OLIVE
BRANCH
PRESS
An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.
Northampton, Massachusetts
First published in 2004 by
OLIVE BRANCH PRESS
An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.
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www.interlinkbooks.com
Text copyright © David Ray Griffin 2004 Foreword
copyright © Richard Falk 2004
All rights reserved. No pan of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical
photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Griffin, David Ray
The new Pearl Harbor : disturbing questions about the
Bush administration and 9/11 / by David Ray Griffin.
p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-56656-552-9 (pbk.)
1. United States—Politics and government—2001. 2.
September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. 3.
Responsibility—Political aspects—United States.
4. Governmental investigations—United States. 5.
Terrorism—Government policy—United States. 6.
Intelligence service—United States.
I. Title.
E902.G75 2004 973.931—dc22
2004001096
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Advance Praise for
David Ray Griffin's
The New Pearl Harbor:
Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and
9/11
This is an important,
extraordinarily well-reasoned and provocative book that
should be widely read. Griffin raises disturbing
questions that deserve thoughtful and truthful answers
from our government." —Marcus Raskin, co-founder of
the Institute for Policy Studies
"David Ray Griffin has done
admirable and painstaking research in reviewing the
mysteries surrounding the 9-11 attacks. It is the most
persuasive argument I have seen for further
investigation of the Bush administration's relationship
to that historic and troubling event." —Howard Zinn,
author of A Peoples History of the United States
"David Ray Griffin has written
what America may most of all need — a dispassionate,
balanced, and exhaustively researched and documented
account of the implausible gaps and misrepresentations
of the Bush administration's official story of 9/11.
Sensitive to the 'conspiracy theory' mind-stop that has
disconnected his fellow Americans from the facts of this
history-steering event, Griffin painstakingly marshals
the evidence pro and con, and follows it where it leads.
A courageously impeccable work." —John McMurtry,
author of Value Wars: The Global Market versus the
Life Economy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada
and Professor of Philosophy, University of Guelph
"It will be painful, and
disturbing, to turn the pages of this thoughtful and
meticulously researched book. But turn we must. For we
owe the truth to those who died, and nothing less."
—Colleen Kelly, sister of Bill Kelly, jr., who was
killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on
9/11, and co-founder of September 11th Families for
Peaceful Tomorrows
"This is a very important book,
David Ray Griffin's carefully researched and documented
study demonstrates a high level of probability that the
Bush administration was complicit in allowing 9/11 to
happen in order to further war plans that had already
been made. A must-read for anyone concerned about
American foreign policy under the present
administration. —Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carpenter
Professor of Feminist Theology, Graduate Theological
Union, Berkeley, California
"This is a must-read for all who
want to get past the conspiracy of silence and
mystification that surrounds these events." —John B.
Cobb, Jr., Professor of Theology, Emeritus, Claremont
School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University
"That 9/11 has become a defining
moment in our history cannot be gainsaid. But its exact
significance is an exceedingly contentious question
notwithstanding the seeming clarity of prevailing
accounts. David Ray Griffin deconstructs those accounts
with a host of unresolved puzzles strongly suggestive of
some sort of culpable complicity by US officials in the
event. His book presents an incontrovertible argument of
the need for a genuinely full and independent
investigation of that infamous day." —Douglas Sturm,
Presidential Professor of Religion and Political
Science, Emeritus, Bucknell University
"David Griffin's book is an
excellent exposé of so many of the deeply troubling
questions that must still be answered fully and
transparently if democratic control over political and
military leaders is to mean anything at all." —Michael
Meacher, British member of Parliament, and former
Minister of the Environment
"This book is as full of research
and authoritative notes as a field full of springtime
daisies. The author raises frightening questions, and
the questions beg for answers. One thing we can conclude
for certain. The events surrounding 9/11, both before
and after, cannot be simply swept under the rug of
conventional wisdom.... This book gives us a foundation
to discover the truth, one that we may not wish to
hear." —Gerry Spence, trial lawyer and author of
How to Argue and Win Every Time
"David Griffins The New Pearl
Harbour belongs on the book shelves of all those
who, in any way, doubt the veracity of the accounts
presented to the public by the Bush administration
concerning the worst terrorist attack in America's
history. The facts presented in this book are disturbing
— and they should be. Griffin's book goes a long way in
answering the age-old question inherent in American
political scandals: What did the President know, and
when did he know it?" —Wayne Madsen, author,
journalist, syndicated columnist
"Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor
ought to be read by any American who values our
democracy and understands the importance of retaining
the basic trust of the people for any such democracy to
survive over time." —Joseph C. Hough, President,
Union Theological Seminary in New York
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In writing this book, I received an enormous amount of
help and support. The greatest help came, of course,
from the authors upon whose work I drew. Without the
work of Nafeez Ahmed and Paul Thompson, this book would
not have even been begun, and without the books by
Thierry Meyssan and
Michel
Chossudovsky, it would have been far less complete.
And then there are all those reporters and researchers
who have published relevant material in newspapers and
magazines, on television shows, or on the Web, some of
whom were labouring away long before Ahmed and Thompson
began their work. To some of these reporters and
researchers I am indebted only indirectly, through their
influence on my primary sources; to others, I am
directly indebted. I have acknowledged the work of at
least many of them in the notes. The attempt to discover
the truth about 9/11 and bring it to light has been a
very cooperative enterprise, one involving hundreds of
intensely dedicated, mostly unpaid, investigators.
I have received help from many other people, including
Tal Avitzur, John Cobb, Michael Dietrick, Hilal Elver,
Richard Falk, Allison Jaqua, Gianluigi Gugliermetto,
Colleen Kelly, John McMurtry, Pat Patterson, Rosemary
Ruether, Pamela Thompson, and Sarah Wright. I wish also
to thank all those who took time to express in writing
their support for this book.
I am indebted to Richard Falk for reasons that go far
beyond his gracious willingness to write the Foreword.
It was through his influence that I first began working
on global political matters. He has been my main
discussion partner about these matters. And it was
through him that I became connected with Olive Branch
Press of Interlink Publishing.
I am especially grateful for this connection. The two
people with whom I have worked at Olive Branch — Pamela
Thompson and Michel Moushabeck — have not only been
delightful collaborators. They have also manifested the
kind of commitment to this book that authors usually
only dream about.
I am appreciative of my institution, the Claremont
School of Theology, and especially its president, Philip
Amerson, and its dean, Jack Fitzmier, for their
unstinting support of academic freedom and their
recognition of the need for the schools faculty to write
about vital public issues of the day.
Finally, I am, as usual, most indebted to the ongoing
support from my wife, Ann Jaqua.
FOREWORD
David Ray Griffin has written an extraordinary book. If
carefully read with even just a 30-percent open mind, it
is almost certain to change the way we understand the
workings of constitutional democracy in the United
States at the highest levels of government. As such,
this is a disturbing book, depicting a profound crisis
of political legitimacy for the most powerful sovereign
state in the history of the world — a country,
furthermore, embarked on the first borderless war, with
no markers of victory and defeat. If The New Pearl
Harbor receives the sort of public and media
attention that it abundantly deserves, it should alter
the general public debate and exert a positive influence
on how the future unfolds. It is rare, indeed, that a
book has this potential to become a force of history.
What makes The New Pearl Harbor
so special is that it explores the most sensitive
and controversial terrain — the broad landscape of
official behavior in relation to the tragedy of 9/11 —
in the best spirit of academic detachment, coupled with
an exemplary display of the strongest scholarly virtue:
a willingness to allow inquiry to follow the path of
evidence and reason wherever it leads. And it leads here
to explosive destinations, where severe doubts are
raised about the integrity and worldview of our
leadership in those parts of the government that
exercise the greatest control over the behavior and
destiny of the country, particularly in the area of
national security, which includes a war overseas and the
stifling of liberties at home. Griffin brilliantly makes
an overwhelming argument for a comprehensive,
unhampered, fully funded, and suitably prominent
investigation of the entire story of how and why 9/11
happened, as well as why such an unprecedented breakdown
of national security was not fully and immediately
investigated as a matter of the most urgent national
priority. There are so many gaping holes in the official
accounts of 9/11 that no plausible coherent narrative
remains, and until now we have been staggering forward
as if the truth about these traumatic events no longer
mattered.
Griffin shows, with insight and a
firm grasp of the many dimensions of the global security
policy of the Bush Administration, that getting 9/11
right, even belatedly, matters desperately. The layer
upon layer of unexplained facts, the multiple efforts by
those in power to foreclose independent inquiry, and the
evidence of a pre-9/11 blueprint by Bush insiders to do
exactly what they are now doing on the basis of a 9/11
mandate is why the Griffin assessment does not even
require a reader with a normally open mind. As
suggested, 30-percent receptivity will do, which means
that all but the most dogrnatically blinded adherents of
the Bush presidency should be convinced by the basic
argument of this book.
It must be underscored that this
book does not belong in the genre of "conspiracy
theories," at least, as Griffin himself points out, in
the pejorative sense in which that term is usually
understood. It is a painstakingly scrupulous look at the
evidence, with an accounting of the numerous
discrepancies between the official account provided by
the US government and the best information available.
Of course, it is fair to wonder,
if the conclusion toward which Griffins evidence points
is correct, why this story-of-the-century has not been
clearly told before in this country. Why have the media
been asleep? Why has Congress been so passive about
fulfilling its role as a watchdog branch of government,
above all protective of the American people? Why have
there been no resignations from on high by principled
public servants followed by electrifying revelations?
There have been questions raised here and there and
allegations of official complicity made almost from the
day of the attacks, especially in Europe, but as far as
I know, no American until Griffin has had the patience,
the fortitude, the courage, and the intelligence to put
so many pieces together in a single coherent account.
Part of the difficulty in
achieving credibility in relation to issues this
profoundly disturbing to public confidence in the basic
legitimacy of state power is that the accusatory voices
most often heard are strident and irresponsible, making
them easily dismissed as "paranoid" or "outrageous"
without further consideration of whether the concerns
raised warrant investigation. In contrast, Griffins
approach is calm and his argument consistently
well-reasoned, making his analysis undeniably
compelling.
But there are troubling forces at
work that block our access to the truth about 9/11. Ever
since 9/11 the mainstream media have worked
hand-in-glove with the government in orchestrating a
mood of patriotic fervour making any expressions of
doubts about the official leadership of the country
tantamount to disloyalty. Media personalities, such as
Bill Maher, who questioned, even casually, the official
narrative were given pink slips, sidelined, and
silenced, sending a chilling message of intimidation to
anyone tempted to voice dissident opinions. Waving the
American flag became a substitute for critical and
independent thought, and slogans such as "United We
Stand" were used as blankets to smother whatever
critical impulses existed. This thought-stopping
equation of patriotism with unquestioning acceptance of
the present administrations policies has played into the
hands of those presidential advisors who have seen 9/11
not as a national tragedy but—in the phrase used by
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during a TV
interview with Jim Lehrer on the second anniversary of
the attacks—"a blessing in disguise."
As the spell cast by patrioteering
has begun to wear off, there is another related dynamic
at work to keep us from the truth— what psychiatrists
describe as "denial." The unpleasant realities of the
Iraq occupation make it difficult for most Americans to
acknowledge that the whole undertaking, including the
death and maiming of young Americans, was based on a
willful distortion of reality by the elected leadership
of the country—namely, the suggestion that Saddam
Hussein was responsible for 9/11. This unpleasantness is
magnified many times over if what is at stake is the
possibility that the terrible events of 9/11 were from
the outset, or before, obscured by deliberately woven
networks of falsehoods. Part of the impulse to deny is a
desperate wish to avoid coming face-to-face with the
gruesome realities that are embedded in the power
structure of government that controls our lives.
Griffin's book is a much-needed antidote for the
collective denial that has paralyzed the conscience and
consciousness of the nation during these past few years.
At the very least, it should give rise to a debate that
is late, but far better late than never. Long ago Thomas
Jefferson warned that the "price of liberty is eternal
vigilance."
There is no excuse at this stage
of American development for a posture of political
innocence, including an unquestioning acceptance of the
good faith of our government. After all, there has been
a long history of manipulated public beliefs, especially
in matters of war and peace. Historians are in
increasing agreement that the facts were manipulated
(1) in the explosion of the USS Maine to justify the
start of the Spanish-American War (1898),
(2) with respect to the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
to justify the previously unpopular entry into World War
II.
(3) in the Gulf of Tonkin incident of 1964, used by the
White House to justify the dramatic extension of the
Vietnam War to North Vietnam, and, most recently,
(4) to portray Iraq as harboring a menacing arsenal of
weaponry of mass destruction, in order to justify
recourse to war in defiance of international law and the
United Nations.
The official explanations of such historic events as the
atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the
assassination of President Kennedy have also not stood
up to scrutiny by objective scholars. In these respects,
the breaking of trust between government and citizenry
in the United States has deep historical roots, and is
not at all merely a partisan indictment of the current
leadership associated with the right wing of the
Republican Party. But it does pose for all of us a
fundamental, haunting question. Why should the official
account of 9/11 be treated as sacrosanct and accepted at
face value, especially as it is the rationale for some
of the most dangerous undertakings in the whole history
of the world?
As Griffin shows, it is not
necessary to go along with every suspicious inference in
order to conclude that the official account of 9/11 is
thoroughly unconvincing. His approach is based on the
cumulative impact of the many soft spots in what is
officially claimed to have happened, soft spots that
relate to advance notice and several indications of
actions facilitating the prospects of attack, to the
peculiar gaps between the portrayal of the attack by the
media and government and independent evidence of what
actually occurred, and to the unwillingness of the
government to cooperate with what meager efforts at
inquiry have been mounted. Any part of this story is
enough to vindicate Griffin's basic contention that this
country and the world deserve a comprehensive, credible,
and immediate accounting of the how and why of that
fateful day. Such a step would exhibit today the
enduring wisdom of Ben Franklins celebrated response
when asked what the Constitutional Convention in
Philadelphia had accomplished:
"A republic, if you keep it." —Richard Falk
INTRODUCTION
The attacks of 9/11 have often
been compared with the attacks on Pearl Harbor.
Investigative reporter James Bamford, for example, has
written about President Bush's behavior "in the middle
of a modern-day Pearl Harbor.">1
CBS News reported that the president himself, before
going to bed on 9/11, wrote in his diary: "The Pearl
Harbor of the 21st century took place today.">2
This comparison has often been
made for the sake of arguing that the American response
to 9/11 should be similar to the American response to
Pearl Harbor. Just after the presidents address to the
nation on September 11, 2001, Henry Kissinger posted an
online article in which he said: "The government should
be charged with a systematic response that, one hopes,
will end the way that the attack on Pearl Harbor ended —
with the destruction of the system that is responsible
for it.">3 An editorial in Time
magazine that appeared right after the attacks
urged: "For once, let's have no fatuous rhetoric about
'healing.'. . . A day cannot live in infamy without the
nourishment of rage. Let's have rage. What's needed is a
unified, unifying Pearl Habor son of purple American
fury.">4
Some of the comparisons have
pointed out that the attacks of 9/11 did indeed evoke a
response, calling for the use of US military power,
similar to that produced by Pearl Harbor. Quoting a
prediction made in 2000 by soon-to-be top officials in
the Bush administration that the changes they desired
would be difficult unless "a new Pearl Harbor" occurred,>5
Australian journalist John Pilger wrote: "The attacks of
11 September 2001 provided the new Pearl Harbor.'">6
A member of the US Army's Institute for Strategic
Studies reported that after 9/11, "Public support for
military action is at levels that parallel the public
reaction after the attack at Pearl Harbor.">7
These comparisons of 9/11 with
Pearl Harbor do not seem unjustified. The events of
9/11, virtually everyone agrees, were the most important
events of recent times — for both America and the rest
of the world. The attacks of that day have provided the
basis for a significant restriction on civil liberties
in the United States (just as Pearl Harbor led to
restrictions on the civil liberties of Japanese
Americans).>8 Those attacks have
also been the basis of a worldwide "war on terror" led
by the United States, with the wars in Afghanistan and
Iraq being the two major episodes thus far.
The Bush administrations "war on
terror" is, moreover, widely perceived as a pretext for
a more aggressive imperialism. Phyllis Bennis, for
example, says that 9/11 has resulted in "foreign policy
imposed on the rest of the world through an unchallenged
law of empire.">9 Of course, a few
historians have been pointing out for some time that
American leaders have long desired an empire covering
the whole world.>10 But most
critics of US foreign policy believe that the
imperialism of the Bush II administration, especially
since 9/11, has been much more explicit, far-reaching,
and arrogant.>11 Richard Falk has,
in fact, referred to it as "the global domination
project.">12 Although there was an
outpouring of good will toward America after 9/11 and a
widespread willingness to accede to its claim that the
attacks gave it a mandate to wage a worldwide war on
terrorism, this good will was quickly exhausted.
American foreign policy is now criticized around the
world more widely and severely than ever before, even
more so than during the war in Vietnam. The American
answer to all criticism, however, is 9/11. When
Europeans criticized the Bush administrations intention
to go to war against Iraq, for example, several US
opinion-makers supportive of the war explained the
difference in perception by saying that the Europeans
had not suffered the attacks of 9/11.
The Failure of the Press
Given the role of 9/11 in leading
to this much more explicit and aggressive imperialism,
some observers have suggested that historians will come
to look back on it as the real beginning of the 21st
century.>13 Nevertheless, in spite
of the virtually universal agreement that 9/11 has been
of such transcendent importance, there has been little
public scrutiny of this event itself. On the first
anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the New York Times
wrote: "One year later, the public knows less about the
circumstances of 2,801 deaths at the foot of Manhattan
in broad daylight than people in 1912 knew within weeks
about the Titanic.">14 That was
the case in part because the Bush administration,
arguing that an investigation would be a distraction
from the needed "war on terrorism," resisted the call
for a special commission. But the publics lack of
information about 9/11 was also due in large part to the
fact that the Times and the rest of the mainline
press had not authorized investigative reports, through
which the publics lack of knowledge might have been
overcome. Another year later, furthermore, the situation
remained virtually the same. On September 11, 2003, a
writer for the Philadelphia Daily News asked:
"why after 730 days do we know so little about what
really happened that day?">15
The American press has, in
particular, provided no in-depth investigation of
whether the official account of what happened fits with
the available evidence and is otherwise plausible.>16
Many newspaper and television stories have, to be sure,
raised several disturbing questions about the official
account, showing that there are elements of it that do
not seem to make sense or that seem to contradict
certain facts. But the press has not confronted
government officials with these apparent
implausibilities and contradictions. The mass media have
not, moreover, provided the public with any
comprehensive overviews that lay out all the disturbing
questions of which they are aware. There have been many
very important stories by a number of journalists,
including the internationally known, award-winning
journalist Gregory Palast and Canada's award-winning
Barrie Zwicker (see notes >16 and
>18). But such stories, if even
seen, have been largely forgotten by the collective
consciousness, as they have remained individual products
of brilliant and courageous reporting, having thus far
not been allowed to add up to anything significant.
Finally, although strong criticisms of the official
account have been presented by many otherwise credible
individuals, the mass media have not exposed the public
to their views.
Criticisms of the official account
are, to be sure, inflammatory, for to reject the
official account is to imply that US leaders, including
the president, have constructed a massive lie. And if
they did construct a false account, they would have done
so, most people would assume, in order to cover up their
own complicity. And that is indeed the conclusion of
most critics of the official account. That would
certainly be an inflammatory charge. But how can we
claim to have a free press — a Fourth Estate — if it
fails to investigate serious charges made against a
sitting president on the grounds that they are too
inflammatory? The charges against President Nixon in the
Watergate scandal were inflammatory. The charges against
President Reagan in the Iran-Contra affair were
inflammatory. The various charges brought against
President Clinton were inflammatory. In all these cases,
however, the press reported the issues (albeit in the
first two cases rather belatedly). It is precisely in
such situations that we most need an independent press.
But the press has failed to do its
job with regard to 9/11 even though if the official
account of 9/11 were found to be false, the consequences
would be enormous — much more so than with any of those
prior scandals. The official account of 9/11 has been
used as the justification for the wars in Afghanistan
and Iraq, which have resulted in the deaths not only of
thousands of combatants but also of far more innocent
civilians than were killed on 9/11. This account has
been used as the justification for dozens of other
operations around the world, most of which are largely
unknown to the American people. It has been used to
justify the USA PATRIOT Act, through which the civil
liberties of Americans have been curtailed. And it has
been used to justify the indefinite incarceration of
countless people in Guantanamo and elsewhere. And yet
the press has been less aggressive in questioning
President Bush about 9/11 than it was in questioning
President Clinton about his relationship with Monica
Lewinsky, a very trivial matter by comparison.
The failure of the American media
in this regard has been admitted by some insiders. For
example, Rena Golden, executive vice-president and
general manager of CNN International, was quoted as
saying in August of 2002 that the American press had
censored itself on both 9/11 and the war in Afghanistan.
"Anyone who claims the US media didn't censor itself,"
Golden added, "is kidding you. And this isn't just a CNN
issue — every journalist who was in any way involved in
9/11 is partly responsible.">17 As
to why this has been the case, CBS anchorman Dan Rather
has said:
There was a time in South Africa
that people would put flaming tires around people's
necks if they dissented. And in some ways the fear is
that you will be necklaced here, you will have a
flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your
neck. Now it is that fear that keeps journalists from
asking the toughest of the tough questions.>18
Rather's confession surely
explains at least part of the press's reticence to
question the official account, especially since
journalists perceived as unpatriotic are in danger of
being fired.
One of the chief critics of the
official account, Thierry Meyssan, suggests that
Americans have viewed any criticism of the official
account to be not only unpatriotic but even
sacrilegious. On September 12, Meyssan reminds us,
President Bush announced his intention to lead "a
monumental struggle of Good versus Evil.">19
On September 13, he declared that the next day would be
a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims
of the Terrorist Attacks. And on September 14, the
president himself, surrounded by Billy Graham, a
cardinal, a rabbi, and an imam as well as four previous
presidents and many members of Congress, delivered the
sermon. In this sermon, he said:
Our responsibility to history is
already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world
of evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and
deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce
when stirred to anger....In every generation, the world
has produced enemies of human freedom. They have
attacked America, because we are freedom's home and
defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the
calling of our time....[W]e ask almighty God to watch
over our nation, and grant us patience and resolve in
all that is to come.... And may He always guide our
country. God bless America.>20
Through this unprecedented event,
in which the president of the United States issued a
declaration of war from a cathedral, Meyssan observes,
"the American government consecrated...its version of
events. From then on, any questioning of the official
truth would be seen as sacrilege.">21
9/II and the Left
If raising disturbing questions
about the official account would be seen as both
unpatriotic and sacrilegious, it is not surprising that,
as both Rena Golden and Dan Rather admit, the mainline
press in America has not raised these questions. It is
also not surprising that right-wing and even
middle-of-the-road commentators on political affairs
have not raised serious questions about the official
account. It is not even surprising that some of them —
including Jean Bethke Elshtain, a professor of social
and political ethics — have declared that the accusation
of official complicity is beyond the pale of reasonable
debate, so that any arguments on its behalf can simply
be ignored. Elshtain, calling the suggestion that
American officials, including the president, were
complicit in the attacks "preposterous," adds: "This
sort of inflammatory madness exists outside the boundary
of political debate" and therefore does not even
"deserve a hearing.">22 From this
perspective, it is not necessary to examine the evidence
put forward by critics of the official account, even
though some of these critics are fellow intellectuals
teaching in neighboring universities — such as two
well-respected Canadian academics, economist
Michel Chossudovsky and social
philosopher John McMurtry. >23
Although Elshtain points out that "[i]f we get our
descriptions of events wrong, our analyses and our
ethics will be wrong too,">24 she
evidently thinks it unnecessary to consider the
possibility that the official description about the
events of 9/11 might be wrong. Although this attitude is
unfortunate, especially when it is expressed within the
intellectual community, it is not surprising.
What is surprising,
however, is that America's leftist critics of US policy,
who are seldom worried about being called either
unpatriotic or sacrilegious, have for the most part not
explored, at least in public discourse, the possibility
of official complicity.>25
These critics have, to be sure,
been extremely critical of the way in which the Bush
administration has responded to 9/11. They have, in
particular, pointed out that this administration has
used 9/11 as an excuse to enact policies and carry out
operations that have little if any relation to either
punishing the perpetrators of the attacks or preventing
further such attacks in the future. They have even
pointed out that most of these policies and operations
were already on the agenda of the Bush administration
before the attacks, so that 9/11 was not the cause but
merely the pretext for enacting them. These critics also
know that the United States has many times in the past
fabricated an "incident" as a pretext for going to war —
most notoriously for the wars against Mexico, Cuba, and
Vietnam.>26 But few of these
critics have seriously discussed, at least in public,
whether this might also be the case with 9/11, even
though a demonstration of this fact, if it were true,
would surely be the most effective way to undermine
policies of the Bush administration to which they are so
strongly opposed. Abjuring a "conspiracy theory, they
accept, at least implicidy, a "coincidence theory,"
according to which the attacks of 9/11 were, from the
administrations point of view, simply a godsend, which
just happened to allow it to carry out its agenda.
An example is provided by Rahul
Mahajan, a brilliant and outspoken critic of US
imperialism. He analyzes the themes of US imperialism
since 9/11 in the light of the document alluded to
earlier that mentioned the need for a "new Pearl
Harbor," this being Rebuilding America's Defenses,
which was prepared by the Project for the New
American Century. Three of the major themes of this
document, Mahajan emphasizes, are the need to place more
military bases around the world from which power can be
projected, the need to bring about "regime change" in
countries unfriendly to American interests, and the need
for greatly increased military spending, especially for
"missile defense" — explicidy understood not as
deterrence but as "a prerequisite for maintaining
American preeminence" by preventing other countries from
deterring us. Mahajan then points out that "[t]he
9/11 attacks were a natural opportunity to jack up the
military budget" and that the other ideas in this
document, in conjunction with the well-known
preoccupation of Bush and Cheney with oil, provided the
major themes of their post-9/11 imperial strategy.
Mahajan also notes that this document said that the
desired transformation of the military would probably be
politically impossible "absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor." And Mahajan
even adds that "within a year they [the authors of this
document] had their Pearl Harbor and the chance to turn
their imperial fantasies into reality." After pointing
out all of this, however, Mahajan opts for coincidence
over conspiracy, saying: "Conspiracy theorists will no
doubt rejoice, but this, like so many events in the
history of US foreign policy, is simply another example
of Pasteur's famous axiom that 'Fortune favors the
prepared mind.">27
Mahajan may, of course, be right.
But he gives us no reason to think so. He, in
particular, reveals no sign of having studied the
evidence provided by those who have argued that the
attacks could have been successful only through the
complicity of the US government.
How This Book Came About
Whether or not it is true that
Mahajan dismissed the evidence without examination, it
was certainly true of me. Until the spring of 2003, I
had not looked at any of the evidence. I was vaguely
aware that mere were people, at least on the Internet,
who were offering evidence against the official account
of 9/11 and were suggesting a revisionist account,
according to which US officials were complicit. But I
did not take the time to try to find their websites. I
had been studying the history of American expansionism
and imperialism quite intensely since 9/11, so I knew
that the US government had fabricated "incidents" as an
excuse to go to war several times before. Nevertheless,
although the thought did cross my mind that 9/11 might
likewise have been arranged, I did not take this
possibility seriously. It seemed to me simply beyond
belief that the Bush administration — even the
Bush administration — would do such a heinous thing. I
assumed that those who were claiming otherwise must be
"conspiracy theorists" in the derogatory sense in which
this term is usually employed — which means, roughly,
"crackpots." I knew that if they were right, this would
be very important. But I was so confident that they must
be wrong — that their writings would consist merely of
loony theories based on wild inferences from dubious
evidence — that I had no motivation to invest time and
energy in tracking these writings down. I fully
sympathize, therefore, with the fact that most people
have not examined the evidence. Life is short and the
list of conspiracy theories is long, and we all must
exercise judgment about which things are worth our
investment of time. I had assumed that conspiracy
theories about 9/11 were below the threshold of possible
credibility.
But then a fellow professor sent
me an e-mail message that provided some of the relevant
websites. Knowing her to be a sensible person, I looked
up some of the material on the Internet, especially a
massive timeline entitled "Was 9/11 Allowed to Happen?"
by an independent researcher named Paul Thompson.>28
I was surprised, even amazed, to see — even though
Thompson limits himself strictly to mainline sources
>29 — how much evidence he had
found that points to the conclusion that the Bush
administration did indeed intentionally allow the
attacks of 9/11 to happen. At about the same time, I
happened to read Gore Vidal's Dreaming War: Blood for
Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta, which pointed me to
the most extensive book on 9/11, The War on Freedom:
How and Why America Was Attacked September 11, 2001,
by Nafeez Ahmed, an independent researcher in England.
>30 Ahmed's book provides an
organized, extensively documented argument that directly
challenges the accepted wisdom about 9/11, which is that
it resulted from a "breakdown" within and among our
intelligence agencies. >31 Ahmed,
like Thompson, suggests that the attacks must have
resulted from complicity in high places, not merely from
incompetence in lower places. Ahmed's and Thompsons
material taken together, I saw, provided a strong
prima facie case for this contention, certainly
strong enough to merit an extensive investigation by the
American press, the US Congress, >32
and the 9/11 Independent Commission, >33
all of which had thus far operated on the assumption
that 9/11 resultedfrom intelligence and communication
failures.
I also saw, however, that the work
of Thompson and Ahmed was not likely to reach very many
of the American people. Thompson's timelines, while
extremely helpful for researchers with the time and
patience to work through them, were not easily readable
by ordinary citizens, partly because they were available
only online and partly because, as the name "timeline"
indicates, the evidence was arranged chronologically
rather than topically. >34 And,
although Ahmed's evidence was in a book and was arranged
topically, the book was quite long and contained far
more material than needed to support the basic argument.
Much of this additional material was, furthermore, in
the book's early chapters, so that one had to work
through several chapters before getting to the evidence
that directly contradicted the official account. If the
important information provided by Ahmed and Thompson
were to reach many people, including busy members of
Congress and the press, something else would be needed.
I decided, accordingly, to write a
magazine article that would summarize the main evidence
and also point interested readers to the studies of
Thompson, Ahmed, and others presenting a revisionist
account of 9/11. But that article grew into a
book-length manuscript, because I soon found that, even
though I tried to limit myself to the most important
evidence, it was impossible within the confines of an
article to present an intelligible account that would do
justice to the evidence that has been provided by these
researchers.
After I began writing,
furthermore, I learned of the work of the previously
mentioned French researcher, Thierry Meyssan, in
particular his hypothesis that the aircraft that hit the
Pentagon could not have been a Boeing 757, which is what
Flight 77 was, but must have been a guided missile. When
I first learned of this revisionist hypothesis, I —
probably like most people now reading my report of it —
assumed it was completely absurd. Surely the difference
between a gigantic 757 and a relatively small missile is
so great that if the Pentagon had been hit merely by a
missile, Pentagon officials could not have convinced
anyone that it was a 757! Did we not learn from press
reports that the hole created in the side of the
Pentagon was 200 feet wide and five stories high? Had we
not learned from one of the passengers on Flight 77 — TV
commentator Barbara Olson — that it was headed toward
Washington? And had not eyewitnesses identified it?
Virtually everyone, including most critics of the
official account of 9/11, accepted the idea that the
Pentagon was hit by Flight 77. How could they all be
wrong? Nevertheless, after I got Meyssan's books and
read them for myself, I saw that his case as absurd as
it had seemed at first glance, is quite strong. I
eventually became convinced, in fact, that it is with
regard to the strike on the Pentagon that — assuming
Meyssan's descriptions of the evidence to be accurate
the official account seems most obviously false. Or at
least that it is tied for first place for this honor.
The fact that the official account of the strike on the
Pentagon is still widely accepted provides an especially
good example, therefore, of the fact that most of the
public has simply not been exposed to the relevant
evidence. The present book seeks to bring together all
the major strands of this evidence.
No previous book has done this.
Ahmed's book, while easily the most comprehensive, does
not have much of the evidence contained in Thompson's
timelines and in Meyssan's books. And Meyssan's books
while containing important evidence not available
elsewhere, do not have most of the information provided
by Ahmed and Thompson. The same is true of the other
most important book in English on the subject, Michel
Chossudovsky's War and Globalisation: The Truth
Behind September 11. As its subtitle indicates, it
focuses on the background to 9/11, dealing with 9/11
itself only briefly. In the present book, I have brought
together what seems to me the most important evidence
found in these >35 and some other
sources. >36
The Book's Contents
As I see it, five major types of
evidence have been raised against the official account.
The first type, which involves inconsistencies and
implausibilities in the official account of what
happened on 9/11 itself, is discussed in the four
chapters of Part I. The four other types of evidence are
discussed in Part II. All this evidence is organized in
terms of a number of "disturbing questions,"
>37 which are disturbing precisely
because they suggest that official account is, as the
tide of the English translation of Meyssan's first book
on the subject calls it, a "big lie."
>38 They are also disturbing beause they suggest the
revisionist thesis that the attacks of 9/11, which
President Bush has rightly called evil, were
carried out with the complicity or so officials of the
Bush administration itself. In the Conclusion, I ask
whether the best explanation of the evidence presented
in the prior chapters is indeed, as the revisionists
suggest, official complicity in the attacks of 9/11. I
then discuss the implications for the kind of
investigation now needed.
Possible Meanings of "Official
Complicity"
Although the revisionist writings
on which this book draws charge official complicity in
the attacks of 911, one thing missing in them is any
careful discussion of just what they mean by "official
complicity." There are at least eight possible views of
what official complicity in the attacks of 9/11 might
mean. In order that readers can decide, as they examine
the evidence, which kind of official complicity, if any,
the evidence supports, I list these eight possible views
here in ascending order of seriousness — meaning the
seriousness of the charge against the Bush
administration that the view would imply.
1. Construction of a False
Acount: One possible view, is that although US
officials played no role in facilitating the attacks and
did not even expect them, they constructed a false
account of what really happened — whether to protect
National Security, to cover up potentially embarrassing
facts, to exploit the attacks to enact their agenda, or
for some other reason. Athough this would be the least
serious charge, it would be sufficiently serious for
impeachment — especiallv if the president had lied about
9/11 for personal gain or to advance some
pre-established agenda, such as attacking Afghanistan
and Iraq.
2. Something Expected by
Intelligence Agencies: A second possible view is
that although they had no specific information about the
attacks in advance, some US intelligence agencies — such
as the FBI, the CIA, and some intelligence agencies of
the US military — expected some sort of attacks to
occur. Although they played no role in planning the
attacks, they perhaps played a role in facilitating them
in the sense of deliberately not taking steps to prevent
them. Then, having done this without White House
knowledge, they persuaded the White House after 9/11 not
only to cover up their guilt, by constructing a false
account, but also to carry out the agenda for which the
attacks were intended to gain support.
3. Specific Events Expected by
Intelligence Agencies: A third possible view is
that intelligence agencies (but not the White House)
had specific information about the timing and the
targets of the attacks.
4. Intelligence Agencies
Involved in Planning: A fourth possible view is that
intelligence agencies (but not the White House) actively
participated planning the attacks.
5. Pentagon Involved in
Planning: A fifth possible view is that the Pentagon
(but not the White House) actively participated in
planning the attacks
6. Something Expected by White
House: A sixth possible view is that although the
White House had no specific knowledge of the attacks in
advance, it expected some sort of attacks to occur and
was a party to facilitating them, at least in the sense
of not ordering that they be prevented.
>39 This view allows for the
possibility that the White House might have been shocked
by the amount of death and destruction caused by the
attacks that were actually carried out.
7. Specific Advance Knowledge
by White House: A seventh possible view is that the
White House had specific foreknowledge of the targets
and the timing of the attacks.
8. White House Involved in
Planning: An eighth possible view is that the White
House was a party to planning the attacks.
As these possibilities show, a
charge that 9/11 involved "complicity" or "conspiracy"
on the part of US officials can be understood in many
ways, several of which do not involve active involvement
in the planning, and most of which do not involve
presidential involvement in this planning. One reason
these distinctions are important is that they show that
discussion of the idea of official complicity — whether
such complicity is being charged or rejected — needs to
be more nuanced than is often the case. For example, the
charge that Jean Bethke Elshtain rejects as
"preposterous" is the "charge that American officials,
up to and including the president of the United States,
engineered the attacks to bolster their popularity."
>40 In so wording it, she not only
equates the charge of official complicity with the
eighth of the possible views listed above, which is the
strongest charge, but also ties this charge to the
imputation of a specific motive to the American
officials allegedly involved — that of bolstering their
own popularity. Having dismissed that highly specific
charge as preposterous, she evidently assumes that the
whole idea of official complicity has been laid to rest.
But there are many other possibilities.
For example, Michael Parenti, one
of the few well-known leftist thinkers to have suggested
some form of official complicity, points out, like
Mahajan, that the attacks were so convenient that they
have provoked suspicion: "The September terrorist
attacks created such a serviceable pretext for
reactionism at home and imperialist expansion abroad as
to leave many people suspecting that the US government
itself had a hand in the event." Parenti at first seems
to dismiss this suspicion as completely as Mahajan,
saying: "I find it hard to believe that the White House
or the CIA actively participated in a conspiracy to
destroy the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon,
killing such large numbers of Americans in order to
create a casus belli against Afghanistan."
>41
Parenti, however, does not stop
there. Citing an article by Patrick Martin, who refers
to some facts suggesting official complicity, Parenti
endorses Martins conclusion — that although the US
government did not plan the details of the attacks or
anticipate that thousands of people would be killed, it
"expected something to happen and looked the
other way." >42 Parenti thereby
illustrates the second or, more likely, the sixth of the
possible views.
In any case, I have found, as I
have said, that the revisionists have made a strong
prima facie case for at least some version of the
charge of official complicity. To say that they have
made a convincing case would require a judgment
that the evidence that they cite is reliable. And,
although I have repeated only evidence that seemed
credible to me, I have not independendy verified the
accuracy of this evidence. As the reader will see, this
evidence is so extensive and of such a nature that no
individual — especially no individual with very limited
time and resources — could check out its accuracy. It is
for this reason that I claim only that these
revisionists have presented a strong prima facie
case for official complicity, strong enough to merit
investigations by those who do have the necessary
resources to carry them out — the press and the US
Congress. If a significant portion of the evidence
summarized here holds up, the conclusion that the
attacks of 9/11 succeeded because of official complicity
would become virtually inescapable.
I should perhaps emphasize that it
is not necessary for all of the evidence to stand
up, given the nature of the argument. Some arguments
are, as we say, "only as strong as the weakest link."
These are deductive arguments, in which each step
in the argument depends on the truth of the previous
step. If a single premise is found to be false, the
argument fails. However, the argument for official
complicity in 9/11 is a cumulative argument. This
kind of argument is a general argument consisting of
several particular arguments that are independent from
each other. As such, each particular argument provides
support for all the others. Rather than being like a
chain, a cumulative argument is more like a cable
composed of many strands. Each strand strengthens the
cable. But if there are many strands, the cable can
still hold a lot of weight even if some of them unravel.
As the reader will see, there are many strands in the
argument for official complicity in 9/11 summarized in
this book. If the purported evidence on which some of
these are based turns out to be unreliable, that would
not necessarily undermine the overall argument. This
cumulative argument would then simply be supported by
fewer strands. And some of the strands are such that, if
the evidence on which they are based is confirmed, the
case could be supported by one or two of them.
>43
"Conspiracy Theories"
Before turning to the evidence,
however, we should pause to consider the fact, to which
allusion has been made, that it seems widely assumed
that any such case can be rejected a priori by
pointing out that it is a "conspiracy theory." Indeed,
it almost seems to be a requirement or admission into
public discourse to announce that one rejects conspiracy
theories. What is the logic behind this thinking? It
cannot be that we literally reject the very idea that
conspiracies occur. We all accept conspiracy theories of
all sorts. We accept a conspiracy theory whenever we
believe that two or more people have conspired in secret
to achieve some goal, such as to rob a bank, defraud
customers, or fix prices, we would be more honest,
therefore, if we followed the precedent of Michael
Moore, who has said: "Now, I'm not into conspiracy
theories, except the ones that are true."
>44
To refine this point slightly, we
can say that we accept all those conspiracy theories
that we believe to be true, while we reject all those
that we believe to be false. We cannot, therefore,
divide people into those who accept conspiracy theories
and those who reject them. The division between people
on this issue involves simply the question of wich
conspiracy theories they accept and which ones they
reject. >45
To apply this analysis to the
attacks of 9/11: It is false to suggest that those who
allege that the attacks occurred because of official
complicity are "conspiracy theorists" while those who
accept the official account are not. People differ on
this issue merely in terms of which conspiracy theory
they hold to be true, or at least most probable.
According to the official account, the attacks of 9/11
occurred because of a conspiracy among Muslims, with
Osama bin Laden being the chief conspirator.
Revisionists reject that theory, at least as a
sufficient account of what happened, maintaining that
the attacks cannot be satisfactorily explained without
postulating conspiracy by officials of the US
government, at least in allowing the attacks to succeed.
The choice, accordingly, is simply between (some version
of) the received conspiracy theory and (some version of)
the revisionist conspiracy theory.
Which of these competing theories
we accept depends, or at least should depend, on which
one we believe to be better supported by the relevant
facts. Those who hold the revisionist theory have become
convinced that there is considerable evidence that not
only suggests the falsity of the received conspiracy
theory, which we are calling "the official account," but
also points to the truth of the revisionist theory. I
turn now to that evidence.
FOOTNOTES for the
Introduction
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Frequently Cited Works
Ahmed, Nafeez Mosaddeq. The War
on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked September
11, 2001. Joshua Tree, Calif.: Tree of Life
Publications, 2002.
Chossudovsky, Michel. War and Globalisation: The
Truth Behind September 11. Canada: Global Outlook,
2002.
Meyssan, Thierry. 9/11: The Big Lie. London:
Carnot, 2002 (translation of L'Effioyable imposture
[Paris: Les Editions Carnot, 2002]).
— Pentagate. London: Carnot Publishing, 2002
(translation of Le Pentagate [Paris- Les Editions
Carnot, 2002]).
Thompson, Paul. "September 11: Minute-by-Minute," Center
for Cooperative Research. After the first citation in a
chapter, this timeline will be cited simply as Thompson,
followed by the time. For example: Thompson (8:55 AM) or
Thompson, 8:55 AM, depending how he marks it on his
website.
— "Was 9/11 Allowed to Happen? The Complete Timeline,"
Center for Cooperative Research. After the first
citation in a chapter, this timeline will be cited
simply as "Timeline," followed by the date under which
the information is found. Both timelines are available
on the website for the Center for Cooperative Research (www.cooperativeresearch.org).
Introduction
1James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy
of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New
York: Anchor Books, 2002), 633.
2Washington Post, January 27, 2002.
3Henry Kissinger, "Destroy the Network,"
Washington Post, September 11, 2001 (washingtonpost.com),
quoted in Thierry Meyssan,9/11: The Big Lie
(London: Carnot, 2002), 65.
4Lance Morrow, "The Case for Rage and
Retribution," Time, September 11, 2001.
5The Project for the New American Century,
Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and
Resources for a New Century (www.newamericancentury.org),
51. This document will be discussed further.
6John Pilger, New Statesman, December
12, 2002.
7Leonard Wong, Institute of Strategic
Studies, Defeating Terrorism: Strategic Issues
Analysis, "Maintaining Public Support for Military
Operations" (http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usassi/public.pdf),
quoted in 9/11: The Big Lie, 127.
8On these restrictions and their
consequences, see Nancy Chang, Silencing Political
Dissent: How Post-September 11 Anti- Terrorism Measures
Threaten Our Civil Liberties, Foreword by Howard
Zinn (New York: Seven Stories, 2002).
9Phyllis Bennis, Before and After: US
Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis,
Foreword by Noam Chomsky (Northampton, Mass.: Olive
Branch Press, 2003).
10See Richard W. Van Alstyne, The Rising
America. Empire (1960; New York: Norton, 1974);
Walter LaFeber, The New Empire: An Interpretation of
American Expansion 1860-1898 (1963; Ithaca: Cornell
University Press, 1998); Thomas J. McCormick, China
Market: America's Quest for Informal Empire, 1893-1901
(Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967)- Lloyd C. Gardner,
Walter F. LaFeber, and Thomas J. McCormick, Creation
of the American Empire (Chicago: Rand McNally,
1973); Laurence Shoup and William Minter, Imperial
Brain Trust: The Council on Foreign Relations and United
States Foreign Policy( New York: Monthly Review
Press, 1977); Anders Stephanson, Manifest Destiny:
American Expansion and the Empire of Right (New York:.
Hill and Wang, 1995).
11"More than any single policy," says Bennis,
"the biggest cause of international anger against the
United States is the arrogance with which US power is
exercised" (Before and After, xv).
12"Resisting the Global Domination Project:
An Interview with Prof. Richard Falk," Frontline,
20/8 (April 12-25, 2003).
13For example, Rahul Mahajan, The New
Crusade: American's War on Terrorism (New York:
Monthly Review, 2002), 7.
14New York Times, September 11, 2002.
15William Bunch, "Why Don't We Have Answers
to These 9/11 Questions?" Philadelphia Daily News
online posting, September 11, 2003.
16The media in several other countries have,
by contrast, presented investigative reports. In Canada,
for example, journalist Barrie Zwicker presented a
two-part examination, entitled "The Great Deception:
What Really Happened on September 11th," on January 21
and 28, 2002 (MediaFile, Vision TV Insight [www.visiontv.ca]).
In Germany, the public discussion has been such that a
poll in July of 2003 revealed that 20 percent of the
German population believed that "the US government
ordered the attacks itself" (Ian Johnson, "Conspiracy
Theories about September 11 Get Hearing in Germany,"
Wall Street Journal, September 29, 2003, A1).
17Press Gazette, August 15, 2002.
18Rather's remarks, made in a interview on
Greg Palasts BBC television show Newsnight, were
quoted in a story in the Guardian, May 17, 2002.
This statement is quoted in Greg Palast, "See No Evil:
What Bush Didn't (Want to) Know about 9/11," which is
contained in Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can
Buy: The Truth about Corporate Cons, Globalization, and
High-Finance Fraudsters (Plume, 2003), which is the
Revised American Edition of his 2002 book (with a
different subtitle). This essay was also posted March 1,
2003, on TomPaine.com.
19"Remarks by the President in Photo
Opportunity with the National Security Team" (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001
/09/20010912-4.html).
20"Presidents Remarks at National Day of
Prayer and Remembrance" (www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001
/09/20010914-2.html).
21The material in notes 19-21 is quoted in
9111: The Big Lie, 77, 76-77, 79.
22Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War Against
Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World
(New York: Basic Books, 2003), 2-3.
23See Michel Chossudovsky, War and
Globalisation: The Truth Behind September 11
(Canada: Global Outlook, 2002), and John McMurtry,
Value Wars: The Global Market Versus the Life Economy
(London: Pluto Press, 2002), Preface.
24Elshtain, 9.
25To some extent, this fact reflects a matter
of principle — a concern that devoting attention to
possible conspiracies is diversionary. Some of the
reasons for this wariness are valid. One concern is that
a focus on exposing conspiratorial crimes of present
office-holders may reflect the naive asssumption that if
only we can replace those individuals with better ones,
things will be fine. Underlying that worry is the
concern that a focus on conspirators can divert
attention from the more important issue of the
structural problems in the national and global order
that need to be overcome. But although those dangers
must be guarded against, we should also avoid a too
strong dichotomy between structural and conspiratorial
analysis. For one thing, although structural analysis is
essential for any deep understanding of social
processes, structures as such, being abstractions, do
not enact themselves. They are influential only insofar
as they are embodied in agents — both individual and
institutional — who act in terms of them. These agents,
furthermore, are not fully determined by the dominant
values of their societies. They have degrees of freedom,
which they can use to act in ways that are more or less
wise, more or less just, and more or less legal. When
political leaders enact policies that are egregiously
unjust, dangerous, and even illegal, it is important to
replace them with leaders who are at least somewhat
better. Finally, and most important, the exposure of a
conspiracy may, rather than diverting attention from a
society's problematic structures, turn attention to
them. For example, if it became evident that our
national political leaders caused or at least allowed
the attacks of 9/11 and that they did so partly because
they had deeply embodied certain values pervasive of our
society, we might finally decide that a society-wide
reorientation is in order.
26This practice is, of course, not unique to
America. It is generally agreed, for example, mat the "Mukden
incident," in which an explosion destroyed part of the
Japanese railway in Manchuria, was engineered by
Japanese army officers "as an excuse to conquer
Manchuria" (Walter LaFeber, The Clash: US-Japanese
Relations Throughout History [New York: Norton,
1997], 166).
27Rahul Mahajan, Full Spectrum Dominance:
US Power in Iraq and Beyond (New York: Seven
Stories, 2003), 59, 50, 48.
28Paul Thompson's main timeline, entitled
"Was 9/11 Allowed to Happen? The Complete Timeline,"
lists possibly relevant events extending over many years
and fills some 200 single-spaced pages.
29This is one respect in which Thompson sees
himself as differing from some other researchers, such
as Michael Ruppert, mentioned in note 36, below.
30Gore Vidal, Dreaming War. Blood for Oil
and the Cheney-Bush Junta (New York: Thunder's
Mouth/Nation Books, 2002); Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, The
War on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked
September 11, 2001 (Joshua Tree Calif, Tree of Life
Publications, 2002). Vidal, one prominent member of the
American left who has rejected the official account of
9-11, endorses Ahmed's book -- calling it "the best,
most balanced report, thus far" (l4) -- and summarizes
some of its argument.
31See Breakdown: How America's
Intelligence Failures Led to September 11
(Washington: Regnery 2002), by Bill Gertz, a journalist
for the Washington Times. A more recent version
of this thesis is provided in Gerald Posner,
WhyAmerica Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (New
York: Random House, 2003) Posner attributes the failure
to breakdowns (xi), blunders (xii, 169), missed
opportunities (xii, 146), investigative mix-ups (34),
mistakes (150, 155, 169), incompetence and bad judgment
(142, 167), stifling bureaucracy (173), and especially
the failure of agencies to share information with each
other (35, 44-47, 59, 178). "The failure to have
prevented 9/11," asserts Posner, "was a systemic one"
(xii). The task before us, therefore, is simply to fix
the system. As Walter Russell Mead says (without
criticism) in a book review, "the message of Why
America, Slept is on balance a hopeful one.
Incompetence in our security establishment is something
we can address" ("The Tragedy of National Complacency,"
New York Times, October 29, 2003).
32A Joint Inquiry into the attacks was
carried out in 2002 by the intelligence committees of
the US Senate and House of Representatives. Although
this Joint Inquiry had completed its final report by
December of 2002, the Bush administration long refused
to allow it to be released. Only a very brief summary of
this final report was made public (it can be read at
http://intelligence.senate.gov/press.htm under
December 11, 2002). Finally, late in July 2003, the
final report itself was released. Although discussions
in the press described the report as surprisingly
critical, the criticism was limited to charges of
incompetence. Significant portions of the final report
were, to be sure, deleted in the name of national
security, but I see no reason to believe that these
deletions — which reportedly involved foreign countries,
especially Saudi Arabia — contained any accusations of
complicity in 9/11 by US officials. Possible reasons for
the inadequacy of the Joint Inquiry's report are
discussed in Chapter 10.
33Although its official name is the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States,
it is informally known as the 9/11 Independent
Commission. President Bush had long opposed the creation
of any such commission, claiming that it would take
resources away from the war on terrorism. But
embarrassing revelations from the Joint Inquiry (see
previous note) reportedly left him little choice
(Newsweek, September 22, 2002). In November of 2002,
Bush signed a bill establishing the commission (the
website of which is www.9-11commision.gov). Problems in
relation to this commission are discussed in Chapter 10.
34In the meantime, Thompson has been
developing articles in which the material is organized
in terms of a large number of topics, which continues to
grow. He also has a growing number of articles in which
he discusses various dimensions of the controversies
about 9/11. His website is therefore becoming
increasingly easy to use.
35Implicit in this statement is the fact that
I do not endorse all arguments in the main sources I
employ. Meyssan, for example, has some theories that I
find implausible and others that seem at least
insufficiently supported by evidence.
36One failing of this book is that I have
usually made no effort to discern, with regard to
various stories and facts reported, which investigator
or researcher was first responsible for reporting them.
This means that I have surely in many cases failed to
give proper credit. One example involves the fact that I
cite Paul Thompson's timelines abundantly while citing
Michael Ruppert's website, From the Wilderness (www.fromthewilderness.com
or www.copvcia.com), relatively rarely. And yet Ruppert
was one of the earliest major critics of the official
account of 9/11. In fact, in Thompson's statement of
"credits and sources," he says: "This timeline started
when I saw the excellent timeline at the From the
Wilderness website and began adding to it. I found that
timeline to be a great resource, but it wasn't as
comprehensive as I wanted. My version has since grown
into something of a monster, but the inspiration still
lies with From the Wilderness" (www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/index.html).
Ruppert, furthermore, is simply one example of several
researchers, such as Jared Israel, who were publishing
information challenging the official account almost
immediately after 9/11. To try to sort all of this out
in order to assign proper credit, however, would detract
from the task of getting the challenge to the official
account into the public discussion. Most researchers, as
far as I can tell, seem more interested in this than in
receiving credit. The question of proper credit, in any
case, is one that would appropriately be answered by
some historian of this movement if it is successful.
37In suggesting that there are many
disturbing questions that have thus far not been
answered,I am to some extent reflecting the attitude of
the organizations formed by families of the victims of
the attacks, one of which is, in fact, called
"Unanswered Questions" (see www.UnansweredQuestions.org).
Other organizations with websites include Familiy
Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent Commission
(www.911Independentcommission.org), Voices of September
11th (www.voicesofsept11.org), 9-11 Citizens Watch (www.911Citizenswatch.org),
and the 9/11 Visibility Project (www.septembereleventh.org).
38This book, cited in previous notes, is a
translation of Meyssan's L'Effroyable imposture
(Paris Les Editions Carnot, 2002).
39This view of the White House could be
combined with any of the previous five views insofar as
those views deal only with the involvement of other US
agencies. This sixth view, therefore, has five possible
versions. The same is true of the seventh and eighth
views.
40Elshtain, 2-3.
41Michael Parenti, The Terrorism Trap:
September 11 and Beyond (San Francisco: City Lights,
2002), 69, 70.
42Parenti, 70-71, citing Patrick Martin, "US
Planned War in Afghanistan Long Before September 11,"
World Socialist Conference, November 20, 2001 (www.wsws.org/artides/2001/nov2001/afghn20.html);
the quoted words, which summarize Martins position, are
Parenti's.
43I emphasize this point because some
polemicists, when confronted by a book whose conclusion
they do not like, seek to undermine this conclusion by
focusing on the few points that they believe can be most
easily discredited. That tactic, assuming that good
evidence is really presented against those points, is
valid with regard to a deductive argument. In relation
to a cumulative argument, however, it is tactic useful
only to those concerned with something other than truth.
44Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?
(New York: Warner Books, 2003), 2.
45To refine the point a little more: There
are some conspiracy theories that, although we may not
be convinced of their truth, we find at least
plausible, so we are willing to entertain the
possibility that they might be true. We are open,
accordingly, to reading and hearing evidence intended to
support them. There are other conspiracy theories, by
contrast, that we find completely implausible, so
we tend to suspect the intelligence or sanity of people
who believe them or who even entertain the possibility
of their truth. Whatever facts they offer as evidence we
reject out of hand, holding that, even if we cannot
explain these facts, the true explanation cannot be the
one they are offering. But the question of what we find
completely implausible — 'beyond the pale' — is seldom
determined simply by a dispassionate consideration of
empirical evidence. Plausibility is largely a matter of
one's general worldview. We are also influenced to some
degree by wishful-and-fearful thinking, in which we
accept some ideas partly because we hope thay are true
and reject other ideas because we would find the thought
that they are true too frightening. At least sometimes,
however, we are able, in spite of our prejudgments, to
revise our prior ideas in light of new evidence. Most
revisionists about 9/11, in presenting their evidence,
seem to be counting on this possibility.
Part One
The Events of 9/11
CHAPTER ONE
Flights 11 and 175:
How could the Hijacker's Missions have succeded?
