Wheres the SAM Batterys at the Pentagon??

originally posted by muzzleflash
PS - theres almost no info on the internet about air defense at DC, ive been looking around a bit and havent found anything

I agree with you on that one, were probably not going to find anything that says "Here is the layout of the Pentagon missile defense". Here is another article I found about them though.

Among the questions being asked here: How could the Pentagon, the center of the U.S. defense establishment, not be prepared to defend itself against an attack by an airplane?

Spokesman Rear Adm. Craig Quigley said the Pentagon has no anti-aircraft defense system that he is aware of. The White House is assumed to have surface-to-air missiles available for protection. The problem, according to past and present government officials, is who makes a decision to fire a missile at an incoming airplane in the midst of downtown Washington

USA Today.com

Originally posted by defcon5
This is part of the problem I see with a lot of the truth movement speculation, its based on the way folks “expect things to be”, not on “how they really are”...

wow, i didnt even consider myself part of the "truth movement"

in fact i Know im NOT

i am part of the "Guy who had a question 1 day movement"

so plz, dont count me along with other groups just cuz i had 1 Silly question

i have no connections to any groups, other than ATS
this is my "home" so to speak

*this is in referance to being assumed to be part of the 911 "truth movemement" --- and admitting i have no ties to any of them

Originally posted by JIMC5499 it dawned on me that you wouldn't have to put SAM launchers around DC, just park a Burke class Destroyer at that pier. The entire DC area easily falls within it's missile envelope.

excellant suggestion,

looks like you found our "hidden" SAM Platform!

destroyers are loaded with missles, including a plethora of SAMs ssm's torpedos etc ( different versions of destroyers carry different armaments of course)

link to Armament of the arleigh burke class destroyers
en.wikipedia.org...:Arleigh_Burke_class_destroyer_armament_I

(EDIT - Link didnt come up correctly so here type in enwikipedia.org... then ADD this /wiki/Template:Arleigh_Burke_class_destroyer_armament_I )

read the first line - 1 × 32 cell, 1 × 64 cell Mk 41 vertical launch systems with 90 × RIM-67 SM-2, BGM-109 Tomahawk or RUM-139 VL-Asroc missiles


CLICK on the LINK " RIM-67 SM-2"

"The Standard Missile is a type of surface-to-air missile (SAM) originally developed for the United States Navy (USN)...." Continued at en.wikipedia.org...


thats 90x SAMs on 1 boat !



"RIM-66 SM-2 Medium Range Block III/IIIA/IIIB"
"Range: 40 to 90 nautical miles (74 to 167 km) "

thats a impressively huge envelope
-- also, these missles are so accurate they are used for Missle interception

"US completes first terminal descent ballistic missile intercept"
talking about Block IV extended range SM -2

www.janes.com...

OK, so the question must be asked

Was there any Destroyers or CG/CGN(guided missle cruisers) in the area within 90 nautical miles of wash DC at the TIME of the 911 incident ?

If one was at port - is it standard procedure to abandon the radar posts /missle post while docked at port? Or did they learn a lesson from Pearl Harbor, and leave Air Defense running at all times , even while docked at port on call??


EDITS ::: fix spelling/broken link and adding 1 more link
Tons of great IN DEPTH info about All types of Naval craft
www.fas.org...

[edit on 24-8-2007 by muzzleflash]

[edit on 24-8-2007 by muzzleflash]

[edit on 24-8-2007 by muzzleflash]

wanted to add another link for those whom are interested

its about the SM-3 , the new advanced version straight from raytheons home page
www.raytheon.com...

very interesting stuff

These SAMs main objective appears to be missle interception, which of course implys it would be very easy to take down any passenger jets

would they have shot it down? IDK
was one even nearby that day? IDK
lol

Originally posted by muzzleflash
wow, i didnt even consider myself part of the "truth movement"

in fact i Know im NOT

I was not saying that you were, simply that this is a similar problem that they seem to have with understanding some of the issues with 911. Simply stated, not everything in this world is the way it should be, not everything is done the logical way, and not everything is the why folks think it is. It is also not always possible to explain certain short comings to outsiders, as they are security risks.

