Reply #30: Specific comments from Griffin on the Pentagon defenses are as follows...

[ROH]

David Ray Griffin states:
"If we assume that the Pentagon was struck by Flight 77, we must ask how this could have occurred. The Pentagon is surely the best defended building on the planet, for three reasons. First, it is only a few miles from Andrews Air Force Base, which has at least three squadrons that keep fighter jets on alert at all times to protect the nation’s capital. To be sure, part of the official story is that Andrews was not keeping any fighters on alert at that time. But as I argued in my critique of The 9/11 Commission Report, that claim is wholly implausible. <31>

Second, the US military has the best radar systems in the world. One of its systems, it has bragged, "does not miss anything occurring in North American airspace." This system is also said to be capable of monitoring a great number of targets simultaneously, as would be necessary in the case of a massive missile attack. <32> Given that capability, the official story, according to which Flight 77 flew toward the Pentagon undetected for 40 minutes, is absurd, especially at a time when the Pentagon knew the country was under attack. Any unauthorized airplane coming towards the Pentagon would have been detected and intercepted long before it got close.

Third, the Pentagon is ringed by anti-missile batteries, which are programmed to destroy any aircraft entering the Pentagon’s airspace, except for any aircraft with a US military transponder.<33> If, by some fluke, Flight 77 had entered the Pentagon’s airspace, it could have escaped being shot down only if officials in the Pentagon had deactivated its anti-aircraft defenses."

http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=535&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0 details Griffin's references.


Regarding the wayward Lear Jet, my earlier message above quotes two reports (Dallas Morning News, USA Today) on the timings of the emergency escorting.