Architect Robert McCoy
This interview is some raw footage of one of the world class experts appearing in Architects and Engineer's upcoming hard hitting documentary "9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out"
9/11 EXPLOSIVE TESTIMONY EXCLUSIVE-Robert McCoy-Architect 1of2
We've been told that 9/11 changed everything.
Is it true?
Let's look:
This is only the initial draft release and not all inclusive. I fully expect additions and corrections which I will periodically revise as new and better information surfaces.
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After filing a lawsuit that prompted NIST to release more than 3 terabytes of photographs and videos from their investigation into the collapse of the twin towers and WTC 7 on 9/11, the International Center for 9/11 Studies has obtained evidence that suggests NIST edited several videos of the collapse of Building 7 in order to hide evidence of a controlled implosion.
The Center filed a FOIA Request with NIST on January 26, 2009, seeking production of “all of the photographs and videos collected, reviewed, cited or in any other way used by NIST during its investigation of the World Trade Center building collapses.” Following several unsuccessful attempts to get NIST to even acknowledge receipt of the Request, the Center was forced to file a lawsuit on May 28, 2009. Shortly after the lawsuit was filed, the Request was assigned a reference number, and NIST began periodically releasing batches of responsive records.The Center has now begun posting some of those images and videos online, the first batch of which is from an external hard disk drive “NIST WTC Investigation Cumulus Video Clips.”
Contained within the 2008 History Channel documentary "102 Minutes That Changed America" is video depicting what appears to be molten material within World Trade Center tower 2 on September 11, 2001, similar to other molten material filmed nearby. Molten iron is a product of thermitic reactions.
He seems to be Naval Aide Douglas Cochrane. I'll get to how he is identified in a moment. First.....
The 9-11 commission has this scenario in the PEOC, instead of the one described by N Mineta.....
"At some time between 10:10 and 10:15, a military aide told the Vice President and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft. His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, "in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane. He told us he based this authorization on his earlier conversation with the President. The military aide returned a few minutes later, probably between 10:12 and 10:18, and said the aircraft was 60 miles out. He again asked for authorization to engage. The Vice President again said yes"
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
The person telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...60 miles out...etc...is described as his "Military Aide". This would be the "young man" as Mineta described him. Unless there are two different people telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...the plane is 60 miles out....this seems extremely unlikely. So who is this military aide? I'll get to him shortly.
First,this may or may not be true, but the fact is Cheney can't prove it(the part of him getting shoot down authorization), what Cheney is doing is protecting the President, along with Sec of Def Rumsfeld, who are the only two people authorized to issue shoot down orders. Neither one did so, and conspired together not to.................
"Prior to 9/11, it was understood that an order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and secretary of defense)." page 17/46
ttp://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
"The President apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00. No one can recall the content of this conversation, but it was a brief call in which the subject of shootdown authority was not discussed."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
That's called selective amnesia.
"At 10:10, the pilots over Washington were emphatically told "negative clearance to shoot." Shootdown authority was first communicated to NEADS at 10:31."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
I mean....it's right there. The official story is probably right, in that, the passengers having to take over 93, because no one was authorizing any shoot down order, until the attacks were over. It's a proveable fact that no shoot down orders were given until after the last plane (Flight 93) went down. They had no intention of disrupting what they needed to happen. It's not believable that a pilot would take it upon themselves to kill a plane of civilians without authorization.
Here's evidence of a stand down. If the President gave Cheney an order, and they claim it was a shoot down order they can't prove it. They should be able to do that. Instead the proof indicates the order was never given during the attacks (Flight 93 went down at 10:03 or 10:06)....
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
"The Vice President's military aide told us he believed the Vice President spoke to the President just after entering the conference room, but he did not hear what they said. Rice, who entered the room shortly after the Vice President and sat next to him, remembered hearing him inform the President, "Sir, the CAPs are up. Sir, they're going to want to know what to do." Then she recalled hearing him say, "Yes sir." She believed this conversation occurred a few minutes, perhaps five, after they entered the conference room."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
"Among the sources that reflect other important events of that morning, there is no documentary evidence for this call, but the relevant sources are incomplete."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.pdf
This is where the military aide's testimoney would be crucial, what was the order he was given? But again......even if he says it was a shoot down order, it came from Cheney, and he and Bush (who insisted on testifying together) can't prove it, Cheney is protecting Bush and Rumsfeld both, who never did issue shoot down orders.
"The Vice President was logged calling the President at 10:18 for a two-minute conversation that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, the President's press secretary was taking notes; Ari Fleischer recorded that at 10:20, the President told him that he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft if necessary."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
That's when Bush issued the shoot down order. 10:20, and Rumsfeld never did.
"Bush remained in the classroom for "five to seven minutes" after learning of the second crash as the children around him continued reading. He had his first conversation with Cheney at about 9:15."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50745-2004Jun17_2.html
But wasn't giving shoot down authorization. How come? How many buildings does it take? How about if the pentagon gets hit, how about then? Still.....Nope.......
"Bush and Cheney spoke again at 9:45, while Bush was on the tarmac aboard Air Force One. By that time, both towers of the World Trade Center were aflame and the Pentagon had been hit."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50745-2004Jun17_2.html
Pretty outrageous. Still, no intention on giving shoot down authority. If any orders were given, they were stand down orders.
The last plane went down at 10:03 to 10:06...most likely by the passengers. These passengers were in a no win situation, but surely prevented 9/11 from being even more catastrophic than it already was, the nations capital was it's target, and these traitors sure weren't going to stop it.
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
"The President apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00. No one can recall the content of this conversation, but it was a brief call in which the subject of shootdown authority was not discussed."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf
Here's Condi Rice lieing to you.....
"Q At one point that morning, the President gave an order to the Combat Air Patrol pilots giving them permission to shoot down U.S. commercial airliners. How did that decision come about, and how did you take on board the gravity of that decision?
DR. RICE: The President did give the order to shoot down a civilian plane if it was not responding properly. And it was authority through channels by Secretary Rumsfeld, and the Vice President passed the request, the President said yes."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16571537/T3-B11-EOP-Produced-Documents-Vol-III...
John Farmer exposes this false statement in his book "The Ground Truth"......
"The authority was not requested through channels, when Secretary Rumsfeld joined the Air Threat Conference Call at 10:30 and was told about the shoot down order by Vice President Cheney, he was clearly unaware of it. Wether the vice president had requested prior authorization from the president is disputed, but uncorroborated by the records of the day. page 260
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...
Cheney made the order on his own (no matter what it was) The first Presidential authorization came at 10:20, according to Arie Fletcher's notes and he was taking notes for this reason, to keep track of what time things were happening for historical reasons.
"Fleischer’s 10:20 note is the first mention of shootdown authority. See White House notes,Ari Fleischer notes, Sept. 11, 2001; see also Ari Fleischer interview (Apr. 22, 2004)."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
Remember:
"At some time between 10:10 and 10:15, a military aide told the Vice President and others that the aircraft was 80 miles out. Vice President Cheney was asked for authority to engage the aircraft. His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, "in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
If he did authorize a shoot down order (which is debateable), he told the President later, after he did it, if he didn't issue a shoot down, he was given the authorization at this later time......
"The Vice President was logged calling the President at 10:18 for a two-minute conversation that obtained the confirmation. On Air Force One, the President's press secretary was taking notes; Ari Fleischer recorded that at 10:20, the President told him that he had authorized a shootdown of aircraft if necessary."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
"His reaction was described by Scooter Libby as quick and decisive, "in about the time it takes a batter to decide to swing." The Vice President authorized fighter aircraft to engage the inbound plane."
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/report/911Report_Ch1.htm
This is not what Mineta said by a long shot. Mineta said he didn't even know it was a shootdown order, he makes it clear he that he heard what Cheney said and quotes him. (Whipped his neck around and said "of coarse the order still stands"...etc...)
