Official White House photographs taken on the morning of September 11, 2001, recently released by the National Archives, have raised further questions about Vice President Dick Cheney’s role in the terrorist operation.
Instead of an individual startled by the morning’s events, Cheney is pictured watching the burning World Trade Center on television with his feet propped up on a desk. Above Cheney, on the wall, is a historical map of the Confederacy. One longtime Washington pundit observed that Cheney could have just as well been “watching a football game.”
Above: Cheney watching the WTC towers burn.
Other photos picture Cheney in the President’s Emergency Operations Center, located in a bunker under the White House. With him are his wife, Lynne Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and Cheney’s chief of staff Scooter Libby. There appears to have been enough coffee for a large crowd with at least 60 paper coffee cups present on the conference table (below). The White House kitchen and mess had already self-evacuated, according to the late White House executive chef Walter Scheib. So, were the obviously catered coffee, pastries, and supplies pre-ordered for the morning’s big event? Scheib may have known but he died under suspicious circumstances in New Mexico last month.
Coffee and pastries at the PEOC appear to have been pre-ordered in advance. Were they? How did they arrive from a White House kitchen and mess undergoing a frantic evacuation? Cheney was evacuated at 9:03 am to the PEOC. The White House ushers and kitchen staff were already following the events on TV and PDAs. At 9:20, some staff began a self-evacuation of the White House. Six minutes later, Secret Service walkie-talkies crackled with the report that there was a plane incoming toward Washington. At 9:33, Reagan National Airport radar control informs the White House that a plane is heading for the mansion and is five miles to the West. But coffee and pastries were delivered to the PEOC sometime during this melee? Or were they already present in the PEOC in anticipation of a large crowd gathering there that morning?
The PEOC is not used for normal White House meetings. Those entering the reinforced top secret bunker 140 feet below the East Wing are required to have special access, something that is not granted to just any White House staffer. So who anticipated a large meeting at the PEOC that morning and why?
Cheney requested George W. Bush not to immediately return to the White House from Florida. Bush flew to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana and Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska before returning to DC later that evening. Bush appears more dumbfounded than he did in the elementary school in Sarasota.
Cheney looking like he is barely suppressing a smile while being briefed by his counsel David Addington.
Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who consistently exposes cover-ups from deep within the government. Want to be the first to learn the latest scandal? Go to WayneMadsenReport.com subscribe today!