Quote:

 

Around 9:20 A.M. EDT he remembers discussion about a national ground stop (i.e.
no take-offs )-Herndon was making the same decisions about this independently.
Meanwhile the FAA was still trying to figure out which aircraft hit the WTC. While he
hadn't talked with the carriers by that time, he believes Garvey had been in touch with
them.

Between 9:20-9:45 there were many confusing reports about various aircraft being
unaccounted for. He heard of a crash on the Indiana/Kentucky border that was thought to
be AAL 77. By this point he believes he talked with Bob Baker and Russ Chew at AAL.
Jane Garvey talked to Don Carty.

Belger doesn't recall any discussion that morning about the need to contact aircraft in
the air about securing their cockpits, even though they were considering an order to land
all planes.

With regard to the Primary Net, Belger said he believes that Lee Longmire was in
charge. He had the impression that the military was on the line at some point and had
assumed that the proper contacts had been made. He had no knowledge about the
problem that Lee Longmire shared with the Commission that the NMCC was supposed to
be on the Net but was in fact absent for some undetermined length of time. Belger wasn't
aware of the NORAD response until after AAL 77 crashed (he subsequently learried that
Boston and New York Centers had called NORAD earlier)

Belger was told about UAL 93 after it crashed. He stressed that everyone was very
confused about which aircraft hit the Pentagon. UAL and AAL weren't sure what planes
hit where. He said that the carriers were searching for information from the FAA not
providing it. It took a long time to confirm what aircraft hit the Pentagon.
Belger believes that the "hijack coordinator" would have been the senior security
person present who was Lee Longmire. (SEE FAA PROTOCOL ON "Hijack
Coordinator).

Belger learned of the crash into the Pentagon shortly after it happened. He and
Garvey got on the phone with Norm Mineta who decided to bring everything down
(around 9:45) which was implemented. Belger continued to monitor the system as it
executed this order. All aircraft were down and the system grounded by 12:15 P.M.

Quote:

 

MSNBC, September 11, 2002

MINETA: I had a breakfast meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium who also is the minister of Transport. She, Mrs. Durante, Jane Garvey, the head of FAA, and I were going to have breakfast.

And so we were in the midst of having breakfast and my chief of staff came into the breakfast and said, "Mr. Secretary, may I see you?"

So I excused myself, went into my office, and at the other end of the office is a TV set and as I walked in, obviously it's the World Trade Center, black smoke billowing out of there, and I said, "What the heck is that?"

He said, "Well, we don't know, we've heard explosion, we've heard GA -- general aviation -- aircraft go into it. So we don't know."

I said, "Well, keep me posted," and I went back into the conference room, and then told Mrs. Durante about what I saw and knew so far about what was happening in New York.

Then about five minutes later, John Flaherty, my chief of staff, came back in and said, "Mr. Secretary, may I see you?"

So I came back into the office and he said it's been confirmed, it was a commercial airliner that went into the World Trade Center, and so as I then started getting closer to my TV set and I was watching it, and all of a sudden from the right side of the set I see something gray, and then it sort a disappears, and then from the right side of the screen I see this white billowing, yellow-orange cloud, and I go, "Holy cow!"

I turned around, ran into the conference room, and I said, "Mrs. Durante, I'm going to have to excuse myself cause I don't know what's going on in New York City. Jane, you've got to get back to FAA."

Quote:

 

And so by the time I came back into my office, I had a call from the White House saying, "Get, get over here right away." So I grabbed a, a few papers and a manual, and ran down to the car, red light and sirens, went over to the White House.

HAGER: So you already knew commercial airliner fairly early on then. Initially, initially you were wondering, "Is it general aviation?"

MINETA: That's right.

HAGER: Which would be the first reaction.

MINETA: That's right. And I was thinking about the, the B-25 that went into the Empire State Building during World War II.

And so anyway, we drove into the White House on West Executive Drive. People were coming out of the White House, pouring out of the Executive Office Building, running over towards Lafayette Park, and I said to my driver and security person, I said, "Hey, is there something wrong with this picture, cause here we are driving in and everybody else is running out."

So I ran into the White House and someone said you have to be briefed by Dick Clarke of the National Security Council.

So I went into the Situation Room and he briefly told me what was going on, and then he said you've got to be down in the PEOC with the Vice President. I said I don't know where the PEOC is, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, and there was a Secret Service agent standing there, and he says, "I'll take you over there right away."

So we went running down and went into the PEOC which is the bunker, as you know, under the White House.

I started to establish a direct line to the FAA to find out what was going on, and the Vice President and I were across from each other on the conference room table in the PEOC, and about this time someone came in and said this was -- when I finally got in there, it was probably about 9:27, is what I recall.

Quote:

 

And a little later on, someone said, "Mr. Vice President, there's a plane 50-miles out." So I was talking to Monte Belger, the Deputy Director of the FAA, and I said, "Monte, what do you have 50-miles out?"

He said, "Well, we have a target, bogey, on the radar, but the transponder's been turned off, so we have no identification of this aircraft. We don't know who it is. We don't know what altitude it's at, speed or anything else. All we're doing is watching with the sweep of the radar, the dot moving from position to position."

Quote:

 

So then someone came in, the same person came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, it -- the plane's 30-miles out." So I said, "Monte, can you see it, and where is it in relationship to the ground?"

He said, "Well, that's difficult to really determine. I would guess it's somewhere between Great Falls and National Airport, coming what they call the DRA, the down river approach."

And so then the person came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, the plane's ten-miles out," and so I said, "Monte, where is it?" and he said, "Well, I'm not really sure but I'd be guessing somewhere maybe between the USA Today building and, and National Airport."

And then pretty soon he said, "Oh-oh, we just lost the target." And so a few moments later, someone came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, there's been an explosion at the Pentagon."

Quote:

 

So I said, "Monte, is there something -- can you identify it as being at the Pentagon?" He said, "No, we can't really pinpoint it like that."

Then about that time someone broke into our phone conversation and said, "Mr. Secretary, we've had a call from an Arlington County police officer saying that he saw an American Airlines airplane go into the Pentagon."

Quote:

 

At that point I said, "Monte, bring all the airplanes down," and we had a slight conversation about that, and then the professionalism of the air traffic controllers and the skill of the pilots and the flight deck, and the flight attendants in the flight cabins, we're able to bring down over 4600 airplanes in about two hours, safely and without incident.

And it was one of these, where every so often Monte would call me and say, "3212 airplanes still in the air." "2112." "1174." And he just kept on reporting back to me as to the number of airplanes left. And as I recall, about 12:20, somewhere around in there, I finally said to him, -- to the Vice President -- I said, "Mr. Vice President, all the airplanes are down" and to me it was just miraculous that the great working team of the airplanes and the air traffic controllers were able to bring everything down safely.

Quote:

 

HAGER: Let me take you back over some of that. Now, when you're in your office and you're first seeing it on the TV, I think you said your initial reaction is maybe it's a private plane of some kind. But I think in the second case, you knew right away that was a commercial airliner.

MINETA: I saw a gray airplane, and first I thought maybe -- and I didn't think of it in terms of a commercial airliner and I thought maybe it might be the size of a King Air or a G5, or something of that nature. And then I really should have, if I thought about it, gray -- United Airlines, and -- but it just happened so quickly, that it just, other than seeing a gray object come in, I really couldn't assess what kind of an airplane it might have been.

HAGER: I'm wondering when the first explosion occurred, you could think, you know, somebody had a heart attack -- a pilot, or somebody lost, something like that, equipment failure. But when the second tower is hit, I'm wondering what was flashing through your mind, because then we begin to get sinister implications.

MINETA: Well, the whole issue was what was the nature of what's going on, not only was it a commercial airline, but what's going on with two airplanes going into the World Trade Center, into the twin towers?

Well, when that third one went into the Pentagon, it's like anything else. If you see one of something it's an accident. When you see two of the same thing, it's a pattern or a trend. But when you three -- see three of the same thing occurring, then you know it's a program or a plan.

And so that's when it was decided that all the airplanes had to be brought down.

HAGER: Had the implication of the idea of terrorist attack -- was that one of the things you might have thought of after the second tower?

MINETA: Not at all. I mean, to have the thought of a commercial airliner being used as a missile or the weapon itself, at that point was the farthest thing in my mind.

HAGER: Even after the second tower was --

MINETA: Ever after the second one.

HAGER: Now coming over to the White House and you're down there in the bunker, and that third unidentified blip is coming down the Potomac.

For one thing, had you thought about the possibility that it might be -- I mean you're at the White House. That's the center where everything is going on. Is that something that would have gone through your mind?

MINETA: Well, the question was where is it coming. And so as I was asking Monte, it was following pretty much the DRA, the down river approach, and it had not crossed over towards the White House or towards the Capitol. It was staying on its line towards what would normally be the traffic pattern into National Airport.

And in fact, later on, in looking at the radar track, the plane had actually over-passed the Pentagon, then turned around and then came back into it, and it never took a wide sweep to cross over to the east side of the White House.

Quote:

 

On the other hand, we had seven or eight uniden -- or unaccounted-for airplanes, and then I heard about an airplane going down on the Ohio-Kentucky border.

