FDCH E-media
Thursday, June 17, 2004; 2:01 PM

SPEAKERS:

THOMAS H. KEAN,

COMMISSION CHAIRMAN

LEE H. HAMILTON,

COMMISSION VICE CHAIRMAN

RICHARD BEN-VENISTE,

COMMISSION MEMBER

MAX CLELAND,

COMMISSION MEMBER

FRED F. FIELDING,

COMMISSION MEMBER

JAMIE S. GORELICK,

COMMISSION MEMBER

SLADE GORTON,

COMMISSION MEMBER

JOHN F. LEHMAN,

COMMISSION MEMBER

TIMOTHY J. ROEMER,

COMMISSION MEMBER

JAMES R. THOMPSON,

COMMISSION MEMBER

BOB KERREY,

COMMISSION MEMBER

PHILIP ZELIKOW,

COMMISSION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

CHRISTOPHER KOJM,

COMMISSION DEPUTY EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

WITNESSES:

GENERAL RICHARD MYERS (USAF),

CHAIRMAN,

JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF

ADMIRAL (SELECT) CHARLES JOSEPH LEIDIG (USN),

COMMANDANT OF MIDSHIPMEN,

UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY

GENERAL RALPH E. EBERHART (USAF),

COMMANDER,

NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND

AND UNITED STATES NORTHERN COMMAND

MAJOR GENERAL LARRY ARNOLD (USAF, RET.)

FORMER COMMANDER,

CONTINENTAL UNITED STATES NORAD REGION

[*]

KEAN: Our first panel today will focus on the military's response on the morning of September 11th.

We are joined by a distinguished group of military leaders: General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and past commander of NORAD; Admiral Select Charles Joseph Leidig, current commandant of the Naval Academy, who served as deputy director of operations in the National Military Command Center on 9/11; General Ralph E. Eberhart, commander of NORAD and United States Northern Command; and retired Major General Larry Arnold, who served on 9/11 as the commander of the Continental United States NORAD region.

Could you please raise your hands while I place you under oath?

Do you swear or affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

You may be seated.

All written statements will be entered into the record in full.

We recognize that General Myers has to leave for another engagement so we'll proceed directly to questions after General Myers' opening statement. After General Myers departs, we'll proceed with the rest of the panel.

MYERS: Thank you, sir.

I have a brief statement and then we'll get right to questions.

First I want to thank the commission for your efforts to help our nation guard against future attacks. We share a common goal: to capture the lessons of September 11th, 2001, in order to better protect the American people.

You have my written statement and I'll just make a few comments so we have as much time left for questions.

First, our military posture on 9/11, by law, by policy and in practice was focused on responding to external threats, threats originating outside of our borders.

Nevertheless, we executed the continuity of government plan very well on 9/11, and our service men and women displayed superb professionalism, judgment and flexibility at every level that day. And I'm very proud of their performance.

That said, the lessons learned from 9/11 are many. Our armed forces efforts to respond militarily, reorganize our forces, define and effectively resource our evolving task and our missions, and revise our processes have been colossal and are still ongoing.

Day in and day out, our service men and women bravely combat terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq and other places around the world; maintain alert for the homeland defense mission here in the United States; and work phenomenal hours on headquarters staffs to do everything they can to keep America and our allies safe and free.

MYERS: I appreciate everyone who supports their efforts, including this committee, of course.

And with that, we'll take your questions.

KEAN: Thank you, sir.

The questioning this morning will be led by Commissioner Ben- Veniste and Commissioner Lehman.

Commissioner Ben-Veniste?

BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, gentlemen.

MYERS: Good morning, sir.

BEN-VENISTE: I'd like to start first by commending our staff for an extraordinary, detailed, 18-month investigation, which has provided the detail which we have provided today to the American public.

I want to say that nothing that we have found indicates anything but the highest commitment to duty and valor among the pilots and support personnel involved in the air mission on that infamous day of September 11th, 2001.

By the same token, General Myers, our staff has found that NORAD and FAA were unprepared for the type of attacks launched against the United States on September 11th, 2001.

And so I would like to ask you, sir, whether you and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs were made aware of the available information during the summer of threat in 2001, which reflected the preparations by Al Qaida for a spectacular attack against the United States, and specifically whether the information in the August 6th PDB was shared with you or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs?

MYERS: We were aware -- I think some of this information started flowing, intelligence information -- at the end of May. It continued to June, July, the August 6th memo. It talked, as I recall, about Al Qaida threat to United States primarily overseas.

MYERS: It was focused primarily on the Saudi Arabian peninsula is my memory of that. And that threat reporting continued through those months. And we were certainly aware of it.

But, in fact, we even took action when, I think it was in July, we actually sortied some ships out of Bahrain because of the threat in the peninsula area.

And that -- as I recall, the best estimate from the intel analysis was that it would take place either on the Saudi peninsula, perhaps in Turkey -- there was one mention I remember of Italy actually. And then there was potential threats to the United States but never including an aircraft.

BEN-VENISTE: Now, the PDB memo that I'm referring to specifically mentions FBI information of suspicious activity within this country consistent with the preparations for hijackings. Was that information shared with you?

MYERS: Not information, at least, that I saw, other than what was contained in the presidential daily brief memorandum, which I think was the last couple of paragraphs or last paragraph.

BEN-VENISTE: Was information shared with you, General, with respect to the arrest of Mr. Zacarias Moussaoui, which occurred on or about the 17th of August, in which the FBI quickly came to the conclusion that Mr. Moussaoui was a suicide hijacker, an individual with jihadist connections who had sought and received some training on a commercial airline?

MYERS: I don't recall. I simply can't recall. I think I would've but I don't recall.

BEN-VENISTE: Wouldn't that be something that you would recall?

MYERS: I would -- don't know. But -- pretty significant information, but I don't recall.

BEN-VENISTE: Had you received such information tying together the potential reflected in the August 6th PDB memorandum that was titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the United States" together with this additional information, might you have followed up on a training scenario, at the least, such as the Positive Force training scenario, where a hijacked plane was presumed to fly into the Pentagon, a proposal that was made and rejected in the year 2000?

MYERS: Well, a couple of things. I don't know that we would have because exercising alone is not enough. If you look at all, and you have -- you've looked at all the policy guidance we've gotten through the '90s into early 2000, 2001, all the policy guidance was that we treat terrorism primarily as a criminal event.

And the role of the Defense Department was to defend our forces, primarily, it was force protection, anti-terrorism, not counterterrorism. Counterterrorism responsibilities domestically were the FBI, externally were the CIA.

There was an exercise, and this was -- the idea was to stress the continuity of command in the one you referenced there. But it was an exercise focused on Korea and that's why the scenario was rejected, because it did not contribute to the exercise at hand.

I can't answer the hypothetical. It's more -- it's the way that we were directed to posture, looking outward. Those were the orders that NORAD had and has had for -- ever since the end of the Soviet Union when we had at that time I think it was 26 alert sites around the United States and we'd gone down to seven.

So it would have required more than exercising if you wanted to be effective and it would have been not just the military, because civilian agencies had the major role.

BEN-VENISTE: You've anticipated my next question. It might not be the entire answer, but it would be a start.

And let me ask you whether that might not have stimulated an effort to determine the level of communications with FAA which, as we determined, on September 11 were abysmal.

BEN-VENISTE: Would that not have also stimulated you, had you thought about the information had you received it, about an internal threat involving the United States air space involving the hijacking of commercial airliners by a suicide hijacker?

MYERS: It's certainly possible. And I can't -- you know, you just can't take hypothetical situations and say what you would have done in hindsight. I mean, obviously we've got pretty good hindsight at this point.

The communications between the FAA and NORAD were specifically designed for the hijacking scenario, but a hijacking scenario where NORAD's role was to track the aircraft, if it crashed to report the crash site, but certainly not to take -- it was not -- the understandings in the policy at the time was not these were hostile aircraft other than the fact they'd been hijacked. So it was to track that and help the FAA track that. And those were the rules that were standing at the time.

If we'd had definitive information, I think we would have probably taken steps, I hope, to work that. But to my knowledge, we didn't have that, sir.

BEN-VENISTE: Let me direct my remaining time to General Eberhart and General Arnold.

Why did no one mention the false report received from FAA that flight 11 was heading south during your initial appearance before the 9/11 Commission back in May of last year? And why was there no report to us that, contrary to the statements made at the time, that there had been no notification to NORAD that flight 77 was a hijack?

ARNOLD: Well, the first part of your -- Mr. Commissioner, first of all, I'd like to say that a lot of the information that you have found out in your study of this, of the 9/11 -- things that happened on that day -- helped us reconstruct what was going on.

If you're talking about the American 11 in particular, the call of the American 11 -- is that what you're referring to?

BEN-VENISTE: Yes.

ARNOLD: The American 11 that was called after it impacted, is that what you're referring to?

