Thursday, June 17, 2004
Washington, D.C.
NTSB Conference Center
CHAIRED BY: THOMAS H. KEAN
STAFF STATEMENT NO. 17: IMPROVISING A HOMELAND DEFENSE
GENERAL RICHARD MYERS, USAF, CHARIMAN, JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF
ADMIRAL (SELECT) CHARLES JOSEPH LEIDIG, USN, COMMANDANT OF MIDSHIPMEN, UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY
GENERAL RALPH E. EBERHART, USAF, COMMANDER, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND(NORAD) AND UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND
MAJOR GENERAL LARRY ARNOLD, USAF (RET.), FORMER COMMANDER, CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES NORAD REGION (CONR)
MONTE BELGER, FORMER ACTING DEPUTY ADMINISTRATOR, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
JEFF GRIFFITH, FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
JOHN WHITE, FORMER FACILITY MANAGER, AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL SYSTEMS COMMAND CENTER, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION
BENEDICT SLINEY, OPERATIONS MANAGER, NEW YORK TERMINAL RADAR APPROACH CONTROL, FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION<
MR. KEAN: Good morning. As Chair of the Commission on the Terrorist Attacks on the United States I hereby reconvene this twelfth public hearing. Today we will explore the federal government's immediate response to the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. We'll present a comprehensive picture of when the hijackings occurred, when air traffic controllers learned of the hijackings, when this information was communicated up the line, when military commanders and civilian leaders made decisions, what decisions were made, and how those decisions were communicated and implemented.
So I will call at this point upon Phil Zelikow to start out the Staff Statement.
MR. ZELIKOW: Thank you. Members of the Commission, with your help, your staff is prepared to present its findings regarding national defense and crisis management on 9/11. Our findings represent the result of our work to date. We remain ready to revise our understanding in light of new information. This statement represents the collective effort of a number of members of the staff. John Farmer, Miles Kara, Dana Hyde, John Azzarello, Kevin Shaeffer, Steve Dunne, Geoffrey Brown, Lisa Sullivan, and Cate Taylor did most of the investigative work reflected in this report. In addition, Charles Pereira of the National Transportation Safety Board assisted greatly in the reconstruction and interpretation of flight data. We are grateful to the NTSB for its assistance and cooperation. We would also like to acknowledge the assistance of the Environmental Systems Research Institute in preparing the visual components of this presentation.
In the course of this investigation, we have received documents and other information from the Executive Office of the President, and the Departments of Defense, Transportation, and Homeland Security. Unless otherwise noted, all times given are rounded to the nearest minute. None of the audio excerpts you will hear this morning are derived from cockpit voice recorders, disclosure of which is prevented by federal law.
The FAA and NORAD. On 9/11, the defense of U.S. air space depended on close interaction between two federal agencies: the FAA and the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). The last hijacking that involved U.S. air traffic controllers, FAA management, and military coordination, had occurred in 1993. In order to understand how the two agencies interacted eight years later, we will review their missions, command-and-control structures, and working relationship on the morning of 9/11.
FAA Mission and Structure. As of September 11, 2001, the FAA was mandated by law to regulate the safety and security of civil aviation. From an air traffic controller's perspective, that meant maintaining a safe distance between airborne aircraft. Many controllers work at the FAA's 22 Air Route Traffic Control Centers. These centers are grouped under regional offices and coordinate closely with the national Air Traffic Control System Command Center, commonly referred to as the "Command Center," which oversees daily traffic flow within the entire airspace system. That Command Center is located in Herndon, Virginia. Regional offices report to FAA headquarters in Washington, D.C. FAA headquarters is ultimately responsible for the management of the National Airspace System. An operations center located at FAA headquarters receives notifications of incidents, including accidents and hijackings.
FAA centers often receive information and make operational decisions independent of one another. On 9/11, the four hijacked aircraft were monitored mainly by four of these FAA Air Route Traffic Control Centers, based in Boston, New York, Cleveland and Indianapolis. Each center thus had part of the knowledge of what was going on across the system. But it is important to remember that what Boston Center knew was not necessarily known by the centers in New York, Cleveland or Indianapolis.
Controllers track airliners like the four aircraft hijacked on 9/11 primarily by watching the data from a signal emitted by the aircraft's transponder equipment. The four aircraft hijacked on 9/11, like all aircraft traveling above 10,000 feet, were required to emit a unique transponder signal while in flight. On 9/11, the terrorists turned off the transponders on three of the four hijacked aircraft. With the transponder turned off, it may be possible, although more difficult, to track an aircraft by its primary radar returns. A primary radar return occurs when the signal sent from a radar site bounces off an object in the sky and indicates the presence of that object. But primary radar returns do not include the transponder data, which show the aircraft's identity and altitude. Controllers at centers rely on transponder signals and usually do not display primary radar returns on their scopes. But they can change the configuration of their radar scopes so they can see primary radar returns. And in fact, the controllers did just that on 9/11 when the transponders were turned off in three of the four hijacked aircraft. Tower or terminal approach controllers handle a wider variety of lower-flying aircraft; they often use primary radar returns as well as transponder signals.
NORAD Mission and Structure. NORAD was, and is, responsible for the air defense of the continental United States. The threat of Soviet bombers diminished significantly after the end of the Cold War, and the number of NORAD alert sites were reduced. On 9/11 there were only seven left in the United States, each with two fighter aircraft on alert. All the hijacked aircraft were in one of NORAD's Continental U.S. sectors, the Northeast Air Defense Sector, also known as NEADS. NEADS is based in Rome, New York. On 9/11, it could call on two alert sites, each with one pair of ready fighters. These were the Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts and Langley Air Force Base in Langley, Virginia (sic). NEADS reported to the continental region headquarters in Florida, which reported to NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Most FAA centers had a civilian employee to coordinate with NORAD, for situations like training exercises. The agencies had also developed protocols for working together in the event of a hijacking. As they existed on 9/11, the protocols for the FAA to obtain military assistance from NORAD required multiple levels of notification and approval at the highest levels of government, as I think you can see graphically depicted by that complicated chart.
FAA guidance to controllers on hijack procedures assumed that the aircraft pilot would notify the controller of the hijack via radio communication or by squawking a transponder code of "7500" -- the universal code for a hijack in progress. Controllers would notify their supervisors, who in turn would inform management all the way up to FAA headquarters in Washington. Headquarters then had a hijack coordinator who was the director or his designate of the FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security. If a hijack was confirmed, procedures called for the hijack coordinator to contact the Pentagon's National Military Command Center, NMCC, and ask for a military escort aircraft to follow the flight, report anything unusual, and aid search and rescue in the event of an emergency. The NMCC would then seek approval from the Office of the Secretary of Defense to get that assistance. If there was approval, the orders would be transmitted down NORAD's chain of command and direct the sector to launch a fighter escort. The protocols did not contemplate an intercept. They assumed the fighter escort would be discreet, "vectored to a position five miles directly behind the hijacked aircraft," where it could perform its mission to monitor the flight path of the aircraft.
In sum, the protocols in place on 9/11 for the FAA and NORAD to respond to a hijacking presumed that: one, the hijacked aircraft would be readily identifiable and would not attempt to disappear; two, there would be time to address the problem through the appropriate FAA and NORAD chains of command; and, three, the hijacking would take the traditional form, not a suicide hijacking designed to convert the aircraft into a guided missile. On the morning of 9/11, the existing protocol was unsuited in every respect for what was about to happen. What ensued was the hurried attempt to create an improvised defense by officials who had never encountered or trained against the situation they faced.
Staff Statement Number Four offered an initial summary of what took place on the four flights. What we will do now is review how people on the ground comprehended what was happening to each flight. So, for each flight, we will first describe what the FAA understood, and then how the military was notified and responded.
MR. JOHN AZZARELLO: American Airlines Flight 11 FAA Awareness. At 8:00 on September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11 began its takeoff roll at Logan Airport in Boston. A Boeing 767, Flight 11 was bound for Los Angeles with 81 passengers, 11 crew, and 24,000 gallons of jet fuel. By 8:09, it was being monitored by FAA's Boston Center, located in New Hampshire. At 8:13, the controller instructed the flight to "turn twenty degrees right," which the flight acknowledged. This was the last transmission to which the flight responded. Sixteen seconds later, the controller instructed the flight to climb to 35,000 feet. When there was no response, the controller repeated the command seconds later, and then tried repeatedly to raise the flight. He used the emergency frequency to try to reach the pilot. Though there was no response, he kept trying to contact the aircraft.
At 8:21, American 11 turned off its transponder, immediately degrading the available information about the aircraft. The controller told his supervisor that he thought something was seriously wrong with the plane. At this point, neither the controller nor his supervisor suspected a hijacking. The supervisor instructed the controller to follow standard operating procedures for handling a "no radio," aircraft.
The controller checked to see if American Airlines could establish communication with American 11. He became even more concerned as its route changed, moving into another sector's airspace. Controllers immediately began to move aircraft out of its path, and searched from aircraft to aircraft in an effort to have another pilot contact American 11.
At 8:24 and 38 seconds, the following transmission came from American 11:
American 11 (from audiotape): We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll be okay. We are returning to the airport.
MR. AZZARELLO: The controller only heard something unintelligible; he did not hear the specific words, "We have some planes."
Then the next transmission came seconds later:
American 11 (from audiotape): Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.
MR. AZZARELLO: Hearing that, the controller told us he then knew it was a hijacking. The controller alerted his supervisor, who assigned another controller to assist him, and redoubled efforts to ascertain the flight's altitude. Because the controller didn't understand the initial transmission, the manager of Boston Center instructed the Center's quality assurance specialist to, "pull the tape" of the radio transmission, listen to it closely, and report back.
Between 8:25 and 8:32, in accordance with the FAA protocol, Boston Center managers started notifying their chain of command that American 11 had been hijacked.
At 8:28, Boston Center called the Command Center in Herndon, Virginia to advise management that it believed American 11 had been hijacked and was heading towards New York Center's airspace. By this point in time, American 11 had taken a dramatic turn to the south.
At 8:32, the Command Center passed word of a possible hijacking to the Operations Center at FAA headquarters. The duty officer replied that security personnel at headquarters had just begun discussing the hijack situation on a conference call with the New England regional office. The Herndon Command Center immediately established a teleconference between Boston, New York, and Cleveland Centers so that Boston Center could help the others understand what was happening.
At 8:34, the Boston Center controller received a third transmission from American 11:
American 11 (from audiotape): Nobody move please. We are going back to the airport. Don't try to make any stupid moves.
MR. AZZARELLO: In the succeeding minutes, controllers were attempting to ascertain the altitude of the southbound Flight 11.
Military Notification and Response. Boston Center did not just follow the routine protocol in seeking military assistance through the prescribed chain of command. In addition to making notifications within the FAA, Boston Center took the initiative, at 8:34, to contact the military through the FAA's Cape Cod facility.
They also tried to obtain assistance from a former alert site in Atlantic City, unaware that it had been phased out. At 8:37 and 52 seconds, Boston Center reached NEADS. This was the first notification received by the military at any level that American 11 had been hijacked:
(Begin audiotape.)
FAA (from audiotape): Hi. Boston Center TMU. We have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York, and we need you guys to -- we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, to help us out.
NEADS: Is this real-world or exercise?
FAA: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.
(End audiotape.)
MR. AZZARELLO: NEADS promptly ordered to battle stations the two F-15 alert aircraft at Otis Air Force Base, about 153 miles away from New York City. The air defense of America began with this call.
At NEADS, the reported hijacking was relayed immediately to Battle Commander Colonel Robert Marr. After ordering the Otis fighters to battle stations, Colonel Marr phoned Major General Larry Arnold, commanding general of the First Air Force and the Continental Region. Marr sought authorization to scramble the Otis fighters. General Arnold instructed Marr, "to go ahead and scramble the airplanes, and we'd get permission later," end quote. General Arnold then called NORAD headquarters to report. F-15 fighters were ordered scrambled at 8:46 from Otis Air Force Base. But NEADS did not know where to send the alert fighter aircraft. "I don't know where I'm scrambling these guys to. I need a direction, a destination."
