9/11 The Big Lie

by Thierry Meyssan

Extracts from the book "9/11 The Big Lie"

Carnot Publishing Ltd, London ISBN 1-59209-026-5

Introduction:

The events of 11 September 2001 were followed live by hundreds of millions of people riveted to their television screens that day. All of those watching, including television commentators, were badly shaken, stunned by the scale of the attack and shocked by its gratuitous violence. The initial lack of information as to the response of the American authorities as well as the spectacular violence of the images led the TV networks to broadcast over and over again shots of the suicide planes colliding into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and the subsequent building collapses. The constraints of live broadcasting combined with the element of surprise limited reporting to the description of the bare facts as they became known and did not allow any general understanding of the situation.

During the three days which followed the attacks, a considerable amount of supplementary information as to some of the more obscure aspects of these events was released to the press by government officials. But it tended to be drowned out in the uninterrupted flood of news concerning the victims and rescue operations. Other items appeared sporadically in the course of later months, in an anecdotal fashion without any attempt to place them within a general context.

Several thousand people lost their lives on September 11 and a war was waged in Afghanistan to avenge them. Yet the events themselves remain mysterious. The accounts available are filled with oddities, uncertainties and contradictions. Despite the unease these anomalies provoke, public opinion has contented itself with the official version, accepting that national security imperatives prevent United States authorities from revealing the full story.

But this official version does not stand up to critical analysis. We will demonstrate that it is nothing more than a coverup. In some instances, the elements that we have gathered allow the truth to be restored. In others, our questions remain for the moment unanswered, but this is no reason to go on believing the lies put forward by officials. In any case, the investigation that we have carried out is already sufficient to undermine the legitimacy of America's riposte in Afghanistan and its "War on the Evil Axis".

We are not asking you to consider our work as the definitive truth. On the contrary, we welcome your skepticism. Don't trust anything except your own critical mind. In order to let you verify our imputations and then make up your own minds, we have enriched the text with numerous footnotes indicating our principal sources.

In this period when the United States is busy sorting out Good from Evil, we strive to remind people that freedom is not belief in a simplistic vision of the world, but entails understanding, attempting to widen the options available and distinguishing multiple nuances.



Chapter 1: The Pentagon's Phantom Plane

Remember the attack on the Pentagon? Events that day were so momentous and so sudden that it was impossible at the time to take notice of the contradictions in the official version of what happened.

On September 11, 2001, shortly before 10 am Washington time, the Department of Defense issued a brief announcement: "The Department of Defense is continuing to respond to the attack that occurred this morning at 9:38 am EDT There are no casualty figures currently available. Injured personnel were taken to several area hospitals. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has expressed his concern for the families of those killed and injured during this shameless attack and is directing operations from his command center in the Pentagon. All personnel were evacuated from the building as emergency response personnel from the Department of Defense and surrounding communities responded to fire and medical emergencies. Initial estimates of the damage are significant; however the Pentagon is expected to be reopened tomorrow morning. Alternate worksites for those affected parts of the building are currently being identified."1

First on the scene, Reuters news agency announced that the Pentagon had suffered damage from a helicopter explosion. This news was confirmed by a telephone call to Associated Press2 from a Democratic Party consultant, Paul Begala. A few minutes later, the Department of Defense corrected its information, saying that a plane was involved. New eyewitness accounts emerged contradicting the first ones and supporting the official version: Fred Hay3, an assistant to Senator Bob Ney, saw a Boeing aircraft fall as he was driving along the highway adjacent to the Pentagon. Senator Mark Kirk4 was leaving the Pentagon's parking lot, after a breakfast with the Defense Secretary, when a large plane crashed. The Secretary himself, Donald Rumsfeld, left his office and hurried over to the crash site to help with rescue efforts.

The Arlington County firemen intervened, and were joined by four teams from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) as well as specialist firefighters from Reagan airport. At about 10:10 am, the wing of the Pentagon that had been hit collapsed.

Members of the press was kept away from the scene in order not to hinder rescue operations and had to content themselves with filming the first body bags that were aligned in silence at a improvised field hospital. But the Associated Press managed to obtain photos of the firefighters' arrival, taken by a private individual from a nearby building.

In the confusion, it would be several hours before the newly designated Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, indicated that the "suicide plane" was the Boeing 757-200 from American Airlines Flight 77, which had departed Dulles airport in Washington D.C. bound for Los Angeles, before air traffic controllers lost its trace at 8:55 am. The press agencies, still scrambling to cover the story, heightened tension by reporting nearly eight hundred dead. This figure turned out to be wildly inaccurate, although Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refrained from correcting it at his press conference the following day, when a more precise death toll, fortunately only a quarter of the initial press estimates, was already known.5

To the entire world, following on the attacks on the World Trade Center, it was an additional shock: the most powerful army in the world had been unable to protect its own headquarters and had suffered heavy losses. The United States, which had hitherto seemed invincible, were vulnerable even on their own soil.

At first sight, the facts are indisputable. And yet, once one goes into the details, the official explanations become embarrassingly contradictory.

The air traffic controllers working for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) told reporters from the "Christian Science Monitor"6 that, at around 8:55 am, the Boeing descended to 29,000 feet and had not responded to their instructions. Its transponder then went silent, leading the controllers to assume at first that an electrical failure had affected the plane's flight systems. But the pilot, who had still not responded to their calls, intermittently turned on his radio, allowing them to hear a voice with a strong Arab accent who was threatening him. The plane at that point turned back towards Washington, after which they lost its trace.

In accordance with pre established procedures, the local air traffic controllers notified the hijacking to FAA headquarters. Most of the agency's chiefs were absent, away in Canada attending a professional conference. In the midst of the panic that day, the staff on duty at FAA headquarters believed that this message was yet another notification concerning the second plane which had been diverted to New York City. It was not before another half-hour had passed that they finally realized that a third hijacking had taken place and informed the military authorities. This misunderstanding wasted twentynine precious minutes.

Questioned on 13 September by the Senate Armed Services Committee, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers7, was unable to report on the measures taken to intercept the Boeing. From this animated exchange with America's top ranking military officer, the senators concluded that no attempt at interception had been initiated (see the excerpt from the hearing included in the Documents & Appendices section at the end of this book). But are we really to believe that the armed forces of the United States remained passive during the attacks?

To counter the disastrous effect of this hearing, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued a press release8 on September 14. Filling in the gaps of General Myers's memory, NORAD claimed it only received warning of the hijacking at 9:24 am, and assured that it had immediately ordered two F-16 fighters from the Langley Air Force base in Virginia to intercept the Boeing. But the Air Force, not knowing its exact location, believed the plane was on its way to commit a third strike against New York and sent its fighters northwards. A military transport plane, taking off from the Presidential base at Saint Andrews, spotted the Boeing by pure chance and identified it. But it was too late.

It's not clear that NORAD's version of events is any more creditable than that of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. How can we believe that the U.S. military's radar system was incapable of locating a Boeing within a zone of only a few dozen miles in radius? Or that a big jetliner could elude two fighters launched in its pursuit?

Even supposing that the Boeing managed to overcome this first obstacle, it should have been shot down while approaching the Pentagon. The security arrangements protecting the Department of Defense are of course a military secret, as are those concerning the White House nearby. It is known that the systems were revised9 after a series of incidents that occurred in 1994, notably the landing of a small airplane, a Cessna 150L, on the White House lawn. We also know that these anti aircraft defenses include five batteries of missiles installed on top of the Pentagon and fighters stationed at the Presidential airbase of Saint Andrews.10 Two' fighter squadrons are permanently based there: the Air Force's 113th Fighter Wing and the Navy's 321st Fighter Attack Wing. Equipped respectively with F-16's and F/A-18's, they should never have let the Boeing approach the Pentagon.

But as the Pentagon spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Vic Warzinski, put it,

" The Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way, and I doubt prior to Tuesday's events, anyone would have expected anything like that here " 11

Having thus managed to throw its pursuers off track and penetrate the most sophisticated anti aircraft system in the world without a scratch, the Boeing finished its flight at the Pentagon.

