Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises by Erik Larson

loose nuke Thu, 07/02/2009 - 12:59am

Thanks to all who contributed to this effort. Hyperlinks at 911Reports.com:
http://911reports.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/questions-for-miles-kara-on-norad-and-other-exercises-by-erik-larson/

Greetings Miles Kara, and welcome to the blogosphere!

As the History Commons contributor ‘paxvector’ who’s been scanning and uploading NARA’s 9/11 Commission records to Scribd.com/HistoryCommons (including many of yours), your public expression of gratitude for the project is appreciated.

I am very interested in your blog, 9/11 Revisited, and that you’re responding to questions from the public. With your knowledge from having served on the Commission's staff as a member of Team 8, you may be able to settle some of the unanswered questions and speculation regarding 9/11.

I’ve compiled a list of questions and posted this as an open letter to you at my blog, 911Reports.com; Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises. Your responses are up to you, of course, but as a courtesy to readers please include the questions with your responses, or provide a link to the questions and number your answers to correspond.

Thanks for your time- I look forward to your response, and any additional information you may provide.

Erik Larson

1. What were the name(s) and scenario(s) of the hijack exercise(s) that NORAD conducted or planned to conduct on September 11, 2001?

At least one hijack exercise is documented by the NEADS tapes, and was reported on by Michael Bronner for Vanity Fair in 2006. Bronner provides some details of the exercise, and quotes Major Kevin Nasypany, who helped design the exercise:

"When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was 'Somebody started the exercise early,'" Nasypany later told me. The day's exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a "traditional" simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum. "I actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour,'" Nasypany recalled.

2. Why was the hijack exercise (or exercises) scheduled for September 11, 2001 not included in your NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary table?

3. Why was the hijack exercise (or exercises) not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report, or made into a subject at the Commission hearings?

4. Why does the 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 1 endnote 116 restrict itself to a description of Vigilant Guardian on September 11, 2001 as having “postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union”, without mentioning other exercise scenarios, and in particular omitting hijack exercises? (458n116)

Endnote 116 is the reference for the following conversation, which is also featured in the Vanity Fair article, and in your article 9/11: Training, Exercises and War Games:

NEADS: “Is this real world or exercise?”

FAA: ”No, this is not an exercise, not a test.” (20)

As quoted by Bronner (see 1. above), Nasypany indicated the questions he and many other military personnel had about “real world or exercise” were due to the hijack exercise coinciding with the 9/11 real world events- not a Soviet Bomber attack exercise, as implied by endnote 116.

Your NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary table lists 9 versions of Vigilant Guardian from 9/6/01 to 9/10/01, all of which involved a hijack scenario.

5a. What was total number of military exercises involving aircraft that took place on September 11, 2001?

5b. What were the names and scenarios of these exercises? (Other than the hijack exercise(s) you name and describe in response to question 1. above)

6a. Which exercises involved the use of computer-simulated aircraft aka “injects” (or “inputs”) on 9/11, and how many injects were being used?

6b. Which radar screens were the injects on, and what time were they cleared?

6c. Why was the use of injects in NORAD exercises on September 11 not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

7. On your NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary table, you highlighted certain text in Red, Yellow and Bold; what was your reason for doing this?

8. You say in your article 9/11: Training, Exercises and War Games, “The [NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary] was prepared to list what we knew about exercises before we traveled to NORAD Headquarters.”

How was this information used in the interviews?

9. What is the reason Ken Merchant stated “that [NORAD hijack exercises] were always resolved peacefully, that is, NORAD did not project shooting down a hijacked aircraft."? (3)

Your NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary" table lists at least 3 exercises which included a shoot-down scenario; Vigilant Guardian 10/26/98 and 9/6/01, and Amazon Condor 10/21/99.

Ken Merchant's MFR states:

"Mr. Merchant is the joint exercise design manager for NORAD, and has been with NORAD J3 (or J38) for 17 years."

10. In a comment on your 9/11: Training, Exercises and War Games article, you said, “there was one Department of Justice exercise that didn’t have anything to do with the other three”. Please cite sources for information on this exercise (or provide links).

10a. What was the name, scenario and purpose of this DOJ exercise?

10b. Why was this DOJ exercise not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

11a. Why was the 2001 Global Guardian exercise rescheduled from October to the week of September 11?