Because the hijackers had turned off the plane's transponder, NEADS personnel spent the next minutes searching their radar scopes for the elusive primary radar return. American 11 impacted the World Trade Center's North Tower at 8:46 and 40 seconds. Shortly after 8:50, while NEADS personnel were still trying to locate American 11, word reached them that a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Radar data show the Otis fighters were airborne at 8:53. Lacking a target, they were vectored toward military-controlled airspace off the Long Island coast. To avoid New York area air traffic, and uncertain about what to do, the fighters were brought down to military air space to, "hold as needed." From 9:08 to 9:13, the Otis fighters were in this holding pattern.
In summary, NEADS received notice of the hijacking nine minutes before it impacted the North Tower. The nine minutes notice was the most the military would receive that morning of any of the four hijackings.
United Airlines Flight 175 FAA Awareness. United Airlines Flight 175, a Boeing 767 carrying 65 passengers from Boston to Los Angeles, took off from Logan Airport at 8:14. At 8:37 Boston Center polled United 175, along with other aircraft, about whether they had seen a, "American 767," American 11 that they were looking for. And United 175's pilots said they had seen it. The controller turned United 175 away from it as a safety precaution.
At 8:41, United 175 entered New York Center's airspace. The controller responsible for United 175 was unfortunately the same controller assigned the job of tracking the hijacked American 11. At 8:47, at almost the same time American 11 crashed into the North Tower, United 175's assigned transponder code changed -- then changed again. These changes were not noticed for several minutes, because the controller was focused on finding American 11, which had disappeared. At 8:48, the New York Center manager provided the following report on a Command Center teleconference about American 11, including information that had been relayed by the airline:
MANAGER, NEW YORK CENTER (from audiotape): Okay. This is New York Center. We're watching the airplane. I also had conversation with American Airlines, and they've told us that they believe that one of their stewardesses was stabbed and that there are people in the cockpit that have control of the aircraft, and that's all the information they have right now.
MR. AZZARELLO: The New York Center controller and manager were unaware that American 11 had already crashed.
At 8:51, the controller noticed the change in the transponder reading from United 175. The controller asked United 175 to go back to the proper code. There was no response. Beginning at 8:52, the controller made repeated attempts to reach the crew of United 175. Still no response. The controller checked that his radio equipment was working and kept trying to reach United 175. He contacted another controller at 8:53, and worried that, "we may have a hijack," and that he could not find the aircraft.
Another commercial aircraft in the vicinity then radioed in with, "reports over the radio of a commuter plane hitting the World Trade Center." The controller spent the next several minutes handing off the other flights on his scope to other controllers and moving aircraft out of the way of the unidentified aircraft believed to be United 175 as it moved southwest and then turned northeast toward New York City.
At approximately 8:55, the controller-in-charge notified a New York Center manager that she believed United 175 had also been hijacked. The manager tried to notify the regional managers and was told that the managers were discussing a hijacked aircraft, presumably American 11, and refused to be disturbed. At 8:58, the New York Center controller searching for United 175 told another New York controller, "we might have a hijack over here, two of them."
Between 9:01 and 9:02, a manager from New York Center told the Command Center in Herndon:
MANAGER, NEW YORK CENTER (from audiotape): We have several situations going on here. It's escalating big, big time, and we need to get the military involved with us.
COMMAND CENTER: We're -- we're involved with something else. We have other aircraft that may have a similar situation going on here.
MR. AZZARELLO: The, "other aircraft," New York Center referred to was United 175. Evidence indicates that this conversation was the only notice received prior to the second crash by either FAA headquarters or the Herndon Command Center that there was a second hijack.
While Command Center was told about this, "other aircraft" at 9:01, New York Center contacted New York terminal approach control and asked for help in locating United 175.
(Begin audiotape.)
TERMINAL: I got somebody who keeps coasting but it looks like he's going into one of the small airports down there.
CENTER: Hold on a second. I'm trying to bring him up here and get you -- there he is right there. Hold on.
TERMINAL: Got him just out of 9,500-9,000 now.
CENTER: Do you know who he is?
TERMINAL: We're just, we just we don't know who he is. We're just picking him up now.
CENTER (at 9:02): All right. Heads up man, it looks like another one coming in.
MR. AZZARELLO: The controllers observed the plane in a rapid descent; the radar data terminated over Lower Manhattan. At 9:03 and two seconds, United 175 crashed into the South Tower.
Meanwhile, a manager from Boston Center reported that they had deciphered what they had heard in one of the first hijacker transmissions from American 11:
(Begin audiotape.)
BOSTON CENTER: Hey -- you still there?
NEW ENGLAND REGION: Yes, I am.
BOSTON CENTER: I'm gonna reconfirm with, with downstairs, but the, as far as the tape -- seemed to think the guy said that "we have planes." Now, I don't know if it was because it was the accent, or if there's more than one, but I'm gonna -- I'm gonna reconfirm that for you, and I'll get back to you real quick. Okay?
NEW ENGLAND REGION: Appreciate it.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: They have what?
BOSTON CENTER: Planes, as in plural. It sounds like, we're talking to New York, that there's another one aimed at the World Trade Center.
NEW ENGLAND REGION: There's another aircraft?
BOSTON CENTER: A second one just hit the Trade Center.
NEW ENGLAND REGION: Okay. Yeah, we gotta get -- you know, we gotta alert the military real quick on this.
MR. AZZARELLO: Boston Center immediately advised the New England Region that it was going to stop all aircraft scheduled to depart from any airport within Boston Center. At 9:05, Boston Center confirmed for both FAA Command Center and the New England Region that the hijackers aboard American 11 said, "we have planes."
At the same time, New York Center declared, "ATC zero," -- meaning that aircraft were not permitted to depart from, arrive at, or travel through New York Center's airspace until further notice.
Within minutes of the second impact, Boston Center's operations manager instructed all air traffic controllers in his center to use their radio frequencies to inform all aircraft in Boston Center of the events unfolding in New York, and to advise aircraft to heighten cockpit security.
Boston Center also asked Herndon Command Center to issue a similar cockpit security alert to all aircraft nationwide. We have found no evidence to suggest that Command Center managers instructed any centers to issue a cockpit security alert.
Military Notification and Response. The first indication that the NORAD air defenders had of the second hijacked aircraft, United 175, came in a phone call from New York Center to NEADS at 9:03. The notice came in at about the time the plane was hitting the South Tower. At 9:08, the mission crew commander at NEADS learned of the second explosion at the World Trade Center and decided against holding the fighters in military air space away from Manhattan:
MISSION CREW COMMANDER, NEADS (from audiotape): This is what I foresee that we probably need to do. We need to talk to FAA. We need to tell 'em if this stuff is gonna keep on going, we need to take those fighters, put 'em over Manhattan. That's best thing, that's the best play right now. So coordinate with the FAA. Tell 'em if there's more out there, which we don't know, let's get 'em over Manhattan. At least we've got some kind of play.
(End of audio tape.)
MR. FARMER: The FAA cleared the air space. The Otis fighters were sent to Manhattan. A combat air patrol was established over the city at 9:25. Because the Otis fighters had expended a great deal of fuel in flying first to military air space and then to New York, the battle commanders were concerned about refueling.
NEADS considered scrambling alert fighters from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia to New York to provide backup. The Langley fighters were placed on battle stations at 9:09. NORAD had no indication that any other plane had been hijacked.
The following is a time-lapse depiction of the flight paths of American 11 and United 175.
(Video depiction shown.)
MR. FARMER: American Airlines Flight 77, FAA awareness.
American 77 began its takeoff from Dulles International Airport at 8:20. The flight was handed off routinely from Washington Center to Indianapolis Center at approximately 8:40. American 77 was acknowledged by the Indianapolis controller, who had 14 other planes in his sector at the time. The controller instructed the aircraft to climb, and at 8:50 cleared it to its next navigational aid. American 77 acknowledged. This was the last transmission from American 77.
At 8:54, American 77 began deviating from its flight plan, first with a slight turn toward the south. Two minutes later it disappeared completely from Indianapolis radar. The controller tracking American 77 told us he first noticed the aircraft turning to the southwest and then saw the data disappear.
The controller looked for primary radar returns. He searched along its projected flight path and the air space to the southwest, where it had started to turn. No primary targets appeared. He tried the radios, first calling the aircraft directly, then the airline. Again, there was nothing.
At this point the Indianapolis controller had no knowledge of the situation in New York. He did not know that other aircraft had been hijacked. He believed American 77 had experienced serious electrical and/or mechanical failure and was gone.
Shortly after 9:00, Indianapolis Center started notifying other agencies that American 77 was missing and had possibly crashed. At 9:08, Indianapolis Center contacted Air Force search and rescue at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, and told them to look out for a downed aircraft. They also contacted the West Virginia state police and asked whether they had any reports of a downed aircraft.
At 9:09, they reported the loss of contact to the FAA regional center, which passed this information to FAA headquarters at 9:24. By 9:20, Indianapolis Center learned that there were other hijacked aircraft in the system and began to doubt their initial assumption that American 77 had crashed. A discussion of this concern between the manager at Indianapolis and the Command Center in Herndon prompted the Command Center to notify some FAA field facilities that American 77 was lost.
By 9:21, the Command Center, some FAA field facilities and American Airlines had started to search for American 77. They feared it had been hijacked. At 9:25, the Command Center advised FAA headquarters that American 77 was lost in Indianapolis Center's air space, that Indianapolis Center had no primary radar track, and that it was looking for the aircraft.
The failure to find a primary radar return for American 77 led us to investigate this issue further. Radar reconstructions performed after 9/11 reveal that FAA radar equipment tracked the flight from the moment its transponder was turned off at 8:56, but for eight minutes and 13 seconds, between 8:56 and 9:05, this primary radar information on American 77 was not displayed to controllers at Indianapolis Center. The reasons are technical, arising from the way software processed radar information, as well as from core primary radar coverage where American 77 had been flying.
According to the radar reconstruction, American 77 re-emerged as a primary target on Indianapolis Center radar scopes at 9:05, east of its last known position. The target remained in Indianapolis Center's air space for another six minutes, then crossed into the western portion of Washington Center's air space at 9:10.
As Indianapolis Center continued searching for the aircraft, two managers and the controller responsible for American 77 looked to the west and southwest along the flight's projected path, not east, where the aircraft was now heading. The managers did not construct other controllers at Indianapolis Center to turn on their primary radar coverage to join in the search for American 77.
In sum, Indianapolis Center never saw Flight 77 turn around. By the time it reappeared in primary radar coverage, controllers had either stopped looking for the aircraft because they thought it had crashed or they were looking toward the west.
In addition, while the Command Center learned Flight 77 was missing, neither it nor FAA headquarters issued an all-points bulletin to surrounding centers to search for primary radar targets. American 77 traveled undetected for 36 minutes on a course heading due east to Washington, D.C.
By 9:25, FAA's Herndon Command Center and FAA Headquarters knew the following. They knew two aircraft had crashed into the World Trade Center. They knew American 77 was lost. They knew that a hijacker on board American 11 had said, "We have some planes." Concerns over the safety of other aircraft began to mount.
The manager at the Herndon Command Center asked FAA Headquarters if they wanted to order a, "nationwide ground stop." While executives at FAA Headquarters discussed it, the Command Center went ahead and ordered one anyway at 9:25.
The Command Center kept looking for American 77. At 9:21 it advised the Dulles terminal control facility, which urged its controllers to look for primary targets. At 9:32, they found one. Several of the Dulles controllers, "observed the primary radar target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed," and notified Reagan Airport. FAA personnel at both Reagan and Dulles Airports notified the Secret Service. The identity or aircraft type was unknown.
Reagan Airport controllers then vectored an unarmed National Guard C-130H cargo aircraft, which had just taken off en route to Minnesota, to identify and follow the suspicious aircraft. The C-130H pilot spotted it, identified it as a Boeing 757, attempted to follow its path, and at 9:38, seconds after impact, reported to Washington tower: "Looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir."
Military notification and response. NORAD did not know about the search for American 77. Instead, they heard once again about a plane that no longer existed, American 11. At 9:21, NEADS received a report from the FAA.
(Begin audiotape.)
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: FAA military to Boston Center. I just had a report that American 11 is still in the air and it's on its way towards -- heading towards Washington.
NEADS TECHNICIAN: American 11 is still in the air --
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: Yes.
