AP (8/22/02): "Agency planned drill for plane crash last Sept. 11"

[TruthIsAll]

No further comment is necessary from me.

http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm

snip

Agency planned drill for plane crash last Sept. 11
Associated Press
August 22, 2002

WASHINGTON -- In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft crashed into one of its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident. Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet crashed into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure. The agency is about four miles from the runways of Washington Dulles International Airport.

Agency chiefs came up with the scenario to test employees' ability to respond to a disaster, said spokesman Art Haubold. To simulate the damage from the plane, some stairwells and exits were to be closed off, forcing employees to find other ways to evacuate the building. "It was just an incredible coincidence that this happened to involve an aircraft crashing into our facility," Haubold said. "As soon as the real world events began, we canceled the exercise." Terrorism was to play no role in the exercise, which had been planned for several months, he said. Adding to the coincidence, American Airlines Flight 77 -- the Boeing 767 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon -- took off from Dulles at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 50 minutes before the exercise was to begin. It struck the Pentagon around 9:40 a.m., killing 64 aboard the plane and 125 on the ground.

The National Reconnaissance Office operates many of the nation's spy satellites. It draws its personnel from the military and the CIA. After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000 people who work at agency headquarters were sent home, save for some essential personnel, Haubold said.

An announcement for an upcoming homeland security conference in Chicago first noted the exercise. In a promotion for speaker John Fulton, a CIA officer assigned as chief of NRO's strategic gaming division, the announcement says, "On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team ... were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day." The conference is being run by the National Law Enforcement and Security Institute.

[Octafish]

1. How could we know that planes would be used as weapons?

I mean, a hijacking in the conventional sense.

[aquart]

2. A hijacking in a "conventional sense" does not use a plane as a weapon.

It uses it as a negotiating chip.

However, if you mean how we would know that terrorists could plan to seize planes and use them weapons, we received this information when we prosecuted (the old-fashioned way) that blind terrorist sheikh in New York. His papers included that information.

All we had to do was read it.

[renegade000]

3. there was also that threat the french got

in 1995 or something link that, concerning an possible attempt to hijack a french airliner and crash it into the eiffel tower...

[DUreader]

5. There was also a threat to the G-8 in July 2001

They deployed anti-aircraft missiles in and around Genoa as a security

precaution because planes might be flown into the buildings where

the G8 , including W*, were meeting.

2 MONTHS Prior to 9-11

[Octafish]

6. Operation Bojinka in 1996.

An intrepid Philipino police woman busted an Al Qaeda cell and uncovered a laptop containing the plans for hijacking US airliners over the Pacific and flying them into buildings along the west coast.

PS: There also are reports Smirk was so scared he'd be attacked by air at a G-8 summit in Italy a few months before 9-11 that he stayed aboard a US warship rather than stay in a hotel. Strange thing is, Italy set up mobile SAMs and shoulder-fired SAMs to protect the attendees.

[Octafish]

4. It refers to Condescenda's attemps to establish Smirk's surprise.

Remember just after the "Bush Knew" headlines in May 2002? She came on some Sunday show and made out her surprise.

Paraphrase (sorry, going by memory): "How were we to know that hijacked airliners could be used as flying bombs? We heard about hijackings in the traditional sense."

Oh well. She bought the crooks time, for at the very least she and her boss should be under arrest for gross criminal negligence. I'd wager the proper charge is treason.

[Minstrel Boy]

7. Sometimes I wonder about this "bizarre coincidence":

could it be a cover story, concocted a year after the fact, to explain away suspicious activities on the day? Dick Cheney monitoring the "simulation" in the White House situation room, for instance.

Just speculating. God knows it's bad enough already.