A Boeing 757-20012 is a carrier capable of transporting 239 passengers. It measures 155 feet long, with a wingspan of 125 feet. When completely full, this monster weighs 115 tons, yet is capable of maintaining a cruising speed of 560 miles per hour.

As for the Pentagon13, it is the world's largest administrative building. Its name stems from its original structure, composed of five concentric rings, each with five sides. It was built not very far away from the White House, but on the opposite bank of the Potomac river. It is thus not located in Washington D.C. proper, but in Arlington, Virginia.

In order to cause the greatest amount of damage, the Boeing should have dived into the Pentagon's roof. This would in fact have been the simplest course, as the building covers a surface of 29 acres. Instead, the terrorists chose to strike one of the facades, although its height was only 80 feet.

The plane suddenly approached the ground, as if to land. While remaining horizontal, it came down almost vertically, without damaging the lights along the highway that runs by the Pentagon parking lot, either through direct impact or the backwash of its passage. Only one lamppost in the parking lot itself was cut down.

The Boeing struck the building's facade at the height of the ground and first floors. It managed to do all this, as one can see in the photo on the front cover of this book, without damaging the magnificent lawn in the foreground, or the wall, or the parking lot, or the heliport (there is a landing pad for small copters close to the point of impact).

Despite its weight (a hundred tons) and its speed (between 250 and 440 mph), the plane only destroyed the first ring of the building. This can be seen quite distinctly in the photo below.

The shock was felt throughout the entire Pentagon. The plane's fuel, stored in the aircraft's wings, was set ablaze and the fire spread to the building. 125 people lost their lives, to which should be added the 64 people aboard the Boeing.

Luckily (if that can be said at all), the plane hit a section of the Pentagon that was undergoing renovation. They had just finished installing the Navy's brand new Command Center.14 Many offices were still unoccupied and others were being used by the civilian personnel in charge of the renovation. That explains why most of the casualties were civilians, and why only one general was to be found among the military victims.

A half-hour later, the upper floors collapsed.

These first elements of the official story are very unlikely, while the rest is strictly impossible.

If one superimposes the plane's outline onto the satellite photo below, it can be seen that only the nose of the Boeing entered the building. The fuselage and the wings remained outside.

The plane was stopped dead, without its wings having struck the facade. There is no visible trace of any impact except that from the Boeing's nose.

We should thus be able to see the wings and the fuselage outside, on the lawn in fact.

While the plane's nose is made of carbon and the wings, containing the fuel, can burn, the Boeing's fuselage is aluminum and the jet engines are built out of steel. At the end of the fire, it would necessarily have left a burnt out wreck. If you refer to the Associated Press photo (on the front cover of this book), you will clearly observe that there is no plane. The shot was nevertheless taken in the very first minutes: the fire trucks had arrived, but the firemen had not yet deployed.

At a press conference15 held on September 12, the Arlington County fire chief, Ed Plaugher, made it clear that his men were employed in fighting the fire's spread within the Pentagon, but had been kept away from the immediate crash site. Only the FEMA's special Urban Search and Rescue teams came into contact with the plane.

A surreal dialogue then took place during this press conference:

Reporter: "Is there anything left of the aircraft at all?"

Plaugher: "First all, the question about the aircraft, there are some small pieces of aircraft visible from the interior during this fire-fighting operation I'm talking about, but not large sections. In other words, there's no fuselage sections and that sort of thing." […]

Reporter: "Chief, there are small pieces of the plane virtually all over, out over the highway, tiny pieces. Would you say the plane exploded, virtually exploded on impact due to the fuel or...?"

Plaugher: "You know, I'd rather not comment on that. We have a lot of eyewitnesses that can give you better information about what actually happened with the aircraft as it approached. So we don't know. I don't know." […]

Reporter: "Where is the jet fuel? Just ...?"

Plaugher: "We have what we believe is a puddle right there that the... what we believe is to be the nose of the aircraft" (sic).

So, although officials, members of Congress and military personnel all claimed to have seen the aircraft fall, no one saw the smallest piece of the plane, not even from the landing gear: there were only unidentifiable metal fragments. As for the video surveillance cameras in the Pentagon parking lot, they did not see the Boeing either, at any point of time or at any angle.

To recap the official version: a hijacked Boeing eluded the F-16 fighters sent in its pursuit and foiled the anti aircraft defense system in Washington. It landed vertically on the Pentagon parking lot while remaining in a horizontal position. It struck the facade at ground level. Its nose and fuselage are supposed to have penetrated into the building. One of its wings, perhaps both of them, burned outdoors, while the fuselage disintegrated inside. The fuel, stored' in the wings, burned just long enough to start a fire in the building, and then was transformed into a puddle which moved itself to the spot where the plane's nose supposedly came to a halt.

Not withstanding the respect owed to the high rank of the "eye witnesses" - including military officers and members of Congress - it is impossible to swallow such nonsense. Far from lending credit to their depositions, their rank only underlines the importance of the means deployed by the United States army to distort the truth.

All the same, this loony tale was constructed in bits and pieces, one lie leading to another. If you refer to the Pentagon's initial press release, quoted at the beginning of this chapter, you will notice that there was no question of any Boeing. The theory of the "kamikaze plane" did not emerge until a half-hour later. Similarly, there was no question of any fighters trying to intercept the phantom plane at the time of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff's congressional hearing. It was only two days later that NORAD invented the roving F-16's.

The official version is only propaganda. But the facts remain that 125 persons died at the Pentagon and that an airplane carrying 64 passengers disappeared. What caused the explosion that damaged the Pentagon? What became of American Airlines flight 77? Are the passengers dead? If so, who killed them and why? If not, where are they? The U.S. Administration should address all these questions.

Above all, we should ask ourselves what the official version is trying to hide. Questioned by CNN the day after the attack, General Wesley Clark, former supreme commander of NATO forces during the war in Kosovo, declared,

" We have known for some time that some groups were planning [an assault on the Pentagon], obviously we didn't do enough [to prepare for one]".16

This enigmatic assertion makes no reference to a foreign aggressor, but rather to threats against the Pentagon issued by extreme rightwing militias. It allows a glimpse of the secret struggles raging with the United States' ruling class.

CNN also interviewed Hosni Mubarak on September 15.17 At that point in time, the Egyptian president did not have the same information at his disposal that we have now. He did not know what a detailed analysis of the attack teaches us. On the other hand, he did have confidential intelligence concerning the preparations for the attack that he had transmitted several weeks earlier to the American government.

President Hosni Mubarak: "[...] Not any intelligence in the world could have the capability in the world to say they are going to use commercial planes with passengers on board to crash the towers, to crash the Pentagon, those who did that should have flown in the area a long time, for example. The Pentagon is not very high, a pilot could come straight to the Pentagon like this to hit, he should have flown a lot in this area to know the obstacles which could meet him when he is flying very low with a big commercial plane to hit the Pentagon in a special place. Somebody has studied this very well, someone has flown in this area very much."

CNN: "Are you suggesting it was an inside operation? I may ask, who do you think is behind this?"

Mubarak: "Frankly speaking, I don't want to jump to conclusions, you in the United States when you catch somebody, some rumors about somebody, you say 'Oh no, it is not Egyptian, it is Saudi, it is Emirates... all this is inside any house of an Arab, the people say the Arabs are participating... you cannot foretell, it is better wait.' You remember Oklahoma... there came rumors immediately that the Arabs did it, and it was not Arabs, who knows... let us wait and see what is the result of the investigations, because something like this done in the United States is not an easy thing for some pilots who had been training in Florida, so many pilots go and train just to fly and have a license, that means you are capable to do such terrorist action? I am speaking as a former pilot, I know that very well, I flew very heavy planes, I flew fighters, I know that very well, this is not an easy thing, so I think we should not jump to conclusions for now.

