The 9/11 Commission told us that “the threat of terrorists hijacking commercial airliners within the United States -- and using them as guided missiles -- was not recognized by NORAD before 9/11”.

In “The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions”, though, David Ray Griffin tells us the Commission Report itself provides nine examples “that either clearly do, or at least may” contradict this claim. But what might constitute contradiction? Here we have a difference of views.

Dr Griffin’s measure appears to be the existence of examples that include reports of suicide hijackings, or using planes as weapons, or both. The idea being, presumably, that NORAD “must have recognised” the potential threat of 9/11-type attacks prior to September 11, 2001.

As we’ve pointed out, though, the military has not said they were unaware of any such reports. As General Myers told the Commission (our emphasis):

Now, there were some talks about in post hijack situations where they talked to about people over the demands were made that they were going to crash, one instance, into the Eiffel Tower, but even the work that was done and the hijackings that were planned for the Philippines, which is a well-known plot, they planned to hijack the airplanes and blow them up primarily.

So, no, the threat perception, there was not -- the intelligence did not point to this kind of threat, and I think that explains our posture.
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing12/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-06-17.htm

Myers is aware of the Project Bojinka element that involved crashing a plane into CIA headquarters, for instance, but is saying that the primary threat was seen to be elsewhere.

For us, then, contradicting the Commission’s claims requires several elements to come together.

• Any example ought to bring up the likelihood of hijackings of commercial airliners on flights originating within the US, for instance.
   
• It should also refer to the hijacked planes being used as a weapon.
   
• Such examples should have been seen as credible at the time, so we know that the authorities took (or should have taken) them seriously. To this end, they ideally need to come from intelligence sources: that is, plans of what actual terrorist groups were doing, rather than general “think tank” speculations about what they might do.
   
• And because not taking this kind of example seriously could still be down to incompetence, establishing Griffin’s charge of “complicity” requires even more. At a minimum, so many plain, obvious and credible examples of intelligence pointing to suicide bombing attacks with hijacked US airliners, that we can no longer believe that even an incompetent military couldn’t put the pieces together.

Do the examples meet our tests, or even Dr Griffin’s? We’ll quote each one on this page, and we’d recommend you read those first, to get the full cumulative effect. Then read each response to discover the information that Dr Griffin has left out.

1. [A]n Algerian group hijacked an airliner in 1994, ... possibly to crash it into the Eiffel tower” (345). The airplane was hijacked in Algiers. But since the distance from Algiers to Paris is less than the distance across the United States, there might have been less time to intercept it than is available to intercept a plane hijacked within this country. It would, therefore, not take much imagination to transfer the scenario to the United States.
Page 264
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

1: Our response
 

2. In early 1995, Abdul Hakim Murad--Ramzi Yousef’s accomplice in the Manila airlines bombing plot--told Philippine authorities that he and Yousef had discussed flying a plane into CIA headquarters” (345). It was, we saw, this plan that provided the basis for Wolfowitz’s “failure of imagination” comment.
Page 264
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

2: Our response
 

3: In August of [1998], the intelligence community had received information that a group of Libyans hoped to crash a plane into the World Trade Center. (344-345). The Commission does not explicitly say that the plane would be hijacked from within the United States, but it also does not explicitly say otherwise.
Page 264-265
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

3: Our response
 

4. [Richard] Clarke had been concerned about the danger posed by aircraft since at least the 1996 Atlanta Olympics... In 1998, Clarke chaired an exercise [that] involved a scenario in which a group of terrorists commandeered a Learjet on the ground in Atlanta, loaded it with explosives, and flew it towards a target in Washington, D.C.” (345) The Commission elsewhere concluded the description of this exercise by saying that the terrorist group “took off for a suicide mission to Washington” (457-58 n98).
Page 265
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

4: Our response
 

5. After the 1999-2000 millennium alert, ... Clarke held a meeting of his Counterterrorism Security Group devoted largely to the possibility of a possible airplane hijacking by al Qaeda... [T]he possibility was imaginable, and imagined” (345).
Page 265
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

5: Our response
 

6. In early August 1999, the FAA’s Civil Aviation Security intelligence office summarised the Bin Ladin hijacking threat... [T]he paper identified a few principal scenarios, one of which was a ‘suicide hijacking operation’” (345).
Page 265
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

6: Our response
 

7. A CIA report on June 12, 2001, said that KSM “was recruiting people to travel to the United States to meet with colleagues already there so that they might conduct terrorist attacks on Bin Ladin’s behalf. On June 22, the CIA notified all its station chiefs about intelligence suggesting a possible al Quaeda suicide attack on a US target over the next few days” (256).
Page 265
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

7: Our response
 

8: In late June [2001], because of threats, Italy closed the airspace over Genoa and mounted antiaircraft batteries at the Genoa airport during the G-8 summit which President Bush attended” (258). We learn elsewhere that the Italians kept fighters in the air over the city, and that the threat was taken so seriously that Bush stayed overnight offshore, on an aircraft carrier. Although this example, like the first one, is about a threat in Europe, not the United States, it obviously counts against the thesis that there was a “failure of imagination” with regard to the possibility that terrorists might try to use airplanes to attack President Bush. (Another puzzling thing about this example is that the Commission, in mentioning that “antiaircraft batteries” had to be mounted at the Genoa airport, failed to point out that the White House and the Pentagon already have their own antiaircraft batteries, which would shoot down any aircraft except one with a transponder signal indicating that it belongs to the US military.)
Page 265-266
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

8: Our response
 

9. On August 6, 2001, the Presidential Daily Brief included an intelligence memo stating, amongst other things, that “[one threat report said] that bin Ladin wanted to hijack a US aircraft... FBI information since that time indicates patterns of suspicious activity in this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of attacks... CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks with explosives” (262).
Page 266
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
David Ray Griffin

9: Our response

Our conclusion...

...won’t appear here: there are another six examples to cover. But don’t worry, they’re relatively short compared to this selection, so keep reading.