>> NARRATOR: It is the epicenter of America's military
operations... a five-sided fortress with
a single purpose: to defend the United States and
its citizens. But behind the concrete walls
and reinforced windows of the Pentagon are secrets,
secrets so guarded... >> RAYMOND DUBOIS: The country's
most sensitive secrets are held within this building
and within certain minds. >> NARRATOR: ...so incredible...
>> ALLYN KILSHEIMER: She crawled out with people hanging onto her
legs to get out. >> NARRATOR: ...so alarming...
>> JAMES RYAN: We are already experiencing our 9/11
in cyberspace. >> NARRATOR: ...that they must
be kept hidden from the public... until now.
There are those who believe in the existence
of a book. A book that contains the most
highly guarded secrets of the United States of America.
A book... whose very existence is known to only a select few.
But if such a book exists, what would it contain?
Secret histories? Secret plans?
Secret lies? Does there really exist
America's Book of Secrets?
>> NARRATOR: It proudly stands on the west bank of the
Potomac River... on the edge of Washington, DC,
a building; an institution; a symbol of America's
military might... the Pentagon.
Here, headquartered under one roof, is the Department of
Defense, the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the five branches
of the U.S. military. Commands issued from behind
these walls direct the actions of U.S. forces around the world.
>> DUBOIS: The Pentagon is the heart, the soul, the brain of
our national military community. >> OLIVER NORTH: It does house
the entire top of the defense establishment of the United
States. It is regarded as an icon, if
you will, for enemies and allies.
>> GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: I was always excited in the Pentagon.
It was always a place where things could happen or be made
to happen, or (laughs) they happened to you.
But it was never dull. There was always adventure.
>> NARRATOR: Perhaps most famous for its unique design,
the Pentagon is the largest low-rise office building
in the world. It occupies more than six
million square feet of floor space and spans an area equal to
five city blocks. Called "The Puzzle Palace" by
insiders, the labyrinth of hallways and corridors that run
through the building measure 17-and-a-half miles in length.
Yet despite its vast size, the Pentagon's unusual design allows
for quick access to any of its five equal sides.
>> DALESSANDRO: This design allows someone to get from any
point in the building, the furthest spot you might imagine,
from corridor ten all the way around to corridor two, three or
five in seven minutes or less. >> NARRATOR: But for many, the
Pentagon is much more than a monumental building,
it is a living entity. >> JOHN JESTER: It's one of the
few buildings that you could say that speaks.
You see it in the newspaper quite often:
"The Pentagon said..." >> SHANE HARRIS: If there were
an American Book of Secrets, I think what it would say about
the Pentagon is this really is where the nation's defenses
really begin. >> NARRATOR: Approximately
23,000 people, both military and civilian, work at the Pentagon
every day. The building is fully
operational around the clock, and includes an infrastructure
of transportation, food services and retail shops enlisted to
support the enormous staff. But what is the secret to
keeping the Pentagon operational 24/7?
>> DR. ERIN MAHAN: I think what would surprise most people-- and
it certainly did me when I came to work at the Pentagon-- is
that it's not just an office building.
It's really a city unto itself.
The amenities that are available, I doubt very many
people realize that there's a drugstore, there's a shoe store,
there's a Best Buy. It really is a secret city.
>> NARRATOR: The daily operation of this unofficial city are
handled by a civilian administrator appointed by the
Secretary of Defense, a role insiders refer to as
"the mayor." >> DUBOIS: When you have
23,000 people who come to work here every day, probably another
3,000 to 5,000 visitors every day, you are essentially
managing a small city. We have hospitals, clinics,
restaurants, we have a Pentagon conference center and library,
we have the Pentagon athletic center, we have
police force, a firefighting unit.
This is quite a complex organism, as all cities are.
>> NARRATOR: For those who work at the Pentagon, the main
entrance to the building is on on the southeast side.
But for the military's top brass and the nation's leaders,
there are special VIP entrances. >> DUBOIS: We're at the Grand
Ceremonial River Entrance to the Pentagon.
