(WMR) -- Multiple U.S. intelligence sources have reported to WMR that a super-classified network with only some 70 terminals in select U.S. government locations handled the parallel command-and-control activities that permitted the 9/11 terrorist attacks to be successful.

The �above top secret� network bears the acronym �PDAS.� WMR has not yet discovered what the acronym stands for, however, the system is limited to only a few hundred people with Sensitive Compartmented Information (SCI) Special Access Program (SAP) need-to-know access, in addition to the president and vice president.

On September 11, 2001, PDAS was used to convey the information from the Air Force Chief of Staff to the White House, CIA, and other select agencies that the Air Force had successfully intercepted and downed a target over Pennsylvania. It is believed that the �target� in question was United flight 93, although there is no confirmation that the aircraft was in fact the one downed by Air Force interceptors.

The Air Force Chief of Staff on 9/11 was General John Jumper, who had become the top Air Force commander on September 6, 2001, just five days before the 9/11 attacks.

There is also reason to believe that the PDAS terminal at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) at the White House was used to coordinate the activities related to the aerial attack on the Pentagon. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta claimed Vice President Dick Cheney was present at the PEOC at 9:25 am on the morning of 9/11, before the alleged impact of American Airlines flight 77 on the building.

Mineta testified before the 9/11 Commission that Cheney was aware of special orders concerning a plane heading toward Washington. Mineta said: �During the time that the airplane was coming into the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the vice president . . . the plane is 50 miles out . . . the plane is 30 miles out. . . . and when it got down to the plane is 10 miles out, the young man also said to the vice president �do the orders still stand?� And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, �Of course the orders still stand, have you heard anything to the contrary?��

PDAS terminals are reportedly located at the White House, on board Air Force One, the Pentagon, CIA headquarters, the National Security Agency, the Boeing E-4 Advanced Airborne Command Post that was seen flying over Washington, DC, on 9/11 after the attacks, the Defense Intelligence Agency at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC, and the Raven Rock Mountain Complex in Pennsylvania where Cheney hid out after the 9/11 attacks.

Mineta later followed up with reporters and stated, �When I overheard something about �the orders still stand� and so, what I thought of was that they had already made the decision to shoot something down.�

It now appears that PDAS was used by Cheney to implement on the morning of 9/11 a new policy issued on June 1, 2001 that provided for a �stand down� protocol that replaced a long-standing shoot-down order for hijacked and suspected hijacked planes. The new order transferred the authority to shoot down aircraft from the Pentagon and NORAD military commanders to the president, vice president, or secretary of defense.

Previously published in the Wayne Madsen Report.

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