war games
war games
9/11 War Games by the US military & CIA
paralysis of air defenses that ensured the success of the attacks? who coordinated these efforts?
There has been virtually no media coverage of the issues of the 9/11 war games, the "amazing coincidence" of a "plane into building" exercise being conducted that morning, or the alleged role of Vice President Richard Cheney in overseeing the war games that morning.
related pages:
NORAD / Air Force wargames on 9/11: Vigilant Guardian, Vigilant Warrior, Northern Guardian, Northern Vigilance
National Reconnaissance Office "plane into building" exercise on 9/11
on this page:
Seven Days in May / The Lone Gunmen -- fictional depictions
Michael Ruppert investigates the 9/11 wargames
9/11 wargames: no coincidence
parallel examples: "Internal Look" simulation of Iraq invasion of Kuwait in 1990, NSA spying on United Nations masked by exercise
The most indepth analysis of the 9/11 war games is Michael Ruppert's book "Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil" available at fromthewilderness.com
Four decades ago, the novel (and movie) "Seven Days in May" was a popular political thriller about a military coup d'etat in the United States against a President who sought to scale back the Cold War. In this story, a military cabal schemed to topple the government under the guise of a military communications exercise. This "war game" was to have been used as the cover for toppling the government and installing a General as President who would stop arms control treaties with the Soviet Union.
A different fictional treatment of the use of a "war game" to perpetrate covert objectives was described in "The Lone Gunmen," a television show aired on Fox TV in March 2001. In that show, a small cabal within the military-industrial complex used a wargame scenario as cover for remote control hijacking of a commercial flight and crashing it into the World Trade Center in order to boost military spending for the permanent war. This show was so close to the most likely scenario for 9/11 that it is plausible that this information was deliberately leaked in order to discredit the idea as merely part of a bad television drama, thereby inoculating people from contemplating the probability that 9/11 was a covert operation using remote controlled planes under the guise of a war game.
Lone Gunmen script excerpt
BYERS: We know it's a war game scenario. That it has to do with airline counter-terrorism. Why is it important enough to kill for.
BYERS SNR: Because it's no longer a game.
BYERS: But if some terrorist group wants to act out this scenario, then why target you for assassination?
BYERS SNR: Depends on who your terrorists are.
BYERS: The men who conceived of it the first place. You're saying our government is planning to commit a terrorist act against a domestic airline?
BYERS SNR: There you go again. Blaming the entire government as usual. In fact, a small faction ...
BYERS: For what possible gain?
BYERS SNR: The Cold War's over, John. But with no clear enemy to stockpile against, the arms market's flat. But bring down a fully loaded 727 into the middle of New York City and you'll find a dozen tinpot dictators all over the world just clamouring to take responsibility, and begging to be smart-bombed.
BYERS: I can't believe this. This is about increasing arms sales?
On September 11, at least five different "war games" were being conducted by the military and intelligence agencies. These exercises included simulations of 9/11 type events, a plane into building scenario near Dulles Airport in Virginia, and deployment of fighters to northern Canada and Alaska (which reduced the number of fighters that were available to protect the US?). It seems that these exercises were the means used to paralyze the air defenses, thereby ensuring the success of the "attacks." The British Navy was conducting exercises in the Indian ocean near the Middle East. A biowar exercise was also about to start in New York City.
Who has the power to coordinate all of these exercises? Osama bin Laden? Saddam Hussein? Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah? Dick Cheney and the White House National Security Council?
It is difficult to believe that it is a bizarre "coincidence" that the military and CIA were conducting wargames similar to 9/11 on September 11, 2001. While it seems likely, if not blatantly obvious, that these war games were one of the means used to confuse the air defense system for sufficient time to allow the World Trade Center to be attacked, the war games do not answer the question of how the air defenses were suppressed for another half hour after the second tower was hit (at which time everyone knew that an attack was in progress). The Air Force had another half hour after the second tower to scramble interceptors to defend the Capitol (the plane that is alleged to have hit the Pentagon made its 180 degree turn over Ohio to head back toward D.C. about the time that the second tower was struck).
