I see, courtesy of Wizbang, this story on World Net Daily:

During his surprise Christmas Eve trip to Iraq, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to the flight being shot down – long a suspicion because of the danger the flight posed to Washington landmarks and population centers.

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 of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000?

Here's what Rumsfeld said Friday: "I think all of us have a sense if we imagine the kind of world we would face if the people who bombed the mess hall in Mosul, or the people who did the bombing in Spain, or the people who attacked the United States in New York, shot down the plane over Pennsylvania and attacked the Pentagon, the people who cut off peoples' heads on television to intimidate, to frighten – indeed the word 'terrorized' is just that. Its purpose is to terrorize, to alter behavior, to make people be something other than that which they want to be."

As Wizbang noted, this is bound to stir up the conspiracy nuts. I can't say for certain whether or not this was just a slip of the tongue or part of some major cover up, but if true, why would it have been kept a secret in the first place? Given the solidarity of our country at the time, if Rumsfeld or Bush had come out and said they were forced to shoot the plane down I don't think anyone would've faulted the decision.

But the bigger question is this: does it matter? The fact is Flight 93 was heading towards a pretty high profile target, most likely the White House. That plane hitting the ground where it did, whether at the hands of some brave passengers or a fighter pilot on alert, was the best outcome that we could expect.

Oh, in case you were wondering, the Pentagon has already said that Rumsfeld misspoke.