Bush's 9/11 telephone logs don't exist

[paulthompson]

This is from the 9/11 press conference on 6/17. As they used to say on Saturday Night Live, "How conveeeeenient":


Q Is it possible that Vice President Cheney issued the shoot down order prior to conferring with President Bush?

MR. KEAN: Well, the testimony we have is from the president and from the vice president and from Condi Rice, who says she overheard part of that phone call. The phone logs don't exist, because they evidently got so fouled up in communications that the phone logs have nothing. So that's the evidence we have.

MR. HAMILTON: There's no documentary evidence here. And the only evidence you have is the statement of the president and the vice president, which was that the president gave the order to shoot down.


Sounds to me like Rice, Cheney, and Bush are covering each other's asses by lying and withholding evidence.

Even though it was said at a press conference, the only newspaper deeming it worth reporting was the New York Daily News, giving it a brief mention:

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/204090p-176138c....

Also,

If anyone has a subscription to the Wall Street Journal on line edition, can they send me the text to this article:

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB108747323085039902,0...

[Spazito]

1. Geez!

There is NO doubt left that they are hiding something very big, imo. Between the lack of phone logs, the destruction of FAA tapes, and all the other "anomalies" from that day, one can't help but put on a BIG tinfoil hat!

[Bozita]

2. All things Bush are either classified or destroyed ...

... like Bush's TANG records or the air traffic controllers' tape from 9/11.

[olddem43]

23. don't forget his driving records too.

[Stephanie]

3. Good to see you Paul

What is the significance of this? Is it just that they are lying, again? Is it that Bush is completely out of the loop, again? Neither seems newsworthy at this point.

Or is it that Cheney has no role in the chain of command and so should not have issued that order?

What's your take on this?

Some interesting LTE's from the NYT today:

Published: June 19, 2004
Who Was in Charge on Sept. 11? (2 Letters)

To the Editor:

Re "Account Recalls Cheney as a Swift and Steady Hand" (news article, June 18):

The country is under attack, and the vice president urges the president not to return to Washington. The vice president issues the order to the military to send attack planes to shoot down civilian aircraft — indeed, directs the whole operation from his bunker under the White House while the president is flying from one place to another, a cellphone call away.

I am trying to picture Bill Clinton letting Al Gore take over; George H. W. Bush letting Dan Quayle take over; Jimmy Carter letting Walter F. Mondale take over; Richard M. Nixon letting Gerald R. Ford or Spiro T. Agnew take over; John F. Kennedy letting Lyndon B. Johnson take over — I go all the way back to Harry S. Truman and Franklin D. Roosevelt and try to imagine any vice president taking over under the same circumstances. I can't.

The whole story reads like "Seven Days in May." America, we have a problem.

ALEXANDRA HOFFMAN
New York, June 18, 2004

•

To the Editor:

Re "Excerpts From Report on Orders to Shoot Down Planes on Sept. 11" (June 18):

The vice president is not in the legal chain of command and has no authority to issue orders to the military, especially to shoot down a civilian airliner. Why did President Bush not issue the orders himself?

MATTHEW J. NASUTI
Greenfield, Mass., June 18, 2004
The writer is a former Air Force captain in the judge advocate department.

[pberq]

8. They didn't need orders

Someone please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it a fact that they didn't need orders from anybody to shoot down the planes in those circumstances? There are standard operating procedures for this.

This is from Chapter 1 of "The New Pearl Harbor" by David Ray Griffin:

"Skeptics about the official account believe that the attempt to crash an airliner into the WTC could not have been successful under normal circumstances. The basic problem, they argue, is that there are standard procedures for situations such as this and that, if they had been followed, Flight 11 would have been intercepted by fighter jets within 10 minutes of any sign that it may have been hijacked. Had the plane then failed to obey the standard signal to follow the fighter jets to an airport to land, it would have been shot down. This would have occurred by 8:24, or 8:30 at the latest, so that the question of whether to shoot down a commercial airliner over the heart of New York City would not have arisen."

and how about this from the same chapter:

"If Flight 11 had thus been intercepted but did not respond, it would, according to standard procedures, have been shot down. Marine Corps Major Mike Snyder, a NORAD spokesman, after telling the Boston Globe that NORAD's 'fighters routinely intercept aircraft,' continued:

"When planes are intercepted, they typically are handled with graduated response. The approaching fighter may rock its wings to attract the pilot's attention, or make a pass in front of the aircraft. Eventually, it can fire tracer rounds in the airplane's path, or, under certain circumstances, down it with a missle."

