Flight 93 was shot down (Part 2)

By Tom Kovach

Warning: this column is even longer (and more "dangerous") than most of my long and dangerous columns. If you don't have time to read it all, skip to the "bullet points" at the end.

Reaction to Part 1 of this series has been good. There has been no negative e-mail. No one has referred to me as a "kook" or a "conspiracy nut" (terms that I grew accustomed to as a FIRO member). And, I got an e-mail from a retired government intelligence analyst that not only confirmed ("in theory") Part 1, but also offered a chilling scenario of what might have happened if Flight 93 had not been shot down. The scenario was so ghastly that I will not repeat it here, for fear of giving the bad guys the specifics of ideas that they have apparently already considered.

I also got a question from an unexpected source: my (Hurricane Ivan survivor) sister-in-law. A little background is needed. My wife's father is retired from military intelligence. (Thus, I don't have the in-law problems that many husbands do — or that I had the first time around.) So, when I tell my wife some "outlandish" story that doesn't fit what people have been told in the "mainstream" media (MSM) or in government schools, she logically analyzes the facts, and tells me, "That makes sense." But, as it turns out, the reason it makes sense is not because she has already heard it before from her father. Rather, it is because her parents are very intelligent and logical people, and she learned by example how to really think. As it turns out, my wife has often told me, I know more about what her father did than she does — because he never talked about his work with his family. (And, for any current spooks reading this column, he has never divulged any classified material to me. Considering that he retired in 1976, and worked on projects relating to Vietnam, I'd say he's done a fine job of sitting on a lot of secrets.)

Given that background, I was a little surprised when my sister-in-law e-mailed me with this very basic question: "Why is it so important how the plane came down?" She continued by writing, "Actually it would have been better if the government could act that fast and send fighter planes. That would send the message that if these thugs try again, we would get them." Her question and follow-up comments are so basic to the discussion that I had assumed that everyone else had already come to the same answer that I had. Perhaps not; and, that requires some definition of what exactly is so important about answering that question. As I wrote in different words in Part 1, I agree that the terrorists should have been shot down — assuming that there was no other choice available. But, as this series will show, there might have been other options.

One of the aspects of the Flight 93 situation that makes it so extra-ordinary is that it started off being very ordinary. Airliners carry people across America and around the world every day. Anyone could have been aboard that airliner. It was not a charter flight. The people did not belong to a recognized group. They were not targeted for who they were, with one exception: they were Americans, on a flight that had both its origin and its destination within the boundaries of the United States. Thus, it could've been you or me aboard Flight 93. The passengers only became a coherent group because of the hijacking and their response to it.

If I was aboard that airliner, and it was shot down, then I would want people to know what happened. Wouldn't you? And, as I've written before, there is nothing in the Flight 93 shoot-down scenario that negates the heroism of the passengers that fought back against the terrorists. Ultimately, though, our government had to be sure that Flight 93 would not reach the terrorists' target. (If the interceptor had arrived 30 seconds or a minute later, would radio contact have been established, and would the majority of passengers thus have survived? We might never know — in this world.)

The truth is out there

As I mentioned in Part 1, the article that quotes a Boston air-traffic controller is no longer available online. Fortunately, other writers — including fellow FIRO member Ian Goddard — have quoted the article on their own Web pages about Flight 93. At the time that I did my original e-book research (Feb 2003), most researchers were focusing on trying to find the pilot of the interceptor. I knew that would be fruitless. The military had already admitted that the interceptor pilots had been placed under a gag order. And, it's most likely that a remote assignment to a tropical paradise (for those that cooperated) or a frozen wasteland (for those that did not) would make the pilots inaccessible to reporters anyway. So, I focused my research on another angle.

