“The defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11 was not conducted in accord with pre-existing training and protocols. It was improvised by civilians who had never handled a hijacked aircraft that attempted to disappear, and by a military unprepared for the transformation of commercial aircraft into weapons of mass destruction.” – 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission […]
Category: quotes
9/11/2001
“American and British warplanes attacked Iraqi air-defense forces in southern Iraq on Sept. 11 [2001], and six times [in the month] since then, in a continued escalation of skirmishes, which have dragged on for nearly three years.” – Serge Schmemann, “U.S. Ambassador Warns Iraq Against Stirring up Trouble,” The New York Times, Oct. 10, 2001 […]
9/11/2001
“…there were only thirty-three air marshals system-wide on 9/11, and they were assigned to international flights. The number of air marshals had been phased down from several hundred in the 1970s because of the perceived success of checkpoint screening and the higher priority accorded other FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] initiatives.” – John Farmer, The Ground […]
9/11/2001
On September 11, 2001, “By 1:15 p.m., just four hours after the attacks, Michael Ledeen, the neocon operative who had won notoriety in the Iran-contra scandal, filed a dispatch on the National Review‘s website attacking the remaining realists in the [Bush] administration and urging someone to remind Bush that ‘we are still living with the […]
9/11/2001
Then-President George W. Bush recalled a televised statement he made from an elementary school in Florida on the morning of September 11, 2001, after hearing of the first attacks of the morning. ” ‘Ladies and gentlemen, this is a difficult moment for America. …Two airplanes have crashed into the World Trade Center in an apparent […]
9/11/2001
On the morning of September 11, 2001, “Confusion reached such a high level that the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] admitted to the White House officials who wanted to bring the President [Bush] back to Washington that the agency could not account for seven planes. In fact, four of those planes turned out to be the […]
9/11/2001
At 8:52 a.m. on September 11, 2001, “Two F-15 fighter jets took off from Otis Air Force Base on Cape Cod [Massachusetts] in pursuit of the hijacked airplane [United Flight 175]. …They had missed stopping the first hijacked plane [American Flight 11] and now they were late for the second. No one had really thought […]
9/11/2001
Former CIA Director George Tenet quoted President Bush’s televised speech on the evening of September 11, 2001: ” ‘I’ve directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities to find those responsible and to bring them to justice,’ he told a global audience of some eighty million people. ‘We will make no distinction […]
9/11/2001
The 9/11 Commission report from June 17, 2004 detailed America’s air defense: “The U.S. military–the last line of defense [on September 11, 2001] against the hijacked aircraft–had nine minutes’ notice that American Airlines Flight 11 had been hijacked, two minutes’ notice that an unidentified aircraft, American 77, was headed toward Washington, and no notice at […]
9/11/2001
“Within hours of the terror attacks on Sept. 11 [2001], law enforcement officials say, F.B.I. agents intercepted telephone calls in which suspected associates of Al Qaeda in the United States were overheard celebrating the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.” – Neil A. Lewis and David Johnston, “Jubilant Calls on Sept. 11 […]