FBI, the mob, and 9/11

[William Kelly]

http://www.911exposed.org/index.htm

Boy, talk about your disinformation sites....

While there is a lot of misinformation there, and giant leaps in logic and judgement, I don't think those lines of thinking can be traced to a national intelligence service, but the source is rather a slightly informed throwing out half baked trial ballons that are easily accepted by those who distrust the government.

If you want to believe that the airline debree was placed at the scene after the Pentagon was imploded, then you can believe anything and know nothing.

The Naval Operations Center was the highest priority target that was destroyed in the 9/11 attack, it is hard to believe the pilot knew that, especially since most of the area destroyed was under reconstruction, and that any other part of the Pentagon would have resulted in the destruction of even higher value targets.

It is simply untrue that because of the WTC attacks, the Naval Ops Center of the Pentagon HAD to be hit too, because it was tracking those involved, as there were other Operations Centers (ie. Army, Air Force, USMC) that weren't damaged at all and were doing the same thing.

The Naval Ops Center wasn't out of commission for that long, as Admiral William Fallon, the recently resigned Commander of CENPAC, set up a new Naval Ops Center within a few hours, as detailed in Pentagon 9/11.

That this allegation begins with an annonymous source is telling, and I'd wager that it was made only after it became well known that the Naval Ops Center was destroyed, so the conspiracy would have been linked to whatever was actually destroyed, rather than a legitimate analysis of the event.

Bill Kelly

[Len Colby]

http://www.911exposed.org/index.htm

Boy, talk about your disinformation sites....

Indeed one of the dumber truth sites out there (this one really is out there).

It repeats the absurd claim that all airspace with in a 17 mile radius of the Washington Monument is a no fly zone, if true planes wouldn’t be allowed to fly in or out of Reagan National Airport, Andrews Air Force Base and numerous local airports.

John G. if you see this I know you are in contact with John Judge. Point out to him that National and Andrews are less than 17 miles from the monument and ask him to explain his theory in light of this.

Another silly claim is that flight 77 didn’t have enough time to fly from the Ohio/Kentucky/W. Virgina border area to Washington D.C. I don’t know if this is based on stupidity of intentional disinformation.

“The portion of the flight path, from Kentucky, (near the Lawrence County Airport) to Washington D.C. is roughly 300 miles; it was done in about 30 minutes time. Therefore, Flight 77 would have had to be speeding along at about 600 mph!”

Except that the elapsed time was 36 minutes from 8:56 when the plane started heading back towards Washington till 9:32 when it was spotted southwest of Dulles and the distance from to Lawrence County Airpark (actually in Ohio) to Dulles is 238.1 nautical miles* which comes out to 273.8 statue miles. If we round to 270 miles for simplicity and because the plane was spotted south west of Dulles (i.e. closer to where it turned around) the plane’s average speed comes out to 450.0 mph. Even if we use 9:00 as the time the plane was the same distance from Dulles as the small Ohio airport the average speed would come out to 506.25 MPH still well below the top cruising speed of a 757 which the site itself says is 568 mph.

The rest of the site is of a similarly risible nature including echoing claims about the Amalgam Virgo exercise already debunked on another thread here.

* http://www.airnav.com/airport/KHTW enter ‘IAD’ the code for Dulles into the “Distance Calculator” in middle of the right margin of the page. 1.15 statute miles = 1 nautical mile, 238.1 x 1.15 = 273.8

Edited March 25, 2008 by Len Colby

[Len Colby]

http://www.911exposed.org/index.htm

(For those who can think for themselves) [borg-free Webpage that believes that resistance and knowledge are USEFULL, even ESSENTIAL!]

While there is a lot of misinformation there, and giant leaps in logic and judgement, I don't think those lines of thinking can be traced to a national intelligence service, but the source is rather a slightly informed throwing out half baked trial ballons that are easily accepted by those who distrust the government.

If you want to believe that the airline debree was placed at the scene after the Pentagon was imploded, then you can believe anything and know nothing.

[...]

That this allegation begins with an annonymous source is telling, and I'd wager that it was made only after it became well known that the Naval Ops Center was destroyed, so the conspiracy would have been linked to whatever was actually destroyed, rather than a legitimate analysis of the event.

Bill Kelly

Bill - Welcome to the Borg Club "for those who can't think for themselves" :lol: :rolleyes: Lemkin on the other hand proves that he can think for himself by continuously parroting what others say.

EDIT - formatting

Edited March 25, 2008 by Len Colby

[Evan Burton]

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html

...and growing, while those who believe the official conspiracy theory are dwindling.

