NORAD had 51 minutes from the first tower attack. There was plenty of time to intercept, attempt to negotiate, threat, and eventually make the horrible decision to shoot down #77. Mistakes were made. Hind sight 20/20 is an understatement.
Prior to 9/11/2001, the doctrine was to wait out the hijackers, get the plane down safe and negotiate -- or storm the plane -- on the ground. It was the best approach to every hijacking to date.
You can argue from 20/20 hindsight that the planes should have been shot down, but the argument was equally valid that they should have been grounded before they ever took off. Or that Mohammed Atta should have been killed in kindergarten.
Everything is unprecedented the first time, and the 9/11 hijackers had the element of surprise. That tactic will not work again. It didn't even remain effective for one morning, once the Flight 93 passengers knew what was going on.
How many would have died if that plane had been shot down over the financial district in Manhattan. Imagine the aircraft exploding downward onto numerous other skycrapers.
I cannot imagine such a thing.
But then I cannot imagine the deliberate ignoring of the gathering threat.......that lasted at least since our marines were slaughtered in Lebanon.
Now, I'm all for looking at the aftermath of a situation, any situation, and learning what mistakes were made and how the same mistakes can be avoided in the future.
Too often though, the process turns into a witch hunt and that's what happened with the 9/11 commission and is still what so many on the Left want to do.
Re: the Vanity Fair article at the top of the thread. Before I read it, my assumption was that it was along this vein of trying to blame the Bush administration and/or the military for 9/11. However, after reading it last night (though I haven't listened to the audio yet) my impression is that the military responded with cool, calm professionalism, as usual, and the civilian ATCs were turning to jelly.