Richard A. Clark, Against All Enemies, Free Press 2004, p.4-5
2
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vigilant_warrior.htm
3
Toronto Star, December 9, 2001 Sunday Ontario Edition, [Archived: http://www.ringnebula.com/northern-vigilance.htm ]
4
http://www.norad.mil/News/2001/090901.html
Operation Northern Guardian:
This one is extremely ambiguous and was mentioned in the press (Toronto Star) only once, and then the text
“Northern Guardian” was removed from the article. It is still cached on the internet, however. 1 No specific
information was given.
Operation Vigilant Guardian:
“Vigilant Guardian” was the first to be widely acknowledged, notably in the BBC’s 2002 documentary
“Clear the Skies”. The exercise, as the official one-paragraph web page explains, was a regular, yearly exercise
designed to simulate a “crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide.” 2 As a result of Vigilant
Guardian, according to NEADS Commander Colonel Robert Marr, “The fighters were cocked and loaded, and
even had extra gas on board.” 3 Of course, this claim is rather moot when one considers the complete failed
response of the military on that day. More in a moment. The exact details of VG remain classified, but it was a
multi-day exercise, already going on for at least a day as the 9/11 attacks began.
Three different accounts of first notification of a hijacking indicate that there were to be simulated hijackings in
at least Vigilant Guardian: Major General Larry Arnold said “the first thing that went through my mind was, is this
part of the exercise? Is this some kind of a screw-up?” 4 Sergeant Jeremy Powell at NEADS, where Vigilant
Guardian was being carried out, was contacted by Boston Flight Control at 8:38 am. The Boston controller told
him there was a hijacked plane headed to New York. Powell responded “is this real-world or exercise?” He
received the answer “no this is not an exercise, not a test. ” 5
The most relevant account is that of Lt. Colonel Dawne Deskins. As NEADS regional overseer of Vigilant
Guardian, she should have understood better than anyone what to expect from the drill. Newhouse News Service
reported her response to the crisis: “At 8:40, Deskins noticed senior technician Jeremy Powell waving his hand.
Boston Center was on the line, he said. It had a hijacked airplane. “It must be part of the exercise,” Deskins
thought. At first, everybody did. [After clarifying with FAA] Deskins ran up a short flight of stairs to the Battle Cab
and reported the hijacked plane real world, not a simulation. ” 6
As denoted above, there was confusion as to whether situations were “real” or “simulated”. The main stream
media at certain points played up the idea that VG facilitated a “faster response.” 7 Obviously that didn’t happen.
Rather, as denoted, it appears VG might have confused and slowed the military’s response. Keep this in mind as
we move forward.
Mike Kelly reported:
“NORAD also has confirmed it was running two mock drills on Sept. 11 at various radar sites and command
centers in the United States and Canada, including Air Force bases in upstate New York, Florida, Washington,
and Alaska. One drill, Operation Vigilant Guardian, began a week before Sept. 11 and reflected a Cold War mind-
set: Participants practiced for an attack across the North Pole by Russian forces... Investigators at the Sept. 11
commission confirm they are investigating whether NORAD’s attention was drawn in one direction - toward the
North Pole - while the hijackings came from an entirely different direction.” 8
Now- The actual details of the above four exercises are, as can be seen, extremely ambiguous. It is difficult to know what
the details were and the military certainly hasn’t come forth with anything specific, while the 911 Commission expressed
very little interest of the subject. However, in an AP article put out in Sept. 2002 entitled “Agency planned exercise on
Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a building”, it included some powerful revelations, including the fact that the
National Reconnaissance Office, a joint creation of the CIA and the air force, was also running an unnamed exercise on
Sept. 11th that included a plane being flown into a building. It reads:
1
http://www.ringnebula.com/northern-vigilance.htm
2
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/vigilant-guardian.htm
3
Scott, William B. “Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks.” Aviation week’s Aviation Now. June 3, 2002. Accessed April 27,
2003 at: http://www.aviationnow.com/content/publication/awst/20020603/avi_stor.htm
4
ABC News. “Terror Hits the Towers: How Government Officials Reacted to Sept. 11 Attacks.” September 14, 2002.
5
911 Commission Report, p.20
6
Hart, Seely. “Amid Crisis Simulation, ‘We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack.’” Newhouse News Service. 1. 25. 2002.
7
Aviation Week & Space Technology: [ Archive: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/defense/aviationnow_jumpstart.htm ]
8
Mike Kelly, “Norad confirmed two mock drills on September 11th” 2003.