This is the entrance where the Secretary of Defense goes to
work every morning. That's his office up there.
This is where the President of the United States comes when he
visits the Pentagon, as well as other ministers of defense and
chiefs of defense staff from around the world...
greeted in a parade on that parade field there.
Called the River Entrance because, of course, there is
the Potomac River. This is the second ceremonial
entrance of the Pentagon called the Mall Entrance.
It's the entrance for the Secretary of the Army and the
Secretary of the Navy, whose offices are behind me on the
third and fourth floors.
>> NARRATOR: With its five sides, five floors and five
concentric rings, the original plans for a military
headquarters were nearly scrapped in favor of something
more traditional.
>> VOGEL: The five-sided shape of the Pentagon is an
accident of history. The initial spot that they'd
chosen for the building up near Memorial Bridge was five-sided.
It eventually ended up moving to a different spot of land that
was not five-sided. So when they moved the building
from the first site to the second site, they could have
changed the five sides. But the architects had come to
realize a five-sided shape worked better than a
big rectangle.
>> NARRATOR: Although the Pentagon was first conceived as
a temporary structure, were the original plans redrawn and the
design rapidly repurposed for a more secret reason?
Why was the construction of the Pentagon begun on September
11, 1941, three months before the Japanese bombed
Pearl Harbor? Were the nation's leaders
secretly preparing America for war?
A war that they knew was inevitable?
>> VOGEL: The War Department was scattered in 17 buildings
all around Washington. It was horribly decentralized.
And General George C. Marshall, the army Chief of Staff, gave
orders to his chief of construction to come up with
some sort of plan that would allow them to consolidate this
War Department. President Roosevelt, when he
approved the plans for this huge building in secret, had a vision
of this building being used after the war as an archives for
all the paperwork that was filling up Washington.
>> NARRATOR: December 7, 1941.
The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. >> PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT: A date
which will live in infamy. >> NARRATOR: The United States
goes to war, and the pace of construction of the Pentagon
picked up. A centralized location for the
War Department now became a matter of national urgency and
public pride.
>> DR. ALFRED GOLDBERG: At that point, they had about 4,000
people working on it up until Pearl Harbor.
When Pearl Harbor came, all stops were off.
>> PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT: We will gain the inevitable triumph, so
help us God. (applause)
>> GOLDBERG: The sky was the limit at that point.
More people were added so that, at the peak, it reached about
15,000 people. >> VOGEL: The Pentagon was built
in a race against time. The architects and draftsmen
were, literally, sometimes just one step ahead of the
pile drivers. There was this incredible surge
of patriotism and panic to get this, uh, building ready.
>> NARRATOR: Completed in only 16 months, the home of the War
Department has remained the central command post of the U.S.
military for nearly 70 years. >> DALESSANDRO: We're standing
in the center courtyard of the Pentagon.
Behind me, they erected a gazebo.
And you can see it in its present iteration.
It's a snack bar. And on top of that gazebo is a
little owl. When the people were here during
the Cold War period-- and, actually, my service began
in the Pentagon during that period-- this area quickly
gained the nickname of Ground Zero.
People that worked in the Pentagon were convinced that
there was a nuclear bomb with its crosshairs right on that
owl at the gazebo. So I have to tell you, as a
young officer working here, as I worked my way through the
corridors, sometimes I took a shortcut through the courtyard.
And I have to tell you, when I got to the center, the hair
on the back of my neck stood up. I was sure that a nuclear round
was going to drop on me at any moment.
>> NARRATOR: But what military strategies and war games are
played out at a 21st century Pentagon?
>> HARRIS: Much of it is really an office building.
A lot of the work that goes on there is, you know, fairly
routine, fairly mundane. But a lot of the more secretive
things, a lot of the planning, a lot of the operational
elements, intelligence analysis, the high-level meetings,
strategy, all of that is going to be well out of public view.
But it is all happening right there.
