Hey, scorp,
Didn’t see your post there before I did my last one.
I like the tie-in with Horse to a joke! He’s a joke that even…....he doesn’t….......get? Remind you of anyone? Two word clue: John. Kerry.
Two word clue, psikeyhackr:
Evi
dense
Spellcheck…..clean up on page 16!
Posted by Natalie on Nov 4, 2006 at 10:25 AM
Well Scorpy at least you could spell psikeyhackrs name correctly….
Still making excuses for your fellow troll nata-lie…..
With all the ” foot shootin’ ” going on with the republicans…now a big time republican evangelist minister has declared that ; yes, he bought the meth…but didn’t smoke it…and only contacted the dealer( a gay male escort whore) ,for a MASSAGE….ok…...
One can never tell what is going on with yu extremist types…....
How come all your top personalities have serious personality disorders, that have something to do with closeted homosexual behavior…children…and drugs….?
Scorpy…yu have nothing too gloat about , your boys are imploding….
Apparently you and yours is the joke…you’re all a bunch of under-cover drug using homosexuals…..
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…...
And Natalie…what a bitch…two trolling meth -heads for the entertainment value only they as faithful neo-con fascist could or would want to know….
What perverted realities lurk in the vast darkness of the neo-cons psychotic sexual mindset…
Feasting off of each others droppings .wallowing in the fallaciousness of their own fecal mismanaged agendas…not yet coming too realize….how disgusting they are…..........ugh.
ps…Sorry Natalie…my apologizes…Redhorse forgot your drug of preference is depleted Uranium dust…..
In the olden days when Immortals
To earth came visibly down,
There went a youth with an Angel
Through the gate of an Eastern town;
They passed a dog by the roadside,
Where dead and rotting it lay,
And the youth, at the ghastly odour,
Sickened and turned away.
He gathered his robes about him,
And hastily hurried thence;
But nought annoyed the Angel’s
Clear, pure,immortal sense.
.....................................................................
By came a lady , lip luscious,
On delicate, mincing feet;
All the place grew glad with her presence,
All the air about her sweet ;
For she came in fragrance floating,
And her voice most silverly rang ;
And the youth, to embrace her beauty ,
With all his being sprang.
A sweet, delightsome lady ;
And yet , the Legend saith,
The Angel , while he passed her,
Shuddered and held his breath !
Gerald Massey…originally Circa 1900…...
Posted by Redhorse on Nov 4, 2006 at 10:39 AM
mmmmmm…....depleted uranium dust
yummy!!
I think psycho-hacker’s stuck back on pg. 15.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 4, 2006 at 11:27 AM
Hi guys and gals.
Ive been gone a few days and I see I missed out but not of anything much.
psikeyhackr
If you are interested in the WTC towers here is just a short list I have put together over the last 5 years. I hope this will help. No you will not find much in the NIST report that should be there and yes there is much that is just junk that really does not need to be in the report.
“First tenant occupancy of the 110-story north tower (WTC 1) was in December 1970, and occupancy of the 110-story south tower (WTC 2) began in January 1972. The other WTC buildings were constructed during the 1970s and into the 1980s, with WTC 7 constructed just north of the WTC site in 1985. WTC 3, located immediately west of the south tower, was a 22-story hotel operated by the Marriott Corporation. WTC 4 and 5 were nine-story office buildings, and WTC 6 was an eight-story office building. WTC 7 was a 47- story office building. The seven-building complex provided approximately 12 million square feet of rentable floor space occupied by a variety of government and commercial tenants”
“Height: 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 meters)
Owners: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
(99 year leased signed in April 2001 to groups including Westfield America and Silverstein Properties)
Architect: Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth and Sons consulting
Engineer: John Skilling and Leslie Robertson of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson
Ground Breaking: August 5, 1966
Opened: 1970-73; April 4, 1973 ribbon cutting
Destroyed: Terrorist attack, September 11, 2001”
“There is no question that an important, yet overlooked, hero of 9/11, was the structural redundancy built into the framing of the Twin Towers,” says Schuring. “Structural redundancy means there are multiple load paths to sustain the building weight. This redundancy provided precious time for thousands of workers to escape. And although it’s not technically feasible to design a skyscraper to be invulnerable from impact by fully fueled jetliners, as design professionals we must develop improved details and systems that provide ever-greater protection against progressive collapse such as what occurred at the WTC site”
“On September 13, 2001, the cover of the New Civil Engineer in the UK consisted of a picture 1 WTC during its collapse with a single word written across it: “unthinkable”. “Just hours earlier, it had been genuinely inconceivable that structures of such magnitude could succumb to this fate.”
“Leslie E. Robertson, the lead structural engineer on the team that designed the towers, wrote that “The events of September 11 are not well understood by me . . . and perhaps cannot really be understood by anyone.” As NIST would also conclude”
“It was estimated by the Port Authority that the population of the WTC complex on September 11, 2001, was 58,000 people. “
“It was assumed in the 1960s design analysis for the WTC towers that an aircraft, lost in fog and seeking to land at a nearby airport, like the B-25 Mitchell bomber that struck the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, might strike a WTC tower while low on fuel and at landing speeds.”
“Boeing 707 considered by the designers, weighed 263,000 pounds and the Boeing 767s that hit the towers weighed about 274,000 pounds. This is a difference of 4%. ...Incidently, the maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 707 is 336,000 pounds. The maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 767-200ER is 395,000 pounds.”
“1,000,000 t of rubble will require 20,000 to 30,000 truckloads to haul away the material. The asbestos fire insulation makes the task hazardous for those working nearby. Interestingly, the approximately 300,000 t of steel is fully recyclable and represents only one day’s production of the U.S. steel industry. Separation of the stone and concrete is a common matter for modern steel shredders. The land-filling of 700,000 t of concrete and stone rubble is more problematic. “
In the upper floors there is as much as 40,000 square feet of office space per floor. The floor construction is of prefabricated trussed steel, only 33 inches in depth, that spans the full 60 feet to the core, and also acts as a diaphragm to stiffen the outside wall against lateral buckling forces from wind-load pressures.”
“To a structural engineer, a skyscraper is modeled as a large cantilever vertical column. Each tower was 64 m square, standing 411 m above street level and 21 m below grade. This produces a height-to-width ratio of 6.8. The total weight of the structure was roughly 500,000 t, but wind load, rather than the gravity load, dominated the design. The building is a huge sail that must resist a 225 km/h hurricane. It was designed to resist a wind load of 2 kPa—-a total of lateral load of 5,000 t.”
And so you can reach a fare opinion your self I have a small list from both sides, well mostly from the supporters of the government myth for they need all the help they can get. Though Natalie is doing all she can to support the LIE but she could do better if she came up with an explanation for building seven.
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation
Published in JOM by Thomas Eagar and Christopher Musso, 2001
Feature: Special Report
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/...Eagar-0112.html
An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7
Published in JOM by J.R. Barnett, R.R. Biederman, and R.D. Sisson, Jr., 2001
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/...erman-0112.html
Another site I frequented:
http://www.iti.northwestern.edu/research/wtc/index.html
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_t…ld_Trade_Center
World Trade Center - Some Engineering Aspects - Civil Engineering - The University of Sydney [info about the WTC’s]:
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.shtml
911 Research:
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian/WTC/WTC_ch1.htm
New Jersey Institute of Technology Civil Engineering Professor Details How the Towers Collapsed; the Impact of 9/11 on Civil Engineers, Professors, Students:
http://www.njit.edu/v2/News/Releases/254.html
psikeyhackr it is very important to know the exact details such as the amount of steel and ect..
Lord Kelvin:
“I often say . . . that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 3:07 PM
Natalie
Thank you for your response.
You said:
Some people in and out of government speculated early on that steel in the towers may have melted.
I just read again their reports and watched and read again their interviews and watched the videos that went step by step with their reports. They are not speculating they are saying it as a fact that the jet fuel was so hot it melted the steel—-like rubber or chewing gum and ect.. Some much worse!
I strongly suggest that you try doing that and I would be amazed if you were not angry at the insult to the American peoples intelligence. It made me so upset that it brought me to tears. Please Natalie try it so you can be reminded of the lies. Please, please so you can see all of the early lies such as the construction of the WTC buildings and ect..
Those lies have still infected the minds of some people to this day! Didnt you just one week ago reference to an article that was based on lies, omissions and distortions?
It’s easy to see how—they say at the outset that their analysis is based on an assumption—that the temperature of the steel “apparently” reached 800 degrees celsius, or 1472 degrees fahrenheit, meaning the steel would have been red hot. A jet fuel fire burning in open air as in the towers would only reach a maximum of 1200 degrees fahrenheit, and we know from photos taken of the impact zone that people were walking around inside the very area where the fires are supposed to have been raging so fiercely that Bazant and Zhou believe the steel could have been raised to red hot temperatures. No serious scientist is still quoting that nonsensical paper that they put out two days after the collapses, and why you would not know this is beyond me. Try again, And please don’t try to seize the moral high ground—you are either incredibly ignorant or intentionally trying to deceive readers of this thread with reference to discredited work.
Re Prof. Bazant’s paper, this line from the bottom of page 3 sure gives one a lot of confidence - not!
“Therefore, no further analysis has been necessary to prove that the WTC towers had to fall the way they did.”
I watched his latest video with Bazant trying to explain his bulls**t how can you not see what a joke this guiy is?
You are so confused. Look at this clown, half way through he admits he had to make up his data because he didn’t have the actual figures.
Did you even listen to this clown? This is the OFFICIAL representation?
Hilarious!
Ha! This guy totally debunks his own story.
Shows a slide, written ON THE SLIDE. Says building collapsed in 9 seconds (uh-oh, I thought the debunkers debunked that- now what?)
The official story disregards physics. What do you think about that??
In the above links you will see the quotes used just as I had or Jones and ect.. But they are being used by the supporters of the government myth. They used them before I or Jones and ect had used them and they used them in the same way. Such as this:
“One demolition expert on the day of the collapse said it looked like implosion but this is not very strong evidence. Implosion firstly requires a lot of explosives placed in strategic areas all around the building. When and how was this explosive placed in the building without anyone knowing about it. Second, implosion required more than just explosives. Demolition experts spend weeks inside a derelict building planning an event. Many of the beams are cut through by about 90% so that the explosion only has to break a small bit of steel. In this state the building is highly dangerous, and there is no way such a prepared building could still be running day to day like WTC was.”
Natalie you will find that seven times the same quotes were used (before Jones even thought of looking into it like he was asked) by supporters of the government myth. Im sure the idea was to bring them up (the quotes) before anyone else did so they could excuse them with lame garbage.
You said:
If he stated that he thought there was a possibility, given the variety of materials and fire scenarios in the offices, that some degree of melting of some steel could possibly have occurred, then that would be a completely different matter.
Natalie what are you thinking? It is not able to happen at all and even NIST agrees!!!!!!!! Once again you are going against NIST and therefor the government myth. That is why their whole argument depends solely on the majority of fireproofing being removed so as to allow the now admited much cooler fires to affect the steel. But even with no fireproofing at all the fires still were not hot enough nor did they last long enough to affect the steel so as to cause symmetrical collapse. let alone the fact that the building acted like a giant heat sink. NIST canot and has not explained the steel that was found at all three WTC sites.
Yes I know about the latest hypothesis (another try) is this: oxygen tanks from planes somehow survived the plane crashes and the fireballs, yet leaked about an hour later to release the oxygen in the tanks. This relatively small amount of oxygen was somehow enough, to burn office materials such as to melt the structural steel in the building.
NIST would have gone with it to if so many people (true patriots) hadnt argued the high improbability of this ever happening! Greening has gone off the deep end trying to support the government myth as well for it cant be done a LIE is a LIE is a LIE!!! Besides it doesnt explain building 7. They are in deep with the admited low probability of the fire causing the collapse of the World Trade Centers and they know it.
it’s just like the magic bullet theory now we have the magically hot fires theory. They both go against the laws of science physics in particular.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 3:10 PM
Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war
Julian Borger
London Guardian
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Several prominent neoconservatives have turned on George Bush days before critical midterm elections, lambasting his administration for incompetence in the handling of the Iraq war and questioning the wisdom of the 2003 invasion they were instrumental in promoting.
Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, who were both Pentagon advisers before the war, Michael Rubin, a former senior official in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, were among the neoconservatives who recanted to Vanity Fair magazine in an article that could influence Tuesday’s battle for the control of Congress. The Iraq war has been the dominant issue in the election.
“I think the influence will be on morale [among Republicans],” said Steven Clemons, the head of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation. “I think they are confusing the right. What this is yielding is ambivalence, and people will stay at home.”
Mr Perle, a member of the influential Defence Policy Board that advised the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, in the run-up to the war, is as outspoken in denouncing the conduct of the war as he was once bullish on the invasion. He blamed “dysfunction” in the Bush administration for the present quagmire.
“The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly,” Mr Perle told Vanity Fair, according to early excerpts of the article. “At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.”
Asked if he would still have pushed for war knowing what he knows now, Mr Perle, a leading hawk in the Reagan administration, said: “I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, ‘Should we go into Iraq?’, I think now I probably would have said, ‘No, let’s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists’.” The Bush administration admits it was mistaken in believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but the president and other top officials maintain that Iraq is better off as a result of his removal.
An overwhelming majority of Americans, however, now believe the war was not worth the cost in blood and resources. The public rethink by top neocons comes at a time of rising violence, with the US death toll climbing steadily towards 3,000 and the United Nations estimating that many Iraqis may be being killed by the conflict each month.
Kenneth Adelman, another Reagan era hawk who sat on the Defence Policy Board until last year, drew attention with a 2002 commentary in the Washington Post predicting that liberating Iraq would be a “cakewalk”.
He now says he hugely overestimated the abilities of the Bush team. “I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent,” Mr Adelman said.
“They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”
He too takes back his public urging for military action, in light of the administration’s performance. “I guess that’s what I would have said: that Bush’s arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked ‘can’t do’. And that’s very different from ‘let’s go’.”
Mr Adelman, a senior Reagan adviser at cold war summits with Mikhail Gorbachev, expressed particular disappointment in Mr Rumsfeld, who he described as a particular friend. “I’m crushed by his performance,” he said. “Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don’t know. He certainly fooled me.”
Mr Adelman said the guiding principle behind neoconservatism, “the idea of using our power for moral good in the world”, had been killed off for a generation at least. After Iraq, he told Vanity Fair, “it’s not going to sell”.
Michael Rubin, who worked on the staff of the Pentagon’s office of special plans and the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad, accused Mr Bush of betraying Iraqi reformers.
The president’s actions, Mr Rubin said, had been “not much different from what his father did on February 15 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up and then had second thoughts and didn’t do anything once they did”.
Mr Frum, who as a White House speechwriter helped coin the phrase “axis of evil” in 2002, said failure in Iraq might be inescapable, because “the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them”. The blame, Mr Frum said, lies with “failure at the centre”, beginning with the president.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 4:40 PM
Those neocon—-neo-Nazis are only following the game plan with their lies about blaming it all on Bush and his administration. It was always in the plans to have a long term conflict in Iraq as an excuse to maintain those huge bases. There was absolutely no incompetence for he did what he and his administration was supposed to and now he will take the blame it’s not like it is going to hurt him. it’ll just be the same old story Bush isn’t that bright and he just dropped ball on Iraq ect, ect..
It’s just a cover for the true powers in control who are using the willing idiot and scapegoat Bush.
I think the elites WANT democrats to win this election.
It will make people think they have “demanded change”, when democrats instead give us the status quo. The media will no doubt be falling all over telling the world how the “people have spoken” as the dems “take back” the house and/or senate.
Democrats winning will put lots of people back to sleep, thinking that they’ve “done all they can” and we’ll just have to “wait for congress to do something”.
In the next few weeks the phony left/right paradigm will be exploited in the media like you’ve never seen before. Then we will get nothing, not a peep, out of the democrats for the next two years and beyond!
New Documents Show U.S. War Game in 1999 Predicted Iraq Disaster
AP
Sunday, November 5, 2006
WASHINGTON The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.
In its “Desert Crossing” games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University’s National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.
“The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops,” said Thomas Blanton, the archive’s director. “But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground.”
There are currently about 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak of about 160,000 in January.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command, which sponsored the seminar and declassified the secret report in 2004, declined to comment Saturday because she was not familiar with the documents.
The war games looked at “worst case” and “most likely” scenarios after a war that removed then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. Some are similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:
—“A change in regimes does not guarantee stability,” the 1999 seminar briefings said. “A number of factors including aggressive neighbors, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability.”
—“Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic - especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments.”
—“Iran’s anti-Americanism could be enflamed by a U.S.-led intervention in Iraq,” the briefings read. “The influx of U.S. and other western forces into Iraq would exacerbate worries in Tehran, as would the installation of a pro-western government in Baghdad.”
—“The debate on post-Saddam Iraq also reveals the paucity of information about the potential and capabilities of the external Iraqi opposition groups. The lack of intelligence concerning their roles hampers U.S. policy development.”
—“Also, some participants believe that no Arab government will welcome the kind of lengthy U.S. presence that would be required to install and sustain a democratic government.”
—“A long-term, large-scale military intervention may be at odds with many coalition partners.”
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 4:55 PM
Neocons Make Excuses for Mass Murder
In America, instead of facing justice, criminals from up high usually write memoirs, or become “elder statesmen,” and are interviewed, settling comfortably into the historical record, either oblivious to or proud of the swathe of blood and gore that enshrouds them.
For instance, take the neocons, who should be filling up the docket at the Hague for plotting and executing the invasion and occupation of Iraq—current death total, 650,000, with millions floundering in abject misery—but are instead allowed to walk free and talk freely with David Rose, Vanity Fair contributing editor.
Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, Michael Rubin, Eliot Cohen—these comprise the very marrow of the neocon criminal camarilla. Rose interviews them as one would interview any petty bureaucrat (Adolf Eichmann comes to mind). Rose’s article, or the short preview here, casts the neocons as pentiti, the Italian word for those who have repented.
Well, sort of, as the sociopath rarely repents, but instead blames others, as the neocons blame Bush and his obsequious followers and lackluster appointees, all outside the neocon circle.
For instance, Richard Perle, long considered the Prince of Darkness (apologies to film director Tatsuo Sato), now tells us the “levels of brutality [in Iraq] that we’ve seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity.” In other words, according to Perle, once the civil underpinnings were pulled out from beneath Iraq—by way of depleted uranium-enhanced bunker buster and cruise missile—the result surprised even him, a seasoned psychopath, experienced dissembler, and traitor (as “an Israeli agent of influence” caught “discussing classified information with someone at the Israeli embassy” in 1970, according to Paul Findley).
“According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush,” writes Rose, avoiding mention of Perle’s obvious conflict of interest with the Defense Policy Board, thus resulting in his resignation—according to ace investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Perle had business dealings with Saudi investors and was linked to the intelligence-related computer firm Trireme Partners LLP, which Hersh claimed stood to profit from the war in Iraq. In other words, the more depravity and the longer the United States “stays the course,” the more cabbage for the Prince of Darkness.
Had Perle possessed “delphic” vision, he tells Rose, “he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq.” Back in the day, when Perle was the “Study Group Leader” of the gang that crafted the “Clean Break” document, originally presented to the Likudite leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, a direct invasion of Iraq was not called for either, but it was certainly alluded to, and a couple years later, in an open letter to Clinton, Perle and clan declared the removal of Saddam Hussein “now needs to become the aim of American diplomacy.” Call it gunboat diplomacy, or maybe cruise missile diplomacy. Perle and the neocons were not asking for a polite tête-à-tête between Clinton and Hussein, resulting in a step-down for the dictator.
Naturally, when things went bad, as they invariably do when Goliath takes on David, the neocons turned on their impaired puppet, George Bush, who is essentially a drug and alcohol dilapidated mental wreck, a haphazardly chosen front man. It is perfectly within the malicious personality of the neocon to turn on a nominal and expendable leader when things get tough and do not go exactly as planned.
“Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I’m getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war,” whines Perle, unable to accept his role in massive war crimes, a bloody attainment close to rivaling the crimes of the Nazis (all told, with Bush Senior and Bubba Clinton on the mass murder roster, more than 3 million Iraqis have died, and an incalculable number of others, mostly helpless children, will die horrible deaths for the indeterminable future as depleted uranium takes its ghastly toll).
For his participation, Perle should face a tribunal and then a firing squad—but then so should the traitor Bush, his old man, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Clinton, and the neocons numbered above.
Instead, they will be interviewed, courted, cajoled, paid handsomely by various franchises, and will likely never face justice.
In Pax Americana, that’s how the ball bounces, and long as it continues to bounce without aberration, the criminals will be treated as celebrities and “elder statesmen,” at large to write their extenuating memoirs, taking six figure advances while the children of Iraq suffer endless birth deformities (the half life of depleted uranium is 4.5 billion years).
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 5:04 PM
4 Leading Military Papers: ‘Rumsfeld Must Go’
Editor & Publisher
Saturday, November 4, 2006
NEW YORK An editorial set to appear on Monday—election eve—in the four leading newspapers for the military calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The papers are the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. President Bush said this week that he wanted Rumsfeld to serve out the next two years.
“We say that Rumsfeld must be replaced,” Alex Neill, the managing editor of the Army Times, told The Virginian-Pilot Friday night. “Given the state of affairs with Iraq and the military right now, we think it’s a good time for new leadership there.”
The editorial was based on a decision of the publications’ editorial board, Neill told the paper.
The timing of the editorial was coincidental, Neill said.
But he added, “President Bush came out and said that Donald Rumsfeld is in for the duration … so it’s just a timely issue for us. And our position is that it is not the best course for the military” for Rumsfeld to remain the Pentagon chief.
Neill said he was uncertain how troops will react. “I think we’ll hear from both sides,” he said. “It will be interesting to find out if it swings significantly one way or the other.”
The Ross Report at the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle posted the advance text of the editorial tonight, and this was cited by MSNBC. Andrew S. Ross is executive foreign and national editor of the paper. Here is the text, as posted, under the heading, “Time for Rumsfeld to go.”
*
“So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the “hard bruising” truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “mission accomplished,” the insurgency is “in its last throes,” and “back off,” we know what we’re doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 5:13 PM
The U.S. Administration is terribly guilty of so many things already, and it does not need 9/11 to show that. For example, Bush and Co. have openly admitted to authorizing prisoner abuse, have been exposed via intelligence leak for illegal domestic spying, have clearly lied about WMDs in Iraq, have even planned to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan well before 9/11 (declassified in the National Security Archives)
So far, she says, no investigators have come knocking. Not from the Central Intelligence Agency, which conducted an internal inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the congressional intelligence committees, not from the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly looking into the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated, distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda terrorists and its possession of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds several pieces of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career officers recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not been approached by anyone.
Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the Pentagon’s Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq’s weapons and ties to terrorists. “It wasn’t intelligence‚—it was propaganda,” she says. “They’d take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don’t belong together.” It was by turning such bogus intelligence into talking points for U.S. officials‚—including ominous lines in speeches by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell’s testimony at the U.N. Security Council last February‚—that the administration pushed American public opinion into supporting an unnecessary war.
the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq through the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department’s war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans.
A close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion.
The reports, virtually all false, of Iraqi weapons and terrorism ties emanated from an apparatus that began to gestate almost as soon as the Bush administration took power. In the very first meeting of the Bush national-security team, one day after President Bush took the oath of office in January 2001, the issue of invading Iraq was raised, according to one of the participants in the meeting‚—and officials all the way down the line started to get the message, long before 9/11. Indeed, the Bush team at the Pentagon hadn’t even been formally installed before Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense, and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, began putting together what would become the vanguard for regime change in Iraq.
Both Wolfowitz and Feith have deep roots in the neoconservative movement. One of the most influential Washington neo- conservatives in the foreign-policy establishment during the Republicans’ wilderness years of the 1990s, Wolfowitz has long held that not taking Baghdad in 1991 was a grievous mistake. He and others now prominent in the administration said so repeatedly over the past decade in a slew of letters and policy papers from neoconservative groups like the Project for the New American Century and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Feith, a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the 1980s and an activist in far-right Zionist circles, held the view that there was no difference between U.S. and Israeli security policy and that the best way to secure both countries’ future was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem not by serving as a broker, but with the United States as a force for “regime change” in the region.
Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith’s office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department’s new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no “bartering in the bazaar anymore. You’re going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so.”
Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren’t sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be “pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with,” says a former analyst. “They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of there.”
The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert Wohlstetter, an influential RAND analyst and University of Chicago mathematician. Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle, Wohlstetter’s prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the Pentagon’s influential Defense Policy Board. Rhode, along with Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to panelists and AEI officials. Just after September 11, 2001, Feith and Rhode recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for AEI, to serve as a Pentagon consultant.
Wurmser would be the founding participant of the unnamed, secret intelligence unit at the Pentagon, set up in Feith’s office, which would be the nucleus of the Defense Department’s Iraq disinformation campaign that was established within weeks of the attacks in New York and Washington. While the CIA and other intelligence agencies concentrated on Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda as the culprit in the 9/11 attacks, Wolfowitz and Feith obsessively focused on Iraq. It was a theory that was discredited, even ridiculed, among intelligence professionals. Daniel Benjamin, co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror, was director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council in the late 1990s. “In 1998, we went through every piece of intelligence we could find to see if there was a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq,” he says. “We came to the conclusion that our intelligence agencies had it right: There was no noteworthy relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq. I know that for a fact.” Indeed, that was the consensus among virtually all anti-terrorism specialists.
In short, Wurmser, backed by Feith and Rhode, set out to prove what didn’t exist.
In an Administration devoted to the notion of “Feith-based intelligence,” Wurmser was ideal. For years, he’d been a shrill ideologue, part of the minority crusade during the 1990s that was beating the drums for war against Iraq. Along with Perle and Feith, in 1996 Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav, wrote a provocative strategy paper for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” It called on Israel to work with Jordan and Turkey to “contain, destabilize and roll back” various states in the region, overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, press Jordan to restore a scion of the Hashemite dynasty to the Iraqi throne, and, above all, launch military assaults against Lebanon and Syria as a “prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria’s territorial integrity.”
In 1997, Wurmser wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal called “Iraq Needs a Revolution” and the next year co-signed a letter with Perle calling for all-out U.S. support of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group led by Ahmad Chalabi, in promoting an insurgency in Iraq. At AEI, Wurmser wrote Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, essentially a book-length version of “A Clean Break” that proposed an alliance between Jordan and the INC to redraw the map of the Middle East. Among the mentors cited by Wurmser in the book: Chalabi, Perle, and Feith.
The purpose of the unnamed intelligence unit, often described as a Pentagon “cell,” was to scour reports from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and other agencies to find nuggets of information linking Iraq, Al Qaeda, terrorism, and the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In a controversial press briefing in October 2002, a year after Wurmser’s unit was established, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that a primary purpose of the unit was to cull factoids, which were then used to disparage, undermine, and contradict the CIA’s reporting, which was far more cautious and nuanced than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith wanted. Rumsfeld particularly enjoyed harassing the CIA staffer who briefed him every morning, using the type of data produced by the intelligence unit. “What I could do is say, ‘Gee, what about this?’” Rumsfeld noted. “‘Or what about that? Has somebody thought of this?’” Last June, when Feith was questioned on the same topic at a briefing, he acknowledged that the secret unit in fact looked at the connection between Iraq and terrorism, saying, “You can’t rely on deterrence to deal with the problem of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of state sponsors of terrorism because [of] the possibility that those state sponsors might employ chemical weapons or biological weapons by means of a terrorist organization proxy.
Though Feith, in that briefing, described Wurmser’s unit as an innocent project, “a global exercise” that was not meant to put pressure on other intelligence agencies or create skewed intelligence to fit preconceived policy notions, many other sources assert that it did exactly that. That the White House and the Pentagon put enormous pressure on the CIA to go along with its version of events has been widely reported, highlighted by visits to CIA headquarters by Vice President Cheney and Lewis Libby, his chief of staff. Led by Perle, the neocons seethed with contempt for the CIA. The CIA’s analysis, said Perle, “isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” Standing in a crowded hallway during an AEI event, Perle added, “The CIA is status quo oriented. They don’t want to take risks.”
That became the mantra of the shadow agency within an agency.
Putting Wurmser in charge of the unit meant that it was being run by a pro-Iraq-war ideologue who’d spent years calling for a pre-emptive invasion of Baghdad and who was clearly predisposed to find what he wanted to see. Adding another layer of dubious quality to the endeavor was the man partnered with Wurmser, F. Michael Maloof. Maloof, a former aide to Perle in the 1980s Pentagon, was twice stripped of his high-level security clearances‚—once in late 2001 and, again, last spring, for various infractions. Maloof was also reportedly involved in a bizarre scheme to broker contacts between Iraqi officials and the Pentagon, channeled through Perle, in what one report called a “rogue [intelligence] operation” outside official CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency channels.
As the momentum for war began to build in early 2002, Wolfowitz and Feith beefed up the intelligence unit and created an Iraq war-planning unit in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia Affairs section, run by Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Luti, under the rubric “Office of Special Plans,” or OSP; the new unit’s director was Abram N. Shulsky. By then, Wurmser had moved on to a post as senior adviser to Undersecretary of State John Bolton, yet another neocon, who was in charge of the State Department’s disarmament, proliferation, and WMD office and was promoting the Iraq war strategy there. Shulsky’s OSP, which incorporated the secret intelligence unit, took control, banishing veteran experts‚—including Joseph McMillan, James Russell, Larry Hanauer, and Marybeth McDevitt‚—who, despite years of service to NESA, either were shuffled off to other positions or retired. For the next year, Luti and Shulsky not only would oversee war plans but would act aggressively to shape the intelligence product received by the White House.
Both Luti and Shulsky were neoconservatives who were ideological soul mates of Wolfowitz and Feith. But Luti was more than that. He’d come to the Pentagon directly from the office of Vice President Cheney. That gave Luti, a recently retired, decorated Navy captain whose career ran from combat aviation to command of a helicopter assault ship, extra clout. Along with his colleague Colonel William Bruner, Luti had done a stint as an aide to Newt Gingrich in 1996 and, like Perle and Wolfowitz, was an acolyte of Wohlstetter’s. “He makes Ollie North look like a moderate,” says a NESA veteran.
Shulsky had been on the Washington scene since the mid-1970s. As a Senate intelligence committee staffer for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he began to work with early neoconservatives like Perle, who was then an aide to Senator Henry Jackson. Later, in the Reagan years, Shulsky followed Perle to the Pentagon as Perle’s arms-control adviser. In the ‘90s, Shulsky co-authored a book on intelligence called Silent Warfare, with Gary Schmitt. Shulsky had served with Schmitt on Moynihan’s staff and they had remained friends. Asked about the Pentagon’s Iraq intelligence “cell,” Schmitt‚—who is currently the executive director of the Project for the New American Century‚—says that he can’t say much about it “because one of my best friends is running it.”
According to Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski, Luti and Shulsky ran NESA and the Office of Special Plans with brutal efficiency, purging people they disagreed with and enforcing the party line. “It was organized like a machine,” she says. “The people working on the neocon agenda had a narrow, well-defined political agenda. They had a sense of mission.” At NESA, Shulsky, she says, began “hot-desking,” or taking an office wherever he could find one, working with Feith and Luti, before formally taking the reins of the newly created OSP. Together, she says, Luti and Shulsky turned cherry-picked pieces of uncorroborated, anti-Iraq intelligence into talking points, on issues like Iraq’s WMD and its links to Al Qaeda. Shulsky constantly updated these papers, drawing on the intelligence unit, and circulated them to Pentagon officials, including Rumsfeld, and to Vice President Cheney. “Of course, we never thought they’d go directly to the White House,” she adds.
Kwiatkowski recalls one meeting in which Luti, pressed to finish a report, told the staff, “I’ve got to get this over to ‘Scooter’ right away.” She later found out that “Scooter” was none other than Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff. According to Kwiatkowski, Cheney had direct ties through Luti into NESA/OSP, a connection that was highly unorthodox.
“Never, ever, ever would a deputy undersecretary of Defense work directly on a project for the vice president,” she says. “It was a little clue that we had an informal network into Vice President Cheney’s office.”
Although Feith insists that the OSP did not seek to gather its own intelligence, Kwiatkowski and others sharply disagree. Staff working for Luti and Shulsky in NESA/OSP churned out propaganda-style intelligence, she says. As an example, she cited the work of a U.S. intelligence officer and Arabic specialist, Navy Lt. Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein, who was a special assistant to Luti. “His job was to peruse the Arabic-language media to find articles that would incriminate Saddam Hussein about terrorism, and he translated these.” Such raw intelligence is usually subject to a thorough vetting process, tracked, verified, and checked by intelligence professionals. But not at OSP‚—the material that it produced found its way directly into speeches by Bush, Cheney, and other officials.
According to Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official and an intelligence specialist at the National War College, the OSP officials routinely pushed lower-ranking staff around on intelligence matters. “People were being pulled aside [and being told], ‘We saw your last piece and it’s not what we’re looking for,’” he says. “It was pretty blatant.” Two State Department intelligence officials, Greg Thielmann and Christian Westermann, have both charged that pressure was being put on them to shape intelligence to fit policy, in particular from Bolton’s office. “The Al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.,” Thielmann told the New York Times. “And the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things.”
Besides Cheney, key members of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, including Perle and ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, all Iraq hawks, had direct input into NESA/OSP. The offices of NESA were located on the Pentagon’s fourth floor, seventh corridor of D Ring, and the Policy Board’s offices were directly below, on the third floor. During the run-up to the Iraq war, Gingrich often came up for closed-door meetings with Luti, who in 1996 had served as a congressional fellow in Speaker of the House Gingrich’s office.
As OSP got rolling, Luti brought in Colonel Bruner, a former military aide to Gingrich, and, together, Luti and Bruner opened the door to a vast flow of bogus intelligence fed to the Pentagon by Iraqi defectors associated with Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress group of exiles. Chalabi founded the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, with the help of a shadowy CIA-connected public-relations firm called the Rendon Group, one of whose former employees, Francis Brooke, has been a top aide to Chalabi ever since. A scion of an aristocratic Iraqi family, Chalabi fled Baghdad at the age of 13, in 1958, when the corrupt Iraqi Hashemite monarchy was overthrown by a coalition of communists and the Iraqi military. In the late 1960s, Chalabi studied mathematics at the University of Chicago with Wohlstetter, who introduced him to Richard Perle more than a decade later. Long associated with the heart of the neoconservative movement, Chalabi founded Petra Bank in Jordan, which grew to be Jordan’s third-largest bank by the 1980s. But Chalabi was accused of bank fraud, embezzlement, and currency manipulation, and he barely escaped before Jordanian authorities could arrest him; in 1992, he was convicted and sentenced in absentia to more than 20 years of hard labor. After founding the INC, Chalabi’s bungling, unreliability, and penchant for mismanaging funds caused the CIA to sour on him, but he never lost the support of Perle, Feith, Gingrich, and their allies; once, soon after 9/11, Perle invited Chalabi to address the Defense Policy Board.
According to multiple sources, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress sent a steady stream of misleading and often faked intelligence reports into U.S. intelligence channels. That information would flow sometimes into NESA/OSP directly, sometimes through Defense Intelligence Agency debriefings of Iraqi defectors via the Defense Human Intelligence Service, and sometimes through the INC’s own U.S.-funded Intelligence Collection Program, which was overseen by the Pentagon. The INC’s intelligence “isn’t reliable at all,” according to Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of counterterrorism. “Much of it is propaganda. Much of it is telling the Defense Department what they want to hear, using alleged informants and defectors who say what Chalabi wants them to say, [creating] cooked information that goes right into presidential and vice presidential speeches.”
Bruner, the aide to Luti and Gingrich’s former staffer, “was Chalabi’s handler,” says Kwiatkowski. “He would arrange meetings with Chalabi and Chalabi’s folks,” she says, adding that the INC leader often brought people into the NESA/OSP offices for debriefings. Chalabi claims to have introduced only three actual defectors to the Pentagon, a figure Thielmann considers “awfully low.” However, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times, the three defectors provided by Chalabi turned up exactly zero useful intelligence. The first, an Iraqi engineer, claimed to have specific information about biological weapons, but his information didn’t pan out; the second claimed to know about mobile labs, but that information, too, was worthless; and the third, who claimed to have data about Iraq’s nuclear program, proved to be a fraud. Chalabi also claimed to have given the Pentagon information about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda. “We gave the names of people who were doing the links,” he told an interviewer from PBS’s Frontline. Those links, of course, have not been discovered. Thielmann told the same Frontline interviewer that the Office of Special Plans didn’t apply strict intelligence-verification standards to “some of the information coming out of Chalabi and the INC that OSP and the Pentagon ran with.”
In the war’s aftermath, the Defense Intelligence Agency‚—which is not beholden to the neoconservative civilians at the Pentagon‚—leaked a report it prepared, concluding that few, if any, of the INC’s informants provided worthwhile intelligence.
So far, despite all of the investigations under way, there is little sign that any of them are going to delve into the operations of the Luti-Shulsky Office of Special Plans and its secret intelligence unit. Because it operates in the Pentagon’s policy shop, it is not officially part of the intelligence community, and so it is seemingly immune to congressional oversight.
With each passing day, it is becoming excruciatingly clearer just how wrong U.S. intelligence was in regard to Iraqi weapons and support for terrorism. The American teams of inspectors in the Iraq Survey Group, which has employed up to 1,400 people to scour the country and analyze the findings, have not been able to find a shred of evidence of anything other than dusty old plans and records of weapons apparently destroyed more than a decade ago. Countless examples of fruitless searches have been reported in the media. To cite one example: U.S. soldiers followed an intelligence report claiming that a complex built for Uday Hussein, Saddam’s son, hid a weapons warehouse with poison-gas storage tanks. “Well,” U.S. Army Major Ronald Hann Jr. told the Los Angeles Times, “the warehouse was a carport. It still had two cars inside. And the tanks had propane for the kitchen.”
Countless other errors and exaggerations have become evident. The thousands of aluminum tubes supposedly imported by Iraq for uranium enrichment were fairly conclusively found to be designed to build noncontroversial rockets. The long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, allegedly built to deliver bioweapons, were small, rickety, experimental planes with wood frames. The mobile bioweapon labs turned out to have had other, civilian purposes. And the granddaddy of all falsehoods, the charge that Iraq sought uranium in the West African country of Niger, was based on forged documents‚—documents that the CIA, the State Department, and other agencies knew were fake nearly a year before President Bush highlighted the issue in his State of the Union address in January 2003.
“Either the system broke down,” former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA to visit Niger and whose findings helped show that the documents were forged, told Mother Jones, “or there was selective use of bits of information to justify a decision to go to war that had already been taken.”
Take the Butler Review of Intelligence on WMD. Two weeks ago, I reminded readers of the contents of the Downing Street memo, which, in effect, was a minute of a meeting held at Downing Street on 23 July 2002. It described a visit to Washington by Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, and his conclusion that George W Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD and that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
New information passed to this paper suggests that the construction of the intelligence case for war may be pushed right back to the winter of 2002, when, in February, members of the Joint Intelligence Committee were tasked to find out if there was evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam’s regime in Iraq. No one can dispute that in the months following 9/11, this was an entirely proper area of inquiry for the new head of the JIC, John Scarlett. However, even though no evidence had been found, the JIC instructed the intelligence services to go back and find some. This is crucial because it defied what has been described to me as the article of faith in the JIC: that policy should be driven by analysis, not the other way round.
So in Britain, it appears that at a very early stage - 14 months before the war - we were trying to fit intelligence and facts around the policy, just as they were in America.
‘In the judgment of the JIC, there is no recent evidence of Iraq complicity with international terrorism. There is, therefore, no justification for action against Iraq based on self-defence to combat imminent threats of terrorism as in Afghanistan.’
This is important because it confirms that the JIC had been trawling to make a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. MI6 could not find the evidence after repeated requests and was not prepared to make up intelligence to fit policy. So the government had to put all its effort into making the case for war solely on the basis of Saddam’s stockpile of WMD, where it was much easier to make the intelligence and facts fit around policy.
You think they care about killing 3,000 people? Ha! Wake up! They have been wanting this for a long time.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 5, 2006 at 9:22 PM
Golly gee whiz, Joe.
You’re not making a very good case for these war-mongering “inside jobbers” being competent enough to pull off the precise and unbelievably clever operations on 9/11 that involved fooling the entire world into thinking that 19 Arab fanatics carried out the attacks. I’m surprised people so bumbling and stumbling were able to fool all the world’s structural and fire engineers and professional demolitionists into thinking that mere structural damage, heat and gravity brought down the towers. It’s amazing that they’ve been able to keep all this a secret for so long, when everything else they try to keep hidden winds up on pg. 1 of the NY Times.
What made them suddenly so incompetent? Fear of success? I’m sure you’ve got a sensible explanation.
I asked you to give me chapter and verse of an example of a researcher or scientist making claims that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility. Something more than early theorizing and speculating. You did not.
I asked you for the complete context of Ronald Hamburger and Mike Tayor’s quotes that <u>you</u> introduced. You dodged. I had to do it.
Again, you’re confusing preliminary speculation formed without complete information with some kind of gross negligence or deliberate deception. Bazant’s task wasn’t ever to determine the exact mechanism of collapse, but the fact that once it commenced, there was no stopping it. His use of the 800 C. value was not meant to be an absolute fact, and the value was not central to his analysis. In fact, it was rather irrelevant. The tower collapsed, as everyone saw, and B&Z explained why it <u>had</u> to continue.
In stage 1 Fig. 1, the conflagration, caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure, causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures <u>apparently</u> exceeding 800C. The heating is <u>probably</u> accelerated by a loss of the protective thermal insulation of steel during the initial blast.—Bazant/Zhou 2001 <u>Journal of Engineering Mechanics</u> ...... ahem!
NIST later determined, through specimen examination, observations of the fire intensity itself on 9/11, and computer simulation that temperatures were well within the range necessary to cause the effects they theorized should happen, and in fact observed in the videos of the collapse and pre-collapse. (sagging of trusses, significant deflection inward of the exterior columns)
<u>Variations</u> of temperature were a main causative factor in the failure of the structures. Had the whole area been a uniform temperature, the stresses would have been much less.
Again I see an abundance of writing about things that have nothing what-so-ever to do with the collapse of the towers, and a total lack of anything that could be remotely construed as credible evidence of “controlled demolition”.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 5, 2006 at 10:44 PM
Joe, it’s not good form, and in fact probably technically illegal, to reprint the entirety of ultra-liberal hack journalist’s hard work, especially not without citing the source.
Again, just because many people, including the previous administration, thought that Saddam Hussein should be removed from power is not evidence for mass murder on the part of anyone except Atta & co. on 9/11. Not even close.
Just because Jefferson said “separation of church and state” in a letter to some Baptists doesn’t mean that the 1st amendment was written to imply that kids can’t pray or read the bible at school.
Just because someone said “new Pearl Harbor” in a document urging America to revise and reinforce it’s military equipment and world-wide strategy doesn’t mean that the Govt. planned and/or carried out 9/11.
Context. That’s what’s missing here, Joe. Get some.
And stop lifting other people’s work!
Posted by Natalie on Nov 6, 2006 at 12:31 AM
Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war
Julian Borger
London Guardian
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Julian Borger wrote another interesting account a while back:
At the head of the group was a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi, President Saddam Hussein’s new ambassador to Turkey and one of Iraq’s most senior intelligence officers. He had been sent on one of the most important assignments of his career - to recruit Osama bin Laden…....
.......If his flirtation with Baghdad is consummated, the struggle with the implacable zealot from Saudi Arabia could be drifting towards an exceedingly bloody end-game.
And another.
And another.
So I guess you can admit that there was ample reason to fear and suspect a budding relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and following logically maybe even Iraq’s involvement in 9/11. Or, acknowledge that his recent story is mostly a fabrication as well. Or, you can choose to believe that he was accurate both times. Perhaps the more selective 9/11 “truth” approach works best for you—throw out the parts that make you uncomfortable.
Take your pick.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 6, 2006 at 9:48 AM
Natalie
You said:
Joe, it’s not good form, and in fact probably technically illegal, to reprint the entirety of ultra-liberal hack journalist’s hard work, especially not without citing the source.
Even though I did not rerprint the entire article( I did leave a few paragraphs out so as not to bore you) I should have had the link to it or where it and the other three were from I admit. That is a huge misstake on my part and I need to not get in such a hurry and make sure links or where it is from is posted with it.
But I do wonder if you read it and noticed how I combined the three so they could help to support each other. You had linked one for me and I belive I had linked one so here is the other from that last post London Observer was used as well and that I did not link to in that last post.
You said:
What made them suddenly so incompetent? Fear of success? I’m sure you’ve got a sensible explanation.
They did exactly what they set out to do. This was supposed to be a long drawn out conflict in Iraq and they never thought it would really be a cake walk. It is going just as they had planned.
Do not belive them when they act like it has turned into something that they did not expect. This hole thing is staged. It is part of the plan to blame Bush and this was agreed by all including Bush before they ever went to Iraq. He is not running for office so its not going to hurt him.
All those advocates of the war, from the neocons like Perle and Adelman to Tom Friedman are faulting the Bush administration for not doing the job right, as if the present situation in Iraq had not been publicly predicted by Bush Sr., James Baker III, Brent Scrowcroft, as well as members of the intelligence establishment who had opposed the war, not to mention some less well known critics from the Left. Between Perle and Friedman there are no essential differences. These were also the folks who have pushed for a US confrontation with Iran….........
“The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops,” said Thomas Blanton, the archive’s director. “But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground.”
Natalie they new this and wanted it. How can you belive that they had no idea? Are you not paying attention to what is happening? They have achived success and now they can get away with it by acting stupid and saying Bush suddenly became so incompetent. Come on Natalie they new this was going to happen its part of there 100 year war remmeber?
What did Dick say? It will last for generations.
Natalie you can go back to the beginning of this thread and see that this was fortold exactly the way it is happening now. Even with the neo-cons jumping ship just the way they are.
Look I will admit there are some neo-cons who are just uninformed ignorant idiots that were doing what they were told and may have belived the war on terror especially in Iraq was going to be different but they were just tools so who cares. The ones who matter most certainly new this was going to happen in Iraq and this is what they wanted.
Please get it through your head that this is what they wanted and expected how in the world can you not know this. Have you not been watching the build up of those huge long term bases. Are you not aware that we have been in Iran softening up and locating targets? Even Bush is saying this is about oil yet he is not mentioning that its so he can keep the oil from flowing so prices remain inflated.
Dont tell me you belive his lie “You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources,” he said at a rally here Saturday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). “And then you can imagine them saying, ‘We’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following would be along the lines of, well, ‘Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision.’ “
Bush said extremists controlling Iraq “would use energy as economic blackmail” and try to pressure the United States to abandon its alliance with Israel. At a stop in Missouri on Friday, he suggested that such radicals would be “able to pull millions of barrels of oil off the market, driving the price up to $300 or $400 a barrel.”
It is bulls**t he and the admenistration have stoped the oil from flowing out of Iraq and the low levels they have allowed to go out of the country was profit for them not Iraq. You need to wake up and start paying attention.
Please dont fall for more of the lies!
I will respond to the rest in another post for you and Scorp need to read this now before you both fall for more lies.
P.S. I did not see your last post sorry. Thank you for your time I will try to catchup as soon as I can.
Thank you for the links.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 6, 2006 at 10:00 AM
I knew you’d have a sensible explanation. I can always count on you for those.
BTW, I’m still waiting for your thoughts on the Pentagon. Don’t dodge me on this. And I hope my request for chapter and verse hasn’t gone by the wayside.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 6, 2006 at 12:35 PM
But I do wonder if you read it and noticed how I combined the three so they could help to support each other.
Yes, I noticed that you went off on another source tangent toward the end, but only because I carefully compared the original with your paste job.
You need to make it more clear who’s saying what. Sources are important because biases, motivations and degrees of expertise need to be taken into account. When you meander on pasting this and that in no sensible context, you’re really hurting your own cause and credibility.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 6, 2006 at 12:53 PM
Natalie -
I like and appreciate what you have to say. You may want to give poor Joe a rest; he is not very stable in the best of times, and he is becoming loopier by the day.
Joe has attached importance to what Vanity Fair (Vanity Fair!) and Army Times have to say about this Administration, as if either publication had any knowledge or expertise beyond being left-wing journalists.
The Vanity Fair article of which Joe thinks so highly is a hilarious crock.
The “neo-cons” that VF interviewed all agreed to be interviewed with the understanding that the article was to be published in January, well after the election. VF not only published before the election, but the interviewees (Perle, Frum, Rubin, Ledeen, Adelman) all deny that they said what VF has reported. Joe eats this shit up.
The VF article is probably the last “October Surprise” of this election season. Given the leftists’ long history of failure with previous October Surprises, it is a wonder they even bother any more; Rathergate, al-Qaqaa, DUI all abjectly failed to accomplish the leftists’ goals, and the VF article is even sillier and more transparent than their previous efforts.
Noemie Emery has a funny article on the transition of VF from a glitterati puff job to a hard core leftist political commentator. Probably not coincidentally, VF’s sales have plunged recently, even more than those of the NYT.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/410ylpwc.asp?pg=1
Excerpt:
“The Democrats who used to produce things—cars, steel, and foodstuffs—are being replaced by those who produce fads and fashion, things people enjoy but don’t need. Societies need teachers, soldiers, engineers, and mechanics; they need people who drill for oil and fix cars; people who understand war and politics. No one needs sitcoms, movie reviews, handbag designers, gossip columnists, or professors of gender construction, but this superfluous cadre is becoming the core of the party of Truman and Roosevelt, an alliance of the superficial and trivial, along with the hopelessly poor. Call it the FDR coalition, minus the South, minus the farmers, minus a large part of labor, which has been weakening, and seeing the nonpublic sector part of its membership go over to voting Republican. This is not a national coalition, but it does know the best stores and best restaurants, and knows where to go for good hair.”
Posted by scorp on Nov 6, 2006 at 12:56 PM
I like and appreciate what you have to say. You may want to give poor Joe a rest; he is not very stable in the best of times, and he is becoming loopier by the day.
Thanks, scorp, you may be right. We don’t want another suicide watch ala Rabbit. However, my intent from the start of this thread was to talk to many more than those who choose to post here. I use this forum kindly afforded by ITT, and the averse participation of colorful souls like Rabbit and Joe, to hopefully steer a few “skulls full of mush” away from this cauldron of nonsense, however and whenever some search engine guides them here.
Joe has attached importance to what Vanity Fair (Vanity Fair!) and Army Times have to say about this Administration, as if either publication had any knowledge or expertise beyond being left-wing journalists.
Yes, any previously thought to be fair-minded journalists are coming out of the closet lately to obey the transmission and do whatever it takes to win this election. I read the piece by David Frum, who seems like one of the most honest individuals out there, completely disavowing the context that VF chose to convey. I didn’t know about or missed the rushed publication trick. I’m not famaliar with the mindset of the editors of the Army Times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is yet another repository of your typical liberal journalist, military background or not. Wasn’t Al Gore a journalist in Vietnam? Aha!! (another conspiracy for ya, Joe, maybe actually a real one)
Gosh, must be nice to have 90% of the media on your side. It’s really no less than cheating.
This is not a national coalition, but it does know the best stores and best restaurants, and knows where to go for good hair.
And that reminds me of one of the funniest, most revealing videos of all time—from last campaign cycle. (the last two seconds are the best)
Could be a brutal election for us, scorp, but I’m hoping and voting for the best. Good luck to us. Given the advantage the other side is afforded with their in effect ownership of the media, and their never-ending vote fraud schemes, we will certainly need it.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 6, 2006 at 2:17 PM
Natalie
You said:
I asked you to give me chapter and verse of an example of a researcher or scientist making claims that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility. Something more than early theorizing and speculating. You did not.
You have not seen anything that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility? Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha!
Starting as early as two days after the attack, “experts” in structural engineering lent their names to the effort to make the unprecedented crumbling of steel-framed skyscrapers into piles of rubble seem like a perfectly natural event. On September 13th the intimidatingly technical, equation-peppered paper, “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? - Simple Analysis”, was published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE. One wonders how well the peer-review process functioned given that timetable.
Bazant and Zhou
Explaining the Collapses With Elastic Dynamic Analysis
Zdenek Bazant and Yong Zhou must be super-geniuses. They were able to understand how two skyscrapers could crush themselves to rubble, a newly observed behavior for steel structures, and write a paper about it just two days. Their “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse?-Simple Analysis” uses “Elastic Dynamic Analysis” to confidently proclaim:
“The structural resistance is found to be an order of magnitude less than necessary for survival.”
The paper repeatedly claims to make the most optimistic assumptions about building survival with no discussion of what that means. It contains nonsensical engineering claims such as:
“[... if the] majority of columns of a single floor to lose their load carrying capacity, the whole tower was doomed.”
There are two major fallacies in this assertion:
* It implies that the columns were capable of supporting only twice the gravity loads they were bearing above the impact zone. This ignores the fact that the upper floors, lacking standing-room-only crowds, were not carrying their design live loads, and it implies that reserve strength ratios (the extra strength designed into a structure beyond what is required to resist anticipated loads) are two-to-one instead of the five-to-one typical in engineered steel structures.
* It implies that a failure of the columns to support the gravity loads above the impact zones would automatically lead to total collapse, despite the absence of a single example of a local collapse event leading to total collapse in any steel-framed building.
The paper mislabels phenomena, calling a fireball a blast. It is fond of vacuous qualifiers. It explains the buildings were doomed because after the first story collapsed, there was enormous kinetic energy and enormous vertical dynamic load, far exceeding [the columns’] load capacity. And with even larger mass falling with a greater velocity we get impacts and failures all the way down. It makes quantitative claims but doesn’t back them up. Where did they find the following 12%?
“(indeed, the energy dissipated in the columns during the fall is at most equal to 2X the yield moment of columns, X the number of columns, which is found to be only about 12% of the gravitational potential energy release if the columns were cold, and much less than that at 800º C).”
The whole argument seems to be based on some (undisclosed) estimate of bending moments, in which case one of their simplifying assumptions seems to be that the columns are infinitely thin and have no compressional rigidity. The paper gives no argument that the model it is applying is applicable to the survivability of the Twin Towers. It makes sweeping claims that can’t possibly be true. It’s evasive, claiming to make only simplifying assumptions optimistic to building survival, without even bothering to list those assumptions.
One of the paper’s assumptions it does disclose is that all of the columns of the first story to collapse were heated to 800º C. In that case they would have been glowing red-hot. Perhaps Bazant and Zhou can be forgiven for this oversight and for their wildly innaccurate engineering assumptions, given the short publication deadline they had to meet.
Professor Eagar
Another Credentialed Individual Helping to Explain the Collapses
Dr. Thomas Eagar, became an early spokesperson for the truss theory. Although not a structural engineer, his credentials as a professor at MIT were sufficient for his role in “explaining the collapses”. In the following post Jeff King points out some of the absurdities advanced by Eagar in his NOVA interview.
Do tall things topple over?
by Jeff King Thursday December 05, 2002 at 01:16 AM
Professor Eagar’s statement has been floating around for the past year, but doesn’t really make sense at several levels. He implies that the laws of gravitation are somehow not linear, that if a small object of the same proportions (6.5/1 height to base ratio) tends to topple, a much bigger object of the same proportions will not be similarly unstable. A wooden box 1’ square and 6 1/2’ tall has the exact same geometric relations of center of gravity to base as a big steel box 1300’ tall and 208’ on a side. Nothing changes with a change in absolute size, this is the most basic Newtonian physics. Yet Eagar says “There’s no other way for them to go but down. They’re too big.” This is complete and utter nonsense.
It also ignores the fact, as noted above by Pete Wagner, that the top of WTC-2 had clearly “broken off” and begun to tip. A big chunk of building had begun to topple, and now had linear momentum in the direction of the lean, as well as angular momentum as it was rotating about its own center of gravity. Momentum doesn’t just go away without some kind of external force being applied.
Describing one of the the WTC towers as “a building that is mostly air” sounds profound but is no more valid than saying that atoms are mostly empty space, and so matter should collapse or implode at any provocation. It is a clever rhetorical flourish that does a great injustice to the structural integrity of these buildings, implying that they were houses of cards waiting to tumble down. In fact they were very rigid and had far more compressional strength than needed to avoid collapse. Each core had 47 steel box columns, all interconnected with steel plates at each floor, and trussed box columns at the corners that can be seen in the picture above supporting construction cranes. The outer “tube” comprised 256 14” square steel box columns tied together with 52” tall steel plates at each floor.
This “tube-in-tube” design, with 110 floors acting as braces that linked the two tubes together, created an extremely strong geometry allowing redistribution of stresses. To think that such a structure would magically disintegrate rather than allow itself to be tipped over is simply bizarre.
Natalie you obviously love to torture me because you refuse to use the links I give you and you complain when I dont. But worse you insist that I give you chapter and verse of an example of a researcher or scientists making claims that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility.
Well fine be that way!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 6, 2006 at 6:12 PM
When the Twin Towers Fell
By Steven Ashley
BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center seemed a permanent part of the Manhattan skyline.
When New York City’s giant World Trade Center towers plunged to earth following successive suicide terrorist attacks on September 11th, the world was confronted with one of most shocking and sickening sights of modern times. The mechanisms by which these huge and seemingly solid edifices suddenly collapsed, snuffing out the lives of thousands, was the subject of a preliminary postmortem conducted last week in Cambridge, Mass. A panel of Boston area-based civil and structural engineers convened to discuss the fate of the superskyscrapers, struck by hijacked passenger planes, in front of an overflow audience on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their starkly sobering analyses highlighted the vulnerabilities of ultra-tall buildings to fire and pointed out steps that could be taken to lessen them.
After first describing the highly redundant structural system that kept the 110-story twin towers standing for decades despite hurricane-force winds and a terrorist truck bomb, the engineers then delineated how that system was breached and finally overcome on that fateful day when America was attacked. The main culprits in bringing the famously lofty buildings down, they concluded, were the two intensely hot infernos that erupted when tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel spilled from the doomed airliners.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually since each plane was carrying about 10,000 gallons and much, perhaps most, of that burned up in the impact fireballs, there were thousands, not tens of thousands, of gallons in the buildings, if that. And the black smoke (a sign of oxygen starvation), scarcity of flames, absence of window-breaking, and lack of any survivor reports of intense heat are hardly indications of “intensely hot infernos”.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once high temperatures weakened the towers’ supporting steel structures, it was only a matter of time until the mass of the stories above initiated a rapid-sequence “pancaking” phenomena in which floor after floor was instantly crushed and then sent into near free fall to the ground below. Significantly, the panel stated that any mitigating reinforcements and redundancies added to these buildings could have only delayed the inevitable failure, though they would have bought more time for the evacuation of the occupants.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Here is one of the most common myths advanced to explain the “collapses”: that loss of strength in steel due to heating is cumulative and irreversible.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No existing or foreseeable economically viable skyscraper structure, they agreed, could have withstood this kind of cruel onslaught. Clearly, prevention is the best defense against this kind of assault.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is a bit of historical revisionism, since the towers were designed to survive the impact by a 707 with a 23,000-gallon fuel capacity.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Though the twin towers were not much taller than their famous uptown predecessor, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center rose during the late 1960s, a new era of construction characterized by rapidly erected, lightweight steel structures rather than heavy masonry walls,” explained Robert Fowler, senior engineer at the structural engineering firm of McNamara and Salvia. Fowler was then a junior member of the WTC’s engineering firm of record, Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, later renamed Skilling Helle Christiansen Robertson. “As the Trade Center was so much lighter in comparison to earlier designs, it was a watershed building in the history of skyscrapers,” he added. Leslie E. Robertson, then the project manager, was the engineer most responsible for the superskyscraper’s design, Fowler noted. He is currently principal partner at Leslie E. Robertson Associates, the current structural consultants to the WTC. The late Seattle-based architect Minoru Yamasaki designed the World Trade Center.
How the Towers Kept Standing
As with all large buildings, the main structural engineering design criteria for the facility’s 1,362-foot-tall south tower and 1,368-foot-tall north tower centered on two things: ensuring resistance to the gigantic gravity loads of the buildings themselves as well as to sideways or lateral forces caused by high winds and earthquakes, which can generate huge overturning forces at the bases. The former condition, Fowler explained, depends on specifying strong vertical columns that can efficiently transmit the mass of the building to the ground. The latter consideration concerns not only structural integrity but also “requires developing an acceptable comfort level for the occupants” by avoiding too much swaying. Opposition to lateral motion is controlled by “the design’s structural mass [weight], the stiffness of its lateral members and the degree of structural damping employed,” Fowler said.
“Though the WTC towers stood over 1,360 feet above the street level, the structures’ bases were actually set 70 feet into the ground, and one had a 100-foot-tall antenna atop it, so with 205-foot widths, they had a lot of [exterior] area facing the wind,” the engineer stated. He calculated that the approximate maximum wind shear force that a single face needed to withstand to be somewhere around 11,000,000 pounds. The gravity loads (weight) produced by the towers at their bases were on the order of 500,000 tons, Fowler said.
To handle these immense forces, the engineers “designed the World Trade Center essentially as a large beam section,” explained another panel member, Robert McNamara, president of the engineering firm McNamara and Salvia. Called structural tubes in the business, each twin tower was strongly framed in structural steel. The frame comprised inner and outer rectangular box tubes consisting of closely spaced steel box columns connected by steel spandrel members or truss beams that supported 40,000-square-foot cross-braced floors, each nearly an acre in area, the empaneled engineers said. This configuration created a complete exterior tube around the building and a center tube down the middle.
The 90-foot-long central core, formed of massive vertical steel columns that held most of the building’s weight, contained elevator shafts, stairways and utility spaces, they said. The core’s columns were thicker toward the base to support huge accumulated gravity loads. The outer perimeter tube, a tight prefabricated latticework with 61 14-inch steel box columns (spaced 39 inches on center) on each building face, provided all the bracing resistance against lateral and twisting forces from wind and seismic action. This exterior grid served as a moment frame, providing a large moment arm (of torque) against overturning and deflection forces. The outer tube bore part of the gravity-induced downward load as well as, they noted.
The huge inner and outer rectangular tubes “needed to be protected to maintain their structural integrity, so the floors acted as reinforcing diaphragms or bulkheads [the term used in shipbuilding],” said panel member Jerome Connor, professor of civil and environmental engineering at M.I.T. The office floors, which each comprised a 35- to 60-foot clear span from the core to the exterior grid, were panelized structural members supported by open web joists with steel decks above them, he said. The horizontal truss struts, bolted and welded to the exterior grid and the core column structures, included viscoelastic stringers that provided increased damping to help make the structure less lively in the wind, according to Connor. Each steel floor deck was covered with four inches of concrete. “With almost an acre of area for each floor and figuring about 100 pounds per square foot of area,” he estimated that “each floor system weighed about 3,200,000 pounds.”
Why the Towers Fell
With all of its structural redundancies, “the World Trade Center was probably one of the more resistant tall building structures,” McNamara said, adding that “nowadays, they just don’t build them as tough as the World Trade Center.” His statement is bolstered by the fact that the support structures of both twin towers withstood the initial hits of the two kamikaze airliners despite the breaching of many levels of framing. After the deletion of key structural members from about the 90th to 96th floors on the north face of the north tower, One WTC, and from about the 75th to the 84th floors of the south, east and north faces of the south tower, Two WTC, the buildings’ skeletons found alternative paths to take the loads. Each impact and following explosion imparted first a large local lateral force and then an omnidirectional force to the structures, together causing massive initial damage to the columns and floor systems at the elevation of the crash.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This “massive initial damage to the columns” fails to distinguish between the perimeter columns and the much stronger core columns. There is no evidence that in either collision the core columns were severely damaged. In the off-center South Tower collision, there appears to have been little damage to the core, as survivors evacuated through stairwells in the core passing through the impact zone.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Despite shocks and explosions estimated to be equivalent to that of the 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (about 400 tons of TNT), the towers remained upright. “The buildings displayed a tremendous capacity to stand there despite the damage to a major portion of the gravity system, and for an hour or so they did stand there,” McNamara said. “The lateral truss systems redistributed the load when other critical members were lost. It’s a testament to the system that they lasted so long.”
Newspapers and TV newscasts reported that the twin towers had been designed to withstand a collision with a Boeing 707. The events of September 11th show that this was indeed the case. “However, the World Trade Center was never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next a key design omission,” stated Eduardo Kausel, another M.I.T. professor of civil and environmental engineering and panel member.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!So the engineers who designed it to withstand a 707 collision forgot that jets carry fuel?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The towers collapsed only after the kerosene fuel fire compromised the integrity of their structural tubes: One WTC lasted for 105 minutes, whereas Two WTC remained standing for 47 minutes. “It was designed for the type of fire you’d expect in an office building paper, desks, drapes,” McNamara said. The aviation fuel fires that broke out burned at a much hotter temperature than the typical contents of an office. “At about 800 degrees Fahrenheit structural steel starts to lose its strength; at 1,500 degrees F, all bets are off as steel members become significantly weakened,” he explained.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This misleads the reader into thinking that 800ºF to 1500ºF temperatures were reached and sustained, for which there is no evidence. Since jet fuel boils easily and has a low flash point, it would have burned off quickly in the first few minutes after the crashes—a point granted even by the government’s official reports.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some have raised questions about the degree of fire protection available to guard the structural steel. According to press reports, the original asbestos cementitious fireproofing applied to the steel framework of the north tower and the lower 30 stories of the south were removed after the 1993 terrorist truck bombing.
Others have pointed out the possibility that the aviation fuel fires burned sufficiently hot to melt and ignite the airliners’ aluminum airframe structures. Aluminum, a pyrophoric metal, could have added to the conflagrations. Hot molten aluminum, suggests one well-informed correspondent, could have seeped down into the floor systems, doing significant damage. “Aluminum melts into burning ‘goblet puddles’ that would pool around depressions, [such as] beam joints, service openings in the floor, stair wells and so forth…The goblets are white hot, burning at an estimated 1800 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the water of hydration in the concrete is vaporized and consumed by the aluminum. This evolves hydrogen gas that burns. Aluminum burning in concrete produces a calcium oxide/silicate slag covered by a white aluminum oxide ash, all of which serve to insulate and contain the aluminum puddle. This keeps the metal hot and burning. If you look at pictures of Iraqi aircraft destroyed in their concrete shelters [during the Persian Gulf war], you will notice a deep imprint of the burned aircraft on the concrete floor.
Though the Boeing 767s airliners that hit the towers were somewhat larger than the Boeing 707 (maximum takeoff weights: 395,000 pounds versus 336,000 pounds) the structures were designed to resist, the planes carried a similarly sized fuel load as the older model about 24,000 gallons versus 23,000 gallons, according to Kausel. “Most certainly,” he continued, “no building has or will resist this kind of fire.” The sprinkler system, which was probably compromised, would have been are useless against this kind of fire, he said, adding, “The World Trade Center towers performed admirably; they stood long enough for the majority of the people to be successfully evacuated.”
Kausel also reported that he had made estimates of the amount of energy generated during the collapse of each tower. “The gravitational energy of a building is like water backed up behind a dam,” he explained. When released, the accumulated potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. With a mass of about 500,000 tons (5 x 108 kilograms), a height of about 1,350 ft. (411 meters), and the acceleration of gravity at 9.8 meters per second 2, he came up with a potential energy total of 1019 ergs (1012 Joules or 278 Megawatt-hours). “That’s about 1 percent of the energy released by a small atomic bomb,” he noted.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Since each tower weighed about 500,000 tons, Kausel is making a huge error by assuming all the mass is concentrated at the tops of the towers. Nor would it be correct to make the simplifying assumption of the mass being concentrated at the midsection, since the lower portions of the buildings had much heavier-gauge steel.!!!!!!!!!!!
The M.I.T. professor added that about 30 percent of the collapse energy was expended rupturing the materials of the building, while the rest was converted into the kinetic energy of the falling mass. The huge gray dust clouds that covered lower Manhattan after the collapse were probably formed when the concrete floors were pulverized in the fall and then jetted into the surrounding neighborhood.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!In this scenario most of the kinetic energy of falling mass would not be converted to pulverizing forces until the rubble hit the ground. Yet clearly, the buildings were pulverized in mid-air. The amount of energy needed to convert the towers into the fine dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan is on the order of the total potential energy of the buildings’ elevated mass.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Of the kinetic energy impacting the ground, only 0.1 percent was converted to seismic energy,” he stated. “Each event created a (modest-sized) magnitude 2 earthquake, as monitored at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Observatory, which is located about 30 kilometers away from New York City.” Kausel concluded that the “the largest share of the kinetic energy was converted to heat, material rupture and deformation of the ground below.”
Despite the expert panel’s preliminary musings on the failure mechanisms responsible for the twin towers’ fall, the definitive cause has yet to be determined. Reportedly, the National Science Foundation has funded eight research projects to probe the WTC catastrophe. The American Society of Civil Engineers is sponsoring several studies of the site. Meanwhile the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Structural Engineers has established an investigative team to analyze the disaster and learn from the failure. W. Gene Corley, senior vice president of the Construction Technology Laboratory in Skokie, Ill., is said to be heading the ASSE study team through its initial phase of data gathering, and then William Baker, a structural engineer at the Chicago-based firm of Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Chicago, will lead the following analysis phase. The Structural Engineering Institute is to partner with the American Institute of Steel Construction, the National Fire Protection Association and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been invited to join as well.
How the Towers Fell
Given the lack of firm conclusions regarding how the collapses occurred, the M.I.T. panel participants asked their audience to consider various theories they put forth. In general, it was agreed that as the structure warped and weakened at the top of each tower, the frame, along with the concrete slabs, furniture, file cabinets and other materials, became an enormous consolidated weight that eventually crushed the lower portions of the structure below. The details of how the frame members failed remain under contention.