[ Archive: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5352.htm ]
“WASHINGTON — In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was plan-
ning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings. But the cause
wasn’t terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident. Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National Reconnaissance Of-
fice had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet would crash into one of the four towers at the
agency’s headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure.The agency is about four miles from the runways
of Washington Dulles International Airport. Agency chiefs came up with the scenario to test employees’ ability to respond
to a disaster, said spokesman Art Haubold. The National Reconnaissance Office operates many of the nation’s spy satel-
lites. It draws its personnel from the military and the CIA.
After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000 people who work at agency headquarters were sent home, save for
some essential personnel, Haubold said. An announcement for an upcoming homeland security conference in Chicago
first noted the exercise. In a promotion for speaker John Fulton, a CIA officer assigned as chief of NRO’s strategic gaming
division, the announcement says, “On the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team ... were running a
pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a
building. Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic way that day.” 1
What was the name of this drill being coordinated by the CIA? I guess we won’t know. Let’s return to the subject of Opera-
tion Vigilant Guardian. VG seems to have the most public information available, at least from the standpoint of testimony.
Interestingly, the available testimony implies that the hijacking of aircraft was a possible part of this drill:
“Tech Sgt. Jeremy W. Powell of...Northeast Air Defence Sector (NEADS) in Rome NY, took the first call from Boston
Center. He notified NEADS Commander Col. Robert K. Marr Jr. of a possible hijacked airliner, AA Flight 11. “Part of the
exercise?” the Colonel wondered. No this is a real world event he was told. Several days into a semi-annual exercise
known as Vigilant Guardian...” 2
“Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins figured it would be a long day...September 11 was Day II of “Vigilant Guardian”, an exercise that
would pose an imaginary crisis to North America Air defence outposts nationwide...At 8:40 Deskins noticed senior techni-
cian Jeremy Powell waving his hand. Boston Center was on the line, he said. It had a hijacked airliner. “It must be part
of the exercise,” Deskins thought. At first, everybody did. Then Deskins saw the glowing direct phone line to the Federal
Aviation Administration...” 3
Now, while the above testimony is certainly not definitive that VG included hijacked aircraft within its scheme, it is reveal-
ing to see the nature of the reactions of those who participated, coupled with the contrary nature of the “cold-war” claim
itself. Why would participants jump to the assumption that a reported hijacking out of Massachusetts was part of a cold-
war exercise which would have traditionally been focused on and around the North Pole region, as has been historically
the case and denoted? 4 And why would there be any expectation of a reported hijacked aircraft to being with?
Barbara Honegger, M.S, Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, the Navy’s advanced
science, technology and national security affairs university, was one of the first to learn about the military exercises. She
writes with regard to two known games and the confusion they apparently created:
“On February 4, 2004, I interviewed Air Force General Ralph Eberhart, Commander of NORAD on 9/11. To my knowl-
edge, Gen. Eberhart has granted no other interview since the events of September 11. Before asking questions, I gave
Gen. Eberhart copies of all the mainstream press articles published as of that date on the subject of the confusion of his
NORAD Northeast Sector (NEADS) personnel who were running NORAD’s “Vigilant Guardian/Vigilant Warrior” emergen-
cy response war game exercises that morning. As of the date of the interview, therefore, the then head of NORAD was
made aware of the initial confusion by his own NEADS “game” players on 9/11 between incoming exercise reports and
incoming reports of the actual hijacks. I first asked Gen. Eberhart if there was any connection between NORAD’s “Vigilant
Guardian/Vigilant Warrior” exercise being run on 9/11 and the plane−crashing−into−tower emergency response exercise
simultaneously being held at National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) headquarters outside Washington, D.C. He replied,
‘No.’
I was surprised at this, as a large portion of NRO personnel are from his own agency, the Air Force. I asked for
reconfirmation, to which he again said, “No.” Laying the ground for the next question, I mentioned that NEADS’ “game”
director Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins had said that she was confused as to whether initial reports of the hijacked planes on the
morning of 9/11 were “real world” or “part of the game.” This, I said,showed that the NORAD exercises that morning had
1
Associated Press, Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a plane crashing into a Building,
( Archive: http://www.boston.com/news/packages/sept11/anniversary/wire_stories/0903_plane_exercise.htm )
2
Aviation Week & Space Technology: [ Archive: http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/defense/aviationnow_jumpstart.htm ]
3
Hart Seely, Amid Crisis Simulation [Archive: http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/newhousenews012502.html ]
4
Mike Kelly, “Norad confirmed two mock drills on September 11th” 2003.
