By Gregor Holland
(originally published 7/24/05)
One year after the release of "The 9/11 Commission Report", serious questions that were raised before and during the Commission proceedings remain unanswered. For many, the Commission Report raised more questions than it answered. Not the least of these has been posed by honorable Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. McKinney recently questioned Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers “about the four war games that were taking place on September 11 and how they may have impaired our ability to respond to those attacks.” McKinney got a partial answer a week later. In the first on-the-record acknowledgement that there were four war games underway on 9/11/01, Myers told her that all battle positions were manned because of the drills…
“..so it was an easy transition from an exercise into a real world situation. It actually enhanced the response.”
This answer echoed one provided by General Ralph Eberhart during the final 9/11 Commission hearing. The question to Eberhart, posed by Commissioner Roemer, was coerced by hearing attendees who interrupted the hearing, forcing the issue by yelling “What about the war games?”
The failure of air defenses to respond on that morning does not support the given answer by Myers and Eberhart. In addition, the drill being conducted at the National Reconnaissance Office on 9/11 simulating a plane crashing into that building, and the existence of bioterror drill Operation Tripod on the ground in lower Manhattan have had no illumination. As with the recent London Bombings, co-incident training drills have not been treated as pertinent to the investigation.