In many respects, the strongest evidence provided
by critics of the official account involves simply the
events of 9/11 itself. At 8:46 AM, one hijacked airplane
crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC).
At 9:03, another crashed into the South Tower. And at
9:38, the Pentagon was hit. In light of standard
procedures for dealing with hijacked airplanes, however,
not one of these planes should have reached its target,
let alone all three of them. It is also far from clear
how the New York attacks could have succeeded in the
sense of causing the buildings of the WTC to collapse.
There are, furthermore, disturbing questions about the
third airliner — whether it was really the aircraft that
hit the Pentagon — and about the fourth one — whether it
was the one plane that was shot down. Finally,
after examining questions that have been raised about
all these matters, I will look at questions raised by
President Bush's behavior that day. The present chapter,
however, deals only with Flights 11 and 175 and the
collapse of the WTC buildings.
American Airlines Flight II
The first plane to be hijacked was
American Airlines (AA) Flight 11, which left Boston at
7:59 AM. At 8:14, besides failing to respond to an order
from FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) ground
control to climb, its radio and transponder went off,
>1 suggesting that it had
possibly been hijacked. At 8:20, with FAA ground
control watching its flight path on radar, the plane
went radically off course, leading ground control to
conclude that it had probably been hijacked. At
8:21, flight attendants reported by telephone that the
plane had definitely been taken over by
hijackers, who had already killed some people. At 8:28,
the plane turned toward New York. At 8:44, Secretary of
Defense Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon talking about
terrorism with Representative Christopher Cox.
"Let me tell ya," the Associated
Press quoted Rumsfeld as saying, "I've been around the
block a few times. There will be another event.
Therewill be another event." >2
And, if he in fact said this, he was right. Two minutes
later, at 8:46, Flight 11 crashed into the WTC's North
Tower. This was 32 minutes after evidence that the plane
had possibly been hijacked and 25 minutes after
knowledge that it definitely had been.
Skeptics about the official
account believe that the attempt to crash an airliner
into the WTC could not have been successful under normal
circumstances. The basic problem, they argue, is that
there are standard procedures for situations such as
this and that, if they had been followed, Flight 11
would have been intercepted by fighter jets within 10
minutes of any sign that it may have been hijacked. Had
the plane then failed to obey the standard signal to
follow the fighter jets to an airport to land, it would
have been shot down. This would have occurred by 8:24,
or 8:30 at the latest, so that the question of whether
to shoot down a commercial airliner over the heart of
New York City would not have arisen.
As evidence, the skeptics cite FAA
regulations, which instruct air traffic controllers:
Consider that an aircraft
emergency exists...when:...There is unexpected loss of
radar contact and radio communications with any...
aircraft.... If...you are in doubt that a situation
constitutes an emergency or potential emergency,
handle it as though it were an emergency.
>3
Accordingly, at 8:14, the loss of
radio contact alone would have led the flight controller
to begin emergency procedures. The loss of the
transponder signal would have made the situation doubly
suspect. The controller, after finding that it was
impossible to re-establish radio contact, would have
immediately contacted the National Military Command
Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon and its North American
Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), which would have
immediately had jets sent up — "scrambled" — from the
nearest military airport. According to spokespersons for
NORAD, from the time the FAA senses that something is
wrong, "it takes about one minute" for it to contact
NORAD, and then NORAD can cramble fighters "within a
matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States."
>4 "According to the US Air Forces
own website," reports Nafeez Ahmed, an F-15 routinely
"goes from 'scramble order' to 29,000 feet in only 2.5
minutes" and then can fly at 1,850 nmph (nautical miles
per hour). >5 If normal procedures
had been followed, accordingly, Flight 11 would have
been intercepted by 8:24, and certainly no later than
8:30, 16 minutes before it, in the actual course of
events, crashed into the WTC. Furthermore, even if radio
contact and the transponders signal had not been lost,
the fact that the plane went radically off course at
8:20 would have led the FAA to notify the military.
Every plane has a flight plan, which consists of a
sequence of geographic points, or "fixes," and,
according to a report by MSNBC:
Pilots are supposed to hit each
fix with pinpoint accuracy. If a plane deviates by 15
degrees, or two miles from that course, the flight
controllers will hit the panic button. They'll call
the plane, saying "American 11, you're deviating from
course." It's considered a real emergency.
>6
So, even if the FAA had waited
until the plane went off course at 8:20, the plane
should have been intercepted by 8:30, or 8:35 at the
latest, again in plenty of time to prevent it from going
into New York City.
As to what would occur upon interception, Ahmed explains
by quoting the FAA manual:
[The interceptor military craft
communicates by] Rocking wings from a position
slightly above and ahead of, and normally to the left
of, the intercepted aircraft.... This action conveys
the message: "You have been intercepted." The
commercial jet is then supposed to respond by rocking
its wings to indicate compliance, upon which the
interceptor performs a "slow level turn, normally to
the left, on to the desired heading [direction]." The
commercial plane then responds by following the
escort. >7
If Flight 11 had been thus
intercepted but did not respond, it would,
according to standard procedures, have been shot down.
Marine Corps Major Mike Snyder, a NORAD spokesman, after
telling the Boston Globe that NORAD's "fighters
routinely intercept aircraft," continued:
When planes are intercepted,
they typically are handled with graduated response.
The approaching fighter may rock its wingtips to
attract the pilots attention, or make a pass in front
of the aircraft. Eventually, it can fire tracer rounds
in the airplanes path, or, under certain
circumstances, down it with a missile.
>8
The question raised by critics, of
course, is why this did not happen in the case of Flight
11. Why was the plane not even intercepted?
Some confusion about this matter, they point out, was
created by VicePresident Cheney during an interview on
"Meet the Press" on September16, in which he suggested
that the "question of whether or not we would intercept
commercial aircraft," as well as the question of whether
it would be shot down, was "a presidential-level
decision." This statement, point out the critics,
confuses two matters: intercepting and shooting down,
and interception is a routine matter, which occurs well
over a hundred times a year. >9
The confusion of these two matters was also aided by
General Richard Myers, then Acting Chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, >10 in testimony
to the Senate Armed Services Committee on September 13,
in which he stated:"[A}fter the second tower was hit, I
spoke to the commander of NORAD, General Eberhart. And
at that point, I think the decision was at that point to
start launching aircraft." >11 He,
like Cheney, implied that fighters would be sent up to
intercept flights only if ordered to by commanders at
the highest level. But interception occurs routinely, as
a matter of standard operating procedure, even if
shooting down a plane would be, as Cheney implied, "a
presidential-level decision."
Moreover, although some researchers have accepted the
view that a hijacked plane could be shot down only with
presidential authorization, >12Thierry
Meyssan points out that the military regulations seem to
say otherwise. According to these regulations,
In the event of a hijacking, the
NMCC [National Military Command Center] will be
notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The
NMCC will, with the exception of requests needing an
immediate response — forward requests for DoD
[Department of Defense] assistance to the Secretary of
Defense for approval. >13
Accordingly, concludes Meyssan,
the regulations give the responsibility for shooting
down hijacked airplanes "to the Secretary of Defense."
Furthermore, as the phrase beginning "with the
exception" shows, if the Secretary of Defense cannot be
contacted in time, other people in the line of command
would have the authority. According to a Department of
Defense document cited by Meyssan:
It is possible to formulate to
any element in the chain of command "Requests needing
Immediate Response." These arise from imminently
serious conditions where only an immediate action
taken by an official of the Department of Defense or a
military commander can prevent loss of lives, or
mitigate human suffering and great property damage.
>14
According to this reading, many
people in the line of command would have had the
authority to prevent the "loss of lives" and "great
property damage" that occurred when AA Flight 11 slammed
into the North Tower of the WTC.
One might argue, to be sure, that at that time no one
would have known that the plane was going to do that.
But, critics of the official account would reply, that
argument — besides not explaining why Flight 11 was not
at least intercepted — would not apply to the second
plane to crash into the WTC.
United Airlines Flight 175
UA Flight 175 left Boston at 8:14
AM, which was just when the FAA was learning that Flight
11 may have been hijacked. At 8:42, its radio and
transponder went off and it veered off course. Knowing
by then that the earlier flight had definitely been
hijacked and was flying across New York City, FAA
officials would surely have been ready to contact the
military immediately. They, in fact, reportedly notified
NORAD at 8:43. >15 NORAD should
have had fighter jets intercepting this plane by 8:53.
And by this time, being 7 minutes after the first
hijacked plane had hit the WTC, the fighters certainly
should have been ready to shoot down this second
hijacked plane if it did not immediately follow orders.
Instead, however, no planes intercepted Flight 175, and
it crashed into the WTC's South Tower at 9:03.
Another disturbing feature about
this crash, especially to the families of the victims,
is that at 8:55, a public announcement was reportedly
broadcast inside the South Tower, saying that the
building was secure, so that people could return to
their offices. Such announcements reportedly continued
until a few minutes before the building was hit, and may
have contributed "to the deaths of hundreds of people."
>16 Paul Thompson asks: "Given
that at 8:43 NORAD was notified Flight 175 was hijacked
and headed toward New York City, why weren't people in
the building warned?" A disturbing question, since
Thompson's implication seems to be that perhaps someone
other than the hijackers was seeking to ensure that a
significant number of lives were lost.
In any case, given the fact that
this plane hit the WTC 17 minutes after the first crash,
none of the reasons that could be imagined to explain
why standard procedures broke down with regard to the
first plane — such as inattentive air traffic
controllers, pilots at military bases not on full alert,
or the assumption that the plane's aberrant behavior did
not mean that it had been hijacked — could be used to
explain why Flight 175 was not shot down or even
intercepted. For one thing, by then all the technicians
at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector "had their
headsets linked to the FAA in Boston to hear about
Flight 11," so NORAD would have been fully aware of the
seriousness of the situation. >17
Even more puzzling is why in another 35 minutes, at
9:38, the Pentagon would be hit, but we will wait until
the next chapter to examine this third flight. The
present task is to consider the official account of the
first two flights and the response of the critics.
Why Were Flights 11 and 175 Not
Intercepted?
One of the strange things about
the official account, say its critics, is that there has
been more than one version of it. General Myers, in his
aforementioned testimony to the Senate Armed Services
Committee on September 13, said: "When it became clear
what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft."
When asked whether that order was given "before or after
the Pentagon was struck," Myers — who was acting
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — replied: "That
order, to the best of my knowledge, was after the
Pentagon was struck." >18 One
problem with this statement, point out critics, is that
officials at NMCC would have become clear about "what
the threat was" long before the Pentagon itself was hit
at 9:38. It would have been clear at least by 8:46, when
the WTC was hit and another hijacked plane was heading
in its direction. Another problem, of course, is that it
was not necessary for officials at NMCC and NORAD to
understand fully "what the threat was" in order for
there to be jets in the air to intercept Flights 11,
175, and any unauthorized aircraft headed toward
Washington. Standard operating procedures should have
taken care of all those things.
This version of the official
account was also told by at least two other officials.
According to a story in the Boston Globe on
September 15, Major Mike Snyder, speaking for NORAD,
said that no fighters were scrambled until after the
Pentagon was hit. And on September 16, when Tim Russert,
during his aforementioned interview with Vice President
Cheney on "Meet the Press," expressed surprise that
although we knew about the first hijacking by 8:20, "it
seems we were not able to scramble fighter jets in time
to protect the Pentagon," Cheney did not dispute this
statement. >19
The major problem with this first
version of the official account, of course, is that it
says that military behavior completely contradicted
standard procedures, which call for jets to be scrambled
as soon as a suspected hijacking is reported. Despite
the fact that statements by Myers and Cheney seemed to
suggest otherwise, it requires no command from on high
for fighter jets to be scrambled. Rather, the critics
point out, an order for them not to be scrambled
is what would require a command from on high. For
example, Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel, commenting on
the fact that the standard emergency systems failed on
9/11, say: "This could only happen if individuals in
high positions worked in a coordinated way to make them
fail." >20
Within a few days, in any case,
NORAD began saying that it did have planes
scrambled but they arrived too late. >21
To the critics, however, this second version seems
almost as strange as the first.
According to this version, NORAD
was not notified by the FAA of the hijacking of Flight
11 until 8:40. This would have been 26 minutes after the
plane's radio and transponder went off and 20 minutes
after it went off course. Allan Wood and Paul Thompson
write:
Is NORAD's claim credible? If
so, the air traffic controllers...should have been
fired and subject to possible criminal charges for
their inaction. To date, however, there has been no
word of any person being disciplined.... If NORAD's
claim is false, and it was indeed informed within the
time frame outlined in FAA regulations..., that would
mean NORAD did absolutely nothing for almost thirty
minutes while a hijacked commercial airliner flew off
course through some of the most congested airspace in
the world. Presumably, that would warrant some very
serious charges. Again, no one associated with NORAD
or the FAA has been punished. >22
The lack of disciplinary action
suggests either that this story is false or that the
relevant parties at FAA and/or NORAD did what they had
been instructed to do.
This account has more anomalous
features. After NORAD received word of the hijacking,
according to this account, it did not give the scramble
order until 8:46, six minutes after it had been
notified. Furthermore, NORAD inexplicably gave this
order not to McGuire Air Force Base in New
Jersey, which is only 70 miles from NYC, but to Otis Air
National Guard Base in Cape Cod, which is over 180 miles
away.
That would have made no difference
with regard to Flight 11, of coursebecause 8:46 was when
it was striking the WTC.
In the meantime, however, NORAD
says that it had received notification at 8:43 from the
FAA of Flight 175's hijacking, so the two F-15s that
were given the scramble order at 8:46 were sent after
this flight instead. But, inexplicably, the F-15s are
said not to have taken off until 6 minutes later, at
8:52.
However, perhaps the strangest
feature of this story, from the viewpoint of the
critics, involves its failure to explain, even with all
those delays, why the planes did not arrive in time to
stop the second attack on the WTC. At 8:52, there were
still 11 minutes until 9:03, when Flight 175 would hit
the second tower. Lieutenant Colonel Timothy Duffy, a
pilot said to have flown one of the F-15s, has been
quoted as stating that he "was in full-blower all the
way," which would mean he was going over 1,875 nmph.
>23 At this speed, the F-15s would
have been covering over 30 miles a minute. Hence,
allowing the standard 2.5 minutes for them to get
airborne and up to speed, they should have reached
Manhattan in about 8 minutes, having a full 3 minutes
left to shoot down the errant airliner. And yet,
according to this second version of the official
account, the F-15s were still 70 miles away when Flight
175 crashed into the South Tower. >24
Indeed, according to NORAD's timeline, it took them 19
minutes to reach the city. So, if the story about jets
from Otis is even true, they must have been traveling at
far less than "full blower" — in fact, if we accept
NORAD s timeline, more like 700 mph. >25
Furthermore, even if the times in
this story are adjusted enough to account for the fact
that the planes were late, there is still the question
of why the order was not given to McGuire Air Force
Base. As Ahmed says, an F-15 flying at 1,850 nmph "would
cover the ground from New Jersey's Air Force Base to New
York in under 3 minutes, and thus could have easily
intercepted Flight 175." >26 So,
the critics conclude, even if this second story is
accepted, the WTC's second tower should not have been
hit. Finally, the claim that jets were scrambled to try
to stop this second hijacked plane still leaves us with
no explanation as to why standard procedures were not
followed with regard to the first one. Accepting
this second version of the official account would,
furthermore, leave us puzzled as to how General Myers,
Vice President Cheney, and the NORAD spokesman could
have at first believed that no planes whatsoever had
been scrambled until after the Pentagon had been hit.
Accordingly, some critics,
including some with military experience, think that the
second version was fabricated. For example, Stan Goff, a
retired Master Sergeant who taught Military Science at
West Point, concludes that no Air Force jets were
scrambled until after the Pentagon was hit.
>27 Andreas von Bülow, former
State Secretary in the German Defense Ministry, said:
"For 60 decisive minutes, the military and intelligence
agencies let the fighter planes stay on the ground."
>28
Under either version of the
official account, in any case, the successful attacks on
the WTC should not have been possible. This view is
supported by Anatoli Kornukov, the commander in chief of
the Russian Air Force, who was quoted the day after 9/11
as saying: "Generally it is impossible to carry out an
act of terror on the scenario which was used in the USA
yesterday.... As soon as something like that happens
here, I am reported about that right away and in a
minute we are all up." >29 After
quoting Kornukovs statement, Ahmed comments: "It is, of
course, well known that the US Air Force is far superior
to Russia's," adding that some reasonable inferences can
be drawn from these facts — in particular, that the
attacks on the WTC could have happened only if standard
operating procedures were suspended.
Standard Operating Procedures
(SOP) were completely and inexplicably dropped on 11th
September — something that had never occurred before.
The question then remains as to who was responsible
for ensuring that routine emergency response rules
were not adhered to. >30
Bykov and Israel have little doubt
about who that was, saying:
The sabotage of routine
protective systems, controlled by strict hierarchies,
would never have been contemplated let alone attempted
absent the involvement of the supreme US military
command. This includes at least US President George
Bush, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the
then-Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air
Force General Richard B. Myers. >31
This is indeed the question that
must be faced: Could a plan to hijack airplanes and
crash them into the WTC have been successful without
"stand down" orders approved by Bush, Rumsfeld, and
Myers?
As the conclusions drawn by
critics of the official account of Flights 11 and 175
show, this account has evoked disturbing questions.
>32 Further disturbing questions
have been raised by the collapse of the buildings of the
World Trade Center. >33
The Collapse of the WTC
Buildings
According to the official account,
the North and South Towers (the Twin Towers) collapsed
due to the impact of the airliners plus the intense
heatproduced by the resulting fires. Calling this the
"official account," I should add, does not mean that it
has been endorsed by any official body. The Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was given the task of
investigating the collapse, but when it issued its
report in May of 2002, it declared that "the sequence of
events leading to the collapse of each tower could not
be definitively determined." >34
Nevertheless, FEMA's report was filled with speculation
that served to support the official theory.
This theory is widely rejected by
those familiar with the facts. It was rejected already
in January of 2002 in an article by Bill Manning
entitled "Selling Out the Investigation," which was
published in Fire Engineering, a trade magazine
with ties to the New York Fire Department. Manning
reported that a growing number of fire protection
engineers had suggested that "the structural damage from
the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in
themselves were not enough to bring down the towers."
>35 In the meantime, many more
objections to the official theory have been raised. Some
of these objections involve special problems associated
with the collapse of a third building in the complex
known as Building 7 (WTC-7).
To evaluate these objections, it
is necessary to review some of the facts. The North
Tower (WTC-1) was struck at 8:46 AM. It collapsed one
hour and 42 minutes later, at 10:28. The South Tower
(WTC-2) was struck at 9:03 AM. It collapsed 56 minutes
later, at 9:59. Building Number 7 (WTC-7), which was two
blocks away and was not struck, collapsed at 5:20 PM.
These facts immediately suggest two questions: Why did
the South Tower, which was struck 17 minutes later than
the North Tower, nevertheless collapse 29 minutes
earlier? And why did WTC-7 collapse at all, given the
fact that it was not struck? Additional details about
the collapse of these three buildings raise even more
questions. I will first deal with questions that have
been raised about the North and South Towers, then turn
to WTC-7.
The Twin Towers: According
one account that became widely circulated shortly after
9/11 by being articulated on a NOVA program, the North
and South Towers were caused to collapse when the heat
of the fires, fed by the jet fuel, melted the buildings'
steel columns. >36 It is now
universally agreed, however, that the fires would not
have been nearly hot enough. To melt steel, one needs a
temperature in the range of 2,770°F (1,500°C), which can
be produced only by some special device, such as an
oxyacetyline torch. A hydrocarbon fire, such as one
based on refined kerosene — which is what jet fuel is —
does not get nearly that hot. As explained by Thomas
Eagar, professor of materials engineering and
engineering systems at MIT, the maximum possible
temperature for an open fire fueled by hydrocarbons
would be 1,600 to 1,700°F. Moroever, since the WTC fires
were fuel-rich fires, as evidenced by the fact that they
gave off much black smoke, they were not even very hot
for hydrocarbon fires, "probably only 1,200 or 1,300°F."
>37
As the melting theory illustrates,
some of the widely accepted explanations of the collapse
of the towers are unsound scientifically. Many other
theories are inadequate because they do not take account
of specific facts about the buildings and the nature of
the collapses. Before examining any more theories,
therefore, we should look at some of these facts.
Each of the towers was about 1,300
feet tall. To support these extremely tall buildings,
there were 47 steel columns in the central core of each
building and 240 steel columns around the perimeter,
with each column being far thicker at the bottom than at
the top. The perimeter columns were connected to the
core by means of steel bar-joist trusses in the concrete
floors. Although there has been considerable talk of
"flimsy trusses," >38
Scientific American quoted engineer Robert McNamara
as saying "nowadays, they just don't build them as tough
as the World Trade Center." With regard to the bar-joist
trusses in particular, the FEMA report said: "The floor
framing system for the two towers was complex and
substantially more redundant than typical bar joist
floor systems." >39Investigations
of some recovered steel have found, furthermore, that
far from being defective, it met or even exceeded the
standard requirements. >40Given
these facts about the towers, we can dismiss a second
idea that has been widely promulgated, namely, that the
impact of the airplanes would have substantially
weakened the towers. Thomas Eagar says that the impact
of the airplanes would have been insignificant, because
"the number of columns lost on the initial impact was
not large and the loads were shifted to remaining
columns in this highly redundant structure."
>41 [W]ithin a few dozen seconds
after the plane crash," Eric Hufschmid points out, "[t]he
North tower was quiet, stable, and motionless."
>42
Those who support the official
account, such as Eagar himself, generally argue that the
collapses must be explained in terms of the heat from
the fires. In Eagar's words: "The real damage in the
World Trade Center resulted from the size of the fire."
Because the steel used in buildings must be able to hold
five times its normal load, Eagar points out, the steel
in the towers could have collapsed only if it was heated
to the point at which it "lost 80 percent of its
strength," which would be about 1,300F. Eagar believes
that this is what happened. >43
The credibility of the official theory, accordingly,
depends at least in part on whether there is evidence
that the towers had the requisite fires.
To evaluate this issue we must
acknowledge the distinction, emphasized by Eagar
himself, between temperature and heat (or energy).
>44 Something, such as a burning
match or light bulb, can have a very high temperature
but not generate much heat (energy), because it is so
small. A burning match would never bring a steel beam up
to its temperature. A 1,300F fire would bring a huge
steel beam up to this temperature only if it were a very
big fire, so that it had lots of energy.
There is one more condition: The
big fire would have to be applied to the steel beam for
a considerable period of time.
For the official theory to be
credible, therefore, the fires in the towers must have
been moderately hot; they must have been large fires,
spreading throughout the buildings; and they must have
burned for a considerable length of time. All the
available evidence, however, suggests that the opposite
was the case. A most valuable book for examining this
evidence is Eric Hufschmid's Painful Questions,
>45which contains the best set of
photographs available.
The Twin Towers have commonly been
described as "towering infernos." From the point of view
of human bodies, this was a true description of the
North Tower, from which many people leaped to their
death to avoid the smoke and flames in the floors above
the 96th floor, where the airplane hit. There is a huge
difference, however, between the tolerance of human
bodies and that of steel. Photographs of the North Tower
provide no evidence of any fire that could have weakened
its steel significantly. A photograph taken within 16
minutes of when the North Tower was hit (because the
South Tower had not yet been hit) shows only a dark hole
with black smoke pouring out of it. No flames arc
visible. As Hufschmidt points out: "The lack of flames
is an indication that the fires were small, and the dark
smoke is an indication that the fires were suffocating."
>46 Another photo, taken from
another angle just after the South Tower was hit, shows
some flames on floors just above the point of impact but
no others. However great the flames may have been in the
first several minutes, while they were being fed by the
jet fuel, this skyscraper was not a towering inferno by
the time 16 minutes had passed. >47
We have all, of course, seen
pictures of a huge fireball outside the South Tower.
>48 There was also a fireball
outside the North Tower after it was hit.>49
These fireballs were created by the burning of the jet
fuel that was spilled. The South Tower had a far bigger
fireball because it was hit near a corner, so more fuel
was spilled outside. These fireballs generated a great
amount of heat. But it was momentary, because the fuel
was quickly burned up. >50The fact
that the South Towers fireball was bigger, furthermore,
does not mean that the South Towers fires were bigger.
To the contrary. Because so much jet fuel was burned up
within the first few minutes, there was less to feed the
fire inside the building. As Hufschmid reports, "photos
show the spectacular flames vanished quickly, and then
the fire remained restricted to one area of the
tower...[and] slowly diminished" >51
The facts about the fire,
therefore, seem to rule out any version of the official
account according to which each tower had hot,
widespread, long-lasting fires. Insofar as there were
hot fires, they were localized and of short duration.
Such fires, even if they were 1,300°F, could not have
brought much if any steel up to that temperature.
>52
Another count against the fire
theory is the likelihood that, even if the Twin Towers
had been engulfed in raging fires, they would not have
collapsed. Prior to the alleged exceptions of 9/11, a
steel-framed building had never before collapsed solely
because of fire. As a report by FEMA in 1991 stated
about a fire in a Philadelphia building that year, the
fire was so energetic that "[b]eams and girders sagged
and twisted," but "[d]espite this extraordinary
exposure, the columns continued to support their loads
without obvious damage." >53
Defenders of the fire theory,
however, appeal to the special characteristics of the
Twin Towers. Given these special characteristics, they
contend, the fire did not have to heat all me steel by
spreading throughout all the floors. According to Thomas
Eagar, it was sufficient to have a hot fire that covered
one floor. The culprits, he says, were the angle dips,"
which "held the floor joists between the columns on the
perimeter wall and the core structure," and which, he
says, were not designed to hold five times their normal
load.>54 Articulating what critics
call the "zipper" version of the truss theory, Eagar
says: "Once you started to get angle clips to fail in
one area, it put extra load on other angle clips, and
then it unzipped around the building on that floor in a
matter of seconds." >55 And then:
As the joists on one or two of
the most heavily burned floors gave way and the outer
box columns began to bow outward, the floors above
them also fell. The floor below (with its 1300-ton
design capacity) could not support the roughly 45,000
tons of ten floors (or more) above crashing down on
these angle clips. This started the domino effect that
caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds.
>56
Something like this theory was
endorsed in the FEMA report, which spoke of "a
pancake-type of collapse of successive floors."
>57
There are, however, many problems
with this account. First, even this more modest view of
the amount of steel that had to become very hot would
seem to require more heat than was present, especially
in the South Tower.
Second, as Hufschmid points out:
"In order for a floor to fall, hundreds of joints had to
break almost simultaneously on 236 exterior columns and
47 core columns." >58
Third, Eagar means his theory to
do justice to the fact that the towers collapsed "within
ten seconds." For a 1,300-foot building, however, ten
seconds is almost free-fall speed. But if each floor
produced just a little resistance, so that breaking
through each one took a half second, the collapse of all
those floors — 80 or 95 of them — would have taken 40 to
47 seconds. Can we really believe that the upper part of
the buildings encountered virtually no resistance from
the lower parts? >59 The problem
would be even worse in relation to the North Tower, at
least if Hufschmid is right to say that it fell in eight
seconds, which would be exactly free-fall speed "How,"
he asks, "could the debris crush 100 steel and concrete
floors while falling as fast as objects fall through
air?" >60
Fourth, Eagar's theory, like all
other versions of the official account cannot do justice
to the fact that the collapse of the towers was
total, resulting in a pile of rubble that, in Eagars
own words, "was only a few stories high."
>61 Even if one granted that his
theory might explain why the floors and outer columns
collapsed, it docs not explain, argues Peter Meyer, the
collapse of the massive steel columns in the core of the
buildings:
Why were the lower parts of the
massive supporting steel columns not left standing
after the collapse? If the official story is true,
that the damage was caused by the impacts and fires,
which occurred only in the upper floors, and that the
floors then pancaked, one would expect the massive
steel columns in the central core, for, say, the
lowest 20 or 30 floors, to have remained standing.
>62
Still another fact about the
collapse of the towers that counts against the fire
theory is the fact, mentioned at the outset, that the
South Tower collapsed first. As we saw, it would take
considerable time for fire to heat steel up to its own
temperature. All other things being equal, then, the
tower that was struck first should have collapsed first.
And yet, although the South Tower was struck 17 minutes
later than the North Tower, it collapsed 29 minutes
earlier. This surprising fact would perhaps not create a
problem if the fire in the South Tower had been much
bigger. As we have seen, however, the fire in the South
Tower was actually much smaller. Upon hearing that one
tower took almost twice as long as the other one,
therefore, one would assume that that was the South
Tower. And yet the opposite was the case. This complete
reversal of expectations suggests that the collapse of
these buildings was caused by something other than the
fires. >63
And that is, of course, what the
critics maintain. Their alternative explanation is that
the collapse was an example of a controlled demolition,
based on explosives that had been placed throughout the
building. This theory, point out its advocates, can
explain all the facts discussed thus far. With regard to
why the collapse was total and so rapid, Meyer says that
this is understandable if the
bases of the steel columns were destroyed by
explosions at the level of the bedrock. With those
bases obliterated, and the supporting steel columns
shattered by explosions at various levels in the Twin
Towers, the upper floors lost all support and
collapsed to ground level in about ten seconds.
>64
Also, the controlled demolition
theory, in conjunction with the fact that the South
Tower was struck near the corner, can account for the
otherwise surprising order in which the two towers
collapsed.
In both cases the fires within
the buildings died down after awhile, giving off only
black, sooty smoke. If the Twin Towers were
deliberately demolished, and the intention was to
blame the collapse on the fires... then the latest
time at which the towers could be collapsed would be
just as the fires were dying down. Since the fire in
the South Tower resulted from the combustion of less
fuel than the fire in the North Tower, the fire in the
South Tower began to go out earlier than the fire in
the North Tower. Those controlling the demolition thus
had to collapse the South Tower before they collapsed
the North Tower. >65
There are, furthermore, some
additional facts about the collapse of the Twin Towers
that seem explainable only by the demolition theory. One
of these is the fact that each collapse produced a lot
of fine dust or powder, which upon analysis proved to
consist primarily of gypsum and concrete.
>66 Jeff King, examining the
official account in light of what the videos show, says:
[T]he biggest and most obvious
problem that I see is the source of the enormous
amount of very fine dust that we see generated during
the collapse.... Where does the energy come from to
turn all this reinforced concrete into dust?
>67
And as Hufshmid adds, photos of
the rubble show only "a few small pieces of concrete,"
which means that "[v]irtually every piece of concrete
shattered into dust." As a result, "Perhaps 100,000 tons
of concrete in each tower was pulverized to a powder.
This required a lot of energy." >68
What is especially problematic, King suggests, is
how much very fine concrete dust
is ejected from the top or the building very early in
the collapse. Since it should at most be accelerating
under gravity at 32 feet per second, things would
actually be moving quite slowly at first.... It is
very hard to imagine a physical mechanism to generate
that much dust with concrete slabs bumping into each
other at 20 or 30 mph. >69
Hufschmid points out, moreover,
that even concrete slabs hitting the ground at free-fall
speed would not be pulverized. "In order to pulverise
concrete into powder, explosives must be used.">70
The use of explosives is perhaps even more strongly
suggested by another feature of the collapses, alluded
to in King's second statement, namely, that when the
towers started to collapse, they did not fall straight
down, as the pancake theory holds. They exploded. The
powder was ejected horizontally from the buildings with
such force that the buildings were surrounded by
enormous dust clouds that were perhaps three times the
width of the buildings themselves. The photographs in
Hufschmid's book are especially valuable for helping one
grasp this overwhelmingly impressive and important fact.
>71 What other than explosives
could turn concrete into powder and then eject it
horizontally 150 feet or more? And if it be suspected
that the dust simply floated out, some of the
photographs show that rather large pieces of the tower
were also thrown out 150 feet or more.
>72
Another startling feature of the
collapse would have required still more energy. Besides
powdery dust, the other major component of the rubble
was, as would be expected, steel. But the steel was in
short sections. "Almost every piece of steel in both
towers broke at the joints." >73
The controlled demolition theory
is given additional support by the fact that some
people, including some firemen, reported hearing
explosions, feeling explosions, or witnessing effects
that appeared to be results of explosions, both in the
intermediate floors and in the subbasements of the
Towers. >74
Still more support is provided by
seismic evidence that a moderately powerful earthquake
was recorded as each tower was collapsing. The
seismographs at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty
Earth Observatory in Palisades, New York, 21 miles north
of the WTC, recorded a 2.1 magnitude earthquake
beginning at 9:59:04, then a 2.3 quake beginning at
10:28:31. >75 In each case, "the
shocks increased during the first 5 seconds then dropped
abruptly to a lower level for about 3 seconds, and then
slowly tapered off." This pattern, Hufschmid suggests,
reflects the fact that the first explosives detonated
were those near the tops of the towers, where the steel
columns were the thinnest. The shocks get stronger as
the detonation pattern, controlled by a computer
program, worked its way down.
The final explosions at the base
of the tower and in the basement had to break joints on
columns made from 100mm thick steel, so they were
powerful explosives. The seismic data peaked when the
explosives in the basement were detonated. Then the
explosions stopped and the rubble continued to fall for
another couple of seconds, resulting in small seismic
tremors. >76
The demolition theory is further
supported by reports that molten steel was found at the
level of the subbasements. The president of Controlled
Demolition, Inc. (in Phoenix, Maryland), Mark Loizeaux,
who wrote the clean-up plan for the entire operation,
has been quoted as saying that in the third, fourth, and
fifth weeks, the clean-up crew found "hot spots of
molten steel...at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of
the main towers, down seven [basement] levels."
>77
Besides explaining the existence
of the widely reported hot spots, which kept smoldering
for weeks, >78 the theory that
explosives had been set could explain an otherwise
inexplicable fact — that after the collapse of the
towers, the debris, induding the steel, was quickly
removed before there could be any significant
investigation. The New York Times complained,
saying: "The decision to rapidly recycle the steel
columns, beams and trusses from the WTC in the days
immediately after 9/11 means definitive answers may
never be known." The next week, the aforementioned essay
in Fire Engineering said: "The destruction and
removal of evidence must stop immediatdy."
>79 But it went ahead at full
speed. >80 Explaining the possible
significance of this feet, Meyer points out that
[a] way to prove that the
supporting steel columns of the Twin Towers had been
blasted by explosives would be to examine fragments
from them among the debris for evidence of what
metallurgists call "twinning." But the WTC debris was
removed as fast as possible and no forensic
examination of the debris was permitted.... Almost all
the 300,000 tons of steel from the Twin Towers was
sold to New York scrap dealers and exported to places
like China and Korea as quickly as it could be loaded
onto the ships, thereby removing the evidence.
>81
Why this haste, critics wonder,
unless the government had something to hide?
>82
WTC-7: Although the
collapse of this 47-story building is generally ignored
or discussed simply as an afterthought, it is in many
respects the most puzzling. Because it was not struck by
an airplane, the main ingredients in the typical
explanations of the collapse of the Twin Towers cannot
be employed. There is, in fact, no official explanation.
The FEMA report provided a lot of speculation about what
might have happened, but provided no consensus statement
about what actually did happen. >83
The report by the House Science Committee also provided
no explanation. >84 But insofar as
there is an account that is widely accepted in official
and media circles, it goes something like this. Although
Building 7 -- which was 355 feet away from the North
Tower and still farther from the South Tower — was not
hit by any significant amount of falling debris, enough
debris did cross over to start a fire. Then besides the
fact that the fire chief decided, for some unknown
reason, not to have his crew enter this building, the
sprinkler system (inexplicably) failed to put out this
little fire, and it grew until it was raging. It then
came into contact with the thousands of gallons of
diesel fuel stored on the ground floor. The resulting
fire then became so hot that it caused the building's
steel reinforcement to collapse at 5:20 PM.
This theory faces many problems.
First, there is no evidence of any raging fire. "Every
photo taken of building 7," Hufschmid reports, "shows
only a few tiny fires in only a few windows," primarily
on the 7th and 12th floors. >85
Second, there is again the problem
of how a hydrocarbon fire, even had it been raging,
could have caused the collapse, especially since
Buildings 4, 5, and 6 did have raging fires but did not
collapse.>86 In this case,
moreover, the collapse could not be partly explained by
the impact and fuel of an airplane, so WTC-7 would be
the first steel-framedbuilding in history to collapse
solely from fire damage. >87 If
such a thing really happened on 9/11, critics point out,
this would be an event of overwhelming importance.
Everything that architects and building engineers have
long assumed about steel-framed buildings would need to
be rethought. Insurance companies around the world would
need to recalculate all their rates on the basis of the
realization that ordinary fires could cause steel-framed
buildings to collapse. And so on. And yet the idea that
WTC-7 collapsed because of fire has been accepted as if
it were nothing unusual. In an essay entided "WTC-7: The
Improbable Collapse," Scott Loughrey says:
FEMAs nonchalance about WTC-7s
collapse is stunning. Structural failures of this
magnitude do not normally take place.... [Do] we now
live in an era when tall steel buildings can collapse
in large cities without any significant discussion of
why? >88
Third, there are several features
that would be difficult for the official theory because
they suggest controlled demolition. Indeed, Hufschmit
emphasizes, the collapse of WTC-7, unlike that of the
Twin Towers, suggests a typical demolition, because
"Building 7 collapsed at its bottom."
When Building 7 collapsed, the
interior fell first, and that caused the outside of
the building to move inward.... The result was a very
tiny pile of rubble, with the outside of the building
collapsing on top of the pile. This is how
conventional demolitions operate. >89
A significant amount of powdery
dust was also produced, although in this case there was
not as much dust and most of it was produced at the
ground, where this collapse began, instead of in the
air. >90 Seismic vibrations were
registered at the time of the collapse, although they
were only one tenth the magnitude of those associated
with the other towers, and there were two hot spots in
the rubble from this collapse, one of which was
extremely hot. >91 Molten steel
was also reportedly found at this site.
>92Finally, the steel was quickly
removed from this site as well, and with even less
justification, for the building had long since been
evacuated, so there was no need to search for survivors,
as there had been at the Twin Towers. So what possible
justification was there for the destruction of forensic
evidence — which is generally considered a serious
crime?
In conclusion, I return to the
point that the FEMA report actually gave no explanation.
It instead said:
The specifics of the fires in
WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse
remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel
fuel on the premises contained massive potential
energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability
of occurrence. >93
It must be recognized, however,
that FEMA had been given an impossible assignment — to
explain the collapse of this building while remaining
within the framework of the official theory. Not being
able to suggest that the collapse resulted from a
controlled demolition, the best FEMA could come up with
was a theory having "only a low probability."
The same understanding must be
applied to Thomas Eagar and all the other experts who
have presented highly improbable explanations of the
collapse of the Twin Towers. If political correctness
were not a factor so that they could simply state the
most probable hypothesis, given the evidence, most of
them would surely choose controlled demolition. For
example, Matthys Levy, who suggested that the towers
fell because their steel melted, also said: "It was very
much like a controlled demolition when you look at it."
>94 If it was indeed a controlled
demolition, of course, that would mean that the
terrorists were able to succeed in their mission to
bring down the World Trade Center only because it was an
inside job.
======
The questions raised about the
official accounts of Flight 77, Flight 175, and the
collapse of Buildings 1,2, and 7 of the World
Trade Center do not necessarily point to presidential
complicity. But they do seem to point to official
complicity at some level. Although the evidence that the
collapse of the WTC was an inside job might mean that it
was planned by private parties, the fact that the
federal government allowed forensic evidence to be
removed suggests at least the first possible view
mentioned in the Introduction: official complicity in a
cover-up. But then this first view — according to which
no US officials played a role in facilitating the
attacks — seems to be ruled out by the evidence related
to Flights 11 and 175, which seems to require
involvement by at least the Pentagon's NMCC and NORAD.
The evidence about the flights also seems to rule out
the second possible view, according to which no US
agencies had any specific knowledge of the attacks in
advance. The attacks on the WTC, it would seem, could
not have succeeded unless some US officials had given
"stand down" orders for standard operating procedures to
be canceled on that particular day. And, although this
might be taken to mean the fifth possible view,
according to which the Pentagon gave those orders, it
would be difficult to believe that such orders could
have been given without White House approval.
Examinations of the official account of the attacks on
the WTC in relation to various relevant facts have, in
any case, raised disturbing questions. Further
disturbing questions have been evoked, moreover, by
tensions between the facts and the official accounts of
the other flights.
FOOTNOTES for Chapter
1:
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Paul Thompson
explains: "The transponder is the electronic device that
identifies the jet on the controllers screen, gives its
exact location and altitude, and also allows a
four-digit emergency hijack code to be sent." See
Thompson, "September 11: Minute-by-Minute" (After 8:13
AM)
2That Rumsfeld made this statement was
reported by republican Representative Christopher Cox on
September 12, according to an Associated Press story of
September 16, 2001, quoted in Thompson, 8:44 AM.
Incidentally, as one becomes fiimiliar with the vast
amount of material about 9/11 available on the Internet,
one learns that there is little about the official
account that is uncontested. Even the idea that what hit
the North Tower of the WTC was AA Flight 11 has been
challenged. In note 32, below, I mention this and some
other theories not discussed in the text.
3The FAA's Aeronautical Information
Manual: Official Guide to Basic Flight Information and
Air Traffic Control (ATC) Procedures (www.faa.gov),
quoted in Thompson, "September 11," introductory
material.
4Congressional testimony by NORAD'S
commander, General Ralph E. Eberhart, made in October
2002, and Slate magazine, January 16, 2002, both
quoted in Thompson, "September 11," introductory
material. Although both statements were preceded by
"now," suggesting a speed-up in procedure since 9/11,
there seems to be no evidence that response times were
different prior to that date. That should, in any case,
be easy enough for investigators to determine.
5Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, The War on
Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked September 11,
2001 (Joshua Tree, Calif.: Tree of Life
Publications, 2002), 151. (A nautical mile is a little
longer than a statute mile.) Since this book by Ahmed is
the only writing by him that I use, it will henceforth
be cited simply as "Ahmed."
6MSNBC, September 12, 2001, quoted in
Thompson, "September 11," introductory material.
7Ahmed 146, citing the FAA's Aeronautical
Information Manual, "Interception Signals" (www.faa.gov).
8Glen Johnson, "Facing Terror Attacks
Aftermath," Boston Globe, September 15, 2001,
quoted in Ahmed, 148.
9Ahmed, 157-58, and Illarion Bykov and Jared
Israel, "Guilty for 9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers, Section
1: Why Were None of the Hijacked Planes Intercepted?",
both referring to the interview with Vice President
Chcncy on NEC's "Meet the Press," September 16, 2001.
The article by Bykov and Israel, along with several
other articles on 9/11 by Israel, can be found at
www.emperors-clothes.com/ indict/911page.htm. This
particular article is listed in the Table of Contents
under "Evidence of high-level government conspiracy in
the events of 9-11."
10General Henry Shelton was still the
chairman, but on 9/11 he was reportedly out of the
country. Myers, who was vice chairman, had just been
named as Shelton's replacement and was functioning as
the acting chairman.
11Myers Confirmation Testimony, Senate Armed
Services Committee, Washington, DC, September 13, 2001,
cited in Thompson (After 8:48 AM).
12Ahmed, 167.
13Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Instruction 3610.01A, June 1, 2001, "Aircraft Piracy
(Hijacking) and Destruction of Derelict Airborne
Objects" (www.dtic.mil), referred to in Thierry Meyssan,
Pentagate (London: Carnot Publishing, 2002), 147.
14Pentagate. 110-11, quoting
Department of Defense Directive 3025.15, February 18,
1997, "Military Assistance to Civil Authorities" (www.nci.org).
Meyssan hence disagrees with researchers who have
accepted the view that, in Ahmed's words, "only the
President had the authority to order the shooting down
of a civilian airliner" (167).
15Thompson, 8:43 AM.
16New York Times, September 11, and
USA Today, September 3, 2002, quoted in Thompson
(8:55 AM).
17Newhouse News, January 25, 2002,
quoted in Thompson, 8:43 AM.
18"US Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) Holds Hearing
on Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff," Senate Armed Services
Committee, Washington DC, September 13, 2001, quoted in
Ahmed, 150.
19Glen Johnson, "Otis Fighter Jets Scrambled
Too Late to Halt the Attacks," Boston Globe,
September 15, and NBC's "Meet the Press," September 16,
2001, quoted in Ahmed, 150. Cheney made no reference to
jets being only a few minutes late.
20Israel and Bykov, "Guilty for 9-11," quoted
in Ahmed, 168.
21Although this new version was in the air a
few days earlier, NORAD made it official on September 18
in a press release, in which it gave the times at which,
it said, it was notified by the FAA and at which it gave
scramble orders (available at www.standdown.net/noradseptember182001pressrelease.htm).
22Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, "An
Interesting Day: President Bush's Movements and Actions
on 9/11," Center for Cooperative Research (www.cooperativeresearch.org),
under "Bush is Briefed as the Hijackings Begin."
23Aviation Week and Space Technology,
June 3, 2002, cited in Thompson, 8:52 AM.
24George Szamuely, "Scrambled Messages,"
New York Press, 14/50 (www.nypress.com/l4/50/taki/bunker.cfm),
cited in Ahmed, 151-52.
25Thompson, 8:52 AM, citing NORAD, September
18, 2001.
26Ahmed, 151.
27Stan Goff, "The So-Called Evidence is a
Farce," Narco News #14: October 10, 2001 (www.narconews.com),
quoted in Ahmed, 173 n. 313.
28Andreas von Bülow, Tagespiegel,
January 13, 2002, quoted in Ahmed, 144. Von Buelow later
came out with a book, Die CIA und der 11. September:
Internationaler Terror und die Rolle der Geheimdienste
(Munich: Piper Verlag, 2003), which is briefly
discussed in the final chapter.
29Anatoli Kornukov, Pravda Online,
September 13, 2001 (http://english.pravda.ru),
quoted in Ahmed, 163-64.
30Ahmed, 164, 167.
31Israel and Bykov, "Guilty for 9-11," quoted
in Ahmed, 169.
32There are, furthermore, many questions that
I have not broached in the text. One or these is whether
the airplanes that crashed into the towers were really
being flown by hijackers, or were instead being guided
by remote control, perhaps using the Global Hawk
technology developed by the Defense Department, which
has been functioning at least since 1997 and enables an
airplane to fly itself, from takeoff through landing
(Thompson, "Timeline," 1998 [A] and April 23, 2001).
Meyssan believes that this is likely, partly because he
considers it improbable that amateur pilots could have
hit those relatively narrow targets so accurately with
Boeing airliners, which have low maneuverability. He
finds this especially improbable with regard to Flight
175, which "was forced to execute a complex rotation
maneuver, particularly difficult facing the wind."
Professional pilots he consulted, he reports, "confirmed
that few amongst themselves could envisage performing
such an operation and completely ruled it out in the
case of amateur pilots" (9/11: The Big Lie,
33-34).
In relation to this theory, Thompson reports that
Flights 11, 175, and 77, all of which had surprisingly
few passengers for transcontinental flights (81, 56, and
58, respectively), each had at least one passenger who
was a senior official in Raytheon's division of
Electronics Warfare, which developed the Global Hawk
technology ("Timeline," September 25, 2001). Since such
officials would presumably not have sacrificed
themselves willingly, this curious fact would seem to
make sense only in conjunction with the view, held by
some revisionists mainly on the basis of video evidence,
that the Twin Towers were not hit by Flights 11 and 175
but instead by military planes. Some who hold this
theory believe that the purpose of turning off the
transponders was to allow the switch to be made. In any
case, this theory would raise the question of what
really happened to these two flights and their
passengers (just as the theory that the Pentagon was not
really hit by Flight 77, to be discussed in Chapter 2,
raises the question of what happened to this flight and
its passengers). This theory would also seem to imply
that the flight training undergone by the alleged
hijackers, to be discussed in Chapters 6 and 8, was for
the sake of creating a plausible cover story. (On the
reason for referring to the alleged hijackers,
see the section on "The Question of the True Identity of
the Hijackers" in Ch. 6.) In any case, the fact that I
have not discussed these more radical challenges to the
official account in the text does not necessarily
reflect my judgment that they are not true. It simply
reflects my judgment that, whatever their merits, they
are not necessary for the purpose of this book, which is
not to explain "what really happened" but merely to
summarize what seem to be the strongest reasons that
have been given for considering the official account to
be false (so as to show the need for a full
investigation to find out what really happened).
And the evidence against the official account of the
failure to prevent the attacks on the WTC is very strong
independently of any of these more radical challenges.
(In the latter part of this chapter and in the following
chapter, by contrast, I do deal with the question of
what really happened insofar as it is integral to the
critics' challenges to the official account.)
33Throughout most of the period during which
I was working on this book, I had ignored this issue,
having decided on the basis of an early, cursory reading
of some of the arguments that the evidence against the
official view was not strong enough to include. As with
other matters, however, I eventually found that my
initial impression was faulty. When I finally took a
serious look at the case that has been marshalled
against the official account of the collapse of the WTC
buildings, I found this case, especially with regard to
WTC-7, to constitute one of the strongest arguments on
behalf of the need for a new investigation.
34See FEMA's Report #403, World Trade
Center Building Performance Study (May, 2002;
available at www.fema.gov/library/wtcstudy.shtm).
35Bill Manning, "Selling Out the
Investigation," Fire Engineering, January, 2002,
quoted in The New York Daily News, Jan. 4, 2002,
and in Thompson, "Timeline," January 4, 2002.
36The NOVA show "Why the Towers Fell"
appeared on PBS April 30, 2002 (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/transcripts/2907_wtc.html).
Matthys Levy, author of Why Buildings Fall Down
(New York: Norton, 1994), said on this show: "As the
steel began to soften and melt, the interior core
columns began to give " The idea that steel melted has
also been stated elsewhere, such as "The Physics of the
2001 World Trade Center Terrorism" (www.jupiterscientific.org/sciinfo/sot.html).
37"The Collapse: An Engineers Perspective,"
NOVA interview with Thomas Eagar (www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html).
38Perhaps as an overreaction, some critics of
the official account, in rejecting what they call the
"truss theory," seem to affirm that the core and
perimeter columns were connected by full-fledged beams
instead of thinner trusses. The history of the
construction of the Twin Towers, however, reveals that
they were unique (at the time) in this respect. For this
history see James Glanz and Eric Lipton, The Rise and
Fall of the World Trade Center (New York: Times
Books/Henry Holt & Company, 2003). Glanz is a science
writer for the New York Times.
39Scientific American, October, 2001.
The statements by both McNamara and FEMA are quoted in
Eric Hufschmid, Painful Questions: An Analysis of the
September 11th Attack (Goleta, Calif.: Endpoint
Software, 2002), 17. This beautifully self-published
book can be purchased at PainfulQuestions@aol.com.
40In an article headed "Preliminary
Tests Show Steel Quality Did Not Contribute to Towers'
Collapse" (Associated Press, August 27, 2003), Devlin
Barren quoted Frank Gayle, who is leading the review of
the WTC collapses by the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST), as saying that all the steel
tested at least met the requirement to bear 36,000
pounds per square inch and that it was often capable of
bearing as much as 42,000 pounds.
Incidentally, as Glanz and Lipton explain (The Rise
and Fall of the World Trade Center, 333), Sherwood
Boehlert, the (Republican) Chair of the House Science
Committee, got the US Congress in October of 2002 to
pass the National Construction Safety Team Act, which
authorized an investigation of the collapse of the WTC
by NIST, which is a nonpolicy-making part of the US
Commerce Department's Technology Administration (its
Fact Sheet on the WTC investigation can be seen at
www.nist.gov/public_afrairs/factsheet/nist_investigation_911.htm).
41Thomas Eagar and Christopher Musso, "Why
Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science,
Engineering, and Speculation," JOM 53/12 (2001),
8-11. Musso was at the time a Ph.D. student. JOM
is the journal of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials
Society.
42Hufschmid (see note 39), 27-30. 43"The
Collapse: An Engineer's Perspective."
44Ibid. This point is likewise emphasized in
Hufschmid, 32-33, who also makes the next point, about
the length of time.
45See note 39, above.
46Hufschmid, 35.
47See Hufschmid, 39. Indeed, a third
photograph, looking directly into the hole created by
the airplane, reveals two people standing in a room, far
removed from any of the flames (27).
48Technically, as Hufschmid points out (30),
the South Tower had two or even three fireballs.
49For a picture of the North Tower fireball,
see Hufschmid, 30.
50In Hufschmid's words, "that jet fuel burned
so rapidly that it was just a momentary blast of hot
air. The blast would have set fire to flammable objects,
killed people, and broken windows, but it could not have
raised the temperature of a massive steel structure by a
significant amount. A fire will not affect steel unless
the steel is exposed to it for a long...period of time"
(33).
51Hufschmid, 38.
52With regard to the fire in the South Tower
in particular, Hufschmid asks, rhetorically: "How could
a fire produce such incredible quantities of heat that
it could destroy a steel building, while at the same
time it is incapable of spreading beyond its initial
starting location? The photos show that not even one
floor in the South Tower was above the ignition
temperature of plastic and paper! ...The photos show the
fire was not even powerful enough to crack glass
[windows]!...Why is there no evidence of an intense fire
in any photograph? How can anybody claim the
fires were the reason the South Tower collapsed when the
fires appear so small?" (38)
53Quoted in Hufschmid, 38. Evidence against
the fire theory is even presented in Appendix A of
FEMA's report on the WTC, which says: "In the mid-1990s
British Steel and the Building Research Establishment
performed a series of six experiments at Cardington to
investigate the behavior of steel frame buildings....
Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching
800-900° C (1,500-1,700° F) in three of the tests..., no
collapse was observed in any of the six experiments."
54Eagar and Musso; Eagar, "The Collapse."
55"The Collapse."
56Eagar and Musso.
57Quoted in Hufschmid, 42-43.
58Hufschmid, 42.
59This objection is raised, in slighdy
different form, in Peter Meyer, "The World Trade Center
Demolition and the So-Called War on Terrorism" (www.serendipity.li/wtc.html),
section entitled "Evidence for Explosives in the Twin
Towers."
60Hufschmid, 73.
61Eagar and Musso.
62Meyer, "The World Trade Center Demolition,"
section entitled "Evidence for Explosives in the Twin
Towers."
63This point is emphasized in Fintan Dunne,
"The Split-Second Error: Exposing the WTC Bomb Plot" (www.psyopnews.com
or www.serendipity.li), section entitled "The Wrong
Tower Fell First." Some defenders of the official
account have suggested that the fact that the South
Tower collapsed more quickly could be explained by the
fact that it was struck at the 81st floor and hence
about 15 floors lower than the North Tower, which was
struck at the 96th floor. Because there were more floors
above the weakened portion of the South Tower,
accordingly, the additional weight would have led to its
faster collapse. The problem with this theory, Hufschmid
says, is that "the steel columns in the crash zone of
the South Tower were thicker in order to handle the
heavier load above them" (41).
64Meyer, "The World Trade Center Demolition
and the So-Called War on Terrorism," section entided
"Evidence for Explosives in the Twin Towers."
65Ibid., section entided "Did the Twin Towers
Collapse on Demand?"
66Hufschmid, 45.
67Jeff King, "The WTC Collapse: What the
Videos Show," Indymedia Webcast News, Nov. 12, 2003 (http://ontario.indymedia.org/display.php3?artide_id=73428cgroup=webcast).
68Hufschmid, 50, 80. On the amount of the
dust, see www.public-action.com/91 l/jmcm/usyd/index.htm#why.
Mike Pecoraro, quoted in note 74, below, wrote about his
experience of walking down the street: "When 1 tell you
the stuff (dust) on the street was a foot deep, that's
conservative. I'd say over a foot deep. It was like
walking through a blizzard of snow" (quoted in "We will
Not Forget: A Day of Terror,"The Chief Engineer
www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnuml=1029).
69King, "The WTC Collapse."
70Hufschmid, 78.
71See especially the photographs on 52-55,
57, 60, and 74.
72See especially the photographs on 60 and
61.
73Hufschmid, 50.