NEADS TECHNICIAN: -- on its way towards Washington?
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: It was another aircraft that hit the tower. That's the latest report we have.
NEADS TECHNICIAN: Okay.
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: I'm going to try to confirm an ID for you, but I would assume he's somewhere over either New Jersey or somewhere further south.
NEADS TECHNICIAN: Okay. So American 11 isn't a hijack at all, then, right?
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: No, he is a hijack.
NEADS TECHNICIAN: American 11 is a hijack?
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: Yes.
NEADS TECHNICIAN: And he's going into Washington.
FAA REPRESENTATIVE: This could be a third aircraft.
(End of audiotape.)
MR. FARMER: This mention of a, "third aircraft," was not a reference to American 77. There was confusion at that moment in the FAA. Two planes had struck the World Trade Center, and Boston Center had heard from FAA Headquarters in Washington that American 11 was still airborne. We have been unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information.
The NEADS technician who took this call from the FAA immediately passed the word to the mission crew commander. He in turn reported to the NEADS battle commander.
(Begin audiotape.)
MISSION CREW COMMANDER: Okay, American Airlines is still airborne -- 11, the first guy. He's heading towards Washington. Okay, I think we need to scramble Langley right now and I'm going to take the fighters from Otis and try to chase this guy down if I can find him.
(End of audiotape.)
MR. FARMER: The mission crew commander at NEADS issued an order at 9:23: "Okay, scramble Langley. Head them towards the Washington area." That order was processed and transmitted to Langley Air Force Base at 9:24, and radar data show the Langley fighters were airborne at 9:30.
NEADS decided to keep the Otis fighters over New York. The heading of the Langley fighters was adjusted to send them to the Baltimore area. The mission crew commander explained to us that the purpose was to position the Langley fighters between the reported southbound American 11 and the nation's capital.
At the suggestion of the Boston Center's military liaison, NEADS contacted the FAA's Washington Center to ask about American 11. In the course of the conversation, a Washington Center manager informed NEADS that: "We're looking. We also lost American 77." The time was 9:34.
This was the first notice to the military that American 77 was missing, and it had come by chance. If NEADS had not placed that call, the NEADS air defenders would have received no information whatsoever that American 77 was even missing, although the FAA had been searching for it. No one at FAA Command Center or Headquarters ever asked for military assistance with American 77.
At 9:36, the FAA's Boston Center called NEADS and related the discovery about the aircraft closing in on Washington, an aircraft that still had not been linked with the missing American 77. The FAA told NEADS: "Latest report, aircraft VFR" -- visual flight rules -- "six miles southeast of the White House -- six southwest, six southwest of the White House, deviating away."
This startling news prompted the mission crew commander at NEADS to take immediate control of the air space to clear a flight path for the Langley fighters. "Okay, we're going to turn it, crank it up. Run them to the White House."
He then discovered, to his surprise, that the Langley fighters were not headed north to the Baltimore area as instructed but east over the ocean. I don't care how many windows you break," he said. "Damn it. Okay, push them back."
The Langley fighters were heading east, not north, for three reasons. First, unlike the normal scramble order, this order did not include a distance to the target or the target's location.
Second, a generic flight plan incorrectly led the Langley fighters to believe they were ordered to fly due east 090 for 60 miles. The purpose of a generic flight plan was to quickly get the aircraft airborne and out of local air space.
Third, the lead pilot and local FAA controller incorrectly assumed the flight plan instruction to go,"090 for 60," was newer guidance that superseded the original scramble order. After the 9:36 call to NEADS about the unidentified aircraft a few miles from the White House, the Langley fighters were ordered to Washington D.C.
Controllers at NEADS located an unknown primary radar track but, "It kind of faded" over Washington. The time was 9:38. The Pentagon had been struck by American 77 at 9:37:46. The Langley fighters were approximately 150 miles away.
Right after the Pentagon was hit, NEADS learned of another possible hijacked aircraft. It was an aircraft that, in fact, had not been hijacked at all. After the second World Trade Center crash, Boston Center managers recognized both aircraft were transcontinental 767 jetliners that had departed Logan Airport.
Remembering the, "we have some planes" remark, Boston Center had guessed that Delta 1989 might also be hijacked. Boston Center called NEADS at 9:41 and identified Delta 1989, a 767 jet that departed Logan Airport destined for Las Vegas, as a possible hijack. NEADS warned the FAA's Cleveland air traffic control center to watch Delta 1989. The FAA's Herndon Command Center and FAA Headquarters were watching it too.
During the course of the morning, there were multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft in the system. The report of American 11 heading south was the first. Delta 1989 was the second. NEADS never lost track of Delta 1989 and even launched fighter aircraft from Ohio and Michigan to intercept it. The flight never turned off its transponder. NEADS soon learned, however, that the aircraft was not hijacked and tracked Delta 1989 as it reversed course over Toledo, headed east and landed in Cleveland.
But another aircraft was heading toward Washington, United 93. The following is a time-lapse depiction of the flight path of American 77.
(Video depiction is shown.)
MR. FARMER: United Airlines Flight 93, FAA awareness.
United 93 took off from Newark at 8:42. It was more than 40 minutes late. At 9:28, United 93 acknowledged the transmission from the controller. This was the last normal contact the FAA had with United 93. Less than a minute later, the Cleveland controller and the pilots of aircraft in the vicinity heard, "a radio transmission of unintelligible sounds, of possible screaming or a struggle from an unknown origin."
The controller responded seconds later: "Somebody call Cleveland." This was followed by a second radio transmission with sounds of screaming and someone yelling--"Get out of here! Get out of here!" Again, from an unknown source.
The Cleveland Center controllers began to try to identify the possible sources of transmissions and noticed that United 93 had descended some 700 feet. The controller attempted again to raise United 93 several times with no response. At 9:30, the controller began to poll the other flights in his frequency to determine if they heard the screaming. Several said that they had.
At 9:32, a third radio transmission came over the frequency. "Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb on board." The controller understood but chose to respond: "Calling Cleveland Center. You're unreadable. Say again slowly." He notified his supervisor, who passed the notice up the chain of command.
By 9:34, word of the hijacking had reached FAA headquarters in Washington. FAA headquarters had by this time established an open line of communication with the Command Center at Herndon and instructed it to poll all the centers about suspect aircraft. The Command Center executed the request, and a minute later Cleveland Center reported that "United 93 may have a bomb on board."
That was the information Command Center relayed to FAA Headquarters at 9:34. Between 9:34 and 9:38, the controller observed United 93 climbing to 40,700 feet and immediately moved several aircraft out of its way. The controller continued to try to contact United 93 and asked whether the pilot could confirm that he had been hijacked. There was no response. Then, at 9:39, a fifth radio transmission came over the radio frequency from United 93.
ZIAD JARRAH: (Communication from United Flight 93.): Uh, is the captain. Would like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb on board and are going back to the airport, and to have our demands -- (inaudible). Please remain quiet.
MR. FARMER: The controller responded: "United 93, understand you have a bomb on board. Go ahead." The flight did not respond. At 9:41, Cleveland Center lost United 93's transponder signal. The controller located it on primary radar, matched its position with visual sightings from other aircraft, and tracked the flight as turned east, then south.
At about 9:36, Cleveland Center asked Command Center specifically whether someone had requested the military to launch fighter aircraft to intercept United 93. Cleveland Center offered to contact a nearby military base. Command Center replied that FAA personnel well above them in the chain of command had to make that decision and were working the issue.
From 9:34 to 10:08, a Command Center manager updated executives at FAA Headquarters on the progress of United 93. During this time, the plane reversed course over Ohio and headed toward Washington. At 9:42, Command Center learned from television news reports that a plane had struck the Pentagon.
The Command Center's national operations manager, Ben Sliney ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all airborne aircraft to land at the nearest airport. This was a totally unprecedented order. The air traffic control system handled it with great skill, as about 4,500 commercial and general-aviation aircraft soon landed without incident.
At 9:46, and again two minutes later, Command Center updated FAA Headquarters that United 93 was now "29 minutes out of Washington DC," A minute after that, at 9:49, 13 minutes after getting the question from Cleveland Center about military help, Command Center suggested that someone at headquarters should decide whether to request military assistance.
(Begin audiotape.)
FAA HEADQUARTERS: They're pulling Jeff away to go talk about United 93.
COMMAND CENTER: Do we want to think about scrambling aircraft?
FAA HEADQUARTERS: Oh, God, I don't know.
COMMAND CENTER: That's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next 10 minutes.
FAA HEADQUARTERS: You know, everybody just left the room.
(End of audiotape.)
MR. FARMER: At 9:53, FAA Headquarters informed Command Center that the deputy director for air traffic services was talking to Deputy Administrator Monte Belger about scrambling aircraft. Then Command Center informed Headquarters they lost track of United 93 over the Pittsburgh area.
Within seconds, Command Center received a visual report from another aircraft and informed headquarters that the aircraft was 20 miles northwest of Johnstown. United 93 was spotted by another aircraft, and at 10:01 Command Center advised FAA Headquarters that one of the aircraft had seen United 93 "waving his wings." The aircraft had witnessed the radical gyrations in what we believe was the hijackers' effort to defeat the passenger assault on the cockpit.
United 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03:11, 125 miles from Washington D.C. The precise crash time has been the subject of some dispute. The 10:03:11 time is supported by evidence from the staff's radar analysis, the flight data recorder, NTSB analysis and infrared satellite data. Five minutes later, Command Center forwarded this update to Headquarters.
(Begin audio tape.)
COMMAND CENTER: Okay, there is now -- on United 93 --
FAA HEADQUARTERS: Yes.
COMMAND CENTER: -- there is a report of black smoke in the last position I gave you, 15 miles south of Johnstown.
FAA HEADQUARTERS: From the airplane or from the ground?
COMMAND CENTER: They're speculating it's from the aircraft.
FAA HEADQUARTERS: Okay.
COMMAND CENTER: It hit the ground. That's what they're speculating. That's speculation only.
(End of audio tape.)
MR. FARMER: The aircraft that spotted the "black smoke" was the same unarmed Air National Guard cargo plane that had seen United 77 crash into the Pentagon 26 minutes earlier. It had resumed its flight to Minnesota and saw the smoke from the crash of United 93 less than two minutes after the plane went down.
At 10:17, Command Center advised Headquarters of its conclusion that United 93 had indeed crashed. Despite the discussions about military assistance, no one from FAA Headquarters requested military assistance regarding United 93, nor did any manager at FAA Headquarters pass any of the information it had about United 93 to the military.
Military notification and response. NEADS first received a call about United 93 from the military liaison at Cleveland Center at 10:07. Unaware that the aircraft had already crashed, Cleveland passed to NEADS the aircraft's last known latitude and longitude. NEADS was never able to locate United 93 on radar because it was already in the ground.
At the same time, the NEADS mission crew commander was dealing with the arrival of the Langley fighters over Washington, D.C. He was sorting out what their orders were with respect to potential targets. Shortly after 10:10, and having no knowledge either that United 93 had been heading toward Washington, or that it had crashed, the mission crew commander explicitly instructed that the Langley fighters did not have "clearance to shoot" aircraft over the nation's capital.
The news of a reported bomb on board United 93 spread quickly at NEADS. The air defenders searched for United 93's primary radar return and tried to locate assets to scramble toward the plane. NEADS called Washington Center to report:
(Begin audiotape.)
NEADS: I also want to give you a heads-up, Washington.
FAA-D.C.: Go ahead.
NEADS: United 93 -- have you got information on that yet?
FAA: Yeah, he's down.
NEADS: He's down?
FAA: Yes.
NEADS: When did he land? 'Cause we have confirmation --
FAA: He did not land.
NEADS: Oh, he's down-down?
FAA: Yes. Somewhere up northeast of Camp David.
NEADS: Northeast of Camp David.
FAA: That's the last report. They don't know exactly where.
(End audiotape.)
MR. FARMER: The time of notification of the crash of United 93 was 10:15. The NEADS air defenders never located the flight or followed it on their radar scopes. The flight had already crashed by the time they learned it was hijacked.
The following is a time-lapsed depiction of United 93.
(Videotape.)
To provide an overview of the materials presented thus far, the following is a time lapsed depiction of all four hijacked flights and the military's response.
(Videotape.)
