Is this story really the truth or is it being used to explain Bush’s detour before going to Washington. The story about AF1 being a target are especially suspect.
This was being discussed in CQ and it was suggested a thread be started in GD.
What is suspect about the belief (by the Secret Service on Tuesday morning) that Air Force One could have been the target of some sort of attack?
That it was used as a excuse as to why Bush didn’t go straight back to Washington D.C. plus the question as to how they were going to attack Air Force One.
Not that I think it is a complete fabrication, but why was that phone call made? They didn’t make any phone calls before the WTC. It could have just been a prankster that had seen what happened in New York.
Could have been? Could have been? Well, ain’t hindsight jim dandy! When you know the answer to this question, mayhap you can question his actions.
What did the security forces protecting our president know at the time the decisions were made regarding his safety?
Frankly I’m more than tired of hearing this question, as if any of us has enough information to give a reasoned answer. As if.
As we don’t have that information, why not let common sense be your guide?
We knew the nation was being attacked using our civilian aircraft, at least two major cities were involved(including our capitol), something on the order of 4,000 planes were in the air, and our major defense facility had been struck. Even leaving out the phone call, which included code words indicating knowledge of AF1 procedures, why would any president rush into potential danger?
What didn’t we know?
- How many more planes were involved?
- What was the scope of the attack? What other threats were present?
- Was there any follow up attack planned? A round two, if you will.
- Who was responsible? What were their targets?
Now, to me this seems very simple. Obviously some people want to treat this as a case of ‘feet of clay’. Absurd when common sense tells you otherwise.
I honestly think Air Force One being a target was honestly un-needed spin. Or just a really recockulous rumor/report that got out of hand.
I’m sure the Whitehouse would have been a target. It makes since for them to try to hit a stationary object that is a symbol of Government. I liked Cheney’s theory that the plane that hit the Pentagon was meant for the Whitehouse but the terrorists couldn’t see it from the air because of its positioning among other buildings and the topography. So the Pentagon was choosen as a secondary.
The terrorists trying to hit AirForce One would have been like you trying to find a needle in a haystack if you yourself were also a needle.
AF1 was in Florida wasn’t it? Along with GWB. Was there any indication that the terrorists were headed there. This isn’t hindsight since the report about AF1 as a target has come up after Tuesday.
Then include the terrorists trying to find AF1 once it was airborne. Its a big sky. Lots of room to move.
To me it would make perfect sense to not have the president in Washington until after things had settled. I didn’t think any less of W than I did before.
I agree completely. A commercial jetliner with no tracking radar, etc., is not going to find Air Force One, with literally millions of cubic airspace to search.
I’m not sure which is sadder - that the Bush Administration would put out a such a cock-and-bull story to justify the decision to keep Bush out of D.C. on Tuesday, or that there was criticism of such a simple and obvious security measure, causing the Bush Administration to feel the need to put out such a cock-and-bull story.
Sua
As I understood the reports, the intention was (supposedly) to hit AF1 immediately after it landed at Andrews AFB. That would be considerably easier than hitting it in mid-flight. Although it would still be pretty optimistic to think all the fighter jets based there would let you get away with it after what happened at the WTC.
I believe Time magazine is reporting this week that the Secret Service suspected that the White House/Air Force 1 was a terrorist target, and played it up a bit to justify keeping Bush away from the White House for a while. Not that I’m particularly complaining – given the situation, I think it was prudent to secure the area before the President returned.
Yes, Ari was spinning like a top. The whole idea of AF1 being a target was ridiculous, El Presidente Jorge Bush had a full day scheduled in Florida and was not scheduled to return to DC until well after any possible attack.
The spin was blown on Sunday by Cheney’s interview. Cheney said he was immediately taken to “The Tube” which is the secret bomb-proof bunker under the White House. From there, the VP was calling all the shots. He phoned Jorge Bush and told him to hide out in Nebraska for a while. Kinda shows you who is in charge of the country.
This is just confirmation of a NYTimes article by Wm. Safire, he described the exact sequence of events. I’d cite the Safire article, but the NYTimes is too slow to search right now.
It is said that “every cloud has a silver lining” and one of the “silver linings” in this awful episode is that enough money has been allocated (and likely more yet to come) so that any thoughts of putting a base on the Moon or sending a manned mission to Mars are **kaput.
This** has been a primary goal of the Bush I, Clinton, and Bush II administrations. They have, once again, achieved that goal.
A second thought, more in line with the OP, is that there still are reports of “loose” suitcase-sized nuclear weapons. In the midst of any unconventional attack such as the WTC bombing, success might well have been followed up with a nuke. In this sense, IMHO, the Pres. was wise to go somewhere else than the D.C.; and the Congress, wise to leave.