>> RICK NEWMAN: Probably more than any place else in the
United States, the Pentagon is a clearinghouse for every
important decision that gets made in the U.S. military.
>> NARRATOR: As the home to America's military masterminds,
the Pentagon has also proven to be a five-sided target
for terrorism. >> NORTH: It's a target because
it's the symbol of American military power.
And that five-sided building does have the home of the
Department of Defense and every senior service leader
of the armed forces of the United States.
>> NARRATOR: Coming up: >> JESTER: So you had thousands
of gallons of fuel that were exploding and sending
fireballs down the hallway, just blowing offices up.
>> JOHN YATES: And then there was just this intense heat, like
nothing I've ever felt before.
>> NARRATOR: September 11, 2001. Al-Qaeda operatives execute a
terrorist plot to attack the U.S. using commercial aircraft
as their weapons. Their targets: places of
strategic economic, political and military importance.
>> YATES: On the morning of September 11, I was just going
around a normal day, uh, when about, I don't know, 9:15-ish
or so, one of my coworkers came over to me and asked me if I
knew what was going on in New York.
And, uh, so I said, uh, "No." She said, "Well, you have to
come see."
>> SAJEEL AHMED: We were watching what was going on in
New York at that time, so we knew something was going on.
(siren wailing) >> NARRATOR: Amidst the chaos,
American Airlines Flight 77, which had taken off from Dulles
International Airport earlier that morning, had been hijacked
over Ohio. What those at the military
headquarters could not predict was that the Boeing 757 was
heading straight for the Pentagon.
>> NEWMAN: As it was getting close to the Pentagon, it
actually did a 360. So it flew basically over the
Pentagon, flew around once, and while it was doing that, it
was descending. >> JESTER: I just walked in the
door to my office. It was like a low rumbling noise
for a few seconds.
And then the... the light fixtures in the... in the
room were just vibrating.
>> NARRATOR: At 9:37 a.m., the plane carrying six crew,
53 passengers and five hijackers hit the western wall of
the Pentagon. The aircraft tore through the
Pentagon at an estimated 530 miles per hour.
With thousands of gallons of fuel onboard, it exploded
on impact.
In an instant, the western side of the building was engulfed
in flames. >> YATES: I'm standing there
when there was just this tremendous explosion, like
nothing I'd ever heard before. I remember a ball of fire coming
from behind me and from my left as it rolled across the ceiling.
And then there was just this... this, uh, intense, uh, heat,
like nothing I've ever... I've ever felt before.
And I had no idea what was going on.
>> DUBOIS: This building shook.
This mammoth hunk of concrete and steel absolutely shook with
the impact of that airplane.
>> JESTER: The plane was boring through three of the five rings.
It was just basically shredded by the concrete columns.
So you had thousands of gallons of fuel that were exploding at
the same time and sending fireballs down the hallway,
just blowing offices up. >> YATES: I remember being
blown through the air, and I didn't know where I landed.
Didn't have a clue. It's like somebody picked up,
uh, the room and just shook it like a dollhouse.
So I just started reaching out with my hands 'cause I can't
see anything, and, uh, everything I touched burned me.
Even the floor was hot from the fire.
I just started crawling around, trying to find my way out.
>> NARRATOR: As firefighters battled to control the raging
inferno, rescue workers raced to find survivors amid the maze
of rubble.
>> KILSHEIMER: There were guys that went in, got blown over by
a fireball and got up burned, and went to drag people out.
There was a lady who was safe and went back in to get people
and got burned, and she crawled out with people hanging on to
her legs to get out. There were people that saw
people banging on glass to try and get out, and they went in
to try to help them, but there were insufficient tools, and
they used their bare hands. >> DUBOIS: Secretary Rumsfeld
came all the way to the other side of the building, much to
the chagrin of his security detail, and helped pick up
litters and gurneys. And it was pretty extraordinary.
>> JESTER: It was one of the greatest sights in the world,
was watching the workers who had evacuated, then go back to the
building to rescue their fellow employees.
And, in many cases, they would just have to yell to them,
you know, "Follow my voice," because they couldn't see them.
