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Room 216

Washington, DC CONTENTS PANEL 1: SEPTEMBER 11, 2001: THE ATTACKS AND THE RESPONSE

WITNESSES: SECRETARY OF TRANSPORTATION NORMAN MINETA; MAJOR GENERAL CRAIG MCKINLEY, NORAD; MAJOR GENERAL LARRY ARNOLD, (RET.); COL. ALAN SCOTT (RET.); LT. GENERAL MIKE CANAVAN (RET.), FORMER ASSOCIATE ADMINISTRATOR, CIVIL AVIATION SECURITY PANEL 2: REFORMING CIVIL AVIATION SECURITY: NEXT STEPS

WITNESSES: STEPHEN MCHALE, DPEUTY ADMINISTRATOR, TRANSPORTATION SECURITY AGENCY; MAJOR GENERAL O.K. STEELE (RET.); MARY SCHIAVO, FORMER INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION PROCEEDINGS MR. KEAN: Yesterday the Commission received testimony from members of Congress and from expert witnesses about the U.S. civil aviation security system that operated in the period leading up to September 11, 2001. Today we move forward with the first look at the 9/11 hijackings themselves and the security system's performance of that day. Our final panelists will then address the changes which have been made in aviation security since 9/11 and also options for further improvements in the current system. Before we proceed further, I want the record to be made very clear that the Commission is intensely aware of any number of reports indicating failures outside the area of the aviation security system. These would include failures in intelligence, law enforcement and border security, which may have played a major part in making 9/11 possible. The Commission has a statutory mandate and will be examining those areas as well. They may even be the subject of future hearings. Our focus today, however, is the field of civil aviation. Today's first -- where we start, we pick up the story of the hijackings on September 11th itself. How did the civil aviation security system operate that day with respect to the 19 hijackers? What weapons and tactics did they employ to defeat the system? Why couldn't we stop them or, at least in the three out of four cases that reached their target, prevented successful completion of their mission? This hearing record will remain open for 14 additional calendar days for any of the witnesses who want to to submit additional material and perhaps for the commission to send follow-up questions. We are very pleased with the group of witnesses who are here today, particularly our first witness. And we're going to hear from the secretary of Transportation, with a long record of public service in the United States Congress, Secretary Mineta. MR. MINETA: Thank you very much, Chairman Kean, Vice Chairman Hamilton and distinguished members of the Commission, for this opportunity to testify before you. I want to compliment the Commission on its intention to collect and provide the information on the circumstances surrounding the tragedies of September 11th, 2001. I would like to provide the Commission with a brief account of what happened on September 11th, 2001. I believe I can be most helpful to this Commission by providing information in which I have personal knowledge and a few observations from my perspective as Secretary of Transportation. There are many events that occurred on September 11th that I do not have personal knowledge of, though I have learned about them in subsequent investigations and reports. I know this commission will be speaking to the same agencies and individuals that provided me with that information, so I will let the Commission collect that information from those primary sources. However, I do want to comment on what I believe is an important responsibility of this commission, and that is to add to the understanding of the American people about what we call terrorism and the threat that it poses. I have seen terrorism in several forms and from several vantage points over the years, as an intelligence officer in the United States Army during the era of the Korean conflict, and in Congress as one of the early members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Like a mutating virus, I have seen terrorism take different form over the years in an effort to defeat the safeguards that have been devised to protect against it. And I believe it is critical to recognize this important truth about terrorism: The threat of terrorism is constant, but the nature of that threat changes, because to be successful, terrorism must continually change how it operates. On Tuesday morning, September 11th, 2001, I was meeting with the Belgian transport minister in my conference room adjacent to my office, discussing aviation issues. Because of the agenda, FAA Administrator Jane Garvey was also in attendance. A little after 8:45 a.m., my chief of staff, John Flaherty, interrupted the meeting. He asked Administrator Garvey and me to step into my office, where he told me that news agencies were reporting that some type of aircraft had flown into one of the towers of New York's World Trade Center. Information was preliminary, so we did not know what kind of aircraft nor whether or not it was intentional. Jane Garvey immediately went to a telephone and contacted the FAA operations center. I asked to be kept informed of any developments and returned to the conference room to explain to the Belgian prime minister that our meeting might have to be postponed. In an incident involving a major crash of any type, the Office of the Secretary goes into a major information-gathering response. It contacts the mode of administration overseeing whatever mode of transportation is involved in the incident. It monitors press reports, contacts additional personnel to accommodate the surge in operations, and centralizes the information for me through the chief of staff. In major incidents, it will follow a protocol of notification that includes the White House and other agencies involved in the incident. These activities, albeit in the nascent stage of information-gathering, took place in these initial minutes. A few minutes after my return to the conference room, my chief of staff again asked me to step back into my office. He then told me that the aircraft was a commercial aircraft and that the FAA had received an unconfirmed report that a hijacking of an American Airlines flight had occurred. While Mr. Flaherty was briefing me, I watched as a large commercial jet flew into the second tower of the World Trade Center. At this point things began to happen quickly. I once more returned to the conference room and informed the minister of what had happened and ended the meeting. I received a telephone call from the CEO of United Airlines, Jack Goodman, telling me that one of United's flights was missing. I then called Don Carty, the CEO of American Airlines, and asked him to see if American Airlines could account for all of its aircraft. Mr. Flaherty reported to me that Jane Garvey had phoned to report that the CEO of Delta Airlines had called the FAA and said it could not yet account for all of its aircraft. During this time, my office activated the Department of Transportation's crisis management center, which was located on the 8th floor at that time of the Department of Transportation headquarters, and provides for senior DOT personnel to conduct surge operations in a coordinated manner. By this time, my office had contacted the White House. A brief moment later, the White House called my chief of staff and asked if I could come to the White House and operate from that location. I decided that, given the nature of the attack and the request, that I should be at the White House directly providing the president and the vice president with information. When I got to the White House, it was being evacuated. I met briefly with Richard Clark, a National Security Council staff member, who had no new information. Then the Secret Service escorted me down to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, otherwise known as the PEOC. I established contact on two lines, one with my chief of staff at the Department of Transportation, and the second with Monty Belger, the acting deputy administrator of the FAA, and Jane Garvey, both of whom were in the FAA operations center. And as the minutes passed, the developing picture from air traffic control towers and radar screens became increasingly more alarming. Some aircraft could not be contacted. While on a normal day that may be just a communications snafu, we were faced with trying to quickly sort out minor problems from significant threats. We did not know how many more attacks might be in progress. The FAA began to restrict air travel in the Northeast United States by a combination of actions which included sterilizing air space in certain regions and at various airports, and ultimately a nationwide ground stop of all aircraft for all locations, regardless of destination. Within a few minutes, American Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. At this time, as we discussed the situation with the North American Aerospace Defense commander and his staff, we considered implementing an emergency system of coordinated air traffic management to allow maximum use for defensive activities. It was clear that we had to clear the air space as soon as possible to stop any further attacks and ensure domestic air space was available for emergency and defensive use. And so at approximately 9:45 a.m., less than one hour after I had first been notified of an airplane crash in New York, I gave the FAA the final order for all civil aircraft to land at the nearest airport as soon as possible. It was the first shutdown of civil aviation in the history of the United States. Within minutes, air traffic controllers throughout the nation had directed 700 domestic and international flights to emergency but safe landings. Within another 50 minutes, air traffic controllers, working with skilled flight crews, made sure another 2800 airplanes returned safely to the ground. By shortly after noon, less than four hours after the first attack, U.S. air space was empty of all aircraft except military and medical traffic. A total of approximately 4500 aircraft were landed without incident in highly stressful conditions. Additionally, all international inbound flights were diverted from U.S. air space and U.S. airports. Unfortunately, during this time we also learned that United Flight 93 crashed in Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania. As America knows, but it is important to keep repeating, that aircraft never reached the terrorists' target due to the heroic actions taken by the passengers and crew on United Flight 93. A question has been asked whether or not there is evidence that other hijackings and attacks were prevented by the actions that were taken that day. There are classified reports, media reports and investigative documents that indicate that other attacks may have been planned. But the evidence on this question is speculative at best, and I do not believe anyone can assert that other attacks were thwarted on that day unless he or she is the one who either planned the attack or planned to carry it out. I also want to tell the Commission that although the focus of this commission's interest is on the airplane crashes on September 11th, as secretary of the United States Coast Guard, I was involved that day in the mass evacuation of more than 350,000 people from Manhattan. In addition to the largest maritime evacuation conducted in the history of the United States, our department's agencies were working with the various New York authorities on the devastating infrastructure damage suffered there. Over the next few days, our department spent hours working with various state, local and federal agencies to reopen roads, tunnels, bridges, harbors and railroads while getting essential relief supplies into the area. I have talked about the staff at the Department of Transportation and how proud I am of how they responded on September 11th and in the days and the months afterward. I also want to remark on the families, friends, the victims of that tragic day and those who were injured physically and emotionally. I share in much of their grief and heartache, although I can never experience the depth of it. The consequences of September 11th affected all of America, but the greatest effect was on these people. And I have spent a