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Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises (3 posts)

1. nornnxx65
   Member

   June 2009, 9/11 Commission Team 8 staff member Miles Kara launched a blog- 9/11 Revisited- and has been taking questions from the public, as well posting articles expanding on the 9/11 Commission’s work. In this open letter to Miles Kara I pose a set of questions that have been raised in various forms since 9/11, and since the release of the 9/11 Commission Report. In addition, there are new questions based on 9/11 Commission records released to the National Archives, January 2009. Hopefully, Miles Kara will fill in the details.

   Kara has responded twice, providing many useful details (including between the lines) while mostly ignoring my questions http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=67#comments

   Article w/ hyperlinks: Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises http://911reports.wordpress.com/2009/07/02/questio...

   Greetings Miles Kara, and welcome to the blogosphere!

   As the History Commons contributor ‘paxvector’ who’s been scanning and uploading NARA’s 9/11 Commission records to Scribd.com/HistoryCommons (including many of yours), your public expression of gratitude for the project is appreciated.

   I am very interested in your blog, 9/11 Revisited, and that you’re responding to questions from the public. With your knowledge from having served on the Commission’s staff as a member of Team 8, you may be able to settle some of the unanswered questions and speculation regarding 9/11.

   I’ve compiled a list of questions and posted this as an open letter to you at my blog, 911Reports.com; Questions for Miles Kara on NORAD (and Other) Exercises. Your responses are up to you, of course, but as a courtesy to readers please include the questions with your responses, or provide a link to the questions and number your answers to correspond.

   Thanks for your time- I look forward to your response, and any additional information you may provide.

   Erik Larson

   1. What were the name(s) and scenario(s) of the hijack exercise(s) that NORAD conducted or planned to conduct on September 11, 2001?

   At least one hijack exercise is documented by the NEADS tapes, and was reported on by Michael Bronner for Vanity Fair in 2006. Bronner provides some details of the exercise, and quotes Major Kevin Nasypany, who helped design the exercise:

   ”When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was ‘Somebody started the exercise early,’” Nasypany later told me. The day’s exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a “traditional” simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum. “I actually said out loud, ‘The hijack’s not supposed to be for another hour,’” Nasypany recalled.

   1. Why was the hijack exercise (or exercises) scheduled for September 11, 2001 not included in your NORAD Exercises – Hijack Summary table?

   2. Why was the hijack exercise (or exercises) not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report, or made into a subject at the Commission hearings?

   3. Why does the 9/11 Commission Report, Chapter 1 endnote 116 restrict itself to a description of Vigilant Guardian on September 11, 2001 as having “postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union”, without mentioning other exercise scenarios, and in particular omitting hijack exercises? (458n116)

   Endnote 116 is the reference for the following conversation, which is also featured in the Vanity Fair article, and in your article 9/11: Training, Exercises and War Games:

   NEADS: “Is this real world or exercise?”

   FAA: ”No, this is not an exercise, not a test.” (20)

   As quoted by Bronner (see 1. above), Nasypany indicated the questions he and many other military personnel had about “real world or exercise” were due to the hijack exercise coinciding with the 9/11 real world events- not a Soviet Bomber attack exercise, as implied by endnote 116.

   Your NORAD Exercises – Hijack Summary table lists 9 versions of Vigilant Guardian from 9/6/01 to 9/10/01, all of which involved a hijack scenario.

   5a. What was total number of military exercises involving aircraft that took place on September 11, 2001?

   5b. What were the names and scenarios of these exercises? (Other than the hijack exercise(s) you name and describe in response to question 1. above)

   6a. Which exercises involved the use of computer-simulated aircraft aka “injects” (or “inputs”) on 9/11, and how many injects were being used?

   6b. Which radar screens were the injects on, and what time were they cleared?

   6c. Why was the use of injects in NORAD exercises on September 11 not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

   1. On your NORAD Exercises – Hijack Summary table, you highlighted certain text in Red, Yellow and Bold; what was your reason for doing this?