Professor Connor’s theory focused on weaknesses in how the vertical and horizontal structural members were tied together. During construction, he explained, each prefabricated floor system was lifted into place by a crane and “supported at the ends like a hinge, where they were bolted and welded to the inner and outer framing tubes” so that part of the gravity load went through the core and the other part through the exterior structure. “The floor trusses sat on beams and were tied down so the core was locked to the exterior,” he said. “It was an unusual system and very lightweight. If you lose the connection between them, however, you lose the ability to carry the floor loads and allow the floors to slide back and forth under stress. If a damaged floor system were to fall, it would break the end connections in the lower floors and down and down the floors would go.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is the pancake or domino theory, for which there is no evidence. Nearly every version of the theory promotes misrepresentations of the Towers’ construction, such as omitting the cross-trusses, and claiming that only bolts attached the trusses to the perimeter walls.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“In my theory, the hot fire weakened the supporting joint connection,” Connor continued. “When it broke, one end of a floor fell, damaging the floor system underneath, while simultaneously tugging (pulling) the vertical members to which it was still attached toward the center of the building and down.” This phenomenon started a parasitic process that accelerated until total failure and the structure fell in on itself, he said.
Eduardo Kausel proposed an alternative failure explanation that he acknowledged was independently developed by Zdenek Bazant, a professor at Northwestern University. “I believe that the intense heat softened or melted the structural elements floor trusses and columns so that they became like chewing gum, and that was enough to trigger the collapse,” he said.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!To turn the columns into the consistency of chewing gum would have required heating them to at least 1200º C, well above what can be achieved with jet fuel, even with a directed flame and pressurized oxygen.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The floor trusses are likely to have been the first to sag and fail. As soon as the upper floors became unsupported, debris from the failed floor systems rained down onto the floors below, which eventually gave way, starting an unstoppable sequence. The dynamic forces are so large that the downward motion becomes unstoppable.”
Via two simple models, Kausel was able to determine that the fall of the upper building portion down onto a single floor must have caused dynamic forces exceeding the buildings design loads by at least an order of magnitude.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!But the alleged models have never been published.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He also performed some computer simulations that indicate the building material fell almost unrestricted at nearly the speed of free-falling objects. “The towers’ resistive systems played no role. Otherwise the elapsed time of the fall would have been extended,” he noted. As it was, the debris took about nine seconds to reach the ground from the top.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Did you catch that? the towers’ resistive systems played no role. The at least 85,000 tons of intact steel structure below the impact zone provided no resistance. It all magically got out of the way. Note that the Kausel cites a collapse time that is simply impossible—even admitting the use of controlled demolition—since the elapsed time of an object on the Tower’s roof in a vacuum was 9.2 seconds. Even air resistance slowed the descent of rubble enough that it took 13 to 17 seconds to reach the ground.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“It’s difficult to judge which of these failure mechanisms occurred first; probably all occurred and interacted,” said panel member Oral Buyukozturk, professor of civil and environmental engineering at M.I.T.. “The prolonged effect of high heat is likely to have led to the buckling of the columns,
!!!!!!!!!!!!though no buckling was ever seen—only shattering,!!!!!!!!!!!!!
collapse of the floors, as well as to the shearing of the floors upon the failure the joints.”
!!!!!!!!!The shearing of the floors’ joints would have resulted in them sliding down within the outer wall, leaving the outer wall to buckle after the fact, and leaving the core standing.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He noted that videotapes of the catastrophe showed some tilting of the top portion of the south tower before it collapsed. “This indicates the buckling of one building face while the adjacent face was bending [placed into tension].”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!At the initiation of the “collapse”, explosive ejections of material are seen simultaneously around the circumference of the crash zone. Why would the side in tension be blowing out debris?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After that, the upper portions of the tower are shown disintegrating, with “a dynamic effect and amplification process” following that led to a progressive collapse “a kind of pancaking or deck of cards effect” down to ground zero, Buyukozturk stated.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So “dynamic effect and amplification process” is supposed to explain how the the top portion—a resilient steel-framed box—disintegrated in mid air, even though only its bottom would be smashing into the tower’s intact portion?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kausel addressed the oft-asked question of why the towers did not tip over like a falling tree. “A tree is solid, whereas building is mostly air or empty space; only about 10 percent is solid material. Since there is no solid stump underneath to force it to the side, the building cannot tip over. It could only collapse upon itself.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So the 47 closely spaced box columns (many of 22"x52” dimensions) in the core, braced with horizontal I-beams at each story, presented no ‘solid stump’ the collapsing section to the side? Thanks to this expert’s brilliant analysis, owners of economically moribund skyscrapers can in the future save themselves the expense of hiring demolition companies to do all that fussy calculation and careful placement of explosives. They can just buy a serviceable retired airliner from a salvage yard, fill it with fuel, and ram it by remote control into their unwanted property, with complete confidence that the ensuing collapse will not damage neighboring real estate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert McNamara said his failure mechanism theory “focuses on the connections that hold the structure together,” but he cautioned that “we really need to wait for a detailed investigation, before we decide if we have to up the code ratings for these connections in signature structures.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!While you were waiting, Mr. McNamara, they melted down the steel and scrubbed the site free of incriminating evidence.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Protecting Skyscraper Occupants
The expert panel then turned its attention to changes for future tall structures in the wake of what has been learned. Though the recent “disaster couldn’t be envisioned as a design scenario in the 1970s, it means we have to change the way we design and construct tall buildings in the future,” Buyukozturk said.
Existing skyscrapers should probably be retrofitted with some additional safety measures, but the professors say that it doesn’t make sense economically and aesthetically to protect them all physically from similar catastrophes. “Retrofitting is very expensive and is therefore usually done only for monumental buildings,” Connor said.
“There will never be a building that won’t fall,” Kausel noted.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually the “collapses” of WTC towers 1, 2, and 7 are the first examples in history of steel-framed high-rises undergoing total collapse from any cause or combination of causes other than controlled demolition, a fact conspicuously absent from this article.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The best we can do is to ensure that it will stand long enough for all the people to escape.” Back when the WTC was built, no one seems to have anticipated the need to evacuate an entire large building at once. To do so successfully means boosting a building’s structural redundancy the provision of additional means to assist system function. Panel members discussed providing improved fire protection for the structural elements, alternative load paths to stand in for damaged structures and fixing diaphragm floor beams more strongly to vertical members. Also mentioned was the idea of installing blast-resistant, energy-absorbing materials such as concrete-encased steel exterior columns and/or cavities (reinforced concrete cores) in future large structures that could help them survive or at least promote failure in certain slower, less deleterious sequences.
One audience attendee, a West Coast-based structural engineer who did not give his name, created a provocative moment when he claimed that it would cost about 10 percent more than the original building cost to install floor joint reinforcements for greater redundancy. “According to our analysis, it could add several more hours to the evacuation period,” he stated. “If each tower cost about $1 billion to build, then an extra hundred million dollars could have saved most of the occupants. Though it’s horrible to contemplate,” he continued, “a human life is valued for insurance purposes at about a million dollars apiece, so this helps put the extra investment into perspective. After all, the World Trade Center was retrofitted with 10,000 viscoelastic dampers to reduce its swaying, so safety improvements can’t be ignored.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The Towers were not retrofitted with viscoelastic dampers—they were part of the original design.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Building clients have to become more demanding, even if the probabilities of a repeat disaster are very slim….”
The panel also considered the need to improve the effectiveness of building safety systems. Kausel pointed out problems with the twin towers’ emergency communications systems (“just when coordination was most critical, the people didn’t know what to do”), the emergency illumination system and protection against smoke (“the great killer in building fires is smoke inhalation”). He also suggested that more effort should be expended to create “alternative escape routes, so evacuees aren’t faced with a wall of smoke. If two stairwells are close together,” he noted, “one explosion could block them both.” Other ideas floated included installing better fire-suppression systems, using the aqueous film-forming foams employed in aviation fires, and creating protected access ways for firefighters. There was also mention of the need to harden stairwells and egress pathways, and perhaps develop “deployable evacuation systems” for building occupants. Beyond robotic stairway evacuation devices, deployable systems might include escape tubes deployed out windows, exterior people-lowering machines, flying platforms or even parachutes.”
One audience member asked the assembled experts whether a reinforced concrete skyscraper such as the current height record-holder, the 452-meter Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, would have better resisted a collision with a fuel-filled airliner. Their response indicated that a concrete structure would have probably lasted for a couple of more hours than did the steel World Trade Center towers.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Although no skyscraper has ever collapsed before, suddenly the experts are confident that a jetliner crash will inevitably cause a skyscraper to collapse, no matter what the nature of its construction.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert McNamara stated that many of the more recent superskyscrapers were constructed of reinforced concrete mainly because of the high cost of steel in Asia. He also mentioned that the Petronas Towers contain “safe refuge floors” to allow building occupants to reach fresh air during fires. McNamara said that this concept was now somewhat discredited, as similar refuges in the WTC would not have ultimately saved anyone.
A lively discussion then ensued about whether the terrorist pilots knew where to hit the buildings for maximum effect. McNamara opined that the position of impact seems significant. “They hit them at just the right place about two thirds to three quarters of the way up.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually the planes hit them about three fourths and six sevenths of the way up. And the idea that the very tops of the buildings could have crushed them all of the way to their bases is utterly unscientific, given that no experiment has been able to replicate the alleged phenomonon of top-down total progressive collapse.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The earlier [truck bomb] attack showed that the explosion at bottom had little effect and that it’s much easier to collapse a building from the top than the bottom. If they had hit the very top of the building, the fire damage wouldn’t have had such a catastrophic effect. At the bottom, the columns are much heavier and stronger and so they would have taken a much larger load.” Connor offered that one would “need graduate-level engineering training to choose the prime target location.”
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, questions arose whether superskyscrapers should be built in the future. Clearly, these top engineers would reply in the definite affirmative. Inevitably, they said, new tall towers will rise.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 6, 2006 at 6:13 PM
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Simple Analysis
By Zdenek P. Bazant, Fellow ASCE, and Yong Zhou
Abstract: This paper presents a simplified approximate analysis of the overall collapse of the towers of World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The analysis shows that if prolonged heating caused the majority of columns of a single floor to lose their load carrying capacity, the whole tower was doomed. The structural resistance is found to be an order of magnitude less than necessary for survival, even though the most optimistic simplifying assumptions are introduced.
Introduction and Failure Scenario
The 110-story towers of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand as a whole the forces caused by a horizontal impact of a large commercial aircraft (Appendix I). So why did a total collapse occur? The cause was the dynamic consequence of the prolonged heating of the steel columns to very high temperature. The heating lowered the yield strength and caused viscoplastic (creep) buckling of the columns of the framed tube along the perimeter of the tower and of the columns in the building core. The likely scenario of failure is approximately as follows.
In stage 1 the conflagration caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800°C.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This assumption is crucial to the entire analysis, and there is no basis for it. Actual tests of uninsulated steel structures exposed to gas and diesel fuel for sustained periods never exceeded 360°C. And flames were no longer visible in the South Tower moments before its collapse, and it was emitting only dark smoke.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The heating is probably accelerated by a loss of the protective thermal insulation of steel during the initial blast.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Blast? By implying that the impact fireballs were blasts, the authors confuse explosions, which produce very high pressures, with fireballs, which don’t. A detonation wave can be generated by the sudden ignition of an unburned hydrocarbon-air mixture, but is not produced when ignition is continuous, as appeared to be the case with the dispersing fuel in the jet impacts. The fireballs took about two seconds to expand. Had they detonated, they would have appeared in milliseconds.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At such temperatures, structural steel suffers a decrease of yield strength and exhibits significant viscoplastic deformation (i.e., creep an increase of deformation under sustained load). This leads to creep buckling of columns (e.g., Bazant and Cedolin 1991, Sec. 9), which consequently lose their load carrying capacity (stage 2). Once more than about a half of the columns in the critical floor that is heated most suffer buckling (stage 3), the weight of the upper part of the structure above this floor can no longer be supported, and so the upper part starts falling down onto the lower part below the critical floor, gathering speed until it impacts the lower part.
!!!!!!!!!!!This flies in the face of engineering practice, which is to build structures at least four times as strong as they would have to be to sustain maximum anticipated loads. Actual load conditions were a fraction of those anticipated loads, since it was not a windy day, and the floors above the impacts were holding only a fraction of their rated capacities. So 90% would be a more realistic estimate of the needed column failure rate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At that moment, the upper part has acquired an enormous kinetic energy and a significant downward velocity. The vertical impact of the mass of the upper part onto the lower part (stage 4) applies enormous vertical dynamic load on the underlying structure, far exceeding its load capacity, even if it is not heated. This causes failure of an underlying multi-floor segment of the tower (stage 4), in which the failure of the connections of the floor-carrying trusses to the columns is either accompanied or quickly followed by buckling of the core columns and overall buckling of the framed tube,
!!!!!!!!!!!was it too fast to see on the videos, or was it behind the dust?!!!!!!!
with the buckles probably spanning the height of many floors (stage 5, at right), and the upper part possibly getting wedged inside an emptied lower part of the framed tube (stage 5, at left). The buckling is initially plastic but quickly leads to fracture in the plastic hinges.The part of building lying beneath is then impacted again by an even larger mass falling with a greater velocity, and the series of impacts and failures then proceeds all the way down (stage 5).
Elastic Dynamic Analysis
The details of the failure process after the decisive initial trigger that sets the upper part in motion are of course very complicated and their clarification would require large computer simulations. For example, the upper part of one tower is tilting as it begins to fall (see Appendix II); the distribution of impact forces among the underlying columns of the framed tube and the core, and between the columns and the floor-supporting trusses, is highly nonuniform; etc. However, a computer is not necessary to conclude that the collapse of the majority of columns of one floor must have caused the whole tower to collapse. This may be demonstrated by the following elementary calculations, in which simplifying assumptions most optimistic in regard to survival are made.
!!!!!!!!!!That’s a preposterous claim, since it’s not even clear that elastic dynamic analysis, whatever it is, is even remotely applicable!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For a short time after the vertical impact of the upper part, but after the elastic wave generated by the vertical impact has propagated to the ground, the lower part of the structure can be approximately considered to act as an elastic spring. What is its stiffness C? It can vary greatly with the distribution of the impact forces among the framed tube columns, between these columns and those in the core, and between the columns and the trusses supporting concrete floor slabs.
For our purpose, we may assume that all the impact forces go into the columns and are distributed among them equally. Unlikely though such a distribution may be, it is nevertheless the most optimistic hypothesis to make because the resistance of the building to the impact is, for such a distribution, the highest. If the building is found to fail under a uniform distribution of the impact forces, it would fail under any other distribution.
!!!!!!!!!!!!They cleverly insert the idea of uniform symmetric collapse—one of the most obvious problems with the gravity-collapse—as an optimistic hypothesis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
According to this hypothesis, one may estimate that C 71 GN/m (due to unavailability of precise data, an approximate design of column cross sections had to be carried out for this purpose).
The downward displacement from the initial equilibrium position to the point of maximum deflection of the lower part (considered to behave elastically) is h + (P/C) where P = maximum force applied by the upper part on the lower part and h = height of critical floor columns (= height of the initial fall of the upper part) 3.7 m. The energy dissipation, particularly that due to the inelastic deformation of columns during the initial drop of the upper part, may be neglected, i.e., the upper part may be assumed to move through distance h almost in a free fall (indeed, the energy dissipated in the columns during the fall is at most equal to 2Ï€X the yield moment of columns, X the number of columns, which is found to be only about 12% of the gravitational potential energy release if the columns were cold, and much less than that at 800°C).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!What is the the yield moment of the columns, and how many columns are there? The confidence of the authors in their conclusions is strinking, given the lack of any clear details of the tower’s structures. Well, this 12% isn’t the only thing we have to take their word for!!!!!!!!!!!!
So the loss of the gravitational potential energy of the upper part may be approximately equated to the strain energy of the lower part at maximum elastic deflection. This gives the equation mg[h + (P/C)] = P2/2C in which m = mass of the upper part (of North Tower) 58·106 kg, and g = gravity acceleration. The solution P = Pdyn yields the following elastically calculated overload ratio due to impact of the upper part:
where P0 = mg = design load capacity. In spite of the approximate nature of this analysis, it is obvious that the elastically calculated forces in columns caused by the vertical impact of the upper part must have exceeded the load capacity of the lower part by at least an order of magnitude.
Another estimate, which gives the initial overload ratio that exists only for a small fraction of a second at the moment of impact, is
where A = cross section area of building, Eef= cross section stiffness of all columns divided by A, Ï = specific mass of building per unit volume. This estimate is calculated from the elastic wave equation which yields the intensity of the step front of the downward pressure wave caused by the impact if the velocity of the upper part at the moment of impact on the critical floor is considered as the boundary condition (e.g., Bazant and Cedolin, Sec. 13.1). After the wave propagates to the ground, the former estimate is appropriate.
An important hypothesis implied in this analysis is that the impacting upper part, many floors in height, is so stiff that it does not bend nor shear on vertical planes, and that the distribution of column displacements across the tower is almost linear, like for a rigid body. If, however, the upper part spanned only a few floors (say, 3 to 6), then it could be so flexible that different column groups of the upper part could move down separately at different times, producing a series of small impacts that would not be fatal (in theory, if people could have escaped from the upper part of the tower, the bottom part of the tower could have been saved if the upper part were bombed, exploded or weakened by some “smart” structure mechanism to collapse onto the lower part gradually as a pile of rubble, instead of impacting it instantly as an almost rigid body).
Analysis of Inelastic Energy Dissipation
The inelastic deformation of the steel of the towers involves plasticity and fracture. Since we are not attempting to model the details of the real failure mechanism but seek only to prove that the towers must have collapsed and do so in the way seen (Engineering 2001, American 2001), we will here neglect fracture, even though the development of fractures is clearly discerned in the photographs of the collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!I see a lot of fractured steel but no sign of fractures developing—just a progression of explosions down the building fracturing the frame along the way!!!!!!!!!!!
Assuming the steel to behave plastically, with unlimited ductility, we are making the most optimistic assumption with regard to the survival capacity of the towers (in reality, the plastic hinges, especially the hinges at column connections, must have fractured, and done so at relatively small rotation, causing the load capacity to drop drastically).
The basic question to answer is: Can the fall of the upper part be arrested by energy dissipation during plastic buckling which follows the initial elastic deformation? Many plastic failure mechanisms could be considered, for example: (a) the columns of the underlying floor buckle locally (Fig. 1, stage 2); (b) the floor-supporting trusses are sheared off at the connections to the framed tube and the core columns and fall down within the tube, depriving the core columns and the framed tube of lateral support, and thus promoting buckling of the core columns and the framed tube under vertical compression (Fig. 1, stage 4, Fig. 2c);
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Depriving the core columns of lateral support? Does the core structure pictured here look like it would instantly collapse without the latteral support of the surrounding floors?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
or (c) the upper part is partly wedged within the emptied framed tube of the lower part, pushing the walls of the framed tube apart (Fig. 1, stage 5).
!!!!!!!!!!!!Does this description correspond to what we see in photos such as these?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Although each of these mechanism can be shown to lead to total collapse,
!!!!!!!!!!!(I wish I were as smart as these guys so I could see too.)!!!!!!!!!!
a combination of the last two seems more realistic (the reason: multi-story pieces of the framed tube, with nearly straight boundaries apparently corresponding to plastic hinge lines causing buckles on the framed tube wall, were photographed falling down; see, e.g., Engineering 2001, American 2001).
Regardless of the precise failure mode, experience with buckling indicates that the while many elastic buckles simultaneously coexist in an axially compressed tube, the plastic deformation localizes (because of plastic bifurcation) into a single buckle at a time (Fig. 1, stage 4; Fig. 2c), and so the buckles must fold one after another. Thus, at least one plastic hinge, and no more than four plastic hinges, per column line are needed to operate simultaneously in order to allow the upper part to continue moving down (Fig. 2b, Bazant and Cedolin 1991) (this is also true if the columns of only one floor are buckling at a time). At the end, the sum of the rotation angles θi (i = 1, 2, . . ) of the hinges on one column line, Σθi, cannot exceed 2π (Fig. 2b). This upper-bound value, which is independent of the number of floors spanned by the buckle, is used in the present calculations since, in regard to survival, it represents the most optimistic hypothesis, maximizing the plastic energy dissipation.
Calculating the dissipation per column line of the framed tube as the plastic bending moment Mp of one column (Jirasek and Bazant 2002), times the combined rotation angle θi = 2π (Fig. 2b), and multiplying this by the number of columns, one concludes that the plastically dissipated energy Wp is, optimistically, of the order of 0.5 GN m (for lack of information, certain details such as the wall thickness of steel columns, were estimated by carrying out approximate design calculations for this building).
To attain the combined rotation angle Σθi = 2π of the plastic hinges on each column line, the upper part of the building must move down by the additional distance of one buckle, which is at least one floor below the floor where the collapse started. So the additional release of gravitational potential energy Wg ≥ mg · 2h 2 X 2:1 GN m = 4.2 GN m. To arrest the fall, the kinetic energy of the upper part, which is equal to the potential energy release for a fall through the height of at least two floors, would have to be absorbed by the plastic hinge rotations of one buckle, i.e., Wg=Wp would have to be less than 1. Rather,
if the energy dissipated by the columns of the critical heated floor is neglected. If the first buckle spans over n floors (3 to 10 seems likely), this ratio is about n times larger. So, even under by far the most optimistic assumptions, the plastic deformation can dissipate only a small part of the kinetic energy acquired by the upper part of building.
When the next buckle with its group of plastic hinges forms, the upper part has already traveled many floors down and has acquired a much higher kinetic energy; the percentage of the kinetic energy dissipated plastically is then of the order of 1%.
!!!!!!!!!!!!This claim is probably ridiculous, but in any case I can’t find an argument that the elastic dynamic analysis and its plastic hinges applies even remotely to those structures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The percentage continues to decrease further as the upper part moves down. If fracturing in the plastic hinges were considered, a still smaller (in fact much smaller) energy dissipation would be obtained. So the collapse of the tower must be an almost free fall. This conclusion is supported by the observation that the duration of the collapse of the tower, observed to be 9 s, was about the same as the duration of a free fall in a vacuum from the tower top (416 m above ground) to the top of the final heap of debris (about 25 m above ground), which is It further follows that the brunt of vertical impact must have gone directly into the columns of the framed tube and the core and that any delay Δt of the front of collapse of the framed tube behind the front of collapsing (“pancaking”) floors must have been negligible, or else the duration of the total collapse of the tower, 9 s + Δt, would have been significantly longer than 9 s. However, even for a short delay Δt, the floors should have acted like a piston running down through an empty tube, which helps to explain the smoke and debris that was seen being expelled laterally from the collapsing tower.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Huh? Is this supposed to explain how the towers’ tops crushed a 1000-foot high pillar of resilient steel as if there was only air there?!!!!!!
Problems of Disaster Mitigation and Design
Designing tall buildings to withstand this sort of attack seems next to impossible.
!!!!!!!!!!If by “this sort of attack” they mean explosive demolition, I would agree!!!!!!!!!!!!
It would require a much thicker insulation of steel, with blast-resistant protective cover. Replacing the rectangular framed tube by a hardened circular monolithic tube with tiny windows might help to deflect much of the debris and fuel from an impacting aircraft sideways, but regardless of cost, who would want to work in such a building?
The problems appear to be equally severe for concrete columns because concrete heated to such temperatures undergoes explosive thermal spalling, thermal fracture and disintegration due to dehydration of hardened cement paste (e.g., Bazant and Kaplan 1996). These questions arise not only for buildings supported on many columns but also for the recent designs of tall buildings with a massive monolithic concrete core functioning as a tubular mast. These recent designs use high-strength concrete which, however, is even more susceptible to explosive thermal spalling and thermal fracture than normal concrete. The use of refractory concretes as the structural material invites many open questions (Bazant and Kaplan 1996). Special alloys or various refractory ceramic composites may of course function at such temperatures, but the cost would increase astronomically. It will nevertheless be appropriate to initiate research on materials and designs that would postpone the collapse of the building so as to extend the time available for evacuation,
!!!!!!!!!!!!because even though multi-story steel structures have never “collapsed” before 9-11, now their collapse will be inevitable in the event of fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
provide a hardened and better insulated stairwell, or even prevent collapse in the case of a less severe attack such as an off-center impact or the impact of an aircraft containing little fuel. Lessons should be drawn for improving the safety of building design in the case of lesser disasters. For instance, in view of the progressive dynamic collapse of a stack of all the floors of the Ronan Point apartments in the U.K., caused by a gas explosion in one upper floor (Levy and Salvadori 1992), the following design principle, determining the appropriate ff of redundancy, should be adopted: If only a certain judiciously specified minority of the columns or column-floor connections at one floor are removed, the mass that might fall down from the superior structure must be so small that its impact on the underlying structure would not cause dynamic overload.
!!!!!!!!!!!Here, the authors fail to note that in the Ronan Point incident, the stack of floors that collapsed was comprised of small cantilever floor sections attached to the corner of the building, and the event did not involve the collapse of any of the major vertical support elements of the 23-story apartment block.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Closing Comments
Once accurate computer calculations are carried out, various details of the failure mechanism will doubtless be found to differ from the present simplifying hypotheses. Errors by a factor of 2 would not be terribly surprising, but that would hardly matter since the present analysis reveals order-of-magnitude differences between the dynamic loads and the structural resistance. There have been many interesting, but intuitive, competing explanations of the collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Theorists were very busy between September 11th and 13th!!!!!!!
To decide their viability, however, it is important to do at least some crude calculations. For example, it has been suggested that the connections of the floor-supporting trusses to the framed tube columns were not strong enough. Maybe they were not, but even if they were it would have made no difference, as shown by the present simple analysis.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!But stay tuned, because once that 800 Cº figure in this paper gets noticed, the trusses and their connectors will be heavily relied on in a more fine-tuned official explanation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The main purpose of the present analysis is to prove that the whole tower must have collapsed if the fire destroyed the load capacity of the majority of columns of a single floor. This purpose justifies the optimistic simplifying assumptions regarding survival made at the outset, which include unlimited plastic ductility (i.e., absence of fracture), uniform distribution of impact forces among the columns, disregard of various complicating details (e.g., the possibility that the failures of floor-column connections and of core columns preceded the column and tube failure, or that the upper tube got wedged inside the lower tube), etc. If the tower is found to fail under these very optimistic assumptions, it will certainly be found to fail when all the detailed mechanisms are analyzed, especially since there are order-of-magnitude differences between the dynamic loads and the structural resistance.
An important puzzle at the moment is why the adjacent 46-story building, into which no significant amount of aircraft fuel could have been injected, collapsed as well. Despite the lack of data at present, the likely explanation seems to be that high temperatures (though possibly well below 800°C) persisted on at least one floor of that building for a much longer time than specified by the current fire code provisions.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 6, 2006 at 6:18 PM
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation
!!!!!!!!!!(Mostly Speculation, and Disingenuous Speculation at That)!!!!!!!!
Thomas W. Eagar and Christopher Musso
There have been numerous reports detailing the cause of the World Trade Center Tower collapse on September 11, 2001. Most have provided qualitative explanations; however, simple quantitative analyses show that some common conclusions are incorrect; for example, the steel could not melt in these flames and there was more structural damage than merely softening of the steel at elevated temperatures. Some guidelines for improvements in future structures are presented.
INTRODUCTION
The collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers on September 11, 2001, was as sudden as it was dramatic; the complete destruction of such massive buildings shocked nearly everyone. Immediately afterward and even today, there is widespread speculation that the buildings were structurally deficient, that the steel columns melted, or that the fire suppression equipment failed to operate. In order to separate the fact from the fiction, we have attempted to quantify various details of the collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note the lack of any significant quantitative data in this article pertaining to the actual “collapses”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The major events include the following:
* The airplane impact with damage to the columns.
* The ensuing fire with loss of steel strength and distortion (Figure 1).
* The collapse, which generally occurred inward without significant tipping (Figure 2).
Each will be discussed separately, but initially it is useful to review the overall design of the towers.
THE DESIGN
The towers were designed and built in the mid-1960s through the early 1970s. They represented a new approach to skyscrapers in that they were to be very lightweight and involved modular construction methods in order to accelerate the schedule and to reduce the costs.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This implies that the buildings were shoddily constructed. They were lightweight in that they used far less masonry than buildings like the Empire State Building. But there is no evidence that the structural steel skeleton was any less robust than any other building!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To a structural engineer, a skyscraper is modeled as a large cantilever vertical column. Each tower was 64 m square, standing 411 m above street level and 21 m below grade. This produces a height-to-width ratio of 6.8. The total weight of the structure was roughly 500,000 t, but wind load, rather than the gravity load, dominated the design. The building is a huge sail that must resist a 225 km/h hurricane. It was designed to resist a wind load of 2 kPa—a total of lateral load of 5,000 t.
In order to make each tower capable of withstanding this wind load, the architects selected a lightweight “perimeter tube” design consisting of 244 exterior columns of 36 cm square steel box section on 100 cm centers (see Figure 3). This permitted windows more than one-half meter wide. Inside this outer tube there was a 27 m × 40 m core, which was designed to support the weight of the tower. It also housed the elevators, the stairwells, and the mechanical risers and utilities. Web joists 80 cm tall connected the core to the perimeter at each story.
!!!!!!!!!!!!In addition to the web joists (“trusses”) there must have been steel I-beams to transfer the lateral forces due to wind loading between the outer wall and core structures. The photograph at the bottom of this page show some of the I-beams, which are, incidentally, entirely absent from the descriptions of the towers in FEMA’s official report explaining the collapses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Concrete slabs were poured over these joists to form the floors. In essence, the building is an egg-crate construction that is about 95 percent air, explaining why the rubble after the collapse was only a few stories high.
The egg-crate construction made a redundant structure (i.e., if one or two columns were lost, the loads would shift into adjacent columns and the building would remain standing). Prior to the World Trade Center with its lightweight perimeter tube design, most tall buildings contained huge columns on 5 m centers and contained massive amounts of masonry carrying some of the structural load. The WTC was primarily a lightweight steel structure; however, its 244 perimeter columns made it “one of the most redundant and one of the most resilient” skyscrapers.
THE AIRLINE IMPACT
The early news reports noted how well the towers withstood the initial impact of the aircraft; however, when one recognizes that the buildings had more than 1,000 times the mass of the aircraft and had been designed to resist steady wind loads of 30 times the weight of the aircraft, this ability to withstand the initial impact is hardly surprising. Furthermore, since there was no significant wind on September 11, the outer perimeter columns were only stressed before the impact to around 1/3 of their 200 MPa design allowable.
The only individual metal component of the aircraft that is comparable in strength to the box perimeter columns of the WTC is the keel beam at the bottom of the aircraft fuselage. While the aircraft impact undoubtedly destroyed several columns in the WTC perimeter wall, the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure. Of equal or even greater significance during this initial impact was the explosion when 90,000 L gallons of jet fuel, comprising nearly 1/3 of the aircraft’s weight, ignited.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is wildly inaccurate, since it is established that each plane was carrying around 10,000 gallons of fuel, or 37,000 liters. However, the fuel capacity of each jet was around 90,000 liters, so perhaps the authors looked up the jets’ fuel capacities without bothering to check their ranges, which are 120 percent longer than their planned coast-to-coast routes. The 90,000 liter error is repeated four times in this article. Of the 37,000 liters that was on each plane, much to the vast majority must have been used up in the first few seconds in the collision fireball—particularly in the case of the south tower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The ensuing fire was clearly the principal cause of the collapse (Figure 4).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The authors are stating that one event (a fire) wsa “clearly” the cause of another event (a collapse) even though there is not a single case, before or since, of a fire causing the collapse of a skyscraper, much less one causing the building to explode into dust, and do so more than an hour after the initial truma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE FIRE
The fire is the most misunderstood part of the WTC collapse. Even today, the media report (and many scientists believe) that the steel melted. It is argued that the jet fuel burns very hot, especially with so much fuel present. This is not true.
Part of the problem is that people (including engineers) often confuse temperature and heat. While they are related, they are not the same. Thermodynamically, the heat contained in a material is related to the temperature through the heat capacity and the density (or mass). Temperature is defined as an intensive property, meaning that it does not vary with the quantity of material, while the heat is an extensive property, which does vary with the amount of material. One way to distinguish the two is to note that if a second log is added to the fireplace, the temperature does not double; it stays roughly the same, but the size of the fire or the length of time the fire burns, or a combination of the two, doubles. Thus, the fact that there were 90,000 L of jet fuel on a few floors of the WTC does not mean that this was an unusually hot fire. The temperature of the fire at the WTC was not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel.
In combustion science, there are three basic types of flames, namely, a jet burner, a pre-mixed flame, and a diffuse flame. A jet burner generally involves mixing the fuel and the oxidant in nearly stoichiometric proportions and igniting the mixture in a constant-volume chamber. Since the combustion products cannot expand in the constant-volume chamber, they exit the chamber as a very high velocity, fully combusted, jet. This is what occurs in a jet engine, and this is the flame type that generates the most intense heat.
In a pre-mixed flame, the same nearly stoichiometric mixture is ignited as it exits a nozzle, under constant pressure conditions. It does not attain the flame velocities of a jet burner. An oxyacetylene torch or a Bunsen burner is a pre-mixed flame.
In a diffuse flame, the fuel and the oxidant are not mixed before ignition, but flow together in an uncontrolled manner and combust when the fuel/oxidant ratios reach values within the flammable range. A fireplace flame is a diffuse flame burning in air, as was the WTC fire.
Diffuse flames generate the lowest heat intensities of the three flame types.
If the fuel and the oxidant start at ambient temperature, a maximum flame temperature can be defined. For carbon burning in pure oxygen, the maximum is 3,200°C; for hydrogen it is 2,750°C. Thus, for virtually any hydrocarbons, the maximum flame temperature, starting at ambient temperature and using pure oxygen, is approximately 3,000°C.
This maximum flame temperature is reduced by two-thirds if air is used rather than pure oxygen. The reason is that every molecule of oxygen releases the heat of formation of a molecule of carbon monoxide and a molecule of water. If pure oxygen is used, this heat only needs to heat two molecules (carbon monoxide and water), while with air, these two molecules must be heated plus four molecules of nitrogen. Thus, burning hydrocarbons in air produces only one-third the temperature increase as burning in pure oxygen because three times as many molecules must be heated when air is used. The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1,000°C—hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1,500°C.
Figure 3. A cutaway view of WTC structure.
Figure 4. A graphic illustration, from the USA Today newspaper web site, of the World Trade Center points of impact. Click on the image above to access the actual USA Today feature.
But it is very difficult to reach this maximum temperature with a diffuse flame. There is nothing to ensure that the fuel and air in a diffuse flame are mixed in the best ratio. Typically, diffuse flames are fuel rich, meaning that the excess fuel molecules, which are unburned, must also be heated. It is known that most diffuse fires are fuel rich because blowing on a campfire or using a blacksmith’s bellows increases the rate of combustion by adding more oxygen. This fuel-rich diffuse flame can drop the temperature by up to a factor of two again. This is why the temperatures in a residential fire are usually in the 500°C to 650°C range. It is known that the WTC fire was a fuel-rich, diffuse flame as evidenced by the copious black smoke. Soot is generated by incompletely burned fuel; hence, the WTC fire was fuel rich—hardly surprising with 90,000 L of jet fuel available. Factors such as flame volume and quantity of soot decrease the radiative heat loss in the fire, moving the temperature closer to the maximum of 1,000°C.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So having just admitted that the fires’ being oxygen-starved would about halve their temperatures, the authors go on to imply that the insulative properties of soot would bring the fires right back up to that 1000º C figure, ignoring that the thermal capacity of the sooty smoke would have carried much of the heat away from the fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!
However, it is highly unlikely that the structural steel at the WTC experienced temperatures above the 750–800°C range, given it’s ability to rapidly conduct heat away from the fire-exposed areas.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And it is highly unlikely that any large steel pieces experienced temperatures above 300º C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All reports that the steel melted at 1,500°C are using imprecise terminology at best.
Some reports suggest that the aluminum from the aircraft ignited, creating very high temperatures. While it is possible to ignite aluminum under special conditions, such conditions are not commonly attained in a hydrocarbon-fueled diffuse flame. In addition, the flame would be white hot, like a giant sparkler. There was no evidence of such aluminum ignition, which would have been visible even through the dense soot.
It is known that structural steel begins to soften around 425°C and loses about half of its strength at 650°C. This is why steel is stress relieved in this temperature range. But even a 50% loss of strength is still insufficient, by itself, to explain the WTC collapse. It was noted above that the wind load controlled the design allowables. The WTC, on this low-wind day, was likely not stressed more than a third of the design allowable, which is roughly one-fifth of the yield strength of the steel. Even with its strength halved, the steel could still support two to three times the stresses imposed by a 650°C fire.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note that in all of the discussion of fire temperatures and steel weakening the authors never point out the difference between flame temperature and steel temperature, implying that they are the same. This ignores the very high thermal conductivity of steel. In actual tests of hydrocarbon-fueled fires in car parks with exposed steel structures, conducted by Corus Construction, the highest recorded temperature of any of the steel in any of the many tests was 360º C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The additional problem was distortion of the steel in the fire. The temperature of the fire was not uniform everywhere, and the temperature on the outside of the box columns was clearly lower than on the side facing the fire. The temperature along the 18 m long joists was certainly not uniform. Given the thermal expansion of steel, a 150°C temperature difference from one location to another will produce yield-level residual stresses. This produced distortions in the slender structural steel, which resulted in buckling failures.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!No buckling can be seen in any of the video and photographic evidence, only the instantaneous onset of a telescoping collapse, accompanied by explosions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thus, the failure of the steel was due to two factors: loss of strength due to the temperature of the fire, and loss of structural integrity due to distortion of the steel from the non-uniform temperatures in the fire.
THE COLLAPSE
Nearly every large building has a redundant design that allows for loss of one primary structural member, such as a column. However, when multiple members fail, the shifting loads eventually overstress the adjacent members and the collapse occurs like a row of dominoes falling down.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The reader is asked to believe that massive continuous steel box-beams of the buildings’ cores and outer walls were actually one story-high segments, merely balanced on top of each other, and the steelworkers didn’t even bother to weld or bolt them together!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The perimeter tube design of the WTC was highly redundant. It survived the loss of several exterior columns due to aircraft impact, but the ensuing fire led to other steel failures.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note that the article never revisits the question of how the numerous undamaged perimeter columns failed simultaneously, even though there is no evidence they experienced significant heating from the fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many structural engineers believe that the weak points—the limiting factors on design allowables—were the angle clips that held the floor joists between the columns on the perimeter wall and the core structure (see Figure 5). With a 700 Pa floor design allowable, each floor should have been able to support approximately 1,300 t beyond its own weight. The total weight of each tower was about 500,000 t.
As the joists on one or two of the most heavily burned floors gave way and the outer box columns began to bow outward, the floors above them also fell.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Funny that there is no evidence of the bowing outward of the outer box columns in any of the videos or photographs—just a strikingly symmetrical telescoping in the case of the North Tower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The floor below (with its 1,300 t design capacity) could not support the roughly 45,000 t of ten floors (or more) above crashing down on these angle clips.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!But in order for the collapse to start just one or two floors falling would have to overcome the 1,300 ton capacity of the floor below. Since most of the 45,000 tons above the crash zone was probably in the core and outer walls, a single floor probably weighed less than 1,000 tons!!!!!
This started the domino effect that caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds, hitting bottom with an estimated speed of 200 km per hour. If it had been free fall, with no restraint, the collapse would have only taken eight seconds and would have impacted at 300 km/h.
!!!!!!!!!!!!The correct time (for free-fall in a vacuum from the heights of the towers’ roofs to the street) is 9.2 seconds. And the crushing of all those stories and acceleration of the 400,000 tons of intact structure below the impact zone only slowed the fall by a couple of seconds?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has been suggested that it was fortunate that the WTC did not tip over onto other buildings surrounding the area. There are several points that should be made. First, the building is not solid; it is 95 percent air and, hence, can implode onto itself. Second, there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is sheer nonsense, as any imbalance in the damage to the structure would result in lateral loads due to the fulcrum of damaged structure not being directly beneath the center of gravity of the overhanging mass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Third, given the near free-fall collapse, there was insufficient time for portions to attain significant lateral velocity. To summarize all of these points, a 500,000 t structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And what does that “near free-fall” collapse mean: that the gravity load-bearing structure of the building below the impact zone was obliterated before the falling portion encountered it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note that the cursory three-short-paragraph treatment of the “collapse” entirely ignores the role of the towers’ resilient cores, which collapsing floors would have slid down like records on a spindle. Note also that “collapse” is singular, even though the damage in the two towers was very different. There is no evidence the jet collision with Tower 2 significantly damaged its core structures, since the strike was oblique, much of the jet’s fuselage and fuel having exited the adjacent face of the outer wall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WAS THE WTC DEFECTIVELY DESIGNED?
The World Trade Center was not defectively designed. No designer of the WTC anticipated, nor should have anticipated, a 90,000 L Molotov cocktail on one of the building floors.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And those engineers who designed the building to survive a direct hit from a 707 carrying 23,000 gallons of fuel, far more than the 10,000 in the 767s—well they must have forgotten to think about the fuel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skyscrapers are designed to support themselves for three hours in a fire even if the sprinkler system fails to operate. This time should be long enough to evacuate the occupants. The WTC towers lasted for one to two hours—less than the design life, but only because the fire fuel load was so large.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Nearly half the size anticipated, ignoring the fuel consumed in the fireballs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No normal office fires would fill 4,000 square meters of floor space in the seconds in which the WTC fire developed. Usually, the fire would take up to an hour to spread so uniformly across the width and breadth of the building. This was a very large and rapidly progressing fire (very high heat but not unusually high temperature). Further information about the design of the WTC can be found on the World Wide Web.
!!!!!!!!!!!But you won’t find the blueprints for the towers. Those are being withheld from the public!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
The clean-up of the World Trade Center will take many months.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!But it was accomplished in only half the time predicted. Controlled Demolition Inc. was so efficient that it recycled the steel before it could be examined for clues to the greatest structural failure in history. But with experts like Eagar and Musso to explain the “collapse” for us, who needs to examine the evidence?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After all, 1,000,000 t of rubble will require 20,000 to 30,000 truckloads to haul away the material. The asbestos fire insulation makes the task hazardous for those working nearby. Interestingly, the approximately 300,000 t of steel is fully recyclable and represents only one day’s production of the U.S. steel industry. Separation of the stone and concrete is a common matter for modern steel shredders. The land-filling of 700,000 t of concrete and stone rubble is more problematic. However, the volume is equivalent to six football fields, 6–9 m deep, so it is manageable.
There will undoubtedly be a number of changes in the building codes as a result of the WTC catastrophe. For example, emergency communication systems need to be upgraded to speed up the notice for evacuation and the safest paths of egress. Emergency illumination systems, separate from the normal building lighting, are already on the drawing boards as a result of lessons learned from the WTC bombing in 1993. There will certainly be better fire protection of structural members. Protection from smoke inhalation, energy-absorbing materials, and redundant means of egress will all be considered.
A basic engineering assessment of the design of the World Trade Center dispels many of the myths about its collapse. First, the perimeter tube design of the towers protected them from failing upon impact. The outer columns were engineered to stiffen the towers in heavy wind, and they protected the inner core, which held the gravity load. Removal of some of the outer columns alone could not bring the building down. Furthermore, because of the stiffness of the perimeter design, it was impossible for the aircraft impact to topple the building.
However, the building was not able to withstand the intense heat of the jet fuel fire. While it was impossible for the fuel-rich, diffuse-flame fire to burn at a temperature high enough to melt the steel, its quick ignition and intense heat caused the steel to lose at least half its strength and to deform, causing buckling or crippling.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!One would think a fire producing such intense heat would exhibit some big flames, light, or light-colored smoke, none of which are visible after the first few minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This weakening and deformation caused a few floors to fall, while the weight of the stories above them crushed the floors below, initiating a domino collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Such a collapse would have looked nothing like what we saw. The floors falling on each other would have resulted in their falling inside the outer wall and around the inner core. The outer wall and core would not have failed until after the collapsed floors piled up at ground level INSIDE the outer walls. Instead we saw the outer wall shredded by gradual, descending explosion, starting just as the tower’s top started to fall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It would be impractical to design buildings to withstand the fuel load induced by a burning commercial airliner.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!According to the FEMA report, the buildings did withstand said fuel loads, which were depleted in “a few minutes”. And they should have, since they were designed to withstand over twice those fuel loads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Instead of saving the building, engineers and officials should focus on saving the lives of those inside by designing better safety and evacuation systems.
As scientists and engineers, we must not succumb to speculative thinking when a tragedy such as this occurs. Quantitative reasoning can help sort fact from fiction, and can help us learn from this unfortunate disaster. As Lord Kelvin said,
“I often say . . . that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
We will move forward from the WTC tragedy and we will engineer better and safer buildings in the future based, in part, on the lessons learned at the WTC. The reason the WTC collapse stirs our emotions so deeply is because it was an intentional attack on innocent people.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Oops, they let a bit of truth in here: the collapses were intentional!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is easier to accept natural or unintentional tragedies; it is the intentional loss of life that makes us fear that some people have lost their humanity.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 6, 2006 at 6:21 PM
Speculation and theorizing do not constitute malpractice. On the contrary, they are essential ingredients in the reaching of valid conclusions.
You sophomorically mischaracterize this process as some kind of crime, Joe.
In fact, if the “truth” movement had anyone qualified to participate in this process, they would be respected. Such is not the case.
No serious professional engineer in a relevant field has voiced suspicions of explosives being used. No serious investigative journalist has. No serious politician has. There are hundreds of journalists and politicians that would give their right arm for this trash to be true. Such is not the case.
Jeff King is not qualified to question the conclusions of NIST and the rest of the structural/civil engineering and professional demolitionist community. He’s free to try, but until he is able to produce a thesis, and pass peer review in a relevant scientific or engineering journal, his sputterings are as irrelevant as yours and mine.
The folks at 9/11 research are not qualified to “debunk” the NIST reports. They are nothing more than a bunch of computer geek propagandists who dub themselves “researchers”, and haven’t the slightest clue how to go about properly disagreeing with genuinely qualified individuals.
The proof is in the pudding. The “truth” crowd’s pudding so far is a runny mess with no body and no flavor.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 6, 2006 at 9:58 PM
Natalie
You said:
I asked you for the complete context of Ronald Hamburger and Mike Tayor’s quotes that you introduced. You dodged. I had to do it.
I think you are going insane because I had linked to the original sources twice on Oct 25, 2006 at 1:38 AM before you asked me for links on Oct 25, 2006 at 4:24 and so I again gave you links to the original sources twice on Oct 28, 2006 at 9:18 PM.
Now of course this does not count all the indirect links I gave where the quotes were used and through most of those (not all) you could go to the original sources for the quotes and all these many times are on page 15 alone.
Also I have pointed this out and when I did it had been 8 times that I had posted the links and after that I did it again a few times so you dont have any excuse that I can think of for this comment other than you are lying. If I am wrong please explain. But I must say I do not belive it was by misstake you made the comment. You should be ashamed of your self!
You said:
In stage 1 Fig. 1, the conflagration, caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure, causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800C. The heating is probably accelerated by a loss of the protective thermal insulation of steel during the initial blast.—Bazant/Zhou 2001 Journal of Engineering Mechanics ...... ahem!
Blast? By implying that the impact fireballs were blasts, the authors confuse explosions, which produce very high pressures, with fireballs, which don’t. A detonation wave can be generated by the sudden ignition of an unburned hydrocarbon-air mixture, but is not produced when ignition is continuous, as appeared to be the case with the dispersing fuel in the jet impacts. The fireballs took about two seconds to expand. Had they detonated, they would have appeared in milliseconds.
This assumption is crucial to the entire analysis, and there is no basis for it. Actual tests of uninsulated steel structures exposed to gas and diesel fuel for sustained periods never exceeded 360°C. And flames were no longer visible in the South Tower moments before its collapse, and it was emitting only dark smoke.
I know you think this is another crazy moon—bat theory but I must try to wake you up about the North American Union to Replace USA.
H. CON. RES. 487
Currently a resolution is being introduced into Congress to block what is called by some a coup d’etat.
Corsi charges that the SPP working groups are a shadow government working daily to rewrite American laws and regulations with counterpart bureaucrats in Canada and Mexico. All of this, he states, is being done without the knowledge of the American people and most members of Congress.
“What we charge is that under way, below the radar screen, is essentially a Bush administration coup d’état, creating a regional North American Union on the same stealth plan that was put into effect in Europe,” he says. “The key issue is deniability: the administrators involved in this, the globalists and the bureaucrats who are involved in it from the Bush administration would say, ‘No, we’re just building a highway.’”
According to Corsi, the “Trans-Texas Corridor” is designed to function as a NAFTA super-highway, opening Mexican ports with Red Chinese goods from Mexican trucks and trains to move north into the center of the United States. The group that will build and finance the Corridor, he notes, is a group in Spain named “Cintra” — and the tolls on that road will go to Cintra, he says - AgapePress
The Resolution is known as H. CON. RES. 487 and is being sponsored by Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia. The text is as follows:
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.
Whereas, according to the Department of Commerce, United States trade deficits with Mexico and Canada have significantly widened since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);
Whereas the economic and physical security of the United States is impaired by the potential loss of control of its borders attendant to the full operation of NAFTA;
Whereas a NAFTA Superhighway System from the west coast of Mexico through the United States and into Canada has been suggested as part of a North American Union;
Whereas it would be particularly difficult for Americans to collect insurance from Mexican companies which employ Mexican drivers involved in accidents in the United States, which would increase the insurance rates for American drivers;
Whereas future unrestricted foreign trucking into the United States can pose a safety hazard due to inadequate maintenance and inspection, and can act collaterally as a conduit for the entry into the United States of illegal drugs, illegal human smuggling, and terrorist activities; and
Whereas a NAFTA Superhighway System would be funded by foreign consortiums and controlled by foreign management, which threatens the sovereignty of the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That—
(1) the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System;
(2) the United States should not enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada; and
(3) the President should indicate strong opposition to these or any other proposals that threaten the sovereignty of the United States.
Canadian, U.S., and Mexican elites, including CEOS and politicians, have a plan to create common North American policies and further integrate our economies. This plan goes by various names and euphemisms, such as “deep integration”, “NAFTA-plus”, “harmonization”, the “Big Idea”, the “Grand Bargain”, and the “North American Security and Prosperity Initiative”. Regardless of which name your prefer, the end goal of all of these plans is to create a new political and economic entity that would supercede the existing countries. Advocates refer to it as a “North American Community”, but it is also known as the North American Union (NAU). Theoretically, it would be similar to and competetive with the European Union (EU). The individual currencies of each country would be replaced by a common currency called the “Amero” and everything from environmental regulations to security would be brought in line with a common standard.
Country’s destruction is now under way
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By EDWARD MILTON VENTRESCA / Canyon Country, Calif.
.
Relatively few Americans are aware that the destruction of the United States is well under way. How can this be? It is because the federal government wants to entangle us in a North American Cooperative Security Act with Canada and Mexico.
This act will be used as a stepping stone to build a North American Union similar to the European Union. Our borders with Canada and Mexico will be erased, and we will be subjected to rulings from an unelected NAU governing body. We will lose our sovereignty and our constitutional protection.
This is not speculation. It is official government policy. If you don’t believe me, go to www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml for details.
Futhermore, as part of the NAU, the federal government plans to build a NAFTA super highway throughout our country. It will be linked to both Canada and Mexico. It is expected to be about a quarter-mile wide. The government will use the power of eminent domain to condemn private property for this highway.
Inspection stations will be moved from our borders to hundreds of miles inland because our borders will have been erased. This means that terrorists and contraband can easily enter our former independent United States.
Concerned citizens should contact their U.S. Senators and their U.S. representative and urge them to stop this so-called Security Act: S. 853 in the Senate, and H.R 2672 in the House of Representatives.
Closer ties to the U.S. a mistake
By Robert Radford
Nov 04 2006
The North American Union, may seem like a good thing to some people: no more currency exchange problems, no more duties and tariffs, no more hassles at the border.
But before the Canadian people allow their politicians to create this union, there are a few factors I believe should be taken into consideration.
Integrity: The United States government has repeatedly demonstrated its “right,” in the best interests of the United States, to violate the terms of any agreement, constitution, convention, treaty or understanding which may exist. Are we willing to form a union with a nation which can’t keep its word?
Fiscal Responsibility: The United States has a debt of over $8,570 billion and it is increasing at the rate of 1.62 billion dollars a day, far beyond its ability to ever repay, even according to the most optimistic of forecasts. Are we willing to form a union with a nation which is bankrupt?
Resource Responsibility: The United States imports two-thirds of the oil which it consumes and the dried up lakes and rivers in parts of the United States demonstrate a lack of responsibility in water resource management. Canada possesses the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, next to Saudi Arabia, and has 10 times more water resources than the United States. Are we willing to form a union with a nation which has its eyes on our resources after misusing its own?
Social Values: Anyone who has lived and worked in the United States for a few years is well aware that there are significant differences between the moral and cultural values of those who have been born and brought up in Canada and those who have been born and brought up in the United States. For example, Canadians value multi-cultural perspectives, whereas the Americans value a cultural melting-pot. Are we willing to form a union with a nation without a clear acceptance of the differences in our sets of values?
Consideration of factors such as these may seem like common sense to you and me. But can we count on our politicians to exercise it?
Robert Radford is a Cobble Hill resident.
Congressman: Superhighway
about North American Union
Paul says goal is common currency,
borderless travel, bigger bureaucracy
Posted: October 30, 2006
12:41 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas
WASHINGTON – Rep. Ron Paul, a maverick Republican from Texas, today denounced plans for the proposed “NAFTA superhighway” in his state as part of a larger plot for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American Union.
“By now many Texans have heard about the proposed ‘NAFTA Superhighway,’ which is also referred to as the trans-Texas corridor,” he said in a statement. “What you may not know is the extent to which plans for such a superhighway are moving forward without congressional oversight or media attention.”
Paul explained that most members of Congress are unaware of the plans because only relatively small amounts of money have been spent studying the plans and those allocations were included in “enormous transportation appropriations bills.”
“The proposed highway is part of a broader plan advanced by a quasi-government organization called the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,’ or SPP,” he explains. “The SPP was first launched in 2005 by the heads of state of Canada, Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco.”
No treaties were involved, and Congress was not included in discussions or plans, he says.
“Instead, the SPP is an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments,” according to Paul. “One principal player is a Spanish construction company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll road. But don’t be fooled: The superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically connected interests.”
Paul says, however, the real issue raised by the superhighway plan and the SPP is national sovereignty.
“Once again, decisions that affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress,” says Paul. “Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution – which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade.”
The ultimate goal, he says, is not simply a superhighway “but an integrated North American Union – complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy and virtually borderless travel within the union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.”
Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., has introduced a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the U.S. should not engage in the construction of a NAFTA superhighway, or enter into any agreement that advances the concept of a North American Union.
“I wholeheartedly support this legislation and predict that the superhighway will become a sleeper issue in the 2008 election,” says Paul. “Any movement toward a North American Union diminishes the ability of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must live. The SPP agreement, including the plan for a major transnational superhighway through Texas, is moving forward without congressional oversight – and that is an outrage. The administration needs a strong message from Congress that the American people will not tolerate backroom deals that threaten our sovereignty.”
No North American Union
Written by Douglas Logan
Friday, 27 October 2006
Dear Editor:
Many Americans remain unaware of the simple historical fact that our nation was created by the states, not the reverse. The federal system built by our nation’s Founders established a national government with very few duties and limited powers.
Each state was to remain independent in most areas. This system ultimately assured that the American people would make our nation the most powerful and productive in modem history.
In more recent years, the federal government has usurped many of the powers of the states, and the federal government has begun taking steps that would steer the United States into an independence-compromising regional government called the North American Union.
It sounds like a fantasy, or a bad dream, but it is not. The October 2 issue of The New American describes already-established plans that could result in our nation becoming subject to a new agreement among the governments of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
If not blocked, the agreement would mean that the three countries could become~ in effect, a single entity. Our borders would essentially be erased, Canadian and Mexican law enforcement personnel would be integrated into our new Homeland Security Department, and a huge highway system would be erected among the three countries to facilitate delivery of Mexican and other goods to the U.S. and Canada.
Such a highway system would lead to increased illegal immigration, large-scale eminent domain takings of private property along the planned highways, and increased law enforcement problems along these same highways.
Our nation’s motto, E Pluribus Unum, means “Out of Many, One” - out of many independent states, one national government for strictly limited purposes. America’s Founders ~ intended to destroy the states as independent entities.
For your family, your state, and your country, please help win approval in our state legislature.
“To withdraw the U.S. from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and any other bilateral or multilateral activity which seeks to create a North American Union.”
Douglas A. Logan
Heflin, Louisiana
North American Union to Replace USA
November 4, 2006—- President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration’s true open borders policy.
Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.
President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.
The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report (http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf) entitled “Building a North American Community” published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR report connects the dots between the Bush administration’s actual policy on illegal immigration and the drive to create the North American Union:
At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint
action. We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts.
What is the plan? Simple, erase the borders. The plan is contained in a “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” little noticed when President Bush and President Fox created it in March 2005:
In March 2005, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment “to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security.” The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.
To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of
the three leaders that “our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary.” Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.
The perspective of the CFR report allows us to see President Bush’s speech to the nation as nothing more than public relations posturing and window dressing. No wonder President Vincente Fox called President Bush in a panic after the speech. How could the President go back on his word to Mexico by actually securing our border? Not to worry, President Bush reassured President Fox. The National Guard on the border were only temporary, meant to last only as long until the public forgets about the issue, as has always been the case in the past.
The North American Union plan, which Vincente Fox has every reason to presume President Bush is still following, calls for the only border to be around the North American Union—not between any of these countries. Or, as the CFR report stated:
The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments? physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.
Discovering connections like this between the CFR recommendations and Bush administration policy gives credence to the argument that President Bush favors amnesty and open borders, as he originally said. Moreover, President Bush most likely continues to consider groups such as the Minuteman Project to be “vigilantes,” as he has also said in response to a reporter’s question during the March 2005 meeting with President Fox.
Why doesn’t President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. The administration has no intent to secure the border, or to enforce rigorously existing immigration laws. Securing our border with Mexico is evidently one of the jobs President Bush just won’t do. If a fence is going to be built on our border with Mexico, evidently the Minuteman Project is going to have to build the fence themselves. Will President Bush protect America’s sovereignty, or is this too a job the Minuteman Project will have to do for him?
Please read this Timeline of the Progress Toward a North American Union. I know you Natalie and Scorp dont belive it but please at least read it Please!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 6, 2006 at 11:47 PM
Joe you said:
“I think you are going insane because I had linked to the original sources twice on Oct 25, 2006 at 1:38 AM before you asked me for links on Oct 25, 2006 at 4:24 and so I again gave you links to the original sources twice on Oct 28, 2006 at 9:18 PM.”
If you wouldn’t post entire novels at a time, someone might have a chance of deciphering what point you’re trying to make. I see now that there are links to the original sources of the quotes, however, I remember also that this was a post that you didn’t have time to paste all the links into at first. Then your links were disappearing.
Give me a break. Turn down the faucet, and give people a chance to respond point by point. Your flooding the place with one disparate tangent after another, just to let you know, comes off as an obvious smokescreen to hide your inability to provide any actual evidence for what you claim.
Just so we’re clear. Taylor and Hamburger do not believe in CD. They never did. They merely stated their initial impressions, as did countless people across the country, and as did several journalists covering the event, that the collapses resembled deliberate implosions they’d seen in the past.
If you want to maintain that someone’s initial impressions should rule over the result of months and months of detailed investigation, go right ahead, be my guest.
I’ll reprint my previous post (slightly edited for relevance) so everyone’s clear on the context:
Kevin Ryan mined Ronald Hamburger’s quote here:
Ronald Hamburger turned on his television on the day of the attack just in time to watch the collapse of the second World Trade Center tower.
“<u>It appeared to me that charges had been placed in the building</u>,” said Mr. Hamburger, chief structural engineer for ABS Consulting in Oakland, Calif. Upon learning that no bombs had been detonated, “I was very surprised,” said Mr. Hamburger. The buildings “certainly did not do as well as I would have hoped.”
But obviously, this was just a first impression that many people had before they knew any details about the building’s unusual construction.
Kevin Ryan mined Mike Taylor’s quote here:
<u>The collapse of the WTC towers looked like a classic controlled demolition</u>, said Mike Taylor of the National Association of Demolition Contractors in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
“If there’s any good thing about this it’s that the towers tended not to weaken to one side,” said Taylor. “They could have tipped onto other buildings or into the river across the West Side highway.”
The collapse of the WTC towers mirrored the strategy used by demolition experts. In controlled demolitions, explosives are placed not just on the lowest three floors but also on several consecutive floors about a third of the way up the building.
The explosions at the higher floors enable the collapse to gain downward momentum as gravity pulls the full weight of unsupported higher floors down into lower floors in a snowballing effect.
On Tuesday, the impacts of aeroplanes on the higher floors replaced the explosives. The collapse of the higher floors caused the floors below to be crushed. <u>“It cascaded down like an implosion,” says Taylor.</u>
So we are left to conclude that Kevin Ryan is either deliberately deceiving us, or feels no need for researching the quotes he uses in his presentations past the first 9/11 conspiracy site he clicks on.
Either way, it doesn’t bode well for the credibility of the rest of his little side….er uh….slide show.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:18 AM
Now you seem to want to pick apart Bazant’s use of the term “blast”. I think what he’s referring to is the huge force of the jet, its fuel and its contents, along with elements of the building it took out along the way, blasting its way into the interior of the building, not so much the explosions of the fuel. That wouldn’t exactly be a gentle breeze, however.
If you think that any kind of fireproofing anywhere would hold up to such force, you’re in la-la land.
If you think that the fireproofing that was there was perfectly and completely installed, and wasn’t already subject to falling off with a relatively small amount of force, I think you would be in error, as I believe NIST has evidence to suggest that the fireproofing job/materials were inadequate. (not absolutely sure on this, but regardless, there was a huge force injected that surely would have overcome even the best fireproofing installation.)
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:36 AM
One important point Joe, is that many people who were familiar with the design of the towers, and people who were familiar with what can happen to steel and steel trusses in a fire, knew that the towers would probaby collapse, and tried to sound the warning.
On top of that, police in helicopters could see that collapse was imminent, about ten minutes before. They described “red hot” fires. Ahem.
Umm…....the Pentagon?
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:46 AM
Natalie
You said:
(#1) If you wouldn’t post entire novels at a time, someone might have a chance of deciphering what point you’re trying to make. (#3) I see now that there are links to the original sources of the quotes, however, I remember also that this was a post that you didn’t have time to paste all the links into at first. Then your links were disappearing.
#1 Natalie in the posts we are talking about I replied to each point you made with just some of the information out there to back it up. I gave you exactly what you had asked for in the previous comments you had made.
You said:
(#2)Give me a break. Turn down the faucet, and give people a chance to respond point by point. Your flooding the place with one disparate tangent after another, just to let you know, comes off as an obvious smokescreen to hide your inability to provide any actual evidence for what you claim.
#2 Natalie I am always giving you many breaks. You always say show me and then you complain when I do. I do not mean to flood you with information that backs up what I am saying or to show your comments are completely false for I only use some of the massive amounts of infomation that is found around the world.
The faucet you talk about is tens of thousands of massive water falls found all around the globe flooding the world in truth. Any so called debunkers should make like Noah for the tide of truth is rising. You better get in your life boat Natalie because this flood is only growing in size and speed every day. The lies are being exposed as they drown in the truth.ect, ect, ect…
#3 Yes Natalie in one of the posts I did not have time to past all the links
into my reply to your incorrect and false comments. But I had posted the same stuff before. That is why I was so frustrated because you ignore everything that was said before and make a completly false statement as if you had never seen proof that is contrary to your comments. I have found that If I present the same information in different ways you will eventually acknowledge it. So I must assume that it is your denial that keeps you from seeing the truth and will continue to help you through it.
————————-Here is an example—————————
You said:
That, Joe, is something that is unquestioned by anyone who actually understands the forces involved in such an event. In other words, 99.99 percent of structural engineers and even still employed physicists on the planet.
What planet are you talking about it most certinly is not Earth. Here are just a few examples in order to save space and time.
By adopting Dr. Greening’s own arguments, corrections, contentions, figures and reasoning, the analysis once again shows that the collapse would be arrested at an early stage. Dr. Greening has not disproved the logic and conclusions of Dr. Ross’s article, but has in fact reinforced the most important conclusion: that collapse would have been arrested at an early stage.
Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of “pancake collapse”, which normally only occurs with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in “redundant” welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as the Structural Engineer Charles Pegelow has pointed out.
The destruction of the South Tower in 10 seconds and of the North in 9 is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds, which, as Judy Wood has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives.
The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Judy Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain.
If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total demolition that was observed.
In the history of structural engineering, steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been brought down due to fires either before or since 9/11,so how can fires have brought down three in one day? How is this possible?
Frank DeMartini, a project manager for the WTC, said the buildings were designed with load redistribution capabilities to withstand the impact of airliners, whose effects would be like “puncturing mosquito netting with a pencil.” Yet they completely collapsed. How is this possible?
physics research has established that only controlled demolitions are consistent with the near-gravity speed of fall and virtually symmetrical collapse of all three of the WTC buildings. While turning concrete into very fine dust, they fell straight-down into their own footprints.
An expert on demolition said that the trade centers were brought down with explosives (and see TV interview here; both in Danish)
Two structural engineers at a prestigious Swiss university said that, on 9/11, World Trade Center 7 was brought down by controlled demolition (translation here)
A Dutch demolition expert stated that WTC 7 was imploded
A U.S. professor of physics stated that the world trade centers were brought down by controlled demolition
A U.S. professor of mechanical engineering argued that the trade centers were brought down with explosives
Several U.S. structural engineers, such as this one (second interview), have concluded that the collapse of the Trade Centers on 9/11 cannot be explained by the plane crashes and fires in the buildings
An expert on why buildings collapse said controlled demolitions make buildings fall straight down (as opposed to falling over like a tree, which is what normally happens when buildings collapse) because the vertical columns are destroyed simultaneously by explosives, and “that’s exactly what it looked like and that’s what happened” on 9/11
The head of a national demolition association stated that the collapse of the towers looked like a “classic controlled demolition”
“Some engineers . . . have accused NIST of repeatedly changing its explanation of the collapse mechanism.” (Google’s cached version of the article is here)
Now you know this is hardly a flood it is just a small example that shows you are incorrect. But if you want to see a flood look at what comes next.
You said:
No serious professional engineer in a relevant field has voiced suspicions of explosives being used. No serious investigative journalist has. No serious politician has. There are hundreds of journalists and politicians that would give their right arm for this trash to be true. Such is not the case.
FIRST THAT RIGHT ARM COMMENT IS AN INSULT TO ANY AMERICAN WETHER THEY BELIVE IN THE PHONY LEFT/RIGHT PARADIGM OR NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS A DISGUSTING THING TO SAY!!!!!!!!!!!
I know this is 2 years old and there are more now but who cares this is enough.
911 Truth Statement
Respected Leaders and Families Launch 9/11 Truth Statement Demanding Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11
NEW YORK CITY, NY (Oct. 26, 2004) – An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11 today announced the release of the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. The Statement supports an August 31st Zogby poll that found nearly 50% of New Yorkers believe the government had foreknowledge and “consciously failed to act,” with 66% wanting a new 9/11 investigation.
Focusing on twelve questions, the Statement highlights areas of incriminating evidence that were either inadequately explored or ignored by the Kean Commission, ranging from insider trading and hijacker funding to foreign government forewarnings and inactive defenses around the Pentagon. The Statement asks for four actions: an immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Congressional hearings, media analysis, and the formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
The Statement’s list of signatories includes notables spanning the political spectrum, from Presidential candidates Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik, and David Cobb to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush administration, as well as Washington veterans like Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Other signers range from peace activists like Code Pink president Jodie Evans and Global Exchange’s Kevin Danaher to former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, Edward L. Peck; from environmentalists like Randy Hayes and John Robbins to business leaders such as Paul Hawken and Karl Schwartz, CEO of Patmos Nanotechnologies; from populist journalist Ronnie Dugger to renowned investigative reporter Kelly Patricia O’Meara.
The Statement also includes 43 noted authors, including New York Times #1 bestseller John Gray, as well as 18 eminent professors, historians, and theologians. Other notables include five-term Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, singers Michelle Shocked and Michael Franti, and actors Ed Asner and Mimi Kennedy.
The Statement was facilitated by 911truth.org, a leading coalition. The organization has also announced a press conference outside of Eliot Spitzer’s Manhattan office (corner of Cedar and Nassau) at 2:00PM on Thursday, Oct. 28th where 9/11 family members and victim group representatives will file a formal complaint demanding the first criminal investigation of 9/11 events by the New York Attorney General.
The Statement
We Want Real Answers About 9/11
On August 31, 2004, Zogby International, the official North American political polling agency for Reuters, released a poll that found nearly half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of those in New York state believe US leaders had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and “consciously failed” to act. Of the New York City residents, 66% called for a new probe of unanswered questions by Congress or the New York Attorney General.
In connection with this news, we have assembled 100 notable Americans and 40 family members of those who died to sign this 9/11 Statement, which calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.
We want truthful answers to questions such as:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven’t authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
6. Why has Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of advance warnings, been publicly silenced with a gag order requested by Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bush-appointed judge?
7. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
8. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent?
9. What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
10. Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
11. Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
12. Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
Those who are demanding deeper inquiry now number in the hundreds of thousands, including a former member of the first Bush administration, a retired Air Force colonel, a European parliamentarian, families of the victims, highly respected authors, investigative journalists, peace and justice leaders, former Pentagon staff, and the National Green Party.
As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
1. An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
2. Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
3. Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
4. The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
Given the importance of the coming election, we feel it is imperative that these questions be addressed publicly, honestly, and rigorously so that Americans may exercise their democratic rights with full awareness.
In closing, we pray and hope for the strength to approach this subject with wisdom and compassion so that we may heal from the wounds inflicted on that terrible day.
