http://911myths.com/index.php?title=The_Laura_Brown_memo&feed=atom&action=historyThe Laura Brown memo - Revision history2024-03-28T11:35:30ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.22.7http://911myths.com/index.php?title=The_Laura_Brown_memo&diff=6805&oldid=prevMike: /* Conclusion */2009-01-08T15:20:10Z<p><span dir="auto"><span class="autocomment">Conclusion</span></span></p>
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The 9/11 Commission report tells us that NORAD weren't given sufficient notice of the hijackings to allow for an intercept. There are many 9/11 researchers who argue this simply isn't true, though, and they often cite the Laura Brown memo as important evidence. Here's Richard Ben-Veniste reading it into the record during a Commission hearing (displayed here in bold):<br />
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{{divbox|amber||MR. BEN-VENISTE: Well, we asked that question yesterday, and Ms. Garvey was not at that time prepared to respond. Last evening she did communicate with the staff at my request, and we were provided a statement which comes from FAA, which I'd like to read into the record, Mr. Chairman. And it is, I am told, authored by two individuals, high level individuals at FAA, Mr. Asmus and Ms. Schuessler. And it's entitled FAA Communications with NORAD on September 11th, 2001. <br />
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<b>"Within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center, the FAA immediately established several phone bridges that included FAA field facilities, the FAA command center, FAA headquarters, DOD, the Secret Service and other government agencies. The U.S. Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters phone bridge and established contact with NORAD on a separate line. The FAA shared real-time information on the phone bridges about the unfolding events, including information about loss of communication with aircraft, loss of transponder signals, unauthorized changes in course, and other actions being taken by all the flights of interest, including Flight 77. Other parties on the phone bridges in turn shared information about actions they were taken. NORAD logs indicate that the FAA made formal notification about American Flight 77 at 9:24 a.m. But information about the flight was conveyed continuously during the phone bridges before the formal notification."</b><br />
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So now we have in question whether there was an informal real-time communication of the situation, including Flight 77's situation, to personnel at NORAD. Can you give us from your experience -- obviously you were not there on the 11th -- but on your experience what this phone bridge communication is all about, and whether it is likely in view of this communication we have just received, that there was some informal communication of the distress of Flight 77?<br>[http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm 9/11 Commission Hearing]}}<br />
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If these "phone bridges" were "immediately established" "within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center", the argument goes, then NORAD would have known about Flight 175, 77 and 93 as soon as the FAA did. And this can make a huge difference. In the case of Flight 93, for instance, the 9/11 Commission report says the FAA HQ were advised that it was hijacked at 9:34, and NORAD didn't hear about it until 10:07. How can this be, they ask, if the FAA were "sharing real-time information... about the unfolding events" "within minutes" of 8:45?<br />
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A fair question. Let's consider some possible explanations.<br />
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==Short on details==<br />
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Considering this document is used to support some very precise times, it's oddly short on details. <br />
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The process started "within minutes" of the first impact - how many minutes? <br />
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After this unknown period, the phone bridges were "immediately" established - this wasn't an instant process, presumably. It takes time to find people, get them all together and talking. How long? We're not told here. <br />
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Fortunately we don't have to speculate, as earlier FAA records and witness testimony provide the actual times.<br />
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[[:Image:Faa2.pdf|An early document covered in handwritten notes]] talks of the "Washington Primary conference bridge" being established at 9:05, and four internal conferences being set up at 9:08.<br />
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The more comprehensive 17th September 2001 Executive Summary gives us the following:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||'''0850''' ACO representatives activate the Aviation Command Center (ACC) and request the primary communication net be established.<br>'''0926''' State Department, Department of Justice, Secret Service and National Military Command Center on net<br>[[:Image:Faa5.pdf|Executive Summary, Chronology of a Multiple Hijacking Crisis, September 11, 2001, Sept. 17, 2001]]}}<br />
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The [[9/11 Commission]] said the [[FAA]] hijack conference call didn't start until 9:20. They didn't invent this information, though: FAA deputy administrator Monte Belger told them as much at a Commission hearing:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||MR. BELGER: Yes. <br />
