Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | This war on terrorism is bogus:

All of this makes it all the more astonishing - on the war on terrorism perspective - that there was such slow reaction on September 11 itself. The first hijacking was suspected at not later than 8.20am, and the last hijacked aircraft crashed in Pennsylvania at 10.06am. Not a single fighter plane was scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38 am. Why not? There were standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked aircraft before 9/11. Between September 2000 and June 2001 the US military launched fighter aircraft on 67 occasions to chase suspicious aircraft (AP, August 13 2002). It is a US legal requirement that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to investigate.

I read the entire article. While Meagher's facts are accurate, they do not warrant his conclusions. Conspiracies do happen, but they are subject to the same failings as any other human endeavour.

Nothing in the Bush administration's reckless, feckless history of ego, cowardice and incompetence suggests that any explanation is needed beyond the usual - they blew it.