by Dr. David Ray Griffin
The 9/11 Commission understood that its mandate, as we have seen, was to
provide "the fullest possible account" of the "facts and circumstances"
surrounding 9/11. Included in those facts and circumstances are ones that,
according to some critics of the official account of 9/11, provide evidence
that the Bush administration intentionally allowed the attacks of 9/11. Some
critics have even suggested that the Bush administration actively helped the
attacks succeed. In light of the fact that several books have been written
propounding such views, including some in English, the Commission's staff,
given its "exacting investigative work," would surely have discovered such
books. Or if not, the staff would at least have known about a front-page
story on this topic in the Wall Street Journal. Readers of this story
learned not only that a poll showed that 20 percent of the German population
believed the "U.S. government ordered the attacks itself" but also that
similar views were held in some other European countries.1 Also, as we saw
in the Introduction, polls show that significant percentages of Americans
and Canadians believe that the US Government deliberately allowed the
attacks to happen, with some of those believing the Bush administration
actually planned the attacks. Knowing that such information is available and
such views are held, the Commission, we would assume, would have felt called
upon to respond to these suspicions.
An adequate response would contain at least the following elements: (1) an
acknowledgment that these suspicions exist; (2) a summary of the main kinds
of reports and alleged facts cited as evidence by those who have promoted
these suspicions; and (3) an explanation of why these reports and alleged
facts do not really constitute evidence for complicity by the Bush
administration.
Finally, the persistence and widespread documentation of these allegations
means that an adequate response would need to consider (if only to debunk)
the motives that some critics have alleged the Bush administration would
have had for facilitating the 9/11 attacks - just as the Commission properly
looked at motives that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda organizations may
have had for planning the attacks. For many Americans, of course even
considering the possibility that their own government might have had motives
for facilitating such attacks would not be pleasant. But an account, if it
is to be the fullest possible account, cannot decide in advance to restrict
itself to the ideas that are pleasant.
In this chapter, accordingly, we will look at The 9/11 Commission Report
from this perspective, asking how it has responded to the fact that some
critics of the official account have alleged that the Bush administration
would have had several motives for allowing the attacks and even helping
them succeed.
The 9/11 Attacks As "Opportunities"
One way to approach this question would be to ask whether these attacks
brought benefits to this administration that could reasonably have been
anticipated.
There is no doubt that the attacks brought benefits. Indeed, several members
of the Bush administration publicly said so. The president himself declared
that the attacks provide "a great opportunity."2 Donald Rumsfeld stated that
9/11 created "the kind of opportunities that World War II offered, to
refashion the world." Condoleeza Rice had said the same thing in mind,
telling senior members of the National Security Council to "think about 'how
do you capitalize on these opportunities' to fundamentally change...the
shape of the world."3 The National Security Strategy of the United States of
America, issued by the Bush administration in September 2002, said: "The
events of September 11, 2001, opened vast, new opportunities."4
Of course, the fact that these members of the Bush administration described
attacks as opportunities after the fact does not necessarily mean that they
could have anticipated in advance that attacks of this nature would bring
such opportunities. However, all of these statements, except for the last
one, were made shortly after 9/11. If the benefits could be seen so soon
after the attacks, we can assume that, if these people were thinking about
such attacks ahead of time, they could have anticipated that they would
create these opportunities.
It would seem, therefore, that the Bush administration's description of the
attacks as providing opportunities, along with the fact that at least some
of these opportunities could have been anticipated, were important parts of
the "events surrounding 9/11" that "the fullest possible account" would have
included. These descriptions of the attacks of 9/11 as opportunities,
however, are not mentioned in The 9/11 Commission Report.5
In any case, the idea that members of the Bush administration could have
anticipated benefits from catastrophic attacks of the type that occurred on
9/11 does not rest entirely on inference from the fact that the attacks were
seen as opportunities immediately after 9/11. Critics have referred to a
pre-9/11 document that speaks of benefits that could accrue from
catastrophic attacks. We need to see how the Commission responded to this
part of the facts and circumstances surrounding 9/11.
"A New Pearl Harbor" To Advance The Pax Americana
In the fall of 2000, a year before 9/11, a document entitled Rebuilding
America's Defenses was published by an organization calling itself the
Project for the New American Century (PNAC).6 This organization was formed
by individuals who were members or at least supporters of the Reagan and
Bush I administration, some of whom would go on to be central figures in the
Bush II administration. These individuals include Richard Armitage, John
Bolton, Dick Cheney, Zalmay Khalilzad (closely associated with Paul
Wolfowitz7), Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul
Wolfowitz, and James Woolsey. Libby (now Cheney's chief of staff) and
Wolfowitz (now Rumsfeld's deputy) are listed as having participated directly
in the project to produce Rebuilding America's Defenses. Interestingly, John
Lehman, a member of the 9/11 Commission, has been a member of the PNAC or at
least publicly aligned with it.8
This PNAC document, after bemoaning the fact that spending for military
purposes no longer captured as much of the US budget as it once did, argues
that it is necessary for defense spending to be greatly increased if the
"American peace is to be maintained, and expanded," because this Pax
Americana "must have a secure foundation on unquestioned U.S. military
preeminence." The way to acquire and retain such military preeminence is to
take full advantage of the "revolution in military affairs" made possible by
technological advances. Bring about this transformation of US military
forces will, however, probably be a long, slow process, partly because it
will be very expensive. However, the document suggests, the process could
occur more quickly if America suffered "some catastrophic and catalyzing
event - like a new Pearl Harbor."9 This statement, we would think, should
have gotten the attention of some members of the 9/11 Commission.
After the 9/11 attacks came, moreover, the idea that they constituted a new
Pearl Harbor was expressed by the president and some of his supporters. At
the end of that very day, President Bush reportedly wrote in his diary: "The
Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today."10 Also, minutes after
the president's address to the nation earlier that day. Henry Kissinger
posted an online article in which he said: "The government should be charged
with a systematic response that, one hopes, will end the way the attack on
Pearl Harbor ended - with the destruction of the system that is responsible
for it."11
One might think that the existence of these statements would have been
perceived by the 9/11 Commission as part of the relevant "events surrounding
9/11" that should be included in "the fullest possible account." But there
is no mention of any of these statements on any of the 567 pages of the
Kean-Zelikow Report.
