This issue has been addressed @:

http://911myths.com/html/angel_is_next.html

You may be unaware of several facts that make this conclusion untenable, such as a statement made to the media (by Ari Fleischer, I think) before Bush’s entourage entered the school, to the effect that “We know what’s going on in New York, and we’ll have a statement later.” More important, as documented by Griffin, the FAA knew of trouble on several airliners by then. An airliner had crashed into the best-known terrorist target in the United States after a dozen quite specific warnings had been given in the preceding six weeks by other governments, by the CIA director, and by anti-terrorism specialists John O’Neill and Richard Clarke. Other airliners were also known, by at least some of the top operational people on duty in the FAA, to be off-course or out of radio contact by that same time.

This was about six weeks after Bush slept on a moored ship instead of a hotel and *anti-aircraft guns were emplaced to defend him *at Genoa, Italy for the G-8 conference.

In the context of ALL this, the Secret Service should have been on hair-trigger alert, and certainly alert to a threat from the skies. The Secret Service didn’t need to know where to go right away, they just needed to get Bush off the ground and away from his publicly known location. If I recall correctly, the threat to Air Force One that was made using Secret Service code — indicating that the threatener had and up-to-date, inside knowledge of Secret Service operations — did not come in until after the president came back out of the school. So that cannot be the reason the team at the school kept him there until well after the second WTC tower had been hit. Certainly by then, there was no rational reason to let him stay in the school.

Finally, one of the Secret Service agents on duty allegedly DID suggest that Bush should be rushed away, but he was overruled by the agent in charge. I don’t know if Griffin documented that, but I’ve seen the claim made in more than one place. That doesn’t make it true, and obviously it needs solid documentation before being published anywhere by us.

Taken together, in context, all this is as damning as the video of the Secret Service agent spreading his arms in a “What the hell?” gesture as he follows an order to step off the running board of Kennedy’s limo in Dealey Plaza.

Bush is clearly guilty of at least criminal negligence, if not worse.

As we discussed on this page above, at 9:05 on the morning of 9/11/2001, Bush was specifically informed that “America is under attack.”

But even the 9/11 Commission report (edited by Philip Zelikow, who is likely to have been biased in Bush’s favor) admits that Bush did not “return to a holding room” until “shortly before 9:15.”

Note the word “return,” which implies that he had already been there, which implies that that particular room had already been secured for him by the Secret Service. So, it would not have been a big deal for the Secret Service to escort him back to that “holding room.”

In any kind of attack, every second counts, or, at least, very well might count. That’s elementary.

Bush was one of only two people in the entire country who were authorized to give an order to shoot down a plane. Thus it was clearly necessary that he be available for consultation on a moment’s notice.

So he should have returned to that “holding room” ASAP.

Whether it would actually have done any good is another question. But it was clearly his duty, at that point, to attend to the crisis. At the very least he should have made himself maximally available to his advisors by returning to a room where he could be alone with them whenever needed.

That’s no excuse for total unpreparedness for a given type of attack, especially if the attack type in question is one that the military has specifically trained for. It’s also no excuse for the lackadaisicalness displayed by high officials. Obviously, in any kind of attack, every second counts.

There was clearly a large attack after the second plane, and reason to suspect more could have been coming. But at that moment they had no idea of what, when, how. They should have done something different, sure. But it’s easy to say afterwards.

The post linked below discusses, primarily, the behavior of Donald Rumsfeld.

- Diane

It is true that most people had “no idea it was a much bigger attack” when the first plane hit. But you’re the first and only person I’ve ever seen making that excuse regarding the second plane. All other sources I’ve seen so far, including official ones, admit that the second plane was obviously part of a larger attack, and that, by that point, there was every reason to expect at least a possibility of more to come.

ref1 wrote:

You find it suspicious that the people didn’t act like the best trained, most calm and collective people ever.

I find it suspicious that people, especially high officials, acted like they hadn’t been trained at all, when in fact they had been. If the “war games” prove nothing else, they prove at least that the problem wasn’t a “failure of imagination.” Also I find it suspicious that high officials were, if anything, too “calm,” finding other things to do rather than attend to the crisis at hand.

New York is in crisis. At the moment they think that’s it. The didn’t know there was anything to respond to anymore. The president has to address the nation in these situations. In hindsight it’s easy to think, why didn’t they immediately contact the military or someone else.

You run from conclusion (something had to be wrong with the response) to finding suspicious evidence to support that conclusion. You find it suspicious that the people didn’t act like the best trained, most calm and collective people ever. Well, that is exactly the best evidence for 9/11 NOT being an inside job.

Bush’s alleged reason, according to the 9/11 Commission report, was that he “felt he should project strength and calm until he could better understand what was happening.” But couldn’t he have just calmly excused himself??? Surely the children reading about a pet goat weren’t going to help him “better understand what was happening.”

And then, according to the 9/11 Commission Report:

Between 9:15 and 9:30, the staff was busy arranging a return to Washington, while the President consulted his senior advisers about his remarks. No one in the traveling party had any information during this time that other aircraft were hijacked or missing. Staff was in contact with the White House Situation Room, but as far as we could determine, no one with the President was in contact with the Pentagon. The focus was on the President’s statement to the nation. The only decision made during this time was to return to Washington.

In other words, preparing and making a public statement was supposedly more urgent than contacting anyone who might be involved in responding to the attacks.

Anyhow, next time you refer to websites you just recently looked at, I would appreciate it very much if you could post links to specific pages.