911 Dossier : The Great 9/11 Coincidence

The Great 9/11 Coincidence

Jon Rappoport | May 13, 2003

911dossier notes:

The US National Reconnaissance Office, which operates spy satellites, was conducting a simulation of a plane crash into their headquarters (near Dulles Airport in Virginia) on Sept. 11! Here are some articles and further sources. In a nutshell the allegation is: the exercise was deliberately planned as a smokescreen for the 9/11 attacks. Note there are inconsistencies in these reports: was Cheney really in charge? Was the exercise for a hijack or an accidental crash?

The piece by Jon Rappoport is appended with various relevant pieces.

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The Great 9/11 Coincidence

Jon Rappoport
May 13, 2003

[Original page source: http://www.questionsquestions.net/docs04/0514_coincidence.html]

On August 22, 2002, the Associated Press ran a story about 9/11. "Agency planned drill for plane crash last Sept. 11."

"...one US intelligence agency [NRO, National Reconnaissance Office] was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 [2001] in which an errant aircraft crashed into one of its buildings."

The same morning. As. The 9/11 attacks.

According to the NRO, their exercise was canceled when the real thing began. Barbara Honegger, who worked in the White House under Reagan, points out another coincidence. Researching press reports, she found a 9/16/01 Washington Post story about the pilot of AA flight 77 that, on the morning of 9/11, was said to have crashed into the Pentagon.

The pilot, Charles Burlingame, an ex- F4 Navy flyer, had, as his last Navy mission, helped craft Pentagon response plans in the event of a commercial airliner hitting the Pentagon.

Pilot drafts plan for response to Pentagon hit. Pilot winds up on plane that hits Pentagon.

Honegger states that Dick Cheney was ultimately in charge of the NRO exercise on the morning of 9/11. He was in the White House Situation Room for that purpose.

How do you like all these apples?

The limited hangout on this would be: "The hijackers had found out about the upcoming 9/11 mock exercise. They ran their op on top of that, hoping the confusion between Real and Mock would keep the US government from responding to the actual attacks."

Or, one could take this another step: NRO uses many CIA employees. Some element of the CIA was involved in the tactics of the actual 9/11 attacks. All the above coincidences certainly defy the laws of probability. Since AP eventually ran a story right out in the open about the mock exercise, one would think the Hill would have exploded in outrage. A hearing would have been held pronto. The "bizarre coincidence" would have become front-page news for a week or so.

Didn't happen.

The uncanny ability of the press to suppress---by sheer accident---a story that could have taken the lid off Washington---THAT should have become a story in itself as well.

Didn't happen.

Where did AP get its story from? It got it from a classic limited hangout, revealed in an announcement, in 2002, about an upcoming Homeland Security conference to be held in Chicago. One of the key speakers at the conference would be John Fulton, a CIA officer who worked for NRO. The announcement reads: "On the morning of September 11, 2001, Mr Fulton and his team...were running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day."

Sure.

NRO/CIA/Cheney/the White House were nervous about this story coming to light. So a limited hangout was arranged. The conference brochure would admit to part of the truth. Mayor Rudy of NYC was the main speaker at the conference. Perfect.

As in, "See, we're giving you a fascinating tidbit about 9/11. Why in the world would we do this if there were more to the whole thing? We've got Rudy himself on the podium. Don't you think he would go nuts if there were more to this, if his city had been devastated as part of some plan in which the federal government were actually INVOLVED?"

Worked like a charm.

It should be noted that, right after 9/11, the White House denied that the intelligence community had any clue that a-plane-into-a-building was a possible terrorist scenario. When, in fact, a mock exercise for exactly that eventuality was in progress on the morning of 9/11.

There is one other possibility here we need to consider. On the morning of 9/11, THERE WAS NO MOCK EXERCISE UNDERWAY. The whole idea of such an exercise was fabricated to explain otherwise mind-boggling communications traffic among intelligence and military and civilian agencies of the US government----traffic that would have exposed the complete and casual disregard for the very real events that were underway in the air.