74One of the firelighters in the South Tower,
Louie Cacchioli, told People Weekly on Sept. 24:
"I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the
24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On
the last trip up a bomb went off. We think there were
bombs set in the building." Kim White, an employee on
the 80th floor, said: "All of a sudden the building
shook, then it started to sway. We didn't know what was
going on.... We got down as far as the 74th floor.... [T]hen
there was another explosion" (http://people.aol.corn/people/special/0,11859,174592-3.00.html;
quoted in Meyer's section "Evidence for Explosives in
the Twin Towers"). Construction worker Phillip Morelli
reported that while he was in the fourth subbasement of
the North Tower, he was thrown to the floor twice.
Whereas the first of these experiences apparently
occurred at the time of the plane crash, the second one
involved a more powerful blast, which blew out walls (http://nyl.com/pages/RRR/911special_survivors.html).
Stationary engineer Mike Pecoraro, who was working in
the sixth subbasement of the North Tower, reported that
after feeling and hearing an explosion, he and his
co-worker found the parking garage and the machine shop,
including a 50-ton hydraulic press, reduced to rubble.
They also found a 300-pound steel and concrete fire door
wrinkled up "like a piece of aluminum foil." These
effects were, he said, like the effects of the terrorist
bombing of 1993 ("We will Not Forget: A Day of Terror,"
The Chief Engineer (www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnuml=1029).
These latter two stories are contained in "First-hand
Accounts of Underground Explosions in the North Tower" (www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/underground/underground_explosions.htm).
75Hufschmid, 73; Christopher Bollyn, "New
Seismic Data Refutes Official WTC Explanation," American
Free Press, September 3, 2002 www.rense.com/general28/ioff.htm
Columbia University's data can be seen at
www.ldeo.columbia.edu/LCSN/Eq/2001091 l_wtc.html; it is
partially reproduced in Hufschmid, 73 and 78.
76Hufschmid, 73, 77.
77Likewise Peter Tully, president of Tully
Construction of Flushing, reportedly said that he saw
pools of "literally molten steel." Both statements are
quoted in Bollyn, "New Seismic Data Refutes Official WTC
Explanation."
78See Hufschmid, 70, 78, 80.
79The New York Times, Dec. 25, 2001,
and Fire Engineering, January 2002, quoted in
Thompson, December 25, 2001, and January 4, 2002,
respectively.
80The official investigators found that they
had less authority than the clean-up crew, a fact that
led the Science Committee of the House of
Representatives to report that "the lack of authority of
investigators to impound pieces of steel for examination
before they were recycled led to the loss of important
pieces of evidence" (sec the report at www.house.gov/science/hot/wtc/wtc-report/WTC_ch5.pdf).
81Meyer, "The World Trade Center Demolition
and the So-CalJed War on Terrorism," section en tided
"Evidence for Explosives in the Twin Towers." However,
as James Glanz has reported ("Reliving 9/11, With Fire
as Teacher," New York Times, Science Section,
January 6, 2004), it turns out that 236 major pieces of
steel were recovered by NIST (see note 40, above).
Whether any of these pieces show signs of explosives is
presumably something that we will learn near the end of
2004, when NIST's report is due.
82Those who accept this theory of controlled
demolition are made additionally suspicious by the
report that Marvin P. Bush, the president's younger
brother, was a principal in a company called Securacom,
which provided security for the World Trade Center (as
well as United Airlines), especially when this news is
combined with testimony from WTC personnel that after
the security detail had worked 12-hour shifts for the
previous two weeks because of threats, five days before
9/11 the security alert, which had mandated the use of
bomb-sniffing dogs, was lifted (The World Trade Center
Demolition: An Analysis" [www.whatreallyhappened.com/shake2.html]).
83FEMA's report on WTC-7 is found in Chapter
5 of FEMA's World Trade Center Building Performance
Study. For a copy of this report with critical
commentary interspersed, see "The FEMA Report on the
Collapse of WTC Seven is a Cruel Joke" (http://ontario.indymedia.org/display.php3?article_id=147278&group=webcast).
The same article is published elsewhere as "Chapter
5-WTC Seven-the WTC Report" (http://guardian.911review.org/WTC/WTC_ch5.htm).
84See the report at www.house.gov/science/hot/wtc/wtc-report/WTC_ch5.pdf
85Hufschmid, 62, 63.
86See Hufschmid, 68-69.
87Some people, to be sure, have spread the
idea that tremors created by the collapse of the Twin
Towers caused Building 7 to collapse. But even the most
powerful earthquakes have not caused the complete
collapse of steel-framed buildings. And how would one
explain the fact that the Verizon, Federal, and Fiterman
Hall Buildings, all right next to WTC-7, did not
collapse?
88Scott Loughrey, "WTC-7: The Improbable
Collapse" (http://globalresearch.ca/articles/LOU308A.html).
89Hufschmid, 64.
90Hufschmid, 64, 65.
91Hufschmid, 70, 78.
92Bollyn, "New Seismic Data Refutes Official
WTC Explanation."
93FEMA, World Trade Center Building
Performance Study,Ch. 5, Sect. 6.2, "Probable
Collapse Sequence."
94NOVA, "Why the Towers Fell."
CHAPTER TWO
FLIGHT 77: WAS IT REALLY THE
AIRCRAFT THAT STRUCK THE PENTAGON?
AA Flight 77 left Dulles airport
in Washington, DC, at 8:20. At 8:46, it went
significantly off course for several minutes, but
reportedly no fighter jets were scrambled. At 8:50, the
plane got back on course, but radio contact was lost,
and at 8:56 the planes transponder went off and the
plane disappeared from the air traffic controllers radar
screen in Indianapolis. But no jet fighters were
scrambled to find it. At 9:09, this air traffic
controller warned that the plane may have crashed in
Ohio.>1 USA Today,
furthermore, later printed a story with this statement:
"Another plane disappears from radar and might have
crashed in Kentucky. The reports are so serious that
[FAA head Jane] Garvey notifies the White House that
there has been another crash.">2
In any case, Flight 77 is not heard from again—or at
least, according to the official account, not until
9:25.
At 9:25, which was 29 minutes
after Flight 77 disappeared, air controllers at Dulles
Airport reported seeing a fast-moving plane, which, they
warned, appeared to be heading toward the White House.>3
At 9:27, Vice President Cheney and National Security
Advisor Condoleeza Rice were reportedly told, while in
the bunker below the White House, that an airplane,
being tracked by radar, was 50 miles outside Washington
and headed toward it.>4
Beginning at 9:33, radar data reportedly showed the
aircraft crossing the Capitol Beltway and heading toward
the Pentagon, which it flew over at 9:35.>5
Then, starting from about 7,000 feet above the ground,
the aircraft made a difficult "downward spiral, turning
almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000
feet in two-and-a-half minutes.">6
At this time, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld, according
to the official account, had not been informed of the
approaching aircraft and was still with Representative
Cox. While they together watched the television coverage
of the WTC, Rumsfeld reportedly demonstrated his
predictive powers again, saving: "Believe me, this isn't
over yet. There's going to be another attack, and it
could be us." Moments later, at about 9:38, the Pentagon
was hit.>7 As a result of the
crash and the ensuing fire, 125 workers in the Pentagon,
primarily civilians, were killed.
Although later that day the
aircraft that struck the Pentagon was said to be Flight
77, which was a Boeing 757, this equation was evidently
not immediately obvious. Danielle O'Brien, one of the
air traffic controllers at Dulles who reported seeing
the aircraft at 9:25, said: "The speed, the
maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought
in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic
controllers, that that was a military plane.">8
Another witness, seeing the plane from a 14th floor
apartment in Pentagon City, said that it "seemed to be
able to hold eight or twelve persons" and "made a shrill
noise like a fighter plane.">9
Lon Rains, editor at Space News, said: "I was
convinced it was a missile. It came in so fast it
sounded nothing like an airplane.">10
Still another witness, who saw it from his automobile,
was reported as saying that it "was like a cruise
missile with wings.">11 The
official account, however, would be that it was a much
bigger aircraft, a Boeing 757—indeed, Flight 77 itself.
On that day, that connection was,
however, only gradually made. At 10:32, ABC News
reported that Flight 77 had been hijacked, but there was
no suggestion that it had returned to Washington and hit
the Pentagon. Indeed, Fox TV shortly thereafter said
that the Pentagon had been hit by a US Air Force flight.>12
Only sometime in the afternoon did it become generally
accepted that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was
Flight 77.
Some critics of the official
account reject this identification. The chief critic of
the official account of the strike on the Pentagon is
the aforementioned French researcher Thierry Meyssan,
president of the Voltaire Network, which the Guardian
in April of 2002 described as a respected
independent think tank whose left-leaning research
projects have until now been considered models of
reasonableness and objectivity.">13
Officials at the Pentagon have, to
be sure, denounced Meyssan's theory. At a Department of
Defense news briefing on June 25, 2002, spokesperson
Victoria Clarke, when asked about Meyssan's theory,
said: "There is no question, there is no doubt what
happened that day. And I think it's appaling that anyone
might try to put out that kind of myth. I think it's
alsoappalling for anyone to continue to give those sorts
of people any kind of publicity.">14
It is understandable, whatever the truth of the matter
is, that the Pentagon would want to discourage reporters
and other people from examining Meyssans theory by
calling it "appalling." Meyssan himself uses the same
term for the official theory, calling it "the appalling
fraud.">15
But, of course, name-calling by
either side of the issue should not be allowed to settle
anything. The question should be which of the competing
theories is best supported by evidence. And Meyssans
arguments, combined with those of other critics, do
provide many reasons for concluding that it was not
Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon. I will discuss five
such reasons, then point out some further difficulties
for the official theory about the strike on the
Pentagon.
Were the Sources for the
Identification Credible?
Meyssan, in addition to noting
that the identification between AA Flight 77 and the
aircraft that struck the Pentagon was made only
gradually, argues that the original sources for this
identification are dubious. In particular, he suggests,
all but one of the statements on which this
identification was based came from military personnel.>16
The first move toward the identification was made by a
statement on the website of the Pentagon announcing that
it had been hit by a "commercial airliner, possibly
hijacked.">17 Then that
afternoon the story that this airliner was Flight 77
spread quickly through the media. The source of this
story, the Los Angeles Times reported, was some
military officials speaking on condition of anonymity.>18
The media also started reporting that Flight 77, just
before it disappeared from view, had made a U-turn and
headed back toward Washington." But, argues Meyssan,
since the civilian air controllers were, according to
the official account, no longer receiving information
from either radar or the transponder, this "information
must also have come from military sources.>20
The one other statement used to
connect Flight 77 with the strike on the Pentagon was
made by Theodore ("Ted") Olson, the US Justice
Department's Solicitor General. He said that his wife,
Barbara Olson— the well-known author and television
commentator—had made two phone calls to him from Flight
77 at about 9:25 and 9:30. These conversations, as
reported, said nothing about where the plane was or in
what direction it was headed, but they did indicate that
Flight 77 had not already crashed or exploded but had
been hijacked. Flight 77, therefore at least might
have been die aircraft that hit the Pentagon.
Skeptics about this identification
suggest that there arc at least four reasons to doubt
Ted Olson's testimony. First, he is very close to the
Bush administration. Besides having pleaded George W.
Bush's cause before the Supreme Court in the 2000
election dispute, he more recently has defended Vice
President Cheney's attempt to prevent the release of
papers from his energy task force to the committee
investigating the Enron scandal. Second, Olson has
stated that there are many situations in which
"government officials might quite legitimatetly have
reasons to give false information out.">21
Third, Olsons reports about the conversations with his
wife are both vague and selfcontradictory.>22
Fourth, on the other flights, telephone calls were
reportedly made by several passengers and flight
attendants, but Ted Olson is the only person who
reported receiving a call from Flight 77. This latter
fact is especially strange in light of a later report
that at about 9:30 the hijackers told the passengers
that they were all going to die and so should call their
families. Thompson asks: "Given this announcement, why
are there no phone calls from this flight except for
Barbara Olson's?">23
Thompson's question, in other words, is whether there
really was a call from her. This question could
presumably be answered by subpoenaing the telephone
records of her cell phone company, American Airlines,
and the Justice Department. Any of the alternative
scenarios consistent with this question would need to
explain, of course, what became of Barbara Olson, and
also whether it is plausible that Ted Olson would have
participated in a plan with that outcome. This issue is
one of the problems mentioned in Chapter 9 that would
face any complicity theory about "what really happened."
Physical Evidence That the
Pentagon Was Not Hit by a Boeing 757
In addition to the argument that
all the information originally connecting Flight 77 with
the aircraft that struck the Pentagon evidently came
from dubious sources, a second argument, provided by
Meyssan, consists of physical evidence that the Pentagon
was not hit by a Boeing 757, which is what AA Flight 77
was.
Most important is the evidence
provided by photographs that were taken immediately
after the crash. One crucial photo was taken by Tom
Horan of the Associated Press just after the firetrucks
had arrived but before the firemen had been deployed.
(This photo is reproduced in Meyssans Pentagate
and on the cover of his 9/11: The Big Lie and is
also available on the Internet.>24)
When this photograph was taken, the west wing's facade
had not collapsed. Another photo taken at this time
shows that the hole in the facade was between 15 and 18
feet in diameter, contradicting a newspaper report that
it was "five stories high and 200 feet wide.">25
This photo also shows no damage above the hole or on
either side of it. And neither photo shows any sign of
an airplane—no fuselage, no tail, no wings, no engines
>26—or any evidence that the
lawn had been scraped.>27
Whatever struck the Pentagon made a clean hit from the
air and went completely inside.
Just how far the aircraft went
into the Pentagon is shown by a photograph that was
taken later and published by the Pentagon (and on the
cover of Meyssans Pentagate). This photo shows
that the inside wall of the third of the Pentagons five
rings, known as the C-ring, was penetrated, resulting in
a hole about seven feet in diameter. This means that the
aircraft had the power to penetrate six reinforced
walls.
This photographic evidence creates
enormous problems for the official account, according to
which the damage was caused by an aircraft as large as a
Boeing 757. The most obvious problem is that since the
aircraft penetrated only the first three rings of the
Pentagon, only the nose of a Boeing 757 would
have gone inside. (This can be seen in a picture,
provided by Meyssan, in which the outline of a Boeing
757 is superimposed upon an aerial photograph, provided
by the Department of Defense, of the Pentagons west
wing.>28) The rest of the
airplane would have remained outside. As Meyssan
comments: "We should thus be able to see the wings and
the fuselage outside, and on the lawn in fact." In
response, one might suggest that perhaps the plane
burned up before any photographs could be taken. But,
Meyssan says:
While the planes nose is made of
carbon and the wings, containing the fuel, can burn,
the Boeings fuselage is aluminum and the jet engines
are built out of steel. At the end of the fire, it
would necessarily have left a burnt-out wreck.>29
But not the slightest sign of a
burnt-out wreck is shown in the photograph taken by Tom
Horan or any of the other photographs.
The official story, to be sure,
takes account of this problem by saying that not simply
the nose but the entire airplane went inside the
Pentagon. This is why it does not appear in the
photographs. >30 Other
features of the photographic evidence, however, create
isuperable difficulties for this theory. One of these
features is the fact that the orifice created by the
impact, as mentioned above, was at most 18 feet in
diameter. Is it not absurd to suggest that a Boeing 757
created and then disappeared into such a small hole? As
Meyssan points out, the hole was bis enough for the
passenger cabin, which is less than twelve feet in
width. But the plane's wings give it a breadth of 125
feet. Can anyone seriously believe that a 125-foot-wide
airplane created and then went inside a hole less than
20-feet wide?
Evidently so. Some defenders of
the official account claim that the wings, upon hitting
the strongly reinforced facade of the west wing, would
have folded back, allowing the entire plane to disappear
within the building. According to one such defense:
As the front of the Boeing 757
hit the Pentagon, the outer portions of the wings
likely snapped during the initial impact, then were
pushed inward towards the fuselage and carried into
the buildings interior; the inner portions of the
wings probably penetrated the Pentagon walls with the
rest of the plane. Any sizable portions of the wings
were destroyed in the explosion or the subsequent
fire. >31
One problem with this explanation,
of course, is that after the plane's forward morion was
suddenly reduced when the nose hit the Pentagon, the
wings would not have folded back Unless the laws of
kinetic energy were momentarily suspended, Meyssan
points out, "the wings would have been propelled
forwards rather than backwards." >32
On a Boeing 757, furthermore, the
jet engines, made of steel, are attached to the wings,
so the wings would have hit the facade with great force.
And yet prior to the facade's collapse, as we have seen,
the photosreveal no visible damage to the facade on
either side of the orifice, even where the engines would
have hit the building. And if that problem is not
considered decisive enough, the fact that the
photographs clearly show that the facade above
the opening is completely intact and even unmarked -
creates a still more insuperable problem, given Boeing
757's big tail. As Meyssan says, when its tail is taken
into account, the Boeing is about 40 feet high. So,
unless one is going to claim chat the tail obligingly
ducked before entering, the fact that the facade above
the opening is completely intact proves that it was not
a Boeing 757 that went inside the Pentagon's west wing.
For support, Meyssan quotes French accident investigator
Francois Grangier, who said: "What is certain when one
looks at the photo of this facade that remains intact is
that it's obvious the plane did not go through there."
>33
The more general problem is that
whatever did hit the Pentagon simply did not cause
nearly enough destruction for the official story to be
true. A Boeing 757, besides being so tall and having
such a wide wingspan, weighs over 100 tons. Traveling at
a speed of 250 to 440 miles per hour, it would have
caused tremendous devastation. And yet, as a photograph
supplied by the Department of Defense itself shows, "the
plane only destroyed the first ring of the building."
>34 The second and third rings
were merely penetrated by an aircraft small enough to
create a hole only seven feet in diameter.
Furthermore, if the aircraft that
hit the Pentagon did too little to have been a Boeing
757, this last-mentioned fact, about the hole in the
inside wall of the C-ring, shows that it also did too
much. That is, Meyssan points out, the nose of a Boeing,
which contains the electronic navigation system, is made
of carbon fibers rather than metal. Being "extremely
fragile,'' such a nose could not have gone through three
rings of the Pentagon, creating a seven-foot exit hole
in the inside wall of the third ring. The Boeing's nose
would have been "crushed rather than piercing through."
What could create such a hole is the head of a
missile.
Certain missiles are specially
conceived to have a piercing effect. These missiles
are weighted with depleted uranium, an extremely dense
metal that heats with slightest friction and renders
piercing easier. These missiles are notably used to
pierce bunkers. An airplane crashes and smashes.
A missile of this type pierces.
>35
And this is what the photographs
show — that the Pentagon was pierced rather than
smashed.
The notion that the Pentagon was
hit by a missile rather than an airplane is supported by
still another feature of the photographic evidence — the
kind of fire it documented. Photos of hydrocarbon fires,
such as the fires produced in the Twin Towers by the
burning of the jet fuel, show yellow flames mixed with
black smoke. But photographs of the Pentagon fire show a
red flame, indicating the kind of fire produced
by the type of missile described above — a much hotter
and more instantaneous fire. >36
Suggesting that the Pentagon was hit by "one of the
latest generation of AGM-type missiles, armed with a
hollow charge and a depleted uranium BLU tip," Meyssan
says that a missile of this type can cause "an
instantaneous fire, giving off heatin excess of 3,600°
Fahrenheit." And that corresponds with the fire started
in the Pentagon:
In traversing the Pentagon's
first ring, the aircraft started a fire, as gigantic
as it was sudden. Immense flames issued from the
building, licking at the facades. They withdrew just
as quickly, leaving behind them a cloud of black soot.
>37
The photographic evidence, in sum,
provides several reasons to conclude that the Pentagon
was not hit by a Boeing passenger plane but was instead
hit by a military missile.
This conclusion from the
photographic evidence is given additional support by the
fact that the aircraft that headed toward the Pentagon
was not shot down by on-site missiles. Although some
news reports have said that the Pentagon, unlike the
"White House, has no such missiles, the Pentagon is in
fact, Meyssan points out, protected by "[f]ive extremely
sophisticated antimissile batteries."
>38 And, although Pentagon
officials claim that they had no idea that an aircraft
was coming their way, an unidentified aircraft was, as
we saw earlier, reported at 9:25 to be speeding in that
direction. Meyssan says:
Contrary to the Pentagons
claims, the military thus knew perfectly well that an
unidentified vehicle was headed straight for the
capitol. Yet the military did not react and the
Pentagons anti-missile batteries did not function.
Why? The close-range anti-aircraft defenses at the
Pentagon are conceived to destroy missiles that
attempt to approach. A missile should normally be
unable to pass. As for a big Boeing 757-200, it would
have strictly no chance. Whether an airliner or a
missile, an explanation needs to be found.
Meyssan then suggests a hypothesis
that could account for this anomaly:
Each military aircraft in fact
possesses a transponder which...permit[s] it to
declare itself in the eyes of its possessor as
friendly or hostile.. An antimissile
battery will not...react to the passage of a friendly
missile. It is not impossible that was what happened
at the Pentagon on 11 September 2001.
>39
Meyssan's hypothesis could also
answer a question raised by reports that when the
aircraft was making its circular approach to the
Pentagon, it came very near to the White House — namely,
why the White House's missile system did not shoot it
down. >40
In light of these considerations,
the very fact that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon
was not shot down by the Pentagons (and the White
House's) missiles can be considered physical evidence
against the claim that it was a passenger plane.
Further physical evidence is
provided by the simple fact that there were evidently no
remains of a Boeing 757 at the crash site. As we have
seen, the explanation why no such remains were visible
in the photographs is that the entire plane went
inside the Pentagon. If that is what happened
(ignoring now the question of whether it is even
remotely plausible), there should have been a burnt-out
wreck, or at least some identifiable remnants of the
plane, found inside the Pentagon after the fire was put
out. But that was evidently not the case.
At a Pentagon briefing on the day
after 9/11, Ed Plaugher, the county fire chief who was
in charge of putting out the fire in the Pentagon, was
asked whether anything was left of the airplane. He said
that there were "some small pieces...but not large
sections.... [T]here's no fuselage sections and that
sort of thing." >41 According
to Plaugher's eyewitness testimony the day after the
fire, therefore, there was no fuselage or any other
large pieces, such as jet engines. His testimony was,
furthermore, implicidy confirmed by the Department of
Defense insofar as the only parts of Flight 77 that it
announced finding, other than unidentifiable fragments
(which, as Meyssan points out, "could have been from
something quite different"), were a beacon and the two
black boxes. The black boxes were said, furthermore, to
have been found at a time — 4:00 AM — that makes critics
of the official story suspicious.
>42 Plaugher's testimony was further confirmed at a
Pentagon press conference on September 15. When Terry
Mitchell was asked about evidence of the plane, he said
that one could see only "small pieces." Lee Evey, head
of the renovation project, said that the evidence of the
aircraft is "not very visible.... None of those parts
are very large.... You don't see big pieces of the
airplane sitting there extending up into the air."
>43
How is this testimony consistent
with the idea that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757?
That airplanes fuselage is made of aluminum, which does
not melt in an ordinary hydrocarbon fire. Its engines
are made of tempered steel, which also does not normally
melt. And yet the more-or-less official story was that
the fire was so hot that all this metal not only melted
but was vaporized. >44 Is this
believable? In the first place, if the fire was that
hot, how did the upper floors of the Pentagon survive?
In the second place, why would the fire have been so hot
if it were a hydrocarbon fire? In the third place, even
if there was something about the crash that made this
hydrocarbon fire extra hot — hot enough to produce the
red flames and other effects shown in the photographs —
would even fire this hot vaporize aluminum and steel? If
the official story rests on this account of the laws of
physics, it is important enough to run an experiment to
test this hypothesis. And this could be done easily
enough, using some worn-out Boeing 757.
Even if one believed that there
was a chance that such a test might be successful,
however, there would be one more condition that would
have to be passed. According to at least one version of
the official story, authorities were able to identify
victims of the crash by their fingerprints.
>45 To provide support for the
official account, therefore, the fire would have to be
hot enough to vaporize aluminum and steel and cool
enough to leave human flesh intact. This would, of
course, be impossible, so Meyssan is amazed that the
Pentagon could evidendy make both of these claims
without fear of ridicule. >46
In any case, such a test is no
longer necessary because, as with other features of the
official account of 9/11, this one evolved into a second
version. As Meyssan reports, six months later, in April
of 2002, the FBI claimed that enough of the Boeing 757
had been recovered to make possible its almost complete
reconstitution. An FBI spokesman, Chris Murray, was
quoted as saying: "The pieces of the plane are stocked
in a warehouse and they are marked with the serial
numbers of flight77" >47 The
following month, furthermore, this new version of the
official account was supported by Ed Plaugher, who now
remembered that when he arrived on the scene he had
seen, he said, "pieces of the fuselage, the wings, the
landing gear, pieces of the engine, seats," adding: "I
can swear to you, it was a plane." He even —
inadvertendy contradicting the Pentagon's statement that
the black boxes were not found until 4:00 AM three days
later-claimed to have seen one of them.
>48
It might seem that US officials
could confirm this new version of the fate of Flight 77
by simply showing the warehouse full of recovered pieces
to reporters and members of the 9/11 Independent
Commission. At most, however, this evidence would show
only that much of the airplane had been recovered. It
would not tell us that it had been recovered from the
Pentagon — as opposed to Ohio, Kentucky, or somewhere
else. It is not possible, therefore, to confirm this
theory by pointing to this physical evidence in
combination with Ed Plaugher's improved memory.
Moreover, this new version, besides being in conflict
with Plaugher's statements on September 12, is also in
conflict with the statements of Timothy Mitchell and Lee
Evey on September 15. If big pieces of the airplane,
such as the engines, the fuselage, and the tail, were in
the Pentagon, why did these men not see them? Why did
Evey not see any "big pieces of the airplane sitting
there extending up into the air"? And why have our
reporters not asked such obvious questions?
Meyssan's claim that what hit the
Pentagon was something other than Flight 77, we have
seen, is supported by considerable physical evidence.
This claim gathers a little additional support from two
more facts reported by Paul Thompson. For one thing,
when the flight control transcripts for the 9/11 planes
were finally released on October 16, "Flight 77's ends
at least 20 minutes before it crashes."
>49 Although there is more
than one possible explanation for this fact, one of
these explanations is that government officials did not
want the press and the public to hear what actually
occurred during the final 20 minutes of Flight 77. The
second fact is the existence of a news story according
to which
an employee at a gas station
across the street from the Pentagon that services only
military personnel says the gas station's security
cameras should have recorded the moment of impact.
However, he says, "I've never seen what the pictures
looked like. The FBI was here within minutes and took
the film." >50
This report, if true — and someone
could presumably interview the employee, José Velasquez
— suggests that the FBI had known that an aircraft was
going to crash into the Pentagon. How else can we
explain that they got there "within minutes"? And, more
directly germane to our present topic, it also suggests
that FBI officials feared that the gas station's
security cameras might have captured something about the
crash scene that they did not want the press or the
public to see, and this could have been the fact that
the Pentagon was struck by a military missile rather
than a commercial airliner. If, by contrast, the
camera's pictures supported the governments claims, we
would expect the government to have made these pictures
public. So these two stories, while not constituting
physical evidence as such, do suggest that there is (or
at least was) physical evidence that would
further undermine the official account.
What about the Reported
Sightings of an American Airliner?
Whereas the physical evidence
strongly counts against the official theory and instead
supports the missile theory, proponents of the official
theory have relied primarily upon reports that several
eyewitnesses saw an American Airliner hit the Pentagon.
For example, one debunker of the view that the Pentagon
was not really struck by a Boeing 757 wrote in the
Sunday Times that "the killer blow to this
conspiracy is that several witnesses saw the plane hit
the building." >51 How can
critics of the official account reconcile their
revisionist view with the fact that these reports exist?
There seem to be four main approaches.
One approach builds on the
standard forensic point that when there is a conflict
between physical evidence and eyewitness testimony, the
physical evidence is usually, once its authenticity is
confirmed, given more weight. If the prosecuting
attorney in a criminal trial has presented a strong case
based on physical evidence, the defense attorney can
seldom hope to render a "killer blow" to this case
simply by presenting eyewitness testimony to the
contrary. This is because the human testimony might be
wrong for all sorts of reasons, such as misperception,
faulty memory, or outright lying (perhaps because of
bribery or intimidation). Accordingly, any allegedly
eyewitness testimony that contradicts the physical
evidence is explained away.
Meyssan employs this approach. The
claims by witnesses to have seen an American Airlines
plane could be explained, he suggests, in terms of the
dynamics of the social psychology of perception and
memory, which often leads people to "see" what they
expect to see, or to "remember" having seen what they
are expected to have seen Given the fact that these
witnesses had seen images or heard reports of airliners
hitting the WTC and later heard that it was an American
Airlines Boeing 757 that hit the Pentagon, it is not at
all surprising that several people would report having
seen such an airplane headed for the Pentagon, even if
the actual aircraft was something quite different.
>52
Meyssan combines this approach
with a second, which is to point out that there were
also several reports of eyewitnesses who said that the
aircraft looked and/or sounded like a missile or a
military plane. Recall the testimony of, for example,
Dulles air traffic controller Danielle O'Brien, who said
that all the experienced air traffic controllers in the
room thought that it was a military plane and the
witness who said that it "seemed to be able to hold
eight or twelve persons" and "made a shrill noise like a
fighter plane" (see page 26). Meyssan, in addition to
quoting the statements of these eyewitnesses and others,
points out that an AGM-type missile "does look like a
small civilian airplane" and "produces a whistling noise
similar to that of a fighter aircraft." On this basis,
he counts those who reported seeing a military plane as
witnesses on behalf of the missile theory.
>53
Finally, having shown that the
eyewitnesses supportive of the official theory are at
least partly balanced by eyewitnesses supportive of the
missile theory, Meyssan can assume that we should take
these latter witnesses more seriously. That is, if what
hit the Pentagon was a missile, the fact that several
people said that they saw a commercial airliner hit the
Pentagon is not surprising, given the dynamics of the
psychology of perception and memory. But if what hit the
Pentagon had been a Boeing 757, it would be very
surprising to have reports of people — especially people
with trained eyes and ears — claiming to have seen a
missile or small military plane. These reports of having
seen a missile or a small military plane must,
accordingly, be given more weight. Properly interpreted,
then, the eyewitness testimony does not contradict, but
instead supports, the missile theory.
There is, however, a third way to
reconcile the physical evidence and the reports of
eyewitness testimony supporting the official theory.
Rather than explaining away these reports by appealing
to the psychology of perception and memory, one could
examine the reports themselves more carefully to see if
the people actually said what they were reported to have
said. This approach is taken by Gerard Holmgren.
Beginning with 19 accounts said by the Urban Legends
website to be eyewitness testimony that an American
airliner hit the Pentagon, >54
Holmgren found, for starters, that a majority of the
people cited did not actually claim to have seen the
Pentagon hit by a commercial airplane. Instead, "[w]hat
they claimed was to have seen a plane flying way too
low. and then immediately afterwards to have seen smoke
or an explosion coming from the direction of the
Pentagon which was out of sight at the time of the
collision." (Although this distinction might at first
glance seem too picayune, these reports would be
compatible with the two-aircraft thesis, to be discussed
below.) With regard to the other cases, Holmgren found
one or more of the following problems: the alleged
witness could not be identified; the claim that the
witness had seen an American Airlines plane was added by
the reporter or the witness who initially claimed to
have seen the American airplane hit the Pentagon
withdrew the claim under questioning — which was the
case with Mike Walter of USA Today when he was
interviewed on CBS by Bryant Gumbel.
>55 "What appeared at first
reading to be 19 eyewitness accounts," Holmgren
concludes, "actually turned out to be none."
Then, finding ten other reports
that initially appeared to provide eyewitness testimony,
he found that they all suffered from similar problems.
Holmgren's efforts led him to the following conclusion:
My conclusion is that there is
no eyewitness evidence to support the theory that F77
hit the Pentagon, unless my search has missed
something very significant. Given the strength of the
photographic evidence that whatever hit the Pentagon
could not possibly have been F77, I can see no reason
for not stating this conclusion with a lot of
confidence, unless and until contrary evidence
emerges. >56
There is, finally, a fourth way to
reconcile the physical evidence and the eyewitness
testimony — a way that allows an even less skeptical
approach to testimony that seems to support the official
theory. This approach involves the hypothesis that there
were two aircraft heading toward the Pentagon.
According to this two-aircraft thesis, both sets of
eyewitnesses — those who reported seeing a missile
(which they may have called a small military plane) and
those who reported seeing a passenger jet (which they
may have specifically identified as an American
airliner) — were correct. Dick Eastman, who develops
this both/and position, says that eyewitnesses divide up
into three sets: (1) those who reported seeing "an
airliner, shiny, red and blue markings, with two
engines, in a dive, and flying 'low' in terms of one or
two hundred feet, and silent"; (2) those who reported
seeing an aircraft coming in "at tree-top level, at '20
feet' all the way, hitting lamp posts in perfect low
level flight...engines roaring pouring on speed; smaller
than a mid-sized airliner"; and (3) those such as Kelly
Knowles, in an apartment two miles away, who "saw two
planes moving toward the Pentagon, one veering away as
the other crashed." Eastman's analysis can also explain
the testimony of those witnesses who combine features of
the first two categories by supposing that they saw
the American airliner while hearing the
missile. Eastmans main point, in any case, is that at
least most of the testimony of most of the witnesses can
be accepted as accurate, but that the only witnesses who
stated the full truth were those in the third category —
those who reported seeing two aircraft.
Eastmans theory, in other words,
is that an American Airlines plane was putting on an
attention-getting exhibition to draw all eyes to itself.
Then it flew towards the Pentagon while the missile was
heading in the same direction — too close to the ground
for most witnesses to see it even if they had not been
distracted by the airliner. Then the airliner veered off
at the last second, disappearing behind the immense
cloud of smoke produced by the crash. It then landed
unnoticed at Reagan National Airport, which was only a
mile away in the direction it was headed.
>57
These four approaches are not
mutually exclusive. Although Eastman and Holmgren take
different approaches, they can actually be viewed as
mutually supportive. That is, Holmgren's main point is
that most of the eyewitnesses who seemed to claim that
they saw an American Airlines passenger plane hit the
Pentagon actually claimed only that they saw it come
very close to the Pentagon just before the explosion.
Eastman's two-aircraft hypothesis explains why this
distinction may be important and also provides a
reconciliation of all the testimony about an American
airplane with the physical evidence that the Pentagon
was not struck by any such airplane. Also, Meyssan's two
approaches can be strengthened by combining them with
Eastman's approach, Holmgren's approach, or an Eastman-Holmgren
approach. >58
For our present purposes, it is
not necessary to decide what the truth of the matter is.
The purpose of this discussion has been simply to show
that the easy assumption that Meyssan's missile theory
is disproved by eyewitness testimony is far from the
truth. Having made this point, I now return to the list
of reasons for believing that the aircraft that crashed
into the Pentagon was not Flight 77. The first two
reasons, to recall, were that the identification was
based on dubious sources and that the physical evidence
was incompatible with this identification.
Why Would Terrorists Have
Struck the West Wing?
A third fact about the Pentagon
crash suggesting that it was not caused by hijackers on
Flight 77 was the location of the crash. Assuming that
terrorists in control of a Boeing 757 would want to be
certain of hitting their target, why would they aim at
one of the facades, which are only 80 feet high, when
they could have simply dived into the roof, which covers
29 acres? More important, one would assume that they
would have wanted to cause as much damage to the
Pentagon and kill as many of its employees as possible,
and these aims would also have made the roof the logical
target. >59 Furthermore, even
if there were an answer to that question, why would they
hit the west wing, which was the one part of the
Pentagon that was being renovated? As the Los Angeles
Times reported:
It was the only area of the
Pentagon with a sprinkler system, and it had been
reconstructed with a web of steel columns and bars
[and blast-resistant windows] to withstand bomb
blasts.... While perhaps 4,500 people normally would
have been working in the hardest-hit areas because of
the renovation work only about 800 were there.
>60
One would also assume that
terrorists would be especially interested in killing the
Pentagons top civilian and military leaders, but the
attack on the west wing killed none of them.
>61 Most of the casualties
were civilians, many of whom were working on the
renovation, "and only one general was to be found among
the military victims." >152 If
the Pentagon was struck by terrorists flying a Boeing
757, why would they target the west wing, where the
crash would have the least rather than the greatest
impact? The force of this question is increased by the
fact that according to the reported radar data, the
aircraft, given its trajectory, was able to hit the west
wing only by executing a very difficult downward spiral.
>63 In other words, it was
actually technically difficult to do as little
damage to the Pentagon as was done.
Could an Inexperienced Pilot
Have Flown the Aircraft?
This downward spiral was so
difficult and so perfectly executed, in fact that it
raises a fourth argument against the official account.
This argument is that no pilot with the minimal training
the hijackers evidently had could have executed this
maneuver. >64 On this issue,
Ahmed quotes the military expert Stan Goff's description
of what he considers "the real kicker" in the official
account:
A pilot they want us to believe
was trained at a Florida puddle-jumper school for
Piper Cubs and Cessnas, conducts a well-controlled
downward spiral, descending the last 7,000 feet in
two-and-a-half minutes, brings the plane in so low and
flat that it clips the electrical wires across the
street from the Pentagon, and flies it with pinpoint
accuracy into the side of this building at 460 nauts....
When the theory about learning to fly this well at the
puddle-jumper school began to lose ground, it was
added that they received further training on a flight
simulator. This is like saying you prepared your
teenager for her first drive on I-40 at rush hour by
buying her a video driving game.
>65
This argument is made even
stronger by the fact that the man who was supposed to be
the pilot, Hani Hanjour, was reportedly not just an
amateur but also an especially incompetent one.
According to a story in the New York Times:
Staff members characterized Mr.
Hanjour as polite, meek and very quiet. But most of
all, [a] former employee said, they considered him a
very bad pilot. "I'm still to this day amazed that he
could have flown into the Pentagon," the former
employee said. "He could not fly at all."
And according to a report on CBS
News:
Months before Hani Hanjour is
believed to have flown an American Airlines jet into
the Pentagon, managers at an Arizona flight school
reported him at least five times to the FAA. They
reported him not because they feared he was a
terrorist, but because his English and flying skills
were so bad.... [T]hey didn't think he should keep his
pilots license. "I couldn't believe he had a
commercial license of any kind with the skills that he
had," said Peggy Chevrette, Arizona flight school
manager. >66
How could anyone believe that this
pilot could have handled the perfect maneuver executed
by the aircraft that hit the Pentagon?
Could Flight 77 Really Have
Been Lost for Half an Hour?
A fifth problem that has been
raised for the official account is that it entails
Flight 77 having flown toward Washington for 29 minutes
without being detected by any radar system. A Pentagon
spokesman reportedly said: "The Pentagon was simply not
aware that this aircraft was coming our way."
>67 Thompson asks,
rhetorically: "Is it conceivable that an airplane could
be lost inside US air space for [that long]?"
>68 Even if the
local air controllers did not have
the kind of radar system that can track a plane with its
transponder off, as claimed. >69
the FAA system certainly would have been able to track
the flight path back to Washington.
>70 Even more, Meyssan argues,
the Pentagon possesses "several very sophisticated radar
monitoring systems, incomparable with the civilian
systems." The PAVE PAWS system, for example, "does not
miss anything occurring in North American airspace."
According to its website, it is "capable of detecting
and monitoring a great number of targets that would be
consistent with a massive SLBM [Submarine Launched
Ballistic Missile] attack" Are we to believe that it can
do all this, Meyssan wonders, while not being able to
detect a single giant airliner headed toward the
Pentagon itself? >71
Why Was the Strike Not
Prevented by Standard Operating Procedures?
Besides all these questions, which
are specific to the strike on the Pentagon, the official
account of the Pentagon strike is faced by the generic
question: Assuming that the strike was made by Flight 77
under the control of hijackers, why was it not prevented
by standard operating procedures? To critics, this
question seems even more powerful in relation to this
strike because it occurred over a half hour after the
second WTC tower was hit, so that the National Military
Command Center at the Pentagon should have been in the
highest possible state of alert, and also because the
Pentagon is probably the most well-defended building on
the face of the planet. >72
How does the official account explain the fact that in
this case it was not defended at all?
According to the first version, as
we have seen, fighter jets were not even ordered until
after the Pentagon had been struck. However, since US
officials quickly gave up this story, we will move
directly to criticisms of the second version. According
to this account, given by NORAD, the FAA did not notify
it that Flight 77 had been hijacked and was heading
toward Washington until 9:24 >73
— which would be 34 minutes after the FAA had, according
to the official account, lost radio contact with the
plane and 28 minutes after the plane disappeared from
its radar. Then at 9:27, NORAD ordered planes scrambled
from Langley Air Force Base. These planes are said not
to have arrived until about 15 minutes after the
Pentagon was struck at 9:38. >74
Critics ask several questions
about this account. Why was not the NMCC and hence NORAD,
with its superior radar system, independently monitoring
the flight path? Even if we ignore this question, how
could the FAA have been so leisurely, especially given
the fact that shortly after 9:03 everyone in the system
would have known that two hijacked airplanes had been
flown into the WTC? "Is such a long delay believable,"
Thompson asks, "or has that information been doctored to
cover the lack of any scrambling of fighters?"
>75 Also, why would it take
NORAD, after finally hearing from the FAA, another three
minutes to order planes scrambled? And why would it
order those planes from Langley, which is 130 miles from
Washington, rather than from Andrews Air Force Base,
which is only 10 miles away and has the assignment to
protect Washington?
In relation to this last question,
USA Today reported that it was told by Pentagon
sources that Andrews "had no fighters assigned to it."
Another story in that newspaper the same day reported
that Andrews did have fighters present "but those planes
were not on alert." >76 Bykov
and Israel argue that both stories, besides being
inherently implausible, are contradicted by the US
military information website. According to it, Andrews
houses the 121st Fighter Squadron of the 113th Fighter
Wing, which is equipped with F-16 fighters and "provides
capable and ready response forces for the District of
Columbia in the event of natural disaster or civil
emergency." Andrews also has the Marine Fighter Attack
Squadron 321, which "flies the sophisticated F/A-18
Hornet" and is supported by a reserve squadron that
"provides maintenance and supply functions necessary to
maintain a force in readiness." >77
Andrews also has the District of Columbia Air National
Guard (DCANG), which said on its website that its
"mission" was "to provide combat units in the highest
possible state of readiness." >78
In addition to this evidence, the falsity of the claim
that Andrews had no fighters on alert, say critics, is
shown by the fact that, as widely reported, immediately
after the attack on the Pentagon, F-l6s from Andrews
were flying over Washington. >79
One of the disturbing questions, therefore, is why the
Pentagon would have put out disinformation.
Another question is why some of
the websites were changed after 9/11. Thompson reports,
for example, that the DCANG website was changed to say
merely that it had a "vision" to "provide peacetime
command and control and administrative mission oversight
to support customers, DCANG units, and NGB in achieving
the highest state of readiness." >80
In any case, it remains a puzzle, these critics say, why
officials NORAD — or NMCC — would have ordered planes to
come from Langley, unless they were simply inventing a
story to explain why no planes appeared in time to stop
the attack If so, the critics add, even this story is
inadequate. Thompson writes (from within the framework
of the official account) that if F-l6s from Langley were
airborne by 9:30, as alleged, they
would have to travel slightly
over 700 mph to reach Washington before Flight 77
does. The maximum speed of an F-16 is 1,500 mph. Even
at traveling 1,300 mph, these planes could have
reached Washington in six minutes — well before any
claim of when Flight 77 crashed.
>81
Given the fact that the planes
were said to arrive 15 minutes too late, critics find
this story absurd. As George Szamuely puts it: "If it
took the F-l6s half an hour to cover 150 miles, they
could not have been traveling at more than 300 mph — at
20 percent capability." >82 In
any case, had the jet fighters been ordered from
Andrews, as they should have been, they would have had
even more time.
A still deeper problem is why the
fighters were not flying over Washington long before
that. Captain Michael Jellinek, the command director of
NORAD, reportedly said that at some point not long after
the first attack on the WTC, telephone links were
established with the NMCC, Strategic Command, theater
commanders, and federal emergency-response agencies in
order to have an Air Threat Conference Call. At one time
or another, it was reported, the voices of President
Bush, Vice President Cheney, key military officers, FAA
and NORAD leaders, the White House, and Air Force One
were heard on the open line. Brigadier General Montague
Winfield, head of the NMCC, reportedly said: "All of the
governmental agencies there that, that were involved in
any activity that was going on in the United States at
that point, were in that conference." The call
reportedly continued right through the Pentagon
explosion. >83 One implication
of this admitted fact is that all of these individuals
and agencies would have known since 8:56 that Flight 77
was presumed to be hijacked and also that all airplane
takeoffs from Washington were stopped shortly after the
crash of Flight 175 at 9:03. Thompson asks: "Why is the
emergency considered important enough to stop all
takeoffs from Washington at this time, but not important
enough to scramble even a single plane to defend
Washington?" >84
Why Was the Pentagon Not
Evacuated?
One of the disturbing questions
raised by the crash of Flight 175 into the second tower
of the WTC, as we saw, was why there was a public
announcement telling people that the building was secure
so they should return to their offices. A similar
question is raised by the attack on the Pentagon, even
if the official account is accepted. According to this
account, Flight 77 was lost at 8:56, just after the
radar allegedly showed it making a U-turn back towards
Washington. Given the fact that the Pentagon was called
by its staff "Ground Zero," even having a snack bar of
that name, >85 why would its
officials, knowing of the attacks on the WTC, not have
ordered its immediate evacuation? Furthermore, even if
they did not do so shortly after 8:56, why did they not
do so immediately upon learning that the air traffic
controllers had spotted an unidentified fast-flying
aircraft heading in the direction of the Pentagon and
the White House at 9:25? In the 13 minutes remaining
before the Pentagon was hit, virtually everyone,
presumably, could have been evacuated.
In explaining why this was not
done, a Pentagon spokesman said: "The Pentagon was
simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way."
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and his top aides, in
particular, were said to be unaware of any danger up to
the moment of impact. >86
However, since the crash of the first plane into the WTC
at 8:46, according to the New York Times,
"military officials in [the National Military Command
Center] on the east side of the [Pentagon] were urgendy
talking to law enforcement and air traffic control
officials about what to do." And, according to the
official story, the FAA had notified NORAD at 9:24 that
Flight 77 appeared to be headed back towards Washington.
>87 Having cited these
reports, Thompson asks: "Is it believable that everyone
in the Pentagon outside of that command center, even the
Secretary of Defense, would remain uninformed?"
>88 And if it is not
believable, then why were those people in the west wing
allowed to be killed?
Official Reaction to Meyssan's
Theory
When Meyssan's theory was
published, it was immediately denounced by U.S.
officials. On April 2, 2002, the FBI issued a statement
saying:
To even suggest that AA77 did
not crash into the Pentagon on September 11 is the
ultimate insult to the memory of the 59 men, women and
children on AA77 and the 125 dedicated military and
civilian workers in the Pentagon who were ruthlessly
murdered by terrorists on September 11.
A similar statement was made later
that month on behalf of the Department of Defense by
Victoria Clarice, who said:
I think even the suggestion of
it is ludicrous. And finally, it is just an
incredible, incredible insult to the friends and the
relatives and the family members of the almost 200
people that got killed here on September 11th and the
thousands who were killed in New York.>89
Meyssan agrees, of course, that
the 125 Pentagon workers were ruthlessly murdered by
terrorists. He simply disagrees with the official theory
as to the identity of these ruthless terrorists. He also
agrees that it would be an insult to the victims and
their families and friends for anyone knowingly to
perpetrate a false account of who was responsible. He
simply disagrees on the question of who is guilty of
this insult. These mutual recriminations, of course,
settle nothing. What we need is a full investigation
into the strike on the Pentagon, in conjunction with
such an investigation into the attacks on the World
Trade Center, in which all the disturbing questions
raised by Meyssan and other critics of the official
accounts can be thoroughly examined.
If the evidence related to the
strike on the Pentagon is added, the third of the
possible views discussed in the Introduction would seem
to be ruled out. According to that view, no US officials
participated in the planning for the attacks. But the
evidence about the Pentagon strike presented by the
critics of the official account, especially Meyssan,
seems to require active planning by members of the US
military, at least in this incident (because only an
aircraft belonging to the US military would have had a
transponder that signaled friendly to the
Pentagons antimissile batteries and thereby avoided
being shot down). Although the evidence from this flight
itself might allow these members to belong to some rogue
outfit within the military, the evidence from the
previous flights has already shown that the conspirators
must have included NMCC officials in the Pentagon itself
Also, if the stories about Rumsfeld's prediction of the
strike on the Pentagon as well as the strike on one of
the WTC towers is true, the civilian head of the
Pentagon would seem to have known when the attacks were
to occur.
=================
To summarize where we are with
regard to the first three flights: From the point of
view of the critics, a scrutiny of the official account
of 9/11 in light of the actual facts leaves us only two
possible conclusions: our government and military
leaders were either incredibly incompetent or criminally
complicit. And the problem with the incompetence theory,
says Canada's award-winning journalist Barrie Zwicker,
is that "[i]ncompetence usually earns reprimands" and
yet "there have been no reports, to my knowledge, of
reprimands." He then adds: "This causes me to ask—and
other media need to ask—if there were 'stand down'
orders." >90 Answering his own
question, he says:
In the almost two hours of the
total drama not a single US Air Force interceptor
turns a wheel until it's too late. Why? Was it total
incompetence on the part of aircrews trained and
equipped to scramble in minutes?... Simply to ask
these few questions is to find the official narrative
frankly implausible. The more questions you pursue, it
becomes more plausible that there's a different
explanation: Namely, that elements within the top US
military, intelligence and political leadership...are
complicit in what happened on September the 11th.>91
Gore Vidal reaches the same
conclusion. Reflecting on the official rejection of any
inquiry "not limited to the assumption that the
administrations inaction was solely a consequence of
'breakdowns among federal agencies,'" he concludes:
So for reasons that we must
never know, those "breakdowns" are to be the goat.
That they were more likely to be not break but
"stand-downs" is not for us to pry. Certainly the
hour-twenty-minute failure to put fighter planes in
the air could not have been due to a breakdown
throughout the entire Air Force along the East Coast.
Mandatory standard operating procedure had been told
to cease and desist,>92
Both Zwicker and Vidal conclude
that complicity rather than incompetence—"stand down"
rather than "break down"—is the more plausible
explanation of how the attacks on the WTC could have
succeeded.
Relevant to this discussion is
Michael Parentis observation that political leaders
sometimes "seize upon incompetence as a cover"—that is,
as a way to deny their active involvement in some
illegal operation.
This admission of incompetence is
then "eagerly embraced by various commentators," because
they prefer to see their leaders as suffering from
incompetence "rather than to sec deliberate deception."
Is that what is going on here? Ahmed, reflecting on
Jared Israel's discussion, says that if there was as
much incompetence on 9/11 as the official account
irnplies "then evidence of institutional incompetence
within these emergency response services should have
frequently surfaced during previous responses to routine
emergencies, possible hijackings, and so on. There is
no such evidence" xx93 Must not this question be
pressed? How could a system that normally works
flawlessly, according to all available evidence,
suddenly, on the day that these attacks were scheduled
to occur, suffer so many inexplicable breakdowns?
This question has not gone unasked
by family members of the victims of 9/11. For example,
Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband died in the WTC, said
on Phil Donahue's television show:
I don't understand how a plane
could hit our Defense Department... an hour after the
first plane hit the first tower. I don't understand
how that is possible. I'm a reasonable person. But
when you look at the fact that we spend a half
trillion dollars on national defense and you're
telling me that a plane is able to hit our
Pentagon...an hour after the first tower is hit? There
are procedures and protocols in place in this nation
that are to be followed when transponders are
disconnected, and they were not followed on September
11th.xx94
Do we not owe her an answer?
=======
An interesting footnote to this
chapter: While correcting page proofs, I learned of an
interview with Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld in the
Pentagon on October 12, 2001, in which he, in speaking
of the various kinds of weapons used by the terrorists,
referred to "the missile [used] to damage this
building."xx95 Was this a revealing slip?
FOOTNOTES for chapter 2:
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Meyssan. Pentagate.
88. That there was concern in the Bush
administration to squelch this rumor is suggested by the
fact that Vice President Chcney, in his appearance on
"Meet the Press" on September 16, took time to
refute it even though he had not been asked about it. In
response to a simple comment about Flight 77, Cheney
said that the terrorists, after capturing this plane,
"turned off the transponder, which led to a later report
that a plane had gone down over Ohio, but it really
hadn't. Of course, then they turned back and headed back
towards Washington" (quoted in Meyssan, 9/11: The Big
Lie, 165).
2USA Today, August 13, 2002, quoted in
Ahmed, 44.
3Meyssan, Pentagate, 96.
4ABC News, September 11, 2002; see also
Pentagate, 94.
5Boston Globe, November 23, cited in
Thompson, "September 11" (9:33-9:38 AM).
6CBS News, September 21, 2001, quoted in
Thompson (9:33-9:38 AM).
7Telegraph, December 16, 2001, quoted
in Thompson (9:38 AM).
8ABC News, October 24, 2001, quoted in
Pentagate, 96-97.
9"Extensive Casualties in Wake of Pentagon
Attack," Washington Post, September 11, 2001,
quoted in Pentagate, 38-39.
10Quoted under "What about All the
Witnesses?" in Killtowns "Did Flight 77 Really Crash
into the Pentagon?" (thewebfairy.com/killtown/flight77).
11CNN, September 12, 2001, quoted in
Pentagate, 48. The person to whom this statement
about "a cruise missile with wings" was attributed was
Mike Walter of USA Today. But he has also been
quoted as saying that it was "an American Airlines
plane." Walter's testimony is discussed further in note
55.
12"Minute by Minute with the Broadcast News,"
PoynterOnline, September 11, 2001, cited in Pentagate,
88.
13Guardian, April 1, 2002, quoted in
Thompson, "Timeline," early March 2002. Thompson
reports—citing the European version of Time, May
20, 2002—that Meyssan's first book on this subject,
I'Effroyable imposture (Paris: Les Editions Carnot,
2002), while being widely denounced by the French media,
set a French publishing record for first-month sales.
(This is, as mentioned earlier, the book translated as
9/11: The Big Lie.)
14Victoria Clarke, Department of Defense News
Briefing, June 25, 2002, quoted on Thierry Meyssan's
website (www.effroyable-imposture.net or www.
reseauvoltaire.net).
15This would be one possible translation of
the title of Meyssan's first book on the issue,
mentioned in note 13, I'Effioyable imposture.
16Meyssan, Pentagate, 92.
17Gerry J. Gilmore, "Alleged Terrorist
Airliner Attack Targets Pentagon," American forces
Infirmation Service, Defense Link, DoD, September
11, 2001 (www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/n09112001_200109111.html),
quoted in Pentagate, 96.
18"Hijacked Jets Fly into Trade Center,
Pentagon," Los Angeles Times, September 11, 2001,
quoted in Pentagate, 96.
19Washington Post, September 12, and
Newsday, September 23, 2001, cited in Thompson
(Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
20Pentagate, 89.
21Pentagate, 98-99, citing Sydney
Morning Herald, March 20, 2002 Olson's statement,
made before the Supreme Court, was also quoted in Jim
Hoagland, "The Limit of Lying," Washington Post,
March 21, 2002.
22Thompson (9:25 AM) and (After 9:30 AM).
23Thompson (9:30 AM), citing stories from
Scotland Sunday Herald, September 16 and CoxNews,.October
21, 2001. Anyone who questions the reality of the
reported call' from Barbara Olson, of course, would
probably also question the reported statement by the
hijackers, but that does not undermine the validity of
Thompsons question. His question merely points out that
although these two elements are crucial to the official
account, because they reputedly provide evidence that
Flight 77 was still aloft, there is a tension between
these two elements.
24See "Hunt the Boeing. Test Your
Perceptions"
http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
25This photograph, taken by Jason Ingersoll
of the US Marine Corps, is available in Meyssan's
Pentagate and on the "Hunt the Boeing" website. The
quotation is from Marc Fisher and Don Phillips, "On
Flight 77: 'Our Plane is Being Hijacked,'" Washington
Post, September 12, 2001. In an e-mail letter, I
asked Mr. Fisher is he knew where he got that
information and also if he had "seen any reason in the
intervening time to question whether the hole was this
big." On January 16, 2004, he replied, saying: "I don't
know where that detail came from and I don't know the
size of the hole in the building, but that information
could be obtained from the Pentagon easily enough."