Libby has already been convicted in a court of Law of lying under oath to protect Cheney. So this story seems false and contrived. This Military Aide's testimony is important. So who is he?
The person telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...60 miles out...etc...is described as his "Military Aide". This would be the "young man" as Mineta described him. Unless there are two different people telling Cheney the plane is 80 miles out...the plane is 60 miles out....this seems extememly unlikely. So who is this military aide?
Check the footnotes, on this scenario, and the only one that applies to Cheney and the "Military Aide" would be this Douglas Cochrane.....
"215. Douglas Cochrane meeting (Apr. 16, 2004); Condeleeza Rice meeting (Feb. 7, 2004). For Rice entering after the Vice President, see USSS report,“Executive Summary:U.S. Secret Service Timeline of Events, September 11–October 3, 2001,” Oct. 3, 2001, p. 2; Carl Truscott interview (Apr. 15, 2004)."
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
We know who Rice is. Truscott is a member of the secret service because....
"interviews of the 3 USSS agents in proximity to the President (Eddie Marenzel) and VP (Truscott and Zotto) are still on hold."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15740811/DM-B8-Team-8-Fdr-Email-From-Hyde-to-F...
Yes, they wanted to talk with this Military Aide as seen in this released 9-11 commission memo....
"March 2, 2004
New Requests:
(2)VP Military Aide (I believe his last name is Cochrane): The person at the Vice President's side in the PEOC who should have been intimately involved in the military communications chain is his military aide."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15740811/DM-B8-Team-8-Fdr-Email-From-Hyde-to-F...
They did talk with him according to the 9-11 commission footnotes, a month and a half after that memo....
"215. Douglas Cochrane meeting (Apr. 16, 2004);"
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Notes.pdf
But we can't see what was said in that interview yet.....
"ACCESS RESTRICTED
The item identified below has been withdrawn from this file:
Folder Title: White House Timelines"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14274489/DH-B3-White-House-Timelines-Fdr-Entir...
This is BS. It's 2010 and we still can't see any part of his interview? This needs to be declassified and released.
Yup, he's military....but not so young...you have to remember Mineta was around 71 at the time......
"Cochrane was selected to serve as the Naval Aide to the Vice President in November of 2000 and served Vice President Richard B. Cheney until December 2002. He was commended by President George W. Bush for distinguished service as Naval Aide and Emergency Action Officer, on and about Sept. 11, 2001."
http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage/?archive_id=0&page_id=1146282991&pa...
Source
"During those entire 109 minutes ... this country and its citizens were completely undefended."
- Senator Mark Dayton
General Ralph Eberhart was the commander in chief of NORAD--the military organization responsible for defending U.S. airspace--when the 9/11 attacks occurred. Considering that NORAD failed to intercept any of the four aircraft targeted in the attacks and successfully defend New York and Washington, one would reasonably expect Eberhart to have been somehow held to account. And yet that did not happen.
In fact, nine years on, we still know very little about what Eberhart did while the 9/11 attacks were taking place. From what we do know, his actions seem far from reassuring. Eberhart at least gave the impression of having an unclear picture of what was going on. Accounts of his actions reveal no decisive attempts to respond to the attacks. He appears to have been particularly slow to order a plan that would give the military control of U.S. airspace and get all aircraft grounded. Furthermore, in the middle of the attacks, he decided to drive from his office at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, to NORAD's operations center in Cheyenne Mountain--a journey that apparently put him out of the loop for about an hour.
EBERHART'S ACTIONS ON 9/11
Ralph Eberhart began the morning of September 11, 2001 at NORAD headquarters at Peterson Air Force Base. [1] He told the 9/11 Commission that he learned of the crisis that was unfolding when the command director at NORAD's Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center (presumably Captain Michael Jellinek) called at 8:45 a.m.--one minute before the first World Trade Center tower was hit--and "informed him of the ongoing circumstance of a suspected hijacking on the East Coast." Eberhart subsequently went to his office and saw the television coverage of the first attack on the WTC.
He "asked if the aircraft that was suspected of impacting the World Trade Center was the same aircraft that was a suspected hijack, and was told that they were not." Eberhart has recalled that there was apparently "great confusion in the system" at this time. But after news broke of the second attack on the WTC, he said, it was "obvious" to him that there was "an ongoing and coordinated terrorist attack" taking place. [2] And yet his subsequent actions were hardly impressive, considering the urgency of the situation.
Eberhart tried contacting General Henry Shelton, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but was unable to, since Shelton was airborne at the time, on his way to a NATO meeting in Europe. Eberhart then "contacted higher command authority at the Pentagon," he has recalled. [3]
He also spoke briefly with General Richard Myers, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was on Capitol Hill, where he had been meeting with Senator Max Cleland. At some point between 9:03 a.m. and 9:30 a.m., according to Myers's recollection, Eberhart phoned the vice chairman's military aide on his cell phone, which the aide then passed to Myers.
EBERHART UNCLEAR ABOUT DETAILS OF HIJACKINGS AND NORAD'S RESPONSE
Eberhart updated Myers on the crisis, telling him the two WTC towers had been hit and there were "several hijack codes in the system." This, according to Myers, meant "that the transponders in the aircraft [were] talking to the ground, and they're saying ... we're being hijacked." [4] However, if Myers's recollection is correct, Eberhart was apparently either mistaken or deliberately giving false information: None of the pilots of the four flights targeted that morning keyed the code that would indicate a hijacking into their plane's transponder. [5] There should have been no "hijack codes in the system" at that time.
Eberhart told Myers he was working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to get all aircraft over the U.S. to land. He also said NORAD would be launching fighter jets in response to the attacks. [6] As Myers would recall two days later, "I think the decision was, at that point, to start launching aircraft." [7] However, NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), based in upstate New York, had already launched fighters by that time: Two F-15s had taken off from Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts at 8:46 a.m. [8] So if Myers's account is correct, Eberhart--the man in charge of NORAD--was apparently either unaware of the actions of NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector or knowingly giving out false information.
Furthermore, when he was interviewed by the 9/11 Commission in March 2004, Eberhart claimed he'd had "no knowledge of the circumstances that initiated the scramble" of fighter jets from Langley Air Force Base in Virginia at 9:24 a.m. [9] Extensive evidence uncovered by the Commission showed that NEADS scrambled those fighters in response to an incorrect report it had received that American Airlines Flight 11--which hit the WTC at 8:46 a.m.--was still airborne and heading south, toward Washington, DC. [10] At the time of his 9/11 Commission interview, Eberhart said, he had only "recently" been made aware of these circumstances. [11] How could the man in charge of NORAD on September 11 have been unaware of such crucial information for nearly two and a half years after the attacks occurred?
After learning of the attacks in New York, Eberhart stayed at Building 1 at Peterson Air Force Base--the headquarters of the Air Force Space Command, which, as well as NORAD, he was the commander of--because, he said, "he did not want to lose communication." [12] However, he soon set out on a journey that caused him to lose communication with others involved in the emergency response for 45 minutes or longer.