I'd have to disagree. After being in the US for about a month now, and raising the subject with various people, I get the very strong impression that the "9/11 lies" people are a very small minority indeed. I've spoken to average people I have met, I have spoken to Defence contractors, I have spoken to USAF personnel, I have spoken to US Army personnel, and National Guard personnel (including people who were being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan).

NONE have expressed any doubt that aircraft hit the Pentagon, WTC, etc. Like me, some wonder if the instigators of the events were different than what we were told, almost all agree that the current administration took advantage of the events, but NONE have expressed any belief that things were 'set up'.

[William Kelly]

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html

...and growing, while those who believe the official conspiracy theory are dwindling.

Isn't "official conspiracy theory" an oximoron?

BK

[Evan Burton]

In their version they had no warnings....

Incorrect. There were warnings - they just weren't listened too, or they were not specific enough.

...and did everything they could via NORAD et al. to thwart this.

The shortcomings of NORAD - who were tasked for external defence - have been highlighted.

It is endlessly repeated in the Mainstream Propaganda Net and by the illegally elected talkingheads of the Administration and their hirelings.

Emotive rambling.

can't get documents, videos, access to much of the evidence...

ATC transcripts

Commisison evidence

Edited March 26, 2008 by Evan Burton
Corrected quote tag

[Len Colby]

The Officials in the Government have [to my way of thinking] invented and tried to make the World Public believe their conspiracy theory: 19 Islamic Fundamentalists connected to OBL attacked the WTC and the Penatgon and were about to also try to crash a plane into the White House or Congress. In their version they had no warnings, no participation on any level, offered no help nor logistical support and did everything they could via NORAD et al. to thwart this. In Europe the numbers who believe this are less than 20%. In the USA, maybe 40% and dwindling.

While Lemkin’s percentages for the people who believe the US had no warning such attacks might be forthcoming might be close to accurate (I don’t think any member of this forum believes that) polls have shown that the number of people in the US who believe things like

the WTC was destroyed by controlled demolition (or energy beams)

the Pentagon was hit by something other that flight 77

no plane crashed near Shanksville

etc, etc

is less than 10% of respondents. The percentage of engineers and architects, especially civil engineers especially structural engineers, especially ones with experience related to steel framed buildings more than 2 – 3 stories tall is miniscule. No members of the latter group have publicly supported such theories. The number of pilots and people who were there who support such theories is miniscule as well.

The list looks impressive until one takes a closer look. Most of the people on it don’t question the “official theory” but rather made statements the compiler(s) thought contradict it.

Only 4 – 5 out of the ten of thousands of people who were in or near the WTC that morning said after 9/11 they still thought explosives were used. One, a fireman, said he was misquoted, another William Rodriguez has made numerous contradictory statements, Paticia Ormavic (sp?) an EMT said she heard explosives going off in the lobby of WTC 5 (or 6) while the North Tower collapsed but also said she saw an airplane explode over NJ, a cop who by his own account only got to the area shortly before WTC7 collapsed said he didn’t see or hear any signs the building was in danger but was contradicted by numerous firefighters who’d been there for hours etc. That leaves only 1 – 2 witnesses who seem credible but they come out to about 0.005 PERCENT of the people who were there.

Edited March 27, 2008 by Len Colby

[Evan Burton]

I have issues with Mr Hordon's take on 9/11. Firstly, his knowledge of procedures used that day. He was last an ATCO in 1981 (if what I have read is correct). Twenty years had passed; perhaps his knowledge of procedures was dated? He may have kept up to date in some areas, but procedures for hijackings, etc, is very close hold. No-one except those who need to know are normally aware of the procedures. Perhaps his friends still in the ATC world kept him up to date, but if they did they were violating some important rules regarding security. I was last an ATCO in 1988, and I know things have changed markedly since then.

Another issue is his claim that the aircraft could have been tracked all the way. My understanding is that the US then (and still) relied on Secondary Surveillance Radar (SSR) for control, and that primary radar (an actual radar signal being reflected on an aircraft and being observed on the screen, sometimes called a 'skin paint') was not available in many area - including where coverage of the hijacked flights was lost.

I think Matt may be an expert in this, and he might comment on what I have said.

Lastly, why aren't floods of ATCOs coming out of the woodwork and supporting him? Professional organisations disagree with his assessment. Other ATCOs of similar experience and standing disagree with him. Where are the crowds of knowledgeable people, crying out that what has been portrayed as the 'official version' is wrong?

I think this blog entry sums up my feelings pretty well:

Another speaker at the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference, Robin Hordon, describes himsefl as a commendated air traffic controller, certified air, ground and facility instructor and designer of the Boston Center Descent and Metering Program. He has worked on numerous in-air emergencies, and two hijackings.

