9/11: DONALD RUMSFELD'S FANTASY TESTIMONY

  MISSING IN ACTION:  HONEST TESTIMONY ON 9/11

By Gordon Duff STAFF WRITER/Senior Editor

Why is 9/11 the cover up that just fails to die?  What can never be refuted by anyone?  No matter what Glenn Beck, infotainment clown for Israeli owned Fox News does to spin his "tin foil hat" brigade, good old Glenn can’t explain away Donald Rumsfelds bizarre testimony to the 9/11 Commission that takes "conspiracy" into reality.

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) told the 9/11 Commission (pg. 34) in public testimony, May 2003 that they received a hijack notification from the FAA for United flight 93 at 9:16AM on 9/11.  Here begins years of lies, still unraveling, still haunting us.

The 9/11 Commission decided NORAD was lying to them.  If this was the truth, then Brigadier General Winfield’s statement saying Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had dematerialized somehow for 30 minutes, in sworn testimony, starts to collapse the house of cards.

In April, 2009, 9/11 Commission members admitted that they had based the conclusions in their report, conclusions like their belief NORAD lied to them about the time of the first hijacking report, on testimony and documents they now believe were lies themselves.

The Commission requested a criminal investigation to look into this but was refused by John Ashcroft.  The following is an excerpt from an earlier investigative report by VT:

Farmer states…"at some level of the government, at some point in time…there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened… I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described …. The [Norad air defense] tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years…. This is not spin. This is not true."

Does this mean attempts to cover Rumsfeld’s mysterious disappearance now need to be explained?

9/11 Commission head, Thomas Kean, Republican governor of New Jersey had the following to say… "We to this day don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us, it was just so far from the truth. . . "  When Bush’s own handpicked commission failed to go along with the coverup and requested a criminal investigation, why was nothing done?   

Never in our history has the disappearance of one person been so vital to the security of our country or had such a profound effect on history.  The 9/11 Commission’s original report, now admittedly fatally flawed was a "two and two equals three" whitewash in the first place.

The report, written in the middle of active combat operations in the Middle East on two fronts, had no choice but to rubber stamp the "flavor of the day" blind patriotic obedience to what we now know was a preplanned invasion of Iraq which could only be fulfilled with fraudulent intelligence reports and a timely terrorist attack, conveniently supplied on 9/11.

Any real attempt to damn Rumsfeld as fool, clown, incompetent or criminal mastermind must use his own words, sworn testimony to the 9/11 Commission itself.

The Commission was a disappointingly careless and relatively pointless attempt to put something, anything, on paper and move on, disturbing the status quo as little as possible.  With the Patriot Acts passed and the country involved in a witch hunt against terrorists, real or imagined, a period of secret prisons, torture and continual accusations of "terrorist sympathizer" being leveled at anyone looking for an honest accounting of fact, who could blame them.

Not everyone on the Commission was blind and stupid.  Of the entire work of the Commission, costing tens of millions of dollars and thousands of man hours, the few moments of questions and testimony below stand out as gems.

The benefit of historical context allows us to now know that the CIA and Department of Defense were conducting war exercises on 9/11, meant specifically to prepare for hijackings likely to result in aircraft being used as weapons.

These war games that included NORAD and the Air Force were called:  VIGILANT GUARDIAN, VIGILANT WARRIOR, NORTHERN GUARDIAN AND NORTHERN VIGILANCE.  Taking this into account and knowing that Secretary Rumsfeld would have been informed of the hijackings at 9:16 AM, his testimony below becomes enigmatic and, perhaps, a bit more, especially considering Rumfeld and Myer had two years to get their story straight: 

Ben Veneste:  Well, it is correct that the United States intelligence community had a great deal of intelligence suggesting that the terrorists, back since 1994, had plans, discussed plans, to use airplanes as weapons, loaded with fuel, loaded with bombs, loaded with explosives.

There were plans in ’97 using a UAV. In ’98, an Al Qaida- connected group talked about flying a commercial plane into the World Trade Center. In ’98, there was a plot broken up by Turkish intelligence involving the use of a plane as a weapon.

In ’99, there was a plot involving exploding a plane at an airport. Also in ’99, there was a plot regarding an explosive-laden hang-glider. In ’99 or in 2000, there was a plot regarding hijacking a 747. And in August of 2001, there was information received by our intelligence community regarding flying a plane into the Nairobi embassy, our Nairobi embassy.

And so I suggest that when you have this threat spike in the summer of 2001 that said something huge was going to happen and the FAA circulates, as you mentioned, a warning which does nothing to alert people on the ground to the potential threat of jihadist hijacking, which only, it seems to me, despite the fact that they read into the congressional record the potential for a hijacking threat in the United States, in the summer of 2001, it never gets to any actionable level.

Nobody at the airports is alerted to any particular threat. Nobody flying the planes takes action of a defensive posture.

I understand that going after Al Qaida overseas is one thing. But protecting the United States is another thing. And it seems to me that a statement that we could not conceive of such a thing happening really does not reflect the state of our intelligence community as of 2001, sir.

RUMSFELD: A couple of comments. I quite agree with you, there were a number of reports about potential hijacking. I even remember comments about UAVs.  I even have seen things about private aircraft hitting something. But I do not recall ever seeing anything in the period since I came back to government about the idea of taking a commercial airliner and using it as a missile. I just don’t recall seeing it. And maybe you do, Dick? 

(Editors note:  Can anyone see where a charge of perjury might apply here?)

MYERS: No, I do not.

(Editors note:  And here?)

BEN-VENISTE: Well, the fact is that our staff has — and the joint inquiry before us, I must say — has come up with eight or 10 examples which are well-known in the intelligence community. My goodness, there was an example of an individual who flew a small plane and landed right next to the White House.