BEN-VENISTE: No. I'm talking about the fact that there was miscommunication that flight 11 was still heading south instead of having impacted...

ARNOLD: That's what I'm referring to. That's correct.

As we worked with your committee in looking at that, that was probably the point in time where we were concerned -- remember, that call, as I recall, actually came after United 175, as well as American 11, had already impacted the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center. Then we became very concerned -- not knowing what the call signs of those aircraft were that had hit the World Trade Center, we became very concerned at that particular point that those aircraft -- that some aircraft might be heading toward Washington, D.C.

BEN-VENISTE: General, is it not a fact that the failure to call our attention to the miscommunication and the notion of a phantom flight 11 continuing from New York City south, in fact, skewed the whole reporting of 9/11? It skewed the official Air Force report, which is contained in a book called "Air War Over America," which does not contain any information about the fact that you were following or thinking of a continuation of flight 11 and that you had not received notification that flight 77 had been hijacked?

ARNOLD: Well, as I recall, first of all, I didn't know the call signs of the airplanes when these things happened. When the call came that American 11 was a possible hijacked aircraft, that aircraft just led me to come to a conclusion that there were other aircraft in the system that were a threat to the United States.

BEN-VENISTE: General Arnold, surely by May of last year, when you testified before this commission, you knew those facts.

ARNOLD: I didn't recall those facts in May of last year. That's the correct answer to that.

In fact, as I recall, during that time frame, my concern was why did -- the question that came to me was, "Why did we scramble the aircraft out of Langley Air Force Base, the F-16s out of Langley Air Force Base?"

And there had been statements made by some that we scrambled that aircraft at a report of American 77, which was not the case and I knew that. And I was trying to remember in my own mind, what was it that persuaded us to scramble those aircraft.

And I thought at the time it was United 93. But as I was able to -- we did not have the times when we were notified of this. I did not have that information at that time.

BEN-VENISTE: General Arnold,...

ARNOLD: It didn't happen.

BEN-VENISTE: ...according to source...

ARNOLD: We scrambled those aircraft to get them over Washington, D.C., to protect Washington, D.C.

BEN-VENISTE: According to our staff, you know that there was a substantial problem in getting information from NORAD; that we received information, we were told that the information was complete, we went out into the field -- our staff did and did a number of interviews.

And as a result of those interviews, we found that there were tapes which reflected the facts relating to flight 11. And we found additional information by which we were able, through assiduous and painstaking work, listening to any number of tape recordings, to reconstruct what actually occurred as you have heard in the staff statement.

I take it you have no disagreement with the facts put forward in the staff statement. That's been produced in advance for comment and I take it you're in agreement now with our staff's conclusions with respect to those facts.

ARNOLD: I am.

BEN-VENISTE: We have -- and I'm not going to go through it, but it is disturbing to see that there were efforts at after-action reports, which were available shortly after 9/11.

BEN-VENISTE: There were communications which our staff has received with respect to e-mails that reflect some of the facts on nearly a contemporaneous basis with the 9/11 catastrophe, that reflect a story which unfortunately is different from the one which was presented to this commission earlier.

When you and General Eberhart were asked about the existence of tape recordings reflecting these open line communications, both of you indicated that you had such -- no such recollections.

EBERHART: Mr. Commissioner, I think it's important to note that I did not testify in front of this commission. So to say that I said that that day is categorically wrong.

BEN-VENISTE: I'm sorry, sir. I'm sorry. You are correct. I will refer to General Arnold's comments, both with respect to...

KEAN: This is the last question, Commissioner.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

EBERHART: Yes. The Northeast Air Defense sector apparently had a tape that we were unaware of at the time. And you're -- and to the best of my knowledge, what I've been told by your staff is that they were unable to make that tape run.

BEN-VENISTE: I'm told...

EBERHART: Though they were later able to -- your staff was able, through a contractor, to get that tape to run.

And so, to the best of my knowledge, that was an accurate statement in May that I did not know of any tape recordings. If I would have had them available to me, it certainly would have been -- I would have been able to give you more accurate information.

Our focus was on when the events occurred, and we did not focus on when we -- we didn't have a record -- I did not have a record of when we had been told different things.

BEN-VENISTE: In order to clarify it, and I apologize again, General Eberhart, the statement that I was referring to was a statement which we are advised was made to the staff. It was General McKinley, as well as General Arnold.

When I asked the question, "Let me ask you whether there's a regularly made tape recording of these open line indications?" General Arnold answered "Not to my knowledge," and General McKinley answered, "Not to my knowledge."

It was through the painstaking investigation that discovered these tapes and then our staff listening to those tapes which assisted us in being able to provide the level of detail and accuracy which we've done today.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KEAN: Thank you very much, Commissioner.

Commissioner Lehman, we're going to concentrate on questions for General Myers because of his schedule. But we can come back, and can see other members of the panel later when they have a little a more time.

LEHMAN: General Myers, we're particularly pleased to have you here because your service from '98 to 2000 commanding NORAD gives you particular authority in talking about this.

I think what disturbs us most with regard to NORAD is not so much that this was an unprecedented threat; and there were certainly problems relating to that with the orientation outward rather than inward, and the sad capabilities really compared to military radars of the FAA radars that had to be depended on for much of the information. What disturbs us most is that the glitches in command and control are glitches that had really nothing to do with the fact that it was an internal rather than external.

Because in the justification for maintaining NORAD, of course, the possibilities of intercepting hijacked airliners was part of the justification from the beginning. Although the expectation was they would be foreign airliners hijacked and incoming.

So the problems of command and control -- let's start at the top. Who was in charge on 9/11? Was it the NORAD commander? Was it you? Was it NMCC? Was it SecDef? Was it FAA? With all the exercising that had been done in the past, clearly someone should have been in charge but we have been unable to find out who it was.

And also, for all of my questions, if you could also say what's been done to change it and what's the situation today.

MYERS: That's a lot.

In terms of national command authorities, you've interviewed the president and the vice president and I'm not privy to that interview so I can't comment on that.

MYERS: I do know that the next person in the chain of command, Secretary Rumsfeld, was in contact with the president several times during that morning, then through the rest of the day, to include -- I believe it's at least two video teleconferences we had with the president -- I may be wrong, there may have only been one. But lots of conversations with the vice president.

LEHMAN: No, but I'm talking about operationally, the minute-by- minute.

MYERS: Operationally, General Eberhart was on duty and at his duty station, as was General Arnold.

In fact, the first call I got when I left Capitol Hill, after a meeting with Senator Cleland, was from General Eberhart saying, "We've had these crashes and that we're going to take certain actions," and it was shortly thereafter that the Pentagon was hit as we were on our way back to the Pentagon.

So, as you know, I'm not in the chain of command, I'm a military adviser to the chain of command and to the National Security Council. So I went back to my duty station. And we -- what we started doing at that time was to say, "OK, we've had these attacks. Obviously they're hostile acts. Not sure at that point who perpetrated them."

And my focus at that point, and I think the secretary's focus, was, "OK, what else is out there that is possibly going to happen either in the United States or in other regions of the world?" And that's where we started to focus, "What is the next event to happen?" It might not be an airliner, it might be some other attack.

So we just -- we were looking outward. We were on a threat conference that developed, as you all know, and NORAD was represented on that. I had several conversations that day and early that morning with General Eberhart as we talked our way through the actions that were being taken.

So as far as I'm concerned, the command and control was -- it was in place, the secretary, except for the short period of time that he went outside to examine where the aircraft came into the Pentagon and then to help, because at that point they needed hands and he lended his hand to help those injured and those responding, but then came back in some time around 10 o'clock and was upstairs -- I know he talked to the president, I know he -- some time in there I know he went to the -- what we call the ESC, but where the communications for the secretary's office goes through.

He was up there, he had a VTC with the White House. And about 10:30 he came down to the National Military Command Center where we joined up and we stayed joined the rest of the day together.

LEHMAN: Let's talk a little bit about technology and...

MYERS: Can I just mention one other thing...

LEHMAN: Sure.

MYERS: ... because you asked me to tell you what we've done?

In the National Military Command Center, that day the -- we did have trouble trying to conference the FAA into our threat conference that was ongoing, so we had to use a separate phone line for that which was not as efficient. That's been corrected.

And as you know, our posture today is quite a bit different as we look at this threat and other potential threats. So we've improved our communications and we've refined our procedures, both with the White House, with the FAA. And those procedures are in effect and are exercised.

LEHMAN: Assets -- I understand that there was a great argument during the period before 9/11 about whether NORAD should exist at all and the reduction from 23 to seven sites.

Why, given the increasing threat discussion of the possibility of hijackings and the intentions of Al Qaida, was this such a big issue? Because with so many fighter aircraft based around the country, Reserve, Guard, Navy, Marine, Air Force, why is it an asset issue?

LEHMAN: Why can't there be a much broader allocation of assignment of alert throughout the country to deal with the threat that was becoming so evident?

MYERS: I think it's because the threat was not perceived to be so evident and we were following the same guidance that we got right after the fall of the Soviet Union, is where is the dividend from this? And so forces were scaled down, alert facilities, which are expensive to maintain, were closed and we wound up with those seven sites. And I think you all know where they are.

LEHMAN: But why is that so, I mean, why do they have to be owned assets? Why is it so expensive just to require rotating units to sit on alert and keep the aircraft armed as opposed to their normal training cycle?

MYERS: Well, it's just the, kind of -- it's the priorities that the Defense Department goes through to balance risk, and again the threat perception was not there to balance that risk and...

LEHMAN: It seems to me to be a false dichotomy because the assets exist. They're there. All of the services have huge training ready capabilities. It's not as if you have to buy and own separate aircraft for NORAD. Why is it even an issue?

MYERS: And that was -- and, by the way, that was the NORAD plan. The NORAD plan was, as the threat became more apparent, then we had access to Navy, Marine and Air Force aircraft. And we brought them up -- I think, the last number I remember, we could bring 3,000 aircraft to defend this country, not to mention the Canadian aircraft that would be participating, as well. So we could bring them up. We had alert sites designated.

So the plan was to do that, but you had to start with the perception of the threat and what we were asked to do. And our clear direction was to look outward.

And in fact, as General Arnold said, we fought many phantoms that day. I remember getting to the NMCC and we got the call that a bomb had gone off in front of the State Department. So you think, "Oh, my goodness what else is happening in this town?" We got many aircraft calls inbound that morning that turned out to be phantoms.

So we were clearly looking outward. We did not have the situational awareness inward because we did not have the radar coverage. And that, by the way, will become an issue here later on as we discuss the fate of the FAA radars that exist in this country today, whether or not we keep radars and have situational awareness for the interior of this country.

LEHMAN: Why shouldn't there be -- why shouldn't the Air Force, today, and the Army, the military, look at our domestic defense as part of their mission in terms of the air space? It's a huge gap between the normal, common capabilities of tactical units, not only strategic units, of the radar sophistication and capability compared to what the FAA is stumbling along with.

LEHMAN: What do you recommend we do about that?

MYERS: They are doing it.

In fact, Army radars and Army air defense systems, as you know, are part of our defense of certain places. The National Capital Region is one of those places.

We also have, as you know, lots of aircraft on alert today where we can respond to those potential sites that we have identified that might be of interest to future terrorist actions. So today there are a lot of resources being brought to that.

I think General Eberhart will recommend and has recommended to the department that we work with the FAA to determine who's going to pay for the radars for the interior of the country so we can have the situational awareness that we think we need. And that's being debated now.

My guess is it will be a '06 budget issue as we go forward. And your recommendations in that regard would be helpful.

LEHMAN: As you know, the Israeli air force has exercised, practiced and developed techniques for dealing with hijacked aircraft for years and years. For instance, they carry special missiles that are designed not to destroy airliners but to force them to land, missiles with inert warheads and other sophisticated gear.

What have you guys done to equip our Air Guard and other NORAD potentially assigned units with the training, with the rules of engagement and the hardware that gives them an option other than what we have now, which is just to destroy the aircraft and all its passengers?

MYERS: I'm aware of at least one program which is classified, so we can either talk about it off-line or provide you the classified paper on it, there may be others, to do exactly that.

LEHMAN: President Bush told us in our interview that he was deeply dissatisfied with the ability to communicate from Air Force One. He told us that this was a very major flaw.

Has this been fixed? And are you personally satisfied that those communications have been improved sufficiently so that he will have -- a president will have the connectivity that he didn't have that day?

MYERS: Let me answer that for the record so I can be very specific on that. Let me answer that for the record.

LEHMAN: OK.

One of the happy instances of the day was that NORAD happened to be fully mobilized in a C.P. exercise and had everybody, in effect, at battle stations.

LEHMAN: And even so, we saw these glitches, like the failure to pass on rules of engagements to the pilots over the capital area.

If they hadn't been at fully mobilized status, what would have happened then? Would it have been much worse?

MYERS: Well, I'd let General Eberhart answer that.

But from my experience, no, it wouldn't have been much worse. It was fortuitous that that was the case. But certainly at the Northeast Air Defense Sector, Southeast, the CONR region, at NORAD, there are people that are always on duty to respond. And whether or not we'd had the exercise or not, people would have responded.

And my best estimate is that the response would have been very similar, even with not having all those additional people that might have been present for an exercise.

But I'd let General Eberhart talk about that.

LEHMAN: The Secret Service has told us that they had repeatedly, before 9/11, requested alert aircraft to protect the capital, particularly at Andrews Air Force Base and other air defense, and that this was never acted on by the Pentagon.

Was there a reason why that was not...

MYERS: That never came to my attention. I was never -- as the vice chairman at the time, and I started in 1 March of 2000, from the time I was the vice chairman I was never aware -- or even as NORAD -- I was never aware of a request from the Secret Service for that kind of service.

LEHMAN: But when you were NORAD commander, there had already been a private aircraft that crashed into the White House grounds. There were repeated and written worries about the potential for private aircraft to make suicide attacks. And there were 11 separate intelligence reports circulating broadly through the intelligence community that Al Qaida had planned to use aircraft as weapons, although the focus was overseas.

Didn't anybody at NORAD try to connect the dots and say that, "This is something we've got to worry about, that it's a target in the capital area, that we better get ready for it?"

But, instead, when even NORAD's own planning staff proposed to include in exercises the dealing with hijacked suicide aircraft, it was rejected by NORAD, by the NORAD commander -- I think it was after your time -- as something to be exercised and planned for.

MYERS: I think it was rejected -- and General Eberhart can be clear on this -- I don't think it was by the commander. I think it was the planning group that was meeting because it did not fit the scenario at the time.

But the use of aircraft as weapons, as a missile -- other than World War II and the kamikaze situation, I'm not aware -- and I've tried to research this and the best information that I get -- I am not aware that an aircraft has ever been used as a weapon.

Now, there have been landings on the White House lawn. There was a landing in Red Square. There have been lots of stupid things. There was talk about crashing airplanes into the CIA. But in most of that threat reporting leading up to 9/11, it was hijacking an airplane and in the normal hijack mode, not in the mode of a weapon.

Now, there were some talks about in post-hijack situations where they talked to the people or where the demands were made that they were going to crash, in one instance, into the Eiffel Tower. But even the work that was done, the hijackings that were planned for the Philippines, which is a well-known plot, they planned to hijack the airplanes and blow them up, primarily.

So, no, the threat perception, the intelligence did not point to this kind of threat. I think that explains it.

LEHMAN: Final question: As NORAD commander and now as chairman, were you then and are you now satisfied with the intelligence product that your J-2 provides to you?

MYERS: Well, we've got a wonderful J-2 and we've got a pretty good process. Information sharing is better today among the intel agencies, both civilian and military and the CIA.

It can be improved. We still have a ways to go in that regard. It still, when we get threat warnings, you know the venue, the type of attack -- those kind of details are usually lacking.

And we do have, as I think people well understand, and it was announced publicly by, I think, the attorney general the other day, still threats to the United States. And as a free nation with the freedom that we enjoy, we've -- Secretary Ridge says, you know, we've got to be right every time, and a suicide operative only has to be right once. And we worry about that very much.

And with General Eberhart's hat as Northern Command I think helps to focus all of this in ways that we couldn't do before 9/11 because we've organized ourselves much differently.

But am I satisfied? No, I'll never be satisfied. This is very tough work.

LEHMAN: Thank you, General.

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.

GORELICK: General Myers, if you listen to the staff statement this morning, I think the question that has to be on the minds of the American people is: Where was our military when it should have been defending us? I think that's a fair question from a layman's point of view.

And the response of NORAD, which you used to command and which General Eberhart now commands, is that NORAD was not postured to defend us domestically unless someone was coming at us from abroad.

And that has lots of implications: It has implications for where our fighters were to dispatch, how much we cared about the internal radars which didn't function particularly well, which you were, at NORAD, dependent on. It has implications for whether you can communicate with your fighter pilots when they're up in the air in the interior of the country. It has implications for how you quickly get authorities to the pilots.

And so I want to explore very briefly this question with you. Because for years the Department of Defense did, in fact, resist having a domestic mission, and with all due respect, said, "This was a law enforcement function; we do not have a domestic role." It was very uncomfortable with that role and I think it's important to address that.

Now, that's why I come back to this word "posture." We were postured against an external threat.

In my experience, the military is very clear about its charters and who is supposed to do what. And so, if you go back and you look at the foundational documents for NORAD, they do not say "defend us only against a threat coming in from across the ocean or across our borders."

It has two missions, and one of them is control of the airspace above the domestic United States, and aerospace control is defined as "providing surveillance and control of the air space of Canada and the United States."

To me, that air sovereignty concept means that you have a role which, if you were postured only externally, you defined out of the job.