I followed available reports back as close to the crash as I could find. Then, I hit gold. Three days after the crash, in an apparent effort to quash the growing number of questions about the shoot-down scenario, the government held a press conference. The moment that I saw who conducted the conference, I knew that it had to be a lie. This was a man that I had years of personal experience with. And, I knew that Major General Paul Weaver (long-time call sign: "Papa Whiskey") was a consummate liar. Ironically, he was called upon to quell the shoot-down questions in an apparent effort to save President Bush's political skin. But, later, this man would turn upon his Commander-In-Chief. And, it is no accident that liar Paul Weaver was called upon to support the allegations by lying "war hero" John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election.

My contention is not that Weaver lied "in the heat of the moment," which some people might view as justified under the enormous pressure of "9-11" and the days immediately following. Rather, my contention is that Weaver was specifically selected for the press conference — and possibly even for the position of Director of the Air National Guard — because of his ability to tell convincing lies to reporters and to committees of elected representatives. For example, Weaver was already under scrutiny for his false testimony in the anthrax-vaccine hearings before Congress. And, it was not only reporters and Congressmen that concluded Weaver was lying. Weaver's testimony was also declared dishonest by investigators from the Department of Defense (DoD) Inspector General (IG). So, sources both inside and outside the military concluded that Weaver gave false testimony before Congress in 1999. How, then, did he still have his two-star job in September of 2001? Well, remember that Bill Clinton was still president in 1999. Clinton's presidency was the most scandal-ridden in American history; and, many of the scandals were supported by the Big Lie strategy.

Did Weaver have political connections that kept him in power despite committing essentially the same crime that put Gordon Liddy and Admiral John Poindexter into Federal prisons? Space limitations of this article prevent me from going into the detail that was in my e-book. But, the short answer is yes. And, those connections were heavily — but not exclusively — to the Democratic Party. Weaver got promoted, despite having publicized his misbehavior during Desert Storm. That behavior — if not protected by someone high in government, or within the military (such as former New York Adjutant General, Vito Castellano: cousin of the late Mafia boss Paul Castellano) — would have constituted several violations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) — including mutiny, which is punishable by death, especially in a combat zone.

Once I realized that the government — even under "conservative" George W. Bush — would stoop so low as to use Paul Weaver as their spokesman to claim that Flight 93 was not shot down, then I also realized that there must be evidence available that Weaver was lying. Oddly enough, some of that information came from Weaver's bosses.

Left hand vs. right hand

Much has already been written about the admission by Vice-President Richard Cheney that he and President Bush had concurred that shooting down hijacked airliners would be authorized in order to protect the nation's capital and our key infrastructures. But, later MSM reports downplayed the importance of this admission. And, the flawed Discovery Channel documentary (see Part 1) claimed that the order to shoot down airliners did not come until 30 minutes after the crash of Flight 93. That is simply not true, and is only a part of the cover-up that is willingly repeated by MSM outlets.

During his leadership conference speech on 03 December 2001, Lt. Gen. Russell C. Davis (Chief, National Guard Bureau) described the F-15 interceptors from Otis ANG Base as "the first sword unsheathed in the war against terrorism." Career military veterans will recognize the specificity of that phraseology. Many terms in the military use the word "sword." But, the sword is only "unsheathed" when it is about to be used in combat. Some might try to accuse this writer of reading too much into this linguistic scrutiny. But, the next paragraph will show otherwise.

Two and a half months after the attacks, General Davis tried to bolster his senior staff (which included Weaver) by reminding them of how hard they tried to prevent disaster on 11 September 2001. He specifically commented that the 102nd Fighter Wing's air-intercept scramble flight arrived, "... unfortunately just minutes after United Airlines Flight 175 sliced into the second tower;" and, that, "... they were unable to alter the course of history on that morning...." [emphasis added] Some key points are discernable from these remarks. First, it is obvious that the intent of the interceptors was to shoot down Flight 175. After all, that is what interceptors are sent to do.