great deal of physical and emotional effort this past year trying to make sure that what happened on that day does not happen again. We must do everything we can to try and prevent other Americans from enduring the pain that these families and friends have suffered. But in that work, we must never forget those families and that pain and anguish. I know I don't. It helps me in the work I continue to do. They are in my thoughts and prayers. Thank you very much. MR. KEAN: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. When you were being prepared in the sense of preparing yourself to take your role in the Cabinet, were you briefed in any way, or what part of the possibility of terrorism occurring was part of your preparation? I mean, as you've looked at all the vast things you have to understand for your position, was the possibility of terrorism and what you might have to do in the result of terrorism a large part of that briefing, a small part of that briefing? MR. MINETA: The nature of what was happening in the civil aviation industry in the United States at that time did not put terrorism high on the list of priorities. We were still dealing with the whole issue of delays, of congestion, of capacity issues, and so terrorism was really not something that I was prepared to deal with except as it came up on that tragic day. MR. KEAN: So you had to improvise, in a sense, based on what was happening and the news reports you were getting. MR. MINETA: Absolutely. And in terms of what motivated me to bring all the aircraft down, as you see one thing happen, that's an accident. When you see two of the same thing occur, it's a pattern. But when you see three of the same thing occur, it's a program. And so at that point I decided to bring all the aircraft down. MR. KEAN: But in a sense, what I'm trying to get at, I guess, is the government was really unprepared for this kind of event. Nobody had anticipated it, this event or any kind of major terrorist event. So this was not a major preparation. You weren't prepared. You had to do your best under very difficult circumstances. MR. MINETA: That's correct, sir. MR. KEAN: There's been some confusion as to the issue of box cutters. You testified, I gather, that as of September 11th, the FAA did not prohibit box cutters, before Congress. Yesterday we got testimony from the ATA that in checkpoint operation guides, box cutters were classified as restricted items, which could be kept off an aircraft if identified. What was the status of box cutters within the aviation system as a whole, and certainly in Boston, where those checkpoints were? MR. MINETA: The FAA regulation referred to blades of four inches or greater as prohibited items. And so a box cutter was really less than four inches. Now, on the other hand, the airline industry had a guideline. And in that guideline, they did prohibit box cutters, as it was in that guideline. But in the FAA regulations, that was not the case. All they referred to was the length of the blade, and that was four inches. And so under the FAA regulations, box cutters would have been okay on an airplane. MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Secretary, we're very pleased to have you here this morning. I understand your time is short and you'll only be able to spend a few minutes with us. We're grateful for the time that you're able to make available. It might very well be that we'll have some questions that we would want to submit to you in writing subsequently. MR. MINETA: And I will submit those to the Commission in writing. 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?" 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. MR. HAMILTON: With respect to Flight 93, what type of information were you and the vice president receiving about that flight? MR. MINETA: The only information we had at that point was when it crashed. MR. HAMILTON: I see. You didn't know beforehand about that airplane. MR. MINETA: I did not. MR. HAMILTON: And so there was no specific order there to shoot that plane down. MR. MINETA: No, sir. MR. HAMILTON: But there were military planes in the air in position to shoot down commercial aircraft. MR. MINETA: That's right. The planes had been scrambled, I believe, from Otis at that point. MR. HAMILTON: Could you help me understand a little the division of responsibility between the FAA and NORAD on that morning? MR. MINETA: Well, FAA is in touch with NORAD. And when the first flight from Boston had gone out of communications with the air traffic controllers, the air traffic controller then notified, I believe, Otis Air Force Base about the air traffic controller not being able to raise that American Airlines flight. MR. HAMILTON: A final question and then we'll let other commissioners ask a question. And this is kind of a broad, sweeping one. What worries you most about transportation safety today? What are the most vulnerable points, do you think, in our transportation system today? A lot of steps have been taken, obviously, to improve security, a lot of progress made. What would be towards the top of your list? Or would there be two or three items that worry you the most? MR. MINETA: I would say today the most vulnerable would be the maritime ports. With the number of containers coming into this country, we really don't have a good handle on what's in those containers. And to me that is one that we still haven't really been able to put our hands on. I know that the Transportation Security Agency is looking and working on that matter diligently. But with the number of containers that come off of ships every day, something like 16 million a year, it's a formidable task. MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I understand the secretary's time is very tight now. MR. KEAN: I have one final question and then we'll go to Commissioner Roemer. Is there one recommendation that you know of that's pending now, either in the administration or in the Congress or other, that you believe would be most important to making the traveling public feel safer? MR. MINETA: I suppose, in terms of aviation, I think that we are probably as confident about the security relating to aviation issues today in terms of where we were before the 11th of September and improvements that were made subsequent to the 11th of September and in terms of each month, each day it gets better. But, again, I would go back to my maritime containers as still the most vulnerable and the one that really needs the funding to get to the bottom of that issue. MR. KEAN: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Commissioner Roemer. MR. ROEMER: Nice to see you, Mr. Secretary, and nice to see you feeling better and getting around as well, too. I want to follow up on what happened in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center and try to understand that day a little bit better. You said, if I understood you correctly, that you were not in the room; you were obviously coming from the Department of Transportation, where you had been busy in a meeting in official business, but you had not been in the room when the decision was made -- to what you inferred was a decision made to attempt to shoot down Flight 77 before it crashed into the Pentagon. Is that correct? MR. MINETA: I didn't know about the order to shoot down. I arrived at the PEOC at about 9:20 a.m. And the president was in Florida, and I believe he was on his way to Louisiana at that point when the conversation that went on between the vice president and the president and the staff that the president had with him. MR. ROEMER: So when you arrived at 9:20, how much longer was it before you overheard the conversation between the young man and the vice president saying, "Does the order still stand?" MR. MINETA: Probably about five or six minutes. MR. ROEMER: So about 9:25 or 9:26. And your inference was that the vice president snapped his head around and said, "Yes, the order still stands." Why did you infer that that was a shoot-down? MR. MINETA: Just by the nature of all the events going on that day, the scrambling of the aircraft and, I don't know; I guess, just being in the military, you do start thinking about it, an intuitive reaction to certain statements being made. MR. ROEMER: Who was the young man with the vice president? MR. MINETA: Frankly, I don't recall. MR. ROEMER: And was there another line of communication between the vice president -- and you said you saw Mr. Richard Clark on the way in. Was Clark running an operations center as well on that day? MR. MINETA: Dick was in the Situation Room. MR. ROEMER: So there was the Situation Room making decisions about what was going to happen on shootdowns -- MR. MINETA: I don't believe they were -- MR. ROEMER: -- as well as the PEOC? MR. MINETA: I don't believe they were making any decisions. I think they were more information-gathering from various agencies. MR. ROEMER: Could it have been in the Situation Room where somebody in the Situation Room recommended the shoot-down and the vice president agreed to that? MR. MINETA: Commissioner Roemer, I would assume that a decision of that nature would have had to be made at a much higher level than the people who were in the Situation Room. MR. ROEMER: So take me through that. The Situation Room is monitoring the daily minute-by-minute events and they find out that Flight 77 is headed to the Pentagon. Somebody's got to be getting that information. The Situation Room is then communicating with the PEOC and saying, "We've got another flight that's on its way toward the Pentagon. Here are the options." Then the vice president talks to the president and says, "Here are the options; we have a shoot-down recommendation. Do you agree, Mr. President?" Is that what happens? MR. MINETA: Again, that would be speculation on my part as to what was happening on that day, so I just wouldn't be able to really answer that -- on that inquiry. MR. ROEMER: I know, because you had been conducting official business, and I'm sure you were hurriedly on your way over there. MR. MINETA: As I was listening -- MR. ROEMER: I'm just trying to figure out how the Situation Room, which was gathering the minute-by-minute evidence and information and talking probably to a host of different people, and how they're interacting with the PEOC and then how the PEOC is interacting with the president, who is at that point on Air Force One, how a decision is made to shoot down a commercial airliner. And then would you say -- let's say we're trying to put that part of the puzzle together. Then would your inference be that they scrambled the jets to shoot down the commercial airliner, it failed, and the commercial airliner therefore crashed into the Pentagon, the jets were not able to get there in time to succeed in a mission that they'd been tasked to do? MR. MINETA: I'm not sure that the aircraft that were scrambled to come up to the DC area from Norfolk were under orders to shoot the airplane down. As I said, I just -- MR. ROEMER: But it was an inference on your part. MR. MINETA: It was an inference, without a doubt. And that's why, in thinking about the United plane that went down in Pennsylvania, the question that arose in my mind -- MR. ROEMER: Right away was "Was that shot down?" And did you ever get an answer to that? MR. MINETA: Yes, sir. The vice president and I talked about that. We then made the inquiry of the Department of Defense. They then got back to us saying, "No, it was not our aircraft." MR. ROEMER: No shots were fired and no effort was made to shoot that down. MR. MINETA: That's correct. MR. KEAN: I'm going to go to another questioner. MR. ROEMER: Thank you. MR. KEAN: The secretary's time is limited. Commissioner Lehman. MR. LEHMAN: Mr. Secretary, I have one question, and that is, we had testimony yesterday that there were many intelligence reports leading up to 9/11 and actual plots uncovered to use aircraft as missiles. Do you feel that the system set up to provide to you as secretary of Transportation the latest intelligence bearing on your responsibilities, such as that subject, was adequate before 9/11? If not, have measures been taken to see that you are provided with the best possible product on a daily basis as to threats to the broad range of transportation assets under your purview? Could you comment on before and after? MR. MINETA: Well, I do get a daily briefing, intelligence briefing. And I did during that time period, prior to the 11th of September and subsequent to the 11th of September. And there's no doubt that the nature of the intelligence data has improved. And so -- but again, there was nothing in those intelligence reports that would have been specific to anything that happened on the 11th of September. There was nothing in the preceding time period about aircraft being used as a weapon or of any other terrorist types of activities of that nature. And so -- but I do get briefings, and I think that since the 11th of September, 2001, the nature of the briefings have improved. MR. LEHMAN: Just to follow up, Mr. Secretary, given the fact that there were, in the preceding couple of years, about half a dozen novels and movies about hijackings being used as weapons and the fact that there were reports floating around in the intelligence community, did you personally think that that was a possibility, that it could have happened? Or when it happened, did it just take you totally by surprise? Because yesterday we had testimony from the former FAA administrator that, in effect, it never entered her mind. MR. MINETA: Well, I would have to, again, say that I had no thought of the airplane being used as a weapon. I think our concentration was more on hijackings. And most of the hijackings, as they occur in an overseas setting, or the hijacking, if it were to be a domestic one, was for the person to take over the aircraft, to have that aircraft transport them to some other place. But I don't think we ever thought of an airplane being used as a missile. MR. LEHMAN: Given that there was so much intelligence, not a specific plot, but of the possibility and the fact that some terrorists had, in fact, started planning, wouldn't you view it as a failure of our intelligence community not to tell the secretary of Transportation that there was such a conceivable threat that the people like the Coast Guard and FAA should be thinking about? MR. MINETA: We had no information of that nature at all. And as to whether that was a failure of the intelligence agencies, I think it would have been just even for them hard to imagine. MR. KEAN: Thank you. We recognize your time constraints. We have two more commissioners -- MR. MINETA: Absolutely. MR. KEAN: -- who have questions. Commissioner Gorelick and then Commissioner Fielding. MS. GORELICK: Secretary Mineta, again, thank you for being here. We all know that in the spring and summer of 2001, the intelligence community was putting out reports of a, I would say, near-frantic level suggesting that we were expecting there to be some type of terrorist attack somewhere in the world -- we didn't know where, we didn't know the modality, but a very high level of concern. My first question to you -- and I'll just give them to you all at once, is, one, were you called to any meeting or summoned at a Cabinet level, or was there any sort of cross-functional group put together across the government to say, What can we do as a government to respond to this very heightened level of intelligence warning that we are getting generally? Second, even though in response to Commissioner Lehman's questions you have indicated that this particular modality of attack was not made known to you clearly, hijackings and use of aircraft, bombings, bombs on aircraft, were a favorite tool, if you will, of terrorists. Did you yourself do anything within the agencies under your control to seek out mechanisms for being on alert and for heightening our security in this period of reporting? What did you know, what was anyone telling you, and what did you do in response? MR. MINETA: First of all, on the first question I would say, no, that we had no meetings of an interagency nature given the nature of intelligence that you're describing. I think most of the response at that time was to what you might call the chatter, because the chatter is really just increased communication between people, but nothing specific as to the nature of the kind of attack that might be coming. We're at orange level now, and what prompted that was again increased chatter. But it wasn't anything specific about the nature of what the threat might be. MS. GORELICK: Well, let me just contrast perhaps the chatter, the same kind of chatter level right in advance of the millennium. As I understand it, that information was widely disseminated in the government. There were Cabinet-level and sub-Cabinet-level meetings, and each agency essentially searched to do what they could to harden our country against attacks. Now, clearly when you don't know where the attack is coming from or what mode will be used, it's difficult. But what I am asking essentially is: Did this higher level of chatter, the what I believe to be a frantic quality to the intelligence warnings, result in any action across the government, and particularly in the area of transportation? I take it your answer to that is no? MR. MINETA: That's correct. MR. KEAN: Commissioner Fielding. MR. FIELDING: Mr. Chairman, I would like further explanation of the division of responsibility between the FAA and NORAD on the morning of 9/11, because there seems to be some confusion about that. I'd like the secretary's views, but I'd be very happy in respect to his time to submit that in writing to him. MR. MINETA: All right, I'll submit that in writing. MR. KEAN: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much. MR. MINETA: Very well. Thank you very much to the Commission. MR. HAMILTON: Mr. Chairman? MR. KEAN: Mr. Hamilton. MR. HAMILTON: I just wanted to be recognized for a moment to comment on a headline really in The Washington Post that appeared this morning. The headline states that a -- and I'm quoting it now -- "New Panel, Independent of 9/11 Commission, Is Sought," end of quote. And I want to observe that I don't see how it is possible to get that headline out of the article. And the article really does not say anything at all about a separate panel. When I first saw the headline it occurred to me that maybe I had attended a different meeting yesterday than The Washington Post reporters and headline writers had attended. But I hope the Post will see fit to prominently correct that headline which is quite erroneous. MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. I would certainly agree. I would like to have Major General Craig McKinley, commander, 1st Air Force, Continental U.S. NORAD, here representing NORAD. GEN. MCKINLEY: Governor Kean, Congressman Hamilton and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today on behalf of the combatant commander, United States Northern Command and North American Aerospace Defense Command, to provide testimony on the events surrounding the events of September 11th, 2001, when our nation was attacked from within by foreign terrorists using commercial aircraft as weapons of mass destruction. It is an honor to represent the thousands of men and women from the Air National Guard, the active duty forces and the Air Force Reserves still serving around the clock defending America from further attacks in support of the North American Aerospace Defense Command. I personally was inside the Pentagon on September 11th, and I personally know what it feels like to be attacked by hostile forces. Although over 18 months have passed since that tragic day, our vigilance remains focused. We have flown almost 30,000 airborne sorties in support of Operation Noble Eagle in the continental United States alone. Every day Americans and Canadians work side by side in NORAD to defend North America. We have forged unprecedented relationships with in the U.S. government, with federal agencies to strengthen our ability to detect and defend against further attempts to harm our nation from the air. We are now patterned with the new United States North Command to extend and perfect our mission in both homeland defense as well as civil support missions. We are proud to be a part of this team focused on defending our nation against all threats, and supporting our government in its role, primary role, of protecting its citizens. First Air Force is a subordinate command of Air Combat Command, and is responsible to the North American Aerospace Defense Commander for the execution of the air defense mission to protect our nation. First Air Force, as NORAD's continental United States NORAD region, is responsible for the air defense of the continental United States under the NORAD agreements. I personally took command of 1st Air Force in the continental United States's NORAD region on August 1st of 2002, and then became the joint force air component commander for General Eberhardt. This was 11 months after the attacks. I am pleased to say today that when I saw the nature of your questions, that I asked General Eberhardt's permission, and received it, to invite Major General Retired Larry Arnold, the past commander of 1st Air Force, and the commander on the day of the attacks, that led the command through those trying days during and after the event. He is with us today, and has volunteered to be part of this commission's hearings. I also asked for probably the best subject matter expert I could find on the chronology, the series of events that is so vital to this commission, to be with us today with your concurrence to walk us through the NORAD timeline. I also have with me today Major Don Arias to show you the human nature of this. Don's brother, Adam, was killed in the South Tower 2. He was talking to his brother at 8:59 on the 11th of September, '01, and Mr. Arias is our public affairs officer. Please stand up, Don. I'd like to thank the Commission staff, especially Miles Kara, for his help in preparing for this. The committee has posed many questions regarding the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Our intention is to provide the chronology first to the events leading up to September 11th, as well as taking your questions to give you a detailed look at how NORAD's response was made on 9/11, and any subsequent questions you may have on our posture since. Mr. Commissioner, that concludes my formal statement. The rest will be provided for the record. And, with your indulgence, sir, I would like Colonel Scott (ret.), Alan Scott, to walk you through the timeline. MR. SCOTT: Good morning, Mr. Chairman, commissioners. It is my pleasure to be here with you today. General Arnold and I worked together that day on September the 11th. What I will walk you through here is a chronology of the attacks, and I've presented it in a matrix form. And the only thing I lay claim to is having studied all of the attacks and how they are interwoven together. This was not a linear sequence of events where one attack began and ended and then a second attack began and ended. This was a coordinated, well-planned attack. We had multiple airplanes in the air. The fog and friction of war was evidence everywhere in the country, both on the civil side as well as the military side. And this hopefully will show you how those interwoven events came about. I will tell you the times on this chart come from our logs. The time on the chart is the time that's in the log. It may not be the exact time the event happened. It may be the time when the log-keeper was advised or became aware of the event. The first thing that happened in the morning related to the events at 9:02, or I'm sorry 8:02 a.m., Eastern Standard Time, is when American Airlines 11 took off out of Boston. American Airlines 11 was a 767, and it was headed, I believe, to Los Angeles. Fourteen minutes later, also coming out of Boston Logan, United Airlines 175, a 757, also headed to Los Angeles, took off out of Boston, and initially took roughly the same ground track as American 11. Three minutes later, American Airlines 77 took off out of Dulles here in Washington, also headed to Los Angeles, and also a 757, and proceeded westbound toward the West Coast. So now the first three airplanes are airborne together. The first time that anything untoward, and this was gleaned from FAA response, that anything out of the ordinary happened was at 8:20, when the electronic transponder in American Airlines 11 