Rehearsing 9/11: How Training Exercises Foretold the Attacks of September 11

The idea of such an attack was well known [and] had been
wargamed as a possibility in exercises before September 11.

- Professor John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate
School, Monterey, California

In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, senior U.S. government and military officials repeatedly claimed that what happened that day was unexpected. In May 2002, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." [1] Two years later, President Bush stated, "Nobody in our government, at least, and I don't think the prior government, could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale." [2] General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD on September 11, said, "Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised." [3]

Yet these claims were untrue. Not only had the U.S. military and other government agencies discussed the possibility of such attacks, they also conducted numerous training exercises in the year or two before September 11 based around scenarios remarkably similar to what occurred on 9/11. As John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, said, "No one knew specifically that 20 people would hijack four airliners and use them for suicide attacks against major buildings ... but the idea of such an attack was well known [and] had been wargamed as a possibility in exercises before September 11." [4]

The existence of these training exercises proves that official claims that the events of September 11 were unimaginable have been false. However, future investigations of 9/11 will need to determine whether these exercises served a more nefarious purpose. For example, might they have been intended as a smokescreen for rogue individuals working within the military and other government agencies who were involved in planning the attacks? Thus, if colleagues overheard these individuals discussing matters such as planes hitting the World Trade Center or crashing into the Pentagon, they could have claimed they were simply talking about a forthcoming training exercise.

The following summary outlines three specific categories of training exercises and preparations that took place before September 11. Firstly, those that dealt with terrorists deliberately crashing a plane into the World Trade Center. Secondly, those that considered an aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. And thirdly, those that resembled other aspects of the 9/11 attacks, such as the use of planes as weapons more generally.

1) PREPARING FOR AN ATTACK ON THE WORLD TRADE CENTER

i) Military Personnel Briefed on Possible Attack on the WTC

At some point before 9/11, members of staff at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York appear to have been briefed on the possibility of terrorists deliberately crashing a plane into the World Trade Center. In her book Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama that Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11, author Lynn Spencer described the actions of Trey Murphy, a former Marine who on September 11 was a weapons controller at NEADS. Murphy learned of the first plane hitting the WTC while still at home. According to Spencer: "The news brought to mind one of his briefings: What if a terrorist flies an airplane with a weapon of mass destruction into the World Trade Center? It had always been one of the military's big fears." She added, "The image on the [television] screen certainly reminded him of his briefing." [5]

ii) NORAD Trains for Terrorists Crashing a Hijacked Plane into the WTC

At unspecified times during the two years prior to September 11, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD, the military organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace) conducted training exercises that simulated hijacked aircraft being deliberately crashed into targets so as to cause mass casualties. As USA Today later reported, "One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center." NORAD stated that "Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft" in these exercises. Among other things, the exercises tested "track detection and identification" (presumably on military radar screens); "scramble and interception" by fighter jet planes; and "hijack procedures." According to NORAD, the exercises were regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises, and unlike what happened on 9/11, the planes in the simulated scenarios were coming from a foreign country rather than from within the United States. [6]

NORAD added that, before 9/11, "At the NORAD headquarters' level we normally conducted four major exercises a year, most of which included a hijack scenario." [7] Shortly after September 11, the New Yorker similarly reported, "During the last several years, the government regularly planned for and simulated terrorist attacks, including scenarios that involved multiple-plane hijackings." [8]

In spite of these specific concerns and preparations, the 9/11 Commission Report claimed that NORAD was "unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001. [It] struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge [it] had never before encountered and had never trained to meet." [9]

2) PREPARING FOR A PLANE HITTING THE PENTAGON

The number of training exercises based around a plane crashing into the Pentagon is particularly notable. In the 12 months prior to 9/11, we know of three such exercises that were conducted, and a fourth exercise that considered, but rejected, this scenario.

