9/11: myths exploded: "'There's an invisible wound in my heart that can only be closed with truth and by someone accepting responsibility,' said April Gallop, who survived being buried in the rubble of the Pentagon.
... though a Senate report recommended the setting up of a 'National Homeland Security Agency' and warned 'mass casualty terrorism directed against the US homeland was of serious and growing concern', the Bush administration was more focused on a planned missile shield and Iraq. Incoming officials thought the departing 'Clintonites' were terrorism-obsessed. Contact with the Taliban, aimed at forcing them to give up bin Laden, dropped away. On 8 May, 2001, Bush announced a task force headed by Vice-President Dick Cheney to develop action on counter-terrorism. It never met.
...
Myth number one
A strong relationship existed between Baghdad and Osama bin Laden.

Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, said in a speech to the United Nations in February 2003: 'Iraqis continued to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan some time in the mid-1990s to provide training to al-Qaeda members.'

Commission: 'In 1994 bin Laden is said to have requested [help] but Iraq never responded... There have been reports that contacts also occurred [in Afghanistan after 1996] but they do not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship.'

Myth number two
Mohammed Atta, the leader of the hijackers, met an Iraqi agent in Prague on 9 April, 2001.

James Woolsey, the former CIA director (and a close friend of many neoconservatives), said in October 2001: 'The Czech confirmation [of the Prague meeting] seems to me very important... It is yet another lead that points toward Iraqi involvement in some sort of terrorism against the United States that ought to be followed up vigorously.'

Commission: 'Based on the evidence available - including investigations by Czech and US authorities plus detainee reporting - we do not believe that such a meeting occurred... We have no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaeda co-operated on attacks against the United States.'

Myth number three
Al-Qaeda was involved in drugs trafficking.

'[Al-Qaeda] activity includes substantial exploitation of the illegal drugs trade' - a press statement issued by the British government in October 2001

Commission: 'No persuasive evidence exists that al-Qaeda relied on the drug trade as an important source of revenue.'

Minute by minute: How the 21st century's Pearl Harbor unfolded

07.58 American Airlines Flight 11 takes off from Logan airport, Boston, for LA.

08.13 After a routine instruction for Flight 11 to turn right, communication is lost.

08.14 United Airlines Flight 175 leaves Boston and begins acting erratically. This is not picked up by air traffic controllers because the controller responsible for that flight was also handling Flight 11.

08.20 American Airlines Flight 77 leaves Dulles International Airport, Washington.

08.24 The voice of Mohamed Atta confirms the flight has been hijacked.

08.37 Norad, responsible for defending North East American airspace, finally receives word of the hijacking.

08.45 American Airlines Flight 11 crashes into the north tower of the World Trade Centre.

08.53 Two F-15 fighter jets scrambled from Otis Air Force base, 150 miles from New York.

09.00 Aviation officials realise that a second hijacked plane is heading for New York. The Federal Aviation Administration reports: 'Heads up, man, it looks like another one is coming in.'

09.03 United Airlines Flight 175 hits the south tower of the World Trade Centre.

09.05 George Bush is visiting a school in Sarasota, Florida, when he is told a second plane has hit, but he stays sitting for five minutes. He later tells the commission investigating 9/11: '[My] instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction at a moment of crisis'.

09.15 Bush moves to a holding room where he is briefed. Both he and his aides have no idea that other planes have been hijacked.

09.21 Aviation officials realise that American Airlines Flight 77 is missing.

09.32 US military air defence officials realise Flight 77 is only six miles - little more than a minute - from the White House. An unarmed National Guard C-130H cargo plane is scrambled.

09.42 All flights are halted by the Federal Aviation Administration.

09.43 American Airlines Flight 77 hits the Pentagon.

09.57 Fighter escorts for Air Force One leave their Florida base.

10.03 Another hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, en route from New Jersey to San Francisco, crashes in rural Pennsylvania after passengers attack hijackers.

10.05 The south tower of the World Trade Centre collapses.

10.10 F-16 fighter jets arrive over Washington, but are not cleared to fire on airliners.

10.17 Tele-conference call under way between senior aviation and administration officals.

10.20 F-15s receive authorisation to shoot down any threatening airliner. But order never passed on to the pilots.

10.28 The World Trade Centre's north tower collapses.

10.38 US pilots receive orders from General David Wherley that they can shoot down any hijacked planes.

13.44 The Pentagon deploys five warships and two aircraft carriers to protect the East Coast from further attack. Two carriers and three frigates, armed with guided missile destroyers capable of shooting down aircraft, head for the New York coast.

23.30 Before going to sleep, President Bush writes in his diary:

'The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today... We think it's Osama bin Laden.' "
- posted by geoff @ #