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Indybay Feature

Cheney appears to order stand-down, allowing Pentagon crash

by Craig McKee
The accounts of Dick Cheney, Norman Mineta and the 9/11 Commission all disagree with each other. Mineta's appears to point to a stand-down order from Cheney to let Flight 77 crash.
Did Dick Cheney give orders to allow a plane, allegedly American Airlines Flight 77, to hit the Pentagon on the morning of Sept. 11?

It seems that he did if you listen to one of his own cabinet colleagues at the time.

Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told the 9/11 Commission in 2003 that when he arrived in the Presidential Emergency Operations Centre (PEOC) in the basement of the White House around 9:20 a.m. on Sept. 11, Cheney was already there, as was Mrs. Cheney. The second World Trade Center tower was hit at 9:03.

Mineta said that shortly after he arrived, he witnessed an exchange between Cheney and a young, unidentified man. Mineta seemed not to realize the importance of what he was saying. He told the commission:

“During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the vice-president, ‘The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out.’ And when it got down to, ‘The plane is 10 miles out,’ the young man also said to the vice-president, ‘Do the orders still stand?’ And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, ‘Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?’”

Mineta’s testimony places Cheney in the PEOC almost 40 minutes before the 9/11 Commission said he arrived (They say he got there around 10 a.m.) Keep in mind that the alleged crash of American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon is believed to have occurred at 9:38 a.m.

This testimony indicates that as the plane drew closer and closer to the Pentagon, the vice-president gave the order to do nothing. And this account contradicts the claim of Donald Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, who said they had no idea a plane was coming their way; this is why there was no evacuation of the Pentagon.

Somebody’s lying.

Is it Mineta? Not likely. He was very specific about the time, and he repeated the fact that Cheney was there before he arrived at 9:20 in an interview in 2007. And did he imagine the exchange about the approaching plane between Cheney and the young man? There’s no reason this member of the Bush team would want to call their own version of events into question. And he very specifically said it was Flight 77 they were talking about.

Mineta may have genuinely believed that Cheney was confirming an order to shoot down the incoming plane, but that makes no sense given what the young man said. If the order was to shoot the plane down, why would he have asked several times if the order stood? It was much more likely he was questioning the order because it was the unexpected order NOT to shoot the plane down.

Rumsfeld’s claim that he had no idea that a plane was headed towards the Pentagon 40 minutes after controllers knew the Flight 77 was hijacked stretches credulity to the breaking point – and contradicts other evidence. Cheney has already said in interviews he was on the phone with Rumsfeld shortly after arriving in the PEOC. If that was before 9:20 then Rumsfeld had to have known about the approaching plane. And if that’s true, why wasn’t the building evacuated?

You see the problem?

If Cheney is lying to get around the Rumsfeld problem, then he has another problem because his version actually contradicts what the 9/11 Commission concluded.

The 9/11 Commission had Cheney not reaching the PEOC until almost 10 a.m., 20 minutes after the Pentagon crash. He claimed to have been in the corridor from about 9:40 talking to the president on the phone. But Cheney said he learned about the Pentagon crash once he was in the PEOC. Are we to believe that he talked to the president for 20 minutes and didn’t find out about the Pentagon crash?

Cheney told Tim Russert of Meet the Press that he heard about the Pentagon crash once he was in the PEOC . This would mean that he was there after the 9:38 crash. What’s convenient about the commission’s version is it means that the exchange reported by Mineta could not have taken place – unless they were talking about the plane that crashed in the field in Pennsylvania.

And that’s exactly how the story goes according to the 9/11 Commission and an account by journalist Bob Woodward in The Washington Post in January 2002.

Both Woodward and the Commission turn the whole thing around and make it an exchange between Cheney and a young man about Flight 93, which was heading for Washington when it crashed. In this account, it was Cheney who wanted the plane stopped and it was the young man who kept hesitating.

As I said before, this isn’t believable. It contradicts Cheney’s statements to Russert that he was told of a plane headed for the White House shortly after 9:30. That could only have been Flight 77.

And the young man wouldn’t keep asking if the order still stands if the order was to shoot the plane down. They would simply have shot the plane down. But they didn’t. They didn’t shoot any planes down. Four planes were off course and out of communication but none was intercepted, let alone shot down.

