Yeah, I’m digging, I figure it would be on Jane’s website but I don’t feel like spending $1500 for access to their database just to get one fact. So I guess I’m headed to the library one of these days.
Yeah, a 747 could fire a missile. From what I recall hearing, the system is similar to weapon pods used on the F-117A Stealth Fighter. They have retractable pods, open the doors, extend the pod and fire. F-117A is subsonic, like a 747.
Oh, Ned?, I didn’t miss the point at all, thank you so very much. One capable of rational thought would discern that my cite, with legitimate, identified sources, indicates to anyone with the smallest degree of objective analysis, that on the morning of September 11, previously known threats against the heads of state of not only the U.S., but our major allies, might in fact be taking shape as much of America watched. Not only that, but the nature of the attacks was nearly identical to previous threats. How is it you can’t see that this would require extraordinary action to protect and preserve our government, which, hey, by the way, is just what occurred? What we know now has, ready?, no friggin’ bearing on actions at the time. That’s known to one and all as hindsight being 20-20. Give it a rest, already.
As to the Salon.com article - I’ll choose identified, legitimate, credible sources(i.e., those in a position to know) over unidentified sources any day. Unless of course, someone just wants to score some points off the politico s/he-currently-loves-to-hate, in which case, please identify it as such.
friedo by coincidence I quoted that very law on another thread; I found it through findlaw.com.
United States Code
TITLE 18
PART II
CHAPTER 203
Section 3056. Powers, authorities, and duties of United States Secret Service
a) Under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury, the United States Secret Service is authorized to protect the following persons:
(1) The President, the Vice President (or other officer next in the order of succession to the Office of President), the President-elect, and the Vice President-elect.
(2) The immediate families of those individuals listed in paragraph (1).
(I’m deleting categories 3-7 for the sake of brevity)
**The protection authorized in paragraphs (2) through (7) may be declined. ** (emphasis mine)
Herein lies the rub: the Prez, by law, cannot decline the protection of the Secret Service. But to what degree can they override the President’s wishes or even the President’s orders? I’m not sure.
Also, in addition to AF1, I believe that there is a sort of flying fortress that the Prez can use as an airborne command center:
National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) A militarized Boeing E-4B (converted from a commercial 747-200) based at Offutt Air Force Base in Omaha, Nebraska, and ready for take-off on 15 minutes’ notice, is available to the president and vice president for commanding nuclear forces from the air during a crisis.1 At least one aircraft (there are four in all) is always on alert with a full battle staff. When the President travels around the country or overseas in Air Force One (the designation for one of several aircraft at the president’s disposal in peacetime), a NAOC often flies to a nearby location.2 While colloquially known as the “doomsday plane,” the official code name for NAOC is “Night Watch.” Once airborne, the specially shielded and configured plane would allow the president to coordinate a nuclear war with senior military commanders (each of whom has his own airborne command post) and, if necessary, transmit EAMs to launch a nuclear attack.3
I also on PBS the National Geographic Special on Air Force One. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/07/0710_airforceone.html
The defense systems of Air Force One are classified.
I’m sort of pleased that most people have defended Dubya in this matter. I think I still stand by my post. Giuliani wasn’t thinking about his safety. He was nearly killed in fact. (Moments later, the Fire Chief of Department and others were).
Sidewinders are only useful within 20 degrees of the aircraft’s nose…even if Air Force 1 had them, which it does not.
The F-117 does not have “retractable pods” to release weapons from, it has a bomb bay with hydraulic mounts which lower bombs out clear of the aircraft before releasing them. Air Force one relies on passive countermeasures (including flares, which can look very “missile-like” to the unfamiliar) and fighter escort for defense. Even Hollywood has never come up with an image of Air Force 1 shooting missiles every which way at hostile aircraft. Please, rejoin us in the real world.
If it were attacked in the air, then Air Force One’s fighter escort would eliminate the threat while the President was flown to safety.
Of course, King George and Queen Elizabeth did not go touring around targeted areas when the German bombers were actually on their way. So the comparison’s meaningless.
You are quibbling over semantics. I say they’re retractable, you say they’re extendable. I call them pods (and so do the pilots) and you say they’re bombs. The F117-A can carry more than bombs.
Of course, tons of folks would be complaining if he had come straight to the White House or whatever. I am not sure who it was, but one Congeressman said (paraphrasing) “This is a g-d John Wayne movie.” As for the “misinformation” I am not sure where it came from, official or not, out of context or deliberate, whose idea, etc. There was so much misinformation flying around that day, purposeful, misinterpretated, whatever, that I cannot really be too concerned about it.
Me, several posts ago:
There, that wasn’t too hard.
thermalribbon - if you’re still bothered by Salon as a source of facts, here’s the Washington Post story on the subject, which in turn cites earlier stories by the AP and CBS.
I for one was impressed with Chaney. While Bush was scooting around to Louisiana and Nebraska. Chaney was in the White House. I gained a whole new level of respect for the Vice President. I had accepted his intelligence before. I now accept his courage.
Let’s move this to Great Debates, o.k.?
I don’t really see the big deal. Cheney was already in the White House when the attacks occured. The White House also has a very good bomb shelter below it. Bush on the other hand was in some elementary school in Florida.
As someone else said, how smart would it be to put both the President and the Vice-President in the same location during which things were very chaotic. It would have been nice as a symbol of American resolve if he was there immediatly you say? How nice would it look to have a dead President during a time in which we were unsure if more attacks were on the way.
Although I supported Gore in the election I see this as NBD (No Big Deal). Critisizing Bush for this seems extremely odd to me.