>> YATES: And this voice said, go out through this one
particular door, which was at the far end of the room.
And I really wasn't sure where I was at the time,
but I just started crawling towards that voice.
And I knew I was going in the right direction because the
farther I crawled, the less hot it got.
So I just crawled until I ran headfirst into a wall, and I
just turned right and made my... made my way through all of the
little aisleways and everything until I got out into the
corridor. I was standing in the middle of
five people, and I'm the only one that walked out.
>> NARRATOR: Firefighters and emergency workers battled heavy
smoke and intense heat as they began the search for the
estimated 800 personnel who worked in the area.
>> NEWMAN: It was very difficult for this fire to vent because of
the unusual structure of going into such a wide and such a low
building. The fire in many parts of the
building, for hours, was hotter than firefighting equipment is
designed to handle. Usually it's very easy to
persuade people leave a fire and stay away from a fire, but at
the Pentagon, firefighters encountered lots of service
members who were determined to get back in.
They treated this like it was a war.
Had the fire commanders had their way, they would have
ordered everybody out of the National Military Command
Center, but they got into a minor standoff with officers
there who said, "We're not leaving.
The nation's under attack. It is imperative to keep this
keep this part of the Pentagon operating."
So, firefighters had to do do something that they're just
not accustomed to doing, which is putting out a fire in one
part of the building while keeping another part of the
building operational. >> NARRATOR: But just how
perilous was the situation inside the building?
And what dangers did the destruction really pose to
national security? Only a few knew the true extent
of the damage caused by the attack:
The Navy Command Center, a critical intelligence facility,
had been completely obliterated by the fuselage.
The National Military Command Center was untouched, but it was
in jeopardy as the blazing fire threatened to shut it down.
To make matters worse, a shift in the weather would fuel the
fire to an even greater threat. >> KILSHEIMER: It was very
windy, and all of a sudden, I looked up, and I saw flames
shooting out of the roof. >> NEWMAN: The fire commanders
started to rush crews up to the top, up to the roof of the
the Pentagon. So, they mounted kind of an
all-hands effort to get that fire out on the roof, because
now this had become a national security issue to them.
>> NARRATOR: The fire was moving towards satellite and computer
equipment on the roof. If it continued to spread, the
Pentagon would lose a vital communications link to troops
and commanders throughout the world.
But how could an attack such as 9/11 affect the Pentagon's
top-secret military operations? >> DUBOIS: The National Military
Command Center is a steel box in which you have all the sensitive
communications that reach around the globe.
And 24 by 7, 365 days a year, it is manned.
And from that command center, the President of the United
States will be receiving, as does the Secretary of Defense,
the information with respect to the crisis of the moment, and
only the President and the Secretary of Defense can
push the button. >> NMAN: It needed to remain
functioning for the sake of keeping the U.S. military in
operation, and things like the cooling system in the Pentagon,
the electrical system. If the fire interfered with
those things, the first thing it would do is, it would shut down
all the computers. Without computers, there's no
connectivity and without communications, you can't run a
military.
>> VOGEL: The building operations people realized that
they needed to keep water pressure in the building up so
that the fire department would be able to fight the fire, and
some of the the building operation people risked their
lives to close off pipes even as smoke was pouring down into some
of those areas, and so that they could keep the command
centers operating despite the danger from the fire and smoke.
>> NARRATOR: With critical military missions underway
around the world, in the midst of the rescue efforts, the
Pentagon's Security Service was urgently retrieving
top-secret information now lying exposed in the wreckage.
But what vital military information were they trying
to save? >> NEWMAN: The Security Service
was just trying to just basically retrieve all the safes
and filing cabinets that contain classified information.
Navy SEALs, for instance, said "Listen, we need to get back to
our office, because we've got stuff in there that basically
entails how we operate, intelligence that our troops
have gathered out in the field, all sorts of things that are
essential to the functioning of the Navy SEALs, and it's sitting
up there in an office that nobody's guarding right now.