Signed,
Signatories
Note: All organizations are mentioned for identification purposes only. Individuals have signed this statement as an act of their own conscience, not to signify organizational endorsement.
1. Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics
2. Ed Asner, actor, activist
3. Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc.
4. Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration
5. Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio
6. Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President
7. Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy
8. Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania
9. Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink
10. Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA’s Flashpoints
11. Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian
12. Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty
13. Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief
14. Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies
15. John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004
16. Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley
17. Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore
18. Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University
19. Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology
20. Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
21. David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party
22. John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good
23. Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia
24. Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange
25. Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit
26. Bill Doyle, advocate for 9/11 families, father of Joseph Doyle, Cantor Fitzgerald employee
27. Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy
28. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Ph.D., Director, American Center for Democracy, author, Funding Evil
29. Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
30. Jodie Evans, president, Code Pink
31. Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University
32. Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker
33. Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire
34. Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
35. Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel
36. John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
37. Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder
38. Melvin Goodman, senior fellow, Center for International Policy, author, former Senior Analyst, CIA, professor, National War College
39. Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter
40. David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor
41. Doris “Granny D” Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate
42. Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection
43. Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist
44. Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken
45. Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation
46. Richard Heinberg, author, The Party’s Over, core faculty, New College of California
47. Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
48. Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc.
49. Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute
50. Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies
51. John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004
52. Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist
53. Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam
54. David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World
55. France Moore Lappé, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute
56. Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL
57. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine
58. Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA
59. Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author
60. Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam
61. John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy
62. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
63. Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia
64. Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation
65. Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University
66. Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department
67. Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner
68. Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President
69. Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader
70. Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty
71. Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization
72. Kelly Patricia O’Meara, investigative journalist, public relations
73. Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap
74. Edward L. Peck, former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism
75. Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored
76. Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation
77. Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org
78. Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives
79. John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future
80. John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party
81. John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International
82. William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group
83. Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer
84. Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist
85. Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union
86. Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon
87. Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates
88. Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC
89. Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War
90. Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations
91. Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist
92. Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant
93. J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State
94. Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University
95. Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author
96. Chuck Turner, Boston City Council
97. James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three
98. Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M
99. Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa
100. Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People’s History of the United States
Family Members
1. Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara
2. Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC
3. Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald
4. Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93
5. Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor
6. Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1
7. Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93
8. Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor
9. Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon
10. Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor
11. Ralph D’Esposito, father of Michael DÕEsposito, WTC, 96th floor
12. Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor
13. Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul “Geep” Fisher, Pentagon
14. Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor
15. Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11
16. Ilene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon
17. Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11
18. Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor
19. Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers
20. Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93
21. John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11
22. L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW
23. Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC
24. Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter
25. Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One
26. Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene
27. Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III
28. Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11
29. Christopher Longing, husband of Laura M. Longing, WTC1
30. Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch
31. Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22
32. Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor
33. Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1
34. Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11
35. James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11
36. Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber
37. Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor
38. Kathleen A. Stanton, WTC South, Injured Survivor
39. Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001
40. Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor
41. David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77
9/11 Statement Signed by 100 Prominent Americans
Senior Military, Intelligence, and Government
Critics of 9/11 Commission Report
Many well known and respected senior U.S. military officers, intelligence services veterans, and government officials have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Several even allege government complicity in the terrible acts of 9/11. This web site is a collection of their public statements. It should be made clear that none of these individuals are affiliated with this web site.
Listed below are highly critical statements about the 9/11 Commission Report and/or calls for a new 9/11 investigation publicly made by over 50 of these senior officials. Their collective voices give credibility to the claim that the 9/11 Commission Report is tragically flawed. These individuals cannot be simply dismissed as irresponsible believers in some 9/11 conspiracy theory. Their sincere concern, backed by their decades of service to their country, demonstrate that criticism of the Report is not irresponsible, illogical, nor disloyal, per se. In fact, it can be just the opposite.
9/11 is unquestionably the most important event in American history since December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. The magnitude of the impact of 9/11 on America and the rest of the world cannot be overstated. The terrible acts of 9/11 and the events leading up to them deserve a thorough, independent and unimpeachable investigation. And if some rogue element within the U.S. government is responsible for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, as several of these individuals allege, it is critical that that be disclosed and forcefully dealt with.
FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Congressman Curt Weldon, “What’s the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?”
Rep. Curt Weldon
Rep. Curt Weldon – Vice Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Ten-term Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania.
* Fox News Article 8/28/05: Regarding the 9/11 Commission “There’s something very sinister going on here that really troubles me,” Weldon told FOX News on Thursday, blasting the Sept. 11 commission for not taking the claims more seriously. He said some panel members were trying to smear Shaffer and Able Danger. “What’s the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?” Weldon asked.” http://www.foxnews.com/...
* Press conference transcript 9/17/05: Regarding the 9/11 Commission Report “There’s something wrong here, something tragically wrong. The American people, the families, the country and the Congress need to know the truth, the whole truth, the complete truth. And so far we haven’t gotten it. … Somebody’s got to connect the dots and answer the questions. If the 9/11 Commission won’t do it, then Congress has to do it.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/...
* Bio: http://curtweldon.house.gov/Biography/
Max Cleland, The 9/11 Commission is a national scandal.
Senator Max Cleland
Senator Max Cleland – Former member of the 9/11 Commission, resigned in December 2003. Currently serves on the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. U.S. Senator from Georgia 1996-2002. Secretary of State of Georgia 1982-1996. Administrator of the U.S. Veterans Administration 1977-1981. Captain, U.S. Army awarded Silver Star and Bronze Star for bravery in Viet Nam. Triple amputee from war injuries.
* Boston Globe Article 11/13/03: “If this decision stands [to limit access to White House documents], I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised.” http://www./...
* Salon Article 11/21/03: Regarding the 9/11 Commission “It is a national scandal.” http://dir.salon.com/...
* Resigned from the 9/11 Commission, 12/03
* Transcript of audio interview 3/23/04: “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up.” http://www.democracynow.org/...
* Bio: http://memory.loc.gov/...
Mark Dayton
Senator Mark Dayton
Senator Mark Dayton – Senate Committee on Armed Services, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Services. U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
* Senate Hearings on the 9/11 Commission Report 7/31/04: “They [NORAD] lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 Commission. ... For almost three years now NORAD officials and FAA officials have been able to hide their critical failures that left this country defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history.” http://www.911truth
* Editor’s note: On August 1, 2006, Thomas Kean, Chairman of the 9/11 Commission said, “We, to this day, don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us. It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.” Link Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Article: “Dayton, a former Minnesota state auditor, called the FAA’s and NORAD’s failures “the most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence that I’ve ever, under those extreme circumstances, witnessed in the public sector.” http://www.9111
* Bio: http://dayton.senate.gov/about/biography.cfm
Louis Freeh
Louis Freeh
Louis Freeh – Director of the FBI, 1993-2001. Former U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York, appointed by President George H.W. Bush. Former Deputy United States Attorney in New York. Former FBI agent. Former officer in the United States Army JAG Corps Reserve.
* Wall Street Journal Essay 11/17/05: “Even the most junior investigator would immediately know that the name and photo ID of Atta in 2000 is precisely the kind of tactical intelligence the FBI has many times employed to prevent attacks and arrest terrorists. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it “was not historically significant.” This astounding conclusion—in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and incorporate it into its findings—raises serious challenges to the commission’s credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself. … No wonder the 9/11 families were outraged by these revelations and called for a “new” commission to investigate.” http://www.opin/...
* Bio: http://www.fbi.gov/libref/directors/freeh.htm
Ambassador Edward Peck, We request an immediate re-investigation of 9/11
Edward L. Peck
Edward L. Peck – Deputy Director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism under Ronald Reagan. Former Deputy Coordinator, Covert Intelligence Programs at the State Department. U.S. Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq (1977-80). 32-year veteran of the Foreign Service.
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article. ...
* Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Peck
Morton Goulder
Morton Goulder
Morton Goulder – Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Warning under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter (1973-77). Founder of Sanders Associates.
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article. ...
Morgan Reynolds, “We can prove the government’s story is false.”
Morgan Reynolds
Morgan Reynolds, PhD – Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Labor under George W. Bush 2001-2002. Former Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. Professor Emeritus, Economics, Texas A&M University.
* Video: “I first began to suspect that 9/11 was in inside job when the Bush-Cheney Administration invaded Iraq. … We can prove that the government’s story is false.” http://video.goo…
* Essay: “It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely [to] prove to be sound.” http://www.l…
* Bio: http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=bio
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts, PhD – Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under Ronald Reagan, “Father of Reaganomics”, Former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Currently Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute.
* Essay: “We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/...
* Essay: “There are not many editors eager for writers to explore the glaring defects of the 9/11 Commission Report. One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations.” http://www.counterpunc….
* Bio: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/bio.htm
Catherine Austin Fitts, “The Commission was a whitewash.”
Catherine Austin Fitts
Catherine Austin Fitts – Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H.W. Bush. Former Managing Director and Member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank, Dillon, Read & Co
* Audio Interview 9/9/04: Regarding 9/11 “The official story could not possibly have happened… It’s not possible. It’s not operationally feasible… The Commission was a whitewash.” (About 45 minutes into the file.) http://157….
* Essay: “The first category of people who benefited were those who are guilty and complicit in designing, implementing and financing the 9-11 operation. On such a sophisticated and successful covert operation, the people responsible would have had budgets and financing and would have organized the operation to maximize their political and financial benefits.” http://globalresearch.ca/...
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/article ...
* Bio: http://www.solari.com/about/ca_fitts.html
John Loftus
John Loftus
John Loftus - Former investigator and Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Former U.S. Army Intelligence officer. Currently author and frequent media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services.
* Article 9/6/03: “The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence.” http://www.guardian.co.
* Bio: http://www.harrywalker.com…
Fred Burks, “How is it possible that our military’s highly touted missile detections systems could not locate Flight 77 in the 42 minutes it was known to be lost before it crashed into the heart of the defense system of the U.S.?”
Fred Burks
Fred Burks – Former State Department Interpreter for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore, Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright. 18-year State Department career.
* Essay: “How is it possible that our military’s highly touted missile detections systems could not locate Flight 77 in the 42 minutes it was known to be lost before it crashed into the heart of the defense system of the U.S.? …
An even bigger question is why isn’t our media asking these questions? Why isn’t our military spending many millions of dollars to find out why military defense systems failed on 9/11? Why is it that the 9/11 commission budget was far less than the budget allotted to the Challenger Disaster or even the Monika Lewinsky affair?“http://www.wanttoknow.info/911star…
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/...
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD – Former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense. Former State Department envoy to Viet Nam. While working for the government, Ellsberg attained the ultimate civil service grade of GS-18, equivalent to a Major General. Former U.S. Marine Corps officer. Former military analyst for the Rand Corporation. Most well known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971.
* Interview 7/14/06: Regarding 9/11 “There is no question in my mind, that there is enough evidence to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of the kind we have not seen. With subpoenas, general questioning of people, releasing a lot of documents. There’s no question that very serious questions have been raised about how much they knew before hand and how much involvement there may have been.” http://www.infowars
* Bio: http://www.ellsberg.net/bio.html
Philip Berg, “The official story of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie.”
Philip J. Berg
Philip J. Berg, Esquire – Former Deputy Attorney General, State of Pennsylvania.
* Article: “The official story of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie.” http://www.americanfreepress.net/...
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...
* Bio: http://www.911forthetruth.com/...
U.S. MILITARY OFFICERS
Albert Stubblebine
Major General Albert Stubblebine
Major General Albert Stubblebine, U.S. Army (ret) – Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1981-84. Also commanded the U.S. Army’s Electronic Research and Development Command and the U.S. Army’s Intelligence School and Center. Former head of Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence. 32-year Army career.
* Video: “One of my experiences in the Army was being in charge of the Army’s Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence during the Cold War. I measured pieces of Soviet equipment from photographs. It was my job. I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. And I said, ‘The plane does not fit in that hole’. So what did hit the Pentagon? What hit it? Where is it? What’s going on?” http://www.und ...
* Bio: http://www.canadiansub.com/Board….
Colonel Ronald Ray, “I’m astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that’s accurate.”
Col. Ronald D. Ray
Col. Ronald D. Ray, U.S. Marine Corps (ret) – Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran (two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart). Appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve on the American Battle Monuments Commission (1990-1994), and on the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. From 1990 through 1994, he served as Military Historian and Deputy Director of Field Operations for the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C.
* Article: “The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Reagan Administration and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and Colonel has gone on the record to voice his doubts about the official story of 9/11 - calling it ‘the dog that doesn’t hunt.’ ‘I’m astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that’s accurate,’ he said.” http://www.pris/...
* Bio: http://www.firstprinciplespress.org/...
Colonel Robert Bowman, “A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible.”
Col. Robert Bowman
Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Ford and Carter. U.S. Air Force fighter pilot with over 100 combat missions. (PhD in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering, Cal Tech).
* Video: “A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible. … There’s a second group of facts having to do with the cover up. … Taken together these things prove that high levels of our government don’t want us to know what happened and who’s responsible. …
Who gained from 9/11? Who covered up crucial information about 9/11? And who put out the patently false stories about 9/11 in the first place? When you take those three things together, I think the case is pretty clear that it’s highly placed individuals in the administration with all roads passing through Dick Cheney. I think the very kindest thing that we can say about George W. Bush and all the people in the U.S. Government that have been involved in this massive cover-up, the very kindest thing we can say is that they were aware of impending attacks and let them happen. Now some people will say that’s much too kind, however even that is high treason and conspiracy to commit murder.” http://video.go…
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...
* Bio: http://bowman2006.com/about….
George Nelson, “With all the evidence readily available at the Pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged.”
Col. George Nelson
Col. George Nelson, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former U.S. Air Force aircraft accident investigator and airplane parts authority. 34-year Air Force career.
* Essay: “The government alleges that four wide-body airliners crashed on the morning of September 11 2001, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 human beings, yet not one piece of hard aircraft evidence has been produced in an attempt to positively identify any of the four aircraft. On the contrary, it seems only that all potential evidence was deliberately kept hidden from public view. …
With all the evidence readily available at the Pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged. Similarly, with all the evidence available at the Pennsylvania crash site, it was most doubtful that a passenger airliner caused the obvious hole in the ground and certainly not the Boeing 757 as alleged. …
As painful and heartbreaking as was the loss of innocent lives and the lingering health problems of thousands more, a most troublesome and nightmarish probability remains that so many Americans appear to be involved in the most heinous conspiracy in our country’s history.” http://www.physics911.net/georgenelson….
Douglas Rokke, “When you look at the whole thing, especially the crash site void of airplane parts, the size of the hole left in the building and the fact the projectile’s impact penetrated numerous concrete walls, it looks like the work of a missile. And when you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile.”
Major Douglas Rokke
Major Douglas Rokke, PhD, U.S. Army (ret) – Former Director U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project.
* Article: Regarding the impact at the Pentagon on 9/11/2001 “When you look at the whole thing, especially the crash site void of airplane parts, the size of the hole left in the building and the fact the projectile’s impact penetrated numerous concrete walls, it looks like the work of a missile. And when you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile.” http://www.rense.com/general67/radfdf….
Russ Wittenberg
Capt. Russ Wittenberg
Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force – Former Air Force fighter pilot with over 100 combat missions. Commercial pilot for Pan Am and United Airlines for 35 years, flying 707, 720, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777 ’s. Had previously flown the actual two United Airlines airplanes that were hijacked on 9/11 (Flight 93, which impacted in Pennsylvania, and Flight 175, the second plane to hit the WTC).
* Article: “The government story they handed us about 9/11 is total B.S. plain and simple.” … Wittenberg convincingly argued there was absolutely no possibility that Flight 77 could have “descended 7,000 feet in two minutes, all the while performing a steep 270 degree banked turn before crashing into the Pentagon’s first floor wall without touching the lawn.” …
“For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible - there is not one chance in a thousand,” said Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727’s to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737’s through 767’s it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying.” http://www.arcticbeacon.com….
* Audio Interview 9/16/04: Regarding Flight 77, which allegedly hit the Pentagon. “The airplane could not have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into what they call a high speed stall. The airplane won’t go that fast if you start pulling those high G maneuvers at those bank angles. … To expect this alleged airplane to run these maneuvers with a total amateur at the controls is simply ludicrous…
It’s roughly a 100 ton airplane. And an airplane that weighs 100 tons all assembled is still going to have 100 tons of disassembled trash and parts after it hits a building. There was no wreckage from a 757 at the Pentagon. … The vehicle that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77. We think, as you may have heard before, it was a cruise missile.” http://911underground.com/.../
Lt. Col. Stephen L. Butler
No photo available
Lt. Col. Stephen L. Butler, EdD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the Defense Language Institute. Served as a B-52 Radar Navigator in the Gulf War. 24-year Air Force career.
* Article 6/4/02: “Of course Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism.” http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.06E.butler.bush.htm
Anthony Shaffer
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, U.S. Army (ret) – Former Chief of the Army’s Controlled HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Program, overseeing Army Intelligence and Security Command’s global controlled HUMINT efforts. A former member of the ABLE DANGER effort to target Al Qaeda’s global structure. Awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. 23-year military intelligence career.
* Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee 2/15/06 (page 18) - “After contact by two separate members of the ABLE DANGER team, … the 9-11 staff refused to perform any in-depth review of investigation of the issues that were identified to them. … It was their job to do a thorough investigation of these claims – to not simply dismiss them based on what many now believe was a “preconceived” conclusion to the 9-11 story they wished to tell. … I consider this a failure of the 9-11 staff – a failure that the 9-11 Commissioners themselves were victimized by – and continue to have perpetrated on them by the staff as is evidenced by their recent, groundless conclusion that ABLE DANGER’s findings were “urban legend”. http://www.abledan…
* Bio: http://www.c4ads.org/anthony.shaffer…
Karen Kwiatkowski, “Reading through the official 9/11 report, I quickly lost my focus – apparently emulating the 9/11 commission over the past 20 months.”
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Political-Military Affairs Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Also served on the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency. 20-year Air Force veteran.
* Book 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out: “Beyond this strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner. This visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the secretary of defense, who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a “missile”.—Karen Kwiatkowski, Pentagon employee and eyewitness (p.28) http://www.twf.org/News
* Essay: “Reading through the official 9/11 report, I quickly lost my focus – apparently emulating the 9/11 commission over the past 20 months. …One wonders if the entire commission wasn’t secretly replaced by pod people from the old Soviet Central Committee. I naively expected more constructive and useful information in the report.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/...
* Bio: http://militaryweek.com/
John Newman
Major John M. Newman
Major John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army (ret) – Former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency. Former military attaché in China. 21-year career in U.S. Army Intelligence. Currently, professor of history and international relations at the University of Maryland.
* Congressional testimony 8/15/05: “It falls to me this morning to bring to your attention the story of Saeed Sheikh, whose full name is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and his astonishing rise to power in Al Qaeda, his crucial role in 9/11, which is completely, utterly, missing from the 9/11 Commission report…
The 9/11 Commission which studied US intelligence and law enforcement community performance in great detail, (maybe not so much great detail, but they did), neglected to cover the community’s performance during the weeks following the attacks to determine who was responsible for them, not a word about that in the Report.
The Report does discuss the immediate US responses but the immediate investigation is never addressed, and anyone who has closely studied the post-9/11 investigation knows that the first breakthrough came two weeks into the investigation when the money transfers from the United Arab Emirates to the hijackers were uncovered.
Furthermore, if you have studied that investigation, you know there is no disputing that while investigators may have struggled with the identity of the paymaster, they were clear about one thing, he was Al Qaeda’s finance chief. For this reason alone you have to ask why the 9/11 Commission Report never mentions the finance chief’s role as the 9/11 paymaster.” http://www.911readingroo
Scott Ritter
Major Scott Ritter
Major Scott Ritter, U.S. Marine Corps – Former Marine Corps Intelligence Officer and Chief Weapons Inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq 1991-1998.
* Video: “I, like the others, are frustrated by the 9/11 Commission Report, by the lack of transparency on the part of the United States government, both in terms of the executive branch and the legislative branch when it comes to putting out on the table all facts known to the 9/11 case.” http://video.go…
Barbara Honegger
Barbara Honegger
Barbara Honegger – Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy’s advanced science, technology and national security affairs university (1995 - present). White House Policy Analyst and Special Assistant to the Assistant to President Ronald Reagan (1981-83).
* Essay: “The US military, not al Qaeda, had the sustained access weeks before 9/11 to also plant controlled demolition charges throughout the superstructures of WTC 1 and WTC2, and in WTC7, which brought down all three buildings on 9/11. ... A US military plane, not one piloted by al Qaeda, performed the highly skilled, high−speed 270−degree dive towards the Pentagon that Air Traffic Controllers on 9/11 were sure was a military plane as they watched it on their screens. Only a military aircraft, not a civilian plane flown by al Qaeda, would have given off the “Friendly” signal needed to disable the Pentagon’s anti−aircraft missile batteries as it approached the building. Only the US military, not al Qaeda, had the ability to break all of its Standard Operating Procedures to paralyze its own emergency response system.” http://blog.lege…..
Gregory Zeigler
Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler
Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler, PhD, U.S. Army – Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer
* Statement: “I knew from September 18, 2001, that the official story about 9/11 was false. ... [A]nomalies poured in rapidly: the hijackers’ names appearing in none of the published flight passenger lists, BBC reports of stolen identities of the alleged hijackers or the alleged hijackers being found alive, the obvious demolitions of WTC1, 2, and 7, the lack of identifiable Boeing 757 wreckage at the Pentagon ... Link to full statement
U.S. INTELLIGENCE SERVICES VETERANS
Raymond McGovern, “The 9/11 report is a joke. The question is: What’s being covered up? Is it gross malfeasance, gross negligence, misfeasance?”
Raymond L. McGovern
Raymond L. McGovern – Former Chairman, National Intelligence Estimates, CIA, responsible for preparing the President’ Daily Brief (PDB) for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. 27-year CIA veteran. Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer.
* Video: “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 report is a joke. The question is: What’s being covered up? Is it gross malfeasance, gross negligence, misfeasance? … Now there are a whole bunch of unanswered questions. And the reason they’re unanswered is because this administration will not answer the questions. … I just want to reassert, what Scott [Ritter, former Major in the U.S. Marines Corps, former Chief Weapons Inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq] said and this is the bottom line for me, just as Hitler in 1933 cynically exploited the burning of the parliament building, the Reichstag, this is exactly what our President did in exploiting 9/11. The cynical way in which he played on our trauma, used it to justify attacking, making a war of aggression on a country that he knew had nothing to do with 9/11. That suffices for me, I think Scott is exactly right, that’s certainly an impeachable offense.” http://video.google…
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/...
* Bio: http://faculty.schreiner.edu/...
William Christison, “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. … An airliner almost certainly did not hit The Pentagon. … The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them.”
William Christison
William Christison – Former National Intelligence Officer and Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis. 29-year CIA veteran.
* Essay: “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. … An airliner almost certainly did not hit The Pentagon. … The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them.” http://www.dissidentvoice.org…
* Article: “David Griffin believes this all was totally an inside job - I’ve got to say I think that it was too. … I have since decided that….at least some elements in this US government had contributed in some way or other to causing 9/11 to happen or at least allowing it to happen. … The reason that the two towers in New York actually collapsed and fell all the way to the ground was controlled explosions rather than just being hit by two airplanes. … All of the characteristics of these demolitions show that they almost had to have been controlled explosions.” http://www.prisonplanet.com/...
Robert Steele
Robert David Steele (Vivas)
Robert David Steele (Vivas) – U.S. Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years. Second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992 and a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University. Also former clandestine services case officer with the CIA. 25-year U.S. military and intelligence career. Currently Founder and CEO of OSS.net and a proponent of Open Source Intelligence.
* Essay 10/7/06: Review of Webster Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in the USA. “I am forced to conclude that 9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war, and I am forced to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to indict (not necessarily convict) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others of a neo-conservative neo-Nazi coup d’etat and kick-off of the clash of civilizations. ...
This is, without question, the most important modern reference on state-sponsored terrorism, and also the reference that most pointedly suggests that select rogue elements within the US Government, most likely led by Dick Cheney with the assistance of George Tenet, Buzzy Kronguard, and others close to the Wall Street gangs, are the most guilty of state-sponsored terrorism….
I sit here, a 54-year old, liberally educated, two graduate degrees, war college, a life overseas, 150 IQ or so, the number #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, a former Marine Corps infantry officer, a former CIA clandestine case officer, founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, and I have to tell anyone who cares to read this: I believe it. I believe it enough to want a full investigation that passes the smell test of the 9/11 families as well as objective outside observers.” http://www.amazon.com
* Article: “While Steele stopped short of saying 9/11 was a complete inside job, he agreed that the evidence points to the overwhelming complicity of the Bush administration.
“The U.S. government did not properly investigate this and there are more rocks to be turned over,” said Steele adding, “I’m absolutely certain that WTC 7 was brought down by controlled demolition and that as far as I’m concerned means that this case has not been properly investigated. There’s no way that building could have come down without controlled demolition.” http://www.prisonplanet
*
Bio:http://en.wikipedia.org
Melvin Goodman, “I want to talk about the [9/11] Commission itself, about the flawed process of the Commission and finally about the conflict of interest within the Commission that is extremely important to understand the failure of the Commission.”
Melvin A. Goodman
Melvin A. Goodman – Former Division Chief and Senior Analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs, CIA,1966 - 1990. Senior Analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department, 1974-1976. Professor of International Security at the National War College 1986-2004. Currently Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author and co-author of five books on international relations.
* Congressional testimony 7/22/05: “I want to talk about the [9/11] Commission itself, about the flawed process of the Commission and finally about the conflict of interest within the Commission that is extremely important to understand the failure of the Commission.” http://www.house.gov/...
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...
* Bio: http://ciponline.org/biographies….
Robert Baer
Robert Baer
Robert Baer – Former CIA Case Officer, Specialist in the Middle East, Directorate of Operations. Awarded Career Intelligence Medal. 21
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 7, 2006 at 11:34 AM
Natalie
Two word clue, psikeyhackr:
Evi
dense
You said:
Again I see an abundance of writing about things that have nothing what-so-ever to do with the collapse of the towers, and a total lack of anything that could be remotely construed as credible evidence of “controlled demolition”.
Natalie it has been 5 years and the government—NIST still has no evidence to prove building seven WAS NOT A CONTROLLED DEMOLITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And they still have not been able to prove their theory that the WTCs 1, & 2 did not collapse like every one thought with their first impression wich was they came down by or looked like a controlled demolition. They have not been able to show us any kind of replication of the collapse at all.
IF THEY CAN DO DO IT WHY HIDE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also I find it odd that even though their first impression was it looked like a controlled demolition including those who would be given the task to investigate it. THEY HAVE REFUSED TO TEST FOR EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE OR EVEN CONSIDER FOR 5 YEARS A CONTROLLED DEMOLITION!!??!! even when they have had to change their explanation of the collapse mechanism so many times (were on #7) and they cant come up with anything for building seven!!??!!
Natalie show me the evidence that proves every ones first impression was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
The proof is in the pudding.
Well where is your proof that every ones first impression was wrong!!!!!
WHERE IS THE PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speculation and theorizing do not count!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHOW ME THE PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They could have at least invesigated for controlled demolition to prove it wasnt so why didnt they!!??!!??!!
continued from last post sorry I got cut off:
Robert Baer
Robert Baer – Former CIA Case Officer, Specialist in the Middle East, Directorate of Operations. Awarded Career Intelligence Medal. 21-year CIA veteran. Author of two nonfiction books about CIA operations, See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil
* Audio Interview 6/9/06: Thom Hartmann: “Are you of the opinion there was an aspect of ‘inside job’ to 9/11 within the U.S. government?”
Baer: “There is that possibility, the evidence points at it.”
Hartmann: “And why is it not being investigated?”
Baer: “Why isn’t the WMD story being investigated? Why hasn’t anybody been held accountable for 9/11? We held people accountable after Pearl Harbor. Why has there been no change in command? Why have there been no political repercussions? Why has there been no, any sort of exposure on this? It really makes you wonder.” http://www.911blogger.com/...
* Essay: “Did bin Laden act alone, through his own al-Qaida network, in launching the attacks? About that I’m far more certain and emphatic: no.” http://books.guardian.co….
* Bio: http://www.concertideas.com/...
Sibel Edmonds, “I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of.”
Sibel D. Edmonds
Sibel D. Edmonds – Former Language Translation Specialist, performing translations for counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations, FBI. Witness before the 9/11 Commission.
* Letter to 9/11 Commission: “I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of. Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations.” http://www.com…
* Article: “My translations of the 9/11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date-specific information ... if they were to do real investigations, we would see several significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this country [the US] ... and believe me, they will do everything to cover this up.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,1266511,00.html
Bogdan Dzakovic
Bogdan Dzakovic
Bogdan Dzakovic – 14-year Counter-terrorism expert in the Security Division of the Federal Aviation Administration. Team Leader of the FAA’s Red (Terrorism) Team, which conducted undercover tests on airport security through simulated terrorist attacks. Former Team Leader in the Federal Air Marshal program. Former Coast Guard officer. Witness before the 9/11 Commission.
* Video transcript: Regarding the 9/11 Commission “The best I could say about it is they really botched the job by not really going into the real failures. … At worst, I think the 9/11 Commission Report is treasonous.” http://www.911report.com…
Edward Costello
Edward J. Costello
John Cole
John M. Cole
David Mark Conrad
David Mark Conrad
Rosemary Dew
Rosemary N. Dew
Bogdan Dzakovic
Pictured above
Sibel D. Edmonds
Pictured above
Steve Elson
Steve Elson
David Forbes
No photo available
Melvin A. Goodman
Pictured above
Mark Graf
Mark Graf
Gilbert M. Graham
No photo available
Diane Kleiman
Diane Kleiman
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski
Pictured above
Lynne A. Larkin
No photo available
David MacMichael
David MacMichael
Raymond L. McGovern
Pictured above
Theodore J. Pahle
No photo available
Behrooz Sarshar
No photo available
Brian F. Sullivan
No photo available
Larry J. Tortorich
No photo available
Jane Turner
Jane A. Turner
John Vincent
John B. Vincent
Fred Whitehurst
Dr. Fred Whitehurst
Ann Wright
Col. Ann Wright
Matthew J. Zipoli
No photo available
Letter to Congress regarding the 9/11 Commission Report, signed by the following 25 military, intelligence, and security veterans:
“[W]e the undersigned wish to bring to the attention of the Congress and the people of the United States what we believe are serious shortcomings in the [9/11 Commission] report and its recommendations. …
Omission is one of the major flaws in the Commission’s report. We are aware of significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the commission by those of us with direct knowledge, but somehow escaped attention. …
The omission of such serious and applicable issues and information by itself renders the report flawed, and casts doubt on the validity of many of its recommendations.” http://www.pogo.org/m/hsp/...
Edward J. Costello, Jr. – Former Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI. Former Judge pro tem., Los Angeles, CA.
John M. Cole – Former Intelligence Operations Specialist, in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. In charge of FBI’s foreign intelligence investigations covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.18-year FBI career.
David “Mark” Conrad – Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs, responsible for the internal integrity and security for areas encompassing nine states and two foreign locations. Former Federal Sky Marshall. 27-year U.S. Customs career. Currently Professor of Criminal Justice at Troy University.
Rosemary N. Dew – Former Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, FBI. Former member of The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and the Electronic Commerce/Cyber Crime Working Group. 13-year FBI career.
Bogdan Dzakovic – 14-year Counter-terrorism expert in the Security Division of the Federal Aviation Administration. Team Leader of the FAA’s Red (Terrorism) Team, which conducted undercover tests on airport security through simulated terrorist attacks. Former Team Leader in the Federal Air Marshal program. Former Coast Guard officer. Witness before the 9/11 Commission. (See also individual quote above.)
Sibel D. Edmonds – Former Language Translation Specialist, performing translations for counterterrorism and
counterintelligence operations, FBI. Witness before the 9/11 Commission. (See also individual quote above.)
Steve Elson – Former Special Agent with the U.S. Navy and the FAA. Specialist in Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and Security. Twenty-two years military experience, primarily in Naval Special Warfare and nine years Federal service with the FAA and DEA. Retired Navy Seal.
David Forbes – Former head of Thames Valley Police Fraud Squad, trained at New Scotland Yard. Over 30 years experience in law enforcement, commercial and industrial security-related risk management, and service sector business management. Currently Aviation, Logistics and Govt. Security Analyst, BoydForbes, Inc.
Melvin A. Goodman – Former Division Chief and Senior Analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs, CIA,1966 - 1990. Senior Analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department, 1974-1976. Professor of International Security at the National War College 1986-2004. Currently Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author and co-author of five books on international relations. (See also individual quote above.)
Mark Graf – Former Security Supervisor, Planner, and Derivative Classifier, Department of Energy. Former Chairman of the Rocky Flats (DOE) Physical Security Systems Working Group from 1990 through 1995.
Gilbert M. Graham – Retired Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI. 24-year FBI career.
Diane Kleiman – Former Special Agent, US Customs.
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Political-Military Affairs Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Also served on the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency. 20-year Air Force veteran. (See also individual quote above.)
Lynne A. Larkin – Former CIA Operations Officer. Served in several CIA foreign stations and in the CIA’s counter-intelligence center helping chair a multi-agency task force and seminars on coordinating intelligence among intelligence and crime prevention agencies.
David MacMichael – Former Senior Estimates Officer with special responsibility for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. Former Captain, U.S. Marine Corps 10-year military service.
Raymond L. McGovern – Former Chairman, National Intelligence Estimates, CIA, responsible for preparing the President’ Daily Brief (PDB) for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. 27-year CIA veteran. Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer. (See also individual quote above.)
Theodore J. Pahle – Former Senior Intelligence Officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. His 37-year intelligence career was exclusively as a HUMINT operations officer with DIA, Office of Naval Intelligence and U.S. Army Intelligence. He is a Middle East and Latin American operations specialist. Today, he continues to support the HUMINT effort as a contract instructor.
Behrooz Sarshar – Retired Language Translation Specialist, performing Farsi translations for counterterrorism
and counterintelligence operations dealing with Iran and Afghanistan, FBI.
Brian F. Sullivan – Retired Special Agent and Risk Management Specialist, FAA. Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Military Police.
Commander Larry J. Tortorich, U.S. Navy (ret) – Former Deputy Program Manager for Logistics – Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. 24-year Navy career in the fields of aviation and counterterrorism. Two years as a federal employee with DHS/TSA in the fields of security and counterterrorism.
Jane A. Turner – Retired Special Agent, FBI. 24-year FBI career.
John B. Vincent – Retired Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI. 27-year FBI career.
Dr. Fred Whitehurst – Retired Supervisory Special Agent / Laboratory Forensic Examiner, FBI. Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer.
Col. Ann Wright, U.S. Army (ret) – Retired Army officer and former U.S. Diplomat. Served 13 years on active duty with the U.S. Army and 16 years in the U.S. Army Reserves. She was a member of the International law team in Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada and served in Panama and Somalia. She joined the Foreign Service in 1987 and served as Deputy Chief of Mission of U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Afghanistan. She helped reopen the US Embassy in Kabul in December, 2001.
Matthew J. Zipoli – Special Response Team (SRT) Officer, DOE. Vice President, Security Police Officer’s Association, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
INTERNATIONAL MILITARY, INTELLIGENCE AND
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Paul Hellyer, “I think the inquiry has been very shallow, very superficial. I would like to see a much tougher, more in-depth inquiry.”
Paul Hellyer
Paul Hellyer – Former Minister of National Defense of Canada. Former Deputy Prime Minister. Former Member of House of Commons.
* Video: Regarding 9/11 “I think the inquiry has been very shallow, very superficial. I would like to see a much tougher, more in-depth inquiry. … I would like to see someone in a position of authority ask those questions and insist on getting answers, at least to why some of the things that happened that seem to be, for an ordinary person, inexplicable. … We have to try and get the truth. … I hope that somebody has the courage and persistence to keep at it until we get it.” http://www.septembereleventh.org/...
* Bio: http://www.nationmaster.com/...
Michael Meacher
Michael Meacher
Michael Meacher – Former Under Secretary for Industry, Under Secretary for Health and Social Security, Minister for the Environment, and Member of the House of Commons (UK).
* Video: Regarding the 9/11 Commission Report “It was a 580-page avoidance of any serious explanation. … The official investigative report says the US has never been able to find the sources of financing for 9/11. And then they say this “That after all is a matter of no great importance.” I find that astonishing. It is a matter of absolutely central importance. So there was a very great deal of evidence. And it seems to me extraordinary that the United States with its stupendous military capabilities and the most technologically advanced country in the world completely and totally failed to follow up on these leads.” http://video.google…
* Essay 7/22/04: “[Omar] Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on this count. Why not? ...
When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to “retire” by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn’t the US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?” http://www.guardian.co
* Editor’s note:Despite the Joint House-Senate Committee’s earlier finding that at least one foreign government supported the 9/11 terrorist suspects, the 9/11 Commission Report states, “Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government—or government official—supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
* Bio: http://www.epolitix.com/...
Andreas von Buelow, “The official story is so inadequate and far-fetched that there must be another one.”
Andreas von Buelow
Andreas von Buelow, PhD – Former State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Defense of West Germany. Former Minister of Research and Technology. Member of Bundestag (Parliament) 1969-1994.
* Video: “The official story is so inadequate and far-fetched that there must be another one.” http://video.google.com/...
* Article/Interview: “The planning of the attacks was technically and organizationally a master achievement. To hijack four huge airplanes within a few minutes and within one hour, to drive them into their targets, with complicated flight maneuvers! This is unthinkable, without years-long support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry.” http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/VonBuelow….
Horst Ehmke
Horst Ehmke
Horst Ehmke, - Former Minister of Justice (West Germany). Former Minister for Research and Technology. Cabinet Member under Chancellors Kurt Kiesinger and Willy Brandt 1966-1974.
* Article: “Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with four hijacked planes without the support of a secret service.” http://www.guardian.co
* Bio: http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&sl=d
Leonid Ivashov, “Only secret services and their current chiefs – or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations – have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude.”
General Leonid Ivashov
General Leonid Ivashov – Former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces on 9/11/2001, and Department Chief for General affairs in the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Defense.
* Essay: Regarding 9/11 “Only secret services and their current chiefs – or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations – have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude.” http://www.physics911.net/ivashov….
Paul Lannoye
Paul Lannoye
Paul Lannoye – Member of European Parliament 1989-2004, (Belgium). Former Vice Chairman, Committee on Energy, Research and Technology. Former Vice Chairman, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection
* Open Letter 5/24/04: “I implore legislators, parliamentarians, and citizens worldwide to become involved in the global 9-11 Truth Movement by signing up at www.911Visibility.org and www.911Truth.org. These organizations have worked with 9-11 family members, and citizens worldwide to lobby government, media, and the 9-11 Commission to demand truth, and to hold public actions to educate the world about the apparent 9-11 cover up.” http://www.911truth.org…
Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf - President of Pakistan and Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army. Assumed power on October 12, 1999 after a coup d’état and assumed the title of President on June 20, 2001.
* New Yorker Article 8/12/02: “Musharraf told me that he was still unconvinced that bin Laden was the main figure in the attacks. “I didn’t think it possible that Osama sitting up there in the mountains could do it,” he said. “He was perhaps the sponsor, the financier, the motivating force. But those who executed it were much more modern. They knew the U.S., they knew aviation. I don’t think he has the intelligence or the minute planning. The planner was someone else.” http://www.newyorker.com/
* Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Musharraf
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there.”
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal – Former Foreign Minister of Egypt.
* Article: Regarding 9/11 “Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaida has been penetrated by American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
David Shayler, “The available evidence indicates that people in key positions in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA and so on were not loyal to the Constitution; that they saw an opportunity in plans laid down by genuine Islamic terrorists to carry out an operation that would shock the world and would therefore justify U.S. adventurism in the middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
David Shayler
David Shayler – Former Counter-Terrorism Officer, MI5 (Britain)
* Video: “The available evidence indicates that people in key positions in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA and so on were not loyal to the Constitution; that they saw an opportunity in plans laid down by genuine Islamic terrorists to carry out an operation that would shock the world and would therefore justify U.S. adventurism in the middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.” http://video.google.com
9/11 COMMISSIONERS AND STAFF MEMBERS WHO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THE COMMISSION REPORT
Thomas Kean
Thomas H. Kean
Thomas H. Kean, Chairman, 9/11 Commission - Former Governor of New Jersey 1982 - 1990. Also served for 10 years in the New Jersey Assembly. Currently President of Drew University.
* Without Precedent, a book about the 9/11 Commission authored by Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton 8/4/06: “Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not explain why all of the after-action reports, accident investigations and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue.” http://www.washingtonpost.com
* Washington Post Article 8/2/06 - “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. ...
“We, to this day, don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us,” said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. “It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.” http://www.washington
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_kean.htm
Lee Hamilton
Lee Hamilton
Lee Hamilton, Vice Chairman, 9/11 Commission - Former 17-term Congressman from Indiana. Former Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Currently President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and serves as a member of the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.
* Video interview: Lee Hamilton “So there are all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail. We got started late. We had a very short timeframe. Indeed, we had to get it extended. We did not have enough money. They were afraid we were going to hang somebody, that we would point the finger.”
Interviewer: “Is one of the reasons why these guys aren’t getting funded and it’s so late is that someone’s got something to hide?”
Hamilton: “Well, a lot of people have things to hide. ...
I don’t believe for a minute that we got everything right. We wrote a first draft of history. People will be investigating 9/11 for the next 100 years in this country and they’re going to find out some things that we missed.” http://youtube.com
* Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov
Timothy Roemer
Timothy J. Roemer
Timothy J. Roemer, PhD, 9/11 Commissioner - Former 6-term Congressman from Indiana (1991-2003). Former member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Currently President of the Center for National Policy.
* New York Times Article 10/2/06: Regarding recent revelations of a July 10, 2001 meeting between Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Cofer Black “In interviews Saturday and Sunday, commission members said they were never told about the meeting despite hours of public and private questioning with Rice, Tenet and Black, much of it focused specifically on how the White House had dealt with terrorist threats in the summer of 2001.
“None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath; nor do we have any paper on this,” said Timothy Roemer, a Democratic member of the commission and a former congressman from Indiana. “I’m deeply disturbed by this. I’m furious.” http://www.statesman
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_roemer
John Farmer
John J. Farmer, Jr.
John J. Farmer, Jr., Senior Counsel, 9/11 Commission - Former Attorney General of the State of New Jersey. Former Chief Counsel to former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Former Commissioner of the State Commission of Investigations. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
* Washington Post Article 8/2/06 - “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. ...
“I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described,” John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. “The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. ... This is not spin. This is not true.” http://www.washingtonpost
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.klng.com/professionals/detail
Peter Rundlet
Peter Rundlet
Peter Rundlet, Counsel for the 9/11 Commission - Former Associate Counsel to President Clinton. Former White House Fellow, serving in the Office of the Chief of Staff to President Clinton. Currently Vice President for National Security and International Affairs, Center for American Progress.
* Essay 9/30/06: “A mixture of shock, anger, and sadness overcame me when I read about revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book about a special surprise visit that George Tenet and his counterterrorism chief Cofer Black made to Condi Rice, also on July 10, 2001 ...
If true, it is shocking that the administration failed to heed such an overwhelming alert from the two officials in the best position to know. Many, many questions need to be asked and answered about this revelation — questions that the 9/11 Commission would have asked, had the Commission been told about this significant meeting. Suspiciously, the Commissioners and the staff investigating the administration’s actions prior to 9/11 were never informed of the meeting.
The Commission interviewed Condoleezza Rice privately and during public testimony; it interviewed George Tenet three times privately and during public testimony; and Cofer Black was also interviewed privately and publicly. All of them were obligated to tell the truth. Apparently, none of them described this meeting, the purpose of which clearly was central to the Commission’s investigation. Moreover, document requests to both the White House and to the CIA should have revealed the fact that this meeting took place. Now, more than two years after the release of the Commission’s report, we learn of this meeting from Bob Woodward.
Was it covered up? It is hard to come to a different conclusion. ... At a minimum, the withholding of information about this meeting is an outrage. Very possibly, someone committed a crime. And worst of all, they failed to stop the plot.” http://think
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.americanprogress.orgl
For the latest please visit http://www.patriotsquestion911.com.
Natalie what about the over 400 members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth wich does not come close to the large number of scholars found in the thousands of other truth for 9/11 oganizations found around the world.
Or what about the huge number of law-enforcement for 9/11 truth or the many veterans for 9/11 truth or the fire fighters or the first responders or the pilots for 9/11 truth and ect, ect, ect…...
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And stop saying these people are not serious and all the other much more rude and many times more insulting comments you have repeatedly made about them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 7, 2006 at 1:59 PM
Joe, you said I said:
That, Joe, is something that is unquestioned by anyone who actually understands the forces involved in such an event. In other words, 99.99 percent of structural engineers and even still employed physicists on the planet.
You take great exception to this statement, but then proceed to illustrate my point. You list Gordon Ross and Judy Wood, neither of whom is qualified to render judgment on matters of structural physics, and the complicated relationships between steel, heat, and load redistribution. Neither of whom has been privy to the vast amounts of detailed data, testimony and computing power that was available to NIST, and the the numerous private engineers that participated in the investigation.
You cite Charles Pegelow, who is also not qualified. He has a mere BS in engineering, and his experience has been on oil rigs, not tall building design, and certainly not in collapse forensics.
In other words, these people don’t “actually understand” the forces involved, not to mention that they constitute a tiny minority, and not to mention that they no doubt harbor extreme political biases, as does seemingly everyone in the movement. (Pegelow may merely be an uninformed innocent pawn. Has he said any more beyond his initial interview with Alex Jones?)
Then, you cite old statements by engineers involved in the building of the towers. This does give some pause, but it’s really not too surprising that these men would tend to defend their designs at the time. They did not anticipate deliberate military style attacks on the towers, and in fact it has been recently admitted that the true vulnerabilities of large buildings (especially steel truss type) to huge fires had not been sufficiently understood. It has been the mindset of the design community that fires are generally relatively slow spreading and able to be suppressed. Just like many aspects of American life, building design is being reevaluated in light of 9/11 and the unfortunate reality of terrorism.
The crucial point is that none of these people today, after the fact, support the crazy notions you put forth. I would think that they would be eager to embrace such theories, because they would support their previously held position that “these towers are perfectly safe”.
No, people like Leslie Robertson are devastated by the event and feel great guilt, although no reasonable person holds them responsible. It’s a testament to their integrity and common sense that they haven’t sought to deflect blame onto some imaginary conspiracy. These men are not happy with the “truth” movement, and regard it as irresponsible.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 2:05 PM
Let me clear something up for the apparently nuance challenged among us that can’t recognize a “botched joke” when they see it.
When I said that many journalists and politicians would give their right arm for all this baloney to be true, I certainly didn’t mean to say that they would like it to happen, or would let it happen if they knew their rivals were planning it.
But, they would rub their palms together in glee if it was discovered that their arch political enemies—the Bush administration, neocons, Pat Robertson, take you pick—were involved in such a dastardly act.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 2:25 PM
Bazant published the first quantitative mechanical analysis
explaining why the World Trade Center collapsed. Submitted
within days after the collapse, it has stood up to later scrutiny and
was translated in seven languages.
Tip of the iceberg (inverted)
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 2:28 PM
Scorp
This is for you and so I dont cause another flood please let me know if you need more to back it up.
Disputatious Neocons Unload on Vanity Fair
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day In The Empire
Monday, November 6, 2006
It’s unfair, complain the neocons. Vanity Fair promised to wait until after the election to publish their remarks critical of the Bush administration.
Moreover, according to the neocons, Vanity Fair did a bit of editorial hocus-pocus, thus making the neocons out to be nearly dovish, a downright horrifying prospect for these Machiavellian warmongers. Well, not exactly dovish, but close enough to irk them. Enough to have them pile on and accuse the magazine of “dirty tricks,” according to Frank Gaffney.
“I had assumed that the interview would not be published until January, and find the timing of this release of excerpts tendentious, to say the least,” gripes Eliot Cohen, the academic fount of the demented World War IV thesis who is connected at the hip with the criminal war racketeering outfits PNAC, the American Enterprise Institute, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq—or maybe it should be called the Committee to Kill 650,000 Iraqis. “I believed in 2003 that the war was just and appropriate, and have been deeply distressed at its conduct,” Cohen tells the National Review, the neocon clearinghouse.
“My most fundamental views on the war in Iraq remain as they were in 2003: The war was right, victory is essential, and defeat would be calamitous,” writes David Frum, “axis of evil” speech writer and AEI “scholar.” Of course, as usual, Frum does not tell us how to avoid a “calamitous” defeat, that is to say he evades any practical suggestion on how to stop an untold number of Iraqis from violently opposing the brutal occupation of their country.
Bush didn’t screw up, Frum insists, forever loyal to his old boss. Instead, it was the “National Security Council, whose counter-productive interactions produced bad results.” In other words, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, JCS Pace, Negroponte, and other hand-picked members of the NSC are at the root of the problem, that is to say conquering and subduing Iraq was not a cakewalk, as planned, thanks to these people.
Of course, Frum neglects to mention that Bush chairs the NSC. But then, as we know, Bush is a distracted and disinterested president, so I guess we can’t blame him for the mess. In short, the buck stops at Bush’s desk, but he does not see it, and if he did he probably wouldn’t know what to do with it.
According to Frum, David Rose, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece, “has earned a reputation as a truth teller,” in other words he agrees with the neocons. Rose, Frum insists, is a “British journalist well known as a critic of the Saddam Hussein regime and supporter of the Iraq war.” Frum insinuates something happened on the way from Rose’s word processor to the editors of Vanity Fair. “They have repackaged truths that a war-fighting country needs to hear into lies intended to achieve a shabby partisan purpose,” the former speech writer complains. As for partisanship, it should be obvious to even the cursory follower of current events most Democrats support the neocon war in Iraq and will also support the coming one against Iran.
Frank Gaffney, former Richard Perle flunky (also charmingly known as “Perle’s bulldog”), a PNAC co-conspirator who likes to toss about the nonsensical phrase “Islamofascist” to describe Muslims who do not take kindly to invasions and “collateral damage,” believes Rose’s article is a “bait-and-switch caper” and the magazine “deserves contempt for having made promises it had no intention of honoring, promises about facilitating a serious discussion of President Bush’s efforts to fight our Islamofascist foes in Iraq and elsewhere by some of the most adamant supporters of those efforts.” In other words, things would have been different if a midterm election was not in the way, since the idea here is to fool all the people all the time, at least in the lead-up to an election. Obviously, neocons will only speak their mind when retribution is not in the cards. Or when there is no political consequence.
Poor Gaffney. Like all neocons, he insists on repeating recycled lies over and over in weary pathological fashion. “For the record, I remain convinced that the liberation of Iraq was a necessary and laudable measure to prevent a megalomaniac from handing off to terrorists weapons of mass destruction for the purpose of attacking us and our allies. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. government has proof that Saddam Hussein had precisely such plans ready to implement. In fact, such evidence was actually documented in the Iraq Survey Group’s final report released last year with much obscuring fanfare about the absence of recovered WMDs.”
Of course, none of this is true, and at this point only the bedrock 15% or so of Bush’s true-blue stepfordized followers believe this regularly discredited nonsense, but this does not stop Gaffney from making a fool out of himself, thus entertaining the conclusion he actually believes this Office of Special Plans drivel.
“I am also as committed as ever to the consolidation of the fully justified liberation of Iraq. I have repeatedly urged the president, both in person and through other channels, to make use of the full panoply of economic, financial, political, and military measures—a true War Footing—necessary to achieve it. Those who would have us do otherwise are deceiving us and/or themselves,” Gaffney continues.
In other words, these guys are committed to the World War IV scenario and total, interminable “war” against Muslims, who are routinely conflated into cartoonish, medieval enemies, Islamofascists—never mind fascism better describes Gaffney and his ilk—who will, we are told by these Israel First dissemblers, be killing grade schoolers on Main Street soon enough if we don’t use the “full panoply” of our deadly inventory, including more depleted uranium, destined to pollute the entire biosphere of the planet and kill those not designated as Islamofascists by the neocon fascists.
Meanwhile, Michael Ledeen, AEI and JINSA troll, tells us he is not “remorseful” because he “had and have no involvement with our Iraq policy,” a statement that is about as disingenuous as it gets, quite a feat considering the neocon track record for brazen disingenuousness. No direct involvement, that is to say he didn’t show up in the Oval Office or the Pentagon, although Ledeen appears to be involved in the Niger yellowcake forgery, bogus information Bush used as the cornerstone of his 2003 State of the Union address, even though French intelligence had repeatedly warned the Bush administration a year before his State of the Union address that the allegation could not be supported with evidence, not that evidence means squat to pathological liars.
“It appears Michael Ledeen, the ‘influential’ neocon, was involved in Gladio operations past and is also linked to the faux Niger yellowcake documents cooked up by Italian intelligence,” I wrote last October.
Now we have Laura Rozen, citing a scoop from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, telling us Nicolo Pollari, chief of the fascist SISMI, “brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.” Pollari met with none other than Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. “Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons…. La Repubblica also quotes a Bush administration official saying, ‘I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley.’”
Let’s review: Ledeen is suspected of working on the forged Niger yellowcake documents and Nicolo Pollari, chief of the fascist SISMI, passed these off to the highest levels of the Bush administration, and these documents played a big part in the invasion of Iraq and the mass murder of more than a 100,000 Iraqis.
Since I wrote this, the number of slaughtered Iraqis has been horrifically adjusted upward, to over 650,000.
But Ledeen, of course, cares not about Iraq, except as a way to get at Iran, his primary focus, or maybe it should be characterized as fanatical obsession. “Readers of NRO know well how disappointed I have been with our failure to address Iran, which was, and remains, the central issue, and it has been particularly maddening to live through extended periods when our children were in battle zones where Iranian-supported terrorists were using Iranian-made weapons against Americans, Iraqis and Afghans. I have been expressing my discontent for more than three years.”
Never mind that “senior British military leaders” have “found nothing to support the Americans’ contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq,” according to the Washington Post. Moreover, earlier this year, JCS chairman Gen. Peter Pace, said “the United States does not have proof that Iran’s government is responsible for Iranians smuggling weapons and military personnel into Iraq.” Of course, this does not matter to the amoral dissembler Michael Ledeen, who is a student and admirer of Niccolò Machiavelli, who preached deception in the name of the state.
Finally, we have the Prince of Darkness himself, Richard Perle. “I believe it would be a catastrophic mistake to leave Iraq, as some are demanding, before the Iraqis are able to defend their elected government. As I told Mr. Rose, the terrorist threat to our country, which is real, would be made much worse if we were to make an ignominious withdrawal from Iraq.” Perle also said the “levels of brutality” in Iraq “are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity,” although he is apparently willing to allow this depravity to continue in order to allow Iraqis to defend their installed puppet government and avoid “an ignominious withdrawal,” never mind if another 650,000 Iraqis are slaughtered in the process.
“I told Mr. Rose that as a nation we had waited too long before dealing with Osama bin Laden. We could have destroyed his operation in Afghanistan before 9/11.”
In other words, Perle is either an idiot or he considers the American people idiotic. Considering the Straussian philosophy, no doubt the latter is the case.
In fact, we, that is the United States government, had plenty to do with Osama bin Laden prior to the events of nine eleven. “Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network has been active in the Balkans for years, most recently helping Kosovo rebels battle for independence from Serbia with the financial and military backing of the United States and NATO,” writes Isabel Vincent of the National Post, a fact apparently confirmed by an FBI document. In fact, NATO’s operation with “al-Qaeda,” in support of the drug-running KLA, occurred after Bin Laden supposedly masterminded the embassy bombings in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.
“With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department… Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort,” writes Michel Chossudovsky. “Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with ‘former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies,’” the Scotsman reported on August 29, 1999.
Prior to this, the Clinton administration, according to a “lengthy Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997… ‘helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base’ leading to the recruitment through the so-called ‘Militant Islamic Network,’ of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim worldent through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world,” according to Chossudovsky’s research.
For the neocons, however, the fulcrum of evil in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq was not Osama bin Laden, but rather Saddam Hussein. “I believed we should not repeat that mistake with Saddam Hussein, that we could not responsibly ignore the threat that he might make weapons of mass destruction available to terrorists who would use them to kill Americans,” avers Perle. “I favored removing his regime. And despite the current difficulties, I believed, and told Mr. Rose, that ‘if we had left Saddam in place, and he had shared nerve gas with al Qaeda, or some other terrorist organization, how would we compare what we’re experiencing now with that?’”
For the ill-informed, this may seem reasonable, never mind this facile argument is easily disassembled. As former United Nations Special Commission on Iraq inspector Scott Ritter has demonstrated, between “1991 and 1998, UNSCOM achieved considerable results in disarming Iraq by dismantling the bulk of Iraq’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capabilities, as well as its ballistic missiles. None of Iraq’s major biological weapons production facilities are in operation [as of early 1999], with some of them having been destroyed completely.”
Even the CIA disputed the ludicrous claim “that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons—assertions that were repeated later by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq,” CNN reported in late 2005. “The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.”
None of this matters, however, as a large number of people still believe Saddam and Osama were in cahoots, and this is why Perle can get away with making such an outrageous and unsubstantiated claim, even at this late date.
Moreover, the corporate media, now set-up to report that Vanity Fair had tricked the neocons into out of context confessions in the eleventh hour before the midterm election, will not mention any of the above facts and will likely instead portray the editors of Vanity Fair as scalawags, attempting to make publication mileage out of the confessions of the neocons, who are, as they tell us on the NRO site, simply and gallantly striving to save America from venomous Islamofascists.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 7, 2006 at 2:50 PM
Natalie
You said:
You cite Charles Pegelow, who is also not qualified. He has a mere BS in engineering, and his experience has been on oil rigs, not tall building design.
If you actually listen to what he has to say, you will discover that, unlike you, he knows what he is talking about. Strictly speaking, a street bum could come up with the right analysis of what happened at the WTC. You have to evaluate an argument on its own merits. Experts can be right. Experts can be wrong. Experts can disagree. When I read non-sense like this about his degrees, it infuriates me. The guy has vast experience in the field, which goes far beyond what anyone can learn in the classroom! Give it up!
He is very knowledgeable about these things, having spent much of his career dealing with oil rigs, which are steel structures frequently exposed to fire.
Charles Pegelow has structural design experience on steel structures going back to 1972, and has specific experience with the effects of fire on them. Your arrogant dismissal of his clearly relevant credentials shows how desperate and empty your arguments are. Actually, that is far too kind, you haven’t made any arguments whatsoever, your contribution here has essentially consisted of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “Lalalalalalala!” because you refuse to believe the truth, no matter what.
He said that steel structures do not undergo pancake collapse. From a structural engineer with over 30 years experience, I don’t really need to hear much else. His discussion of how the beams were welded together (as opposed to just bolted) was also very interesting to me.
You said:
Pegelow may merely be an uninformed innocent pawn. Has he said any more beyond his initial interview with Alex Jones?
Go here for the next to latest Thu., October 5, 2006 you should here them all though so I will try to remember to link them all when I have time.
Prof James Fetzer interviewed structural engineer Charles Pegelow. 1st hr..... 2nd hr
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 7, 2006 at 4:03 PM
Thanks for keeping it short and to one point, Joe. I’ll listen to Charles and give you my further thoughts…...
Why don’t you want to talk about the Pentagon?
Prof James Fetzer doesn’t think that what hit it was flight 77.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 7, 2006 at 4:31 PM
Natalie
I want to thank you for taking the time to use the links I gave and I want to let you know if you continue to do so you will see that 9/11 was an inside job.
I will work on keeping it short and to one point. I cant help but to try and show the big picture. Since I am going to make it short and to the point I am just focusing on this one comment for this post and to answer about the pentagon since that will be short.
The pentagon has many oddities that do need to be looked at and there is alot of conflicting reports and discrepancies in those reports but because I dont have enough information about it I cant say any thing other than the government needs to release all the information they have so a proper investigation can be done to explain the conflicting reports and discrepancies in those reports. That is all I can say because I really dont have enough information to make a well informed decision either way.
But the world trade centers I can say (though it hurts so much and causes me great pain) with 100% certainty were controled demolition.
You said:
Then, you cite old statements by engineers involved in the building of the towers. This does give some pause, but it’s really not too surprising that these men would tend to defend their designs at the time. They did not anticipate deliberate military style attacks on the towers, and in fact it has been recently admitted that the true vulnerabilities of large buildings (especially steel truss type) to huge fires had not been sufficiently understood. It has been the mindset of the design community that fires are generally relatively slow spreading and able to be suppressed. Just like many aspects of American life, building design is being reevaluated in light of 9/11 and the unfortunate reality of terrorism.
Natalie I am sorry to say once again you have been misled by the government myths.
The building designers made claims about their performance in jetliner crashes that were highly relevant to NIST’s investigation. NIST avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—were missing. The design claims by Skilling’s team included the following:
Original design claims
* “... inherent capacity to resist unforeseen calamities.”
* For the perimeter columns ... “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”
* One “could cut away all the first story columns on one side of the building, and partway from the corners of the perpendicular sides, and the building could still withstand design live loads and a 100 mph wind from any direction.”
—All quotes from Engineering News-Record, 1964
NIST states that it found no documents about fire resistance testing, yet it also states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, which requires such testing. If the assemblies were tested they would have been using the standard ASTM E119. A floor assembly is tested to that standard by by placing a furnace under it and measuring the time it takes a certain temperature to be reached on its top side.
Evidence that the steel was tested include:
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o Kevin Ryan asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
In August of 2004, UL performed tests of WTC floor models, but the floors were barely affected and didn’t collapse. Loring Knoblauch resigned suddenly.
In October of 2004, a NIST report update showed contradictions.
In November of 2004 Ryan’s letter to Frank Gayle went public, causing UL to quickly backtrack, saying there was “no evidence” that any firm tested the steel, and that they played a “limited” role in the investigation.
B. Interviews with Eyewitnesses
B. NIST’s performance on interviews
* NIST started planning for eyewitness interviews in April 2003 (7 months after start of investigation, 19 after 9/11)
* By October, still no NIST interviews and on NIST access to NYC interviews
* NYC finally agreed to allow NIST acccess to original interviews by December 2003
... but only in NYC offices
NIST’s limited access to the interviews is reminiscent of testimony given the 9/11 Commission, in which notes or recordings were prohibited. Ryan presents a few excerpts of the interviews released to the public in mid-2005—excerpts such as these that reflect perceptions of explosive demolition.
The eyewitness interviews were not used in the final report.
C. Analysis of steel
* Most of the steel evidence destroyed
o Tomasetti decision (Thornton’s partner)
o 236 samples saved for testing (0.3%)
* NIST tests
o Paint tests indicated low steel temps (480 F) “despite pre-collapse exposure to fire”
o Microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values (600 C)
Having failed to find any samples that showed exposures to temperatures that would have produced critical weakening of steel, NIST stated “None of the samples were from zones where [high] heating was predicted”
D. Laboratory Tests
Laboratory tests conducted by NIST included:
* Tests to prove loss of fireproofing
* Workstation burn tests
* Tests by UL to test failure in floor assemblies
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. The tests showed:
* Minimal floor sagging
* No floor collapse
* “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”
E. Computer Simulations
* Input parameters could be tweaked
* “Realistic” parameters tossed in favor of “More severe” parameters
* Animations generated to “compare with observed events”
NIST created animations of events such as the fires and plane crashes, but has not published any animations of the falls of the Towers—the events it was supposed to investigate.
Natalie I am under the impression you think the building was not well built. That is far from the truth and I do not know of any one who is trying to pass that lie off any more. For just as the other lies they (the government=NIST) after being proven wrong had to change their story.
The WTCs were over engineered and if you have any doubts please let me know I will be glad to show you much, much, much, more in regaurds to the constuction of the WTCs.
Natalie you had brought up the letter that Kevin Ryan had e-mailed from him to Dr Frank Gayle of NIST. I must say Natalie I do not see at all any of the things you had told me about. Such as the gross misrepresentations that should be abundant in his letter but in fact are not.
Ryan unquestionably qualifies as a whistleblower. Having been promoted to the top manager of Underwriter’s Laboratories water testing division, Ryan was dismissed on November of 2004 after an e-mail from him to Dr Frank Gayle of NIST became public.
Text of E-mail Letter from Kevin Ryan to Frank Gayle
NOTES:
* The text copied here is taken from an e-mail forward, from Kevin R. Ryan to David Ray Griffin, and reported by 911Truth.org.
* Kevin Ryan was Site Manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories at South Bend, Indiana (www.ehl.cc) at the time he wrote the letter. He was fired shortly after writing the letter.
* EHL is a division of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (www.ul.com).
* Frank Gayle is Deputy Chief of the Metallurgy Division, Material Science and Engineering Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Gayle heads the “NIST and the World Trade Center” project. see wtc.nist.gov.
* Dr. Gayle’s biography is at wtc.nist.gov/pi/wtc_profiles.asp?lastname=gayle.
From: Kevin R Ryan/SBN/ULI
To: frank.gayle@nist.gov
Date: 11/11/2004
Dr. Gayle,
Having recently reviewed your team’s report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly.
As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I’m aware of UL’s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.
There continues to be a number of “experts” making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states “What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel. . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts.” Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory.”
We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.
The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team’s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to “rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse”. The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building’s steel core to “soften and buckle”(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that “most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C”. To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However,
this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.
This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be of great concern to my company.
There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and “chatter”.
Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I’ve copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.
1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html
2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187
3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3MechanicalandMetAnalysisofSteel.pdf
4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php
5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf (pg 11)
6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf
Kevin Ryan
Site Manager
Environmental Health Laboratories
A Division of Underwriters Laboratories
South Bend
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 7, 2006 at 8:36 PM
Natalie
Democrats won the house. Like I said before I think the elites WANT (now wanted) democrats to win this election.
It will make people think they have “demanded change” when democrats instead give us the status quo. The media will no doubt be falling all over telling the world how the “people have spoken” as the dems “take back” the house and/or senate.
Democrats winning will put lots of people back to sleep, thinking that they’ve “done all they can and we’ll just have to “wait for congress to do something”.
In the next few weeks the phony left/right paradigm will be exploited in the media like you’ve never seen before. Then we will get nothing, not a peep, out of the democrats for the next two years and beyond!
Besides if they do act like they are going to stand up and get some justice done it was made sure that tools like Lieberman is kept in power by any means neccasary. His sole purpose is to be the casting vote splitting a possibly 51 - 49 Democratically controlled senate. He’ll be the extra vote needed to keep the Administration out of jail.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 8, 2006 at 1:19 AM
Natalie
I will make this as short as I can so you will find it easy to comment.
You had made some damning comments about Kevin Ryan I would like you to please explain them.
You said:
When a manager of a health laboratory poses as a fire expert and a structural engineer, and writes an unauthorized and error-filled letter to a govt. agency on company time and letterhead without the approval of his superiors, he loses a lot of credibility and even his job.
Well he never posed as a fire expert and/or a structural engineer. His letter was shown to be correct by NIST a few months back and it most certainty was not writen on company time. Do you know anything about this at all?
What do you mean by letterhead?
Have you read the letter of dismissal? The reason was “poor judgment” wich has been been shown to be not true because he was promoted not long before the letter and if they want to say its because of the letter he wrote well then their saying NIST is wrong for now agreeing with the points Kevin Ryan made in his letter.
SO WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??!!??!!??!!??!!??!!
You said:
When he takes quotes of genuine experts like Ronald Hamburger and Mike Taylor out of context to mislead people into thinking that they agree with him, his credibility is pretty much in the crapper.
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
He only showed the quotes when talking about their first impression.
He found it odd that given their first impression wouldnt they want to test so they can know for certain that they where wrong?
Please! I beg you to show me where he mislead people into thinking that they agree with him! Please! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. You asked about building seven the bunker I cant find your comment right now but where you joking?
If not please let me know and I will post the info. Im sure you do know that the collumns in it where not like the collumns in WTC 1, 2 for the colloumns in seven where SOLID STEEL. Not hollow box collumns!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 8, 2006 at 11:59 AM
Joe,
If you don’t understand how blatantly inappropriate it was for Ryan to write that letter in the way that he did, I barely quite know how to proceed. But I’ll try.
First of all, whether or not he wrote the letter on his own time is not really important. However, I’d tend to think he probably did do it on company time. I’ve seen plenty of people do plenty of extra-curricular stuff on company time, and I assume you have as well.
My reference to letterhead was meant to be colorful, but important to illustrate the fact that he represented himself as a manager at UL, and obviously sought to use that position to gain influence and stature.
Surely you know that you don’t go around writing stuff like that to another agency your company’s involved with absent authority and approval of final copy, especially if you’re not even in that division. The fact that he was fired was a no-brainer for seemingly everyone but him.
Now, if he would have stated clearly that he was writing as a private citizen, and his views don’t represent in any way that of UL’s, I guess that would have been more acceptable. But even that would likely be considered unethical. He needed to quit his job first if he wanted to do it right. Then everything’s cool.
Getting beyond all this, the content of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns, and who knows what all else. He seems completely ignorant of the fact that UL was not attempting to duplicate what happened in the towers, but that they were merely performing baseline tests to insure that the trusses performed as they should have in ordinary fire situations. They did, and it wasn’t.
He describes the tests as having been done on “steel components”. No, they were done on truss/sheet metal/concrete/fireproofed assemblies. He obviously doesn’t know quite what he’s talking about, as even I can discern. It looks to me like he was simply going from what he’d interpreted from news reports on the Internet, and maybe some rumors from within his company.
He appears to have no concept at all that without fireproofing intact, the trusses would be doomed in short order. No, he apparently doesn’t “qualify” as a whistle-blower, or much else beyond being a somewhat clever disinformationalist.
Then of course, he exposes his true motivations, and brings up world politics. He copies his letter to another psycho-propagandist named David Griffin. If this looks to you like an appropriate communication given the players involved, you need some business or even some common-sense training.
