Failure to Act During 9/11 Attack


This is what Bush actually did -- or did not do -- according to Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran who has taught military science and doctrine at West Point. Goff writes, in "The So-called Evidence is a Farce": "I have no idea why people aren't asking some very specific questions about the actions of Bush and company on the day of the attacks. . . . Four planes get hijacked and deviate from their flight plan, all the while on FAA radar."

Goff, incidentally, like the other astonished military experts, cannot fathom why the government's automatic "standard order of procedure in the event of a hijacking" was not followed. Once a plane has deviated from its flight-plan, fighter planes are sent up to find out why. That is law and does not require presidential approval, which only needs to be given if there is a decision to shoot down a plane. Goff spells it out: "The planes are all hijacked between 7:45 and 8:10am. . . . Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the President is not notified and going to a Florida elementary school to hear children read."

"By around 8:15am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handling teachers. By 8:45am, when American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the [North Tower], Bush is settling in with children for his photo ops . . . Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously . . . and one has just dived into the . . . twin towers, and still no one notifies the nominal Commander-in-Chief.

"No one has apparently scrambled [sent aloft] Air Force interceptors either. At 9:03, . . . Flight 175 crashes into the [South Tower]. At 9:05 Andrew Card, the . . . Chief of Staff whispers to . . . Bush [who] "briefly turns somber" according to reporters. Does he cancel the school visit and convene an emergency meeting? No. He resumes listening to second-graders . . . and continues the banality even as American Airlines Flight 77 conducts an unscheduled point turn over Ohio and heads in the direction of Washington DC.

"Has he instructed Chief of Staff Card to scramble the Air Force? No. An excruciating 25 minutes later, he finally deigns to give a public statement telling the United States what they have already figured out; that there's been an attack by hijacked planes on the World Trade Center. There's a hijacked plane bee-lining to Washington, but has the Air Force been scrambled to defend anything yet? No. . . .

"At 9:35, this plane conducts another turn, 360 degrees over the Pentagon, all the while being tracked by radar, and the Pentagon is not evacuated, and there are still no fast-movers from the Air Force in the sky over Alexandria and DC. Now, the real kicker: A pilot they want us to believe was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled downward spiral, descending the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and flat that it clips the electrical wires across the street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint accuracy into the side of the building at 460 nauts.

"When the theory about learning to fly this well at the puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was added that they received further training on a flight simulator. This is like saying you prepared your teenager for her first drive on [the freeway] at rush hour by buying her a video driving game . . . There is a story being constructed about these events."