Holocaust Survivor Leaving U.S.

[Packo]

Scout, agree. Helo pilots used to give us grunts a little stick time now and then.

Sis, Thanks....agree with you whole heartedly and Scouts observation also.

Pack

[Seascamp]

Way back when whilst still in dress blues and trying to figure out what I was going to do with the rest of my life, I did a job interview with Singer-Link. At the time they made the flight simulator for the Boeing 747. It rocks, it rolls, it climbs, it dives and with a cubicle horizon yer a flying, sure enough. Within 20 minuets I made a thumpity-thump-thump landing, but a landing none-the-less. In jest I told the instructor ?that?s the worst landing I ever made?. The instructor replied ?That?s the worst landing I ever saw?. Oh well, a not to be pilot, eh. The lesson learned is that with a large aircraft, nothing happens suddenly and maneuvers are coaxed and planned and a pilot only mildly intervenes. Given phone books and pillows a little kiddo could fly a 747 but would need help with the foot pedals when braking on the tarmac. I suppose one of the ?conspiracy? sagas is that the terrorists took flight training in a flight simulator. And the best among them, Mohammed Atta, had graduated to small craft and was doing well at it. By the way, by my calculations the aircraft that hit the pentagon had an instantaneous impact force of 280K tons/sec. But then I only taught physics and mathematics at the university 01 level and am a Republican so what do I know, right. After all, I?m monolithic, never worked an honest day in my life and am a white Christian bigot. Bad news, eh. Oh boooooo and hiss upon us, right.

No mystery, the relationships between velocity, mass and gravity can be found in any high school or 01 level University text book. Alas, conspiracy theorists skipped all that and ask where the bodies are. Blown to bits and or vaporized is the mathematical answer. The human body becomes significantly injured at a force impact speed of 15 MPH and it goes downhill from there. At 250 MPH, plus a hydro-carbon fuel-air bomb, yikes. A Dixie cup and tweezers or splat bag is the best retrieval method, assuming anything can be found at all. We might recall the military acrobatic team that slammed into the earth a while back. The grisly details are that the largest intact human remnant found was half a big toe from one pilot. Reality, come to reality. Conspiracy theorists do not control the position of the sun or physical laws of nature, though they wish they could.

Scamp

[MORTARDUDE]

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/mslp_i.htm

Muslims Suspend Laws of Physics!
Part I
by J. McMichael
jmcm5@lycos.com
Some of the sources have departed since this essay was originally published on October 21, 2001. Where I could find substitutes I have indicated them with the word "or" and a reference to an alternative copy.
This revision was published November 25, 2001.



I tried to be patriotic.
I tried to believe. I watched those quarter mile high buildings fall through their jaw-dropping catastrophes over and over again. I listened to the announcer and the experts explain what had happened. And I worked at my pitiful lack of faith, pounding my skull with the remote control and staring at the flickering images on the TV screen.

But poor mental peasant that I am, I could not escape the teachings of my forefathers. I fear I am trapped in my time, walled off from further scientific understanding by my inability to abandon the Second Millennium mindset.

But enough of myself. Let us move on to the Science and Technology of the 21st Century. Those of you who cannot believe should learn the official truth by rote and perhaps you will be able to hide your ignorance.

Here are the bare bones of the WTC incident:

North tower struck 8:45 a.m. from the north at about the 93rd floor, collapsed about 10:29 a.m.
South tower struck 9:03 a.m. from the south at about the 80th floor, collapsed about 9:50 a.m.;
(http://www.infoplease.com/spot/sept112001.html or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/info.html)
Impact locations estimated by Scientific American http://www.sciam.com/explorations/2001/100901wtc
Geographic information for WTC given at http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/wtcgeog
Comprehensive info on WTC with 3D model of complex at http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildi...de_Center.html



North tower struck 8:45 a.m. from the north at about the 93rd floor South tower struck 9:03 a.m. from the south at about the 80th floor

Using jet fuel to melt steel is an amazing discovery, really. It is also amazing that until now, no one had been able to get it to work, and that proves the terrorists were not stupid people. Ironworkers fool with acetylene torches, bottled oxygen, electric arcs from generators, electric furnaces, and other elaborate tricks, but what did these brilliant terrorists use? Jet fuel, costing maybe 80 cents a gallon on the open market.

Let us consider: One plane full of jet fuel hit the north tower at 8:45 a.m., and the fuel fire burned for a while with bright flames and black smoke. We can see pictures of white smoke and flames shooting from the windows.

Then by 9:03 a.m. (which time was marked by the second plane's collision with the south tower), the flame was mostly gone and only black smoke continued to pour from the building. To my simple mind, that would indicate that the first fire had died down, but something was still burning inefficiently, leaving soot (carbon) in the smoke. A fire with sooty smoke is either low temperature or starved for oxygen ? or both.
( http://www.fosters.com/news2001c/sep...91-9F50-5976D2 BE2E04.jpg or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/fires1-2.html)

But by 10:29 a.m., the fire in north tower had accomplished the feat that I find so amazing: It melted the steel supports in the building, causing a chain reaction within the structure that brought the building to the ground.

And with less fuel to feed the fire, the south tower collapsed only 47 minutes after the plane collision, again with complete destruction. This is only half the time it took to destroy the north tower.

I try not to think about that. I try not to think about a petroleum fire burning for 104 minutes, just getting hotter and hotter until it reached 1538 degrees Celsius (2800 Fahrenheit) and melted the steel (steel is about 99% iron; for melting points of iron and steel see http://www.webelements.com/webelemen.../Fe/heat.html, http://www.weldtechnology.com/rwintroduction.html or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmc...roduction.html).

(Celsius/Fahrenheit conversion tool at http://www.vaxxine.com/mgdsite/celcon.htm.)

I try not to wonder how the fire reached temperatures that only bottled oxygen or forced air can produce.

And I try not to think about all the steel that was in that building ? 200,000 tons of it (for WTC statistics see http://www.infoplease.com/spot/wtc1.html or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/wtc1.html).

I try to forget that heating steel is like pouring syrup onto a plate: you can't get it to stack up. The heat just flows out to the colder parts of the steel, cooling off the part you are trying to warm up. If you pour it on hard enough and fast enough, you can get the syrup to stack up a little bit. And with very high heat brought on very fast, you can heat up one part of a steel object, but the heat will quickly spread out and the hot part will cool off soon after you stop.

Am I to believe that the fire burned for 104 minutes in the north tower, gradually heating the 200,000 tons of steel supports like a blacksmith's forge, with the heat flowing throughout the skeleton of the tower? If the collapse was due to heated steel, the experts should be able to tell us how many thousands of tons of steel were heated to melting temperature in 104 minutes and how much fuel would be required to produce that much heat. Can a single Boeing 767 carry that much fuel?

Thankfully, I found this note on the BBC web page
( http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1540044.stm or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/BBCNews): "Fire reaches 800 [degrees] C ? hot enough to melt steel floor supports."

That is one of the things I warned you about: In the 20th Century, steel melted at 1535 degrees Celsius (2795 F) (see http://www.chemicalelements.com/elements/fe.html), but in the 21st Century, it melts at 800 degrees C (1472 F).

This might be explained as a reporter's mistake ? 800 to 900 C is the temperature for forging wrought iron. As soft as wrought iron is, of course, it would never be used for structural steel in a landmark skyscraper. (Descriptions of cast iron, wrought iron, steel, and relevant temperatures discussed at http://www.metrum.org/measures/castiron.htm or http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/castiron.htm.)

But then lower down, the BBC page repeats the 800 C number in bold, and the article emphasizes that the information comes from Chris Wise, "Structural Engineer." Would this professional individual permit himself to be misquoted in a global publication?

Eduardo Kausel, an M.I.T. professor of civil and environmental engineering, spoke as follows to a panel of Boston area civil and structural engineers: "I believe that the intense heat softened or melted the structural elements ? floor trusses and columns ? so that they became like chewing gum, and that was enough to trigger the collapse." Kausel is apparently satisfied that a kerosene fire could melt steel ? though he does not venture a specific temperature for the fire ( http://www.sciam.com/explorations/2001/100901wtc or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/sciam).

I feel it coming on again ? that horrible cynicism that causes me to doubt the word of the major anchor-persons. Please just think of this essay as a plea for help, and do NOT let it interfere with your own righteous faith. The collapse of America's faith in its leaders must not become another casualty on America's skyline.

In my diseased mind, I think of the floors of each tower like a stack of LP (33-1/3 RPM) records, except that the floors were square instead of circular. They were stacked around a central spindle that consisted of multiple steel columns interspersed with dozens of elevator shafts (see http://www.skyscraper.org/tallest/t_wtc.htm, http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm and http://www.GreatBuildings.com/buildi...de_Center.html).



Images cached from BBC page ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1540044.stm or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/BBCNews)
and HERA report by G. Charles Clifton ( http://www.hera.org.nz/PDF%20Files/W...e%20Centre.pdf or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/clifton.pdf).
Items indicated in Clifton image (right): 13. Exterior columns; 17. Interior columns; 20. Usable office space
BBC News Image (left) is misleading:
A "beam" is always horizontal, "columns" are vertical. The vertical steel supports in the core were columns.
The central columns occupied about 25% of the floor area, not 10% as is shown on the left.
The central columns were not encased in a single block of concrete, but interspersed with elevator shafts



Typical floor plan of WTC tower (from http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm#system).


The outside shape of the towers was almost square, but the inner core was more rectangular. Pictures from the early phases of construction photos show how the rectangular inner cores were oriented in the finished buildings ( http://www.GreatBuildings.com/cgi-bi...TC_const.4.gbi). Note that the north tower core was aligned east-west, and the south tower core was aligned north-south.


This drawing shows the two WTC towers (black) and the paths of the attacking aircraft (red). Within the profile of each tower, the shape of the central core is shown by the green rectangle. WTC buildings 1 through 6 are numbered, WTC 7, north of 6, is not shown.

With the central core bearing the weight of the building, the platters were tied together and stabilized by another set of steel columns at the outside rim, closely spaced and completely surrounding the structure. This resulting structure was so stable that the top of the towers swayed only three feet in a high wind. The architects called it a "tube-within-a-tube design."

The TV experts told us that the joints between the floors and central columns melted (or the floor trusses, or the central columns, or the exterior columns, depending on the expert) and this caused the floor to collapse and fall onto the one below. This overloaded the lower floor, and the two of them fell onto the floor below, and so on like dominos (see http://news-info.wustl.edu/News/nrindex00/harmon.html or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/harmon).

Back in the early 1970s when the World Trade Towers were built, the WTC was the tallest building that had ever been built in the history of the world. If we consider the architectural engineers, suppliers, builders, and city inspectors on the job, we can imagine they would be very careful to overbuild every aspect. If one bolt was calculated to serve, you can bet that three or four were used. If there was any doubt about the quality of a girder or steel beam, you can be sure it was rejected. After all, any failures would attract the attention of half the civilized world, and no corporation wants a reputation for that kind of stupidity ? particularly if there are casualties.

I do not know the exact specifications for the WTC, but I know in many trades (and some I've worked), a structural member must be physically capable of three times the maximum load that will ever be required of it (BreakingStrength = 3 x WorkingStrength).


According to Engineering and Technical Handbook by McNeese and Hoag, Prentice Hall, 3rd printing, September 1959: page 47 (Table) Safety Factors of Various Materials, the mandatory safety factor for structural steel is 600%. That is, a steel structure may be rated for a load of only one sixth the actual theoretical limit.

Given that none of those floors was holding a grand piano sale or an elephant convention that day, it is unlikely that any of them were loaded to the maximum. Thus, any of the floors should have been capable of supporting more than its own weight plus the two floors above it. I suspect the WTC was engineered for safer margins than the average railroad bridge, and the actual load on each floor was less than 1/6 the BreakingStrength. The platters were constructed of webs of steel trusses. Radial trusses ran from the perimeter of the floor to the central columns, and concentric rings of trusses connected the radial trusses, forming a pattern like a spider web (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/154000...ructure300.gif or http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/BB...S/1540044w.gif). Where the radial trusses connected with the central columns, I imagine the joints looked like the big bolted flanges where girders meet on a bridge ? inches thick bolts tying the beams into the columns.

In order to weaken those joints, a fire would have to heat the bolts or the flanges to the point where the bolts fell apart or tore through the steel. But here is another thing that gives me problems ? all the joints between the platter and the central columns would have to be heated at the same rate in order to collapse at the same time ? and at the same rate as the joints with the outer columns on all sides ? else one side of the platter would fall, damaging the floor below and making obvious distortions in the skin of the building, or throwing the top of the tower off balance and to one side.

But there were no irregularities in the fall of those buildings. They fell almost as perfectly as a deck of cards in the hands of a magician doing an aerial shuffle.


Images cached from PsyOpNews:
The Split-Second Error

This is particularly worrisome since the first plane struck one side of the north tower, causing (you would think) a weakening on that side where the exterior columns were struck, and a more intense fire on that side than on the other side. And the second plane struck near the corner of the south tower at an angle that caused much of the fuel to spew out the windows on the adjacent side (see http://www.eionews.addr.com/images/w...htowerpath.jpg or http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/southtowerpath.jpg).

Yet the south tower also collapsed in perfect symmetry, spewing dust in all directions like a Fourth of July sparkler burning to the ground (http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/us...stfountain.jpg).

This symmetry of descent is even more remarkable in the south tower because in the first moments of the collapse, the top 20 floors of the south tower tilted over to the south ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/153500...lapseap150.jpg or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmc...S/1538563t.jpg).

Whatever irregularities caused the top of the tower to tilt, subsequent pictures show the tower falling mostly within its own footprint. There are no reports of this cube of concrete and steel from the upper floors (measuring 200 ft. wide, 200 ft. deep, and 250 ft high) falling 1000 feet onto the buildings below.

Implosion expert Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. of Phoenix, MD, was also misled by the picture. Having observed the collapses on television news, Loizeaux said the 1,362-ft-tall south tower failed much as one would fell a tree ( http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc_enr.htm or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/USYDENR).

I have recently seen a videotape rerun of the south tower falling. In that take, the upper floors descend as a complete unit, tilted over as shown on the BBC page, sliding down behind the intervening buildings like a piece of stage scenery.

That scene is the most puzzling of all. Since the upper floors were not collapsed (the connection between the center columns and the platters were intact), this assembly would present itself to the lower floors as a block of platters WITHOUT a central hole. How then would a platter without a hole slide down the spindle with the other platters? Where would the central columns go if they could not penetrate the upper floors as the platters fell?

If the fire melted the floor joints so that the collapse began from the 60th floor downward, the upper floors would be left hanging in the air, supported only by the central columns. This situation would soon become unstable and the top 30 floors would topple over (to use Loizeaux's image) much like felling the top 600 ft. from a 1,300 ft. tree.

This model would also hold for the north tower. According to Chris Wise's "domino" doctrine, the collapse began only at the floor with the fire, not at the penthouse. How was it that the upper floors simply disappeared instead of crashing to the earth as a block of thousands of tons of concrete and steel?

In trying to reconstruct and understand this event, we need to know whether the scenes we are watching are edited or simply shown raw as they were recorded.

But let us return our attention to the fire. Liquid fuel does not burn hot for long. Liquid fuel evaporates (or boils) as it burns, and the vapor burns as it boils off. If the ambient temperature passes the boiling point of the fuel and oxygen is plentiful, the process builds to an explosion that consumes the fuel.

Jet fuel (refined kerosene) boils at temperatures above 160 degrees Celsius (350 F) and the vapor flashes into flame at 41 degrees Celsius (106 F). In an environment of 1500 degrees F, jet fuel spread thinly on walls, floor, and ceiling would boil off very quickly. If there were sufficient oxygen, it would burn; otherwise it would disperse out the open windows and flame when it met oxygen in the open air ? as was likely happening in the pictures that showed flames shooting from the windows. Some New Yorkers miles distant claimed they smelled the fuel, which would indicate fuel vapors were escaping without being burned.

Note that jet fuel burning outside the building would heat the outside columns, but would not heat the central load-bearing columns significantly. Following this reasoning, the jet fuel fire does not adequately explain the failure of the central columns.

Whether the fuel burned gradually at a temperature below the boiling point of jet fuel (360 C), or burned rapidly above the boiling point of jet fuel, in neither case would an office building full of spilled jet fuel sustain a fire at 815 degrees C (1500 F) long enough to melt 200,000 tons of steel. And certainly, the carpets, wallpaper, filing cabinets, occasional desks ? nothing else in that office was present in sufficient quantity to produce that temperature.

The WTC was not a lumber yard or a chemical plant. What was burning?

OK, since it was mentioned, I am also upset with the quantity of concrete dust (see http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm#why or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmc.../index.htm#why). No concrete that I have ever known pulverizes like that. It is unnerving. My experience with concrete has shown that it will crumble under stress, but rarely does it just give up the ghost and turn to powder. But look at the pictures ? it is truly a fine dust in great billowing clouds spewing a hundred feet from the collapsing tower.



The University of Sydney ? Department of Civil Engineering

And the people on the ground see little more than an opaque wall of dust ? with inches of dust filling the streets and the lungs afterward ( http://eionews.addr.com/images/wtc/thirdexplosion.jpg or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmc...dexplosion.jpg).

What has happened here?



I need a faith booster shot. I would like to find a picture of all those platters piled up on the ground, just as they fell ? has anyone seen a picture like that? I am told it was cumulative weight of those platters falling on each other that caused the collapse, but I don't see the platters piled up like flapjacks on the ground floor.



In this picture, the top of the picture is south and the right side is west. The ruined shell in the lower left is WTC building 6, and lower left of that is WTC 7, which was leveled by forces not explained. Picture cached from http://www.eionews.com before it was removed.

Instead, the satellite pictures show the WTC ruins like an ash pit ( http://eionews.addr.com/images/wtc/n...er_closeup.jpg or http://www.serendipity.li/wot/psyopn...er_closeup.jpg).

I am told by a friend that a man named Dr. Robert Schuller was on television telling about his trip to the ruins. He announced in the interview that there was not a single block of concrete in that rubble. From the original 425,000 cubic yards of concrete that went into the building, all was dust. How did that happen?

I have just one other point I need help with ? the steel columns in the center. When the platters fell, those quarter-mile high central steel columns (at least from the ground to the fire) should have been left standing naked and unsupported in the air, and then they should have fallen intact or in sections to the ground below, clobbering buildings hundreds of feet from the WTC site like giant trees falling in the forest. But I haven't seen any pictures showing those columns standing, falling, or lying on the ground. Nor have I heard of damage caused by them.

Now I know those terrorists must have been much better at these things than I am. I would take one look at their kamikaze plans with commercial jets and I would reject it as ? spectacular maybe, but not significantly damaging. The WTC was not even a strategic military target.

But if I were given the assignment of a terrorist hijacker, I would try to hit the towers low in the supports to knock the towers down, maybe trapping the workers with the fire and burning the towers from the ground up, just as the people in the top stories were trapped. Even the Japanese kamikaze pilots aimed for the water line.

But you see, those terrorists were so sure the building would magically collapse that way, the pilot who hit the north tower chose a spot just 20 floors from the top ( http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Da...ade010911.html or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/ABCNews).

And the kamikaze for south tower was only slightly lower ? despite a relatively open skyline down to 25 or 30 stories ( http://a188.g.akamaitech.net/f/188/9...e_ny091101.htm or http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/wtcgeog).

The terrorists apparently predicted the whole scenario ? the fuel fire, the slow weakening of the structure, and the horrific collapse of the building ? phenomena that the architects and the NY civil engineering approval committees never dreamed of.

Even as you righteously hate those men, you have to admire them for their genius.

Few officials or engineers have been surprised by this turn of events ? apparently everyone certified it for airplane collisions, but almost no one was surprised when both collisions caused utter catastrophes in both towers. In fact, their stutters and mumbles and circumlocutions would make a politician blush:

"Eventually, the loss of strength and stiffness of the materials resulting from the fire, combined with the initial impact damage, would have caused a failure of the truss system supporting a floor, or the remaining perimeter columns, or even the internal core, or some combination." ( http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.htm#why or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/usyd/wtc.htm#why)
In a hundred years of tall city buildings, this kind of collapse has never happened before. Never. It was not predicted by any of the experts involved when the WTC towers were built. But now that it has happened, everybody understands it perfectly and nobody is surprised.

Is this civil engineering in the Third Millennium ? a galloping case of perfect hindsight?

Scientific American, prestigious journal of cutting edge science, remarked:

Despite the expert panel's preliminary musings on the failure mechanisms responsible for the twin towers' fall, the definitive cause has yet to be determined. Reportedly, the National Science Foundation has funded eight research projects to probe the WTC catastrophe. The American Society of Civil Engineers is sponsoring several studies of the site. Meanwhile the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Structural Engineers has established an investigative team to analyze the disaster and learn from the failure ( http://www.sciam.com/explorations/2001/100901wtc or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/sciam).
Amazing: At least ten independent professional studies for an incident every professional seems already to understand. Notwithstanding the apparent lack of answers and all these studies not yet done, the very next paragraph is headed, "How the Towers Fell," and the reader is treated to a shotgun assortment of speculations, each delivered with the beard-stroking and pipe-puffing certainty that no explanation would ever be seriously challenged.

