Critical to the success of the 9/11 attacks was the element of surprise, which was emphasized by key White House and Pentagon officials:

• President George Bush said, “They [al-Qaeda] struck in a way that was unimaginable.” [1]
• Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said, “Never would have crossed anyone’s mind.” [2]
• General Richard Myers, Deputy Commander of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “You hate to admit it, but we hadn’t thought about this.” [3]
• White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said, “Never did we imagine what would take place on September 11th, where people used those airplanes as missiles and weapons.” [4]
• National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice said, “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.” [5]
• Air Force Lt. Col. Vic Warzinski, a Pentagon spokesman, said: “The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday’s event, anyone would have expected anything like that here. There was no foreshadowing, no particular warning that would have led anyone with any reasonable view of the world to think this was a threat we faced.” [6]

The following evidence suggests that an attack on the Pentagon was not at all unexpected: [7]

I. Pre-911 Military Exercises Involving Planes Flown into the Pentagon

• In 1999 NORAD conducted hijacking exercises where planes were flown into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center. [8]
• The US military held an exercise rehearsing a response to an airliner crash at the Pentagon on October 24-26, 2000. Emergency responders from the Pentagon and Arlington County assembled in a conference room in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for a mass casualty exercise that involved a commercial airliner crashing into the Pentagon and killing 341 people. [9]
• Department of Defense medical personnel trained for the scenario of a “guided missile in the form of a hijacked 757 airliner” being flown into the Pentagon in May, 2001. [10]

II. Government Officials Warned Not to Fly

III. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld Twice Predicts Imminent Pentagon Attacks

• On the morning of September 11, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, seeking approval for enhanced missile defense, held a well-attended 8:00 – 8:50 AM Pentagon breakfast meeting with House supporters. The meeting was winding down just about the time the first Tower was hit at 8:46 AM. During the course of the meeting, Rumsfeld reportedly said that “sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months there would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently shocking that it would remind people again how important it is to have a strong healthy defense department.” [14]
• Later, in a meeting in Rumsfeld’s office, Christopher Cox, the defense policy committee chairman of the House of Representatives, reported Rumsfeld to have been more specific. Cox said:

  “Just moments before the Department of Defense was hit by a suicide hijacker, Secretary Rumsfeld was describing to me why America needs to … focus on the real threat facing us in the 21st century: terrorism, and the unexpected. …

  ‘If we remain vulnerable to missile attack, a terrorist group or rogue state that demonstrates the capacity to strike the U.S. or its allies from long range could have the power to hold our entire country hostage to nuclear or other blackmail,’ he said ‘And let me tell you … there will be another event … There will be another event.’ ” [15]

  According to The Telegraph, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense, was in his office on the eastern side of the building, in a meeting with Christopher Cox. Mr Rumsfeld, recalls Mr Cox, watched the TV coverage from New York and said: “Believe me, this isn’t over yet. There’s going to be another attack, and it could be us.” [16]

  Moments later, the plane hit [the Pentagon]. (When the attack did occur, it did not threaten Rumsfeld, as the attack was on the opposite side of the building.)

IV. NBC’s Pentagon correspondent Jim Miklaszewski Warned of Pentagon Attack by Intelligence Officer

V. FBI Confiscates Security Camera Videotapes within Minutes of Pentagon Attack

The idea of 9/11 foreknowledge is also covered in a Consensus Point about World Trade Center 7, another about insider trading, a third about VP Cheney’s role regarding the Pentagon, a fourth about NYC Mayor Rudy Giuliani, and a fifth Point about the Able Danger data-mining discoveries.

This compelling array of evidence suggests that there was foreknowledge of the Pentagon attack by various officials. The strike on the Pentagon (whatever its nature) requires a full, impartial investigation with subpoena power.