Title: 9/11 UAL 175 Plane on Radar AFTER It Has 'Crashed' Into The WTC; (MSNBC) Source:
, URL Source:http://, Published:Mar 16, 2009 Author:msnbc Post Date:2009-03-16 13:04:41 by Artisan Ping List:*9-11*Subscribe to *9-11* Keywords:None Views:14530 Comments:607
too bad for you that the WTC fires were not localized...but...suspending disblief for the momenbt and stipulating that they were...they were localized to an area already catostrophically damaged and vital to the structure's support...
That's right, if you are killed by an Arab terrorist in New York, your DNA will be destroyed by such temperatures. But if you are killed by an Arab terrorist in Washington, your DNA will be so robust that it can survive temperatures which completely vapourise a sixty-five ton aircraft.
You see, these loonies have somehow concocted the idea that the missile which hit the pentagon was not a missile at all, but one of the hijacked planes. And to prove this unlikely premise, they point to a propaganda statement from the Bush regime, which rather stupidly claims that all but one of the people aboard the plane were identified from the site by DNA testing, even though nothing remains of the plane. The plane was vapourised by the fuel tank explosion, maintain these space loonies, but the people inside it were all but one identified by DNA testing.
So there we have it. The qualities of DNA are different, depending upon which city you're in, or perhaps depending upon which fairy story you're trying to sell at any particular time.
Magickal Jet Fuel AND Magickal DNA! My goodness, who woulda thunk it?!?!
Liberty is not a means to a higher political end. It is itself the highest political end. Lord Acton
which rather stupidly claims that all but one of the people aboard the plane were identified from the site by DNA test
DNA extractions were done on every one of the 19,906 remains, and 4,735 of those have been identified. As many as 200 remains have been linked to a single person. Of the 1,401 people identified include 45 of those aboard the hijacked planes - 33 from Flight 11, which struck the north tower, and 12 from Flight 175, which hit the south tower....
~snip~
Your penchant for accuracy is surpassed only by that of Wrong Way Corrigan's...
"If I were going to construct a God I would furnish him with some ways and qualities and characteristics which the Present One lacks... He would spend some of His eternities in trying to forgive Himself for making man unhappy when He could have made him happy with the same effort and He would spend the rest of them in studying astronomy." ~ Mark Twain
Further in true shill fashion once it was pointed out that the box column center of the building is the primary load bearing structure of the building design you simply followed the fruit loop pattern of avoiding it, denying it, and the trying to shift the debate away from that which you cannot dispute.
Ground was broken on August 5th, 1966. The project began with excavation six stories down to bedrock where the towers footings would stand. Crews dug around the PATH train tubes within the site, removing one million cubic yards of earth that would eventually form Battery Park City.
Site preparations were vast and included an elaborate method of foundation work for which a bathtub had to be built 65 feet below grade. The bathtub was made of a bentonite (absorbent clay) slurry wall meant to keep out groundwater and the Hudson River. Tie-backs were inserted through the wall and anchored at an angle in the earth behind them.
The foundation construction was just a fraction of many innovations masterminded by Yamasaki and team. Among them were the Twin Towers high-speed elevators, sky lobbies, and a hollow tube building model that distributed weight from the inner core across floor trusses to the exteriors closely spaced steel columns. The load-bearing exterior also served as bracing against wind. Floor trusses and exterior-wall panels were prefabricated before being lifted and bolted into place, speeding construction.
The first tenants moved into 1 WTC, the north tower, in 1970, and two years later into 2 WTC. The Port Authoritys construction costs totaled more than $900 million.
To supply power to the 10048 zip codewhich was dedicated solely to the WTC siteCon Edison built an electrical substation across Vesey Street in 1967. Atop the substation developer Silverstein Properties built a 47-story, red masonry tower, known as Seven World Trade Center, in 1987.
The buildings were designed to withstand the impact of a 707 - which you can try to obfuscate but cannot refute.
