“Is this real-world or exercise?”: Cyber-PsyOps Warfare & 9/11 Part VII: Creating Reality “‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality —judiciously, as you will— we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ ”  (Bush entourage entering Offutt AFB bunker) "an iterative, interactive process"--repeatable and repeated... At some point between 1991 and 2001, a regional NORAD sector holds an exercise simulating a foreign hijacked airliner crashing into a prominent building in the United States, the identity of which is classified. According to military officials, the building is not the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. The exercise involves some flying of military aircraft, plus a “command post exercise” where communication procedures are rehearsed in an office environment. [CNN, 4/19/2004] 1998: Training Exercise Held at the White House, Based Around Militants Using a Plane as a Weapon Counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke chairs a tabletop exercise at the White House, involving a scenario where anti-American militants fill a Learjet with explosives, and then fly it on a suicide mission toward a target in Washington, DC. Officials from the Pentagon, Secret Service, and FAA attend, and are asked how they would stop such a threat. Pentagon officials say they could launch fighters from Langley Air Force Base, Virginia, but would need authorization from the president to shoot the plane down, and currently there is no system to do this. The 9/11 Commission later states: “There was no clear resolution of the problem at the exercise.” [Slate, 7/22/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 345, 457-458] According to USA Today, “In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command conduct[s] exercises simulating what the White House [later] says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties.” One of these imagined targets is the World Trade Center. According to NORAD, these scenarios are regional drills, rather than regularly scheduled continent-wide exercises. They utilize “[n]umerous types of civilian and military aircraft” as mock hijacked aircraft, and test “track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination; and operational security and communications security procedures.” The main difference between these drills and the 9/11 attacks is that the planes in the drills are coming from another country, rather than from within the US. Before 9/11, NORAD reportedly conducts four major exercises at headquarters level per year. Most of them are said to include a hijack scenario (see Before September 11, 2001). [USA Today, 4/18/2004; CNN, 4/19/2004] A 1998 presidential directive gave the National Security Council authority to designate important upcoming events as National Special Security Events (NSSEs) (see May 22, 1998). The US Secret Service is in charge of planning and implementing security for NSSEs, and the FBI and FEMA also have major security roles. [CSO Magazine, 9/2004; Scripps Howard News Service, 1/11/2005] Louis Freeh, director of the FBI for much of the 1990s until June 2001, will later tell the 9/11 Commission that in the years 2000 and 2001, the subject of “planes as weapons” was always one of the considerations in the planning of security for “a series of these, as we call them, special events,” and “resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat.” He confirms that “the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions” was “part of the planning” for NSSEs. [9/11 Commission, 4/13/2004] According to the Secret Service, “there is a tremendous amount of advance planning and coordination” for NSSEs, sometimes taking months or even years. Various training initiatives are conducted, including “simulated attacks and medical emergencies, inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises.” [United States Secret Service, n.d.; US Congress, 7/9/2002] Presumably the use of airplanes in suicide missions is incorporated into some of these simulated attacks. June 1-2, 2001: Military Conducts Exercises Based on Scenario in which Cruise Missiles Are Launched against US The US military conducts Amalgam Virgo 01, a multi-agency planning exercise sponsored by NORAD involving the hypothetical scenario of a cruise missile being launched by “a rogue [government] or somebody” from a barge off the East Coast. Bin Laden is pictured on the cover of the proposal for the exercise. [American Forces Press Service, 6/4/2002] The exercise takes place at Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida. [GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/14/2002] The next Amalgam Virgo exercise, scheduled to take place the following year, will involve two simultaneous commercial aircraft hijackings. Planning for the exercises begins before 9/11 (see Before September 11, 2001).  