-->GETTING AGNOSTIC ABOUT 9/11
A SOCIETY OF NONBELIEVERS QUESTIONS THE OFFICIAL VERSION
LA Times Magazine Interviews David Ray Griffin
By Mark Ehrman
Friday, August 26, 2005
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050826125021191
Anyone who types the words"9/11" and"conspiracy" into an online search
engine soon learns that not everybody buys the official narrative of what
took place on Sept. 11, 2001. As a professor emeritus at the Claremont
School of Theology, 66-year-old David Ray Griffin would seem to have more
affinity for leather elbow patches than tin hats, yet after friends and
colleagues prodded him into sifting through the evidence, he experienced a
conversion. Now he's spreading the bad news. Griffin compiled a summary of
material arguing against the accepted story that 19 hijackers sent by Osama
bin Laden took the aviation system and the U.S. military by surprise that
awful day in his 2004 book"The New Pearl Harbor" (published by Interlink, a
Massachusetts-based independent publisher covering areas including travel,
cooking, world fiction, current events, politics, children's literature and
other subjects). He recently followed up with the book"The 9/11 Commission
Report: Omissions and Distortions" (Interlink), a critique of the Kean
commission document in which he suggests that a chunk of the blame for the
worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil lies closer to home than the caves of
Afghanistan. We contacted him at his Santa Barbara-area home for a report on
his journey from mild-mannered scholar to doubting Thomas.
...........
How did you join the ranks of those questioning the official account of the
9/11 events?
I was rather slow getting on board. For the first year and a half I just
accepted the conventional view, really the blowback thesis, that this was
blowback for our foreign policy. When a colleague suggested to me about a
year after 9/11 that he was convinced our own government or forces within
our own government had arranged it, I didn't accept that. Then several
months later another colleague sent me [a link to] a website that had a
timeline. Once I started reading that and saw all those stories drawn from
mainstream sources that contradicted the official account, I decided I
needed to look into it more carefully, and the more I looked, the worse it
got. I considered it an obligation to kind of organize, compile the evidence
and put it out there for the public.
The Internet is full of 9/11 conspiracy theories. What have you contributed
to the discussion?
My main contribution has been the second book, [showing] that the 9/11
commission report is not worthy of belief, and the implication of that is
that they were covering up the government's own guilt.
What would constitute a"smoking gun" against the official 9/11 account?
There are many. By just ignoring them, the 9/11 commission implicitly
admitted they couldn't answer them. The towers coming down into a pile only
a few stories high is a smoking gun. Many laws of physics had to be violated
if the official story about the collapses is true. [The collapses] had all
the earmarks of a controlled demolition by explosives. One of those is total
collapse into a small pile of rubble. The fact that Building 7 [a skyscraper
near the towers] collapsed when it had not been hit by an airplane, and
collapsed in seven or eight seconds, that's a smoking gun. The fact that
standard operating procedures were not followed that morning, and we've
gotten three different stories now by the U.S. military as to why they did
not intercept the planes, that's a smoking gun. The Secret Service leaving
the president and themselves wide open to being attacked by [not responding
immediately], that's a smoking gun. I can't say one is bigger than the
other. You've got six or seven that are equally big.
Critics of the official 9/11 account seem to draw sinister inferences from
instances where people, buildings or physical objects didn't react or behave
as one might expect in theory. For example, if the hijackers were devout
Muslims, why were some drinking, eating pork chops and cavorting with lap
dancers? Doesn't real life unfold inconsistently, even bizarrely?
That's true, but the 9/11 commission simply ignored those questions. They're
creating this image of fanatics who were so devout and convinced of the
truth of their religion that they were ready to meet their maker, yet here's
all this evidence that suggests they were not devout at all. [The
commission] simply ignored evidence.
Dissenters also seem to find it suspect that in a dire emergency,
individuals and agencies bumbled, fumbled, delayed, dropped the ball or
choked. Won't that occur in any emergency?