So I said to Monte, I said, "Have we heard anything further about what you just mentioned a little while ago, about that plane down in, along the border of Ohio and Kentucky?" And he said no, we haven't heard anything.

I said, "Well, have you called the Ohio State Patrol or the Kentucky State Patrol to find out if they've heard anything?"

Cause if someone sees an airplane crash, they're immediately going to call the law enforcement agency. I said find out from them if they've heard anything.

But that turned out to be negative. And then about what, 10:15 or so, then we heard about the crash up in Shanksville, and so then the question of course -- and the other thing that happened when the person came in and said that the plane was ten miles out, he said do the orders still stand, and the Vice President said of course the orders still stand.

Have you heard anything to the contrary? I was thinking what are they talking about?

Then I thought, "Oh, my gosh, I wonder if they've scrambled aircraft and have aircraft up there now."

HAGER: And the order would be to shoot --

MINETA: Shoot it down. So then when I heard about the Shanksville plane, then I thought what happened to that airplane? Did it go down on its own?

Quote:

 

HAGER: When you first heard that plane went down in Shanksville, what were you thinking?

MINETA: Well, the question, when I first heard about that plane was what happened to it. Did it go down on its own or might it have been shot down by one of the aircraft that had been scrambled, and -- now I knew that afterwards, that planes had been scrambled to intercept the airplane coming in on the river approach, but because it was coming up from Norfolk, it was still 10, 11 minutes away when that plane went into the Pentagon.

But by that time I knew that there was an airplane now in the area and so then when I heard about the Shanksville airplane, then the question came up, "Wow, what happened to that?"

Did it go down on its own or was it shot down? And even the Pentagon was not able to answer that until some two hours after that plane had gone down.

HAGER: Was it a fleeting idea at all in, in your head, that, "Gee, they might be coming for us?"

MINETA: Oh, absolutely, it's something like that, but at least at the time the track of the radar was following what would be considered the down-river approach and it never came over to cross the east side of the Potomac River and it just followed the river all the way in.

But the -- of course the thought about, you know, is the White House the target, because I think as we found out later on, about the way al Qaida operates, they were looking for significant, something of a significant nature and that they wanted to go after political, economic and a military icon.

So here in terms of icon, they had hit the twin towers in New York, in terms of economic icon and then now they've struck the Pentagon, the military icon, and you think about political icon either being in the White House or the Capitol.

HAGER: Not to dwell on the personal, but besides being Secretary of Transportation, you're a human being. Did this thing ever get your heart pumping or make your adrenaline go?

MINETA: Oh, absolutely. I mean you're on the edge of your seat and you're saying, "Monte, tell me what's going on. What is it?" Because we're in the bunker and we're getting bits and pieces of news.

We frankly have had CNN, Fox and NBC on in the screens inside the bunker, and that was really as probably up to date news as we were getting in the bunker and then the input that the Vice President was getting from his staff.

HAGER: Now moving to the decision to bring the planes down, you said you had a discussion, but I heard it described as a somewhat more animated discussion than that.

MINETA: It was. What had happened was that earlier that day, as this was all unfolding, I had already talked to Don Carty, the CEO at American Airlines, and Jim Goodwin, the CEO of United Airlines about accounting for their own airplanes, and so they had placed ground holds on their airplanes on the East Coast, in other words, no airplanes were to take off.

When the third one struck, I told Monte -- I said bring all the airplanes down and he said we'll do them, we'll do that according to pilot discretion.

Well, pilot discretion was to me a little too loose in the sense of I don't want pilots to go another hour to flight or their destination. I wanted those airplanes down.

So I told Monte, I said, you know, in effect, "The hell with pilot discretion, get those planes down."

Aldo Marquis CIT

Jan 22 2009, 05:49 PM

ONLY ONE YEAR TO THE DATE...

Quote:

 

MSNBC, September 11, 2002

MINETA: I had a breakfast meeting with the Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium who also is the minister of Transport. She, Mrs. Durante, Jane Garvey, the head of FAA, and I were going to have breakfast.

And so we were in the midst of having breakfast and my chief of staff came into the breakfast and said, "Mr. Secretary, may I see you?"

So I excused myself, went into my office, and at the other end of the office is a TV set and as I walked in, obviously it's the World Trade Center, black smoke billowing out of there, and I said, "What the heck is that?"

He said, "Well, we don't know, we've heard explosion, we've heard GA -- general aviation -- aircraft go into it. So we don't know."

I said, "Well, keep me posted," and I went back into the conference room, and then told Mrs. Durante about what I saw and knew so far about what was happening in New York.

