Osama bin Laden

[machintruc]

Seems IEI to me.

[snegledmaca]

Whoa.... I know kung fu he looks just like my SEI friend.

[marooned]

I hate to be a conspiracy theorist (I am not one btw), but I am not fully convinced about Bin Laden's existence, or rather about what sort of existence he has.

All I see are terribly simple reports about him on the news occassionally where they put his picture up and say some propagandized nonsense.

Then maybe we'll see a video in a language I do not understand (though i'm sure if it were mistranslated people who do understand that language would point it out).

I simply don't know enough about him to have an opinion about his type.

Hmm...

I'm interested in what everyone else has to say though.

[tcaudilllg]

Well he's an extremist, and an individualist. He's IEI, that's a definite.

I think a lot of the 9/11 revisionist propaganda actually helps him. People in the United States need to understand that he equates the country with Christian imperialism and on that note, believes himself a revolutionary leader against the evil empire. The guy lives in a modern-day StarWars, seeing the U.S. as the crony of empire builders who want to flood the world with their "Christian" values.

I think he'll be captured in the next several years. Certainly he will die on the run or be captured eventually. I'm betting his extremism will get the best of him.

His prose is very IEI-like. Consider this statement by him regarding the death of Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi:

Our Islamic nation was surprised to find its knight, the lion of jihad, the man of determination and will, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, killed in a shameful American raid. We pray to God to bless him and accept him among the martyrs as he had hoped for."

Notice that he admires ESTp-like qualities in this passage. "Its knight", "man of determination and will." He's creating a new perception of Zarqawi with this statement.

As an INFp opinion leader, he is definitely the inspirational leader of Islamist terrorists around the globe, and his death would be a great loss to Islamism. However, I hear from Newsweek magazine that he's looking for an heir before he passes on/gets captured.

I think he'll get cornered but he won't be taken alive. I hear he has two bullets in his pistol for that reason alone.

[Suomea]

Agree with the IEI typing.

[discojoe]

I've been quartering Osama in my house for the past two years. He's actually really funny and makes really good waffles.

[Not A Communist Shill]

I've been quartering Osama in my house for the past two years. He's actually really funny and makes really good waffles.

YOU have him? Then who's the guy in my basement who likes playing ping-pong with Walt Disney?

[discojoe]

I've been quartering Osama in my house for the past two years. He's actually really funny and makes really good waffles.

YOU have him? Then who's the guy in my basement who likes playing ping-pong with Walt Disney?

His cousin, Osama Bin Loldin.

[Gilly]

I've been quartering Osama in my house for the past two years. He's actually really funny and makes really good waffles.

I always thought he was ILE. Does remind me a bit of a friend from home.

[Creepy-bg]

nice guy... really good people. Makes really strong margaritas

[CheGuevara]

I'm very convinced he is LII, harmonizing subtype.

[crazedrat]

well I'm convinced. the 'very' is what got me

[Gilly]

IEI

You just go looking for revolutionaries to type LII-H. You're full of shit. Go waste your fixated bullshit on something like school where it's useful and not just annoying.

[Krig the Viking]

I'm very convinced he is LII, harmonizing subtype.

Like I've been saying, Che, you're confusing H-LII with IEI. This is just more evidence of that.

[HERO]

- from Growing Up bin Laden: Osama’s Wife and Son Take Us Inside Their Secret World by Najwa bin Laden, Omar bin Laden, and Jean Sasson; p. 25:

My husband [Osama bin Laden], who would soon be twenty-two years old, was attending college at the King Abdul Aziz University. His main course of study was in economics and management, although he took a particular interest in his religion classes. My husband also devoted time to the charity work that is so important to a true believer.


- p. 17: Early each morning my husband [bin Laden] would awaken without any help from a clock, rising before the sun as effortlessly as if it were noontime.


- p. 19-21: When school was over, [Osama] would take up his duties at the family construction company. Despite his position as a bin Laden son, Osama would do the most difficult and dangerous work alongside his men. He knew how to drive the biggest equipment, including huge machinery with giant shovels that scraped out mountain roads. He actually worked on paving roads, although he said that he most enjoyed digging safe tunnels through the hard rock of the mountains in the Saudi desert.

Despite his youth, his older brothers felt so confident in his abilities that they made him a supervisor at a special construction project at Abha, a Saudi town a few hours’ drive south of Jeddah. To save travel time, most people would fly from Jeddah to Abha, but I never brought it up because Osama had lost his father in a plane crash. Besides, my husband had enough money from his inheritance to buy the latest model automobile and loved seeing how fast it could go. “Do not worry,” he would tell me. “The trip is safe and easy. My father personally supervised the road construction from Jeddah to Abha, so the road is the best.” I knew Osama was telling me the truth, for I had heard others in the family discussing that fine road; but I also knew the trip took him less time than most because he drove too fast. But I quieted my tongue about such matters, for my husband was not one to welcome a female with opposing opinions.

Once Osama had departed for school, I followed a specific routine. After getting dressed for the day, I would enjoy a cup of tea with my Auntie Allia while we discussed everything from the latest news about the royal family to the details of redecorating her home. I listened with special interest whenever she told me little secrets about the huge bin Laden clan, and I repeated to her the things I had heard from Osama. Although she had not been a member of the family in nearly fifteen years, she still knew much of their personal stories.

. . . . I remember a time at one of the women’s gatherings when one of Osama’s older sisters related a family joke that three of the bin Laden sons were “crazy and sick people.” The sister laughed as she said, “Crazy number one is the sky, and he is Salem the pilot, who is so reckless piloting his plane that everyone worries that each flight will be his last. Crazy number two is the sea, and he is Laden who sails heedlessly in his boat, causing the family to fear that he will one day disappear in the folds of the sea, or be lost to a boating accident. Crazy number three is the land, and he is Osama who drives his automobiles too fast in the desert and then leaps out of his car to climb mountains that are too rugged for any human being. We fear Osama will kill himself by his rash motoring.”

I knew that the women were joking and that my husband and his brothers were not crazy, although sadly enough the fears of the bin Laden women came true when Osama’s older brother, Salem, died a few years later in an airplane crash.

In addition to new cars with big engines, my husband treasured nature more than anyone I have ever known. Nothing brought him more satisfaction than having a full day to take a speedy drive to the desert, where he would leave his automobile while he took long walks. He was highly interested in everything made by God, down to the smallest plant and the smallest animal put on our earth.


- p. 9: “[On] September 3, 1967 . . . Osama [bin Ladin]’s father, Mohammed, was a passenger in a small airplane that stalled and crashed. At age sixty-one, Osama’s father was killed, along with several other people.

[Osama] was only ten years old, but he had greatly loved and respected his father.







September 11, 2001 was the most significant and influential day this century. The attacks in New York and Washington that morning were the deadliest and most shocking that America has ever experienced, and the political repercussions have been enormous. The attacks served as pretexts for wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have resulted in over a million deaths. They led to the declaration of a "war on terror," which has meant the loss of civil liberties in America and allied nations, increased domestic surveillance, and the kidnapping, imprisonment, and torture of suspected terrorists.

And yet there has never been a proper investigation to establish who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Government officials declared that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network were the culprits while the attacks were still taking place. Since then, all official investigations have been based on the assumption that this initial allocation of guilt was unquestionably correct.

But in the nine years since the attacks, a growing number of people around the world have come to seriously question that assumption. Close examination of the evidence has revealed so many discrepancies in the official story, and so much that contradicts it, that many people are doubting what we have been led to believe about 9/11.


EVIDENCE AGAINST THE OFFICIAL 9/11 STORY

The eight sets of evidence described below all indicate that much of the official accounts of what happened on 9/11 and who was responsible for the attacks is false. Instead, this evidence suggests the attacks were a "false flag operation," which is a kind of covert operation designed to appear as though it was carried out by some group other than its actual perpetrators. In this case, Arab Muslims have been blamed, when the real culprits were most likely rogue individuals working in the U.S. government and military.

The implications of this are devastating. We could be facing the biggest political scandal of all time, as the perpetrators of perhaps the worst act of treason in all history are identified, investigated, and brought to justice. The scandal could dominate the news for years and bring about a process of societal change, as we gradually deal with the corruption and criminality that has seriously impaired how our nations function and are governed.


EIGHT AREAS OF EVIDENCE

Independent researchers have amassed a huge volume of evidence contradicting the official 9/11 story. [1] I describe below eight specific areas of this evidence I have selected, which cast doubt on key aspects of the official account of 9/11, although a Presidential conspiracy is not backed up. I examine whether Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were really behind the attacks; I describe evidence that the World Trade Center towers were brought down deliberately with explosives; I examine what could have prevented the U.S. military from intercepting the four targeted airliners; and I show how the alleged crash sites at the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania were inconsistent with the plane impacts said to have occurred there.

Some of this evidence—such as that which indicates the WTC was demolished with explosives—is already quite conclusive. Other evidence will require further investigation, but is already highly suspicious and, cumulatively, points to the conclusion that 9/11 must have been a false flag operation.

1) Was Osama bin Laden responsible for 9/11?

Just after hearing a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet announced to his breakfast companion, "This has bin Laden all over it." [2] Minutes later, after a member of his staff informed him a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke concluded, "Well, now we know who we're dealing with." Then, as he burst into Vice President Dick Cheney's White House office, Clarke declared, "It's an al Qaeda attack." [3] By 4 o'clock that afternoon, CNN reported that "U.S. officials" were saying they had "new and specific information" showing "good indications that people with links to Osama bin Laden may have been responsible for these attacks." [4] These initial claims of who was responsible for 9/11 have, in mainstream discussion at least, mostly been accepted as beyond question. But proof has yet to be provided.

On September 23, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell promised that, "in the near future," the U.S. government would put out "a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have" linking Osama bin Laden to the attacks. [5] But no such paper was released. [6] Less than two weeks later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair presented to journalists and members of Parliament a document that supposedly showed al-Qaeda's responsibility for 9/11. [7] While that paper said the British government was "confident of its conclusions as expressed in this document," it added, "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama bin Laden in a court of law." [8]

The 9/11 Commission — the official investigation of the attacks established in late 2002 — said its aim had been "to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons learned." [9] However, it was apparently not one of the Commission's purposes to investigate who the perpetrators of the attacks were. [10] The Commission simply accepted that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible. Yet many of its claims about the 9/11 plot came from the torture of suspected terrorists. An analysis by NBC News found that "much of what [the 9/11 Commission] reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks ... was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al Qaeda operatives. Each had been subjected to 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' Some were even subjected to waterboarding, the most controversial of the techniques, which simulates drowning." The NBC News analysis showed that "more than one quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 [Commission] Report refer to CIA interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives who were subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations is central to the report's most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks." [11] Evidence gained in such a manner could hardly be called proof that al-Qaeda was behind 9/11. What is more, after September 11, Osama bin Laden declared his innocence on several occasions.


Bin Laden denies responsibility for 9/11

On September 12, 2001, a close aide of bin Laden's phoned a Palestinian journalist who had previously conducted several interviews with the al-Qaeda leader, and told him that bin Laden had stated, "I have no information about the attackers or their aims and I don't have any links with them." [12] The following day, through their ambassador to Pakistan, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said they had asked bin Laden about the 9/11 attacks, and he told them he did not "have any hand in this action." [13]

On September 16, bin Laden issued statements to the Arabic satellite television channel Al Jazeera and the Afghan Islamic Press, in which he denied responsibility for 9/11. In his statement to Al Jazeera, he said, "I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seem to have been planned by people for personal reasons.” [14] In an interview published later that month, bin Laden restated his denial, saying, "I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other human beings as an appreciable act." [15] And in a video statement broadcast on October 7, he praised those responsible for 9/11, but made no claim of responsibility for the attacks. [16]


The supposed confession video

But then, on December 13, the Pentagon released a video tape on which Osama bin Laden seemingly took responsibility for the attacks. [17] The tape was said to have been found in late November in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and then turned over to the CIA. [18] On it, bin Laden claimed to have known the 9/11 attacks would take place five days beforehand, and said the destruction of the Twin Towers exceeded his expectations. [19] Bush administration officials claimed the video was "proof that Mr. bin Laden was guilty in the September 11 attacks." [20]

However, this "proof" was dubious. Author David Ray Griffin has pointed out: "The bin Laden of this 'confession video' seems much darker than the pale bin Laden of the previous videos [in which he appeared]. ... He also seems to be heavier and to have fuller cheeks." He "seemed to have a differently shaped nose" and "shorter, heavier hands than the real bin Laden." Additionally, "although the real bin Laden was left-handed, the 'bin Laden' in the…video can be briefly seen writing with his right hand." [21] In February 2007, Bruce Lawrence, a professor of religion at Duke University who is widely considered America's leading academic expert on Osama bin Laden, told an interviewer that his opinion of this video was, "It's bogus." Lawrence said he had some friends in the U.S. government who were assigned to work "on the 24/7 bin Laden clock," and "they also know it's bogus." [22] In other words, the man apparently accepting responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in this video was not bin Laden, but instead probably an actor made up to look like him. This was fabricated evidence.


Dubious bin Laden communications

In the years since that video appeared, a number of statements supposedly made by Osama bin Laden, including audio and video messages, have been issued. However, their authenticity is also dubious. [23] For example, in 2007, the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Manno, Switzerland, which has done computer voice recognition for bank security, compared the voices on 15 of the more recent, alleged messages from bin Laden with the voices on 15 undisputedly authentic earlier recordings of him. The institute found that all of the questionable bin Laden recordings clearly differed from one another, as well as from the authentic messages, thus indicating they had been fabricated. And yet the CIA had claimed it found all of these messages to be authentic. [24]

Furthermore, the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" web page for the al Qaeda leader says Osama bin Laden is "wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya," and is "a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world." Yet nowhere does it mention him being considered responsible for the 9/11 attacks. [25] When questioned about this in 2006, the FBI's chief of investigative publicity replied, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." [26] It therefore appears that the FBI does not consider any of the supposed later communications from bin Laden to be "hard evidence" connecting him to the September 11 attacks.


2) The limited piloting skills of the alleged hijackers

On top of the lack of "hard evidence" for Osama bin Laden's involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the role of the supposed hijackers is also dubious. A particular question is whether the four alleged suicide pilots had the necessary flying skills to perform what has been attributed to them. None of them had flown a jet aircraft before September 11. Yet, supposedly, on their first attempt at doing so, they were able to navigate large passenger planes at high altitudes, without assistance from air traffic control. Three of these alleged pilots were apparently able to successfully locate their targets and hit them with pinpoint accuracy.

In the aftermath of 9/11, several experts raised doubts about whether such inexperienced, amateur pilots would have had the flying skills needed for the attacks. Darryl Jenkins, the director of the Aviation Institute at George Washington University, commented that whoever had flown the planes on September 11 must have known "what they were doing down to very small details. Every one of them was trained in flying big planes." According to the New York Times, "A number of aviation experts agreed [with Jenkins], saying the hijackers must have been experienced pilots." John Nance, an airline pilot and aviation analyst, said that "the direct hits on the two towers and on the Pentagon suggested to him that the pilots were experienced fliers." "The smooth banking of the second plane to strike the towers supports this point of view," he said, while "precisely controlling a large jet near the ground, necessary for the Pentagon attack, also required advanced skill." Nance concluded, "There's no way an amateur could have, with any degree of reliability, done what was done" on September 11. [27]


A pilot who had been with a major carrier for over 30 years told CNN that "the hijackers must have been extremely knowledgeable and capable aviators. ... [T]hey must have had plenty of skill and training." [28] Niki Lauda, the former Formula 1 world champion who is also a pilot and owned his own airline, said the suicide pilots "had to be fully trained 767 or 757 pilots, because otherwise they would have missed" their targets. He added that hitting a flat building like the Pentagon would have been "an even more difficult case" than hitting the World Trade Center. He said: "I would speculate that a normal airline pilot would have a hard time with that, because you are simply not prepared for things like that. That means [the hijackers] must have had some super-training to have been able to handle an airliner so precisely." [29] And a U.S. Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the Vietnam War commented that the hijacked aircraft "either had a crack fighter pilot in the left seat, or they were being maneuvered by remote control." [30]


Yet the four alleged hijacker pilots had only limited flying skills. In fact, the man who supposedly flew a Boeing 757 into the Pentagon was known to have been a terrible pilot.


Atta and Alshehhi train in Florida

Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, who allegedly piloted the two Boeing 767s that hit the Twin Towers, gained most of their flying skills between July and December 2000. Over that five-month period, they trained in a Cessna 172 (a small, four-seat propeller aircraft) at Huffman Aviation, a flying school in Venice, Florida. In mid-December that year, the two men reportedly passed their commercial pilot license tests. [31] But the owner of their flight school later said, "I have heard from the instructors that they were average students; the examiner told me the same." [32] Another flight student, who used the same training plane as Atta and Alshehhi, and saw the two men on an almost daily basis over a six-week period, noted that she "never saw Alshehhi take the controls of the aircraft. It was always Mohamed Atta." [33]

The nearest Atta and Alshehhi came to flying a jet plane before September 11 was at the end of December 2000, when they had two sessions at a flight school near Miami, and spent six hours training in its Boeing 727 simulator. The school's owner, Henry George, found the two men to be "average pilots," and described the training they received there as a "mini, mini introduction." [34] After 9/11, George commented: "I suppose Atta had just enough training to keep the plane in the air — how to make turns and move it up and down. He could not, however, have taxied a 757 or 767 from the gate, got it airborne, or landed it safely." [35] Furthermore the South Florida Sun-Sentinel pointed out that the Boeing 727 Atta and Alshehhi were training to fly "is a rather old three-engine jet with an old-fashioned cockpit, including a cramped instrument panel loaded down with small dials, knobs, and gauges." In contrast, the 767s they supposedly flew on September 11 "have highly sophisticated 'glass cockpits’ featuring video screens and digital readouts, and requiring an advanced level of computer skills." [36]


Ziad Jarran

The alleged hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which supposedly crash-landed in rural Pennsylvania, was Ziad Jarrah, a 26-year-old from Lebanon. Like Atta and Alshehhi, his piloting skills seem to have been, at best, limited. Jarrah learned to fly between late June 2000 and either December that year or January 2001, at the Florida Flight Training Center in Venice, Florida. He took lessons in a Cessna 152—a small, two-seat propeller plane. [37]

The owner of the Florida Flight Training Center later recalled Jarrah as being an "average" pilot, and commented: "We had to do more to get him ready than others. His flight skills seemed to be a little bit out there." [38] In the early summer of 2001, Jarrah spent a short time at a flight school in Philadelphia. But when he asked to fly the Hudson Corridor—a low-altitude "hallway" along the Hudson River—the flight school deemed him "unfit to fly solo, he could fly this route only with an instructor," according to the 9/11 Commission. [39]

The closest Jarrah came to flying a jet plane before 9/11 was during the few days he spent at a flight school in Miami in December 2000 and January 2001, when he took lessons in Boeing 727 and 737 simulators. [40] (However, the plane he allegedly flew on September 11 was a Boeing 757, not a 727 or a 737.)