EBERHART OUT OF COMMUNICATION WHILE TRAVELING TO OPERATIONS CENTER
At "approximately 9:30," according to his own recollection, Eberhart left Peterson Air Force Base and headed to the NORAD operations center in Cheyenne Mountain. [13] The operations center was about 12 miles away, a journey that takes "roughly 30 minutes," according to the 9/11 Commission Report. But, as the Washington Post noted, "The trip to Cheyenne Mountain can be time-consuming if traffic is bad," and the drive took Eberhart 45 minutes. [14]
The journey may in fact have taken even longer. Eberhart told the 9/11 Commission that by the time he arrived at the operations center, the authorization for the military to shoot down threatening aircraft had been passed down NORAD's chain of command. NORAD finally passed on this authorization to its three air defense sectors at 10:31 a.m., which would imply that Eberhart reached the operations center shortly after that time, more than an hour after he said he left Peterson Air Force Base. [15]
Furthermore, while he was making the journey to Cheyenne Mountain, Eberhart "couldn't receive telephone calls as senior officials weighed how to respond," according to the Denver Post. [16] He reportedly "lost a cell phone call with Vice President Dick Cheney." The reason why Eberhart had problems receiving phone calls is unclear, though it has been reported that "New repeater stations were installed almost immediately" after 9/11, "to fix the phone problem." [17]
During the period when he was reportedly traveling to the operations center, at 9:49 a.m., Eberhart "directed all air sovereignty aircraft to battle stations, fully armed" over the Pentagon's air threat conference call, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. [18] Presumably he was either able to successfully issue this order himself despite his communication problems, or the order was issued on his behalf by a subordinate who was participating in the air threat conference call. However, when an aircraft is at "battle stations," its pilot is in the cockpit, but with the engines turned off, ready to start them and taxi out only if a scramble order should follow. [19] So Eberhart's order would have meant that any air sovereignty aircraft not already airborne would have remained on the ground, rather than immediately getting into the air, where they could have quickly intercepted a hostile aircraft.
The reason Eberhart decided to relocate to Cheyenne Mountain at such an important time, when his uninterrupted participation in the crisis response would presumably have been essential, is unclear. According to the Colorado Springs Gazette, the Cheyenne Mountain Operations Center "had communications capabilities not available at Peterson." [20] And Eberhart told the 9/11 Commission that, on his communications loop, it had "quieted down" before he decided to head out to the mountain. [21]
All the same, if Eberhart's account of his actions is correct, it would mean that, in the middle of the worst terrorist attack in the history of the U.S., the commander of NORAD was, at least to some degree, out of the loop for maybe an hour or more.
MILITARY ONLY TAKES CONTROL OF SKIES AFTER ATTACKS ENDED
The one key action Ralph Eberhart is known to have taken in response to the 9/11 attacks was to implement a modified version of a plan called "SCATANA," which would clear the skies and give the military control over U.S. airspace. However, Eberhart only ordered that this plan be put into operation at around 11:00 a.m., about two hours after the second WTC tower was hit and it became "obvious" to him that a coordinated terrorist attack was taking place.
When he was asked before the 9/11 Commission why it had taken so long to initiate the plan, Eberhart recalled that people had been approaching him and telling him to "declare SCATANA." However, he added, NORAD "could not control the airspace that day with the radars we had and all the aircraft that were airborne. ... So, if I suddenly say, 'We've got it, we will control the airspace,' we would have had worse problems than we had that morning because I cannot provide [air] traffic deconfliction like the FAA has."
Eberhart therefore requested that a modified version of SCATANA be devised, telling those that were calling for the plan, "I will execute SCATANA once you have a modified SCATANA that clearly delineates the lines in the road and doesn't cause a bad situation to become worse." The modified SCATANA that Eberhart subsequently implemented allowed navigational aids to stay on, and selective approval for specific and necessary flights. [22]
Eberhart was implying to the 9/11 Commission that his delay in ordering SCATANA was due to the time required to put together this modified version of it. However, he has not specified the time at which he asked his colleagues to start preparing the modified SCATANA. Was it at 9:03 a.m., when the second WTC tower was hit and everyone realized that the U.S. was under attack--a time when the value of such a plan would presumably have been obvious? Or was it later on? If later on, how much later?
AMERICA 'COMPLETELY UNDEFENDED' DURING ATTACKS
A fuller analysis of Ralph Eberhart's actions on September 11 will only be possible when more evidence comes to light revealing what he did at the time of the attacks. It seems remarkable that we still know so little about the actions of the man who, as commander of NORAD, was in charge of the air defense of the U.S. In that role, Eberhart oversaw a catastrophic failure, which, in the words of Senator Mark Dayton, meant that for "109 minutes ... this country and its citizens were completely undefended." [23]
And yet, rather than being held accountable, or even just criticized, for that failure, in October 2002 Eberhart was put in charge of the newly created Northern Command (NORTHCOM), described as "the nation's premier military homeland defense organization," which had the mission of countering threats and aggression against the United States. [24]
As Dayton concluded, "The situation is urgent when we do not get protected in those circumstances [that occurred on 9/11], and it is even worse when it is covered up." [25]
NOTES
[1] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 465.
[2] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart." 9/11 Commission, March 1, 2004.
[3] Ibid.; Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security. New York: Threshold Editions, 2009, p. 10.
[4] Richard Myers, interview by Jim Miklaszewski. NBC News, September 11, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Richard Myers, Affiliated With NORAD." 9/11 Commission, February 17, 2004; Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, p. 9.
[5] "Government Official Has New Evidence Regarding Hijacked Airlines." CNN, September 11, 2001.
[6] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Richard Myers, Affiliated With NORAD"; Richard Myers with Malcolm McConnell, Eyes on the Horizon, p. 9.
[7] Senate Armed Services Committee, U.S. Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Holds Hearing on Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. 107th Cong., 1st sess., September 13, 2001.
[8] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.
[9] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[10] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 26-27, 34.
[11] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[12] "General Ralph E. 'Ed' Eberhart." U.S. Air Force, February 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[13] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[14] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 465; T. R. Reid, "Military to Idle NORAD Compound." Washington Post, July 29, 2006.
[15] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 42; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 240.
[16] Bruce Finley, "Military to Put Cheyenne Mountain on Standby." Denver Post, July 27, 2006.
[17] Pam Zubeck, "Cheyenne Mountain's Fate May Lie in Study Contents." Colorado Springs Gazette, June 16, 2006.
[18] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 38, 463.
[19] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 55; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 27.
[20] Pam Zubeck, "Cheyenne Mountain's Fate May Lie in Study Contents."
[21] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With CINC NORAD (Commander in Chief NORAD), General Edward 'Ed' Eberhart."
[22] William B. Scott, "Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks." Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002; National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Twelfth Public Hearing. 9/11 Commission, June 17, 2004; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 269.
[23] Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Making America Safer: Examining the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. 108th Cong., 2nd sess., July 30, 2004.
[24] Gerry J. Gilmore, "Eberhart Tabbed to Head U.S. Northern Command." American Forces Press Service, May 8, 2002; "Key Players: Commander, Northern Command, Gen. Ralph Eberhart." Government Executive, April 15, 2003.
[25] Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, Making America Safer: Examining the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission
Source
Just two or so dump trucks filled with never-before sifted debris from Ground Zero have yielded 72 new fragments of human remains in an almost three-month operation that could bring closure to more families of victims of the September 11, 2001 World Trade Center terror attack.
Because of the size and condition of some of the remains the NYC Medical Examiner's office told ABC News there was a good chance of obtaining DNA samples that could lead to new IDs once DNA testing is completed. The remains of about 1,000 victims of the almost 3,000 killed at Ground Zero have still not been identified.
A memorandum summarizing the findings of the operation, in which 844 cubic yards of debris was forensically sifted, was released by New York City officials Tuesday. It stated that including the 72 new fragments, a total of 1845 potential human remains have now been located since 2006 and are at the Medical Examiner's Office and when possible will be subjected to DNA testing.
The full report summarizing the now completed sifting operation is expected--nearly 9 years after al Qaeda crashed planes into the Twin Towers --to yield clues to the identities of some of the victims whose remains were either never found or are not as yet identifiable.
The sifting operation took place at Fresh Kill Landfills in Staten Island, where the new debris was brought and run through a series of conveyor belts that sort debris by size. In the immediate aftermath of the attack, the debris from the site yielded driver's licenses, rings, watches, wallets, shoes -- boxes and boxes of poignant reminders of the cost in human lives. This time, the sorting yielded bone fragments.
