Mr. Pex,

Yours is an interesting perspective, and I thank you for providing it.

However, in the days after 911, the Air Force increased the number of bases with planes on "strip alert" from 7 to 23, which corresponds to other AF statements that there were only 14 AF fighters at this level of readiness nationwide, i.e. 2 per base.

It is fair to assume that these planes on "strip alert" were armed, fueled, and ready to take off within minutes, which is the whole purpose of this high level of readiness.

Additionally, I believe it is fair to assume that, above and beyond these 14 planes on "strip alert," there would have been quite a few more Air Force, Navy, and Marine jets of various kinds engaged in normal flight operations. Some of these jets would already be aloft, some getting ready to land or take off, others practicing intercepts, touch-and-go, ferrying from one base to another, and all the kinds of routine flight operations which take place at military bases nationwide 24/7.

The question of whether or not any of these planes were armed is moot, because of the simple fact that you don't need weapons to intercept.

The primary purpose of an intercept is to get up there, establish visual and/or radio contact with the transgressor, try to figure out what is going on, and relay this information back to your controller, so that the next course of action can be determined. In the meanwhile, the intercepting fighters would continue to escort the transgressors - the intercepted plane or planes.

You insist we got caught with our pants down. I refuse to buy into this specious argument for many reasons, prominent among them the measures taken at the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy earlier in 2001, where the summit site was ringed with air defense assets because of fears that terrorists would hijack a jet, and fly it into the building where the world leaders were meeting, President Bush among them. Our Chief Exec spent his nights aboard an aircraft carrier during the summit.

I cannot emphasize enough the obvious fact that the defense establishment was well aware of the danger of hijacked jets being used as weapons, and dismissive statements by Condoleezza Rice and others notwithstanding, there are several such warnings by defense establishment officials in the public record and, one must assume, a number more which remain classified.

Additionally, in the days and months leading up to Black Tuesday, there was a rash of warning from foreign states and/or their intelligence agencies that terrorists were planning something big against the United States.

If we were caught with our pants down, as you insist, then there must have been criminal negligence, or worse, at the highest levels of our defense and intelligence establishments.

Finally, I'll close with an anecdotal account of a gentleman who organized a demonstration at the Pentagon in the late 90's. In conferring with local security prior to the march, the organizer was shown the physical limits beyond which the demonstrators could not advance because of a high state of readiness by local security due to the "constant danger of planes being flown into the building."

The organizer also noticed the presence of anti-aircraft batteries in the immediate vicinity of the Pentagon.

To conclude, the "Pants Down" argument does not stand up to even cursory scrutiny.

sp