Despite Jarrah's flying skills being "a little bit out there," it is officially claimed that, had Flight 93 not been stopped in its tracks by its courageous passengers, it would have been flown into the White House or the U.S. Capitol building. [41]


Hani Hanjour

The pilot who allegedly crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon was Hani Hanjour, a 29-year-old from Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 Commission called Hanjour "perhaps the most experienced and highly trained pilot among the 9/11 hijackers." [42] Yet those who met him found Hanjour to be a hopeless pilot.

In late 1996, Hanjour spent three months at a flight school in Scottsdale, Arizona. [43] The school's owner found Hanjour to be a "weak student" who was "wasting our resources." [44] The owner recalled, "He was not able to fly solo in a small plane, which is equivalent to getting out of a parking space [in a car] and stopping." [45]

A Phoenix, Arizona flight school Hanjour attended early in 2001 reported Hanjour to the Federal Aviation Administration after its instructors "found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine," according to the New York Times. Marilyn Ladner, a vice president at the Pan Am International Flight Academy, which operated the flight school, said the staff at the school "feared that [Hanjour's] skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner." One of the school's employees later commented: "I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all." [46]

In August 2001, Hanjour tried renting a plane at Freeway Airport in Bowie, Maryland. However, when two instructors took him on three test runs in a Cessna 172, they found he had trouble controlling and landing it. The chief flight instructor refused to rent Hanjour a plane without more lessons. [47]

Yet a few weeks later, on September 11, Hanjour is meant to have singlehandedly piloted a Boeing 757, flying it for many miles at high altitude without assistance from air traffic control. As air traffic controllers watched an unidentified aircraft — supposedly Flight 77 with Hanjour at the controls — on radar as it closed in on Washington at almost 500 miles per hour, they thought they were seeing a military jet due to the aircraft's high speed and the way it was being flown. One of those controllers later commented: "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [48]

CBS News described the complex maneuver Hanjour is then supposed to have performed in order to hit the Pentagon: "Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes. The steep turn was so smooth ... it's clear there was no fight for control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed." [49] Some aviation experts concluded that these final maneuvers were the work of "a great talent ... virtually a textbook turn and landing," according to the Washington Post. [50]


3) Were the twin towers brought down with explosives?

A claim made by skeptics of the official 9/11 story for which the supporting evidence is particularly strong is that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, along with WTC Building 7 (a large skyscraper that collapsed late in the afternoon of September 11), were brought down deliberately using pre-planted explosives. This claim is important, since no Muslim terrorist group would have been capable of carrying out such a sophisticated task. If the three WTC buildings were indeed demolished with explosives, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda could not have been responsible. The 9/11 attacks must have been an "inside job."


Fourteen characteristics of controlled demolition

The group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has listed 14 ways in which the collapses of the Twin Towers "exhibited all the characteristics of destruction by explosives." Its list included the fact that the towers fell straight down—rather than toppling over sideways—“through the path of greatest resistance, at nearly free-fall acceleration"; the "extremely rapid onset" of the collapses; the fact that steel sections of the towers weighing many tons were ejected laterally for distances of up to 600 feet and at speeds of around 60 miles per hour; large quantities of molten metal were subsequently found in the basement areas below where the WTC buildings had stood; over 100 first responders have reported hearing explosions or seeing flashes during the collapses; and no steel-framed high-rise building had ever collapsed previously due to fire (nor have any done so since 9/11). The collapses also "exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire." [51]


4) Why did a third skyscraper collapse on September 11?

The evidence that the third tower to collapse on 9/11 — Building 7 of the World Trade Center (WTC 7) — was brought down with explosives is even more compelling than the evidence relating to the Twin Towers' collapses. [52]

WTC 7 was a 47-story office building located about 350 feet north of the Twin Towers. It suffered some structural damage when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., and then endured what appears to have been relatively small fires on several of its floors. [53] Although it had not been struck by a plane, this building collapsed completely at 5:21 that afternoon. As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) pointed out in the final report of its investigation into the collapse of WTC 7, this was "the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires." NIST continued: "[T]he fires in WTC 7 were similar to those that have occurred in several tall buildings where the automatic sprinklers did not function or were not present. These other buildings did not collapse." [54] Indeed, the New York Times called the collapse of WTC 7 "a mystery that under normal circumstances would probably have captured the attention of the city and the world." [55]

Furthermore, WTC 7 came down in a manner that perfectly resembled a typical demolition using explosives. This massive skyscraper collapsed completely in just 6.5 seconds, meaning it came down at almost free-fall speed. As physicist Steven E. Jones pointed out, it was "as if something [was] moving the material out of the way beneath the roof" as the building fell. "[S]omething like explosives, for example." [56]

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has listed 10 ways in which the collapse of WTC 7 resembled a classic controlled demolition. These include the rapid onset of the collapse; the fact that the building came straight down, symmetrically, "through the path of greatest resistance"; the building "imploded," collapsing completely and landing mostly within its own "footprint" (the area within the building's exterior walls); and numerous members of the New York City Police Department and the Fire Department of New York have made statements indicating they had foreknowledge of the collapse, even though, before that day, no steel-reinforced high-rise building had ever come down due to fire. And, like the collapses of the Twin Towers, the collapse of WTC 7 "exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire." [57]


Explosive material found in WTC dust

An important 25-page scientific paper was published in April 2009, which strengthened the case for the controlled demolition hypothesis. The peer-reviewed paper was the result of an in-depth study by nine scientists and engineers. Its lead author was Niels Harrit, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Harrit and his co-authors found significant quantities of what appeared to be an advanced and powerful explosive material called nano-thermite in the dust generated when the WTC towers came down.

The authors examined four samples of dust from the WTC collapses that had been collected by private citizens living in New York, from separate sites, on September 11 or in the days shortly afterwards. In all the samples, very small red and grey chips were discovered. The authors analyzed these chips using a number of methods, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS).

The red material was found to include aluminum and iron oxide, which are the ingredients of thermite. [58] (Thermite is an incendiary material, i.e. it is used to cause fires.) The authors also found that when the red/grey chips were ignited, the "spheroidal residues" that formed had "a strikingly similar chemical signature to a typical XEDS spectrum from a spheroid generated by commercial thermite." This finding supported the hypothesis that the chips were "indeed a form of thermite." (An earlier paper written by some of the study's authors, along with other individuals, noted that many tiny spheres, which also contained the same elements as the residue from the ignition of thermite, had been found in the dust generated when the WTC towers collapsed.) [59]

The authors pointed out that when the ingredients of thermite "are ultra-fine grain and are intimately mixed, this 'nano-thermite' reacts very rapidly, even explosively, and is sometimes referred to as 'super-thermite.'" And, they wrote, the red/grey chips' "low temperature of ignition and the presence of iron oxide grains less than 120 nanometers show that the material is not conventional thermite ... but very likely a form of super-thermite," which, rather than being an incendiary material, "is considered a pyrotechnic or explosive."

Based on their observations, the authors concluded, "[T]he red layer of the red/gray chips we have discovered in the WTC dust is active, unreacted thermitic material, incorporating nanotechnology, and is a highly energetic pyrotechnic or explosive material." [60]

Steven E. Jones, a retired professor of physics at Brigham Young University, Utah, who was one of the paper's authors, has therefore questioned: "What is high-tech explosive/pyrotechnic material in large quantities doing in the WTC dust? Who made tons of this stuff and why? Why have government investigators refused to look for explosive residues in the WTC aftermath?" [61] Lead author Niels Harrit concluded, "There is no doubt that the three [WTC] towers were demolished on 9/11," and commented that his paper's conclusions are inconsistent "with the official conspiracy theory [about 9/11], the one with Osama bin Laden and 19 hijackers." Harrit added, "We must have a criminal investigation to find out what [happened]." [62]


5) The failure of America's air defenses

Like the World Trade Center collapses, the failure of the U.S. military to successfully intercept any of the four aircraft targeted on September 11 and prevent them reaching their targets has raised much suspicion. Particular attention has been paid to the actions of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending U.S. airspace.

The 9/11 attacks occurred in airspace that was the responsibility of NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), based in Rome, New York. At the time of the attacks, NORAD had seven "alert" sites across the United States it could call on in emergencies. Each of these kept two fighter jets on the runway that were armed, fueled, and ready to take off immediately when required. [63] Of the seven alert sites, NEADS had two it could call upon: Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. [64]

In the days after 9/11, it was reported that the two fighters on alert at Otis Air National Guard Base could, when called upon, "be in the air within five minutes." [65] The two fighters on alert at Langley Air Force Base were at the same high state of readiness. As author Lynn Spencer pointed out, the pilots for those aircraft were "always just five minutes away from rolling out of the hangars in their armed fighters. They live, eat, and sleep just steps from jets." [66] And yet NORAD appears to have performed abysmally on September 11, failing to successfully deal with situations it was more than adequately prepared to handle.


American 11 becomes an in-flight emergency

The emergency situation on September 11 began at 8:14 a.m., the time at which, the 9/11 Commission concluded, hijackers seized control of American Airlines Flight 11. At that time, air traffic controllers lost communication with the plane, as its pilots failed to respond to a request to climb to 35,000 feet. [67] Seven minutes later, the seriousness of the emergency became more apparent when Flight ll's transponder was switched off. [68] (A transponder is a device that sends an aircraft's identifying information, speed, and altitude to controllers' radar screens.) The controller responsible for Flight 11 then told his supervisor that he thought something was seriously wrong with the plane. Minutes later, around 8:24 to 8:25, the controller heard a Middle Eastern-sounding voice, apparently one of the hijackers, in two radio transmissions. He then realized this was a hijacking. [69]

Procedures for dealing with aircraft emergencies

NORAD and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates civil aviation and is responsible for operating a system of air traffic control, have specific procedures for dealing with aircraft emergencies. Robin Hordon was an air traffic controller at the FAA's Boston Center between 1970 and 1981, and was certified in the air traffic sector where Flight 11 became an emergency on September 11. He has described:

Scrambling jet fighters to intercept aircraft showing the signs of experiencing 'in-flight emergencies’ such as going off course without authorization, losing a transponder signal, and/or losing radio contact, is a common and routine task executed jointly between the FAA and NORAD controllers. The entire 'national defense-first responder' intercept system has many highly trained civilian and military personnel who are committed and well-trained to this task. FAA and NORAD continuously monitor our skies, and fighter planes and pilots are on the ready 24/7 to handle these situations. [70]

As MSNBC described: "If a plane deviates by 15 degrees, or two miles from [its pre-arranged] course, the flight controllers will hit the panic button. They'll call the plane, saying 'American 11, you're deviating from course.' It's considered a real emergency." [71] According to Hordon: "When air traffic controllers lose an aircraft, all hell breaks loose. They flip right into motion. We take action and do not wait for other things to happen." [72]

In response to these emergencies, as MSNBC continued, "F-16 interceptors can fly alongside a plane to see who's flying it. They can also try to force it off course. Once it is apparent that it is not following directions, it might be forced over the ocean or to a remote airport—or even shot down." [73] According to Hordon, "Jet fighters typically intercept any suspect plane over the United States within 10 to 15 minutes of notification of a problem." [74]

The protocol for dealing with an "in-flight emergency" is much faster than that for dealing with a hijacking. According to Hordon, Flight 11 "was always an in-flight emergency, and only after hearing the cockpit troubles was it considered a 'hijack.' Therefore, 'emergency aircraft protocols' and 'hijack protocols' should have been used all throughout the event, and the fastest protocol [i.e. that for dealing with in-flight emergencies] would be utilized." [75]

Even before 9/11, dealing with in-flight emergencies was a common occurrence. A 1994 report published by the General Accounting Office noted, "Overall, during the past four years, NORAD's alert fighters took off to intercept aircraft (referred to as scrambled) 1,518 times, or an average of 15 times per site per year." Out of these 1,518 scrambles — an average of about one per day — over 93 percent "involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress." [76] As MSNBC concluded, "Clearly, the Air Force had the capability and the training to intercept the American and United flights that hit the World Trade Center" on September ll. [77]


Military alerted 24 minutes after emergency began

And yet, according to the 9/11 Commission, the military was not notified about Flight 11 until just before 8:38 a.m., about 24 minutes after the aircraft had shown the first signs of being an emergency, and 13 minutes after the air traffic controller concluded it had been hijacked. The FAA's Boston Center, which had been monitoring Flight 11, called NEADS to report the hijacking, and asked it to "scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out." [78]

At 8:46 a.m., NEADS ordered Otis Air Base, which is 153 miles from New York, to launch the two F-15s it kept on alert. By that time, Flight 11 was crashing into the World Trade Center. The F-15s were airborne at 8:53 a.m. However they did not fly directly to New York. As the 9/11 Commission described: "Lacking a target," the two fighter jets "were vectored toward military-controlled airspace off the Long Island coast. To avoid New York area air traffic and uncertain about what to do, the fighters were brought down to military airspace to 'hold as needed.' From 9:09 to 9:13, the Otis fighters stayed in this holding pattern." [79] The jets were therefore unable to prevent United Airlines Flight 175 from hitting the South Tower of the WTC at 9:03 a.m. According to the 9/11 Commission, after leaving their "holding pattern" at 9:13 a.m., the F-15s finally arrived over Manhattan at 9:25 a.m. [80] But numerous witnesses who were on the ground in Manhattan have recalled first noticing fighter jets overhead significantly later, sometime after 10:00 a.m. [81]


The failed response of Langley fighter jets

The response of the alert jets at Langley Air Force Base, which is 130 miles south of Washington, appears to have been as poor as the Otis jets' response, if not worse. NEADS ordered the two F-16s, along with an additional jet that was available, to take off from Langley at 9:24 a.m. This was 21 minutes after the second attack in New York, and 13 minutes before the Pentagon was hit. The jets were airborne at 9:30 a.m. and were directed toward the Washington area. However, they were not launched in response to the hijacking of Flight 77, the aircraft that supposedly hit the Pentagon. They were launched in response to an incorrect report that Flight 11 was still airborne, and flying toward Washington. [82]

Minutes after the jets took off, a staff sergeant at NEADS noticed they were flying in the wrong direction, heading east out over the ocean. Consequently, when the Pentagon was hit at 9:37 a.m., the three F-16s were about 150 miles from it, which was further away from the Pentagon than they had been when they took off. [83]

Witnesses on the ground have recalled noticing the first fighter jet arriving over the Pentagon at around 10:40 a.m., about an hour after the attack there. Understandably, one firefighter commented: "Thank God that guy's there! Where has he been?" [84]

How do we account for the failure of the FAA and the military to stop the attacks in New York and Washington? The personnel at NORAD and NEADS could hardly be accused of being incompetent. In fact, only two and a half years earlier, in January 1999, the 1st Air Force air sovereignty team, which, as part of NORAD, is responsible for the air defense of the United States, scored an unprecedented "grand slam" in an evaluation of its effectiveness. That evaluation tested the command and control skills of the three NORAD air defense sectors, including NEADS. AU three were rated "outstanding," the highest score possible on a five-tier scale. Brigadier General Kenneth Stromquist Jr., the 1st Air Force vice commander, commented on the success, pointing out, "There's never been a grand slam ... in the history of this outfit." [85]

The apparent collapse of America's air defenses on 9/11 therefore raises the disturbing possibility that a deliberate attempt was made to sabotage those defenses, thereby enabling the attacks on New York and Washington to succeed.


6) Training exercises might have facilitated the 9/11 attacks

An aspect of 9/11 that may help explain how a paralysis of America's air defenses could have been achieved is a number of training exercises that were conducted by the U.S. military and other government agencies in the years preceding September 11 and, notably, at the time the attacks took place. Many of these exercises practiced for scenarios remarkably similar to the attacks in New York and Washington, such as planes being used as weapons, or planes crashing into the World Trade Center or Pentagon. [86]

It has been suggested that planners may have included scenarios like what happened on September 11 in these exercises so as to enable rogue individuals within the U.S. government to organize, and then perpetrate, the 9/11 attacks, without being found out and stopped by their more honest colleagues. [87] Author Webster Tarpley described the following scenario to illustrate how training exercises might enable a coup to be prepared for and carried out: A rogue officer "may be working at a console next to another officer who is not in on the coup, and who might indeed oppose it if he knew about it." The rogue officer is behaving suspiciously. "The loyal officer looks over and asks the [rogue officer] about it. The [rogue officer] cites a staff maneuver for which he is preparing. The loyal officer concludes that the [rogue officer's] activities are part of an officially sanctioned drill, and his suspicions are allayed." The rogue officer might explain that participation in the exercise requires a special security clearance, which his more honest colleague does not have. "The conversation ends, and the [rogue officer] can go on with his treasonous work." [88] It is at least plausible that the training exercises resembling the 9/11 attacks served a similar purpose to the drill in this scenario.


Exercises before 9/11:

While members of the Bush administration and U.S. military claimed that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington had been unexpected, [89] the military and other government agencies in fact considered scenarios much like what happened on 9/11, and conducted numerous training exercises in the year or two before September 11 based around scenarios resembling those attacks.


Planes as weapons:

For example, Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI from September 1993 to June 2001, told the 9/11 Commission that in the years 2000 and 2001, the subject of "planes as weapons" was always one of the considerations in the planning of security for "a series of ... special events." [90] There were about four or five "special events" each year, and they included occasions such as the 2000 Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the 2001 presidential inauguration. [91] Freeh said that "resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat”—planes as weapons—and added that "the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions" was "part of the planning" for those special events. [92]


Simulated attack on the World Trade Center:

Furthermore, as USA Today revealed, during the two years before 9/11, NORAD conducted exercises based on the scenario of terrorists hijacking aircraft and using them "as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." Notably, "One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center." [93] And, according to author Lynn Spencer, military personnel were briefed on the possibility of terrorists targeting the WTC with aircraft. Spencer wrote that when a former Marine who was working at NEADS on September 11 learned of the first attack, "The news brought to mind one of his briefings: What if a terrorist flies an airplane with a weapon of mass destruction into the World Trade Center? It had always been one of the military's big fears." [94]


Simulated plane crashes at the Pentagon:

What is more, at least three training exercises were conducted in the 12 months before 9/11 based around the possibility of an aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. An exercise in October 2000 involved emergency responders gathering at a conference room in the Pentagon and practicing their responses to a number of scenarios, including a passenger aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. [95] In May 2001, two clinics located in the Pentagon held a tabletop exercise based around a plane crashing into the west side of the Pentagon—the side of the building that was hit on September ll. [96] And in August 2001, a mass casualty exercise was held at the Pentagon, involving a practice evacuation of the building. General Lance Lord, the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force, later commented, "Purely a coincidence, the scenario for that exercise included a plane hitting the building." [97]

Certainly, if rogue individuals within the U.S. government and military were behind 9/11, exercises and other emergency preparations like these would have provided a useful smokescreen that would help them prepare the attacks undetected by their colleagues. A rogue employee might have been on the phone with another of the conspirators, talking about using planes as weapons, or crashing an aircraft into the World Trade Center or Pentagon. If a colleague overheard the conversation and inquired what they were talking about, the rogue employee could say they were just discussing a forthcoming training exercise or the preparations for a future "special event."