Equally important, though, the remarks of General Davis help to establish the presence of interceptors, and a timeline for their capability to shoot down Flight 93. The interceptors were sent to stop Flight 175 from crashing into the second tower. This shows that, by the time it became known that Flight 93 was being hijacked, orders had already been given to shoot down hijacked airliners. This is dramatically different from what the Discovery Channel documentary claims. And, this difference is critical to understanding that our military had the three elements that prove culpability in a homicide: motive, opportunity, and capability. It is not the intent of this column to "blame" our military for shooting down Flight 93. It was a necessary decision. It is the intent of this column to uncover the truth about Flight 93, in the hopes that the truth will prevent further tragedies by discouraging terrorists from hijacking airliners.

Significant to this analysis is the time difference between "9-11" and the remarks of General Davis at the conference. If our military did not have the intent and capability to shoot down hijacked airliners, then his remarks would have been unnecessary and nonsensical. But, if we did have that intent, then his remarks underscore the fact that the intent was already in place well before the Flight 93 crash; and, that there were no regrets about the actions taken. (Exception: he regretted that the interceptors did not shoot down Flight 175 before it crashed into the second tower.) We don't know why the interceptors did not shoot down Flight 175. Were they simply too late? Or, was it because of the potential for damage to things on the ground? Things along the flight path of Flight 175 included: Stewart ANG Base (where Weaver had been commander before his promotion to Director of the entire ANG), the US Military Academy at West Point, the nuclear power plant at Indian Point, the Tappan Zee Bridge, and the densely populated areas along the lower Hudson River valley. Or, was the decision made not to fire upon the airliner because the densely populated areas provided too many witnesses to any potential shoot-down? Before this last question is dismissed, consider the remote area where Flight 93 crashed in comparison. Was that mere coincidence?

As I wrote in Part 1, the flawed Discovery Channel documentary raises some questions, even as it answers others. For example, the producers claim that their documentary will be definitive, because it is based partly upon recently declassified information about the Flight 93 crash. But, if the airliner was not shot down, then why was information about the crash ever classified in the first place? (The same question remains with regard to Flight 800 — especially regarding the autopsy reports of the crash victims.) And, like the crash of Flight 800, there is a portion missing from the end of the cockpit voice recorder (CVR) tape. This seems more than coincidental to me.

The two days between the Weaver press conference and the Cheney interview, plus the months between those two press events and the Davis speech, plus the fact that information about the crash was promptly classified, seem to indicate that the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing with regard to "how much truth" to release about Flight 93.

Consider the source(s)

Some people might try to say that — by devoting two entire articles mostly to one man, rather than to empirical evidence — perhaps my focus is a little off. I disagree. In a trial, much weight is placed upon witness credibility. (That is one reason that — in the cases of both Flight 800 and Flight 93 — the FBI promptly tried to convince eyewitnesses that they did not see what they saw.) If the government's key spokesman is not credible, then perhaps neither is the government's story. Let's do a quick "bullet point" review. (Did someone say "bullet"?)

General Weaver (NOTE: this writer has e-mailed him for his reaction to Part 1. As with the previous column about him, there has been no reply. The e-mail was sent to the address listed on his government lobbyist registration papers.):

• Booted out of pilot training (halfway through, during a war), but later becomes a command pilot. (This is from the e-book.)
  
  
• Assigned to Korea for a year in 1974, but sent back to the States after only a few months. This is normally a bad sign. (Also from the e-book.)
  
  
• June, 1984: with no personnel experience, becomes chief of personnel. (Also from the e-book.)
  
  
• 03 July 1984: the "lobster Newburgh" incident. (Also from the e-book.) This incident removes an experienced officer from command, and paves the way for Weaver to take his place (after a few months in a staff job at NY military headquarters).
  
  
• 10 August 1990: the environmental dumping incident at Stewart ANG Base. Weaver personally observes as members of the base fire department pump contaminated wastewater over the fence, onto civilian airport land. (Reporting this incident is what cost me my military career.)
  
  
• January 1990: Weaver, and certain hand-picked officers, gain the combat-zone tax exemption for flying an empty C-5 transport into Panama — after the shooting has stopped in Operation Just Cause, but before the combat-zone designation is lifted.
  
