Fact #15
The Bush Administration was the families’ “biggest adversary” when it came to the creation of a so-called Independent 9/11 Commission.
The families had to fight “tooth and nail,” and lobby to get an investigation because the Bush Administration clearly did not want one.
Dick Cheney and George Bush refused to testify under oath before select individuals of the 9/11 Commission even though the families wanted them to. They testified together, not in public, and no recordings were allowed. The families requested the transcripts of their meeting, but were denied.
They made it difficult for the commission to get funding.
They tried to make Henry Kissinger the Chairman of the commission, but he resigned after the families started asking too many questions.
Alberto Gonzales “stonewalled” the 9/11 Commission’s access to the White House.
They appointed Thomas Kean as Chairman, someone “who will be easily controlled by the administration,” and Lee Hamilton, a long time friend of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld to be the co-chair. Hamilton participated in two inquiries that resulted in cover-ups. The Iran/Contra Affair inquiry, and the October Surprise inquiry.
Fact #16
Philip Zelikow was the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission.
Paul Sperry explained, “though he has no vote, (Zelikow) arguably has more sway than any member, including the chairman. Zelikow picks the areas of investigation, the briefing materials, the topics for hearings, the witnesses, and the lines of questioning for witnesses… In effect, he sets the agenda and runs the investigation.”
In 1995, Zelikow wrote a book with Condoleezza Rice called, “Germany Unified and Europe Transformed: A Study in Statecraft.”
While at Harvard, “he worked with Ernest May and Richard Neustadt on the use, and misuse, of history in policymaking. They observed, as Zelikow noted in his own words that “contemporary” history is “defined functionally by those critical people and events that go into forming the public’s presumptions about its immediate past. The idea of ‘public presumption’,” he explained, “is akin to William McNeill’s notion of ‘public myth’ but without the negative implication sometimes invoked by the word ‘myth.’ Such presumptions are beliefs (1) thought to be true (although not necessarily known to be true with certainty), and (2) shared in common within the relevant political community.”
Between 1997 and 1998, Zelikow helped to write a report that said “Long part of the Hollywood and Tom Clancy repertory of nightmarish scenarios, catastrophic terrorism has moved from far-fetched horror to a contingency that could happen next month. Although the United States still takes conventional terrorism seriously… it is not yet prepared for the new threat of catastrophic terrorism. They predict the consequences of such an event: “An act of catastrophic terrorism that killed thousands or tens of thousands of people and/or disrupted the necessities of life for hundreds of thousands, or even millions, would be a watershed event in America’s history. It could involve loss of life and property unprecedented for peacetime and undermine Americans’ fundamental sense of security within their own borders in a manner akin to the 1949 Soviet atomic bomb test, or perhaps even worse. Constitutional liberties would be challenged as the United States sought to protect itself from further attacks by pressing against allowable limits in surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and the use of deadly force. More violence would follow, either as other terrorists seek to imitate this great ‘success’ or as the United States strikes out at those considered responsible. Like Pearl Harbor, such an event would divide our past and future into a ‘before’ and ‘after.’”
In 1997, Zelikow and Ernest May wrote a report about John F. Kennedy that is “riddled” with errors.
Zelikow wrote the pre-emptive war strategy for the Bush Administration.
Zelikow said that the “real threat” with regards to Iraq’s WMD was to Israel.
Zelikow tried to prevent the 9/11 Commission staffers from talking to the Commissioners.
Zelikow tried to insert a false connection between Iraq and 9/11 into the 9/11 Report, but the families, and the staffers fought against it. Select staffers of the 9/11 Commission dispute this account, though Zelikow ultimately had to approve Mylroie’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission.
It has been alleged that he may have taken direction from Karl Rove who, according to Philip Shenon, was concerned about the 9/11 Commission because “in the wrong hands… [it] could cost President Bush a second term.” The allegation regarding Rove drove the September Eleventh Advocates (formerly known as “The Jersey Girls”) to call for an entirely new investigation. Only Rawstory.com covered that story.
In early 2003, Philip Zelikow and Ernest May wrote a complete outline of the final 9/11 Report. Zelikow, Kean, and Hamilton decided to keep this outline a secret from the commission staffers. When “it was later disclosed that Zelikow had prepared a detailed outline of the commission’s final report at the very start of the investigation, many of the staff’s investigators were alarmed.”
He rewrote the 9/11 Report to be more favorable of Condoleezza Rice.
Zelikow refused to approve half of the interview requests for “Saudi Connection” investigations. He blocked investigators from accessing the 28 redacted pages of the Joint Congressional Inquiry, and then fired investigator Dana Leseman after she tried to get the pages through a back channel. In June 2004, Philip Zelikow and Dieter Snell take part in a “late-night editing session” to delete passages of the 9/11 Report having to do with Saudi support for the hijackers.
