With the Capitol under attack, the President on Air Force One, and the Defense Secretary missing, Vice President Dick Cheney was the most powerful man in the country on the morning of 9/11. From a bunker beneath the White House, he gave fighter pilots flying above the Capitol permission to shoot down hijacked commercial planes.
But did Cheney actually have the authority to issue this order? Did he and President Bush connect before or after Cheney ordered the fighters into battle? And was the U.S. even ready to shoot down any hijacked flights?
The podcast Long Shadow is embedded on this page from an open RSS feed. All files, descriptions, artwork and other metadata from the RSS-feed is the property of the podcast owner and not affiliated with or validated by Podplay.