excellent introduction by the indefatigable John Whitbeck. A long read but
worth every minute of it.
FM: John WhitbeckFM: John WhitbeckThe article transmitted below, by Prof. David Ray Griffin, prints out to 17
pages (not counting its 127 footnotes). I urge all my distinguished
recipients to take the time to read it with an open mind.
I have read four of Griffin's books on the 9/11 events, and my wife and I
have had the pleasure of having dinner with him when he was in Paris for a
speaking engagement. While there are a lot of deranged nutcases running
around the United States (and even addressing adoring crowds of
"USA"-chanting supporters), Griffin is not one of them. He is a very
pleasant, unpretentious and thoroughly rational retired philosophy professor
who, based on a rigorous evaluation of the evidence (and lack of evidence),
has concluded, for multiple good and sufficient reasons (of which the
matters discussed in this article constitute only a small portion), that the
"official conspiracy theory" regarding the 9/11 events propagated by the
United States government in the hours and days immediately after they
occurred (and, for the most part, swallowed whole, on faith and without any
vocal demand for supporting evidence, by American and world public opinion)
simply could not be true.
Griffin (like me) was initially skeptical of 9/11 "conspiracy theories" (so
labeled by proponents and supporters of what Griffin has come to call the
"official conspiracy theory") and only started to look at the evidence a
year after the events. He certainly never wished to arrive at the
conclusions to which the available evidence led him. No American would.
However, having reached these conclusions, he feels a patriotic duty to
convince other Americans (notably those in high places) to look at the
evidence with open minds and open eyes -- and to follow where the evidence
leads. This is not an easy way to spend what should be one's "golden years"
of retirement. I consider Griffin -- and his persistence -- heroic.
Griffin concludes this article: "All the proffered evidence that America was
attacked by Muslims on 9/11, when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to
have been fabricated. If that is determined indeed to be the case, the
implications would be enormous. Discovering and prosecuting the true
perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks would obviously be important. The most
immediate consequence, however, should be to reverse those attitudes and
policies that have been based on the assumption that America was attacked by
Muslims on 9/11."
It is well worth reading this article with an open mind.
Was America Attacked by Muslims on 9/11?
David Ray Griffin
http://www.opednews.com/
Much of America's foreign policy since 9/11 has been based on the assumption
that it was attacked by Muslims on that day. This assumption was used, most
prominently, to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is now widely
agreed that the use of 9/11 as a basis for attacking Iraq was illegitimate:
none of the hijackers were Iraqis, there was no working relation between
Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and Iraq was not behind the anthrax
attacks. But it is still widely believed that the US attack on Afghanistan
was justified. For example, the New York Times, while referring to the US
attack on Iraq as a "war of choice," calls the battle in Afghanistan a "war
of necessity." Time magazine has dubbed it "the right war." And Barack Obama
says that one reason to wind down our involvement in Iraq is to have the
troops and resources to "go after the people in Afghanistan who actually
attacked us on 9/11."
The assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11 also lies behind
the widespread perception of Islam as an inherently violent religion and
therefore of Muslims as guilty until proven innocent. This perception surely
contributed to attempts to portray Obama as a Muslim, which was lampooned by
a controversial cartoon on the July 21, 2008, cover of The New Yorker.
As could be illustrated by reference to many other post-9/11 developments,
including as spying, torture, extraordinary rendition, military tribunals,
America's new doctrine of preemptive war, and its enormous increase in
military spending, the assumption that the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon were attacked by Muslim hijackers has had enormous negative
consequences for both international and domestic issues.1
Is it conceivable that this assumption might be false? Insofar as Americans
and Canadians would say "No," they would express their belief that this
assumption is not merely an "assumption" but is instead based on strong
evidence. When actually examined, however, the proffered evidence turns out
to be remarkably weak. I will illustrate this point by means of 16
questions.
1. Were Mohamed Atta and the Other Hijackers Devout Muslims?
The picture of the hijackers conveyed by the 9/11 Commission is that they
were devout Muslims. Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader, was said to
have become very religious, even "fanatically so."2 Being devout Muslims,
they could be portrayed as ready to meet their Maker---as a "cadre of
trained operatives willing to die."3
But this portrayal is contradicted by various newspaper stories. The San
Francisco Chronicle reported that Atta and other hijackers had made "at
least six trips" to Las Vegas, where they had "engaged in some decidedly
un-Islamic sampling of prohibited pleasures." These activities were
"un-Islamic" because, as the head of the Islamic Foundation of Nevada
pointed out: "True Muslims don't drink, don't gamble, don't go to strip
clubs."4
One might, to be sure, rationalize this behavior by supposing that these
were momentary lapses and that, as 9/11 approached, these young Muslims had
repented and prepared for heaven. But in the days just before 9/11, Atta and
others were reported to be drinking heavily, cavorting with lap dancers, and
bringing call girls to their rooms. Temple University Professor Mahmoud
Ayoub said: "It is incomprehensible that a person could drink and go to a
strip bar one night, then kill themselves the next day in the name of Islam.
. . . Something here does not add up."5
In spite of the fact that these activities were reported by mainstream
newspapers and even the Wall Street Journal editorial page,6 the 9/11
Commission wrote as if these reports did not exist, saying: "we have seen no
credible evidence explaining why, on [some occasions], the operatives flew
to or met in Las Vegas."7
2. Do Authorities Have Hard Evidence of Osama bin Laden's Responsibility for
9/11?
Whatever be the truth about the devoutness of the hijackers, one might
reply, there is certainly no doubt about the fact that they were acting
under the guidance of Osama bin Laden. The attack on Afghanistan was based
on the claim that bin Laden was behind the attacks, and the 9/11 Commission's
report was written as if there were no question about this claim. But
neither the Bush administration nor the Commission provided any proof for
it.
Two weeks after 9/11, Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking to Tim
Russert on "Meet the Press," said he expected "in the near future . . . to
put out . . . a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that
we have linking [bin Laden] to this attack."8 But at a press conference with
President Bush the next morning, Powell reversed himself, saying that
although the government had information that left no question of bin Laden's
responsibility, "most of it is classified."9 According to Seymour Hersh,
citing officials from both the CIA and the Department of Justice, the real
reason for the reversal was a "lack of solid information."10
That same week, Bush had demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden. But
the Taliban, reported CNN, "refus[ed] to hand over bin Laden without proof
or evidence that he was involved in last week's attacks on the United
States." The Bush administration, saying "[t]here is already an indictment
of Osama bin Laden" [for the attacks in Tanzania, Kenya, and elsewhere],"
rejected the demand for evidence with regard to 9/11.11
The task of providing such evidence was taken up by British Prime Minister
Tony Blair, who on October 4 made public a document entitled "Responsibility
for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States." Listing "clear
conclusions reached by the government," it stated: "Osama Bin Laden and
al-Qaeda, the terrorist network which he heads, planned and carried out the
atrocities on 11 September 2001."12
Blair's report, however, began by saying: "This document does not purport
to provide a prosecutable case against Osama Bin Laden in a court of law."
This weakness was noted the next day by the BBC, which said: "There is no
direct evidence in the public domain linking Osama Bin Laden to the 11
September attacks. At best the evidence is circumstantial."13
After the US had attacked Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said: "We
have asked for proof of Osama's involvement, but they have refused. Why?"14
The answer to this question may be suggested by the fact that, to this day,
the FBI's "Most Wanted Terrorist" webpage on bin Laden, while listing him as
wanted for bombings in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, makes no
mention of 9/11.15
When the FBI's chief of investigative publicity was asked why not, he
replied: "The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden's Most
Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to
9/11."16
It is often claimed that bin Laden's guilt is proved by a video, reportedly
found by US intelligence officers in Afghanistan in November 2001, in which
bin Laden appears to report having planned the attacks. But critics,
pointing out various problems with this "confession video," have called it a
fake.17 General Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan's ISI, said: "I think
there is an Osama Bin Laden look-alike."18 Actually, the man in the video is
not even much of a look-alike, being heavier and darker than bin Laden,
having a broader nose, wearing jewelry, and writing with his right hand.19
The FBI, in any case, obviously does not consider this video hard evidence
of bin Laden's responsibility for 9/11.