MR. ZELIKOW: Conflicting Accounts. In May 2003, public testimony before this commission, NORAD officials stated that, at 9:16 NEADS received hijack notification of United 93 from the FAA. This statement was incorrect. There was no hijack to report at 9:16. United 93 was proceeding normally at that time. In this same public testimony, NORAD officials stated that, at 9:24, NEADS received notification of the hijacking of American 77. This statement was also incorrect. The notice NEADS received at 9:24 was not about American 77. It was notification that American 11 had not hit the World Trade Center and was heading for Washington, D.C.
A 9:24 entry in a NEADS event log records: "American Airlines No. N334AA hijacked." This is the tail number of American 11.
In their testimony, and in other public statements, NORAD officials also stated that the Langley fighters were scrambled to respond to the notifications about American 77 and/or United 93. These statements were incorrect as well. The report of American 11 heading south as the cause of the Langley scramble is reflected not just in taped conversations at NEADS, but in taped conversations in FAA centers, on chat logs compiled at NEADS, continental region headquarters, and NORAD, and in other records. Yet this response to a phantom aircraft, American 11, is not recounted in a single public timeline or statement issued by FAA or DOD. Instead, since 9/11, the scramble of the Langley fighters has been described as a response to the reported hijacking of American 77, or United 93, or some combination of the two. This inaccurate account created the appearance that the Langley scramble was a logical response to an actual hijacked aircraft.
Not only was the scramble prompted by the mistaken information about American 11, but NEADS never even received notice that American 77 was hijacked. It was notified at 9:34 that American 77 was lost. Then, minutes later, NEADS was told that an unknown plane was six miles southwest of the White House. Only then did the already scrambled airplanes start moving directly to Washington, D.C.
Thus the military did not have 14 minutes to respond to American 77, as testimony last year suggested. It had at most one or two minutes to respond to the unidentified plane approaching Washington, and the fighters were in the wrong place to be able to help. They had been responding to a report about an aircraft that did not exist.
Nor did the military have 47 minutes to respond to United 93, as would be implied by the account that it received notice about it at 9:16. By the time the military learned about the flight, it had crashed.
At one point the FAA projected that United 93 would reach Washington, at about 10:15. By that time the Langley fighters were over Washington. But, as late as 10:10, the operating orders were still "negative clearance to shoot" regarding non-responsive targets over Washington, D.C. The word of the authorization to shoot down hijacked civilian aircraft did not reach NEADS until 10:31.
We do not believe that an accurate understanding of the events of this morning reflects discredit on the operational personnel from NEADS or FAA facilities. The NEADS commanders and floor officers were proactive in seeking information, and made the best judgments they could based on the information they received. Individual FAA controllers, facility managers, and command center managers thought outside the box in recommending a nationwide alert, in ground-stopping local traffic, and ultimately in deciding to land all aircraft and executing that unprecedented order flawlessly. In fact, it was inaccurate accounts of what happened that created questions about supposed delays in the military's interception of the hijacked aircraft. They also had the effect of deflecting questions about the military's capacity to obtain timely and accurate information from its own resources. They overstated the FAA's ability to provide the military timely and useful information that morning.
We now turn to the timing and circumstances of that shootdown authorization -- and the role of national leadership in the events that morning.
MS. HYDE: On the morning of 9/11 there was no one decision-maker in Washington with perfect information. Various people had various pieces of information, and they were in different locations. The president was initially at an elementary school in Florida, and then en route to Louisiana. At the White House, other decision-makers gathered in either the White House Situation Room or the underground shelter, formally known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center. At the Department of Defense, the center of crisis management was the Pentagon's National Military Command Center. At the FAA, two locations were pivotal: Washington headquarters and the Command Center in Herndon.
National Decision-making from 8:46 to 9:03. When American 11 struck the World Trade Center at 8:46, no one in the White House or traveling with the president knew that it had been hijacked. Immediately afterward, duty officers at the White House and Pentagon began notifying senior officials what had happened. Even within FAA, the administrator and her deputy had not been told of a confirmed hijacking before they learned from television that a plane had crashed. Others in the agency were aware, as we explained earlier in this statement.
In Florida, the president's motorcade was just arriving at the Emma E. Booker Elementary School, where President Bush was to read to a class and talk about education. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card told us he was standing with the president outside the classroom when senior advisor to the president Karl Rove first informed them that a small, twin engine plane had crashed into the World Trade Center. The president's reaction was that the incident must have been caused by pilot error.
At 8:55, before entering the classroom, the president spoke to National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, who was at the White House. She recalled first telling the president it was a twin-engine aircraft, then that it was commercial, saying, "That's all we know right now, Mr. President."
At the White House, the vice president had just sat down for a meeting when his assistant told him to turn on his television because a plane had struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The vice president was wondering "how the hell a plane could hit the World Trade Center" when he saw the second aircraft strike the South Tower.
The Agencies Confer. When they learned a second plane had struck the World Trade Center, nearly everyone in the White House told us they immediately knew it was not an accident. The Secret Service initiated a number of security enhancements around the White House complex. The officials who issued these orders did not know that there were additional hijacked aircraft, or that one such aircraft was en route to Washington. These measures were precautionary steps because of the strikes in New York.
Officials across the government struggled to find out what was going on. The FAA, the White House, and the Defense Department each initiated a multi-agency teleconference before 9:30. The FAA, following its protocol, set up a hijacking teleconference at approximately 9:20 with several agencies, including the Defense Department. However, FAA and Defense Department participants in this teleconference told us the call played no role in coordinating the military and FAA response to the attacks of 9/11.
The White House Situation Room initiated a video teleconference, chaired by Richard Clarke. While important, it had no immediate effect on the emergency defense efforts.
The Defense Department's NMCC initiated a key teleconference that started at 9:29 as a "Significant Event Conference" and then at 9:37 resumed as an Air Threat Conference call. This teleconference lasted over eight hours. The president, vice president, secretary of Defense, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and deputy national security advisor all participated in the Air Threat Conference at various points in the day, as did military personnel from the White House underground shelter. So did the president's military aide on Air Force One.
Operators worked feverishly to include the FAA in this teleconference, but they had equipment problems and difficulty finding secure phone numbers. NORAD asked three times before 10:03 to confirm the presence of FAA on the conference, to provide an update on hijackings. The FAA did not join the call until 10:17. The FAA representative who joined the call had no familiarity with or responsibility for a hijack situation, had no access to decision-makers, and had none of the information available to senior FAA officials by that time. We found no evidence that, at this critical time, during the morning of September 11th, NORAD's top commanders in Florida or Cheyenne Mountain ever coordinated with their counterparts at FAA headquarters to improve situational awareness and organize a common response. Lower-level officials improvised -- the FAA's Boston Center bypassing the chain of command to contact NEADS. But the highest level Defense Department officials relied on the NMCC's Air Threat Conference, in which the FAA did not meaningfully participate.
At 9:39, the NMCC's deputy director for operations, a military officer, opened the call from the Pentagon, which had just been struck by a Boeing 757 airliner. He began: "An air attack against North America may be in progress. NORAD, what's the situation?" NORAD said it had conflicting reports. Its latest information was "of a possible hijacked aircraft taking off out of JFK en route to Washington D.C."
The NMCC mentioned reports of a crash into the Mall side of the Pentagon and requested that the secretary of Defense be added to the conference. At 9:44, NORAD briefed the conference on the possible hijacking of Delta Flight 1989. Two minutes later, the Office of the Secretary of Defense and the Office of the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported that they were still trying to track down the secretary and vice chairman, and bring them into the conference. The chairman was out of the country.
At 9:48, a representative from the underground shelter at the White House asked if there were any indications of another hijacked aircraft. The NMCC deputy director for operations mentioned the Delta flight and concluded "that would be the fourth possible hijack."
At 9:49, the commander of NORAD directed all air sovereignty aircraft to battle stations fully armed. At 9:59, an Air Force lieutenant colonel working in the White House Military Office joined the conference, and stated that he had just talked to Deputy National Security Advisor Steve Hadley. The White House requested: one, the implementation of continuity of government measures; two, fighter escorts for Air Force One; and, three, the establishment of a fighter combat air patrol over Washington, D.C.
The President and the Vice President. The President was seated in a classroom of second graders when, at approximately 9:05, Andrew Card whispered to him, "A second plane hit the second tower. America is under attack." The president told us his instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis.
The national press corps was standing behind the children in the classroom; he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The president felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening. The president remained in the classroom for another five to seven minutes, while the children continued reading. He then returned to a holding room shortly before 9:15, where he was briefed by staff and saw television coverage. He then spoke to Vice President Cheney, Dr. Rice, Governor Pataki, and FBI Director Mueller. He decided to make a brief statement from the school before leaving for the airport. The Secret Service told us they were anxious to move the president to a safer location, but did not think it imperative for him to run out the door.
Between 9:15 and 9:30, the staff was busy arranging a return to Washington, while the president consulted his senior advisors about his remarks. No one in the traveling party had any information during this time that other aircraft were hijacked or missing. As far as we know, no one was in contact with the Pentagon. The focus was on the president's statements to the nation. No decisions were made during this time, other than the decision to return to Washington.
The president's motorcade departed at 9:35, and arrived at the airport between 9:42 and 9:45. During the ride the president learned about the attack on the Pentagon. He boarded the aircraft, asked the Secret Service about the safety of his family, and called the vice president. According to notes of this call, at about 9:45 the president told the vice president, "Sounds like we have a minor war going on here, I heard about the Pentagon. We're at war -- somebody's going to pay."
About this time Card, the lead Secret Service agent, the president's military aide, and the pilot were conferring on a possible destination for Air Force One. The Secret Service agent felt strongly that the situation in Washington was too unstable to return. Card agreed. The president, however, needed convincing. All witnesses agreed that the president strongly wanted to return to Washington and only grudgingly agreed to go elsewhere. The issue was still undecided when the president conferred with the vice president at about the time Air Force One was taking off. The vice president recalled urging the president not to come back to Washington. Air Force One departed at approximately 9:55, with no destination at take-off. The objective was to get up in the air, as fast and as high as possible, and then decide where to go.
News of an incoming aircraft, later discovered to be American 77, prompted the Secret Service to order the evacuation of the vice president just before 9:36. The vice president entered the underground tunnel that led to the shelter at 9:37. Once inside, Vice President Cheney and the agents paused in an area of the tunnel that had a secure phone, a bench, and a television. The vice president asked to speak to the president, but it took some time for the call to be connected. He learned in the tunnel that the Pentagon had been hit, and saw television coverage of smoke coming from the building.
The Secret Service logged Mrs. Cheney's arrival at the White House at 9:52. She joined her husband in the tunnel. According to contemporaneous notes, at 9:55 the vice president was still on the phone with the president, advising that three planes were missing and one had hit the Pentagon. We believe this is the same call initiated close to the time Air Force One took off, in which the vice president joined the chorus of advisers urging the president not to return to Washington. The call ended. She and the vice president moved from the tunnel to the shelter conference room.
MR. FARMER: United 93 and the Shootdown Order. There was not an open line of communication between the president and vice president on the morning of 9/11, but rather a series of calls between the two leaders. The vice president remembered placing a call to the president just after entering the shelter conference room. There is conflicting evidence as to when the vice president arrived in the shelter conference room. We have concluded, after reviewing all the available evidence, that the vice president arrived in the shelter conference room shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58. The vice president recalls being told just after his arrival that an Air Force combat air patrol was up over Washington. At 9:59, a White House request for such a CAP was communicated to the military through the Air Threat Conference.
The vice president states that the purpose of his call to the president was to discuss the rules of engagement for the CAP. He recalled he felt it did not do any good to put the CAP up there unless the pilots had instructions to tell them whether they were authorized to shoot if the plane would not divert. He said the president signed off on that concept. The president said he remembered such a conversation, and that it reminded him of when he had been a fighter pilot. The president emphasized to us that he had authorized the shootdown of hijacked aircraft. The vice president's military aide told us he believed the vice president spoke to the president just after entering the conference room, but he did not hear what they said. Rice, who entered the conference room shortly after the vice president and sat next to him, recalled hearing the vice president inform the president that, "Sir, the CAPs are up. Sir, they're going to want to know what to do." Then she recalled hearing him say, "Yes sir." She believed this conversation occurred a few minutes, perhaps five, after they entered the conference room.
