Pet Goat

No, really?

At the commission's hearing on aviation safety last May, Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold, a retired NORAD commander, acknowledged under questioning that the jets could have intercepted Flight 77 if they had been sent sooner.

Felzenberg said the June hearing will focus on tracing the timeline of the FAA's notification, as well as when President Bush delivered the order to NORAD to shoot down any hijacked planes.


In the days after the attacks, officials said NORAD had been notified of the hijacking of an American Airlines jetliner 12 minutes before it slammed into the Pentagon. Vice President Dick Cheney said Bush had authorized the Air Force after the World Trade Center attacks to shoot down any plane that entered and refused to leave Washington area airspace. Cheney left unclear whether Bush's decision came before the Pentagon was hit.