Exercises on the day of 9/11:

As previously mentioned, training exercises resembling the 9/11 attacks were actually taking place at the time those attacks occurred. It is particularly notable that on September 11, the agency at the center of coordinating the military's response to the attacks was in the middle of a major exercise: Personnel at NEADS were participating in "Vigilant Guardian."


Vigilant guardian, a 'simulated air war':

Vigilant Guardian was an annual exercise in which all of NORAD participated. [98] The scenarios scheduled to be practiced at NEADS on September 11 appear to have had similarities to the real-world attacks. For example, the exercise has been described as a "simulated air war" and as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States." [99] It was even set to include a simulated hijacking that would have taken place around the time of the Pentagon attack. (According to Vanity Fair, this would have been a "traditional" simulated hijack, "in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum." [100])

Although most of the personnel at NEADS were unaware beforehand what the day's exercise was going to entail [101], as part of that year's Vigilant Guardian, they had faced a scenario in the previous few days that also had similarities to the 9/11 attacks. On September 9, they'd practiced their response to a simulated hijacking in which terrorists took over a plane bound from London, England, to New York's JFK International Airport. The hijackers had explosives on board, which they planned to detonate when the plane was over New York. [102]


National Reconnaissance Office plane-into-building exercise:

Another exercise scheduled for the morning of September 11, which also resembled the actual attacks, was held at an intelligence agency just over 20 miles from the Pentagon. The exercise, conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office at its headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia, was set to include the scenario of a small private jet plane crashing into a tower building at the headquarters at 9:32 a.m. This would have been just five minutes before the attack at the nearby Pentagon took place. No real aircraft was going to be used, and the simulated crash was to be the result of mechanical failure, not terrorism. However, the plane in the scenario was supposed to have taken off from Washington Dulles International Airport, which was where Flight 77—the plane that allegedly hit the Pentagon—took off from earlier that morning. [103]



Exercises were confused with real-world events:


There were numerous instances of military personnel mistaking real-world events on September 11 for part of an exercise. It certainly seems possible that this confusion could have contributed to a paralysis of emergency responses.


For example, Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins, who was working at NEADS, has said that when she was told of the first hijacking, she thought "It must be part of the exercise." [104] Major Kevin Nasypany, the NEADS mission crew commander, has recalled that when he learned of it, he "actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour,’" referring to the hijacking scenario in the NORAD exercise, which he'd helped design. When the troops at NEADS learned there had been a second hijacking, over 20 minutes later, one of them commented, "I think this is a damn input, to be honest." An "input" is a simulated scenario, as part of a training exercise. [105]


Several members of medical staff at the Pentagon have recalled that, when they were instructed to evacuate the building after the attack there, they initially thought this was a drill. [106] And at Fort Monmouth, an Army base about 50 miles south of New York, preparations had been underway for an exercise called Timely Alert II, which would test the base's emergency response capabilities to a biochemical terrorist attack. When a group of participating volunteers was told a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, they thought this was part of the exercise simulation and so they pretended to be upset. Some people even thought the television footage of the burning WTC was an elaborate training video created for the exercise. One worker told a fire department training officer, "You really outdid yourself this time.” [107]



Exercises diverted resources:

Some exercises on the day of 9/11 and in the weeks beforehand diverted resources, such as personnel and equipment, which could otherwise have been used to help respond to, and maybe stop, the attacks on New York and Washington. For example, the morning of September 11, an FBI and CIA anti-terrorist task force that, according to USA Today, "specifically prepared for this type of disaster," was away from Washington for a training exercise on the other side of the country, in Monterey, California. This meant that the FBI's "top teams, about 50 personnel, helicopters, [and] equipment" were far away from where they were needed. [108]

The District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG), which is located at Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles from Washington, was also impaired as a result of training exercises. Three days before September 11, members of the DCANG returned from a major exercise in Nevada called "Red Flag." As a result, most of the fighter pilots, who were involved with the unit on only a part-time basis, were away from the base on 9/11, either back at their usual jobs or on leave. [109] There were therefore just seven DCANG pilots available that morning. [110] And of these seven, three took off about 10 minutes before the first attack in New York for a routine training mission about 200 miles away from base, over North Carolina. They did not make it back to Andrews until after the attacks had ended. [111]




7) Did Flight 93 crash in rural Pennsylvania?

Many aspects of the official story of Flight 93 are questionable, but the story is most obviously problematic when we examine the site where this aircraft supposedly went down, in a field in rural Pennsylvania. Specifically, it did not appear that a Boeing 757 had crashed there. Early witnesses at the scene saw little that resembled the wreckage we would expect from a plane hitting the ground. The small amount of debris at the site could simply have been planted there.



Lack of plane wreckage:


For example, Wallace Miller, the local coroner, who was among the first people to arrive at the alleged crash site, has recalled seeing just a small, smoking crater, which, he said, looked "like someone took a scrap truck, dug a 10-foot ditch, and dumped all this trash into it." [112] Jon Meyer, a local television news reporter, said: "I was able to get right up to the edge of the crater. ... All I saw was a crater filled with small, charred plane parts. Nothing that would even tell you that it was the plane. ... There were no suitcases, no recognizable plane parts, no body parts." [113]


Rick King, a local assistant volunteer fire chief, also saw the crater where Flight 93 supposedly crashed. But, he said, "Never in my wildest dreams did I think half the plane was down there." He sent his men into the woods nearby to search for the plane's fuselage, but they kept coming back and telling him, "Rick, there's nothing." [114] Scott Spangler, a photographer with a local newspaper, recalled: "I didn't think I was in the right place. ... I was looking for anything that said tail, wing, plane, metal. There was nothing." [115] And local FBI agent Wells Morrison recalled arriving at the crash site, saying: "My first thought was, 'Where is the plane?' ... I was not seeing anything that was distinguishable either as human remains or aircraft debris." [116]

Although these witnesses saw little that resembled plane crash debris, after searching the area over the following two weeks, the FBI claimed it had recovered 95 percent of the aircraft. [117]


No human remains:

Furthermore, there was almost nothing that resembled human remains at the site, even though 44 people were on board the plane that supposedly crashed there. Dave Fox, a former firefighter, reportedly saw just "three chunks of torn human tissue." He later said, "You knew there were people there, but you couldn't see them." [118] As previously mentioned, coroner Wallace Miller was among the first people to arrive at the scene. According to Australian newspaper The Age, "the only recognizable body part he saw was a piece of spinal cord, with five vertebrae attached." Almost a year after 9/11, Miller recalled, "The interesting thing about this particular case is that I haven't, to this day, 11 months later, seen any single drop of blood." [119] He said: "If you didn't know, you would have thought no one was on the plane. You would have thought they dropped them off somewhere." [120]

And yet, in the weeks after 9/11, searchers were reportedly able to find about 1,500 human tissue samples, weighing a total of 510 pounds. [121] Three and a half months after September 11, it was reported that "the remains of the 40 passengers and crew, and, by process of elimination, the four hijackers" on Flight 93 had all been identified. [122]


No jet fuel at crash site:

Perhaps strangest of all is that investigators apparently found no evidence of jet fuel in the soil where Flight 93 is meant to have crashed. Six days after 9/11, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) started taking soil samples from the hole dug around the crater supposedly caused by the crash, to check for contamination by the plane's fuel and other hazardous materials. Three test wells were also sunk to monitor groundwater. [123]

The National Transportation Safety Board calculated that Flight 93 would have had about 37,500 lb of fuel remaining when it crashed, which was 77 percent of its fuel load at takeoff. One would logically expect a large amount of this fuel to have soaked into the soil. [124] And yet, two weeks after tests began, DEP spokeswoman Betsy Mallison reported that "no contamination has been discovered" in the soil and groundwater. [125] She said that, "whether it burned away or evaporated," much of the jet fuel that should have spilled at the site "seems to have dissipated." [126]



Paper survives the crash:


What is more, while there was a conspicuous lack of plane debris, human remains, and jet fuel, a large amount of paper was found around the crash site, mostly intact. According to journalist and author Jere Longman, Flight 93 had been carrying thousands of pounds of mail, "and pieces had scattered about, envelopes with California addresses, magazines, paper on the ground and in the trees, some of the envelopes burned, some still in the same unharmed condition in which they were mailed." [127] Two emergency responders later recalled seeing "pieces of mail" that were "scattered everywhere." One of them said, "I guess there were 5,000 pounds of mail on board." [128] Several people recalled seeing an unscorched bible, apparently from the plane, lying on the ground near the crash crater. [129] And two of the alleged hijackers' passports were apparently able to survive the crash, and were later recovered from the crash site. [130]


But if the official story of what happened to Flight 93 were correct, surely paper would be far more likely to burn up than metal, other plane debris, and human remains. And yet paper appears to have been the one thing most able to withstand the crash. I would suggest that a more plausible explanation than the official account is that this was a crude attempt at faking the scene of a plane crash. The intention of the perpetrators was to deceive us, the public, into believing Flight 93 did indeed crash in this field in Pennsylvania.




8) What hit the Pentagon on 9/11?



As previously discussed, the particularly poor flying skills of Hani Hanjour—the hijacker allegedly at the controls of Flight 77—combined with the failure of NORAD to successfully intervene, casts doubt upon the official account of the Pentagon attack. But photographs and eyewitness descriptions of the area where Flight 77—a Boeing 757—supposedly hit the Pentagon have led to additional questions being raised. What we find is a similar problem to that with the alleged Flight 93 crash site: there was little to be seen at the site of the Pentagon attack that resembled the wreckage we would expect from a plane crash, and the small amount of debris at the scene may simply have been planted there.


Additionally, the hole supposedly made by Flight 77 hitting the west wall of the Pentagon appears to have been too small to have been caused by a 757. And while a few videos from nearby security cameras have been released showing the crash, nowhere on them can we make out a Boeing 757. Some people have therefore suggested that the Pentagon was not hit by Flight 77, but instead perhaps by a missile.



The small impact hole:


American Airlines Flight 77 was a Boeing 757-200. This aircraft has a wingspan of 124 feet 10 inches and a tail height of 44 feet 6 inches. While an official report estimated the damage at the point of impact on the Pentagon's exterior wall to be approximately 90 feet in width [131], photographs taken shortly after the attack took place (and before a large section of the building's west wall collapsed, about 35-40 minutes after the attack) indicate that the most significant damage was much smaller, consisting of a hole about 15 to 18 feet in diameter. [132] This damage appears far too small to have been created by such a large aircraft. François Grangier, an expert on aircraft accidents, has commented: "What is certain when one looks at the photo of [the Pentagon] façade that remains intact is that it's obvious the plane did not go through there. It's like imagining that a plane of this size could pass through a window and leave the frame still standing." [133]


One person who saw the hole in the exterior wall was Steve DeChiaro, the president of a New Jersey technology firm. DeChiaro had just arrived at the Pentagon when it was hit and immediately headed to the crash scene. He has recalled: "[W]hen I looked at the site, my brain could not resolve the fact that it was a plane because it only seemed like a small hole in the building. No tail. No wings. No nothing." [134]



The lack of wreckage and the intact lawn:


Other witnesses have commented on the lack of debris at the scene of the attack. Sergeant Reginald Powell, a Pentagon medical worker, recalled: "I saw no plane, nothing left from the plane. It was like it disintegrated as it went into the building." [135] Eileen Murphy, a nurse who worked at the Pentagon, described seeing the crash site: "I expected to see the airplane, so I guess my initial impression was: 'Where's the plane? How come there's not a plane?'" [136] Firefighter John Dürrer, who arrived at the Pentagon within minutes of the attack, has recalled that after he saw the crash site, he thought: "Well where's the airplane, you know, where's the parts to it? You would think there'd be something." [137]

ABC News correspondent John McWethy was taken to the crash site by an Army general he knew. McWethy has recalled: "I got in very close, got a look early on at the bad stuff. I could not, however, see any plane wreckage — it was well inside and had been, basically, vaporized." [138] Early that afternoon, CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie Mclntyre described: "[T]he only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you can pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage, nothing like that anywhere around." [139]


Another oddity, which photos clearly show, is that the lawn in front of where Flight 77 supposedly hit the Pentagon was perfectly intact. [140] The damage to the building's exterior wall indicated that the Pentagon was hit at its first and second floors. Yet there were no scorch marks or signs of gouging in the lawn that a large plane would presumably have made had it crashed into the building so low down. Indeed, on one photo of the crash site, while we can easily make out track marks across the lawn made by one of the first fire trucks to have arrived there, we see no marks from any plane. [141]

The smallness of the damage to the building, the lack of plane wreckage at the crash site, and the intact lawn therefore appear to contradict the official claim that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on September 11.


Unseen security videos:

The controversy over what hit the Pentagon could be settled if security camera footage were released clearly showing what happened. However, nine years after the attack occurred, no such footage has been made public.

In May 2006, the Department of Defense officially released two pieces of video, recorded by security cameras outside the Pentagon, which showed the moment of impact. However, the footage was of poor quality and showed no clear sign of a large aircraft. [142] In December that year, the FBI released security camera footage of the Pentagon attack taken from the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. But, while the low quality recording showed the explosion from the attack, no 757 was visible on it. [143]

The U.S. government reportedly has around 80 other tapes relating to the Pentagon attack, but these have not been made public. [144]


Did a missile hit the Pentagon?:

Evidence, including that described above, has led some people to suggest that something smaller than a Boeing 757, like a missile, may have hit the Pentagon. Pierre-Henri Bunel, a graduate of the French officers' academy and a former artillery officer, who has expertise in the effects of explosives on buildings, examined photographs of the crash site, along with some of the publicly released security camera footage of the Pentagon attack. Based on his observations and analysis, Bunel commented, "The flying device that struck the Department of Defense has, at first sight, nothing to do with the airliner of the official version." [145] He examined a photo showing the hole at the end of the path of damage supposedly made by Flight 77 [146], and noted, "The appearance of the perforation in the wall certainly resembles the effects of anti-concrete hollow charges that I have been able to observe on a number of battlefields.” [147] Bunel concluded, "[T]he detonation that struck the building was that of a high-powered hollow charge used to destroy hardened buildings and carried by an aerial vehicle, a missile." [148]


Alleged eyewitness accounts:

The main evidence supporting the official claim about what hit the Pentagon on 9/11 is the accounts of alleged eyewitnesses to the attack. A number of people indeed said they saw a large commercial aircraft hitting the Pentagon. [149] But a possibility worth considering and investigating is that these supposed eyewitnesses were ordered or coerced—perhaps through blackmail, threats, or other intimidation—into giving false accounts. Supporting this possibility is the account of April Gallop, an administrative specialist with the U.S. Army who was at the Pentagon when it was attacked. After crawling out of the wreckage there, she was taken to hospital. She has recalled that, while in hospital, she was visited on more than one occasion by some men dressed in suits. These men never identified themselves or said which agency they worked for. But Gallop has recalled that they told her "what to do, which was to take the [victim compensation fund] money and shut up." She added: "They also kept insisting that a plane hit the building. They repeated this over and over. But I was there and I never saw a plane or even debris from a plane." [150]

Until the attack is properly investigated, and all of the videos relating to it are made public, the controversy over what hit the Pentagon will remain as another reason to be suspicious of the official account of 9/11.

What I have described above is a significant amount of evidence that I feel shows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the truth about 9/11 is very different to what has been officially claimed. However, we still know too little to conclude what exactly did happen that day, and determine who planned and perpetrated the attacks. We need a new, unrestrained, largescale investigation that will pursue the truth, wherever it might lead. This investigation would need to be accompanied by close scrutiny from the press, along with independent investigative work by journalists. It would, inevitably, be the story of the century.


EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO ALTERNATIVE 9/11 THEORIES

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts has raised important questions regarding people's emotional reactions to evidence contradicting the official 9/11 story. He wrote: "[P]eople I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11 ... believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. 'How can this be,' I ask them. 'Did the government slip up once and tell the truth?'" Yet those people did not then reconsider their acceptance of the government's account of 9/11. "Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait."

Roberts observed the problems created by the "emotional needs of people," writing, "With 9/11, many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don't feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called 'terrorist sympathizers.'" He noted that some on the political left "have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the U.S. have delivered 'blowbacks.' Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government's propaganda that Muslims attacked the U.S."

Roberts concluded: "Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case. In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe." [151]

What Roberts highlighted is the need for research and analysis, to find why so many people have been resistant to evidence contradicting the official 9/11 story. This is one of the many questions around the September 11 attacks that psychohistory, with its unique insights, needs to address. To understand the attacks, we also need to understand the attackers. What motivated these individuals? Why were their colleagues unable to stop them? How was it possible for them to deceive us, the public, for so long? Addressing questions like these will be of great importance, because, with a fuller understanding of 9/11, we can reduce the risk of an atrocity like it ever happening again. — Matt Everett


ENDNOTES

1. See, for example, Ian Henshall, 9/11: The New Evidence. London: Robinson Publishing, 2007; David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the CoverUp, and the Exposé. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008.

2. Bob Woodward, Bush at War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, p. 4; "Terror Hits the Towers: How Government Officials Reacted to Sept. 11 Attacks." ABC News, September 14, 2002



3. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004, pp. 1-2.


4. "Karen Hughes Delivers Remarks on Terrorist Attacks." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../11/bn.52.html ; "September 11: Chronology of Terror." CNN, September 12, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/


5. Meet the Press. NBC, September 23, 2001. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...ext092301.html


6. Seymour Hersh, "Missed Messages." New Yorker, June 3, 2002.


7. "Blair Puts Case Against bin Laden." BBC News, October 4, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1578860.stm ; "Blair Unveils Evidence Against bin Laden." Daily Telegraph, October 4, 2001; http://www.thedemocracyworkshop.com/article01.htm


8. "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001." 10 Downing Street, October 4, 2001.


9. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Authorized Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. xvi.


10. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, To Establish the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, and for Other Purposes. 107th Cong., 2nd Sess., May 14, 2002.


11. Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, "9/11 Commission Controversy." Deep Background: NBC News Investigates, January 30, 2008, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/po...n_torture.html

12. "Bin Laden Denies Role in Attacks, Reporter Says." Associated Press, September 13, 2001, http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/in.../osamaa13.html ; "Aide Says bin Laden Denies Role in U.S. Attacks." Reuters, September 13, 2001, http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9...uters-aide.htm


13. "Taliban Says bin Laden Denies Role in Attacks." Reuters, September 13, 2001, http://www.welfarestate.com/binladen...rs-taliban.htm


14. "Bin Laden Says He Wasn't Behind Attacks." CNN, September 17, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16...ef=storysearch ; Luke Harding, Rory McCarthy, Brian Whitaker, and Richard Norton-Taylor, "Bin Laden and Family Flee to the Hills and Family go Into Hiding." The Guardian, September 17, 2001.


15. "Who Was Behind 9/11? An Interview With Osama bin Laden." Daily Ummat, September 28, 2001, http://www.justresponse.net/Bin_Laden1.html

16. Omar Shama, "Bin Laden Makes Tape Praising Attacks." Associated Press, October 8, 2001.


17. "Transcript of Osama bin Laden Videotape." CNN, December 13, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/tape.transcript ; Simon Jeff ery, "We Were Overjoyed When the Plane Hit the Building." The Guardian, December 13, 2001; "Tape 'Proves bin Laden's Guilt.'" BBC News, December 14, 2001

18. Elisabeth Bumiller, "Bin Laden, on Tape, Boasts of Trade Center Attacks; U.S. Says it Proves His Guilt." New York Times, December 14, 2001.



19. "Tape 'Proves bin Laden's Guilt.'"

20. Elisabeth Bumiller, "Bin Laden, on Tape, Boasts of Trade Center Attacks."


21. David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009, p. 30.


22. Dynamic Duo, Genesis Communications Network, February 16, 2007


23. See David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, pp. 37-68.


24. Angelo M. Codevilla, "Osama bin Elvis." American Spectator, March 2009, http://spectator.org/articles/42097/osama-bin-elvis


25. "Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin Laden." Federal Bureau of Investigation, http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm (accessed February 16, 2010).


26. Ed Haas, "FBI Says, 'No Hard Evidence Connecting bin Laden to 9/11.'" Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006, http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle13664.htm


27. James Glanz, "Terrorists Were Well Trained, but Not Necessarily in Flying." New York Times, September 13, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/us...ly-flying.html


28. "Hijackers 'Knew What They Were Doing.'" CNN, September 12, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/hijackers.skills/


29. Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2005, pp. 190-191.


30. "September 11: U.S. Government Accused." The News, August 3, 2002, http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/view/663-6


31. House Committee on the Judiciary, INS's March 2002 Notification of Approval of Change of Status for Pilot Training for Terrorist Hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi. 107th Cong., 2nd Sess., March 19, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Repon, pp. 224, 227.


32. Rudi Dekkers, interview by Quentin McDermott, A Mission to Die For. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 21, 2001, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/...ws/dekkers.htm


33. "I Flew With a Terrorist." BBC News, September 24, 2001; Anne Greaves, interview by Liz Jackson, A Mission to Die For. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 18, 2001, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/...ws/greaves.htm


34. Steven Erlanger, "An Unobtrusive Man's Odyssey: Polite Student to Suicide Hijacker." New York Times, September 15, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/in...al/15GERM.html ; David A. Lombardo, "Hijack Pilots Showed Average Skills, Say Their Instructors." Aviation International News, November 1, 2001.


35. Ian Ball, "FBI Tracks Down the Florida Lair of Flying School Terrorists." Daily Telegraph, September 14, 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...errorists.html


36. Ken Kaye, "Questions Remain on Flight Training." South Florida Sun-Sentinel, September 22, 2001, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/200...light-training


37. Der Spiegel Magazine, Inside 9/11: What Really Happened. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002, p. 12; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 91; "Statement for the Record, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry." U.S. Congress, September 25, 2002, http://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602mueller.html

38. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 91.


39. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 242.


40. "Statement for the Record, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry"


41. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 14.


42. "Staff Statement No. 4: The Four Flights." 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004


43. Carol J. Williams, John-Thor Dahlburg, and H. G. Reza, "Mainly, They Just Waited." Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2001.


44. Amy Goldstein, Lena H. Sun, and George Lardner Jr., "Hanjour a Study in Paradox." Washington Post, October 15, 2001, http://space.crono911.net/EBook/051_...t_15102001.pdf


45. V. Dion Haynes, "Algerian Man Didn't Try to Hide, Neighbors Say." Chicago Tribune, October 2, 2001, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...terrorism-plot




46. Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence." New York Times, May 4, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/us...ompetence.html


47. Thomas Frank, "Tracing Trail of Hijackers." Newsday, September 23, 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/di...day_sep23.html


48. "'Get These Planes on the Ground': Air Traffic Controllers Recall Sept. 11." ABC News, October 24, 2001, http://911review.com/cache/errors/pe...ws102401b.html ; Alan Levin, Marilyn Adams, and Blake Morrison, "Terror Attacks Brought Drastic Decision: Clear the Skies." USA Today, August 12, 2002, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...earskies_x.htm ; Tom Brokaw, "The Skies Over America." NBC News, September 9, 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14754701


49. "Primary Target." CBS News, September 21, 2001, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/primary-target/


50. Steve Fainaru and Alia Ibrahim, "Mysterious Trip to Flight 77 Cockpit." Washington Post, September 10, 2002,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...1300752_3.html

51. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, http://www.ae911truth.org , http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicant...911-truth.html


52. Author David Ray Griffin has been able to write a 328-page book, solely devoted to the collapse of WTC 7. See David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report About 9/11 is Unscientific and False. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009.


53. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, "The fires were ignited on at least 10 floors; however, only the fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 grew and lasted until the time of the building collapse." See "NIST NCSTAR IA: Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7." National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, p. xxxvi.


54. "Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7," p. xxxv.


55. James Glanz, "Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel." New York Times, November 29, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/ny...l?pagewanted=1


56. Steven E. Jones, "Revisiting 9/11/2001: Applying the Scientific Method." Journal of 9/11 Studies, May 2007, pp. 61-62, http://www.journalof911studies.com/v...1SciMethod.pdf


57. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (accessed February 20, 2010); http://www2.ae911truth.org/downloads...t_ed_v_1.2.pdf


58. Niels H. Harrit et al., "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe." Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2, pp. 7-31, http://www.globalresearch.ca/active-...astrophe/13049

59. Steven E. Jones et al., "Extremely High Temperatures During the World Trade Center Destruction." Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008, http://www.journalof911studies.com/a...CHighTemp2.pdf ; Niels H. Harrit et al., "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe."



60. Niels H. Harrit et al., "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe."


61. "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe." 911Blogger.com, April 4, 2009



62. "Did Nano-Thermite Take Down the WTC?" RT, July 9, 2009


63. Pat McKenna, "FANGs Bared." Airman, December 1999; Adam J. Hebert, "The Return of NORAD." Air Force Magazine, February 2002. However, NORAD has stated that it could call upon "additional U.S. and Canadian air assets ... when required." See "NORAD Brings Operation Northern Denial to a Close." North American Aerospace Defense Command, December 15, 2000


64. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 17.


65. Kevin Dennehy, "Local Reservists Await the Call." Cape Cod Times, September 15, 2001; Kevin Dennehy, "Otis Force Activated; Home Duty Seen Likely." Cape Cod Times, September 21, 2001.


66. Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 117.


67. "Transcript American Airlines Flight 11." New York Times, October 16, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 4.

68. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 18.



69. Ibid. pp. 18-19; Tom Brokaw, "The Skies Over America."


70. "Statement of Robin Hordon, Former FAA Air Traffic Controller." Patriots Question 9/11, April 10, 2007, http://patriotsquestion911.com/Statement%20Hordon.html


71. Dr. Bob Arnot, "What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks?" MSNBC, September 12, 2001, http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/...nbc091201.html


72. Jeremy Baker, "The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th." CommunityCurrency.org, March 17, 2007, http://www.communitycurrency.org/robin.html


73. Dr. Bob Arnot, "What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks?"


74. "Statement of Robin Hordon, Former FAA Air Traffic Controller."


75. David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2007, pp. 39-41.


76. Jerry Herley et al., Continental Air Defense: A Dedicated Force is no Longer Needed. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, May 3, 1994, p. 4.


77. Dr. Bob Arnot, "What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks?"


78. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.


79. Ibid. p. 20.


80. Ibid. p. 24.


81. See "(9:45 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Witnesses First Notice Military Jets Over New York, Later Than Claimed in 9/11 Commission's Account." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/contex...ightersnoticed

82. Ann Scott Tyson, "A New Diligence in the American Blue Yonder." Christian Science Monitor, April 16, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 26-27, 34.


83. 9/1 1 Commission, The 9/1 1 Commission Report, p. 27; Michael Bronner, "9/1 1 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.


84. David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., "In Four Days, a National Crisis Changes Bush's Presidency." New York Times, September 16, 2001; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Fireflght: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, pp. 130-131.


85. Leslie Filson, Sovereign Skies: Air National Guard Takes Command of 1st Air Force. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, p. 115; Don Arias, "Outstanding: CONR, Sectors Receive Highest Inspection Ratings." American Defender, March 1999.


86. For the most comprehensive description of these exercises, see "Military Exercises up to 9/11." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/timeli...e_911_timeline ; "Training Exercises on 9/11." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/timeli...e_911_timeline



87. See Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, pp. 203-206; Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones, "London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack." Prison Planet, July 13, 2005

88. Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, p. 205.



89. See, for example, "National Security Advisor Holds Press Briefing." White House, May 16, 2002, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archiv...020516-13.html ; "President Addresses the Nation in Prime Time Press Conference." White House, April 13, 2004, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archiv...040413-20.html ; Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons." USA Today, April 18, 2004.


90. "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Tenth Public Hearing." 9/11 Commission, April 13, 2004, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/a...2004-04-13.pdf


91. "National Special Security Events Fact Sheet." U.S. Department of Homeland Security, July 9, 2003; "Fact Sheet: 2005 Presidential Inauguration - National Special Security Event." U.S. Department of Homeland Security, November 8, 2004


92. "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Tenth Public Hearing."


93. Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons."



94. Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 179.


95. Dennis Ryan, "Contingency Planning Pentagon MASCAL Exercise Simulates Scenarios in Preparing for Emergencies." MDW News Service, November 3, 2000.


96. Arlington County, Virginia, report, Titan Systems Corp., Arlington County: After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. Arlington, VA: The County, 2002, p. B17, http://www.floridadisaster.org/publi...Arl_Co_AAR.pdf ; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, pp. 23, 107.


97. Lance Lord, "A Year Ago, a Lifetime Ago." Air Force Print News, September 10, 2002.


98. William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545; "Vigilant Guardian." GlobalSecurity.org, April 27, 2005, http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...t-guardian.htm


99. Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, pp. 55, 122.


100. Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."


101. Elizabeth Cooper, "NEADS on 9/11: Professionalism and Helplessness." Utica Observer-Dispatch, August 5, 2004.


102. "NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary." 9/11 Commission, n.d., http://www.scribd.com/doc/16411947/N...Hijack-Summary


103. John J. Lumpkin, "Agency Planned Exercise on Sept. 1 1 Built Around a Plane Crashing Into a Building." Associated Press, August 21, 2002; Pamela Hess, "U.S. Agency's Strange 9/11 Coincidence." United Press International, August 22, 2002; "Early Morning Flight Activity September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, July 14, 2003, http://www.scribd.com/doc/18663225/T...-Into-Building


104. Hart Seely, "Amid Crisis Simulation, 'We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack.'" Newhouse News Service, January 25, 2002.


105. Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live." For additional examples of NEADS personnel mistaking real-world events for an exercise scenario, see "(8:38 a.m.-8:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NORAD Personnel Mistake Hijacking for Part of an Exercise." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/contex...akeforexercise



106. See, for example, Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History. New York: Doubleday, 2002, p. 222; Sanders Marble and Ellen Milhiser (Editors), Soldiers to the Rescue: The Medical Response to the Pentagon Attack. Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, September 2004, pp. 69, 111, 125; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Fire fight, pp. 57-58.


107. Debbie Sheehan, "Force Protection Plan a 'Timely Alert.'" Monmouth Message, September 21, 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/200301140...1/m38front.htm ; Sherry Conohan, "Training Exercise Quickly Became Reality." The Hub, September 21, 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/pl...gexercise.html ; Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, A Concise History of the Communications-Electronics Command and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Fort Monmouth, NJ: Fort Monmouth, 2003, p. 71, http://cecom.army.mil/historian/pubu...%2009_4Web.pdf


108. NBC News, September 11, 2001; Bill Nichols, "Homeland Defense Needs Now 'Grim Reality.'" USA Today, September 11, 2001, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...1/security.htm .


109. Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Major Billy Hutchinson, 1 13th Fighter Wing, Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, February 2, 2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/19057182/D...-Hutchison-638 ; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.




110. "Memorandum for the Record: Major David McNulty, Chief of Intelligence, 121st Fighter Squadron, Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, March 11, 2004; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.


111. "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003; "Relevant Andrews Transmissions." 9/11 Commission, February 17-18, 2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/14274529/D...-Kara-Notes097 ; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine, USAF, Supervisor of Flying at 121st Squadron, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base on September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, March 8, 2004


112. Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground." Washington Post, May 12, 2002.


113. Newseum, Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002, p. 148.


114. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 216.


115. Newseum, Running Toward Danger, p. 149.


116. Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash: Flight 93 Aftermath- An Oral and Pictorial Chronicle. Somerset, PA: SAJ Publishing, 2002, p. 110.


117. "FBI Finished With Pennsylvania Crash Site Probe." CNN, September 24, 2001; Tom Gibb, "FBI Ends Site Work, Says no Bomb Used." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 25, 2001; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 259.


118. Robb Frederick, "The Day That Changed America." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 11, 2002.


119. "On Hallowed Ground." The Age, September 9, 2002.


120. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 217.


121. Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground"; "On Hallowed Ground."


122. Steve Levin, "Flight 93 Victims' Effects to go Back to Families." Pittsburgh PostGazette, December 30, 2001.


123. Steve Levin and Tom Barnes, "Flight 93 Relatives Gathering for Service." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 17, 2001; "Environmental Restoration Begins at Somerset Site." Pittsburgh Channel, October 2, 2001, http://html.thepittsburghchannel.com...02-151006.html ; Tom Gibb, "Latest Somerset Crash Site Findings May Yield Added IDs." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 3, 2001.


124. John O'Callaghan and Daniel Bower, "Study of Autopilot, Navigation Equipment, and Fuel Consumption Activity Based on United Airlines Flight 93 and American Airlines Flight 77 Digital Flight Data Recorder Information." National Transportation Safety Board, February 13, 2002, http://killtown.911review.org/pdf/nt...-aa77-ua93.pdf


125. Tom Gibb, "Latest Somerset Crash Site Findings May Yield Added IDs."


126. "Environmental Restoration Begins at Somerset Site."


127. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, pp. 213-214.


128. David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph. Johnstown, PA: Noah's Ark Publishing Company, 2002, pp. 31-32; Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 38.


129. Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 43, HO; Mike Masterson, "Flight 93: A Hallowed Field." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 13, 2006.


130. "Staff Statement No. 1: Entry of the 9/11 Hijackers Into the United States." 9/11 Commission, January 26, 2004



131. Paul E. Mlakar et al., The Pentagon Building Performance Report. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2003, p. 35.


132. Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate. London: Carnot Publishing, 2002, photograph section, p. vii.


133. Ibid. pp. 35-36.


134. Ryan Alessi and M. E. Sprengelmeyer, "An Anniversary of Agony at the Pentagon." Scripps Howard News Service, August 1, 2002.


135. Sanders Marble and Ellen Milhiser (Editors), Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 119.


136. Ibid. p. 96.


137. Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 70.


138. Allison Gilbert et al., Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11. Chicago, IL: Bonus Books, 2002, p. 187.


139. "Bush Holds Press Briefing." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001



140. See, for example, http://www.defense.gov/news/Sep2001/200109114a_hr.jpg


141. This photograph, taken by Assistant Fire Marshal Charles Burroughs of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, can be viewed online at http://0911.voila.net/PENT04.jpg


142. "Judicial Watch Obtains September 11 Pentagon Video." Judicial Watch, May 16, 2006; Jerry Markon, "Videos Released of Plane Crashing Into Pentagon." Washington Post, May 17, 2006.


143. "Hotel Security Video Shows 9/11 Pentagon Blast, but no Plane." CNN, December 2, 2006, http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/eu...day/index.html ; "Judicial Watch Obtains Security Camera Videos From Doubletree Hotel That Show 9/11 Attack on Pentagon." Judicial Watch, December 7, 2006


144. "The Stories Behind the Stories." On the Story, CNN, May 20, 2006, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../20/tt.01.html



145. Pierre-Henri Bunel, "The Effects of a Hollow Charge," in Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate, pp. 73-76.


146. Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate, photograph section, p. xii; http://www.conspiracywatch.info/phot...g?v=1289485659 ; http://www.voltairenet.org/article139203.html


147. Pierre-Henri Bunel, "The Effects of a Hollow Charge," pp. 83-84.


148. Ibid. pp. 85-86.


149. See Eric Bart, "Witness Accounts." It Was a Plane Bomb, September 14, 2003, http://web.archive.org/web/200406191...b/witness.html


150. Jim Marrs, Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies. San Rafael, CA: Origin Press, 2004, p. 26.


151. Paul Craig Roberts, "Why Propaganda Trumps Truth." Information Clearing House, September 15, 2009, http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle23498.htm

[HERO]

Dirty Wars/Scahill:

Bissonnette and Will, the SEAL-translator, made their way toward the guesthouse, where they say they came under attack from AK-47 rounds and fired back. Moments later, a woman emerged from the guesthouse carrying a small child in her arms. It was Mariam al Kuwaiti, the courier’s wife. “He is dead,” Mariam said. “You shot him. He is dead. You killed him.” Will searched her for weapons and passed her message on to Bissonnette. Crouching low, Bissonnette opened the door and looked inside. “I spotted a pair of feet lying in the doorway of the bedroom,” he said. With Will at his back, he entered the guesthouse and shot Kuwaiti several more times. Although Bissonnette claimed he was fired upon, other accounts, including that of Bergen, suggested that Kuwaiti was unarmed. “The courier’s AK-47 was later found by his bedside. It seems unlikely that he fired it, given its location and the fact that no casings from such a weapon were later found at the scene,” Bergen wrote.* Meanwhile, another group of SEALs made their way toward the main building in the compound, shooting dead two more members of Kuwaiti’s family, as women and children looked on in horror.


. . . The SEALs began making their way up to the stairs, which “were set at ninety-degree angles, creating a sort of spiral staircase separated by small landings.” There were four doors on the second floor. The SEALs cleared each room and began moving toward the third floor, where they believed the Pacer and his family resided. As they did so, they saw a head briefly pop out from behind the wall at the top of the staircase.

