TruthgoneWild

Co-Chair of 9/11 Inquiry: American Government Covered Up State Assistance to Hijackers

2011-07-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

It's front page news today that:

Journalists at Rupert Murdoch’s now-shuttered News of the World paper tried to access the mobile phones of 9/11 victims, a former New York City police officer claimed on Monday.

It's also front page news today that the new Secretary of Defense - Leon Panetta - said that American soldiers are in Iraq because of 9/11, even though AFP notes:

That was one of the justifications for the 2003 US-led invasion, but the argument has since been widely dismissed.

(see this for details).

But a more important story - and one which might focus on a more appropriate country
than Iraq - is that the co-chair of the Congressional Joint 9/11 Inquiry (Bob Graham) today alleged a cover up by the U.S. government of state assistance by Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 hijackers.

Graham is no flake. He was a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence for 10 years (including 18 months as chairman), member of the CIA External Advisory Board, chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, 18-year U.S. senator, two-term governor of Florida, co-chair of the national commission on the BP oil spill, and member of the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission.

Graham writes today in the Daily Beast:

The first two hijackers who entered the United States did so through Los Angeles International Airport in mid-January 2000. Within days they were urged by a shadowy man, already described in an FBI report as an “agent” of the Saudi government, to relocate to San Diego with promises of extensive support—promises on which he promptly delivered.

The agent’s cover was as a ghost employee of a contractor to an agency of the Saudi government—paid a salary and allowances but never expected to show up and work. His real job was to monitor Saudi youth in San Diego getting an education to ensure they were not also plotting the overthrow of the monarchy.

When the two future hijackers reached San Diego, the agent’s allowances were substantially increased. Upon their arrival the agent secured and paid for an apartment. He arranged flight lessons. He introduced them to a tight circle of Muslims, primarily Saudis, who offered additional support.

Yet the support being funneled to the two visitors proved insufficient for their decidedly non-Islamic tastes—alcohol, strip clubs, even a desired, though unfulfilled, marriage to a stripper. The agent then tapped another source of funds: a welfare account maintained for the benefit of Saudis in need by the wife of the kingdom’s ambassador to the United States.

That is some of what we do know, and we got a sufficient glimpse to know what we didn’t know. Still unanswered after nearly 10 years are the questions of the full extent of the Saudi pre-9/11 involvement: Did any or all of the other 17 receive support from Saudi interests? Why would Saudi Arabia do this? Do the Saudis have the will and capability to aid future attacks against the United States? And most important: Why the cover-up by our government?

I have attempted to address these questions in the final report of the congressional commission and the nonfiction book Intelligence Matters, published in 2004. Each was censored by authorities in the intelligence community, particularly on the role of the Saudis in 9/11.

***

Why would the Saudis have given substantial assistance to at least two of the hijackers, and possibly all 19? The answer I have come to is survival—survival of the state and survival of the House of Saud.

This is stunning. Graham is saying - and actually has said for years - that the Saudis were involved in 9/11, but the U.S. government has been censoring this fact.

But it doesn't end there.

As I noted last year:

Investigators for the Congressional [9/11] Joint Inquiry discovered that an FBI informant had hosted and even rented a room to two hijackers in 2000 and that, when the Inquiry sought to interview the informant, the FBI refused outright, and then hid him in an unknown location, and that a high-level FBI official stated these blocking maneuvers were undertaken under orders from the White House.

As the New York Times notes:
Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence...

* * *

The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.

In his book "Intelligence Matters," Mr. Graham, the co-chairman of the Congressional inquiry with Representative Porter J. Goss, Republican of Florida, said an F.B.I. official wrote them in November 2002 and said "the administration would not sanction a staff interview with the source.'' On Tuesday, Mr. Graham called the letter "a smoking gun" and said, "The reason for this cover-up goes right to the White House."

And see this Newsweek article.

The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission also described numerous obstructions of justice by the government into the 9/11 inquiry.

As I also pointed out last year, Graham - as well as the co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission - found that witnesses were also intimidated into being quiet:

As I detailed previously, both the Joint Intelligence Committee and 9/11 Commission investigations into 9/11 had government "minders" intimidating witnesses into not saying anything the government didn't like.

You may assume that the issue of "minders" is overblown, and is not really that important.

But, as the New York Times noted in 2003:
The panel [i.e. the 9/11 Commission] also said the failure of the Bush administration to allow officials to be interviewed without the presence of government colleagues could impede its investigation, with the commission's chairman suggesting today that the situation amounted to "intimidation" of the witnesses.

***

9/11 Commission co-chairs] Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton suggested that the Justice Department was behind a directive barring intelligence officials from being interviewed by the panel without the presence of agency colleagues.

At a news conference, Mr. Kean described the presence of "minders" at the interviews as a form of intimidation. "I think the commission feels unanimously that it's some intimidation to have somebody sitting behind you all the time who you either work for or works for your agency," he said. "You might get less testimony than you would."

"We would rather interview these people without minders or without agency people there," he said.

And as I previously noted, a recently released 9/11 Commission memo complains that:
Minders “answer[ed] questions directed at witnesses;”

Minders acted as “monitors, reporting to their respective agencies on Commission staffs lines of inquiry and witnesses’ verbatim responses.” The staff thought this “conveys to witnesses that their superiors will review their statements and may engage in retribution;” and

Minders “positioned themselves physically and have conducted themselves in a manner that we believe intimidates witnesses from giving full and candid responses to our questions.”

Still think this isn't an important issue?

Senator Bob Graham, former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and chair of the Joint Inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees into 9/11, said in 2005:
The [9/11] commission's findings were based on an interview with al-Bayoumi in Saudi Arabia with Saudi Arabian officials present. "He had no motivation to speak truthfully as to his role," he said.

When government officials are present, it creates conditions where the witness "has no motivation to speak truthfully."

Bottom Line: The co-chairs of the 9/11 Commission, Tom Keane and Lee Hamilton, and chair of the the Joint Inquiry of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees into 9/11, Bob Graham, said that minders obstructed the investigation into 9/11.

In his Daily Beast article today, Graham also goes into more detail regarding the American cover up of 9/11:

The most perplexing unanswered question remains: Why would the United States engage in a cover-up? Many have pointed to the special personal friendship between the royal family and the highest levels of our national government. The fact that the Saudis were allowed to fly a planeload of their elite home from the United States in the days immediately after 9/11, when all other commercial aviation was grounded, is often cited as support for that position. In fact, all that actions such as this do is make America’s post-9/11 reaction to the Saudis even more mysterious.

Secrets deemed this critical by both governments are bound to be buried under many layers of official protection and unofficial obfuscation. The actions since 9/11 are a perverted application of Winston Churchill’s truism on the Allies’ plans to end World War II: “In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”

How far has the American cover up gone?

Here are some hints:

The 9/11 Commission's co-chairs said that the 9/11 Commissioners knew that military officials misrepresented the facts to the Commission, and the Commission considered recommending criminal charges for such false statements (free subscription required)

9/11 Commission co-chair Lee Hamilton says "I don't believe for a minute we got everything right", that the Commission was set up to fail, that people should keep asking questions about 9/11, and that the 9/11 debate should continue
9/11 Commissioner Timothy Roemer said "We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting"

9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned from the Commission, stating: "It is a national scandal"; "This investigation is now compromised"; and "One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up"

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey said that "There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version... We didn't have access...." He also says that it might take "a permanent 9/11 commission" to end the remaining mysteries of September 11.

And the Senior Counsel to the 9/11 Commission (John Farmer) - who led the 9/11 staff's inquiry - recently said "At some level of the government, at some point in time...there was an agreement not to tell the truth about what happened". He also said "I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described .... The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years.... This is not spin. This is not true." And he said: "It's almost a culture of concealment, for lack of a better word. There were interviews made at the FAA's New York center the night of 9/11 and those tapes were destroyed. The CIA tapes of the interrogations were destroyed. The story of 9/11 itself, to put it mildly, was distorted and was completely different from the way things happened"

A 27-year CIA veteran, who chaired National Intelligence Estimates and personally delivered intelligence briefings to Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, their Vice Presidents, Secretaries of State, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and many other senior government officials (Raymond McGovern) said “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 Report is a joke”

The Division Chief of the CIA’s Office of Soviet Affairs, who served as Senior Analyst from 1966 - 1990. He also served as Professor of International Security at the National War College from 1986 - 2004 (Melvin Goodman) said "The final [9/11 Commission] report is ultimately a coverup"

The Group Director on matters of national security in the U.S. Government Accountability Office said that President Bush did not respond to unprecedented warnings of the 9/11 disaster and conducted a massive cover-up instead of accepting responsibility

The former director of the FBI (Louis Freeh) says there was a cover up by the 9/11 Commission

Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says that the government has ordered the media not to cover 9/11

Other than that, the American government has been totally forthcoming .)

Note: This essay does not address one way or another whether any countries other than Saudi Arabia might have been involved in the 9/11 attacks themselves.

Update: Graham appeared on MSNBC and talked about this issue:

Source

9/11 families demand to reopen case

2011-07-26T13:49:00.000-07:00

Those who lost loved ones during terrorist attacks at New York’s World Trade Center are asking the US Attorney’s office to reopen a case related to September 11.

The 9/11 Parents and Families of Firefighters & WTC Victims, along with the Skyscraper Safety Campaign, is demanding that all evidence from a Ground Zero high-rise that was damaged as a result of the terrorist attacks be reviewed again in full, citing a lack of accountability in the death of two firefighters.

The former Deutsche Bank building in lower Manhattan was damaged during the 9/11 attacks but remained standing in part for years after. A 2007 blaze in the building, however, left two firefighters dead and activists are saying questions are being left unanswered about the incident.

According to a statement issued by the two groups, numerous violations in the building were never reported. A construction contractor and two supervisors were acquitted of manslaughter, among other charges, in what led to the two 2007 deaths.

The Deutsche Bank skyscraper was opened in 1974 and was damaged by the debris that blew through New York following the collapse of the Twin Towers. A 2005 investigation of the 41 story of ruins that once housed the financial institute revealed human remains on the roof. An investigation then opened up to analyze the rest of the building for missing persons. Deconstruction finally began in March of 2007, but a seven-alarm fire that summer caused by crews working on the dismantling of the structure led to the death of two city workers.

Joseph Graffagnino, 33, and Robert Beddia, 53, died from smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide poisoning on the fourteenth floor of the building on August 18, 2007. An additional 115 firefighters were also injured responding to the blaze.

Source

Why the NIST WTC 7 Report is False

2011-07-26T13:39:00.000-07:00

Few people seem to know why the official report for World Trade Center building 7 is false and unscientific. Some might have heard that the National Institute of Standards and Technology (or NIST) has admitted that the building fell in free-fall acceleration for a period of time. But the fact is that the building could never have begun to fall the way NIST said it did. Here’s why.

Source

Tom Sullivan - Explosives Loader AE911Truth's EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW

2011-03-24T13:09:00.000-07:00

AE911Truth's EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW!
Tom Sullivan - Former Explosives Loader for Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI)

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"

Source

Black 9/11: A Walk on the Dark Side (Part 2)

2011-03-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

Second in a series
by Mark H. Gaffney
March 2, 2011

This paper will review the evidence for informed, or insider, trading in the days and hours before the 9/11 attacks. From the very first, the phenomenon appeared to be world-wide. One consultant, Jonathan Winer, told ABC: “it’s absolutely unprecedented to see cases of insider trading covering the entire world from Japan to the US to North America to Europe.”[1] The list of affected nations was long, and included the US, Germany, Japan, France Luxembourg, Hong Kong, the UK, Switzerland and Spain.[2] Soon, independent investigations were underway on three continents in the belief that the paper trail would lead to the terrorists.

Press statements by leading figures in the international banking community left little doubt that the evidence was compelling. Ernst Welteke, President of the German Deutsche Bundesbank, told reporters that “a preliminary review by German regulators and bank researchers showed there were highly suspicious sales of shares in airlines and insurance companies, along with major trades in gold and oil markets, before September 11 that suggest….advance knowledge of the attacks. Welteke said that his researchers came across….almost irrefutable proof of insider trading.” Welteke was blunt: “What we found makes us sure that people connected to the terrorists must have been trying to profit from this tragedy.”[3]

In the U.K., London City regulators investigated a flurry of suspicious sales processed just before the attack.[4] “The Financial Services Authority (FSA), a stock market watchdog, was drawn into the investigation because it had a transaction monitoring department that checks suspicious share movements.” An FSA spokesperson confirmed that market regulators in Germany, Japan and the U.S. had received information about short selling of insurance company shares and airline stocks, which fell sharply as a result of the attacks. Among the WTC tenants were dozens of banks and insurance companies, including several that were now going to have to pay out billions to cover heavy losses from the attacks.[5]

Assuming nefarious individuals were armed with foreknowledge, they stood to make a windfall by dumping stock and selling competitors short, not to mention the vast potential profits from last-minute electronic money laundering via computers which, the perpetrators had to know, would be destroyed within hours. Richard Crossley, a London analyst, stated that he had tracked suspicious short selling and share dumping in a swath of stocks. CBS likewise reported a sharp upsurge in purchases of put options on both United and American Airlines.[6] The uptick had occurred in the days prior to 9/11. A put option is a contract that allows the holder to sell a stock at a specified price, within a certain time period. Sources on Wall Street told CBS that before 9/11 they had never seen that kind of trading imbalance. The only airlines affected were United and American, the two involved in the attack. American Airlines stock reportedly fell 39% in a single day. United Airlines stock dropped even more, by a whopping 44%.

Although many stocks tumbled, there were also big winners, especially in the military sector. Contractors like L-3 Communications, Allied Techsystems and Northrop Grumman all reported large gains.[7] The biggest winner, though, was Raytheon, which manufactures Tomahawk missiles. During the week following the 9/11 attacks, Raytheon stock climbed by an astounding 37%.[8] Prior to 9/11, the purchase of call options (a contract to buy a stock at a certain price) for Raytheon had suspiciously surged by 600%.

The sale of five-year U.S. Treasury Notes also spiked just before 9/11, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.[9] Among the purchases was a single $5 billion transaction, which pointed to large investors. The Journal explained that “Treasury notes are among the best investments in the event of a world crisis, especially one that hits the US. The notes are prized for their safety and their backing by the U.S. government, and usually rally when investors flee riskier investments, such as stocks.” Michael Shamosh, a bond-market strategist for Tucker Anthony Inc., told the Journal: “If they were going to do something like this they would do it in the five-year part of the market. [Because] It’s extremely liquid, and the tracks would be hard to spot.” The article added that “The value of these notes has risen sharply since the events of September 11.”

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) launched its own probe into allegations of insider trading. For weeks, the SEC remained close-mouthed about the scope of its investigation, then, in mid-October, sent out a request to securities firms around the world for more information regarding a list of 38 different stocks.[10] SEC Chairman Harvey Pitt told the House Financial Services Committee that “We will do everything in our power to track those people down and bring them to justice.”[11] By this time, however, the fix was in.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the SEC took the unprecedented step of deputizing “hundreds, if not thousands, of key players in the private sector.”[12] Wrote the Chronicle: “In a two-page statement issued to ‘all securities-related entities’ nationwide, the SEC asked companies to designate senior personnel who appreciate ‘the sensitive nature’ of the case and can be relied upon to ‘exercise appropriate discretion’ as ‘point’ people linking government investigators and the industry.” The requested information was to be held in strictest confidence. The SEC statement included the following passage (emphasis added): “We ask that you disseminate the information within your institution only on a need-to-know basis.”

In his book “Crossing the Rubicon”, former LAPD detective Mike Ruppert explains the SEC’s unprecedented move to deputize:

What happens when you deputize someone in a national security or criminal investigation is that you make it illegal for them to disclose publicly what they know…. In effect, they become government agents and are controlled by government regulations rather than their own conscience. In fact, they can be thrown in jail without a hearing if they talk publicly. I have seen this implied threat time and again with federal investigations, intelligence agents, and even members of the United States Congress who are bound so tightly by secrecy oaths and agreements that they are not even able to disclose criminal activities inside the government for fear of incarceration.[13]

Notice, this surely means that Al Qaeda had nothing to do with the insider trading.[14] When the evidentiary trail led back to Wall Street, the SEC moved quickly to control the evidence and muzzle potential witnesses. Despite the best efforts of the SEC, a few details did leak to the world press. In mid-October 2001, The Independent (UK) reported that, “To the embarrassment of investigators, it has….emerged that the firm used to buy many of the ‘put’ options (where a trader, in effect, bets on a share price fall) on United Airlines stock was headed until 1998 by Alvin ‘Buzzy’ Krongard, now executive director of the CIA.”[15] The evidence was all the more incriminating, because in at least one case the purchaser failed to collect a reported $2.5 million in profits made from the collapsing share price of UAL stock. The only plausible explanation was that someone at the purchasing bank feared exposure and subsequent arrest.

For the most part, the U.S. press failed to pick up the story, which clearly linked Wall Street and the U.S. intelligence community to the 9/11 attacks. Indeed, the New York Times cooperated with the cover-up.[16] George Tenet writes in his memoirs that he recruited Buzzy Krongard in 1998 to become his deputy at CIA, probably to serve as Tenet’s personal liaison to Wall Street.[17] Until 1997, Krongard was chairman of Alex Brown Inc., America’s oldest investment banking firm. Alex Brown was acquired by Bankers Trust in 1997, which, in turn, was purchased by Deutsche Bank in 1999. In the mid-1990s, Krongard had served as a consultant to CIA director James Woolsey.

In 1998, Banker’s Trust-Alex Brown refused to cooperate with a Senate subcommittee which, at the time, was conducting hearings on the involvement of U.S. banks in money laundering activities.[18] At the time, Banker’s Trust, like other large U.S. banks, was in the business of private banking. This means that Banker’s Trust catered to unnamed wealthy clients for the purpose of setting up shell companies in foreign jurisdictions, such as on the Isle of Jersey, where effective bank regulation and oversight are nonexistent. According to Ruppert, Krongard’s last job at Alex Brown was to oversee “private client relations.”[19] This means that Krongard personally arranged confidential transactions and transfers for the bank’s unnamed wealthy clientele.

Private banks typically offer a range of services to their clients for the purpose of shielding them from oversight. Private banks set up multiple offshore accounts in multiple locations under multiple names. They also facilitate the quick, confidential and hard-to-trace transfer of money across jurisdictional boundaries. In many such cases, the private banks do not even know who owns the account; which, of course, means that not even the bankers can follow the transactions with “due diligence.” Many private banks do not even try, for fear of scaring away business, especially from foreign clients. Even though private bankers are responsible for enforcing legal controls against money laundering, where such laws exist, in practice, oversight is typically weak or nonexistent. I was shocked to learn that although it is illegal for U.S. banks to launder ill-gotten money that originates within the United States, it is not illegal for them to accept dirty money from elsewhere. No surprise then, that many U.S. banks openly solicit business from Central American drug lords, arms merchants, and other shady entities.

For these reasons, it is little wonder that over the last several decades, law enforcement has failed to stem the growing international flood of laundered drug money and other illicit assets. Their failure has been spectacular. In 1999, a consensus of experts in Germany, Switzerland and at the U.S. Treasury agreed that 99.9% of laundered money routinely escapes detection. The experts estimated that the annual total was between $500 billion and a trillion dollars, a mind-boggling number, about half of which is washed into the U.S. economy, the rest into Europe.[20]

After “Buzzy” Krongard’s departure to the CIA, his successor at Alex Brown was his former deputy Mayo Shattuck III, who had worked at the bank for many years. In 1997, Shattuck helped Krongard engineer the merger with Banker’s Trust, and he stayed on after Deutsche Bank acquired Bankers Trust – Alex Brown in 1999.[21]

According to the New York Times, Bankers Trust was “one of the most loosely managed [banks] on Wall Street,” and during the 1990s was repeatedly rocked by scandal. In 1994, clients and regulators accused the bank “of misleading customers about its risky derivative products.” The case went viral when tape recordings were made public that showed bank salesmen snickering about ripping off naive customers. In 1999, Banker’s Trust pled guilty to criminal conspiracy charges, after it was revealed that top-level executives had created a slush fund out of at least $20 million in unclaimed funds.[22] Bankers Trust had to pay a $63 million fine and would have been forced to close it doors but for the fact it was acquired, just at this time, by Deutsche Bank, Europe’s largest bank.

According to the New York Times, Mayo Shattuck III “was made co-head of investment banking in January [2001], overseeing Deutsche Bank’s 400 brokers who cater to wealthy clients.”[23] It is curious that Shattuck resigned immediately after the 9/11 attacks.

In a footnote buried on page 499, the 9/11 Commission Report alludes to Mayo Shattuck III’s likely role in purchasing the United Airlines put options just prior to 9/11. The note fails to mention Shattuck and Deutsche Bank by name, but attempts to explain away the charges of insider trading, as follows:

A single US-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95% of the UAL puts on September 6 [2001] as part of a strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading on September 10 was traced to a specific US-based options trading newsletter….which recommended these trades.[24]

Evidently, we are supposed to conclude that “American” means American Airlines. But here it could just as easily refer to American Express. If Deutsche Bank’s pre-9/11 trading was truly hedged, as the 9/11 Commission Report contends in the footnote, then it would not meet the definition of informed or insider trading. However, without more information, it is not possible to confirm or refute the facts in this particular case. Still, the commission’s token explanation is not convincing. Two statistical studies since published reported an unusual volume in options trading for both United and American airlines in the days before 9/11. The author of the first study wrote that the results are “consistent with investors trading on advance knowledge of the attacks.”[25] The second paper, by the Swiss Banking Institute, reached the same conclusion.[26] A third study looked at the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (SPX index options) and found “abnormal trading volumes in September 2001 OTM, ATM and ITM SPX index put options, and September 2001 ITM SPX index call options.” The authors concluded that there is “credible circumstantial evidence to support the insider trading claim.”[27]

Notice also, the commission makes no mention in its footnote of the 36 other companies identified by the SEC in its insider trading probe. What about the pre-9/11 surge in call options for Raytheon, for instance, or the spike in put options for the behemoth Morgan Stanley, which had offices in WTC 2? The 9/11 Commission Report offers not one word of explanation about any of this. The truth, we must conclude, is to be found between the lines in the report’s conspicuous avoidance of the lion’s share of the insider trading issue. Indeed, if the trading was truly “innocuous,” as the report states, then why did the SEC muzzle potential whistleblowers by deputizing everyone involved with its investigation? The likely answer is that so many players on Wall Street were involved that the SEC could not risk an open process, for fear of exposing the unthinkable. This would explain why the SEC limited the flow of information to those with a “need to know,” which, of course, means that very few participants in the SEC investigation had the full picture. It would also explain why the SEC ultimately named no names. All of which hints at the true and frightening extent of criminal activity on Wall Street in the days and hours before 9/11. The SEC was like a surgeon who opens a patient on the operating room table to remove a tumor, only to sew him back up again after finding that the cancer has metastasized through the system.

At an early stage of its investigation, perhaps before SEC officials were fully aware of the implications, the SEC did recommend that the FBI investigate two suspicious transactions. We know about this thanks to a 9/11 Commission memorandum declassified in May 2009 which summarizes an August 2003 meeting at which FBI agents briefed the commission on the insider trading issue. The document indicates that the SEC passed the information about the suspicious trading to the FBI on September 21, 2001, just ten days after the 9/11 attacks.[28]

Although the names in both cases are censored from the declassified document, thanks to some nice detective work by Kevin Ryan we know whom (in one case) the SEC was referring to.[29] The identity of the suspicious trader is a stunner that should have become prime-time news on every network, world-wide. Kevin Ryan was able to fill in the blanks because, fortunately, the censor left enough details in the document to identify the suspicious party who, as it turns out, was none other than Wirt Walker III, a distant cousin to then-President G.W. Bush. Several days before 9/11, Walker and his wife Sally purchased 56,000 shares of stock in Stratesec, one of the companies that provided security at the World Trade Center up until the day of the attacks. Notably, Stratesec also provided security at Dulles International Airport, where AA 77 took off on 9/11, and also security for United Airlines, which owned two of the other three allegedly hijacked aircraft. At the time, Walker was a director of Stratesec. Amazingly, Bush’s brother Marvin was also on the board. Walker’s investment paid off handsomely, gaining $50,000 in value in a matter of a few days. Given the links to the World Trade Center and the Bush family, the SEC lead should have sparked an intensive FBI investigation. Yet, incredibly, in a mind-boggling example of criminal malfeasance, the FBI concluded that because Walker and his wife had “no ties to terrorism … there was no reason to pursue the investigation.” The FBI did not conduct a single interview.

The 9/11 Commission Report also fails to mention the other compelling evidence for insider trading that I have not yet discussed, namely, the approximately 400 computer hard drives found by workmen in the ruins of the WTC. According to Reuters and CNN, in the period after 9/11, U.S. credit card, telecommunications and accounting firms hired a German company named Convar to recoup data from the damaged hard drives.[30] Convar got the contract because, two years before, it had developed a proprietary method for recovering data using a cutting edge laser scanning technology. Peter Wagner, a Convar spokesman, told CNN that the new laser process makes it “possible to read the individual drive surfaces and then create a virtual drive.” As of December 2001, Convar had examined 39 hard drives and in most cases succeeded in recovering 100% of the data. The company was specifically searching for encryption keys, indicating a financial record. Convar found evidence stored on the drives of “an unexplained surge in transactions prior to the attacks.” Convar director Peter Henschel told CNN that “unusually large sums of money, perhaps more than $100 million, were rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded. Said Henschel: “The suspicion is that insider information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorizations in the belief that amidst all the chaos the criminals would have a good head start…..Of course it’s possible that Americans went on an absolute shopping binge, that Tuesday morning. But at this point there are many transactions that cannot be accounted for.” After the initial story by CNN and Reuters, the issue of the WTC hard drives disappeared from the news, and nothing has been heard since. Although reports on the Internet that Kroll purchased Convar remain unsubstantiated, it is nonetheless clear that someone made the story (and the evidence) go away.[31] But what reason would they possibly have for doing so? Unless the initial indications from Convar that insider trading had occurred were correct.

