blair

[fred]

By my reckoning the handbook they had prior 9/11 was generally based around the self preservation of the hijackers and communication.

On this day there was a new set of cards dealt and the US were still looking at their hand. Amid the confusion they were looking for one aircraft that had already crashed, and another that was effectively lost due to radar failure.

I still maintain that in that confusion and lots of aeryplanes trying to find one or two that don't want to be found is going to take a lot of work and coordination between Mil & Civ controllers, the time wasn't there.

Air traffic controllers are supposed to know where aeroplanes are, civilian and military. They have ever inch of sky mapped on radar, their planes have radar, they have satellites that can read a car numberplate. Missiles that can bring down an ICBM before it gets halfway across the Atlantic.

At 08:36 they knew where two planes were, AA11 and UA175, they were both in the same place, they almost collided directly over Stewart Airbase. UA175 at this time had not been hijacked and radioed the position of AA11.

What are the chances of the two planes which hit the towers almost colliding directly over an airforce base? One of the planes known to have been hijacked yet they still couldn't get an intercept up.

Coincidence?

[bekisman]

Talking about conspiracy theory: "I look forward to the trial of Sadam with great interest, I have a feeling if the truth is allowed to be let out people will realise things arn't just as black and white as they have been led to believe"

Ok, that was written by you in 2007, we're still waiting..

[fred]

Talking about conspiracy theory: "I look forward to the trial of Sadam with great interest, I have a feeling if the truth is allowed to be let out people will realise things arn't just as black and white as they have been led to believe"

Ok, that was written by you in 2007, we're still waiting..

Erm, Saddam was hung in 2006, can't think why I would say that in 2007.

Saddam was only ever tried on one charge, the deaths of 178 Shiites, they made sure he never got to testify on anything else.

Anyhow if you've had to resort to raking through the archives to try and dig up dirt to try and discredit me you don't have much of an argument.

[bekisman]

"raking through the archives "

Not me mate - ain't done that for ages

[Boozeburglar]

if you've had to resort to raking through the archives to try . . . and discredit me you don't have much of an argument.

Geez, wouldn't take any raking mate. Just about any of your posts discredits you.

[Phill]

Air traffic controllers are supposed to know where aeroplanes are, civilian and military. They have ever inch of sky mapped on radar, their planes have radar, they have satellites that can read a car numberplate. Missiles that can bring down an ICBM before it gets halfway across the Atlantic.

There is half the problem, their defences were watching everyone else and everywhere else and not their own back yard.

At 08:36 they knew where two planes were, AA11 and UA175, they were both in the same place, they almost collided directly over Stewart Airbase. UA175 at this time had not been hijacked and radioed the position of AA11.

What are the chances of the two planes which hit the towers almost colliding directly over an airforce base? One of the planes known to have been hijacked yet they still couldn't get an intercept up.

Coincidence?

Pre 9/11 the USAF had 14 aircraft on standby. 14 for the whole of the US, that shows you how little they were expecting anything like this. They have now around 100.

I can look at a screen right now that shows me pretty much every commercial airliner airborne in the UK and a large part of Europe, but only because they are transmitting the required info' they switch it off they become dots on a screen.
The terrorist changed codes that are used by aircraft, called squawks, these are what is used to identify aircraft by ATC. Normally there is a particular code used for hijacking, these guys used different and changing codes. Possibly the same as other aircraft, I don't know, that is a guess. But either way it makes for very difficult positive identification.

This was not some Hollywood blockbuster where a nerd taps a few buttons and all of a sudden satellites immediately alter course and within seconds are flashing up images. It really doesn't work like that, and the spy satellites they have, again my guess is they were not watching the lawn grow at the White house, they may have been reading number plates in Russia.
Satellites are held in set orbits or geostationary, they cannot be moved at the flick of a switch. Even today using emergency beacons which scream out their message it can take and hour or so to pin point it's exact location depending on where the satellites are positioned.

I can only guess that the US have similar readiness for aircraft, it may have been around the 10 minute mark from being scrambled. As I mentioned 14 across the US, 3 & half states ish per plane, is not a lot.
They may have plenty of aircraft on the ground, or in ex's as you pointed out, but these will not be battle ready, even if they had the ground crews prepared and the right aircraft it still would have taken at least an hour to get additional up.