What about the 9/11 Commission? I mentioned earlier that it gave the
impression of having had solid evidence of bin Laden's guilt. But Thomas
Kean and Lee Hamilton, the Commission's co-chairs, undermined this
impression in their follow-up book subtitled "the inside story of the 9/11
Commission."20
Whenever the Commission had cited evidence for bin Ladin's responsibility,
the note in the back of the book always referred to CIA-provided information
that had (presumably) been elicited during interrogations of al-Qaeda
operatives. By far the most important of these operatives was Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed (KSM), described as the "mastermind" of the 9/11 attacks. The
Commission, for example, wrote:
Bin Ladin . . . finally decided to give the green light for the 9/11
operation sometime in late 1998 or early 1999. . . . Bin Ladin also soon
selected four individuals to serve as suicide operatives. . . . Atta---whom
Bin Ladin chose to lead the group---met with Bin Ladin several times to
receive additional instructions, including a preliminary list of approved
targets: the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and the U.S. Capitol.21
The note for each of these statements says "interrogation of KSM."22
Kean and Hamilton, however, reported that they had no success in "obtaining
access to star witnesses in custody . . . , most notably Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed."23 Besides not being allowed to interview these witnesses, they
were not permitted to observe the interrogations through one-way glass or
even to talk to the interrogators.24 Therefore, they complained: "We . . .
had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information. How could
we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed . . . was telling us the
truth?"25
An NBC "deep background" report in 2008 pointed out an additional problem:
KSM and the other al-Qaeda leaders had been subjected to "enhanced
interrogation techniques," i.e., torture, and it is now widely acknowledged
that statements elicited by torture lack credibility. "At least four of the
operatives whose interrogation figured in the 9/11 Commission Report," this
NBC report pointed out, "have claimed that they told interrogators critical
information as a way to stop being 'tortured.'" NBC then quoted Michael
Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, as saying: "Most
people look at the 9/11 Commission Report as a trusted historical document.
If their conclusions were supported by information gained from torture, . .
. their conclusions are suspect."26
Accordingly, neither the White House, the British government, the FBI, nor
the 9/11 Commission has provided solid evidence that Osama bin Laden was
behind 9/11.
3. Was Evidence of Muslim Hijackers Provided by Phone Calls from the
Airliners?
Nevertheless, many readers may respond, there can be no doubt that the
airplanes were taken over by al-Qaeda hijackers, because their presence and
actions on the planes were reported on phone calls by passengers and flight
attendants, with cell phone calls playing an especially prominent role.
The most famous of the reported calls were from CNN commentator Barbara
Olson to her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. According to CNN, he
reported that his wife had "called him twice on a cell phone from American
Airlines Flight 77," saying that "all passengers and flight personnel,
including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by . . .
hijackers [armed with] knives and cardboard cutters."27
Although these reported calls, as summarized by Ted Olson, did not describe
the hijackers so as to suggest that they were members of al-Qaeda, such
descriptions were supplied by calls from other flights, especially United
93, from which about a dozen cell phone calls were reportedly received
before it crashed in Pennsylvania. According to a Washington Post story of
September 13,
[P]assenger Jeremy Glick used a cell phone to tell his wife, Lyzbeth, . . .
that the Boeing 757's cockpit had been taken over by three Middle
Eastern-looking men. . . . The terrorists, wearing red headbands, had
ordered the pilots, flight attendants and passengers to the rear of the
plane.28
A story about a "cellular phone conversation" between flight attendant
Sandra Bradshaw and her husband gave this report:
She said the plane had been taken over by three men with knives. She had
gotten a close look at one of the hijackers. . . . "He had an Islamic look,"
she told her husband.29
From these calls, therefore, the public was informed that the hijackers
looked Middle Eastern and even Islamic.
Still more specific information was reportedly conveyed during a 12-minute
cell phone call from flight attendant Amy Sweeney on American Flight 11,
which was to crash into the North Tower of the World Trade Center.30 After
reaching American Airlines employee Michael Woodward and telling him that
men of "Middle Eastern descent" had hijacked her flight, she then gave him
their seat numbers, from which he was able to learn the identity of Mohamed
Atta and two other hijackers.31 Amy Sweeney's call was critical, ABC News
explained, because without it "the plane might have crashed with no one
certain the man in charge was tied to al Qaeda."32
There was, however, a big problem with these reported calls: Given the
technology available in 2001, cell phone calls from airliners at altitudes
of more than a few thousand feet, especially calls lasting more than a few
seconds, were not possible, and yet these calls, some of which reportedly
lasted a minute or more, reportedly occurred when the planes were above
30,000 or even 40,000 feet. This problem was explained by some credible
people, including scientist A.K. Dewdney, who for many years had written a
column for Scientific American.33
Although some defenders of the official account, such as Popular Mechanics,
have disputed the contention that high-altitude calls from airliners were
impossible,34 the fact is that the FBI, after having at first supported the
claims that such calls were made, withdrew this support a few years later.
With regard to the reported 12-minute call from Amy Sweeney to Michael
Woodward, an affidavit signed by FBI agent James Lechner and dated September
12 (2001) stated that, according to Woodward, Sweeney had been "using a
cellular telephone."35 But when the 9/11 Commission discussed this call in
its Report, which appeared in July 2004, it declared that Sweeney had used
an onboard phone.36
Behind that change was an implausible claim made by the FBI earlier in 2004:
Although Woodward had failed to mention this when FBI agent Lechner
interviewed him on 9/11, he had repeated Sweeney's call verbatim to a
colleague in his office, who had in turn repeated it to another colleague at
American headquarters in Dallas, who had recorded it; and this
recording---which was discovered only in 2004---indicated that Sweeney had
used a passenger-seat phone, thanks to "an AirFone card, given to her by
another flight attendant."37
This claim is implausible because, if this relayed recording had really been
made on 9/11, we cannot believe that Woodward would have failed to mention
it to FBI agent Lechner later that same day. While Lechner was taking notes,
Woodward would surely have said: "You don't need to rely on my memory. There
is a recording of a word-for-word repetition of Sweeney's statements down in
Dallas." It is also implausible that Woodward, having repeated Sweeney's
statement that she had used "an AirFone card, given to her by another flight
attendant," would have told Lechner, as the latter's affidavit says, that
Sweeney had been "using a cellular telephone."
Lechner's affidavit shows that the FBI at first supported the claim that
Sweeney had made a 12-minute cell phone call from a high-altitude airliner.
Does not the FBI's change of story, after its first version had been shown
to be technologically impossible, create the suspicion that the entire story
was a fabrication?
This suspicion is reinforced by the FBI's change of story in relation to
United Flight 93. Although we were originally told that this flight had been
the source of about a dozen cell phone calls, some of them when the plane
was above 40,000 feet, the FBI gave a very different report at the 2006
trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The FBI spokesman
said: "13 of the terrified passengers and crew members made 35 air phone
calls and two cell phone calls."38 Instead of there having been about a
dozen cell phone calls from Flight 93, the FBI declared in 2005, there were
really only two.
Why were two calls still said to have been possible? They were reportedly
made at 9:58, when the plane was reportedly down to 5,000 feet.39 Although
that was still pretty high for successful cell phone calls in 2001, these
calls, unlike calls from 30,000 feet or higher, would have been at least
arguably possible.
If the truth of the FBI's new account is assumed, how can one explain the
fact that so many people had reported receiving cell phone calls? In most
cases, it seems, these people had been told by the callers that they were
using cell phones. For example, a Newsweek story about United 93 said:
"Elizabeth Wainio, 27, was speaking to her stepmother in Maryland. Another
passenger, she explains, had loaned her a cell phone and told her to call
her family."40 In such cases, we might assume that the people receiving the
calls had simply mis-heard, or mis-remembered, what they had been told. But
this would mean positing that about a dozen people had made the same
mistake.
An even more serious difficulty is presented by the case of Deena Burnett,
who said that she had received three to five calls from her husband, Tom
Burnett. She knew he was using his cell phone, she reported to the FBI that
very day and then to the press and in a book, because she had recognized his
cell phone number on her phone's Caller ID.41 We cannot suppose her to have
been mistaken about this. We also, surely, cannot accuse her of lying.
Therefore, if we accept the FBI's report, according to which Tom Burnett did
not make any cell phone calls from Flight 93, we can only conclude that the
calls were faked---that Deena Burnett was duped. Although this suggestion
may at first sight seem outlandish, there are three facts that, taken
together, show it to be more probable than any of the alternatives.
