Virtually all of my reading material is on-line. The very small number of books I have read, with the exception perhaps of 'By Way of Deception' by Victor Ostrovsky, turned out to be damp squibs. And that's not really surprising given that anyone planning to publish sensitive information in book format is likely to be stopped or have their manuscript edited.

But, as I have said, many times, we are not at odds over the competence or otherwise of the intelligence services. We do still appear to be at odds over my suggestion that no one would plan to succeed based solely upon his opponent's failure.

Again: what evidence is there to demonstrate the hijackers' skill and experience?

Thanks for the feedback. Those news stories are pretty good and so are the videos. Since starting this thing, I've found a number of excellent videos about 9/11 that I hadn't seen through this feed.

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101020603/memo.html

Coleen Rowley's Memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller
An edited version of the agent's 13-page letter

May 21, 2002



FBI Director Robert Mueller
FBI Headquarters Washington, D.C.



Dear Director Mueller:

I feel at this point that I have to put my concerns in writing concerning the important topic of the FBI's response to evidence of terrorist activity in the United States prior to September 11th. The issues are fundamentally ones of INTEGRITY and go to the heart of the FBI's law enforcement mission and mandate. Moreover, at this critical juncture in fashioning future policy to promote the most effective handling of ongoing and future threats to United States citizens' security, it is of absolute importance that an unbiased, completely accurate picture emerge of the FBI's current investigative and management strengths and failures.

To get to the point, I have deep concerns that a delicate and subtle shading/skewing of facts by you and others at the highest levels of FBI management has occurred and is occurring. The term "cover up" would be too strong a characterization which is why I am attempting to carefully (and perhaps over laboriously) choose my words here. I base my concerns on my relatively small, peripheral but unique role in the Moussaoui investigation in the Minneapolis Division prior to, during and after September 11th and my analysis of the comments I have heard both inside the FBI (originating, I believe, from you and other high levels of management) as well as your Congressional testimony and public comments.

I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mis-characterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons:

Letter Continues........

==============

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0321-11.htm


Agent Faults FBI on 9/11
The man who caught Zacarias Moussaoui testifies that higher-ups blocked his efforts to determine whether there was a larger plot.

wasn't rowley fired after making these revelations?....I think the FBI's covering up alot...I think the american people are paying 67,000 fbi agents.. to run cover-ups ranging from 9/11 to the 2001 anthrax attacks...they have become bush's lapdogs....

And what proof have you provided that it was "plan[ned] to succeed based solely upon his opponent's failure"? For the FAA/NORAD failures you've only seemed to insinuate that inexperience pilots should be fly better and speculated that the terrorists actions should have been different because they would be terrified of being shot down without admitting that being shot down is still a 'winning' end for them.

As for failures in intelligence before the attack happened, yes I agree, some of those are odd. But they don't prove the terrorist planned on massive intelligence failures. And the London 7/7 and 21/7 bombings and Madrid bombing all happened with intelligence failures, did they all plan for it too?

'took a large number of risks'..... these were the same guys that were about to fly a plane loaded with people head on into a skyscraper to there voilent & certain deaths, Do you really think they worried about taking risks?

I have already set some of this out, so I'll summarise.

• Some of the alleged hijackers set off alarms at the airports yet got through. However, airport security was known for many years to be woefully inadequate - the FAA's own Red Team reported on its ability to breach security with alarming regularity. In fact, the Red Team leader even testified to this effect to the 9/11 Commission but his testimony never made the report.
• Then there's the FAA's inability to respond to the first signs of a hijacking. As the events unfolded, this inability became more and more pronounced.
• Then there's the interplay between the FAA and NORAD, which led to delays in scrambling fighters and the need on the part of the 9/11 Commission to 'invent' a 'phantom' Flight 11 to explain what was an otherwise inexplicable sequence of events.
• Then there's the fact that fighters were deployed off-shore, to the East, taking them many hundreds of miles away from the hijacked planes.
• Then the alleged hijackers wait until the planes are some considerable distance from their targets before hijcaking them, giving US respondents more time to intercept.
• Then there is the extraordinary, completely unnecessary and nigh-on impossible 330 degree manoeuvre that Hai Hanjour (an incompetent pilot) made on his approach to the Pentagon, adding valuable time to his 'journey'. Unnecessary because he ended up approaching the Pentagon at virtually the same angle as he was heading before attempting the manoeuvre.