The above CNN quote by Peter Henschel that “unusually large sums of money, perhaps more than $100 million, were rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded,” was later confirmed in truly chilling fashion by a Deutsche Bank New York branch employee who survived the attacks. The whistleblower, who insists on remaining anonymous for his own protection, told Mike Ruppert that “about five minutes before the attack the entire Deutsche Bank computer system had been taken over by something external that no one in the office recognized, and every file was downloaded at lightning speed to an unknown location” (emphasis added).[32] Here, the important phrase is “five minutes before the attack.” Chilling indeed.

To be continued…

Notes

[1] World News Tonight, 20 September 2001.

[2] Dave Eberhart, “Still Silence From 9-11 Stock Speculation Probe”, NewsMax, June 3, 2002, http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/2/62018.shtml

[3] William Drozdiak, “‘Insider trading’ by terrorists is suspected in Europe”, Miami Herald, September 24, 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/20011109160700/www.miami.com/herald/special/news/worldtrade/digdocs/099922.htm

[4] James Doran, “Insider Trading Apparently Based on Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks,” London Times, September 18, 2001. Archived at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/londontimes_insidertrading.html

[5] Christian Berthelsen, Scott Winokur, “Suspicious profits sit uncollected,” San Francisco Chronicle, September 29, 2001. Archived at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/09/29/MN186128.DTL

[6] “Profiting from Disaster,” CBS Evening News, September 19, 2001. Archived at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/19/eveningnews/main311834.shtml

[7] Michelle Ciarrocca, “Post-9/11 Economic Windfalls for Arms Manufacturers,” Foreign Policy in Focus, September 2002. Posted at http://old.911digitalarchive.org/objects/50.pdf

[8] Bank of America among 38 stocks in SEC’s attack probe,” Bloomberg News, October 3, 2001. Archived at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/bloombberg_BAamong38.html

[9] Cited by Barry Grey, “Suspicious trading points to advance knowledge by big investors of September 11 attacks,” World Socialist Web Site, October 5, 2001. Posted at http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/oct2001/bond-o05.shtml

[10] Bloomberg News, October 3, 2001. The list included stocks of American, United, Continental, Northwest, Southwest and US Airways airlines, as well as Martin, Boeing, Lockheed Martin Corp., AIG, American Express Corp, American International Group, AMR Corporation, Axa SA, Bank of America Corp, Bank of New York Corp, Bank One Corp, Cigna Group, CNA Financial, Carnival Corp, Chubb Group, John Hancock Financial Services, Hercules Inc, L-3 Communications Holdings, Inc., LTV Corporation, Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc., MetLife, Progressive Corp., General Motors, Raytheon, W.R. Grace, Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., Lone Star Technologies, American Express, the Citigroup Inc. ,Royal & Sun Alliance, Lehman Brothers Holdings, Inc., Vornado Reality Trust, Morgan Stanley, Dean Witter & Co., XL Capital Ltd., and Bear Stearns.

[11] Erin E. Arvedlund, “Follow The Money: Terrorist Conspirators Could Have Profited More From Fall Of Entire Market Than Single Stocks,” Barron’s (Dow Jones and Company), 6 October 2001.

[12] Scott Winokur, “SEC wants data-sharing system,” San Francisco Chronicle, October 19, 2001. Posted at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/10/19/BU142745.DTL

[13] Michael Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon,(New Society Publishers, 2004), p. 243.

[14] Bloomberg reportedly acknowledged the fact in a September 2003 newswire. Although the wire has since disappeared from the Internet, the text is archived at http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/ar/t1699.htm

[15] Chris Blackhurst, “Mystery of terror ‘insider dealers’,” The Independent, October 14, 2001, posted at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/mystery-of-terror-insider-dealers-631325.html

[16] “Whether advance knowledge of U.S. attacks was used for profit,” New York Times, October 1, 2001. Archived at http://www.hinduonnet.com/2001/10/01/stories/06010006.htm

[17] George Tenet, At the Center of the Storm, Harper Collins, New York, 2007, p. 19.

[18] Hearings before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 106th Congress, November 9 and 10, 1999, p.879. Posted at http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_senate_hearings&docid=f:61699.pdf

[19] http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_09_01_krongard.html

[20] Raymond W. Baker, “The Biggest Loophole in the Free Market System,” The Washington Quarterly, Autumn 1999, p. 29. Posted at (see p. 1061) http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=106_senate_hearings&docid=f:61699.pdf

[21] “Chief Steps Down At Alex Brown,” New York Times, September 15, 2001.

[22] Timothy L. O’Brien, “The Deep Slush at Bankers Trust,” The New York Times, May 30, 1999. Posted at http://www.nytimes.com/1999/05/30/business/the-deep-slush-at-bankers-trust.html?src=pm

[23] “Chief Steps Down At Alex Brown,” New York Times, September 15, 2001.

[24] 9/11 Commission Report, W.W. Norton, 2004, p. 499.

[25] Allen M. Poteshman, “Unusual Option Market Activity and the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” The Journal of Business, 2006, vol. 79, no. 4, http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/503645

[26] Marc Chesney, et al, “Detecting Informed Trading Activities in the Options Markets,” Social Sciences Research Network, 13 January 2010, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1522157

[27] Wing-Keung Wong, et al, “Was there Abnormal Trading in the S&P 500 Index Options Prior to the September 11 Attacks?,” Social Sciences Research Network, April 2010, http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1588523

[28] 9/11 Commission memorandum entitled “FBI Briefing on Trading”, prepared by Doug Greenburg, 18 August 2003, p. 4-5. Posted at http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00269.pdf

[29] Kevin Ryan, “Evidence for Informed Trading on the Attacks of September 11,” Foreign Policy Journal, November 18, 2010. Posted at http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2010/11/18/evidence-for-informed-trading-on-the-attacks-of-september-11/all/1/

[30] “German firm probes final World Trade Center deals,” Reuters, December 17, 2001. Posted at http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/dec/17wtc.htm

Rick Perera, “Computer disk drives from WTC could yield clues,” CNN, December 20, 2001. Posted at http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/12/20/wtc.harddrives.idg/

[31] Michael Fury, “The Ghost in the Machines: Evidence of Foreknowledge in the WTC Hard Drive Recoveries,” Journal of 9/11 Studies, December 2008. Posted at http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/GhostWTC.pdf

[32] Crossing the Rubicon, p. 244.

Source

Black 9/11: A Walk on the Dark Side (Part 1)

2011-03-05T16:25:00.000-08:00

First in a series
by Mark H. Gaffney
February 11, 2011

In his important 2006 book, Nemesis, the Last Days of the American Republic, the third and concluding part of a trilogy, the late Chalmers Johnson, who was an expert on Japan and US foreign policy, writes that as much as 40% of the Pentagon budget is “black,” meaning hidden from public scrutiny.[1] If the figure is even approximately correct, and I believe it is, the number is alarming because it suggests that democratic oversight of US military research and development has broken down. In which case our democratic values and way of life are presently at risk; not from without, as there is no foreign enemy that can destroy the US Constitution, but from within.

I would argue that Chalmers Johnson’s estimate was corroborated on September 10, 2001, on the eve of the worst terrorist attack in US history, when Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged during a press conference that the Department of Defense (DoD) could not account for $2.3 trillion of the massive Pentagon budget, a number so large as to be incomprehensible.[2] Any remaining hope that the US military might still get its budgetary house in order were dashed at 9:38 am the next morning, when the west wing of the Pentagon exploded in flames and smoke, the target of a terrorist strike. Incredibly, the exact point of impact was the DoD’s accounting offices on the first floor. The surgical destruction of its records and staff, nearly all of whom died in the attack, raises important questions about who benefited from 9/11. Given the Pentagon’s vast size, the statistical odds against this being a coincidence prompted skeptics of the official story to read a dark design into the attack. As Deep Throat said: “Follow the money.”

Was the Pentagon accounting office destroyed because diabolical individuals planned it that way? No question, the west wing presented a much more challenging target than the east wing. Targeting the west wing required a difficult approach over the Arlington skyline. The final approach was especially dicey and amounted to a downhill obstacle course, skirting apartments and a large building complex about a quarter-mile from the Pentagon known as the Naval Annex; which sits atop a hill that rises from the flat ground along the Potomac River. In April 2008, I interviewed Army Brigadier General Clyde Vaughn, a credible witness to the events of that morning. Vaughn explained over the telephone that on 9/11 he was on his way to work at the Pentagon via Shirley Highway (I-395) when the strike occurred. The general told me the hijacked aircraft (presumably AA 77) just missed the Naval Annex and would have hit the US Air Force memorial that presently occupies the site, had the 270 feet-tall monument existed on 9/11.[3] The new memorial was constructed in 2006 and dedicated the same year.

Why did the terrorists not take the easy approach up the Potomac River? The river approach would have afforded a reasonably good chance to crash the offices of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which were located on the opposite side of the building, in the middle of the outer “E” ring. The location of their offices was no secret. Surely terrorists would have been more interested in decapitating the command structure of the US war machine than going after a bunch of accounting clerks.

That morning, there were other striking anomalies. The crash of AA 11 into the North Tower at 8:46 am should also have raised red flags, because the point of impact at the 95th and 96th floors was too remarkable to be happenstance. Both floors were occupied by Marsh & McLennan, one of the world’s largest insurance brokerages, with family ties to the private intelligence firm, Kroll Associates, which held the security contract at the World Trade Center. Indeed, the network of corporate ties is so entangled that were I to trace all of the links, they would easily fill a book. Here, I will sketch out only the most salient connections.

The CEO of Marsh & McLennan on 9/11 was Jeffry Greenberg, son of Maurice “Hank” Greenberg, owner of AIG, the world’s largest insurance conglomerate (or second largest, depending on the source). Greenberg’s other son, Evan, was CEO of Ace Limited, another large insurance company. Maurice Greenberg had been a director of the New York Federal Reserve Bank for many years, and in 1994-95 served as its chairman. Greenberg was also vice-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), which in 1996 published his report, “Making Intelligence Smarter: The future of U.S. Intelligence”; as a result of which, Senator Arlen Specter floated Greenberg’s name as a candidate for the directorship of the CIA.[4] Although George Tenet eventually got the job, the mere fact that Greenberg was in the running shows the extent of his influence. In 1993, Greenberg’s huge insurance conglomerate AIG reportedly bankrolled the Wall Street spy firm, Kroll Associates, saving it from bankruptcy. Thereafter, Kroll became an AIG subsidiary. After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Kroll acquired the contract from the Port Authority of New York to upgrade security at the World Trade Center, in the process beating out two other firms.[5] Kroll continued with the WTC security contract through the period leading up to the September 11 attacks. One of Kroll’s directors, Jerome Hauer, also managed New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management, which was located on the 23rd floor of WTC 7.[6]

Notice this means Kroll had unfettered access to all three of the buildings destroyed on 9/11. This startling coincidence should have been reason enough for the 9/11 Commission to investigate Kroll’s shady background as well as its relations with AIG, Ace, and Marsh & McClennan. The commission was armed with subpoena authority and might have probed deeply enough to learn the truth. Unfortunately, the official investigators were not interested in connecting the dots. Although Kroll was based in New York City, it served (and still serves) an international clientele through 60 offices in some 27 countries. Over the years, the firm has repeatedly been accused of, and/or formally charged with, conspiracy. In 1995 the French government expelled several Americans from the country, including a Kroll employee named William Lee, for allegedly spying on French industry. Lee’s involvement with Kroll made French authorities suspicious that his Paris operation might be a CIA front.[7] The French were surely aware of Kroll’s longstanding practice of hiring former CIA, FBI, and British Intelligence agents. Kroll/AIG made no effort to conceal the fact that between 1997-2003 the AIG board of directors included Frank G. Wisner, Jr., son of one of the founders of the CIA.[8] Wisner Jr. is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Wisner Jr. also served as US ambassador to several nations, including Egypt, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.[9] As I write, Wisner’s name surfaced in the news. Last week, President Obama dispatched Wisner as his personal envoy to confer with the embattled Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak.[10] Even as popular pressure continued to build for Mubarak to step down, Wisner embarrassed Obama by publicly encouraging Mubarak to ride out the crisis and hang onto power. No doubt, his action reflects the view from Langley, which would much prefer to see Mubarak remain in power. The CIA has long supported the Mubarak regime and in return was allowed to use Egypt as a haven for renditions and torture. Wisner’s thumbing his nose at his own president, no doubt, is also an accurate measure of the US national security state’s low opinion of Obama. It certainly exposes Obama’s weakness as president.[11]

Did the French government over-react in 1995 when it expelled a Kroll employee for suspected industrial espionage? Possibly, but the French had good reason to be wary of CIA meddling in their country. It is a safe bet the French have not forgotten Operation Gladio, the rogue intelligence network secretly organized in Europe by the CIA, NATO and British MI-6, after World War II.[12] “Gladio” means “sword” in Italian and is the root of the word “gladiator.” Known as the “stay behind armies,” they were in every NATO country, and totaled thousands of paramilitary soldiers. Their ranks included known underworld criminals and drug traffickers; and crucially, the CIA kept the whole operation secret for nearly forty years.

Although the stay-behind armies were supposed to form the nucleus of an armed resistance movement in the event of a Soviet invasion of western Europe, the invasion never materialized, and the CIA-trained forces were sometimes used for other less savory purposes. These included smear and disinformation campaigns, mass bombings, kidnappings, assassinations and attempted coup d’etats; all of which was blamed on the communists. Before it was over, the CIA-staged terror campaign added up to hundreds of incidents in Italy, France, Greece, Belgium, and other European nations.

The news about Gladio first broke in the Italian press, in August 1990, at the time of Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait; and immediately touched off a political earthquake on the continent. As they say, bad news travels fast. Shock turned to outrage as Europeans learned that for decades the CIA and NATO had been sponsoring terrorist attacks in the democratic nations of Europe. All of which, as noted, was blamed on the communists. The purpose of Gladio had been to strike fear into the population of Europe, and thus, to weaken the left-wing parties.

If this sounds like fantasy to the reader, it is only because the US media, to this day, has never informed the American people about the CIA’s long and ugly history of staging international terrorism. Here in the US, it is euphemistically known as “counter-terrorism.” Although the average American is ignorant of the fact, most Frenchmen probably also know that under Gladio, the CIA lent support to an attempted putsch against French President Charles de Gaulle in 1958 by reactionary elements of the French army. The renegade French forces were opposed to de Gaulle’s controversial decision to end to the French military occupation of Algeria. Most of the people of France probably also know about the CIA’s involvement in at least one other conspiracy to assassinate de Gaulle in the mid-1960s; but which fortunately failed.[13] De Gaulle survived some thirty assassination attempts. At the time, the CIA’s involvement caused a near rupture in US-French relations. De Gaulle reacted angrily by pulling France out of NATO, and ordered US military forces out of France. The US was compelled to move NATO headquarters from Paris to Mons, in Belgium. Nor did the American people hear the truth about what really happened. In fact, they still do not know, because the US press has never informed them.

Given this brief background, one must ask: Were the French trying to send a wake-up signal to the American people when they leaked the following shocker about 9/11 to the world press? In October 2001 the prestigious French paper Le Figaro reported that in July 2001, just two months before 9/11, Osama bin Laden received dialysis treatments and other medical care for a serious kidney ailment at the American Hospital in Dubai, one of the Arab emirates in the Persian Gulf.[14] At the time, bin Laden was a wanted man, and had been indicted by the US Department of Justice for the 1998 bombing of US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam. Yet, according to the detailed report in Le Figaro, the Americans treated bin Laden as a VIP guest. The Al Qaeda leader arrived with a retinue that included his personal physician, a nurse, four bodyguards, and at least one of his lieutenants. Bin Laden reportedly held court in his hospital suite, welcoming members of his large family, Saudi officials, and even the local CIA station chief, who evidently was a well-known figure in the tiny country. The CIA official was evidently seen entering bin Laden’s room. Immediately after leaving, he caught a flight back to the US. The article in Le Figaro was closely followed by a story in The Guardian (UK), which added more details. It noted that bin Laden’s Saudi guests had included Prince Turki al Faisal, then head of Saudi intelligence. The story also named French intelligence as the source of the story in Le Figaro, and added that the information was leaked because the French were “keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.”[15] If the story is accurate, it means Osama bin Laden was a US intelligence asset right up until the morning of 9/11. There is no other possible interpretation. In which case, the American people have been seriously misled, indeed, have been fed a pack of lies, about the events of that horrible day. I would add: there were no retractions. Le Figaro stood by its story. Meanwhile, the US media played dumb and never even reported it.

But I digress. Back to AIG/Kroll. In 2005, the government of Brazil formally indicted Kroll’s chief Brazilian executive Eduardo Sampaio and five other Kroll employees on criminal charges, including bribery and various breaches of Brazil’s data privacy laws. Sampaio reportedly escaped arrest by fleeing the country.[16]

In 2006 another Kroll affiliate made the news for “unacceptable billing practices” while representing the failed energy giant Enron in court.[17] The Enron Corporation had collapsed in late 2001 amidst allegations of fraudulent accounting; then, in January 2002, hired Kroll Zolfo Cooper to handle its chapter 11 proceedings. The US Trustee Program, which administers bankruptcy cases, uncovered the billing irregularities after Kroll sought an additional fee of $25 million for its services. The firm had already received a cool $100 million for scavenging the Enron corpse but wanted more, even as stockholders received nothing. Evidently, the folks at Kroll thought no one would notice a mere $25 million, which is chump change compared with the $30 billion in inflated energy costs that Enron gouged from the state of California in 2000-2001. All of which must be good: because Enron got away with it. According to economist Paul Krugman, emails confirmed that Enron had rigged the markets.[18] The heavily Democratic golden state has yet to recover from what must be viewed as a partisan attack.

Also in 2006: a whistleblower named Richard A. Grove went public with stunning testimony about his involvement with the Greenberg empire, an up-close-and-personal experience, Grove says, that nearly cost him his life.[19] During the period leading up to 9/11, Grove worked as a salesman for Silverstream Software, an enterprise company which marketed designer solutions to a number of Wall Street firms, including Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Banker’s Trust, Alex Brown, and Morgan Stanley. According to Grove, Silverstream “built internet transactional and trading platforms,” designed “to web-enable the critical business functions of Fortune 500 companies, basically integrating and making available on the web the disparate legacy applications and mainframes while simultaneously streamlining workflow and traditional paper processes.” The “end result [was] a lower cost of operation and more efficient transactions because inefficiencies such as people were being taken out of the loop.”[20]

Grove was so successful as a salesman that (he claims) he became a millionaire before the age of thirty. He only realized, later, that the software he sold might have enabled fraudulent trading in the hours before and possibly during the 9/11 attacks. The most advanced software of all went to Marsh & McClennan, which, he says, placed an order in 2000 for a technological solution “beyond what we had done for any of the above-named companies; insofar as it would be used to electronically connect Marsh to its major business partners via internet portals, for the purpose of creating ‘paperless transactions’ and expediting revenue and renewal cycles.” Grove inked the software deal with Marsh & McClennan in October 2000. After which, his employer Silverstream stationed a team of 30-40 technicians in the client’s offices in WTC 1, led by several software developers who proceeded to design and build the software package “from the ground up.” During this period, Grove served as liaison between Silverstream & Marsh to insure that the software would perform as specified. The team worked around-the-clock, seven days a week, to meet Marsh’s pre-September 11, 2001 deadline. The end result was “a specific type of connectivity that was used to link AIG and Marsh & McLennan, the first two commercial companies on the planet to employ this type of transaction.”[21]

Grove says he first noticed fiscal irregularities in October 2000 when he and a colleague helped “identify about $10,000,000 in suspicious purchase orders.” Marsh’s chief information officer, Gary Lasko, later confirmed that “certain vendors were deceiving Marsh … selling … large quantities of hardware that were [sic] not necessary” for the project. But Grove did not worry too much about this at the time; nor did he run into personal trouble until the spring of 2001, when he learned, while negotiating a license renewal contract with Lasko, that his own employer, Silverstream, was over-billing Marsh “to the tune of $7 million, or more.” Grove brought the matter to the attention of Silverstream executives, but was told to keep quiet and mind his own business. A Marsh executive advised him to do the same. By this point, a number of Marsh employees had earned Grove’s trust and when he shared his concerns with them, they agreed that “something untoward was going on.” Grove names these honest employees in his testimonial: Kathryn Lee, Ken Rice, Richard Breuhardt, John Ueltzhoeffer, in addition to Gary Lasko, all of whom perished on 9/11.[22] Incidentally, a simple check confirmed that these names do indeed appear on the fatality list of World Trade Center victims.[23]

The proverbial schtick hit the fan on June 5th, 2001, the day after Grove sent an email to his sales team informing them that “Silverstream was billing Marsh millions above and beyond the numbers we were being paid commissions on….” There were only two possibilities: either the members of his team were being cheated out of their rightful commissions, or Silverstream was defrauding Marsh & McClennan. Later that day, Grove received word from Gary Lasko that Marsh had decided to retain Silverstream for the next phase of the project. The extension was good news and he immediately informed his boss. Grove was personally delighted because his rightful commission “would have been a payday worth well over a million dollars.” He never collected it, however; because the next morning, Grove was summoned to his boss’s office and abruptly terminated.

This is not the end of the story. Several weeks later, Grove suffered a medical emergency that required surgery and weeks of hospitalization. In August 2001, while still bedridden, a Silverstream company official visited him at the hospital and offered him $9,999 in cash, plus an extension of his medical benefits, if he would agree never to talk about the work he did for Silverstream. Grove needed the continuing medical coverage and agreed to the terms. However, after his convalescence he became suspicious about the secrecy agreement and decided that, at very least, he should maintain contact with the honest employees at Marsh, several of whom were now close friends. Shortly thereafter, one of them arranged for Grove to attend a meeting at the offices of Marsh & McClennan, at which the honest employees planned to “openly question the suspiciously unconcerned executive who seemed to be at the center of the controversial secrecy.” The executive had agreed to participate via a video conference link from his apartment in uptown Manhattan. This was the same individual who, months before, had warned Grove to look the other way. Grove was in possession of documents proving illicit activity, and he planned to produce them at the meeting. However, on the day of the showdown, he ran late, having been delayed by heavy Manhattan traffic. Grove says he was within 2-3 blocks of the World Trade Center when UAL 175 hit the South Tower. By then, all or most of his friends in the North Tower were already dead, or trapped on the upper floors. All told, some 300 or more Marsh employees perished that morning. None of whom had any idea what was in store for them.

To be continued…

Notes

[1] Chalmers Johnson, Nemesis: The Final Days of the American Republic, Henry Holt & Co., New York, 2006, pp. 9 and 115.

[2] http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml

[3] Vaughn’s testimony is intriguing because it does not conform in all respects to the official narrative. Vaughn told CNN: “There wasn’t anything in the air, except for one airplane, and it looked like it was loitering over Georgetown, in a high, left-hand bank,” he said. “That may have been the plane. I have never seen one on that (flight) pattern.” The aircraft described by Vaughn has never been identified. Ian Christopher McCaleb, “Three-star general may be among Pentagon dead,” CNN, September 13, 2001. Posted at http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/13/pentagon.terrorism/

[4] http://www.fas.org/irp/cfr.html

[5] Douglas Frantz, “A Midlife Crisis at Kroll Associates,” New York Times, September 1, 1994, posted at http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9401EEDC1738F932A3575AC0A962958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all

[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Hauer

[7] David Ignatius, “The French, the CIA and the Man Who Sued Too Much,” Washington Post, January 8, 1996.

[8] http://www.thefreelibrary.com/AIG+Vice+Chairman+Frank+G.+Wisner+Announces+Retirement.-a0193518331

[9] http://www.cfr.org/bios/879/frank_g_wisner.html

[10] Vijay Prashad, “The Empire’s Bagman,” Counterpunch, February 2, 2011. Posted at http://www.counterpunch.org/prashad02022011.html

[11] Robert Fisk, “US Envoy’s business link to Egypt,” The Independent (UK), February 7, 2011. Posted at http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/revealed-us-envoys-business-link-to-egypt-2206329.html

[12] Daniele Ganser, NATO’s Secret Armies. Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, Frank Cass, London, 2005.

[13] William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Common Courage Press, Monroe, ME, 1995, pp, 148-152.

[14] Alexandra Richard, “The CIA met bin Laden while undergoing treatment at an American Hospital last July in Dubai, Le Figaro, October 11, 2001. (translated by Tiphaine Dickson)

[15] Anthony Sampson, “CIA agent alleged to haveb met Bin Laden in July,” Guardian (UK), November 1, 2001. Posted at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/nov/01/afghanistan.terrorism

[16] The Brazilian connection, June 25, 2005, posted at http://www.smh.com.au/news/business/the-brazilian-connection/2005/06/24/1119321906577.html

[17] Mark Sherman, “Justice Department finds billing irregularities by former interim Enron CEO,” Associated Press, March 27, 2006. Posted at http://www.heraldtribune.com/article/20060327/SPECIAL14/60327014

[18] Paul Krugman, The Great Unraveling, Norton & Co, 2005, pp. 318-320.

[19] http://www.freewebs.com/abigsecret/Grove.html

[20] Ibid.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid.

[23] http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,62151,00.html#wtc

Source

9/11 EXPLOSIVE TESTIMONY EXCLUSIVE, Robert McCoy, Architect - 2 Parts

2010-12-09T09:36:00.000-08:00

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

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhe7Kt12wwI

9/11 EXPLOSIVE TESTIMONY EXCLUSIVE-Robert McCoy-Architect 2of2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYC8X4BlBnY

http://www.youtube.com/user/ae911truth

Did 9/11 Really "Change Everything"?

2010-09-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

We've been told that 9/11 changed everything.

Is it true?

Let's look:

The Afghanistan war was planned before 9/11 (see this and this)

The decision to launch the Iraq war was made before 9/11. Indeed, former CIA director George Tenet said that the White House wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11, and inserted "crap" in its justifications for invading Iraq. Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill - who sat on the National Security Council - also says that Bush planned the Iraq war before9/11. And top British officials say that the U.S. discussed Iraq regime change one month after Bush took office

Cheney apparently even made Iraqi's oil fields a national security priority before 9/11

The Patriot Act was planned before 9/11

Cheney dreamed of giving the White House the powers of a monarch long before 9/11

Cheney and Rumsfeld actively generated fake intelligence which exaggerated the threat from an enemy in order to justify huge amounts of military spending long before 9/11. And see this

Cheney and the rest of the neocons lamented - before 9/11 - that America could not truly project its power globally without the justification of a "new Pearl Harbor"

The government's spying on Americans began before 9/11 (confirmed here and here. And see this)

The decision to threaten to bomb Iran was made before 9/11

The government knew that terrorists could use planes as weapons -- and had even run its own drills of planes being used as weapons against the World Trade Center and other U.S. high-profile buildings, using REAL airplanes -- all before 9/11

The government heard the 9/11 plans from the hijackers' own mouths before 9/11

Cheney was in charge of all counter-terrorism programs for the United States before (and on) 9/11. See this Department of State announcement, this CNN article and this essay

It was known long before 9/11 that torture doesn't work to produce accurate intelligence, but is an effective way to terrorize people

So did 9/11 really "change everything"? Or was it simply an excuse to implement existing plans?

