Distribution via the Unanswered Questions Wire
UQ WIRE LINK:
By Michael Bronner
Vanity Fair
August 2006 Issue
See Full Story…
Or…
How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining
30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs
the chaotic military history of that day - and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up. VF.com exclusive: Hear
excerpts from the September 11 NORAD tapes. Click PLAY after each transcript to listen.
Tucked in a piney notch in the gentle folds of the Adirondacks' southern skirts - just up from a derelict Mohawk,
Adirondack & Northern rail spur - is a 22-year-old aluminum bunker tricked out with antennae tilted skyward. It could pass for the
Jetsons' garage or, in the estimation of one of the higher-ranking U.S. Air Force officers stationed there, a big,
sideways, half-buried beer keg.
As Major Kevin Nasypany, the facility's mission-crew commander, drove up the hill to work on the morning of 9/11, he
was dressed in his flight suit and prepared for battle. Not a real one. The Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), where
Nasypany had been stationed since 1994, is the regional headquarters for the North American Aerospace Defense Command
(NORAD), the Cold War - era military organization charged with protecting North American airspace. As he poured his
first coffee on that sunny September morning, the odds that he would have to defend against Russian "Bear Bombers," one
of NORAD's traditional simulated missions, were slim. Rather, Nasypany (pronounced Nah-sip-a-nee), an amiable commander
with a thick mini-mustache and a hockey player's build, was headed in early to get ready for the NORAD-wide training
exercise he'd helped design. The battle commander, Colonel Bob Marr, had promised to bring in fritters.
NEADS is a desolate place, the sole orphan left behind after the dismantling of what was once one of the country's
busiest bomber bases - Griffiss Air Force Base, in Rome, New York, which was otherwise mothballed in the mid-90s.
NEADS's mission remained in place and continues today: its officers, air-traffic controllers, and air-surveillance and
communications technicians - mostly American, with a handful of Canadian troops - are responsible for protecting a
half-million-square-mile chunk of American airspace stretching from the East Coast to Tennessee, up through the Dakotas
to the Canadian border, including Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., and Chicago.
See Full Story…
Or…
********************
STANDARD DISCLAIMER FROM UQ.ORG: UnansweredQuestions.org does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the above
article. We present this in the interests of research -for the relevant information we believe it contains. We hope that
the reader finds in it inspiration to work with us further, in helping to build bridges between our various
investigative communities, towards a greater, common understanding of the unanswered questions which now lie before us.