This article will appear in Bernd Hamm (Ed) (2003).
Bushgang America. London: Zed Books.
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Bernd Hamm, Ed Rippy, Paul Wolf,
Karen Capel, J. Walter Plinge, and Timothy Chandler for their helpful comments.
Abstract
Why 9/11 was not prevented is one of the most critical questions in
current times, because answers may well reveal to more people than ever
before, the true nature of the U.S. corporate global empire – the most
extensive and most destructive in human history. Newspapers across the
U.S. called for an investigation into Bush's lies about the reason for
war on Iraq. While it is relatively easy for the American people to
accept deception for the killing of the Arab people in distant lands,
few people will be as accepting if it is shown that this Administration
was complicit in acts of atrocities against its own people.
The evidence I present in this article suggests that the most plausible
explanation of the events surrounding September 11, 2001, is that the
Bush Administration was complicit in the terrorist attacks and has
orchestrated its cover-up. The sources cited contain extensive detailed
information, additional sources, and analysis beyond what is possible to
provide in this summary. I hope that this information will incite public
outrage leading to full accountability.
Introduction
The terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, September
11, 2001, has served as a pretext for draconian measures of repression
at home, including a cabinet level Department of Homeland Security, the
Patriot Act I, and its sequel. September 11th (9/11) also became the
cause for numerous other acts in the U.S. from massive increases in
military spending to a Fast Track Trade Agreement for President Bush.
More importantly, 9/11 serves as a pretext for a never-ending war
against the world, including preemptive strikes against defenseless, but
resource rich countries.
As I outline below, there are numerous aspects regarding the official
stories about September 11th which do not fit with known facts that
contradict each other, that defy common sense, and that indicate a
pattern of misinformation and cover-up. The official reports coming out
of Washington do very little to alleviate these concerns. For example,
the Congressional report released on July 25, 2003 by a joint panel of
House and Senate Intelligence Committees concluded that 9/11 resulted
from C.I.A. and F.B.I. “lapses.” While incompetence is frightening
enough given a $40 billion annual budget for intelligence, it is simply
not consistent with known facts. It is consistent with the reports from
other government scandals such as the Warren Commission's Report and
the report from the Iran Contra affair, which produced damage control and
cover-up but not answers to the more probing questions. But perhaps a
comparison to Watergate is more apropos since the Bush Administration
refuses to release twenty-eight pages of the congressional report. The
report from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is
believable unless you are seriously interested in the truth. Under more
careful
scientific scrutiny, some answers seem impossible, most are based on speculation,
and still other important answers are completely omitted.
Even after more than two years, investigations stop far too short, the
public is left in the dark on too many questions easily answered, and no
one in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for any actions
surrounding the attacks of September 11, 2001. The National Commission
on Terrorists Attacks Upon the United States, formed at the insistence
of the families of some of the victims, is continuing to hold hearings
and a final report is expected by May, 2004.
It remains to be seen if, after a nearly three-year delay, they will
come close to the truth about September 11th. I believe that this will
occur only if tremendous public pressure is brought to bear from
numerous sources to demand accountability from the Bush Administration.
Accountability for any atrocity should attract the attention of serious
investigative reporters, media critics, and even news commentators.
That is their chosen responsibility. It is well known that the U.S. corporate
media ask few probing questions, which aides in government cover-up.
But why there has been so little coverage in the alternative press, with
obvious exceptions, is a mystery. Too many of these outlets (e.g., Z
Magazine and Mother Jones) have ignored the issue of accountability for
9/11. The failure of accountability should be a national and international
scandal. Questions of why journalists and others in the mass media are
failing the people of the U.S. and the world need to be answered.
What I show in this article is that government agencies knew of
impending attacks, were capable of preventing them, but did nothing;
their accounts of the events contain contradictions and lies; and they
are going to great lengths to prevent any investigation. I further show
that they are reaping tremendous benefits including those consistent
with previously laid out plans for the U.S. to maintain its imperial
hegemony through the military, economic and political takeover of
Eurasia. These revelations will shock many people, which is one of the
reasons for deliberate corporate media cover-up. But a significant
number of people, even within the U.S. see (or will see) the
consistencies in the events surrounding 9/11, as described below, with
the long history of U.S. imperialism and atrocities both at home and
abroad. (1)
Nevertheless, the degree to which this Administration is pursuing a
course of world domination at any cost is unprecedented. One of the
best ways of halting this destructive course is to expose the Bush
Administration and insist on its accountability to the victims'
families, the American people and the people of the world.
Therefore, why 9/11 was not prevented is one of the most critical
questions in current times because answers may well reveal to more
people than ever before, the true nature of the U.S. corporate global
empire – the most extensive and most destructive in human history.
Newspapers across the U.S. called for an investigation into Bush's lies
about the reason for war on Iraq. While it is relatively easy for the
American people to accept deception for the killing of the Arab people
in distant lands, few people will be as accepting if it is shown that
this Administration was complicit in acts of atrocities against its own
people.
The evidence I present in this article suggests that the most plausible
explanation of the events surrounding September 11, 2001, is that the
Bush Administration was complicit in the terrorist attacks and has
orchestrated its cover-up. The sources cited contain extensive detailed
information, additional sources, and analysis beyond what is possible
to provide in this summary. I hope that this information will incite
public outrage leading to full accountability.
Evidence of Complicity by the Bush Administration in 9/11 Terrorist Attacks
Here is the U.S. official story as reported by the U.S. corporate media:
On the morning of September 11, 2001 four Boeing passenger jets were
hijacked within an hour by nineteen Arab terrorists armed with box
cutters. Pilots among these terrorists took control of the commercial
planes and changed course toward targets in New York City and
Washington D.C. Two of the planes were deliberately crashed into
the
Twin Towers, causing fires within the towers that melted the steel support
structures, thereby causing the buildings to collapse completely. A third
plane
was deliberately crashed into the Pentagon. Passengers on the fourth plane
overpowered the hijackers and caused the plane to crash in Pennsylvania.
This was an attack on America planned and directed by Osama bin Laden
as the leader of al-Qaeda, a previously obscure anti-U.S. international
terrorist organization composed mainly of Arabs. This story cries out for
further explanations, but nothing official is forthcoming. People are simply
expected to believe the official version without question.
The Bush Administration Knew of the 9/11 Attacks Beforehand
There are several major sources of evidence to conclude beyond
reasonable doubt that numerous people, in the U.S. and around the world
were aware of the possibility of a terrorist attack on the U.S., and
contrary to their claims, the Bush Administration was not caught by
surprise. First, the entire U.S. intelligence community knew of the 9/11
attacks beforehand, including the fact that commercial jets were to be
used as bombs; they also knew the approximate dates and possible
targets. (2)
Western intelligence had been aware of plans for such terrorist attacks
on U.S. soil as early as 1995. The plan was known as “Project Bojinka.”
It was known to both the CIA and FBI and was described in court
documents in the trial in New York of Ramzi Yousef and Abdul Murad for
their participation in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center (WTC).
As early as 1996, the FBI was following the activities of Arab students
at U.S. flight schools. Several persons later identified by the FBI as
the hijackers, including Khalid Almihdar and Nawaf Alhazmi along with
the man alleged to be the principal organizer, Mohammed Atta, were under
active surveillance by U.S. agents prior to 9/11. Several weeks prior to
September 11th, all internal U.S. security agencies were warned of the
impending al-Qaeda attacks. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)
was warned of the possible attack but did nothing to beef up security.
At least two weeks prior to September 11th the FBI agents again
confirmed that an attack on lower Manhattan was imminent. Some field
agents predicted, almost precisely, what happened on September 11th. (3)
There are numerous other reasons to dismiss as a lie the claim that the
9/11 plane hijackings and attacks caught the U.S. government agencies by
surprised – a rather ominous admission in the first place. For example,
an expert panel commissioned by the Pentagon in 1993 discussed how an
airplane could be used as a bomb. Notably, U.S. security officials had
considered and prepared for possible attacks by suicide planes during
the Atlanta Summer Olympics in 1996. There were three incidents that
took place in 1994, including the stolen single-engine Cessna, which
crashed into a tree on the White House grounds just short of the
president's bedroom, and an aborted plan to crash a plane into the
Eiffel Tower. As early as 1997, Russia, France, Israel, the Philippines
and Egypt all warned the U.S. of the possibility of the attacks. Warning
came from several others sources as well. Recently (May 25, 2002), CBS
revealed that President Bush had been warned in an intelligence briefing
on August 6, 2001, that Bin Laden might be planning to hijack commercial
planes for a domestic attack in the U.S.