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/09/did-911-really-change-everything....

Source

Explosive Connections: Initial draft release

2010-09-12T17:31:00.000-07:00

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.

PDF's:

http://911blogger.com/sites/default/files/WTC 1 36X42.pdf (for large format printing)

http://911blogger.com/sites/default/files/WTC 1 8_5x11.pdf

http://911blogger.com/sites/default/files/WTC 2 36X42.pdf (for large format printing)

http://911blogger.com/sites/default/files/WTC 2 8_5x11.pdf

Source

Did NIST Edit WTC 7 Footage To Hide Evidence Of Implosion?

2010-09-06T19:59:00.000-07:00

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.”

In one of the clips, the video of which has been in the public domain for years, a loud, low-frequency boom can be heard just before the east penthouse of WTC 7 falls. Once the support columns that held up the penthouse are taken out, the rest of the building falls almost within its own footprint.

However, in subsequent clips released by NIST, where the camera is located nearer to the building, the collapse of the penthouse is clearly edited out of the footage.

“Several clips from the Cumulus database show signs of editing. In the two video clips below, the collapse of the penthouse of World Trade Center 7 is cut out of the video. These videos happen to have been filmed from close to WTC 7, and have a high quality soundtrack that would have picked up explosion sounds from the charges that severed the columns supporting the penthouse, especially the explosion heard in the last video clip presented,” comments the International Center for 9/11 Studies.

In another clip, the entire collapse of the building is edited out, the audio is removed and only restored after the building has fully collapsed.

The Center also obtained videos of the collapse of the twin towers that had obviously been edited, with sections deliberately removed. “There are many video clips in the Cumulus database that do not show collapse initiation – the only event even purportedly explained in the final report from NIST on the Twin Towers,” states the Center.

Another new video shows Michael Hess yelling for help from the 8th floor window of WTC 7. The clip reinforces the fact that the building had not sustained any substantial damage before its free fall collapse within 7 seconds.

As we documented for several years, the collapse of WTC 7 is the smoking gun confirming that the official story behind 9/11 is bogus. The collapse of Building 7 was reported before it happened by several news stations, including BBC and CNN.

The International Center for 9/11 Studies is now in the process of reviewing over 300 DVDs along with several external hard disk drives that contain a plethora of unseen photographs and video footage from ground zero. Judging by the small amount of damning footage already released, it’s highly probable that this data will provide a myriad of new contradictions both to the official 9/11 story as well as NIST’s own investigation into the collapse of the three buildings.

Source

New Evidence Of WTC Thermite Presence On 9/11?

2010-07-29T09:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Previously recorded molten material originating from within the northeast corner of the 80th floor of WTC 2 moments before its collapse:

Source

"Do the Orders Still Stand?" Who was he?

2010-07-28T09:53:00.000-07:00

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

9/11 Experiments: Collapse vs. Demolition

2010-06-30T17:34:00.000-07:00

The Actions and Inactions of the Commander in Charge of the U.S. Air Defense Failure on 9/11

2010-06-30T14:13:00.000-07:00

"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

More 9/11 Human Remains Found At Ground Zero

2010-06-30T13:48:00.000-07:00

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 24 June 2010 Written by Darcy Wearing and Richard Gage, AIA

2010-06-30T13:45:00.000-07:00

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

Filmmaker Says McChrystal Part of Pat Tillman Cover Up, Surprised at His Obama Remarks

2010-06-30T12:20:00.000-07:00

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.”

Source

The WTC Leaseholder and His Associates That Cheated Death on 9/11: Was it Coincidence or Foreknowledge?

2010-05-28T12:58:00.000-07:00

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

2010-04-29T12:23:00.000-07:00

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

“DO NOT CROSS THE LINE”

2010-03-28T23:56:00.000-07:00

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).

From:

Department of Defense
Department of Justice
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

To:

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States

Thomas H. Kean, Chairman
Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chairman

Gentlemen:

Your staff has advised us that the Commission seeks to participate in the questioning of certain enemy combatants detained in the war against terrorists of global reach. Such action by the Commission would substantially interfere with the ability of the United States to perform its law enforcement, defense and intelligence functions in the protection of the American people.

Your legislative commission has had extraordinary — indeed, unprecedented in the annals of American history — access to many of the Nation’s most sensitive secrets in the conduct of its work, including detainee information. In response to the Commission’s expansive requests for access to secrets, the executive branch has provided such access in full cooperation. There is, however, a line that the Commission should not cross — the line separating the Commission’s proper inquiry into the September 11, 2001 attacks from interference with the Government’s ability to safeguard the national security, including protection of Americans from future terrorist attacks. The Commission staffs proposed participation in questioning of detainees would cross that line.

As the officers of the United States responsible for the law enforcement, defense and intelligence functions of the Government, we urge your Commission to not further pursue the proposed request to participate in the questioning of detainees.

Respectfully,

John Ashcroft, Attorney General
Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense
George J. Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence

9/11 Commission findings based on torture

In December of 2009, we have published an important article titled “Much of 9/11 Commission findings cite intelligence garnered by torture” in which we describe that much of the material cited in the 9/11 Commission’s findings was derived from war detainees during brutal CIA interrogations authorized by the Bush administration. In fact, information derived from the interrogations was central to the 9/11 Report’s most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks.

The CIA has since revealed that in 2005 it destroyed videotapes of prisoners being tortured.

When asked by MSNBC News anchor if “under duress, will people tell the truth if tortured?” former CIA officer Robert Baer answered “under duress, under the threat of duress, people will tell what they think you want to hear. It is an unreliable tool. And the reason I say this is I have spent 21 years in the CIA, in and out of prisons watching these techniques, one way or another, reading reports, and the countries that torture, uniformly produce inaccurate intelligence. Torture does not work.”

They also talk about Khalid Shaikh Mohammed who has been waterboarded over 183 times.

The below text is a excerpt of the Examiner.com article on this newly released memo

The warning in the memo released by the government to the ACLU is just one example of how the Bush administration fiercely struggled to prevent the 9/11 Commission from conducting a deeper probe into the attacks. It is common knowledge that Bush and Cheney refused to cooperate with the investigation and when forced to do so, only testified together, not under oath.

9/11 Commissioners criticism

What may not be known to many Americans is that members of the 9/11 Commission have publicly stated that the investigation was a whitewash, and stymied from the beginning.

John Farmer, the senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, said that the government agreed not to tell the truth about 9/11, echoing the assertions of fellow 9/11 Commission members who concluded that the Pentagon was engaged in deliberate deception about their response to the attack.

Senator Max Cleland, who resigned from the 9/11 Commission after calling it a “national scandal”, stated in a 2003 PBS interview:

On Democracy Now, Cleland also said, “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up”. In 2006 the Washington Post reported that several members of the 9/11 Commission suspected deception on part of the Pentagon:

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate.

9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerry also has unanswered questions. According to an article in Salon.com, he believes that there are legitimate reasons to believe an alternative version to the official story.”There are ample reasons to suspect that there may be some alternative to what we outlined in our version,” Kerry said. The commission had limited time and limited resources to pursue its investigation, and its access to key documents and witnesses was obstructed by government agencies and key administration officials.

Commissioner Tim Roemer suggested that Commission members were considering a criminal probe of false statements. “We were extremely frustrated with the false statements we were getting,”Roemer told CNN. “We were not sure of the intent, whether it was to deceive the commission or merely part of the fumbling bureaucracy.”

The document that the ACLU has obtained corroborates what officials involved in the 9/11 Commission have been saying for years. The entire “investigation” was nothing more than a whitewash designed to hide the facts about 9/11 from the American people.

Source

Flight 253: Intelligence Agencies Nixed State Department Move to Revoke Bomber’s Visa

2010-02-12T01:49:00.000-08:00

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.

Source

Version 7 of "What hit the Pentagon? Misinformation and its Effect on Credibilty..." is at the Journal of 9/11 Studies

2010-01-29T10:20:00.000-08:00

In this version an additional photograph of debris has been included, wing loading on the spiral descent of flight AA77 has been calculated and the description of the position of CIT has been enlarged. Version 5 included a table showing that a range of flight paths exist which would enable a Boeing 757 to hit the light poles and the Pentagon without experiencing excessive g-force. As some researchers have stated that this is impossible the issue of misinformation arises and is examined in a postscript.

Read: http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2009/WhatHitPentagonDrLeggeAug.pdf

60 Aerospace Engineers Call for a New 9/11 Investigation

2010-01-21T09:27:00.000-08:00

As the number of verified architect and engineer petitioners at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth passes 1,200, the number describing themselves as aerospace engineers, or as engineers who have contributed professionally to the aerospace field, exceed sixty. These sixty-plus engineers were motivated to place their names on the public record as a matter of professional and social responsibility.

While the skills necessary to conduct professional forensic analysis of destroyed buildings is largely distinct from those experienced in aerospace engineering, the basic physical laws involved in an analysis of the speed, symmetry, and energy input/output balance of the World Trade Center’s destruction involve only high school physics and chemistry, some lookups regarding the energy necessary to crush concrete, and basic arithmetic.

Here is a listing of these sixty-plus aerospace engineers, together with brief bios and their statements made at the time they signed. The engineers are listed alphabetically, grouped with those having full careers in aerospace listed first, and those with less than 30 years in aerospace listed second.

Engineers with Full Careers in Aerospace

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Phil R. Bales, Aerospace Reliability and Life-Cycle Engineer. Employers have included major commercial engine companies, Teledyne CAE, Raytheon, and US Navy Civil Service.

“I was acutely aware of Engineering Cost Analysis and Life Cycle Cost Analysis, with many post graduate courses in these disciplines. My career was heavily biased toward statistical analysis and Warranty Cost Forecasting, requiring me to consider all possibilities, emphasizing the likelihood that the less likely events should be considered less heavily.

“Perhaps, this is why I was extremely reluctant to even consider the possibility that 9/11 could have been a staged event. ‘What is the chance that our own government could pull that off and get away with it?’ I pondered. When I was confronted with the facts, and I considered the reality that the temperatures of jet fuel combustion do not support the suggested failure modes posed by the government’s official report, I was forced into a paradigm shift. This reality has changed my entire perspective on the groups that I had previously dismissed as emotional, uneducated fools. I was wrong and I am grateful to the 9/11 Truthers for holding me accountable for the Truth! Now, I too am a 9/11 Truther.

“The facts about the collapse of three WTC buildings on 9/11/2001 just do not support the theory posed by the PBS Report, or the US Government’s publication. There must be further explanation to satisfy my hunger for the truth about the horrible realities of the WTC and Pentagon murders.

“As an engineer, as a patriot, as citizen of the United States of America, I demand that the government which is accountable to its citizens appoint an independent commission to investigate and report on the Truth of 9/11/2001.”

Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Lt. Col., USAF, ret; Exec VP, Millennium III Corp; Vice-Pres, Space Communications Co; Director of Advanced Space Programs Development, US Space Division (USAF); 101 combat missions F4, Vietnam; Head of Aero. Eng. Dept & Asst Dean, AF Inst of Tech, WPAFB.

“The official explanation in the NIST report violates the laws of physics. It is physically impossible for a building (or anything else) to fall at near-free-fall speed and do work (smashing steel and concrete) on the way down. An external energy input (like explosives) is absolutely essential. In addition, for the top of one of the towers to tip about 30 degrees and NOT continue tipping and falling off violates the law of conservation of angular momentum. The symmetrical collapse of building 7 due to highly asymmetrical damage is also unbelievable. We have not yet been told the truth. If the government has nothing to hide, why continue to hide everything? Why not a new and truly independent investigation?”

Dr. Alvin M. Bloom, Engineering consultant. BS, MS, PhD in Aerospace Engineering from University of Texas at Austin 1967

“Building collapses (straight down) at free fall speed could only be caused by a controlled demolition.”

Paul Browning, M.S. 35 years engineering experience with a NASA contractor, Bell Labs, Bellcore, AT&T Labs and Cingular/AT&T Mobility (12 years Engineering Management)

“The only steel framed skyscrapers to have ever collapsed as a result of a fire were WTC 1, 2, and 7. These buildings were built to withstand the impact of a fully loaded Boeing 707, an aircraft about the same size and weight as the aircraft that hit them on 9/11.

“Temperatures produced by the fires simply did not reach those required to have a significant impact on the building’s structural integrity. Firemen 2 floors beneath the impact area in one building radioed out that the fire was controllable. Obviously he was not confronting a temperature of 2000 degrees only two stories above him. Pictures showed survivors of the impact standing in the hole made by the aircraft. These people wouldn’t have been there under the kind of conditions assumed by the official story.

“Fireman recalled hearing a series of secondary explosions exactly like those that would have been used to cause a controlled demolition and that the collapses looked exactly like that’s what happened.

“WTC 7 was hit by nothing and yet collapsed in the same way as the towers. Molten metal containing sulfur, indicating thermate, remained underneath all three buildings for weeks after 9/11. The structural steel debris was carted away as soon as possible without inspection. Taking pictures of ground zero or even stopping to look at it was made a criminal offense.

“The impact of the aircraft and the resulting fires could not possibly have caused the twin towers to collapse and saying that the collapse of WTC 7 was due to the impacts is simply absurd.”

Dr. David Chen, PhD in EE from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Worked at various aerospace companies doing artificial intelligence work, networked, real-time systems, and network security. Currently an Associate Technical Fellow at the Boeing Anaheim, California site.

“NIST & the US Congress should be ashamed of the poor investigation.

“Thanks to the architects & engineers of this site for carrying the torch for truth.”

Malcolm Davis, Degree in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Texas (Austin) in 1961.

“It is absurd to think that WTC 7 collapsed as a result of the events, as generally promoted, surrounding September 11.

“It is indeed depressing to observe that a large number of United States citizens didn’t even know that WTC 7 even existed.”

Joseph L. DeClue, Graduate MIT Class 1951, Retired Pres. Database Multitech, Designed analog and digital circuits. Eventually managed as Chief Engineer and V.P. Engineering of several companies and founded Database Multitech as a design and service company.

“The Government’s politically-correct explanation is not credible. It seems highly likely that our government must have had some part or at least been aware of the pending attack. Also the lack of response by the Air Force was not credible.”

Dwain A. Deets, Former Aerospace Research Engineer. While at NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, held positions of Chief, Research Engineering Division, Director for Aeronautical Projects, and Flight Research Program Manager.

“The many visual images (massive structural members being hurled horizontally, huge pyroclastic clouds, etc.) leave no doubt in my mind explosives were involved.”

Thomas James Dolan, 45 years as mechanical/project engineer on Apollo manned lunar landing program, X-15, B-70, T-39, aircraft accident investigator (USC & FAA certified), Boeing 767, Space Shuttle, Navstar Global Positioning System and the Space Station.

“I have seen on TV commercial buildings collapse under controlled demolition prior to 911. I have been told that no certified US demolition companies will comment officially on 911. I personally saw and heard in real time 2 firemen (one dirty and exhausted, seated outside on a low brick garden wall) and another just reporting for action – nice and clean. Both were looking at Building 7 in the near background (1 block?) away and to the question for the exhausted one by the fresh one regarding its status the exhausted one looked at his watch and said as clearly as I can remember, ‘Its going down about 4:30! I didn’t think too much about it at the time but now I think about it a lot whenever 911 comes up!’”

Larry Erickson, Retired NASA engineer (33 years). Performed research in the fields of structural dynamics, aerodynamics, aeroelasticity and flutter.

“Serious technical investigations by experts seem to be lacking from the official explanations.”

Edmond (Monty) John Forbes, In 1981 joined MITRE Corp, Bedford MA as Lead Sys Engineer for airborne Wide Body Presidential assets. This extended to Special Service classified systems in both fixed wing & rotary wing platforms until retirement in 2004.

“True, both WTC 1 & 2, North & South structures were impacted by commercial “767′s” killing innocent passengers, crew & hijackers along with occupants in the building floors at point of impact. The devastation and human loss beyond the impact site was due to other influences because of the proven design and features of the Towers.

“The temperatures in the impact areas due to burning Jet-A fuel and the office furnishings and business tools could NOT rise to the level of 3000-4000 deg. F necessary to deform and fail structural steel joints and the total collapse of the structures.

“Such ‘failure’ could only be caused by man-made features of pyro-technical assets pre-placed by ‘outsiders.’ Look at the destruction of WTC 7. No aircraft or heavy debris collateral from the Towers struck that building.

“All destruction was in the classical method of building REMOVAL to make way for new assets.”

Marc Graziani, Engineer and engineering manager for Sperry Utah and Univac for many years, primarily in the aerospace industry.

“There is no degree required for simple common sense, if all structures fell as these structures did then why do we spend millions of dollars each year paying demolition experts to demolish structures for minimal collateral damage? This is not a perfect world, no structure of this magnitude could weaken perfectly and collapse in on themselves.”

Dr. Jay Kappraff, Assoc. Professor of Mathematics. Chemical engineer with Dupont 1960-1961, Aerospace Engineer with NADA 1963-1965, Ph.D. in mathematics from NYU Courant Inst. specializing in Plasma Physics, Assoc. Prof of Math. at New Jersey Inst. of Technology 1974-present.

“The analysis of the 3 collapses of the WTC as narrated by Richard Gage is very convincing. That the building collapsed near the speed of gravity has no other explanation other than controlled demolition. The symmetric collapse reinforces this hypothesis.”

Kathleen McGrade, B.S. Materials Engineering at NMIMT, class of ’78. Joined a start up named Starstruck formed to launch a rocket for delivering satellites into near earth orbit. Was with two other start ups, Metcal and Crystallume. Now owns a “regular” company that inspects and tests fire trucks throughout CA & CO.

“After reading everything I could find for four months on the subject to where my head was spinning, I realized that all the evidence you need to see the truth is in the 10-second video of the Bldg. 7 collapse. You don’t need an engineering degree to see it.”

David Wayne Nicholson, Windhunter Corporation President. Worked in the nuclear, automotive, aerospace and pharmaceutical industries concentrating on the design of machinery. Some equipment contained 3,000 degree F gases that were used to test gas turbine components.

“My professional experience with metals in high temperature environments convinced me that the three buildings could not have been demolished with jet fuel fires.”.

Keith Emanuel Noren, Senior Systems Engineer. 35 years engineering mostly in Missile Defense (IR Sensors, Discrimination, Flight Test Planning).

“Way too many questions unanswered – 3 Towers apparently destroyed (pulverization of concrete, melting temp not reached, free fall speed, upward steel beams, chem analysis showing explosives, molten steel in basement, rapid removal of debris), too many advance intel notices to be pure incompetence, insider trading, virtual Air Defense shutdown, Norm Mineta/Richard Clarke vs Dick Cheney testimonies, Pentagon withholding of surveillance cameras, black hole/no aircraft debris at Shanksville, …”

Robert W. Poltz, President and CEO of Design Analytx International, world leader in high tech systems reliability design analysis. Published 19 articles on Reliability Engineering 2000-01. Member of the Society of Reliability Engineering, IEEE, and ASQ (American Society for Quality).

“I became keenly aware that something wasn’t right about the whole scenario surrounding the collapse of two skyscrapers. Having grown up in the shadow of the Empire State Building in New York City in my youth and young adult life, I remember hearing in school that lower Manhattan was ‘Ground Zero’ in the event of nuclear attack. Living and working in skyscrapers is the norm in NYC. They are virtually indestructible given the amount of steel used and a history of over-building these structures. Then I saw the Loose Change video and that opened my eyes in disbelief that our government could do something like this and hope to get away with it. Let’s start with independent hearings to determine the cause of failure of these buildings from a scientific analysis. Let the evidence lead us from there towards criminal prosecution of the guilty.”

Attila M. Revesz, Senior Member of IEEE and Senior Member of AIAA, Worked as a research engineer and taught college level physics and math in Hungary. Worked as a design engineer in aerospace industry and business manager in California.

“Watching the rapid and symmetrical collapse of the building to its own footprint contradicts the official story. The sound of explosion at ground level shortly prior to collapse suggests controlled demolition.”

Eddy Shalom, Over 30 years of experience working in NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in flight electronics and other areas, as an engineer and as a technical manager.

“As a physics major, it has been clear to me for some time that the ‘Official Conspiracy Theory’ is totally absurd.

“It is not clear to me why so many intelligent people with the same education and training refuse to even review the evidence with an open mind.

“This is our greatest challenge and underutilized resource.”

Engineers with less than 30 years in Aerospace

Melissa Allin, P.E., B.S. Aerospace Engineering, University of Oklahoma. Over 15 years in mechanical design, pumping systems and fluid systems design and testing.

“I have spent five years researching and discussing the events of 9/11. The reason I would like to sign this petition for a new investigation is due to the unanswered questions, informational gaps, inconsistencies and discrepancies of the 9/11 Commission Report in general, and because of the unacceptable work of the NIST in investigating the collapse of the towers specifically.

“The tragedy of 9/11 and the mass of civilian deaths that occurred that day demand a proper investigation, unbiased fact-seeking, and full-disclosure. The American people have been charged $16 million by the NIST and received nothing of value in return for that price. I would lose my engineering license if I pulled that stunt.”

William J. Blanch, Aerospace Controls Engineer, formerly with NASA Ames and Lockheed Martin.

“As a Controls Engineer I worked with angular momentum and I just couldn’t understand how the vector of the collapse was perpendicular to the ground and straight down the center of the buildings. The expansion of the trusses would need to be ‘linear’ for this collapse vector to be possible.”

Raymond William Blohm, Aerospace Engineer, formerly with Boeing Vertol, Air Force Flight Dynamics Laboratory, and Warner Robins Air Logistics Center.

“Since the ‘attack’, I have been perusing the credible books and documentaries concerning either the actual event or the greater political — intelligence agency — corporatocracy — financial setting. Books like James Bamford’s The Shadow Factory & Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine and documentaries like Zeitgeist, The Movie: World Trade Center and Core Of Corruption have caused me to doubt the official story (including the building collapses). We need to know what kind of world we live in.”

Arthur L. Carran, P.E., Commercial Pilot Certificate with Instrument Flight Rating; B.S., Aerospace Engineering Technology, Kent State University; Professional Engineer, State of Ohio; Employed in Aerospace Engineering field since 1983.

“WTC 1, 2, and 7 show that the official story is false because of the symmetrical collapse, the free-fall speed of the collapse, the pulverization of the concrete to dust, the cutting of the columns to convenient lengths, and the persistent molten pools of steel. The Pentagon event shows that the official story is false because of the improbable flight path flown by the 757. The Shanksville event shows that the official story is false because of the characteristics of the aircraft debris field.”

Thomas Edward Carter, Optical Engineer for over 14 years. Have worked in the defense industry, semiconductor industry, biological industry, R&D and aerospace industries.

“The Tower 7 collapse needs to be investigated more thoroughly. Physics is a tough competitor.”

David M. Clifford, Aerospace engineering graduate from Cal Poly SLO with emphasis on mechanics of composite materials.

“It is a sad day for humanity when institutions are killing their own for conquest/monetary gain. The evidence clearly shows demolition was behind the collapse of all THREE towers.”

Erwin DeJong, MS (Mechanical and Structural Engineering). Currently occupied in offshore (steel structure) and aerospace engineering.

“From a technical point of view it is not explainable that a steel structure sinks down into its own footprint with obviously no resistance after intense fires or even a plane crash.”

Paul Dewey, Mechanical Engineer. Over 25 years experience developing products and systems, and analyzing failures in the aerospace, electronics and medical fields.

“The official report describing the cause of the collapse of the three structures at the World Trade Center seems to reach conclusions not based on the evidence presented and does not address evidence that does not support the conclusion. It is not credible.

“Many actions costing many lives and billions of taxpayers’ money have been initiated based on the story repeated in that report. The American people, and the people of the world, deserve a thorough review of all the relevant data and facts and an open analysis and conclusion from a reputable and diverse professional group. Please find the courage to support revisiting the facts surrounding the collapse of the buildings on 9/11. Thank you.”

Maurizio Di Pierro, Graduated in Aerospace Engineering at Politecnico di Torino, Italy.

“I am convinced that a steel frame building has a very small probability of collapse in an event of fire. The WTC 7 collapse is not explainable without resorting to controlled demolition. The symmetry and velocity of collapse, the dynamics of collapse in general point toward the controlled demolition as a cause of collapse.

“Also, certain footage fully qualifies as forensic evidence.

“As for the airplane hitting the Pentagon, I support PilotsFor911Truth.org, and find it implausible that the airplane ‘vaporized’ upon impact scattering so few debris and showing a narrow and deep penetration into the building.”

Robert G. Doniacour, E.E., Trained as an Electrical Engineer. I’ve worked for NASA and other companies designing control systems for mechanical motion control systems.

“We must perform publicly and with peer review an extensive analysis of the WTC collapse. The official explanation stops at the onset of collapse. To even explain the start of the collapse without explosives requires some far-fetched ideas. There are lots of energy analyses to do that I have not seen done.

“How can multi-ton steel beams be ejected with enough force to embed themselves in buildings far away?

“What explains the symmetry of the collapse? Uncontrolled phenomena are seldom symmetrical.”

Benjamin Erwin, B.S. in Aerospace Engineering from M.I.T. with specialization in structural engineering. M.A.T. in Physics Education.

“The lack of any core columns still standing even though the fall was straight down is certainly puzzling.”

Jean Evrard, Univ of Brussels (1963, engineering), Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago (1967, aerospace), von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Brussels (1968, fluid mechanics). After having worked as a researcher for NASA, moved from science to business.

“Compare the WTC steel beams with the Madrid tower steel beams … Madrid fire photos

“Unlike the twin trade towers (and WTC 7), this 32 story steel beamed building remains standing after burning for 17 hours straight.

