On the morning of 9/11, where were Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld?
Lions At the Gate: Our Leaders on 9/11
On Sept. 11th 2001, three men were primarily responsible for taking charge of our national defenses to protect this nation from harm: The President, the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice President. On that day, only one was in charge, by design. these three videos lay out the activities of those three men for those 2 hours of tragedy. where they were, what they did, and why. They are based on the official reports and national record. Once you see all three, the picture of what happened that day may be just a little clearer. At the end of the three videos is an article from 2007 about what Rumsfeld did that day based on testimony from other Pentagon insiders as well as his Secret Service agent at the time. You will see that the events laid out in the video match up with the insider story perfectly. (videos from 9/11 Blogger)
Where was Rumsfeld?
Rumsfeld went missing in action while the first attack on U.S. soil since Pearl Harbor was happening. Read more about this incredible story here.
Read the actual orders changing the protocols for dealing with hijacked jets.
Orders that were issued just 3 months prior to 9/11.
Where was Cheney?
The Vice President was in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center listening to Flight 77 approaching the Pentagon and telling an aide that "the orders still stand" before the plane hit. What does this mean? And why does the 9/11 Commission Report deny Cheney was even there until 20 minutes after Flight 77 hit, in contradiction of the testimony of the Transportation Secretary and even Cheney himself? And most importantly, why isn't the controlled corporate media asking questions about these important issues?
Where was Bush?
Who were the Middle Eastern men who came to visit Bush in the early morning hours of 9/11 claiming they had a poolside interview?
Why did Bush's secret service detail not physically remove the President from his publicly disclosed, unsecure location in the first crucial minutes of an all-out attack on America?
Why did Bush fly to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska? And was it mere coincidence that Warren Buffett was hosting many of the Presidents and CEOs of businesses whose headquarters were in the World Trade Center at Offutt AFB that day?
For an excellent analysis of what was happening that day, please read Webster Tarpley's "9/11 Synthetic Terror."
Donald Rumsfeld on 9/11: An Enemy Within
by mathew Everett from On Line Journal, here.
What was Rumsfeld doing on 9/11? He deserted his post. He disappeared. The country was under attack. Where was the guy who controls America’s defense? Out of touch! –A senior White House official
On September 11, 2001, the United States suffered its worst attack since Pearl Harbor. Yet, as evidence shows, the country was in many ways undefended for the entire duration of the assault. The Air Force was nowhere to be seen until it was too late. [1] The commander in chief of the armed forces, President George W. Bush, continued with a pre-planned photo op at a school in Florida, only leaving the place at 9:35, just before the time the Pentagon was struck. [2] The acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard Myers was on Capitol Hill. Despite seeing the television reports of the World Trade Center after it was first hit, he continued with a scheduled meeting there, and supposedly was not notified when the second plane hit at 9:03. He therefore did not head back to the Pentagon until around the time it too was hit, and only joined the critical air threat conference call shortly before 10 a.m. By that time, the attacks were nearly over. [3]
Furthermore, new evidence shows that for the critical two hours in which the attacks occurred, the country was effectively without a secretary of defense. An analysis of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s actions on 9/11 reveals several occasions when he was alerted to the attacks that were taking place. Each time, if he were not already doing so, he should have leapt into action and assumed his responsibilities in coordinating a crisis response, and helping to protect the people of America. Yet, instead, his responses were consistent: He did nothing.