Second, selected persons were told not to fly that day. Newsweek
(September 24, 2001) reported that on September 10th, “a group of top
Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning,
apparently because of security concerns” (p. 26). Yet this same information
was not made available to the 266 people who died aboard the four hijacked
commercial aircraft. A significant number of other selected people were
also
warned about flying or reporting for work at the WTC. These people include
San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, who received a phone call eight hours
before the hijacking warning him not to travel by air. Salman Rushdie is
under
a 24-hour protection of U.K. Scotland Yard; he was also prevented from
flying that day. Ariel Sharon canceled his address to Israeli support groups
in New York City just the day before his scheduled September 11th address.
John Ashcroft stopped flying on public airplanes in July of 2001. These
revelations
are more indisputable evidence that people knew about the impending attacks.
Third, revelations of profits made by insider trading relating to the
9/11 attacks point to the top levels of U.S. business and the CIA. (4)
The intelligence community regularly analyzes financial transactions for
any suspicious activity. Only three trading days before September 11th,
an inordinate number of “put” options – bets that a stock will go down
–
were placed on the stocks of American and United Airlines, the companies
whose planes were hijacked in the attacks of 9/11. No such speculation
was made on any other airlines. Moreover, similar speculation occurred
on other companies housed in the World Trade Towers, including Merrill
Lynch and Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. It is noteworthy that some
of the put options were purchased through Deutsche Bank/Alex Brown, a firm
managed until 1998 by the current executive director of the CIA, A.B.
“Buzzy” Krongard. The New York Times reported that Mayo Shattuck III
resigned as head of the Alex Brown unit of Deutsche Bank on September
15, 2001.
These multiple, massive and unprecedented financial transactions point
unequivocally to the fact that the investors behind these trades were
speculating in anticipation of a mid-September 2001 catastrophe that
would involve both United and American Airlines and offices in the Twin
Towers. To date, both the Securities and Exchange Commission and the
FBI have been tight-lipped about their investigations of trades. The names
of the investors remain undisclosed and $5 million in profit taking
remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account. A probe could
isolate the investors. However, this case has recently been closed without
any
report being made public or anyone being held accountable. The insider-trading
incident further establishes the fact that important people knew beforehand
of
the possible attacks, did nothing about them and are now covering them
up.
Emergency Procedures Capable of Preventing Such Attack Exist But Were
Not Followed
There is incontrovertible evidence that the U.S. Air Force all across
the country was comprehensively “stood down” on the morning of 9-11.
Routine security measures, normally in place, which may well have
prevented the attacks, or reduced their impact, were suspended while
the attacks were in progress and reinstated once they were over. (5)
Sequence of events for each hijacked plane is as follows:
7:59a.m.: American Airlines Flight 11 leaves from Boston's Logan Airport
bound for Los Angeles; 8:20a.m.: is hijacked and goes off course;
8:46a.m.: it smashes into the North Tower of the WTC. The tower
completely collapses at 10:28a.m.
8:01a.m.: United Airlines Flight 93 sits on the ground for forty-one
minutes before leaving from Newark bound for San Francisco; 9:20a.m.:
The FAA notifies NORAD that Flight 93 has been hijacked; 9:35a.m.: the
plane goes off course near Cleveland, Ohio, where it makes a 135-degree
turn, and is now headed to the southeast; 10:10a.m.: it crashes in
Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
8:14a.m.: United Airlines Flight 175 leaves from Boston bound for Los
Angeles; 8:49a.m.: it deviates from its assigned flight path; 9:03a.m.:
it smashes into the South Tower. The tower completely collapses at 9:59am.
8:20a.m.: American Airlines Flight 77 leaves from Dulles International,
30 miles west of Washington, D.C. bound for Los Angeles; 8:56a.m.:
transponder signal stops. It goes off course and starts making a
180-degree turn over southern Ohio/northeastern Kentucky; 9:38a.m.: it
allegedly hits the Pentagon (there are very serious questions as to
whether this plane actually hit the Pentagon; see below).
