Rosebud #6
Sunday night
Dear Donald Rumsfeld,
Greetings from New York, Mr. Secretary of Defense. I’m writing to you as a mother. I just got my six-year-old to bed, and I have settled down in this nice comfy chair to finally read my Sunday New York Times. The paper has an interesting editorial today, “Our Porous Air Defenses on 9/11,” in which it seems to suggest that the many questions surrounding the failure of the U.S. air defenses on September 11 have now been answered, due to some recent releases from the Pentagon which ascribe them to “confusion”—basically, a reiteration of the official story in the 9/11 Commission Report.
You, too, are mentioned in the editorial, Mr. Secretary, where it says, as it has been said before, that on that horrible morning, you were “largely out of the loop as [you] supervised rescue operations in the Pentagon parking lot.”
Forgive me, Mr. Secretary, but don’t you have a cell phone? Or a walkie-talkie or something? So you could largely keep in touch? Was there anyone standing around you who might have had one? If not, we should really get you one asap, because I think most Americans would prefer if you tried to stay in the loop when the United States is being attacked by terrorists.
With all due respect, sir, while I appreciate your concern about the rescue operations in the parking lot, don’t they have any security folks over there at the Pentagon who could have attended to that?
The World Trade Center and the Pentagon itself had been attacked and there was still another hijacked plane in the air. Might you not have thought it more prudent to get back to your desk?
Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. I’ve never been a Secretary of Defense! But I am a mother. And Mr. Secretary, in this scenario I can’t help but look at you as the mother of this wonderful child called the U.S.of A. And how it looks to me is that, when a bear was coming to grab your child and eat its leg off, you ran off to help some folks in a parking lot. It just doesn’t make much sense.
It did get you a lot of kudos, though. The Economist said: “[Rumsfeld] had done what soldiers have to do: stand fast when the world explodes around you. He had led by example.” Wow. I can almost hear the 21-gun salute!
And not to be a nitpicker in the face of your bravery, sir, but how’d the Secret Service ever let you go out there in that parking lot, anyway? Again, I don’t travel in your circles; not sure I would want to! But I do watch 24. And I know that when presidential candidate David Palmer is being targeted by the bad guys, they throw him in the black van and take him to the safe house.
So, why would the Secret Service allow the Secretary of Defense to stand unprotected in a parking lot when hijacked airliners were flying around and into buildings—and one of those buildings was the Pentagon itself, and it was on fire! Again, it doesn’t make much sense.
But then, a lot of strange things were happening on that morning. You, for one, basically had a psychic premonition, didn’t you?
On Larry King Live, on December 5, 2001, you said: “I had said at an 8:00 breakfast [on September 11] that sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months, there would be an event in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people how important it is to have a strong, healthy defense department.”
It takes one’s breath away. You should start a psychic hotline. Less than an hour later, at 8:46, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into World Trade Center Tower One.
Thousands of Americans experienced an unimaginable horror, including Scott Saber, who was in my high school class. He died there.
And where were you, Mr. Secretary? Forgive me for asking, because it seems like you don’t really like to answer too many questions—you never actually made clear to the 9/11 Commission your whereabouts during this critical moment in U.S. history.
9/11 Commissioner and former Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick acknowledged, after the commission's final public hearing, that, "We still don't have a full accounting of Rumsfeld's whereabouts and knowledge on the morning of 9/11.”
Here’s the timeline: At 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 hit World Trade Center Tower Two. At 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
So there you were, Mr. Secretary, standing out in the parking lot supervising the rescue operation some time after 9:37….
But what had you been doing for the last hour?
Not ordering a shoot-down of the hijacked planes, that much is clear, although it was within your authority to do so. We all know how into protocol, chain of command, that sort of thing, you military guys are. Well, on June 1, 2001, just three months prior to 9/11, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had issued a directive designating you and you alone as the military commander responsible for ordering the shoot-down of hijacked aircraft.
Titled, “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects” (CJCS3610.10A), the instruction states that henceforth, “The NMCC [National Military Command Center] will…forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.” It was a big change, actually, from the previous order, which said that military officers at lower levels could act on their own. Now, the responsibility became yours.