So I have two questions for you.

By what process was it decided to only posture us against a foreign threat, if you will?

GORELICK: And two, if you look at, you know, the threats that were postulated to the military, in the 1996 Olympics of a domestic hijacking, flying a plane into one of the stadiums in Atlanta, the 1998 PDB about an aircraft loaded with explosives, the kind of exercise that we did around the NATO 50th anniversary, the Genoa G-8, the threats that Secretary Lehman is talking about, I would like to know, as a second question, is it your job, and if not, whose job is it, to make current assessments of a threat and decide whether you're positioned correctly to carry out a mission which, at least on paper, NORAD had?

And I apologize for the length of the question, but it is of some complexity and also importance. Thank you.

MYERS: A couple of comments there, Ms. Gorelick.

First, I don't know that the military's ever resisted. I mean, those are your words.

What we try to do is follow the law. And the law is pretty clear in Posse Comitatus, and that is whether or not the military should be involved in domestic law enforcement. And, as you know, the president can waive that and the states' National Guard can be used by the governor under Title 32 to participate in that.

And that's all very important. It's still being debated today. And my view on that has, kind of, changed a little bit from prior to 9/11 to today. And that's still the debate. And you can you help with that debate.

GORELICK: Let me just interrupt. When I was general counsel to the Defense Department, I repeatedly advised, and I believe others have advised, that the Posse Comitatus Act says you can't arrest people. It doesn't mean that the military has no authority, obligation or ability to defend the United States from attacks that happen to happen in the domestic United States. And we will help with you that if there's any lack of clarity on that yet today.

MYERS: Well, we'll leave that to the lawyers, because my view is -- I don't know if there's lack of clarity, but there's probably a plethora of opinions on it.

In terms of the '96 Olympics, as far as I know, there was no air threat postulated. I do know the FAA instituted some temporary flight restrictions, but they were so small they could not have prevented an aircraft from entering and crashing into a venue, but it was more done to just deconflict the air traffic over these venues so it did not congest there.

But certainly our job today in the military, and my job, is to look at the current threat assessment, and now that we have an organization such as Northern Command to do the same, to look at how we can better defend this country against threats that are not traditional.

MYERS: Again, at the time, terrorism was viewed as a criminal act and we have changed that, I think, in our government and it's viewed a little more broadly now, which I personally think is absolutely right. But that view had persisted for over 10 years as I read back through all the policy documents.

So certainly our job today is to look at the threat assessment and figure out how we, in the military, can help protect this country. And this is something that I spent a lot of time on; I know General Eberhart does.

And we're looking at ways that are beyond -- I mean, if we need legislation, if we need policy changed, we're looking at ways to do that, because we think that's our responsibility clearly.

Did I answer both questions?

GORELICK: Yes and no. And my time has expired.

MYERS: And, Mr. Chairman, I apologize, but I need to get to the next venue up in New York.

KEAN: OK. Thank you very much for coming, sir.

MYERS: Thank you, Governor.

KEAN: Thank you.

We have questions now for the remaining members of the panel.

Senator Kerrey?

I'm sorry, you have some statements to make first. If you'd like to make your statements, then we'll call on Senator Kerrey.

Do you have statements that you'd like to read? I know you have submitted some.

EBERHART: Sir, I've submitted my statement for the record and I think in the interest of time and so that we address the issues that the commissioners would like to address, I will not make any further remarks at this time.

KEAN: OK. Would either of the -- General Leidig, General Arnold?

If not, then Senator Kerrey.

KERREY: Actually, it was a question for General Myers, but perhaps General Eberhart you can take it.

Do you know what NORAD's experience is in intercepting planes prior to 9/11?

EBERHART: Sir, we can provide that for the record, but I think the staff has that in terms of how many launches that we conducted each year back to about 1900 and why we were launched, and how many of those were suspected hijacks and what the roles we played. We can provide that for the record.

KERREY: I appreciate it.

I've got some concern for the military in this whole situation, because the optics for me is that you all are taking a bullet for the FAA.

KERREY: I appreciate that may be wrong but that's how it appears. Because, General Arnold, you in particular on the day, covered yourself in glory. And I think the military performed, under the circumstances, exceptionally well.

And I don't understand why the -- and again, General Myers is the guy to ask because there was a briefing at the White House on the 17th of September. And it feels like something happened in that briefing that produced almost a necessity to deliver a story that's different than what actually happened on that day.

Now, General Arnold, is that an unfair optic on my part?

Because, as I said, if you look at what you all did on that day, it's hard to find fault. And we really haven't uncovered this stuff. I mean, it's readily available; I mean, the facts are all there. And so it leaves the impression that there was an attempt to create a unified story here. And has you all, as I said, taken a bullet for the FAA. Because the FAA should have told you what was going on, it seems to me.

It must be agonizing -- you know, you lost 50 military personnel in the Pentagon and 75 civilians in the Pentagon on that day. It must be agonizing to know that the Secret Service had information you didn't have.

Help me out here. Am I looking at this wrong? Because, as I said, it looks like you guys did a good job on that day. And now it, you know, just gives the appearance that you're standing in front of the FAA and unnecessarily so.

EBERHART: Sir, I'd like to answer that question.

And, first of all, there's no scheme here or plot to spin this story to try to cover or take a bullet for anyone. And I, for one, from the day after 9/11 to today, do not get into FAA-bashing because as I could imagine being on those screens that morning, as I can imagine being in their shoes and the confusion that existed that morning.

Obviously, we know we could have done it better. We know today that we're doing it better. And most importantly, we know tomorrow we must do it even better.

But there's no spin here for us to cover. We wish we would have done things much like as outlined by the commissioners that we now do because of what happened on 9/11. But I can assure you that we didn't get together and decide that we were going to cover for anybody or take a bullet for anybody.

KERREY: Who briefed the White House on the 17th of September. Were you part of that briefing?

EBERHART: Sir, I don't know. I was not part of that briefing. The 17th of September, we were pretty much still bunkered down.

KERREY: Yes, I think General Myers was the one who briefed. Unfortunately, he's gone, so I can't ask him the question of what happened in that briefing.

General Arnold, I presume you didn't accompany and weren't a part of that briefing?

ARNOLD: The only thing I could add is that the FAA -- we were dependent on the FAA on 9/11. And the FAA -- I thought we worked very well together, in spite of the fact that we were not postured to handle that threat.

ARNOLD: We were in the process of launching aircraft all over the country during that time frame. We had multiple aircraft called hijacked all over the country. We were trying to stand down all the aircraft that were flying in case there were others.

And we could not pass centrally an order to our aircraft. We had by the end of that day -- I think General Eberhart would confirm this -- we had hundreds of aircraft airborne on orbit in case there was another attack on the United States. And the only way we could communicate with those aircraft, for the most part, was through the FAA. And so we worked hand in glove with the FAA in order to make that work.

KERREY: Well, I appreciate your wanting not to bash the FAA, but, my God, I mean, the Cleveland Center said, "Somebody needs to notify the military to scramble planes," and they didn't. You'd have had an additional 30 minutes of notification.

Now, as it turns out, the passengers on 93 took care of it for us. I don't consider it to be bashing just to say to them, "My God, you guys should have notified us and didn't." That's a fairly significant breakdown.

I want to also just briefly bring to your attention something I did yesterday. Again, it's more directly at the guy who just left, General Myers, but when he says, "We were focused externally," you know, we have 10 military attacks against the United States, either attempted and successful or attempted and interrupted, from 1992 through September 11th by Al Qaida, and we knew it all. We have the whole story.

Again, the 9/11 commission didn't undercover this stuff, a lot of this was just open information that we had.

And of those 10, all but one involved suicide. One of them involved the plot to try to take over airplanes and blow them up, but they were U.S. aircraft out of Manila.

Again, if I was sitting in General Myers' or any of your shoes it'd make me just a little bit angry that that information wasn't delivered so that your attention was directed inside the United States, because there were military attacks against military personnel, including rangers in Mogadishu, and we know have at least corroborating evidence that there was involvement in the Khobar Towers incident.

And General Myers says it was treated as law enforcement. That's technically true, but there was a significant, it seems to me, military involvement as well.

Anyway, that's more of a -- as I said, the guy I wanted to ask the question for is gone. But I think you're entitled to criticize, and I think you're entitled to be angry, looking at the narrative over the last 10 years.

KEAN: Thank you, Senator.

Governor Thompson?

THOMPSON: This is a question for everyone on the panel to the extent they can answer it.

If everything had gone perfectly on the morning of September 11th, if all the information from the controllers -- and I assume you now accept the staff statement of the timeline of all of these things as correct.

THOMPSON: Let's start from that premise.

If everything had gone perfectly, if all the information that the controllers had had gone smoothly to FAA command centers, if all the information the FAA command centers had gone smoothly to the military, the vice president's authorization to shoot down intruding aircraft had been communicated to the pilots, would it have been physically possible for the military pilots to have shot down the airplane that hit the first tower, the airplane that hit the second tower, and the airplane that hit the Pentagon?