During the time of the 9/11 Commission, the families called for the resignation of Philip Zelikow, but were denied that request.
After the 9/11 Commission was finished, Philip Zelikow was given a job with Condoleezza Rice at the State Department.
On October 9th, 2010, during “Freedom Watch” with Judge Napolitano, 9/11 Whistleblower Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer alleges that during a lunch in Philadelphia, a 9/11 Commissioner told him that, “everybody on the commission was covering for someone.” The following week, Judge Napolitano asked Philip Zelikow to appear on the show to talk about this. He REFUSED.
On 9/7/2011, it was reported that “President Obama appointed Philip Zelikow, associate dean for graduate academic programs in the University of Virginia’s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences, to serve on the President’s Intelligence Advisory Board.”
Fact #17
NORAD gave three different timelines with regards to their response on the day of 9/11.
Sen. Mark Dayton questioned 9/11 Commission Chair Thomas Kean and Vice-Chair Lee Hamilton about NORAD’s false statements to the people and their Commission. He also spoke to Philip Zelikow, a panel of “experts,” and Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers about NORAD’s response that morning.
On 6/17/2004, 9/11 Commissioner Jamie Gorelick will question Gen. Myers about NORAD’s mission. “In my experience, the military is very clear about its charters, and who is supposed to do what. So if you go back and you look at the foundational documents for NORAD, they do not say defend us only against a threat coming in from across the ocean, or across our borders. It has two missions, and one of them is control of the airspace above the domestic United States, and aerospace control is defined as providing surveillance and control of the airspace of Canada and the United States. To me that air sovereignty concept means that you have a role which, if you were postured only externally you defined out of the job.” [...] “I would like to know, as the second question, is it your job, and if not whose job is it, to make current assessments of a threat, and decide whether you are positioned correctly to carry out a mission, which at least on paper NORAD had.” At the end of this exchange, Gen. Myers asks, “did I answer both questions?” Jamie Gorelick responds, “yes, and no, and my time has expired.” According to information collected by Dean Jackson, NORAD’s mission at the time, coincided with Jamie Gorelick’s understanding of it.
On 8/2/2006, the Washington Post reported that “the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public” and that “the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation.” Later, it was reported that NORAD’s mistakes were due to “inadequate forensic capabilities” and “poor record-keeping.”
William P. Goehring, a spokesman for the DoD’s Inspector General’s office, said that “the question of whether military commanders intentionally withheld the truth from the commission would be addressed in a separate report that is still in preparation.” To my knowledge, that report has not been released as of this date.
On March 7th, 2009, it is reported that Frank Rich of the New York Times believed “that the Defense Department Inspector General’s office’s investigations over the years may have been cover-ups that were “carried out in response to “orders from above.” He said that any report “over the past five or six years during the war in Iraq” may be suspect, and that “there may be a much bigger story here.” His suspicions seem to have been confirmed in a report from Fox News’ Catherine Herridge that broke on October 7th, 2010. With regards to what is known as Able Danger, “it is made clear that “at least five witnesses questioned by the Defense Department’s Inspector General told Fox News that their statements were distorted by investigators in the final IG’s report — or it left out key information, backing up assertions that lead hijacker Mohammed Atta was identified a year before 9/11.”
Here are some excerpts from Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton’s book, “Without Precedent.” “There were also discrepancies between things NORAD was telling us about their performance on the morning of September 11-things that the agency had stated publicly after 9/11-and the story told by the limited tapes and documents the commission had received”. These were puzzling and disturbing developments, and they account in part for some of the more bizarre and inaccurate conspiracy theories about 9/11.” [...] “Farmer believed that NORAD was delivering incomplete records with the knowledge that the commission had a fixed end date that could be waited out.” [...] “Throughout the course of our inquiry, the topic that invited the most skepticism-and thus the most conspiracy theorizing-was the performance of the FAA and NORAD on the day of September 11, 2001.” [...] “Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not explain why all of the after-action reports, accident investigations, and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue.”
On 9/17/2001, NORAD gives a briefing to the White House. 9/11 Commissioner Bob Kerrey will say “it feels like something happened in that briefing that produced almost a necessity to deliver a story that’s different than what actually happened on that day.”
Fact #18
Different pieces of evidence have been destroyed or is being withheld from the public.
Kevin Delaney, the quality assurance manager for the New York Air Route Traffic Control Center, destroyed a tape recorded by six Air Traffic Controllers on the morning of 9/11 “by breaking up the plastic housing and cutting the tape into small fragments, depositing the remnants in trash cans throughout the Center.”
2.5 terabytes of information regarding Able Danger was destroyed in April/May 2000.