blinked off if you will, just disappeared from the screen. Obviously the terrorists turned that transponder off, and that airplane, although it did not disappear from the radarscope, it became a much, much more difficult target to discern for the controllers who now only could look at the primary radar return off the airplane. That was at 8:20. At 8:40 in our logs is the first occasion where the FAA is reporting a possible hijacking of American Airlines Flight 11. And the initial response to us at that time was a possible hijacking had not been confirmed. At that same moment, the F-15 alert aircraft at Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts, about 153 miles away, were placed immediately on battle stations by the Northeast Air Defense Sector commander. At 8:43, as this is going on, the fourth airplane, United 93, takes off out of Newark, New Jersey. It's a 757. It is headed for San Francisco. At 8:46, our next log event, we get the last, and, by the way, much of this radar data for these primary targets was not seen that day. It was reconstructed days later by the 84th Radar Evaluation Squadron, and other agencies like it who are professionals at going back and looking at radar tapes and then given that they are loaded with knowledge after the fact, they can go and find things that perhaps were not visible during the event itself. At 8:46, the last data, near the Trade Center,8:46, the first impact on the Trade Center. At that minute is when the Otis F-15s were scrambled. And, again, they were 153 miles away. And that scramble came, and General Arnold, I am sure can address this, based on a conversation between the Northeast Sector commander and himself. Those F-15s were airborne in six minutes. That is well inside the time that is allowed for them to get airborne. But because they were on battle stations, the pilots were in the cockpits ready to start engines, that scramble time was shortened by a significant amount of time. At 8:53, that's a minute later, in the radar reconstruction, we are now picking up the primary radar contacts off of the F-15s out of Otis. At 8:57, which is seven minutes after the first impact is, according to our logs when the FAA reports the first impact. And about this time is when CNN coverage to the general public is beginning to appear on the TV, not of the impact, but of the burning towers shortly thereafter. So you can see what in the military I am sure you have heard us talk to the fog and friction of war, and as the intensity increases the lag tends to also increase for how quickly information gets passed. 9:02 -- United 175, the second airplane, which by the way never turned off its transponder before impact, crashes into the North Tower at 9:02. The distance of those fighters which had been scrambled out of Otis, at that particular point they were still 71 miles away, about eight minutes out, and going very fast. At 9:05, FAA reports a possible hijack of United 175. Again, that's three minutes after the impact in the tower. That's how long it is taking now the information to flow through the system to the command and control agencies and through the command and control agencies to the pilots in the cockpit. At 9:09, Langley F-16s are directed to battle stations, just based on the general situation and the breaking news, and the general developing feeling about what's going on. And at about that same time, kind of way out in the West, is when America 77, which in the meantime has turned off its transponder and turned left back toward Washington, appears back in radar coverage. And my understanding is the FAA controllers now are beginning to pick up primary skin paints on an airplane, and they don't know exactly whether that is 77, and they are asking a lot of people whether it is, including an a C-130 that is westbound toward Ohio. At 9:11 FAA reports a crash into the South Tower. You can see now that lag time has increased from seven minutes from impact to report; now it's nine minutes from impact to report. You can only imagine what's going on on the floors of the control centers around the country. At 9:11 -- I just mentioned that -- 9:16, now FAA reports a possible hijack of United Flight 93, which is out in the Ohio area. But that's the last flight that is going to impact the ground. At 9:24 the FAA reports a possible hijack of 77. That's sometime after they had been tracking this primary target. And at that moment as well is when the Langley F-16s were scrambled out of Langley. At 9:25, America 77 is reported headed towards Washington, D.C., not exactly precise information, just general information across the chat logs; 9:27, Boston FAA reports a fifth aircraft missing, Delta Flight 89 -- and many people have never heard of Delta Flight 89. We call that the first red herring of the day, because there were a number of reported possible hijackings that unfolded over the hours immediately following the actual attacks. Delta 89 was not hijacked, enters the system, increases the fog and friction if you will, as we begin to look for that. But he lands about seven of eight minutes later and clears out of the system. At 9:30 the Langley F-16s are airborne. They are 105 miles away from the Washington area; 9:34, through chat, FAA is unable to precisely locate American Airlines Flight 77; 9:35, F-16s are reported airborne. And many times, reported airborne is not exactly when they took off. It's just when the report came down that they were airborne. At 9:37 we have the last radar data near the Pentagon. And 9:40, immediately following that, is when 93 up north turns its transponders off out in the West toward Ohio, and begins a left turn back toward the East. At 9:49, FAA reports that Delta 89, which had been reported as missing, is now reported as a possible hijacking. So again he is -- MR.: That's 9:41, sir. MR. SCOTT: I'm sorry, 9:41. Again, he is in the system. He is kind of a red herring for us. Now, the only thing that I would point out on this chart is this says 9:43, American Airlines 77 impacts the Pentagon. The timeline on the impact of the Pentagon was changed to 9:37 -- 9:43 is the time that was reported that day, it was the time we used. And it took about two weeks to discover in the parking lot of the Pentagon this entry camera for the parking lot, which happened to be oriented towards the Pentagon at the time of impact, and the recorded time is 9:37. And that's why the timeline went from 9:43 to 9:37, because it is the best documented evidence for the impact time that we have. Getting toward the end now, 9:47 is when Delta 89 clears the system by landing in Cleveland. So he is not a hijack. Lots of things are going on now in the system as the sectors begin to call both units that are part of 1st Air Force and NORAD, as well as units that have nothing to do with us. We are beginning to call everyone now and the 103rd Air Control Squadron, for instance, stationed in Connecticut, is an air control squadron, a radar squadron, and they got their radar online, operational, and begin to link their radar picture into the Northeast system. They are not normally part of NORAD. This is really the initial part of a huge push the rest of that day to link as many radars in on the interior as we can, and to get as many fighters on alert as we can. At 10:02, United 93 last radar data and the estimated impact time for United 93 is 10:03. At 10:07 FAA reports there may be a bomb on board 93 -- that's four minutes after the impact. At 10:15 they report that it's crashed. And you can see now that fog and friction lag time has increased from seven minutes to nine minutes to 15 minutes, because of the level of activities that are going on. And there are notations here about other airplanes as we begin to divert other airplanes that are just out were intended for training that day. We're picking up the phone, calling Syracuse, the Air National Guard. They're beginning to get flights airborne. They're beginning to arm those aircraft with whatever weapons they have handy so we can posture that defense. That is how the timeline unfolded. As you can see, it is a fabric of interwoven actions. This is not just a linear event. So lots of things going on, lots of activities, and lots of C2 centers. Sir, that completes my piece. GEN. MCKINLEY: Mr. Chairman, we thought right up front we'd put that on the record so we can have that as a departure point for your questions. I'd again caveat by saying that this is the North American Aerospace Defense Command and continental NORAD region timeline. Other agencies may have other logs that may have different times. But this is the best and most accurate data that we could piece together for your Commission, sir. With that, I open up to questions. MR. KEAN: Thank you very much. Commissioner Ben-Veniste. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Good morning, gentlemen. First I would like to personally commend each of you and the dedicated men and women who serve our nation through NORAD. I'd like to explain to you what you probably know already, and that is that our mandate as a commission is to provide the most detailed and accurate exposition in our final report of what occurred leading up to the 9/11 tragedy and the events subsequent thereto. And so please understand that our questions may be very pointed. We mean no disrespect, but we have our mission as well. Now, General McKinley, is it fair to say that the mission and the primary responsibility of NORAD is to defend our homeland and our citizens against air attack? GEN. MCKINLEY: On the day of September 11th, 2001, our mission was to defend North America, to surveil, to intercept, to identify, and if necessary to destroy, those targets which we were posturing were going to come from outside our country. In fact, that tracks originating over the landmass of the United States were identified friendly by origin. Therefore those alert sites that were positioned on the morning of September 11th were looking out primarily on our coasts at the air defense identification zone, which extends outward of 100 to 200 miles off our shore. So that was the main focus of NORAD at the time. MR. BEN-VENISTE: I asked you about your responsibilities, sir, and I ask you again, whether it was not your responsibility as NORAD to protect the United States and its citizens against air attack. GEN. MCKINLEY: It is, and it was, and I would just caveat your comment by saying that our mission was at that time not designed to take internal FAA radar data to track or to identify tracks originating within our borders. It was to look outward, as a Cold War vestige, primarily developed during the Cold War, to protect against Soviet long-range bomber penetration of our intercept zone. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, I think, sir, that you have used a good term, not good for the United States, but accurate, in terms of the vestigial mandate operationally to look outward toward the borders rather than inward. And as vestigial you mean, I am sure, as a result of our decades of confrontation with the former Soviet Union. GEN. MCKINLEY: Correct, sir. MR. BEN-VENISTE: And so on the day of September 11th, as you can see these dots -- I know it may be difficult to see -- NORAD was positioned in a perimeter around the United States, but nothing in the central region, nothing on the border with Canada? GEN. MCKINLEY: That's correct, sir. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, let me ask you, sir, whether the concept of terrorists using an airplane as a weapon was something unknown to the intelligence community on September 10th, 2001. GEN. MCKINLEY: Very good question, and I -- MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you. GEN. MCKINLEY: -- I asked our staff to provide me some data on what they had that morning. As I said, General Arnold was at the helm that morning. But basically the comments I received from my staff was that there was no intelligence indication at any level within NORAD or DOD of a terrorist threat to commercial aviation prior to the attacks. And information from the daily Joint Chiefs intelligence report on the morning of September 11th indicated no specific dangers or threats within the country. MR. BEN-VENISTE: My question, sir, and I mean no disrespect, but we'll save time if you listen to what I ask you. My question is: The concept of terrorists using airplanes as weapons was not something which was unknown to the U.S. intelligence community on September 10th, 2001, isn't that fair to say? GEN. MCKINLEY: I'd like the intelligence community to address that. I would find it hard to believe that they hadn't speculated against that. But it was unavailable to us at the time. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, let's start, for example, with September 12th, 1994, a Cessna 150L crashed into the South Lawn of the White House, barely missing the building, and killing the pilot. Similarly, in December of 1994, an Algerian armed Islamic group of terrorists hijacked an Air France flight in Algiers and threatened to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. In October of 1996, the intelligence community obtained information regarding an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and crash it into Tel Aviv. In August of 1988, the intelligence community obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. The information was passed on to the FBI and the FAA. In September of 1998, the intelligence community obtained information that Osama bin Laden's next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it. In August 2001, the intelligence community obtained information regarding a plot to either bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi from an airplane, or crash an airplane into it. In addition, in the Atlanta Olympics, the United States government and the Department of Justice and my colleague Jamie Gorelick were involved in planning against possible terrorist attacks at the Olympics, which included the potential of an aircraft flying into the stadium. In July 2001, the G-8 summit in Genoa, attended by our president, among the measures that were taken were positioning surface-to-air missile ringing Genoa, closing the Genoa airport and restricting all airspace over Genoa. Was not this information, sir, available to NORAD as of September 11th, 2001? GEN. MCKINLEY: It's obvious by your categorization that those events all took place and that NORAD had that information. I would only add, sir, that the intelligence data that we postured our forces for and the training and the tactics and the procedures that we used to prepare our missions for support of the combatant commander of NORAD had hijacking as a primary intercept tactic. And we have some of the finest fighter pilots, as you know in the world, who are some of the best people in the world who can do their mission extremely well. But we had not postured prior to September 11th, 2001, for the scenario that took place that day. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, obviously it would be hard to imagine posturing for the exact scenario. But isn't it a fact, sir, that prior to September 11th, 2001, NORAD had already in the works plans to simulate in an exercise a simultaneous hijacking of two planes in the United States? GEN. MCKINLEY: Colonel Scott, do you have any data on that? I'm not aware of that, sir. I was not present at the time. MR. BEN-VENISTE: That was Operation Amalgam Virgo. MR. SCOTT: Yes, sir. Specifically Operation Amalgam Virgo, which I was involved in before I retired, was a scenario using a Third World united -- not united -- uninhabited aerial vehicle launched off a rogue freighter in the Gulf of Mexico. General Arnold can back me up -- at the time one of our greatest concerns was the proliferation of cruise missile technology and the ability for terrorist groups to get that technology, get it close enough to our shores to launch it. In fact, this exercise -- in this exercise we used actual drone -- NQM-107 drones, which are about the size of a cruise missile, to exercise our fighters and our radars in a Gulf of Mexico scenario. MR. BEN-VENISTE: You are referring to Amalgam 01, are you not? MR. SCOTT: Yes, sir, Amalgam 01. MR. BEN-VENISTE: I am referring to Amalgam 02, which was in the planning stages prior to September 11th, 2001, sir. Is that correct? MR. SCOTT: That was after I retired, and I was not involved in 02. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Will you accept that the exercise involved a simultaneous hijacking scenario? MR. SCOTT: I was not involved in 02. GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, I do have some information on 02, if you would allow me to read it for the record. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Please. GEN. MCKINLEY: Amalgam Virgo in general, 02, was an exercise created to focus on peacetime and contingency NORAD missions. One of the peacetime scenarios that is and has been a NORAD mission for years is support to other government departments. Within this mission falls hijackings. Creativity of the designer aside, prior to 9/11, hijack motivations were based on political objectives -- i.e., asylum or release of captured prisoners or political figures. Threats of killing hostages or crashing were left to the script writers to invoke creativity and broaden the required response for players. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, isn't that a bit fatuous given the specific information that I've given you? It wasn't in the minds of script writers when the Algerians had actually hijacked the plane, which they were attempting to fly into the Eiffel Tower. And all of the other scenarios which I mentioned to you. I don't mean to argue with you. But my question is, sir, given the awareness of the terrorists use of planes as weapons, how is it that NORAD was still focusing outward protecting the United States against attacks from the Soviet Union or elsewhere, and was not better prepared to defend against the hijacking scenarios of a commercial jet laden with fuel used as a weapon to target citizens of the United States? When you say our training was vestigial, I think you said it in capsulated form. But would you agree that on the basis of the information available that there could be, could have been better preparedness by NORAD to meet this threat? GEN. MCKINLEY: In retrospect, sir, I think I would agree with your comment. MR. BEN-VENISTE: With respect to the bases that were available for protecting the East Coast, you -- and Colonel Scott has gone through the scrambling of aircraft -- I wanted to focus just on one flight, Flight 77, and then Secretary Lehman will ask you some more specific questions. With respect to Flight 77, sir, you testified previously before the House Armed Services Committee, and General Eberhardt was questioned -- you are familiar with his testimony? GEN. MCKINLEY: Yes, sir. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Okay. He was questioned about Flight 77, and because of the use of Langley Air Base, which is 105 miles from our capital, as opposed to, say, Andrews Air Force Base, which is in the neighborhood, the question arises again about the positioning and the thought behind the positioning of fighter planes to protect our capital in an enhanced terrorist situation such as existed on September 10th, September 9th, 2002. Let me ask you about Flight 77 again. The question was the timeline we have been given is that at 8:55 on September 11th American Airlines Flight 77 began turning east away from its intended course, and at 9:10 Flight 77 was detected by the FAA radar over West Virginia heading east. That was after the two planes struck the Trade Center towers. Is that correct, Colonel Scott? MR. SCOTT: Yes, sir. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, 15 minutes later, at 9:25, the FAA notified NORAD, according to this statement, that Flight 77 was headed toward Washington. Was that the first notification, 9:25, that NORAD or DOD had that Flight 77 was probably hijacked? And, if it was, do you know why it took 15 minutes for FAA to notify NORAD? General Eberhardt said, "Sir, there's one minor difference: I saw it as 9:24, which you do as well, that we were notified, and that's the first notification we received." "Do you know if that was the first notification to DOD?" "Yes, sir, that's the first documented notification that we received." And I want to focus on the word "documented," because it's very important for us to know when NORAD actually received notification, given the fact that planes had already crashed into the World Trade Center, and given I am sure the assumption that these were terrorist acts and there could be more coming, more planes coming. Is it in fact correct, sir, that the first notification of any type that NORAD received was not until 9:24 with respect to Flight 77? GEN. MCKINLEY: With your concurrence, sir, I would like to ask General Arnold to address that. He was on the floor that morning. GEN. ARNOLD: Thank you. The simple answer to your question is I believe that to be a fact: that 9:24 was the first time that we had been advised of American 77 as a possible hijacked airplane. Our focus -- you have got to remember that there's a lot of other things going on simultaneously here, was on United 93, which was being pointed out to us very aggressively I might say by the FAA. Because our radars looking outward and not inward, the only way for us to know where anything was was for the FAA to pass along that information to us. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, is it not the case, General Arnold, that there was an open line established between FAA, NORAD and other agencies, including CIA and FBI, that morning? GEN. ARNOLD: Well, I wasn't on that line at that particular time if that were the case. In fact, there is an open line established between our sectors at really the tactical level where they are controlling the aircraft talking to the FAA controllers from time to time. We did not have an open line at that time with the FAA. That is not accurate. MR. BEN-VENISTE: You did not. You were not -- NORAD was not in contact -- GEN. ARNOLD: The continental United States NORAD region, my headquarters, responsible for the continental United States air defense, did not have an open line with the FAA at that time. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Was there some NORAD office that had an open line with the FAA -- GEN. ARNOLD: Our -- MR. BEN-VENISTE: Excuse me. Let me finish my question, please. Was there some NORAD office -- and you'll forgive us because we had asked for this information prior to the hearing from FAA and did not receive it -- but we are advised that there was indeed an open line between either the net or some other name given to a -- essentially an ongoing conference where under, in real time, FAA was providing information as it received it, immediately after the first crash into the Towers, we were told, with respect to each of the events that were ongoing of any remarkable nature? I see General McKinley is nodding. GEN. MCKINLEY: I'd like to, if I may, address this, based on my research and review for this commission. It's my understanding that the FAA was in contact with our Northeast Air Defense Sector at Rome, New York. Understanding the relationship of how we defend North America from threats, NORAD located in Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado Springs, our continental NORAD region, our air operations center located at Tindel Air Force Base in Florida -- that's where the joint force air component commander resides. And then we have three sectors based on the size and volume of our country that handle that. It is my understanding from talking with both FAA and our supervisors at the Northeast Air Defense Sector in Rome, that those lines were open and that they were discussing these issues. MR. BEN-VENISTE: So, is it fair to say that at least the NORAD personnel in Rome, New York, had information available to it in real time once it saw -- and we were advised that this occurred at 9:02, which was then 22 minutes earlier that Flight 77 first was observed deviating from its course, something which in the context of what was going on that day would be quite interesting, if not remarkable? Colonel Scott, any comments? MR. SCOTT: Sir, I think it's also important to understand that like the CONUS region, the FAA is also broken down into subordinate command and control centers as well. I know that the Boston center was talking directly to the Northeast sector. I don't believe Flight 77 was in Boston Center's airspace. They were in Cleveland. GEN. MCKINLEY: I think the FAA can report accurately on this, but I believe 77 was in Cleveland Center airspace when it developed the problem where they lost its radar image. And I believe -- and the FAA again can testify better to this -- they would take action based on losing that identification in Cleveland. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, actually I think according to the information that we have, the first indication was not a loss of radar contact but rather a course deviation with respect to Flight 77. Now, I don't mean to take up any more time on this, because we are going to want to follow up on all of this information in great detail. But let me ask whether there is regularly made a tape recording of these open-line communications. GEN. ARNOLD: (?) Not to my knowledge. GEN. MCKINLEY: Not to my knowledge. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Does FAA to your knowledge keep a recording of these crisis situations? GEN. ARNOLD: (?) I am unaware, but I would certainly direct that to them, please. MR. BEN-VENISTE: To the best of your knowledge, you don't have anything further to shed light on when you first learned -- you, NORAD -- first learned of Flight 77's probable hijack status prior to 9:24 a.m.? GEN. ARNOLD: (?) I can provide that for the record. I do not have any further knowledge at this time. MR. BEN-VENISTE: We would ask that you do so. GEN. ARNOLD: (?) Yes, sir. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will have some other questions after. MR. KEAN: Secretary Lehman. MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. General, I would also like to echo my colleagues' expression of great admiration for you and your predecessor, your command and your pilots, even though they might require long runways to land. GEN. MCKINLEY: We understand. MR. LEHMAN: One of the most serious responsibilities we have in addition to air security is identifying the real dysfunctions in our intelligence system that contributed to the tragedy. And we had prior as you know to your testimony Secretary Mineta, who indicated despite the fact of this long litany of events and intelligence reports of the growing probability that aircraft would be used as weapons, nothing ever got to him, and nothing apparently got to you, and I assume, General Arnold, nothing got to you. This would seem to be a pretty significant failure of our system, because it exists to provide product precisely to you, the most important users tasked with defending it. So I would like to ask -- we'll provide you a copy of this, which is from the Joint Inquiry staff statement -- if you could give us your studied assessment of what went wrong in the way you interact with, your command interacts with the intelligence community, and why the product did not get to you. These were pretty dramatic events, facts and intelligence reports. It would be very helpful to us to have your assessments as a customer of the system to what went so seriously wrong that you were still only looking out. There's another, an issue that I would ask perhaps General Arnold to address, because there's a great deal of unease and distress, I think understandably, among many of the families that somehow those aircraft should have been shot down if people had not made mistakes. And I wonder if you would just take us through each flight, given the posture that NORAD was in at the time, which was national policy and not whatever based on erroneous intelligence perhaps. But given that posture and given the times that NORAD was notified of the deviation from -- the possibility of hijacking, could the aircraft on alert for instance at Otis have intercepted? And then if you could also take us through 77 and 93 as well with the F-16s, which -- and if you would tell us as you take us through what the armament was on the F-15s and the F-16s that were scrambled against 77 and 93. GEN. ARNOLD: Thank you, sir, and I will try to do that to the best of my ability. And perhaps General McKinley has some data that he could shed light on, because I have been retired a little while, and do not have access to the staff for some of the very specifics on that. But I will try to do my best. As you know from previous testimony from General Eberhardt to Congress, we were in the middle of a NORAD exercise at that particular time, which means that basically our entire staff was focused on being able to do the air operations center mission, which was our job to do. We had just come out of a video teleconference with the NORAD staff and with our folks at that particular time, when I was handed a note that we had a possible hijacking at Boston center, and it had come from the Northeast Air Defense Command, Colonel Bob Mahr (ph), who is commander up there, and he had requested that I call him immediately. And I was upstairs in our facility, immediately went downstairs, picked up the phone, asking on the way to my staff, "Is this part of the exercise?" Because quite honestly, and frankly we do do hijacking scenarios as we go through these exercises from time to time. But I realized that it was not. This was real life. And I also remembered as I went downstairs, before I even talked to him, that it had been a long time since we had had a hijacking, but the fact that we had reviewed the procedures of what it is we do for a hijacking, because we were in the middle of an exercise. So we were pretty well familiar with those procedures, and of course we have our own checklist that we follow. As I picked up the phone, Bob told me that Boston Center had called possible hijacking within the system. He had put the aircraft at Otis on battle stations, wanted permission to scramble them. I told them to go ahead and scramble the airplanes and we'd get permission later. And the reason for that is that the procedure -- hijacking is a law enforcement issue, as is everything that takes off from within the United States. And only law enforcement can request assistance from the military, which they did in this particular case. The route, if you follow the book, is they go to the duty officer of the national military center, who in turn makes an inquiry to NORAD for the availability of fighters, who then gets permission from someone representing the secretary of Defense. Once that is approved then we scramble aircraft. We didn't wait for that. We scrambled the aircraft, told them get airborne, and we would seek clearances later. I picked up the phone, called NORAD, whose battle staff was in place because of the exercise, talked to the deputy commander for operations. He said, you know, "I understand, and we'll call the Pentagon for those particular clearances." It was simultaneous almost for that decision that we made that I am looking at the TV monitor of the news network and see a smoking hole in what turned out to be the North Tower of the World Trade Center, wondering, What is this? And like many of us involved in that, Does it have anything to do with this particular incident? Which we didn't think it did, because we were talking Boston Center, and we were not thinking of the immediate New York metropolitan area. Shortly after that, of course our airplanes became airborne. It just so happens that Colonel Duffy, who was a pilot of that first F-15, had been involved in some conversation because, as telephone calls were made, he was aware that there was a hijacking in the system. It's kind of interesting because he concluded that that indeed might have been that airplane himself, and [he]elected to hit the afterburner and to speed up his way towards New York. It was then very shortly thereafter that we saw on television the second airplane, United 175, crash into the South Tower. And the first thing that I think most of us felt was, was this a rerun of the first event? And then it turned out to be the second event. We had no warning of that whatsoever. In fact, that airplane was called possibly hijacked later on, which as General McKinley referred to, as the fog and friction of war, actually caused further confusion, because we were not aware which aircraft actually crashed into the towers. We just knew that by now we had two airplanes that have crashed into the towers. We have two airplanes that are called hijacked. Again, we are still minutes away -- I think the record said eight minutes away from New York City with F-15s that are moving very rapidly in that direction. Now we have, before I get to 77, if it were, we get a call of United Flight 93. MR. LEHMAN: Before you go to that, I just wanted to just make -- there was no possibility given the lateness with which you were notified from FAA of a possible hijacking that those airplanes in full after burner flying supersonic could have gotten there in time to intercept either of those two flights. Is that correct? GEN. ARNOLD: That's correct. That's correct. The first aircraft, of course, American 11, crashed before our interceptors were airborne. We ordered the scramble almost simultaneously; our records show the same minute. I'm not even sure which occurred first, but it was almost simultaneous that we ordered the scramble of the aircraft, and the impact into the North Tower had occurred. And so by the time even the pilot accelerating to 1.5 mach, moving pretty fast, was still eight minutes out by the time the second aircraft had crashed into the tower. And though when the second aircraft crashed into the tower, by now, you know, I think Secretary Mineta said, this becomes a pattern certainly. I would like to tell you that I was absolutely certain at that time that we were under an attack, but I was not absolutely certain we were under attack at that particular time. But we knew that this pattern had to be dealt with at that particular time. And then very shortly thereafter we got a call from on the United 93 flight being a possible hijacking. And that aircraft, as you -- well, I don't know if you know, but it wandered around. That aircraft wandered around and flew up over the northern part of Pennsylvania and Ohio. Mixed in with this was a call about a Delta flight that was possibly hijacked. So now our focus is we are under attack. What are we going to do in order to be in position to intercept another aircraft should it threaten someplace in the United States? That place of course, we would not know. In the Northeast at this particular time we had no other aircraft available. The aircraft out of Otis had taken off. We looked at aircraft that were returning from a Michigan, an Air Michigan National Guard aircraft returning from the range, because at one time we thought either the Delta flight or the United 93 might pose a threat to Detroit. We tried to get airplanes airborne out of the Toledo Air National Guard at that particular time. Can you get anything airborne? Because we have this United 93 and this Delta. We need to intercept it and see what is going on with those particular aircraft. Syracuse, New York Air National Guard unit -- we inquired with them, their ability to get airborne, and ultimately they did somewhat later at that particular time. And so in the record you see the time when we were notified of the American Flight 77 as being a possible hijack. And I can tell you that I did not know, and I don't believe anybody in the NORAD system, knew where that airplane was. We were advised it was possibly hijacked. And we had launched almost simultaneously with that, we launched the aircraft out of Langley to put them over top of Washington, D.C., not in response to American Airline 77, but really to put them in position in case United 93 were to head that way. They were the closest fighters we had, and we started vectoring them to move towards the Washington, D.C. area, to -- MR. LEHMAN: Did they also go into burner? GEN. ARNOLD: No, sir. GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, they, based on their configuration, traveled at .98 Mach, roughly 575 knots, 660 miles per hour, about 10 nautical miles per minute. MR. LEHMAN: If they had gone into burner, could they have gotten there in time to get 77? GEN. ARNOLD: I think if those aircraft had gotten airborne immediately, if we