i) The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise

Between October 24 and October 26, 2000, emergency responders gathered at the Office of the Secretary of Defense conference room in the Pentagon for the Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise. Responses to several scenarios were rehearsed, including the possibility of a passenger aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. A military news service described the exercise: "The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard. Defense Protective Services Police seal the crash sight. Army medics, nurses, and doctors scramble to organize aid. An Arlington Fire Department chief dispatches his equipment to the affected areas." It sounds almost like a description of what happened on September 11. But then "Don Abbott, of Command Emergency Response Training, walks over to the Pentagon and extinguishes the flames. The Pentagon was a model and the 'plane crash' was a simulated one." [10]

ii) Medics Practice for a Plane Hitting the Pentagon

Little over six months later, in May 2001, the U.S. Army's DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic and the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic--which are both located within the Pentagon--along with Arlington County Emergency Medical Services, held a tabletop exercise. The scenario they practiced for was an airplane crashing into the Pentagon's west side--the same side as was hit on September 11. [11] There have been some contradictions between reports, regarding the exact details of this exercise. But according to U.S. Medicine newspaper, the plane in the scenario was a hijacked Boeing 757, the same kind of aircraft as allegedly hit the Pentagon on 9/11. [12] The Defense Department's book about the Pentagon attack, Pentagon 9/11, reported that the plane in the exercise scenario was a twin-engine aircraft (Boeing 757s are twin-engine aircraft), but that it crashed into the Pentagon by accident, rather than as a consequence of a hijacking. [13] The commanders of the two Pentagon clinics that participated later said this exercise "prepared them well to respond" to the attack on 9/11. [14] And Air Force Surgeon General Paul Carlton Jr. commented, "We learned a lot from that exercise and applied those lessons to September 11." [15]

iii) Practice Evacuation Conducted in Response to Simulation of a Plane Hitting the Pentagon

Just one month before September 11, a third plane-into-Pentagon training exercise was held. General Lance Lord, the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force, later recalled his experiences of 9/11, commenting, "Fortunately, we had practiced an evacuation of the building during a mass casualty exercise just a month earlier, so our assembly points were fresh in our minds." He added, "Purely a coincidence, the scenario for that exercise included a plane hitting the building." [16]

iv) Military Considers, but Rejects, Exercise Scenario of a Hijacked Plane Being Crashed into the Pentagon

For another exercise, military planners actually considered the possibility of a commercial aircraft being hijacked by terrorists and then crashed into the Pentagon. [17] From April 17-26, 2001, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conducted the exercise Positive Force 01, which was designed "to test, evaluate, and train the national defense community in decision making and execution of mobilization and force deployment in response to multiple crises." [18] Positive Force was a "continuity of operations exercise," dealing with government contingency plans to keep working in the event of an attack on the U.S. [19] NORAD was one of the agencies invited to participate. [20]

During the planning of this exercise, special operations officers had to think like terrorists and plot unexpected attacks that would test NORAD's air defenses. According to an officer who was temporarily assigned to NORAD in the spring of 2001, "the NORAD exercise developers wanted an event having a terrorist group hijack a commercial airline and fly it into the Pentagon." [21] The NORAD employee who suggested this had been asked for a scenario in which the Pentagon was rendered inoperable and part of its functions had to be moved to another location. [22] However, the U.S. Pacific Command didn't want the scenario, "because it would take attention away from their exercise objectives." Joint Staff action officers then rejected the scenario as being "too unrealistic." [23]

3) OTHER PREPARATIONS AND EXERCISES

There were other training exercises and emergency preparations that are noteworthy. Few specific details have been disclosed of these. They have not been reported to have included scenarios of aircraft hitting the World Trade Center or Pentagon, but they relate to what happened on 9/11 in other ways.

i) Department of Transportation Exercise Involves a Cell Phone Call from a Hijacked Plane

Less than two weeks before September 11, on August 30, 2001, an exercise was held at the Department of Transportation in Washington, DC, as part of its preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics. According to Ellen Engleman, the administrator of the DOT's Research and Special Programs Administration, this was a "full intermodal exercise" (although she did not explain what exactly that meant). Engleman has recalled: "During that exercise, part of the scenario, interestingly enough, involved a potentially hijacked plane and someone calling on a cell phone, among other aspects of the scenario that were very strange when 12 days later, as you know, we had the actual event [of 9/11]." [24] (As has been widely reported, numerous passengers on the hijacked planes allegedly were able to make calls using cell phones to people on the ground.) The Department of Transportation was subsequently much involved in the emergency response on September 11, with its Crisis Management Center being activated less than 30 minutes after the first attack on the WTC. [25]

