Not if there's a suitcase nuke.
Written like a true armchair expert. The vast majority of intelligence successes are not publicized as to protect sources and methods. Many attacks have been thwarted by good intelligence, it's just you don't hear about it. The bad guys only have to get it right once to make the news but their many unsuccessful attempts don't usually get the press. Intel tries to get it right every time but that's an impossible goal to achieve. When they do get it wrong, hopefully, something is learned by it. To say the intelligence community has proven worthless is a gross mischaracterization of the hard work of many dedicated intelligence personnel. Bush Jr's weapons of mass destruction excuse for an Iraq invasion was laid off as an intelligence failure when it should have been laid off as a Bush Administration failure as they refused to accept any intelligence contrary to their preconceived rationale for an invasion.
Yes, that's the exception; but Jack Ryan will have to give the order himself.
Ask Goose.
I seem to recall a huge cache of nuclear weapons grade explosives in Iraq was discovered and destroyed during the Gulf War. That cache alone qualified as a weapon of mass destruction.
Funny, I have no recollection of weapons grade nuclear materials being found in Iraq. There might have been some unrefined yellow cake uranium stockpiled but nothing that could be made into a fission bomb without extensive and sophisticated processing There were some chemical munitions found in a warehouse that were apparently forgotten and leaking chemicals. The poor condition of the munitions were an indication they were not usable as designed and more a hazard to anyone handling them then an employable threat against Americans.
Undoubtedly, that's why such information is considered unreliable unless it can be verified by trusted sources. No one in the CIA believes at face value what anyone tells them, much less an enemy leader. Using untrustworthy sources to confirm untrustworthy information isn't the way it's supposed to be done. The Intel community still has to report whatever gets collected but the people in charge are supposed to understand and take into account the caveats that get attached to such information. Bush's administration chose to use the info and portray it as something it wasn't. It wasn't proof and everyone with the full story would have known that. The Bush administration certainly believed Saddam had WMD but they had a convenient scape goat in the Intelligence community to blame when none was found.
I also remember having a conversation with someone from the UN team that went in after the invasion who told me unequivocally that there had been WMDs in Iraq before the invasion that were not located after. Even Blix believed Saddam had WMDs. Someday we'll learn the truth.
There were most assuredly chemical weapons in Iraq before the invasion because Saddam used them against Iran before Desert Storm and after against his own dissident Iraqi population. At the time of the Bush Jr. invasion, however, all such capability didn't exist anymore. Saddam did a good job of hiding this fact leaving the threat out there for people to believe. Believing in something and having proof of something are two different things. The existence of God is a belief and is a matter of faith but many have a hard time proving it. The Bush administration marketed IRAQI FREEDOM as the removal of a WMD capability they claimed was proven. Would Bush have had support for spending billions of dollars and American lives on a belief or gut feeling. Should we go to war in the future on hunches regardless how good they seem at the time?
At the point the aircraft was intercepted it was known that the hijacked aircraft were being used as Kamikazes. It’s highly unlikely that anyone would think it was going to be landed and ransom demands made. Even the passengers onboard knew it.
No, you could however have put a winder into each engine and possibly forced it down however it’s likely you would have flamed the wing tanks and destroyed the aircraft.
AMEN
Which plane was shot down? None. And Cheney's orders never made it to anyone who could act on them.
Negative. That's what NORAD believed, but according to the 9/11 commission, it was never conveyed to the pilots through the chain of command because of the possible ramifications:
Those were the DC Guard planes, not Mass Guard. And there was no one for them to shoot at, so no way to know what they would have done.
You are almost correct. A huge cache of yellow cake uranium was found and secreted away (probably to the US), not explosives.
Syria had an extensive chemical capability both to produce weapons and to employ them. It didn't need anything from Iraq. In some ways it would have been a real problem for Assad to obtain, store, deploy and employ weapons from Iraq given their probable condition--possible but not practical.
Not really a fantasy at all. Yes exhaust in the right place to be ingested by the airliner could cause a flameout. The problem is a flameout wouldn't do too much as turbine engines are really reliable. As soon as the exhaust was not in the right place the engine would likely auto restart.
Just a "heads up" guys:
It's not always a "jet" that'll be arriving for the intercept. Near Tuscon, that's all I've heard/seen (121.5 on comm 2 is fun on cross country flights).
Personally, I've been "followed" but was already on 121.5 by a C182, C210 and once by a King Air. If you live near the border and fly a lot for years, you're bound to meet new friends sometime
The two cessna encounters were because I used to fly a LOT at night all over the west here. They were nice, probably bored, and just wanted to see what's up. The King Air "arrived" when I was flying the border and I had a "visitor" form up behind me with their transponder off. ATC asked me to switch to another channel and directed me to perform basically a box maneuver, I saw the aircraft on the second turn and he bugged out into Mexico. King air arrived shortly after and explained they thought he was trying to cross the ADIZ and ghost under me. ATC had a primary but not an altitude ...
Have also had ATC ask me to "relay" to the Mexican airforce pilots that were running low altitude into U.S. airspace when I was between Pecos and Guadalupe Peak (basically was told to tell them to leave as they weren't supposed to go low on the deck).
If you live near the border and fly a lot for years, you're bound to meet new friends sometime
