Anthony Summers - The Eleventh Day

17 Rumsfeld movements from 9:37:see Ch. 5;

18 NMCC looked:CR, 37–;

19 “outrageous”:Cockburn, 3–;

20 “one or more calls”:Testimony of Donald Rumsfeld, 3/23/04, CO;

21 “tried without success”:Goldberg et al., 131;

22 “Are you okay?”:ibid., 131, 240n6. The assistant was Major Joseph Wassel, who set up the call. Wassel was interviewed for the Defense Department’s “Pentagon 9/11” report, but not by the staff of the 9/11 Commission. Wassel described an initial attempt to call the President through the White House Situation Room—a call he came to believe did not go through. Sometime later—Wassel could not pinpoint the time, but placed it as being when Rumsfeld was back in his Pentagon office, having returned from the crash site—the President called the defense secretary from Air Force One (Goldberg et al., 131, 240n6, AF News , 3/8/01, Fenner to Campagna & attachments, 12/21/03, “DOD Documents Produced,” B22, T2, CF, int. of Joseph Wassel by Alfred Goldberg, 4/9/03, B115, GSA files, CF).

23 “brief call”/“just gaining”/​10:35/​There’s been;CR, 43–, 465n234, Farmer, 230, “Dana Hyde Notes of Air Threat Conference Call,” released to authors under Mandatory Declassification Review 2011. The text of this conversation is taken from the Defense Department transcript of the “Air Threat” teleconference that began at 9:37 A.M., a key document in the context of establishing the time of the actions and knowledge of senior officials. The Defense Department and Commission staff held that the transcript had a three-minute margin of error. The authors obtained the release of Commission staffer Dana Hyde’s detailed notes on the Air Threat call, which support the timeline in the Commission’s Report. The transcript of the teleconference remains classified as of this writing (CR, 37, 462n194, Levin to Zelikow, 8/22/03, “Air Threat Call,” B1, Daniel Marcus Files, CF, “Dana Hyde Notes of ATC Call,” CF, corr. Kristen Wilhelm, 2010).

24 “had come”/​“Technically”/​testimony/​withheld:“Interview with Donald Rumsfeld, 12/23/02,” B7, T2, CF, Goldberg et al., 131, testimony of Donald Rumsfeld, 3/23/04, CO, corr. NARA’s Kristen Wilhelm, 2010. The defense secretary’s full testimony on the point was: “In the National Military Command Center (NMCC), I joined the Air Threat Conference call in progress. One of my first conversations during the Conference Call was with the Vice President. He informed me of the President’s authorization to shoot down hostile aircraft coming toward Washington, D.C.” In the 2011 memoir, Rumsfeld said Cheney told him there had been “at least three instances” of reports of planes approaching Washington—“a couple were confirmed hijack. And, pursuant to the President’s instructions, I gave authorization for them to be taken out” (Rumsfeld, 339).

25 “Very little”/“To a person”:Hyde to Front Office, 3/2/04, “Daniel Marcus,” B8, T8, CF;

26 White House keeps track:Shenon, 265;

27 notes by individuals:CR, 464n216;

28 sought to limit/record unreliable:Hyde to Front Office, 3/2/04, “Daniel Marcus,” B8, T8, CF;

29 teleconferences/“In my mind”/cell phones:CR, 36–, 463n190, int. Anthony Barnes, int. Joseph Wassel by Alfred Goldberg, 4/9/03, B115, GSA files, CF, Sunday Times (U.K.), 9/5/10.

30 logged in 9:58:Hyde to Front Office, 3/2/04, Dan Marcus Files, CF. Much-publicized recollections, particularly those of former transportation secretary Norman Mineta, appear to suggest that Cheney was moved to the PEOC before 9:30 A.M.According to the authors’ analysis, they are in error. Mineta himself, moreover, was not logged into the PEOC until 10:07.

31 disputed call:CR, 40. Cheney had also called Bush minutes earlier, from a wall phone in a tunnel on the way to the bunker. In that call, he said, they discussed principally the matter of whether the President should return to Washington. Cheney’s aide, Scooter Libby, who arrived in the tunnel during the call, thought the gist of it was “basically conveying what was happening.” Neither he nor Mrs. Cheney, who was also there, heard any discussion of the shoot-down issue. It is evident from a Defense Department transcript that a White House official requested a Combat Air Patrol over the capital at about that time, but made no mention of a shoot-down order. Counterterrorism coordinator Clarke, moreover, was still talking of “asking the President for authority to shoot down aircraft.”

Neither Libby’s notes, however, nor Mrs. Cheney’s, reflect contact with Bush at the time mentioned by Cheney. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice did tell the Commission she heard Cheney’s end of a conversation with the President at that time. While she recalled a reference to a Combat Air Patrol, however, she did not hear Cheney recommend the shoot-down of hijacked airliners. A separate statement by Rice, moreover, mightily diminishes her credibility. She told ABC News that shoot-down authority was “requested through channels, by Secretary Rumsfeld, Vice President passed the request, the President said, ‘Yes.’ ” Far from requesting shoot-down authority, Rumsfeld—as reported in the text—learned of the shoot-down order only after the fact, from Cheney (Cheney called: CR 40, 464n211/213, Interview of Scooter Libby by

Newsweek

, 11/16/01, & Interview of Mrs. Cheney by

Newsweek

, 11/9/01, “Farmer Misc.,” B10, NYC files, CF; transcript: CR 38, 463n201; “asking”: CR 36, 463n191, MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF; Libby/Cheney notes/Rice: CR 40–, 43; “requested”: “9/11,” ABC News, 9/11/02, transcript at

http://s3.amazonaws.com

, Farmer, 259).

32 staff received/Kurtz:CR, 36, MFR 04018415, 12/16/03, CF.

33 suspect aircraft:The reports of inbound aircraft originated, as Mrs. Cheney’s notes suggest, as information from the Secret Service’s Joint Operations Center (JOC), which was in turn getting its information directly from the FAA. The incoming aircraft was likely United 93, which the Secret Service and its FAA contact were tracking on a screen that showed its projected path. Both were unaware that, as of 10:03, the flight that appeared on the screen to be approaching the capital had in fact already crashed. Within a minute or so of the confusing reports about Flight 93, the fighters out of Langley—just arriving over Washington—were also briefly mistaken as a threat (CR, 40–, Staff Statement 17, CO, Miles Kara, “9–11: Rules of Engagement,” www.oredigger61.org).

34 Mrs. Cheney noted:notes, “Office of the VP Notes,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF. The content of Mrs. Cheney’s notes come from a handwritten digest done by Commission staff, which was released in 2009. Mrs. Cheney’s original notes, like those of Scooter Libby, have not been released at the time of writing, nor has the Commission staff’s record of its interview of Josh Bolten. Bolten has disputed the way he was reported in the Commission Report. According to Cheney biographer Stephen Hayes, he said “he suggested Cheney call Bush not because the Vice President had overstepped his authority, but as a reminder that they should notify the President.” In his November interview with Newsweek , Libby would say, “I wouldn’t be surprised that there were—that there had already been discussion with the President about getting CAP [Combat Air Patrol] up.… I’m almost certain that they had already had discussions … as I say, I was not on those phone calls.” (Mrs. Cheney’s notes: “OVP Notes,” B1, Dana Hyde files, CF; Cheney/Libby/Bolten notes: corr. NARA’s Kristen Wilhelm, 2010; Bolten disputed: Hayes, 546n20; “I wouldn’t”: int. Libby by Newsweek , 11/16/01).