were operating under something other than peacetime rules, where they could have turned immediately toward Washington, D.C., and gone into burner, it is physically possible that they could have gotten over Washington, D.C. MR. LEHMAN: Why did they head out to sea first? GEN. ARNOLD: Our standard -- we have agreements with the FAA, and by the way we are looking outward. This is an advantage to us, and so we'd have agreements for clearance. When we scramble an aircraft, there is a line that is picked up, and the FAA and everyone is on that line. And the aircraft take off and they have a predetermined departure route. And of course, it's not over water, because our mission, unlike law enforcement's mission, is to protect things coming towards the United States. And I might even add in all of our terrorist scenarios that we run, the aircraft, if we were to intercept aircraft, it is usually always from outside the United States coming towards us. So our peacetime procedures, to de-conflict with civil aviation's, so as to not have endanger civil aviation in any particular way. GEN. MCKINLEY: Secretary Lehman, also if I may add, the complexity of the air traffic over the Northeast corridor is so complex that to just launch fighters, as you know, sir, from your background, into that air traffic system can cause potential damage or midair collision. So we rely on the FAA to de-conflict those corridors. And that is another reason why it vectored east originally. MR. LEHMAN: The armament on the F-15s and the F-16s was? GEN. ARNOLD: The armament, as I recall, and General McKinley can correct me on that, we had full-up armament on all those aircraft with both radar and heat-seeking missiles as well as guns. GEN. MCKINLEY: AIM -7,-8,-9. MR. LEHMAN: So, to continue with 77, it's fair to say if you had got a more timely notification from FAA, and particularly with regard to where it was heading, that those F-16s launched from Langley could possibly have gotten there before they hit the Pentagon? GEN. ARNOLD: It is certainly physically possible that they could have gotten into the area. And the speculation is as to whether we could actually have intercepted the aircraft by that time, because everything that we were doing, remember, was being relayed from the FAA. We had no visibility on those aircraft -- couldn't see, we had no radars, couldn't talk to our pilots. FAA did a marvelous job during that period of time in doing radio relays and assisting us with being able to control them. MR. LEHMAN: Now, had 93 not crashed, would it not have been possible for the F-16s to have intercepted 93, and do you think they would have? GEN. ARNOLD: It was our intent to intercept United Flight 93. And in fact my own staff, we were orbiting now over Washington, D.C. by this time, and I was personally anxious to see what 93 was going to do, and our intent was to intercept it. But we decided to stay over Washington, D.C., because there was not that urgency. And if there were other aircraft coming from another quadrant, another vector, we would have been pulled off station, and we would not have been able to -- there might have been an aircraft that popped up within the system closer that would have posed a larger threat to the Washington, D.C. area. So we elected to remain over D.C. until that aircraft was definitely coming towards us. And, as you know, the brave men and women who took over that aircraft prevented us from making the awful decision which the young men that were flying those aircraft would have lived with for the rest of their lives if they had to do that. MR. LEHMAN: In a short answer, why with the previous attempt of a light plane to hit the White House, wasn't Andrews Air Force Base with F-16s and Marine F-18s available, part of the alert? And I understand, and I'd also like to have you comment on what the role of the Secret Service was in scrambling those F-16s. GEN. ARNOLD: Are you talking about scrambling the -- MR. LEHMAN: Andrews -- GEN. ARNOLD: The Andrews airplanes. It is my understanding that the Secret Service -- obviously they work with the 113th, because the president's Air Force One is located out at Andrews Air Force Base. So they had personal knowledge of those, of the people out there and the telephone number, and were-I cannot speculate whether they knew what we were doing or not, but in the urgency to get something done they made a phone call to the 113th, I learned later -- I did not know that at the time -- and asked them to get anything they could airborne, and I think the quote was "to protect the House." GEN. MCKINLEY: And the 113th is the 113th Fighter Wing at Andrews, the District of Columbia Air National Guard F-16 Wing. GEN. ARNOLD: And not part of NORAD. MR. LEHMAN: Now, you said that the clear delineation was you were looking outward, and to do anything inward you had to get authorization from a law enforcement agency. And that is covered, as I understand it, by JCS instruction 3610 on aircraft piracy. In that instruction, as I read it, which I believe is still in effect -- GEN. MCKINLEY: That's correct, sir. MR. LEHMAN: -- you don't have any delegated authority to interdict. In fact, there is no mention of interdiction, and it's purely an escort function. This is still in effect. Now, presumably you are not following it to the letter, and I would like you to speak to what the chain of command is now. Who has authority to interdict, to shoot down, where is it delegated, and are there published rules of engagement as to what criteria apply to make that decision? GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, I'd be happy to answer that, and I thank General Arnold for the comments about the actual data. I appreciate him being here today. Quite frankly, sir, since September 11th, 2001, the Department of Defense, United States Air Force has put a lot of resources into what we call Operation Noble Eagle. As President Bush said, it's the second front on the war on terrorism. And, as I said in my opening remarks, we have flown 30,000 sorties. In fact overhead today here our Noble Eagle pilots are flying, in addition to being supplanted with ground-based air defense artillery. A lot of effort has gone into taking a look at the things that were not done right prior to prepare ourselves for the aftermath. And it is an honor for me to represent the men and women who do that. Quite frankly, our relationships began at 9/11, and the aftermath, with General Arnold and our staff to work with the Federal Aviation Administration to bring in those radar facilities so our controllers at our Northeast, Southeast and Western Air Defense sectors had visibility internally now. And that has been completed. In addition to seeing internally to the United States, we must be able to communicate to the pilots who fly our interceptor missions, so we can have clear lines of control back to our command element, General Eberhart, in Colorado Springs. MR. LEHMAN: Just to interrupt now, on the radar visibility, are you dependent on the FAA radars, which can have very little capability in a non-transponder environment, or can you, do you have the better air defense radar? GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, we try to put the best radars in effect for the mission. Most of those are FAA radars. Most of them are old radars, but they've been maintained properly, and we are actually putting Department of Defense people out to make sure those radars are calibrated for our mission. So therefore we are using their radars. We are using air control squadrons, both active duty Guard and Reserve, to supplement those. We in fact use the United States Navy every chance we can, because their Aegis cruisers are so capable that we link their pictures into our air combat command center at Tindel. So we are doing the absolute best job with the resources we have been given to make sure that internal picture now is transparent to our air battle managers, so that military controllers, when asked now, can pinpoint immediately an aircraft in distress, that we can find the nearest suitable fighter location, which I can say is substantial today. In open testimony I would not like to go into the details of the numbers of alert facilities, but it goes up and down depending on the threat. It is internal now to the United States, which it wasn't on the 11th of September. So this capacity, this Operation Noble Eagle, which gives the military far more responsibility and latitude to do this mission now, has allowed us to be far more capable. And we have been involved in every airline incident that we have been asked to perform with, with the Federal Aviation Administration subsequent to 9/11, whether there be a disturbance onboard, whether it be an aircraft emergency, whether it be to protect critical infrastructure, our major population centers. We are there. MR. LEHMAN: To follow up on that, General Arnold, did you have authority to shoot down 93 when it was heading towards Washington? And where did you get it? GEN. ARNOLD: A lot of discussion on that. Our intent on United 93 -- the simple answer is, to my knowledge, I did not have authority to shoot that aircraft down. We were informed after the airplane had already hit the ground. That's the simple answer. MS. GORELICK: I'm sorry, could you say that again? You were informed of what after it hit the ground? GEN. ARNOLD: We were informed of presidential authority some five minutes after that aircraft had hit the ground, according to our records. MR. LEHMAN: So you were given it after the fact, presidential authority to shoot it down? GEN. ARNOLD: To my knowledge. Now, I can tell you that in our discussion with the NORAD staff at that particular time that we -- you know, we intended to intercept that aircraft at some point in time, attempted to deviate that aircraft away from the Washington, D.C. area. There was discussion at that particular time whether or not that aircraft would be shot down. But we, I did not know of presidential shoot down authority until after that aircraft had crashed. MR. LEHMAN: Mmm-hmm. And, General McKinley, could you take us to the present and where those authorities lie now? GEN. MCKINLEY: Yes, sir. Subsequent to 9/11, the president delegated to the secretary of Defense, delegated to the combatant commander at NORAD, and now United States Northern Command, has the authority to declare a hostile target. Our fighter interceptors will be in position to accept that hostile declaration, and the clearance authorities will be passed up to the highest authority. We have improved our communications equipment. We have secure telephones that allow us to contact immediately the powers in the chain of command. And I, as the joint force air component commander, have delegated emergency authority in the very rare occasion where a telephone fails or we cannot get authority, and under emergency powers can exercise that authority. So the clearances now are in place. General Eberhart is in place in Colorado Springs, or his designated representative. We exercised this in real world, not exercise, probably between eight and 15 times a week. So it's been well documented. Any national security event will bring together the forces and those lines of communication are open now. Clearances are there. MR. LEHMAN: Thank you. As you know, our rules of engagement are many V-1, so I will take rest and let my colleagues go at you. MR. KEAN: Commissioner Ben-Veniste. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Following up on this shootdown authority, General Arnold, from what source did you receive the shootdown authority? GEN. ARNOLD: I did not receive shootdown authority. MR. BEN-VENISTE: You say it was received subsequent to the crash of 93? GEN. ARNOLD: Yes, that's correct. MR. BEN-VENISTE: From what source was that received? GEN. ARNOLD: It was passed down to us from the NORAD, from Cheyenne Mountain, that they had received shootdown authority. And then, you know, the timeframe escapes me at the moment, but you know for example over the Washington, D.C. area it was declared a no-fly zone by clear -- just by the fact that any aircraft was present, if we could not determine if that aircraft was friendly, then we were cleared to shoot that aircraft down. MR. BEN-VENISTE: When was the declaration of no-fly zone authorized? GEN. ARNOLD: I don't know. It was shortly during that timeframe. MR. BEN-VENISTE: So are you saying that that declaration gave you shootdown authority? GEN. ARNOLD: It gave us -- that particular declaration that I am referring to is a class bravo airspace within the Washington, D.C. area that was shut down to aviation, except for military or for law enforcement emergency response aircraft at that particular time. MR. BEN-VENISTE: To help me understand, does it mean once that condition exists, that unless you were able to determine that this was a friendly aircraft, which under the circumstances I suppose means under the control of the terrorists at that time making it an unfriendly aircraft, that you had authority -- GEN. ARNOLD: That's correct. MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- by whatever means to bring that down? GEN. ARNOLD: Yes. The -- MR. BEN-VENISTE: At what time during this process was that order issued, and who issued it? GEN. ARNOLD: I do not know who issued it. It is my understanding it was issued by the president, or the vice president in his stead, that that order was issued. And it was issued around the time that we decided to put all the aircraft on the ground, as Secretary Mineta had referred to, at that particular time. So -- MR. BEN-VENISTE: We would ask you to supplement your testimony today with specific information about that. At what point was, to the best of your knowledge, any order received from either the president or the vice president of the United States with respect to action to be taken by the military in connection with the ongoing situation? GEN. ARNOLD: It was my understanding that that occurred, the direct communication, to me. I can't answer if it was done at a higher level at some point in time around five minutes after the United 93 had crashed into Pennsylvania. MR. BEN-VENISTE: And so you will be able to check the records of NORAD generally, or the DOD generally, to find out when a presidential directive was issued? GEN. ARNOLD: I am sure General McKinley will do that for me. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Thank you. And if I understand the context of what you said about closing the perimeter around Washington, the president's directive or the vice president's directive would have been moot, because of the prior order, which would have enabled you to shoot down an unfriendly plane in that sector? GEN. ARNOLD: We developed a certain -- I guess the short answer again, that is correct. But it's very specifically in the Washington, D.C. area by presence that aircraft was hostile unless we could determine it was friendly. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let me go to the issue again to revisit Flight 77, because as we understand it, tragically, it appears that that was the only plane which reached its intended target which might have been interdicted that day, if everything had gone right. Are you in agreement with that? GEN. ARNOLD: I think, from a physics perspective, yes. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Let's go beyond physics for a moment, and let me ask you about the planes which were scrambled from Andrews Air Force Base. MR.: Langley. MR. BEN-VENISTE: No, from Andrews Air Force Base by the Secret Service of the United States. Who gave the order to scramble jets -- F-16s also, I believe -- out of Andrews? GEN. ARNOLD: It's my understanding that the Secret Service requested that they launch anything they could to get them airborne. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Of whom did they make that request? GEN. ARNOLD: I'm not sure if it's General Dave Worley (ph), and I think they actually talked to him. And I did not know this at time of course, but they called him up and said, What do you have that you can get airborne? He had some airplanes returning from the range on training mission. MR. BEN-VENISTE: What would be the flight time from Andrews Air Force Base of two F-16s to the Pentagon? GEN. ARNOLD: From the time they were notified? MR. BEN-VENISTE: Yes. GEN. ARNOLD: Probably 15 to 20 minutes, because it takes about 10 minutes to get airborne, and they are not set up on alert or scrambled. In fact, it could have taken, f they didn't have any airplanes immediately ready to go, it could have taken them 20, 30 minutes. MR. BEN-VENISTE: And under the circumstances -- GEN. ARNOLD: They already had airplanes airborne. By the time those airplanes were airborne we had airplanes over Washington, D.C. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Right. Now if the order had been given to Andrews, even simultaneously with the order that you gave to scramble your planes, is it not fair to say that those planes would have reached the Pentagon sooner? GEN. ARNOLD: They might have, but they would have been unarmed. GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, what would be my comment, sir, is those aircraft are not prepped or built up for that mission. MR. BEN-VENISTE: And in fact we have received reports that are almost incredible in terms of the bravery of the two pilots who went up that day in unarmed aircraft with the mission, I presume authorized somewhere in the executive, to use their airplanes to bring down Flight 77 or 93 if they could interdict them. That means to clip their wings, crash into them, perhaps the pilots at the risk of their own lives. Is that correct? GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, as I evacuated the Pentagon that morning, as I came out the river entrance and looked up, virtually simultaneously those F-16s coming back from the range had been airborne, had dropped their weapons, were returning low on fuel -- were visible to 10 to 15,000 people, and it was a very heartening sight to see United States Air Force fighters overhead the Pentagon. And it is my understanding from the review of the records that that was their guidance. MR. BEN-VENISTE: And who provided that guidance to them? Was that a decision made internally by Secret Service, or did Secret Service require higher executive order in order to launch those planes on that mission? GEN. ARNOLD: I do not know that. GEN. MCKINLEY: I am unaware of the answer to that, sir. MR. BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much, gentlemen. GEN. MCKINLEY: Thank you. MR. KEAN: One question. Suppose for a minute that this weekend, God forbid, that some terrorists got on board another plane in Boston and headed for New York. What would be different? GEN. MCKINLEY: Sir, I am very proud to say that I think the interagency process has worked very, very well. The Transportation Security Administration, under the direction of Secretary Ridge, has implemented stringent procedures on the ground. Let's face it: solving this problem before the terrorists get on the airplane, I think, is the most critical step to protecting commercial aviation, because once the airplane is in the air, then it resolves back to the Department of Defense to take the appropriate action. So TSA deserves a great deal of credit. The Federal Aviation Administration, with their procedures, and they way they are lashed up with us now and the military, and the formation of the Northern Command, I think is vitally important to the security of the United States of America. I think those things in context make it far less likely for this to happen. But, as my boss says, we are not 100 percent safe. We can never be 100 percent safe. I take nothing for granted when I am in our air operations center when any aircraft fails to communicate or fails to make a turn or fails to do what its flight plan said it was supposed to. So we are very, very serious today about what's happening in the skies over America. MR. KEAN: But if it were able to get into the air, headed for New York, what procedures exist now that didn't exist then? Would you be able to intercept them? GEN. MCKINLEY: It's my understanding and firm belief that the Federal Aviation Administration would immediately notify us at the first sign of any impropriety, in any aircraft, whether it's commercial, cargo or civilian. We would immediately take action to get our fighters airborne from the nearest suitable location -- and we have that location set now where we didn't have it prior to the 11th. We should be able to protect our critical infrastructure, our major population centers. But there is, as in any case of a military effort, there are some risks. But we are postured to accept that responsibility. The example you gave us out of Boston is the F-15s out of Otis would be immediately scrambled, they would immediately intercept the aircraft, and we would stand by for further authorities from those above us. GEN. ARNOLD: And I want to just point out that if the question was if it were to happen today, you have airborne interceptors that would be vectored into that aircraft to intercept. MR. KEAN: Commissioner Hamilton? MR. HAMILTON: I just want to clarify a few things after listening to all this testimony. It's not all that clear to me. As of September 11th, only the president had the authority to order a shootdown of a commercial aircraft. GEN. ARNOLD: That's correct, sir. MR. HAMILTON: And today who has the authority? GEN. MCKINLEY: We see the president delegated to the secretary of Defense, delegated to the combatant commander of Northern Command and the North American Aerospace Command, and there are emergency authorities if that fails. MR. HAMILTON: So you have the authority? GEN. MCKINLEY: Yes, sir, and others. MR. HAMILTON: And how many others? GEN. MCKINLEY: I prefer not to say in this forum, sir, but I can provide it for the record. MR. HAMILTON: And you do not have to go up the chain of command at all in the event of a -- GEN. MCKINLEY: We certainly will try, we will make every effort to try. MR. HAMILTON: I'm sure you would. But you don't have to? GEN. MCKINLEY: In an emergency situation we can take appropriate action, yes, sir. MR. HAMILTON: Now, one of the things that's curious to me, General Arnold, you said that you did not learn of the presidential order until after United 93 had already crashed. That was about a little after 10 o'clock in the morning. The first notice of difficulty here was at 8:20 in the morning when a transponder goes off on the American Flight 11. I don't know how significant that is, but 20 minutes later you had notification of the possible hijack. So there's a long lapse of time here between the time you are initially alerted and you receive the order that you can shoot that aircraft down. Am I right about that? GEN. ARNOLD: That's correct. MR. HAMILTON: In your timeline, why don't you put in there when you were notified? GEN. ARNOLD: Of which flight, sir? MR. HAMILTON: Getting the notification from the president of the United States that you had the authority to shoot a commercial aircraft down is a pretty significant event. Why would that not be in your timeline? GEN. ARNOLD: I don't know when that happened. MR. HAMILTON: Had you ever received that kind of a notice before? GEN. ARNOLD: Not to my knowledge. MR. HAMILTON: So this is the first time in the history of the country that such an order had ever been given, so far as you know? GEN. ARNOLD: Yes, sir. I'm sure there's a log that would tell us that, and I appreciate the question. MR. HAMILTON: Maybe you could let us know that. And then, finally, as I understand your testimony, it was not possible to shoot down any of these aircraft before they struck. Is that basically correct? GEN. ARNOLD: That is correct. In fact, the American Airlines 77, if we were to have arrived overhead at that particular point, I don't think that we would have shot that aircraft down. MR. HAMILTON: Because? GEN. ARNOLD: Well, we had not been given authority -- MR. HAMILTON: You didn't have authority at that point. GEN. ARNOLD: And, you know, it is through hindsight that we are certain that this was a coordinated attack on the United States. MR. LEHMAN: But had you gotten notified earlier, 77's deviance, about when it turned east, for instance, certainly you could have gotten the F-16s there, and certainly there would have been time to communicate to either get or deny authority, no? -- for 77? GEN. ARNOLD: I believe that to be true. I believe tha