I certainly don’t agree that NIST later “confirmed” what he said. I think it’s more likely they were rolling on the floor laughing when they received the email. They probably were on the phone asking “who is this goof-ball you’ve got working in your company, and are you aware that he knows just about enough to be dangerous”?
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him. Just like Jones using Manning’s editorial selectively to do the same thing. Far from ethical, and far from professional, but a common tactic of propagandists posing as genuine experts. (Yes, Ryan presented himself authoritatively talking about steel, testing, melting points, failure, etc etc. He wasn’t talking about bacteria in water, which was his JOB.)
Now, if he would have said that Ronald and Mike thought it looked like a demolition at first, like millions of people did, but certainly don’t hold that view today, fine. But of course, why in the world would he include all that? What is he, a scientist or a politician? Was it a “botched joke”? ;~)
Posted by Natalie on Nov 8, 2006 at 2:57 PM
Natalie borders on psychotic
First of all I am shocked that you belive that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel. Jet fuel can not get that hot. Your ignorance amazes me. Don’t you know that is absolutely and utterly impossible? Natalie it defies the laws of physics. Not even NIST says the fires reached any where close to those temperatures. Even if they did which they didn’t cant and couldnt it still would not be hot enough to melt the steel. You would need another 1,000F more to do it.
And don’t forget even if you were able to obtain that impossible temperature there’s still was not sufficient enough time to heat the steel because steel and gas temperatures are different in that steel temperatures lag way behind that of gas temperatures.
Also the building would act like a giant heat sink so you would need even longer. But all this doesnt matter besause no one except you not even the government is saying it could happen.
So once again you do not belive NIST. Do you have any idea how many times you have gone against what NIST says? This time you are saying NIST is wrong about the temperatures of the fires.
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.” NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.” NIST, p. 181
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires—590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F
* Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat and did not act as a heat sink.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
Hahahahaha First of all the columns would be the last thing to fail so who is talking about the columns? What would be the first thing to fail according to NIST to cause the chain of events bringing about global collapse? The weakest link Duh!
NIST says it was FAILURE FROM SAGGING FLOORS that caused global collapse. I belive you know the details so dont play dumb.
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
Natalie if you have not read the letter from Loring Knoblauch let me know.
In August of 2004, UL performed tests of WTC floor models, but the floors were barely affected and didn’t collapse. Loring Knoblauch resigned suddenly.
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
I agree with you Natalie any one who could make such gross, enormous errors and belives that magic had suspended the laws of physics in order to allow the impossible to happen needs immediate psychiatric help. Could you please be more specific about what NIST says on this post that you disagree with. From what you said I belive it is all of it. Please correct me if I am wrong and there is on here one quote from NIST you belive.
NIST states that it found no documents about fire resistance testing, yet it also states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 8, 2006 at 5:58 PM
Natalie
You said:
He seems completely ignorant of the fact that UL was not attempting to duplicate what happened in the towers, but that they were merely performing baseline tests to insure that the trusses performed as they should have in ordinary fire situations. They did, and it wasn’t.
It wasnt even close to a ordinary tests!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. Then they
NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
Let me put it this way Natalie NIST had to throw out the absurd pancake theory just like all the other proven incorrect and absurd theorys.
So then who was right and who was wrong!!??!! Can you at least answer that correctly. Children can figure that one out.
You said:
I certainly don’t agree that NIST later “confirmed†what he said. I think it’s more likely they were rolling on the floor laughing when they received the email. They probably were on the phone asking “who is this goof-ball you’ve got working in your company, and are you aware that he knows just about enough to be dangerous�
Were they laughing when they had to admit that no one was going to fall for (at that time) there latest bulls**t so they had to admit they were wrong?
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him. Just like Jones using Manning’s editorial selectively to do the same thing. Far from ethical, and far from professional, but a common tactic of propagandists posing as genuine experts. (Yes, Ryan presented himself authoritatively talking about steel, testing, melting points, failure, etc etc. He wasn’t talking about bacteria in water, which was his JOB.)
You obviously have not heard his presentation where he starts it off by saying what his job and position at UL was and goes over his letter and other correspondence that he had sent and received at that time. Wow again you make me blush for your ignorance. How can you keep talking trash about something you know nothing about?
He says quite clearly “I am not an engineer” he says he has no theory about what happend to the WTC. I’ll just show you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 8, 2006 at 8:04 PM
Natalie
Here it is for you so you will know what you are talking about!!!!!!!!
In an information-packed presentation of 58 minutes Kevin Ryan delivers a damning indictment of the official investigations of the total collapses of the Twin Towers and Building 7. Contrary to Ryan’s introductory comment that his lecture will be “very detailed and unfortunately a little bit dry,” I found his sober, professional, just-the-facts approach riveting and easy to follow despite its richness of technical detail.
Having created most of the 9-11 Research website, including its extensive reviews of the official investigations (such as my critique of NIST’s Report) I was surprised to learn so many things from Ryan’s talk. He provides an abundance of revealing details about the history and conduct of those investigations, complementing the more summary approach of 9-11 Research.
Apologists for the official story have attempted to redirect attention away from Ryan’s critique by suggesting that since Ryan isn’t a structural engineer he has nothing worthwhile to say. One need only listen to Ryan to see the disingenuity of this claim. Ryan’s solid scholarship and application of the scientific method stands in stark contrast to the official investigations, whose dishonesty and corrupt anti-scientific methods Ryan exposes in abundance.
Ryan unquestionably qualifies as a whistleblower. Having been promoted to the top manager of Underwriter’s Laboratories water testing division, Ryan was dismissed on November of 2004 after an e-mail from him to Dr Frank Gayle of NIST became public.
00:55
So I’m not an engineer, I’m a chemist. I got involved with this because of communications made to me both verbally and in writing about UL’s involvement in testing the materials related to the World Trade Center buildings.
Contents
* Introduction
* Bush Science
* The ‘Collapses’ in Perspective
* Origins of the Steel-Melting Fire Claims
* Where are the Real Experts?
* Pre-Determined Conclusions, Obstruction
* WTC Designers Contemplated Plane Crashes and Fires
* The Pancake Theory
* NIST’s Methods
o A. Review of documents
o B. Interviews with eyewitnesses
o C. Analysis of steel
o D. Laboratory tests
o E. Computer simulations
o NIST methods summary
* NIST’s Story
o 1. How many columns were severed?
o 2. How much were loads redistributed?
o 3. Fireproofing widely dislodged?
o 4. How hot could the Steel have become?
o 5. Some floors began to sag?
o 6. How did floors pull columns inward causing them to buckle?
o 7. Instability spread around entire building perimeter
o NIST theory summary
* Summary of NIST’s Report
* WTC 7
* Audience Questions
* Conclusion
Bush Science
Ryan begins by describing “Bush Science”—a corruption of allegedly scientific investigations by the Bush administration policy goals, citing condemnations by prominent scientists and Nobel lauretes, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the House Committee on Government Reform. Ryan notes that the NIST and the Department of Commerce to which it reports are both headed by Bush appointees.
The ‘Collapses’ In Perspective
Ryan provides some context for the official investigation, noting that 99.7 percent of the steel was recycled, and that the first full investigation—NIST’s—did not start for more than a year after the attack.
As David Griffin has pointed out in definitive detail, the destruction of the WTC towers showed numerous characteristic features of controlled demolition. Ryan quotes Griffin:
03:05
No building exhibiting all the characteristics of controlled demolition has never not been a controlled demolition.
Ryan signifies this argument with a slide of Demo, the elephant that remembers.
Among the many interesting quotes in the presentation are two by individuals later involved in the investigation—Mike Taylor and Ronald Hamburger—saying that the falls of the Twin Towers looked like demolitions.
Origins of the Steel-Melting Fire Claims
Ryan begins his examination of the official investigations by showing the source of the claim that jet fuel melted structural steel: a number of “experts” including:
04:40
* BBC (Chris Wise, etc.)
* Scientific American (Eduardo Kausel)
* NOVA video (Matthys Levy)
* Henry Koffman from USC
* Tom Mackin from Univ. of Illinois
* The New Scientist
Ryan also notes that National Geographic Today and the History Channel asserted fire temperatures of 2,900 and 2,700 F.
Since jet fuel fires burn at a maximum of around 1,500 F (unless in a special combustion chamber) and the melting point of steel is around 2,800 F, the claim that jet fuel fires melted structural steel is absurd. Although the official reports do not hold that the WTC fires melted steel, the origins of this idea is important, since it has been used as a straw-man attack by official story defenders such as Popular Mechanics.
Ryan notes that steel temperatures lag behind gas temperatures in both time and magnitude, and that none of the official reports have performed thermodynamic calculations about the probable steel temperatures. Ryan’s own calculations show that steel temperatures in the impact zones probably did not exceed 600 F.
Where are the Real Experts?
Having demonstrated the blatant disregard for facts by supposed experts, Ryan asks, where are the real experts? There are no experts who can explain the events of 9/11/01, Ryan explains, because the attack involved such a long string of unique events. Since no tall steel building has ever collapsed from fire, or a combination of fire and other damage, there are clearly no experts who can explain how it happened three times in one day.
Yet, as Ryan notes, there is always an official explanation for terrorist events. Ryan reviews anomalies in the official account of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and notes that in that case, as in the case of the World Trade Center, a small group of engineers produced reports supporting the official story.
Ryan shows that the same principals headed the various government investigations of the WTC collapses, the Pentagon crash, and Oklahoma City bombing, despite the fact that the investigations involved assessments of entirely different kinds of structures inflicted with different kinds of damage. Why do the same five or so individuals turn up in investigations relating to terrorist attack, when, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), there are 1.5 million engineers in the US? The authors of the official report on the Murrah Federal Building—Gene Corley, Charles Thornton, Paul Mlaker, and Mete Sozeny—were all among the initial team of the ASCE WTC investigation. Several of these individuals have strong connections to industries that benefited from the attack, such as armaments makers and oil and gas producers.
Pre-Determined Conclusions, Obstruction
The guiding of an investigation by pre-determined conclusions is antithetical to good science. Ryan uses the words of the investigations themselves to show that they started with the conclusion that the collapses of the three skyscrapers were entirely the result of the plane crashes and subsequent fires. Gene Corley stated that he knew that the towers were going to collapse before they did, which is interesting because no tall steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fires. Charles Thornton stated to Karl Koch, “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” Shankar Nair, a contributor to the NIST investigation, stated on September 19, 2001, “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of event that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.” Ryan, surmises with wry irony:
09:42
So these guys knew apparently what happened, and I don’t doubt it.
New York City put Thornton-Tomasetti in charge of the site, and Charles Thronton’s partner, Richard Tomasetti cleared the decision to recycle the steel. Ryan lists a series of debilitating restrictions on the ASCE investigation that can best be understood as efforts to subvert and sabotage the investigation.
10:30
* No access to blueprints
* Not allowed to ask for help from public
* Team members threatened with dismissal for speaking with press
* No access to steel until first week in October
* FEMA obstruction
One way to solve that is to allow FEMA to take over the investigation.
FEMA took over the ASCE investigation and expanded it, adding John Gross, Therese McAllister, and other contractors. By December 2001, only $100,000 had been spent on the investigation.
11:52
We had spent, by the end of the year, 30,000 times more on the wars than we had spent finding why we were fighting the wars.
WTC Designers Contemplated Plane Crashes and Fires
Ryan shows statements by official investigators suggesting that the building designers had forgotten to consider jet fuel fires in their considerations of jet crashes.
11:52
* Eduardo Kausel - “never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next—a key design omission.”
* Loring Knoblauch (CEO of UL) - the jet fuel fires
were not “reasonably foreseeable.”
* What? How would the planes get to the buildings?
So who would do this—who would design these buildings for aircraft impacts but no jet fuel fires? ... Well, the answer is not the World Trade Center’s design engineer.
Ryan shows that the design engineers had contemplated jetliner crashes and the fires that would result. Lead engineer John Skilling said in 1993, five years before his death:
13:50
“our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there.”
—City in the Sky
These statements are not disclosed by a number of post-9/11 documentaries that feature Leslie Robertson, (a junior partner to Skilling at the time the Towers were designed) implying that fires were someone else’s job.
Ryan provides an illustrated tour of the Tower’s construction, describing the huge core structures, and noting that steel used in the perimeter columns was super-strong steel: much of it rated to 1,000,000 PSI.
The Pancake Theory
Ryan briefly reviews the April 2002 NOVA documentary, which featured commentators Corley and Thornton, and the floor pancaking theory. The same theory is endorsed in the May 2002 FEMA report as a “a pancake-type of collapse of successive floors”
In June of 2002 NIST drafted its plans, and its first “public meeting” meeting included comments by Corley, Tomasetti, Nair, and other contributors to the official reports.
17:22
FEMA authors became NIST authors
* FEMA Chapter 1 authors:
o Therese McAllister: co-write NIST report 1-6 and 1-7
o John Gross: co-wrote NIST report 1-6 and 1-7
o Ronald Hamburger: NIST contributor
* FEMA Chapter 2 authors:
o Ronald Hamburger: see above
o William Baker: NIST contributor, Freedom Tower
o Harold Nelson: co-wrote NIST report 1-5 and 1-7
* FEMA Chapter 5 authors (WTC7):
o Ramon Gilsanz: co-wrote NIST report 1-6F
o Harold Nelson: see above
Although the authors of the official reports are very similar, the collapse explanations offered by the reports are quite different. Corley and Thornton-Tomasetti were also involved in the Weidlinger study, released in October, 2002, just five months after FEMA’s. That study, commissed by Silverstein for his insurance claim, exclusively blames column failure for the collapses. It thus stands in stark contrast to the FEMA Report, whose pancake theory blames floor truss failures. Why would the same individuals endorse two contradictory theories in their different roles? Apparently for political and economic reasons. Ryan ventues that failures of truss supports could indicate a design fault, and therefore fail to support the “two occurrances” claimed by Silverstein. I suggest that clearly implausible aspects of the column failure theory required the invention of the more sophisticated and truss-failure theory to sell the collapse theory.
Ryan summarizes the “official” theories to date:
19:02
They know from the start what happened?
* “experts” Towering Inferno
o Steel melted
* FEMA
o Floor failure: “A pancake-type collapse of successive floors”
* Silverstein/Weidlinger
o Column failure only
* NIST
o External column failure from sagging floors and softened core columns, etc ... leading to pile driver collapse
(TNRAT - They’ll Never Read All This theory)
I describe NIST’s Report as a mountain of distracting detail. Ryan more succinctly describes their theory as a ‘tin rat’—They’ll Never Read All This—theory. The Report on the Twin Towers is 42 sub-reports totaling more than 10,000 pages.
NIST’s Methods
Here Ryan starts his detailed analysis of NIST’s final report released in September 2005, which he calls “Part 2 of the official conspiracy theory” because of its departure from the first theory—the pancake theory. Ryan asks whether NIST used the national standard for fire investigation: NFPA 921. He shows that NIST violated at least two of the standard’s guidelines:
20:50
* Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided
o NIST used specialists/contractors who were dependent on government contracts or on the official story itself
* Sec 12-4: Unusual residues ...could arise from thermite, magnesium or other pyrotechnic materials
o NIST report does not mention FEMA’s puzzling sulfur residue
Ryan enumerates the five methods used by NIST, and proceeds to examine NIST’s performance on each one, using two of NIST’s own stated goals:
Goal 1 - Why and How three buildings collapsed
Goal 3 - What design factors should have prevented this?
21:40
5 methods:
A. Review of documents
B. Interviews with eyewitnesses
C. Analysis of steel
D. Laboratory tests
E. Computer simulations
A. Review of Documents
The review of documents was important because the building designers made claims about their performance in jetliner crashes that were highly relevant to NIST’s investigation. NIST avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—were missing. The design claims by Skilling’s team included the following:
22:52
Original design claims
* “... inherent capacity to resist unforeseen calamities.”
* For the perimeter columns ... “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”
* One “could cut away all the first story columns on one side of the building, and partway from the corners of the perpendicular sides, and the building could still withstand design live loads and a 100 mph wind from any direction.”
—All quotes from Engineering News-Record, 1964
NIST states that it found no documents about fire resistance testing, yet it also states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, which requires such testing. If the assemblies were tested they would have been using the standard ASTM E119. A floor assembly is tested to that standard by by placing a furnace under it and measuring the time it takes a certain temperature to be reached on its top side.
Evidence that the steel was tested include:
24:50
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
In August of 2004, UL performed tests of WTC floor models, but the floors were barely affected and didn’t collapse. Loring Knoblauch resigned suddenly.
In October of 2004, a NIST report update showed contradictions.
In November of 2004 Ryan’s letter to Frank Gayle went public, causing UL to quickly backtrack, saying there was “no evidence” that any firm tested the steel, and that they played a “limited” role in the investigation.
B. Interviews with Eyewitnesses
27:30
B. NIST’s performance on interviews
* NIST started planning for eyewitness interviews in April 2003 (7 months after start of investigation, 19 after 9/11)
* By October, still no NIST interviews and on NIST access to NYC interviews
* NYC finally agreed to allow NIST acccess to original interviews by December 2003
... but only in NYC offices
NIST’s limited access to the interviews is reminiscent of testimony given the 9/11 Commission, in which notes or recordings were prohibited. Ryan presents a few excerpts of the interviews released to the public in mid-2005—excerpts such as these that reflect perceptions of explosive demolition.
The eyewitness interviews were not used in the final report.
C. Analysis of Steel
29:40
C. Analysis of steel
* Most of the steel evidence destroyed
o Tomasetti decision (Thornton’s partner)
o 236 samples saved for testing (0.3%)
* NIST tests
o Paint tests indicated low steel temps (480 F) “despite pre-collapse exposure to fire”
o Microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values (600 C)
Having failed to find any samples that showed exposures to temperatures that would have produced critical weakening of steel, NIST stated “None of the samples were from zones where [high] heating was predicted”
D. Laboratory Tests
Laboratory tests conducted by NIST included:
* Tests to prove loss of fireproofing
* Workstation burn tests
* Tests by UL to test failure in floor assemblies
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. The tests showed:
34:00
* Minimal floor sagging
* No floor collapse
* “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”
E. Computer Simulations
34:45
* Input parameters could be tweaked
* “Realistic” parameters tossed in favor of “More severe” parameters
* Animations generated to “compare with observed events”
In my essay on NIST’s Report, I point out that NIST created animations of events such as the fires and plane crashes, but has not published any animations of the falls of the Towers—the events it was supposed to investigate. Ryan makes essentially the same point in his characteristic understated manner, showing some images from NIST computer animations and asking:
35:30
Does your future depend on these pictures?
NIST methods summary
35:35
NIST’s investigative practices were deceptive and unscientific
* Documents needed just happened to be missing
* Eyewitnesses to demolition characteristics were ignored
* Physical tests that disproved pre-determined conclusions were downplayed or ignored
* Entire theory is built on fudged, inaccessible computer simulations
NIST’s Story
Having exposed the blatantly unscientific conduct of NIST’s investigation, Ryan proceeds to dismantle their theory, which consists of seven steps:
36.06
What is their story?
1. The aircraft severed “a number of columns”
2. Loads were redistributed (from -20% to +25%)
3. Insulation (fireproofing) was widely dislodged
4. High temperatures softened columns and floors
5. Some floors began to sag
6. Sagging floors pulled exterior columns inward causing them to buckle
7. Instability spread around entire building
Ryan examines these steps in detail, showing that each either makes drastically unrealistic assumptions or otherwise fails to support the collapse theory.
1. How many columns were severed?
NIST admits that only a small percentage of columns were severed: 14% in WTC 1 and 15% WTC 2. This is nowhere near the the number of columns that the designers claimed could have been removed without causing a problem.
2. How much were loads redistributed?
NIST admits that the web of steel formed by interlocking perimeter columns and spandrel plates were efficient at redistributing loads around the impact punctures. It estimates that loads on some columns increased by up to 35% while loads on other columns decreased by 20%. The increased loads are nowhere near those the designers claimed the columns could handle: increases of 2000% above the design live loads.
3. Fireproofing widely dislodged?
The idea that fireproofing was removed from most of the structural steel surfaces of the impact zones is essential to NIST’s theory. NIST sought to “prove” that the plane crashes could do this by shooting shotguns at surfaces coated with spray-on foam insulation. Contrary to the popular notion that the jolts of the plane crashes could knocked off large amounts of spray-on insulation from steel not directly in the line of fire, the tests showed that it took being sprayed with shotgun pellets to remove the insulation. In addition to the fact that there is no evidence that a crashing Boeing 757 could have been transformed into the equivalent of the thousands of shotgun blasts it would take to blast the 6,000 square meters of surface area of structural steel in the fire areas, Ryan makes another argument based on the available energy.
40:00
* NIST says 2500 MJ of kinetic energy from plane that hit WTC1
o Calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors *
o Shotgun tests found that 1 MJ per sq meter was needed to dislodge fireproofing
o For the areas in question, intact floors and columns had 6000 sq meters of surface area
* Calculations by Tomasz Wierzbicki of MIT
4. How hot Could the Steel have become?
Here Ryan fills in another gap in NIST’s theory by doing a calculation they neglected to, that to determine how much heat energy was available and how much it could have raised steel temperatures. Ryan and others have done the calculation using only assumptions favorable to the collapse theory:
41:00
* NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires—590,000 MJ of energy
* Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
* Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
* The result is less than 600 degrees F
o Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat
Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it.
5. Some floors began to sag?
Step five in NIST’s collapse theory is that floors began to sag. The idea that fires could have caused floors to sag is not unreasonable, since it has been observed in fire tests and in cases of severe fires in steel-framed buildings, such as the One Meridian Plaza fire.
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches.
6. How did floors pull columns inward causing them to buckle?
of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
47:00
* “An exterior wall section (9 columns wide and 9 floors high) was found to bow inward when floor connections applied an inward force.” (computer result for one case out of nine)
* Same report says sagging area only 5 floors high!
* NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
7. Instability spread around entire building perimeter
NIST claims that “column instability” spread from core columns to the perimeter columns and vice-versa, leading to “global collapse” in the case of both Towers. This vague claim occupies only a few paragraphs of NIST’s Final Report, despite its being critical to the collapse theory.
Ryan asks how fast the “instability spread” would have to propagate to produce the sudden-onset telescoping collapses. Noting that the perimeter of each Tower measured 832 feet, for “column instability” to spread to all the perimeter columns in half a second would require a supersonic rate of propagation. This idea is entirely contrary to all experience with steel structures, and pre-9/11 literature on the subject.
47:00
“A steel structure, generally speaking, does not collapse suddenly when attacked by fire. There are unmistakable warning signs, namely, large deformations”
—Hart, Multi-storey Buildings in Steel
NIST theory summary
48:40
What would objective scientists have found?
1 Relatively few columns lost on impact
2 Remaining columns had considerable extra capacity
3 Fireproofing could not have been widely dislodged
4 Steel could not have softened at the temps found
5 Even higher temps and longer periods tests showed minimal sagging
6 Forces were not sufficient to pull columns inward
7 “instability spread” would have taken longer
Summary of NIST’s Report
50:47
NIST WTC report is false because ..
* They did not explain why and how the buildings collapsed and their investigation was deceptive and unscientific at every step
* They reported findings that were in direct contradiction to their physical testing
* They omitted or distorted many important facts:
o Original design claims and John Skilling’s analysis
o Resistance from building structure below
o WTC 1 antenna moving first
o Pools of molten metal lingering for weeks
o Numerous eyewitness testimonies about explosions
o Sulfur residue on steel
WTC 7
Ryan concludes with a brief look at the fall of WTC 7, noting that NIST still hasn’t produced their final report on the incident. WTC 7 would have been the tallest building in 33 states and it collapsed in 6.6 seconds. Showing a video of the collapse, Ryan states:
52:34
I understand that a representative of MSNBC still needs to see this. And he’s also said that if he was faced with the knowledge that all of us have been faced with now that he would leave the country, that he would run far away. But we’re here to tell him that not everyone would run.
Ryan’s comment refers to the interview of Steven Jones by Tucker Carlson in which the producers apparently refused to play the collapse footage of WTC 7 that Jones had earlier arranged to be played. Addressing feedback on the interview, Carlson said the next day: “If you really thought this - or even considered it a possibility - how could you continue to live here? You couldn’t. You’d leave the United States on the next available flight and not come back.”
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 8, 2006 at 9:20 PM
Top 10 reasons why the NIST report is absurd:
In 2005, NIST released the results of a 20 million dollar investigation that attempted to explain why the World Trade Center towers completely collapsed.[1]
Many blindly point to this report (without reading a word of it) as rock solid proof that the official story is true. I am writing this list In order to help remedy this situation. All of my claims are documented—-I am not making this up. Some of these claims may sound too outrageous to be true, but they are. I have provided the footnotes to prove it.
This is for anyone who still takes the NIST report seriously.
I present my top 10 reasons why the 10,000 page NIST report is absurd:
#10. Their theory is that “widely-dislodged fireproofing” was the primary reason the towers collapsed.[2]
#9. This theory ignores the fact that no steel framed building had ever completely collapsed due to fire in history.[3]
#8. They disproved their own “widely-dislodged fireproofing” theory with a shotgun experiment.[4]
#7. They ignore massive eyewitness testimony.[5]
#6. Their theory ignores a foundational law of physics.[6]
#5. Their steel tests contradicted their own theory and showed that the towers should not have collapsed.[7]
#4. They “proved” their theory with computer models that they refuse to release.[8]
#3. Their computer simulations used exaggerated data.[9]
#2. Their 10,000 page, 43 volume report explains (only in a footnote!), that their theory is a pre-collapse theory—-they do not attempt to explain the “structural behaviour of the tower” after the collapse began![10]
NIST’s most absurd blunder of all?
#1. Their 10,000 page, 43 volume report can’t find the space to discuss molten and evaporated steel; outrageously claiming that it was “irrelevant to the investigation”![11]
This statement is stunning evidence that there needs to be a criminal investigation, as well as a new investigation.
Most of this information is in an essay I wrote about the NIST report. For a more complete examination of the NIST report, read:
9/11, NIST, and “Bush Science”: A New Standard for Absurdity
http://www.911blogger.com/node/4324
[1] www.nist.gov/
[2] This is NIST’s theory in their own words: “The two aircraft hit the towers at high speed and did considerable damage to principal structural components: core columns, floors, and perimeter columns. However, the towers withstood the impacts and would have remained standing were it not for the dislodged insulation (fireproofing) and the subsequent multifloor fires.”
Taken from: NIST: “Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers” page 4.
Therefore, the NIST theory is a “fireproofing theory”. If the fireproofing was not removed the buildings would not have collapsed according to NIST.
Plane damage was therefore insignificant:
Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering who supports the official theory, says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because “the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure” (Eagar and Musso, 2001, pp. 8-11).
Professor Astaneh-Asl of University of California:said “The [plane] impact did nothing to this building,’ he said with admiration.” CNN News, Oct 5, 2001.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/05/inv.attacks.steel/index.html
See also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=718236659434732032 Kevin Ryan, 9-11 Revealing the Truth: Reclaiming our future conference. June 4, 2006.
[3] No steel framed buildings had ever collapsed due to fire in history according to the New York Times:
Glanz, James, and Lipton, Eric (2002). “Towers Withstood Impact, but Fell to Fire, Report Says,” Fri March 29, 2002, New York Times.
[4] Kevin Ryan shows it actually disproved their theory:
“It took being sprayed with shotgun pellets to remove the insulation…. there is no evidence that a crashing Boeing 757 could have been…. [like] thousands of shotgun blasts [to cover] the 6,000 square meters of surface area of structural steel.”
In other words, the shotgun blasts only removed the fireproofing where they were struck with the shotgun blast. Their own photos clearly show that the shotgun blasts removed little fireproofing, disproving their theory.
taken from: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html#dislodged
See also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=718236659434732032
Kevin Ryan, 9-11 Revealing the Truth: Reclaiming our future conference. June 4, 2006. at 36:06, and the NIST study that has photos of the shotgun blast tests.
[5] Eyewitness testimony: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/eyewitnesses.html
[6] As Seen from in NIST’s FAQ: http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
“How could the WTC towers collapse in only 11 seconds (WTC 1) and 9 seconds (WTC 2)—-speeds that approximate that of a ball dropped from similar height in a vacuum (with no air resistance)?”[6]
NIST responds:
“....the momentum…. of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. [Note: this claim contradicts a basic law of physics] The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.”[6]
Jim Hoffman explains why this is impossible:
“NIST’s assertion that the Tower’s intact structure was “unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass” is absurd. It:
* Requires us to believe that the massive steel frames of the towers provided no more resistance to falling rubble than air.
* Ignores the fact that the majority of rubble fell outside the towers’ footprints, and hence could not contribute to crushing.
* Is unsupported by any calculation or logical argument.”[6]
Physicist Steven Jones, who has written over 40 peer reviewed scientific papers, agrees [see page 28]:
“Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum—-one of the foundational Laws of Physics? That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors—-and intact steel support columns—-the fall must be significantly impeded [i.e. slowed down] by the impacted mass.”[6]
[7] Here are NIST’s own test results:
* Paint tests indicated low steel temps (480 F) “despite pre-collapse exposure to fire”
* Microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values (600 C)
* Lab tests showed: Minimal floor sagging.
* NIST found that there was no floor collapse.
* “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”
See here: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html#steelanalysis
and here: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html#labtests
[8] “World Trade Center disaster investigators [at NIST] are refusing to show computer visualizations of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers, NCE has learned. Visualisations of collapse mechanisms are routinely used to validate the type of finite element analysis model used by the [NIST] investigators.”
Parker, Dave. “WTC investigators resist call for collapse visualisation,” New Civil Engineer, October 6, 2005.
[9] What data did NIST use for these computer models? We don’t know exactly, but they did reveal:
“The Investigation Team then defined three cases for each building by combining the middle, less severe, and more severe values of the influential variables. Upon a preliminary examination of the middle cases, it became clear that the towers would likely remain standing. The less severe cases were discarded after the aircraft impact results were compared to observed events. The middle cases….were discarded after the structural response analysis of major subsystems were compared to observed events.”
NIST, 2005, p. 142; emphasis added.
This does not prove their predetermined conclusion so they change their data until they get the desired result—-building collapse:
“The more severe case… was used for the global analysis of each tower… To the extent that the simulations deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness reports [e.g., complete collapse occurred], the investigators adjusted the input, but only within the range of physical reality. Thus, for instance… the pulling forces on the perimeter columns by the sagging floors were adjusted…”
NIST, 2005, p. 142; emphasis added.
NIST’s theory couldn’t be proved with the original data, so they changed the data, which was different from the eyewitness reports. Does this “evidence” prove anything besides the fact computer simulations are fun to fool around with?
NIST also revealed:
“The software used [by NIST] has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgment calls.”
Parker, Dave. “WTC investigators resist call for collapse visualisation,” New Civil Engineer, October 6, 2005.
[10] NIST: “The focus of the Investigation was on the sequence of events from the instant of aircraft impact to the initiation of collapse for each tower. For brevity in this report, this sequence is referred to as the “probable collapse sequence,” although [the investigation] does not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached.” NIST, 2005, p. 80, fn. 12; emphasis added.
The report is irrelevant if it can’t explain the “structural behavior of the tower” after the collapse began. Essentially, the only focus of the report is to prove that the collapse started, not what happened after it started.
[11] I can’t believe they actually stated this on the record! NIST truly sets a new standard for absurdity.
NIST: “The condition of the steel in the wreckage of the WTC towers (i.e., whether it was in a molten state or not) was irrelevant to the investigation of the collapse since it does not provide any conclusive information on the condition of the steel when the WTC towers were standing.” Read it here! http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html#13
NIST is trying to say that the molten steel was created after the building collapse. How do they know that? If so, why isn’t it mentioned in a 10, 000 page report to show this? This statement defies belief.
by Arabesque
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 9, 2006 at 9:02 AM
Natalie
STOP YOUR LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
When a manager of a health laboratory poses as a fire expert and a structural engineer,
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
Yous said:
and writes an unauthorized and error-filled letter to a govt. agency on company time and letterhead without the approval of his superiors, he loses a lot of credibility and even his job.
It turns out every thing he stated in his report was confirmed by NIST.
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.” NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.” NIST, p. 181
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires—590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F
* Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat and did not act as a heat sink.
You said:
When he takes quotes of genuine experts like Ronald Hamburger and Mike Taylor out of context to mislead people into thinking that they agree with him, his credibility is pretty much in the crapper.
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
He only showed the quotes when talking about their first impression.
He found it odd that given their first impression wouldnt they want to test so they can know for certain that they where wrong? Yet NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
You said:
My reference to letterhead was meant to be colorful, but important to illustrate the fact that he represented himself as a manager at UL, and obviously sought to use that position to gain influence and stature.
You colorfuly forgot that he earned his promotion to a position of influence and stature. You also forgot he was following up on the letter he recieved from “UL’s CEO”. He was concerned about the errors for they could put UL in a position of blame. As it turned out he was correct and the errors that he pointed out have since been fixed / retracted.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
You said:
He seems completely ignorant of the fact that UL was not attempting to duplicate what happened in the towers, but that they were merely performing baseline tests to insure that the trusses performed as they should have in ordinary fire situations. They did, and it wasn’t.
It wasnt even close to ordinary tests and that he points out they were nothing like the Towers!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. Then they
NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
You said:
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him. Just like Jones using Manning’s editorial selectively to do the same thing. Far from ethical, and far from professional, but a common tactic of propagandists posing as genuine experts. (Yes, Ryan presented himself authoritatively talking about steel, testing, melting points, failure, etc etc. He wasn’t talking about bacteria in water, which was his JOB.)
Kevin Ryan said; “So I’m not an engineer, I’m a chemist. I got involved with this because of communications made to me both verbally and in writing about UL’s involvement in testing the materials related to the World Trade Center buildings.”
You said:
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him.
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
He only showed the quotes when talking about their first impression.
He found it odd that given their first impression wouldnt they want to test so they can know for certain that they where wrong? NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
Please! I beg you to show me where he mislead people into thinking that they agree with him! Please! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
Now, if he would have said that Ronald and Mike thought it looked like a demolition at first, like millions of people did, but certainly don’t hold that view today, fine. But of course, why in the world would he include all that? What is he, a scientist or a politician? Was it a “botched joke”? ;~)
For an hour he talked about that they think their first impression is wrong even though they never did any test to make sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
Please! I beg you to show me where he mislead people into thinking that they agree with him! Please! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
PROVE YOU ARE NOT A LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 9, 2006 at 12:07 PM
First of all I am shocked that you belive that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel. Jet fuel can not get that hot. Your ignorance amazes me. Don’t you know that is absolutely and utterly impossible? Natalie it defies the laws of physics. Not even NIST says the fires reached any where close to those temperatures.
Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that temperatures were anything other than what NIST concluded that they were after extensive investigation? Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that steel melted?
You’re repeating yourself, Joe. The “rebuttals” you worship have no more credibility the second time than they did the first.
The problem with all this gibberish, Joe, is that each and every tidbit of it has been submitted by people that have no business doing so.
There is not a single solitary sole among them that could pass a professional structural engineering exam, with perhaps a tiny fraction being able to answer the first question.
Kevin Ryan, Steven Jones, Jim Hoffman and the rest at 9/11review simply do not have the expertise, experience or detailed knowledge needed to mount a proper rebuttal of the NIST reports. And, more importantly, few among the thousands of those world-wide that do have these qualities have raised any substantial objections to the report. Any that have, either conclude that the fire alone, or the damage alone were nearly enough to cause collapse. Not exactly supportive of the CD theory, is it? We’ve got a fringe on each side of the legitimate and relevant scientific community, with the rest falling somewhere in between, with NOBODY feeling the need to entertain wacky theories about something there’s absolutely no evidence for.
Nobody in the truth movement is a credible structural engineer, and nobody is experienced in any kind of fire engineering or fire science. They don’t have the ability to do anything more than cruise the Internet, take things out of context, demonstrate their bias, make unsupported assertions and accuse genuine professionals who actually operate under a strict code of ethics of having no integrity. That takes a special kind of arrogance.
Why is it Joe, that you find it reasonable to accept the conclusions of unqualified, misleading and in many cases deliberately dishonest individuals over those of highly educated and experienced professional engineers and scientists in fields that are actually relevant to the situation?
Are you really comfortable with this mindset, Joe?
“In an information-packed presentation of 58 minutes Kevin Ryan delivers a damning indictment of the official investigations of the total collapses of the Twin Towers and Building 7. Contrary to Ryan’s introductory comment that his lecture will be “very detailed and unfortunately a little bit dry,” I found his sober, professional, just-the-facts approach riveting and easy to follow despite its richness of technical detail.”
No Joe, that’s not technical detail. It’s an exercise in propaganda, and that which is obvious to most apparently sails right over your head. It’s the same dishonest technique employed by Jones, Griffin, Fetzer, Loose Change, “9/11 witness” etc., etc.
Out of context “factoids” and no effort to provide the more realistic and reasonable explanations for all these supposedly strange occurances. If you want technical detail, you’re going to have to look somewhere other than the “truth” movement.
BTW, my research indicates that Loring Knoblauch simply retired at around the age of 65, not “suddenly resigned” from UL. Can’t a person retire anymore without being a suspected criminal or conspirator?
Posted by Natalie on Nov 9, 2006 at 4:51 PM
Natalie
At this point I have yet to hear definitive support or skepticism from the engineering community but I can tell you that ARUP in the UK has taken issue with the report (they do not model expansion due to heating) as well as the New Civil Engineer. The primary problem is that NIST is unwilling to debate its report, even with engineers who support the fire theory but have taken issue with NIST’s particular theory. Need I remind you that the track record of the explanations for the collapses has not exactly been stellar:
1. (FALSE) Tower Meltdown (Bazant and Zhou, various “experts” in the days after) - 800C+ temperatures in core - No WTC7 explanation
2. (FALSE) Pancake theory (ASCE, FEMA BPAT, MIT) - Never a full collapse theory (the use of the phrase “possibly free standing columns” failing) and now disproven by physical tests and NIST, very improbable WTC7 explanation (by FEMA’s own account)
3. (FALSE) Weidlinger report - Low temperature column failure with fire proofing loss - Similiar to NIST but contradicted by NIST’s temperature estimates and collapse theory (role of floors) - No WTC7 explanation
4. (Yet to be determined) NIST report - Latest report on collapses, currently excludes WTC7
We’ve had a myriad of “explanations” that have are all mutually exclusive and promulgated by largely the same set of people. Now, as I recall many 9/11 truth researchers criticized these reports and at the the time proponents of each of these theories claimed large scale agreement among engineers and, similiar to your tact, that these researchers were merely talking out of their ass. Unfortunately for the “engineers” (and yourself), the truthers are batting 1.000 to their 0.000 so far. Does this mean that NIST is thus wrong? No, but it means that the blanket acceptance of the latest theory promulagated by “experts” should be taken as just that, a theory. Appealing to authority here is really laughable considering the appaling track record of these theories and anyone who chooses to merely restate NIST’s conclusions without verifying their data and analysis is engaging in the worst form of doublethink and intellectual dishonesty.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 9, 2006 at 5:56 PM
You’re right, Joe, everyone isn’t in lock-step agreement with exactly what mechanisms initiated the collapse. This is perfectly normal in these types of situations.
But why does this understandable and wholly expected debate about the precise cause of the collapse have to mean that there were explosives planted in the towers? If one camp believes that fire alone would have doomed the towers, and the other believes that the structural damage brought them to the brink, why in the world is there a need to invoke other things there are no evidence for? NIST comes down somewhat in the middle. And, there is absolutely no debate in the non-truthie world that I’m aware of regarding what did/should happen after collapse started.
I can understand NIST’s reluctance to debate truthies, but somehow I doubt that they aren’t perfectly willing to share their knowledge and data and evidence with qualified researchers. (they wrote a huge stack of friggin reports, if that means anything at all) What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
Thanks for the audio of Fetzer and Pegelow. I was waiting and waiting for some indication that Pegalow possessed any kind of advanced understanding of structural physics, or the properties and behaviors of unprotected steel in even a moderately hot fire. I got no such indication. He does sound generally pretty well informed, as in “Yeah, I read something about that somewhere”, and is kind enough to share his political biases with us.
At the end, he was real enthusiastic about the theory that nuclear devices were used. Fetzer tried to politely hint that even Jones doesn’t go along with that particular form of creative thinking.
Truthies batting a thousand? No, please, we’ve had theories ranging from holographic planes, to missiles at the Pentagon, to nuclear weapons being used that apparently don’t give off radiation, to thermite, to perfectly timed progressive explosions from top to bottom to a hundred more I can’t think of right now. If I were you, I wouldn’t be criticizing anyone for not being able to agree on a theory!! Perhaps get your own house in order first.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 9, 2006 at 9:06 PM
Upon doing another five or ten seconds of Internet research, it seems that the former head of UL retired a little prematurely due to prostate cancer at around the age of 63. Perhaps this is why it was perceived by some as “sudden”.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 10, 2006 at 11:22 AM
Natalie
You said:
Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that temperatures were anything other than what NIST concluded that they were after extensive investigation? Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that steel melted?
They said:
“What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel. . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts.” Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory.”
Kevin Ryan said:
We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
Kevin Ryan said:
As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I’m aware of UL’s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.
They said:
“All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing”...NIST, p. 143
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.”... NIST, p. 143
Kevin Ryan said:
The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team’s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to “rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse”. The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
They said:
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.”.... NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.”... NIST, p. 181
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires=590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F
I thought you DID NOT agree with Kevin Ryan’s letter and because I thought you did not agree with what he was saying ment you agreed with what Kevin Ryan was arguing against. I am sorry for the confusion but I think you can understand and agree that Both the first 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST report leave one confused because they declared their own findings inconclusive.
At that time Kevin Ryan’s letter was arguing against the Pancake theory because of physical tests that he was aware of and now 2 years later NIST says thier pancake theory has been disproven by physical tests.
THE SAME PHYSICAL TESTS Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about over two years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
The problem with all this gibberish, Joe, is that each and every tidbit of it has been submitted by people that have no business doing so.
What Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about over two years ago was very easy to understand so how is it the government “owned” experts could not figure it out for over two years before they agreed with him and said thier pancake theory has been disproven by the physical tests Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about!!??!!
How is it that every one just excepts this as simple mistake made by the government “owned” experts?
You dont really belive that do you?
Simple mistakes my ass!
Why are you not mad about being lied to when the government “owned” experts said jet fuel melted the steel? Doesnt that alone make you realise they have NO CREDIBILITY?!?!?!?!?!?!
*BBC (Chris Wise, ect.)
*Scentific American (Eduardo Kausel)
*NOVA video (Matthys levy)
*Henry Koffman from USC
*Tom Mackin from the Univ. of Illionis
*The New Scientiest
*And many more Government “owned” experts of “deception”
They exaggerated the Temperatures and then there lies where repeted
*National Geographic Today - 2,900F
*A&E - 2,500F
*History Channel - 2,500F
Each of these theories claimed large scale agreement among scientist and engineers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Large scale agreement among scientist and engineers my ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
Why is it Joe, that you find it reasonable to accept the conclusions of unqualified, misleading and in many cases deliberately dishonest individuals over those of highly educated and experienced professional engineers and scientists in fields that are actually relevant to the situation?
Who are the misleading and in many cases deliberately dishonest individuals? It cant be the ones you were told to ignore and that have been proven correct. Instead its the same small group of government “owned” experts who made these false claims.
As soon as the government propaganda came out with that bulls**t many people were saying that the thermodynamic analysis of the twin tower collapses show that the temp of the steel could not reach more that 600F and that was in 2001 before any tests were done of the steel and if you can remember they were called unqualified to make such calculations and the same small group of government “owned” experts said through the MSM they should be ignored.
That is bulls**t the calculations needed for a thermodynamic analysis are learned in high school. Also they are required in a fire investigation and often the insurance companies want to see it done. So why wasnt it done by the government “owned” experts who said every one else is unqualified to do the calculations.
Although the authors of the official reports are very similar, the collapse explanations offered by the reports are quite different. Corley and Thornton-Tomasetti were also involved in the Weidlinger study, released in October, 2002, just five months after FEMA’s. That study, commissed by Silverstein for his insurance claim, exclusively blames column failure for the collapses. It thus stands in stark contrast to the FEMA Report, whose pancake theory blames floor truss failures. Why would the same individuals endorse two contradictory theories in their different roles? Apparently for political and economic reasons. Ryan ventues that failures of truss supports could indicate a design fault, and therefore fail to support the “two occurrances” claimed by Silverstein. I suggest that clearly implausible aspects of the column failure theory required the invention of the more sophisticated and truss-failure theory to sell the collapse theory.
It’s always the same small group of government “owned” experts who made these false claims and that headed the various government investigations of the WTC collapses, the Pentagon crash, and Oklahoma City bombing, despite the fact that the investigations involved assessments of entirely different kinds of structures inflicted with different kinds of damage. Why do the same five or so individuals turn up in investigations relating to terrorist attack, when, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), there are 1.5 million engineers in the US? The authors of the official report on the Murrah Federal Building “Gene Corley, Charles Thornton, Paul Mlaker, and Mete Sozeny” were all among the initial team of the ASCE WTC investigation. Several of these individuals have strong connections to industries that benefited from the attack, such as armaments makers and oil and gas producers.
Professionals who actually operate under a strict code of ethics??????
Gene Corley stated that he knew that the towers were going to collapse before they did, which is interesting because no tall steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fires. Charles Thornton stated to Karl Koch, “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” Shankar Nair, a contributor to the NIST investigation, stated on September 19, 2001, “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of event that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.”
The guiding of an investigation by pre-determined conclusions is antithetical to good science!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And dont you even try to tell me that those government “owned” experts did not lie but were ignorent about the tempature that steel melts at 2,800F or that the government “owned” experts didnt know that jet fuel fires burn at a maximum of 1,500F or that the steel in the towers is a huge natural heat sink and that steel temps are different than gas temps because steel temps lag way behind. Trust me They knew. Its their job to know.
You said:
It’s an exercise in propaganda, and that which is obvious to most apparently sails right over your head.
You must also remember that this task had it’s overseers… just like the 9/11 commission… the investigation was guided…. and the results were skewed. (NIST and the Department of Commerce to which it reports are both headed by Bush appointees!)
I dont remember an apology from those lying traitors do you?
* Eduardo Kausel - “never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next—-a key design omission.”
* Loring Knoblauch (CEO of UL) - the jet fuel fires
were not “reasonably foreseeable.”
* What? How would the planes get to the buildings?
The design engineers had contemplated jetliner crashes and the fires that would result. Lead engineer John Skilling said in 1993, five years before his death:
“our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there.”
—City in the Sky
You said:
(they wrote a huge stack of friggin reports, if that means anything at all)
I describe NIST’s Report as a mountain of distracting detail. Ryan more succinctly describes their theory as a ‘tin rat’—They’ll Never Read All This—theory. The Report on the Twin Towers is 42 sub-reports totaling more than 10,000 pages.
NIST’s Methods
Their 10,000 page, 43 volume report can’t find the space to discuss molten and evaporated steel; outrageously claiming that it was “irrelevant to the investigation”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
NIST does not explain how the Antena on WTC1 fell first, when it was ATTACHED to the cores???? The cores could not have collapsed until the OUTER parts started to fall! Yet the Antena, which was supported by the cores, and connected to them, fell moments before the collapse. What caused the Antena to sink before the sides started to collapse?????? The core could not, would not, collapse in that fashion without an EXTERNAL force (and no the plane is not an external force in this case).
Please! Tell us all here how that Antena, supported by the Core, started sinking before the impact part collapsed!
PHYSICS says it’s IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Statistically well over 100 TRILLION to ONE!
NIST: “The condition of the steel in the wreckage of the WTC towers (i.e., whether it was in a molten state or not) was irrelevant to the investigation of the collapse since it does not provide any conclusive information on the condition of the steel when the WTC towers were standing.” Read it here! http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html#13
You said:
What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
Perhaps if NIST would provide the computer simulations for the scientific community to evalulate, they might be taken seriously??? How about providing a 1/100 model to demonstrate the collapse is possible in the way that NIST states? How about something other than them just saying so and providing PROOF?????
It’s pretty funny that if the NIST information is so ROCK SOLID that they won’t debate scientists that have refuted MUCH of NIST’s work. They absolutely will not debate them on the so called facts!
Thats because all that NIST has is speculation!! It has not been PROVEN as fact!!! every one of their FALSE claims were only excepted as fact by idiots who fall for the propaganda pushed by the same small group of “government owned” scientist!!!!!!
Oh, and by the way…... There are plenty of Structural Engineers that question NIST’s accounts of things!
How about providing ONE steel framed building that fell into pieces of dust from either fire, damage, or both in the history of man….. JUST ONE EXAMPLE!
I really recommend that everyone read the NIST report, on both sides, to see what it really does say and if NIST actually proved any of its Summary of Conclusions. A very careful reading of the report reveals that it does not indeed support the assertion of global collapse.
NIST failed to make the case for their probable collapse sequence. I fail to see the point in blithely accepting NIST’s conclusions without first verifying the data to support it. If you didn’t notice, most reports, essays, papers, etc. in academicia, economics, science, or business have something called a “body”, that usually provides analysis and evidence to support the “conclusions”. I guess you would advocate that we do away with that and merely state conclusions, since they must always be “true”. Oh I forgot, that’s the bias of the political method and has no place in the investigation of the murder of 3000 people.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 10, 2006 at 2:44 PM
OSS CEO Shares Information About 9/11 Truth Seminar at George Mason University (Arlington Campus) 10-5 Saturday 11 November 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/—Robert David Steele (Vivas), CEO of
OSS.Net, Inc., is sharing information about a 9/11 Truth Seminar taking
place at the Arlington Campus of George Mason University from 10-5 on
Saturday 11 November 2006.
“This Nation can neither win wars, nor govern itself ably, if our
politicians lie to us and to one another. It is in this context that I have
agreed to introduce Webster Tarpley, author of ‘9/11: Synthetic Terror Made
in the USA,’ and that I strongly recommend this local ‘truth seminar’ to
one and all, but especially to young intelligence analysts who have not yet
been corrupted by the politicization and bureaucratization of intelligence.
Over 350 people can be accommodated this Saturday.
“The 9/11 Commission was a white-wash. In my view, there is ample
evidence with which to indict George Bush and Dick Cheney for high crimes
and misdemeanors not yet properly investigated.
“America has forgotten how to find, discuss, and share the truth about
anything. We have become a cheating culture, one that tolerates corruption
at all levels. All of our institutions have failed us including Congress
and the media.
“The 9/11 Truth Seminars, and the bloggers for truth, represent an
opportunity to re-engage with reality. There are no absolute truths, but in
the absence of sustained efforts to perceive the truth, there can be
absolute lies—for example, that we live in an informed democracy that
nurtures moral capitalism.
“George Soros has it right when he suggests that Wall Street and the
central banks must made massive compromises with the people or lose it all.
The people are now armed with the Internet, with cell phones, with a
digital memory, and with the ability to follow the money around the globe.
“The 9/11 Truth Movement is not a threat, it is an overture.”
Robert Steele is a career intelligence professional, and the author of
four books on intelligence reform including ‘THE SMART NATION ACT: Public
Intelligence in the Public Interest,’ with a Foreword by Congressman Rob
Simmons (R-CT-02).
For information about the Saturday seminar, view
http://9eleven.info/Color911Symposiumflyer.pdf and
http://www.9eleven.info/911 Press Release 10.16.pdf.
For additional information about reality visit http://www.oss.net; for
a coalition option to save our dying democracy, visit
http://www.citizens-party.org.
SOURCE OSS.Net, Inc.
Related links:
# http://9eleven.info/Color911Symposiumflyer.pdf
# http://www.9eleven.info/911
# http://www.oss.net
# http://www.citizens-party.org
Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment? * 313183 responses
Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
86%
No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
4.4%
No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
7.3%
I don’t know.
1.8%
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/
Germany Puts The Democrats To Shame By Bringing Charges Against Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales and Others
Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse
A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo
http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1557842,00.html
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides “universal jurisdiction” allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 10, 2006 at 4:45 PM
I may have made a mistatement. I was under the impression that UL had tested the truss assemblies at the time of construction of the WTC towers. However, it appears that they did not, and in fact, it would appear that nobody did.
I think that the confusion caused by Ryan’s letter must be based on some kind of miscommunication or misunderstanding in relaying the fact that UL had done recent tests, and that the trusses had performed according to expectations, with fireproofing intact, that is. Other references to fire ratings on columns and trusses are based on the fact that the designers/builders obtained ratings for their construction based on tables produced by UL, which were in turn based on tests of different sizes and types of steel coated with different types/amounts of fireproofing. These tests and tables were not related to the tower construction itself, just generic information for use by the general public. This is my basic conclusion, anyway. If you have any direct evidence that UL did indeed do tests specifically on materials for use in the WTC in the 60’s, Joe, please present it.
From the NIST December 2003 Public Update, pg. 11:
Fire Endurance Testing of the WTC Floor System
The interim findings contained in the May 2003 progress report stated that from the documents reviewed <u>NIST had not been able to determine the technical basis for the selection of fireproofing material for the WTC floor system or how the specified fireproofing thickness would achieve the required 2 hr fire rating</u>.
In addition, <u>NIST found no documentary evidence indicating that a test based on ASTM E 119 had been conducted to determine the fire rating of the WTC floor system.</u> The Port Authority stated that “<u>there are no test records in our files</u>” in response to a NIST question asking “Were tests performed on the fire resistance of the composite floor system during the design or construction phase of the project.”
While the benefits of conducting a full-scale fire endurance test were realized, <u>apparently no tests were conducted on the specific floor system used in the WTC towers. Such project-specific testing was and is not normal practice</u> but may be conducted when circumstances warrant it, for example, in a new or unique application.
A composite bar joist floor system with spray-applied fireproofing represented an innovative application in the 1960s. Four additional factors contributed to the uniqueness of the system: (1) the use of bar joists in the floor system of high-rise buildings such as the WTC towers; (2) the long unsupported span of the floor system (about 60 ft in the long direction, about 35 ft in the short direction) (3) the role of the floor system in ensuring stability of the WTC structural system; and (4) the floor diaphragm action required to transfer lateral (wind) loads to the columns.
NIST engineers are working with experienced engineers from Underwriter’s Laboratories, Inc. (http://wtc.nist.gov/solicitations/wtc_awardQ0281.htm) to determine the fire endurance rating of <u>typical WTC floor systems under both as-built and specified conditions under the fire conditions prescribed in ASTM E 119.</u> In addition, NIST is using the tests to study the effects of fireproofing thickness, scale, or size of the tested assembly, and thermal restraint at the ends of the assemblies.
The tested composite floor assemblies include the concrete slab on metal deck, two pairs of main joists integrated with the concrete slab to provide composite action, two bridging joists, <u>and fireproofing applied</u> on steel with primer paint. Four tests are being conducted:
A 17 ft span with ends of the assembly restrained from thermal expansion in a typical furnace representing current U.S. practice. <u>This test will use the 1/2 in. fireproofing thickness specified by the Port Authority when the towers were built.</u>
A 17 ft span with ends of the assembly restrained from thermal expansion in a typical furnace representing current U.S. practice. This test will use the <u>3/4 in. fireproofing thickness</u> representing the <u>as-built condition</u> of the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
A 35 ft span with ends of the assembly restrained from thermal expansion in a furnace twice the typical size and representing a full-scale 35 ft assembly. This test will use the <u>3/4 in. fireproofing thickness</u> representing the <u>as-built condition</u> in the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
A 35 ft span with ends of the assembly not restrained from thermal expansion in a furnace twice the typical size and representing a full-scale 35 ft assembly. This test will use the <u>3/4 in. fireproofing thickness</u> representing the <u>as-built condition</u> in the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 10, 2006 at 9:44 PM
<i>You said:
What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
Perhaps if NIST would provide the computer simulations for the scientific community to evalulate, they might be taken seriously???
How about providing a 1/100 model to demonstrate the collapse is possible in the way that NIST states? How about something other than them just saying so and providing PROOF?????
It
Posted by Natalie on Nov 10, 2006 at 11:41 PM
Natalie good morning
You said:
What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
You said:
Again, what is your evidence for the above assertions? Keep in mind that it may not be in NIST’s mandate, charter or budget to go around debating people.
You said:
There is simply no practical way to physically model the event, however they have done so with computers. That is far, far more accurate and reliable. What exactly is your evidence for claiming that they won’t “share” their simulations with other researchers?
“World Trade Center disaster investigators are refusing to show computer visualizations [i.e. models] of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers”.
“a leading U.S. structural engineer said ‘By comparison [to the modeling of fires] the global structural model is not as sophisticated’ . . . The software used has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgement calls . . . it would be hard to produce a definitive visualization from the analysis so far.’ (free subscription required; copy posted here)(in other words, the government refused to release a visual model of the collapses, and even the non-visual computer models which the government used to examine why the trade centers collapsed are faulty).
“Some engineers . . . have accused NIST of repeatedly changing its explanation of the collapse mechanism.” (Google’s cached version of the article is here)
Moreover, a leading firefighters’ trade publication called the investigation concerning the world trade center a “half-baked farce”. In addition, the official investigators themselves were largely denied funding, access to the site and the evidence contained there, or even access to such basic information as the blueprints for the world trade center. Similarly, a professor of fire protection engineering, and the former chief of the fire science and engineering division of the agency now investigating the world trade center disaster, wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
The blueprints to the Twin Towers and Building 7 remain off-limits to the public three years after the attack, despite the fact that the buildings were built with public money and that the engineering drawings of public buildings are supposed to be public information. Incredibly, FEMA’s team that investigated the collapses lacked access to the buildings’ blueprints—access which has been the subject of legal battles.
While detailed engineering drawings of the World Trade Center remain unavailable, 9-11 Research has been able to obtain drawings of the MASTER PLAN, dated December 16, 1963.
—————————————WAKE UP!!!——————————————-
In the Fire Endurance Testing of the WTC Floor System they admit that they in all cases used half or less the amount of fireproofing that was used in the WTC on the floors that were impacted by fire!!!!!!
They said:
This test will use the 3/4 in. fireproofing thickness representing the as-built condition in the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
They dont let you know the fact that on the floors where there was fire it had already been upgraded to the thickness of 1-1/2 in!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse.
Also they dont mention at all that the first 8 + 6 = 14 stories, and the 41st, 42nd, 75th and 76th floors, used solid steel beams in place of trusses. Also, the top stories had special steel reinforcing diagonals called outrigger trusses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wait it gets much worse!!!
NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
You said:
There is simply no practical way to physically model the event, however they have done so with computers. That is far, far more accurate and reliable.
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
WAIT IT EVEN GETS MUCH WORSE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at “2,000 F” for 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
You said:
NIST found no documentary evidence indicating that a test based on ASTM E 119 had been conducted to determine the fire rating of the WTC floor system.
Natalie Its not just one test that was done on any building materials or componets but hundreds for a building that size. During the entire cunstruction phase random picks of materials (such as concrete ect,) and componets are made by the NY building inspectors to be tested. The building inspector signs his/her name and in many places also puts a seal or stamp on each document that shows the sample was aproved. If one fails the building department will make you tear out any that were used from the failing batch/lot/group. Even if that means the whole floor/level of a building. So you want to be sure and not use or install to much of an uninspected batch/lot/group just in case it fails. Some tests can be done on site and some cant. But even those that cant be done on site are still picked out to be tested radomly through out the entire construction phase to of course insure that the quality and safety standards are met throughout the entire building. So you can be sure the tests were done.
Of course that is just for NY code and It does not mean it was also certified by some place like UL at “2,000 F” for 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors which is required to have a building rated as Class 1 B but is not required to pass NY building code.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 11, 2006 at 9:52 AM
Natalie
I have to go back to the big picture PLEASE READ!!
“SCO= de Shanghai Coorperation Organisation
see the URL to wikipedia below to see a map of all members of SCO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organization
The counterpart of the NATO. Not long ago the SCO renewed its military doctrine, in which the US and the NATO are considered as hostile. This as a result of the extensions of the NATO, and the expansion drive of the US.
THE SCO are a result of the increasing threat of the US and NATO, making preparations for months now for a long-term conflict with the US and NATO. The rising oil prices, but also that of many resources, is partly the result of a natural increase of the demand, but mainly because the US, the NATO and the SCO stocked raw materials on a huge scale as a component of de’War Praperations’ stage. (Peak Oil is therefore partly a cover)
The Fifth Fleet and the Third Far East Fleet of the US, is currently on its way to the gulf. They will arrive on 21 October and will be the largest Navy Battle Group ever when they link up with ships already in the region.
Note:
For weeks now, and finally admitted by the white house, the US is no longer able to receive satelite images of large parts of the area of the SCO members. They admitted that China posseses exceptionally heavy and precise laserequipment to blind satelites.
Although getting the truth up concerning 911 is important, there is much more going on in the world right now and the possible danger of escalation is looming on the horizon, waiting for the right time. If the US decides to attack Iran it might very well become its Stalingrad.
The Emerging Russian Giant Plays its Cards Strategically
by F. William Engdahl
The September 2006 summit in Paris between Russia’s Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, underscored the re-emerging of Russia as a major global power. The new Russia is gaining in influence through a series of strategic moves revolving around its geopolitical assets in energy—-most notably its oil and natural gas. It’s doing so by shrewdly taking advantage of the strategic follies and major political blunders of Washington. The new Russia also realizes that if it does not act decisively, it soon will be encircled and trumped by a military rival, USA, for which it has little defenses left. The battle, largely unspoken, is the highest stakes battle in world politics today. Iran and Syria are seen by Washington strategists as mere steps to this great Russian End Game.
The formal Paris summit agenda included French investment in Russia and the issue of Iran’s (Russian-built) nuclear program. Notably, however, it also included the question of future Russian energy supplies to the European Union, notably, Germany. It was an indication of the new strength of Putin’s Russia. Putin told the German Chancellor that Russia would ‘possibly’ redirect some of the future natural gas from its giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. The $20 billion project is due to come online 2010 and had been slated to provide liquified natural gas to United States terminals.
Since the devastating setbacks two years ago from the US-sponsored ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia, and then Ukraine, Russia has begun to play its strategic energy cards extremely carefully, from nuclear reactors in Iran to military sales to Venezuela and other Latin American states, to strategic market cooperation deals in natural gas with Algeria.
At the same time, the Bush Administration has dug itself deeper into a geopolitical morass, through a foreign policy agenda which has reckless disregard for its allies as well as its foes. That reckless policy has been associated with former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, more than any other figure in Washington.
The ‘Cheney Presidency,’ which is what historians will no doubt dub the George W. Bush years, has been based on a clear strategy. It has often been misunderstood by critics who had overly focussed on its most visible component, namely, Iraq, the Middle East and the strident war-hawks around the Vice President and his old crony, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.
The ‘Cheney strategy’ has been a US foreign policy based on securing direct global energy control, control by the Big Four US or US-tied private oil giants—ChevronTexaco or ExxonMobil, BP or Royal Dutch Shell. Above all, it has aimed at control of all the world’s major oil regions, along with the major natural gas fields. That control has moved in tandem with a growing bid by the United States for total military primacy over the one potential threat to its global ambitions—-Russia. Cheney is perhaps the ideal person to weave the US military and energy policies together into a coherent strategy of dominance. During the early 1990’s under father Bush, Cheney was also Secretary of Defense.
The Cheney-Bush administration has been dominated by a coalition of interests between Big Oil and the top industries of the American military-industrial complex. These private corporate interests exercise their power through control of the government policy of the United States. An aggressive militaristic agenda has been essential to it. It is epitomized by Cheney’s former company, Halliburton Inc., at one and the same time the world’s largest energy and geophysical services company, and the world’s largest constructor of military bases.
To comprehend the policy it’s important to look at how Cheney, as Halliburton CEO, viewed the problem of future oil supply on the eve of his becoming Vice President.
‘Where the Prize Ultimately Lies’: Cheney’s 1999 London speech
Back in September 1999, a full year before the US elections which made him the most powerful Vice President in history, Cheney gave a revealing speech before his oil industry peers at the London Institute of Petroleum.. In a global review of the outlook for Big Oil, Cheney made the following comment:
“By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow. It is true that technology, privatisation and the opening up of a number of countries have created many new opportunities in areas around the world for various oil companies, but looking back to the early 1990’s, expectations were that significant amounts of the world’s new resources would come from such areas as the former Soviet Union and from China. Of course that didn’t turn out quite as expected. Instead it turned out to be deep water successes that yielded the bonanza of the 1990’s.”
The Cheney remarks are worth a careful reading. He posits a conservative rise in global demand for oil by the end of the present decade, i.e. in about 4 years. He estimates the world will need to find an added 50 million barrels of daily output. Total daily oil production at present hovers around the level of some 83 million barrels oil equivalent. This means that to avert catastrophic shortages and the resultant devastating impact on global economic growth, by Cheney’s 1999 estimate, the world must find new oil production equal to more than 50% of the 1999 daily global output, and that, by about 2010. That is the equivalent of five new oil regions equal to today’s Saudi Arabian size. That is a whopping amount of new oil.
Given that it can take up to seven years or more to bring a new major oilfield into full production, that’s also not much time if a horrendous energy crunch and sky-high oil and gas prices are to be averted. Cheney’s estimate was also based on an overly conservative estimate of future oil import demand in China and India, today the two fastest growing oil consumers on the planet.
A second notable point of Cheney’s 1999 London comments was his remark that, ‘the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.’ However, as he revealingly remarked, the oil ‘prize’ of the Middle East was in national or government hands, not open to exploitation by the private market, and thus, hard for Cheney’s Halliburton and his friends in ExxonMobil or Chevron or Shell or BP to get their hands on.
At that time, Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, was under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iran, which has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas, in addition to its huge oil reserves, was ruled by a nationalist theocracy which was not open to US private company oil tenders. The Caspian Sea oil reserves were a subject of bitter geopolitical battle between Washington and Russia.
Cheney’s remark that ‘Oil remains fundamentally a government business,’ and not private, takes on a new significance when we do a fast forward to September 2000, in the heat of the 2000 Bush-Cheney election campaign. That month Cheney, along with Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and many others who went on to join the new Bush Administration, issued a policy report titled, ‘Re-building America’s Defenses.’ The paper was issued by an entity named Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Cheney’s PNAC group called on the new US President-to-be to find a suitable pretext to declare war on Iraq, in order to occupy it and take direct control over the second largest oil reserves in the Middle East. Their report stated bluntly, ‘While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification (sic), the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein ...’
Cheney signed on to a policy document in September 2000 which declared that the key issue was ‘American force presence in the Gulf,’ and regime change in Iraq, regardless whether Saddam Hussein was good, bad or ugly. It was the first step in moving the US military to ‘where the prize ultimately lies.’
No coincidence that Cheney immediately got the task of heading a Presidential Energy Task Force review in early 2001, where he worked closely with his friends in Big Oil, including the late Ken Lay of Enron, with whom Cheney earlier had been involved in an Afghan gas pipeline project, as well as with James Baker III.
FOR THE REST GO TO GlobalResearch.ca
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 11, 2006 at 1:23 PM
Ashland Daily Tidings
Here’s the editorial:
“In honor or our veterans, we call for truth
Anniversaries cause us to instinctively pause and reflect, just as our leg jolts forward after a well-positioned tap on the knee. In honor of our veterans—- to whom we owe a debt we can never repay—- the least we can do on this Veteran’s Day is look back at the decisions made that sent our troops into battle, and the roles we played in those decisions. Perhaps upon reflection, our reaction may change.
The fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 served as the reflex hammer touch to the knee of American conscience. As the country attended memorials and revisited painful memories of 9/11, the reflection also opened our collective mind once again to the many unanswered questions, legitimate concerns and conflicting evidence in the official description of those events.
For us at the Daily Tidings the event served to open discussion among us about this complex subject, about the conspiracy theories that abound in Internet chats, blogs and so-called investigative reports and most importantly, the questions regarding the media’s role in this ongoing issue.
A month later we have found very little we all agreed on. We especially disagree on the role of the media. Since the Tidings doesn’t cover New York City, Washington, D.C. or the federal government, the ambiguity is shaded with absolution.
Nevertheless we are each members of the fourth estate, an essential conglomeration of individuals who adhere to professional guidelines, and who care passionately about this demanding and often thankless opus. With that membership—- we can all agree on some level—- comes a responsibility to giving the public the accurate information it needs to make informed decisions. Thus, somewhere in all the banter, we stumbled on one thing we at the Tidings’ truly can agree on.
Apparently, we are not alone. Based on the results of this hallmark 2006 election, the American people are finally asking for change. They don’t like our involvement in Iraq. They voted out many members of the party that put us there. Perhaps they are also ready to question the events and decisions that put us there as well. Perhaps they are ready to ask what really happened on Sept. 11.
We think so. And we call on our colleagues to join us in asking questions.
Every single American daily newspaper must demand of our congressional leaders and those in the executive branch that an independent council be formed to completely and thoroughly investigate the deaths of nearly 3,000 American citizens in the attack of 9/11—- an attack that took place on American soil.
Forget the conspiracy theories for a minute and set aside the political gamesmanship. We are a country that spent five years and $100 million investigating President Clinton. We probed the depths of the Iran-Contra scandal—- a debacle that would have never come fully into the public eye had a special investigator not been appointed.
This administration has spent far more energy and time seeking the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity and Barry Bonds’ use of steroids than it has in fully explaining how three skyscrapers crumbled in an instant and nearly 3,000 people were killed. While an independent investigation may never fully answer every question, it will help to heal the wounds of this nation and widespread distrust of our leaders this attack has caused.
This historic tragedy ranks among the worst days in American history. We owe it to every American—- but especially those who do battle on our behalf at the behest of our leaders—- to spare no expense and allow no party loyalty to dissuade us. The government works for us. If it failed us, either in malfeasance or incompetence, then we must know that. If our current actions around the world are shaped by misinformation, we must know that too. Finally, if what we now believe to be true is only further proven, we would do well to hear the evidence that confirms it. If the government’s version of the events of that day are absolutely true, then scrutiny will amplify that truth and lay to rest the skepticism that remains to this day.
