In observance of September 11, 2001 each of the next 4 days will include a very small excerpt from the 'complete' 9/11 timeline (based on media accounts). Most of what you will read will not be common knowledge -yet it was reported in the media. Hyperlinks to the original media articles are included. The full blown (very detailed) timeline can be found at http://cooperativeresearch.org. We will continue today here:
9/11/2001 (9:01 a.m.): Bush Claims to See First WTC Crash on Television While at Elementary School
President Bush makes the following statement: “And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower—the television was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, ‘There’s one terrible pilot.’ And I said, ‘It must have been a horrible accident.’ But I was whisked off there—I didn’t have much time to think about it.” [US President, 12/10/2001] He has repeated the story on other occasions. [US President, 1/14/2002; CBS News, 9/11/2002] Notably, the first WTC Crash was not shown live on television. Further, Bush does not have access to a television until 15 or so minutes later. [Washington Times, 10/7/2002] A Boston Herald article later notes, “Think about that. Bush’s remark implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we all know that video of the first plane hitting did not surface until the next day. Could Bush have meant he saw the second plane hit—which many Americans witnessed? No, because he said that he was in the classroom when Andrew Card whispered in his ear that a second plane hit.” The article, noting that Bush has repeated this story more than once, asks, “How could the commander in chief have seen the plane fly into the first building—as it happened?” [Boston Herald, 10/22/2002] A Bush spokesman later calls Bush’s repeated comments “just a mistaken recollection.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/22/2004]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush
President Bush makes the following statement: “And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower—the television was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, ‘There’s one terrible pilot.’ And I said, ‘It must have been a horrible accident.’ But I was whisked off there—I didn’t have much time to think about it.” [US President, 12/10/2001] He has repeated the story on other occasions. [US President, 1/14/2002; CBS News, 9/11/2002] Notably, the first WTC Crash was not shown live on television. Further, Bush does not have access to a television until 15 or so minutes later. [Washington Times, 10/7/2002] A Boston Herald article later notes, “Think about that. Bush’s remark implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we all know that video of the first plane hitting did not surface until the next day. Could Bush have meant he saw the second plane hit—which many Americans witnessed? No, because he said that he was in the classroom when Andrew Card whispered in his ear that a second plane hit.” The article, noting that Bush has repeated this story more than once, asks, “How could the commander in chief have seen the plane fly into the first building—as it happened?” [Boston Herald, 10/22/2002] A Bush spokesman later calls Bush’s repeated comments “just a mistaken recollection.” [Wall Street Journal, 3/22/2004]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush
9/11/2001 (9:01 a.m.): La Guardia Flight Controllers and Port Authority Unaware of Hijackings
An unidentified woman in the La Guardia control tower speaks to a Port Authority police officer. La Guardia is one of two major New York City airports. The Port Authority patrols both the WTC and the city’s airports. The woman asks the officer what has happened at the WTC, and the officer replies that he has learned from the news that a plane crashed into it. [New York Times, 12/30/2003] Around the same time, one flight controller in the tower says to another, “But you don’t know anything.” The other responds, “We don’t know. We’re looking at it on Channel 5 right now.” [Bergen Record, 1/4/2004] “Nothing on the [later released transcripts] shows that the La Guardia controllers knew that the planes flying into their airspace had been seized by terrorists, or that military aircraft were screaming in pursuit over the Hudson River.” Port Authority officials appear to be equally oblivious. [New York Times, 12/30/2003]
An unidentified woman in the La Guardia control tower speaks to a Port Authority police officer. La Guardia is one of two major New York City airports. The Port Authority patrols both the WTC and the city’s airports. The woman asks the officer what has happened at the WTC, and the officer replies that he has learned from the news that a plane crashed into it. [New York Times, 12/30/2003] Around the same time, one flight controller in the tower says to another, “But you don’t know anything.” The other responds, “We don’t know. We’re looking at it on Channel 5 right now.” [Bergen Record, 1/4/2004] “Nothing on the [later released transcripts] shows that the La Guardia controllers knew that the planes flying into their airspace had been seized by terrorists, or that military aircraft were screaming in pursuit over the Hudson River.” Port Authority officials appear to be equally oblivious. [New York Times, 12/30/2003]
Entity Tags: La Guardia Airport
9/11/2001 (9:03 a.m.): Flight 175 Crashes into WTC South Tower; Millions Watch Live on Television
Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center (Tower Two). Seismic records pinpoint the time at six seconds before 9:03 a.m. (rounded to 9:03 a.m.). [CNN, 9/17/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command, 9/18/2001; New York Times, 9/12/2001; CNN, 9/12/2001; Associated Press, 8/19/2002; USA Today, 9/2/2002; New York Times, 9/11/2002; USA Today, 12/20/2001] Millions watch the crash live on television. The plane strikes the 78th through 84th floors in the 110-story building. Approximately 100 people are killed or injured in the initial impact; 600 people in the tower eventually die. All but four of those killed work above the crash point. The death toll is far lower than in the North Tower because about two-thirds of the South Tower’s occupants have evacuated the building in the 17 minutes since the first tower was struck. [USA Today, 12/20/2001] The combined death toll from the two towers is estimated at 2,819, not including the hijackers. [Associated Press, 8/19/2002]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center