Numerous people, who were in their cars on the highway running alongside the Pentagon, heard the sound of a plane passing overhead. This sound was shrill, like that of a fighter aircraft, not a commercial airliner. Some said they saw this aircraft. They then described it as a small plane that might have contained eight to twelve persons, not a Boeing 757.18

Danielle O'Brien, an air traffic controller at Dulles airport, described to ABC News the behavior of this aircraft, as seen on radar.19 It was flying at a speed of around 500 mph and was heading at first for the protected airspace surrounding the White House and the Capitol, then veered sharply towards the Pentagon. For O'Brien and her colleagues, there was no possible doubt: given its speed and maneuverability, it could not be a commercial airliner, but only a military aircraft.

The aircraft penetrated the building without causing major damage to the facade. It traversed several rings of the Pentagon, opening successively wider holes in each partition as it passed. The final orifice, perfectly circular in form, measured roughly seven feet in diameter. In traversing the Pentagon's first ring, the aircraft started a fire, as gigantic as it was sudden. Immense flames issued from the building, licking at the facades. They withdrew just as quickly, leaving behind them a cloud of black soot. The fire spread within a section of the first ring and in two perpendicular corridors. It was so sudden that the building's fire protection devices were ineffective.

All of this testimony and these observations could correspond with the firing of one of the latest generation of AGM type missiles, armed with a hollow charge and a depleted uranium BLU tip, and guided by GPS. This kind of weapon does look like a small civilian airplane, but it's not a plane at all. It produces a whistling noise similar to that of a fighter aircraft, can be guided precisely enough to enter a building by a window, can pierce the toughest armor, and can cause - independently of its armor piercing effect - an instantaneous fire giving off heat in excess of 3,600o Fahrenheit.

That being said, only a missile of the United States armed forces transmitting a friendly code could enter the Pentagon's airspace without provoking a counter missile barrage. This attack could only be committed by United States military personnel against other U.S. military personnel.

If the Bush Administration faked the attack on the Pentagon to cover up certain internal problems, did it also dissemble concerning some elements of the attacks that occurred at the World Trade Center?


Chapter 2: Accomplices on The Ground

Let's remember how the attacks in New York were originally presented. On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 8:50 am, the 24 hour television news network, CNN, interrupted its programs to announce that an airliner has hit the north tower of the World Trade Center. As it did not have pictures of the catastrophe, it broadcast a fixed shot of the Manhattan skyline that allowed viewers to see the smoke billowing from the tower.

At first, it was thought to be a spectacular accident. The American air transport companies, on the verge of bankruptcy, maintain their fleets ever more poorly. Air traffic controllers provide an unreliable service. Spreading deregulation has allowed anarchic overflights of urban areas. So what was bound to occur finally happened.

Nevertheless, the possibility that it wasn't an accident could not be ruled out, as CNN wasted no time in pointing out. It would then be the result of terrorist action. There was the precedent of February 26, 1993, when a van with explosives detonated in the sub-basement level of the World Trade Center's parking lot, killing six people and injuring a thousand others. The attack was attributed to a militant Islamic organization led, from New York itself, by Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman. According to CNN's commentators, if the crash was an attack, it was probably the work of another Islamic fundamentalist, the former Saudi millionaire, Osama bin Laden. In "a fatwah" dated 23 August 1996, this financier, who had taken refuge in Afghanistan, called for a holy war against the United States and Israel. The attacks perpetrated on August 7, 1998 against the American embassies in Nairobi (Kenya) and Dares-Salaam (Tanzania) were attributed to him. In the space of a few years he had become "Public Enemy N0 1 of the United States". The FBI had offered a price on his head of five million dollars. The Security Council at the United Nations had demanded his extradition from the Taliban government. Since February 5, 2001, the United States had in fact been pursuing his trial in absentia, in a New York court

One after another, the American television networks set up live coverage from New York City. At 9:03 am, a second airliner hit the south tower of the World Trade Center. The crash happened as numerous networks were broadcasting pictures of the north tower in flames. It was thus filmed from several angles and seen live by millions of television viewers. It became obvious that the United States was faced with terrorist actions on their own soil. Fearing car bomb attacks, the New York Port Authority closed traffic on all of the bridges and tunnels in Manhattan (and there were even those scared of ground commandos!). At 9:40 am, the New York police informed the population that more planes might strike other towers. At 10:00 am, when the attack on the Pentagon had just been announced, the south tower of the WTC collapsed live on television screens, then at 10:29 am, it was the turn of the north tower. A cloud of dust blanketed Manhattan. The possibility of a death toil totaling several tens of thousands was raised. The combustion of the airplanes had created a heat so intense that the metallic structures of the buildings had been unable to withstand it.

The Governor of New York, George Pataki, closed all State offices and called up the National Guard.

" I have friends in those towers, my thoughts are for them, and we
will try to bring support to all those who are touched by this tragedy "

he confided. At 11:02 am, the mayor of New York City, Rudolph Giuliani, speaking by telephone to New York One radio, addressed the city's population.

" To those who are not in Manhattan, stay at home or at the office. If you are in the business district, walk calmly to the north, away from the area of the attack, in order not to interfere rescue operations. We should try to save as many people as possible "

A dense crowd of several tens of thousands of people then crossed the bridges (they were already closed to automobile traffic), fleeing Manhattan.

At 5:20 pm. building 7 of the World Trade Center, which had not been hit by the planes, also collapsed, without any further casualties. The New York emergency services thought the building had been damaged by the two previous collapses. Through a sort of domino effect, other neighboring buildings were liable to fall in turn. New York's City Hall ordered thirty thousand body bags.

During the afternoon and the days that followed, the attack's scenario was reconstituted: Islamic militants belonging to bin Laden's networks, organized in teams of five and armed with cutters had taken control of the airliners Fanatics, they sacrificed themselves by flying their kamikaze planes into the buildings.

At first sight, the facts are unassailable. But yet again, the more one delves into the details, the more contradictions surface.

The two planes were identified by the FBI as Boeing 767's, the first belonging to American Airlines (flight 11, Boston-Los Angeles) and the second to United Airlines (flight 175, Boston-Los Angeles). The companies have admitted losing these planes.

Thanks to passengers carrying cellular phones who called family or friends during the operation, it is known that the hijackers herded the passengers to the rear of the planes, a classic means of isolating the cockpit. Their action was facilitated by the small number of passengers.' 81 on flight 11 and 56 on flight 175 for 239 seats on each plane.

According to the information provided over telephone by the passengers, the hijackers only carried sharp edged weapons.20 Once United States airspace was closed down, all planes in flight were told to land and were searched by the FBI. In two cases, flight 43 (Newark-Los Angeles) and flight 1729 (Newark-San Francisco) identical cutters were discovered hidden under seats. Investigators surmised that all of the hijackers used this model of cutter. Later on, the CIA discovered bags of cutters in a house where Osama bin Laden stayed in Afghanistan, attesting to the fact that Islamic militants had received training in handling them.

It is nevertheless difficult to conceive that the organizer of the attackers would have neglected to furnish his men with firearms and taken the risk of seeing his operation fail, either totally or in part. It's all the more surprising in that it's easier to pass through airport checks with adapted handguns2l than with cutters.

Why ask such questions? In the public's collective imagination, it's a well known fact that Arabs, and thus Islamic militants, like to slit their victim's throats. The cutters allowed people to infer that all the hijackers were Arabs, although this remains to be proven.

Before arriving in New York, the planes had to reduce their altitude considerably, so that the pilots could see the towers face on, rather than from above. Seen from the sky, a city resembles a map and all usual visual references disappear. In order to strike the towers, the planes needed to be pre-positioned at a very low altitude.

The pilots not only had to adjust the altitude of the crashes, but also position the aircraft laterally. The width of the Twin Towers was 209 feet. The wingspan of a 767 is 156 feet. On video, one can see that the planes hit squarely in the center of their targets. A displacement of. merely 183 feet would have caused the planes to miss their strike entirely. At average speed (440 mph), that distance is traveled in three tenths of a second. Given the low maneuverability of these aircraft, that would have been a remarkable feat even for a experienced pilot, let alone trainees.