Nice thread, very educational. I thought I would add something to the discussion to consider.

SAMS, AA-Guns, and other aircraft-killers are not designed to deflect planes, they are designed to make the plane inoperable. If a Boeing 747 is headed straight towards your AA-Turret, no amount of bullets fired into it is going to slow it down. Generally, a missile isn't even going to deterr its natural course.

A Boeing 747's mass will probably be around 300,000 to 400,000kg.

A Hercules anti-aircraft missile weighs under 500kg.

A comparative mass ratio would be me vs. a tennis ball. If I jumped off of a building, and you shot me with a tennis ball from a tennis ball launcher, you would not even affect my trajectory in any noticable degree. Even if it was an exploding tennis-ball, filled with nails. It might kill me, or rip open my chest, but I'd still land pretty much where I would have if you hadn't shot me with a tennis ball.

So if you're aiming a plane at a building with enough velocity that you no longer need engine power to reach your target, the only thing that would be able to stop or deflect you would be a suicidal ram from another jet.

Good point, but still , hitting it a little early would stop its consistant thrust thus it would have dropped earlier , possibly in a less important place

ie : skidding and falling apart on the grass in front of pentagon, and only causing minor dmg to the building itself, due to debris from the impact 150meters away *but the kinetic energy would fling these parts of debris a good distance tho id expect

or even possibly dropping it in the river, who knows
(or even a busy section of town - a good reason to just let it hit the pentagon actually if u think about it)

oh, one other thing to clarify from earlier i said "im not part of the 'truth movement' - i assume most know i am speaking of the current 911 organizations (theres a ton) that go on and on about 911

im hardly that, i do seek Truth yes, but im not in any organization Nor do i Follow any organization - im Solo and just was curious

Originally posted by thelibra
If a Boeing 747 is headed straight towards

flight 77 was a 757 if i remember correctly, a bit smaller than the jumbo jet 747 model

sorry to nitpick that part, your Point still stands tho

Originally posted by JIMC5499 it dawned on me that you wouldn't have to put SAM launchers around DC, just park a Burke class Destroyer at that pier. The entire DC area easily falls within it's missile envelope.

And fry all unshielded electronics for couple hundred yards when you
crank up the AEGIS radar, also disrupt radio/TV reception for considerable
distance around. Again as pointed out in earlier posts have debris
from missile & aircraft raining down on populated areas. Naval SAM
are designed to be used over open waters - when in port depend on
fighter aircraft and fixed defenses to protect them.

Originally posted by thedman

And fry all unshielded electronics for couple hundred yards when you
crank up the AEGIS radar...

couldnt you just leave the aegis off and download the radar data from AWACS / land based radars / possibly even satilites to direct the missles?
the military has had this integration capability i believe already for quite sometime , correct me if im wrong on that tho

edit - also of interest to this discussion may be these links
www.gwu.edu...
www.gwu.edu...
NTSB flight path study report

[edit on 24-8-2007 by muzzleflash]

[edit on 24-8-2007 by muzzleflash]

Originally posted by thelibra
Nice thread, very educational. I thought I would add something to the discussion to consider.

SAMS, AA-Guns, and other aircraft-killers are not designed to deflect planes, they are designed to make the plane inoperable. If a Boeing 747 is headed straight towards your AA-Turret, no amount of bullets fired into it is going to slow it down. Generally, a missile isn't even going to deterr its natural course.

A Boeing 747's mass will probably be around 300,000 to 400,000kg.

A Hercules anti-aircraft missile weighs under 500kg.

A comparative mass ratio would be me vs. a tennis ball. If I jumped off of a building, and you shot me with a tennis ball from a tennis ball launcher, you would not even affect my trajectory in any noticable degree. Even if it was an exploding tennis-ball, filled with nails. It might kill me, or rip open my chest, but I'd still land pretty much where I would have if you hadn't shot me with a tennis ball.

So if you're aiming a plane at a building with enough velocity that you no longer need engine power to reach your target, the only thing that would be able to stop or deflect you would be a suicidal ram from another jet.

I came back to this and noticed my quote, but not my comment.