The CIA destroyed interrogation tapes.
In 2003, a book was written by Gail Swanson entitled, “Behind-the-Scenes: Ground Zero” that is a “collection of personal accounts” from people that were at Ground Zero on that day. In that book, Firefighter Nicholas DeMasi says “at one point I was assigned to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV. When we got into the ATV to take off, the agent accidentally pushed me forward. The ATV was already in reverse, and my foot went down on the gas pedal. We went down the stairs in reverse. Fortunately, everything was okay. There were a total of four black boxes. We found three.” The 9/11 Commission says those black boxes were not found.
Most of the steel from the WTC was removed, cut into smaller sections, and either melted at a recycling plant or shipped out of the U.S. Fire Engineering magazine wrote, “We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence.”
Fact #19
Several Whistleblowers have come forward over the years with information pertinent to the 9/11 attacks.
Most were ignored or censored by the 9/11 Commission.
Some of these people are John M. Cole (Senior Counterintelligence Operations Manager-FBI), Bogdan Dzakovic (Former Red Team Leader-FAA), Sibel Edmonds (Language Specialist-FBI), Behrooz Sarshar (Language Specialist-FBI), Melvin A. Goodman (Former Senior Analyst/ Division Manager-CIA), Gilbert Graham (Retired Special Agent, Counterintelligence-FBI), Coleen Rowley (Retired Division Counsel- FBI), John Vincent (Retired Special Agent, Counterterrorism-FBI), Robert Wright (Veteran Special Agent, Counterterrorism-FB), Mark Burton (Senior Analyst- NSA), Mike German (Special Agent, Counterterrorism-FBI), Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and Scott Philpott.
9/11 Family Member Patty Casazza said “Sibel came to, actually, the four widows, and asked us if she could get a hearing with the Commission because nobody of the Commission was responding to her requests to testify. And part of the problem with testifying, um… as someone who’s working for one of the agencies, is that, they have to be careful with state secrets, what they reveal. And, in order to be a whistle-blower, and not be retaliated against, most whistle-blowers need to be subpoenaed, cause then their co-workers, and those who might retaliate against them, know that under penalty of, ya know, law, they could be… um… ya know, accused of being traitors and what not, and put in jail, or executed. So, most whistle-blowers were… did not come forward on the basis of what happened to Sibel Edmonds. Um, Sibel brought us many whistle-blowers, and I submitted them personally to Governor Kean, who was the Chairman of the Commission. And I said, “these people are not being subpoenaed. They will not come before the Commission voluntarily unless they are subpoenaed.” And, he promised me… to my face that “every whistle-blower would be… indeed heard.” And, most were not heard. Sibel was only heard because we dragged her in and surprised the Commission on one of the days we were meeting with them… that we had her with us. Um, we met other whistle-blowers on the side of the road in Maryland, ya know, to hear what they could tell us. None of them revealed state secrets to us by the way (laughs)… um, but, they had information… and basically, the Government knew… ya know, other than the exact moment… they knew the date, and the method of which the attacks were supposed to come. (pauses) And none of this made it to mainstream media. None of it made it into the Commission. And yet, again, all of your Representatives, on the day that the Commission book came out, were on their pulpits saying, “What a fabulous job this Commission has done. A real service to this nation.” And it was anything but a service. It was a complete fabrication.”
On October 29th, 2007, Sibel Edmonds agreed to break the gag order that was placed on her, and tell her entire story to the media. Until very recently, the only paper to take the challenge was the Sunday Times. At the time, the media in this country did not give her the time of day with one exception that I know of, and it wasn’t prominently displayed. Sibel’s story mentions the same alleged financier of the 9/11 attacks that Rep. Porter Goss, Sen. Graham, Sen. Kyl met on the morning of 9/11, and people like George Tenet, and others met in the months prior to 9/11, and during the week of 9/11.
On 1/3/2011, the “Memorandum For The Record” of Sibel Edmonds’ testimony before the 9/11 Commission was released by cryptome.org. Almost the ENTIRE document was deemed “9/11 Classified Information.” Sibel wrote, “despite some redactions here and there, and in a few cases fairly extensive redaction, there were no interviews where the entire interview (and the report on the interview) was blacked out in its entirety. Mine was the only one privileged and honored to such degree! Why? I mean, come on, we are talking about interviews with: FBI Special Agent in Charge on Counterterrorism, CIA Officers with Directorate of Intelligence with a Specific Focus on Drugs & Thugs, The Chairman of National Intelligence Council, NSA Chief of Counterintelligence & SIGNIT Support, Senior CIA Analysts. Yet, none of these interviews was redacted in its entirety. None.”