I have found only one expert candidly admitting his surprise. This was Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. of Phoenix, MD:

Observing the collapses on television news, Loizeaux says the 1,362-ft-tall south tower, which was hit at about the 60th floor, failed much as one would like (sic) fell a tree. That is what was expected, says Loizeaux. But the 1,368-ft-tall north tower, similarly hit but at about the 90th floor, "telescoped," says Loizeaux. It failed vertically, he adds, rather than falling over. "I don't have a clue," says Loizeaux, regarding the cause of the telescoping. (http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc_enr.htm or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/USYDENR).
There was one highly qualified engineer in New Mexico who thought the collapse could only happen with the help of demolition explosives, and he was foolish enough to make the statement publicly.

Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures.
Romero said he based his opinion on video aired on national television broadcasts.

Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures.

"It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an event like that," Romero said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C.

Romero said he and another Tech administrator were on a Washington-area subway when an airplane struck the Pentagon.

He said he and Denny Peterson, vice president for administration and finance, were en route to an office building near the Pentagon to discuss defense-funded research programs at Tech.

If explosions did cause the towers to collapse, the detonations could have been caused by a small amount of explosive, he said.

"It could have been a relatively small amount of explosives placed in strategic points," Romero said.

The explosives likely would have been put in more than two points in each of the towers, he said.

(Article originally at http://www.abqjournal.com/aqvan09-11-01.htm, then was moved to http://www.abqjournal.com/news/aqvan09-11-01.htm but now back in the original location ? see copy at http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/ABQjournal.)

But Romero recanted ten days later and admitted the whole thing was perfectly natural and unsurprising. I wonder what happened in those ten days to make him so smart on the subject so quickly. The retraction is now displayed above the original on the Albuquerque Journal web page.

And then, as though demonstrating how normal this "building collapsing" phenomenon is, WTC buildings Six and Seven "collapsed," too:

Other buildings ? including the 47-story Salomon Brothers building [WTC 7] ? caved in later, weakened by the earlier collapses, and more nearby buildings may still fall, say engineers. ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/wor...00/1540044.stm or http://public-action.com/911/jmcm/BB...index.html#why)
(These ruins are shown in aerial photo http://www.eionews.addr.com/images/w...ersixafter.jpg or http://www.public-action.com/911/jmc...ersixafter.jpg).

It seems no building in the area, regardless of design, is immune to galloping WTC collapse-itis. It never happened in the 20th Century, but welcome to the physical universe laws of the Third Millennium.

Pardon me, but this recitation has not given me the relief I hoped for. I must get back to work.

I believe in the President, the Flag, and the Statue of Liberty. I believe in the honesty of the FBI and the humility of military men. I believe in the network news anchor-persons, who strive to learn the truth, to know the truth, and to tell the truth to America.

And I believe all Americans are so well educated in the basic physics discussed above, they would rise up in fury if someone tried to pull a cheap Hollywood trick on them.

Hand me that remote, will you? I believe . I believe . I believe ...

? J. McMichael
jmcm5@lycos.com




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Part II


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This article was obtained from
http://www.public-action.com/911/jmcm/physics_1.html
HTML coding originally done by Public Action
http://www/Public.Action.com



The World Trade Center Demolition
and the So-Called War on Terrorism
Serendipity Home Page

[MORTARDUDE]

http://physics911.ca/modules/news/ar...php?storyid=19


September 11th and the Bush Administration:
Compelling Evidence for Complicity
by Walter E. Davis, PhD, Kent State University
October 29th 2003
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 September 11th. 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?

An Alternative Story Ties the Alleged Terrorists to the CIA and Pakistan's ISI
It is most likely that Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) was directly involved in 9/11. (16) The links between al-Qaeda, Pakistan's ISI and the CIA; and, between the ISI, Osama bin Laden and the Taliban Axis are a matter of public record. The CIA also has close cooperative links with Mossad (Israeli Intelligence) which also may have played an important role in 9/11. Pakistan has long been a supporter of al-Qaeda. The ISI has been a mechanism by which the CIA indirectly channeled support to al-Qaeda and has been used by successive U.S. administrations as a ?go-between.? Pakistan's military-intelligence apparatus constitutes the core institutional support to both Osama's al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Without this institutional support, there would be no Taliban government in Kabul. In turn, without the support of the U.S. government, there would be no powerful military-intelligence apparatus in Pakistan.

It was reported that ISI's Director-General, General Mahmoud Ahmad, had funneled $100,000 to the alleged lead hijacker, Mohammed Atta, shortly before September 11th. The U.S. government protected him, and itself, by asking him to resign quietly after the discovery, thus blocking a further inquiry and a potential scandal. In the wake of 9/11, the Bush Administration consciously sought the ?cooperation? of the ISI, which had been supporting and abetting Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. In other words, the Bush Administration's relations with Pakistan's ISI, including its ?consultations? with General Mahmoud Ahmad in the week prior to September 11th, raise the issue of cover-up and complicity. While Ahmad was talking to U.S. officials at the CIA and the Pentagon, the ISI allegedly had contacts with the 9/11 terrorists.

Israel is an occupying power in the Middle East surrounded by Arab States viewed as its enemies. It is a dominating military power in the area with nuclear capabilities, owing largely to the United States' $3 billion annual aid package ($100 million for the Palestine Authority). U.S. aid, for the most part, is not charity ? there is an expected return. Israel is an instrument in U.S. Mid-East regional policy but it is a mutual exchange rather than a colonial relationship. It is not clear the exact role Israel played in 9/11 as all details are not fully known publicly.

It was reported that a few hours after the attacks, five Israelis were arrested for puzzling behavior described as cries of joy and mockery as they watched and filmed the WTC attack. One man was found with $4,700 in cash hidden in his sock, another had two passports, and a box cutter was found in the van they were driving when arrested. ABC News later reported that the FBI determined that the men were on a Mossad surveillance mission. The FBI is said to have held them on immigration violations and interrogated them for weeks, but released them on November 20, 2001 as part of a deal with the Israeli government. In addition, months before September 11, a firm partly owned by the Israeli government broke the lease on its offices in the WTC and moved out.

There Is No Question Who Benefited the Most from 9/11
The 9/11 attacks came at an extremely fortuitous time for the Bush Administration, the Pentagon, the CIA, the FBI, the weapons industry, and the oil industry, all of which have benefited immensely from this tragedy, as has Israel. It is worth noting the astute observations of Canadian social philosopher John McMurtry: ?To begin with, the forensic principle of 'who most benefits from the crime?' clearly points in the direction of the Bush administration. . . . The more you review the connections and the sweeping lapse of security across so many coordinates, the more the lines point backwards? [to the White House]. If you add ?follow the money?, one trail goes from the CIA to Pakistan's ISI to al-Qaeda, and another trail goes from the U.S. tax payers to particular players in the military industrial complex connected to the Bush Administration.

The September 11th disaster has resulted in power and profit at home and abroad by both the bin Laden and the Bush families. There are significant business ties between bin Laden and senior members of the Bush Administration through the Carlyle Group, the giant private and secretive investment firm managing some $14 billion in assets, including many defense-related companies. Carlyle employs former President George Bush Sr., and has had long standing financial ties to the bin Laden family. So while there is compelling evidence that Osama bin Laden has not broken away from his family, it is also a matter of record that the Bush Administration is in turn very significantly tied to the same family. Reports have emerged that the Carlyle Group, Halliburton and many other firms with ties to the Bush Administration have profited immensely from the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq and from the militarization of U.S. foreign policy.

Israel is the regional watchdog for the West, but is also dependent on the U.S. for its security. Clearly it benefits from the U.S. occupation of one of its most dreaded enemies. It may also now share in some of the benefits from the world's second largest oil reserve.

The Wars on Afghanistan and Iraq Were Planned, Prior to 9/11
Two important documents suggested that in order for the U.S. to remain the preeminent power (i.e., the imperial hegemon), a military takeover of Eurasia was required, which in turn required a Pearl Harbor type event to enrage the American people. (17) This strategy was called for by the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), formed in 1997, in their published document ?Rebuilding America's Defenses? (September 2000) and in ?The Grand Chessboard? authored by Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997), National Security Advisor during the Carter Administration. In describing the U.S. after the collapse of the U.S.S.R., Brzezinski notes rather straightforwardly, ?[i]t became simultaneously the first and the only truly global power. And yet America's global supremacy is reminiscent in some ways of earlier empires . . .? (p. 10). He further states that, ?[f]or America, the chief geopolitical prize is Eurasia? (p. 30).

The primary architects of the PNAC plans include Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Richard Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, all now part of the current Bush Administration. These plans describe specifics for taking military control of Central Asia, including regime change in Iraq, and beyond. In the ?Rebuilding America's Defenses? document a startling prediction is made about the military transformation the authors believe necessary: ?Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event ? like a new Pearl Harbor? (p. 52). George W. Bush allegedly confirmed in his diary that 9/11 was the Pearl Harbor they wanted and the follow-up strategy is currently being witnessed.

It is public knowledge that Unocal and others in the oil industry were negotiating with the Afghan officials for a pipeline across their country as part of the ?Silk Road? strategy. It was also reported that the talks had broken down. A specific threat was made at a meeting in Berlin, Germany, in July 2001: the Taliban can choose between a ?carpet of bombs? ? an invasion ? or a ?carpet of gold? ? the oil and gas pipelines. Experts agree that Central Asia and the Caspian Basin are central to energy in the 21st century and that energy is central to political, economic and military power. James Dorian noted in the Oil & Gas Journal: ?Those who control the oil routes out of Central Asia will impact all future direction and quantities of flow and the distribution of revenues from new production?.(18) As another source of revenue, and part of a major global industry, Afghan farmers are once again producing large quantities of poppies, a crop the Taliban tried to eradicate in 2001. Opium production went from 185 metric tons to 3,600 metric tons or seventy-five percent of the world's production according to the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime.

As early as 1991, following the defeat of Iraq in the Persian Gulf War, Newsweek magazine reported that the U.S. military was preparing an operation in Kazakhstan and U.S. companies began acquiring natural gas and oil rights in the Caspian region. U.S. Special Forces began joint operations with Kazakhstan in 1997 and with Uzbekistan a year later, training for intervention especially in the mountainous southern region that includes Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and northern Afghanistan. In early September, prior to 9/11, the U.S. and NATO mobilized troops in and around Pakistan, Egypt and the Arabian Sea in preparation for a possible attack on al-Qaeda.

There Are Precedents for These Kinds of Acts of Complicity and Fabrications
Complicity cannot be discounted on the claim that no country would do this to its own citizens, because such past events are documented. The previously classified ?Operation Northwoods? document reveals that in 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff seriously considered the possibility of carrying out terrorist attacks against U.S. citizens, and blaming it on Cuba in order to justify a war to overthrow Fidel Castro. The plans were never implemented, but were given approval signatures by all the Joint Chiefs of Staff and its chairman, General Lyman L. Lemnitzer. The plan included several options, such as killing Cuban defectors or U.S. soldiers, sinking ships, and staging simulations of planes being shot down. (19)

A more recent example is the conspiracy to assassinate Martin Luther King Jr. as described in detail by Attorney William Peppers in his book Act of State (2001). In 1999, after seventy witnesses provided unimpeachable evidence it took the jury only one hour to determine that J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, Richard Helms and the CIA, the military, the local Memphis police, and organized crime figures from New Orleans and Memphis plotted to murder King. The very fact of the trial itself was buried by corporate media.

Far from being an unprecedented shocker, government complicity in 9/11 would build on an august and cynical tradition. It is the oldest trick in the book, dating at least back to Nero's burning of Rome. In 1933, after Hitler came to power, the Nazis burned down the Reichstag (Parliament) building and blamed it on the Communists to justify abolition of civil liberties and the imposition of Nazi rule. They also staged the ?Polish? attack on a German radio station to ?justify? their invasion of Poland. Other examples of citizens being hoaxed include the sinking of the Maine, Pearl Harbor bombardment (which President Roosevelt not only knew about beforehand but helped provoke), the hoax of the Gulf of Tonkin attack, and the staging of the Kuwaiti incubator-babies incident. Bush Sr. also lied about Iraqi tanks massed on the Saudi Arabian border prepared to invade ? ground reconnaissance and satellite photos showed no tanks there. Each of these deceptions served to rally popular support for a war of aggression.

The Bush Administration is clearly capable of creating or allowing such atrocities to occur. Hitler was able to play the anti-communist card to win over skeptical German industrialists. Certainly the Bush family is not a newcomer to melding political and business interests; they obtained their start as key Hitler supporters. Prescott Bush, grandfather of George W. Bush, was Hitler's banker in New York, until Franklin D. Roosevelt confiscated his holdings during World War II using the Trading With The Enemy Act. George Bush Sr. used Manuel Noriega ? who had been laundering money and abetting drug shipments for the CIA ? as a scapegoat, killing thousands of innocent Panamanians in the process of reestablishing U.S. control over Panama. It is also now clearly demonstrated that the current Bush Administration knowingly misled the people about the war in Iraq.

While the focus of this article is on 9/11 and the Bush Administration, it is incumbent to reiterate that this atrocity must be viewed in the contexts of a long history of U.S. imperial expansion. The Bushgang may be more bellicose and aggressive than previous administrations in recent history. Some of Bush's critics claim that this preemptive strike against Iraq is unprecedented. However, this war is more accurately described as a war of conquest, which is by no means unprecedented. The historical account is undeniable; the European invaders did not stop on the west coast of North America but continued to the Philippines and beyond.

Lies, Secrecy and Cover-Up
There has never been a single event in the history of the U.S. republic which has received more media coverage. Moreover, there were 2952 people killed in the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, more civilian deaths on a single day than at any other time. In spite of the unprecedented magnitude of death and destruction in New York City on 9/11/01, the U.S. Government spent only $600,000 for its single study of the causes for the WTC Buildings' collapses. Compare this to the $40 million that was spent for investigation of Bill Clinton's activities with Monica Lewinksy in 1988-1999 and the only rational conclusion is that there is no desire on the part of the Bush Administration for the public to know the truth about 9/11.

The lies of the Bush Administration are numerous and currently many of them are well publicized including President Bush's claim that he saw on TV one of the planes crashing into the tower before any video was ever shown. This was just one of Bush's seven different ?recalls? of the events on September 11th. The statements of the FAA, NORAD, the Air Force Pilots and Traffic Controllers conflict, contradict known facts and defy reason. In spite of this deliberate deception, the mass media have made very little of the fact that from the beginning, the Bush Administration has vigorously attempted to thwart any investigation into the circumstances of an attack that killed more U.S. civilians on a single day than any other act of violence perpetrated on U.S. soil.

Airline crashes are routinely investigated with great thoroughness, and the results released to the public. By contrast, the Bush Administration has barred virtually any release of information about 9/11. For nearly six months, it blocked congressional hearings and rejected calls for a special commission of inquiry. The White House finally worked out a deal with the Democratic and Republican congressional leaders to consign the investigation to hearings held jointly by the House and Senate intelligence committees but continued its intimidations.

The joint congressional hearings were held behind closed doors, and their more-than-800-page secret report detailing the intelligence and law-enforcement failures that preceded the attacks (including provocative, if unheeded warnings, given President Bush and his top advisors during the summer of 2001) was completed last December. Yet only a bare-bones list of ?findings? with virtually no details has been made public. But nearly six months later, a ?working group? of Bush Administration intelligence officials assigned to review the document has taken a hard line against further public disclosure. By refusing to declassify many of its most significant conclusions, the administration has essentially thwarted congressional plans to release the report. The intelligence officials' attempt to reclassify other aspects of the report seems ludicrous. As noted at the beginning of this article, only because the families of some of the victims of 9/11 were persistent was an independent commission formed. After stonewalling, the White House, quite incredibly, appointed Henry Kissinger as its head. He resigned shortly after. With New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean finally appointed to lead the commission, questions of conflict of interest still remain. Even so, the White House wrestled with the Kean Commission, refusing to release necessary documents.

It is also noteworthy that officials in the Bush Administration illegally removed pages from the Iraq U.N. report, pages that are believed to identify those who supplied Hussein's regime with weapons of mass destruction and training on how to use them. These acts are not isolated unfortunate mistakes, but demonstrate a consistent pattern. While President George W. Bush and Attorney General John Ashcroft call for more and more intrusive surveillance capabilities on citizens of the U.S., they themselves operate in unprecedented secrecy.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency's failure to investigate and its cover-up are beyond belief. Only a team of volunteer investigators was assembled, then given no funding and not allowed to go to Ground Zero. People were threatened with arrest if they took pictures at the two sites of the attack and the site of the plane crash in Pennsylvania. Instead of being made available to the investigating team, the debris from the collapsed Twin Towers was hauled from the site without forensic examination and sold to scrap merchants overseas with pledges of secrecy about the contents. Controlled Demolition Inc. of Phoenix, Maryland was one of the site's main cleanup management contractors and their plan for recycling the steel was accepted.

The Securities and Exchange Commission refused to report on its insider trading investigation into people who made millions from the 9/11 tragedy. As part of the cover-up there have been constant distractions away from the real issues of 9/11 with such media headlines as orange alerts, anthrax attacks, and CIA agent exposures. Moreover, the reasonable calls for an investigation into the events surrounding 9/11, made by U.S. Congressional Representatives, Nancy Pelosi and Cynthia McKinney, inspired the kind of outrage that is generally motivated by a desire to suppress rather than reveal the truth.

Summary and Conclusion
If government agencies knew of impending attacks, were capable of preventing them, but did nothing, their accounts of the events contained contractions and lies; they went to great lengths to prevent any investigation and subsequently reaped tremendous benefits, what should be concluded? The evidence presented above seems clear that if the many agencies of the U.S. government had done their jobs, the September 11th attacks most likely would have been prevented. If there had been an immediate investigation into 9/11, the wars on Afghanistan and Iraq could not have been justified simply on the basis of terrorism. Surely questions must be asked as to why no one in any of the government agencies has been held accountable, and why journalists and others in the mass media are not held responsible for the cover-up, deception and lack of investigative reporting. Given the evidence presented it is not surprising that public whistle-blowing is beginning to occur. It remains to be seen what will happen with the pending class-action lawsuits being brought against persons in the administration for letting 9/11 happen. The reluctance of the alternative media to weigh in on the issue of accountability may be due to the lack of courage or to ?conspiracy phobia?. (20) However, the ?attack on America? by definition and its very nature was a conspiracy. These coordinated acts required very extensive and careful planning, which by necessity was done in secret because the intent was to harm innocent people for political gain. The only question is who are the conspirators? This does not suggest there should be a lack of skepticism, caution and an awareness of a conspiracy culture. Rather it emphasizes that a rigorous science does not dismiss conspiracy theories out of hand, but only after a thorough investigation.

One important insight into conspiracy theories concerns how hierarchical authoritarian social systems function. Top down directives and commands, especially if they carry the weight of threats of censorship and punishment, serve to keep any dissent in check. There is a great deal of self-censorship operating in all institutions in the U.S. Shared ideology, or perhaps more specifically what social psychologists in studies of organizational behavior call ?groupthink,? also plays a major role among the decision makers. Groupthink is decision making characterized by uncritical acceptance of and conformity with the prevailing view. Thus, the will of a few key persons can be spread within and across government agencies.

Thus the possibility of complicity on the part of the Bush Administration is very real. Past history, as well as the currently established facts, is on the side of those raising this possibility. At the very least, further and more honest investigations must take place and some accountability exacted from those responsible.

It seems apropos to conclude (I paraphrase): ?if you are part of the problem, then you are not part of the solution.? Thus the solution lies with the people themselves and not with any U.S. government agency, least of all the Executive Branch. It is critical to appeal to the several important alternative media outlets who have bought into the official story of ?blowback,? to reconsider their position. It took twenty-five years for Robert B. Stinnett (21) to bring to conclusion the evidence showing Roosevelt's involvement in Pearl Harbor. Will it take twenty-five years before the truth of 9/11 is brought to light? Are the efforts of Stinnett and others to be for naught?


Sources
(1) There is a large body of literature on U.S. imperialism, see especially, John Bellamy Foster (2001). Imperialism and ?Empire.? Monthly Review, 53, 1-9; Garth Stedman Jones (1972). The history of US imperialism. In RobinBlackburn (Ed.), Ideology and social science. London: Fontana; and Michael Parenti (1995). Against empire: An expose of the brutal realities of U.S. global domination. San Fransisco: City Lights Books. For a list and description of CIA atrocities abroad see: William Blum (2000). Rogue State: A guide to the world's only superpower. Monroe, MI: Common Courage Press; and for a list of CIA atrocities at home: Health News Network: http://www.healthnewsnet.com.

