We should have shot them down?

[ElvisL1ves]

@xtisme

To me it only continues to confirm the general confusion happening.

Sure. But part of a leader’s job is to deconfuse situations.

Could the President have done anything more by moving to another location right then that he didn’t do by waiting until more data came in? Not like he has some super secret way to communicate from Air Force One (where he went too afterwards) that he didn’t have access too where he was.

Hell, yes, Air Force One has much better facilities for communications and control than any elementary school, even those that aren’t classified. It’s also much better defended militarily, if that is necessary, and a prudent person would think it was. So hell yes, he should have expressed some concern and gotten his ass on the way.

SOMETIMES the best thing anyone can do is to sit back and let others do their jobs, to take the time to figure out whats going on BEFORE committing to a decision, and to remain calm and collected so you don’t panic the country you are supposed to be serving any more than it already is. Why is this concept so hard for people to understand?

He did none of that - he kept reading a children’s book to school kids. He wasn’t collecting information, or doing anything that a nonfigurehead leader would do. The concept isn’t hard to understand, just how you can believe that it’s what was happening.

Personally I’m shocked that GW DIDN’T do exactly what you are ragging on him about…i.e. jumping up and starting to issue orders and bluster about.

Nobody is suggesting that he should have done that, either. Excluded middle.

@John Carter

Now, the idea that any person in authority would have ordered an airliner loaded with civilians shot down prior to the attacks of 9/11 is simply not valid.

I don’t think they would give such an order even today. Imagine giving it yourself: Are you certain the hijackers intend to use the plane as a weapon? If not, how would you justify giving such an order? How could you be totally certain?

Huh? Have you read this thread at all? That is exactly what *did * happen. Prior to the first 2 planes hitting, sure, no airliner had been deliberately crashed by hijackers. But that possibility did come into existence, right then, Cheney knew it, and did give the order, with or without Bush’s participation. That was entirely proper, btw.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

@ElvisL1ves

<snip> Huh? Have you read this thread at all? That is exactly what *did * happen. Prior to the first 2 planes hitting, sure, no airliner had been deliberately crashed by hijackers. But that possibility did come into existence, right then, Cheney knew it, and did give the order, with or without Bush’s participation. That was entirely proper, btw.

Yes I read the thread. I don’t normally post to threads I haven’t completely read, as posters who do that are one of my pet peeves.

It should be obvious that no one ordered a civilian aircraft shot down. Your cite is: "Cheney Authorized Shooting Down Planes ".

There’s a long, long way between authroizing military action and ordering it. With authorization, commanders anywhere along the chain of command may use their judgement to either issue the order for action or not. The final decision usually rests with the officer closest to the situation. In the case of 9/11, those closest to the situation decided not to issue orders to shoot. A very good decision it turns out, as most of the terrorist’s damage had already been done.

[Desmostylus]

@John Carter of Mars

Yes I read the thread. I don’t normally post to threads I haven’t completely read, as posters who do that are one of my pet peeves.

It should be obvious that no one ordered a civilian aircraft shot down. Your cite is: "Cheney Authorized Shooting Down Planes ".

There’s a long, long way between authroizing military action and ordering it. With authorization, commanders anywhere along the chain of command may use their judgement to either issue the order for action or not. The final decision usually rests with the officer closest to the situation. In the case of 9/11, those closest to the situation decided not to issue orders to shoot. A very good decision it turns out, as most of the terrorist’s damage had already been done.

As usual, your post is utter rubbish.

United 93 and the Shootdown Order

There was not an open line of communication between the President and Vice President on the morning of 9/11, but rather a series of calls between the two leaders. The Vice President remembered placing a call to the President just after entering the shelter conference room. There is conflicting evidence as to when the Vice President arrived in the shelter conference room. We have concluded, after reviewing all the available evidence, that the Vice President arrived in the shelter conference room shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58. The Vice President recalls being told, just after his arrival, that an Air Force combat air patrol (CAP) was up over Washington. At 9:59, a White House request for such a CAP was communicated to the military through the Air Threat Conference.

The Vice President states that the purpose of his call to the President was to discuss the rules of engagement for the CAP. He recalled he felt it did not do any good to put the CAP up there unless the pilots had instructions to tell them whether they were authorized to shoot if the plane would not divert. He said the President signed off on that concept. The President said he remembered such a conversation, and that it reminded him of when he had been a fighter pilot. The President emphasized to us that he had authorized the shoot down of hijacked aircraft.