The first plane arrived perfectly face on, with the wind behind it, which facilitated its stabilization. But the second plane was forced to execute a complex rotation maneuver, particularly difficult facing the wind. Nevertheless, it, too, struck its tower at a good height and well centered.

The professional pilots we talked to confirmed that few amongst themselves could envisage performing such an operation and completely ruled it out in the case of amateur pilots. There is, however, one infallible method of achieving this result: the use of radio beacons. A signal, transmitted from the target, guides the plane in automatically. Now, the existence of a beacon in the World Trade Center has been attested to by radio hams who recorded its signal. It was detected because it interfered with the transmission of television antennas placed on top of the towers. It is probable that the signal was activated at the last moment so that no one could discover it and destroy it. It is possible that the hijackers used two beacons, because one alone would scarcely have done the job, despite the alignment of the two targets. In any event, they required accomplices on the ground. And if they had them, it was not necessary to have numerous hijackers on board. A small team would have sufficed to put the plane on automatic pilot. It was not necessary in fact to have any hijackers on board at all, as there was no taking of hostages: by hacking into the planes' computers before takeoff, it would have been possible to take over the aircraft in flight, thanks to the Global Hawk technology perfected by the Department of Defense.22 The Boeing would have been under remote control, like a drone - a plane without a pilot.

After the crashes, the Twin Towers collapsed upon themselves. An investigative commission was entrusted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE). According to the preliminary report, the combustion of the planes' fuel unleashed a formidable amount of heat that weakened the central metallic structure of the two buildings.

This theory was vigorously rejected by the New York firemen's associations and the professional review, Fire Engineering23, which, backed up by calculations, claimed that the structures could have resisted the fire for a long period. The firemen affirm that they heard explosions at the base of the buildings and demanded the opening of an independent investigation.24 They wondered about substances stored in the buildings, and not finding the answer there, about criminal explosions that would implicate a ground based team. A famous expert from the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, Van Romero, claimed that the collapse could only have been causes by explosives.25 In the face of public pressure, he later retracted.

Be that as it may, the planes' crashes do not account for the fall of a third building, tower 7. The hypothesis of a destabilization of the foundations was discarded by the American Society of Civil Engineers tower 7 wasn't leaning over, it collapsed in upon itself. The question is no longer "was it dynamited?", but rather, "what other hypothesis can one formulate?".

A journalist's scoop that appeared in the New York Times26 may shed some light here. The World Trade Center, which was believed to be a civilian target, also concealed a secret military one. Perhaps thousands of people perished because they served as its human shield. Tower 7 - but perhaps other buildings and basements as well - masked a CIA base.27 During the 1950's it served as a base for spying on foreign delegations to the United Nations, but under Bill Clinton it had illegally extended its activities to electronic espionage of Manhattan. The principal resources of the American intelligence apparatus had been transferred from anti Soviet espionage to economic warfare. The CIA base in New York had become the most important center of economic intelligence in the world. This reorientation of intelligence was vigorously contested by the more traditional branch of the CIA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Retrospectively, one wonders whether the target of the attack on the World Center on 26 February 1993 (six dead, a thousand injured) was not in fact this secret CIA station, although it was far less developed at that point.

Knowing that at the time of the first crash, thirty to forty thousand people were usually in the Twin Towers, and that each tower had 110 stories, there were on average at least 136 persons per floor. The first Boeing struck the north tower between the 80th and 85th floors. The occupants of those floors perished immediately, either from the impact or the fire that followed. The people located in the floors above found themselves trapped, as the fire spread upwards. Some preferred to throw themselves into empty space rather than succumb to the flames. Finally, the structure collapsed. All the people in the top thirty floors were thus dead. According to our calculation of average occupancy per floor, there should have been at least 4,080 lives lost.

But according to the official total issued on 9 February 2002, the two attacks in New York resulted in 2,843 deaths (including the passengers and crew of the two Boeings, the police and firemen lost in the towers' collapses, and the buildings' users).28 This total is far lower than the initial estimates, and suggests that, despite appearances, the attacks did not aim to produce the maximum possible deaths. On the contrary, prior intervention was required to ensure that numerous persons, at least those working on the top floors, were absent from their offices at the critical hour.

Thus, the Israeli daily, "Ha' aretz" revealed that Odigo, a leading firm in electronic communications, received anonymous messages warning of the New York attacks', two hours before they occurred. These facts were confirmed by Micha Macover, the firm's director.29 Warnings of various types could have addressed to the occupants of north tower, even if all of them were not taken seriously in the same way.

One re-encounters here a pattern similar to that of the attack perpetrated in Oklahoma City on 19 April 1995. That day, a large portion of the civil servants working in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building were given a halfday off work so that the car bomb explosion only killed 168 persons. This was an attack we now know was carried out by military personnel belonging, to an extreme rightwing organization which itself had been infiltrated by the FBI.30

In Oklahoma City, the FBI had thus let an attack go ahead about which it had been informed in advance, but had limited its scope.

Let's listen now to this strange confession from President George W. Bush, during a meeting with citizens in Orlando, Florida, on 4 December.3l

Question: " One thing, Mr. President, is that you have no idea how much you've done for this country. And another thing is that, how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack? " (Applause)

President George W. Bush: " Thank you, Jordan. Well, Jordan, you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my Chief of Staff, Andy Card - actually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works. I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident.

But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it. And I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my Chief of Staff, who is sitting over here, walked in and said, '

A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack.'

And, Jordan, I wasn't sure what to think at first. You know, I grew up in a period of time where the idea of America being under attack never entered my mind just like your Daddy's and Mother's mind probably. And I started thinking hard in that very brief period of time about what it meant to be under attack. I knew that when I got all of the facts that we were under attack, there would be hell to pay for attacking America " (Applause)

So therefore, according to his own declaration, the President of the United States saw pictures of the first crash before the second had taken place. The pictures could not have been those accidentally filmed by French documentary makers Jules and Gedeon Naudet. The Naudet brothers had continued filming at the World Trade Center all that day and their video was not released until thirteen hours later by Gamma agency. It must thus have been secret images transmitted to him without delay in the secure communications room that was installed in the elementary school in preparation for his visit. But if the US intelligence services could have filmed the first attack, that means they must have been informed beforehand. And in that case, why didn't they do anything to save their fellow countrymen?

To recapitulate our information: the terrorists had at their disposal logistical support teams on the ground. They activated one or two beacons, warned occupants in the towers in order to limit the human catastrophe and blew up three buildings. All of this under the eye of the intelligence services, who observed but did not intervene.

Could an operation of this nature have really been conceived and directed from a cave in Afghanistan, and then carried out by a handful of Islamic militants?


Chapter 3: Moles in The White House

Let's return to the official version of events on that terrible day. In response to the two attacks that occurred in New York, the FBI director, Robert Mueller III activated CONPLAN32 : all government agencies were informed of the catastrophe and asked to place themselves at the disposal of the Strategic Information and Operations Center (SIOC) at the FBI and the Catastrophic Disaster Response Group (CDRG) at FEMA. All major public gathering sites liable to become the theater of terrorist operations were evacuated and closed.

Suddenly, at around 10 am, the Secret Service (i.e. the service protecting the highest authorities in the United States) issued a new type of alert: both the White House and Air Force One were under threat. Vice President Cheney was taken to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC), the underground command room situated beneath the West Wing of the White House. The plan for Continuity of Government (CoG) was activated. The country's principal political leaders, members of the executive and of Congress, were transferred to safe places. Marine helicopters carried them to two gigantic nuclear bomb shelters the High Point Special Facility (Mount Weather, Virginia) and the Alternative Joint Communication Center, also known as "Site R" (Raven Rock Mountain, near Camp David). These are veritable underground cities, vestiges of the Cold War, and were conceived to shelter thousands of people.