Hordon insists that he knew 9/11 was a "false flag" operation (an attack carried out under the guise of another country or group) hours after. He insists that "there is absolutely no way that four large commercial airliners could have flown off course for 30 to 60 minutes on 9/11 without being intercepted and shot out of the sky by our jet fighters unless very highly placed people in our government and our military wanted it to happen."

Despite the fact that no hijacked plane in the history of the United States has ever been shot down, Hordon does begin to make a persuasive case. He notes that a sophisticated system was in place, prior to June of 2001, that would enable fighter jets to intercept any suspicious airliner within 10-15 minutes of a potential problem.

Yet Hordon's claims over look two very serious issues: firstly, a number of war game exercises were being conducted on September 11, 2001, diverting figher jets that otherwise would have been available to intercept the jetliners. Secondly, the FAA was not dealing with one hijacking on 9/11. They were dealing with four largely simultaneous hijackings.

Hordon is actually much more revealling as to his true motivations for his claims when he begins to discuss his political views. "I see September 11th as being a symptom of a far bigger problem. A problem that Dwight David Eisenhower had brought to our attention as he left office in the 1950s when he he warned [the United States] about two significant elements of our economy looming above us: the Military Industrial Complex and the Military Industrial Congress. 9/11 served the goals of both those elements."

"That I can show how Rumsfeld's Military reshaped interceptor protocols so that 9/11 could happen without the airliners being shot from the sky, is but a small bit of evidence that is flooding past the Bush regime," Hordon insists.

Yet, Hordon is exaggerating the Pentagon's eagerness to shoot down hijacked airliners, particularly when full of civilians. Despite the 75-150 high-speed scrambles he notes were performed by military aircraft each year in the United States for ten years, not a single plane was ever shot down. Surely, at least one of these 1,500 scrambles would have been related to a plane off course for at least 30-60 minutes.

Finally, there is the matter of shooting down civilian airliners over populated areas, such as New York City. When examined on merely the basis of the procedures in place to deal with hijacked aircraft, Hordon's claims are very persuasive. When compared to the actual situation on 9/11, they don't hold water.

Furthermore, it isn't as if events such as those surrounding Hurricane Katrina don't demonstrate that the proper procedures can fail when human error causes them to be disregarded.

Like any good 9/11 conspiracy theorist, however, Hordon doesn't seem to let facts or even proper analysis get in the way of politics. While shooting down flights 11 and 175 could have prevented the World Trade Center disaster, it still would have resulted in thousands of casualties. The decision to shoot down the planes would have also had to have been made at a time when the applicable authorities couldn't have known the true goal of the hijackers.

Certainly, there is a degree of negligence in the FAA's handling of 9/11. But negligence doesn't demonstrate complicity, and certainly not in the conspiracy that Hordon and his cohorts allege.

In short, Hordon has traded his air traffic controller's hat for that of a base conspiracy theorist, and surrendered his credibility for activist cred. It isn't as good a fit as he'd like to think.

http://nexusofassholery.blogspot.com/2007/...couver-911.html

[Evan Burton]

Sorry you're in denial [treatable!] and that the country that really runs your military - your current posting demonstrates my point - could ever have been involved in such a horror....

I'm sorry Peter, but you know very little about my country - especially the military.

Events would seem to prove you wrong, anyway. We had John Howard - a Bush supporter, and obvious "NWO" member... yet he was "overthrown" at the last election by Kevin Rudd, who is withdrawing us from Iraq, who signed the Kyoto Protocol, who said 'sorry'.... why wasn't he "toppled" before he arrived?

Once again, facts do not support your proposition.

[Evan Burton]

Yes Peter - whatever you say.

[Len Colby]

For those not challenged by the handicap of denial, a very interesting interview with pilot and former air-traffic controller on the mysteries of events with planes and tracking them on 9/11/01.

http://www.kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=25718

Since Mr. Hordon was last an air traffic controller (ATC) in early August 1981 the relevance of his experience is highly questionable because it is based on the assumption that procedures were or should have been the same 20 plus years later. It also assumes that his memory isn’t playing tricks on him 25 plus years. Nor has he adequately explained why if he “knew” since 9/11 that it was an “inside job” he only came forward in 2006. His unconvincing explanation was that he felt the Vanity Fair NORAD Tapes article was a “slap in the face to air traffic controllers” which is nonsense for two reasons 1) the article didn’t blame ATCs 2) is strains credulity to imagine that some one would be more spurned into action by a supposedly offensive magazine article than the murder of almost 3000 people.

It’s unreasonable to assume scrambles would happen as quickly in 2001 as 1970 – 81 because the number of AFB’s on alert had been reduced from 29 (in 1989) to 7. Although presumably air traffic in the US has increased .

http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=141984

A lot of what he claims is demonstrably false.

