Air War Over America

One would think that the defeat of the most powerful military in the world by 19 stumblebum jihadists armed with box cutters would inspire a degree of humility and soul searching by the US Air Force. But you won't find any of that in Air War Over America.

In fact, the amount of self congratulatory back slapping in this book is nauseating.

Nor is the book well written. Still, it has historical value for its content. The USAF commissioned the Air War Over America, and CONR's Maj.General Larry Arnold wrote the Foreword. So, the book may be regarded as the official USAF record of 9/11.

What is noteworthy is that it conflicts in a number of respects -- with the now official story presented in the 9/11 Commission Report. Bear in mind that Air War was published in 2003 -- about a year BEFORE the release of the 9/11 Commission report.

According to Air War Over America, the first notice from the FAA came at 8:30 AM -- which is 8 minutes earlier than what is stated in the 9/11 Commission Report. The difference is significant because this would easily have given NORAD time to intercept both Flights 11 and 175.

The book also mentions that Fl 77 was a possible hijack -- indicating that NORAD knew about Fl 77 long before it crashed. This admission also flatly contradicts the 9/11 Commission Report.

The account of the Langley scramble is particularly valuable. According to F-16 Pilot Borgstrom they received an order just after take off to fly NNE -- which means the F-16s were flying up the Chesapeake Bay -- what you would expect. Then they got an order to fly NW and according to the author were "vectored toward Washington -- instead of NY." Again, this flatly contradicts the 9/11 Commission Report.

Borgstrom also notes that the 3 fighters from Langley were on different frequencies and "we were getting orders from a lot of different people." This is important information and the 9/11 Commission should have followed up by interviewing the Langley pilots about their orders and conversations to reconstruct what happened. All the commission had to do was track the orders back up the food chain. But apparently this kind of simple detective work was too much for the official investigation to manage. There is scant mention of the Langley pilots' testimony in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Neither Air War nor the 9/11Commission Report explains how the F-16s from Langley ended up flying in circles over the Atlantic. This omission alone should stand your hair on end.

The Air War also mentions that Dawne Deskins at NEADS (NORAD) was watching the blip of an aircraft "that appeared to be going in a turn around DC." According to the author, Deskins got "6 or 7 radar returns on it before it faded and was just gone..." The author assumes this was Fl 77 -- but was it? This is doubtful since Fl 77 never flew over or around DC. In fact, Fl 77 never left Virginia. This blip may have been the E-4B command and control platform I documented in a carefully researched paper now posted on the internet.

Along these same lines: Air War mentions that NEADS was participating in an exercise on 9/11, Vigilant Guardian -- but there is no mention of Global Guardian, which as we know was also underway. In fact, Global Guardian was the BIGGER drill to which the others were tiered -- and we know it involved the E-4B.

This is consistent with the continuing blanket suppression of everything related to the E-4B that circled the White House at the time of the Pentagon attack. The question we should be asking is: What was it doing there? And why has its presence been covered up?

The Air War also confirms what I learned from Barbara Honegger, a military journalist. The Air National Guard unit in Florida never even took off to escort Air Force One when Bush left Florida. No, instead Bush relied on a Texas Air National Guard unit -- part of the 147th fighter Wing. The Texas unit escorted him to Offutt AFB -- then later home to DC. Was this Bush's old ANG unit? If so, on 9/11 Bush clearly trusted no one except his own pretorian guard.

The book's last 50 pages is nothing but fluff about the "war on terror." Near the end the author cites General Ralph Eberhart that "military forces will be used when and where needed to augment and assist first responders.." What does this mean? It can only be a veiled reference to martial law in America. Which I suspect was the whole purpose of 9/11 -- to scare Americans into giving away their freedoms for the phony security of military rule - a concept as false as this book.