Firefighters who were in there said they saw documents labeled
top-secret literally floating on wafts of smoky air.
>> NARRATOR: When the smoke cleared, 189 lives were lost and
hundreds were injured, and neither the Pentagon nor the
United States would ever be the same.
Coming up... >> KILSHEIMER: We were gonna
show these terrorists what Americans could do when you came
and did what they did to us. >> NEWMAN: New security features
are not public because they could give future terrorists
ideas about how to attack the Pentagon again.
>> NARRATOR: September 12, 2001. As the sun rose over the
Pentagon on the morning after the terrorist attack, the first
of many extraordinary events began to unfold.
>> JESTER: The next day was a very unusual sight watching
people coming from the Pentagon City Metro Station, walking to
work, and the Pentagon is still on fire, but people were coming
to work. >> DUBOIS: Every person who
worked here came to work. This building was still burning.
This side of the building had had collapsed.
Everyone came to work the next day.
>> NARRATOR: 48 hours after the impact, firefighters finally
got the blaze under control, and the recovery effort could begin.
>> GOLDBERG: It took them a couple of days to get the roof
fire under control. Eventually they did.
It was a very hazardous, very difficult thing to do.
>> NARRATOR: Rows C, D and E of the area known as "Wedge One"
were destroyed by the impact and resulting fires.
But with an average daily work force of 25,000 people at the
Pentagon, how was it possible there weren't more casualties?
>> KILSHEIMER: The Pentagon was undergoing a renovation program,
and Wedge One was just being completed.
Had these planes hit a month either way, there would have
been a lot more people killed because there would have been a
lot more people in the building. >> VOGEL: Where the aircraft hit
was the only part of the building that had fire
sprinklers throughout the section.
It was the only part of the the building that had
blast-resistant windows. It was the only part of the
building that had structural support.
It was the only part that had this Kevlar-type skin that
would protect against fragments of glass and stone.
>> NARRATOR: Overnight, the existing renovation work turned
to reconstruction. But what was the secret behind
the rapid rebuild of the Pentagon?
>> NEWMAN: It was considered a mission-critical thing to get
the Pentagon back online, not to mention an extremely important
symbolic act to completely rebuild the Pentagon and make it
better than it ever was.
>> VOGEL: The workers themselves came up with this plan to
restore the building by the the first anniversary of the
attacks, so within one year, they would have the building
back to its original state, and they called it the Phoenix
Project. >> KILSHEIMER: It was a huge
matter of pride and patriotism for everybody there.
We had a total, at times, of 4,000 people working there.
The way the majority of those people felt was that we were
gonna show people like these terrorists what Americans could
do when you came and did what they did to us.
A lot of people were working the whole 20 or 22 hours.
I would leave for two or three hours, I'd come back, and
there were guys sleeping on the floor or the heliport,
on the concrete, so they could talk me as soon as I got back,
about things. >> NARRATOR: But while working
around the clock helped speed up their schedule, it was not
enough to make their self-imposed, one-year deadline.
So what unconventional measures did they take to finish even
sooner than they had originally hoped?
>> KILSHEIMER: The first thing we did was tell
everybody what to build that day and follow it up
with drawings, instead of doing drawings first.
There was one particular spot, supposed to be a wall and then
some pipes in the wall. Well, the pipes were going
first, the wall wasn't ready yet, so the guys ran their pipes
and they had to build the wall around the pipes, which isn't
the way it usually happens. It's just everybody stepped out
of box at all times.
>> NARRATOR: In addition to repairing the building, new,
high-security safeguards were also constructed--
ones that would prevent or at least provide greater protection
for the Pentagon staff in case of a similar attack or worse.
>> DUBOIS: We moved Route 110 further to the east.
We reinforced the west side of the building.
We got the berm over there and the blast wall.
Suffice it to say there are other defenses that are now
in place that protect this building, and were a plane to
enter into restricted airspace and be determined to be hostile,
I don't think it would make it to this building.