Those pages are largely filled - in line with the Commission's unquestioned
assumption - with discussions of Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda, Islamic
terrorism more generally, and American responses thereto. Then, after the
Commission had disbanded, its staff released another 155-page report on
al-Qaeda financing.12 These matters were obviously considered essential for
understand-ing the "facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist
attacks of September 11, 2001."
But the fact that individuals who are central members and supporters of the
Bush-Cheney administration endorsed a document indicating that "a new Pearl
Harbor" would be helpful for furthering its aims; that some supporters of
this administration and even the president himself then compared the 9/11
attacks to the Pearl Harbor attacks; and that several members of this
administration said that 9/11 provided "opportunities" - this complex fact
was not thought worthy of a single sentence in the Commission's "fullest
possible account." Indeed, the Commission's report does not even mention the
Project for the New American Century.
Generating Funds For The US Space Command
One dimension of the "revolution in military affairs" discussed in the PNAC
document is so important as to deserve separate treatment. This dimension is
the militarization of space, which is now the province of a new branch of
the American military, the US Space Command.
The purpose of this branch is to bring about "full spectrum dominance." The
idea is that the US military, with its air force, army, and navy, is already
dominant in the air and on land and sea. The US Space Command will now
ensure dominance in space. "Vision for 2020," a document published by the US
Space Command, puts it thus: "The emerging synergy of space superiority with
land, sea, and air superiority, will lead to Full Spectrum Dominance."13
The government's description of spending for the US Space Command as
spending for "missile defense" makes its mission sound purely defensive -
augmenting "homeland security" by defending the United States from missile
attacks. The mission statement in "Vision for 2020," however, states: "U.S.
Space Command - dominating the space dimension of military operations to
protect US interests and investment."14 Its primary purpose, in other words,
is not to protect the American homeland but to protect American investments
abroad. Such protection will be needed, it says, because "[t]he
globalization of the world economy will continue with a widening between
'haves' and 'have-nots.'" The mission of the US Space Command, it is clear,
is to protect the American "haves" from the world's "have-nots," as
American-led globalization leaves these "have-nots" with even less.
The 9/11 Commission, however, makes no mention of the US Space Command's
program and mission. To understand the full significance of this omission,
it is necessary to understand that its program involves three parts. The
first part involves space-based surveillance technology, through which US
military leaders can identify enemies of US forces anywhere on the planet.15
The second part involves putting up space weapons, such as laser cannons,
with which the United States will be able to destroy the satellites of other
countries. "Vision for 2020" frankly states its desire to be able "to deny
others the use of space."16
The third part of the program is usually called, the "missile defense
shield," but its purpose, like that of the first two parts, is offensive.
As Rebuilding America's Defenses said (in a passage called "a remarkable
admission" by Rahul Mahajan):
In the post-Cold-War era. America and its allies...have become the primary
objects of deterrence and it is states like Iraq, Iran and North Korea who
most wish to develop deterrent capabilities. Projecting conventional
military forces... will be far more complex and constrained when the
American homeland...is subject to attack by otherwise weak rogue regimes
capable of cobbling together a minuscule ballistic missile force. Building
an effective...system of missile defenses is a prerequisite for maintaining
American preeminence.17
The purpose of the "missile defense shield," in other words, is not to deter
other countries from launching a first strike against the United States. Its
purpose is to prevent other countries from being able to deter the United
States from launching a first strike against them.18
The major impediment to making this program operational is that it will be
extremely expensive. According to one expert, it will require over $1
trillion from American taxpayers.19 The difficulty of getting Congress and
the American people to pony up was the main reason for the PNAC document's
statement that the desired transformation will take a long time "absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a New Pearl Harbor."20
In omitting any mention of this project for achieving global domination,
therefore, the 9/11 Commission omitted a project so big that some of its
backers, we can imagine, may have been able to rationalize an attack taking
a few thousand American lives, if such an attack seemed necessary to get
adequate funding for this project.
Donald Rumsfeld, as we saw, was a member of PNAC when it produced its
document. He was also chairman of the Commission to Assess US National
Security Space Management and Organization.21 The task of this commission -
commonly known as the "Rumsfeld Commission" - was to make proposals with
regard to the US Space Command. After making various proposals that would
"increase the asymmetry between U.S. forces and those of other military
powers," the Rumsfeld Commission Report said that, because its proposals
would cost a lot of money and involve significant reorganization, they would
probably encounter strong resistance. But, the report - which was issued
January 7, 2001 - said:
The question is whether the U.S. will be wise enough to act responsibly and
soon enough to reduce U.S. space vulnerability. Or whether, as in the past,
a disabling attack against the country and its people - a "Space Pearl
Harbor" - will be the only event able to galvanize the nation and cause the
U.S. Government to act.22
In speaking of a "Space Pearl Harbor," the report meant an attack on its
military satellites in space. The 9/11 attacks were obviously not of this
nature. It is interesting, nevertheless, that only a few months after PNAC
had issued its statement about "a new Pearl Harbor," the Rumsfeld Commission
also pointed out that a Pearl Harbor type of attack might be needed to
"galvanize the nation."
When the new Pearl Harbor came, Rumsfeld, having been made secretary of
defense, was in position to use it to get more money for the US Space
Command. Before TV cameras on the evening of 9/11 itself, Rumsfeld said to
Senator Carl Levin, then chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee:
Senator Levin, you and other Democrats in Congress have voiced fear that you
simply don't have enough money for the large increase in defense that the
Pentagon is seeking, especially for missile defense...Does this sort of
thing convince you that an emergency exists in this country to increase
defense spending, to dip into Social Security, if necessary, to pay for
defense spending - increase defense spending-23
Earlier that day, the Pentagon, which by then had been under Rumsfeld's
leadership for almost seven months, failed to prevent airplane attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon itself. Now that very evening
Rumsfeld was using the success of those attacks to get more money from
Congress for the Pentagon and, in particular, for the US Space Command. One
might think that this rather remarkable coincidence would have gotten the
attention of the 9/11 Commission, because it suggests that the secretary of
defense may not have wanted to prevent this "new Pearl Harbor." But the
Commission's report, focusing exclusively on al-Qaeda terrorists, makes no
mention of this possible motive.