First, voice morphing technology was sufficiently advanced at that time to
make faking the calls feasible. A 1999 Washington Post article described
demonstrations in which the voices of two generals, Colin Powell and Carl
Steiner, were heard saying things they had never said.42
Second, there are devices with which you can fake someone's telephone
number, so that it will show up on the recipient's Caller ID.43
Third, the conclusion that the person who called Deena Burnett was not her
husband is suggested by various features of the calls. For example, when
Deena told the caller that "the kids" were asking to talk to him, he said:
"Tell them I'll talk to them later." This was 20 minutes after Tom had
purportedly realized that the hijackers were on a suicide mission, planning
to "crash this plane into the ground," and 10 minutes after he and other
passengers had allegedly decided that as soon as they were "over a rural
area" they must try to gain control of the plane. Also, the hijackers had
reportedly already killed one person.44 Given all this, the real Tom Burnett
would have known that he would likely die, one way or another, in the next
few minutes. Is it believable that, rather than taking this probably last
opportunity to speak to his children, he would say that he would "talk to
them later"? Is it not more likely that "Tom" made this statement to avoid
revealing that he knew nothing about "the kids," perhaps not even their
names?
Further evidence that the calls were faked is provided by timing problems in
some of them. According to the 9/11 Commission, Flight 93 crashed at 10:03
as a result of the passenger revolt, which began at 9:57. However, according
to Lyzbeth Glick's account of the aforementioned cell phone call from her
husband, Jeremy Glick, she told him about the collapse of the South Tower,
and that did not occur until 9:59, two minutes after the alleged revolt had
started. After that, she reported, their conversation continued for several
more minutes before he told her that the passengers were taking a vote about
whether to attack. According to Lyzbeth Glick's account, therefore, the
revolt was only beginning by 10:03, when the plane (according to the
official account) was crashing.45
A timing problem also occurred in the aforementioned call from flight
attendant Amy Sweeney. While she was describing the hijackers, according to
the FBI's account of her call, they stormed and took control of the
cockpit.46 However, although the hijacking of Flight 11 "began at 8:14 or
shortly thereafter," the 9/11 Commission said, Sweeney's call did not go
through until 8:25.47 Her alleged call, in other words, described the
hijacking as beginning over 11 minutes after it, according to the official
timeline, had been successfully carried out.
Multiple lines of evidence, therefore, imply that the cell phone calls were
faked. This fact has vast implications, because it implies that all the
reported calls from the planes, including those from onboard phones, were
faked. Why? Because if the planes had really been taken over in surprise
hijackings, no one would have been ready to make fake cell phone calls.
Moreover, the FBI, besides implying, most clearly in the case of Deena
Burnett, that the phone calls reporting the hijackings had been faked, comes
right out and says, in its report about calls from Flight 77, that no calls
from Barbara Olson occurred. It does mention her. But besides attributing
only one call to her, not two, the FBI report refers to it as an
"unconnected call," which (of course) lasted "0 seconds."48 In 2006, in
other words, the FBI, which is part of the Department of Justice, implied
that the story told by the DOJ's former solicitor general was untrue.
Although not mentioned by the press, this was an astounding development.
This FBI report leaves only two possible explanations for Ted Olson's story:
Either he made it up or else he, like Deena Burnett and several others, was
duped. In either case, the story about Barbara Olson's calls, with their
reports of hijackers taking over Flight 77, was based on deception.
The opening section of The 9/11 Commission Report is entitled "Inside the
Four Flights." The information contained in this section is based almost
entirely on the reported phone calls. But if the reported calls were faked,
we have no idea what happened inside these planes. Insofar as the idea that
the planes were taken over by hijackers who looked "Middle Eastern," even
"Islamic," has been based on the reported calls, this idea is groundless.
4. Was the Presence of Hijackers Proved by a Radio Transmission "from
American 11"?
It might be objected, in reply, that this is not true, because we know that
American Flight 11, at least, was hijacked, thanks to a radio transmission
in which the voice of one of its hijackers is heard. According to the 9/11
Commission, the air traffic controller for this flight heard a radio
transmission at 8:25 AM in which someone---widely assumed to be Mohamed
Atta---told the passengers: "We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you'll
be okay. We are returning to the airport." After quoting this transmission,
the Commission wrote: "The controller told us that he then knew it was a
hijacking."49 Was this transmission not indeed proof that Flight 11 had been
hijacked?
It might provide such proof if we knew that, as the Commission claimed, the
"transmission came from American 11."50 But we do not. According to the FAA's
"Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events," published September 17, 2001, the
transmission was "from an unknown origin."51 Bill Peacock, the FAA's air
traffic director, said: "We didn't know where the transmission came from."52
The Commission's claim that it came from American 11 was merely an
inference. The transmission could have come from the same room from which
the calls to Deena Burnett originated.
Therefore, the alleged radio transmission from Flight 11, like the alleged
phone calls from the planes, provides no evidence that the planes were taken
over by al-Qaeda hijackers.
5. Did Passports and a Headband Provide Evidence that al-Qaeda Operatives
Were on the Flights?
However, the government's case for al-Qaeda hijackers on also rested in part
on claims that passports and a headband belonging to al-Qaeda operatives
were found at the crash sites. But these claims are patently absurd.
A week after the attacks, the FBI reported that a search of the streets
after the destruction of the World Trade Center had discovered the passport
of one of the Flight 11 hijackers, Satam al-Suqami.53 But this claim did not
pass the giggle test. "[T]he idea that [this] passport had escaped from that
inferno unsinged," wrote one British reporter, "would [test] the credulity
of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism."54
By 2004, when the 9/11 Commission was discussing the alleged discovery of
this passport, the story had been modified to say that "a passer-by picked
it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center
towers collapsed."55 So, rather than needing to survive the collapse of the
North Tower, the passport merely needed to escape from the plane's cabin,
avoid being destroyed or even singed by the instantaneous jet-fuel fire, and
then escape from the building so that it could fall to the ground!
Equally absurd is the claim that the passport of Ziad Jarrah, the alleged
pilot of Flight 93, was found at this plane's crash site in Pennsylvania.56
This passport was reportedly found on the ground even though there was
virtually nothing at the site to indicate that an airliner had crashed
there. The reason for this absence of wreckage, we were told, was that the
plane had been headed downward at 580 miles per hour and, when it hit the
spongy Pennsylvania soil, buried itself deep in the ground. New York Times
journalist Jere Longman, surely repeating what he had been told by
authorities, wrote: "The fuselage accordioned on itself more than thirty
feet into the porous, backfilled ground. It was as if a marble had been
dropped into water."57 So, we are to believe, just before the plane buried
itself in the earth, Jarrah's passport escaped from the cockpit and landed
on the ground. Did Jarrah, going 580 miles per hour, have the window open?58
Also found on the ground, according to the government's evidence presented
to the Moussaoui trial, was a red headband.59 This was considered evidence
that al-Qaeda hijackers were on Flight 93 because they were, according to
some of the phone calls, wearing red headbands. But besides being absurd for
the same reason as was the claim about Jarrah's passport, this claim about
the headband was problematic for another reason. Former CIA agent Milt
Bearden, who helped train the Mujahideen fighters in Afghanistan, has
pointed out that it would have been very unlikely that members of al-Qaeda
would have worn such headbands:
[The red headband] is a uniquely Shi'a Muslim adornment. It is something
that dates back to the formation of the Shi'a sect. . . . [I]t represents
the preparation of he who wears this red headband to sacrifice his life, to
murder himself for the cause. Sunnis are by and large most of the people
following Osama bin Laden [and they] do not do this.60
We learned shortly after the invasion of Iraq that some people in the US
government did not know the difference between Shi'a and Sunni Muslims. Did
such people decide that the hijackers would be described as wearing red
headbands?
6. Did the Information in Atta's Luggage Prove the Responsibility of
al-Qaeda Operatives?
I come now to the evidence that is said to provide the strongest proof that
the planes had been hijacked by Mohamed Atta and other members of al-Qaeda.
This evidence was reportedly found in two pieces of Atta's luggage that were
discovered inside the Boston airport after the attacks. The luggage was
there, we were told, because although Atta was already in Boston on
September 10, he and another al-Qaeda operative, Abdul al-Omari, rented a
blue Nissan and drove up to Portland, Maine, and stayed overnight. They
caught a commuter flight back to Boston early the next morning in time to
get on American Flight 11, but Atta's luggage did not make it.
This luggage, according to the FBI affidavit signed by James Lechner,
contained much incriminating material, including a handheld flight computer,
flight simulator manuals, two videotapes about Boeing aircraft, a slide-rule
flight calculator, a copy of the Koran, and Atta's last will and
testament.61 This material was widely taken as proof that al-Qaeda and hence
Osama bin Laden were behind the 9/11 attacks.
When closely examined, however, the Atta-to-Portland story loses all
credibility.
One problem is the very idea that Atta would have planned to take all these
things in baggage that was to be transferred to Flight 11. What good would a
flight computer and other flying aids do inside a suitcase in the plane's
luggage compartment? Why would he have planned to take his will on a plane
he planned to crash into the World Trade Center?