I could go on but I think you see the point.

I'm not going to cloud our discussion about 9/11 with one about 7/7 or 21/7.

my questions all still lie with the risks they were taking in palm beach county. months prior to the attack... the w.palm beach FBI is covering up the hijackers activities prior to 9/11.....

Come out and explain your point about Florida already. Quit dancing around it with these cryptic posts.

Yes. A meticulously planned operation would have millitated against virtually all risks. The risks they took (assuming we believe the originalist's account) before 9/11 include living - with all that involves - and moving around within the US using their true identities; undertaking flight training at US military installations; choosing to catch a connecting flight on the morning of the planned attack; and not altering their plans to compensate for the fact that Moussaoui, who was captured a month earlier, might reveal something about the plot.

And it was rather dumb of Mohamed Atta to be carrying with him a bag containing the details of the plot, the identities of all the alleged hijackers and his will. Now, he may have expected to get this bag onto a plane (although what good his will would have been after the attacks I'm not sure), but there was a risk that if his luggage was checked at airport security, the whole thing was blown. Now why would one of the lead hijackers take that sort of chance? In the event, that bag didn't make it onto the plane enabling the FBI to quickly identify the culprits.

9/11 was the biggest, most complicated and successful terrorist operation in history. The operators who carried it out had to first get into the US unseen (which they did), conduct flight-training unnoticed (which they did), move around the country unhindered and, again, unnoticed (which they did), board the target planes, subdue the crew and passengers and fly the aircraft into four targets, located in two different cities. The fact that they only managed to take out three of the four targets doesn't detract from the fact that it took considerable operational experience and skill, on the part of the operators, to carry out the 9/11 attacks.

Then there was the planning side of the operation - the operators had to board and hijack the right sort of planes flying out of particular airports for the targets (New York and Washington). The aircraft used had to be loaded with aviation fuel, so they had to be at the beginning of their trips. The aircraft would have to be going the longest possible distance in order to have the greatest fuel load. Since aircraft traveling on over-ocean trips receive special scrutiny and require passports for boarding, intercontinental aircraft were out of the question. That meant that transcontinental aircraft would have to be used. Also, any attack had to involve East Coast targets - Washington and New York could not be left out of the attack - so the aircraft chosen must take off from East Coast cities. Transcontinental flights take off from Boston, New York, Phili and Washington airports. Other Eastern cities reach the West Coast through airline hub cities like Houston. Another limiting factor the planners had to deal with - the attacks had to be carried out with near simultaneity. A single hijacking would be noted by the air traffic controllers and immediately passed on to all pilots. These pilots might or might not increase their alertness, but two hijackings noted by air traffic control would galvanize the system. Everyone would become extremely alert. The weapons that the operatives used were effective but ultimately could be defended against. If the pilots realised that a hijacking wave was under way, and certainly if they realised that a wave of suicide attacks was under way, they might be able to resist the hijackers. Therefore, the hijackings needed to take place nearly at the same time, the impacts ought to occur nearly at the same time, and, if possible, air traffic control should not know that hijackings were under way until as late as possible.

Aircraft targeting New York and Washington would have to take off from particular northeastern cities, at the right time of the day (the bulk of flights to the West Coast start taking off at about 8 a.m., which is also when airports are jammed and security is the weakest). I could go on, but you get the point.

You keep saying that "no one would plan to succeed based solely upon his opponent's failure", and no-one's claimed that. The 9/11 planners and operators were experienced and skilled enough to follow the plan through to a successful conclusion - it also helped that they knew that the US intelligence community was none the wiser (they were hugely familiar with the deficiencies of the CIA and it's sister agencies).

The atta bag was as convenient as the passport found at the 9/11 scene....

The atta gang was on a job for the government in florida...thats why they knew all about them prior to the attack...those missing months were atta and 14 of his cohorts were in palm beach ties the white house in....they will never tell that part of the story...they talk about the san diego cell...but not the florida cell...I questioned the W.palm beach FBI on this matter....they wont talk...

Any verifiable evidence to back up this assertion?

they were after a guy called the birdman...he lives in the everglades in western palm beach county...the last message mohammed atta sent to alqueda was; he had "slit the throat of the bird" it's documented.....the proof is being held close to the vest...the cover-up is extremely dangerous....

