NEW YORK, N.Y.—Vanity Fair writer Michael Bronner is the only journalist who has listened to the complete audiotapes—covering six and a half hours of real time—made in the bunker of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)’s Northeast headquarters (NEADS) on the morning of September 11, 2001. Bronner calls the tapes more important in terms of understanding America’s military capabilities that day than anything happening simultaneously on Air Force One, in the Pentagon, or in the White House.
The tapes, which Bronner describes as “fascinating and chilling,” have never been played publicly beyond a handful of sound bites presented during the 9/11 hearings, and may be heard on www.vanityfair.com.
The tapes prove that:
· There was no command given to shoot down United Flight 93, despite implications to the contrary made by Vice President Cheney. Cheney was not notified about the possibility that United 93 had been hijacked until 10:02 a.m.—only one minute before the airliner impacted the ground. And United 93 had crashed before anyone in the military chain of command even knew it had been hijacked. President Bush did not grant commanders the authority to give a shoot-down order until 10:18 a.m., which—though no one knew it at the time—was 15 minutes after the attack was over.
· Parts of Major General Larry Arnold and Colonel Alan Scott’s testimony to the 9/11 commission were misleading, and others simply false. The men testified that they had begun their tracking of United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but tapes reveal that the plane had not yet been hijacked, and that NEADS did not get word of the hijacking for another 51 minutes. According to Bronner, when confronted with evidence from the tapes that contradicted his original testimony, a NORAD general admitted, “The real story is actually better than the one we told.”
· For the NEADS crew, 9/11 was not a story of four hijacked airplanes, but one of a heated chase after more than ten potential hijackings—some real, some phantom—that emerged from the turbulence of misinformation that spiked in the first 100 minutes of the attack and continued well into the afternoon and evening. The fighter pilots over New York and Washington, D.C. (and later Boston and Chicago) would spend hours darting around their respective skylines intercepting hundreds of aircraft they deemed suspicious. Meanwhile, NORAD was launching as many additional fighters as it could, placing some 300 armed jets in protective orbits over every major American city by the following morning.
When Bronner asks Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Nasypany, NEADS mission control commander, about the conspiracy theories—the people who believe that he, or someone like him, secretly ordered the shootdown of United 93 and covered it up—the corners of his mouth begin to quiver and he puts his head in his hands and cries. “Flight 93 was not shot down,” he says. “The individuals on that aircraft, the passengers, they actually took the aircraft down. Because of what those people did, I didn’t have to do anything.”
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Big Time
Vanity Fair:
Young Wingnuttery
I really do worry about the next generation of wingnuts. These are people who think Jonah Goldberg is a towering intellectual.
QOTD
Greg Sargent:
The problem, of course, is that "and his ilk" includes much of what passes for the liberal commentariat in our mainstream media and a healthy chunk of Democratic senators. Even most of those who have recognized that maybe, just maybe, they got it wrong still cling to the phrase "everybody thought he had WMDS!" which is ahistorical bullshit.
Brooks and his ilk would sooner allow the complete deterioration of their credibility, their capacity for orderly, rational thinking, and perhaps even their sanity before admitting that in supporting Bush's Iraq invasion, they fell prey to a catastrophic lapse in judgment that's left us hopelessly mired in an ever-expanding disaster with no foreseeable end.
I just wish I understood why they won't just let go and admit this already. Would it really in the end be all that difficult? Wouldn't it be an enormous relief, even a great freeing experience of sorts?
The problem, of course, is that "and his ilk" includes much of what passes for the liberal commentariat in our mainstream media and a healthy chunk of Democratic senators. Even most of those who have recognized that maybe, just maybe, they got it wrong still cling to the phrase "everybody thought he had WMDS!" which is ahistorical bullshit.
Smackdown
Colbert challenges Lieberman.
and, bonus:
and, bonus:
I'll tell him [Peter Beinart] where he can enlist.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Bayh
So Bayh's view is:
Does Bayh think we need to leave Iraq? Yes. Does he think the Iraqis have gotten their political act together? no. Does he think the Bush Administration has a plan to help the Iraqis do that? Absolutely Not. Does he support adopting a flexible timeline for leaving (like Levin-Reed)? Yes. He does, however, oppose a date-specific withdrawal and he opposes a policy of staying the course indefinitely.