Then about five minutes later, John Flaherty, my chief of staff, came back in and said, "Mr. Secretary, may I see you?"

So I came back into the office and he said it's been confirmed, it was a commercial airliner that went into the World Trade Center, and so as I then started getting closer to my TV set and I was watching it, and all of a sudden from the right side of the set I see something gray, and then it sort a disappears, and then from the right side of the screen I see this white billowing, yellow-orange cloud, and I go, "Holy cow!"

I turned around, ran into the conference room, and I said, "Mrs. Durante, I'm going to have to excuse myself cause I don't know what's going on in New York City. Jane, you've got to get back to FAA."

Ok he is watching the smoke rise from the first tower. Then the second plane hits. He knows there is something wrong so tells Mrs Durante he has to leave and tells Jane Garvey to get back to the FAA. This is 9:03.

Quote:

 

And so by the time I came back into my office, I had a call from the White House saying, "Get, get over here right away." So I grabbed a, a few papers and a manual, and ran down to the car, red light and sirens, went over to the White House.

HAGER: So you already knew commercial airliner fairly early on then. Initially, initially you were wondering, "Is it general aviation?"

MINETA: That's right.

HAGER: Which would be the first reaction.

MINETA: That's right. And I was thinking about the, the B-25 that went into the Empire State Building during World War II.

And so anyway, we drove into the White House on West Executive Drive. People were coming out of the White House, pouring out of the Executive Office Building, running over towards Lafayette Park, and I said to my driver and security person, I said, "Hey, is there something wrong with this picture, cause here we are driving in and everybody else is running out."

So I ran into the White House and someone said you have to be briefed by Dick Clarke of the National Security Council.

So I went into the Situation Room and he briefly told me what was going on, and then he said you've got to be down in the PEOC with the Vice President. I said I don't know where the PEOC is, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, and there was a Secret Service agent standing there, and he says, "I'll take you over there right away."

So we went running down and went into the PEOC which is the bunker, as you know, under the White House.

I started to establish a direct line to the FAA to find out what was going on, and the Vice President and I were across from each other on the conference room table in the PEOC, and about this time someone came in and said this was -- when I finally got in there, it was probably about 9:27, is what I recall.

So Mineta gets back to his office and is told he needs to get to the White House. There he sees people coming out of the White House and Exectutive Office Building because people are now figuring out it is an attack. STILL NO PLANE AT PENTAGON. He is then told he needs to get to the PEOC bunker under the White House but he doesn't know where it is located so an SS man said he would take him there and did. Once there he establishes a line with FAA at about 9:27. The person he establishes contact with is Monte Belger...

Quote:

 

And a little later on, someone said, "Mr. Vice President, there's a plane 50-miles out." So I was talking to Monte Belger, the Deputy Director of the FAA, and I said, "Monte, what do you have 50-miles out?"

He said, "Well, we have a target, bogey, on the radar, but the transponder's been turned off, so we have no identification of this aircraft. We don't know who it is. We don't know what altitude it's at, speed or anything else. All we're doing is watching with the sweep of the radar, the dot moving from position to position."

So some aide to the VP-OS comes in and tells them that there is a plane 50 miles out. Mineta asks Belger what he has 50 miles out. Belger tells him about the Pentagon attack jet with no transponder on and no ID. He has no speed, altitude or anything else. BUT HE IS WATCHING IT ON RADAR.

Quote:

 

So then someone came in, the same person came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, it -- the plane's 30-miles out." So I said, "Monte, can you see it, and where is it in relationship to the ground?"

He said, "Well, that's difficult to really determine. I would guess it's somewhere between Great Falls and National Airport, coming what they call the DRA, the down river approach."

And so then the person came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, the plane's ten-miles out," and so I said, "Monte, where is it?" and he said, "Well, I'm not really sure but I'd be guessing somewhere maybe between the USA Today building and, and National Airport."

And then pretty soon he said, "Oh-oh, we just lost the target." And so a few moments later, someone came in and said, "Mr. Vice President, there's been an explosion at the Pentagon."

Obviously Mineta is telling the story and the plane is continually moving. 50, 30, and 10 miles out. Doing its huge turn/loop past the C-130 near Great Falls coming ina slight DRA approach right toward DC. What's key is when it is less than 10 miles out and closing, Monte says it is in between the USA Today Building and National Airport. This is clearly the Decoy Attack Jet on the proposed CIT DC flight path and not Flight 77 on the NTSB SW flight path or even Flight 93. Especially when they lose the target and hear there's been an explosion at the Pentagon. MINETA AND BELGE WERE TRACKING AND REFERRING TO THE PENTAGON ATTACK JET ON THE DC FLIGHT PATH.