You're gonna need to show us verifiable evidence of a man nicknamed the "Birdman" (who lived in the Everglades in Western Palm Beach County), this message that Atta is supposed to have sent to his Al Qaeda handlers and proof of a substantial link between the Birdman and Atta.

you'll see the proof soon....this is a case about to enter litigation...in palm beach county...soon the actual quote was "the throat of the bird had been slit"...wash post.

Do you have any verifiable proof or not?

The planners did not enter the US unseen, some were tracked as suspected terrorists.

They did not conduct flight training unnoticed (and certainly shouldn't have expected to given their use of military facilities); Moussaoui was arrested on immigration charges following concerns raised at his flight school that he wanted to learn how to fly but not to take off or land a plane. His arrest, coming just a month before 9/11, should have given the hijackers cause for great concern and even a change of plan. But it didn't.

Yes, they achieved a 100% boarding rate, despite some of them setting off alarms.

Yes, they achived a 75% hit rate - the only failure, you'll notice, being the aircraft that took off 40 minutes late. You would have me believe that they were cognisant of US intelligence, airport security and air defence inadequacies, yet they had no contingency plan in respect of Flight 93. Why did they even bother hijacking it? They must have known that, given the attacks were likely well under way by the time Flight 93 even took-off, this plane stood no chance of reaching its target as a result of the headstart this delay would give air defences.


These are assessments that any fool could have made. The problem is, even a cursory examination of events shows that none of the synchrocity required to bewilder ATC's occurred. For example:

Flight 11
Last radio communication - 8:14
Transponder turned off - 8:21
Impact time - 8:46

Flight 175
Last radio communication - 8:42
Transponder turned off - 8:47
Impact time - 9:03

Flight 77
Last radio communication - 8:51
Transponder turned off - 8:56
Impact time - 9:37

Flight 93
Last radio communication - 9:27
Transponder turned off - 9:41
Impact time - 10:03

And we still have the small matter of Atta and Co catching a connecting flight on the morning of the attack, leaving his ability to participate dependent upon unnecesarily uncontrollable factors.


I keep saying this because you keep asserting something that, to my mind, is utterly discordant with the evidence. These alleged hijackers did not behave in a manner consistent with that of skilled and experienced operatives, trained in the business of counter-intelligence. They were exposed at every step of the operation in a way that would have cause anyone as competent as you claim these hijackers were to suspect they would be prevented for carrying out their mission.

Please provide verifiable proof that the 19 hijackers were those officially named.

that i can show you online?...your talking about the evidence to tie the US govt into 9/11....yes we have it ...the secret service masquerading; as pbso sheriffs officers; disarmed the bird and framed his brother for murder and gave him a new name ...on june 6th 2001 the next night atta and 12 of his henchman showed up at the birds farm. and there was a shootout because the bird had another gun.. the secret service didnt get......it's all documented at pbso headquarters you can contact them..... i'll pm you the names maybe we can finally stop the madness....yes we have the proof...and it's at the pbso and west palm fbi...ps they didnt slit the throat of the bird....

Only on Flight 93 did the passengers get coordinated enough to force the plane down.



Yeah sure - and had I asked you to detail the major factors the planners and operators had to deal with, you would've said exactly what i'd said? Lol.



F***-ups happen - plans never survive first contact. But, the operation was largely a success - three out of the four targets were hit and another plane-load of passengers was killed to boot. The collapse of the towers was a bonus, if you will.

If you know of any verifiable evidence to back up these conspiracy theory claims, why not post it here and now? Are you afraid it won't stand up to the slightest scrutiny?

Allegedly. Please address the point I made. You spoke of the need for synchronicity. Yet, given the 40 minute delay, Flight 93 was way out of synch. Since Flight 93's alleged hijackers would have been clear about the proposed timelines, they would have known that once 93 was airborne, the rest of the operation would likely have already swung into action. Unless they possessed extraordinary prescience, they must have anticipated 93 would be intercepted. Why hijack the plane?

Exactly - like to the letter? No. But please tell me which point or points you made that you believe I might have overlooked.

Forgetting all the various other examples I've already given, how do you reconcile your view with the hijackers' response to the delay to Flight 93; the arrest of Moussaoui; the decision by Atta and colleague to catch a connecting flight; and the decision by Atta to be in possession of a bag containing complete operational information. Forget everything else for now and just focus on these four elements. Is this really the behavior of a group of skilled and experienced group of counter-intelligence experts?

