151:"On 9/11, NORAD was scheduled to conduct a military exercise, Vigilant Guardian, which postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union. We investigated whether military preparations for the large-scale exercise compromised the military's response to the real-world terrorist attack on 9/11. According to General Eberhart, "it took about 30 seconds" to make the adjustment to the real-world situation. Ralph Eberhart testimony, June 17, 2004. We found that the response was, if anything, expedited by the increased number of staff at the sectors and at NORAD because of the scheduled exercise. See Robert Marr interview (Jan. 23, 2004)."
134:-based center calls the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NADS), the response from NEADS was "is this real world or exercise?". According to the 9/11 Commission's staff statement No. 17, for instance, page 26 of the commission's final report documents FAA's report of a "phantom flight 11" at 9:21, 35 minutes after the real flight 11 crashed into the WTC and even longer after the
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has characterized
Vigilant Guardian as "a hijacking drill, not a cold war exercise". He cites direct quotes from participants which indicate "that the drill involved hijacked airliners rather than Russian Bombers". General Arnold, Tech. Sgt. W. Powel and Lt. Col. Dwane Deskins have stated that when
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This is also corroborated by tape recordings from the control room of NORAD's
Northeast headquarters. "When they told me there was a hijack, my first reaction was 'Somebody started the exercise early,'" Lieutenant Colonel Kevin Nasypany told Vanity Fair author Michael Bronner . Bronner further
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Global
Guardian is performed in conjunction with "Vigilant Guardian", the annual training exercise conducted by NORAD in which a threat to North American airspace is simulated. The simulated scenario is varied from year to year.
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was, in fact, conducting major bomber exercises across the Arctic and
Atlantic at this time, amongst the largest carried out by them since 1993. Both the American and the Russian exercises were cancelled after the attack.
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107:"The day's exercise was designed to run a range of scenarios, including a "traditional" simulated hijack in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a
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are alleged to have been aborted. However, General Ralph
Eberhart told the 9/11 Commission that "it took about 30 seconds" to make the adjustment to the real-world situation.
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on
September 11, 2001 occurred during that year's Global Guardian and Vigilant Guardian joint exercises. That year, according to the
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investigated the possibility that
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https://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608?printable=true¤tPage=all
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Crossing the
Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil
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The
Vigilant Guardian war game was discussed in chapter 1, footnote 116 of the
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they first were informed about hijacked airliners they thought it was
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Amid Crisis
Simulation, `We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack'
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9/11 commission staff statement No. 17 - Security - nbcnews.com
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Russia: Archived Strategic Bomber Force Developments
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