August 31, 2001: Transportation Department Holds Plane Hijacking Exercise A tabletop exercise is held at the Department of Transportation (DOT) in Washington, DC, as part of its preparations for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. According to Ellen Engleman, the administrator of the DOT’s Research and Special Programs Administration, this is “actually much more than a tabletop” exercise, though she does not explain how. She will later recount, “During that exercise, part of the scenario, interestingly enough, involved a potentially hijacked plane and someone calling on a cell phone, among other aspects of the scenario that were very strange when twelve days later, as you know, we had the actual event [of 9/11].” [Mineta Transportation Institute, 10/30/2001, pp. 108] Further details of this exercise are unknown. The DOT’s Crisis Management Center will be heavily involved in the 9/11 crisis response, acting as a focal point for the transportation response to the attacks (see 9:00 a.m. September 11, 2001). NORAD plans for the Amalgam Virgo 2 exercise. The exercise, scheduled for June 2002, involves two simultaneous commercial aircraft hijackings. One, a Delta 757, with actual Delta pilots and actors posing as passengers, will fly from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Honolulu, Hawaii. It will be “hijacked” by FBI agents posing as terrorists. The other will be a DC-9 hijacked by Canadian police near Vancouver, British Columbia. US and Canadian fighters are to respond and attempt to escort the hijacked planes to airfields in British Columbia and Alaska. But they possibly could “mock” shoot down the aircraft. [CNN, 6/4/2002; American Forces Press Service, 6/4/2002; USA Today, 4/18/2004] USA Today will note that this is an exception to NORAD’s claim that the agency focused only on external threats to the US and did not consider the possibility of threats arising from within the US. [USA Today, 4/18/2004] 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste will similarly comment that this planned exercise shows that despite frequent comments to the contrary, the military considered simultaneous hijackings before 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003] According to an FBI official interviewed by journalist Seymour Hersh, for several years prior to 9/11, the US government reportedly plans for “simulated terrorist attacks, including scenarios [involving] multiple-plane hijackings.” This presumably refers to more than just the Amalgam Virgo 02 (see Before September 11, 2001) exercise, which is based on the scenario of two planes being simultaneously hijacked. [New Yorker, 9/24/2001] Similarly, NORAD will tell USA Today that before 9/11, it normally conducted four major exercises each year at headquarters level. Most of them include a hijack scenario, the newspaper reports [USA Today, 4/18/2004] , and some of them were apparently quite similar to the 9/11 attacks (see Between 1991 and 2001) (see 1999-September 11, 2001). (8:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Computer Specialists in WTC for ‘Emergency Drill’ An “emergency drill” has been scheduled for today, to take place on the 97th floor of the WTC South Tower. [New York Times, 3/31/2006; New York Times, 4/1/2006] A team of technology consultants from California is visiting investment firm Fiduciary Trust for this drill. (Fiduciary Trust has offices on the 97th floor.) [USA Today, 9/13/2001; Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, pp. 77; New York Times, 3/30/2006] No further details are reported as to what it entails, or who the technology consultants are. However, California-based software company Oracle Corp. will later report that six of its consultants were working on the 97th floor of the South Tower on 9/11 and are subsequently missing. So presumably these were the workers involved with the drill. [InfoWorld, 9/13/2001; Associated Press, 9/14/2001] 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: FBI/CIA Anti-Terrorist Task Force Away From Washington on Training Exercise in California USA Today reports that at this time, “a joint FBI/CIA anti-terrorist task force that specifically prepared for this type of disaster” is on a “training exercise in Monterey, Calif.” Consequently, “as of late Tuesday, with airports closed around the country, the task force still [hasn]‘t found a way to fly back to Washington.” [USA Today, 9/11/2001] The US politics website evote.com adds that the FBI has deployed “all of its anti-terrorist and top special operations agents at a training exercise (complete with all associated helicopters and light aircraft) in Monterey, California.” So at the time of the attacks, “the chief federal agency responsible for preventing such crimes [is] being AWOL.” [Evote [.com], 9/11/2001] 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001: US Military Holding ‘Practice Armageddon’ Nationwide Training Exercise As the 9/11 attacks are taking place, a large military training exercise called Global Guardian is said to be “in full swing.” It has been going on since the previous week. [Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002; Omaha World-Herald, 9/10/2002] Global Guardian is an annual exercise sponsored by US Strategic Command (Stratcom) in cooperation with US Space Command and NORAD. One military author defines Stratcom as “the single US military command responsible for the day-to-day readiness of America’s nuclear forces.” [Arkin, 2005, pp. 59] Global Guardian is a global readiness exercise involving all Stratcom forces and aims to test Stratcom’s ability to fight a nuclear war. It is one of many “practice Armageddons” that the US military routinely stages. [Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 11/12/1997; Associated Press, 2/21/2002; Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002; Omaha World-Herald, 9/10/2002] It links with a number of other military exercises, including Crown Vigilance (an Air Combat Command