Cynthia McKinney asks Rumsfeld, Myers about 9/11 War Games

[paulthompson]

On Thursday, Congresswoman asked Rumsfeld and Myers about the 9/11 war games, and actually got a few answers.

The archive of the hearing is now on the CSPAN website:

http://www.c-span.org/videoarchives.asp?CatCodePairs=,&ArchiveDays=100

find this one and click on the title:

Sec. of Defense Rumsfeld in House Hearing on FY06 Dept. of Defense Budget
Chairman Representative Duncan Hunter (R-CA) and witnesses Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and JCS Chairman General Richard Myers hold a House Hearing on the FY 2006 Budget for the Department of Defense and Military Services.
3/11/2005: WASHINGTON, DC: 2 hr. 5 min.

McKinney's questions come in about 25 minutes in. Note also the link is a rolling one and will move off the page and onto the second page and beyond as CSPAN puts new things up on their site. The answers didn't say that much, but she's going to follow up with some very specific written questions which they're required to answer. Any questions you think they should be asked on this topic? I can try to get them to her.

[paulthompson]

1. another way

Open up RealPlayer. Then go to File -> Open. In the dialog box, enter the link: rtsp://video.c-span.org/project/ter/ter031005_house.rm

McKinney asks some pretty good questions but doesn't get an answer to the war games question until about 31 minutes in.

[John Doe II]

2. The transcript

REP. CYNTHIA MCKINNEY (D-GA): Oh, thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, I watched President Bush deliver a moving speech at the United Nations in September 2003 in which he mentioned the crisis of the sex trade. The president called for the punishment of those involved in this horrible business. But at the very moment of that speech, DynCorp was exposed for having been involved in the buying and selling of young women and children.

While all of this was going on, DynCorp kept the Pentagon contract to administer the smallpox and anthrax vaccine and is now working on a plague vaccine through the Joint Vaccine Acquisition Program.

Mr. Secretary, is it policy of the U.S. government to reward companies that traffic in women and little girls? That's my first question.

My second question, Mr. Secretary: According to the comptroller general of the United States, there are serious financial management problems at the Pentagon, to which Mr. Cooper alluded. Fiscal year 1999, $2.3 trillion missing; fiscal year 2000, $1.1 trillion missing. And DOD is the number-one reason why the government can't balance its checkbook.

The Pentagon has claimed year after year that the reason it can't account for the money is because its computers don't communicate with each other. My second question, Mr. Secretary, is, who has the contact today to make those systems communicate with each other? How long have they had those contracts? And how much have the taxpayers paid for them?

Finally, Mr. Secretary, after the last hearing, I thought that my office was promised a written response to my question regarding the four war games on September 11th. I have not yet received that response, but would like for you to respond to the questions that I've put to you today, and then I do expect the written response to my previous question, hopefully by the end of the week.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Thank you, Representative.

First, the answer to your first question is no, absolutely not. The policy of the United States government is clear, unambiguous and opposed to the activities that you described.

The second question --

REP. MCKINNEY: Well, how do you explain the fact that DynCorp and its successor companies have received and continue to receive government contracts?

SEC. RUMSFELD: I would have to go and find the facts. But there are laws and rules and regulations with respect to government contracts, and there are times that corporations do things they should not do, in which case they tend to be suspended for some period. There are times, then, that under the laws and the rules and regulations passed by the Congress and implemented by the executive branch, that corporations can get off of -- out of the penalty box, if you will, and be permitted to engage in contracts with the government. They're generally not barred in perpetuity.

REP. MCKINNEY: This contract -- this company was never in the penalty box.

If you could proceed to my second question, please.

SEC. RUMSFELD: The second question. (Pause.) I've forgotten what the second question was.

REP. MCKINNEY: I think Ms. Jonas knows it.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Okay.

MS. JONAS: Thank you, Ms. McKinney. I appreciate the question. I appreciate your interest in the department's financial condition. And we are working very hard on that program. I've just come back recently --

REP. MCKINNEY: I understand that you're working hard on it, but my question was, who has the contract? How long have they had that contract? And how much money have we spent on it?