(2) There are numerous sources for this. Consult: Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed (2002). The war on freedom: How and why America was attacked September 11, 2001. Joshua Tree, CA: Tree of Life Publications, chapter 4; John W. Dean (2003). The 9/11 Report Raises More Serious Questions About The White House Statements On Intelligence: http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030729.html; Alex Jones at: and www.rense.com; Thierry Meyssan (2002). 9/11 the big lie. London: Carnot Publishing; Ed Rippy http://erippy.home.mindspring.com, and (2002). 9-11 and U.S. global hegemony, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RIP207A.html; Michael Ruppert (2002) From the Wilderness Publications. http://www.copvcia.com; Paul Joseph Watson (2003) Order out of chaos: Elite sponsored terrorism & the new world order. Austin, TX: Alex Jones Productions; Marta Steele (2003): http://www.legitgov.org/essay_steele..._911.htm#_ftn6

(3) Ahmed, 2002, op cit. provides a careful documentation of this evidence as reported in numerous media outlets. See also, Judicial Watch Sept 11, 2002: http://www.judicialwatch.org/2469.shtml. It is well known that the U.S. government not only tracks suspected terrorists, but also trains and finances them.

(4) Ruppert, 2002, op cit. and Daniel Hopsicker (2001). Barry and the Boys: The CIA, the mob and America's secret history . Eugene, OR: Mad Cow Press; Rippy, op cit., document the close connection of the CIA to Wall Street, the major international financial institutions, including the infamous BCCI, the arms and drug trade, and organized crime.

(5) Ahmed, 2002, op cit.; Mark R. Elsis (2002). Stand down: Exposing NORAD's wag the 911 window dressing tale: http://StandDown.net; Jared Israel (2001) http://emperors-clothes.com. See also several articles by Jared Israel, John Flaherty, Illarion Bykov, Francisco Gil-White and George Szamuely; Steve Grey (2002). September 11 Attacks: Evidence of U.S. collusion: http://austin.indymedia.org/front.ph...group=webcast. Paul Thompson (2003). The failure to defend the skies on 9/11: http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/t...irdefense.html

(6) Note: Instructions issued by the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on June 1, 2001. ?In the event of a hijacking, the NMCC will be notified by the most expeditious means by the FAA. The NMCC will . . . forward requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval

(7) Mark R. Elsis (2003). 36 or 37 missing and 70 percent empty. http://911Timeline.net/36Or37Missing...centEmpty.htm; Meyssan, 2002, op cit.
(8) Cited by Mindy Kleinberg: http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/; www.unansweredquestions.org. See especially the testimony of Mindy Kleinberg, Stephen Push and others on the First Public Hearings Archives, p. 163.

(9) Daniel Hopsicker (2002). 9/11: The American connection. http://www.madcowprod.com.

(10) A Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Interview with Michael Springman exposes CIA Links to Osama BinLaden (January 19, 2001): http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CBC201A.html

(11) This relationship goes back at least sixty years. See especially, Ahmed, 2002, op cit.; Michel Chossudovsky (2002). War and globalisation: The truth behind September 11. London: Zed Books; Rippy, op cit.

(12) This information is reported in numerous international and some domestic news outlets; see also Alex Jones, op cit.; Patrick Martin (2002). One year after the terror attacks: Still no official investigation into 9/11: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MAR209A.html; Rippy, 2002, op cit.

(13) See especially: Jim Hoffman et al.: http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/; Martin Doutr? (2001): http://www.nzaif.com/pentagon/pentagon911.html; Gerard Holmgren (2002). Physical and mathematical analysis of the Pentagon crash: http://www.serendipity.li/wot/holmgren/index.html; Eric Hufsmidt (2002). Painful questions: An analysis of the September 11th attack. Goleta, CA: Eric Hufschmid; Scott Loughrey (2003). WTC-7: The improbable collapse: http://globalresearch.ca/articles/LOU308A.html; Thierry Meyssan (2002). Pentagate. London: Carnot.

(14) A.K. Dewdney (2003) 'Project Achilles' Final Report and Summary of Findings http://www.feralnews.com/issues/911/..._3_030426.html

(15) Ahmed, 2002, op cit.; Chossudovsky, 2002, op cit.; Eric Lichtblau (2003). ?White House Approved Departure of Saudis After Sept. 11, Ex-Aide Says,? New York Times, September 4, 2003; Meyssan, 2002, op cit.; Watson, 2003, op cit.

(16) Ahmed, 2002, op cit; Chaim Kupferberg, (2003). There is something about Omar: Truth, lies, and the legend of 9/11, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP310A.html

(17) William Kristol: http://www.newamericancentury.org/ Zbigniew Brzezinski (1997). The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives. New York: Basic Books. For analysis see: Rippy, 2002, op cit.; Michael Ruppert: A war in planning for four years, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RUP111B.html; Paul Thompson: http://www.cooperativeresearch.net/timeline/index.html. See ?US preparing for a war with Afghanistan before 9/11, increasing control of Asia before & since? and many other articles;

Bette Stockbauer (2003) 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' and the Project for the New American Century: http://www.antiwar.com/orig/stockbauer1.html.

(18) Cited in Ahmed, 2002, p. 69.

(19) James Bamford (2001). Body of Secrets : Anatomy of the Ultra-secret National Security Agency: from the Cold War through the dawn of a new century. New York: Doubleday, 2001.

(20) Compare Mark Fenster (1999). Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and power in American culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press; and Michael Parenti (1996). Dirty truths: Reflections on politics, media, ideology, conspiracy, ethnic life and class power. San Francisco: City Light Books.

(21) Robert B. Stinnett (2000). Day of deceit: the truth about FDR and Pearl Harbor. New York: Touchstone.



FlatThreadedNested Oldest FirstNewest First

[MORTARDUDE]

http://physics911.ca/modules/news/ar...php?storyid=18


September 11 - Islamic Jihad or another Northwoods?
by Tim Howells, 10th November 2003
[Version 1.0]
In 1962, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, our highest and most responsible military officers, proposed to commit acts of terrorism aimed against U.S. citizens, designed to look as though they had been the work of operatives of Fidel Castro. The object was to provide a pretext for an invasion of Cuba. Among many imaginative proposals, the Chiefs suggested:

"We could develop a communist cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington" and further: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba ... casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation." [http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf ]

Although these plans were never carried out (they were rejected by President Kennedy), similar proposals WERE actually implemented during the 1970's and 1980's in Europe by the CIA, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of innocent civilians. In one bombing of a busy train station in Bologna Italy in 1980, 86 people were killed and over 200 wounded. The bombings were designed to look like the work of communist extremists although they were in fact committed by right wing extremists working under the direction of the CIA. The aim of these operations was to whip up anticommunist sentiment among our european allies. [Arthur E. Rowse: Gladio: The secret U.S. War to subvert Italian Democracy. Covert Action Quarterly No. 49, Summer 1994. http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/gladio.html ]

Was September 11 a similar operation, mounted by elements of our own government in order to whip up public support for an all out war against the Arab states in the Middle East? The evidence strongly suggests that this is the case.

My aim here is to provide a brief introduction to some of this evidence with pointers for further reading.




Outline
1/ The hijackers were not fanatical Islamic fundamentalists (far from it). (a) They smoked and drank and partied hard. (b) Several of the hijackers had training at secure military facilities in the United States (c) The hijackers operated quite openly, as if they had powerful protectors in the U.S.

2/ The hijackers were not capable of the feats of piloting that are attributed to them.

3/ The hijackers lead back to Pakistan's ISI, and through the ISI, back to the CIA and the Bush administration. A) Funding for the hijackers came from ISI Director General Ahmad (b) On September 11 Ahmad was in Washington meeting with key administration officials. (c) On September 12 the administration announced Ahmad's agreement to collaborate in their "War on Terrorism". (d) The ISI is not a tool of bin Laden - it's the very much the other way around.

4/ FBI investigations that could have prevented September 11 were deliberately sabotaged by FBI Headquarters. (a) At least two FBI investigations were deliberately stopped that could have prevented September 11. (b) The hijackers must have KNOWN that the FBI would not investigate - they operated quite openly, and even seemed to deliberately draw attention to themselves as potential terrorists.

5/ The anthrax attacks (a) No potential terrorists had access to the advanced, "weaponized" form of anthrax used. (b) All suspects lead back to US or Israeli intelligence. (c) The crude misspellings and appeals to Allah and Islam in the letters appear to be a hoax to blame this on Arab terrorists.

6/ The ultra-rightwing agenda already in place for a war against the Arab states.

7/ Conclusion - It appears that the September 11 attacks were covertly instigated and supported by elements of our own government to support an ultra-rightwing political and military agenda.

8/ Epilog - How could this happen? Some historical context.



1/ The hijackers were not fanatical Islamic fundamentalists (far from it)
The keystone of the "official story" on the events of September 11 is that the hijackers were fanatical Islamic fundamentalists, opposed to all products of Western culture. They are presented to us as pure warriors of Allah, prepared not only to kill, but to die for their religion. Their supposed austere and ascetic approach to life and death is presented us in the will and testament of their leader, Mohammed Atta. We find here a long list of severe admonitions including:

... 9. The person who will wash my body near my genitals must wear gloves on his hands so he won't touch my genitals. 10. I want the clothes I wear to consist of three white pieces of cloth, not to be made of silk or expensive material. 11. I don't want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or on any occasion thereafter. ... [ etc. etc. etc. ]

[ http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/Da...atta_will.html ]

It could hardly be otherwise; who other than a totally dedicated religious fanatic would be capable of deliberately incinerating himself in such a horrific manner together with several of his closest comrades and thousands of innocent victims?

It was soon discovered that this image was completely false. In fact, most of the hijackers were thoroughly americanized and enjoyed quite wild, hedonistic lifestyles. Several of the them, including the leader and "suicide pilot" Mohammed Atta, were frequently seen out bar hopping, smoking and getting drunk. They sometimes engaged lap-dancers and prostitutes:

http://www.nctimes.net/news/2001/20010912/10103.html http://www2.bostonherald.com/attack/...ob10102001.htm

In Boston the night before the hijackings the WTC hijackers tried to engage some prostitutes, but then backed out because they decided it was too expensive:

http://web.archive.org/web/200110110...ilyglobe2/283/ metro/Hijackers_said_to_seek_prostitutes-.shtml

These are not the actions of Islamic fanatics on their way to die for Allah! It certainly appears that the hijackers did not know that this was a suicide mission, and were not genuine Islamic fundamentalists.

15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, mostly from wealthy families. In fact, most of the hijackers are typical of the wealthy, high- rolling, hedonistic Saudis who turn up over and over again in covert operations sponsored by the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. and Jr. These scandals include Iran-Contra, the Savings and Loan Scandal (by far the most massive financial rip-off in history), the massive money-laundering that led to the collapse of BCCI, a Pakistani bank with strong ties to the CIA, and, more recently, the Enron scandal. The connection to U.S. intelligence is more than speculative; several of the hijackers had training at secure military installations in the U.S. The locations where the hijackers received training include:

* The Pensacola Naval Station * Lackland Air Force Base * Air War College in Montgomery, Alabama * Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery, Alabama * The Defense Language Institute in Monterey

http://www.msnbc.com/news/629529.asp http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html [ This is a long file. A string search on "military sources" will take you to the right paragraph ]

There is further compelling evidence that the hijackers were in fact recruits of the CIA based on the manner in which they obtained their visas to live in the United States. The National Review has published a careful study of this question that concludes that the awarding of visas to these applicants is "inexplicable". This is the strong consensus opinion of several government officials with extensive hands-on experience with the process of issuing visas in this part of the world:

All six experts strongly agreed that even allowing for human error, no more than a handful of the visa applications should have managed to slip through the cracks. Making the visa lapses even more inexplicable, the State Department claims that at least 11 of the 15 were interviewed by consular officers. Nikolai Wenzel, one of the former consular officers who analyzed the forms, declares that State's issuance of the visas "amounts to criminal negligence."

http://www.nationalreview.com/mowbray/mowbray100902.asp

The great majority of the hijackers' visas, 15 of them, were issued at the US consular office in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, formerly the head US consular officer in Jeddah has shed light on how and why these visas were issued. According to Springman:

"In Saudi Arabia I was repeatedly ordered by high level State Department officials to issue visas to unqualified applicants. These were, essentially, people who had no ties either to Saudi Arabia or to their own country. I complained bitterly at the time there. I returned to the US, I complained to the State Dept here, to the General Accounting Office, to the Bureau of Diplomatic Security and to the Inspector General's office. I was met with silence ...

"What I was protesting was, in reality, an effort to bring recruits, rounded up by Osama Bin Laden, to the US for terrorist training by the CIA. They would then be returned to Afghanistan to fight against the then-Soviets."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm

So it certainly appears that at least 15 of the 19 hijackers were CIA recruits, trained at secure military facilities in the United States, and operating here under the protection and sponsorship of the US government.

The hijackers' drinking and partying is certainly more typical of youthful westernized military recruits than devout fundamentalist Moslems. It is sometimes claimed that they were just pretending to be westernized in order to "blend in" and escape detection. This makes no sense at all. Even if they had been seen to be devout Muslims, that would hardly make them terrorists. And they made no attempt at all to hide their really suspicious activities, for example shopping around for crop dusting equipment!

In one incident Mohammed Atta applied for a loan from the Department of Agriculture to purchase a crop duster.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/D...ant020606.html

In the first place, it's odd that Atta bothered with a loan at all, since it's clear that the amount of the loan was pocket change to the people funding him. Atta used his real name, and made sure the interviewer spelled it correctly. During the interview, Atta praised bin Laden as "the world's greatest leader", discussed the possibility of blowing up U.S. landmarks, including the World Trade Center, and generally behaved like a raving lunatic. Nice blending in!

In another incident Atta spoke with James Lester of South Florida Crop Care in Belle Glade, Florida regarding the purchase of crop dusting equipment. Again, Atta made sure that he would be remembered: "I recognized him [after September 11] because he stayed on my feet all the time. I just about had to push him away from me." [AP, 9/15/01]

Far from trying to blend in, Atta operated quite openly and even seems to have deliberately tried to draw attention to himself as a potential terrorist. He acted as though he wanted to build a "legend" as a terrorist, and as though he had guaranteed protection from high inside the U.S. government. Evidence that this was in fact the case will be discussed later.

2/ The hijackers were not capable of the feats of piloting that are attributed to them
According to a group of highly qualified professional pilots who got together to study this matter, the flying feats attributed to the hijackers are not believable. The pilots concluded that "Those birds either had a crack fighter pilot in the left seat, or they were being maneuvered by remote control."

http://the-news.net/cgi-bin/story.pl...%20Government% 20accused&edition=all

Regarding the possibility of flying commercial aircraft by remote control, the expert pilots have this to say:

In evidence given to the enquiry, Captain Kent Hill (retd.) of the US Air Force, and friend of Chic Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, stated that the US had on several occasions flown an unmanned aircraft, similar in size to a Boeing 737, across the Pacific from Edwards Air Force base in California to South Australia. According to Hill it had flown on a pre programmed flight path under the control of a pilot in an outside station. Hill also quoted Bob Ayling, former British Airways boss, in an interview given to the London Economist on September 20th, 2001. Ayling admitted that it was now possible to control an aircraft in flight from either the ground or in the air. This was confirmed by expert witnesses at the inquiry who testified that airliners could be controlled by electro-magnetic pulse or radio frequency instrumentation from command and control platforms based either in the air or at ground level.

The credentials of the pilots involved in this study are impressive. In addition to Captain Hill there is an Air Force Colonel, and a third Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the Vietnam war. The group also includes professional civilian aircraft pilots. The reporter verified their conclusions with an independent expert:

THE NEWS, in an attempt to further substantiate the potential veracity of these findings, spoke to an Algarve-based airline pilot, who has more than 20 years of experience in flying passenger planes, to seek his views. Captain Colin McHattie, currently flying with Cathay Pacific, agreed with the independent commission's findings. However, he explained that while it is possible to fly a plane from the ground, the installation of the necessary equipment is a time-consuming process, and needs extensive planning.

On the other hand, there has been a published report of an interview with a professional pilot who argues that it would NOT have been too difficult for hijackers to fly the airliners.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/s...551778,00.html

It should be possible to resolve these questions conclusively in the context of a complete investigation of exactly what happened on September 11 and how such a thing could occur. Unfortunately, the US government is strongly resisting conducting any such investigation. In any event, the question remains that even if the hijackers COULD have flown those aircraft (an idea that most professional pilots who have expressed themselves on this issue reject), why WOULD they have done it? Given that the hijackers were certainly not fanatical Islamic fundamentalists, why would they accept a suicide mission, especially such a horrific one? The remote control theory, which no one disputes is a possiblity, provides an alternative explanation, that does not require that the hijackers were religious fanatics who knowingly volunteered for a suicide mission.

3/ The hijackers lead back to Pakistan's ISI, and through the ISI, back to the CIA and the Bush administration
There is no doubt about who the immediate sponsor of the 9/11 hijackers was. In at least one case they received their funding directly from the top man in the ISI, Pakistan's intelligence agency. The ISI has long been a heavily funded CIA client and one of our staunchest allies, first in the prolonged guerilla war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, and now in the so called "War on Terrorism". And yet we know now that in the summer of 2000 ISI Director General Mahmud Ahmad ordered his aide Saeed Sheikh to transfer $100,000 to the leader of the hijackers, Mohammed Atta, and that this was done via two banks in Florida.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...rt_id=14542381 60 http://www.dawn.com/2001/10/09/top13.htm http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298

On the day of September 11 Director General Ahmad, Mohammed Atta's paymaster, was in Washington meeting with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/04/po...odaysheadlines

Conveniently this allowed him to confer directly with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage the following day, and soon Secretary of State Colin Powell was announcing Pakistan's cooperation in our campaign to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to justice.

http://cooperativeresearch.org/compl...nyt091301.html

The fact that one of our foremost allies in the "War on Terrorism" was in fact the sponsor of the 9/11 terrorists was uncovered by Indian intelligence and confirmed by the FBI in early October, just a few weeks after the attacks.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/c...rt_id=14542381 60

At this point Ahmad quietly retired, and disappeared from the limelight. WHY HAS THE SPONSOR OF THE 9/11 HIJACKERS BEEN ALLOWED TO SLIP AWAY LIKE THIS? Where is the swift and terrible retribution promised us on so many occasions by our President? Why was Ahmad not immediately taken into custody and brought to the United States for intensive questioning to uncover further links in the chain? The answer is obvious and unavoidable to anyone reading this with an open mind. THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION DOES NOT *WANT* TO UNCOVER WHERE THIS MOST SIGNIFICANT LINK IN THE COMMAND CHAIN BEHIND THE EVENTS OF SEPTEMBER 11 LEADS.

Since the administrations of Reagan and George Bush Sr. the ISI has been a major CIA client and has acted on our behalf first to organize and command the Afghan resistance forces in the war with the Soviets, and later to set up the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden was recruited by the ISI, because they wanted someone who represented the Saudi elite as part of their Afghan effort for public relations purposes. The ISI initially tried to find a member of the Saudi royal family, but they were happy to settle for a member of the bin Laden family, one of the richest in Saudi Arabia:

http://web.archive.org/web/200111091...cial/news/worl dtrade/digdocs/106271.htm

The total control that the ISI and the CIA exercised over bin Laden and their other surrogates in the Afghan conflict is witnessed, among many other things by the planning of the attack on Jalalabad, the most significant offensive for the guerillas in the entire war:

Typical of the war's overall conduct, the attack [on Jalalabad in March 1989] was planned at a meeting in Islamabad [Pakistan] attended by U.S. Ambassador Robert Oakley, senior Pakistani officials, and not a single Afghan.

["The Politics of Heroin, CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade", Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill Books, NY 1991, pg 452]

The pattern then is clear and has been well established for decades. The U.S. acting through the CIA sets the agenda and provides the money. The ISI acts as our agent in this part of the world, selecting local proxies and orchestrating the activities of the guerilla warlords. The guerilla leaders themselves, including Osama bin Laden, are merely pawns in the game. George Bush Sr. as Vice President personally traveled to Pakistan in 1984 to cement these relations ["The Outlaw Bank", Beaty & Gwynne, Random House, NY, 1993. pg. 317].

Bin Laden's dependence on the ISI is just as strong now as it ever was. According to Jane's Intelligence Digest in an article written shortly after the September 11 attacks, "both the Taliban and Al-Qa'eda would have found it difficult to have continued functioning - including the latter group's terrorist activities - without substantial aid and support from Islamabad."

http://www.janes.com/security/intern...10920_1_n.shtm l

Equally, the ISI's alliance with the CIA is as strong as ever. Milton Bearden, a former CIA. station chief in Pakistan who has worked closely with ISI recently defended the alliance, describing Pakistan as "the only country in South Asia that always did what we asked."

http://www.truthout.org/docs_01/01.28G.NYer.Escape.htm

Therefore it is highly implausible that ISI Inspector General Ahmad was acting as an operative for bin Laden when he funded the September 11 hijackers; the chain of command works in the opposite direction. It is also highly implausible that Ahmad would have chosen on his own initiative to attack the United States, his own best ally and his primary source of funding and technology.