He said fighters should have been scrambled in under 10 minutes of an in-flight emergency being detected but it took a supervisor at the ATC center in Jacksonville over 20 minutes to contact the Air Force in 1999 for the Payne Stewart incident.

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/golf/stewart/stewfs14.htm

He said that procedures that had been in place for “over 50 years” were changed by Rumsfeld on June 2001 to slowdown response times but that is rubbish. The June 1, 2001 JCS made only minor changes to procedures that had been in place since 1997 and actually sped up scramble procedure it allowed by passing the Pentagon during emergencies.

http://911myths.com/html/hijack_assistance_approval.html

The 1997 procedures supplanted those in place since 1992 but I was unable find a copy of the earlier protocol, nor were the folks at 911Reasearch http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/defense/june1.html

[Len Colby]

He is fully competant to speak on the issues and is well aware of any changes -even spoke to them

Yeah and I'm sure if cited someone who last worked as an ATC over 20 before 9/11 you wouldn't challenge his creditability. He ignored many of the changes and made up changes that didn't exist. Riddle me this Batman of all the ATC in America and the world over was has only one come forward? Was is the only one who has come forward someone whose information and experience so old?

[but I'm sure you didn't listen - just googled to sites that debunk truth or got your cables/email from your Borgmeisters

No I listened to him all the way through a year or two ago when he made the interview and listened to the 1st 15 -20 minutes or so again today, funny that you would raise such an objection I've seen no evidence you ever look at the material I and others who disagree with you post.

He worked in the exact sector two of the flights were in

I'd be more impressed if he worked in a different sector in the last decade or so.

He knows current airtraffic controllers

I seriously doubt it, very few of the PATCO controllers were still on the job 9/11 let alone today.

and has studied the whole issue.

So have I, his claim to 'expertise' is based on his experience as an ATC, but that was a long time ago.

Edited April 12, 2008 by Len Colby

[Maggie Hansen]

Sorry you're in denial [treatable!] and that the country that really runs your military - your current posting demonstrates my point - could ever have been involved in such a horror....

I'm sorry Peter, but you know very little about my country - especially the military.

Events would seem to prove you wrong, anyway. We had John Howard - a Bush supporter, and obvious "NWO" member... yet he was "overthrown" at the last election by Kevin Rudd, who is withdrawing us from Iraq, who signed the Kyoto Protocol, who said 'sorry'.... why wasn't he "toppled" before he arrived?

Once again, facts do not support your proposition.

Evan,

Even assuming that Peter knows very little about Australia he seems to know more than you. The facts seem to support Peter. I could say "As an ex-military Australian I also know many things" but any vaguely observant person will see that most people overseas regard Australians as mercenaries of the US and British interests. And they are right. With the notable exception of WW2 Australia has never been under threat and yet we have been involved in almost every conflict since colonization. 'Pick me! Pick me! Please can we come and kill?!' We helped invade the Soviet Union to try strangle it at birth. We went to South Africa to defend the British empire and from those pesky Boers and uncivilised savages (after decimating our own home grown variety). Then, of course, there was WW1, Korea, Vietnam, Malaya, Iraq1, Afghanistan, Iraq2. The only war we did not go to was the Spanish Civil war. Why was that I wonder? The military was also used against the local working class in the 1890's and 1930's and post WW2 demob mobs and the coal miners strikes in 1949. While not 'officially' involved the attempted smashing of the Maritime Workers Union by Patrick's Stevedores and the Howard government had all the hallmarks of a military operation. I also know that the military was on the highest state of alert and ready to crush the expected revolt by those objecting to the 'dismissal' of Gough Whitlam. They were not going to re-instate him. But it seems they didn't have to as there was Bob Hawke there to smooth the way for transfer of power for which he was richly rewarded later.

As for John Howard he had obviously outlived his usefulness. He was totally on the nose for most of the electorate and was political death. Even his own party knew that and tried to tell him but he didn't hear it. Kevin Rudd has done nothing to upset the ruling classes. He is just the spare wheel. When the old one goes bust the other one is wheeled out to replace the busted one and to keep the machinery moving. All of it is just nice feel good window dressing and printing new stationary. Kevin they can definitely live with. Saying "Sorry" is nice and even necessary but it doesn't cost anything to be polite as my mum always said and he is not actually giving the land back to the original owners or paying back rent, is he? Then you would start to see some action against him quick smart. Same with Kyoto. Shadowing Japanese whalers costs a bit in petrol but is also good naval training. It's not like he is imposing a total boycott of Japanese products until they stop the scientific slaughter. As for Iraq, yes the troops are coming home from there but they are staying in Afghanistan. They should never have been in Iraq. The Australian people took to the streets in numbers never seen to prevent that happening but John Howard and Co. were utterly determined to give war a chance. All the while continuing to trade with Saddam of course because, well, business is business after all. Echoes of Menzies there? (Which is also why there will be no boycott of the Olympics and no 'liberation' of the Tibetans by the Australian military. Unlike the Moscow Olympics) But there is still a small chance that Moriarty/OBL is there in the mountains so that can justify our continued presence in Afghanistan.