Andrews Air Force Base is a huge military installation about twelve
miles from the Pentagon. On September 11th there were two entire
squadrons of combat-ready fighter jets at Andrews. They failed to do
their job of protecting the skies over Washington, D.C. Despite over
one hour's advance warning of a terrorist attack in progress, not a single
Andrews fighter tried to protect the city. The FAA, NORAD and the
military have cooperative procedures enabling fighter jets to intercept
commercial aircraft under emergency conditions. They do not need
instructions from the White House to intercept commercial aircraft, yet
these procedures were not followed.
Within thirty-five minutes after American Airline Flight 11 departed
from Boston's Logan Airport it quit responding to ground control, and
radar indicated that the plane had deviated from its assigned
flight-path. Two airline attendants on Flight 11 had separately called
American Airlines reporting a hijacking, the presence of weapons, and
the infliction of injuries on passengers and crew. At this point there
was an undeniable emergency. Yet, according to NORAD's official
timeline, NORAD was not contacted until twenty minutes later at
8:40a.m. Tragically the fighter jets may not have been deployed until a
full
thirty-two minutes after the loss of contact with Flight 11.
Flights 175, 77 and 93 all had this same pattern of delays in
notification and in scrambling fighter jets – delays that are difficult
to imagine considering a plane had, by this time, already hit the WTC.
The official account of the plane striking the Pentagon is particularly
incomprehensible. After it was known that the Flight 77 had a problem,
it was nevertheless able to change course and fly towards Washington,
for about forty-five minutes, fly past the White House, and crash into
the Pentagon, without any attempt at interception. All the while two
squadrons of fighter aircraft were stationed just twelve miles from the
eventual target. Since the plane left Dulles Airport, which is close to
the Pentagon, why would hijackers fly for forty minutes away from the
intended target and then forty minutes back unless they believed there
was no chance of being intercepted?
Moreover, well-established emergency protocols were not followed by the
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Secretary of Defense, or the
President of the United States. Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff General Richard B. Myers stated that he saw a TV report about a
plane hitting the WTC but thought it was a small plane. So he went ahead
with his meeting with Senator Max Cleland. By the time he came out of
the meeting the Pentagon had been hit. Why did General Myers not know
about the emergency until too late? The Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld was at his desk when AA77 crashed into the Pentagon. How is it
possible that the National Military Command Center (NMCC), located in
the Pentagon and in contact with law enforcement and air traffic
controllers from 8:46a.m., did not communicate to the Secretary of
Defense, also at the Pentagon, about the other hijacked planes
especially the one headed to Washington? (6) After Secretary Rumsfeld
was notified, why did he go to the War Room?
The actions of President Bush, while the attacks were occurring, were
particularly suspicious because he did not do anything reasonably
expected of a president wanting to protect U.S. citizens and property.
The Secret Service is required to inform the president immediately of
any national emergency. Yet the president was permitted by the Secret
Service to remain in the Sarasota elementary school. At 9:05a.m.,
nineteen minutes after the first attack and two minutes after the second
attack on the WTC, Andrew Card, the presidential chief of staff,
whispered something in President Bush's ear. At that time the President
did not react as if he was interested in trying to do something about
the situation. He did not leave the school, convene an emergency
meeting, consult with anybody, or intervene in any way to ensure that
the Air Force completed its job. The president's approval is not
required for an intercept, but it is required for commercial planes to
be shot down.
Yet, President Bush did not even attend to the extraordinary events
occurring in New York, but simply continued with the reading class. It
was not until twenty minutes after the second Tower had been hit that
he met privately with National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, FBI
Director Robert S. Mueller III, and New York Governor, George Pataki.
At 9:30a.m., he made an announcement to the press using the same words
his
father had used ten years earlier: “Terrorism against our nation will
not stand”. His own explanations of his actions that day contradict
known facts.
In the case of a national emergency, seconds of indecision could cost
thousands of lives; and it is precisely for this reason that the
government has a whole network of adjuncts and advisors to ensure that
these top officials are among the first to be informed, not the last.
Where were these individuals who did not properly inform the top
officials? In short, the CIA, the DCI, the State Department, the
president and key figures around him in the White House were ultimately
responsible for doing nothing in the face of the mounting evidence of an
impending threat to U.S. national security. Nafeez Ahmed states that
these acts are “indicative of a scale of negligence amounting to effective
complicity” (2002, p. 167). Incompetence is a highly improbable explanation.