Not the president’s—who, according to the editorial in the Times today, “complained that his communication links were poor.” (Jeez, they really need to get you guys some good phones!) Not the vice president’s—who according to the Times, and other reports, did order a shoot-down, but alas, it “reached Norad,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command, “too late to be of any use and was not even passed on the to the key fighter pilots.”
Actually, that widely circulated story about the Vice President’s alleged shoot-down order doesn’t square with what the Vice President himself told the 9/11 Commission. The final report says that “the Vice President stated that he called the President to discuss the rules of engagement for ordering [air cover]," but, it goes on, the President and Vice President ultimately did *not* order air cover because it would "do no good unless pilots had instructions on whether they were authorized to shoot if the plane would not divert."
And again, the job of issuing such instructions belonged to you, Mr. Secretary of Defense.
So why didn’t you order a shoot-down, sir?
“For 30 minutes,” on the morning of 9/11, “we couldn't find [Secretary Rumsfeld],’” Brigadier General Montague Winfield told the 9/11 Commission, when asked what was going on in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside the Pentagon, the nerve center of the military's response to the attacks on 9/11.
Listen, Mr. Secretary, if you had to take a bathroom break or something that morning, it’s o.k., we’ll understand; just let us know. I think we have a right to, don’t you?
What we do know is that, two days later, on September 13, you announced that the United States response to September 11 would be a “sustained military campaign.”
And we know the rest. We invaded Afghanistan. We invaded Iraq.
You said in Time magazine in December of 2001: “When I took this job I had a visit with the president shortly thereafter, and we talked about the situation that a lot of people in the world had come to conclude that the United States was gun-shy… We discussed it and he and I concluded that whenever it occurred down the road that the United States was under some sort of a threat or attack, that the United States should be leaning forward, not back.”
I am asking you as a mother, Mr. Secretary, to please lean back, and step down.
Sincerely yours,
An American Mom
Dear Donald Rumsfeld,
Greetings from New York, Mr. Secretary of Defense. I’m writing to you as a mother. I just got my six-year-old to bed, and I have settled down in this nice comfy chair to finally read my Sunday New York Times. The paper has an interesting editorial today, “Our Porous Air Defenses on 9/11,” in which it seems to suggest that the many questions surrounding the failure of the U.S. air defenses on September 11 have now been answered, due to some recent releases from the Pentagon which ascribe them to “confusion”—basically, a reiteration of the official story in the 9/11 Commission Report.
You, too, are mentioned in the editorial, Mr. Secretary, where it says, as it has been said before, that on that horrible morning, you were “largely out of the loop as [you] supervised rescue operations in the Pentagon parking lot.”
Forgive me, Mr. Secretary, but don’t you have a cell phone? Or a walkie-talkie or something? So you could largely keep in touch? Was there anyone standing around you who might have had one? If not, we should really get you one asap, because I think most Americans would prefer if you tried to stay in the loop when the United States is being attacked by terrorists.
With all due respect, sir, while I appreciate your concern about the rescue operations in the parking lot, don’t they have any security folks over there at the Pentagon who could have attended to that?
The World Trade Center and the Pentagon itself had been attacked and there was still another hijacked plane in the air. Might you not have thought it more prudent to get back to your desk?
Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job. I’ve never been a Secretary of Defense! But I am a mother. And Mr. Secretary, in this scenario I can’t help but look at you as the mother of this wonderful child called the U.S.of A. And how it looks to me is that, when a bear was coming to grab your child and eat its leg off, you ran off to help some folks in a parking lot. It just doesn’t make much sense.
It did get you a lot of kudos, though. The Economist said: “[Rumsfeld] had done what soldiers have to do: stand fast when the world explodes around you. He had led by example.” Wow. I can almost hear the 21-gun salute!
And not to be a nitpicker in the face of your bravery, sir, but how’d the Secret Service ever let you go out there in that parking lot, anyway? Again, I don’t travel in your circles; not sure I would want to! But I do watch 24. And I know that when presidential candidate David Palmer is being targeted by the bad guys, they throw him in the black van and take him to the safe house.
