Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearings for June 17, 2004

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.