Lee Hamilton Confirms Norman Mineta's Testimony?
Jon Gold
4/24/2008
As we all know, Norman Mineta's testimony was never investigated or mentioned in the 9/11 Report. You would think that the "young man" that was involved in such an important moment during the 9/11 attacks would be named, and brought before the 9/11 Commission. He was not.
This clip is from C-SPAN's 5/26/2005 taping of the "Washington Journal". The caller clearly states that at the time the Pentagon was hit, Cheney was aware of the incoming plane according to Norman Mineta's testimony. At the end of this segment, Lee Hamilton says that Cheney was "in the key position at the time". Prior to that, he said that "the Vice President was in the operation room", and "when the impact did occur." To me, this sounds like Lee Hamilton just confirmed Norman Mineta's testimony.
On August 21st, 2006, Lee Hamilton was interviewed by Evan Solomon of CBC News. During that interview, he was asked again about Norman Mineta's testimony.
Solomon: Questions about foreknowledge, especially as to when Vice President Dick Cheney knew when he went down to the protective bunker: there was some suggestion that the Secretary of Transport Mineta testified in front of the Commission that he in fact talked to Dick Cheney at 9:20 am. Cheney claims he hadn’t been there.. gotten down there until close to 10 am. That was eventually omitted from the final report,. Can you tell us a bit about about what Secretary of Transport Mineta told the Commission about where Dick Cheney was prior to 10 am?
Hamilton: I do not recall.
Solomon: And we don’t know exactly where that..
Hamilton: Well, we think that Vice President Cheney entered the bunker shortly before 10 o’clock. And there is a gap of several minutes there, where we do not really know what the Vice President really did. There is the famous phone call between the President and the Vice President. We could find no documentary evidence of that phone call. Both the President and the Vice President said that the phone call was made, and in that phone call, the order was supposedly was given, allegedly given, to shoot down an airliner - if necessary
Now, there are a lot of things not answered about that period of time. The order never got to the pilots and when it did get to the pilots, it didn't get to them in time, and when it did get to them, they claimed it was not an order to shoot it down, but to identify and track an airliner, not to shoot it down.
What you had on this day, of course, was a lot of confusion, and a lot of confusion in communications, at the very highest levels. When the President went from the school in Sarasota to Air Force One, he was trying to get communications with the White House, he used a cell phone, in part. When he got to Air Force One, the communications didn’t work all that well. Well, this is all very disturbing, and I'm told has now been corrected.
Apparently, Lee waited a while before he actually read the report. However, he ADMITS that "we do not really know what the Vice President really did." Newsweek reported that Cheney was picked up by the Secret Service at 9:35, but does write that, "a source close to the commission, who declined to be identified revealing sensitive information, says that none of the staffers who worked on this aspect of the investigation believed Cheney's version of events."
Why is this acceptable? Guess what? It's not.
To watch the whole interview, click here (RealPlayer required).
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LIAR !!
" Hamilton: I do not recall " Is that a fact ? recall this ?
Good catch, Gold. Hamiliton
Good catch, Gold. Hamiliton dances around it a bit, but he definitely says that Cheney was in the operation room at 'that point in time" - the time the caller was asking about - the time the Young Man kept coming into the room.
Thanks Uber...
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?
Good post . . . Why aren't
Good post . . .
Why aren't George, Dick, Rummy, Condi, Ashcroft, Powell, Scooter, Addington, Hadley, Bob Novak, to name just a few, in prison?
Punishing the perps
Is not something that will, in my opinion, signal "victory" or "right the wrong". The best thing that could possibly happen is that every citizen across the world became aware to the lies that continue to plague our civilizations, therefore making the inevitable evil more obvious and manageable. In this sense, the truth IS winning and awareness is rising. Cheers to hope.
It is a good catch!
It's a sad state of affairs to search for evidence to support what, at one point, at least seemed probable?
It's a very good little clip and blog post that clearly illustrates how far the actors in this drama depart from their previous performances!
Lee Hamilton = bad actor....
...don't believe him!
Thanks...
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?
...
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?
Cheney was in the underground corridor
According to the official story, Cheney was in the underground corridor of the White House (which leads from his Office in the West Wing to the PEOC bunker in the East Wing) between 9:37 and about 9:55.