   2. You say in your article 9/11: Training, Exercises and War Games, “The [NORAD Exercises - Hijack Summary] was prepared to list what we knew about exercises before we traveled to NORAD Headquarters.”

   How was this information used in the interviews?

   1. What is the reason Ken Merchant stated “that [NORAD hijack exercises] were always resolved peacefully, that is, NORAD did not project shooting down a hijacked aircraft.”? (3)

   Your NORAD Exercises – Hijack Summary” table lists at least 3 exercises which included a shoot-down scenario; Vigilant Guardian 10/26/98 and 9/6/01, and Amazon Condor 10/21/99.

   Ken Merchant’s MFR states:

   “Mr. Merchant is the joint exercise design manager for NORAD, and has been with NORAD J3 (or J38) for 17 years.”

   1. In a comment on your 9/11: Training, Exercises and War Games article, you said, “there was one Department of Justice exercise that didn’t have anything to do with the other three”. Please cite sources for information on this exercise (or provide links).

   10a. What was the name, scenario and purpose of this DOJ exercise?

   10b. Why was this DOJ exercise not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

   11a. Why was the 2001 Global Guardian exercise rescheduled from October to the week of September 11?

   11b. What are the names of those responsible for rescheduling Global Guardian?

   11c. Why was Global Guardian not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

   1. What are the names and roles of those who were in charge of coordinating the military, intelligence, law enforcement and emergency management exercises scheduled for September 11, 2001?

   2. The 9/11 Commission Report says, “Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including terrorists’ use of aircraft as weapons.” (17)

   13a. What information was this threat-identification based on; what NORAD documents describe this threat, what do they say, and are Bin Laden and/or Al Qaeda mentioned in any of them?

   13b. What did the Commission learn about this threat-identification from interviews?

   1. Why does the 9/11 Commission Report say, “Exercise planners also assumed that the aircraft would originate from outside the United States, allowing time to identify the target and scramble interceptors. The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airliners within the United States—and using them as guided missiles—was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.”? (17)

   In this unclassified Amalgam Virgo 01-02 exercise scenario (also described in your NORAD Exercises – Hijack Summary table), a suicide pilot took off from Clearwater, Florida with a plan to crash into SEADS- in order to disrupt NORAD’s ability to intercept drug-smuggling flights.

   In addition to other ‘planes as missiles’ plots, Commissioner Ben-Veniste noted at the May 23, 2003 hearing, “September 12th, 1994, a Cessna 150L crashed into the South Lawn of the White House, barely missing the building, and killing the pilot. Similarly, in December of 1994, an Algerian armed Islamic group of terrorists hijacked an Air France flight in Algiers and threatened to crash it into the Eiffel Tower. In October of 1996, the intelligence community obtained information regarding an Iranian plot to hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and crash it into Tel Aviv.”

   General McKinley responded, “It’s obvious by your categorization that those events all took place and that NORAD had that information.”

   And the 9/11 Commission Report noted that, “in February 1974, a man named Samuel Byck attempted to commandeer a plane at Baltimore Washington International Airport with the intention of forcing the pilots to fly into Washington and crash into the White House to kill the president.” (561n21)

   1. Why was Osama Bin Laden’s picture used on the cover of the Amalgam Virgo 01 exercise proposal?

   2. DOD Document Request No. 4, Item 20 requested “The final briefing and intelligence scenario for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) exercise scheduled on 9/11 concerning a plane crash into NRO headquarters.” This DOD Document Index (emailed by Dan Levin) says it was delivered 7/15/03.

   17a. What was the full NRO exercise scenario- and did it involve an accidental plane crash, or an intentional one?

   17b. In what ways, if any, was this NRO exercise connected with the other exercises happening on 9/11?

   17c. Why was this NRO exercise not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report?

   Posted 14 years ago #
2. nornnxx65
   Member

   His answers need study- many details, plus stuff between the lines.

   This is Miles Kara's resume, btw: http://www.scribd.com/doc/15740898/FO-B1-Commissio...