Your list details events that happened that day, no where does it say that the terrorists planned that they would happen or that it would even make a difference if the 'failure' happened or not. I've added my responses in your quote, above.

http://www.alternet.org/story/12536/

Nuff said.

I know these things weren't planned - that's precisely the point I've been trying to drive home. The terrorists cannot possibly have developed an operational plan that succeded because of the failure of the US to defend itself.

Don't you see how self-defeating your argument is? As Lanton has pointed out, a sound operational plan would have involved maximum synchronicity in order to extract maximum time out of the FAA and NORAD. The question is: why? The answer is because the hijackers would have to have anticipated a proper response by the FAA and rapid deployment by NORAD and planned accordingly. But if the hijackers did anticipate such a response, why then was there a lack of synchronicity?

The same line of thought applies to everything else you said. Of course the hijackers didn't plan for the fighters to fly east, which begs the question as to why their take-over and targeting of the aircraft was not conducted in a manner that suggested they anticipated the fighters to respond properly. Why do you need the pilots to achieve cruising altitude when the attacks necessitated a much lower one? In so doing, you veer further from your targets and give any properly managed response mechanism a chance to intercept you. Finally, I'm not suggesting Hanjour should have flown better at all. I'm suggesting he shouldn't have attempted a move that is beyond the scope of most experienced pilots, especially since it did nothing for his angle of approach and increased the chance he would be shot down.

ETA: added word for clarity.

No one is disputing the intelligence services performed poorly. However, it is a gross distortion to argue that intelligence agencies are not capable of pulling off successful covert operations - history is littered with them. And there are, no doubt, many more we don't even suspect let alone know about; the CIA was, after all, founded upon the basis of plausible deniability. Other than that, it's the same ol', same ol', and it does nothing to address the specific questions raised in this thread.

Why still hijack flight 93? Why not? They were prepared to die that day already. If they didn't hijack the plane then they knew there was a chance they would be captured later. In their eyes where is the honor in that? Even if they knew they would not make their target, why not still try? Even if only 1 or 2 of their targets were hit and 2 or 3 of the other planes were just crashed, their objective was still accomplished which was to create terror.

As for Hanjour's maneuver, it is entirely consistent with following the navigational beacon at the local airport to get there and then being too high once the target was sighted, overshooting, and having to descend while turning to get to the intended target. It fits with an inexperienced pilot. A more experienced pilot would likely have known when he was close to the location and descended earlier to not have to make the turn.

Re: Flight 93 - these men, having trained, would have been valued assets. There's no reason for them to have been detained had they aborted (on what grounds?) and they surely would have anticipated being shot down, given the reasons behind their drive for synchronicity. I certainly don't think that these men, if they were real, were men of honour either, nor were they quite as fundamental as they have been made out to be. Of course, all of this is based on the premise that Flight 93 did crash in Shanksville.

Hanjour's alleged manoeuvre is not consistent with a novice (unless everything I've read and heard on the subject is wrong); whether his overall approach is or not, I don't know. This manoeuvre was executed and a near constant rate of turn through 330 degress and, simultaneously, at a near perfect rate of descent. He went into and came out of this turn/descent with just enough time to hit the Pentagon. His post-manoeuvre heading was broadly consistent with his pre-manoeuvre heading. This is surely not the work of a guy who was refused permission by his instructor to hire a Cessna.

Keeping the planes level and then flying them into large targets that can be easily identified from the air was the easiest part of the operation - hell, you or I could do it on a commercial Flight Sim (despite what you may have read on various conspiracy theory forums and websites).

And, since we're not discussing level flight, the point of telling me this is...?

Read the rest of the post.

You're suggesting I've overlooked something when, in fact, you did. If you want to argue that Hani Hanjour was sufficiently trained to execute one of the most complex manoeuvres imaginable, then clearly (since he was reported as being no good), the other pilots would be similarly or better able to handle a large aircraft, making them much more valuable than you or I and our ability to keep a plane level.

