tngirl
08-05-2006, 08:15 AM
No evidence commanders lied over 9/11: report
Sat Aug 5, 7:31 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - There is no evidence that senior Pentagon commanders intentionally provided false testimony to about the military's actions on the morning of the September 11 attacks, according to a report by the Defense Department's watchdog agency cited in the New York Times on Saturday.
The Pentagon's office of inspector general said the Defense Department's initial inaccurate accounts could be attributed largely to poor record-keeping, the newspaper said in an article on its Web site, citing the newly released report.
In a report dated May 27, 2005, but not released until Friday, the inspector general's office found that "the inaccuracies, in part, resulted because of inadequate forensic capabilities," including poor log-keeping at military air traffic control centers, the newspaper said.
The report was initially classified secret but was released under a freedom-of-information request by the Times. What amounted to several pages' worth were blacked out on national security grounds, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon had initially suggested that the North American Aerospace Defense Command had reacted quickly to reports of the hijackings and been prepared to intercept and possibly shoot down one of the hijacked planes, United Flight 93. But investigations determined that the Pentagon was not aware of Flight 93 until after the aircraft had crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
The September 11 commission then requested that the inspector general investigate why senior military officials made so many inaccurate statements to the commission.
A spokesman for the inspector general's office, William Goehring, told the Times that the question of whether military commanders intentionally withheld the truth from the commission would be addressed in a separate report, but he suggested it would exonerate them. "We haven't found any information to indicate that testimony was knowingly false," the newspaper quoted Goehring as saying.
The report said commanders had found it difficult to create an accurate timeline of the events of September 11 because of the lack of a well-coordinated system in logging information about air-defense operations, the Times said.
And, newly disclosed audio tapes provided to the commission by Norad demonstrated widespread confusion within the military on September 11, with many commanders uncertain whether the reported hijackings were part of an unannounced military exercise.
Sat Aug 5, 7:31 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - There is no evidence that senior Pentagon commanders intentionally provided false testimony to about the military's actions on the morning of the September 11 attacks, according to a report by the Defense Department's watchdog agency cited in the New York Times on Saturday.
The Pentagon's office of inspector general said the Defense Department's initial inaccurate accounts could be attributed largely to poor record-keeping, the newspaper said in an article on its Web site, citing the newly released report.
In a report dated May 27, 2005, but not released until Friday, the inspector general's office found that "the inaccuracies, in part, resulted because of inadequate forensic capabilities," including poor log-keeping at military air traffic control centers, the newspaper said.
The report was initially classified secret but was released under a freedom-of-information request by the Times. What amounted to several pages' worth were blacked out on national security grounds, the newspaper said.
The Pentagon had initially suggested that the North American Aerospace Defense Command had reacted quickly to reports of the hijackings and been prepared to intercept and possibly shoot down one of the hijacked planes, United Flight 93. But investigations determined that the Pentagon was not aware of Flight 93 until after the aircraft had crashed into a Pennsylvania field.
The September 11 commission then requested that the inspector general investigate why senior military officials made so many inaccurate statements to the commission.
A spokesman for the inspector general's office, William Goehring, told the Times that the question of whether military commanders intentionally withheld the truth from the commission would be addressed in a separate report, but he suggested it would exonerate them. "We haven't found any information to indicate that testimony was knowingly false," the newspaper quoted Goehring as saying.
The report said commanders had found it difficult to create an accurate timeline of the events of September 11 because of the lack of a well-coordinated system in logging information about air-defense operations, the Times said.
And, newly disclosed audio tapes provided to the commission by Norad demonstrated widespread confusion within the military on September 11, with many commanders uncertain whether the reported hijackings were part of an unannounced military exercise.