Well, of course, that is the official theory. It's a coincidence theory that
just happened to be that on those days, everybody became terribly
incompetent. Take the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration]. They've got
these standard procedures: If a plane goes off course, if you lose radio
contact or lose the transponder, you call the military. On this day we're
told these FAA officials hit the trifecta. They got all three of these
things, and yet they would stand around debating,"Should we call the
military? No, I don't think so." And when they finally call, the people at
headquarters won't accept their calls because they were in conference or
wouldn't pass the call on. They have roughly about 100 hijack warnings a
year where planes have to be scrambled, but suddenly they become just all
thumbs. The whole thing is just implausible. The other thing is, if you've
got accidents, screw-ups, some ought to go one way and the others the other
way. Here everything goes the same way. Everybody fails to do their jobs in
relation to something to do with 9/11.
With others, you have alleged that inconsistencies, omissions or lies in the
9/11 record point to a cover-up, or even collusion or orchestration, by the
American government. What would motivate such a scenario?
You've got liberal Democrats and Republicans and Independents who are
appalled by what Andrew Bacevich [a professor of international relations at
Boston University] called"the new American militarism" in the book
"American Empire." New meaning, qualitatively different than before. This
post-9/11 push to a new level has made the world an enormously more
dangerous place. Many people apart from thinking about 9/11 as an inside job
have decided that the United States is doing what [Princeton University
emeritus international law professor] Richard Falk calls a"global
domination project." Chalmers Johnson [Japan Policy Research Institute
president], a previous conservative, now says that we have become a military
juggernaut intent on world domination.
Have you followed polls on what the public believes about 9/11?
There was a Zogby poll in New York. The question asked was, do you believe
the government had advance knowledge of the attacks and consciously let them
happen? Forty-nine percent in New York City said yes. I believe it was 43%
statewide. That is a pretty remarkable figure. In this country there has not
been a poll that asked, do you believe the government actually planned and
orchestrated the attacks? The question has been raised in Europe and Canada
and has gotten to somewhere around 20%. It would be interesting to have such
a poll in the United States.
Conspiracy theorists are often dismissed as marginal types. Where do your
views on 9/11 place you in the eyes of your peers in academia?
One thing to point out is, the official account itself is a conspiracy
theory. It says that 19 Arab Muslims under the influence of Osama bin Laden
conspired to pull off this operation. The question is not whether one is a
conspiracy theorist about 9/11. It's which conspiracy theory do you find
most supported by the evidence?
Does your role as a 9/11 dissenter depart from your life's work as a scholar
and theologian?
At first glance it may seem strange, but the task of a theologian is to look
at the world from what we would imagine the divine perspective, [which]
would care about the good of the whole and would love all the parts. [So]
9/11, if it was brought about by forces within our own government for
imperial reasons, is antithetical to the general good.
Evil has been a subject of your academic writing. It's also been a recurring
theme in administration rhetoric. Is that strange?
In these politicians' mouths, it's used to describe certain groups and
organizations when it's politically convenient to do so, and then to
overlook even greater evil when it's politically convenient to do so. If you
understand the divine as an all-powerful and wrathful creator who seeks
vengeance, and uses overwhelming power to destroy its enemies, why then, if
you've got the political power, you're probably going to think you're acting
like God if you do that. The [Christian] church during the early centuries
was anti-empire. Rome was the enemy. With Constantine, the empire accepted
Christianity, and Christianity started accepting empire and all that
entailed. There has been a long history of support for militarism, so from
that perspective, it's not so strange.
Prior to your 9/11 work, did you have an anti-establishment streak?
I never burned my bra. I was fairly critical like a lot of Americans are,
but I don't think people would have looked at me and said,"There's an
anti-establishment guy."
Do you get hate mail?
I've had a few people suggest I need to see a psychiatrist, and one
psychiatrist in L.A. even kindly offered his services.
-----------
THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: A 571-PAGE LIE
By Dr. David Ray Griffin
9/11 Visibility Project
Sunday, May 22, 2005
http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2005-05-22-571pglie.php
In discussing my second 9/11 book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and
Distortions, I have often said, only half in jest, that a better title might
have been ¬a 571-page lie.¬ (Actually, I was saying ¬a 567-page lie,¬
because I was forgetting to count the four pages of the Preface.) In making
this statement, one of my points has been that the entire Report is
constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is
true.
Another point, however, is that in the process of telling this overall lie,
The 9/11 Commission Report tells many lies about particular issues. This
point is implied by my critique¬s subtitle, ¬Omissions and Distortions.¬ It
might be thought, to be sure, that of the two types of problems signaled by
those two terms, only those designated ¬distortions¬ can be considered lies.