[ Archive: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5352.htm ]
to have been on a hijack scenario at least similar to the actual attacks, as otherwise there would have been no grounds
for confusion. After considering this for a moment, Gen. Eberhart refused to answer any further questions and abruptly
ended the interview.” 1
Prior/Foreshadowing Games:
Extending our context back in time, it is also important to consider the context/nature of historical drills run by the
Government. For example, what if there was a preconceived notion of performing a war-game drill that included a hijacked
plane being flown into the Pentagon? From the standpoint of “strategic gaming” and the possibility that the military, not al
Qaeda, was responsible for executing 911, this would raise a red flag. Well, that is exactly what occurred. On 4/14/04 The
New York Times ran an article called “Pentagon Rejected Pre-9/11 Hijacking Exercise”.
“At least five months before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, air defense planners proposed a war-game situation in which
a terrorist group hijacked an airliner and flew it into the Pentagon...The NORAD exercise developers wanted an event
having a terrorist group hijack a commercial airliner (foreign carrier) and fly it into the Pentagon,” the message said. “Joint
Staff action officers rejected it as unrealistic.” 2
Moreover, USA Today reported:
“WASHINGTON — In the two years before the Sept. 11 attacks, the North American Aerospace Defense Command con-
ducted exercises simulating what the White House says was unimaginable at the time: hijacked airliners used as weapons
to crash into targets and cause mass casualties. One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center. In another
exercise, jets performed a mock shootdown over the Atlantic Ocean of a jet supposedly laden with chemical poisons
headed toward a target in the United States. In a third scenario, the target was the Pentagon — but that drill was not run
after Defense officials said it was unrealistic, NORAD and Defense officials say... ”Numerous types of civilian and military
aircraft were used as mock hijacked aircraft,” the statement said. “These exercises tested track detection and identifica-
tion; scramble and interception; hijack procedures; internal and external agency coordination and operational security and
communications security procedures.
A White House spokesman said Sunday that the Bush administration was not aware of the NORAD exercises. But the
exercises using real aircraft show that at least one part of the government thought the possibility of such attacks, though
unlikely, merited scrutiny.” 3
As an aside, relating back to the beginning section of this document. This idea that the FBI and The White House had no
knowledge of these exercises is beyond improbable. The fact is, when all of the above is taken into account a very suspi-
cious picture is painted with regard to the war game “preparation” and real-time war game presence during the “execution”
of 9/11 itself.
As described in fragments above, the following speculative logic materializes if an objective disposition is assumed -
meaning one is not trying to “fit” these issues inside of the US government Official Conspiracy Theory that 19 Muslim
extremists jumped into cockpits, flew around unabated in the US’s most protected airspaces, and hit 75% of their targets.
(A) The pre-911 war game drills were preparatory for the actual attacks. Wargames exist to examine
variables and realize real-time possibilities. If it was in the interest of the CIA/Military to execute such a
plan on Sept. 11th 2001, then these foreshadowed games, both live-fly and simulated, would serve as
tests to see how the actual event would unfold. It would be a form of practice, just like any military exercise
serves.
As John Arquilla, a professor of defense analysis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey,
California, said, “No one knew specifically that 20 people would hijack four airliners and use them for
suicide attacks against major buildings ... but the idea of such an attack was well known [and] had been
war-gamed as a possibility in exercises before September 11.” 4
As reported by CNN regarding some exercises: “According to a statement from NORAD, “Before
September 11th, 01, NORAD regularly conducted a variety of exercises that included hijack scenarios.
These exercises tested track detection and identification; scramble and interception; hijack procedures;
(cont.)
1
Barbara Honegge, The Pentagon Attack Papers, [ http://www.physics911.net/pdf/honegger.pdf ]
2
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/04/14/politics/14PENT.html?scp=10&sq=april%2014%202004&st=cse
3
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2004-04-18-norad_x.htm
4
Kevin Howe, “Expert Stresses Need for Intelligence.” Monterey County Herald, July 18, 2002.
internal and external agency coordination and operational security and communications security
procedures.” 1
The Pentagon actually had FOUR prior exercises or considerations of them which related to what
occured on 9/11:
-MASCAL: October 24 - October 26, 2000, emergency responders gathered at the Office of the
Secretary of Defense conference room in the Pentagon for the Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise.
