White House and AF1 Targets?

The BBQ Pit
1

I’m posting this in The Pit because I think some may not like what I’m about to engage in…I’m not sure I like it myself. Mods, feel free to move it as you see fit…or close it if you deem it inappropriate (and if so I apologize)

The first I heard about the White House and AF1 being targets was today, during Ari Fleischer"s (Press Sec)press conference. I thought I had picked up the undertones of some rumblings yesterday regarding our President’s flight itinerary, specifically why he wasn’t coming back to Washington. Not outright questioning or criticism, just the TV equivalent of “reading between the lines”. Nothing near as strong as he was running scared, but that he didn’t get to where he “should” have been when he “should” have been there.

Then today, I hear he didn’t come back to DC right away, or in the afternoon, because the White House and AF1 were targets. Some of the press pressed Fleischer (full transcript here, relevant part about half way down) on this during the news conference, and he wouldn’t give any info, just citing “credible threats”. Same during an interview I saw with Ashcroft - almost a “nonconfirmation confirmation” by him, again “listening between the words”. Maybe I need to recalibrate my skepticism meter, but I caught a whiff from Ashcroft like he wanted nothing to do with that question - body language, facial expression, the tone and manner of his response. At the press conf, the press wanted to know about the “timeline” of the threat to the White House - a legitimate area of inquiry. If it was still a “credible threat” after the fourth plane was down, then there were indications of more going on then the four planes. If it had dissipated after the fourth plane went down, why not return to DC right away - again, was there some ongoing threat we don’t know about? How was AF1 a target - missiles, driving another plane into it? Fleischer refused to elaborate at all, just repeated “credible threats”.

I guess my question is - is the President engaging in “spin” to deflect possible criticism regarding his actions in the immediate aftermath of the tragedies? While I do support my President, I also think it is a legitimate question as to whether he is engaging in “spin” for political reasons at a time of national crisis. I don’t question the President’s actions; that’s not the point nor the question. He was in command, and assuring continuity of govt. After all, he has the capability to conference with whomever he wants from anywhere. He could have stayed in Nebraska, or beat feet to Guam, and remained effective - and I think he was effective. I would have advised him to remain in a secure location away from DC until the situation was adequately assessed. To repeat - not criticizing his actions/response. I am wondering about this “late” announcement that the White House was a target. If true, they knew about it 24 hrs earlier, and remained quiet about it. Nothing necessarily wrong with that - they very well could have legitimate reasons for doing so (protecting sources comes to mind). But it still sets off tiny alarm bells in my head of political maneuvering. Maybe I’m wrong about “listening between the lines”, but if not, his staff had all night to assess the potential political fallout, maybe pick up some of the same faint rumblings I thought I caught, and come up with a very good reason for why things went as they did. If there is spin going on for purely narrow political puropses (as opposed to national political interests), I think it’s shameful. Of course, if there is not, one could very well think me shameful for raising the spectre.

Am I crazy? Paranoid? Beyond the pale? Anyone else pick up anything like this?

I am sorry if this offends anyone.

Shaky Jake

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I got the impression that they were not at liberty to say any more than that. They were probably protecting their information source.

After all, the people responsible for this watch CNN too. We shouldn’t tell them everything we know or don’t know. That’s just stupid.

I’ve always believed our right to know should not be as great during a crisis. They can tell me later. After it’s over and the guilty parties caught.

3

When Pickett’s Division, along with brigades from Pettigrew and Lane’s Divisions of the Army of Northern Virginia, assaulted the Union line on the third day of the battle of Gettysburg, George Pickett was the operational commander of the whole thing. As the assault force went forward General Pickett positioned himself a hundred yards or so behind the battle line where he could observe what was happening. This was the right and proper thing to do. When, however, the whole thing started to fall apart General Pickett did not go forward to rally the troops and take personal charge. Instead he remained in the rear. General Pickett was a physically brave man; no man who was not could have retained command in Lee’s army. It is just that when the situation called for him to act gallantly his sense of the moment was not sufficient to compel him to do the gallant thing. Pickett had to contend for the rest of his life with a whispering campaign that, when the issue was in doubt, he had flunked.

In WWII, the King and Queen of England remained in London despite the Blitz (although they sent the children out of harms way). The queen is reported to have been thankful when Buckingham Palace was bombed so that it could not be said that she and the King were not sharing the dangers of the bombings with the people of London.

It seems to me that it was unfortunate that the President did not return to Washington right away. It seems more unfortunate that it is being rationalized with a report of personal danger that may prove to be unfounded.