If, however, the questions that remain serve to shed light on new information, that too serves the public. And it is the responsibility of this trusted media industry to dig, probe, investigate and uncover the truth behind government events and decisions that impact the public. On this Veterans Day, we can do no less on behalf of the brave men and women who have been sent to the Middle East based upon rationale that stems directly from the events of 9/11. While we pay homage to all veterans of the Armed Forces today, we are reminded of our duty to watch closely those leaders in the White House and Congress who make the decisions to send our troops to war.
We invite every single American daily newspaper to join us in our demand for an independent council to completely and thoroughly investigate the deaths of nearly 3,000 American citizens in the attacks of 9/11.
America will be better informed, and this is our job.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 11, 2006 at 6:51 PM
Hmmm…... it would appear that truthies are far better creative writers, copiers and pasters than they are scientists and engineers. It would appear that they have endless enthusiasm for cherry-picking quotes and warping the context that’s been the result of countless hours of honest and thorough investigation.
Truthies seem perfectly willing to use certain information and test results from the NIST investigation, but they then make an inexplicable leap of logic and declare that the conclusions of NIST are all wrong. They apparently think that these guys are so stupid that they would publish all sorts of obvious contradictory evidence and then proceed to form conclusions that don’t match up with it.
They seem to think that nobody in the world-wide professional engineering community is smart enough to point out all these obvious contradictions, but somehow they, with no expertise in such matters, are.
It’s pretty comical when you stop and think about it.
It’s really kind of pitiful when you think about it a little more.
It’s still not clear to me, Joe. Do you agree or disagree that UL certified the steel components used in the construction ot the towers?
“As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings.”—Kevin Ryan
Or, do you suppose the context is rather more complex than how it’s been portrayed by Mr. Ryan, the water tester?
Posted by Natalie on Nov 11, 2006 at 8:47 PM
Natalie
Cant you try to debate on the facts if you still think there is some thing left to debate?
You said:
They seem to think that nobody in the world-wide professional engineering community is smart enough to point out all these obvious contradictions, but somehow they, with no expertise in such matters, are.
That is your argument? That is all you have and you are willing to use it? What an obvious and desperate attempt at defending what is not defendable. Your lack of any evidence to support the myth leaves you with no choice but to cling to the “Holy” word of the same small group of government “owned” experts that have pushed their false claims through the MSM propaganda machine.
Appealing to authority here is really laughable considering the appaling track record of these theories and anyone who chooses to merely restate NIST’s conclusions without verifying their data and analysis is engaging in the worst form of doublethink and intellectual dishonesty.
That is the exact government propaganda that came out when “truthies” were saying that the thermodynamic analysis of the twin tower collapses show that the temp of the steel could not reach more that 600F. That was in 2001 before any tests were done of the steel! If you can remember they were called unqualified to make such calculations and the same small group of government “owned” experts said through the MSM they should be ignored.
Anyone but a fool can see the contradictions but many are not aware of them because of the propaganda. The majority still do not know about building seven! Why do you think that is?
Perhaps you would like to explain why the government resists so strongly toward people questioning 9/11and then accuse us as conspiracy theorists. I read the “Official 9/11 commision report” and end up with many questions unanswered along with the many ommissions in the report.
Lets have a debate…You go right ahead and have the report as your guide and I will shoot you down with the same report.
Now tell Me why the Patriot Act was the first action taken after 9/11. Considering,for instance, that the Patriot Act is supposedly used for “terrorists” walking around in the USA.
Considering that the “hijackers” spent a considerable time training here how to fly. Atta spent a few years here, in Florida, Venice to be exact. If I know this information, you can be sure the government knew it before I did. Which means they had the knowledge and numerous warnings about possible attacks.
But why resist people who want to know about obvious flaws in the report? We want answers and We deserve answers. Resisting us and lying along with covering up tends to point guilt rather than trust. Any investigator will tell you that, anyone with common sense will tell you that.
If you don’t realize that, or just trust this government totally, then you have no idea what being a true American is all about.
You said:
Truthies seem perfectly willing to use certain information and test results from the NIST investigation, but they then make an inexplicable leap of logic and declare that the conclusions of NIST are all wrong.
When presented with facts that support the obvious explanation, even from official sources you can’t contest, you say there COULD be some other explanation, without offering up what it might be.
You really only end up convincing people who are either incapable of rational thought or more likely people who do not want to understand the truth because it will force them to accept that they have been suckered and that they will actually have a responsibility to make things right as a result.
You are losing adherents to the fantasy daily, shill. Your days are numbered, and you well know it. No amount of posturing here and feigning certitude is going to change the fact that people, like the girl at starbucks who saw my button and asked me for more information, know there’s something werid going on. And you know Americans—they LOVE a good scandal. As tragic as 9/11 was, we have healed. The trauma is over, and the reality is now becoming clear. The truth is coming for you—do NOT think that you or any of your co-conspirators will be anonymous for long!
Everyone knows—police, military, academics, young people, old people, white people, black people, rich people, and poor people. We’ve been divided for so long by lies, do you know what that means? That the unity that will come out of this movement won’t be fake like the one the media proclaimed after 9/11. It will be real. Americans will soon be setting aside all their differences in pursuit of justice.
A giant has been roused, one that neither you and I can control. I realize you are beyond redemption, but those many others reading this are not. To them I say think through these things—they are more important than anything else you will ever live through. And try your very best to pick the correct side, because there are always consequences for anyone who aids criminals.
P.S. NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
Perhaps if they hadn’t stopped publishing the books that described the construction and the engineering of the Towers perhaps we would have more reference material
Why do you think they did that?....I wonder? Especially at time when sells would of gone through the roof!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 11, 2006 at 10:43 PM
Cant you try to debate on the facts if you still think there is some thing left to debate?
The fact , Joe, is that you’ve managed to ignore my fact-based question just above about UL certifying steel, and then accuse me of not debating on the facts. The fact is that Ryan made an erroneous implication, one that’s been promulgated all through the web. Type the phrases “certified the steel” and “world trade center” into a search engine and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll get stuff back like this:
“Underwriters Laboratories is the company that certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers. ...”
Surely you don’t endorse the building of a case on a false premise. Where would I get that idea, anyway?
That is your argument? That is all you have and you are willing to use it? What an obvious and desperate attempt at defending what is not defendable. Your lack of any evidence to support the myth leaves you with no choice but to cling to the “Holy” word of the same small group of government “owned” experts…...
Speaking of false claims, we’re not talking about a small group of experts. We’re talking about the world-wide engineering and scientific community. It’s a rather huge group. And surely even you know that they all can’t be “government owned”. Hmmmm….more false premises.
And speaking of a lack of evidence, all I’ve asked here from the very start is for a single shred of actual physical or even direct testimonial evidence to prove what you claim. So far, in all these massive posts you’ve made, you’ve not provided any. About the only thing you’ve done is proven the obvious once again—that strange and sometimes unexplained things happen each and every time a large disaster occurs, whether man-made or natural.
Who’s really being unreasonable here? The person who maintains that the position held by the vast, vast majority of the world’s professional engineers, scientists, demolitionists, and even journalists is quite likely correct, or the person who maintains that the position held by a small percentage of largely uneducated people, and an even smaller percentage of educated people, and a practically nonexistent percentage of people who are educated in the relevant fields is correct?
Appealing to authority here is really laughable considering the appaling track record of these theories…...
Yes, I’m laughing alright. You and the rest of the truthies regularly attempt to “appeal to authority” yourself. Jones, Wood, Pegelow, Hoffman, Fetzer. You guys treat these “scholars” like Gods. Speaking tours, DVDs, radio interviews, oh my!
And speaking of track record. Jones thinks Wood is nuts for believing that a microwave laser weapon destroyed the towers, and Wood thinks Jones is crazy for thinking that some wacky substance like thermite was used. I assume both think Pegalow is crazy for thinking that micro-nukes were used. Hoffman thinks he can solve the whole mystery by measuring dust clouds, and Fetzer thinks something else besides the American and United jets hit the targets.
Now maybe I’ve snorted too much DU, but somehow I think these differing views are orders of magnitude less consistent than are disagreements on the degree of separation between the trusses and the columns. (pancake vs pull-in)
Anyone but a fool can see the contradictions but many are not aware of them because of the propaganda. The majority still do not know about building seven!.....
Only a fool would maintain that explosives were used to bring down seven after reading the complete and in-context testimony of the fire and rescue personnel warning of imminent collapse hours before, and learning about the unique and rather unwise design of the foundational support of the building, and about the damage done by WTC1, and about the diesel fuel tanks present in the building.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 12, 2006 at 11:12 AM
P.S. NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at “2,000 F” for 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
Perhaps if they hadn’t stopped publishing the books that described the construction and the engineering of the Towers perhaps we would have more reference material
Why do you think they did that?....I wonder? Especially at time when sells would of gone through the roof!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 12, 2006 at 11:15 AM
Natalie
You said:
Speaking of false claims, we
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 12, 2006 at 11:21 AM
Natalie
You said:
Only a fool would maintain that explosives were used to bring down seven after reading the complete and in-context testimony of the fire and rescue personnel warning of imminent collapse hours before, and learning about the unique and rather unwise design of the foundational support of the building, and about the damage done by WTC1, and about the diesel fuel tanks present in the building.
Eyewitness evidence can be used in a court of law. So get yours in person!!
you need more then someone said. You need the person to testify!!!!!
WE GOT OURS WHERES YOURS!!!!!!!!!!????????!!!!!!!!??????!!!!!!!
Plane damage insignificant
Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering who supports the official theory, says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because “the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure” (Eagar and Musso, 2001, pp. 8-11).
Therefore the NIST theory is only a fire theory. No steel framed building ever completely collapsed due to fire. This is enough to prove that their theory is wrong. I didn’t cherry pick any eyewitness testimony. Read it for yourself, there is plenty.
“You have two hundred and ten story office buildings. You don’t find a desk. You don’t find a chair. You don’t find a telephone, a computer. The biggest piece of a telephone I found was half of the keypad. The building collapsed to dust.”[1]
“You have 10-story buildings that leave more debris than these two 100-story towers, Where the f***is everything? A serious week-long search and we’ve found 200 [bodies] in a pile of 5,000? What’s going on? Where is everyone? Why aren’t we finding more bodies? Cause it’s all vaporized—turned to dust. We’re breathing people in that dust.”[2]
Where did the building go? If it collapsed at free fall speed, where is all the heavy material that crushed the building so impressively? Obviously there was still steel left, but they couldn’t find much else. You can’t explain these observations without explosives.
[1] http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc2_cutter.html
[2] http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/contents.html see original source here: http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/19/dust/index.html
Here’s that Molten steel you keep “denying”
See here for pictures and comments from FEMA’s report mentioning the melted steel:
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html
“Although virtually all of the structural steel from the Twin Towers and Building 7 was removed and destroyed, preventing forensic analysis, FEMA’s volunteer investigators did manage to perform “limited metallurgical examination” of some of the steel before it was recycled. Their observations, including numerous micrographs, are recorded in Appendix C of the WTC Building Performance Study. Prior to the release of FEMA’s report, a fire protection engineer and two science professors published a brief report in JOM disclosing some of this evidence.” #1!!
“The results of the examination are striking. They reveal a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused “intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.” The New York Times described this as “perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.” 2 WPI provides a graphic summary of the phenomenon.”
see also
“The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified. The rate of corrosion is also unknown. It is possible that this is the result of long-term heating in the ground following the collapse of the buildings. It is also possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure. A detailed study into the mechanisms of this phenomenon is needed to determine what risk, if any, is presented to existing steel structures exposed to severe and long-burning fires.”
See here for pictures and comments:
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html
Evidence of evaporated steel as reported by the New York Times:
Engineers have been trying to figure out exactly what happened…. ‘Fire and the structural damage…. would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated’”[50]
Eyewitness:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-was-there-molten-metal-under.html
You can pretend all you want that this doesn’t exist (i.e. “denial”): It must upset you to know that the truth is coming out.
P.S. NIST says that the melted steel came after the building collapse. If they knew that then why didn’t they mention it in their report? How could it get oxygen if it is under the rubble? How could it continue for 3 weeks or more? How could it create molten pools?—-even the mayor of NY has described this stuff. I guess we should ignore his words too? How could all of this happen when normal fires can’t melt steel?
P.P.S. Not just melted but evaporated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 12, 2006 at 11:33 AM
So what is it, Joe?
Star Wars Beam Weapon? (Wood—don’t miss the mp3s!!)
Thermite? (Jones)
Mini-Nukes? (Pegelow)
Holograms? (perhaps it was that LSD guy)
Remote control planes? (Fetzer)
Missiles? (everyone at one time or another)
Or could it possibly be that what we all saw that day, and what people on the ground in contact with the flights heard, is actually correct? 19 hate-filled bigoted muslim murderers planned, practiced and finally after several years executed a clever, but not terribly sophisticated operation that was largely, but not completely successful. It depended not so much on technical skill as it did on pure nerve.
Could it possibly be, even though the geniuses who have put forth the rather creative theories above disagree, that the towers collapsed due to some combination of structural damage and heat from fire, as virtually every relevant professional on the planet agrees?
Could it possibly be that planted explosives are actually the least likely explanation for all the strange anomalies, like those that occur in every major event, such as the conflicting accounts of “molten metal”?
I seriously think that it’s the “truth” movement that needs an independent investigation. They appear to have LIED to us about thermite, when come to find out it was actually a Star Wars Beam Weapon!!!!
LIARS!!!
Posted by Natalie on Nov 12, 2006 at 1:35 PM
Seems that Judge Judy also believes in levee bombs!!
Couldn’t find any hint of political bias here at all. Nothing but boring mechanical engineering stuff.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 12, 2006 at 8:45 PM
Natalie
We don’t need any theories to prove that under no circumstances could the alleged events cause those buildings collapse.
The controlled demolition is a fact. The collapses of the WTC Buildings exhibited all the characteristics of a controlled demolition. The official theory cannot account for one of them. This was confirmed by NIST who did not address the structural behavior after the moment the buildings were poised for collapse. There’s really no sense arguing about this anymore.
the key issues are the obvious deficiencies in the official accounts of the THREE buildings that collapsed—and make sure you understand the case. Building 7, molten steel, rapid collapses, multiple explosions, and pulverized concrete are all prime physical evidence.
Circumstancially, we have Silverstein, Bush family security, the missing trillions reported on 9/10/01, the dancing Israelis, PNAC, the Zelikow commission and its many problems and omissions, and Sibel Edmonds’ gag order ect, ect.
So now we have to go to phase two - the muddying of the waters.
Now Steven Jones is working on finishing and getting published his findings on the evidence from the analysis of the samples of WTC dust samples and samples from the materials found on the WTC Steel samples. All evidence points to and at this point is consistent with the thermite/thermate hypothesis. Except for the fact that WTC 1, 2 should have left more debris.
WTC7 and the towers appear to have been blown up differently there was NO debris other than dust from most of the towers and thermite, as fires, should have left more debris.
The impact of rubble falling to the ground would have created too much of a seismic event, which would cause the “tub” protecting the area from flooding from the river waters. The explosion of concrete into fine dust had created less of an impact of rubble falling to the ground and so saved the “tub”. The hard part is figuring out how.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/janedoe444/present/WTC1_redLines….
Greening says that the top block of floors fell down through the intact structure below. Stage A.
Then, says Greening, the top block, now sitting on top of the pile of rubble, collapses floor by floor from the bottom up. Stage B.
Clearly, as shown in the gif, the top block begins collapsing from the bottom up. This is what Greening says happens, only he says this process begins after it pummeled all the way down though the intact structure to the ground.
If that were even remotely possible (which clearly it’s not) the tub would have been compromised and without a doubt would have failed therefore flooding the area.
But as we know he (Greening) is so obviously wrong. Not only because the “Tub” is still intact but because it is absurd to think that the top block remained intact until it hit the bottom.
Why he even tries to suggest such a ridiculous theory is because he needs the mass to accumulate on the way down in order to continue the collapse. Once you admit the obvious, it becomes clear that the mass is not accumulating, it is disintegrating. By the time the “collapse” is half-over, the top block is obliterated.
This is true of both towers. Greening’s notion that the top block remained intact until it hit the bottom is utterly and completely divorced from reality.
So now we have to try and explain how the towers were turned to dust and people where vaporized. What we do not have to explain is the obvious and that is the WTC buildings did not come down from a combination of structural damage and heat from fire caused by a plane impacting the building.
We all know the buildings were designed to withstand a plane impact and we all know that they were confident that it could withstand not just one but multiple plane crashes. We also know they considerd a jet with more fuel than what was on 9/11 and they were again confident there would be fires but the building would still be there.
———————————————END OF STORY—————————————————-
You said:
Could it possibly be, even though the geniuses who have put forth the rather creative theories above disagree, that the towers collapsed due to some combination of structural damage and heat from fire, as virtually every relevant professional on the planet agrees?
Yeah Natalie sure they do. Keep lying to your self if it makes you feel better. Many scientists and experts from all around the world are saying the World Trade Centers were a controlled demolition. The only problem is figuring out how they were pulverized into dust and how people were vaporized and how steel became so hot that it evaporated and ect, ect.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 13, 2006 at 12:09 PM
Come on, Joe,
Everything you say is tainted by the fact that you and the people you cite simply aren’t qualified to say it.
That’s the bottom line. THAT’s the end of story. You have no more business trying to dissect the collapses than I have trying to calculate the trajectory for the space shuttle’s re-entry. We both crash and burn.
If there is anyone qualified and credible that has disagreed with the NIST report to the point of suspecting supplementary explosives, please point them out.
So far, everyone who’s had even a thin veneer of qualification and credibility has turned out to be a complete kook.
You stubbornly cling to the notion that several hundred vocal web surfers thumbing through the electronic equivalent of the National Enquirer, Star and Globe, and a handful of MIS-qualified, ridiculously biased “scholars” constitutes a legitimate point of view on a rather complex engineering subject.
That’s just plain dumb.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 13, 2006 at 6:44 PM
Natalie
You said;
So far, everyone who’s had even a thin veneer of qualification and credibility has turned out to be a complete kook.
You say that about anyone who does not agree with the government myth. Even the engineers, demolition experts, physicists, scientists and scholars who have nothing to gain by exposing the lie and who are not compromised with ties to the government you call kooks. I guess even the engineers, demolition experts, physicists, scientists and scholars who are not in this country you would call kooks as well.
So for you it does not matter to you how much their education, experience and expertise relates to the WTC buildings and or what happend to them for If they dont agree with the government myth they just dont matter because you say so.
THAT’S JUST PLAIN DUMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 13, 2006 at 8:24 PM
Again,
If there is anyone <u>qualified</u> and <u>credible</u> who disagrees with the NIST report to the point of suspecting supplementary explosives, please point them out.
Names, titles, education, experience.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 13, 2006 at 9:04 PM
So what do we do in this country with all of these nitwits that can’t figure out the obvious and will believe a government reprot that is nearly to stupid to study to figure out how stupid it is? What does arguing forever accomplish but provide some people with entertainment.
Can people that can’t understand a airliner can’t knock down a skyscraper in 56 minutes figure out that planned obsolescence is going on in automobiles?
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=28529
9/11 is now part of geopolitical-economics.
psik
Posted by psikeyhackr on Nov 19, 2006 at 11:12 AM
One could also ask how someone unable to write a coherent sentence or even spell correctly could possibly be in a position to so confidently contradict the opinion of every sane engineering professional on the planet.
psik is intent on relating the events of 9/11 to economics. There might be something to this.
The PV of the R of the fireproofing on the floor trusses in the WTC towers was depreciated by forces imparted upon it during a turbulent period. This caused an overheating, and subsequently a dip which was felt outward in surrounding areas. A crash ensued and the whole country adopted a gloomy outlook.
Later analysis determined that this event was unrelated to the automobile industry, except in the short term when alternate methods of transportation became temporarily unusable or highly inconvenient.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 19, 2006 at 9:29 PM
Terry Allen, the author of our subject article, said this about David Ray Griffin in July:
<i>When David Ray Griffin, a theologian by trade, said it was
Posted by Natalie on Nov 20, 2006 at 12:45 AM
One could also ask how someone unable to write a coherent sentence or even spell correctly could possibly be in a position to so confidently contradict the opinion of every sane engineering professional on the planet.
psik is intent on relating the events of 9/11 to economics.
Yes, the situation is extremely curious. Because I was constantly running across mentions of MIT in my sci-fi books, which I started reading at 9, I decided to apply there after I won a National Merit Scholarship. I got an interview which lasted about 20 minutes. 3 minutes into the interview I was sure I was not getting in.. This man was lecturing me about the kinds of kids that went there, sons of doctors and lawyers etc.
Considering that Lester Thurow at MIT hasn’t said anything about the planned obsolescence of automobiles that I have ever heard about, one has to wonder what kind of conformist thinking our educational system produces. I understood planned obsolescence was going on in cars before I graduated from grammar school and haven’t been to an auto show since 1965.
How much money have defense companies made because of Iraq? Would we be in Iraq without 9/11?
psik
Posted by psikeyhackr on Nov 20, 2006 at 1:42 PM
Natalie
You posted
........The statement said “the conspiracy theory is spurious and based on questionable research.”
Hahahaaha Funny article. Yeah, the church better be careful they don’t wind up endorsing a book they feel is based on fanciful fabrications and mythical beliefs.
Clearly, this statement, by the Presbyterian Publishing Corp’s board of directors, regarding David Ray Griffin’s book “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11”, is mainly the result of pressure from critics rather than any introspection on the board’s part.
Presbyterian Publishing Corp “has long been known for publishing specialized books on theology and church life as well as books on religion for the general public”—but lets face it, these topics are things to be taken on faith—and are not fact based on research. It wouldn’t be in their interest to attack books that they publish, based on fact and legitimate research alone.
Therefore, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp board’s statement which said “the conspiracy theory is spurious and based on questionable research” and they making comment on “whether it meets our publishing standards.” The irony is that David Ray Griffin’s book “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11” might actually be one of the more fact-based books that Presbyterian Publishing Corp publishes!
Further, as Griffin noted, Presbyterian Publishing Corp did not specify what they found to be lacking. Griffin said. “This is something I’ve worked on almost daily for years. I doubt any of the ... members of the board have spent nearly the time on it I have. They were really not in the position to make such a statement.” The only clear indication of shortcomings was given by Kenneth Godshall, chairman of its board of directors who said in an interview that “Griffin failed to take into account rebuttals of his theories, such as one published by Popular Mechanics.” However, Griffin has more than adequately rebutted Popular Mechanics theories elsewhere which is something Godshall has either ignored or is unaware of (as Griffin points out may be the case). So, this reinforces the idea that the board made their statement based on pressure from critics rather than their own convictions based on facts.
So, who are the critics and what are they saying that has pressured the board to make single out Griffin’s book for such unusual criticism?
From the article above, we learn “One of the book’s critics, Alan Wisdom of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, welcomed the corporation board’s statement saying “Let us hope that the (corporation) editors will learn a lesson and refrain from future dalliances with the loony left.” This is clearly vehement, intense and very partisan pressure, with its references to the “loony left”. If this is what Wisdom expresses in public, one can imagine the private comments made to Godshall. It is not hard to imagine organized and sustained pressure from this group. So, the fact that the board addressed this pressure is not that unusual especially as it may have been annoying or hard to avoid and making the statement is a way to make the noise stop!
There is also another line of criticism from Presbyterian church members who say “the corporation was undercutting the denomination’s credibility by publishing conspiracy theories under its name and that of its long-respected imprint, Westminster John Knox.” This is a more legitimate line of criticism, if it was made by earnest church members concerned with the Church’s reputation and is something the board had to address. Fair enough, earnest people deserve a response - and they got one.
In the end though, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp “will continue selling the controversial book, “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11.” In fact, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp board goes out of its way to note that Griffin is “a distinguished theologian” who has published a number of books with the corporation,” and that they “are not recalling the book or renouncing it,” but are “just expressing the point of view of whether it meets our publishing standards. I think we’ll just let the book find its own way.”
I don’t know about you, but that tells me that the board may actually have found a way to have their cake and eat it too. They have acted to get the critics off their collective backs but to also allow an important book to have its day in the court of public opinion.
Wich is good because the public needs to look at the extensive background information on the whereabouts, actions and relationships of Mohammed Atta in the year(s) before 9.11. Atta was affiliated with unsavory characters like Wally Hilliard, Rudy Dekkers, and Makram Chams.
According to Atta’s former girlfriend (an interview that you can watch at Madcowprod.com), he was always flushed with cash, cocaine and booze. She described how he would routinely cross the street from their apartment to his “flight school” where he “trained” and return with large amounts of cocaine. Hilliard’s fight school, “Huffman Aviation”, was no more than a sham business fronting for some sort of international narco trafficking outfit that has since gone out of business. Huffman Aviation, in its hey-day, was even given superlative acknowledgment by reputable people like Jeb Bush and Katty Harris. One unresolved story that highlights these lowlight human beings occurred when Hilliard’s personal jet was seized by Florida police and found to contain 43 pounds of heroin, ranking as the biggest heroin bust in central Florida history. But Hilliard was never indicted; he is free to this day. He has some type of everlasting immunity from legal protection. The heroin bust happened while Atta was his registered flight student. Amazing.
Also be sure to check out the back-stories of Makram Chams and Rudi Dekkers. These guys are real creeps and have not been fingered by the law.
Natalie you think the Bushies would boldfaced lie about WMDs in Iraq, kill our soldiers & a 1/2 million innocent people over it, but they should be trusted about all the inexplicable evidence regarding 9/11???
Dont you find it odd how on the one day that the air defense system for the worlds most powerful military establishment (pentagon) failed, buildings had a sudden tendancy to collapse symetrically at rates that show no resistance. And all of this while the moneyman (ISI) for the lead hijacker is in DC meeting with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and simluation exercises of very similar events are taking place?
Natalie how in the world do you think its all just a coincidence?
Wake up, you’re a coincidence theorist.
All logical evidence points to 9/11 being an inside job. The bullying is just part of the elite’s pathetic attempt to keep the sham going. No researcher or person with a reading comprehension level past the third grade believes the government’s version of 9/11 unless they have been paid off or bullied into towing the government’s lies.
A form of bullying is of course an ad hominem attack:
Latin.
1. appealing to one’s prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one’s intellect or reason.
2. attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument
This is another hollow attack.
Griffin’s book is attacked but there is not one logical argument stated against it.
Did they even read it ?
And then they accuse Griffin of being from the “looney left”.
The 911 issue has nothing to do with the left or right, its about the truth.
So, hopefully more Americans are not taking the “ad hominem” “argument” anymore.
Everyone do your own research.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 20, 2006 at 5:30 PM
Natalie
Your “news” if you want to call it that has once again proven to be worthless!!!!!!!!!
For at least the past three years, news accounts published in the MadCowMorningNews and in my book “Welcome to TERRORLAND” have asserted, through evidence developed from interviews with Amanda Keller, an eyewitness the Sarasota Herald Tribune has gone to great lengths to discredit, that while he was in Venice and Southwest Florida, several of terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta’s closest associates were, surprisingly, not Arab nationals, but German or Swiss.
Today the Associated Press is reporting that the FBI has a terror alert in the South Pacific for one of these men, Wolfgang Bohringer, a German pilot with whom Atta was “inseparable” during his frequent visits to Southwest Florida.
It is Amanda Keller, who lived for several months with terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta at the Sandpiper apartments in Venice—-despite what amounts to a campaign by the Sarasota Herald Tribune to deny it—-who ultimately deserves the credit for identifying an individual who may pose a serious threat to this country.
It was she who stated that “Wolfgang,” whose last name she did not know, but which our investigation discovered to be “Wolfgang Bohringer,” as someone who had known, and been close to, Mohamed Atta for what she said appeared to have been, based on their familiarity with each other, a long time.
Paper has proven history of getting it wrong
In recent denigrating, demeaning, and most of all UNTRUE stories about the terrorist presence which flourished in the Sarasota Herald Tribune local coverage area, the newspaper, which is owned by the New York Times, has repeatedly referred to me, insultingly, as a “conspiracy theorist,” which might come as a shock to the New York Time’s own eminent and august William Safire, who for the past few years has been receiving, at his own request, notices on our latest stories as soon as they appear.
I have identified numerous previously unknown individuals who were involved with the terrorist conspiracy, through the simple expedient of interviewing eyewitnesses who were there, and then verifying their accounts.
The result is a portrait of the terrorists which is much different, and far more accurate, than that which has been presented to the American people so far.
The Sarasota Herald Tribune has, so far, identified none.
So the truth is that, instead of being a “conspiracy theorist,” I am a better investigative reporter than the entire staff of the Sarasota Herald Tribune… combined.
Demand for Retraction… and more.
Today we call on the paper publicly to retract what was (even then) ridiculous; the so-called “Fifth Pilot” story published two weeks after the 9/11 attack; and also their several recent attempts to discredit the truth by attacking me.
Moreover, more than just failing the American people by completely falling down on the job of providing an accurate account of a terrorist presence which flourished right under its nose, the paper has made it a priority to attempt to discredit my efforts by dismissing the eyewitnesses whose accounts I have faithfully relayed.
I have every right to feel I have been personally insulted, not by a single reporter, but by the Sarasota Herald Tribune itself as a matter of editorial policy.
But there is a much larger issue involved, which goes to the heart of the matter. Had the Sarasota Herald Tribune only investigated and thoroughly examined the terrorist presence, this country’s citizens would have been far better informed than they were about the nature of what happened, and our nation’s conduct would have been changed.
WHY NO REPORT OF FLIGHT SCHOOL OWNERS HEROIN BUST?
Finally, the Sarasota Herald Tribune has yet to report—-more than five years later—-the fact, not conspiracy theory, but fact, that during the same month Mohamed Atta arrived to attend his flight school in Venice, Huffman Aviation, the owner of that flight school, Wallace J. Hilliard, had his Lear jet confiscated on a runway at Orlando Executive Airport by DEA agents who found 43 pound of heroin onboard.
It was, said the Orlando Sentinel, the “biggest drug bust in Central Florida history,” which is a distinction that I’m sure the editors of the Sarasota Herald Tribune appreciate was gained against formidable competition.
I am urging everyone who read this to demand an answer—-through email, letters, and/or phone calls—-to this question:
How much heroin would Mohamed Atta’s flight school owner’s plane have had to be carrying before the Sarasota Herald Tribune deemed it worthy of mention?
If you agree with this demand for retraction, as well as a demand that this New York Times-owned newspaper begin to accurately inform the citizens of this country the real news of what happens every day in its coverage area, please take a moment and email one, or several, or all of the individuals whose emails are listed below.
For our part, we feel a certain quiet satisfaction. We knew all along that Amanda Keller was telling the truth about Atta; for one reason, there were a good half-dozen other witnesses who said the same thing.
But we aren’t gloating. Nor do we plan to engage in any I-told-you-so finger wagging.
Not because we’re better than that. We’d like to think we are… But we do sometimes have our suspicions.)
But because there’s 3000 people dead. And more than five years on we’re still far from having anything like a coherent narrative to explain how it was they came to die on a sunny September morning when, in the blink of an eye… everything changed.
MadCowMorningNews
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 20, 2006 at 6:45 PM
Joe, welcome back. From the dark side, I mean. Your new website is literally a breath of fresh air for all those truthies laboring under the anxiety of knowing deep down that there just isn’t a dang thing to all these nutty theories, and have been hoping for a low hanging branch to grab just before their quickly sinking truth floatie was about to go over the falls. I sensed a fresh new spring in your type, and I’m usually not wrong about such things.
These same people used to proclaim themselves utterly fascinated with speculation that no plane hit the Pentagon; before that they were utterly fascinated with speculation that the hijacked planes had been flown by remote control; with the thought that it all might have been a hologram; with the idea that there weren’t any Arab hijackers on the planes; or, with the supposition that if there were—perish the thought!—Arabs onboard, they must have been patsies…...
...... Because of the presence of an absurdly-large contingent of people belonging to truly bizarre cults, one researcher has suggested the 9.11 “Truth Movement” might more accurately be called the 9.11 UFO Cult.
Put to music, it could be called “The March of the Shills.”.....
...... Ay there’s the rub… You see, the 9.11 Truth Movement is stocked with true believers, in everything from Jesus to Urantia, and its leading light David Griffin is a divinity professor, of all things, whose books have been touted endlessly in spam email from the well-organized group.
Does anyone begin to smell a rat?
Dr. Griffin, we learned, recently gave an address entitled “9.11 and Demonic Consciousness.”
“My thesis is that the attacks of 9/11 were products of demonic consciousness, with “the demonic” understood as an emergent reality that is diametrically opposed to the creative power of the universe and strong enough to threaten its purposes,” he offered helpfully.
We usually refer people spouting off about “demonic consciousness” to the nearest emergency room. We figure they’ve either been taking the brown acid, or drinking the Kool-Aid…..
.......And then there’s the Brigham Young University physicist, Steven Jones, who said he believes an incendiary substance called Thermite, bolstered by sulfur (Aha! Evidence of the demonic!) to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade Center, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse.
In addition to his research in scientific areas, Jones is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has also published papers like “Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ’s Visit in Ancient America,” on archeological clues he has found supporting the belief that Jesus Christ visited Latin America after his resurrection, as chronicled in the Book of Mormon.
Anyone who can find Jesus in South America 2000 years ago, we feel sure, is capable of finding pretty much anything he wants to, anytime at all. Maybe cold fusion. Maybe Thermite. Who knows?......
......And then there’s the ever-present—at least since Ruppert absconded-—Alex Jones, a second-stringer and also a budding plagiarist, we recently learned, when someone sent us a link to a Google video entitled “Alex Jones’ Flying Circus.”
Imagine my surprise when we learned the current Truth Movement spokesman has slapped his name on “Mohamed Atta & the Venice Flying Circus,” one of my documentaries, a show he didn’t have a thing to do with.
We checked with Google, to be sure, and its not as if some over-eager fan just made a mistake. The video was placed there by Jones website, “Prison Planet.”
We think Jones needs 30 Days in the Hole…....
...... “Elvis and Area 51—we’re sort of lumped together,” said an attendee at a recent 9.11 Truth event.
And for very good reason.
This is Daniel Hopsicker signing off.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 21, 2006 at 1:03 AM
Natalie
You said:
Joe, welcome back. From the dark side, I mean. Your new website is literally a breath of fresh air for all those truthies laboring under the anxiety of knowing deep down that there just isn’t a dang thing to all these nutty theories, and have been hoping for a low hanging branch to grab just before their quickly sinking truth floatie was about to go over the falls. I sensed a fresh new spring in your type, and I’m usually not wrong about such things.
My new website???? What are you talking about?
I read that the day it came out and I know all about LIHOP-only researcher Daniel Hopsicker who has lashed out at the controlled demolition evidence, calling it ‘disinfo’.
I understand he’s willing to bash MIHOP instead of admitting the failure of having researched a dead end road with focusing on “Atta” -a patsy- alone.
But his work in that area is great and even though he wont look up to see the whole picture I still find his research very informative.
Natalie
What I am complaining about is how it should be obvious by now that the laps in security, intelligence, and in our air defense shows that it was all a cordinated effort by a criminal group within our gov. That not only allowed but aided a false flag operation to take place within our country in order to draw our country into a war in the mid eastern countrys just as stated in the PNAC papers.
#1 The fact that the only money traced to the patsies came from Pakistani ISI wich is controlled by the CIA., and a consultant for an amarican defense contractor.
#2 Two of the patsies lived with a FBI informent in counter-terrorism specializing in arabic terrorist.
#3 Some of the patsies where trained by our military specialised training at that.
#4 The fact that the consultant for the defense contractor also was the owner of the quick check used to wire the money to the patsies and was partners with the guy who leased the planes the patsies trained with, partners on a casino boat.
#5 A casino boat that some of the patsies had been identified as haveing visited owned also by Jack Abramoff
#6 The fact that the CEO of the firm in partnership was a Tom Delay appointee and that the firm claims to specialise in counter-terrorism
This is just a few of hundreds.
United States Posted by honestjoe on Aug 21, 2006 at 9:48 PM
Scorp, Natalie
Do you feel that Atta was in any way working for the pakistani ISI, and or the Saudis, and or involved with drug runing? Also I was wondering why you think three listed one of the U.S. military bases as an address and what do you think was his involvment with Able Danger?
Do you think it odd that Omar sheikh Saeed was the guy that did the actual wiring using the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad over a period of time to accounts controlled by Atta. You seem informed about all of this so I think you know that Omar was convicted for the murder of Daniel Pearl and you are aware of all the conections established by that conviction. I just was thinking in my opinion it seems hard to just say its all a coincidence.
United States Posted by honestjoe on Aug 29, 2006 at 11:38 PM
I could go on but I just wanted to let you know I have been using MadCowMorningNews in my research of 9/11 for some time now. So it is not new at all. (At least to me its not.)
The obvious truth visible to almost everyone after the 9.11 attack was that the U.S. Government immediately began feverishly covering up and withholding from the public as much information as they dared.
The Heroin Connection to 9/11 is a compelling explanation for this cover-up.
Moreover, the drug connection was uncovered independently in two different places: by our investigation in Venice, FL., and by FBI translator Sibel Edmonds in Washington D.C.
“The 9/11 terror plot intersected with the activities of a drug trafficking network of international scope, in ways that form a “crystal clear” picture of what was going on,” said Edmonds.
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft went to the Supreme Court to silence FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, to keep her from revealing what she had learned in translated documents, which, as she has stated, indicate that the State Department was covering up a drug trafficking network associated with the 9.11 attack.
As for the rest of what you said. Hahahaha I only see it growing every day!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 21, 2006 at 8:29 AM
A Lebanese man whose convenience store in Venice Florida was used by Mohamed Atta and his cadre of terrorist hijackers to receive overseas wire transfers, and from whose apartment Atta and Marwan took taxis to Orlando Airport to pick up visiting Saudis has filed a defamation lawsuit against the MadCowMorningNews alleging unspecified “false statements.”
Chams is asking for $15,000 in damages. He also has a second defamation suit going, this one in Saudi Arabia, for a whopping $21 million, against Titan Corporation of San Diego.
In addition to owning a convenience store, the peripatetic Chams’ recent resume includes having been a partner in a Jack Abramoff-style gambling boat which operated for two years in Venice without permits, working for the FBI in San Diego, and pulling down multi-million dollar contracts in Saudi Arabia, one of which suspected of being with the Saudi Bin Laden Group, for controversial U.S. defense firm Titan Corp.
Strangely (or not) the FBI apparently never bothered to mention anything at all to the 9/11 Commission about Makram Chams.
A story Monday in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported the lawsuit:
“A former Venice convenience store owner has filed a defamation lawsuit against local author Daniel Hopsicker, who published reports that the mini-market owner assisted the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists in Venice,”
“The lawsuit refers to Hopsicker as a ‘conspiracy fanatic’ who ‘published and disseminated ... false statements’ that Chams “was associated with the 9/11 terrorists.”“
“Hopsicker… author of a book about Venice’s role in the 9/11 attacks called “Welcome to TERRORLAND,” termed Chams’ lawsuit “false charges.” Hopsicker said he has an attorney and plans to “vigorously defend” himself. He said Monday that “numerous local witnesses have stated that several of the terrorists basically hung out at (Chams’) Kwik Check.”
“I’m not particularly concerned with Makram Chams’ lawsuit; I see it as an opportunity to get testimony under oath from an individual which should enlighten all of us about aspects of the situation in Venice, Florida, before the Sept. 11 attack.”
A Kwik Check on the Kwik Check
The FBI’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission revealed that the largest overseas money transfer the terrorists received had come from the UAE, for $70,000.
A copy of the money transfer was projected overhead.
What the FBI didn’t point out to the Commission was the significance of the address where the money was wired to: 201 Nokomis in Venice, the address of the Kwik-Check owned by Makram Chams, the Lebanese man who shortly thereafter would be in Saudi Arabia procuring multi-million dollar contracts from the Saudi Bin Laden Group.
Atta and his fellow terrorists also availed themselves of a second floor apartment Chams rented in a building across the street from the convenience store. The apartment was occupied by his sister, May Chams, and her husband, an Indian Muslim named “Khal” who disappeared from Venice in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.
Local Venice Yellow Cab driver Bob Simpson (whose testimony about Atta’s local associates was used by the FBI to apprehend a half-dozen Saudi nationals in Venice after the attack) says he picked up Mohamed Atta and his bodyguard Marwan at the apartment in his cab on several occasions, and taken them to the Orlando Airport.
Even Zacharias Moussaoui, whose presence in Venice, was exclusively reported by MadCowMorningNews (and later confirmed by other sources) was seen at Chams’ apartment.
Rich Saudis in “Armani and shades”
“The FBI was especially interested in a rich Saudi guy, dressed in Armani, shades, manicure, and a gold Rolex, that I was sent to pick up at the Orlando Executive Airport,” said Simpson.
“They (the FBI) knew he’d ridden in my cab because they’d gotten my cab number from a surveillance camera there.”
Six weeks later, when Simpson received a call to go to the apartment to pick up the “rich Saudi in Armani and shades” and return him to the Orlando Airport, the cabbie was asked to help carry a chest, the kind kept at the bottom of a bed, down from the apartment and load it into the trunk of the cab.
“It was so heavy it took two people to carry it. I could not believe anything that small could weigh that much! It must have weighed at least 150 pounds.”
Carrying the other end of the chest was someone Simpson recognized much later. “A big bald guy who I later identified as Zacharias Moussaoui helped me carry it down to the cab.”
Simpson’s obvious amazement while telling the story about how heavy the chest had been made us curious. We contacted a former intelligence operative, and asked: “What could have made the chest so heavy?”
His reply was immediate. “Gold.”
Convenience store owner-turned-defense contractor
At some point after the attack Chams abandoned the mini-market (it has stood vacant since) and left Venice.
A story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune called the abandoned convenience store, “A pocket of urban blight in the otherwise smartly tailored suit of downtown Venice.
Chams went to San Diego, said his sister, who worked at Barclay’s Pharmacy in Venice (the same pharmacy visited by Mohamed Atta and his Cairo lawyer father two weeks before the 9/1 attack.
Asked what he was doing in San Diego, she’d replied, “Helping out the FBI.”
Then recently we learned Chams had been working as a contractor in Saudi Arabia for controversial San Diego defense firm Titan Corp a 23-year old company which sells information and communication services to military and spy agencies, and has about 12,000 employees and revenues of about $2 billion a year.
An SEC filing last year Titan reported that Makram Chams had filed a $21 million lawsuit against them in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Goodwill said take them to the dump yourself
Apparently Titan didn’t hold the lawsuit against Chams, because he recently received a six-figure payout from Surebeam, a bankrupt Titan subsidiary which, in the aftermath of the anthrax scare had been the lucky recipient of a big windfall from the U.S. Post Office.
Surebeam announced in a press release that the post office “would use Surebeam’s electron beam systems to eliminate the threat of anthrax in the U.S. mail system.”
Despite there being not the slightest hint of scientific evidence that the company could perform as advertised, the firm was awarded a $40 million contract to set up machines to detect and kill anthrax spores,
Some people (and companies) have all the luck, right? That is…unless there was some other unknown factor in play.
Predictably, Surebeam’s machines didn’t work. Instead, a U.S. Congressional investigation blamed them for causing headaches, nose bleeds, nausea, rashes, and eye irritation suffered by more than 200 Congressional staff members.
Presumably to spare the Post Office the embarrassment of having their donation turned down by Goodwill, the machines were quietly given away to U.S. universities for what Titan called “research.”
“The bin Laden Group been berry berry good to me”
We were curious how a Lebanese convenience store owner in Venice had come to merit a six-figure payout from a company purporting to irradiate and kill anthrax spores.
So we phoned Chams’ attorney in San Diego to ask several months ago, he told us Chams was planning on suing us, saying “I know who you are,” before declining to reply.
A little sleuthing was in order. It revealed that Makram Chams had apparently landed a $5 million contract in Riyadh for Surebeam with the Saudi Bin Laden Group.
Surebeam, in a curious press release, had boasted of winning a $5 million contract in Saudi Arabia, “to build a network of Surebeam facilities within the Kingdom for pathogen and environmental pest control.”
Oddly, the company which gave Surebeam the $5 million contract went unnamed in the press release, identified only as “a private Saudi Arabian conglomerate headquartered in Riyadh;” and as “a leading Saudi company whose business dealings involve high rise construction, large living compound construction, hotel design and construction, oil and gas projects, defense and security contracts.”
Only one company fits this description, while at the same time being a firm Surebeam would have wanted to keep quiet about having as a business partner…The Saudi Bin Laden Group.
More ‘conspiratorial’ musings
Makram Chams curious curriculum vitae includes having been a partner in a gambling boat called Vegas-in-Venice, owned by a Philadelphia man alleged to have ties to organized crime. The gambling vessel somehow managed to operate for almost two years in Venice, despite having no approval to do so from the city of Venice, County of Sarasota, or State of Florida.
The only other local partner in the gambling venture, Max Burge, also did business with Skyway Aircraft/Royal Son principal Frederick Geffon.
In addition the well-connected Burge owned the light planes used by the terrorists in their flight training at Huffman Aviation; we recently learned from a local attorney that Burge once owned the Sandpiper Apartments across the street the airport where Mohamed Atta spent several months living with Amanda Keller.
Questions posed by the mysterious Makram Chams have significant relevance in explaining the background, and sometimes the foreground) of events leading to the 9/11 attack.
How did a Lebanese convenience store owner with unexplained links to Abramoff-style gambling boat interests connected with organized crime, and unexplained links with the terrorists in Venice, end up working for a well-connected defense contractor embroiled in numerous major controversies?
Answers (or may not) be forthcoming, depending on our financial ability to learn never-before-revealed details about the activities of Mohamed Atta and his fellow terrorists in the United States by deposing individuals under oath with knowledge of what was going on.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 21, 2006 at 8:55 AM
So the great Daniel Hopsicker is wrong when it comes to bombs, and lil ol Joe knows better. And you’ve created some cute clubs—MIHOP and LIHOP.
I’ve got new for ya, Joe. Neither you or Danny has any solid proof of what you claim. At least Hopsicker has sense enough not to believe in blatant fairy tales. There might be a few grains of truth in his reporting, but it looks to me like his overall analysis is likely off the mark.
It’s like all the Clinton murder/drug running CT’s and all the Murrah Federal Building more than one bomb talk. It sounded good to me at the time, and I wanted to believe it. I did for a while. At least it kinda make sense, what with Clinton being a big coke head and having a pretty damn vicious private disposition. It made sense that there might have been some middle eastern involvement in O. City.
Turns out it was just a bunch of hogwash, a lot of people jumping to erroneous conclusions, focusing on parts that supported their pre-conceived theories, and ignoring evidence that made them impossible.
It’s true of every conspiracy out there. Unbiased science and responsible investigative reporting need not apply.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 21, 2006 at 9:22 AM
A federal judge has told the FBI that its disclosures about evacuating Saudis after 9/11 is inadequate.
Is this the first drop in what will eventually be a dam-bursting flood of information about 9/11 itself? Given that a federal judge is challenging the feds’ hollow claims for non-disclosure of vital information, let’s hope so.
“U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to submit ‘proper disclosures’ to the Court and Judicial Watch by December 15, 2006 concerning the U.S. government’s evacuation of Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family from the United States immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the group said in a press release obtained by RAW STORY.
Judicial Watch notes that Judge Roberts criticized “the adequacy of redaction descriptions, the accuracy of the sworn statement submitted with the documents, the validity of exemption claims, and other errors in the FBI
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 21, 2006 at 10:02 AM
Joe,
Yes, we have complicated relationships with other governments and a myriad of diplomatic entanglements to deal with.
Yes, we sometimes might actually work with terrorists in order to further the goal of stopping terrorism.
Yes, terrorists had relationships with Americans, Germans, and probably countless others.
Unfortunately, the fact that our intelligence agencies are huge govt. bureaucracies and until recently were precluded by law and pride not to share information, leads to the erroneous conclusion that their bungling is somehow an indication of being purposefully harmful to their own country. This is the basic fallacy of conspiratorial thinking. It colors everything, and distorts reality.
For some reason, be it an emotional need or just too much TV and movies, people think that our govt and our military are capable of far more than they actually are. They’re capable of a lot, but their best talent is that of screwing up and missing stuff, just like every other govt. enterprise. To conclude malice may be sexy and interesting, but it simply is not reality.
Things are never as they seem. However, it’s a mistake to automatically jump to evil intent as a reason for things not making sense to you. The reality of the situation would more than likely bore the pants off you. That is not what is in Daniel Hopsicker’s best bottom line interest to do.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 21, 2006 at 12:26 PM
Natalie
You said:
Yes, we have complicated relationships with other governments and a myriad of diplomatic entanglements to deal with.
Yes, we sometimes might actually work with terrorists in order to further the goal of stopping terrorism.
Yes, terrorists had relationships with Americans, Germans, and probably countless others.
Based at the Clearwater-St. Petersburg International Airport, both “Cocaine One,” and its twin, a second DC9 (N120NE) were being used by an operation which includes the former head of the CIA proprietary airline used to ferry TOW missiles to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime in Iran, as part of the Iran Contra Scandal.
Adnan Khashoggi lieutenant Ramy El-Batrawi, who supplied one of the two DC9’s, is the former President of an admitted CIA subsidiary airline.
Jetborne International, a company supposedly owned by El-Batrawi’s long-time boss, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, folded after being indicted for illegally ferrying TOW missiles to Iran, an “enterprise” which netted someone—though not the U.S. Government or the Contras it was supposedly funding—a tidy bit of change a U.S. Senate investigation estimated to be $16 million dollars.
The Tower Commission Report into the Iran-Contra Scandal first exposedJetborne as a CIA proprietary. When it came time to begin shipping the missiles, said the report, Oliver North had asked a CIA official for the name of a “reliable” charter airline.
“CIA’s Air Branch suggested the use of a proprietary, the proprietary was told to await a call, and “the airline was assured that the caller (North) had sufficient funds for the charter,” stated the report.
The public commercial charter airline North called was Jetborne International. By the time the firm was “outed” as a CIA airline, it had already gone bankrupt.
Six degrees of deviated septums
But none of this does anything to explain Ramy El-Batrawi and Adnan Khashoggi’s other major connection with the founder of SkyWay Aircraft, Miami attorney Michael Farkas. Their hidden connections may reveal a larger, previously secret organization.
Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Khashoggi and Ramy Al Batrawi, his lieutenant for the past 20 years, with stock fraud in U.S. District Court for Central California. Both men are both currently on the lam after being accused of orchestrating a $130 million fraud, called the “Stockwalk case,” involving the stock price of another firm headed by el-Batrawi called GenesisIntermedia.
GenesisIntermedia was incorporated by the long-time attorney of the man once reckoned by the U.S. Government to be the biggest drug smuggler in American history…CIA pilot Barry Seal.
Seal was assassinated in 1986 at the reported behest of then-Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, the father of our current President.
Hey. Is it a small world, or what?
The DEA was even worse. They deliberately undervalued the amount seized by a whopping $400 million dollars. Asked if they were investigating the American side of the 5.5 ton bust, the Tampa DEA office issued a terse no comment.
The DEA website has press release’s issued at about the same time as the cocaine bust… “7 Arrested and Thousands of Marijuana Plants Seized in East Bay Area,” heralds one.
“38 Members of a Palm Beach County Crack Gang Face Federal Charges,” another announced. A third release headlines this less-than-amazing fact:
“Meth Sold For Sex On Wind River Indian Reservation.”
In a world where they’re already re-making Miami Vice, this seems a little tame. We wondered: did the DEA have to go undercover to see the “Meth Sold for Sex!” Were there secretly-recorded video of the transactions?
“Half a billion here, half a billion there, and pretty soon you got a Congressional Majority”
But there is nothing from the DEA—not one peep—about an American registered plane carrying more than a half billion dollars worth of product destined for the U.S.
In the lobby of the CIA there’s an inscription on the wall which reads: “Ye Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Will Set You Free.”
If the DEA puts one up in their lobby it should say: “Mum’s the word.”
How can you hide the daily workings of an industry shipping 5.5 tons of cocaine at a crack from a government that can read the make of your golf ball from outer space?
The answer is: you can’t. The police chief of every good-sized American city knows the name of the wholesale distributor selling product to street-level dealers to retail in his town.
And—this is a mini-editorial—that’s why voters should take every opportunity to defeat hypocrites like Asa Hutchinson, now running for Governor in Arkansas.
Hutchinson served as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, where he specialized in looking the other way while the biggest cocaine smuggling operation in recorded history hummed along right outside his office window.
As a reward for Asia’s lack of effort, he became George W. Bush’s choice to become the head of America’s DEA. But that’s the U.S. side.
This series has illustrated the complicity of agencies of the U.S. Government in the case. The owner of the airplane in question, for example, today walks the streets a free man.
The DEA appears unconcerned.
Before going bankrupt, the company which painted the plane to look like it belonged to the U.S. Government, SkyWay Aircraft, was clearly up to no good. They had no use for one DC9. Yet they controlled two. The Chairman of SkyWay was a former employee of the U.S. Forest Service who claims to have been a long-time CIA agent.
He has not been taken in for questioning.
Perhaps government complicity in the protected drug trade may be easier to spot in Mexico, not because its more prevalent, but because its easier to imagine the worst when dealing with foreigners.
But we have plenty of drug lords of our own.
In May of 2004 Titan Corp. announced in a press release a major purchase from SkyWay, a penny stock fraud company about to go bankrupt amid accusations by investors of fraud after they discovered the firm had nothing but non-existent products to show for its two year cash burn of almost $40 million.
Somebody’s doing damage control, because on Titan’s page of press releases on its website, this release, curiously enough, is the only one missing.
Try clicking the link.
Im sure you know it has since been revealed that Titan trains mercenaries, and provides mercenaries for operations. Current operations. Ongoing operations…
Disclosures in the Duke Cunningham scandal lead directly to Titan.
In a scenario reminiscent of the Tom DeLay scandal, who company President Brent Kovar boasted had appointed him to a national Republican Business Council, the money was spent on an array of executive perks which included a half-dozen identical black Hummers equipped with police lights on their roofs, as well as to pay for a skybox at a Tampa stadium housing baseball’s Devil Rays.
Titan officials did not return phone calls seeking comment on why a billion dollar defense contractor with sensitive government defense and intelligence contracts had loaned its name and prestige to a soon-to-be-bankrupt firm whose owners were at that moment said to be stripping it of everything not nailed down.
One thing the two firms did have in common was that both were major contributors to the Republican Party. In addition to padding the Duke-ster’s pockets for those late-night poker cum hooker-fests at the Watergate Hotel, Titan was a major contributor to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, who returned the favor in a mock-heroic defense of Titan’s employees accused of torture and rape at Abu Ghraib prison.
A cursory look at SkyWay cash which found its way into Republican pockets includes major contributions to Florida Republicans like U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, who visited the firm during Homeland Security Week, and pronounced the firm’s “vaporware” technology “awesome.”
SkyWay Chairman Glenn Kovar gave $5000 to the DEFEND AMERICA PAC, $5000 to SENATE VICTORY FUND PAC, and more than $6000 to the REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE.
It was originally German software from a company called VPMAX which became a fountain of spendable cash. John Karpovich was VPMAX’s U.S. distributor.
“John Karpovich, who helped run the document conversion program at the Defense Department before his retirement, said Wilkes infuriated Pentagon staff by claiming that the document conversion money belonged to him,” reported the Washington Post.
“Brent came in and said, ‘That’s our money,”’ Karpovich recalled. “He said, ‘The congressmen put the money in there for us.”’
Karpovich was reluctant to talk with us, but conceded he’d watched the deal being put together by Bent Wilkes, House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, and the just-deposed No. 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo.
“Brent called me said he heard the product was great, and asked me to meet him in Washington. He had a suite at the Watergate. We met there and went to dinner with Dusty Foggo. He seemed like a sharp guy, at least he knew the inside of the government pretty well. We went to dinner with Dusty, and he and Brent talked about old times.”
Karpovich had been castigated by Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he told us, for trying to sell the software to the Pentagon too cheaply.
“In the meeting Duncan Hunter pointed to me and said to Wilkes, ‘Your boy doesn’t know how to play the game,’” said Karpovich.
“They took a $6000 product, gave it another name, and sold it to the defense department for $32000 a pop. Later on we began to get calls from military bases around the country,” Karpovich stated. “They were saying, hey, we just got this expensive software. What are we supposed to do with it?”
The deal now worked for everyone… except maybe U.S. taxpayers, and dead U.S. servicemen in Iraq whose Humvee’s didn’t get armor plating until it was too late because there wasn’t enough money for it in the Pentagon budget.
Titan Corp, recently purchased by an entity called the L3 Corporation, bills itself as “a leading provider of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems to the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, selected U.S. Government intelligence agencies and aerospace prime contractors.”
The allegations of corporate lawlessness being leveled against Titan Corp. are unprecedented for a mid-sized defense contractor, on a scale not seen since the Lockheed bribery scandals of the 1970’s.
Ironically, Lockheed aborted a $2 billion buy-out of Titan a year ago, after the magnitude of the firm’s exposure to sanction caused the company to have second thoughts.
Skyway Communication’s principal Kovar must have been looking well forward to justify the purchase; the company was then in the middle of losing $40 million in less than three years, between 2002 and its last annual report before bankruptcy in January 2005.
Not that Tom DeLay seemed to mind. He and buddy Brent Kovar’s press release deserves special mention.
“Congressman Tom Delay, Majority Leader, has appointed Brent C Kovar to serve as the Honorary Chairman, Business Advisory Council,” read the headline of an August 7, 2003 release from PrimeZone Media newswire and press release service.
The Business Advisory Council, explained the release, was part of the National Republican Congressional Committee, “dedicated to making sure that small business has a voice in Washington.”
Kovar was appointed “in recognition of his valuable contributions and dedication to the Republican Party,” and was “expected to play a crucial role in the party’s efforts to involve top businesspeople in the process of government reform both at the state and federal levels.”
While the release left the specific nature of Kovar’s “crucial role in the GOP’ efforts” a bit vague, a look at the other owner of the DC9, dubbed “Cocaine One,” offers clues which help fill in the blanks.
The Seal and paint job made the planes look like they belong to Homeland Security, specifically the TSA (Transportation Security Administration.)
The tricked-out airliners were supposedly used to perform in-flight demonstrations of the spiffy new technology of SKYWAY AIRCRAFT and its corporate parent SKYWAY COMMUNICATIONS HOLDING CORP.
That could not, however, have been the true purpose of the planes.
SkyWay said it’s patented technology promised to protect airplanes from terrorism, and provide high-speed Internet at 30,000 feet. To the shock and anger of investors who lost 30-40 million dollars, it did nothing of the kind.
Even a cursory inspection of the company and its principals quickly reveals that SkyWay had no products, no prospects, and nothing to demonstrate.
What they did have, though… were a couple of airliners masquerading as official U.S. Government planes.
Imagine the possibilities.
Glenn and Brent Kovar, a father-and-son pair of scamsters and penny stock fraud specialists, “ran” (we used the word advisedly) SkyWay. They had run the same scam several years earlier with similarly gratifying (for them) results.
The firm was called Satellite Access Systems, (SAS) which, as best we can figure, ended up being worth about three one-thousands of a penny per share.
The Vancouver Sun linked them to a Vancouver stock promoter who was kicked off the Vancouver Stock Exchange, Rene Hamouth, and a U.S. promoter described by Forbes magazine as a “persuasive scoundrel” found guilty of “awarding himself millions in excessive compensation, siphoning off company funds to cover personal expenses, and diverting company assets.”
But, as they say in TV-land: Here’s the beauty part…Chairman Glenn Kovar liked to boast about his long-standing ties to the CIA.
While SkyWay was running out of money, its executive cadre was busy cashing out. The heavy lifting involved nothing more serious than issuing increasingly rosy press releases. In late December 2004, SkyWay announced a new $24 million dollar loan from Lantax, Ltd, described as “a Private Investment Group consisting of four Western European and Northern African families.”
Worried investors must have breathes a sigh of relief. Nobody goes belly up right after getting a $24 million dollar loan, right?
Apparently not, because less than a month later the Manager of Aviation Systems and Support for Jeb Bush’s Florida Department of Transportation issued a press release praising the “esteemed Sirs” at SkyWay, stating, “This is a great accomplishment for the FDOT’s Aviation Test Center. The FDOT wants to make Florida’s airports safe and secure with the use of the latest technology available. We are looking forward to working with SkyWay.”
Two weeks after this ringing public endorsement SkyWay’s biggest stockholders sued the firm’s management for fraud. Bankruptcy was just around the corner. And while this might look like a mid-level government bureaucrat’s executive boner having nothing whatever to do with Governor Bush, that’s sadly not the case…
The Florida Governor himself had provided a celebrity endorsement to terror flight school owner Wally Hilliard’s operation well after the company’s Lear (N351WB) had been busted by DEA agents armed with machine guns, who, during the same month Atta arrive at his school, found 43 pounds of heroin onboard.
What are the odds that a harried state government is going to unknowingly heap praise and pass out state contracts to two aviation companies serving as fronts for drug trafficking?
Hilliard’s air charter service was even being utilized at virtually no cost––despite the fact that rentals for Lear jets can run as high as $1,800 an hour––by Florida Governor Jeb Bush… at the same time their planes were flying back and forth from Venezuela loaded with smack…
A sitting Governor would seem well-advised to steer clear of heroin trafficking front companies that also train terrorist, no?
Yet Governor Jeb Bush honored Hilliard’s operation with a personal visit, even posing for photos.
And Michael Farkas, a Miami attorney who founded and was a major stockholder of SkyWay Communications Holding Company, the last registered owner of the Cocaine One DC9. Farkas serves double duty as the American representative of an ultra-nationalist Zionist party in Israel; hr is as well a sales agent for anti-missile technology developed by Israel Aircraft Industries’ for the Israeli Defense Force.
And we mustn’t forget Al Ali Al Sabah, Chief of the National Guard of Kuwait as well as the oldest member of the ruling Kuwaiti Royal Family, one of the dozen Saudi and Kuwaiti “investors” in SkyWay brought to the deal by Nazar Talib, a native of Baghdad Iraq who is today a securities trader in Arkansas.
Finally let’s take a quick peek at what the disgraced owners of SkyWay are doing today. Sweating out indictments, perhaps?
Hardly. They’re already waist-deep in their next big score. Check out SkyWay President Bernie Kovar’s old business card, above.
Then his—Mon Dieu!—his new business card, just below it, from his new company.
La plus ca change!
There used to be a saying: “Crime doesn’t pay.”
You don’t hear it much anymore.
The registration records reveal that the past ‘owners’ of “Cocaine One’s” identical twin are well-known ‘front’ companies of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.
The twin to the DC9 bursting with 5.5 tons of cocaine is a CIA plane.
The plane’s owners over the past two decades, in fact, comprise a virtual Who’s Who of aviation companies known to serve as “fronts” for the CIA, whose true identities came to light during the Iran Contra Scandal.
At least three companies to which “Cocaine One’s” twin was registered have been looted, to the overall tune of almost $300 million dollars. The plane’s owners have left a trail of tears for investors, engaging in massive financial fraud, of a particular kind…
Sociologists call it “state-sponsored crime.”
Innocent investors and shareholders get swindled, the bad guys get away, and newspapers go silent. There is clearly something about these particular DC9’s which give their owners a license to treat shareholders and investors like marks, and steal millions from ordinary citizens.
The DC9 has also been “owned” by Finova Capital, revealed in the early 90’s as a CIA front which also “owned” the C123 military cargo plane used by notorious drug smuggler and CIA pilot Barry Seal, which was later shot down over Nicaragua with Eugene Hasenfus onboard.
The crash cracked open the Iran Contra Scandal, and inspired an ambitious burst of emergency damage control by Lt. Colonel Oliver North, who embarked on a three-day shredding spree reportedly designed to remove any trace of Barry Seal’s name from his files.
U.S. officials vehemently denied the plane belonged to the CIA.
At the time the plane was registered to General John Singlaub’s Southern Air Transport. Much later, Southern Air Transport went bankrupt, and the proceedings revealed that the company had been owned by an entity called Finova Capital, a CIA front company set up in Arizona and headquartered in Canada to escape American financial disclosure requirements.
By that time, in 1998, no one was paying any attention, so the CIA’s use of front companies had once again been successful.
Before Finova, the DC9 belonged, or, to use the spook phrase, “been parked” with a company called Greyhound Leasing of Phoenix, AZ.
Greyhound during this time period also “owned” a Beech King Air used by CIA pilot and drug smuggler Barry Seal. After his death it became the favorite plane of then Texas-Governor George W. Bush.
But no good deed goes unpunished, and Greyhound Leasing soon came up a little short. The company had somehow “misplaced” $120 million dollars.
The company’s accountants wrote that “fraudulent and dishonest acts . . . resulted directly in a loss of $119,684,598.”
That’s just a few bribes short of $120 million dollars.
The company’s chairman, lucky fellow, never went to prison. Instead he resigned his position at Greyhound and had soon been appointed as the new president and chief executive officer of Finalco, an equipment finance and brokerage company based in Mclean, Virginia, the home of the CIA.
The company which owned the seized “Cocaine One” DC9, SkyWay Aircraft of St. Petersburg FL, leased a 70,000 square foot “repair” facility at DFW Airport in Dallas for more than $20,000 a month…in a building owned by a man called “George W. Bush’s biggest supporter” and “the power behind the throne” during Bush’s first Presidential campaign.
Court documents in the SkyWay’s Federal bankruptcy proceedings in Tampa reveal that SkyWay signed a lease costing $21,000 a month in base rent and operating expenses.
Why would a start-up company which doesn’t (and never will) have any products, spend $20 grand a month to rent a facility to “repair” them?
SkyWay shared the facility with another firm, Airbase Services Inc. A month after the DC9 was seized in Mexico, Airbase filed for bankruptcy.
Also last week, a second group of investors, mostly from Kentucky, have filed a lawsuit against Sky Way in in Hillsborough County court, accusing the company and its principals of fraud, civil theft and conspiracy to defraud, among other charges.
The company “shamelessly used the tragedy of 9/11 to concoct an elaborate scheme of fraud designed to prey upon the vulnerable mind set of the American public,” the lawsuit states.
Natalie that sounds just like what Bush did to get his war!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 21, 2006 at 4:45 PM
By Sibel Edmonds
11/15/2006
In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington warned that America must be constantly awake against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence…since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.â€
Today, foreign influence, that most baneful foe of our republican government, has its tentacles entrenched in almost all major decision making and policy producing bodies of the U.S. government machine. It does so not secretly, since its self-serving activities are advocated and legitimized by highly positioned parties that reap the benefits that come in the form of financial gain and positions of power.
Foreign governments and foreign-owned private interests have long sought to influence U.S. public policy. Several have accomplished this goal; those who are able and willing to pay what it takes. Those who buy themselves a few strategic middlemen, commonly known as pimps, while in DC circles referred to as foreign registered agents and lobbyists, who facilitate and bring about desired transactions. These successful foreign entities have mastered the art of ‘covering all the bases’ when it comes to buying influence in Washington DC. They have the required recipe down pat: get yourself a few ‘Dime a Dozen Generals,’ bid high in the ‘former statesmen lobby auction’, and put in your pocket one or two ‘ex-congressmen turned lobbyists’ who know the ropes when it comes to pocketing a few dozen who still serve.
The most important facet of this influence to consider is what happens when the active and powerful foreign entities’ objectives are in direct conflict with our nation’s objectives and its interests and security; and when this is the case, who pays the ultimate price and how. There is no need for assumptions of hypothetical situations to answer these questions, since throughout recent history we have repeatedly faced the dire consequences of the highjacking of our foreign and domestic policies by these so-called foreign agents of foreign influence.
Let’s illustrate this with the most important recent case, the catastrophe endured by our people; the September Eleven terrorist attacks. Let’s observe how certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, overrode the interests and security of the entire nation; how thousands of victims and their loved ones were kicked aside to serve the interests of a few; foreign influence and its agents.
Senator Graham’s Revelation
It has been established that two of the 9/11 hijackers had a support network in the U.S. that included agents of the Saudi government, and that the Bush administration and the FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship.
In his book, “Intelligence Matters,” Senator Bob Graham made clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry’s final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties in the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Here is an excerpt from Senator Graham’s statement from the July 24, 2003 congressional record on the classified 27 pages of the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11: “The most serious omission, in my view, is part 4 of the report, which is entitled Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters. Those 27 pages have almost been entirely censured….The declassified version of this finding tells the American people that our investigation developed information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States. In other words, officials of a foreign government are alleged to have aided and abetted the terrorist attacks on our country on September 11, which took over 3,000 lives.â€
In his book Graham reveals, “Our investigators found a CIA memo dated August 2, 2002, whose author concluded that there is incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi government. On September 11, America was not attacked by a nation-state, but we had just discovered that the attackers were actively supported by one, and that state was our supposed friend and ally Saudi Arabia.†He then cites another case, “We had discovered an FBI asset who had a close relationship with two of the terrorists; a terrorist support network that went through the Saudi Embassy; and a funding network that went through the Saudi Royal family.â€
The most explosive revelation in Graham’s book is the following statement with regard to the administration’s attitude on page 216: “It was as if the President’s loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America’s safety.†Further, he states that he asked the FBI to undertake a review of the Riggs Bank records on the terrorists’ money trail, to look at other Saudi companies with ties to al-Qaeda, to plan for monitoring suspect Saudi interests in the United States; however, Graham adds: “To my knowledge, none of these investigations have been completed…Nor do we know anything else about what I believe to be a state-sponsored terrorist support network that still exists, largely undamaged, within the United States.â€
What Graham is trying to establish in his book and previous public statements in this regard, and doing so under state imposed ‘secrecy and classification’, is that the classification and cover up of those 27 pages is not about protecting ‘U.S. national security, methods of intelligence collection, or ongoing investigations,’ but to protect certain U.S. allies. Meaning, our government put the interests of certain foreign nations and their U.S. beneficiaries far above its own people and their interests. While Saudi Arabia has been specifically pointed to by Graham, other countries involved have yet to be identified.
