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 |
 |  http://uscrisis.lege.net/911/williambunch/
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 |
 |  WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANSWERS TO THESE 9/11 QUESTIONS?
 |  Source: 
 |  http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/6742902.htm
 |  http://www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/local/6742902.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp
 |
 |
 |  WHY DON'T WE HAVE ANSWERS TO THESE 9/11 QUESTIONS?
 |  By WILLIAM BUNCH / bunchw@phillynews.com
 |  Thursday, September 11, 2003 (Philly.com)
 |
 |
 |  NO EVENT IN recent history has been written about, talked
 |  about, or watched and rewatched as much as the terrorist
 |  attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 - two years ago today.
 |
 |  Not only was it the deadliest terrorist strike inside
 |  America, but the hijackings and attacks on New York City's
 |  World Trade Center and the Pentagon in Washington were also
 |  a seminal event for an information-soaked media age of
 |  Internet access and 24- hour news.
 |
 |  So, why after 730 days do we know so little about what
 |  really happened that day?
 |
 |  No one knows where the alleged mastermind of the attack is,
 |  and none of his accomplices has been convicted of any crime.
 |  We're not even sure if the 19 people identified by the U.S.
 |  government as the suicide hijackers are really the right
 |  guys.
 |
 |  Who put deadly anthrax in the mail? Where were the jet
 |  fighters that were supposed to protect America's skies that
 |  morning? And what was the role of our supposed allies Saudi
 |  Arabia and Pakistan?
 |
 |  There are dozens of unanswered questions about the 2001
 |  attacks, but we've narrowed them down to 20 - or 9 plus 11.
 |
 |  1. What did National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice tell
 |  President Bush about al Qaeda threats against the United
 |  States in a still-secret briefing on Aug. 6, 2001?
 |
 |  Rice has suggested in vague terms that the president's brief
 |  - prepared daily by the CIA - included information that
 |  morning about Osama bin Laden's methods of operation -
 |  including hijacking. But when the congressional committee
 |  probing Sept. 11 asked to see the report, Bush claimed
 |  executive privilege and refused to release it.
 |
 |  2. Why did Attorney General John Ashcroft and some Pentagon
 |  officials cancel commercial-airline trips before Sept. 11?
 |
 |  On July 26, 2001 - 47 days before the Sept. 11 attacks - CBS
 |  News reported that Ashcroft was flying expensive charters
 |  rather than commercial flights because of a "threat
 |  assessment" by the FBI. CBS said, "Ashcroft has been advised
 |  to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his
 |  term." Newsweek later reported that on Sept. 10, 2001, "a
 |  group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel
 |  plans for the next morning, apparently because of security
 |  concerns."
 |
 |  Did either Ashcroft or the Pentagon have advance information
 |  about a 9/11-style attack and, if so, why wasn't this shared
 |  with the American public?
 |
 |  3. Who made a small fortune "shorting" airline and insurance
 |  stocks before Sept. 11?
 |
 |  On Sept. 10, 2001, the trading ratio on United Airlines was
 |  25 times greater than normal at the Pacific Exchange, where
 |  traders could buy "puts," high-risk bets that the price of a
 |  company's stock will fall sharply. The next day, two
 |  hijacked United jetliners crashed, causing the company's
 |  shares to plummet and ultimately leading the airline into
 |  bankruptcy. CBS News later reported that at intelligence
 |  agencies, "alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in
 |  the U.S. stock options market" on the day before the
 |  attacks.
 |
 |  The unusual stock trading suggests that someone with a
 |  sophisticated knowledge of finance also had advance
 |  information about the impending attack. But two years later,
 |  no one has been charged in this matter, and officials have
 |  not indicated even if the probe is still open.
 |
 |  4. Are all 19 people identified by the government as
 |  participants in the Sept. 11 attacks really the hijackers?
