There’s what you need to know: On September 11, the top commander of the entire US military machine was intimately familiar with aircraft, aviation fuel fires, aircraft rescue, and the ideals depicted in "Black Hawk Down (Leave No Man Behind)."

However, those who directed the 9-11 rescue at the Pentagon did these amazing things:

They sprayed the aviation fuel fire with water. Every housewife knows you don’t spray water on a grease or oil fire; both military and civilian aviation fire fighters know you don’t spray water on an aviation fuel fire. They allowed the fire to spread until the upper floors of the Pentagon collapsed, burying Army and Navy personnel in the debris and further hampering their rescue. Once the upper floors collapsed, the directors of the rescue flouted standard rescue procedures for collapsed buildings.

While there should still have been hope of finding survivors alive, they used a wrecking ball to demolish sections of the building still standing. Many additional tons of debris crashed down upon the already buried victims, almost certainly collapsing any spaces or voids which may have sheltering victims in the original debris.

When qualified emergency medical technicians arrived by helicopter to rescue the victims, they were ordered to leave and forbidden from returning. One wave of survivors were brought out, and then there were no more . . . One flimsy excuse after the other was used to stop the work and delay rescue operations. Civilian rescuers worked long shifts and became exhausted with wrongheaded methods. Meanwhile, thousands of able-bodied military personnel at nearby bases — including those specially trained in putting out aviation fires — sat and watched the drama on Tee Vee. Surviving military intelligence officers lost jurisdiction over military intelligence documents and those documents were collected by civilians not cleared to see them. Meanwhile, the Pentagon front office made a media spectacular of the fire. Donald Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials wrung their hands and cried, "How awful, how awful" for days, stoking up passions for a war.

Do I believe that the well-meaning, desperate, and exhausted rescuers we saw on TV intended anything but the best? No. I believe the people doing the work had the very best intentions and were trying to save lives. But they were relying on the leadership to make decisions. They naturally followed orders as they are trained to do. Among the people I accuse are: Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at that time, Gen. Henry Hugh Shelton, Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, Rabbi Dov Zakheim, Undersecretary/Comptroller of DoD, Secretary of the Army Thomas E. White, Other commanders of the National Military Command Center, Other "John Does" — persons whose names remain hidden to the public at this time. SOURCES OF INFORMATION