At CooperativeResearch.org, read “Military Exercises Up to 9/11,” in the “Complete 9/11 Timeline” including the two following entries:

Early August 2001: Mass Casualty Exercise at the Pentagon Includes a Plane Hitting the Building
A mass casualty exercise, involving a practice evacuation, is held at the Pentagon. General Lance Lord of US Air Force Space Command, one of the participants in the exercises, later recalls: “[It was] purely a coincidence, the scenario for that exercise included a plane hitting the building.” Lord will also say that on 9/11, “our assembly points were fresh in our minds” thanks to this practice. [Air Force Space Command News Service, 9/5/2002]
Entity Tags: Pentagon, Lance Lord
Category Tags: Military Exercises

Before September 11, 2001: NORAD Plans a Mock Simultaneous Hijacking Threat from Inside the US
NORAD plans for the Amalgam Virgo 2 exercise. The exercise, scheduled for June 2002, involves two simultaneous commercial aircraft hijackings. One, a Delta 757, with actual Delta pilots and actors posing as passengers, will fly from Salt Lake City, Utah, to Honolulu, Hawaii. It will be “hijacked” by FBI agents posing as terrorists. The other will be a DC-9 hijacked by Canadian police near Vancouver, British Columbia. US and Canadian fighters are to respond and attempt to escort the hijacked planes to airfields in British Columbia and Alaska. But they possibly could “mock” shoot down the aircraft. [CNN, 6/4/2002; American Forces Press Service, 6/4/2002; USA Today, 4/18/2004] USA Today will note that this is an exception to NORAD’s claim that the agency focused only on external threats to the US and did not consider the possibility of threats arising from within the US. [USA Today, 4/18/2004] 9/11 Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste will similarly comment that this planned exercise shows that despite frequent comments to the contrary, the military considered simultaneous hijackings before 9/11. [9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003]
Entity Tags: North American Aerospace Defense Command, Richard Ben-Veniste
Category Tags: Counterterrorism Before 9/11, Military Exercises

Now, look at this story on AOL today:

Exercise tests responses to hurricane, nuke and terrorists
Apr 30 07:38 PM US/Eastern
A hurricane roars ashore in Rhode Island. A nuclear device goes off in the Midwest. And terrorists begin wreaking havoc in Alaska. What do you do?
The Pentagon and other US and Canadian agencies plan to answer that question in a major exercise called Ardent Sentry-Northern Edge 07 that began Monday and will play out over the next 18 days, involving thousands of US troops and state and local officials.
The US Northern Command said it is "the largest and most complex exercise" it has undertaken, combining natural and man-made disasters to test preparedness plans on a national level.
"The intent obviously is to stress the system," said Mike Kucharak, a spokesman for the Northern Command in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
The peak of the exercise will come next week when a hurricane bears into Rhode Island under one scenario, and an improvised nuclear device is detonated in Indiana in another.
Interspersed with those crises will be simulated terrorist actions in Alaska, some of which will take place at sea while others will involve aircraft.
That will allow participants to explore what might happen if terrorists tries to take advantage of catastrophic event, Kucharak said. "How would that stress the system?"
The nuclear scenario postulates the detonation of a 10-kiloton nuclear device, which will draw in state and local authorities, and national guard units from three states. Some 2,000 active duty military personnel will also take part.
Kucharak said the military will for deploy specialized forces to handle the consequences of a simulated nuclear event.

Then, read Rosebud #89, below, about the Health and Human Services recent report on readiness in the event of a biological or nuclear attack...