RealAudio clip

BLACK OP RADIO HOST ANITA LANGLEY: On the current situation, do you see any parallels [to the JFK assassination] with the way the 9/11 has been treated?

FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR JESSE VENTURA: Well, you know... At first, again, I wanted to believe 9/11, you know. But the problem I have with 9/11 is just a real simple one. I'm trying to figure out -- and of course they're now attemPting to answer it somewhat -- how we could have failed so miserably in not having air defense.

Because if you look back particulalrly -- I don't know if you're familiar -- remember Payne Stewart, the golfer?

LANGLEY: Yeah, that's been brought up a few times on this program...

GOV. VENTURA: He was flying in a private jet. And when they had that mechanical malfunction that apparently killed everyone on board, and the jet was up there flying on automatic pilot; well it only took them a matter of minutes to scramble a fighter jet and have it up there on the wing. And had Mr. Stewart's plane, if it looked like it was going to go down and hit a metropolitan area, of course they would blow it out of the air. But when they saw it was just going to land in a field in Nebraska [sic. - actually South Dakota], why they just let it go down and crash on its own.

And the problem I have with 9/11 is that. Where the heck was our defense? Who was sleeping at the wheel? While all of these planes... I mean, I've been to air traffic control when I was Governor, and you've got a dozen people there looking at these dials, watching every plane in their sector. They know where it's going and they know what direction it's supposed to be going

Now, how is it that these planes were able to be hijacked at half hour intervals, turned directly opposite the way they're supposed to be going and no bells went off, no emergency sirens went off, no fighter jets were scrambled? Just what the hell happened in that area of time?! And that's the part that troubles me about 9/11.

HOST LEN OSANIC: Yeah, I find it troubling that the Pentagon got hit at all.

GOV. VENTURA: Yeah, I mean, here's the Pentagon, the head of our military. How was this plane able to circle the city of Baltimore [sic. - actually Arlington] at least once, picking out a target, and then drive into it, and we didn't have -- nothing up in the air? There wasn't one scrambled fighter jet up there to defend in any way, shape, or form? Wow.

OSANIC: Or a missle battery to defend the Pentagon...

GOV. VENTURA: Yeah. Anything, anything! And the thing that troubles me about the Bush Administration, nobody ever gets fired...