May 27, 2005: Defense Department Watchdog Blames Inaccurate Accounts of 9/11 on Poor Log Keeping

A report is secretly delivered to Congress by the Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General, regarding the inaccuracy of statements made by Defense Department officials on the military’s response to the September 11 hijackings. The 9/11 Commission made a formal request in summer 2004 for the inspector general to investigate the matter, because military officials had given testimony that was later proved to have been false (see Shortly before July 22, 2004). For example, they claimed that NORAD had been tracking Flight 93 on 9/11 and was ready to shoot it down if it threatened Washington (see Shortly Before 9:36 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (9:36 a.m.-10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Yet audiotapes obtained under subpoena showed NORAD was unaware of this flight until after it crashed. In its report, the inspector general’s office states that it found “the inaccuracies, in part, resulted because of inadequate forensic capabilities.” It says that commanders found it difficult to create an accurate timeline of the events of 9/11 due to the lack of a well-coordinated system in logging information about air defense operations. At the time, air defense watch centers had used handwritten logs, and these could be unreliable. Following the attacks, the report claims, commanders failed to press hard enough for an accurate timeline to be produced for the benefit of investigations, like the 9/11 Commission. Yet, as some of the Commission’s staff will later point out, the military had already reviewed the NORAD audiotapes chronicling the events of 9/11 prior to its officials giving their incorrect testimonies. In response to a freedom of information request by the New York Times, the inspector general’s report will be publicly released in August 2006, but the equivalent of several pages will be blacked out on national security grounds. [Vanity Fair, 8/1/2006; Washington Post, 8/2/2006; New York Times, 8/5/2006; Reuters, 8/5/2006; US Department of Defense, 9/12/2006 ]
9/11 Staff Member Criticizes Report – In his 2009 book The Ground Truth, John Farmer, who served as senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, will criticize the inspector general’s report. Farmer says the report mischaracterizes the 9/11 Commission’s referral by saying the Commission had alleged officials knowingly made false statements, when instead it had simply “documented the facts concerning what occurred on 9/11, the disparity between those facts and what the government had been telling the public with total assurance since 9/11, and the relative ease with which anyone looking could have uncovered those facts.” He faults the inspector general for interpreting the issue narrowly, by focusing on statements made to the 9/11 Commission; ignoring the larger context in which the events of 9/11 were extremely significant and so it should have been extremely important for the military to understand the truth of what happened, in order to correct any problems, as well as to be able to present an accurate account to the White House and to the public; and failing to address the question of whether the false accounts had served anyone’s interests. The inspector general’s report affirms the claims of top NORAD commanders that, in Farmer’s words, they had been “simply too busy fixing the system and fighting the war on terror to concern themselves with piecing together the facts of 9/11.” Farmer will ask, “[H]ow… could the Department of Defense identify and correct operational weaknesses without knowing precisely what had occurred that morning?” He will question the report’s determination that the Defense Department lacked the forensic capabilities for maintaining logs, video and audio recordings, and storing radar information, and had not coordinated with the FAA on reconstructing the events of 9/11, as the Commission had documented evidence that the two agencies had indeed coordinated while developing their reconstructions of events. Farmer will write that “it is impossible to conclude honestly, from the two inspector general reports, that the official version of the events of 9/11 was the result of mere administrative incompetence; too many questions remain unanswered.” He will add, “History should record that whether through unprecedented administrative incompetence or orchestrated mendacity, the American people were misled about the nation’s response to the 9/11 attacks.” [Farmer, 2009, pp. 283-289]