In a nutshell, the US has always depended on interceptors to protect its airspace, and not SAM zones or belts, like the Soviet Union did.

Yes the White House SS guys have Stingers, and if the threat is raised the Army can bring out Avenger or Patriot battalions if needed, but we still depend on interceptors. I don't think we have had any permanant SAM sites since the previously mentioned NIKE missiles in the 60's.

I like the AEGIS idea, parking it off the coast, pretty cost effective plan.

There were a lot of errors made by ATC on 9/11, it is entirely possible that the plane just was not seen

they were given a heads up when the plane (flight 77) was 50, 30, and 10 miles out i believe. Im not sure on the distances but im sure on the warning.

PS - theres almost no info on the internet about air defense at DC, ive been looking around a bit and havent found anything

Okay for USAF, in MD - www.scramble.nl... - Andrews AFB has the 121st Fighter Squadron with F-16s. In VA there is Langley AFB www.scramble.nl... - this is one of our primary F-22 Raptor bases.

Approaching D.C. from the Atlantic and Chesapake Bay area, there is the local Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ). This area is almost exclusively over water and serves as a national defense boundary for air traffic. Any aircraft that wishes to fly in or through the boundary must file either a Defense Visual Flight Rules (DVFR) flight plan or an Instrument Flight Rules (IFR) flight plan before crossing the ADIZ. The pilot must have a transponder and a two-way radio while approaching and crossing the ADIZ.

Any aircraft flying in these zones without authorization may be identified as a threat and treated as enemy military aircraft. The current SOP is
(1) unarmed civilian AC - intercept by USAF or USN fighter aircraft and force to land.
(2) military / armed aircraft - intercept by USAF or USN fighter aircraft, ask to turn away BVR, if fail to do so twice, engage BVR with AMRAAM, follow up with IR AAMs and guns within visual range.

*****************

Most of what has been discussed so far has been NOTAMS FDC in and around the D.C. area, and any discussions about SAMs have been unsubstantiated. The air defense around and approaching D.C. is aircraft air-to-air defense. There are no active ground SAM sites in the D.C. area.

Originally posted by thedman
And fry all unshielded electronics for couple hundred yards when you
crank up the AEGIS radar, also disrupt radio/TV reception for considerable
distance around. Again as pointed out in earlier posts have debris
from missile & aircraft raining down on populated areas. Naval SAM
are designed to be used over open waters - when in port depend on
fighter aircraft and fixed defenses to protect them.

What do you think a Patriot system would do? Your TV or computer wouldn't fair much better if an AWACS went full power, or an F-16 lit off it's intercepr radar.
Let's face it, if you have to down an airliner over a populated area there are going to be casualties and damage from the aircraft's debris.

As far as an interception on 9-11 is concerned, there wasn't a snowball's chance of one of the planes being shot down. Contrary to Hollywood, armed fighter aircraft are not sitting on the ramp, ready to go in five minutes, unless there is a specific threat. The US stood down the armed alert interceptor role in the 1990's, with minor exceptions.

The one thing that I will always remember about 9-11 was my crossing the Highland Park Bridge in Pittsburgh, at rush hour, in no traffic and seeing two F-15s flying up the Allegheny River armed to the teeth with warshots.

[edit on 27-8-2007 by JIMC5499]

MuzzleFlash, you will be quite interested to read these late posts of mine in page 12 of another thread, " Rare Footage - Flight 93 Shootdown Award ", answering many questions brought up here too :

www.abovetopsecret.com...

Especially this one :

www.abovetopsecret.com...

USS Leyte Gulf is an TICONDEROGA class AEGIS Guided Missile Cruiser home-ported in Norfolk VA. --snip--
As part of the USS George Washington (CVN 73) Carrier Battle Group (CVBG), and in response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the USS Leyte Gulf set sail in support of defense and humanitarian efforts off the coast of New York.

Please read my entire posts, and the links provided in them. You might get to like to read that whole thread too.

What was perhaps a bit different about this exercise was that it involved U.S. homeland defense and practicing to merge a variety of sister services' capabilities to create a uniform picture and response. There are 75,000 cruise missiles and cruise missile-like aircraft in about 75 countries around the world. Those facts, coupled with the ease with which a cruise missile can be acquired make cruise missile defense a priority. Because of the capability for people with very limited means, in relative terms, to be able to obtain a cruise missile, NORAD has to be very serious about that threat.