Indeed, the failures of the emergency procedures could not have occurred
without coordination at the top. If a routine procedure was aborted, whether
accidentally or deliberately, it would be detected by those in the higher
positions
of the hierarchy, which is the way all emergency systems are organized.
At least
someone should have received a reprimand, but none has been reported.
Who Are the Alleged Terrorists and Why Were They in U.S. Flight Schools?
There are numerous questions regarding the alleged terrorists including
who they were, how they were able to board the planes, and whether in
fact they were even on the planes. (7) The names of the alleged
terrorists were not on the passenger lists released by the airlines.
Photos of the alleged hijackers appeared on the FBI website not long
after 9/11, but have since been removed. Both the British and U.S.
media reported that several of the individuals, identified as hijackers
by
the FBI, have been found alive. Thierry Meyssan noted that “Prince Saud
Al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, declared to the press that, 'It
has been proven that five of the persons named in the FBI's list had no
connection with what happened'” (2002, pp. 54-55, italics in the
original). Indeed, how was it possible for the FBI to be caught by
surprise and then produce the names of the alleged hijackers within
twenty-four hours following the attacks? There are two possibilities:
the FBI made up the names or assisted the hijackers in boarding the
planes. Either way, complicity is implied. Questions about who were on
the planes are prime examples of the kind of information that is easily
verified or refuted but neither has been done officially. One outrageous
claim is that Mohamed Atta's passport was found at Ground Zero. The
failure to respond to these essential questions is, in itself, incriminating.
If the nineteen alleged terrorists did board the planes, the U.S.
security agencies should have stopped them from entering this country
for intelligence reasons, prior to 9/11, according to the testimony of
Mindy Kleinberg during the hearings of The National Commission on
Terrorists Attacks. Fifteen of the nineteen hijackers' visas should have
been unquestionably denied because their applications were incomplete
and incorrect. Most of the alleged hijackers were young, unmarried, and
unemployed males. They were, in short, the “classic over-stay
candidates”. A seasoned former Consular officer stated in the National
Review magazine, “Single, idle young adults with no specific destination
in the United States rarely get visas absent compelling circumstances”.
(8)
There are several cases damaging to the credibility of the official
accounts of 9/11. But the U.S. response to Mohammed Atta, the alleged
lead hijacker, is most extraordinary. (9) The FBI had been monitoring
Atta's movements for several months in 2000. According to PBS'
Frontline, the Immigration and Naturalization Service failed to stop
Atta from entering the U.S. three times on a tourist visa in 2001, even
though officials knew the visa had expired in 2000, and that Atta had
violated its terms by taking flight lessons. Furthermore, Atta had
already been implicated in a terrorist bombing in Israel, with the
information passed on to the United States before he was first issued
his tourist visa.
Another important aspect, as Daniel Hopsicker and Thierry Messyan have
documented, is that many of the alleged terrorist pilots received their
initial training in Venice, Florida at one of the flight schools of
highly questionable credibility and with approval of U.S. intelligence.
Mohammed Atta attended International Officers School at Maxwell Air
Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama; Abdulaziz Alomari had attended
Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force base in Texas; Saeed
Alghamdi had been to the Defense Language Institute in Monterey,
California. These are all names of identified hijackers, but the U.S.
government has denied the match. Three days after the 9/11 attacks, FBI
Director Robert S. Mueller III claimed that these findings were new and
had not been known by the FBI previously. This claim is a lie.
Zacarias Moussaoui was arrested after his flight trainers at the
Minnesota flight school, Pan Am International Flight Academy, reported
highly suspicious behavior. He was greatly unqualified; he wanted to
learn to fly a 747 but was not interested in takeoffs or landings; he
was traveling on a French passport and when contacted, the French said
he was a suspected terrorist connected to al-Qaeda. However, a special
counter-terrorism panel of the FBI and CIA reviewed the case but did
not pursue it.
There are numerous glaring anomalies, illegalities and scandals
connected with Wally Hilliard and Rudi Dekkers' Huffman Aviation School
at Venice, Florida, where other hijackers trained. Dekkers had no
aviation experience and was under indictment in his native country, The
Netherlands, on financial charges. He purchased his aviation school at
just about the time the alleged terrorists moved into town and began
their lessons. He has yet to be investigated even though he initially
trained some of the accused hijackers.