For his part, George W. Bush, who was en route to Washington, changed course. The Presidential plane, Air Force One, went first to the Barksdale base in Louisiana, then 'to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska. The latter is the headquarters of the US Strategic Command, i.e. the nodal point from which the nuclear deterrent force is activated. Between the two bases, the Presidential plane flew at low altitude, zigzagging, escorted by fighters. At the bases, the President crossed the landing fields in armored vehicles to avoid possible snipers.

This protective deployment around key authorities did not end until 6 pm, when George W. Bush reboarded Air Force One to return to Washington.

Invited by Tim Russert as a guest on the NBC television program, "Meet the Press33", on 16 September, Vice President Dick Cheney described the alert raised by the Secret Service and the nature of the threat (see Documents & Appendices).

According to his own testimony, the Vice President was suddenly informed by his security officers that he was in danger and he was forcibly evacuated to the White House bunker. A hijacked Boeing jet, which turned out to be flight 77, was circling above Washington. Unable to find its way to the White House, it would crash into the Pentagon. While evacuating the leading figures in the government and Congress, the Secret Service was informed of another threat against Air Force One. Another hijacked plane was threatening to collide with the President's plane.

Once again, the official version fails to stand up to analysis. The Vice President's testimony aimed at identifying the threat: suicide planes were heading towards the White House and Air Force One. He repeated the lie exposed in our first chapter: the one about flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. He even embroidered on it by imagining the plane circling above Washington in search of a target. One struggles, however, to accept that the Secret Service, rather than activating the antiaircraft system, could only think of evacuating the Vice President to a bunker. Even more amusing, Cheney invented another plane chasing Air Force One like a horseman in a Western, seeking to collide with it in flight under the impotent eye of the U.S. Air Force.

Despite these unlikely details, this tale fails to explain the behavior at the highest levels of government. If the threat consisted of suicide planes, why protect the President from possible sniper fire, even on the landing fields of strategic military bases? How are we to believe that Islamic militants could take up positions in such well guarded places?

Dick Cheney's testimony aimed above all to help make us forget about other statements that had been made by the White House spokesman, Ari Fleischer, and senior presidential adviser Karl Rove.34 Their information raised questions about possible domestic leads, whereas the pro-war propaganda wants to see only foreign enemies.

The press35 on September 12 and 13 claimed that, according to the Presidential spokesman (Ari Fleischer), the Secret Service received a message from the attackers indicating that they planned to destroy the White House and Air Force One. Even more surprisingly, according to the "New York Times," the attackers established the credibility of their call by using the Presidential identification and transmission codes. And more astonishing still, "World Net Daily36", citing intelligence officers as its sources, said the attackers also had the codes of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO), Air Force Intelligence (AFI), Army Intelligence (Al), Naval Intelligence (NI), the Marine Corps Intelligence (MCI) and the intelligence services of the State Department and the Department of Energy.

Each of these codes is known by only a very small group of officials. No one is authorized to possess several of them. Also, to accept that the attackers were in possession of them supposes either that there exists a method of cracking the codes, or that moles have infiltrated each of these intelligence bodies. Technically, it appears to be possible to reconstitute the codes of the American agencies by means of the software, Promis, that served to create them. Now, the algorithms of this software are known to have been stolen by FBI special agent Robert Hansen, who was arrested for espionage in February 2001.37 For the former CIA director, James Woolsey, the codes were more likely to have been obtained by moles. And Woolsey, who today is a lobbyist for the opposition to Saddam Hussein, affirms that this operation was the work of the dangerous Iraqi secret services. A third hypothesis would be that the Secret Service itself was infiltrated and let itself be fooled: the attackers never had the codes, but - thanks to accomplices - they made it seem believable.

Whatever the case may be, the business of the codes reveals that there exists one or more traitors at the highest levels of the American state apparatus. It is they who might have posted snipers to shoot the President, even within the confines of the U.S. Air Force's strategic bases. And it was to protect him from their ambushes that President Bush was forced to ride in armored vehicles on the landing fields of Barksdale and Offutt.

'Another aspect to consider in this affair is that it reveals the existence of parallel negotiations. If the attackers contacted the Secret Service and used secret codes to authenticate their call, it was because they had a precise objective in mind. Their message contained either a demand or an ultimatum. It stands to good reason that if one accepts that the threat had been dispelled by the end of the day, one can only conclude that President Bush negotiated with them and gave into blackmail.

With the authentication and transmission codes of the White House and Air Force One at their disposal, the attackers could usurp the authority of the President of the United States. They could give whatever orders they pleased to the armed forces, including the use of nuclear weapons. The only means allowing George W. Bush to retain control of the military was to physically hold the headquarters of the U.S. Strategic Command, at Offutt, and to personally issue orders and counter orders from there. That's why he went there in person. His direct route proved impossible, due to lack of fuel. Air Force' One, which was not designed for low altitude flight, had used up its reserves and could not be refueled in the air without exposing itself. A technical stopover was thus programmed for Barksdale, one of five backup sites for Offutt.

The matter of the codes was not the only element that disappeared from the official version. Another fact, duly noted at the time, has since been forgotten. On 11 September, at 9:42 am, ABC broadcast live images of a fire that had broken out in the White House annex, the Old Executive Building. The television network contented itself with showing a fixed shot of plumes of black smoke escaping from the building. No information has ever leaked out concerning the origin of the blaze, or its exact scale. No one has had the presumption to blame the fire on a kamikaze plane. A quarter of an hour later, the Secret. Service took Dick Cheney from his office and ordered the evacuation of the White House and its annex. Sharpshooters were deployed around the Presidential residence, armed with rocket launchers and capable of repelling an assault by airborne troops. In short, they were facing a threat of a very different nature to that later described by Vice President Cheney.

Let's now reread the text of the President Bush's declaration, recorded at Barksdale and sent out in a delayed broadcast by the Pentagon at 1:04 pm:

" I want to reassure the American people that the full resources of the federal government are working to assist local authorities to save lives and to help the victims of these attacks. Make no mistake: The United States will hunt down and punish those responsible for these cowardly acts.

I've been in regular contact with the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the national security team and my Cabinet. We have taken all appropriate security precautions to protect the American people. Our military at home and around the world is on high alert status, and we have taken the necessary security precautions to continue the functions of your government.

We have been in touch with the leaders of Congress and with world leaders to assure them that we will do whatever is necessary to protect America and Americans.

I ask the American people to join me in saying a thanks for all the folks who have been fighting hard to rescue' our fellow citizens and to join me in saying a prayer for the victims and their families.

The resolve of our great nation is being tested. But make no mistake: we will show the world that we will pass this test. God bless "

What is striking in this speech is that the President carefully avoided designating attackers. He no longer used the words "terrorism" or "terrorist". He hinted that it might be the beginning of a classic military conflict, or something else altogether. He spoke of a "test" that had to be passed and seemed to be announcing new catastrophes to come. Even more surprisingly, he offered no explanation for his absence from Washington, giving the impression that he had fled from a danger to which his fellow citizens remained exposed.

Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, gave two improvised press briefings aboard Air Force One during its long wandering. With the same meticulous care as President Bush, he, too, avoided the words "terrorism" and "terrorist".

In such a context, one can interpret in two different ways the activation of the Continuity of Government (CoG) procedure. The simplest explanation is to consider the need to protect the President and other political leaders from the actions of traitors capable of starting a fire in the Old Executive Building and stealing the secret codes of both the Presidency and the intelligence agencies.

One might also consider whether, on the contrary, the CoG plan was put into effect not to protect political leaders from traitors, but was initiated by the traitors themselves to isolate those leaders. The account given by Vice President Dick Cheney is truly strange. He claims that men from the Secret Service seized him in his office and bundled him into the White House bunker without receiving his consent. He appeared to suggest that the same was true for the principal members of the government and of Congress. And what else is an operation where the secret services take elected officials and put them in bunkers "for their own security", if not a coup d'etat, or at least a palace coup?

