One question: Why would a United States agency conduct a training exercise in Washington D.C. on 9/11?????
This does not make any sense at all.
White House hits CNN for Coast Guard report
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs today criticized CNN – not the Coast Guard – over the panic caused by the agency’s training exercise on the Sept. 11 anniversary, saying that the alarm could have been avoided if the network had checked its facts.
Gibbs said he wouldn’t second-guess Coast Guard leadership for holding a Potomac River exercise on the morning of the 9/11 commemoration. But he took a shot at CNN, which initially didn’t know the maneuvers in the Potomac were an exercise and erroneously reported that gunshots were fired – something the homeland security department said didn’t occur.
“Let’s understand that best I can tell there was reporting based on listening to a police scanner that was not verified, and then it was on television and now we’ve raced back to find out that it’s a training exercise. So I think it appears as if a lot of this might have been avoided,” Gibbs said.
Gibbs told reporters that the Coast Guard was holding a news conference to explain the exercise. “Hopefully CNN will go,” Gibbs quipped. “My only caution would be that before we report things like this, checking would be good.”
The incident also set off a terse exchange between Gibbs and CNN reporter Elaine Quijano over the incident as Gibbs briefed reporters in his office. Quijano asked whether the public should have been informed about a training exercise on the 9/11 anniversary.
She also asked why Gibbs didn’t think the Coast Guard incident was comparable to an Air Force One flyover in New York for a photo shoot in April that set off a panic there. The head of the White House military office, Louis Caldera, resigned in the wake of that incident.
“If we set aside the media coverage, would you be asking this question?” Gibbs said.
“She doesn’t do hypotheticals,” another reporter joked, using a response Gibbs likes to give reporters who pose “if” questions.
“But reports them,” Gibbs said.
“Well, look,” Quijano said, “I’d like to set that aside for just a minute.”
“No I understand, and it’s not directed at you, just writ large at CNN,” Gibbs said.
As Quijano pressed further, Gibbs said, “If anybody was unnecessarily alarmed based on erroneous reporting that denoted that shots had been fired, I think everybody is apologetic about that.”
CNN has not responded to requests for comment.
The Coast Guard acknowledged at a news conference that its personnel simulated the sound of gunfire on an open police radio frequency – which might have caused the confusion. “That ‘bang bang’ was verbalized on the radio but I want to emphasize no shots were fired,” said Vice Adm. John Currier, the Coast Guard chief of staff.
But Currier did not apologize for the training exercise. He did promise the agency would review both the timing of its exercises as well as the way it works with the media.
“No I am not issuing an apology,” Currier said, adding that he felt the agency’s “normal, low profile” training activities was blown out of proportion by erroneous news reports of shots ringing out over the Potomac River. “It’s unfortunate that it’s been raised to this level,” Currier said.
Asked whether the morning of the Sept. 11 anniversary was the best day for such an exercise – which featured patrol boats making rapid, defensive maneuvers in the Potomac River – Currier said, “We will look at our procedures and the timing of this exercise.” He also said the Secret Service wasn’t notified in advance of the exercise and there was minimal coordination with other agencies because it was a routine exercise.
Earlier, the Coast Guard defended the timing by saying the best way to remember the tragic day is by being prepared. “The best way that we in the Coast Guard can remember Sept. 11 and our security obligations to the nation is to be always ready and this requires constant training and exercise,” said Lt. Nadine Santiago in a statement.
Sen. George Voinovich (R-Ohio) is calling on Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to explain the timing of the exercise, which occurred as while top officials were attending memorial services for 9/11. Homeland Security oversees the Coast Guard.
“The anxiety caused by this situation on such a solemn day is extremely disturbing,” said Voinovich, a member of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. “It sounds very much like the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing.”
Napolitano’s spokeswoman Sara Kuban said the secretary has asked Coast Guard Commandant Thad Allen for a full account of what happened. The Coast Guard’s Baltimore Sector office signed off on the scheduling decision, Currier said.