The Vice President’s military aide told us he believed the Vice President spoke to the President just after entering the conference room, but he did not hear what they said. Rice, who entered the conference room shortly after the Vice President and sat next to him, recalled hearing the Vice President inform the President that, “Sir, the CAPs are up. Sir, they’re going to want to know what to do.” Then she recalled hearing him say, “Yes sir.” She believed this conversation occurred a few minutes, perhaps five, after they entered the conference room.

We believe this call would have taken place some time before 10:10 to 10:15. Among the sources that reflect other important events that morning there is no documentary evidence for this call, although the relevant sources are incomplete. Others nearby who were taking notes, such as the Vice President’s Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby, who sat next to him, and Mrs. Cheney, did not note a call between the President and Vice President immediately after the Vice President entered the conference room.

At 10:02, the communicators in the shelter began receiving reports from the Secret
Service of an inbound aircraft—presumably hijacked—heading toward Washington.
That aircraft was United 93. The Secret Service was getting this information directly from the FAA, through its links to that agency. The Service’s operations center and their FAA contact were tracking the progress of the aircraft on a display that showed its projected path, not its actual radar return. Thus, for a time, they were not aware the aircraft was going down in Pennsylvania.

At some time between 10:10 and 10:15, a military aide told the Vice President and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft.

The Vice President’s reaction was described as quick and decisive: “in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing.” He authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane. He told us this was based on his prior conversation with the President. The military aide returned a few minutes later, probably between 10:12 and 10:18, and said the aircraft was 60 miles out. He again asked for authorization to engage. The Vice President again said yes. The Secret Service was postulating the flight path of United 93, not knowing it had already crashed.

Also at the conference room table was White House Deputy Chief of Staff Joshua Bolten. Bolten watched the exchanges and, after what he called “a quiet moment,” suggested that the Vice President get in touch with the President and confirm the engage order. Bolten told us he wanted to make sure the President was told that the Vice President had executed the order. He said he had not heard any prior conversation on the subject with the President. The Vice President was logged calling the President at 10:18 for a two minute call that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, at 10:20, the President’s press secretary, Ari Fleischer, noted that the President told him he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft, if necessary.

Minutes went by and word arrived of an aircraft down over Pennsylvania. Those in the conference room wondered if perhaps the aircraft had been shot down pursuant to these directions.

At approximately 10:30, the shelter started receiving reports of another hijacked plane, this time only five to ten miles out. Believing they had only a minute or two, once again the Vice President communicated authority to “engage” or “take out” the airborne aircraft. At 10:33, Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley passed that guidance on the Air Threat Conference call: “I need to get word to Dick Myers that our reports are there’s an inbound aircraft flying low 5 miles out. The Vice President’s guidance was we need to take them out….”

Once again, there was no immediate information about the fate of the inbound aircraft. As one witness to the event described, “It drops below the radar screen, and it’s just continually hovering in your imagination; you don’t know where it is or what happens to it.” Eventually, the shelter received word that the alleged hijacker five miles away had been a Medevac helicopter.

It is not clear how the shoot down order was communicated to the Continental Region headquarters. But we know that, at 10:31, General Larry Arnold instructed his staff to broadcast the following message over a NORAD chat log: “10:31 Vice president has cleared to us to intercept tracks of interest and shoot them down if they do not respond, per CONR CC [General Arnold].”

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

This last sentence of your post illustrates my point:

“Vice president has cleared to us to intercept tracks of interest and shoot them down if they do not respond, per CONR CC [General Arnold].”

Thank you.

[Broomstick]

@John Carter of Mars

Now, the idea that any person in authority would have ordered an airliner loaded with civilians shot down prior to the attacks of 9/11 is simply not valid.

Well, not in the US. There have been civilian airliners shot down by militaries in other parts of the world. Maybe by mistake, maybe delibrately, but I’m not sure we want to go into an exhaustive analysis of that in this thread.

I don’t think they would give such an order even today. Imagine giving it yourself: Are you certain the hijackers intend to use the plane as a weapon? If not, how would you justify giving such an order? How could you be totally certain?

I say, from my own personal observation, there are a LOT more civilians eager to shoot down airplanes (of any sort) than military.

Fact is, since 9/11/01 there have been hundreds, if not thousands, of violations of various restricted airspace and not one airplane has been shot down. Lots of intercepts, no shoot-downs. This, despite the fact it no longer requires Presidential permission to do so - the capacity to make that decision has been distributed to certain individuals still high in the chain of command, but no longer at just the very top.

Those who have the actual guns are less eager to use them than some of those who don’t.