MuzzleFlash, kudos's for your perseverance to stick to your convictions.
The www.globalsecurity.org... website is a perfect source for all kinds of military info, taken from well-known military sources.


I would like to focus on something very peculiar for the event of the Pentagon attack on 9/11.
I haven't ever seen anyone asking this obvious question :

How was it possible at all, that after the initial attack, the ROOFS were so terribly burning and for so long, if you take in account, that we all seen the famous photo's taken just after the partial collapse of the impact part of the west wing where it was hit, where you could clearly see NO BURN MARKS at all above the adjacent second story floors, clearly seen undamaged at the left side of the collapse, with that famous tall wooden stool with the unburned book on top of it, just beneath the sheared-off wall section.
All the visible floors above the 2 impacted bottom ones, where the collapsed part separated from and slid down from to the ground floor, were totally fire-free and no signs of any scorching and soot evidence could be spotted in those adjacent upper floors.
Meaning that there was no fire AT THAT MOMENT at all in those floors.

So how on earth was it possible that the wooden roof sections on TOP of the building were burning and had extensive damage to the shingles-covering on top of those roofs?

Were eventual surface to air missiles hidden under these angled roof tops, and were camouflaged with partial thin shingles "windows" with no thick wooden construction under it, to hide the missiles, but these could thus easily break through such thin cover, just as the launch tubes of the Aegis ships are covered with thin foil, to keep the rain and dust out, but can be penetrated easily by launched SAM's.

Their rocket flames after eventual launch, starting these roof top fires, which continued to burn during the whole day, night and part of the next morning?

One would expect that engineers would build-in a form of fire depression, like sheet metal housings for those SAM's, and fire extinguishers automatically operating after launch, but perhaps they didn't function as a result of electrical circuit failure caused by the huge impact energy and subsequent explosions?

There is something inherently fishy about the bulk of the Pentagon event evidence offered officially, and perhaps this missile shield WAS operating as expected, only the Pentagon doesn't want it to become public knowledge.

Thus all the secrecy and vague, dilettantish video footage from 2 toll boot camera's, where not a single frame from them, offers any evidence of a huge airliner slamming into the Pentagon west wall.
Just a spiraling trail of smoke leading into the west wall.
Which gives more weight to its interpretation being from a cruise missile or SAM, than belonging to a smoking damaged jet engine from an invisible jet airliner.

There's not a shred of a visible part of an airliner to be found in those 2 footages.
These 2 videos are obviously part of an exceptional effort to create a smoke screen to cover what really happened.
Of course the Pentagon security video room next to the main entrance has sharp footage of what hit, or not, their west wall.

Another note :
Cheney with Mineta at his side, answered an aide, -- asking him after the count down, regarding the distance of the plane with a switched off transponder to Washington reached the 10 miles distance --, who asked him "Sir, are the orders still standing?"; with this: "Of course they are!".

Since we have eyewitness main stream journalists on the White House grounds watching Secret Service men standing on the roof top, holding shoulder launched Stingers in their hands, aiming at the sky above, it is not such a far fetched theory to suspect those Cheney orders to be connected to specifically these SS-Stingers not to be launched.
Specifically regarding the unknown plane's target at that moment, but the certain widespread damage to be expected when the jet engines of this airliner were blown off by eventual launched and impacting Stingers, thus forcing the plane to crash in the middle of downtown Washington.

When Cheney knew that there was a more reliable last line of defense in the form of these hidden SAM's on top of the Pentagon, hidden in the roofs, and perhaps on top of that the SAM capability of the nearby anchored AEGIS cruiser, he was perhaps hinting at these SS-Stingers regarding the question of that aide.

Or, a much darker possibility, Cheney meant that no retaliation at all was to be started at all.
Since his answer was such a very short one, with no further questions asked to the aide, or explanations given to Mineta at his side in such stressed circumstances, it must have been very precise orders given already in advance, or described in pre-written scenarios for specifically such occurring attacks on American landmarks of national importance.