At the White House, Gibbs defended the importance of such training exercises. “I assume that there’s a training exercise going on somewhere in this country right now. I think we’re all safer because of training exercises. My only caution would be before we report things like this, checking would be good.”
As for holding one on the anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, Gibbs said, “I tend not to question law enforcement in trying to keep the nation’s capital safe. If they feel like they need a training exercise, I’m not sure that we’re to second guess.”
Whether the exercise is appropriate is “a decision that’s made by the Coast Guard,” Gibbs said.
U.S. Coast Guard drill triggers scare in Washington on 9/11 anniversary
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) — A U.S. Coast Guard drill on the Potomac river triggered a security scare in Washington DC Friday, the eighth anniversary of 9/11 terror attacks.
The incident took place near the bridge which U.S. President Barack Obama’s motorcade crossed on the way to a 9/11 event at the Pentagon in the earlier morning.
But officials said the president was not in the area when the incident happened.
Shortly before 10 a.m. eastern time (1400 GMT), CNN personnel saw what appeared to be a Coast Guard vessel working to prevent a boat from trying to enter a security zone of the Potomac river.
Minutes later, both CNN and Fox News reported that the Coast Guard fired 10 rounds of ammunition toward the boat.
In response, FBI agents rushed to the scene and the nearby Reagan National Airport briefly grounded flights.
However, the Coast Guard said later that it was a routine security exercise and no shots of any kind had been fired.
“Reports in the media were based on overheard radio calls made over a training frequency,” it said in a statement.
The Coast Guard admitted that it did not alert other agencies before the drill, including the U.S. Secret Service which protects the president.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs defended the Coast Guard’s decision to conduct the exercise on the sensitive date of 9/11 anniversary.
If the Coast Guard felt there was a need for the exercise, it’s “best not to second-guess,” he said.
The Coast Guard said it will “take a good, hard look” at how it handled the routine training exercise to determine if the security scare that followed could have been avoided.
Shooting scare as US marks 9/11
A Coast Guard training exercise on Washington’s Potomac River sparked mistaken reports of a shooting as the US marked the 9/11 attacks anniversary.
CNN had reported that 10 rounds were fired by the Coast Guard as a vessel tried to go through a security zone. But officials later said the incident had been a training exercise and no shots were fired.
It came as President Barack Obama led ceremonies to mark the eighth anniversary of the 2001 attacks.
CNN played an audiotape of the Coast Guard saying: “If you don’t slow down, your vessel will be fired upon.”
The Department of Homeland Security later confirmed that the reported incident was a training exercise, and that no shots were fired. However, security officials said they had not been informed in advance about the exercise.
“It would be normal for them to have let us know,” Washington police spokeswoman Tracy Hughes told AFP news agency.
“I don’t know the circumstances as to why we were not informed, but we were not in this instance.”
The Coast Guard said in a statement that it would conduct a thorough review to establish how the incident could have been perceived as real. Departures from Reagan National Airport were halted after the incident as a precaution.
Tributes
Remembrance services were held across the US on the eighth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 attacks. Nearly 3,000 people died when the four planes crashed in New York, at the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field.
Speaking at the Pentagon on his first 9/11 anniversary as US president, Barack Obama paid tribute to the victims. He said the years would not diminish the loss of that day, and vowed to pursue al-Qaeda.
“In the defence of our nation we will never waver,” he said. “In pursuit of al-Qaeda we will never falter.”
Accompanied by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, he met members of victims’ families and laid a wreath.
Meanwhile, thousands gathered for ceremonies in a square near New York’s Ground Zero.
Vice-President Joe Biden attended the New York ceremony, where planes crashed into the World Trade Center towers, causing them to collapse. Volunteers who helped in the aftermath of the attacks joined family members in reading the more than 2,700 names of the victims.
The BBC’s Matthew Price in New York says the Ground Zero area remains a building site, despite plans for a memorial, a museum and five new skyscrapers. Delays caused by political arguments and financial and legal disputes have left huge question marks over the entire project, he says.