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MS. GORELICK: Our Staff Statement reflects a very long, 39- minute gap in between when the FAA became aware of the United 93 as a hijacking and when the military was notified at 10:07, which was of course after they impact into the Pentagon. And I want to give you all an opportunity to explain why that occurred -- I'm sorry, not impacted the Pentagon -- <br />
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MR. BELGER: Well -- <br />
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MS. GORELICK: -- impact into the ground in Pennsylvania. <br />
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MR. BELGER: Right. The most frustrating after-the-fact scenario for me to understand is to explain is the communication link on that morning between the FAA operations center and the NMCC. That's still frustrating for me to understand how that -- I know how it's supposed to work, but I have to tell you it's still a little frustrating for me to understand how it actually did work on that day. It is clear I think in the record that at 9:20 the FAA operations center did call the National Military Command Center and add them into the hijacking net. The hijacking net is an open communication net run by the FAA hijack coordinator, who is a senior person from the FAA security organization, for the purpose of getting the affected federal agencies together to hear information at the same time. That's the purpose of the hijack net. There are other nets off of that, which some are classified and some are real technical command type of discussions. But the fundamental primary source of information between the FAA, DOD, FBI, Secret Service, and which every other agencies -- the airlines would probably be on that net -- is the FAA hijack net. That was activated with the NMCC at 9:20. It was my assumption that morning, as it had been for my 30 years of experience with the FAA, that the NMCC was on that net and hearing everything real-time. <br />
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MS. GORELICK: Did you do anything to ensure that your assumption, a costly one, was correct? <br />
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MR. BELGER: No. I did as I was -- I was real busy that morning. I did not ask specifically is the NMCC on. And I can tell you I've lived through dozens of hijackings in my 30-year FAA career, as a very low entry-level inspector up through to the headquarters, and they were always there. They were always on the net, and were always listening in with everybody else. <br />
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MS. GORELICK: At some point, however, in the course of that call you became aware that the military was not involved in any meaningful way. Is that correct? We heard some rather colorful language came from your mouth at that point. <br />
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MR. BELGER: I don't doubt that. Yeah, I mean later in the morning, as I had time to not just react to everything and think, I believe I did ask, you know, Are they on? -- and make sure. <br />
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MS. GORELICK: And when you found out that they weren't? <br />
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MR. BELGER: No, I wasn't very happy.<br>[http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm 9/11 Commission Hearings]}}<br />
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Belger didn't think the NMCC had joined the conference until 9:20, and later realised that they still hadn't done so. When we look at the more specific and detailed FAA records and testimony, then, they don't support this idea of communication with the military following immediately after 8:45.<br />
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==Instantaneous knowledge==<br />
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Some researchers assume the Laura Brown memo allowed information to instantly be shared amongst all interested parties. For example, in Debunking 9/11 Debunking David Ray Griffin writes: "the memo implies that, even if no-one from Boston or New York had called the military, both NORAD and the NMCC would have known about UA 175's troubles shortly after 8:47 (given the evidence that the FAA knew about these troubles by 8:40)".<br />
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Putting aside the last part of that statement (Flight 175 wasn't hijacked until some time between 8:42 and 8:46), Dr Griffin claims that the phone bridges would have immediately communicated the situation with Flight 175 to NORAD. But why? The initial suspicions with Flight 175 were raised by the air traffic controller handling the flight, who mentioned them to a colleague at 8:53. The controller in charge raised them to her manager to 8:55, who then tried (but failed) to pass them on to regional managers [[NORAD_and_Flight_175|(read more on NORAD and Flight 175)]].<br />
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Some FAA employees in New York suspected a hijacking, then, but that doesn't mean the same knowledge immediately reached those involved in any phone bridges, let alone that they then communicated it to NORAD. If you find anyone claiming otherwise then check carefully to make sure they show how (and how quickly) this awareness spread through the system, because it's not the instant process that Dr Griffin would have us believe.<br />
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==OIG Investigation==<br />
