Template:9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001: Myers

9:28 a.m. September 11, 2001: Myers Updates Clarke Videoconference on Fighter Response
According to his own account, during a video conference with top officials that he is directing, Richard Clarke asks Joint Chiefs of Staff Vice Chairman Richard Myers, “I assume NORAD has scrambled fighters and AWACS. How many? Where?”

Myers, who is at the Pentagon, replies, "“Not a pretty picture, Dick. We are in the middle of Vigilant Warrior, a NORAD exercise, but… Otis has launched two birds toward New York. Langley is trying to get two up now [toward Washington]. The AWACS are at Tinker and not on alert.”"

Vigilant Warrior may be a mistaken reference to either the on-going war game Vigilant Guardian, or perhaps another exercise called Amalgam Warrior.

Otis Air National Guard Base is 188 miles east of New York City; Langley is 129 miles south of Washington; Tinker Air Force Base is in Oklahoma. Clarke asks, “Okay, how long to CAP [combat air patrol] over DC?” Myers replies, “Fast as we can. Fifteen minutes?”

The first fighters don’t reach Washington until perhaps more than 30 minutes later. However, this account—or at least the time Clarke alleges the conversation occurs—is contradicted by Myers himself and Senator Max Cleland.

Myers claims he has been at a meeting on Capitol Hill with Cleland since about 9 o’clock, and does not arrive back at the Pentagon until after it is hit, which is at 9:37 a.m. Cleland confirms the existence of this meeting, and claims that Myers is with him until around the time of the Pentagon attack. (There are, though, some inconsistencies in Myers and Cleland’s accounts of this period.