Let's summarize the elements available to us. A fire breaks out in the White House annex. Responsibility for the attacks is claimed during a phone call to the Secret Service. The attackers issue demands, or even an ultimatum, and establish their credibility by using the Presidency's own transmission and authentication codes. The Secret Service initiates the Continuity of Government procedure and puts the principal political leaders in shelters for safekeeping. President Bush negotiates during the afternoon and calm is restored by evening.

The attacks were thus not ordered by a fanatic who believed he was delivering divine punishment, but by a group present within the American state apparatus, which succeeded in dictating policy to President Bush. Rather than a co up d'etat aimed at overthrowing existing institutions, might it not involve instead the seizure of power by a particular group hidden within those institutions?


Chapter 4: The FBI Wrings its Hands

With that amazing flair for organization that constitutes the hallmark of the United States, during the day of September 11 the FBI launched the biggest criminal investigation in human history: "Penttbomb" (a contraction of Pentagon-Twin Towers-Bomb). It mobilized a quarter of its personnel, seven thousand civil servants in all, including four thousand agents, for this task. To its own resources, it added those detached by other agencies within the Department of Justice: the Criminal Division, the Attorneys' Bureau, and the Immigration and Naturalizations Service. The FBI also relied on the entire "US intelligence community", particularly the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA). Lastly, the FBI also benefited from international police cooperation, either from Interpol or directly through bilateral links with the police of allied states.

To collect clues, the FBI launched a call for witnesses on the evening of the attacks. In the course of the following three days, it received 3,800 telephone messages, 30,000 e-mails and 2,400 notifications from its intelligence agents.

The day after the attacks, the FBI had already managed to establish the modus operandi of the terrorists.38 Agents of the bin Laden networks had entered American territory legally. Once inside the country, they had taken accelerated pilot training courses. Regrouped into four teams of five kamikazes each, they hijacked the airliners with the mission of crashing them into major objectives. On 14 September, the FBI published a list naming nineteen presumed plane hijackers.39

In the course of the following weeks, the international press reconstituted the life of the kamikazes. These reports showed that they did nothing to raise the suspicions of their friends and neighbors, or to allow Western police forces to take notice of them. Faded away into the general population, careful to avoid revealing their convictions, these "sleepers" would not be "woken" until the day of their mission. Other "sleeper agents", hidden in the shadows, were probably still waiting for their hour. An undetectable threat hovered over Western civilization...

On a methodological level, this was a visibly botched investigation. In criminal proceedings involving facts as complicated as these, the police should have constructed a number of hypotheses and followed each trail to the end, without neglecting any of them. The hypothesis of domestic terrorism was rejected in principle, without ever being studied. Instead, the finger was already being pointed at Osama bin Laden by "sources close to the investigation", a few hours after the attacks. Public opinion demanded the guilty parties, so they were designated forthwith.

In each of the four hijacked planes, the terrorists were organized in teams of five men, brought together at the last moment. Nevertheless, there were only four terrorists on flight 93 that exploded over Pennsylvania: the fifth member of the commando team, Zacarias Moussaoui, was apprehended shortly before the attacks, due to his lack of a resident's card. Initially, the FBI claimed that all of the hijackers had been trained to' sacrifice themselves. Later, after the discovery of a video cassette of Osama bin Laden, it was asserted that only the hijacker pirates were kamikazes, while their team-mates were informed at the last moment of the suicidal nature of their mission. Be that as it may, the idea of teams of kamikazes is a surprising one. The psychology of suicide is highly individual. During the Second World War, the Japanese kamikazes acted individually, even if their actions were coordinated in waves. More recently, the members of the Japanese Red Army (Rengo Segikun), who exported their technique to the Near East for the attack on Lodd (Israel, May 1972), acted in teams of three, but only after having had special training to weld themselves together as a unit. Even so, one of the Lodd terrorists, Kozo Okamoto, was captured alive. We don't know of any examples of kamikaze teams formed at the last minute.

Moreover, as Salman Rushdie mischievously pointed out40, one can affirm that if the hijackers were in fact kamikazes, then they weren't Islamic fundamentalists. Indeed, the Koran forbids suicide. Fundamentalists (such as the Taliban, the Wahhabites and others) may expose themselves to death, as martyrs, without any hope of escape, but they wouldn't take their own lives.

Nevertheless, the kamikaze theory was confirmed by handwritten documents in Arabic which the FBI published in English translation and were reproduced by the international press.4l Three copies were said to have been found: one in a suitcase that was lost in transit between flights, belonging to Mohammed Atta; the second in a vehicle abandoned at Dulles Airport by Nawaf Al-Hazmi and the third among the debris of flight 93 which exploded over Stony Creek Township, Pennsylvania.42

It contains four pages of pious advice:

  1. Recite the pledge you have taken to die and renew your intention. Shave your body and anoint it with eau de Cologne. Take a shower.

  2. Make sure you are completely familiar with all the details of the plan and prepare yourself for an eventual riposte or reaction from the enemy.

  3. Read Al-Tawba and Anfal [martial suras or chapters from the Koran], reflect on their meaning and think of all that God has promised to martyrs.

Etc.

Written in a classic theological style, often full of medieval references, these documents greatly contributed to feeding the image of fanatics that the American authorities exposed to popular wrath. Nevertheless, they were crude forgeries, whose incongruities would have been spotted by any person knowledgeable about Islam. For instance, they begin with the exhortation,

" In the name of God, of myself and of my family " (sic)

whereas Muslims - as opposed to numerous puritan sects in America - never pray in their own name, or that of their family.43 Similarly, the text includes in one phrase an Americanism which has no place in vocabulary derived from the Koran:

" You must face it and understand it 100% "

The FBI presented Mohammed Atta as the leader of the operation. In ten years, this 33 year old was said to have stayed in Salou (Spain), then Zurich (Switzerland) - where, according to investigators, he paid by credit card for Swiss knives destined to be used in the plane hijackings - and finally Hamburg (Germany). Along with two other terrorists, he took courses there in electronics, without causing comment about himself or letting his extremist convictions become known. Upon arriving in the United States, he joined his accomplices in Florida, took pilot courses in the town of Venice and even paid for several hours on a flight simulator in Miami. Anxious to disguise his fundamentalism, Mohammed Atta went as far as to frequent the Olympic Garden in Las Vegas, the biggest topless cabaret in the world. This peerless agent was believed to reached Boston on 11 September by a domestic flight. Given the short time between the two flights, he appears to have lost his baggage in transit. In searching them, the FBI found training videos on piloting Boeing aircraft, a book of Islamic prayers and an old letter in which he announces his intention to die as a martyr. Atta was identified as the head of the commando team by a steward who made a call with his cellular telephone during the hijacking and indicated the leader's seat number: 8D.

Should we take such information seriously? One would have to accept that Mohammed Atta spent ten years carefully hiding his real intentions and that he must have adhered to strict procedures in communicating with his accomplices to escape the attention of the intelligence services. Nevertheless, at the last moment he left behind a bagful of clues. Although he was the leader of the operation, he took the risk of missing his flight connection on September 11 and finally succeeded in joining American Airlines flight 11, but without recovering his baggage. But really, why burden yourself with baggage at all if you were about to commit suicide?

Even more ridiculous, the FBI claims to have discovered Mohammed Atta's passport intact in the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center! It's a true miracle; one wonders how this document could even have "survived" such an ordeal.

It's obvious that the FBI has presented pieces of evidence that it fabricated itself. Perhaps we should only see this as the panicked reaction of a police agency which had already demonstrated its incapacity to prevent the catastrophe and was trying by all means to restore its reputation.

More worrying is the controversy surrounding the identification of the kamikazes. The international press commented at length on the profiles of the nineteen terrorists designated by the FBI. All of them were men between twenty five and thirty five years old. They were Arabs and Muslims, for the most part from Saudi Arabia. They were well educated. They were acting out of idealism rather than despair.

