the entire story was made up. "
The next series of statements made is interesting:
"The press expressed considerable skepticism about the story. For instance, one Florida newspaper thought Fleischer's disclosure was "an apparent effort to explain why the president was flown to Air Force bases" before returning to Washington. [St. Petersburg Times, 9/13/01] When asked on September 15 about the "credible evidence," Fleischer said, "we exhausted that topic about two days ago." [White House, 9/15/01] On September 26, CBS News reported: "Finally, there is this postscript to the puzzle of how someone presumed to be a terrorist was able to call in a threat against Air Force One using a secret code name for the president's plane. Well, as it turns out, that simply never happened. Sources say White House staffers apparently misunderstood comments made by their security detail." [CBS, 9/26/01] One former official who served in George Bush Sr.'s administration told Human Events Online, which bills itself as "the national conservative weekly," that he was "deeply disappointed by [Bush's] zigzagging across the country." [Human Events Online, 9/17/01] At the end of the month, Slate magazine awarded its "Whopper of the Week" to Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and Dick Cheney. [Slate, 9/28/01]"First of all, there is nothing here to support the author's contention that the story was fabricated. Untrue, perhaps, but it was not an intentional falsehood. The next-to-last paragraph is a complete non sequitur. What does the disappointment of a "former official [of] Bush Sr.'s administration" have anything to do with the veracity of a perceived threat to Air Force One? This is simply more empty Bush-bashing, I'm afraid.
"Much like the time when Bush left the Booker classroom, the time when fighters finally reached Air Force One is rarely mentioned, and when it is, the facts are highly debatable. According to one account, around 10:00 a.m. Air Force One was "joined by an escort of F-16 fighters from a base near Jacksonville, Florida." [Telegraph, 12/16/01] But one month later, it was reported that in Cheney's 10:32 phone call, he told Bush that it would take another 40 to 90 minutes [as late as noon] to get protective fighters up to escort Air Force One. [Washington Post, 1/27/02]"The latter account, it would seem, is the one favored by the authors. However, this article (from the Washington Post) also says that Air Force One was en route to Washington at this time, contrary to the authors' assertion that it was simply going in circles. This shows the folly of picking and choosing quotes out of context to support one's arguments.
A discernable pattern emerges upon reading through the sources provided in the article. The authors begin with a premise, then look for snippets of news stories to support it. If the stories are read in their entirety, they tend to contradict some of the contentions made by the authors in other parts of the article.
"Air Force One landed at Barksdale Air Force base near Shreveport, Louisiana at about 11:45 a.m. [CBS, 9/11/02, Telegraph, 12/16/01, Sarasota Magazine, 11/01] "The official reason for landing at Barksdale was that Bush felt it necessary to make a further statement, but it isn't unreasonable to assume that - as there was no agreement as to what the President's movements should be it was felt he might as well be on the ground as in the air." [Telegraph, 12/16/01, CBS, 9/11/02] Ironically, the landing came only a short time after Bush's plane was finally protected by fighters."The authors, of course, do not know when fighter protection arrived for Air Force One. There were several conflicting reports, but the authors arbitrarily chose one that supported their beliefs.
"Just after 1:00 p.m., Bush supposedly "received an intelligence report from the base commander that a high-speed object was headed for his ranch in Crawford, Texas." It turned out to be another false alarm. [Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p.117] This may well be another bogus report designed to explain why Bush didn't return to Washington at this time, since US airspace was declared clear except for some military and emergency flights at 12:16 p.m. [USA Today, 8/12/02 (C)] By 12:30, the FAA reported that only about 50 of these flights were still flying in US airspace, and none were reporting problems [CNN, 9/12/01, New York Times, 9/12/01], so how could an unknown plane have been headed toward Bush's ranch 30 minutes after that?"It wasn't. It was one of many false alarms. At that point, could anyone know for certain that the entire air space above the United States did not have one unauthorized flight? Also, it was impossible to tell whether hijacked airliners were the only method the terrorists planned to use that day. It was rumored, for instance, that a car bomb had gone off at the State Department. Washington may have been secure as far as air traffic went, but the President might still be under threat from other kinds of attack. If he had returned earlier, it's a safe bet that the authors would have derided him for his foolhardiness.
"Air Force One landed at Offutt shortly before 3:00 p.m…and was taken into an underground bunker designed to withstand a nuclear blast…. By this time, people were anticipating and expecting another reassuring public statement from Bush. [Orlando Sentinel, 9/12/01] The White House staff was preparing for Bush to address the nation from the Offutt bunker, but Bush decided instead to return to Washington. "How dare the President return to Washington when people were expecting another reassuring public statement? Actually, the "people" referred to here is a political scientist at the University of Virginia named Larry Sabato, according to the article cited.