  
• 13 August 1991: Two NYC network flagship stations (WNBC and WABC) air a TV news report about my impending discharge for blowing the whistle. The same fireman tells different stories, on air, to the two stations. Weaver orders me to undergo psychiatric evaluation ("no disorder found"). The Inspector General for the NY ANG (Lt. Col. Ivan Kelley III) declares my complaint about the dumping incident to be "unfounded," based upon the retracted testimony of my patrol partner — whose career was threatened if he went forward with his supporting affidavit.
  
  
• September 1991: Weaver attempts to intimidate a newly-promoted major into nominating Weaver for a Bronze Star for an incident that never happened during Desert Storm. One brave officer puts a stop to the fiasco. (I happened to be in the office when it happened.) Despite sterling qualifications, it is years before that officer is promoted again. Although the story is untrue, Weaver's handpicked Public Affairs reporter hawks the story to both military and civilian news outlets. During the time frame, reporter John Malthaner goes from Senior Airman (E-4, "soft") to Technical Sergeant (E-6) in about two years. During that same time frame, promotions are mostly frozen base-wide, due to "budget constraints"; and, positions begin to be "downsized" from the base. ("Coincidentally," I was discharged in November of 1991 — without the Federally required physical examination.)
  
  
• Jan 1992: As a brand-new civilian, I attend a sales school in Albany, NY. While there, I make a phone call to Lt. Col. Ivan Kelley, telling him that I plan to go public with the other things that I know about Weaver and the environmental dumping incident. Three days later, NY Governor Mario Cuomo suddenly withdraws his candidacy from the presidential primary. Shortly afterward, the IG retires as a Lieutenant Colonel from a job that is slotted for a Colonel. (Kelley was a former White House Fellow, which is normally a ticket to a retirement with at least one star.)
  
  
• 29 September 1999 (and numerous other occasions): Weaver gives false statements to Congress and the news media about the "safety" of the required anthrax vaccine (which has killed several people in all branches of the military).
  
  
• Friday, 14 September 2001: Weaver conducts a press conference, and tells the world that Flight 93 was not shot down. Among other misleading statements, Weaver says that a shoot-down order "... would have to be given by the president," implying that it was not shot down.
  
  
• Sunday, 16 September 2001: Vice-President Richard Cheney tells reporter Tim Russert that he and President George W. Bush did concurrently issue an order to shoot down hijacked airliners on "9-11," in an effort to prevent terrorists from hitting their target.
  
  
• 31 January 2002: Weaver retires from the Air National Guard.
  
  
• 05 August 2002: Weaver registers with Congress as a paid lobbyist, despite a Federal law (The Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995, PL 104-65) that requires a two-year waiting period after retiring from a management position within government. During his first year, Weaver made $240,000 in lobbying fees, on top of his military retirement pay. (NOTE: The online images of his original filing papers have also disappeared from the Internet.)
  
  

General Russell (Weaver's boss on "9-11," et seq.):

• Had more than two months after "9-11" to carefully study his remarks at the senior leadership conference.
  
  
• Declared that interceptors sent to shoot down airliners were "the first sword unsheathed in the war on terrorism."
  
  
• Declared that the interceptors arrived, "... unfortunately just minutes after United Airlines Flight 175 sliced into the second tower;" and, that, "... they were unable to alter the course of history on that morning...." These remarks show clear intent to shoot down Flight 175, which hit the tower 25 minutes before Flight 93 was even hijacked. Thus, Weaver's public implication that no order had been given is ludicrous.
  
  

As has been proven by the recent Discovery Channel documentary, it is the intent of the MSM to perpetuate the myth that Flight 93 was brought down only by a struggle inside the cockpit. The MSM goes even further, by trying to pooh-pooh information indicating that a shoot-down was even considered, much less authorized. But, as we will see in Part 3, there is other information available — even from the Discovery Channel itself — that will show that there was more going on that we realize.

Given the MSM penchant for going along with government cover-ups (as long as they don't disrupt the New World Order), it is important for readers of this column to send the link to all of their e-mail friends. That is the only way for the truth about Flight 93 to get out.


© Tom Kovach