As a recent example, during the Week of Reagan’s Wake a King Air 200 without transponder signal entered the restricted airspace around DC, making an apparent bee-line the city center. Needless to say, while the secret service was evacuating the Capitol and telling Deborah Norville (among many others) to take off her high heels and get running jets were scrambled.

About this time you might be saying “huh… I don’t recall hearing about a shoot down…” That’s because none occurred. It was quickly determined that the plane belonged to the State of Kentucky and was carrying the governor to Regan’s funeral. The transponder, although correctly set, had malfunctioned while en route to National airport (in other threads I have pointed out that transponders DO fail).

In this case, had it been necessary to shoot down the airplane could it have been done? The answer is yes - armed fighters were scrambled in time and did intercept the airplane. However, one pricipal of responsible gun use it to be sure of your target. It was quickly determined that the airplane was no threat. It did, in fact, have the necessary permissions and waivers to be in that airspace, and the plane was permitted to land. I actually find this whole incident to be reassuring in a bleak sort of way - the system worked. Whatever deficiencies or oversights lead to the carnage 9/11/01, some remedies have been applied. It will be much, much harder to pull the same stunt again, yet there are also safeguards to help prevent the gunning down of innocents.

Although I wish the authorities had anticipated better, I can forgive them much in regards to a situation that had never occurred before. We do not have perfect foresight. What I do ask is that people learn from a tragedy, and apparently that has occurred.

I will, however, point out that if it had been necessary to shoot down that King Air over DC, given the point of intercept, it would have been over inhabited territory. A King Air isn’t particularly big - even if (very hypothetically) it had been loaded with explosives the damage wouldn’t be anywhere near what would occur with an airliner - and the damage would be no greater than that of any other plane crash of similar size.

However, an airliner is much bigger and significantly faster than a King Air. If it had been a hijacked airliner (which would have required subduing a planeload of passengers and breaking into a fortified cockpit these days) the intercept might have occurred later - or perhaps not at all.

I think folks may have to get a grip on the fact that under some circumstances, even today it may not be possible to intercept a big, fast airplane before the damage is done. I’m sorry, but that’s the truth as I see it. It WILL be much, much harder to do a 9/11 style attack, but it may still be possible.

I think if this is tried again in the future the passangers and pilots will splash the aircraft and there will be no need for military intervention.

Yeah, I think that’s the most likely outcome, too - of a *commercial airline * hijacking. There are alternative ways to get control of a big Boeing or Airbus, though.

Perhaps a small private airplane loaded with explosives could do the terrorist’s job

I doubt it. How do you define “small”? Four seat piston planes? No way - they just don’t have the payload to carry much. You would get a very limited amount of damage. Frankly, the average sedan size car can carry more weight than a four-seat airplane and makes a much better bomb. King Air? Yeah, that’s bigger - imagine loading a bus with bombs, something like that. No question that’s bad - but the 1993 attack on the WTC was what, a panel van filled with explosives? Sure, it did some nasty damage but they cleaned up the mess, fixed the damage, and went on with life. It’s not a big enough blast to take down something like the WTC. Sure, a smaller building would be destroyed, but again, it is so much easier to load up a Ryder van with fuel and fertilizer and park it in front of your target. Small airplanes are (as far as I can see) not nearly as useful for this sort of thing as cars and trucks

Which is not to say small planes couldn’t be used by terrorists - we know the 9/11 crowd used them for training and for reconnaissance flights around/above their chosen targets. But think about it, people - Mr. Atta and friends routinely rented small airplanes, flew them, used them - for a mere $30,000 or so you can BUY one. Why would they have gone to the trouble to hijack a 757 unless necessary? It’s so much easier to just *rent * a small airplane - $80-120 an hour, depending on location, navigation equipment, and horsepower. Nope - the only reason they hijacked a big plane was because they needed something huge to do the job.

This is a tough question, but I don’t think it is reasonable to place blame for not shooting down planes on 9/11.

Yes, hindsight is 20/20 or better, and arm-chair quarterbacking is easy, but I can’t find it in my heart to demand heads on platters for 9/11. Going forward, however, I expected changes, and changes have occurred. I expect Al Qaeda’s next attack to be something different than a hijacked airline. With so much attention devoted to aviation security other potential hazards have been ignored, leaving us vulnerable in other areas.

[ElvisL1ves]

@John Carter of Mars

There’s a long, long way between authroizing military action and ordering it.

In the context of the moral question at the heart of this thread? The one somebody using your username described as “Imagine giving it yourself: Are you certain the hijackers intend to use the plane as a weapon? If not, how would you justify giving such an order? How could you be totally certain?”

