Pentagon: Rumsfeld misspoke on Flight 93 crash

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made during a Christmas Eve address to U.S. troops in Baghdad has sparked new conspiracy theories about the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

In the speech, Rumsfeld made a passing reference to United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to stop al Qaeda hijackers.

But in his remarks, Rumsfeld referred to the "the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania."

A Pentagon spokesman insisted that Rumsfeld simply misspoke, but Internet conspiracy theorists seized on the reference to the plane having been shot down.

"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.

Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

A Pentagon spokesman insists Rumsfeld has not changed his opinion that the plane crashed as the result of an onboard struggle between passengers and terrorists.

The independent panel charged with investigating the terrorist attacks concluded that the hijackers intentionally crashed Flight 93, apparently because they feared the passengers would overwhelm them.

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well this is more unlikely i would say than the conspiracy theory of the pentagon strike because there were passengers in direct contact with family and friends over the phone who spoke of overthrowing the terrorists.

this whole shot down talk though.... strange. the whole thing is very strange.

Isn't it possible that the passengers went to overthrow the terrorists and the terrorists simply locked the cockpit door? That would seem a likely scenario. Maybe it was shot down.

well, I guess when you lie as much as this administration does it's hard to remember what version of the story you're trying to tell...

...here is some of the transcript from the a "town hall" meeting w/ Bush in florida shorty after 911...

PRESIDENT BUSH: Hi, Patricia. How are you?

How old is Patricia?

Q Five, and Jordan's in third grade. And Jordan has the question, if I could give him the microphone.

PRESIDENT BUSH: You bet. That's -- your mother's relaying the mike to you, Jordan.

Q One thing, Mr. President, is that you have no idea how much you've done for this country. And another thing is that -- how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Well -- (applause) -- thank you, Jordan.

Well, Jordan, you're not going to believe where -- what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my chief of staff, Andy Card -- well, actually I was in a classroom, talking about a reading program that works. And it -- I was sitting outside the -- the classroom, waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower of a -- of a -- you know, the TV was obviously on, and I -- I used to fly myself, and I said, "Well, there's one terrible pilot." And I said it must have been a horrible accident.

[sTART Note from Jared Israel]

[Note from Jared Israel. First, at 9am on September 11th, when Bush was at the Booker School, there was no TV footage of the first plane hitting the World Trade Center for the very good reason that the TV news people didn't know it was going to happen. As Peter Jennings said on ABC *after* the second plane hit the World Trade Center, that is, after the time when Bush claims he saw TV footage of the first crash:

...more lies...

This in itself does not prove Mr. Bush was consciously lying.

It is theoretically possible that Mr. Bush's memory played a trick on him. There might have been a TV in the hallway of the Booker, and it might have been tuned to the News, and Bush might therefore have heard about the WTC crash and seen footage of the building burning and later he might have thought he remembered seeing footage of the plane hitting the building. Theoretically, this might be the case.

However, based on the testimony of Gwen Tose Rigell, Principal of the Booker School, where Bush was that morning, in fact this was *not* the case.

Principal Rigell is quoted by MSNBC reporter Ashleigh Banfield as saying:

"'I actually heard the first plane had hit from the president, and he said that a plane had hit the World Trade Center and that it was a commercial plane,' says Rigell. 'He said but we're going to go on, and in my mind I had created this picture of a plane knocking off some bricks on the corner of the World Trade Center.'" (1) {End quote from Rigell}

Obviously if Principal Rigell's school had had a TV in the hallway tuned to news of the World Trade Center burning, everyone would have flocked around it and Rigell would have seen it too. She would not have formed a false impression "in my mind". She and everyone else in the school would have known the attack was *very* serious.

In that case Principal Rigell would not have told MSNBC, "I actually heard the first plane had hit from the president," and she would not have said, "I had created this picture of a plane knocking off some bricks in the corner of the World Trade Center," meaning it was a minor incident. Instead she would have said, "I watched the gruesome news on TV."

did someone say conspiracy?

Somebody nail these bastards....

I am nearly 100% sure that plane was shot down. Furthermore, I wouldn't think it was the wrong thing to do.

yep, i think most people have at least entertained the idea that it was shot down..

with this thing, it doesn't matter either way.

if the gov't did shoot it down, it did the right thing, in the right place.

plus, it gave solace to the victim's families bby making them, and allowing them to remain, heroic.

i don't care if the gov't shot it down, or if they never admit it.

i'd be more inclined to know whether the hijackers had gov't backing.

the 9/11 questions that need answering don't really have much to do with that plane.

Now this is what i call a Freudian Slip....

that aint got nothing on the one little w said before the election..

somthing like...

"the terrorists never stop thinking about how to harm our country and neither do we."

i mean its like...what the fuck yo. this shit is kinna scary. that missle hitting the pentagon tripped me the fuck out yo.

no rules and shit.

im stoned money.

Whatever happened, or whatever we find out in the future,nothing is going to bring back the people who died on that plane.