Although further details of this exercise are unknown, the fact that Engleman referred to "other aspects of the scenario that were very strange" indicates that it resembled the 9/11 attacks in other ways.

ii) Threat of Planes as Weapons Considered During Preparations for 'Special Security Events'

The possibility of attacks resembling those that occurred on 9/11 was considered during the preparations for what are called "National Special Security Events" (NSSEs). This is particularly notable, since preparations were underway in the two cities targeted in the attacks--New York and Washington--the morning of September 11, for National Special Security Events due to take plane later that month. Considering that only four or five events per year were being designated as NSSEs, it seems hard to dismiss this as just coincidence.

Since 1998, the National Security Council has had the authority to designate any important upcoming public event as an NSSE. [26] Events such as the 2000 Republican and Democratic National Conventions and the 2000 presidential inauguration were designated as NSSEs. [27] Once an event has been designated as an NSSE, the Secret Service becomes the lead agency for designing and implementing its security plan, while the FBI and FEMA also have major security roles. [28]

According to the Secret Service, there would be "a tremendous amount of advance planning and coordination" for NSSEs. A variety of training initiatives would be conducted, including "simulated attacks and medical emergencies, inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises." [29] Most significantly, according to Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI from September 1993 to June 2001, in the years 2000 and 2001, the subject of "planes as weapons" was always one of the considerations in the planning of security for "a series of these, as we call them, special events." Freeh told the 9/11 Commission that "resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat," and confirmed that "the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions" was "part of the planning" for NSSEs. [30] Although Freeh did not state it, it seems a quite likely possibility that the "simulated attacks ... inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises" held during 2000 and 2001 in preparation for NSSEs would therefore have included the scenario of planes being used as weapons.

Furthermore, the morning of September 11, Secret Service employees in New York were "about to attend meetings to prepare for the upcoming meeting of the United Nations General Assembly." [31] An additional 100 Secret Service employees were in New York to help prepare for the event. [32] The General Assembly's annual gathering of world leaders was scheduled for September 24 to October 5, with President Bush due to give his address on September 24. [33] Significantly, this event was designated as an NSSE. [34] Since the UN's previous 'Millennium Summit' in New York in September 2000 was an NSSE, it seems logical to assume that the 2001 gathering received NSSE status before 9/11, and not simply as a result of the attacks. [35]

Preparations were also underway in Washington, DC on September 11 for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which were scheduled to take place on September 29-30. Many of the agencies that would be involved in the emergency response to the Pentagon attack later that morning were taking part in these preparations. [36] It was reported several weeks before 9/11 that these meetings had been designated as an NSSE. [37]

The question therefore arises, might preparations for the threat of planes being used as weapons have been taking place around the time of the 9/11 attacks? Were "simulated attacks ... inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises" based around planes used as weapons scheduled in New York and Washington around that period? Further research and investigation is required to answer these questions.

OTHER EXERCISES?

The above summary describes training exercises and preparations that have been reported or publicly discussed. But it seems reasonable to assume that there were other exercises held in the year or two before 9/11 that have not yet been reported and that also resembled the attacks that took place that day. If they occurred, we need to know about these other exercises and we must consider what role they might have played in the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks.

