Cheney Gave Order to Shoot Down Jets

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney was huddled with top U.S. officials in a bunker below the White House on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when a military aide told him that a hijacked aircraft was 80 miles from Washington and closing in fast. The aide needed to know: Did Cheney want to give warplanes scrambled over Washington orders to shoot it down?

Cheney did not hesitate. He authorized fighter aircraft "to engage the inbound plane."

In the decision to issue a lethal order without precedent in American history -- to shoot down a plane filled with American civilians -- Cheney both struggled with the confusion of that morning and personified it, according to a staff report issued Thursday by the national commission investigating the terrorist attacks.

The order given by Cheney was never received by the fighter pilots, and, in the end, it came too late to interrupt the assault.

Perhaps in his haste to act -- President Bush was in Florida at the time -- Cheney might have shortcut White House protocol, the report said. The normal chain of command for military "engage" orders goes from the president to the secretary of Defense, and not through the vice president, it said.

Although Cheney said he conferred with the president before giving the order, the commission staff could not confirm that a phone call took place in that time frame. Several minutes after giving the order, Cheney informed Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that he had done so.

"So we've got a couple of aircraft up there that have those instructions at the present time?" Rumsfeld asked.

"That is correct," Cheney replied. "And it's my understanding they've already taken a couple of aircraft out." That understanding turned out to be mistaken.

By then, three hijacked airliners had already been crashed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The airliner Cheney ordered shot down had already been forced by passengers to crash in a Pennsylvania field. And another seemingly hostile aircraft turned out to be a medevac helicopter, headed to the Pentagon.

The events at the White House underscored the chaotic nature of a day that was filled with events the nation had never encountered and was not prepared to meet, the report said.

Just before 9 that morning, Cheney was seated in his White House office for a meeting with his speechwriter when an aide came in and told him to turn on the television. A plane had just struck the World Trade Center.