>> NEWMAN: They certainly incorporated new security
features into the building. Many of those are not public,
and they shouldn't be public, because they could give
future terrorists ideas about how to attack the
Pentagon again.
>> LT. COLONEL OLIVER NORTH: What you can see at the Pentagon
is the direct affect of what happened on 9/11/01, and the
reality that there are people-- bad people-- who would do great
damage if they could.
>> NARRATOR: Inside the Pentagon, reconstruction
also extended to other areas of the building-- areas hidden
from the public-- and built according to top-secret
specifications.
>> SAJEEL AHMED: There are a number of areas which need
to support the mission itself, including the operation centers
and the regular tenant spaces itself.
That's all I can go there. >> GENERAL WESLEY CLARK: We
don't always know about those. And if we knew about them, we
probably couldn't tell you everything about them.
>> NARRATOR: Wedge One renovations covered an area of
one million square feet of space.
Building improvements included blast-resistant windows
and a new communications infrastructure.
The Phoenix Project finished one month ahead of schedule-- a
fitting end to what is globally considered to be the most
incredible reconstruction project in history.
>> KILSHEIMER: We actually rebuilt the building and had
butts in chairs on September 11, 2002.
I don't think there's a person that worked on that site that
wouldn't say that was the most important thing in at least
their construction life.
>> MAN: The Pentagon Memorial: We claim this ground in
remembrance of the events of September 11, 2001.
>> DUBOIS: The steps directly behind me are
where the impact took place. And, of course, the blackened
limestone block, now etched with that fateful day,
put into place after Project Phoenix concluded one year to
the day later, September 11, 2002.
>> NARRATOR: Coming up... >> DUBOIS: Some of the
country's most sensitive secrets, as you can understand,
are held within this building. >> HARRIS: If I had to put
money on which agency has the most secrets, I would say
it's the NSA. National Security Agency is the
government's eavesdropper.
>> NARRATOR: In the wake of the 9/11 attack, improved security
was initiated to both the physical structure and
the surrounding area of the Pentagon.
But within the walls of the military compound, security
measures were also upgraded.
>> HARRIS: Prior to 9/11, the Pentagon did have
essentially a police force, a security guard force,
if you like.
After 9/11, that group became a new unit, the Pentagon Force
Protection Agency.
>> NEWMAN: The Pentagon Force Protection Agency,
otherwise known as the Pentagon police, are an annoyance to
everybody who works there, because they make it hard
to get in.
If your badge is not in order, they won't let you in.
But they're extremely important to keeping the Pentagon secure.
>> JESTER: The Pentagon uses the most up-to-date
technology in terms of access control systems.
All the different technologies are constantly changing.
They've gone to retina scan, hand geometry scans, to all
kinds of devices. >> NARRATOR: The Pentagon Force
Protection Agency is tasked with being "an all-threats agency."
In addition to security, the agency is trained to handle
chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear
threats. >> JESTER: I developed a
motto which is "We Protect Those Who Protect Our Nation,"
It makes the organization feel that we're doing our part
in the overall mission of the Department of Defense.
>> NARRATOR: But beyond the threat of another physical
attack, the Pentagon must maintain the highest level
of security to protect the nation's greatest
secret-keepers, who work deep inside the compound.
>> DUBOIS: Some of the country's most sensitive
secrets, as you can understand, are held within this building.
And, in some cases, they're held within certain minds.
>> HARRIS: The Defense Intelligence Agency, DIA, is one
of the other, sort of primary-- the big intelligence agencies
within the intelligence community... and it's really
focused on missions pertaining to the Defense Department's
business, so, fighting war. And, really, in the past ten
years, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, DIA has been the
place to produce or to handle the intelligence that goes out
to soldiers in the field. >> NARRATOR: But the DIA is not
the only information-gathering agency housed at the Pentagon.
The biggest and most covert intelligence unit, the National
Security Agency, also operates within the military
headquarters.
>> HARRIS: National Security Agency, or the NSA, is the
government's eavesdropper. It collects what's called
Signals Intelligence, which means phone calls, fax
transmissions, e-mails, text messages.