Assuming everything had gone perfectly, everybody was perfectly prepared, focused inward, scrambled, armed, all the authorization there, all the information there, would it have been physically possible for the military to have intercepted those three aircraft before they completed their terrible mission?

EBERHART: Sir, our modeling, which we've shared with the staff, reflects that giving the situation that you've outlined, which we think is a situation that exists today, because of the fixes, the remedies put in place, we would be able to shoot down all three aircraft -- all four aircraft.

KEAN: Commissioner Fielding?

FIELDING: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Gentlemen, in preparation for this hearing I went back and I read the staff interviews, in particular General Eberhart and General Arnold's interviews with our staff. And we thank you all for cooperating with our staff as you have.

But the question I have is that I was disturbed when I read them at things you said about the state of readiness of NORAD on November 11th. And I would hope that you would share those with us again today.

FIELDING: And let's discuss what steps were taken, how can we help, and what recommendations would you have.

I was particularly, General Arnold, concerned about your statements about -- but really we only had token air sovereignty. And so I would appreciate your comments, please.

EBERHART: Sir, General Myers referenced an ongoing debate after the implosion of the Soviet Union and the fall of the wall. And that centered on, was NORAD a Cold War relic that we did not need because the Soviet Union was no longer our enemy, and a much different Russia than the Soviet Union we faced for decades.

And so again, there was great debate during the '90s. And we came very close to having zero airplanes on alert during this debate. And that was one of the options and one of the options that many times was an option that almost went to the end game. So thank goodness cooler heads prevailed -- and in many cases, this came from our National Guard, our Air National Guard -- and we did have some aircraft on alert that day, and the ability then, as General Myers said, based on actionable intelligence, based on a change in the threat to then increase the number of airplanes on alert, increase the number of alert sites across North America from Alaska through Canada to the continental United States.

And it was, again, a question of dollars: How much was it going to cost, even though the airplanes were already there, to have them on alert, have them armed, have them not available to go to fight Iraq in the first war and not have them available in Bosnia, Kosovo, et cetera? There was this debate because there was an attendant cost.

The good news is that we had the airplanes on alert that day and we were able to be flexible and put more aircraft on alert. The bad news is that we only had 14 airplanes on alert, seven alert sites.

But I must caution you, Commissioner, that even if I look at the height of the Cold War, and I looked at our posture in the height of the Cold War and where we had airplanes on alert, given the notification we had that day, we still had a time/distance problem where we would not have been able to respond to these threats.

Atlantic City is the only alert site that we had in the vicinity of the threats during the height of the Cold War that we did not have that day. And Atlantic City, given the timelines we had, would not have been able to get there on time.

FIELDING: General?

ARNOLD: I was on the side of the argument, as General Eberhart remembers, that, because I had been in the air defense business all my life, who was concerned about our air defense. But when you're making priorities, you have to decide where you're going to spend your money.

ARNOLD: And I think the Hart-Rudman study had indicated that the biggest threat to the United States in the aftermath of the demise of the Soviet Union was from rogue nations or terrorists. Our focus then was what can we do to thwart a terrorist attack from outside the borders again. This is a focus that we had before.

And we were involved in that. We were working with NORAD, we were working with General Myers, later with General Eberhart, in trying to be able to bring in radars that we didn't have available to us at all times, to be able to bring them into the system. And it was an ACTD, advanced concept technology demonstration, that we had, and it was ongoing and funded.

So we were focused on the terrorist threat, but we certainly weren't focused on the terrorist threat and the way that it was -- that it came down on 9/11.

FIELDING: But is the situation better today or is it worse or is it the same?

EBERHART: Sir, the situation is much better. Obviously, you don't have anyone questioning whether or not we should have aircraft on alert. You don't have anyone questioning whether or not we should have an integrated air defense system here in the nation's capital and other places, like the G-8.

There's no question in terms of priorities, and then obviously we have the material and the procedural solutions and changes that we've outlined that are in our statement.

And if we have a concern, it's the concern that the chairman outlined briefly, and that is the future of these FAA radars. We've netted those all together now, added almost 100 radars so that we have that visibility in our command centers at NORAD. We can't let that atrophy.

And then we have to look for technology over time that allows us to even have better situation awareness of our air space and the approaches to this nation and over this nation.

EBERHART: And that's where I believe we really need to concentrate.

But I feel compelled to mention that NORAD's not the right way to work this problem. It is the force of last resort. If you use us, if we have to be used, if we have to take action, it takes a bad situation from getting worse because everybody on that airplane will die.

So, I mean, this is a stop-gap, final measure. We have to take it. We have to be prepared. But where we really need to focus is destroying these terrorist networks, not allowing them into our country. Don't allow them into our airports. Don't allow them on our aircraft. And if they get on our aircraft, don't let them take control of the airplane. That's where we must focus.

FIELDING: Thank you, gentlemen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

THOMPSON: Mr. Chairman, I really need to re-ask my question because I think we've gotten two different answers from General Eberhart. And I want to be fair to him and have the public understand, if I might.

General, I think you may have misunderstood my question because you prefaced your answer, "If we were postured then as we are postured now." And then in response to another question, you said we could -- the timeline, given the time and distance, you could have not shut down the planes. So let me re-ask it to give you a fair chance.

Assuming we were postured as we were then, forget now. And assuming that the timelines in Staff Statement Number 17 are correct, as I think we all now concede they are, would it have been physically possible -- if everything had gone right in terms of communication of information and communication of orders, would it still physically have been possible for the military pilots to have shot down either the plane that hit the first World Trade tower, the plane that hit the second World Trade tower or the plane that hit the Pentagon?

EBERHART: Sir, I'm sorry if I misunderstood your question. I assumed, in the preface to your question, you assumed that FAA told us as soon as they knew.

THOMPSON: Right.

EBERHART: And if that is the case, yes, we could shoot down the airplanes.

THOMPSON: All right. Thank you, General.

HAMILTON: Commissioner Roemer?

EBERHART: The difference in the answers is that in answering the next question, I assume that they told us when they actually told us on 9/11.

HAMILTON: Commissioner Roemer?

ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Vice Chair.

I have a couple of questions: one about how we pass on intelligence from the FBI and the CIA to our military intelligence, how you gather your intelligence and pass it out; and, two, I want to ask a question or two about the vice president's shoot-down order and how it was conveyed and why it was not executed in terms of passed on to the pilots.

First of all, back to the original question, we've heard time and time again about domestic threats and terrorists potentially getting a hold of an airplane and using it as a weapon.

We had extensive testimony from Richard Clarke at the NSC, where in 1996 in the Olympics, he was so worried that the terrorists are going to either commandeer a plane or somehow use a plane as a weapon against that venue that he goes to the unbelievable extent of lashing up Treasury, Secret Service, having sharp shooters out of helicopters that can at least shoot at an airplane that might be coming at the Olympic Village. That threat is very real.

ROEMER: We continue to hear, however, from so many of our witnesses that, "It wasn't contemplated, it wasn't possible, it wasn't really in our exercise."

Were you aware, General Eberhart, when you came into this job, in your position, that that effort had taken place in 1996?

EBERHART: No, sir.

ROEMER: Were you aware today, when you walked in the room?

EBERHART: Yes, sir.

ROEMER: Why weren't we better prepared at that kind of a training posture?

EBERHART: Sir, I think the most important message is: I wish we had have been.

But at the same time, I can tell you that we didn't have any what we call actionable intelligence, intelligence that said that you need to change your posture, you need to change your orientation, you need to do all the things that we've since done.

As we look at all the threats out there that we postulate, and many at the rostrum up there know this, we can't develop that capability across our government, across our federal forces, or we'd break the bank -- we'd break the bank. We have to take those things that we think are most likely and prepare for those. And tragically, tragically, we were wrong here.

But the important thing to note is that this is not a zero-defect operation. I mean, at this very minute, if somebody wants to take off in a small airport in Kansas and fly five or 10 minutes and crash someplace, I don't care what posture we develop, we can't preclude that -- we can't preclude that. Nor do I think people -- citizens want to preclude that, but it's cost-prohibitive, and what it does to our freedoms and our liberties is something that we're not prepared for.

ROEMER: Well, let's go on to the second part of the question then, when we really do have information, at least a possibility that information is being conveyed from the vice president to NORAD that we have a threat out there -- and this is so surprising, so shocking to some people, that I believe it's Colonel Marr decides not to convey the vice president's order on to the pilots that are circling around Washington.

Now, it may be highly unlikely that they could have done something, given that 93 has already crashed, but the fact is it was not passed on to those pilots that were protecting the city.

How long would it have taken to authenticate that if the colonel decides to pass that on at a later time? Why didn't he at least attempt to say to those pilots, "This is a very tough thing to understand, but here's what the vice president of the United States has ordered for our military to consider for a specific target in Washington, D.C."?

