PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Pittsburghers, PLEASE consider a few deadly serious questions.
by a concerned citizen in Pittsburgh Sunday, Feb. 29, 2004 at 6:46 PM

The red pill is difficult to swallow, and harder to digest.

1. Why did NORAD fail to follow its own standard operating procedure to protect U.S. airspace on the morning of September 11, 2001? (NORAD routinely sends up jet fighters to intercept--which is NOT to say shoot down--any errant civilian aircraft upon notification of such aircraft by the FAA. Airborne fighters failed to intercept multiple known hijacked commercial airliners, and finally arrived over Washington DC airspace a few moments after American Airlines Flight 77 was reported to have hit the Pentagon--40 minutes after the 2nd WTC hit. All four hijacked airliners flew directly over numerous U.S. bases on their flights to doom.) Why was the world's most powerful nation under attack for more than an hour without any response from our air defense system, celebrated as the best in the world? See chart below.

2. Why did George W. Bush choose to sit and read a book about goats and pose for photographs with a 2nd-grade classroom of 7-year-olds for nearly one half hour after being informed of the 2nd WTC crash, instead of immediately addressing the obvious attack on the nation in his official capacity as President and Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces? His activities that morning are on videotape, courtesy of Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, at various websites.

3. What did George W. Bush mean when he claimed on two occasions to have seen the first airplane hit the WTC on live television? http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-17.html and http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020105-3.html

4. How can it be possible for U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to have been "not aware" of any attack on the nation until his own building was blown up, 40 minutes after we all knew we were under attack? Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 28, 2001

5. Why have George W. Bush and Dick Cheney actively worked against any independent investigation of September 11, and why do they continue to stonewall the only commission named to investigate the intelligence failures that may have led to the successful September 11 attacks? Washington Times, January 27, 2003

6. Why did the Bush administration give safe air passage out of the U.S. to the closest relatives of Osama bin Ladin, whom they had named as the probable perpetrator of September 11, immediately after the attacks at a time when all commercial U.S. air traffic was grounded? Associated Press, September 30, 2001

7. What scientific evidence supports the thesis that a few thousand gallons of refined kerosene, which is what jet fuel is, can melt down and destroy 1/4 mile of structural steel?

8. What scientific evidence might explain why one speeding commercial airliner explodes upon striking a steel-structure building, but a second, identical aircraft simply melts into a second, identical structure?

9. What scientific evidence might explain how an airplane can penetrate a steel-reinforced granite wall and disappear completely while leaving said wall standing intact for 25 minutes? And where is the Boeing 757 here? http://www.cnn.com2002/US/03/07/gen.pentagon.pictures/index.html

10. How soon do you think it might be before we all wake the hell up and realize that we have been taken over, by our own?

NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND
News Release
DIRECTORATE OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND,
250 S Peterson Blvd, Suite 116, PETERSON AFB, CO 80914-3190
(719) 554-6889 Website: <http://www.norad.mil/>



Contact: (719) 554-6889 18 September, 2001
NORAD’s Response Times
PETERSON AFB, Colo. --The following timelines show NORAD’s response to the airliner hijackings on September 11, 2001.
* All times are Eastern Daylight Time; NEADS = North East Air Defense Sector, NORAD
** Scramble = Order to get an aircraft airborne as soon as possible
***Estimated = loss of radar contact
**** Flight times are calculated at 9 miles per minute or .9 Mach
***** The FAA and NEADS established a line of open communication discussing AA Flt 77 and UA Flt 93
American Airlines Flight 11 – Boston enroute to Los Angeles
FAA Notification to NEADS 0840*
Fighter Scramble Order (Otis Air National Guard Base, Falmouth, Mass. Two F-15s <http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/F_15_Eagle.html>) 0846**
Fighters Airborne 0852
Airline Impact Time (World Trade Center 1) 0846 (estimated)***
Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location Aircraft not airborne/153 miles
United Airlines Flight 175 – Boston enroute to Los Angeles
FAA Notification to NEADS 0843
Fighter Scramble Order (Otis ANGB, Falmouth, Mass. Same 2 F-15s as Flight 11) 0846
Fighters Airborne 0852
Airline Impact Time (World Trade Center 2) 0902 (estimated)
Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 8 min****/71 miles
American Flight 77 –Dulles enroute to Los Angeles
FAA Notification to NEADS 0924
Fighter Scramble Order (Langley AFB, Hampton, Va. 2 F-16s <http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/F_16_Fighting_Falcon.html>) 0924
Fighters Airborne 0930
Airline Impact Time (Pentagon) 0937(estimated)
Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 12 min/105 miles
United Flight 93 – Newark to San Francisco
FAA Notification to NEADS N/A *****
Fighter Scramble Order (Langley F-16s already airborne for AA Flt 77)
Fighters Airborne (Langley F-16 CAP remains in place to protect DC)
Airline Impact Time (Pennsylvania) 1003 (estimated)
Fighter Time/Distance from Airline Impact Location approx 11 min/100 miles
(from DC F-16 CAP)
-30-

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