Perhaps a complete investigation would reveal if the national order to ground all aviation (an unprecedented directive from the Transportation Department) also included military airplanes as well -- especially given the chaos and confusion that morning, a stand down of key fighter interceptors would have been easily concealed. But the information about the wargames suggests that a "stand down" order was NOT issued that morning -- the confusion from the war games was how the defenses of New York and Washington were interfered with sufficiently to ensure the success of the attacks. It is unlikely that the "inside job" conspirators would have risked the success of the operation on whether fighter plane pilots would have obeyed orders to do nothing as American cities were burning. It would be like asking a firefighter who had trained their entire adult life to "stand down" when their neighbor's house was burning and the inhabitants trapped inside (or worse, asking that firefighter to "stand down" from protecting the next house on the block from catching fire from the first burning house). In this analogy, the firefighter would probably ignore orders from his or her boss to stand down, and would seek to rescue the neighbors without worrying about the consequences until later.The wargames provide a much better explanation for why there was an apparent stand down and failure to respond in time.If a genuine investigation with subpeona power is ever held, the full details of the 9/11 wargames will need to be declassified and discussed in public -- who scheduled them, who set up the scenarios, the full communications records from the participants, the radar tapes (if they still exist) that were used as part of the simulations, and the identities of those officials who deployed part of the fighter defense fleet to northern Canada and Alaska at the very time that warnings were being sounded that a terrorist attack was imminent.
war games
CIA / National Reconnaissance Office "plane into building" exercise
Associated Press, August 21, 2002 simulation of a plane crash into the NRO headquarters (near Dulles Airport, Virginia) - this was not a "terrorism" exercise but it did result in the evacuation of most NRO employees just as the "real" 9/11 was taking place, making it more difficult for the nation's spy satellites to be used to track the hijacked planes
Vigilant Guardian
Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002, Newhouse News, others (these articles are reproduced below) The publicly available mass media articles about these exercises state that they were similar enough to the actual events that top NORAD personnel were confused, not sure if 9/11 was "part of the drill" or a real world event.
Vigilant Warrior referenced by Richard Clark, "Against All Enemies" (March 2004)
Northern Vigilance
Toronto Star, December 9, 2001 "Operation Northern Vigilance, planned months in advance, involves deploying fighter jets to locations in Alaska and northern Canada." This ensured that there would be fewer fighter planes available to protect the East Coast on 9/11. Simulated information was fed into radar screens - is this what confused the air defenses that morning?
Northern Guardian
Toronto Star, December 9, 2001 only mention was in the early edition of this article, no details publicly available (probably related to Northern Vigilance)
Tripod II
US Department of Justice and City of New York
Rudolph Giuliani's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, May 2004 biowar exercise in New York City scheduled for September 12, 2001
the one time the "war games" were mentioned during the official 9/11 Commission hearings (on the final day of the hearings)
Nicholas Levis posts: Ha, I finally got into the Official Record
KEAN: Three questions, then I know the general has to leave. AUDIENCE MEMBER: Ask about the war games that were planned for 9/11. KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick? AUDIENCE MEMBER: Tell us about the 9/11 war games. GORELICK: Could you please be quiet? We have only a few minutes with General Myers, and I'd like to ask a question. General Myers, the -- I'm sorry.
KEAN: I would ask please people in the audience to be quiet if you want to stay here.
Wimpy of me, but I stayed quiet. The cops that came up to "calm me down" were a bit too beefy. So I "calmed down." Apparently, this was also sent out on CNN and audible over TV. The transcript doesn't include the walk-out by another guy...
They introduced The Emperor's New Timeline, in which all the times are now consistent and the blame is laid on the FAA. It's completely ridiculous and we can dismantle it, but I suspect the straightforward way to do is to concentrate on UA93. The new timeline shifts FAA notification to NORAD of the UA93 diversion from 9:16 to 10:07 (after the crash), the crash time from 10:06 (according to the Army's seismic study) to 10:03 and the Cheney shootdown order for UA 93 from 9:55 (according to Wash. Post) to somewhere between 10:10 and 10:20. If we can convincingly promote the evidence we already have of the UA93 shootdown, all this falls completely apart. And it's an emotionally compelling and easy-to-understand matter.
Best from DC, still,
Nicholas
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The Riddle of the Transponders
What was the value-added benefit for the 9/11 hijackers in turning off their transponder signals?