Intelligence analysts had indicated that bin Laden’s son Khalid lived on the second floor. The intelligence reports also indicated Khalid was clean-shaven. So was the man who peered around the corner.

“Khalid,” a SEAL whispered. “Khalid.”


When the twenty-three-year-old worked up the nerve to peek around the corner again, he took a bullet in the face.** “What was Khalid thinking at that time?” Bissonnette later asked. “Look around the corner. Curiosity killed the cat. I guess Khalid, too.” [Transcript, “Killing bin Laden,” 60 Minutes, CBS, September 9, 2012.]


* Peter Bergen, Manhunt: The Ten-Year Search for bin Laden—from 9/11 to Abbottabad (New York: Crown Publishers, 2012), p. 221.


** Mark Owen, with Kevin Maurer, No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden (New York: Dutton, 2012), p. 231.



The commandos made their way up the stairs, passing over tiles wet with Khalid’s blood. As the SEALs walked through the hallway of the third floor, they saw a man’s head pop out from a doorway. One of the SEALs fired two suppressed rounds at the figure. The man vanished into the room. When they entered, the men encountered two women. Believing they might have had suicide vests on, one of the SEALs grabbed them and forced them into a corner, so his colleagues could continue on. Another SEAL stood face to face in the dark with a tall man. “In that second, I shot him, two times in the forehead. Bap! Bap! The second time as he’s going down,” he recalled. “He crumpled onto the floor in front of his bed and I hit him again, Bap! same place. That time I used my EOTech red-dot holo sight. He was dead. Not moving. His tongue was out. I watched him take his last breaths, just a reflex breath.”

Bissonnette and another SEAL entered the room. “We saw the man lying on the floor at the foot of his bed,” he recalled. “Blood and brains spilled out the side of his skull. In his death throes, he was still twitching and convulsing. Another assaulter and I trained our lasers on his chest and fired several rounds. The bullets tore into him, slamming his body into the floor until he was motionless.”

The room was still completely dark, so Bissonnette flipped on his helmet light to better examine the man’s face. It was covered in blood. “A hole in his forehead collapsed the right side of his skull,” he recalled. “His chest was torn up from where the bullets had entered his body. He was lying in an ever growing pool of blood.” The SEAL who originally shot the man said, “the American public doesn’t want to know what that looks like.”



p. 451-52:

In the ensuing weeks, controversy would swirl as White House officials leaked details of the operation that turned out to be wildly false or exaggerated. Although the administration explicitly said that the operation was “kill or capture,” and not an assassination, bin Laden was unarmed when he was killed and the weapons that were recovered in his bedroom were not loaded. Yet a senior administration official who briefed reporters soon after the raid claimed that bin Laden “did resist the assault force” and “was killed in a firefight as our operators came onto the compound.” In reality, the raid was far from the dramatic firefight described initially by White House officials.


In the span of less than twenty minutes, the SEALs had shot seven of the eleven adults in the compound, killing four men and one woman.* According to Pakistani officials, both women and children were injured in the raid.** Peter Bergen, who gained access to the compound and many witnesses, alleged that all of those who were injured appeared to have been unarmed. The international human rights group Amnesty International described the raid as illegal in its annual report for 2011. “The US administration made clear that the operation had been conducted under the USA’s theory of a global armed conflict between the USA and al-Qaeda in which the USA does not recognize the applicability of international human rights law,” the report asserted. “In the absence of further clarification from the US authorities, the killing of Osama bin Laden would appear to have been unlawful.” [Amnesty International, Annual Report 2012, “United States of America,” 2012, http://files.amnesty.org/air12/air_2012_full_en.pdf


* Peter Bergen, “A Visit to Osama bin Laden’s Lair,” CNN.com, May 3, 2012.

** Robert Booth, Saeed Shah, and Jason Burke, “Osama bin Laden Death: How Family Scene in Compound Turned to Carnage,” Guardian, May 5, 2011.



The day after the operation, Brennan delivered an error-filled press conference that purported to give details of the raid. Brennan opened by claiming bin Laden was killed in a firefight and that there was no opportunity to take him alive. He later added that bin Laden used women in the compound as human shields. “Thinking about that from a visual perspective, here is bin Laden, who has been calling for these attacks, living in this million dollar-plus compound, living in an area that is far removed from the front, hiding behind women who were put in front of him as a shield,” he said. “I think it really just speaks to just how false his narrative has been over the years. And so, again, looking at what bin Laden was doing hiding there while he’s putting other people out there to carry out attacks again just speaks to I think the nature of the individual he was.” Brennan also alleged that one woman who died was shot while shielding bin Laden, though she was actually killed with her own husband. The White House was later forced to retract Brennan’s comments. [Reuters, “Woman Killed in Bin Laden Raid Not His Wife: White House,” National Post, May 2, 2011.]













Independent researchers have amassed a huge volume of evidence contradicting the official 9/11 story. [1] I describe below eight specific areas of this evidence I have selected, which cast doubt on key aspects of the official account of 9/11, although a Presidential conspiracy is not backed up. I examine whether Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were really behind the attacks; I describe evidence that the World Trade Center towers were brought down deliberately with explosives; I examine what could have prevented the U.S. military from intercepting the four targeted airliners; and I show how the alleged crash sites at the Pentagon and in rural Pennsylvania were inconsistent with the plane impacts said to have occurred there.

Some of this evidence—such as that which indicates the WTC was demolished with explosives—is already quite conclusive. Other evidence will require further investigation, but is already highly suspicious and, cumulatively, points to the conclusion that 9/11 must have been a false flag operation.

1) Was Osama bin Laden responsible for 9/11?

Just after hearing a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet announced to his breakfast companion, "This has bin Laden all over it." [2] Minutes later, after a member of his staff informed him a second plane had hit the World Trade Center, White House counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke concluded, "Well, now we know who we're dealing with." Then, as he burst into Vice President Dick Cheney's White House office, Clarke declared, "It's an al Qaeda attack." [3] By 4 o'clock that afternoon, CNN reported that "U.S. officials" were saying they had "new and specific information" showing "good indications that people with links to Osama bin Laden may have been responsible for these attacks." [4] These initial claims of who was responsible for 9/11 have, in mainstream discussion at least, mostly been accepted as beyond question. But proof has yet to be provided.

On September 23, 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell promised that, "in the near future," the U.S. government would put out "a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have" linking Osama bin Laden to the attacks. [5] But no such paper was released. [6] Less than two weeks later, British Prime Minister Tony Blair presented to journalists and members of Parliament a document that supposedly showed al-Qaeda's responsibility for 9/11. [7] While that paper said the British government was "confident of its conclusions as expressed in this document," it added, "This document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama bin Laden in a court of law." [8]

The 9/11 Commission — the official investigation of the attacks established in late 2002 — said its aim had been "to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11 and to identify lessons learned." [9] However, it was apparently not one of the Commission's purposes to investigate who the perpetrators of the attacks were. [10] The Commission simply accepted that Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible. Yet many of its claims about the 9/11 plot came from the torture of suspected terrorists. An analysis by NBC News found that "much of what [the 9/11 Commission] reported about the planning and execution of the terror attacks ... was derived from the interrogations of high-ranking al Qaeda operatives. Each had been subjected to 'enhanced interrogation techniques.' Some were even subjected to waterboarding, the most controversial of the techniques, which simulates drowning." The NBC News analysis showed that "more than one quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 [Commission] Report refer to CIA interrogations of al-Qaeda operatives who were subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques. In fact, information derived from the interrogations is central to the report's most critical chapters, those on the planning and execution of the attacks." [11] Evidence gained in such a manner could hardly be called proof that al-Qaeda was behind 9/11. What is more, after September 11, Osama bin Laden declared his innocence on several occasions.


Bin Laden denies responsibility for 9/11

On September 12, 2001, a close aide of bin Laden's phoned a Palestinian journalist who had previously conducted several interviews with the al-Qaeda leader, and told him that bin Laden had stated, "I have no information about the attackers or their aims and I don't have any links with them." [12] The following day, through their ambassador to Pakistan, Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said they had asked bin Laden about the 9/11 attacks, and he told them he did not "have any hand in this action." [13]

On September 16, bin Laden issued statements to the Arabic satellite television channel Al Jazeera and the Afghan Islamic Press, in which he denied responsibility for 9/11. In his statement to Al Jazeera, he said, "I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seem to have been planned by people for personal reasons.” [14] In an interview published later that month, bin Laden restated his denial, saying, "I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children, and other human beings as an appreciable act." [15] And in a video statement broadcast on October 7, he praised those responsible for 9/11, but made no claim of responsibility for the attacks. [16]


The supposed confession video

But then, on December 13, the Pentagon released a video tape on which Osama bin Laden seemingly took responsibility for the attacks. [17] The tape was said to have been found in late November in a house in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, and then turned over to the CIA. [18] On it, bin Laden claimed to have known the 9/11 attacks would take place five days beforehand, and said the destruction of the Twin Towers exceeded his expectations. [19] Bush administration officials claimed the video was "proof that Mr. bin Laden was guilty in the September 11 attacks." [20]

However, this "proof" was dubious. Author David Ray Griffin has pointed out: "The bin Laden of this 'confession video' seems much darker than the pale bin Laden of the previous videos [in which he appeared]. ... He also seems to be heavier and to have fuller cheeks." He "seemed to have a differently shaped nose" and "shorter, heavier hands than the real bin Laden." Additionally, "although the real bin Laden was left-handed, the 'bin Laden' in the…video can be briefly seen writing with his right hand." [21] In February 2007, Bruce Lawrence, a professor of religion at Duke University who is widely considered America's leading academic expert on Osama bin Laden, told an interviewer that his opinion of this video was, "It's bogus." Lawrence said he had some friends in the U.S. government who were assigned to work "on the 24/7 bin Laden clock," and "they also know it's bogus." [22] In other words, the man apparently accepting responsibility for the 9/11 attacks in this video was not bin Laden, but instead probably an actor made up to look like him. This was fabricated evidence.


Dubious bin Laden communications

In the years since that video appeared, a number of statements supposedly made by Osama bin Laden, including audio and video messages, have been issued. However, their authenticity is also dubious. [23] For example, in 2007, the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Manno, Switzerland, which has done computer voice recognition for bank security, compared the voices on 15 of the more recent, alleged messages from bin Laden with the voices on 15 undisputedly authentic earlier recordings of him. The institute found that all of the questionable bin Laden recordings clearly differed from one another, as well as from the authentic messages, thus indicating they had been fabricated. And yet the CIA had claimed it found all of these messages to be authentic. [24]

Furthermore, the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" web page for the al Qaeda leader says Osama bin Laden is "wanted in connection with the August 7, 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya," and is "a suspect in other terrorist attacks throughout the world." Yet nowhere does it mention him being considered responsible for the 9/11 attacks. [25] When questioned about this in 2006, the FBI's chief of investigative publicity replied, "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden's Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11." [26] It therefore appears that the FBI does not consider any of the supposed later communications from bin Laden to be "hard evidence" connecting him to the September 11 attacks.


2) The limited piloting skills of the alleged hijackers

On top of the lack of "hard evidence" for Osama bin Laden's involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the role of the supposed hijackers is also dubious. A particular question is whether the four alleged suicide pilots had the necessary flying skills to perform what has been attributed to them. None of them had flown a jet aircraft before September 11. Yet, supposedly, on their first attempt at doing so, they were able to navigate large passenger planes at high altitudes, without assistance from air traffic control. Three of these alleged pilots were apparently able to successfully locate their targets and hit them with pinpoint accuracy.

In the aftermath of 9/11, several experts raised doubts about whether such inexperienced, amateur pilots would have had the flying skills needed for the attacks. Darryl Jenkins, the director of the Aviation Institute at George Washington University, commented that whoever had flown the planes on September 11 must have known "what they were doing down to very small details. Every one of them was trained in flying big planes." According to the New York Times, "A number of aviation experts agreed [with Jenkins], saying the hijackers must have been experienced pilots." John Nance, an airline pilot and aviation analyst, said that "the direct hits on the two towers and on the Pentagon suggested to him that the pilots were experienced fliers." "The smooth banking of the second plane to strike the towers supports this point of view," he said, while "precisely controlling a large jet near the ground, necessary for the Pentagon attack, also required advanced skill." Nance concluded, "There's no way an amateur could have, with any degree of reliability, done what was done" on September 11. [27]


A pilot who had been with a major carrier for over 30 years told CNN that "the hijackers must have been extremely knowledgeable and capable aviators. ... [T]hey must have had plenty of skill and training." [28] Niki Lauda, the former Formula 1 world champion who is also a pilot and owned his own airline, said the suicide pilots "had to be fully trained 767 or 757 pilots, because otherwise they would have missed" their targets. He added that hitting a flat building like the Pentagon would have been "an even more difficult case" than hitting the World Trade Center. He said: "I would speculate that a normal airline pilot would have a hard time with that, because you are simply not prepared for things like that. That means [the hijackers] must have had some super-training to have been able to handle an airliner so precisely." [29] And a U.S. Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the Vietnam War commented that the hijacked aircraft "either had a crack fighter pilot in the left seat, or they were being maneuvered by remote control." [30]


Yet the four alleged hijacker pilots had only limited flying skills. In fact, the man who supposedly flew a Boeing 757 into the Pentagon was known to have been a terrible pilot.


Atta and Alshehhi train in Florida

Mohamed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi, who allegedly piloted the two Boeing 767s that hit the Twin Towers, gained most of their flying skills between July and December 2000. Over that five-month period, they trained in a Cessna 172 (a small, four-seat propeller aircraft) at Huffman Aviation, a flying school in Venice, Florida. In mid-December that year, the two men reportedly passed their commercial pilot license tests. [31] But the owner of their flight school later said, "I have heard from the instructors that they were average students; the examiner told me the same." [32] Another flight student, who used the same training plane as Atta and Alshehhi, and saw the two men on an almost daily basis over a six-week period, noted that she "never saw Alshehhi take the controls of the aircraft. It was always Mohamed Atta." [33]

The nearest Atta and Alshehhi came to flying a jet plane before September 11 was at the end of December 2000, when they had two sessions at a flight school near Miami, and spent six hours training in its Boeing 727 simulator. The school's owner, Henry George, found the two men to be "average pilots," and described the training they received there as a "mini, mini introduction." [34] After 9/11, George commented: "I suppose Atta had just enough training to keep the plane in the air — how to make turns and move it up and down. He could not, however, have taxied a 757 or 767 from the gate, got it airborne, or landed it safely." [35] Furthermore the South Florida Sun-Sentinel pointed out that the Boeing 727 Atta and Alshehhi were training to fly "is a rather old three-engine jet with an old-fashioned cockpit, including a cramped instrument panel loaded down with small dials, knobs, and gauges." In contrast, the 767s they supposedly flew on September 11 "have highly sophisticated 'glass cockpits’ featuring video screens and digital readouts, and requiring an advanced level of computer skills." [36]


Ziad Jarran

The alleged hijacker pilot of United Airlines Flight 93, which supposedly crash-landed in rural Pennsylvania, was Ziad Jarrah, a 26-year-old from Lebanon. Like Atta and Alshehhi, his piloting skills seem to have been, at best, limited. Jarrah learned to fly between late June 2000 and either December that year or January 2001, at the Florida Flight Training Center in Venice, Florida. He took lessons in a Cessna 152—a small, two-seat propeller plane. [37]

The owner of the Florida Flight Training Center later recalled Jarrah as being an "average" pilot, and commented: "We had to do more to get him ready than others. His flight skills seemed to be a little bit out there." [38] In the early summer of 2001, Jarrah spent a short time at a flight school in Philadelphia. But when he asked to fly the Hudson Corridor—a low-altitude "hallway" along the Hudson River—the flight school deemed him "unfit to fly solo, he could fly this route only with an instructor," according to the 9/11 Commission. [39]

The closest Jarrah came to flying a jet plane before 9/11 was during the few days he spent at a flight school in Miami in December 2000 and January 2001, when he took lessons in Boeing 727 and 737 simulators. [40] (However, the plane he allegedly flew on September 11 was a Boeing 757, not a 727 or a 737.)

Despite Jarrah's flying skills being "a little bit out there," it is officially claimed that, had Flight 93 not been stopped in its tracks by its courageous passengers, it would have been flown into the White House or the U.S. Capitol building. [41]


Hani Hanjour

The pilot who allegedly crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon was Hani Hanjour, a 29-year-old from Saudi Arabia. The 9/11 Commission called Hanjour "perhaps the most experienced and highly trained pilot among the 9/11 hijackers." [42] Yet those who met him found Hanjour to be a hopeless pilot.

In late 1996, Hanjour spent three months at a flight school in Scottsdale, Arizona. [43] The school's owner found Hanjour to be a "weak student" who was "wasting our resources." [44] The owner recalled, "He was not able to fly solo in a small plane, which is equivalent to getting out of a parking space [in a car] and stopping." [45]

A Phoenix, Arizona flight school Hanjour attended early in 2001 reported Hanjour to the Federal Aviation Administration after its instructors "found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine," according to the New York Times. Marilyn Ladner, a vice president at the Pan Am International Flight Academy, which operated the flight school, said the staff at the school "feared that [Hanjour's] skills were so weak that he could pose a safety hazard if he flew a commercial airliner." One of the school's employees later commented: "I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all." [46]

In August 2001, Hanjour tried renting a plane at Freeway Airport in Bowie, Maryland. However, when two instructors took him on three test runs in a Cessna 172, they found he had trouble controlling and landing it. The chief flight instructor refused to rent Hanjour a plane without more lessons. [47]

Yet a few weeks later, on September 11, Hanjour is meant to have singlehandedly piloted a Boeing 757, flying it for many miles at high altitude without assistance from air traffic control. As air traffic controllers watched an unidentified aircraft — supposedly Flight 77 with Hanjour at the controls — on radar as it closed in on Washington at almost 500 miles per hour, they thought they were seeing a military jet due to the aircraft's high speed and the way it was being flown. One of those controllers later commented: "You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe." [48]

CBS News described the complex maneuver Hanjour is then supposed to have performed in order to hit the Pentagon: "Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two and a half minutes. The steep turn was so smooth ... it's clear there was no fight for control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers had better flying skills than many investigators first believed." [49] Some aviation experts concluded that these final maneuvers were the work of "a great talent ... virtually a textbook turn and landing," according to the Washington Post. [50]


3) Were the twin towers brought down with explosives?

A claim made by skeptics of the official 9/11 story for which the supporting evidence is particularly strong is that the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, along with WTC Building 7 (a large skyscraper that collapsed late in the afternoon of September 11), were brought down deliberately using pre-planted explosives. This claim is important, since no Muslim terrorist group would have been capable of carrying out such a sophisticated task. If the three WTC buildings were indeed demolished with explosives, Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda could not have been responsible. The 9/11 attacks must have been an "inside job."


