Bamford reveals that on September 11th, only 14 fighter jets were on alert across the entire United States, with none stationed near New York or Washington. He explains that the president's own account of seeing the first plane hit the World Trade Center on television before entering the classroom in Sarasota could not be true, since no footage of the first impact was broadcast until that evening. Bamford also details the chaos inside the White House as a plane approached and the evacuation of the Vice President to the underground bunker.
The discussion addresses intelligence failures and the role of Ahmed Chalabi in providing fabricated defector testimony to justify the war. Bamford argues that every source the government relied upon to claim a connection between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda turned out to be fraudulent, and that pulling weapons inspectors out of Iraq before completing their work was a critical and costly mistake.
Key Moments
NSA was nearly prosecuted for warrantless eavesdropping: Bamford reveals that a Justice Department criminal investigation read NSA senior officials their Miranda rights and identified about 20 prosecutable areas - including warrantless eavesdropping on pay phones at Grand Central Station - but declined prosecution because trial would have exposed too many secrets.
Why Bush hated Saddam: a Justice Department family-assassination report: Bamford says George W. Bush was given a Justice Department report claiming Saddam Hussein planned to kill not just former President Bush but virtually his entire family on a Kuwait trip - mother, father, wife, brothers and their wives - with W. the only one not on the trip because of his Texas baseball duties.
First NSC meeting agenda: Sharon and overhead imagery of Iraq: Citing former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill's account, Bamford notes that the very first National Security Council meeting on January 30, 2001 had only two items: getting closer to Ariel Sharon and finding ways to attack Iraq, with George Tenet brought in to display overhead imagery of Iraq.
Only 14 alert jets defended the entire United States on 9/11: Bamford reports that on the morning of September 11 only 14 fighter jets across seven bases were on alert in the entire country, none near New York or Washington - the closest were 200 miles away - because NORAD had been deactivated after the Cold War.
Press as 'inadvertent collaborators' on aluminum tubes and WMD: Bamford accuses U.S. news organizations of abetting the administration on defectors, aluminum tubes and WMD, contrasts U.S. coverage with Canadian and British reporting, and stresses there was never delivery-system evidence - Iraq lacked the three-stage ICBMs needed to be an immediate threat.