Rumsfeld was, moreover, not the only person highly committed to promoting
the US Space Command who was in charge of military affairs on 9/11. Another
was General Ralph E. Eberhart, the current head of the US Space Command, who
is also the commander of NORAD.24 General Richard Myers, the former head of
the US Space Command, was on 9/11 the Acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Of
Staff.
A truly "independent" and "impartial" commission would surely comment on
this remarkable coincidence - that three of the men in charge of the US
military response on 9/11 were outspoken advocates of the US Space Command,
that the US military under their control failed to prevent the attacks, and
that one of these men then used the success of the attacks to obtain
billions of dollars more for this branch of the military.
Coincidence does not, of course, prove complicity. Sometimes when events
coincide in an improbable way, the coincidence is exactly what the term has
generally come to mean; simply coincidental. It is well known, however, that
after a crime the first question to be asked is cui bono - who benefits. A
truly independent commission would at least have proceeded on the assumption
that Rumsfeld, Myers, and Eberhart had to be regarded as possible suspects,
whose actions that day were to be rigorously investigated. Instead, the
testimonies of these three men were treated as unquestionable sources of
truth as to what really happened - despite, as we will see later, the
contradictions in their stories.25
The Plan To Attack Afghanistan
Critics have alleged that another possible motive on the part of the Bush
administration was its desire to attack Afghanistan so as to replace the
Taliban with a US-friendly government in order to further US economic and
geopolitical aims.
The 9/11 Commission does recognize that the US war in Afghanistan - which
began on October 7, less than a month after 9/11 - was a war to produce
"regime change". According to the Commission, however, the United States
wanted to change the regime because the Taliban, besides being incapable of
providing peace by ending the civil war, was perpetrating human rights
abuses and providing a "safe haven" for al-Qaeda. In limiting the US motives
to these, however, the Commission ignored abundant evidence that the motives
were more complex, more self-interested, and more ambitious.
At the center of these motives was the desire to enable the building of a
multibillion dollar pipeline route by a consortium known as CentGas (Central
Asia Gas Pipeline), which was formed by US oil giant Unocal. The planned
route would bring oil and gas from the land-locked Caspian region, with its
enormous reserves, to the sea through Afghanistan and Pakistan. By 2001, the
Taliban had come to be perceived as an obstacle to this project.
The Taliban was originally supported by the United States, working together
with Pakistan's ISI. The pipeline project had become the crucial issue in
what Ahmed Rashid in 1997 dubbed "The New Great Game."26 One issue in this
game was who would construct the pipeline route - the Unocal-dominated
CentGas Consortium or Argentina's Bridas Corporation. The other issue was
which countries the route would go through. The United States promoted
Unocal and backed its plan to build the route through Afghanistan and
Pakistan, since this route would avoid both Iran and Russia.27 The main
obstacle to this plan was the civil war that had been going on in
Afghanistan since the withdrawal of the Soviet Union in 1989. The US
government supported the Taliban in the late 1990s on the basis of hope that
it would be able to unify the country through its military strength and then
provide a stable government.
The centrality of this issue is shown by the title Rashid gave to two of his
chapters: "Romancing the Taliban: The Battle for Pipelines."28 With regard
to the United States in particular, Rashid says that "the strategy over
pipelines had become the driving force behind Washington's interest in the
Taliban."29 However, although the Kean-Zelikow Commission cites Rashid's
well-known book several times, it makes no reference to his discussion of
the centrality of the pipelines to Washington's perspective.
From reading the Commission's report, in fact, one would never suspect that
"pipeline war" (as it became called) was a major US concern. The pipeline
project in general and Unocal in particular are mentioned in only one
paragraph (along with its accompanying note). And the Commission here
suggests that the US State Department was interested in Unocal's pipeline
project only insofar as "the prospect of shared pipeline profits might lure
faction leaders to a conference table". The United States, in other words,
regarded the pipeline project only as a means to peace. That may indeed have
been the view of some of the American participants. But the dominant hope
within Unocal and the US government was that the Taliban would bring peace
by defeating its opponents, primarily Ahmad Shah Masood - after which the US
government and the United Nations would recognize the Taliban as the
government of Afghanistan, which in turn would allow Unocal to get the loans
it would need to finance the project.30
The Commission's report, by contrast, suggests that neither the US
government nor Unocal took the side of the Taliban in the civil war. The
Commission tells us that Marty Miller, who had been in charge of the
pipeline project for Unocal, "denied working exclusively with the Taliban
and told us that his company sought to work with all Afghan factions to
bring about the necessary stability to proceed with the project". As is
often the case, the Commission's "exacting investigative work" consisted
primarily of interviewing people and recording their answers. Had the
Commission consulted Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, which the Commission quotes
elsewhere, it could have learned that although "Marty Miller insisted
publicly that Unocal remained 'fanatically neutral' about Afghan politics, "
in reality "Marty Miller and his colleagues hoped the Taliban takeover of
Kabul would speed their pipeline negotiations."31 Coll is here referring to
September 1996, when the Taliban, heavily financed by Pakistan and Saudi
Arabia, took over Kabul, the capital, by forcing Masood to flee. As soon as
this occurred, Rashid reports, a Unocal executive "told wire agencies that
the pipeline project would be easier to implement now that the Taliban had
capture Kabul."32 We are again left wondering if the Kean-Zelikow
Commission's research was simply inadequate or if it deliberately left out
information that did not fit its narrative.
There is a similar problem with the Commission's statement about US
neutrality. The Commission says flatly: "U.S. diplomats did not favor the
Taliban over the rival factions but were simply willing to 'give the Taliban
a chance'". Interviews are again the only support offered. Had the
Commission consulted Rashid's book on this issue, it would have read that
the United States "accepted the ISI's analysis...that a Taliban victory in
Afghanistan would make Unocal's job much easier."33 Rashid also reports that
"within house of Kabul's capture by the Taliban" - when much of the country
still remained under the control of other factions - "the US State
Department announced it would establish diplomatic relations with the
Taliban."34 The lack of US neutrality is likewise shown by Steve Coll, who
says: "The State Department had taken up Unocal's agenda as its own" - which
meant, of course, support for the Taliban.35
Rashid, summarizing the situation, says that "the US-Unocal partnership was
backing the Taliban and wanted an all-out Taliban victory - even as the US
and Unocal claimed they had no favourites in Afghanistan."36 The
Kean-Zelikow Commission, by contrast, simply gives us public relations
statements of some of the US and Unocal actors, repeated in recent
interviews, as actual history.