As of January 2010, the Medical Examiner's office had identified 1626 Ground Zero victims, or 59 percent of a reported 2,752 total. As of that date 21,744 remains had been recovered and 12,768, or 59 percent, had been identified.
Source
Explosive Evidence at WTC Cited by Former CDI Employee
News - News Releases By AE911Truth
Written by Darcy Wearing and Richard Gage, AIA
Thursday, 24 June 2010 18:55
Having had the privilege of speaking with Tom Sullivan, an actual explosive-charge placement technician, we have some new insights to pass along as to how controlled demolition works, where it started, and the effect that 9/11 had on the demolition industry. Sullivan gained his experience as an employee of the leading firm in this field, Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI). Sullivan stresses though “I do not in anyway represent CDI and what I have to say is based on my own experience and training,”
Sullivan attended high school with Doug Loizeaux of the Loizeaux family. The Loizeaux family, through the father Jack, independently started the whole controlled-demolition industry and turned it into a highly profitable business. Sullivan, before he became connected to CDI, was an independent photographer during his early years in Maryland. He would be sent to CD sites and take still pictures of the jobs. He became infatuated with the CD industry. The time came when he would do both, being the placer of the “cutter charges” on the primary joints, and photographing the jobs for promoting the business. Soon he would switch to full-time employee status of CDI -- as verified by AE911Truth’s verification team.
"It was very interesting, but also very hard work, long hours, especially in the cold weather," Sullivan reflects. He stated that the days began early, around 6 a.m., and they would work until the sun was down. Sullivan had the experience of preparing a building by placing the cutter charges throughout the primary joints, and then, of course, watching it all come down.
Read the rest with photos:
http://www.ae911truth.org/newsletter/2010/06/index.php#cdi
Sullivan notes that many weeks are required to “prep,” or weaken the buildings before demolitions. Steel frame buildings don’t just fall into their footprints at free-fall without major work throughout the building – even some before the placement of explosives. Sullivan emphasized as an aside, “Fire cannot bring down steel-framed high rises -- period.”
One of Sullivan’s most exciting jobs was the colossal Kingdome in whose reinforced concrete structure he personally placed hundreds of deadly explosive charges.
Working for CDI was, Sullivan stated, “a very unique experience.” He also said, "they were a close-knit family -- referring to the familial values of the Loizeauxs." “I learned from watching," said Sullivan. "There is no school that will teach you this, just hands on hard work." Sullivan took hundreds of project photos, through which he developed a deep passion for the trade.
When asked, what made CDI the best in the business, he commented, “their family had all the experience because they ’invented’ the art of CD. They spent years traveling around the world, showing and educating people how this art form works.”
Unfortunately, the business came to a screeching halt after 9/11. "People were scared -- if they were to hear a loud bang it was probably some kind of terrorist attack," says Sullivan in frustration. "Fear took over and there was no more business." Even Mark Loizeaux (CDI’s President) has been quoted as saying 9/11 ruined him. Sullivan had no choice but to leave CDI. Curiously, CDI had a role in the WTC cleanup through a subcontract under Tully Construction. On September 22, 2001, CDI submitted a 25-page "preliminary" document to New York City's Department of Design and Construction, a plan related to the removal and recycling of the steel.[¹]
Sullivan stated that he knew from the first day that the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11 was a classic controlled implosion. Asked how he thought it might have been done he posited, “looking at the building it wouldn’t be a problem -- once you gain access to the elevator shafts…then a team of expert loaders would have hidden access to the core columns and beams. The rest can be accomplished with just the right kind of explosives for the job. Thermite can be used as well.”
Brent Blanchard, the photographer from the controlled demolition company Protec, has said, in criticism of the CD theory, that there would have had to been detonation cords strung all over the place and casings left in the rubble pile from the cutter charges. So we asked for a response from Sullivan. He noted that:
Remote wireless detonators have been available for years. Look at any action movie -- and of course the military has them. The reason most contractors don’t use them is that they are too expensive -- but in a project with a huge budget it would be no problem. As for the casings -- everyone in the industry, including Blanchard, would know that RDX explosive cutter charges are completely consumed when they go off -- nothing is left. And in the case of Thermite cutter charges, that may also be the case. Thermite self-consuming cutter charge casings have been around since first patented back in 1984.
We asked Sullivan if all the floors in WTC 7 would have to be loaded with explosives in order for a successful controlled demolition. He responded,
No, with steel framed buildings you really need only to load the bottom third to bring the building down. While at CDI we had a job in Hartford Conn, the CNG building, where we did just that. And it worked out beautifully.
Recalling that Ron Craig, a Hollywood movie explosions expert claimed in a debate with us, that there would have been many blocks of broken windows if it were a controlled demolition. Sullivan reflected,
The key word here is controlled demolition – in other words careful placement of charges -- always focused and precise. We are not talking about setting off a bomb here. The amount and type of explosives is an art and collateral damage can often be completely avoided.
We asked about Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator of NIST (National Institute of Standards and Technology) who claimed publically in his infamous press conference at the “unveiling” of the Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 that there would have been a loud boom coming from a massive explosion if this had been a controlled demolition, and asked him about that. Sullivan said, “With any implosion there is never just one big explosion but rather waves of smaller explosions -- not unlike the percussion section in a symphony -- as each loaded floor is progressively set off.”
And as Sullivan watched the towers collapse that day, like so many did, he pondered at how fast it all took place, and how suddenly and symmetrically they were brought down. "I knew it was an explosive event as soon as I saw it, there was no question in my mind," said Sullivan. Most of us agree -- it's not by chance that the first tower just happened to collapse -- then the second in the same manner. What convinced him completely is when he watched Tower 7 fall that day, "I mean, come on, it was complete destruction. I've seen buildings fall like that for years -- that was the end game for me." Keep in mind that Sullivan did this for a living for several years -- it is like second nature for him to see this type of demolition. If anybody would know, it should be him. But we went ahead and asked him, “Is there any chance that normal office fires (the official cause of the ’collapse’) could have been responsible for the smooth, symmetrical, free-fall acceleration of building 7? “Not a chance,” he retorted. We just wanted to be sure.
When we asked him if he followed any of the 9/11 Commission hearings or that of the NIST reporting, he had the same answer for both "I have no tolerance for people who lie to me about what I know to be true. I threw my hands up in disgust and never watched another hearing after the first. As for NIST, I didn't even watch because I knew what to expect." He did however follow the final report on the collapse of Tower 7 and said it angered him that they could actually convince so many of their fraudulent claims.
Sullivan first came into contact with AE911Truth through a friend that sent him the 9/11: Blueprint for Truth DVD. He watched it and was very excited that there was actually an organization out there trying to inform people of what he was trying to say since that fateful day. “AE911Truth is the most focused and organized group there is today in the 9/11 truth movement. There is no speculation," he said. "Blueprint for Truth is factual and impressive information based on science and physics, and was clear and concise." When asked if he agreed with the evidence the DVD brings forth, Sullivan responded, "It contains extremely compelling evidence."
The final question we asked in this interview was, "How many architects and engineers does it take speaking in unison until people hear that there is a problem?" His response, "As the number grows it will be harder and harder to deny them -- but deny them they will."
Note: 1) Sullivan came out from the East Coast to deliver a short but electrifying presentation on Friday and Saturday night, May 7th & 8th at the joint presentation of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and Firefighters for 9/11 Truth. He joined Richard Gage, AIA, and Erik Lawyer on stage for 10 minutes and answered some key questions about the demolition industry, the CDI family of Loizeauxs, and the way the 3 WTC skyscrapers were destroyed. Prior to these milestone events he appeared with Gage and Lawyer on KPFA radio Berkeley on the program “Guns & Butter” with host Bonnie Faulkner who had a number of great questions for him.
