Reply #17: There might not have been a need for a stand down order.

[JohnyCanuck]

That was because there were war games and hijacking exercises that were "coincidentally" ongoing even as the real 911 hijackings were taking place. This caused a diversion of resources and confusion so that NORAD was unable to respond in a timely manner to the real hijackings.

“I have an on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD that on the day of 9/11 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (Richard B. Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack Field Training Exercise (FTX) which involved at least one (and almost certainly many more) aircraft under US control that was posing as a hijacked airliner”.
Mike Ruppert – June 5, 2004, editor of FTW www.fromthewilderness.com

On September 11, 2001, Richard B. Meyers, the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has thus far claimed he was in a meeting with Senator Max Cleland, and was “unaware” of the ongoing 9/11 attacks until after the Pentagon was struck.

<snip>

On September 11, 2001, the Air Force was in its second day of annual wargame drills, titled VIGILANT GUARDIAN, designed to test national air response systems, which incidentally involved hijacking scenarios. In addition the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which is staffed by military and CIA personnel, and is in charge of most American spy satellites, was running a drill for the scenario of an errant aircraft crashing into its headquarters. NRO headquarters also happens to be located just four miles from Washington’s Dulles airport – where Flight 77 (the flight said to have hit the Pentagon) originated.

<snip>

It is possible that Phillip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, has classified certain wargames running on 9/11 so the Commission can’t address them publicly. The fact that the war games are open source, having been reported in mainstream publications including the Associated Press, UPI, and Aviation Weekly Magazine would make such a classification part & parcel to a cover-up. Hopefully the Commission will address, in public hearing, the impact these wargames apparently had on the NORAD response on 9/11.


Also see this DU thread.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...