Why is it important to point out this distortion- Because the Commission's
portrayal of US interests in Afghanistan suggests that the United States had
no imperialistic or crass material interests in the area - the kind of
interests that might lead a government to devise a pretext for going to war.
This issue becomes more important as we move to the point in the story at
which the United States comes to think of the Taliban as an obstacle rather
than a vehicle of the Unocal (CEntGas) pipeline project.
In July 1998, the Taliban, after having failed in 1997 to take the northern
city of Mazar-i-Sharif, finally succeeded, giving it control of most of
Afghanistan, including the entire pipeline route. After this victory CentGas
immediately announced that it was "ready to proceed."37 Shortly thereafter,
however, the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were blown up, leading the
United States to launch cruse missile strikes against OBL's camps in
Afghanistan. These and related developments led Unocal to withdraw from
CentGas, convinced that Afghanistan under the Taliban would never have the
peace and stability needed for the pipeline project.38 Rashid, finishing his
book in mid-1999, wrote that the Clinton Administration had shifted its
support to the pipeline route from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey,
adding that "by now nobody wanted to touch Afghanistan and the Taliban."39
When the Bush administration came to power, however, it decided to give the
Taliban one last chance. This last chance occurred at a four-day meeting in
Berlin in July 2001, which would need to be mentioned in any realistic
account of how the US war in Afghanistan came about. According to the
Pakistani representative at this meeting, Niaz Naik, US representatives,
trying to convince the Taliban to share power with US-friendly factions,
said: "Either you accept our offer of a carpet of gold, or we bury you under
a carpet of bombs."40 Naik said that he was told by Americans that "military
action against Afghanistan would go ahead...before the snows started falling
in Afghanistan, by the middle of October at the latest."41 The US attack on
Afghanistan began, in fact, on October 7, which was as soon as the US
military could get ready after 9/11.42
The 9/11 Commission's discussion of what transpired in July is much milder.
Some members of the Bush administration, we are told, were "moving toward
agreement that some last effort should be made to convince the Taliban to
shift position and then, if that failed,...the United States would try
covert action to topple the Taliban's leadership from within". There is no
mention of Niaz Naik or the meeting in Berlin. The Commission's reference to
the fact that the United States wanted the Taliban to "shift position" does
not mention that this shift involved not simply turning over OBL but joining
a "unity government" that would allow Unocal's pipeline project to go
forward. Nor does the Commission mention the statement by US officials that
if the Taliban refused, the United States would use military force (not
merely covert action). And yet all this information was available in books
and newspapers articles that the Commission's staff should have been able to
locate.
In any case, there was still further evidence, ignored by the Commission,
that the US war against the Taliban was related more to the pipeline project
than to 9/11. For one thing, President Bush's special envoy to Afghanistan,
Zalmay Khalilzad (mentioned previously as a member of PNAC), and the new
Prime Minister, Hamid Karzai, were previously on Unocal's payroll. As
Chalmers Johnson wrote: "The continued collaboration of Khalilzad and Karzai
in post-9/11 Afghanistan strongly suggests that the Bush administration was
and remains as interested in oil as in terrorism in that region."43 As early
as October 10, moreover, the US Department of State had informed the
Pakistani Minister of Oil that "in view of recent geopolitical
developments," Unocal was again ready to go ahead with the pipeline
project.44 Finally, as one Israeli writer put it: "If one looks at the map
of the big American bases created, one is struck by the fact that they are
completely identical to the route of the projected oil pipeline to the
Indian Ocean."45
There is considerable evidence, therefore, that, in Chalmer Johnson's words,
"Support for [the dual oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan south
through Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea coast of Pakistan] appears to have
been a major consideration in the Bush administration's decision to attack
Afghanistan on October 7, 2001" - a point that Johnson makes apart from any
allegation that the Bush administration orchestrated the attacks of 9/11.46
But the 9/11 Commission does not even mention the fact that many people
share Johnson's view, according to which the US war in Afghanistan was
motivated by a concern much larger than those mentioned by the Commission.
This larger concern, furthermore, "was not just to make money," suggests
Johnson, "but to establish an American presence in Central Asia." Evidence
for this view is provided by the fact that the United States, besides
establishing long-term bases in Afghanistan, had within a month after 9/11
arranged for long-term bases in Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan.47 The
United States could thereby be seen to be carrying out the prescription of
Zbigniew Brzezinski in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy
and Its Geostrategic Imperatives, in which he portrayed Central Asia, with
its vast oil reserves, as the key to world power. Brzezinksi, who had been
the National Security Advisor in the Carter administration, argued that
America, to ensure its continued "primacy," must get control of this region.
The Bush administration's use of 9/11 to establish bases in several
countries in this region provided an essential step in that direction. In
The 9/11 Commission Report, however, there is no hint of this development.
The United States simply wanted to stop the war, bring an end to the
Taliban's human rights abuses, and prevent Afghanistan from being used as a
haven for terrorists. In the world of the Kean-Zelikow Commission, the
United States had no larger ambitions.
The omission of Brzezinksi's book means, furthermore, the omission of an
earlier suggestion that a new Pearl Harbor could be helpful. Brzezinski,
having argued that the present "window of historical opportunity for
America's constructive exploitation of its global power could prove to be
relatively brief,"48 bemoans the fact that the American public might be
unwilling to use its power for imperial purposes. The problem according to
Brzezinski's analysis, is that:
America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad. This limits the
use of America's power, especially its capacity for military
intimidation...The economic self-denial (that is, defense spending) and the
human sacrifice (casualities even among professional soldiers) required in
the effort are uncongenial to democratic instincts. Democracy is inimical to
imperial mobilization.49
Brzezinski suggests, however, that this weakness in democracy can be
overcome. Having said that "the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands
popular passion," he then adds: "except in conditions of a sudden threat or
challenge to the public's sense of domestic well being."50
What would make the American public willing to make the economic and human
sacrifices needed for "imperial mobilization," he suggests, would be "a
truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat." This passage,
near the end of the book, is parallel to an earlier passage, in which
Brzezinski said that the public was willing to support "America's engagement
in World War II largely because of the shock effect of the Japanese attack
on Pearl Harbor."51 A new Pearl Harbor would, accordingly, allow America to
ensure its continued primacy by gaining control of Central Asia.