According to Hopsicker, Britannia Aviation was awarded a five-year
contract to run a large regional maintenance facility at Lynchburg at a
time when the company virtually had no assets, employees, or corporate
history and did not possess the necessary FAA license to perform the
maintenance. Britannia was a company with known CIA connections. It was
operating illegally out of Huffman Aviation, the flight school that
trained al-Qaeda hijackers and was given a “green light” from the
Justice Department's Drug Enforcement Administration, and the local
Venice Police Department was warned to “leave them alone.” The CIA is
known to be involved in the drug trade.
One answer to the question of how the accused terrorists entered the
U.S. with ease is that the Bush Administration made it possible for
Saudi visitors to come to the U.S. under a program called U.S. Visa
Express, introduced four months before September 11th. This was at a
time when the U.S. intelligence community was on alert for an imminent
al-Qaeda attack. Michael Springmann, former head of the Visa Bureau at
the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia said that he was repeatedly
ordered by high-level State Department officials to issue visas to
unqualified applicants. His complaints to higher authorities at several
agencies went unanswered. In a CBC interview, he indicated that the CIA
was indeed complicit in the attacks. (10)
As is well known, most of the accused hijackers were Saudis, as is Osama
bin Laden, and the Saudi Arabian government is known to give financial
support to terrorist organizations. Why then is Iraq and not Saudi
Arabia a target if the U.S. government is concerned about terrorism?
The obvious answer seems to be because the Saudi Arabian Monarchy has a
long standing cooperative business relationship with U.S. oil and arms
industries, possibly including a provision to curtail surveillance on
their activities. (11) Iraq at that time of 9/11 had no such cooperative
arrangement. Iraq is now forced to cooperate with the U.S., of course.
There is evidence that Osama bin Laden continues to receive extensive
support, not only from members of his own family, but also from members
of the Saudi establishment. A New Statesman report stated that “bin
Laden and his gang are just the tentacles; the head lies safely in
Saudi Arabia, protected by U.S. forces.” The hijackers the FBI identified
as
being responsible for 9/11 were not illiterate, bearded fanatics from
Afghanistan. They were all educated, highly skilled, middle-class
professionals and not the typical kamikaze pilots they are alleged to
have been. Of the alleged men involved, thirteen were Saudi nationals.
Was Osama bin Laden the Mastermind, an Accomplice, or Set-up?
Osama bin Laden was unofficially convicted of the attacks within a time
frame that could not possibly have allowed any intelligence to have been
gathered which supported the accusation. That is, it would be impossible
if they did not already have that information. It is impossible for the
Bush Administration to have had no warning of an operation that must
have been very difficult to keep secret, but then be able to name the
culprit in less than a day. Either the charges are contrived, or the
government agencies had some forewarning of the attacks, even if it was
not specific, and either way, it raises more questions about government
agencies' complicity.
It is nearly impossible that bin Laden was involved except in the
capacity of complicity with U.S. authorities or at best, in the context
of the current Administration knowing all along his plans and
deliberately allowing him to carry them out. From the beginning no
convincing evidence against bin Laden has been made public. Up until
mid-December, there was nothing but the continued repetition of his
name. Steve Grey reports that an official document from the U.K.
government detailing allegations against bin Laden provides no
convincing evidence. Of the sixty-nine points of “evidence” cited, ten
relate to background information about the relationship between bin
Laden and the Taliban. Fifteen relate to background information
regarding the general philosophies of al-Qaeda, and its relationship to
bin Laden. None give any facts concerning the events of 9/11. Most do
not even attempt to directly relate anything mentioned to the events of
that day. Twenty-six list allegations relating to previous terrorist attacks.
Even if bin Laden were convicted of previous terrorist attacks, it is well
known that this fact alone would not stand up in a court of law as
evidence for involvement of September 11th.