On 9/9/2010, the New York Times reports that, “Defense Department officials are negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir they say contains intelligence secrets, according to two people familiar with the dispute.” The book in question is “Operation Dark Heart” by 9/11 Whistleblower Anthony Shaffer. The New York Times goes on to say that, “Disputes between the government and former intelligence officials over whether their books reveal too much have become commonplace. But veterans of the publishing industry and intelligence agencies could not recall another case in which an agency sought to dispose of a book that had already been printed.”
On 9/9/2010, it is reported that “specifically, the DIA wanted references to a meeting between Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, the book’s author, and the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, removed. In that meeting Shaffer alleges the commission was told about “Able Danger” and the identification of Atta before the attacks. No mention of this was made in the final 9/11 report.”
On 9/17/2010, Agence France Presse reports that the “publisher has agreed to remove US intelligence secrets from a memoir by a former army officer in Afghanistan after the Pentagon raised last-minute objections, officials said Friday. The book, “Operation Dark Heart,” had been printed and prepared for release in August but St. Martin’s Press will now issue a revised version of the memoir after negotiations with the Pentagon, US and company officials said. In return, the Defense Department has agreed to reimburse the company for the cost of the first printing, spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan told AFP.” [...] “St. Martin’s press will destroy copies from the first printing with Pentagon representatives observing “to ensure it’s done in accordance with our standards,” Lapan said.” [...] “For those portions that will be reflected as redacted we are considering litigation to challenge the determinations,” Zaid said.”
On 1/31/2011, the September Eleventh Advocates released a statement pertaining to 9/11 Whistleblower Berhrooz Sarshar. This statement asked, “that the transcript of Mr. Sarshar’s interview be immediately declassified,” and that they respectfully request, “that the former Chairman, Governor Thomas Kean, Vice-Chairman, Mr. Lee Hamilton and the Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, Mr. Philip Zelikow, promptly answer the questions herein.”
Neither Thomas Kean, Lee Hamilton, or Philip Zelikow responded. As a result of their refusal to respond, 9/11 Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds released a transcript of one of the times Berhrooz Sarshar testified. This transcript speaks of foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks, and an order from above to disregard any knowledge of it. Not one news outlet reported on it.
Fact #20
Apparently, Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed, the head of the Pakistani ISI, someone who met with U.S. elected and appointed officials in the weeks before 9/11, on the day of 9/11, and in the days after 9/11, ordered possible MI6 Agent Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh to wire transfer $100,000 to Mohammad Atta. The 9/11 Families’ submitted a question to the 9/11 Commission about this incident.
Deputy Assistant Director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, John S. Pistole stated that their investigation “has traced the origin of the funding of 9/11 back to financial accounts in Pakistan, where high-ranking and well-known al-Qaeda operatives played a major role in moving the money forward, eventually into the hands of the hijackers located in the US.”
In January 2002, during a visit to India, FBI Director Robert Mueller was told about Saeed Sheikh’s involvement in the 9/11 attacks by Indian Investigators.
Apparently, “on the eve of the publication of its report, the 9/11 Commission was given a stunning document from Pakistan, claiming that Pakistani intelligence officers knew in advance of the 9/11 attacks.”
On 3/3/2006, the Friday Times reported that “Pakistan gave tens of thousands of dollars through its lobbyists in the United States to members of the 9/11 inquiry commission to ‘convince’ them to drop some anti-Pakistan findings in the report.” This according to FO Official Sadiq. According to the Pakistan paper Daily Times, this story about bribery “triggered” U.S. media interest. I don’t remember seeing any mention of this story at all. If you know of an American media outlet that investigated this story, and reported on the results of that investigation, please let me know.
On 4/10/2006, Pakistan officially denied the allegations of bribery. “Pakistan has never indulged in the illegal activity of bribing or buying influence anywhere in the world,” said a statement issued by the FO spokesperson here on Sunday.
It’s interesting to note that after Osama Bin Laden’s reported death on 5/1/2011, and after the United States started to hypocritically point fingers at Pakistan for either protecting or harboring Osama Bin Laden, it was reported that “Pakistan’s Washington lobbyists have launched an intense campaign on Capitol Hill to counter accusations that Islamabad was complicit in giving refuge to Osama bin Laden.” Then, a report on 7/19/2011 comes out that says, “a Virginia man has been arrested for participating in a conspiracy to act as an agent of the Pakistani government. Court documents identify the man as Syed Fai of Fairfax, Virginia, a U.S. resident. The FBI alleges that Fai funneled millions of dollars to elected officials and high-profile conferences in an effort to influence American policy on Kashmir, a disputed territory along the Indian and Pakistani border. In charging documents, Fai was said to have received funding for his lobbying efforts from Pakistan’s ISI, the country’s spy agency.”
On 10/1/2001, Lt. Gen. Ahmed and Saeed Sheikh may have been involved in another “terrorist attack” together.