In deciding which events belonged to the category of "events surrounding
9/11"a - meaning events relevant to understanding why and how the attacks of
9/11 occurred - the Commission chose to include OBL's 1998 statement that
Muslims should kill Americans (47). That was considered obviously relevant.
But the 9/11 Commission did not include Brzezinski's 1997 suggestion that a
new Pearl Harbor would prod Americans to support the increased money for the
military needed to support imperial mobilization - even though the
Commission points out that 9/11 had exactly the result that Brzezinski
predicted saying:
The nation has committed enormous resources to national security and to
countering terrorism. Between fiscal year 2001, the last budget adopted
before 9/11, and the present fiscal year 2004, total federal spending on
defense (including expenditures on both Iraq and Afghanistan), homeland
security, and international affairs rose more than 50 percent, from $345
billion to about $547 billion. The United States has not experienced such a
rapid surge in national security spending since the Korean War. (361)
But the Commissioners evidently thought it too much of a stretch to ask
whether motive might be inferred from effect.
We see again how the Commission's unquestioned assumption - that the 9/11
attacks were planned and executed entirely by al-Qaeda under the guidance of
Osama bin Laden - determined in advance its selection of which events
constituted "events surrounding 9/11." In line with this assumption, the
9/11 Commission has given us an extremely simplistic picture of US
motivations behind the attack on Afghanistan. The Commission has, in
particular, omitted all those facts suggesting that 9/11 was more the
pretext than the basis for the war in Afghanistan.
The Plan To Attack Iraq
The Bush administration's attack on Iraq in 2003 is probably the issue on
which the 9/11 Commission has been regarded as the most critical, stating
that it found no evidence of "collaborative operational relationship"
between OBL and Saddam Hussein's Iraq and no evidence, in particular, "that
Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks
against the United States" (66). This statement, released in a staff report
about a month before the publication of the final report, created much
discussion in the press. The quantity and the intensity of this discussion
was increased by the fact that the president and especially the vice
president reacted strongly, with the latter calling "outrageous" a
front-page story in the New York Times headed "Panel Finds No Qaeda-Iraq
Tie."52 The resulting commentary ranged from William Safire's column, in
which he lashed out at the Commission's chairman and vice chairman for
letting themselves be "jerked around by a manipulative staff," to a New York
Times story headed "Political Uproar: 9/11 Panel Members Debate Qaeda-Iraq
'Tie,'" to Joe Conason's article entitled "9/11 Panel Becomes Cheney's
Nightmare."53
This commentary gave the appearance that the 9/11 Commission, perhaps
especially its staff, was truly independent, telling the truth no matter how
embarrassing it might be to the White House. That, of course, was mere
appearance. Nevertheless, given the fact that Bush and Cheney continued to
insist on the existence of ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda, the Commission
did in this case report something contrary to the public position of the
White House.
The Commission was furthermore, forthcoming about the extent to which
certain members of the Bush administration pushed for attacking Iraq
immediately after 9/11. It pointed out that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld
instructed General Myers to find out as much as he could about Saddam
Hussein's possible responsibility for 9/11. It also cited a report according
to which, at the first session at Camp David after 9/11, Rumsfeld began by
asking what should be done about Iraq (334-35). The Commission even
portrayed Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, as arguing that Saddam should
be attacked even if there were only a 10 percent chance that he was behind
the 9/11 attacks (335-36).54 Finally, the Commission reported Richard
Clarke's statement that the president told him the day after 9/11 to see if
Saddam was linked to the attacks in any way (334). The Commission was,
therefore, quite frank about the fact that some leaders of the Bush
administration were ready from the outset to attack Iraq because of its
possible connections to 9/11 or at least al-Qaeda-connections for which the
Commission said that it could find no credible evidence.
The Commission has, nevertheless, omitted facts about the decision to attack
Iraq that should have been included in a "fullest possible account." These
facts are important because their omission means that readers of The 9/11
Commission Report are shielded from evidence about how deep and
long-standing the desire to attack Iraq had been among some members of the
Bush administration.
Some of these omitted facts support the claim that the plan to attack Iraq
had, in Chalmers Johnson's words, "been in the works for at least a
decade."55 In pushing it back that far, Johnson is referring to the fact
that after the Gulf War of 1991, several individuals in the White House and
the Pentagon believed that the United States should have gone to Baghdad and
taken out Saddam Hussein, as they indicated "in reports written for then
Secretary of Defense Cheney."56 In 1996, a document entitled "A Clean Break"
was produced by a study group led by Richard Perle (who would the following
year become a founding member of PNAC). Recommending that Israel adopt a
policy of "preemption," Perle and his colleagues suggested that Israel begin
"rolling back Syria," an effort that should "focus on removing Saddam
Hussein from power in Iraq." Advocating that Israel invade Lebanon and then
Syria, this document included texts to be used for speeches justifying the
action in a way that would win sympathy in America. Besides "drawing
attention to [Syria's] weapons of mass destruction," Israel should say:
Negotiations with repressive regimes like Syria's require cautious
realism...It is dangerous for Israel to deal naively with a regime murderous
of its own people, openly aggressive toward its neighbors...and supportive
of the most deadly terrorist organizations.57
As James Bamford points out in A Pretext For War, these justifications were
very similar to those that would be used in later years to justify America's
attack on Iraq.58
The argument for this American attack on Iraq became more visible the
following year, after PNAC was formed. In December 1997, Paul Wolfowitz and
Zalmay Khalilzad published an article in the Weekly Standard - which is
edited by the chairman of PNAC, William Kristol - entitled "Saddam Must
Go."59 A month later, these three and fifteen other members of PNAC -
including Donald Rumsfeld, John Bolton, and Richard Perle - sent a letter to
President Clinton urging him to use military force to "remove Saddam Hussein
and his regime from power" and thereby "to protect our vital interests in
the Gulf." In May 1997, they sent a letter to Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott -
the Speaker of the House and the Senate majority leader, respectively.