We believe this call would have taken place some time before 10:10 to 10:15. Among the sources that reflect other important events that morning, there is no documentary evidence for this call, although the relevant sources are incomplete. Others nearby who were taking notes, such as the vice president's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, who sat next to him, and Mrs. Cheney, did not note a call between the president and vice president immediately after the vice president entered the conference room.
At 10:02, the communicators in the shelter began receiving reports from the Secret Service of an inbound aircraft -- presumably hijacked -- heading toward Washington. That aircraft was United 93. The Secret Service was getting this information directly from the FAA, through its links to that agency. The Service's operations center and their FAA contact were tracking the progress of the aircraft on a display that showed its projected path, not its actual radar return. Thus, for a time, they were not aware the aircraft was going down in Pennsylvania.
At some time between 10:10 and 10:15, a military aide told the vice president and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft. The vice president's reaction was described as quick and decisive: "In about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." He authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane. He told us this was based on his prior conversation with the president. The military aide returned a few minutes later, probably between 10:12 and 10:18, and said the aircraft was 60 miles out. He again asked for authorization to engage. The vice president again said yes. The Secret Service was postulating the flight path of United 93, not knowing it had already crashed.
Also at the conference table was White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. Bolten watched the exchanges and, after what he called "a quiet moment," suggested that the vice president get in touch with the president and confirm the engage order. Bolten told us he wanted to make sure the president was told that the vice president had executed the order. He said he had not heard any prior conversation on the subject with the president. The vice president was logged calling the president at 10:18 for a two-minute call that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, at 10:20, the president's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, noted that the president had told him he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft, if necessary.
Minutes went by and word arrived of an aircraft down over Pennsylvania. Those in the conference room wondered if perhaps the aircraft had been shot down pursuant to these directions. At approximately 10:30, the shelter started receiving reports of another hijacked plane, this time only five to ten miles out. Believing they had only a minute or two, once again the vice president communicated authority to, "engage," or "take out" the airborne aircraft. At 10:33, Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley passed that guidance on the Air Threat Conference call, "I need to get word to Dick Myers that our reports are there's an inbound aircraft flying low five miles out. The vice president's guidance was we need to take them out."
Once again, there was no immediate information about the fate of the inbound aircraft. As one witness to the event described, "It drops below the radar screen, and it's just continually hovering in your imagination; you don't know where it is or what happens to it." Eventually, the shelter received word that the alleged hijacker five miles away had been a Medevac helicopter.
Transmission of the Authorization from the White House to the Pilots. The National Military Command Center learned of the hijacking of United 93 at about 10:03. The FAA had not yet been connected to the Air Threat Conference and in general had practically no contact with the military at the level of national command. The NMCC instead received news about the hijacking of United 93 from the White House. The White House had received the word from the Secret Service's contacts with the FAA.
NORAD had no information either. In response to questions, the NORAD representative on the Air Threat Conference stated at 10:07, "NORAD has no indication of a hijack heading to Washington, D.C. at this time." Repeatedly between 10:14 and 10:19, a lieutenant colonel at the White House relayed the information to the National Military Command Center that the vice president had confirmed fighters were cleared to engage the inbound aircraft if they could verify that the aircraft was hijacked.
The commander of NORAD, General Eberhart, was en route to the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado when the shootdown order was communicated on the Air Threat Conference. He told us that by the time he arrived at the mountain the order had already been passed down the NORAD chain of command. It is not clear how the shootdown order was communicated to the continental region headquarters. But we know that at 10:31 General Larry Arnold instructed his staff to broadcast the following message over a NORAD chat log, "10:31 vice president has cleared to us to intercept tracks of interest and shoot them down if they do not respond, per CONR CC -- General Arnold."
In Upstate New York, NEADS personnel first learned of the shootdown order from that chat log message:
(Begin audiotape.)
FLOOR LEADERSHIP: You need to read this. The region commander has declared that we can shoot down aircraft that do not respond to our direction. Copy that?
CONTROLLERS: Copy that, sir.
FLOOR LEADERSHIP: So if you're trying to divert somebody and he won't divert --
CONTROLLERS: DO is saying no.
FLOOR LEADERSHIP: No? It came over the chat. You got a conflict on that direction?
CONTROLLERS: Right now no, but --
FLOOR LEADERSHIP: Okay. Okay, you read that from the vice president, right? Vice President has cleared. Vice President has cleared us to intercept traffic and shoot them down if they do not respond per CONR CC.
(End audiotape.)
MR. FARMER: In interviews with us, NEADS personnel expressed considerable confusion over the nature and effect of the order. Indeed, the NEADS commander told us he did not pass along the order because he was unaware of its ramifications. Both the mission commander and the weapons director indicated they did not pass the order to the fighters circling Washington and New York City because they were unsure how the pilots would, or should, proceed with this guidance.
In short, while leaders in Washington believed the fighters circling above them had been instructed to "take out" hostile aircraft, the only orders actually conveyed to the Langley pilots were to "ID type and tail."
In most cases the chain of command in authorizing the use of force runs from the president to the secretary of Defense and from the secretary to the combatant commander. The president apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld briefly sometime after 10:00, but no one can recall any content beyond a general request to alert forces. The president and the secretary did not discuss the use of force against hijacked airliners in this conversation. The secretary did not become part of the chain of command for those orders to engage until he arrived in the NMCC.
At 10:39, the vice president tried to bring the secretary up to date as both participated in the Air Threat Conference:
MR. ZELIKOW: The vice president said, "There's been at least three instances here where we've had reports of aircraft approaching Washington -- a couple were confirmed hijack. And, pursuant to the president's instructions I gave authorization for them to be taken out. Hello?"
The secretary of Defense: "Yes, I understand. Who did you give that direction to?"
The vice president: "It was passed from here through the operations center at the White House, from the shelter."
Secretary of Defense: "Okay, let me ask the question here" Has that directive been transmitted to the aircraft?"
Vice President: "Yes, it has."
Secretary of Defense: "So we've got a couple of aircraft up there that have those instructions at the present time?"
The vice president: "That is correct. And it's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out."
The secretary of Defense: "We can't confirm that. We're told that one aircraft is down but we do not have a pilot report that they did it."
MR. FARMER: As this exchange shows, Secretary Rumsfeld was not involved when the shootdown order was first passed on the Air Threat Conference. After the Pentagon was hit, Secretary Rumsfeld went to the parking lot to assist with rescue efforts. He arrived in the National Military Command Center shortly before 10:30. He told us he was just gaining situational awareness when he spoke with the vice president, and that his primary concern was ensuring that the pilots had a clear understanding of their rules of engagement. The vice president was mistaken in his belief that shootdown authorization had been passed to the pilots flying at NORAD's direction.
By 10:45 there was, however, another set of fighters circling Washington that had entirely different rules of engagement. These fighters, part of the 113th Wing of the D.C. Air National Guard, launched out of Andrews Air Force Base based on information passed to them by the Secret Service. The first of the Andrews fighters was airborne at 10:38. General Wherley, the commander of the 113th Wing, reached out to the Secret Service after hearing secondhand reports that it wanted fighters airborne. A Secret Service agent had a phone in each ear, one to Wherley and one to a fellow agent at the White House, relaying instructions that the White House agent said he was getting from the vice president. The guidance for Wherley was to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatens the Capitol. General Wherley translated this in military terms to, "weapons free," which means the decision to shoot rests in the cockpit, or in this case the cockpit of the lead pilot. He passed these instructions to the pilots that launched at 10:42 and afterward.
Thus, while the fighter pilots under NORAD direction who had scrambled out of Langley never received any type of engagement order, the Andrews pilots were operating under weapons free, a permissive rule of engagement. The president and the vice president told us they had not been aware that fighters had been scrambled out of Andrews, at the request of the Secret Service and outside of the military chain of command.
MR. ZELIKOW: Reflections on United 93. Had it not crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03, we estimate that United 93 could not have reached Washington, D.C. any earlier than 10:13, and most probably would have arrived before 10:23. We examined the military's ability to intercept it. There was only one set of fighters orbiting Washington, D.C. during this timeframe -- the Langley F-16s. They were armed and under NORAD's control. But the Langley pilots were never briefed about the reason they were scrambled. As the lead pilot explained, "I reverted to the Russian threat -- I'm thinking cruise missile threat from the sea. You know you look down and see the Pentagon burning and I thought the bastards snuck one by us. You couldn't see any airplanes, and no one told us anything."
The pilots knew their mission was to identify and divert aircraft flying within a certain radius of Washington, but did not know that the threat came from hijacked commercial airliners. Also, NEADS did not know where United 93 was when it first heard about the hijacking from FAA at 10:07. Presumably FAA would have provided the information, but we do not know how long it would have taken, nor how long it would have taken NEADS to find and track the target on its own equipment.
Once the target was known and identified, NEADS needed orders to pass to the pilots. Shootdown authority was first communicated to NEADS at 10:31. Given the clear attack on the United States, it is also possible -- though unlikely -- that NORAD commanders could have ordered the shootdown without the authorization communicated by the vice president.
NORAD officials have maintained that they would have intercepted and shot down United 93. We are not so sure. We are sure that the nation owes a debt to the passengers of United 93. Their actions saved the lives of countless others, and may have saved either the U.S. Capitol or the White House from destruction.
The details of what happened on the morning of September 11th are complex. But the details play out a simple theme. NORAD and the FAA were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11th, 2001. They struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never trained to meet.
MR. KEAN: Our first panel today will focus on the military's response on the morning of September 11th. We are joined by a distinguished group of military leaders: General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and past commander of NORAD; Admiral-Select Charles Joseph Leidig, current commandant of the Naval Academy, who served as deputy director of operations in the National Military Command Center on 9/11; General Ralph E. Eberhart, commander of NORAD and the United States Northern Command; and Retired Major General Larry Arnold, who served on 9/11 as the commander of the Continental United States NORAD Region.
Could you please raise your hands while I place you under oath?
Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?
WITNESSES: I do.
MR. KEAN: You may be seated. All written statements will be entered into the record in full. We recognize that General Myers has to leave for another engagement, so we'll proceed directly to questions after General Myers' opening statement. After General Myers departs, we'll proceed with the rest of the panel.
GEN. RICHARD MYERS: Thank you, sir. I have a brief statement, and then we'll get right to questions. First, I want to thank the Commission for your efforts to help our nation guard against future attacks. We share a common goal to capture the lessons of September 11th, 2001, in order to better protect the American people. You have my written statement, and I'll just make a few comments so we have as much time left for questions.
First, our military posture on 9/11, by law, by policy and in practice, was focused on responding to external threats, threats originating outside of our borders. Nevertheless, we executed the continuity of government plan very well on 9/11, and our service men and women displayed superb professionalism, judgment and flexibility at ever level that day, and I'm very proud of their performance.
That said, the lessons learned from 9/11 are many. Our armed forces' efforts to respond militarily, reorganize our forces, define and effectively resource our evolving tasks and our missions, and revive -- revise our processes have been colossal, and are still ongoing.
Day in and day out, our service men and women bravely combat terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places around the world, maintain alert for the homeland defense mission here in the United States, and work phenomenal hours on headquarters staffs to do everything they can to keep America and our allies safe and free. I appreciate everyone who supports their efforts, including this committee, of course.
And with that, we'll take your questions.
MR. KEAN: Thank you, sir.
The questioning -- the questioning this morning will be led by Commissioner Ben-Veniste and Commissioner Lehman. Commissioner Ben-Veniste.
MR. RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, gentlemen.
GEN. MYERS: Good morning, sir.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: I'd like to start first by commending our staff for an extraordinary, detailed, 18-month investigation, which has provided the detail which we have provided today to the American public. I want to say that nothing that we have found indicates anything but the highest commitment to duty and valor among the pilots and support personnel involved in the air mission on that infamous day of September 11th, 2001. By the same token, General Myers, our staff has found that NORAD and FAA were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11th, 2001.
And so, I would like to ask you, sir, whether you and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, were made available -- were made aware of the available information during the summer threat in 2001, which reflected the preparations by al Qaeda for a spectacular attack against the United States, and specifically whether the information in the August 6th PDB was shared with you or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs?