Recently, it was reported that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh has been running a terrorist network from prison, and was planning to assassinate President Musharraf.
Former ISI Chief Hamid Gul recently defended Lt. Gen. Ahmed regarding the allegations of the wire transfer.
On 3/15/2002, Condoleeza Rice is asked a question about Lt. Gen. Ahmed. “Dr. Rice, are you aware of the reports at the time that ISI Chief was in Washington on September 11th, and on September 10th, $100,000 was wired to Pakistan to this group here in this area? While he was here meeting with you or anybody in the administration?” Her response was, “I have not seen that report, and he was certainly not meeting with me.” The transcript of this has “ISI Chief” replaced with “–.”
On March 31st, 2006, 9/11 Commissioner Thomas Kean was confronted on this issue. He said he wasn’t aware of it.
It should be noted that a “Memorandum For The Record” from the 9/11 Commission was discovered that said, “there is absolutely no evidence Atta received a wire a transfer from the Pakistani ISI,” but there are major redactions prior to that statement, and after it. Also, there is no mention of Lt. General Mahmood Ahmed or Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh. I have never seen a statement from any official explain why the allegations of the $100k wire transfer are wrong or unsubstantiated. Wikileaks states, “U.S. investigators later said that this was a confusion with Mustafa al-Hawsawi, also known as Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad, who is currently held in Guantanamo Bay.” However, when you read the source article of that statement, it refers to “Shaykh Sai’id [...] an Egyptian who helped fund bin Laden when the terrorist leader was based in Sudan during the 1990s.” Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh is from Britain.
The FBI originally said that Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh was a financier of the attacks.
Fact #21
On the morning of 9/11, a homemaker by the name of Maria will notice a group of people sitting on top of a white van.
She says, “They seemed to be taking a movie” at the time of the first impact.
She calls the police. At 3:31pm on 9/11, the FBI issues a BOLO (be on the lookout) that says, “White, 2000 Chevrolet van…with ‘Urban Moving Systems’ sign on back seen at Liberty State Park, Jersey City, NJ, at the time of first impact of jetliner into World Trade Center…. Three individuals with van were seen celebrating after initial impact and subsequent explosion. FBI Newark Field Office requests that, if the van is located, hold for prints and detain individuals.”
At 3:56pm on 9/11, these individuals are arrested.
On 9/14/2001, the owner of Urban Moving Systems flees to Israel.
Because of great pressure in late October 2001, the arrested men, allegedly Israeli spies, are released in November 2001.
One of the men claims “our purpose was to document the event.”
It is interesting to note that “four of the five Israelis arrested on 9/11, Paul and Sivan Kurzberg, Omer Marmari, and Yaron Shmuel, file a multimillion dollar lawsuit against the US Justice Department. They claim they were arrested illegally, then held without charge and interrogated and tortured for months.”
Apparently, there were Israeli Art Students, possibly Mossad, spying in the U.S. at the time of 9/11. It is said that these “art students” were the source of a warning the Mossad passed along to the CIA on 8/23/2001. The Mossad gave the CIA “a list of 19 terrorists living in the US and say that they appear to be planning to carry out an attack in the near future. It is unknown if these are the 19 9/11 hijackers or if the number is a coincidence. However, four names on the list are known, and these four will be 9/11 hijackers: Nawaf Alhazmi, Khalid Almihdhar, Marwan Alshehhi, and Mohamed Atta.”
Fact #22
No one has been held accountable, and instead, people that didn’t deserve it, were promoted.
Fact #23
On 9/11/2006, 9/11 Family members Donna Marsh O’Connor, Michele Little, and Christina Kminek, along with Kyle Hence (Executive Producer of 9/11: Press For Truth), and Paul Thompson (www.historycommons.org, author of “The Terror Timeline”), called for a new investigation (RealPlayer required) at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. I believe this is the only news outlet to cover it.
Over the years, different family members like Bob McIlvaine, Lorie Van Auken, Daniel Wallace (RIP), and Barry Zelman, as well as many others have spoken out for the truth.
The September Eleventh Advocates have released letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter after letter trying to get some truth. The media has been silent.
In late 2009, there was an effort in New York to get a new investigation onto the ballot. Over 100 9/11 Family Members endorsed this effort. The city argued that a real/new investigation into 9/11 is “not a proper subject to be placed before the voters.” When Supreme Court Justice Edward Lehner asked city counselor Steve Kitzinger “if the City had done anything to investigate 9/11. Kitzinger flatly responded, “No.” In disbelief, Judge Lerner responded with, “the City never did anything?” 9/11 Whistleblowers Coleen Rowley, and LTC Anthony Shaffer endorsed this initiative.