“Does steel act differently in Spain and the USA?

“When and how will we legally sue the Bush Administration?”

Christopher Thomas Fagan, Project engineer for NASA battery backup unit on mobile launcher. Worked for 5 years before company went off shore.

“3 buildings coming down with 2 planes doesn’t work out. The new stories of superthermite in the dust at four locations shows that the demolitions were planned. As an engineer with statics and dynamics classes as well as properties of materials, I want to see the equations. Smarter people I trust will analyze these with a fine-toothed comb. It is hard to hide from a complete set of questions.”

Dr. Edwin L. Force, Experience includes 20 years Oil & Chemical Industries, 10 years NASA, now retired.

“Information available suggests thorough, unbiased, complete investigation is warranted. Credentials of critics are impressive.”

T. Mark Hightower, Worked initially in the chemical industry. For the last nearly 20 years, worked in aerospace. Member of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, as well as a member of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.

“I woke up to the problems with the building collapses in January 2004 when I stumbled upon a web site that showed evidence that they were brought down with controlled demolition. It is clear that the buildings had help to bring them down. The collapses of WTC towers 1 and 2 were obviously far more energetic events than can be explained by some sort of progressive gravitational collapse initiated by a simple weakening of the structure by hydrocarbon fire. Here I am thinking of the tremendous dust clouds (pyroclastic flows) and the nearly free-fall speed. Building 7, not hit by a plane, appears to have been a classic controlled demolition, and perfectly symmetrically executed.”

Brett M. Hoffstadt, Advanced degree and nearly 20 years experience in engineering and aerospace.

“WTC 7 had no logical or physical reason to collapse as it did. That event deserves an honest investigation and explanation.”

William T. Holmes, Degree in aeronautical engineering, but with interest in architecture and structural engineering. This continued even with aeronautical engineering career.

“No question of demolition. See voluntary society, where you’ll find a chronology of U.S. false flag events and Tower profitability information. Also there is documentation of Tower bi-metallic corrosion, and a demand by the EPA that Towers 1 and 2 be disassembled by 2007 rather than demolished. Disassembly was prohibitively expensive. Corroborating evidence of this is needed.

“Is it possible that every tall building is wired for demolition to avoid toppling due to an earthquake or bomb, and in the case of the Towers, the buildings were demolished to avoid collateral property damage the moment they started to topple, despite being occupied? Building 7 would argue against that.”

Scott Nigel Hudson, Aeronautical Stress Engineer for three years in Bristol, England. Helped design primary flight control actuators for helicopter & U.A.V. applications. Worked on aircraft landing gear also.

“Theoretical impossibility for a steel-framed skyscraper to collapse symmetrically virtually into its own footprint at near-free-fall speed due to office fires, while looking like a controlled demolition.”

Bruce C. Jenkins, Design Engineer on several upper stage and satellite structures including satellite boosters and aircraft fuselage, with Lockheed Missiles & Space Corp and Aerospace Corp.

“It is beyond engineering comprehension that the WTC buildings could have collapsed the way they did by any other means than a controlled demolition.”

David C. Lasich, B.S. in Aerospace Engineering in 1990. Worked in the field of engineering for over 15 years. Also earned a secondary teaching credential and have taught math up to the high school level.

“The few videos I have seen and interviews I have heard were taken with much skepticism. However there are many troubling questions that I feel the 9/11 Commission did not answer. The most troubling to me is that the investigation was obviously not done in a completely objective and scientific way. Much evidence was neglected, and those on the panel most likely had prejudices to the findings.”

Eli Aaron Meyer, Bachelor of Science in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1998.

“I tend to view “conspiracy theory” material as a skeptic, and this is how I approached this issue. After reading peer-reviewed studies done at Brigham Young University, I began taking the issue seriously. The fact that many other high-rise structures have sustained fires for long durations without structural failure really makes me question how Jet A fuel burned at atmospheric conditions (sustained fires, post-explosion) could possibly generate the heat necessary to compromise the structural integrity of the steel to result in structural failure. The near free-fall collapse speeds (documented on video) of the buildings doesn’t seem possible from a localized structural failure. If there was structural failure as a result of fire and impact, I would expect an asymmetrical failure of the buildings; however the buildings almost entirely [came straight down] upon themselves. I would like to see some more research done upon this subject.”

Terry Petersen, E.E., Served six years in the Army. Got my degree and went straight into an aerospace company and have been there for 12 years.

“My main problem is the amount of rubble that went over the sides combined with rapid collapse.

“My opinion is that contrasting the South Tower core standing after the collapse to what Bazant presents may be the best way to get “skeptical” engineers on board.”

Gregory A. Prinz, Mechanical Engineer. I graduated in 1986, worked in the aerospace/telecommunications industry as a production engineer, building countermeasures defense systems for the military until 1990.

“I originally (immediately after the attacks) thought that the official story of collapse made sense from an engineering standpoint. However, after spending countless hours reading reports, looking through comprehensive engineering analyses, studying the tower’s design aspects, and seeing what a poor, non-technical report/explanation was produced by our government, there is no doubt that there needs to be a more thorough investigation into what happened. It does not add up.”

Samuel Lowndes Ready, Received MSEE from University of Southern California with an emphasis on computers in 1958. Then worked in Aerospace for 26 years for several different companies in So. Cal.

“From all the different videos I have seen it seems very clear that the collapse of the 3 WTC buildings was due to controlled demolition.”

David Roark Redick, 5 yrs rocket engineer and 30 years telecom sales, eng., and management; CEO and co-founder Silicon Valley startup Fiberstreet in 2000.

“No way except controlled demolition do all parts of a floor collapse at once; plus sequence of floor collapses top to bottom on WTC 1&2.

“The Twin Towers were built with an exterior structure of large vertical I-beams. No way do these disintegrate into short pieces…”

Michael Remington, Composite Design Engineer. B.S. Aerospace Engineering, UCLA. Structural Composite and Material Design, Aerojet

“I do agree that the implosions of each WTC building appear to have many more characteristics of a controlled demolition, than not. Significant quantities of thermite present in the rubble is sufficient evidence, alone, to warrant a thorough investigation.”

John C. Rice, P.E. (ret.) Retired Transportation Engineer. Worked in aerospace defense for Martin Marietta on the Gemini and Prime projects. As a transportation engineer, specialized in traffic signal systems.

“Since September 11 I have collected hundreds of photos and articles that point to 9/11 being an inside job. I want to see the criminals brought to justice.”

Daniel W. Richard, P.E., LS (retired). Graduated from University of Arizona 1950 and worked for various companies (Fluor Corporation, Fisher Contracting, Pan American World Airways Guided Missile Range Department) and also the U.S. government (Federal Aviation Agency, U.S. Forest Service).

“I accepted the government’s conspiracy story as given out by the mainstream media and did not give much, if any, thought to it until a neighbor on March 1, 2006 brought me a story from the Desert Morning News in SLC, Utah.

“It was dated 1-28-06. I contacted the journalist and asked if there were any other stories and she sent me two others. After reading them and finally thinking about it and based on my engineering education and experience, I realized that we have been lied to and that there was a coverup. For instance if the floors pancaked and fell one on the other from the fires, which could not possibly melt and cut the steel, the 47 massive columns over a quarter mile high would still be standing!

“There was no forensic investigation and the steel fell in lengths that could be loaded and trucked to the west coast and shipped to Asia. Also the 9/11 Commission Report did not mention the 47-story WTC 7, which fell the afternoon that the two towers fell in the morning! A sure sign of a false report.

“My opinion is that the 3 WTC buildings fell as a result of planted cutting charges — an inside job. …”

Roland R. Rodriguez, Worked in the aerospace and defense industry for almost 25 years developing, integrating, troubleshooting, and testing complex electronic and software systems.

“It is inconceivable that the World Trade Center buildings collapsed as they did because of fires as the public has been led to believe. This is not just an opinion, but a very well educated guess. Although I studied electrical engineering, Georgia Tech–as most engineering universities–required that I take courses in physics, statics, dynamics, thermodynamics.”

Marc Salesse-Lavergne, Graduated as an Engineer from the Institut Superieur d’Electronique de Paris in 1987 (major in solid state physics and micro-electronics). Electronics engineering for Aerospatiale, then aeronautics engineering for Eurocopter company from 1990 to today.

“From the elements presented so far, I understand the 2 main hypotheses are:

1) WTC towers’ structural damage by the initial impact, followed by softening of this steel and concrete structure from fire exposure, until the upper building weight crashed the lower weakened structure. Since no other case is known of such equivalent buildings being destroyed by fire, then this explanation only holds if the initial damage was large enough. Are you aware of any evaluation of the energy dissipated by the initial impact, and simulations or computations of how much damage it could have caused?

2) Controlled destruction by coordinated explosions all along the fall path. Although most of what is left of the towers have disappeared, explosives traces are no doubt to be found in what remains.”

Dick W. Scar, Experimental Test Engineer, Pratt & Whiney Aircraft ’65-’68; Powerplant engineer, United Air Lines ’68-72. Owned and operated family retail business ’72-04. Now Retired

“Of all the astounding events on Sept. 11, ’01, I was most started by how the WTC buildings collapsed. I would never have expected that to happen.”

James Edwin Seymour, Mechanical Engineer. In-depth, widely varied technical experience in both aerospace and commercial areas with major accomplishments on many top high-tech projects for Fortune 500 companies. Heavy MIL-STD experience.

“I think 9/11 was an inside job. I’m less certain about the bombs in the buildings. I saw a video on the web showing controlled demolitions. The explosions were huge concussions and louder than the sound the fall made.

“I’m signing this petition because a real investigation needs to be done.”

Mike Strasser, Product Design Consultant. Have worked at NASA Ames. Founded and manage a product design firm in San Francisco.

“There seems to be some very compelling facts that lead me to believe that it’s not a simple terrorist attack that destroyed all three buildings.”

Dr. William F. Stubbeman, 1987 BSE in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Princeton; 1992 medical degree from Columbia University in New York; 2000 began private practice in psychiatry; 2009 2000-present private practice psychiatry in LA, CA

“The results of the peer-reviewed study published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2, 7-31 contains clear scientific proof that unreacted nanothermite explosive fragments were found in the dust from the world trade center collapse. Methods used for analysis include optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, spectroscopy, and calorimetry. They witnessed and photographed triggered micro-explosions from the nanothermite fragments. These micro-explosions produced the same heat and force output as laboratory nanothermite. The dust was sampled from four different locations soon after the collapses. One sample was collected about ten minutes after the collapses of WTC buildings 1 & 2. All dust samples produced essentially the same findings. The unreacted explosive fragments can clearly be seen under low-power magnification, as photographs from the paper illustrate. This type of explosive is apparently untraceable, unlike most kinds of demolition materials. Eight different authors from universities and organizations around the world including Denmark, Utah, Indiana, Australia, Berkeley, Dallas contributed to this paper. This kind of science cannot be fudged. After reading this I became convinced that the reason for the clear and undeniable presence of explosive residue in the dust should be thoroughly re-investigated, especially since the NIST & FEMA reports did not even look for or mention these findings.”

Anthony Szamboti, Mechanical Design Engineer with over 20 years experience in the Aerospace and communications industries, where I have designed a large variety of structures required to perform in dynamic environments.

“After watching the twin tower collapses live I wondered to myself where all of the energy came from to cause such rapid collapses. At the time I did not know how the buildings were designed and also heard a few days later about a civil engineering professor saying there was a 30g dynamic load. This was probably Dr. Bazant of Northwestern University. I somewhat accepted this but still wondered. After hearing about Dr. Steven Jones bringing up issues with molten metal in the rubble in early 2006 I decided I should read his paper. I found it on the Internet and after reading it started looking much harder at those collapses myself. Unfortunately, there is little doubt that the collapses were caused by controlled demolitions and it appears the aircraft impacts were causal ruses.”

George Vega, Quality/Manufacturing Engineer with experience in aerospace and defense, telecommunications, and computer chip manufacturing industries. Specialist in statistical quality control and computer aided design and manufacturing.

“The 9/11 building collapses have the appearance of a demolition. The Pentagon has the appearance of a missile strike. I would like to know the truth about why WTC Building 7 collapsed.”

James Vogt, Graduated from Univ of NH in 1979. Design engineer for Raytheon Missile Systems Division. Self-employed as programmer since 1985.

“After 5 semesters of physics in college it is clear to me that these buildings were brought down via controlled demolition.”

Robert R. Walker, 35 years experience in instrumentation supporting structural testing. I worked in aerospace for 28 years testing strength of spacecraft materials. I am still active in material testing and hold US patents for load sensors.

“After viewing the building 7 collapse, I have to say if somebody told me that a demolition expert was reducing building 7 to rubble I would agree. The thermite connection is strong evidence that somebody orchestrated cutting the under-pinnings of building 7 and probably had the twin towers prepared for demolition.”

Christopher Wilder, 30+ years of wide mechanical engineering experience; Consulted with internationally known entities Kaiser Aluminum, Bechtel, Lawrence National Labs, Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC), Applied Materials, Intel, NASA, and BOC.

“I concluded early on that the ‘official explanation,’ even before the 9/11 Commission report, did not add up. The first couple of items that I found suspicious were 1) the pulverizing of the concrete and 2) the free fall of the Towers in less than 10 seconds. Since 2001 I have read many books on the subject starting with Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid, The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin (I saw him speak in Berkeley a year ago with Peter Phillips) and Towers of Deception by Barrie Zwicker—the latter of which included the CD The Great Conspiracy. From the latter book I agreed with the author (and Richard Gage whom I heard on KPFA today) that there needs to be another, more thorough, investigation of the events of 9/11/2001.

“To add to my list of suspicious items, I saw a public showing of a CD, in 2004, where the focus was on experienced criminal investigators and how they were making the case about the rapid shipment of the steel from the Towers to India and China and that act was ‘destroying evidence at the scene of a crime.’

“I worked at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center from 2001-2005. I was amazed how otherwise very savvy physicists and engineers didn’t want to entertain the thought, or evidence, that the ‘official explanation’ did not add up. They willingly accept the official ‘pancake theory.’ I have my own theory about their willingness to accept the official explanation. Several years ago I came across a term called ‘cognitive dissonance.’ The psychological description goes like this: the term describes an uncomfortable mental tension that arises from results from having two (or more) conflicting thoughts at the same time i.e. ‘The Towers falling was a bad, terrible event’ and ‘My government is here to help me and they couldn’t have had anything to do with the destruction of the Towers.’”

Dr. Frank Wolstencroft, Research in metal deformation (and in particular machining). Industrial experience in the aerospace industry.

“There are too many unanswered questions about 9/11 in order to believe the official version of events. A more thorough investigation is needed to arrive at a more accurate assessment. There is not enough energy contained in jet fuel to explain the total collapse and destruction of the central core. The molten steel found in the basements of the towers needs to be explained scientifically. The collapse of WTC 7 is also very suspicious.”

Brian Wright, Graduated Wayne State University, BSME 1975, several years working as a design engineer in aerospace, product engineer in automotive, and project engineer in biomechanical engineering.

“One does not need to be an engineer to understand that contradictions cannot exist. If the pancake theory is true then we should sure have seen some pancakes, not pulverized concrete and steel. Further, buildings such as WTC 7 do not spontaneously collapse from being hit by debris or from fire.”

Source

AFIP: Records Confirming Collection And Identification Of 9/11 Hijacker Remains Exempt From Disclosure

2009-12-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

The following is a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reply from the U.S.Armed Forces Institute of Pathology regarding a request for records that confirm the collection and identification of terrorists accused of hijacking American Airlines flight 77 and United Airlines flight 93 on September 11, 2001. Such records are reportedly exempt from disclosure under exemption (b)(7)(a) which prohibits disclosure of information which would interfere with an on-going law enforcement investigation and exemption (b)7(c), which also provides protection for law enforcement information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of individuals in being associated with criminal activities, including investigators.

Dear Mr. Monaghan:

This is in response to your August 28,2009, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records establishing the recovery and/or identification of the remains of the terrorists accused of hijacking American airlines flight 77 and United Airlines flight 93 on September 2001, collected from the Pentagon building in Arlington, VA and Shanksville, PA. And positively identified following the terrorist attacks of September 2001.

You also requested the records establishing the recovery and/or identification of passenger remains of those aboard American Airlines flight 77 and United Airlines flight 93, who perished in the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001. Your request was received at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology on September 3, 2009, and assigned a tracking number of 1O-W2DL-000I5-F was processed in accordance with the Freedom of lnformation Act, 5 United States Code (U.S.C.) § 552.

The review has been completed and the potentially responsive documents are being withheld pursuant to the FOIA under the following Exemptions: Exemption (b)(6) prohibits the disclosure of an individual's personal information viewing it as an invasion of their personal privacy; Exemption (b)(7)(a) which prohibits disclosure of information which would interfere of information that could reasonably be expected to constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.

Additional you request is being denied pursuant to FOIA Exemption (b)(7)(a) which prohibits the disclosure of information whose release could reasonably be expected to interfere with an on-going law enforcement investigation. FOlA Exemption (b)7(c) also provides protection for law enforcement information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to result in an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy of individuals in being associated with criminal activities, including investigators.

Because your FOIA request has been denied, you are advised of your right to appeal this determination to the Secretary of the Army. If you decide to appeal at this time, your appeal must be submitted within 60 days of the date of this letter. In your appeal, you must state the basis for your disagreement with the denial and the justification for the release of information associated with your request for this command. Your appeal should be addressed to: U.S. Army Medical Command, Attention: Freedom of lnformation Privacy Acts Office (MCPA), 2050 Worth Road Suite 21, Fort Sam Houston, Texas 78234-6021, for forwarding, as appropriate, to the Office of the Secretary of the Army. Please enclose a copy of this letter along with your appeal. To ensure proper processing of any appeal the letter and the envelope should both bear the notation, "Privacy Act/Freedom of Information Act Appeal."

Source

The 90-Minute Stand Down on 9/11: Why Was the Secret Service's Early Request for Fighter Jets Ignored?

2009-12-20T17:15:00.000-08:00

Shortly after the second World Trade Center tower was hit, at 9:03 a.m. on September 11, 2001, an officer at Andrews Air Force Base, just outside Washington, DC, was notified that the Secret Service wanted fighter jets launched over the nation's capital. It was now obvious the U.S. was under terrorist attack, and Washington would have been an obvious potential target. And yet the Secret Service's request came to nothing.

No fighters had taken off from Andrews by 9:37 a.m., when the Pentagon was hit. Nor had any launched by the time Flight 93 apparently crashed in Pennsylvania, shortly after 10:00 a.m., while flying toward Washington. In fact, fighters did not launch from Andrews until over 90 minutes after the second attack in New York. The first fully armed fighters did not launch from there until more than two hours after that attack. So why was the Secret Service's early request for help not acted upon? Why did fighter jets only take off from this massive Air Force base to defend the capital well after the morning's attacks had ended?

SECRET SERVICE CALLS FAA HEADQUARTERS
The Secret Service agent who made the early request that fighter jets be launched appears to have been Nelson Garabito. Garabito was responsible for coordinating the president's movements, and was also the Secret Service's liaison to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). He was in the Secret Service Joint Operations Center (JOC) at the White House that morning. Just after Flight 175 crashed into the South Tower at 9:03 a.m., Garabito called Terry Van Steenbergen, his counterpart at the FAA, who was at the FAA headquarters in Washington. According to the 9/11 Commission, shortly into the call, Van Steenburgen told Garabito "that there were more planes unaccounted for--possibly hijacked--in addition to the two that had already crashed."

Possibly in response to this information, Garabito appears to have asked Van Steenbergen to arrange for fighters to be launched over Washington. Van Steenbergen asked three of his colleagues at the FAA to call various air bases to see if they could get fighters into the air. One of these colleagues, Karen Pontius, had previously worked at Andrews Air Force Base, so she made the call to the FAA air traffic control tower there. [1] Garabito would have been unable to call the tower himself, because, according to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, the Secret Service "did not have a phone line to the Andrews tower."

FAA HEADQUARTERS REQUESTS FIGHTERS
Pontius spoke to Steve Marra, an air traffic controller in the Andrews tower. Marra has recalled that Pontius "told him to launch F-16s to cap the airspace over Washington." He relayed this information to the District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG), which is based at Andrews, across the airfield from the control tower. [2] Marra appears to have done so when DCANG officer Major Daniel Caine phoned the tower and asked if any air traffic control measures were being implemented in response to the attacks. [3] Caine later recalled that the tower controller--i.e. Marra--told him "that they just received the scramble order." However, oddly, Caine told the 9/11 Commission that the Andrews tower "would not have been in the loop for any Secret Service orders to scramble aircraft." [4]

If the DC Air National Guard was notified of this early "scramble order," why was that order not acted upon? Pilots and others working for the DCANG at Andrews were already well aware of the crisis taking place. Upon learning of the second crash, someone at the unit reportedly yelled, "We're under a terrorist attack!" [5] And, seeing the television coverage of the burning WTC towers, an officer exclaimed, "Well, holy shit, if this is a terrorist attack, we need to get something in the air!"

Furthermore, a request from the Secret Service should have carried considerable weight. According to author Lynn Spencer, "Given that the Secret Service provides protection to the president--and that the president, and the vice president when the president is not available, is the ultimate commander in chief of the military--the Secret Service also has certain authority over the military and, in this case, the DC Guard." [6]

CAINE CALLS HIS SECRET SERVICE CONTACT
After his call to the control tower, Daniel Caine called his contact at the Secret Service, Kenneth Beauchamp, who was at the White House JOC. Caine later told the 9/11 Commission that, on reflection, he believed it was his hearing that the tower had received the "scramble order" that prompted him to call Beauchamp. [7]

And yet Beauchamp supposedly contradicted the Secret Service's request for fighters. Even though it was obvious that the U.S. was under attack, and it should have been clear that Washington was a likely target for any further attacks, he said the Secret Service did not require assistance from the DCANG. Caine had asked: "Do you have any additional information? Are you guys going to need some help?" and Beauchamp replied, "No, but I'll call you back if that changes." [8]

Caine has said that during this call, which he described as "a very quick, confusing conversation," Beauchamp told him that "things were happening and he'd call me back." [9] However, Beauchamp did not call Caine back. [10] (Another Secret Service agent, though, did subsequently call Caine, and asked about getting fighters launched. [11])

According to Lieutenant Colonel Marc Sasseville, the acting operations group commander under the 113th Wing of the DCANG, at the time Caine spoke to Beauchamp, "we weren't thinking about defending anything. Our primary concern was what would happen to the air traffic system." [12] But when Brigadier General David Wherley, the commander of the DC Air National Guard, subsequently called the Secret Service JOC shortly after the Pentagon was hit and spoke to Beauchamp, Beauchamp implored him to launch jets to protect Washington. Beauchamp said: "We want you to put a CAP [combat air patrol] up over the city. We need some fighters now." [13]

DCANG PILOT 'STANDING BACK, WAITING'
Between the second WTC attack at 9:03 a.m. and the Pentagon attack at 9:37 a.m., the DCANG fighter pilots on duty at Andrews appear to have been waiting around and doing very little, when they should have been hurrying to get airborne.

One of those pilots, Captain Brandon Rasmussen, was promptly informed of the second crash in New York after it occurred, and immediately realized its implications. He recalled: "I think everybody knew that this was a coordinated attack that was happening. We had no idea who it was by, but it was definitely intentional when you get two airplanes hitting both towers." And yet, he said: "At that point, we didn't know what we could possibly do; that's New York City way up the road. So … like everybody else in America, we're just standing by and watching the news."

This is extraordinary! An Air Force base just 10 miles from Washington had learned that the nation was under attack. And yet the immediate response of its pilots was to stand around watching television!

Rasmussen said it was only after the news broke about the Pentagon being hit that "we knew that we were going to be sticking around home and being quite busy," and "the squadron leadership went into action." [14] DCANG commander David Wherley only headed across the base from his office to the fighter squadron building, to assist his unit's response to the attacks, after a woman at his office saw on television that the Pentagon had been hit and started shrieking. [15]

But even after the Pentagon attack, the DCANG pilots were not immediately told to prepare for takeoff. Rasmussen recalled that at that point, "I'm just kind of standing back, waiting for somebody to task me with something." He added, "I was just waiting at the ops desk for someone to say, 'Okay, we've been cleared to take off and go.'" [16]

FIRST JET LAUNCHES AT 10:38
The first DCANG jet to take off from Andrews Air Force Base was an F-16 that had just returned from a training mission over North Carolina. It had little fuel remaining, carried no missiles, and had only practice ammunition. It took off at 10:38 a.m., an hour after the attack on the Pentagon. [17] Two more F-16s took off at 10:42 a.m., but these were also armed with only practice ammunition and had no missiles. [18] At 11:11 a.m., Rasmussen and Daniel Caine took off in their F-16s, the first fighters to launch from Andrews armed with missiles as well as bullets. [19] By that time, the attacks were long over.

Rasmussen has expressed his and the other DCANG pilots' frustration at having to wait around before being allowed to get airborne. He said that when his unit finally received authorization for its jets to take off, "We were relieved to actually be given permission to go up and do something, instead of feeling totally helpless. I mean, we are fighter pilots, just like guard dogs chomping at the bit, ready to go." [20]

DCANG PROVIDES 'CAPABLE AND READY RESPONSE FORCES'
Although the DC Air National Guard was not part of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) air defense force, its mission at the time of the 9/11 attacks included providing "capable and ready response forces for the District of Columbia in the event of a natural disaster or civil emergency." Lieutenant Colonel Phil Thompson, the chief of safety for the DCANG, said, "We practice scrambles, we know how to do intercepts and other things." [21] The unit was in fact known as the "Capital Guardians," implying that it was responsible for protecting Washington, DC. [22]

The fact that, in spite of an early request for help from the Secret Service, it took the DC Air National Guard so long to put together a response to the attacks should be of concern to all Americans. The unit's disastrously slow emergency response needs to be thoroughly probed as part of a rigorous new investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

NOTES
[1] "USSS Statements and Interview Reports." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition) . New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 464-465; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Terry Van Steenbergen." 9/11 Commission, March 30, 2004.
[2] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003.
[3] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 76.
[4] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine, USAF, Supervisor of Flying at 121st Squadron, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base on September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, March 8, 2004.
[5] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 2002.
[6] 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. 123.
[7] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine."
[8] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 124.
[9] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 76.
[10] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine."
[11] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 78.
[12] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93." Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 9, 2002.
[13] "Memorandum for the Record: BG David Wherley, on September 11, 2001, Commander of the 113th Wing of the USAF Air National Guard, Andrews AFB." 9/11 Commission, August 28, 2003; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 184-185.
[14] Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson, September 18, 2003.
[15] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, pp. 445-446; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 184.
[16] Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson.
[17] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; "UA93 and Andrews Timeline." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[18] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 82; Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson.
[19] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 84; "Relevant Andrews Transmissions." 9/11 Commission, February 17-18, 2004.
[20] Brandon Rasmussen, interviewed by Leslie Filson.
[21] "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93"; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 76.
[22] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 122.