It is better, however, to understand the two terms as referring to two types
of lies: implicit and explicit. We have an explicit lie when the Report
claims that the core of each of the Twin Towers consisted of a hollow steel
shaft or when it claims that Vice President Cheney did not give the
shoot-down order until after 10:10 that morning. But we have an implicit lie
when the Commission, in its discussion of the 19 alleged suicide hijackers,
omits the fact that at least six of them have credibly been reported to be
still alive, or when it fails to mention the fact that Building 7 of the
World Trade Center collapsed. Such omissions are implicit lies partly
because they show that the Commission did not honor its stated intention ¬to
provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11.¬ They
are also lies insofar as the Commission could avoid telling an explicit lie
about the issue in question only by not mentioning it, which, I believe, was
the case in at least most instances.
Given these two types of lies, it might be wondered how many lies are
contained in The 9/11 Commission Report. I do not know. But, deciding to see
how many lies I had discussed in my book, I found that I had identified over
100 of them. Once I had made the list, it occurred to me that others might
find this summary helpful. Hence this article.
One caveat: Although in some of the cases it is obvious that the Commission
has lied, in other cases I would say, as I make clear in the book, that it
appears that the Commission has lied. However, in the interests of simply
giving a brief listing of claims that I consider to be lies, I will ignore
this distinction between obvious and probable lies, leaving it to readers,
if they wish, to look up the discussion in The 9/11 Commission Report:
Omissions and Distortions. For ease in doing this, I have parenthetically
indicated the pages of the book on which the various issues are discussed.
Given this clarification, I now list the omissions and claims of The 9/11
Commission Report that I, in my critique of that report, portrayed as lies:
1. The omission of evidence that at least six of the alleged
hijackers---including Waleed al-Shehri, said by the Commission probably to
have stabbed a flight attendant on Flight 11 before it crashed into the
North Tower of the WTC---are still alive (19-20).
2. The omission of evidence about Mohamed Atta---such as his reported
fondness for alcohol, pork, and lap dances---that is in tension with the
Commission¬s claim that he had become fanatically religious (20-21).
3. The obfuscation of the evidence that Hani Hanjour was too poor a pilot to
have flown an airliner into the Pentagon (21-22).
4. The omission of the fact that the publicly released flight manifests
contain no Arab names (23).
5. The omission of the fact that fire has never, before or after 9/11,
caused steel-frame buildings to collapse (25).
6. The omission of the fact that the fires in the Twin Towers were not very
big, very hot, or very long-lasting compared with fires in several
steel-frame buildings that did not collapse (25-26).
7. The omission of the fact that, given the hypothesis that the collapses
were caused by fire, the South Tower, which was struck later than the North
Tower and also had smaller fires, should not have collapsed first (26).
8. The omission of the fact that WTC 7 (which was not hit by an airplane and
which had only small, localized fires) also collapsed---an occurrence that
FEMA admitted it could not explain (26).
9. The omission of the fact that the collapse of the Twin Towers (like that
of Building 7) exemplified at least 10 features suggestive of controlled
demolition (26-27).
10. The claim that the core of each of the Twin Towers was ¬a hollow steel
shaft¬---a claim that denied the existence of the 47 massive steel columns
that in reality constituted the core of each tower and that, given the
¬pancake theory¬ of the collapses, should have still been sticking up many
hundreds of feet in the air (27-28).
11. The omission of Larry Silverstein¬s statement that he and the fire
department commander decided to ¬pull¬ Building 7 (28).
12. The omission of the fact that the steel from the WTC buildings was
quickly removed from the crime scene and shipped overseas before it could be
analyzed for evidence of explosives (30).
13. The omission of the fact that because Building 7 had been evacuated
before it collapsed, the official reason for the rapid removal of the
steel---that some people might still be alive in the rubble under the
steel---made no sense in this case (30).
14. The omission of Mayor Giuliani¬s statement that he had received word
that the World Trade Center was going to collapse (30-31).
15. The omission of the fact that President Bush¬s brother Marvin and his
cousin Wirt Walker III were both principals in the company in charge of
security for the WTC (31-32).
