-Caveat Lector- 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.

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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:

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<A HREF="http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/">ctrl</A>
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