One of the problems i have with the conspiracists theory is that they keep on refering to intelligence agencies monitoring these individuals as tho' they new what they were up to & conjuring up images of covert surveillance the like of which we see in films like 'Bourne Identity' 'Enemy of The State' etc. I believe there was a recent report which actually highlighted
the inept way in which intelligence imformation is (not) shared with various agencies, & I have no doubt that things were probebly worst before 9/11.
The other thing regarding all this so called 'intelligence' posted as fact on the interweb, is that the vast majority of (i'm sure the ct's will dispute this) the imformation gathered is post
event.
Until such an event occurs how can anybody say for definate what these individual actually intended to do?
Three separate individuals of pakistani origin get on three separate london buses each carrying a rucksack, of itself this in not a strange or suspicious occurance but only when three bombs detonate on the vehicles do the itelligence agencies start to investigate cctv footage, crime scene evidence, train time tables, addresses, etc and eventually build up a picture & a connection between these characters, only then does a complete picture start to imerge. And the same is true of 9/11. Anyone who believes that these characters were being monitored on an hourly basis after entering the u.s. with all the high tech gadgetry we're so used to seeing portrayed in hollywood blockbusters is in my opinion deluding themselves.

Again, this misses the overall thrust of my argument, which is not whether the US intelligence agencies did their job or not, but whether the alleged hijackers would have behaved the way they did based upon any sort of realistic expectation of US inteligence capabilities (as well as that of the FAA and NORAD).

I'd like your view on four things (actually, a lot more, but I want to keep it simple for now):

• Why hijack Flight 93 given the 40 minute delay? (I know frenat has offered an answer, but I don't agree with it)
• Why did the plans not alter once co-conspirator Moussaoui was arrested?
• Why did Mohamed Atta and others take a connecting flight on 9/11?
• Why was Atta allegedly carrying a bag through airport security, which contained the full details of the operation?

And again, this is not a 7/7 discussion.

In answer to all the above points, ....what did they have to lose? they were all willing to die anyway, & with that type of mentality do you think the idea of getting caught would frighten them off? In fact I believe that the very thought that they would be dead very shortly would enbolden them.

So they weren't troubled by the risk of having the plot exposed? No way - absolutely no way.

Well about as troubled as they were about dying. If you don't fear death then i would pretty much deduce that there was little else to be afraid of.

Now if they were plotting to cause death & destruction on such a scale AND get away with it, then there insticts to evade detection would be understandable.

Yes (if they actualy did it) would not fear death but that death would be invane because if they are caught then there mission would be a failure.

No, the point I'm making is that, having planned what you would have me believe was an meticulous operation, they would certainly not risk blowing it just hours beforehand by catching a connecting flight (exposing themselves to potentially fatal delays) and boarding it with a bag containing documents setting out operational details (the consequences of which are obvious).

You are saying that the only way the terrorist could have thought their mission would be successful would have been if they had been able to plan all the failures that happened on the day. They couldn't have planned all those failures to happen therefore there must have been a conspiracy, yes? Ok, what I'm trying to say is you have not proved that all the failures that happened that day were needed for the attacks to work. If they didn't all need to happen then they didn't need to plan for them.

For example, let's pretend the FAA/NORAD stuff went absolutely perfectly:

• So the air traffic controllers figure out there is a hijacking a few minutes after contact is lost with the planes and call out fighters to intercept them. Even if every fighter that would normally be available to scramble was available that day it still takes time to do that. Pilots are not sitting around in fully armed aircraft with the engine running ready to fly off at 100% throttle to the nearest aircraft that goes quiet. It could easily take 30mins, an hour to intercept, plenty of time.
• Best scenario and there are armed fighters who happen to be flying that day who can intercept the aircraft in a couple of minutes - what are they going to do? Before 911 there was no precedent for hijackers to crash aircraft so why would they shoot them down and kill innocent people? So the plane keeps on flying.
• Even if someone had good reason to think the aircraft were going to be used to slam into buildings a pilot isn't going to shoot it down without a very clear order to do so. That means someone senior is going to have to be briefed and convinced of that fact. That'll take more than a few minutes (more time to fly towards your target).
• The evidence would have to be really really good because whoever is going to make that decision will have to deal with the huge consequences that will occur if they are wrong (or even if they are right!). But let's say they do (or for example after the first plane impact and they know for sure what's going on). So it is agreed the aircraft should be shot down.
• If the aircraft by that time is near or over a major city the shoot down order could be stopped by the thought that shooting down an aircraft over a highly populated area could easily have much worse consequences than letting it finish the attack.
• Even if the traffic controllers have been quick, there is a close intercepting fighter and an ultra-quick decision is made to shoot whilst still over open land what happens? The terrorist, who wanted to die, kill a lot of people and make big news for his cause - well, still manages to do all those things!