NOTES

[1] "National Security Advisor Holds Press Briefing." White House, May 16, 2002.
[2] "President Addresses the Nation in Prime Time Press Conference." White House, April 13, 2004.
[3] Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons." USA Today, April 18, 2004.
[4] Kevin Howe, "Expert Stresses Need for Intelligence." Monterey County Herald, July 18, 2002.
[5] Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 179.
[6] Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons."
[7] Barbara Starr, "NORAD Exercise Had Jet Crashing into Building." CNN, April 19, 2004.
[8] "September 11, 2001." New Yorker, September 24, 2001.
[9] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 45.
[10] Dennis Ryan, "Pentagon MASCAL Exercise Simulates Scenarios in Preparing for Emergencies." MDW News Service, November 3, 2000.
[11] Arlington County, Virginia, report, Titan Systems Corp., Arlington County: After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. 2002, p. B17; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, pp. 23 and 107.
[12] "Crisis Response Puts Agencies on Path to Better Coordination." U.S. Medicine, January 2002.
[13] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 107.
[14] Matt Mientka, "Pentagon Medics Trained for Strike." U.S. Medicine, October 2001.
[15] Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History. New York: Doubleday, 2002, p. 222.
[16] Lance Lord, "A Year ago, a Lifetime ago." Air Force Print News, September 10, 2002.
[17] Danielle Brian, "POGO Letter to Hon. Thomas K. Kean, Chairman, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States." Project On Government Oversight, April 13, 2004.
[18] "Positive Force." GlobalSecurity.org, June 9, 2002.
[19] Julian Borger, "Hijackers Fly into Pentagon? No Chance, Said Top Brass." The Guardian, April 15, 2004.
[20] Nicole Gaudiano, "Military Considered Hijacked Plane Exercise, and Rejected it." Air Force Times, April 13, 2004.
[21] Terry Ropes, "Exercise Scenario." September 18, 2001, internal e-mail; Julian Borger, "Hijackers Fly into Pentagon? No Chance, Said Top Brass."
[22] Nicole Gaudiano, "Military Considered Hijacked Plane Exercise, and Rejected it."
[23] Terry Ropes, "Exercise Scenario"; Julian Borger, "Hijackers Fly into Pentagon? No Chance, Said Top Brass."
[24] Mineta Transportation Institute, National Transportation Security Summit, Washington, DC. San Jose, CA: Mineta Transportation Institute, October 30, 2001, p. 108.
[25] Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Federal Aviation Security Standards. 107th Cong., 1st sess., September 20, 2001; Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, Statement of Ellen G. Engleman, Administrator, Research and Special Programs Administration, U.S. Department of Transportation. 107th Cong., 1st sess., October 10, 2001.
[26] Bruce M. Lawlor, "Military Support of Civil Authorities: A New Focus for a New Millennium." Journal of Homeland Defense, October 2000; "National Special Security Events." United States Secret Service, 2002.
[27] "National Special Security Events Fact Sheet." U.S. Department of Homeland Security, July 9, 2003; "Fact Sheet: 2005 Presidential Inauguration: National Special Security Event." U.S. Department of Homeland Security, November 8, 2004.
[28] "National Special Security Events Fact Sheet"; Sarah D. Scalet, "In Depth: Democratic Party Convention Security." CSO, September 2004.
[29] "National Special Security Events."
[30] National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Tenth Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, April 13, 2004.
[31] United States Congress, Honoring United States Secret Service New York Field Office for Extraordinary Performance During and Immediately Following September 11, 2001. 107th Cong., 2nd sess., April 23, 2002.
[32] "Spotlight on: Barbara Riggs." PCCW Newsletter, Spring 2006.
[33] "UN General Security Council Condemns Attacks." Reuters, September 12, 2001; "Bush to Attend UN General Assembly." Associated Press, October 29, 2001.
[34] Al Baker, "Security Tight for Start of United Nations Meeting in New York." New York Times, November 10, 2001; House Committee on the Judiciary, Proposal to Create a Department of Homeland Security. 107th Cong., 2nd sess., July 9, 2002; "National Special Security Events Fact Sheet."
[35] U.S. Department of the Treasury, Program Performance Report Fiscal Year 2000. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of the Treasury, 2000, p. 177; United States Congress, Making Appropriations for Military Construction, Family Housing, and Base Realignment and Closure for the Department of Defense for the Fiscal Year Ending September 30, 2001, and for Other Purposes. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, June 29, 2000; "Preparing for the World: Homeland Security and Winter Olympics." White House, January 10, 2002.
[36] Arlington County, After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon, p. A4; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 314.
[37] "Washington is Seeking Support to Handle Protests at 2 Meetings." New York Times, August 18, 2001.

Source

“Rogue” Trader Highlights Possible 9/11 and 7/7 Insider Trading

“Best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001″

According to an article in The London Times today, Société Générale rogue trader Jérôme Kerviel profited enormously on the day of the 7/7 London bombings. He has also revealed how his company made huge profits on September 11th 2001, prompting some to return to questions over insider foreknowledge of both terrorist attacks.