RUMSFELD: I remember…. And a civilian aircraft was a law enforcement matter to be handled by law enforcement authorities and aviation authorities.

(Editors note:  Is Secretary Rumsfeld saying that an airliner hijacked by terrorists is a problem for local police?  Do they have F16s?)

GORELICK: So now I would like to talk about the aspects that were in your control. When the 1996 Olympics were being planned about what do we do when an aircraft is being hijacked and is flying into a stadium at the Olympics? What is the military’s response? What is it’s role?

And it has always been my assumption that even though, yes, you were looking out, that you have a responsibility to protect our airspace.

So my question is: In this summer of threat, what did you do to protect, let’s just say the Pentagon, from attack? Where were our aircraft when a missile is heading toward the Pentagon? Surely that is within the Pentagon’s responsibility to protect — force protection, to protect our facilities, to protect something — our headquarters, the Pentagon. Is there anything that we did at the Pentagon to prevent that harm in the spring and summer of ’01?

RUMSFELD: First let me respond as to what the responsibility of the Department of Defense has been with a hijacking. As I said, it was a law enforcement issue. And the Department of Defense has had various understandings with FAA whereby when someone squawks "hijack," they have an arrangement with the Department of Defense that the military would send an airplane up and monitor the flight, but certainly in a hijack situation, did not have authority to shoot down a plane that was being hijacked.

The purpose of a hijack is to take the plane from one place to another place where it wasn’t intended to be going, not to fly it into buildings.

(Editors note:  Is this more perjury?  Why had Secretary Rumsfeld ordered war games to protect against hijacked planes crashing into buildings, war games held on 9/11 by coincidence if one single statement in this answer is correct?)

GORELICK: Was it your understanding that the NORAD pilots who were circling over Washington D.C. that morning had indeed received a shoot-down order?

RUMSFELD: When I arrived in the command centre, one of the first things I heard, was that the order had been given and that the pilots — correction, not the pilots necessarily, but the command had been given the instructions that their pilots could, in fact, use their weapons to shoot down a commercial airliners filled with our people in the event that the aircraft appeared to be behaving in a threatening way and an unresponsive way.

(Editors note:  If crashing planes into the World Trade Center isn’t threatening or "unresponsive," what is?)

GORELICK: Now, you make a distinction there between the command and the pilots. Was it your understanding that the pilots had received that order?
 
MYERS: General Eberhart,told the staff, what he told me, as I recall, was that the pilots did — at the appropriate point when the authority to engage civilian airliners was given, that the pilots knew that fairly quickly. I mean, it went down through the chain of command.

(Editors note:  Did anyone understand this?)

RUMSFELD: It was on a threat conference call that it was given, and everybody heard it simultaneously. The question then would be — the reason I am hesitant is because we went through two or three iterations of the rules of engagement. And in the end, we ended up delegating that authority to, at the lowest level, I believe, to two stars.

(Editors note:  I wonder how long that took?  What is an "iteration" of a rule of engagement?  Did we need 3 of them?  Thousands were dying while Rumsfeld and Myer were "iterating" over and over.)

MYERS: Right.

(Editors note:  No matter how stupid something is, you can find a 4 star general in the Pentagon to salute it.)

RUMSFELD: And the pilot would then describe the situation to that level. To the extent that level had time, they would come up to General Eberhart. To the extent Eberhart had time, he would come up to me. And to the extent I had time, I might talk to the president, which in fact, I did do on several occasions during the remainder of the day with respect to international flights heading to this country that were squawking "hijack."

(Editors note:  Does an analogy involving horses, barns and doors apply here?)

GORELICK: I’m just trying to understand whether it is your understanding that the NORAD pilots themselves, who were circling over Washington, as you referred to in your statement, whether they knew that they had authority to shoot down a plane

RUMSFELD: I do not know what they thought. In fact, I haven’t talked to any of the pilots that were up there.

(Editor:  Finally, something we can believe.)

This is the official sworn testimony of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs Chairman, General Myers.  With all the conspiracy theories, with all the finger pointing, why not just start with the real record itself.

To Rumsfeld and Myer, the largest terror attack in history wasn’t their concern, it was a "law enforcement issue."  It isn’t like it was said once, as an accident.  It isn’t like Rumsfeld got mixed up when questioned about aircraft being used for terror attacks on buildings either.  That lie was repeated also, clear as a bell.  Can you imagine sitting thru this, hearing this and not shaking your head in disbelief? 

The 9/11 Commission built their report around testimony that supported these bizarre and conflicting assertions, discarding facts, discarding documents and picking only those things carefully supplied to put a lid on any further questions.

Now they claim they were lied to.   

There is no need for a theory or any wild conclusion.  What could paint a picture easier than this?  The same questions come thru even louder than before.  Were these men simply total idiots or are they criminal masterminds who simply forgot how to lie well?

A scout leader with 50 gigs of kiddie porn on his hard drive and a naked ten year old in his car trunk would have more credibility than these two.  And so it goes….

VT Senior Editor Gordon Duff is a Marine combat veteran and regular contributor on political and social issues.

Gordon Duff

Gordon Duff posted articles on VT from 2008 to 2022. He is a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War. A disabled veteran, he worked on veterans and POW issues for decades.

Gordon is an accredited diplomat and is generally accepted as one of the top global intelligence specialists. He manages the world’s largest private intelligence organization and regularly consults with governments challenged by security issues.

Duff has traveled extensively, is published around the world, and is a regular guest on TV and radio in more than “several” countries. He is also a trained chef, wine enthusiast, avid motorcyclist, and gunsmith specializing in historical weapons and restoration. Business experience and interests are in energy and defense technology.

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