2) "DO NOT COPY" watermarks on images were added by Tom Sullivan. These images may not be copied other than in the context of this article, or with his specific approval.
Source
Gen. Stanley McChrystal (left) and a promotional poster for the film 'The Tillman Story'
Soon after the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, pro football star Pat Tillman surrendered his multimillion-dollar NFL contract, left behind his wife, Marie, and joined the United States Army Rangers, where he completed multiple combat tours.
On April 22, 2004, while serving in the mountains of Afghanistan, Tillman was shot dead in what the U.S. government initially said was a result of enemy fire from a hostile ambush near the border with Pakistan. But it ultimately emerged that Tillman was, in fact, shot by his fellow soldiers, and details surrounding the motives and circumstances behind his death remain a source of great controversy.
In his new documentary, “The Tillman Story,” filmmaker Amir Bar-Lev explores these controversies and the roles numerous high-powered political and military figures played in falsely reporting how Tillman died and turning his killing into what his mother, Dannie Tillman, called a “recruiting” tool for the U.S Army.
One of the high-powered figures highlighted in the film for his alleged deception is Gen. Stanley McChrystal, who was relieved of his military duties in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
Reacting to McChrystal's forced resignation, Bar-Lev said he was shocked that McChrystal had made the remarks critical of the Obama administration that led to his resignation.
“I am quite frankly surprised," Bar-Lev told Pop Tarts. "In the Tillman case, he was much more strategic than he seems to have been in this Rolling Stone interview.”
Prior to President George W. Bush addressing Tillman’s death at a White House dinner, McChrystal, who reportedly knew that it was fratricide but chose to omit such details from his subsequent paperwork, sent an urgent memo to Bush’s speechwriters, warning them that "unknowing statements by our country's leaders ... might cause public embarrassment if the circumstances of Corporal Tillman's death become public."
Tillman's father told the New York Daily News on Wednesday that "I do believe [McChrystal] participated in a falsified homicide investigation."
McChrystal did not share his side of the story in the film, despite the filmmakers' request, Bar-Lev said.
Bar-Lev has not spoken to the Tillman family since McChrystal resigned.
"The Tillman Story," which will see limited release in late August, was narrated by actor Josh Brolin, who told Pop Tarts he was “shocked” by what he learned while working on the project.
“I remember hearing in the documentary that someone [Gen. Kensinger] was saying that the family doesn’t have God in their lives and they are having a tough time getting over the death of their son because they don’t have anything to rely on,” Brolin said. “That was a guy that knew that they were lying to the family. So to say that to someone publicly was just so disrespectful to every person fighting for the country and fighting for the freedom in the country, that is the most evil thing you could do."
The documentary alludes to the fact that the government put the all blame on Kensinger after he had retired from the military, after which he could not be criminally charged, and “conveniently” no further investigation could then be ordered. While the family doesn’t believe Kensinger is blameless, they do believe he was merely a pawn to protect then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The film also shows a letter Rumsfeld allegedly sent to military officials after Tillman enlisted, telling them that he was “a special man” and that they needed to “keep an eye on him.”
A fellow Ranger, who was at Tillman’s side when he died, indirectly raises the question that the former NFL star may very well have been murdered. Despite Tillman’s constant screams and, what turned out to be his last words, “I’m Pat f***ing Tillman, why are you shooting at me?” the bullets continued to gain momentum.
Tillman’s longtime friend Russell Baer, who was with him when he killed and accompanied his body back home, hopes the documentary brings some sort of closure in giving the American public a sense of what really happened to Tillman.
“If you’ve spent a lot of time in the service, they tell you to never lie. They hold you high with integrity and the truth and always sticking up for what you believe in and having each other’s backs, and when it came down to it they completely lied,” Baer said. “They completely held everyone out to dry, including Pat.”
Bar-Lev says the story does not end with his movie.
“This is an unsolved mystery; nobody has ever really paid a price for what was done to the Tillmans,” he said. “No one has taken accountability or made an admission for a deliberate attempt to conceal the truth. This story is not over yet.”
New York real estate developer Larry Silverstein and several key individuals associated with his firm, Silverstein Properties, appear to have had remarkable luck on September 11, 2001, when changes in their schedule or coincidental circumstances saved them from being high up in the World Trade Center when it was attacked.
Silverstein Properties took over the lease of the World Trade Center seven weeks before 9/11, the only time the complex had gone under private control [1], and after 9/11 Larry Silverstein sought damages of over $7 billion from his insurers for the destruction of the Twin Towers. [2] On September 11, the firm had temporary offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower. (American Airlines Flight 11 impacted that tower between its 93rd and 99th floors.) Of its 160 employees, 54 were working in those offices at the time of the attacks and four of them died. [3]
HIGH-LEVEL INDIVIDUALS AVOIDED DANGER ON 9/11
The fortunate circumstances that kept the high-level individuals out of danger the morning of 9/11 were quite extraordinary. Larry Silverstein survived the attacks supposedly because his wife forced him to go to a doctor's appointment instead of a meeting at the WTC; Silverstein's son and daughter survived because, independently of each other, they were running late; his top aide survived because he cut short a meeting he was in at the top of the North Tower; his publicist agreed to join a meeting at the WTC at 9:00 a.m. instead of 8:00 a.m.; and others associated with Silverstein Properties may have avoided danger due to the cancellation of a meeting on the 88th floor of the North Tower.
There are three possible explanations for the combined good fortune of these individuals on September 11. Maybe it was all due to coincidence. Or, more sinisterly, perhaps some of these individuals had foreknowledge of the attacks and therefore knew of the threat to the WTC. Or maybe they received some kind of forewarning from others who had specific foreknowledge of the danger. While it will be impossible to draw definite conclusions until there is a proper investigation, the accounts of these individuals, described below, make clear why such a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks is needed.