I certainly do not discard the theoretical possibility of a 9/11 single bunker buster cruise missile attack or even a complicated multiple cruise missile attack aimed at the Pentagon's west wall at forehand.

In fact that scenario gains more weight with ever more evidence by Pilots for truth and the CIT team provided for a north of Citgo plane flight path, thus contradicting the officially endorsed south of Citgo gas station flight path and subsequent damage pattern inside the west wing of the Pentagon segment as in fact impossible, certainly regarding the downed light poles, which with no chance at all could be downed by a plane north of Citgo.
That's physically totally impossible.

A cruise missile attack by rogue parts of the US agencies and government, or by foreign ones, or by well funded terrorist groups is quite possible.

The sleight-of-hand tight fly-over of the roof of the Pentagon of a huge 757 would hide the simultaneous above-Mach-3 cruise missile attack (these are invisible for the human eye at those speeds), which would be FAR more programmable with a far better calculated damage result, at the spots where the planners wanted the damage, than a never occurred airliner impact at near top speeds into a reinforced concrete and steel building wall.

The target seemed to have been the ONI and Military Accounting offices, which were the only ones investigating the huge multi-trillion dollar black budget budgets of the Pentagon from the preceding years.
See the 9/10 news about Rumsfeld exposing those huge budget holes.

I don't have time at the moment to gather up any resources for this, but:

Since the late 60's, the United States has not had ANY permanantly deployed surface to air missile emplacements, based on all unclassified sources. The NORAD system for guarding our airspace is entirely fighter/interceptor based, and prior to 9/11 always looking for intruders coming in to the US. It was deemed long ago that our fighter/interceptor was a much more effective defense against air attack then SAM emplacements. This decision was based primarily on the financial reality of building both the air force the US wanted and the additional cost of a SAM belt, particularily in regards to the fact that why the US was ahead in the cold war with aircraft, it was lagging behind the Soviets in rockets. Hence why the Soviets depend greatly on SAMs to defend their airspace. In addition, fighters give much more flexibility tactically then fixed SAMs.

Now, there are many places in D.C., primarily the Capitol and White House, where if needed, the Secret Service and Capitol police can bust out RIM7 Stinger shoulder fired SAMs which are of limited effectivness in the overall grand scheme of things. If the threat level goes up sometimes mobile SAM launchers like the Humvee/Stinger based Avenger is deployed and I suppose that if REALLY needed Hawk (if it's even used anymore) and Patriot batteries can be deployed. In addition the Navy can (and did after 9/11) park and AEGIS equiped cruiser/destroyer off the coast.

But, to answer the original question, there have never been any permanant SAM batteries protecting the capitol for at least 30+ years, again based on unclassified publications. The publications give a heck of alot of info if you actually read them, things like the defense budget, the annual defense review, NOTAM's "notice to airman" (NOTAMs are released virtually daily to all pilots including private civillian pilots on where restricted areas are and who to contact if it is needed to fly through them), and other documents pretty much lay out the basic national security of the US.

[edit on 21-7-2008 by Sr Wing Commander]

HYPERSONIC SCRAMJET PROJECTILE FLIES.
AUG 27, 2001 - The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) announced today the first-ever successful free flight of a hypersonic projectile powered by a supersonic combustion ramjet (scramjet) engine burning hydrocarbon fuel. The projectile is a four-inch diameter, 20-percent scale model of a conceptual missile. On July 26, GASL Inc., of Ronkonkoma, N.Y., fired the scramjet projectile out of a large gun at the Air Force's Arnold Engineering Development Center, Arnold AFB, Tenn. The test is an important step towards the realization of flight at hypersonic speeds.
The test was the second of two successful launches, the first occurring on June 20. Together, these tests demonstrate that scramjet engines will provide enough thrust to power a free-flying vehicle.
The tests used Arnold Engineering Development Center's two-stage light gas gun to accelerate the projectile to the flight condition through a 130-foot long gun barrel. The projectile experienced peak acceleration of approximately 10,000 Gs, and was launched from the gun at Mach 7.1. Arnold's G-Range facility is the only range in the country capable of providing the low-acceleration loads required to launch the projectile. After the titanium projectile was launched, it used its scramjet engine to cover a distance of 260 feet in slightly over 30 milliseconds.