Because the 767s were traveling at high speeds, were somewhat larger than 707s and each carried about 80 tons of jet fuel, Robertson said, the energy that was absorbed by the impact was not less than three-times, and probably as much as six-times greater than the impact we had considered.
once it was pointed out that the box column center of the building is the primary load bearing structure of the building design you simply followed the fruit loop pattern of avoiding it, denying it, and the trying to shift the debate away from that which you cannot dispute.
This revolutionary construction system was a major change from the conventional system that used steel i-beams throughout the structure with non-structural exterior curtain walls. Prior to this time, curtain walls were used primarily to keep the elements out and were non-load bearing. All wind loads were transferred through the floor membrane and supported by the core of the structure. This new hollow tube system design resulted in a light and economical structure using only half the amount of steel required in a conventional building. It also provided for the wind bracing to be placed in the exterior walls the most efficient place. The exterior wall in this system would be load bearing and used to support the structure itself.
once it was pointed out that the box column center of the building is the primary load bearing structure of the building design you simply followed the fruit loop pattern of avoiding it, denying it, and the trying to shift the debate away from that which you cannot dispute.
This revolutionary construction system was a major change from the conventional system that used steel i-beams throughout the structure with non-structural exterior curtain walls. Prior to this time, curtain walls were used primarily to keep the elements out and were non-load bearing. All wind loads were transferred through the floor membrane and supported by the core of the structure. This new hollow tube system design resulted in a light and economical structure using only half the amount of steel required in a conventional building. It also provided for the wind bracing to be placed in the exterior walls the most efficient place. The exterior wall in this system would be load bearing and used to support the structure itself.
NEWSLETTER #69C February 23, 2005 September 11, 2001 Revisited. ACT III, ADDENDUM 1 This first missive was sent in by reader Dennis: ... www.davesweb.cnchost.com/nwsltr69c.html - 24k - Cached -
Firefighters were murdered on 911. Their stories stuffed away, denounced.
They heard bombs, they know it was a demolition, they know 'heat from fire' did not melt or degrade the steel columns.
These reports prove there was not sufficient fire or heat to make the towers collapse with symmetrical precision.
#209. To: war, Original_Intent, Wudidiz, FormerLurker (#200)
A localized fire
The video above features a compendium of clips from Loose Change and Alex Jones' Martial Law which include voluminous evidence of bombs inside the twin towers - both eyewitness testimony and physical evidence.
According to the Journal of Australian Fire Investigators, kerosene ignites at around 444°F. The temperature that the fire will eventually reach depends on both the combustion rate (based on O2) and the rate at which heat can be disbursed in the given scenario. Again, any firefighter can explain from experience and training that the black, sooty smoke (like that found on 9/11 at the WTC towers) were O2 deprived. Again, please contact professionals to verify this if you wish. In an oxygen deprived environment, higher temperatures cannot be reached. You can test this yourself by comparing a match in the open vs. a match in a bottle with a very small hole.
PHYSICAL CONSTANTS FOR INVESTIGATORS. by Tony Cafe. Reproduced from "Firepiont" magazine - Journal of Australian Fire Investigators. ... www.tcforensic.com.au/docs/article10.html - 69k - Cached
Paper and Wood are elements of a Class Alpha Fire and do not, even under ideal laboratory conditions, get hot enough to melt steel and there was insufficient quantities to even soften the steel as the steel girder framework acts like a heat sink dispersing the head throughout the structure and thus keeping the temperature down below the critical points.
A localized fire cannot cause a uniform symmetrical simultaneous collapse. The normal failure pattern in a catastrophic structural failure is for there to be a point of greatest weakness. The failure occurs at the weak point first which results in an ASYMMETRICAL failure with the structure moving toward the point of failure. It does not occur simultaneously in 360 degrees causing a uniform symmetrical failure. The uniform symmetrical failure is itself evidence of controlled demolition.
According to the Journal of Australian Fire Investigators, kerosene ignites at around 444°F. .....In an oxygen deprived environment, higher temperatures cannot be reached.
