War games in progress on September 11, 2001

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During the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US was holding multiple annual and one-time war games with at least one resembling the actual attacks.
Contents[hide]
1 The war games
2 NORAD hijackings exercises
3 Further disruption to air defense
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

The war games

The war games included:

a National Reconnaissance Office exercise on September 11, in which a small corporate jet would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure[1] The NRO, whose name was classified until 1992,[2] is the branch of the Department of Defense in charge of spy satellites.[3]

Global Guardian, an annual exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to the United States Strategic Command. It had been running for several days. The exercise allegedly involved a simulated Russian bomber attack.[4] Global Guardian is performed in conjunction with Vigilant Guardian, the annual training exercise (usually occurring in October) conducted by NORAD as well as exercises under the direction of Air Combat Command (Crown Vigilance) and US Space Command (Apollo Guardian).[5] "Vigilant Guardian" is a HQ-sponsored CPx (Command Post Exercise), meaning it is conducted in offices and with computers, but without actual planes in the air. All of NORAD was involved in "Vigilant Guardian."[6] However, it did include radar injects, or false blips, which could explain the FAA's observation of a 'phantom flight 11' on FAA radar well after the plane struck the WTC and after NORAD claims to have called off all war games.

Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD live-fly (confirmed by its second name 'warrior') exercise mentioned in Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies page 4-5 (possibly the same as Vigilant Guardian, or possibly the complementary "offense" or "red team" portion of the drill involving real planes acting as simulated hijacked plane)
Operation Northern Vigilance, which involved deploying fighter jets to locations in Alaska and northern Canada.

According to the Toronto Star: " Part of this exercise is pure simulation, but part is real world: NORAD is keeping a close eye on the Russians, who have dispatched long-range bombers to their own high north on a similar exercise." Planned on September 11, it was called off when the Federal Aviation Administration[7] had evidence of a hijacking.


Operation Northern Guardian "In late August 2001, two-thirds of the 27th Fighter Squadron are sent overseas. Six of the squadron's fighters and 115 people go to Turkey to enforce the no-fly zone over northern Iraq as part of Operation Northern Watch. Another six fighters and 70 people are sent to Iceland to participate in "Operation Northern Guardian." These were real-world operations which resulted in many fighters from Langley AFB to be unavailable for scrambling on 9/11.[8]


TRIPOD II, a joint FEMA and Department of Justice biowarfare vaccination exercise, scheduled for September 12 at New York's Pier 29, and revealed in testimony by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the 9/11 Commission. The command center assembled at Pier 29 was used for FEMA response to the events of 9/11 after Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management offices were evacuated and later destroyed in WTC 7.


The Vigilant Guardian war game was discussed in chapter 1, footnote 116 of the 9/11 Commission Report:


"116. On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian, which postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. We investigated whether military preparations for the large-scale exercise compromised the military's response to the real-world terrorist attack on 9/11. According to General Eberhart, "it took about 30 seconds" to make the adjustment to the real-world situation. Ralph Eberhart testimony, June 17, 2004. We found that the response was, if anything, expedited by the increased number of staff at the sectors and at NORAD because of the scheduled exercise. See Robert Marr interview (Jan. 23, 2004)."
On page 17 of the 9/11 Commission Report when Boston center calls NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector), the response from NEADS was "is this real world or exercise?". According to the 9/11 Commission's staff statement No. 17,[9] "During the course of the morning, there were multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft in the system."[10] For instance, page 26 of the Commission's final report documents FAA's report of a "phantom flight 11" at 9:21,[11] 35 minutes after the real flight 11 crashed into the WTC and even longer after the war games are alleged to have been aborted.


On February 16, 2005, during a House hearing on the Defense Appropriations bill, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. MyersNational Special Security Event (NSSE) day as a result of the war games.[12] about the war games and how they may have impaired the ability to respond to the attacks as well as the possibility that 9/11 was declared a
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NORAD hijackings exercises

In the two years before the September 11 attacks, NORAD and other military agencies conducted exercises simulating hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets, including the Pentagon,[13] and causing mass casualties. Until September 11, 2001, NORAD conducted four major exercises a year. Most included a hijack scenario, and some of those involved planes as weapons. Since the attacks, NORAD has conducted more than 100 exercises, all with mock hijackings.[14] It is unknown whether any of the multiple overlapping war games included a hijack scenario on September 11. A yearly NORAD-sponsored live-fly drill "Amalgam Virgo 01"[15] had been held in June 1-2, and "Amalgam Virgo 02" (a drill involving two simultaneous commercial aircraft hijackings) was being planned prior to 9/11 to occur in Summer 2002.[16][17][18]
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Further disruption to air defense
There were additional factors contributing to the disruption of air defenses on 9/11. As a Director for Operations of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Fry issued an 'Instruction', CJCSI 3610.01A, which superseded earlier Department of Defence procedures for dealing with hijacked aircraft. The document, dated June 1, 2001, effectively stripped commanders in the field of all authority to act expeditiously, by stipulating approval for any requests involving "potentially lethal support" must be personally authorized by the Secretary of Defense, then as now Donald Rumsfeld. The order further requires the Secretary of Defense to be personally responsible for issuing intercept orders.
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See also
9/11 Commission Report
9/11 conspiracy theories
Background history of the September 11, 2001 attacks
Criticisms of the 9/11 Commission Report
Global Guardian
Researchers questioning the official account of 9/11
September 11, 2001 attacks
Shanksville, Pennsylvania
The Pentagon
U.S. government response to the September 11, 2001 attacks
Wargaming
World Trade Center
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References
^http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/defense/sfgate_exercise_082102.htmlSan Francisco Chronicle, August 21, 2002. Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a building,
^ http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB35/
^http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/08/21/national1518EDT0686.DTL

^http://web.archive.org/web/20020917072642/http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm

^ http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/dswa/document.html
^http://web.archive.org/web/20020917072642/http:/www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm
^http://www.911truth.org/readingroom/whole_document.php?article_id=92

^ http://cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a0801northernguardian
^ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5233007/
^ http://cooperativeresearch.org/context.jsp?item=a909falsereports
^ http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
^ http://www.fromthewilderness.com/mp3/McKinney.rm
^ http://www.mdw.army.mil/content/anmviewer.asp?a=290
^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm
^ http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/afps060402.html
^ http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/afps060402.html
^ http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0206/04/lt.08.html
^ http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm


The best account of the role of war drills on 9/11 can be found in Webster G. Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA (Joshua Tree CA: Progressive Press, 2006). Available from amazon or from progressivepress.com.
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External links
Complete 911 Timeline: Military exercises up to 9/11
Paralyzing the System (.pdf file)
Simplified thesis that Dick Cheney and Secret Service used War Games to ensure the success of the hijacking operation
Essay on Failure to Defend the Skies
"War Games" by the US military on 9/11
Global Guardian and Vigilant Guardian entries at globalsecurity.org
Strategic Command on 9/11 at Offutt AFB, from a Major at the Air Force Weather Agency.
Amid Crisis Simulation, `We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack' at Newshouse News Service - account of 9/11 at the Northeast Air Defense Sector headquarters near Rome, NY