"Oh, all THOSE messages? They were just part of the mock exercise. They had nothing to do with the real thing. We were slow to catch on that the actual attacks were happening, because we had this practice deal running. What a coincidence."

When events like 9/11 occur, if you underestimate the devious quality of the cover stories, you can miss the true thread.

JON RAPPOPORT www.nomorefakenews.com
http://www.questionsquestions.net/topics/question.html

today's question...
Brian Salter, qq editor

5 June 2003: Why were 3000 NRO employees sent home after 9/11? There have been a number of disinfo limited hangouts floating around, all of them designed to offer apparently revealing inside details of 9/11 but actually serving the purpose of whitewashing evidence of US govt. complicity. One which has been hanging around for a while centers on the terrorist training exercise that the NRO (National Reconnaissance Office) had scheduled the same morning of the attacks. The super-secret NRO happens to be the agency which operates US spy satellites.

A mainstream article about it is here:
http://www.boston.com/news/packages/sept11/anniversary/wire_stories/0903_plane_exercise.htm

The limited hangout build around this is that the 9/11 "terrorists" somehow learned about the secret exercise in advance, and "piggybacked" their own attack on the same date in order to confuse US defences. This is used as a supposed explanation for lack of action on prior warnings, failure of air defences to operate, etc, on the assumption that military and intel personnel thought that everything going on was part of the "exercise". I don't know of any serious 9/11 researcher who finds this a credible overall theory, given the fact that there is an abundance of evidence pointing beyond such a scenario, to official complicity and specific prior knowledge.

This has been discussed very thoroughly among researchers.

That aside, there is an interesting detail in the above article:

"The National Reconnaissance Office operates many of the nation's spy satellites. It draws its personnel from the military and the CIA.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000 people who work at agency headquarters were sent home, save for some essential personnel, Haubold said."

Sent home... why?? Recently, I heard one alternative speculation about this which deserves some inquiry. Namely, that certain high-ranking NRO staff may have needed this time to eliminate or alter satellite surveillance of the Washington, DC area during the attacks. Note that it has been alleged for years that the US has 24 hour high resolution satellite monitoring of the capitol and surrounding regions, where critical government institutions are located. If so, there would then be a record of Flight 77's flight path and impact. Would there be something there to hide?

With the recent 9/11 Commission hearings on 9/11 air defences having stirred up debate, this is perhaps something to consider.

"Amalgam Virgo 01" NORAD exercise just prior to 911

http://www.indybay.org/news/2002/09/149985_comment.php

Amalgam Virgo was a multiagency, bilateral air security exercise sponsored by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)

http://sf.indymedia.org/uploads/tab_01_report_of_ftx_amalgum_virgo_01_30_june_2001.pdf

The one in this pdf report happened just prior to 9/11 in the summer of 2001. They didn't know about the attack? So they say.

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Jun2002/n06042002_200206043.html

NORAD-Sponsored Exercise Prepares For Worst-Case Scenarios This year's exercise is a commercial airliner-hijacking scenario -- planned before the Sept. 11 attacks, Snyder said. Last year's exercise, he said, was a scenario involving a cruise missile launched by "a rogue (government) or somebody" from a barge off the East Coast.

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/AVE_STE.html -
more on Amalgam Virgo and other pre-911 war games (military, biowar, financial crash)

from AMALGAM VIRGO 01 military exercise, June 1 - 2, 2001 (unclassified report)

note the obvious implication of a potential terrorist attack against the US Capitol building in the graphic on the right side (most of the report is about the military response to a cruise missile launched by terrorists into the US - the picture of the Capitol building is the only photo of a potential "target" in the report, although there are graphics simulating an attack on Gulf of Mexico area target)

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/amalgam.jpg

cover page of Amalgam Virgo report

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/amalgam-virgo.jpg

page 34 of report

Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenarios in preparing for emergencies

http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/ContPlanP.html
archive of article by Military District of Washington on emergency response planning for a plane hitting the Pentagon

A plane crash is simulated inside the cardboard courtyard of a surprisingly realistic-looking model Pentagon. This "tabletop" exercise was designed to help emergency relief personnel better prepare for disasters when they occur.