SPANISH SKYSCRAPER FIRE RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT 9/11 COLLAPSES
By Christopher Bollyn American Free Press
The fact that a Spanish skyscraper is still standing after an intense fire consumed the steel and concrete tower for 24 hours provides real world evidence that fire alone does not cause high-rise towers to collapse.
As an intense fire consumed the 32-story Windsor Building in Madrid's business district, the press reports all began with the words "fear of collapse." After 24 hours, however, the tower, which was a similar construction to the twin towers of the World Trade Center, remained standing.
The fact that an extremely severe fire did not cause the Spanish steel and concrete tower to collapse raises serious questions about the events of 9/11 and how they have been explained. Why did the Windsor Building remain standing when similar towers in New York City collapsed completely after being affected by much less intense fires burning for considerably shorter periods of time?
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sponsored engineers to conduct the World Trade Center Building Performance Study (BPS) to examine how the buildings of the WTC responded to the airplane crashes and fires that allegedly caused the collapses of the twin towers and WTC 7, a 47-story office building on the next block.
"Prior to September 11, 2001, there was little, if any, record of fire-induced collapse of large fire-protected steel buildings," the BPS says in the chapter about the mysterious collapse of WTC 7, the third tower to collapse on 9/11. WTC 7 was not hit by aircraft or large pieces of debris and had only sporadic fires. At about 5:25 p.m., WTC 7, owned by Larry Silverstein, collapsed in what appeared to be a controlled demolition.
It would be more accurate to say that no steel framed high-rise, like WTC 7, has ever collapsed due to fire. The fact that the Windsor Building is still standing is proof that fire alone does not cause properly constructed steel and concrete towers to collapse.
Dr. W. Gene Corley, Senior Vice President of Construction Technology Laboratories (CTL) of Skokie, Ill., was team leader of the engineers who wrote the BPS.
CTL is a subsidiary of the Portland Cement Association and "provides structural and architectural engineering, testing, and materials technology services throughout the U.S. and internationally." According to its website, "CTLs expertise extends beyond cement and concrete, encompassing virtually all structural systems and construction materials."
WACO, OKLAHOMA CITY, AND WTC
Corley served as expert adviser during the government's investigation of the 1993 fatal fire at the Branch Davidian complex in Waco, Texas. In 1995, Corley led a Building Performance Assessment Team (BPAT) investigation of the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. In September 2001, once again, Corley was selected to head the team to study building performance after the attack on New Yorks World Trade Center.
In the executive summary of the WTC study, Corley wrote that secondary fires caused the twin towers to collapse:
"The heat produced by this burning jet fuel does not by itself appear to have been sufficient to initiate the structural collapses. However, as the burning jet fuel spread across several floors of the buildings, it ignited much of the buildings' contents, causing simultaneous fires across several floors of both buildings," Corley wrote. "Over a period of many minutes, this heat induced additional stresses into the damaged structural frames while simultaneously softening and weakening these frames. This additional loading and the resulting damage were sufficient to induce the collapse of both structures."
In the section that deals with the collapse of the twin towers, the BPS says: "Because the aircraft impacts into the two buildings are not believed to have been sufficient to cause collapse without the ensuing fires, the obvious question is whether the fires alone, without the damage from the aircraft impact, would have been sufficient to cause such a collapse it is impossible, without extensive modeling and other analysis, to make a credible prediction of how the buildings would have responded to an extremely severe fire in a situation where there was no prior structural damage."
The Windsor Building fire in Madrid provides an excellent real-world model to show how the twin towers should have responded to "an extremely severe fire" alone. The Windsor Building has central support columns in its core section, which is similar to the construction of the twin towers. This central core is what supported the gravity load of the towers.
In the Windsor Building fire, the fire is thought to have started on the 21st floor late on Saturday night, Feb. 12. The upper floors were consumed by intense fire for at least 18 hours. The fire moved down the building and burned the entire structure. The fire is reported to have burned temperatures of at 800 degrees Celsius, or nearly 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
There was a partial collapse of parts of the top 10 floors as the trusses, which went from the core columns to the outside walls, appear to have failed. It is important to note, however, that the lower floors did not collapse and the core section is still standing with a construction crane on the roof.