26A photograph by Mark Faram and distributed
by the Associated Press shows a little piece of twisted
sheet metal colored red and white. Although this photo
has been widely published as evidence of debris from
Flight 77, the piece of metal it shows does not, points
out Meyssan, correspond with any part of a Boeing 757
and was not included by the Department of Defense in the
material said to have come from Flight 77 (Pentagate,
page XVI of the photo section).
27This point is important in light of the
claim of some defenders of the official account that the
reason the plane did not cause much damage to the
Pentagon is that it hit the ground first, thereby being
greatly slowed down before it hit the Pentagons facade.
That claim co-exists rather uncomfortably, incidentally,
with another claim meant to support the official
account, which is that the reason the jet engines were
not spotted by anyone is that they were pulverized when
they hit the facade (see Pentagate, 14-17).
28This photograph, with the superimposition,
is provided in 9/11: The Big Lie, 22. A clearer
version is included among the photos provided on the
"Hunt the Boeing" website. 299/11: The Big
Lie, 22.
30This answer is given on a debunking
website, Urban Legends
http://urbanlegends.about.com/library/blflight77.htm
which seeks to provide answers to the various questions
posed in the "Hunt the Boeing" website, cited above.
This answer is provided in response to the third
question it lists.
31Urban Legends website, in response to the
fifth question it lists.
32Pentagate, 33-34.
33Ibid., 54-55, 36.
349/11: The Big Lie, 19.
35Pentagate,53,55, 60, 62.
36For these photos, which were provided by
the Associated Press, see Pentagate, pages II and
III of the photo section.
379/11: The Big Lie, 27-28, 27
38Pentagate, 112.
39Ibid., 116, referring to the presentation
of the AN/APX-100(V) transponder at
www.globalsecurity.org.
40This question is raised, for example, in
Thompson (9:33-9:38 AM).
41DoD News Briefing," Defense Link,
Department of Defense, September 12, 2001 (www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/t09122001_t0912asd.html),
quoted in Pentagate, 17.
42Pentagate, 19.
43"DoD News Briefing on Pentagon Renovation,"
Defense Link, Department of Defense, September 15, 2001,
quoted in Pentagate, 18.
44NFPA Journal, November 1, 2001,
cited in Thompson, "Timeline," November 21, 2001 (C). As
Meyssan points out (Pentagate, 14-17), this
argument has been articulated by many defenders of the
official account.
45Washington Post, November 21, 2001,
and Mercury, January 11, 2002, cited in Thompson,
"Timeline," November 21, 2001 (C). An alternative
version of the official account has the passengers
identified by their DNA, but this version would face a
similar difficulty.
46Pentagate, 175.
47"Pourquoi la demonstration de Meyssan est
cousue de très gros fils blancs' blancs,'"
Liberation, March 30, 2001, quoted inPentagate,
20.
48Pentagate, 20-21.
49Thompson, "Timeline," October 16, 2001,
citing New York Times, October 16, 2001.
50Thompson, "Timeline," September 21, 2001,
quoting the Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 11,
2001. It should be added that the reporter who wrote
this story, Bill McKelway, accepted the official
account, according to which it was Flight 77 that hit
the Pentagon. He raised no questions as to why the FBI
would have confiscated the video or how they could have
gotten there "within minutes." We have no reason,
therefore, to suspect that he fabricated this story.
51Jon Ungoed-Thomas, "Conspiracy Theories
about 9/11 are Growing and Getting More Bizarre,"
Sunday Times, September 14, 2003.
52Pentagate, 42-46.
53Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 27-28.
One website
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/bgm-109.htm
carries photographs of cruise missiles that show how
similar they can look to small military planes.
54See urbanlegends.about.com/library/blflight77.htm.
55As mentioned in note 11, Walter at first
said that it was like "a cruise missile with wings." He
also made conflicting statements about whether he saw
the aircraft (whatever ,t was) hit the Pentagon. The
first quotations from him indicate that he did not—that
the aircraft disappeared from his view behind a hill,
after which he heard the explosion and saw the ball of
fire. When he was interviewed by Bryant Gumbel on CBS
September 12, he first said that he saw an American
Airlines jet and saw it hit the Pentagon. Under
questioning from Gumbel, however, he said that his view
was obstructed. An hour later on NEC, he repeated this
latter affirmation, saying: "It kind of disappeared over
this embankment here for a moment and then a huge
explosion." All these statements are quoted in Gerard
Holmgren, "Did F77 Hit the Pentagon? Eyewitness Accounts
Examined," NYC IndyMediaCenter
http://nyc.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=25646
.
56Holmgren, "Did F77 Hit the Pentagon?
Eyewitness Accounts Examined."
57Dick Eastman, "What Convinced Me that
Flight 77 Was Not the Killer Jet," Part 1, American
Patriot Friends Network
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/77_deastman1.htm
Incidentally, although Eastman supposes that the
American airplane was Flight 77, his thesis would be
consistent with its having been a different airplane. In
any case, Eastman also discusses five frames from the
Pentagons security camera video that were released
shortly after Thierry Meyssan's missile theory was
published. Although the Pentagon meant for these frames
to prove that a plane rather than a missile really was
involved in the attack, Eastman reports that it was his
scrutiny of these frames that first convinced him that
the official story was false, because the aircraft on
the video was much too short to have been a Boeing 757.
58Holmgren has said (personal correspondence
on November 29, 2003) that he has tentatively accepted
Eastman's two-aircraft hypothesis. 599/11:
The Big Lie, 19.
60Los Angeles Times, September 16,
2001, quoted in Thompson, 9:38 AM.
61Ahmed, 299-300.
629/11: The Big Lie, 20.
63Thompson (9:33-9:38 AM).
64"Ibid.
65Ahmed, 161-62, quoting Stan Goff, "The
So-Called Evidence is a Farce," Narco News #14: October
10, 2001
www.narconews.com.
66New York Trnies, May 4, 2002, and
CBS News, May 10, 2002, quoted under "Was Hani Hanjour
Even on Flight 77 and Could He Have Really Flown It to
Its Doom?" in Killtowns "Did Flight 77 Really Crash into
the Pentagon?" (http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/flight77,
October 19, 2003.
67"Air Attack on Pentagon Indicates
Weaknesses," Newsday, September 23, 2001, quoted
in Pentagate, 112.
68Thompson, 9:33 AM.
69Pentagate, 91.
70Ahmed, 153.
71Pentagate, 115 (see also 174),
quoting "PAVE PAWS, Watching North America's Skies, 24
Hours a day" (http://www.pavepaws.org).
"PAWS" stands for Phased Array Warning
72Ahmed, 153.
73Washington Post, September 12, NORAD,
September 18, and Associated Press, September 19, 2001,
cited in Thompson, 9:24 AM.
74Ahmed, 153-54.
75Thompson, 9:24 AM.
76USA Today, September 17, 2001, cited
by Ahmed, 154, and Bykov and Israel, "Guilty for 9-11"
(see note 9 of Ch. 1). General Larry Arnold said: "We
[didn't] have any aircraft on alert at Andrews," MSNBC,
September 23, 2001, quoted in Thompson (After 9:38 AM).
77Bykov and Israel, "Guilty for 9-11," and
Ahmed, 154-55, citing DC Military (www.dcmilitary.com).
Bykov and Israel report that, having found this website
on September 24, 2001, they discovered a month later
that the address had been changed, that the information
about Andrews had been put in the smallest possible
type, and that the official Andrews AFB website was
"down" (although, they add, it could still be accessed
through www.archive.org by entering www.andrews.af.mil).
Bykov and Israel report that they maintain backups of
the DC Military web pages for September and November at
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dcmilsep.htm
and
http://www.emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dcmil.htm.
78Thompson (After 9:03 AM).
79Ahmed, 155-56.
80Thompson (After 9:03 AM). This change is
also reported by Bykov and Israel, "Update to Guilty for
9-11: Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers: Section 1," The Emperors
New Clothes (www.emperors-clothes.com).
81Thompson, 9:30 AM. Thompson's statement
about the earliest "claim" as to when the crash occurred
reflects the fact that the time has been placed
variously between 9:37 and 9:45, with NORAD listing the
earliest possible time, which would have given the
fighter jets less time to get there. Thompson's own
time, 9:38, differs little from NORAD's time, so his
calculations would not be seriously changed by adopting
NORAD's time.
82George Szamuely, "Nothing Urgent," New
York Press, 15/2
http://www.nypress.com/15/2/taki/bunker.cfm quoted
in Ahmed, 152.
83Aviation Week and Space Technology,
June 3, CNN, September 4, and ABC News, September 11,
2002, cited in Thompson (After 8:46 AM).
84Thompson (9:03-9:08 AM), citing USA
Today, September 12 and 13, 2002.
85Telegraph, September, 16, 2001,
cited in Thompson, "Timeline," October 24-26, 2000.
86Newsday, September 23, 2001, cited
in Thompson, 9:24 AM.
87Washington Post, September 12, 2001,
Guardian, October 17, 2001, and Associated Press,
August 19, 2002, cited in Thompson, 9:24 AM.
88Thompson, citing New York Times,
September 15, 2001.
89The FBI statement was issued April 2, 2002.
Victoria Clarke's statement was made at a Department of
Defense News Briefing on April 24, 2002. Both statements
are printed on Meyssan's website
http://www.effroyable-imposture.net
90Barrie Zwicker, "The Great Deception: What
Really Happened on September 11th Part 2," MediaFile,
Vision TV Insight, January 28, 2002 (www.visiontv.ca),
quoted in Ahmed, 169.
91Zwicker, "The Great Deception: What Really
Happened on September 11th Part l,"January 21, 2002,
quoted in Ahmed, 169-70.
92Gore Vidal, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil
and the Cheney-Bush Junta (New York; Thunder's
Mouth/Marion Books, 2002;, 32.
93Parenti,
http://www.michaelparenti.orgThe Terrorism Trap:
September 11 and Beyond (San Francisco: City Lights,
2002), 93-94; Ahmed, 168 (emphasis original).
94Kristen Breitweiser appeared on Phil
Donahue's show on August 13, 2002.
95The interview, conducted by Parade
magazine, is available at
http://www.defenselink.mil/news/nov2001/t11182001_t1012pm.html
CHAPTER THREE
FLIGHT 93: WAS IT THE
ONE FLIGHT THAT WAS SHOT DOWN?
The main problem raised by the
first three flights—aside from the question of the
identity of the aircraft that hit the Pentagon—was the
fact that aircraft that should have been shot
down were not. The fate of UA Flight 93, say
critics, presents us with the opposite problem: A plane
that should not have been shot down was.
Paul Thompson's timeline provides evidence from which he
draws this conclusion.
The crucial items in the first
part of this timeline are the following: Flight 93
departed from Newark 41 minutes late, at 8:42 AM. At
9:27, one passenger, Tom Burnett, called his wife,
telling her that the plane had been hijacked and that
she should call the FBI, which she did. At 9:28, ground
flight controllers heard sounds of screaming and
scuffling. At 9:34, Tom Burnett again called his wife,
who told him about the attacks on the WTC, leading him
to realize that his own plane was on "a suicide
mission." At 9:36, the plane turned toward Washington.
At 9:37, Jeremy Glick and two other passengers learned
about the WTC attacks.>1 At
9:45, Tom Burnett told his wife that he did not think,
contrary to the hijackers' claim, that they had a bomb,
and that he and others were making a plan. By this time,
which was 19 minutes before the plane went down, the FBI
was monitoring these calls. At 9:45, with the FBI
listening in, passenger Todd Beamer began a long phone
conversation with a Verizon representative, describing
the situation on board.>2
Shortly after 9:47, Jeremy Click told his wife that all
the men had voted to attack the hijackers, adding that
the latter had only knives, no guns (which would, in
combination with the conviction that the hijackers did
not really have a bomb, have increased the passengers'
belief that they could be successful).>3
At 9:54, Tom Burnett called his wife again. According to
early reports, he said: "I know we're all going to die.
There's three of uswho are going to do something about
it.">4 However, according to a
later more complete account, he sounded more optimistic,
saying: "It's up to us. I think we can do it," adding
that they were planning to gain control of the plane
over a rural area.>5
The following incidents in
Thompson's timeline suggest to him that the plane was
shot down after it became evident that the passengers —
among whom were a professional pilot and a flight
controller >6 — might gain
control of the plane. At 9:57, one of the hijackers was
heard saying that there was fighting outside the
cockpit. A voice from outside said: "Let's get them." At
9:58, Todd Beamer ended his phone call by saying that
the passengers planned "to jump" the hijacker in the
back of the plane, then uttered his famous words: "Are
you ready guys? Let's roll.">7
At 9:58, a passenger talking on the phone to her husband
said: "I think they're going to do it. They're forcing
their way into the cockpit." A little later, she
exclaimed: "They're doing it! They're doing it! They're
doing it!" But her husband then heard screaming in the
background followed by a "whooshing sound, a sound like
wind," then more screaming, after which he lost contact.>8
Another passenger, calling from a restroom, reportedly
said just before contact was lost that he heard "some
sort of explosion" and saw "white smoke coming from the
plane.">9 (Months later, the
FBI denied that the recording of this call contained any
mention of smoke or an explosion, but the person who
took this call was not allowed to speak to the media.>10)
The person listening to Jeremy Click's open phone line
reportedly said: "The silence lasted two minutes and
then there was a mechanical sound, followed by more
screams. Finally, there was a mechanical sound, followed
by nothing.">11 According to
one newspaper report, moreover: "Sources claim the last
thing heard on the cockpit voice recorder is the sound
of wind — suggesting the plane had been holed.">12
Thompson believes that this record shows that the plane
was indeed "holed" — shot down by a missile or two —
after it seemed that the passengers were gaining control
of it.
Thompson is also suspicious about
the tape of the cockpit recording and the official crash
time. Relatives of victims have been allowed to listen
to this tape. It begins at 9:31 and runs for 31 minutes,
so that it ends at 10:02. This would be close to the
time of the crash — if the crash occurred at
10:03, as the US government claims. However, a seismic
study concluded that the crash occurred slightly after
10:06, leading the Philadelphia Daily News to
print an article entitled "Three-Minute Discrepancy in
Tape." Thompson asks: "What happened to the last three
or four minutes of this tape?">13
And this was not, Thompson reports, the only record of
this flight that was missing. On October 16, the
government released flight control transcripts of the
airplanes — except for Flight 93.>14
With regard to the suspicion that
the plane was shot down, it is significant that
according to news reports, it was shortly after 9:56
that fighter jets were finally given orders to intercept
and shoot down any airplanes under the control of
hijackers.>15 Shortly
thereafter, a military aide reportedly said to Vice
President Cheney: "There is a plane 80 miles out. There
is a fighter in the area. Should we engage?", to which
Cheney responded "Yes," after which an F-16 went in
pursuit of Flight 93.>16 It
was also reported that as the fighter got nearer to
Flight 93, Cheney was asked two more times to confirm
that the fighter should engage, which Cheney did.>17
Also, Brigadier General Winfield of the NMCC later said:
"At some point, the closure time came and went, and
nothing happened, so you can imagine everything was very
tense at the NMCC.">18
Furthermore, when President Bush was told of the crash
of Flyght 93 at 10:08, he reportedly asked: "Did we
shoot it town or did it crash?">19
These reports, which are contained in Thompsons
timeline, suggest to him that the intention to shoot
down Flight 93 was in several minds.
Reports of fighter jets in the
area add to his suspicion that Flight 93 was indeed shot
down. Shortly before the crash, CBS television reported
that two F-16 fighters were tailing the flight. And a
flight controller, ignoring an order to controllers not
to talk to the media, reportedly said that "an F-16
fighter closely pursued Flight 93.... [T]he F-16 made
360-degree turns to remain close to the commercial jet.">20
The existence of a fighter plane in the area is
supported, furthermore, by many witnesses on the ground.
Accorting to a story in the Independent, "At
least half a dozen named individuals...have reported
seeing a second plane flying low...over the crash site
within minutes of the United flight crashing. They
describe the plane as a small, white jet with rear
engines and no discernible markings.">21
The FBI claimed that the plane was a Fairchild Falcon 20
business jet.>22 But, said one
woman:
It was white with no markings
but it was definitely military... It had two rear
engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler.... It
definitely wasn't one of those executive jets. The FBI
came and talked to me andsaid there was no plane
around.... But I saw it and it was there before the
crash and it was 40 feet above my head. They did not
want story.>23
Her assertion, which is supported
by the consensus reported by the Independent, is
further supported by statements quoted by Thompson in
which several other people say that they had seen a
white plane, with some of them adding the details about
rear engines and the lack of discernible markings.
Even stronger evidence that the
plane was shot down is provided by witnesses who heard
sounds. One witness said that after she heard the planes
engine, she heard "a loud thump" and then "two more loud
thumps and didn't hear the plane's engine anymore."
Another witness heard "a loud bang." Another heard "two
loud bangs" before watching the plane take a downward
turn. Another heard a sound that "wasn't quite right,"
after which the plane "dropped all of a sudden, like a
stone." Another heard a "loud bang" and then saw the
plane's right wing dip, after which the plane plunged
into the earth. And the mayor of Shanksville (Ernie
Stull, see the german Wisnewski video Aktenzeichen 911)
reportedly said that he knew of two people who "heard a
missile," adding that one of them "served in Vietnam and
he says he's heard them." Thompson concludes that while
some of the accounts have conflicting elements, they
"virtually all support a missile strike.">24
This conclusion is undergirded
still further by reports about the location of remnants
from the plane. For one thing, a half-ton piece or one
of the engines was reportedly found over a mile away.
One newspaper story called this fact "intriguing"
because "the heat-seeking, air-to-air Sidewinder
missiles aboard an F-16 would likely target one of the
Boeing 757's two large engines.">25
Also consistent with one or more missile strikes,
Thompson points out, is the fact that witnesses reported
seeing burning debris fall from the plane as far as
eight miles away, with workers at Indian Lake Marina
saying that they saw "a cloud of confetti-like debris
descend on the lake and nearby farms minutes after
hearing the explosion.">26 And
debris, including what appeared to be human remains, was
indeed reportedly found as far as eight miles from the
crash site.>27
The inference that Flight 93 was
shot down is additionally supported by subsequent
statements made by military and government officials.
One F-15 pilot reportedly said that after returning from
his assignment to patrol the skies over NYC in the early
afternoon, he was told that a military F-16 had shot
down a fourth airliner in Pennsylvania.>28
This rumor was sufficiently widespread that when General
Myers was being interviewed by the Armed Services
Committee on September 13, Senator Carl Levin, asking
Myers whether the Defense Department took action against
any aircraft, mentioned that "there have been statements
that the aircraft that crashed in Pennsylvania was shot
down," adding: "Those stories continue to exist."
Although Myers declared that "the armed forces did not
shoot down any aircraft,">29
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense, reportedly
said that "the Air Force was tracking the hijacked plane
that crashed in Pennsylvania...and had been in a
position to bring it down if necessary.">30
Thompson believes that the
government decided that it was necessary — but
not because the hijackers' mission was going to
succeed. Thompson asks why fighter pilots were given
authorization to shoot down hijacked airplanes only
after Flight 93 was the only one left in the sky.>31
This is, of course, the disturbing question raised by
the evidence Thompson presents about this flight. His
implicit answer, given the evidence that the passengers
were successfully wresting control of the plane away
from the hijackers, is that this was the one plane that
was likely to be landed safely — which would, among
other things, mean that there might be live hijackers to
be interrogated. Thus interpreted, the evidence about
Flight 93 provides further reason to conclude that the
failure to shoot down the previous three flights was
not due to incompetence. This evidence suggests that
when the authorities wanted a flight shot down, they
were not hindered by lack of either competence or
coordination.
The evidence from this flight
suggests, like the previous ones, active involvement of
US military leaders in planning the attacks. In this
case, they apparendy also had to take remedial action
because of an unexpected development. With regard to the
possible levels of official complicity listed in the
Introduction: Insofar as the revisionary account of
Flight 93 (and/or Flight 77) is accepted, all the
possible views lower than the fifth one are ruled out.
An intriguing dimension of this
story is that Flight 93's fate was evidently due to the
fact that it was 41 minutes late departing from the
airport. All four flights were scheduled to leave at
about the same time and were hence probably intended to
hit their respective targets at about the same time. The
other three planes were fairly well synchronized
departing only between 10 and 16 minutes late. But
because Flight 93's departure was 41 minutes late, by
the time the hijackers took control of it the two planes
headed toward the WTC had already hit their targets
Passengers making phone calls from Flight 93 learned,
therefore, that their flight was on a suicide mission.
Unlike the passengers on the two flights headed for the
WTC, accordingly, the passengers on Flight 93, knowing
that they were headed for certain death if they remained
passive, decided to try to gain control of the plane.>32
Had the plane not been so late leaving, the passengers
may not have tried this, so this plane might also have
hit its target.
Had it hit its target,
furthermore, we might well look back upon Flight 93s
mission as in some respects the most devastating one.
Evacuation of the US Capitol building did not begin
until 9:48, which was 23 minutes after an unidentified
aircraft had been spotted flying across Washington and
10 minutes after it had hit the Pentagon. What if Flight
93 had been more nearly on time? Thompson says: "It is
later reported that the target for Flight 93 was the
Capitol building, so had that flight not been delayed 40
minutes before takeoff, it is possible most senators and
congresspeople would have been killed.">33
Thompson is perhaps trying to motivate them to undertake
a more far-reaching investigation into the events of
9/11.
Also, given the fact that the
other main hypothesis about Flight 93'sintended target
is that it was the White House, critics also wonder why
it was not evacuated sooner. According to many news
reports, both Vice President Cheney and National
Security Advisor Rice were taken to the White House's
underground bunker by the Secret Service at about 9:03.
>34 However, it was over 40
minutes later, at 9:45, when a general evacuation of the
White House was begun.>35 If
it was thought at 9:03 that Cheney and Rice were in
danger, why were not the other people told to leave at
that time? At the very least, why was the White House
not evacuated shortly after 9:25, when the air traffic
controllers at Dulles reported a fast-flying plane
headed toward the White House? This question is even
more pressing insofar as the official account of Flight
77 is accepted, according to which the passengers were
told that they were all going to the because the plane
was going to crash into the White House.>36
Had that been true, people working in the White House,
instead of people working in the Pentagon, would have
been killed, since the evacuation of the White House did
not begin until seven minutes after the Pentagon was
struck. We have, accordingly, still another disturbing
question: Was there a plan to have deaths in the White
House or the US Capitol Building as well as the Pentagon
and the World Trade Center?
FOOTNOTES for Chapter 3
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Thompson, "September
11" (8:42 AM), (9:27 AM), (9:36 AM), and (9:37 AM).
2Thompson, 9:45 AM.
3Thompson, 9:47 AM. Thompson says that
of the numerous calls, only the first call (9:27 AM)
from Tom Burnett mentioned guns—and this only in one of
the versions, a fact that suggests that it may have been
doctored.
49:54 AM, quoting Toronto Sun, September
16, and Boston Globe, November 23,2001.
59:54 AM, quoting Jere Longman, Among the
Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who
Fought Back (New York HarperCollins, 2002), 118.
6(Between 10:00-10:06 AM).
79:58 AM.
89:58 AM, citing Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
September 28, 2002, and Longman, Among the
Heroes, 180.
99:58 AM, quoting ABC News, September 11, and
Associated Press, September 12,2001.
109:58 AM, citing Longman, Among the
Heroes, 264, and Mirror, September 13, 2002,
11(Between 10:00-10:06 AM), quoting San
Francisco Chronicle, September 17, 2001.
12(Between 10:00-10:06 AM), quoting
Mirror, September 13, 2002.
1310:03 AM, citing Philadelphia Daify
News, September 16, 2002.
14Thompson, Timeline," October 16, 2001 (B),
citing New York Times, October 16,2001.
15Thompson (After 9:56 AM), citing USA
Today, September 16, 2001, Washington Post,
January 27, 2002, and ABC News, September 11, 2002.
16(After 9:56-10:06 AM), citing Pittsburg,
Post-Gazette, October 28, 2001, and Washington
Post, January 27, 2002.
17(After 9:56-10:06 AM), citing Washington
Post, January 27, 2002.
18(After 9:56-10:06 AM), quoting ABC News,
September 15, 2002.
19(10:08 AM), quoting Washington Post,
January 27, 2002.
20(Before 10:06 AM), quoting Associated Press
and Nashua Telegraph, both September 13,2001.
21(Before and After 10:06 AM), quoting
Independent, August 13, 2002.
22(Before and After 10:06 AM), citing
Indepedent, August 13, 2002.
23(Before and After 10:06 AM), quoting
Mirror, September 13, 2002.
24(Before 10:06 AM), citing Philadelphia.
Daily News, November 15; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,
September 12; St. Petersburg Times, September
12; and Cleveland Newschannel 5, September 11,2001.
25(Before 10:06 AM), citing Independent,
August 13, 2002, and quoting Philadelphia Daily
News, November 15, 2001.
26(Before 10:06 AM), citing Reuters,
September 13, and Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and
quoting Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 13,
2001.
27(Before 10:06 AM), quoting Reuters,
September 13, 2001, and CBS News, May 23, 2002.
28(2:00 PM), citing Aviation Week and
Space Technology, June 3, and Cape Cod Times,
August 21, 2002.
29This interchange is quoted in 9/11: The
Big Lie, 162.
30Ahmed, 160, quoting Boston Herald,
September 15, 2001.
31Thompson (After 9:56 AM).
32We do not know about the passengers on
Flight 77. Revisionists can speculate that they too
tried to gain control of their plane, which could
explain its momentary deviation from course as well as
its crash in Ohio or Kentucky—if that indeed is what
happened to it.
33Thompson, 9:48 AM, citing Associated Press,
August 19, 2002. That might have been the case, of
course, only if both the Senate and the House were in
session so that most senators and representatives would
have been in the Capitol Building.
34New York Times, September 16, 2001,
and ABC News, September 11 and 14, 2002, cited in
Thompson (After 9:03 AM).
35CNN and New York Times, September
12, 2001, and Washington Post, January 27, 2002,
cited in Thompson (9:45 AM).
36Scotland Sunday Herald, September
16, and Cox News, October 21, 2001, cited in Thompson
(9:30 AM).
CHAPTER FOUR
THE PRESIDENT'S
BEHAVIOR: WHY DID HE ACT AS HE DID?
Disturbing questions about the
official account have been raised not only by the four
aircraft crashes of 9/11 but also by President Bush's
behavior on that day. Although the questions that
critics have raised about that behavior are legion, I
will focus on those that seem most disturbing.
The president's schedule that day
called for him to visit an elementary school in
Sarasota, Florida, where he was to listen to students
read as a "photo opportunity." He arrived at the school
shortly before 9:00 AM, at which time, according to at
least one version of the official account, he was told
that a plane had flown into the WTC. Since it was by
then known that this plane as well as two others had
been hijacked, one would assume, critics point out, that
the president would also know this. Allan Wood and Paul
Thompson state the problem thus:
The first media reports of
Flight 11's crash into the World Trade Center began
around 8:48, two minutes after the crash happened. CNN
broke into its regular programming at that time.... So
within minutes, millions were aware of the story, yet
Bush supposedly remained unaware for about another ten
minutes.>1
Critics find this difficult to
believe.
The members of the president s traveling staff,
including the Secret Service, argues Barrie Zwicker,
"have the best communications equipment in the world."
Accordingly, says Zwicker, within a minute after the
first airliner hit the World Trade Center, the Secret
Service and the president would have known about it.>2
In fact, Thompson points out, Vice President Cheney
evidendy let the cat out of the bag. During his
interview on "Meet the Press" on September 16, Cheney
said: "The Secret Service has an arrangement with the
FAA. They had open lines after the World Trade Center
was..."—stopping himself, Thompson adds, before
finishing the sentence.>3 So,
the Secret Service personnel in the presidents
motorcade, including the ones in his own car, would have
known about the first attack on the WTC before the
motorcade arrived at the school at 9:00. Indeed, it is
even part of the official account that Ari Fleischer,
the White House press secretary, learned about the first
attack on the way. Having cited that story, Thompson
adds: "It would make sense that Bush is told about the
crash immediately and at the same time that others hear
about it. Yet Bush and others claim he isn't told until
he arrives at the school." Thompsons implied question,
of course, is that if President Bush knew about the
crash before arriving at the school, why did he and
others pretend otherwise?
The vice presidents inadvertent
revelation about the open lines between the Secret
Service and the FAA creates an even greater difficulty,
critics point out, for another part of the official
account. Upon learning that a plane had hit the WTC,
President Bush reportedly referred to the crash as a
"horrible accident.">4
However, Zwicker's complete statement, only partially
summarized above, includes the point that by that time,
the Secret Service and the president would have known
that several airliners had been hijacked. So how could
President Bush have assumed that the first crash into
the WTC was an accident? Giving voice to the disturbing
question raised by this story, Thompson asks: "[Are]
Bush and his aides putting on a charade to pretend he
doesn't know there is a national emergency? If so, why?">5
In any case, the president was
then reportedly updated on the situation via telephone
by his National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, who
would presumably have made sure that he knew not only
about all the hijackings but also that the Director of
the CIA, George Tenet, had already concluded that the
hijackings were orchestrated by Osama bin Laden to carry
out terrorist attacks.>6 But
the president reportedly told the school's principal
that "a commercial plane has hit the World Trade Center
and we're going to go ahead and...do the reading thing
anyway.">7
Critics find this incredible. If
the hijackings were unanticipated occurrences, as
claimed, with one of the hijacked airplanes having
already completed its terrorist mission, the country was
suffering the worst terrorist attack of its history. And
yet the Commander in Chief, rather than making sure that
his military was prepared to shoot down all hijacked
planes, sticks to his planned schedule. The strangeness
of this behavior is brought out well in a summary of the
situation by Wood and Thompson:
At approximately 8:48 AM...,the
first pictures of the burning World Trade Center were
broadcast on live television.... By that time, the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the North
American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the
National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, the
White House, the Secret Service, and Canada's
Strategic Command all knew that three commercial
airplanes had been hijacked. They knew that one plane
had been flown deliberately into the World Trade
Center's North Tower; a second plane was wildly off
course and also heading toward Manhattan.... So why,
at 9:03 AM—fifteen minutes after it was clear the
United States was under terrorist attack—did President
Bush sit down with a classroom of second-graders and
begin a 20-minute pre-planned photo op?>8
Bush's behavior is made even more
astounding by the fact that his Secret Service would
have had to assume that he was one of the intended
targets. Indeed, one Secret Service agent, seeing the
television coverage of the crash of the second airliner
into the WTC, reportedly said: "We're out of here.">9
But if one of the agents actually said this, he was
obviously overruled. At the same time, by contrast,
Cheney and Rice were reportedly being rushed to bunkers
under the White House.>10 And
yet, "For some reason, Secret Service agents [do] not
hustle [Bush] away," comments the Globe and Mail
''Why doesn't this happen to Bush at the same time?"
Thompson asks. "Why doesn't the Secret Service move Bush
away from his known location?">11
The reason for pressing this question is that, as Wood
and Thompson point out: "Hijackers could have crashed a
plane into Bush's publicized location and his security
would have been completely helpless to stop it.">12
This apparently unconcerned
behavior, critics point out, continued for almost an
hour. The intelligence expert James Bamford has written:
[H]aving just been told that the
country was under attack, the Commander in Chief
appeared uninterested in further details. He never
asked if there had been any additional threats, where
the artacks were coming from, how to best protect me
country from further attacks.... Instead, in the
middle of a modern-day Pearl Harbor, he simply turned
back to the matter at hand: the day's photo op.
>13
This photo opportunity involved,
as indicated above, the president's listening to second
graders read a book about a pet goat. After Bush had
been in the classroom a few minutes, his chief of staff,
Andrew Card came in and whispered in his ear, reportedly
telling him about the second attack. But the president,
after a brief pause, had the children go ahead with the
reading demonstration. To emphasize the strangeness of
this behavior, Bamford adds this reflection:
As President Bush continued with
his reading lesson, life within the burning towers of
the World Trade Center was becoming ever more
desperate.... Within minutes, people began jumping,
preferring a quick death to burning alive or
suffocating.>14
While this was going on, the
president was listening to the students read:
"The-Pet-Goat. A-girl-got-a-pet-goat.
But-the-goat-did-some-things-that-made-the-girls-dad-mad."
After listening to this for several minutes, President
Bush made a joke, saying: "Really good readers, whew!
These must be sixth graders!">15
Another person who has found the
contrast between the presidents behavior and what was
happening in New York troubling is Lorie van Auken,
whose husband was one of the victims of the attacks on
the towers. Having obtained the video of the presidents
session with the children, she watched it over and over,
saying later: "I couldn't stop watching the president
sitting there, listening to second graders, while my
husband was burning in a building." Also, noting that
the president had just been told by an advisor that the
country was under attack, she wondered how the president
could make a joke.>16
Besides joking, the president
lingered, not at all acting like a commander in chief
with an emergency on his hands. Indeed, according to a
book called Fighting Back by the White House
correspondent for the Washington Times, Bill
Sammon—a book that presents the White House perspective
on most issues and generally provides an extremely
sympathetic account of the president
>17—Bush was "openly
stretching out the moment." When the lesson was over,
according to Sammon's account, Bush said:
Hoo! These are great readers.
Very impressive! Thank you all so much for showing me
your reading skills. I bet they practice too. Don't
you? Reading more than they watch TV? Anybody do that?
Read more than you watch TV? [Hands go up] Oh that's
great! Very good. Very important to practice! Thanks
for having me. Very impressed. >18
Bush then continued to talk,
advising the children to stay in school and be good
citizens. And in response to a question, he talked about
his education policy." Sammon describes Bush as smiling
and chatting with the children "as if he didn't have a
care in the world" and "in the most relaxed manner
imaginable." After a reporter asked if the president had
heard about what had happened in New York, Bush said,
"I'll talk about it later," then, in Sammons words,
"stepped forward and shook hands with [the classroom
teacher] Daniels, slipping his left hand behind her in
another photo-op pose. He was taking his good old
time.... Bush lingered until the press was gone." Sammon,
in fact, refers to the president as "the dawdler in
chief.">20
Amazingly, perhaps stung by the
criticisms of the president's behavior, the White House
put out a different account a year later. Andrew Card,
Bush's chief of staff, was quoted as saying that after
he told the president about the second attack on the
World Trade Center, Bush "excused himself very politely
to the teacher and to the students" and left the
classroom within "a matter of seconds.">21
In an alternative wording of the new story, Card said,
"Not that many seconds later the president excused
himself from the classroom.">22
Apparently, say critics, the White House was so
confident that none of its lies about 9/11 would be
challenged by the media that it felt safe telling this
one even though it is flatly contradicted by Sammons
pro-Bush book and by the video tape produced that day,
which, as Wood and Thompson put it, "shows these
statements are lies—unless 'a matter of seconds' means
over 700 seconds!"23
In any case, back to real history,
the president finally left the classroom at 9:16 to meet
with his advisors, reportedly to prepare his television
address to the nation, which he delivered at 9:29.
Thompson comments: "The talk occurs at exactly the time
and place stated in his publicly announced advance
schedule—making Bush a possible terrorist target.">24
And not only Bush. When Andrew Card and Karl Rove were
later asked why the president had not left the classroom
as soon as he had word of the second attack, their
answer, Wood and Thompson point out, was that he did not
want to upset the children. But, they ask, "why didn't
Bush's concern for the children extend to not making
them and the rest of the 200 or so people at the school
terrorist targets?">25 Might
the answer be that Bush knew that there was really no
danger?
In any case, the president and his
people then went in their scheduled motorcade on their
scheduled route to the airport, during which they
reportedly learned that the Pentagon had been struck and
also heard that the president's plane, Air Force One,
was a terrorist target. Nevertheless no military escort
was ordered. "Amazingly," says Thompson, "his plane
takes off without any fighters protecting it,">26
This seems especially surprising given the feet that
there were still over 3,000 planes in the air over the
United States and there was no way to know at that time
how many airlines had been hijacked. For example, about
an hour later, Thompson reports, the FAA had said that
there were six missing aircraft— a figure that
Cheney subsequendy mentioned—and at one time eleven
flights were suspected of having been hijacked.>27
According to Karl Rove, furthermore, the Secret Service
had learned of "a specific threat made to Air Force
One.">28 So, why had fighter
jets not been ordered from one of the two nearby
military bases, which have fighters on 24-hour alert?>29
The strangeness of the president's
behavior, given the apparent circumstances, has not gone
unnoticed by family members of the victims of the
attacks of 9/11. For example, Kristen Breitweiser, whose
question about how a plane could have struck the
Pentagon was quoted earlier, also said:
It was clear that we were under
attack. Why didn't the Secret Service whisk him out of
that school? He was on live local television in
Florida. The terrorists, you know, had been in
Florida.... I want to know why he sat there for 25
minutes.>30
Much attention at the time was
given to the fact that once Air Force Onebecame airborne
at 9:55, President Bush remained away from Washington
for a long time, perhaps, speculated some commentators,
out of fear. Indeed, some reporters who criticized the
president on that score lost their jobs
>31—which may account for why
the White House could later be confident that the news
media would not challenge any of its fabrications. In
any case, the real question, the critics suggest, is why
there was apparently no fear during the first hour. The
implied question is, of course, a disturbing one: Did
the president and at least the head of his Secret
Service detail know that he was not a target?
The idea that the Bush
administiarion had advance knowledge of the attacks is
further suggested by a statement later made by Bush
himslef: "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to
go in," he claimed, "and I saw an airplane hit the
tower—the TV was obviously on, and I used to fly myself,
and I said, There's one terrible pilot.">32
Given the fact that according to the official story,
Bush did not have access to a television set until at
least 15 minutes later,>33
this statement raised questions. An article in the
Boston Herald said:
Think about that. Bush's remark
implies he saw the first plane hit the tower. But we
all know that video of the first plane hitting did not
surface until the next day. Could Bush have meant he
saw the second plane hit—which many Americans
witnessed? No, because he said that he was in the
classroom when Card whispered in his ear that a second
plane hit.
Pointing out that Bush had told
this story several times, the writer asked: "How could
the Commander-in-chief have seen the plane fly into the
first building—as it happened?">34
This is an excellent question. But
it is simply one of many excellent questions mat have
been raised by individual reporters and then allowed to
die by the rest of the news media. They have not pressed
for an answer.
Thierry Meyssan, however, has
suggested a possible answer. Pointing out that
"according to his own declaration, the President of the
United States saw pictures of the first crash before the
second had taken place," Meyssan emphasizes the fact
that the pictures reportedly seen by Bush could not
have been "those accidentally filmed by French
documentary-makers Jules and Gédéon Naudet," because
"their video was not released until thirteen hours
later." On the morning of 9/11, therefore, Bush could
not have seen the pictures of the first crash that we
have all seen time and time again. Therefore, Meyssan
suggests, the pictures must
have been secret images
transmitted to him without delay in the secure
communications room that was installed in the
elementary school in preparation for his visit. But if
the US intelligence services could have filmed the
first attack, that means they must have been informed
beforehand.>35
Meyssans suggestion, in other
words, is that although the president did not see the
plane fly into the first building "as it happened," he
did see it, as he claimed, before he went into the
classroom.
========================
According to critics of the
official account, in sum, the behaviour of President
Bush on 9/11 reinforces the conclusion, inferable from
the fate of the four crashed airliners, that government
and military officials at the highest level had advance
knowledge of, and conspired to allow; the traumatic
events of that day.>36 With
regard to our list of possible views, furthermore, the
critical account of the president's behaviour seems to
eliminate the first five possible views, according to
which the White House had no expectation of any attacks.
The behavior of President Bush and his Secret Service
seems to imply at least the sixth view, according to
which the White House expected some sort of arracks.
Furthemore, if we accept Meyssans conjecture about
Bush's statement that he saw the first WTC crash on
television before entering the classroom, the seventh
view—according to which the White House had
foreknowledge of the targets and the timing of the
attacks—is suggested. That view is also suggested by the
evidence that President Bush and his Secret Service
seemed to know that they would not be targets of
the attack.
For the critics of the official
account, this conclusion for some sort of official
complicity is made even stronger when the events of 9/11
are seen in me larger context provided by information
about relevant events both prior to and after 9/11. This
larger context will be the subject of the second part of
this book.
FOOTNOTES for Chapter
four
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press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Allan Wood and Paul
Thompson, "An Interesting Day. President Bush's
Movements and Actions on 9/11," Center for Cooperative
Research (www.cooperativeresearch.org), under "When Did
Bush First Learn of the Attacks," citing New York
Times, September 15, and CNN, September 11, 2001.
(This article will henceforth be cited simply as "Wood
and Thompson," followed by the heading under which the
material is found.)
2Barrie Zwicker, "The Great Deception,"
Vision TV Insight, MediaFile (www.visiontv.ca),
February 18, 2002, cited in Ahmed, 166.
3Thompson, "September 11" (After 8:46 AM),
quoting "Meet the Press," NBC News, September 16, 2001.
4CNN, December 4, 2001, Daily Mail,
September 8, 2002, and ABC News, September 11, 2002,
cited in Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
5Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
6Time, September 12, and Christian
Science Monitor. September 17, 2001, cited in
Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 .AM). A few minutes after
8:46, CIA Director Tenet reportedly learned from a cell
phone call that the WTC had been "attacked" by an
airplane, after which he said to Senator Boren, with
whom he was having breakfast: "You know, this has bin
Laden's fingerprints all over it" (ABC News, September
14, 2002, cited in Thompson [After 8:46 AM]).
7Associated Press, August 19, 2002, quoted in
Thompson (Between 8:55-9:00 AM).
8Wood and Thompson, introductory discussion.
9Sarasota Herald-Tribune, September
10, 2002, quoted in Thompson (9:30 AM).
10New York Times, September 16, 2001,
Telegraph, December 16, 2001, ABC News, September
14, 2002, and Washington Post, January 27, 2002,
quoted in Thompson (After 9:30 AM).
11Thompson (After 9:30 AM) and (9:06 AM),
quoting Globe and Mail September 12, 2001.
12Wood and Thompson, under "Why Stay?"
13James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy
of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency (New
York Anchor Books, 2002), 633, cited in Thompson (9:06
AM).
14Bamford, 633.
15Bamford, 633, and Time, September 9,
2001, cited in Thompson (9:06-9:16 AM).
16Gail Sheehy, "Four 9/11 Moms Battle Bush,"
New York Observer, August 21, 2002.
17Sammons sympathies are further shown by
another book published at about the same rime, At Any
Cost: How Al Gore Tried to Steal the Election
(Washington: Regnery, 2002).
18Bill Sammon, Fighting Back: The War on
Terrorism: From Inside the Bush White House
(Washington: Regnery, 2002), 89-90, quoted in Wood and
Thompson, under "When Did Bush Leave the Classroom?"
19Tampa Tribune, September 1; St.
Petersburg Times, September 8; and New York Post,
September 12, 2002, cited in Wood and Thompson,
under "when Did Bush Leave the Classroom?"
20Sammon, Fighting Back 90, quoted in
Wood and Thompson, under "When Did Bush Leave the
Classroom?" and "Rewriting History."
21San Francisco Chronicle, September
11, 2002, quoted in Wood and Thompson, under "Rewriting
History."
22MSNBC, September 9, 2002.
23Wood and Thompson, under "Rewriting
History."
24Thompson, 9:29 AM.
25Wood and Thomspon, under "Why Stay?",
citing MSNBC, October 29, 2002, and ABC, September 11,
2002.
26Thompson (9:34 AM) and (9:56 AM). Air Force
One took off at 9:35 AM. It would be a t least 90
minutes before it had an escort (Wood and Thompson,
under "When Does the Fighter Escort Finally Arrive?").
27Thompson (9:30 AM) and (10:42 AM), citing
Time, September 14, Los Angeles Times.
September 17, 2001, and USA Today. August 13,
2002.
28New Yorker, October 1, 2001, cited
in Wood and Thompson, under "Air Force One Departs
Sarasota." As Wood and Thompson also point out (under
"Were There Threats to Air Force One?"), a little later
in the day, Dick Cheney originated, and then Karl Rove
and Ari Fleischer spread, a story that a threat against
the White House and Air Force One was received from
terrorists who used the secret code for Air Force One,
which suggested either that there was a mole in the
White House or that terrorists had hacked their way into
White House computers. This story, first published by
William Safire of the New York Times (September
13, 2001), spread throughout the media, although there
was considerable skepticism, based on suspicion that the
story was created to dampen down criticism of Bush for
remaining away from Washington for so long (St.
Petersburg Times, September 13, and Telegraph,
December 16, 2001). When Ari Fleischer was pressed
for credible evidence on September 15, he replied that
that topic had already been exhausted. Finally, on
September 26, CBS News laid the story to rest with this
explanation: "Sources say White House staffers
apparently misunderstood comments made by their security
detail." Slate magazine gave its "Whopper of the
Week" award to Cheney, Fleischer, and Rove (Slate,
September 28, 2001). Unfortunately, Thierry Meyssan,
having evidently missed the retraction, based his most
speculative theory on this bogus report (9/11: The
Big Lie, Ch. 3: "Moles in the White House"). But he
can perhaps be forgiven, since CBS, evidently forgetting
about its own debunking, revived the story a year later
(CBS, September 11, 2002, cited in Wood and Thompson,
under "Rewriting History").
29Wood and Thompson, under "Air Force One
Takes OffWithout Fighter Escort." 30Kristen
Breitweiser's comments, made on Phil Donahue's
television show on August 13, 2002, are quoted in
Thompson, "Timeline," August 13, 2002.
31Washington Post, September 29, 2001,
cited in Wood and Thompson, introductory discussion.
32CNN December 4, 2001, quoted in Thompson
(9:01 AM).
33Washington Times, October 7, 2002,
quoted in Thompson (9:01 AM).
34Boston Herald, October 22, 2002,
quoted in Thompson (9:01 AM).
35Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 38-39.
Other revisionists have suggested that images of this
crash might have been transmitted to the president's
limousine, so that he would have seen them before
arriving at the school.
36President Bush is not the only high
official, furthermore, whose reported behavior that day
has raised serious questions. Critics have also found
the reported behavior of General Richard Myers, then
Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs,
suspicious. See Israel and Bykov, "Guilty for 9-11:
Bush, Rumsfeld, Myers" (www.emperors-clothes.com), who
say that Myers "offered three mutually contradictory
cover stories." See also Ahmed, 164-66.
PART TWO
THE LARGER CONTEXT
CHAPTER FIVE
DID US OFFICIALS HAVE
ADVANCE INFORMATION ABOUT 9/11?
The larger context for viewing the events of 9/11,
according to critics of the official account, consists
of four more types of evidence against that account. In
this chapter, I explore the first type: evidence that US
officials had information about the attacks before they
happened.
Many leading officials in the Bush
administration have claimed that the events of 9/11 were
completely unanticipated. For example, Condoleezza Rice,
Bush's National Security Advisor, said in May of 2002:
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that these
people would take an airplane and slam it into the World
Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the
Pentagon, that they would try to use...a hijacked
airplane as a missile.">1 The
next month, President Bush, in an address to the nation,
said: "Based on everything I've seen, I do not believe
anyone could have prevented the horror of September the
11th.">2 A further claim,
endorsed in the summary of the final report of the Joint
Inquiry conducted by the intelligence committees of the
US Senate and House of Representatives, is that although
there were some indications of plans for terrorist
attacks within the United States, "it was the general
view of the Intelligence Community, in the spring and
summer of 2001, that the threatened bin Laden attacks
would most likely occur against US interests overseas.">3
These general claims can be divided into two more
particular ones, each of which has been challenged by
critics of the official account.
Was the Very Possibility of
Such Attacks not Envisioned?
One of these claims is that the
very possibility that someone would use planes as
weapons had not been imagined. For example, a defense
official was quoted as saying: "I don't think any of us
envisioned an internal air threat by big aircraft. I
don't know of anybody that ever thought through that."
>4 About a year later, White
House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said: "Until the
attack took place, i think it's fair to say that no one
envisioned that as a possibility.
Critics say, however, that there
is much evidence to the contrary. For example, in 1993 a
panel of experts commissioned by the Pentagon suggested
that airplanes could be used as missiles to bomb
national landmarks. However, this notion was not
published in its report, Terror 2000, because,
said one of its authors: "We were told by the Department
of Defense not to put it in." But in 1994, one of these
experts wrote in the Futurist magazine:
Targets such as the World Trade
Center not only provide the requisite casualties but,
because of their symbolic nature, provide more bang
for the buck. In order to maximize their odds for
success, terrorist groups will likely consider
mounting multiple, simultaneous operations.>6
In that same year, there were
three airplanes hijacked with the intent to use them as
weapons, including a highly publicized plan of a
terrorist group linked with al-Qaeda to crash one into
the Eiffel Tower. In 1995, Senator Sam Nunn, in Time
magazines cover story, described a scenario in which
terrorists crash a radio-controlled airplane into the US
Capitol building.>7
The year 1995 also brought the
most important discovery, which has been widely
reported: Philippine police found an al-Qaeda computer
with a plan called Project Bojinka, one version of which
involved hijacking planes and flying them into targets
such as the World Trade Center, the White House, CIA
headquarters, and the Pentagon. This plan—which was
evidently formulated by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (later to
be identified as the mastermind of 9/11) and his
relative Ramsi Yousef >8—resurfaced
in the 1996 trial of the latter for masterminding the
1993 attack on the World Trade Center (in which Mohammed
was also indicted).>5
(Note: Ramsi Youssef was NOT
charged with the 1993 attack on the WTC, there is an mp3
of his lawyer talking publicly about it on the web. It
is now established that a FBI [double-?]agent instigated
that attack.) Yousef's conviction, Ahmed
points out, was on September 11, 1996, so that 9/11 was
its fifth anniversary.." Furthermore, after the attacks,
reports Thompson, a Philippine investigator said: "It's
Bojinka... We told the Americans everything about
Bojinka. Why didn't they pay attention?">11
In 1999, the National Intelligence
Council, which advise the President and US intelligence
agencies on emerging threats, said in a special report
on terrorism:
Al-Qaeda's expected retaliation
for the US cruise missile attack [of 1998]...could
take several forms of terrorist attack in the nation's
capitol. Suicide bombers belonging to al-Qaeda's
Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft
packed with high explosives...into the Pentagon, the
headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),
or the White House.>12
With regard to the Pentagon in
particular, officials in October of 2000 carried out an
emergency drill to prepare for the possibility that a
hijacked airliner might be crashed into the Pentagon.>13
In sum, argue critics, the claim
that the possibility of such attacks had not been
envisioned is clearly untrue.
Were There No Specific Warnings
about the Attacks?
A second, narrower claim is that
although there were warnings about the possibility of
this kind of attack, there were no specific warnings
relating to 9/11. For example, three days afterwards,
FBI Director Robert Mueller (six days in office)
said: "There were no warning signs that I'm aware of
that would indicate this type of operation in the
country.">14 A year later, he
still claimed: "To this day we have found no one in the
United States except the actual hijackers who knew of
the plot.">15
Acceptance of this claim is
reflected in the summary of the final report of the
Joint Inquiry conducted by the House and Senate
intelligence committees. The first "finding" reported in
this summary reads:
While the Intelligence Community
had amassed a great deal of valuable intelligence
regarding Usama Bin Laden and his terrorist
activities, none of it identified the time, place, and
specific nature of the attack that were planned for
September 11, 2001. [Author's note: Spellings of
his name shift due to different styles of
transliterating the Arabic into English.]
Indeed, as we saw earlier, this
summary of the Joint Inquiry's final report said that
the information led the intelligence community to expect
the attacks to be directed "against US interests
overseas."
But in fact, critics argue, there
were evidently many quite specific warnings in the
months leading up to 9/11 and, given the fact that by
May of 2001, warnings of an attack against the US were
reportedly higher than ever before, US intelligence
agencies should have been especially on the alert.>16
This state of alert should have been increased still
further, one would assume, given the fact that an
intelligence summary for Condoleezza Rice from CIA
Director George Tenet on June 28 said: "It is highly
likely that a significant al-Qadea attack is in the near
future, within several weeks.">17
It was in such a context that the rather specific
warnings came. In late July, for example, the Taliban's
Foreign Minister informed US officials that Osama ben
Laden was planning a "huge attack" inside America that
was imminent and would kill thousands.>18
That the information indicated that the attack was to
involve commercial airlines is suggested by the fact
that on July 26, CBS News reported that Attorney General
Ashcroft had decided to quit using this mode of travel
because of a threat assessment—although "neither the FBI
nor the Justice Department—would identify what the
threat was, when it was detected or who made it.">19
In May of 2002, it was claimed that the threat
assessment had nothing to do with al-Qaeda, but Ashcroft,
according to the Associated Press, walked out of his
office rather than answer questions about it. The San
Francisco Chronicle complained: "The FBI obviously
knew something was in the wind.... The FBI did advise
Ashcroft to stay off commercial aircraft. The rest of us
just had to take our chances." CBS's Dan Rather later
asked, with regard to this warning: "Why wasn't it
shared with the public at large?">20
August and September brought more
warnings. A Moroccan agent who had penetrated al-Qaeda
was evidently brought to the United States to discuss
his report that bin Laden, being disappointed that the
1993 bombing had not toppled the "WTC, planned "large
scale operations in New York in the summer or fall of
2001.">21 Former CIA agent
Robert Baer reportedly told the CIAs Counter-Terrorism
Center that he had learned from a military associate of
a Persian Gulf prince that a "spectacular terrorist
operation" was about to take place.>22
Some warnings, furthermore, were reportedly given by
several foreign intelligence agencies. For example,
Russian President Putin later stated that in August, "I
ordered my intelligence to warn President Bush in the
strongest terms that 25 terrorists were getting ready to
attack the US, including important government buildings
like the Pentagon." The head of Russian intelligence
also said: "We had clearly warned them" on several
occasions, but they "did not pay the necessary
attention.">23 Warnings were
also reportedly given by Jordan, Egypt, and Israel,>24
with the latter country warning, a few days before 9/11,
that perhaps 200 terrorists linked to Osama bin Laden
were "preparing a big operation.">25
One of the official warnings
during this period became widely known—a memo provided
by Great Britain, which was included in the intelligence
briefing for President Bush on August 6. This warning
said that al-Qeda had planned an attack in the United
States involving multiple airplane hijackings. The White
House kept this warning secret, with the president
repeatedly claiming after 9/11 that he had received no
warning of any kind. But on May 15, 2002, CBS Evening
News revealed the existence of this memo from British
intelligence. Condoleezza Rice tried to dismiss its
significance by saying that it was "fuzzy and thin,"
consisting of only a page and a half. Newspaper
accounts, however, said that it was 11 pages long.>26
Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said in no uncertain
terms: "The president did not—not—receive information
about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide
bombers.">27 A few days later,
however, the Guardian reported that "the [August
6] memo left little doubt that the hijacked airliners
were intended for use as missiles and that intended
targets were to be inside the US.">28
Doubt about the administrations truthfulness is raised
by the fact that it has refused to release the memo
while claiming that there is nothing specific in it. As
Michael Moore has asked: "If there is nothing specific,
then why cant they release it?">29
In any case, if that information
is still considered too general to have made the events
of 9/11 preventable, even more specific information was
provided by the stock market. Intelligence agencies
monitor the stock market, critics point out, to watch
for clues of impending catastrophes. And the days just
before September 11 saw an extremely high volume of "put
options" purchased for the stock of Morgan Stanley Dean
Witter, which occupied 22 stories of the World Trade
Center, and for United and American Airlines, the two
airlines used in the attacks.>30
For these two airlines, and only these two, "the level
of these trades was up by 1,200 percent in the three
days prior to the World Trade Center attacks.">31
To buy a put option is to bet that the price of shares
is going to go down, and in this case the bet was highly
profitable. As the San Francisco Chronicle
explained: "When the stock prices...dropped...in
response to the terrorist attacks, the options
multiplied a hundredfold in value, making millions of
dollars in profit." If a single group of speculators
purchased most of the thousands of put options for those
three stocks, this group would have made over $10
million. This unusual set of purchases "raises
suspicions that the investors...had advance knowledge of
the strikes.">32
Even more important here is the
conclusion that any intelligence officer looking at this
development, especially in light of all the warnings,
would easily have concluded that someone with inside
information knew that in the near future both
American and United airplanes were going to be used in
attacks, quite likely on the World Trade Center. And
there can be no serious doubt, Ahmed adds, that
intelligence officers monitor the market looking for
such anomalies. He quotes investigative journalist
Michael Ruppert, a former detective for the Los Angeles
Police Department, who wrote: "It is well documented
that the CIA has long monitored such trades—in real
time—as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and
other economic moves contrary to US interests." Ahmed
adds that "[t]he UPI also reported that the US-sponsored
ECHELON intelligence network closely monitors stock
trading.">33
An intriguing footnote to this
story is that A. B. "Buzzy" Krongard, who in March of
2001 was promoted within the CIA by President Bush to
become its executive director, had until 1998 been the
manager of Deutsche Bank, one of the major banks through
which put options on United Airlines were purchased.>34
The implication, of course, is that there might have
been insider trading going on that dwarfed Martha
Stewart's in size and significance.