A second problem involves the question of why Atta's luggage did not get
transferred onto Flight 11. According to an Associated Press story that
appeared four days after 9/11, Atta's flight "arrived at Logan . . . just in
time for him to connect with American Airlines flight 11 to Los Angeles, but
too late for his luggage to be loaded."62 The 9/11 Commission had at one
time evidently planned to endorse this claim.63 But when The 9/11 Commission
Report appeared, it said: "Atta and Omari arrived in Boston at 6:45" and
then "checked in and boarded American Airlines Flight 11," which was
"scheduled to depart at 7:45."64 By thus admitting that there was almost a
full hour for the luggage to be transferred to Flight 11, the Commission was
left with no explanation as to why it was not.
Still another problem with the Atta-to-Portland story was the question why
he would have taken this trip. If the commuter flight had been late, Atta,
being the ringleader of the hijackers as well as the intended pilot for
Flight 11, would have had to call off the whole operation, which he had
reportedly been planning for two years. The 9/11 Commission, like the FBI
before it, admitted that it had no answer to this question.65
The fourth and biggest problem with the story, however, is that it did not
appear until September 16, five days after 9/11, following the collapse of
an earlier story.
According to news reports immediately after 9/11, the incriminating
materials, rather than being found in Atta's luggage inside the airport,
were found in a white Mitsubishi, which Atta had left in the Boston airport
parking lot. Two hijackers did drive a blue Nissan to Portland and then take
the commuter flight back to Boston the next morning, but their names were
Adnan and Ameer Bukhari.66 This story fell apart on the afternoon of
September 13, when it was discovered that the Bukharis, to whom authorities
had reportedly been led by material in the Nissan at the Portland Jetport,
had not died on 9/11: Adnan was still alive and Ameer had died the year
before.67
The next day, September 14, an Associated Press story said that it was Atta
and a companion who had driven the blue Nissan to Portland, stayed
overnight, and then taken the commuter flight back to Boston. The
incriminating materials, however, were still said to have been found in a
car in the Boston airport, which was now said to have been rented by
"additional suspects."68 Finally, on September 16, a Washington Post story,
besides saying that the Nissan had been taken to Portland by Atta and
al-Omari, specified that the incriminating material had been found in Atta's
luggage inside the Boston airport.69
Given this history of the Atta-to-Portland story, how can we avoid the
conclusion that it was a fabrication?
7. Were al-Qaeda Operatives Captured on Airport Security Videos?
Still another type of evidence for the claim that al-Qaeda operatives were
on the planes consisted of frames from videos, purportedly taken by airport
security cameras, said to show hijackers checking into airports. Shortly
after the attacks, for example, photos showing Atta and al-Omari at an
airport "were flashed round the world."70 However, although it was widely
assumed that these photos were from the airport at Boston, they were really
from the airport at Portland. No photos showing Atta or any of the other
alleged hijackers at Boston's Logan Airport were ever produced. We at best
have photographic evidence that Atta and al-Omari were at the Portland
airport.
Moreover, in light of the fact that the story of Atta and al-Omari going to
Portland was apparently a late invention, we might expect the photographic
evidence that they were at the Portland Jetport on the morning of September
11 to be problematic. And indeed it is. It shows Atta and Omari without
either jackets or ties on, whereas the Portland ticket agent said that they
had been wearing jackets and ties.71 Also, a photo showing Atta and al-Omari
passing through the security checkpoint is marked both 05:45 and 05:53.72
Another airport video was distributed on the day in 2004 that The 9/11
Commission Report was published. The Associated Press, using a frame from it
as corroboration of the official story, provided this caption:
Hijacker Khalid al-Mihdhar . . . passes through the security checkpoint at
Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Va., Sept. 11 2001, just hours
before American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon in this image
from a surveillance video.73
However, as Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall have pointed out,
a normal security video has time and date burned into the integral video
image by proprietary equipment according to an authenticated pattern, along
with camera identification and the location that the camera covered. The
video released in 2004 contained no such data.74
The Associated Press notwithstanding, therefore, this video contains no
evidence that it was taken at Dulles on September 11.
Another problem with this so-called Dulles video is that, although one of
the men on it was identified by the 9/11 Commission as Hani Hanjour,75 he
"does not remotely resemble Hanjour." Whereas Hanjour was thin and had a
receding hairline (as shown by a photo taken six days before 9/11), the man
in the video had a somewhat muscular build and a full head of hair, with no
receding hairline.76
In sum: Video proof that the named hijackers checked into airports on 9/11
is nonexistent. Besides the fact that the videos purportedly showing
hijackers for Flights 11 and 77 reek of inauthenticity, there are no videos
even purportedly showing the hijackers for the other two flights. If these
19 men had really checked into the Boston and Dulles airports that day,
there should be authentic security videos to prove this.
8. Were the Names of the "Hijackers" on the Passenger Manifests?
What about the passenger manifests, which list all the passengers on the
flights? If the alleged hijackers purchased tickets and boarded the flights,
their names would have been on the manifests for these flights. And we were
told that they were. According to counterterrorism coordinator Richard
Clarke, the FBI told him at about 10:00 that morning that it recognized the
names of some al-Qaeda operatives on passenger manifests it had received
from the airlines.77 As to how the FBI itself acquired its list, Robert
Bonner, the head of Customs and Border Protection, said to the 9/11
Commission in 2004:
On the morning of 9/11, through an evaluation of data related to the
passenger manifest for the four terrorist hijacked aircraft, Customs Office
of Intelligence was able to identify the likely terrorist hijackers. Within
45 minutes of the attacks, Customs forwarded the passenger lists with the
names of the victims and 19 probable hijackers to the FBI and the
intelligence community.78
Under questioning, Bonner added:
We were able to pull from the airlines the passenger manifest for each of
the four flights. We ran the manifest through [our lookout] system. . . .
[B]y 11:00 AM, I'd seen a sheet that essentially identified the 19 probable
hijackers. And in fact, they turned out to be, based upon further follow-up
in detailed investigation, to be the 19.79
Bonner's statement, however, is doubly problematic. In the first place, the
initial FBI list, as reported by CNN on September 13 and 14, contained only
18 names.80 Why would that be if 19 men had already been identified on 9/11?
Second, several of the names on the FBI's first list, having quickly become
problematic, were replaced by other names. For example, the previously
discussed men named Bukhari, thought to be brothers, were replaced on
American 11's list of hijackers by brothers named Waleed and Wail al-Shehri.
Two other replacements for this flight were Satam al-Suqami, whose passport
was allegedly found at Ground Zero, and Abdul al-Omari, who allegedly went
to Portland with Atta the day before 9/11. Also, the initial list for
American 77 did not include the name of Hani Hanjour, who would later be
called the pilot of this flight. Rather, it contained a name that, after
being read aloud by a CNN correspondent, was transcribed "Mosear Caned."81
All in all, the final list of 19 hijackers contained six names that were not
on the original list of 18---a fact that contradicts Bonner's claim that by
11:00 AM on 9/11 his agency had identified 19 probable hijackers who, in
fact, "turned out to be. . . the 19."
These replacements to the initial list also undermine the claim that Amy
Sweeney, by giving the seat numbers of three of the hijackers to Michael
Woodward of American Airlines, allowed him to identify Atta and two others.
This second claim is impossible because the two others were Abdul al-Omari
and Satam al-Suqami,82 and they were replacements for two men on the
original list---who, like Adnan Bukhari, turned up alive after 9/11.83
Woodward could not possibly have identified men who were not added to the
list until several days later.84
For all these reasons, the claim that the names of the 19 alleged hijackers
were on the airlines' passenger manifests must be considered false.
This conclusion is supported by the fact that the passenger manifests that
were released to the public included no names of any of the 19 alleged
hijackers and, in fact, no Middle Eastern names whatsoever.85 These
manifests, therefore, support the suspicion that there were no al-Qaeda
hijackers on the planes.
It might appear that this conclusion is contradicted by the fact that
passenger manifests with the names of the alleged hijackers have appeared. A
photocopy of a portion of an apparent passenger manifest for American Flight
11, with the names of three of the alleged hijackers, was published in a
2005 book by Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers.86
McDermott reportedly said that he received these manifests from the FBI.87
But the idea that these were the original manifests is problematic.
For one thing, they were not included in the evidence presented by the FBI
to the Moussaoui trial in 2006.88 If even the FBI will not cite them as
evidence, why should anyone think they are genuine?
Another problem with these purported manifests, copies of which can be
viewed on the Internet,89 is that they show signs of being late creations.