 |
 |  Probably not. Just 10 days after the attacks, a report by
 |  the British Broadcasting Corp. said that some of the
 |  supposed hijackers identified by the FBI appeared to be
 |  alive and well. The BBC story said Abdelaziz al-Omari, named
 |  as the pilot who crashed the jet into the World Trade
 |  Center's North Tower, was reported by Saudi authorities to
 |  be working as an electrical engineer. He reported his
 |  passport had been stolen in Denver in 1995. Saudi officials
 |  said it was possible that another three people whose names
 |  appear on the FBI list also are alive.
 |
 |  The article, which can be read at Unanswered Questions,
 |  makes a persuasive case that another man was posing as Ziad
 |  Jarrah, the alleged pilot of hijacked Flight 93, which
 |  crashed in Shanksville, Pa. So why did this story line
 |  vanish into thin air?
 |
 |  5. Did any of the hijackers smuggle guns on board as
 |  reported in calls from both Flight 11 and Flight 93?
 |
 |  Quite possibly. An internal Federal Aviation Administration
 |  memo written at 5:30 p.m. on the day of the attacks said
 |  that a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11 -
 |  Israeli-American Daniel Lewin - had been shot to death by a
 |  single bullet before the jet slammed into the North Tower of
 |  the World Trade Center. The FAA insists the memo was a
 |  mistaken "first draft," even though the alleged shooting is
 |  described in great detail.
 |
 |  Aboard Flight 93, passenger Thomas Burnett told his wife,
 |  Deena, in a 9:27 a.m. cell-phone call: "The hijackers have
 |  already knifed a guy, one of them has a gun, and they are
 |  telling us there is a bomb on board."
 |
 |  Why has this angle of Sept. 11 not been investigated in more
 |  detail?
 |
 |  6. Why did the NORAD air defense network fail to intercept
 |  the four hijacked jets?
 |
 |  During the depths of the Cold War, Americans went to bed
 |  with the somewhat reassuring belief that jet fighters would
 |  intercept anyone launching a first strike against the United
 |  States. That myth was shattered on 9/11, when four
 |  hijacked-jetliners-turned-into-deadly-missiles cruised the
 |  American skies with impunity for nearly two hours.
 |
 |  Why did the North American Aerospace Defense Command seem
 |  unaware of literally dozens of warnings that hijacked
 |  jetliners could be used as weapons? Why does NORAD claim it
 |  did not learn that Flight 11 - the first jet to strike the
 |  World Trade Center about 8:45 a.m. - had been hijacked until
 |  8:40 a.m., some 25 minutes after the transponder was shut
 |  off and an astounding 15 minutes after flight controllers
 |  heard a hijacker say, "We have some planes..."?
 |
 |  Why didn't the fighters that were finally scrambled at Otis
 |  Air Force Base in Massachusetts and Langley Air Force Base
 |  in Virginia fly at top, supersonic speeds? Why didn't
 |  fighters immediately take off from Andrews Air Force Base,
 |  just outside Washington, D.C.? Why was nothing done to
 |  intercept American Airlines Flight 77, which struck the
 |  Pentagon, when officials knew it had been had been hijacked
 |  some 47 minutes earlier?
 |
 |  And why has no one been disciplined for the worst breakdown
 |  in national defense since Pearl Harbor?
 |
 |  7. Why did President Bush continue reading a story to
 |  Florida grade-schoolers for nearly a half-hour during the
 |  worst attack on America in its history?
 |
 |  In arguably the greatest understatement in U.S. history,
 |  Bush told a questioner at a California town-hall meeting in
 |  January 2002 that 9/11 "was an interesting day."
 |  Interesting, indeed. In the two years since the attacks,
 |  questions have only grown about the president's bizarre
 |  behavior that morning, when he was informed in a Sarasota
 |  classroom that America was under attack.
 |
 |  "I couldn't stop watching the president sitting there,
 |  listening to second-graders, while my husband was burning in
 |  a building," World Trade Center widow Lorie van Auken, a
 |  leader of relatives of Sept. 11 victims who have raised
 |  questions about the attacks, told Gail Sheehy in the New
 |  York Observer.