The only problem with these identikit portraits is that they are based on a list which itself is subject to dispute. The Saudi embassy in Washington has confirmed that Abdulaziz Al-Omari, Mohand AI-Shehri, Salem Al-Hazmi and Saeed Al-Ghamdi are all alive and well, and living in their own country. Waleed M. Al-Shehri, who lives at present in Casablanca and works as a pilot for Royal Air Maroc, gave an interview to the Arab-language daily, "Al- Qods al-Arabi," based in London. Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi Foreign Minister, declared to the press that,

" It has been proven that five of the persons (named)
in the FBI's list had no connection with what happened "

And Prince Nayf, the Saudi Minister of the Interior, declared to an official American delegation,

" Until now' we have no evidence that assures us that they are related to September 11. We have not received anything in this regard from the United States " 44

How were the terrorists identified? if one refers to the list of victims published by the airline companies on September 13, one is surprised not to see among them the names of the hijackers. It would seem that the criminals were removed in order to leave only "innocent victims" and crew members. If one counts the passengers, one finds 78 innocent victims on American Airlines flight 11 (which crashed into the north tower of the WTC),46 on United Airlines flight 77 (which crashed into the south tower), 51 on American Airlines flight 77 (the one that supposedly crashed into the Pentagon) and 36 aboard United Airlines flight 93 (which exploded over Pennsylvania). These lists are incomplete, as several passengers were not identified.

If one refers to the press releases45 issued by the airlines on September 11, one notes that flight 11 transported 81 passengers, flight 175 carried 56 passengers, flight 77 transported 58 passengers and flight 93 had 38 passengers.

It is thus physically impossible that flight 11 could have transported more than three terrorists and flight 93 more than two. The absence of the names of the hijackers on the passenger lists therefore does not mean they were withdrawn in order to remain "politically correct", but simply they were not to be found among the rest. Goodbye to the identification of Mohammed Atta by a steward, thanks to the seat number, 8D.

To sum things up, the FBI invented a list of hijackers from which it drew an identikit portrait of the enemies of the West. We are asked to believe that these hijackers were Arab Islamic militants who were acting as kamikazes. The domestic American leads were dismissed. In reality, we know nothing, neither the identity of the "terrorists" nor their operational method. All hypotheses remain open. As in all criminal affairs, the first question that should be asked is, "Who profits from the crime?".

Concerning that precise subject, in the period following the attacks it was found that maneuvers characteristic of "insider trading" had taken place in the six days preceding September 11.46 The stock of United Airlines (owner of the planes that crashed into the south tower of the World Trade Center and near Pittsburgh) fell artificially by 42%. In the case of American Airlines (owner of the plan that crashed into the north tower of the WTC and of the one that was said to have crashed into the Pentagon), its stock fell by 39%. No other airline companies in the world were the object of comparable maneuvers, with the exception of KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. From this, one can deduce that a plane belong to the Dutch company may have been chosen as the target for a fifth hijacking.

Similar movements were noted concerning sales (or "put") options of stock in Morgan Stanley Dean Witter & Co. which multiplied twelve fold in the week preceding the attacks. This particular firm just happened to occupy 22 floors in the World Trade Center. The same thing occurred with the world's leading stockbrokers, Merrill Lynch & Co., whose headquarters is located in a neighboring building threatened with collapse, for which put options multiplied by a factor of twenty five. And above all, this happened with put options for the insurance companies involved: Munich Re, Swiss Re and AXA.

The Securities & Exchange Commission of Chicago was the first to raise the alert. It noticed that on the Chicago stock exchange, insiders had made capital gains of 5 million dollars on United Airlines, 4 million dollars on stock in American Airlines, 1.2 million dollars on Morgan Stanley Dean Winter & Co. and 5.5 million dollars on Merrill Lynch & Co.

Wary of investigators, the insiders prudently renounced collecting another 2.5 million dollars in gains on American Airlines that they hadn't had time to cash in before the alert took place.

The supervisory authorities in each of the world's big stock exchanges tracked down the gains made through this insider trading. Investigations were coordinated by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO).47 On 15 October, it held a video conference where the national authorities presented their interim reports. It appeared that the illicit gains added up to several hundred million dollars, constituting the "biggest case of insider trading ever committed".

Osama bin Laden, whose bank accounts have been blocked since 1998, does not dispose of the money needed for this speculative operation. The Taliban government of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan also lacks the financial means for this.

Indeed, President Bill Clinton ordered the freezing of all of the financial assets of O. bin Laden, his associates, and their associations and companies, by Executive Order 13099, signed symbolically on 7 August 1998 (the day of the American riposte to the bombings in Nairobi and Dares-Salaam. This decision was internationalized by U.N. Security Council Resolution 1193 (13 August 1998). Bill Clinton extended the measure to the bank accounts of the Taliban, and their associates and satellites, by Executive Order 13129 on 4 July 1999. Finally, the worldwide freeze of assets belonging to persons and organizations linked to the finance of "international terrorism" was pronounced by Resolution 1269 of the U.N. Security Council (19 October 1999). From that date onwards, it became rather ridiculous to continue speaking of the "millionaire O. Bin Laden" since he no longer has any possible means of access to his personal fortune. The means at his disposal can only come from secret aid - state sponsored or not -, which can no longer be that of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

It has been possible to establish that the greater part of the transactions were "handled" by the Deutsche Bank and its American investment subsidiary, Alex. Brown.48 This company was directed until 1998 by a colorful figure, A.B. Krongard. A former captain in the Marines and an enthusiast of firearms and martial arts, this banker became an advisor to the director of the CIA, and since March 26, 2001, the official number three in the hierarchy of the American intelligence agency. Given the importance of the investigation and the influence of A.B. Krongard, one would have thought that Alex. Brown would have cooperated readily with the authorities to facilitate the identification of inside traders. But this was not the case.

Strangely indeed, the FBI gave up on exploring this line of inquiry and IOSCO closed its investigation without resolving the affair It would nevertheless be easy to trace the capital movements because all of the bank to bank transactions are archived with two clearing organizations.49 One could accept that, given the importance of what was at stake, that it would be possible to break banking secrecy and determine just who the happy beneficiaries of the 11 September attacks actually were. But nothing came of all this.50

Given the unprecedented means of investigation at its disposal, the FBI should have devoted itself to elucidating each of the contradictions that we have raised. It should have given priority to studying the message sent by the attackers to the Secret Service in order to identify them. It should have established what really happened at the Pentagon. It should have tracked down the insider financial dealers. It should have discovered the source of the messages sent to Odigo warning occupants of the World Trade Center two hours before the attacks took place. Etc.

Instead, as we have seen, far from conducting a criminal investigation, the FBI has applied itself to making clues disappear and silencing testimony. It has supported the version of a foreign attack and tried to strengthen its credibility by divulging an improvised list of the hijackers and fabricating false evidence (Mohammed Atta's passport, instructions to the kamikazes, etc.).

This manipulative operation was orchestrated by its director, Robert Muelier III, a key Bush appointee who coincidently took office the week before September 11.

Was this pseudo investigation conducted to prepare for an equitable trial, or was it rather meant to hide from view domestic American culpability and justify the military operations to follow?


N O T E S :

1 This statement was removed from the Department of Defense's Internet server. It can be consulted in the 'archives at the following University of Yale website:
http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/sept-II/dod_brief03.htm

2 'Part of the Pentagon Collapses after Terrorists Crash Plane into Building', Associated Press dispatch, 11 September 2001.