This quarter of an hour is what Hamilton means when he says "we do not know what the Vice President really did". In the corridor, there was a bench, a TV, and, most important, a "secure phone". This is indeed very interesting, because Cheney could confer with anyone without the phone call being recorded. Apart from maybe the Secret Service, who was certainly loyal to him, he was apparently alone there.
Therefore the corridor was a much better opportunity to pull the strings than the PEOC with such unreliable candidates like Mineta.
Hamilton says nowhere that Cheney was in the PEOC as early as 9:35.
Here's an overview on Mineta's various statements over the time. I'm tired to point out the many contradictions in there, so everybody may judge himself:
www.911woodybox.blogspot.com
The caller...
Cited Norman Mineta's testimony verbatim... mentioned 9:20... clarified it as being the plane that hit the Pentagon... Hamilton said that Cheney was in the operation room... when the impact occurred, and was in a "key position at that time". He doesn't say that Cheney was in the PEOC as early as 9:35, but he doesn't disagree with the caller in the video above. It's not until later he starts disagreeing.
Do you think the young man should not have been named, and brought before the 9/11 Commission?
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?
That's not how I would interpret it
Hamilton covers the whole time from Bush sitting with the children until Rumsfeld's appearance at the impact scene. Here are his last words in the clip:
"Donald Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon, as I recall, but not, fortunately, at the point of impact. And when the impact did occur he wanted to try to be helpful, and he personally went over there trying to be helpful before they got him and, I think, turned him around...Cheney was in the key position at the time..."
So does "at the time" refer to the impact time? Or does it refer to the moment when Rumsfeld was sent back, which certainly occurred some (10? 20? 30?) minutes later? Hamilton's chronology is way to inaccurate to use it as a confirmation for Mineta.
It certainly would have been interesting to let the "young man" speak before the 9/11 commission. I just don't think he would have revealed something that was not known already. David Bohrer describes him as a "PEOC staffer":
DAVID BOHRER, WHITE HOUSE PHOTOGRAPHER:
"There was a, a PEOC staffer who would keep coming in with updates on Flight 93's progress towards DC."
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/pentagon/attack/abcnews091102_jennings...
Here we have it again. The "young man" reported the incoming (phantom) Flight 93, not Flight 77, and the scene ocurred at about 10:20, not 9:20.
Prior to that...
He said that Cheney was in the operations room. Later he said, "When the impact occurred"... He also never bothered to correct the caller who cited 9:20, and Norman Mineta's testimony verbatim.
David Bohrer? The same person who said that Cheney left for the PEOC just after 9am?
Too bad Flight 93 didn't come within 50 miles, 30 miles, or 10 miles of D.C.
Incidentally, I have Mineta at 3x stating that this scenario took place before the Pentagon was hit. How many times does he have to say it? I remember everything about the day of 9/11 vividly. I can't believe Mineta is so confused about what happened.
What about Cheney's own account on "Meet The Press?"
"Once I left that immediate shelter, after I talked to the president, urged him to stay away for now, well, I went down into what's call a PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, and there, I had Norm Mineta... [...] But when I arrived there within a short order, we had word the Pentagon's been hit."
Was he confused as well?
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?
David Bohrer
David Bohrer DIDN'T say that Cheney left for the PEOC "just after 9am". This is an old myth, and it's simply not correct. All what he said on ABC news you can find in the transcript - the link of my previous post. Where does he say "9 am" there?
YOUR link is an online summary of the ABC documentary. The "9 am" is not a quote from Bohrer, but an opening phrase of Charles Gibson, who wrote this summary, to start with a time frame.
Regardless if Flight 93 came within 50, 30, 10 miles of DC or not - fact is that it was believed to be airborne after 10:03. Colin Powell thought it had crashed at Camp David, Ari Fleischer (who was with Bush in Florida) thought it had crashed at Camp David, so we can be safe that all the guys in the PEOC - including Mineta - thought it had crashed there. More on the ominous Camp David crash here:
http://911woodybox.blogspot.com/2007/04/mineta-and-elusive-plane-crash-a...
Even if Mineta repeats his statement another three times, it doesn't make it more true. He simply sticks to his version. But he makes mistakes, he entangles himself in contradictions. He claims that, when he arrived at the White House, people were running out there, and people were running out of the Old Executive Building, an incident that occurred, according to all sources, at 9:40-9:45. How come Mineta arrived at the White House at 9:40, but was in the PEOC as early as 9:20?