Donald Rumsfeld on 9/11
Donald Rumsfeld started the morning of 9/11 with an 8 o’clock breakfast meeting with several members of Congress, held in his private dining room at the Pentagon, to discuss the subject of missile defense. During this meeting, according to his own recollection, Rumsfeld warned that “sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months there would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people again how important it is to have a strong healthy defense department that contributes to — that underpins peace and stability in our world.” He was subsequently informed of the first attack in New York promptly after it happened. He says: “[S]omeone walked in and handed [me] a note that said that a plane had just hit the World Trade Center.” [4]
Larry Di Rita, a special assistant to Rumsfeld, had sent this note. Although initial news reports had been unclear, with some of them suggesting the WTC might have been hit by just a small plane, according to Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Torie Clarke: “Even in the accidental crash scenario, the military might be involved in some way. Rumsfeld needed to know.” Yet after receiving Di Rita’s note, rather than initiating or joining any emergency response process, Rumsfeld continued as if this were just an ordinary day. As he later recounted: “[W]e adjourned the meeting, and I went in to get my CIA briefing.” [5]
Inside her office in the Pentagon, Torie Clarke saw the second plane hitting the World Trade Center live on television. It was now obvious that the U.S. was under attack. As she later described: “[I]mmediately, the crisis management process started up.” Along with Larry Di Rita, she headed to Rumsfeld’s office. When they arrived there, Di Rita told the defense secretary: “Sir, I think your entireschedule is going to be different today.” By this time, the Pentagon’s Executive Support Center (ESC) was going into operation. Located down the hallway from Rumsfeld’s office, the ESC comprises several conference rooms that are secure against electronic eavesdropping. It is, according to Clarke, “the place where the building’s top leadership goes to coordinate military operations during national emergencies.” One would therefore have expected Rumsfeld to have gone straight there, or to the National Military Command Center (NMCC), located next door to it. Yet, as before, he continued as if this were an ordinary day. He told Clarke and Di Rita to go to the ESC and wait for him. “In the meantime, he would get his daily intelligence briefing, which was already scheduled for nine thirty.” Rumsfeld “wanted to make a few phone calls,” so he “stayed in his office.” [6]
What Donald Rumsfeld did in the next half-hour is unclear. Even in his prepared testimony to the 9/11 Commission, he said nothing about his actions during this crucial period leading up to the attack on the Pentagon. [7] But important new details of his response to the Pentagon strike itself have been revealed in the account of Aubrey Davis, an officer with the Pentagon police, who was assigned to be Rumsfeld’s personal bodyguard the morning of 9/11. This account appears in Andrew Cockburn’s recent biography, Rumsfeld: His Rise, Fall, and Catastrophic Legacy.
From watching televised reports of events in New York, Davis had concluded that America was under attack and the Pentagon could be a target. Of his own initiative, he’d made his way to move the secretary of defense to a better-protected location. Just after 9:37 a.m., while Rumsfeld was in his office with his CIA briefer, Davis was standing outside his door. Then, he says, he heard “an incredibly loud ‘boom,’” as the Pentagon was struck.
Cockburn describes: “Fifteen or twenty seconds later, just as [Davis's] radio crackled with a message, the door opened and Rumsfeld walked out, looking composed and wearing the jacket he normally discarded while in his office.” Cockburn told an interviewer: “I couldn’t discover what he was wearing inside his office that morning — but normally he would take off his suit jacket and put on a sort of like a vest, because he found it chilly in the office. So . . . I think he had time to change his clothes, put on his going-outside jacket, come out.” How could Rumsfeld have changed his clothes in the space of just 15 to 20 seconds? If he was already dressed to go outside when the Pentagon was hit, was this just a fortunate coincidence? Or is it possible that he knew in advance that the Pentagon was going to be attacked, and therefore had put on his jacket ready to respond when this happened?
As the defense secretary appeared, Davis repeated to him what he’d just heard on his radio: Reportedly, an airplane had hit a section of the Pentagon known as the Mall. Rumsfeld set off without a word and without informing any of his command staff where he was going, heading swiftly towards the Mall, with Davis and some colleagues trying to keep up behind him. Finding no sign of damage there, Davis told the secretary: “[N]ow we’re hearing it’s by the heliport,” which was the next side of the building.
One of the officials trying to contact Rumsfeld was Captain Charles Leidig, who was temporarily in charge of the Pentagon’s National Military Command Center. At 9:39 a.m., Leidig opened an air threat conference call, declaring: “An air attack against North America may be in progress.” The NMCC then requested that the secretary of defense be added to this conference. [13] Rumsfeld in fact had a vital role to play in coordinating the military response to an attack on the U.S. Andrew Cockburn explains: “Though most people assume that the chain of command runs from the president to the vice president, the cold war bequeathed a significant constitutional readjustment. In an age when an enemy attack might allow only a few minutes for detection and reaction, control of American military power became vested in the National Command Authority, which consists of the president and the secretary of defense. Collectively, the NCA is the ultimate source of military orders, uniquely empowered, among other things, to order the use of nuclear weapons. In time of war, therefore, Rumsfeld was effectively the president’s partner, the direct link to the fighting forces, and all orders had to go through him. Such orders were supposed to be transmitted from . . . the National Military Command Center.” Cockburn adds that the NMCC is “the operational center for any and every crisis, from nuclear war to hijacked airliners.” [14]
The secretary of defense’s specific responsibility in the event of an airplane hijacking was made clear in a July 1997 military instruction, which was slightly revised in June 2001. This stated: “In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference d, forward requests for DOD [Department of Defense] assistance to the secretary of defense for approval.” [15]
Yet Rumsfeld was out of the loop. A few minutes after the NMCC requested that he be added to the air threat conference, the defense secretary’s office reported back that he was nowhere to be found. As Cockburn concludes: “The chain of command was broken.” [16]
Entire story, along with an impressive bibliography, available at Willy Loman's blog
