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Response to Sept. 11 Attacks
Associated Press
Was Confused, Panel Finds
June 17, 2004
The terror strikes of Sept. 11, 2001 overwhelmed all immediate efforts to counter or even comprehend their scope, a bipartisan commission reported Thursday, and spread confusion to the point that Vice President Dick Cheney mistakenly thought U.S. warplanes shot down two aircraft.
The front line civilian and military agencies struggled to "improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet," the panel said. "We fought many phantoms that day," Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the panel. He noted that reports of car bombings and other terrorist acts spread quickly -- and falsely -- in the nerves-on-edge hours after the World Trade Center and Pentagon were struck by planes hijacked by terrorists.
The commission issued its findings as it held the final public session of a momentous review of the worst terror strikes in the nation's history. The panel is expected to make a final report next month into the events that killed nearly 3,000 people.
The commission said efforts to respond to four hijackings that day were plagued on multiple fronts. The FAA failed to notify the military that one of the four planes had been hijacked. The FAA also incorrectly told the military that the first plane to crash into the World Trade Center was still in the air after impact. A report recounting the details of what happened with each of the planes was read aloud before an audience that included victims' relatives. The reading of the report was interspersed with tape recordings from the planes and control towers that hadn't been heard in public before. Accompanying graphics traced the flight paths of the four planes.
A particularly haunting transmission came from the cockpit of American Airlines Flight 11, which took off from Boston and was the first plane to strike the World Trade Center. A person believed to be Mohamed Atta, the alleged ringleader of the 19 hijackers, who piloted the plane, is heard saying to passengers: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be O.K. We are returning to the airport." Later, Mr. Atta tells the passengers, "If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane."
Later, another tape was played of a transmission from United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in a Pennsylvania field after passengers fought back against the hijackers. On the transmission, a hijacker is heard telling passengers "there is a bomb on board."
The report detailed a series of missteps by aviation and military officials that squandered precious minutes between the time air traffic controllers became aware of the first hijacking and the crash of Flight 93 more than an hour later. And it recounted confusion at the Federal Aviation Administration and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (Norad) that led to delays in scrambling fighter jets to intercept the planes. Vice President Dick Cheney eventually issued an order to shoot down hijacked planes, but military pilots didn't receive it until the last of the four planes -- United Airlines Flight 93 -- crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers fought back against the hijackers. Mr. Cheney said he received the authorization in an earlier phone call with President Bush.
The report largely blamed inadequate emergency procedures that contemplated more time to react to a traditional hijacking rather than a suicide hijacking. "Norad and the FAA were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001," the report said. "They struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet."
In many cases, the panel praised the actions of government personnel forced to make split-second decisions. In the hours just after the attacks occurred, nearly 4,500 planes in the air had to be landed as quickly as possible. To do that, air-traffic controllers first had to reroute about a quarter of them -- juggling 50 times the usual number of planes rerouted each hour. "We do not believe that an accurate understanding of the events of that morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel," the report said.
The commission is winding down its 1 1/2-year investigation after interviewing more than 1,000 witnesses, including President Bush, and reviewing more than two million documents. It will issue a final report by July 26 that will include recommendations on how the government can improve its homeland defense.
"The real issue is first establishing the facts minute-by-minute," said Republican commissioner John Lehman, a former Navy secretary. "Who knew what when? What orders were given? From there we can learn the lessons of what went right." The report said air-traffic controllers realized at 8:24 a.m. on Sept. 11 that Flight 11 was being hijacked, but lost several minutes notifying layers of command -- according to protocol -- before contacting Norad. The plane crashed at 8:46 a.m. Controllers, meanwhile, didn't realize American Airlines Flight 77 -- which took off from Dulles Airport outside Washington -- might be hijacked when it mysteriously started veering off course at 8:54 a.m. The plane then traveled undetected for 36 minutes toward Washington, due in part to a radar glitch. The confusion meant only an unarmed military cargo plane could be diverted to track the plane. The plane located Flight 77 but could do nothing as the commercial jetliner crashed into the Pentagon.
Other findings by the commission:
• When President Bush was told of the multiple hijackings, according to notes of the call, he told Vice President Cheney: "Sounds like we have a minor war going on here, I heard about the Pentagon. We're at war. .. Somebody's going to pay."
• Although Norad officials disagree, fighter jets might not have been able to intercept United Flight 93, believed to be headed for the Capitol or the White House. It crashed into a Pennsylvania field after passengers stormed the cockpit. "Their actions saved the lives of countless others," the panel said.
On Wednesday, the commission reported al Qaeda originally envisioned a much larger attack and is working hard to strike again, most likely in the form of a chemical, radiological or biological attack.
The commission staff said Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed initially outlined an attack involving 10 aircraft targeting both U.S. coasts. Mr. Mohammed proposed that he pilot one of the planes, kill all the male passengers, land the plane at a U.S. airport and make a "speech denouncing U.S. policies in the Middle East before releasing all the women and children," the report said. Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden rejected that plan as too complex, deciding instead on four aircraft piloted by hand-picked suicide operatives.
The commission also said there was no evidence of a "collaborative relationship" between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.
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