WTC LEASEHOLDER PERSUADED TO GO TO DOCTOR'S APPOINTMENT INSTEAD OF TRADE CENTER
After his company took over the lease of the Twin Towers on July 24, 2001, Larry Silverstein reportedly "spent his days at the towers, meeting and greeting his tenants." [4] According to the New York Times, "Every morning after the deal was finalized, Mr. Silverstein held breakfast meetings at Windows on the World," the restaurant at the top of the North Tower. [5] Those meetings would begin at 8:30 a.m. [6]
All of the approximately 170 people in Windows on the World at the time of the attack on the North Tower--8:46 a.m.--died when the tower subsequently collapsed. [7] Yet September 11 was the one morning when Larry Silverstein was not at the restaurant. Instead, he was at his apartment on New York's Park Avenue. [8] The reason, as the Washington Post described, was that he had "complained of a problem with his skin and the sun. His wife, Klara, demanded that he go to the dermatologist. She even made the appointment, which was scheduled for that morning." Silverstein has recalled that he was "getting dressed to go to the doctor" on 9/11, but complained to his wife: "I have so much to do downtown. This is a horrendous waste of my time. I should be going to work." She retorted, "You're not going to cancel this appointment this morning, you're going to the dermatologist." Silverstein has noted, "When you're married to the same woman for 46 years, you learn early on to say, 'Yes, dear.'" He therefore did not head to the WTC. Referring to these circumstances that saved his life, Silverstein commented, "That morning was the serendipitous quality of life." [9]
LEASEHOLDER'S SON AND DAUGHTER LATE FOR MEETINGS AT WTC
Two of Larry Silverstein's three children, Roger and Lisa, were vice presidents of Silverstein Properties. [10] After the company took over the lease of the WTC, Roger and Lisa Silverstein worked in its temporary offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower and, according to the New York Observer, attended meetings with tenants each morning at Windows on the World. But on the morning of September 11, apparently independently of each other, both of them "were running late." As a result, Roger Silverstein was in the parking garage of WTC Building 7 when the North Tower was hit, and Lisa Silverstein was subsequently turned away from the WTC complex by police further uptown. The New York Observer noted, "If the attack had happened just a little later, [Larry] Silverstein's children would likely have been trapped at Windows" on the World. [11]
LEASEHOLDER'S TOP AIDE ENDS MEETING AT WTC EARLY
An executive with Silverstein Properties who was even more fortunate was Larry Silverstein's top aide, Geoffrey Wharton, who was actually at the 8:30 a.m. meeting at Windows on the World that Silverstein missed. [12] Wharton was meeting with Liz Thompson, the executive director of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, to discuss the council's relationship with Silverstein Properties, and its studio and performance programs. Fortunately, as Thompson has recalled, Wharton "had to cut the meeting a little short." [13] And, according to the Engineering News-Record, he then "decided to escort his guest down to the lobby." [14] Consequently, Wharton and Thompson got on an elevator at 8:44 a.m., just two minutes before Flight 11 hit the tower. Only two other individuals were in that last elevator down from the 107th floor: Michael Nestor and Richard Tierney, both senior officials with the New York Port Authority, who were leaving the restaurant because Nestor had a meeting downstairs to attend. The four of them were the last people to make it out of Windows on the World alive. [15]
LEASEHOLDER'S PUBLICIST AGREES TO JOIN MEETING AT WTC AN HOUR LATE
Another key individual who was fortunate not to be in the World Trade Center when it was hit was publicist Howard Rubenstein, who had represented Larry Silverstein for over 30 years and would subsequently work with the real estate developer on the reconstruction of the WTC. [16]
The day before 9/11, Rubenstein was called by John O'Neill, the former FBI counterterrorism chief, who had recently started work as head of security at the WTC. O'Neill invited Rubenstein to a meeting he was going to be leading, which would be held in the WTC at 8:00 a.m. on September 11. It was to discuss how the building's management was protecting the Twin Towers against terrorism. Rubenstein has recalled that O'Neill told him, "Bring your staff, two people."
Rubenstein agreed to attend the meeting, because "we were then representing the World Trade Center." However, after further thought he called O'Neill back and said, "I have a staff meeting on Tuesday, do you mind if I don't go?" O'Neill told him to send a colleague in his place, but Rubenstein replied, "But that somebody is also at my staff meeting." So O'Neill told Rubenstein to "come at 9 o'clock instead of 8 o'clock."
According to Rubenstein, the morning of September 11 he was in the staff meeting when his secretary ran in and told him, "The World Trade Center just got hit and you were supposed to be there." While Rubenstein and his staff members were safe, "Everyone at that breakfast meeting died, including John O'Neill." [17]
COMPANY MEETING IN WTC ON 9/11 CANCELED THE NIGHT BEFORE
Furthermore, Silverstein Properties had been scheduled to hold a meeting the morning of September 11 in its offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower, reportedly "to discuss what to do in the event of a terrorist attack." According to the New York Times, that meeting was canceled the night of September 10, "because one participant could not attend." [18] Further details of the meeting--such as who was meant to be there, and whether any people managed to stay away from the WTC on 9/11 thanks to its cancellation--are unknown.
As we can see, some notable people connected with the WTC leaseholder, Larry Silverstein, appear to have been particularly lucky on September 11. Under slightly different circumstances they may well have been among the victims of the attacks. While their accounts, described above, do not prove anything sinister, the series of apparent coincidences that kept these individuals away from danger on 9/11 surely need to be examined as part of a new investigation into the attacks.
NOTES
[1] "Silverstein Properties and Westfield Win $3.2B World Trade Center Lease." International Council of Shopping Centers, April 27, 2001; "Governor Pataki, Acting Governor DiFrancesco Laud Historic Port Authority Agreement to Privatize World Trade Center." Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, July 24, 2001.
[2] Simon English, "Magnate's Tower Plan Under Threat." Daily Telegraph, October 10, 2001; Mark Hamblett, "Jurors Deal World Trade Center Leaseholder Major Setback." New York Law Journal, April 30, 2004.
[3] Doug Saunders, Caroline Alphonso, Colin Freeze, Lisa Priest, and Geoffrey York, "Surviving History." Globe and Mail, September 7, 2002.
[4] Lynne Duke, "At Ground Zero, a Tall Order for the Developer." Washington Post, November 20, 2002.
[5] Deborah Sontag, "The Hole in the City's Heart." New York Times, September 11, 2006.
[6] Nadine M. Post, "World Trade Center's Rebuilders Find Opportunity in the Face of Tragedy." Engineering News-Record, September 13, 2004.
[7] "The Last Elevator." Morning Edition, NPR, September 11, 2003.
[8] Robert Kolker, "Who Wants to Move to Ground Zero?" New York Magazine, May 21, 2005.
[9] Lynne Duke, "At Ground Zero, a Tall Order for the Developer."
[10] Mervyn Rothstein, "Downtown Tower Gets a New Look." New York Times, February 3, 1999; Tracie Rozhon, "Developer Daughters, Born to Build." New York Times, March 22, 2001; Doug Saunders, Caroline Alphonso, Colin Freeze, Lisa Priest, and Geoffrey York, "Surviving History."
[11] Tom McGeveran, "Mike Sees City Taking Control at Ground Zero." New York Observer, March 16, 2003; Robert Kolker, "Who Wants to Move to Ground Zero?"
[12] Nadine M. Post, "World Trade Center's Rebuilders Find Opportunity in the Face of Tragedy."
[13] Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz, and Ford Fessenden, "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died." New York Times, May 26, 2002; Creative Downtown: The Role of Culture in Rebuilding Lower Manhattan. New York: New York City Arts Coalition, 2002, p. 9.
[14] Nadine M. Post, "World Trade Center's Rebuilders Find Opportunity in the Face of Tragedy."
[15] Jim Dwyer, Eric Lipton, Kevin Flynn, James Glanz, and Ford Fessenden, "Fighting to Live as the Towers Died"; "The Last Elevator."
[16] Dennis Fitzgerald, "The Bold and the Beautiful." The Deal, June 7, 2004.
[17] Charlie Rose. PBS, July 15, 2004; Aliza Davidovit, "Howard Rubenstein: Best Face Forward." Lifestyles Magazine, Fall 2004.
[18] Andrew Ross Sorkin and Simon Romero, "Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort out Cost of Damages." New York Times, September 12, 2001.
Source
The following are declassified United States Secret Service records obtained on April 23, 2010 via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, describing the activities of President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, families of the president and vice-president, threats against Air Force One and activity within the Presidential Emergency Operations Center on September 11, 2001.
Download the PDF file via the following link:
http://www.mediafire.com/?vydb4nxdmyy
Source
According to a document obtained by the ACLU under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Tuesday March 16, the 9/11 commission was warned on Jan. 6th, 2004 by high-level administration officials to “not cross the line” in the investigation of the events that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001.
The document is available at http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/CIA.pdf
Here’s a copy of the letter in question (page 26 of the PDF document).
Rightist demagogues, as they are wont to do, prattle-on how they, and they alone, can “keep America safe”–by shredding the Constitution.
Waging a decades-long psychological war against the American people, corporatist thugs embedded within the National Security State assure us that secrecy, deceit and imperial adventures that steal other peoples’ resources are the one true path to national prosperity and universal happiness.
But what happens when those charged with protecting us from attack, actually aid and abet those who would kill us, and then handsomely profit from our slaughter in the process?
During a January 27 hearing of the House Committee on Homeland Security, Under Secretary of State for Management, Patrick F. Kennedy, testified that the visa of accused bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, wasn’t revoked at the specific request of secret state agencies.
