CNN.com - 9/11 panel: Pentagon Gave false testimony - Aug 2, 2006

The wreckage of the World Trade Center after the September 11, 2001, attacks.

CNN.com - 9/11 panel distrusted Pentagon testimony - Aug 2, 2006

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A member of the 9/11 commission said Wednesday that panel members so distrusted testimony from Pentagon officials that they referred their concerns to the Pentagon's inspector general.

The issues concerned Pentagon officials' testimony about the timeline
of events on September 11, 2001, when terrorists hijacked four U.S.
airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon
and a field in Pennsylvania.
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• "For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD
  [the North American Aerospace Defense Command] and the FAA provided
  inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in
  testimony and media appearances," The Washington Post reported
  Wednesday.

"Authorities suggested that U.S. air defenses had
reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last
two hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United
Airlines Flight 93 if it threatened Washington.

"In fact, the
commission reported a year later, audiotapes from NORAD's Northeast
headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never
had any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased
a phantom aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had
crashed into the World Trade Center," according to The Washington Post.

CNN's Barbara Starr and Pam Benson contributed to this report.