Shortly after President Bush boarded Air Force One on 9/11, he spoke with Vice President Dick Cheney for approximately ten minutes (pp.335-6). According to the 9/11 Commission, Cheney called Bush from the underground tunnel leading to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the White House. (pp. 39-40). Cheney later recalls making “one phone call [to the president] from the tunnel. And basically I called to let him know that we [at the White House] were a target and I strongly urged him not to return to Washington right away, that he delay his return until we could find out what the hell was going on.” Cheney later recalls, “What I was immediately thinking about was sort of continuity of government” (pp. 335-336).

We know that Continuity of Government Plans were in fact implemented on 9/11, purportedly between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m. East Coast time. Indeed, we know, courtesy of the Washington Post, that it was Cheney who initiated the COG plan:

“From the bunker, Cheney officially implemented the emergency continuity of government orders ….”

According to many sources, it was Cheney – and not Bush – who authorized the shootdown of planes on 9/11. See, for example, this Washington Post story. Perhaps the reason that Cheney, and not Bush, authorized the shootdown was that Cheney became the head of the “shadow” government instituted on 9/11 under Continuity of Government measures. In other words, he became the real Commander-in-Chief of the COG government.

As a former senior Los Angeles Times reporter notes, COG plans may also help explain why Cheney urged Bush to stay away from Washington:

“The [continuity of government] program is of particular interest today because it helps to explain the thinking and behavior of the second Bush Administration in the hours, days, and months after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001. Vice President Cheney urged President Bush to stay out of Washington for the rest of that day; Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ordered his deputy Paul Wolfowitz to get out of town; Cheney himself began to move from Washington to a series of "undisclosed locations"; and other federal officials were later sent to work outside the capital, to ensure the continuity of government in case of further attacks. All these actions had their roots in the Reagan Administration's clandestine planning exercises."

In other words, Bush’s “joy ride” on 9/11 across the country may have been at Cheney’s order.

Cheney’s Claim that He’s Not Part of the Executive Branch

Cheney’s recent claim that his office is not part of the Executive branch of government may be one more piece of circumstantial evidence that COG plans are still be in effect, with Cheney a leader in the extra-constitutional government.

Specifically, last summer, Cheney’s office stated that “the Vice President's office is not an 'entity within the executive branch”.

As summarized in Time Magazine:

“Vice President Dick Cheney has been resisting even his own Executive Branch's efforts to find out what kind of secret material his office has been stashing away over the last four years.

Cheney's office, according to a story first reported by the Chicago Tribune, has resisted attempts by a tiny federal agency to compile information — in accordance with an executive order signed by George Bush himself — on the classified documents being held by the Vice President's operation. Cheney's office argued that the Vice President's office, because it has both executive and legislative branch duties, is exempt from the order.”

It is, of course, possible that Cheney’s response to the request for documents is simply based upon a desire to avoid handing over documents.

However, given that Cheney has been instrumental in creating and practicing Continuity of Government plans for 20 years, and the increasingly strong circumstantial evidence that Continuity of Government plans are currently in effect, Cheney’s statement that he is not within the Executive branch, and that he is also part of the legislative, may be based on his being a leader in a COG government. In other words, if the traditional constitutional form of government were suspended, a COG government in place, and Cheney a key player in that government, it would be accurate and even straightforward that Cheney was not – as of last summer – just a member of the Executive branch.

Indeed, the traditional “executive branch” might not even still exist. As just one example, Bush might not even have a key role in such a COG government, except perhaps actor-in-chief.

And COG leaders, such as perhaps Cheney, would have key roles not only in the executive, but also the legislative branch, to the extent those “branches” (separation of powers is apparently not part of the COG plans) even exist. See this.

Is Cheney the Type Who Would Want to Run the COG Government?

I have previously pointed out that Cheney has been instrumental in creating and practicing Continuity of Government measures for the last 20 years or so.

And it is clear to anyone who has studied Cheney’s background that, as a well-known writer said, "For his entire career, he sought untrammeled power. The Bush presidency and 9/11 finally gave it to him . . ."

So yes…I think it is clear that Cheney would have jumped at the chance to be head of the COG government.