Fact #24
The United States Government has not fully cooperated with international investigations into 9/11.
With regards to Abdelghani Mzoudi, the United States “would not allow Mzoudi’s defense to cross-examine bin al-Shibh,” and as a result he was acquitted. During an appeal, “Kay Nehm, Germany’s top federal prosecutor, again appeals to the US State Department to release interrogation records of bin al-Shibh to the court. However, the US still refuses to release the evidence, and a list of questions the court gives to the US for bin al-Shibh to answer are never answered.”
With regards to Mounir El-Motassadeq, his conviction having to do with the 9/11 attacks was overturned after finding that “German and US authorities withheld evidence.” He was later convicted for his “Al-Qaeda” membership, but not for 9/11.
Fact #25
As I mentioned in the introduction, the Mainstream Media has not covered the questions concerning the 9/11 attacks as they should, and for the most part, with the exception of small town news, have attacked those that do.
According to James Goodale, the founders of the United States “enacted the First Amendment to distinguish their new government from that of England, which had long censored the press and prosecuted persons who dared to criticize the British Crown.” On 10/31/2005, Reporters Without Borders reported that the United States ranked 44th in the world for Freedom Of The Press “mainly because of the imprisonment of New York Times reporter Judith Miller and legal moves undermining the privacy of journalistic sources.”
At the 2008 RNC, several journalists, including Amy Goodman of DemocracyNow were arrested.
Over the years, the Mainstream Media has essentially used George Bush’s policy of never tolerating “outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September 11th – malicious lies that attempt to shift blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.”
At first, and still, they have referred to anyone that questions the events of 9/11 as “Conspiracy Theorists.” They have done so again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
The Mainstream Media has also repeatedly focused on what is considered the “fringe” of the 9/11 Truth Movement, and has ignored the more credible researchers.
Several celebrities have spoken out for 9/11 Truth. Each time one has done so, almost in unison, the Mainstream Media has attacked them. They have done so again, and again, and again, and again, and again.
They have portrayed those who question the official account as “unpatriotic,” and also as “terrorist sympathizers.” We were even painted as Holocaust Denying murderers.
As pointed out in Fact #23, the media has also ignored the 9/11 Family Members who question the official account, but they have also given a lot of attention to people like Ann Coulter that have attacked some of those family members again, and again, and again. The September Eleventh Advocates responded to Coulter’s remarks.
The media has heavily promoted movies like “Path To 9/11” which are factually incorrect, and ignored movies liked “9/11: Press For Truth,” which calls into question the entire 9/11 Report, and is endorsed by the family members that fought for it.
The MSM have also repeatedly said that if you question the official account of 9/11, you are dishonoring the family members.
Fact #26
The 9/11 Commission was mandated to give a “full and complete accounting” of the attacks of September 11, 2001 and recommendations as to how to prevent such attacks in the future.”
The 9/11 Commission had the power of subpoena, but rarely used it. Instead, they used what were called “document requests” which could be, and were ignored.
As mentioned in Fact #19, several whistleblowers were brought forward, but were either censored or ignored by the 9/11 Commission. Early on, the 9/11 Commission didn’t hold people under oath.
At one point, an advertising campaign was started that asked for people to be held under oath.
On 4/27/2009, a memo was discovered that talked about “Government Minders” intimidating witnesses. According to Kevin Fenton’s article, they “answer[ed] questions directed at witnesses,” they “acted as “monitors, reporting to their respective agencies on Commission staffs lines of inquiry and witnesses’ verbatim responses.” The staff thought this “conveys to witnesses that their superiors will review their statements and may engage in retribution,” and they “positioned themselves physically and have conducted themselves in a manner that we believe intimidates witnesses from giving full and candid responses to our questions.”
The 9/11 Commission said that a “Failure Of Imagination” was partly to blame for what happened. Eleanor Hill’s opening statement to the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, as well as 9/11 Family Kristen Breitweiser’s opening statement shows this was not the case.
The following are some quotes from 9/11 Commissioners Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton from their book “Without Precedent.” “The two sides decided to split the difference, allowing eighteen months for the inquiry-a period of time that proved insufficient” [....] “The White House also suggested some candidates for executive director for our staff. The importance of this position cannot be overstated” [...] “”we seriously only considered one candidate: Philip Zelikow”. Zelikow was a controversial choice. In the 1990s, as an academic, he had co-authored, with Condoleezza Rice, a book about German unification, and he later assisted Stephen Hadley in running the National Security Council transition for the incoming Bush administration in 2000-2001″ [...] “After Philip Zelikow came on board as executive director, he began recruiting and interviewing candidates”. Zelikow was selected with little consultation with the rest of the committee, but several commissioners had concerns about the kind of inquiry he would lead” [...] “We soon encountered problems, both in obtaining information and with the laborious conditions placed on our access to some information” [...] “We decided against an aggressive use of subpoenas for several reasons”. Furthermore, we knew that many of the most important documents we sought were potentially the subject of an executive privilege claim-meaning that the president might not be legally compelled to share that material with another branch of government, even with a subpoena” [...] “We were supposed to be independent, not necessarily confrontational. We were investigating a national catastrophe, not a White House transgression; this was 9/11, not Watergate” [...] “Senior officials from the FAA and NORAD-Jane Garvey and Craig McKinley-made statements about the timeline of 9/11 that were later proven to be inaccurate” [...] “Many interviews were recorded, though we were not permitted to record those conducted with current officials from the Executive Office of the President” [...] “We were set up to fail.”