11b. What are the names of those responsible for rescheduling Global Guardian?

11c. Why was Global Guardian not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

12. What are the names and roles of those who were in charge of coordinating the military, intelligence, law enforcement and emergency management exercises scheduled for September 11, 2001?

13. The 9/11 Commission Report says, “Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including terrorists’ use of aircraft as weapons.” (17)

13a. What information was this threat-identification based on; what NORAD documents describe this threat, what do they say, and are Bin Laden and/or Al Qaeda mentioned in any of them?

13b. What did the Commission learn about this threat-identification from interviews?

14. Why does the 9/11 Commission Report say, “Exercise planners also assumed that the aircraft would originate from outside the United States, allowing time to identify the target and scramble interceptors. The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airliners within the United States—and using them as guided missiles—was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.”? (17)

In this unclassified Amalgam Virgo 01-02 exercise scenario (also described in your NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary table), a suicide pilot took off from Clearwater, Florida with a plan to crash into SEADS- in order to disrupt NORAD’s ability to intercept drug-smuggling flights.

In addition to other ‘planes as missiles’ plots, Commissioner Ben-Veniste noted at the May 23, 2003 hearing, “September 12th, 1994, a Cessna 150L crashed into the South Lawn of the White House, barely missing the building, and killing the pilot. Similarly, in December of 1994, an Algerian armed Islamic group of terrorists hijacked an Air France flight in Algiers and threatened to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. In October of 1996, the intelligence community obtained information regarding an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and crash it into Tel Aviv.”

General McKinley responded, “It's obvious by your categorization that those events all took place and that NORAD had that information.”

And the 9/11 Commission Report noted that, “in February 1974, a man named Samuel Byck attempted to commandeer a plane at Baltimore Washington International Airport with the intention of forcing the pilots to fly into Washington and crash into the White House to kill the president.” (561n21)

15. Why was Osama Bin Laden’s picture used on the cover of the Amalgam Virgo 01 exercise proposal?

16. DOD Document Request No. 4, Item 20 requested “The final briefing and intelligence scenario for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) exercise scheduled on 9/11 concerning a plane crash into NRO headquarters.” This DOD Document Index (emailed by Dan Levin) says it was delivered 7/15/03.

17a. What was the full NRO exercise scenario- and did it involve an accidental plane crash, or an intentional one?

17b. In what ways, if any, was this NRO exercise connected with the other exercises happening on 9/11?

17c. Why was this NRO exercise not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

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6 votes

Great job...

I look forward to hearing his answers to ALL of these questions.

Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Jon Gold on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 6:37am.

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1 vote

But would he even KNOW the answers to these questions?

I doubt that he ever even looked into most of them.

pfgetty on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 6:46am.

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2 votes

Great Job

& thank you for taking a civil & friendly approach with him.

truthoverprofit on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 7:08am.

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4 votes

He was...

A staffer for the 9/11 Commission that was mandated to give a "full and complete accounting" of the "facts and circumstances" regarding the 9/11 attacks. He has put himself forward as an expert regarding NORAD's response that morning. If he can't answer these questions, then that would say something about the 9/11 Commission, and how well they fulfilled their mandate wouldn't it?

Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Jon Gold on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 7:20am.

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1 vote

& he worked for the Senate commission

truthoverprofit on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 8:07am.

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1 vote

Yes he did...

Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Jon Gold on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 8:09am.

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Kara's 2 responses are a 'net positive'

'net positive' is what Kara said about the effect the exercises had on NORAD response- I’m kidding, but I’m serious, as I’ll explain below.

First- i forgot to paste in the intro, so I'll just put it here:

"June 2009, 9/11 Commission Team 8 staff member Miles Kara launched a blog- 9/11 Revisited- and has been taking questions from the public, as well posting articles expanding on the 9/11 Commission’s work. In this open letter to Miles Kara I pose a set of questions that have been raised in various forms since 9/11, and since the release of the 9/11 Commission Report. In addition, there are new questions based on 9/11 Commission records released to the National Archives, January 2009. Hopefully, Miles Kara will fill in the details."

Miles Kara was a principal member of Team 8, which investigated FAA/NORAD procedures and response on 9/11. While not really answering my questions, Kara has provided quite a number of details in the 2 responses so far- overt facts, as well as things between the lines in how he chose to respond; these will be studied.