Within less than four hours of the attacks, the media were fed comments
that assumed bin Laden's guilt and were made on the basis of events that
could not possibly have occurred. The Pentagon and the Department of
Defense used dialogue attributed to bin Laden, in an effort to incriminate
him, while refusing to release all of the dialogue and refusing to issue
a
verbatim, literal translation. On December 13, 2001 the Bush Administration
offered an alleged “confession” tape as the only evidence, and this has
simply
been accepted by many in the media and in the general population as sufficient
to declare guilt. But a fake tape is easily produced with today's technology.
Thus, against the backdrop of the many reported denials by bin Laden that
he
was involved in the attacks, there are few reasons to accept this “evidence”
as
convincing. Rather, one must ask why was it considered necessary to lie,
in order
to create a case against bin Laden? The truth could well implicate the
Bush Administration.
What is known for certain is that Osama bin Laden's picture became the
focus of most people in the U.S., establishing an image of an evil
enemy, thereby creating the important psychological mind-set to accept
revenge. This constant barrage of news coverage of bin Laden and
al-Qaeda also drew attention away from questions about why the attacks
were not prevented. Creating diversions away from embarrassing or
incriminating issues is a very common practice for government officials
operating in the context of an uncritical media. Added to this is the
fact that today, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq declared over,
bin Laden, “public enemy number one,” is all but forgotten by the U.S.
corporate media.
If bin Laden was really the mastermind of the attacks, it is not likely
that the FBI agents would have been ordered to curtail their
investigation of these attacks on October 10, 2001. (12) Moreover, the
FBI was called off its investigation of bin Laden and of the Saudi Royal
Family prior to 9/11. Soon after entering the White House, the Bush
Administration strengthened an existing order to “back off”
investigations of Saudi-based terrorist organizations, including the
World Assembly of Muslim Youth, headquartered in Falls Church, Virginia,
and run by a relative of Osama bin Laden. John O'Neill, the FBI agent
who for years led U.S. investigations into bin Laden's al-Qaeda network,
complained bitterly that the State Department blocked attempts to prove
bin Laden's guilt in the bombing of the USS Cole. He resigned in protest
and became head of security for the World Trade Center where he was
killed on September 11. One law enforcement official was quoted as
saying, “The investigative staff has to be made to understand that we're
not trying to solve a crime now.” The FBI agents were commanded to cut
short their investigations into the attacks and those involved. FBI
agents were threatened with prosecution under the National Security Act
if they publicized information from their investigations. David P.
Schippers, noted Chicago lawyer and the House Judiciary Committee's
chief investigator in the Clinton impeachment trial, is now representing
some of the FBI agents in a suit against the U.S. government in an
attempt to enable them to legally tell what they know.
The Official Story of 9/11 Is Simply Not Plausible
In the first place as former German Minister of Technology, Andreas von
Buelow remarked, “Planning the attacks was a master deed, in technical
and organizational terms. To hijack four big airliners within a few
minutes and fly them into targets within a single hour and doing so on
complicated flight routes! That is unthinkable, without backing from the
secret apparatuses of state and industry.” Thus, it should not be
surprising that many important unanswered questions surround the
attacks on the WTC and the Pentagon.
According to some scientists it is not possible for the World Trade
Center's Twin Towers to have completely collapsed in the manner they
did as a result of two jet planes. The first official version, that the
burning jet fuel caused the steel girders supporting the Twin Towers to
melt, had to be changed when no credible scientific evidence supported
it. But subsequent versions are also simply speculation. The WTC towers
were designed to take the impact of a Boeing 707. It is not possible
that fire from the jet fuel could have melted the steel girders. South
Tower was hit second and fell first. Both towers collapsed evenly and
smoothly in a manner consistent with that caused by a planned
demolition. Steel buildings are not known to collapse because of fire
and concrete does not turn into powder when it crashes to the ground.
Rather, based upon scientific evidences, photos and videos of the event,
and reports of scientists, the WTC architect and engineers, it is more
convincing that the towers collapsed because of demolition rather than
burning jet fuel.
The collapse of the tower known as WTC-7 raises even more questions
because it was not hit by anything but debris and yet it collapsed in a
manner similar to the Twin Towers only seven hours later. (13) There is
record only of small fires seen on a few floors prior to its collapse.
No one, including FEMA, has explained why WTC-7 collapsed. Since no
thorough investigation into why the WTC Towers collapsed was allowed,
it is reasonable to assume that definitive answers were not desired by
the
Bush Administration.