In any case, further specific
information, critics continue, was evidendy obtained
from electronic intercepts. Shordy before 9/11, the FBI
reportedly intercepted messages such as "There is a big
thing coming" and "They're going to pay the price.">35
On September 9, a foreign intelligence service
reportedly passed on to US intelligence an intercepted
message from bin Laden to his mother, in which he told
her: In two days you're going to hear big news, and
you're not going to hear from me for a while.">36
And the next day, September 10, US intelligence
reportedly obtained electronic intercepts of
conversations in which al Queda members said: "Tomorrow
will be a great day for us.">37
One of those intercepts was reportedly made by the
National Security Agency (NSA), which had monitored a
call during the summer between Mohamed Atta and Khalid
Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be one of the architects of
Project Bojinka, the 1993 bombing of the WTC, and the
bombing of the USS Cole. >38
In the intercept of September 10, 2001, Atta reportedly
received final approval for the 9/11 attacks from
Mohammed. According to the September 15, 2002 story in
the Independent that reported this intercept,
information as to when the intercept was translated had
not been released.>39 But
given the fact that US intelligence had learned in June
of 2001 that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was interested in
"sending terrorists to the United States,">40
one would assume that translating an intercepted message
from him would have had the highest priority.
US intelligence agencies, however,
would later claim that the highly specific messages
received the two days before 9/11 were not translated
until afterwards. In relation to this claim, it is
significant, as Thompson points out, that Senator Orrin
Hatch reported that US officials had overheard two bin
Laden aides celebrating the successful terrorist attack
At a news briefing on September 12, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld reportedly manifested chagrin at Hatch's
breach, which revealed that the US government was, in
fact, monitoring these communications electronically in
real time.>41 The idea that
specific information was not only received but also
translated on September 10 is further suggested by
Newsweek's report that on that day "a group of top
Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for
the next morning, apparently because of security
concerns.">42
With this information before us,
we can better evaluate the Joint Inquiry's final report,
as reflected in its summary, according to which none of
the information available to the intelligence community
"identified the time, place, and specific nature of the
attacks that were planned for September 11, 2001." The
Joint Inquiry evidently tried to reconcile this finding
with the kind of very specific information reviewed
above by saying: "In the period from September 8 to
September 10, 2001, NSA intercepted, but did not
translate or disseminate until after September 11, some
communications that indicated possible impending
terrorist activity.">43 It
would be interesting to know, however, whether this
conclusion was based on any evidence other than
testimony by members of the NSA. It would also be
interesting to know whether the Joint Inquiry tried to
explain why on September 10 "a group of top Pentagon
officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next
morning." And whether they asked why, given the many
very specific reports prior to September 8, the
NSA was not translating and disseminating the
warnings it intercepted from September 8 to 10—in other
words, whether the claim that it did not do so is really
believable.
In any case, Ahmed, referring to
Condoleezza Rice's statement that US officials had no
specific information about the attacks in advance,
concludes that it is "patendy false.">44
Michel Chossudovsky, referring to the discussion of
whether members of the Bush administration knew about
the attacks beforehand, says: "Of course they
knew!"—adding that "the American people have been
consciously and deliberately deceived.">45
Critics of the official account
have certainly provided evidence that seems to support
these conclusions. The material in this chapter
provides, at the very least, further evidence against
the first two of the possible views, according to which
US intelligence agencies had no specific information
about the attacks. Some of this evidence, furthermore,
seems to rule out the first six views, according to
which at least the White House had no specific knowledge
about the impending attacks. All the views except the
seventh and the eighth, accordingly, would seem to be
ruled out insofar as the evidence summarized in this
chapter stands up to further scrutiny.
The cumulative evidence of
government complicity becomes even more compelling,
critics of the official account of 9/11 believe, when it
includes evidence that US officials actively obstructed
investigations that might have uncovered the plot.
FOOTNOTES to chapter 5
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1This statement was
made in Rice's press briefing of May 16, 2002, which was
reported in the Washington Post, May 17, 2002. It
was quoted by Mary Fetchet, Co-Chair of Voices of 9/11
and a member of the Family Steering Commission for the
9/11 Independent Commission, in testimony to that
commission, March 31, 2003 (available at
911citizenswatch.org).
2Sydney Morning Herald, June 8, 2002,
quoted in Thompson, "Timeline," June 4,2002
3The summary of this final report of the
Joint Inquiry can be read at
http://intelligence.senate.gov/press.htm under
December 11, 2002.
4Newsday, September 23, 2001, quoted
in "Timeline," September 11, 2001 (C).
5MSNBC, September 18, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," May 15, 2002.
6Washington Post, October 2, 2001,
quoted in "Timeline," 1993 (C).
7New York Times, November 3, 2001, and
Time, April 4, 1995, cited in "Timeline," April
3, 1995.
8New York Times, June 5, 2002.
9New York Times, October 3, 2001;
Robert Novak, Chicago Sun-Times, September 27,
2001; "Western Intelligence Knew of Laden Plan Since
1995," Agence France-Press, December 8, 2001;
Washington Post, September 23, 2001; and "Terrorist
Plan to Use Planes as Weapons Dates to 1995: WTC Bomber
Yousef Confessed to US Agents in 1995," Public Education
Center Report (www. publicedcenter.org); cited in Ahmed,
83-84, and "Timeline," January 6, 1995.
10Ahmed, 84.
11Thompson, "Timeline," January 6, 1995,
quoting Washington Post, September 23, 2001.
12Associated Press, April 18, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," September, 1999.
13MDW News Service, November 3, 2000, and
Mirror, May 24, 2002, cited in "Timeline," October
24-26, 2000.
14"Timeline," May 21, 2002 (see also
September 14, 2001).
15"Timeline," September 10, 2001, and June
18, 2002.
16"Timeline," May, 2001, citing Los
Angeles Times, May 18, 2002, and the Senate
Intelligence Committee, September 18, 2001.
17Washington Post, May 17, 2002,
quoted in "Timeline," June 28, 2001.
18Independentand Reuters, both
September 7, 2002, cited in "Timeline," late July 2001
(A).
19CBS News, July 26, 2001, cited in
"Timeline," July 26, 2001.
20Associated Press, May 16, 2002, and San
Francisco Chronicle, June 3, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," July 26,2001; Washington Post, May
27, 2002, cited in "Timeline," July 26,2001.
21Agence France-Presse, November 22, 2001,
International Herald Tribune, May 21, and London
Times, May 12, 2002, cited in "Timeline," August
2001 (C).
22Robert Baer, See No Evil; The True Story
of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
(New York: Crown Pub, 2002), 270-71; Bill Gertz,
Breakdown: How America's Intelligence Failures Led to
September 11 (Washington: Regnery, 2002), 55-58; and
Financial Times, January 12, 2002; all cited in
"Timeline," August 2001 (E).
23MSNBC, September 15, 2001, and Agence
France-Presse, September 16, 2001, quoted in "Timeline,"
August 2001 (D).
24Telegraph, September 16, 2001,
Los Angela Times. September 20, 2001. Fox
News, May 17, 2002, International Herald Tribune,
May 2, 2002, and New York Times, June 4
2002, cited in "Timeline," August 6, August 30-Septcmber
4, and late summer, 2001.
25David Wastell and Philip Jacobson, "Israeli
Security Issued Warning to C1A of Large-Scale Terror
Attacks," Telegraph, September 16, 2001, quoted
in Ahmed, 114.
26Newsweek May 27, 2002, New
York Times, May 15, 2002, and DieZeit,
October 1, 2002, cited in "Timeline," August 6, 2001.
27New York Times, May 16, 2002, quoted
in Timeline," May 15, 2002.
28Guardian, May 19, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," May 15, 2002.
29Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?
(New York: Warner Books, 2003), 114. Incidentally,
although Moore's book has a less than scholarly tide and
contains much humor, it is also a serious book based on
remarkably good research. This is especially true of his
first chapter, "George of Arabia," which is discussed at
the end of this book.
30Ahmed, 118-24.
31Michael Ruppert, "Guns and Butter: The
Economy Watch," available at "The CIA's Wall Street
Connections," Centre for Research on Globalisation (http://globalresearch.ca),
quoted in Ahmed, 122.
32San Francisco Chronicle, September
29, 2001, quoted in Ahmed, 118.
33Ahmed, 120, quoting Michael Ruppert,
"Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead
Directly into the CIA's Highest Ranks," From the
Wilderness Publications (www.fromthewilderness.com or
www.copvcia.com), October 9, 2001, and United Press
International, February 13, 2001. On ECHELON, see Ahmed,
127-30.
34Independent, October 10, 2001, and
Michael Ruppert, "Suppressed Details," cited in Ahmed,
124.
35Newsweek, October 1, 2001, quoted in
Ahmed, 117.
36NEC News, October 4, 2001, quoted in Ahmed,
117.
37USA Today, June 4, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," September 10, 2001 (C).
38Los Angeles Times, December 22 and
24 and August 1, 2002, and Independent, June 6,
2002, cited in "Timeline," January 6, 1995; Knight
Ridder, June 6, and Independent, June 6, 2002,
cited in "Timeline," summer 2001.
39Independent, September 15, 2002,
cited in "Timeline," September 10, 2001 (F).
40Los Angeles Times, December 12,
2003, reporting findings of the Congressional Joint
Inquiry, cited in "Timeline," June 2001 (I).
41Associated Press and ABC News, both
September 12, 2001, cited in "Timeline," September 11,
2001 (I).
42Newsweek, September 24, 2001, quoted
in Ahmed, 125.
43Summary of the Final Report of the Joint
Inquiry (http://intelligence.
senate.gov/press.htm).
44Ahmed, 135 n. 169. Readers familiar with
evidence that US intelligence agencies had advance
knowledge of the attacks may wonder why I have not
included the case of Delmart "Mike" Vreeland. After
being jailed in Toronto on charges of fraud in August of
2001, Vreeland claimed to be an officer with US naval
intelligence. Evidently in support of this claim,
Vreeland wrote something on a piece of paper, sealed it
in an envelope, and gave it to Canadian authorities.
Then on September 14, according to a newspaper story,
these authorities opened the envelope and found that
Vreeland's note had accurately predicted the attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Vreelands
lawyers were evidently able to prove that he was indeed
a naval officer on active duty. But although there was a
lot of bitter controversy about this story, most of it
was beside the point, because Vreelands note could not
reasonably be considered a prediction of the attacks of
9/11. Besides listing several sites other than the WTC
and the Pentagon (such as the Sears Tower in Chicago and
the Parliament Building in Ottawa), it also had no
reference to 2001. The only dates on the note were 2007
and 2009. The note has been made available by From the
Wilderness Publications
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/01_28_02__vreeland.jpg
45Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation,
145, 62.
CHAPTER SIX
DID US OFFICIALS
OBSTRUCT INVESTIGATIONS PRIOR TO 9/11?
When information of some of the warnings discussed in
the previous chapter leaked out, US officials dismissed
the importance of these warnings by claiming that there
is always so much intelligence coming in that it is
often difficult to distinguish the significant
information from the "noise," meaning all the reports
that turn out to be false or insignificant. After a
catastrophe such as 9/11 happens, they say, it is unfair
to pick out those few bits of information related to it
and claim, with 20/20 hindsight, that officials should
have been able to "connect the dots." However, say
critics, even if that argument could legitimately be
used to dismiss the warnings discussed in the previous
chapter (which, they maintain, it could not), the fact
of official complicity would be strongly suggested if
there is evidence that governmental agencies had
purposely prevented investigations of al-Qaeda and
individuals thought to be connected to it. And, they
claim, such evidence does exist.
The Anti-Hunt for Osama bin
Laden and al-Qaeda
One of the main reasons for
doubting the official story about 9/11, say critics, is
evidence that, far from doing everything it could to
kill or capture bin Laden, US government officials
repeatedly failed to do so when they had opportunities.
I will summarize a few of the episodes that have been
dug up by Ahmed and Thompson.
In December of 1998, CIA Director
George Tenet reportedly circulated a memorandum in the
intelligence community that said: "We are at war," and
added: "I want no resources or people spared in this
effort, either inside CIA or the [larger intelligence]
community." But the Congressional Joint Inquiry would
later learn that there was no significant shift in
budget or personnel and that few FBI agents had ever
heard of the declaration.>1
On December 20 of 2000 Richard
Clarke, a counter-terrorism expert, submitted a plan to
roll back al-Qaeda in response to the bombing of the
USS Cole (which had occurred in October). The main
component of Clarke's plan was a dramatic increase in
covert action in Afghanistan to "eliminate the
sanctuary" for bin Laden. The Clinton administration, on
the grounds that the Bush admimstration would be taking
over in only a few weeks, passed the plan on to it. In
January however, the Bush administration rejected the
plan and took no action.>2
According to a story reported by ABC News, Julie Sirrs,
an agent for the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA),
traveled to Afghanistan twice in 2001. On her first
trip, she met with Northern Alliance leader Ahmad Masood.>3
On her second trip, she returned home with what she
later called "a treasure trove of information,"
including evidence that bin Laden was planning to
assassinate Masood (and Masood would indeed be
assassinated on September 9, as discussed in Chapter 8).
But she was met at the airport by a security officer,
who confiscated her material, after which the DIA and
the FBI investigated her. However, she said, no higher
intelligence officials wanted to hear what she had
learned in Afghanistan. Finally, her security clearance
was pulled and she resigned from the DIA.>4
In March of 2001, the Russian
Permanent Mission at the United Nations secretly
submitted "an unprecedentedly detailed report" to the UN
Security Council about bin Laden and his whereabouts,
including "a listing of all bin Laden's bases, his
government contacts and foreign advisors"—enough
information, they said, to kill him. But the Bush
administration took no action. Alex Standish, the editor
of Jane's Intelligence Review, would later
conclude that the attacks of 9/11 were not an
intelligence failure but the result of "a political
decision not to act against bin Laden.">5
By the summer of 2001, Osama bin
Laden was America's "most wanted" criminal, for whom it
was offering a $5 million bounty, and the US government
had supposedly tried to kill him. And yet in July
according to reports by several of Europe's most
respected news sources, bin Laden spent two weeks in the
American hospital in Dubai (of the United Arab
Emirates). Besides being treated by an American surgeon,
Dr. Terry Callaway, he was also reportedly visited by
the head of Saudi intelligence and, on July 12, by the
localCIA agent, Larry Mitchell. Although the reports
were denied by the CIA, the hospital, and bin Laden
himself, Dr. Callaway reportedly simply refused comment,
and the news agencies stood by their story.>6
"The explosive story," comments
Thompson, was "widely reported in Europe, but barely at
all in the US.">7 After this
story broke in November Chossudovsky, quoting Secretary
of Defense Rumsfeld's comment that finding binLaden
would be like "searching for a needle in a stack of
hay," said: "But the US could have ordered his arrest
and extradition in Dubai last July. But then they would
not have had a pretext for waging a war.">8
Hidden Connections between
Bush, bin Laden, and Saudi Royals
One of the disturbing questions
that has been raised by critics of the official account
is whether the actual relations between the Bush
administration, Osama bin Laden, and the Saudi Royal
family are not rather different from the public
portrayal of these relations. There are several grounds
for suspicion. First, the bin Laden family—one of the
wealthiest and most influential families in Saudi
Arabia—and the Bush family had business relations for
over 20 years.>9 Second,
although Osama binLadin has been portrayed as the black
sheep of the family who was disowned for his terrorist
ways—so that the "good bin Ladens" could be radically
distinguished from the "bad bin Laden"—there is much
evidence that Osama's close ties with his family
continued.>10 Third, there is
evidence that Osama bin Laden continued to receive
covert aid from America's close ally, Saudi Arabia.>11
A fourth ground for suspicion is the report that
immediately after 9/11, the US government, working with
the Saudi government, helped many members of the bin
Laden family depart from the United States, even
allowing their jets to fly before the national air ban
was lifted.>12 A fifth cause
for suspicion is the fact that when the final report of
the Joint Inquiry into 9/11 carried out by the House and
Senate intelligence committees was finally released in
2003, the administration had insisted on blocking out
some 28 pages, which reportedly dealt primarily with
Saudi Arabia. There is, finally, the simple fact that
most of the alleged hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.
These grounds for suspicion are,
furthermore, supported by reports from credible people
about continuing ties between the Saudi government,
Osama bin Laden, and al-Qaeda.
On August 22, 2001, John O'Neill,
a counter-terrorism expert who was said to be the US
governments "most commmed tracker of Osama bin Ladeen
and his al-Qaeda network of terrorists," resigned from
the FBI, citing repeated obstruction of his
investigations into al-Qaeda.>13
The previous month, O'Neill, who held one of the top
positions in the FBI had reportedly complained of
obstruction by the White House, saying that the main
obstacles to investigating al-Qaeda were "US Oil
corporate interests and the role played by Saudi
Arabia." He then added: "All the answers, everything
needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization, can
be found in Saudi Arabia.">14
O'Neill's assessment, Ahmed comments, was given support
by Tariq Ali, who wrote: "Bin Laden and his gang are
just the tentacles [of the Wahhabi octopus]; the head
lies safely in Saudi Arabia, protected by US forces.">15
The idea that any serious investigation would need to
focus on Saudi Arabia has, interestingly, been supported
more recently by Gerald Posner, an author who on most
points supports the official account of 9/11.>16
On the basis of information provided anonymously but
independently by two sources in the US government,
Possner reports on the US interrogation of the Saudi
Arabian Abu Zubaydah, one of al- Qaeda's top operatives,
who was captured in Pakistan late in March of 2002. The
interrogation, aided by thiopental sodium (Sodium
Pentothal), was carried out by two Arab-Americans
pretending to be Saudi Arabians. Relieved to be in the
presence of men he believed to be fellow countrymen,
Zubaydah became very talkative.>17
Hoping to save himself, Zubaydah
claimed that he, as a member of al-Qaeda, had been
working on behalf of senior Saudi officials. Encouraging
his interrogators to confirm his claim, he told them to
call one of King Fahd's nephews, Prince Ahmed bin Salman
bin Abdul-Aziz (chairman of a huge publishing empire and
founder of the Thoroughbred Corporation, which produced
Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem). Zubaydah even gave
them Prince Ahmed's telephone numbers from memory. When
his interrogators said that 9/11 had surely changed
everything, so that Prince Ahmed would no longer be
supportive of al-Qaeda, Zubaydah told them that it would
not have changed anything, because Prince Ahmed had
known in advance that America would be attacked on 9/11.
Zubaydah also gave from memory the phone numbers of
two other relatives of King Fahd's who could confirm his
claims: Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud and
Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir.
Less than four months later,
events occurred that suggested to Posner that Zubaydah's
testimony may have been true. Within an eight-day
period, all three of the named Saudis died. On July 22,
Prince Ahmed, who was 43, reportedly died of a heart
attack. The next day, Prince Sultan bin Faisal, who was
41, reportedly died in a single-car accident. And a week
later, Prince Fahd bin Turki, who was 21, "died of
thirst.">18
Zubaydah also said that he had
been present at several meetings between Osama bin Laden
and Prince Turki bin Faisal, the chief of Saudi
intelligence, including a meeting in Kandahar in 1998 at
which Prince Turki promised that Saudis would continue
to support the Taliban and would not ask for Osama's
extradition as long as al-Qaeda kept its promise not to
attack the Saudi kingdom. But Prince Turki—who had been
dismissed as head of Saudi intelligence ten days before
9/11, after which he became the Saudi ambassador to
Great Britain—survived the testimony about him.>19
In any case, the accounts of these
interconnections between Saudi royals, Osama bin Laden,
and al-Qaeda suggest that the American failure to
capture bin Laden may be connected with the close
relations between the Saudi royals, the bin Laden
family, and the Bush administration. According to a
story by investigative reporters Gregory Palast and
David Pallister, US intelligence agents, having long
complained that they had been "prevented for political
reasons from carrying out full investigations into
members of the bin Laden family," said that after the
Bush administration took over, things had become
worse—that they "had been told to 'back off' from
investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden
family [and] the Saudi royals.">20
Palast, elaborating on this point in an interview,
stated: "There is no question we had what looked like
the biggest failure of the intelligence community since
Pearl Harbor but what we are learning now is it wasn't a
failure, it was a directive.">21
This conclusion is supported by an American intelligence
agent, who said: "There were particular investigations
[of the bin Laden family] that were effectively killed.">22
==============
It was not, however, only with
regard to bin Laden and his family that investigations
were reportedly stifled. Ahmed and Thompson point to
several cases in which investigations of other promising
leads were apparently either obstructed or not even
initiated. These cases are especially pertinent to the
Joint Inquiry's conclusion that the attacks of 9/11 were
due to intelligence failures that were regrettable but
understandable. While pointing out that the intelligence
agencies had received more warnings than they had
admitted, the Joint Inquiry partly let them off the hook
by saying that although they had missed some important
clues, "They are the kinds of misses that happen when
people ... are simply overwhelmed.">23
In some of the following cases, agents in the field were
evidently less overwhelmed than overruled.
Ignoring the FBI in Phoenix
On July 10, 2001, Phoenix FBI
agent Ken Williams sent a now well-known memorandum to
the counterterrorism division at FBI headquarters,
warning about suspicious activities involving a group of
Middle Eastern men who were taking flight training
lessons. Williams had begun investigating them in 2000,
but early in 2001 he was reassigned to an arson
case—leading a retired agent in Phoenix to write FBI
Director Mueller after 9/11, asking: "Why take your best
terrorism investigator and put him on an arson case?"
Williams had been back on the flight-school case for
only a month when he wrote his memo. Suggesting that bin
Ladens followers might be taking flying lessons for
terrorist purposes, he recommended a national program to
track suspicious flight-school students. FBI
headquarters, however, did not institute such a program.>24
Blocking the FBI in Minneapolis
In mid-August of 2001, the staff
at a flight school in Minneapolis called the local FBI
to report their suspicion that Zacarias Moussaoui, who
had paid to train on a Boeing 747 simulator, was
planning to use a real 747 "as a weapon.">25
After the Minneapolis FBI agents arrested Moussaoui and
discovered many suspicious things about him, they asked
FBI headquarters for a warrant to search his laptop
computer and other possessions. However, even though FBI
headquarters received additional information about
Moussaoui from France—which according to French
officials clearly showed that he posed a threat
>26— senior FBI officials said
that the information "was too sketchy to justify a
search warrant for his computer.">27
But the Minneapolis agents, having seen the French
intelligence report, were "in a frenzy," with one agent
speculating that Moussaoui might "fly something into the
World Trade Center.">28
Becoming "desperate to search the computer lap top," the
Minneapolis agents sent a request through FBI
headquarters for a search warrant under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which would be
certain to grant it, because in the past its officials
had granted virtually all requests.>29
At FBI headquarters, however, the
request was given to the Radical Fundamentalist Unit (RFU),
one of whose agents criticized the Minneapolis FBI
supervisor for getting people "spun up" over Moussaoui—but
without telling this supervisor about the memo from Ken
Williams in Phoenix, which the head of the RFU had
received.>30 The Minneapolis
request was then given to RFU agent Marion "Spike"
Bowman, who lived up to his nickname by proceeding to
remove the evidence that Moussaoui was connected to al-Qaeda
through a rebel group in Chechnya. Then the FBI Deputy
General Counsel, on the basis of this edited request,
said that there was insufficient connection to al-Qaeda
for a search warrant and did not even forward the
request to FISA.>31
Minneapolis FBI legal officer Coleen Rowley asked: "Why
would an FBI agent deliberately sabotage a case?" Other
agents in the Minneapolis office joked that those at
headquarters who blocked the request "had to be spies or
moles...working for Osama bin Laden," while one agent
concluded that FBI headquarters was "setting this up for
failure.">32
It is interesting to compare this
account of what happened with the "finding" in the Joint
Inquiry's summary of its final report, which says that
"personnel at FBI Headquarters, including the Radical
Fundamentalist Unit and the National Security Law Unit,
as well as agents in the Minneapolis field office,
misunderstood the legal standard for obtaining an order
under FISA," having "the perception...that the FISA
process was lengthy and fraught with peril." According
to this finding, there was no sabotage, just
misunderstanding all around, even in Minneapolis. Given
the fact that this report was published many months
after Coleen Rowley's blistering memo, discussed below,
became part of the public record, it is puzzling how the
Joint Inquiry could have thought that the agents in
Minneapolis were confused.
In any case, the Minneapolis FBI
agents were unable to examine Moussaoui's computer and
other personal effects until after the 9/11 attacks.>33
Following that search, the former FBI Deputy Director
said that the computer contained "nothing
significant...pertaining to 9/11," but the Washington
Post cited congressional investigators as saying
that "the evidence that lay unexamined in Zacarias
Moussaouis possession was even more valuable than
previously believed," as it connected him "to the main
hijacking cell in Hamburg" and to "an al-Qaeda associate
in Malaysia whose activities [had been] monitored by the
CIA.">34 The New York Times
concluded that the Moussaoui case "raised new
questions about why the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and other agencies did not prevent the hijackings.">35
Three days after 9/11, FBI
Director Mueller, who had only recently been appointed
to this position, made his previously quoted statement:
"There were no warning signs that I'm aware of that
would indicate this type of operation in the country."
Coleen Rowley and other Minneapolis agents tried to
reach his office to make him aware of the Moussaoui case
so that his "public statements could be accordingly
modified," yet Mueller continued to make similar
comments, including his testimony in a Senate hearing on
May 8, 2002, that "there was nothing the agency could
have done to anticipate and prevent the attacks.">36
According to reports of this hearing, however, Mueller
finally had to admit that a month before 9/11, one FBI
agent had speculated "at a high-level meeting that
Moussaoui might have been taking lessons to enable him
to crash an aircraft into the World Trade Center in New
York.">37 Two weeks later,
Rowley released a long memo she had written about the
FBI's handling of the Moussaoui case, which Time
magazine called a "colossal indictment of our chief
law-enforcement agency's neglect.">38
After this memo became publicized, Mueller modified his
public stance slightly, saying: "I cannot say for sure
that there wasn't a possibility we could have come
across some lead that would have led us to the
hijackers.">39
Blocking the FBI in Chicago
In 1998, FBI agent Robert Wright
had begun tracking a terrorist cell in Chicago,
suspecting that money used for the 1998 bombings of US
embassies came from a Saudi multimillionaire living in
Chicago. In January of 2001, in spite of his belief that
his case was growing stronger, he was told that it was
being closed. In June, he wrote an internal memo
charging that the FBI, rather than trying to prevent a
terrorist attack, "was merely gathering intelligence so
they would know who to arrest when a terrorist attack
occurred.">40 In May of 2002,
Wright announced jhat he was suing the FBI for refusing
to allow him to publish a book he had written about the
affair. Included in his description of the actions of
his superiors in curtailing his investigations were
words such as "prevented," "thwarted," "obstructed,"
"threatened," "intimidated," and "retaliation.">41
In a later interview, reporting that he had been told
that his case was being closed because it was "better to
let sleeping dogs lie," he said: "Those dogs weren't
sleeping, they were training, they were getting
ready.... September the 11th is a direct result of the
incompetence of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit."
Chicago federal prosecutor Mark Flessner, who also
worked on the case, evidently thought that something
other than incompetence was involved, saying that there
"were powers bigger than I was in the Justice Department
and within the FBI that simply were not going to let
[the building of a criminal case] happen.">42
Blocking the FBI in New York
On August 28, 2001, the FBI office
in New York, believing Khalid Almihdhar—who would later
be named as one of the hijackers—had been involved in
the bombing of the USS Cole, tried to convince
FBI headquarters to open a criminal investigation. But
the New York request was turned down on the grounds that
Almilidhar could not be tied to the Cole
investigation without the inclusion of sensitive
intelligence information. One New York agent expressed
his frustration in an e-mail letter, saying, "Whatever
has happened to this—someday someone will die—and...the
public will not understand why we were not more
effective.... Let's hope the [FBI's] National Security
Law Unit will stand behind their decisions then,
especially since the biggest threat to us now, UBL [Usama
bin Laden], is getting the most 'protection.'">43
Justice for a Spy
Sibel Edmonds and Can Dickerson
were both hired by the FBI as translators after the 9/11
attacks. Edmonds soon informed her superiors that
Dickerson had previously worked for a particular foreign
organization, which was being investigated by the FBI,
and that Dickerson was mistranslating, or even not
translating at all, sensitive information regarding this
organization. Edmonds informed her superiors,
furthermore, that Dickerson had threatened her for
refusing to work as a spy for this organization. But,
Edmonds reported, the FBI failed to respond to her
complaints, which she had made more than once, so in
March she wrote a letter to the Inspector General of the
Department of Justice, soon after which she was fired.
Claiming that she was fired for whistleblowing, she
sued. In October, at FBI Director Mueller's request,
Attorney General Ashcroft, appealing to the privilege of
state secrets "to protect the foreign policy and
national security interests of the United States," asked
a judge to throw out Edmonds' lawsuit.>44
Critics wonder, of course, why the national security of
the United States would be protected by ignoring a claim
that a spy for a foreign organization being investigated
by the FBI was sabotaging that investigation.
Schippers and FBI Agents Versus
the US Government
On September 13, 2001, Attorney
David Schippers—who was the Chief Investigative Counsel
for the US House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee
in 1998 and its chief prosecutor for the impeachment of
President Clinton in 1999—publicly stated that he had
attempted to warn Attorney General Ashcroft about
attacks planned for "lower Manhattan" six weeks
beforehand, based on information he had received from
FBI agents. In this and subsequent statements, Schippers
said that the dates and targets of the attacks as
well as the names and funding sources of the hijackers
were known by these agents months in advance. Schippers
claimed further that the FBI curtailed these
investigations, then threatened the agents with
prosecution if they went public with their information.
At that time, Schippers further stated, the agents asked
him to try to use his influence to get the government to
take action to prevent the attacks. Having failed in
that effort, Schippers agreed to represent some of the
agents in a suit against the federal government, during
which, if subpoenaed, they would be able to tell their
story without fear of prosecution.>45
Because of this suit, Schippers—like
the public interest law firm Judicial Watch, which
joined forces with him on this case—is not a
disinterested witness. But Schippers' allegations have
been corroborated, Ahmed points out, in a story by
William Norman Grigg in a conservative rnagazine, The
New American. Gngg, having interviewed three FBI
agents reported that they had confirmed "that the
information provided to Schippers was widely known
within the Bureau before September 11th." One of them
reportedly said that some of the FBI field agents—who
were some of the "most experienced guys"—"predicted,
almost precisely, what happened on September 11th." He
also said that it was widely known "all over the Bureau,
how these [warnings] were ignored by Washington.">46
These reports make even more
puzzling how the Joint Inquiry could have concluded, as
mentioned in the previous chapter, that none of the
information available to the intelligence community
"identified the time place, and specific nature of the
attacks that were planned for September 11, 2001." It
seems that at least one US intelligence agency had this
kind of very specific advance knowledge.
Visa and Watch List Violations
Immediately after 9/11, a number
of irregularities regarding the alleged hijackers became
known. It was learned, for example, that Mohamed Atta,
considered the ringleader, was allowed back in the
United States three times in 2001, in spite of the fact
that he had let his visa expire in 2000, had violated
his visa by taking flying lessons, was known to have
terrorist connections, and was under FBI surveillance.
It was reported, furthermore, that evidently over 50
people were involved in planning 9/11. These facts led
to this criticism in a review by Accuracy in Media
(AIM):
Yet the conspirators proceeded
unmolested. What is striking is how safe these people
apparently felt, how unthreatened by law
enforcement.... They left and entered the country
unimpeded. Some were reportedly on the so-called
"watch list".... Yet this apparently caused them no
problems.>47
The critics suspect, of course,
that something other than incompetence might account for
this pattern.
The Question of the True
Identity of the Hijackers
Although this issue does not,
strictly speaking, belong in this chapter, I should
explain why I have been qualifying "hijackers" with the
adjective "alleged." One of the unanswered questions
about 9/11 is whether the hijackings were really carried
out by any of the men later named.Shortly after the
attacks, stories appeared in newspapers suggesting that
at leastfive of the men identified by the FBI as 9/11
hijackers were still alive, and these stories were
supported by reports of "stolen identities.">48
The Saudiembassy in Washington, reports Meyssan, said
that Abdulaziz al-Omari (supposedly the pilot of Flight
11, which crashed into the North Tower of the WTC),
Mohand al-Shehri, Salem al-Hazmi, and Saeed al-Bhamdi
were all alive and living in Saudi Arabia. Meyssan also
says that a fifth alleged hijacker, Waleed M. al-Shehri,
"gave an interview to the Arab-language daily, Al-Quds
al-Arabi, based in London.">49
One report even said that "investigators are studying
the possibility that the entire suicide squad consisted
of impostors.">50 FBI Director
Mueller, however, later claimed: "We at this point
definitely know the 19 hijackers who were responsible.">51
"Yet many of the names and photos are known to be
wrong," says Thompson. "Perhaps embarrassing facts would
come out if we knew their real names.">52
Another report that creates
suspicion regarding the official story, according to
which the hijackers were "fundamentalist" Muslims, is
that between May and August of 2001, several of the
alleged hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, reportedly
made at least six visits to Las Vegas, during which they
drank alcohol, gambled, and frequented strip clubs,
where they had lap dances performed for them.>53
Is this something that true believers would do shortly
before going on a suicide mission to meet their maker?
There are also grounds for
suspicion that evidence was planted to connect some of
the alleged hijackers to the flights. On 9/11, for
example, authorities found two of Attas bags, which
failed to get loaded onto Flight 11. These bags
contained various items, including flight simulation
manuals for Boeing airplanes, a copy of the Koran, a
religious cassette tape, a note to other hijackers about
mental preparation, and Attas will, passport, and
international drivers license. A reporter for the New
Yorker later wrote:
many of the investigators
believe that some of the initial clues that were
uncovered about the terrorists' identities and
preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be
found. A former high-level intelligence official told
me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately—for
the FBI to chase."
As Thompson asks, why would Atta
have planned to bring his will "onto a plane he knew
would be destroyed?">54 Also
suspicious was the discovery, a few blocks from the WTC
on the day after 9/11, of the passport of alleged
hijacker Satam al-Suqami.>55
One newspaper— reflecting the fact that it was widely
but mistakenly reported that the passport belonged to
Atta—said "the idea that Atta's passport had escaped
from that inferno unsinged [strains] credulity.">56
These stories suggest that the
truth about what happened on 9/11 may be even further
from the official account than suggested by the evidence
I have cited prior to this section. Meyssan, for
example, proposes that "the FBI invented a list of
hijackers from which it drew an identikit portrait of
the enemies of the West.">57 I
will, however, not pursue this question further.
=============
This chapter obviously provides
additional evidence against any position weaker than the
third possible view, because it suggests that at least
one US agency—the FBI—had specific advance knowledge of
the plot and took deliberate steps to prevent this plot
from being uncovered.
Tyrone Powers, a former FBI
special agent, is quoted by Ahmed as saying that within
the intelligence community, "on occasion, [damaging]
acts are allowed if in the minds of the decision makers,
they will lead to 'greater good.'" One of the FBI agents
interviewed by Grigg for The New American said:
"There's got to be more to this than we can see....
Obviously, people had to know.... Its terrible to think
this, but this must have been allowed to happen as part
of some other agenda.">58 The
critics of the official account have some suggestions as
to what this agenda might have been.
FOOTNOTES to chapter 6
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1New York Times,
September 18, 2002, cited in Thompson, "Timeline,"
December 4, 1998.
2"Timeline," January 25, 2001.
3This man's name is also sometimes spelled
Massood, Massoud, Masoud, and Masud. I have followed
Chossudovsky's spelling, Masood.
4ABC News, February 18, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," 2001 (this item is placed at the beginning
of the items for 2001).
5Jane's Intelligence Review, October
5, 2001, quoted in "Timeline," March 7, 2001.
6Richard Labeviere, "CIA Agent
Allegedly Met Bin Laden in July," Le Figaro,
October 31; Anthony Sampson, "CIA Agent Alleged to Have
Met bin Laden in July," Guardian, November 1;
Adam Sage, "Ailing bin Laden 'Treated for Kidney
Disease,'" London Times, November 1; Agence
France-Presse, November 1; Radio France International,
November 1; and Reuters, November 10, 2001; cited in
"Timeline," July 4-14 and July 12, 2001, and in Ahmed,
207-09.
7"Timeline," July 4-14, 2001.
This statement (quoted in Ahmed, 209) occurs in
Chossudovsky's Introduction to Labeviere's Le Figaro
article (see note 6), which is on the website of the
Centre for Research on Globalisation (www.globalresearch.ca/
articles/RIClllB.html), November 2, 2001.
9See the evidence in the section entitled
"Bush and Bin Laden Family Ties" in Ahmed, 179-87.
10See the section entided "Osama: Not a Black
Sheep," in Ahmed, 178-79.
11See the sections entided "Osama and the
Saudis: A Covert Alliance," "The US-Saudi Alliance," and
"Osamagate?" in Ahmed, 187-202.
12Patrick E. Tyler, "Fearing Harm, Bin Laden
Kin Fled from US," New York Times, September 30,
2001, and Jane Mayer, "The House of Bin Laden: A
Family's, and a Nation's, Divided Loyalties," New
Yorker, November 12, 2001. (Michael Moore reports
that it was reading these stories that first made him
suspicious about the official account of 9/11; see
Dude, Where's My Country [New York: Warner Books,
2003], 3-5.)
13New Yorker, January 14, 2002, cited
in "Timeline," August 22, 2001 (B).
14CNN, January 8, 2002, and Lara Marlowe, "US
Efforts to Make Peace Summed Up by Oil," Irish Times,
November 19, 2001, cited in "Timeline," Mid-July
2001 and Ahmed, 206.
15Ahmed, 191-92, quoting Tariq Ali, "The Real
Muslim Extremists," New Statesman, October 1,
2001. A "Wahhabi" is a follower of Wahhabism, the
extreme form of Muslim "fundamentalism" dominant in, and
promoted by, Saudi Arabia.
16On Posner's general perspective about 9/11,
see note 31 of the Introduction, above.
17Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The
Failure to Prevent 9/11 (New York: Random House,
2003), 181-88. Posner's case for the credibility of this
account is that, besides the fact that it was provided
independently by two informants within the US
government, he also had independent confirmation of the
described interrogation techniques from a member of the
Defense Intelligence Agency (180n.).
18Ibid., 188-93.
19Ibid., 193.
20Gregory Palast and David Pallister, "FBI
Claims Bin Laden Inquiry Was Frustrated," Guardian,
November 7, 2001, quoted in Ahmed, 111.
21"Above the Law: Bush's Radical Coup d'Etat
and Intelligence Shutdown," Green Press, February
14, 2000 (www.greenpress.org), quoted in Ahmed, 186.
22Palast and Pallister, "FBI Claims Bin Laden
Inquiry Was Frustrated," quoted in Ahmed, 111.
23"Excerpts from Report on Intelligence
Actions and the September 11 Attacks," New York
Times, July 25, 2003.
24New York Times, May 19 and 20,
Fortune, May 22, and Los Angeles Times, May
26, 2002, cited in "Timeline," July 10 and December,
2001.
25New York Times, February 8, 2002,
quoted in "Timeline," August 13-15, 2001.
26This warning was reported in Jean-Charles
Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth: US-Taliban
Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden
(New York: Thunders Mouth Press/Nation Books, 2002),
53-55. Brisard is a former agent of the French secret
service. Wayne Madsen, in his introduction to the book,
says that when the book was first published in France in
November of 2001, "skeptics inside and outside the US
government scoffed at the authors' contention that
French intelligence had warned the FBI about the
terrorist connections and ongoing flight training in the
United States of Zacarias Moussaoui," but that they were
then confronted with "incontrovertible validation of
this information" when Coleen Rowley's memo became
public (xv).
27Time, August 4, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," August 15 and August 22, 2001.
28Newsweek, May 20, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," August 23-27, 2001.
29Time, May 21 and May 27, and New
York Times, August 27, 2002, quoted in "Timeline,"
August 23-27, 2001.
30Senate Intelligence Committee, October 17,
2002, and Time, May 21,2002, cited in "Timeline,"
August 24-29, 2001.
31Senate Intelligence Committee, October 17,
2002, cited in "Timeline," August 28, 2001 (B).
32Time, July 21 and 27, 2002, and
Sydney Morning Herald, July 28, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," August 23-27 and August 28, 2001.
33Time May 21 and 27, and Sydney Morning
Herald, May 28, 2002' cited in "Timeline," August 23-27
and August 28, 2001.
34Washington Post, June 6, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," June 3, 2002.
35New York Times, December 22, 2001,
quoted in Ahmed, 95.
36Senate Intelligence Committee, September
18, Time, May 21, and New York Times, May
30, 2002, cited in "Timeline," May 8, 2002.
37Ian Bruce, "FBI 'Super Flying Squad' to
Combat Terror," Herald, May 16, 2002, quoted in
Ahmed, 112, who also refers to Brian Blomquist, "FBI
Man's Chilling 9/11 Prediction," New York Post,
May 9, 2002 (www.nypost.com).
38Time, May 27, 2002 quoted in
"timeline" May 21, 2001 (A)"
39New York Times, May 30, 2002, quoted
in "Timeline," May 21, 2001 (A).
40United Press International, May 30, 2002,
quoted in "Timeline," June 9, 2001.
41LA Weekly, August 2, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," May 30, 2002.
42ABC News, November 26 and December 19,
2002, quoted in "Timeline," October, 1998.
43Congressional Intelligence Committee,
September 20, 2002, and New York Times, September
21, 2002, quoted in "Timeline," August 28, 2001 (A).
44Washington Post, May 19, Cox News,
August 14, and Associated Press, October 18, 2002, cited
in "Timeline," March 22, 2002.
45Alex Jones Show, October 10; World Net
Daily, October 21; "David Schippers Goes Public: The
FBI Was Warned," Indianapolis Star, October 13;
and "Active FBI Special Agent Files Complaint Concerning
Obstructed FBI Anti-Terrorist Investigations,
"Judicial Watch, November 14, 2001; cited in Ahmed,
107-09, and "Timeline," late July 2001 (B).
46William Norman Grigg, "Did We Know What Was
Coming?", New American 18/5: March 11, 2002 (www.thencwamerican.com),
cited in Ahmed, 110-11.
47Catastrophic Intelligence Failure,"
Accuracy In Media (www.aim.org), September 24, 2001,
quoted in Ahmed, 95-97.
48New York Times, September 21,
Telegraph, September 23, 2001, and BBC, August 1,
2002, cited in "Timeline," September 16-23, 2001.
49Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 54.
50London Times, September 20, 2001.
51Associated Press, November 3, 2002.
52"Timeline," September 16-23, 2001. One more
intriguing bit of information that Thompson gives
involves the reported telephone call from Amy Sweeney, a
flight attendant on Flight 11, to American Airlines
ground manager Michael Woodward, which began shortly
after the plane was hijacked and continued until the
plane hit the WTC. According to reports, she identified
four hijackers, but they were not the four said
to be on the plane (Thompson [8:21 AM], citing Boston
Globe, November 23, 2001, and ABC News, July 18,
2002 Thompson adds that the Boston Globe says
that it has a transcript of the call.
53"Timeline," May 2001 [Q), citing San
Francisco Chronicle, October 4, and Newsweek,
October 15, 2001.
54Timeline," September 11, 2001 (J), citing
Associated Press, October 5, 2001, Boston Globe,
September 18, and Independent, September 29,
2001, along with New Yorker October 1, 2001.
55ABC News, September 12 and 16, and
Associated Press, September 16, 2001, cited in
Timeline," September 12, 2001.
56Guardian, March 19, 2002.
579/11: The Big Lie, 56.
58Ahmed, 132, 110-11, quoting Dennis Shipman,
"The Spook Who Sat Behind the Door A Modern Day Tale,"
IndyMedia, May 20, 2002 (http://portland.indymedia.org),
and William Norman Grigg, "Did We Know What Was Coming?"
New American 18/5: March 11, 2002 (www.thenewamerican.com).
CHAPTER SEVEN
DID US OFFICIALS HAVE
REASONS FOR ALLOWING 9/11?
The wars waged by the US government in Afghanistan and
Iraq have been portrayed as part of its "war on
terrorism." These wars have been, in other words,
justified as responses to the terrorist attacks
of 9/11. However, say critics of the official account,
these wars were actually on the agenda of the Bush
administration long before the attacks. Furthermore,
they claim, these wars were part of an even larger
agenda.
Pre-9/11 Plans to Attack
Afghanistan
With regard to Afghanistan, Ahmed,
drawing on various sources,>1
calls it a matter of public record that "corresponding
with the growing shift in US policy against the Taliban,
a military invasion of Afghanistan was planned long
before 11th September.">2
Ahmed and Thompson both suggest that at least one of the
fundamental purposes behind this plan was to facilitate
a huge project of a consortium of oil companies known as
CentGas (Central Asia Gas Pipeline). This consortium,
which includes Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia, was formed by
Unocal, one of the oil giants of the United States, to
build pipelines through Afghanistan and Pakistan for
transporting oil and gas from Turkmenistan to the Indian
Ocean. In September of 2000, a year before 9/11, an
Energy Information Fact Sheet, published by the US
government, said:
Afghanistan's significance from
an energy standpoint stems from its geographic
position as a potential transit route for oil and
natural gas exports from Central Asia to the Arabian
Sea. This potential includes proposed multibillion
dollar oil and gas export pipelines through
Afghanistan.>3
At one time, Unocal and Washington
had hoped that thcTaliban would provide sufficient
stability for their project to move forward, but they
had lost this hope.
Providing some background, Ahmed
and Thompson explain that the Taliban was originally
created by the CIA, working in conjunction with
Pakistan's ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), with
additional financial support from Saudi Arabia.>4
According to Ahmed Rashid's well-known book Taliban,
the pipeline project was central to this support:
Impressed by the ruthlessness
and willingness of the then-emerging Taliban to cut a
pipeline deal, the State Department and Pakistan's
Inter-Services Intelligence agency agreed to funnel
arms and funding to the Taliban.>5
When the Taliban, with this
financial support from Saudi Arabia and the CIA funneled
through the ISI, conquered Kabul in 1996, Unocal was
hopeful that it would provide enough stability to allow
its pipelines to be built and protected. Indeed, it was
reported, "preliminary agreement [on the pipeline
project] was reached between the [Taliban and Unocal]
long before the fall of Kabul.">6
Unocal even reportedly provided some of the financial
support for the Taliban.>7 The
fact that the Taliban continued to serve the purposes of
the ISI is illustrated, Thompson points out, by the fact
that when Taliban troops were about to conquer the major
city in northern Afghanistan in 1998, an ISI officer
sent a message saying: "My boys and I are riding into
Mazar-i- Sharif.">8 In any
case, after the Taliban conquered this city, it had
control of most of Afghanistan, including the entire
pipeline route. CentGas then announced that it was
"ready to proceed.">9
Later that year, however, Unocal,
having become dubious about the Talibans ability to
provide sufficient stability, pulled out of CentGas.
From then on, says Ahmed, "the US grew progressively
more hostile toward the Taliban, and began exploring
other possibilities to secure its regional supremacy,
while maintaining basic ties with the regime, to
negotiate a non-military solution.">10
The final attempt to find a
non-military solution reportedly occurred at a four-day
meeting in Berlin in July of 2001. The Bush
administration tried to get the Taliban to share power,
thereby creating a joint government of "national unity."
According to the Pakistani representative at the
meeting, Niaz Naik, one of the Americans said "either
the Taliban behave as they ought to...or we will use
another option..a military operation" Another American
reportedly told the Taliban: "Either you accept our
offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under a carpet
of boobs.">11 Although one of
the Americans later denied that such a threat was made,
one of them confirmed it, saying: "I think there was
some discussion of the fact that the United States was
so disgusted with the Taliban that they might be
considering some military action.">12
According to a BBC report,
furthermore, Naik said that he was told by senior
American officials that "military- action against
Afghanistan would go ahead by the middle of
October"—that it would take place "before the snows
started falling in Afghanistan, by the middle of October
at the latest.">13 Thompson,
noting that the United States started bombing
Afghanistan on October 7, asks: "Is it coincidence that
the attacks begin exactly when the US said they would,
months before 9/11?">14 The
supposition that it was not simply a coincidence
is supported by an account from a former member of the
South Carolina National Guard, who later declared:
My unit reported for drill in
July 2001 and we were suddenly and unexpectedly
informed that all activities planned for the next two
months would be suspended in order to prepare for a
mobilization exercise to be held on Sept. 14, 2001. We
worked diligently for two weekends and even came in on
an unscheduled day in August to prepare for the
exercise. By the end of August all we needed was a
phone call, which we were to expect, and we could hop
into a fully prepared convoy with our bags and
equipment packed.>15
If this report is true, it
suggests that it was known in July that the attacks
would occur shortly before September 14. In any case,
Niaz Naik also did not think that mere coincidence was
involved. The BBC report quoted him as saying that he
"was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center
bombings, this pre-existing US plan had been built upon
and would be implemented within two or three weeks."
Naik also said it was doubtful
that Washington would drop its plan even if bin Laden
were to be surrendered immediately by the Taliban,
because "the wider objective was to topple the Taleban
[sic] regime and install a transitional government.">16
Ahmed and Thompson find this assessment of the wider
objective, along with the view that included
facilitating the pipeline project, to be confirmed by
subsequent events, such as the fact commented upon in
the following statement by a writer in an Israeli
newspaper:
If one looks at the map of the
big American bases created, one is struck by the fact
that they are completely identical to the route of the
projected oil pipeline to the Indian Ocean.... If I
were a believer in conspiracy theory, I would think
that bin Laden is an American agent.>17
Thompson and Ahmed also point out
that both the new Afghani prime minister, Hamid Karzai,
and President Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan,
Zalamy Khalilzad, were previously on Unocals payroll.
These appointments, Ahmed adds, "illustrate the
fundamental interests behind US military intervention in
Afghanistan.">18 As early as
October 10, Ahmed further notes, the US Department of
State had informed the Pakistani Minister of Oil that
"in view of recent geopolitical developments," Unocal
was ready to go ahead with the pipeline project.>19
In light of this background, Ahmed concludes that 9/11
was more the "trigger" than the reason for the US war in
Afghanistan.>20
Pre-9/11 Plans to Attack Iraq
In a statement in early March of
2002, President Bush, after saying that he was not very
concerned about Osama bin Laden, added: "I am deeply
concerned about Iraq.">21
Thompson and Ahmed believe that this was not a recent
concern, that the war against Iraq, like the war against
Afghanistan, had already been planned by US officials
prior to 9/11.
Part of the evidence for this
claim is found in the document Rebuilding America's
Defenses: Strategy, Forces, and Resources for a New
Century, which I briefly mentioned in the
Introduction. This document was published in September
of 2000 by the Project for the New American Century (PNAC),
a neo-conservative think tank that was formed by many
people who went on to become insiders in the Bush
admnistration, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld,
Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy at the Defense
Department), and Lewis "Scooter" Libby (Cheney's Chief
of Staff) >22 With regard to
the question of whether the 2003 war against Iraq was
really motivated by the perceived need to eliminate
Saddam, as these men would then claim, the following
passage in Rebuilding America's Defenses (quoted
by Thomspon) is relevant:
The United States has for
decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf
regional security. While the unresolved conflict with
Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need
for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf
transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.>23
The main thing, in other words,
was getting a "substantial American force presence in
the Gulf," with Saddam providing the "immediate
justification." Edward Herman also points to the
importance of this document for assessing the sincerity
of the public rationale given for the war: "Key members
of the Bush administration," points out Herman, "had
announced an aim of 'toppling Saddam Hussein back in
2000 in the publication of the Project for the New
American Century.">24
This group made an even earlier
statement of this aim in a letter to President Clinton
in January of 1998, urging him to adopt a strategy aimed
at "the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power."
This letter, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz,
and Richard Perle, among others, urged Clinton "to take
the necessary steps, including military steps, to
protect our vital interests in the Gulf," adding that
"American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a
misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security
Council.">25
In supporting the contention that
9/11 was more a pretext than a reason for the attack on
Iraq, Thompson quotes a report that Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld, only a few hours after the Pentagon had been
struck, wrote a memo saying that he wanted the "best
info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam
Hussein] at same time. Not only UBL [Usama bin Laden].
Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.">26
Thompsons contention is given additional support by John
Pilger, who cites Bob Woodwards report that the next day
at the meeting of the National Security Council,
Rumsfeld said that Saddams Iraq should be targeted in
the first round of the war on terrorism.>27
Critics can, furthermore, point to
both actions and statements during and after the war
that support their contention that the war had much more
to do with oil and regional control than it did with the
announced purposes for the war. Whereas the Bush and
Blair administrations claimed that the war was to remove
weapons of mass destruction, through which Saddam
Hussein posed a threat to his neighbors and even the
United Kingdom and the United States, the intelligence
behind this assessment has been widely reported to have
been distorted, even invented. Sir Jonathan Porritt,
head of the Sustainable Development Commission, which
advises Blair's government on ecological issues,
publicly stated that the prospect of winning access to
Iraqi oil was "a very large factor" in the allies'
decision to attack Iraq in March, adding: "I don't think
the war would have happened if Iraq didn't have the
second-largest oil reserves in the world." Paul O'Neill,
Bush's former Treasury Secretary, has said that the Bush
administration had from the outset planned to attack
Iraq, in large part for its oil.>28
The fact that oil was of
preeminent importance was demonstrated Stephen Gowans
says, by the fact that
the top item on the Pentagon's
agenda, once it gave the order for jackboots to begin
marching on Baghdad, was to secure the oil fields in
southern Iraq. And when chaos broke out in Baghdad, US
forces let gangs of looters and arsonists run riot
through "the Ministry of Planning, the Ministry of
Education, the Ministry of Irrigation, the Ministry of
Trade, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Culture and the
Ministry of Information." ...But at the Ministry of
Oil, where archives and files related to all the oil
wealth Washington has been itching to get its hands
on, all was calm, for ringing the Ministry was a
phalanx of tanks and armoured personnel carriers.>29
The suspicion that Iraq was not
attacked primarily for the publicly stated reasons is
also suggested by the evidence that the Bush
administration planned to use its post-9/11 "war on
terrorism" as a pretext for attacks on still other
countries. A report in Newsweek for example, said
that prior to the attack on Iraq, some of Bush's
advisors advocated also attacking Saudi Arabia, Iran,
North Korea, Syria, and Egypt. One senior British
official was quoted as saving: "Everyone wants to go to
Baghdad. Real men want to go to Tehran.">30
One of those "real men" was
Richard Perle, a founding member of PNAC, who has been
quoted as describing America's "war on terrorism" in
these words:
This is total war. We are
fighting a variety of enemies. There are lots of them
out there. All this talk about first we are going to
do Afghanistan, then we will do Iraq.... [T]his is
entirely the wrong way to go about it. If we just let
our vision of the world go forth, and....just wage a
total war...our children will sing great songs about
us years from now.>31
This kind of vision could give
fanaticism a bad name.
It is now increasingly recognized
that insofar as the United States is waging a war on
terrorism, "terrorism" is being defined in a very
selective, self-serving way. "For Bush," Meyssan says,
"terrorism seems to be defined as any form of violent
opposition to American leadership.">32
Richard Falk likewise saw that it soon became clear that
the "war on terrorism was being waged against all
non-state revolutionary forces perceived as hostile to
American global interests." What is really going on, in
other words, is "an empire-building project undertaken
behind the smokescreen of the war on global terror.">33
Phyllis Bennis agrees, saying that "the war [on
terrorism] was never about bringing anyone to justice;
it was about conquest and the mushrooming of US global
power, all in the name of righteous vengeance.">34
Chossudovsky, Mahajan, and countless other critics have
made the same point.