Complaining that Clinton had not listened to them, these letter-writers said
that the United States "should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military
presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our
vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from
power."60 Finally, Rebuilding America's Defenses, published by PNAC in
September 2000, emphasized that Iraq under Saddam Hussein was a threat to
American interests in the region.61
When the Bush administration took office in 2001, Chalmers Johnson points
out, "ten of the eighteen signers of the letters to Clinton and Republican
congressional leaders became members of the administration."62 It was no
mere coincidence, therefore, that - as both Paul O'Neil and Richard Clarke
have emphasized - the Bush administration was already intent on removing
Saddam Hussein when it took office.63 And it is also not surprising to learn
that immediately after the 9/11 attacks, some members of the Bush
administration wanted to use those attacks as the basis for their
long-desired invasion to bring about regime change in Iraq.
But the Kean-Zelikow Commission, having left out that background, provides
no context for readers to understand why and how strongly some members of
the Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq. Indeed, the Commission fails
to make clear just how ready some of them were to go to war against Iraq
even if there was no evidence of its complicity in the attacks. A crucial
omission in this respect is the failure to quote notes of Rumsfeld's
conversations on 9/11 that were jotted down by an aide. These notes, which
were later revealed by CBS News, indicate that Rumsfeld wanted the "best
info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time.
Not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]. Go massive. Sweet it all up. Things related
and not."64 James Bamford, after quoting these notes, says: "From the notes
it was clear that the attacks would be used as a pretext for war against
Saddam Hussein."65
The Commission, by contrast, merely tells us that notes from that day
indicate that "Secretary Rumsfeld instructed Myers to obtain quickly as much
information as possible" and to consider "a wide range of options and
possibilities". The Commission then adds:
The secretary said his instinct was to hit Saddam Hussein at the same time -
not only Bin Laden. Secretary Rumsfeld later explained that at the time, he
had been considering either one of them or perhaps someone else, as the
responsible party. (335)
From the Commission's account alone, we would assume that Rumsfeld was
thinking of hitting Saddam if and only if there was good evidence that he
was "the responsible party." As the notes quoted by CBS and Bamford show,
however, Rumsfeld wanted to use 9/11 as the basis for a "massive" response
that would take care of many threats to American interests ("Sweep It Up"),
especially Saddam Hussein, whether he was responsible or not ("Things
related and not"). The Kean-Zelikow Commission, with its omission and
distortions, hides this fact from us.
Furthermore, just as the Commission failed to point out the centrality of
oil and military bases in the Bush administration's interest in Afghanistan,
it does the same in relation to Iraq - even though this country has the
second largest known oil reserves in the world. The Commission does say that
at a National Security Council meeting on September 17, "President Bush
ordered the Defense Department to be ready to deal with Iraq if Baghdad
acted against U.S. interests, with plans to include possibly occupying Iraqi
oil fields" (335). But this is the sole hint in the Kean-Zelikow Report that
the Bush administration might have had an interest in getting control of
Iraqi oil.
Even this statement, moreover, is doubly qualified. Far from suggesting that
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and other members of the Bush administration were
chomping at the bit to attack Iraq, as the PNAC letters reveal, the
Commission suggests that the Bush administration would have thought of
acting against Saddam only if he "acted against U.S. interests." And far
from suggesting that getting control of Iraq's oil would be a central
motivation, the Commission suggests that the plans for attack might only
"possibly" include occupying Iraqi oil fields.
From other sources, however, we get quite a different pictures. Within
months after 9/11, Paul O'Neill reports, the Defense Intelligence Agency,
which works for Rumsfeld, had begun mapping Iraq's oil fields. It also
provided a document, entitled "Foreign Suitors for Iraqi Oilfield
Contracts," which suggested how Iraq's huge reserves might be divided up.66
The centrality of oil was also pointed out by Stephen Gowans, who wrote:
[T]he top item on the Pentagon's agenda, once it gave the order for
jackboots to begin marching on Baghdad, was to secure the oil fields in
southern Iraq. And when chaos broke out in Baghdad, US forces let gangs of
looters and arsonists run riot through "the Ministry of Planning, the
Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Irrigation, the Ministry of Trade,
the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of
Culture and the Ministry of Information."...But at the Ministry of Oil,
where archives and files related to all the oil wealth Washington has been
itching to get its hands on, all was calm, for ringing the Ministry was a
phalanx of tanks and armored personnel carriers.67
These accounts reveal the distorted picture provided by the 9/11
Commissioners, whose solitary mention of Iraq's oil suggests that US troops,
if they attacked Iraq, might or might not occupy the oil fields.
A more realistic account is also given by Chalmers Johnson, who emphasizes
that in relation to oil-rich regions, the US interest in oil and its
interest in bases go hand in hand.
[The] renewed interest in Central, South, and Southwest Asia included the
opening of military-to-military ties with the independent Central Asian
republics of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and support for a Taliban government
in Afghanistan as a way to obtain gas and oil pipeline rights for an
American-led consortium. But the jewel in the crown of this grand strategy
was a plan to replace the Ba'ath regime in Iraq with a pro-American puppet
government and build permanent military bases there.68
Johnson's emphasis on the motivation to establish more military bases is
supported by PNAC itself, which said in its 2000 document:
[T]he United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in
Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the
immediate justification, the need for a substantial American presence in the
Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.69
As this statement indicates, the plan was for the American military to
remain in Iraq long after Saddam Hussein was deposed-perhaps until the
exhaustion of the Iraqi oil reserves.
If we move beyond the 9/11 Commission's simplistic and noncontextual account
of the Bush administration's reasons for attacking Iraq, we can see that the
stakes were immense, involving not only trillions of dollars but also global
geopolitical control. (For example, even if the United States will not need
Iraqi oil in the near future, East Asia and Europe will, so that the United
States, by controlling their oil supply, will be able to exert strong
influence over their political-economic life.) Accordingly, we can see that
the desire to attack an occupy Iraq, expressed by the same people who
suggested that a "new Pearl Harbor" could be helpful, might have provided a
motive for facilitating the attacks of 9/11.
The 9/11 Commission Report, however, omits all the parts of the story that
might lead to this thought. We receive no idea that Iraq might have been
"the jewel in the crown" of the US master plan. In the world of the
Kean-Zelikow Report, in fact, America has no imperialistic master plan. It
is simply an altruistic nation struggling to defend itself against enemies
who hate its freedoms.
