Here is a brand new article by Dr. David Ray Griffin,
which lists over 100 lies included in the official 9/11 Commission report.
This article is an excellent summary/companion to Dr. Griffin's newest book,
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. By the way,
this book, as well as Griffin's, The New Pearl Harbor, has sold
out and will be re-printed.
In the spirit of George Lakoff's excellent book, Don't
Think of an Elephant, most of us have worldviews which do not include
the possibility that our government could be so heinous as to be complicit
in the 9/11 attacks--in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
But Dr. Griffin's books have sold out, and as people are continually exposed
to the evidence, their worldview will change, eventually. Change happens.
So please do not hesitate to pass this information on to your
friends. We are only asking for a rigorous investigation into this matter.
For truth and peace,
Fran Shure
The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie
by Dr. David Ray Griffin
Posted: 9/11 Visibility Project -- Sunday, May 22, 2005
In discussing my second 9/11 book, The 9/11 Commission
Report: Omissions and Distortions, I have often said, only half in
jest, that a better title might have been "a 571-page lie." (Actually,
I was saying "a 567-page lie," because I was forgetting to count
the four pages of the Preface.) In making this statement, one of my points
has been that the entire Report is constructed in support of one big lie:
that the official story about 9/11 is true.
Another point, however, is that in the process of telling
this overall lie, The 9/11 Commission Report tells many lies about particular
issues. This point is implied by my critique's subtitle, "Omissions
and Distortions." It might be thought, to be sure, that of the two
types of problems signaled by those two terms, only those designated "distortions"
can be considered lies.
It is better, however, to understand the two terms as referring
to two types of lies: implicit and explicit. We have an explicit lie when
the Report claims that the core of each of the Twin Towers consisted of
a hollow steel shaft or when it claims that Vice President Cheney did not
give the shoot-down order until after 10:10 that morning. But we have an
implicit lie when the Commission, in its discussion of the 19 alleged suicide
hijackers, omits the fact that at least six of them have credibly been reported
to be still alive, or when it fails to mention the fact that Building 7
of the World Trade Center collapsed. Such omissions are implicit lies partly
because they show that the Commission did not honor its stated intention
"to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding
9/11." They are also lies insofar as the Commission could avoid telling
an explicit lie about the issue in question only by not mentioning it, which,
I believe, was the case in at least most instances.
Given these two types of lies, it might be wondered how many
lies are contained in The 9/11 Commission Report. I do not know. But, deciding
to see how many lies I had discussed in my book, I found that I had identified
over 100 of them. Once I had made the list, it occurred to me that others
might find this summary helpful. Hence this article.
One caveat: Although in some of the cases it is obvious that
the Commission has lied, in other cases I would say, as I make clear in
the book, that it appears that the Commission has lied. However, in the
interests of simply giving a brief listing of claims that I consider to
be lies, I will ignore this distinction between obvious and probable lies,
leaving it to readers, if they wish, to look up the discussion in The
9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. For ease in doing
this, I have parenthetically indicated the pages of the book on which the
various issues are discussed.
Given this clarification, I now list the omissions and claims
of The 9/11 Commission Report that I, in my critique of that report, portrayed
as lies:
1. The omission of evidence that at least six of the
alleged hijackers---including Waleed al-Shehri, said by the Commission
probably to have stabbed a flight attendant on Flight 11 before it crashed
into the North Tower of the WTC---are still alive (19-20).
2. The omission of evidence about Mohamed Atta---such as his
reported fondness for alcohol, pork, and lap dances---that is in tension
with the Commission's claim that he had become fanatically religious (20-21).
3. The obfuscation of the evidence that Hani Hanjour was too
poor a pilot to have flown an airliner into the Pentagon (21-22).
4. The omission of the fact that the publicly released
flight manifests contain no Arab names (23).
5. The omission of the fact that fire has never, before
or after 9/11, caused steel-frame buildings to collapse (25).
6. The omission of the fact that the fires in the Twin Towers
were not very big, very hot, or very long-lasting compared with fires in
several steel-frame buildings that did not collapse (25-26).
7. The omission of the fact that, given the hypothesis that
the collapses were caused by fire, the South Tower, which was struck later
than the North Tower and also had smaller fires, should not have collapsed
first (26).
8. The omission of the fact that WTC 7 (which
was not hit by an airplane and which had only small, localized fires)
also collapsed---an occurrence that FEMA admitted it could not
explain (26).