In covering up Saudi Arabia’s direct role in supporting Al Qaeda, the 9/11 Commission goes even a few steps further than the congress and the Executive Branch. The report claims “there is no convincing evidence that any government financially supported al-Qaeda before 9/11.” Their report ignores all the information provided by government officials to Congress, as well as volumes of published reports and investigations by other nations, regarding Muslim and Arab regimes that have supported al Qaeda. It completely disregards the terrorist lists of the Treasury and State Departments, which have catalogued the Saudi government’s decades of support for Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Why in the world would the United States government go so far to protect Saudi Arabia in the face of what itself declares to be the biggest security threat facing our nation and the world today?
Why is the United States willing to set aside its own security and interests in order to advance the interests of another state?
How can a government that’s been intent upon using the terrorist attacks to carry out many unjustifiable atrocities, prevent bringing to justice those who’ve been established as being directly responsible for it?
More importantly, how is this done in a nation that prides itself as one that operates under governance of the people, by the people, for the people?
How did our government bodies, those involved in drafting and implementing our nation’s policies, evolve into this foreign influence-peddling operation?
In order to answer these questions one must first establish who stands to lose and who stands to gain by protecting Saudi Arabia from being exposed and facing consequences of its involvement in terrorist networks activities. In addition to identifying the nations in question, we must identify the interests as well as the actors; their agents. Let’s look at Saudi Arabia as one of the successful foreign nations that have mastered the art of ‘covering all the bases’ when it comes to buying and peddling influence in Washington DC, and identify its hired ‘agents’ and ‘agents by default.’
Foreign Agents by Default
Although when it comes to our complex diplomatic threading with Saudi Arabia the easiest answer appears to be the ‘oil factor,’ upon further inspection the Saudi’s influence and role extends into other areas, such as the Military Industrial Complex and the too familiar Lobbying Games.
According to the report published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Saudi Arabia is America’s top customer. Since 1990 the U.S. government, through the Pentagon’s arms export program, has arranged for the delivery of more than $39.6 billion in foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia, and an additional $394 million worth of arms were delivered to the Saudi regime through the State Department’s direct commercial sales program. Oil rich Saudi Arabia is a cash-paying customer; a compulsive buyer of our weaponry. The list of U.S. sellers includes almost all the major players such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.
The report by FAS establishes that despite the show of U.S. support demonstrated by this astounding quantity of arms sales, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is extremely poor; see the U.S. State Department’s 2000 Human Rights Report. Saudi Arabia’s position as a strategic Gulf ally has blinded U.S. officials into approving a level and quality of arms exports that should never have been allowed to a non-democratic country with such a poor human rights record.
Further, there are indications of Saudi’s active role as a player in the nuclear black-market. According to Mohammed Khilewi, first secretary at the Saudi mission to the United Nations until July 1994, the Saudis have sought a bomb since 1975; they sought to buy nuclear reactors from China, supported Pakistan’s nuclear program, and contributed $5 billion to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program between 1985 and 1990. While the U.S. government vocally opposes the development or procurement of ballistic missiles by non-allies, it has been very quiet in Saudi Arabia’s case, considering the fact that it possesses the longest-range ballistic missiles of any developing country.
The Military Industrial Complex certainly seems to be a winner in having the congressional report pertaining to the Saudi government’s role in supporting the 9/11 terrorist activities being classified. The exposure would have meant grounds for U.S. sanctions and retributions; it would have risked the loss of billions of dollars in revenue from its ‘top customer.’ These companies don’t even have to officially register as foreign agents; after all, their strong loyalty and unbreakable bond with foreign elements exists by default; it is called mutual benefit. They are ‘Foreign Agents by Default.’
This holds true for other parties and players involved within the MIC network; the contractors and the investors. Let’s look at one of these famous and influential players; another foreign agent even if only by default; a man who defended the Saudis against a lawsuit brought by the 9/11 victims’ family members; a man who happens to be the senior counsel for the Carlyle Group, which invests heavily in defense companies and is the nation’s 10th largest defense contractor with ties to the Saudi Royal Family, Enron, Global Crossing, among others; James Baker; Papa Bush’s Secretary of State. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Baker was reportedly at a Carlyle investor conference with members of the Bin Laden family in the Ritz Carlton in Washington DC, while Bush Sr. was on the payroll of the Carlyle group.
The Carlyle Group, a Washington, DC based private equity firm that employs numerous former high-ranking government officials with ties to both political parties, was the ninth largest Pentagon contractor between 1998 and 2003, an ongoing Center for Public Integrity investigation into Department of Defense contracts found. According to this report, overall, six private investment firms, including Carlyle, received nearly $14 billion in Pentagon deals between 1998 and 2003. Considering the fact that Saudi Arabia is the top buyer of the U.S. weapons industry, Carlyle’s investment and its stake, and of course Jimmy Baker’s far reaching influence within the Pentagon and congress, everything seems to come together and fit perfectly to shield this foreign interest no matter the price to be paid by the American public.
The political action committees (PACs) of the biggest defense companies have given $14.2 million directly to federal candidates since Clinton’s first presidential bid, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). In 1997 alone the defense industry spent $49.5 million to lobby the nation’s decision-makers.
Between 1998 and 2004, for the six-year period, Boeing Company spent more than $57 million in lobbying. For the same period of time, Lockheed Martin poured over $55 million into lobbying activities. Northrop Grumman exceeded both by investing $83 million in lobbying, and based on a report issued by POGO, it contributed over $4 million to individuals and PACs.
With ‘dime a dozen’ generals on their boards of directors, numerous high-powered ex congressmen and senators at their disposal in the ‘K Street Lobby Quarter,’ tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations, and billions of dollars at stake, the Military Industrial Complex surely had all the incentives to act just as foreign agents would, and fight for their highly valued client; the Saudi Government. They appear to have had all the reasons to ensure that the report would not see the light of the day; no matter what the effect on the country, its security, and its interests.
K Street Lobby Quarter
The fact that Saudi Arabia pours large sums into lobbying firms and public relations companies with close ties to congress does not come as a big surprise. The FARA database under the DOJ website lists Qorvis Communications as one of Saudi Arabia’s registered foreign agents. In 2003, for only a six months period, Qorvis received more than $11 million from the Saudi government. Another firm, Loeffler Tuggey Pauerstein Rosenthal LLP, another registered foreign agent, received more than $840,000 for the same six-month period, and the list goes on. Just for this six month period the government of Saudi Arabia paid a total of more than $14 million to 13 lobbying and public relations companies; all registered as foreign agents.
Why do the Saudis spend nearly $20 million per year in lobbying activities in the U.S. via their hired agents? What kind of return on investment are they getting out of the United States Congress?
Let’s take Loeffler’s group and examine its value for the Saudi government, since it was paid over $3 million in three years between 2003 and 2005. The firm was founded by former Republican Congressman Tom Loeffler of Texas. Loeffler served in the Republican Leadership as Deputy Whip, and as Chief Deputy Whip during his third and fourth term. He was a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee and Budget Committee. In the two Bush campaigns for governor, Loeffler, who contributed $141,000, was the largest donor. In 1998, he served as national co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s “Team 100” program for donors of $100,000 or more, and afterwards held the same title during George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. Loeffler’s generosity extends to the members of congress as well. In 6 years, he has given more than $185,000 to members of congress, 97% of it going to only Republican members. During the same six-year period, Loeffler’s firm received more than $18 million in lobbying fees.
The firm’s managing director happens to be William L. Ball. Ball served as Chief of Staff to Senators John Tower (R-TX) and Herman Talmadge (D-GA). In 1985, he joined the Reagan Administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. Later he was assigned to the White House to serve President Reagan as his chief liaison to the Congress. Wallace Henderson is also a Partner; he was Chief Counsel and Chief of Staff to Representative W. J. Tauzin (R-LA), Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator John Breaux (D-LA).
By having foreign agents such as the Loeffler Group, in addition to their foreign agents by default, the MIC, the Saudis seem to have all their bases covered. Former secretaries and deputy secretaries with open access to the current ones, former congressmen and senators who used to be positioned on strategically valuable committees and know the rules of the congressional game, and millions of dollars available to be spent and channeled and re-channeled to various PACs go a long way toward ensuring results. Money counts. Money is needed to bring in votes. Professional skills and discretion are required to get this money to various final destinations. The registered foreign agents, the lobby groups, are geared for this task. The client is happy in the end; so are the foreign agents and the congressional actors.
Other Savvy Nations
Of course, the sanction and legitimization of far reaching foreign influence and strongholds in the U.S., despite the many dire consequences endured by its citizens, is not limited to the government of Saudi Arabia. Numerous well-documented cases can be cited for others such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Israel, to name a few.
I won’t get into the details and history of my own case, where the government invoked the state secrets privilege to gag my case and the congress in order to ‘protect certain sensitive diplomatic relations.’ The country, the foreign influence, in this case was the Republic of Turkey. The U.S. government did so despite the far reaching consequences of burying the facts involved, and disregarded the interests and security of the nation; all to protect a quasi ally engaged in numerous illegitimate activities within the global terrorist networks, nuclear black-market and narcotics activities; an ally who happens to be another compulsive and loyal buyer of the Military Industrial Complex; an ally who happens to be another savvy player in recruiting top U.S. players as its foreign agents and spending million of dollars per year to the lobbying groups headed by many ‘formers.’ Turkey’s agent list includes generals such as Joseph Ralston and Brent Scowcroft, former statesmen such as William Cohen and Marc Grossman, and of course famous ex-congressmen such as Bob Livingston and Stephen Solarz. Turkey too seems to have all its bases covered.
Another well-known and documented case involves Pakistan. Over two decades ago Richard Barlow, an intelligence analyst working for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney issued a startling report. After reviewing classified information from field agents, he had determined that Pakistan, despite official denials, had built a nuclear bomb. In the March 29, 1993 issue of New Yorker, Seymour Hersh noted that “even as Barlow began his digging, some senior State Department officials were worried that too much investigation would create what Barlow called embarrassment for Pakistan.†Barlow’s conclusion was politically inconvenient. A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, and it would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad. A few months later a Pentagon official downplayed Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities in his testimony to Congress. When Barlow protested to his superiors, he was fired. A few years later, the Executive Branch would slap Barlow with the State Secrets Privilege.
As we all now know, Pakistan provided direct nuclear assistance to Iran and Libya. During the Cold War, the U.S. put up with Pakistani lies and deception about their nuclear activities, it did not enforce its restrictions on Pakistan’s nuclear program when it counted, and as a result Pakistan ended up with a U.S.-made nuclear weapons system. Yet again, after 9/11, the Bush administration issued a waiver ending the implementation of almost all sanctions on Pakistan because of the perceived need for Pakistani assistance in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who ironically were brought to power by direct U.S. support in the 1980s in the first place.
Weiss, in the May-June 2004 issue of the Bulletin states: “We are essentially back where we were with Pakistan in the 1980s. It is apparent that it has engaged in dangerous nuclear mischief with North Korea, Iran, and Libya (and perhaps others), but thus far without consequences to its relationship with the United States because of other, overriding foreign policy considerations—not the Cold War this time, but the war on terrorism.†He continues: “But now there is a major political difference. It was one thing for Pakistan, a country with which the United States has had good relations generally, to follow India and produce the bomb for itself. It is quite another for Pakistan to help two-thirds of the “axis of evil†to get the bomb as well.â€
FARA & LDA
An agent of a ‘foreign principal’ is defined as any individual or organization which acts at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal, or whose activities are directed by a foreign principal who engages in political activities, or acts in a public relations capacity for a foreign principal, or solicits or dispenses any thing of value within the United States for a foreign principal, or represents the interests of a foreign principal before any agency or official of the U.S. government.
In 1938, in response to the large number of German propaganda agents in the pre-WWII U.S., Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was established to insure that the American public and its lawmakers know the source of propaganda intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws. The Act requires every agent of a foreign principal to register with the Department of Justice and file forms outlining its agreements with, income from, and expenditures on behalf of the foreign principal. Any agent testifying before a committee of Congress must furnish the committee with a copy of his most recent registration statement. The agent must keep records of all his activities and permit the Attorney General to inspect them. However, as is the case with many laws, the Act is filled with exemptions and loopholes that allow minimization of, and in some cases complete escape from, warranted scrutiny.
There are a number of exemptions. For example, persons whose activities are of a purely commercial nature or of a religious, academic, and charitable nature are exempt. Any agent who is engaged in lobbying activities and is registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) is exempt. The LDA of 1995 was passed after decades of effort to make the regulation and disclosure of lobbying the federal government more effective. However, LDA also has serious and important loopholes and limitations that can be summed up as: Inadequate Disclosure, Inadequate Enforcement, and Inadequate Regulation of Conduct. The recent congressional scandals make this point very clear.
In addition, neither act deals with an important issue: Conflict of Interest. Many of these agents, with their loyalty to the foreign hand that feeds them, end up being appointed to various positions, commissions and special envoys by our government. Recall Kissinger and his appointment to head the 9/11 Commission, and of course the recent revelation by Woodward on his advisory position to the current White House. Take a look at Jimmy Baker’s current appointment on the Iraq commission. Same goes for the father of all the ‘dime a dozen generals’, Brent Scowcroft, and one of his new protégés, General Joseph Ralston. In short, neither FARA nor LDA creates meaningful oversight, control, or enforcement; neither deals with conflict of interest issues, and neither provides any deterrence or consequences for unethical or illegal conduct.
It used to be congressional ‘pork projects’ and ‘corporate influence’ that raised eyebrows now and then; here and there. Gone are those days. Today the unrestricted and uncontrollable money game and influence peddling tricks within the major decision-making and policy producing bodies of the U.S. government have reached new heights; yet, no raised eyebrows are registered. Sadly, today, a new version of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ would have to be produced as a documentary.
The other day I received a request to sign on to a petition put forth by a group of 9/11 family members urging the congress to reopen the investigations of 9/11 and declassify the infamous 28-pages which deal with foreign governments, U.S. allies, that provided support for those who carried out the attacks on our nation. My heart goes out to them. I do sympathize with them. I am known to take on similar propositions and methods of activism myself. However, looking at the realities, seeing what it takes to get things done in Washington, realizing how this beast works in the Real Sin City, I would encourage them to look at the root cause, rather than the symptoms. There are only two ways I can see that can bring about what they have been fighting for and what the majority of us desire to see in terms of bringing about Truth, Oversight, and Accountability; Justice.
The family members, and their supporters, us, either have to tackle the major cause; the corruption of our government officials via unrestricted and undisciplined ‘revolving doors’ and ‘foreign influence & lobby’ practices, and push for expedient meaningful reforms by the new ambitious congress, and have them prove to us their worth. Or, they may as well give up their long-held integrity, go bid high for one or two former statesmen, hire a few dime a dozen generals, and buy themselves a couple of ex-congressmen turned lobbyists; that will do the job.
© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
http://www.nswbc.org/Op Ed/Op-ed-Part1-Nov15-06.htm
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 21, 2006 at 6:31 PM
First of all Joe, cite the source of your all too complete, and unattributed reproduction of someone else’s intellectual property.
© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
Secondly, your continuing to prattle on without any semblance of context or continuity doesn’t prove anything, except that you have absolutely no credible evidence of an “inside job”.
Context. That is what is missing from <u>all</u> of your posts.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 21, 2006 at 9:44 PM
Natalie
Prior knowledge & money trail! That sounds like key evidence to me!
YOU ARE TO SCARED OR PROUD TO ALLOW FOR THE POSSIBILITY THAT “YOUR” COUNTRY WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!
THE ONLY REASON THE TRUTH MOVEMENT EXISTS IS THAT THE PROOF OF GOVT INVOLVEMENT IS SO EXPLICICT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Once you start to think of it like an international drug ring, it all starts to make sense.”
What do you think about the US restoring the poppy crop in Afghanistan since this cabal’s invasion (now 92% of the world’s supply after being nearly wiped out by the Taliban) and massive prior documentation of CIA involvement in the drug trade?
Bringing back the opium crop and the resulting off-the-books money laundering was one of the under-examined motives for 9/11. Just one of many motives, to be sure, but not to be largely ignored, since Ruppert talked about it in Crossing The Rubicon, like it has been.
The War of Drugs (where has that gone?) is among the biggest hypocrisies of America’s government (and that takes in some territory).
Currency Transaction Report, and was created specifically for fighting Money Laundering. If you try to deposit more than $10,000 in cash into any bank, you have to fill one out. The organizations that do not have to fill one out are:
Companies that trade on the stock exchange (Pepsi, Ford, IBM, etc…)
Banks
Government agencies (FBI, CIA, etc…)
“senior officials knew of al-Qa’ida’s plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened”
‘I Saw Papers That Show US Knew Al-Qa’ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes’
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
by Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published on Friday, April 2, 2004 by the lndependent/UK
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa’ida’s plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was “an outrageous lie”.
Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission’s investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used “state secrets privilege”.
She told The Independent yesterday: “I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily. She added: “There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers.”
The accusations from Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English, will reignite the controversy over whether the administration ignored warnings about al-Qa’ida. That controversy was sparked most recently by Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official, who has accused the administration of ignoring his warnings.
The issue what the administration knew and when is central to the investigation by the 9/11 Commission, which has been hearing testimony in public and private from government officials, intelligence officials and secret sources. Earlier this week, the White House made a U-turn when it said that Ms Rice would appear in public before the commission to answer questions. Mr Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, will also be questioned in a closed-door session.
Mrs Edmonds, 33, says she gave her evidence to the commission in a specially constructed “secure” room at its offices in Washington on 11 February. She was hired as a translator for the FBI’s Washington field office on 13 September 2001, just two days after the al-Qa’ida attacks. Her job was to translate documents and recordings from FBI wire-taps.
She said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. “Most of what I told the commission 90 per cent of it related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well.”
“President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September,” she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.
To try to refute Mr Clarke’s accusations, Ms Rice said the administration did take steps to counter al-Qa’ida. But in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: “Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists.”
Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word “we”, Ms Rice told an “outrageous lie”. She said: “Rice says ‘we’ not ‘I’. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible.”
It is impossible at this stage to verify Mrs Edmonds’ claims. However, some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI’s translation department.
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
This a reposting especially relevant in light of the recently divulged 9/11 Commission ‘Monograph’ discussing the multitude of detailed warnings recieved by multiple agencies.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 22, 2006 at 7:42 AM
No Joe, you’ve provided no evidence, other than for what everybody already knows. Our intelligence agencies are big lumbering sloths, and they’re hog-tied by incompetence, political correctness, ass-covering and territorialism. This is an unassailable reality.
In fact, Sibel Edmonds is an excellent illustration of my points from a couple posts ago. She and others have been trying to draw attention to this kind of malfeasance, and the powers that be are working hard to maintain their status quo.
But, not because they are covering up or participated in some grand scheme to bomb the WTC, or allow 9/11 to happen. That is where the fantasy kicks in.
Sibel Edmonds doesn’t believe in controlled demolition. Search her site for any mention of anything 9/11 truth and you’ll come up empty.
Listen to this mp3 of an interview of Edmonds and another former FBI agent. You’ll hopefully get a feel for the context and the reasoning for why the things Edmonds is complaining about have occurred. This is something that goes way back.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 22, 2006 at 10:59 AM
Natalie
This is old.
Alex Jones: You wouldn’t be surprised if elements or criminal elements or private contractors were involved in 9/11?
Sibel Edmonds: No, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Alex Jones: So you wouldn’t be surprised like many others, because of the evidence and the cover-up you’ve seen, if 9/11 was an inside job?
Sibel Edmonds: At this point, I’d have to say no, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Alex Jones: Do you think the evidence is leaning towards that?
Sibel Edmonds: Well, again, considering the level of cover-up and the length at which they have gone to gag people and prevent information—this information from coming out, I would say yes.”
P.S. Guess how she feels now!!!
NATALIE 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB!!!!!!! SO WAKE UP NATALIE!!!!!!!
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 22, 2006 at 11:13 AM
“Dear Congressman Cannon [and assistant]:
Thank you for your letter and for your attention to these important issues, about which I have written the Congressman before. It is heartening to hear a response promising some action.
Yes, I do have some questions that I ask of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and I appreciate your offer for assistance in getting answers.
1. Quoting from the NIST fact sheet (August 2006):
Q: “Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? The combination of thermite and sulfur (called thermate) “slices through steel like a hot knife through butter.”
A: “NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.”
NIST qualifies the statement saying they “did not test for the residue of these compounds IN THE STEEL.”
Did they test for residues of aluminothermic (thermite-family)
reactions anywhere? Solidified slag? WTC dust? If so, what did they find? If they did not test for such residues anywhere, why not?
2. Quoting again from the NIST fact sheet:
“NIST concluded that the source of the molten material [observed flowing out of WTC2 before its collapse] was aluminum alloys from the aircraft, since these are known to melt between 475 degrees Celsius and 640 degrees Celsius (depending on the particular alloy), well below the expected temperatures (about 1,000 degrees Celsius) in the vicinity of the fires.
“Aluminum is not expected to ignite at normal fire temperatures and there is no visual indication that the material flowing from the tower was burning.
“Pure liquid aluminum would be expected to appear silvery.
“However, the molten metal was very likely mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture, carpets, partitions and computers) which can display an orange glow, much like logs burning in a fireplace. The apparent color also would have been affected by slag formation on the surface.”
The day after reading the NIST fact sheet on-line, on 8/31/06, a group of us performed experiments to test this hypothesis—that molten aluminum “mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture, carpets, partitions and computers) ... can display an orange glow,”—and we could NOT see any such orange glow in actual tests.
So we ask NIST to tell us how to do this trick—how to get molten aluminum when poured out in daylight conditions, as at WTC2, to “display an orange glow.”
(Even with organics mixed in with aluminum—we did actual
experiments to test the NIST statement, and the experiments
demonstrated a silvery (not “orange”) flow of liquid material. We observed that the organics tend to separate out from the aluminum, like oil separating from water).
A related question—did NIST do any ACTUAL TESTS before issuing their Fact Sheet in August 2006, to determine whether molten aluminum “mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials” will actually display an orange glow?
3. In the same fact sheet, NIST writes: ““Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite
would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled demolition.”
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
But this discussion totally ignores what I say in my paper (see www. Journalof911Studies.com) regarding SUPERthermites,
which are explosive (not just incendiary) and which have high energy density. With the use of ultra-fine aluminum and metal-oxide powders, superthermite-class explosives are made. Can NIST at least acknowledge the existence of explosive superthermites, and that with these explosives much LESS material would be required than with ordinary thermites?
4. Finally, I note from an earlier NIST report that NIST obtained “6,899 photographs” and over 300 hours of video recordings - acquired mostly by private parties - which it admits to holding (NIST, 2005, p. 81). I call for the immediate release of these and all relevant data
for scrutiny by the international community of scientists and
engineers. If there is nothing to hide, why hide these data? There certainly will be no justification for requiring non-disclosure agreements as we look at these photos and videos obtained largely from the public using taxpayer moneys. Evidence relating to WTC 7 (which was NOT hit by a jet) and its mysterious complete collapse must not be held back. I call for the immediate and full release of ALL these videos and photographs.
I would appreciate your forwarding these requests to Utah Senators Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch so that they may be aware of the actions being taken to resolve these important issues.
Sincerely,
Steven E. Jones, Ph.D.
Physicist”
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 22, 2006 at 1:05 PM
Natalie
The September 24 KPFA event from Berkeley, CA, will air on C-Span
Featured speakers:
David Ray Griffin
Kevin Ryan
Peter Dale Scott
Peter Phillips
Ray McGovern
EST PST
Friday Nov 24th: 4:00pm 1:00pm
Saturday Nov 25th: 3:30am 12:30am
10:00pm 7:00pm
You can watch it now here!!!!!!!!!
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=3195658770053494633
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 22, 2006 at 3:22 PM
Joe,
Apparently Sibel’s not fond enough of the “inside job” theory to make mention of it on her site. And answering Alex Jones’ leading questions with “I wouldn’t be surprised” is a far cry from her actively believing in an inside job, and an even farther cry from believing in nutty theories like controlled demolition.
But, now that you have provided evidence that she has collaborated with a charlatan such as Alex Jones, I’ll know better than to take anything else she says seriously. It’s a pretty reliable barometer.
You know what I find a little strange and suspicious? That she talks and talks like she knows absolutely everything, but was only with the FBI for five or six months. Pretty doggone strange.
Nice fair and balanced presentation there on C-Span. How nice it must be for the “truth” movement that nobody of any actual knowledge and authority takes them seriously enough to join them in a debate.
Maybe….if they keep pushing it…..they will.
In the mean time, it’s certain to be good for some laughs, thanks!
P.S. I guess you didn’t hear that Steven Jones is wack. I heard it from Uncle Fetzer and Judge Judy.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 23, 2006 at 1:13 AM
Natalie
Here is Steven Jones’ presentation from the Lifting the Fog conference held on the campus of UC Berkeley.
I think you will like to here about some of the LATEST structural engineers who have come to agree with the other structural engineers (that I have posted on this thread a few times) that had already said the WTC was a CD. Also you may want to know about the tests and experiments that have been done around the world by scientists that support Steven Jones’ theory.
There is alot of new information.
Hhahahhahah the part were the NIST scientist tries again and again to get aluminum to glow orange/red/yellow any color but silver and cant is great. The NIST scientist finaly admits you cant do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is realy shocking is NIST has not fired him but agreed. That must be because no one else who has tried could do it either and there has been many who have tried around the world.
Also some more explosive new evidence you must see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9210704017463126290
But I must say that the Scholars for 9/11 Truth are falling behind the huge amount of research and work that is being done by scientists in regards to CD around the world. So far from what I can find there are 7 western countries with much larger truth movements than our own and 3 tied. That is a major embarrassement for “US”. I am ashamed of our falling behind. Even with the huge amount of growth we have we still cant keep up and that hurts and makes me feel so upset.
It will take this country that I love even longer to regain the trust and respect it once held around the world if we are not the first to expose the lie to the masses where it will affect change.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 23, 2006 at 7:27 AM
<i>I think you will like to here about some of the LATEST structural engineers who have come to agree with the other structural engineers (that I have posted on this thread a few times) that had already said the WTC was a CD. Also you may want to know about the tests and experiments that have been done around the world by scientists that support Steven Jones
Posted by Natalie on Nov 23, 2006 at 9:17 AM
Natalie
I feel I can be lazy because I have posted this many times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These are from THIS PAGE!!!!!! Thats why I didnt bother to post them again until now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HERE IT IS AGAIN FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With links to over 400 scholars, scientists, engineers and physicists who say the government myth defies the laws of physics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has four structural engineers in it as well that say it was a CD. Wich is not even close to the current number who now say the WTC was a CD!!!!!!!!
Please watch the video to see more structural engineers!!!!!!
Jorg Schneider, Professor emeritus for structural engineering. “WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by explosives”.
Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of “pancake collapse”, which normally only occurs with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in “redundant” welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as the Structural Engineer Charles Pegelow has pointed out.
Hugo Bachmann, Professor emeritus for structural engineering. “In my opinion WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by controlled demolition done by experts”
Joseph M. Phelps, MS, PE. Structural Dynamicist (ret.), Charter Member, Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers “Air planes couldnt cause this. Something is cutting the collumns, its called cotrolled demolitions”
“World Trade Center disaster investigators are refusing to show computer visualizations [i.e. models] of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers”.
“a leading U.S. structural engineer said ‘By comparison [to the modeling of fires] the global structural model is not as sophisticated’ . . . The software used has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgement calls . . . it would be hard to produce a definitive visualization from the analysis so far.’ (free subscription required; copy posted here)(in other words, the government refused to release a visual model of the collapses, and even the non-visual computer models which the government used to examine why the trade centers collapsed are faulty).
“Some engineers . . . have accused NIST of repeatedly changing its explanation of the collapse mechanism.” (Google’s cached version of the article is here)
Moreover, a leading firefighters’ trade publication called the investigation concerning the world trade center a “half-baked farce”. In addition, the official investigators themselves were largely denied funding, access to the site and the evidence contained there, or even access to such basic information as the blueprints for the world trade center. Similarly, a professor of fire protection engineering, and the former chief of the fire science and engineering division of the agency now investigating the world trade center disaster, wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
Natalie
You said:
You cite Charles Pegelow, who is also not qualified. He has a mere BS in engineering, and his experience has been on oil rigs, not tall building design.
If you actually listen to what he has to say, you will discover that, unlike you, he knows what he is talking about. Strictly speaking, a street bum could come up with the right analysis of what happened at the WTC. You have to evaluate an argument on its own merits. Experts can be right. Experts can be wrong. Experts can disagree. When I read non-sense like this about his degrees, it infuriates me. The guy has vast experience in the field, which goes far beyond what anyone can learn in the classroom! Give it up!
He is very knowledgeable about these things, having spent much of his career dealing with oil rigs, which are steel structures frequently exposed to fire.
Charles Pegelow has structural design experience on steel structures going back to 1972, and has specific experience with the effects of fire on them. Your arrogant dismissal of his clearly relevant credentials shows how desperate and empty your arguments are. Actually, that is far too kind, you haven’t made any arguments whatsoever, your contribution here has essentially consisted of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “Lalalalalalala!” because you refuse to believe the truth, no matter what.
He said that steel structures do not undergo pancake collapse. From a structural engineer with over 30 years experience, I don’t really need to hear much else. His discussion of how the beams were welded together (as opposed to just bolted) was also very interesting to me.
For every one you try to slam I will replace with two more!!!!!!!! So please I beg you try!!! NO!! I DEMAND YOU DO IT FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE!!
I have only given you what I have posted before (to be fare to you) but there are much more!!!
Do you want Civil Engineers? I have those as well and Fire and Safety and Demolition Engineers. Which ones do you want? I also have Architects if you prefer. All of them say it was controlled demolitions!!!!
On top of that I have some institutes of Engineers who do not say it was a cotrolled demolition but do say NIST’s explanation is impossible!!!!
I feel it is fare for me to also use the structural engineers who do not think 9/11 was an inside job but do agree that WTC 7 was a CD!!!!!!
And if you can not come up with a reason why I cant then you will have to try to discredit a vast number of structural engineers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
Jones has a unique talent for appearing credible on the surface, but there’s a reason that he no longer works at BYU.
He was charged with using code language to make anti-Semitic allegations and authorities at BYU caved to organized Jewish pressure and put Jones on paid leave.
The American Association of University Professors criticized BYU’s decision to place Jones on paid leave for his comments on the radio program.
AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen called BYU’s decision “distressing” and said Jones shouldn’t be removed from teaching classes for statements made outside the classroom.
Bowen told the Deseret Morning News. “It’s very clear there never should be official retribution for faculty who exercise their rights as citizens, with the very careful disclaimer they are not speaking on behalf of the university.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education joined the criticism of the BYU decision against Jones.
“BYU is literally the example we use of a university that does not promise strong free speech or academic freedom protections,” FIRE president Greg Lukianoff said.
After administrators reviewed his statements and (by Jones request) his research. They came to a mutual agreement with Jones. They agreed he can continue in his research on 9/11 issues at BYU using the money he was granted last year (with his prestigious teaching award that he also received last year) to fund his experiments on themite/thermate and ect.
This also comes with the agreement that he will retire and by BYU’s request that he continue to do research at BYU on his cold fussion work that he has now been proven correct AGAIN in several scientific papers printed in journals of science. By the way during his administrative review he has now had 4 more Ph.D’s added to the list of peer review for his paper about the WTC buildings and thermite/thermate!!!!!!!!!!!
So he is retiring in order to relieve the political pressure placed on BYU but will continue to do research there at BYU’s request for cold fussion and his for 9/11 research.
Oh that prestigious teaching award that he received last year is far from his first for teaching and of course does not count the many other achievement awards he has received as well.
YOU WERE SAYING???????
Oh yeah I almost forgot!!! You said:
However, his presentations are always good for some laughs!!
Hhahahhahah the part were the NIST scientist tries again and again to get aluminum to glow orange/red/yellow any color but silver and cant is great. The NIST scientist finaly admits you cant do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is realy shocking is NIST has not fired him but agreed. That must be because no one else who has tried could do it either and there has been many who have tried around the world.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 23, 2006 at 6:43 PM
Let’s take these one by one.
First of all, Jones:
Pros:
* By some accounts has done credible work in the area of cold fusion. (haven’t researched completely what other physicists think about this)
* Has published several papers in relevant journals related to this work, and perhaps some other physics work.
* Has earned several teaching awards.
* Comes across as likable and credible.
Cons:
* Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.
* Definitely has a political/ideological agenda, which he demonstrated in the first public talk he gave on the subject of 9/11.
* Has no expertise in engineering, structural or fire.
* He has been caught distorting the color and resolution of photographs contained in his paper, apparently for purposes of being able to then mischaracterize the photographs.
* He has manipulated quotes and misrepresented attitudes of others in his paper.
* He has cited holocaust revisionists/deniers in his paper. (That’s what the ADL should really be concerned about, and perhaps that was a factor taken into account by BYU. Is Jones really this naive about the nature of his sources, or is he of a like mind?)
* He has included politically tinged rants by discredited individuals such as Kevin Ryan, which obviously have no place in a science paper.
* His paper has undergone almost weekly revisions, something that shouldn’t have to be done if one has a plausible hypothesis.
* He has been unable to get his paper published in any relevant journal, something BYU has been concerned about from the start.
* Even worse, he tries to pretend he has, by creating his own panel of peers and creating his own journal. Unfortunately, the panel is not composed of relevant experts, and the journal is solely devoted to 9/11 propaganda. I’m sure this situation was on the agenda of the review board, before they aborted the review.
* His peers in the relevant fields at his own university disavow him:
Chairman of the BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Miller, is on record stating in an e-mail, “I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don’t think there is accuracy and validity to these claims”.
The BYU physics department has also issued a statement: “The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones’ hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU’s own faculty members. Professor Jones’ department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review.” The College of Engineering and Technology department has also added, “The structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones.”
cont…..
Posted by Natalie on Nov 24, 2006 at 12:42 PM
pg. 2
* And, a Professor emeritus at BYU, who’s field is actually relevant, had this to say about Jones:
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his “Conspiracy Theory” relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones’ (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones’ thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet’s fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones’ presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
So is Jones credible? Perhaps when it comes to cold fusion, but when it comes to structural failure questions, and Jesus in South America…...not so much.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 24, 2006 at 12:44 PM
Similarly, a professor of fire protection engineering, and the former chief of the fire science and engineering division of the agency now investigating the world trade center disaster, wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
You mean this professor of fire protection engineering?:
<u>A suggested cause of the fire-induced collapse of the World Trade Towers</u>
J. G. Quintiere, , a, M. di Marzoa and R. Beckerb
Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Received 24 May 2002; revised 3 June 2002; accepted 5 June 2002.
Abstract
An analysis is presented that calculates the temperature of the steel truss rods in the World Trade Center towers subject to a fire based on the building ventilation factor. The CIB correlation is used for the fire. Conduction analyses are made taking into account variable properties for the steel and the insulation. A structural failure model is described based on compression buckling of the truss rods due to a reduction in the Young’s modulus. The computed times for the estimated failure or incipient collapse of the floors in both towers <u>has been computed as 105±20 min for WTC 1 (north) and 51±9 min for WTC 2 (south), compared to the collapse times from the aircraft impact of 104 and 56 min, respectively. The insulation thickness and the difference of 19.1 mm and 38.1 mm between the two towers appear to have been the root cause of the collapses.</u>
Of course, J. G. Quintiere never suspected that bombs were planted in the buildings. Like William Manning, he was concerned about what he perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be an insufficient effort to preserve the steel for study. He may have had a point—I’m not sure if these guys were just not in the loop on the investigation, or if they were in fact instrumental in improving the investigation.
In any event, not a very good witness for the prosecution. Dismissed.
Posted by Natalie on Nov 25, 2006 at 1:55 AM
Natalie
“Let’s take these one by one.”
You said:
* Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.
So a scientist is not credible in your opinion if he is a Mormon? Can a scientist be considered credible if he is a Buddhist. Are scientists considered credible if their Hindu? Is an atheist scientists considered credible? In your opinion anyone who “Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.” are not considered credible!!! You have suggested throughout this forum that you do not consider the Muslims to be credible and now your saying you do not consider Mormons to be credible!!! Where does your bigotry and prejudice end? So what about scientists who are African American, Asian, or Arabic? What if the scientist is homosexual or female? Does this mean they would not be considered credible?
Natalie throughout this thread you have continued to show your ignorance, bigotry and prejudice toward anything or anyone that does not agree with you or your party line.
You said:
* Definitely has a political/ideological agenda, which he demonstrated in the first public talk he gave on the subject of 9/11.
I have seen no economic/political/ideological agenda from Steven Jones other than to look at “ALL” the evidence no matter where it leads and what it will show!!!!! But if he does than I will toss Jones from the growing list of scientist who are exposing the lie and I expect you to do the same of any and all scientist who may have an agenda, political ties or conflict of interest!!! Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
Will you please point out to me where he has shown to have, and what his agenda is other than to look at “ALL” the evidence for it is not as clear to me like this is down below
“Bush Science”—a corruption of allegedly scientific investigations by the Bush administration policy goals, citing condemnations by prominent scientists and Nobel lauretes, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the House Committee on Government Reform. the Bush adminisration has been criticized heavily for their disdane of science. The House Committee on Government Reform found “numerous instances where the administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings.” Also a group of leading scientists, now including 49 Nobel Laureates, 63 National Medal of Science recipients, and 175 members of the National Academics, has said that the Bush administration engages in “distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends.” Now members of Congress calling for investigations into the suppression and manipulation of government science. There is also hundreds of scientists who reported significant interference with scientific work by the Bush administration!!! Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s unprecedented suppression and distortion of scientific analysis on a wide range of issues has continued unabated.
political appointees have distorted and censored scientific findings that contradict established policies. In some cases, they have manipulated the underlying science to align results with predetermined political decisions.
NIST and the Department of Commerce to which it reports are both headed by Bush appointees.
The guiding of an investigation by pre-determined conclusions is antithetical to good science.
The words of the investigations themselves show that they started with the conclusion that the collapses of the three skyscrapers were entirely the result of the plane crashes and subsequent fires. Gene Corley stated that he knew that the towers were going to collapse before they did, which is interesting because no tall steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fires. Charles Thornton stated to Karl Koch, “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” Shankar Nair, a contributor to the NIST investigation, stated on September 19, 2001, “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of event that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.”
Again political appointees have distorted and censored scientific findings that contradict established policies.
NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FIRE INVESTIGATION: NFPA 921.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST used specialists/contractors who were dependent on government contracts or on the official story itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This second report done by NIST inorder to tie up the loose ends is a direct product of the Bush adminastration, with cabinet member Carlos Gutierrez’ name emblazoned on page one. Of course NIST itself is a government agency whos directors are also presidential appointees. Those relying on this report always fail to note the fact that the leaders of NIST’ WTC investigation were appointed directly by George W. Bush.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shankar Nair, was one of those “experts” on whom the government depended to support what turned out to be an ever-changing, but always flimsy, story. Not surprisingly, many of the contractors who contributed to the NIST investigation, like the company for which Nair works, just happen to depend on good relationships with the government in order to earn their living. Nair’s company, Teng & Associates, boasts of Indefinite Quantity Contracts, long-term relationships with federal government agencies, and federal projects worth in excess of $40 million.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Others who worked so hard to maintain the official story included Gene Corley, a concrete construction expert listed by the National Directory of Expert Witnesses as a source for litigation testimony. Corley was more than just a witness, however. He had led the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and then was asked to lead the initial ASCE investigation into the WTC disaster.Corley himself ended up being a very versatile resource, however, providing testimony supporting the pre-determined conclusions many times, and even posing as a reporter during an NIST media session.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another expert who served on NIST’s advisory committee was Charles Thornton, of the engineering firm Thornton and Tomasetti. Thornton’s partner, Richard Tomasetti, was reported to be behind the unprecedented and widely criticized decision to destroy most of the steel evidence.11Early on Thornton said: “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” He was talking to Karl Koch, whose company erected the WTC steel. Also see James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center (New York: Times Books, 2003), 330.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again obvious and unprecedented suppression and distortion of scientific analysis for political and economic reasons.
Although the authors of the official reports are very similar, the collapse explanations offered by the reports are quite different. Corley and Thornton-Tomasetti were also involved in the Weidlinger study, released in October, 2002, just five months after FEMA’s. That study, commissed by Silverstein for his insurance claim, exclusively blames column failure for the collapses. It thus stands in stark contrast to the FEMA Report, whose pancake theory blames floor truss failures. Why would the same individuals endorse two contradictory theories in their different roles? Apparently for political and economic reasons. The fact that failures of truss supports could indicate a design fault, and therefore fail to support the “two occurrances” claimed by Silverstein. That is why clearly implausible aspects of the column failure theory required the invention of the more sophisticated and truss-failure theory to sell the collapse theory.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The same principals headed the various government investigations of the WTC collapses, the Pentagon crash, and Oklahoma City bombing, despite the fact that the investigations involved assessments of entirely different kinds of structures inflicted with different kinds of damage. Why do the same five or so individuals turn up in investigations relating to terrorist attack, when, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), there are 1.5 million engineers in the US? The authors of the official report on the Murrah Federal Building—Gene Corley, Charles Thornton, Paul Mlaker, and Mete Sozeny—were all among the initial team of the ASCE WTC investigation. Several of these individuals have strong connections to industries that benefited from the attack, such as armaments makers and oil and gas producers!!!!!!!!
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will you please point out to me where he has shown to have an economic/political/ideological agenda and what his agenda is other than to look at “ALL” the evidence for it is not clear to me.
Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
Be brave enough to be honest and not a hypocrite!!!!!!
NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FIRE INVESTIGATION: NFPA 921.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST used specialists/contractors who were dependent on government contracts or on the official story itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have seen no economic/political/ideological agenda from Steven Jones other than to look at “ALL” the evidence no matter where it leads and what it will show!!!!!
But if he does than I will toss Jones from the growing list of scientist who are exposing the lie and I expect you to do the same of any and all scientist who may have an agenda, political ties or conflicts of interest!!! Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
You said:
* Has no expertise in engineering, structural or fire.
He is NOT talking about structural engineering!!! He is talking about physics and the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum—-one of the foundational Laws of Physics!!! That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors—-and intact steel support columns—-the fall must be significantly impeded [i.e. slowed down] by the impacted mass!!! Duh!!!
He also is talking about the evidence that has been ignored!!!!!
NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FIRE INVESTIGATION: NFPA 921.
Sec 12-4: Unusual residues ...could arise from thermite, magnesium or other pyrotechnic materials!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST report does not mention FEMA’s puzzling sulfur residue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This evidence is exactly in the area of his expertise for he has done more study and research in metallurgy wich is in relation to this evidence (the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements) as a physicist/archaeometrist than he has to cold fusion/Muon-catalyzed fusion!!!!!!!!
As a matter of FACT the majority of the over 40 peer reviewed scientific papers that he has written are related to the evidence (dealing with the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements) NOT cold fusion or cool fusion or Muon-catalyzed fusion!!! Though he does end up combining the two (Muon-catalyzed fusion from the chemical behavior of metallic elements) but that is another subject.
You cannot find a more qualified expert in the scientific field related to this evidence IN THE WORLD!!!! Please look it up there is no one who has more experience or who has more published peer reviewed scientific papers in relation to this evidence as a physicist/archaeometrist who has been dealing with the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements IN THE WORLD!!!!
It was actually through his study and research in this field that he got into cold fusion/Muon-catalyzed fusion!!!!!!! And guess what because of government propaganda and the purposeful suppression of this science no one belived him then either!!!!!
I have been reading his papers and what he has discoverd is huge!!! Its bigger than 9/11!!!! It will change the world!!!! Please, please read his papers!!!!! What he has discovered will ruin the energy oil empire and is a bigger threat to the elite than his research into 9/11!!!!! It will be a huge benefit to the world unless of course it was ever turned into a weapon.
What luck and what a huge coincidence that we have the the worlds leading expert…... can you imagine how enormous the odds are…......?
Natalie this guy really knows his stuff. While Jones was researching for Los Alamos departments on “Sonoluminescence” he even played around with something that might produce a method for achieving thermonuclear fusion…........!?! Not just cold/Muon-catalyzed fusion
Fusion reactions like those that occur in the Sun…............
Seems to indicate a temperature in excess of one megakelvin…........
Most likely a temperature of one gigakelvin…............
One thing is for sure he knows alot about hot stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can see why people find it hard to belive.
.....measurements of TRITIUM consistent with fusion…....?
Thats exactly what Jones points out in the elevated Tritium values measured in the WTC area but not elsewhere in New York in his thermite/thermate hypothesis. So see he has experience with this exact same effect.
........ionized oxygen, sulfur monoxide are present…...plasma…....causing an intergranular attack…...easily reaching eutectic temperatures…....?
Wow the work he did for the U.S. Department of Energy (what Im able to see anyway) is EXACTLY what he is finding now except now it would be caused by thermite/thermate instead of thermonuclear fusion not that it was his main focus but he did play around with the idea!!!!
So tell me who could be more qualified to examine this evidence than someone who has studied something that causes the EXACT same effects!!??!!
But I should mention that his thermite/thermate evidence might be used aginst him because it is possible with some kinds of plasma to leave a sulfur residue after causing the same kind of effects to steel like what was found by FEMA. I know there are plasma cutters but Im not sure if they have the same kind of (ionized gas) plasma. But it could be that they do so that might explain what FEMA found. But you would have to run the plasma cutter up and down the full length of the beam and I cant see why anyone would do that.
I know Im getting off subject but about Jones discovery that will ruin the energy oil empire and is a bigger threat to the elite than his research into 9/11!!!!! I dont mean that it by itself will do it but with the other technology that’s been around for long, time it will.
OIL IS OBSOLETE - WAKE UP - YOU’VE BEEN LIED TO, AGAIN!
http://www.waterfuelcell.org/
You said:
* He has been caught distorting the color and resolution of photographs contained in his paper,
If you cannot refute any of his specific claims with any specific evidence then you are very uncredible as a source of information. Stick to the facts, even of you have to take time to learn them first.
Why dont you go to Journal of 9/11 Studies and look!!! He has added so much more evidence to support his hypothesis that it has become total overkill for the government myth!!!!!! Look at the NEW witnesses who are rescue workers and firefighters that came forward to verify his photos and gave him some new ones. All the first responders have come forward flooding Jones with so much evidence that he can barely keep up with it all and is having to update his site every week just to show a small portion of the vast amount of evidence he has been receiving EVERY DAY from police officers, firefighters, steel workers and all the other first responders.
Of course thats not counting all the updates from experiments that he has been doing!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14789146/
“We next enter a room containing a form that’s difficult to describe. In any other museum, it could be passed off as a meteorite. And while this was born of intense heat, this is altogether different. This formation is really four separate stories of the World Trade Center, compressed, compacted, incinerated… exposed to temperatures as hot as the inner earth.”
“Here is the meteorite - molten iron fused with concrete.”
You can watch a small video clip of the ‘meteorite’ here.
Game over for the government myth!!!!!!!!!!!
The American welding Society says and shows you cant get aluminum to glow orange/red/yellow any color but silver!!!!!!!! And dont forget NIST now agrees!!!!!!!!!!!!
This video shows a firefighter describing molten metal flowing at ground zero, and says it was like a “foundry”.
You said:
apparently for purposes of being able to then mischaracterize the photographs.
Number one we know it is NOT Aluminum!!!!!!!!!
We know it was glowing red/orange hot and that is was positively metal.
whether it was steel or whatever other metal is really a moot point, fact remains that there is no way ANY metal would be glowing red hot for days because of a carbon based fire PERIOD.
Obviously to anyone not delusional, Aluminum can not possibly stay molten for weeks as any child knows it cools off extremely quick and it does not glow orange/red in daylight.
There is no possible way that office fires fueled by fire retardant furniture various office supplies and Kerosene could even remotely get to any 3000 degrees F, that is complete bulls**t.
Carbon based fires can not attain over 1800 degrees F MAX and that is WITH force fed oxygen at just the right amounts which obviously did not happen here, these fires were clearly oxygen starved and mostly extinguished from the 1000s of gallons of water dumped on it from the sprinkler system as can be seen without any doubt by the thick black smoke, soot.
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/wp_wtc4.jpg
Even NIST report admitted they found no evidence the fires reached much over 600 degrees C, not to mention they only burned for less than an hour.
So burning that short a duration it really would not have mattered even IF the fires reached OVER 3000 F.
Fire temp does not translate to STEEL TEMP by any stretch of the imagination.
500 Tons of thick construction grade steel all interconnected is a huge heat sink/radiator means the steel would dissipate heat very well.
In order for ANY fire to produce molten steel that remains molten for weeks it would have to be well in excess of 4000 degrees F AND have a catalyst to keep the heat generating, that catalyst is obviously Thermate.
In 1975 the WTC had a fire that burned MUCH longer (over 3 hours)and MUCH hotter that started on the 11th floor, spread down to the 9th and up to the 19th!!!!!!!!!!!!
The reason that fire burned longer and hotter is because at the time WTC had no sprinkler system and it started in the middle of the night. It burned at least 65% of the 11th floor.
There was ZERO structural damage to the building, no trusses or anything else steel wise needed to be replaced and this was with a fire that burned hotter as was seen by fire fighters as most all the windows on the 11th floor BLEW OUT which means the fire attained at least 1300 degrees F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On 9/11 this did not happen thus the fire never reached 1300 F.
The 1975 fire also burned 3X longer, there was no water to slow it down or put it out and no fire stopper material in several gaps around the areas all the buildings cables ran through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On 9/11/01 there was a sprinkler system, improved insulation, fire proofing material filling those gaps and even the office furniture itself was more fire retardant and the fires did not burn hot enough to break any windows and burned less than an hour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We also know that 1000s of gallons of water was dumped on the fire, when water hits fire it vaporizes, the volume of water vapor is 1700 times greater than liquid water thus for every 1 gallon of water 1700 gals of vapor was created to displace oxygen, this creates soot and even the soot itself displaces oxygen and helps put the fire out.
This is “Empirical Evidence” and irrefutable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is real evidence and there’s mounds of it. They did a sloppy job and they’re going to get crucified for it, because people will stop believing in fairy tale bulls**t.
Another source for this is the book Aftermath, which is a big officially sanctioned book of pictures of the cleanup. it talks about the workers pulling out a beam from the pile and then having the pile explode with ash and dust from below because of the oxygen that seeped in. In other words, what you had was pockets of molten steel that were smoldering there with no need for oxygen since the metal was already melted by thermite which even works underwater, fyi, since it is a self sustaining reaction (the oxygen is provided by the iron-oxide) When air was let in by pulling a beam out the oxygen in the air would ignite from the extreme temperature suddenly exposed to it. Kind of like when you blow or use a bellows on a log that is glowing orange and make a flame appear.
Also in that book you see that when they cut the steel as part of the clean up, they used regular little torches, NOT thermite to cut it!!!!
Steel is made from iron, and iron melts at 2500 degrees fahrenheit. Aluminum on the other hand, melts at 1200. At this temperature aluminum is silvery. You can hear the firefighters comparing the metal to lava, which is red hot, like molten steel, not molten aluminum.
It’s funny you talk about our “theories”. What do you have on your side? Not even a theory. None of you shills can point to anyone, engineer, physicist—anyone—who can explain how your version of the collapse is possible. You all, without exception, say something like—the collapse began and nothing could stop it. You never bother to explain why nothing could stop it, because you can’t. What would have stopped the collapse is the enitre undamaged structure under the collapsing top. But you use faith based science to explain away the presence of the massive undamaged core that somehow self-destructed under an amount of weight that it had borne with no problem for almost 40 years.
You falsely claim that the red hot liquid metal could be aluminum. you try to explain away multiple witnesses testimony to explosions going off all over the towers including the basements. You ignore completely the fact that a 300 ton set of beams from the outer structure of the north tower was flung almost 400 feet—that’s farther than a football field, to embed itself in the AmEx building across the way with only gravity propelling it.
In other words, nothing about your story makes sense, and given the fact that building 7 ALSO collapsed, when no plane ever hit it, you would have us swallow a VERY tall tale. You are the one who is grasping at straws so as to prevent people from becoming informed about the obvious fallacies in the official explanation of the collapses, or in the case of building 7, the ABSENCE of an official explanation.
Just how long do you think you can keep these facts a secret? Everybody outside America knows, and more Americans are finfing out each day. Why do you persist in hanging on to a discredited and quite frankly abhorrent lie about the cause of the death of over 2000 of your fellow human beings? What possesses you to do that, day in day out?
You said:
* He has manipulated quotes and misrepresented attitudes of others in his paper.
Please list examples!!!!!!!!!!!! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!! He just publishes what he finds, how is that anything but honest? If you cannot refute any of his specific claims with any specific evidence then you are very uncredible as a source of information!!!!!!!!!!! Again I say SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!
You say:
* He has cited holocaust revisionists/deniers in his paper. (That’s what the ADL should really be concerned about, and perhaps that was a factor taken into account by BYU. Is Jones really this naive about the nature of his sources, or is he of a like mind?)
Notice what a rascist hypocrite you are!!!!!!
In your opinion anyone who “Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.” are not considered credible!!!!!!
Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!!
The anti-semetic charge is hollow and callus in the case of Jones, and
you know it. HOW DARE YOU suggest Jones is anti-semitic, in fact people need to
start filing libel suits against hypocrites like yourself and pathetic sniveling little worms like the ADL for it’s constant mudsligning at anyone about anything with the charge of anti-semitism.
Dr. Jones will not be surpressed by a bunch hypocrticical governmental minions like you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the majority of his research and papers look at the people he chose to team up with, JEWS!
Since you can’t win on facts your going to try the desperate anti-semitism route!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WITH LIES LIKE:
Jones is a holocaust denier (which then becomes jones refers to a holocaust denier, which then becomes he referenced a holocaust denier)
Here’s what the article said:
A particularly interesting 9-11 Denier is Rick Rajter. Rajter is a student member of the “Scholars” for 9-11 Denial. He is cited in a new paper (PDF file, see Page 24) by Professor Stephen Jones, as being in the process of preparing a rebuttal of 9-11 Myths. He has also collaborated with “Scholar” full member Morgan Reynolds on Reynold’s website.
AND OF COURSE HE HAS NO FACTS ABOUT THE PROFESSORS RESEARCH, JUST SLANDEROUS ACCUSTIONS PROMOTED BY GOVERNMENT SHILLS, GEE, HOW ORIGINAL, HAVEN’T SEEN THIS TRASH BEFORE, EXCEPT ON…...............................
FOX NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is so obvious that since you can’t win on facts you have to try the desperate anti-semitism route even though you are a rascist hypocrite yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do you feel about the Bush family considering it was Prescott Bush who, through Brown brothers Harrimen, was principle financier of Hitler and his war machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RESEARCH the congressional archives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Prescott Bush DEFINETLY fuded Hitler:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/06/1616437.php
http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/bushfamilyfunde
Someone should call the ADL on all the holocaust finance deniers!!!!!!!!
Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!!
Resources to deal with Natalies racist agenda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-brkmfrxrQY&eurl=http://www.infow…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gct84oE5DEE
http://www.supportthetruth.com/fullAudio/028mcLambZion.mp3
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
You said:
He has included politically tinged rants by discredited individuals such as Kevin Ryan, which obviously have no place in a science paper.
First of all Kevin Ryan was proven correct and it was because of the evidence that he (a brave whistle-blower and Patriot) exposed over two years ago that NIST had to drop thier ridiculously absurd and impossible pancake bulls**t!!!!!!!!
They said:
“What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel. . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts.” Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory.”
Kevin Ryan said:
We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors at 2000 F. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
September 2001 Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 2003 Kevin Ryan asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he (Loring Knoblauch) responded in December confirming details.
Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, said in writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
Kevin Ryan said:
As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I’m aware of UL’s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.
They said:
“All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing”...NIST, p. 143
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.”... NIST, p. 143
Kevin Ryan said:
The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team’s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to “rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse”. The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
They said:
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.”.... NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.”... NIST, p. 181
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires=590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat
Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At that time Kevin Ryan’s letter was arguing against the Pancake theory because of physical tests that he was aware of and now 2 years later NIST says thier pancake theory has been disproven by physical tests.
THE SAME PHYSICAL TESTS Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about over two years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ha!! So there it is Kevin Ryan brought NIST to its knees!!! Either he was far more intelligent than NIST or they were just playing/acting stupid and therefore lying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wich ever one it is it does not look good for NIST.
You said:
His paper has undergone almost weekly revisions, something that shouldn’t have to be done if one has a plausible hypothesis.
The only revisions he has made is just adding more and more evidence that supports his hypothesis!!!!!!!!! He has gone much further in proving his hypothesis than is needed and it is overkill I admit.
He has not gone this far to prove his hypothesis on any of the over 40 peer reviewed scientific papers he has done!!!!!!!!!! This is total OVERKILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The government myth is dead!!!!!!
You said:
He has been unable to get his paper published in any relevant journal, something BYU has been concerned about from the start.
You said:
Even worse, he tries to pretend he has, by creating his own panel of peers and creating his own journal. Unfortunately, the panel is not composed of relevant experts, and the journal is solely devoted to 9/11 propaganda. I’m sure this situation was on the agenda of the review board, before they aborted the review.
As much as they dont want to let his research get out…......
Well let me just say I have some bad news for you and GREAT NEWS for the rest of the world Dr. Jones paper is on the way to being published for a 3rd time!!!!!!!!!!!! I will not give out the name and details so government shills like you wont try to apply pressure and stop it from happening.
By they way even though it has only been published 2 times it has undergone 4 sets of peer reviews and only one of those was by the Journal of 9/11 Studies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 was because of BYU and 1 of those should never of had to been done
and the fact that it was shows IMO that BYU was dissloyal to one of their professors and long-term colleague. I understand BYU being afraid but damn to say they needed another set of peer review is the same as saying we can’t trust any of our own staff and colleagues to be able to properly peer review a paper!!!!!
Then you bring up D. Allan Firmage who is arguing against NIST!!!!!!!!!!!
D. Allan Firmage Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU, said:
“The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube.”
That leaves out the steel core!!!! It was the core that supported the load. One “could cut away all the FIRST story columns on one side of the building, and partway from the corners of the perpendicular sides, and the building could still withstand design live loads and a 100 mph wind from any direction.” That is because of the massive redundant steel CORE!!!! That D. Allan Firmage happens to leave out!!!!!!!!!
D. Allan Firmage, said:
“When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires.”
For the perimeter columns ... “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”
NIST admits that only a small percentage of columns were severed: 14% in WTC 1 and 15% WTC 2. This is nowhere near the the number of columns that the designers claimed could have been removed without causing a problem.
NIST admits that the web of steel formed by interlocking perimeter columns and spandrel plates were efficient at redistributing loads around the impact punctures. It estimates that loads on some columns increased by up to 35% while loads on other columns decreased by 20%. The increased loads are nowhere near those the designers claimed the columns could handle: increases of 2000% above the design live loads.
Also the buildings were designed to withstand a plane impact and they were confident that it could withstand not just one but multiple plane crashes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the design engineers had contemplated jetliner crashes by a jet with a larger fuel load than what was on 9/11 and the fires that would result!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lead engineer John Skilling said in 1993, five years before his death:
“our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there.”
—City in the Sky
D. Allan Firmage, said:
The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.
But what makes him think the steel got any where near that temp.?
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.”.... NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.”... NIST, p. 181
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires=590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat
Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is the part where he totaly reveals NIST’s new myth as bulls**t!!!!
D. Allan Firmage, said:
Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.
They dont do that with any fire they use a blow tourch and apply directed heat hence “spot heating”!
But for his sake we will pretend that the steel temp. was able to get that high and lets see what happens.
Now all you shills would use this part of his letter to support the pancake crap because for it to work (the pancake collapse) the hangers holding the floor had to give way so the floor would fall on the next and so on.
It has been shoved in my face for years now that the hangers were much weaker than the floors ect. So the tests about the floors did not matter because the pancake collapse started because the hangers (the weakest link) had given out causing the entire and still intact floor to fall.
Now NIST is saying that the hangers are so strong that the supposedly sagging floors are pulling the perimeter columns in causing them to buckle and then initiating the total collapse of the buildings.
But the steel used in the perimeter columns was super-strong steel: much of it rated to 1,000,000 PSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So how is the weakest link suppose to be strong enough to:
#1 manage to resist bending and warping from this same high heat that caused the floors to warp and sag enough to pull the columns in?
#2 Not give before the much stronger perimeter columns made out of 1,000,000 PSI super-strong steel does?
NIST still has not explained this incredible feat done by the weakest link of the WTC.
Cont….
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 27, 2006 at 5:55 PM
Sorry guys Im just trying to see if I can get all the links that disappeared from the above post to…Well appear.
It did not work at all. I wonder were they all go?
Ok. I found A few of them. I’ll try to figure it out for the rest. Sorry for the mess.
Even though many links did not appear and many of my words are gone as well it is still readable and gets the basic points across.
I have noticed that if I remove some of the links then some of the words that did not show up reappear.?.
Posted by honestjoe on Nov 27, 2006 at 6:28 PM
Natalie
Cont…
So as you can see D. Allan Firmage points out that if the floor trusses did slump and fail….. the clips (hangers) holding the trusses to the vertical exterior and core columns would have failed long before they mustered enough strength to pull the steel box columns anywhere near far enough to buckle…
Not just buckle…. but to simultaniously and symmetrically fail…. no matter how hot these fires were.
The thickness of these clips were nowhere near that of the columns…. and if these columns were so affected by the intense fires…. then the truss clips were experiencing the same conditions.
you can not tell me that the coulmns wer superheated… the trusses were super heated…. but the clips holding the floor trusses to the coulmns were in a safe environment.
The reason NIST changed their story to this new one is (besides the other obvious flaws) because they realized that if the floors pancaked like they had said the CORE would still be there. So they had to come up with a way that the core would be pulled down! Without explosives!
The clips (Hangers) that held the floor trusses were designed solely for that… to hold up the floors….. not to handle any of the structural issues of the exterior columns or the interior core columns…. there were other structural members built into the framework to handle those stresses….. there were additional beams joining the exterior to the core where needed.
The floor trusses were supported by angle clips which had a sole purpose of supporting those trusses….you could remove the floor trusses and not see any major effect on the structural calculations…
note: floor trusses are vastly different from the Hat Trusses.
Natalie you the use J. G. Quintiere, , a, M. di Marzoa and R. Beckerb suggested cause of the fire-induced collapse of the World Trade Towers.
J. G. Quintiere said:
A structural failure model is described based on compression buckling of the truss rods.
This has been proven to be false!!!!!!!!!!!! BY NIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They said:
“All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing”...NIST, p. 143
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
In the Fire Endurance Testing of the WTC Floor System they admit that they in all cases used half or less the amount of fireproofing that was used in the WTC on the floors that were impacted by fire!!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse.
So we all agree including NIST that the truss rods or floors did not fail but remember NIST still said it was a pancake collapse for over 2 years by claiming that the floors did not need to fail because the much weaker and much less thick clips (hangers) holding the trusses to the vertical exterior and core columns had failed initiating the pancake collapse.
But the reason NIST changed their story to this new one is (besides the other obvious flaws) because they realized that if the floors pancaked like they had said the CORE would still be there. So they had to come up with a way that the core would be pulled down! Without explosives!
But we will just forget all that evidence that exposes the LIE and move on to the other huge flaw that is pointed out by J. G. Quintiere.
J. G. Quintiere said:
has been computed as 105±20 min for WTC 1 (north) and 51±9 min for WTC 2 (south), compared to the collapse times from the aircraft impact of 104 and 56 min, respectively. The insulation thickness and the difference of 19.1 mm and 38.1 mm between the two towers appear to have been the root cause of the collapses.
So as you see what he and D. Allan Firmage points out is that the thickness of these (not the insulation because NIST tested with much less or in some cases without any but the steel) clips were nowhere near that of the columns…. and if these columns were so affected by the intense fires…. then the truss clips were experiencing the same conditions.
you can not tell me that the coulmns wer superheated… the trusses were super heated…. but the clips holding the floor trusses to the coulmns were in a safe environment.
If the floor trusses did slump and fail….. the clips (hangers) holding the trusses to the vertical exterior and core columns would have failed long before they mustered enough strength to pull the steel box columns anywhere near far enough to buckle…
Not just buckle…. but to simultaniously and symmetrically fail??!!??!!??!!
Natalie you had questions about Sibel Edmonds and what she belives.
*Good* translators, especially the type that picks up multiple languages very quickly, do have much more in their brains than just the ability to map turkish words to english ones, and combine them into sentences that make sense.
These people are bordering to be geniuses They need to pick up context quickly, they need to memorize fast and much.
But Sibel Edmonds, by all accounts, is special even amongst the breed of good multi-language translators. Just look at her history, and what she had to put up with. Look at how she handles public appearances. She’s unique. A great personality.
Can’t you imagine that she….
...a) learned even more about all that stuff *after* she was fired, because she was (confidentially) contacted by other people “in the know”
...b) learned even more about all that stuff *after* she was fired, because she on her own knows how to use a library, a computer, the Internet, Google, and research techniques?
She’s gagged—and look what she still is able to come out with, working around the gag orders. Look at all the activities she initiates with NSWBC!!!!!!!!
NOW READ HER RESPONSE TO A LETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for your support; kind words.
I usually don’t respond to inquiries via e-mail; I don’t grant interviews in writing either.
However,
Quote #1- Accurate: “once this issue [9/11] gets to be…investigated, you will be seeing certain [American] people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally”
Quote#2- Accurate: “There is direct evidence involving no more than ten American names that I recognized”
Have a nice holiday
Reader Comments
Hey, scorp,
Didn’t see your post there before I did my last one.
I like the tie-in with Horse to a joke! He’s a joke that even…....he doesn’t….......get? Remind you of anyone? Two word clue: John. Kerry.
Two word clue, psikeyhackr:
Evi
dense
Spellcheck…..clean up on page 16!
Well Scorpy at least you could spell psikeyhackrs name correctly….
Still making excuses for your fellow troll nata-lie…..
With all the ” foot shootin’ ” going on with the republicans…now a big time republican evangelist minister has declared that ; yes, he bought the meth…but didn’t smoke it…and only contacted the dealer( a gay male escort whore) ,for a MASSAGE….ok…...
One can never tell what is going on with yu extremist types…....
How come all your top personalities have serious personality disorders, that have something to do with closeted homosexual behavior…children…and drugs….?
Scorpy…yu have nothing too gloat about , your boys are imploding….
Apparently you and yours is the joke…you’re all a bunch of under-cover drug using homosexuals…..
Not that there’s anything wrong with that…...
And Natalie…what a bitch…two trolling meth -heads for the entertainment value only they as faithful neo-con fascist could or would want to know….
What perverted realities lurk in the vast darkness of the neo-cons psychotic sexual mindset…
Feasting off of each others droppings .wallowing in the fallaciousness of their own fecal mismanaged agendas…not yet coming too realize….how disgusting they are…..........ugh.
ps…Sorry Natalie…my apologizes…Redhorse forgot your drug of preference is depleted Uranium dust…..
In the olden days when Immortals
To earth came visibly down,
There went a youth with an Angel
Through the gate of an Eastern town;
They passed a dog by the roadside,
Where dead and rotting it lay,
And the youth, at the ghastly odour,
Sickened and turned away.
He gathered his robes about him,
And hastily hurried thence;
But nought annoyed the Angel’s
Clear, pure,immortal sense.
.....................................................................
By came a lady , lip luscious,
On delicate, mincing feet;
All the place grew glad with her presence,
All the air about her sweet ;
For she came in fragrance floating,
And her voice most silverly rang ;
And the youth, to embrace her beauty ,
With all his being sprang.
A sweet, delightsome lady ;
And yet , the Legend saith,
The Angel , while he passed her,
Shuddered and held his breath !
Gerald Massey…originally Circa 1900…...
mmmmmm…....depleted uranium dust
yummy!!
I think psycho-hacker’s stuck back on pg. 15.
Hi guys and gals.
Ive been gone a few days and I see I missed out but not of anything much.
psikeyhackr
If you are interested in the WTC towers here is just a short list I have put together over the last 5 years. I hope this will help. No you will not find much in the NIST report that should be there and yes there is much that is just junk that really does not need to be in the report.
“First tenant occupancy of the 110-story north tower (WTC 1) was in December 1970, and occupancy of the 110-story south tower (WTC 2) began in January 1972. The other WTC buildings were constructed during the 1970s and into the 1980s, with WTC 7 constructed just north of the WTC site in 1985. WTC 3, located immediately west of the south tower, was a 22-story hotel operated by the Marriott Corporation. WTC 4 and 5 were nine-story office buildings, and WTC 6 was an eight-story office building. WTC 7 was a 47- story office building. The seven-building complex provided approximately 12 million square feet of rentable floor space occupied by a variety of government and commercial tenants”
“Height: 1,368 and 1,362 feet (417 and 415 meters)
Owners: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
(99 year leased signed in April 2001 to groups including Westfield America and Silverstein Properties)
Architect: Minoru Yamasaki, Emery Roth and Sons consulting
Engineer: John Skilling and Leslie Robertson of Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson
Ground Breaking: August 5, 1966
Opened: 1970-73; April 4, 1973 ribbon cutting
Destroyed: Terrorist attack, September 11, 2001”
“There is no question that an important, yet overlooked, hero of 9/11, was the structural redundancy built into the framing of the Twin Towers,” says Schuring. “Structural redundancy means there are multiple load paths to sustain the building weight. This redundancy provided precious time for thousands of workers to escape. And although it’s not technically feasible to design a skyscraper to be invulnerable from impact by fully fueled jetliners, as design professionals we must develop improved details and systems that provide ever-greater protection against progressive collapse such as what occurred at the WTC site”
“On September 13, 2001, the cover of the New Civil Engineer in the UK consisted of a picture 1 WTC during its collapse with a single word written across it: “unthinkable”. “Just hours earlier, it had been genuinely inconceivable that structures of such magnitude could succumb to this fate.”