 |
 |  Why did Bush read a children's story about a pet goat and
 |  stay in the classroom for more than a half-hour after the
 |  first plane struck the World Trade Center and roughly 15
 |  minutes after Chief of Staff Andrew Card told him that it
 |  had been a deliberate attack? Why didn't he take more
 |  decisive action, and why wasn't he hustled to a secure area
 |  while the attacks were clearly still under way?
 |
 |  Conspiracy advocates have cited these strange lapses as
 |  evidence that Bush knew about the attacks ahead of time, but
 |  why would anyone with advance knowledge appear so clueless?
 |
 |  For a fascinating read on the subject, go to: An Interesting
 |  Day. [
 |  http://unansweredquestions.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html
 |  ,  local mirror at 
 |  http://uscrisis.lege.net/911/aninterestingday/ ]
 |
 |  8. How did Flight 93 crash in western Pennsylvania?
 |
 |  The most popular version - that heroic passengers who fought
 |  with the hijackers successfully stormed the cockpit - has
 |  become so widely accepted that people were jarred last month
 |  when an Associated Press report seemed to contradict it. The
 |  AP story took one line out of a congressional report and
 |  wrote that the FBI now believes the hijackers crashed the
 |  plane on purpose.
 |
 |  Many were dismayed that the FBI would change its story, but
 |  the government had never put out an official story. Some
 |  unidentified government officials had first floated the
 |  hijackers-crashed-the-plane-on-purpose theory in late 2001.
 |
 |  Based solely on circumstantial evidence from several
 |  cell-phone calls made by passengers, most of the public and
 |  the mainstream media have come to believe that the plane
 |  crashed because of a struggle between the passengers and the
 |  hijackers.
 |
 |  Meanwhile, the FBI reportedly has enough hard information
 |  about what really happened on Flight 93 to have worked up a
 |  flight-simulation video. But that video, the cockpit audio
 |  recording and the hard data from the other "black box," the
 |  flight data recorder, is still top secret.
 |
 |  The issue symbolizes the government's continuing refusal to
 |  release information about what really happened on Sept. 11.
 |  Even some relatives of Flight 93 victims are growing unhappy
 |  that more information has not been publicized.
 |
 |  9. Was Zacarias Moussaoui really "the 20th hijacker"?
 |
 |  Almost certainly not, even though the allegation has been
 |  repeated hundreds of times in the media. The Moroccan
 |  native, who has been in custody since his August 2001 arrest
 |  on immigration charges after he attended a flight-training
 |  school in Minneapolis, has admitted that he is a member of
 |  al Qaeda and wanted to commit terrorist acts in America. But
 |  he arrived here much later than the Sept. 11 hijackers and
 |  reportedly had no contacts with them.
 |
 |  The issue is important because some family members of Sept.
 |  11 victims who are seeking information about what happened
 |  that day have been turned down because of the ongoing
 |  Moussaoui case.
 |
 |  10. Where are the planes' "black boxes"?
 |
 |  Nothing is more critical to learning about air disasters
 |  than the so-called "black boxes." They are the 30-minute
 |  audio recordings of cockpit chatter and the fight-data
 |  inputs which show the speed, direction and operational
 |  condition of the plane, and which are encased in material
 |  designed to withstand a high-speed crash. Yet the government
 |  has continued to keep a lid of secrecy on the black boxes
 |  from Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon, and from
 |  Flight 93.
 |
 |  FBI Director Robert Mueller has said Flight 77's data
 |  recorder provided altitude, speed, headings and other
 |  information, but the voice recorder contained nothing
 |  useful. Why not? Why not release the information to the
 |  public? Why has a docile mainstream media not demanded this
 |  information?
 |
 |  And how come none of the four "indestructible" black boxes
 |  was recovered from the World Trade Center, even as
 |  investigators said that a passport belonging to one of the
 |  hijackers had been found in the rubble, undamaged, a week
 |  after the towers's collapse?
 |
 |  11. Why were Donald Rumsfeld and other U.S. officials so
 |  quick to link Saddam Hussein to the attacks?
 |
 |  CBS News reported that the defense secretary was making
 |  notes about invading Iraq even before the fires from Flight
 |  77 had been extinguished on the other side of the Pentagon.
