Testifying before the 9/11 Commission General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the commission in response to a question on NORAD's failure to anticipate the 9/11 attacks, "I can't answer the hypothetical. It's more - it's the way that we were directed to posture, looking outward."(1) This is utterly false. As we will see below NORAD, since its inception in 1958, was tasked to monitor and intercept aircraft flying over American and Canadian air space seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement found General Myers' testimony on the capabilities of NORAD on 9/11 to be surprising, since it was long assumed that NORAD's mission was more than "looking outward. However, the 9/11 Truth Movement has been negligent in producing any documents that would confirm their suspicion that NORAD was tasked with watching over and intercepting errant aircraft in American skies before 9/11; that NORAD's mission was more robust than "looking outward." The following pre-9/11 citations conclusively documents the true capabilities of NORAD on the morning of 9/11.
The article NORAD: Air National Guard manning stations across the country (National Guard Association of the United States, Sep. 1997) explains how NORAD's six battle management and command centers identify commercial aircraft as these aircraft are being monitored flying through our air space, "Aircraft flying over our air space are monitored seven days a week, 24 hours a day. Much of the identifying process is done by hand.
Flight plans from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are compiled in logs and have to be manually searched to identify aircraft.
"The NORAD mission is threefold. NORAD's first responsibility is to provide SURVEILLANCE AND CONTROL [emphasis mine] of the airspace covering North America, specifically the airspace of Canada and the United States. This mission is based on agreements between the two governments...
The second part of NORAD's mission is to provide the NCAs with tactical warning and attack assessment of an aerospace attack against North America. This information is essential to providing those in command with information to aid them in making decisions on how to respond to an attack against North America.
NORAD's third responsibility is to provide an appropriate response to any form of an air attack. NORAD was created to provide a defense against the threat from air-breathing aircraft, specifically the threat from long-range bombers. However, over the years the threat has changed. Now NORAD must provide an appropriate response to a multitude of threats, to include the air-launched cruise missile (ALCM) and the sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM)." -- NORAD AIR DEFENSE OVERVIEW; Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, pre-1995(2) (http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/civ/vanguard/C2Demo/OPRef.html).Monitoring and controlling the airspace covering North America is called "Air Sovereignty".
"One ongoing mission of the Battle Management Center is to coordinate "air sovereignty" efforts, MONITORING EVERY AIRCRAFT THAT ENTERS [emphasis mine] U.S. or Canadian airspace -- some 2.5 million a year. NORAD is asked to INVESTIGATE [emphasis mine] aircraft that do not file flight plans, contact ground controllers or identify themselves with TRANSPONDERS [emphasis mine]." -- Cheyenne Mountain: America's underground watchtower; CNN Interactive, 1999 (http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/experience/the.bomb/route/01.cheyenne/)."NORAD defines "sovereign airspace" as: the airspace over a nation's territory, internal waters, and territorial seas. NORAD's territorial seas extend 12 miles from the continental United States, Alaska, and Canada. Sovereign airspace above a nation's territory is unlimited." -- NORAD AIR DEFENSE OVERVIEW; Northeast Parallel Architectures Center, Syracuse University, pre-1995 (http://www.npac.syr.edu/projects/civ/vanguard/C2Demo/OPRef.html).
"The Air Operations Center (AOC) (also known as the Air Defense Operations Center – ADOC) maintains CONSTANT SURVEILLANCE OF NORTH AMERICAN AIRSPACE TO PREVENT OVERFLIGHT [emphasis mine] by hostile aircraft. It TRACKS [emphasis mine] over 2.5 million aircraft annually. The ADOC collects and consolidates surveillance information on suspected drug-carrying aircraft entering or operating WITHIN [emphasis mine] North America, and provides this information to counternarcotics agencies." -- Cheyenne Mountain Complex; Federation of American Scientists, 1999 (http://www.fas.org/nuke/guide/usa/c3i/cmc.htm); Cheyenne Mountain Trivia; NORAD, April, 1997 (http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/usspc-fs/cmoctrivia.htm).
"In 1998, Canada possesses the ability to detect, identify, and if necessary intercept aircraft over Canadian territory. The "Canadianisation" of NORAD operations over Canada is complete. Though we still rely heavily on the Americans for the Integrated Tactical Warning and Attack Assessment and mutual defense, we have successfully transitioned on at least one of the three core functions of NORAD [surveillance and control of the airspace covering Canada]." -- Canadian Aerospace Sovereignty: In Pursuit of a Comprehensive Capability, by Maj François Malo; Department of National Defence (Canada), 1998 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/canada/0056.htm).As is plainly obvious from the pre-9/11 literature quoted above on the capabilities of NORAD (for both the United States and Canada), the official accounts of NORAD's capabilities on 9/11 were a lie; a monstrous story concocted by the Pentagon and its controllers in the White House to explain away the non-response of NORAD on 9/11.
ENDNOTES:
1. http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml
2. NORAD AIR DEFENSE OVERVIEW was written before January 1995 as determined by the following dated information within the chapter, "The four CONR sectors are designated as the Southeast, Northeast, Northwest, and the Southwest sectors. Each sector has a Sector Operations Control Center (SOCC) which is responsible for operations within its geographical area of responsibility and which reports directly to the CONUS ROCC." On January 1, 1995 the Northwest Air Defense Sector consolidated with the Southwest Air Defense Sector, its counterpart at March Air Force Base, California, to become the Western Air Defense Sector, hence NORAD AIR DEFENSE OVERVIEW was written before January 1995.