Quote:

 

So I said, "Monte, is there something -- can you identify it as being at the Pentagon?" He said, "No, we can't really pinpoint it like that."

Then about that time someone broke into our phone conversation and said, "Mr. Secretary, we've had a call from an Arlington County police officer saying that he saw an American Airlines airplane go into the Pentagon."

Ok now they have it confirmed. The Pentagon was the target where the attack jet headed.

Quote:

 

At that point I said, "Monte, bring all the airplanes down," and we had a slight conversation about that, and then the professionalism of the air traffic controllers and the skill of the pilots and the flight deck, and the flight attendants in the flight cabins, we're able to bring down over 4600 airplanes in about two hours, safely and without incident.

And it was one of these, where every so often Monte would call me and say, "3212 airplanes still in the air." "2112." "1174." And he just kept on reporting back to me as to the number of airplanes left. And as I recall, about 12:20, somewhere around in there, I finally said to him, -- to the Vice President -- I said, "Mr. Vice President, all the airplanes are down" and to me it was just miraculous that the great working team of the airplanes and the air traffic controllers were able to bring everything down safely.

That is when Mineta started to bring all the planes down. No mention of Flight 93 yet.

Quote:

 

HAGER: Let me take you back over some of that. Now, when you're in your office and you're first seeing it on the TV, I think you said your initial reaction is maybe it's a private plane of some kind. But I think in the second case, you knew right away that was a commercial airliner.

MINETA: I saw a gray airplane, and first I thought maybe -- and I didn't think of it in terms of a commercial airliner and I thought maybe it might be the size of a King Air or a G5, or something of that nature. And then I really should have, if I thought about it, gray -- United Airlines, and -- but it just happened so quickly, that it just, other than seeing a gray object come in, I really couldn't assess what kind of an airplane it might have been.

HAGER: I'm wondering when the first explosion occurred, you could think, you know, somebody had a heart attack -- a pilot, or somebody lost, something like that, equipment failure. But when the second tower is hit, I'm wondering what was flashing through your mind, because then we begin to get sinister implications.

MINETA: Well, the whole issue was what was the nature of what's going on, not only was it a commercial airline, but what's going on with two airplanes going into the World Trade Center, into the twin towers?

Well, when that third one went into the Pentagon, it's like anything else. If you see one of something it's an accident. When you see two of the same thing, it's a pattern or a trend. But when you three -- see three of the same thing occurring, then you know it's a program or a plan.

And so that's when it was decided that all the airplanes had to be brought down.

HAGER: Had the implication of the idea of terrorist attack -- was that one of the things you might have thought of after the second tower?

MINETA: Not at all. I mean, to have the thought of a commercial airliner being used as a missile or the weapon itself, at that point was the farthest thing in my mind.

HAGER: Even after the second tower was --

MINETA: Ever after the second one.

HAGER: Now coming over to the White House and you're down there in the bunker, and that third unidentified blip is coming down the Potomac.

For one thing, had you thought about the possibility that it might be -- I mean you're at the White House. That's the center where everything is going on. Is that something that would have gone through your mind?

MINETA: Well, the question was where is it coming. And so as I was asking Monte, it was following pretty much the DRA, the down river approach, and it had not crossed over towards the White House or towards the Capitol. It was staying on its line towards what would normally be the traffic pattern into National Airport.

And in fact, later on, in looking at the radar track, the plane had actually over-passed the Pentagon, then turned around and then came back into it, and it never took a wide sweep to cross over to the east side of the White House.

Once again, Hager has him repeat the same story only with more detail.

Quote:

 

On the other hand, we had seven or eight uniden -- or unaccounted-for airplanes, and then I heard about an airplane going down on the Ohio-Kentucky border.

So I said to Monte, I said, "Have we heard anything further about what you just mentioned a little while ago, about that plane down in, along the border of Ohio and Kentucky?" And he said no, we haven't heard anything.

I said, "Well, have you called the Ohio State Patrol or the Kentucky State Patrol to find out if they've heard anything?"

Cause if someone sees an airplane crash, they're immediately going to call the law enforcement agency. I said find out from them if they've heard anything.

But that turned out to be negative. And then about what, 10:15 or so, then we heard about the crash up in Shanksville, and so then the question of course -- and the other thing that happened when the person came in and said that the plane was ten miles out, he said do the orders still stand, and the Vice President said of course the orders still stand.

Have you heard anything to the contrary? I was thinking what are they talking about?

Then I thought, "Oh, my gosh, I wonder if they've scrambled aircraft and have aircraft up there now."