   My initial reaction, partial cross-post from 911blogger:

   Whatever he says, true or false, fact or spin, is useful. Facts and details are helpful in establishing what happened, and what needs further investigation. Omission and distortion discredits the 9/11 Commission and the OCT, and provides additional justification for full investigations with the power to subpoena witnesses and documents.

   This set of questions was about exercises, and if full, straight answers aren’t forthcoming, at some point I’ll remind Kara that these questions, many of which (in different words) were posed to the Commission by the families, remain unanswered.

   Next set of questions is going to be about FAA/NORAD response on 9/11, and whatever he answers, even if he ignores them, will be part of the public record.

   The articles Kara has planned are likely to provide many new details as well, even if they raise still more questions:

   http://www.oredigger61.org/ “In the works:

   9-11: Rules of Engagement, ‘weapons free,’ or not? This article will discuss the presence of two different sets of fighters in the skies over the nation’s capital, each with different rules of engagement.

   9-11: NORAD’s Sudoku Puzzle: The May 23, 2003 Briefing Charts, an addendum. This article will publish the poster boards used by Lt Col Scott to brief the Commission, with comment.

   9-11: The Andrews Fighters, never a factor. In this article Iwill simply lay out the timeline for the Andrews fighters as determined from flight strips, radar, and air traffic control communications. The Commission Staff determined very early in its work that the Andrews fighters were not a factor that morning.

   9-11: The Air Defense Response, first things first, the Scott trilogy (in three parts). In this series of three articles I will discuss the trio of 2002 articles in Aviation Week & Space Technology by Willam B Scott. The Scott articles detail the information that became the NORAD account of events of the day which the Commission Staff corrected. Historians and serious researchers will want to reread the Scott articles at some point. Scott’s work is among the first summations of the events of 9-11 and it was one of the starting points for the work of the Commission Staff”

   Posted 14 years ago #
3. nornnxx65
   Member

   Direct link to Kara's first reply: http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=67&cpage=1#comme...

   Here's his latest, followed by my response: http://www.oredigger61.org/?p=67&cpage=1#comme... Oredigger 61 says: July 3, 2009 at 6:37 am

   Erik, good morning. I usually go to NARA in the morning hours and target my visits for finite boxes or to do specific things. For example, on my last visit I was allowed to take photos of the poster boards that NORAD (Scott) used at the May 23 hearing and I am ginning up an article to add that information to my NORAD piece. There are, by the way, 8 1/2 by 11 copies of those poster boards in Box 8.

   I can’t answer question 7 and 8 without refreshing my memory on our NORAD trip. I’m not even sure I was in on the Merchant interview. We split up duties and I was pursuing whether or not CMOC had tapes/files of the ‘forward tell’ feed from NEADS and also in tracking down Cheri Gott. In box 8 you will find a couple of briefings that Cheri put together. The sound bite in my head is that Merchant characterized all of the injects as notional, someone’s imagination, not real world inspired.

   In regards to my question, yes that is the NORAD response that is out there, but it ignores the key question. Those four planes were going to come down somewhere and someone on the ground was going to die, perhaps me. No one has thought through the specifics of how diversion/shooting down/ramming was going to save lives on the ground. That is what I am looking for.

   I don’t mind continuing our conversation via PM, your approach is reasonable in this mode.

   Back to NARA, did you know that you can reclama withdrawal notices that aren’t caveated as classified information or closed by statute?

   Miles

   My reply:

   Hi Miles,

   Thanks for the additional info- I’m looking forward to digging thru Box 8. Re; reclaiming Withdrawal Notices; nearly all the Withdrawal Notices for the most interesting material are labeled ‘classified’, ‘closed by statute’, ‘law enforcement sensitive’ and sometimes ‘personal privacy’. At this point I’m focused on reviewing box contents and scanning records- I hope to finish in July or August. After that I’ll be reviewing the Withdrawal Notices, requesting the ‘mandatory declassification review’ and submitting FOIA requests. Any help you provide on this is much appreciated- if you can get the Archives to make all interview transcripts public, that would be awesome.