MS. JONAS: In general, we spend about $20 billion in the department on information technology systems. The accounting systems are part of that. I can get you the exact number for the record of what we spent on our current what we call legacy systems and those that we're moving toward.

REP. MCKINNEY: And who has the contracts?

MS. JONAS: That would be a multitude of individuals --

REP. MCKINNEY: Could you name some, please?

MS. JONAS: Well, I think off the top of the -- my head -- no, I would rather not. I would rather provide that for the record.

REP. MCKINNEY: That's not privileged information, is it?

MS. JONAS: I'm sure it's not.

REP. MCKINNEY: Look, please, we still have time. So, please --

MS. JONAS: I would be glad to provide it for the record. I don't want to talk from the top of my head and be incorrect.

SEC. RUMSFELD: On your first question, I'm advised by Dr. Chu that it was not the corporation that was engaged in the activities you characterized, but I'm told it was an employee of the corporation, and it was some years ago in the Balkans that that took place.

REP. MCKINNEY: It's my understanding that that continues to take place, and --

SEC. RUMSFELD: Is that right?

REP. MCKINNEY: Yes.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Well, if you can give me information to that effect --

REP. MCKINNEY: I'm sure you are interested in all the information that I have, and I'll be more than happy to provide it to you.

SEC. RUMSFELD: Good, thank you.

REP. MCKINNEY: But I would also like to get information from you. For example, the information that I just requested about who has those contracts?

REP. HUNTER: Let me assure the gentle lady that we'll make sure that this exchange of information takes place. And, Mr. Secretary, if you could get back with us on the Dynacorp story, we'll get that to the gentle lady.

REP. MCKINNEY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEC. RUMSFELD: We'll get back -- we'll get back on both of the first two questions, but the congresswoman has raised the other question twice now, and I'd like to have General Myers respond, because you mentioned it in the last hearing, and I think it would be helpful to get the answer, even though we're on red --

REP. HUNTER: Okay --

SEC. RUMSFELD: -- if you don't mind, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HUNTER: General Myers, go right ahead.

REP. MCKINNEY: But I would like to have the answer in writing as well, as I thought my office was promised.

GEN. MYERS: Okay, I don't know about the promise, congresswoman, but could you repeat the question to make sure I'm answering the right question? This is a 9/11 question.

REP. MCKINNEY: The question was we had four war games going on on September 11th, and the question that I tried to pose before the secretary had to go to lunch was whether or not the activities of the four war games going on on September 11th actually impaired our ability to actually respond to the attacks.

GEN. MYERS: The answer to the question is no, it did not impair our response. In fact, General Eberhart who was then the commander of North American Aerospace Defense Command, as he testified in front of the 9/11 Commission, I believe -- I believe he told them that it enhanced our ability to respond given that NORAD didn't have the overall responsibility for responding to attacks that day. That was an FAA responsibility.

But there were two CPXs. There was one Department of Justice exercise that didn't have anything to do with the other three. And there was an actual operation ongoing, because there was some Russian bomber activity up near Alaska. So we --

REP. MCKINNEY: Let me ask you this, then: Who was in charge of managing those war games?

REP. HUNTER: And, general, why don't you give the best answer you can here in a short period of time, and we'll -- the gentle lady wants to get a written answer anyway -- and then we can move on to other folks.

GEN. MYERS: The important thing to realize is the North American Aerospace Defense Command was responsible. These are command post exercises. What that means is all the battle positions that are normally not filled are indeed filled, so it was an easy transition from an exercise into a real-world situation. It actually enhanced the response. Otherwise it would take somewhere between 30 minutes and a couple of hours to fill those positions, those battle spaces, with the right staff officers.

REP. MCKINNEY: Mr. Chairman, begging your indulgence. Was September 11th declared a national security special event day?

