Lesson plan for 9-11
 

Context of '(6:30 a.m.)'
This page shows all events that either reference, or are referenced
by, the event '(6:30 a.m.)'.


(6:30 a.m.): NORAD on Alert for Emergency Exercises Lieutenant Colonel
Dawne Deskins and other day shift employees at NEADS start their
workday. NORAD is conducting a week-long, large-scale exercise called
Vigilant Guardian. [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002] Deskins is
regional mission crew chief for the Vigilant Guardian exercise. [ABC
News, 9/11/2002] Vigilant Guardian is described as “an exercise that
would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts
nationwide”; as a “simulated air war”; and as “an air defense exercise
simulating an attack on the United States.” According to the 9/11
Commission, it “postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet
Union.” [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002; Filson, 2004, pp. 55 and
122; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 458] Vigilant Guardian is
described as being held annually, and is one of NORAD’s four major
annual exercises. [GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/14/2002; Filson, 2004, pp.
41; Arkin, 2005, pp. 545] However, another report says it takes place
semi-annually. [Aviation Week and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] Accounts
by participants vary on whether 9/11 was the second, third, or fourth
day of the exercise. [Newhouse News Service, 1/25/2002; Ottawa
Citizen, 9/11/2002; Code One Magazine, 1/2002] Vigilant Guardian is a
command post exercise (CPX), and in at least some previous years was
conducted in conjunction with Stratcom’s Global Guardian exercise and
a US Space Command exercise called Apollo Guardian. [US Congress,
n.d.; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/14/2002; Arkin, 2005, pp. 545] All of
NORAD is participating in Vigilant Guardian on 9/11. [Aviation Week
and Space Technology, 6/3/2002] At NEADS, most of the dozen or so
staff on the operations floor have no idea what the exercise is going
to entail and are ready for anything. [Utica Observer-Dispatch,
8/5/2004] NORAD is also running a real-world operation named Operation
Northern Vigilance. NORAD is thus fully staffed and alert, and senior
officers are manning stations throughout the US. The entire chain of
command is in place and ready when the first hijacking is reported. An
article later says, “In retrospect, the exercise would prove to be a
serendipitous enabler of a rapid military response to terrorist
attacks on September 11.” [Aviation Week and Space Technology,
6/3/2002; Bergen Record, 12/5/2003] Colonel Robert Marr, in charge of
NEADS, says, “We had the fighters with a little more gas on board. A
few more weapons on board.” [ABC News, 9/11/2002] However, Deskins and
other NORAD officials later are initially confused about whether the
9/11 attacks are real or part of the exercise. There is a National
Reconnaissance Office exercise planned to occur as well (see 9:00
a.m.), involving a scenario of an airplane as a flying weapon.
[Associated Press, 8/21/2002; United Press International, 8/22/2002]
Entity Tags: Robert Marr, Vigilant Guardian, Northeast Air Defense
Sector, Dawne Deskins, Operation Northern Vigilance, North American
Aerospace Defense Command
9:00 a.m.: 9/11-Styled Simulation Cancelled An “emergency response
exercise” is scheduled to take place at 9 a.m. the morning of 9/11,
involving the simulated crash of a small corporate jet plane into a
government building. The exercise is to be conducted by the National
Reconnaissance Office (NRO) in Chantilly, Virginia—just four miles
from Washington Dulles International Airport, from where Flight 77
took off, and 24 miles from the Pentagon. The NRO draws its personnel
from the CIA and the military, and operates many of the nation’s spy
satellites. John Fulton, chief of the NRO’s strategic war gaming
office, and his team at the CIA, are in charge of the exercise. It is
to involve the jet experiencing mechanical problems then crashing into
one of the four towers at the NRO. In order to simulate the damage
from the crash, some stairwells and exits are to be closed off,
forcing NRO employees to find other ways to evacuate the building.
However, according to an agency spokesman, “as soon as the real world
events began, we cancelled the exercise.” After the attacks, most of
the agency’s 3,000 staff are supposedly sent home. [National Law
Enforcement and Security Institute, 8/4/2002; National Law Enforcement
and Security Institute, 8/6/2002 ; Associated Press, 8/21/2002; United
Press International, 8/22/2002]
Entity Tags: John Fulton, Central Intelligence Agency, National
Reconnaissance Office
After 9:03 a.m.: NORAD Training Exercise Cancelled NORAD Commander
Larry Arnold later says that after Flight 175 hits the South Tower, “I
thought it might be prudent to pull out of the exercise [presumably
Vigilant Guardian (see (6:30 a.m.))], which we did.” He says: “As we