Fourteen characteristics of controlled demolition

The group Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has listed 14 ways in which the collapses of the Twin Towers "exhibited all the characteristics of destruction by explosives." Its list included the fact that the towers fell straight down—rather than toppling over sideways—“through the path of greatest resistance, at nearly free-fall acceleration"; the "extremely rapid onset" of the collapses; the fact that steel sections of the towers weighing many tons were ejected laterally for distances of up to 600 feet and at speeds of around 60 miles per hour; large quantities of molten metal were subsequently found in the basement areas below where the WTC buildings had stood; over 100 first responders have reported hearing explosions or seeing flashes during the collapses; and no steel-framed high-rise building had ever collapsed previously due to fire (nor have any done so since 9/11). The collapses also "exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire." [51]


4) Why did a third skyscraper collapse on September 11?

The evidence that the third tower to collapse on 9/11 — Building 7 of the World Trade Center (WTC 7) — was brought down with explosives is even more compelling than the evidence relating to the Twin Towers' collapses. [52]

WTC 7 was a 47-story office building located about 350 feet north of the Twin Towers. It suffered some structural damage when the North Tower collapsed at 10:28 a.m., and then endured what appears to have been relatively small fires on several of its floors. [53] Although it had not been struck by a plane, this building collapsed completely at 5:21 that afternoon. As the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) pointed out in the final report of its investigation into the collapse of WTC 7, this was "the first known instance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires." NIST continued: "[T]he fires in WTC 7 were similar to those that have occurred in several tall buildings where the automatic sprinklers did not function or were not present. These other buildings did not collapse." [54] Indeed, the New York Times called the collapse of WTC 7 "a mystery that under normal circumstances would probably have captured the attention of the city and the world." [55]

Furthermore, WTC 7 came down in a manner that perfectly resembled a typical demolition using explosives. This massive skyscraper collapsed completely in just 6.5 seconds, meaning it came down at almost free-fall speed. As physicist Steven E. Jones pointed out, it was "as if something [was] moving the material out of the way beneath the roof" as the building fell. "[S]omething like explosives, for example." [56]

Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has listed 10 ways in which the collapse of WTC 7 resembled a classic controlled demolition. These include the rapid onset of the collapse; the fact that the building came straight down, symmetrically, "through the path of greatest resistance"; the building "imploded," collapsing completely and landing mostly within its own "footprint" (the area within the building's exterior walls); and numerous members of the New York City Police Department and the Fire Department of New York have made statements indicating they had foreknowledge of the collapse, even though, before that day, no steel-reinforced high-rise building had ever come down due to fire. And, like the collapses of the Twin Towers, the collapse of WTC 7 "exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire." [57]


Explosive material found in WTC dust

An important 25-page scientific paper was published in April 2009, which strengthened the case for the controlled demolition hypothesis. The peer-reviewed paper was the result of an in-depth study by nine scientists and engineers. Its lead author was Niels Harrit, an associate professor of chemistry at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark. Harrit and his co-authors found significant quantities of what appeared to be an advanced and powerful explosive material called nano-thermite in the dust generated when the WTC towers came down.

The authors examined four samples of dust from the WTC collapses that had been collected by private citizens living in New York, from separate sites, on September 11 or in the days shortly afterwards. In all the samples, very small red and grey chips were discovered. The authors analyzed these chips using a number of methods, including scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS).

The red material was found to include aluminum and iron oxide, which are the ingredients of thermite. [58] (Thermite is an incendiary material, i.e. it is used to cause fires.) The authors also found that when the red/grey chips were ignited, the "spheroidal residues" that formed had "a strikingly similar chemical signature to a typical XEDS spectrum from a spheroid generated by commercial thermite." This finding supported the hypothesis that the chips were "indeed a form of thermite." (An earlier paper written by some of the study's authors, along with other individuals, noted that many tiny spheres, which also contained the same elements as the residue from the ignition of thermite, had been found in the dust generated when the WTC towers collapsed.) [59]

The authors pointed out that when the ingredients of thermite "are ultra-fine grain and are intimately mixed, this 'nano-thermite' reacts very rapidly, even explosively, and is sometimes referred to as 'super-thermite.'" And, they wrote, the red/grey chips' "low temperature of ignition and the presence of iron oxide grains less than 120 nanometers show that the material is not conventional thermite ... but very likely a form of super-thermite," which, rather than being an incendiary material, "is considered a pyrotechnic or explosive."

Based on their observations, the authors concluded, "[T]he red layer of the red/gray chips we have discovered in the WTC dust is active, unreacted thermitic material, incorporating nanotechnology, and is a highly energetic pyrotechnic or explosive material." [60]

Steven E. Jones, a retired professor of physics at Brigham Young University, Utah, who was one of the paper's authors, has therefore questioned: "What is high-tech explosive/pyrotechnic material in large quantities doing in the WTC dust? Who made tons of this stuff and why? Why have government investigators refused to look for explosive residues in the WTC aftermath?" [61] Lead author Niels Harrit concluded, "There is no doubt that the three [WTC] towers were demolished on 9/11," and commented that his paper's conclusions are inconsistent "with the official conspiracy theory [about 9/11], the one with Osama bin Laden and 19 hijackers." Harrit added, "We must have a criminal investigation to find out what [happened]." [62]


5) The failure of America's air defenses

Like the World Trade Center collapses, the failure of the U.S. military to successfully intercept any of the four aircraft targeted on September 11 and prevent them reaching their targets has raised much suspicion. Particular attention has been paid to the actions of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending U.S. airspace.

The 9/11 attacks occurred in airspace that was the responsibility of NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS), based in Rome, New York. At the time of the attacks, NORAD had seven "alert" sites across the United States it could call on in emergencies. Each of these kept two fighter jets on the runway that were armed, fueled, and ready to take off immediately when required. [63] Of the seven alert sites, NEADS had two it could call upon: Otis Air National Guard Base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Langley Air Force Base in Hampton, Virginia. [64]

In the days after 9/11, it was reported that the two fighters on alert at Otis Air National Guard Base could, when called upon, "be in the air within five minutes." [65] The two fighters on alert at Langley Air Force Base were at the same high state of readiness. As author Lynn Spencer pointed out, the pilots for those aircraft were "always just five minutes away from rolling out of the hangars in their armed fighters. They live, eat, and sleep just steps from jets." [66] And yet NORAD appears to have performed abysmally on September 11, failing to successfully deal with situations it was more than adequately prepared to handle.


American 11 becomes an in-flight emergency

The emergency situation on September 11 began at 8:14 a.m., the time at which, the 9/11 Commission concluded, hijackers seized control of American Airlines Flight 11. At that time, air traffic controllers lost communication with the plane, as its pilots failed to respond to a request to climb to 35,000 feet. [67] Seven minutes later, the seriousness of the emergency became more apparent when Flight ll's transponder was switched off. [68] (A transponder is a device that sends an aircraft's identifying information, speed, and altitude to controllers' radar screens.) The controller responsible for Flight 11 then told his supervisor that he thought something was seriously wrong with the plane. Minutes later, around 8:24 to 8:25, the controller heard a Middle Eastern-sounding voice, apparently one of the hijackers, in two radio transmissions. He then realized this was a hijacking. [69]

Procedures for dealing with aircraft emergencies

NORAD and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), which regulates civil aviation and is responsible for operating a system of air traffic control, have specific procedures for dealing with aircraft emergencies. Robin Hordon was an air traffic controller at the FAA's Boston Center between 1970 and 1981, and was certified in the air traffic sector where Flight 11 became an emergency on September 11. He has described:

Scrambling jet fighters to intercept aircraft showing the signs of experiencing 'in-flight emergencies’ such as going off course without authorization, losing a transponder signal, and/or losing radio contact, is a common and routine task executed jointly between the FAA and NORAD controllers. The entire 'national defense-first responder' intercept system has many highly trained civilian and military personnel who are committed and well-trained to this task. FAA and NORAD continuously monitor our skies, and fighter planes and pilots are on the ready 24/7 to handle these situations. [70]

As MSNBC described: "If a plane deviates by 15 degrees, or two miles from [its pre-arranged] course, the flight controllers will hit the panic button. They'll call the plane, saying 'American 11, you're deviating from course.' It's considered a real emergency." [71] According to Hordon: "When air traffic controllers lose an aircraft, all hell breaks loose. They flip right into motion. We take action and do not wait for other things to happen." [72]

In response to these emergencies, as MSNBC continued, "F-16 interceptors can fly alongside a plane to see who's flying it. They can also try to force it off course. Once it is apparent that it is not following directions, it might be forced over the ocean or to a remote airport—or even shot down." [73] According to Hordon, "Jet fighters typically intercept any suspect plane over the United States within 10 to 15 minutes of notification of a problem." [74]

The protocol for dealing with an "in-flight emergency" is much faster than that for dealing with a hijacking. According to Hordon, Flight 11 "was always an in-flight emergency, and only after hearing the cockpit troubles was it considered a 'hijack.' Therefore, 'emergency aircraft protocols' and 'hijack protocols' should have been used all throughout the event, and the fastest protocol [i.e. that for dealing with in-flight emergencies] would be utilized." [75]

Even before 9/11, dealing with in-flight emergencies was a common occurrence. A 1994 report published by the General Accounting Office noted, "Overall, during the past four years, NORAD's alert fighters took off to intercept aircraft (referred to as scrambled) 1,518 times, or an average of 15 times per site per year." Out of these 1,518 scrambles — an average of about one per day — over 93 percent "involved visually inspecting unidentified aircraft and assisting aircraft in distress." [76] As MSNBC concluded, "Clearly, the Air Force had the capability and the training to intercept the American and United flights that hit the World Trade Center" on September ll. [77]


Military alerted 24 minutes after emergency began

And yet, according to the 9/11 Commission, the military was not notified about Flight 11 until just before 8:38 a.m., about 24 minutes after the aircraft had shown the first signs of being an emergency, and 13 minutes after the air traffic controller concluded it had been hijacked. The FAA's Boston Center, which had been monitoring Flight 11, called NEADS to report the hijacking, and asked it to "scramble some F-16s or something up there, help us out." [78]

At 8:46 a.m., NEADS ordered Otis Air Base, which is 153 miles from New York, to launch the two F-15s it kept on alert. By that time, Flight 11 was crashing into the World Trade Center. The F-15s were airborne at 8:53 a.m. However they did not fly directly to New York. As the 9/11 Commission described: "Lacking a target," the two fighter jets "were vectored toward military-controlled airspace off the Long Island coast. To avoid New York area air traffic and uncertain about what to do, the fighters were brought down to military airspace to 'hold as needed.' From 9:09 to 9:13, the Otis fighters stayed in this holding pattern." [79] The jets were therefore unable to prevent United Airlines Flight 175 from hitting the South Tower of the WTC at 9:03 a.m. According to the 9/11 Commission, after leaving their "holding pattern" at 9:13 a.m., the F-15s finally arrived over Manhattan at 9:25 a.m. [80] But numerous witnesses who were on the ground in Manhattan have recalled first noticing fighter jets overhead significantly later, sometime after 10:00 a.m. [81]


The failed response of Langley fighter jets

The response of the alert jets at Langley Air Force Base, which is 130 miles south of Washington, appears to have been as poor as the Otis jets' response, if not worse. NEADS ordered the two F-16s, along with an additional jet that was available, to take off from Langley at 9:24 a.m. This was 21 minutes after the second attack in New York, and 13 minutes before the Pentagon was hit. The jets were airborne at 9:30 a.m. and were directed toward the Washington area. However, they were not launched in response to the hijacking of Flight 77, the aircraft that supposedly hit the Pentagon. They were launched in response to an incorrect report that Flight 11 was still airborne, and flying toward Washington. [82]

Minutes after the jets took off, a staff sergeant at NEADS noticed they were flying in the wrong direction, heading east out over the ocean. Consequently, when the Pentagon was hit at 9:37 a.m., the three F-16s were about 150 miles from it, which was further away from the Pentagon than they had been when they took off. [83]

Witnesses on the ground have recalled noticing the first fighter jet arriving over the Pentagon at around 10:40 a.m., about an hour after the attack there. Understandably, one firefighter commented: "Thank God that guy's there! Where has he been?" [84]

How do we account for the failure of the FAA and the military to stop the attacks in New York and Washington? The personnel at NORAD and NEADS could hardly be accused of being incompetent. In fact, only two and a half years earlier, in January 1999, the 1st Air Force air sovereignty team, which, as part of NORAD, is responsible for the air defense of the United States, scored an unprecedented "grand slam" in an evaluation of its effectiveness. That evaluation tested the command and control skills of the three NORAD air defense sectors, including NEADS. AU three were rated "outstanding," the highest score possible on a five-tier scale. Brigadier General Kenneth Stromquist Jr., the 1st Air Force vice commander, commented on the success, pointing out, "There's never been a grand slam ... in the history of this outfit." [85]

The apparent collapse of America's air defenses on 9/11 therefore raises the disturbing possibility that a deliberate attempt was made to sabotage those defenses, thereby enabling the attacks on New York and Washington to succeed.


6) Training exercises might have facilitated the 9/11 attacks

An aspect of 9/11 that may help explain how a paralysis of America's air defenses could have been achieved is a number of training exercises that were conducted by the U.S. military and other government agencies in the years preceding September 11 and, notably, at the time the attacks took place. Many of these exercises practiced for scenarios remarkably similar to the attacks in New York and Washington, such as planes being used as weapons, or planes crashing into the World Trade Center or Pentagon. [86]

It has been suggested that planners may have included scenarios like what happened on September 11 in these exercises so as to enable rogue individuals within the U.S. government to organize, and then perpetrate, the 9/11 attacks, without being found out and stopped by their more honest colleagues. [87] Author Webster Tarpley described the following scenario to illustrate how training exercises might enable a coup to be prepared for and carried out: A rogue officer "may be working at a console next to another officer who is not in on the coup, and who might indeed oppose it if he knew about it." The rogue officer is behaving suspiciously. "The loyal officer looks over and asks the [rogue officer] about it. The [rogue officer] cites a staff maneuver for which he is preparing. The loyal officer concludes that the [rogue officer's] activities are part of an officially sanctioned drill, and his suspicions are allayed." The rogue officer might explain that participation in the exercise requires a special security clearance, which his more honest colleague does not have. "The conversation ends, and the [rogue officer] can go on with his treasonous work." [88] It is at least plausible that the training exercises resembling the 9/11 attacks served a similar purpose to the drill in this scenario.


Exercises before 9/11:

While members of the Bush administration and U.S. military claimed that the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington had been unexpected, [89] the military and other government agencies in fact considered scenarios much like what happened on 9/11, and conducted numerous training exercises in the year or two before September 11 based around scenarios resembling those attacks.


Planes as weapons:

For example, Louis Freeh, the director of the FBI from September 1993 to June 2001, told the 9/11 Commission that in the years 2000 and 2001, the subject of "planes as weapons" was always one of the considerations in the planning of security for "a series of ... special events." [90] There were about four or five "special events" each year, and they included occasions such as the 2000 Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the 2001 presidential inauguration. [91] Freeh said that "resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat”—planes as weapons—and added that "the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions" was "part of the planning" for those special events. [92]


Simulated attack on the World Trade Center:

Furthermore, as USA Today revealed, during the two years before 9/11, NORAD conducted exercises based on the scenario of terrorists hijacking aircraft and using them "as weapons to crash into targets and cause mass casualties." Notably, "One of the imagined targets was the World Trade Center." [93] And, according to author Lynn Spencer, military personnel were briefed on the possibility of terrorists targeting the WTC with aircraft. Spencer wrote that when a former Marine who was working at NEADS on September 11 learned of the first attack, "The news brought to mind one of his briefings: What if a terrorist flies an airplane with a weapon of mass destruction into the World Trade Center? It had always been one of the military's big fears." [94]


Simulated plane crashes at the Pentagon:

What is more, at least three training exercises were conducted in the 12 months before 9/11 based around the possibility of an aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. An exercise in October 2000 involved emergency responders gathering at a conference room in the Pentagon and practicing their responses to a number of scenarios, including a passenger aircraft crashing into the Pentagon. [95] In May 2001, two clinics located in the Pentagon held a tabletop exercise based around a plane crashing into the west side of the Pentagon—the side of the building that was hit on September ll. [96] And in August 2001, a mass casualty exercise was held at the Pentagon, involving a practice evacuation of the building. General Lance Lord, the assistant vice chief of staff of the Air Force, later commented, "Purely a coincidence, the scenario for that exercise included a plane hitting the building." [97]

Certainly, if rogue individuals within the U.S. government and military were behind 9/11, exercises and other emergency preparations like these would have provided a useful smokescreen that would help them prepare the attacks undetected by their colleagues. A rogue employee might have been on the phone with another of the conspirators, talking about using planes as weapons, or crashing an aircraft into the World Trade Center or Pentagon. If a colleague overheard the conversation and inquired what they were talking about, the rogue employee could say they were just discussing a forthcoming training exercise or the preparations for a future "special event."


Exercises on the day of 9/11:

As previously mentioned, training exercises resembling the 9/11 attacks were actually taking place at the time those attacks occurred. It is particularly notable that on September 11, the agency at the center of coordinating the military's response to the attacks was in the middle of a major exercise: Personnel at NEADS were participating in "Vigilant Guardian."


Vigilant guardian, a 'simulated air war':

Vigilant Guardian was an annual exercise in which all of NORAD participated. [98] The scenarios scheduled to be practiced at NEADS on September 11 appear to have had similarities to the real-world attacks. For example, the exercise has been described as a "simulated air war" and as "an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States." [99] It was even set to include a simulated hijacking that would have taken place around the time of the Pentagon attack. (According to Vanity Fair, this would have been a "traditional" simulated hijack, "in which politically motivated perpetrators commandeer an aircraft, land on a Cuba-like island, and seek asylum." [100])

Although most of the personnel at NEADS were unaware beforehand what the day's exercise was going to entail [101], as part of that year's Vigilant Guardian, they had faced a scenario in the previous few days that also had similarities to the 9/11 attacks. On September 9, they'd practiced their response to a simulated hijacking in which terrorists took over a plane bound from London, England, to New York's JFK International Airport. The hijackers had explosives on board, which they planned to detonate when the plane was over New York. [102]


National Reconnaissance Office plane-into-building exercise:

Another exercise scheduled for the morning of September 11, which also resembled the actual attacks, was held at an intelligence agency just over 20 miles from the Pentagon. The exercise, conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office at its headquarters in Chantilly, Virginia, was set to include the scenario of a small private jet plane crashing into a tower building at the headquarters at 9:32 a.m. This would have been just five minutes before the attack at the nearby Pentagon took place. No real aircraft was going to be used, and the simulated crash was to be the result of mechanical failure, not terrorism. However, the plane in the scenario was supposed to have taken off from Washington Dulles International Airport, which was where Flight 77—the plane that allegedly hit the Pentagon—took off from earlier that morning. [103]



Exercises were confused with real-world events:


There were numerous instances of military personnel mistaking real-world events on September 11 for part of an exercise. It certainly seems possible that this confusion could have contributed to a paralysis of emergency responses.