George Bush will go the same way as John Howard because (apart from the fact that he can't stand again) he has lost his usefulness to the ruling classes. Some one else more acceptable will be put in place.The spare wheel will be used and things will go along nicely till they have to change that one. The kinder face of capitalism is you like. Good cop bad cop. But the parameters do not change. Anyone who really challenges those parameters are a threat and dealt with accordingly. Kevin Rudd is not a threat. However, if he wants the joint Australia US facilities like Pine Gap to be truly a joint facility where the leader of this country actually knows what goes on there and where the Australian military gets to do more than guard duty and make tea and coffee for the US brass then he will be out on his behind like Whitlam.

Evan, while there are many decent and honorable people in the military, as there are in any work place, do not confuse the institution with the individuals who work there and vis-a-versa. The institution is there to protect the interests of the ruling classes. Australia was long ago taken over by overseas interests and the military did nothing. Local elites collaborated.

[Maggie Hansen]

Sorry you're in denial [treatable!] and that the country that really runs your military - your current posting demonstrates my point - could ever have been involved in such a horror....

I'm sorry Peter, but you know very little about my country - especially the military.

Events would seem to prove you wrong, anyway. We had John Howard - a Bush supporter, and obvious "NWO" member... yet he was "overthrown" at the last election by Kevin Rudd, who is withdrawing us from Iraq, who signed the Kyoto Protocol, who said 'sorry'.... why wasn't he "toppled" before he arrived?

Once again, facts do not support your proposition.

Clyde Cameron: We were never told that Pine Gap was a CIA installation and it wasn't until Gough Whitlam publicly declared that Richard Stallings was a CIA operative and that he had been in charge of the Pine Gap installation that we knew that Pine Gap was a CIA installation and I believe that at the very beginning Gough Withlam and the Minister for Defence were led to believe that it was a pretty harmless sort of operation. But you've got to remember that just about the time the dismissal took place, the Australian government had to make a decision as to whether it would renew the leases of these American installations on Australian soil and there is every reason to believe that the Americans were fearful that the leases wouldn't be renewed. That would be a good enough reason, in their view, for moving in to destabilise the government and to bring about its overthrow to say nothing of any threat that our policies may have for their Australian investments in the multinational area.

Tony Douglas: Whitlam's exposure of Stallings also revealed another interesting fact and that was that Stallings was staying at National Party Leader Dough Anthony's flat in Canberra. From November 2 to November 6, 1975, Whitlam repeated these charges and demanded a list of all CIA agents in Australia. The CIA in turn demanded that ASIO report to them on what Whitlam was up to. A cable from a senior CIA official and Task Force 157 member, Ted Shackley, on November 10 accused Whitlam of being a security risk and asked ASIO to do something about it. The Head of the Defence Department, Arthur Thang, described him as "the greatest risk to our nation's security that there has ever been." Meanwhile Whitlam said he would detail the operations of Pine Gap in Parliament on the afternoon of November 11. It wasn't until years later that details about the Pine Gap base and American fears that its top secret role would be disclosed were linked to the downfall of the Whitlam government. That link came to light when Chris Boyce, a cipher clerk at TRW -- a California-based aerospace corporation, was charged with espionage in 1977. Boyce was working in the black vault where information from Australia was directed to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Kelly Johnson of the Christopher Boyce Alliance takes up the story.

Kelly Johnson: The information was mostly coming from Pine Gap, Nurrungar and Canberra, from the CIA stations there. It's difficult to know actually what the content was, it's obviously very secret what the content was, but it came into the communications relay room where Boyce worked. He then sent the information on to CIA headquarters in Langley and sent certain information back to Australia.

Tony Douglas: Now Australia and the United States had signed an Executive Agreement to share intelligence from Pine Gap. Did Boyce find that his practical experience was all that intelligence information shared?

Kelly Johnson: No, in fact he was told in the very beginning, during the briefing for the job, that although that Executive Agreement had been signed America was not honouring it and it was emphasised to Boyce that he must be very particular in what he sent back to Australia.

Tony Douglas: What was the result of him becoming incensed by what he saw his country's duplicity with regard to one of his allies, what did he do as a result of that?

