…report that American 11 was heading south [when it had actually hit WTC1 at 8:46], as is clear not just from taped conversations at NEADS but also from taped conversations at FAA centers; contemporaneous logs compiled at NEADS, Continental Region headquarters, and NORAD; and other records.
This confusion is then almost casually swept aside as radar ‘blips’ associated with a war game that was running on the morning of September 11th. But this cannot be so. According to NORAD Commander Larry Arnold, this game (Operation Vigilant Guardian) was truncated after the impact of Flight 175, which occurred a little after 9:03. Further when asked by 9/11 Commissioner Tim Roemer whether the Operations that were running that day helped or hindered NORAD's response, General Elberhart, who was in charge of NORAD on 9/11, replied...
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.
At this stage, things simply look confusing. But when we add the testimony of Norman Mineta, acting Secretary of Transportation on 9/11, into the mix, it’s clear something is very wrong with the way the details of Flight 77 have been reported.
Mineta testified that he entered the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) at 9:20am, where Vice President Dick Cheney was in charge. Here is the relevant extract.
MR. HAMILTON: We thank you for that. I wanted to focus just a moment on the Presidential Emergency Operating Center. You were there for a good part of the day. I think you were there with the vice president. And when you had that order given, I think it was by the president, that authorized the shooting down of commercial aircraft that were suspected to be controlled by terrorists, were you there when that order was given?
MR. MINETA: No, I was not. I was made aware of it during the time that the airplane coming into the Pentagon. There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?" [later in his testimony, Mineta says that this series of exchanges began “Probably about five or six minutes” after entering the PEOC] Well, at the time I didn't know what all that meant. And –
MR. HAMILTON: The flight you're referring to is the –
MR. MINETA: The flight that came into the Pentagon.
MR. HAMILTON: The Pentagon, yeah.
MR. MINETA: And so I was not aware that that discussion had already taken place. But in listening to the conversation between the young man and the vice president, then at the time I didn't really recognize the significance of that.
And then later I heard of the fact that the airplanes had been scrambled from Langley to come up to DC, but those planes were still about 10 minutes away. And so then, at the time we heard about the airplane that went into Pennsylvania, then I thought, "Oh, my God, did we shoot it down?" And then we had to, with the vice president, go through the Pentagon to check that out.
MR. HAMILTON: Let me see if I understand. The plane that was headed toward the Pentagon and was some miles away, there was an order to shoot that plane down.
MR. MINETA: Well, I don't know that specifically, but I do know that the airplanes were scrambled from Langley or from Norfolk, the Norfolk area. But I did not know about the orders specifically other than listening to that other conversation.
MR. HAMILTON: But there very clearly was an order to shoot commercial aircraft down.
MR. MINETA: Subsequently I found that out.
Great analysis here, not quite WATS territory yet, and all my points were just what I had to add - const. criticism. Thanks for a great thread so far,
let's see if anyone else weighs in. 