The article states:

“The best trading day in the history of Société Générale was September 11, 2001,” he said. “At least, that’s what one of my managers told me. It seems that profits were colossal that day.

“I had a similar experience during the London attacks in July 2005.”

A few days earlier he had bet on a fall in the share price of Allianz, the German insurance giant, he told Le Parisien. Everyone was losing money when the 7/7 bombings sent the insurance sector into a downward spiral “except for me”, he said. “Thanks to the positions I had, I earned €500,000 in a few minutes. It was the jackpot. I was jubilant.”

After the celebrations Mr Kerviel said he paused for thought. “I understood that I was having fun when people had just been hit by the bombs. I ran to the toilet and I was sick. But the moment of weakness did not last long. I went back into the trading room and I returned to work.”

Kerviel was charged almost exactly one year ago in the Société Générale trading loss incident which cost the financial services company an estimated €4.9 billion.

Until the Bernard Madoff fraud incident last month, it was reported to be the largest fraud in banking history.

Société Générale claimed that Kerviel worked the trades alone, and without its authorization. Kerviel told investigators that such practices are widespread and that huge profits routinely give the upper echelons of financial institutions cause to turn a blind eye.

Many questions have been raised regarding massive trades that foreshadowed the events of 9/11, with put options placed in large quantities against American and United Airliners in the days immediately prior to the attacks.

The investigation as to who was responsible for authorizing the transactions led directly back to former CIA director Buzzy Krongard.

In the case of the London bombings, the pound fell 6 per cent against the dollar for no apparent reason in the days before the attack.

“Currencies of established countries simply do not fall that fast based upon any kind of economic or financial analysis,” said a 35 year veteran economist. “Somebody – somewhere – knew something. Or maybe I should say ’somebodies.’”

It is considered that such anomalous activity betrays prior knowledge of the incidents.

We have since seen other suspicious trading incidents dovetailing with foiled terror attacks. Specifically, in August 2006, surrounding the infamous “liquid bomb plot” and one year later in August 2007 with the so-called “Bin Laden trades” when a mystery trader placed 245,000 put options on the Dow Jones Eurostoxx 50 index.

Source

New A&E FBI Show Portrays 9/11 Truthers As Dope Smoking Terrorists

A new FBI drama currently showing on A&E portrays 9/11 truthers as dope smoking terrorists in its pilot episode, a ploy made all the more interesting for the fact that A&E is part-owned by Hearst Corporation, which has also attempted to debunk 9/11 truth with savage hit pieces via its subsidiaries The History Channel and Popular Mechanics.

The plot of the show, which stars Patrick Swayze, centers around an attempt to infiltrate a group who are suspected of smuggling Rocket Propelled Grenade launchers into Iraq. In one scene, a member of the group talks with an FBI agent who is operating undercover.

Are you a truther or a sheep?” the man asks the FBI agent.

He continues, “9/11 was a false flag operation man, wake up, a self-inflicted wound to control the masses, you know there was no planes, all of them were holograms and CGI.”

The man then takes a drag on a marijuana spliff and gives the FBI agent a crazed look.

The insertion of the 9/11 truther caveat in the episode serves no purpose except seemingly to convince the viewer that the man is unstable and dangerous. The mention of CGI and holograms, an obsessive tenet of an extreme fringe that attempted to hijack the 9/11 truth movement a few years ago, also serves only to detract more credibility from the subject.

Watch the clip.

The A&E network, which stands for Arts & Entertainment, is jointly owned by Hearst Corporation (37.5% ownership), The Walt Disney Company (37.5% ownership) and NBC (25% ownership). NBC is owned by General Electric, a major player in the military-industrial complex and a huge benefactor of the 9/11 attacks, which of course could only have resulted in gargantuan profits for military contractors if the official story was upheld.

Hearst Corporation, the founder of which became synonymous with the term “yellow journalism” for his publication of dubious and sensationalized stories, also owns The History Channel and Popular Mechanics magazine, both of which attacked 9/11 truth in separate hit pieces in 2005 and 2007.

A&E also has close ties with the British Broadcasting Corporation, which has also attempted to debunk 9/11 with a series of hit pieces over the last few years.