Here's a conspiracy for you, they may have actually sent to unarmed jets up expecting to just guide 1 plane into an airfield at worse, at best they probably expected a false alarm.

[fred]

Pre 9/11 the USAF had 14 aircraft on standby. 14 for the whole of the US, that shows you how little they were expecting anything like this. They have now around 100.

I find that hard to believe, that the Country which spends more on defence than all other countries put together had only 14 combat ready planes. I find it especially hard to believe when they always did so well in the exercises staged by NORAD four times a year to test their readiness for dealing with things like hijackings, the exercises which prove America was expecting something like that, there is a lot of evidence they were expecting something exactly like that.

I find that hard to believe that pre 9/11 they only had 14 planes but what is even harder to believe, when the allarm bells had been ringing, is that on 9/11 they only had four.

Coincidence?

[Phill]

I find that hard to believe, that the Country which spends more on defence than all other countries put together had only 14 combat ready planes. I find it especially hard to believe when they always did so well in the exercises staged by NORAD four times a year to test their readiness for dealing with things like hijackings, the exercises which prove America was expecting something like that, there is a lot of evidence they were expecting something exactly like that.

I find that hard to believe that pre 9/11 they only had 14 planes but what is even harder to believe, when the allarm bells had been ringing, is that on 9/11 they only had four.

Coincidence?

4, yeah the four that covered North Eastern US. So going off what I said earlier they had about 14 States to cover so that sounds about right. NOT 4 covering the WHOLE US, 4 covering a section.
Pretty logical way of doing things.

Have a little read through this:
http://www.public-action.com/911/ebe...testimony.html

One pertinent part and the last line in bold which is key:
"Sir, FAA is charged with the primary responsibility in terms of hijacking in the United States of America. We are charged with assisting FAA once they ask for our assistance. As you know, the last hijacking of a commercial aircraft in the United States of America was 1991. So although we practice this, day in and day out, the FAA sees on their scopes scores of problems that are a result of mechanical problems, switch errors, pilot errors, et cetera, and that that's what they think when they see this. Although we have exercised this, we have practiced it, in most cases it's a hijacking like most of the hijackings, all of the hijackings I'm aware of, where we have plenty of time to react, we get on the wing, and we follow this airplane to where it lands and then the negotiations start. We were not thinking a missile -- an airborne missile that was going to be used as a target -- a manned missile if you will.
And in most cases when we practice this, regrettably we practiced it -- the origin of this flight was from overseas and we did not have the time-distance problems that we had on that morning. We had plenty of time to react. We were notified that for sure there was a hijacking and we were notified that they were holding a gun to the pilot's head and telling him to fly toward New York City or Washington, D.C. So that's how we had practiced this, sir.
I certainly wish we had practiced it differently, but I really think that, for sure in the first two instances, and probably in the third, the time and distance would not have allowed us to get an airplane to the right place at the right time."


On a comparison note, although I don't know what the UK's budget for defence is in relation to the US, the UK has 4 QRA aircraft to protect our skies at readiness, 5 if you count the VC10. Doubled since 9/11.

There are plenty more about, flying up and down, on exercises, in combat in Afghanistan, doing pretty little displays, in training etc. etc. etc.
But combat ready = 4/327
I don't know how many the USAF have but extrapolates this to the US and that would give them over 8000 fighters NOT available.

And as one of your links pointed out they did have weaponless aircraft up to "fight" off the foe, just as I said as an aside.

me, that's a coincidence


And yes they did seem to have covered a variety of hijacking possibilities in exercises, a very wide and varied selection.
But did they expect 4 on the same day, all from within the US?
They very obviously didn't.

They even had an exercise with a hijacked aircraft with WMD's on board, was that a coincidence or a conspiracy to bolster Mr Blair's claims.
There, I knew I'd get this nearly back on topic somehow!

[Stavro]

Ah, you're one of those "Coincidence Theorists", one of those people who have to see a coincidence in everything connected with 9/11.

