I naïvely expected more constructive and useful information in the report. A detailed discussion of FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley and how her observations and actions led to change would be nice. She merited a brief mention in footnote 94. That is all.

I expected to hear how WTC 7 collapsed. The leaseholder of the building told the media it was "pulled." I expected to see more discussion of the mechanics of that presumably unplanned demolition in the evening of 9-11 as well as the collapse of the both 110-story towers, both impacted differently, both falling almost identically. Do we have an engineering design flaw no one knew about? It didn’t come up in the report.

The Commission concluded that the FAA was not really capable of giving the military what it needed to know. Things have certainly gone downhill since 1999, when [golfer] Payne Stewart’s twin engine Learjet quietly drifted off its flight plan, and was escorted by military jets from Eglin AFB and Tyndall AFB in Florida, ANG out of Tulsa, and out of Fargo, for several hours across several states before it ran out of gas and crashed in South Dakota. The difference was that Stewart was just a guy in a single private plane off course with no explanation, while on 9-11, it was one, no two, wait – three, I mean four jumbo passenger jets. Unlike Stewart’s plane which simply left its flight plan and was unresponsive, the FAA actually had hijack warning on AA 11 at 8:19 a.m., UA 175 at 8:52 a.m. After two hijack warnings, AA 77 made an unauthorized turn at 8:54 a.m. The Herndon Control Center knew UA 93 was hijacked at 9:34 a.m.

The commission reports the first fighter jets from Otis ANG Base were scrambled for AA 11 thirty-four minutes after the first hijack alert and again, from Langley AFB, a half hour or so later. At 10:38, fighter jets from Andrews AFB were airborne. None had a visual on any of the four planes plane until it was too late. In 1999, more military jets were on the job watching a lone Learjet over the Midwest than in the 2001 response to multiple hijacks on the densely populated East Coast. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should have both been fired at the time, saving us the trouble and expense of criminal trials for their roles in fomenting the unjustified and gratuitous Iraq war.

The horrible, tragic scam known as 9-11 is unraveling, which is good, but it also scares me because those who stand to lose would do just about anything to obstruct justice... think Red level terror alerts, soldiers in the streets, no election, "False-Flag", etc. I mean, come on, Tom Ridge himself comes on TV and says that there will be an almost inevitable inevitable terror attack, they know that there is gonna be an attempt for sure, they just don't know where or when, but look out! Meanwhile they also come out and say they want to postpone the election when (ooops, if) that happens. So when there is an attack at a convienent time they can say "hey, at least we warned ya". The Patriot Act has all kinds of nasty provisions in it for these types of scenarios... people herded into boxcars and railroaded to tent-camps encircled by razor wire..... but awwwwwww, that could never happen here !!!????!!!!

- Abraham Kalashnikov 8-06-2004 1:12 am