Source

Why No Shootdown Order Issued During 9/11 Attacks?

2009-12-15T13:11:00.000-08:00

The famous document authorizing shoot down of planes dated 1 June 2001. It's been said this was changed just before 9/11, in June, to give the Sec of Defense authority to order shoot down aircraft. Actually it was updated from 1997 and hardly anything changed from the 1997 order but this is an important document nontheless..........

"1. Purpose. This instruction provides guidance to the Deputy Director for Operations (DDO), National Military Command Center (NMCC), and operational commanders in the event of an aircraft piracy (hijacking) or request for destruction of derelict airborne objects."

"NMCC is the focal point within Department of Defense for providing assistance. In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will, with the exception of immediate responses as authorized by reference d, forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval."

"(1) When notified that military escort aircraft are needed in
conjunction with an aircraft piracy (hijacking) emergency, the DDO, NMCC, will notify the appropriate unified command or USELEMNORAD to determine if suitable aircraft are available and forward the request to the Secretary of Defense for approval."

"(2) Pursuant to reference j, the escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the NMCC."

"c. If destruction is required, the DDO, NMCC will, forward all
requests or proposals for DOD military assistance to the DOD Executive Secretary and appropriate OSD staff offices, and then to the Secretary of Defense for approval in accordance with DODD 3025.15, paragraph D.7 (reference d)."
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf

So the proper procedure was the FAA hijack coordinator would contact the NMCC who would contact NORAD/Military and get authorization for orders from the Sec of Defense.

But the hijack coordinator is in Puerto Rico, the NMCC officer in charge decides he has better things to do during the attacks, and the Sec of Defense has deserted his post.

"December 4, 2000: Special Forces Commander Appointed FAA Security Chief: US Army Lieutenant General Michael A. Canavan is appointed associate administrator for civil aviation security at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), a position that includes being the “hijack coordinator".
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=mike_canavan

From DoD Instructions:
"(2) Pursuant to reference j, the escort service will be requested by the FAA hijack coordinator by direct contact with the NMCC."
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf

"However, the hijack coordinator, FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security Director Mike Canavan, is in Puerto Rico and claims to have missed out on “everything that transpired that day.” The 9/11 Commission fails to ask him if he had delegated that task to anyone else while he was gone."
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=mike_canavan

"The 9/11 Commission fails to ask him if he had delegated that task to anyone else while he was gone."
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=mike_canavan

OK....no FAA Hijack coordinator, what about the Secretary of Defense?

“I was in my office with a CIA briefer and I was told that a second plane had hit the other tower.”
“In the meantime, he would get his daily intelligence briefing, which was already scheduled for nine thirty.” Di Rita and Clarke head off down the hallway to the ESC, while Rumsfeld stays in his office. Apparently Rumsfeld will not go to the ESC until around 10:15 a.m.
http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timelin...

So the 9/11 attacks were an act of war? Well, the Secretary of Defense locked himself in his office and deserted his post then didn't he? No shoot down order, or any orders will be coming from that guy.

And the officer in charge of the NMCC?

"Major General Winfield served as the Deputy Director for Operations, J3, in the National Military Command Center, and was present as the General Officer-in-Charge during the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Major General Winfield was nominated for and earned a position as a Senior Military Fellow at the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, a national membership organization and "think tank" headquartered in New York City."
http://www.rotc.usaac.army.mil/command/MGWinfieldNew.htm

"was present as the General Officer-in-Charge during the terrorist attacks of 9/11"
http://www.rotc.usaac.army.mil/command/MGWinfieldNew.htm

not quite....

"Captain Charles Leidig, the deputy for Command Center operations at the NMCC, takes over temporarily from Brigadier General Montague Winfield and is effectively in charge of NMCC during the 9/11 crisis. Winfield had requested the previous day that Leidig stand in for him on September 11. Leidig remains in charge from a few minutes before the 9/11 crisis begins until about 10:30 a.m., after the last hijacked plane crashes. He presides over an important crisis response teleconference that has a very slow start, not even beginning until 9:39 a.m."
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=montague_winfield

Some questions for Gen M. Winfield from the 9/11 commission......

"1) To your knowledge, was the Secretary notified of the second crash? Did the NMCC receive any directions from the Secretary of the Vice Chairman before the hit at the Pentagon?"

"2) What actions were taken in the NMCC between the second strike on WTC (0903) and the attack at the Pentagon (0937)?"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14274468/DH-B3-Gen-Winfield-Interview-Fdr-Ques...

Lots of other interesting questions as well......want to see his answers? Sorry...... for National Security reasons you can't........

"In the review of this file this item was removed because access to it is restricted."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/14274468/DH-B3-Gen-Winfield-Interview-Fdr-Ques...

So the FAA hijack coordinator, US Army Lieutenant General Michael A. Canavan, is in Puerto Rico. And apparently no one has replaced him. The NMCC officer in charge decides he has better things to do during the attacks, and the Sec of Defense has deserted his post. How unfortunate.

So how will the FAA and military respond with these major players in the chain of command absent? Well, it turns out we're not real sure. There were a lot of "false statements" being made. The "official story" changed after the 9/11 commission.

According to John Farmer from his book The Ground Truth...

"Northeast Air Defense Sector had eight minutes notice on one flight, five minutes notice on another, and was notified post-crash on the other two." Page 241
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...

This from the 9/11 Commission Documents on Referral of False Statements by FAA and NORAD:

"During the course of our investigation, the staff of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States discovered evidence that certain public statements made by NORAD and FAA officials at a Commission hearing on May 23, 2003, and elsewhere, regarding the actions of NORAD and FAA officials in responding to the 9/11 attacks were not accurate."

"Inaccurate Statement #1: The FAA notified the military at 9:16 that United 93 was hijacked."

"During the May 2003 hearing, Commissioner Lehman asked several questions about the path of the Langley fighters, which traveled directly east, over the ocean, and then north toward Baltimore, before heading west to Washington. Why, the Commissioner wanted to know, didn't the fighters head more directly to Washington, if they had been scrambled to respond to American 77, the plane that struck the Pentagon? Col. Marr addressed this question in his response to retired Col. Scott:"

"The answer on AA77 is not easy, nor is it pretty. At the time AA77 was occurring we were focused on UAL93 which was the only confirmed hijack that the FAA had identified to us. My records show UAL93 reported as hijacked at 0916L, once we found it and identified it's [sic] westerly heading, we scrambled Langley at 0924L just in case it turned around toward DC, which it did later. At 0924L we also received a call from the
FAA about AA77 with a follow-up call at 0925 L. It is easiest to explain the simultaneous scramble order with the AA77 notification as the scramble being against AA77 - it takes a lot of time to explain to the public that you're scrambling fighters against a plane heading away from the possible target."

"Col. Marr, in other words, attempted to explain the circuitous route of the Langley fighters in getting to Washington, D.C., by indicating that they were not in fact scrambled to respond to a report at 9:24 that American 77 was hijacked; they were scrambled in response to the earlier "report" that United 93 was hijacked. Thus, the reintroduction of the discredited 9:16 notification time enabled NORAD to explain to the Commission the odd route of the Langley fighters in reaching Washington."

"There were two fundamental problems with the explanation. First, as at least some in the military have known since the week of 9/11, it is inaccurate. The plane had not been hijacked at 9:16; the hijacking did not occur until 9:28 after the Langley fighters were ordered scrambled—and NEADS was not notified until after the plane had crashed. NORAD informed Commission staff at the close of Commission interviews at NORAD headquarters in Colorado Springs that it now accepts that notification did not occur until after the plane had crashed. Second, as we will now discuss, NEADS was not notified that American 77 was hijacked at 9:24."

"Inaccurate Statement #2: The FAA notified the military of the hijacking of American 77 at 9:24."

"What notification did occur at 9:24? The Mission Crew Commander's staff at NEADS maintains a handwritten contemporaneous log of information received and actions taken (known as the "MCC/T Log"). The 9/11 entry in the log at 9:24 records: "American Airlines #N334AA hijacked." This tail number refers not to American 77 but to American 11, the first hijacked aircraft that crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. The subpoenaed tapes confirm that this time corresponds to NEADS's receipt of tail number information on American 11 and to reports that American 11 was still airborne and headed towards Washington, D.C."

"Inaccurate Statement #3: When the Langley fighters were scrambled, their objective was to respond to the reports at 9:16 that United 93 was hijacked and at 9:24 that American 77 was hijacked."

"The best evidence for both this inaccurate report and the resulting scramble is the subpoenaed NEADS tape, which records that at approximately 9:21, the Mission Crew Commander spoke the following to the Battle Cab (where the Battle Commander, Colonel Marr, was located):"

"Okay. American Airlines is still airborne, 11, the first guy. He's headed towards Washington, okay? I think we need to scramble Langley right now, and I'm going to - I'm going to take the fighters from Otis and try to chase this guy down if I can find him. Yeah. You sure? Okay. He's heading towards Langley, or I should say Washington. American 11, the original guy. He's still airborne ...."

"Inaccurate Statement #4: Officials were tracking United 93 and intended to intercept the aircraft if it approached Washington, D.C."

"On September 15, 2001, General Paul Weaver, overall commander of the Air National Guard which provided the fighters used to scramble Otis and Langley, told reporters that no fighters were scrambled or vectored to chase United 93: "There was no notification for us to launch airplanes. We weren't even close." That same day, however, Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz stated in a television interview that Defense Department officials had been "following" United 93 and were prepared to shoot it down if it approached Washington, D.C."

"The FAA's standard operating procedures for notification of hijackings were disregarded on 9/11. The notifications that did occur, moreover, gave the military no realistic chance to intercept the aircraft, and were sometimes mistaken. NORAD scrambled the Langley fighters in the wrong direction against a nonexistent target. NORAD was, moreover, completely unaware of United 93—the fourth plane—as the flight was heading for Washington."

"The official USAF/NORAD account of 9/11, presented in testimony to the Commission, included in NORAD's official history, and apparently briefed and relied upon by the White House, was that NORAD scrambled its fighters from Langley AFB in order to respond to the hijacking of AA 77 (which hit the Pentagon), that they did not have time to intercept that aircraft, and that DOD subsequently tracked the approach of UA 93 toward Washington, but the aircraft crashed before action needed to be taken."

"The staff does not believe this account is true. Instead we have found, and are preparing to state publicly, that NORAD scrambled its fighters from Langley AFB in order to intercept an aircraft that no longer existed — AA 11 (which hit the WTC) — believing incorrectly that this aircraft might be headed toward Washington and sending fighters up the Eastern seaboard in order to meet AA 11. Further we have found that NORAD did not know about AA 77 until three minutes before it hit the Pentagon, and began diverting the already scrambled aircraft toward Washington against some target (which they did not know was AA 77) one minute before impact, much too late to make a difference. We have also found that NORAD was not tracking UA 93 and did not even know that aircraft had been hijacked until after it had crashed."

"Team 8 has unearthed evidence strongly suggesting the possibility that a USAF officer, and possibly others at the USAF and FAA, must have known that the official story was false, yet persisted in telling it or did not correct the record, even after the Commission began following up with questions after its May 2003 hearing."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15677016/911-Commission-Documents-on-Referral-...

The Inspector General of course in his report did find that officials had made false statements, but it wasn't on purpose. If you want to believe that, here is the report......
http://www.dodig.mil/Ir/reports/06-intel-12.pdf

John Farmer, for one, doesn't buy it....
from his book:
"There are, in sum, significant reasons to doubt the reliability of both Inspectors General reports. Neither finds any evidence that the FAA and DoD coordinated their efforts after 9/11 to reconstruct the story. This conclusion is refuted by the e-mail from CONR to NEADS discussed above, which references the sharing of information, by the fact that NEADS provided its logs to the FAA, and by the fact that the agencies emerged on September 18 with identically erroneous notification times for American 77 and United 93." Page 286
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...

I've served in two branches of the armed forces and I find it very hard to believe that the military would cover up for the FAA. In fact I would suspect that not only would they not cover for the FAA but would be outraged that their own headquarters (pentagon) was attacked due to the FAA not informing them in a timely manner. And yet they seemed to have made false statements and pretend the FAA did notify them. The only way (in my eyes)that the military would cover for anyone, would be to cover themselves.

"However, the hijack coordinator, FAA Office of Civil Aviation Security Director Mike Canavan, is in Puerto Rico and claims to have missed out on “everything that transpired that day.” The 9/11 Commission fails to ask him if he had delegated that task to anyone else while he was gone."
http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=mike_canavan

So who was doing the "coordinating" between the FAA and military? The answer apparently lies in the statement of Acting Deputy Administrator of the FAA, Monte R. Belger.........

Statement of Acting Deputy Administrator of the FAA, Monte R. Belger to 9/11 Commission:

"The Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Va. was our primary source of information about aircraft locations and reports of other unusual situations. Military personnel were assigned to the Command Center on an on-going basis and they became involved in coordinating actions with the military." page 3
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing12/belger_statement.p...

Discussion of Flight 93:
From a tape transcript showing air traffic control actions on 9/11. Officials from the FAA Command Center East, Boston, New York, Washington and Cleveland air traffic control centers, the National Transportation Safety Board, the FBI and others are present on the call:

"MR.: And this is Cleveland Center. Who's up?
MR.: It is the Command Center with about five or six people listening.
MR.:Okay. Mr {inaudible} the chief, just asked if we have any military up or not? Are we pursuing that? We'd like to be able to track this guy so we know what's going on, especially when we lose a transponder.
MR,: We have been in contact with the military cell here in the building and they're working the issue. I'm not sure where they are with--"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13484922/911-Air-Traffic-Control-Transcript

John Farmer:
"Northeast Air Defense Sector had eight minutes notice on one flight, five minutes notice on another, and was notified post-crash on the other two." Page 241
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...

9/11 Commission:
"The notifications that did occur, moreover, gave the military no realistic chance to intercept the aircraft, and were sometimes mistaken. NORAD scrambled the Langley fighters in the wrong direction against a nonexistent target. NORAD was, moreover, completely unaware of United 93—the fourth plane—as the flight was heading for Washington."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/15677016/911-Commission-Documents-on-Referral-...

Deputy Administrator of the FAA, Monte R. Belger:
"Military personnel were assigned to the Command Center on an on-going basis and they became involved in coordinating actions with the military." page 3
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing12/belger_statement.p...

9-11 commission...
"NORAD was, moreover, completely unaware of United 93—the fourth plane—as the flight was heading for Washington."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/12962774/Referral-of-False-Statements-about-91...

From Air traffic control tapes:
"MR.: It is the Command Center with about five or six people listening.
MR,: We have been in contact with the military cell here in the building and they're working the issue. I'm not sure where they are with--"
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13484922/911-Air-Traffic-Control-Transcript

It looks like the fault of the FAA not giving the military time to intercept these planes and according to the 9/11 commission not informing the military at all of two of the planes..possibly could be the fault, not with the FAA, but rather......

"Military personnel were assigned to the Command Center on an on-going basis and they became involved in coordinating actions with the military." page 3
http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing12/belger_statement.p...

More on the military cells, in hindsight, the last sentence seems most interesting....

From released 9/11 commission records:
"Military/FAA Relationships: There is a natural tension between the two entities because both desire the use of the same airspace for different reasons. As a result of the inherent tension and differing protocols and languages, military cells have been established in FAA to work day-day air space management issues. The New England Region has one such cell, a cell that also provides support to the Eastern Region in New York. Staff held a short discussion with the senior Navy officer in the cell. The cell has 2-3 person contingents from each of the three services and each reports separately to a different boss. The Army and Navy representatives report to their General Staffs at Headquarters US Army and US Navy, respectively. The Air Force Cell reports to the Air Force Liaison Officer at FAA Headquarters. All of the assigned military personnel are either flight or controller-trained and each cell exits to handle administrative matters only. There is no reason that they could have or should have been contacted or interjected themselves in the process on 9/11. The senior Navy officer put in succinctly from a military perspective. There are defined lines of communication and procedures to handle events like that and if he or his other service counterparts had
gotten involved they would have just confounded the situation."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/13883328/T8-B2-FAA-NY-Center-Bob-Jones-Fdr-Han...

It would make more sense, that they would lie to cover themselves rather than the FAA. Besides, no shoot down order ever reached any pilot......

John Farmer:
"The authorization to shoot down deviating and unresponsive aircraft was received from the vice president at 10:31 a.m., 15 minutes after NEADS learned that the last hijacked plane, United 93 had crashed. This order was never passed on to the scrambled pilots over New York and Washington." Page 241
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...

So the attacks were going to happen. It shouldn't have even reached this stage. Saudi Intelligence knew of these hijackers.......

"Speaking to the Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya on Thursday, Bandar -- now Abdullah's national security adviser -- said Saudi intelligence was "actively following" most of the September 11, 2001, plotters "with precision."

"If U.S. security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened," he said.
http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/11/01/saudiarabia.terrorism/

American Intelligence knew of these hijackers.....

"Hamburg - The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had one of the September 11, 2001 terror pilots under surveillance as early as March 1999 after a tip from German security services, according to joint investigative reports in Germany."
http://www.news24.com/Content/World/News/1073/cf1134a97dbb4a9584f6b3f41e...

"In March 1999, German intelligence officials gave the Central Intelligence Agency the first name and telephone number of Marwan al-Shehhi, and asked the Americans to track him.
Close surveillance of Mr. Shehhi in 1999 might have led investigators to other plot leaders, including Mohammed Atta, who was Mr. Shehhi's roommate.
Asked whether American intelligence officials gave sufficient attention to the information about Mr. Shehhi, Mr. Zelikow said, "We haven't reached any conclusions."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/24/politics/24TERR.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5

CIA Director G Tenet:
"We had at that point the level of detail needed to watchlist al-Mihdhar- that is, to nominate him to the State Department for refusal of entry into the U.S. or deny him another visa. Our officers remained focused on the surveillance operation and did not do so." page 4/27
http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/911project/jci-midhar-hazmi.pdf

July 2001 Phoenix FBI Agent Williams sends memo to Washington warning of UBL supporters going to flight schools......
http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/defense/129...

Coleen Rowley, former FBI agent and whistleblower, to CIA director G Tenet:
"You were also told that the FBI had arrested Moussaoui because of a visa overstay and that the CIA was working the case with the FBI. One of the documents given to you even had Bin Laden's picture on it! And the CIA held successive briefings about Moussaoui: August 27th, 2001, with the deputy director of operations; August 28th, 2001, with the executive director of the CIA; August 30, 2001 with the director of Central Intelligence; September 4th, with the executive director of the CIA; and September 10th, with the deputy director of operations."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/coleen-rowley/how-will-you-look-yoursel_b_...

These attacks were going to happen. It is an undisputed fact, that after the first plane hit the WTC no shoot down orders were given. That after the second plane hit the WTC no shoot down orders were given, that after the pentagon had been hit, no shoot down orders were given, only after the attacks were over was a shoot down order given.

John Farmer:
"The authorization to shoot down deviating and unresponsive aircraft was received from the vice president at 10:31 a.m., 15 minutes after NEADS learned that the last hijacked plane, United 93 had crashed. This order was never passed on to the scrambled pilots over New York and Washington." Page 241
http://www.amazon.com/Ground-Truth-Untold-America-Attack/dp/1594488940/r...

Lots "false statements" being made, here's a few from National Security Advisor Rice in 2002.....

C Rice interview Aug 2002:
"Q: And did you have any hunch at that point that it might be terrorism?
DR. RICE: It just didn't come to mind immediately that it might be terrorism. We knew a lot about al Qaeda. We knew that al Qaeda really coveted an attack against American interests, maybe even against the United States. We had gone through a summer in which we had heightened states of alert abroad for our embassies and for our forces, because we were getting a lot of chatter in terrorist channels. But most of it was pointing all of it was pointing abroad, that there was going to be some kind of attack abroad. And the human mind doesn't always put two and two together very quickly, and so, no, in that first attack, it didn't come together for me. When the second plane hit, though, it came together very, very quickly."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16571537/T3-B11-EOP-Produced-Documents-Vol-III...

"But most of it was pointing all of it was pointing abroad, that there was going to be some kind of attack abroad."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16571537/T3-B11-EOP-Produced-Documents-Vol-III...

Just a reminder.....

A couple of months after this interview the report of the joint Inquiry by the House and Senate select committee on intelligence was released which made the following points....

"REPORT OF THE JOINT INQUIRY INTO THE TERRORIST ATTACKS OF SEPTEMBER 11, 2001 – BY THE HOUSE PERMANENT SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE AND THE SENATE SELECT COMMITTEE ON INTELLIGENCE"

"Finding: During the spring and summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community experienced a significant increase in information indicating that Bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida intended to strike against U.S. interests in the very near future."

"Finding: Beginning in 1998 and continuing into the summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community received a modest, but relatively steady, stream of intelligence reporting that indicated the possibility of terrorist attacks within the United States."

"Finding: From at least 1994, and continuing into the summer of 2001, the Intelligence Community received information indicating that terrorists were contemplating, among other means of attack, the use of aircraft as weapons."

"Community received reporting in May 2001 that Bin Ladin supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States to conduct terrorist operations and, in late summer 2001, that an al-Qa’ida associate was considering mounting terrorist attacks within the United States."

"The FBI and CIA were also aware that convicted terrorist Abdul Hakim Murad and several others had discussed the possibility of crashing an airplane into CIA Headquarters as part of “the Bojinka Plot” in the Philippines, discussed later in this report."
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/fullreport_errata.pdf

"Community received reporting in May 2001 that Bin Ladin supporters were planning to infiltrate the United States to conduct terrorist operations and, in late summer 2001, that an al-Qa’ida associate was considering mounting terrorist attacks within the United States."
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/fullreport_errata.pdf

C. Rice:
"But most of it was pointing all of it was pointing abroad, that there was going to be some kind of attack abroad."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/16571537/T3-B11-EOP-Produced-Documents-Vol-III...

Title of Aug 6 Memo Given to President Bush
"Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."
http://slate.msn.com/?id=2066154

No, she isn't being honest. Will she also "mislead" about a shootdown order?

"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 misleading 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...

9/11 Commission admits:
"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

There was no shoot down order during the attacks of 9/11.

Source

Japan's 9/11 Victims to Press for Criminal Investigation of 9/11

2009-12-09T12:00:00.000-08:00

GLOBAL PEACE THROUGH 9/11 TRUTH - TOKYO, JAPAN: DEMAND for 9/11 JUSTICE - The third 9/11 Truth conference in Japan keeps growing -- Twenty-four Japanese nationals were murdered by the events of 9/11 - now the families and Japan's new government are determined to do what Americans should have already accomplished: A CRIMINAL INVESTIGATION and TRIAL. Thanks go to the organizational skills of Architect, Richard Gage and his staff in their determination to wake up the civilized world to expose the Bush/Obama coverup of 9/11 that includes the deliberate demolition of the Twin Towers and WTC building 7. Councilor Fujita deserves to be nominated for the NOBEL PEACE PRIZE for his years of his international work advocating the Truth about why the US went to war.

Source

Emails Show bin Laden was Bush Talking Point, not Target

2009-12-08T16:01:00.000-08:00

Millions of Messages Sent, but Only Handful Mention Al Qaeda Leader

By Margie Burns

Missing” White House emails retrieved from Bush administration records indicate that top Bush Justice Department officials had little interest in the pursuit of Osama bin Laden or Mullah Mohammed Omar, head of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), prolonged correspondence has pursued “missing” emails between the Bush White House and Bush’s attorney general, deputy attorney general, associate attorney general, Office of Public Affairs, Office of Legal Counsel and Office of the Inspector General, in the Justice Department.

After a lengthy search, President Obama’s Office of Information Policy, which handles FOIA requests, found emails pertaining to Osama bin Laden or to Mullah Omar only in Attorney General and Office of Public Affairs records from the Bush administration. Alberto Gonzales, previously Bush’s White House counsel and then Attorney General, did not use email.

White House emails from the Bush years, often reported as missing, numbered in the millions. Thousands of emails were sent between the Bush White House and top Justice Department officials, through both government email accounts and private accounts including the Republican National Committee.

FOIA inquiries have produced two emails, totaling four pages, between the White House and Justice under the former administration relating to Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The FOIA requests produced 26 emails, totaling 119 pages, relating to Osama bin Laden.

The first internal reference to Mullah Omar, according to email records, occurred Dec. 7, 2001. White House staffer Edward Ingle forwarded a series of talking points titled “Meet Mullah Omar” from Deputy National Security Adviser James R. Wilkinson to a distribution list of several dozen government personnel in Cabinet offices and the Pentagon including Paul Wolfowitz. Omar has continued to evade capture and is believed to be living in neighboring Pakistan. There is no reference in the emails to Omar dating from the period when he was evading US forces. The next, and only other, mention of Omar’s name was an incidental reference in a Sept. 23, 2004, New York Times article on Afghanistan forwarded the same day by White House staffers.

The 26 emails that mention Osama bin Laden in correspondence between the Bush White House and Justice Department break down as follows:

There were seven email references to Osama bin Laden in 2001. Five occurred in press releases from White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer forwarded by Ingle — one Executive Order, two transcripts of press briefings and two sets of talking points — dating from Sept. 24 to Dec. 17, 2001. Kenneth B. Mehlman, then in the Executive Office Building and later chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent around a copy of Bush’s address to the Joint Session of Congress Sept. 21, 2001, in which Bush briefly mentioned “a person named Osama bin Laden.” The other mention of bin Laden in 2001 comes in an Oct. 15 St. Louis Post-Dispatch article about John Ashcroft and terrorism, forwarded by David Israelite.