In Sep 2000 a Neocon think tank called PNAC publish a report called "Rebuilding America's Defences" in which they outline their plans for American total domination of the world. They add "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

Then a year later when, quite by accident, many of those who wrote the report are members of the American government, there were these terrorists in a cave in Afghanistan and their leader, who by strange coincidence had a brother who was a business partner of the President of the United States...oh and his father sat on the board of a firm which specialised in investing in the arms industry with the president's father...decided to plan an attack on America which could not possibly succeed unless, by some strange coincidence, the US Airforce wouldn't be available to intercept that day. Then, by some strange coincidence the trading in United Airlines shot to 90 times normal levels, most of it put options, in the days prior to 9/11 a lot of the trading done by a bank, AB Brown, who's former Chairman, A B Krongard, was now, purely by coincidence of course, Executive Director of the CIA.

We haven't even got to the bit where the only three steel framed buildings ever to suffer complete and symmetrical collapse coincidently all happen at the same place on the same day yet and already it's starting to look a bit far fetched.

Yes, coincidence theorists have a lot of explaining to do unless, like Boozeburglar, they just resort to personal attacks.

As you will know, the BBC reported that the 47-storey WTC7 ("Soloman Building," I think was its name) to have "also collapsed" more than 26 minutes before it was actually blown up.

Anyone like to hazard a guess as to how the BBC had foreknowledge of an impending event like this?

I don't think it even comes under a "coincidence theory," unless the BBC are in the habit of reporting that steel-framed skyscrapers have "collapsed."

[Phill]

Anyone like to hazard a guess as to how the BBC had foreknowledge of an impending event like this?

Because the BBC have a reputation for cocking up the news stories, like many other media organisations.
Remember the Queen Mother fiasco.

The south west corner of WTC 7 had significant damage to it, estimated to around 20 floors. It also had significant debris fall on it from one of the towers.
Get a cardboard box that will take your weight, stand on it and then get someone to kick the corner in, see what happens.

[Stavro]

Because the BBC have a reputation for cocking up the news stories, like many other media organisations.
Remember the Queen Mother fiasco.

Wasn't just a cock-up though. It was news written ahead of the event. The only cock-up they made was in having it read too early.

The south west corner of WTC 7 had significant damage to it, estimated to around 20 floors. It also had significant debris fall on it from one of the towers.
Get a cardboard box that will take your weight, stand on it and then get someone to kick the corner in, see what happens.

Put some steel 'I'-beams in the cardboard box and note the difference.

[ducati]

Right, as you know I've been swayed by the overwhelming evidence of conspiracy, and changed camps. But just to get it straight in my own mind please let me recap:

Blair was lying about the belief in WMDs. He used this spurious argument to persuade the cabinet to support an illegal invasion of Iraq. That seems fairly straight forward and the reason he wanted to, was to inflate his own ego and help GW Bush get the oil.

That actually covers this thread.

Now we get to the juicy bits which are off topic:

9/11

There were 3 or poss even only 2 planes. They were flown by either: fanatical CIA agents or remote control or terrorists in the pay of the CIA

They did actually crash into the twin towers I'm pretty sure I saw that on the Telly (although Stavro missed it).

Having caught fire, the towers subsequently "fell" down taking an indeterminate number of other buildings with them. However, it wasn't as has been reported, the fire that felled them but a controlled demolition arranged by the CIA.

The third "plane" that crashed into the Pentagon building wasn't a plane at all, but a missile launched from somewhere in the USA or poss. by a ship or submarine or another aircraft.

I'm not sure what we decided about the alleged 4th plane that "Crashed" killing all on board.

We have established that the US Air Force and the civilian ATC are in it up to their necks.

And again the reason for all this was so GW Bush could persuade the American public and congress to support the invasion of Iraq so he could get the oil.

I think that about sums it up-thanks for your attention.

[Phill]

Right, as you know I've been swayed by the overwhelming evidence of conspiracy, and changed camps. But just to get it straight in my own mind please let me recap:

Blair was lying about the belief in WMDs. Yadda yadda yadda......

Wrong Wrong Wrong, here we go, I've succumbed:

Sometime in the late 1990's at a guess, or maybe earlier, the Bush family and various dynasties, big business', defence contractors, CIA, FBI, DoD, FAA, NORAD and Tony Blair started colluding on plans to dominate the World.
As a catalyst they dreamt up the 9/11 atrocity, followed by various other minor attacks including 7/7 in the UK.