EBERHART: Obviously, I'd be speculating about what Colonel Marr -- why he made that decision.

ROEMER: You haven't asked him this in an after-action report?

EBERHART: We have. We have.

ROEMER: What did he say?

EBERHART: There was great concern that morning, Commissioner, on my behalf, on Larry Arnold and Bob Marr, as the chain of command goes, that we were very concerned about the ability to shoot down a hijacked airplane. But, frankly, we were just as concerned about making a mistake.

And if you think this is an interesting session here this morning and what you've been through, had we made a mistake on that morning, or subsequent days, I would offer, it has a much different...

ROEMER: Mistake, meaning that you shoot down the wrong airliner?

EBERHART: Exactly.

So that was at the forefront of Bob Marr's concern is, "We don't have a confirmed hijacking right now, let's make sure we clearly understand this order, convey it properly, so that in fact we do not make a mistake."

ROEMER: Wouldn't eliminating the possibility of mistake be better enhanced by starting that order rather than introducing it as soon as you have the possibility of making a mistake?

ROEMER: Doesn't the possibility of making a mistake gather likelihood and possibility increase the later you introduce such an unusual order into the system?

EBERHART: I don't believe so.

I believe that if you qualify and transmit that order in terms and then language in the lexicon the pilots will understand, then you reduce the chance of making a mistake.

KEAN: Senator Gorton?

GORTON: General Eberhart, General Arnold, I want to associate myself with the remarks that Senator Kerrey made that, under the circumstances, especially as we've outlined them here today, the response of NORAD was quite remarkable, particularly given the fact that this was so unprecedented and we were dealing with a different kind of hijacking than we had previously anticipated.

It seems to me, however, that it was remarkable in part because people didn't necessarily go through the appropriate chains of command. Whatever the mistakes that the FAA made here in Washington, D.C., Boston called Otis directly, which it was not supposed to do. And Colonel Marr responded immediately under -- according to our statement here, by ordering the Otis fighters to battle stations.

Did Colonel Marr have the authority to do that without it coming from someone other than just a request from Otis? Was he acting on his own in making that decision?

ARNOLD: Of course, Colonel Marr is commander of the Northeast Air Defense Sector, so that communication -- they called the tower, as I understand it, at Otis first and then they called Colonel Marr.

GORTON: OK.

ARNOLD: And he did have the authority to put them on battle stations certainly. He then called me.

GORTON: And you told him?

ARNOLD: He said, "I'd like to scramble them," that's what he told me.

GORTON: And you said, "Scramble, I'll get the authority later."

ARNOLD: Exactly.

GORTON: So were you exercising an authority that you didn't have? Should you have gone higher before you ordered the scramble?

ARNOLD: I didn't order a scramble.

The issue is whether or not we intercept the hijacked airplane. So we got the airplanes airborne, put them out in the warning area where they are allowed to fly anyway, then to determine whether we're going to have the priorities to do that.

GORTON: And so, you had to go higher up before you sent them to New York?

ARNOLD: Sure. I called General Finley (ph), who is the -- your D.O., and told him what we're doing. He said, "Fine, we'll get the authorities."

ARNOLD: And the fact that they were going toward New York, from my perspective, because that's where the warning areas was initially because we didn't know that -- we certainly didn't know that the hijacked airplane, even after we saw on television the smoking hole in the World Trade Center, as tragic as it was, we did not know that that was caused by one of the hijacked airplanes.

GORTON: And that's not in the report that we gave here today, but I understand from our staff that in your -- in a staff interview with you, General Arnold, you said that if you had deemed it necessary, you would have communicated a shoot-down order even though you hadn't heard through the secretary of defense or the vice president or anyone else if you felt that it was necessary. Is that correct?

ARNOLD: I sure hope that I would never have to come to that.

I think it was a reference to United 93. United 93, very shortly, I guess by the time we had heard about it, your staff tells me, because we did not know that, the airplane had already hit the ground up in Pennsylvania thanks to the heroic efforts of those passengers that were on board.

And the question that came to me was, "What would you have done?" And we were, at that time, seeking presidential authority to shoot that aircraft down as we were flying toward it. So it never came to that point.

But it, very typical in intercept, you try to get that airplane, get beside of them, get their attention, see if they respond to you, and based on what had happened earlier -- and we knew what happened earlier, obviously -- the question came to me, "What would you have done?" And using some emergency authorities, and God help me if I'd ever have to do this, we would have given the order to shoot them down.

GORTON: And you would have been taking a huge responsibility on yourself in doing that, would you not?

ARNOLD: It would have, yes. But at that particular point in time, we fully anticipated that we would get presidential authority.

GORTON: Now, you saw earlier, during the course of the staff presentation, the very elaborate system of going up through the FAA and then down through the military before many of these orders can be made, in theory, at least. I take it, General Eberhart, that that chain of command is somewhat attenuated now and we can respond much more quickly.

EBERHART: Yes, sir, it is and for a variety of reasons. I mean, we go all the way to the cockpit. In the cockpit today, if anything happens in that airplane that seems unusual, the first thing the crew does is get off a call and change their transponder. So time starts to work for us right there.

The second thing that happens that is as soon as there's a problem, and FAA knows we're listening on the same network, and we know as soon as the FAA knows that there is a problem.

EBERHART: And then as we start to get more information, we'll put aircraft on battle stations or we'll even launch them even if FAA hasn't asked or TSA has not asked us. Because, as Larry said, we can launch them anytime we want to, send them on a training sortie and head them toward what we think might be the problem.

So that type of cooperation and coordination, coupled with this increased situational awareness of netting the radars and, in some cases, data link where we can data link that target right to the cockpit of the airplane, makes us much more responsive and unlikely to have the problems that we had on 9/11.

GORTON: Thank you very much to both of you.

KEAN: I've got a couple of questions.

First of all, besides the sites you had, the 14 alerted planes, the seven sites, what about other assets? I mean, did you have -- what about the National Guard sites, Coast Guard, Customs, Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms? Usually you think of those planes, you look at -- whatever -- being alert and ready.

What about those assets? Have you had those available to you?

EBERHART: Sir, on 9/11, in terms of the other assets, we did not track them and we were not linked to them from other government agencies, and so we had not factored it into our air defense because we believed the attack was going to come in the form of an enemy bomber at 35,000 feet at 0.8 Mach, et cetera, and they don't have that capacity or capability to deal with that.

They are now factored in.

KEAN: So you had no link to those other assets on that day and you do now?

EBERHART: Exactly.

Now, no link is not exactly right. As we work some drug enforcement issues, we worked with different organizations where -- that we would -- if they didn't have an asset available, we would go track an asset for them and tell them what we saw, identify it and tell them where it landed, and then it was a law enforcement issue in terms of suspected drug trafficking. So we had that linkage through different organizations.

But I think it's important to note and it goes back to Commissioner Lehman's question, is that we have access to all those assets, but right now if we had to go get them right this minute and have them take off, they're not armed.

EBERHART: They're not armed. They're not armed for good reason because they're going to go fly a training sortie, so you don't want to be up there flying training sorties armed.

So we would have to upload the munitions. And so therefore, if it's a come-as-you-are party or tragedy, as it was that morning, we had to take the assets that were armed because otherwise all they could go up and do is observe, which is better than nothing but it doesn't work the problem.

And with notification, as we increased the air defense level today, then we arm more aircraft and put more aircraft on alert. So that's how the system works.

So even though, for example, we talk about the aircraft that took off from Andrews that morning, they weren't armed. So they were observers is what they were. So they couldn't have shot down an airplane if need be.

So I think it's important to note that. So we have lots of airplanes around there, but then to get them airborne and make a difference, that's the challenge.

KEAN: So, first, aircraft were unarmed, then you launched aircraft that were armed.

EBERHART: No, sir. NORAD's airplanes were launched armed. We were not running the F-16 out of Andrews. Those were not initially armed. And then they came back and armed.

KEAN: And none of these other assets -- Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms -- none of those other people are armed.

EBERHART: No, if you go to -- you'd pick an Air Force base today, Seymour Johnson, and you walk on base today, none of the airplanes are armed. They may have training munitions on them but they're not armed for daily training; that's for the safety of people on the ground and people who are working around those airplanes.

KEAN: And if I understood you earlier, if 9/11 happened today, you believe you could have intercepted all four planes?

EBERHART: Yes, sir. And we've shared these models with the staff and the staff has looked at them, and I think they agree that when we compare the notification times and we compare the results, if you will, on 9/11, we got six minutes of notification time for American Airlines flight 11. Today, we believe we would have at least 17 minutes to make that decision.

On 9/11, we were 153 miles away. Today, we would be in position to fire for eight minutes that we could decide that this is a hostile act that's got its nose down.