In any case, it is now widely
agreed that the Bush administration (as well as Blair's
government) lied about the reasons for attacking Iraq.
Is it not time to expand this question to whether it
also lied about the event itself, 9/11, that was used as
the primary justification for the wars against
Afghanistan and Iraq and the even larger agenda of the
Bush administration?
A New Pearl Harbor Would Help
With regard to this larger agenda,
both Ahmed and Thompson refer to the 1997 book by former
National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, The
Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic
Imperatives. Besides portraying the Eurasian
landmass as the key to world power, Brzezinski portrayed
Central Asia, with its vast oil reserves, as the key to
the domination of Eurasia. Having summarized this
argument, Ahmed and Thompson point to Brzezinskis
statement that ensuring continued "American primacy" by
getting control of this region will require "a consensus
on foreign policy issues" within the American public
Getting such consensus, however, will be difficult,
because "America is too democratic at home to be
autocratic abroad," a fact that "limits the use of
America's power, especially its capacity for military
intimidation." Continuing his analysis of the defects in
the American character, Brzezinski explained that "the
pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular
passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or
challenge to the public's sense of domestic well being.">35
Therefore, he counseled, the needed consensus on foreign
policy issues will be difficult to obtain "except in the
circumstance of a truly massive and widely perceived
direct external threat.">36
Ahmed connects this passage to an earlier one, in which
Brzezinski said that the American public, which is
ambivalent about "the external projection of American
power," had "supported America's engagement in World War
II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbor.">37
Ahmed's point is that if those two
passages are read together, the kind of "widely
perceived direct external threat" said to be needed
would be Pearl Harbor type of event. Brzezinski's book,
authored by a former national security advisor, cannot
be considered simply one book among hundreds offering
advice to the government. Although Brzezinski advised a
Democratic president (Jimmy Carter), he is a hard liner
who has reportedly been highly regarded by the Bush
administration.
It is perhaps not merely
coincidental, therefore, that three years after
Brzezinskis apparent wish for a Pearl-Harbor-type event
was published, the aforementioned publication of the
Project for the New American Century would contain a
similar passage. Although this passage has previously
been cited, it is important to emphasize that it comes
in the context of a call for the completion of the
"revolution in military affairs," through which a Pax
Americana, or "American Peace," can be more
efficiently established. Unfortunately, according to
this document's authors, the needed transformation would
probably come about slowly "absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.">38
If a new Pearl Harbor were to occur, in other words,
this completion of the revolution in military affairs
could be brought about more quickly, because the massive
funding needed could be obtained. It was in response to
this prediction that John Pilger made the assertion,
quoted in the Introduction, that "[t]he attacks of 11
September 2001 provided the 'new Pearl Harbor.'">39
What kind of changes did these advocates of American
dominance outline, and has the New Pearl Harbor helped
bring them about?
Missile Defense and a Space
Pearl Harbor
It is important to realize that
the centerpiece of the "revolution in military affairs"
is a program to weaponize and hence dominate space. This
program will require much of the massive increase in
funding for "defense" for which Brzezinski and the
Project for the New American Century have called. The
purpose of this program is spelled out quite explicitly
in a document called "Vision for 2020," which begins
with this mission statement: "US Space
Command—dominating the space dimension of military
operations to protect US interests and investment.">40
Its primary purpose, in other words, is not to protect
the American homeland, but to protect American
investments abroad. It makes this point even more
explicit by comparing the importance of the Space
Command today with the fact that in previous times
"nations built navies to protect and enhance their
commercial interests." It is to dominate space to
protect the commercial interests of America's elite
class that, according to current projections, over $1
trillion will be required from American taxpayers.>41
The "Vision for 2020" document
engages in no sentimental propaganda about the need for
the United States to dominate space for the sake of
promoting democracy or otherwise serving humanity.
Rather, it says candidly, if indiscreetly: "The
globalization of the world economy...will continue with
a widening between 'haves' and 'have-nots.'" In other
words, as America's domination of the world economy
increases, the poor will get still poorer while the rich
get still richer, and this will make the "have-nots"
hate America all the more, so we need to be able to keep
them in line. We can do this through what the advocates
of this program originally called "Global Battlespace
Dominance." Because some people found this term too
explicit, the preferred term today is "Full Spectrum
Dominance" (which provided the tide for a previously
quoted book by Rahul Mahajan). This term means not only
being dominant on land, on the sea, and in the air, as
the US military is already, but also having control of
space. Discussing this "American project of global
domination associated with the weaponization of space,"
Richard Falk says: "The empire-building quest for such
awesome power is an unprecedented exhibition of
geopolitical greed at its worst, and needs to be exposed
and abandoned before it is too late.">42
The only part of this program that
has received much public discussion is the defensive
aspect of it, which in the Reagan Administration was
called the Strategic Defensive Initiative and is today
called the Missile Defense Shield. Although these names
suggest that America's goal in space is purely
defensive, this so-called shield is only one part of a
three-part program. One of the other parts is putting
surveillance technology in space, with the goal of being
able to zero on any part of the planet with such
precision that every enemy of US forces can be
identified. This part is already well on the way to
realization.>43 The third part
of the prograrn - which shows that the informal name for
this program, "Star Wars," is more accurate than its
technical name - is putting actual weapons in space,
including laser cannons. These lasercannons have the
offensive potential, as one writer put it, to "make a
cruise missile look like a firecracker.">44
With lazer weapons on our satellites, the United States
will be able to destroy the military satellites any
adversarial country would try to send up, and this is,
indeed, part of the announced intention: "to deny others
the use of space." The US Space Command could thereby
maintain total and permanent dominance. The aggressive
purpose of the US Space Command's program is announced
in the logo of one of its divisions: "In Your Face from
Outer Space.">45
It is not only in this document
that such aggressive aims are frankly stated. As Mahajan
points out, the Project for the New American Century's
document makes the following "remarkable admission":
In the post-Cold-War era,
America and its allies...have become the primary
objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran
and North Korea who most wish to develop deterrent
capabilities. Projecting conventional military
forces—will be far more complex and constrained when
the American homeland...is subject to attack by
otherwise weak rogue regimes capable of cobbling
together a minuscule ballistic missile force. Building
an effective...system of missile defenses is a
prerequisite for maintaining American preeminence.>46
In other words, although the name
"missile defense shield" suggests that the system is
designed to shield America from attacks, its real
purpose is to prevent other nations from deterring
America from attacking them. This statement
further suggests that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea were
later determined by President Bush to deserve the title
"axis of evil" because of their perverse wish to develop
the capacity to deter the United States from projecting
military force against them. The Project's description
of the US military's role in these offensive terms is
fully in accord with the Bush administrations
National Security Strategy, published in 2002,
which, besides embodying most of the recommendations of
Rebuilding America's Defenses, says that "our
best defense is a good offense.">47
The most important new component of this offense is to
be the "full spectrum dominance" afforded by
complementing America's land, air, and sea forces with a
full-fledged Space Force.
Shortly before becoming Secretary
of Defense in January of 2001, Ronald Rumsfeld completed
his work as chairman of the Commission to Assess US
National Security Space Management and Organization.
This "Rumsfeld Commission," as it was informally known,
published its report in the second week of January.>48
The aim of its proposals, it said, was to "increase the
asymmetry between US forces and those of other military
powers." Besides advocating the termination of the 1972
ABM Treaty (which the Bush administration acted on
promptly), this report recommended substantial changes,
including the subordination of all the other armed
forces and the intelligence agencies to the Space Force.
Recognizing that such a drastic reorganization of the
armed forces and intelligence agencies would normally
evoke great resistance, the report added:
History is replete with
instances in which warning signs were ignored and
change resisted until an external, "improbable" event
forced resistant bureaucracies to take action. The
question is whether the US will be wise enough to act
responsibly and soon enough to reduce US space
vulnerability. Or whether, as in the past, a disabling
attack against the country and its people—a "Space
Pearl Harbor"—will be the only event able to galvanize
the nation and cause the US Government to act.>49
We have, accordingly, yet another
suggestion by a central figure in the Bush
administration that another "Pearl Harbor" may be
necessary to "galvanize the nation."
This report was released on
January 11, 2001, exactly nine months before the US
suffered attacks from the air that our defenses
appeared to be helpless to prevent. And the primary
response evoked by these attacks was a sense of
America's vulnerability. The chairman of the
commission that issued the above report was,
furthermore, well placed to take advantage of those
attacks and the resulting sense of "US space
vulnerability." As Meyssan points out, at a press
conference that began at 6:42 PM on 9/11 itself,
Rurnsfeld, now Secretary of Defense, used the attacks to
browbeat Democratic Senator Carl Levin, who was then
chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee (during the
brief period of the Bush administration during which
Democrats had control of the Senate). Before live
camera, Rumsfeld said:
Senator Levin, you and other
Democrats in Congress, have voicedfear that you simply
don't have enough money for the large increase in
defense that the Pentagon is seeking, especially for
missile defense, and you fear that you'll have to dip
into the Social Security funds to pay for it. Does
this sort of thing convince you that an emergency
exists in this country to increase defense spending,
to dip into Social Security, if necessary, to pay for
defense spending --increase defense spending?>50
It does appear that the attacks of
9/11 provided Rumsfeld with what he thought could pass
for "a Space Pearl Harbor," and he seemed remarkably
prepared to take advantage of it.
Furthermore, if US officials were
involved in facilitating the attacks of 9/11 Rumsfeld
was not the only one with great interest in the Space
Command. Its other primary advocate was its current
commander, General Ralph E. Eberhart, who in his role as
commander of NORAD was in charge of air traffic control
on 9/11." Also, General Richard Myers, who was in the
process of becoming the new chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff and was the Acting Chairman on 9/11, had
previously been head of the US Space Command. Known by
some as "General Starwars," he was in charge during the
writing of "Vision for 2020," with its quite explicit
expression of the intent to get absolute control of
space so that the Pentagon can protect American
commercial interests while they are increasing the gap
between the "haves" and the "have-nots" of the world.
Accordingly, the three men who have been most identified
with advocacy of the US Space Force are also the three
figures who would have been most directly involved in
promulgating and overseeing a "stand down" order on
9/11, if such was given.
============
The evidence summarized in this
chapter shows that officials of the Pentagon and the
Bush administration would have had many reasons— from
their plans for Afghanistan and Iraq to their desire for
massive funding to weaponize space—for allowing, if not
planning, the attacks of 911.Some of this evidence
points to the truth of at least the seventh possible
view—that the White House had specific knowledge of the
attacks in advance, knowing that they would occur, for
example in time to launch a war against Afghanistan
before the winter snows started. Some of the evidence
even suggests the eighth view, according to which the
White House was involved in the planning. It is possible
of course, that although central figures of the Bush
administration evidently desired "a new Pearl Harbor,"
they did not plan the attacks but simply learned that
they had been planned by others, so that all they had to
do was to make sure that the attacks were not prevented.
Yet with all that was apparently
riding on the occurrence of a new Pearl Harbor,
reasonable people could conclude that the White House
would not have left this occurrence to chance.
A Precedent: Operation
Northwoods
All the information summarized so
far arguably presents strong evidence pointing to US
complicity in the attacks of 9/11 involving US
intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, and the White
House. But regardless of how strong this evidence may be
considered, many and perhaps most Americans will resist
the idea that this "attack on America" could have been
an inside job, staged by America's own leaders. The
primary responsibility of the president and vice
president, their cabinet, US intelligence agencies, and
US military leaders is to protect America and its
citizens. Even if the official account of 9/11 leaves
dozens of unanswered questions, the true account cannot,
many Americans will assume, be that American political
and military leaders colluded to allow, much less stage,
the attacks of 9/11- Regardless of the benefits that may
have been foreseen if a "new Pearl Harbor" were to
occur; our military and political leaders would not have
participated in a plan to bring about such an event. We
feel that we know a priori that all conspiracy
theories of this type are false, because American
military and political leaders simply would not do such
a thing.
In 1962, however, a plan was
formulated that provides a partial precedent, a plan
about which we now know because of recently declassified
documents. The background to this plan was President
Eisenhower's request to the CIA, near the end of his
administration, to come up with a pretext to invade
Cuba. The CIA formulated "A Program of Covert Operations
Against the Castro Regime," the goal of which was "the
replacement of the Castro regime with one more devoted
to the true interests of the Cuban people and more
acceptable to the US, in such a manner to avoid any
appearance of US intervention.">52
Eisenhower had approved this plan. But after the next
president, John Kennedy, accepted a CIA plan that led to
the Bay of Pigs fiasco, he had responsibility for Cuba
taken away from the CIA and assigned it to the
Department of Defense Early in 1962, the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Lyman Lemnitzer brought
Kennedy a plan called Operation Northwoods.>53
According to the covering
"Memorandum for the Secretary of Defense," signed by all
the Joint Chiefs, this plan, marked Top Secret described
"pretexts which would provide justification for US
military intervention in Cuba.">54
According to the "Memorandum for Chief of Operations,
Cuba Project," a decision to intervene "will result from
a period of heightened US-Cuban tensions which place the
United States in the position of suffering justifiable
grievances." It was important, the memorandum said, "to
camouflage the ultimate objective." Part of the idea was
to influence world opinion in general and the United
Nations in particular "by developing the image of the
Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an
alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the
Western Hemisphere.">55
The plan then listed a series of
possible actions to create this image. For example: "We
could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the
Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in
Washington...We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute
to Florida (real or simulated).">56
Particularly interesting, in light of some of the
proposed scenarios as to "what really happened" on 9/11
(see Ch. 1, n. 32), is the following idea:
It is possible to create an
incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a
Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered
civil airliner.... The destination would be chosen
only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The
passengers could be a group of college students off on
a holiday....
a. An aircraft at Eglin AFB
would be painted and numbered as an exact duplication
for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CIA
proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a
designated time the duplication would be substituted
for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with
the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully
prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would
be converted to a drone.
b. Take off times of the drone
aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to
allow a rendezvous south of Florida. From the
rendezvous point the passenger-carrying aircraft will
descend to minimum altitude and go directly into an
auxiliary field at Eglin AFB where arrangements will
have been made to evacuate the passengers and return
the aircraft to its original status. The drone
aircraft meanwhile will continue to fly the filed
flight plan. When over Cuba the drone will being [sic]
transmitting on the international distress frequency a
"MAY DAY" message stating he is under attack by Cuban
MIG aircraft. The transmission will be interrupted by
destruction of the aircraft which will be triggered by
radio signal.>57
In this and some of the other plans, although casualty
lists would be placed in US newspapers to "cause a wave
of national indignation,">58
the subterfuge would not actually result in the loss of
life. But this was not true of all of the plans, such as
the plan to "sink a boatload of Cubans." At least one
plan, furthermore, would have taken the lives of
Americans. According to this idea, called a "Remember
the Maine" incident: "We could blow up a US ship in
Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba.">59
Kennedy rejected this plan, even
though it was endorsed by all the joint chiefs. Those
who say that, although military leaders might formulate
such plans, an American president would never agree to
such a despicable plan can point to this rejection as
evidence. However, different presidents, in different
circumstances, make different decisions. For example, in
the early 1890s, a plan to annex Hawaii was rejected by
President Grover Cleveland, whose secretary of state
considered the plan "a selfish and dishonourable scheme
of a lot of adventurers." But this scheme was accepted
by the next president, William McKinley
>60 (who was also the one who
used the Maine incident to justify entering the
war against Spain in order to take control of Cuba,
Puerto Rico, and the Philippines). Accordingly, the fact
that Kennedy turned down that particular plan at that
particular time—shortly after the Bay of Pigs
embarrassment—does not necessarily mean that all
American presidents in all circumstances would turn down
plans to achieve geopolitical goals through "incidents"
involving the taking of innocent lives, even innocent
American lives.>61
===============
The evidence in this chapter, in
any case, provides further support for the conclusion of
Michel Chossudovsky, only partially quoted earlier, that
the post-9/11 American war "is not a campaign against
international terrorism. It is a war of conquest... [a]
nd the American people have been consciously and
deliberately deceived by their government.">62
The next chapter will provide one more kind of evidence
presented by the critics for this conclusion.
FOOTNOTES chapter 7
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1These sources include
Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden
Truth: US—Taliban Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed
Hunt for Bin Laden (New York: Thunder's Mouth
Press/Nation Books, 2002), and .Ahmed Rashid, Taliban:
Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).
2Ahmed, 55.
3Quoted in Phyllis Bennis, Before and
After US Foreign Policy and the September llth Crisis
(Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, 2003), 129.
This quotation occurs in a section of her book headed
"Oil, Oil Everywhere,"
4Ahmed, 46-48, and Thompson,
"Timeline," 1994 (B), citing Times of India,
March 7, 2001, Asia Times, November 15, 2001, and
CNN, October 5, 1996, and February 27, 2002.
5Rashid, Taliban, as quoted in Ted
Rail, "It's All about Oil," San Francisco Chronicle,
November 2, 2001.
6Telegraph, October 11, 1996, quoted
in Timeline," September 27, 1996.
7P. Stobdan, The Afghan Conflict and
Regional Security," Strategic Analysis 23/5
(August 1999): 719-47, cited in Ahmed, 50.
8"Timeline," August 9, 1998, quoting New
York Times, December 8, 2001.
9"Timeline," quoting Telegraph, August
13, 1998.
10Ahmed, 50-51.
11Julio Godoy, "US Taliban Policy Influenced
by Oil," Inter Press Service, November 16, 2001, quoted
in Ahmed, 58-59.
12Jonathan Steele, et al, "Threat of US
Strikes Passed to Taliban Weeks Before NY Attack,"
Guardian, September 22, 2001, quoted in Brisard and
Dasquié, Forbidden Truth, 43, and Ahmed, 60.
13George Arney, "US 'Planned Attack on
Taleban'," BBC News, September 18,2001, quoted in Ahmed,
60-61. (Taleban" is a spelling used by some British
writers.)
14"Timeline," October 7, 2001 (B). 15Micheal
C. Ruppert, "A Timliine Surrounding September 11th,"
From the Wilderness Publications (www.fromthewilderness.com),
item 94. citing the account as published on the Common
Dreams website (www.commondreams.org/views02/0614-02.htm).
16George Arney, "US 'Planned Attack on
Tafeban'," BBC News, September 18, 2001, quoted in
Ahmed, 60-61.
17This statement from the Israeli newspaper
Ma'ariv was quoted in the Chicago Tribune,
February 18, 2002, which is in turn quoted in
"Timeline," February 14, 2002.
18"Timeline," December 22, 2001, and January
1, 2002, and Ahmed, 260.
19Ahmed, 227, citing Frontier Post,
October 10, 2001.
20Ahmed, 60-61.
21White House, March 13, quoted in
"Timeline," March 13, 2002.
22In 1992, Wolfowitz and Libby were
reportedly the principal authors of a draft of the
Defense Planning Guidance document that, having been
leaked to the New York Times, caused a furor
because of its overtly imperialistic language. Although
this draft was withdrawn, its main ideas reappeared in
the Project for the New American Century's 2000
publication, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy,
Forces and Resources for a New Century (available at
www.newamericancentury.org). On this episode, see Andrew
Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and
Consequences of US Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2002), 43-46 (although Bacevich,
referring to this document as the "Wolfowitz
Indiscretion," does not mention Libby's participation).
23"Timeline," September 2000, citing
Scotland Sunday Herald, September 7, 2002, which was
quoting Rebuilding America's Defenses (see
previous note).
24Edward Herman, "The Manufactured and Real
Iraq Crisis," ZNet Commentary, February 3, 2003.
25This letter, dated January 26, 1998, is
available at the website for the Project for the New
American Century (www.newamericancentury.org).
26Thompson, "September 11" (2:40 PM), quoting
CBS News, September 4, 2002.
27John Pilger, New Statesman, December
12, 2002, citing Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 49. Woodward adds:
"Before the attacks, the Pentagon had been working for
months on developing a military option for Iraq" and "Rumsfeld
was raising the possibility that they could take
advantage of the opportunity offered by the terrorist
attacks to go after Saddam immediately." Woodward also
points out that Rumsfeld was thereby echoing the
position of his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.
28Porritt's statement is quoted in James
Kirkup, "US, UK Waged War on Iraq Because of Oil, Blair
Adviser Says," May 1, 2003 (http://quote.bloomberg.com),
which is reprinted on Michael Rupperts website, From the
Wilderness Publications (www.fromthewilderness.com or
www.copvcia.com). Paul O'Neill's charge is contained in
a book by former Wall Street Journal reporter Ron
Susskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the
White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (New
York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), and in an interview on
CBS's "60 Minutes" on January 11, 2004. According to
O'Neill, who was a member of the National Security
Council, the main topic within days of the inauguration
was going after Saddam, with the issue being not "Why
Saddam?" or "Why Now?" but merely "finding a way to do
it." Susskind, whose book is primarily based on
interviews with O'Neill and other officials, says that
already in January and February of 2001 the Bush
administration was discussing an occupation of Iraq and
the question of how to divide up Iraq's oil (see story
at www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/09/60minutes/main592330.shtml).
29Stephen Gowans, "Regime Change in Iraq: A
New Government by and for US Capital," ZNet,
April 20, 2003, quoting Robert Fisk, Independent,
April 14, 2003.
30Thompson, "Timeline," 59, August 11, 2002,
citing Newsweek, August 11, 2002.
31John Pilger, New Statesman, December
12, 2002. Although Perle talks in public about using war
to bring democracy to the world, he knows that it has
other uses. Shortly before the recent war in Iraq, he
gave a talk to clients of Goldman Sachs about
moneymaking opportunities that would arise from the
imminent invasion. His "total war" vision was suggested
by the ride of the talk, which was: "Implications of an
Imminent War Iraq Now. North Korea Next?" See Maureen
Dowd, "Perle's Plunder Blunder," New York Times,
March 23, 2003, and Stephen Gowans, "Regime Change in
Iraq: A New Government by and for US Capital," ZNet,
April 20, 2003.
32Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 130.
33Richard Falk, The Great Terror War
(Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, 2002), 108, 5.
34Bennis, Before and After, 163.
35Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand
Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic
Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 35-36.
36Ibid., 212, quoted in Ahmed, 73-77, and
Thompson, "Timeline," 1997.
37Ibid., 24-25, quoted in Ahmed, 77.
38John Pilger, New Statesman, December
12, 2002, quoting the Project for the New American
Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 51- The
heading of Pilger's article reads: "Two years ago a
project set up by the men who now surround George W.
Bush said what America needed was 'a new Pearl Harbor.'
Its published aims have, alarmingly, come true."
39Ibid.
40This document is available at
www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace It is discussed in Jack Hitt,
"The Next Battlefield May Be in Outer Space," New
York Times Magazine, August 5, 2001, and Karl
Grossman, Weapons in Space (New York: Seven
Stories, 2001).
41This figure is reported in rhe Global
Network Space Newsletter #14 (Fall, 2003), which is
posted on the website of the Global Network Against
Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space
(www.space4peace.org).
42Falk, The Great Terror War, xxvii.
Falk continues: "If this project aiming at global
domination is consummated, or nearly so, it threatens
the entire world with a kind of subjugation, and risks
encouraging frightening new cycles of megaterrorism as
the only available and credible strategy of resistance."
43The developments achieved already by 1998
are described in George Friedman and Meredith Friedman,
The Future ofWar. Power, Technology and American
World Dominance in the 21st Century (New York: St.
Martin's, 1998).
44Jack Hitt, "The Next Battlefield May Be in
Outer Space."
45Ibid. For a brief overview of this project,
see Karl Grossman's Weapons in Space.
46The Project for the New American
Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 54;
quoted in Mahajan, Full Spectrum Dominance: US Power
in Iraq and Beyond (New York: Seven Stories Press,
2003), 53-54.
47The National Security Strategy of the
United States of America (Washington: September
2002), 6. As John Pilger concluded (see note 38, above),
most of the suggestions made in the Project for the New
American Century's document were enacted by the Bush
administration. This is not surprising, of course, given
the overlap in personnel.
48Report of the Commission to Assess US
National Security Space Management and Organization
(www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi).
49Ibid., quoted in 9/11: The Big Lie,
151-52.
50Department of Defense News Briefing on
Pentagon Attack (www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi),
quoted in 9/11: The Big Lie, 152.
519/11: The Big Lie, 154.
52"A Program of Covert Operations Against the
Castro Regime," April 16, 1961 (declassified CIA
document), quoted in 9/11: The Big Lie, 140.
53This plan has come to be somewhat widely
known through James Bamford's discussion of it in his
Body of Secrets.
54This memorandum is printed in 9/11: The
Big Lie, 198.
55This memorandum is printed in 9/11: The
Big Lie, 199-205. The passages quoted here are on
page 199.
56Ibid., 202-203.
57Ibid., 204.
58Ibid., 202.
59Idem. The extent to which another precedent
was provided by the original Pearl Harbor is a question
for another occassion.
60See Richard Van Alstyne, The Rising
American Empire (1960; New York: Norton, 1974),
177-79.
61John Pilger points to evidence that
President George W. Bush has adopted a plan somewhat
reminiscent of Operation Northwoods. Describing a secret
army set up by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld ("similar
to those run by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger and
which Congress outlawed"), Pilger reports that according
to a classified document, this secret army, known as
"the Proactive Preemptive Operations Group," will
provoke terrorist attacks that would then require
"counter-attack" by the United States on countries "harbouring
the terrorists" (Pilger, New Statesman, December
12, 2002, citing a report by military analyst William
Arkin, "The Secret War," Los Angeles Times,
October 27, 2002).
62Chossudovsky, War and Clabalisation,
62.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DID US OFFICIALS
BLOCK CAPTURES AND INVESTIGATIONS AFTER 9/11?
Having suggested that the "new Pearl Harbor" that
occurred on 9/11 served as a pretext for a
pre-established agenda, the critics then argue that US
behavior after 9/11 supports this view. Portions
of this behavior—namely, the wars against both
Afghanistan and Iraq—were mentioned in the previous
chapter. The present chapter summarizes evidence
pointing to other examples of US behavior after 9/11
that point, according to critics, to the falsity of the
official account.
Continuing the Anti-Hunt for
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda
Ahmed and Thompson provide
considerable evidence that although the war in
Afghanistan was supposedly to root out al-Qaeda and bin
Laden— taking him, in President Bush's language, "dead
or alive"—the actual objective must have been something
else, since there were several instances in which the
government and its military commanders seemed at pains
to allow bin Laden and al-Qaeda to escape.
For example, according to many
residents of Kabul, a convoy of al-Qaeda forces, thought
to include its top leaders, made a remarkable escape
during one night in early November of 2001. A local
businessman said:
We don't understand how they
weren't all killed the night before because they came
in a convoy of at least 1,000 cars and trucks. It was
a very dark night, but it must have been easy for the
American pilots to see the headlights. The main road
was jammed from eight in the evening until three in
the morning.
Thompson comments: "With all of
the satellite imagery and intense focus on the Kabul
area at the time, how could such a force have escaped
the city unobserved by the US?">1
Also early in November, US
intelligence agencies, having watched al-Qaeda fighters
and leaders move into the area of Jalalabad, reported
that bin Laden himself had arrived. According to
Knight-Ridder newspapers, this is what happened next:
American intelligence analysts
concluded that bin Laden and his recreating fighters
were preparing to flee across the border. But the US
Central Command, which was running the war, made no
move to block their escape. "It was obvious from at
least early November that this area was to be the base
for an exodus into Pakistan," said one intelligence
official, who spoke only on condition of anonymity.
"All of this was known, and frankly we were amazed
that nothing was done to prepare for it.">2
Shortly thereafter, on November
14, the Northern Alliance captured Jalalabad. That
night, a convoy of "several hundred cars" holding 1,000
or more al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, evidently
including bin Laden, escaped from Jalalabad and reached
the fortress of Tora Bora. US forces bombed the nearby
Jalalabad airport, but apparently not the convoy.>3
On November 16, approximately 600
al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters, including many senior
leaders, reportedly escaped from Afghanistan, by taking
a long trek to escape the bombing in the Tora Bora
region. Although there are two main routes from the Tora
Bora region to Pakistan, US planes bombed only one of
these routes, so that the 600 men were able to escape
unharmed by using the other one. Hundreds more
reportedly continued to use this escape route over the
next weeks, generally not bothered by US bombing or
Pakistani border guards.>4 One
Afghan intelligence officer reportedly said that he was
astounded that the Americans did not station troops to
block the most obvious exit routes. The Telegraph
later said: "In retrospect, and with the benefit of
dozens of accounts from the participants, the battle for
Tora Bora looks more like a grand charade." Eyewitnesses
expressed shock, it said, that US forces pinned in
Taliban and al-Qaeda forces, thought to contain many
high leaders, on three sides only, leaving the route to
Pakistan open. An intelligence chief in Afghanistan's
new government was quoted as saying: "The border with
Pakistan was the key, but no one paid any attention to
it.">5
A Special Forces soldier stationed
in Fayetteville, North Carolinalater stated that on
November 28, US forces had bin Laden pinned in a Tora
Bora cave but failed to act. While Special Forces
soldiers were waiting for orders, he said, they watched
two helicopters fly into the area where bin Laden was
believed to be, load up passengers, and fly toward
Pakistan. This statement, made on condition of
anonymity, is given more credibility, Thompson points
out, by the fact that Newsweek separately
reported that many Tora Bora locals claimed that
"mysterious black helicopters swept in, flying low over
the mountains at night, and scooped up al-Qaeda's top
leaders.">6 "Perhaps just
coincidentally," Thompson adds, the same day that this
story was reported there was also a story reporting that
five soldiers at Fayetteville—at least three of whom
were Special Forces soldiers who had recently returned
from Afghanistan—and their wives had died since June in
apparent murder-suicides.>7
In late December of 2001, the new
Afghan interior minister, Younis Qanooni, claimed that
the ISI had helped bin Laden escape from Afghanistan.>8
For critics of the official account, this claim is
significant given the fact that the Bush administration
has considered Pakistan a partner in its post-9/11
efforts.
In March of 2002, this apparent
lack of interest in killing or capturing bin Laden was
put into words by the president himself, who said of bin
Laden: "He's a person who's now been marginalized...!
just don't spend that much time on him...I truly am not
that concerned about him." The suspicion that the war
was never about bin Laden, which Bush's statement could
be taken to imply, was explicitly stated, Thompson
points out, a month later by General Richard Myers, who
said that "the goal has never been to get bin Laden.">9
Another American official was quoted as making an even
more revealing statement, saying that "casting our
objectives too narrowly" risked "a premature collapse of
the international effort if by some lucky chance Mr. bin
Laden was captured.">10 A way
of making sense of all this was provided by George
Monbiot, who wrote a week after 9/11:
If Osama bin Laden did not
exist, it would be necessary to invent him. For the
past four years, his name has been invoked whenever a
US president has sought to increase the defence budget
or wriggle out of arms control treaties. He has been
used to justify even President Bush's missile defence
programme.... Now he has become the personification of
evil required to launch a crusade for good: the face
behind the faceless terror.... [H]is usefulness to
western governments lies in his power to terrify. When
billions of pounds of military spending are at stake,
rogue states and terrorist warlords become assets
precisely because they are liabilities.>11
Monbiots statement, in conjunction
with the American officicial's concern about a
"premature collapse of the international effort,"
provides apossible explanation as to why the "hunt for
bin Laden" was unsuccessful.
Concealing the Role of
Pakistan's ISI
As we saw earlier, the CIA and its
counterpart in Pakistan, the ISI, worked together in the
late 1990s to create the Taliban and ensure its victory.
This point is reinforced by Chossudovsky, who says:
"Without US support channeled through the Pakistani ISI,
the Taliban would not have been able to form a
government in 1996.">12
Furthermore, he says, just as without the ISI there
would have been no Taliban government in Kabul, "without
the unbending support of the US government, there would
be no powerful military-intelligence apparatus in
Pakistan.">13 This close
relationship between the CIA and the ISI goes back to
the 1980s, during which the ISI was the local agency
through which the CIA conducted its covert operation in
Afghanistan, which began in 1979. The CIA and the ISI
recruited radical Muslims from around the world to form
the Mujaheddin to fight against Soviet forces.>14
Osama bin Laden was originally brought to Pakistan to
help with this effort. Although he was under contract to
the CIA, "the CIA gave Usama free rein in Afghanistan,
as did Pakistan's intelligence generals"—Ahmed quotes
John Cooley as saying—and bin Laden used that free rein
and his accumulated wealth to begin organizing al-Qaeda
in 1985.>15 In the late 1980s,
Pakistan's President Benazir Bhutto, seeing how strong
the Mujaheddin movement was becoming, told President
Bush: "You are creating a Frankenstein.">16
Then in the late 1990s, after the CIA had worked with
the ISI to create the Taliban, South East Asia
specialist Selig Harrison who knew CIA agents, reports
that he warned them that they "were creating a monster.">17
And if both al-Qaeda and the
Taliban were reportedly becoming monstrous, the same was
said of the ISI itself. After the withdrawal of the
Soviet Union from Afghanistan, the ISI, which had at the
instigation of the CIA begun producing heroin in order
to turn Soviet soldiers into addicts, began smuggling
its heroin into Western countries, using the huge
profits to build itself up. As a result, said one
analyst, the ISI became a "parallel structure wielding
enormous power over all aspects of government." Time
magazine later confirmed this analysis, saying that the
"notorious" ISI "is commonly branded 'a state within the
state,' or Pakistan's 'invisible government,'" and a
story in the New Yorker called the ISI "a parallel
government of its own.">18
This history of the ISI, with its
links to the CIA on the one hand and al-Qaeda and the
Taliban on the other, is important in light of evidence
that these links were never broken. Chossodovsky,
rejecting the view that the "Osama-CIA links belong to
the 'bygone era' of the Soviet-Afghan war," asserts:
"The CIA has never severed its ties to the 'Islamic
Militant Network.'">19 And
Ahmed quotes Selig Harrison's statement, made in March
of 2001, that "[t]he CIA still has close links with the
ISI.">20
These links are also supported by
an investigator with a very different political
perspective from Ahmed's and Chossudovky's, Gerald
Posner. I cited earlier Posners report on the
interrogation of Abu Zubaydah insofar as it dealt with
Zubaydah's claim that his al-Qaeda activities were
carried out on behalf of Saudi officials. Zubaydah also
reportedly said that it was on behalf of Pakistani
officials. "According to Zubaydah," reports Posner,
he was present in 1996, in
Pakistan, when bin Laden struck a deal with Mushaf Ali
Mir, a highly placed military officer with close ties
to some of the most pro-Islamist dements in ISI. It
was a relationship that was still active and provided
bin Laden and al-Qaeda protection, arms, and supplies.>21
Posner also reports that, just as
three of the Saudis identified by Zubaydah died within
four months, the same fate befell Musfaaf Ali Mir seven
months later. On February 20, 2003, he, his wife, and
many of his closest confidants were killed when their
air force plane—which had recently passed
inspection—went down in good weather.>22
Accordingly, although Posner accepts the official
American position on most issues, he here presents
evidence against the US attempt to distance the
Pakistanis, portrayed as good, from bin Laden and al-Qieda,
portrayed as evil.
In any case, the importance of the
fact that the ISI continued to be closely linked with
both the CIA and al-Qaeda may have been made manifest by
a discovery coming shortly after 9/11 - This was the
disovery that an ISI agent, Saeed Sheikh, had made a
wire transfer of $100.000 to Mohamed Atta's bank
accounts in Florida, and that he had done this at the
instruction of none other than General Mahrnoud Ahmad,
the Director of the ISI.>23
Accordingly, the ISI, which had continued to work
closely with the CIA, was discovered to have secretly
sent money to the man considered to be the ringleader of
the 9/11 terrorists. This "damning link," as Agence
France-Press called it, was reportedly first revealed to
the US government by the Indian government.>24
The discovery of this transfer
took on even more potential significance when it was
learned that General Mahmoud Ahmad had been in
Washington on 9/11—having, in fact, been there from
September 4 until several days after 9/11. During this
period, he reportedly met with CIA Director George Tenet
until September 9, then met with officials in the
Pentagon, the National Security Council, and the State
Department, as well as with the chairmen of the House
and Senate Intelligence committees. The News, a
leading newspaper in Pakistan, made this significant
comment on September 10: "What added interest to
[General Ahmad's] visit is the history of such visits.
Last time [his] predecessor was [in Washington], the
domestic [Pakistani] politics turned topsy-turvy within
days." The reference, Thompson points out, is to the
coup of October 12, 1999, when General Musharraf took
over the government—after which he made General Ahmad,
who had been instrumental to the success of the coup,
the Director of the ISI.>25
Big things also happened on the
occasion of this visit, and not only the attacks of 9/11
itself. On September 9, the leader of the Northern
Alliance, Ahmad Masood, was the victim of an
assassination, which the Northern Alliance declared to
be the work of the ISI. That this assassination followed
immediately upon extended conversations between the head
of the ISI and the head of the CIA is especially
significant, suggests Chossudovsky, in light of the fact
that the United States had long been seeking to "weaken
Masood, who was perceived as a nationalist reformer."
Suggesting that this assassination "served US
interests," Chossudovsky adds that after Masood was
dead, "the Northern Alliance became fragmented into
different factions. Had Masood not been assassinated, he
would have become the head of the post-Taliban
government formed in the wake of the US bombings of
Afghanistan.">26 These
reflections provide a possible explanation of the
treatment of Julie Sirrs by the Defense Intelligence
Agency, discussed in Chapter 6.
The significance of Masoods
assassination was perhaps alluded to by John O'Neill,
the investigator who had resigned from the FBI after
having his attempts to investigate al-Qaeda obstructed.
On September 10, the day after Masood's assassination,
O'Neill moved into his new office in the North Tower of
the WTC, where he had become director of security, and
on 9/11 he was one of the people killed. On the night of
September 10, he had reportedly told a colleague: "We're
due for something big. I don't like the way things are
lining up in Afghanistan.">27
From the perspective of the
critics of the official account of 9/11, the fact that
Masood was assassinated while the ISI chief was visiting
Washington might have been one of the reasons Washington
tried to keep this visit quiet. In any case, a
comparison of transcripts of Condoleezza Rice's press
conference on May 16, 2002, suggests, believes
Chossudovsky, that the Bush administration did want to
keep General Ahmads presence in Washington from being
widely known. The transcript from the Federal News
Service shows that the following interchange occurred:
QUESTION: Are you aware of the
reports at the time that the ISI chief was in
Washington on September 11th, and on September 10th,
$100,000 was wired from Pakistan to these groups in
this area? And why he was here? Was he meeting with
you or anybody in the administration?
MS. RICE: I have not seen that
report, and he was certainly not meeting with me.
Besides the question whether it is
credible that the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency
would meet with the National Security Council but not
with the president's National Security Advisor, the
other suspicious thing is that, as pointed out by
Chossudovsky, the White House version of this transcript
begins thus:
QUESTION: Dr. Rice, are you
aware of the reports at the time that (inaudible) was
in Washington on September 11th...?
This version of the transcript,
which—unlike the transcript from the Federal News
Service—does not contain the information that the person
being discussed was "the ISI chief," was the one
reported on the CNN show "Inside Politics" later that
day.>28
The suspicion that US officials
wanted to conceal the ISI connection is also suggested
by the evidence, raised by Chossudovsky, that the FBI,
in reporting on the connection with Pakistan, did not
specifically mention General Ahmad, Saeed Sheikh, or the
ISI. For example, Brian Ross of ABC News reported that
he had been told by federal authorities that they had
"tracked more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan."
Ross also reported that according to Time
magazine, "some of that money ... can be traced directly
to people connected to Osama bin Laden.">29
The FBI's way of reporting the story, saying that the
money came from "people connected to Osama bin Laden,"
diverted attention from General Ahmad, Saeed Sheikh, and
the ISI. Indeed, thus laundered, the potentially
embarrassing discovery about the transfer of money was
used to confirm the official account—that primary
responsibility for the attacks belonged to Osama bin
Laden.
Later evidence suggested that
Saeed Sheikh had transferred even more money to Atta.
Thompson says that evidently $100,000 was transferred in
2000 and another $100,000 on August 11 of 2001, and that
it is not clear to which of these transfers the story
that broke in October referred.>30
Also, the New York Times suggested that a total
of about $325,000 was transferred to Atta's Florida
accounts by one "Mustafa Ahmed," and this name was
thought by some, including the Guardian and CNN,
to be an alias for Saeed Sheikh.>31
This individual's final transfers to Atta's account
occurred on September 8 and 9.>32
"These last-minute transfers," Thompson reports, "are
touted as the 'smoking gun' proving al-Qaeda involvement
in the 9/11 attacks, since Saeed is a known financial
manager for bin Laden." However, Thompson asks, "since
Saeed also works for the ISI, aren't these transfers
equally a smoking gun of ISI involvement in the 9/11
attacks?">33
Chossudovsky takes this thought a
step further, calling the story of the ISI's transfer of
money to Atta, in conjunction with the presence of the
ISI chief in Washington during the week, "the missing
link behind 9-11." According to his summary statement:
The 9-11 terrorists did not act
on their own volition. The suicide hijackers were
instruments in a carefully planned intelligence
operation. The evidence confirms that al-Qaeda is
supported by Pakistan's ISI [and it is amply
documented that] the ISI owes its existence to the
CIA.>34
Chossudowski, accordingly,
believes that this evidence suggests possible complicity
by "key individuals within the US military-intelligence
Establishment," adding: "Whether this amounts to
complicity on the part of the Bush administration
remains to be firmly established. The least one can
expect at this stage is an inquiry.">35
Chossudowsky is not alone in his
musings on the possibility that the money transfer might
point to direct US involvement in the planning of 9/11.
Ahmed and Jared Israel both ask whether the long-time
connection between the CIA and the ISI might mean that
US financial aid was funneled to al-Qaeda through the
ISI.>36 This possibility is
also suggested by a story in the Pittsburgh
Tribune-Review, which said: "There are many in
Musharraf's government who believe that Saeed Sheikh's
power comes not from the ISI, but from his connections
with our own CIA. The theory is that...Saeed Sheikh was
bought and paid for.">37
Ahmed, realizing that the
suggestion of CIA financing is speculative, believes
that what happened next at least demonstrated that
Washington did not want the continuing relationship
between al-Qaeda and the ISI explored. On October 8,
just before the beginning of the bombing campaign in
Afghanistan, General Ahmad gave up his position with the
ISI. Although it was publicly announced that he had
decided it was time to retire, a story in the Times
of India said: "the truth is more shocking." This
more shocking truth was that after India had given US
officials evidence of the money transfer ordered by
General Ahmad, he had been quietly dismissed after "US
authorities sought his removal.">38
For Ahmed, this behavior suggests a cover-up:
The US, which one would think
would be spearheading a full-scale investigation into
the role of the ISI, actually prevented one from going
ahead by asking from behind the scenes for the ISI
chief...to quietly resign....
By pressuring the then ISI
Director-General to resign without scandal on the
pretext of reshuffling, while avoiding any publicity
with respect to his siphoning of funds to alleged lead
hijacker Mohamed Area, the US had effectively blocked
any sort of investigation into the matter. It
prevented wide publicity of these facts, and allowed
the ISI chief, who was clearly complicit in the
terrorist attacks of 11 th September, to walk away
free.
Whatever the motivations behind
such a cynical policy, it is indisputable that the US
response at least suggests a significant degree of
indirect complicity on the part of the US government,
which appears more interested in protecting, rather
than investigating and prosecuting, a military
intelligence agency that funded the lead hijacker in
the WTC and Pentagon attacks.>39
Chossudovsky likewise finds it
disturbing that "the Bush administration refuses to
investigate these ISI links.">40
Another possible connection
between the ISI and 9/11 is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,
identified by the US government as the mastermind of the
9/11 attacks (as well as one of the planners of Project
Bojinka, the 1993 bombing of the WTC, and the bombing of
the USS Cole). In 1999, according to reports, he
repeatedly visited Atta's apartment in Hamburg.>41
As we saw earlier, the day before 9/11 he evidently gave
Atta final approval during a telephone call intercepted
by the NSA. All this is generally known (with the
proviso that, according to the NSA, it did not translate
the content of that call until after 9/11). What has
rarely been mentioned, however, is evidence that
Mohammed, a Pakistani, had links to the ISI. One of the
few exceptions to this silence was Josef Bodansky, the
director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism
and Unconventional Warfare, who stated in 2002 that
Mohammed was related to the ISI, which had acted to
shield him.>42 If this is
correct, then the day before 9/11, Mohamed Atta was
given money by one ISI agent (Saeed Sheikh) and final
authorization by another ISI agent (Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed). We will see below, furthermore, that
there is evidence that Saeed and Mohammed worked closely
together on another ISI-related operation.
Further Evidence that the ISI
Should Be Investigated
Critics of the official account of
9/11 report that in addition to the fact that US
officials evidendy tried to cover up the connection
between die ISI and the al-Qaeda operatives in the
United States, there have been still other stories about
the ISI suggesting that any real attempt to understand
9/11 would need to focus on it. Some of these stories
have involved investigative reporters.
In November of 2001, Christina
Lamb was in Pakistan investigating the connections
between the ISI and the Taliban, but the ISI had her
arrested and expelled from the country.>43
In late January of 2002, Wall Street Journal
reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped while in Pakiscan
investigating, according to a story in the Washington
Post "links between Pakistani extremists and Richard
C. Reid, the British man accused of trying to blow up an
American airliner with explosives hidden in his
sneakers." Pearl, who had read a story in the Boston
Globe suggesting that Reid may have had ties to a
religious group called Al-Fuqra, was evidently going to
see its leader, Ali Gilani, when he was kidnapped.
Gilani reportedly had links with Saeed Sheikh and the
ISI. The story in the Washington Post continued:
"As part of that probe, Pearl may have soured into areas
involving Pakistan's secret intelligence organisations,">44
The US press suspected early on, therefore, that the ISI
was responsible for Pearl's fate.
That the kidnappers were not just
ordinary terrorists was suggested by their demands,
especially their demand that the United States sell F-16
fighters to Pakistan. As Thompson comments: "No
terrorist group had ever shown interest in the F-16's,
but this demand and the others reflect the desires of
Pakistan's military and the ISI.">45
It was reported by UPI at me end of January, in fact,
that US intelligence believed the kidnappers to be
connected to the ISI.>46 After
this, stories about Pearl would only seldom mention the
ISI.
After it was learned that Pearl
had been murdered, it was also learned that Saeed, the
ISI agent who had wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, had
been involved in the kidnapping. The ISI picked him up
and held him secretly for a week, after which neither
Saeed nor the ISI would discuss what had transpired that
week. The Pakistani police then attributed Pearl's
murder to him. Saeed at first confessed, but, after he
was sentenced to hang, he recanted. Thompson asks: "Did
Saeed work out a secret deal during his 'missing week'
in ISI custody to get a light sentence, a deal that is
later broken?">47 In any case,
between Saeeds arrest and his conviction, Thompson
reports, some news stories mentioned his links to al-Qaeda,
some mentioned his links to ISI, and a few mentioned
that he might have been related to both groups, but many
stories failed to mention either connection. By the time
of Saeed's conviction in July of 2002, moreover, "not a
single US newspaper is connecting Saeed to either al-Qaeda
or the ISI." Thompson asks: "Is the media afraid of
reporting any news that could imply a connection between
the ISI and the 9/11 attacks?">48
The same question could be asked,
furthermore, with regard to the reporting about Khalid
Shaikh Mohammed's involvement in the Pearl case. In
1997, former CIA agent Robert Baer was told by a former
police chief in Qatar—to which Mohammed had fled after
the exposure of the Bojinka plot in the Philippines—that
Mohammed was one of bin Laden's key aides.>49
Baer then told Pearl about Mohammed, so Pearl may have
been looking into the connection between Reid and
Mohammed. Investigators later came to believe, in any
case, that Reid operated under Mohammed's supervision.>50
They also came to believe that Mohammed was the
mastermind behind the kidnapping.>51
Furthermore, Josef Bodansky, the man who claimed in 2002
that Mohammed had ties to the ISI, also claimed then
that Mohammed was the one who ordered Pearl's murder,>52
and in October of 2003, reporter John Lupkin said that
US officials "now have new information that leads them
to believe [Mohammed] killed Pearl.">53
In this story, however, there is no mention of a
possible ISI connection. Pearl is said to have been
working on "a story on Islamic militants." And the only
organization to which Mohammed is connected is al-Qaeda.
In any case, Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed, thought to be the mastermind behind 9/11, is
also thought to be behind the kidnapping and murder of
Daniel Pearl. If that is so, it would not be a big leap
to infer that Pearl may have been killed out of fear
that he was uncovering the truth about 9/11. And if
Mohammed was indeed connected with ISI, this would be
further reason to suspect ISI involvement in 9/11.
Yet another story involving the
ISI and reporters began when Pakistan's government
failed in February of 2002 to prevent the News
from publishing a story about Saeed's connections to the
ISI. Saeed had not only admitted his involvement in
attacks on the Indian parliament, the story revealed,
but had also said that the ISI had helped him finance,
plan, and execute the attacks. Shortly thereafter, the
ISI pressured the News to fire the four
journalists who worked on the story and also demanded an
apology from the newspaper's editor. The journalists
were fired and the editor fled the country.>54
After summarizing these reports, Thompson adds: "This
information comes from an article tided, 'There's Much
More To Daniel Pearl's Murder Than Meets the Eye,' and
that certainly seems to be the case.">55
The fact that the ISI apparently
has so much to hide, combined with the fact that an
American journalist was reportedly kidnapped and perhaps
murdered by the same ISI agent who had sent money to
Mohamed Atta, should, one would think, make US
intelligence agencies very anxious to interview Saeed to
learn all they could about the ISI. The Washington
Post, for example, said: "The [ISI] is a house of
horrors waiting to break open. Saeed has tales to tell.">56
However, in late February of 2002, Time magazine
stated that the second highest Taliban official in US
custody, Mullah Haji Abdul Samat Khaksar, had after
several months still been waiting to talk to the CIA,
even though he had reportedly volunteered the
information that "ISI agents are still mixed up with the
Taliban and al-Qaeda." Many months later, the Indian
Express was wondering why Saeed, sitting in a
Pakistani prison, still had not been interviewed by US
intelligence agencies.>57 This
lack of curiosity suggests to critics of the official
account that US intelligence agencies assumed that these
men had nothing to tell them that they did not already
know.
Far from pursuing the ISI
connections, in fact, Washington seemed intent on
denying that there were any. In March of 2002, Secretary
of State Powell declared that there were no links
between Pearl's murder and "elements of the ISI." In
light of the overwhelming evidence that the main
suspect, Saeed Sheikh, worked for the ISI, said the
Guardian, Powell's denial was "shocking.">58
Shortly thereafter, when Attorney General Ashcroft
announced a criminal indictment against Saeed, there was
no mention of his financing of the 9/11 attacks.>59
These incidents suggesting an
official desire to cover up ISI involvement,
furthermore, reportedly had a startling precedent in
1999. According to later reports, an informant for the
US government, Randy Glass, made a wire-recording of a
conversation at a dinner involving himself, some illegal
arms dealers, and an ISI agent named Rajaa Gulum Abbas.
This dinner, which took place on July 14, 1999, and was
observed by FBI agents at nearby tables pretending to be
customers, was at a restaurant within view of the WTC.
Abbas, besides saying that he wanted to buy a shipload
of stolen US military weapons to give to bin Laden,
pointed to the WTC and said: "Those towers are coming
down.">60 In June of 2002,
Abbas was secredy indicted for attempting to buy US
military weapons illegally. But when the indictment was
finally revealed in March of 2003, it made "no mention
of Pakistan, any ties to Afghanistan's former Taliban
regime or the ultimate destination of the weapons.">61
If the part of this story about
the towers is true, it suggests, obviously, that the
plan to attack the WTC was discussed long before the
Bush administration took office, and even before
September of 2000, when the Project for the New Amencan
Century published its manifesto with its reference to
the good that could come out of a new Pearl Harbor." And
if true, moreover, it makes the circumstantial case for
ISI involvement in the planning for 9/11 even stronger,
adding further interest to the fact that the Bush
administration has been so intent to keep the ISI's
nameout of all stories about 9/11.
FBI Flight from Flight School
Investigations
Further lack of curiosity about
the background to the attacks was shown by the FBI in
relation to a story, which broke four days after 9/11,
that many of the alleged hijackers had received flight
training at US military installations. These
installations included the Naval Air Station in
Pensacola, Brooks Air Force Base in San Antonio, Maxwell
Air Force Base in Alabama, and the Defense Language
Institute in Monterey, California.>62
The Pensacola station was even listed on the drivers
licenses of three of the men as their permanent address.>63
When asked about this report, a spokesperson for the US
Air Force said that while the names were similar, "we
are probably not talking about the same people.">64
TV producer, book author, and
investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker reports that
when he asked a major in the Air Force's Public Affairs
Office about this story, she said: "Biographically,
they're not the same people. Some of the ages are 20
years off." But when Hopsicker, replying that he was
interested only in Mohamed Atta, asked if she was
"saying that the age of the Mohamed Atta who attended
the Air Forces International Officer's School at Maxwell
Air Force Base was different from the terrorist Atta's
age as reported," she replied: "Urn, er, no." Then when
Hopsicker said that he would like information about the
Mohamed Atta who had attended the school at Maxwell, so
that he could contact him, the major reportedly said
that she did not think he was going to get that
information. On September 16, news reports said that,
with regard to Atta and two other men who had reportedly
attended US military schools: "Officials would not
release ages, country of origin or any other specific
details of the three individuals.">65
Even US senators evidently got
stonewalled. When Florida's Senator Bill Nelson learned
that three of the hijackers had been trained at
Pensacola Naval Station, he sent a letter to Attorney
General Ashcroft asking if this was true. Hopsicker
reports that when a spokesman for Senator Nelson was
asked about this, he said: "we never got a definitive
answer from the Justice Department. So we asked the FBI
for an answer... Their response to date has been that
they are trying to sort through something complicated
and difficult."
Nevertheless, on October 10, with
this "complicated and difficult" problem unsolved and
dozens of other facts seeming to scream out for an
extensive and intensive investigation, FBI Director
Mueller, calling the FBI's month-long investigation of
9/11 "the most exhaustive in its history," declared it
over. Officials reportedly said that Mueller's attitude
was that his agents now had "a broad understanding of
the events of September 11" and that it "was now time to
move on.">66 Mueller,
according to the Washington Post, "described
reports that several of the hijackers had received
flight training in the United States as news, quite
obviously.'" But he had the agents who were
investigating this news reassigned.>67
"The investigative staff has to be made to understand,"
one law enforcement official was quoted as saying, "that
we're not trying to solve a crime now.">68
To critics of the official
account, a cover-up is suggested not only by the FBI's
refusal to investigate this story but also by evidence
that it had earlier tried to conceal the training
received by some of the hijackers at two flight schools
in Venice, Florida. Hopsicker, reporting that many of
the men had trained at these two schools, also reports
that just 18 hours after the 9/11 attacks—at 2 AM—FBI
agents came to both schools and removed student files.>69
This story, like the one about the FBI confiscating the
film from the gas station across from the Pentagon
immediately after the crash there, lends additional
support to the charge that the FBI had rather specific
advance knowledge.
The FBI's Quick Release of Omar
al-Bayoumi
One fact about post-9/11
investigations that the critics of the official account
find significant is that whereas many people with no
apparent connections to the hijackers were arrested and
held for long periods, some people with seemingly
obvious connections were, if arrested at all, quickly
released. For example, reports Thompson, back in 1999,
when Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar—who would later
be named as two of the hijackers—first entered the
country, they were met at the airport in Los Angeles by
a Saudi named Umar al-Bayoumi. He drove them to San
Diego and provided an apartment for them. He also helped
them open a bank account, obtain car insurance, get
Social Security cards, and call flight schools in
Florida.>70 As the
CongressionalJoint Inquiry would later learn, "One of
the FBI's best sources in San Diego informed the bureau
that he thought that al-Bayoumi," who seemed to have
access to large sums of money, "must be an intellignece
officer for Saudi Arabia,">71
Two months before 9/11, al-Bayoumi moved to England.