16. The omission of the fact that the west wing of the Pentagon would have
been the least likely spot to be targeted by al-Qaeda terrorists, for
several reasons (33-34).
17. The omission of any discussion of whether the damage done to the
Pentagon was consistent with the impact of a Boeing 757 going several
hundred miles per hour (34).
18. The omission of the fact that there are photos showing that the west
wing¬s faEade did not collapse until 30 minutes after the strike and also
that the entrance hole appears too small for a Boeing 757 to have entered
(34).
19. The omission of all testimony that has been used to cast doubt on
whether remains of a Boeing 757 were visible either inside or outside the
Pentagon (34-36).
20. The omission of any discussion of whether the Pentagon has a
anti-missile defense system that would have brought down a commercial
airliner---even though the Commission suggested that the al-Qaeda terrorists
did not attack a nuclear power plant because they assumed that it would be
thus defended (36).
21. The omission of the fact that pictures from various security
cameras---including the camera at the gas station across from the Pentagon,
the film from which was reportedly confiscated by the FBI immediately after
the strike---could presumably answer the question of what really hit the
Pentagon (37-38).
22. The omission of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld¬s reference to ¬the
missile [used] to damage [the Pentagon]¬ (39).
23. The apparent endorsement of a wholly unsatisfactory answer to the
question of why the Secret Service agents allowed President Bush to remain
at the Sarasota school at a time when, given the official story, they should
have assumed that a hijacked airliner might be about to crash into the
school (41-44).
24. The failure to explore why the Secret Service did not summon fighter
jets to provide air cover for Air Force One (43-46).
25. The claims that when the presidential party arrived at the school, no
one in the party knew that several planes had been hijacked (47-48).
26. The omission of the report that Attorney General Ashcroft was warned to
stop using commercial airlines prior to 9/11 (50).
27. The omission of David Schippers¬ claim that he had, on the basis of
information provided by FBI agents about upcoming attacks in lower
Manhattan, tried unsuccessfully to convey this information to Attorney
General Ashcroft during the six weeks prior to 9/11 (51).
28. The omission of any mention of the FBI agents who reportedly claimed to
have known the targets and dates of the attacks well in advance (51-52).
29. The claim, by means of a circular, question-begging rebuttal, that the
unusual purchases of put options prior to 9/11 did not imply advance
knowledge of the attacks on the part of the buyers (52-57).
30. The omission of reports that both Mayor Willie Brown and some Pentagon
officials received warnings about flying on 9/11 (57).
31. The omission of the report that Osama bin Laden, who already was
America¬s ¬most wanted¬ criminal, was treated in July 2001 by an American
doctor in the American Hospital in Dubai and visited by the local CIA agent
(59).
32. The omission of news stories suggesting that after 9/11 the US military
in Afghanistan deliberately allowed Osama bin Laden to escape (60).
33. The omission of reports, including the report of a visit to Osama bin
Laden at the hospital in Dubai by the head of Saudi intelligence, that were
in tension with the official portrayal of Osama as disowned by his family
and his country (60-61).
34. The omission of Gerald Posner¬s account of Abu Zubaydah¬s testimony,
according to which three members of the Saudi royal family---all of whom
later died mysteriously within an eight-day period---were funding al-Qaeda
and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (61-65).
35. The Commission¬s denial that it found any evidence of Saudi funding of
al-Qaeda (65-68).
36. The Commission¬s denial in particular that it found any evidence that
money from Prince Bandar¬s wife, Princess Haifa, went to al-Qaeda operatives
(69-70).
37. The denial, by means of simply ignoring the distinction between private
and commercial flights, that the private flight carrying Saudis from Tampa
to Lexington on September 13 violated the rules for US airspace in effect at
the time (71-76).
38. The denial that any Saudis were allowed to leave the United States
shortly after 9/11 without being adequately investigated (76-82).
39. The omission of evidence that Prince Bandar obtained special permission
from the White House for the Saudi flights (82-86).
40. The omission of Coleen Rowley¬s claim that some officials at FBI
headquarters did see the memo from Phoenix agent Kenneth Williams (89-90).
41. The omission of Chicago FBI agent Robert Wright¬s charge that FBI
headquarters closed his case on a terrorist cell, then used intimidation to
prevent him from publishing a book reporting his experiences (91).
