Amazingly, explosives and terrorism were planned topics of discussion at WTC 7 on the day of the attacks. There was a meeting scheduled at WTC 7 for the morning of 9/11 that included explosive disposal units from the U.S. military. The Demolition Ordnance Disposal Team from the Army’s Fort Monmouth just happened to be invited there that morning to meet with the building’s owner, Larry Silverstein. They were “reportedly planning to hold a meeting at 7 World Trade Center to discuss terrorism prevention efforts.” The meeting was set for eight o’clock in the morning on 9/11 but was canceled with the excuse that one of Silverstein’s executives could not make it.
Richard Spanard, an Army captain and commander of Fort Monmouth’s explosive disposal unit, was at WTC 7 to attend the meeting. He was “enjoying breakfast at a deli 50 feet from the World Trade Center twin towers when the first plane hit. General hysteria inundated the deli. Spanard decided that he and the three soldiers with him should move to number 7 World Trade Center, where they had a scheduled meeting.” Building 7 was “full of people in the midst of evacuating. A second explosion was heard, and people began mobbing the three escalators in a state of panic. Spanard and the now five soldiers with him began yelling for everyone to remain calm.”
In yet another “eerie quirk of fate,” Fort Monmouth personnel were preparing for an exercise called Timely Alert II on the day of 9/11. This was a disaster drill focused on response to a terrorist attack and included law enforcement agencies and emergency personnel. The drill simply changed to an actual response as the attacks began.
Fort Monmouth, located in New Jersey just 49 miles away from the WTC complex, was home to several units of the Army Materiel Command (AMC). Coincidentally, Stratesec’s Barry McDaniel had led AMC a decade earlier. McDaniel had an interesting past and, after 9/11, became business partners with one of Dick Cheney’s closest colleagues.
The Fort Monmouth response on 9/11 included the explosives unit and the Army’s Communications-Electronics Command (CECOM). As the drill was converted to an actual response, teams of CECOM experts were deployed to locate cell phone transmissions in the pile at Ground Zero. The remainder of the base’s explosive ordnance company was there by the afternoon of 9/11 and stayed for three days in order to, among other things, help “authorities” look for any possible explosives in the debris.
The explosive disposal/terrorism meeting was not just a request of Larry Silverstein, however, but was actually organized by the Secret Service field office. The U.S. Navy’s explosive ordnance disposal Mobile Unit 6 had also been invited to WTC 7 that morning, again at the request of the Secret Service. As they arrived, the planes began to strike the towers.
Interesting coincidences, indeed.
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