One email reference to bin Laden occurred in 2002, also forwarded by David Israelite. Under the heading “Do you remember?,” Israelite distributed to colleagues, including Barbara Comstock, a description of a purported 1987 video clip saying that Oliver North warned Congress about Osama bin Laden in the Iran-Contra hearings but was shut off by then-Sen. Al Gore. This claim had already been debunked by North himself (see http://www.snopes.com/). Comstock went on to chair Scooter Libby’s defense fund in 2007 and in 2008 ran for Congress from Virginia.

There were three email references to bin Laden in 2003 — a press briefing, a forwarded newspaper article, and a December statement from Director of Public Affairs Mark Corallo criticizing a Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse study.

Fifteen emails mentioned bin Laden in 2004. Some were in response to criticism of the White House after disclosure of the famous Aug. 6, 2001, Presidential Daily Briefing, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” All email references are forwarded press briefings and other press releases, forwarded newspaper articles, or talking points related to bin Laden.

The Department of Justice represents the US government in enforcing the law in the public interest. According to the official definition of responsibilities printed under a photograph of then Attorney General Ashcroft, “Through its thousands of lawyers, investigators, and agents, the Department plays the key role in protection against criminals and subversion ... It represents the government in legal matters generally, rendering legal advice and opinions, upon request, to the President and to the heads of the executive departments. The Attorney General supervises and directs these activities, as well as those of the U.S. attorneys and U.S. marshals in the various judicial districts around the country.”

Either top Justice Department personnel under the previous administration were not a set of bloodhounds, or documents have been suppressed. The email archives contain no indication that inside circles in the Bush White House and DOJ were paying attention to capturing Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar. Mentions of bin Laden and Omar come strictly in the context of public relations.

There are no records of emails to or from Alberto Gonzales, presumably because he did not have an email account.

Email records searched under FOIA include those of previous Attorney General Ashcroft; Michael Chertoff, previously assistant attorney general in the Criminal Division and later secretary of Homeland Security; former Deputy Attorney General James Comey; former Deputy Attorney Paul McNulty; Philip J. Perry, acting associate attorney general and son-in-law of Vice President Dick Cheney; former Associate Attorney General Jay B. Stephens; and David Ayres, Ashcroft’s chief of staff.

After leaving Justice, Ayres co-founded The Ashcroft Group. His corporate biography describes Ayres thus:

“After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Mr. Ayres managed the Department’s crisis operations and restructuring of the FBI to focus on preventing terrorist attacks. As the Attorney General’s principal counter-terrorism advisor, Mr. Ayres oversaw numerous counter-terrorism operations, program reorganizations and policy reforms to prevent additional terrorist attacks.”

Many persons in the Department of Justice and the executive offices of the White House had responsibilities in the “war on terror,” at least according to public pronouncements. Given all the public emphasis on “information sharing” and cooperation among law enforcement and security entities, and the speechifying against a purported “wall” between domestic and foreign information gathering, one would think there would have been extensive correspondence about bin Laden and Omar among others.

Again, either there was such extensive correspondence, and it is being suppressed; or there was no such interest in bin Laden at the highest levels of government, meaning that indeed the previous administration viewed bin Laden chiefly as a public relations tool.

What did they know about bin Laden that they did not share with the public? Were they confident, for undisclosed reasons, that he posed no threat? Why are there no expressions of concern about his whereabouts?

With this plate handed to him, it is a wonder that President Obama’s hair has not turned white already.

Margie Burns is a Texas native who now writes from Washington, D.C. Email margie.burns@verizon.net. See her blog at http://www.margieburns.com/

Source:
http://www.opednews.com/populum/link.php?id=102573
Margie Burns; OpEdNews,
Entire Article:
http://www.opednews.com/populum/linkframe.php?linkid=102573

After the Asia Digest page disappearing, I decided to post entire article.

Interesting article. How is it I wonder a federal Attorney General would not have an email account?

Peace all

dtg

Source

OUR TERRORISTS by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

2009-11-06T09:08:00.000-08:00

Islamic fundamentalist militants are the enemies of Israel and Western governments, right? Think again. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed reports.

US and Pakistani intelligence bigwigs get chummy at a mujahidin training camp in 1987. Note then-Director of the ISI (Inter-Service Intelligence) Major Gen. Hamid Gul (front left) and then-Director of the CIA William Webster (second left). Photo: rawa.org

Once upon a time, the CIA trained, financed and supported Osama bin Laden and his mujahidin networks in Afghanistan to repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. After the end of the Cold War, bin Laden turned against the West and we no longer had any use for him. His persistent terrorist attacks against us for more than a decade, culminating in 9/11, provoked our own response, in the form of the ‘War on Terror’. This is the official narrative. And it’s false. Not only did Western intelligence services continue to foster Islamist extremist and terrorist groups connected to al-Qaeda after the Cold War; they continued to do so even after 9/11.

The CIA’s jihad

The story begins in the summer of 1979, six months before the Soviet invasion, when the CIA had already begun financing elements of an emerging Islamist mujahidin force inside Afghanistan. The idea, according to former US National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert Gates, was to increase the probability of a Soviet invasion, and entrap ‘the Soviets into a Vietnamese quagmire’.[1]

Osama bin Laden arrived in the country later that year, sent by then-Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki bin Faisal, where he set up the Maktab al-Khidamat (MAK) which helped finance, recruit and train mujahidin fighters.[2] Bin Laden, the MAK, and the Afghan mujahidin in total received about half a billion dollars a year from the CIA, and roughly the same from the Saudis, funnelled through Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI).[3]

By around 1988, as Jane’s Defence Weekly reports, ‘with US knowledge, Bin Laden created al-Qaeda (The Base): a conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells spread across at least 26 countries’.[4] US and Western intelligence agencies facilitated this process, seeing rightwing Islamist movements as a counterweight to Communist, leftwing and nationalist political trends. They supported the Saudis and other Gulf states, as well as Pakistan, Turkey and Azerbaijan among others, in proliferating Islamist extremist institutions in far-flung countries such as Algeria, Yemen, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Funding for these activities was intertwined with the establishment of organized criminal financial centres in Malaysia, Madagascar, South Africa, Nigeria, Latin America, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Turkestan, and elsewhere.[5]

Islamism and the CIA’s destabilization doctrine

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in particular in 1991 when the Saudis accepted the stationing of 300,000 US troops in the country due to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Osama bin Laden reportedly turned against his former masters in Riyadh and Washington. Since then, bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network became our enemy, targeting Western citizens and interests throughout the 1990s, culminating in the most devastating strike of all in the form of the 9/11 atrocities in the US.

Unfortunately, this is where the official story begins to break down. Because after 1991, Islamists affiliated to bin Laden and al-Qaeda continued to receive selective support from Western intelligence services. The policy was alluded to by Graham Fuller, former Deputy Director of the CIA’s National Council on Intelligence, when he stated: ‘The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvellously well in Afghanistan against the Red Army. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.’[6]

Afghanistan, Big Oil and the Taliban

Throughout the 1990s, the selective US intelligence sponsorship of Islamist extremist networks was linked not simply to destabilizing potential Russian and Chinese influence, but further to securing US-led Western control over strategic energy reserves. When bin Laden moved from Sudan to Afghanistan in June 1996, the State Department warned that the move ‘could prove more dangerous to US interests’, granting him ‘the capability to support individuals and groups who have the motive and wherewithal to attack US interests almost worldwide’.[7] He had been offered protection by Pakistan in May on condition that he align his mujahidin forces with the Taliban. The new al-Qaeda-Taliban alliance was reportedly blessed by the Saudis.[8]

Yet as the respected Pakistani correspondent Ahmed Rashid reported, US intelligence supported the Taliban as a vehicle of regional influence at least between 1994 and 1998. This policy continued up to the year 2000, despite growing cautions. Thus, when the Taliban conquered Kabul in 1996, a State Department spokesperson explained that the US found ‘nothing objectionable’ in the event. One year later, a US diplomat commented: ‘The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis… There will be Aramco (consortium of oil companies controlling Saudi oil), pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that.’[9]

Continued US sponsorship of the al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus in Afghanistan was confirmed as late as 2000 in Congressional hearings. Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia, Congressman Dana Rohrabacher – former White House Special Assistant to President Reagan and now Senior Member of the House International Relations Committee – declared that ‘this administration has a covert policy that has empowered the Taliban and enabled this brutal movement to hold on to power’. The assumption is that ‘the Taliban would bring stability to Afghanistan and permit the building of oil pipelines from Central Asia through Afghanistan to Pakistan’.[10] US companies involved in the project included UNOCAL and ENRON. As early as May 1996, UNOCAL had officially announced plans to build a pipeline to transport natural gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan through western Afghanistan.

US officials held several meetings with the Taliban from 2000 to summer 2001, in an effort to get the Taliban to agree to a joint federal government with their local enemies, the Northern Alliance, promising financial aid and international legitimacy if the deal was struck. By then, US policymakers had belatedly concluded that the Taliban would never bring the stability needed for the pipeline project. According to Pakistani Foreign Minister Niaz Naik, who was present at the meetings, US officials threatened the Taliban with military action if they failed to comply with the federalization plan. Even the date of threatened military action, October 2001, was proposed. Needless to say, the Taliban rejected the plan.[11] So months before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, a war on Afghanistan was already on the table. Jean-Charles Brisard, a former French intelligence officer, thus speculates that 9/11 may have been a pre-emptive attack by al-Qaeda to head off the declared US military invasion of Afghanistan.[12]

There is still keen interest in the pipeline. ‘Since the US-led offensive that ousted the Taliban from power,’ reported Forbes in 2005, ‘the project has been revived and drawn strong US support’ as it would allow the Central Asian republics to export energy to Western markets ‘without relying on Russian routes’. Then-US Ambassador to Turkmenistan Ann Jacobsen noted that: ‘We are seriously looking at the project, and it is quite possible that American companies will join it.’[13] The problem remains that the southern section of the proposed pipeline runs through territory still de facto controlled by Taliban forces.

Mega Oil and mujahidin from the Balkans to the Caucasus

Unfortunately, we now know that US flirtations with the al-Qaeda-Taliban nexus in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s were only one moment in a much wider covert US geostrategy to secure control over strategic energy resources across the Eurasian continent, by co-opting Islamist networks affiliated with bin Laden.

In 1991, the first Bush Administration wanted an oil pipeline from Azerbaijan, across the Caucasus, to Turkey. That year, three US Air Force officers, Richard Secord (a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs), Heinie Aderholt and Ed Dearborn, landed in Baku, and set up a front company, ‘MEGA Oil’. They were veterans of previous CIA covert operations in Laos and later with Lt. Col. Oliver North’s Contra scandal. In Azerbaijan, they setup an airline to secretly fly hundreds of al-Qaeda mujahidin from Afghanistan into Azerbaijan. By 1993, MEGA Oil had recruited and armed 2,000 mujahidin, converting Baku into a base for regional jihadi operations.[14]

The covert operation contributed to the military coup that toppled elected president Abulfaz Elchibey that year, and installed US puppet Heidar Aliyev. A secret Turkish intelligence report leaked to the Sunday Times confirmed that ‘two petrol giants, BP and Amoco, British and American respectively, which together form the AIOC (Azerbaijan International Oil Consortium), are behind the coup d’état.[15]

From 1992 to 1995, the Pentagon flew thousands of al-Qaeda mujahidin from Central Asia into Europe, to fight alongside Bosnian Muslims against the Serbs. The mujahidin were ‘accompanied by US Special Forces equipped with high-tech communications equipment,’ according to intelligence sources. Bin Laden’s mercenaries were used as shock troops by the Pentagon ‘to coordinate and support Bosnian Muslim offensives’.[16]

The pattern continued in Kosovo, where ethnic violence broke out between Albanians and Serbs. In 1998, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was listed by the State Department as a terrorist organization financed by bin Laden and the heroin trade. Bin Laden had sent a senior lieutenant, Muhammed al-Zawahiri (brother of al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri), to lead an élite KLA unit during the Kosovo conflict. He had direct radio contact with NATO leadership. Indeed, British SAS and American Delta Force instructors were training KLA fighters as early as 1996. The CIA supplied military assistance up to and during the 1999 bombing campaign, including military training manuals and field advice, under the cover of OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe) ceasefire monitors.[17]

After the Kosovo War, when the KLA switched operations to Macedonia under the banner of the National Liberation Army (NLA), its links with al-Qaeda were as strong as ever according to US, Macedonian, Albanian and Yugoslav intelligence sources. Yet by 2001, Canadian military correspondent Scott Taylor reported after a visit to Tetovo that ‘there is no denying the massive amount of material and expertise supplied by NATO to the guerrillas’.[18]

So why the Balkans? Gen. Sir Mike Jackson, then-commander of NATO troops in the region, summed it up in 1999: ‘We will certainly stay here for a long time in order to guarantee the safety of the energy corridors which cross Macedonia.’ The General was talking about the Trans-Balkan pipeline passing through Bulgaria, Macedonia and Albania, planned to be a primary route to the West for Central Asian oil and gas.[19]

Around the same time, US intelligence stepped up sponsorship of al-Qaeda mujahidin in Chechnya. Chechnya is traditionally a predominantly Sufi society, yet the increasing encroachment of US-sponsored mujahidin operatives linked to Osama bin Laden transformed the character of the Chechen resistance movement, empowering al-Qaeda’s hardline Islamist ideology. US intelligence ties had been established in the early 1990s in Baku under Dick Secord’s operation, where mujahidin activities had quickly extended into Dagestan and Chechnya, turning Baku into a shipping point for Afghan heroin to the Chechen mafia.[20]

From the mid-1990s, bin Laden funded Chechen guerrilla leaders Shamil Basayev and Omar ibn al-Khattab to the tune of several millions of dollars per month, sidelining the moderate Chechen majority.[21] US intelligence remained deeply involved until the end of the decade. According to Yossef Bodanksy, then-Director of the US Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, Washington was actively involved in ‘yet another anti-Russian jihad, ‘seeking to support and empower the most virulent anti-Western Islamist forces’. US Government officials participated in ‘a formal meeting in Azerbaijan’ in December 1999 ‘in which specific programmes for the training and equipping of mujahidin from the Caucasus, Central/South Asia and the Arab world were discussed and agreed upon’, culminating in ‘Washington’s tacit encouragement of both Muslim allies (mainly Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia) and US “private security companies”... to assist the Chechens and their Islamist allies to surge in the spring of 2000 and sustain the ensuing jihad for a long time.’ The US saw the sponsorship of ‘Islamist jihad in the Caucasus’ as a way to ‘deprive Russia of a viable pipeline route through spiralling violence and terrorism’.[22]

Algeria – state terrorism in disguise

Parallel covert operations were deployed in the same period in Algeria, where the army cancelled national democratic elections in 1992 that would have brought the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) to power in a landslide victory. Tens of thousands of FIS voters were rounded up into detention camps in the Sahara, while the FIS and other Islamist political parties were banned. Not long after the coup, hundreds of civilians were being mysteriously massacred by an unknown terrorist group, identified by the Algerian junta as a radical offshoot of the FIS calling itself the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). The GIA was formed largely of Algerian veterans of bin Laden’s mujahidin forces in Afghanistan who had returned in the late 1980s.[23] To date, the total death toll from the massacres by the GIA is an estimated 150,000 civilians.[24]

Yet in the late 1990s, evidence began to emerge from dissident Algerian Government and intelligence sources that the GIA atrocities were in fact perpetrated by the state. ‘Yussuf-Joseph’, a career secret agent in Algeria’s sécurité militaire for 14 years, defected to Britain in 1997 and told the Guardian that civilian massacres in Algeria, blamed on the GIA, were ‘the work of secret police and army death squads… not Islamic extremists’. GIA terrorism was ‘orchestrated’ by ‘Mohammed Mediane, head of the Algerian secret service’, and ‘General Smain Lamari’, head of ‘the counter intelligence agency’. According to Joseph: ‘The GIA is a pure product of Smain’s secret service. I used to read all the secret telexes. I know that the GIA has been infiltrated and manipulated by the Government. The GIA has been completely turned by the Government… In 1992 Smain created a special group, L’Escadron de la Mort (the Squadron of Death)... The death squads organize the massacres... The FIS aren’t doing the massacres.’

Joseph also confirmed that Algerian intelligence agents organized ‘at least’ two of the bombs in Paris in summer 1995. ‘The operation was run by Colonel Souames Mahmoud, alias Habib, head of the secret service at the Algerian embassy in Paris.’ Joseph’s testimony has been corroborated by numerous defectors from the Algerian secret services.[25]

Western intelligence agencies are implicated. Secret British Foreign Office documents revealed in a terrorist trial in 2000 showed that ‘British intelligence believed the Algerian Government was involved in atrocities, contradicting the view the Government was claiming in public’. The documents referred to the ‘manipulation of the GIA being used as a cover to carry out their own operations’, and that ‘there was no evidence to link 1995 Paris bombings to Algerian militants’.[26]

Algeria has the fifth largest reserves of natural gas in the world, and is the second largest gas exporter, with 130 trillion proven natural gas reserves. It ranks fourteenth for oil reserves, with official estimates at 9.2 billion barrels. Approximately 90 per cent of Algeria’s crude oil exports go to Western Europe, including Britain, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Spain. Algeria’s major trading partners are Italy, France, the United States, Germany, and Spain.

Currently, the militant Algerian splinter group, the al-Qaeda Organization in the Islamic Maghreb – formerly known as the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) – plays a predominant role in regional terrorist violence. Yet in a series of extensive analyses for the Review of African Political Economy, social anthropologist Dr Jeremy Keenan – Director of Sahara Studies at the University of East Anglia – documents ‘an increasing amount of evidence to suggest that the alleged spread of terrorist activities across much of the Sahelian Sahara, has indeed been an elaborate deception on the part of US and Algerian military intelligence services’. He discusses evidence that an al-Qaeda hostage-taking of European tourists in early 2003 ‘was initiated and orchestrated by elements within the Algerian military establishment’, an operation ‘condoned by the US’, and that al-Qaeda leader Ammar Saifi (also known as Abderazzak El Para, or ‘the Maghreb’s bin Laden’) ‘was “turned” by the Algerian security forces in January 2003’.[27]

Energy hegemony is a key priority. Reported al-Qaeda activity in North Africa has focused on oil-rich nations, particularly the Niger Delta, Nigeria, and Chad. Thus, in July 2003, Keenan reports, under US auspices Algeria, Chad, Niger and Nigeria ‘signed a co-operation agreement on counter-terrorism that effectively joined the two oil-rich sides of the Sahara together in a complex of security arrangements whose architecture is American’. This has now evolved into the $500 million Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Initiative, in which Algeria plays a pivotal role in US plans for future regional military deployment. The region-wide security arrangement coincides with the inauguration of a $6 billion World Bank project, the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline.[28]

Islamist extremism and the Israeli connection

Curiously, Israel has played a key role in some of these policies, starting with the involvement of Congressman Charlie Wilson, who used his position in the House Select Committee on Intelligence, gained with the support of then Senator Dick Cheney, to ramp up billions of dollars’ worth of support for both Israel and the Afghan mujahidin.[29] Gust Avracotos, the CIA’s Station Chief in Islamabad, commented that Wilson brought ‘the Israelis into the CIA’s Muslim jihad’, opening opportunities for Mossad penetration of the ISI and al-Qaeda and securing Israeli arms contracts and intelligence ties with Pakistan.[30]

Closer to home, Israel played a very similar game in its ambiguous relationship to Hamas. US Government and intelligence sources confirm that Israel provided direct and indirect financial aid to Hamas in the late 1970s as a counterbalance to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).[31] According to the Israeli military affairs experts Ze’ev Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari, at the time of the first Intifadah, Fatah ‘suspected the Israelis of a plot first to let Hamas gather strength and then to unleash it against the PLO, turning the uprising into a civil war... many Israeli staff officers believed that the rise of fundamentalism in Gaza could be exploited to weaken the power of the PLO’.[32]

Israeli support for Hamas reportedly continued even after the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, during the period of some of the worst suicide bombings.[33] Even the late Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yassir Arafat said in 2001 that Hamas ‘continued to benefit from permits and authorizations, while we have been limited, even [for permits] to build a tomato factory... Some collaborationists of Israel are involved in these [terrorist] attacks.’[34]

Indeed, there are indications that the Israeli assassination of Hamas leader Abu Hanoud in November 2001 was a ploy to provoke more terror bombings. Three months earlier, the Israeli Insider reported Ariel Sharon’s plan for an all-out attack on the PA to permanently destroy its infrastructure, noting that the plan would only ‘be launched immediately following the next high-casualty suicide bombing’ – which was later provoked by Israel’s extrajudicial killing of Hanoud. As Israeli military security analyst Alex Fishman noted: ‘Whoever gave a green light to this act of liquidation knew full well that he was thereby shattering in one blow the gentleman’s agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority. Under that agreement, Hamas was to avoid in the near future suicide bombings inside the Green Line (pre-1967 border), having come to the understanding that it would be better not to play into Israel’s hands by mass attacks on its population centres. This understanding was, however, shattered by the assassination the day before yesterday – and whoever decided upon the liquidation of Abu knew in advance that that would be the price. The subject had been extensively discussed both by the military and the political echelon, before it was decided to carry out the liquidation.’[35]

Elements of the Israeli far-right, including senior cabinet officials, recognized that the plan to destroy the PA would facilitate the rise of Hamas. In an Israeli Cabinet meeting in December 2001, for instance, one minister declared: ‘Between Hamas and Arafat, I prefer Hamas.’ He added that Arafat is a ‘terrorist in a diplomat’s suit, while Hamas can be hit unmercifully… there won’t be any international protests’.[36]

Ties with terror

Islamist terrorism cannot be understood without acknowledging the extent to which its networks are being used by Western military intelligence services, both to control strategic energy resources and to counter their geopolitical rivals. Even now, nearly a decade after 9/11, covert sponsorship of al-Qaeda networks continues. In recent dispatches for the New Yorker, investigative journalist Seymour Hersh cites US Government and intelligence officials’ confirmation that the CIA and the Pentagon have funnelled millions of dollars via Saudi Arabia to al-Qaeda affiliated Sunni extremist groups, across the Middle East and Central Asia. The policy, which Hersh says began in 2003, has spilled over into regions like Iraq and Lebanon, fuelling Sunni-Shi’a sectarian conflict.[37] The programme is part of a drive to counter Iranian Shi’a influence in the region. In early 2008, a US Presidential Finding to Congress corroborated Hersh’s reporting, affirming CIA funding worth $400 million to diverse anti-Shi’a extremist and terrorist groups. This was not contested by any Democratic members of the House.[38] Now, President Obama has retained Bush’s Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, as his own. Yet Gates was the architect of the covert strategy against Iran. To date, Obama has given no indication that this strategy will change. The history outlined here throws into doubt our entire understanding of the ‘war on terror’. How can we fight a war against an enemy that our own governments are covertly financing for short-sighted geopolitical interests?

If the ‘war on terror’ is to end, it won’t be won by fighting the next futile oil war. It will be won at home by holding the secretive structures of government to account and prosecuting officials for aiding and abetting terrorism – whether knowingly or by criminal negligence. Ultimately only this will rein in the ‘security’ agencies that foster the ‘enemy’ we are supposed to be fighting.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is Executive Director of the Institute for Policy Research and Development. His latest book is The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, 2006).

This is an extended version of the article which appeared in the October 2009 issue of NI, Islam in Power.

1. Le Nouvel Observateur (15-21 January 1998) p. 76; Robert Gates, From the Shadows – The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How They Won the Cold War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997) pp. 143-149

2. Craig Unger, House of Bush, House of Saud – The Secret Relationship between the World’s Two Most Powerful Dynasties (London: Scribner, 2004) p. 100.

3. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (Yale: Yale University Press, 2000) p. 91

4. Rahul Bedi, ‘Why? An attempt to explain the unexplainable,’ Jane’s Defence Weekly (14 September 2001)

5. Richard Labeviere, Dollars For Terror: The United States and Islam (New York: Algora, 2000)

6. Cited in ibid.

7. Judicial Watch Press Release, ‘Clinton State Department Documents Outlined bin Laden Threat to the United States in Summer 1996’ (17 August 2005) www.judicialwatch.org/5504.shtml

8. Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (New York: Ballantine, 2003) pp. 105-6

9. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000) pp. 166, 179

10. Dana Rohrabacher, ‘US Policy Toward Afghanistan,’ Statement before Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on South Asia (Washington DC: US Senate, 14 April 1999). Also see Rohrabacher, Statement before Hearing of the House International Relations Committee on ‘Global Terrorism And South Asia,’ (Washington DC: US House of Representatives, 12 July 2000).

11. George Arney, ‘US ‘planned attack on Taleban’,’ BBC News (18 September 2001) news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/southasia/newsid1550000/1550366.stm

12. Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth: US-Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden (New York: Nation, 2002); George Arney, ‘US ‘planned attack on Taleban’,’ BBC News (18 September 2001). news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/southasia/newsid1550000/1550366.stm

13. ‘US Companies Eye Trans-Afghan Pipeline’, Forbes (19 January 2005) www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/ap/2005/01/18/ap1764703.html

14. Peter Dale Scott, The Road to 911 – Wealth Empire and the Future of America (Berkley: University of California Press, 2007) pp. 163-165

15. ‘BP Linked to the Overthrow of Azerbaijan Government,’ Drillbits and Trailings (17 April 2000, vol. 5, no. 6)

16. Cees Wiebes (2003) Intelligence and the War in Bosnia 1992-1995: The role of the intelligence and security services (New Jersey: Transaction Publishers, Rutgers State University, 2003); ‘US Commits Forces, Weapons to Bosnia,’ Defense and Foreign Affairs: Strategic Policy (31 October 1994)

17. Sources in Nafeez Ahmed, The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (New York: Interlink, 2005)

18. Scott Taylor, ‘Macedonia’s Civil War: ‘Made in the USA’’ (Randolph Bourne Institute, 20 August 2001) www.antiwar.com/orig/taylor1.html

19. Michel Collon, Monopoly – L’Otan à la Conquête du monde (Brussels: EPO, 2000) p. 96

20. Scott, op. cit., pp. 163-165.

21. Mark Erikson, ‘Bin Laden’s terror wave 2’, Asia Times (29 October 2002)
www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/DJ29Ag05.html

22. Yossef Bodanksy, ‘The Great Game for Oil’, Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy(June/July 2000)

23. Colin Robinson, ‘Armed Islamic Group a.k.a. Groupement Islamique Armé’ (Washington DC: Center for Defense Information, 5 February 2003) www.cdi.org/terrorism/gia_020503.cfm

24. The Guardian (8 April 2004)

25. Ahmed, 2005, pp. 65-77; Ahmed, 2001

26. Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘Terrorist case collapses after three years’, The Guardian (21 March 2000)

27. Jeremy Keenan, ‘Terror in the Sahara: the Implications of US Imperialism for North & West Africa,’ Review of African Political Economy (September 2004, 31 (101): 475–486); ‘Political Destablisation and ‘Blowback’ in the Sahel’, Review of African Political Economy (December 2004, 31(102): 691–703).

