1. Pentagon damage- Plane wreckage?
2. Crater in Pennsylvania- plane wreckage?
3. Building 7 collapse
Th official report is a sham and a cover-up by the highest federal government workers. What do they not want us to know?
The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie
by Dr. David Ray
Griffin
Sunday, May 22, 2005
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 façade 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)
