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[continued from the previous post]

Indecision and inaction is exactly what the mental midget president did. He was told that America was under attack - told so specifically. And yet he just sat there for seven minutes without asking even one question! Any action to stop the highjacking - well the farther we go outside Washington, then the better the response. "Frozen in fear" seems greatest the closer we get to the president - who sat there frozen in a FL school for seven minutes.

Boston Center had quickly determined the situation and was desperately trying to get the George Jr administration to respond. They told their FAA bosses to notify all aircraft to fortify the cockpits. They suspected that Delta 1989 would also be hijacked. FAA responded just like George Jr in that classroom. Top administrators asked no questions. They did nothing.

Within minutes of the second impact, Boston Center instructed its controllers to inform all aircraft in its airspace of the events in New York and to advise aircraft to heighten cockpit security. Boston Center asked the Herndon Command Center to issue a similar cockpit security alert nationwide. We have found no evidence to suggest that the Command Center acted on this request or issued any type of cockpit security alert.

In fact, United 93 got orders to heighten security only through their own airline flight dispatcher:

United's first decisive action to notify its airborne aircraft to take defensive action did not come until 9:19, when a United flight dispatcher, Ed Ballinger, took the initiative to begin transmitting warnings to his 16 transcontinental flights: "Beware any cockpit intrusion. Two a/c [aircraft] hit World Trade Center." One of the flights that received the warning was United 93. Because Ballinger was still responsible for his other flights as well as Flight 175, his warning message was not transmitted to Flight 93 until 9:23.69 ... At 9:24, Ballinger's warning to United 93 was received in the cockpit. Within two minutes, at 9:26, the pilot, Jason Dahl, responded with a note of puzzlement: "Ed, confirm latest mssg plz -Jason." The hijackers attacked at 9:28.

Ballinger, another little person without authority, did not panic. He made simple decisions that were decisive and responsible while at the same time a president had just decided to leave the classroom.

Other ATC centers such as NY, Cleveland, and Indianapolis also assessed their situation and properly responded without panic. As it flew over Toledo, Cleveland center feared that Delta 1989 was also a highjacking. Fighter jets from Michigan and Ohio followed Delta 1989 into Cleveland International - confused as to why Delta 1989 had reversed course. But then little people had properly assessed the situation, had responded accordingly, and could not get any help from the George Jr administration.

Boston Center immediately advised the New England Region that it was going to stop all departures at airports under its control. At 9:05, Boston Center confirmed for both the FAA Command Center and the New England Region that the hijackers aboard American 11 said "we have planes." At the same time, New York Center declared "ATC zero" - meaning that aircraft were not permitted to depart from, arrive at, or travel through New York Center's airspace until further notice.

Meanwhile Cleveland Center was desperately trying to get FAA administrators to provide military help. Even at 9:50, we have this request from the field that is ignored by FAA HQ:

FAA Headquarters: They're pulling Jeff away to go talk about United 93.
Command Center: Uh, do we want to think, uh, about scrambling aircraft?
FAA Headquarters: Oh, God, I don't know.
Command Center: Uh, that's a decision somebody's gonna have make probably in the next ten minutes.
FAA Headquarters: Uh, ya know everybody just left the room.

Jeff would be Jeff Griffith, Deputy Director for FAA ATC who is being called by Jane Garvey into the telephone conference where no decisions will be made.

The FAA later grounded all aircraft. Who did it? Not any administrators - no matter how they tried to lie around that fact.

By 9:25, ...A manager at the Herndon Command Center asked FAA headquarters if they wanted to order a "nationwide ground stop." While this was being discussed by executives at FAA headquarters, the Command Center ordered one ...

The operation manager of FAA control center, Ben Sliney, his first day on this job, and at repeated strong demands from his new employees, unilaterally orders a nationwide shutdown at 9:42 without authorization and without knowing if he can even do it. FAA administrator Jane Garvey and the White House would later say she was requesting permission from the White House. That claim and the White House supporting response are both lies. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta would claim he ordered it. But facts suggest Mineta only learned about the nationwide shutdown 15 minutes later from the press. Sliney took charge, as so many little people did that day, on his own with no response from the George Jr administration:

At 9:42, the Command Center learned from news reports that a plane had struck the Pentagon. The Command Center's national operations manager, Ben Sliney, ordered all FAA facilities to instruct all aircraft to land at the nearest airport.

In response to the first attacks, fighters from Langley AFB are launched at 9:30. But without information from the leadership, instead, those fighters head out 60 miles to sea where they will still be when the Pentagon is hit. However a general at Andrews AFB takes it upon himself to respond with three F-16s from the DC National Guard.

General David Wherley - the commander of the 113th Wing - reached out to the Secret Service after hearing secondhand reports that it wanted fighters airborne. A Secret Service agent had a phone in each ear, one connected to Wherley and the other to a fellow agent at the White House, ... The guidance for Wherley was to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol. General Wherley translated this in military terms to flying "weapons free" - that is, the decision to shoot rests in the cockpit, or in this case in the cockpit of the lead pilot. He passed these instructions to the pilots that launched at 10:42 and afterward.
Thus, while the fighter pilots under NORAD direction who had scrambled out of Langley never received any type of engagement order, the Andrews pilots were operating weapons free - permissive rule of engagement. The President and the Vice President indicated to us they had not been aware that fighters had been scrambled out of Andrews, at the request of the Secret Service and outside the military chain of command. There is no evidence that NORAD headquarters or military officials in the NMCC knew- during the morning of September 11 - that the Andrews planes were airborne and operating under different rules of engagement.

With no direction from George Jr or his administration, many individuals in government took initative (without permission) to institute actions to thwart the 11 September attacks. Repeatedly missing in every report is any decisive action by any George Jr administration officials. While George Jr sat in that elementary school reading a child's book and asking no questions, the US Government was desperate for leadership from George Jr and his people. They needed to know the information in that 6 August PDB. George Jr provided no commands, issued no decisions, asked no questions, and took his orders from Cheney who told him not to come back to Washington. How dare anyone suggest the little people were paniced. That is an outright lie. The little people are the only ones who did anything right on 11 September while George Jr sat reading a child's book - knowing full well that America was under attack AND that this was predicted by his 6 August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing.