Who's in Charge Here?

[Keirsey]

What the 9-11 Commission Report does not explain is why, on the morning of September 11, 2001, President Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, and other top officials were essentially missing in action.

By Gail Sheehy

July 22, 2004

Excerpts:

“Who’s our quarterback” in case of a future terrorist attack? “Who’s in charge?” That was the core question members of the 9-11 commission put to every government official they interviewed. “The reason that you’re hearing such a tone of urgency in our voices is because the answer to the question was almost uniform,” said commissioner Jamie Gorelick at the press conference following today’s release of the 600 page final 9-11 Commission Report. The person in charge, she said the commissioners had been told over and over again, would be the president.

“It is an impossible situation for that to remain the case,” Gorelick observed. Impossible, because the commission’s report clearly shows that on the morning of September 11, 2001, the president and the other top officials in charge of the systems to defend the country from attack were, in essence, missing in action: They did not communicate, did not coordinate a response to the catastrophe, and in some cases did not even get involved in discussions about the attacks until after all of the hijacked planes had crashed.

Rumsfeld’s public testimony before the commission last March was bizarre. When Gorelick asked the Secretary of Defense what he had done to protect the nation—or even the Pentagon—during the “summer of threat” preceding the attacks, Rumsfeld replied simply that “it was a law-enforcement issue.” (So, observers were left to wonder, should the FBI be out with shoulder-launched missiles?)

“We still don’t have a full accounting of Rumsfeld’s whereabouts and knowledge on the morning of 9-11,” Gorelick acknowledged after the commission’s final public hearing. “We don’t have answers to the questions that you’re asking. But I’m going to make sure it’s nailed down,” she promised. Yet the final published report offers no further details on Rumsfeld’s inactions or the reason he was “out of the loop” (as the secretary himself put it) that morning.

The National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside the Pentagon was the nerve center of the military’s response to the attacks on 9-11. But the lead military officer that day, Brigadier General Montague Winfield, told the commission that the center had been leaderless.“For 30 minutes we couldn’t find .” Where was Rumsfeld on 9-11?

When President Bush finally agreed to have a “conversation” with the 9-11 commissioners--provided it was not under oath, not recorded, and Cheney was at his side--the account the two top leaders gave was murky and unverifiable.

The commission’s staff report had earlier cited the legal chain of command in case of hijackings: “If a hijack was confirmed, procedure called for … the President to empower the Secretary of Defense to send up a military escort, and if necessary, give pilots shoot-down orders.” The final report confirms the same chain of command and adds this detail: “The president apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00”--more than an hour after the first World Trade Center tower was hit, 20 minutes after the Pentagon was attacked, and moments before Flight 93 was wrestled to the ground by passengers.

The President emphasized to the commissioners that he had authorized the shootdown of hijacked aircraft. But the final report states flatly that “there is no documentary evidence for this call.”

Don Rumsfeld is known as a take-charge kind of guy. Why was he so uncharacteristically passive in the face of terrorists who were able to kill nearly 3,000 Americans in one morning?

In the summer of 2001, when security agencies were regularly warning of a catastrophic attack by Al Qaeda, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s office “sponsored a study of ancient empires—Macedonia, Rome, the Mongols—to figure out how they maintained dominance,” according to the New York Times.

Hours after the 9/11 attacks, Rumsfeld was given information that three of the names on the airplane passenger manifests were suspected al-Qaeda operatives. The notes he composed at the time asserted that he wanted the “best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. at same time. Not only UBL. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.” He presented the idea to Bush the next day. Counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke later wrote in his book Against All Enemies, “At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting Al Qaeda. Then I realized with almost a sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were going to try to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq.”

http://www.motherjones.com/news/update/2004/07/07_400.html

[kentuck]

1. Basically, they said both parties are to blame equally....

Even though the Repubs control the White House, the Senate, the House and all the intelligence committees, etc? That was the compromise that the Democrats made with them, I suppose? sounds like a deal with the devil to me?

[eaprez]

2. I find it appalling....

..that when told the country was under attack...President Bush continued to sit in front of kids at an elementary school. I don't understand why this isn't a major campaign issue. Every time they call him a "strong, decisive leader -- that tape of him sitting there looking dumbfounded should be shown. He apparently had no data other than planes crashing into buildings (was it nuclear, biochemical) -- and yet he continued to sit on his ass. That's leadership? Also this guy got that PDB in August which talked about the possibility of attacks and he stays on vacation rather than getting back to the White House and knocking heads together. Unfrigginbelievable!

[BeFree]

7. Shamefull

boosh's 7 minutes are an issue. It's just too damned shamefull to have to keep bringing it up. How f'n embarassing (em bare ass) too have to keep repeating that the leader of the free-world sat on his ass durring the "New Pearl Harbor". It just plain makes America look bad.

[Beam Me Up]

11. The planes were supposed to have reached their targets before * entered

the school. That was the plan. However, some of the flights were delayed in takeoff and only one had reached its target by the time Bush reached the school. It was decided to go ahead with the day's 'program'. Even after the second plane had struck the WTC, and Andy Card notified him of this fact, he continued to sit where he was because he was instructed to do so by his handlers. Understand, Bush himself may not have understood exactly what was going on -- plausible deniability and all that -- but he knew 'something' was up and that he had a particular role to play. He sat there looking uncomfortable because he knew he was on camera and he knew that something was already amiss with a highly sensitive operation that carried with it the fate of our nation, and perhaps that of the world.

Had the United States actually been under attack, had the secret service and others at high levels of government actually been in a "chaotic" situation where planes were being used as weapons of mass destruction against pre-selected targets, you can bet your last dollar that the Secret Service would have immediately removed Bush TO AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION. The very fact that they did not 'while America was under attack,' is itself significant evidence that this was not an 'attack', but an act -- an act of State.

Almost no one wants to contemplate the full implications of this possibility. If the people of the United States were to fully grasp the extent of the crime that was perpetrated upon them on September 11, 2001 -- and subsequent to it right on into the present -- if they were to grasp that we are all victims of a manipulative, mind control operation orchestrated at the highest levels of the national security state (which lies beyond the reach of both government and military) -- the consequences would be a complete collapse of social order and our intricate system of governance. In point of fact, we are far closer to that potential catastrophy now than most people know.

NOT ONE PERSON HAS BEEN HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR THE EVENTS OF 9/11/01 -- moreover it is unlikely anyone will EVER be held accountable. The perpetrators of these events are ruthless and any one who grasp the deep significance of this operation understand that the full implications are of necessity a matter of national security. Can the vipers who have infected the high offices of this nation be removed without further bloodshed? Perhaps. Those of us with eyes open await with anxious breath.

Edit: typos

[Keirsey]

3. ???

kentuck, sorry, but I don't understand how your reply addresses my post.

[kentuck]

4. The Report basically said they were "all" missing in action...

and no one deserved any more blame than anyone else - even though the Repubs were in charge of everything. The Repubs say that if Clinton had done his job, it would never had happened, etc...

[Keirsey]

5. grrrr

kentuck, my post was regarding the day of 9/11 - not what preceded it.

Get with the program.

:grr:

[kentuck]

6. Are you talking about your comments or Mother Jones comments??

I was responding to your initial comment...I guess you want a comment on the article itself??

No one was in charge but Cheney and he was late. Shouldn't we all be proud of this decisive and take-charge leadership of the Republicans?

[pocket]

8. * may have been, but not rumsfeld

he was in his office in the pentagon when it was hit.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

10. And did nothing of substance regarding leadership for 45 minutes.

[jokerman93]

9. it's the perfect formula

It's the perfect formula for business as usual. Everybody's to blame = nobody's to blame.

M