Kelly Johnson: It took several months for Boyce to actually do anything. From the first day Boyce was working in the vault an employee who was working with him used to tell Boyce stories about how easy it would be to pass certain information on to the Russians and how much money they would get for it. And this co-worker actually worked out the best and safest method for taking this information to the Russians. At first Boyce used to ignore this and then one day he discovered a telex message outlining the way the CIA had infiltrated the leadership of the Australian unions and were manipulating them to their own aims. And following that he then discovered information relating the way the CIA was planning to destabilise the Whitlam government and it was then that the scenario that this co-worker had planned in advance for this contact with the Russians that Boyce carried it out.

Tony Douglas: What allegations did Boyce make about CIA involvement in Australian politics and under what conditions has he made these statements?

Kelly Johnson: Well, he tried to make specific allegations under oath during his trial but he was blocked except on two occasions when he talked of the CIA infiltrating the leadership of the Australian unions and he also talked about the daily deception that America practices against Australia at Pine Gap. Since his conviction he's been interviewed on two separate occasions. On the first occasion by Australia's 60 Minutes and then by an Australian journalist named William Pimwill in which he made rather more specific allegations. But it has been very difficult to get hold of a transcript of the 60 Minutes interview in order to be more specific on what he said.

.....

Tony Douglas: Over the last couple of weeks we've surveyed the evidence of CIA involvement in overturning the Whitlam government. We've looked at the work of Task Force 157 through the cover of the Nugan-Hand merchant bank and the crucial role played by US ambassador Marshall Green. We've seen the mighty __ in action pumping up the Loans Affairs while CIA operatives such as T. Khemlani are shuffled on and off the national political stage. We also delved into the past associations of Sir John Kerr from his wartime intelligence work through his inaugural presidency of the CIA-front organisation Law Asia to his phone calls to the American embassy in the days before the dismissal. And we've seen how badly the Australian and American defence and intelligence community took the disclosures about Pine Gap and the first CIA Station Chief there Richard Stallings. But the question remains how did the CIA get away with deceiving and destabilising the Whitlam government? Former CIA officer Victor Marchetti looks at it in this way:

Victor Marchetti: I would say that this would be done, to my experience, particularly in friendly host countries, is always done, with the knowledge of the host country. I mean, the CIA did not take these actions upon itself. It's done in cooperation with the local intelligence services and they of course provided assistance and protection. The CIA has worked with other intelligence organisations in other friendly countries in England, Norway, Canada, Germany, in a whole variety of countries in a large range of joint projects. The only reason the CIA would get involved in supporting certain political parties or undercutting other parties would be because we had the money and the expertise and so forth to be able to do it and this would be viewed as a cooperative venture because the host country welcomes the US. What you in Australia must understand is that you are more to blame than the CIA is because you want this to happen, you want a certain administration in control and you don't want another administration in control. The first question I tell all foreign journalists when they bring out this point is ... I ask them, `look, you find out where the loyalties of your intelligence services lies. Do they lie with your country as a whole, for better or worse, or to the establishment in your country?' and in most instances the answer you find is `to the establishment.' So in essence this is like in the old days in Europe where the nobility of various countries had more in common with each other than they did with their own people. This is true of intelligence services. They tend to have more in common with each other and their establishments which they represent than they do with their own people.

Tony Douglas: Well, what are the connections between American and Australian security and intelligence organisations? Jerry Aaron, co-author of Rooted in Secrecy looks at the history of secret agreements that link Western intelligence together, especially the UKUSA Treaty which was signed in 1947 and not known about even by Australian Prime Ministers until 1973.

Jerry Aaron: The quadripartite agreement which operated before the UKUSA was actually a means initially of keeping the equipment of the armies of the participating countries standardised and then was extended to the Navy and the Air Force. In other words, they simply lock each other into a particular scenario which is always the scenario of fighting common wars rather than self-defence. The quadripartite pact in 1947 involved the US, Britain, Canada and Australia and it was so secret that nobody ever knew anything about it. In has in fact had a D-notice on it, that's how secret it was, and as you know there are only very few D-notices in Australia which prevent the publication of material on particularly secret matters. The UKUSA Treaty was also signed in 1947 and when I say `sign' it's so secret that nobody knows who signed it and in fact it's claimed that there is absolutely no written record. UKUSA, as the name implies, is the UK, USA and Australia but in fact other countries participate, and all the NATO countries are allied to it. UKUSA is about what in the jargon of the trade is called "sigint", which is "signals intelligence", which is all the lovely stuff we get from all the aerials and all the satellites in the sky spying on their enemies and on each other, and it's main components are the British outfit which is called the GCHQ which is General Communication Headquarters, and in Australia the agency concerned is the DSD.

