NOTICE - YOU NEVER HEARD THIS IN THE MEDIA -> This is very interesting and it explains what the conspiracy nuts keep saying. They claim that on 9/11/01, VP Cheney had taken control of all NORAD operations in the USA. The US Government knew something was coming and they obviously knew that Russia might have something to do with it too. I guess they were expecting a possible attack by the Russians was coming soon after the 9/11 attacks happened ...
There were reports that day that said the Air Force was doing exercises to prevent a Russian attack via fighter jets. The Russian fighter jets acted as a distraction, so the hijacked planes could hit their targets.....
THE PLOT THICKENS.
On September 4 or 5, 2001 Russian fighter jets threatened to shoot down a US Navy P-3 surveillance plane in the North Pacific Ocean. The Washington Times reports:
Russian warplanes threatened patrolling U.S. Navy P-3 aircraft over the Pacific Ocean last week as the American planes monitored a military exercise in the region, The Washington Times has learned. At one point during the aerial harassment, a MiG-31 interceptor pilot flew his jet within 50 feet of a P-3 maritime patrol and reconnaissance plane. The incident was similar to a Chinese aerial intercept that resulted in a collision earlier this year. One alarming sign of the Russian intercept was a radio message sent by one MiG-31 pilot to his base stating his fire-control radar had "locked on" to the U.S. surveillance plane, U.S. intelligence officials said. A radar "lock" is a pilot's final step before firing a guided missile. "It was a threatening action," said one official.
Five days later, during the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the USA, the neo-Soviet state was "coincidentally" holding pre-announced strategic bomber exercises over the Arctic, North Pacific, and North Atlantic Oceans. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) reports that "the main task was reportedly to penetrate air defense of NATO and North America (NORAD)."
Maneuvers to simulate defense against a large-scale airspace attack began on September 10. According to Chief of the Air Force Anatoli Kornukov, they were intended to cover the whole Arctic, as well as northern parts of the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, including, specifically, the vicinity of Norway, Iceland, the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The main task was reportedly to penetrate air defense of NATO and North America (NORAD). As part of the exercise, long-range bombers were moved to auxiliary bases in Anadyr, Tiksi, and Vorkuta. A new element of these maneuvers was, according to newspaper reports, training for the use of long-range ALCMs outside the reach of NORAD (since Russia has had long-range nuclear ALCMs since the 1980s, apparently these reports meant conventional ALCMs, which began to appear in Russian Armed Forces only in the late 1990s). The only real launches planned in these regions involved short-range missiles launched from Tu-22M3 over Kamchatka Peninsula in a simulated attack against an aircraft carrier group.
Immediately following the attacks, the White House contacted the Kremlin and insisted that the Russians cancel their air force's "exercises." The Washington Post reports: "U.S. officials also sent a message to the Russians, who were planning a military exercise not far from Alaska, urging them to rethink their plans." At the link above NTI relates a similar post-attack scenario:
The plan was abruptly changed immediately after news of terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001 reached Moscow. To avoid possible complications and misperceptions, the [Russian] Air Force terminated all “practical activities” planned for the ongoing maneuvers following a request from the United States. This included a termination of flights not only toward U.S. territory, but also “around the corner” toward Norway and Iceland. Launches of short-range ALCMs from five Tu-22M3 bombers (three belonging to the Naval Air Command and two from the Air Force) over Kamchatka against seaborne targets were still conducted, but only within Russian territorial waters. Also, both heavy and medium bombers practiced missile launches at an internal Russian test range near the Caspian sea.
On Monday, September 17, 2007 state-run Novosti has announced that Russian strategic bombers which, in any case, have resumed permanent patrols per President Vladimir Putin's August 17 announcement, will again be conducting maneuvers between the 18th and 21st of this month.
http://thefinalphaseforum.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=1734