9/11/2001 (9:03 a.m.): Bush’s Security Agents Watch Second WTC Crash on Television; Bush Continues with Photo-Op
According to Sarasota County Sheriff Bill Balkwill, just after President Bush enters a Booker Elementary classroom, a Marine responsible for carrying Bush’s phone walks up to Balkwill, who is standing in a nearby side room. While listening to someone talk to him in his earpiece, the Marine asks, “Can you get me to a television? We’re not sure what’s going on, but we need to see a television.” Three Secret Service agents, a SWAT member, the Marine, and Balkwill turn on the television in a nearby front office just as Flight 175 crashes into the WTC. “We’re out of here,” the Marine tells Balkwill. “Can you get everyone ready?” [Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 9/10/2002] However, Bush stays at the school for another half-hour. Who makes the decision to stay—and why—remains unclear, and the Secret Service won’t comment on the matter. Philip Melanson, author of a book on the Secret Service, comments, “With an unfolding terrorist attack, the procedure should have been to get the president to the closest secure location as quickly as possible, which clearly is not a school. you’re safer in that presidential limo, which is bombproof and blastproof and bulletproof. ... In the presidential limo, the communications system is almost duplicative of the White House—he can do almost anything from there but he can’t do much sitting in a school.” [St. Petersburg Times, 7/4/2004]
Entity Tags: George W. Bush, Secret Service, Bill Balkwill
As you know, its Friday, so heres the slew of information that you aren't supposed to know about due to the weekend news cycle
Senate: Saddam Saw al-Qaida as Threat (read entire article here)
Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.
Released Friday, the report discloses for the first time an October 2005 CIA assessment that prior to the war Saddam's government "did not have a relationship, harbor or turn a blind eye toward" al-Qaida operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi or his associates.
As recently as an Aug. 21 news conference, Bush said people should "imagine a world in which you had Saddam Hussein" with the capacity to make weapons of mass destruction and "who had relations with Zarqawi."
Democrats contended that the administration continues to use faulty intelligence, including assertions of a link between Saddam's government and the recently killed al-Zarqawi, to justify the war in Iraq.
Taliban Resurgence
Nearly five years after the Taliban was overthrown, the fighting in Afghanistan is the bloodiest since the beginning of the war. A violent Taliban resurgence has killed more than 1,600 people over the past four months, including many American and NATO soldiers. Just yesterday, a suicide car bomb struck a convoy of U.S. military vehicles in Kabul on Friday, killing at least seven people, including two American soldiers. This increase in violence has prompted NATO commander Gen. James L. Jones to call for "as many as 2,500 more soldiers and additional aircraft" in an effort to prevent provinces in southern Afghanistan from collapsing.
Proposal To Strip Bush and Rumsfeld of War Powers
Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), the number-two Republican on the Armed Services Committee, has proposed legislation that would essentially remove George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld from the military chain of command over Iraq. Weldon "is a strong supporter of the U.S. military mission in Iraq," and once made plans to travel to Iraq and secretly go digging by the Euphrates for a cache of WMD he believed to be there. The Hill reports, his resolution "would give military commanders -- instead of President Bush or Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld -- decision-making authority over when American troops should return home." Weldon is "in the midst of a difficult reelection campaign because of voters’ generally sour view of the war in Iraq." Sens. Jack Reed (D-RI) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), two members of the Armed Services Committee, suggested the legislation was unconstitutional. “It would subvert civilian leadership of the military,” Graham said.
Quickies:
Sources tell the New America Foundation's Steve Clemons that John Bolton's confirmation process "is now dead." "The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is 'highly unlikely' to reconsider Bolton's confirmation again as things now stand."
Yesterday, the Senate unanimously reinstated a special CIA unit dedicated to hunting Osama bin Laden. The CIA received intense criticism after closing the unit in late 2005.
President Bush's support proved insufficient to push a bill authorizing his warrantless wiretapping program through the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday. The bill stalled after Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) "spoke against the bill for about a quarter of the panel's two-hour meeting and offered four amendments.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, whose reputation has been badly damaged by his support for the U.S. war in Iraq, promised to step down within a year.
The possibility of compromise on comprehensive immigration reform is essentially dead. House conservatives, who have campaigned hard against illegal immigration with few legislative accomplishments to show for it, will try to cobble together a package of border crackdown measures before their recess next month.
And finally: Congress horses around. Rather than deal with war in Iraq and Afghanistan, terrorism and border problems, high energy prices and health-care costs, the House's first order of business was HR 503, the American Horse Slaughter Prevention Act. "The debate - lasting nearly four hours while horse lover Bo Derek watched from the gallery - quickly degenerated into dueling expressions of equestrian love."
(Sources: AP, cooperativeresearch, DemocracyInAction, WashingtonPost, HillNews, WashingtonNote, Reuters, NY Times, Forbes)
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