Summary
As I pointed out in the Introduction, The 9/11 Commission Report endorses
the official conspiracy theory, according to which the attacks of 9/11 were
carried out solely by al-Qaeda, under the direction of Osama bin Laden. I am
looking at this report from the perspective of the alternative conspiracy
theory, according to which officials of the US government were involved.
Although the Commission did not mention this alternative hypothesis, it was
clearly seeking to undermine its plausibility. One way to do this would be
to show that, contrary to those who hold this hypothesis, the Bush
administration did not have any interests or plans that could have provided
a sufficient motive for arranging or at least allowing such murderous
attacks on its own citizens. The Commission did not do this directly, by
explicitly addressing the motives alleged by those who endorse the
alternative hypothesis. But it did do it indirectly, by portraying the
Bush administration, and the US government more generally, as devoid of
motives in question.
The Kean-Zelikow Commission, however, could provide this portrayal only by
means of numerous omissions and distortions. Besides omitting the Bush
administration's reference to the 9/11 attacks as "opportunities," it
omitted any discussion of the US Space Command, with its mission to solidify
global dominance, and of the PNAC document, with its suggestion that a new
Pearl Harbor would be helpful. It omitted historical facts showing that the
Bush administration had plans to attack both Afghanistan and Iraq before
9/11, so that the attacks served as a pretext rather than a cause. And the
Commission distorted US motives in those attacks, portraying US leaders as
interested only in self-defense, human rights, and peace, not oil, bases,
and geopolitical primacy.
Notes:
1 Ian Johnson, "Conspiracy Theories about Sept. 11 Get Hearing in Germany," Wall Street Journal, September 29th, 2003.
2 Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 32.
3 "Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with the New York Times," New York Times, October 12, 2001. For Rice's statement, see Chalmers Johnson, "The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (New York: Henry Hold, 2004), 229.
4 The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002 (available at www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html)
5 The only statement I have seen that even comes close is the Commission's statement that "[t]he President noted that the attacks provided a great opportunity to engage Russia and China" (330).
6 The Project for the New American Century (henceforth PNAC) Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, September 2000 (www.newamericancentury.org).
7 Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 178.
8 Lehman, who was secretary of the navy during two Reagan administrations, signed PNAC's "Letter to President Bush on the War on Terrorism, " September 20, 2001 (www.newamericancenturty.org/Bushletter.htm).
9 PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 51.
10 Washington Post, January 27, 2002.
11 Henry Kissinger, "Destroy the Network," Washington Post, September 11, 2001.
12 Greg Miller, "Al Qaeda Finances Down, Panel Says," Los Angeles Times, August 22, 2004.
13 This document, which I downloaded in 2003, gives www.spacecom.af.mil/usspace as the website for the US Space Command. But in August 2004, I found that I could no longer access this site.
14 An earlier version of this document, entitled "Joint Vision 2010," is discussed in Jack Hitt, "The Next Battlefield May Be in Outer Space," New York Times Magazine, August 5, 2001, and in Karl Grossman, Weapons in Space (New York: Seven Stories, 2001).
15 The developments that had been achieved already by 1998 are decribed in George Friedman and Meredith Friedman, The Future of War: Power, Technology and American World Dominance in the 21st Century (New York: St. Martin's, 1998)
16 For a brief overview of this project, see Grossman, Weapons in Space.
17 PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 54, quoted and discussed in Rahul Mahajan, Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2003), 53-54. The idea is that if some country the United States wishes to attack has a modest number of nuclear missiles, we could eliminate most of them with a first strike. If the country then launched its few surviving missiles at the United States, they would probably not get through our missile defense shield. Although this shield would probably not protect America from a first strike in which many missiles were fired, it would, the theory is, knock down all the missiles in a small-scale attack. The foreign country would have good reason to believe, therefore, that the United States might go ahead and attack it in spite of its possession of nuclear weapons. It would, therefore, realize that its efforts to deter the United States with threats to retaliate would be futile. As a result, the United States could simply take over the country without needing to attack its nuclear missiles.
18 Paul O'Neill, the first Secretary of the Treasury in the Bush-Cheney administration, reports that a memo written by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a member of PNAC, said that threats to US security were being created by the fact that regional powers hostile to the United States were "arming to deter us." See Ron Suskind, The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O'Neill (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), 81.
19 This figure is reported in the Global Network Space Newsletter #14 (Fall, 2003), which is posted on the website of the Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (www.space4peace.org).
20 Any possible doubt about the statement's meaning was reportedly dispelled by Christopher Maletz, assistant director of PNAC. Christopher Bollyn says that when he asked Maletz what was meant by the need for "a new Pearl Harbor," he replied: "They need more money to up the defense budget for raises, new arms, and future capabilities," and neither the politicians nor the military would have approved "without some disaster or catastrophic event." Christopher Bollyn, "America 'Pearl Harbored,'" American Free Press, updated April 12, 2004 (http://www.americanfreepress.net/12_24_02/American_Pearl_Harbored/america_pearl_harbored.html).
21 Report of the Commission to Assess U.S. National Security Space Management and Organization (www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi).
22 Ibid., quoted in Thierry Meyssan 9/11: The Big Lie (London: Carnot, 2002), 151-52.
23 Department of Defense News Briefing on Pentagon Attack (www.defenselink.mil/cgi-bin/dlprint.cgi), quoted in Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 152.
24 This point is emphasized by Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 154.
25 An examination of the Commission's report shows that Rumsfeld is mentioned in 53 paragraphs, Myers in 18 and Eberhart in 8. Many of these places site interviews with them as sources of information. None of them reflect any questions implying that any aspects of their behavior that day might have been less than exemplary, or that any of their statements may have been less than fully truthful.
26 See Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001),145. Rashid first used this name in "The New Great Game: The Battle for Central Asia's Oil," Far Eastern Economic Review, April 10, 1997. He also uses it for Part 3 of The Taliban. Chalmers Johnson refers to Rashid as "the preeminent authority on the politics of Central Asia" (The Sorrows of Empire, 179).
27 See Steve Coll, Ghost Wars, 305
28 Rashid, Taliban, Chs. 12 and 13.
29 Ibid., 163.
30 Coll, Ghost Wars, 308; Rashid, Taliban, 167, 171; Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 177.
31 Coll, Ghost Wars, 338.
32 Rashid, 166.
33 Rashid, Taliban, 168.
34 Ibid., 166. Although, as Rashid reports, the State Department quickly retracted this announcement, the revelation of its true sympathies had been made.