The planes remained visible to radar; the transponders merely ID'd the flights. And yet the transponders of all four flights were switched off. What was gained?
I think the answer is found in the proliferation of wargames on September 11, particularly the exercise called "Vigilant Guardian": the live-fly simulation of hijackings in the US Northeast staged by the Joint Chiefs and NORAD the very morning of the attacks. (Health advisory to coincidentalists: chew carefully before digesting.)
At one time on 9/11, as many as 22 aircraft appeared to be hijacked. Suddenly, the virtue, now verging on necessity, of switching off the transponders becomes evident. With loss of transponder signals the planes became bogies, and discriminating real from simulated hijackings became next to impossible.
This confusion compounded the paralysis already introduced to the system by drawing most of the Eastern seaboard's combat-ready interceptors into Northern Canada for the wargame "Northern Vigilence," and changing the standing orders for a shootdown in June 2001 by removing the discretion of field commanders and placing it solely in the hands of the Secretary of Defense.
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The Power Control Group (Richard E Sprague's evocative term from The Taking of America, 1-2-3) occasionally chooses to tip its hand to us as a mechanism of control. In nature it would be a threat display, except the threat implied here is the confirmation that things are really as bad as we think, and we can't do a damn thing about it. I'm thinking, for instance, of the casual bombshell that dropped a year after 9/11, that on the morning of the attacks the National Reconnaissance Office was running a simulation of a plane crashing into a government building. A "bizarre coincidence," it was called. Though I believe the "simulation" likely a cover story, it's not exactly a limited hang out, since they hung it out there all by themselves in an announcement for a Homeland Security conference. ("On the morning of September 11th 2001, [the CIA's John] Fulton and his team ... were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day.") Until then, no one was pressing the 9/11 wargames angle. Since, Mike Ruppert and others have discovered about a half-dozen more, suspiciously and opportunely timed to the attacks. Letting slip the "simulation" story is a bit like Jack the Ripper writing Scotland Yard and enclosing a portion of his victim's liver. Catch me if you can! I'm thinking of the FBI promoting agents who deliberately inhibited pre-911 investigations, and its punishing those who saw it coming and tried to stop it. What message did this send, and could it be anything but the one intended? I'm thinking of Michael Chertoff's appointment to Homeland Security, though he was accused of sabotaging the Department's "Greenquest" investigations into terror financing. I'm thinking of the appointment of Porter Goss to CIA directorship, though we know he'd met with 9/11 financier ISI Chief Mahmood Ahmed the morning of Sept 11, and his congressional seat encompassed the hijackers' Florida flight schools. No administration has thumbed its nose more often, nor with as much feeling in our general direction, as this one. Its macabre arrogance contributes to a legend of invulnerability. That the White House can not only get away with it, but appear to revel in it, makes them seem untouchable. And yet, they aren't. And one of the reasons I believe this is Sibel Edmonds.
She can hurt them, and they know it. And they don't want you to know it.
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Michael Ruppert investigates the 9/11 wargames
... For six weeks I have been investigating a number of other 9/11 wargames that link directly to the work done by Global Free Press on Tripod II and other wargames. I am not exaggerating when I say that we may be close to the Holy Grail of 9/11.
I am certain that it will not be too long before these wargames receive serious coverage in the mainstream press. If they are reported on while still linked to the FEMA myth [note: the false claim that FEMA was in New York the day before to assist with cleaning up after 9/11], the Bush administration will have a free shot to discredit the Tripod story (and all of the wargame stories) by disproving the FEMA part to the press and then asking, "Why should we even respond to the rest?"
The wargames will tie Bush and/or Cheney and Rumsfeld directly into a complete paralysis of fighter response on 9/11. I have gone directly to many NORAD, DoD, NRO, and other sources directly and questioned them. I have knocked on many doors and I have even obtained some documents. I have obtained an on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD, which confirmed that on the day of 9/11 The Joint Chiefs (Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack Field Training Exercise (FTX) which involved at least one (and almost certainly many more) aircraft under US control that was posing as a hijacked airliner. That is just the tip of what I have uncovered.
There never was a stand down order issued. That would have been way too incriminating and risky a piece of incriminating evidence. And it also might have been ignored by eager fighter pilots who had trained their whole lives to respond to a hostile aircraft killing Americans. There are several statements that the "new" NORAD procedures transferring scramble authority to Rumsfeld on June 1, 2001 were ignored by several NORAD commanders on 9/11 including General Larry Arnold. That's exactly what I would have expected. ....
