Stand Down

“...Below that surface calm ran strong, almost extreme beliefs. He had been one of the five most radical conservatives in the Congress…”

Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta on 23 May 2003 appeared in the public hearings of the Congressional 9/11 Commission. He was questioned regarding the events in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) underneath the East Wing of the White House. He recited hearing the following:

There was a young man who had come in and said 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? [i]

The Norman Mineta testimony seemed to produce a headache for Bush’s 9/11 Commission — We’ll explore why.

Mineta arrived at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), underneath the East Wing of the White House, according to his testimony, “at about 9:20 a.m.”. And regarding the conversation and the strange response by the Vice President — that occurred, Mineta claimed, “about five or six minutes” after his arrival at the PEOC, giving the time at 9:25 or 9:26. Richard Clarke’s account of Cheney’s conversation regarding shoot down talk was well before 10:00 a.m. and matches Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta’s account.⁶⁰

The young man was referring to Flight 77 that reportedly hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. In the testimony he made it is clear that he was not confusing Flight 77 with Flight 93, which crashed at 10:10 a.m. (45 minutes later). Also, when asked by Commission co-chair Hamilton if Mineta knew beforehand about Flight 93, he said, “I did not”.

It’s easy to skim right over these statements without giving them much thought, as most people probably have. But there was a reason why the commission or their lawyers censored Mineta’s testimony! Close dissection of the statements will lead to reality — so we will breakdown the wording carefully.

In the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, under the White House, a young man (probably Secret Service), approaches Cheney, and states, “The plane is 50 miles out.”

What plane? … Where is it heading? … Whose plane is it? … Is it a hijack? … What’s the situation? These are questions that reasonable persons might ask, if they were the Vice President. Keep in mind that two attacks have already hit the World Trade Center and other attacks are feared, in fact, that’s why they are in hiding in a White House bunker. A statement “the plane is 50 miles out” in itself is not very informative, nor revealing without some type of preceding information to base it on. Vice President Cheney asks for no elaboration or update on such an important matter. Or, it obviously could have been a continuation of a previously held conversation or briefing. Also, the reason that the young man keeps approaching Cheney is to check to see if he is willing to rescind his previously issued order, as we will see below. This indicates, that prior to this point in time, Vice President Cheney had been briefed on a fairly substantial level about the plane and had already made a determinate action (an order) or worst, he had known about the plane prior to events unfolding.

“The plane is 50 miles out.” … “The plane is 30 miles out.” … “The plane is 10 miles out.” The plane is approaching — whatever is targeting it — perhaps Custom’s Black Hawk helicopters or surface-to-air missiles (SAMs). “Out” in this context, with closing of distances, implies something “from a distance that is moving toward you”. Notice “the plane” is attributed with the motion, not for example, “50 miles and closing on the plane”, or “we are approaching target at 50 miles”. I believe that these latter statements make more of a reference to fighter-interceptors in action. Also, at 9:30, the F-16s from Langley AFB are out over the Atlantic Ocean on a wild goose chase — there were no fighters around Washington at this time.

Furthermore, it would be unlikely that the “young man” was referring to F-16s from Andrews or Langley AFB because the F-16s wouldn’t need the Vice President to authorize a scramble for a NOR (non responsive). Scrambles are common and happen routinely over the U.S., there are procedures for dealing with a NOR, of which Flight AA77 was. So it doesn’t make any sense, counting down miles for a routine procedure that wouldn’t need a Vice President to enable. Besides, activating a scramble would have been ineffectual at those very short aeronautical distances, especially 30 miles, or 10 miles, giving only 3½ min. or 70 sec. respectfully to scramble, takeoff, climb, locate, fly to target, acquire, and shoot it down.

Now if the young man came up to Cheney and said “Sir, our Langley F-16s, have intercepted the NOR airliner in route to Washington, and it is still NOR and believed to be hostile.” … “What do you want to do? That would be consistent with an F-16 interception scenario. Therefore, “The plane is 50 miles out.” seems to refer to targeting by something like Black Hawk helicopters or SAM sites.

U.S. Army Avenger (anti-aircraft), two “Stinger” missile launch pods mounted on a HMMWV (Photo: Army).

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?” It appears that the young man, mentioned by Mineta, believes that something of substantial importance is imminent, and is concerned that the Vice President needs to be keep informed for a possibility/hopefulness that he may rescind or override previously issued orders.

Secretary Mineta stated, the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?” It appears that Vice President Cheney is getting somewhat peeved and gives a response that obviously carries a tinge of sarcasm. It appeared that Vice President Cheney had indeed made a decision, issuing or upholding previous orders and that no event was going to change that. Wouldn’t a concerned leader try to gather information about an incident, and be open minded to try resolve it? Not if you were following a preconceived plan that has been set into operation. Orders were arranged in advance assisted by a critical DoD directive (DoD directive is explored in next chapter).

10:10 a.m. – Langley fighters told they couldn’t shoot down hijacked planes.

According to the 9/11 Commission, the NEADS Mission Crew Commander is sorting out the orders given to the Langley fighter pilots. The Commander does not know that Flight 93 had been heading toward Washington or that it had crashed. He explicitly instructs the Langley fighters that they cannot shoot down aircraft — they have “negative clearance to shoot” aircraft over Washington. Authorization to shoot down hijacked civilian aircraft only reaches NEADS at 10:31 a.m. Even then, the authorization is not passed on to the pilots.⁹⁷ Thus, Cheney’s discussion prior to 10:00 a.m. was not a shoot down authorization, as many have speculated.

Now, we can try to put everything together using our analysis of Mineta’s testimony along with the unfolding events of 911.

