Games - War games in progress on September 11, 2001

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	Games - War games in progress on September 11, 2001

During the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US was holding multiple annual and one-time war games with at least one resembling the actual attacks.

The war games included:

a National Reconnaissance Office exercise on September 11, in which a small corporate jet would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure. The NRO, whose name was classified until 1992, is the branch of the Department of Defense in charge of spy satellites.
Global Guardian
, an annual exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to the United States Strategic Command. It had been running for several days. The exercise allegedly involved a simulated Russian bomber attack. Global Guardian is performed in conjunction with Vigilant Guardian, the annual training exercise (usually occurring in October) conducted by NORAD as well as exercises under the direction of Air Combat Command (Crown Vigilance) and US Space Command (Apollo Guardian). "Vigilant Guardian" is a HQ-sponsored CPx (Command Post Exercise), meaning it is conducted in offices and with computers, but without actual planes in the air. All of NORAD was involved in "Vigilant Guardian." However, it did include radar injects, or false blips, which could explain the FAA's observation of a 'phantom flight 11' on FAA radar well after the plane struck the WTC and after NORAD claims to have called off all war games.
Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD live-fly (confirmed by its second name 'warrior') exercise mentioned in Richard Clarke's Against All Enemies page 4-5 (possibly the same as Vigilant Guardian, or possibly the complementary "offense" or "red team" portion of the drill involving real planes acting as simulated hijacked plane)
Operation Northern Vigilance, which involved deploying fighter jets to locations in Alaska and northern Canada. According to the Toronto Star: " Part of this exercise is pure simulation, but part is real world: NORAD is keeping a close eye on the Russians, who have dispatched long-range bombers to their own high north on a similar exercise." Planned on September 11, it was called off when the Federal Aviation Administration had evidence of a hijacking.
Operation Northern Guardian "In late August 2001, two-thirds of the 27th Fighter Squadron are sent overseas. Six of the squadron's fighters and 115 people go to Turkey to enforce the no-fly zone over northern Iraq as part of Operation Northern Watch. Another six fighters and 70 people are sent to Iceland to participate in "Operation Northern Guardian." These were real-world operations which resulted in many fighters from Langley AFB to be unavailable for scrambling on 9/11.
TRIPOD II, a joint FEMA and Department of Justice biowarfare vaccination exercise, scheduled for September 12 at New York's Pier 29, and revealed in testimony by former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani at the 9/11 Commission. The command center assembled at Pier 29 was used for FEMA response to the events of 9/11 after Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management offices were evacuated and later destroyed in WTC 7.

The Vigilant Guardian war game was discussed in chapter 1, footnote 116 of the 9/11 Commission Report:

:"116. On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian, which postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. We investigated whether military preparations for the large-scale exercise compromised the military's response to the real-world terrorist attack on 9/11. According to General Eberhart, "it took about 30 seconds" to make the adjustment to the real-world situation. Ralph Eberhart testimony, June 17, 2004. We found that the response was, if anything, expedited by the increased number of staff at the sectors and at NORAD because of the scheduled exercise. See Robert Marr interview (Jan. 23, 2004)."

On page 17 of the 9/11 Commission Report when Boston center calls NEADS (Northeast Air Defense Sector), the response from NEADS was "is this real world or exercise?". According to the 9/11 Commission's staff statement No. 17, "During the course of the morning, there were multiple erroneous reports of hijacked aircraft in the system." For instance, page 26 of the Commission's final report documents FAA's report of a "phantom flight 11" at 9:21, 35 minutes after the real flight 11 crashed into the WTC and even longer after the war games are alleged to have been aborted.

Some believe questions remain. On February 16, 2005, during a House hearing on the Defense Appropriations bill, Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney asked Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers about the war games and how they may have impaired the ability to respond to the attacks as well as the possibility that 9/11 was declared a National Special Security Event (NSSE) day as a result of the war games. She hasn't received a response.

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