42. The omission of evidence that FBI headquarters sabotaged the attempt by
Coleen Rowley and other Minneapolis agents to obtain a warrant to search
Zacarias Moussaoui¬s computer (91-94).
43. The omission of the 3.5 hours of testimony to the Commission by former
FBI translator Sibel Edmonds-testimony that, according to her later public
letter to Chairman Kean, revealed serious 9/11-related cover-ups by
officials at FBI headquarters (94-101).
44. The omission of the fact that General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of
Pakistan¬s intelligence agency (the ISI), was in Washington the week prior
to 9/11, meeting with CIA chief George Tenet and other US officials
(103-04).
45. The omission of evidence that ISI chief Ahmad had ordered $100,000 to be
sent to Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11 (104-07).
46. The Commission¬s claim that it found no evidence that any foreign
government, including Pakistan, had provided funding for the al-Qaeda
operatives (106).
47. The omission of the report that the Bush administration pressured
Pakistan to dismiss Ahmad as ISI chief after the appearance of the story
that he had ordered ISI money sent to Atta (107-09).
48. The omission of evidence that the ISI (and not merely al-Qaeda) was
behind the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood (the leader of Afghanistan¬s
Northern Alliance), which occurred just after the week-long meeting between
the heads of the CIA and the ISI (110-112).
49. The omission of evidence of ISI involvement in the kidnapping and murder
of Wall Street Reporter Daniel Pearl (113).
50. The omission of Gerald Posner¬s report that Abu Zubaydah claimed that a
Pakistani military officer, Mushaf Ali Mir, was closely connected to both
the ISI and al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (114).
51. The omission of the 1999 prediction by ISI agent Rajaa Gulum Abbas that
the Twin Towers would be ¬coming down¬ (114).
52. The omission of the fact that President Bush and other members of his
administration repeatedly spoke of the 9/11 attacks as ¬opportunities¬
(116-17).
53. The omission of the fact that The Project for the New American Century,
many members of which became key figures in the Bush administration,
published a document in 2000 saying that ¬a new Pearl Harbor¬ would aid its
goal of obtaining funding for a rapid technological transformation of the US
military (117-18).
54. The omission of the fact that Donald Rumsfeld, who as head of the
commission on the US Space Command had recommended increased funding for it,
used the attacks of 9/11 on that very evening to secure such funding
(119-22).
55. The failure to mention the fact that three of the men who presided over
the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks-Secretary Rumsfeld, General Richard
Myers, and General Ralph Eberhart---were also three of the strongest
advocates for the US Space Command (122).
56. The omission of the fact that Unocal had declared that the Taliban could
not provide adequate security for it to go ahead with its oil-and-gas
pipeline from the Caspian region through Afghanistan and Pakistan (122-25).
57. The omission of the report that at a meeting in July 2001, US
representatives said that because the Taliban refused to agree to a US
proposal that would allow the pipeline project to go forward, a war against
them would begin by October (125-26).
58. The omission of the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book had
said that for the United States to maintain global primacy, it needed to
gain control of Central Asia, with its vast petroleum reserves, and that a
new Pearl Harbor would be helpful in getting the US public to support this
imperial effort (127-28).
59. The omission of evidence that some key members of the Bush
administration, including Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, had
been agitating for a war with Iraq for many years (129-33).
60. The omission of notes of Rumsfeld¬s conversations on 9/11 showing that
he was determined to use the attacks as a pretext for a war with Iraq
(131-32).
61. The omission of the statement by the Project for the New American
Century that ¬the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf
transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein¬ (133-34).
62. The claim that FAA protocol on 9/11 required the time-consuming process
of going through several steps in the chain of command--even though the
Report cites evidence to the contrary (158).
63. The claim that in those days there were only two air force bases in
NORAD¬s Northeast sector that kept fighters on alert and that, in
particular, there were no fighters on alert at either McGuire or Andrews
(159-162).
64. The omission of evidence that Andrews Air Force Base did keep several
fighters on alert at all times (162-64).
65. The acceptance of the twofold claim that Colonel Marr of NEADS had to
telephone a superior to get permission to have fighters scrambled from Otis
and that this call required eight minutes (165-66).
66. The endorsement of the claim that the loss of an airplane¬s transponder
signal makes it virtually impossible for the US military¬s radar to track
that plane (166-67).