EBERHART: Because it's very important to note that if an airplane's flying straight and level at 35,000 or 30,000 feet, even if it's been hijacked, we haven't seen a hostile act yet; it could a classical, traditional hijacking, or we may have brave souls on board, like we had United Airlines flight 93, who may wrest control back.

It's important for us to see a hostile act.

KEAN: And there was never -- you're assuming -- are assuming a different set of facts, different timelines than occurred?

EBERHART: Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Again, I am assuming that they told us, FAA told us as soon as they knew.

KEAN: So you wouldn't have had the seven minutes, five minutes, 14 minutes, and 47 minutes.

EBERHART: Yes, sir. That's the key. That's the difference.

KEAN: Was there any consideration ever of ramming any of the planes?

EBERHART: Sir, we did not consider that because we were never in such a position to be able to do that. So that didn't cross our paths -- our idea.

During the Cold War, that was one of the things that we looked at in terms of enemy bombers. But I would say it was a much different airplane then, and it was an airplane where we had a very large tail hook that we would drop and theoretically we would drag that across the cockpit of the enemy bomber.

Now, I wouldn't want to be the one who does that, but if we thought that enemy bomber had nuclear weapons on it and was coming to the U.S., it's probably a last-ditch maneuver.

These are much different airplanes today than those airplanes we were talking about during the Cold War, the F-106, et cetera.

KEAN: And one matter just to clarify the staff records -- records from the staff anyway. The planes we have that took off from Andrews were launched at 10:38. Those were unarmed, according to our staff report. Planes that were launched at 10:42 and 11:09 were armed. So the first planes launched were unarmed, according to our staff report.

EBERHART: Again, they were not under our command and control.

But my knowledge now is a little bit different, because I believe that one of those airplanes -- the first ones were definitely unarmed. I don't think they got the second set completely armed. They may have armed the gun, which had training munitions in it. But I would think it was probably the third or fourth set that got up that had missiles in it was a full-up round, if you will.

KEAN: Commissioner Gorelick?

GORELICK: A couple of follow-up questions. First, for General Arnold.

You testified before us before that the jets were scrambled in response to flight 93, not American 11. And when you were asked about...

ARNOLD: I was wrong. I was wrong.

GORELICK: Yes, but the question about that is -- and I want to be fair to you and give you an opportunity to respond -- you said that the reason that you were wrong is that you hadn't had an opportunity to listen to the tapes or the tapes were not accessible.

But, I mean, we have -- I'm just holding four of them -- different headquarters and CONR logs that clearly reflect that the scrambling was done in response to this phantom American 11, which didn't exist anymore.

And it was your responsibility, as I recall, to do the after- action report or to lead it or to be, in part, responsible for it. Did you not look at the logs in that process?

ARNOLD: You refer to an after-action report that we didn't do. I mean, I don't recall doing an after-action report other than the fact that we tried to capture when the aircraft took off, how soon we were able to react to those aircraft. And that was the real issue.

So, as I get older, I guess my memory was not as good as it should be. And your staff actually helped me out quite a bit in terms of this one particular area. Because I was never comfortable with the fact that some people had said we had scrambled because of American 77. And that, I knew, was not the case.

So I guess in the way the human mind works, unfortunately, is we try to put things into some kind of category. And then, as we heard this log or this log was presented to me, it made more sense to me then that that's what had occurred.

It occurred to us -- we had now had two airplanes that hit and we got a call that another airplane, because it was another airplane to me, had been hijacked. And so now, the Northeast Air Defense Sector correctly was scrambling aircraft out of Langley to get an aircraft over Washington, D.C., in case that aircraft that was called was headed toward Washington, D.C.

GORELICK: The reason I return to this is that, as a consequence of the NORAD conclusion that the jets were scrambled in response to notification on 93, was that senior policy-makers reassured the American public that our military was on it and would have addressed this threat to the White House or the Capitol before the threat arrived.

GORELICK: And that may or may not be the case. We have real doubts about whether it would have been possible to intercept that flight in any event, but certainly not with the notice that was received.

I'd like to follow up on some questions, General Eberhart, that you've been asked this morning.

I'm struck by two times. After the second World Trade Center was hit at 9:03, I think everybody concluded we were under attack. And as I understand it, you have the authority to put in place something that, I don't know what it stands for, called SCATANA, which is essentially that you, the military, take control of the skies from the civilians, FAA. And that you did that at around 11:00.

And my question for you is why that gap? And whose decision would that have been?

EBERHART: SCATANA is a procedure that, as you say, allows us to take control of the air space. It's a procedure that was designed, again, to counter the Soviet Union and their long-range bombers. It's a procedure that if I had tried, and as the people approached me with, "Declare SCATANA," the problem was that we could not control the air space that day with the radars we had and all the aircraft that were airborne, 4,000 to 5,000 airplanes airborne.

So if I suddenly, "We've got it, we will control the air space," we would have had worse problems than we had that morning, because I cannot provide traffic deconfliction like the FAA has.

What mine is designed to do is we see a bomber coming from a long range, we tell everybody to get the aircraft down safely, then nothing flies and we control the air space. We are prepared to do that. But we're not prepared suddenly to take control of the air space and say, "We have it," because now we're talking -- in terms of safety and security of air travel, we're talking about a bad situation getting worse.

The other thing -- and I have the authority to do that. But I have the authority to do it against an external threat.

The second thing that's very important to note, there are procedures in SCATANA that are designed -- designed -- to counter long-range bombers.

EBERHART: For example, we're supposed to turn off all the navigational aids. That morning, the last thing we wanted to do was turn off all the navigational aids. You turn them off so that the enemy bombers can't use them. But we don't want to turn them off so that the airplanes can't land safely. We don't want to turn them off so that law enforcement and Flight For Life can't fly.

So what we did -- and you said we executed it, but I think it's very important that we note that when we executed it, we executed a modified SCATANA and that's what I told them is, "I will execute SCATANA once you have a modified SCATANA that clearly delineates the lines in the road and doesn't cause a bad situation from getting worse."

So our SCATANA said, "Leave the nav aids on." Our SCATANA said, "FAA, you still control the traffic that's flying." Our SCATANA said, "Law enforcement and Flight For Life can continue to fly." We don't want to ground them during this terrible tragedy. And then procedures for getting waivers to fly.

So we had to take that procedure and modify it to this horrific act that occurred on 9/11.

GORELICK: So another needed improvisation on your part, because this was a scenario that we had not planned for?

EBERHART: I don't say that to pat myself or ourselves on the back, but that's what we did.

GORELICK: Thank you.

KEAN: Commissioner Lehman?

LEHMAN: Thank you.

In this era of jointness, I think it's very unfair that the only sailor on the panel hasn't taken his fair share of hits.

(LAUGHTER)

Captain Leidig, you were the administrator of the NMCC, the National Military Command Center, at the time. It's still confusing to me from the records of our staff at the tactical level who really was in charge, whether it was NORAD or whether FAA saw it as the NMCC, whatever the NMCC is as an entity.

First, would you explain what you viewed the role of the NMCC to be that morning at that time?

LEIDIG: Yes, sir.

In the National Military Command Center, I was the deputy director for operations, so I was the senior watch officer in the National Military Command Center.

Initially, when the first plane was reported on the news to have crashed in the first Trade Center tower, the National Military Command Center was primarily a means to notify senior leadership that, in fact, an event had occurred.

After the second aircraft impacted the second tower, the command center then became a focal point for coordinating information flow. And at that point, I convened what -- by the procedures that existed on 9/11, I convened a conference call called a significant event conference.

And what that does is that brings leadership and combatant commanders into the conference to start discussing what actions should be taken or might be taken. And so, at that point I, as the senior watch officer, then control the conference that gets all these folks on the phone.

FAA was -- tried to be included in that conference and we had difficulty throughout the morning getting them in the conference and that hampered information flow to some degree.

LEHMAN: So why didn't somebody just pick up their cell phone and call them?

LEIDIG: Yes, sir, we did open a separate line to them, but the conference is a -- on a special phone circuit and is classified to be able to pass information and relay information between very senior leadership, all the way over to the White House.

LEIDIG: And in some cases the president could be included.

LEHMAN: How long was FAA out of connectivity to this conferencing?

LEIDIG: Sir, I couldn't tell you. I don't know how long. I know that they were intermittently in. Most of the time they were not in the conference.

LEHMAN: They were not in. And do you think that interfered with NORAD learning about 93, which was a pretty critical failure of the...

LEIDIG: I can't speak to that specifically, sir, but I can say that it did hamper information flow because were getting information in a more roundabout way from FAA. Sometimes it would come from a local commander to NORAD, back to us, or sometimes it would come on an open line. We were trying to maintain just an open telephone line to the operations center at FAA.

LEHMAN: Wouldn't it have been better to have FAA -- communicating directly with FAA and with NMCC monitoring if they could, but not being the focal point?

LEIDIG: I'm not sure I understand your question. Could you say it one more time again, sir.