9. The omission of the fact that the collapse of the Twin
Towers (like that of Building 7) exemplified at least 10 features
suggestive of controlled demolition (26-27).
10. The claim that the core of each of the Twin Towers was
"a hollow steel shaft"---a claim that denied the existence of
the 47 massive steel columns that in reality constituted the core of each
tower and that, given the "pancake theory" of the collapses, should
have still been sticking up many hundreds of feet in the air (27-28).
11. The omission of Larry Silverstein's statement that he
and the fire department commander decided to "pull" Building 7
(28).
12. The omission of the fact that the steel from the WTC buildings
was quickly removed from the crime scene and shipped overseas before it
could be analyzed for evidence of explosives (30).
13. The omission of the fact that because Building 7 had been
evacuated before it collapsed, the official reason for the rapid removal
of the steel---that some people might still be alive in the rubble under
the steel---made no sense in this case (30).
14. The omission of Mayor Giuliani's statement that
he had received word that the World Trade Center was going to collapse
(30-31).
15. The omission of the fact that President Bush's
brother Marvin and his cousin Wirt Walker III were both principals in the
company in charge of security for the WTC (31-32).
16. The omission of the fact that the west wing of the Pentagon
would have been the least likely spot to be targeted by al-Qaeda terrorists,
for several reasons (33-34).
17. The omission of any discussion of whether the damage done
to the Pentagon was consistent with the impact of a Boeing 757 going several
hundred miles per hour (34).
18. The omission of the fact that there are photos showing
that the west wing's fagade did not collapse until 30 minutes after the
strike and also that the entrance hole appears too small for a Boeing 757
to have entered (34).
19. The omission of all testimony that has been used to cast
doubt on whether remains of a Boeing 757 were visible either inside or outside
the Pentagon (34-36).
20. The omission of any discussion of whether the Pentagon
has a anti-missile defense system that would have brought down a commercial
airliner---even though the Commission suggested that the al-Qaeda terrorists
did not attack a nuclear power plant because they assumed that it would
be thus defended (36).
21. The omission of the fact that pictures from various security
cameras---including the camera at the gas station across from the Pentagon,
the film from which was reportedly confiscated by the FBI immediately after
the strike---could presumably answer the question of what really hit the
Pentagon (37-38).
22. The omission of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's
reference to "the missile [used] to damage [the Pentagon]"
(39).
23. The apparent endorsement of a wholly unsatisfactory answer
to the question of why the Secret Service agents allowed President Bush
to remain at the Sarasota school at a time when, given the official story,
they should have assumed that a hijacked airliner might be about to crash
into the school (41-44).
24. The failure to explore why the Secret Service did not
summon fighter jets to provide air cover for Air Force One (43-46).
25. The claims that when the presidential party arrived at
the school, no one in the party knew that several planes had been hijacked
(47-48).
26. The omission of the report that Attorney General Ashcroft
was warned to stop using commercial airlines prior to 9/11 (50).
27. The omission of David Schippers' claim that he had, on
the basis of information provided by FBI agents about upcoming attacks in
lower Manhattan, tried unsuccessfully to convey this information to Attorney
General Ashcroft during the six weeks prior to 9/11 (51).
28. The omission of any mention of the FBI agents who reportedly
claimed to have known the targets and dates of the attacks well in advance
(51-52).
29. The claim, by means of a circular, question-begging rebuttal,
that the unusual purchases of put options prior to 9/11 did not imply advance
knowledge of the attacks on the part of the buyers (52-57).
30. The omission of reports that both Mayor Willie
Brown and some Pentagon officials received warnings about flying on 9/11
(57).
31. The omission of the report that Osama bin Laden, who already
was America's "most wanted" criminal, was treated in July 2001
by an American doctor in the American Hospital in Dubai and visited by the
local CIA agent (59).
32. The omission of news stories suggesting that after 9/11
the US military in Afghanistan deliberately allowed Osama bin Laden
to escape (60).
33. The omission of reports, including the report of a visit
to Osama bin Laden at the hospital in Dubai by the head of Saudi intelligence,
that were in tension with the official portrayal of Osama as disowned by
his family and his country (60-61).
34. The omission of Gerald Posner's account of Abu
Zubaydah's testimony, according to which three members
of the Saudi royal family---all of whom later died mysteriously within an
eight-day period---were funding al-Qaeda and had advance
knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (61-65).
35. The Commission's denial that it found any evidence of
Saudi funding of al-Qaeda (65-68).