Source : Attack of the Killer Robot Jetplanes 911.htm

That's 2.8 kilometer per second, totally invisible for the human eye when passing by in a viewing field of some 2 to 300 meters maximum through a car's windshield. Like all the so called eyewitnesses in front of the Pentagon on 9/11.
All the other eyewitnesses from much further away, in apartments or hotel rooms, will not have been able to notice anything that small, flying that fast, especially not when their attention was focused on a huge 757 flying towards the Pentagon, then disappearing in an impressive jet fuel based explosion (napalm is also jet fuel based, if needed).
I expect some here, to be keen enough to being able to calculate the diameter from the original projectile.

As some of you might know, and others expected it, the military announces these kinds of developments solely for the sake of impressing and scaring former, momentary and future political and military enemies. The real testing and putting into effective use has been done already in a far earlier stage.
Just look at the 10 year gap between using stealth capable bomber jets, and the public announcement of them in 1988, just one year before the Soviet Union's political and military system collapsed.
So, these above mentioned, non-conceptual, real missiles were ready to be used far before 9/11.

Are you still convinced, that missiles were not part of the 9/11 Pentagon deception?

Do a Google search on the Yacont supersonic, above Mach 3 cruise missile, build and SOLD by the Russian military, to the highest bidders (this missile was available before 9/11, don't get fooled by its public announcement later). That would have been the cheapest solution for any rogue group financed by huge black funds, to use hypersonic missiles at the Pentagon.
The picture of the original impact "hole" at the Pentagon west wall (in fact a square, just as in the cruise-missile attack on Milosevitch's Belgrad villa in the NATO war on Serbia) screams of a missile impact.

Isn't it too damn coincidental, that 2 clear dictatorial new rulers, GWB and Putin, were strengthening their groups grip on the situation immensely directly after 9/11, and still are.
It's highly logically acceptable, that this was a combined US-Russian effort to checkmate the other rising super powers like China, India, Pakistan, Japan, Brazil. And strengthen the Israeli positions.
In the USA the politicians in Congress and the House have been totally nullified, just as in Russia.
Putin and his backers still have factual command of the political and military situation in Russia.
In the USA, it will be depending on the military and political global situation, just before the November elections, who will be the next president. The hard-liner McCain, or the soft-liner Obama.
But both are in the same pockets as all the former presidents.
The globally operating main Bankers Cartels. Funded by and flourishing on perpetual wars.

Found some other reporting about an eventual missile-cruiser in the Potomac river mouth, or in Chesapeake Bay :

www.history.navy.mil...

INTRODUCTION

On September 11, 2001, terrorist hijacked four loaded passenger aircraft and slammed three into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. (A similar attack on a target in Washington, DC, was foiled by the brave and selfless actions of the passengers in the fourth aircraft). The American people and their leaders and representatives demanded immediate protection, including close-in naval harbor and offshore homeland defense.1 Capturing the national mood, Congressman W.J. "Billy" Tauzin (R-LA) suggested that a "Navy cruiser might be needed in the Potomac River to protect airspace." 2

The response of U.S. Navy forces was immediate, substantial, and in some ways unprecedented, both at home and far forward. Carriers and cruisers rapidly deployed off American cities on each coast. A hospital ship quickly deployed to New York, where a fast sealift ship had already been pressed into immediate service. 3 A Naval Reserve Strike fighter squadron provided air cover over the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas. Navy E-2 Hawkeyes took to air to provide surveillance coverage. 4 Other Navy and Naval Reserve units responded as well.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard had sprung to action as home as well, as massively as was possible for that much smaller service. Much of its force structure on the East Coast sped for New York, where the Coast Guard provided security for the evacuation of a million people from the lower Manhattan waterfront. Cutters took up situations at all the nation's ports, and began to enforce new control measures, including keeping civilian vessels away from Navy ships. The Chief of Naval Operations poured more watch standers into the National Maritime Intelligence Center, and told the Commandant that he'd help in any way he could. 5 Naval base security was beefed up, and later thirteen small Navy-manned patrol coastal (PC) warships chopped to Coast Guard operational control.