Portrayals of the 9/11 truth movement in popular culture have manifested with both negative and positive connotations. An episode of South Park satirized truthers but a more recent episode of the firefighter drama Rescue Me showed actor Daniel Sunjata, himself a truther in real life, talking at length and with clarity about issues surrounding 9/11 being an inside job.

The very fact that the 9/11 truth movement has entered into popular culture alone and that giant media corporations and arms of the military-industrial complex are having to go to such lengths in a desperate attempt to debunk questions surrounding the attacks, is proof positive that the movement as a whole has had a significant impact on public consciousness, a fact that debunkers are loathe to admit.

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NORAD Audio Suggests Officers Believed 9/11 Attacks To Be Part Of A Drill

Air defense officials heard joking, saying “We have smart terrorists today”

Newly uncovered audio from recordings of NORAD staff responding to the airliner hijackings on 9/11 may provide more evidence to suggest air defense officials were under the impression that the attacks were part of ongoing drills and exercises.

NORAD–the North American Aerospace Defense Command–is the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending the airspace of North America. Its Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), based in Rome, New York, is responsible for monitoring and protecting 500,000 square miles of airspace above the northeast U.S., including the airspace over New York City and Washington, DC.

The recording in question contains the voices of staff at NEADS as they learn of the hijacking of United 175, the second plane to crash into the World Trade Center.

Firstly, the men are clearly heard laughing and joking about the hijackings, a very strange thing to do in the face of an all out terrorist suicide attack.

One officer says “That’s it, I’m not flying with United or American any more,” amongst the laughter another responds “I never thought I would have wished for ValuJet to come back.”

One of the officers later states “I’m glad I’m not flying today,” to which the answer is, “Don’t worry Jim, we’ll carjack you on the way home.” Two minutes later the men are talking about stock they own.

Listen to the audio below:

Another key part of the audio comes as the officers attempt to find a transponder signal for flight 175. One officer states “I’m looking for a squawk” — military jargon for a transponder signal from the aircraft — A second officer remarks “We have smart terrorists today, they are not giving them a chance to squawk”.

What does this officer mean?

His use of the word “today” indicates that terrorist hijackings of airliners are a daily occurrence. In this sense it is more likely that he is referring to previous drills of hijackings, which we know were ongoing in the days and weeks leading up to the attacks on 9/11, as well as on the actual day.

Furthermore, who is the “they” that the officer refers to? Are the terrorists “they”? — ie “They (the terrorists) are not giving them (the aircraft/pilots) the chance to squawk”.

Or are “they” another group, military officers running a drill perhaps, that are not giving the fictional terrorists the chance to squawk, thus making the drill harder?

Could these men, officers who were supposed to defend American airspace, have been under the impression that what they were seeing was a part of the annual “Vigilant Guardian” exercise, an air defense drill simulating a hijacking and an attack on the United States on the very day of 9/11?

It is not so hard to imagine, given that multiple personnel at NORAD and NEADS are on record as having admitted they originally thought the attacks were part of the drill.

Furthermore, according to Larry Arnold, who was the commanding general of NORAD’s Continental U.S. Region, the Vigilant Guardian exercise was only canceled after the second World Trade Center tower was hit at 9:03 a.m., a timeline which dovetails exactly with the above clip.

The recordings, which captured events on the operations floor at NEADS throughout the day of September 11, 2001, were made public In April 2006 as part of a Freedom of Information request.

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10. CIA officers could face trial in Britain over torture allegations
    
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Source

9/11 Truth Rant Featured In Hit TV Show Rescue Me

Debunkers and hit piece-obsessed establishment media titans were hoping that 9/11 truth had faded into the background as we accelerate further away from the attacks which took place over 7 years ago.

However, a scene from the second episode of the fifth season of Rescue Me, the wildly popular TV drama about New York City firefighters, reminds us that 9/11 remains at the forefront of American public consciousness.

In the scene, the character played by Daniel Sunjata, who is a dedicated truther in real life, goes on a lengthy, detailed and vehement rant about how 9/11 was an inside job to an intrigued female character played by Karina Lombard.

The scene is part of a 9/11 conspiracy theme that runs throughout the fifth series, a fact revealed last month by Sunjata’s fellow Rescue Me star, Dennis Leary.