Obviously, Kara’s not blowing the whistle on the Commission; but a 9/11 Commission staffer, someone who worked on the investigation and is a witness to its work, is providing further info to the public, and this is a positive development, imho. Even better is that he's engaging with the public.

Take a look at Kara’s resume:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15740898/FO-B1-Commission-Meeting-41003-Fdr-Ta...

Whatever he says, true or false, fact or spin, is useful. Facts and details are helpful in establishing what happened, and what needs further investigation. Omission and distortion discredits the 9/11 Commission and the OCT, and provides additional justification for full investigations with the power to subpoena witnesses and documents.

This set of questions was about exercises, and if full, straight answers aren’t forthcoming, at some point I’ll remind Kara that these questions, many of which (in different words) were posed to the Commission by the families, remain unanswered.

Next set of questions is going to be about FAA/NORAD response on 9/11, and whatever he answers, even if he ignores them, will be part of the public record.

The articles Kara has planned are likely to provide many new details as well, even if they raise still more questions:

http://www.oredigger61.org/
“In the works:

9-11: Rules of Engagement, ‘weapons free,’ or not? This article will discuss the presence of two different sets of fighters in the skies over the nation’s capital, each with different rules of engagement.

9-11: NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle: The May 23, 2003 Briefing Charts, an addendum. This article will publish the poster boards used by Lt Col Scott to brief the Commission, with comment.

9-11: The Andrews Fighters, never a factor. In this article Iwill simply lay out the timeline for the Andrews fighters as determined from flight strips, radar, and air traffic control communications. The Commission Staff determined very early in its work that the Andrews fighters were not a factor that morning.

9-11: The Air Defense Response, first things first, the Scott trilogy (in three parts). In this series of three articles I will discuss the trio of 2002 articles in Aviation Week & Space Technology by Willam B Scott. The Scott articles detail the information that became the NORAD account of events of the day which the Commission Staff corrected. Historians and serious researchers will want to reread the Scott articles at some point. Scott’s work is among the first summations of the events of 9-11 and it was one of the starting points for the work of the Commission Staff”

http://911reports.com

loose nuke on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 11:30pm.

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1 vote

Just left Kara a reply:

Hi Miles, I was at the Archives til 9p and I don't go online there, except to research an occasional question.

Thank you for the 2 responses so far; you've provided many details and a lot of food for thought.

As you say, "We are both interested in making public as much of the Commission’s files as possible. We both have the same reason for doing that, to establish the facts of the day. To that end I will do what I can to assist with NARA."

You are correct; these are my goals, and I very much appreciate what you're doing toward those ends.

While some of my questions are challenging, I am only posing them as the answers are not yet clear, and as a human being and an American, I believe they should be.

Like you, I am not interested in debating. However, you posed a question to me: "What exactly is it that NORAD was supposed to do if they had received timely notification, which they did not? Once hijacked, a happening totally beyond NORAD’s control, those four planes were going to come down violently."

So I'll answer, based solely on the premise you posed above: NORAD should have "take[n] lives in the air to save those on the ground". As I noted in my open letter, "Your NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary" table lists at least 3 exercises which included a shoot-down scenario; Vigilant Guardian 10/26/98 and 9/6/01, and Amazon Condor 10/21/99."

I could say a lot more, but I'm going to leave it at this. I do hope you will answer a few more of the questions; 7 and 8 should be fairly simple, as they are about your Hijack Summary and how it was used for the interviews.

In any case, I am looking forward to your forthcoming articles.

Peace.

http://911reports.com

loose nuke on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 12:10am.

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1 vote

New reply from Kara and my response posted to him:

http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=67&cpage=1#comment-33
Oredigger 61 says:
July 3, 2009 at 6:37 am

Erik, good morning. I usually go to NARA in the morning hours and target my visits for finite boxes or to do specific things. For example, on my last visit I was allowed to take photos of the poster boards that NORAD (Scott) used at the May 23 hearing and I am ginning up an article to add that information to my NORAD piece. There are, by the way, 8 1/2 by 11 copies of those poster boards in Box 8.