And then it was over at home for most of the Navy. True, lots of small changes were made and continued to be made, largely by dint of hard work by officers, sailors and civilians alike: Base security stayed heightened, new barriers appeared at gates and in the water; Navy master-at-arms forces expanded; and a couple of innovative joint harbor defense command posts were set up. The PCs stayed with the Coast Guard, and some in-port warships with air defense capabilities were given collateral assignments. 6 Some new research and development projects were launched. 7 Navy and joint staffs ground out plans, Navy intelligence efforts in Maritime Domain Awareness vastly increased, and a few imaginative force protection games and fleet exercises were and are being run. And the Navy's new Fleet Forces Command became a component of the even newer joint Northern Command, charged with homeland defense missions. 8

But no major changes in naval programs or force dispositions ensued. The carriers left their stations off America's harbors as quickly as they had taken them up. No new, dedication Navy "Homeland Defense Squadrons" were created. No existing Maritime Defense Zones were activated. No in-strength sustained coastal patrols were inaugurated. No at-sea Navy barriers were set up off America's shores. No new Navy homeland defense ship types appeared in the Navy budget. Congressman Tauzin's cruiser never did sail up the Potomac.

Far forward in the Indian Ocean and elsewhere, however, it was a very different story. There the response-and counter-attack-was not only immense and immediate, but also sustained. Carriers raced into position off Pakistan, one carrying Special Operations Forces. So too did Amphibious Ready Groups and their Marines, cruise missile-capable attack submarines and surface combatants, and maritime patrol aircraft. The Navy contribution to Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan was quick, in strength, and most important- like the operation's name-enduring. Smaller forward operations were mounted in the Mediterranean and the Straits of Malacca. A little over a year later, the Navy deployed even larger forces far forward, this time to deal with Iraq (even taking with them some of the PCs and part of the Coast Guard). 9

Why the difference?

Why was the Navy at the forefront on the far-forward attacks on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and the move against Iraq, while willing to take a back seat to the Coast Guard at home? Why did the Navy respond to one of the worst failures in defense at home in the nation's history principally by striking farther forward than it ever had before? Current national policy and naval strategy provide much of the answer, of course.

History, however, also provides some clues.

There's much more to read, but I am still convinced I read a report that an Aegis or other missile destroyer or cruiser was anchored the day before near the Pentagon. I am still looking through my vast library of 9/11.

These ships are very effective in detecting up to 100 multiple threats in the air, and below the surface, so it would have been a tad bit strange that such a formidable opponent was not active in defending the Washington sky at 9/11. Besides Andrews AFB and a few more very near to Washington.

I have posted on this topic in the past and I agree with you muzzleflash.
At the very least wouldn't Andrews have SAM's available??? I have heard that there are SAMS in the Pentagon but they are not officially acknowledged.

In any case before 9/11 at the G8 summit in Genoa Italian authorities installed SAM batteries based on intelligence that AQ intended to strike with planes. This was before 9/11...think about that one for a minute.

From The New York Times

In an interview on French television on Monday, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt spoke in specific terms about the threat, saying that ''on June 13 of this year, we learned of a communiqué from bin Laden saying he wanted to assassinate George W. Bush and other G8 heads of state during their summit in Italy.''

''It was a well-known piece of information,'' Mr. Mubarak added in the interview broadcast by the network France 3.

Separately, he told Le Figaro, a major French daily newspaper, that Egyptian intelligence services had told the United States about the threat and that the warning included a reference to ''an airplane stuffed with explosives.'' ...

...''Many people joked about the Italian Intelligence Force,'' Mr. Fini said, ''but actually they had information that in Genoa there was the hypothesis of an attack on the American president with the use of an airplane. That is why we closed the airspace above Genoa and installed antiaircraft missiles. Those who joked should now reflect.'' ...

...But participants and reporters who flew into the Christopher Columbus airport, which was closed to commercial traffic, were greeted by the unusual sight of antiaircraft batteries along the runways...

Here is the link.