 |  Rumsfeld wrote that he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether
 |  good enough [to] hit S.H." - Saddam Hussein - "at the same
 |  time. Not only UBL" - Osama bin Laden. He added: "Go
 |  massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
 |
 |  Rumsfeld and a number of other Bush administration officials
 |  have ties to a once-obscure policy group called the Project
 |  for a New American Century. In a 2000 white paper, PNAC -
 |  which had long urged an American invasion of Iraq - said
 |  that for the United States to assert itself properly as the
 |  world's lone superpower, "some catastrophic and catalyzing
 |  event - like a new Pearl Harbor" - would be required.
 |
 |  That new Pearl Harbor came - two years ago today.
 |
 |  12. Why did 7 World Trade Center collapse?
 |
 |  7 World Trade Center, a 47-story building, was not struck by
 |  an aircraft on Sept. 11, yet the building mysteriously
 |  collapsed at 5:20 p.m. that afternoon. Apparently debris
 |  from the jetliner attacks on the adjacent twin towers
 |  started a fire at No. 7. But as the New York Times noted:
 |  "No building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise,
 |  had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire."
 |  Investigators have speculated that excess diesel fuel for
 |  emergency generators fanned the flames, but the full story
 |  may never be known.
 |
 |  Some questions also have lingered about why the two
 |  110-story towers collapsed. But investigators think the
 |  burning jet fuel - compounded by paper-and-electronics-laden
 |  cubicles and possibly insulation matter - burned long
 |  enough, at temperatures exceeding 1,000 degrees, to weaken
 |  the structural steel.
 |
 |  13. Why did the Bush administration lie about dangerously
 |  high levels of toxins and hazardous particles after the WTC
 |  collapse?
 |
 |  Because apparently some White House officials felt that the
 |  health of the American economy and Wall Street was more
 |  important than the health of New York City residents who
 |  lived nearby. For example, on Sept. 16, 2001, a draft press
 |  release from the Environmental Protection Agency said:
 |  "Recent samples of dust gathered by OSHA on Water Street
 |  showed higher levels of asbestos in EPA tests." That was
 |  deleted and replaced with this: "The new samples confirm
 |  previous reports that ambient air quality meets OSHA
 |  standards and consequently is not a cause for public
 |  concern."
 |
 |  A key figure in the changes was the head of the White House
 |  Council on Environmental Quality, who - you can't make this
 |  stuff up - is a lawyer who formerly represented the asbestos
 |  industry.
 |
 |  In fact, the EPA told workers and residents that it was safe
 |  to return to lower Manhattan at a time when some test
 |  results had not been analyzed and other key tests had not
 |  even been performed. The outcome? Key medical professionals
 |  say thousands of New Yorkers have developed respiratory
 |  illnesses associated with exposure to the dust. Symptoms
 |  include periodic gasping for air, a choking sensation and
 |  unusual sensitivity to airborne irritants, apparently from a
 |  type of "occupational asthma" called Reactive Airways
 |  Disease Syndrome.
 |
 |  14. Where is Dick Cheney's undisclosed location?
 |
 |  We'll never know, but a widely reported rumor was that it
 |  was right here in the Keystone State. The speculation is the
 |  vice president spent the days after the attack at Site R, a
 |  secretive Cold War-era site, also known as Alternate Joint
 |  Communications Center, deep inside Raven Rock Mountain. The
 |  mountain is in western Pennsylvania, near Waynesboro.
 |
 |  15. What happened to the more than $1 billion that Americans
 |  donated after the attack?
 |
 |  The largest recipient, the American Red Cross, says it
 |  already has used $741 million from its Liberty Fund to help
 |  more than 55,000 families cope with the death of loved ones,
 |  serious injuries, physical and mental health concerns,
 |  financial loss, homelessness and other effects of the
 |  attacks.
 |
 |  Of that, $596 million was in the form of direct financial
 |  assistance to families of those killed or seriously injured,
 |  as well as to displaced workers, residents and emergency
 |  personnel who were seriously affected. Depending on
 |  individual needs, this financial assistance included up to a
 |  full year's living expenses, estate and
 |  special-circumstances cash grants, and more.