Anyone who seriously wants to see the perpetrators of September 11 tracked down and brought to justice should urgently petition their elected representatives to see that former ISI Director General Ahmad is arrested and brought to the United States for questioning by an independent investigative body. Clearly the Bush administration does not want to see this happen, because this, the most significant lead we have, does not seem to point to bin Laden, but rather to the Bush administration itself.

4/ FBI investigations that could have prevented September 11 were deliberately sabotaged by FBI Headquarters
I pointed out earlier that Atta and the other hijackers operated quite openly in the United States, as if they enjoyed guaranteed protection. It appears that this was in fact the case. We now have several detailed reports of crucial investigations of the September 11 hijackers, both before and after the fact, being sabotaged by high ranking government officials. Possibly the most vivid example of this is the way in which the investigation of the "twentieth hijacker", Zacarias Moussaoui, was sabotaged by FBI Headquarters.

In August 2001 Moussaoui enrolled in Pan American's International Flight School in Minneapolis. He aroused suspicions on his very first day. He paid a deposit for the course in cash in the amount of $6,800 (the full price of the course is $19,000). He had a heavy Middle Eastern accent, and waved off concerns about his lack of preparation for such a course, saying that he was not interested in professional certification. However, he showed great interest in learning how to work the airplane's doors and control panel.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/08/na...l?pagewanted=1 http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/18/politics/18SUSP.html

It soon became clear the Moussaoui had lied about his personal background, and that he had no qualifications at all as a pilot. The potentially frightening implications of training this particular student were not lost on Pan Am's flying instructors, according to John Rosengren, director of operations at the school. In a faculty meeting the next day,

"There was discussion about how much fuel was on board a 747-400 and how much damage that could cause if it hit anything," [ http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/08/na...l?pagewanted=1 ]

Soon one of the flight instructors was on the phone to the FBI:

"Do you realize how serious this is?" the instructor asked an FBI agent. "This man wants training on a 747. A 747 fully loaded with fuel could be used as a weapon!" [ http://www.startribune.com/stories/484/913687.html ]

The local FBI agents concurred. They checked out Moussaoui, and found out that he had overstayed his visa. They persuaded the INS to take him into custody and keep him there. If not for this good luck and prompt action Moussaoui would surely have participated in the attacks of September 11, because from that point on the investigation met determined opposition from high level FBI officials who did their best to completely shut it down.

The sickening story is spelled out in a long, agonized letter written after the events of September 11 by Coleen Rowley, one of the Field Agents in Minneapolis on the case. The letter was promptly declared to be classified by the Bureau, but portions have been leaked to the press:

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...249997,00.html

Immediately after Moussaoui's arrest, the field agents in Minneapolis wanted to apply for a warrant to search his apartment and the hard drive of his computer. FBI headquarters however, denied that they had probable cause for such a search. Then within just a few days the field agents received information from the French Intelligence Service that "confirmed [Moussaoui's] affiliations with radical fundamentalist Islamic groups and activities connected to Osama Bin Laden". At this point the field agents "became desperate", but incredibly Headquarters continued to stonewall and deny the existence of probable cause for a search. Rowley, who has been an FBI division legal advisor for 12 years, and an FBI agent for 21 years, was at the time and remains today completely baffled by Headquarters' determination to stop the investigation. She flatly states that probable cause "was certainly established".

At that point Rowley tried another route. The FBI can apply for so called FISA warrants if their aim is to gather intelligence rather than evidence for a criminal proceeding. The granting of a FISA warrant is practically guaranteed; the FBI only has to ask for them. To her amazement, FBI Headquarters "continued to, almost inexplicably, throw up roadblocks and undermine Minneapolis' by-now desperate efforts to obtain a FISA search warrant."

By this time the field agents were "in a frenzy ... absolutely convinced [Moussouai] was planning to do something with a plane." One agent speculated in a memo that that Moussouai had been planning with unidentified confederates to "fly something into the World Trade Center."

http://www.bulatlat.com/news/2-16/2-...rNEWSWEEK.html

Then came September 11.

Coleen Rowley agonizes in her letter, searching for an explanation for the betrayal by FBI Headquarters. Were they simply too busy? Was it normal bureaucratic inertia? Ultimately, she is unable to accept these convenient but implausible explanations: "The issues are fundamentally ones of INTEGRITY [her emphasis]."

An almost identical story is coming out of the Phoenix FBI office which was similarly thwarted by FBI Headquarters in their attempt to investigate Hani Hanjour, who is believed to have crashed an airliner into the Pentagon on September 11.

http://www.time.com/time/nation/arti...238574,00.html http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/D...ant020523.html

Some of the field agents involved in these and still other similar cases have applied for whistleblower status, and are taking legal action to try to force the Bureau to declassify the relevant documents and come clean about their role in September 11. These agents are being represented by David Schippers, former Chief Investigative Counsel for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee, and head prosecutor responsible for conducting the impeachment against former President Bill Clinton.

http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq36.html (This is a long file. A string search on "Schippers" will get you to the right paragraph.)

In the meantime Coleen Rowley notes in her letter that in the aftermath of September 11 the official most responsible for blocking her investigation of Moussaoui has received a promotion. That's not all. The FBI Department responsible for repeatedly blocking Rowley's desperate attempts to obtain authorization to search Moussouai's apartment and computer is the National Security Law Unit (NSLU). Just this month (December 2002) the head of the NSLU, Marion Bowman, received the most prestigious and generous award the Bureau could confer on him:

At a quiet little ceremony earlier this month, Marion (Spike) Bowman was one of nine people in the bureau to receive an award for "exceptional performance." The reward carries with it a cash bonus of 20 to 35 percent of the recipient's salary and a framed certificate signed by the president. [ http://www.startribune.com/stories/462/3547688.html ]

The President of the United States is showering praise and bonuses and promotions on those responsible for thwarting the investigations that could have prevented the horrific events of September 11.

And keep in mind Atta's bizarre behaviour when he applied for a Department of Agriculture loan to purchase crop-dusting equipment in May of 2000. Atta used his real name, and he made sure the interviewer (Johnelle Bryant) spelled it correctly. He told her that he wanted to buy a crop-duster and to "build a chemical tank that would fit inside the aircraft and take up every available square inch of the aircraft except for where the pilot would be sitting." Atta then fixated on an aerial photo of Washington DC hanging on the office wall, and wanted to purchase it:

"He pulled out a wad of cash," she said, "and started throwing money on my desk. He wanted that picture really bad." Bryant indicated that the picture was not for sale, and he threw more money down.

"His look on his face became very bitter at that point," Bryant remembers. "I believe he said, 'How would America like it if another country destroyed that city and some of the monuments in it,' like the cities in his country had been destroyed?" ...

Atta also talked about life in his country. "He mentioned al Qaeda, he mentioned Osama bin Laden," ... He boasted about the role that they would one day play. "He said this man would someday be known as the world's greatest leader," she said.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/D...ant020606.html

Bryant, perhaps to provide us with some much needed comic relief, finishes her story by asking, "How could I have known [that this man was a terrorist]?"

The point is that Atta was operating completely openly, and even seems to be DELIBERATELY drawing attention to himself as a terrorist suspect. This makes sense if, as I believe, Atta was laying a false trail of evidence which he WANTED to be discovered after the attacks (more on this later). The attacks of September 11 were planned and carried out with impressive military discipline and efficiency. Atta is not exposing himself out of stupidity or carelessness. He must have expected that Bryant would immediately notify the FBI (although she did not). We now know that this would not have mattered - that any attempt to investigate would have been killed by FBI Headquarters. Clearly, at the time, Atta must have known this as well. The question of exactly why Atta would have wanted to incriminate himself in this way will be addressed in section VIII.

5/ The Anthrax Attacks
So ... whoever perpetrated September 11 obviously has tons of money and a tight military organization. You would expect that this would not be an isolated event, but the start of a coordinated campaign. If this was the work of Islamic fundamentalists, then where is the Jihad? Where are the Holy Warriors who should have been positioned and ready to follow up on the opening shot of the war?

There was a second wave of attacks - the dissemination of anthrax letters to both random and carefully selected targets. However, everyone now acknowledges that this was an inside job - that the weapons grade anthrax used would only be available to a very limited number of scientists and military/intelligence officers working in the United States on highly classified projects.

In fact according to the leading expert on the anthrax attacks, professor Barbara Hatch Rosenberg, the FBI has long known exactly who was behind these attacks - attacks that have so far have killed at least five american citizens - but the Bureau has decided to let the perpetrator off the hook, just as the sponsor of the September 11 hijackings has been let off the hook. Professor Rosenberg is a microbiologist and an expert on biological warfare who has served as a presidential advisor and testified before congress on this subject. She was selected by the Federation of American Scientists to investigate the anthrax attacks. Over one year ago, in January 2002, professor Rosenberg stated:

The FBI has surely known for several months that the anthrax attack was an inside job. A government estimate for the number of scientists involved in the US anthrax program over the last five years is 200 people. According to a former defense scientist the number of defense scientists with hands-on anthrax experience and the necessary access is smaller, under 50. The FBI has received short lists of specific suspects with credible motives from a number of knowledgeable inside sources, and has found or been given clues ... that could lead to incriminating evidence. By now the FBI must have a good idea of who the perpetrator is.

http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm

Another leading expert on biological warfare, professor Francis Boyle of Indiana University, concurs with Rosenberg's opinion. Professor Boyle is a renowned expert on international law who has testified before congress on legal issues concerning biological warfare. He was instrumental in drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989. His analysis of the anthrax attacks has led him to the same conclusion reached by professor Rosenberg, which he states even more bluntly:

I believe that the FBI knows exactly who was behind these attacks and that they have concluded that the perpetrator was someone who was or is involved in illegal and criminal biological warfare research conducted by the US government (the Pentagon or the CIA) or by one of the government's civilian contractors. For that reason, the FBI is not going to apprehend and indict the perpetrator.

http://web.greens.org/s-r/30/30-12.html

As with the investigation of the funding channel for the September 11 hijackers, the anthrax investigation started off fast and made great progress only to come to a screeching halt with the perpetrator within easy reach.

The most obvious pieces of evidence were the notes that accompanied the anthrax mailings. These contained crude misspellings and praised Allah while calling for the downfall of the United States. These notes were quickly recognized as a transparent hoax. As professor Rosenberg has stated:

Expert analysts for the FBI believe that the letters were written by a Westerner, not a Middle Easterner or Muslim, although the text was clearly intended to imply the latter.

http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport

The anthrax strain used was consistent in all letters. A detailed genetic analysis narrowed the search to a single laboratory: the US Army's Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/anthrax/st...719367,00.html

Further, the sophisticated weaponization process used to treat the spores, and the highly specialized expertise needed to store and handle the spores narrows the search even much further. This leaves us with just a handful of suspects involved in the Fort Detrick program:

http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport

With the field narrowed down so drastically, professor Rosenberg points us to what I believe is the key piece of evidence in identifying the perpetrator:

On Sept. 21, three days after the first anthrax mailing and before any letters or anthrax cases were in the news, an anonymous typed letter was mailed to Quantico accusing an Egyptian-American scientist, formerly of USAMRIID, of plotting biological terrorism. The accused scientist was quickly exonerated by the FBI. The letter's writer displayed familiarity with work at USAMRIID and claimed to have formerly worked with the accused scientist.

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/fas-01.html

Obviously the anonymous accuser himself fits the profile of the actual perpetrator. Furthermore he was able to correctly anticipate that there would be an anthrax attack and that the strain of anthrax used would lead to Fort Detrick. The conclusion seems inescapable that the anonymous author of this false accusation was the author of the attack itself.

The falsely accused was an Egyptian born scientist, Dr. Ayaad Assaad who worked at USAMRIID during the 1990's. During his employment there he was the target of racist attacks from a Jewish coworker, Lt. Col. Philip Zack. In one incident Zack mailed Assaad a rubber camel with a huge model sexual appendage attached, together with an eight page poem that described Dr. Assaad among many other things as a "life form lower than yeast".

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...detrick19.html

As a result of this and a string of similar racist attacks by Lt. Col. Zack, Assaad filed a harrassment suit and Zack was forced to resign his position at USAMRIID. However, Zack continued to have access to the lab illegally with the help of a personal friend there.

http://www.anthraxinvestigation.com/hcourant.html

Certainly Lt. Col. Zack must be considered to be the prime candidate as the author of the letter falsely accusing Dr. Assad. In my view this also makes him the prime suspect in the attacks themselves - Especially when you take into account the fact that his illegal comings and goings at Fort Detrick occurred at the time when anthrax spores matching the genetic profile of those used in the attacks went missing there.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/htm...anthrax21.html

In any event, the suspects in this crucial investigation are certainly NOT fanatical Islamic fundamentalists. Everyone close to the investigation agrees that the perpetrator is a highly qualified bio-warfare expert who has worked on highly classified projects for the United States government. He has very specific and rare skills that in themselves narrow the field to a mere handful people, without even taking into account the evidence surrounding the mailings themselves. The postmarks provide a series of time stamps associated with specific locations. An investigation like this can stall when there are thousands of possible suspects; it cannot stall when there are a handful of suspects and abundant clues to resolve the perpetrator's identity. Professors Rosenberg and Boyle are quite correct; the FBI is deliberately shielding the perpetrator of these terrible crimes, which have taken the lives of five innocent american citizens and which attack the foundations of our free and open society.

But not everyone is going unprotected. With exceptional foresight so notably absent elsewhere in this case, Vice President Dick Cheney was able to anticipate that anthrax would become a problem in the Capitol. He and his staff started taking an anti-anthrax medication (Cipro) on the night of September 11, before the letters containing anthrax started to arrive.

http://www.phillyburbs.com/terror/news/1024beth.htm http://cooperativeresearch.org/compl.../ap060902.html

Obtaining and preparing the anthrax will have been a difficult and lengthy process. The attacks, beginning just seven days after September 11, must have been prepared well in advance by a highly sophisticated government insider. Like the hijackers themselves and their sponsors in the ISI, the perpetrator clearly has powerful protectors high inside the U.S. government. The two attacks seem to have been perfectly coordinated to work towards the same objective. The ever incisive professor Rosenberg observes:

The perpetrator was probably ready before Sept. 11 and simply took advantage of the likelihood that Sept. 11 would throw suspicion on Muslim terrorists. Was the perpetrator trying to push the US toward some retaliatory military action?

http://www.fas.org/bwc/news/anthraxreport.htm

6/ The Ultra-rightwing agenda already in place for a war against the Arab States
But why would our government WANT to whip up public support for an all out war against the Arab states? The answer is readily found in a series of position papers from the "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC) that are available on the web. PNAC is an ultra- righwing and militaristic think tank that developed around the most extreme hawks in Dick Cheney's Defense Department at the end of George Bush Sr's administration. To understand why an inner circle of presidential advisors including Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz and Perle, are pushing for a comprehensive attack on the Arab States, you should check out their website:

http://www.newamericancentury.org/

In particular, click on the link for "Defense and National Security", and then download "Rebuilding America's Defenses" (This is the first item listed. You'll need Acrobat Reader).

This paper lays out the plan to dominate the entire globe, starting with the Middle East and Central Asia. The authors figure that to support this we will need to beef up the military to the point where we will be able to support multiple simultaneous major wars together with occupations and police actions. All of this was in place years before September 11. This paper was published in September 2000. It's perfectly clear then that September 11 is simply being used as a pretext to implement an ultra-rightwing agenda that was put in place years before.

I want to emphasize that this has absolutely nothing to do with suppressing terrorism. In fact, this agenda will surely have exactly the opposite effect. In the lengthy and detailed document I have referenced you can search for the word "terrorism" and you will not find it at all. However if you search for the word "preeminence", as in "american preeminence", "geopolitical preeminence", "military preeminence" etc., you will find that word many times.

The plan to use our differences with Saddam Hussein as a pretext for initiating the campaign for an american global empire is explicitly stated:

"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 ... Iran may well prove as large a threat to U.S. interests in the Gulf as Iraq has. And even should U.S.-Iranian relations improve, retaining forward-based forces in the region would still be an essential element in U.S. security strategy given the longstanding American interests in the region."

The fanatical Zionism of some advisors, eg Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, is clearly a factor driving this policy. Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has echoed elements of this planning paper, for example calling for an invasion of Iran "one day after" we subjugate Iraq [interview with the Times/UK, 5 Nov. 2002]. Other important players pushing this agenda, such as Rumsfeld and Cheney, appear to be motivated by a dangerously radical view towards the uses of US military power now that the US is the single, unchallenged superpower. In any case, it is safe to say that September 11 is simply being used as a pretext for an agenda that has been in place for years now.

The proposed military moves in the Middle East will not suppress terrorism. On the contrary, many thousands will flock to the cause of Islamic Jihad if we continue this way. And in the meantime, outrageously, the real leads we have on the perpetrators of September 11 are being allowed to dangle uninvestigated. I'm referring again to former ISI Director General Ahmad, the paymaster of the hijackers, who has been allowed to slip off into retirement, and the unpursued anthrax leads which can only point to a single cutting edge bio-warfare laboratory right here in the USA.

Why, Why, WHY???

7/ Conclusion
The horrific events of September 11 bear all the earmarks of a covert "pretext" operation designed to support a military agenda that could never have otherwise been set in motion. Investigations of both the hijackings and the subsequent anthrax attacks lead not to Islamic fundamentalists, but point to our own military and intelligence organizations, and, in the case of the hijackings, to their client and close ally, the ISI. Consequently our government has simply terminated these investigations. Similarly, crucial FBI investigations that could have prevented the attacks were "inexplicably" sabotaged by FBI Headquarters over the desperate objections of Field Agents who were fully aware of the terrifying implications of what they had uncovered. These Field Agents have now been forced to apply for "whistleblower" status for their own protection, while the officials who sabotaged the investigations are being richly rewarded with promotions, bonuses and presidential awards.

It appears that the purpose of this deliberate mass murder of thousands of innocent American citizens was to whip up public support for a comprehensive attack on the Arab states in the Middle East. The plans for these military moves have been in place for several years, but they could never have won public approval without this boost.

8/ Epilog - How could this happen?
In the introduction I discussed the Gladio operations carried out in Europe in the 1970's and 1980's. Among other things this involved a series of bombings in Italy in which hundreds of innocent civilians were killed. The bombings were designed to appear to be the work of communist subversives, but in fact were carried out by extreme right wing groups under the direction of the CIA.

[ Arthur E. Rowse: Gladio: The secret U.S. War to subvert Italian Democracy. Covert Action Quarterly No. 49, Summer 1994. http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/gladio.html ]

The philosophy behind this kind of operation is spelled out in the top secret Supplement B to U.S. Army Field Manual FM 30-31, signed by General William Westmoreland in March 1970:

There may be times when HC [Host Country] governments show passivity or indecision in face of Communist or Communist-inspired subversion, and react with inadequate vigor to intelligence estimates transmitted by U.S. agencies ... In such cases, U.S. Army intelligence must have the means of launching special operations which will convince HC governments and public opinion of the reality of the insurgent danger and of the necessity of counteraction. To this end, U.S. Army intelligence should seek to penetrate the insurgency by means of agents on special assignment, with the task of forming special action groups among the more radical elements of the insurgency. When the kind of situation envisaged above arises, these groups, acting under U.S. Army intelligence control, should be used to launch violent or non-violent actions according to the nature of the case.

http://cryptome.org/inscom-foia02.htm

The aim of these operations then was to polarize the public and convince them that they were faced with violence and death from political extremists, WHEN NECESSARY MANUFACTURING THE VIOLENCE AND DEATH THAT WAS NEEDED TO PUSH PUBLIC OPINION IN THE DESIRED DIRECTION.

Now I agree that it's a step up from killing hundreds of innocent civilians in order to further your political agenda to, in the case of the attacks on September 11, killing thousands of innocents. But how big a step is this really? ... Especially when you consider how much greater the stakes are now (from the warped perspective of the extreme militarists). During the Cold War we were constantly fighting on the edges - trying to force geopolitical boundaries a little bit one way or the other. Now as the world's single great superpower we have a unique "opportunity" to dominate the entire globe and gain control of key resources - especially oil of course.

The evidence presented here (and much more that has been omitted in the interest of keeping this short) strongly suggests that September 11 was just such an operation, mounted by a radical group within the Bush administration - an alliance of extreme militarists and fanatical Zionists who are gaining increasing influence in our military and intelligence command structures.

The scenario prescribed by Westmoreland is a perfect fit for what we have observed. It would be very easy for the CIA to infiltrate "agents provocateur" among genuine Islamic fundamentalists using their loyal client, Pakistan's ISI, as the intermediary. With ISI support the provocateurs could quickly gain leadership status. Then all you need is the political clout to shut down any investigation by the CIA or FBI that might threaten the operation. Mohammed Atta is an obvious provocateur, operating very openly and deliberately leaving a trail of damning evidence. His strange double life as a zealous Islamic fundamentalist on the one hand and wild, fully westernized party animal on the other becomes completely coherent in this context.

