ZGram - 8/22/2002 - "Coincidence? How convenient!"

[irimland@zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny

August 22, 2002

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

What can you say to this one...?

[START]

Agency Was to Crash Plane on 9/11

By JOHN J. LUMPKIN
Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- In what the government describes as a bizarre 
coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise 
last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its 
buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism - it was to be a simulated 
accident.

Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National Reconnaissance Office 
had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet 
would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters 
building after experiencing a mechanical failure.

The agency is about four miles from the runways of Washington Dulles 
International Airport.

Agency chiefs came up with the scenario to test employees' ability to 
respond to a disaster, said spokesman Art Haubold. No actual plane 
was to be involved - to simulate the damage from the crash, some 
stairwells and exits were to be closed off, forcing employees to find 
other ways to evacuate the building.

"It was just an incredible coincidence that this happened to involve 
an aircraft crashing into our facility," Haubold said. "As soon as 
the real world events began, we canceled the exercise."

Terrorism was to play no role in the exercise, which had been planned 
for several months, he said.

Adding to the coincidence, American Airlines Flight 77 - the Boeing 
767 that was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon - took off from 
Dulles at 8:10 a.m. on Sept. 11, 50 minutes before the exercise was 
to begin. It struck the Pentagon around 9:40 a.m., killing 64 aboard 
the plane and 125 on the ground.

The National Reconnaissance Office operates many of the nation's spy 
satellites. It draws its personnel from the military and the CIA.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, most of the 3,000 people who work at 
agency headquarters were sent home, save for some essential 
personnel, Haubold said.

An announcement for an upcoming homeland security conference in 
Chicago first noted the exercise.

In a promotion for speaker John Fulton, a CIA officer assigned as 
chief of NRO's strategic gaming division, the announcement says, "On 
the morning of September 11th 2001, Mr. Fulton and his team ... were 
running a pre-planned simulation to explore the emergency response 
issues that would be created if a plane were to strike a building. 
Little did they know that the scenario would come true in a dramatic 
way that day."

The conference is being run by the National Law Enforcement and 
Security Institute.

(Source: 
http://customwire.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SEPT_11_PLANE_EXERCISE?SITE=1010WINS&SECTION=HOME

---
[END]