Scoop: Families Respond to Last 9/11 Hearings

"In their second round of testimony concerning FAA/NORAD and national command response to the attacks on 9/11 the Commission seems to have been blinded by hindsight, focusing on a timeline that conflicts with both published reports, witness and pilot statements and earlier testimony by officials. Detailed testimony about delayed communications and flawed responses leaves the impression that prior to 9/11 FAA and NORAD were incapable of responding to air emergencies in a timely fashion, yet they had done so dozens of times each year in the past. The Commission praises NORAD and criticizes the FAA for their inability to intercept or stop the ‘suicide hijackings’ on 9/11, blaming the unprecedented nature of the attacks. However both agencies violated standard operating procedures for air emergencies, which is what each flight was at he start of the scenario. Neither agency knew that they were hijackings or suicide missions at the start, but they did know commercial aircraft were in trouble and failed to respond as they had in the past," said John Judge, co-founder of the group.
Testimony and staff statements at the two-day hearing failed to address scores of remaining unanswered questions being raised by victims’ family members and citizens about the events and the source of the mass murders of 9/11. The roles of Saudi Arabia and Pakistani intelligence in the funding of the operation were not mentioned. Nor was the obvious preparations in place well in advance of the attacks by the known targets, including CIA headquarters, the White House, and the Pentagon, which had surveillance radar and cameras in place to avoid a plane attack as early as 1999. The discrepancies in the official statements and unresolved areas of investigation have not been addressed to date by the Commission’s hearings, staff reports or statements."