GEN. MYERS: I'd have to look back. I do not know. You mean after the fact or before the --

REP. MCKINNEY: No, because of the activities going on that had been scheduled at the United Nations that day.

GEN. MYERS: I'd have to go back and check. Don't know.

REP. MCKINNEY: Thank you.

[Truth__Seeker]

3. Notice the ass-covering "I believe" qualifier starting off their answers

[Last Lemming]

4. What was happening at the United Nations?

[medienanalyse]

6. not to the point

As in Berlin, where I learned to know Mrs. Mc Kinney, she talks and asks a lot of interesting things, she is very emotional, very convincing about her person, but

the question is NOT IMPORTANT

which causes Myers to be unprepared.

Important is: jet fighter squadrons being in charge of air policing and having at least two jets in QRA (quick reaction alert) are never engaged in exercises.
QRA is a mission. They are engaged in being on alert.

This implies that it is completely unimportant if thounsands of other fighters are exercising or unmanned or with or without waeapons or all in Alaska or whatever else.

Important is only: where were the fijghter jets from Andrews and Otis in the two hours of 9-11 when NORAD was informed about hijackings.

That is all. Only the QRA, the SOP, NORAD, Andrews and Otis.

Every other question is maybe interesting to know but completely irrelevant in the case of defending the U.S.A.

[Al-CIAda]

5. More sources/info-

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031505_mckinney_transcript.shtml


======

Day of the Dead: The Haunting of the White House
By Cynthia McKinney and Catherine Austin Fitts
November 1, 2004
Something is rising from the ashes of September 11: the specter of questions that will haunt our country until answered.
Months after the release of the official 9/11 Commission Report - even as Congress moves to implement its proposals for a radical centralization of security forces - growing numbers of Americans are doubting their own government's account of what really happened on September 11, and how.
From the first, the Bush Administration resisted investigation and disclosure. Families of September 11 victims were forced to lobby the administration and Congress for a full and independent inquiry. They fought for 14 months, blocked every step of the way by the White House.
The political games reached such a point that the survivors of the worst attack ever on American soil were forced to hold a candlelight vigil in front of the White House. A vigil for the truth.
The White House finally assented in December 2002 to the establishment of an independent commission, under former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean. Still, the administration pushed for a hand-picked panel, with a narrow focus on intelligence failures and recommendations.
The families demanded a full investigation, posing nearly 400 questions to the Kean Commission. The commissioners said they welcomed these queries. But their final report ignored most of the unanswered questions. Still posted on the website of the September 11 Family Steering Committee, these questions are a stark reminder of the Kean Commission's failures.
Now these same questions have been submitted to the New York Attorney General. Last week, the New York City office of Eliot Spitzer received a citizens' complaint to open a legal inquiry into crimes still unsolved, more than three years later.
So begins the haunting of the White House.
Driven by survivor families, independent researchers, journalists, and a growing number of ordinary citizens, an emergent "9/11 truth movement" has organized several public inquiries into the events of September 11 during the past year. As co-chairs of the first 9/11 Citizens' Commission, held in New York City in September, we were entrusted with answering questions the Kean Commission ignored.
What did we hear? We heard evidence of specific advance warnings about the 9/11 attacks from overseas. We heard about the spiking of FBI terrorism investigations and the lack of response during the attacks by high officials, including George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers.
We heard about air toxicity at Ground Zero still afflicting firefighters, first responders, and New York residents - and how, in the days after September 11, the White House intervened to prevent the Environmental Protection Agency from issuing a strong warning that the air in Lower Manhattan was unsafe to breathe.
We also learned that, although there was a stunning abandonment of standard procedure for hijackings and air defense on September 11, the 9/11 Commission Report fails to issue a call for official accountability. As Kean Commission members travel the country to promote the findings of their report, we know many people are standing up to ask them tough questions about these and many other open issues. But ordinary people lack the subpoena powers necessary for a full discovery of the facts. Citizens' investigations can only go so far.

Con't-
http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/110204_mckinney_fitts.shtml