In part, Sunjata’s character Franco states,

“9/11? Inside job. Plain and simple. And all you gotta do is connect the dots. … I am talking about a massive neoconservative government effort, been in the works 20 years. Ever heard of PNAC? Project for a New American Century? According to them, the end goal of their effort is American global domination. Full spectrum dominance, they call it. Now, first question that pops into my mind is: How do you pull that off in this day and age?”

Watch the clip.

RELATED: “Rescue Me” character believes 9/11 was an inside job … and so does the actor playing him

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Newly Uncovered WTC 7 Video Betrays More Foreknowledge Of Collapse

Despite event being unprecedented in history

Another video from 9/11 has been uncovered which proves that the collapse of WTC 7 was anticipated beforehand, despite that fact that the event was unprecedented - no steel framed building had completely collapsed from fire damage alone in previous history.

A widely publicized aspect of the collapse of Building 7 is the fact that news organizations received foreknowledge that it was coming down well in advance of its eventual collapse. Indeed, both BBC and CNN reported that the structure had collapsed nearly 30 minutes before it actually fell.

In the following clip, Fox News correspondent David Lee Miller states, “We are told by one firefighter source that a building identified as trade center number 7 is in danger of collapse, we are told that engineers have gotten as close as they can to the building and that this building is on fire and there is a chance that this building could give way and we are told that if it does they expect that it would collapse in a southerly direction.”

Watch the video.

The notion that WTC 7, a structurally reinforced 47-story office building, would completely collapse from fire damage alone could not possibly have been anticipated on 9/11. Such an occurrence had never happened before in history. The sheer improbability of such a scenario unfolding was underscored in February 2005 when theWindsor building in Madrid burned like an inferno for over 24 hours and did not collapse, while WTC 7 suffered limited fires across a comparatively miniscule area and collapsed within 7 seconds on 9/11.

The fact that official sources told Fox News that the building would fall in a southerly direction is also highly suspect if one were to accept that notion that the collapse was accidental and not engineered with the aid of explosives. How would they know which way it would fall if the event was unprecedented?

This level of foreknowledge about an unprecedented event also arouses suspicious when one considers the fact that former New York City chief emergency manager Jerome Hauer, whose office was on the 23d floor of WTC 7, was also a building collapse specialist. Hauer has attracted suspicion from the 9/11 truth movement because of his zeal to push the official story in the hours after the attack when details were still sketchy.

Hauer was also Managing Director of Kroll Associates - the company that provided security for the WTC complex on 9/11 - and he also betrayed advance knowledge of the anthrax attacks a week before they happened by taking cipro, the anthrax-fighting antibiotic, well before the first anthrax letters were received.

Of course, this website has exhaustively documented eyewitness accounts of the preparation for a deliberate demolition of Building 7 and establishment media organizations have responded by embarking on an almost obsessive debunking campaign in an attempt to stymie growing interest in the subject.

People like former Air Force Special Operations for Search and Rescue expert Kevin McPadden are on record as having personally witnessed the countdown that preceded the collapse of Building 7 and others, like former NYPD officer Craig Bartmer, described hearing bombs tear down the building as he fled the collapse.

These people have been ignored in the midst of an organized effort to sweep the controversy under the carpet characterized most recently by a bizarre and completely unscientific NIST report which concluded that a “new phenomenon,” and one that contradicts the very laws of physics, was responsible for the collapse of WTC 7.

Research related articles:

1. WTC 7 Emergency Head Was Building Collapse Specialist
   
2. Clarifying the Collapse Time of WTC 7
   
3. Leaked NIST Docs: “Unusual” Event Before Collapse Of WTC 7
   
4. Newly released video shows how easily electronic voting machines can be hacked, pried open
   
5. Scientists: “Unusual Magnetic Forces” Caused Twin Towers Collapse
   
6. No BBC, WTC 7 Did Not Collapse “Due To Fire” & The Final 9/11 Mystery Is Not Solved
   
7. Details Emerge on new WTC Collapse Videos
   
8. NIST WTC7 Report parody video
   
9. “Unusual Magnetic Forces” Should Not Have Caused the Twin Towers to Collapse
   
10. NIST’s WTC7 collapse models: some observations
    
11. DNC Warehouse “Concentration Camp” Uncovered By Reporters
    
12. Peter Schiff new VIDEO on the Coming Collapse Dec 16
    

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Government Claims It Has Found DNA of Alleged 9/11 Hijackers

“Forensic investigators have recovered the charred remains of most of the 9/11 hijackers — to honor a pledge that they would never be buried with the victims,” reports the Daily Express. “Flesh or bone from 13 of the 19 Al Qaeda terrorists who flew passenger jets into the Twin Towers in New York and the Pentagon in Washington have now been identified.”