28. Keenan (2005) ‘Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline: World Bank and ExxonMobil in Last Chance Saloon,’ Review of African Political Economy (2005, Vol. 32, No. 104/5) pp. 395-405; Keenan, (2006) ‘The making of terrorists: Anthropology and the alternative truth of America’s ‘War on Terror’ in the Sahara’, Focaal – European Journal of Anthropology (2006, No. 48) pp. 144-51.

29. George Crile, Charlie Wilson’s War (London: Atlantic Books, 2003).

30. Ibid. p. 391.

31. Richard Sale, ‘Analysis: Hamas History Tied to Israel,’ United Press International (18 June 2002) www.upi.com/Security_Industry/2002/06/18/Analysis-Hamas-history-tied-to-Israel/UPI-82721024445587

32. Ze'ev Schiff and Ehud Ya'ari, The Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising – Israel’s Third Front (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990)

33. George Szamuely, ‘Israel’s Hamas’, New York Press (April 2002, Vol. 15, No. 17)

34. L’Espresso (19 December 2001) [Rome]

35. Yediot Ahranot (25 November 2001)

36. Ha’aretz (4 December 2001)

37. Seymour M. Hersh, ‘The Redirection’, New Yorker (5 March 2007) http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/05/070305fa_fact_hersh

38. Alexander Cockburn, ‘Exclusive: Secret Bush ‘Finding’ Widens Covert War on Iran’, Counterpunch (2 May 2008) www.counterpunch.org/andrew05022008.html

Source

Amalgam Virgo: Document Reveals Details of Military Exercise Involving Suicide Pilot Three Months before 9/11

2009-11-05T11:34:00.000-08:00

New details of a NORAD exercise called Amalgam Virgo 01-02 have been found in a document at the National Archives. The exercise involved a suicide pilot attacking a military installation in the US. It was run in early June 2001, just three months before 9/11.

The document was found in the 9/11 Commission’s files at the National Archives by History Commons contributor Erik Larson (a.k.a. Paxvector) and uploaded to the 9/11 Document Archive at Scribd. Some information about the exercise was revealed at the History Commons Groups blog in June, when we publicised a commission document summarising a group of military exercises designed to help the military deal with suicide hijackings. However, the newly-found three-page scenario provides more detail.

In the scenario, a Haitian AIDS sufferer named Reginald Montrose forms an alliance with Columbian drug lords. This link-up is inspired by funding the Columbians have provided to treat AIDS patients in Haiti. Montrose plans to crash a Cessna into the headquarters of the Southeast Air Defense Sector (SEADS) in Florida. Its destruction will draw attention to the Haitians’ plight and “allow the drug cartel to flood the US with flights of aircraft and to increase their market share in the US drug market.”

The exercise starts with a call from a local airport manager to SEADS saying that they have found a suicide note in a suspicious car, and one of their small aircraft is missing. Another call then comes in based on FBI information. Montrose’s sister has contacted the bureau and told it of a second suicide note. The target is believed to be a Tyndall Air Force Base in Florida, where SEADS is located.

The text of both suicide notes is included in the scenario. The first even states that Montrose has taken out an insurance policy with Lloyds of London to cover the cost of the plane he intends to crash into SEADS, and has filled the gas tank of his rental car, which is to be returned to the Alamo facility at Tampa International airport.

SEADS launches fighters to intercept and identify the incoming Cessna, and to attempt to turn it away from the Florida coastline. However, Montrose is to remain on course, without turning. The scenario states, “This will develop into an ROE [Rules of Engagement] drill that will challenge the battlestaff as they work to keep the target aircraft from impacting SEADS.” It adds, “Target will remain on course… throughout scenario or until simulated shot down…. Scenario fruition is up to Blue Forces.”

Source

Destruction of Flight Controllers’ Tape, Day of 9/11 – Additions to the 9/11 Timeline as of November 4, 2009

2009-11-05T11:22:00.000-08:00

One of the main focuses at the 9/11 Timeline recently has been the destruction of a tape of FAA flight controllers’ recollections. The tape was made at the FAA’s New York Center about an hour and a half after the attacks ended, despite worries about the procedure by a union official and the controllers. However, when New York Center forwarded evidence about the attacks to the FBI the next day, it did not provide the tape, and its existence was not reported to superiors. The controllers then prepared written statements without reviewing the tape, and a union official was concerned whether anyone had heard it. One of the controllers later asked to listen to the taped statement he had made, but his request was denied. When New York Center submitted a formal accident package, the tape was again absent. Although the Center had been told to retain 9/11 evidence, the tape was later destroyed. Following the tape’s destruction, the manager who destroyed it was suspended, but did not face criminal charges. A later Transportation Department report simply attributed the tape’s destruction to “poor judgment.”

There are also a number of new entries about the day of 9/11. The Secret Service learned of additional hijacked aircraft around 9:03 a.m., but the agents protecting Vice President Dick Cheney were apparently not alerted. A National Reconnaissance Office exercise simulating a plane crashing into its building was scheduled to begin around 9:30 a.m., when unidentified planes were flying near the Pentagon. Shortly after 9:40 a.m., the FAA Command Centre updated FAA headquarters about hijacked flight 93, a National Airborne Operations Center plane launched from Andrews Air Force base, and American Airlines briefly lost contact with a third airliner.

After 9:50 a.m., American Airlines CEO Don Carty questioned Transportation Secretary Mineta about the plane that hit the Pentagon, Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) officers created a battleplan to respond to the attacks, the control tower at Reagan Airport was evacuated due to a report on an approaching aircraft, and numerous international flights began transmitting emergency codes. After 10:00 a.m., NORAD commanders considered a shootdown authorization, but pilots launched from Langley Air Force Base were told they could not shoot down hijacked planes, and NORAD sectors were told peacetime rules of engagement applied.

Finally, alleged lead hijacker Mohamed Atta was supported by a German Foundation with US ties and Robert Fuller, one of the FBI agencies involved in the failed hunt for Khalid Almihdhar, later handled an informer so badly he immolated himself in front of the White House.

Source

Osama bin Laden Responsible for the 9/11 Attacks? Where is the Evidence?

2009-11-05T10:32:00.000-08:00

The idea that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks has been an article of faith for public officials and the mainstream media. Calling it an “article of faith” points to two features of this idea. On the one hand, no one in these circles publicly challenges this idea.

On the other hand, as I pointed out at length in two of my books – 9/11 Contradictions1 and The New Pearl Harbor Revisited,[2] no good evidence has ever been publicly presented to support it.

Colin Powell’s Withdrawn Promise Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Tim Russert on Meet the Press, said that he expected “in the near future . . . to put out . . . a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking [bin Laden] to this attack.”[3]

Powell reversed himself, however, at a press conference with President Bush in the White House Rose Garden the next morning, saying that, although the government had information that left no question of bin Laden’s responsibility, “most of it is classified.”[4] According to Seymour Hersh, citing officials from both the CIA and the Department of Justice, the real reason for the reversal was a “lack of solid information.”[5]

This was the week that Bush, after demanding that the Taliban turn over bin Laden, refused their request for evidence that bin Laden had been behind the attacks.[6] A senior Taliban official, after the US attack on Afghanistan had begun, said: “We have asked for proof of Osama’s involvement, but they have refused. Why?”[7] Hersh’s answer was that they had no proof.

Tony Blair’s Weak Document

The task of providing such proof was taken up by Bush’s chief ally in the “war on terror,” British Prime Minister Tony Blair. On October 4, 2001, Blair made public a document entitled: “Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States.” Listing “clear conclusions reached by the government,” it stated: “Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the atrocities on 11 September 2001.” Blair’s report, however, began by saying: “This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law.”[8] Although the case was not good enough to go to court, Blair seemed to be saying, it was good enough to go to war.

The weakness in Blair’s report, in any event, was noted the next day by the BBC, which said: “There is no direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11 September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial.”[9]

The FBI’s Surprising Statement

What does our own FBI say? Here is a surprising but little-known fact, because it has scarcely been reported in the mainstream media: The FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorist” webpage on “Usama bin Laden” does not list the 9/11 attacks as one of the crimes for which he is wanted. It does list bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi as terrorist acts for which he is wanted. But it makes no mention of 9/11.[10] In 2006, Rex Tomb, then the FBI’s chief of investigative publicity, was asked why not. He replied: “The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”[11]

After this story started flying around the Internet and was even covered by a TV station in Louisiana,[12] Dan Eggen tried to downplay its significance in an August 2006 Washington Post article entitled “Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?”[13] Complaining about “conspiracy theorists” who claimed that “the lack of a Sept. 11 reference [on the FBI's "Most Wanted" webpage for bin Laden] suggests that the connection to al-Qaeda is uncertain,” Eggen quoted the explanation offered by a former US attorney, who said that the FBI could not appropriately “put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed.”

But that explanation, while true, simply pushes the issue back a step to this question: Why have such charges not been filed? Rex Tomb’s fuller statement, which Eggen failed to mention, had answered this question the previous June, saying:

The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice then decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.[14]

The 9/11 Commission

What about the 9/11 Commission? Its report gave the impression that it was in possession of solid evidence of bin Laden’s guilt. But the Commission’s co-chairs, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton, undermined this impression in their follow-up book, which they subtitled: “The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission.”[15] (I discussed this book at length in Chapter 2 of my 2007 book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking.[16]

As the endnotes for The 9/11 Commission Report reveal, whenever the Commission referred to evidence of bin Ladin’s responsibility for the 9/11 attacks, the Commission was always referring to CIA-provided information, which had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, generally called simply “KSM,” who has been called the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The Commission, for example, wrote:

Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11 operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Ladin also soon selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta – whom Bin Ladin chose to lead the group – met with Bin Ladin several times to receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.

The note for each of these statements says: “interrogation of KSM.”[18]

Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in “obtaining access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.”[19] Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, Commission members were not even permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or to talk to the interrogators.[20] Therefore, Kean and Hamilton complained: “We . . . had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the truth?”[21]

An NBC “deep background” report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem: KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to “enhanced interrogation techniques,” i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. “At least four of the operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report,” NBC pointed out, “have claimed that they told interrogators critical information as a way to stop being ‘tortured.’” NBC then quoted Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: “Most people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document. If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . . . their conclusions are suspect.”[22]

The “Bin Laden Confession Tapes”

As we have seen, neither the 9/11 Commission, the Bush-Cheney White House, the FBI, the British government, nor the 9/11 Commission provided good evidence that Osama bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Many people, however, have assumed that the question of his responsibility was settled by the existence of videotapes and audiotapes in which he himself confessed to the attacks. There are, however, good reasons to believe that these so-called confession tapes are fakes. I will illustrate this point in terms of the two best-known videotapes of this nature.

The “Jalalabad Video” Released December 13, 2001: The first and most famous of the “Osama bin Laden confession video tapes” was released by the Pentagon on December 13, 2001. It had purportedly been made on November 9, 2001, after which it was allegedly found by US forces in a private home in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. In this video, an Osama bin Laden figure is seen talking about the 9/11 attacks with a visiting sheikh. During the course of the conversation, the bin Laden figure boasts about the success of the attacks, saying that he had planned them.[23] Both US and British officials claimed that this tape left no doubt about bin Laden’s guilt.[24]

Stories in both the Canadian and British media, however, raised questions about the tape’s authenticity. These stories, besides pointing out the existence of the technical ability to create fake video tapes, also mentioned the suspicion of some people that the bin Laden figure was not Osama bin Laden himself.

A BBC News report said: “Washington calls it the ‘smoking gun’ that puts Bin Laden’s guilt beyond doubt, but many in the Arab world believe the home video of the al-Qaeda chief is a fake.”[25] This report was, in fact, entitled, “Could the Bin Laden Video Be a Fake?”

This question was also raised in Canada by CBC News, which pointed out that some people had “suggested the Americans hired someone to pretend to be the exiled Saudi.”[26]

This question was raised even more insistently in a Guardian story with the title, “US Urged to Detail Origin of Tape.” Reporting “growing doubt in the Muslim world about the authenticity of the film,” writer Steven Morris said:

The White House yesterday came under pressure to give more details of the video which purports to show Osama bin Laden admitting his part in the September 11 attacks.

Morris, pointing out that the White House had provided no details about how the Pentagon came to be in possession of the tape, added:

According to US officials the tape was found in a house in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan, and handed to the Pentagon by an unnamed person or group. . . . But for many the explanation is too convenient. Some opponents of the war theorise that the Bin Laden in the film was a look-alike.

Morris then quoted one such opponent in Pakistan, who said: “This videotape is not authentic. The Americans made it up after failing to get any evidence against Osama.”

Morris also cited Bob Crabtree, the editor of Computer Video magazine, who explained that it was impossible to determine whether the video was authentic without more details of its source, adding: “The US seems simply to have asked the world to trust them that it is genuine.”[28]

This skepticism about the authenticity of this “Jalalabad video” was based on sound reasons. For one thing, this video’s bin Laden figure appeared too heavy and healthy, compared with the bin Laden who made the last of the undoubtedly authentic bin Laden videos, which was made sometime in 2001 between November 16 (on which occurred an event mentioned on the tape) and December 27 (the date on which the tape was released). In this post-November 16 video, bin Laden’s beard was white, he had a “gaunt, frail appearance,” and his “left arm hung limply by his side while he gesticulated with his right.”[29] This immobile left arm, Dr. Sanjay Gupta observed on CNN, suggested that bin Laden had suffered a stroke, adding that this plus a “frosting of the appearance” suggested that bin Laden was in the final stages of kidney failure.[30]

But in the “Jalalabad video,” which was reportedly made at about the same time (being dated November 9 and released December 13), the bin Laden figure was heavier and also darker, in both skin and beard color; his nose had a different shape;[31] and his hands were shorter and heavier than those of Osama bin Laden as seen in undoubtedly authentic videos.[32]

Still another problem is that, whereas bin Laden was left-handed, the man in the “Jalalabad video” wrote with his right hand. Although it might be thought that this was because his left arm was immobile, the bin Laden figure in this video was easily able to lift his left arm above his head.[33]

If this video was made on November 9, as claimed, then it would have been made at most only a few weeks before the post-November 16 video. It is very hard to believe that the heavy, dark-skinned, healthy-looking man with a dark beard could have, within two or three weeks, turned into the pale, gaunt, white-bearded, man seen in the post-November 16 video.

If one accepts the Jalalabad video as authentic, one not only has to accept these radical changes in bin Laden’s physical appearance; one must also accept a complete change in his statements about 9/11. In the previous weeks, he had repeatedly – on September 12, 16, 17, and 28 – stated that he had had nothing to do with the attacks.[34] In the September 28 statement, he had even declared:

I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle. . . . [W]e are against the American system, not against its people, whereas in these attacks, the common American people have been killed.[35]

Is it likely that he would have made such statements if he himself had authorized the attacks and thereby the killing of innocents?

Whatever be one’s opinion about that, the bin Laden figure in the “Jalalabad video” made other statements that Osama bin Laden himself would surely not have made. For example, he said:

[W]e calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed based on the position of the tower. . . . [D]ue to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only. This is all that we had hoped for.[36]

But in light of the real bin Laden’s “experience in the field” as a building contractor, he would have known that high-rise buildings are framed with steel, not iron. Even more important, he would have known that the buildings’ support columns – whether made of steel or iron – would not have been melted by the “fire from the gas in the plane.” Why? Because he would have known, on the one hand, that a building fire, even if fed by jet-fuel (which is essentially kerosene), could not, even under the most ideal conditions, have risen above 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,000 degrees Celsius). And he would have known, on the other hand, that iron and steel do not begin to melt until they are heated to a temperature far higher than that: to almost 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit (1,540 degrees Celsius). The real bin Laden, therefore, would not have expected any iron or steel to melt.

A final reason to consider the “Jalalabad video” a fake is that bin Laden experts have declared it to such. When Dr. Bruce Lawrence, a Duke University history professor widely considered the country’s leading academic bin Laden expert,[37] was asked what he thought about this video, he said, bluntly: “It’s bogus.” Some friends of his in the US Department of Homeland Security assigned to work “on the 24/7 bin Laden clock,” he added, “also know it’s bogus.”[38]

General Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), suggested that the man in the video was an “Osama bin Laden lookalike.”[39]

Former Foreign Service officer Angelo Codevilla, after saying “[t]he guy just does not look like Osama,” added: “The fact that the video had been made for no self-evident purpose except perhaps to be found by the Americans should have raised suspicion.”[40]

A fourth expert opinion has been issued implicitly, it would seem, by the Department of Justice and its FBI. If they considered this “confession video” authentic, would they not consider it “hard evidence” of bin Laden’s responsibility for 9/11? They say, however, that they have no such evidence, so they must not consider this video authentic.

The “October Surprise Video of 2004: The other most famous of the “bin Laden confession tapes” is the video tape that was released on October 29, 2004, just before the presidential election between George W. Bush and John Kerry, leading to its being called “the October Surprise video.” In this one, for the first time, a bin Laden figure directly addressed the American people. The Associated Press, focusing on the most important aspect of the speaker’s message, entitled its story: “Bin Laden, in Statement to U.S. People, Says He Ordered Sept. 11 Attacks.”[41] However, although the AP accepted the authenticity of the tape, there are serious reasons to doubt it.

A reason to be at least suspicious is the very fact that it appeared just four days before the presidential election and seemed designed to help Bush’s reelection – an assessment that was made even by CIA analysts.[42] The video, moreover, evidently did help: Bush’s lead over Kerry in national polls increased right after it appeared,[43] and both Bush and Kerry said that this tape was significantly responsible for Bush’s victory.[44] Given the fact that this video would quite predictably help Bush win reelection, it would seem to have been issued by his friends, not his enemies.

There are also substantive reasons to doubt this tape’s authenticity, one of which is the speaker’s language. The clearly authentic bin Laden messages were filled with religious language. A bin Laden video released October 7, 2001, for example, began thus:

Praise be to God and we beseech Him for help and forgiveness. We seek refuge with the Lord of our bad and evildoing. He whom God guides is rightly guided . . . . I witness that there is no God but God and Mohammed is His slave and Prophet.[45]

Even though this talk as a whole had only 725 words, bin Laden referred to God (Allah) 20 times and to the prophet Mohammed 3 times. Likewise, his message of November 3, 2001, which contained 2,333 words, referred to God 35 times and to the prophet Mohammed 8 times.[46] By contrast, the 2004 October Surprise video, which had almost the same number of words as the November 3 video, referred to God only 12 times. The only “Mohammad” mentioned, moreover, was Mohamed Atta.

Another substantive difference involved the type of causal analysis provided. Bin Laden’s clearly authentic messages had portrayed historical events as occurring only because they were caused, or at least allowed, by God. In his message of October 7, 2001, for example, he said: “God Almighty hit the United States. . . . He destroyed its greatest buildings.” Human agents were involved, to be sure, but they were successful only because “Almighty God . . . allowed them to destroy the United States.”[47] In his message of November 3, likewise, bin Laden said that, if people are helped or harmed, it is always by “something that God has already preordained for [them].”[48]

The message on the 2004 confession video, however, reflected a worldview in which events can be understood through a causal analysis based on secular rationalism. “One of the most important things rational people do when calamities occur,” the lecturer asserted, “is to look for their causes so as to avoid them.” He himself, in analyzing “the [Iraq] war, its causes and consequences,” provided a causal analysis involving purely human actors: Bush, al-Qaeda, and the American people. Far from suggesting that everything is finally in the hands of God, he said to the American people: “Your security is in your own hands” – a statement that a devout Wahabi Muslim such as Osama bin Laden would surely have considered blasphemous.

Still another reason to doubt the authenticity of this 2004 video is that, although the speaker was addressing the American public, he spoke Arabic rather than English. This is strange, because Osama bin Laden was reportedly fluent in English, which he had started studying when he was 11 years old.[49] A British journalist reported that, when he and bin Laden met in 1989, they conversed in English for 45 minutes.[50] General Hamid Gul, speaking to United Press International in 2001, said: “I know bin Laden and his associates. They are graduates of the best universities and . . . speak impeccable English.[51] If bin Laden spoke impeccable English, would he not have used it when speaking directly to the American people?[52]

Accordingly, this video does not, any more than the “Jalalabad video,” provide evidence that Osama bin Laden himself confessed to planning the 9/11 attacks.

Conclusion

I showed in a previous essay that, according to the best evidence presently available, Osama bin Laden has been dead for many years.[53] In the present essay, I have shown that there is not even any good evidence for the claim that bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Accordingly, insofar as the justification for the continuation of the AfPak war is based on the fact that bin Laden in the region both before and after the 9/11 attacks, that justification would seem to be doubly baseless.

David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books, nine of which are about 9/11. His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (Olive Branch, 2009). In 2008, he put out two books: The New Pearl Harbor: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (which was named a “Pick of the Week” by Publishers Weekly) and Osama bin Laden: Dead Or Alive? (which has generated considerable media coverage in England).

Notes

1. 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), Chap. 18, “Does the Government Have Hard Evidence of Bin Laden’s Responsibility?”

2. The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008). This book was named Publishers Weekly’s “Pick of the Week” on November 24, 2008 (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6617001.html?industryid=47159).

3. “Meet the Press,” NBC, September 23, 2001 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/specials/attacked/transcripts/nbctext092301.html).

4. “Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O’Neill and Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order,” White House, September 24, 2001 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010924-4.html).

5. Seymour M. Hersh, “What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the Failure of American Intelligence,” New Yorker, October 1, 2001 (http://cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Hersch_OCT_01.htm).

6. “White House Warns Taliban: ‘We Will Defeat You,’” CNN, September 21, 2001 (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/central/09/21/ret.afghan.taliban).

7. Kathy Gannon, “Taliban Willing to Talk, But Wants U.S. Respect,” Associated Press, November 1, 2001 (http://nucnews.net/nucnews/2001nn/0111nn/011101nn.htm#300).

8. Office of the Prime Minister, “Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States,” BBC News, October 4, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1579043.stm).

9. “The Investigation and the Evidence,” BBC News, October 5, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1581063.stm).

10. Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin Laden” (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm).

11. Ed Haas, “FBI says, ‘No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11′” Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006 (http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html).

12. “Bin Laden’s FBI Poster Omits Any 9/11 Connection,” KSLA 12 in Shreveport, Louisiana
( http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6443576002087829136).

13. “Bin Laden, Most Wanted For Embassy Bombings?” Washington Post, August 28, 2006 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700687.html)

14. Haas, “FBI says, ‘No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.’”

15. Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, with Benjamin Rhodes, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2006).

16. David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, revised and updated edition (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007). This book won a bronze medal in the 2008 Independent Publishers Book Awards.

17. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, authorized edition (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 149, 155, 166; henceforth 9/11CR.

18. See 9/11CR Ch. 5, notes 16, 41, and 92.

19. Kean and Hamilton, Without Precedent, 118.

20. Ibid., 122-24.

21. Ibid., 119. I have discussed this issue at greater length in Ch. 8, “9/11 Commission Falsehoods about Bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Pakistanis, and Saudis,” of The New Pearl Harbor Revisited.

22. Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, “The 9/11 Commission Controversy,” Deep Background: NBC News Investigations, January 30, 2008 http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/01/30/624314.aspx).

23. “U.S. Releases Videotape of Osama bin Laden,” Department of Defense, December 13, 2001 (http://www.defenselink.mil/releases/release.aspx?releaseid=3184); “Pentagon Releases Bin Laden Videotape: U.S. Officials Say Tape Links Him to Sept. 11 Attacks,” National Public Radio, December 13, 2001 http://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen.tape.html). The entire video can be viewed at this NPR Web page.

24. See my book Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2009), 23-26.

25. “Could the Bin Laden Video Be a Fake?” BBC News, December 14, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/1711288.stm).

26. “‘Feeble’ to Claim Bin Laden Tape Fake: Bush,” CBC, December 14, 2001 (http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2001/12/14/bush_osama011214.html).

27. Steven Morris, “US Urged to Detail Origin of Tape,” Guardian, December 15, 2001 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/dec/15/september11.afghanistan).

28. Ibid.

29. Toby Harnden, “US Casts Doubt on Bin Laden’s Latest Message,” Telegraph, December 27, 2001

30. “Dr. Sanjay Gupta: Bin Laden Would Need Help if on Dialysis,” CNN, January 21, 2002
(http://www.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/01/21/gupta.otsc/index.html). For the tape, see “”Osama Bin Laden Tape Dezember [sic] 2001″ (http://www.myvideo.de/watch/3760193/Osama_Bin_Laden_Tape_Dezember_2001).

31. For a nose comparison, see “Osama bin Laden Gets a Nose Job” (http://www.awitness.org/news/december_2001/osama_nose_job.html),
or “Bruce Lawrence,” Radio Du Jour (http://www.radiodujour.com/people/lawrence_bruce).

32. Compare his hands with bin Laden’s hand as shown in the post-November 16 video (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1729882.stm).

33. This can be seen in a portion of the Jalalabad video placed on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FVeqCX6z8).

34. For documentation and discussion, see Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? 27-29.

35. “Interview with Usama bin Laden,” Ummat (Karachi), September 28, 2001
http://www.robert-fisk.com/usama_interview_ummat.htm).
Bin Laden’s statement about innocents repeated what he had said in an interview with John Miller of ABC News in 1998: “Our religion forbids us from killing innocent people such as women and children”

36. “Transcript of Usama bin Laden Video Tape,” Department of Defense, December 13, 2001 ( http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Dec2001/d20011213ubl.pdf).

37. Bruce Lawrence is the editor of Messages to the World: The Statements of Osama Bin Laden (London and New York: Verso, 2005).

38. Lawrence made these statements on February 16, 2007, during a radio interview conducted by Kevin Barrett of the University of Wisconsin at Madison. It can be heard at Radio Du Jour (http://www.radiodujour.com/people/lawrence_bruce).