Kennedy, a Bushist State Department holdover, was the former Director on National Intelligence for Management and headed the transition team that set up the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in 2005 under former Ambassador to Iraq, John D. Negroponte, a veteran of U.S. covert operations since the Vietnam war.
Given the avalanche of media interest, fueled by Fox News and the editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, whether or not the suspect should have been read his Miranda rights, the only coverage of the hearings that reported Kennedy’s explosive testimony, was a brief article in the Detroit News.
Claiming that “revocation action would’ve disclosed what they were doing,” Kennedy said that allowing the alleged terrorist to keep his visa would have “helped” federal investigators take down the entire network “rather than simply knocking out one solider in that effort.”
A “soldier” (indicted criminal) who would have murdered 300 air passengers if the detonator concealed in his underpants hadn’t serendipitously failed to explode the device.
As Alex Lantier wrote February 3 on the World Socialist Web Site, the latest in a series of significant revelations “has been buried by the media.” The socialist critic avers: “As of this writing, nearly a week after the hearing, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times have published no articles on the subject. Nor have the broadcast or cable media reported on it.”
Lantier charges that “despite–or perhaps more accurately, because of–the fact that this information exposes the official government story of the near-disaster to be a lie” the corporate media is fully complicit in the cover-up.
Weeks after the incident, it is now clear that intelligence agencies did far more than simply “watch” a potential terrorist. That they gave Abdulmutallab a leg up, bypassing airline security systems put in place after 9/11 that would have prevented him from boarding that plane, is also crystal clear.
The question is: was a reckless calculation made that gambled the lives of 300 air passengers for ruthless political purposes? If so, was it designed to destabilize the Obama government, thereby binding it ever-closer to a permanent, unelected, security apparatus that feathers its nest by serving the only constituency that matters–giant energy firms, defense-related corporations and those who finance them?
Is this scenario being played out in Washington where Republican right-wingers like Senators Susan Collins (ME), Tom Coburn (OK), John McCain (AZ), John Ensign (NV) and Lindsey Graham (SC), but also neocon Democrats such as Joseph Lieberman (ID-CT), demand that the accused be turned over to the military for “special handling,” thereby ratcheting-up pressure for increased domestic repression?
Just as pertinently, is this what White House insider Richard Wolffe meant when he said on MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann January 4 that the “president is leaning very much towards thinking this was a systemic failure by individuals who maybe had an alternative agenda.” (emphasis added)
For weeks now, the Obama administration and the media have played the same broken record: despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, a multitude of security agencies, ranging from the CIA, the FBI, the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), a satrapy of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security, “failed to connect the dots.”
But as I have documented in previous reports, most recently on January 22, citing multiple domestic and foreign intelligence warnings, including a walk-in interview at the U.S. Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, by the suspect’s own father, a former top official in the Nigerian government, consular officials and CIA officers passed the warning up the food chain–where it sat.
Abdulmutallab on the CIA and NCTC’s Radar
The revelation that various agencies of America’s shadow government made a deliberate decision that allowed Abdulmutallab to board Flight 253 is more extensive than previously disclosed.
Newsweek revealed February 2 that “a single intelligence community database operated by the CIA, known by the code name ‘Hercules’,” held all the “‘bits and pieces’ of intelligence that White House officials believe could have led U.S. authorities to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before last December 25.”
However, even though the agencies had assembled information on the suspect in a single computer system where it was readily accessible to analysts, anonymous “intelligence officials” told journalist Mark Hosenball that “all source” analysts at CIA and NCTC “which both had access to ‘Hercules,’ were unable to assemble the intelligence scraps in time to prevent Abdulmutallab from boarding his Christmas Day flight from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb hidden in his underpants.”
The unnamed officials told Hosenball that the failure to stop the suspect “validates assertions by White House and congressional investigators that the alleged lapses in the handling of intelligence related to Abdulmutallab did not stem from a failure of sometimes turf-conscious spy agencies to share information with each other.”
“Instead,” Newsweek reports, “they point to the intelligence analysis carried out by the CIA and NCTC.”
As I previously reported, citing a January 18 investigation by The New York Times, the National Security Agency “learned from a communications intercept” that a man named “‘Umar Farouk’–the first two names of the jetliner suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab–had volunteered for a coming operation.” Additional NSA intercepts in December “mentioned the date of Dec. 25, and suggested that they were ‘looking for ways to get somebody out’ or ‘for ways to move people to the West,’ one senior administration official said.”
Running for cover, an intelligence official told Newsweek: “The volume of any database doesn’t matter much. That, by itself, doesn’t get you anywhere.” An interesting spin, when one considers the multibillion dollar expansion by NSA, as investigative journalist James Bamford reported last November.
The official continues, “Nor does the mere fact that the NCTC and the CIA have shared access to material. The key is knowing what to look for, how to bring together different bits and scraps of information that–on the surface and in an ocean of data–don’t appear to be connected.” Conversely, knowing which “bits and scraps” to ignore from a parapolitical perspective, may have played an equally critical role in a presumed analytical “lapse.”
“This is hard stuff,” the anonymous source pontificates. “It’s not a case of punching in a couple of search terms, sitting back, and waiting for enlightenment. Once you know the answer, it seems easy. But in real life, you don’t get the answer ahead of time.”
Really?
To the contrary, as with the September 11, 2001 hijack team, the Flight 253 affair seems to indicate that the decision to allow Abdulmutallab to board the plane was a political, not a law enforcement decision that led analysts not to “connect” more than a few of the “dots.”
As we now know, prior to 9/11, the Pentagon’s Able Danger unit had amassed terabytes of data on al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States. According to published reports, the unit had obtained detailed information on ringleader, the drug-addled Mohammed Atta, and other members of the suicide squad. Yet just scant months before the atrocity, the unit was shuttered and the data destroyed.
Corporate media and the 9/11 Commission have advanced two contradictory propositions on Able Danger’s demise: the Pentagon unit hadn’t gathered intelligence on Atta and claims to contrary were overblown or they illegally obtained information on ordinary Americans and were shut down for inadvertent spying.
However as researcher Paul Thompson revealed in The Terror Timeline, Able Danger had identified Americans, only they were the wrong Americans. According to Thompson, the unit pegged “future National Security Adviser and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Defense Secretary William Perry, and other prominent Americans as potential security risks” over their illicit dealings with foreign governments.
How’s that for an inconvenient truth!
As with earlier warnings of impending terrorist strikes, political efficacy trumped the safety and security of the American people. This is underscored by January 20 testimony by NCTC Director, Bushist embed Michael E. Leiter, before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
CongressDaily revealed that Leiter told the senators, “I will tell you, that when people come to the country and they are on the watch list, it is because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”
Journalist Chris Strohm disclosed that intelligence officials “acknowledged the government knowingly allows foreigners whose names are on terrorist watch lists to enter the country in order to track their movement and activities,” a fact now confirmed by Patrick F. Kennedy’s January 27 testimony before the House Committee.
Similar to the Detroit News report on Kennedy’s admission, to date, not a single media outlet picked-up the trail and investigated CongressDaily’s chilling disclosure.
Burying the Evidence, “Moving On”
Corporate media are chock-a-block with reports of efforts by right-wing Republicans and some Democrats to brand the Obama administration as “soft on terrorism.”
As readers are well aware, Antifascist Calling doesn’t carry water for the Obama administration; a government that has rightly been characterized as a slick makeover of the previous regime. However it must be acknowledged, unlike Bushist torture freaks, in Abdulmutallab’s case constitutional norms were followed and a criminal suspect lawfully charged for an egregious act.
In “new normal” America however, not disappearing a suspect into a gulag, subject to tender ministrations by “enhanced interrogation” specialists (torturers) is viewed as a bad thing in our debased political culture.