67. The claim that the Payne Stewart interception did not show NORAD¬s
response time to Flight 11 to be extraordinarily slow (167-69).
68. The claim that the Otis fighters were not airborne until seven minutes
after they received the scramble order because they did not know where to go
(174-75).
69. The claim that the US military did not know about the hijacking of
Flight 175 until 9:03, when it was crashing into the South Tower (181-82).
70. The omission of any explanation of (a) why NORAD¬s earlier report,
according to which the FAA had notified the military about the hijacking of
Flight 175 at 8:43, was now to be considered false and (b) how this report,
if it was false, could have been published and then left uncorrected for
almost three years (182).
71. The claim that the FAA did not set up a teleconference until 9:20 that
morning (183).
72. The omission of the fact that a memo by Laura Brown of the FAA says that
its teleconference was established at about 8:50 and that it included
discussion of Flight 175¬s hijacking (183-84, 186).
73. The claim that the NMCC teleconference did not begin until 9:29
(186-88).
74. The omission, in the Commission¬s claim that Flight 77 did not deviate
from its course until 8:54, of the fact that earlier reports had said 8:46
(189-90).
75. The failure to mention that the report that a large jet had crashed in
Kentucky, at about the time Flight 77 disappeared from FAA radar, was taken
seriously enough by the heads of the FAA and the FBI¬s counterterrorism unit
to be relayed to the White House (190).
76. The claim that Flight 77 flew almost 40 minutes through American
airspace towards Washington without being detected by the military¬s radar
(191-92).
77. The failure to explain, if NORAD¬s earlier report that it was notified
about Flight 77 at 9:24 was ¬incorrect,¬ how this erroneous report could
have arisen, i.e., whether NORAD officials had been lying or simply confused
for almost three years (192-93).
78. The claim that the Langley fighter jets, which NORAD had previously said
were scrambled to intercept Flight 77, were actually scrambled in response
to an erroneous report from an (unidentified) FAA controller at 9:21 that
Flight 11 was still up and was headed towards Washington (193-99).
79. The claim that the military did not hear from the FAA about the probable
hijacking of Flight 77 before the Pentagon was struck (204-12).
80. The claim that Jane Garvey did not join Richard Clarke¬s videoconference
until 9:40, after the Pentagon was struck (210).
81. The claim that none of the teleconferences succeeded in coordinating the
FAA and military responses to the hijackings because ¬none of [them]
included the right officials from both the FAA and the Defense
Department¬---although Richard Clarke says that his videoconference included
FAA head Jane Garvey as well as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and General
Richard Myers, the acting chair of the joint chiefs of staff (211).
82. The Commission¬s claim that it did not know who from the Defense
Department participated in Clarke¬s videoconference---although Clarke¬s book
said that it was Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers (211-212).
83. The endorsement of General Myers¬ claim that he was on Capitol Hill
during the attacks, without mentioning Richard Clarke¬s contradictory
account, according to which Myers was in the Pentagon participating in
Clarke¬s videoconference (213-17).
84. The failure to mention the contradiction between Clarke¬s account of
Rumsfeld¬s whereabouts that morning and Rumsfeld¬s own accounts (217-19).
85. The omission of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta¬s testimony,
given to the Commission itself, that Vice-President Cheney and others in the
underground shelter were aware by 9:26 that an aircraft was approaching the
Pentagon (220).
86. The claim that Pentagon officials did not know about an aircraft
approaching Pentagon until 9:32, 9:34, or 9:36---in any case, only a few
minutes before the building was hit (223).
87. The endorsement of two contradictory stories about the aircraft that hit
the Pentagon---one in which it executed a 330-degree downward spiral (a
¬high-speed dive¬) and another in which there is no mention of this maneuver
(222-23).
88. The claim that the fighter jets from Langley, which were allegedly
scrambled to protect Washington from ¬Phantom Flight 11,¬ were nowhere near
Washington because they were mistakenly sent out to sea (223-24).
89. The omission of all the evidence suggesting that the aircraft that hit
the Pentagon was not Flight 77 (224-25).
90. The claim that the military was not notified by the FAA about Flight
93¬s hijacking until after it crashed (227-29, 232, 253).