Former Secretary of State Colin Powell was due to speak at the site of the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Americans have also been encouraged to contribute to a national day of community service.
Conservation projects, aid packages for serving soldiers and the simple offering of work for free are among the undertakings made by members of the public.
Training exercise causes panic on 9/11 anniversary
A Coast Guard training exercise on the Potomac sparked panic in Washington on Friday when it happened to coincide with President Barack Obama’s motorcade crossing the river after commemorating the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks.
FBI agents were scrambled to the scene and flights at the nearby Reagan National airport were briefly grounded as reports circulated that ten shots had been fired at a suspicious vessel on the Potomac, which divides Washington from the Pentagon in Virginia, where Mr Obama had attended the remembrance ceremony.
Other law enforcement agencies said they had not been informed of the exercise and learned of it only when cable television stations began broadcasting breaking news alerts.
The Coast Guard promised a “thorough review” of the incident, which occurred just months after a Boeing 747 flew low across Manhattan for White House promotional photographs, prompting fears of attack and the sacking of the official who had approved the idea.
Vice-Admiral John Currier, of the US Coast Guard, conceded that questions would be asked about the timing and location of the exercise. The president had been less than a mile away, with relatives of the 184 victims of the 2001 attack on the Pentagon.
But he declined to apologise, describing the exercise as a “routine, normal and low profile” and the sort that required other agencies to be notified.
He pointed the finger at radio hams and members of the media listening in for spreading alarm after a Coast Guard officer was heard saying “bang, bang” several times to simulate shots fired at an imaginary intruding vessel.
The exercise was broadcast on a frequency that was “discreet” but not encrypted he said.
“Someone probably interpreted that in a way that caused them great concern, but I don’t know where it went from there,” he said, trying to explain the chain of events.
Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, criticised CNN for being the first to report that shots were fired during the exercise, saying “before we report things like this, checking would be good”.
The exercise involved four 25ft-long motor boats zipping about the river, each with a machine-gunner stationed in the bow, and a helicopter hovering overhead.
“The report we got was the Coast Guard fired on someone,” a Park Police officer told Fox News.
Moments later, a Coast Guard boat came to the edge of the water with one official yelling to Park Police, “It’s just an exercise! We’re only training!” Military Families United, an advocacy group, said: “These families have travelled from all over the country to convene at the Pentagon on this tragic anniversary and this training exercise not only caused unwarranted stress for these families but it was a distraction from the purpose of today.”
What were they thinking? 9/11 scare on the Potomac
It boggles the mind.
Why would the Coast Guard decide to conduct a training exercise on the Potomac River, a stone’s throw away from the Pentagon, where the president of the United States and others attended a memorial event, on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks???
The media, always on hyper-alert for anything terrorism related on the anniversary of Sept. 11, ran with reports of shots fired on the Potomac.
That unleashed never-far-from-the-surface fears of terrorism amid memories of that day 8 years ago when a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon, two planes crashed into the World Trade Center in New York and another into a field in Pennsylvania — shattering the country’s sense of security.
It turns out the Coast Guard was conducting a training exercise. “Somebody said ‘bang bang’ on the radio” and no shots were fired, Coast Guard Vice Admiral John Currier said, calling it a regular training exercise.
But still, what were they thinking?
The Coast Guard’s first line of defense over the incident was: “The best way that we in the Coast Guard can remember Sept. 11 and our security obligations to the nation is to be always ready and this requires constant training and exercise.”
Did they learn nothing from the photo op Air Force flyover on Manhattan that scared a city permanently scarred from the Sept. 11 attacks all over again?
Military Families United put out a statement calling the exercise “the height of irresponsibility” and calling for the organizer to be held accountable for commisioning the exercise “at the same time and less than a mile away from where the families of the 9/11 victims gathered to mourn.”
The statement goes on to say: “Their actions brought back all of the feelings for victims of 9/11 that they originally experienced 8 years ago today.”
Did someone not look at the calendar?