Tony Douglas: What is the DSD?

Jerry Aaron: Defence Signals Directorate. I think it's now called Defence Signals Division, I can't remember which came first, but it's the same outfit anyway. Nor does it really matter because the whole thing is coordinated by the head office in the States, which is the National Security Agency which supplies most of the equipment and for whose benefit the whole thing is organised. This is really the means by which Australia is locked into the US war fighting capacity.

Tony Douglas: And we have been since at least 1947?

Jerry Aaron: Yes and it was so secret that in fact even successive Prime Ministers of Australia didn't know about it and the whole thing blew up when the existence of the secret DSD activity in Malaysia became publicised, and it was then that they tried to hush it up but, of course, now it is generally understood and known and I don't think nowadays people make such secrets about secret treaties anymore because everybody knows that most of what goes on in the foreign policy area of most of the countries concerned is in fact totally secret.

Tony Douglas: So when Ted Shackley sends a cable to ASIO asking them to do something about Whitlam can that be seen in terms of an order from the senior agency?

Jerry Aaron: Oh, most certainly. I think we should actually ... I think of what happened when Harold Salisbury who was Police Commissioner in the Dunstan government in South Australia. They had an inquiry into the Special Branch there after Salisbury was sacked for misleading the government and what he actually said when he was asked why he hadn't told the government the full truth he said, `I would have merely justified a very severe criticism from responsible and official quarters and from security organisations beyond Australia' and he made it quite clear that his responsibilities were not to the government of the day but to other people and when he was pressed on the point as to who the other people were he said very weakly `The Crown', but obviously the crown that he pays allegiance to sits in the U.S.

Tony Douglas: Jerry Aaron's interpretation of the Shackley Cable is shared by former CIA agent Ralph McGehee. Was Shackley in a position to be ordering ASIO about, I mean, you worked under Shackley in Vietnam. Is he a senior CIA officer?

Ralph McGehee: Oh, yes, he was a top CIA officer. He was also one of Ed Wilson's closest friends. Ed Wilson, of course, was head of Task Force 157. Prior to that, Wilson had been in the CIA. And there are all sorts of evidence that Task Force 157 was also orchestrating the efforts to overthrow the Whitlam government.

Clyde Cameron: Well, ASIO has always been a compliant service for the American CIA. They have always done that. They have been quite sympathetic towards the CIA and let's not forget that the Australian intelligence organisations were the ones who were responsible for acting as a conduit for the CIA and Pinochet in 1973 when the CIA-backed Pinochet Junta moved in and overthrew the elected government of Chile. I know that members of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) were active in Santiago at that time and were acting in cooperation with the CIA because the CIA weren't able to function in Chile under President Allende. They had to do their dirty work through somebody else and they chose the Australian intelligence organisations. When I became Minister for Immigration I was appalled to discover that we had an immigration officer in Santiago who was in fact an ASIO spy. He wasn't a genuine immigration officer at all but was an ASIO spy who had been put on by my immigration establishment as a bona fide immigration officer and I sought to have him removed but the Prime Minister intervened and prevented the removal from taking place. I remember that when the Prime Minister discovered that ASIS had been active in Santiago he ordered that the ASIS operative in that area be withdrawn that they just ignored it, refused to do anything about it, and it wasn't until Whitlam took firm action and threatened to put the knife through a lot of these people who were responsible for ignoring his direction that they were withdrawn. But by that time, of course, the coup had occurred, Allende had been assassinated and Pinochet had been installed.

Ian Wood: That was former Whitlam Cabinet Minister Clyde Cameron. Before that you also heard former CIA agents Victor Marchetti and Ralph McGehee, Jerry Aaron, the co-author of Rooted in Secrecy, and Kelly Johnson of the Christopher Boyce Alliance. Next week, Watching Brief looks at the CIA interference in Australian and New Zealand trade unions.

Jane Lanbrook: Well, that's all on Watching Brief this week. If you'd like more information or cassette copies of the program, or if you have got information that may be of interest, contact us at Public Radio News Services, Post Office Box 103, Fitzroy, Victoria, 3065. Or call us in Melbourne at 417 7304. That's Public Radio News Services. Watching Brief is produced by Ian Wood and Tony Douglas for the Public Broadcasting Network of Australia. I'm Jane Lanbrook and I hope you'll tune in again next week at the same time for Watching Brief, Public Radio's National Environment Program.

Transcript of a 5-part radio documentary,

Watching Brief, Public Radio News Services,

Melbourne, Australia, October-November 1986

Edited April 13, 2008 by Maggie Hansen

[Len Colby]

You wanna know why the guy is anonymous?