One of the more disgusting human traits to surface during the whole aftermath of 9/11 is the desire for a supreme leader, for some stoic, noble figure to stand on the rubble and declare “I’m not scared.”
In Dubya’s case, this has manifested as criticism that he stayed on Air Force One, in the air, for most of the day.
In Tom Clancy’s last book, The Bear and The Dragon, Jack Ryan, fearless president, is fleeing the White House on a helicopter because a Chinese nuclear missile has been launched at Washington. Rather than get to Andrews and board Air Force One, he orders the pilot to set down on a missile cruiser conveniently parked on the Potomac. They’ve got one outside chance of shooting the missile down with new, experimental software for the guided weapons system, and Jack Ryan will be there, or he’ll die with the city, damnit. He’s the president. He can’t run away.
Bullshit.
The president is the National Command Authority. He’s the top of the food chain. He’s the final word in national crises. His job is not to look good. His job is not to tuck us in. His job is not to go down with the ship. His job is to run the country, and during a crisis, that means being safely and totally in command.
The mishandling by the White House of the media aftermath of Dubya’s extended flight is irrelevant. The fears and cries of Americans who wanted the President to be there and hold their hands is irrelevant. Whether or not the White House was a target is irrelevant. Dubya was in charge, and America needed that far more than it needed to feel safe. He was in the best place to run the country from at the time, and that’s exactly where he should have been.
Had I a vote in this country, I would have voted for Gore. That’s irrelevant, too.
That Salon article wasn’t bad, either. If you read it without expecting it to attack Bush, you’ll see that it’s about how the the White House communications staff has a torturous relationship with the press that’s getting Bush into trouble he doesn’t deserve.
It’s all very well to second guess why George did what he did on 9/11, and perhaps there were actually good reasons for him to go to Omaha, but that does nothing to explain why the president and his staff felt the need to make up a bogus tale about a “credible threat” to Air Force 1. Wasn’t the truth good enough ? It leaves me wondering whether the administration might also be exaggerating its claims of evidence directly linking bin Laden with the hijackers. Perhaps by “proof” they mean “hearsay” ?
If they’re going to cloak the nations response in lofty terms like “infinite justice” don’t they need to have more than a casual commitment to truthfulness ?
Seems relevant here to point out that, when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer denounced Bill Maher with his now-famous phrase that Americans “need to watch what they say” the White House left that slam out of the official transcript of the news conference.
One more of these, and it’ll be time to start comparing Fleischer to Ron Zeigler. :rolleyes:
As illustrated by the OP, the truth obviously wouldn’t have been good enough for everyone.
This thread marks a new low for some of the zealous Bush-whackers in our midst.
Why stop with knocking Bush here? How about Gerald Ford, ducking when assassins were sending bullets his way, then being rushed out of the area lying in a car with his body covered by that of a Secret Service agent? Pretty gutless, huh?
And Ronald Reagan - just lying there on the sidewalk, shot, when he could have crawled to his feet to inspire a nation?
The salient point for me in the salon.com piece was that the Secret Service was insisting he be taken out of harm’s way. None of you making a charge of cowardice have shown how the nation’s leadership was interrupted or how our response to the attacks was jeopardized in any way by Bush’s absence from Washington for a period of hours.
However you may resent the manner of Bush’s election, or his policies, or his public persona, he like every other President is laying his life on the line daily in the face of threats from loonies and terrorists. Perhaps our outraged OP presenter or other Bush critics would like to post examples of their conspicuous heroism for our edification.
I am no fan of George W. Bush. But he has handled matters with honor and sense during this crisis. Which is more than can be said for some denizens of the Straight Dope.
I saw this in a documentary on Air Force One, but alas I cannot find a web cite. The sidewinders are supposedly mounted on retractable pods inside the belly of the plane. **
[/QUOTE]
Only thing I can figure is that you were watching a “documentary” on the BBC (Basic Bullshit Channel).
AF1 is equipped with IR jammers (under-wing and aft of each engine) that are “similar” to those mounted on USMC/USAF helicopters to defeat the IR seeker on a variety of air-air/surface-air missiles. Can’t factually speak to the question of mounted Sidewinders, but I wouldn’t doubt it. RAF Nimrods flew with them in the Falklands; as I understand it, they were mounted on wing weapon stations and were fired aft at a bad guy coming in from 6 o’clock.
As to the question of whether W is chicken for his jaunt across FL, LA, NE, and finally DC… B.S.! I’m pretty certain he’s quite happy with the wife he has now, isn’t Islamic, and doesn’t wouldn’t really care to be in the company of 72 virgin camels.
Speculators should seek employment with Miss Cleo.
It’s important to note that any function of government with which the president needs to involve himself can be handled quite efficiently from AF One.
The idea that he was kiting around the USA out of the loop is completely false.
I don’t know why they felt a need to lie, and I wish they hadn’t. The reason for what the president did is obvious on its face.
Bush spoke to American citizens twice during the day, including moments after the attacks had occurred. And he delivered his more formal speech to the nation that night from the Oval Office.
So, the only big deal I see here is that some ninnies felt a need to make something up about why Bush took an indirect route back to the White House.
Anyone critical of the president not heading directly back to D.C. following multiple plane crashes into major buildings, including an attack on the PENTAGON, needs to seriously check themself. If you feel that way, you are practicing revisionist history. The level of the threat was undetermined for most of that morning, into afternoon.
Speaking of Zeigler, the Salon article brought to mind Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72.
Just my 2sense