Lee Hamilton Confirms Norman Mineta's Testimony? - Video Inside

Lee Hamilton Confirms Norman Mineta’s Testimony?

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Jon Gold
4/24/2008

As we all know, Norman Mineta's testimony was never investigated or mentioned in the 9/11 Report. You would think that the "young man" that was involved in such an important moment during the 9/11 attacks would be named, and brought before the 9/11 Commission. He was not.

This clip is from C-SPAN's 5/26/2005 taping of the "Washington Journal". The caller clearly states that at the time the Pentagon was hit, Cheney was aware of the incoming plane according to Norman Mineta's testimony. At the end of this segment, Lee Hamilton says that Cheney was "in the key position at the time". Prior to that, he said that "the Vice President was in the operation room", and "when the impact did occur." To me, this sounds like Lee Hamilton just confirmed Norman Mineta's testimony.

On August 21st, 2006, Lee Hamilton was interviewed by Evan Solomon of CBC News. During that interview, he was asked again about Norman Mineta's testimony.

Solomon: Questions about foreknowledge, especially as to when Vice President Dick Cheney knew when he went down to the protective bunker: there was some suggestion that the Secretary of Transport Mineta testified in front of the Commission that he in fact talked to Dick Cheney at 9:20 am. Cheney claims he hadn’t been there.. gotten down there until close to 10 am. That was eventually omitted from the final report,. Can you tell us a bit about about what Secretary of Transport Mineta told the Commission about where Dick Cheney was prior to 10 am?

Hamilton: I do not recall.

Solomon: And we don’t know exactly where that..

Hamilton: Well, we think that Vice President Cheney entered the bunker shortly before 10 o’clock. And there is a gap of several minutes there, where we do not really know what the Vice President really did. There is the famous phone call between the President and the Vice President. We could find no documentary evidence of that phone call. Both the President and the Vice President said that the phone call was made, and in that phone call, the order was supposedly was given, allegedly given, to shoot down an airliner - if necessary.

Now, there are a lot of things not answered about that period of time. The order never got to the pilots and when it did get to the pilots, it didn't get to them in time, and when it did get to them, they claimed it was not an order to shoot it down, but to identify and track an airliner, not to shoot it down.

What you had on this day, of course, was a lot of confusion, and a lot of confusion in communications, at the very highest levels. When the President went from the school in Sarasota to Air Force One, he was trying to get communications with the White House, he used a cell phone, in part. When he got to Air Force One, the communications didn’t work all that well. Well, this is all very disturbing, and I'm told has now been corrected.

Apparently, Lee waited a while before he actually read the report. However, he ADMITS that "we do not really know what the Vice President really did." Newsweek reported that Cheney was picked up by the Secret Service at 9:35, but does write that, "a source close to the commission, who declined to be identified revealing sensitive information, says that none of the staffers who worked on this aspect of the investigation believed Cheney's version of events."

Why is this acceptable? Guess what? It's not.

To watch the whole interview, click here (RealPlayer required).