91. The twofold claim that the NMCC did not monitor the FAA-initiated
conference and then was unable to get the FAA connected to the
NMCC-initiated teleconference (230-31).
92. The omission of the fact that the Secret Service is able to know
everything that the FAA knows (233).
93. The omission of any inquiry into why the NMCC initiated its own
teleconference if, as Laura Brown of the FAA has said, this is not standard
protocol (234).
94. The omission of any exploration of why General Montague Winfield not
only had a rookie (Captain Leidig) take over his role as the NMCC¬s Director
of Operations but also left him in charge after it was clear that the
Pentagon was facing an unprecedented crisis (235-36).
95. The claim that the FAA (falsely) notified the Secret Service between
10:10 and 10:15 that Flight 93 was still up and headed towards Washington
(237).
96. The claim that Vice President Cheney did not give the shoot-down
authorization until after 10:10 (several minutes after Flight 93 had
crashed) and that this authorization was not transmitted to the US military
until 10:31 (237-41).
97. The omission of all the evidence indicating that Flight 93 was shot down
by a military plane (238-39, 252-53).
98. The claim that Richard Clarke did not receive the requested shoot-down
authorization until 10:25 (240).
99. The omission of Clarke¬s own testimony, which suggests that he received
the shoot-down authorization by 9:50 (240).
100. The claim that Cheney did not reach the underground shelter (the PEOC
[Presidential Emergency Operations Center]) until 9:58 (241-44).
101. The omission of multiple testimony, including that of Norman Mineta to
the Commission itself, that Cheney was in the PEOC before 9:20 (241-44).
102. The claim that shoot-down authorization must be given by the president
(245).
103. The omission of reports that Colonel Marr ordered a shoot-down of
Flight 93 and that General Winfield indicated that he and others at the NMCC
had expected a fighter jet to reach Flight 93 (252).
104. The omission of reports that there were two fighter jets in the air a
few miles from NYC and three of them only 200 miles from Washington (251).
105. The omission of evidence that there were at least six bases with
fighters on alert in the northeastern part of the United States (257-58).
106. The endorsement of General Myers¬ claim that NORAD had defined its
mission in terms of defending only against threats from abroad (258-62).
107. The endorsement of General Myers¬ claim that NORAD had not recognized
the possibility that terrorists might use hijacked airliners as missiles
(262-63).
108. The failure to highlight the significance of evidence presented in the
Report itself, and to mention other evidence, showing that NORAD had indeed
recognized the threat that hijacked airliners might be used as missiles
(264-67).
109. The failure to probe the issue of how the ¬war games¬ scheduled for
that day were related to the military¬s failure to intercept the hijacked
airliners (268-69).
110. The failure to discuss the possible relevance of Operation Northwoods
to the attacks of 9/11 (269-71).
111. The claim---made in explaining why the military did not get information
about the hijackings in time to intercept them---that FAA personnel
inexplicably failed to follow standard procedures some 16 times (155-56,
157, 179, 180, 181, 190, 191, 193, 194, 200, 202-03, 227, 237, 272-75).
112. The failure to point out that the Commission¬s claimed ¬independence¬
was fatally compromised by the fact that its executive director, Philip
Zelikow, was virtually a member of the Bush administration (7-9, 11-12,
282-84).
113. The failure to point out that the White House first sought to prevent
the creation of a 9/11 Commission, then placed many obstacles in its path,
including giving it extremely meager funding (283-85).
114. The failure to point out that the Commission¬s chairman, most of the
other commissioners, and at least half of the staff had serious conflicts of
interest (285-90, 292-95).
115. The failure of the Commission, while bragging that it presented its
final report ¬without dissent,¬ to point out that this was probably possible
only because Max Cleland, the commissioner who was most critical of the
White House and swore that he would not be part of ¬looking at information
only partially,¬ had to resign in order to accept a position with the
Export-Import Bank, and that the White House forwarded his nomination for
this position only after he was becoming quite outspoken in his criticisms
(290-291).
I will close by pointing out that I concluded my study of what I came to
call ¬the Kean-Zelikow Report¬ by writing that it, ¬far from lessening my
suspicions about official complicity, has served to confirm them. Why would
the minds in charge of this final report engage in such deception if they
were not trying to cover up very high crimes?¬ (291)
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9/11 INFORMATION CENTER:
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