3. 'The Day the World Changed', Christian Science Monitor, 17 September 2001: http://www.csmonitor.com

4 'Inside the 'Pentagon Minutes before Raid' by Rick. Pearson, Chicago Tribune, 12 September 2001: http://www.chicagotribune.com

5 DoD News Briefing, 12 September 2001; 3:35 p.m.

6. Special edition, 'Christian Science Monitor, 17 September 2001, downloadable from: http://www.csmonitor.corn/pdf/csm20010917.pdf

7 Available at http://www.senate.gov/armed_services

8 Available at http://www.peterson.af.mil/norad/presrelNORADTimelines.htm

9 Cf. Public Report of the White House Security Review (10 May 1995):
http://www.fas.org/irp/agency/ustreas/usss/tlpubrpt.html

10 Official Website of Saint Andrews airbase:
http://www.dcmilitary.com/baseguides/airforce/andrews

11 In Newsday, 23 September 2001.

12 According to information released by the constructor, Boeing: see
http://www.boeing.com/comnercial/757-200/product.html

13 A virtual tour of the Pentagon is available at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/pentagon

14 'Inside the Ring', an account by Bill Gertz, in the Washington Times, 21 September 2001: http://www.washtimes.com

15 Press conference led by the Deputy Defense Secretary, Victoria Clarke, Pentagon, 12 September 2001: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/Sep2001/2001to912asd.html

16 'Nation's Capital Under State of Emergency', CNN, 12 September 200l: http://www.cnn.corn (article originally located at: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11dc.terrorism/index.html )

17 Complete text available on the Egyptian presidential server:
http://www.presidency.gov.eg/html/14-Sept2001_press_2.html

18 'Up to 800 Possibly Dead at Pentagon' by James McIntyre & Matt Smith, CNN, 11 September, 2001: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.terrorism/ ; and 'Three-Star General May Be Among Pentagon Dead', by Ian Christopher McCaleb, CNN, 13 September 2001: http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/13/pentagon.terrorism/

19 'Get These Planes on the Ground', ABC News, 24 October, 2001:
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_011024_act_feature.html ;
and on the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (AFL-CIO) Website:
www.september11.natca.orgNewsArticles/DaniellOBrien.htm

20 Except on Flight 93 which exploded over Pennsylvania. The passengers on that flight indicated that the hijackers had a box which they said was a bomb.

21 That is, handguns made of synthetic materials that are not detectable at airport security gates: see for example http://www.glock.com

22 'Global Hawk, the DoD's Newest Unmanned Air Vehicle', DoD, February 1997: http//www.defenselink.mil.photos/Feb1997/970220-D0000G-001.html

23 'Selling Out the Investigation', by Bill Manning, Fire Engineering, January 2002. See also 'WTC Investigation? A Call for Action' (a petition published in the same issue of the review).

24 See, for example, the testimony of fireman Louie Cacchioli (Brigade 47): http://people.aol/people/special/0,0,11859,1745923,00.html

25 'Explosives Planted in Towers, N. M. Tech Expert Says', by Olivier Uyttebrouck, Albuquerque Journal, 11 September 2001. Retraction in 'Fire, Not Extra Explosives, Doomed Buildings, Expert Says', by John Fleck, Albuquerque Journal, 21 September 2001: http://www.abqjournal.com

26 'Secret C.I.A. Site in New York Was Destroyed on Sept. 11', by James Risen, The New York Times, 4 November 2001: http://nytimes.com

27 We have learned of several testimonies according to which the CIA's base was located on floors 9 and 10 of tower 7. They used the New York Electronic Crime Task Force attached to the Secret Service as a cover. The same sources sent us photos of tower 7, taken after the collapse of the south tower, where one can clearly make out a fire on the ninth floor: http://members.aol.com/erichuf/eh_wtcl6jpg . We haven't been able to verify the authenticity of the photos or the veracity of this information.

28 'Final toll of World Trade Center is 2,843 Dead', Associated Press dispatch, 9 February 2002. This is the figure put forward by the city of New York. The press agency itself obtained a lower figure, 2,799 dead.

29 Ha' aretz, 26 September 2001: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/ . This information was repeated by Daniel Sieberg on CNN: 'FBI Probing "Threatening" Message, Firm Says', 28 September 2001: http://www.cnn.com . See also 'Instant Messages to 'Israel Warned of WTC Attack', by Brian McWilliams, Newsbytes, 27 September 2001; and 'Odigo Clarifies Attack Messages', by the same author in the following day's edition: http://www.newsbytes.com . This information was broadcast in a distorted fashion by a commentator for Al-Jezeera, who tried to use it to support the thesis that the attacks were perpetrated by Mossad and that the latter had sent advance warning to Jewish employees in the WTC. The Qatari television network immediately dismissed the journalist who concocted this story.

30 A Force Upon the Plain: The American Militia Movement and the Politics of Hate by Kenneth Stern (Simon & Schuster, 1996). See also the first part of The Secret Life of Bill Clinton: The Unreported Stories, by Ambrose Evans Pritchard (Regnery Publishing, 1997).

31 Remarks by the President in Town Hall Meeting, Orange County Convention Center, Orlando, Florida: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/print/2001120417.html

32 The United States Government Interagency Domestic Terrorism Concept of Operation Plan (CONPLAN), downloadable from http://www.fbi.gov/publications/conplan/conplan.pdf

33 The complete text is available at http://stacks.msnbc.com/news/629714.asp

34 Read in particu1ar 'The Options', by Nicholas Lemann, The New Yorker, 25 September 2001: http://www.newyorker.com

35 For example: 'White House Said Targeted', by Sandra Sobieraj, Washington Post, 12 September 2001: http://www.washingtonpost.com ; and 'Inside the Bunker', The New York Times, 13 September 2001: http://www.nytimes.com

36 'Digital Codes in White House? Terrorists Had Top Secret Presidential Codes', World Net Daily, 20 September 2001: http://www.worldnetdai1y.com

37 'Bin Laden's Magic Carpet - Secret US 'Promis Software', Michael C. Ruppert, From the Wilderness, 20 November 2001: http://www.copvcia.com

38 Briefing by the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, 12 September 2001: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/speeches/2001/0913pressconference.htm

39 Press conference by Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI director Robert Mueller III, 14 September 2001: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/agcrisisremarks9_14:htm

40 'Fighting the Forces of Invisibility', by Salman Rushdie, Washington Post, 2 October 2001: http://www.washingtonpost.com

41 Briefing by the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, and the FBI director, Robert Mueller III, 28 September 2001: http://www.usdoj.gov/ag/agcrisisremarks9_28.htm

42 Several European newspapers mistakenly indicated that the FBI had discovered this document in the ruins at the Pentagon.

43 Curiously, the star reporter Bob Woodward pointed out this anomaly on the day it was published, but did not derive any conclusions. See 'In Hijacker's Bags, a Call to Planning, Prayer and Death, Washington Post, 28 September 2001: http://www.washingtonpost.com

44 'Saudi Minister Asserts That Bin Laden Is a 'Tool" of Al Qaeda, Not a Mastermind', by Douglas 'Jehl, New 'York Times, 10 December 2001 http://www.nytimes.com

45 These press releases were circulated by the Associated Press agency.

46 Black Tuesday: The World's 's Larget Insider Trading Scam?' Don Radlauer, International Policy Institute for Counter terrorism, Israel, 19 September 2001: http://www.ict.org.il/articles/articledet.cfm?articleid=386

47 Official Website of IOSCO. http://www.iosco.org/iosco.html

48 'Suspicious Profits Sit Uncollected: Airlines Investors Seem to Be Lying Low', by Christian Berthelsen & Scott Winokur San Francisco Chronicle, 29 September 2001: http://www.sfgate.com

49 Revelation$, by Denis Robert & Ernest Backes (Les Arenes, 2001):
http://www.arenes.fr/livres/pagelivre1.php?numero_livre=4&num_page=1

50 The FBI was also uninterested in identifying the owner of premonitory domain names on Internet: according to the registry company VeriSign, an unknown operator in 2000 bought for a year's period 19 Internet domain names, which would expire on 14 September 2001 and were never used. These were attackamerica.com, attackonamerica.com, attackontwintowers.com, august 11horror.com, august11terror.com, horrorinamerica.com, horrorinnewyork.com, nycterroriststrike.com, pearlharborinmanhattan.com, terrorattack200l .com, towerofhorror.com, tradetowerstrike.com, worldtradecente929.com, worldtradecenterbombs.com, worldtradetowerattack.com, worldtradetowerstrike.com. wterroristattack.com See 'Internet Domain Names May Have Warned of Attacks', and 'Investigators Can Access Internet Domain Data', by Jeff Johnson, CNS-News.Com, 19 and 20 September 2001: http://www.CNS-News.com


Political Deception