LEHMAN: Well, if the commander of NORAD had picked up the phone and set up a line, secure or insecure, with the head of FAA, or whoever had the OPCON at FAA, it seems to me things would have worked a lot better than had everybody had to hook into this teleconference.

Was it a teleconference or a voice conference?

LEIDIG: It's a voice conference, sir.

LEHMAN: Voice conference.

LEIDIG: Yes, sir.

I don't know if I can speak for NORAD, but I can say that the conference as set up includes a combatant commander and other entities, and so they're all on a conference. Whether it's controlled elsewhere or not, I don't know if it would have helped the information flow.

But if FAA had been in the same conference that was being directed by the National Military Command Center, the information flow would have went directly to NORAD, because they're in that conference.

LEHMAN: Do you think the insistence on having a secure line, as opposed to an open line, which is what FAA's excuse is, was the main problem? And if so, why was it necessary?

LEIDIG: I know some changes have been made in the command center. I apologize, I've been gone from the joint staff for over a year now, and I'm not familiar with the upgrades.

I understand on that day that there were some compatibility issues between their secure phone and ours in the command center that caused them to drop out of the conference, but I'm not of the technical aspects of it.

LEHMAN: General Eberhart, did you find the set-up that was quickly put together going through the NMCC a help or a hindrance, in retrospect?

EBERHART: Sir, in retrospect, I think it was a help, because you have to have all these different players with all these different interests and responsibilities and authorities up on the conference.

At the same time, because of just what you've said, today we have all sorts of alternative paths to the FAA at the tactical and the operational and strategic levels. I don't think, had FAA been up at that time, that we would have gotten have any different information because I don't think that the sectors, the FAA regions had up- channeled to the headquarters, and that's who we're talking to when we talk to.

And remember, on flight 93, they didn't know where 93 was. And so, when you see the line on the chart that reflies 93, we postulate that based on the last radar contact and where it crashed, sadly.

So they didn't have the radar track, so therefore they couldn't tell us where it was.

LEHMAN: Captain, were you satisfied with the connectivity you had with the White House, with the vice president and through him to the president, or directly, say, to Air Force One?

LEIDIG: We were connected to the White House and I was satisfied with the communications to the White House.

LEHMAN: Do you have any personal lessons learned? You're no longer there, but you certainly went through one of the most frantic crisis as to those arrangements.

LEIDIG: Sir, the most significant lesson, and I think you've, kind of, zeroed in on it, was the communications capabilities and the ability to bring leadership at the important organizations together to make a decision in a timely manner.

LEIDIG: We were hampered that day by communications. And any improvements in that area would be significant.

LEHMAN: Yes, I think also we all know that there are always communications glitches. And there have got to be work-arounds. I mean the fact was that FAA headquarters did know about 93 very early on; from 9:34 on. And if somebody had just picked up the phone to keep the connectivity open, it could have made a difference.

Thank you.

KEAN: Commissioner Roemer?

ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Captain, just a brief follow-up to Commissioner Lehman's last question. He asked you: Were you satisfied with your connectivity to the White House and Air Force One? You said you were satisfied with the White House. Were you satisfied with Air Force One?

And I think it's been conveyed to you that in our interview with the president, the president said he was very frustrated and troubled with connections and connectivity that day.

LEIDIG: Sir, I can't speak to the connectivity with Air Force One. I was connected to the White House. And my understanding is Air Force One was in contact with the White House situation room. I was not in contact with Air Force One.

ROEMER: So you have no knowledge of that?

LEIDIG: No, sir.

(UNKNOWN): Is there no NMCC protocol to connect directly with Air Force One?

LEIDIG: Yes, sir, there is a capability to do that. On that day, we were connected with the White House.

ROEMER: Why weren't you using that other capability?

LEIDIG: I don't recall, sir.

ROEMER: General Eberhart, a question about our training posture on the day of 9/11. On page 5 of our staff statement, the FAA says at 8:38 in the morning, "High Boston Center TMU, we have a problem here. We have a hijacked aircraft headed toward New York and we need someone to scramble some F-16s or something up there. Help us out." NIAD (ph) says, "Is this real world or an exercise?"

My question is, you were postured for an exercise against the former Soviet Union. Did that help or hurt? Did that help in terms of were more people prepared? Did you have more people ready? Were more fighters fueled with more fuel? Or did this hurt in terms of people thinking, "No, there's no possibility that this is real world; we're engaged in an exercise," and delay things? Shouldn't it have both impacts?

EBERHART: Sir, my belief is that it helped because of the manning, because of the focus, because the crews -- they have to be airborne in 15 minutes and that morning, because of the exercise, they were airborne in six or eight minutes. And so I believe that focus helped.

The situation that you're referring to, it most cost us 30 seconds, 30 seconds for...

ROEMER: That's what we have recorded.

ROEMER: I just wondered if there was more of that down the line.

EBERHART: No, it became painfully clear, Commissioner, that this was not an exercise.

ROEMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KEAN: Our last questioner for this panel will be Commissioner Ben-Veniste.

BEN-VENISTE: Yes, I'd like to, first, relay information again from our staff report, so that there is clarity in the record.

It is our information that FAA tracked flight 93 from the moment it was hijacked. The problem was that it did not communicate the hijack information to NORAD, so that NORAD was in a position with unarmed planes over Washington in the CAP at some point.

ARNOLD: Armed, armed.

BEN-VENISTE: First unarmed.

ARNOLD: First armed. First armed.

BEN-VENISTE: And then the Andrews planes were unarmed. OK.

ARNOLD: Thirty minutes later.

BEN-VENISTE: So the point is that whether or not -- well, because the shoot-down order had not been communicated, whether or not those planes could have been -- that plane could have been intercepted and shot down was a matter of speculation within our staff report.

So with agreement on that...

(UNKNOWN): Sir, I believe there is a time there where FAA lost radar contact with this airplane. And that's when I believe I remember, so we'll have to check the record...

BEN-VENISTE: The information we have is they lost it briefly around Pittsburgh and they picked it back up again.

So let me move to another question...

ARNOLD: This one question has come up repeatedly, and I think it needs to be put in proper perspective. I'm not trying to defend Colonel Marr, but I think you need to understand that these aircraft that were airborne over Washington, D.C., at that particular time were not, as we call it, paired. They were not directed at an aircraft at that particular time.

And the way we train -- with peacetime rules of engagement -- the way we train is we pass along the authorities when they are required. So we have a requirement to go out an intercept that airplane, not to shoot that airplane down, but to try to divert that aircraft away from Washington, D.C. And then with the authorities that we had or would have had from the president at that particular time, when the time was pertinent, we would have said, "You're cleared to fire."

And that is the way we train. That's what the pilots would have expected. And so I don't find anything wrong with what Colonel Marr did. In fact, I think what General Eberhart stated was he was more concerned about shooting down an airplane that -- we had a lot of airplanes flying at that particular time.

BEN-VENISTE: I would not, in any way, shape, or form, seek to minimize the concern about shooting down an unarmed plane that posed no threat to the capital of the United States. My only point there was to clarify the record with respect to the time at which FAA had the plane, knowing it was hijacked.

The issue, which we have repeatedly come back to, is the disconnect between the fact that this plane was hijacked, that FAA knew it, but did not communicate that information to NORAD.

That problem was exacerbated by the fact that in our prior hearings and through prior public statements, there was a suggestion that NORAD was in a position in a knowing way with respect to both flights 77 and 93.

Now, I want to turn to one other area where there has been some misconception.

BEN-VENISTE: And perhaps I can start with Admiral Leidig.

In this regard, you were a participant on the air threat conference call?

LEIDIG: Yes, sir.

BEN-VENISTE: And you recall at some point -- we have it at 10:37 -- that the vice president of the United States reported on that call that there was an anonymous threat against Air Force One using the then code name Angel; that it was to be the next target. Do you recall that, sir?

LEIDIG: Sir, I think that occurred right after I was relieved on the watch by General Winfield (ph). I -- right after we resolved what was going on with United 93, around that time, General Winfield (ph) took over.

So I'm familiar because I've looked at the transcript, but I wasn't on the conference at that time.

BEN-VENISTE: Now, let me ask General Eberhart and General Arnold whether that information was communicated to you in any real-time basis.

EBERHART (?): No, sir, not to me.

BEN-VENISTE: The information, according to the staff, that that was another phantom report, that there was no anonymous call, there was no use of the code name Angel for Air Force One or a statement that Air Force One was to be next. And yet that mythology was perpetuated for some weeks, if not months, thereafter. And as we know, those things -- it's hard for them to go away.

So to the best of your knowledge here, do you have any information which would suggest that there was a threat received on September 11th against Air Force One?

EBERHART (?): I was not aware of it that day nor this day, Mr. Commissioner.

ARNOLD (?): Nor was I.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

KEAN: That concludes our questions for this panel. I want to thank you all very much for your service and for taking the time to be with us today.

END