I can’t answer question 7 and 8 without refreshing my memory on our NORAD trip. I’m not even sure I was in on the Merchant interview. We split up duties and I was pursuing whether or not CMOC had tapes/files of the ‘forward tell’ feed from NEADS and also in tracking down Cheri Gott. In box 8 you will find a couple of briefings that Cheri put together. The sound bite in my head is that Merchant characterized all of the injects as notional, someone’s imagination, not real world inspired.

In regards to my question, yes that is the NORAD response that is out there, but it ignores the key question. Those four planes were going to come down somewhere and someone on the ground was going to die, perhaps me. No one has thought through the specifics of how diversion/shooting down/ramming was going to save lives on the ground. That is what I am looking for.

I don’t mind continuing our conversation via PM, your approach is reasonable in this mode.

Back to NARA, did you know that you can reclama withdrawal notices that aren’t caveated as classified information or closed by statute?

Miles

My reply:

Hi Miles,

Thanks for the additional info- I’m looking forward to digging thru Box 8. Re; reclaiming Withdrawal Notices; nearly all the Withdrawal Notices for the most interesting material are labeled ‘classified’, ‘closed by statute’, ‘law enforcement sensitive’ and sometimes ‘personal privacy’. At this point I’m focused on reviewing box contents and scanning records- I hope to finish in July or August. After that I’ll be reviewing the Withdrawal Notices, requesting the ‘mandatory declassification review’ and submitting FOIA requests. Any help you provide on this is much appreciated- if you can get the Archives to make all interview transcripts public, that would be awesome.

Re: questions 7 and 8- it sure would be interesting to hear your responses, if you will. Regarding your point about NORAD intercept and shoot-down- I’ll address that at the end of my post here, but as questions 13 and 14 quote from a Commission Report passage which bears on the subject, I’m going to address this issue in more detail first:

1) “Exercise planners also assumed that the aircraft would originate from outside the United States, allowing time to identify the target and scramble interceptors.” (17)

In at least one exercise in your Hijack Summary (Amalgam Virgo 01-02), exercise planners did envision an aircraft on a suicide mission originating in the US. The description says, “Scenario fruition is ‘up to Blue Forces’”, so presumably shoot-down was an option being reserved in this case as well.

In addition, the 1974 plot by Byck cited in the Commission Report was to “commandeer a plane at Baltimore Washington International Airport with the intention of forcing the pilots to fly into Washington and crash into the White House to kill the president.” (561n21)

2) Why would exercise planners assume that aircraft originating outside the U.S. would give them “time to identify the target and scramble interceptors”? (17)

In one of the real-world examples cited by Comissioner Ben-Veniste at the May 23, 2003 hearing, the 1996 plot was to “hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and crash it into Tel Aviv.”

3) How is the distinction of aircraft “originat[ing] from outside the United States” meaningful in terms of NORAD’s threat-identification, its planning for its primary mission of ensuring sovereignty over U.S. airspace, and its ability to respond to real-world situations?

In total, the Hijack Summary lists 8 hijacks as originating in the U.S. Furthermore, as it’s a NORAD ‘hijack’ summary, it presumably excludes NORAD exercises in which non-hijacked aircraft (commercial or private) originating in the US (or outside) are used to deliver WMD.

4) The Hijack Summary dates to 10/25/98; what can you tell us about military exercises involving aircraft prior to that date?

DOD Document Request No. 4 asked for: “11. Intelligence scenarios and briefing papers for all national military exercises, since January 1993, in which a plane was hijacked and/or used as a weapon and which involved any of the following DoD entities: NORAD, JCS, and Special Operations Command (SOCOM).”

5) “The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airliners within the United States—and using them as guided missiles—was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.” (17)

Also at the May 23, 2003 hearings, Ben-Veniste cited numerous instances of planes being used as weapons, and that in “September of 1998, the intelligence community obtained information that Osama bin Laden's next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it.”

General McKinley responded, “It's obvious by your categorization that those events all took place and that NORAD had that information.”

6) Were the examples cited by Ben-Veniste at the May 23, 2003 hearing what the 9/11 Commission Report was referring to when it said, “Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including terrorists’ use of aircraft as weapons.”? (17)

Now, back to your question: “In regards to my question, yes that is the NORAD response that is out there, but it ignores the key question. Those four planes were going to come down somewhere and someone on the ground was going to die, perhaps me. No one has thought through the specifics of how diversion/shooting down/ramming was going to save lives on the ground. That is what I am looking for.”