Meanwhile media stenographers scrupulously ignore, with a single-mindedness one has come to expect from totalitarian regimes, considerable evidence that elements of the intelligence-security apparatus could be charged as accessories before and after the fact with Abdulmutallab’s alleged offense.
In his prepared statement to the House Committee, Kennedy asserted that “following his father’s November 19 visit to the Embassy, we sent a cable to the Washington intelligence and law enforcement community through proper channels (the Visas Viper system) that ‘Information at post suggests [that Farouk] may be involved in Yemeni-based extremists.’ At the same time, the Consular Section entered Abdulmutallab into the Consular Lookout and Support System database known as CLASS.”
When it was discovered that officials in Abuja had misspelled the suspect’s name “information about previous visas issued to him and the fact that he currently held a valid U.S. visa was not included in the cable.”
Despite the misspelling however, “the CLASS entry resulted in a lookout using the correct spelling that was shared automatically with the primary lookout system used by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and accessible to other agencies.”
In other words, even though the initial Embassy cable misspelled Abdulmutallab’s name, the “lookout” notification sent out to intelligence agencies, specifically DHS, should have warranted further action. And it also appears that initially it did.
As both the Los Angeles Times and CongressDaily reported, Customs and Border Protection agents obtained the suspect’s name from the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment or TIDE database, maintained by the NCTC and planned to question Abdulmutallab when Flight 253 landed in Detroit on arrival from Amsterdam.
However, as CongressDaily subsequently revealed, CBP agents “had information about alleged terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab three days before his departure” and not during the flight as the Los Angeles Times report initially suggested.
As we now know, information fed to NCTC’s database contained specific warnings from the State Department–as did the CIA’s “Hercules” system as Newsweek reported, and “that White House officials believe could have led U.S. authorities to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab before last December 25,” according to the newsmagazine’s anonymous sources.
Why did the State Department fail to revoke the accused terrorist’s visa?
When questioned by Committee Chairman Bennie Thompson (D-MS), Kennedy told the panel, “We will revoke the visa of any individual who is a threat to the United States, but we do take one preliminary step.”
Kennedy explained, “We ask our law enforcement and intelligence community partners, ‘Do you have eyes on this person and do you want us to let this person proceed under your surveillance so that you may potentially break a larger plot?’”
The Undersecretary added: “And one of the members [of the intelligence community]–and we’d be glad to give you that [information] … in private [closed session]–said, ‘Please, do not revoke this visa. We have eyes on this person. We are following this person who has the visa for the purpose of trying to roll up an entire network, not just stop one person.’”
In other words, despite multiple sourced reports from American and overseas security agencies that Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) was planning to launch an attack, probably on Christmas Day, deploying an asset identified by NSA intercepts as a “Nigerian” named “Umar Farouk,” high-level intelligence officials, claiming to have “eyes” on the alleged AQAP operative, a suspected suicide bomber to boot, allowed him to board an airliner packed with nearly 300 passengers and crew.
In a prepared statement to the Committee, NCTC Director Leiter said, “Let’s start with this clear assertion: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab should not have stepped on that plane. The counterterrorism system failed and we told the President we are determined to do better.”
However, neither House Committee members, nor the corporate media which suppressed the story entirely, challenged Leiter’s statement of a week earlier when he testified before a Senate panel that intelligence agencies allow watch listed terrorists to enter the country “because we have generally made the choice that we want them here in the country for some reason or another.”
If Leiter’s testimony was taken under oath, he should be brought up on charges of perjury since he next asserted that “Intelligence Community analysts who were working hard on immediate threats to Americans in Yemen did not understand the fragments of intelligence on what turned out later to be Mr. Abdulmutallab, so they did not push him onto the terrorist watchlist.”
This claim, as with practically all the “facts” released to the American people by the White House, Congress or by the secret state agencies themselves, is a rank mendacity.
As Newsweek’s unnamed sources claim, CIA and NCTC analysts did have access to an “intelligence community database,” “Hercules,” and that it held all the available data on Abdulmutallab and “validates assertions by the White House and congressional investigators” that the failure to stop the bomber were not due to bungled efforts “to connect the dots.”
As I reported last month, during a December 22 meeting at the White House, President Obama was briefed by top officials from the CIA, FBI, and Department of Homeland Security “who ticked off a list of possible plots against the United States and how their agencies were working to disrupt them,” as The New York Times disclosed January 18.
Last month, Newsweek reported that “intelligence analysts had ‘highlighted’ an evolving ’strategic threat’,” and that “’some of the improvised explosive device tactics AQAP might use against U.S. interests were highlighted’ in other ‘finished intelligence products’.”
“Finished intelligence products” on an evolving plot to destroy an airliner are hardly “fragments,” as Leiter deceitfully testified to the House Committee. Cheekily, NCTC’s head honcho falsely claimed that his agency, the recipient of billions of dollars in taxpayer largesse, “did not correlate the specific information that would have been required to help keep Abdulmutallab off that Northwest Airlines flight.”
Citing the need to “improve” intelligence capabilities by accelerating “information technology enhancements, to include knowledge discovery, database integration, cross-database searches, and the ability to correlate biographic information with terrorism-related intelligence,” Leiter implies that billions more in handouts to security contractors are needed to “solve” the problem.
This from the Director of an agency that under his watch wasted more than $500 million on its flawed Railhead project to “upgrade” the TIDE database, an initiative “crippled by technical failures and contractor mismanagement,” as the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) and congressional investigators revealed back in 2008.
Contractor hanky-panky aside, the problem is not one of technical “upgrades” to an agency that seems more concerned with facilitating the entrance of terrorists into the country “for some reason or another” than stopping them.
Rather, it is imperative that the American people demand that Congress and the Executive Branch, which in theory, controls the gaggle of alphabet-soup satrapies in cahoots with the most rotten and predatory sectors of the U.S. ruling class, clean house and bring to book, the rightist elements aligned with the petroleum-intelligence nexus who continue to deploy terror gangs such as al-Qaeda as strategic assets.
That they do so regardless of the cost, to the American people and to the victims of illegal U.S. wars and occupations, is a sign that the system, verging on bankruptcy will soon veer even further out of any effective democratic control.
How else can one interpret Director of National Intelligence, Dennis C. Blair’s chilling assertion to the Senate Committee on Intelligence that he was “highly certain” that al-Qaeda “or one of its affiliates” will attempt a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months,” as The New York Times reported.
“We judge that al Qaeda maintains its intent to attack the homeland, preferably with a large-scale operation that would cause mass casualties, harm the U.S. economy or both,” Blair wrote in his annual threat assessment to the Senate Intelligence Committee.
As investigative journalist Russ Baker wrote in his essential book, Family of Secrets, “Authoritarianism thrives in a climate of fear, and the [Bush] administration invoked fear continually. But when it came to security, there was the usual exemption for large corporate entities [and] the tattoo of terror was relentless, especially during the political high season.”
Not much has changed since Barack Obama became president. Many of the same dodgy players who ramped-up production lines at the fear factory for the Bush/Cheney team are still in place, doing what they do best: hitting the corporate “sweet spot” for their clients in the Military-Industrial-Security-Complex.
In the weeks since the attempted destruction of Flight 253, one thing is certain: the White House, Congress, the intelligence agencies and their handmaidens, the corporate media, are participating in a massive cover-up.
And as we enter the “political high season,” what might come next is anyone’s guess.
Tom Burghardt is a researcher and activist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition to publishing in Covert Action Quarterly and Global Research, an independent research and media group of writers, scholars, journalists and activists based in Montreal, his articles can be read on Dissident Voice, The Intelligence Daily and Pacific Free Press. He is the editor of Police State America: U.S. Military "Civil Disturbance" Planning, distributed by AK Press. Read other articles by Tom, or visit Tom's website.
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