Oh, I almost forgot. Mineta’s account of Cheney and the young man was omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report. And video of his testimony on the point is inexplicably missing from the Commission’s video archive.
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by Mike Novack
"Rumsfeld’s claim that he had no idea that a plane was headed towards the Pentagon 40 minutes after controllers knew the Flight 77 was hijacked stretches credulity to the breaking point – and contradicts other evidence. Cheney has already said in interviews he was on the phone with Rumsfeld shortly after arriving in the PEOC. If that was before 9:20 then Rumsfeld had to have known about the approaching plane. And if that’s true, why wasn’t the building evacuated?
You see the problem?"

See how you have fooled yourself confusing forknowledge and afterknowledge? Knowing that the plane's traget is SOME place in the vicinity of Washington DC does NOT allow one to conclude "the Pentagon". Why oreer that building evacuated instead of the Capitol Building, the White House, the House-Senate Office Building, the Washington Monument, etc. etc. etc. BTW -- the same problem with the demolition charges planted in the World Trade Center buildings. No time to do that AFTER the planes hit and before they couldn't possibly know WHAT in NYC was the exact target.

So yes, of course they lied and are lying and covering up (it's what they do) BUT you have no idea about WHAT.
by reader
Too bad the origin of this article, truthandshadows.wordpress, is full of no planes hoax articles.

Recommended Reading:

A Dozen Questions About Flight 77 and the Pentagon That Might Lead to Justice, and One That Won’t
http://911truthnews.com/a-dozen-questions-about-flight-77-and-the-pentagon/
October 18, 2010
Author: Kevin Ryan
Source: Visibility911.com
Category: COMMENTARY

There are many questions to be answered about the events at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. Here are a dozen such questions that, if answered, might help to bring about justice.

1. Exactly how was Flight 77 hijacked, considering, among other things, that the alleged hijackers were said to be identified as security risks (possibly linked to al Qaeda) when they tried to board, and were not physically imposing (all 5 and a half feet tall or less, and slender in build)?[1]

2. How was the nation’s air defense system disabled on 9/11, and how could anything have hit the Pentagon approximately 80 minutes after the first plane was known to be hijacked?

3. Why was Dick Cheney tracking Flight 77?[2]

4. Why were explosive experts, who had a history of covering-up the OKC bombing and have since been accused of obstructing other investigations, hired to write the FEMA report? (Mete Sozen and Paul Mlakar).[3],[4]

5. Why did the roof of the Pentagon collapse 30 minutes after impact, giving additional evidence for the use of explosives? Note: The use of explosives at the Pentagon seems to be in agreement with the use of a large plane, which would have had little penetrating power.

6. Why was AMEC, the company that had just finished refurbishing Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, hired to lead the clean-up effort at Ground Zero?[5]

7. Why did the NTSB not make public reports on any of the planes as is the normal procedure?[6]

8. Why did none of the planes squawk the hijack code?

9. Why was the official explanation for alleged phone calls made by Flight 77 passenger Barbara Olsen changed several times, and ultimately how could Ted Olsen’s story make any sense?[7]

10. Why did high-ranking Pentagon officials cancel travel plans for the morning of September 11 “…apparently because of security concerns.”?[8]

11. How could Hani Hanjour still have successfully piloted Flight 77 given his poor qualifications?[9]

12. Why are those interested in The Pentagon not intently reviewing documents released by the FAA and 9/11 Commission that reveal startling questions about the aircraft and events of that day?[10]

Why are these questions NOT being pursued by independent investigators? That’s because the attention of many potential investigators has been hijacked by the much less useful question of “What hit the Pentagon.” This is certainly the favorite subject of intentional disruptors and official story supporters.

A great example was when 9/11 Commission staffer Miles Kara and I exchanged messages a few months ago. He had written to my local group in an inquiry seeking support for his positions. My response was apparently not to his liking, and he therefore sought something in my own work that could be criticized. Despite the fact that the vast majority of my 9/11 work has centered on the World Trade Center, Army intelligence officer Kara searched through my articles and presentations over the last seven years and chose one minor statement I made about the Pentagon, in March 2006. He then enlarged this into his own emotional statement, suggesting that those who question what hit the Pentagon do “a disservice to the men, women and children who died there that day. Visit the Pentagon Memorial and sit on the bench of the youngest victim.“[11] Kara was most interested in discussing what hit the Pentagon only so that he could turn the issue into an emotional question about the victims. That is usually the case with mainstream media hit pieces, and with intentional disruptors as well.

The question of what hit the Pentagon leads directly to the question of what happened to the passengers, as Miles Kara was trying to insinuate. That fact was also emphasized by the leading promoter of the “fly-over” theory when he gave a presentation in Europe recently. His presentation ended with the questions he really wanted us to think about.

“Demand answers to the question of what happened to the people on the plane.”

“How did they really die?”

