9/11/2001

“Tuesday, September 11, 2001, dawned temperate and nearly cloudless in the eastern United States. …For those heading to an airport, weather conditions could not have been better for a safe and pleasant journey.”  – 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, Page 1 […]

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9/11/2001

After hearing about the first crash at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, ” ‘The President [Bush]was surprised,’ said [White House Press Secretary Ari] Fleischer. ‘He thought it had to be an accident.’ Yet, despite having a secure STU-III phone next to him in the presidential limousine and an entire national security staff […]

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9/11/2001

On September 11, 2001, “The terrorists thwarted the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] by turning off the transponders and not responding to radio transmissions. As for NORAD’s more sophisticated radar, it ringed the continent, looking outward for threats, not inward. ‘When you looked at NORAD on September 11, we had a ring of radar all around […]

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9/11/2001

“At 2:40 that afternoon [September 11, 2001], an aide to the Defense Secretary [Donald Rumsfeld] jotted notes of Rumsfeld’s conversations. Written deep in the War Room, the notes describe the Pentagon chief as wanting ‘best info fast; judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time. Not only U.B.L. [Usama bin Laden].’ ‘Go […]

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9/11/2001

Returning to the White House in Marine One, the President Bush’s helicopter, on September 11, 2001, presidential advisor Karl Rove wrote: “As we turned north, we could see smoke coming from the Pentagon. The airship was quiet; no one talked until the president broke the silence by pointing out the window toward the black plume […]

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9/11/2001

In security screening at Dulles International Airport (Washington, D.C.) on the morning of September 11, 2001, hijacker “Nawaf [al-Hazmi] set off the alarms for both the first and second metal detectors. In his pocket or in his hand luggage he had the heavy Leatherman multitool utility knife he had purchased at the Laurel [Maryland] Target […]

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9/11/2001

Vice President Dick Cheney was in a bunker beneath the White House on the morning of September 11, 2001, when an unidentified aircraft was located 80 miles away from Washington, D.C.: “A military aide asked Cheney for authorization to take out the aircraft. Cheney gave it without hesitating. The military aide seemed surprised that the answer […]

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9/11/2001

“From insider accounts, we now know that even as the Pentagon building was still burning on the morning of September 11 [2001], the neocons were trying to blame Iraq’s Saddam Hussein for the attacks. [Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld told his aide Stephen Cambone to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement: ‘Hard to get good […]

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9/11/2001

“At about 8:13 a.m. [on September 11, 2001], the hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11 began…At 8:46, the plane crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center.” While visiting an elementary school in Florida to promote education, presidential Advisor Karl Rove informed President Bush, who responded, ” ‘What a horrible accident!’ …Just as […]

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9/11/2001

On September 11, 2001, “as hijacked United Flight 93 also seemed headed toward Washington, [Vice President Dick] Cheney recommended and [President] Bush ordered that if the passenger plane approached the city it could, in an emergency situation, be shot down.”  – Der Spiegel, Inside 9-11, Page 127 […]

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