35 Coll, Ghost Wars, 330.
36 Rashid, Taliban, 166.
37 Telegraph, August 13, 1998, quoted in NPH 90.
38 Rashid, Taliban, 75-79, 175.
39 Ibid., 175.
40 Quoted in Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, Forbidden Truth: U.S. Secret Oil Diplomacy and the Failed Hunt for Bin Laden (New York: Nation Books/Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002), and NPH 91.
41 George Arney, "U.S. ÔPlanned Attack on Taleban'," BBC News, September 18, 2001 ("Taleban" is a spelling preferred by some British writers).
42 The basis for this attack was provided on 9/11 itself. In the president's statement to the nation that evening, he declared,: "We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbor them." Then in a meeting of the National Security Council, which followed immediately, CIA Director Tenet reportedly said that al-Qaeda and the Taliban are essentially one and the same, after which Bush said to tell the Taliban that we were finished with them (Washington Post, January 27, 2002).
43 Chalmers Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 178-79.
44 The Frontier Post, October 10, 2001, cited in Ahmed, The War on Freedom, 227.
45 Chicago Tribune, March 18, 2002, quoting from the Israeli newspaper, Ma'ariv.
46 Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 176.
47 Ibid., 182-83.
48 Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 210.
49 Ibid., 35-36.
50 Ibid., 36.
51 Ibid., 212, 24-25.
52 Reported in David E. Sanger and Robin Toner, Bush Cheney Talk of Iraq and al-Qaida Link," New York Times, June 18, 2004.
53 William Safire, New York Times, June 21, 2004; Susan Jo Keller, "Political Uproar: 9/11 Panel Members Debate Qaeda-Iraq ÔTie,'" New York Times, June21, 2004 (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/21/politics/21PANE.html); Joe Conason, "9/11 Panel Becomes Cheney's Nightmare" (available at www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&nam=News&file=article&sid=319).
54 The Commission added that Wolfowitz said that the chances of Saddam's involvement were hig partly because he suspected that Saddam was behind the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center Ð a theory for which the Commission says it found no credible evidence (336, 559n73).
55 Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 227.
56 Although Johnson does not name it, he probably has in mind the Pentagon's 1992 "Defense Planning Guidance" (DPG), authored primarily by Paul Wolfowitz, then the undersecretary of defense for policy, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
57 The Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," July 8, 1996 (http://www.israeleconomy.org/stratl.hrm).
58 James Bamford, A Pretext for War (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 263.
59 Paul D. Wolfowitz and Zalmay M. Khalilzad, "Saddam Must Go," Weekly Standard (December 1997).
60 PNAC, "Letter to President Clinton on Iraq," January 26, 1998 (www.newamericancentury.org); PNAC, "Letter to Gingrich and Lott," May 29, 1998 (www.newamericancentury.org).
61 PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 14, 17.
62 Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 228-29.
63 See Ron Susskind, The Price of Loyalty, 75, 91. In an interview on CBS's "60 Minutes" in January 2004, O'Neill, who as Secretary of the Treasury was a member of the National Security Council, said that the main topic within days of the inauguration was going after Saddam, with the question being not "Why Saddam?" or "Why Now?" but merely "finding a way to do it" (www.cbsnews.comlstories/2004/0 1/09/60minutesl main592330.shtml). "[H]e is right," says Richard Clarke about O'Neill's claim. "The administration of the second George Bush did begin with Iraq on its agenda." Richard A Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's war on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 264.
64 These notes were quoted These notes were quoted in "Plans for Iraq Attack Began on 9/11," CBS News, September 4, 2002.
65 Bamford, A Pretext for War, 285.
66 Susskind, The Price of Loyalty, 96.
67 Stephen Gowans, "Regime Change in Iraq: A New Government by and for US Capital," ZNet, April 20, 2003; the internal quote is from Robert Fisk, Independent, April 14, 2003.
68 Johnson, The Sorrows of Empire, 226.
69 PNAC, Rebuilding America's Defenses, 14.
[David Ray Griffin is professor emeritus at the Claremont School of
Theology, where he taught for over 30 years (retiring in 2004). He has
authored or edited over two dozen books, including "God and Religion in the
Postmodern World," "Religion and Scientific Naturalism," and "The New Pearl
Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11."]
Enver Masud, "What Really Happened on
September 11 Remains a Mystery," The Wisdom Fund, April 27, 2002
David Ray Griffin, "9/11 and the Mainstream
Press," The Wisdom Fund, August 1, 2005
Elaine Jarvik, "BYU Physics Professor Thinks Bombs
Toppled World Trade Center," Deseret News, November 10, 2005
VIDEO: "9/11: Attack or present from the sky?,"
TweeVandaag, (Channel 2 Today), The Nederlands, 2005
[The weekend before the 9/11 WTC demolition, all power was shut down to
install "computer cables." No one was allowed inside and all security
cameras and alarms had no power for 30 hours. Computer cables don't connect
with building electricity, so the need to turn off and close both towers to
do so is indicative of another motive, like planting charges without alarms
and video surveillance. Marvin Bush, brother to President George and Jeb,
was a principal in Securacom, which was in charge of security for the World
Trade Center.
. . . cannot explain how a steel beam weighing twice as much as a Boeing 767
flew from one WTC building over 390 feet to bury itself very deeply into the
neighboring American Express building.--Jack Duggan, "There is no war on terrorism," Pravda, February
16, 2006]
David Ray Griffin, "9/11: The Myth and the Reality," mindfully.org, March 30, 2006
[ . . . in the months after 9/11 all of the surviving New York City Fire
Department personnel who were on the scene were interviewed. Those oral
histories were recorded and withheld from the public until Aug. 15, 2005.
Only after losing in court three times did the city of New York finally
release them. All 503 are now posted on The New York Times web site. Why did the city fight so hard to
keep them from the public?
It turns out those oral histories reveal details about what was happening in
the World Trade Center buildings that are completely inconsistent with the
tale told by the commission. Dozens of firefighters and medics reported
hearing, seeing and feeling explosives going off in the buildings that
collapsed.--Richard Curtis, "9/
11 Commission report is a lie," Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 16, 2006]
Rudo de Ruijter, "Pipelines
to 9/11," viewzone.com, August 2006