Senator Bayh believes that the question is not whether we should be out, but how we should get out. He agrees that we need to leave, he just think we need a plan to leave as Iraq stable as possible, because that is in our national security interest.
Might Be That Simple
Yglesias:
I'm really not sure I buy the "Joe got all pouty when no one wanted him to be president" theory. He was pretty wankerific before the presidential primary campaign heated up (and, of course, during it.)
A small but non-trivial proportion of the population have followed that trajectory since 9/11 -- turning into the sort of liberals who think torture is fine and that human rights should be spread primarily through waging preventative war against America's geopolitical rivals. Why shouldn't one of the people to follow that path be a United States Senator?
I'm really not sure I buy the "Joe got all pouty when no one wanted him to be president" theory. He was pretty wankerific before the presidential primary campaign heated up (and, of course, during it.)
Iraq'd
After listening to Will Marshall earlier I admit I'm getting even more confused.
Is anyone in liberal Hawkistan, Joe Lieberman and his defenders included, providing any leadership on Iraq? Can Lieberman's defenders really not see that the judgment of a man who continues to defend not just the invasion but the prosecution of the war and the occupation is deeply flawed? Is there anyone who can, with good conscience, argue that this man has not, as Michael Ware said, "lost the plot" on Iraq and that we should keep such a person in office?
We were told Iraq was the most important thing ever, and that we should take our leadership on that issue from people like Joe Lieberman. Now Iraq is no longer important and it's just fine that Joe does nothing.
I don't understand.
I'm generally not very nice to Joe Biden, as he provides more bluster than action, but at least he provides the bluster. Is Joe "stay the course" Lieberman really someone who deserves to be in the US Senate?
Is anyone in liberal Hawkistan, Joe Lieberman and his defenders included, providing any leadership on Iraq? Can Lieberman's defenders really not see that the judgment of a man who continues to defend not just the invasion but the prosecution of the war and the occupation is deeply flawed? Is there anyone who can, with good conscience, argue that this man has not, as Michael Ware said, "lost the plot" on Iraq and that we should keep such a person in office?
We were told Iraq was the most important thing ever, and that we should take our leadership on that issue from people like Joe Lieberman. Now Iraq is no longer important and it's just fine that Joe does nothing.
I don't understand.
I'm generally not very nice to Joe Biden, as he provides more bluster than action, but at least he provides the bluster. Is Joe "stay the course" Lieberman really someone who deserves to be in the US Senate?
Meanwhile
In the forgotten war:
* BAGHDAD - A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb on Monday south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said on Tuesday.
BASRA - A British soldier was killed when a mortar round landed on the British military base in Basra, 550 (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad, the British military said.
...
NEAR TIKRIT - A roadside bomb went off near a bus carrying Iraqi soldiers, killing 20 of them and wounding 13 near Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad.
BAGHDAD - At least 10 people were killed and 22 wounded when a car driven by a suicide bomber exploded near an army patrol in the mainly Shi'ite Karrada district of Baghdad, a source in the Interior Ministry said.
MUQDADIYA - Seven people were killed and 15 wounded when a car bomb exploded beside a police patrol near a hospital in the town of Muqdadiya, 90 km northeast of Baghdad, police said.
Shrill
Digby sez:
The thing is, it wasn't even like this right after 9/11. There's a growing sickness.
This blatant genocidal bloodlust has become de rigeur on the right now. It's on talk radio, TV and in the columns of respectable newspapers. They don't even pretend to be civilized anymore. Maybe it's just the SOS, but I've got a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I don't ever remember this kind of stuff being openly bandied about like it's normal. And those who did, like Curtis LeMay, didn't have audiences of 25 million listeners to spew their bilge to.
The thing is, it wasn't even like this right after 9/11. There's a growing sickness.
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