A General Who Survived the Pentagon Attack Answers 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

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.