After 9/11, he was arrested by British agents working
with the FBI. However, the FBI, ostensibly accepting his
story that he had met Alhazmi and Almihdhar by
coincidence, angered British agents by releasing him
"after a week without charge." Thompson comments: "Al-Bayoumis
quick release is in sharp contrast to that of hundreds
of US Muslims who are held anonymously for many monris
after 9/11 despite having no connections to terrorism of
any kind.">72
A Cover-Up at the NSA?
In late October of 2001, the
Boston Globe reported that some government
intelligence officials were furious because, they said
information pertinent to the 9/11 investigation was
being destroyed by the National Security Agency (NSA).
They also claimed that possible leads were not being
followed because of lack of cooperation by the NSA.>73
In a story that Thompson evidently thinks might be
related, investigative reporter James Bamford, an
authority on the NSA, reported that at least six of the
identified hijackers, including all of those that
boarded Flight 77 from Washington, had from August until
9/11 been "living, working, planning and developing all
their activities in Laurel, Maryland, which happens to
be the home of the NSA. So they were actually living
alongside NSA employees as they were plotting all these
things.">74 This fact might be
simply a coincidence, but the accusations of a cover-up
by NSA officials could make one wonder.
Later Developments Involving
Moussaoui
On July 2, 2002, motions from
Zacarias Moussaoui were unsealed infederal court.
Claiming to have information showing the US goverment
wanted the attacks of September to happen, Moussaoui
indicated that hewanted to testify before both a grand
jury and Congress.>75 Thus far
what he has to say has not been made public.
In September of 2002,
investigative reporter Seymour Hersh revealed that
federal prosecutors had not discussed a plea bargain
with Moussaoui since he had been indicted the previous
November. Reporting that Moussaoui's lawyers, and some
FBI officials, remain bewildered at the government's
failure to pursue a plea bargain," Hersh quoted a
federal public defender as saying: "I've never been in a
conspiracy case where the government wasn't interested
in knowing if the defendant had any information—to see
if there wasn't more to the conspiracy.">76
On July of 2003, an Associated
Press story contained the following statements:
Defying a court order, the
Justice Department said Monday it would not make an
al-Qaeda witness available to terrorism suspect
Zacarias Moussaoui—even though prosecutors understood
this could mean dismissal of the charges.
The only US case to arise from
the September 11 attacks could be sent to a military
tribunal if US District Judge Leonie Brinkema
dismissed the case....
The government said it
recognizes that its objection means the deposition of
suspected September 11 organizer Ramzi Binalshibh
cannot go forward. The Justice Department's decision
also "obligates the court now to dismiss the
indictment unless the court finds that the interests
of justice can be served by another action," the
prosecution filing said....
Brinkema has ruled that
Moussaoui, who is representing himself, should be
allowed to question Binalshibh via a satellite hookup.
The exchange, which the government is desperately
trying to stop, could be played to jurors if
Moussaoui's case goes to trial...
Repeating earlier arguments, the
government said Monday: "The deposition, which would
involve an admitted and unrepentant terrorist (the
defendant) questioning one of his al-Qaeda
confederates, would necessarily result in the
unauthorized disclosure of classified information.
Such a scenario is unacceptable to the government,
which not only carries the responsibility for
prosecuting the defendant, but also of protecting this
nations security at a time of war with an enemy who
already murdered thousands of our citizens.">77
From the point of view of critics
of the official account of 9/11, these stories suggest
that the Justice Department's primary concern is not to
find out what really happened, nor to prosecute the man
who has beenknown as "the 20th hijacker," but to keep
him from speaking in public.
Promotions Instead of
Punishment
The two major theories to account
for the failure to prevent the attacks of 9/11, as we
have seen, are the complicity theory and the
incompetence theory. As Barrie Zwicker pointed out, "Incornpetence
usually earns reprimands," so the incompetence theory is
weakened in the eyes of critics by the absence of
reprimands. Thompson reports for example, that over a
year after 9/11, the directors of the CIA, the FBI, and
the NSA all admitted before a congressional committee
that no individuals in their agencies had been fired or
even punished for missteps connected to 9/11.>78
To the contrary, Thompson adds,
some of them were promoted. For example, Marion "Spike"
Bowman—the agent at FBI headquarters who altered the
Minneapolis FBI's request for the warrant to search
Moussaouis belongings—was in December of 2002 given an
FBI award for "exceptional performance." This award
came, furthermore, after a congressional report said
that Bowman's RFU unit had given Minneapolis FBI agents
"inexcusably confused and inaccurate information" that
was "patently false.">79
Reflecting on this and other
promotions, a former Justice Department official said
that FBI Director Mueller had "promoted the exact same
people who have presided over the—failure.">80
Such actions, of course, give critics support for their
contention that from the point of the FBI and the Bush
administration more generally, the events of 9/11
represented not a failure but a spectacular success.
==========
For the critics of the official
account, the evidence summarized in this chapter, which
concerns official US behavior after 9/11,
furtherstrengthens the case for concluding not only that
the official account is false but also that the true
account would point to US complicity. For one thing, the
evidence that American forces did not really try to
capture
Osama bin Laden suggests that his
long-term relationship with US agencies had not really,
as the official account says, come to an end. As to
exactly which US institutions were involved in the
conspiracy, evidence in this chapter, more than that in
previous ones, suggests CIA involvement. This chapter
also provides further evidence of complicity by the
White House, at least in the attempt to cover up the
ISI's—and thereby the CIA's—involvement. With regard to
White House involvement in the planning: If the
prediction about the WTC towers made by an ISI agent in
1999 really occurred and reflected a joint ISI-CIA plan,
then that plan must have been formulated long before it
was certain that George W. Bush would become president.
If he was involved in the planning, he would most likely
have been brought in after the basic plan had already
been formulated.
FOOTNOTES to Chapter
8:
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Thompson, "Timeline,"
early November 2001 (A), quoting London Times,
July 22,2002.
2Knight-Ridder, October 20, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," Early November (B).
3Sydney Morning Herald, November 14,
2001, Christian Science Monitor, March 4 2002,
and Knight-Ridder, November 20, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," November 10, 2001
4Newsweek, August 11, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," November 16, 2001 (B).
5Christian Science Monitor, March 4,
2002, and Telegraph, February 23, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," early December 2001.
6"Timeline," November 28, 2001, citing
Fayetteville Observer, August 2, and Newsweek,
August 11, 2002.
7Timeline," November 28, 2001, citing
Independent, August 2, 2002.
8BBC, December 30, 2001, cited in "Timeline,"
December 30, 2001.
9"Timeline," March 13, 2002, quoting the
White House, March 13, and the Department of Defense,
April 6, 2002.
10Ahmed, 78, quoting Daily Mirror,
November 16, 2001.
11George Monbiot, "The Need for Dissent,"
Guardian, September 18, 2001, quoted in Ahmed,
295-96.
12Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation,
60.
13Ibid., 61.
14Ibid., 22-23; "Timeline," March 1985,
citing Washington Post, Jury 19, 1992, and Rashid,
Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in
Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press,
2000).
15Ahmed, 177-78, quoting John K. Cooley,
Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International
Terrorism (London: Pluto, 1999), 120, 226. Another
thing that the CIA, the ISI, and bin Laden had in
common, Thompson reports, is that they all had accounts
in the now notorious Bank of Credit and Commerce
International (BCCI), which was based in Pakistan
("Timeline" July 5, 1991, citing Detroit News,
September 30, 2001, and Washington Post, February
17, 2002).
16Newsweek, October 1, 2001, quoted in
"Timeline," March 1985.
17Times of India, March 7, 2001, and
CNN, February 27, 2002, quoted in "Timeline," March 1994
(B).
18Time, May 6, 2002, quoted in
"Timeline," 1984; New Yorker, October 29, 2001,
quoted in "Timeline," October 7, 2001.
19Chossudovsky, War and Globalisatum,
38.
20Ahmed, 216, quoting Selig Harrison,
"Creating the Taliban: 'CIA Made a Historic Mistake,'"
Rationalist International Bulletin No. 68: March
19, 2001 (http://rationalistinternational.net).
21Ahmed, 189.
22Gerald Posner, Why America Slept: The
Failure to Prevent 9111 (New York: Random House,
2003), 193.
23ABC News, September 30, and Wall Street
Journal, October 10, 2001, cited in "Timeline," May
2000.
24Agence France-Presse, October 10, 2001,
cited in Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation, 58.
25"Timeline," October 12, 1999, citing the
News, September 10,2001.
26Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation,
52-54, 60.
27PBSs Frontline, October 3, 2002,
quoted in "Timeline," August 23, 2001.
28Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation,
156-58.
29Ibid., 58-59, quoting Brian Ross on ABC's
"This Week," September 30,2001.
30"Timeline," October 7, 2001.
31"Timeline," Septembre 8-11, 2001 (C),
citing Guardian, October 1, and CNN, October 6,
2001. Thompson adds that although earlier the media had
"sometimes made the obvious connection that the
paymaster was the British man Saeed Sheikh, a financial
expert who studied at the London School of Economics"
(see "Timeline," June 1993-October 1994), after October
8, when the story that ISI Director Ahmad ordered Saeed
to give Mohamed Atta $100,000 began to break,
"References to the 9/11 paymaster being the British
Saeed Sheikh.-.suddenly disappear from the Western media
(with one exception [CNN, 10/28/01])." Thompson then
documents the fact that the Western media began
referring to this individual, under numerous names, as
Egyptian or Saudi Arabian, rather than Pakistani. One of
the results of this confusion was that, conveniendy, the
paymaster came to be identified as "Sheikh Saiid," said
to be an alias for Sa'd al-Sharif, one of bin Laden's
brothers-in-law. For details about the massive confusion
in the press about the name of the paymaster, see
"Timeline," October 1, October 16, November 11, December
11, 2001, January 23, June 4, June 18, September 4, and
December 26, 2002. See also two articles by Chaim
Kupferberg (who prefers to call the paymaster Omar Saeed),
"Daniel Pearl and the Paymaster of 9/11: 9/11 and the
Smoking Gun that Turned on its Teacher," and "There's
Something about Omar." These two articles were posted
September 21, 2002, and October 21, 2003, respectively,
on the website of the Centre for Research on
Globalisation (www.globalresearch.ca)
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP310A.html .
32"Timeline," September 8-11, 2001 (C),
citing New York Times, July 10, 2002, and
Financial Times, November 30, 2001.
33"Timeline," September 8-11, 2001 (C),
citing Guardian on the relationship between Saeed
Sheikh and bin Laden.
34Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation,
146.
35Ibid., 62.
36Ahmed, 218, 226, citing Jared Israel, "Did
'Our' Allies, Pakistani Intelligence, Fund the WTC
Attackers?" The Emperor's New Clothes
www.emperors-clothes.com October 15,2001.
37Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March 3,
2002, quoted in Thompson, "Timeline," 1999 (I).
38Ahmed, 218-19, citing Manoj Joshi, "India
Helped FBI Trace ISI-Terrorist Links," Times of
India, October 9, 2001.
39Ibid., 224, 225.
40Chossudovsky, War and Globalisation, 62.
41New York Times, November 4, and
Associated Press, August 24, 2002, cited in "Timeline,"
1999 (K).
42UPI (United Press International), September
30, 2002, cited in "Timeline," June 4, 2002; see also
early 1994-January 1995, and December 24, 2001-January
23, 2002.
43Telegraph, November 11, 2001, cited
in "Timeline," November 10, 2001.
44"Timeline," January 6 and January 23, 2002,
quoting Washington Post, February 23,
2002, and citing Boston Globe, January 6,
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, March, 3, and
VanityFair, August, 2002.
45"Timeline," January 28, 2002, citing
London Times, April 21, and Guardian, July
16, 2002.
46"Timeline," January 28, 2002, citing UPI,
January 29, 2002
47"Timeline," February 12, 2002, citing
Boston Globe, 7, Observer, February 24, 2002,
Newsweek, March 11, and Vanity Fair, August,
2002.
48"Timeline," February 6, 2002.
49UPI, September 30, 2002; Vanity Fair,
February, 2002, and Baer, See No Evil The True
Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism
(New York: Crown Pub, 2002), 270-71, cited in
"Timeline," December 1997.
50CNN, January 30, 2003, cited in "Timeline,"
December 22, 2001 (B).
51Time, January 26, and CNN, January
30,2003, cited in "Timeline," January 23,2002.
52UPI, September 30, 2002, cited in
"Timeline," June 4, 2002.
53John J. Lumpkin, "New Theory on Pearl
Skying: 9/11 Mastermind Believed to Have Killed Wall
Street Journal Reporter," APAP, October 21, 2003
54"Timeline," February 18, 2002 (B), citing
News, February 18, London Times, April 21,
and Guardian, July 16, 2002.
55"Timeline," March 1, 2002, citing "There's
Much More To Daniel Pearls Murder Than Meets the Eye,"
Washington Post, March 10, 2002. 56"Timeline,"
March 3, 2002.
57"Timeline," July 19, 2002 (B), citing
Time, February 25, 2002, and Timeline," December 26,
2002, citing India Express, July 19, 2002.
58"Timeline," March 3, 2002, citing Dawn,
March 3,2002, and Guardian, April 5,2002.
59"Timeline," March 14, 2002, citing CNN,
March 14, and Los Angeles Times, March 15, 2002.
60WPBF Channel 25, August 5, 2002, Cox News,
August 2, 2002, and Palm Beach Post, October 17,
2002, cited in "Timeline," July 14, 1999.
61Palm Beach Post, March 20, 2003 (see
also South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 20, 2003),
quoted in Timeline," June 2002.
62Newsweek, September 15, New York
Times, September 15, and Washington Post,
September 16, 2001, cited in "Timeline," September
15-17, 2001.
63Gannett News Service and Pensacola News
Journal, both September 17, 2001, cited in
"Timeline," September 15-17, 2001.
64Washington Post, September 16, 2001,
quoted in Ahmed, 97.
65Danid Hopsicker, "Did Terrorists Train at
US. Military Schools?" Online Journal October 30,
2002, quoted in Ahmed, 98-99. (Hopsicker who has
produced television business shows, including "Inside
Wall Street," is also the author of Barry and the
Boys CIA, the Mob, and'America's Secret History [Madcow
Press, 2001 ].)
66Hopsicker, "Did Terrorists?" quoted in
Ahmed, 98, 99.
67Steve Fainaru and James V. Grimaldi, "FBI
Knew Terrorists Were Using Flight Schools,"
Washington Post, September 23, 2001, quoted in
Ahmed, 99.
68Hopsicker, "Did Terrorists?", quoted in
Ahmed, 99.
69Hopsicker, "What Are They Hiding Down in
Venice, Florida?" Online Journal, November 7,
2001, quoted in Ahmed, 100. An interesting footnote to
this story is provided by the fact that Arne Kruithof
and Rudi Dekkers, each of whom owned one of these flight
schools, each narrowly escaped dying in a small plane
crash. On Kruithof's crash, which occurred on July 26,
2002, see Hopsicker, "Magic Dutch Boy Escapes Fiery
Crash," Mad Cow Morning News, July 4, 2002 (www.madcowprod.com/index27.html);
on Dekkers' crash, which occurred on January 24, 2003,
see Hopsicker, "Dekkers' Helicopter Crashed on Way to
Showdown over Huffman Aviation," Mad Cow Morning
News, January 28, 2003 (www.madcowprod.com/index43.html).
70"Timeline," November 1999, citing Sunday
Mercury, October 21, 2001, Washington Post,
December 29, 2001, and Newsweek, September 24,
2002.
71James Risen, "Informant for F.B.I. Had
Contacts with Two 9/11 Hijackers," New York Times,
July 25, 2003.
72"Timeline," September 21 or 22, 2001,
citing Los Angeles Times and Newsweek,
both November 24, 2002.
73Boston Globe, October 27, 2001,
cited in "Timeline," October 24, 2001.
74Washington Post, September 19, and
the BBC, June 21, 2002, cited in "Timeline," August 2002
(B). Bamford, as we saw earlier, wrote Body of
Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security
Agency (2001; New York Anchor Books, 2002).
75Michael Ruppert, "A Timeline Surrounding
September 11th," From the Wilderness Publications (www.n-omthewilderness.com),
item 96, citing Washington Post, July 3, 2002.
76Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, September
30, 2002, quoted in "Timeline," September 30, 2002.
77Larry Margasak, "Feds Reject Moussaoui
Witness," Associated Press, July 14, 2003.
78Thompson, "Timeline," October 17,2002,
citing Washington Post, September 18,2002.
79"Timeline," December 4, 2002, quoting
Star Tribune, December 22, 2002.
80"Timeline," December 4, 2002, quoting
Time, December 30, 2002.
PART THREE
CONCLUSION
Chapter NINE
IS COMPLICITY BY US
OFFICIALS THE BEST EXPLANATION FOR 9/11?
Those who are critics of the official account of
9/11 believe that that account is, as the English title
of Meyssan's first book says, "a big lie." At least most
of these critics are also revisionists about
9/11, who believe, in Ahmed's words, that "the best
explanation of [the facts on record] is one that points
directly to US state responsibility for the events of
11th September 2001.">1 The
most important question before the American people at
this moment is whether we find the overall argument for
this revisionist conclusion convincing enough, or at
least disturbing enough, to undertake a thorough
investigation of the various considerations used to
support it.
Who Benefits?
At the center of these
considerations is the fact that huge benefits from the
attacks of 9/11 were reaped by the institutions that are
suspected, by critics of the official account, of
complicity in those attacks. Ahmed introduces the
discussion of this issue by quoting a statement from
investigative journalist Patrick Martin:
In examining any crime, a
central question must be "who benefits? The principal
beneficiaries of the destruction of the World Trade
Center are in the United States: the Bush
administration, the Pentagon, the CIA and FBI, the
weapons industry, the oil industry. It is reasonable
to ask whether those who have profited to such an
extent from this tragedy contributed to bringing it
about.>2
To flesh out one of these
examples: CIA Director George Tenet wanted authorization
and funding for a plan to expand covert operations
around the world. Called "Worldwide Attack Matrix,"
Tenets plan, Bob Woodward has reported, "described
covert operations in 80 countries that were either
underway or that he was now recommending." At a meeting
at Camp David four days after 9/11, Tenet received
authorization.>3 Shortly
afterwards, points out Meyssan, "the agency's funding
was increased by 42 percent to successfully carry out
the 'Worldwide Attack Matrix.'">4
With regard to the Pentagon and
the weapons industry: The president, having asserted
that US military capacity would be increased
sufficiently to win this new war "whatever it costs,"
was able to push through the biggest increase for
military spending since the end of the Cold War. Without
9/11, such an increase would have been highly unlikely.
As Phyllis Bennis points out: "The $48 billion addition
to the Pentagon budget requested by the Bush
administration in January 2002 by itself was more money
than any other country spent on its military.">5
In a calmer atmosphere, in other words, Congress might
have decided that we were already spending more than
enough.
The attacks of 9/11 allowed, in
particular, greatly increased funding for the Space
Force, championed by Donald Rumsfeld, General Eberhart,
and General Myers. For these men, new support for the
"missile defense system" may have been the most
important benefit to come out of 9/11. Whereas in July
of 2001, a Gallup Poll showed that only 53 percent of
the population supported this system, a poll released on
October 21 showed that support had jumped to 70 percent.>6
With regard to benefits to the
Bush administration as such, Ahmed reminds us that prior
to 9/11 it was widely perceived to be in a crisis. Many
Americans believed Bush to have gained the presidency
fraudulently; there was a growing economic crisis, both
domestic and globally; "the Bush administration was
becoming increasingly isolated due to its foreign
policies...and was consequently failing to push through
resolutions via the United Nations Security Council and
other international bodies"; there were massive
"anti-globalization" demonstrations; "Bush approval
ratings—both personal and political-were plummeting," so
it was probably going to be "extremely difficult for the
Bush administration to maintain its already
uncomfortably slim majority in the House for the midterm
elections in 2002; and "the strategic and military
planning outlined in Brzezinski's [The Great
Chessboard] would have been impossible to implement
at this time. However, "handed the public mood of shock
and revulsion over the shocking tragedy of 11th
September, the Bush administration was able to exploit
these sentiments to advance long-standing global
economic and strategic aims" and "to avert the crisis of
legitimacy it had previously faced.">8
With regard to implementing its
strategic and military plans, the Bush administration
and its advisors seemed well prepared to use this attack
by non-state terrorists as a basis for going to
war against states on its attack list. In his
address to the nation on the evening of 9/11, President
Bush said: "We will make no distinction between the
terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor
them." Then, as mentioned in the Introduction, as soon
as the presidents address was completed, Henry Kissinger
had an opinion piece ready to publish on the Internet.
In that piece, he in effect supported Bush's "no
distinction" point, saying:
The government should be charged
with a systematic response that, one hopes, will end
the way that the attack on Pearl Harbor ended— with
the destruction of the system that is responsible for
it. That system is a network of terrorist
organizations sheltered in capitals of certain
countries.... [A]ny government that shelters groups
capable of this kind of attack, whether or not they
can be shown to have been involved in this attack,
must pay an exorbitant price.>9
A week later, Richard Perle made
the same point in an editorial entitled "State Sponsors
of Terrorism Should Be Wiped Out Too," in which he said:
Those countries that harbour
terrorists—that provide the means with which they
would destroy innocent civilians—must themselves be
destroyed. The war against terrorism is about the war
against those regimes.>10
It does appear that the
administration and its advisors were ready to hit the
ground running with this message.
And it worked. After the president announced his
intention to "rally the world" in support of America's
worldwide war on terrorism, says Phyllis Bennis:
The worlds leaders and the
worlds governments did not object. To the contrary.
Before September 11, outrage had been rising among
French intellectuals over whether the US hyperpower
was behaving like a sovereign of an empire. Before
September 11, Russia was audibly objecting to US
threats to abandon the ABM treaty. Before September
11, Europeans and others had begun cautious efforts to
punish Washington's lack of accountability to the
international community.... But by 10 AM on that
September Tuesday, all those already hesitant moves
came to an abrupt stop. Instead, governments cheered
and much of the world stood by as the US asserted the
rights of empire.x11
With regard to the planned
operation in Afghanistan in particular Meyssan observes:
"The attacks of September 11 allowed what was nothing
more than a classic colonial expedition to be disguised
as a legitimate operation.">12
The fact that this tragedy
for the country provided a tremendous opportunity
for the administration was widely understood. For
example, John Pilger, after saying that "[t]he attacks
of 11 September 2001 provided the 'new Pearl Harbor,'"
added that these attacks have been "described 'the
opportunity of ages.'">13 They
were described in those terms by the Bush administration
itself. At the meeting of the National Security Council
on the night of 9/11, President Bush reportedly said
that the attacks provided "a great opportunity.">14
A month later, Donald Rumsfeld told the New York
Times that 9/11 created "the kind of opportunities
that World War II offered, to refashion the world.">15
Condoleezza Rice told senior members of the National
Security Council to "think about 'how do you capitalize
on these opportunities.'">16
This point was even put in The National Security
Strategy of the United States of America, issued by
the Bush administration in September of 2002. "The
events of September 11, 2001," it candidly declared,
"opened vast, new opportunities.">17
"Time and again," observers Pilger,
"11 September is described as an 'opportunity.'" The
opportunity provided by the attacks has been commented
upon by many others. A story in US News and World
Report said:
Then came 9/11. Worldwide
revulsion and the shared sense of threat handed
Washington a once-in-a-generation chance to shake up
international politics. Ten days after the attacks,
State Department experts catalogued for [Colin] Powell
a dozen "silver linings.">18
Walden Bello, one of the major
third-world critics of the US-led global economy,
likewise said:
The Al Qaeda New York mission
was the best possible gift to the US and the global
establishment.... As for the crisis of political
governance in the US, September 11 has turned George
W. Bush from a minority president whose party lost
control of the Senate into arguably the most powerful
US president in recent times >19
A statement by Karen Talbot,
Director of the International Center for Peace and
Justice, suggests that she had read Brzezinski s book:
[T]he September 11th terrorist
attacks have provided a qualitatively new opportunity
for the US, acting particularly on behalf of giant oil
companies, to permanently entrench its military in the
former Soviet Republics of Central Asia, and the
Transcaucusus where there are vast oil reserves—the
second largest in the world. The way is now open to
jump start projects for oil and gas pipelines through
Afghanistan and Pakistan.... The big payoff for the US
is the golden opportunity to establish a permanent
military presence in oil-rich Central Asia.>20
The well-known political
commentator William Pfaff wrote:
It seems to many Americans and
others that the United States is already potentially
head of a modern version of universal empire...The
fundamental issue of the next two to three decades
will inevitably be how the United States employs the
amazing power it now exercises. Before September 11,
the country...lacked the political will to impose
itself. September 11 supplied that will.>21
Ahmed quotes a statement by social
philosopher John McMurtry that sums up the argument:
[T]he forensic principle of "who
most benefits from the crime?" clearly points in the
direction of the Bush administration. One would be
naive to think the Bush Jr. faction and its oil,
military-industrial and Wall Street backers...do not
benefit astronomically from this mass-kill explosion.
If there was a wish-list, it is all granted by this
numbing turn of events. Americans are diverted from a
free-falling economy to attack another foreign Satan,
while the Bush regimes popularity climbs. The
military, the CIA, and every satellite armed security
apparatus have more money and power than ever, and
become as dominant as they can over civilians in "the
whole new era" already being declared by the White
House.>22
Accordingly, given the principle
that in general when crimes are committed, those who
most benefit from them are to be considered the prime
suspects, there is a prima facie case for
assuming that the Bush administration was involved in
this particular crime. Or, to repeat Patrick Martins
careful phrasing: "It is reasonable to ask whether those
who have profited to such an extent from this tragedy
contributed to bringing it about."
Having argued, along with others, that the principle
"who most benefits?" should lead us to suspect
complicity by the Bush administration, Ahmed then
summarizes his evidence for this suspicion.
The Evidence for Official
Complicity: A Summary
Anmed's summary of his evidence,>23
supplemented with points contributed by Chossudovsky,
Thompson, Meyssan, and other researchers, contains the
following elements:
1. Evidence that the wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq were already planned for
geopolitical reasons, so that 9/11 provided not the
reason for the wars but merely the pretext.
2. Evidence that men with connections to al-Qaeda were
allowed into the United States in spite of regulations
that should have kept them out
3. Evidence that men with connections to al-Qaeda were
allowed to train in US flight schools.
4. Evidence that the attacks of 9/11 could not have
succeeded without an order from the highest level of
government to suspend normal operating procedures for
responding to hijackings.
5. Evidence that US political and military leaders
made misleading and even false statements about their
response to the hijackings.
6. Evidence in particular that the presently accepted
official account, according to which jet fighter
planes were scrambled but arrived too late, was
invented some days after 9/11.
7. Evidence that the collapse of the WTC buddings was
brought about by explosives, so that participation by
the US government in the prevention of an adequate
examination of the debris, especially the steel,
constitutes evidence of its participation in a
cover-up.
8. Evidence that someone in authority sought to ensure
that there would be deaths in the attacks on the
second WTC tower and the Pentagon by not having these
buildings evacuated.
9. Evidence that what hit the Pentagon was not a
Boeing 757 but a much smaller aircraft, such as a
guided missile.
10. Evidence that Flight 93 was shot down after
authorities learned that the passengers were gaining
control of it.
11. Evidence that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
revealed advance knowledge of two of the attacks.
12. Evidence that President Bush on 9/11 feigned
ignorance of the occurrence and seriousness of the
attacks.
13. Evidence that President Bush and his Secret
Service knew on 9/11 that he would not be a target of
attacks.
14. Evidence that the FBI had specific knowledge of
the time and targets of the attacks at least a month
in advance.
15. Evidence that the CIA and other intelligence
agencies would have had very specific advance
knowledge of the attacks by means of the put options
purchased shortly before 9/11.
16. Evidence that the Bush administration lied about
not having had specific warnings about the attacks.
17. Evidence that the FBI and other federal agencies
prevented investigations prior to 9/11 that might have
uncovered the plot.
18. Evidence that US officials sought to conceal
evidence of involvement by Pakistan's ISI in the
planning of 9/11.
19. Evidence that US officials sought to conceal the
presence of the ISI chief in Washington during the
week of 9/11.
20. Evidence that the FBI and other federal agencies
blocked investigations after the attacks that might
have revealed the true Perpetrators.
21. Evidence that the United States did not really
seek to kill or capture Osama bin Laden either before
or after the attacks.
22. Evidence that figures central to the Bush
administration had desired a "new Pearl Harbor"
because of various benefits it would bring.
23. Evidence of motive provided by the predictable
benefits that this event, called by Bush himself "the
Pearl Harbor of the 21st century," did bestow on the
Bush administration.
24. Evidence against the alternative explanation—the
incompetence theory—provided by the fact that those
who were allegedly guilty of incompetence were not
fired but, in some cases, promoted.
In summarizing his argument for
complicity (which contains many but not of all of these
24 points), Ahmed adds that he does not pretend to have
presented a conclusive case. Rather, he considers his
conclusions to be "merely the best available inferences
from the available facts that have been so far
unearthed.">24
Possible Problems for a
Complicity Theory
Ahmed is right to put it that way,
because there well may be other facts that would cast
the facts discussed by the revisionists in a different
light. Also, some of the items they have presented as
"facts" may not be such; only further investigations can
decide. Moreover, the judgment that a case for some
thesis is "conclusive" is always in part a subjective
judgment, depending upon the biases of those making the
judgment. The question, accordingly, is not whether the
case for official complicity—the best case that can be
constructed from the writings of Ahmed, Chossudovsky,
Meyssan, Thompson, and other researchers—is conclusive.
The question is whether it is likely to be widely
perceived as conclusive. And for this to be so,
critics of this revisionist theory could well claim,
these revisionists must do more than show that the
official account is implausible. They must also present
an alternative account of what happened that
incorporates all the relevant facts now available in a
plausible way. Furthermore, these counter-critics could
continue, insofar as an alternative account is already
contained, at least implicitly, in the writings of the
revisionists, it could be subjected to a great number of
rhetorical questions, to which easy answers do not
appear to be at hand.
One such question, for example,
might be: If officials in the Bush administration wanted
a new Pearl Harbor, why would they choose the set of
events that occurred on 9/11, which required a massive
conspiracy, involving at least members of the White
House, the Justice Department, the FBI, the CIA, and the
Pentagon? ("Choosing" here need not imply participation
in planning the attacks; it can simply mean "choosing to
allow.") Given standard procedures for dealing with
hijacked planes, furthermore, allowing such planes to
strike the WTC and the Pentagon required such obvious
violations of standard procedures that the conspirators
could hardly have expected not to be found out. They
could, to be sure, have assumed that the shock of the
attacks and the outburst of uncritical patriotism to
follow would allow them to get away with the scheme for
a while. But how could they have believed that the
absurdities in their story would not eventually lead to
their exposure? So why would they have concocted such a
complex scheme, requiring such absurdities, when
virtually the same effects could have been achieved with
a much simpler hoax, such as an attack by chemical or
biological weapons, which could have been carried out by
a very small number of perpetrators? After all, the new
Pearl Harbor did not need to mimic the original one to
the extent of being an attack by airplanes.
Furthermore, even supposing that
there was some rational reason for the administration to
choose the kind of attacks that occurred on 9/11, why
would they have risked exposure of the fact that the
attack on the WTC was an inside job by having the
buildings collapsed by explosives? Was ensuring the
occurrence of several thousand deaths worth this
additional risk of exposure? And why, in any case, would
they have demolished WTC-7, thereby undermining the
claim that the Twin Towers collapsed because of the
impact of the airliners combined with the heat from the
jet-fuel-fed fires?
Also, assuming for the sake of
argument the revisionists' conspiracy theory, there are
many features of the alleged conspirators' resulting
behaviour that suggests incompetence beyond belief. For
example, given the fact that if no planes were scrambled
until after the Pentagon had been hit, this would
obviously have required an order to cancel standard
procedured, why would the conspirators first tell this
story? And then when they realized that that story would
likely inplicate them, why would they concoct a second
version almost equally absurd—with planes ordered from
distant air bases and with travel times implying that
they were flying only a few hundred miles per hour?
Given the massive planning that must have gone into the
whole operation, why was there not a carefully
formulated, plausible cover story that would be told by
everyone from the outset?
Moreover, critics can ask, why
would the conspirators then raise additional doubts with
needless lies and foolish statements? Why, for example,
would they suggest that it required a presidential order
merely to have hijacked planes intercepted, when any cub
reporter could find out otherwise? Why would they claim
that they had received no advance warnings of the
attacks, when the falsity of this claim would surely be
discovered? Why would they have President Bush appear to
be ignorant of the fact that the country was
(apparently) under attack, when it is well known that he
would be informed of such events immediately? Why would
the president then, after officially knowing that a
modern-day Pearl Harbor was unfolding, continue to do
"the reading thing"? And why would the president remain
in his publicly known location, thereby appearing to
demonstrate that he and his staff knew that no suicide
missions were coming their way? Would not the
conspirators have orchestrated a scene that made the
Secret Service appear genuinely concerned and the
president genuinely presidential? Furthermore, if
Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Libby had been planning
this incident when their Project for the New American
Century produced its 2000 document, why would they have
allowed what could be read as a call for a "new Pearl
Harbor" to be included in this public document, which
anyone could read? And why would Rumsfeld (assuming the
truth of Representative Cox's report) predict the
occurrence of more terrorist attacks on America just
before the first attack on the WTC and again just before
the attack on the Pentagon, thereby giving a basis for
suspicion that he had foreknowledge of the fact and even
the timing of the attacks?
Another set of rhetorical
questions could be raised by the revisionist account of
the attack on the Pentagon. One such question might be:
Given the well-known fact that the Pentagon is defended
by missiles, along with the more general assumption that
it must be the most well-protected place on earth, why
would the conspirators have it included among the
targets? Or, if they did not choose the targets but
merely allowed them to be hit, why—assuming that the
original plan was for a hijacked airliner to strike the
Pentagon—would the conspirators have planned to allow
the Pentagon actually to be hit, especially since
shooting down an attacking airplane would have provided
evidence of their intent to defend? Or, if the theory is
that the plan all along was to have the Pentagon struck
by a military aircraft and then claim that it was a
hijacked 757, why would they use a much smaller
aircraft, perhaps a winged missile, which many people
would see and which would neither create a big enough
hole in the Pentagon nor leave enough big pieces of
metal to be seen? (Nowadays airplanes, not just guided
missiles, can fly without pilots.) Or, if the
alternative theory is that the use of this much smaller
aircraft was an improvisation, necessitated by the fact
that Flight 77 crashed unexpectedly (perhaps because the
passengers resisted the hijackers), why was there not a
better back-up plan? Or better yet, why did the
conspirators not simply let this part of the plan go
rather than improvise a scenario the absurdity of which
would be visible to someone from as far away as France?
Why in any case did they make the totally ridiculous
claim that the bodies of the victims were still
identifiable, after they had claimed that the fire was
so hot that it vaporized the plane's steel and aluminum?
Furthermore, what plausible account can be given of the
role of Ted Olson? Are we to believe that upon learning
that his wife had just been killed in an operation
overseen by his superiors, he willingly told a lie to
help them out? Or that the whole story was a hoax—that
Barbara Olson was not really killed, which would mean
that she would have to spend the rest of her life
incognito? And, in any case, why manufacture this
implausible story—in which all the passengers are
encouraged to call home but she is the only one to do
so? There surely could have been some better way to
convey the impression that Flight 77 had not crashed and
might be headed back to Washington. Finally, if the
Boeing 757 that was Flight 77 crashed somewhere, perhaps
in Ohio or Kentucky, why have there been no reports of
its discovery?
Still more rhetorical questions
would doubtless be evoked by the account of Flight 93
implicit in the revisionist hypothesis, according to
which government officials, after realizing that the
passengers were gaining control of the plane, had it
shot down. For example, why would not the conspirators,
who could draw upon the best military and CIA minds with
experience in covert operations, have not come up with a
better back-up plan, such as installing a bomb that
could be electronically detonated? Why risk a method of
disposal that would likely provide so many tell-tale
signs, especially the sightings of the jet fighter?
Finally, critics of the complicity
theory might believe that the most damaging rhetorical
question arises precisely from the fact, emphasized by
critics of the incompetence theory, that there have been
no known punishments. If 9/11 resulted from a
conspiracy, critics of this view could ask, why were
there no scapegoats? The official account involves, even
if only implicidy, perhaps the most extensive
incompetence theory in history, because this story
implies that incredible incompetence was manifested by
FBI agents, FAA flight controllers, NMCC officials,
NORAD officials, and jet fighter pilots, among others.
There were potential scapegoats galore, a few of whom
could have been sacrificed to protect the actual
conspirators from suspicion. Contrary to virtually all
past experience, however, this was not done. Indeed, of
all the people who must have manifested gross
incompetence if the official account be true, evidendy
not one was fired or even publicly reprimanded, and some
of them were even promoted—thereby increasing the
suspicion that they had acted as their superiors wished.
But would such behavior not be too arrogant, attributing
too much stupidity or willing blindness to the press, to
be believable? Must we not assume that if leading
figures in the Bush administration were complicit in
9/11, they would have made a big show of punishing at
least a few people for gross incompetence?
These are, at least, the
rhetorical questions that have occurred to me as I have
tried imaginatively to flesh out the complicity theory
that seems to be implicit in the critiques of the
official account. When all these rhetorical questions
are taken together, it seems that we are faced not
simply with a choice between an incompetence theory and
a complicity theory. Rather, the choice seems to be
between a theory involving subordinates who momentarily
became incredibly incompetent, on the one hand, and a
theory involving high-level officials who manifested
incredible incompetence in creating a conspiracy, on the
other. And to call this incompetence "incredible" is to
suggest that it is difficult to believe. Critics of the
complicity theory, therefore, can say that acceptance of
this theory would require excessive credulity.
Those who accept the theory of
high-level conspirators could, to be sure, explain the
apparent incompetence of the plan by the theory of the
"big lie," according to which the masses are more likely
to believe a big lie than a little one, precisely
because they cannot imagine that someone would try to
get a way with such an audacious story. Gore Vidal, for
example, says: "It would seem that the Hitler team got
it about right when it comes to human credulity: the
greater the lie, the more apt it is to be believed.">25
It is unlikely, however, that this explanation will
serve to overcome many peoples doubt that officials who
had risen to the top in political, intelligence, and
military circles would have devised a plan involving
such an obviously implausible cover story.
In suggesting that it would be
difficult to construct an account of official complicity
that could be found widely plausible, at least on the
basis of presently known facts, I am simply enlarging on
Ahmed's admission that he does not claim to have
presented a conclusive case. At this point, however,
Ahmed, Chossudovsky, Meyssan, Thompson, and other
critics of the official account might wish to interject
a word of caution. The fact that there are questions
that they cannot answer, they might add, should not be
taken to mean that we are simply left with a toss-up
between two hypotheses, each of which is subject to
equally serious questions. Instead, the questions they
have raised about the official account are based on
conflicts between this account and known facts, whereas
the questions just now raised about the complicity
theory are rhetorical questions, implying that no
answers could be given to any of them. But perhaps
answers can be given to at least some of them.
For example, as to why the attacks
involved attacks by airplanes, rather than some other
form of terrorist attack that could have been more
easily arranged, an answer has already been implied. If
one of the motives for the attack was to garner support
for spending tens of billions of dollars on the Missile
Defense Shield, the attacks had to come from the air,
being perceivable as a "Space Pearl Harbor." Although
chemical and biological attacks would have been much
simpler, requiring far fewer people to be in on the
conspiracy, they would not have produced the desired
effect.
With regard to the question of
whether it is plausible that so many conspirators would
have kept silent, the revisionists could reply, people
raising this question have probably never experienced
the kind of intimidation that can be brought to bear on
individuals by threats of prosecution and worse.
Furthermore, the revisionists
could add, some of the rhetorical questions depend on
the fact that there are many things about 9/11 that we
do not presently know. These questions might be answered
through a full investigation. One cannot expect that the
revisionists, being independent researchers with limited
budgets and no power to subpoena testimony, could answer
all the questions raised by their alternative scenario.
Meyssan, for example, says that although in some
instances the facts he has uncovered allow us to see the
truth of what happened, in other cases "our questions
remain for the moment unanswered." Pointing to one set
of such questions to which he himself would most like
answers, he asks: "What became of American Airlines
flight 77? Are the passenger dead? If so, who killed
them and why? If not, where are they?" While fully
admitting he does not yet have all the answers, he adds
that "this is no reason to go on believing the lies put
forward by officials.">26 We
will not get an account of what really happened on 9/11,
in other words, until our awareness that they are
lies leads us to demand full-scale investigations.
The remainder of the rhetorical
questions simply suggest that to accept the complicity
theory would be to attribute a degree of incompetence to
the conspirators that is beyond belief. But the truth
may be that they really were terribly incompetent. With
regard to the occupation of Iraq, the incompetence of
the Bush administration's plans—for everything except
winning the initial military victory and securing the
oil fields and ministries—has been becoming increasingly
obvious. Perhaps their formulation of the plan for 9/11,
with its cover story, involved comparable incompetence.
Perhaps this fact is not yet widely recognized only
because the news media have failed to inform the
American public about the many tensions between the
official account and the relevant facts. For example,
the mass media have not educated the public about
standard operating procedures for intercepting hijacked
airliners. They have not emphasized the fact that what
now passes for the official account of the governments
response to the hijackings is very different from what
was said the first few days after 9/11. They have not
emphasized the fact that the explanations for why the
fighter jets arrived too late to prevent the attacks do
not make sense. Nor have they informed the public about
the many physical facts that contradict the official
account of the strike on the Pentagon. Once these and
other relevant facts are well known, critics of the
official theory can argue, it will become widely evident
that, as the name of Jared Israels website suggests, the
emperor has no clothes.>27
Problems for a Coincidence
Theory
Even more important, critics ot the official account
could point out, rejection of the conspiracy theory
exacts a high price. A conspiracy theory usually depends
upon the perception of a pattern, plus a claim that the
existence of this pattern is best explained by supposing
that it was brought about through the combined efforts
of two or more people. To reject a particular conspiracy
theory of this nature requires either a denial that the
alleged pattern exists or the assertion that the
existence of the pattern could be purely coincidental.
It would be hard to deny that the critics of the
official account have discerned a pattern. They have
shown that many otherwise puzzling events—before,
during, and after 9/11—can be explained by the theory
that high-level officials in the US government conspired
to allow the attacks to occur and then to cover up this
fact. Given that pattern, the price for rejecting this
conspiracy theory is to accept a coincidence
theory. And, critics of the official account can point
out, the number of coincidences that would need to be
accepted is enormous. A complete list would include the
following coincidences:
1. Several FAA flight
controllers exhibited extreme incompetence on 9/11,
and evidendy on that day only.
2. The officials in charge at both NMCC and NORAD also
acted incompetently on 9/11, and evidently on that day
only.
3. In particular, when NMCC-NORAD officials did
finally order jet fighters to be scrambled to protect
New York and Washington, they ordered them in each
case from more distant bases, rather than from McGuire
and Andrews, respectively.
4. After public statements saying that Andrews Air
Force Base had no jet fighters on alert to protect
Washington, its website, which had previously said
that many jets were always on alert, was altered.
5 Several pilots who normally are airborne and going
full speed in under three minutes all took much longer
to get up on 9/11.
6. These same pilots, flying planes capable of going
1,500 to 1,850 miles per hour, on that day were all
evidently able to get their planes to fly only 300 to
700 miles per hour.
7. The collapse of the buildings of the World Trade
Center, besides occurring at almost free-fall speed,
exhibited other signs of being controlled demolitions:
molten steel, seismic shocks, and fine dust were all
produced.
8. The video and physical evidence suggesting that
controlled demolition was the cause of the collapse of
the Twin Towers co-exists with testimony from people
in these buildings that they heard, felt, and saw the
effects of explosions.
9. The collapse of WTC-1 and WTC-2 had some of the
same features as the collapse of WTC-7, even though
the latter collapse could not be attributed to the
impact and jet fuel of an airplane.
10. Both the North Tower and the South Tower collapsed
just as their respective fires were dying down, even
though this meant that the South Tower, which had been
hit second, collapsed first.
11. Governmental agencies had the debris, including
the steel, from the collapsed WTC buildings removed
without investigation, which is what would be expected
if the government wanted to prevent evidence of
explosives from being discovered.
12. Physical evidence suggesting that what hit the
Pentagon could not have been a Boeing 757 co-exists
with testimony of several witnesses that the aircraft
that did hit the Pentagon was far smaller than a 757.
13. This evidence about the aircraft that hit the
Pentagon co-exists with reports that Flight 77 crashed
in Kentucky or Ohio.
14. This evidence co-exists with the fact that the
only evidence that Flight 77 did not crash was
supplied by an attorney closely associated with the
Bush administration.
15. Evidence that Flight 77 did not return to
Washington to hit the Pentagon co-exists with the fact
that when the flight control transcript was released,
the final 20 minutes were missing.
16. The fact that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon
did so only after executing a very difficult maneuver
co-exists with the fact that it struck a section of
the Pentagon that, besides containing none of its
leaders, was the section in which the strike would
cause the least death and destruction.
17. On the same day in which jet fighters were unable
to protect the Pentagon from an attack by a single
airplane, the missiles that normally protect the
Pentagon also failed to do so.
18. Sounds from cell phones inside Flight 93
suggesting that the plane had been hit by a missile
were matched by many reports to this effect from
witnesses on the ground.
19. This evidence that Flight 93 was shot down
co-exists with reports from both civilian and military
leaders that there was intent to shoot this flight
down.
20. The only plane that was evidently shot down,
Flight 93, was the only one in which it appeared that
passengers were going to gain control.
21. The evidence that Flight 93 was shot down after
the passengers were about to gain control co-exists
with the fact that the flight control transcript for
this flight was not released.
22. That coincidence co-exists with the fact that when
the cockpit recording of Flight 93 was released, the
final three minutes were missing.
23. Evidence showing that the US government had far
more specific evidence of what was to occur on 9/11
than it has admitted co-exists with evidence that it
actively blocked investigations that might have
prevented the attacks.
24. Reports of obstructions from FBI agents in
Minneapolis co-exist with similar reports from Chicago
and New York.
25. Reports of such obstructions prior to 9/11
co-exist with reports that investigations after 9/11
were also obstructed.
26. These reports of obstructionism co-exist with
multiple reports suggesting that the US government did
not really try to capture or kill Osama bin Laden
either prior to or after 9/11, with the result that
several people independently suggested that the US
government must be working for bin Laden—or vice
versa.
27. All these reports co-exist with reports of
hijackers being allowed in the country in spite of
known terrorist connections or visa violations.
28. These reports about immigration violations
co-exist with evidence that some of these same men
were allowed to train at US flight schools, some on
military bases.
29. This evidence of training at various American
flight schools co-exists with reports that US
officials tried to conceal this evidence.
30. The traumatic events of 9/11 occurred just a year
after a document published by the Project for the New
American Century, an organization whose founders
included several men who became central figures in the
Bush administration, referred to benefits that could
come from "a new Pearl Harbor."
31. The "unifying Pearl Harbor sort of purple American
fury" produced by the 9/11 attacks did benefit the
Bush administration in many ways.
32. A credible report that spokespersons for the Bush
administration had earlier announced that the US
government was planning a war on Afghanistan, which
would begin before the middle of October, co-exists
with the fact that the attacks of 9/11, by occurring
on that date, gave US military forces time to be ready
to attack Afghanistan on October 7.
33. Ahmad Masood, whose continued existence would have
posed problems for US plans in Afghanistan, was
assassinated, reportedly by ISI operatives, just after
the head of the ISI, General Mahmoud Ahmad, had been
meeting in Washington for several days with the head
of the CIA.
34. In the White Houses version of the recording of
Condoleezza Rice's press briefing on May 16, the only
portion that was inaudible was the portion in which
the person under discussion, mentioned as having been
in Washington on 9/11, was identified as "the ISI
chief."
35. Evidence of official efforts to conceal General
Ahmad's presence in Washington co-exists with evidence
that, after it became known that General Ahmad had
ordered $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, US leaders
exerted pressure on the ISI to dismiss him from his
post quietly.
36. Evidence of these attempts to conceal General
Ahmad's involvement in 9/11 co-exists with evidence
that the FBI and other federal agencies sought to
obscure the fact that Saeed Sheikh, the man who wired
the money to Atta, was an ISI agent.
37. The fact that agents in FBI headquarters who
presided over the alleged intelligence failure that
allowed 9/11 to happen, widely called the biggest
intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor, were promoted
instead of fired or otherwise punished co-exists with
the fact that other intelligence agencies also
reported that there had been no punishments for
incompetence related to 9/11.
38. This evidence of lack of punishment for poor
performance co-exists with reports that intelligence
officers who were diligendy trying to pursue
investigations related to 9/11 suffered negative
treatment from superiors.
As can be seen, what some critics call the
incompetence theory can be understood as simply part
of a larger coincidence theory, because it
entails that FAA agents, NMCC and NORAD officials,
pilots, immigration agents, US military leaders in
Afghanistan, and numerous US intelligence agencies all
coincidentally acted with extreme and unusual
incompetence when dealing with matters related to 9/11.
But the coincidence theory
requires even greater credulity. To accept it requires
holding not only that each conjunction of events on the
above list -- which a conspiracy theory could explain by
regarding each one as part of a pattern of events that
had been planned — was purely coincidental. It also
requires holding that the fact that there are so many
events related to 9/11 that involve coincidences—at
least 38 such events—is itself purely coincidental.
Seen in this light, the fact that
a complicity theory may not at this time be able to
answer all the questions it evokes, revisionists can
say, is a relatively trivial problem. Once the relevant
facts are put before us, the official account involves a
coincidence theory that would require far greater
credulity than that of which "conspiracy theorists" are
accused.
Furthermore, the fact that the
revisionists cannot yet answer all questions would be
important only if they were claiming to have presented a
fully conclusive case. But they are not. Meyssan, for
example, tells readers that he is not asking them to
accept his argument "as the definitive truth," but
instead hopes that his readers will use his references
to examine the evidence for themselves.>28
Ahmed says that the purpose of his book is not to
provide a definitive account but merely "to clarify the
dire need for an in-depth investigation into the events
of 11th September.">29
My book is an attempt to show, in
relatively brief form, that he and the others have done
just this.
FOOTNOTES to chapter 9
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Ahmed, 290.
2Ibid., 290, citing Patrick Martin, "Was the
US Government Alerted to September 11 Attack? Part 4:
The Refusal to Investigate," World Socialist Web Site (www.wsws.org),
January 24, 2002.
3Bob Woodward and Dan Balz, "Saturday,
September 15, at Camp David, Advise and Dissent,"
Washington Post, January 31, 2002.
4Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 153.
5Phyllis Bennis, Before and After: US
Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis
(Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press, 2003), 83.
6This fact is included in a document
called "Missile Defense Milestones," which is on the
website of the Missile Defense Agency (acq.osd.mil/bmdo).
7Ahmed, 236-38.
8Ibid., 240, 262.
9Henry Kissinger, "Destroy the Network,"
Washington Post, September 11, 2001 (http://washingtonpost.com),
quoted in 9/11: The Big Lie, 65.
10Richard Perle, "State Sponsors of Terrorism
Should Be Wiped Out Too," Daily Telegraph,
September 18, 2001, quoted in 9/11: The Big Lie,
169.
11Bennis, Before and After, 82.
129/11: The Big Lie, 129.
13John Pilger, New Statesman, December
12, 2002.
14Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 2002), 32.
15"Secretary Rumsfeld Interview," New York
Times, October 12, 2001; quoted in Andrew Bacevich,
American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of US
Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
2002), 227.
16Rice's statement was reported by Nicholas
Lemann in the April 2002 issue of the New Yorker.
17The National Security Strategy of the
United States of America, September 2002 (www.whitehouse.gov/nssc),
28. At about the same time, Tony Blair, the prime
minister of America's junior partner, said to the
liaison committee of the British House of Commons: "To
be truthful about it, there was no way we could have got
the public consent to have suddenly launched a campaign
on Afghanistan but for what happened on September 11"
(London Times, July 17, 2002).
18Thomas Omestand, "New World Order," US
News and World Report, December 31, 2001, quoted in
Ahmed, 262.
19Walden Bello, "The American Way of War,"
Focus on Trade, No. 72: December 2001, quoted in
Ahmed, 279-80.
20Karen Talbot, "Afghanistan is Key to Oil
Profits," Centre for Research on Globalisation, November
7, 2001 (globalresearch.ca), quoted in Ahmed, 280.
21William Pfaff, "Will the New World Order
Rest Solely on American Might?" International Herald
Tribune, December 29, 2001, quoted in Ahmed, 274.
22Ahmed, 279, quoting John McMurtry's
statement in Economic Reform, October, 2001.
23Ibid., 290-93.
24Ibid., 291.
25Gore Vidal, Dreaming War: Blood for Oil
and the Cheney-Bush Junta (New York: Thunder's
Mouth/Nation Books, 2002), 72.
269/11: The Big Lie, 10, 25.
27See The Emperors New Clothes (www.emperor-clothes.com).
289/11: The Big Lie, 10.
29Ahmed, 291-92.
CHAPTER TEN
THE NEED FOR A FULL
INVESTIGATION
I have argued that our Fourth Estate needs to carry out
a thorough investigation of the kind of information
summarized in this book. It is usually only when the
press leads the way that an official investigation is
undertaken. But finally it will be the official
investigation that is decisive. In considering the kind
of investigation that is now needed, it will be helpful
to review the official investigations that have been
authorized thus far and the obstacles they have faced
from the Bush administration.
The Joint Inquiry
As we have seen, the intelligence
committees of the US Senate and House of Representatives
carried out a Joint Inquiry in 2002. As we have also
seen, however, there are many reasons to consider the
report issued by this inquiry inadequate. For example,
it concludes that US intelligence agencies, besides not
having specific information about imminent attacks, did
not even expect attacks to occur within the United
States. The report does suggest that federal agencies
were at fault. Indeed, the report was described by the
press as a "scathing indictment" of the intelligence
agencies. But the named problems—such as inadequate
communication between agencies, failure to make rather
obvious inferences, and failure to take warnings with
sufficient seriousness—all fit under the incompetence
and coincidence theories.
In light of the evidence
summarized in this book, the underlying weakness of the
Joint Inquiry is that its members apparently simply
assumed from the outset that no deliberate complicity
was involved, as illustrated by the fact that the
testimony of the various witnesses was evidently
accepted at face value. For example, if NSA officials
said that they had not translated specific warnings that
had been intercepted between September 8 and 10 until
after the attacks, that testimony was simply accepted as
the truth. If agents at FBI headquarters said that they
misunderstood the standards under FISA for issuing a
warrant, that testimony was accepted as the truth, in
spite of evidence of deliberate sabotage.
There are several possible
explanations for the inadequacy of the Joint Inquiry.
One is simply that a thorough investigation of the many
questions raised by critics of the official account
would have taken far more time and resources than were
devoted to this inquiry, which reportedly involved only
nine public hearings and thirteen closed sessions.
But there is also reason to
believe that intimidation may have dampened some of the
members' investigative zeal. Thompson cites a report
that on August of 2002, FBI agents had questioned nearly
all 37 members of the Senate and House intelligence
committees about 9/11-related information leaks. The
agents even demanded that these senators and
representatives submit to lie detector tests and turn
over phone records and appointment calendars. A law
professor, commenting on this demand, said: "It creates
a great chilling effect on those who would be critical
of the FBI.">1 Some senators
and representatives expressed grave concern about the
violation of the separation of powers, with Senator John
McCain saying: "What you have here is an organization
compiling dossiers on people who are investigating the
same organization." The FBI, said one senator, is
"trying to put a damper on our activities and I think
they will be successful.">2
Beyond the problems with the Joint
Inquiry, the larger question is why Congress did not
immediately undertake a full-scale investigation into
9/11. Assigning the task simply to the intelligence
committees implied that the success of the attacks of
9/11 was already known to be the result of nothing other
than intelligence failures. A more sweeping
investigation was evidently not undertaken because the
congressional leaders acceded to requests from the White
House that the scope of their investigation be limited.
