Response to the 9/11 commission

As expected, the 9/11 commission chaired by Republican Thomas Kean and co-chaired by Lee Hamilton, an alleged Democrat known for his squishy performance during the Iran-contra hearings, has spoken of procedural failures without clearing up the mystery of why NORAD failed to act as it damn well should have. For a good response to the Kean commission's findings, check out this piece by John Judge, who discusses the Vigilant Guardian exercise and related issues.

An excerpt:

Not only were no NORAD intercept planes scrambled for well over half an hour after the first plane gave indications of trouble at 8:17 am, NONE were ever scrambled to defend DC and P-56, the most protected air space in the country.
o Available planes in Canada were not scrambled, which regularly protect New York air space.
o Available planes at Andrews AFB and Anacostia NAS proximate to DC were not scrambled.
o Planes scrambled from Langley AFB, 130 miles south of DC, were sent to NYC and asked to confirm the hit on the Pentagon on the way there.
o In addition, planes scrambled from Otis AFB in CT, sent too late to intercept the two NY attack planes, turned to intercept Flight AA77 headed to DC and were called back.
o Planes in the air over North Carolina, based out of Andrews AFB were not tasked.

Normal response time in over 65 other air emergencies in the year before 9/11, in far less serious circumstances, was an average of 6-10 minutes. On 9/11 the time stretched to over an hour.

I can't help adding one snarky observation. I caught, on one of the cable news shows, a bit of Kean's commentary. Twice, he started to refer to "President Cheney..." only to correct himself: "Vice-President Cheney." Guess Kean knows who's in charge, eh?