The complete failure of the 47-central support columns in the twin towers of the WTC is one of the key outstanding questions about what caused their collapses. It would be expected that they should have remained standing even if some of the floor trusses failed. There is no explanation for what caused the huge box columns to fail.
Two of the contractors who removed the rubble told AFP that they had found molten steel in the 7th basement level when they reached the bedrock where the columns were based. There is no explanation for what caused such intense residual heat to be found at the base of the twin towers, although some experts have pointed to powerful explosives.
By press time, Dr. Corley had not responded to questions about the BPS findings and the questions raised by the Windsor Building fire. Corley's assistant told AFP that he had just gone to the airport and would not be returning to the office until Feb. 28.
The Windsor Building was built from 1973-1979 in an area of Madrid where commercial property was developed on land owned by Rio Tinto, the international mining giant. This is thought to be the reason why the Windsor Building carries the name of the British royal family. The WTC towers were completed in the early 1970's.
The Windsor Building housed the offices of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, a multinational financial services company, which occupied 20 floors of the tower.
The area where the Windsor Building stands is a mixed residential and commercial area known as the AZCA zone. Dubbed 'Madrid's Manhattan', AZCA contains a cluster of modern skyscrapers. The tallest one is the Torre Picasso, a 516-foot tower built in 1989. The Picasso Tower was designed by Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the twin towers of the WTC. Unión de Explosivos Río Tinto, S.A., owns the land where the tower stands.
Finis
The Windsor Building (Edificio Windsor) in Madrid, Spain burned "like a torch" for more than 18 hours from Saturday night, Feb. 12. After burning in an uncontrolled inferno the tower's core columns remain standing with a huge construction crane on top of the roof. This evidence supports the fact that prior to 9/11 NO steel-framed high- rise had ever collapsed due to fire. On 9/11 the 47-story WTC 7, owned by Larry Silverstein, collapsed at 5:25 p.m. There is no explanation for why the WTC 7 collapsed except for the fact that Silverstein told PBS that the decision was made to "pull it" and "we watched it come down."
See also:
The Collapse of WTC 1: Madrid Exposes a Fundamental Flaw The 9/11 WTC Collapses: An Audio-Video Analysis
THE JET fuel fires in the World Trade Center towers did not bring down those two buildings. Indeed, the fuel burned up in minutes. Why, then, did the towers and their 44-story neighbor, WTC-7, which was not struck by a plane, collapse? It's a question that bears generally on fire safety, the safety of building occupants and firefighters and the vulnerability of our buildings to terror by fire.
I expected the National Response Team of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would participate in an investigation that I surely thought would follow the Sept. 11 attacks. The ATF has the authority to investigate arson involving interstate commerce. Certainly, these horrendous attacks should be construed as arson. I later learned that the ATF was told it would not be needed.
I expected the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) to head the investigations. It's noted for its thoroughness, objectivity and know-how with respect to large-scale disasters. But it was relegated to flight issues dealing with the two hijacked aircraft and the aircraft debris. The buildings were not to be within the scope of their investigation.
There is an ad hoc investigative group, which is sponsored by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the American Society of Civil Engineers. But it does not have the full resources that might be made available, nor does it control the site.
I became increasingly concerned the more I learned about the investigative process, or lack of one. The site teams at the towers were focused on rescue, retrieval and cleanup, not investigation. The structural steel pieces, coded with chalk and stamped numbers to indicate their building location, were being sold as scrap metal.
The evidence needed to identify the cause of the collapse and intensity of the fire was being lost. Had the NTSB or ATF been involved, the site would have been secured, evidence documented and protected. Remember how the pieces of TWA Flight 800 were brought up from the ocean bottom off Long Island and restored to preserve structural evidence essential to identifying the cause of the 1996 crash?