Responses to several scenarios were rehearsed, including the possibility of a passenger aircraft
crashing into the Pentagon. 2
-MEDICS PRACTICE: In May 2001, the U.S. Army’s DiLorenzo Tricare Health Clinic and the Air Force
Flight Medicine Clinic--which are both located within the Pentagon--along with Arlington County
Emergency Medical Services, held a tabletop exercise. The scenario they practiced for was an airplane
crashing into the Pentagon’s west side--the same side as was hit on September 11. 3 There have
been some contradictions between reports, regarding the exact details of this exercise. But according to
U.S. Medicine newspaper, the plane in the scenario was a hijacked Boeing 757, the same kind of aircraft
as allegedly hit the Pentagon on 9/11. 4 The Defense Department’s book about the Pentagon attack,
Pentagon 9/11, reported that the plane in the exercise scenario was a twin-engine aircraft (Boeing 757s
are twin-engine aircraft), but that it crashed into the Pentagon by accident, rather than as a consequence
of a hijacking. 5 The commanders of the two Pentagon clinics that participated later said this exercise
“prepared them well to respond” to the attack on 9/11. 6 And Air Force Surgeon General Paul Carlton
Jr. commented, “We learned a lot from that exercise and applied those lessons to September 11.” 7
-POSITIVE FORCE 01: April 17-26, 2001 - Another exercise- military planners actually considered the
possibility of a commercial aircraft being hijacked by terrorists and then crashed into the Pentagon. 8
From April 17-26, 2001, the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff conducted the exercise Positive Force 01, which
was designed “to test, evaluate, and train the national defense community in decision making and
execution of mobilization and force deployment in response to multiple crises.” 9 Positive Force was a
“continuity of operations exercise,” dealing with government contingency plans to keep working in the
event of an attack on the U.S. 10 NORAD was one of the agencies invited to participate. 11
During the planning of this exercise, special operations officers had to think like terrorists and plot
unexpected attacks that would test NORAD’s air defenses. According to an officer who was
temporarily assigned to NORAD in the spring of 2001, “the NORAD exercise developers wanted an event
having a terrorist group hijack a commercial airline and fly it into the Pentagon. ” 12 The NORAD employee
who suggested this had been asked for a scenario in which the Pentagon was rendered inoperable and
part of its functions had to be moved to another location. 13 However, the U.S. Pacific Command didn’t
want the scenario, “because it would take attention away from their exercise objectives.” Joint Staff action
officers then rejected the scenario as being “too unrealistic.” 14
1
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/04/19/norad.exercise/
2
Ryan, Dennis, “Contingency planning Pentagon MASCAL exercise simulates scenario in preparing for emergencies”, MDW
News Service, November 3, 2000
3
Arlington County, Virginia, report, Titan Systems Corp., Arlington County: After-Action Report on the Response to the
September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. 2002, p. B17; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense
Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, pp. 23 and 107.
4
“Crisis Response Puts Agencies on Path to Better Coordination.” U.S. Medicine, January 2002.
5
Alfred Goldberg, Pentagon 9/11, p. 107.
6
Matt Mientka, “Pentagon Medics Trained for Strike.” U.S. Medicine, October 2001.
7
Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History. New York: Doubleday, 2002, p. 222.
8
Danielle Brian, “POGO Letter to Hon. Thomas K. Kean, Chairman, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States.” Project On Government Oversight, April 13, 2004.
9
“Positive Force.” GlobalSecurity.org, June 9, 2002.
10
Julian Borger, “Hijackers Fly into Pentagon? No Chance, Said Top Brass.” The Guardian, April 15, 2004.
11
Nicole Gaudiano, “Military Considered Hijacked Plane Exercise, and Rejected it.” Air Force Times, April 13, 2004.
12
Terry Ropes, “Exercise Scenario.” September 18, 2001, internal e-mail; Julian Borger, “Hijackers Fly into Pentagon? No
Chance, Said Top Brass.”
13
Nicole Gaudiano, “Military Considered Hijacked Plane Exercise, and Rejected it.”
14
Terry Ropes, “Exercise Scenario”; Julian Borger, “Hijackers Fly into Pentagon? No Chance, Said Top Brass.”
-EVACUATION: Oct. 2001- Just one month before September 11th, a third plane-into-Pentagon training
exercise was held. General Lance Lord, the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force, later recalled his
experiences of 9/11, commenting, “Fortunately, we had practiced an evacuation of the building during a
mass casualty exercise just a month earlier, so our assembly points were fresh in our minds.” He added,
“Purely a coincidence, the scenario for that exercise included a plane hitting the building. ” 1
(B) Using the mask of War Game Drills to