Secretary of the Navy Gordon England is unable to communicate with colleagues on the ground while he is being flown from Texas to Washington, DC. England, the Navy’s top civilian official, traveled to Fort Worth, Texas, the previous evening to give a speech to the Navy League. When the terrorist attacks began this morning, he was getting ready to fly back to Washington. Initially, however, the Navy plane he was going to travel on was grounded. [CNN, 10/16/2001; American Forces Press Service, 9/7/2006] (The FAA ordered a ground stop to prevent any aircraft taking off across the US at around 9:26 a.m. (see (9:26 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [US Congress. House. Committee On Transportation And Infrastructure, 9/21/2001; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 25] ) But after a “short period,” England will later recall, the Navy secretary and his companions “got clearance to come back to Washington.” While they are flying to the capital, however, they are unable to communicate with their colleagues on the ground. When he is asked about the flight, England will recall, “Well, of course, we didn’t have any communications.” England and his companions consequently have little knowledge of what the attacks involved. “We didn’t know what was happening,” England will say. “Literally just knew some of the things that happened, knew that something had been hit in Washington, but didn’t know until we were airborne that it had been the Pentagon.” England only learns more about what has happened when his plane lands. “I really didn’t hear much until we got on the ground,” he will say. Why England and those with him have these communication problems is unknown. After arriving in Washington, England joins colleagues of his at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service headquarters, where the Navy has set up a temporary headquarters (see After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). [CNN, 10/16/2001; Goldberg et al., 2007, pp. 133] Other senior US government officials also have trouble making and receiving communications while the attacks are taking place this morning, and in the following hours (see (After 8:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). These officials include President Bush (see (9:34 a.m.-9:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001), Secretary of State Colin Powell (see (12:30 p.m.-7:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001), CIA Director George Tenet (see (8:55 a.m.-9:15 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (see (9:04 a.m.-9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). [Telecom News, 2002 
; Hastert, 2004, pp. 6; Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 9/10/2006; Tenet, 2007, pp. 162]
After 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001: Navy Leaders Gather at Antiterrorist Center
The Navy Command Center at the Pentagon is mostly destroyed when the building is hit at 9:37 a.m. [Washington Post, 1/20/2002] After the attack, the Navy’s leaders start arriving instead at the Navy’s Antiterrorist Alert Center (ATAC), which is located at the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) headquarters in southeast Washington, DC. [US Department of the Navy, 2/2002 ; CNN, 8/27/2002; US Naval Criminal Investigative Service, 8/22/2006] Those who arrive at the center include Admiral Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations; Admiral William Fallon, the vice chief of naval operations; Gordon England, the secretary of the Navy; and Rear Admiral Jeffrey Hathaway of the US Coast Guard, who is currently in charge of Navy Anti-Terrorism Force Protection. According to Hathaway, the NCIS headquarters is “not the official backup,” but “There was not a plan in place that if somebody flew into the Pentagon where would we take folks.” From the center, these officials are able to hold secure video-teleconferences throughout the rest of the day, and also on the following day. Eventually the Naval Operations staff will relocate to the Navy Annex, which is about a mile away from the Pentagon. This will act as their temporary base in the following weeks (see (3:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). [US Coast Guard, 6/20/2002 ; GlobalSecurity (.org), 5/7/2011]
6:15 p.m. September 11, 2001: President Bush Makes Brief, Secret Visit to Pentagon?
Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England will later claim that President Bush makes an unpublicized visit to the Pentagon at this time. In 2007, England will recall in a speech, “Then that night, on 9/11, we had a meeting in the Pentagon—and I remember this well, because the president came to the Pentagon that evening, at 6:15 in the evening… And the president came and met in the conference room right next to Secretary Rumsfeld’s office. And he came and he said, ‘Get ready.’ He said,‘Get ready.’ He said, ‘This is going to be a long war.’” [US Department of Defense, 1/22/2007] If this account is true, then Air Force One must have flown very quickly from Nebraska (if reports are true Bush left at 4:33 (see (4:33 p.m.) September 11, 2001), the plane would have travelled at about 700 mph, faster than its official top speed of 600 mph), and Bush must have stayed at the Pentagon briefly before arriving live on camera at the White House around 6:45 (see (6:54 p.m.) September 11, 2001). If Bush did go to the Pentagon, is it not exactly clear why or why no account would mention it until 2007.
September 29, 2006: Senior Defense Officials Allegedly Request Al-Qaeda Detainee Convictions before 2008 US Election
Politically motivated officials at the Pentagon push for convictions of high-profile detainees ahead of the 2008 elections, according to Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, lead prosecutor for terrorism trials at Guantanamo Bay. Davis, whose later resignation is partially caused by this pressure (see July 2007), says the strategic political value of such trials is discussed at a meeting on this day, and that officials prefer “sexy” cases, rather than those that are most solid or ready to go. Davis will later say: “There was a big concern that the election of 2008 is coming up.… People wanted to get the cases going. There was a rush to get high-interest cases into court at the expense of openness.” [Washington Post, 10/20/2007] Davis specifically alleges that Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England says to him and other lawyers, “We need to think about charging some of the high-value detainees because there could be strategic political value to charging some of these detainees before the election.” [Miami Herald, 3/28/2008]
October 4, 2007: Torture Advocate Promoted; Lead Guantanamo Prosecutor Resigns in Protest
Defense Department General Counsel William J. Haynes assumes command of the military prosecutions at Guantanamo, a decision that infuriates lead prosecutor Colonel Morris Davis. Haynes is promoted by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England; Haynes, a civilian lawyer, was blocked in his bid for a seat on an appellate court because of his connection to the now-infamous torture memos (see November 27, 2002). Davis, who opposes the use of such techniques as waterboarding and other “extreme interrogation techniques,” resigns within hours of Haynes’s promotion. Davis will later say that Haynes’ expanded powers were a key reason for his decision (see October 4, 2007).
“[T]he decision to give him command over the chief prosecutor’s office, in my view, cast a shadow over the integrity of military commissions,” he will write in a December 2007 op-ed explaining his decision (see December 10, 2007). Davis will also write that he has no confidence that military commissions can be used for fair trials if “political appointees like Haynes and [convening authority Susan] Crawford” are in charge: “The president first authorized military commissions in November 2001, more than six years ago, and the lack of progress is obvious. Only one war-crime case has been completed. It is time for the political appointees who created this quagmire to let go. Sen[ators] John McCain and Lindsey Graham have said that how we treat the enemy says more about us than it does about him. If we want these military commissions to say anything good about us, it’s time to take the politics out of military commissions, give the military control over the process and make the proceedings open and transparent.” [Los Angeles Times, 12/10/2007] In 2009, one of Davis’s subordinates, prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Darrel Vandeveld, will confirm Davis’s story (see January 18, 2009). He will recall Davis complaining of “being bullied by political appointees in the Bush administration.” Vandeveld will write that Davis resigned rather than bring prosecutions before they were ready to proceed, especially since, as Davis believed, the prosecutions were for political purposes. [Washington Post, 1/18/2009]
