So NORAD is in the clear because of all the rampant incompetence on 9/11?
Perfect.
No, there was no "rampant incompetence". NORAD is in the clear because the systems they were working under were never designed to confront a 9/11 senario, and so failed.
Before 9/11 it was believed that hijackers would demand a plane land and then deal, none had ever crashed the plane they had into a building. That was the way the FAA regulations were set up and had been set up for decades. In a hijack situation NORAD has zero authority. The only way they can get involved is through a request by the FAA. That request is then required to have approval by the SoD before they even launch, and if they do launch they are only to locate and tail the plane, the law expressly forbids the use of any ANG or AF craft to be used as a weapons platform against a hijacked aircraft. Only the PotUS can over rule that. Under these systerms the FAA still hadn't offically requested help from NORAD even after 10:10am when the PotUS gave the order to shoot down any plane that was considered a threat.
That meant that NORAD's information and requests for asistance came from people short cutting their chain of command and getting in touch with NORAD directly, mostly the guy who posts here under the name
CheapShot but also his counterpart in New York. The reason that they thought of getting directly in touch with NORAD was that Boston and New York often deal with NORAD and they knew people there to contact. Indianapolis doesn't deal with NORAD and so never contacted them, even after realising that Flight AA77 may not have crashed.
NORAD and several of the Air Traffic Control Centers basically threw away the rule book and did it their own way after doing their part and realising the rule book wasn't going to work, that they had to move faster. The first jets in the air were launched without authority on the premise that "They could get permission afterwards." This was not "rampant incompetence" but a lot of folks working hard in a situation they had never faced, using systems never designed to do what they were trying to do. Instead of poking the borax at them and accusing them of things that simply aren't true, how about you do some real research, find out the truth of the matter and start to recognise that the guys in the FAA Control Centers and in NORAD where among the major heroes of 9/11 and that under the circumstances and with the cards they were handed they did an amazing job.