Both President Bush and Vice President Cheney, in
personal appeals to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle,
reportedly asked that only the House and Senate
intelligence committees look into the potential
breakdowns among federal agencies that could have
allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a
broader inquiry that some lawmakers have proposed." Bush
and Cheney were making this request, they said because a
broader inquiry would take resources and personnel
away from the war on terrorism."
>3 In light of the fact that
Bush and Cheney must now be included among the prime
suspects, it would obviously be problematic if they had
been allowed to determine the cause of the 9/11
attacks—that it was "breakdown" rather than
"complicity"— and henceto limit the scope of the
investigation carried out by the people's
representatives. We normally do not allow the suspects
in an investigation to make such decisions.
Nevertheless, in spite of all
these problems, the work of the Joint Inquiry was not in
vain. It provided enough damaging revelations to leave
President Bush, after having long opposed the creation
of any special investigating body, little choice but to
support the creation of The National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, informally
known as the 9/11 Independent Commission.>4
The 9/11 Independent Commission
Although it was good that this
commission was finally created, it has also been riddled
with problems. One problem is that the Bush
administration placed obstacles in front of it from the
outset. An immediate obstacle was the very small sum of
money allocated by the administration to fund the
commission's work. As of January 2003, the commission
had been given only $3 million—whereas in 1996, by
contrast, a federal commission to study legalized
gambling was given $5 million.>5
In March of 2003, Time magazine reported that the
commission had asked the Bush administration for an
additional $11 million but had been turned down. One
commissioner, pointing out that the request was hardly
excessive, noted that the commission on the Columbia
shuttle disaster, by contrast, had $50 million. Stephen
Push, one of the leaders of families of the victims,
said that this refusal suggested that the Bush
administration saw this "as a convenient way for
allowing the commission to fail. They've never wanted
the commission and I feel the White House has always
been looking for a way to kill it without having their
finger on the murder weapon.">6
After more time passed, the additional funding was
finally approved.
Yet another obstacle was that
although the commission's mandate dictated that it must
complete its work by May 2004, the Bush administration
was very slow in issuing the needed security clearances
to the commission's personnel. For example, even Slade
Gorton, a former Republican US senator with much
experience with intelligence issues, still had not
received a security clearance by March 12, 2003, leading
the commissions vice chairman, former Democratic
congressman Lee Hamilton, to say: "It's kind of
astounding that someone like Senator Gorton can't get
immediate clearance.">7 As a
result of these delays, by the time the commission was
finally able to begin work in the middle of 2003, it had
less than a year to carry out its work.
Another obstacle was difficulty in
obtaining needed documents and witnesses. For one thing,
although this commission was supposed to use the final
report of the Joint Inquiry as a point of departure, the
Bush administration did not allow this report to be
released until late in July of 2003. Also, shortly
before this report was released, the commission's
chairman, Thomas H. Kean, complained that the Justice
Department and other federal agencies were withholding
documents—which they obviously would not have done if
they had been ordered by the White House to turn them
over. Kean also complained that federal agencies were
insisting on having "minders" present when any of their
employees were called to give testimony, which Kean
(reasonably) interpreted as an attempt to intimidate
these employees. The White House also indicated that the
president himself would not give testimony, at least
under oath.
In light of the enormous number of
questions that have been raised about 9/11, these
obstacles were probably by themselves sufficient to
prevent the commission from providing definitive answers
to most of the questions, even if the commission carried
out the most independent, aggressive investigation
possible in the time remaining. Indeed, in October of
2003, one member of the commission, former senator Max
Cleland, told New York Times reporter Philip
Shenon that the commission could not complete its work
by May of 2004, adding: "It's obvious that the White
House wants to run out the clock here.... [W]e're still
in negotiations with some assistant White House counsel
about getting these documents—it's disgusting." Although
Cleland is a Democrat, this attitude, reported Shenon,
was bipartisan, with Slade Gorton also complaining that
the "lack of cooperation" would make it "very difficult"
for the commission to complete its work by the deadline.>8
The obstacles created by the Bush
administration, however, were not the only problem.
Another reason to doubt that the commissions report
would answer many questions was that its leaders adopted
a very limited understanding of its task: "The focus of
the commission will be on the future," said Vice
Chairman Hamilton. "We're not interested in trying to
assess blame, we do not consider that part of the
commission's responsibility.">9
The commission, in other words, evidently approached its
task by simply taking for granted the truth of the
incompetence theory, so that the question of official
complicity would not even be explored. Hamilton's words
seemed, in fact, to imply that the commission would not
even assess blame in the sense of incompetence. In
saying that the commission's focus "will be on the
future," Hamilton was apparently indicating that it
would limit itself strictly to the question of how to
make sure that a "breakdown" does not happen again.
Now that we have before us the
questions raised by critics of the official account,
along with the alternative theory implicit therein, we
can see the absurdity of such a limited mandate. Any
explanation of how the attacks on 9/11 could have
occurred requires that there was either complicity at
the highest level of the U.S. government or an
unprecedented system-wide breakdown in this country's
ability to protect itself from a very crude form of
attack—and this despite the fact that a huge portion of
our nations trillion-dollar budget goes annually for
"defense" and "intelligence." In the face of a seemingly
forced choice between these two explanations, the
commissions failure to assess blame would be an enormous
dereliction of duty. We need an investigation that will
seek to place blame where it belongs. We also need one
that will not shrink from asking whether 9/11 resulted
from official complicity rather than merely massive
incompetence.
To be fair to Hamilton and the
other members, it must be added that the commission's
limited scope was perhaps imposed upon it. I have read
reports that President Bush agreed to authorize the 9/11
Independent Commission only on condition that its scope
would be limited to the question of how to prevent
similar breakdowns in the future—in other words, only on
condition that the commission would be independent in
name only, not free to determine for itself the nature
and scope of its investigation.
In any case, whatever be the facts
with regard to the commission's mandate, the president
clearly did make it a condition of his authorization of
such a commission that he would appoint its chairman.>10
Bush's first choice, which many observers found
incredible, was Henry Kissinger. There was widespread
scepticism about Kissinger's ability to guide the
commission in an independent and impartial way.>11
"Indeed," said the New York Times, "it is
tempting to wonder if the choice of Mr. Kissinger is not
a clever maneuver by the White House to contain an
investigation it long opposed.">12
Skepticism about Kissinger's capacity for independence
was based in part on reports of possible conflicts of
interest, about which he evidently had not been
interrogated by the White House. Kissinger, for one
thing, was getting huge consulting fees from
corporations with heavy investments in Saudi Arabia.>13
And, of course, besides reportedly supplying many of the
hijackers for 9/11, Saudi Arabia has been, according to
John O'Neill and other intelligence agents, the primary
continuing source of support for al-Qaeda. Kissinger's
relationship with Unocal—the oil company with plans to
build a pipeline through Afghanistan—was also reported.>14
The obvious problem here is that the attacks of 9/11
provided the basis for a war in Afghanistan, after which
the United States installed a puppet government headed
by a former Unocal employee and placed military bases
along the proposed route for the pipeline. The fact that
Bush would appoint someone reputed to be financially
connected with Unocal as well as Saudi Arabia suggested,
to say the least, that the impartiality of the
commission's chairman was not his chief concern. Bush
declared, in fact, that Kissinger was not required to
reveal his business clients. The Congressional Research
Service said otherwise, however, and Kissinger resigned
rather than do so.>15
It was after this debacle that
Thomas Kean became the chairman. Kean, formerly the
governor of New Jersey, was the president of Drew
University at the time of his appointment. Because he
was to continue as Drew's president, Kean would have
only limited time to devote to the commission. Critics
also complained about possible conflicts of interest,
with the main problem being his membership on the Board
of Directors for another oil company, Amerada Hess, with
extensive investments in Central Asia. Amerada Hess had,
furthermore, joined with Delta Oil of Saudi Arabia—one
of the companies in the CentGas consortium—to form
Hess-Delta.>16 All of the
other members of the committee, furthermore, reportedly
had at least one possible conflict of interest.>17
Also problematic is the fact that
the president also appointed the committees executive
director, Philip Zelikow, who had been deeply enmeshed
with the Bush administration. He was appointed to Bush's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board shortly after 9/11.
Back during the administration of the elder George Bush,
he served with Condoleezza Rice in the National Security
Council, then later collaborated with her on a book.>18
Stephen Push, one of the founders of Families of
September 11 commented on the problem of getting
"commissioners and staff who are truly independent." He
was uncomfortable, he indicated, with the fact "that
Philip Zelikow has such a close relationship to Rice and
other people the commission is investigating.">19
The Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Independent
Commission has, in fact, called on Zelikow to step down.>20
Accordingly, given the make-up of
the commission, people aware of the issues had reason to
suspect that any evidence that the Bush administration
itself was complicit in the events of 9/11 would not be
impartially and thoroughly explored. Several good people
were appointed to the commission, and various issues
were assigned to a number of committees, with capable
and dedicated staff members. Reports indicated that
these committees, under Kean's overall direction, were
going somewhat beyond the limited scope originally
suggested by Hamilton's statement. But evidently not
very far: Even as late as October of 2003, a quotation
from one member of the commission seemed to suggest that
its most important task would be "making recommendations
for the future.">21
Nevertheless, continued
stonewalling by the White House and various agencies led
to statements by Kean suggesting that he would be
tenacious in obtaining evidence that the Bush
administration and its various agencies were trying to
withhold. The same month, in fact, Kean's commission
issued a subpoena to the FAA, adding that this subpoena
would "put other agencies on notice that our document
requests must be taken as seriously as a subpoena.">22
He also stated in an interview that he was ready to
subpoena the White House itself if necessary. In his
strongest statement up to that point, Kean said:
Any document that has to do with
this investigation cannot be beyond our reach.... I
will not stand for [stonewalling].... We will use
every tool at our command to get hold of every
document.... There are a lot of theories about 9/11,
and as long as there is any document out there that
bears on any of those theories, we're going to leave
questions unanswered. And we cannot leave questions
unanswered.
Assuming Kean was really serious
about taking the various "theories" seriously and
obtaining every available document relevant to them,
there was the possibility that the commission might
uncover evidence suggesting that 9/11 happened more
through complicity than incompetence. This possibility
was suggested by Max Cleland's statement that, "As each
day goes by, we learn that this government knew a whole
lot more about these terrorists before Sept. 11 than it
has ever admitted.">23
But there was also the
possibility, indeed the probability, that this would
not happen. And, regardless of people's assessment
of Kean's integrity, the fact remains that he was
appointed by President Bush. At the time the commission
was chosen, of course, the evidence that pointed to
complicity by the Bush administration was known by very
few people, so acceding to Bush's insistence that he
should appoint the commission's leaders did not seem
completely absurd. But insofar as there is widespread
knowledge of this evidence, the fact that the chairman
was appointed by Bush will create suspicion that he,
like Kissinger, was chosen for the sake of containing
the investigation.
This suspicion might well be
misplaced, at least if it is suspicion that Kean would,
out of loyalty to his party and the president,
deliberately conceal evidence of complicity. Although
Kean is, like the president, a Republican, he is "a
moderate Republican known for his independence,">24
who reportedly refused to run for the US Senate because
of his disagreement with the direction being taken by
his parry. The president perhaps selected him to replace
Kissinger not because he would be almost as safe but
because the administration did not want to risk another
embarrassment.
Nevertheless, because Kean, like
Zelikow, was appointed by the president, a report by the
commission exonerating President Bush and his
administration of all wrongdoing would be suspected, by
those who know the kinds of questions reported in this
book, of contributing to a cover-up, even if only
through failure to exert the kind of pressure required
to obtain truthful testimony and access to needed
documents.
This kind of failure was arguably
illustrated, in fact, when in November of 2003 Kean
agreed to restrictions demanded by the White House with
regard to those intelligence reports for the president
known as PDBs, short for Presidential Daily Briefs. (An
example would be the PDB for August 6, 2001, which
included the memo from British intelligence, discussed
in Chapter 5, which reportedly indicated that terrorists
planned to use hijacked airliners as missiles to hit
targets inside the United States.) According to the
agreement accepted by Kean, the White House would be
allowed to edit these briefs before sending them to the
commission. And then only a few members of the
commission would be allowed to see even these edited
briefs. Then, besides only being able to take notes on
these edited briefs, they would have to show these notes
to the White House.>25
As Cleland described the deal that was struck:
A minority of the commissioners
will be able to see a minority of the [PDB] documents
that the White House has already said is pertinent.
And then a minority of the commissioners themselves
will have to brief the rest of the commissioners on
what the White House thinks is appropriate.... [B]ut
first they have to report to the White House what
they're going to tell the other commissioners.>26
This agreement, continued Cleland,
means that the commissioners are not able "to fulfill
their obligation to the Congress and the American
people." Whereas the commissioners are supposed to get
access to all the documents they need, "the president of
the United States is cherry-picking what information is
shown to what minority of commissioners"—a situation
that Cleland labeled "ridiculous."
This decision produced the first
public split within the commission. Cleland, a Democrat,
called the deal a "bad deal," adding that
this independent commission
should be independent and should not be making deals
with anybody.... I don't think any independent
commission can let an agency or the White House
dictate to it how many commissioners see what.... [W]e
shouldn't be dealing. If somebody wants to deal, we
issue subpoenas.
In his strongest charge, Cleland
said: "[T]hat decision compromised the mission of the
9/11 commission, pure and simple.">27
Fellow Democrat Timothy Roemer also rejected this
decision, complaining that the White House might pass
along "only two or three paragraphs out of a nine-page
report," thereby allowing it to hide any "smoking guns.
This decision was also labeled
"unacceptable" by the Family Steering Committee for the
9/11 Independent Commission, which declared: "The
commission should issue a statement to the American
public fully explaining why this agreement was chosen in
lieu of issuing subpoenas to the CIA and executive
branch." Spokesperson Kristen Breirweiser added: "This
is an independent commission that is supposed to be
transparent.">28
Given these developments, everyone
now, including those who fervently want the president
and his administration to be freed from any suspicion of
complicity in the events of 9/11, should support the
authorisation of a full investigation led by someone,
perhaps a special prosecutor, whose independence cannot
reasonably be doubted.>29
Everyone should now favour this regardless of the
conclusions of the 9/11 Independent Commission. That is,
if the commissions conclusion is that there was, or at
least may have been, complicity by the Bush
administration, that conclusion would rather obviously
require the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Alternatively, if the commission denies that there was
any complicity, perhaps by failing even to raise the
question, a new investigation would be needed for the
reason given above—namely, that there will be widespread
suspicion that the Bush administration, through its
selection of the chairman and executive director
combined with its obstructionism, prevented the truth
from being discovered.>30
Recent Events
After the manuscript for this book
was essentially finished, several events occurred that
drove home even more clearly the need for a new
investigation. These events involved publications, two
presidential candidates, a lawsuit, and the 9/11
Independent Commission.
Publications: Several
recent publications, by raising the kinds of questions
dealt with in this book, suggest that these disturbing
questions, far from going away, will continue to be
raised until credible answers are provided. One of these
publications was an article in the Guardian in
September of 2003 by former British Minister of the
Environment Michael Meacher. Pointing out that the 2000
document produced by the Project for the New American
Century (PNAC) says that its agenda will be difficult to
implement without "a new Pearl Harbor," Meacher
suggested that this document "provides a much better
explanation of what actually happened before, during,
and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis."
With regard to events prior to 9/11, he said that "US
authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events
of 9/11" even though "at least 11 countries provided
advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks.">31With
regard to 9/11 itself, he said that with all the advance
warnings America had, the slow reaction was
"astonishing."
Not a single fighter plane was
scrambled to investigate from the US Andrews airforce
base, just 10 miles from Washington DC, until after
the third plane had hit the Pentagon at 9.38AM.
>32 Why not? There were
standard FAA intercept procedures for hijacked
aircraft before 9/11... It is a US legal requirement
that once an aircraft has moved significantly off its
flight plan, fighter planes are sent up to
investigate.
Meacher then asked the crucial
question:
Was this inaction simply the
result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant
of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations
have been deliberately stood down on September 11? If
so, why, and on whose authority?
Meacher then quoted the former US
federal crimes prosecutor, John Loftus, as having said:
The information provided by
European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so
extensive that it is no longer possible for either the
CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence.
With regard to the American
response after 9/11, Meacher said that
9/11 offered an extremely
convenient pretext to put the PNAC plan into action.>33
Meacher's article evoked much
response. The nature of some of it was reflected in the
title of an article, "Fury Over Meacher Claims," written
by Ewen MacAskill, the Guardian's diplomatic
editor.>34 As MacAskill
reported, a spokesman for the US embassy in London said:
Mr. Meacher's fantastic
allegations—especially his assertion that the US
government knowingly stood by while terrorists killed
some 3,000 innocents in New York, Pennsylvania and
Virginia—would be monstrous, and monstrously
offensive, if they came from someone serious or
credible.
Having made such "fantastic
allegations," Meacher could be dismissed as neither
serious nor credible, in spite of having been the UK's
environment minister for several years (who as such
would have known something about internal discussions of
coming oil shortages). Equally dismissive was an article
in London's Sunday Times, which said that Meacher
had "lurched into the twilight zone.">35
At the same time, Meacher's
article evoked a remarkable amount of support. One
letter to the editor from America said: "It is obvious
to me that the 'fury' attributed to representatives of
my government derives from their understanding that his
views cut close to the bone." Another American wrote:
"Please let Mr. Meacher know that, despite howls
ofoutrage and denial at his forthright analysis, there
are many of us who have long made the same deductions.
My gratitude to the Guardian for having the
courage to publish it." A writer from England said:
"Kudos to Mr. Meacher for being the first prominent
British politician to say what many have long known. But
when will other senior Labour members have the courage
to support him?">36
In any case, a week later, Meacher,
perhaps rejecting the support he had received as well as
the vilification, wrote a second letter, which began:
Contrary to the wilful
misrepresentation by some of my article, I did not say
at any point, and have never said, that the US
government connived at the 9/11 attacks or
deliberately allowed them to happen. It need hardly be
said that I do not believe any government would
conspire to cause such an atrocity.>37
He had only, he claims, argued
that the US government had exploited 9/11 as a pretext
to carry out its already formulated agenda for Iraq and
Afghanistan.
However, given Meacher's question
whether US security forces were "deliberately stood
down" and his rejection of a defense based on
"incompetence," the readers could surely be forgiven for
having thought that he had charged official complicity.>38
But even if one accepts Meacher's statement that his
original article was not meant to "suggest a conspiracy
theory," its central point remains valid—that the
failure of the US government to give satisfactory
answers to the questions it raised "has provided ample
ammunition to those who do." Accordingly, his article,
along with the positive responses it evoked, points to
the increasing sense that we need an investigation aimed
at answering these questions.
Shortly after the Meacher flap an
article appeared on the front page of the Wall Street
Journal entitled "Conspiracy Theories About
September 11 Get Hearing in Germany.">39
While pointing out that books containing such theories
have also become best-sellers in France, Italy, and
Spain, this article said that such books have been
especially well received in Germany, where a recent
public opinion poll showed 20 percent of the citizens
believing that "the U.S. government ordered the attacks
itself." This article focused in particular on a
best-selling book by Andreas von Bülow.>40
Besides pointing out that von Bülow had been a long-time
member of parliament after having been "one of the top
officials in the West German defense department," this
article added that his book was put out by "one of the
country's most prestigious publishing houses."
Ian Johnson, the author of this
article, suggested that Germany is especially hospitable
to 9/11 conspiracy theories, with their "improbable and
outrageous assertions," because Germany has become
increasingly hostile to American foreign policy.
Johnsons article has, nevertheless, alerted a
significant readership to the fact that the charge of
official US complicity has been made by a highly
credible public figure in Germany and is widely
believed.
A month after Meacher s original
article appeared, freelance journalist Paul Donovan
published a criticism of journalists who had attacked
Meacher. Complaining that many journalists seemed to be
seduced by power, Donovan complained that although the
"premier role of the journalist should be as a check on
power...many seem to...get greater job satisfaction as
parrots of the official truth." After briefly recounting
what he called "the staggering story of the events of
9/11," Donovan said:
No reasons have been given for
the Bush administrations conduct on that day, no one
has been brought to account. Yet from the tragedy that
was 9/11 Bush has been able to deliver for his backers
in the arms and oil industries. The President has also
been able to portray himself as a wartime leader. This
is the real story that journalists should be probing
at and uncovering, not decrying the likes of Meacher
who has at least had the guts to stand up and say what
many have suspected for some time.>41
During the same period in which
the Meacher, Johnson, and Donovan pieces were appearing,
a new book by Michael Moore -- Dude Where's My
Country? — was published. Whatever one thinks of
Moore, his books attract a huge readership (his previous
book, Stupid White Men, was the best-selling
nonfiction book of 2002-2003). In this new books first
chapter, entiled "George of Arabia" Moore addresses
seven questions to President Bush. One of them asks
about Bushs behavior in the classroom on 9/11, but most
of them deal with the relationship between him and the
Saudi royal family, the bin Laden family, and the
Taliban. Moore's own hunch as to what really happened is
evidently reflected in his third question to President
Bush: "Who attacked the United States on September 11 —
a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or your
friends, Saudi Arabia?">42
Moore's strongest statement is one
that provides a possible answer to why the White House
has been impeding the 9/11 Independent Commission and
also to why the press and the American people in general
have been so passive. Having asked why Bush does not
"stop prohibiting the truth from coming out," Moore
suggests:
Perhaps it's because George &
Co. have a lot more to hide beyond why they didn't
scramble the fighter jets fast enough on the morning
of September 11. And maybe we, the people, are afraid
to know the whole truth because it could take us down
roads where we don't want to go.
This latter supposition—which is
in harmony with Dan Rather's statement that it is fear
that has kept the press from asking the difficult
questions—is probably correct.
It is indeed frightening to think
that perhaps our government did, Michael Meacher's later
statement notwithstanding, "conspire to cause such an
atrocity." It is especially frightening to consider the
implications of such a conspiracy if it included the
FBI, the CIA, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon.
It might seem prudent simply to "let sleeping dogs lie."
If the suspicions are correct, however, these dogs are
not sleeping, but are using the official account of 9/11
for various nefarious purposes, both within our country
and the rest of the world. Also, if we suspect foul play
but keep silent out of fear, we can say farewell to any
pretense to being the "land of the free and the home of
the brave." And, in fact, to being a democracy. We may
simply have to go "down roads where we don't want to
go."
That some members of the American
press may be ready to do this is suggested by the
publication on September 11, 2003, of an online article
by William Bunch of the Philadelphia. Daily News
entided "Why Don't We Have Answers to These 9/11
Questions?">43 This is the
article, referred to in the Introduction, that asks "why
after 730 days do we know so little about what really
happened that day?" To illustrate how much is still
unknown, Bunch asks 20 questions, about half of which
overlap with the central questions of the present book.
He then asks why "a docile mainstream media" has not
demanded answers to these questions.
Perhaps his article in the United
States, like Donovan's article in the united Kingdom, is
a sign that the press is ready to become less docile.
A Candidate's Statement about
an "Interesting Theory": During an interview on
National Public Radio on December 1, 2003, Democratic
presidential candidate Howard Dean was asked, "Why do
you think he [Bush] is suppressing that [Sept. 11]
report?" He replied: "I don't know. There are many
theories about it. The most interesting theory that I've
heard so far ... is that he was warned ahead of time by
the Saudis. Now who knows what the real situation is?">44
The task of disciplining Dean and
warning others not to express such thoughts in public
was taken on by Charles Krauthammer. In a Washington
Post article entitled "Delusional Dean," Krauthammer
said that Dean's statement—that "the most interesting"
theory...is that Bush knew about Sept. 11 in advance"—is
evidence that Dean had been struck by a new psychiatric
condition that is abroad in the country. Krauthammer
labels this condition BDS, or "Bush Derangement
Syndrome," defined as "the acute onset of paranoia in
otherwise normal people in reaction to the policies, the
presidency—nay—the very existence of George W. Bush."
Krauthammer's piece provides an
example of the standard approach taken by defenders of
the official account. Rather than dealing with any of
the problems in this account, they simply declare that
all theories of official complicity are so obviously
absurd that anyone taking such theories seriously must
have deep psychological problems. Any problem with the
official account alleged by critics, such as evidence
that the Bush administration had more information about
the attacks in advance than it has admitted, is
dismissed a priori. The offiicial account is
thereby protected from scrutiny, and other people are
warned not to raise questions.
Although Krauthammer's article was
obviously intended to be cleverly humorous, its serious
intent was made clear by the following comparison:
When Rep. Cynthia McKinney
(D-GA) first broached this idea [that Bush had advance
knowledge] beforethe 2002 primary election, it was
considered so nutty it helped make her former
representative McKinney. Today the Democratic
presidential front-runner professes agnosticism as to
whether the president of the United States was tipped
off about 9/11 by the Saudis, and it goes unnoticed.
The virus is spreading.>45
Writing several days after Dean's
statement was broadcast, Krauthammer appeared alarmed
that Dean's statement had not evoked the same outcry
that was raised against Congresswoman McKinney. Just as
she was convicted in the press and the court of public
opinion of being too "nutty" to remain in office,
Krauthammer was suggesting, the press and the public
should have taken Dean's statement as evidence that he,
too, is unfit for public office.
In alluding to Cynthia McKinney's
defeat in 2002, Krauthammer was presupposing the
conventional wisdom as to the "lesson" to be drawn from
it -- namely, that it is political suicide for any
candidate, even a Democrat, to raise the question of
whether the president had prior knowledge about the
attacks of 9/11. An examination of the circumstances
surrounding McKinneys defeat, however, suggests that
this might not necessarily be the case. There are at
least three factors to be taken into consideration.
In the first place, McKinneys
questions about 9/11 were conflated by the press with
her statements about the subsequent wars, with the
result that it appeared to most people that she had
charged not only that the president had specific
foreknowledge of the attacks but that he had allowed
them to happen for a very particular reason. A story in
the Orlando Sentinel for example, claimed that
McKinney had asserted "that President George W. Bush
knew about the 9-11 attacks in advance and did nothing
to prevent them. Why? So that all his cronies could get
rich on the subsequent military buildup.">46
A story in the New York Times said: "Ms. McKinney
suggest[ed] that President Bush might have known about
the September 11 attacks but did nothing so his
supporters could make money in a war.">47
As Greg Palast and others have shown, however, the idea
that McKinney charged Bush with allowing the attacks for
this reason resulted from an illegitimate conflation of
some of McKinneys statements. Palast even presents good
reason to believe that a similar conflation lay behind
the belief that McKinney had charged the Bush
administration with having had specific knowledge of the
attacks in advance.>48 Palast
argues, in fact, that McKinneys real position was
similar to his own, according to which several warnings
had been given, so that the fact that the attacks were
not anticipated in time to prevent them pointed
to a massive intelligence failure, for which the
president's policies were at least partly responsible.>49
In any case, whatever McKinneys actual intent, she was
not presented to the public as having simply suggested
that there should be an investigation of whether the
Bush administration had prior knowledge. There is,
furthermore, a second reason why her electoral defeat
does not necessarily mean that making such a suggestion
would be political suicide, even for a Democrat. In
Georgia, voters in a primary election are allowed to
"cross over," so that registered Republicans, for
example, can choose to vote in the Democratic primary.
According to McKinney's account of what happened,
another black woman, with positions closer to those of
the Republican party, was urged by Republicans to run
against McKinney in the primary, after which
"Republicans fed her campaign coffers and then 48,000 of
them crossed over and voted for her.">50
Although Georgia's voting laws make it impossible to
know how many cross-over voters there actually were,
McKinney's general claim is supported by John Sugg,
senior editor of Atlanta's weekly paper, who said:
"Republicans crossed over in droves to vote in the
Democratic primary.">51
Still another relevant fact
concerns an online poll set up on April 17 by the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The poll's question
was based on the assumption that McKinney had charged
that the president had advance knowledge of the attacks.
People were asked: "Are you satisfied the Bush
administration had no advance warning of the September
11 attacks?" Given the fact that the AJC was one
of the newspapers that led the attack on McKinney, the
purpose of the poll was evidently to show that
McKinney's charge had little if any public support. But
according to NewsMax.com—a website that shared the
AJCs hostility to McKinney—only 52 percent responded
affirmatively. Two percent of the respondents chose the
answer, "I'm not sure. Congress should investigate,"
while the other possible answer, "No, I think officials
knew it was coming," was selected by 46 percent of the
responders. Hence the title put on the story: "Poll
Shocker: Nearly Half Support McKinney's 9/11 Conspiracy
Theory." The writer of this story, which was posted
shortly after 3:30 PM, added: "Though over 23,000
Atlanta Journal-Constitution readers had responded
by midafternoon, the poll has been mysteriously
withdrawn from the paper's web site.">52
Such polls are not, of course,
scientific. But this one does raise an interesting
question, which is what the results of a scientific poll
taken in the United States would be. No such poll has
been taken—perhaps on the basis of the old advice: "If
you don't want to know the answer, don't ask the
question." But perhaps if such a poll were to be taken,
we would find that public opinion in America regarding
the Bush administration's relation to 9/11 is closer to
public opinion in Germany than had been assumed. It is,
at least, an interesting question, which could be
tested.
In any case, these three
facts—that Cynthia McKinney's "charge" was distorted,
that apart from the cross-over vote she might not have
been defeated, and that a remarkable percentage of the
people in the Atlanta area evidently believed already in
April of 2002 that "officials knew it was
coming"—suggest that her defeat does not necessarily
prove that it would be political suicide for any
politician to point to evidence suggesting that the Bush
administration had foreknowledge of the attacks.
Be that as it may, the fact that
the question of such foreknowledge was raised by a
presidential candidate, whose question was then
publicized by a prominent journalist, provides yet
further evidence that an investigation into this very
question is needed.
Ellen Mariani's Complaint:
Still further evidence is provided by another recent
event—a lawsuit that makes a charge not wholly unlike
the charge Cynthia McKinney was thought to have made.>53
On November 26, 2003, attorney Philip J. Berg held a
news conference in Philadelphia to announce that Ellen
Mariani, whose husband was on United Airlines Flight
175, had filed a Federal Court Complaint against
President Bush and several members of his cabinet under
the RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt
Organizations) Act.>54 This
Complaint alleges that George W. Bush (GWB) and other
officials-including John Ashcroft, Dick Cheney,
Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, and George Tenet—are
guilty "for 'failing to act and prevent' the murder of
Plaintiff's husband, Louis Neil Mariani, for financial
and political reasons" and that they "have 'obstructed
justice' in the aftermath of said criminal acts and
omissions.">55 In elaborating
on this summary charge, the Complaint says, among other
things:
Defendant GWB "owed a duty" not
only to Plaintiff, but the American People to protect
and defend against the preventable attacks based upon
substamial intelligence known to Defendant GWB prior
to 911" which resulted in the death of Plaintiffs
husband and thousands of other innocent victims on
"911."...
Defendant GWB has not been
forthright and honest with regard to his
administrations pre-knowledge of the potential of the
"911" attacks and Plaintiff seeks to compel Defendant
GWB to justify why her husband Louis Neil Mariani died
on "911."...[T]he compelling evidence that will be
presented in this case through discovery, subpoena
power by this Court and testimony at trial will lead
to one undisputed fact, Defendant GWB failed to act
and prevent "911" knowing the attacks would lead to
our nation having to engage in an "International War
on Terror (IWOT)" which would benefit Defendants both
financially and for political reasons....
Plaintiff believes, Defendant
GWB et al, allowed the attacks to take place to compel
public anger and outcry to engage our nation and our
military men and women in a preventable "IWOT" for
personal gains and agendas....
Special Agent Robert Wright
wrote a memo on June 9, 2001, warning his superiors,
Defendant DOJ/FBI of the potential of terrorists
hijacking aircraft to attack the United States and two
(2) months later, Defendant GWB's National Security
Advisor, Defendant Condoleezza Rice, acknowledged that
on August 6, 2001...she provided a written brief to
Defendant GWB at his Texas ranch which warned "OBL"
might try to hijack US aircraft. Plaintiff... [has] a
"right to know" why these reports provided Defendant
GWB were not acted upon to prevent the most deadly
attacks against our nation since Pearl Harbor, which
led us into World War II, as "911" is now leading us
into the never ending "IWOT." From the mountain of
evidence and the ongoing "secrecy" of Defendant GWB
and his unwillingness to cooperate with the "911
Commission," Plaintiff brings this RICO Act civil
action to obtain justice for herself and husband Louis
Neil Mariani and to expose the "truth" to the American
public as to the great betrayal Defendants have
inflicted upon each and every freedom-loving American
arising from the crimes prior to, during and after
"911.">56
Besides providing copies of this
Complaint, Berg also handed out an open letter to the
president from Ellen Mariani. In this letter, she says
Stop blocking the release of
certain evidence and documents that were discovered by
the 9/11 Investigation Commission if you have nothing
to hide proving you did not fail to act and prevent
the attacks of 9/11. Your reason for not releasing
this material is that it is a matter of "national
security."...But...it is your personal
credibility/security that you are concerned with....>57
If this suit is allowed to go
forward, which would mean that Mariani and Berg would
have subpoena power, it may begin to provide answers to
the disturbing questions that have been raised about
9/11.
This suit, along with the Dean-Krauthammer
exchange and several recent publications, suggest that
these questions will be raised with increasing frequency
and intensity. More and more citizens will believe that
the official account is a lie. The only solution
compatible with a democratic form of government is an
investigation that finally provides a credible account
of what happened on 9/11. That this may need to be a
new investigation has been further suggested by
recent developments in relation to the 9/11 Independent
Commission.
The 9/11 Independent
Commission: In spite of all the problems that have
hobbled this commission, many people, including leaders
of the Family Steering Committee, had long held onto
some hope that it would finally provide answers to at
least some of the many unanswered questions. But that
hope has been undermined by further developments. First,
the previously discussed agreement by the commission to
work out a deal with the White House, instead of using
its subpoena power, gave support to the charge that it
should be called "the 9/11 Coverup Commission.">58
Second, the commission lost its most outspoken critical
member, Max Cleland.>59
Third, the question of conflicts of interest was raised
anew in mid-January by the revelation in a New York
Times story that the commission had interviewed two
of its own members, executive director Philip Zelikow
and commissioner Jamie Gorelick (who was a senior member
of the Justice Department during the Clinton
administration). This revelation raised the question
with special intensity because Zelikow and Gorelick are
"the only two commission officials with wide access to
highly classified White House documents." When asked
about the news that Zelikow had been interviewed,
Kristen Breitweiser said: "He has a huge conflict of
interest," adding: "This is what we've been concerned
about from Day 1." Elaborating on this concern, she
feared, she said, that the commission report "is going
to be a whitewash.''>60
A fourth blow to the hope that the
commissions report will answer atleast some of the
questions will be delivered if the commissions request
foradditional time is refused. As we saw earlier,
commission members had long worried that the obstades
created by the White House would make it impossible for
them to complete their work by the end of May.
Late in January, die commission formally requested that
it be given a few months more so that its work could be,
in the words of Timothy Roemer, "credible and thorough."
But the initial response to this request was negative.
The commission members should "be able to meet that
deadline," said a spokesperson for the administration,
since "[t]he administration has given them an
unprecedented amount of cooperation.">61
In an article about this response
(entided "What's Bush Hiding From 9/11 Commission?"),
Joe Conason said that from the outset "Mr. Bush has
treated the commission and its essential work with
contempt," continually working "to undermine, restrict
and censor the investigation of the most significant
event of his Presidency." Referring to a report in
Newsweek that the administration gave the commission
the choice of meeting the May deadline or postponing
release of the report until December—which would be, of
course, after the November elections—Conason commented;
"Mr. Bush doesn't want his re-election subject to any
informed judgment about the disaster that reshaped the
nation and his Presidency.">62
Nevertheless, in spite of the
continued stonewalling, the commission, according to the
most recent reports as this book was going to press, was
not planning to issue subpoenas to President Bush, Vice
President Cheney, or other administration officials to
require mem to testify under oath.
>63
These recent developments have
evidendy been the final straw for at least some members
of the Family Steering Committee. According to a story
in the Washington Post, "The commissions handling
of the deadline has angered a group of relatives of
Sept. 11 victims, who argue that the panel has not been
aggressive enough in demanding more time and in seeking
key documents and testimony from the Bush
administration." The reporter then quoted Kristen
Breitweiser as saying: "We've had it.... It is such a
slap in the face of the families of victims. They are
dishonoring the dead with their irresponsible behavior.">64
Implicit in her statement would seem to be the
conclusion that unless there is a radical change in the
attitude and tactics of the 9/11 Independent Commission
in its final months, a new investigation will be needed
if there is to be any hope for discovering the truth.
A 9/11 Truth Candidate
One more recent event reinforcing
the need for a full investigation is the emergence of a
presidential candidate running on this issue. This
candidate, a Republican named John Buchanan, has said in
a stump speech:
I stand here as a 9/11 Truth
Candidate and some may thus dismiss me as a
single-issue candidate and in a narrow sense that is
true. But if you consider that 9/11 has led us into
fiscal ruin, endless war and constitutional twilight,
my issue is the mother issue of our age.
Saying that "[w]e have all been
lied to about 9/11," Buchanan recited many of the facts
reported in the present book. He then closed his speech
by urging his hearers to support Ellen Mariani as "one
of the heroes of this cause" and to read Nafeez Ahmed's
The War on Freedom and Paul Thompson's 9/11
timeline.>65
Buchanan is highly critical of the
mainline press for not questioning "the scores of 9/11
lies and contradictions" or even telling the public that
there are "still unanswered questions." This same press
may now be reluctant to tell the public about the
existence of "a 9/11 truth candidate." But his very
existence, combined with the fact that millions of
Americans will know about him through other sources,
provides yet another reason for concluding that a full
investigation, one that examines the evidence for
official complicity, is a necessity.
FOOTNOTES to Chapter
10: The Need for a Full Investigation
hint:
press the BACK-button on your browser to jump back to
the original text-location
1Washington Post,
August 2, 2002, cited in Thompson, "Timeline,"
August 2, 2002
2Washington Post, August 3 and 24, and
Associated Press, August 29, 2002, cited in "Timeline,"
August 2, 2002.
3"Bush asks Daschle to Limit September 11
Probes," CNN, January 29, 2002, quoted in Ahmed, 133.
4Newsweek, September 22, 2002.
5Associated Press, January 27, 2003, cited in
"Timeline," January 27, 2003.
6Time, March 26, 2003, quoted in
"Timeline," March 26, 2003.
7Seattle Times, March 12, 2003, quoted
in "Timeline," March 12, 2003.
8Philip Shenon, "9/11 Commission Could
Subpoena Oval Office Files," New York Times,
October 26, 2003.
9UPI, February 6, 2003.
10David Corn, "Probing 9/11," Nation,
277/1 (July 7: 2003): 14-18, at 15.
11CNN, November 30, Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette, December 3, Washington Post,
December 1, and Chicago Sun-Times, December 13,
2002, cited in "Timeline," November 27, 2002.
12New York Times, November 29, 2002,
cited in "Timeline," November 27, 2002.
13Newsweek, December 15, 2002, cited
in "Timeline," December 13, 2002.
14Washington Post, October 5, 1998,
and Salon.com, December 3, 2002, cited in "Timeline,"
December 13, 2002.
15New York Times, December 12, MSNBC,
December 13, and Seattle Times, December 14,
2002, cited in "Timeline," December 13, 2002.
16Multinational Monitor, November
1997, and Associated Press, January 20, 2003. On
Hess-Delta, see Boston Herald, December 11, 2001,
cited in "Timeline," December 16,2002.
17CBS, March 5, 2003, and Associated Press,
December 12, 2002, January 1, 2003, February 14, 2003,
and March 27, 2003, cited in "Timeline," December 13,
2002.
18Associated Press, December 27, 2003; The
9/11 Independent Commission (www.9-11commision.gov),
March, 2003; Corn, "Probing 9/11," 16.
19Corn, "Probing 9/11," 16.
20This call, made earlier, was implicidy
repeated in the Family Steering Committees press release
of December 1, 2003, involving conflicts of interest
(see the website at www.911independentcommission.org).
This committees concern about Zelikow was discussed in
Philip Shenon, "Terrorism Panel Issues Subpeona to City
for Tapes," New York Times, November 21, 2003.
21Timothy J. Roemer, a former congressman
from Indiana, quoted in Shenon, "9/11 Commission Could
Subpoena Oval Office Files."
22"White House Accused of Stalling 9-11
Panel," Associated Press, October 26,2003.
23Shenon, "9/11 Commission Could Subpoena
Oval Office Files"
24Ibid.
25Philip Shenon, "Deal on 9/11 Briefings Lets
White House Edit Papers," New York Times,
November 14, 2003; Tim Harper, "Did Bush Know Before
9/11? Briefing Notes Mav Hold Key to Crucial Question,"
Toronto Star, November 14, 2003. According to
later stories (Philip Shenon, "Terrorism Panel Issues
Subpeona to City for Tapes"; Eric Lichtblau and James
Risen, "Two on 9/11 Panel are Questioned on Earlier
Security roles," New York Times, January 15,
2004), the only commission officials to have access to
highly classified White House documents would be Zelikow
and Jamie Gorelick, who was a top member of the Justice
Department during the Clinton administration.
26Eric Boehlert, "The President Ought to be
Ashamed: Interview with Max Cleland," Salon.com,
November 13, 2003.
27In the same interview, Cleland also, after
saying that "the Warren Commission blew it," added: "I'm
not going to be part of that. I'm not going to be part
of looking at information only partially. I'm not going
to be part of just coming to quick conclusions. I'm not
going to be part of political pressure to do this or not
do that. I'm not going to be part of that." Less than a
month later, it was announced that Cleland was going to
resign from the commission to accept a position on the
board of the Export-Import Bank. Philip Shenon of the
New York Times wrote:
Mr. Cleland's intention to
resign from the 10-member commission has been known
since last summer, when Senate Democrats announced
that they had recommended him for a Democratic slot on
the board of the Export-Import Bank But the timing of
his departure became clear only last week when the
White House formally sent the nomination to the
Senate.
His imminent departure from the
panel has created concern among victims' family
groups, because Mr. Cleland has been one of the
commission's most outspoken members and has joined
with advocates for the families in their criticism of
the Bush administration. (Philip Shenon, "Ex-Senator
Will Soon Leave 9/11 Panel," New York Times,
December 5, 2003.)
Suspicious minds might, of course,
speculate that the White House speeded up the nomination
process because it would rather have the outspoken
Cleland on the board of the Export-Import Bank than on
the commission investigating 9/11. In any case, a few
days later it was announced that Tom Daschle, the leader
of the Senate's Democrats, had selected Bob Kerrey, the
former Democratic senator from Nebraska (who had been
vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee), to
replace Cleland (Philip Shenon, "Ex-Senator Kerrey Is
Named to Federal 9/11 Commission," New York Times,
December 9, 2003).
28Shenon, "Deal on 9/11 Briefings Lets White
House Edit Papers."
29In saying that "everyone" should favor
this, I mean, of course, everyone innocent of complicity
in the attacks of 9/11.
30The suspicious attitude toward the 9/11
Independent Commission held by many of those who have
studied the evidence for official complicity is
illustrated by an article that refers to it as "the 9-11
Coverup Commission." With regard to Kean himself, this
article predicted: "To ensure that the 9-11 Coverup
Commission projects an image of at least 'trying,' the
commission's chairman Thomas H. Kean...publicly stated
that the presence of so-called agency minders (or
coaches) was the same as 'intimidation' of witnesses
called before the Commission.... Rest assured, however.
Thomas Kean will do the Bush Cabal's bidding and keep it
all covered up" (Conspiracy Planet. "9-11 Commission
Covers Up Bush Family Ties," www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?ChannelID=75).
Kean's agreement, after threatening to subpoena the
White House, to allow it to edit the presidential briefs
could be seen as a fulfillment of this prediction, so
this agreement probably increased the suspicion.
31Michael Meacher, "This War on Terrorism is
Bogus," Guardian, September 5, 2003.
32In response, one debunker, Jon Ungoed-Thomas,
wrote: "However, logs compiled by the North American
Aerospace Defense Command record that it learnt of a
possible hijacking at 8.40 AM. F-15 fighters were
alerted immediately, were scrambled at 8.46 AM and were
airborne by 8.52 AM" (Conspiracy Theories about 9/11 are
Growing and Getting More Bizarre," Sunday Times,
September 14, 2003). This conflict of opinion reflects
the fact, of which most people still seem unaware, that
there have been two versions of the official account on
this matter. Meacher cited the first account (whether
because it was the account he accepted or the only one
he knew), then Ungoed-Thomas "refuted" him by citing the
second (perhaps because it was the only one he
knew). That issue aside, there are several other
problems with Ungoed-Thomas' attempt to defend the
official account. First, in citing NORAD'S logs, he is
relying on an account provided by one of the agencies
that, according to most conspiracy theories, would have
been party to the conspiracy. Second, he repeats NORAD's
claim that it was not notified until 8:40 without
mentioning the fact that this would mean that the FAA
would have flagrantly violated regulations by not
notifying NORAD until 26 minutes after Flight 11's radio
and transponder went off. Third, he evidently sees no
tension between claiming that NORAD responded
"immediately" and pointing out that it was 12 minutes
until any planes were airborne. Fourth, he does not even
mention the fact that NORAD, according to this second
version of the official account, gave the scramble order
to Otis rather than to the much nearer McGuire Air Force
Base. Fifth, he seems not to realize that even planes
coming the 170 miles from Otis should have reached New
York City in plenty of time—he simply repeats the
standard line that it "was already too late to stop the
hijackers flying into the World Trade Center." This
article illustrates a widespread tendency of debunkers
to regard 9/11 "conspiracy theorists" with such disdain
(Ungoed-Thomas speaks of their "bizarre" theories and
"grotesque distortions") that they can be easily refuted
even by someone largely ignorant of the facts. Then,
having provided this refutation, at least to his own
satisfaction, Ungoed-Thomas asks: "Why do so many people
cleave to these theories when there are such
discrepancies and perfectly reasonable explanations?" He
answers this question by citing a psychologist who
explains that adherents of conspiracy theories "are
driven by a thirst for certainty in an uncertain world."
We can ignore 9/11 conspiracy theories, in other words,
because they are simply products of pathetic minds—not
of minds that have noticed conflicts between the
official account and the facts.
33Michael Meacher, "This War on Terrorism is
Bogus," Guardian, September 5, 2003.
34Ewen MacAskill, "Fury Over Meacher Claims,"
Guardian, September 6, 2003.
35This statement is in the article by Jon
Ungoed-Thomas quoted in note 32, above.
36The letters all appeared in the Guardian
on September 8, 2003; they were accompanied by many
letters denouncing Meacher.
37Michael Meacher, "Cock-Up Not Conspiracy,"
Guardian, September 13, 2003.
38That this was a natural interpretation of
his article is suggested by the fact that Ian Johnson,
whose Wall Street Journal article is discussed
next, said that Meacher had written "a blistering
attack...implying that Washington was involved in the
attacks to justify a more interventionist foreign
policy."
39Ian Johnson, "Conspiracy Theories About
September 11 get Hearing in Germany," Wall Street
Journal, September 29, 2003.
40The English translation of the title of
Andreas von Bülows book would be "The CIA and the 11th
of September: International Terror and the Role of the
Secret Services" (Munich: Piper Vcrlag, 2003). In
Chapter 1. I quoted a 2002 statement by von Bülow.
41Paul Donovan, "Why Isn't the Truth Out
There?" Observer, October 5, 2003 (http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1054495,00.html).
42Michael Moore, Dude. Where's My Country?
(New York: Warner Books, 2003), 15.
43William Bunch, "Why Don't We Have Answers
to These 9/11 Questions?" Philadelphia Daily News
online posting, September 11, 2003.
44"Diane Rehm Show," National Public Radio,
December 1, 2003, quoted in Charles Krauthammer, "The
Delusional Dean," Washington Post, December 5,
2003.
45Krauthammer, "The Delusional Dean."
46This story, written by Kathleen Parker,
appeared in the Orlando Sentinel on April 17,
2002; it is available at www.osamaskidneys.com/mckinney.html
47This story, written by Lynette Clemetson,
appeared in the New York Times on August 21,
2002. For Greg Palast's criticism, see his "The Screwing
of Cynthia McKinncy," AlterNet, June 13, 2003
www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16172 Palast quotes
Clemetson as saying, in response to his question as to
where McKinney said this: "I've heard that statement—it
was all over the place."
48On Pacifica radio on March 25, 2002,
McKinney read a prepared statement, after which she was
interviewed (the transcript is available at
www.freerepublic.com/ focus/news/665750/posts). In her
prepared statement, after saying that the US government
had received numerous warnings prior to 9/11, she asked:
"What did this Administration know, and when did it know
it, about the events of September 11 ? Who else knew and
why did they not warn the innocent people of New York
who were needlessly murdered?" She also said, in a
different paragraph, that "persons close to this
Administration are poised to make huge profits off
America's new war." These statements contain three
distinct elements: (1) the question of what the Bush
administration knew—which referred back to her statement
that "[w]e know there were numerous warnings of the
events to come on September 11. Vladimir Putin,
President of Russia, delivered one such warning"; (2)
the suggestion that some people had foreknowledge
of the attacks of 9/11 and failed to issue a
warning—which referred to her earlier statement that "[t]hose
engaged in unusual stock trades immediately before
September 11 knew enough to make millions of dollars
from United and American airlines, certain insurance and
brokerage firms' stocks"; and (3) her assertion that
some persons close to the Bush administration would
profit financially from the US war on terrorism.
However, as her statements were repeated in the mainline
press (after they were publicized by an April 12 story
in the Washington Post under the headline
"Democrat Implies September 11 Administration Plot"),
these three elements became conflated. The conflation
made by Kathleen Parker of the Orlando Sentinal
on April 17 was quoted in the text. On June 16. a show
on NPR (National Public Radio) claimed that McKinney
"suggested the Bush Administration may have known in
advance about the September 11 attacks and allowed them
to happen in order for people dose to the President to
profit." To back up this claim. NPR played these words
from the Pacifica broadcast: "What did this
administration know, and when did it know it, about the
events of September 11th? Who else knew, and why did
they not warn the innocent people of New York who were
needlessly murdered?...What do they have to hide?" The
problem here is that the final question, "What do they
have to hide?", came later in the program, during the
interview. while McKinney was discussing the requests by
both the president and the vice president to Tom Daschle
that he not have a Senate investigation. By quoting that
statement out of context. NPR made it appear that the
"they" in the prior sentence—the "they" who had specific
knowledge about the events in advance—referred to
members of the Bush administration. NPR then played
another statement made during the interview— "And so we
get this presidency...requesting a nearly unprecedented
amount of money to go into a defense budget for defense
spending that will directly benefit his father." By
conflating this statement with the earlier one, NPR made
it sound as if McKinney was charging that this was the
presidents motive for allowing the attacks to proceed.
For Palast's analysis of this conflation, see his
"Re-Lynching Cynthia McKinney," July 21, 2003 (www.gregpalast.com/detail.cfm?artid=232).
Palast's analysis is supported by John Sugg. Having said
that the most infamous assault against McKinney "was the
claim that she had questioned whether Dubya had
knowledge of 9-11 before it happened, and that he didn't
act because his dad and cronies were going to make
bundles off the war machine," Sugg adds: "The truth was
that McKinney quite accurately predicted—months before
it broke in the press—that Bush had extensive
intelligence on likely terrorist attacks and failed to
act. And McKinney was equally accurate in saying that
Bush insiders would reap windfalls from slaughter.
However, nowhere did McKinney ever link the two
statements" (John Sugg, "Truth in Exile: US Reporter
Breaks Bush Blockbusters—on English TV," Creative
Loafing. April 9. 2003 [
http://arianca.creativeloafing.com/suggreport.html
]).
49Palast, "Re-Lynching Cynthia McKinney."
Palast agrees, incidentally, that McKinney's statement
is sufficiently ambiguous to be read in more than one
way, but he argues that this fact provides no excuse for
the way it was used: "Can you read an evil accusation
into McKinneys statement—Bush planned September 11
attacks to enrich his daddy? Oh, yes, if that's what you
want to read. But reporters are not supposed to play
'Gotcha!' with such serious matters. If a statement can
be read two ways—one devastating—then journalists have
an obligation to ask and probe, and certainly not spread
an interpretation' as a quotation."
50Cynthia McKinney at Project Censored!
October 4, 2003, available at www.oilempire.us/cynthiamckinney.html
51John Sugg, "Truth in Exile." Sugg, whose
Creative Loafing is one of the five largest weekly
newspapers in the nation, has added, in personal
correspondence, "With no big GOP race [that year], I'd
guess the cross-over tally approached McKinneys
estimate" (e-mail message of December 22, 2003).
52"Poll Shocker Nearly Half Support McKinneys
9/11 Conspiracy Theory," Newsmax, Wednesday, April 17,
2002 (www.newsmax.com/showinside.shtml?a=2002/4/17/144136
).
53One big difference is the fact that in
discussing motive, Marianis Complaint speaks of
political (as well as financial) reasons.
54Berg's press release was reported at Scoop
Media(http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/storics/WO0311/S00261.htm).
I have learned from sources in Philadelphia that Berg,
formerly Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, is a
highly respected lawyer. He has established a website
for this case at
http://www.911forthetruth.com .
55This Complaint is available at
http://nancho.net/911/mariani.html (as well as
www.911forthetruth.com).
56This is actually an "Amended Complaint."
The initial one, which was noted in a brief story in the
Philadelphia Inquirer on September 23, 2003, had
been filed on September 12. The Amended Complaint of
November provides, it says, "newly discovered
substantial additional facts." While being interviewed
on Pacifica Radio on December 14, Mariani and Berg
announced that due to still more facts and potential
witnesses that had been brought to their attention, they
would be filing yet another version of the Complaint.
57Mariani's letter is available at Scoop
Media
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/WO031
l/S00262.htm as well as www.911forthetruth.com.
58See note 30.
59See note 27.
60Eric Lichtblau and James Risen, "Two on
9/11 Panel Are Questioned on Earlier Security Roles,"
New York Times, January 15.
61Dan Eggen, "9/11 Panel Unlikely to Get
Later Deadline," Washington Post, January 19.
2004.
62Joe Conason, "What's Bush Hiding From 9/11
Commission?" The New York Observer, January 21,
2004.
63Timothy J. Burger, "Condi and the 9/11
Commission," New York Times, December 20. 2003;
Dan Eggen, "9/11 Panel Unlikely to Get Later Deadline";
Philip Shenon, "9/11 Commission Says It Needs More
Time," New York Times, January 28, 2004.
64Dan Eggen, "9/11 Panel Unlikely to Get
Later Deadline."
65John Buchanan, "Speech to Manchester
Support Group, 1/7/04" (johnbuchanan.org/news/newsitem.php?section=INF&id=1154&showcat=4).
Information about this campaign is available at
http://johnbuchanan.org and buchanan@nancho.net .
END OF MAIN TEXT
Back COVER text:
"An extraordinary book. .. It is
rare, indeed, that a book has this potential to become a
force of history."
-- from the foreword By Richard Falk, human rights
lawyer and Professor Emeritus, Princeton University
"[T]he most persuasive argument I have seen for further
investigation of the Bush administration's relationship
to that historic and troubling event."
-- Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the
United States
Taking to heart the idea that
those who benefit from a crime ought to be investigated,
here the eminent theologian David Ray Griffin sifts
through the evidence about the attacks of 9/11—stories
from the mainstream press, reports from abroad, the work
of other researchers, and the contradictory words of
members of the Bush administration themselves—and finds
that, taken together, they cast serious doubt on the
official story of that tragic day.
He begins with simple questions: Once radio contact was
lost with the flights, why weren't jets immediately sent
up ("scrambled") from the nearest military airport,
something that according to the FAA's own manual is
routine procedure? Why did the administration's story
about scrambling jets change in the days following the
attacks? The disturbing questions don't stop there: they
emerge from every part of the story, from every angle,
until it is impossible not to suspect the architects of
the official story of enormous deception.
A teacher of ethics and theology, Griffin writes with
compelling logic, urging readers to draw their own
conclusions from the evidence. The New Pearl Harbor is a
stirring call for a thorough investigation into what
happened on 9/11. It rings with the conviction that it
is still possible to search for the truth in American
political life.
David Ray Griffin has been
Professor of Philosophy of Religion at the Claremont
School of Theology in California for over 30 years. He
is the author and editor of more than 20 books.
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