But Cheney WAS in charge. The U.S. Secretary of Transportation testified before congress that Cheney was making the command decisions.

So how did the transfer of power from the Department of Defense to the Vice President occur? Where is that in the 911 Commission report? Or any report? Please link to a source explaining how the order transferring control of NORAD to the Dept of Defense resulted in Dick Cheney giving the orders on 9/11. And that's what they were called as events unfolded..."orders." Norman Mineta testified to that.

But Mineta failed to give PROPER testimony, as the last two quotes from your portion of the transcript show. Mineta failed to add it "very clearly was an order to shoot commercial aircraft down," so Lee Hamilton put the words in his mouth. Hamilton was coaching Mineta. Such testimony would be stricken in a court case.

You don't provide any support of your interpretation of the events. Everyone has an opinion, and I'm not asking for yours. If you can supply the opinion of someone who's studied the issue thoroughly, that would be welcomed, but personal interpretation is worthless.

"Had Cheney given the expected order - the order to have an aircraft approaching the Pentagon shot down - we could not explain why the young man asked if the order still stood. It would have been abundantly obvious to him that it would continue to stand until the aircraft was actually shot down. His question would make sense, however, if "the orders" were ones that seemed unusual.

Some critics of the official account have suggested, therefore, that "the orders" in question were orders not to have the aircraft shot down. But of course this interpretation, while arguably being the more natural one, would also be very threatening to the Bush administration and the Pentagon.

It is not surprising, therefore, that although Mineta's account was released in the 9/11 Commission's staff report in May 2003, this account is not included, or even mentioned, in the Commission's final report. This omission provides rather clear evidence that the Commission's real mission was not to provide the fullest possible account of 9/11 but to defend the account provided by the Bush administration and the Pentagon.

Griffin's analysis of this event proposes that "the orders" that the "young man" referred too, were in fact to stand down, rather than shoot down...."

http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/250906_norman_mineta.html

(The Griffin referred to is David Ray Griffin, 9/11 investigative author. His analysis shows that the order could only have been a stand down order).