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/Ex_sim1.jpg
http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/Ex_sim2.jpg

"Feature: The U.S. Government, Not the Hijackers, 'Chose' the Date of the 9-11 Attacks"

by Barbara Honegger http://www.911pi.com/honneger.htm

This is a curious article - it discusses the NRO / CIA "simulation" of the plane crash into the NRO headquarters and supposes that the "terrorists" learned of this exercise and then chose to time their attack when the US air defense system would think that it was merely a simulation, ensuring the real attack's success. It is just as likely that the "simulation" exercise was used by elements in the military / intelligence agencies to distract the air defense apparatus to ensure that the attack would actually succeed. This alternate interpretation is consistent with the theory that the Bush-Cheney administration (and the forces they represent) either saw the attacks coming and chose to let them happen, if not actually planned them.

In other words, the "exercise" could have been the means to confuse those "not in the know" for a critical few minutes in order to let the "American Reichstag Fire" happen. The "piggy back" theory (the hijackers took advantage of the "exercise") doesn't seem to explain the Air Force's curious lethargy during the half-hour between the Second Tower being struck and the Pentagon attack, or why the Pentagon just happened to be hit in the one place that was almost empty ... Andrews AFB is about ten miles from the Pentagon ...

Barbara Honegger gained her 15 minutes of fame in the late 1980s when she quit her post in the Reagan White House and wrote the book "October Surprise," which discussed the 1980 deal between George H.W. Bush and the Iranian revolutionary Islamic regime that was holding US diplomats hostage. Since then, a few other books have been written that talk about the deal, but few politicians have been willing to discuss the "original sin" of the Bush administration - the Reagan/Bush campaign's weapons deal with Ayatollah Khomeini to DELAY the release of the hostages until after the 1980 election to ensure Carter's defeat. In most countries, this would be called a coup d'etat.

book reviews of three books about October Surprise
http://www.namebase.org/books59.html
Honegger, Barbara. October Surprise. New York: Tudor, 1989. 323 pages.

Parry, Robert. Trick or Treason: The October Surprise Mystery. New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1993. 350 pages.

Sick, Gary. October Surprise: America's Hostages in Iran and the Election of Ronald Reagan. New York: Times Books - Random House, 1991. 278 pages.

www.washington-report.org/backissues/0591/9105011.htm 1980 October Surprise (Reagan/Bush deal with Iran to delay hostage release until after the 1980 Reagan-Carter election)

A web search on "Octopus" and "Danny Casolaro" will also add to this. "On October 19, 1980, Bush was dealing with Khomeini!"

http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/xfile.html
several articles on the October Surprise

Subject: [911truthalliance] Vital Context for May 2001 plane-into-Pentagon emergency response exercise

Hi, Paul -- Fri. 3/28 1:30 p.m.

To place your below-attached ) 9-11 Timeline entry on the Pentagon's May 2001 emergency response exercise on what to do if the Pentagon were hit by a plane:

May 2001 (J): U.S. Medicine magazine later reports:

"Though the Department of Defense had no capability in place to protect the Pentagon from an ersatz guided missile in the form of a hijacked 757 airliner, DoD [Department of Defense] medical personnel trained for exactly that scenario in May (2001)." The tri-Service DiLorenzo Health Care Clinic and the Air Force Flight Medicine Clinic train inside the Pentagon this month "to fine-tune their emergency preparedness." [US Medicine, Oct. 2001].

into vital context:

1) Pres. Bush publicly announced the appointment of Vice President Cheney to head a new interagency task force on counterterrorism preparedness and emergency response early that same month--on May 8, 2001 (TIME cover story, "The Secret History of 9-11"); and, therefore, in all probability (which is discoverable), the "May 2001" exercise in the below timeline entry was either the first or one of the first actions of that very Cheney counterterrorism response and preparedness Task Force. It is critical to the importance of this connection to note that, after 9-11, the White House felt compelled to lie and deny what on its face should be seen as a positive "we did the right thing and practiced protecting ourselves", and told TIME magazine that the Cheney counterterrorism response task force 'had never been activated' -- a completely noncredible claim given that a) the World Trade Center had already been attacked once on U.S. soil, in 1993; and b) that top Bush Administration officials had been urgently briefed and warned about the "#1 threat to the U.S." of Al Qaeda, bin Laden, etc. even before taking office in January; and c) that part of this now-known pre-inauguration briefing was almost surely the now-just-being-revealed fact (Judicial Watch lawsuit) that Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols met in the Philippines with first WTC bomber Ramzi Yousef, 9-11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's (KSM's) nephew, and therefore that Yousef's and KSM's then-already-well-known massive "Bojinka" plot to bomb eleven U.S. airliners (or "use them as bombs") was surely briefed to incoming NSC adviser Rice, Bush, Cheney, etc.

2) The Washington Post reported, in a page 1 story shortly after 9-11, that a Pentagon medic was reading a new Pentagon emergency response manual for what to do in case the building was struck by a civilian airliner just before the Pentagon plane struck the bldg.;

3) The second emergency response exercise to a plane-into-building scenario was on the morning of 9-11 itself, at (at least) the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) headed by a top CIA officer.

4) the main pilot of the 9-11 Pentagon plane, former Navy and then Navy Reservist pilot Charles Burlingame, had recently, in a Reserve assignment at the Pentagon, been part of a Task Force that drafted the Pentagon's emergency response plan on what to do in case a plane hit the building -- which his own plane then did. It is therefore very possible -- in fact extremely likely, if not certain -- that this 'task force' that Flight 77 pilot "Chick" Burlingame was part of was the Cheney counterterrorism preparedness task force, and that the Pentagon plane pilot, therefore, directly knew and even worked with/for Cheney. and

5) Burlingame's 9-11 Pentagon plane not only hit the Pentagon that morning, it struck a Command and Control center for that morning's counterterrorism 'game' exercise, killing most, if not all, of the 'players'. We know this because Army personnel from Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey were on special duty assignment at the Pentagon that morning for an emergency response exercise and were killed when Burlingame's plane hit. Ft. Monmouth, New Jersey also happens to be the headquarters for White House/Presidential communications, including therefore probably also for Air Force One (this is discoverable) -- and recall the warning "Air Force One is next" and the 'secret code' which was called into the White House that morning which WH press secretary Ari Fleischer revealed as a means of explaining why Pres. Bush left Florida for a military base and did not return to the White House. This 'warning' was probably called into the White House, if true, by either the Ft. Monmouth White House communications headquarters and/or the Ft. Monmouth counterterrorism exercise 'game' players temporarily at the Pentagon that morning.

This nexus is completely and totally beyond coincidence, and is the real reason that all facts that could reveal the context in which it can be easily understood by the public are being ruthlessly classified/hidden, as well as the real reason the White House is trying to stifle/kill the Kean/Hamilton 9-11 Commission by delaying release of the classified House/Senate 9-11 Inquiry report, delay/reduce requested funding, etc.

Barbara

http://www.oilempire.us/graphics/nro-banner.gif

On 9/11, CIA Was Running Simulation of a Plane Crashing into a Building
http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/cia-simulation.htm

Was the NRO drill just a coincidence?
http://www.rumormillnews.net/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=25255

Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11built around a plane crashing into a building

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/08/21/national1518EDT0686.DTL

JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer Wednesday, August 21, 2002

(08-21) 15:08 PDT WASHINGTON (AP) --

In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident. ....