Not only are there precedents for this general kind of "false flag" provocation - there are even precedents specifically for the framing of Arabs for terrorist attacks against the United States that in fact were perpetrated by Zionist extremists with the aim of poisoning US relations with the Arab states. The Lavon Affair involved a series of bombings of American and British institutions in Egypt in 1954. These terrorist attacks were ordered by the head of Israeli intelligence with the aim of making it appear that they were perpetrated by Egyptian nationalists. The idea was to damage relations between Egypt and the US and Britain. [See for example, "Israel's Sacred Terrorism", Livia Rokach, Chapter 7: http://www.chss.montclair.edu/englis...ys/rokach.html].

Of course, in the case of September 11, the Zionists could only have hoped to pull this off with very highly placed and determined assistance from within our own military and intelligence organizations. I believe that this was provided by the alliance of extreme militarists and fanatical Zionists surrounding Vice President Dick Cheney, as discussed above.

In considering this evidence it's important to recognize just how corrupt our intelligence establishment has become. One huge scandal that has never been addressed is narcotics trafficking and money laundering by the CIA. Agency involvement in large scale heroin trafficking started in Laos during the Vietnam war. This has been known for decades; a good reference is Professor William Chambliss' presidential address to the American Society of Criminology in 1988:

http://www.memresearch.org/econ/stat...ized_crime.htm

During the campaign in Afghanistan CIA heroin trafficking accelerated, and the United States was flooded with Afghan heroin. Alfred McCoy, Professor of Southeast Asian History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has discussed this problem, and the central role this played in the administration of George Bush Sr:

First of all, I think the Laos parallel is very strong in the Iran-Contra operation ... All the personnel that are involved in that operation are Laos veterans. Ted Shackley, Thomas Clines, Oliver North, Richard Secord - they all served in Laos during thirteen-year war. They are all part of that policy of integrating narcotics and being complicitous in the narcotics trade in the furtherance of covert action. http://www.lycaeum.org/drugwar/DARKALLIANCE/ciah3.html

[ See Also, "The Politics of Heroin, CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade", Alfred W. McCoy, Lawrence Hill Books, NY 1991 ]

The CIA also became very active in smuggling cocaine from Latin America during this period, and the proceeds were used among other things to fund the Contra guerillas in Nicauragua. ["Whiteout, The CIA Drugs and the Press", Cockburn & St. Clair, Verson, London 1998]

Notoriously, George Bush Jr. has surrounded himself with officials associated with the worst scandals involving covert operations of his father's administration, including the Iran-Contra scandal. These officials include men like Richard Armitage, Elliott Abrams (convicted of two misdemeanors), John Poindexter (convicted on five felony charges), and Richard Secord (convicted on six felony charges). (Unfortunately most of these convictions were later overturned on the technicality that they were contaminated by immunized testimony before congressional committees.) These men were active in formulating policy at the very time our government started to pump money into the ISI and to cultivate this agency as a client. Now they are choosing to simply ignore the fact that it is their own client and ally who funded the September 11 attacks. Noted historian Theodore Draper has written of Iran-Contra and the related pattern of criminal activity in the White House:

If ever the constitutional democracy of the United States States is overthrown, we now have a better idea of how this is likely to be done. During the course of the Iran- Contra affairs, from 1984 to 1986, something in the nature of a junta was at work inside the U.S. government. We usually think of a junta as plotting to overthrow a president; this junta came into being to overthrow an established constitutional rule of law with the help of a president. The main lesson from this experience is that the chief danger to our political system is from within, not from without.

[Theodore Draper, Foreword to "The Iran-Contra Scandal, The Declassified History", Kornbluh and Byrne eds., The New Press, 1993, NY, pg. xiii]

George Bush Sr. himself, a few months before he granted presidential pardons to his friends, put it even more graphically:

"If the people were to ever find out what we have done, we would be chased down the streets and lynched."

[George H.W. Bush, cited in the June, 1992 Sarah McClendon Newsletter]

The former President and father of the current President has put his finger on their own worst nightmare: the time tested ability of the american people to raise holy hell when their government abuses their trust.

Tim Howells, Ph.D.

[ Note: Throughout this post is deeply indebted to the timeline compiled by the Cooperative Research Group (CGI). See: http://cooperativeresearch.org/completetimeline/ ]

[MORTARDUDE]

http://physics911.ca/modules/news/ar...php?storyid=22


Calculations on the Possible Use of Thermite
to Melt Sections of the WTC Core Columns
by D. P. Grimmer
Version 1.0, November 23rd 2003
Abstract
Anomalies involving the collapse of WTC buildings on 9-11 are discussed from the perspective of possible controlled demolition implosion rather than of aircraft impact and fuel-fire damage. Considered is the possible use of thermite to melt sections of the columns of the WTC towers inner cores, thus aiding in their collapse. This paper will discuss the structure of the WTC core columns, and estimate the mass of metal to be melted; calculate the sensible and latent heat energy needed for melting this mass; discuss the nature and specific energies of the thermite reaction; estimate the mass and volume of thermite necessary to provide the energies for melting; and discuss the possible locations where such thermite could be placed to cause melting, both internal and external to a core column.




Introduction
Of the events of 11 September '01, perhaps the most dramatic were the collapses of the WTC towers. Re-played repeatedly on TV, the images of the collapsing towers and their pyroclastic clouds of debris are seared into our memories.

What immediately struck some observers, this author included, is how much these collapses resembled a controlled demolition. Indeed, this was the first reaction of V. Romero of New Mexico Tech, until he recanted days later [Ref. (1)]. There has been much discussion on the internet of the observed anomalies associated with the WTC building collapses (including the delayed collapse of the unstruck WTC7). Interesting sites can be found at www.serendipity.li, www.americanfreepress.net, www.misternet.org, www.911-strike.com, www.plaguepuppy.net, www.whatreallyhappened.com and many others ( a google search is always useful).

One site deals directly with aircraft impact and fuel-fire physics [Ref. (2)]. The very anomalous case of the WTC7 building collapse was archived at Ref. (3); especially interesting are the observations by the inspection engineer at WTC7 of evidence for vaporized steel. As always, information about controversial events like 911 must be approached with some caution, and are not to be taken at face value. Careful analysis and appraisal is necessary. The internet has gained a reputation as a refuge of "conspiracy theorists," but recent events (e.g., the falsehoods told by US officials leading up to the Iraq war) have shown that "reputable" media are not to be trusted. They may themselves be regarded as purveyors of "official" conspiracy theories. This present paper hopes to achieve some level of objectivity about a very controversial subject.

Total objectivity is of course impossible. Subjectively, for this author, several subevents of the WTC collapses stand out: the reported seismic spikes associated with the collapses; the observed near free-fall times of collapse; the pyroclastic clouds of debris; and the pools of molten steel found in the basement of the WTC tower complex, steel still warm weeks after 9-11. Analysis of the seismic spikes indicate that the seismic spikes correlate with the collapses themselves rather than any pre-collapse explosion [Ref. (4)].

Calculations done by the author correlated the collapse energies with the seismic signal of explosions at a quarry in the vicinity of the seismic observatory. These calculations indicate that the seismic spikes of the WTC events represent energies close to those of the collapses themselves (see Appendix A for these seismic energy correlation calculations). A sole video clip purported to show, by video image shaking, evidence of a pre-collapse WTC2 explosion is not conclusive. A video with shake-free periods for several minutes before and after collapse is not available. Therefore, wind flutter has not been disproved as a cause of camera shaking. A second video from another perspective is not available to show pre-collapse shaking temporally correlated with the first video. The existence of such a second video from an independent source would make such video evidence more credible [Ref. (5)]. From these observations, the author has concluded that there is no firm evidence of pre-collapse explosions that left seismic signatures.

[A brief note here about the mathematical notation used in this paper: subscripts, superscripts and exotic math symbols have not been used. Unlike most word processor programs, most email formats do not support these fonts. So, for example, ten to the nth power is denoted here by 10+n; the square root of N is SQRT(N); a quantity N with the exponent n (i.e., N to the nth power) is given by N exp(n); an so forth. This was done so individuals can communicate about this paper in any common email format].

The observed near free-fall times of the WTC towers (and WTC7) were a dramatic signature of a controlled demolition. (The articles at http://members.fortunecity.com/911 are a valuable resource for presenting and then challenging the "official" explanation for WTC collapses). Measured times are all around 10 seconds, which is close to calculated free-fall time, indicating the tower floors fell without much impediment. They essentially fell into air [Ref. (6)]. The theory put forth by T. Eagar of MIT and other "establishment" engineers is that while no steel members actually melted or failed, the floor assemblies, bolted at their joists to the outer walls and inner core structures, did fail [Ref. (7)]. The floor joists attachment bolts were weakened and gave way, twisting sideways and allowing the initial floor to "unzipper" itself all the way round and collapse to the floor below. The remaining floors then pancaked all the way down. Never mind that floor joist cross-members, placed to resist twisting, and additional support structures were not included in the MIT/FEMA/NOVA calculations and presentations (nor was the inner core collapse mechanism explained at all).

Consider the following: if the pancaking effect caused the total building failure, why is it that no video of either of the WTC collapses shows any sign of stutter between floor collapses, which should have been very apparent especially in the first few floors of collapse when the speed of gravitational collapse was small? Consider also that apologists for the official conspiracy theory propose that 30% of the gravitational collapse energy was necessary to create the pyroclastic cloud of debris: that is, in their own analysis, this energy came out of the gravitational energy. This means that the time of fall would have been slowed further than what was observed. When a body of mass m falls from a height h, acted upon by gravitational acceleration g, it converts its potential energy PE = m x g x h into kinetic energy KE = (1/2) x m x (v exp2). Here h = (1/2) x g x (t exp2), t = time of fall, and v =g x t, where v = velocity. Removal of 30% of the PE to pulverize concrete essentially reduces the amount of energy available from falling, effectively reducing the gravitational acceleration to something less than g.

Substituting, in the above equations we have (1.0 - 0.3) x PE = 0.7 x PE = m x g' x h, where PE, m and h are as before and g' = the effective gravitational acceleration. Hence, comparing terms for PE, g' = 0.7 g. The time of collapse under g' will also increase. If we let the effective collapse time be t', then comparing terms for constant h, (1/2) x g x (t exp2) = (1/2) x g' x (t' exp2) =
(1/2) x 0.7g x (t' exp2). Hence, (t exp2) = 0.7 x (t' exp2), or (t/t') = SQRT (0.7) = 0.837. Or, t' = 1.195 t.

Now the observed time t = 10 seconds (a free fall time, the fastest possible time under g = 9.8 m/sec/sec = 32 ft/sec/sec = 32 ft/s exp2). For the cloud debris creation to absorb 30% of the gravitational energy, the observed time of fall would be 10s x 1.195, or almost 12 seconds. This long a collapse time was observed by no one. Clearly, there are serious flaws in the official explanation/conspiracy theory.

The implication from the above is that there were major energy sources other than gravitational involved in the WTC towers collapses. Certainly that is the conclusion of J. Hoffman in his thorough discussion of the north WTC tower dust cloud [Ref. (8)]. By calculating the major sources and sinks observed, particularly the sink of the pyroclastic cloud expansion, Hoffman establishes that a large amount of energy had to be available to drive that expansion, in a (minimum) range of 2,706,000 kWh to 11,724,000 kWh (see his Summary table). Hoffman does not propose an energy source to balance that sink. In Appendix B, an estimate, for discussion purposes only, of the amount of thermite-equivalent to provide this energy source is discussed. It is large, but physically possible.

A discussion of the melted steel found at the base of the WTC complex, not explained by any official, forms the bulk of the remainder of this paper. The following discussion explores the possibility of whether it is possible to get sufficient volume of a relatively slow-reacting chemical compound, like thermite, either on or inside the inner columns to melt a section of them or otherwise weaken them to allow for the inner core to collapse. As Mark Loizeaux of Controlled Demolition, Inc., commenting on the pools of molten steel he observed at the bases of the towers' elevator shafts, said: "If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure" [Ref. (9)]. Controlled Demolition, Inc., incidentally was the company contracted to remove the debris from both the WTC and from the 1995 bombing of the Murrah building in OKC.

To summarize so far: the discussion in the text above and in Appendix A indicates that the energy of the seismic signal (best viewed as a semi-logarithmic plot) and the gravitational collapse are very close to being the same. This coupled with the fact that there is only one short video clip allegedly showing shaking before collapse of one of the towers leads an objective observer to conclude that there is no actual proof that the seismic "spike" signal is nothing more than building collapse. This is not to say that the seismic signal is 100% guaranteed to be non-explosion related, just that there is no firm evidence so far for the alleged massive explosion. That is, this is not an area on which to stake a lot of credence. The seismic event must be regarded as a "red herring" unless a second, longer video showing the same behavior appears.

The free-fall times and pools of molten steel are entirely different matters. They are a matter of public record, observed by many individuals. So we have evidence of molten steel in the basement; the FEMA report saying molten steel was not to blame, just weakened floor joist bolts; collapse times close to free fall; no real record of a massive explosion (although numerous claims of sounds of smaller explosions and observations of demolition squibs). The immediate conjecture supported by direct observation is the following: controlled demolition, characterized by a (relatively) non-explosive, huge energy release necessary to melt (some) steel. M. Rivero of whatreallyhappened.com and others have proposed the use of thermite, familiar to those of us who had the high school chemistry course with an impressive thermite demonstration. So the question arises: can one get enough thermite close enough to melt sections of the inner core columns, as part of a controlled demolition scenario? The following calculations in this paper indeed do show that it is possible (and I stress possible). Until simple chemical reactants like thermite can be discarded there is really no need to invoke the use of highly speculative and sophisticated devices like thermobaric bombs and scalar EM weapons.

Melting of WTC Inner Core Columns
Evidence of molten steel was found at the very base of the WTC towers, and is a matter of public record. This present study is by no means exhaustive. It is intended as a first attempt to test the possibility that the core columns could have been melted by a known chemical compound. Thermite was chosen as the reactive chemical compound because it is well understood, and is used commercially to weld steel parts (e.g. train rail sections in situ). Other more sophisticated chemical compounds with higher energy densities, by mass and/or volume, could be used in future calculations. Broad assumptions will be made, to get rough estimates of relevant parameters.

Structure of WTC Columns and Their Metal Mass
The best on-line discussion resource found for these calculations was at Ref. (10). According to this source the inner core consisted of from 44 to 47 box columns (the exact number and layout is not known; the architectural firm had not released the construction drawings). The dimensions of the columns reduced in size with increasing height, changing to I-beams above the 85th floor. The above website article assumes (generously) that each core box column has the following (average) X-section: 12"wide x 36"deep x 2' thick. The article goes on to calculate the X-sectional area of steel as 192 in2. However, this is in error in that the corners are double-counted, giving a larger x-section than there actually is. If w = box column width, d = depth, and t = thickness, then the X-sectional steel area is given by

A = [d x t + (w-2 x t) x t] x 2. For d = 36", t = 2" and w = 12", then

A = [36" x 2" + (12"-2 x 2") x 2] x 2 = 176 in2 = 1.222 ft2.

Floor height was 12ft, so we choose for discussion sake, a 12' high box column in these calculations. Note that multiple floors could have had thermite-type compounds placed there. Also, no more than a foot portion, rather than a full 12 ft of column would be necessary to collapse that floor. Also, complete melt of a column portion is not necessary to cause collapse. So, per floor, per column there is a steel volume V = 12' x 1.222 ft2 = 14.67 ft3. Also, note that the internal X-sectional area of a box column is given by

Aint = [d-(2 x t)] x [w- (2 x t)], and the internal volume by Vint = 12' x [d - (2 x t)] x [w - (2 x t)].

Here, Vint = 12' x [36"-2 x 2"] x [12"- 2 x 2"]/(144 in2/ft2) = 12' x 1.778 ft2 = 21.333 ft3.

The internal volumes will be re-examined later as a possible space to place the thermite.

The website also mentions that the largest box columns used at the core bases had the dimensions of 16" wide x 36" deep x 4" thick. It is not known where exactly the molten steel, that puddled in the WTC basement, originated in the towers. The melt could have occurred some what higher in the columns (where "average" box columns would have been), or at the base where the "largest" box columns were. Molten material would flow down the various WTC shafts to the lowest point possible, 6 stories (some 72') below ground level. Applying the same formulae as above, we have for these "largest" columns, A= [36" x 4" + (16" - 2 x 4") x 4"] x 2 = 352 in2 = 2.444 ft2. Note that this happens to be twice the area as for the "average" box column assumed above. Again, for a 12' column, V = 12' x 2.444 ft2 = 29.328 ft3. Also, here, the internal volume is Vint = 12' x [36' - 2 x 4"] x [16' -2 x 4"]/144" = 18.667 ft3.

In summary, we have for a 12 ft. high core box-column, for a

12" wide x 36"deep x 2" wall thickness (hereafter referred to as an "average" box column), that it has 14.67 ft3 = 0.415 m3 volume of steel, and 21.33 ft3 = 0.604 m3 of internal volume; and
16" wide x 36" deep x 4" wall thickness (hereafter referred to as a "largest" box column), that it has 29.328 ft3 = 0.832 m3 of steel and 18.667 ft3 = 0.529 m3 of internal volume.

Sensible and Latent Heat Energies Needed for Melting a Core Column Section
Knowing the volume of steel involved, we next turn our attention to calculating the energy needed to melt a core column section. We decided to use values for the element iron rather than steel for the following pragmatic reasons:

steel is mostly iron (Fe);
whatever steel is chosen, may be the wrong kind and would be contested: Fe is a given and known quantity, whereas there are many steels;
Fe values found were readily available and reasonably self-consistent;
except for stainless steels, the thermal properties of steel are relatively close to Fe, although the mechanical properties may certainly differ more.
For Fe we will use the following values:

Density = 7874 kg/m3
Melting point = 1811 K = 1538 C
Specific heat = 25.1J/mol K = 449 J/kg K = 0.449 kJ/kg K
Latent heart of fusion = 13,800 J/mol = 2.47 x 10+5 J/kg
Latent heat of evaporation = 347,000 J/mol = 6.21 x 10+3 kJ/kg
mol = gm mole equivalent = 0.0558 kg for Fe

For a 12 ft high core Fe column, we have

for the "average" box column, 0.415 m3 x 7874 kg/m3 = 3267.71 kg Fe; and
for the "largest" box column, 0.832 m3 x 7874 kg/m3 = 6551.17 kg Fe.
Taking 300 K as "ambient" temperature on 9-11, then the temperature difference up to the melting point of Fe is given by

1811 K - 300 K = 1511 K (give or take a few degrees K).

Hence, the energy needed to raise a 12 ft high Fe column to its melting point temperature is given by

for an "average" column, 3267.71 kg x 1511 K x 0.449 kJ/kg K = 2.22 x 10+6 kJ; and
for a "largest" column, 6551.17 kg x 1511 K x 0.449 kJ/kg K = 4.44 x 10+6 kJ.
To actually melt the Fe at 1511 K, we need to provide the latent heat of fusion:

for "average" column, 3267.71 kg x 2.47 x 10+2 kJ/kg = 8.07 x 10+5 kJ; and
for "largest" column, 6551.17 kg x 2.47 x 10+2 kJ/kg = 1.62 x 10+6 kJ.
Thus we see that the sensible heat energies involved are almost a factor of 3 times larger than the latent heats.

Hence, for the total amount of energy needed to melt a 12 ft high Fe column, we need:

for "average" box column, (2.22 + 0.81) x 10+6 kJ = 3.03 x 10+6 kJ; and
for "largest" box column, (4.44 + 1.62) x 10+6 kJ = 6.06 x 10+6kJ
Energies of the Thermite Reaction
An iron oxide/aluminum "thermite" mixture consists of 23.7% Al, 74.7% Fe2O3 by weight, in the reaction

Fe2O3 + 2 Al => Al2O3 + 2 Fe + 849 kJ/mol.

Thus, 849 kJ of energy are released for every g-mole-equivalent (mol) of Fe2O3 that reacts with 2 mol of Al.

For Al, with a density of 2.699 g/cm3, there are 26.98 g/mol.

For Fe2O3, with a density of 5.24 g/cm3, there are 159.70 g/mol.

So then, 159.70 g of Fe2O3 + 53.96 g of Al (213.66 g total) produces 849 kJ of energy, or 3.974 kJ/g = 3.974 x 10+3 kJ/kg (Note that this gives the proper % component mixtures by weight).

For an infinitesimally compacted powder mixture, this would occupy a volume of 159.70g x (cm3/5.24 g) + 53.96 g x (cm3/2.699 g) = (30.48 + 20.0) cm3 = 50.48 cm3.

A separate analysis of a CuO/Al thermite mixture (used to weld copper parts) indicates a powder packing fraction of 0.82 (82%) can be achieved. Let's assume a powder packing fraction of 0.82. Hence, our Fe2O3/Al thermite mixture would occupy not 50.48 cm3, but 61.5 cm3.

