A General Who Survived the Pentagon Attack Answers 9/11 Conspiracy Theories | The Brief
What was it like inside the Pentagon when it was attacked on September 11th?
In this special episode of The Brief — part of our ongoing 9/11 25th anniversary coverage — host Shabbos Kestenbaum sits down with retired Lieutenant General David Deptula, Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and former U.S. Air Force commander, to discuss the 25th anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.
General Deptula was inside the Pentagon on the morning of 9/11, just two corridors away from where Flight 77 struck the building. He describes watching the second plane hit the World Trade Center, realizing America was under attack, hearing the explosion at the Pentagon, evacuating the building, and later helping design and execute America’s military response in Afghanistan.
The conversation also addresses two of the most persistent 9/11 conspiracy theories: the claim that the Pentagon was hit by a missile instead of Flight 77, and the claim that Donald Rumsfeld’s September 10th statement about $2.3 trillion proved a cover-up.
They also cover:
What Deptula saw, heard, and felt inside the Pentagon in the minutes after impact — and why people on the other side of the building didn't even know they'd been hit.
Why he predicted, while watching the second plane hit the World Trade Center, that the Pentagon would be "a logical third target" — and then went back to work at his desk.
The Iraq War: Deptula clarifies the distinction most Americans never fully understood — Iraq was not the military response to 9/11, and the 9/11 Commission found no evidence Iraq cooperated with al-Qaeda.
The lesson of Afghanistan and Iraq: "Military effectiveness is necessary but not sufficient. If military objectives aren't tied to clearly defined political objectives, tactical excellence alone cannot deliver strategic success."
Lieutenant General David Deptula (ret.) is Dean of the Mitchell Institute for Aerospace Studies and a senior scholar at the US Air Force Academy's Institute for Future Conflict. He served 34 years in the US Air Force, flying more than 3,000 hours, including 400 in combat.
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