HAGER: And the order would be to shoot --

MINETA: Shoot it down. So then when I heard about the Shanksville plane, then I thought what happened to that airplane? Did it go down on its own?

So then Mineta goes back to talking about the false report of the plane down at the Ohio Kentucky Border, then he remembers the missed shoot down of the Pentagon attack jet when it was ten miles out and Cheney's Aide was reporting this. So he then starts to wonder about the Shanksville and whether it had been shot down or crashed based on this..

Quote:

 

HAGER: When you first heard that plane went down in Shanksville, what were you thinking?

MINETA: Well, the question, when I first heard about that plane was what happened to it. Did it go down on its own or might it have been shot down by one of the aircraft that had been scrambled, and -- now I knew that afterwards, that planes had been scrambled to intercept the airplane coming in on the river approach, but because it was coming up from Norfolk, it was still 10, 11 minutes away when that plane went into the Pentagon.

But by that time I knew that there was an airplane now in the area and so then when I heard about the Shanksville airplane, then the question came up, "Wow, what happened to that?"

Did it go down on its own or was it shot down? And even the Pentagon was not able to answer that until some two hours after that plane had gone down.

HAGER: Was it a fleeting idea at all in, in your head, that, "Gee, they might be coming for us?"

MINETA: Oh, absolutely, it's something like that, but at least at the time the track of the radar was following what would be considered the down-river approach and it never came over to cross the east side of the Potomac River and it just followed the river all the way in.

But the -- of course the thought about, you know, is the White House the target, because I think as we found out later on, about the way al Qaida operates, they were looking for significant, something of a significant nature and that they wanted to go after political, economic and a military icon.

So here in terms of icon, they had hit the twin towers in New York, in terms of economic icon and then now they've struck the Pentagon, the military icon, and you think about political icon either being in the White House or the Capitol.

HAGER: Not to dwell on the personal, but besides being Secretary of Transportation, you're a human being. Did this thing ever get your heart pumping or make your adrenaline go?

MINETA: Oh, absolutely. I mean you're on the edge of your seat and you're saying, "Monte, tell me what's going on. What is it?" Because we're in the bunker and we're getting bits and pieces of news.

We frankly have had CNN, Fox and NBC on in the screens inside the bunker, and that was really as probably up to date news as we were getting in the bunker and then the input that the Vice President was getting from his staff.

HAGER: Now moving to the decision to bring the planes down, you said you had a discussion, but I heard it described as a somewhat more animated discussion than that.

MINETA: It was. What had happened was that earlier that day, as this was all unfolding, I had already talked to Don Carty, the CEO at American Airlines, and Jim Goodwin, the CEO of United Airlines about accounting for their own airplanes, and so they had placed ground holds on their airplanes on the East Coast, in other words, no airplanes were to take off.

When the third one struck, I told Monte -- I said bring all the airplanes down and he said we'll do them, we'll do that according to pilot discretion.

Well, pilot discretion was to me a little too loose in the sense of I don't want pilots to go another hour to flight or their destination. I wanted those airplanes down.

So I told Monte, I said, you know, in effect, "The hell with pilot discretion, get those planes down."

Seems pretty cut and dry to me.

Woody Box

Jan 24 2009, 05:59 PM

So you think Belger is lying in his statement, Aldo?

Stundie

Jan 25 2009, 12:22 PM

Woody Box

Jan 24 2009, 05:59 PM

So you think Belger is lying in his statement, Aldo?

How did you come to that conclusion Woody??

Quote:

 

Between 9:20-9:45 there were many confusing reports about various aircraft being unaccounted for. He heard of a crash on the Indiana/Kentucky border that was thought to be AAL 77. By this point he believes he talked with Bob Baker and Russ Chew at AAL. Jane Garvey talked to Don Carty.

Woody Box

Jan 26 2009, 06:52 AM

Stundie

Jan 25 2009, 12:22 PM

Woody Box

Jan 24 2009, 05:59 PM

So you think Belger is lying in his statement, Aldo?

How did you come to that conclusion Woody??

Because it's Mineta vs. Belger. If you believe Mineta, Belger must be lying. Mineta claims to have been in contact with Belger before the Pentagon crash, and even that Belger tracked the plane that hit the Pentagon later. Belger mentions nothing like that:

Quote:

 

Between 9:20-9:45 there were many confusing reports about various aircraft being unaccounted for. He heard of a crash on the Indiana/Kentucky border that was thought to be AAL 77. By this point he believes he talked with Bob Baker and Russ Chew at AAL. Jane Garvey talked to Don Carty.

An omission that - in case it happened - would qualify for a lie.