The 9/11 Family Steering Committee was made up of 12 family members, including the “Jersey Girls.” They monitored the commission, they worked with the staffers of the commission, and they provided 100′s of well researched questions for the commission to answer. According to 9/11 Commission Chair Thomas Kean, “They monitor us, they follow our progress, they’ve supplied us with some of the best questions we’ve asked. I doubt very much if we would be in existence without them.”
The 9/11 Commission only answered 30% of the families questions.
Fact #27
The level of fear that resulted from the attacks of 9/11 was nourished and maintained, and still is to this day.
Reich Marshal Hermann Goering once said “of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”
On 6/23/2007, Glenn Greenwald wrote about how insurgents in Iraq were being referred to as “Al-Qaeda” more frequently. He states, “what makes this practice all the more disturbing is how quickly and obediently the media has adopted the change in terms consciously issued by the Bush administration and their military officials responsible for presenting the Bush view of the war to the press.”
Fox News once suggested “Al-Qaeda” was responsible for starting California Wildfires.
Keith Olbermann ran two stories that I know of regarding the political usage of “terror threats.”
The New York Times recently ran a massive story on how military analysts with “ties to military contractors” were being used by the Pentagon to “shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks.” They “have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated.”
Fact #28
The 9/11 Report was, and is promoted as a triumph.
The Washington Post reported that it is “a useful analysis of the changes that have taken place since, as well as the changes that have not taken place,” and calling the commission’s unanimity and comprehensiveness “impressive.” WaPo also reported that “the final report is a document of historic sweep and almost unprecedented detail, offering the sort of examination of a highly classified subject that customarily would not be possible for decades after the fact. From the findings of spy agencies to the tactics of fighter pilots, from the conversations of heads of state to the verbatim texts of secret presidential briefings, this is the government laid bare.”
The New York Times reported that it was “uncommonly lucid, even riveting,” and is an “improbable literary triumph.”
Time Magazine said the report was “meticulous in its reconstruction of the attacks and unflinching in its conclusions about why the government failed to stop them.”
The 9/11 Commission’s report was nominated by the National Book Foundation in 2004 for best in Non-fiction.
Former Representative Katherine Harris referred to the 9/11 Report as “one of the most important publications of our age.”
Senator Hillary Clinton said the 9/11 Commission’s report was “a great testimony to the their willingness to search hard for the truth, to get at the facts.”
Senator Charles Schumer said the 9/11 Commission did an “incredible job.”
In 2004, Bush’s Presidential Campaign said “the Commission’s report makes the case for the policies that U.S. President Bush has been pursuing in the War on Terror and eliminates any doubt that the best defense against the threat of global terror is a strong offense.”
Bush said, “I agree with their conclusion that the terrorists were able to exploit deep institutional failings in our nation’s defenses that developed over more than a decade.”
A different kind of praise for the 9/11 Report has come in the form of requests for “9/11-Type Commissions” for other horrible events in America’s history such as Katrina and the recent “financial crisis.”
Fact #29
Osama Bin Laden has not been indicted for the 9/11 attacks.
Some time before 9/26/2001, FBI spokesman Rex Tomb says, “there’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged.” He continues, “To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.”
On 9/23/2001, then Secretary of State Colin Powell is asked, “will you release publicly a white paper which links [bin Laden] and his organization to this attack to put people at ease?” He responds by saying “we are hard at work bringing all the information together, intelligence information, law enforcement information. And I think in the near future we will be able to put out a paper, a document that will describe quite clearly the evidence that we have linking him to this attack.” The following day, then White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer when asked about Powell’s statement says “I think that there was just a misinterpretation of the exact words the secretary used on the Sunday shows.” I’m not aware of anybody who said white paper, and the secretary didn’t say anything about a white paper yesterday.”
On 10/4/2001, Tony Blair will present a paper that makes the case for Osama Bin Laden’s involvement before Parliament. It says, “this document does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Osama bin Laden in a court of law.” Nevertheless, it continues, “on the basis of all the information available [Her Majesty's Government] is confident of its conclusions as expressed in this document.”