One such sign is that Ziad Jarrah's last name is spelled correctly, whereas
in the early days after 9/11, the FBI was referring to him as "Jarrahi," as
news reports from the time show.90 A second sign is that the manifest for
American Flight 77 contains Hani Hanjour's name, even though its absence
from the original list of hijackers had led the Washington Post to wonder
why Hanjour's "name was not on the American Airlines manifest for the
flight."91 A third sign is that the purported manifest for American Flight
11 contains the names of Wail al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam al-Suqami,
and Abdul al-Omari, all of whom were added some days after 9/11.
In sum, no credible evidence that al-Qaeda operatives were on the flights is
provided by the passenger manifests.
9. Did DNA Tests Identify Five Hijackers among the Victims at the Pentagon?
Another type of evidence that the alleged hijackers were really on the
planes could have been provided by autopsies. But no such evidence has been
forthcoming. In its book defending the official account of 9/11, to be sure,
Popular Mechanics claims that, according to a report on the victims of the
Pentagon attack by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology: "The five
hijackers were positively identified."92 But this claim is false.
According to a summary of this pathology report by Andrew Baker, M.D., the
remains of 183 victims were subjected to DNA analysis, which resulted in
"178 positive identifications." Although Baker says that "[s]ome remains for
each of the terrorists were recovered," this was merely an inference from
the fact that there were "five unique postmortem profiles that did not match
any antemortem material provided by victims' families."93
A Washington Post story made even clearer the fact that this
conclusion---that the unmatched remains were those of "the five
hijackers"---was merely an inference. It wrote: "The remains of the five
hijackers have been identified through a process of exclusion, as they did
not match DNA samples contributed by family members of all 183 victims who
died at the site" (emphasis added).94 All the report said, in other words,
was that there were five bodies whose DNA did not match that of any of the
known Pentagon victims or any of the regular passengers or crew members on
Flight 77.
We have no way of knowing where these five bodies came from. For the claim
that they came from the attack site at the Pentagon, we have only the word
of the FBI and the military, which insisted on taking charge of the bodies
of everyone killed at the Pentagon and transporting them to the Armed Forces
Institute of Pathology.95
In any case, the alleged hijackers could have been positively identified
only if samples had been obtained from their relatives, and there is no
indication that this occurred. Indeed, one can wonder why not. The FBI had
lots of information about the men identified as the hijackers. They could
easily have located relatives. And these relatives, most of whom reportedly
did not believe that their own flesh and blood had been involved in the
attacks, would have surely been willing to supply the needed DNA. Indeed, a
story about Ziad Jarrah, the alleged pilot of Flight 93, said: "Jarrah's
family has indicated they would be willing to provide DNA samples to US
researchers, . . . [but] the FBI has shown no interest thus far."96
The lack of positive identification of the alleged hijackers is consistent
with the autopsy report, which was released to Dr. Thomas Olmsted, who had
made a FOIA request for it. Like the flight manifest for Flight 77, he
revealed, this report also contains no Arab names.97
10. Has the Claim That Some of the "Hijackers" Are Still Alive Been
Debunked?
Another problem with the claim that the 19 hijackers were correctly
identified on 9/11, or at least a few days later, is that some of the men on
the FBI's final list reportedly turned up alive after 9/11. Although Der
Spiegel and the BBC claim to have debunked these reports, I will show this
is untrue by examining the case of one of the alleged hijackers, Waleed
al-Shehri---who, we saw earlier, was a replacement for Adnan Bukhari, who
himself had shown up alive after 9/11.
In spite of the fact that al-Shehri was a replacement, the 9/11 Commission
revealed no doubts about his presence on Flight 11, speculating that he and
his brother Wail---another replacement---stabbed two of the flight
attendants.98 But the Commission certainly should have had doubts.
On September 22, 2001, the BBC published an article by David Bamford
entitled "Hijack 'Suspect' Alive in Morocco." It showed that the Waleed
al-Shehri identified by the FBI as one of the hijackers was still alive.
Explaining why the problem could not be dismissed as a case of mistaken
identity, Bamford wrote:
His photograph was released by the FBI, and has been shown in newspapers and
on television around the world. That same Mr Al-Shehri has turned up in
Morocco, proving clearly that he was not a member of the suicide attack. He
told Saudi journalists in Casablanca that . . . he has now been interviewed
by the American authorities, who apologised for the misunderstanding.99
The following day, September 23, the BBC published another story, "Hijack
'Suspects' Alive and Well." Discussing several alleged hijackers who had
shown up alive, it said of al-Shehri in particular: "He acknowledges that he
attended flight training school at Daytona Beach. . . . But, he says, he
left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi
Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco."100
In 2003, an article in Der Spiegel tried to debunk these two BBC stories,
characterizing them as "nonsense about surviving terrorists." It claimed
that the reported still-alive hijackers were all cases of mistaken identity,
involving men with "coincidentally identical names." This claim by Der
Spiegel depended on its assertion that, at the time of the reports, the FBI
had released only a list of names: "The FBI did not release photographs
until four days after the cited reports, on September 27th."101 But that was
not true. Bamford's BBC story of September 22, as we saw, reported that
Waleed al-Shehri's photograph had been "released by the FBI" and "shown in
newspapers and on television around the world."
In 2006, nevertheless, the BBC used the same claim to withdraw its support
for its own stories. Steve Herrmann, the editor of the BBC News website,
claimed that confusion had arisen because "these were common Arabic and
Islamic names." Accordingly, he said, the BBC had changed its September 23
story in one respect: "Under the FBI picture of Waleed al Shehri we have
added the words 'A man called Waleed Al Shehri...' to make it as clear as
possible that there was confusion over the identity."102 But Bamford's BBC
story of September 22, which Herrmann failed to mention, had made it "as
clear as possible" that there could not have been any confusion.
These attempts by Der Spiegel and the BBC, in which they tried to discredit
the reports that Waleed al-Shehri was still alive after 9/11, have been
refuted by Jay Kolar, who shows that FBI photographs had been published by
Saudi newspapers as early as September 19. Kolar thereby undermines the only
argument against Bamford's assertion, according to which there could have
been no possibility of mistaken identity because al-Shehri had seen his
published photograph prior to September 22, when Bamford's story
appeared.103
The fact that al-Shehri, along with several other alleged hijackers,104 was
alive after 9/11 shows unambiguously that at least some of the men on the
FBI's final list were not on the planes. It would appear that the FBI, after
replacing some of its first-round candidates because of their continued
existence, decided not to replace any more, in spite of their exhibition of
the same defect.
11. Is There Positive Evidence That No Hijackers Were on the Planes?
At this point, defenders of the official story might argue: The fact that
some of the men labeled hijackers were still alive after 9/11 shows only
that the FBI list contained some errors; it does not prove that there were
no al-Qaeda hijackers on board. And although the previous points do
undermine the evidence for such hijackers, absence of evidence is not
necessarily evidence of absence.
Evidence of absence, however, is implicit in the prior points in two ways.
First, the lack of Arab names on the Pentagon autopsy report and on any of
the issued passenger manifests does suggest the absence of al-Qaeda
operatives. Second, if al-Qaeda hijackers really were on the flights, why
was evidence to prove this fact fabricated?
Beyond those two points, moreover, there is a feature of the reported events
that contradicts the claim that hijackers broke into the pilots' cabins.
This feature can be introduced by reference to Conan Doyle's short story
"Silver Blaze," which is about a famous race horse that had disappeared the
night before a big race. Although the local Scotland Yard detective believed
that Silver Blaze had been stolen by an intruder, Sherlock Holmes brought up
"the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." When the inspector
pointed out that "[t]he dog did nothing in the night-time," Holmes replied:
"That was the curious incident."105 Had there really been an intruder, in
other words, the dog would have barked. This has become known as the case of
"the dog that didn't bark."
A similar curious incident occurred on each of the four flights. In the
event of a hijacking, pilots are trained to enter the standard hijack code
(7500) into their transponders to alert controllers on the ground. Using the
transponder to send a code is called "squawking." One of the big puzzles
about 9/11 was why none of the pilots squawked the hijack code.
CNN provided a good treatment of this issue, saying with regard to the first
flight:
Flight 11 was hijacked apparently by knife-wielding men. Airline pilots are
trained to handle such situations by keeping calm, complying with requests,
and if possible, dialing in an emergency four digit code on a device called
a transponder. . . . The action takes seconds, but it appears no such code
was entered.106
The crucial issue was indicated by the phrase "if possible": Would it have
been possible for the pilots of Flight 11 to have performed this action? A
positive answer was suggested by CNN's next statement:
[I]n the cabin, a frantic flight attendant managed to use a phone to call
American Airlines Command Center in Dallas. She reported the trouble. And
according to "The Christian Science Monitor," a pilot apparently keyed the
microphone, transmitting a cockpit conversation.107
If there was time for both of those actions to be taken, there would have
been time for one of the pilots to enter the four-digit hijack code.