"As a side note, Warren Buffett, one of the richest people in the world, was hosting an unpublicized charity benefit inside the high security Offutt military base at 8:00 a.m. With him were business leaders and several executives from the World Trade Center, including Anne Tatlock of Fiduciary Trust Co. International, who likely would have died had it not been for the meeting. [San Francisco Business Times, 2/1/02] They watched a lot of the television coverage that morning, but it's unknown if any of these people were still at Offutt by the time Bush arrived in the afternoon."The authors, of course, do not enlighten us as to the relevance of this side note.
"The many accounts of what happened to Bush on 9/11 are riddled with disinformation of false threats, omitted details, fudged timing, and more. But around September 11, 2002, the heavily publicized first anniversary of the attacks, there was an obvious attempt to further rewrite the story.Certainly, it can mean 700 seconds. If so, then this is simply a politically motivated exaggeration about an insignificant detail in the day's events. If not, then Card simply misremembered it.Chief of Staff Andrew Card claimed that after he told Bush about the second World Trade Center crash, "it was only a matter of seconds" before Bush "excused himself very politely to the teacher and to the students, and he left" the classroom…The Booker school video shows these statements are lies - unless "a matter of seconds" means over 700 seconds!"
"Sandra Kay Daniels, the teacher whose second-grade classroom Bush visited on 9/11, told the Los Angeles Times that after Card informed Bush of the second crash, Bush got up and left. "He said, 'Ms. Daniels, I have to leave now.' ... Looking at his face, you knew something was wrong. I said a little prayer for him. He shook my hand and left." Daniels also said, "I knew something was up when President Bush didn't pick up the book and participate in the lesson." [Los Angeles Times, 9/11/02] However, the Booker video clearly shows that Bush did follow along after being told of the second plane."Perhaps the authors are suggesting that Ms. Daniels is in on a conspiracy to amend history over trivial details. I believe it is simply a distortion of memory that is typical of most people a year after the fact. Studies have shown that memories of significant events, although not forgotten, can become greatly distorted over time, even though the person's confidence in their memory remains strong [Source
].
In their conclusion, the authors make a brave attempt to solidify the hodge-podge of data with which they have assailed their readers:
"There are many questions that deserve answers. So many pieces of the puzzle do not fit. Simply by reading the mainstream media reports, we can see that mere incompetence doesn't explain what happened to Bush on that day. For instance, it makes no sense that Bush would listen to a story about a goat long after being told the US was under attack, and even after the Secret Service decided to immediately evacuate him from the school. It defies explanation that Air Force One's fighter escort took two hours to appear. And it is mind-boggling that there are seven different versions of how Bush learned about the first crash."I would suspect that some minds are more easily boggled than others. Be that as it may, if incompetence does not explain the events that the authors find so baffling, what does? The authors are not forthcoming with that information.
"It's doubtful that the Independent Commission investigation will look critically at what Bush did on 9/11 and why he did it. Despite the contradictory reports, no one in the mainstream media has yet demanded clarification of the many obvious inconsistencies and problems of the official version. Anyone even asking questions has been quickly insulted as anti-American, accused of bashing the president in a time of war, or branded a conspiracy nut."If someone is demanding clarification of contradictory reports of minor details during the most chaotic day in history, then I would be inclined to choose the last option.
Whenever the authors demand to know why the President acted as he did, I am reminded of a fellow student back in high school who asked a literature teacher why a character in a book behaved a certain way. The teacher gave an aggravated sigh and said, "I don't know. Why do people do the things they do?" In most cases, the answer to this question is not worth the thought applied to it.
The authors close with this melodramatic line:
"Because the media has failed in its role to ask these questions, much less attempt to answer them, it is now the responsibility of ordinary Americans - of you, of me, and the people we know - to gather the information, look for answers, and sound the alarm."I personally do not feel responsible for digging up useless information about meaningless minutiae. Clearly, neither do the authors of this article. Time and time again, they throw up their hands and say, "We don't know what's happening. Can't somebody find out?" When their arguments are especially tenuous, they merely quote outside sources, so they can accurately claim, "we never said that". They say more investigations are needed, but then they fail to look any deeper than to uncover vague accusations and trivial inconsistencies. Were they working for a respectable news source, their editor would throw them out on their ear, saying "come back when you have a real story!"
Conspiracy theorists have a deep need for the world to make sense, along with a self-righteous belief that Things Are Not As They Should Be. They want to believe that seemingly random events, especially those that impact the lives of many people, are in fact under the control of some hidden force of unknown intent. The notion that a relatively small group of people can, on a whim, wreak havoc on such a large scale is extremely distasteful to them. It is more comforting to think that it is part of some larger plan involving the monolithic and omnipotent federal government.
Many may think of conspiracy theorists as being harmless kooks, but historically they have done serious damage. Hitler's "Mein Kampf" described a completely imaginary Jewish-Communist conspiracy. Despite the fact that it contained over half a million grammatical errors, this book was taken seriously by many credulous people, with dire consequences. Contrary to what the authors say, it is not our responsibility to chase shadows in an effort to affirm their beliefs. Instead, it is our responsibility to think critically and responsibly so that we can discern legitimate information from the ramblings of fools.
Sound the alarm!