Thus the physical density of our densely-packed Fe2O3/Al thermite mixture is

213.66 g/61.5 cm3 = 3.474 g/cm3 = 3.474 x 10+6 g/m3 = 3.474 x 10+3 kg/m3,

and our energy density (per volume) is given by

849 kJ/61.5 cm3 = 13.805 kJ/cm3 = 1.3805 x 10+7 kJ/m3.

Thus to melt a 12 ft high Fe column, we need

for an "average" column, (3.03 x 10+6 kJ)/(3.974 x 10+3 kJ/kg) = 0.7625 x 10+3 kg = 762.5 kg of thermite. This would occupy a volume of 762.5 kg/(3.474 x 10+3 kg/m3) = 0.219 m3. Note that this volume of thermite is less than the internal volume Vint calculated earlier, 0.604 m3. Actually, the internal volume of the "average" box column could be filled with 0.604 m3/0.219 m3 = 2.76 times more than needed to do the job. Alternatively, the column does not require as high a packing density ( i.e. <0.82) and yet be able to load a sufficient charge of thermite mixture to cause melting
for a "largest" column, (6.06 x10+6 kJ)/(3.974 x 10+3 kJ/kg) = 1524.9 kg thermite. This would occupy a volume of 1524.9 kg/(3.974 x 10+3 kg/m3) = 0.439 m3. Note that this volume of thermFite also is less than the earlier calculated Vint = 0.529, but would require a moderately high packing density, approximately > 0.82 x 0.439/0.529 = 0.68.
Other Locations Where Thermite Could Be Placed to Cause Core Box Column Melting
In the preceding section, the amount of thermite needed to cause melting was calculated, and compared to the internal volume available. Just as insulation in building walls is introduced by means of relatively small holes drilled through walls, so could thermite have been placed into the interiors of the core box columns. For the "average" columns this would certainly work, since there is ample volume to overcharge with a low packing density (>0.5). The "largest" columns could be filled in the same way, although some way to "settle" the compound powders might be necessary to achieve a packing density from a pour to be > 0.68.

Rather than fill the interior of a column with chemical compound, what if the thermite compound was applied to the outside of the column, under a layer of "fire-proofing" protective cladding/thermal insulation? How thick would an exterior layer need to be applied?

(a) For an "average" box column, if T is the thickness of the applied outside layer of thermite compound, it would have a X-sectional area given by

Acoat = [T x (d + 2 x T) + T x w] x 2, where d = 36" and w = 12" as before.

This can be rewritten as Acoat = 2 x [2 x Texp2 + T x (d + w)]

For a 12 ft = 3.658 m column, the volume of the coating of thickness T is given by

Vcoat = 2 x 3.658 x [2 x Texp2 + (d + w) x T] = 0.219 m3, or

2 x Texp2 + (d + w) x T = 0.219 m3/ (2 x 3.658 m) = 0.0299 m2, or

2 x Texp2 + (d + w) x T -0.0299 m2 = 0. This is in the form of a quadratic equation, where the solution is given by

T (in meters)= {-b + SQRT(bexp2 - 4 x a x c)}/2 x a, where here

a = 2, b = (d + w) = 12" + 36" = 48" = 1.219 m, and c = -0.0299 m2. Substituting,

T = {-1.219 + SQRT[(1.219)exp2 - 4 x 2 x (-0.0299)]}/(2 x 2). Simplifying,

T = {-1.219 + SQRT[1.486 + 0.2395]}/4 = {-1.219 + SQRT[1.725]}/4 =

= {-1.219 + 1.313}/4, or

T = 0.0236 m = 0.93", which is less than 1" of coating for the "average" column.

(This solution can be verified by substitution in the original equation for Vcoat).

(b) For a "largest" box column, here Vcoat = 0.439 m3 and (d + w) = 16"+36" = 1.321m.

So, 2 x Texp2 + 1.321 x T = 0.439m3/(2 x 3.658 m) = 0.0600, or

2 x Texp2 + 1.321 x T - 0.0600 = 0. So, using the quadratic solution again,

T = {-1.321 + SQRT[(1.321)exp2 - 4 x 2 x (-0.600)]}/(2 x 2). Simplifying,

T = {-1.321 + SQRT[1.745 + 0.48]}/4 = {-1.321 + SQRT[2.225]}/4 = {-1.321 + 1.492}/4, or

T = 0.04275 m = 1.683", which is less than 1-3/4" of coating for the largest column.

In short, if a coating slightly less than 2" thick of a thermite coating were applied to the outer surface of any box column, that is sufficient chemical compound to melt that column section. A protective, insulating and cosmetic/disguising layer (e.g. fiberglass/foam) 1" or less would also be helpful.

Conclusions
In this paper we have attempted to establish the amount of thermite that would be necessary to melt a box column at or near the base of the WTC towers' cores, to see if the amount necessary was physically feasible, or would require an unrealistic amount sure to attract detection before its use. We have used thermal parameters for iron, and assumed thermite as the chemical compound. The analysis is thus imperfect, since the structural steel used may have slightly different properties, requiring more (or less) of the chemical compound. A different, more sophisticated compound may have required even less volume than has been calculated here.

Still the implications are clear: such a melting of a section of all the inner core box pillars is possible, using relatively simple technology. Such compounds could have been applied to the interior or the exterior of even the largest of these columns in a surreptitious manner, to accomplish the task of melting and collapse. The amount necessary for complete melting of a segment of even the largest box column was calculated, and found possible. Of course complete melting was not necessary to cause total failure: a lesser amount of a thermite-like compound could have been used to raise the temperature of the steel to a point where the columns would fail before melting, although some melting must have occurred to account for the steel pools.

It is pure speculation if, how, and when this was done. The columns would have been most easily filled during the initial construction phase, but this requires belief in a foresight and 30-40 year "master plan" that may be difficult for many to think possible. (Many buildings are constructed with ultimate demolition in the design, to make way for future construction in urban areas. Usually, the building design includes cavities for controlled demolition explosive placement. The non-availability of WTC tower blueprints makes it difficult to access this possibility).

However, there have been undoubtedly a number of opportunities under the guise of maintenance: many stories exist about problems with the "insulation" adhering to the steel support structures of the WTC towers. Also, the first attack on the WTC towers in 1993, in the basement of the complex, offered an opportunity for access and "repair" to demolition experts and construction personnel. Thermite is a relatively safe compound, requiring high temperature to initiate reaction - a magnesium fuse is commonly used. We will probably never know exactly what sequence of events unfolded to culminate in the WTC collapses of 11 September 2001.

Acknowledgments
The author wishes to acknowledge discussions with A.K. Dewdney, J. King, J. Longspaugh, B. Mayeux, J. Russell, R. Stanley, S. Walker and other friends and associates of SPINE. Of course, the author takes full responsibility for the content of this work; any errors are his alone.



Appendix A: WTC Seismic Energy Correlation Calculations
F. Moscatelli of Swarthmore College has provided figures on the energy releases involved in the WTC tower collapses in an article by the BBC [Ref (11)]. The article reports the gravitational energy for both towers plus sundry other collapses as 6.8 x 10+11 J, +-25%. Hence, for one WTC tower, the gravitational energy involved can be approximated by ? x 6.8 x 10+11 J = 3.4 x 10+11 J = 94,400 kWh +- 25%. (Here, using an energy unit conversion site is handy [Ref. (12)]). This figure for single tower collapse seems about right, and agrees with the figure of 100,000 kWh used at various other sites; an estimate of 160,000 tons of steel, concrete, etc., per tower yields a value of 85,000 kWh (J. Russell, personal communication); FEMA's Building Performance Assessment Report indicates about 111,000 kWh per tower (see J. Hoffman's dust cloud analysis at Ref.(13)); see also various websites listed in the Introduction). Hence, a first order calculation suggests that the amount of gravitational energy involved in the collapse of a WTC tower is on the order of 94,400+-23,600 kWh.

This is also the amount of energy that can be roughly back-calculated from a Palisades observatory WTC collapse seismic event of 2.2 (average) magnitude, and compared to a Palisades recorded quarry explosion seismic event "calibration" of 1.5 (average) magnitude. The quarry explosions were caused by the detonation of 80,000 lbs = 40 tons of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil (ANFO), equivalent to approximately 0.30 x 40 = 12 tons of TNT = 13,946 kWh, where 1 ton ANFO = 30% of 1 ton of TNT energy equivalent, and 1 ton TNT = 4.186 x 10+9 J = 1,163 kWh. If we take the ratio of the magnitudes of the seismic energies for the WTC collapse and for a quarry explosion, we have the ratio of (10+2.2)/(10+1.5) = 158.5/31.6 = 5.02. Hence, the seismic energy of the WTC event compared to a quarry explosion can be given roughly by 5.02 x 13,946 kWh = 70,009 kWh. This is just at the lower limit of the calculated gravitational collapse energy calculated above, 70,800 kWh. Also, consider that some portion of the towers' concrete mass that was pulverized into suspended fine dust would not appear in a seismic spike signal. Some estimated 90,000 tons of the estimated 160,000 tons of material per tower was concrete (i.e. 56% of tower mass was concrete, while 44% was steel, etc.). Assume, for discussion's sake, that half the concrete per tower was converted into fine dust that did not contribute to the immediate seismic signal (i.e. 28% of tower mass). Subtracting this 28% of tower mass would decrease the "average" figure of 100,000 kWh of total gravitational energy per tower to 68,000 kWh. Again this is close to the crudely calibrated value of 70,009 kWh. Although these calculations involve arguable assumptions, the author only wishes to demonstrate that claims the observed seismic spike indicated a massive pre-collapse explosion are not supported by the mathematical analysis. The conclusion the author arrived at is that the seismic spikes observed were certainly of the same magnitude as, and not separate from, the WTC towers' gravitational energies.

It has been the main thrust of this paper that explosions leaving a seismic spike would not have been necessary to bring down a structure like a WTC tower. A slower reaction would still cause core failure. Whether a chemical reaction takes place over a period of say, 1 second, or 1 millisecond, the energy released is the same. Since power = energy/unit-time, then a reaction taking 1 millsecond would have 1000 times the power as a reaction taking 1 second, but still release the same amount of energy. This is the difference between a blast and a melt. The melt would not (necessarily) leave a seismic signature.


Appendix B: Calculation of the Amount of Thermite-Equivalent Needed to Provide the Energy Source for the Energy Sinks Calculated by J. Hoffman in His Analysis of the WTC North Tower Pyroclastic Cloud
As an exercise, calculations are presented here of the amount of thermite needed to fill the energy sinks calculated by J. Hoffman in his analysis of the WTC north tower pyroclastic cloud [Ref.(13)]. It should be stated at the outset that thermite is not definitely proposed as the mechanism for this cloud expansion. Just as for the collapse of the inner core, the calculations are done to see if it is possible to contain enough thermite-equivalent within the WTC tower structures to create the effect of the pyroclastic cloud.

Ignoring water vaporization, Hoffman calculates a total energy sink to be filled by a source of 11,724,000 kWh; see his Summary table at Ref (13). This allows for thermodynamic gas expansion only (no water vapor expansion). For water vapor expansion only (no water supply limit for vaporization), the energy source required is 2,706,000 kWh. This is regarded by Hoffman as a lower-limit range for the sink, 2,706,000 to 11,724,000 kWh.

In this present paper, we calculated that the energy density per volume for densely packed thermite is given by 1.3805 x 10+7 kJ/m3. Since, 1 kWh = 3600 kJ, then the thermite energy density is given by 3,835 kWh/m3. Hence, to reach the lower limit of Hoffman's range, a volume of 705.6 m3 of densely-packed thermite would be needed, and to reach the upper limit of the range, 3057.1 m3 would be required.

Let us do a rough estimate of the volume inside of the core columns of a WTC tower, as a first place chosen to put the above calculated m3 of thermite. Let us assume the following for a WTC tower: the 6 floors of the basement and the first 6 floors above ground are "largest" box columns; the remaining 79 floors from the 7th to the 85th are "average" box columns; above the 85th floor the supports are I-beam , not box columns, without internal volume. Let us further assume 47 core columns per floor. (These assumptions, while reasonable, are somewhat arbitrary, in this "boundary-value" calculation).

Earlier we calculated for a "largest" box columns, 0.529 m3 of internal volume, while for an "average" column we arrived at 0.604 m3 of internal volume. Hence, per floor of "largest" core columns we have an internal core volume of 47 x 0.529 m3 = 24.86 m3; and per floor of "average" columns, an internal core volume of 47 x 0.604 m3 = 28.39 m3. Twelve floors of "largest" core columns provides 12 x 24.86 m3 = 298.3 m3 of volume, while 79 floors of "average" columns provides 79 x 28.39 m3 = 2242.8 m3 of volume. Thus we have a grand total of 2541.1 m3 of core column inner volume available for controlled demolition charges. Note that this available volume of 2541.1 m3 is within the range of volumes needed above for densely-packed thermite, 705.6 m3 to 3057.1 m3.

It is not likely that all the core volumes could be filled in this way with high-density thermite. Recall that a less-than 2" thick thermite coating applied to a column exterior as "insulation" was sufficient to melt it. The surfaces of columns and floors are more likely places to apply chemical compounds disguised as "insulation" (Recall reports about the WTC's "shoddy" construction, rumored influenced by organized crime; recall also reports about problems getting the "insulation" to adhere).

Let us do one more calculation for illustration. For simplicity, this time consider the case of a WTC tower with 91 floors of all "average" box columns, including the basement and first 6 floors above ground. Let each floor have 47 such columns, for 47 x 91 = 4277 columns total. These 12' tall column surfaces are to be coated with 3057.1 m3 of a thermite like compound. This works out to 0.71 m3 per column. How thick would this coating need to be? As before when we considered a core column's surface coating for an "average" column, let the volume of the coating be Vcoat ( = 0.71 m3, instead of 0.219 m3 as before). Then,

Vcoat = 2 x 3.658 x [2 x Texp2 + (d + w) x T] = 0.71 m3 , or

2 x Texp2 + (d + w) x T = 0.71 m3/(2 x 3.658 m) = 0.097 m2. Simplifying,

2 x Texp2 + (d + w) x T - 0.097 = 0.

This is again in the form of a quadratic equation, where a =2; b = (d + w) = 12" + 36" = 48" = 1.219 m; and c = -0.097 m2. Then, as before,

T = {-1.219 + SQRT[(1.219)exp2 - 4 x 2 x (-0.097)]}/(2 x 2), or

T = {-1.219 + SQRT[1.486 + 0.776]}/4 = {-1.219 + SQRT[2.262]}/4 or

T = {-1.219 + 1.504}/4 = 0.071 m = 2.81".

In short, if a coating slightly less than 3" thick of a thermite like coating were applied to the outer surfaces of the box columns, that volume would contain sufficient energy to account for the pyroclastic cloud, under the conditions of the largest energy sink calculated by Hoffman.

This paper will not consider the much greater surface areas and coating volumes provided (and thinner coatings allowed) by the WTC floors themselves -- what better places to heat and pulverize concrete? That is left for the reader to ponder.


References

(1) http://www.maebrussell.com/Articles%...xplosives.html and
http://emperors-clothes.com/news/albu.htm

(2) http://emperors-clothes.com/news/albu.htm

(3) http://www.geocities.com/streakingob...es7WTCwhy.html

(4) http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/LCSN/Eq...C_LDEO_KIM.pdf and
http://victoria.indymedia.org/news/2003/04/13974.php

(5) See for example http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/shake2.html as one site of the video clip.

(6) http://members.fortunecity.com/911/wtc/proof.htm

(7) http://members.fortunecity.com/911/wtc/nova.htm

(8) http://physics911.ca/modules/news/ar...php?storyid=12

(9) http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_..._seismic_.html

(10) http://www.misternet.org/nerdcities/...demolition.htm

(11) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1550326.stm

(12) http://www.convert-me.com/en/convert/energy/

(13) http://physics911.ca/modules/news/ar...php?storyid=12



? Derrick P. Grimmer, Ph.D., 16th November 2003

[MORTARDUDE]

http://physics911.ca/modules/news/article.php?storyid=2


Operation Pearl
A. K. Dewdney, September 2003
Version 1.0, 20th October 2003. Please note text is subject to revision.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event ? like a new Pearl Harbor."

- Rebuilding America?s Defenses Program for a New American Century

1 Summary
It is possible to produce the appearance of a terrorist attack on the United States by means that do not employ terrorists, as such, but by the simple substitution of one aircraft for another, particularly when the transponders of the aircraft involved are turned off. The only people who need to be deceived by such an operation are the radar operators at air traffic control (ATC) centers.

The scenario explored here, called Operation Pearl (after Pearl Harbor), has been described in sufficient operational detail that sound judgments can be made about a) feasibility and b) consistency with evidence on the ground. At the time of this writing it is probably the best available description of what probably took place on September 11, 2001.

Under the Operation Pearl scenario, the passengers of all four flights died in an aerial explosion over Shanksville, PA and the remaining three airliners are at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.




2 Introduction
Since March of 2002, persons probing the web for further information about the 9/11 attacks could not fail to encounter, sooner or later, a scenario advanced by Carol Valentine. Called the "Flight of the Bumble Planes" (Valentine 2002), it allegedly came from an informant who would only identify himself as "Snake Plisskin," the name of the hero of the movie, Escape from New York (footnote 1)

The informant outlined the basic hijacking method in an email message to Carol Valentine, comparing it to a flight of bumble bees. Watching bees as they buzz around among flowers, it is very difficult to follow individual bees, since they are always passing close to one another.

This metaphor translates into the flight of two aircraft in a confined locale of airspace. If the separation between them is small enough, radar operators will see not two aircraft, but one. On the morning of September 11, 2001, according to this scenario, all four "hijacked" aircraft landed at a single airport or air base, transferring their passengers to a single aircraft, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, remotely controlled aircraft of various types carried out the actual attacks. The scenario, as presented by Valentine, consists of little more than I have presented here.

Of course, there is a vast difference between an outline and a detailed operational plan. It may turn out, for example, that any attempt to imagine how a specific scheme is implemented runs into snags, as in the attempt by Spencer (2003) to get all four aircraft to one air base long enough for the combined list of over 200 passengers to board a single aircraft, take off and crash near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Spencer, however, assumed that the takedown of aircraft coincided with the turning off of transponders. In the present paper the scenario is modified to allow takedown prior to the turning off of transponders, assuming that takedown occurred at the first deviation of each aircraft from its flight plan. The refurbished scenario has now been completed to a level of detail that makes it possible to evaluate its feasibility, as well as its consistency with the evidence, as presently acquired and developed.

A scenario named Ghost Riders in the Sky was previously constructed by the author (Dewdney 2002). The purpose of that scenario was simply to demonstrate that alternate scenarios that fitted all the facts (as then understood by the author) could be constructed. The scenario involved killing all the passengers and flight crew with a fast-acting nerve agent, then triggering a software patch in the aircraft flight control systems to direct the aircraft to their various destinations. However, when it became evident that no Boeing 757 had actually struck the Pentagon (see The Pentagon Evidence, also on this website), the scenario was rendered invalid. The Ghost Riders scenario, like the Bush-Cheney scenario, required that the aircraft that struck their respective targets were as advertised, two 767s and two 757s.

The fact that the Ghost Riders scenario must now be rejected illustrates the nature of this inquiry. As in science, hypotheses must be formulated, then tested against the available evidence. If found wanting in the light of that evidence, they must be rejected. It is normal in any scientific inquiry to formulate and analyze more than one hypothesis before one is found that actually works. The same remark also applies to criminal investigations.

3 The Evidence Filter
Any scenario constructed to account for the events of September 11 2001 must pass a graduated test, as embodied in the following items. These fall into three classes:

Suspicious circumstances
Four of the named hijackers were not in the United States.
The WTC towers collapsed without adequate heat stress.
Smaller aircraft accompanied Flights 77 and 93.
Most of the alleged hijackers were rather poor pilots.
Evidence of the alleged hijackers developed too quickly.
Westward excursion of Flights UA93 and AA77 are inexplicable as terrorists hurrying to targets."
Anomalies
The US Air Force failed to intercept any of the flights.
The hijackers' names did not show up on passenger lists.
The hijackers' faces did not appear on boarding gate videos.
Black boxes were missing from all but one flight.
Contradictions
The Pentagon was not struck by a large passenger aircraft.
Cellphone calls alleged to have been made by passengers were essentially impossible.
A successful scenario must at least explain the contradictions and account for a majority of the anomalies. It is of course desirable that it also account for the suspicious circumstances, but no scenario need stand or fall in this regard.

It must be remarked that the only scenario ever supplied to the public via the official media was the Bush-Cheney scenario, that Arab hijackers seized control of the four aircraft and proceeded to pilot them into national landmarks, killing both themselves and their passengers. Clearly, the Bush-Cheney scenario, considered in detail, explains none of the suspicious circumstances, none of the anomalies and is directly contradicted by the facts adduced in the third category. As scenarios go, it is a distinct failure.