   Re: questions 7 and 8- it sure would be interesting to hear your responses, if you will. Regarding your point about NORAD intercept and shoot-down- I’ll address that at the end of my post here, but as questions 13 and 14 quote from a Commission Report passage which bears on the subject, I’m going to address this issue in more detail first:

   1) “Exercise planners also assumed that the aircraft would originate from outside the United States, allowing time to identify the target and scramble interceptors.” (17)

   In at least one exercise in your Hijack Summary (Amalgam Virgo 01-02), exercise planners did envision an aircraft on a suicide mission originating in the US. The description says, “Scenario fruition is ‘up to Blue Forces’”, so presumably shoot-down was an option being reserved in this case as well.

   In addition, the 1974 plot by Byck cited in the Commission Report was to “commandeer a plane at Baltimore Washington International Airport with the intention of forcing the pilots to fly into Washington and crash into the White House to kill the president.” (561n21)

   2) Why would exercise planners assume that aircraft originating outside the U.S. would give them “time to identify the target and scramble interceptors”? (17)

   In one of the real-world examples cited by Comissioner Ben-Veniste at the May 23, 2003 hearing, the 1996 plot was to “hijack a Japanese plane over Israel and crash it into Tel Aviv.”

   3) How is the distinction of aircraft “originat[ing] from outside the United States” meaningful in terms of NORAD’s threat-identification, its planning for its primary mission of ensuring sovereignty over U.S. airspace, and its ability to respond to real-world situations?

   In total, the Hijack Summary lists 8 hijacks as originating in the U.S. Furthermore, as it’s a NORAD ‘hijack’ summary, it presumably excludes NORAD exercises in which non-hijacked aircraft (commercial or private) originating in the US (or outside) are used to deliver WMD.

   4) The Hijack Summary dates to 10/25/98; what can you tell us about military exercises involving aircraft prior to that date?

   DOD Document Request No. 4 asked for: “11. Intelligence scenarios and briefing papers for all national military exercises, since January 1993, in which a plane was hijacked and/or used as a weapon and which involved any of the following DoD entities: NORAD, JCS, and Special Operations Command (SOCOM).”

   5) “The threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airliners within the United States—and using them as guided missiles—was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11.” (17)

   Also at the May 23, 2003 hearings, Ben-Veniste cited numerous instances of planes being used as weapons, and that in “September of 1998, the intelligence community obtained information that Osama bin Laden's next operation could possibly involve flying an aircraft loaded with explosives into a U.S. airport and detonating it.”

   General McKinley responded, “It's obvious by your categorization that those events all took place and that NORAD had that information.”

   6) Were the examples cited by Ben-Veniste at the May 23, 2003 hearing what the 9/11 Commission Report was referring to when it said, “Other threats were identified during the late 1990s, including terrorists’ use of aircraft as weapons.”? (17)

   Now, back to your question: “In regards to my question, yes that is the NORAD response that is out there, but it ignores the key question. Those four planes were going to come down somewhere and someone on the ground was going to die, perhaps me. No one has thought through the specifics of how diversion/shooting down/ramming was going to save lives on the ground. That is what I am looking for.”

   NORAD’s primary mission has been ensuring sovereignty over U.S. airspace since at least 1974. Mitigating loss of life and property damage are secondary missions, but are served by maintaining the primary mission. If NORAD had been unable to shoot down AA 11, UA 175 or AA 77 over an unpopulated area, it’s possible people on the ground may have been killed or injured- but NORAD’s primary mission would have been accomplished. Shooting down the aircraft would also have served as a message that planes cannot be used to attack the U.S., which would in turn have advanced NORAD’s primary mission. Not doing so contributed to the perception that the U.S. was and is vulnerable. And as far lives lost on the ground on 9/11; presumably, if the planes had not hit the WTC Towers or the Pentagon, no one would have died in those locations- and nearly 3000 died in the Twin Towers.

   Shooting down planes is obviously the last line of defense, not the preferred course of action. Events leading up to the FAA/NORAD response to the hijackings were investigated by other teams; if you could get colleagues from any other teams to launch blogs as well, that would be great.

   Erik

   Posted 14 years ago #

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