[Jackpine Radical]

17. I think Rummy changed the rules

in June 2001 making everything go through him.

[laura888]

24. And where was Rummy?

According to the commission, altho he was seen at the Pentagon in his office and in the dining area that entire morning, he was not reachable.

Even after a plane hit the Pentagon, he was said to be unavailable because he was busy helping Pentagon victims in distress.

Our secretary of defense does not carry a cell phone and pager with him at all times?

This is what really really rings untrue.

[Rex]

4. Another smoking gun here!

Phone logs don't get "fouled up". Someone either erased them or they never existed! Take it from someone who has worked in the telecommunications industry - records don't just disappear.

[stickdog]

14. Perhaps the records were stored in WTC-7.

This wouldn't be any more unreasonable than at least 50 other things we've been asked to believe.

[Rex]

18. That's funny...I actually thought that (sarcastically) when I posted.

I used to work for a company that used SS7 & ISDN servers, mostly for pre-paid calling cards. At least once a week I would clear the cache of phone records on all the systems so I guess theoretically it is possible for them to have lost the records BUT there was always a finance record of every transaction. I think the scrubbed the records (a lesson learned from Nixon).

[paulthompson]

5. something else

from an MSNBC reporter:

...The Air Force made it exceedingly difficult for anyone without a security clearance to ask questions about that day. Repeated requests by this columnist to interview some of the F-16 pilots scrambled on 9/11 were denied on the basis of "national security." Others were unavailable, quite reasonably, because of assignment overseas to fight in the Middle East.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5234996 /

---

There have been some quotes from pilots in the media, but I imagine they were highly scripted, and with handlers. They wouldn't want the pilots to talk to a journalist like this above guy who might actually ask some questions.

But hey, it's not like they're hiding anything, right?

[izzie]

6. Maybe Bush was not running things?

Which we all know. Bush is our figure head and you all know who is running things.I should say trying. I have come to this. Republicans may run corp. but are no good running a country. They are top down guys and we are trying to run this bottom up.

[Beam Me Up]

7. Another INCREDIBLE piece of information from the Bush regime

"Incredible" as in simply NOT BELIEVABLE. "Trust us, we're you're government. We'd never lie about anything as important as THIS!"

Bull shit.

[TacticalPeek]

9. "so fouled up in communications that the phone logs have nothing"

Baloney. This really says they exist (of course), but that it would require expert analysis to glean some information from them.

Too much trouble, no doubt, especially with the difficulties created by certain, shall we say, "narrative requirements".

[loudsue]

10. I'm w/ you, Paul....they're covering up ....yet again.

It is all we've come to expect them to do, however. We know they can't run the country, they can't run the war, they can't do anything without ripping it to shreds. Why shouldn't they destroy the phone logs?

We'd better do something about the people running the government and the republican congress that is protecting them....and we'd better do it fast.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Does anyone want to guess when those phone-logs will surface...

...courtesy of the CIA?

[paulthompson]

13. I doubt...

They'll ever surface. And they can always use the "you can't prove a negative" argument. The "those records must be incomplete" argument.

[Toucano]

12. Convenient indeed.

The phone logs got "fouled up in communications"?

That's jibberish. Those words can't be put in that order and have meaning in English.

Do they mean the logs got fouled up in the communications office (department, bureau) or some other noun? If so, who's in charge of that office?

[in_cog_ni_to]

15. Does Ollie North work for this WH too?

Him and his handy dandy shredder?

[Straight Shooter]

16. That argument would never hold up in a court of law

This entire situation is criminal, and it should be treated as a criminal matter, step by painstaking step.

I am so sick of listening to bogus rationales for criminal behavior. The flimsiest of excuses, and we're expected to believe this crap???

[pinto]

19. Cheney's in charge. ........n/t

[donhakman]

20. no records - thats odd

[ThoughtCriminal]

21. Here's the dilemma they don't want to talk about

Cheney had no authority to order a shoot down and Bush Jr. wasn't done with the Pet Goat story yet.

The photo-op at Booker took priority over a national emergency. So far, there has been no national discussion of this insane level of incompetance.

[leftofthedial]

22. lying and withholding evidence

is all they have done since seizing power.

[olddem43]

25. Cheney is smarter than Bush

I'd rather have him making important decisions like that anyway, given a choice. Too bad one of them didn't act sooner. Hope the next important decision is made by President Kerry.