If it goes over a wire, or over a wavelength in the air,
NSA grabs it. They have a global system for
electronic intelligence collection that includes
satellites... wire taps... monitoring of Internet networks.
Their job is if it's electronic, if it's data, and it's moving
around, they grab it. If I had to put money on which
agency has the most secrets, I would say it's the NSA.
The NSA is certainly collecting the most information.
>> NARRATOR: But when secret information must be shared
inside the Pentagon, what special protocols are put
into action? And, how is sensitive
information stored inside the Pentagon kept safe, and
accessed only on a "need to know" basis?
>> DUBOIS: Paper documents are transferred by hand by a
cleared person, in some cases, inside a locked briefcase.
>> YATES: In a building where 23,000 people work, there
are a lot of secret documents. And part of my job is to keep
those documents safe and secure, and out of the hands of people
that would do our nation harm.
There's different classifications for different
types of information. And based upon your need to know
and your background investigation level, you
get access. Your duties have to require
you to have access in order to get it accomplished.
>> DUBOIS: There are levels of classified documents
from "for official use only" all the way up to "top secret"
SCI clearances-- Special Compartmentalized Intelligence.
>> NARRATOR: Conversations about classified information are
strictly forbidden in the Pentagon.
But there is one place that the military's ultimate top secrets
can be discussed openly-- in the steel box offices known
as SCIFs. >> NEWMAN: There are lots and
lots of classified spaces inside the Pentagon.
Some of them are known as Sensitive Compartmented
Information Facilities. The acronym for that is SCIF.
They're not just places with limited access, where people
are cleared to discuss classified information.
They're actually hardened against electronic
eavesdropping. So there might be wire structure
built around those cages. There might be materials in
there that are intended to defeat any kind of electronic
eavesdropping, particularly audio devices that somebody
could point at the Pentagon. >> NARRATOR: Even the disposing
of classified documents leaves little room for secret
information to fall into the wrong hands.
>> YATES: A burn bag is a specially marked brown paper bag
that classified material-- or even sensitive, unclassified
material-- is put into. And then, every day, they have
pickup here at the building, it's put into the back of a van,
it's taken out to the incinerator plant that they
have here, and it's burned.
>> NARRATOR: Information is power in the intelligence
community, and secrets are the most valuable kind of
information. But what kinds of secrets are
the Pentagon's best military minds ultimately trying
to find? >> HARRIS: I think what they're
really after in the intelligence world is anything that can tell
them about what's going to happen next.
It's used in a way almost like a crystal ball.
You look to data to almost see the future.
>> NARRATOR: Coming up: >> RYAN: We are already
experiencing our 9/11 in cyberspace.
>> NORTH: The Pentagon is target number one for adversaries who
want to try to penetrate our communications and shut down the
national security apparatus of the United States.
>> NARRATOR: In July of 2011, the Department of Defense
released its first official strategy for operating in the
digital age. Traditionally tasked with
keeping America safe by land, air and sea, the Pentagon is
now taking steps to investigate, eliminate and annihilate threats
from cyberspace.
>> NORTH: The Pentagon has not only been the target of physical
attacks; it's also been the target of hundreds of cyber
attacks on a day-to-day basis.
It is target number one for adversaries who want to try to
penetrate our communications, our computers, our hardware,
software and literally shut down the national security apparatus
of the United States.
>> RYAN: We are already experiencing our 9/11 in
cyberspace. It's already happening.
We've lost trillions of dollars over the last two years of
intellectual property. The hard thing about cyber
security is you don't know that the asset's gone.
If someone takes your data, you're still using your data.
If someone takes your submarine, you know the submarine's gone.
>> NARRATOR: The most significant breach of U.S.
military networks occurred in 2008 when a foreign intelligence
agent inserted an infected flash drive into one of the
government's laptops in the Middle East.
The malicious code spread undetected through classified
systems, uploaded itself onto a network run by the U.S. Central
Command and put its servers under enemy control.