NORAD’s primary mission has been ensuring sovereignty over U.S. airspace since at least 1974. Mitigating loss of life and property damage are secondary missions, but are served by maintaining the primary mission. If NORAD had been unable to shoot down AA 11, UA 175 or AA 77 over an unpopulated area, it’s possible people on the ground may have been killed or injured- but NORAD’s primary mission would have been accomplished. Shooting down the aircraft would also have served as a message that planes cannot be used to attack the U.S., which would in turn have advanced NORAD’s primary mission. Not doing so contributed to the perception that the U.S. was and is vulnerable. And as far lives lost on the ground on 9/11; presumably, if the planes had not hit the WTC Towers or the Pentagon, no one would have died in those locations- and nearly 3000 died in the Twin Towers.

Shooting down planes is obviously the last line of defense, not the preferred course of action. Events leading up to the FAA/NORAD response to the hijackings were investigated by other teams; if you could get colleagues from any other teams to launch blogs as well, that would be great.

Erik

http://911reports.com

loose nuke on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 2:50pm.

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Response from Miles Kara to mine

http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=67&cpage=1#comment-35
July 3, 2009 at 10:45 pm
Erik, I’ll need to see much more of our work files to even begin to address this. I’ll also need to take a look at the “Planes as Weapons” part of our work on the Joint Inquiry. The short answer, for now, is that no one put these isolated items into a threat statement that was actionable. There had not been a real-world hijack of CONUS interest for a decade and that one originated overseas. The paradigm at all levels of Government was that a hijacker would seek asylum, despite the occasional notional inject in an exercise to the contrary. No one had put together the threat that materialized on 9-11 and it wasn’t NORAD’s job to do that. That task belonged to the intelligence community and the law enforcement community.

Couple of additional points to consider. First, the only reason we had any CONUS air defense capability at all is the Air National Guard carved out a niche mission for itself. There were just 14 aircraft available. The focus was outward despite what occasional MESL in some exercises might say, all of which were notional, by the way. The policy was that any transponding aircraft that departed from a CONUS airport was friendly, by definition. NEADS and NORAD didn’t monitor commercial civilian aircraft at all, they had no reason to and didn’t have the assets or the capability to do so.

Given the plot as it unfolded and the notifications that were given, what is it that NORAD was supposed to do? Were they, alone, supposed to have been aware of the plot ahead of time? I think not.

We can chat at some point at NARA this summer if convenient. I doubt anyone other than me will be blogging.

I may end up filing some FOIA requests of my own to get at some of the underlying information, by the way.

Miles

http://911reports.com

loose nuke on Sat, 07/04/2009 - 9:48am.

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2 votes

thanks for posting Kara's resume

I honestly thought he was a kid from his responses here, but he's much older & retired. Been in the Army since the early 60's & has been doing military investigation work for much of his life.

truthoverprofit on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 6:18am.

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0 votes

thx for the chuckle

if he's lurking here (or his cousin), I'm sure he'll be pleased to know he gives people the impression of being youthful

http://911reports.com

loose nuke on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 2:52pm.

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5 votes

I believe...

This is Miles' response to this... NOT good in my opinion. He didn't answer several of the questions, he did NOT do as Erik requested regarding the posting of the questions, and he is putting too much emphasis on the FAA and NORAD's communications that morning when we all know that both the FAA and NORAD lied before the 9/11 Commission...

Eric, good morning, and nice to hear from you. I am relying heavily on you and your effort to get our work files in the public domain in some sensible fashion.

I can’t answer your questions piecemeal, I simply don’t have enough information in front of me and my recall from memory is problematic. For example, I had no active memory recall of the exercise spreadsheet until Phil Shenon jogged my memory.

Here’s part of the problem. What you are seeing in the NARA files is just the tip of the iceberg. NARA hasn’t even begun to touch our audo files or any of the electionic files, including master data bases. I have suggested that they make the audo file of our NORAD visit to J37 a high priority, by the way.

Let me comment on what I can, at this point. First, we are talking notional injects into exercises. There were no planes in the skies involved. There was a series of three Guardian exercises, NORAD, SpaceCom and StratCom; I think NORAD played in two of those, according to Myers testimony at the McKinney hearings. Those were both CPX. There was no impact on the air defense mission other than as I have stated–battle cabs were fully manned.