WTC family survivors headed by Sally Regenhard last month urged New York City and federal authorities to launch a formal investigation into the collapse of the towers. As Ms. Regenhard said, her son did not die in a fire because of a collapsed building.
High-rise buildings are required to survive the impact of a modern commercial aircraft. Why shouldn't that include survival from the fire that would erupt? Building codes require that the structural elements of high-rise building withstand a three-hour test in a furnace. Why did the buildings collapse in less time? Was this terrorist attack an isolated event that had no bearing on high-rise vulnerability or on the consequences of fire in general?
The scrapping of steel debris should stop immediately, and all of it that has been sold should be impounded. The site should be controlled to conform to standard investigation practices. All records, video recordings and information about those killed and injured should be secured for analysis.
We can learn a great deal from this catastrophe. Many died because they did not expect buildings to collapse. Firefighters should not be the guinea pigs for determining the structural dynamics of buildings caught in flames. The potential for a building's collapse should be known before it happens. Fire safety needs to be incorporated into the normal design process of buildings.
The federal government has a role in developing the needed technology for fire safety. If there ever was a role for government that transcends political ideologies, this is one.
At least let's start with a formal investigation of the WTC collapse.
By James Quintiere Originally published January 3, 2002
James Quintiere is the John L. Bryan Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park. . E-Mail Address: dgann@jhsph.edu
James G. Quintiere ...earned a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering in 1970. He has more than 25 years experience in fire research and its applications, is a professor in the Department of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland. Professor Quintiere has conducted research in the study of fire growth in structures and on materials, has developed test methods for ignition and flames spread, studied smoke movement in full-scale and scale model systems, and has developed theoretical solutions and simulation models for fire behavior and material response to fire. He has more than 100 publications in the field, and is currently Chairman of the International Association for Fire Safety Science (the world organization for fire research and its applications). In addition to his research, he has helped to analyze a number of fire disasters including the Dupont Plaza fire and the more recent Branch Davidian Fire near Waco, Texas.
... www.911truth.org, so long as the full source URL (">http://www.911truth. org/article.php?story=20050523112738404 in this case) is posted with the article. ... www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050523112738404 - 47k - Jan 23, 2007 - Cached -
Where have I promoted thwe idea that jet fule caused the collapse? IN point of fact, no authorative source, private or public, has said that jet fuel caused the collapse.
The NIST report was far more comprehensive than the FEMA report. It would not be unusual for initial findings to eventually be contradicted by further research.
- Most of the fuel burned up in the initial impact in the cases of both towers, and also the Pentagon. This was made evident from the large balls of fire visible in the various videos taken that morning. In order to understand this, one must imagine when a gas can explodes. If anyone has ever exploded a gas can, one knows that while there is some residual fire after the initial explosion, the vast majority of the fuel is ignited instantly and cannot burn for more than a few seconds. Likewise, when the planes hit the towers and the Pentagon, most of the fuel burned up withing a few seconds. The impacts would have instantly punctured the fuel containers in the wings, causing much of the fuel to splatter and ignite in a loose form. What little fuel was left did cause fires inside the buildings, as was evident by the smoke, but one must also take into account the amount of smoke....
- Over the course of the hour or so that each building burned, it was clear by video evidence that the smoke coming from each building was not increasing, but was in fact decreasing quickly. Any firefighter can attest to this being a clear indicator that the fire is dying down, and that it's usually on it's way out. Please feel free to contact your local fire department to verify this. To be clear, the fires going out means that the high temperature would not have been reinforced by a continuing blaze; the temperature would have begun dropping quickly.
On the other hand, you want me to ignore what you have ignored which are the facts of a) the impact of the planes....b) the explosion of the planes in a confined area and c) the subsequent fires caused by the explosion...
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)
"If you love wealth more than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, depart from us in peace. We ask not your counsel nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains rest lightly upon you and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.Samuel Adams
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
Nice little job of parsing there...a) the fires were substantial and b) again, the WTC was hollow tube construction and not steel framed.