GEN. MYERS: We were aware -- I think it started, some of this information started flowing, intelligence information, at the end of the May, and it continued through June, July, the August 6th memo. It talked, as I recall, about al Qaeda threat to U.S. -- United States, primarily overseas. It was -- it was focused primarily on the Saudi Arabian peninsula, is my memory of that. And it, that threat reporting continued through those -- through those months, and we were certainly aware of it. But, in fact, we even took action when -- I think it was in July -- we actually sortied some ships out of Bahrain because of the threat in the peninsula area. And that, as I recall, the best -- the estimate from the intel analysis was that it would take place either on the Saudi peninsula, perhaps in Turkey, they even -- there was one mention, I remember, of Italy, actually. And then there was a potential threat to the United States, but never including an aircraft.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, in the PDB memo that I am referring to, specifically mentions FBI information of suspicious activity within this country, consistent with the preparations for hijackings. Was that information shared with you?
GEN. MYERS: Not -- not information, at least that I saw, other than what was contained in the Presidential Daily Brief memorandum, which I think was the last couple of paragraphs, or last paragraph.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Was information shared with you, General, with respect to the arrest of Mr. Zacarias Moussaoui, which occurred on or about the 17th of August, in which the FBI quickly came to the conclusion that Mr. Moussaoui was a suicide hijacker, an individual with jihadist connections who had sought and received some training on a commercial airliner?
GEN. MYERS: I don't recall. I simply can't recall. I think I would have, so -- but I don't recall.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Wouldn't that be something that you would recall?
GEN. MYERS: I would -- don't know, but it -- it's pretty significant information, but I don't recall.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Had you received such information tying together the potential reflected in the August 6th PDB memorandum that was titled "Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in the United States," together with this additional information, might you have followed up on a training scenario at the least, such as the positive force training scenario where a hijacked plane was presumed to fly into the Pentagon, a proposal that was made and rejected in the year 2000?
GEN. MYERS: Well, a couple of things. I don't know that we would have because exercising alone is not enough, if you look at all, and you have -- you've looked at all the policy that we've gotten through the '90s into early 2000, 2001, and all the policy guidance was that we treat terrorism primarily as a criminal event. And the role of the Defense Department was to defend our forces, primarily, it was force protection, anti-terrorism, not counterterrorism -- counterterrorism responsibilities for, domestically were the FBI, externally were the CIA.
There was an exercise, and this was -- the idea was to stress the continuity of command, the one you referenced there, but it was an exercise focused on Korea, and that's why the scenario was rejected, because it did not -- it did not contribute to the exercise at hand.
I can't answer the hypothetical. It's more -- it's the way that we were directed to posture, looking outward, those were the orders that NORAD had, and it's had for, ever since the end of the Soviet Union when we had, at that time, I think it was 26 alert sites around the United States, and we'd gone down to seven. So, it would have -- it would have required more than exercising if you wanted to be effective, and it would have been not just the military, because civilian agencies had a -- had the major role.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, you've anticipated my next question. It might not be the entire answer, but it would be a start.
Let me ask you whether that might not have stimulated an effort to determine the level of communications with FAA, which, as we determined, on September 11th were abysmal. Would that not have also stimulated you had you thought about the information, had you received it, about an internal threat involving the United States air space, involving the hijacking of commercial airliners by a suicide hijack?
GEN. MYERS: It's certainly possible, and I can't -- you know, you just can't take hypothetical situations and say what you would have done in hindsight. I mean, obviously, we've got pretty good hindsight at this point.
The communications between the FAA and NORAD were specifically designed for the hijacking scenario, but a hijacking scenario where NORAD's role was to track the aircraft, if it crashed to report the crash site, but certainly not to take -- it was not the understandings and the policy at the time was not that these were hostile aircraft other than the fact that they had been hijacked. So, it was to track that, and help the FAA track that. And those were the rules that were standing at the time.
If we'd had definitive information, I think we would have probably taken steps to --
MR. BEN-VENISTE: I hope --
GEN. MYERS: -- to work that. But -- but to my knowledge, we didn't -- we didn't have that, sir.
MR. BEN-VENISTE:Let me direct my remaining to General Eberhart and General Arnold.
Why did no one mention the false report received from FAA that Flight 11 was heading south during your initial appearance before the 9/11 Commission back in May of last year? And why was there no report to us that contrary to the statements made at the time, that there had been no notification to NORAD that Flight 77 was a hijack?
GEN. LARRY ARNOLD: Well, the first part of your question -- Mr. Commissioner, first of all, I would like to say that a lot of the information that you have found out in your study of this of this 9/11, the things that happened on that day, helped us reconstruct what was going on.
And if you're talking about the American 11, in particular, the call of American 11, is that what you are referring to?
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Yes.
GEN. ARNOLD: The American 11, that was -- call after it had impacted, is that what you're referring to?
MR. BEN-VENISTE: No. I'm talking about the fact that there was miscommunication that Flight 11 was still heading south instead of having impacted --
GEN. ARNOLD: That's what I'm referring to. That's correct. As we -- as we worked with your committee in looking at that, that was probably the point in time where we were concerned -- remember, that call, as I recall, actually came after United 175, as well as American 11, had already impacted the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. And then we became very concerned, not knowing what the call signs of those aircraft were that had hit the World Trade Center, we became very concerned at that particular point that those aircraft, that some aircraft might be heading towards Washington, D.C.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: General, is it not a fact that the failure to call our attention to the miscommunication and the notion of a phantom Flight 11 continuing from New York City south in fact skewed the whole reporting of 9/11, it skewed the official Air Force report, which is contained in a book called "The Air War Over America," which does not contain any information about the fact that you were following, or thinking of a continuation of Flight 11, and that you had not received notification that Flight 77 had been hijacked?
GEN. ARNOLD: Well, as I recall, first of all, I didn't know the call signs of the airplanes when these things happened. When the call came that American 11 was possible hijacked aircraft, that aircraft just led me to come to the conclusion that there were other aircraft in the system that were a threat to the United States.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: General Arnold, surely by May of last year, when you testified before this commission, you knew those facts.
GEN. ARNOLD: I didn't recall those facts in May of last year. That's the correct answer to that. In fact, as I recall, during that time frame, my concern was, why did -- the question that came to me was, why did we scramble the aircraft out of Langley Air Force Base, the F-16s out of Langley Air Force Base? And there had been statements made by some that we scrambled that aircraft the report of American 77, which was not the case, and I knew that.
And I was trying to remember in my own mind what was it that persuaded us to scramble those aircraft. And I thought at the time it was United 93. But as I was able to -- we did not have the times when these things were -- when we were notified of this. I did not have that information at that time. I didn't have it.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: General Arnold --
MR. ARNOLD: And so we scrambled those aircraft to get them over Washington D.C. to protect Washington D.C.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: According to our staff, you know that there was a substantial problem in getting information from NORAD, that we received information, we were told that the information was complete. We went out into the field, our staff did, and did a number of interviews. And as a result of those interviews, we found that there were tapes which reflected the facts relating to Flight 11.
And we found additional information by which we were able, through assiduous and painstaking work, listening to any number of tape recordings, to reconstruct what actually occurred, as you have heard in the Staff Statement.
I take it you have no disagreement with the facts put forward in the Staff Statement. That's been produced in advance for comment, and I take it you're in agreement now with our staff's conclusions with respect to those facts.
MR. ARNOLD: I am.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: We have -- and I'm not going to go through it, but it is disturbing to see that there were efforts at after-action reports which were available shortly after 9/11. There were communications which our staff has received with respect to e-mails that reflect some of the facts on nearly a contemporaneous basis with the 9/11 catastrophe that reflect a story which unfortunately is different from the one which was presented to this commission earlier.
When you and General Eberhart were asked about the existence of tape recordings reflecting these open-line communications, both of you indicated that you had no such recollections.
GEN. EBERHART: Mr. Commissioner, I think it's important to note that I did not testify in front of this commission. So to say that I said that that day is categorically wrong.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry. You are correct. I will refer to General Arnold's comments, both with respect to --
MR. KEAN: This is the last question, Commissioner.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.
MR. ARNOLD: Yeah, the Northeast Air Defense Sector apparently had a tape that we were unaware of at the time. And your -- to the best of my knowledge, what I've been told by your staff is that they were unable to make that tape run. But they were later able to -- your staff was able, through a contractor, to get that tape to run.
And so, to the best of my knowledge, that was an accurate statement in May that I did not know of any tape recordings. If I had had them available to me, I certainly would have been able to give you more accurate information.
Our focus was on when the events occurred, and we did not focus on when we -- we didn't have a record -- I did not have a record of when we had been told different things.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: In order to clarify it -- and I apologize again, General Eberhart -- the statement that I was referring to was a statement which we are advised was made to the staff. It was General McKinley, as well as General Arnold. When I asked the question, "Let me ask you whether there's a regularly-made tape recording of these open-line communications," General Arnold answered, "Not to my knowledge" and General McKinley answered, "Not to my knowledge."
It was through the painstaking investigation that discovered these tapes and then our staff listening to those tapes which assisted us in being able to provide the level of detail and accuracy which we've done today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. KEAN: Thank you very much, Commissioner. Commissioner Lehman, we're going to concentrate on questions for General Myers because of his schedule. And we can come back, I guess, to the other members of the panel. They have a little more time.
MR. LEHMAN: General Myers, we're particularly pleased to have you here because your service from '98 to 2000 commanding NORAD gives you particular authority in talking about this.
I think what disturbs us most with regard to NORAD is not so much that this was an unprecedented threat -- and there were certainly problems relating to that with the orientation outward rather than inward and the sad capabilities, really, compared to military radars of the FAA radars that had to be depended on for much of the information -- what disturbs us most is that the glitches in command and control are glitches that had really nothing to do with the fact that it was an internal rather than external, because in the justification for maintaining NORAD, of course, the possibilities of intercepting hijacked airliners was part of the justification from the beginning, although the expectation was that they would be foreign airliners hijacked and incoming.
So the problems of command and control -- let's start at the top. Who was in charge on 9/11? Was it NORAD commander? Was it you? Was it NMCC? Was it SecDef? Was it FAA? With all the exercising that had been done in the past, clearly somebody should have been in charge. But we have been unable to find out who it was. And also, for all of my questions, if you could also say what's been done to change it and what's the situation today.
GEN. MYERS: That's a lot. In terms of national command authorities, you've interviewed the president and the vice president, and I'm not privy to that interview so I can't comment on that. I do know that the next person in the chain of command, Secretary Rumsfeld, was in contact with the president several times during that morning and through the rest of the day, to include -- I believe it's at least two video teleconferences we had with the president -- I may be wrong; it may have been only one -- but lots of conversations with the vice president --
MR. LEHMAN: No, but I'm talking about operationally, the minute-by-minute --
GEN. MYERS: And operationally, General Eberhart was on duty and at his duty station, as was General Arnold. In fact, the first call I got when I left Capitol Hill after a meeting with Senator Cleland was from General Eberhart saying, "We've had these crashes and we're going to take certain actions." And it was shortly thereafter that the Pentagon was hit as we were on our way back to the Pentagon.
So as you know, I'm not in the chain of command. I'm a military adviser to the chain of command and to the National Security Council. So I went back to my duty station, and what we started doing at that time was to say, "Okay, we've had these attacks. Obviously they're hostile acts."
We were not sure at that point who perpetrated them. And my focus at that point and I think the secretary's focus was, "Okay, what else is out there that is possibly going to happen, either in the United States or in other regions of the world?" And that's where we started to focus. What is the next event to happen? It might not be an airliner. It might be some other attack.
So we were looking outward. We were on a threat conference that developed, as you all know. And NORAD was represented on that. I had several conversations that day and early that morning with General Eberhart as we talked our way through the actions that were being taken.
So as far as I'm concerned, the command and control, it was in place. The secretary, except for the short period of time that he went outside to examine where the aircraft came into the Pentagon and then to help, because at that point they needed hands and he lent his hand to help those injured and those responding, but then came back in sometime around 10:00 and was upstairs.
I know he talked to the president sometime in there. I knew he went to what we call the ESC where the communications for the secretary's office goes through. He was up there. He had a VTC with the White House. And about 10:30 he came down to the National Military Command Center, where we joined up. And we stayed joined the rest of the day together.