exercise), Apollo Guardian (a US Space Command exercise), and NORAD exercises Vigilant Guardian and Amalgam Warrior [US Department of Defense, 5/1997; GlobalSecurity (.org), 10/10/2002] Global Guardian is both a command post and field training exercise, and is based around a fictitious scenario designed to test the ability of Stratcom and its component forces to deter a military attack against the US. Hundreds of military personnel are involved. [US Congress, n.d.; Collins Center Update, 12/1999 ; Times-Picayune, 9/8/2002] According to a 1998 Internet article by the British American Security Information Council—an independent research organization—Global Guardian is held in October or November each year. [Kristensen, 10/1998] In his book Code Names, NBC News military analyst William Arkin dates this exercise for October 22-31, 2001. [Arkin, 2005, pp. 379] And a military newspaper reported in March 2001 that Global Guardian was scheduled for October 2001. [Space Observer, 3/23/2001, pp. 2 ] If this is correct, then some time after March, the exercise must have been rescheduled for early September. Furthermore, there may be another important facet to Global Guardian. A 1998 Defense Department newsletter reported that for several years Stratcom had been incorporating a computer network attack (CNA) into Global Guardian. The attack involved Stratcom “red team” members and other organizations acting as enemy agents, and included attempts to penetrate the Command using the Internet and a “bad” insider who had access to a key command and control system. The attackers “war dialed” the phones to tie them up and sent faxes to numerous fax machines throughout the Command. They also claimed they were able to shut down Stratcom’s systems. Reportedly, Stratcom planned to increase the level of computer network attack in future Global Guardian exercises. [IAnewsletter, 6/1998 ] It is not currently known if a computer attack was incorporated into Global Guardian in 2001 or what its possible effects on the country’s air defense system would have been if such an attack was part of the exercise. At 8:43 a.m., Major James Fox, the leader of the NEADS Weapons Team, comments, “I’ve never seen so much real-world stuff happen during an exercise.” [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006] … three special military command aircraft with sophisticated communications equipment, based at Offutt, are up in the air the morning of 9/11. These E-4B National Airborne Operations Center planes—nicknamed “Doomsday” planes during the Cold War—are intended to control nuclear forces from the air in times of crisis. They are capable of acting as alternative command posts for top government officials from where they can direct US forces, execute war orders and coordinate the actions of civil authorities in times of national emergency. The Federal Advisory Committee (whose chairman is retired Lt. Gen. Brent Scowcroft) is aboard one of these Doomsday planes, being brought to Offutt to observe the exercise. Media accounts indicate Global Guardian is cancelled at Offutt shortly after the second WTC tower is hit (at 9:03 a.m.), with staff switching to “real-world mode.” [US Department of Defense, 1/9/2002; Air Force Weather Observer, 7/2002 ; Omaha World-Herald, 9/8/2002] However, even after Global Guardian is called off, the three E-4Bs remain airborne. [Omaha World-Herald, 2/27/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002] An “emergency response exercise” is scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. the morning of 9/11, involving the simulated crash of a small corporate jet plane into a government building. The exercise is to be conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, Virginia—just four miles from Washington Dulles International Airport, from where Flight 77 took off, and 24 miles from the Pentagon. The NRO draws its personnel from the CIA and the military, and operates many of the nation’s spy satellites. John Fulton, chief of the NRO’s strategic war gaming office, and his team at the CIA, are in charge of the exercise. It is to involve the jet experiencing mechanical problems then crashing into one of the four towers at the NRO. In order to simulate the damage from the crash, some stairwells and exits are to be closed off, forcing NRO employees to find other ways to evacuate the building. However, according to an agency spokesman, “as soon as the real world events began, we cancelled the exercise.” After the attacks, most of the agency’s 3,000 staff are supposedly sent home. [National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, 8/4/2002; National Law Enforcement and Security Institute, 8/6/2002 ; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; United Press International, 8/22/2002] For a more complete listing (from which the above was taken) of the drills, war games and exercises held prior to 9/11/01, please see http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timelin...litaryExercises “Now, people might say, “Oh, this is all conspiracy theory”, but I would like to remind people that ‘conspiracy’ is very much recognized by the US Federal Code, and it’s called RICO racketeering and influence…” (Indira Singh) What was the time span between the awareness of the US military of the second hijacking and the impact on the Pentagon? (It was about 52 minutes.) End
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