For example, Lieutenant Colonel Dawne Deskins, who was working at NEADS, has said that when she was told of the first hijacking, she thought "It must be part of the exercise." [104] Major Kevin Nasypany, the NEADS mission crew commander, has recalled that when he learned of it, he "actually said out loud, 'The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour,’" referring to the hijacking scenario in the NORAD exercise, which he'd helped design. When the troops at NEADS learned there had been a second hijacking, over 20 minutes later, one of them commented, "I think this is a damn input, to be honest." An "input" is a simulated scenario, as part of a training exercise. [105]


Several members of medical staff at the Pentagon have recalled that, when they were instructed to evacuate the building after the attack there, they initially thought this was a drill. [106] And at Fort Monmouth, an Army base about 50 miles south of New York, preparations had been underway for an exercise called Timely Alert II, which would test the base's emergency response capabilities to a biochemical terrorist attack. When a group of participating volunteers was told a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center, they thought this was part of the exercise simulation and so they pretended to be upset. Some people even thought the television footage of the burning WTC was an elaborate training video created for the exercise. One worker told a fire department training officer, "You really outdid yourself this time.” [107]



Exercises diverted resources:

Some exercises on the day of 9/11 and in the weeks beforehand diverted resources, such as personnel and equipment, which could otherwise have been used to help respond to, and maybe stop, the attacks on New York and Washington. For example, the morning of September 11, an FBI and CIA anti-terrorist task force that, according to USA Today, "specifically prepared for this type of disaster," was away from Washington for a training exercise on the other side of the country, in Monterey, California. This meant that the FBI's "top teams, about 50 personnel, helicopters, [and] equipment" were far away from where they were needed. [108]

The District of Columbia Air National Guard (DCANG), which is located at Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles from Washington, was also impaired as a result of training exercises. Three days before September 11, members of the DCANG returned from a major exercise in Nevada called "Red Flag." As a result, most of the fighter pilots, who were involved with the unit on only a part-time basis, were away from the base on 9/11, either back at their usual jobs or on leave. [109] There were therefore just seven DCANG pilots available that morning. [110] And of these seven, three took off about 10 minutes before the first attack in New York for a routine training mission about 200 miles away from base, over North Carolina. They did not make it back to Andrews until after the attacks had ended. [111]




7) Did Flight 93 crash in rural Pennsylvania?

Many aspects of the official story of Flight 93 are questionable, but the story is most obviously problematic when we examine the site where this aircraft supposedly went down, in a field in rural Pennsylvania. Specifically, it did not appear that a Boeing 757 had crashed there. Early witnesses at the scene saw little that resembled the wreckage we would expect from a plane hitting the ground. The small amount of debris at the site could simply have been planted there.



Lack of plane wreckage:


For example, Wallace Miller, the local coroner, who was among the first people to arrive at the alleged crash site, has recalled seeing just a small, smoking crater, which, he said, looked "like someone took a scrap truck, dug a 10-foot ditch, and dumped all this trash into it." [112] Jon Meyer, a local television news reporter, said: "I was able to get right up to the edge of the crater. ... All I saw was a crater filled with small, charred plane parts. Nothing that would even tell you that it was the plane. ... There were no suitcases, no recognizable plane parts, no body parts." [113]


Rick King, a local assistant volunteer fire chief, also saw the crater where Flight 93 supposedly crashed. But, he said, "Never in my wildest dreams did I think half the plane was down there." He sent his men into the woods nearby to search for the plane's fuselage, but they kept coming back and telling him, "Rick, there's nothing." [114] Scott Spangler, a photographer with a local newspaper, recalled: "I didn't think I was in the right place. ... I was looking for anything that said tail, wing, plane, metal. There was nothing." [115] And local FBI agent Wells Morrison recalled arriving at the crash site, saying: "My first thought was, 'Where is the plane?' ... I was not seeing anything that was distinguishable either as human remains or aircraft debris." [116]

Although these witnesses saw little that resembled plane crash debris, after searching the area over the following two weeks, the FBI claimed it had recovered 95 percent of the aircraft. [117]


No human remains:

Furthermore, there was almost nothing that resembled human remains at the site, even though 44 people were on board the plane that supposedly crashed there. Dave Fox, a former firefighter, reportedly saw just "three chunks of torn human tissue." He later said, "You knew there were people there, but you couldn't see them." [118] As previously mentioned, coroner Wallace Miller was among the first people to arrive at the scene. According to Australian newspaper The Age, "the only recognizable body part he saw was a piece of spinal cord, with five vertebrae attached." Almost a year after 9/11, Miller recalled, "The interesting thing about this particular case is that I haven't, to this day, 11 months later, seen any single drop of blood." [119] He said: "If you didn't know, you would have thought no one was on the plane. You would have thought they dropped them off somewhere." [120]

And yet, in the weeks after 9/11, searchers were reportedly able to find about 1,500 human tissue samples, weighing a total of 510 pounds. [121] Three and a half months after September 11, it was reported that "the remains of the 40 passengers and crew, and, by process of elimination, the four hijackers" on Flight 93 had all been identified. [122]


No jet fuel at crash site:

Perhaps strangest of all is that investigators apparently found no evidence of jet fuel in the soil where Flight 93 is meant to have crashed. Six days after 9/11, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) started taking soil samples from the hole dug around the crater supposedly caused by the crash, to check for contamination by the plane's fuel and other hazardous materials. Three test wells were also sunk to monitor groundwater. [123]

The National Transportation Safety Board calculated that Flight 93 would have had about 37,500 lb of fuel remaining when it crashed, which was 77 percent of its fuel load at takeoff. One would logically expect a large amount of this fuel to have soaked into the soil. [124] And yet, two weeks after tests began, DEP spokeswoman Betsy Mallison reported that "no contamination has been discovered" in the soil and groundwater. [125] She said that, "whether it burned away or evaporated," much of the jet fuel that should have spilled at the site "seems to have dissipated." [126]



Paper survives the crash:


What is more, while there was a conspicuous lack of plane debris, human remains, and jet fuel, a large amount of paper was found around the crash site, mostly intact. According to journalist and author Jere Longman, Flight 93 had been carrying thousands of pounds of mail, "and pieces had scattered about, envelopes with California addresses, magazines, paper on the ground and in the trees, some of the envelopes burned, some still in the same unharmed condition in which they were mailed." [127] Two emergency responders later recalled seeing "pieces of mail" that were "scattered everywhere." One of them said, "I guess there were 5,000 pounds of mail on board." [128] Several people recalled seeing an unscorched bible, apparently from the plane, lying on the ground near the crash crater. [129] And two of the alleged hijackers' passports were apparently able to survive the crash, and were later recovered from the crash site. [130]


But if the official story of what happened to Flight 93 were correct, surely paper would be far more likely to burn up than metal, other plane debris, and human remains. And yet paper appears to have been the one thing most able to withstand the crash. I would suggest that a more plausible explanation than the official account is that this was a crude attempt at faking the scene of a plane crash. The intention of the perpetrators was to deceive us, the public, into believing Flight 93 did indeed crash in this field in Pennsylvania.




8) What hit the Pentagon on 9/11?



As previously discussed, the particularly poor flying skills of Hani Hanjour—the hijacker allegedly at the controls of Flight 77—combined with the failure of NORAD to successfully intervene, casts doubt upon the official account of the Pentagon attack. But photographs and eyewitness descriptions of the area where Flight 77—a Boeing 757—supposedly hit the Pentagon have led to additional questions being raised. What we find is a similar problem to that with the alleged Flight 93 crash site: there was little to be seen at the site of the Pentagon attack that resembled the wreckage we would expect from a plane crash, and the small amount of debris at the scene may simply have been planted there.


Additionally, the hole supposedly made by Flight 77 hitting the west wall of the Pentagon appears to have been too small to have been caused by a 757. And while a few videos from nearby security cameras have been released showing the crash, nowhere on them can we make out a Boeing 757. Some people have therefore suggested that the Pentagon was not hit by Flight 77, but instead perhaps by a missile.



The small impact hole:


American Airlines Flight 77 was a Boeing 757-200. This aircraft has a wingspan of 124 feet 10 inches and a tail height of 44 feet 6 inches. While an official report estimated the damage at the point of impact on the Pentagon's exterior wall to be approximately 90 feet in width [131], photographs taken shortly after the attack took place (and before a large section of the building's west wall collapsed, about 35-40 minutes after the attack) indicate that the most significant damage was much smaller, consisting of a hole about 15 to 18 feet in diameter. [132] This damage appears far too small to have been created by such a large aircraft. François Grangier, an expert on aircraft accidents, has commented: "What is certain when one looks at the photo of [the Pentagon] façade that remains intact is that it's obvious the plane did not go through there. It's like imagining that a plane of this size could pass through a window and leave the frame still standing." [133]


One person who saw the hole in the exterior wall was Steve DeChiaro, the president of a New Jersey technology firm. DeChiaro had just arrived at the Pentagon when it was hit and immediately headed to the crash scene. He has recalled: "[W]hen I looked at the site, my brain could not resolve the fact that it was a plane because it only seemed like a small hole in the building. No tail. No wings. No nothing." [134]



The lack of wreckage and the intact lawn:


Other witnesses have commented on the lack of debris at the scene of the attack. Sergeant Reginald Powell, a Pentagon medical worker, recalled: "I saw no plane, nothing left from the plane. It was like it disintegrated as it went into the building." [135] Eileen Murphy, a nurse who worked at the Pentagon, described seeing the crash site: "I expected to see the airplane, so I guess my initial impression was: 'Where's the plane? How come there's not a plane?'" [136] Firefighter John Dürrer, who arrived at the Pentagon within minutes of the attack, has recalled that after he saw the crash site, he thought: "Well where's the airplane, you know, where's the parts to it? You would think there'd be something." [137]

ABC News correspondent John McWethy was taken to the crash site by an Army general he knew. McWethy has recalled: "I got in very close, got a look early on at the bad stuff. I could not, however, see any plane wreckage — it was well inside and had been, basically, vaporized." [138] Early that afternoon, CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie Mclntyre described: "[T]he only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you can pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage, nothing like that anywhere around." [139]


Another oddity, which photos clearly show, is that the lawn in front of where Flight 77 supposedly hit the Pentagon was perfectly intact. [140] The damage to the building's exterior wall indicated that the Pentagon was hit at its first and second floors. Yet there were no scorch marks or signs of gouging in the lawn that a large plane would presumably have made had it crashed into the building so low down. Indeed, on one photo of the crash site, while we can easily make out track marks across the lawn made by one of the first fire trucks to have arrived there, we see no marks from any plane. [141]

The smallness of the damage to the building, the lack of plane wreckage at the crash site, and the intact lawn therefore appear to contradict the official claim that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on September 11.


Unseen security videos:

The controversy over what hit the Pentagon could be settled if security camera footage were released clearly showing what happened. However, nine years after the attack occurred, no such footage has been made public.

In May 2006, the Department of Defense officially released two pieces of video, recorded by security cameras outside the Pentagon, which showed the moment of impact. However, the footage was of poor quality and showed no clear sign of a large aircraft. [142] In December that year, the FBI released security camera footage of the Pentagon attack taken from the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. But, while the low quality recording showed the explosion from the attack, no 757 was visible on it. [143]

The U.S. government reportedly has around 80 other tapes relating to the Pentagon attack, but these have not been made public. [144]


Did a missile hit the Pentagon?:

Evidence, including that described above, has led some people to suggest that something smaller than a Boeing 757, like a missile, may have hit the Pentagon. Pierre-Henri Bunel, a graduate of the French officers' academy and a former artillery officer, who has expertise in the effects of explosives on buildings, examined photographs of the crash site, along with some of the publicly released security camera footage of the Pentagon attack. Based on his observations and analysis, Bunel commented, "The flying device that struck the Department of Defense has, at first sight, nothing to do with the airliner of the official version." [145] He examined a photo showing the hole at the end of the path of damage supposedly made by Flight 77 [146], and noted, "The appearance of the perforation in the wall certainly resembles the effects of anti-concrete hollow charges that I have been able to observe on a number of battlefields.” [147] Bunel concluded, "[T]he detonation that struck the building was that of a high-powered hollow charge used to destroy hardened buildings and carried by an aerial vehicle, a missile." [148]


Alleged eyewitness accounts:

The main evidence supporting the official claim about what hit the Pentagon on 9/11 is the accounts of alleged eyewitnesses to the attack. A number of people indeed said they saw a large commercial aircraft hitting the Pentagon. [149] But a possibility worth considering and investigating is that these supposed eyewitnesses were ordered or coerced—perhaps through blackmail, threats, or other intimidation—into giving false accounts. Supporting this possibility is the account of April Gallop, an administrative specialist with the U.S. Army who was at the Pentagon when it was attacked. After crawling out of the wreckage there, she was taken to hospital. She has recalled that, while in hospital, she was visited on more than one occasion by some men dressed in suits. These men never identified themselves or said which agency they worked for. But Gallop has recalled that they told her "what to do, which was to take the [victim compensation fund] money and shut up." She added: "They also kept insisting that a plane hit the building. They repeated this over and over. But I was there and I never saw a plane or even debris from a plane." [150]

Until the attack is properly investigated, and all of the videos relating to it are made public, the controversy over what hit the Pentagon will remain as another reason to be suspicious of the official account of 9/11.

What I have described above is a significant amount of evidence that I feel shows, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the truth about 9/11 is very different to what has been officially claimed. However, we still know too little to conclude what exactly did happen that day, and determine who planned and perpetrated the attacks. We need a new, unrestrained, largescale investigation that will pursue the truth, wherever it might lead. This investigation would need to be accompanied by close scrutiny from the press, along with independent investigative work by journalists. It would, inevitably, be the story of the century.


EMOTIONAL REACTIONS TO ALTERNATIVE 9/11 THEORIES

Former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts has raised important questions regarding people's emotional reactions to evidence contradicting the official 9/11 story. He wrote: "[P]eople I know who do not believe a word the government says about anything except 9/11 ... believe that the government that lies to them about everything else tells them the truth about 9/11. 'How can this be,' I ask them. 'Did the government slip up once and tell the truth?'" Yet those people did not then reconsider their acceptance of the government's account of 9/11. "Instead, they get angry with me for doubting their intelligence or their integrity or some such hallowed trait."

Roberts observed the problems created by the "emotional needs of people," writing, "With 9/11, many Americans feel that they must believe their government so that they don't feel like they are being unsupportive or unpatriotic, and they are very fearful of being called 'terrorist sympathizers.'" He noted that some on the political left "have emotional needs to believe that peoples oppressed by the U.S. have delivered 'blowbacks.' Some leftists think that America deserves these blowbacks and thus believe the government's propaganda that Muslims attacked the U.S."

Roberts concluded: "Democracy is based on the assumption that people are rational beings who factually examine arguments and are not easily manipulated. Studies are not finding this to be the case. In my own experience in scholarship, public policy, and journalism, I have learned that everyone from professors to high school dropouts has difficulty with facts and analyses that do not fit with what they already believe." [151]

What Roberts highlighted is the need for research and analysis, to find why so many people have been resistant to evidence contradicting the official 9/11 story. To understand the attacks, we also need to understand the attackers. What motivated these individuals? Why were their colleagues unable to stop them? How was it possible for them to deceive us, the public, for so long? Addressing questions like these will be of great importance, because, with a fuller understanding of 9/11, we can reduce the risk of an atrocity like it ever happening again. — Matt Everett


ENDNOTES

1. See, for example, Ian Henshall, 9/11: The New Evidence. London: Robinson Publishing, 2007; David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the CoverUp, and the Exposé. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008.

2. Bob Woodward, Bush at War. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002, p. 4; "Terror Hits the Towers: How Government Officials Reacted to Sept. 11 Attacks." ABC News, September 14, 2002



3. Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror. New York: Free Press, 2004, pp. 1-2.


4. "Karen Hughes Delivers Remarks on Terrorist Attacks." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP.../11/bn.52.html ; "September 11: Chronology of Terror." CNN, September 12, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/chronology.attack/


5. Meet the Press. NBC, September 23, 2001. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv...ext092301.html


6. Seymour Hersh, "Missed Messages." New Yorker, June 3, 2002.


7. "Blair Puts Case Against bin Laden." BBC News, October 4, 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/1578860.stm ; "Blair Unveils Evidence Against bin Laden." Daily Telegraph, October 4, 2001; http://www.thedemocracyworkshop.com/article01.htm


8. "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States, 11 September 2001." 10 Downing Street, October 4, 2001.


9. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Authorized Edition. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. xvi.


10. Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs, To Establish the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, and for Other Purposes. 107th Cong., 2nd Sess., May 14, 2002.


11. Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, "9/11 Commission Controversy." Deep Background: NBC News Investigates, January 30, 2008, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/po...n_torture.html

12. "Bin Laden Denies Role in Attacks, Reporter Says." Associated Press, September 13, 2001, http://www.nj.com/specialprojects/in.../osamaa13.html ; "Aide Says bin Laden Denies Role in U.S. Attacks." Reuters, September 13, 2001, http://newsmine.org/content.php?ol=9...uters-aide.htm


13. "Taliban Says bin Laden Denies Role in Attacks." Reuters, September 13, 2001, http://www.welfarestate.com/binladen...rs-taliban.htm


14. "Bin Laden Says He Wasn't Behind Attacks." CNN, September 17, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/16...ef=storysearch ; Luke Harding, Rory McCarthy, Brian Whitaker, and Richard Norton-Taylor, "Bin Laden and Family Flee to the Hills and Family go Into Hiding." The Guardian, September 17, 2001.


15. "Who Was Behind 9/11? An Interview With Osama bin Laden." Daily Ummat, September 28, 2001, http://www.justresponse.net/Bin_Laden1.html

16. Omar Shama, "Bin Laden Makes Tape Praising Attacks." Associated Press, October 8, 2001.


17. "Transcript of Osama bin Laden Videotape." CNN, December 13, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/12/13/tape.transcript ; Simon Jeff ery, "We Were Overjoyed When the Plane Hit the Building." The Guardian, December 13, 2001; "Tape 'Proves bin Laden's Guilt.'" BBC News, December 14, 2001

18. Elisabeth Bumiller, "Bin Laden, on Tape, Boasts of Trade Center Attacks; U.S. Says it Proves His Guilt." New York Times, December 14, 2001.



19. "Tape 'Proves bin Laden's Guilt.'"