MR. LEHMAN: Let's talk a little bit about technology and --
GEN. MYERS: Can I just mention one other thing?
MR. LEHMAN: Sure.
GEN. MYERS: Because you asked me to tell what we've done. In the National Military Command Center, that day we did have trouble trying to conference the FAA into our threat conference that was ongoing. So we had to use a separate phone line for that which was not as efficient. That's been corrected.
And as you know, our posture today is quite a bit different as we look at this threat and other potential threats. So we've improved our communications and we've refined our procedures, both with the White House and with the FAA. And those procedures are in effect and are exercised.
MR. LEHMAN: Assets. I understand that there was a great argument during the period before 9/11 about whether NORAD should exist at all, and the reduction from 23 to seven sites. Why, given the increasing threat discussion of the possibility of hijackings and the intentions of al Qaeda, was this such a big issue? Because with so many fighter aircraft based around the country -- Reserve, Guard, Navy, Marine, Air Force -- why is it an asset issue? Why can't there be a much broader allocation of assignment, of alert, throughout the country to deal with the threat that was becoming so evident?
GEN. MYERS: I think it's because the threat was not perceived to be so evident, and we were following the same guidance that we got right after the fall of the Soviet Union: "Where is the dividend from this?" And so forces were scaled down. Alert facilities, which are expensive to maintain, were closed. And we wound up with those seven sites. And I think you all know --
MR. LEHMAN: Why is that so -- I mean, why do they have to be owned assets? Why is it so expensive just to require rotating units to sit on alert and keep aircraft armed, as opposed to their normal training cycle?
GEN. MYERS: Well, it's just the kind of -- it's the priorities that the Defense Department goes through to balance risk. And, again, the threat perception was not there to balance that risk. And --
MR. LEHMAN: But it seems to me a false dichotomy, because the assets exist. They're there. All of the services have huge training-ready capabilities. It's not as if you have to buy and own separate aircraft for NORAD. Why is it even an issue?
GEN. MYERS: And that was -- and by the way, that was the NORAD plan. The NORAD plan was as the threat became more apparent, then we had access to Navy, Marine and Air Force aircraft, and we brought them up -- I think the last number I remember, we could bring 3,000 aircraft to defend this country, not to mention the Canadian aircraft that would be participating as well. So we could bring them up. We had alert sites designated.
So the plan was to do that, but you had to start with the perception of the threat and what we were asked to do. And our clear direction was to look outward. In fact, as General Arnold said, we fought many phantoms that day. There were many phantoms.
I remember getting to the NMCC, and we got the call that a bomb had gone off in front of the State Department. So you think, "Oh, my goodness, what else is happening in this town?" We got many aircraft calls inbound that morning that turned out to be phantoms.
So we were clearly looking outward. We did not have the situational awareness inward because we did not have the radar coverage. And that, by the way, will become an issue here later on as we discuss the fate of the FAA radars that exist in this country today, whether or not we keep radars and have situational awareness for the interior of this country.
MR. LEHMAN: And why shouldn't there be -- why shouldn't the Air Force today and the Army, the military, look at our domestic defense as part of their mission in terms of the air space? It's a huge gap between the normal common capabilities of tactical units, not only strategic units of the radar sophistication and capability compared to what the FAA is stumbling along with. What do you recommend we do about that?
GEN. MYERS: They are doing it. In fact, Army radars and Army air defense systems, as you know, are part of our defense of certain places. The national capital region is one of those places. We also have, as you know, lots of aircraft on alert today where we can respond to those potential sites that we have identified that might be of interest to future terrorist actions. So today there are a lot of resources being brought to that.
I think General Eberhart will recommend and has recommended to the department that we work with the FAA to determine who is going to pay for the radars for the interior of the country so we can have the situational awareness that we think we need. And that's being debated now. My guess is it'll be a '06 budget issue as we go forward. And your recommendations in that regard would be helpful.
MR. LEHMAN: As you know, the Israeli air force has exercised, practiced and developed techniques for dealing with hijacked aircraft for years and years. For instance, they carry special missiles that are not to destroy -- designed not to destroy airliners but to force them to land, missiles with inert warheads and other sophisticated gear.
What have you guys done to equip our Air Guard and other NORAD potentially assigned units with the training, with the rules of engagement and the hardware that gives them an option other than what we have now, which is just to destroy the aircraft and all its passengers?
GEN. MYERS: I'm aware of at least one program which is classified, so we can either talk about it offline or provide you the classified paper on it. There may be others to do exactly that.
MR. LEHMAN: President Bush told us in our interview that he was deeply dissatisfied with the ability to communicate from Air Force One. He told us that this was a very major flaw. Has this been fixed, and are you personally satisfied that those communications have been improved sufficiently so that a president will have the connectivity that he didn't have that day?
GEN. MYERS: Let me answer that for the record, so I can be very specific on that. Let me answer that for the record.
MR. LEHMAN: Okay. One of the happy instances of the day was that NORAD happened to be fully mobilized in a CP exercise, and had everybody, in effect, at battle stations. And even so we saw these glitches like a failure to pass on rules of engagements to the pilots over the Capitol area. If they hadn't been at full mobilized status, what would have happened then? Would it have been much worse?
GEN. MYERS: Well, I would let General Eberhart answer that. But from my experience, no, it wouldn't have been much worse. It was fortuitous that it was the case, but certainly at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, Southeast, the CONR region at NORAD, there are people that are always on duty to respond, and whether or not we'd had the exercise or not, people would have responded. And my best estimate is that the response would not have -- would have been very similar, even with not having all those additional that might have been present for an exercise. But I would let General Eberhart talk about that.
MR. LEHMAN: Secret Service has told us that they had repeatedly before 9/11 requested alert aircraft to protect the Capitol, particularly at Andrews Air Force Base, and other air defense, that this was never acted on by the Pentagon, was there a reason why?
GEN. MYERS: That never came to my attention. I was never -- as the vice chairman at the time, and I started in 1 March of 2000, from the time I was the vice chairman, I was never aware, or even as NORAD, I was never aware of a request from the Secret Service for that kind of service.
MR. LEHMAN: But when you were NORAD commander, there had already been a private aircraft that crashed into the White House grounds. There were repeated and written worries about the potential for private aircraft to make suicide attacks, and there were 11 separate intelligence reports circulating broadly through the intelligence community that al Qaeda had planned to use aircraft as weapons, although the focus was overseas. Didn't anybody at NORAD try to connect the dots and say that this is something we've got to worry about, that it's a target in the Capitol area, that we'd better get ready for it? But, instead, when even NORAD's own planning staff proposed to include in exercises the dealing with hijacked suicide aircraft, it was rejected by NORAD as by the NORAD commander, I think it was after your time, as something to be exercised and planned for.
GEN. MYERS: I think it was rejected, and General Eberhart can be clearer on this, I don't think it was by the commander, I think it was by the planning group that was meeting because it did not fit the scenario at the time. But, the use of aircraft as a weapon, as a missile, other than World War II and the Kamikaze situation, I'm not aware, and I've tried to research this, and the best information I get, I am not aware that an aircraft has ever been used as a weapon. Now, there have been landings on the White House lawn, there was a landing in Red Square, there have been lots of stupid things. There was talk about crashing airplanes into the CIA. But, in most of that threat reporting leading up to 9/11, it was hijacking an airplane and in the normal hijack mode, not in the mode of a weapon.
Now, there were some talks about in post hijack situations where they talked to about people over the demands were made that they were going to crash, one instance, into the Eiffel Tower, but even the work that was done and the hijackings that were planned for the Philippines, which is a well-known plot, they planned to hijack the airplanes and blow them up primarily.
So, no, the threat perception, there was not -- the intelligence did not point to this kind of threat, and I think that explains our posture.
MR. LEHMAN: Final question, as NORAD commander, and now as chairman, are you, were you then, and are you now, satisfied with the intelligence product that your J2 provides to you?
GEN. MYERS: Well, we've got a wonderful J2, and we've got a pretty good process. Information sharing is better today among the intel agencies, both civilian and military, and the CIA. It can be improved. We still have a ways to go in that regard. It's still, when we get threat warnings, you know, the venue, the type of attack, those kind of details are usually lacking, and we do have, as I think people well understand, and was announced publicly by, I think, the Attorney General the other day, still threats to the United States.
As a free nation with the freedom that we enjoy, we've -- as Secretary Ridge says, we've got to be right every time, and a suicide operative only has to be right once. And we worry about that very much. And with General Eberhart's hat as Northern Command, I think helps to focus all this in ways that we couldn't do before 9/11 because we've organized ourselves much differently. Am I satisfied? No. I'll never be satisfied. This is very tough work.
MR. LEHMAN: Thank you, General.
MR. KEAN: Brief questions, and then I know the General has to leave.
Commissioner Gorelick.
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Ask about the war games that were planned for 9-11.
MR. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick.
MS. GORELICK: Um.
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Tell us about the 9-11 war games.
MS. GORELICK: Could you please be quiet, we only have a few minutes with General Myers, and I would like to ask a question.
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Tell us about the war games.
MS. GORELICK: I'm sorry.
MR. KEAN: I would ask please for the people in the audience to be quiet if you want to stay here.
MS. GORELICK: General Myers, if you listened to the Staff Statement this morning, I think that the question that has to be on the minds of the American people is, where was our military when it should have been defending us, and I think that is a fair question from a layman's point of view. And the response of NORAD, which you used to command, and which General Eberhart now commands, is that NORAD was not postured to defend us domestically unless someone was coming at us from abroad, and that has lots of implications. It has implications for where our fighters were to dispatch, how much we cared about the internal radars which didn't function particularly well, which you were, at NORAD, dependent on. It had implications for whether you can communicate with your fighter pilots when they're up in the air in the interior of the country. It has implications for how you quickly get authorities to the pilots. And so I want to explore very briefly this question with you, because for years the Department of Defense did, in fact, resist having a domestic mission. And, with all due respect, said this was a law enforcement function, we do not have a domestic role. It was very uncomfortable with that role, and I think it's important to address that. That's why I come back to this word posture, we were postured against an external threat.
In my experience, the military is very clear about its charters, and who is supposed to do what. So if you go back and you look at the foundational documents for NORAD, they do not say defend us only against a threat coming in from across the ocean, or across our borders. It has two missions, and one of them is control of the airspace above the domestic United States, and aerospace control is defined as providing surveillance and control of the airspace of Canada and the United States. To me that air sovereignty concept means that you have a role which, if you were postured only externally you defined out of the job.
So I have two questions for you, by what process was it decided to only posture us against a foreign threat, if you will? And two, if you look at the threats that were postulated to the military in the 1996 Olympics of a domestic hijacking, flying a plane into one of the stadiums in Atlanta, the 1998 PDB about an aircraft loaded with explosives, the kind of exercise that we did around the NATO 50th anniversary, the Genoa G8, the threats the Secretary Lehman is talking about. I would like to know, as the second question, is it your job, and if not whose job is it, to make current assessments of a threat, and decide whether you are positioned correctly to carry out a mission, which at least on paper NORAD had. And I apologize for the length of the question, but it is of some complexity, and also important.
GEN. MYERS: Right. A couple of comments, Ms. Gorelick. First, I don't know that the military has ever resisted, I mean, those are your words. What we try to do is follow the law, and the law is pretty clear on Posse Comitatus and that is whether or not the military should be involved in domestic law enforcement. As you know, the president can waive that, and the state's National Guard can be used by the governor under Title 32 to participate in that, and that's all very important. It's still being debated today, and my view on that has kind of changed a little bit from prior to 9/11 to today. And that's still a debate, and you can help with that debate.
MS. GORELICK: Let me just interrupt, when I was general counsel of the Defense Department, I repeatedly advised, and I believe others have advised that the Posse Comitatus says, you can't arrest people. It doesn't mean that the military has no authority, obligation, or ability to defend the United States from attacks that happen to happen in the domestic United States. And we will help you with that, if there's any lack of clarity on that yet today.