 |
 |  16. What was the role of Pakistan's spy agency in the Sept.
 |  11 attacks and the subsequent murder of U.S. journalist
 |  Daniel Pearl?
 |
 |  The idea that Pakistan is considered a leading American ally
 |  in the war on terror is both ironic and a bit disturbing
 |  when one considers that there are proven links between
 |  Pakistan's intelligence agency, the notorious ISI, and the
 |  Taliban, as well as likely ties to al Qaeda and bin Laden.
 |
 |  In October 2001, the Wall Street Journal and many reputable
 |  news organizations in South Asia reported that the head of
 |  the ISI, Lt. Gen. Mahmoud Ahmad, was fired after being
 |  linked to a $100,000 payment that had been wired to al Qaeda
 |  hijacker Mohamed Atta in America to pay for the Sept. 11
 |  attacks. The New York Times said the intelligence service
 |  even used al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan to train covert
 |  operatives for use in a war of terror against India.
 |
 |  In recent weeks, two troubling reports have emerged. The
 |  highly regarded French journalist Bernard-Henri Levy has
 |  written that Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl had been
 |  murdered by elements of the ISI because he'd learned that al
 |  Qaeda "is largely controlled by the Pakistani secret
 |  service" and that Islamic extremists control the nation's
 |  nuclear weapons. And investigative reporter Gerald Posner
 |  writes that bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah not only
 |  revealed a link to top Saudis but also to high-ranking
 |  Pakistani air force officer Mushaf Ali Mir. Mir, who is said
 |  to have cut protection deals in secret meetings with bin
 |  Laden, died earlier this year in a plane crash that also
 |  killed his wife and closest confidants.
 |
 |  17. Who killed five Americans with anthrax?
 |
 |  Actually, it's not clear whether this question should even
 |  be on this list. Two years later, it's not known whether the
 |  anthrax-laden letters that killed five Americans from
 |  Connecticut to Florida, and targeted some leading Democratic
 |  pols and TV news anchors, had anything to do with the Sept.
 |  11 attacks. Indeed, the list of potential suspects - al
 |  Qaeda terrorists, Saddam, crackpot U.S. scientists - hasn't
 |  been narrowed down. Our government's utter cluelessness
 |  about a reign of terror that rattled the nation and
 |  dominated the headlines in fall 2001 is an investigative
 |  failure of epic proportions.
 |
 |  One man, a former Army biomedical researcher named Steven J.
 |  Hatfill, has been labeled "a person of interest" by the FBI,
 |  but nothing definitive has linked Hatfill to the crime. Just
 |  this summer, federal investigators drained a Frederick, Md.,
 |  pond where they speculated the anthrax letters might have
 |  been assembled, but tests of soil samples taken after the
 |  draining yielded no evidence of biological weapons. And now
 |  Hatfill has sued the government for invading his privacy -
 |  in a case that may never be solved.
 |
 |  18. What happened to the probe into C-4 explosives found in
 |  a Philadelphia bus terminal in fall 2001?
 |
 |  Do you remember this front-page headline from Oct. 20, 2001:
 |  "In Phila. locker, a lethal find; Explosive 'would probably
 |  have leveled' bus depot." You can be forgiven if you don't.
 |  There's been no mention in local media since late 2001 of
 |  the alarming discovery of one-third of a pound of lethal C-4
 |  and 1,000 feet of military detonation cord in a locker at
 |  the Greyhound bus terminal in Center City, even though it's
 |  possibly the most direct link between Philadelphia and
 |  domestic terrorism.
 |
 |  Investigators conceded a couple of months into their probe
 |  that the trail had gone stone-cold. They speculated that the
 |  material had been stolen from an Army base and that the
 |  culprit, who rented the locker on Sept. 29, 2001, decided
 |  that the material was too hot to handle after the Sept. 11
 |  attacks. The truth may never be known.
 |
 |  19. What is in the 28 blacked-out pages of the congressional
 |  Sept. 11 report?