Even more outrageous is the official story and secrecy regarding the
Pentagon. The Pentagon is the largest office building in the world (6.5
million square feet of floor space) housing more than 20,000 people. At
the time of the attacks, its occupation was normal except for the one
section being renovated. The story people are expected to believe is
that a large commercial plane was piloted by a hijacker inexperienced
in flying, but who nevertheless circled the Pentagon making a 280-degree
turn, traveling approximately 345 mph (555 km/hr), and flew very low to
the ground (the Pentagon is 80 feet high) in order to crash orthogonally
into the one section being renovated. An aerial view shows that the only
sensible way to crash into the Pentagon as a kamikaze is to fly straight
on aiming at the center. Also damaging to the official story is the fact
that on September 14th the Department of Defense announced that
emergency workers had found the two black boxes, but except for the
existence of small pieces, no plane, luggage or passenger debris was
recovered. The military first denied that there were any videos of the
crash and then produced five images after French investigator Thierry
Meyssan's (2002) book showed the improbability of the official account.
Unless one is prepared to allege complicity, the official scenario of
the Pentagon crash is not possible by any stretch of the imagination.
The account of Flight 77 is one more example of the length to which the
Bush Administration is willing to go to cover up the truth of 9/11.
Mystery also surrounds the plane crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania.
The most obvious question concerns the remains of the plane and its
passengers, which seem to have vanished in thin air. Who were the
passengers aboard Flight 93? The official reports of cell phone contact
with passengers of Flight 93 are highly unlikely given recent research
and expert testimony. (14) No recording of these calls has been made
public. Also, what was the explosion reported by some of the local
people who witnessed the crash? Another eyewitness reported seeing a
white plane resembling a fighter jet circling the site just after the
crash. As in the case of Ground Zero, no one has been allowed near the
site. Amidst government secrecy and cover-up speculation abounds.
Moreover, the USA and bin Laden are not the enemies they pretend to be.
Michel Chossudovsky and others have established beyond doubt that senior
members of the Bush Administration have close links to the bin Laden
family and this relationship is still going on behind the scenes. In
fact, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence to indicate that bin
Laden may have had something to do with 9/11, but the problem is that
it also implicates the Bush Administration, the CIA, George Bush Senior,
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and The United Arab Emirates.
It is also well known that bin Laden's close working relationship with
the CIA began in the 1980's. The claim is that they have since fallen
out, but this story is a lie. Indeed, on October 31, the French daily
Le Figaro reported that while in a Dubai hospital receiving treatment for
a chronic kidney infection in July 2001, Osama bin Laden met with a top
CIA official. The bin Laden and Bush families have maintained close
business ties through the Carlyle Group. Some of the members of the bin
Laden family and the Saudi Royal Family were in the U.S. during the
attack and were flown safely out shortly after. George Bush Sr. met
with Shafiq bin Laden, one of Osama's brothers, on September 10th in
Washington, D.C. at a Carlyle Group business conference. According to
the corporate media spin, this is okay, because the rest of the family
has disowned Osama for his terrorist activities and anti-U.S. views.
This spin is also a lie.
The “blowback” thesis is a fabrication. The evidence amply confirms
that the CIA never severed its ties to the Islamic Militant Network. Since
the end of the Cold War these covert intelligence links have not only
been maintained, they have become increasingly sophisticated.
If bin Laden was an enemy of the U.S., he could have been captured
before 9/11 and should have been captured since. There have been several
opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden after naming him wanted for
the 1993 bombing of the WTC, but no effort to do so was made. (15) Prior
to
9/11, the FBI attributed the attacks on the embassies in Nairobi and
Dar-es-Salaam to Osama bin Laden and offered a $5 million ransom. Sudan
offered to assist the Clinton Administration in capturing bin Laden but
was ignored. It was also reported that bin Laden was meeting with the
CIA as late as July 2001 (while in the American Hospital in Dubai). An
examination of U.S. efforts to capture Osama bin Laden show they have
in fact, with the help of two allies, Saudi Arabia and The United Arab
Emirates, consistently blocked attempts to investigate and capture him.
Eleven bin Laden Family members were flown safely out of the same Boston
airport where the hijacking took place a few days earlier. Why were the
family members of the most wanted man in America not detained for
questioning?