Woody Box

Jan 24 2009, 05:59 PM

So you think Belger is lying in his statement, Aldo?

Aldo Marquis CIT

Jan 26 2009, 12:46 PM

Woody Box

Jan 24 2009, 05:59 PM

So you think Belger is lying in his statement, Aldo?

No. Because it is not his statement. It is a narrative or overview of an ALLEGED interview with Belger. It could be a summation that simply omits his contact with Mineta. Mineta is way too specific in a very fatal detail. If he is lying now, it would be out of pressure from the you know who's. Belger is as silent as a church house mouse that witnessed a mob hit. I know this, because I called him. He does not want to talk about the statements Mineta made. They all know something is wrong and rather than do the right thing, they would rather be chickens and be complicit in a cover up. With what these sick fuks do to people, I don't blame them for their fear and silent cooperation. So to sum it up, I haven't heard Belger lie anywhere in fact, I have not heard Belger's own words. Independent confirmation is everything.

Quote:

 

Between 9:20-9:45 there were many confusing reports about various aircraft being unaccounted for. He heard of a crash on the Indiana/Kentucky border that was thought to be AAL 77. By this point he believes he talked with Bob Baker and Russ Chew at AAL. Jane Garvey talked to Don Carty.

Quote:

 

However, the manager of Washington ARTCC states very clearly that Washington and the surrounding ARTCC's desperately tried to pick up primary targets who possibly could have been the missing Flight 77. The manager not only "makes no mention of the primary radar track headed straight for Washington DC" (Farmer) - he explicitly says that there was no such primary radar track!

Here's what the manager of Washington ARTCC said:

"so what we have done at the surrounding centers here is tell everyone to look out for limited codes, primary targets, or whatever the case may be. And that was the last time, that was about fifteen minutes ago since I talked to the Indianapolis Center Operations Manager."


http://911woodybox.blogspot.com/2008/12/john-farmers-failed-analysis-of-norad.html

Woody Box

Jan 27 2009, 04:01 PM

The big problem is, there's no motive for him to lie. Assumed he tracked the Pentaplane - why should he not simply say that he tracked it instead of omitting it? This wouldn't have hurt the official story. The same goes for the Commissioners. I' m ready to believe and have found examples that these guys tend to ommit details. But assumed Belger told them that he tracked the Pentaplane - what motive did they have to ommit that part?

Quote:

 

If he told them he tracked the plane, nobody would have been interested in the specifics of the path.
Not in 2003.

Quote:

 

So you question the authenticity of this memo and think it's completely worthless.

I respectfully disagree. I really believe that Belger was interviewed by Bill Johnston and John Raidt on November 24, 2003 at 9 o'clock at the GSA Commission Office (whatever GSA means).

Aldo Marquis CIT

Jan 27 2009, 05:52 PM

So you think Mineta is lying because he said something specific that damages the official story and Belger isn't because he didn't say anything or anything specific at all?

Quote:

 

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, summoned by the White House to the bunker, was on an open line to the Federal Aviation Administration operations center, monitoring Flight 77 as it hurtled toward Washington, with radar tracks coming every seven seconds. Reports came that the plane was 50 miles out, 30 miles out, 10 miles out-until word reached the bunker that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon.

Mineta shouted into the phone to Monte Belger at the FAA: "Monte, bring all the planes down." It was an unprecedented order-there were 4,546 airplanes in the air at the time. Belger, the FAA's acting deputy administrator, amended Mineta's directive to take into account the authority vested in airline pilots. "We're bringing them down per pilot discretion," Belger told the secretary.

"[Expletive] pilot discretion," Mineta yelled back. "Get those goddamn planes down."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42754-2002Jan26

Quote:

 

Long considered a competent if unremarkable backbencher, Mineta has refashioned himself as a quick-thinking decision-maker with flawless instincts in an emergency.

He may be that, but he isn't the hero Woodward and Balz make him out to be. According to insiders, that honor belongs to Monte Belger, at the time the No. 2 official at the FAA. A precise, diligent career bureaucrat known among colleagues as "the Forrest Gump of the FAA," Belger was on a phone bridge with controllers at the David J. Hurley Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Va., and ordered flights grounded 15 minutes before Mineta was even notified of the attacks. So, when the secretary issued his blunt order—"Monte, bring all the planes down!"—Monte had already done so.

http://www.slate.com/?id=2063935

Avenger

Jan 27 2009, 06:40 PM

Quote:

 

If he told them he tracked the plane, nobody would have been interested in the specifics of the path.
Not in 2003.