Vice President Cheney issues orders to follow a stand down of SAMs and other anti-aircraft weapons against civilian airliners. (By a recent DoD directive J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A, that necessitated “approval” of Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, before military force could be utilized against hijacked aircraft over the U.S. Of course, Vice President Cheney and President Bush could override and direct actions personally. In addition, military commanders had been taken out of the loop. Note that with large pre-planned military exercises, and diversions, most of the fighter/interceptors guarding America were occupied, thus insuring their belated responses.

Secret Service agents that were monitoring the situation and in communication with military commanders — repeatedly attempt to inform the Vice President of an imminent threat — a rogue aircraft approaching P-56 airspace (i.e. Capitol, White House, Pentagon, etc.). They have heard about the two other similar airliners that have been reported hijacked and flown into the World Trade Center and they are concerned that this may happen in Washington to a major landmark. They know that P-56 is a guarded “prohibited area” and as per principles of their training feel that the Vice President needs to stop the airliner before a disaster occurs. They have the capability with “Stinger” SAMs to bring down the attacking aircraft. Finally, the young Secret Service agent asks incredulously, “Do the orders still stand?” (Referring to the “stand down” order.) This appears to provoke Vice President Cheney’s sarcastic response, “Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?” Secretary Mineta, and whoever else was in PEOC, were not suppose to hear any of this incriminating dialogue — that probably added to Cheney’s irritation.

As per this report about Bush’s visit to Florida on 9/11, “…at the Colony, the Secret Service was getting everything secured for when the president arrived on Sept. 10. That included snipers and surface-to-air missiles on the roof and the Coast Guard patrolling just offshore.”[ii]

After Mineta divulged in convincing detail about what he had seen and heard in the PEOC on 9/11, Commission member Hamilton, seemed confused and sought clarification about what flight he was referring to. Mineta once again clarifies that it is the flight that hit the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. (official time). There was good reason for the quizzical expression on Hamilton’s face, since Secretary Mineta had thoroughly discounted previous accounts of the PEOC activities that had been published by the administration’s accomplices in the press. Hamilton then followed up with a question about Flight 93:

Hamilton: “With respect to flight 93, what type of information were you and the Vice President receiving about that flight?”

Mineta: “The only information we had at that point, was when it crashed.”¹⁰⁰

Chairman Kean then stresses that the Secretary’s time is limited. He moves to… [Kean seems to have gotten nervous about what he heard and wants to change the topic.]

Then Roemer attempts to discredit Mineta by painting a picture of chaos and conflicting decision-making between the Situation Room and the PEOC and he implies that this scenario had confused Mineta.

Mineta: “That would be speculation on my part as to what was happening on that day.”

Roemer:[Trying to get Mineta to agree that he might have been confused, and thus discredit him.] “I know. Because you had been conducting official business and I’m sure you were hurriedly on your way over there…”

Roemer: [Thwarted, Roemer tries again to steer Mineta into a loaded statement.] “Would your inference be that they scrambled the jets to shoot down the commercial airliner, it failed, and the commercial airliner then crashed into the Pentagon?”

Mineta: “I’m not sure that the aircraft that were scrambled to come up to the D.C. area...were under orders to shoot the airplane down…”¹⁰⁰

Surprisingly, Mineta didn’t back down despite being heavily pressured from the Commission. What did the Commission want from Mineta? They wanted him to connect the conversation to Flight 93, but in the absence of that, they would settle for Mineta speculating that the talk was regarding a shoot down proposition. But, unacceptable would be the notion that Cheney was enforcing a stand down. This is what the Mineta testimony alleges. Lastly, the frustrated Commission attempts to diminish his credibility, by attempting to trip up Mineta into admitting that he may have been confused that morning.

The fact that “The 9/11 Commission Final Report” discarded his testimony has never been explained. Mineta’s PEOC testimony was also edited out of the 9/11 Commission video archive. Perhaps it was the danger of the Mineta testimony, and the danger that Cheney would have had to commit perjury to uphold the timeline reported by their accomplices — the mainstream press. Is this the reason for the President and Vice President to have had the closed session testimony with the Commission, with no transcript, no witnesses, and no public accountability?

Also, the Kissinger 9/11 Commission, under Cheney/Bush direction had censoring privileges to the final product. Thus, what they didn’t like, well it was just extracted, like the Mineta’s testimony! The 9/11 Commission was a ploy, planted an overly trusting public as a tactic to cover-up and exonerate the criminals.

The leak of a Sept. 10, 2001 NSA intercept is another damming piece of evidence.

…a Sept. 10, 2001 NSA intercept so worried and infuriated Vice President Cheney that he demanded an FBI investigation of members of the House and Senate Intel Committee Joint 9-11 investigation to determine who might have leaked it. That key intercept between the leader of the 9-11 hijackers, Mohammad Atta, and the ‘mastermind’ of the 9-11 plot, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, said: “The Match is about to begin. Tomorrow (i.e. 9-11) is zero hour.” … On 9-10-02, Knight Ridder reported that U.S. intelligence officials now believe that in that critical “Match” call, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed gave Atta coded approval for the four teams of hijackers to proceed. On the contrary, given the new context in which this all finally begins to make sense, Atta was merely communicating to his boss, or visa versa, the date that the U.S. gov’t exercise was to take place. Bin al Shibh, Atta, and Mohammad didn’t “choose the date”. The U.S. Government did.⁷⁷

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[i] “National Commission on Terrorists attacks upon the United States Twelfth Public Hearing,” National Commission on Terrorists attacks upon the United States, 17 June 2004, <www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-06-17.htm>

[ii] Tom Bayles, “The day before everything changed, President Bush touched locals’ lives” Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September 10, 2002.