Secretary Rumsfeld told us he was just gaining situational awareness when he
spoke with the Vice President at 10:39. His primary concern was ensuring that
the pilots had a clear understanding of their rules of engagement.
however, another set of fighters circling Washington that had entirely different
rules of engagement.These fighters, part of the 113th Wing of the District of
Columbia Air National Guard, launched out of Andrews Air Force Base in
Maryland in response to information passed to them by the Secret Service.The
first of the Andrews fighters was airborne at 10:38.
airborne. A Secret Service agent had a phone in each ear, one connected to
Wherley and the other to a fellow agent at the White House, relaying instruc-
tions that the White House agent said he was getting from the Vice President.
The guidance for Wherley was to send up the aircraft, with orders to protect
the White House and take out any aircraft that threatened the Capitol. Gen-
eral Wherley translated this in military terms to flying "weapons free"--that is,
the decision to shoot rests in the cockpit, or in this case in the cockpit of the
lead pilot. He passed these instructions to the pilots that launched at 10:42 and
afterward.
pilots were operating weapons free--a permissive rule of engagement. The
President and the Vice President indicated to us they had not been aware that
fighters had been scrambled out of Andrews, at the request of the Secret Ser-
vice and outside the military chain of command.
morning of September 11--that the Andrews planes were airborne and oper-
ating under different rules of engagement.
NORAD officials have maintained consistently that had the passengers not
caused United 93 to crash, the military would have prevented it from reach-
ing Washington, D.C.That conclusion is based on a version of events that we
now know is incorrect.The Langley fighters were not scrambled in response
to United 93; NORAD did not have 47 minutes to intercept the flight;
NORAD did not even know the plane was hijacked until after it had crashed.
It is appropriate, therefore, to reconsider whether United 93 would have been
intercepted.