36. The Commission's denial in particular that it found any
evidence that money from Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, went to al-Qaeda
operatives (69-70).
37. The denial, by means of simply ignoring the distinction
between private and commercial flights, that the private flight carrying
Saudis from Tampa to Lexington on September 13 violated the rules for US
airspace in effect at the time (71-76).
38. The denial that any Saudis were allowed to leave the United
States shortly after 9/11 without being adequately investigated (76-82).
39. The omission of evidence that Prince Bandar obtained special
permission from the White House for the Saudi flights (82-86).
40. The omission of Coleen Rowleys claim that some officials
at FBI headquarters did see the memo from Phoenix agent Kenneth Williams
(89-90).
41. The omission of Chicago FBI agent Robert Wright's charge
that FBI headquarters closed his case on a terrorist cell, then used intimidation
to prevent him from publishing a book reporting his experiences (91).
42. The omission of evidence that FBI headquarters sabotaged
the attempt by Coleen Rowley and other Minneapolis agents to obtain a warrant
to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer (91-94).
43. The omission of the 3.5 hours of testimony to the Commission
by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds'-testimony that,
according to her later public letter to Chairman Kean, revealed serious
9/11-related cover-ups by officials at FBI headquarters (94-101).
44. The omission of the fact that General Mahmoud Ahmad, the
head of Pakistan's intelligence agency (the ISI), was in Washington the
week prior to 9/11, meeting with CIA chief George Tenet and other US officials
(103-04).
45. The omission of evidence that ISI chief Ahmad had ordered
$100,000 to be sent to Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11 (104-07).
46. The Commission's claim that it found no evidence that
any foreign government, including Pakistan, had provided funding for the
al-Qaeda operatives (106).
47. The omission of the report that the Bush administration
pressured Pakistan to dismiss Ahmad as ISI chief after the appearance of
the story that he had ordered ISI money sent to Atta (107-09).
48. The omission of evidence that the ISI (and not merely
al-Qaeda) was behind the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood (the leader
of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance), which occurred just after the week-long
meeting between the heads of the CIA and the ISI (110-112).
49. The omission of evidence of ISI involvement in the kidnapping
and murder of Wall Street Reporter Daniel Pearl (113).
50. The omission of Gerald Posners report that Abu Zubaydah
claimed that a Pakistani military officer, Mushaf Ali Mir, was closely connected
to both the ISI and al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks
(114).
51. The omission of the 1999 prediction by ISI agent
Rajaa Gulum Abbas that the Twin Towers would be "coming down"
(114).
52. The omission of the fact that President Bush and other
members of his administration repeatedly spoke of the 9/11 attacks as "opportunities"
(116-17).
53. The omission of the fact that The Project for
the New American Century, many members of which became key figures
in the Bush administration, published a document in 2000 saying that "a
new Pearl Harbor" would aid its goal of obtaining funding
for a rapid technological transformation of the US military (117-18).
54. The omission of the fact that Donald Rumsfeld, who as
head of the commission on the US Space Command had recommended increased
funding for it, used the attacks of 9/11 on that very evening to secure
such funding (119-22).
55. The failure to mention the fact that three of the men
who presided over the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks-Secretary Rumsfeld,
General Richard Myers, and General Ralph Eberhart---were also three of the
strongest advocates for the US Space Command (122).
56. The omission of the fact that Unocal had declared that
the Taliban could not provide adequate security for it to go ahead with
its oil-and-gas pipeline from the Caspian region through Afghanistan and
Pakistan (122-25).
57. The omission of the report that at a meeting in July 2001,
US representatives said that because the Taliban refused to agree to a US
proposal that would allow the pipeline project to go forward, a war against
them would begin by October (125-26).
58. The omission of the fact that Zbigniew Brzezinski
in his 1997 book had said that for the United States to
maintain global primacy, it needed to gain control of Central Asia, with
its vast petroleum reserves, and that a new Pearl Harbor would be
helpful in getting the US public to support this imperial effort (127-28).
59. The omission of evidence that some key members of the
Bush administration, including Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz,
had been agitating for a war with Iraq for many years (129-33).
60. The omission of notes of Rumsfeld's conversations on 9/11
showing that he was determined to use the attacks as a pretext for a war
with Iraq (131-32).
61. The omission of the statement by the Project for the New
American Century that the need for a substantial American force presence
in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein (133-34).
62. The claim that FAA protocol on 9/11 required the time-consuming
process of going through several steps in the chain of command--even though
the Report cites evidence to the contrary (158).
