The Problem is Richard Cheney

WSJ.com - Government Accounts of 9/11
Reveal Gaps, Inconsistencies

Several quotes from this Page One article are making this clear.

As Air Force One left Sarasota, the president intended to return directly to Washington, Mr. Bartlett said. Mr. Bush initially had ignored advice from Vice President Dick Cheney, calling while en route to a White House basement command center, that Washington appeared to be under attack and the president for his own safety should remain away, according to an official in the vice president's office. Once airborne, Mr. Bush spoke again on a secure phone with Mr. Cheney, who relayed a new message that changed the president's mind, White House officials later said. The vice president urged Mr. Bush to postpone his return because, Mr. Cheney said, the government had received a specific threat that Air Force One itself had been targeted by terrorists. Mr. Cheney emphasized that the threat included a reference to what he called the secret code word for the presidential jet, "Angel," Mr. Bartlett said in an interview.

...Although in the days after Sept. 11, Mr. Cheney and other administration officials recounted that a threat had been received against Air Force One, Mr. Bartlett said in a recent interview that there hadn't been any actual threat. Word of a threat had resulted from confusion in the White House bunker, as multiple conversations went on simultaneously, he said. Many of these exchanges, he added, related to rumors that turned out to be false, such as reports of attacks on the president's ranch in Texas and the State Department. As for the Air Force One code name, Mr. Bartlett said, "Somebody was using the word 'angel,' " and "that got interpreted as a threat based on the word 'angel.' " (Former Secret Service officials said the code wasn't an official secret, but a radio shorthand designation that had been made public well before 2001.)

The vice president's office gave an account differing from Mr. Bartlett's, saying it still couldn't rule out that a threat to Air Force One actually had been made.

Days after the attacks, Mr. Cheney had said word of the threat had been passed to him by Secret Service agents. But in interviews, two former senior Secret Service agents on duty that day denied that their agency played any role in receiving or passing on a threat to the presidential jet.

An official in Mr. Cheney's office said in an interview that Mr. Cheney had been mistaken in saying the threat came to him via the Secret Service. The official said that instead, Mr. Cheney had received word of the threat from "a uniformed military person" manning the underground bunker. The official said the vice president and his staff don't know who the individual was. And the official said that he couldn't say definitively whether or not a threat had been made. "I'm not in a position to know the answer to that question," the official in the vice president's office said.

Okay. Bush is coming back against Cheney's wishes. Cheney then tells him about a threat to Air Force One. When asked to back up this story of a threat, Cheney first pins it on the Secret Service, but when that falls through, we learn of the uniformed military person who shall forever remain anonymous.

This is not the vice president lying to the president to keep him out of Washington. Why? Because the vice president says so.

Brig. Gen. David F. Wherley Jr., who was in charge that day of the 113th Fighter Wing of the D.C. Air National Guard, stationed near the capital at Andrews Air Force Base, said in an interview that minutes after the Pentagon was hit, the Secret Service phoned the fighter wing's operations center. Gen. Wherley said Becky Ediger, a senior Secret Service agent on duty at the White House, told him the president had authorized the vice president to pass along orders to shoot down hijacked civilian jets, if that was necessary to keep them from hitting any building near the White House.

Two White House officials involved in responding to the crisis that day said in interviews that the Secret Service acted on its own. But the Secret Service denied that in a written statement responding to questions. "The Secret Service is not authorized to, nor did it, direct the activation or launch of Department of Defense aviation assets," the statement said. Current senior Secret Service officials said that the agents' actions on Sept. 11 had been ordered by the vice president. The official speaking for Mr. Cheney said he didn't know whether the vice president had directed the agents to call the fighter wing and wouldn't be able to find out.

The Secret Service called General Wherley to relay orders from the president via the vice president to shoot down any hijacked planes that approached Washington. The White House first tried to pin this on the Secret Service, but when that fell through, the trail back to the vice president's office goes cold.

This is not the vice president acting as the president after he lied to the president to keep him out of Washington. Why? Because the vice president says so.

This is, however, the vice president that lied continually and consistently about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. This is the vice president whose office used a stovepipe of intelligence information to build a case for war. This is the vice president whose office committed a felony by exposing the identity of a CIA agent whose husband had publicly revealed part of that intelligence to be false.

This is the vice president who was formerly the CEO of Halliburton, a company that is profitting tremendously from the war in Iraq. This is the vice president who was in charge of the selection committee that eventually approved himself alone to be George Bush's running mate.

This vice president is the problem.