Question 1 - Prior to 9/11, when various military commands were conducting multiple simultaneous training exercises across various commands and services, what office or person at the Department of Defense was charged with coordinating all of them so that they did not overlap or interfere with each other, or occupy enough military assets at one time to jeopardize operational readiness?
Question 2 - Since the Tripod II biowarfare exercise was a joint New York-Department of Justice exercise we now must ask: Prior to 9/11, under US government Executive Branch procedure, what part of the government or official was responsible for and had the authority to coordinate and act as liaison between the military, federal agencies and state and local agencies and private corporations so that they did not overlap or interfere with each other, or occupy enough essential assets at one time to jeopardize operational readiness or impair the national security of the United States? Was it the White House? Was it the Office of National Preparedness? Was it the National Security Advisor? Was it the CIA?
Only official documents and records or on-the-record statements from qualified experts will suffice.
I ask everyone who reads this - every veteran, every former government official and all the remaining decent and honest military personnel and law enforcement officers - to help answer these questions. It is obvious how important they are.
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Pre-Planning For September 11th
Like all of the major wars of the last century, this one too has had a hidden but very real and undeniable phase of preparation. International Law Professor Francis A. Boyle, of the University of Illinois wrote on October 12, "Obviously, the war against Afghanistan was planned for quite some time. We know for a fact that it had been war-gamed by the Pentagon going back to 1997. Right around September 11, two US Aircraft carrier task forces conveniently arrived in the Persian Gulf right at the same time on "rotation." Obviously, preplanned. Just before September 11, the UK had put together what was billed as the "largest armada since the Falklands War" and had it steaming towards Oman, where now 23,000 UK troops are on maneuvers. This had been planned for at least 3 years. Also, the US "Bright Star" operation is currently going on in Egypt. 23,000 US troops plus an additional 17,000 from NATO and its associates. This had been planned at least two years ago. Finally, NATO just landed 12,000 troops into Turkey. This had been planned for at least two years. It is obvious that we are seeing an operational War Plan being executed here that had been in the works for at least the past four years. September 11 is either a pretext or a trigger or both."
In light of the known available intelligence information that we have previously presented in these pages, and the hard data on insider trading that we present in this issue, there can be no doubt that the Bush Administration awaited the attacks as a pretext for the massive military operations that we see occurring now. In the words of retired Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff - who taught military science at West Point - "I can't help but conclude that the actions we are seeing put into motion now are part of a pre-September 11th agenda. I'm absolutely sure of that, in fact. The planning alone for operations, of this scale, that are now taking shape, would take many months. And we are seeing them take shape in mere weeks."
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Mike Ruppert
From the moment the first plane hit the World Trade Center all suggested confusion caused by a reported drill became a moot and dead issue. That's why this scenario explaining the hijackers' success fails the critical test.
In my forthcoming book I have a fully footnoted, six-foot flow chart/timeline which demonstrates this irrefutably. Decisions were made and multiple delays and inexplicable actions were taken to delay fighter response that cannot be explained by the exercise distraction theory. Furthermore, I have traced all the key decision making to one person: The FAA national hijack coordinator who has never been identified publicly but was, like FBI-HQ Supervisory Special Agent Dave Frasca (who suppressed five separate investigations that could have prevented the attacks), probably promoted right after 9/11. What is clear from the NORAD/FAA records, as released, is that this person knew that real hijackings had taken place even before Flt 11 became the first plane to hit the WTC. There is no justifiable reason to argue that a drill overrode common sense and duty from that point on, even though there was almost two hours of inactivity and violation of SOP which followed.