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The memo tells us that "the US Air Force liaison to the FAA immediately joined the FAA headquarters phone bridge and established contact with NORAD on a separate line". At what time did this occur? The Office of the Inspector General carried out an investigation into FAA timeline inaccuracies, and told us:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||We found that the QFR [Question For Record] response incorrectly related that the Air Force Liaison to FAA joined the FAA phone-bridge on the hijackings and established contact with NORAD "immediately" following the crash of the first aircraft (American Flight 11) into the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m. In fact, the Liaison did not join the phone-bridge until after the third hijacked aircraft (American Flight 77) struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. The Air Force Liaison told us:<br><br><br />
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<i>I was enroute to the [FAA headquarters] building when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. ... [S]o probably five, ten minutes after that, I got to the building. ... I went to my office. Everybody was there around the TV. We watched the events unfold. At first, we were kind of hanging back and saying, you know, there's something awful going on with the air traffic system[,] ... But at a certain point, not too long after that, it became obvious that, you know, something really strange is going on and so ... I relocated. I went upstairs to the 10th floor. ... It was right after the airplane hit the Pentagon.</i><br>[[:Image:ZinserReport.pdf|OIG Report]]}}<br />
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The link to NORAD wasn't established until some time after 9:37, then, undermining the whole basis for assuming that NORAD would be immediately informed of the hijacks.<br />
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==Bill Peacock==<br />
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In "Debunking 9/11 Debunking" Dr Griffin tells us that Laura Brown's view - that the "FAA initiated teleconference" began around 8:50 - was "independently supported by another high FAA official". Interesting. But not so much that Dr Griffin feels the need to explain immediately, as the details are hidden away in the footnotes:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||The other high official was Bill Peacock, the FAA directort of air traffic services, who was in New Orleans. Having learned about the attack on the first tower and got to his hotel room, Pamela Freni reports, "He flipped through the channels and found CNN just in time to join the world in viewing the attack on the second tower. He determinedly dialed the phone, trying to connect with his staff. His call was routed to the phone in the conference room next door to his office at headquarters, into the never-ending teleconference. His deputy Jeff Griffith was serving as Liaison to FAA Deputy Monte Belger, trying to gather a tactical notion of the attacks" (Freni, Ground Stop, 22)<br>'''David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking'''}}<br />
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Of course, as we've already seen, the FAA reported establishing multiple teleconferences on 9/11; the Washington Primary conference bridge at 9:05; four internal conferences at 9:08; the major hijacking teleconference at 9:26, later revised to 9:20 by the 9/11 Commission. There's no specific time given in Freni's account, and no reason why he couldn't have joined one of the earlier, pre-9:20 teleconferences. Certainly this account does not support a start time of around 8:50.<br />
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==Conclusion==<br />
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The Laura Brown memo is short on details. It's been used to support the idea of a widespread 8:50-ish teleconference including the NMCC and NORAD, but is contradicted by more specific FAA documents, and the testimony of Monty Belger, and the NORAD tapes, which reveal no early knowledge of the hijackings.<br />
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Worse still, Brown herself has effectively disowned it:<br />
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{{divbox|amber||When asked about the contradictions over the FAA Statement in May of 03' Laura Brown referred me to the 9/11 Commission Report saying that they had access to records the FAA didn't which helped clarify what they did and when.<br />
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However, she did contradict the Commission findings by confirming that they began building the 'phone bridges' as elucidated in the statement, "within minutes after the first aircraft hit the WTC." [This would have been within minutes of 8:46AM, though the Commission says it was 9:20AM]<br>http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0408/S00013.htm}}<br />
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So Brown accepts that records available to the 9/11 Commission "helped clarify what they did and when", and their account supercedes her own. (And the idea that they begin building "phone bridges" quickly doesn't contradict anyone. As we've seen, the first bridges were internal, while the 9:20 time - which came from the FAA's Monte Belger - referred to the later main hijack net.) As there's very little that supports the idea of memo's early teleconference, and substantial evidence against it, we suspect the real explanation is that the FAA's main hijack net didn't begin until 9:20, just as they and the 9/11 Commission described.</div>Mike