Canada.com
Washington had hoped Canada would would go further and participate in building the continental defence shield, an elaborate system that some worry could lead to weapons in space and an international arms race.
Cellucci compared the situation to one that occurred during the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. He noted that it was a Canadian general at Norad who scrambled military jets under orders from Bush to shoot down a hijacked commercial aircraft headed for Washington.
Had that plane been flying over Canada, it would have fallen to the prime minister to make the decision to shoot it down, Cellucci said.
That's why Americans were "perplexed" as to why Canadians would want to leave it up to the Americans to decide what action to take in the event a missile was aimed at Canada.
Maybe though, Cellucci misspoke on the subject. Well it turns out that Rumsfeld also had a similar slip of the tongue and later re-tracted his statements, changing his position to coincide with the crash theory:
CNN
"Was it a slip of the tongue? Was it an error? Or was it the truth, finally being dropped on the public more than three years after the tragedy" asked a posting on the Web site WorldNetDaily.com.
Some people remain skeptical of U.S. government statements that, despite a presidential authorization, no planes were shot down September 11, and rumors still circulate that a U.S. military plane shot the airliner down over Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
This Flight 93 story is getting harder and harder for these guys to get straight - or is it just that - a story?
