Hi Lee...

This has come in on WorldNet Daily while I was replying to your message.
It has the overview of the official legend, the eyewitness accounts etc.
If Rumsfeld simply put his foot in it, he's in no hurry to remove it.
Perhaps he knew his time was nearly up, & decided to let it slip out.

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DAY OF INFAMY 2001
Rumsfeld says 9-11 plane 'shot down' in Pennsylvania

During surprise Christmas Eve trip, defense secretary contradicts
official story

Posted: December 27, 2004

1:00 a.m. Eastern

(c) 2004 WorldNetDaily.com

WASHINGTON - Ever since Sept. 11, 2001, there have been questions
about Flight 93, the ill-fated plane that crashed in the rural fields
of Pennsylvania.

The official story has been that passengers on the United Airlines
flight rushed the hijackers in an effort to prevent them from crashing
the plane into a strategic target - possibly the U.S. Capitol.

During his surprise Christmas Eve trip to Iraq, Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld referred to the flight being shot down u long a
suspicion because of the danger the flight posed to Washington
landmarks and population centers.

Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth,
finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the
tragedy of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000?

Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if
we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed
the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or
the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the
plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut
off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten - indeed
the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to
alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they
want to be."

Several eyewitnesses to the crash claim they saw a "military-type"
plane flying around United Airlines Flight 93 when the hijacked
passenger jet crashed - prompting the once-unthinkable question of
whether the U.S. military shot down the plane.

Although the onboard struggle between hijackers and passengers -
immortalized by the courageous "Let's roll" call to action by Todd
Beamer - became one of the enduring memories of that disastrous day,
the actual cause of Flight 93's crash, of the four hijacked jumbo
jets, remains the most unclear.

Several residents in and around Shanksville, Pa., describing the crash
as they saw it, claim to have seen a second plane - an unmarked
military-style jet.

Well-founded uncertainly as to just what happened to Flight 93 is
nothing new. Just three days after the worst terrorist attack in
American history, on Sept. 14, 2001, The (Bergen County, N.J.) Record
newspaper reported that five eyewitnesses reported seeing a second
plane at the Flight 93 crash site.

That same day, reported the Record, FBI Special Agent William Crowley
said investigators could not rule out that a second plane was nearby
during the crash. He later said he had misspoken, dismissing rumors
that a U.S. military jet had intercepted the plane before it could
strike a target in Washington, D.C.

Although government officials insist there was never any pursuit of
Flight 93, they were informed the flight was suspected of having been
hijacked at 9:16 am, fully 50 minutes before the plane came down.

On the Sept. 16, 2001, edition of NBC's "Meet the Press," Vice
President Dick Cheney, while not addressing Flight 93 specifically,
spoke clearly to the administration's clear policy regarding shooting
down hijacked jets.

Vice President Cheney: "Well, the u I suppose the toughest decision
was this question of whether or not we would intercept incoming
commercial aircraft."

NBC's Tim Russert: "And you decided?"

Cheney: "We decided to do it. We'd, in effect, put a flying combat air
patrol up over the city; F-16s with an AWACS, which is an airborne
radar system, and tanker support so they could stay up a long time ...

"It doesn't do any good to put up a combat air patrol if you don't
give them instructions to act, if, in fact, they feel it's
appropriate."

Russert: "So if the United States government became aware that a
hijacked commercial airline[r] was destined for the White House or 
the Capitol, we would take the plane down?"

Cheney: "Yes. The president made the decision ... that if the plane
would not divert ... as a last resort, our pilots were authorized to
take them out. Now, people say, you know, that's a horrendous decision
to make. Well, it is. You've got an airplane full of American
citizens, civilians, captured by ... terrorists, headed and are you
going to, in fact, shoot it down, obviously, and kill all those
Americans on board?

"... It's a presidential-level decision, and the president made, I
think, exactly the right call in this case, to say, I wished we'd had
combat air patrol up over New York.'" 

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Source: WorldNetDaily ...
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=42112


Cheers, Steve..

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