Where was the US military on 9/11?

[Nikki Stone 1]

This is my only question after watching the CBS documentary (the real one) last night. This eyewitness footage by the two French brothers who were shooting a documentary on a rookie firefighter is really powerful account of the attack on the WTC.

What struck me most about this documentary is the COMPLETE ABSENCE of the US military. The people left to handle this mess were civilians, firefighters and cops. There were no military aircraft, no helicopters to get people out of the top floors of the WTC. Even if it had not been a "terrorist" attack, as we have been told, but a horrible accident, the National Guard should have been on hand.

And by the time the second plane hit, it was absolutely clear that these crashes were no accident. The second plane was the one reported to Chucklenuts by Andy Card as he was sitting reading "My Pet Goat". The fact that NOTHING happened, the military was AWOL and the pResident stayed there at the school and wasn't immediately whisked off, is the most damning thing about the event.

Who told the military to stand down?

[Avalux]

1. They were busy with an planned exercise (war games)

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=militaryExercises

I will make no further comments.

[savemefromdumbya]

4. told to stand down more likely?

[Avalux]

7. We don't know that.

There's a lot we don't know; but we do know that our military was kept very busy on that day; jets were in Canada and elsewhere doing an exercise with Russia. So it was a really great day for terrorists to decide to attack.

[savemefromdumbya]

13. yes

[Nikki Stone 1]

19. Even those training exercises shouldn't have stood in the way

had orders been given

[mogster]

10. In London on 7/7 2005 there also was an exercise going on

That involved simultaneous attacks on the subway and buses.
http://www.nitrogen.no/blogfiles/september2006/090705exercise_clip.mp3

Compared to the US scenario with anti-terror drills taking place on Sept. 11, 2001:

An “emergency response exercise” is scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. the morning of 9/11, involving the simulated crash of a small corporate jet plane into a government building. The exercise is to be conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, Virginia—just four miles from Washington Dulles International Airport, from where Flight 77 took off, and 24 miles from the Pentagon. The NRO draws its personnel from the CIA and the military, and operates many of the nation’s spy satellites. John Fulton, chief of the NRO’s strategic war gaming office, and his team at the CIA, are in charge of the exercise. It is to involve the jet experiencing mechanical problems then crashing into one of the four towers at the NRO. In order to simulate the damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits are to be closed off, forcing NRO employees to find other ways to evacuate the building. However, according to an agency spokesman, “as soon as the real world events began, we cancelled the exercise.” After the attacks, most of the agency’s 3,000 staff are supposedly sent home.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&startpos=1100#a900nroexercise

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What are the odds that this is coincidences?

[mother earth]

2. This is one of the huge questions that remains & is addressed

in "911 Press for Truth", seems there was a 2 hour time span btwn the tower hits & then the Pentagon & inexplicably there was no military response. Are we novices at intercepting those who violate our air space? We certainly weren't the prior year, with approx. ?249 (don't remember exact number) such violations that only took minutes to respond to.

Why is it that on 9/11/01 incompetence ruled the day? No one has been made accountable, nor has any reason been provided for this monumental two hours of zero response from the country that rules militarily? Two hours, think about it, how many people are aware of this fact I wonder. For all of the reading I've done, I was surprised by that one fact. It's pretty damning.

[Nikki Stone 1]

16. A two-hour span? (Excellent post BTW)

By the second plane, it was clear we were under an attack of some kind. Doesn't the military have emergency procedures?

[dkofos]

3. Ordered to stand down

The PNAC boys needed a new Pearl Harbor.

[gratuitous]

5. Well, they might just be incompetent

There are all kinds of theories to be spun out, but it might just be that the military just flat wasn't prepared for a sudden attack, and didn't know what to do.

[William769]

6. Best answer I can give is, waiting for orders form the Commander in Chief.

[julialnyc]

8. I saw some military vehicles going towards the towers

and when I got home we had a military barricade in front of my apartment which we had to show ID to get past them (so that people couldn't get near the site).

I don't know what else they did, but I can say that I saw them.

[Sammy Pepys]

9. I was a couple of miles from the Pentagon when it was hit.

We had plenty of military aircraft (fighters) airborne here. Watched two escort what looked like a small private jet for landing after the immediate grounding of all civilian aircraft had been ordered.

[Nikki Stone 1]

17. Interesting eyewitness.

But it makes sense that the military is right on stuff. They don't take much time when something is clearly up.

[Solly Mack]

11. Well, some were deploying to the ME and others getting ready to move out

within 3 days.

My husband included.(he went to the ME right after 911)

Or do you mean NY's national guard and troops from nearby military posts and bases? Close-by fighters and transports that could have lend a hand?

[Zynx]

12. The military is normally on a pretty low level of readiness.

It would be hideously expensive to keep everything on full readiness all the time.

[razors edge]

14. I spent four years launching and recovering

F-4 Phantoms, I don't agree with your statement about readiness being low or more expensive, fighter aircraft have to be maintained regardless of the actual threat level and missiles are procured and stock piled at the ordinance facility located on base. we had 12 planes and hardly ever did more than one or two have operational issues that would keep them from launching at any given time. the salaries of pilots and maintenance techs is already being paid and flight time logged daily, what would you envision their being an additional cost to have aircraft operational, which they already are.

[Bushwick Bill]

15. How about this?

Those in complete support of the official story argue that our air defense was only ready for external threats and that the only intercept inside the U.S. (not on the coasts) since the end of the Cold War was Payne Stewart's flight. Can you weigh in on this?

Anyway, I think the war games are the key.

Don't forget that if Norman Mineta's testimony is correct, the VP was monitoring the Pentagon Flight as it approached.
Mineta: "During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President...the plane is 50 miles out...the plane is 30 miles out....and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president "do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said "Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary!??"
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050724164122860
Where the heck were the planes from the base 10 or so miles away????!!!!

[Nikki Stone 1]

18. Cheney was actually monitoring the Pentagon that morning?

And was watching that plane?

And no military was waiting in the wings?

[razors edge]

20. I can only think of it

this way, once an interceptor is airborne, it doesn't know the difference between internal or external threats, ground control is not my specialty but my experience with it 20 years ago was that contact with ready room (on the ground officers from the same squadron) almost non existent due to the fact a wing leader had a mission and followes it from sop. radio calls from a tower to a crew are something i have no experience with firsthand as i was on the flight line, so if a launch was ordered, it would have its mission before take off and i suppose additional information from the ground could affect the flight, but generally these guys know what they are going up for to begin with. there are many air national guard units in this country, I live in Toledo and have heard rumors that the plane that went down in shanksville was taken out by one of Toledo's ANG F-16s.

since it has been reported that the plane was observed from the ground to be on fire and an engine was found several miles away from the crash site I tend to believe it was taken down by a missile, possibly a bomb on board, but no airline or Gov entity will ever admit it if avoidable.

the war games, five i believe i've read, some with the exact same scenarios as the events on the ground.

alex jones (i know what your thinking) has a movie out, his latest, Terror Storm, it does not focus soul-ly on 9-11, it also covers the london tube incidents and in it he shows excerpts of a bbc interview with the individual who was in charge of running a drill that day in the exact same locations, at the exact same times, he explains how the drills give cover to anybody who might get caught red handed in the act, and they also give the impression that the government is on it's toes in responding to the incident. he uses an insurance actuary table to calculate to chances of coincidence and its many times more than all the grains of sand on earth.

even when we launched planes two or three times a day for normal training, we always had planes left on the ground that could be armed and sent up while the others were being recalled, sop. i have no reason not to believe mr Minetta.