I don’t recall the DoJ exercise and I don’t recall working on that. Not sure how I got linked to that; please check how you made that equation.

Nothing detracted from the work on the NEADS floor; the only military element that actually ‘fought’ the battle that day. It is quite clear that the ID Techs are solely focused on getting any information they could and that the Surveillance Techs were continuously looking for tracks and that the WD/SD section under Fox was doing what it was supposed to be doing. I listened to these tapes multiple times and the concentration on the real-world task at hand is clear. Occasional exercise-related comments are just that; occasional and understandable.

We spent a lot of time working through this whole issue and at the end of the day it was an intervening variable, but not one that was significant.

I can comment on the NRO exercise since I’m the one that worked that. Eventually our released files will show that NRO provided us the details and there was nothing related to 9-11. NRO lives and works under one of the approach/takeoff paths to Dulles. They have long known that they were vulnerable to an accident. They scheduled an exercise predicated on an accidental crash, nothing more. There is no correlation to anything having to do with hijackings or with the events of 9-11 as they unfolded. The exercise was cancelled.

For now, let me close with a question of my own. What exactly is it that NORAD was supposed to do if they had received timely notification, which they did not? Once hijacked, a happening totally beyond NORAD’s control, those four planes were going to come down violently. I was about 1/4 mile from the Pentagon on 9-11, see the picture in my article on becoming a Commission Staff member, and I could easily have become a victim, depending on where AA77 came down.

Thanks again for your hard work on uploading files.

Miles

Here is every entry having to do with the FAA and NORAD on 9/11.

Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Jon Gold on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 10:11am.

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3 votes

huh

He said that there were no planes in the sky? Didn't general Arnold confirm that one of the exercises was a live fly drill? That means planes in the air ..

________________________
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zombie bill hicks on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 11:25am.

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2 votes

I don't remember that...

You tell me.

Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Jon Gold on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 3:33pm.

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1 vote

Oops

It was Major Don Arias who confirmed the meaning of "Warrior" from "Vigilant Warrior" to Mike Ruppert.. Warrior = JCS/HQ NORAD sponsored FTX, or field training exercise (live-fly)

From FTW:

"April 18 2004 USA Today article titled, "NORAD had drills of jets as weapons." The report cited NORAD officials who confirmed live-fly drills were conducted using hijacked airliners originating from the continental United States used as weapons crashing into targets including the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The specific drill USA Today referred to was "planned in July [2001] and conducted later" - likely on 9/11 itself"

zombie bill hicks on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 6:42pm.

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Lynn Spencer

"Bob Marr is in the battle cab expecting the Vigilant Guardian exercise to commence at any moment. Today's training exercise runs a number of scenarios, including a simulated hijacking in which the perpetrators overtake an aircraft for political purposes, directing it to an island in order to seek asylum".

Lynn Spencer, "Touching History", p. 24

Ms. Spencer's reporting is not always reliable, some errors are easy to spot. But why should she mention the exercise if it wasn't true?

A simulated hijacking...perpetrators overtaking an aircraft...directing it to an island...to make it short: Operation Northwoods

Woody Box on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 2:12pm.

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it's from the NORAD tapes

Michael Bronner also wrote about this for Vanity Fair in 2006 (link in my letter as well)
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608?printabl...

http://911reports.com

loose nuke on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 2:58pm.

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2 votes

Getting It Straight On NORAD

Where is the question asking why, since September 11, 2001, the big lie continues to be advanced by the government/media that NORAD didn't monitor American air space on 9/11 when it did? In 2004 the Air Force said:

"Before 2001, 1st Air Force was charged with keeping an eye on the nation’s borders, usually looking for threats in the form of Russian aircraft skirting too close for comfort to the mainland. In those few hours, the command’s mission went from looking outward to looking inward."

In 1997, NORAD contradictorily said:

"Aircraft flying over our air space are monitored seven days a week, 24 hours a day."

Further proof that NORAD monitored American air space on 9/11:

In 1997 Col. Dan Navin, special assistant to the commander of 1st Air Force said, "It will enhance our ability to do what many say is the most important job of the Air Force, and that is air sovereignty [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3731/is_199709/ai_n8766326]."