That would have been all the more true of the pilots on United Flight 93,
given the (purported) tapes from this flight. A reporter at the Moussaoui
trial, where these tapes had been played, wrote:
In those tapes, the pilots shouted as hijackers broke into the cockpit.
"Mayday! Mayday! Mayday!" a pilot screamed in the first tape. In the second
tape, 30 seconds later, a pilot shouted: "Mayday! Get out of here! Get out
of here!"108
According to these tapes, therefore, the pilots were still alive and
coherent 30 seconds after realizing that hijackers were breaking into the
cockpit. And yet in all that time, neither of them did the most important
thing they had been trained to do---turn the transponder to 7500.
In addition to the four pilots on Flights 11 and 93, furthermore, the four
pilots on Flights 175 and 77 failed to do this as well.
In "Silver Blaze," the absence of an intruder was shown by the dog that didn't
bark. On 9/11, the absence of hijackers was shown by the pilots who didn't
squawk.
12. Were bin Laden and al-Qaeda Capable of Orchestrating the Attacks?
For prosecutors to prove that defendants committed a crime, they must show
that they had the ability (as well as the motive and opportunity) to do so.
But several political and military leaders from other countries have stated
that bin Laden and al-Qaeda simply could not have carried out the attacks.
General Leonid Ivashov, who in 2001 was the chief of staff for the Russian
armed forces, wrote:
Only secret services and their current chiefs---or those retired but still
having influence inside the state organizations---have the ability to plan,
organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude. . . . . Osama bin Laden
and "Al Qaeda" cannot be the organizers nor the performers of the September
11 attacks. They do not have the necessary organization, resources or
leaders.
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, the former foreign minister of Egypt, wrote:
Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude.
When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the
communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there.
Similar statements have been made by Andreas von Bülow, the former state
secretary of West Germany's ministry of defense, by General Mirza Aslam Beg,
former chief of staff of Pakistan's army, and even General Musharraf, the
president of Pakistan until recently.109
This same point was also made by veteran CIA agent Milt Bearden. Speaking
disparagingly of "the myth of Osama bin Laden" on CBS News the day after
9/11, Bearden said: "I was there [in Afghanistan] at the same time bin Laden
was there. He was not the great warrior." With regard to the widespread view
that bin Laden was behind the attacks, he said: "This was a tremendously
sophisticated operation against the United States---more sophisticated than
anybody would have ascribed to Osama bin Laden." Pointing out that a group
capable of such a sophisticated attack would have had a way to cover their
tracks, he added: "This group who was responsible for that, if they didn't
have an Osama bin Laden out there, they'd invent one, because he's a
terrific diversion."110
13. Could Hani Hanjour Have Flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon?
The inability of al-Qaeda to have carried out the operation can be
illustrated in terms of Hani Hanjour, the al-Qaeda operative said to have
flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
On September 12, before it was stated that Hanjour had been the pilot of
American 77, the final minutes of this plane's trajectory had been described
as one requiring great skill. A Washington Post story said:
[J]ust as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House,
the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers
of a fighter jet maneuver. . . . Aviation sources said the plane was flown
with extraordinary skill, making it highly likely that a trained pilot was
at the helm.111
But Hani Hanjour was not that. Indeed, a CBS story reported, an Arizona
flight school said that Hanjour's "flying skills were so bad . . . they
didn't think he should keep his pilot's license." The manager stated: "I
couldn't believe he had a commercial license of any kind with the skills
that he had."112 A New York Times story, entitled "A Trainee Noted for
Incompetence," quoted one of his instructors as saying that Hanjour "could
not fly at all."113
The 9/11 Commission even admitted that in the summer of 2001, just months
before 9/11, a flight instructor in New Jersey, after going up with Hanjour
in a small plane, "declined a second request because of what he considered
Hanjour's poor piloting skills."114 The Commission failed to address the
question of how Hanjour, incapable of flying a single-engine plane, could
have flown a giant 757 through the trajectory reportedly taken by Flight 77:
descending 8,000 feet in three minutes and then coming in at ground level to
strike Wedge 1 of the Pentagon between the first and second floors, without
even scraping the lawn.
Several pilots have said this would have been impossible. Russ Wittenberg,
who flew large commercial airliners for 35 years after serving as a fighter
pilot in Vietnam, says it would have been "totally impossible for an amateur
who couldn't even fly a Cessna" to fly that downward spiral and then "crash
into the Pentagon's first floor wall without touching the lawn."115 Ralph
Omholt, a former 757 pilot, has bluntly said: "The idea that an unskilled
pilot could have flown this trajectory is simply too ridiculous to
consider."116 Ralph Kolstad, who was a US Navy "top gun" pilot before
becoming a commercial airline pilot for 27 years, has said: "I have 6,000
hours of flight time in Boeing 757's and 767's and I could not have flown it
the way the flight path was described. . . . Something stinks to high
heaven!"117
The authors of the Popular Mechanics book about 9/11 offered to solve this
problem. While acknowledging that Hanjour "may not have been highly
skilled," they said that he did not need to be, because all he had to do
was, using a GPS unit, put his plane on autopilot.118 "He steered the plane
manually for only the final eight minutes of the flight," they state
triumphantly119---ignoring the fact that it was precisely during those
minutes that Hanjour had allegedly performed the impossible.
14. Would an al-Qaeda Pilot Have Executed that Maneuver?
A further question is: Even if one of the al-Qaeda operatives on that flight
could have executed that maneuver, would he have done so? This question
arises out of the fact that the plane could easily have crashed into the
roof on the side of the Pentagon that housed Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld and all the top brass. The difficult maneuver would have been
required only by the decision to strike Wedge 1 on the side.
But this was the worst possible place, given the assumed motives of the
al-Qaeda operatives: They would have wanted to kill Rumsfeld and the top
brass, but Wedge 1 was as far removed from their offices as possible. They
would have wanted to cause as much destruction as possible, but Wedge
1---and only it---had been renovated to make it less vulnerable to attack.
Al-Qaeda operatives would have wanted to kill as many Pentagon employees as
possible, but because the renovation was not quite complete, Wedge 1 was
only sparsely occupied. The attack also occurred on the only part of the
Pentagon that would have presented physical obstacles to an attacking
airplane. All of these facts were public knowledge. So even if an al-Qaeda
pilot had been capable of executing the maneuver to strike the ground floor
of Wedge 1, he would not have done so.
15. Could al-Qaeda Operatives Have Brought Down the World Trade Center
Buildings?
Returning to the issue of competence, another question is whether al-Qaeda
operatives could have brought down the Twin Towers and WTC 7?
With regard to the Twin Towers, the official theory is that they were
brought down by the impact of the airplanes plus the ensuing fires. But this
theory cannot explain why the towers, after exploding outwards at the top,
came straight down, because this type of collapse would have required all
287 of each building's steel columns---which ran from the basement to the
roof---to have failed simultaneously; it cannot explain why the top parts of
the buildings came straight down at virtually free-fall speed, because this
required that the lower parts of the building, with all of their steel and
concrete, offered no resistance; it cannot explain why sections of steel
beams, weighing thousands of tons, were blown out horizontally more than 500
feet; it cannot explain why some of the steel had melted, because this
melting required temperatures far hotter than the fires in the buildings
could possibly have been; and it cannot explain why many firefighters and
WTC employees reported massive explosions in the buildings long after all
the jet-fuel had burned up. But all of these phenomena are easily
explainable by the hypothesis that the buildings were brought down by
explosives in the procedure known as controlled demolition.120
This conclusion now constitutes the consensus of independent physicists,
chemists, architects, engineers, and demolition experts who have studied the
facts.121 For example, Edward Munyak, a mechanical and fire protection
engineer who worked in the US departments of energy and defense, says: "The
concentric nearly freefall speed exhibited by each building was identical to
most controlled demolitions. . . . Collapse [was] not caused by fire
effects."122 Dwain Deets, the former director of the research engineering
division at NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, mentions the "massive
structural members being hurled horizontally" as one of the factors leaving
him with "no doubt [that] explosives were involved."123
Given the fact that WTC 7 was not even hit by a plane, its vertical collapse
at virtually free-fall speed, which also was preceded by explosions and
involved the melting of steel, was still more obviously an example of
controlled demolition.124 For example, Jack Keller, emeritus professor of
engineering at Utah State University, who has been given special recognition
by Scientific American, said: "Obviously it was the result of controlled
demolition."125 Likewise, when Danny Jowenko---a controlled demolition
expert in the Netherlands who had not known that WTC 7 had collapsed on
9/11---was asked to comment on a video of its collapse, he said: "They
simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . [I]t's been
imploded. . . . A team of experts did this."126
If the Twin Towers and WTC 7 were brought down by explosives, the question
becomes: Who would have had the ability to place the explosives? This
question involves two parts: First, who could have obtained access to the
buildings for all the hours it would have taken to plant the explosives? The
answer is: Only someone with connections to people in charge of security for
the World Trade Center.