Because he’s lying ‘alert squadrons’ consisted of pairs of fighters ready to scramble 1994 or earlier – June 2002 (or later I don’t if that was changed)

According to a 1994 GAO report

NORAD plans to reduce the number of alert sites in the continental

United States to 14 and provide 28 aircraft for the day-to-day

peacetime air sovereignty mission. Each alert site will have two

fighters, and their crews will be on 24-hour duty and ready to

scramble within 5 minutes.

http://www.fas.org/man/gao/gao9476.htm

In 1997 the number of bases began to be reduced from 14 to 7.

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context...997cuttingbases

According to a 1999 article in a USAF magazine

“Day or night, 24-7, a pair of pilots and two crew chiefs stand alert in a secure compound on Homestead, the base Hurricane Andrew nearly razed in August 1992.

[...]

The Air National Guard exclusively performs the air sovereignty mission in the continental United States, and those units fall under the control of the 1st Air Force based at Tyndall. The Guard maintains seven alert sites with 14 fighters and pilots on call around the clock. Besides Homestead, alert birds also sit armed and ready at Tyndall; Langley AFB, Va.; Otis Air National Guard Base, Mass.; Portland International Airport, Ore.; March ARB, Calif.; and Ellington Field, Texas.”

From a June 20, 2002 article on CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Two U.S. Air National Guard F-16s were not able to intercept a small plane that violated restricted air space around Washington until more than 10 minutes after the Cessna 182 passed near the White House, administration sources told CNN Thursday.

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/06/20/plane.intercept/

Langley did however manage to launch 3 F-16’s that morning before the Pentagon was hit:

http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16/inv.hijack.warning/

http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/sto...ws/aw090971.xml

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/natio...s/timeline.html

http://web.archive.org/web/20030809155434/...ws_rel_09_18_01

We even know the names of the pilots:

“The pilots are Major Brad Derrig, Captain Craig Borgstrom, and Major Dean Eckmann, all from the North Dakota Air National Guard’s 119th Fighter Wing stationed at Langley.”

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/context...eckmanninspects

Brogtrom was the “operations officer” for the unit he recalled events that morning, and indeed there were only two planes on alert:

"How many planes can you get airborne?" the NORAD dispatcher asked in clipped tones over a secure line dubbed the "bat phone."

"I have two on battle stations," replied Capt. Borgstrom from the control tower near the hangar.

"That's not what I asked," the dispatcher snapped. "How many planes can you get airborne – total?"

"I can give you three."

"Then go!"

he circled the city [Washington] and “landed back at Langley” “Four hours later”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/0416/p01s04-usmi.htm

He also has his terminology wrong, the pair of planes kept on alert at AFB’s isn’t a squadron:

The basic fighting unit of the US Air Force is the squadron. A constituted squadron is the basic unit in the Air Force, and is numbered with one, two, or three Arabic numerals. A squadron may be a mission unit or a functional unit, and may vary in size according to responsibility.

Squadrons are configured to deploy and employ in support of crisis action requirements. They are not designed to conduct independent operations but rather to interact with other units to provide the synergy needed to conduct sustained and effective operations. As such, an individual squadron should not deploy by itself; it should deploy along with the appropriate support and command elements (a “group slice”). Afield, it would look more like a group.

[…]

The composition of a squadron is determined by the type of airplane it operates and the nature of its mission. All squadrons have headquarters, mess, supply, technical, and maintenance personnel. Local conditions and the mission determine the number of planes to be grouped in one squadron for maximum efficiency, and the number of men, the equipment, and the supplies required to keep the planes flying. A squadron may contain a dozen or more planes.

[...]

Until 1992, the Air Force predominantly organized its active fighter aircraft in wings of three squadrons, with 24 combat aircraft in each squadron. However, in 1992, the Air Force Chief of Staff directed that the squadrons be reduced to 18 aircraft. By 1997, most fighter squadrons were reduced to this smaller size, leaving only 54 aircraft in most wings.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/age...af/squadron.htm

Is this guy telling us that a total of 7 F-16’s were launched 3 before and 4 after the Pentagon was hit? Or that no fighters were launched before but that four were launched AFTER. And that the 4 went to Pennsylvania? I either scenario many people at Langley, most of whom were National Guard and not full time military, as well as numerous ATC would know this. Are we to believe that Borgstrom and others are lying and many more know the truth but have remained silent for 6 ½ years based on the word of an anonymous poster on a blog? Some who starts his entry with errors of fact and terminology. Sorry try again.

Other problems with the wild tale are:

Several witnesses saw flight 93 none of them described seeing any damage to it.

No debris was found along the plane’s flight path

There are no reports of an f-16 in the area, the “white jet” was described as having two rear mounted engines