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But the scenario was rejected — as were many others, said Canadian Army Maj. Douglas Martin, spokesman for Norad.

Martin, responding to a report by a government watchdog group that highlighted the proposed exercise, said the reason for scrapping the idea was tied to the training objective, which was supposed to involve the movement of forces into the Korean peninsula.

“If you’re looking at a training exercise where your main objective is overseas and you have a scenario that causes something traumatic on the homeland, the homeland is going to be your focus — not your training objectives in a foreign country,” he said.

Asked why the idea wasn’t used at a later exercise, Martin said Norad’s focus was not domestic airspace back then.

“Our mission was threats that could come toward the U.S. [and Canada],” he said. “Because of Sept. 11, our mission has evolved. …”

The proposal surfaced during planning for a combined exercise in April 2001: Positive Force, an exercise run by the Joint Chiefs of Staff for evaluating decision making; and Reception, Staging, Onward Movement and Integration, an exercise involving the Republic of Korea and Pacific Command that focused on deploying forces.

Norad was invited to participate. The planner was asked for a scenario in which the Pentagon was rendered inoperable and part of its functions in the exercise had to be moved to another location. Martin would not identify the planner, but said he still works at Norad.

On Tuesday, the watchdog group Project on Government Oversight, known as POGO, released an e-mail, written by a former Norad employee and sent to seven people on Sept. 18, 2001, citing the proposal and its rejection.

The employee, a retired Army lieutenant colonel, wrote that Joint Staff action officers rejected the idea as “too unrealistic.”

The lieutenant colonel, who could not be reached for comment, also wrote that U.S. Pacific Command “didn’t want [the exercise] because it would take attention away from their exercise objectives.”

The author of the e-mail began by stating that he was writing “in defense of my last unit, NORAD,” whose mission is to defend U.S. and Canadian airspace. He had already retired upon its writing.

Though he was not at the planning session, Martin said the e-mail’s depiction of the Joint Staff’s and U.S. Pacific Command’s response could be judged as the writer’s opinion.

A spokeswoman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not return a call for comment. Marine Corps Maj. Guillermo Canedo, media officer for PaCom, said on Wednesday, “We have seen the alleged document and we’re looking into the matter.”

While the idea may seem prophetic now, a Pentagon spokesman said things were different before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“In April of 2001, was that a likely scenario?” asked Navy Lt. Commander Dan Hetlage. “Up until that time, hostages had been safely landed. Sadly 9/11 taught us a whole different paradigm.”

Martin could not say who rejected the proposal, but added, “I think a lot of people are putting a lot of weight on the rejection of the scenario as if this could have cured Sept. 11. What his suggestion was and what happened on Sept. 11 have literally no connection.”

In a statement released with the e-mail, POGO pointed to April 8 testimony from National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice before the 9/11 Commission in which she said, “I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons.”

Peter Stockton, senior investigator for POGO, said on Tuesday he plans to turn the e-mail over to the 9/11 Commission.

“We believe the 9/11 Commission should ask the Joint Chiefs why they prevented NORAD from training to respond to the possibility that terrorists might hijack commercial airliners and use them as missiles,” he said in a statement.

Stockton said POGO received the e-mail from a source in the military who has been “highly reliable over time.” He was not sure why it was given to POGO or why it was written, and would not say whether the source knows the author of the e-mail.