The second part of the question is: Who, if they had such access, would have
had the expertise to engineer the controlled demolition of these three
buildings? As Jowenko's statement indicated, the kind of controlled
demolition to which these buildings were subjected was implosion, which
makes the building come straight down. According to ImplosionWorld.com, an
implosion is "by far the trickiest type of explosive project, and there are
only a handful of blasting companies in the world that possess enough
experience . . . to perform these true building implosions."127
Both parts of the question, therefore, rule out al-Qaeda operatives. The
destruction of the World Trade Center had to have been an inside job.
16. Would al-Qaeda Operatives Have Imploded the Buildings?
Finally, we can also ask whether, even if al-Qaeda operatives had possessed
the ability to cause the World Trade Center buildings to implode so as to
come straight down, they would have done so? The answer to this question
becomes obvious once we reflect upon the purpose of this kind of controlled
demolition, which is to avoid damaging near-by buildings. Had the 110-story
Twin Towers fallen over sideways, they would have caused massive destruction
in lower Manhattan, destroying dozens of other buildings and killing tens of
thousands of people. Would al-Qaeda have had the courtesy to make sure that
the buildings came straight down?
Conclusion
All the proffered evidence that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11,
when subjected to critical scrutiny, appears to have been fabricated. If
that is determined indeed to be the case, the implications would be
enormous. Discovering and prosecuting the true perpetrators of the 9/11
attacks would obviously be important. The most immediate consequence,
however, should be to reverse those attitudes and policies that have been
based on the assumption that America was attacked by Muslims on 9/11.
--------------
David Ray Griffin is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy of Religion at
Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University. He has
published 34 books, including seven about 9/11, most recently The New Pearl
Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive
Branch, 2008).
Notes
[1] On the ways in which torture, extraordinary rendition, government
spying, and the military tribunals have undermined US constitutional
principles, see Louis Fisher, The Constitution and 9/11: Recurring Threats
to America's Freedoms (Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2008).
[2] The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, authorized edition (New York:
W. W. Norton, 2004), 160 (henceforth 9/11CR).
[3] 9/11CR 154.
[4] Kevin Fagan, "Agents of Terror Leave Their Mark on Sin City," San
Francisco Chronicle, 4 October 2001
(http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/
[5] See ibid.; David Wedge, "Terrorists Partied with Hooker at Hub-Area
Hotel," Boston Herald, 10 October, 2001
(http://web.archive.org/web/
and Jody A. Benjamin, "Suspects' Actions Don't Add Up," South Florida
Sun-Sentinel, 16 September 2001
(http://web.archive.org/web/
[6] "Terrorist Stag Parties," Wall Street Journal, 10 October 2001
(http://www.opinionjournal.
[7] 9/11CR 248.
[8] "Meet the Press," NBC, 23 September, 2001
(http://www.washingtonpost.
[9] "Remarks by the President, Secretary of the Treasury O'Neill and
Secretary of State Powell on Executive Order," White House, 24 September
2001 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/
[10] Seymour M. Hersh, "What Went Wrong: The C.I.A. and the Failure of
American Intelligence," New Yorker, 1 October 2001
(http://cicentre.com/
[11] "White House Warns Taliban: 'We Will Defeat You,'" CNN, 21 September
2001
(http://archives.cnn.com/2001/
[12] Office of the Prime Minister, "Responsibility for the Terrorist
Atrocities in the United States," BBC News, 4 October 2001
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
[13] "The Investigation and the Evidence," BBC News, 5 October 2001
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
[14] Kathy Gannon, "Taliban Willing to Talk, But Wants U.S. Respect,"
Associated Press, 1 November 2001
(http://nucnews.net/nucnews/
[15] Federal Bureau of Investigation, "Most Wanted Terrorists: Usama bin
Laden" (http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/
[16] Ed Haas, "FBI says, 'No Hard Evidence Connecting Bin Laden to 9/11'"
Muckraker Report, 6 June 2006 (http://www.teamliberty.net/
[17] See my discussion in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the
Cover-Up, and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 208-11.
[18] BBC News, "Tape 'Proves Bin Laden's Guilt,'" 14 December 2001
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/
[19] See "The Fake 2001 bin Laden Video Tape"
(http://www.
[20] Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton, with Benjamin Rhodes, Without
Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission (New York: Alfred A.
Knopf, 2006).
[21] 9/11CR 149, 155, 166.
[22] See 9/11CR Ch. 5, notes 16, 41, and 92.
[23] Kean and Hamilton, Without Precedent, 118.
[24] Ibid., 122-24.
[25] Ibid., 119.
[26] Robert Windrem and Victor Limjoco, "The 9/11 Commission Controversy,"
Deep Background: NBC News Investigations, 30 January 2008
(http://deepbackground.msnbc.
[27] Tim O'Brien, "Wife of Solicitor General Alerted Him of Hijacking from
Plane," CNN, 11 September 2001
(http://archives.cnn.com/2001/
[28] Charles Lane and John Mintz, "Bid to Thwart Hijackers May Have Led to
Pa. Crash," Washington Post, 13 September 2001
(http://www.washingtonpost.
[29] Kerry Hall, "Flight Attendant Helped Fight Hijackers," News & Record
(Greensboro, N.C.), 21 September 2001
(http://webcache.news-record.
[30] 9/11CR 6.
[31] Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show," New
York Observer, 15 February 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/
[32] "Calm Before the Crash: Flight 11 Crew Sent Key Details Before Hitting
the Twin Towers," ABC News, 18 July 2002
(http://web.archive.org/web/
[33] A. K. Dewdney, "The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93,"
Physics 911, 9 June 2003 (http://physics911.net/
discussion of this issue, see The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 112-14.
[34] See Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to
the Facts: An In-Depth Investigation by Popular Mechanics, ed. David Dunbar
and Brad Reagan (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 83-86.
[35] Lechner FBI Affidavit; available at Four Corners: Investigative TV
Journalism
(http://www.abc.net.au/
Woodward and Sweeney are not identified by name in the affidavit, which
refers simply to the former as "an employee of American Airlines at Logan"
and to the latter as "a flight attendant on AA11." But their names were
revealed in an "investigative document compiled by the FBI" to which Eric
Lichtblau referred in "Aboard Flight 11, a Chilling Voice," Los Angeles
Times, 20 September 2001
(http://web.archive.org/web/
[36] 9/11CR 453n32.
[37] Gail Sheehy, "9/11 Tapes Reveal Ground Personnel Muffled Attacks," New
York Observer, 24 June, 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/
[38] Greg Gordon, "Prosecutors Play Flight 93 Cockpit Recording," McClatchy
Newspapers, KnoxNews.com, 12 April 2006
(http://www.knoxsingles.com/
The quoted statement is Gordon's paraphrase of the testimony of "a member of
the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force."
[39] See United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054
(http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/
This graphics presentation can be more easily viewed in "Detailed Account of
Phone Calls from September 11th Flights" at 9-11 Research
(http://911research.wtc7.net/
[40] "The Final Moments of United Flight 93," Newsweek, 22 September 2001
(http://911research.wtc7.net/
[41] See "Interview with Deena Lynne Burnett (re: phone call from hijacked
flight)," 9/11 Commission, FBI Source Documents, Chronological, September
11, 2001, Intelfiles.com, 14 March 2008
(http://intelfiles.egoplex.
Greg Gordon, "Widow Tells of Poignant Last Calls," Sacramento Bee, 11
September 2002
(http://holtz.org/Library/
and Deena L. Burnett (with Anthony F. Giombetti), Fighting Back: Living
Beyond Ourselves (Longwood, Florida: Advantage Inspirational Books, 2006),
where she wrote: "I looked at the caller ID and indeed it was Tom's cell
phone number" (61).
[42] William M. Arkin, "When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing,"
Washington Post, 1 February 1999
(http://www.washingtonpost.
