Did Marr really need to get authorization from Arnold? The 9/11 Commission, arguing that authorization was needed from the top, cited a memo issued June 1, 2001 (about 3 months before 9/11), by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, entitled “Aircraft Piracy (Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects.” The crucial statement in this document says:
[T]he NMCC is the focal point within Department of Defense for providing assistance. In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference d, forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval. (Emphasis added.)
As the italicized words show, this document does not say, as some interpreters have argued, that all requests to scramble fighters in response to a hijacking had to be approved by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Such approval is not necessary, these italicized words show, when “immediate responses” are needed. When we look at “reference d,” moreover, we find that the requests do not even need to go to the NMCC (a fact illustrated by Arnold’s statement, “we’ll get the authorities later”). Reference d points back to a 1997 document, Directive 3025.15, which says:
The DoD Components that receive verbal requests from civil authorities for support in an exigent emergency may initiate informal planning and, if required, immediately respond.
NEADS, being a “DoD component” that received a request from a civil authority (the FAA) for what was clearly an “exigent emergency,” had the authority to “immediately respond.” Marr did not even need to get approval from Arnold.
Having made this argument in my critique of The 9/11 Commission Report, I was interested to learn that Scoggins agrees. He says:
According to FAA Order 7610.4, NEADS has the authority issued by NORAD to launch fighters; they do not have to wait for authority from NORAD. On 9/11, I believe Col. Marr at NEADS would not launch without authority from General Arnold at NORAD; that caused a delay.
Moreover, even General Arnold himself evidently agreed that Marr had the authority. In Air War Over America, which was published in 2003 as the U.S. Air Force’s account of 9/11, for which Arnold wrote the foreword, there is an account of the response at Otis to Boston Center’s call about a hijacked airliner. Reporting that the commander of the fighter squadron at Otis called NEADS to report the FAA’s request for help, the book says: “The sector commander would have authority to scramble the airplanes.” Debunking 9/11 Debunking pp. 50
