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The news anchors, reporters, and viewers had little idea what had happened in lower Manhattan, but there were some people who did know. By that time, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, the White House, the Secret Service, and Canada's Strategic Command all knew that three commercial airplanes had been hijacked. They knew that one plane had been flown deliberately into the World Trade Center's North Tower; Bush's actions on September 11 have been the subject of lively debate, mostly on the internet. Details reported that day and in the week after the attacks - both the media reports and accounts given by Bush himself - have changed radically over the past 18 months. Culling hundreds of reports from newspapers, magazines, and the internet has only made finding the "truth" of what happened and when it happened more confusing. In the changed political climate after 9/11, few have dared raise challenging questions about Bush's actions. A journalist who said Bush was "flying around the country like a scared child, seeking refuge in his mother's bed after having a nightmare" and another who said Bush "skedaddled" were fired. What follows is an attempt to give the most complete account of Bush's actions - from Florida to Louisiana to Nebraska to Washington, DC. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, on September 11, 2001 had been in the planning stages since August 23 Booker web site , but was only publicly announced on the morning of September 7. Fighting Back: The War on Terrorism - From Inside the Bush White House, by Bill Sammon, 10/02, p. The men said they were a television news crew with a scheduled "poolside" interview with the president. The message was relayed to a Secret Service agent inside the resort, who hadn't heard of the agent mentioned or of plans for an interview. He told the men to contact the president's public relations office in Washington, DC, and had the van turned away. The Secret Service may have foiled an assassination attempt. Two days earlier, Ahmed Shah Massoud, leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance, had been murdered by a similar ruse. Two North African men, posing as journalists from "Arabic News International," had been requesting an interview with Massoud since late August. As it began, a bomb hidden in the video camera exploded, killing the two journalists. Massoud was rushed by helicopter to a hospital in Tajikistan, but was pronounced dead on arrival (although his death was not acknowledged until September 15). Petersburg Times, 9/9/02 The Northern Alliance blamed al-Qaeda and the ISI, Pakistan's secret service, for the attacks. The Secret Service also raided a beauty supply store in Sarasota, whose owner, identified as "Hakim," told the agents that "Ghandi" was a member of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army, a group fighting against the fundamentalist Muslim government in Sudan. Yadav also learned that Zainlabdeen Omer had suddenly quit his jobs and vacated his apartment. The others soon followed, except for United Flight 93, scheduled to leave at 8:01, but which was delayed on the runway for about 40 minutes. The plane did not obey the order and its transponder was turned off. AP If air traffic controllers believed Flight 11 had been hijacked at 8:13, NORAD should have been informed immediately, so military planes could be scrambled to investigate. However, NORAD and the FAA both claimed NORAD was not informed until 8:40 - 27 minutes later. Don't try to make any stupid moves") 63 Guardian, 10/17/01, 64 New York Times, 10/16/01 , and even asked the pilots of Flight 175 to scan the skies for the errant plane. Michael) should have been fired and subject to possible criminal charges for their inaction. To date, however, there has been no word of any person being disciplined at any institution at any level for what happened on 9/11. If NORAD's claim is false, and it was indeed informed within the time frame outlined in FAA regulations that Flight 11 may have been hijacked, that would mean NORAD did absolutely nothing for almost thirty minutes while a hijacked commercial airliner flew off course through some of the most congested airspace in the world. Presumably, that would warrant some very serious charges. Again, no one associated with NORAD or the FAA has been punished. According to phone calls made by fight attendants Betty Ong and Amy Sweeney, the hijackers had stabbed and killed at least one passenger and two flight attendants by about 8:21. Several accounts say the journey took about 20 minutes 81 New York Times, 9/16/01 , 82 St. Petersburg Times, 9/8/02 , 83 MSNBC, 10/29/02 , which means that Bush arrived shortly before 9:00. Why does it matter when Bush left the resort and arrived at the school? Because this is the crucial time when Bush was first told, or should have been told, of the attacks. Official accounts, including the words of Bush himself, say Bush was first told of what was happening in New York City after he arrived at the school. There are at least four reports that Bush was told of the first crash before he arrived at the school. Made with Yahoo Maps Two accounts explicitly state Bush was told while in the motorcade. Claims of Bush's ignorance become harder to believe when one learns that others in his motorcade were immediately told of the attack. A messenger gave him the news as he was eating breakfast with former Senator David Boren in a Washington restaurant three blocks from the White House. Around 8:50, Tampa Bay's Channel 8 reporter Jackie Barron was on the phone with her mother, who mentioned the first news reports. At almost the same time, Brian Goff, a Fox reporter from Tampa, heard the same thing on his cell phone. Could he have been out of the loop because he was in a car? Another Warning If Bush wasn't told while in his limousine, he certainly was told immediately after he got out of it. US Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the director of the White House Situation Room, was traveling in the motorcade when she received a message from an assistant back in Washington about the first crash. Loewer said that as soon as the car arrived at Booker, she ran quickly over to Bush. She told Bush that an aircraft had "impacted the World Trade Center. USA Today Note the strange loop off course about halfway along the route to the west, which was the first sign the plane was hijacked. Such a large diversion is extremely uncommon, and should have triggered an immediate fighter response. Even though Flight 175 left about the same time as Flight 11, it appears to have been hijacked much later. At 8:41, its pilot was still talking to ground control 110 New York Times, 10/16/01 , but at 8:42 it sharply veered off course, and a flight controller noted that its transponder had been turned off and communication cut. This allowed flight controllers to "easily" track the plane as it flew toward New York City. According to regulations, a fighter is required to be dispatched if a plane strays from its official course by more than two miles or 15 degrees 115 MSNBC, 9/12/01 . As the adjacent map shows, Flight 77 returned to its proper course for a time, but its last radio contact occurred at 8:50. Flight 93 wasn't hijacked until about 9:16, but by about 8:50, it was clear that at least three planes had been hijacked. Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, said, "The Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA. Intelligence agencies were suffering "warning fatigue" from so many warnings of an al-Qaeda attack 120 Independent, 9/7/02 , some specifically mentioning the use of hijacked airplanes as missiles (see 121 this essay). Bush himself was given an intelligence briefing a month earlier entitled "Bin Laden to Strike in US," and it contained a warning from the British government that the US should expect multiple airline hijackings from al-Qaeda. There are a number of different "official" accounts, but all of them stress that Bush wasn't told until after he arrived inside the school (contrary to the account of Captain Loewer) and that it was assumed to b...
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