- The US military practices at least twice a week for the
nightmare scenario of having to shoot down a civilian airliner hijacked
by terrorists, the commander of forces in North America said today.
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- General Ralph Eberhart, head of US Northern Command,
said a strong set of safeguards were in place to prevent an accidental
or unwarranted shootdown of a commercial airliner.
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- Commanders, pilots and air defence crews were drilled
on those procedures as many as four times each week, Eberhart said.
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- The rules allow for an order to shoot down a civilian
plane only if there is no other option to prevent a September 11 style
attack on the ground, the general said.
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- There were authentication procedures for such orders
to make sure "someone can't just get on the radio and say, 'This is
the president, I order you to shoot down that plane'," Eberhart said.
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- Military jets were in the air during the 2001 attacks
but were too far away to shoot down the planes before they struck the World
Trade Centre and Pentagon.
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- Airline passengers can be confident that their planes
will not be accidentally shot down, Eberhart said.
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- "I would take issue with anyone who would say the
men and women in our armed forces are trigger happy," Eberhart said
at a breakfast meeting with reporters.
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- "I'm more worried that they would be trigger hesitant
than trigger happy. We have long discussions with people to see if they're
ready to do this."
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- Eberhart said he has never heard of a case where a pilot
or missile battery operator was hesitant to shoot down a hijacked airliner.
Those involved have repeated psychological screening and testing on the
procedures to make sure they will follow those rules, Eberhart said.
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- The Pentagon created Northern Command in the wake of
the 2001 terrorist attacks to coordinate military defence of the United
States and response to attacks or natural disasters.
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- Eberhart, a four star Air Force general, said the al-Qaeda
terrorist network responsible for the attacks two years ago had been seriously
damaged.
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- "Most of the varsity players are gone. In most cases
we're dealing with the junior varsity team or the freshman team,"
Eberhart said.
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- "But we can't rest on our laurels. We've got to
keep the throttle up ... If anything, I think we've bought ourselves some
time."
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- The arrests of three workers at the Guantanamo Bay prison
camp for terrorist suspects had illustrated a concern about terrorists
trying to penetrate the US military, Eberhart said.
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- The general said he had no indications of any coordinated
terrorist effort to recruit American troops but said he had no doubt such
efforts were happening.
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- "There's no doubt that there are people out there
trying to turn our people," Eberhart said.
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- "I'm sure there are people right now being worked
on as we speak, and it's not working, and they're reporting it."
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- http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,7446836%255E1702,00.html
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