pulled out of the exercise we were getting calls about United Flight
93 and we were worried about that.” Some early accounts say the
military receives notification of the possible hijacking of Flight 93
at around 9:16 a.m. [CNN, 9/17/2001; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003]
However, the 9/11 Commission later claims that the military first
receives a call about Flight 93 at 10:07 a.m. [9/11 Commission,
6/17/2004] Larry Arnold adds, “Then we had another call from Boston
Center about a possible hijacking, but that turned out to be the
airplane that had already hit the South Tower but we didn’t know that
at the time.” [Filson, 2004, pp. 59]
Entity Tags: North American Aerospace Defense Command, Larry Arnold
9:28 a.m.: NORAD Possibly Holding ‘Live-Fly’ Training Exercise
According to former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, around
this time the acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Richard
Myers tells him via video link: “We are in the middle of Vigilant
Warrior, a NORAD exercise, but ... Otis [Air National Guard Base] has
launched two birds toward New York.” [Clarke, 2004, pp. 5] However, no
other references have been found to this exercise, “Vigilant Warrior.”
Considering that exercise terms are “normally an unclassified
nickname,” [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 4/23/1998 ] this is
perhaps a little odd. Could Richard Clarke have mistakenly been
referring to the Vigilant Guardian exercise (see (6:30 a.m.)), which
is taking place on 9/11? According to a later news report though,
NORAD confirms that “it was running two mock drills on Sept. 11 at
various radar sites and Command Centers in the United States and
Canada,” one of these being Vigilant Guardian. [New Jersey
Star-Ledger, 12/5/2003] If this is correct then there must be another
NORAD exercise on 9/11. If not “Vigilant Warrior,” a possibility is
that the exercise referred to by Richard Clarke is in fact “Amalgam
Warrior,” which is a NORAD-sponsored, large-scale, live-fly air
defense and air intercept field training exercise. Amalgam Warrior
usually involves two or more NORAD regions and is held twice yearly,
in the spring for the West Coast and in the autumn for the East Coast.
[Airman, 1996; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/14/2002; US Congress, n.d.;
Arkin, 2005, pp. 254] Is it possible that in 2001 the East Coast
Amalgam Warrior is being held earlier than usual (like Global Guardian
(see 8:30 a.m.)) and is taking place on 9/11? In support of this
possibility is a 1997 Defense Department report that describes the
Stratcom exercise Global Guardian, saying it “links with other
exercise activities sponsored by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff,
and the Unified Commands.” The exercises it links with are Crown
Vigilance (an Air Combat Command exercise), Apollo Guardian (a US
Space Command exercise), and—significantly—the NORAD exercises
Vigilant Guardian and Amalgam Warrior. [US Department of Defense,
5/1997; GlobalSecurity (.org), 10/10/2002] Since in 2001, Vigilant
Guardian (see (6:30 a.m.)) is occurring the same time as Global
Guardian, might Amalgam Warrior be as well? In his book Code Names,
William Arkin says that Amalgam Warrior is “sometimes combined with
Global Guardian.” [Arkin, 2005, pp. 254] Amalgam Warrior tests such
activities as tracking, surveillance, air interception, employing
rules of engagement, attack assessment, electronic warfare, and
counter-cruise-missile operations. A previous Amalgam Warrior in 1996
involved such situations as tracking unknown aircraft that had
incorrectly filed their flight plans or wandered off course, in-flight
emergencies, terrorist aircraft attacks, and large-scale bomber strike
missions. Amalgam Warrior 98-1 was NORAD’s largest ever exercise and
involved six B-1B bombers being deployed to Eielson Air Force Base,
Alaska, to act as an enemy threat by infiltrating the aerial borders
of North America. [Airman, 1996; GlobalSecurity (.org), 4/14/2002;
Arkin, 2005, pp. 254] Another Amalgam Warrior in fall 2000 similarly
involved four B-1 bombers acting as enemy forces trying to invade
Alaska, with NORAD going from tracking the unknown aircraft to sending
up “alert” F-15s in response. [Eielson News Service, 10/27/2000;
Associated Press, 10/29/2000] If either one (or both) of these
exercises ending with the name “Warrior” is taking place on 9/11, this
could be very significant, because the word “Warrior” indicates that
the exercise is a Joint Chiefs of Staff-approved, Commander in Chief,
NORAD-sponsored field training exercise. [North American Aerospace
Defense Command, 8/25/1989] Real planes would be pretending to be
threats to the US and real fighters would be deployed to defend
against them.
Entity Tags: North American Aerospace Defense Command, Amalgam
Warrior, Ellington Air National Guard Base, Vigilant Guardian, Richard
A. Clarke, Richard B. Myers, US Department of Defense

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