What was on those hijacked planes? anthrax? sarin? a backpack nuke? Exactly how many planes were hijacked? or going to be hijacked? At that time, nobody knew for sure. Not all the commercial airlines had landed, and I believe there was still some confusion over how many were actually hijacked. Was the air force/navy or marines going to bring down a hijacked plane - we now know the answer is yes. could these planes have been a distraction for a smaller plane, like a LearJet, maybe armed with heat seeking missles? With a half dozen large commercial planes, fighters, missiles going off, maybe some stuff from the ground, it could have been very interesting over Washington DC. What if they managed to take out the White House, Pentagon, Capital Building, Camp David, McDonalds (oops - wrong president - Taco Bell maybe?)- what’s the next stop? should the president be flying into the middle of all those possibilities? I am not sure, but I imagine one of the rules they teach the Air Force One pilots must be “In order to deliver the President safely, you might not want to fly into a potential combat situation.” My neighbor is a retired secret service agent, and now a personal bodyguard. He says that the rules taught by the Secret Service work along the lines of the greater the danger, or the less that is known of the danger, the less choice you give to the person you are protecting. Get them to a safe place, or they won’t be around to sign that next paycheck. Don’t discuss it until you are safe. Cheney himself said they picked him up and his feet barely touched the floor. I could see them simply saying that they changed course due to the danger, and Cheney confirming that things are screwed up. If the pres did fly into that potential mess,he would be like Custer charging into that camp before he knew what was what. He did the smart thing.
There’s a skeptics thread nearly. The skeptics have a motto something like “Remarkable claims need remarkable evidence.” It would be remarkable for the Bush team to put out a false story on something that’s trivial in any case. I think that without evidence, it’s silly to believe this.
The only reason this is being discussed is that the accusation was made by some mean-spirited Democrats. They had no evidence that the story isn’t 100% true and neither does kniz. I bet .05 that Time Magazine hasn’t got evidence either.
Somehow, you people seem to think that the Bush administration knew Tuesday morning what we know now. Or what we are concluding now, at least.
If we assume that the plane that hit the Pentagon was in fact intended for the White House originally, that leaves the question of where the fourth plane was heading. Camp David is one possibility, although it doesn’t make much sense. Andrews AFB, with or without Air Force One on the runway, is another possibility. Actually, the best option might be to hit it as it lands, but that would be difficult to pull off
So I don’t see how the possibility of Air Force One being a target can be ruled out even now.
However, if you assume that the White House recieved some sort of warning, there is no reason to require that it specified how the plane would be hit. I think it is quite likely that knowing that the fourth plane failed to reach its target, the terrorists simply called in a threat anyways, just to disrupt things.
Spin?!
Finding & colliding with Air Force One? Yeah right! That’d be like, I don’t know, hijacking one, NO WAIT, TWO airliners, and then flying both of them into the Twin Towers, one after the other! Like you’d ever see that! Not even in a movie!
HA, suggests you go back and read tapswiller’s post.
Please tell me am I one of those mean-spirited Democrats or am I in a category all by myself? As to Time Magazine, I’ll see your bet and raise you 2 bits.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck and waddles like a duck, Hell its a frigging duck. Cheney was on TV yesterday and they asked him what his day was like on Tuesday and guess what the big event was? The secret service carrying him, with feet dragging to safety. The poor S_B had no choice. Did that prove that he and G.W. had to do what the Secret Service said or was it just spin. In my book it was spin. In Cheney’s case if Bush had told the S.S. to do whatever it took to get Cheney out of danger, then Cheney had no choice. However, the president is the president, is the president, is the president. If he wanted to go to Washington then he was going to Washington and f*** the Secret Service.
I have no problem with Bush going to Nebraska, but this story about AF1 is bull hockey and why are they trying to pass it off when all they had to do was give the reasons NaSultainne gave in his post and most everyone would have accepted them. By the way, who is Bush’s Press Secretary? I think maybe they should consider hiring NaSultainne for the job.
Prove it.
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by kniz *
**
Hmmm. I’ll hold my tongue on this tempting straight line.
kniz, your post above again offered no evidence at all for this remarkable accusation. Yet it fleshed out details, all of which come from your imagination (or somebody’s imagination.)
You point out that there was no need for Bush to lie about this, since there were many good reasons not to go to Washington. The fact that there was no need to lie lends extra support the idea that he didn’t lie.
Again holding my tongue, I’ll forebear from making a witty Clinton comparison.
In one quote you have demonstrated you do not know what the hell you are talking about in regard to security matters.
This isn’t Harrison Ford in a movie. :rolleyes:
Air Force 1 was in Florida. The WTC had been hit and so had the Pentagon. That is when they talked and decided Bush wasn’t going to Washington. By then all air traffic had been told to land. From Florida what was it 2-1/2 to 2 hours or more (they didn’t have to go full speed with those big engines)?
The only possible aircraft to worry about was the one that crashed in Penn. and fighters were scrambled with orders to shoot it down. In fact more fighters were put in the air with orders to shoot down any aircraft that was not obeying orders. So by the time Air Force One would even get halfway to Washington the only planes in the air were our military fighters.
The idea that some hijacked plane was going to collide with AF1 or crash into it on the ground is nonsense.
Perhaps they had planted a bomb on AF1. Oops, Bush was still on it.
It was dangerous to land at Andrews AFB, so land somewhere else close to Washington. They couldn’t have covered all bases and if it wasn’t an AFB then there are Navy Air Bases, and even Army Air Bases. And they had 3 hours to check security.
Maybe these guys got one of their people to join the Air Force and become a fighter pilot. He’d get scrambled and be there to shoot down AF1. But in that case he could have been one of those that did escort AF1.
So now, you tell me how AF1 was in all so much possible danger.
I served my time when the Cuban Crisis was going on and since have heard BS from Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and now Dubya. Truman is my real hero, but I was a little to young to remember anything except “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen” (and don’t make excuses).