Hijacking Drill
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The story...

"Oct. 24-26, 2000 - Pentagon officials carry out a "detailed" emergency drill based upon the crashing of a hijacked airliner into the Pentagon. [Source: The Mirror, May 24, 2002]"
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html

What more proof does anyone need to show that the US Government had advance knowledge of 9/11?

Our take...

Taken literally, that quote does seem damning, but as usual things aren't quite as they seem.

This wasn't some major exercise on the ground, for instance; Note that the quote refers to "Pentagon officials" only. The entire drill took place in a few rooms at the Pentagon, where the attendees effectively played games designed to try out different scenarios.

There was a plane crash scenario included, but it was only a crash, not a hijacking, so doesn't display quite as much foreknowledge as we're being told. Even articles looking to apportion blame accept that:

Pentagon and Arlington, Va., emergency responders rehearsed how they would respond if a plane crashed into the Pentagon in October 2000, less than a year before the Sept. 11 terrorist attack.

The scenario did not necessarily involve a hijacked aircraft. It addresses only a crash and the effect on the ground response team.

But the scenario, taken as a whole with other recent revelations of intelligence warnings abut hijacking and military exercises that contemplated hijacked planes hitting landmark buildings, casts further doubt on national security adviser Condoleezza Rice's claim that no one could have anticipated a Sept. 11-like disaster
Source

Further, that scenario was just one of several, which included "a terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident".

Why plan for a crash at all, then? The Pentagon being right next to a major airport might have something to do with it:

The Oct. 24-26, 2000 Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, part of an annual emergency response rehearsal, envisioned a commercial airliner crashing into the Pentagon, killing 341 victims. The Pentagon is less than a mile from Reagan National Airport and is daily in the flight path of small commuter planes. Larger airliners generally fly to the east of the massive building over the Potomac River.
Source

A November 2000 DCMilitary.com report provides more details.

The fire and smoke from the downed passenger aircraft billows from the Pentagon courtyard.

Defense Protective Services Police seal the crash sight. Army medics, nurses and doctors scramble to organize aid. An Arlington Fire Department chief dispatches his equipment to the affected areas.

Don Abbott, of Command Emergency Response Training, walks over to the Pentagon and extinguishes the flames. The Pentagon was a model and the "plane crash" was a simulated one.

The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, as the crash was called, was just one of several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room.

On Oct. 24, there was a mock terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident to name just some of the scenarios that were practiced to better prepare local agencies for real incidents.

To conduct the exercise, emergency personnel hold radios that are used to rush help to the proper places, while toy trucks representing rescue equipment are pushed around the exercise table.

Cards are then passed out to the various players designating the number of casualties and where they should be sent in a given scenario...
Source

This hasn’t stopped people trying to make the most of the story, though.

The Pentagon conducted a training exercise called "MASCAL" simulating the crash of a Boeing 757 into the building on 24 October 2000, and yet Condoleezza Rice, among others, has repeatedly asserted that "no one ever imagined" a domestic airplane could be used as a weapon. How is this possible?
http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/PressRelease30Jan2006.html

Here the Scholars for 911 Truth press release is written in such a way that it could leave the reader thinking the exercise simulated a plane being used as a weapon, yet without them saying that explicitly. Another good reason to question not only the facts and references presented in what you read, but any implied meanings, too.

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