9/11 Commission Memo Criticising Document Production by Pentagon

MEMORANDUM

TO:

Front

Office

FROM: Team

8RE: DoD

Document ProductionDATE: October

29,

2003This memorandum addresses

our

recent discoveries regarding DoD's documentproduction,

and

discusses

the

impact

of the

situation

on our

work.

I.

Commission

Requests

As

you know,

Team

8 is charged,

among

other

tasks,

with

determining

the

factssurrounding

our

nation's

air

defense response

to the

hijackings

of

9/11.

The

bulk

of DoD

requests related

to

this issue

are

contained

in DoD

Document Request Nos.

1 and 4. DoD

Request

No. 1 was

submitted

to DoD on May 9,

2003, with

a

production date

of May 23,

2003; Request

No. 4 was

submitted

to DoD on

June

13,

2003, with

a

production date

of

June

30,

2003. (See

Tab A).

Outlined below

are

some

of the

specific items contained

in

these requests

that

should

have

producedthe materials

that

have recently been

discovered.

1.

"All documents relating

to

communications between NORAD

and the FAA

concerning

the

tracking

of the

hijacked airplanes

on

9/11/01."

(Request

No. 1,

Item 13).

2.

"All

DoD

after-action

reviews relating

to the

events

of

9/11/01,

including documentsrelating

to the

graphic depiction

of the

events

of

9/11/01

presented

to a

NationalReconnaissance

Office

Conference

on

June

3,

2002,

by

Cherie

Gott,

and the

review

of

scramble activity

for the

First

Air

Force

and

Continental

Air

Defense Region (CONAR)

on9/11/01

completed

by the

Chief

of

Staff

(Colonel Scott)

or

other

officials

in

2002."

(Request

No. 1,

Item 10).

3.

"All transcripts, tapes

and

other documents related

to any

internal NORAD phone

conferences

or

communications

on

9/11

hijackings

of

9/11

and

NORAD'sresponse

thereto."

(Request

No. 4,

Item

4).

5.

"Transcripts

of all

communications

and

orders

conveyed

to

pilots scrambled

in

support

of

the

North East

Air

Defense

Sector's

(NEADS)

response

to the

hijackings

of

9/11."

(Request

No. 4,

Item

5).

COMMISSION

SENSITIVE6. "All transcripts, tapes and other documents of the parent wings of

aircraft

scrambled insupport of NEADS' response on

9/11,

related to the response of such

aircraft

to thehijackings

of

9/11."

(Request

No. 4,

Item

6).

7. "All transcripts, tapes and other documents of the Air Force Bases

from

which

aircraft

were scrambledinsupportofNEADS's responseon9/11, relatedto theresponseofsuch

aircraft

to the hijackings of

9/11."

(Request No. 4, Item 7).

II. Experience at Otis AFB

On

October 14-15, John Farmer and John Azzarello visited Otis Air Force Base andinterviewed(1)Mike Kelly (Command Post Duty Controller),(2)Maj. Daniel Nash (oneoftwo pilots scrambled out of Otis), and (3) Bruce Vittner (Wing historian). In the

course

of

these

interviews we uncovered the existence of the following documents, none ofwhich were produced to the Commission prior to our visit to Otis:

1.

Audio and video interviews of personnel involved on

9/11:

Welearned thataMaster Sgt. Fullon (now stationed in Japan), conducted audio and videointerviews of the pilots and other personnel involved on9/11.The people wespoke with said that Master Sgt. Fullon was not "officially" asked to conductthese interviews. However,

the

tapes

of the

interviews

are in the

possession

of the

base and the people we spoke to repeatedly referred to this project as the only"after-action

report"

conducted

by

base personnel

post-9/11.

2.

Tapes fromthecockpit:

We learned that the two pilots scrambled from Otis -

Duffy

and Nash - recorded their activities in the cockpit. Specifically, Nashrecorded all of his activities in the cockpit, and

Duffy

activated his recorder tomemorialize changes in the rules of engagement.

