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CONFRONTING THE EVIDENCE -- A CALL TO REOPEN THE 9-11 INVESTIGATION -- TRANSCRIPT AND SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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Michael Ruppert, a former Los Angeles Police Department Detective, was the first major 9/11 skeptic and researcher in the world and remains one of the foremost. He was one of 40 experts on 9/11 who testified at the six-day International Citizens' Inquiry Into 9/11 held in Toronto in May, 2004. I helped organize that event. At the Inquiry, Michael Ruppert addresses the absence of jet interceptors but the unlikelihood of a simple stand-down order and asks, "What if they were so confused, and had been so deliberately confused, that they couldn't respond?" Michael Ruppert is standing by in his office in Sherman Oaks, California. Michael, thanks for this. What is the reason for the failure of U.S. military jets to show up in a timely fashion on 9/11?
Michael Ruppert: Well, the simple fact is, Barrie, that they didn't know where to go. The reason that they didn't know where to go was because a number of conflicting and overlapping war game exercises were taking place, one of which, Northern Vigilance, had pulled a significant number of North American fighter aircraft into Canada and Western Alaska, and Northern Alaska in a mock cold war hijack exercise. There was another drill, Vigilant Guardian, which was a hijack exercise, a command post exercise, but it involved the insertion of false radar blips onto radar screens in the Northeast Air Defense Sector. In addition, we have a confirmation thanks to General Richard Myers who was acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs who told Richard Clarke as reported in Clarke's book, that there was another exercise, Vigilant Warrior, which was in fact, according to a NORAD source, a live fly hijack drill being conducted at the same time. With only eight available fighter aircraft, and they have to be dispatched in pairs, they were dealing with as many as 22 possible hijacks on the day of 9/11, and they couldn't separate the war game exercises from the actual hijacks.
Barrie Zwicker: But this was done deliberately though.
Michael Ruppert: Apparently so. And I will be saying that in my forthcoming book, "Crossing the Rubicon -- 9/11 and Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil," we have done an extensive investigation on that to show that these war game exercises were apparently very well planned by someone who I will show I believe was Dick Cheney in the United States government to deliberately confuse FAA, NORAD, and U.S. Air Force fighter response to fulfill a prophecy that another man had once said, "Let one happen and stop the rest." Barrie Zwicker: On that very point, we have a recording.
FAA: Hi, Boston Center TMU, we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York. We need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out.
North East Air Defense Sector: Is this real world or exercise?
FAA: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.
Barrie Zwicker: Now the 9/11 Commission didn't mention war games, is that right?
Michael Ruppert: No, in the final report they did mention, I think in one paragraph, Vigilant Guardian [paragraph 116] , but the response given by NORAD commanding General Ralph Eberhart and other Air Force Spokespeople was absolutely nonsensical and it made no mention of any of the other war game exercises. Eberhart's position was in fact, which is a very ludicrous position, that the Vigilant Guardian exercise, leaving aside the others, actually helped speed response on 9/11 and that is absolutely not the case.
Barrie Zwicker: How does this relate to the 9/11 Commission Report which said that planes had gone in the wrong directions?
Michael Ruppert: Well, that's a separate issue. That remains to be clarified. But what I will be disclosing in my book is in effect that there were two simultaneously operating command and control systems functioning on the day of 9/11 and at some times they were issuing conflicting orders. We do not have a clear explanation for why fighters from Andrews Air Force Base were sent out over the sea first and couldn't turn around because the 9/11 Commission seemed to change all of the evidence just arbitrarily right before it issued its final report. So we don't have a clear explanation, but certainly there was, it is all consistent with a motive that said, "Make sure that fighters don't get to any place in time to stop the three critical attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
Barrie Zwicker: You have Laura Brown of the FAA. She attends hearings of the 9/11 Commission, is there on the aviation aspects of the day. Embarrassed by previous nonforthcoming testimony about the FAA's role, she sends an email in May of 2003 to members of the media whose business cards she had collected. "Within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center," she states in her email, "the FAA immediately established several phone bridges that included FAA field facilities, the FAA Command Center, FAA headquarters, DOD, the Secret Service, and other government agencies. The U.S. Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters phone bridge and established contact with NORAD on a separate line. The FAA shared real-time information on the phone bridges about the unfolding events, including information about loss of communication with aircraft, loss of transponder signals, unauthorized changes in course, and other actions being taken by all the flights of interest, including Flight 77."
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