Your attempt to place the actual decision at operating levels in no way addresses what you purport to be your primary concern: “The final decision usually rests with the officer closest to the situation.” As if they can be “totally certain” of the hijackers intent, either?

Bullcrap. There’s no moral distinction whatever between authorizing and ordering an action. To assign the responsibility for the consequences any further down the chain of command is, if done by the authorizers, simple cowardice, and, on the part of their apologists, simple foolishness.

[John_Carter_of_Mars]

@ElvisL1ves

<snip>To assign the responsibility for the consequences any further down the chain of command is, if done by the authorizers, simple cowardice, and, on the part of their apologists, simple foolishness.

Huh? Assigning authority to those closest to the scene is the only way things will work effectively. On site commanders need the authority to make quick decisions. Where do you get “apologists”? Apologize for what? Without using 20/20 hindsight, there’s nothing to apologize for re: 9/11/2001.

“There’s no moral distinction whatever between authorizing and ordering an action.”
What “moral distinction” are you talking about? There certainly IS however, a distinction between authorizing an action and ordering it. In one case an aircraft is shot down, in the other case, it may or may not be shot down, depending on the judgement of someone on the scene.

As for the rest of your comments, ElvisL1ves, we must live in alternate universes. First time I saw Elvis he performed “Blue Suede Shoes” as part of his show. Where you live, did he sing “Green Leather Boots” or somethin?

Broomstick: Thanks for an informative post.

[XT]

@ElvisL1ves

Sure. But part of a leader’s job is to deconfuse situations.

Facinating. By magic perhaps? How exactly would a ‘leader’ ‘deconfuse’ this situation? Wave a magic wand and make it all clear? Perhaps he should have used his handy dandy time machine to see how it would play out??

@ElvisL1ves

Hell, yes, Air Force One has much better facilities for communications and control than any elementary school, even those that aren’t classified. It’s also much better defended militarily, if that is necessary, and a prudent person would think it was. So hell yes, he should have expressed some concern and gotten his ass on the way.

And yet, when he GOT to AF1, there were communications problems between him and Chaney appearently…and even communications problems between Chaney and parts of the military (i.e. he appearently ordered weapons free at 10:39am but the message was garbled…again, an indication of the massive confusion going on at all levels)…and he was in the frigging White House communications room!!

You are wrong in any case…the President is NEVER out of communications. Everywhere he goes he has access to communications…he has too. And thats not really the point anyway. He could communicate until he was blue in the face, but it didn’t matter, because NO ONE KNEW WHAT THE FUCK WAS GOING ON! Do you understand that? There wasn’t anything TOO communicate to him, no hard data to base decisions on…because no one person or agency had a handle on the situation. You seem incapable of understanding this point.

@ElvisL1ves

He did none of that - he kept reading a children’s book to school kids. He wasn’t collecting information, or doing anything that a nonfigurehead leader would do. The concept isn’t hard to understand, just how you can believe that it’s what was happening.

Its not the Presidents JOB to ‘collect information’…that was my point. He was WAITING for OTHERS to do THEIR jobs. And if he waited in a classroom reading to kids, or in a limo on the way to AF1, or in front of a TV watching Teletubbie re-runs it makes no difference because until he gets solid information there isn’t anything he can do about a situation like 9/11. Anything he DOES do has either already been handled (i.e. people were ALREADY trying to figure out what the hell was going on, fighters had already been dispatched to investigate, etc) or there wasn’t enough information to make an informed decision. As I said, at one point the FAA thought there were at least a dozen aircraft that MIGHT have been part of this thing (some had transponder problems, some had communications problems, etc). What would your thoughts on Bush have been if he’d of been decisive and ordered them all immediately shot down…just in case? Would you be forgiving to him that he had totally innocent civilians killed on the off chance that terrorists MIGHT have hijacked their planes?

Again, its appearent you don’t get this point. Have you never worked in a job where you had to timeshare your time and effort? Perhaps the President SHOULD have quietly gotten up and left (for his own safety…there is no other real reason), but it would have made zero difference if he had. There was nothing he could do at that time anyway because there was no solid basis for him to base a decision ON…and thats his job, to make decisions.

-XT

[ElvisL1ves]

John, you’ve heard of a “distinction without a difference”, haven’t you? Well, friend, that’s what you’re trying to establish, nothing more.

xt, you know damn well what the point is. If your idea of crisis leadership is to fail to react in any way whatsoever, you’re welcome to it. Got any examples of other leaders in other crises performing similarly that you can enlighten us with? I think we both know the answer to that one.

I’ve wasted enough time on both of you here. You’re not debating; you’re simply dug in.