4 Technical Elements
The two major technical aspects of the Operation Pearl scenario involve radar and remote control. Radar technology has been with us since World War Two, some 60 years ago. Remote control technology has been around in various forms for at least twenty years. With a basic understanding of both radar and remote control in relation to 9/11, it becomes possible for the average citizen to think for himself or herself.

4.1 Radar Substitution
A radar screen is essentially a circular CRT (cathode ray tube - like a television screen) that displays aircraft within the circular airspace represented on the screen. Radar operators are the only people who can be aware of what planes are in the sky and where they are going. The vast majority of people are completely unaware of what is going on in any large volume of airspace and, when an aircraft passes overhead, can usually not tell one type from another, let alone what airline or aviation company may own it. This observation, while something of a commonplace, has important implications. If an organization wishes to substitute one aircraft for another without anyone knowing it, the only people it has to deceive are the radar operators.

The resolution of a radar screen is the size of the smallest point that can appear there, approximately two millimeters in diameter - a "blip." A typical radar screen, less than a meter in diameter, could therefore be described as less than 500 "blips" wide. If the airspace represented on the screen were 500 kilometers in diameter (approximately 300 miles, a not atypical size), each blip would represent a piece of airspace that is more than 500/500 = 1 kilometer wide.

In other words, as soon as two aircraft get within a kilometer of one another, there would be a tendency for their respective blips to merge. With half a kilometer separation or less, the two aircraft could easily appear as one.

Of course, two aircraft that are that close together run a distinct risk of collision - unless they are at different altitudes. Radar screens are two-dimensional in that they represent airspace in the same way as a map, with the vertical dimension of altitude suppressed. Thus, without additional information in the form of a displayed altitude number, it is impossible for a radar operator to tell whether two merged blips represent a potential collision or not. Altitude information is displayed if an aircraft's transponder is turned on, otherwise, the radar operator has no idea of the altitude at which an aircraft happens to be flying.

If one aircraft happens to be within a half kilometer of another, whether above that aircraft or below it, the radar operator will see only one aircraft, as long as the two maintain a horizontal separation that is no greater than half a kilometer (about 500 yards).

Imagine now two aircraft, both headed for the same approximate point on the radar screen, both with their transponders turned off. One is well above the other but, as the blips merge, both planes swerve, each taking the other's former direction. The operator would simply see the aircraft cross and would have no way to realize that a swap had taken place.

There are many other swapping patterns available. For example, one plane could apparently catch up and "pass" another when, in fact, it slowed after the blips merged, even as the other speeded up.

Another method involves the replacement aircraft climbing out of a valley where it would be invisible to distant radars, even as the other aircraft descended into the valley. Again, a radar operator would see a more or less seamless flight without realizing that he or she had been momentarily seeing not one, but two aircraft on the radar screen.

Of course, if the transponders are turned on, as explained in the next section, such confusion is less likely to occur. Even in this case, however, the deception can be complete if the aircraft switch transponder codes.

4.2 Aircraft transponders
Every commercial passenger jet carries a transponder, a device that emits a special radio message whenever it senses an incoming radar wave. The signal carries the transponder code, a multi-digit number that serves to identify the particular aircraft to radar operators at air traffic control centers. The purpose of the code is to make it clear to ATC operators which plane is which. Other information sent by the transponder includes the altitude at which the aircraft is flying. Transponders were implemented many years ago precisely for the reason that radar blips are otherwise easily confused. Transponders make the radar operator's job much easier.

The pilot of an airliner can turn the transponder on or off in the cockpit. He or she can also change the code by keying in a new number.

Transponder codes for all aircraft departing from a given air traffic control region are assigned by the ATC authority more or less arbitrarily. The only important criterion for the numbers so assigned is that they all be different. It sometimes happens that an aircraft entering the control area carries the same transponder code as another aircraft that is already in the area. In such a case, one of the pilots is requested to change his or her code to avoid confusion.

4.3 Remote Control
A remote control system of the type used in this scenario uses a signal interface that does two things: It reads signals from a ground station and sends signals back to it. Both sets of signals must pass through the aircraft's antenna system. In the Boeing 757 and 767 the antenna system is located in the forward belly of the aircraft.

The outgoing signal from the aircraft would include a video signal from a camera located in the nose or other forward portion of the aircraft. Flight data such as control positions, airspeed and other instrument readings are also included in the outgoing signal. The incoming signal from the ground station would include the position of a virtual control yoke (governing direction of aircraft), thrust, trim, and other essential flight parameters.

The virtual pilot would sit in front of a reduced instrument panel and a video monitor. A simplified control yoke or "joystick" control would also be part of the operator's equipment. The remote pilot would watch the instruments, as well as the video image, making continuing adjustments in the aircraft's flight path, just as if he or she sat in the cockpit of the actual aircraft.

Many claims of the attacking aircraft being under "remote control" have appeared on the web since 9/11, but typically with little or no supporting documentation. The claim of a pre-installed anti-hijacking system (Vialls 2001) has proved impossible to verify. Similarly, claims that Global Hawk technology (USAF 98) was used are rampant, but do not quite fit the specific version of Operation Pearl presented here. For one thing, the Global Hawk system does not use remote visual guidance, but onboard navigation electronics that bypass the need for direct, minute-by-minute human control.

The system invoked for the attacks in Operation Pearl is based on the Predator unmanned surveillance vehicle (USAF undated), a modularized aircraft that can be broken into components for ease of shipping and rapid deployment. One of the components includes a remote guidance module which could be refitted to another aircraft (with appropriate modifications) without the need to strip a predator vehicle. The predator operates under remote human guidance from a ground station that, once deployed, would require as few as two human operators during a "secure" operation.

A second possibility involves a system known as a "flight termination system," manufactured by the System Planning Corporation. (SPC 2000) This system permits hands-on control of a nearly endless variety of aircraft, the control interface being to a large degree customizable. For the purposes of the Operation Pearl scenario, either of these systems might well be adaptable to the remote operations of nonmilitary jet aircraft.

Without question, however, the basic technology for the remote guidance of aircraft has been on hand for many years. For a large intelligence organization it would be a straightforward technical operation to install a remote control system in virtually any type of aircraft, whether a large commercial airliner or anything smaller. The aircraft carrying the installation would be available and prepared in advance, then substituted for the passenger aircraft it was meant to replace.

4.4 Electronic towing
An interesting but different form of remote control is invoked by the Operation Pearl scenario in the "cleanup" phase, namely the disposal of the three aircraft that did not crash in Pennsylvania or anywhere else. I call this facility "electronic towing," It consists of two "black boxes" that pick up signals from an aircraft's data bus, a shared electronic pathway travelled by all electronic signals that control the aircraft. (Spitzer 2000) Each black box can read the bus through the data bus monitor, as well as insert information into the bus. Because the connections are already available, installation of the boxes could be completed in a matter of hours on any aircraft. In this relatively simple form of remote control, one aircraft would be called the "slave," the other the "master." In addition, two 2-way radios allow the black boxes to communicate, specifically for the master box to send its signals to the slave box. Under identical conditions, the slave aircraft will do precisely what the master aircraft does. Such control signals could also be taped and replayed later to invoke in the slave aircraft exactly the same behavior as the master.

To initiate towing, the master aircraft takes off first, while the slave aircraft remains on the runway, completely unoccupied. As soon (or as late) as the pilot of the slave aircraft wishes to, a recording of the master signals is played over the radio to the slave aircraft, which then takes off precisely as the master aircraft did. The slave will then follow the master wherever the pilot of the master wishes to go. With a short time delay in the control loop, the slave aircraft would appear literally to be towed by the master, always maintaining the same distance and position behind it. If the pilot of the master aircraft wished to "unhitch" the slave, he could simply cut the control signal. Over the ocean, the unhitched aircraft might fly until it runs out of fuel or it might be blown up by implanted explosives.

5 Operation Pearl
In the detailed scenario to follow, Harrisburg International Airport was selected as the base of operations. However, any airport, airbase or landing strip of suitable length within, say, 50 km of Harrisburg might work just as well. The following table displays the takeoff times of the respective aircraft from Boston's logan Airport, Newark International, and Washington's Dulles Airport on the morning of September 11, 2001. Assuming a takedown at the first deviation, the flying times to Harrisburg International Airport are calculated and the arrival times of the respective aircraft at Harrisburg are displayed. All flying times are based on the assumption of an average airspeed of 805 km/h (500 mph). In each case, 5 minutes is added at either end of the flight to allow for takeoffs and landings.

Flight Take-down Distance to Harrisburg Flying Time Arrival
AA11 8:16 am 420 km 32 + 5 min. 8:53 am
UA175 8:42 am 200 km 15 + 5 min. 9:02 am
UA93 8:42 am 260 km 20 + 5 min. 9:07 am
AA77 8:46 am 240 km 18 + 5 min. 9:09 am

As a convenience, the takedown of Flight UA93 has been made simultaneous with the aircraft's takeoff. Since the flight path was directed toward Harrisburg, the takedown time is not relevant to the calculation as it could have taken place anywhere along the route, yielding the same result for arrival in Harrisburg.

As a feasibility check, we may now calculate whether there was adequate time on the ground in Harrisburg to deplane three of the aircraft, loading their passengers onto Flight UA93. Working backwards, the flight of UA93 from Harrisburg to Shanksville involved a distance of 144 km for a flight time of 18 minutes. Thus, to "crash" at 10:06 am, it had to leave Harrisburg no later than 9:45 am. This would give the agents of Operation Pearl (see Appendix C) some 36 minutes to board the passengers from the other flights onto Flight UA93.

A master timetable for the entire operation has been provided at the end of this article. Readers may wish to consult this table, along with the accompanying map, in order to obtain a birdseye view of all four flights.

We will now examine key elements of the scenario in the form of mini-dramatizations that place the reader in the scene, as it were. The following sketches supply enough detail to provide a secondary check on feasibility. I have used a compact notation to refer to the four replacement flights, simply appending an "X" to the flight number. Thus "UA175X" refers to the replacement aircraft for flight UA175.

5.1 The takedown
The morning of September 11 dawned bright and clear over Boston's Logan Airport as crews arrived for the first flights of the day. The departure lounge for American Airlines Flight 11 was already filling with passengers when John Ogonowski, the pilot, and Thomas McGuinness, the second officer, arrived to board their Boeing 767 and begin the preflight check.

As passengers slowly filed past the check-in counter and onto the boarding ramp, the flight officers proceeded through the cockpit checklist. The weather would be perfect for flying. Only one little detail soured Ogonowski's day. He had been informed that an FBI antiterrorism agent would be aboard the aircraft. Among the incoming passengers, a nondescript gentleman in a business suit settled into a seat in first class. Just as the giant turbofan engines began their warmup, a stewardess reminded the gentleman, now scribbling on a piece of paper, to fasten his lap belt.

"Certainly. Er, would you mind giving this note to the captain?"

She took the note forward, handing it to Ogonowski, who read it with more than passing interest.

"Hmmm. I guess it's real. Take a look at this, Tom."

McGuinness read the note.

My name is Bill Proctor, FBI anti-hijacking team. We have information that hijackers may be aboard the aircraft today. I repeat, may. My partner and I are on this flight to prevent such a happening. We wish our presence on board to be kept confidential. I am in seat 7A. Thank you for your cooperation.

"I'd better take a look at this guy," said Ogonowski. Take her out while I go back for some coffee."

The engines roared to life and the aircraft began to taxi out to the runway. Ogonowski spotted the gentleman and pulled the note from his breast pocket. The gentleman nodded and smiled back.

"I'm sorry. I still have to ask to see your ID."

"Certainly." The man handed Ogonowski a small wallet, flipped open to reveal the famous logo.

On his way to the galley, Ogonowski scrutinized the passengers from the corner of his eyes. Instinctively, he looked for swarthy, middle eastern types, somewhat reassured to see none.

The takeoff was smooth and the 767 climbed into clear blue skies, with several wisps of cirrus off to the west. About 15 minutes into the flight, just as the flight officers were relaxing and thinking a hijacking rather unlikely, another note arrived via the stewardess.

We have spotted two terrorists on board. I must come forward to discuss the situation with you. Bill

"What the hell! Is this guy serious?"

"Jeez. I guess so."

Inside the cockpit, the gentleman wore a serious frown.

"We'll have to land at Harrisburg, where we have facilities to deal with this problem. Use the 80.7 kHz frequency and do not engage in any other radio activity at this time, please. Identify yourself as American Flight 380 and tell them you have a faulty fuel pump in Number Two engine."

"Where are the terrorists?"

"Don't worry, they're here. By the way, you must also turn off your transponder. Now."

Ogonowski turned on the PA system.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have experienced a slight difficulty with one of our fuel pumps and must land to have it checked. American is sorry for the delay. We'll have alternate transportation ready for you as soon as possible."

The gentleman smiled, nodding approvingly. A murmur of groans and complaints filtered into the cabin.

"One more thing. As soon as we touch down, proceed immediately to the military hangars at the north end of the airport. We have a team of agents there who will board the aircraft as soon as you can get the doors open."

Although Ogonowski sent no messages to New York ATC, he could hear the chatter and knew something was up. About seven minutes before they would land at Harrisburg, he heard that one of the World Trade Center towers was on fire, having been hit by a "commuter aircraft," as the rumor had it. Ahead of him the layout of Harrisburg Airport, faintly discernible in the distance, grew slowly in size. The aircraft banked and made its final approach. Unknown to Ogonowski, another Boeing 757 shadowed flight AA11, below and slightly behind them. It climbed, even as flight AA11 descended. More radio chatter revealed that aircraft had been ordered down all over the United States. Ogonowski would be the first of many emergency landings at Harrisburg International that day.

The 767 glided smoothly to touchdown, its air brakes howling. The aircraft slowly rolled to a crawl, then turned onto a taxiway that led to an Air National Guard hangar, where a man with orange batons waved them in. As soon as the flight crew got the doors open, one of the group of waiting officials rolled a large gangway to the open door and three agents dashed up the stairs. One of them had a bullhorn.

"Ladies and gentlemen. We must ask that you leave the aircraft immediately. Leave all personal belongings and carryon bags aboard the aircraft. This includes cellphones. Do not attempt any cellphone calls, as they could trigger any explosives on board. We'll begin evacuation from the front of the aircraft."

Dutifully, the passengers streamed from the aircraft in orderly fashion, making their way down the steep gangplank and joining a crowd that had formed around another official.

"Ladies and gentlemen. It is now safe to tell you that you have just escaped being hijacked by Arab terrorists. We will apprehend the suspects and search the aircraft for bombs and other dangers to public safety. Unfortunately, this procedure may take some time and we have no facilities for you here. We'll have to put you on another flight, as soon as it arrives. I realize that this is very inconvenient and we apologize. However, you can think of yourselves as among the luckiest people in America today."

As he spoke, two officials led a disheveled man in handcuffs down the gangplank. He had olive-colored skin and a dark beard. A murmur went up from the crowd.

"Where the hell did he come from?" muttered McGuinness. He had a feeling of unreality in the pit of his stomach. He felt nauseous.

By then, another aircraft, flight UA175, had landed and was now taxiing toward the same hangar. The officials herded the passengers into the hanger, where they were told to wait. Then they went to greet the second aircraft, where they repeated the procedure.

Tower personnel were of course aware of the two flights parked at the Air National Guard hangar. They were aware that the aircraft were being inspected by some kind of security team but, beyond that, they paid little heed to the operation. They were too busy coordinating some very busy airspace.

5.2 Swapping aircraft
At the New York air traffic control center rows of radar operators "pushing tin," as they call it, monitored flights into and out of New York airspace, talking to the pilots occasionally on their throat mikes. Each operator had several flights to monitor, a job that guaranteed one of the highest stress levels of any occupation in the travel industry.

The time was 8:37 in the morning. Operators were about to become aware that something was amiss in their airspace. We pick up the conversation between one of them (bold face) and the aircraft under his responsibility. (NYT 2001) My commentary within the transcript has been placed in square brackets.

"USA583 checking in at FL350."

"USA583 Roger."

"42-39 see the 823 FL350 reference that guy on left."

"I gave the FDX turns. Do what you want, reference the FDX."

" R49 310."

"FDX226 contact New York Center on 133.47. Good day."

"33.4 FDX3226 heavy."

"New York UAL 457."

"Sector 10 point out west of LRP 712 at FL410."

"Point out approved."

"UAL175 at FL310."

[The time was 8:40 am. United Airlines Flight 175 came on the air with some information to report.]

"UAL 175 New York center. Roger."

"New York do a favor. Were you asked to look for an aircraft, an American flight about about 8 or 9 o'clock 10 miles south bound last altitude 290? No one is sure where he is."

"Yeah, we talked about him on the last frequency. We spotted him when he was at our 3 o'clock position. He did appear to us to be at 29,000 feet. We're not picking him up on TCAS. I'll look again and see if we can spot him at 24."

"No, it looks like they shut off their transponder. That's why the question about it."

"New York UAL175 heavy."

"UAL 175 go ahead."

"We figured we'd wait to go to your center. We heard a suspicious transmission on our departure from BOS. Sounds like someone keyed the mike and said, 'Everyone stay in your seats.'"

O.K. I'll pass that along.

"It cut out." (UAL 175)

"IGN 93 line."

"Go ahead."

"UAL 175 just came on my frequency and he said he heard a suspicious transmission when they were leaving BOS: 'Everybody stay in your seats.' That's what he heard as the suspicious transmission, just to let you know." (See Note 4.)

[Then US Air Flight 583 called in.]

"Center, where do you place him in relation to 583 now?"

"He's off about 9 o'clock and about 20 miles. Looks like he's heading southbound but there's no transponder, no nothing, and no one's talking to him."

"Hello New York good morning DAL2315 passing 239 for 280."

"DAL2315 New York Center. Roger."

"New York center DAL2433 310."

"DAL2433 New York Center. Roger."

[Four minutes later the time was 8:46 and the mystery had not been solved. Flight 11 was flying an angular route south, then east. Other flights continued to converse with New York ATC.]

"Direct PTW DAL 1489 heavy."

"Roger."

"DAL2315 contact the New York Center on 134.6. Have a nice day."

"134.6 DAL2315."

"34.6 3-4-point 6."

"USA429 leveling off at 350."

I'm sorry, who was that?

"USA429 leveling at 350."

"USA429, New York Center roger."

[As we will shortly see, the radar operator lost track of Flight AA11, as evidenced by his queries of pilots in the area, as well as his failure to make any connection between the World Trade Center fire (about to be reported) and Flight AA11. It appears that the flight had simply been lost in the swarm of blips that crowded every screen at the New York ATC.]

"Anybody know what that smoke is in lower Manhattan?"

"I'm sorry, say again."

"A lot of smoke in lower manhattan."

"A lot of smoke in lower Manhattan?"

"Coming out of the top of the World Trade Center building, a major fire."

"And which was the one that just saw the major fire?"

"This is DAL1489 we see lower Manhattan. Looks like the World Trade Center on fire, but its hard to tell from here."

"DAL1489. Roger."

"Let us know if you hear any news down there."

"Roger."

"DAL 1043 cleared direct PTW."

"Direct PTW DAL 1043."

At 8:51 am, the operator was still in touch with Flight 175, asking the pilot to change his transponder code.

"UAL175 recycle transponder squawk code 1470."

"UAL175. New York."

[But at 8:52 am, things went wrong with Flight UAL175, as well.]

"UAL175 do you read New York?"

"DAL1489 do you read New York?"

"DAL1489. Go ahead."

"O.K. Just wanted to make sure you were reading New York. United, United 175. Do you read New York?"

"IGN on the 93 line. Kennedy."

"IGN on the 93 line East Texas."

"IGN."

"Do me a favor. See if UAL175 went back to your frequency."

"UAL 175?"

"Yes."

"He's not here. East Texas."

"10 - Do you see that UAL175 anywhere? And do me a favor. You see that target there on 3321 code at 335 climbing? Don't know who he is, but you got that USA 583. If you need to descent him down you can. Nobody. We may have a hijack. We have some problems over here right now."

"Oh you do?" (another operator)

"Yes, that may be real traffic. Nobody knows. I can't get a hold of UAL175 at all right now and I don't know where he went to."

[The transcript reveals a new aircraft with transponder code 3321. The aircraft has already climbed to 33,500 feet. This may have been the replacement aircraft.]

"UAL 175 New York."

"New York 583."

"USA583 go ahead."

"Yes. Getting reports over the radio of a commuter hitting the World Trade Center. Is that nordo [no radio] 76 [Boeing 767] still in the air?"

It is interesting that the initial report of the first WTC attack involved not a 757, but a smaller commuter aircraft. From that point on however, things got increasingly hectic at the New York ATC center. Operators glanced at the screen space centered on Manhattan and eastern New Jersey, trying to guess which aircraft was Flight 175.

On all screens there were often several aircraft without transponder codes. Some of these were local flights, mostly smaller aircraft. The presence of such blips would probably have made the radar operator;'s job much harder. Taking one's eye off a suspicious aircraft to check other aircraft in the area, might make it impossible to be certain which aircraft it was when the operator glanced back. This, in any case, was apparently what happened.

