Why, after a ‘summer of threat’ which included warnings about al Qaeda hijacking planes and possibly flying them into landmarks in US cities, which included intelligence developed on al Qaeda members in the US- why was NORAD still conducting exercises more than an hour after it became abundantly clear how serious the attack was?

The 9/11 Commission Report included no information on this, mentioning a single exercise in passing in Chp 1, and only naming it- Vigilant Guardian (VG)- in an endnote which says it “postulated a bomber attack from the former Soviet Union.” (p. 458n116) The Commission repeats w/o examination or explanation NORAD Gen. Ralph Eberhart’s assertion that the exercise helped their response that morning (reportedly, there were no interceptions) as there were more staff on duty.

Operation Northern Vigilance (NV) is mentioned above; this was an operation, not an exercise, but in its description it’s similar to the VG scenario described by the Commission. The news report on NV says there were “false blips” on the radar screens; however, an actual operation would not have false radar blips, which are related to exercises. In addition, someone apparently told the media that the blips were purged immediately; however, the documentation in the 9/11 Commission’s records, which wasn’t covered in its report, makes it clear this didn’t happen, at least not in all cases. It isn’t clear what role, if any, the exercises played in the success of the attacks or the failure to disrupt them, but it is clear the story given to the public isn’t the whole picture.

See Shoestring’s blog for more excellent research on day of 9/11 events, including many on the military’s activities. More info on the exercises here: http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=complete_911_timeline_training_exercises