In 1994 the GAO said:

"NORAD defines air sovereignty as providing surveillance and control of the territorial airspace..[http://archive.gao.gov/t2pbat3/151250.pdf]. "

As Military Dictionary - Terms Defined says, "territorial airspace - Airspace above land territory, internal waters, archipelagic waters, and territorial seas."

As the above quotes positively prove (using official Federal government sources from BEFORE 2001), NORAD DID indeed monitor American and Canadian air space on 9/11.

By the way, before 9/11 NORAD's responsibility was to track hijacked air craft over the United States (see The NORAD Papers II article at www.DNotice.org). However, on 9/11 Flights 11, 175, 77 and 93 were ALSO in-flight emergencies demanding immediate scramble protocols, not the protocol directive put in place on June 1, 2001. On 9/11, lethal force and scrambling for hijacked aircraft demanded approval by the Secretary of Defense. Approval to scramble for in-flight emergencies was never required!

See the five articles on NORAD at www.DNotice.org

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

brian78046 on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 11:08pm.

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4 votes

More from Miles...

Erik, hi, I’ve given some thought to your lengthy list of questions and I want to provide you a response that helps further your own efforts.

First, let me estabish the common ground. We are both interested in making public as much of the Commission’s files as possible. We both have the same reason for doing that, to establish the facts of the day. To that end I will do what I can to assist with NARA.

Second, as I told Jon Gold, Kyle Hence, and Kevin, I am not interested in debating the facts of the day. That is counterproductive to my own stated objectives but more important for your own endeavors. What will happen is we will enter an endless “do loop” where I answer questions and the answers are found wanting, which leads to more questions, on ad infinitum.

As I told one of the three, in two cases where I was the sole staffer working the issue–Payne Stewart and the seismic 10:06 time for UA 93–it didn’t matter. The answers were not “right,” and not accepted in some quarters. I have now done that in a 3d case, NRO. I was the sole staffer working that issue and as I’ve told you it is a non-issue.

Third, I have my own question on the table. What is it, exactly, that NORAD was supposed to do? Take it one step further, given perfect information and the time to respond, what is it, exactly, that NORAD was supposed to do? I have had in place a Google Alert “9-11 Commission” since late 2004. I am not aware of anyone who has ever tried to answer that question. It is, in your world, the ‘elephant in the room.’ Might be time to acknowledge that.

Finally, I have a suggestion to help you and your colleagues further your own work in a meaningful way. It is ultimately not productive for you to engage in a continuing exchange with a single staffer whose personal recall on many of the facts of the day is nearly five years removed from the relevant work files. I submit that many of your colleagues intuitively understand this and its futility. So, if you are truly serious in getting at the issues of the day here is my suggestion.

First, write an article in a mainstream publication outside the ‘blogosphere.’ I suggest the Washington Post sunday magazine as I example of where to publish. Or, do as Michael Bronner did and publish in a magazine such as Vanity Fair.

Second, file suit in a court of your choice. I’m sure there are lawyers in your group who can take on this task.

Third, petition a Congressman or Senator to task the statutory Inspectors General to open an investigation. This is the course of action I recommend. Any number of people have had success doing this. The mother of a Marine killed in El Salvador in the ‘Zona Rosa Massacre.’ petitioned Senator Shelby to find out why her son died. Senator Shelby tasked multiple statutory Inspectors General to answer that question, in detail. A private citizen, Jose Basulto, CEO of Brothers to the Rescue, petitioned Representative Dan Burton to find out why Cuba MiGs were allowed to pursue him within three nautical miles of the Continental US. Representative Burton tasked the DoD Inspector General to answer that question, in detail. You will be interested to know that Jose Basulto leveraged his own website to further his cause. The POW/MIA concerned citizens petitioned Senator Bob Smith to champion their cause. He caused an ad hoc special committee to convene and, unhappy with those results, caused the concerned statutory Inspectors General to conduct a detailed investigation. Finally, Jennifer Harbury, widow of a slain Guatemalan guerrilla leader caused the US Government to investigate the death of her husband. That was accomplished through tasking to the statutory Inspectors General by the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board.

Erik, I have given considerable thought and have taken the time to give you a detailed response so that you have some meaningful options beyond just nitter-nattering with a single Staffer who happens to have started a blog site to continue his work on the events of the day of 9-11. I need time to do that and engaging in endless questions and answers is not the way I choose to go.

