What did the Bush Adminstration Know about planes as weapons?

http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2003/noradtestimony052303.html

911 Commission Testimony from the video clip.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner

Well, let’s start for example with 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 in Paris 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. In August of 1998, the Intelligence community obtained information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. The information was passed on to the FBI and the FAA. 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. In August 2001, the Intelligence Community obtained information regarding a plot to either bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi from an airplane or crash an airplane into it. In addition, in the Atlanta Olympics, the United States government and the Dept. of Justice and my colleague Jamie Gorelick were involved in planning against possible terrorist attacks at the Olympics, which included the potential of an aircraft flying into the stadium. In July 2001, the G8 Summit in Genoa, attended by our President - among the measures that were taken, were positioning surface-to-air missiles, ringing Genoa, closing the Genoa airport and restricting all airspace over Genoa. Was not this information, Sir, available to NORAD as of September 11th, 2001?

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley
It’s obvious, by your categorization that those events all took place and that NORAD had that information. I would only add, Sir, that the intelligence data that we postured our forces for and the training, and the tactics, and the procedures that we used to prepare our missions for support of the Combatant Commander of NORAD, had hijacking as a primary intercept tactic. And we have some of the finest fighter pilots as you know in the world who are some of the best people in the world, who can do their mission extremely well. But we had not postured, prior to September 11th, 2001, for the scenario that took place that day.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
Well, obviously, it would be hard to imagine posturing for the exact scenario but isn’t it a fact, Sir, that prior to September 11th, 2001, NORAD had already in the works, plans to simulate in an exercise, a simultaneous hijacking of two planes in the United States.

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley
Col. Scott, do you have any data on that? I’m not aware of that, Sir. I was not present at the time.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
That was operation Amalgam Virgo.

Col. Alan Scott
Yes, Sir. Specifically, operation Amalgam Virgo, which I was involved in before I retired, was a scenario using a Third-World United, not United, uninhabited aerial vehicle launched off a rogue freighter in the Gulf of Mexico. General Arnold can back me up, at the time, one of our greatest concerns was the proliferation of cruise missile technology and the ability for terrorists groups to get that technology and get it close enough to our shores to launch it. In fact, this exercise, in this exercise we used actual drone, MQM 107 drones, which are about the size of a cruise missile to exercise our fighters and our radars in a Gulf of Mexico scenario.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
You are referring to Amalgam ’01, are you not?

Col. Alan Scott
Yes, Sir.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
I’m referring to Amalgam ’02, which was in the planning stages prior to September 11th, 2001, Sir. Is that correct?

Col. Alan Scott
That was after I retired and I was not involved in ’02.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
Will you accept that the exercise involved a simultaneous hijacking scenario?

Col. Alan Scott
I was not involved in ’02.

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley
Sir, I do have some information on ’02, if you would allow me to read it for the record?

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
Please.

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley
Amalgam Virgo, in general, ’02, was an exercise created to focus on peacetime and contingency NORAD missions. One of the peacetime scenarios that is and has been a NORAD mission for years is support to other government departments. Within this mission falls hijackings. Creativity of the designer aside, prior to 9/11, hijack motivations were based on political objectives, ie: asylum or release of captured prisoners or political figures. Threats of killing hostages or crashing were left to the scriptwriters to invoke creativity and broaden the required response for players.

Richard Ben-Veniste, Commissioner
Well, isn’t that a bit fatuous given the specific information that I’ve given you? It wasn’t in the minds of scriptwriters when the Algerians had actually hijacked a plane which they were attempting to fly into the Eiffel Tower and all the other scenarios which I’ve mentioned to you. I don’t mean to argue with you but my question is, Sir, given the awareness of the terrorists’ use of planes as weapons, how was it that NORAD was still focusing outward in protecting the United States against attacks from the Soviet Union or elsewhere and was not better prepared to defend against the hijackings scenarios of a commercial jet, laden with fuel, used as a weapon to target citizens of the United States? When you say, our training, our mission was vestigial, I think you said it in capsulated form but would you agree that on the basis of the information available, that there could have been better preparedness by NORAD to meet this threat?

Maj. Gen. Craig McKinley
In retrospect, Sir, I think I would agree with your comment.

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http://www.sunspot.net/news/custom/attack/bal-te.terror19sep19001616,0,4958944.story?coll=bal-attack-headlines

President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and others have maintained, for example, that the intelligence reports collected before the attacks were vague and pointed to possible terrorist strikes abroad and not to the use of planes as weapons.

"I don't think anybody could have predicted," Rice said in May, "that they would try to use an airplane as a missile."