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Webster Tarpley - 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA
"Staff exercises or command exercises are perfect for a rogue network which is forced to conduct its operations using the same communications and computer systems used by other officers who are not necessarily party to the illegal operation, coup or provocation as it may be. A putschist officer may be working at a console next to another officer who is not in on the coup, and who might indeed oppose it if he knew about it. The putschist?s behavior is suspicious: what the hell is he doing? The loyal officer looks over and asks the putschist about it. The putschist cites a staff maneuver for which he is preparing. The loyal officer concludes that the putschist?s activities are part of an officially sanctioned drill, and his suspicions are allayed. The putschist may even explain that participation in the staff exercise requires a special security clearance which the loyal officer does not have. The conversation ends, and the putschist can go on with his treasonous work.""The best working hypothesis is that Amalgam Virgo was the cover story under which the 9/11 attacks advanced through the bureaucracy. Preparations for carrying out 9/11 were conducted under the cover of being preparations for Amalgam Virgo. Most of those who took part in Amalgam Virgo could hardly have been aware of this duplicity.... Here was an exercise which included many of the elements which were put into practice on 9/11. Amalgam Virgo thus provided the witting putschists with a perfect cover for conducting the actual live fly components of 9/11 through a largely non-witting military bureaucracy. Under the cover of this confusion, the most palpably subversive actions could be made to appear in the harmless and even beneficial guise of a drill."
9/11 War Games ? No Coincidence
by Michael Kane -June 08, 2004
"I have an on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD that on the day of 9/11 The Joint Chiefs of Staff (Richard B. Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint, live-fly, hijack Field Training Exercise (FTX) which involved at least one (and almost certainly many more) aircraft under US control that was posing as a hijacked airliner."
Mike Ruppert ? June 5, 2004, editor of FTW
www.fromthewilderness.com
On September 11, 2001, Richard B. Meyers, the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has thus far claimed he was in a meeting with Senator Max Cleland, and was ?unaware? of the ongoing 9/11 attacks until after the Pentagon was struck.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims that he was in the Pentagon giving a lecture to members of Congress about the need for America to ?be prepared for the unexpected? pertaining to future terrorist attacks. As the 9/11 plot unfolded, Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claims he was effectively out of the loop while inside the Pentagon until it was struck at 9:38 am. That comes from his testimony to the 9/11 Commission on March 25, 2004, while under oath.
On September 11, 2001, the Air Force was in its second day of annual wargame drills, titled VIGILANT GUARDIAN, designed to test national air response systems, which incidentally involved hijacking scenarios. In addition the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) which is staffed by military and CIA personnel, and is in charge of most American spy satellites, was running a drill for the scenario of an errant aircraft crashing into its headquarters. NRO headquarters also happens to be located just four miles from Washington?s Dulles airport - where Flight 77 (the flight said to have hit the Pentagon) originated. On March 25, when Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld testified before the Commission, not one question was asked with regard to the multiple wargames confirmed to have been in progress that morning.
Why?
It is possible that Phillip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, has classified certain wargames running on 9/11 so the Commission can?t address them publicly. The fact that the war games are open source, having been reported in mainstream publications including the Associated Press, UPI, and Aviation Weekly Magazine would make such a classification part & parcel to a cover-up. Hopefully the Commission will address, in public hearing, the impact these wargames apparently had on the NORAD response on 9/11.
For example, we know that Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins, regional Mission Crew Chief for the VIGILANT GUARDIAN exercise, said that everyone at the North East Air Defense Sector (NEADS), part of NORAD, initially thought the first call she received about the real 9/11 hijackings was part of the wargames scenario (Newhouse News, 1/25/02).
This is the question. Did VIGILANT GUARDIAN cause enough confusion to allow three successful suicide hijackings to occur over an hour and twenty minute period? The answer would appear to be ? no.
NORAD?s recent admission to investigative journalist Mike Ruppert that they were running a live-fly Field Training Exercise that involved at least one aircraft under US control posing as a hijacking shows VIGILANT GUARDIAN is merely the tip of the iceberg. Especially when considering that the Joint Chiefs of Staff were directly involved with this ?drill?..... Moreover, we now must examine the NRO emergency evacuation drill running that same morning. NRO spokesman Art Haubold told UPI, ?It was just a coincidence. It wasn't an anti-terrorism exercise. It was an emergency response exercise. It was just a strange coincidence?. The NRO?s internal war-gaming division planned the drill.
Was the NRO?s war-gaming division working in conjunction with NORAD and/or the Joint Chiefs of Staff that morning? On page 5 of former White House counter-terrorism official Richard Clarke?s new book, ?Against All Enemies?, he mentions a war game titled VIGILANT WARRIOR. Is this yet another wargame running on 9/11? In addition, yet another drill titled NORTHERN VIGILANCE, was running on 9/11 simulating an air attack coming from Russia. Just how many war games were running on September 11, 2001?
