Secret Service, Part of Secure Phone Network, Bush Knew?

[Wokeman]

"Commissioner John Lehman offered that while Air Force Generals Richard Meyers, Ralph Eberhardt and Larry Arnold (Ret.) had been questioned, no one had asked any questions of the "only sailor in the group", Captain Leidig. Lehman asked Leidig about the controlled phone bridges or conferences held during the attacks, which the Captain confirmed were classified and secure phone lines while also indicating that "the President can be included" in such teleconferences.
After some discussion about certain difficulties reaching the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and compatability issues in connections, Leidig confirmed that Vice President Cheney and the White House were connected to the phone bridges.
At that point Chairman Kean quickly cut off Lehman's line of questioning and proceeded to Commissioner Timothy Roemer who smartly decided to pick up on Lehman's phone bridge issue. Whereupon Leidig again confirmed that "I was connected to the White House".
In response to a pointed question, Leidig also confirmed that the National Military Command Center (NMCC) had the capability to connect to Air Force One, but that it did not do so, at least not doing so on Leidig's watch which was during most of the time period of the actual attacks when the President was still at the elementary school.
Leidig was asked, in effect, why the NMCC did not connect directly to Air Force One, to which he answered "I don't recall", and he repeated his "I don't recall" assertion.
This was the one moment in Leidig's testimony where he seemed to lose facial control and composure . . . .
COMMENCEMENT OF THE PHONE BRIDGES
Immediately at the close of testimony by Myers, Eberhart, Arnold and Leidig, this writer quickly walked to the head table to individually question Leidig before his aides could escort him from the auditorium. The Air Force generals had left quickly.
When asked "Can you tell me the approximate time when you commenced your supervision of the phone bridges", Leidig told TomFlocco.com, "You'll have to look in the records and Commission staff statements. I can't recall the time".
We then offered to Leidig, "It had to be prior to 8.30 am, because the President said 'I know what's going on in New York City, and I'll have more to say about that later in the day', a statement which was confirmed at 8.30 and 8.35 am in two separate news reports just before Mr Bush stepped into his limousine for the drive to the elementary school".
"You'll have to check the records. I can't remember", said Leidig, gathering up his papers and briefcase and learnin towards the door.
Interestingly, Leidig had also told Lehman and Roemer that Winfield relieved him and assumed his duties as Deputy Director for Operations for the MCC just before United Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania and the attacks were over, which would have been around 10 am. . .
{If Winfield formally resumed command just before Flight 93 crashed, just after 10 am, some serious questions needed answering. The combat emergency was over by then. Winfield had been absent for more than an hour and a half. Where had he been? What had he been doing? Was he incommunicado? No 9/11 Commissioner ever asked.}
President Bush is attended by a round-the-clock secret service detail that would have, of necessity, been connected to the secure phone bridge conference lines.

{Yes, and the Secret Service was among the first agencies confirmed to have been connected to the phone bridges. How could anyone believe that if the Secret Service knew, Bush, Cheney and Rice didn't know?}

In May 2003, Bush nominated Brigadier General Montague Winfield for promotion to the two-star rank of Major General, and Captain Charles Leidig has recently been nominated by the President to the two-star rank of Navy Admiral, but not forgetting of course that in spite of a total absence of air defences around both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on 11th September 2001, and two days after the attacks, the Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, quickly stepped up to become Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and head of all US armed forces."
— Crossing the Rubicon, Michael C Ruppert, New Society Publishers, 2004