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Peter Dale Scott is a Canadian poet and a former English professor at the University of California at Berkeley. The son of the noted poet and constitutional lawyer FR Scott, he is known for his anti-war stance and criticism of US foreign policy both of which date back to the Vietnam War. He's researched and written many investigative books about the role of the deep state, but rejects the label of conspiracy theorist. He is the author of the 2007 book "The Road to 9/11."
Q: You've chosen to look beyond some of the questions that are typically raised by people in the truth movement, for instance questions about various wargames going on, or the failure to intercept planes, or the question of World Trade Center 7. What was it that you hoped to illustrate by stepping back from these sorts of nuts and bolts questions and take a more historical point of view?
A: Well first of all, for me the most important thing that happened on September 11th, 2001 happened on the American side, and that was the proclamation of a state of emergency which led also to the indication of something many Americans have never heard of called continuity of government, or COG. And COG can only be understood historically because it's something that was planned by Cheney and Rumsfeld for 20 years going back to 1981, was planned continuously over those 20 years. Even when neither Cheney nor Rumsfeld were in government they were still operating under and empowered by a secret order from Ronald Reagan given in 1981. The only descriptions we have of the COG plan go back to the period when Oliver North was being interrogated by Congress, and at that time there was a very important news story about it written by Alfonso Chardy. He described COG as a plan for the suspension of the Constitution. And that is what finally happened on 9/11. And I don't think it's pedantic of me to say that the suspension of the US Constitution is more important even than two thousand and three hundred people being killed in the World Trade Center towers.
That's why I approach it as a historical question.
Now in response to what you said, I'm not uninterested in particularly the question of the interception of planes, because that too has a bit of history to it. The reason that planes weren't intercepted that day, and I think everybody would agree including the 911 Commission Report, this is one thing they're right about it, is that there was a new instruction introduced on June 1st, 2001. This instruction indicated that any military intervention had to be approved on the highest level. Now when you hear the words "military intervention" that sounds pretty extreme, but the normal military intervention are just some fighter planes going up and establishing some proximity with an airplane that's gone off course. That shouldn't require approval from the Secretary of Defense, and particularly that shouldn't require approval from the Secretary of Defense when he, by his own account, is out in the courtyard of the Pentagon helping to put people on stretchers.
We had a very anomalous situation that day which, as I say, has a history to it.
I don't think we will ever know on our own. People like you and me, Doug, we can't tell people what actually happened that day. We can tell the world, and we should, that we don't know what happened that day, but that the government is trying to cover up what happened that day. And the 911 report is a part of that cover up.
Q: When I said that the nuts and bolts questions weren't your primary focus I said that while being aware that in your book "The Road to 911" you do cover some of those questions particularly about the war games and the failure to intercept. Still, these weren't the primary focus of the book.
A: I agree with you. But, among those issues I am particularly interested in the question of the failure to intercept because I think we need very much to know why the rules were changed on June the 1st, and I think the probable answer is one that was suggested some time ago by Michael Ruppert. It was a product of the counterterrorism task force that was set up under Dick Cheney on May the 1st of 2001. So the chronology is right there to suggest it. If you have a counterterrorism task force working on something and then you get a change in the rules the most likely source for that change is indeed that counterterrorism task force.
Generally I think the role of Cheney on that day, even the tantalizing fragments that we get from the 911 report, and the indication that the 911 report is ignoring some very important first hand eyewitness reports, indicate that whatever Cheney's role on that day was it was clearly an important one. The President was flying all over the country and the Secretary of Defense was not in his office.
Q: In the 911 report, when they touched on the change of rules on the deployment of military force, was an explanation of the rule change offered?
A: No. They quoted the relevant documents. When they were trying to explain why there weren't intercepts they pointed to the relevant documents and they quoted them, but they didn't investigate it further. And the fact that it was dated June the 1st didn't, apparently, arouse any curiosity.
Q: They were in curious many times throughout the investigation.
A: Yes. And also credulous at other times.
For more info: More information about Peter Dale Scott is available at his website. A recording of this interview is available as a podcast. More of this interview will appear on Monday, June 22nd.
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