39. BBC News, “Tape ‘Proves Bin Laden’s Guilt,’” December 14, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1708091.stm).

40. Angelo M. Codevilla, “Osama bin Elvis,” American Spectator, March 2009 (http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/13/osama-bin-elvis/print).

41. Maggie Michael, “Bin Laden, in Statement to U.S. People, Says He Ordered Sept. 11 Attacks,” Associated Press, October 29, 2004 (http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/terror/20041029-1423-binladentape.html).

42. Ron Suskind, The One Percent Doctrine: Deep Inside America’s Pursuit of Its Enemies Since 9/11 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), 336.

43. Philip Sherwell, “Bush Takes a Six-Point Lead After New Bin Laden Tape,” Telegraph, November 1, 2004 (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/1475515/Bush-takes-a-six-point-lead-after-new-bin-Laden-tape.html).

44. “Kerry Blames Defeat on Bin Laden,” BBC News, January 31, 2005 http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4222647.stm); “Bush Says Bin Laden Tape Aided Re-Election: Report,” Reuters, February 28, 2006 http://www.redorbit.com/news/politics/408991/bush_says_bin_laden_tape_aided_reelection_report/).

45. “Bin Laden’s Warning: Full Text,” BBC News, October 7, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1585636.stm).

46. “BBC Transcript Of Osama Bin Laden Statement,” November 7, 2001 (http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0111/S00049.htm).

47. “Bin Laden’s Warning: Full Text.”

48. “BBC Transcript Of Osama Bin Laden Statement.”

49. See “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden,” CNN, August 23, 2006 http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0608/23/cp.01.html), and Steve Coll, “Young Osama,” New Yorker, December 12, 2005 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2005/12/12/051212fa_fact).

50. “In the Footsteps of Bin Laden.”

51. “Arnaud de Borchgrave Interviews Hameed Gul, Former Chief of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence,” UPI, September 26, 2001 (http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/594-499.aspx; also available at(http://www.robert-fisk.com/hamid_gul_interview_sept26_2001.htm).

52. I have given a more thorough analysis of the problems in these two “confession videos” in my book Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive? (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books, 2009).

53. “Osama Bin Laden: Dead or Alive?” Veterans Today, October 22, 2009 (http://www.veteranstoday.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=9079).

Source

Did Training Exercises Prevent Andrews Air Force Base From Responding to the 9/11 Attacks?

2009-10-26T14:03:00.000-07:00

Why did airplanes fly around for an hour and a half without interceptors being
scrambled from Andrews [Air Force Base] ... right next to the capital?

- Paul Hellyer, Canadian minister of national defense, 1963-1967

Many aircraft at a military base just outside Washington, DC, were taking part in training exercises around the time the terrorist attacks occurred on September 11, 2001, it has been revealed. But whether these exercises impaired the ability of the various units at the base to effectively respond to the attacks has never been properly investigated.

On September 11, FAA air traffic controller James Ampey was on duty in the control tower at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland, near the District of Columbia border. He later told the 9/11 Commission that there was "an unusually high number of aircraft taking off and landing at Andrews that morning, because previously scheduled military exercises were under way." Ampey apparently did not tell the Commission what specific exercises these were, or the time period during which the aircraft were "taking off and landing" at the base. [1] However, other publicly available information offers minor clues about these exercises.

'GLOBAL GUARDIAN' EXERCISE
Journalist and author Dan Verton has described that, around the time of the Pentagon attack on 9/11 (9:37 a.m.), "civilian and military officials were boarding a militarized version of a Boeing 747, known as the E-4B National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC), at an airfield outside of the nation's capital. They were preparing to conduct a previously scheduled Defense Department exercise." [2] The airfield Verton referred to could well have been Andrews Air Force Base, as this is located only 10 miles from Washington. [3] Indeed, according to Miles Kara, who was a professional staff member of the 9/11 Commission, primary source information reveals that an E-4B took off from Andrews that morning, and was airborne at 9:27 a.m. [4] The exercise Verton referred to was likely "Global Guardian," which was "in full swing" when the attacks began, and for which three E-4Bs were launched. Global Guardian was an annual exercise run by the U.S. Strategic Command, to test its ability to fight a nuclear war. [5] Whether other aircraft taking off or landing at Andrews were also participating in Global Guardian is unknown.

NORAD EXERCISE ON 9/11
Another major exercise taking place on September 11 was "Vigilant Guardian." It seems less likely, however, that aircraft at Andrews would have participated in this.

The annual Vigilant Guardian exercise was being conducted by the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), including its Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS). [6] Vigilant Guardian has been described as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States," and was scheduled to include a simulated hijacking during the morning of September 11. [7] However, the DC Air National Guard (DCANG), which is based at Andrews, was not part of the NORAD air defense force. [8] Furthermore, members of the DCANG had just returned from a major training exercise in Nevada. With only a few pilots available, 9/11 was reportedly a "light flying day" for the unit, which would indicate that it would not have participated in Vigilant Guardian or any other major exercises that morning. [9] And since Andrews was not one of NORAD's seven "alert" sites around the U.S., it seems unlikely that any of the other military organizations there would have been involved in a NORAD exercise. [10]

NUMEROUS ORGANIZATIONS AT ANDREWS
While only limited information is available indicating what exercises the planes at Andrews were involved in, we know that numerous military organizations are located at the base, in addition to the DCANG, some of which may have had air defense capabilities. And some of them could well have been participating in the exercises Ampey referred to.

Among more than 60 separate organizations located at Andrews Air Force Base are units from the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard. [11] These include Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321, which flies the F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet, and Naval Air Facility, Washington, DC, which has numerous aircraft available, including the F/A-18 Hornet. [12] Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321 at least appears to have had air defense capabilities that may have been able to provide protection against the attacks on September 11: At around 9:50 a.m. that morning, one of its officers called a friend who worked at NEADS, and said: "Dude, get us in the war. I've got wrench turners on our planes uploading weapons. What can we do?" [13]

Another unit at Andrews was the 1st Helicopter Squadron. Its primary mission was "to support [Department of Defense] contingency plans for transport of key government officials should a national emergency arise." It had around 200 members of staff, and possessed 19 twin-engine UH-1N "Huey" helicopters. Many of these helicopters reportedly flew throughout the day of September 11. [14] Whether the 1st Helicopter Squadron was involved in the training exercises that morning is unknown.

DID EXERCISES AFFECT THE EMERGENCY RESPONSE?
It is essential to investigate whether the training exercises impaired the organizations at Andrews in their ability to respond to the 9/11 attacks. Were any of them delayed or otherwise hindered as a result of their participation in an exercise? Were assets, such as aircraft and personnel, which could otherwise have been utilized in the response to the attacks, unavailable because they were being used in an exercise? Were military and civilian air traffic controllers in the Washington area perhaps confused about flights in their region because of the exercises taking place?

In a news report published on the day of 9/11, Knight Ridder stated, "Air defense around Washington, DC, is provided mainly by fighter planes from Andrews Air Force Base." [15] Indeed, the DC Air National Guard is known as the "Capital Guardians." [16] According to a 9/11 Commission memorandum, "Many planes were scrambled out of Andrews" throughout the day of September 11. [17] And yet the first fighter jet to take off from there in response to the attacks was an unarmed DCANG F-16, which took off at 10:38 a.m., more than 30 minutes after the attacks had come to an end. [18] Might fighter jets have been able to respond earlier on, only the emergency responses of units at Andrews were somehow delayed by the training exercises?

AIR GUARD HINDERED BY TRAINING MISSION AND RECENT EXERCISE
As mentioned above, it seems unlikely that the DC Air National Guard would have been involved in a major training exercise on September 11. However, other circumstances seem to have significantly reduced its ability to respond to the attacks.

Three days earlier, on September 8, members of the DCANG returned from a major exercise in Nevada, called "Red Flag." Most of its fighter pilots, who flew commercial planes in their civilian lives and were involved with the unit on only a part-time basis, were consequently away, either back at their airline jobs or on leave, according to different accounts. The unit reportedly had just seven pilots available on 9/11. [19] At least three of these were inexperienced, junior pilots. [20] And of the seven pilots, three had taken off shortly before the first attack in New York occurred, for a routine training mission around 200 miles away from base, over North Carolina. They did not arrive back at Andrews until after the attacks had ended. [21]

While discussing the 9/11 attacks, in 2004, Paul Hellyer, a former Canadian minister of national defense, posed the question, "Why did airplanes fly around for an hour and a half without interceptors being scrambled from Andrews [Air Force Base] … right next to the capital?" He said: "With a quick-reaction alert they should have been in the air in five minutes or 10 minutes. If not, as a minister of national defense, which in the United States would be the secretary of defense, I would want to say, 'Why not?'" [22]

His questions are as pertinent today as they were five years ago.

NOTES

[1] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003.

[2] Dan Verton, Black Ice: The Invisible Threat of Cyber-Terrorism. Emeryville, CA: McGraw-Hill/Osborne, 2003, pp. 143-144.

[3] "Andrews AFB, Maryland." GlobalSecurity.org, March 3, 2002.

[4] Miles Kara, "9/11: The Mystery Plane; Not so Mysterious." 9/11 Revisited, June 30, 2009.

[5] Joe Dejka, "Inside StratCom on Sept. 11 Offutt Exercise Took Real-Life Twist." Omaha World-Herald, February 27, 2002; Joe Dejka, "When Bush Arrived, Offutt Sensed History in the Making." Omaha World-Herald, September 8, 2002.

[6] William B. Scott, "Exercise Jump-Starts Response to Attacks." Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002; William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545.

[7] Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, p. 122; Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.

[8] William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93." Aviation Week & Space Technology, September 9, 2002; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America, p. 76.

[9] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major David McNulty, Chief of Intelligence, 121st Fighter Squadron, Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, March 11, 2004.

[10] Pat McKenna, "FANGs Bared." Airman, December 1999.

[11] "Andrews Air Force Base: Welcome." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; "Andrews AFB, Maryland."

[12] "Andrews Air Force Base: Tenant Units." DCMilitary.com, February 9, 2001; "Andrews Air Force Base: Partner Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001.

[13] 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. 188.

[14] "Capital Flying." Air Force Magazine, January 2001; "Andrews Air Force Base: Andrews Units." DCMilitary.com, Summer 2001; "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower."

[15] Steve Goldstein, "Focus of Training for Terrorist Attacks has Been Chemical, Biological Warfare." Knight Ridder, September 11, 2001.

[16] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 2002; William B. Scott, "F-16 Pilots Considered Ramming Flight 93."

[17] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower."

[18] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Authorized Edition). New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 44; Miles Kara, "Relevant Andrews Transmissions." 9/11 Commission, February 17-18, 2004; Steve Vogel, The Pentagon: A History. New York: Random House, 2007, p. 446.

[19] Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Major Billy Hutchison, 113th Fighter Wing Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, February 27, 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major David McNulty"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.

[20] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Major Billy Hutchison"; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 236-237. These pilots were Eric Haagenson, Lou Campbell, and Heather Penney Garcia.

[21] "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower"; Miles Kara, "Relevant Andrews Transmissions"; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine, USAF, Supervisor of Flying at 121st Squadron, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base on September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, March 8, 2004.

[22] "Paul Hellyer, Former Defence Minister of Canada Questions the Lack of Fighter Response on 9/11 and Comments on the Shallowness of the 9/11 Investigation." Connect the Dots, May 27, 2004.

Source

9/11 Redux Pt1

2009-10-23T12:00:00.000-07:00

Former FBI agent Colleen Rowley discusses still unanswered questions about the lead up to 9/11. Coleen Rowley is a former FBI agent and whistleblower. Rowley jointly held the TIME "Person of the Year" award in 2002 with two other women credited as whistleblowers.

Danish Prime Minister Knew WTC Would Collapse

2009-10-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

Giuliani received the same warning – victims and firefighters inside the tower did not

During a recent interview on Danish television, the former Prime Minister of Denmark admitted that he received a message 5 to 10 minutes beforehand telling him that the south tower of the World Trade Center was going to collapse, prompting questions as to why the victims and rescue personnel inside the building didn’t get the same warning.

Poul Nyrup Rasmussen told Denmark’s largest broadcast television network, The Danish Broadcasting Corporation, that before he walked into his office to hold a security meeting on the morning of 9/11, he got advance knowledge of the south tower’s imminent collapse.

“I am told that the first tower has completely collapsed….I received a message 5-10 minutes before it physically happened saying there was impending danger the tower would collapse so I knew disaster was coming” said Rasmussen.

Rasmussen added that the imminent collapse of the building was confirmed as soon as he entered his office.

The Danish Prime Minister was not the only high-level official to receive advance knowledge that the World Trade Center was going to collapse.

During an interview on 9/11 with ABC News’ Peter Jennings, then New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani stated, “I went down to the scene and we set up headquarters at 75 Barkley Street, which was right there with the Police Commissioner, the Fire Commissioner, the Head of Emergency Management, and we were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was going to collapse. And it did collapse before we could actually get out of the building, so we were trapped in the building for 10, 15 minutes, and finally found an exit and got out, walked north, and took a lot of people with us.”

In the eight years since the attacks, Giuliani has failed to explain how and why he received advance knowledge of this unprecedented event and why that same warning was not passed on to those inside the towers, who had been told to remain in their offices via loudspeaker after the first plane struck at 8:46am.

“Some people — it’s not clear how many — returned to their offices after announcements on the building’s emergency loudspeaker system said that it was safe to stay in the south tower,” reported USA Today under the sub headline “announcements caused deaths,” adding that to some this sounded like an order to return, not an option.

The fact that officials knew the tower was about to collapse as much as 10 minutes before it fell was completely ignored by the 9/11 Commission. If that same warning had been transmitted to those inside the towers who still had the capability to get out, hundreds of lives could have been saved.

Add to this the fact that the collapse of a steel building that was purposefully built to withstand the impact of a commercial airliner without collapsing through fire damage was a completely unprecedented event, and the notion that the 9/11 Commission wouldn’t even question these advance warnings sounds alarm bells and provides yet another reason why a new investigation is needed.

Watch the two clips below.

Source

NASA Engineer to Speak on Destruction of WTC Buildings

2009-10-15T00:13:00.000-07:00

Encinitas resident a leader among 900 architects and engineers

San Diego - On Wednesday, October 21, 2009, former NASA engineering executive Dwain Deets, will speak on behalf of more than 900 architects and engineers who cite evidence of explosive demolition at all three World Trade Center high-rises on 9/11 and are calling for a new, independent investigation into their destruction.

Mr. Deets’ multimedia presentation will begin at 12:00 p.m. at the Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice, on the campus of University of San Diego, 5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110. The event will conclude at 3:00 p.m.

An engineer with NASA Dryden Flight Research Center for more than 37 years, Mr. Deets is a board member and the writing team leader for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth). Comprised of more than 900 architects and engineers listed on their website at AE911Truth.org, the organization contends that the official FEMA and NIST reports fail, for several reasons, to explain correctly the towers’ destruction. AE911Truth points in particular to the destruction of the third high-rise, World Trade Center 7, which was not hit by a plane but came down in less than seven seconds. These 900 architects and engineers have signed a petition calling for a new investigation.

Mr. Deets will include in his presentation an abridged version of 9/11: Blueprint for Truth, featuring Richard Gage, AIA, a San Francisco Bay area architect of 20 years, the founder and CEO of AE911Truth, and a member of the American Institute of Architects.

The organization’s conclusions are shared by hundreds of scientists; senior-level military, intelligence, and government officials; firefighters; pilots and aviation professionals; scholars and university professors; 9/11 survivors and family members; and media professionals around the world.

In 1986, Mr. Deets was awarded the Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics by the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics. He became aware of the many problems with the official reports concerning 9/11, and began speaking publicly on this topic in 2007. He and his wife have been residents of Encinitas for the past six years.

This event is sponsored by the Toreros for Truth, a University of San Diego club with a purpose to promote, and in part to provide, the best in investigative reporting, scholarly research and public education regarding the suppressed realities of September 11th, its aftermath and exploitation for political ends.

Please forward this Press Release to any group or individual you think might be interested- this is a free event and open to the public.

Contact: Event information: Aaron Brown; Program content: Dwain Deets
Phone: Brown: 909-576-2800 Deets: 760-445-3242
Email: TorerosForTruth@gmail.com
Event Date: Wednesday, October 21, 12:00 p.m.

Source

Once Again, The Will of the Voters Is Denied

2009-10-09T13:49:00.000-07:00

October 9, 2009

Yesterday afternoon, Justice Edward Lehner of the State Supreme Court rubberstamped Referee Louis Crespo’s recommendation that the decision to establish a local commission to investigate the events of September 11th not be put before the voters on November 3rd.

After showing interest in weighing both sides’ arguments in the hearing, the Judge’s short decision gives no indication of having considered the arguments put forth in the Petitioners’ memorandum of law, nor any acknowledgement of the need for a new investigation, which the City of New York callously dismissed as “irrelevant”.

On a dark day for democracy, the patriotic call for answers by hundreds of 9/11 families, first responders and survivors has been stifled, and the will of the people of New York City once again denied.

Judge Lehner ruled that modifying the petition to make it “legally permissible” would result in it being “inconsistent with the law sought by the signatories of the Petition” despite the fact that all 80,000 signatories agreed by signing the Petition that “If any provision of this law is held to be unconstitutional or invalid for any reason, the remaining provisions shall be in no manner affected thereby but shall remain in full force and effect.”

The deadline for inclusion on the ballot falls just before the election, making it possible to appeal Judge Lehner’s decision. NYC CAN is weighing all options and will make an announcement early next week on this issue, as well as on how it will be moving forward on other fronts. Regardless of the outcome in court, the quest for answers continues full throttle. This fight is only the beginning.

Source

The Official Version of 9/11

2009-10-09T12:56:00.000-07:00

I found this comment on a Telegraph article about Charlie Sheen's questions to the President, and just had to re-post it.

***************************

Charlie Sheen will be viewed by history as a very brave individual...

The Official Version of 9/11 goes something like this...

Directed by a beardy-guy from a cave in Afghanistan, nineteen hard-drinking, coke-snorting, devout Muslims enjoy lap dances before their mission to meet Allah...

Using nothing more than craft knifes, they overpower cabin crew, passengers and pilots on four planes...

And hangover or not, they manage to give the world's most sophisticated air defense system the slip...

Unphased by leaving their “How to Fly a Passenger Jet” guide in the car at the airport, they master the controls in no-time and score direct hits on two towers, causing THREE to collapse completely...

Our masterminds even manage to overpower the odd law of physics or two... and the world watches in awe as steel-framed buildings fall symmetrically - through their own mass - at free-fall speed, for the first time in history.

Despite all their dastardly cunning, they stupidly give their identity away by using explosion-proof passports, which survive the fireball undamaged and fall to the ground... only to be discovered by the incredible crime-fighting sleuths at the FBI...

…Meanwhile down in Washington...

Hani Hanjour, having previously flunked 2-man Cessna flying school, gets carried away with all the success of the day and suddenly finds incredible abilities behind the controls of a Boeing...

Instead of flying straight down into the large roof area of the Pentagon, he decides to show off a little...

Executing an incredible 270 degree downward spiral, he levels off to hit the low facade of the world's most heavily defended building...

...all without a single shot being fired.... or ruining the nicely mowed lawn... and all at a speed just too fast to capture on video...

...Later, in the skies above Pennsylvania...

So desperate to talk to loved ones before their death, some passengers use sheer willpower to connect mobile calls that otherwise would not be possible until several years later...

And following a heroic attempt by some to retake control of Flight 93, it crashes into a Shankesville field leaving no trace of engines, fuselage or occupants... except for the standard issue Muslim terrorists bandana...

...Further south in Florida...

President Bush, our brave Commander-in-Chief continues to read “My Pet Goat” to a class full of primary school children... shrugging off the obvious possibility that his life could be in imminent danger...

...In New York...

World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein blesses his own foresight in insuring the buildings against terrorist attack only six weeks previously...

While back in Washington, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz shake their heads in disbelief at their own luck in getting the 'New Pearl Harbor' catalyzing event they so desired to pursue their agenda of world domination...

And finally, not to be disturbed too much by reports of their own deaths, at least seven of our nineteen suicide hijackers turn up alive and kicking in mainstream media reports...

Source

Media Pundits Back Away From 9/11 Debate With Sheen

2009-10-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Initial interest waned after Sheen insisted discussion must be moderated fairly

Charlie Sheen’s challenge to media pundits to debate him on the issues brought up in his “20 Minutes With The President” letter has not been met after several news outlets expressed interest in taking part but later backed off when it became clear that the discussion would have to be fairly moderated.

Bill O’Reilly was the only pundit to express an interest in debating Sheen but all has gone quiet on that front following Sheen’s request that the debate be properly presented with each side having equal time.

Earlier this month, appearing on The Alex Jones Show, Sheen responded to personal attacks by Meghan McCain, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and Bill O’Reilly, by challenging them all to a debate on neutral ground regarding the unanswered questions surrounding 9/11.

Initially, CNN’s Larry King Live show was eager to host the debate but was shocked that it could find no one who would agree to go toe to toe with Sheen and his 20 bullet points on 9/11.

E mails forwarded to us by Sheen indicate that Bill O’Reilly was initially interested and that ABC’s Good Morning America was keen to broadcast the debate.

However, as soon as Sheen outlined rules that would ensure a fair environment to discuss the issues, O’Reilly and his representatives went cold and backed away from the challenge, according to Sheen.

But at least O’Reilly had the courage to respond, unlike every other debunker who attacked Sheen yet skulked away in a cowardly fashion when they were challenged.

“We’re not naked shouting from the top of a building ‘come debate us’, we’re just issuing a very calm and reasonable offer to just sit down in an open and fair debate forum and hash this thing out,” Sheen told The Alex Jones Show yesterday.

Sheen characterized O’Reilly’s brief interest in the debate as a “nibble” and added that an agreement has not been reached on the terms that were presented to the Fox News host’s representatives.

Sheen said that the reaction to his challenge was, “Inkeeping with how this very deceptive and dangerous machine operates.”

“As long as they’ve got the media under their control then this is the mountain that we must continue to climb,” he added.

Watch Sheen’s appearance on The Alex Jones Show yesterday below. E mails exchanged between Sheen, his representative, and Bill O’Reilly’s representative are reprinted at the end.

RELATED: Charlie Sheen’s Video Message to President Obama

RELATED: Twenty Minutes With The President

——————————————————————–

From: Charlie Sheen
Date: September 18, 2009 1:47:14 PM CDT
To: Stan Rosenfield
Cc: aaron@infowars.com
Subject: debate guidelines

I’ll agree to BO on his turf if the following rules are agreed upon:

1) If BO is going to have anyone on with him then we need ample warning, as well as the disclosure of who this person is.

2)If BO, adds more people to his debate team CS can include others as well, obviously revealed prior to the event.

3) Minimum 2 segments 5 min each, preferably 3 segments. Cannot cover all this ground in ONE segment.

4) Live broadcast.

5) 1 minute allotted to each side per issue or case point, no interruptions from either side during presentation of each specific point or argument.

6) No microphone silencing or commercial send-offs during CS’s allotted debate minute(s) per debate point. No other tactics of disruption, verbal or otherwise.

Look forward to your response – cs

——————————————————————————–

From: Mitchell, Ron
Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 8:15 AM
To: Stan Rosenfield
Subject: RE: Sheen/O’Reilly

Good Morning America would love to do this. Seems like completely neutral ground. Please let me know ASAP, and we will start to make plans.

——————————————————————————–

From: Stan Rosenfield
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 3:38 PM
To: Mitchell, Ron
Subject: RE: Sheen/O’Reilly

OK

——————————————————————————–

From: Mitchell, Ron
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 12:34 PM
To: Stan Rosenfield
Subject: RE: Sheen/O’Reilly

Let me come up with some ideas. I don’t think that going on CNN would necessarily be an option, though! (Sheen’s idea on that radio show)

——————————————————————————–

From: Stan Rosenfield
Sent: Friday, September 18, 2009 3:19 PM
To: Mitchell, Ron
Subject: Sheen/O’Reilly

Ron,

l have spoken again with Charlie and has definite interest in speaking publically with Bill

regarding 9-11.

Although he has no problem in discussing this with Bill, we would prefer to do this on neutral turf.

Let me know your thoughts.

Stan

——————————————————————————–

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Don’t Just Remember 9/11… Uncover It

2009-09-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

I remember discussing the events of 9/11 a few months after it happened with an acquaintance of mine who, at the time, would have been labeled as a “conspiracy theory” nut case.

I was polite while listening to him tell me that 9/11 was an inside job by our own government to dupe the American public into willingly allowing further erosion of our civil liberties in the pursuit of “terrorists” and to rally public sentiment to support an expansion of our military presence in the Middle East through invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

At the time, I thought he was delusional. I could not imagine our own government would do anything so nefarious to the American citizenry.

Well, as more and more scientific evidence continues to pile up, as more experts release their opinions, and as more and more very credible people who were in the buildings when it happened come forward to tell their stories about what they saw and heard before, during, and after the planes struck the Twin Towers, the more it appears that the entire truth of what happened on 9/11 has yet to be told.

Now, a very professional and credible documentary has been produced in Europe. It uncovers facts not previously released in the American mainstream media or mentioned in the “official” government investigation of 9/11.

On this the anniversary of 9/11, we should honor those who died by taking a real, hard look at what happened. Ask yourself what YOU believe is the truth. I’m interested to know what you think.

Here it is…

Please forward this blog to everyone you know — as I’m sure you will agree that EVERY American needs to see this.

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Informant says FBI threw away chance to catch alleged 9/11 plotter

2009-09-11T14:06:00.000-07:00

A Lebanon-native who pretended to be an Islamic extremist at the behest of American authorities claims that the FBI took him off the trail of alleged 9/11 plotter Mohammed Atta right as a window of opportunity opened to catch him.

Were it not for the FBI’s action, the informant says he is “one million percent positive” the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks could have been prevented.

The claims are part of an ABC News report, set to air on Thursday’s editions of World News Tonight and Nightline.

An advance story published on ABC’s Web site notes:

The network also notes criticism of Assaad by defense attorneys for men who they say he entrapped.

But the informant dismisses the knocks to his credibility. “When you are working undercover, your job is to lie,” he told ABC.

This video is from ABC’s Nightline, broadcast Sept. 10, 2009

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