On 6/6/2006, Rex Tomb will say, “the reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Osama bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting bin Laden to 9/11.” This according to Ed Haas of the Muckraker Report.
On 8/28/2006, the Washington Post will report about this story. They state “from this point of view, the lack of a Sept. 11 reference suggests that the connection to al-Qaeda is uncertain. Exhaustive government and independent investigations have concluded otherwise, of course, and bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders have proudly taken responsibility for the hijackings.” They speak to Rex Tomb who says “There’s no mystery here” [...] “They could add 9/11 on there, but they have not because they don’t need to at this point. . . . There is a logic to it.” According to David N. Kelley, a former U.S. attorney, “It might seem a little strange from the outside, but it makes sense from a legal point of view,” said Kelley, now in private practice. “If I were in government, I’d be troubled if I were asked to put up a wanted picture where no formal charges had been filed, no matter who it was.”
Contrary to WaPo’s claim that “bin Laden and other al-Qaeda leaders have proudly taken responsibility for the hijackings,” Osama denied any involvement in the attacks on three separate occasions.
On 9/16/2001, he says, “I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons.”
On 9/28/2001, he says, “I have already said that I am not involved in the September 11 attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other human beings as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of battle.” The United States should try to trace the perpetrators of these attacks within itself; the people who are a part of the US system but are dissenting against it. Or those who are working for some other system; persons who want to make the present century as a century of conflict between Islam and Christianity so that their own civilization, nation, country, or ideology can survive. They may be anyone, from Russia to Israel and from India to Serbia. In the US itself, there are dozens of well-organized and well-equipped groups capable of causing large-scale destruction. Then you cannot forget the American Jews, who have been annoyed with President Bush ever since the Florida elections and who want to avenge him.” Then there are intelligence agencies in the US, which require billions of dollars worth of funds from Congress and the government every year.” They needed an enemy.” Is it not that there exists a government within the government in the United Sates? That secret government must be asked who carried out the attacks.”
On 12/26/2001, Bin Laden releases a tape that says the U.S.’s invasion of Afghanistan is “a vicious campaign based on mere suspicion.”
On 9/10/2008, White House Press Secretary Dana Perino will be asked a question. “But Osama bin Laden is the one that – you keep talking about his lieutenants, and, yes, they are very important, but Osama bin Laden was the mastermind of 9/11 – Her response is to say that “No, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the mastermind of 9/11, and he’s sitting in jail right now.”
It’s interesting to note that after years of referring to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as the “mastermind” of the 9/11 attacks, instead of Osama Bin Laden, after his supposed death on 5/1/2011, the media again started referring to him as the “mastermind” of the attacks. There are several examples of this.
On 5/6/2011, Noam Chomsky wrote, “I stress “suspects.” In April 2002, the head of the FBI, Robert Mueller, informed the press that after the most intensive investigation in history, the FBI could say no more than that it “believed” that the plot was hatched in Afghanistan, though implemented in the UAE and Germany. What they only believed in April 2002, they obviously didn’t know 8 months earlier, when Washington dismissed tentative offers by the Taliban (how serious, we do not know, because they were instantly dismissed) to extradite bin Laden if they were presented with evidence‹which, as we soon learned, Washington didn’t have. Thus Obama was simply lying when he said, in his White House statement, that “we quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda.”
On 6/17/2011, it was announced that “U.S. criminal charges against Osama bin Laden were formally dropped Friday, 13 years after he was first indicted and seven weeks after his death.”
Fact #30
The authenticity of video and audio recordings that have been released over the years allegedly from Osama Bin Laden have been disputed.
On 10/29/2007, MSNBC reported about a “running debate among video analysts about whether al-Qaida faked” a video that was released on 9/7/2007.
The so called “confession video” has been disputed from three different points of view. The translation of the tape was disputed. Professor Gernot Rotter from the University of Hamburg says, “this tape is of such poor quality that many passages are unintelligible. And those that are intelligible have often been taken out of context, so that you can’t use that as evidence. The American translators who listened to the tape and transcribed it obviously added things that they wanted to hear in many places.”
The date the video was made is disputed by analyst Maher Osseiran. Several commentators questioned whether the person depicted in the video is actually Osama.
According to CNN, Bush was asked about the authenticity of the tape, but “scoffed” at the idea “that the videotape of Osama bin Laden discussing the September 11 terrorist attacks might not be authentic.” He said, “It is preposterous for anybody to think that this tape is doctored” [...] “That’s just a feeble excuse to provide weak support for an incredibly evil man.”
On May 25th, 2010, Jeff Stein of the Washington Post reports that the CIA’s Office of Technical Services “actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said.”