These

tapes reportedly include

all

communications with controllersaswellasvideoandradar datafrom

their

mission.

3.

Logs from Command

Post,

SOF and Operations Desk:

Wewere informed

that

there

are one or

possibly

two

logs

~

other than

the one log

that

was

produced

to

us

~

that relate

to the

events

of the

day.

4.

Historian's Report:

The Wing historian wrote a piece on the events of

9/11,

and

kept notes on his underlying interviews.Withtheexceptionof thelatter categoryofdocuments, which were providedto the

staff

during Mr. Vittner's interview, none of these materials have yet been provided to theCommission.

III. Experience at NEADS

This week John Farmer, John Azzarello and Miles Kara visited the Northeast Air DefenseSector (NEADS) and began a

series

of interviews with personnel involved in NORAD'sair defense operation on9/11.The NEADS trip is the first field visit to NORAD facilitiesby Commission

staff;

similar visits to CONR and Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center(CMOC) were scheduled for the week of November

10

th

and December

1

st

,

respectively.

COMMISSION SENSITIVE

In

preparation for this visit we spent the last two weeks reviewing the documentsproduced to the Commission by NEADS and other NORAD facilities. With the exceptionof three logs totaling eight pages, the only document produced by NEADS was a

"Transcript

from

Voice Recorder," (SeeDoDIndex

#NCT0000049-130).

This transcript

was

made within

a

week

of

9/11

and wasproduced

relatively early

in

response

to the

Commission's requests

- on

June 2

nd

.The transcript purports to capture the communications of various NEADS personnel,including the mission crew commander, on the morning of

9/11.

Because the transcriptends at10:15am, we asked in repeated telephone conversations that the tape be

further

transcribed. This request was memorialized in an email on September 8

th

. (See Tab B).

On

October 20,

after

receiving no response to our September 8

th

message, we again wroteandstressed the importance of both continuing the NEADS transcript and of receiving allrelevant NEADS documents priorto

flying

out toRome,NewYork. (SeeTab C).Finally, last Friday we met in person with DoD

officials,

and once again stressed thesignificance of receiving all tapes and transcripts relevant to 9/11, prior to

flying

to NewYork.Once on the ground at NEADS we uncovered the following information:

1.

Thetranscript NEADS producedisfatally incompleteandinaccurate:

When we arrived at NEADS, we began to listen to the tapes

from

which thetranscript

was

made.

It was

apparent immediately

- and

acknowledged

by

NEADS

officials

-

that there

are

significant relevant omissions

in the

transcript.Voices that

are

clearly audible

in the

tape were

nottranscribed. Moreover,

significant

portions of the transcript are simply inaccurate; the words on the paper

do

not track what is clearly heard on the tape. Put simply, the transcript is useless

as

a

formal

record of NEADS conversations

from

9/11 and will have to be doneover.

2.

The transcript of the tapes NEADS produced represents at best one-thirdofthe total relevant recorded materials NEADS possesses from 9/11:

Wediscovered

further

that the one transcript produced by NEADS - which capturesapproximately

five

channels

of

communication

-

constitutes only

a

fraction

- at

best one-third

~

of the

relevant recorded telephone lines

in the

facility.

Specifically,

welearned thattheNEADS transcript doesnotreflect conversationsby personnel assigned to key positions at the SOCC (Sector Operations ControlCenter) on

9/11.

As we understand it, there are 46 channels that can be recorded

from

the SOCC

floor.

Of these 46 channels, only five or six were transcribed andproduced to the Commission prior to our visit to NEADS.

3.

The omitted and untranscribed statements and conversations contained on

the

tapes

are

critical

to

understanding

the

events

of

9/11.

One

example should

suffice.

In

media interviews

and in

testimony before this Commission, NORAD

officials

have

claimed

that

fighter

jets

were scrambled

from

Langley

Air

Force

Base in response to the threat posed to Washington, D.C. by the hijacking ofAmerican Airlines 77. This explanation has caused consternation among thevictims'

families,

who have wondered why the fighters did not travel directly to