So, why would the Secret Service allow the Secretary of Defense to stand unprotected in a parking lot when hijacked airliners were flying around and into buildings—and one of those buildings was the Pentagon itself, and it was on fire! Again, it doesn’t make much sense.
But then, a lot of strange things were happening on that morning. You, for one, basically had a psychic premonition, didn’t you?
On Larry King Live, on December 5, 2001, you said: “I had said at an 8:00 breakfast [on September 11] that sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months, there would be an event in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people how important it is to have a strong, healthy defense department.”
It takes one’s breath away. You should start a psychic hotline. Less than an hour later, at 8:46, American Airlines Flight 11 crashed into World Trade Center Tower One.
Thousands of Americans experienced an unimaginable horror, including Scott Saber, who was in my high school class. He died there.
And where were you, Mr. Secretary? Forgive me for asking, because it seems like you don’t really like to answer too many questions—you never actually made clear to the 9/11 Commission your whereabouts during this critical moment in U.S. history.
9/11 Commissioner and former Justice Department official Jamie Gorelick acknowledged, after the commission's final public hearing, that, "We still don't have a full accounting of Rumsfeld's whereabouts and knowledge on the morning of 9/11.”
Here’s the timeline: At 9:03, United Airlines Flight 175 hit World Trade Center Tower Two. At 9:37, American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.
So there you were, Mr. Secretary, standing out in the parking lot supervising the rescue operation some time after 9:37….
But what had you been doing for the last hour?
Not ordering a shoot-down of the hijacked planes, that much is clear, although it was within your authority to do so. We all know how into protocol, chain of command, that sort of thing, you military guys are. Well, on June 1, 2001, just three months prior to 9/11, the Joint Chiefs of Staff had issued a directive designating you and you alone as the military commander responsible for ordering the shoot-down of hijacked aircraft.
Titled, “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects” (CJCS3610.10A), the instruction states that henceforth, “The NMCC [National Military Command Center] will…forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.” It was a big change, actually, from the previous order, which said that military officers at lower levels could act on their own. Now, the responsibility became yours.
Not the president’s—who, according to the editorial in the Times today, “complained that his communication links were poor.” (Jeez, they really need to get you guys some good phones!) Not the vice president’s—who according to the Times, and other reports, did order a shoot-down, but alas, it “reached Norad,” the North American Aerospace Defense Command, “too late to be of any use and was not even passed on the to the key fighter pilots.”
Actually, that widely circulated story about the Vice President’s alleged shoot-down order doesn’t square with what the Vice President himself told the 9/11 Commission. The final report says that “the Vice President stated that he called the President to discuss the rules of engagement for ordering [air cover]," but, it goes on, the President and Vice President ultimately did *not* order air cover because it would "do no good unless pilots had instructions on whether they were authorized to shoot if the plane would not divert."
And again, the job of issuing such instructions belonged to you, Mr. Secretary of Defense.
So why didn’t you order a shoot-down, sir?
“For 30 minutes,” on the morning of 9/11, “we couldn't find [Secretary Rumsfeld],’” Brigadier General Montague Winfield told the 9/11 Commission, when asked what was going on in the National Military Command Center (NMCC) inside the Pentagon, the nerve center of the military's response to the attacks on 9/11.
Listen, Mr. Secretary, if you had to take a bathroom break or something that morning, it’s o.k., we’ll understand; just let us know. I think we have a right to, don’t you?
What we do know is that, two days later, on September 13, you announced that the United States response to September 11 would be a “sustained military campaign.”
And we know the rest. We invaded Afghanistan. We invaded Iraq.
You said in Time magazine in December of 2001: “When I took this job I had a visit with the president shortly thereafter, and we talked about the situation that a lot of people in the world had come to conclude that the United States was gun-shy… We discussed it and he and I concluded that whenever it occurred down the road that the United States was under some sort of a threat or attack, that the United States should be leaning forward, not back.”
I am asking you as a mother, Mr. Secretary, to please lean back, and step down.
Sincerely yours,
An American Mom
posted by NancyJo at 10:10 AM
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