GEN. MYERS: We'll leave that to the lawyers, because my view is, I don't know if there's lack of clarity, but there's probably a plethora of opinions on it. In terms of the '96 Olympics, as far as I know there was no air threat postulated. I do know the FAA instituted some temporary flight restrictions, but they were so small they could not have prevented an aircraft from entering and crashing into a venue. But, it was more done to just de-conflict the air traffic over these venues so it did not congest there. But, certainly our job today in the military, and my job, is to look at the current threat assessment, and now that we have an organization such as Northern Command to do the same, to look at how we can better defend this country against threats that are not traditional.
Again, at the time terrorism was viewed as a criminal act. And we have changed that, I think, in our government, and view it a little more broadly now, which I personally think is absolutely right. But, that view has persisted for over 10 years, as I read back through all the policy documents. So certainly our job today is to look at the threat assessment and figure out how we in the military can help protect this country, and this is something that I spend a lot of time on, I know that General Eberhart does, and we're looking at ways that are beyond -- if we need legislation, if we need policy change, we are looking at ways to do that, because we think that's our responsibility, clearly.
Did I answer both questions?
MS. GORELICK: Yes, and no, and my time has expired.
GEN. MYERS: Mr. Chairman, I really need to -- I apologize, but I really need to get to the next venue up in New York.
MR. KEAN: We understand that.
GEN. MYERS: Thank you, Governor.
MR. KEAN: Thank you.
We have questions now for the remaining members of the panel.
Senator Kerrey?
I'm sorry, you have some statements to make first, which we interrupted. If you'd like to make your statements, then we'll go on, Senator Kerrey. If you have statements that you'd like to read, I know you have submitted some.
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, I --
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: I have a statement. This commission has not answered my questions. I'm walking out. It's a farce.
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Please walk out.
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: I will. Thank you. (Laughter.)
VOICE FROM AUDIENCE: Adios.
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, I've submitted my statement for the record, and I think in the interest of time, and so that we address the issues that the Commissioners would like to address I will not make any further remarks at this time.
MR. KEAN: Would either of the -- Mr. Leidig?
General Arnold?
If not, then Senator Kerrey?
MR. KERREY: Actually it was a question for General Myers, but perhaps, General Eberhart, you can take it. Do you know what NORAD's experience is in intercepting planes prior to 9/11?
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, we can provide that for the record, and I think the staff has that, in terms of how many launches that we conducted each year back to about 1900, and why we were launched, and how many of those were suspected hijacks, and what roles we played. We can provide that for the record.
MR. KERREY: I've got some concern for the military in this whole situation, because the optics for me is, you all are taking a bullet for the FAA. I appreciate that may be wrong, but that's how it appears, because, General Arnold, you in particular on the day covered yourself in glory. I think the military performed, under the circumstances, exceptionally well, and I don't understand why the -- again, General Myers is the guy to ask, because there was a briefing at the White House on the 17th of September. And it feels like something happened in that briefing that produced almost a necessity to deliver a story that's different than what actually happened on that day.
General Arnold, is that an unfair optic on my part? As I said, if you look at what you all did on that day, it's hard to find fault. And we really haven't uncovered this stuff, it was readily available, the facts were all there. So it leaves the impression that there is an attempt to create a unified story there, and has you all, as I said, taking a bullet for the FAA, because the FAA should have told you what was going on -- it seems to me. It must be agonizing to -- you know, you lost 50 military personnel in the Pentagon and 75 civilians in the Pentagon that day -- it must be agonizing to know that Secret Service had information you didn't have. Help me out here. Am I looking at this wrong? Because, as I said, it looks like you guys did a good job on that day, and now it -- you know, it just gives the appearance that you're standing in front of the FAA, and unnecessarily so.
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, I'd like to answer that question. And, first of all, there's no scheme here or plot to spin this story to try to cover or take a bullet for anyone. And I for one, from the day after 9/11 to today, do not get into FAA bashing, because as I can imagine being on those screens that morning, as I can imagine being in their shoes, and the confusion that existed that morning -- obviously we know we could have done it better. We know today that we're doing it better. And, most importantly, we know tomorrow we must do it even better. But there is no spin here for us to cover. We wish we had done things much like as outlined by the Commissioners that we now do because of what happened on 9/11. But I can assure you that there was -- we didn't get together and decide that we were going to cover for anybody or take a bullet for anybody.
MR. KERREY: Who briefed the White House on the 17th of September? Were you part of that briefing?
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, I don't know. I was not part of that briefing. I was -- 17th of September we were pretty much still bunkered down.
MR. KERREY: Yeah, I think General Myers was the one who briefed. Unfortunately, he's gone, so I can't him the question of what happened in that briefing. General Arnold, are you -- I presume you didn't accompany and weren't a part of that briefing?
MR. ARNOLD: Well, the only thing I can add is that the FAA --we were dependent on the FAA on 9/11. Had the FAA -- I felt we worked very well together, in spite of the fact that we were not postured to handle that threat. We were in the process of launching aircraft all over the country during that timeframe. We had multiple aircraft called hijacked all over the country. We were trying to stand down all the aircraft that were flying. So we -- in case there were others. And we could not pass essentially an order to our aircraft. We had by the end of that day -- I think General Eberhart would confirm this -- we had hundreds of aircraft airborne on orbit in case there was another attack on the United States. And the only way we could communicate with those aircraft for the most part was through the FAA. So we worked hand in glove with the FAA in order to make that work.
MR. KERREY: Well, I appreciate your wanting not to bash the FAA, but, my God, the Cleveland Center said somebody needs to notify the military and scramble planes, and they didn't. You would have an additional 30 minutes of notification. Now it turns out that passengers on 93 took care of it for us. But it's -- you know, I don't consider it to be bashing just to say to them, My God, you guys should have notified us -- and didn't. And that's a fairly significant breakdown.
But I want to also just briefly bring your attention to something I did yesterday. I mean, I heard -- again, it's more directed to the guy who just left, General Myers. But when he says we were focused externally, you know, we have 10 military attacks against the United States, either attempted and successful, or attempted and interrupted, from 1992 through September 11 -- by al Qaeda. And we knew it all. We have the whole story. We didn't -- again, the 9/11 Commission didn't uncover this stuff. It was -- a lot of this is just open information that we had. And of those 10, all but one involved suicide. One of them involved a plot to try to take over airplanes and blow them up, but they were U.S aircraft out of Manila. And I just -- again, if I was sitting in General Myers' or any of your shoes, I'd -- it would make me just a little bit angry that that information wasn't delivered, so that your attention was directed inside the United States. Because these were military attacks against military personnel, including Rangers in Mogadishu, and we now have at least corroborating evidence that there involvement in the Khobar Towers incident. And General Myers says it was treated as law enforcement. That's technically true, but there was a significant, it seems to me, military involvement as well. Anyway, that's more of a -- the guy I wanted to ask the question for is gone. But I think you're entitled to criticize, and I think you're entitled to be angry, looking at the narrative over the last 10 years.
MR. KEAN: Thank you, senator.
Governor Thompson?
MR. THOMPSON: This is a question for everyone on the panel to the extent you can answer it. If everything had gone perfectly on the morning of September 11th, if all the information from the controllers -- and I assume you now accept the Staff Statement the timeline of all of these things is correct -- let's start from that premise -- if everything had gone perfectly, if all the information that the controllers had had gone smoothly to FAA command centers, if all the information at the FAA command centers had gone smoothly to the military, the vice president's authorization to shoot down intruding aircraft had been communicated to the pilots, would it have been physically possible for the pilots, the military pilots, to have shot down the airplane that hit the first tower, the airplane that hit the second tower, and the airplane that hit the Pentagon? Assuming everything had gone perfectly, everybody was perfectly prepared, focused inward, scrambled, armed -- all the authorization there, all the information there -- would it have been physically possible for the military to have intercepted those three aircraft before they concluded their terrible mission?
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, our modeling, which we have shared with the staff, reflects that given the situation that you've outlined, which we think is the situation that exists today, because of the fixes, the remedies put in place, we would be to shoot down all three of them -- all four aircraft.
MR. KEAN: Commissioner Fielding.
MR. FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Gentlemen, in preparation for this hearing I went back and read the staff interviews, particularly General Eberhart's and General Arnold's interviews with our staff, and we thank you all for cooperating with our staff, as you have.
UNKNOWN: Louder please.
MR. FIELDING: But the question I have is that I was disturbed when I read them at things you said about the state of readiness of NORAD on November 11th. And I would hope that you would share those with us again today, and let's discuss what steps were taken, how can we help and what recommendations would you have.
I was particularly, General Arnold, concerned about your statements about that really we only had token air sovereignty. And so I would appreciate your comments, please.
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, General Myers referenced an ongoing debate after the implosion of the Soviet Union and the fall of the wall, and that centered on was NORAD a Cold War relic, a Cold War relic that we did not need, because the Soviet Union was no longer our enemy, and a much different Russia than the Soviet Union we faced for decades.
And so, again, there were great debates during the '90s, and we came close to having zero airplanes on alert during this debate. And that was one of the options, and one of the options that many times was an option that almost went to the end game. So, thank goodness, cooler heads prevailed -- and in many cases this came from our National Guard, our Air National Guard, and we did have some aircraft on alert that day. And the ability then, as General Myers said, based on actionable intelligence based on the change in the threat to then increase the number of airplanes on alert, increase the number of alert sites across North America, from Alaska through Canada to the continental United States.
And it was, again, a question of dollars: How much was it going to cost, even though the airplanes were already there, to have them on alert, have them armed, have them not available to go to fight Iraq in the first war, not have them available in Bosnia, Kosovo, et cetera? There was this debate, because there was an attendant cost.
The good news is that we had the airplanes on alert that day, and we were able to be flexible and put more aircraft on alert. The bad news is that we only had 14 airplanes on alert, seven alert sites. But I must caution you, commissioner, that even if I look at the height of the Cold War, and I looked at our posture at the height of the Cold War and where we had airplanes on alert, given the notification that we had that day, we still had a time distance problem and we would not have been able to respond to these threats. Atlantic City is the only alert site that we had in the vicinity of the threat, during the height of the Cold War that we did not have day. And Atlantic City, given the timelines we have, would not have been able to get there on time.
MR. FIELDING: General?
MR. ARNOLD: I was on the side of the argument, as General Eberhart remembers, that because I had been in the air defense business all my life, there was concern about our air defense. When you're making priorities you have to decide where you are going to choose to spend your money.
I think the Hart-Rudman study had indicated that the biggest threat to the United States in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union was from rogue nations or terrorists. Our focus then was, What can we do to thwart a terrorist attack from outside the borders? Again, this focus that we had before. And we were involved in that. We were working with NORAD, we were working with General Myers, later with General Eberhart, in trying to be able to bring in radars that we didn't have available to us at all times -- to be able to bring them into the system. And it was ACTD, Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration that we had, and it was ongoing and funded. So we were focused on the terrorist threat, but we certainly weren't focused on the terrorist threat in the way that it came down on 9/11.
MR. FIELDING: But is the situation better today, or is it worse, or is it the same?
GEN. EBERHART: Sir, the situation is much better, obviously. You don't have anyone questioning whether or not we should have aircraft on alert. We don't have anyone questioning whether or not we should have an integrated air defense system here in the nation's capital, or in other places, like the G-8. There no question in terms of the priorities. And then obviously we have the materiel and the residual solutions and changes that we've outlined in our statement. And if we have a concern, it's the concern that the chairman outlined briefly, and that is the future of these FAA radar. We've netted those all together now, added almost 100 radars, so that we have that visibility in our command centers and NORAD. We can't let that atrophy. And that we have to look for technology over time that allows us to have better situational awareness of our airspace and the approaches to this nation and over this nation. And that's where I believe we really need to concentrate.
But I also -- I feel compelled to mention that NORAD is not the right way to work this problem. It is a force of last resort. If you use us, if we have to be used, if we have to take action, it takes a bad situation from getting worse, because everybody on that airplane will die. So I mean this is a stop-gap final measure. We have to take it, we have to be prepared. But where we really need to focus is destroying these terrorist networks, not allowing them into our country -- don't allow them into our airports. Don't allow them on our aircraft. If they get on our aircraft, don't let them take control of the airplane. That's where we must focus.
MR. FIELDING: Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
MR. THOMPSON: Mr. Chairman, I really need to re-ask my question, because I think we've gotten two different answers from General Eberhart, and I want to be fair to him and have the public understand, if I might.
General, I think you may have misunderstood