[XT]

@=ElvisL1ves

xt, you know damn well what the point is. If your idea of crisis leadership is to fail to react in any way whatsoever, you’re welcome to it. Got any examples of other leaders in other crises performing similarly that you can enlighten us with? I think we both know the answer to that one.

My idea of ‘crisis leadership’ is to wait for data to make a decision instead of flying off half cocked…which is obviously YOUR idea of ‘crisis leadership’. About the only rational reason I can think that Bush SHOULD have left that classroom at that time was security…i.e. he should have left if it was felt his life was in danger. I’ve never seen anyone actually produce any evidence that the SS TRIED to get him to leave and he refused though. As I said before…which you didn’t address…there was nothing else he COULD have done. Waiting for information in the classroom was the same as waiting for it anywhere else.

As to other leaders and what they did in a crisis, thats a tough one as in the past things weren’t so well documented. Off the top of my head I can’t think of many crisis that are similar, though I seriously doubt many democratically elected officials would have reacted differently that GW did (except to perhaps leave for those safety reasons).

What did Roosevelt do DURING the Pearl Harbor attack for instance? Not much from what I’ve read, but the ‘facts’ are pretty vague…it wasn’t a time of 24/7 news coverage of the president. As Clinton never HAD such a crisis we can’t look to him. But since you haven’t actually brought anything vaguely interesting or supportive to YOUR case, I fail to see why I should bother doing such research for you. Especially since you have ‘wasted enough time’ on me here.

@ElvisL1ves

I’ve wasted enough time on both of you here. You’re not debating; you’re simply dug in.

Paging Mr. Pott…paging Mr. Pott. Mr. Kettle on line one…

-XT

[Fiver]

@xtisme

My idea of ‘crisis leadership’ is to wait for data to make a decision instead of flying off half cocked…
-XT

“Wait for data” to be brought into an elementary school classroom, and whispered into his ear?

[XT]

@Fiver

“Wait for data” to be brought into an elementary school classroom, and whispered into his ear?

5-7 min. or its dooms day? :dubious:

And ya…what do you think, classrooms where the President is are some kind of anti-communications zone or something? See all those people around the President with those things hanging out of their ears? Ever wonder what they are doing? Ever wonder about all those OTHER people who are around the president? Hell man, even you and I have cell phones so people can get in touch with US in classrooms too. Imagine that. Now…imagine what the President has when he travels. Boggles the mind, ehe?

-XT

[Sinful]

Seems to me that American’s policy is begining to mirror Israel’s, that is being full of war crimes and brash actions, and we as americans need to take back the white house and keep our country from becoming brutal conquerers.

As for the safehouse, I am not sure, as you probably are not, if the house contained weapons or not, the information from several sources is conflicting. One thing is for sure however, that this kind of action was not acceptable. I consider it terrorism.

That being said each person who is killed no matter what nationality or allegiance in Iraq is definitely not a good thing, and it hurts to know so much bloodshed is being caused. But we all know that this mess was Bush’s fault, and we must remember that at the voting consoles.

Sorry for the slight hijack.

[Sinful]

@Sinful

Seems to me that American’s policy is begining to mirror Israel’s, that is being full of war crimes and brash actions, and we as americans need to take back the white house and keep our country from becoming brutal conquerers.

As for the safehouse, I am not sure, as you probably are not, if the house contained weapons or not, the information from several sources is conflicting. One thing is for sure however, that this kind of action was not acceptable. I consider it terrorism.

That being said each person who is killed no matter what nationality or allegiance in Iraq is definitely not a good thing, and it hurts to know so much bloodshed is being caused. But we all know that this mess was Bush’s fault, and we must remember that at the voting consoles.

Sorry for the slight hijack.

Wrong thread. This :smack: isn’t big enough.

[Fiver]

@xtisme

And ya…what do you think, classrooms where the President is are some kind of anti-communications zone or something?

No, they’re places full of little kids where the President wouldn’t want to discuss an emerging national crisis openly. Places he’d want to leave as soon as possible, to get a thorough briefing away from impressionable, easily frightened young ears.

[JThunder]

@Fiver

No, they’re places full of little kids where the President wouldn’t want to discuss an emerging national crisis openly. Places he’d want to leave as soon as possible, to get a thorough briefing away from impressionable, easily frightened young ears.

What, do you think that the Secret Service folks would discuss matters of national crisis openly, in front of these pre-pubescent ears?

No. They would discreetly gesture toward the President, or whisper in his ears. The President can take that as his cue to excuse himself, so that these matters can be discussed in private. In the meantime, there is no reason why he shouldn’t continue to be with the children.