Norman Mineta's '911 Comission' testimony + Cheney's current crusade = (Your thoughts please) n/t

[ControlledDemolition]

[Kaleko]

1. All roads lead to Cheney.

He knows what he's guilty of, so he's talking much like an octopus spews ink when it wants to camouflage itself.

[Beam Me Up]

2. Interesting you bring that up. I posted this in another thread:

Secretary of Transportation, Norman Mineta, to the 9/11 Commisson:

MR. HAMILTON: . . . I wanted to focus just a moment on the Presidential Emergency Operating Center. You were there for a good part of the day. I think you were there with the vice president. And when you had that order given, I think it was by the president, that authorized the shooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to be controlled by terrorists, were you there when that order was given?

MR. MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And --

MR. HAMILTON: The flight you're referring to is the --

MR. MINETA: The flight that came into the Pentagon.

MR. HAMILTON: The Pentagon, yeah.

MR. MINETA: And so I was not aware that that discussion had already taken place. But in listening to the conversation between the young man and the vice president, then at the time I didn't really recognize the significance of that.

And then later I heard of the fact that the airplanes had been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but those planes were still about 10 minutes away. And so then, at the time we heard about the airplane that went into Pennsylvania, then I thought, "Oh, my God, did we shoot it down?" And then we had to, with the vice president, go through the Pentagon to check that out.

MR. HAMILTON: Let me see if I understand. The plane that was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away, there was an order to shoot that plane down.

MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifically, but I do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or from Norfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about the orders specifically other than listening to that other conversation.

MR. HAMILTON: But there very clearly was an order to shoot commercial aircraft down.

MR. MINETA: Subsequently I found that out.

LInk to full text: http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm#panel_one

But of course no one on the Commission thought to ask the obvious question: If there was an order to shoot down the aircraft, WHY WAS IT NOT SHOT DOWN BEFORE THE PLANE HIT THE PENTAGON? Why would the "young man" question whether or not "the order still stood" if the order was to shoot it down? Mr. Mineta isn't saying that the order that still stood was a shoot down order. In fact, the implication by the apparent urgency and concern of the "young man" is just the opposite, that the order was, to the contrary, to let it proceed. Mineta was only told later that there had been a shoot down order. He didn't know that at the time and only in retrospect assumed that was what had been discussed. Who is this "young man" that nervously asked the Vice President of the United States in the OEC on the morning of 9/11/01 whether or not "the order" still stood? What order? Why would he question it in the heat of what for all practical purposes was "battle," the country being under attack by hostile forces flying commercial aircraft into buildings? Of course they knew they were under attack. Everyone did and they have access to a thousand times more intelligence resources than we do. Yet here we have a commercial airliner headed toward Washington DC, the nations Capital, with a metropolitan population of millions. Did they know at that time that this plane's target was the Pentagon? How could they have? Couldn't the target just as easily have been the White House or the Congress or any other number of important DC landmarks? They obviously knew where it was and where it was headed. Did this "young man" testify before the Commission under oath regarding this peculiar incident? The answer is no, he did not. We don't even know who he is. This, mind you, is the Commission tasked with giving us the "fullest possible account" of the events of 9/11. Are we to conclude that Mr. Mineta is making this story up, that it either has no significance or no significance worth clarifying in testimony under oath before the Commission? That is the Commission strongly opposed by the Bush administration, before which neither Bush nor Cheney would agree to testify, only to "have a conversation," both simultaneously, not under oath, with no notes or records kept.

[ControlledDemolition]

3. Unfortunately I missed your previous thread. Excellent post. n/t

[bottomtheweaver]

4. If it all comes out, Dick is the natural fall guy.

8 years of propaganda convinced a lot of people that Dr Evil was the pulling all the strings. He wasn't, but he's just as disposable as Rice, Rummy, Rove and Scooter. The buck stops at the Texas border but the psychopath in chief and Poppy ran that show, and as far as I can tell they're still running it.