“Leslie E. Robertson, the lead structural engineer on the team that designed the towers, wrote that “The events of September 11 are not well understood by me . . . and perhaps cannot really be understood by anyone.” As NIST would also conclude”
“It was estimated by the Port Authority that the population of the WTC complex on September 11, 2001, was 58,000 people. “
“It was assumed in the 1960s design analysis for the WTC towers that an aircraft, lost in fog and seeking to land at a nearby airport, like the B-25 Mitchell bomber that struck the Empire State Building on July 28, 1945, might strike a WTC tower while low on fuel and at landing speeds.”
“Boeing 707 considered by the designers, weighed 263,000 pounds and the Boeing 767s that hit the towers weighed about 274,000 pounds. This is a difference of 4%. ...Incidently, the maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 707 is 336,000 pounds. The maximum takeoff weight for a Boeing 767-200ER is 395,000 pounds.”
“1,000,000 t of rubble will require 20,000 to 30,000 truckloads to haul away the material. The asbestos fire insulation makes the task hazardous for those working nearby. Interestingly, the approximately 300,000 t of steel is fully recyclable and represents only one day’s production of the U.S. steel industry. Separation of the stone and concrete is a common matter for modern steel shredders. The land-filling of 700,000 t of concrete and stone rubble is more problematic. “
In the upper floors there is as much as 40,000 square feet of office space per floor. The floor construction is of prefabricated trussed steel, only 33 inches in depth, that spans the full 60 feet to the core, and also acts as a diaphragm to stiffen the outside wall against lateral buckling forces from wind-load pressures.”
“To a structural engineer, a skyscraper is modeled as a large cantilever vertical column. Each tower was 64 m square, standing 411 m above street level and 21 m below grade. This produces a height-to-width ratio of 6.8. The total weight of the structure was roughly 500,000 t, but wind load, rather than the gravity load, dominated the design. The building is a huge sail that must resist a 225 km/h hurricane. It was designed to resist a wind load of 2 kPa—-a total of lateral load of 5,000 t.”
And so you can reach a fare opinion your self I have a small list from both sides, well mostly from the supporters of the government myth for they need all the help they can get. Though Natalie is doing all she can to support the LIE but she could do better if she came up with an explanation for building seven.
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation
Published in JOM by Thomas Eagar and Christopher Musso, 2001
Feature: Special Report
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/...Eagar-0112.html
An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7
Published in JOM by J.R. Barnett, R.R. Biederman, and R.D. Sisson, Jr., 2001
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/...erman-0112.html
Another site I frequented:
http://www.iti.northwestern.edu/research/wtc/index.html
Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapse_of_t…ld_Trade_Center
World Trade Center - Some Engineering Aspects - Civil Engineering - The University of Sydney [info about the WTC’s]:
http://www.civil.usyd.edu.au/wtc.shtml
911 Research:
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian/WTC/WTC_ch1.htm
New Jersey Institute of Technology Civil Engineering Professor Details How the Towers Collapsed; the Impact of 9/11 on Civil Engineers, Professors, Students:
http://www.njit.edu/v2/News/Releases/254.html
psikeyhackr it is very important to know the exact details such as the amount of steel and ect..
Lord Kelvin:
“I often say . . . that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
Natalie
Thank you for your response.
You said:
Some people in and out of government speculated early on that steel in the towers may have melted.
I just read again their reports and watched and read again their interviews and watched the videos that went step by step with their reports. They are not speculating they are saying it as a fact that the jet fuel was so hot it melted the steel—-like rubber or chewing gum and ect.. Some much worse!
I strongly suggest that you try doing that and I would be amazed if you were not angry at the insult to the American peoples intelligence. It made me so upset that it brought me to tears. Please Natalie try it so you can be reminded of the lies. Please, please so you can see all of the early lies such as the construction of the WTC buildings and ect..
Those lies have still infected the minds of some people to this day! Didnt you just one week ago reference to an article that was based on lies, omissions and distortions?
It’s easy to see how—they say at the outset that their analysis is based on an assumption—that the temperature of the steel “apparently” reached 800 degrees celsius, or 1472 degrees fahrenheit, meaning the steel would have been red hot. A jet fuel fire burning in open air as in the towers would only reach a maximum of 1200 degrees fahrenheit, and we know from photos taken of the impact zone that people were walking around inside the very area where the fires are supposed to have been raging so fiercely that Bazant and Zhou believe the steel could have been raised to red hot temperatures. No serious scientist is still quoting that nonsensical paper that they put out two days after the collapses, and why you would not know this is beyond me. Try again, And please don’t try to seize the moral high ground—you are either incredibly ignorant or intentionally trying to deceive readers of this thread with reference to discredited work.
Re Prof. Bazant’s paper, this line from the bottom of page 3 sure gives one a lot of confidence - not!
“Therefore, no further analysis has been necessary to prove that the WTC towers had to fall the way they did.”
I watched his latest video with Bazant trying to explain his bulls**t how can you not see what a joke this guiy is?
You are so confused. Look at this clown, half way through he admits he had to make up his data because he didn’t have the actual figures.
Did you even listen to this clown? This is the OFFICIAL representation?
Hilarious!
Ha! This guy totally debunks his own story.
Shows a slide, written ON THE SLIDE. Says building collapsed in 9 seconds (uh-oh, I thought the debunkers debunked that- now what?)
The official story disregards physics. What do you think about that??
In the above links you will see the quotes used just as I had or Jones and ect.. But they are being used by the supporters of the government myth. They used them before I or Jones and ect had used them and they used them in the same way. Such as this:
“One demolition expert on the day of the collapse said it looked like implosion but this is not very strong evidence. Implosion firstly requires a lot of explosives placed in strategic areas all around the building. When and how was this explosive placed in the building without anyone knowing about it. Second, implosion required more than just explosives. Demolition experts spend weeks inside a derelict building planning an event. Many of the beams are cut through by about 90% so that the explosion only has to break a small bit of steel. In this state the building is highly dangerous, and there is no way such a prepared building could still be running day to day like WTC was.”
Natalie you will find that seven times the same quotes were used (before Jones even thought of looking into it like he was asked) by supporters of the government myth. Im sure the idea was to bring them up (the quotes) before anyone else did so they could excuse them with lame garbage.
You said:
If he stated that he thought there was a possibility, given the variety of materials and fire scenarios in the offices, that some degree of melting of some steel could possibly have occurred, then that would be a completely different matter.
Natalie what are you thinking? It is not able to happen at all and even NIST agrees!!!!!!!! Once again you are going against NIST and therefor the government myth. That is why their whole argument depends solely on the majority of fireproofing being removed so as to allow the now admited much cooler fires to affect the steel. But even with no fireproofing at all the fires still were not hot enough nor did they last long enough to affect the steel so as to cause symmetrical collapse. let alone the fact that the building acted like a giant heat sink. NIST canot and has not explained the steel that was found at all three WTC sites.
Yes I know about the latest hypothesis (another try) is this: oxygen tanks from planes somehow survived the plane crashes and the fireballs, yet leaked about an hour later to release the oxygen in the tanks. This relatively small amount of oxygen was somehow enough, to burn office materials such as to melt the structural steel in the building.
NIST would have gone with it to if so many people (true patriots) hadnt argued the high improbability of this ever happening! Greening has gone off the deep end trying to support the government myth as well for it cant be done a LIE is a LIE is a LIE!!! Besides it doesnt explain building 7. They are in deep with the admited low probability of the fire causing the collapse of the World Trade Centers and they know it.
it’s just like the magic bullet theory now we have the magically hot fires theory. They both go against the laws of science physics in particular.
Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war
Julian Borger
London Guardian
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Several prominent neoconservatives have turned on George Bush days before critical midterm elections, lambasting his administration for incompetence in the handling of the Iraq war and questioning the wisdom of the 2003 invasion they were instrumental in promoting.
Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, who were both Pentagon advisers before the war, Michael Rubin, a former senior official in the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, were among the neoconservatives who recanted to Vanity Fair magazine in an article that could influence Tuesday’s battle for the control of Congress. The Iraq war has been the dominant issue in the election.
“I think the influence will be on morale [among Republicans],” said Steven Clemons, the head of the American Strategy Programme at the New America Foundation. “I think they are confusing the right. What this is yielding is ambivalence, and people will stay at home.”
Mr Perle, a member of the influential Defence Policy Board that advised the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, in the run-up to the war, is as outspoken in denouncing the conduct of the war as he was once bullish on the invasion. He blamed “dysfunction” in the Bush administration for the present quagmire.
“The decisions did not get made that should have been. They didn’t get made in a timely fashion, and the differences were argued out endlessly,” Mr Perle told Vanity Fair, according to early excerpts of the article. “At the end of the day, you have to hold the president responsible.”
Asked if he would still have pushed for war knowing what he knows now, Mr Perle, a leading hawk in the Reagan administration, said: “I think if I had been delphic, and had seen where we are today, and people had said, ‘Should we go into Iraq?’, I think now I probably would have said, ‘No, let’s consider other strategies for dealing with the thing that concerns us most, which is Saddam supplying weapons of mass destruction to terrorists’.” The Bush administration admits it was mistaken in believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, but the president and other top officials maintain that Iraq is better off as a result of his removal.
An overwhelming majority of Americans, however, now believe the war was not worth the cost in blood and resources. The public rethink by top neocons comes at a time of rising violence, with the US death toll climbing steadily towards 3,000 and the United Nations estimating that many Iraqis may be being killed by the conflict each month.
Kenneth Adelman, another Reagan era hawk who sat on the Defence Policy Board until last year, drew attention with a 2002 commentary in the Washington Post predicting that liberating Iraq would be a “cakewalk”.
He now says he hugely overestimated the abilities of the Bush team. “I just presumed that what I considered to be the most competent national security team since Truman was indeed going to be competent,” Mr Adelman said.
“They turned out to be among the most incompetent teams in the postwar era. Not only did each of them, individually, have enormous flaws, but together they were deadly, dysfunctional.”
He too takes back his public urging for military action, in light of the administration’s performance. “I guess that’s what I would have said: that Bush’s arguments are absolutely right, but you know what, you just have to put them in the drawer marked ‘can’t do’. And that’s very different from ‘let’s go’.”
Mr Adelman, a senior Reagan adviser at cold war summits with Mikhail Gorbachev, expressed particular disappointment in Mr Rumsfeld, who he described as a particular friend. “I’m crushed by his performance,” he said. “Did he change, or were we wrong in the past? Or is it that he was never really challenged before? I don’t know. He certainly fooled me.”
Mr Adelman said the guiding principle behind neoconservatism, “the idea of using our power for moral good in the world”, had been killed off for a generation at least. After Iraq, he told Vanity Fair, “it’s not going to sell”.
Michael Rubin, who worked on the staff of the Pentagon’s office of special plans and the coalition provisional authority in Baghdad, accused Mr Bush of betraying Iraqi reformers.
The president’s actions, Mr Rubin said, had been “not much different from what his father did on February 15 1991, when he called the Iraqi people to rise up and then had second thoughts and didn’t do anything once they did”.
Mr Frum, who as a White House speechwriter helped coin the phrase “axis of evil” in 2002, said failure in Iraq might be inescapable, because “the insurgency has proven it can kill anyone who cooperates, and the United States and its friends have failed to prove that it can protect them”. The blame, Mr Frum said, lies with “failure at the centre”, beginning with the president.
Those neocon—-neo-Nazis are only following the game plan with their lies about blaming it all on Bush and his administration. It was always in the plans to have a long term conflict in Iraq as an excuse to maintain those huge bases. There was absolutely no incompetence for he did what he and his administration was supposed to and now he will take the blame it’s not like it is going to hurt him. it’ll just be the same old story Bush isn’t that bright and he just dropped ball on Iraq ect, ect..
It’s just a cover for the true powers in control who are using the willing idiot and scapegoat Bush.
I think the elites WANT democrats to win this election.
It will make people think they have “demanded change”, when democrats instead give us the status quo. The media will no doubt be falling all over telling the world how the “people have spoken” as the dems “take back” the house and/or senate.
Democrats winning will put lots of people back to sleep, thinking that they’ve “done all they can” and we’ll just have to “wait for congress to do something”.
In the next few weeks the phony left/right paradigm will be exploited in the media like you’ve never seen before. Then we will get nothing, not a peep, out of the democrats for the next two years and beyond!
New Documents Show U.S. War Game in 1999 Predicted Iraq Disaster
AP
Sunday, November 5, 2006
WASHINGTON The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue.
In its “Desert Crossing” games, 70 military, diplomatic and intelligence officials assumed the high troop levels would be needed to keep order, seal borders and take care of other security needs.
The documents came to light Saturday through a Freedom of Information Act request by the George Washington University’s National Security Archive, an independent research institute and library.
“The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops,” said Thomas Blanton, the archive’s director. “But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground.”
There are currently about 144,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, down from a peak of about 160,000 in January.
A spokeswoman for U.S. Central Command, which sponsored the seminar and declassified the secret report in 2004, declined to comment Saturday because she was not familiar with the documents.
The war games looked at “worst case” and “most likely” scenarios after a war that removed then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. Some are similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003:
—“A change in regimes does not guarantee stability,” the 1999 seminar briefings said. “A number of factors including aggressive neighbors, fragmentation along religious and/or ethnic lines, and chaos created by rival forces bidding for power could adversely affect regional stability.”
—“Even when civil order is restored and borders are secured, the replacement regime could be problematic - especially if perceived as weak, a puppet, or out-of-step with prevailing regional governments.”
—“Iran’s anti-Americanism could be enflamed by a U.S.-led intervention in Iraq,” the briefings read. “The influx of U.S. and other western forces into Iraq would exacerbate worries in Tehran, as would the installation of a pro-western government in Baghdad.”
—“The debate on post-Saddam Iraq also reveals the paucity of information about the potential and capabilities of the external Iraqi opposition groups. The lack of intelligence concerning their roles hampers U.S. policy development.”
—“Also, some participants believe that no Arab government will welcome the kind of lengthy U.S. presence that would be required to install and sustain a democratic government.”
—“A long-term, large-scale military intervention may be at odds with many coalition partners.”
Neocons Make Excuses for Mass Murder
In America, instead of facing justice, criminals from up high usually write memoirs, or become “elder statesmen,” and are interviewed, settling comfortably into the historical record, either oblivious to or proud of the swathe of blood and gore that enshrouds them.
For instance, take the neocons, who should be filling up the docket at the Hague for plotting and executing the invasion and occupation of Iraq—current death total, 650,000, with millions floundering in abject misery—but are instead allowed to walk free and talk freely with David Rose, Vanity Fair contributing editor.
Richard Perle, Michael Ledeen, Frank Gaffney, Kenneth Adelman, David Frum, Michael Rubin, Eliot Cohen—these comprise the very marrow of the neocon criminal camarilla. Rose interviews them as one would interview any petty bureaucrat (Adolf Eichmann comes to mind). Rose’s article, or the short preview here, casts the neocons as pentiti, the Italian word for those who have repented.
Well, sort of, as the sociopath rarely repents, but instead blames others, as the neocons blame Bush and his obsequious followers and lackluster appointees, all outside the neocon circle.
For instance, Richard Perle, long considered the Prince of Darkness (apologies to film director Tatsuo Sato), now tells us the “levels of brutality [in Iraq] that we’ve seen are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity.” In other words, according to Perle, once the civil underpinnings were pulled out from beneath Iraq—by way of depleted uranium-enhanced bunker buster and cruise missile—the result surprised even him, a seasoned psychopath, experienced dissembler, and traitor (as “an Israeli agent of influence” caught “discussing classified information with someone at the Israeli embassy” in 1970, according to Paul Findley).
“According to Perle, who left the Defense Policy Board in 2004, this unfolding catastrophe has a central cause: devastating dysfunction within the administration of President George W. Bush,” writes Rose, avoiding mention of Perle’s obvious conflict of interest with the Defense Policy Board, thus resulting in his resignation—according to ace investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, Perle had business dealings with Saudi investors and was linked to the intelligence-related computer firm Trireme Partners LLP, which Hersh claimed stood to profit from the war in Iraq. In other words, the more depravity and the longer the United States “stays the course,” the more cabbage for the Prince of Darkness.
Had Perle possessed “delphic” vision, he tells Rose, “he would not have advocated an invasion of Iraq.” Back in the day, when Perle was the “Study Group Leader” of the gang that crafted the “Clean Break” document, originally presented to the Likudite leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, a direct invasion of Iraq was not called for either, but it was certainly alluded to, and a couple years later, in an open letter to Clinton, Perle and clan declared the removal of Saddam Hussein “now needs to become the aim of American diplomacy.” Call it gunboat diplomacy, or maybe cruise missile diplomacy. Perle and the neocons were not asking for a polite tête-à-tête between Clinton and Hussein, resulting in a step-down for the dictator.
Naturally, when things went bad, as they invariably do when Goliath takes on David, the neocons turned on their impaired puppet, George Bush, who is essentially a drug and alcohol dilapidated mental wreck, a haphazardly chosen front man. It is perfectly within the malicious personality of the neocon to turn on a nominal and expendable leader when things get tough and do not go exactly as planned.
“Huge mistakes were made, and I want to be very clear on this: They were not made by neoconservatives, who had almost no voice in what happened, and certainly almost no voice in what happened after the downfall of the regime in Baghdad. I’m getting damn tired of being described as an architect of the war,” whines Perle, unable to accept his role in massive war crimes, a bloody attainment close to rivaling the crimes of the Nazis (all told, with Bush Senior and Bubba Clinton on the mass murder roster, more than 3 million Iraqis have died, and an incalculable number of others, mostly helpless children, will die horrible deaths for the indeterminable future as depleted uranium takes its ghastly toll).
For his participation, Perle should face a tribunal and then a firing squad—but then so should the traitor Bush, his old man, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Clinton, and the neocons numbered above.
Instead, they will be interviewed, courted, cajoled, paid handsomely by various franchises, and will likely never face justice.
In Pax Americana, that’s how the ball bounces, and long as it continues to bounce without aberration, the criminals will be treated as celebrities and “elder statesmen,” at large to write their extenuating memoirs, taking six figure advances while the children of Iraq suffer endless birth deformities (the half life of depleted uranium is 4.5 billion years).
4 Leading Military Papers: ‘Rumsfeld Must Go’
Editor & Publisher
Saturday, November 4, 2006
NEW YORK An editorial set to appear on Monday—election eve—in the four leading newspapers for the military calls for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
The papers are the Army Times, Air Force Times, Navy Times and Marine Corps Times. They are published by the Military Times Media Group, a subsidiary of Gannett Co., Inc. President Bush said this week that he wanted Rumsfeld to serve out the next two years.
“We say that Rumsfeld must be replaced,” Alex Neill, the managing editor of the Army Times, told The Virginian-Pilot Friday night. “Given the state of affairs with Iraq and the military right now, we think it’s a good time for new leadership there.”
The editorial was based on a decision of the publications’ editorial board, Neill told the paper.
The timing of the editorial was coincidental, Neill said.
But he added, “President Bush came out and said that Donald Rumsfeld is in for the duration … so it’s just a timely issue for us. And our position is that it is not the best course for the military” for Rumsfeld to remain the Pentagon chief.
Neill said he was uncertain how troops will react. “I think we’ll hear from both sides,” he said. “It will be interesting to find out if it swings significantly one way or the other.”
The Ross Report at the Web site of the San Francisco Chronicle posted the advance text of the editorial tonight, and this was cited by MSNBC. Andrew S. Ross is executive foreign and national editor of the paper. Here is the text, as posted, under the heading, “Time for Rumsfeld to go.”
*
“So long as our government requires the backing of an aroused and informed public opinion ... it is necessary to tell the hard bruising truth.”
That statement was written by Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Marguerite Higgins more than a half-century ago during the Korean War.
But until recently, the “hard bruising” truth about the Iraq war has been difficult to come by from leaders in Washington. One rosy reassurance after another has been handed down by President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld: “mission accomplished,” the insurgency is “in its last throes,” and “back off,” we know what we’re doing, are a few choice examples.
Military leaders generally toed the line, although a few retired generals eventually spoke out from the safety of the sidelines, inciting criticism equally from anti-war types, who thought they should have spoken out while still in uniform, and pro-war foes, who thought the generals should have kept their critiques behind closed doors.
Now, however, a new chorus of criticism is beginning to resonate. Active-duty military leaders are starting to voice misgivings about the war’s planning, execution and dimming prospects for success.
Army Gen. John Abizaid, chief of U.S. Central Command, told a Senate Armed Services Committee in September: “I believe that the sectarian violence is probably as bad as I’ve seen it ... and that if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil war.”
Last week, someone leaked to The New York Times a Central Command briefing slide showing an assessment that the civil conflict in Iraq now borders on “critical” and has been sliding toward “chaos” for most of the past year. The strategy in Iraq has been to train an Iraqi army and police force that could gradually take over for U.S. troops in providing for the security of their new government and their nation.
But despite the best efforts of American trainers, the problem of molding a viciously sectarian population into anything resembling a force for national unity has become a losing proposition.
For two years, American sergeants, captains and majors training the Iraqis have told their bosses that Iraqi troops have no sense of national identity, are only in it for the money, don’t show up for duty and cannot sustain themselves.
Meanwhile, colonels and generals have asked their bosses for more troops. Service chiefs have asked for more money.
And all along, Rumsfeld has assured us that things are well in hand.
Now, the president says he’ll stick with Rumsfeld for the balance of his term in the White House.
This is a mistake.
It is one thing for the majority of Americans to think Rumsfeld has failed. But when the nation’s current military leaders start to break publicly with their defense secretary, then it is clear that he is losing control of the institution he ostensibly leads.
These officers have been loyal public promoters of a war policy many privately feared would fail. They have kept their counsel private, adhering to more than two centuries of American tradition of subordination of the military to civilian authority.
And although that tradition, and the officers’ deep sense of honor, prevent them from saying this publicly, more and more of them believe it.
Rumsfeld has lost credibility with the uniformed leadership, with the troops, with Congress and with the public at large. His strategy has failed, and his ability to lead is compromised. And although the blame for our failures in Iraq rests with the secretary, it will be the troops who bear its brunt.
This is not about the midterm elections. Regardless of which party wins Nov. 7, the time has come, Mr. President, to face the hard bruising truth:
Donald Rumsfeld must go.
The U.S. Administration is terribly guilty of so many things already, and it does not need 9/11 to show that. For example, Bush and Co. have openly admitted to authorizing prisoner abuse, have been exposed via intelligence leak for illegal domestic spying, have clearly lied about WMDs in Iraq, have even planned to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan well before 9/11 (declassified in the National Security Archives)
So far, she says, no investigators have come knocking. Not from the Central Intelligence Agency, which conducted an internal inquiry into intelligence on Iraq, not from the congressional intelligence committees, not from the president’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. All of those bodies are ostensibly looking into the Bush administration’s prewar Iraq intelligence, amid charges that the White House and the Pentagon exaggerated, distorted, or just plain lied about Iraq’s links to Al Qaeda terrorists and its possession of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons. In her hands, Kwiatkowski holds several pieces of the puzzle. Yet she, along with a score of other career officers recently retired or shuffled off to other jobs, has not been approached by anyone.
Kwiatkowski, 43, a now-retired Air Force officer who served in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia (NESA) unit in the year before the invasion of Iraq, observed how the Pentagon’s Iraq war-planning unit manufactured scare stories about Iraq’s weapons and ties to terrorists. “It wasn’t intelligence‚—it was propaganda,” she says. “They’d take a little bit of intelligence, cherry-pick it, make it sound much more exciting, usually by taking it out of context, often by juxtaposition of two pieces of information that don’t belong together.” It was by turning such bogus intelligence into talking points for U.S. officials‚—including ominous lines in speeches by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell’s testimony at the U.N. Security Council last February‚—that the administration pushed American public opinion into supporting an unnecessary war.
the Bush administration produced its wildly exaggerated estimates of the threat posed by Iraq through the workings of a secret Pentagon intelligence unit and of the Defense Department’s war-planning task force, the Office of Special Plans.
A close-knit team of ideologues who spent a decade or more hammering out plans for an attack on Iraq and who used the events of September 11, 2001, to set it into motion.
The reports, virtually all false, of Iraqi weapons and terrorism ties emanated from an apparatus that began to gestate almost as soon as the Bush administration took power. In the very first meeting of the Bush national-security team, one day after President Bush took the oath of office in January 2001, the issue of invading Iraq was raised, according to one of the participants in the meeting‚—and officials all the way down the line started to get the message, long before 9/11. Indeed, the Bush team at the Pentagon hadn’t even been formally installed before Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy secretary of Defense, and Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of Defense for policy, began putting together what would become the vanguard for regime change in Iraq.
Both Wolfowitz and Feith have deep roots in the neoconservative movement. One of the most influential Washington neo- conservatives in the foreign-policy establishment during the Republicans’ wilderness years of the 1990s, Wolfowitz has long held that not taking Baghdad in 1991 was a grievous mistake. He and others now prominent in the administration said so repeatedly over the past decade in a slew of letters and policy papers from neoconservative groups like the Project for the New American Century and the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq. Feith, a former aide to Richard Perle at the Pentagon in the 1980s and an activist in far-right Zionist circles, held the view that there was no difference between U.S. and Israeli security policy and that the best way to secure both countries’ future was to solve the Israeli-Palestinian problem not by serving as a broker, but with the United States as a force for “regime change” in the region.
Called in to help organize the Iraq war-planning team was a longtime Pentagon official, Harold Rhode, a specialist on Islam who speaks Hebrew, Arabic, Turkish, and Farsi. Though Feith would not be officially confirmed until July 2001, career military and civilian officials in NESA began to watch his office with concern after Rhode set up shop in Feith’s office in early January. Rhode, seen by many veteran staffers as an ideological gadfly, was officially assigned to the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, an in-house Pentagon think tank headed by fellow neocon Andrew Marshall. Rhode helped Feith lay down the law about the department’s new anti-Iraq, and broadly anti-Arab, orientation. In one telling incident, Rhode accosted and harangued a visiting senior Arab diplomat, telling him that there would be no “bartering in the bazaar anymore. You’re going to have to sit up and pay attention when we say so.”
Rhode worked with Feith to purge career Defense officials who weren’t sufficiently enthusiastic about the muscular anti-Iraq crusade that Wolfowitz and Feith wanted. Rhode appeared to be “pulling people out of nooks and crannies of the Defense Intelligence Agency and other places to replace us with,” says a former analyst. “They wanted nothing to do with the professional staff. And they wanted us the fuck out of there.”
The unofficial, off-site recruitment office for Feith and Rhode was the American Enterprise Institute, a right-wing think tank whose 12th-floor conference room in Washington is named for the dean of neoconservative defense strategists, the late Albert Wohlstetter, an influential RAND analyst and University of Chicago mathematician. Headquartered at AEI is Richard Perle, Wohlstetter’s prize protege, the godfather of the AEI-Defense Department nexus of neoconservatives who was chairman of the Pentagon’s influential Defense Policy Board. Rhode, along with Michael Rubin, a former AEI staffer who is also now at the Pentagon, was a ubiquitous presence at AEI conferences on Iraq over the past two years, and the two Pentagon officials seemed almost to be serving as stage managers for the AEI events, often sitting in the front row and speaking in stage whispers to panelists and AEI officials. Just after September 11, 2001, Feith and Rhode recruited David Wurmser, the director of Middle East studies for AEI, to serve as a Pentagon consultant.
Wurmser would be the founding participant of the unnamed, secret intelligence unit at the Pentagon, set up in Feith’s office, which would be the nucleus of the Defense Department’s Iraq disinformation campaign that was established within weeks of the attacks in New York and Washington. While the CIA and other intelligence agencies concentrated on Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda as the culprit in the 9/11 attacks, Wolfowitz and Feith obsessively focused on Iraq. It was a theory that was discredited, even ridiculed, among intelligence professionals. Daniel Benjamin, co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror, was director of counterterrorism at the National Security Council in the late 1990s. “In 1998, we went through every piece of intelligence we could find to see if there was a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq,” he says. “We came to the conclusion that our intelligence agencies had it right: There was no noteworthy relationship between Al Qaeda and Iraq. I know that for a fact.” Indeed, that was the consensus among virtually all anti-terrorism specialists.
In short, Wurmser, backed by Feith and Rhode, set out to prove what didn’t exist.
In an Administration devoted to the notion of “Feith-based intelligence,” Wurmser was ideal. For years, he’d been a shrill ideologue, part of the minority crusade during the 1990s that was beating the drums for war against Iraq. Along with Perle and Feith, in 1996 Wurmser and his wife, Meyrav, wrote a provocative strategy paper for Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm.” It called on Israel to work with Jordan and Turkey to “contain, destabilize and roll back” various states in the region, overthrow Saddam Hussein in Iraq, press Jordan to restore a scion of the Hashemite dynasty to the Iraqi throne, and, above all, launch military assaults against Lebanon and Syria as a “prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria’s territorial integrity.”
In 1997, Wurmser wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal called “Iraq Needs a Revolution” and the next year co-signed a letter with Perle calling for all-out U.S. support of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group led by Ahmad Chalabi, in promoting an insurgency in Iraq. At AEI, Wurmser wrote Tyranny’s Ally: America’s Failure to Defeat Saddam Hussein, essentially a book-length version of “A Clean Break” that proposed an alliance between Jordan and the INC to redraw the map of the Middle East. Among the mentors cited by Wurmser in the book: Chalabi, Perle, and Feith.
The purpose of the unnamed intelligence unit, often described as a Pentagon “cell,” was to scour reports from the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency, and other agencies to find nuggets of information linking Iraq, Al Qaeda, terrorism, and the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In a controversial press briefing in October 2002, a year after Wurmser’s unit was established, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged that a primary purpose of the unit was to cull factoids, which were then used to disparage, undermine, and contradict the CIA’s reporting, which was far more cautious and nuanced than Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith wanted. Rumsfeld particularly enjoyed harassing the CIA staffer who briefed him every morning, using the type of data produced by the intelligence unit. “What I could do is say, ‘Gee, what about this?’” Rumsfeld noted. “‘Or what about that? Has somebody thought of this?’” Last June, when Feith was questioned on the same topic at a briefing, he acknowledged that the secret unit in fact looked at the connection between Iraq and terrorism, saying, “You can’t rely on deterrence to deal with the problem of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of state sponsors of terrorism because [of] the possibility that those state sponsors might employ chemical weapons or biological weapons by means of a terrorist organization proxy.
Though Feith, in that briefing, described Wurmser’s unit as an innocent project, “a global exercise” that was not meant to put pressure on other intelligence agencies or create skewed intelligence to fit preconceived policy notions, many other sources assert that it did exactly that. That the White House and the Pentagon put enormous pressure on the CIA to go along with its version of events has been widely reported, highlighted by visits to CIA headquarters by Vice President Cheney and Lewis Libby, his chief of staff. Led by Perle, the neocons seethed with contempt for the CIA. The CIA’s analysis, said Perle, “isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.” Standing in a crowded hallway during an AEI event, Perle added, “The CIA is status quo oriented. They don’t want to take risks.”
That became the mantra of the shadow agency within an agency.
Putting Wurmser in charge of the unit meant that it was being run by a pro-Iraq-war ideologue who’d spent years calling for a pre-emptive invasion of Baghdad and who was clearly predisposed to find what he wanted to see. Adding another layer of dubious quality to the endeavor was the man partnered with Wurmser, F. Michael Maloof. Maloof, a former aide to Perle in the 1980s Pentagon, was twice stripped of his high-level security clearances‚—once in late 2001 and, again, last spring, for various infractions. Maloof was also reportedly involved in a bizarre scheme to broker contacts between Iraqi officials and the Pentagon, channeled through Perle, in what one report called a “rogue [intelligence] operation” outside official CIA and Defense Intelligence Agency channels.
As the momentum for war began to build in early 2002, Wolfowitz and Feith beefed up the intelligence unit and created an Iraq war-planning unit in the Pentagon’s Near East and South Asia Affairs section, run by Deputy Undersecretary of Defense William Luti, under the rubric “Office of Special Plans,” or OSP; the new unit’s director was Abram N. Shulsky. By then, Wurmser had moved on to a post as senior adviser to Undersecretary of State John Bolton, yet another neocon, who was in charge of the State Department’s disarmament, proliferation, and WMD office and was promoting the Iraq war strategy there. Shulsky’s OSP, which incorporated the secret intelligence unit, took control, banishing veteran experts‚—including Joseph McMillan, James Russell, Larry Hanauer, and Marybeth McDevitt‚—who, despite years of service to NESA, either were shuffled off to other positions or retired. For the next year, Luti and Shulsky not only would oversee war plans but would act aggressively to shape the intelligence product received by the White House.
Both Luti and Shulsky were neoconservatives who were ideological soul mates of Wolfowitz and Feith. But Luti was more than that. He’d come to the Pentagon directly from the office of Vice President Cheney. That gave Luti, a recently retired, decorated Navy captain whose career ran from combat aviation to command of a helicopter assault ship, extra clout. Along with his colleague Colonel William Bruner, Luti had done a stint as an aide to Newt Gingrich in 1996 and, like Perle and Wolfowitz, was an acolyte of Wohlstetter’s. “He makes Ollie North look like a moderate,” says a NESA veteran.
Shulsky had been on the Washington scene since the mid-1970s. As a Senate intelligence committee staffer for Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, he began to work with early neoconservatives like Perle, who was then an aide to Senator Henry Jackson. Later, in the Reagan years, Shulsky followed Perle to the Pentagon as Perle’s arms-control adviser. In the ‘90s, Shulsky co-authored a book on intelligence called Silent Warfare, with Gary Schmitt. Shulsky had served with Schmitt on Moynihan’s staff and they had remained friends. Asked about the Pentagon’s Iraq intelligence “cell,” Schmitt‚—who is currently the executive director of the Project for the New American Century‚—says that he can’t say much about it “because one of my best friends is running it.”
According to Lt. Colonel Kwiatkowski, Luti and Shulsky ran NESA and the Office of Special Plans with brutal efficiency, purging people they disagreed with and enforcing the party line. “It was organized like a machine,” she says. “The people working on the neocon agenda had a narrow, well-defined political agenda. They had a sense of mission.” At NESA, Shulsky, she says, began “hot-desking,” or taking an office wherever he could find one, working with Feith and Luti, before formally taking the reins of the newly created OSP. Together, she says, Luti and Shulsky turned cherry-picked pieces of uncorroborated, anti-Iraq intelligence into talking points, on issues like Iraq’s WMD and its links to Al Qaeda. Shulsky constantly updated these papers, drawing on the intelligence unit, and circulated them to Pentagon officials, including Rumsfeld, and to Vice President Cheney. “Of course, we never thought they’d go directly to the White House,” she adds.
Kwiatkowski recalls one meeting in which Luti, pressed to finish a report, told the staff, “I’ve got to get this over to ‘Scooter’ right away.” She later found out that “Scooter” was none other than Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff. According to Kwiatkowski, Cheney had direct ties through Luti into NESA/OSP, a connection that was highly unorthodox.
“Never, ever, ever would a deputy undersecretary of Defense work directly on a project for the vice president,” she says. “It was a little clue that we had an informal network into Vice President Cheney’s office.”
Although Feith insists that the OSP did not seek to gather its own intelligence, Kwiatkowski and others sharply disagree. Staff working for Luti and Shulsky in NESA/OSP churned out propaganda-style intelligence, she says. As an example, she cited the work of a U.S. intelligence officer and Arabic specialist, Navy Lt. Commander Youssef Aboul-Enein, who was a special assistant to Luti. “His job was to peruse the Arabic-language media to find articles that would incriminate Saddam Hussein about terrorism, and he translated these.” Such raw intelligence is usually subject to a thorough vetting process, tracked, verified, and checked by intelligence professionals. But not at OSP‚—the material that it produced found its way directly into speeches by Bush, Cheney, and other officials.
According to Melvin Goodman, a former CIA official and an intelligence specialist at the National War College, the OSP officials routinely pushed lower-ranking staff around on intelligence matters. “People were being pulled aside [and being told], ‘We saw your last piece and it’s not what we’re looking for,’” he says. “It was pretty blatant.” Two State Department intelligence officials, Greg Thielmann and Christian Westermann, have both charged that pressure was being put on them to shape intelligence to fit policy, in particular from Bolton’s office. “The Al Qaeda connection and nuclear weapons issue were the only two ways that you could link Iraq to an imminent security threat to the U.S.,” Thielmann told the New York Times. “And the administration was grossly distorting the intelligence on both things.”
Besides Cheney, key members of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, including Perle and ex-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, all Iraq hawks, had direct input into NESA/OSP. The offices of NESA were located on the Pentagon’s fourth floor, seventh corridor of D Ring, and the Policy Board’s offices were directly below, on the third floor. During the run-up to the Iraq war, Gingrich often came up for closed-door meetings with Luti, who in 1996 had served as a congressional fellow in Speaker of the House Gingrich’s office.
As OSP got rolling, Luti brought in Colonel Bruner, a former military aide to Gingrich, and, together, Luti and Bruner opened the door to a vast flow of bogus intelligence fed to the Pentagon by Iraqi defectors associated with Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress group of exiles. Chalabi founded the Iraqi National Congress in 1992, with the help of a shadowy CIA-connected public-relations firm called the Rendon Group, one of whose former employees, Francis Brooke, has been a top aide to Chalabi ever since. A scion of an aristocratic Iraqi family, Chalabi fled Baghdad at the age of 13, in 1958, when the corrupt Iraqi Hashemite monarchy was overthrown by a coalition of communists and the Iraqi military. In the late 1960s, Chalabi studied mathematics at the University of Chicago with Wohlstetter, who introduced him to Richard Perle more than a decade later. Long associated with the heart of the neoconservative movement, Chalabi founded Petra Bank in Jordan, which grew to be Jordan’s third-largest bank by the 1980s. But Chalabi was accused of bank fraud, embezzlement, and currency manipulation, and he barely escaped before Jordanian authorities could arrest him; in 1992, he was convicted and sentenced in absentia to more than 20 years of hard labor. After founding the INC, Chalabi’s bungling, unreliability, and penchant for mismanaging funds caused the CIA to sour on him, but he never lost the support of Perle, Feith, Gingrich, and their allies; once, soon after 9/11, Perle invited Chalabi to address the Defense Policy Board.
According to multiple sources, Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress sent a steady stream of misleading and often faked intelligence reports into U.S. intelligence channels. That information would flow sometimes into NESA/OSP directly, sometimes through Defense Intelligence Agency debriefings of Iraqi defectors via the Defense Human Intelligence Service, and sometimes through the INC’s own U.S.-funded Intelligence Collection Program, which was overseen by the Pentagon. The INC’s intelligence “isn’t reliable at all,” according to Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of counterterrorism. “Much of it is propaganda. Much of it is telling the Defense Department what they want to hear, using alleged informants and defectors who say what Chalabi wants them to say, [creating] cooked information that goes right into presidential and vice presidential speeches.”
Bruner, the aide to Luti and Gingrich’s former staffer, “was Chalabi’s handler,” says Kwiatkowski. “He would arrange meetings with Chalabi and Chalabi’s folks,” she says, adding that the INC leader often brought people into the NESA/OSP offices for debriefings. Chalabi claims to have introduced only three actual defectors to the Pentagon, a figure Thielmann considers “awfully low.” However, according to an investigation by the Los Angeles Times, the three defectors provided by Chalabi turned up exactly zero useful intelligence. The first, an Iraqi engineer, claimed to have specific information about biological weapons, but his information didn’t pan out; the second claimed to know about mobile labs, but that information, too, was worthless; and the third, who claimed to have data about Iraq’s nuclear program, proved to be a fraud. Chalabi also claimed to have given the Pentagon information about Iraqi support for Al Qaeda. “We gave the names of people who were doing the links,” he told an interviewer from PBS’s Frontline. Those links, of course, have not been discovered. Thielmann told the same Frontline interviewer that the Office of Special Plans didn’t apply strict intelligence-verification standards to “some of the information coming out of Chalabi and the INC that OSP and the Pentagon ran with.”
In the war’s aftermath, the Defense Intelligence Agency‚—which is not beholden to the neoconservative civilians at the Pentagon‚—leaked a report it prepared, concluding that few, if any, of the INC’s informants provided worthwhile intelligence.
So far, despite all of the investigations under way, there is little sign that any of them are going to delve into the operations of the Luti-Shulsky Office of Special Plans and its secret intelligence unit. Because it operates in the Pentagon’s policy shop, it is not officially part of the intelligence community, and so it is seemingly immune to congressional oversight.
With each passing day, it is becoming excruciatingly clearer just how wrong U.S. intelligence was in regard to Iraqi weapons and support for terrorism. The American teams of inspectors in the Iraq Survey Group, which has employed up to 1,400 people to scour the country and analyze the findings, have not been able to find a shred of evidence of anything other than dusty old plans and records of weapons apparently destroyed more than a decade ago. Countless examples of fruitless searches have been reported in the media. To cite one example: U.S. soldiers followed an intelligence report claiming that a complex built for Uday Hussein, Saddam’s son, hid a weapons warehouse with poison-gas storage tanks. “Well,” U.S. Army Major Ronald Hann Jr. told the Los Angeles Times, “the warehouse was a carport. It still had two cars inside. And the tanks had propane for the kitchen.”
Countless other errors and exaggerations have become evident. The thousands of aluminum tubes supposedly imported by Iraq for uranium enrichment were fairly conclusively found to be designed to build noncontroversial rockets. The long-range unmanned aerial vehicles, allegedly built to deliver bioweapons, were small, rickety, experimental planes with wood frames. The mobile bioweapon labs turned out to have had other, civilian purposes. And the granddaddy of all falsehoods, the charge that Iraq sought uranium in the West African country of Niger, was based on forged documents‚—documents that the CIA, the State Department, and other agencies knew were fake nearly a year before President Bush highlighted the issue in his State of the Union address in January 2003.
“Either the system broke down,” former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA to visit Niger and whose findings helped show that the documents were forged, told Mother Jones, “or there was selective use of bits of information to justify a decision to go to war that had already been taken.”
Take the Butler Review of Intelligence on WMD. Two weeks ago, I reminded readers of the contents of the Downing Street memo, which, in effect, was a minute of a meeting held at Downing Street on 23 July 2002. It described a visit to Washington by Sir Richard Dearlove, the head of MI6, and his conclusion that George W Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD and that the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy.
New information passed to this paper suggests that the construction of the intelligence case for war may be pushed right back to the winter of 2002, when, in February, members of the Joint Intelligence Committee were tasked to find out if there was evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and Saddam’s regime in Iraq. No one can dispute that in the months following 9/11, this was an entirely proper area of inquiry for the new head of the JIC, John Scarlett. However, even though no evidence had been found, the JIC instructed the intelligence services to go back and find some. This is crucial because it defied what has been described to me as the article of faith in the JIC: that policy should be driven by analysis, not the other way round.
So in Britain, it appears that at a very early stage - 14 months before the war - we were trying to fit intelligence and facts around the policy, just as they were in America.
‘In the judgment of the JIC, there is no recent evidence of Iraq complicity with international terrorism. There is, therefore, no justification for action against Iraq based on self-defence to combat imminent threats of terrorism as in Afghanistan.’
This is important because it confirms that the JIC had been trawling to make a connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. MI6 could not find the evidence after repeated requests and was not prepared to make up intelligence to fit policy. So the government had to put all its effort into making the case for war solely on the basis of Saddam’s stockpile of WMD, where it was much easier to make the intelligence and facts fit around policy.
You think they care about killing 3,000 people? Ha! Wake up! They have been wanting this for a long time.
Golly gee whiz, Joe.
You’re not making a very good case for these war-mongering “inside jobbers” being competent enough to pull off the precise and unbelievably clever operations on 9/11 that involved fooling the entire world into thinking that 19 Arab fanatics carried out the attacks. I’m surprised people so bumbling and stumbling were able to fool all the world’s structural and fire engineers and professional demolitionists into thinking that mere structural damage, heat and gravity brought down the towers. It’s amazing that they’ve been able to keep all this a secret for so long, when everything else they try to keep hidden winds up on pg. 1 of the NY Times.
What made them suddenly so incompetent? Fear of success? I’m sure you’ve got a sensible explanation.
I asked you to give me chapter and verse of an example of a researcher or scientist making claims that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility. Something more than early theorizing and speculating. You did not.
I asked you for the complete context of Ronald Hamburger and Mike Tayor’s quotes that <u>you</u> introduced. You dodged. I had to do it.
Again, you’re confusing preliminary speculation formed without complete information with some kind of gross negligence or deliberate deception. Bazant’s task wasn’t ever to determine the exact mechanism of collapse, but the fact that once it commenced, there was no stopping it. His use of the 800 C. value was not meant to be an absolute fact, and the value was not central to his analysis. In fact, it was rather irrelevant. The tower collapsed, as everyone saw, and B&Z explained why it <u>had</u> to continue.
In stage 1 Fig. 1, the conflagration, caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure, causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures <u>apparently</u> exceeding 800C. The heating is <u>probably</u> accelerated by a loss of the protective thermal insulation of steel during the initial blast.—Bazant/Zhou 2001 <u>Journal of Engineering Mechanics</u> ...... ahem!
NIST later determined, through specimen examination, observations of the fire intensity itself on 9/11, and computer simulation that temperatures were well within the range necessary to cause the effects they theorized should happen, and in fact observed in the videos of the collapse and pre-collapse. (sagging of trusses, significant deflection inward of the exterior columns)
<u>Variations</u> of temperature were a main causative factor in the failure of the structures. Had the whole area been a uniform temperature, the stresses would have been much less.
Again I see an abundance of writing about things that have nothing what-so-ever to do with the collapse of the towers, and a total lack of anything that could be remotely construed as credible evidence of “controlled demolition”.
Joe, it’s not good form, and in fact probably technically illegal, to reprint the entirety of ultra-liberal hack journalist’s hard work, especially not without citing the source.
Again, just because many people, including the previous administration, thought that Saddam Hussein should be removed from power is not evidence for mass murder on the part of anyone except Atta & co. on 9/11. Not even close.
Just because Jefferson said “separation of church and state” in a letter to some Baptists doesn’t mean that the 1st amendment was written to imply that kids can’t pray or read the bible at school.
Just because someone said “new Pearl Harbor” in a document urging America to revise and reinforce it’s military equipment and world-wide strategy doesn’t mean that the Govt. planned and/or carried out 9/11.
Context. That’s what’s missing here, Joe. Get some.
And stop lifting other people’s work!
Neocons turn on Bush for incompetence over Iraq war
Julian Borger
London Guardian
Saturday, November 4, 2006
Julian Borger wrote another interesting account a while back:
At the head of the group was a man by the name of Farouk Hijazi, President Saddam Hussein’s new ambassador to Turkey and one of Iraq’s most senior intelligence officers. He had been sent on one of the most important assignments of his career - to recruit Osama bin Laden…....
.......If his flirtation with Baghdad is consummated, the struggle with the implacable zealot from Saudi Arabia could be drifting towards an exceedingly bloody end-game.
And another.
And another.
So I guess you can admit that there was ample reason to fear and suspect a budding relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda, and following logically maybe even Iraq’s involvement in 9/11. Or, acknowledge that his recent story is mostly a fabrication as well. Or, you can choose to believe that he was accurate both times. Perhaps the more selective 9/11 “truth” approach works best for you—throw out the parts that make you uncomfortable.
Take your pick.
Natalie
You said:
Joe, it’s not good form, and in fact probably technically illegal, to reprint the entirety of ultra-liberal hack journalist’s hard work, especially not without citing the source.
Even though I did not rerprint the entire article( I did leave a few paragraphs out so as not to bore you) I should have had the link to it or where it and the other three were from I admit. That is a huge misstake on my part and I need to not get in such a hurry and make sure links or where it is from is posted with it.
But I do wonder if you read it and noticed how I combined the three so they could help to support each other. You had linked one for me and I belive I had linked one so here is the other from that last post London Observer was used as well and that I did not link to in that last post.
You said:
What made them suddenly so incompetent? Fear of success? I’m sure you’ve got a sensible explanation.
They did exactly what they set out to do. This was supposed to be a long drawn out conflict in Iraq and they never thought it would really be a cake walk. It is going just as they had planned.
Do not belive them when they act like it has turned into something that they did not expect. This hole thing is staged. It is part of the plan to blame Bush and this was agreed by all including Bush before they ever went to Iraq. He is not running for office so its not going to hurt him.
All those advocates of the war, from the neocons like Perle and Adelman to Tom Friedman are faulting the Bush administration for not doing the job right, as if the present situation in Iraq had not been publicly predicted by Bush Sr., James Baker III, Brent Scrowcroft, as well as members of the intelligence establishment who had opposed the war, not to mention some less well known critics from the Left. Between Perle and Friedman there are no essential differences. These were also the folks who have pushed for a US confrontation with Iran….........
“The conventional wisdom is the U.S. mistake in Iraq was not enough troops,” said Thomas Blanton, the archive’s director. “But the Desert Crossing war game in 1999 suggests we would have ended up with a failed state even with 400,000 troops on the ground.”
Natalie they new this and wanted it. How can you belive that they had no idea? Are you not paying attention to what is happening? They have achived success and now they can get away with it by acting stupid and saying Bush suddenly became so incompetent. Come on Natalie they new this was going to happen its part of there 100 year war remmeber?
What did Dick say? It will last for generations.
Natalie you can go back to the beginning of this thread and see that this was fortold exactly the way it is happening now. Even with the neo-cons jumping ship just the way they are.
Look I will admit there are some neo-cons who are just uninformed ignorant idiots that were doing what they were told and may have belived the war on terror especially in Iraq was going to be different but they were just tools so who cares. The ones who matter most certainly new this was going to happen in Iraq and this is what they wanted.
Please get it through your head that this is what they wanted and expected how in the world can you not know this. Have you not been watching the build up of those huge long term bases. Are you not aware that we have been in Iran softening up and locating targets? Even Bush is saying this is about oil yet he is not mentioning that its so he can keep the oil from flowing so prices remain inflated.
Dont tell me you belive his lie “You can imagine a world in which these extremists and radicals got control of energy resources,” he said at a rally here Saturday for Rep. Marilyn Musgrave (R-Colo.). “And then you can imagine them saying, ‘We’re going to pull a bunch of oil off the market to run your price of oil up unless you do the following. And the following would be along the lines of, well, ‘Retreat and let us continue to expand our dark vision.’ “
Bush said extremists controlling Iraq “would use energy as economic blackmail” and try to pressure the United States to abandon its alliance with Israel. At a stop in Missouri on Friday, he suggested that such radicals would be “able to pull millions of barrels of oil off the market, driving the price up to $300 or $400 a barrel.”
It is bulls**t he and the admenistration have stoped the oil from flowing out of Iraq and the low levels they have allowed to go out of the country was profit for them not Iraq. You need to wake up and start paying attention.
Please dont fall for more of the lies!
I will respond to the rest in another post for you and Scorp need to read this now before you both fall for more lies.
P.S. I did not see your last post sorry. Thank you for your time I will try to catchup as soon as I can.
Thank you for the links.
I knew you’d have a sensible explanation. I can always count on you for those.
BTW, I’m still waiting for your thoughts on the Pentagon. Don’t dodge me on this. And I hope my request for chapter and verse hasn’t gone by the wayside.
But I do wonder if you read it and noticed how I combined the three so they could help to support each other.
Yes, I noticed that you went off on another source tangent toward the end, but only because I carefully compared the original with your paste job.
You need to make it more clear who’s saying what. Sources are important because biases, motivations and degrees of expertise need to be taken into account. When you meander on pasting this and that in no sensible context, you’re really hurting your own cause and credibility.
Natalie -
I like and appreciate what you have to say. You may want to give poor Joe a rest; he is not very stable in the best of times, and he is becoming loopier by the day.
Joe has attached importance to what Vanity Fair (Vanity Fair!) and Army Times have to say about this Administration, as if either publication had any knowledge or expertise beyond being left-wing journalists.
The Vanity Fair article of which Joe thinks so highly is a hilarious crock.
The “neo-cons” that VF interviewed all agreed to be interviewed with the understanding that the article was to be published in January, well after the election. VF not only published before the election, but the interviewees (Perle, Frum, Rubin, Ledeen, Adelman) all deny that they said what VF has reported. Joe eats this shit up.
The VF article is probably the last “October Surprise” of this election season. Given the leftists’ long history of failure with previous October Surprises, it is a wonder they even bother any more; Rathergate, al-Qaqaa, DUI all abjectly failed to accomplish the leftists’ goals, and the VF article is even sillier and more transparent than their previous efforts.
Noemie Emery has a funny article on the transition of VF from a glitterati puff job to a hard core leftist political commentator. Probably not coincidentally, VF’s sales have plunged recently, even more than those of the NYT.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/005/410ylpwc.asp?pg=1
Excerpt:
“The Democrats who used to produce things—cars, steel, and foodstuffs—are being replaced by those who produce fads and fashion, things people enjoy but don’t need. Societies need teachers, soldiers, engineers, and mechanics; they need people who drill for oil and fix cars; people who understand war and politics. No one needs sitcoms, movie reviews, handbag designers, gossip columnists, or professors of gender construction, but this superfluous cadre is becoming the core of the party of Truman and Roosevelt, an alliance of the superficial and trivial, along with the hopelessly poor. Call it the FDR coalition, minus the South, minus the farmers, minus a large part of labor, which has been weakening, and seeing the nonpublic sector part of its membership go over to voting Republican. This is not a national coalition, but it does know the best stores and best restaurants, and knows where to go for good hair.”
I like and appreciate what you have to say. You may want to give poor Joe a rest; he is not very stable in the best of times, and he is becoming loopier by the day.
Thanks, scorp, you may be right. We don’t want another suicide watch ala Rabbit. However, my intent from the start of this thread was to talk to many more than those who choose to post here. I use this forum kindly afforded by ITT, and the averse participation of colorful souls like Rabbit and Joe, to hopefully steer a few “skulls full of mush” away from this cauldron of nonsense, however and whenever some search engine guides them here.
Joe has attached importance to what Vanity Fair (Vanity Fair!) and Army Times have to say about this Administration, as if either publication had any knowledge or expertise beyond being left-wing journalists.
Yes, any previously thought to be fair-minded journalists are coming out of the closet lately to obey the transmission and do whatever it takes to win this election. I read the piece by David Frum, who seems like one of the most honest individuals out there, completely disavowing the context that VF chose to convey. I didn’t know about or missed the rushed publication trick. I’m not famaliar with the mindset of the editors of the Army Times, but I wouldn’t be surprised if this is yet another repository of your typical liberal journalist, military background or not. Wasn’t Al Gore a journalist in Vietnam? Aha!! (another conspiracy for ya, Joe, maybe actually a real one)
Gosh, must be nice to have 90% of the media on your side. It’s really no less than cheating.
This is not a national coalition, but it does know the best stores and best restaurants, and knows where to go for good hair.
And that reminds me of one of the funniest, most revealing videos of all time—from last campaign cycle. (the last two seconds are the best)
Could be a brutal election for us, scorp, but I’m hoping and voting for the best. Good luck to us. Given the advantage the other side is afforded with their in effect ownership of the media, and their never-ending vote fraud schemes, we will certainly need it.
Natalie
You said:
I asked you to give me chapter and verse of an example of a researcher or scientist making claims that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility. Something more than early theorizing and speculating. You did not.
You have not seen anything that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility? Hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahaha!
Starting as early as two days after the attack, “experts” in structural engineering lent their names to the effort to make the unprecedented crumbling of steel-framed skyscrapers into piles of rubble seem like a perfectly natural event. On September 13th the intimidatingly technical, equation-peppered paper, “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? - Simple Analysis”, was published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics ASCE. One wonders how well the peer-review process functioned given that timetable.
Bazant and Zhou
Explaining the Collapses With Elastic Dynamic Analysis
Zdenek Bazant and Yong Zhou must be super-geniuses. They were able to understand how two skyscrapers could crush themselves to rubble, a newly observed behavior for steel structures, and write a paper about it just two days. Their “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse?-Simple Analysis” uses “Elastic Dynamic Analysis” to confidently proclaim:
“The structural resistance is found to be an order of magnitude less than necessary for survival.”
The paper repeatedly claims to make the most optimistic assumptions about building survival with no discussion of what that means. It contains nonsensical engineering claims such as:
“[... if the] majority of columns of a single floor to lose their load carrying capacity, the whole tower was doomed.”
There are two major fallacies in this assertion:
* It implies that the columns were capable of supporting only twice the gravity loads they were bearing above the impact zone. This ignores the fact that the upper floors, lacking standing-room-only crowds, were not carrying their design live loads, and it implies that reserve strength ratios (the extra strength designed into a structure beyond what is required to resist anticipated loads) are two-to-one instead of the five-to-one typical in engineered steel structures.
* It implies that a failure of the columns to support the gravity loads above the impact zones would automatically lead to total collapse, despite the absence of a single example of a local collapse event leading to total collapse in any steel-framed building.
The paper mislabels phenomena, calling a fireball a blast. It is fond of vacuous qualifiers. It explains the buildings were doomed because after the first story collapsed, there was enormous kinetic energy and enormous vertical dynamic load, far exceeding [the columns’] load capacity. And with even larger mass falling with a greater velocity we get impacts and failures all the way down. It makes quantitative claims but doesn’t back them up. Where did they find the following 12%?
“(indeed, the energy dissipated in the columns during the fall is at most equal to 2X the yield moment of columns, X the number of columns, which is found to be only about 12% of the gravitational potential energy release if the columns were cold, and much less than that at 800º C).”
The whole argument seems to be based on some (undisclosed) estimate of bending moments, in which case one of their simplifying assumptions seems to be that the columns are infinitely thin and have no compressional rigidity. The paper gives no argument that the model it is applying is applicable to the survivability of the Twin Towers. It makes sweeping claims that can’t possibly be true. It’s evasive, claiming to make only simplifying assumptions optimistic to building survival, without even bothering to list those assumptions.
One of the paper’s assumptions it does disclose is that all of the columns of the first story to collapse were heated to 800º C. In that case they would have been glowing red-hot. Perhaps Bazant and Zhou can be forgiven for this oversight and for their wildly innaccurate engineering assumptions, given the short publication deadline they had to meet.
Professor Eagar
Another Credentialed Individual Helping to Explain the Collapses
Dr. Thomas Eagar, became an early spokesperson for the truss theory. Although not a structural engineer, his credentials as a professor at MIT were sufficient for his role in “explaining the collapses”. In the following post Jeff King points out some of the absurdities advanced by Eagar in his NOVA interview.
Do tall things topple over?
by Jeff King Thursday December 05, 2002 at 01:16 AM
Professor Eagar’s statement has been floating around for the past year, but doesn’t really make sense at several levels. He implies that the laws of gravitation are somehow not linear, that if a small object of the same proportions (6.5/1 height to base ratio) tends to topple, a much bigger object of the same proportions will not be similarly unstable. A wooden box 1’ square and 6 1/2’ tall has the exact same geometric relations of center of gravity to base as a big steel box 1300’ tall and 208’ on a side. Nothing changes with a change in absolute size, this is the most basic Newtonian physics. Yet Eagar says “There’s no other way for them to go but down. They’re too big.” This is complete and utter nonsense.
It also ignores the fact, as noted above by Pete Wagner, that the top of WTC-2 had clearly “broken off” and begun to tip. A big chunk of building had begun to topple, and now had linear momentum in the direction of the lean, as well as angular momentum as it was rotating about its own center of gravity. Momentum doesn’t just go away without some kind of external force being applied.
Describing one of the the WTC towers as “a building that is mostly air” sounds profound but is no more valid than saying that atoms are mostly empty space, and so matter should collapse or implode at any provocation. It is a clever rhetorical flourish that does a great injustice to the structural integrity of these buildings, implying that they were houses of cards waiting to tumble down. In fact they were very rigid and had far more compressional strength than needed to avoid collapse. Each core had 47 steel box columns, all interconnected with steel plates at each floor, and trussed box columns at the corners that can be seen in the picture above supporting construction cranes. The outer “tube” comprised 256 14” square steel box columns tied together with 52” tall steel plates at each floor.
This “tube-in-tube” design, with 110 floors acting as braces that linked the two tubes together, created an extremely strong geometry allowing redistribution of stresses. To think that such a structure would magically disintegrate rather than allow itself to be tipped over is simply bizarre.
Natalie you obviously love to torture me because you refuse to use the links I give you and you complain when I dont. But worse you insist that I give you chapter and verse of an example of a researcher or scientists making claims that could be fairly judged to result in a loss of credibility.
Well fine be that way!
When the Twin Towers Fell
By Steven Ashley
BEFORE SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, the twin towers of the World Trade Center seemed a permanent part of the Manhattan skyline.
When New York City’s giant World Trade Center towers plunged to earth following successive suicide terrorist attacks on September 11th, the world was confronted with one of most shocking and sickening sights of modern times. The mechanisms by which these huge and seemingly solid edifices suddenly collapsed, snuffing out the lives of thousands, was the subject of a preliminary postmortem conducted last week in Cambridge, Mass. A panel of Boston area-based civil and structural engineers convened to discuss the fate of the superskyscrapers, struck by hijacked passenger planes, in front of an overflow audience on the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Their starkly sobering analyses highlighted the vulnerabilities of ultra-tall buildings to fire and pointed out steps that could be taken to lessen them.
After first describing the highly redundant structural system that kept the 110-story twin towers standing for decades despite hurricane-force winds and a terrorist truck bomb, the engineers then delineated how that system was breached and finally overcome on that fateful day when America was attacked. The main culprits in bringing the famously lofty buildings down, they concluded, were the two intensely hot infernos that erupted when tens of thousands of gallons of aviation fuel spilled from the doomed airliners.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually since each plane was carrying about 10,000 gallons and much, perhaps most, of that burned up in the impact fireballs, there were thousands, not tens of thousands, of gallons in the buildings, if that. And the black smoke (a sign of oxygen starvation), scarcity of flames, absence of window-breaking, and lack of any survivor reports of intense heat are hardly indications of “intensely hot infernos”.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Once high temperatures weakened the towers’ supporting steel structures, it was only a matter of time until the mass of the stories above initiated a rapid-sequence “pancaking” phenomena in which floor after floor was instantly crushed and then sent into near free fall to the ground below. Significantly, the panel stated that any mitigating reinforcements and redundancies added to these buildings could have only delayed the inevitable failure, though they would have bought more time for the evacuation of the occupants.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Here is one of the most common myths advanced to explain the “collapses”: that loss of strength in steel due to heating is cumulative and irreversible.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No existing or foreseeable economically viable skyscraper structure, they agreed, could have withstood this kind of cruel onslaught. Clearly, prevention is the best defense against this kind of assault.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is a bit of historical revisionism, since the towers were designed to survive the impact by a 707 with a 23,000-gallon fuel capacity.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Though the twin towers were not much taller than their famous uptown predecessor, the Empire State Building, the World Trade Center rose during the late 1960s, a new era of construction characterized by rapidly erected, lightweight steel structures rather than heavy masonry walls,” explained Robert Fowler, senior engineer at the structural engineering firm of McNamara and Salvia. Fowler was then a junior member of the WTC’s engineering firm of record, Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson, later renamed Skilling Helle Christiansen Robertson. “As the Trade Center was so much lighter in comparison to earlier designs, it was a watershed building in the history of skyscrapers,” he added. Leslie E. Robertson, then the project manager, was the engineer most responsible for the superskyscraper’s design, Fowler noted. He is currently principal partner at Leslie E. Robertson Associates, the current structural consultants to the WTC. The late Seattle-based architect Minoru Yamasaki designed the World Trade Center.
How the Towers Kept Standing
As with all large buildings, the main structural engineering design criteria for the facility’s 1,362-foot-tall south tower and 1,368-foot-tall north tower centered on two things: ensuring resistance to the gigantic gravity loads of the buildings themselves as well as to sideways or lateral forces caused by high winds and earthquakes, which can generate huge overturning forces at the bases. The former condition, Fowler explained, depends on specifying strong vertical columns that can efficiently transmit the mass of the building to the ground. The latter consideration concerns not only structural integrity but also “requires developing an acceptable comfort level for the occupants” by avoiding too much swaying. Opposition to lateral motion is controlled by “the design’s structural mass [weight], the stiffness of its lateral members and the degree of structural damping employed,” Fowler said.
“Though the WTC towers stood over 1,360 feet above the street level, the structures’ bases were actually set 70 feet into the ground, and one had a 100-foot-tall antenna atop it, so with 205-foot widths, they had a lot of [exterior] area facing the wind,” the engineer stated. He calculated that the approximate maximum wind shear force that a single face needed to withstand to be somewhere around 11,000,000 pounds. The gravity loads (weight) produced by the towers at their bases were on the order of 500,000 tons, Fowler said.
To handle these immense forces, the engineers “designed the World Trade Center essentially as a large beam section,” explained another panel member, Robert McNamara, president of the engineering firm McNamara and Salvia. Called structural tubes in the business, each twin tower was strongly framed in structural steel. The frame comprised inner and outer rectangular box tubes consisting of closely spaced steel box columns connected by steel spandrel members or truss beams that supported 40,000-square-foot cross-braced floors, each nearly an acre in area, the empaneled engineers said. This configuration created a complete exterior tube around the building and a center tube down the middle.
The 90-foot-long central core, formed of massive vertical steel columns that held most of the building’s weight, contained elevator shafts, stairways and utility spaces, they said. The core’s columns were thicker toward the base to support huge accumulated gravity loads. The outer perimeter tube, a tight prefabricated latticework with 61 14-inch steel box columns (spaced 39 inches on center) on each building face, provided all the bracing resistance against lateral and twisting forces from wind and seismic action. This exterior grid served as a moment frame, providing a large moment arm (of torque) against overturning and deflection forces. The outer tube bore part of the gravity-induced downward load as well as, they noted.
The huge inner and outer rectangular tubes “needed to be protected to maintain their structural integrity, so the floors acted as reinforcing diaphragms or bulkheads [the term used in shipbuilding],” said panel member Jerome Connor, professor of civil and environmental engineering at M.I.T. The office floors, which each comprised a 35- to 60-foot clear span from the core to the exterior grid, were panelized structural members supported by open web joists with steel decks above them, he said. The horizontal truss struts, bolted and welded to the exterior grid and the core column structures, included viscoelastic stringers that provided increased damping to help make the structure less lively in the wind, according to Connor. Each steel floor deck was covered with four inches of concrete. “With almost an acre of area for each floor and figuring about 100 pounds per square foot of area,” he estimated that “each floor system weighed about 3,200,000 pounds.”
Why the Towers Fell
With all of its structural redundancies, “the World Trade Center was probably one of the more resistant tall building structures,” McNamara said, adding that “nowadays, they just don’t build them as tough as the World Trade Center.” His statement is bolstered by the fact that the support structures of both twin towers withstood the initial hits of the two kamikaze airliners despite the breaching of many levels of framing. After the deletion of key structural members from about the 90th to 96th floors on the north face of the north tower, One WTC, and from about the 75th to the 84th floors of the south, east and north faces of the south tower, Two WTC, the buildings’ skeletons found alternative paths to take the loads. Each impact and following explosion imparted first a large local lateral force and then an omnidirectional force to the structures, together causing massive initial damage to the columns and floor systems at the elevation of the crash.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This “massive initial damage to the columns” fails to distinguish between the perimeter columns and the much stronger core columns. There is no evidence that in either collision the core columns were severely damaged. In the off-center South Tower collision, there appears to have been little damage to the core, as survivors evacuated through stairwells in the core passing through the impact zone.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Despite shocks and explosions estimated to be equivalent to that of the 1995 truck bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (about 400 tons of TNT), the towers remained upright. “The buildings displayed a tremendous capacity to stand there despite the damage to a major portion of the gravity system, and for an hour or so they did stand there,” McNamara said. “The lateral truss systems redistributed the load when other critical members were lost. It’s a testament to the system that they lasted so long.”
Newspapers and TV newscasts reported that the twin towers had been designed to withstand a collision with a Boeing 707. The events of September 11th show that this was indeed the case. “However, the World Trade Center was never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next a key design omission,” stated Eduardo Kausel, another M.I.T. professor of civil and environmental engineering and panel member.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!So the engineers who designed it to withstand a 707 collision forgot that jets carry fuel?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The towers collapsed only after the kerosene fuel fire compromised the integrity of their structural tubes: One WTC lasted for 105 minutes, whereas Two WTC remained standing for 47 minutes. “It was designed for the type of fire you’d expect in an office building paper, desks, drapes,” McNamara said. The aviation fuel fires that broke out burned at a much hotter temperature than the typical contents of an office. “At about 800 degrees Fahrenheit structural steel starts to lose its strength; at 1,500 degrees F, all bets are off as steel members become significantly weakened,” he explained.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This misleads the reader into thinking that 800ºF to 1500ºF temperatures were reached and sustained, for which there is no evidence. Since jet fuel boils easily and has a low flash point, it would have burned off quickly in the first few minutes after the crashes—a point granted even by the government’s official reports.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some have raised questions about the degree of fire protection available to guard the structural steel. According to press reports, the original asbestos cementitious fireproofing applied to the steel framework of the north tower and the lower 30 stories of the south were removed after the 1993 terrorist truck bombing.
Others have pointed out the possibility that the aviation fuel fires burned sufficiently hot to melt and ignite the airliners’ aluminum airframe structures. Aluminum, a pyrophoric metal, could have added to the conflagrations. Hot molten aluminum, suggests one well-informed correspondent, could have seeped down into the floor systems, doing significant damage. “Aluminum melts into burning ‘goblet puddles’ that would pool around depressions, [such as] beam joints, service openings in the floor, stair wells and so forth…The goblets are white hot, burning at an estimated 1800 degrees Celsius. At this temperature, the water of hydration in the concrete is vaporized and consumed by the aluminum. This evolves hydrogen gas that burns. Aluminum burning in concrete produces a calcium oxide/silicate slag covered by a white aluminum oxide ash, all of which serve to insulate and contain the aluminum puddle. This keeps the metal hot and burning. If you look at pictures of Iraqi aircraft destroyed in their concrete shelters [during the Persian Gulf war], you will notice a deep imprint of the burned aircraft on the concrete floor.
