Theories that allege deliberate inaction by the U.S. administration cite former transportation secretary Norman Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, in which he stated that an aide asked then Vice President Dick Cheney whether the "orders still stand". Cheney answered that they did. Mineta assumed that the orders were to shoot down the plane, while conspiracy theorists see this as an indication that the orders were not to shoot down the plane.

Thierry Meyssan and Dylan Avery argue that American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government. Reopen911.org says that the holes in the Pentagon walls were far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 60 ft. across?" Meyssans book, LEffroyable Imposture (published in English as 9/11: The Big Lie) became an instant bestseller in France and is available in more than a dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized by the French press. The French newspaper Liberation called the book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation.

According to Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University, a crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns.[82] According to ArchitectureWeek, the reason the Pentagon took relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One had recently been renovated. (This was part of a renovation program which had been begun in the eighties, and Wedge One was the first of five to be renovated.

Airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes, the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane tire, the fuselage,[citation needed] an intact cockpit seat, and the tail number[citation needed] of the airplane were recovered at the crash site. The remains of passengers and crew from Flight 77 were found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA analysis.[citation needed] Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example, passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane. Another passenger named Barbara Olson called her husband (U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson) and said that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives and box cutters.

A year before the attacks, a massive casualty (MASCAL) exercise was conducted in which a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon, which has raised suspicion amongst some

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Sept. 1, 2010