[43] Although Brickhouse Security's advertisement for Telephone Voice
Changers (http://www.
has been modified in recent years, it previously included a device called
"FoneFaker," the ad for which said: "Record any call you make, fake your
Caller ID and change your voice, all with one service you can use from any
phone."
[44] For Deena Burnett's reconstruction of the calls, see
http://www.
[45] See The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 122.
[46] Lichtblau, "Aboard Flight 11, a Chilling Voice" (see note 34, above).
[47] 9/11CR 4, 6.
[48] See note 38, above.
[49] 9/11CR 19.
[50] Ibid.
[51] "Summary of Air Traffic Hijack Events: September 11, 2001," FAA, 17
September 2001 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/
[52] Frank J. Murray, "Americans Feel Touch of Evil; Fury Spurs Unity,"
Washington Times, 11 September 2002
(http://web.archive.org/web/
[53] "Ashcroft Says More Attacks May Be Planned," CNN, 18 September 2001
(http://edition.cnn.com/2001/
"Terrorist Hunt," ABC News
(http://911research.wtc7.net/
[54] Anne Karpf, "Uncle Sam's Lucky Finds," Guardian, 19 March 2002
(http://www.guardian.co.uk/
some others, this article mistakenly said the passport belonged to Mohamed
Atta.
[55] Statement by Susan Ginsburg, senior counsel to the 9/11 Commission, at
the 9/11 Commission Hearing, 26 January 2004
(http://www.9-11commission.
The Commission's account reflected a CBS report that the passport had been
found "minutes after" the attack, which was stated by the Associated Press,
27 January 2003.
[56] Sheila MacVicar and Caroline Faraj, "September 11 Hijacker Questioned
in January 2001," CNN, 1 August 2002
(http://archives.cnn.com/2002/
Commission Hearing, 26 January 2004.
[57] 9/11CR 14; Jere Longman, Among the Heroes: United 93 and the
Passengers and Crew Who Fought Back (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 215.
[58] In light of the absurdity of the claims about the passports of
al-Suqami and Jarrah, we can safely assume that the ID cards of Majed Moqed,
Nawaf al-Hazmi, and Salem al-Hazmi, said to have been discovered at the
Pentagon crash site (see "9/11 and Terrorist Travel," 9/11 Commission Staff
Report
[http://www.9-11commission.
27, 42), were also planted.
[59] For a photograph of the headband, see 9-11 Research, "The Crash of
Flight 93" (http://911research.wtc7.net/
[60] Quoted in Ross Coulthart, "Terrorists Target America," Ninemsn,
September 2001
(http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/
[61] Lechner FBI Affidavit (see note 34, above).
[62] Sydney Morning Herald, 15 September 2001; Boston Globe, 18 September,
2001.
[63] The 9/11 Commission's Staff Statement No. 16, dated 16 June 2004
(http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/
prevented Atta and Omari from making Flight 11 out of Boston. In fact, the
luggage they checked in Portland failed to make it onto the plane."
[64] 9/11CR 1-2.
[65] 9/11CR 451n1; FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, "Statement for the
Record," Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry, 26 September 2002
(http://www.fas.org/irp/
[66] "Two Brothers among Hijackers," CNN Report, 13 September 2001
(http://english.peopledaily.
[67] "Feds Think They've Identified Some Hijackers," CNN, 13 September 2001
(http://edition.cnn.com/2001/
[68] "Portland Police Eye Local Ties," Associated Press, Portsmouth Herald,
14 September 2001
(http://archive.
[69] Joel Achenbach, "'You Never Imagine' A Hijacker Next Door," Washington
Post, 16 September 2001
(http://www.washingtonpost.
[70] Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall, 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered
Questions (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 181.
[71] David Hench, "Ticket Agent Haunted by Brush with 9/11 Hijackers,"
Portland Press Herald, 6 March 2005
(http://www.spartacus.blogs.
[72] This photo can be seen at
http://www.historycommons.org/
[73] Associated Press, 22 July 2004. The photo with this caption can be
seen in Morgan and Henshall, 9/11 Revealed, 117-18, along with a genuine
security video (with identification data), or at
http://killtown.911review.org/
down).
[74] Rowland and Henshall, 9/11 Revealed, 118.
[75] 9/11CR 452n11.
[76] Jay Kolar, "What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11 Hijackers," in
Paul Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11 (New York: Seven Stories,
2008), 3-44, at 8 (emphasis Kolar's).
[77] Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
(New York: Free Press, 2004), 13.
[78] "Statement of Robert C. Bonner to the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks upon the United States," 26 January 2004
(http://www.9-11commission.
[79] Ibid.
[80] "FBI: Early Probe Results Show 18 Hijackers Took Part," CNN, 13
September 2001
(http://archives.cnn.com/2001/
Names of 18 Suspected Hijackers," CNN, 14 September 2001
(http://transcripts.cnn.com/
[81] "List of Names of 18 Suspected Hijackers."
[82] Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show," New
York Observer, 15 February 2004 (http://www.observer.com/node/
[83] Satam al-Suqami replaced a man named Amer Kamfar, and Abdulaziz
al-Omari replaced a man with a similar name, Abdulrahman al-Omari; see
Kolar, "What We Now Know," 12-15.
[84] Another problem with the claim that Woodward had identified these
three men is that the seat numbers reportedly used to identify Atta and
al-Omari (see Gail Sheehy, "Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early") did not match
the numbers of the seats assigned to these two men (9/11CR 2).
[85] All four passenger manifests can be found at
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/
[86] Terry McDermott, Perfect Soldiers: The 9/11 Hijackers: Who They Were,
Why They Did It (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), photo section after p. 140.
[87] This is stated at "The Passengers," 911myths.com
(http://911myths.com/html/the_
[88] Although discussions on the Internet have often claimed that these
manifests were included in the FBI's evidence for the Moussaoui trial,
several researchers failed to find them. See Jim Hoffman's discussion at
http://911research.wtc7.net/
[89] To view them, see "Passenger Lists," 9-11 Research
(http://911research.wtc7.net/
download them and/or read cleaned-up versions, see "The Passengers,"
911myths.com (http://911myths.com/html/the_
[90] "Hijackers Linked to USS Cole Attack? Investigators Have Identified
All the Hijackers; Photos to Be Released," CBS News, 14 September 2001
(http://www.cbsnews.com/
Elizabeth Neuffer, "Hijack Suspect Lived a Life, or a Lie," Boston Globe, 25
September 2001
(http://web.archive.org/web/
[91] "Four Planes, Four Coordinated Teams," Washington Post, 16 September
2001
(http://www.washingtonpost.
[92] David Dunbar and Brad Reagan, eds., Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why
Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts (New York: Hearst Books,
2006), 63.
[93] Andrew M. Baker, M.D., "Human Identification in a Post-9/11 World:
Attack on American Airlines Flight 77 and the Pentagon Identification and
Pathology" (http://www.ndms.chepinc.org/
[94] Steve Vogel, "Remains Unidentified for 5 Pentagon Victims," Washington
Post, 21 November 2001
(http://www.arlingtoncemetery.
[95] See my discussion in Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular
Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory, revised &
updated edition (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007), 268-69.
[96] "Ziad Jarrah," Wikipedia, as the article existed prior to September 8,
2006. On that date, that passage was removed. However, the earlier version
of the article, containing the passage, is available at
http://www.wanttoknow.info/
[97] Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D. "Still No Arabs on Flight 77," Rense.com, 23
June 2003 (http://www.rense.com/
[98] 9/11CR 5.
[99] David Bamford, "Hijack 'Suspect' Alive in Morocco," BBC, 22 September
2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
[100] "Hijack 'Suspects' Alive and Well," BBC News, 23 September
2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/
[101] "Panoply of the Absurd," Der Spiegel, 8 September 2003
[http://www.spiegel.de/
[102] Steve Herrmann, "9/11 Conspiracy Theory," The Editors, BBC
News, 27 October 2006
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/
[103] Jay Kolar, "Update: What We Now Know about the Alleged 9-11
Hijackers," Zarembka, ed., The Hidden History of 9-11: 293-304, at 293-94.
[104] For discussion of some of these other men, see ibid.,
295-98.
[105] The story "Silver Blaze" is available at Wikisource
(http://en.wikisource.org/
[106] "America Under Attack: How could It Happen?" CNN Live Event,
12 September 2001
(http://transcripts.cnn.com/
[107] Ibid. This was the "radio transmission" discussed earlier.
[108] Richard A. Serrano, "Heroism, Fatalism Aboard Flight 93,"
Los Angeles Times, 12 April 2006
(
0 Have Your Say!:
Post a Comment