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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm USATODAY.com - 4/18/04 NORAD had drills of jets as weapons By Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY WASHINGTON - In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon - but that drill was not run after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say.NORAD, in a written statement, confirmed that such hijacking exercises occurred. It said the scenarios outlined were regional drills, not regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises. "Numerous types of civilian and military aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft," the statement said. "These exercises tested track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination and operational security and communications security procedures." A White House spokesman said Sunday that the Bush administration was not aware of the NORAD exercises. But the exercises using real aircraft show that at least one part of the government thought the possibility of such attacks, though unlikely, merited scrutiny. On April 8, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks heard testimony from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice that the White House didn't anticipate hijacked planes being used as weapons. On April 12, a watchdog group, the Project on Government Oversight, released a copy of an e-mail written by a former NORAD official referring to the proposed exercise targeting the Pentagon. The e-mail said the simulation was not held because the Pentagon considered it "too unrealistic." President Bush said at a news conference Tuesday, "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." The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country. Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries. But there were exceptions in the early drills, including one operation, planned in July 2001 and conducted later, that involved planes from airports in Utah and Washington state that were "hijacked." Those planes were escorted by U.S. and Canadian aircraft to airfields in British Columbia and Alaska. NORAD officials have acknowledged that "scriptwriters" for the drills included the idea of hijacked aircraft being used as weapons. "Threats of killing hostages or crashing were left to the scriptwriters to invoke creativity and broaden the required response," Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley, a NORAD official, told the 9/11 commission. No exercise matched the specific events of Sept. 11, NORAD said. "We have planned and executed numerous scenarios over the years to include aircraft originating from foreign airports penetrating our sovereign airspace," Gen. Ralph Eberhart, NORAD commander, told USA TODAY. "Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised." NORAD, a U.S.-Canadian command, was created in 1958 to guard against Soviet bombers. Until Sept. 11, 2001, NORAD conducted four major exercises a year. Most included a hijack scenario, but not all of those involved planes as weapons. Since the attacks, NORAD has conducted more than 100 exercises, all with mock hijackings. NORAD fighters based in Florida have intercepted two hijacked smaller aircraft since Sept. 11. Both originated in Cuba and were escorted to Key West in spring 2003, NORAD said. Find this article at: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm This FOX NEWS article from May, 2002 has even more info on the warnings than we are reading now, while the so-called "investigation" is going on. It includes that the WTC was specifically named as a target, that hijacking passenger jets and flying them into major NY and DC landmarks was specifically warned about etc. Note that Ari Fleisher gives the exact name of the now infamous PDB. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,53065,00.html Clues Alerted White House to Potential Attacks Friday, May 17, 2002 By Carl Cameron WASHINGTON - The White House again Friday denied it had advance knowledge that a Sept. 11-style attack was coming, though it acknowledged it knew Usama bin Laden was bent on attacking the United States. "The president was aware that bin Laden, of course, as previous administrations have well known, that bin Laden was determined to strike the United States. In fact, the label on the president's (presidential daily briefing) was 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike the United States,'" White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Friday. Indeed, Fox News has reported many examples of "missed leads" that the Bush administration was given prior to Sept. 11. Among those examples: - The Italian government shared "general" information of possible attacks in March 2001 based on bugs in apartments in Milan. - An Iranian in custody in New York City told local police last May of a plot to attack the World Trade Center. - German intelligence alerted the Central Intelligence Agency, Britain's MI-6 intelligence service, Israel's Mossad in June 2001 that Middle Eastern terrorists were training for hijackings and targeting American and Israeli interests. - Pakistanis were taken into custody June 4 in the Cayman Islands after they were overheard discussing hijacking attacks in New York City; they were questioned and released, and the information was forwarded to U.S. intelligence. - Indian intelligence shared "general" information in July 2001. - In July and August, British intelligence shared "general" information that it had learned through surveillance of Khalid al-Fawwaz, a Saudi Arabian dissident who has publicly acknowledged being a bin Laden operative. Fawwaz, suspected of participating in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombing in Kenya, was arrested after Sept. 11. - Based on its own intelligence, the Israeli government provided "general" information to the United States in the second week of August that an Al Qaeda attack was imminent. - French intelligence echoed the "general" information in the final week of August. - Russian President Vladimir Putin has said publicly that he ordered his intelligence agencies to alert the United States last summer that suicide pilots were training for attacks on U.S. targets. - Millennium bomber Ahmad Ressam testified in closed and open court trials relating to his Dec. 1999 arrest for trying to bring bomb-making materials across the Canadian border that attack plans, including hijackings and attacks on New York City targets, were ongoing. - An Islamic terrorist conspiracy was uncovered in 1996 in the Philippines to hijack a dozen airplanes and fly them into CIA headquarters and other buildings. Among the discoveries was a plot for a "bojinka" - a big bang. The information was discovered on a computer and noted in the 1997 trial of Ramzi Yousef, one of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. - U.S. investigators confirmed in October that a 29-year-old Iranian in custody in Germany's Langenhagen prison last year made phone calls to U.S. police from his deportation cell that an attack on the World Trade Center was imminent in "the days before the attack." The warning was considered the threat of a madman. - In October, U.S. government officials confirmed that India's intelligence agency had information before the attacks that two Islamist radicals with ties to Usama bin Laden were discussing an attack on the White House. India's information was not provided to U.S. intelligence until Sept. 13. - In February and April of 2001, the world's most extreme Islamic terror groups held meetings in Beirut and Tehran, respectively, to set aside their differences and unite for jihad (holy war) against Israel and the United States. The two unprecedented meetings had over 400 militants in attendance. They called it "the Jerusalem Conference," aimed at uniting behind the Palestinians and winning total Arab control over Jerusalem. Sources say the group agreed on a document and the creation of an actual organization now known as "the Jerusalem Project." The document included the statement: "The only decisive option to achieve this strategy is the option of jihad in all its forms and resistance . America today is a second Israel." The participants included leaders of Usama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror group, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and militants from Egypt, Pakistan, Jordan, Qatar, Yemen, the Sudan and Algeria. Sources say at least one participant went to the conference from the United States and returned to the country afterward. U.S. intelligence sources have identified two leaders of the Beirut-based Jerusalem Project. Sources have also told Fox News that the memo from the FBI Phoenix office about Arabs training in U.S. flight schools never reached headquarters because FBI counterterrorism officials were overwhelmed by the bombing of the USS Cole. The memo ended up "sitting on a shelf," according to sources. The sources also said officials were too overwhelmed with intelligence information to tap Zaccarias Moussaoui, who was taken into custody in August, after a Minnesota flight school reported that the alleged 20th hijacker of Sept.11 was interested in learning how to fly, but not take-off and land. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, experts have predicted that the next worldwide scourge would be terrorism. There are literally dozens of reports, studies and court cases in which hijackings, including those that would end up with crashes into buildings were discussed. In 1999, the Federal Research Division at the Library of Congress published its own report entitled "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism: Who Becomes a Terrorist and Why?" which described that "Suicide bomber(s) belonging to Al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives (C-4 and semtex) into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency, or the White House." Former CIA Deputy Director John Gannon, who was chairman of the National Intelligence Council for whom the report was written, said that in 1999, "It became such a rich threat environment that it was almost too much for Congress and the administration to absorb," he said. "They couldn't prioritize what was the most significant threat." Gannon said it is "egregiously unfair" to blame the president for failing to act to prevent Sept. 11 since there was no "actionable intelligence." The Associated Press contributed to this report. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ <A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A> ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
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