If we are to believe this report, the FBI spent millions and employed “the brilliant skills of forensic scientists” to ID the remains of the alleged terrorists. I say alleged because there is plenty of evidence many of the supposed hijackers are still alive. Abdul Aziz Al-Omari, Saeed Al-Ghamdi, Waleed Al-Shehri, Ahmed Al-Nami, Salem Al-Hazmi, Khalid Al-Mihdhar, Ameer Bukhari, Adnan Bukhari, Amer Kamfar — these are “terrorists” variously reported to still be alive, with the exception of Ameer Bukhari, who died in a small airplane crash before September 11, 2001.

Moreover, there is no solid evidence the alleged hijackers were on the fatal flights. For years, 9/11 researchers not only claimed that the names of the putative terrorists did not appear on the flight manifests, but no Arab names appeared on the lists. In fact, as NowPublic notes, “the U.S. Government withheld the actual passenger lists for years” and the “lists are not passenger manifests, but lists of victims… By not releasing these documents, the U.S. Government actually encouraged speculation that the hijackers names did not show up on the passenger lists.”

“In the most intense crime scene investigation in history, scientists sifted through a mountain of concrete dust, buckled iron and shattered glass to find what was left of the terrorists,” Stuart Winter writes for the Daily Express.

And yet more than a thousand people who died on September 11, 2001, have yet to be identified. “No trace has been identified of 1,151 of the 2,749 people who died at the Trade Center,” USA Today reported on April 20, 2006. “In February 2005, the medical examiner’s office announced that attempts to identify remains had exhausted current DNA-matching technology.”

Apparently, the FBI has some sort of super-duper DNA technology reserved for identifying terrorists.

In response to the FBI’s preposterous claim, Eve Conant writes for Newsweek: “The blunt reality is that no matter how fastidious their efforts, the scientists will never fully sort the victims from the hijackers. The fragments are too small, too ruined and too scattered for bodies to be restored in their entirety. Some were lost to fire or during the excavation of the wreckage. Today, 1,126 of the 2,751 victims from the World Trade Center and five individuals from the Pentagon have yet to be identified at all—none of their remains and no traces of their DNA have been found.”

“The number of people believed to have been killed in the World Trade Center attack hovers around 2,780, three years after the attack,” notes the 9-11 Research website. “No trace has been identified for about half the victims, despite the use of advanced DNA techniques to identify individuals. Six weeks after the attack only 425 people had been identified. A year after the attack, only half of the victims had been identified. 19,906 remains were recovered from Ground Zero, 4,735 of which were identified. Up to 200 remains were linked to a single person. Of the 1,401 people identified, 673 of the IDs were based on DNA alone. Only 293 intact bodies were found. Only twelve could be identified by sight.”

Obviously, the government has been less than forthcoming with evidence surrounding the people and events of 9/11, so why should we believe this latest claim? For instance, at least three of the hijackers — Ahmed Alnami, Ahmed Alghamdi, and Saeed Alghamdi — trained at Pensacola Naval Air Station, a disconcerting fact dismissed by the Pensacola News and the Washington Post (the newspapers speculate the hijackers stole the identities of military trainees). The supposed 9/11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, once attended the International Officer’s School at Maxwell/Gunter Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama, according to Air Force spokesman Colonel Ken McClellan.

As award winning journalist Seymour Hersh reported on October 1, 2001, many of “investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists’ identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found.” A former high-level intelligence official told Hersh, “Whatever trail was left was left deliberately — for the FBI to chase.”

It appears the FBI is merely attempting to placate the families of the victims with this latest claim and also further discredit the 9/11 truth movement.

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