5.3 The World Trade Center
It would have been an eerie experience to ride the 757 that we have called Flight 175-X. Walking the aisles, we would have seen the seats all stripped from the aircraft, the walls lined with fuel drums, like so many token passengers. Cables ran up the aisle to the cockpit, where a large black box sat on the floor, just in front of the control console. The pilots' seats were missing. Some of the cables fed into several openings in the console, others passed through openings in the floor into the aircraft's belly, where the antenna system communicated with a ground station.

At the ground station, an operator watched a color television monitor. On it, he could see the Manhattan skyline looming steadily larger. He adjusted the joystick slightly to the right, aiming for the south tower, then pushed the stick forward slightly. The aircraft slowly descended until it was level with the upper third of the still distant building. An ironic smile crossed the operator's face. This was not exactly the intended use of the Predator technology.

About a minute from impact, a steady crosswind that the operator had not taken into account had pushed the aircraft off course to the east, even as the tower loomed faster than he thought it would. He was going to miss! Damn. He pulled the joystick sharply to the left.

Just when the corner of the south tower was about to disappear from the screen , it swung back into view again, the building now appearing sharply tilted to the right. He saw several rows of windows. Close, then very close. In the last frame, he caught a glimpse of some office people staring from one of the windows in horror. Then the screen went blank. To think of how close he came to missing!

5.4 Back at the base
Under the operation Pearl scenario, the takedown of all four flights would be conducted in the same manner, flights UA93 and AA77, being no exceptions. By the time Flight UA93 arrived over Harrisburg, the alarm had been out for a good 20 minutes. Flights were coming down everywhere. Airport tower personnel, as well as those at all air traffic control centers, were simply overwhelmed. In this context, bringing flights UA93 and AA77 into Harrisburg were relatively simple and secure operations involving little more than switching to a new transponder number, landing and proceeding to the same processing area. The same cover story still worked, since it was not known at the time whether aircraft might be targeted, as well as buildings.

The swap of flight UA93-X for flight UA93 would have been far less exposed to radar than the swaps in the NY phase of the operation. As Flight UA93 descended into the radar shadow of the Susquehanna valley close to Harrisburg International, an executive jet rose out of the valley, below and immediately behind the aircraft. The swap would have been seamless, with Flight UA93 turning off its transponder about the same time that the pilot of Flight UA93-X turned his on. Flight UA93-X then turned north to follow an erratic path to the west as far as Cleveland before looping back to head for southern Pennsylvania.

The search for bombs on Flights AA11 and UA 175 may have already been completed by the time that Flight 93 touched down at 9:07 am. The officials in charge of the operation nevertheless had a good 20 minutes to search flight UA93 before hurriedly boarding all the passengers into the one aircraft, an operation that could have been carried out in 20 minutes.

As the passengers boarded Flight UA93, the officials held a special conference with pilot Jason Dahl and First Officer LeRoy Homer.

"Fellows, we've made a thorough check for bombs on board, and we're sure it's clean. Unfortunately, we have some problems with the other aircraft, so we're going to have to keep them grounded for the time being. We don't have proper facilities for all these people here, so we're going to have to ask you to take them all to Dulles where they can be looked after properly. We'll send all personal goods and luggage along on one of the the other aircraft, as soon as we have completed our work. We'll have to board the other passengers now, without delay. You will be picked up by a military escort aircraft as you leave. Please be sure to follow that aircraft and stay in communication with it. Frequency will be 118.7 MHz. all the way. Fly at the same level of 4000 feet. If it should happen to deviate from it's flight path, it may be checking something out. Just stay on course for Dulles. Your escort will rejoin you soon enough."

Pilot and first officer nodded, then climbed the stairs, entered the cockpit and began the preflight check for the second time that morning. Meanwhile, passengers filed into the aircraft, urged on by the officials, until the aircraft was full. As it happened, flight 93 had just enough seats to accommodate the passengers of all four flights.

At 9:45 the 757 roared off the runway at Harrisburg and set course for Washington, even as a military-looking all-white aircraft rose from low altitude to fly off their port wing.

"This is your Escort Bravo One. We're not very fast, here." said the military pilot. "Reduce your airspeed to 400 knots and stay directly behind with minimal separation."

"I've seen that kind of aircraft before," said Homer.

"Yup. That's an A-10 Warthog," said Dahl. "And she's armed to the teeth. See the missiles under the wing?"

"Warthog? Funny name."

"Actually, it's called the Thunderbolt, but I guess everyone thinks the thing is too ugly to be called anything but a warthog."

5.5 The Crash at Shanksville
The two aircraft climbed out along the valley of the Susquehanna, then headed southwest along a succession of valleys, emerging at last into a large, relatively flat basin, partly forested and dotted with farms and villages. Ahead of them, the white aircraft, flight UA93-X, suddenly turned off and began circling around to the east, descending as it went.

Shanksville resident Susan Mcelwain watched the white aircraft pass directly over her minivan:

"It came right over me, I reckon just 40 or 50 feet above my van," she recalled. "It was so low I ducked instinctively. It was traveling real fast, but hardly made any sound. (UF93 2001)

"Then it disappeared behind some trees. A few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this fireball rise up over the trees, so I figured the jet had crashed. The ground really shook. So I dialed 911 and told them what happened . . . "

"There's no way I imagined this plane - it was so low it was virtually on top of me. It was white with no markings but it was definitely military, it just had that look. It had two rear engines, a big fin on the back like a spoiler on the back of a car and with two upright fins at the side. I haven't found one like it on the internet. It definitely wasn't one of those executive jets. The FBI came and talked to me and said there was no plane around."

The description of the mystery aircraft given by Ms Mcelwain happens to match only one military aircraft currently in use by the US armed forces, namely a (repainted) A-10 Thunderbolt, a heavily armed aircraft used in ground support roles. (McChord 2003) Several other witnesses saw the same aircraft, both before the crash and after it, circling the area. (Flight 93, 2001)

Two area residents, both quite close to the crash scene, heard missiles being fired. One, a Viet Nam veteran, was quite sure about what he had heard.

Mcelwain and many others heard one or two tremendous explosions rock the sky over Shanksville. Debris rained down for miles around. One engine landed nearly a mile from the alleged crash site. Body parts, luggage, scraps of metal, bits of in-flight magazine plummeted or fluttered to the ground a mile or more away.

The white aircraft turned, took one more pass, then headed back to its base of operations. Mcelwain called 911.

The Shanksville "crash" of Flight 93 presents us with a number of mysterious reports of a midair explosion (or explosions) as well as the presence of a white "mystery jet" seen in the area by many local residents.

The midair explosion was heard by virtually everyone in the area, of course. The debris field resulting from the explosion was apparently much more extensive than what would result from an ordinary crash, with all the debris within a narrow compass laterally to the incoming flight path. New Baltimore resident Melanie Hankinson, who lives some eight miles from the crash site, found paper debris from the aircraft, including remnants of United Airlines in-flight magazine, Hemispheres. Other debris, including body parts, were scattered over a space of miles. One of the engines were found a "considerable distance from the crash site," according to State Police Major Lyle Szupinka.

Shanksville Mayor, Earnest Stuhl, has stated that at least two area residents, both living within a few hundred yards of the debris field, heard missiles being fired. One of the witnesses, a Viet Nam veteran, had heard missiles fired from aircraft many times during his tour of duty and claimed that it could not be anything else.

5.6 The Attack on the Pentagon
About the time that Flight AA11-X struck the north tower of the World Trade Center in New York, Flight AA77-X took over from Flight AA77. Like Flight UA93, Flight AA77 dropped into one of the numerous valleys that run the length of the Alleghenies, possibly the valley of the Shenandoah River. Meanwhile, Flight AA77-X, an executive jet, fled westward across West Virginia before looping back, close to the border of southern Ohio. At this point, the pilot turned off his transponder and headed straight for Washington, DC.

By 9:30 am Flight AA77-X was already over Virginia, closing rapidly on the capital. As it approached the Pentagon from the west, another smaller aircraft, possibly a cruise missile, came into the Pentagon from the southwest. It came very fast. Flight AA77-X banked sharply to pass over the Pentagon from the same direction, then flew off to its base. Although visible on local radar as an overflight, it was confused with the incoming missile, which would have been visible as a second blip. Operators would have been led to assume that the second blip represented the overflight.

The small military aircraft (or missile) slammed into the lower half of the 80-foot high wall of the Pentagon, its fuselage punching a hole in the two-foot thick limestone block wall. (see The Pentagon Evidence, also on this website)

5.7 Disposal
Getting rid of the original aircraft was trickier than one might suppose. One could not simply wash off the paint with an acid scrub and sell the aircraft to a third world country. Nor could one break the aircraft up and sell the parts. Indeed the parts, thousands of them, were all stamped with serial numbers that were registered to their respective aircraft. They could be traced. For this reason, it would have been much cleaner to dump the aircraft in the Atlantic Ocean.

Perhaps it was not until nightfall of September 11 that the disposal operation started. By then each aircraft had been fitted with slave technology. The master aircraft had already flown out over the Atlantic, the signal from the data bus monitor having been transmitted back to shore and recorded. It would then have been a simple matter to replay the tape to each of the three "non-existent" aircraft at half-hour intervals. Each aircraft would have gone through exactly the same motions as the master aircraft, continuing its flight out over the Atlantic Ocean - until the implanted bomb destroyed it. Under the Operation Pearl scenario, the three aircraft ended up in pretty much the same state as the Bush-Cheney scenario alleges. The locations are quite different, however.

Inspiration for the electronic tow technology came from the eyewitness account of two aircraft sighted by a New Jersey resident and his wife. (names witheld by request)

"Several days before 911, my wife and I were walking on Long Beach Island. It was late in the afternoon when I looked out over the ocean and saw these two passenger jets flying toward us, due west. They were flying amazingly low and amazingly slow. I was amazed to see these two jets were flying closely behind the other [sic], nose to tail, and what was most amazing was that they were perfectly spaced, about fifty feet apart, with absolutely no fluctuations in their spacing. It looked just like one plane was towing the other. They flew right over our heads, and I watched them as they flew westward."

Under the operation Pearl scenario, the strollers witnessed a final test of the master/slave control system.

6 The Evidence Filter
We are now in a position to review the evidence and its relationship to the Operation Pearl scenario described above. Below each item in the original checklist, I have placed a brief explanation of the relationship.

Suspicious circumstances
Four of the named hijackers were not in the United States. The alleged hijackers were not on the aircraft, in any case. Their names may have been selected from a list of lapsed or stolen passports.
The WTC towers collapsed without adequate heat stress. The lack of passenger corpses, luggage, etc, had to be concealed by burial.
Smaller aircraft accompanied Flights AA77 and UA93. Surrogate aircraft were used as substitutes for the originals.
Most of the alleged hijackers were rather poor pilots. The alleged hijackers were not aboard the aircraft, in any case.
Evidence of alleged hijackers developed too quickly. Evidence was planted in order to have the story develop quickly.
Westward excursion of Flights UA93 and AA77 are inexplicable as terrorists hurrying to targets. The excursions gave time to load all the pasengers onto Flight 93.
Anomalies
The US Air Force failed to intercept any of the flights. No interceptors were deployed since their pilots would have reported the substitute aircraft.
The hijackers' names did not show up on passenger lists. The hijackers were not aboard the aircraft.
The hijackers' faces did not appear on boarding gate videos. The hijackers were not aboard the aircraft.
Black boxes were missing from all but one flight. Black boxes were not present on attacking aircraft
Contradictions
Aircraft striking the Pentagon was not a large passenger aircraft. Flight AA77 did not strike the Pentagon.
Cellphone calls made by passengers were highly unlikely to impossible. Flight UA93 was not in the air when most of the alleged calls were made.
Expanded timeline for Operation Pearl
Time Event
7:59 am UA11 takes off from Boston's Logan Airport
8:14 am UA175 takes off from Boston's Logan Airport
8:16 am First deviation of AA11 north of Albany, NY
8:20 am AA77 takes off from Washington's Dulles Airport
8:20 am AA11 transponder turned off
8:30 am First swap: Flight AA11-X takes over, transponder off
8:35 am Beginning of NY ATC transcript
8:40 am UA175 transponder is turned off
8:42 am UA93 takes off from Newark, NJ
First deviation of UA175 over northern NJ
8:46 am Second swap: Flight AA77X takes over, same t-code
8:46 am AA11-X strikes north tower of WTC
Nationwide alert begins
8:53 am Third swap: Flight UA175X takes over, transponder off
AA11 lands at Harrisburg
8:54 am End of NY ATC transcript
8:55 am AA77X transponder is turned off
9:02 am UA175X strikes south tower of WTC
UA175 lands at Harrisburg
Fourth swap: Flight UA93X replaces UA93
9:07 am UA93 lands at Harrisburg
9:09 am AA77 lands at Harrisburg
9:37 am AA77X overflies the Pentagon, aircraft or explosion at Wedge 1
9:45 am UA93 takes off from Harrisburg
10:06 am UA93 crashes near Shanksville, PA

Map showing the offically-claimed flightpaths on 9/11 - and probable
deviations from those paths under the Operation Pearl scenario
(Map based on original version in USA Today. Yellow lines indicate
flight deviations; yellow numbers are 'swaps' in the table above)


Footnote 1: The plot of the movie, set in a decaying future New York ruled by warlords, involves the rescue of the President of the United States who is being held for ransom. Snake Plisskin (played by Kurt Russel) is released from jail by authorities eager to use his talents to rescue the President.

References
(USA Today 2001) USA Today. 2000. Weapons of destruction. Accessed from <http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/new...ath2/frame.htm> on Jyly 5, 2003.

(Dewdney 2002) Ghost riders in the Sky. Feral News. Retrieved from http://feralnews.com/issues/911/dewd...ers_1-4_1.html> May 15, 2003.

(Flight 93, 2001) How did Flight 93 crash? Retrieved from <http://www.flight93crash.com> May 20, 2003. Note: this site uses mostly local and national media sources.

(McChord, 2003) A-10 Thunderbolt. McChord Air Museum. Retrieved from <http://www.mcchordairmuseum.org/ REV%20B%20MAM%20 COLLECTION%20a-10%20%20BORDER.htm>

(NYT 2001) The New York Times. October 16, 2001, Transcript of United Airlines Flight 175. Retrieved from <http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/16/na...T175-TEXT.html> July 4, 2003.

(Ostrovsky & Hoy, 1990) Hoy C, Ostrovsky V. 1990. By Way of Deception. Toronto, Canada: Stoddart.

(Serendipity 2002) (ref. incomplete) http://www.serendipity.li/wtc.html

(SPC 2000) FTS Flight termination system. 2000. System Planning Corporation, Langley, VA. Retrieved from <http://www.sysplan.com/> May 17 2003. See <http://www.sysplan.com/Radar/FTS/> (flight termination system) and also <http://www.sysplan.com/Radar/CTS/> (command transmitter system)

(Spitzer 2000) Spitzer, C. R. 2000. Digital Avionics Systems: principles and practices. The Blackburn Press (McGraw-Hill), Caldwell, NJ.

(UF93 2001) United Flight 93 Crash Theory Home Page. 2001. How did Flight 93 Crash? Retrieved from <http://www.flight93crash.com> June 10, 2003.

(USAF no date) RQ-1 Predator unmanned aerial vehicle. United States Air Force Fact Sheet. Aeronautical Systems Center, USAF, Langley, VA. No date on document. Retrieved from <http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/RQ...ed_Aerial.html>, May 18 2003.

(USAF 98) Global Hawk: U. S. Airforce Fact Sheet. Global Hawk. Aeronautical Systems Center. USAF Langley, VA. Retrieved July 4 2003 from <http://www.af.mil/news/factsheets/global.html

(Valentine 2002) Flight of the Bumble Bees<http://www.public-action.com/911/bumble.html>

APPENDICES
A: The Basic Timeline
(All times are ante meridian or am, EDT)

Flight Departure Deviation Transponder Hit
American 11 7:59 am 8:16 am 8:20 am 8:46 am
United 175 8:14 am 8:42 am 8:40 am 9:02 am
American 77 8:20 am 8:46 am 8:55 am 9:37 am
United 93 8:42 am 9:36 am 9:40 am 10:06 am

B: Table of aircraft
Flight no Equipment Airport On board
Flight 11 Boeing 767 Boston Logan 81 passengers, 11 crew
Flight 175 Boeing 767 Boston Logan 56 passengers, 9 crew
Flight 77 Boeing 757 Wash. Dulles 58 passengers, 6 crew
Flight 93 Boeing 757 Newark Intn'l 30 passengers, 7 crew

C: Estimates of equipment and personnel used in Operation Pearl
The following lists represent the core requirements in equipment and personnel required to execute Operation Pearl. Additional equipment as well as operatives playing minor roles are not included. Also not included are the operatives running "Operation Footprint," the flight training program for approximately 10 Arabs from a variety of middle eastern countries.

Equipment
1 Boeing 767 fitted with remote guidance systems
3 Executive-sized jet aircraft, one fitted with a remote guidance system
1 A-10 Thunderbolt
Personnel
2 agents on each of four aircraft 8
10 agents at the base of operations 10
4 agents to set up WTC demolition explosives 4
2 agents as flight crew on substitute or escort aircraft 6
4 agents as technicians to install RC controls
(also to act as remote pilots) 8
36

This number is certainly an underestimate, but easily mustered by any large intelligence organization. Under the Operation Pearl scenario, the most likely perpetrator would be Mossad, Israel's spy agency. An arm's-length relationship with the Bush administration, with neocon elements acting as go-betweens, would enable Rumsfeld, Bush, and other members of the US administration to disclaim any "specific" knowledge of a forthcoming attack. (See Ostrovsky and Hoy, 1990.)

[melody1181]

Ya know, I know the government is hardly ever honest but give me a break. Everything is smoke and mirrors I guess. I have never read more BS than this.

Couldn't help it..........

[urbsdad6]

Unfortunately I can not take credit for being as well versed. I have a tendency to examine and trust my gut. Something that proved very useful while in Vietnam and more than once kept our team's @ss out of the cooker, but I digress. To those of you that were allowed some stick time congratulations! You've failed to realize that some stick time is not the same as holding a MEDEVAC in a hover with the rotor blades inches from a rock face while the jungle penetrator is lowered and the wounded are laboriously lifted one by one into the slick. Nor is performing a lazy circle in the sky under the watchful eye of a qualified pilot (with hours of experience under their belt I presume) the same as flying heavy metal at 350-550mph 20ft off the deck or flying heavy metal and making sharp turns to hit a skyscraper. You show your ignorance and insult the pilots of today that are required to undergo rigorous training and recertification in order to qualify for the job. Just because I performed minor surgery (i.e. probing wounds, removing foreign objects, suturing minor wounds) didn't qualify me for an LVN, RN, P.A., or an M.D. position in Vietnam. It did leave me in awe of those that go through the thorough and intensive training to become those professions. I equate your mentality as being in line with,"What the heck, I know where the heart is so I guess I can do open heart surgery!" Braindead!!!! I've worked as Registered Respiratory Therapist for 20 years and the 10 years prior to that I was OJT to qualify for C.R.T.T. and taking courses to get my R.R.T., each of those requiring difficult exams (to those that didn't know and understand the cardiorespiratory sytem and human anatomy) that had to be passed in order to get the credential. For those that believe inquiring and suggesting our government is responsible in part or in full for the most heinous of crimes against the American people is disrespectful of those that were so violently removed from their families and friends, I guess you belong to the camp that follows GWB when he said "If you're not with us, then you're a terrorist." Pretty narrow minded and in line with the complacent parents with a chronic liar for a child. They will always defend his actions no matter what because they just can't believe that their offspring could ever be so mean spirited and callous. Of course the child from time to time gets caught red handed and apologizes and the parents immediately jump up and say "See he really is good!" Never the less countless others lives are damaged, sometimes irrevocably so and they must suffer the consequences of the lies and deceit of one such as that. ( much as our sons and daughters and friends have paid the price in the 9/11's, Afghans, and Iraqs of today). So it is with those that defend our Government today. I'll leave you with this, don't cry for freedom when the laws on the books today are used against you(http://www.drday.com/rumors/dr_edell.htm), don't cry for freedom when your friends and neighbors sign up for police watch in a neighborhood near you turning us all into little tattletales, snitches, and spies for big brother(http://www.infowars.com/articles/ps/..._on_trains.htm)(http://www.rense.com/general65/hr5.htm), don't cry for freedom when they come for your guns(http://www.infowars.com/articles/2nd..._worldwide.htm) and the U.N. soldiers are in the streets because our American troops can't tolerate killing their own. Don't cry for freedom when they take away those willing to risk their lives by speaking out and questioning on whose authority does the tail wag the dog(http://www.infowars.com/constitutional_terrorists.htm)(http://www.skolnicksreport.com/ootar.html)? Don't cry because it will be too late. Freedom will have been long dead because freedom can't exist in a land of lies and spies and control just ask Mao and Stalin and Hitler.


Doc Urb