Amicably,

Miles

His question "what is it, exactly, that NORAD was supposed to do?"

Wouldn't this from 9/11 Family Member and "Jersey Girl" Patty Casazza answer his question?

Basically, from the outset, the planes... they didn't follow protocol. There should have, uh... planes sent to accompany the commercial airlines once transponder, which is the identification the FAA uses to track planes.... Once that went off, that's, in itself, reason enough for fighter jets to be sent up into the air, and it's not on.. they're not... their purpose isn't necessarily shoot down an errant plane, that's the last resort, but they do have the means to... um... they're supposed to go on the side of a plane, rock their wings, that's an indicator that the pilot should turn some type of communication on with these fighter jets, let them know that every thing's ok onboard, that... that... ya know, there isn't a hijacking, or a pilot hasn't, ya know, gotten sick. Um... All of those things can happen without you shooting down a plane, and those jet fighters could rock their wings, they can actually knock, if there were hijackers actually flying those planes, they could have knocked those people, um... off their feet. So, there were many measures that could have been taken, and should have been taken, and those were written in protocols, and were not followed on 9/11. And that's with FOUR commercial jet airliners having been hijacked. I ask you how is that possible? We spend more money in military than more than half the countries totaled in the world. And again, we couldn't get one plane up in time to accompany those four planes that were wildly off course.

With regards to his recommendations... what does he think we've been doing for all of these years? I've contacted every politician that has "represented" me several times over, and others that don't represent me, as I know others have as well. Does he not see how the media treats us? 9/11 is off limits. No one wants to touch it, and those that did, have been driven out of office. Blair Gadsby had a hunger strike outside of John McCain's offices, and was ignored for the most part. John McCain, an endorser of PM's "myths" book.

Do these people deserve to know how and why their loved ones were murdered? Do we deserve to know how and why 9/11 happened?

Jon Gold on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 7:01pm.

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7 votes

Well....

I still think he's a stooge, and that his 'blog' is little more than a weak propaganda deception effort.

(Which obviously isn't designed to cope with the well-sourced intellectual violence from History Commons)

What should NORAD have done? HOW ABOUT THEIR DAMN JOB? Are you kidding me?!?! And absent that: REPRIMANDS and CONSEQUENCES for those who FAILED. JAIL TIME for those WHO THEN LIED ABOUT IT. But we all know they weren't meant to succeed.

I can't believe the insolence with this stooge, my blood is boiling. This guy isn't on the level, come on, it's so obvious.

Yes, 'cousin of Miles Kara' who 'follows the blog world', you can relay that back.

This is also a tactic, start injecting the meme that NORAD's failure was actually normal. Repeat it enough, we might start believing it. WELL NOT ME.

SnowCrash on Thu, 07/02/2009 - 7:52pm.

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2 votes

couldn't agree more with this post

thanks snowcrash

gerard on Fri, 07/03/2009 - 9:44am.

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0 votes

Get The Facts On NORAD Correct, Or Lose The Debate

SnowCrash,

it seems the 9/11 Truth Movement hasn't learned one thing since the publication of the articles on NORAD last year. The question isn't that NORAD's failure was normal, the question is why does the government/media continue to lie about NORAD's true monitoring capabilities. If NORAD didn't monitor American air space on 9/11 (which DNotice.org proved false), then NORAD's failure certainly could be explained as normal, or not unexpected. However, since NORAD did monitor American air space on 9/11, NORAD's failure is not normal, plus the government/media blatantly continue to lie about NORAD's true monitoring capabilities on 9/11.

It's time the 9/11 Truth Movement affirms NORAD's true air sovereignty mission over American skies, and stops debating opponents on the opponent's ground. If the 9/11 Truth Movement debates opponents under the mistaken assumption that NORAD didn't monitor American skies, then it will lose every debate!

Dean Jackson/Editor-in-Chief DNotice.org
Washington, DC

brian78046 on Sat, 07/04/2009 - 1:01pm.

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3 votes

Brian

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that NORAD monitored and monitors American air space, before and after 9/11. Your contribution to the establishment of that fact is very much appreciated, there is no need to assume that anybody here doesn't know or disagrees.

SnowCrash on Sat, 07/04/2009 - 4:02pm.

Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises by Erik Larson

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