Reply #20: The chain of command was pretty much vacant

[mouse7]

I've got to buy the book soon. The more I pick up about what was going on in the WH command and control structure, the more it looks like damn near all the neo-cons disintegrated under the pressure and went into "deer-in-headlights" mode.

Clarke, maybe Matalin, and some junior staffers were the only functional humans in the command and control areas (situation room and bunker) of the White House. We know now that the military wasn't even put on alert until Gen. Myers did it more than an hour after the Pentagon got hit. Bush was at the school, completely out of position. Cheney was for all practical purposes out of the loop because his wife kept turning off the crisis communication system to watch TV. The only way Cheney would allow that to happen was if he was in "deer-in-headlights" mode, too. We know that Rumsfeld was in his office, not the Pentagon command center when the Pentagon was hit. So Rumsfeld was somehow out of the loop as well. I'll credit Rumsfeld for being a functional human, because he did help some wounded at the Pentagon, but he was completely out of position and not doing the job he was supposed to be doing. Powell was out of the country. The chain of command sits now at who, Paul O'Neill? Ashcroft?