They then go about the planning for this, and obviously they need to rig a few US elections first to ensure Dubya is gonna be boss at the required time. Obviously they did the same in the UK to get TB into No10.

Skip a few chapters.......

A team of explosive and demolition experts need to be brought in to plan the collapse of several skyscrapers, probably needing specialist advice from a team of civil and structural engineers. They then need to spend quite a bit of time beforehand in these building drilling and inserting TNT into all the appropriate building sections to feign the collapse, but it'll need to look good so they would have consulted some Hollywood SFX guys....hang on thats exactly what they did 'cos they got Bin Laden's face to appear in the smoke. OK add to the list smoke machines and fans to do the Face thing.

Then they need to get a group of pilots to agree to die for their country, err no, die for someone getting rich and World domination. Also they need to get them some acting lessons so they can be overheard in the cockpit being "hijacked" and make it sound plausible. And also get some asian guys also happy to die and create them a life history with Al Qaeda links and arrange some flying lessons etc. to make the story look good. And they need to cut a deal with Bin Laden to get him to take the wrap.

Skip some more chapters.....

OK, closer to 9/11. They need to buy off some FAA guys, ATC guys, and get the whole of the USAF to do, well nothing for a day without arousing suspicion.

Additionally they would have had to noble the might of the Secret Service and give all the agents and bodyguards the day off so no one would know where the government was so as to be sure no one could make a decision about blowing more stuff up. But Dubya screwed all this up by being on national telly at the time, bloody typical.

On the day they'll need good media coverage so they set up a load of people to be about New York with their cameras, how was this done, online competition for volunteers?

They also got the BBC onside, and one would assume hundreds of media agencies across the globe. They would have prepared a script to send out to all these agencies and even suggested good soundbites. Being scripted it would have needed a running order as well and all the auto cues loading up prior to broadcast, across the globe.
This is where the BBC in their part of the conspiracy dropped a booby and missed a few lines on the auto cue thus announcing the collapse of WTC7 in advance of the running order (did the producer get disciplined?).

A conspiracy made up from thousands of individuals, some of them to get no benefit other than to die. A conspiracy that was somehow global yet they were looking for world domination. A conspiracy of thousands of people where they would watch thousands of other people die and not one bottled it and spilled the beans. A conspiracy from the one of the most powerful nations in the world, the "Country which spends more on defence than all other countries put together" for world domination and they can't muster an invasion on there own.




Yeah, I'd buy that.

[fred]

And yes they did seem to have covered a variety of hijacking possibilities in exercises, a very wide and varied selection.
But did they expect 4 on the same day, all from within the US?
They very obviously didn't.

Not just in exercises, from Sep 2000 to June 2001 jets were scrambled 67 times to intercept off course aircraft and things, presumably every time they managed to actually find the aircraft to intercept them.

Except on 9/11 when with four to choose from they didn't manage to intercept one according to the official story.

[Stavro]

...

They did actually crash into the twin towers I'm pretty sure I saw that on the Telly (although Stavro missed it).

...

I watched this "live" on a TV in the window of Graham Begg's shop in Wick.

[ducati]

I watched this "live" on a TV in the window of Graham Begg's shop in Wick.

That's spooky. How did you know to be there? Is there something you're not telling us?

[ducati]

Wrong Wro....... Yeah, I'd by that.

Yeah, that's what I said

[Stavro]

That's spooky. How did you know to be there? Is there something you're not telling us?

Nothing spooky, sorry. Hard not to see it when walking past.

[Phill]

Put some steel 'I'-beams in the cardboard box and note the difference.

But once you've buckled or sheared your 'I' beam what's gonna happen?

[Phill]

Not just in exercises, from Sep 2000 to June 2001 jets were scrambled 67 times to intercept off course aircraft and things, presumably every time they managed to actually find the aircraft to intercept them.

Except on 9/11 when with four to choose from they didn't manage to intercept one according to the official story.

How many of those scrambles were actually successful intercepts, how many were cancelled before even getting decent altitude?

They reckon a 40% success rate on identifying their targets.

"In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet."

Simple mechanics at play, again the last line from a previous quote:
"I certainly wish we had practiced it differently, but I really think that, for sure in the first two instances, and probably in the third, the time and distance would not have allowed us to get an airplane to the right place at the right time"