63. The claim that in those days there were only two air force
bases in NORAD's Northeast sector that kept fighters on alert and that,
in particular, there were no fighters on alert at either McGuire or Andrews
(159-162).
64. The omission of evidence that Andrews Air Force Base did
keep several fighters on alert at all times (162-64).
65. The acceptance of the twofold claim that Colonel Marr
of NEADS had to telephone a superior to get permission to have fighters
scrambled from Otis and that this call required eight minutes (165-66).
66. The endorsement of the claim that the loss of an airplane's
transponder signal makes it virtually impossible for the US military's radar
to track that plane (166-67).
67. The claim that the Payne Stewart interception did not
show NORAD's response time to Flight 11 to be extraordinarily slow (167-69).
68. The claim that the Otis fighters were not airborne until
seven minutes after they received the scramble order because they did not
know where to go (174-75).
69. The claim that the US military did not know about the
hijacking of Flight 175 until 9:03, when it was crashing into the South
Tower (181-82).
70. The omission of any explanation of (a) why NORADs earlier
report, according to which the FAA had notified the military about the hijacking
of Flight 175 at 8:43, was now to be considered false and (b) how this report,
if it was false, could have been published and then left uncorrected for
almost three years (182).
71. The claim that the FAA did not set up a teleconference
until 9:20 that morning (183).
72. The omission of the fact that a memo by Laura Brown of
the FAA says that its teleconference was established at about 8:50 and that
it included discussion of Flight 175's hijacking (183-84, 186).
73. The claim that the NMCC teleconference did not begin until
9:29 (186-88).
74. The omission, in the Commission's claim that Flight 77
did not deviate from its course until 8:54, of the fact that earlier reports
had said 8:46 (189-90).
75. The failure to mention that the report that a large jet
had crashed in Kentucky, at about the time Flight 77 disappeared from FAA
radar, was taken seriously enough by the heads of the FAA and the FBI's
counterterrorism unit to be relayed to the White House (190).
76. The claim that Flight 77 flew almost 40 minutes through
American airspace towards Washington without being detected by the military's
radar (191-92).
77. The failure to explain, if NORADs earlier report that
it was notified about Flight 77 at 9:24 was "incorrect," how this
erroneous report could have arisen, i.e., whether NORAD officials had been
lying or simply confused for almost three years (192-93).
78. The claim that the Langley fighter jets, which NORAD had
previously said were scrambled to intercept Flight 77, were actually scrambled
in response to an erroneous report from an (unidentified) FAA controller
at 9:21 that Flight 11 was still up and was headed towards Washington (193-99).
79. The claim that the military did not hear from the FAA
about the probable hijacking of Flight 77 before the Pentagon was struck
(204-12).
80. The claim that Jane Garvey did not join Richard Clarke's
videoconference until 9:40, after the Pentagon was struck (210).
81. The claim that none of the teleconferences succeeded in
coordinating the FAA and military responses to the hijackings because "none
of [them] included the right officials from both the FAA and the Defense
Department"---although Richard Clarke says that his videoconference
included FAA head Jane Garvey as well as Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and
General Richard Myers, the acting chair of the joint chiefs of staff (211).
82. The Commission's claim that it did not know who from the
Defense Department participated in Clarke's videoconference---although Clarke's
book said that it was Donald Rumsfeld and General Myers (211-212).
83. The endorsement of General Myers' claim that he was on
Capitol Hill during the attacks, without mentioning Richard Clarke's contradictory
account, according to which Myers was in the Pentagon participating in Clarke's
videoconference (213-17).
84. The failure to mention the contradiction between Clarke's
account of Rumsfeld's whereabouts that morning and Rumsfeld's own accounts
(217-19).
85. The omission of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's
testimony, given to the Commission itself, that Vice-President Cheney and
others in the underground shelter were aware by 9:26 that an aircraft was
approaching the Pentagon (220).
86. The claim that Pentagon officials did not know about an
aircraft approaching Pentagon until 9:32, 9:34, or 9:36---in any case, only
a few minutes before the building was hit (223).
87. The endorsement of two contradictory stories about the
aircraft that hit the Pentagon---one in which it executed a 330-degree downward
spiral (a "high-speed dive") and another in which there is no
mention of this maneuver (222-23).
88. The claim that the fighter jets from Langley, which were
allegedly scrambled to protect Washington from "Phantom Flight 11,"
were nowhere near Washington because they were mistakenly sent out to sea
(223-24).