The NRO is, effectively, the ?eyes of the world?. With the majority of American spy satellites at its fingertips, it can reasonably be assumed that NRO headquarters was an indispensable resource to NORAD and the Air Force from 8:28 when Flight 77 made its unplanned 180-degree turn over Pennsylvania, until 9:38 when it is said to have struck the Pentagon. The NRO claims as soon as the real world events ?began to unfold? the drill was called off and all but the most essential personnel were sent home. (UPI, Aug 22, 2002)
Read that last sentence again.
Why was the NRO sending home personnel during what was likely the biggest military crisis on American soil in recent history? Who were the ?most essential? personnel and what did those individuals do as events unfolded?What role did Secretary Rumsfeld & Richard B. Meyers play in any of the multiple war game scenarios on the morning of September 11, 2001? What briefings did they receive about these war games before, during and after the morning in question?
These are the questions that must be addressed by the 9/11 Commission, and yet they have not been mentioned even once. Questions, Questions, Questions?
Commissioner Jamie Gorelick did ask Secretary Rumsfeld, while under oath, a very specific question of exactly when an order was given authorizing fighter pilots to shoot down aircraft on the morning of 9-11. Rumsfeld complicated and confused his answer by giving an account of how they had modified the rules of engagement. General Myers clarified by stating to the best of his recollection the shoot-down order was communicated directly to the pilots shortly after the president issued it.
GORELICK: May I ask one more question, Mr. Chairman?
We can't go into the content of the PDDs and the SEIBs here. And I can't even characterize them in order to ask you the next question that I would ask. So let me ask you this: Was it your understanding that the NORAD pilots who were circling over Washington D.C. that morning had indeed received a shoot-down order?
RUMSFELD: When I arrived in the command centre, one of the first things I heard, and I was with you, was that the order had been given and that the pilots -- correction, not the pilots necessarily, but the command had been given the instructions that their pilots could, in fact, use their weapons to shoot down a commercial airliners filled with our people in the event that the aircraft appeared to be behaving in a threatening way and an unresponsive way.
GORELICK: Now, you make a distinction there between the command and the pilots. Was it your understanding that the pilots had received that order?
RUMSFELD: I'm trying to get in time because...
MYERS: Well, I think -- my understanding, I've talked to General Eberhart, commander now of NORAD, and I think he's briefed the staff. And I think what he told the staff, what he told me, as I recall, was that the pilots did -- at the appropriate point when the authority to engage civilian airliners was given, that the pilots knew that fairly quickly. I mean, it went down through the chain of command.
RUMSFELD: It was on a threat conference call that it was given, and everybody heard it simultaneously. The question then would be -- the reason I am hesitant is because we went through two or three iterations of the rules of engagement. And in the end, we ended up delegating that authority to, at the lowest level, I believe, to two stars.
MYERS: Right.
RUMSFELD: And the pilot would then describe the situation to that level. To the extent that level had time, they would come up to General Eberhart. To the extent Eberhart had time, he would come up to me. And to the extent I had time, I might talk to the president, which in fact, I did do on several occasions during the remainder of the day with respect to international flights heading to this country that were squawking "hijack."GORELICK: I'm just trying to understand whether it is your understanding that the NORAD pilots themselves, who were circling over Washington, as you referred to in your statement, whether they knew that they had authority to shoot down a plane. And if you don't know, it's fine to say that. You mentioned them in your statement, and I would like to know if you know the answer.
RUMSFELD: I do not know what they thought. In fact, I haven't talked to any of the pilots that were up there. I certainly was immediately concerned that we did know what they thought they could do.
RUMSFELD: And we began the process quite quickly of making changes to the standing rules of engagement, Dick Myers and I did, and then issuing that. And we then went back and revisited that question several times in the remaining week or two while we were still at various stages of alert. And we have since done that in connection with several other events such as the Prague summit.
GORELICK: As you know, we were not intending to address the issues of the day of in this hearing. And it is the subject of a full additional hearing, and we may be back to you with these questions with a more precise time line for you to look at.
Thank you very much.
KEAN: Thank you.