>> RYAN: What we found in 2008 is that attacks can be launched
even when an agency or a department is offline and not
on the Internet. It can happen through malicious
software being carried from one place to another and inserted
onto an offline network using such technology as a USB drive.
>> HARRIS: This is really analogous to, in the old days of
the Cold War, you would send a spy into a government facility,
posing as a visitor, who would then try and physically steal
the documents.
>> NARRATOR: Cyber Command is the official unit tasked with
protecting the country's digital infrastructure in the 21st
century. While its mission is to protect
military assets, has Cyber Command already launched any
counterattacks of its own?
>> NEWMAN: We saw something very interesting happen in Iran
recently with this so-called Stuxnet virus.
This apparently was a virus that was able to effectively shut
down the nuclear program there, and, by some estimates, set it
back by one to three years. That is a profound capability,
if we do, in fact, have that capability.
>> NARRATOR: But who are the secret stalkers plotting to hack
the servers and systems at the Pentagon?
>> NEWMAN: I think it's widely believed that the Chinese, the
Russians, uh, perhaps even some of our allies, uh, pay very
close attention to the Pentagon all the time.
>> HARRIS: If you look at all the people who are trying to get
into military networks, it's going to be everyone from
foreign spies to, uh, potentially even corporations
who are trying to get information on their
competitors. But, increasingly, what the
Pentagon is really most worried about are other governments,
militaries, foreign spies, particularly in China, which has
been the source of many of the attempted intrusions and some of
the successful ones. And also in Russia, where the
intelligence services are still very much interested in what we
are doing in our military. >> RYAN: If the Internet is
anonymous, that means the attackers have the full scope of
the cyberspace to be able to launch an attack without being
known who they actually are. So that's one of the big
challenges that we need to solve, is know who the
attacker is. >> NARRATOR: As long as America
has enemies wishing to do it harm, the Pentagon will be a
tempting target for a cyber or physical attack.
>> HARRIS: It is a giant building.
It's very difficult to protect, as 9/11 proved.
The military has put, at various locations around Washington,
portable missile batteries that are there in case someone were
to try and fly a plane into the Pentagon or another building.
>> NARRATOR: While the Pentagon is the central headquarters
to the U.S. military, are there secret outposts that allow the
armed forces to operate outside the Washington compound?
>> DUBOIS: There are secure, undisclosed locations that are
in various places that I will not tell you where they are.
>> NARRATOR: Some believe there is a secret facility built into
the side of a mountain in Raven Rock, Pennsylvania,
known as Site R. Might this, in fact, be a
top secret location of a second Pentagon?
>> HARRIS: It's a very sophisticated, big cave that is
built into the side of a mountain.
Uh, and this is the place where, in the event of a nuclear war,
um, our country's leaders were supposed to go and continue
running the country, regardless of what had happened.
It is designed to withstand a nuclear blast.
What you have inside are all of the communications systems that
you need, that the president and the defense secretary would
need to give orders to the military, the ability to launch
the strategic nuclear arsenal, if necessary.
>> NARRATOR: For seven decades, the Pentagon has been an icon
of American strength and military excellence.
But for those who know the structure best, the secret to
its national importance extends far beyond the building itself.
>> DUBOIS: The most extraordinary aspect of this
building is not the concrete. It's not the limestone.
It's not the 17 and a half miles of corridors.
It's the 23,000 people who come to work here every day.
They are the most special part of this building.
>> HARRIS: This is where all of the thinking about the future of
what threats look like occurs. There probably is no more
greater collection of secrets than what you have within those
five walls, because, truly, it is all about the preservation of
the national security of the United States.
>> JESTER: When people go to bed at nighttime and go to sleep,
the Pentagon is always working.
There's people there who are watching what is going on around
the world, making sure our country is safe.
>> NARRATOR: While their methods may be covert, the men and
women who work at the Pentagon every day are dedicated to the
building's core mission: to defend and protect the United
States from those who would do do America harm.
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