89. The omission of all the evidence suggesting that the aircraft
that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77 (224-25).
90. The claim that the military was not notified by the FAA
about Flight 93's hijacking until after it crashed (227-29, 232, 253).
91. The twofold claim that the NMCC did not monitor the FAA-initiated
conference and then was unable to get the FAA connected to the NMCC-initiated
teleconference (230-31).
92. The omission of the fact that the Secret Service is able
to know everything that the FAA knows (233).
93. The omission of any inquiry into why the NMCC initiated
its own teleconference if, as Laura Brown of the FAA has said, this is not
standard protocol (234).
94. The omission of any exploration of why General Montague
Winfield not only had a rookie (Captain Leidig) take over his role as the
NMCC's Director of Operations but also left him in charge after it was clear
that the Pentagon was facing an unprecedented crisis (235-36).
95. The claim that the FAA (falsely) notified the Secret Service
between 10:10 and 10:15 that Flight 93 was still up and headed towards Washington
(237).
96. The claim that Vice President Cheney did not give the
shoot-down authorization until after 10:10 (several minutes after Flight
93 had crashed) and that this authorization was not transmitted to the US
military until 10:31 (237-41).
97. The omission of all the evidence indicating that
Flight 93 was shot down by a military plane (238-39, 252-53).
98. The claim that Richard Clarke did not receive the requested
shoot-down authorization until 10:25 (240).
99. The omission of Clarke's own testimony, which suggests
that he received the shoot-down authorization by 9:50 (240).
100. The claim that Cheney did not reach the underground shelter
(the PEOC [Presidential Emergency Operations Center]) until 9:58 (241-44).
101. The omission of multiple testimony, including that of
Norman Mineta to the Commission itself, that Cheney was in the PEOC before
9:20 (241-44).
102. The claim that shoot-down authorization must be given
by the president (245).
103. The omission of reports that Colonel Marr ordered a shoot-down
of Flight 93 and that General Winfield indicated that he and others at the
NMCC had expected a fighter jet to reach Flight 93 (252).
104. The omission of reports that there were two fighter jets
in the air a few miles from NYC and three of them only 200 miles from Washington
(251).
105. The omission of evidence that there were at least six
bases with fighters on alert in the northeastern part of the United States
(257-58).
106. The endorsement of General Myers' claim that NORAD had
defined its mission in terms of defending only against threats from abroad
(258-62).
107. The endorsement of General Myers' claim that NORAD had
not recognized the possibility that terrorists might use hijacked airliners
as missiles (262-63).
108. The failure to highlight the significance of evidence
presented in the Report itself, and to mention other evidence, showing that
NORAD had indeed recognized the threat that hijacked airliners might be
used as missiles (264-67).
109. The failure to probe the issue of how the "war games"
scheduled for that day were related to the military's failure to intercept
the hijacked airliners (268-69).
110. The failure to discuss the possible relevance of Operation
Northwoods to the attacks of 9/11 (269-71).
111. The claim---made in explaining why the military did not
get information about the hijackings in time to intercept them---that FAA
personnel inexplicably failed to follow standard procedures some 16 times
(155-56, 157, 179, 180, 181, 190, 191, 193, 194, 200, 202-03, 227, 237,
272-75).
112. The failure to point out that the Commission's claimed
"independence" was fatally compromised by the fact that its executive
director, Philip Zelikow, was virtually a
member of the Bush administration (7-9, 11-12, 282-84).
113. The failure to point out that the White House first sought
to prevent the creation of a 9/11 Commission, then placed many obstacles
in its path, including giving it extremely meager funding (283-85).
114. The failure to point out that the Commission's chairman,
most of the other commissioners, and at least half of the staff had serious
conflicts of interest (285-90, 292-95).
115. The failure of the Commission, while bragging that it
presented its final report "without dissent," to point out that
this was probably possible only because Max Cleland, the
commissioner who was most critical of the White House and swore that he
would not be part of "looking at information only partially,"
had to resign in order to accept a position with the Export-Import
Bank, and that the White House forwarded his nomination for this position
only after he was becoming quite outspoken in his criticisms (290-291).
I will close by pointing out that I concluded my study of
what I came to call "the Kean-Zelikow Report" by writing that
it, "far from lessening my suspicions about official complicity, has
served to confirm them. Why would the minds in charge of this final report
engage in such deception if they were not trying to cover up very high crimes?"
(291)
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