I don't understand your logic. Why would they not be interested in the specifics of the flight path in 2003 if the story was changed before 2003? Or maybe you actually believe the plane looped south-west of the Pentagon and was never north-east. Why do you say that if Belger told them he tracked the plane it wouldn't have hurt the official story?

Quote:

 

So you question the authenticity of this memo and think it's completely worthless.

I respectfully disagree. I really believe that Belger was interviewed by Bill Johnston and John Raidt on November 24, 2003 at 9 o'clock at the GSA Commission Office (whatever GSA means).

The thing is you shouldn't have to BELIEVE Belger was interviewed. Why would these guys, Bill Johnston and John Raidt, interview him, but not put the interview or even a direct quote from Belger in the report?

At least we all KNOW Mineta was interviewed. What reason would Mineta have to lie?

Quote:

 

The thing is you shouldn't have to BELIEVE Belger was interviewed. Why would these guys, Bill Johnston and John Raidt, interview him, but not put the interview or even a direct quote from Belger in the report?

Woody Box

Jan 28 2009, 12:30 PM

The question for Mineta's motives to lie is perfectly justified, and I also was wondering at his behavior. The biggest motive seems to be vanity. Here's the January 2002 interview with Woodward/Balz from the Washington Post:

Quote:

 

Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, summoned by the White House to the bunker, was on an open line to the Federal Aviation Administration operations center, monitoring Flight 77 as it hurtled toward Washington, with radar tracks coming every seven seconds. Reports came that the plane was 50 miles out, 30 miles out, 10 miles out-until word reached the bunker that there had been an explosion at the Pentagon.

Mineta shouted into the phone to Monte Belger at the FAA: "Monte, bring all the planes down." It was an unprecedented order-there were 4,546 airplanes in the air at the time. Belger, the FAA's acting deputy administrator, amended Mineta's directive to take into account the authority vested in airline pilots. "We're bringing them down per pilot discretion," Belger told the secretary.

"[Expletive] pilot discretion," Mineta yelled back. "Get those goddamn planes down."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A42754-2002Jan26

Yeah, Norman. You did it. You showed timid and indecisive Monte Belger how a statesman of high caliber makes weighty, but inevitable decisions in an unusual emergency situation.

The problem is, it apparently didn't happen like that. Here's a response to the WP article titled "The Mineta Myth", referring to Don Phillips, a veteran reporter with close FAA connections:

Quote:

 

Long considered a competent if unremarkable backbencher, Mineta has refashioned himself as a quick-thinking decision-maker with flawless instincts in an emergency.

He may be that, but he isn't the hero Woodward and Balz make him out to be. According to insiders, that honor belongs to Monte Belger, at the time the No. 2 official at the FAA. A precise, diligent career bureaucrat known among colleagues as "the Forrest Gump of the FAA," Belger was on a phone bridge with controllers at the David J. Hurley Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Va., and ordered flights grounded 15 minutes before Mineta was even notified of the attacks. So, when the secretary issued his blunt order—"Monte, bring all the planes down!"—Monte had already done so.

http://www.slate.com/?id=2063935

A few weeks later, in an interview to the Daily Californian, he mentions for the first time the "young man" who repeatedly came into the PEOC. There's no doubt this "young man" existed - he is confirmed by other sources. Just the time is not right. And from now on, Mineta projects everything what happened in the PEOC in relation to "phantom flight 93" onto Flight 77. He doesn't need to tell fantasy stories, he can go pretty much into detail. But to keep the PEOC story consistent with his "quick-thinking decision-making with flawless instincts" with regards to the Pentagon crash, he has to make a little change: the time; not realizing the many contradictions he generates.

Woody Box

Jan 28 2009, 12:56 PM

Aldo said that Belger omitted being in contact with Mineta and tracking FLight 77 to "downplay his involvement". I just say that (given there was something to cover-up for the very last part of the flight path) there was no need for such a mendacious omission. If Belger wanted to downplay his involvement, the best way was surely not to lie, but just admitting contact to Mineta and having tracked FLight 77 in general. Potential specific questions for the exact flight path he still could have avoided by mentioning bad memory.

Quote:

 

A few weeks later, in an interview to the Daily Californian, he mentions for the first time the "young man" who repeatedly came into the PEOC. There's no doubt this "young man" existed - he is confirmed by other sources. Just the time is not right. And from now on, Mineta projects everything what happened in the PEOC in relation to "phantom flight 93" onto Flight 77.

Aldo Marquis CIT

Jan 28 2009, 03:23 PM

And let it be known that just because Woody and I are disagreeing on something doesn't mean there is any ill will. I still have a tremendous amount of love and respect for Woody. We are just two researchers disagreeing on something and trying to hash it out publically.