authorisation to shoot down the planes on 911

* further to my recent post where Newsweek states that Cheney didnt really have any authorisation from Preznit Blinky to shoot down the plane on 911, this isn't really new news - but it was just interesting to see some of the detail in print. IIRC, condi sort of half-pretended that she overheard Cheney talking to Blinky but didnt quite hear what was said, and there was someone else who half-made the same half-claim - or something like that. (was it Karen? or maybe even lynne cheney? i cant remember, and it doesnt really matter). The interesting thing of course is why he made up that lie - many speculate that the plane was in fact shot down, and i'm inclined to believe that - not least because the LetsRoll thing sounds exactly like it came outta the same prop-shop that gave us Jessica Lynch et al.

Damien in the comments pointed to something that i didnt know (by Prof. David Ray Griffin):

"The Commission also claims that people in the Pentagon had no idea that an aircraft was heading in their direction until shortly before the Pentagon was struck. But this claim was contradicted by Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, in open testimony given to the Commission itself. Mineta testified that at 9:20 that morning, he went down to the shelter conference room (technically the Presidential Emergency Operations Center) under the White House, where Vice President Cheney was in charge. Mineta then said:

During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, "The plane is 50 miles out." "The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to "the plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the Vice President, "Do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"

When Mineta was asked by Commissioner Timothy Roemer how long this conversation occurred after he arrived, Mineta said: "Probably about five or six minutes," which, as Roemer pointed out, would mean "about 9:25 or 9:26."

According to the 9/11 Commission, no one in our government knew that an aircraft was approaching the Pentagon until 9:36 so there was no time to shoot it down. But the Commission had been told by Mineta that the vice president knew at least 10 minutes earlier, at 9:26. The 9/11 Commission dealt with Mineta's testimony in the same way it dealt with almost everything else that threatened its story--by simply ignoring it in the final report.

This testimony by Mineta was a big threat not only because it indicated that there was knowledge of the approaching aircraft at least 12 minutes before the Pentagon was struck, but also because it implied that Cheney had issued stand-down orders. Mineta himself did not make this allegation, to be sure. He assumed, he said, that "the orders" mentioned by the young man were orders to have the plane shot down. Mineta's interpretation, however, does not fit with what actually happened: The aircraft was not shot down. That interpretation, moreover, would make the story unintelligible: If the orders had been to shoot down the aircraft if it got close to the Pentagon, the young man would have had no reason to ask if the orders still stood. His question makes sense only if the orders were to do something unexpected--not to shoot down the aircraft. The implication of Mineta's story is, therefore, that the attack on the Pentagon was desired."

That's interesting for a few reasons, not least cos they didnt tell Rumsfeld till after the plane hit the building - lucky he was on the safe side of the building. But it's also interesting juxtaposed against Cheney's claim that he had authority to shoot down the LetsRoll plane.