So even in a really optimistic (or pessimistic for the terrorist) scenario they still win.

You've said the only way the attacks could have succeeded was by ensuring all the mistakes made that day by the FAA and NORAD happened. Why? That's what I was asking you to prove and you just gave me a list of things that happened without any proof of why they were necessary.

No doubt the terrorists wanted to hit their targets and would do everything to get there, but it's not like they flew off for a sightseeing tour of the grand canyon or did a sightseeing run a couple of times around the statue of liberty. Barring United93 they took over the aircraft, turned off the transponders to try to minimise being tracked as to where they were headed and headed off to crash their planes.

Edit for typos.

I think this is another horrible misinterpretation.

As has already been discussed, a successful operation would have been planned around synchronicity in order to buy as much time as possible. If you agree that post take-off synchronicity was considered an operational imperative, then of course they would seek at all costs to avoid detection prior to take-off.

No, I'm not saying the hijackers planned around US failures. I'm saying that their operation was so poorly planned that it only succeeded because of US failures.


No to all of this. A look at the response to Flight 11 explains why. I accept there was probably little that could have been done about Flight 11, but thereafter, it doesn't add up.

Fighters from Otis were airborne at 8:53 (after Flight 11's impact at 8:46). They ended up in airspace off Long Island (despite a plane hitting Manhatten) and remained in a holding pattern there until 9:13. At 8:47 Flight 175's transponder code changed. At 8:53 a hijacking was suspected and at 8:55 that suspicion was reported to the New York Center Manager.

Why, if an aircraft (known now to be an internal flight and not an intercontinental one) had crashed at 8:46 in New York, were the fighters sent off the east coast? Why then, with one plane crashed in New York and another reported hijacked in New York's area of control, did the fighters remain in a holding pattern off the east coast until some time after the second impact? Having crashed in to one WTC, there is at least some cause for the FAA and NORAD to believe that the second tower might be the target of the next New York-bound hijacked aircraft.

I won't comment on Flight 77 because the official report is complete nonsense, requiring phantom flights and, frankly, completely unimaginable errors or judgement. Nonetheless, careful examination of the events suggests to me that fighters were on its tail and were told to stand down.

Now we get to Flight 93. It took off 40 minutes late. To my mind, the hijacking of this plane is nonsensical in the context of the unfolding events, as already discussed.


I didn't say this at all. There's no way these alleged hijackers could have 'ensured' anything. The point I have been trying to make is that the hijackers would not have planned an operation like this that was so susceptible to failure. It only succeded because the US defence mechanism failed - this wasn't planned by the hijackers and couldn't have been foreseen.

There are three events that 'prove' this to the logical mind:

• Why was the plan not altered once Moussaoui was detained?
• Why did Atta take a connecting flight?
• Why did Atta carry a bag that would have revealed the plot if searched at airport security checkpoint?

A fourth point, which I also consider 'proof' in the absence of a decent explanation is the hijacking of Flight 93 after it had been delayed by 40 minutes. It doesn't make any sense. To a certain extent, there's a fifth too, and that is the alleged unnecessary manoeuvre by Hanjour.


ETA: A bit of tidying up

coughy i really enjoy your posts and it shows you've done your homework....why do you think atta took the connecting flight?..and didnt fear the contents of his bag being discovered?....

I honestly don't know and in the back of my mind I'm awaiting more information about the 'birdman' episode in Florida since that might have a bearing on the way this is interpreted. What I feel certain of is that no sensible plan would have involved either the use of a connecting flight on the day itself, or the personal carriage of a bag containing documents that might have alerted someone to a potential plot.

I have the feeling they were getting so much help they knew that failure was impossible?...

In your post you said:

But you also said:

This seems contradictory. You're saying that little could have been done to stop Flight 11 from succeeding, but then say that the terrorists would not have planned the operation because it was so susceptible to failure?

You say you disagree with my reasons FAA/NORAD incompetence is not required for a successful attack. But you address Flight175:

Yes, I agree, there's a lot of good questions there and in other things you've posted. I can understand how you can think there is a conspiracy (completely disagree, but I can see why you have suspicions). But again, that's just a list of things that went wrong. If they hadn't happened what's the worst outcome for the terrorists? The fighters reach them and either do nothing because they are over a populated area or reach them before and shoot a plane full of people out of the air. Win/win. How is that "so susceptible to failure"?

More like a bored teenager.