Did the Air Force scramble jets to shoot down flight 93? Two views

9-11 Commission staffers John Farmer, John Azzarello and Miles Kara, in a September 13, 2008 article for the New York Times ("Real Heroes, Fake Stories" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/14/opinion/14farmer.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em), state:

"Contrary to the testimony of retired Gen. Larry Arnold, who on 9/11 was the commander of continental defense for the North American Aerospace Defense Command, fighters were not scrambled that morning to meet the threat posed by United 93. In fact, the fighters were sent up in response to an unrelated and mistaken report that General Arnold and others had not disclosed to the commission. Flight 93 hadn’t even been hijacked when the planes were ordered scrambled, and General Arnold’s command found out the plane was hijacked only after it had crashed. The authorization to shoot it down came after it had crashed, and was never passed on to the pilots."

But C-Span aired a recent speech by General Victor Renuart, USNORTHCOM chief, who said the following:

"Today we have created the apparatus that could allow us to engage one of those targets and, similar to, on 9-11, if we identify them soon enough and we know that they are a threat or we can determine they are a threat we have the aparatus that allows us to potentially shoot those aircraft down before they would have the effect of creating mass casualties as we saw in some other locations. In fact on 9-11 we were attempting to do that when flight 93 hit the ground in Pennsylvania as the result of some heroic efforts by the individuals on board, but we had launched airplanes, and we were chasing that aircraft down."

Now who are we to believe, because if I am not mistaken, these two statements contradict one another. Is this yet another 9-11 Commission fabrication, or is Renuart misinformed? Or perhaps these staffers are just trying to let the good general know what script he should be reading from.

I believe

Renuart

I live in the north tip of

I live in the north tip of West Virginia. Pittsburgh is about an hour to forty-five minutes from here, depending on your driving style.

I have spoken to several people from the area where 93 went down who have said that they heard and saw military planes in the area. Jet or jets, I dont know, but the air force was conducting some sort of business there when the plane went down.