“Where they killed them, how they killed them, I can’t know.”

“I can only know what the witnesses tell me.”[12]

Is this a good way to encourage people to question 9/11, and to bring justice? Obviously not.

Finally, note that “endorsements” are a good way to pit people against each other, and that’s exactly what has been done. There has never been another issue in the truth movement that has required the pursuit of endorsements but, for some reason, this least important question about the Pentagon is promoted as an important issue requiring us to divide into camps. Divide and conquer is the strategy of the intentional disruptor.

In other words, what hit the Pentagon does not bring us closer to justice but actually brings us farther from that goal because it exacerbates the divisions within the truth movement while we waste time. That’s probably why the intentional disruptors and government supporters always drive the conversations to that one question.

People who are serious about 9/11 truth and justice focus on the facts that help us come not only to truth, but to a useful truth. We should make only minimal reference to any facts that do not help us achieve truth and justice. Instead, we should make note that what hit the Pentagon, for example, is a minor and nearly useless issue that is used by intentional disruptors and official story promoters as they work to keep the truth from being exposed.
______________________________________________________________________

[1] Complete 911 Timeline, American Airlines Flight 77, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=aa77

[2] Norman Mineta’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission makes clear that Dick Cheney was tracking Flight 77 while it was more than 50 miles away from Washington DC. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bDfdOwt2v3Y

[3] Mete Sozen has since become a leading spokesman for the official story about the WTC as well. For more about him, see my articles “Looking for Truth in Credentials: The Peculiar WTC ‘Experts’”, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=RYA20070313&articleId=5071 and “Finally, an apology from the National Geographic Channel”, http://911blogger.com/news/2009-08-22/finally-apology-national-geographic-channel

[4] Some very seriouis accusations have been made against Paul Mlakar by Prof. Raymond B. Seed of the University of California, Berkeley, Letter entitled Re: New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina, And the Soul of the Profession, October 30, 2007, http://911blogger.com/news/2010-10-15/pentagon-investigation-leader-paul-mlakar-obstructed-investigation-new-orleans-according-uc-berkeley-professor

[5] Kevin R. Ryan, Demolition Access to the WTC Towers: Part Four – Cleanup, 911Review.com, February 11, 2010, http://911review.com/articles/ryan/demolition_access_p4.html

[6] 911Research.com, NTSB Reports: Long-Hidden NTSB Reports Contain Flight Data, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/ntsb.html

[7] David Ray Griffin, Ted Olson’s Report of Phone Calls from Barbara Olson on 9/11: Three Official Denials, GlobalResearch.ca, April 1, 2008, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8514

[8] The Family Steering Committee for an Independent 9/11 Commission, http://www.911independentcommission.org/

[9] Complete 911 Timeline, Hani Hanjour, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&the_alleged_9/11_hijackers=haniHanjour

[10] See the FOIA responses obtained by the 9/11 Working Group of Bloomington,

http://www.911workinggroup.org/

Also see the documents released by the 911 Commission,

http://archives.gov/legislative/research/9-11/commission-memoranda.html

Here’s an example:

UAL and AAL employees: Contradictions about transponders. ACARS data missing. UAL had radar continuity.

http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-01098.pdf

Many of the documents are just cover pages saying the information is still “Restricted”. These include interviews of the CIA agents, Prince Bandar, and the first responders.

[11] Miles Kara, Archive for the ‘Bloomington Group’ Category, 9/11 Revisited website, http://www.oredigger61.org/?cat=25

[12] Parody video of CIT tour and presentation in which, at 02:18, the speaker tells his French audience the reasons why CIT is working so hard. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx0tFvlQ2F0&feature=player_embedded
by Andrea Iacino
Learning that Dick Cheney was commander in Chief during the 9/11 attacks is just the icing on the cake. Dick Cheney helped to orchestrate this whole thing.The greed of OIL.....That's what it all about....Things did not turn out as planned...It is really difficult to stomach the idea of such a conspiracy...come on,Bush's brother in charge of security at the twin towers,Osama Bin Laden,CIA,Bush and Bin Laden family,close friends,the unusual stock trading of American and United airlines stocks,the fact that FEMA had arrived in NewYork City,the day before.Norad,playing identical war games...right..I also find it extremely odd that no airplane parts,pieces of office furniture,parts of the plane...nothing survived the attack,except the passports of two persons arrested for this terrorist act..Now,that is incredible..Don't you think??The planes were A-3 Sky Warriors,that had been completely retrofitted,on the down low,in the dark of night,at Fort Collins -Loveland, a small municipal airport in Colorado.
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