The report says...
"Just after 9 a.m. ET on Sept. 11, 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney was in his West Wing office when two or three agents came in and told him "Sir, you have to come with us," according to David Bohrer, a White House photographer who was there."
Nothing mythical about that. The way I read that, the whole first sentence is "according to David Bohrer". If Charles Gibson didn't get the "just after 9 a. m." time from Bohrer, where did he get it? Also, it says "Charles Gibson contributed to this report" not that he wrote it. I can't figure out who did. Flight 93 did not come within 50, 30, or 10 miles of D.C., and you disregarded Cheney's comment completely that has him in the PEOC before the Pentagon was hit.
No one is saying that we know for sure exactly what happened in the PEOC. The point is, we DON'T KNOW what happened in the PEOC. However, there is more reason to believe Cheney arrived at the PEOC before the Pentagon was hit than at 9:58 as cited by the 9/11 Commission. I suggest you read Dr. Griffin's chapter on it in his latest book. If the whole "young man" scenario took place prior to the Pentagon being hit, and "shoot down" orders weren't issued until 10:18, then what orders was the "young man" questioning that Cheney confirmed? I think the young man could tell us a lot. Under oath, with a fear of being penalized for lying (unlike the 9/11 Commission).
Incidentally, with regard to the Camp David crash, if Flight 93 crashed at Camp David, what "crashed" in Schenksville?
(9:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Rice and Cheney Apparently Go to White House Bunker; Other Accounts Have Cheney Moving Locations Later
According to counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke and others, Vice President Dick Cheney goes from his White House office to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), a bunker below the East Wing of the White House, at about this time. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, after initiating a video conference with Richard Clarke in the West Wing, goes to the PEOC to be with Cheney. There is no video link between response centers in the East and West Wings, but a secure telephone line is used instead. [New York Times, 9/16/2001; Daily Telegraph, 12/16/2001; ABC News, 9/14/2002; Clarke, 2004, pp. 3-4] One eyewitness, David Bohrer, a White House photographer, says Cheney leaves for the PEOC just after 9:00 a.m. [ABC News, 9/14/2002] White House adviser Karl Rove, who is with the president in Florida, appears to corroborate this account, later telling NBC News that when Bush tries phoning Cheney at around 9:16 a.m., he is unable to contact him because “the vice president was being… grabbed by a Secret Service agent and moved to the bunker” (see (9:16 a.m.-9:29 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002] And Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta says that when he arrives at the PEOC, at around 9:20-9:27, Cheney is already there (see (Between 9:20 a.m. and 9:27 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 5/23/2003; Academy of Achievement, 6/3/2006] However, there is a second account claiming that Cheney doesn’t leave until sometime after 9:30 a.m. In this account, Secret Service agents burst into Cheney’s White House office. They carry him under his arms—nearly lifting him off the ground—and propel him down the steps into the White House basement and through a long tunnel toward the underground bunker. [New York Times, 10/16/2001; Newsweek, 12/31/2001; Washington Post, 1/27/2002; BBC, 9/1/2002; MSNBC, 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission, 6/17/2004] According to journalist and author Stephen Hayes, it takes “Less than a minute” for the Secret Service agents to escort Cheney from his office down to the secure tunnel leading to the PEOC. [Hayes, 2007, pp. 335] At about the same time, National Security Adviser Rice is told to go to the bunker as well. [ABC News, 9/11/2002] Despite admitting that there “is conflicting evidence about when the vice president arrived” in the PEOC, the 9/11 Commission will conclude that the “vice president arrived in the room shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58.” [9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 40] In addition to the eyewitness accounts of Clarke, Mineta, and Bohrer, several accounts claim that Cheney is in the bunker when he is told Flight 77 is 50 miles away from Washington, at about 9:26 a.m. (see (9:26 a.m.) September 11, 2001). This further supports the claims of Cheney going to the PEOC earlier on, rather than after 9:30.
By the way, all you're proving is that we DON'T KNOW what happened on 9/11. We could probably go back and forth for hours. I think we have before actually.
I believe PDS speaks of the corridor here...
Why isn't Dick Cheney in prison?