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Honest to Pete, you skeptics amaze me. Let’s just assume for one single stupid little moment that perhaps, just perhaps, the Secret Service, NSA, CIA, FBI, etc., have a bit more information about events in progress at the time the decision is made not to return the president to the White House. I can make a reasoned argument that based simply on the limited information known on the day in question, i.e., planes in the air doing kamikaze imitations, one at least having passed directly over the White House, that it might be a splendid idea to protect the president until safety in D.C. could be assured. Which, correct me if I’m wrong, is more important than what you or I may think. And, according to anecdotal evidence, the White House is a small-ish target tucked in amongst much larger buildings when approached at high speed in a commercial airplane, which would explain the change in target to the Pentagon. If you don’t find this reasonable, and would really prefer our President to play ‘King of the Hill’ hoping to make a target of himself, well, you’re wasting your breath and my time.

5

I wonder why perhaps they didn’t fake an “Oval Office” to make it look like the President was at the White House?

Or would that have drawn unnecessary attention to the place?

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I think Bush had a duty to stay out of DC; I’m not sure he should have gone back as early as he did. His own wishes were immaterial–George W. Bush as such can do whatever the hell he wants, but the President of the United States cannot. His duty was to survive, and those who are complaining about it should consider for a moment what our government’s reaction could have been if he’d gotten killed–would we be investigating right now, or would we already be at war with somebody who may or may not have had anything to do with it?

Having said that…yeah, it’s crossed my mind that the alleged threat to AF1 is political cameoflage to placate those who have read too many warrior-king stories–the timing was odd (why wait so long?), and, having released the info, Fleischer was being suspiciously coy about it. On the other hand, maybe it was real intel that shouldn’t have been released to begin with, and they did so to deflect the criticism. For the moment I’ll assume it’s the latter; if it’s the former, it’ll come out eventually.

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According to this link the source was a phone call. It makes no sense that the phone call was made by the hijackers, because it would have done nothing but act as a warning.

I also can’t figure out why they wouldn’t let the president go back to Washington D.C., since they could have used enough fighter escorts to fight off all the commerical airliners on earth. If that didn’t work some ground to air missiles could have been used as a reserve. I think the story was spun out of bull shit.

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Another odd moment of all this was when Powell was asked to comment on Fleischer’s revalation at a seperate press conference. Asked (only minutes after ABC first reported AF’s statement) if he had any comment on Ari Fleischer’s statement that there was credible evidence that AF1 and the white house were targets, he halted his exit and turned back to the reporters and very concerned, said “Ari said that?” It was a strange moment, looked very much as though he had been caught off guard by the admission.

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Well, gee, I remember hearing on the radio in my car he was leaving Florida to return to DC, and thinking “Gee, is that smart, to fly an airplane into the target zone?” Then I heard later he’d diverted to Louisiana, and then to Nebraska. Made sense to me, no thought of the President acting the coward. Come on, he’s the President - we kinda need him.

As for “credible evidence” that Air Force One was a target, that is hard to speculate on. I feel it is entirely possible that they had access to information they are not willing to share for security reasons. Given that they feel at least one of the planes targeted the White House, and it should have been known the Pres wasn’t there at the time, I can’t help but think AF1 probably was a target. Makes sense to me. How better to strike at the heart of America than kill the president?

While I’m certainly curious what they knew when and how, I sure don’t expect them to go blabbing that on CNN so Osama Bin Laden and whomever can get the scoop, too.

Bad Hat said:

I could interpret that a couple different ways, one being that Ari let out something he shouldn’t have, another that it was spin.

10

OK, I’m going to say that I find it hard to believe that the whole story could have been been simply created to deflect criticism. First of all, presumably, Bush and his advisors have been rather busy recently. The odds that someone would try to throw together a lie in the midst of this, and pass it off, knowing that it is very likely that it would get found out eventually, are pretty low.

I have no trouble, on the other hand, believing that the administration and the Secret Service had very good reason to believe that Air Force One and the White House were in some sort of danger, and that until more was known, it would be unwise to make assumptions. Sure, they might have figured that the plane in Pennsylvania was the one intended for Air Force One, but I doubt that the terrorists called in with their exact plan.

Also, the warning may have come not from the terrorists but from US intelligence assets, hence the reluctance to discuss the matter. Or if it was phoned in, they may have wanted to avoid giving any details that would encourage random jackasses to attempt it. Also, the terrorists may have been lying when they called in, but who’s going to simply assume that the people capable of destroying the World Trade Center would not be able to get Air Force One?

Also, I think comparisons to the King and his family staying at Buckingham Palace are rather misguided. Bush had reason to believe that he was the target of an assassination attempt in the wake of a horrible national tragedy. The citizens of the US would not be the targets of an attack on Air Force One, and thus there was no need to put himself in harm’s way to show solidarity with the people. Saying that Bush should have gone to Washington is like saying that Reagan shouldn’t have let the Secret Service cover him when Hinckley was shooting at him.