20. Elisabeth Bumiller, "Bin Laden, on Tape, Boasts of Trade Center Attacks."


21. David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009, p. 30.


22. Dynamic Duo, Genesis Communications Network, February 16, 2007


23. See David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive?, pp. 37-68.


24. Angelo M. Codevilla, "Osama bin Elvis." American Spectator, March 2009, http://spectator.org/articles/42097/osama-bin-elvis


25. "Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin Laden." Federal Bureau of Investigation, http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm (accessed February 16, 2010).


26. Ed Haas, "FBI Says, 'No Hard Evidence Connecting bin Laden to 9/11.'" Muckraker Report, June 6, 2006, http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle13664.htm


27. James Glanz, "Terrorists Were Well Trained, but Not Necessarily in Flying." New York Times, September 13, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/us...ly-flying.html


28. "Hijackers 'Knew What They Were Doing.'" CNN, September 12, 2001, http://edition.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/hijackers.skills/


29. Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive Press, 2005, pp. 190-191.


30. "September 11: U.S. Government Accused." The News, August 3, 2002, http://www.theportugalnews.com/news/view/663-6


31. House Committee on the Judiciary, INS's March 2002 Notification of Approval of Change of Status for Pilot Training for Terrorist Hijackers Mohammed Atta and Marwan Alshehhi. 107th Cong., 2nd Sess., March 19, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Repon, pp. 224, 227.


32. Rudi Dekkers, interview by Quentin McDermott, A Mission to Die For. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 21, 2001, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/...ws/dekkers.htm


33. "I Flew With a Terrorist." BBC News, September 24, 2001; Anne Greaves, interview by Liz Jackson, A Mission to Die For. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 18, 2001, http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/atta/...ws/greaves.htm


34. Steven Erlanger, "An Unobtrusive Man's Odyssey: Polite Student to Suicide Hijacker." New York Times, September 15, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/15/in...al/15GERM.html ; David A. Lombardo, "Hijack Pilots Showed Average Skills, Say Their Instructors." Aviation International News, November 1, 2001.


35. Ian Ball, "FBI Tracks Down the Florida Lair of Flying School Terrorists." Daily Telegraph, September 14, 2001, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...errorists.html


36. Ken Kaye, "Questions Remain on Flight Training." South Florida Sun-Sentinel, September 22, 2001, http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/200...light-training


37. Der Spiegel Magazine, Inside 9/11: What Really Happened. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2002, p. 12; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United Flight 93 and the Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back. New York: HarperCollins, 2002, p. 91; "Statement for the Record, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry." U.S. Congress, September 25, 2002, http://fas.org/irp/congress/2002_hr/092602mueller.html

38. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 91.


39. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 242.


40. "Statement for the Record, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry"


41. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 14.


42. "Staff Statement No. 4: The Four Flights." 9/11 Commission, January 27, 2004


43. Carol J. Williams, John-Thor Dahlburg, and H. G. Reza, "Mainly, They Just Waited." Los Angeles Times, September 27, 2001.


44. Amy Goldstein, Lena H. Sun, and George Lardner Jr., "Hanjour a Study in Paradox." Washington Post, October 15, 2001, http://space.crono911.net/EBook/051_...t_15102001.pdf


45. V. Dion Haynes, "Algerian Man Didn't Try to Hide, Neighbors Say." Chicago Tribune, October 2, 2001, http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2...terrorism-plot




46. Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence." New York Times, May 4, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/04/us...ompetence.html


47. Thomas Frank, "Tracing Trail of Hijackers." Newsday, September 23, 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/di...day_sep23.html


48. "'Get These Planes on the Ground': Air Traffic Controllers Recall Sept. 11." ABC News, October 24, 2001, http://911review.com/cache/errors/pe...ws102401b.html ; Alan Levin, Marilyn Adams, and Blake Morrison, "Terror Attacks Brought Drastic Decision: Clear the Skies." USA Today, August 12, 2002, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...earskies_x.htm ; Tom Brokaw, "The Skies Over America." NBC News, September 9, 2006, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14754701


49. "Primary Target." CBS News, September 21, 2001, http://www.cbsnews.com/news/primary-target/


50. Steve Fainaru and Alia Ibrahim, "Mysterious Trip to Flight 77 Cockpit." Washington Post, September 10, 2002,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...1300752_3.html

51. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, http://www.ae911truth.org , http://coyoteprime-runningcauseicant...911-truth.html


52. Author David Ray Griffin has been able to write a 328-page book, solely devoted to the collapse of WTC 7. See David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report About 9/11 is Unscientific and False. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2009.


53. According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology, "The fires were ignited on at least 10 floors; however, only the fires on floors 7 through 9 and 11 through 13 grew and lasted until the time of the building collapse." See "NIST NCSTAR IA: Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7." National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, p. xxxvi.


54. "Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7," p. xxxv.


55. James Glanz, "Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel." New York Times, November 29, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/ny...l?pagewanted=1


56. Steven E. Jones, "Revisiting 9/11/2001: Applying the Scientific Method." Journal of 9/11 Studies, May 2007, pp. 61-62, http://www.journalof911studies.com/v...1SciMethod.pdf


57. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (accessed February 20, 2010); http://www2.ae911truth.org/downloads...t_ed_v_1.2.pdf


58. Niels H. Harrit et al., "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe." Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2, pp. 7-31, http://www.globalresearch.ca/active-...astrophe/13049

59. Steven E. Jones et al., "Extremely High Temperatures During the World Trade Center Destruction." Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008, http://www.journalof911studies.com/a...CHighTemp2.pdf ; Niels H. Harrit et al., "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe."



60. Niels H. Harrit et al., "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe."


61. "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust From the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe." 911Blogger.com, April 4, 2009



62. "Did Nano-Thermite Take Down the WTC?" RT, July 9, 2009


63. Pat McKenna, "FANGs Bared." Airman, December 1999; Adam J. Hebert, "The Return of NORAD." Air Force Magazine, February 2002. However, NORAD has stated that it could call upon "additional U.S. and Canadian air assets ... when required." See "NORAD Brings Operation Northern Denial to a Close." North American Aerospace Defense Command, December 15, 2000


64. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 17.


65. Kevin Dennehy, "Local Reservists Await the Call." Cape Cod Times, September 15, 2001; Kevin Dennehy, "Otis Force Activated; Home Duty Seen Likely." Cape Cod Times, September 21, 2001.


66. Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 117.


67. "Transcript American Airlines Flight 11." New York Times, October 16, 2001; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 4.

68. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 18.



69. Ibid. pp. 18-19; Tom Brokaw, "The Skies Over America."


70. "Statement of Robin Hordon, Former FAA Air Traffic Controller." Patriots Question 9/11, April 10, 2007, http://patriotsquestion911.com/Statement%20Hordon.html


71. Dr. Bob Arnot, "What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks?" MSNBC, September 12, 2001, http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/...nbc091201.html


72. Jeremy Baker, "The First Fifteen Minutes of September 11th." CommunityCurrency.org, March 17, 2007, http://www.communitycurrency.org/robin.html


73. Dr. Bob Arnot, "What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks?"


74. "Statement of Robin Hordon, Former FAA Air Traffic Controller."


75. David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory. Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2007, pp. 39-41.


76. Jerry Herley et al., Continental Air Defense: A Dedicated Force is no Longer Needed. Washington, DC: United States General Accounting Office, May 3, 1994, p. 4.


77. Dr. Bob Arnot, "What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks?"


78. 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20.


79. Ibid. p. 20.


80. Ibid. p. 24.


81. See "(9:45 a.m.-10:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001: Witnesses First Notice Military Jets Over New York, Later Than Claimed in 9/11 Commission's Account." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/contex...ightersnoticed

82. Ann Scott Tyson, "A New Diligence in the American Blue Yonder." Christian Science Monitor, April 16, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 26-27, 34.


83. 9/1 1 Commission, The 9/1 1 Commission Report, p. 27; Michael Bronner, "9/1 1 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.


84. David E. Sanger and Don Van Natta Jr., "In Four Days, a National Crisis Changes Bush's Presidency." New York Times, September 16, 2001; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Fireflght: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. New York: Presidio Press, 2008, pp. 130-131.


85. Leslie Filson, Sovereign Skies: Air National Guard Takes Command of 1st Air Force. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, p. 115; Don Arias, "Outstanding: CONR, Sectors Receive Highest Inspection Ratings." American Defender, March 1999.


86. For the most comprehensive description of these exercises, see "Military Exercises up to 9/11." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/timeli...e_911_timeline ; "Training Exercises on 9/11." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/timeli...e_911_timeline



87. See Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, pp. 203-206; Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones, "London Underground Bombing 'Exercises' Took Place at Same Time as Real Attack." Prison Planet, July 13, 2005

88. Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror, p. 205.



89. See, for example, "National Security Advisor Holds Press Briefing." White House, May 16, 2002, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archiv...020516-13.html ; "President Addresses the Nation in Prime Time Press Conference." White House, April 13, 2004, http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archiv...040413-20.html ; Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons." USA Today, April 18, 2004.


90. "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Tenth Public Hearing." 9/11 Commission, April 13, 2004, http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/a...2004-04-13.pdf


91. "National Special Security Events Fact Sheet." U.S. Department of Homeland Security, July 9, 2003; "Fact Sheet: 2005 Presidential Inauguration - National Special Security Event." U.S. Department of Homeland Security, November 8, 2004


92. "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States: Tenth Public Hearing."


93. Steven Komarow and Tom Squitieri, "NORAD Had Drills of Jets as Weapons."



94. Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 179.


95. Dennis Ryan, "Contingency Planning Pentagon MASCAL Exercise Simulates Scenarios in Preparing for Emergencies." MDW News Service, November 3, 2000.


96. Arlington County, Virginia, report, Titan Systems Corp., Arlington County: After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. Arlington, VA: The County, 2002, p. B17, http://www.floridadisaster.org/publi...Arl_Co_AAR.pdf ; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Defense Department, Office of the Secretary, Historical Office, 2007, pp. 23, 107.


97. Lance Lord, "A Year Ago, a Lifetime Ago." Air Force Print News, September 10, 2002.


98. William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545; "Vigilant Guardian." GlobalSecurity.org, April 27, 2005, http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...t-guardian.htm


99. Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, pp. 55, 122.


100. Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."


101. Elizabeth Cooper, "NEADS on 9/11: Professionalism and Helplessness." Utica Observer-Dispatch, August 5, 2004.


102. "NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary." 9/11 Commission, n.d., http://www.scribd.com/doc/16411947/N...Hijack-Summary


103. John J. Lumpkin, "Agency Planned Exercise on Sept. 1 1 Built Around a Plane Crashing Into a Building." Associated Press, August 21, 2002; Pamela Hess, "U.S. Agency's Strange 9/11 Coincidence." United Press International, August 22, 2002; "Early Morning Flight Activity September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, July 14, 2003, http://www.scribd.com/doc/18663225/T...-Into-Building


104. Hart Seely, "Amid Crisis Simulation, 'We Were Suddenly No-Kidding Under Attack.'" Newhouse News Service, January 25, 2002.


105. Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live." For additional examples of NEADS personnel mistaking real-world events for an exercise scenario, see "(8:38 a.m.-8:43 a.m.) September 11, 2001: NORAD Personnel Mistake Hijacking for Part of an Exercise." Complete 9/11 Timeline, http://www.historycommons.org/contex...akeforexercise



106. See, for example, Dean E. Murphy, September 11: An Oral History. New York: Doubleday, 2002, p. 222; Sanders Marble and Ellen Milhiser (Editors), Soldiers to the Rescue: The Medical Response to the Pentagon Attack. Washington, DC: Office of the Surgeon General, September 2004, pp. 69, 111, 125; Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, Fire fight, pp. 57-58.


107. Debbie Sheehan, "Force Protection Plan a 'Timely Alert.'" Monmouth Message, September 21, 2001, http://web.archive.org/web/200301140...1/m38front.htm ; Sherry Conohan, "Training Exercise Quickly Became Reality." The Hub, September 21, 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/pl...gexercise.html ; Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Operations and Plans, U.S. Army Communications-Electronics Command, A Concise History of the Communications-Electronics Command and Fort Monmouth, New Jersey. Fort Monmouth, NJ: Fort Monmouth, 2003, p. 71, http://cecom.army.mil/historian/pubu...%2009_4Web.pdf


108. NBC News, September 11, 2001; Bill Nichols, "Homeland Defense Needs Now 'Grim Reality.'" USA Today, September 11, 2001, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/...1/security.htm


109. Steve Vogel, "Flights of Vigilance Over the Capital." Washington Post, April 8, 2002; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Major Billy Hutchinson, 1 13th Fighter Wing, Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, February 2, 2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/19057182/D...-Hutchison-638 ; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.




110. "Memorandum for the Record: Major David McNulty, Chief of Intelligence, 121st Fighter Squadron, Air National Guard, Andrews Air Force Base." 9/11 Commission, March 11, 2004; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 156.


111. "Memorandum for the Record: Visit to Reagan National Airport Control Tower in Alexandria, VA and Andrews Air Force Base Control Tower." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003; "Relevant Andrews Transmissions." 9/11 Commission, February 17-18, 2004, http://www.scribd.com/doc/14274529/D...-Kara-Notes097 ; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Major John Daniel Caine, USAF, Supervisor of Flying at 121st Squadron, 113th Wing, Andrews Air Force Base on September 11, 2001." 9/11 Commission, March 8, 2004


112. Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground." Washington Post, May 12, 2002.


113. Newseum, Running Toward Danger: Stories Behind the Breaking News of 9/11. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2002, p. 148.


114. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 216.


115. Newseum, Running Toward Danger, p. 149.


116. Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash: Flight 93 Aftermath- An Oral and Pictorial Chronicle. Somerset, PA: SAJ Publishing, 2002, p. 110.


117. "FBI Finished With Pennsylvania Crash Site Probe." CNN, September 24, 2001; Tom Gibb, "FBI Ends Site Work, Says no Bomb Used." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 25, 2001; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 259.


118. Robb Frederick, "The Day That Changed America." Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, September 11, 2002.


119. "On Hallowed Ground." The Age, September 9, 2002.


120. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, p. 217.


121. Peter Perl, "Hallowed Ground"; "On Hallowed Ground."


122. Steve Levin, "Flight 93 Victims' Effects to go Back to Families." Pittsburgh PostGazette, December 30, 2001.


123. Steve Levin and Tom Barnes, "Flight 93 Relatives Gathering for Service." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 17, 2001; "Environmental Restoration Begins at Somerset Site." Pittsburgh Channel, October 2, 2001, http://html.thepittsburghchannel.com...02-151006.html ; Tom Gibb, "Latest Somerset Crash Site Findings May Yield Added IDs." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 3, 2001.


124. John O'Callaghan and Daniel Bower, "Study of Autopilot, Navigation Equipment, and Fuel Consumption Activity Based on United Airlines Flight 93 and American Airlines Flight 77 Digital Flight Data Recorder Information." National Transportation Safety Board, February 13, 2002, http://killtown.911review.org/pdf/nt...-aa77-ua93.pdf


125. Tom Gibb, "Latest Somerset Crash Site Findings May Yield Added IDs."


126. "Environmental Restoration Begins at Somerset Site."


127. Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, pp. 213-214.


128. David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph. Johnstown, PA: Noah's Ark Publishing Company, 2002, pp. 31-32; Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, p. 38.


129. Glenn J. Kashurba, Courage After the Crash, pp. 43, HO; Mike Masterson, "Flight 93: A Hallowed Field." Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 13, 2006.


130. "Staff Statement No. 1: Entry of the 9/11 Hijackers Into the United States." 9/11 Commission, January 26, 2004



131. Paul E. Mlakar et al., The Pentagon Building Performance Report. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2003, p. 35.


132. Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate. London: Carnot Publishing, 2002, photograph section, p. vii.


133. Ibid. pp. 35-36.


134. Ryan Alessi and M. E. Sprengelmeyer, "An Anniversary of Agony at the Pentagon." Scripps Howard News Service, August 1, 2002.


135. Sanders Marble and Ellen Milhiser (Editors), Soldiers to the Rescue, p. 119.


136. Ibid. p. 96.


137. Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 70.


138. Allison Gilbert et al., Covering Catastrophe: Broadcast Journalists Report September 11. Chicago, IL: Bonus Books, 2002, p. 187.


139. "Bush Holds Press Briefing." Breaking News, CNN, September 11, 2001



140. See, for example, http://www.defense.gov/news/Sep2001/200109114a_hr.jpg


141. This photograph, taken by Assistant Fire Marshal Charles Burroughs of the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, can be viewed online at [url]http://0911.voila.net/PENT04.jpg


142. "Judicial Watch Obtains September 11 Pentagon Video." Judicial Watch, May 16, 2006; Jerry Markon, "Videos Released of Plane Crashing Into Pentagon." Washington Post, May 17, 2006.


143. "Hotel Security Video Shows 9/11 Pentagon Blast, but no Plane." CNN, December 2, 2006, http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/12/02/saturday/index.html ; "Judicial Watch Obtains Security Camera Videos From Doubletree Hotel That Show 9/11 Attack on Pentagon." Judicial Watch, December 7, 2006


144. "The Stories Behind the Stories." On the Story, CNN, May 20, 2006, http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0605/20/tt.01.html



145. Pierre-Henri Bunel, "The Effects of a Hollow Charge," in Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate, pp. 73-76.


146. Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate, photograph section, p. xii; http://www.conspiracywatch.info/photo/art/default/897908-1106949.jpg?v=1289485659 ; http://www.voltairenet.org/article139203.html


147. Pierre-Henri Bunel, "The Effects of a Hollow Charge," pp. 83-84.


148. Ibid. pp. 85-86.


149. See Eric Bart, "Witness Accounts." It Was a Plane Bomb, September 14, 2003, http://web.archive.org/web/20040619172423/eric-bart.net/iwpb/witness.html


150. Jim Marrs, Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies. San Rafael, CA: Origin Press, 2004, p. 26.


151. Paul Craig Roberts, "Why Propaganda Trumps Truth." Information Clearing House, September 15, 2009, http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article23498.htm

[Beautiful sky]

Osama been laid N. yeah I guess he got laid

[Pookie]

Hey, loose change. I type loose change Beta NF, because it ties a bunch of strings together and its debunkable by science.

[Mega]

[Olly From Wally World]

IEI
@HERO, out of curiosity, do you read all the information you dump here? If so, cool, or are you more so giving us a lot of information to better participate in the thread. Or both.

[The Exception]

LII

Kidding, I don't know actually.

[strrrng]

probably some Ni-dominant

[Jack Oliver Aaron]

A charismatic, but more behind the scenes leader with a strong vision, adherence to a set ideology and the charm to persuade others to carry it out for him. I find this all in line with Beta, specifically the IP temperament, leading Ni, creative Fe, mobilising Ti of IEI.