 |
 |  It's not a total mystery. Everyone has acknowledged that the
 |  pages contain highly embarrassing information about links
 |  between the Sept. 11 hijackers and the government of Saudi
 |  Arabia, America's supposed ally in the Middle East and home
 |  to the world's largest oil reserves. One of those officials
 |  is said to be Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, whose wife,
 |  Princess Haifa, indirectly funded at least two of the Sept.
 |  11 terrorists during their time in San Diego. The prince is
 |  so close to the Bush family that he's known, incredibly, as
 |  "Bandar Bush." This week, Time reports that just after the
 |  Sept. 11 attacks, when U.S. commercial airspace was still
 |  closed to our citizens, Bush allowed a jet to stop at 10
 |  U.S. cities to pick up and fly home 140 prominent Saudis,
 |  including relatives of bin Laden.
 |
 |  A new must-read book by investigative reporter Posner - "Why
 |  America Slept" - takes the conspiracy to the highest of
 |  levels of the Saudi government. He says a top bin Laden
 |  lieutenant, Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in March 2002,
 |  stunned investigators when - allegedly given the "truth
 |  serum" sodium pentothal - fingered three top Saudis. They
 |  were Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz, the Westernized
 |  owner of 2002 Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem; Prince Turki
 |  al-Faisal bin Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's longtime
 |  intelligence chief, and Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud
 |  al-Kabir.
 |
 |  The most incredible part of the story is what happened next.
 |  In an eight-day period in late July 2002, Prince Ahmed died
 |  at age 43 from a heart attack, Prince Turki died in a car
 |  crash and Prince Fahd "died of thirst." Coincidence? What do
 |  you think?
 |
 |  20. Where is Osama bin Laden?
 |
 |  Remember how President Bush vowed on Sept. 17, 2001, that he
 |  was determined to catch bin Laden "dead or alive"? Well, the
 |  good news is that if he wants bin Laden "alive," there's
 |  still a chance that could happen. Intelligence experts now
 |  agree that bin Laden successfully escaped his Tora Bora
 |  hideout in Afghanistan back in December 2001 - when the U.S.
 |  failed to commit ample manpower to the chase - and that the
 |  al Qaeda leader is alive and well, and plotting new attacks.
 |
 |  "We don't know where he is," Army Col. Rodney Davis,
 |  spokesman for America's forces in Afghanistan, said
 |  recently. But Newsweek seems to know where to find bin
 |  Laden: in the remote, mountainous - and lawless - Kunar
 |  province of Afghanistan. The magazine chillingly reported
 |  that just five short months ago, bin Laden convened the
 |  biggest terror summit since Sept. 11 at a mountain
 |  stronghold there. The participants reportedly included three
 |  top-ranking representatives from the Taliban, several senior
 |  al Qaeda operatives and leaders from radical Islamic groups
 |  in Chechnya and Uzbekistan. The topic was carrying out
 |  attacks against U.S. interests inside Iraq.
 |
 |  The most chilling aspect of the Newsweek report is that bin
 |  Laden has access to biological weapons and is determined to
 |  find a way to use them against the United States. A source
 |  from the Taliban told the magazine: "Osama's next step will
 |  be unbelievable."
 |
 |  But this week, ABC News reported that the hunt for bin Laden
 |  has been narrowed to a different area - a 40-square-mile
 |  section of the Waziristan region of Pakistan. The report
 |  said that local residents suspected of trying to inform
 |  Americans about bin Laden's whereabouts were executed in
 |  broad daylight.
 |
 |
 |  (In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this
 |  material is distributed without profit to those who have
 |  expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
 |  information for research and educational purposes.)
 |
 |
 |  Additional reading:
 |
 |  New Seismic Data Refutes Official WTC Explanation
 |  http://uscrisis.lege.net/911/
 |
 |  Mariani vs. Bush Federal Lawsuit
 |  http://uscrisis.lege.net/911/mariani/
 |
 |  An interesting day: George Bush Jr. on 9/11
 |  http://uscrisis.lege.net/911/aninterestingday/
 |
 |  Resources
 |  http://propaganda.lege.net/resources/
 |
 |______________________________________________________________