Though the Boeing 767s airliners that hit the towers were somewhat larger than the Boeing 707 (maximum takeoff weights: 395,000 pounds versus 336,000 pounds) the structures were designed to resist, the planes carried a similarly sized fuel load as the older model about 24,000 gallons versus 23,000 gallons, according to Kausel. “Most certainly,” he continued, “no building has or will resist this kind of fire.” The sprinkler system, which was probably compromised, would have been are useless against this kind of fire, he said, adding, “The World Trade Center towers performed admirably; they stood long enough for the majority of the people to be successfully evacuated.”
Kausel also reported that he had made estimates of the amount of energy generated during the collapse of each tower. “The gravitational energy of a building is like water backed up behind a dam,” he explained. When released, the accumulated potential energy is converted to kinetic energy. With a mass of about 500,000 tons (5 x 108 kilograms), a height of about 1,350 ft. (411 meters), and the acceleration of gravity at 9.8 meters per second 2, he came up with a potential energy total of 1019 ergs (1012 Joules or 278 Megawatt-hours). “That’s about 1 percent of the energy released by a small atomic bomb,” he noted.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Since each tower weighed about 500,000 tons, Kausel is making a huge error by assuming all the mass is concentrated at the tops of the towers. Nor would it be correct to make the simplifying assumption of the mass being concentrated at the midsection, since the lower portions of the buildings had much heavier-gauge steel.!!!!!!!!!!!
The M.I.T. professor added that about 30 percent of the collapse energy was expended rupturing the materials of the building, while the rest was converted into the kinetic energy of the falling mass. The huge gray dust clouds that covered lower Manhattan after the collapse were probably formed when the concrete floors were pulverized in the fall and then jetted into the surrounding neighborhood.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!In this scenario most of the kinetic energy of falling mass would not be converted to pulverizing forces until the rubble hit the ground. Yet clearly, the buildings were pulverized in mid-air. The amount of energy needed to convert the towers into the fine dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan is on the order of the total potential energy of the buildings’ elevated mass.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Of the kinetic energy impacting the ground, only 0.1 percent was converted to seismic energy,” he stated. “Each event created a (modest-sized) magnitude 2 earthquake, as monitored at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Observatory, which is located about 30 kilometers away from New York City.” Kausel concluded that the “the largest share of the kinetic energy was converted to heat, material rupture and deformation of the ground below.”
Despite the expert panel’s preliminary musings on the failure mechanisms responsible for the twin towers’ fall, the definitive cause has yet to be determined. Reportedly, the National Science Foundation has funded eight research projects to probe the WTC catastrophe. The American Society of Civil Engineers is sponsoring several studies of the site. Meanwhile the Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Structural Engineers has established an investigative team to analyze the disaster and learn from the failure. W. Gene Corley, senior vice president of the Construction Technology Laboratory in Skokie, Ill., is said to be heading the ASSE study team through its initial phase of data gathering, and then William Baker, a structural engineer at the Chicago-based firm of Skidmore Owings & Merrill in Chicago, will lead the following analysis phase. The Structural Engineering Institute is to partner with the American Institute of Steel Construction, the National Fire Protection Association and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has been invited to join as well.
How the Towers Fell
Given the lack of firm conclusions regarding how the collapses occurred, the M.I.T. panel participants asked their audience to consider various theories they put forth. In general, it was agreed that as the structure warped and weakened at the top of each tower, the frame, along with the concrete slabs, furniture, file cabinets and other materials, became an enormous consolidated weight that eventually crushed the lower portions of the structure below. The details of how the frame members failed remain under contention.
Professor Connor’s theory focused on weaknesses in how the vertical and horizontal structural members were tied together. During construction, he explained, each prefabricated floor system was lifted into place by a crane and “supported at the ends like a hinge, where they were bolted and welded to the inner and outer framing tubes” so that part of the gravity load went through the core and the other part through the exterior structure. “The floor trusses sat on beams and were tied down so the core was locked to the exterior,” he said. “It was an unusual system and very lightweight. If you lose the connection between them, however, you lose the ability to carry the floor loads and allow the floors to slide back and forth under stress. If a damaged floor system were to fall, it would break the end connections in the lower floors and down and down the floors would go.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is the pancake or domino theory, for which there is no evidence. Nearly every version of the theory promotes misrepresentations of the Towers’ construction, such as omitting the cross-trusses, and claiming that only bolts attached the trusses to the perimeter walls.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“In my theory, the hot fire weakened the supporting joint connection,” Connor continued. “When it broke, one end of a floor fell, damaging the floor system underneath, while simultaneously tugging (pulling) the vertical members to which it was still attached toward the center of the building and down.” This phenomenon started a parasitic process that accelerated until total failure and the structure fell in on itself, he said.
Eduardo Kausel proposed an alternative failure explanation that he acknowledged was independently developed by Zdenek Bazant, a professor at Northwestern University. “I believe that the intense heat softened or melted the structural elements floor trusses and columns so that they became like chewing gum, and that was enough to trigger the collapse,” he said.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!To turn the columns into the consistency of chewing gum would have required heating them to at least 1200º C, well above what can be achieved with jet fuel, even with a directed flame and pressurized oxygen.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The floor trusses are likely to have been the first to sag and fail. As soon as the upper floors became unsupported, debris from the failed floor systems rained down onto the floors below, which eventually gave way, starting an unstoppable sequence. The dynamic forces are so large that the downward motion becomes unstoppable.”
Via two simple models, Kausel was able to determine that the fall of the upper building portion down onto a single floor must have caused dynamic forces exceeding the buildings design loads by at least an order of magnitude.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!But the alleged models have never been published.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He also performed some computer simulations that indicate the building material fell almost unrestricted at nearly the speed of free-falling objects. “The towers’ resistive systems played no role. Otherwise the elapsed time of the fall would have been extended,” he noted. As it was, the debris took about nine seconds to reach the ground from the top.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Did you catch that? the towers’ resistive systems played no role. The at least 85,000 tons of intact steel structure below the impact zone provided no resistance. It all magically got out of the way. Note that the Kausel cites a collapse time that is simply impossible—even admitting the use of controlled demolition—since the elapsed time of an object on the Tower’s roof in a vacuum was 9.2 seconds. Even air resistance slowed the descent of rubble enough that it took 13 to 17 seconds to reach the ground.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“It’s difficult to judge which of these failure mechanisms occurred first; probably all occurred and interacted,” said panel member Oral Buyukozturk, professor of civil and environmental engineering at M.I.T.. “The prolonged effect of high heat is likely to have led to the buckling of the columns,
!!!!!!!!!!!!though no buckling was ever seen—only shattering,!!!!!!!!!!!!!
collapse of the floors, as well as to the shearing of the floors upon the failure the joints.”
!!!!!!!!!The shearing of the floors’ joints would have resulted in them sliding down within the outer wall, leaving the outer wall to buckle after the fact, and leaving the core standing.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
He noted that videotapes of the catastrophe showed some tilting of the top portion of the south tower before it collapsed. “This indicates the buckling of one building face while the adjacent face was bending [placed into tension].”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!At the initiation of the “collapse”, explosive ejections of material are seen simultaneously around the circumference of the crash zone. Why would the side in tension be blowing out debris?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After that, the upper portions of the tower are shown disintegrating, with “a dynamic effect and amplification process” following that led to a progressive collapse “a kind of pancaking or deck of cards effect” down to ground zero, Buyukozturk stated.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So “dynamic effect and amplification process” is supposed to explain how the the top portion—a resilient steel-framed box—disintegrated in mid air, even though only its bottom would be smashing into the tower’s intact portion?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Kausel addressed the oft-asked question of why the towers did not tip over like a falling tree. “A tree is solid, whereas building is mostly air or empty space; only about 10 percent is solid material. Since there is no solid stump underneath to force it to the side, the building cannot tip over. It could only collapse upon itself.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So the 47 closely spaced box columns (many of 22"x52” dimensions) in the core, braced with horizontal I-beams at each story, presented no ‘solid stump’ the collapsing section to the side? Thanks to this expert’s brilliant analysis, owners of economically moribund skyscrapers can in the future save themselves the expense of hiring demolition companies to do all that fussy calculation and careful placement of explosives. They can just buy a serviceable retired airliner from a salvage yard, fill it with fuel, and ram it by remote control into their unwanted property, with complete confidence that the ensuing collapse will not damage neighboring real estate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert McNamara said his failure mechanism theory “focuses on the connections that hold the structure together,” but he cautioned that “we really need to wait for a detailed investigation, before we decide if we have to up the code ratings for these connections in signature structures.”
!!!!!!!!!!!!!While you were waiting, Mr. McNamara, they melted down the steel and scrubbed the site free of incriminating evidence.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Protecting Skyscraper Occupants
The expert panel then turned its attention to changes for future tall structures in the wake of what has been learned. Though the recent “disaster couldn’t be envisioned as a design scenario in the 1970s, it means we have to change the way we design and construct tall buildings in the future,” Buyukozturk said.
Existing skyscrapers should probably be retrofitted with some additional safety measures, but the professors say that it doesn’t make sense economically and aesthetically to protect them all physically from similar catastrophes. “Retrofitting is very expensive and is therefore usually done only for monumental buildings,” Connor said.
“There will never be a building that won’t fall,” Kausel noted.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually the “collapses” of WTC towers 1, 2, and 7 are the first examples in history of steel-framed high-rises undergoing total collapse from any cause or combination of causes other than controlled demolition, a fact conspicuously absent from this article.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“The best we can do is to ensure that it will stand long enough for all the people to escape.” Back when the WTC was built, no one seems to have anticipated the need to evacuate an entire large building at once. To do so successfully means boosting a building’s structural redundancy the provision of additional means to assist system function. Panel members discussed providing improved fire protection for the structural elements, alternative load paths to stand in for damaged structures and fixing diaphragm floor beams more strongly to vertical members. Also mentioned was the idea of installing blast-resistant, energy-absorbing materials such as concrete-encased steel exterior columns and/or cavities (reinforced concrete cores) in future large structures that could help them survive or at least promote failure in certain slower, less deleterious sequences.
One audience attendee, a West Coast-based structural engineer who did not give his name, created a provocative moment when he claimed that it would cost about 10 percent more than the original building cost to install floor joint reinforcements for greater redundancy. “According to our analysis, it could add several more hours to the evacuation period,” he stated. “If each tower cost about $1 billion to build, then an extra hundred million dollars could have saved most of the occupants. Though it’s horrible to contemplate,” he continued, “a human life is valued for insurance purposes at about a million dollars apiece, so this helps put the extra investment into perspective. After all, the World Trade Center was retrofitted with 10,000 viscoelastic dampers to reduce its swaying, so safety improvements can’t be ignored.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The Towers were not retrofitted with viscoelastic dampers—they were part of the original design.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Building clients have to become more demanding, even if the probabilities of a repeat disaster are very slim….”
The panel also considered the need to improve the effectiveness of building safety systems. Kausel pointed out problems with the twin towers’ emergency communications systems (“just when coordination was most critical, the people didn’t know what to do”), the emergency illumination system and protection against smoke (“the great killer in building fires is smoke inhalation”). He also suggested that more effort should be expended to create “alternative escape routes, so evacuees aren’t faced with a wall of smoke. If two stairwells are close together,” he noted, “one explosion could block them both.” Other ideas floated included installing better fire-suppression systems, using the aqueous film-forming foams employed in aviation fires, and creating protected access ways for firefighters. There was also mention of the need to harden stairwells and egress pathways, and perhaps develop “deployable evacuation systems” for building occupants. Beyond robotic stairway evacuation devices, deployable systems might include escape tubes deployed out windows, exterior people-lowering machines, flying platforms or even parachutes.”
One audience member asked the assembled experts whether a reinforced concrete skyscraper such as the current height record-holder, the 452-meter Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, would have better resisted a collision with a fuel-filled airliner. Their response indicated that a concrete structure would have probably lasted for a couple of more hours than did the steel World Trade Center towers.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Although no skyscraper has ever collapsed before, suddenly the experts are confident that a jetliner crash will inevitably cause a skyscraper to collapse, no matter what the nature of its construction.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert McNamara stated that many of the more recent superskyscrapers were constructed of reinforced concrete mainly because of the high cost of steel in Asia. He also mentioned that the Petronas Towers contain “safe refuge floors” to allow building occupants to reach fresh air during fires. McNamara said that this concept was now somewhat discredited, as similar refuges in the WTC would not have ultimately saved anyone.
A lively discussion then ensued about whether the terrorist pilots knew where to hit the buildings for maximum effect. McNamara opined that the position of impact seems significant. “They hit them at just the right place about two thirds to three quarters of the way up.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Actually the planes hit them about three fourths and six sevenths of the way up. And the idea that the very tops of the buildings could have crushed them all of the way to their bases is utterly unscientific, given that no experiment has been able to replicate the alleged phenomonon of top-down total progressive collapse.!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The earlier [truck bomb] attack showed that the explosion at bottom had little effect and that it’s much easier to collapse a building from the top than the bottom. If they had hit the very top of the building, the fire damage wouldn’t have had such a catastrophic effect. At the bottom, the columns are much heavier and stronger and so they would have taken a much larger load.” Connor offered that one would “need graduate-level engineering training to choose the prime target location.”
In the aftermath of the World Trade Center disaster, questions arose whether superskyscrapers should be built in the future. Clearly, these top engineers would reply in the definite affirmative. Inevitably, they said, new tall towers will rise.
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Simple Analysis
By Zdenek P. Bazant, Fellow ASCE, and Yong Zhou
Abstract: This paper presents a simplified approximate analysis of the overall collapse of the towers of World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001. The analysis shows that if prolonged heating caused the majority of columns of a single floor to lose their load carrying capacity, the whole tower was doomed. The structural resistance is found to be an order of magnitude less than necessary for survival, even though the most optimistic simplifying assumptions are introduced.
Introduction and Failure Scenario
The 110-story towers of the World Trade Center were designed to withstand as a whole the forces caused by a horizontal impact of a large commercial aircraft (Appendix I). So why did a total collapse occur? The cause was the dynamic consequence of the prolonged heating of the steel columns to very high temperature. The heating lowered the yield strength and caused viscoplastic (creep) buckling of the columns of the framed tube along the perimeter of the tower and of the columns in the building core. The likely scenario of failure is approximately as follows.
In stage 1 the conflagration caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800°C.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This assumption is crucial to the entire analysis, and there is no basis for it. Actual tests of uninsulated steel structures exposed to gas and diesel fuel for sustained periods never exceeded 360°C. And flames were no longer visible in the South Tower moments before its collapse, and it was emitting only dark smoke.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The heating is probably accelerated by a loss of the protective thermal insulation of steel during the initial blast.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Blast? By implying that the impact fireballs were blasts, the authors confuse explosions, which produce very high pressures, with fireballs, which don’t. A detonation wave can be generated by the sudden ignition of an unburned hydrocarbon-air mixture, but is not produced when ignition is continuous, as appeared to be the case with the dispersing fuel in the jet impacts. The fireballs took about two seconds to expand. Had they detonated, they would have appeared in milliseconds.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At such temperatures, structural steel suffers a decrease of yield strength and exhibits significant viscoplastic deformation (i.e., creep an increase of deformation under sustained load). This leads to creep buckling of columns (e.g., Bazant and Cedolin 1991, Sec. 9), which consequently lose their load carrying capacity (stage 2). Once more than about a half of the columns in the critical floor that is heated most suffer buckling (stage 3), the weight of the upper part of the structure above this floor can no longer be supported, and so the upper part starts falling down onto the lower part below the critical floor, gathering speed until it impacts the lower part.
!!!!!!!!!!!This flies in the face of engineering practice, which is to build structures at least four times as strong as they would have to be to sustain maximum anticipated loads. Actual load conditions were a fraction of those anticipated loads, since it was not a windy day, and the floors above the impacts were holding only a fraction of their rated capacities. So 90% would be a more realistic estimate of the needed column failure rate!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At that moment, the upper part has acquired an enormous kinetic energy and a significant downward velocity. The vertical impact of the mass of the upper part onto the lower part (stage 4) applies enormous vertical dynamic load on the underlying structure, far exceeding its load capacity, even if it is not heated. This causes failure of an underlying multi-floor segment of the tower (stage 4), in which the failure of the connections of the floor-carrying trusses to the columns is either accompanied or quickly followed by buckling of the core columns and overall buckling of the framed tube,
!!!!!!!!!!!was it too fast to see on the videos, or was it behind the dust?!!!!!!!
with the buckles probably spanning the height of many floors (stage 5, at right), and the upper part possibly getting wedged inside an emptied lower part of the framed tube (stage 5, at left). The buckling is initially plastic but quickly leads to fracture in the plastic hinges.The part of building lying beneath is then impacted again by an even larger mass falling with a greater velocity, and the series of impacts and failures then proceeds all the way down (stage 5).
Elastic Dynamic Analysis
The details of the failure process after the decisive initial trigger that sets the upper part in motion are of course very complicated and their clarification would require large computer simulations. For example, the upper part of one tower is tilting as it begins to fall (see Appendix II); the distribution of impact forces among the underlying columns of the framed tube and the core, and between the columns and the floor-supporting trusses, is highly nonuniform; etc. However, a computer is not necessary to conclude that the collapse of the majority of columns of one floor must have caused the whole tower to collapse. This may be demonstrated by the following elementary calculations, in which simplifying assumptions most optimistic in regard to survival are made.
!!!!!!!!!!That’s a preposterous claim, since it’s not even clear that elastic dynamic analysis, whatever it is, is even remotely applicable!!!!!!!!!!!!!
For a short time after the vertical impact of the upper part, but after the elastic wave generated by the vertical impact has propagated to the ground, the lower part of the structure can be approximately considered to act as an elastic spring. What is its stiffness C? It can vary greatly with the distribution of the impact forces among the framed tube columns, between these columns and those in the core, and between the columns and the trusses supporting concrete floor slabs.
For our purpose, we may assume that all the impact forces go into the columns and are distributed among them equally. Unlikely though such a distribution may be, it is nevertheless the most optimistic hypothesis to make because the resistance of the building to the impact is, for such a distribution, the highest. If the building is found to fail under a uniform distribution of the impact forces, it would fail under any other distribution.
!!!!!!!!!!!!They cleverly insert the idea of uniform symmetric collapse—one of the most obvious problems with the gravity-collapse—as an optimistic hypothesis!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
According to this hypothesis, one may estimate that C 71 GN/m (due to unavailability of precise data, an approximate design of column cross sections had to be carried out for this purpose).
The downward displacement from the initial equilibrium position to the point of maximum deflection of the lower part (considered to behave elastically) is h + (P/C) where P = maximum force applied by the upper part on the lower part and h = height of critical floor columns (= height of the initial fall of the upper part) 3.7 m. The energy dissipation, particularly that due to the inelastic deformation of columns during the initial drop of the upper part, may be neglected, i.e., the upper part may be assumed to move through distance h almost in a free fall (indeed, the energy dissipated in the columns during the fall is at most equal to 2Ï€X the yield moment of columns, X the number of columns, which is found to be only about 12% of the gravitational potential energy release if the columns were cold, and much less than that at 800°C).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!What is the the yield moment of the columns, and how many columns are there? The confidence of the authors in their conclusions is strinking, given the lack of any clear details of the tower’s structures. Well, this 12% isn’t the only thing we have to take their word for!!!!!!!!!!!!
So the loss of the gravitational potential energy of the upper part may be approximately equated to the strain energy of the lower part at maximum elastic deflection. This gives the equation mg[h + (P/C)] = P2/2C in which m = mass of the upper part (of North Tower) 58·106 kg, and g = gravity acceleration. The solution P = Pdyn yields the following elastically calculated overload ratio due to impact of the upper part:
where P0 = mg = design load capacity. In spite of the approximate nature of this analysis, it is obvious that the elastically calculated forces in columns caused by the vertical impact of the upper part must have exceeded the load capacity of the lower part by at least an order of magnitude.
Another estimate, which gives the initial overload ratio that exists only for a small fraction of a second at the moment of impact, is
where A = cross section area of building, Eef= cross section stiffness of all columns divided by A, Ï = specific mass of building per unit volume. This estimate is calculated from the elastic wave equation which yields the intensity of the step front of the downward pressure wave caused by the impact if the velocity of the upper part at the moment of impact on the critical floor is considered as the boundary condition (e.g., Bazant and Cedolin, Sec. 13.1). After the wave propagates to the ground, the former estimate is appropriate.
An important hypothesis implied in this analysis is that the impacting upper part, many floors in height, is so stiff that it does not bend nor shear on vertical planes, and that the distribution of column displacements across the tower is almost linear, like for a rigid body. If, however, the upper part spanned only a few floors (say, 3 to 6), then it could be so flexible that different column groups of the upper part could move down separately at different times, producing a series of small impacts that would not be fatal (in theory, if people could have escaped from the upper part of the tower, the bottom part of the tower could have been saved if the upper part were bombed, exploded or weakened by some “smart” structure mechanism to collapse onto the lower part gradually as a pile of rubble, instead of impacting it instantly as an almost rigid body).
Analysis of Inelastic Energy Dissipation
The inelastic deformation of the steel of the towers involves plasticity and fracture. Since we are not attempting to model the details of the real failure mechanism but seek only to prove that the towers must have collapsed and do so in the way seen (Engineering 2001, American 2001), we will here neglect fracture, even though the development of fractures is clearly discerned in the photographs of the collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!I see a lot of fractured steel but no sign of fractures developing—just a progression of explosions down the building fracturing the frame along the way!!!!!!!!!!!
Assuming the steel to behave plastically, with unlimited ductility, we are making the most optimistic assumption with regard to the survival capacity of the towers (in reality, the plastic hinges, especially the hinges at column connections, must have fractured, and done so at relatively small rotation, causing the load capacity to drop drastically).
The basic question to answer is: Can the fall of the upper part be arrested by energy dissipation during plastic buckling which follows the initial elastic deformation? Many plastic failure mechanisms could be considered, for example: (a) the columns of the underlying floor buckle locally (Fig. 1, stage 2); (b) the floor-supporting trusses are sheared off at the connections to the framed tube and the core columns and fall down within the tube, depriving the core columns and the framed tube of lateral support, and thus promoting buckling of the core columns and the framed tube under vertical compression (Fig. 1, stage 4, Fig. 2c);
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Depriving the core columns of lateral support? Does the core structure pictured here look like it would instantly collapse without the latteral support of the surrounding floors?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
or (c) the upper part is partly wedged within the emptied framed tube of the lower part, pushing the walls of the framed tube apart (Fig. 1, stage 5).
!!!!!!!!!!!!Does this description correspond to what we see in photos such as these?!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Although each of these mechanism can be shown to lead to total collapse,
!!!!!!!!!!!(I wish I were as smart as these guys so I could see too.)!!!!!!!!!!
a combination of the last two seems more realistic (the reason: multi-story pieces of the framed tube, with nearly straight boundaries apparently corresponding to plastic hinge lines causing buckles on the framed tube wall, were photographed falling down; see, e.g., Engineering 2001, American 2001).
Regardless of the precise failure mode, experience with buckling indicates that the while many elastic buckles simultaneously coexist in an axially compressed tube, the plastic deformation localizes (because of plastic bifurcation) into a single buckle at a time (Fig. 1, stage 4; Fig. 2c), and so the buckles must fold one after another. Thus, at least one plastic hinge, and no more than four plastic hinges, per column line are needed to operate simultaneously in order to allow the upper part to continue moving down (Fig. 2b, Bazant and Cedolin 1991) (this is also true if the columns of only one floor are buckling at a time). At the end, the sum of the rotation angles θi (i = 1, 2, . . ) of the hinges on one column line, Σθi, cannot exceed 2π (Fig. 2b). This upper-bound value, which is independent of the number of floors spanned by the buckle, is used in the present calculations since, in regard to survival, it represents the most optimistic hypothesis, maximizing the plastic energy dissipation.
Calculating the dissipation per column line of the framed tube as the plastic bending moment Mp of one column (Jirasek and Bazant 2002), times the combined rotation angle θi = 2π (Fig. 2b), and multiplying this by the number of columns, one concludes that the plastically dissipated energy Wp is, optimistically, of the order of 0.5 GN m (for lack of information, certain details such as the wall thickness of steel columns, were estimated by carrying out approximate design calculations for this building).
To attain the combined rotation angle Σθi = 2π of the plastic hinges on each column line, the upper part of the building must move down by the additional distance of one buckle, which is at least one floor below the floor where the collapse started. So the additional release of gravitational potential energy Wg ≥ mg · 2h 2 X 2:1 GN m = 4.2 GN m. To arrest the fall, the kinetic energy of the upper part, which is equal to the potential energy release for a fall through the height of at least two floors, would have to be absorbed by the plastic hinge rotations of one buckle, i.e., Wg=Wp would have to be less than 1. Rather,
if the energy dissipated by the columns of the critical heated floor is neglected. If the first buckle spans over n floors (3 to 10 seems likely), this ratio is about n times larger. So, even under by far the most optimistic assumptions, the plastic deformation can dissipate only a small part of the kinetic energy acquired by the upper part of building.
When the next buckle with its group of plastic hinges forms, the upper part has already traveled many floors down and has acquired a much higher kinetic energy; the percentage of the kinetic energy dissipated plastically is then of the order of 1%.
!!!!!!!!!!!!This claim is probably ridiculous, but in any case I can’t find an argument that the elastic dynamic analysis and its plastic hinges applies even remotely to those structures!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The percentage continues to decrease further as the upper part moves down. If fracturing in the plastic hinges were considered, a still smaller (in fact much smaller) energy dissipation would be obtained. So the collapse of the tower must be an almost free fall. This conclusion is supported by the observation that the duration of the collapse of the tower, observed to be 9 s, was about the same as the duration of a free fall in a vacuum from the tower top (416 m above ground) to the top of the final heap of debris (about 25 m above ground), which is It further follows that the brunt of vertical impact must have gone directly into the columns of the framed tube and the core and that any delay Δt of the front of collapse of the framed tube behind the front of collapsing (“pancaking”) floors must have been negligible, or else the duration of the total collapse of the tower, 9 s + Δt, would have been significantly longer than 9 s. However, even for a short delay Δt, the floors should have acted like a piston running down through an empty tube, which helps to explain the smoke and debris that was seen being expelled laterally from the collapsing tower.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!Huh? Is this supposed to explain how the towers’ tops crushed a 1000-foot high pillar of resilient steel as if there was only air there?!!!!!!
Problems of Disaster Mitigation and Design
Designing tall buildings to withstand this sort of attack seems next to impossible.
!!!!!!!!!!If by “this sort of attack” they mean explosive demolition, I would agree!!!!!!!!!!!!
It would require a much thicker insulation of steel, with blast-resistant protective cover. Replacing the rectangular framed tube by a hardened circular monolithic tube with tiny windows might help to deflect much of the debris and fuel from an impacting aircraft sideways, but regardless of cost, who would want to work in such a building?
The problems appear to be equally severe for concrete columns because concrete heated to such temperatures undergoes explosive thermal spalling, thermal fracture and disintegration due to dehydration of hardened cement paste (e.g., Bazant and Kaplan 1996). These questions arise not only for buildings supported on many columns but also for the recent designs of tall buildings with a massive monolithic concrete core functioning as a tubular mast. These recent designs use high-strength concrete which, however, is even more susceptible to explosive thermal spalling and thermal fracture than normal concrete. The use of refractory concretes as the structural material invites many open questions (Bazant and Kaplan 1996). Special alloys or various refractory ceramic composites may of course function at such temperatures, but the cost would increase astronomically. It will nevertheless be appropriate to initiate research on materials and designs that would postpone the collapse of the building so as to extend the time available for evacuation,
!!!!!!!!!!!!because even though multi-story steel structures have never “collapsed” before 9-11, now their collapse will be inevitable in the event of fire!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
provide a hardened and better insulated stairwell, or even prevent collapse in the case of a less severe attack such as an off-center impact or the impact of an aircraft containing little fuel. Lessons should be drawn for improving the safety of building design in the case of lesser disasters. For instance, in view of the progressive dynamic collapse of a stack of all the floors of the Ronan Point apartments in the U.K., caused by a gas explosion in one upper floor (Levy and Salvadori 1992), the following design principle, determining the appropriate ff of redundancy, should be adopted: If only a certain judiciously specified minority of the columns or column-floor connections at one floor are removed, the mass that might fall down from the superior structure must be so small that its impact on the underlying structure would not cause dynamic overload.
!!!!!!!!!!!Here, the authors fail to note that in the Ronan Point incident, the stack of floors that collapsed was comprised of small cantilever floor sections attached to the corner of the building, and the event did not involve the collapse of any of the major vertical support elements of the 23-story apartment block.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Closing Comments
Once accurate computer calculations are carried out, various details of the failure mechanism will doubtless be found to differ from the present simplifying hypotheses. Errors by a factor of 2 would not be terribly surprising, but that would hardly matter since the present analysis reveals order-of-magnitude differences between the dynamic loads and the structural resistance. There have been many interesting, but intuitive, competing explanations of the collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Theorists were very busy between September 11th and 13th!!!!!!!
To decide their viability, however, it is important to do at least some crude calculations. For example, it has been suggested that the connections of the floor-supporting trusses to the framed tube columns were not strong enough. Maybe they were not, but even if they were it would have made no difference, as shown by the present simple analysis.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!But stay tuned, because once that 800 Cº figure in this paper gets noticed, the trusses and their connectors will be heavily relied on in a more fine-tuned official explanation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The main purpose of the present analysis is to prove that the whole tower must have collapsed if the fire destroyed the load capacity of the majority of columns of a single floor. This purpose justifies the optimistic simplifying assumptions regarding survival made at the outset, which include unlimited plastic ductility (i.e., absence of fracture), uniform distribution of impact forces among the columns, disregard of various complicating details (e.g., the possibility that the failures of floor-column connections and of core columns preceded the column and tube failure, or that the upper tube got wedged inside the lower tube), etc. If the tower is found to fail under these very optimistic assumptions, it will certainly be found to fail when all the detailed mechanisms are analyzed, especially since there are order-of-magnitude differences between the dynamic loads and the structural resistance.
An important puzzle at the moment is why the adjacent 46-story building, into which no significant amount of aircraft fuel could have been injected, collapsed as well. Despite the lack of data at present, the likely explanation seems to be that high temperatures (though possibly well below 800°C) persisted on at least one floor of that building for a much longer time than specified by the current fire code provisions.
Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse? Science, Engineering, and Speculation
!!!!!!!!!!(Mostly Speculation, and Disingenuous Speculation at That)!!!!!!!!
Thomas W. Eagar and Christopher Musso
There have been numerous reports detailing the cause of the World Trade Center Tower collapse on September 11, 2001. Most have provided qualitative explanations; however, simple quantitative analyses show that some common conclusions are incorrect; for example, the steel could not melt in these flames and there was more structural damage than merely softening of the steel at elevated temperatures. Some guidelines for improvements in future structures are presented.
INTRODUCTION
The collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers on September 11, 2001, was as sudden as it was dramatic; the complete destruction of such massive buildings shocked nearly everyone. Immediately afterward and even today, there is widespread speculation that the buildings were structurally deficient, that the steel columns melted, or that the fire suppression equipment failed to operate. In order to separate the fact from the fiction, we have attempted to quantify various details of the collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note the lack of any significant quantitative data in this article pertaining to the actual “collapses”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The major events include the following:
* The airplane impact with damage to the columns.
* The ensuing fire with loss of steel strength and distortion (Figure 1).
* The collapse, which generally occurred inward without significant tipping (Figure 2).
Each will be discussed separately, but initially it is useful to review the overall design of the towers.
THE DESIGN
The towers were designed and built in the mid-1960s through the early 1970s. They represented a new approach to skyscrapers in that they were to be very lightweight and involved modular construction methods in order to accelerate the schedule and to reduce the costs.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This implies that the buildings were shoddily constructed. They were lightweight in that they used far less masonry than buildings like the Empire State Building. But there is no evidence that the structural steel skeleton was any less robust than any other building!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
To a structural engineer, a skyscraper is modeled as a large cantilever vertical column. Each tower was 64 m square, standing 411 m above street level and 21 m below grade. This produces a height-to-width ratio of 6.8. The total weight of the structure was roughly 500,000 t, but wind load, rather than the gravity load, dominated the design. The building is a huge sail that must resist a 225 km/h hurricane. It was designed to resist a wind load of 2 kPa—a total of lateral load of 5,000 t.
In order to make each tower capable of withstanding this wind load, the architects selected a lightweight “perimeter tube” design consisting of 244 exterior columns of 36 cm square steel box section on 100 cm centers (see Figure 3). This permitted windows more than one-half meter wide. Inside this outer tube there was a 27 m × 40 m core, which was designed to support the weight of the tower. It also housed the elevators, the stairwells, and the mechanical risers and utilities. Web joists 80 cm tall connected the core to the perimeter at each story.
!!!!!!!!!!!!In addition to the web joists (“trusses”) there must have been steel I-beams to transfer the lateral forces due to wind loading between the outer wall and core structures. The photograph at the bottom of this page show some of the I-beams, which are, incidentally, entirely absent from the descriptions of the towers in FEMA’s official report explaining the collapses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Concrete slabs were poured over these joists to form the floors. In essence, the building is an egg-crate construction that is about 95 percent air, explaining why the rubble after the collapse was only a few stories high.
The egg-crate construction made a redundant structure (i.e., if one or two columns were lost, the loads would shift into adjacent columns and the building would remain standing). Prior to the World Trade Center with its lightweight perimeter tube design, most tall buildings contained huge columns on 5 m centers and contained massive amounts of masonry carrying some of the structural load. The WTC was primarily a lightweight steel structure; however, its 244 perimeter columns made it “one of the most redundant and one of the most resilient” skyscrapers.
THE AIRLINE IMPACT
The early news reports noted how well the towers withstood the initial impact of the aircraft; however, when one recognizes that the buildings had more than 1,000 times the mass of the aircraft and had been designed to resist steady wind loads of 30 times the weight of the aircraft, this ability to withstand the initial impact is hardly surprising. Furthermore, since there was no significant wind on September 11, the outer perimeter columns were only stressed before the impact to around 1/3 of their 200 MPa design allowable.
The only individual metal component of the aircraft that is comparable in strength to the box perimeter columns of the WTC is the keel beam at the bottom of the aircraft fuselage. While the aircraft impact undoubtedly destroyed several columns in the WTC perimeter wall, the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure. Of equal or even greater significance during this initial impact was the explosion when 90,000 L gallons of jet fuel, comprising nearly 1/3 of the aircraft’s weight, ignited.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is wildly inaccurate, since it is established that each plane was carrying around 10,000 gallons of fuel, or 37,000 liters. However, the fuel capacity of each jet was around 90,000 liters, so perhaps the authors looked up the jets’ fuel capacities without bothering to check their ranges, which are 120 percent longer than their planned coast-to-coast routes. The 90,000 liter error is repeated four times in this article. Of the 37,000 liters that was on each plane, much to the vast majority must have been used up in the first few seconds in the collision fireball—particularly in the case of the south tower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The ensuing fire was clearly the principal cause of the collapse (Figure 4).
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The authors are stating that one event (a fire) wsa “clearly” the cause of another event (a collapse) even though there is not a single case, before or since, of a fire causing the collapse of a skyscraper, much less one causing the building to explode into dust, and do so more than an hour after the initial truma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
THE FIRE
The fire is the most misunderstood part of the WTC collapse. Even today, the media report (and many scientists believe) that the steel melted. It is argued that the jet fuel burns very hot, especially with so much fuel present. This is not true.
Part of the problem is that people (including engineers) often confuse temperature and heat. While they are related, they are not the same. Thermodynamically, the heat contained in a material is related to the temperature through the heat capacity and the density (or mass). Temperature is defined as an intensive property, meaning that it does not vary with the quantity of material, while the heat is an extensive property, which does vary with the amount of material. One way to distinguish the two is to note that if a second log is added to the fireplace, the temperature does not double; it stays roughly the same, but the size of the fire or the length of time the fire burns, or a combination of the two, doubles. Thus, the fact that there were 90,000 L of jet fuel on a few floors of the WTC does not mean that this was an unusually hot fire. The temperature of the fire at the WTC was not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel.
In combustion science, there are three basic types of flames, namely, a jet burner, a pre-mixed flame, and a diffuse flame. A jet burner generally involves mixing the fuel and the oxidant in nearly stoichiometric proportions and igniting the mixture in a constant-volume chamber. Since the combustion products cannot expand in the constant-volume chamber, they exit the chamber as a very high velocity, fully combusted, jet. This is what occurs in a jet engine, and this is the flame type that generates the most intense heat.
In a pre-mixed flame, the same nearly stoichiometric mixture is ignited as it exits a nozzle, under constant pressure conditions. It does not attain the flame velocities of a jet burner. An oxyacetylene torch or a Bunsen burner is a pre-mixed flame.
In a diffuse flame, the fuel and the oxidant are not mixed before ignition, but flow together in an uncontrolled manner and combust when the fuel/oxidant ratios reach values within the flammable range. A fireplace flame is a diffuse flame burning in air, as was the WTC fire.
Diffuse flames generate the lowest heat intensities of the three flame types.
If the fuel and the oxidant start at ambient temperature, a maximum flame temperature can be defined. For carbon burning in pure oxygen, the maximum is 3,200°C; for hydrogen it is 2,750°C. Thus, for virtually any hydrocarbons, the maximum flame temperature, starting at ambient temperature and using pure oxygen, is approximately 3,000°C.
This maximum flame temperature is reduced by two-thirds if air is used rather than pure oxygen. The reason is that every molecule of oxygen releases the heat of formation of a molecule of carbon monoxide and a molecule of water. If pure oxygen is used, this heat only needs to heat two molecules (carbon monoxide and water), while with air, these two molecules must be heated plus four molecules of nitrogen. Thus, burning hydrocarbons in air produces only one-third the temperature increase as burning in pure oxygen because three times as many molecules must be heated when air is used. The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1,000°C—hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1,500°C.
Figure 3. A cutaway view of WTC structure.
Figure 4. A graphic illustration, from the USA Today newspaper web site, of the World Trade Center points of impact. Click on the image above to access the actual USA Today feature.
But it is very difficult to reach this maximum temperature with a diffuse flame. There is nothing to ensure that the fuel and air in a diffuse flame are mixed in the best ratio. Typically, diffuse flames are fuel rich, meaning that the excess fuel molecules, which are unburned, must also be heated. It is known that most diffuse fires are fuel rich because blowing on a campfire or using a blacksmith’s bellows increases the rate of combustion by adding more oxygen. This fuel-rich diffuse flame can drop the temperature by up to a factor of two again. This is why the temperatures in a residential fire are usually in the 500°C to 650°C range. It is known that the WTC fire was a fuel-rich, diffuse flame as evidenced by the copious black smoke. Soot is generated by incompletely burned fuel; hence, the WTC fire was fuel rich—hardly surprising with 90,000 L of jet fuel available. Factors such as flame volume and quantity of soot decrease the radiative heat loss in the fire, moving the temperature closer to the maximum of 1,000°C.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!So having just admitted that the fires’ being oxygen-starved would about halve their temperatures, the authors go on to imply that the insulative properties of soot would bring the fires right back up to that 1000º C figure, ignoring that the thermal capacity of the sooty smoke would have carried much of the heat away from the fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!
However, it is highly unlikely that the structural steel at the WTC experienced temperatures above the 750–800°C range, given it’s ability to rapidly conduct heat away from the fire-exposed areas.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And it is highly unlikely that any large steel pieces experienced temperatures above 300º C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
All reports that the steel melted at 1,500°C are using imprecise terminology at best.
Some reports suggest that the aluminum from the aircraft ignited, creating very high temperatures. While it is possible to ignite aluminum under special conditions, such conditions are not commonly attained in a hydrocarbon-fueled diffuse flame. In addition, the flame would be white hot, like a giant sparkler. There was no evidence of such aluminum ignition, which would have been visible even through the dense soot.
It is known that structural steel begins to soften around 425°C and loses about half of its strength at 650°C. This is why steel is stress relieved in this temperature range. But even a 50% loss of strength is still insufficient, by itself, to explain the WTC collapse. It was noted above that the wind load controlled the design allowables. The WTC, on this low-wind day, was likely not stressed more than a third of the design allowable, which is roughly one-fifth of the yield strength of the steel. Even with its strength halved, the steel could still support two to three times the stresses imposed by a 650°C fire.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note that in all of the discussion of fire temperatures and steel weakening the authors never point out the difference between flame temperature and steel temperature, implying that they are the same. This ignores the very high thermal conductivity of steel. In actual tests of hydrocarbon-fueled fires in car parks with exposed steel structures, conducted by Corus Construction, the highest recorded temperature of any of the steel in any of the many tests was 360º C!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The additional problem was distortion of the steel in the fire. The temperature of the fire was not uniform everywhere, and the temperature on the outside of the box columns was clearly lower than on the side facing the fire. The temperature along the 18 m long joists was certainly not uniform. Given the thermal expansion of steel, a 150°C temperature difference from one location to another will produce yield-level residual stresses. This produced distortions in the slender structural steel, which resulted in buckling failures.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!No buckling can be seen in any of the video and photographic evidence, only the instantaneous onset of a telescoping collapse, accompanied by explosions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thus, the failure of the steel was due to two factors: loss of strength due to the temperature of the fire, and loss of structural integrity due to distortion of the steel from the non-uniform temperatures in the fire.
THE COLLAPSE
Nearly every large building has a redundant design that allows for loss of one primary structural member, such as a column. However, when multiple members fail, the shifting loads eventually overstress the adjacent members and the collapse occurs like a row of dominoes falling down.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The reader is asked to believe that massive continuous steel box-beams of the buildings’ cores and outer walls were actually one story-high segments, merely balanced on top of each other, and the steelworkers didn’t even bother to weld or bolt them together!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The perimeter tube design of the WTC was highly redundant. It survived the loss of several exterior columns due to aircraft impact, but the ensuing fire led to other steel failures.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note that the article never revisits the question of how the numerous undamaged perimeter columns failed simultaneously, even though there is no evidence they experienced significant heating from the fires!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Many structural engineers believe that the weak points—the limiting factors on design allowables—were the angle clips that held the floor joists between the columns on the perimeter wall and the core structure (see Figure 5). With a 700 Pa floor design allowable, each floor should have been able to support approximately 1,300 t beyond its own weight. The total weight of each tower was about 500,000 t.
As the joists on one or two of the most heavily burned floors gave way and the outer box columns began to bow outward, the floors above them also fell.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Funny that there is no evidence of the bowing outward of the outer box columns in any of the videos or photographs—just a strikingly symmetrical telescoping in the case of the North Tower!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The floor below (with its 1,300 t design capacity) could not support the roughly 45,000 t of ten floors (or more) above crashing down on these angle clips.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!But in order for the collapse to start just one or two floors falling would have to overcome the 1,300 ton capacity of the floor below. Since most of the 45,000 tons above the crash zone was probably in the core and outer walls, a single floor probably weighed less than 1,000 tons!!!!!
This started the domino effect that caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds, hitting bottom with an estimated speed of 200 km per hour. If it had been free fall, with no restraint, the collapse would have only taken eight seconds and would have impacted at 300 km/h.
!!!!!!!!!!!!The correct time (for free-fall in a vacuum from the heights of the towers’ roofs to the street) is 9.2 seconds. And the crushing of all those stories and acceleration of the 400,000 tons of intact structure below the impact zone only slowed the fall by a couple of seconds?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It has been suggested that it was fortunate that the WTC did not tip over onto other buildings surrounding the area. There are several points that should be made. First, the building is not solid; it is 95 percent air and, hence, can implode onto itself. Second, there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!This is sheer nonsense, as any imbalance in the damage to the structure would result in lateral loads due to the fulcrum of damaged structure not being directly beneath the center of gravity of the overhanging mass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Third, given the near free-fall collapse, there was insufficient time for portions to attain significant lateral velocity. To summarize all of these points, a 500,000 t structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And what does that “near free-fall” collapse mean: that the gravity load-bearing structure of the building below the impact zone was obliterated before the falling portion encountered it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Note that the cursory three-short-paragraph treatment of the “collapse” entirely ignores the role of the towers’ resilient cores, which collapsing floors would have slid down like records on a spindle. Note also that “collapse” is singular, even though the damage in the two towers was very different. There is no evidence the jet collision with Tower 2 significantly damaged its core structures, since the strike was oblique, much of the jet’s fuselage and fuel having exited the adjacent face of the outer wall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WAS THE WTC DEFECTIVELY DESIGNED?
The World Trade Center was not defectively designed. No designer of the WTC anticipated, nor should have anticipated, a 90,000 L Molotov cocktail on one of the building floors.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!And those engineers who designed the building to survive a direct hit from a 707 carrying 23,000 gallons of fuel, far more than the 10,000 in the 767s—well they must have forgotten to think about the fuel!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Skyscrapers are designed to support themselves for three hours in a fire even if the sprinkler system fails to operate. This time should be long enough to evacuate the occupants. The WTC towers lasted for one to two hours—less than the design life, but only because the fire fuel load was so large.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Nearly half the size anticipated, ignoring the fuel consumed in the fireballs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
No normal office fires would fill 4,000 square meters of floor space in the seconds in which the WTC fire developed. Usually, the fire would take up to an hour to spread so uniformly across the width and breadth of the building. This was a very large and rapidly progressing fire (very high heat but not unusually high temperature). Further information about the design of the WTC can be found on the World Wide Web.
!!!!!!!!!!!But you won’t find the blueprints for the towers. Those are being withheld from the public!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE
The clean-up of the World Trade Center will take many months.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!But it was accomplished in only half the time predicted. Controlled Demolition Inc. was so efficient that it recycled the steel before it could be examined for clues to the greatest structural failure in history. But with experts like Eagar and Musso to explain the “collapse” for us, who needs to examine the evidence?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
After all, 1,000,000 t of rubble will require 20,000 to 30,000 truckloads to haul away the material. The asbestos fire insulation makes the task hazardous for those working nearby. Interestingly, the approximately 300,000 t of steel is fully recyclable and represents only one day’s production of the U.S. steel industry. Separation of the stone and concrete is a common matter for modern steel shredders. The land-filling of 700,000 t of concrete and stone rubble is more problematic. However, the volume is equivalent to six football fields, 6–9 m deep, so it is manageable.
There will undoubtedly be a number of changes in the building codes as a result of the WTC catastrophe. For example, emergency communication systems need to be upgraded to speed up the notice for evacuation and the safest paths of egress. Emergency illumination systems, separate from the normal building lighting, are already on the drawing boards as a result of lessons learned from the WTC bombing in 1993. There will certainly be better fire protection of structural members. Protection from smoke inhalation, energy-absorbing materials, and redundant means of egress will all be considered.
A basic engineering assessment of the design of the World Trade Center dispels many of the myths about its collapse. First, the perimeter tube design of the towers protected them from failing upon impact. The outer columns were engineered to stiffen the towers in heavy wind, and they protected the inner core, which held the gravity load. Removal of some of the outer columns alone could not bring the building down. Furthermore, because of the stiffness of the perimeter design, it was impossible for the aircraft impact to topple the building.
However, the building was not able to withstand the intense heat of the jet fuel fire. While it was impossible for the fuel-rich, diffuse-flame fire to burn at a temperature high enough to melt the steel, its quick ignition and intense heat caused the steel to lose at least half its strength and to deform, causing buckling or crippling.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!One would think a fire producing such intense heat would exhibit some big flames, light, or light-colored smoke, none of which are visible after the first few minutes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This weakening and deformation caused a few floors to fall, while the weight of the stories above them crushed the floors below, initiating a domino collapse.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Such a collapse would have looked nothing like what we saw. The floors falling on each other would have resulted in their falling inside the outer wall and around the inner core. The outer wall and core would not have failed until after the collapsed floors piled up at ground level INSIDE the outer walls. Instead we saw the outer wall shredded by gradual, descending explosion, starting just as the tower’s top started to fall!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It would be impractical to design buildings to withstand the fuel load induced by a burning commercial airliner.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!According to the FEMA report, the buildings did withstand said fuel loads, which were depleted in “a few minutes”. And they should have, since they were designed to withstand over twice those fuel loads!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Instead of saving the building, engineers and officials should focus on saving the lives of those inside by designing better safety and evacuation systems.
As scientists and engineers, we must not succumb to speculative thinking when a tragedy such as this occurs. Quantitative reasoning can help sort fact from fiction, and can help us learn from this unfortunate disaster. As Lord Kelvin said,
“I often say . . . that when you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it; but when you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarcely, in your thoughts, advanced to the stage of science, whatever the matter may be.”
We will move forward from the WTC tragedy and we will engineer better and safer buildings in the future based, in part, on the lessons learned at the WTC. The reason the WTC collapse stirs our emotions so deeply is because it was an intentional attack on innocent people.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Oops, they let a bit of truth in here: the collapses were intentional!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is easier to accept natural or unintentional tragedies; it is the intentional loss of life that makes us fear that some people have lost their humanity.
Speculation and theorizing do not constitute malpractice. On the contrary, they are essential ingredients in the reaching of valid conclusions.
You sophomorically mischaracterize this process as some kind of crime, Joe.
In fact, if the “truth” movement had anyone qualified to participate in this process, they would be respected. Such is not the case.
No serious professional engineer in a relevant field has voiced suspicions of explosives being used. No serious investigative journalist has. No serious politician has. There are hundreds of journalists and politicians that would give their right arm for this trash to be true. Such is not the case.
Jeff King is not qualified to question the conclusions of NIST and the rest of the structural/civil engineering and professional demolitionist community. He’s free to try, but until he is able to produce a thesis, and pass peer review in a relevant scientific or engineering journal, his sputterings are as irrelevant as yours and mine.
The folks at 9/11 research are not qualified to “debunk” the NIST reports. They are nothing more than a bunch of computer geek propagandists who dub themselves “researchers”, and haven’t the slightest clue how to go about properly disagreeing with genuinely qualified individuals.
The proof is in the pudding. The “truth” crowd’s pudding so far is a runny mess with no body and no flavor.
Natalie
You said:
I asked you for the complete context of Ronald Hamburger and Mike Tayor’s quotes that you introduced. You dodged. I had to do it.
I think you are going insane because I had linked to the original sources twice on Oct 25, 2006 at 1:38 AM before you asked me for links on Oct 25, 2006 at 4:24 and so I again gave you links to the original sources twice on Oct 28, 2006 at 9:18 PM.
Now of course this does not count all the indirect links I gave where the quotes were used and through most of those (not all) you could go to the original sources for the quotes and all these many times are on page 15 alone.
Also I have pointed this out and when I did it had been 8 times that I had posted the links and after that I did it again a few times so you dont have any excuse that I can think of for this comment other than you are lying. If I am wrong please explain. But I must say I do not belive it was by misstake you made the comment. You should be ashamed of your self!
You said:
In stage 1 Fig. 1, the conflagration, caused by the aircraft fuel spilled into the structure, causes the steel of the columns to be exposed to sustained temperatures apparently exceeding 800C. The heating is probably accelerated by a loss of the protective thermal insulation of steel during the initial blast.—Bazant/Zhou 2001 Journal of Engineering Mechanics ...... ahem!
Blast? By implying that the impact fireballs were blasts, the authors confuse explosions, which produce very high pressures, with fireballs, which don’t. A detonation wave can be generated by the sudden ignition of an unburned hydrocarbon-air mixture, but is not produced when ignition is continuous, as appeared to be the case with the dispersing fuel in the jet impacts. The fireballs took about two seconds to expand. Had they detonated, they would have appeared in milliseconds.
This assumption is crucial to the entire analysis, and there is no basis for it. Actual tests of uninsulated steel structures exposed to gas and diesel fuel for sustained periods never exceeded 360°C. And flames were no longer visible in the South Tower moments before its collapse, and it was emitting only dark smoke.
I know you think this is another crazy moon—bat theory but I must try to wake you up about the North American Union to Replace USA.
H. CON. RES. 487
Currently a resolution is being introduced into Congress to block what is called by some a coup d’etat.
Corsi charges that the SPP working groups are a shadow government working daily to rewrite American laws and regulations with counterpart bureaucrats in Canada and Mexico. All of this, he states, is being done without the knowledge of the American people and most members of Congress.
“What we charge is that under way, below the radar screen, is essentially a Bush administration coup d’état, creating a regional North American Union on the same stealth plan that was put into effect in Europe,” he says. “The key issue is deniability: the administrators involved in this, the globalists and the bureaucrats who are involved in it from the Bush administration would say, ‘No, we’re just building a highway.’”
According to Corsi, the “Trans-Texas Corridor” is designed to function as a NAFTA super-highway, opening Mexican ports with Red Chinese goods from Mexican trucks and trains to move north into the center of the United States. The group that will build and finance the Corridor, he notes, is a group in Spain named “Cintra” — and the tolls on that road will go to Cintra, he says - AgapePress
The Resolution is known as H. CON. RES. 487 and is being sponsored by Representative Virgil Goode of Virginia. The text is as follows:
CONCURRENT RESOLUTION
Expressing the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.
Whereas, according to the Department of Commerce, United States trade deficits with Mexico and Canada have significantly widened since the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA);
Whereas the economic and physical security of the United States is impaired by the potential loss of control of its borders attendant to the full operation of NAFTA;
Whereas a NAFTA Superhighway System from the west coast of Mexico through the United States and into Canada has been suggested as part of a North American Union;
Whereas it would be particularly difficult for Americans to collect insurance from Mexican companies which employ Mexican drivers involved in accidents in the United States, which would increase the insurance rates for American drivers;
Whereas future unrestricted foreign trucking into the United States can pose a safety hazard due to inadequate maintenance and inspection, and can act collaterally as a conduit for the entry into the United States of illegal drugs, illegal human smuggling, and terrorist activities; and
Whereas a NAFTA Superhighway System would be funded by foreign consortiums and controlled by foreign management, which threatens the sovereignty of the United States: Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), That—
(1) the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) Superhighway System;
(2) the United States should not enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada; and
(3) the President should indicate strong opposition to these or any other proposals that threaten the sovereignty of the United States.
Canadian, U.S., and Mexican elites, including CEOS and politicians, have a plan to create common North American policies and further integrate our economies. This plan goes by various names and euphemisms, such as “deep integration”, “NAFTA-plus”, “harmonization”, the “Big Idea”, the “Grand Bargain”, and the “North American Security and Prosperity Initiative”. Regardless of which name your prefer, the end goal of all of these plans is to create a new political and economic entity that would supercede the existing countries. Advocates refer to it as a “North American Community”, but it is also known as the North American Union (NAU). Theoretically, it would be similar to and competetive with the European Union (EU). The individual currencies of each country would be replaced by a common currency called the “Amero” and everything from environmental regulations to security would be brought in line with a common standard.
Country’s destruction is now under way
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By EDWARD MILTON VENTRESCA / Canyon Country, Calif.
.
Relatively few Americans are aware that the destruction of the United States is well under way. How can this be? It is because the federal government wants to entangle us in a North American Cooperative Security Act with Canada and Mexico.
This act will be used as a stepping stone to build a North American Union similar to the European Union. Our borders with Canada and Mexico will be erased, and we will be subjected to rulings from an unelected NAU governing body. We will lose our sovereignty and our constitutional protection.
This is not speculation. It is official government policy. If you don’t believe me, go to www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_4213.shtml for details.
Futhermore, as part of the NAU, the federal government plans to build a NAFTA super highway throughout our country. It will be linked to both Canada and Mexico. It is expected to be about a quarter-mile wide. The government will use the power of eminent domain to condemn private property for this highway.
Inspection stations will be moved from our borders to hundreds of miles inland because our borders will have been erased. This means that terrorists and contraband can easily enter our former independent United States.
Concerned citizens should contact their U.S. Senators and their U.S. representative and urge them to stop this so-called Security Act: S. 853 in the Senate, and H.R 2672 in the House of Representatives.
Closer ties to the U.S. a mistake
By Robert Radford
Nov 04 2006
The North American Union, may seem like a good thing to some people: no more currency exchange problems, no more duties and tariffs, no more hassles at the border.
But before the Canadian people allow their politicians to create this union, there are a few factors I believe should be taken into consideration.
Integrity: The United States government has repeatedly demonstrated its “right,” in the best interests of the United States, to violate the terms of any agreement, constitution, convention, treaty or understanding which may exist. Are we willing to form a union with a nation which can’t keep its word?
Fiscal Responsibility: The United States has a debt of over $8,570 billion and it is increasing at the rate of 1.62 billion dollars a day, far beyond its ability to ever repay, even according to the most optimistic of forecasts. Are we willing to form a union with a nation which is bankrupt?
Resource Responsibility: The United States imports two-thirds of the oil which it consumes and the dried up lakes and rivers in parts of the United States demonstrate a lack of responsibility in water resource management. Canada possesses the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world, next to Saudi Arabia, and has 10 times more water resources than the United States. Are we willing to form a union with a nation which has its eyes on our resources after misusing its own?
Social Values: Anyone who has lived and worked in the United States for a few years is well aware that there are significant differences between the moral and cultural values of those who have been born and brought up in Canada and those who have been born and brought up in the United States. For example, Canadians value multi-cultural perspectives, whereas the Americans value a cultural melting-pot. Are we willing to form a union with a nation without a clear acceptance of the differences in our sets of values?
Consideration of factors such as these may seem like common sense to you and me. But can we count on our politicians to exercise it?
Robert Radford is a Cobble Hill resident.
Congressman: Superhighway
about North American Union
Paul says goal is common currency,
borderless travel, bigger bureaucracy
Posted: October 30, 2006
12:41 p.m. Eastern
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com
Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas
WASHINGTON – Rep. Ron Paul, a maverick Republican from Texas, today denounced plans for the proposed “NAFTA superhighway” in his state as part of a larger plot for merger of the U.S., Canada and Mexico into a North American Union.
“By now many Texans have heard about the proposed ‘NAFTA Superhighway,’ which is also referred to as the trans-Texas corridor,” he said in a statement. “What you may not know is the extent to which plans for such a superhighway are moving forward without congressional oversight or media attention.”
Paul explained that most members of Congress are unaware of the plans because only relatively small amounts of money have been spent studying the plans and those allocations were included in “enormous transportation appropriations bills.”
“The proposed highway is part of a broader plan advanced by a quasi-government organization called the ‘Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America,’ or SPP,” he explains. “The SPP was first launched in 2005 by the heads of state of Canada, Mexico, and the United States at a summit in Waco.”
No treaties were involved, and Congress was not included in discussions or plans, he says.
“Instead, the SPP is an unholy alliance of foreign consortiums and officials from several governments,” according to Paul. “One principal player is a Spanish construction company, which plans to build the highway and operate it as a toll road. But don’t be fooled: The superhighway proposal is not the result of free market demand, but rather an extension of government-managed trade schemes like NAFTA that benefit politically connected interests.”
Paul says, however, the real issue raised by the superhighway plan and the SPP is national sovereignty.
“Once again, decisions that affect millions of Americans are not being made by those Americans themselves, or even by their elected representatives in Congress,” says Paul. “Instead, a handful of elites use their government connections to bypass national legislatures and ignore our Constitution – which expressly grants Congress the sole authority to regulate international trade.”
The ultimate goal, he says, is not simply a superhighway “but an integrated North American Union – complete with a currency, a cross-national bureaucracy and virtually borderless travel within the union. Like the European Union, a North American Union would represent another step toward the abolition of national sovereignty altogether.”
Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., has introduced a resolution expressing the sense of Congress that the U.S. should not engage in the construction of a NAFTA superhighway, or enter into any agreement that advances the concept of a North American Union.
“I wholeheartedly support this legislation and predict that the superhighway will become a sleeper issue in the 2008 election,” says Paul. “Any movement toward a North American Union diminishes the ability of average Americans to influence the laws under which they must live. The SPP agreement, including the plan for a major transnational superhighway through Texas, is moving forward without congressional oversight – and that is an outrage. The administration needs a strong message from Congress that the American people will not tolerate backroom deals that threaten our sovereignty.”
No North American Union
Written by Douglas Logan
Friday, 27 October 2006
Dear Editor:
Many Americans remain unaware of the simple historical fact that our nation was created by the states, not the reverse. The federal system built by our nation’s Founders established a national government with very few duties and limited powers.
Each state was to remain independent in most areas. This system ultimately assured that the American people would make our nation the most powerful and productive in modem history.
In more recent years, the federal government has usurped many of the powers of the states, and the federal government has begun taking steps that would steer the United States into an independence-compromising regional government called the North American Union.
It sounds like a fantasy, or a bad dream, but it is not. The October 2 issue of The New American describes already-established plans that could result in our nation becoming subject to a new agreement among the governments of the U.S., Mexico and Canada, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP).
If not blocked, the agreement would mean that the three countries could become~ in effect, a single entity. Our borders would essentially be erased, Canadian and Mexican law enforcement personnel would be integrated into our new Homeland Security Department, and a huge highway system would be erected among the three countries to facilitate delivery of Mexican and other goods to the U.S. and Canada.
Such a highway system would lead to increased illegal immigration, large-scale eminent domain takings of private property along the planned highways, and increased law enforcement problems along these same highways.
Our nation’s motto, E Pluribus Unum, means “Out of Many, One” - out of many independent states, one national government for strictly limited purposes. America’s Founders ~ intended to destroy the states as independent entities.
For your family, your state, and your country, please help win approval in our state legislature.
“To withdraw the U.S. from the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America and any other bilateral or multilateral activity which seeks to create a North American Union.”
Douglas A. Logan
Heflin, Louisiana
North American Union to Replace USA
November 4, 2006—- President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration’s true open borders policy.
Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA politically, setting the stage for a North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.
President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.
The blueprint President Bush is following was laid out in a 2005 report (http://www.cfr.org/content/publications/attachments/NorthAmerica_TF_final.pdf) entitled “Building a North American Community” published by the left-of-center Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). The CFR report connects the dots between the Bush administration’s actual policy on illegal immigration and the drive to create the North American Union:
At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2005, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint
action. We welcome this important development and offer this report to add urgency and specific recommendations to strengthen their efforts.
What is the plan? Simple, erase the borders. The plan is contained in a “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” little noticed when President Bush and President Fox created it in March 2005:
In March 2005, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment “to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security.” The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.
To that end, the Task Force proposes the creation by 2010 of a North American community to enhance security, prosperity, and opportunity. We propose a community based on the principle affirmed in the March 2005 Joint Statement of
the three leaders that “our security and prosperity are mutually dependent and complementary.” Its boundaries will be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter within which the movement of people, products, and capital will be legal, orderly and safe. Its goal will be to guarantee a free, secure, just, and prosperous North America.
The perspective of the CFR report allows us to see President Bush’s speech to the nation as nothing more than public relations posturing and window dressing. No wonder President Vincente Fox called President Bush in a panic after the speech. How could the President go back on his word to Mexico by actually securing our border? Not to worry, President Bush reassured President Fox. The National Guard on the border were only temporary, meant to last only as long until the public forgets about the issue, as has always been the case in the past.
The North American Union plan, which Vincente Fox has every reason to presume President Bush is still following, calls for the only border to be around the North American Union—not between any of these countries. Or, as the CFR report stated:
The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments? physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.
Discovering connections like this between the CFR recommendations and Bush administration policy gives credence to the argument that President Bush favors amnesty and open borders, as he originally said. Moreover, President Bush most likely continues to consider groups such as the Minuteman Project to be “vigilantes,” as he has also said in response to a reporter’s question during the March 2005 meeting with President Fox.
Why doesn’t President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union. The administration has no intent to secure the border, or to enforce rigorously existing immigration laws. Securing our border with Mexico is evidently one of the jobs President Bush just won’t do. If a fence is going to be built on our border with Mexico, evidently the Minuteman Project is going to have to build the fence themselves. Will President Bush protect America’s sovereignty, or is this too a job the Minuteman Project will have to do for him?
Please read this Timeline of the Progress Toward a North American Union. I know you Natalie and Scorp dont belive it but please at least read it Please!
Joe you said:
“I think you are going insane because I had linked to the original sources twice on Oct 25, 2006 at 1:38 AM before you asked me for links on Oct 25, 2006 at 4:24 and so I again gave you links to the original sources twice on Oct 28, 2006 at 9:18 PM.”
If you wouldn’t post entire novels at a time, someone might have a chance of deciphering what point you’re trying to make. I see now that there are links to the original sources of the quotes, however, I remember also that this was a post that you didn’t have time to paste all the links into at first. Then your links were disappearing.
Give me a break. Turn down the faucet, and give people a chance to respond point by point. Your flooding the place with one disparate tangent after another, just to let you know, comes off as an obvious smokescreen to hide your inability to provide any actual evidence for what you claim.
Just so we’re clear. Taylor and Hamburger do not believe in CD. They never did. They merely stated their initial impressions, as did countless people across the country, and as did several journalists covering the event, that the collapses resembled deliberate implosions they’d seen in the past.
If you want to maintain that someone’s initial impressions should rule over the result of months and months of detailed investigation, go right ahead, be my guest.
I’ll reprint my previous post (slightly edited for relevance) so everyone’s clear on the context:
Kevin Ryan mined Ronald Hamburger’s quote here:
Ronald Hamburger turned on his television on the day of the attack just in time to watch the collapse of the second World Trade Center tower.
“<u>It appeared to me that charges had been placed in the building</u>,” said Mr. Hamburger, chief structural engineer for ABS Consulting in Oakland, Calif. Upon learning that no bombs had been detonated, “I was very surprised,” said Mr. Hamburger. The buildings “certainly did not do as well as I would have hoped.”
But obviously, this was just a first impression that many people had before they knew any details about the building’s unusual construction.
Kevin Ryan mined Mike Taylor’s quote here:
<u>The collapse of the WTC towers looked like a classic controlled demolition</u>, said Mike Taylor of the National Association of Demolition Contractors in Doylestown, Pennsylvania.
“If there’s any good thing about this it’s that the towers tended not to weaken to one side,” said Taylor. “They could have tipped onto other buildings or into the river across the West Side highway.”
The collapse of the WTC towers mirrored the strategy used by demolition experts. In controlled demolitions, explosives are placed not just on the lowest three floors but also on several consecutive floors about a third of the way up the building.
The explosions at the higher floors enable the collapse to gain downward momentum as gravity pulls the full weight of unsupported higher floors down into lower floors in a snowballing effect.
On Tuesday, the impacts of aeroplanes on the higher floors replaced the explosives. The collapse of the higher floors caused the floors below to be crushed. <u>“It cascaded down like an implosion,” says Taylor.</u>
So we are left to conclude that Kevin Ryan is either deliberately deceiving us, or feels no need for researching the quotes he uses in his presentations past the first 9/11 conspiracy site he clicks on.
Either way, it doesn’t bode well for the credibility of the rest of his little side….er uh….slide show.
Now you seem to want to pick apart Bazant’s use of the term “blast”. I think what he’s referring to is the huge force of the jet, its fuel and its contents, along with elements of the building it took out along the way, blasting its way into the interior of the building, not so much the explosions of the fuel. That wouldn’t exactly be a gentle breeze, however.
If you think that any kind of fireproofing anywhere would hold up to such force, you’re in la-la land.
If you think that the fireproofing that was there was perfectly and completely installed, and wasn’t already subject to falling off with a relatively small amount of force, I think you would be in error, as I believe NIST has evidence to suggest that the fireproofing job/materials were inadequate. (not absolutely sure on this, but regardless, there was a huge force injected that surely would have overcome even the best fireproofing installation.)
One important point Joe, is that many people who were familiar with the design of the towers, and people who were familiar with what can happen to steel and steel trusses in a fire, knew that the towers would probaby collapse, and tried to sound the warning.
On top of that, police in helicopters could see that collapse was imminent, about ten minutes before. They described “red hot” fires. Ahem.
Umm…....the Pentagon?
Natalie
You said:
(#1) If you wouldn’t post entire novels at a time, someone might have a chance of deciphering what point you’re trying to make. (#3) I see now that there are links to the original sources of the quotes, however, I remember also that this was a post that you didn’t have time to paste all the links into at first. Then your links were disappearing.
#1 Natalie in the posts we are talking about I replied to each point you made with just some of the information out there to back it up. I gave you exactly what you had asked for in the previous comments you had made.
You said:
(#2)Give me a break. Turn down the faucet, and give people a chance to respond point by point. Your flooding the place with one disparate tangent after another, just to let you know, comes off as an obvious smokescreen to hide your inability to provide any actual evidence for what you claim.
#2 Natalie I am always giving you many breaks. You always say show me and then you complain when I do. I do not mean to flood you with information that backs up what I am saying or to show your comments are completely false for I only use some of the massive amounts of infomation that is found around the world.
The faucet you talk about is tens of thousands of massive water falls found all around the globe flooding the world in truth. Any so called debunkers should make like Noah for the tide of truth is rising. You better get in your life boat Natalie because this flood is only growing in size and speed every day. The lies are being exposed as they drown in the truth.ect, ect, ect…
#3 Yes Natalie in one of the posts I did not have time to past all the links
into my reply to your incorrect and false comments. But I had posted the same stuff before. That is why I was so frustrated because you ignore everything that was said before and make a completly false statement as if you had never seen proof that is contrary to your comments. I have found that If I present the same information in different ways you will eventually acknowledge it. So I must assume that it is your denial that keeps you from seeing the truth and will continue to help you through it.
————————-Here is an example—————————
You said:
That, Joe, is something that is unquestioned by anyone who actually understands the forces involved in such an event. In other words, 99.99 percent of structural engineers and even still employed physicists on the planet.
What planet are you talking about it most certinly is not Earth. Here are just a few examples in order to save space and time.
By adopting Dr. Greening’s own arguments, corrections, contentions, figures and reasoning, the analysis once again shows that the collapse would be arrested at an early stage. Dr. Greening has not disproved the logic and conclusions of Dr. Ross’s article, but has in fact reinforced the most important conclusion: that collapse would have been arrested at an early stage.
Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of “pancake collapse”, which normally only occurs with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in “redundant” welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as the Structural Engineer Charles Pegelow has pointed out.
The destruction of the South Tower in 10 seconds and of the North in 9 is even faster than free fall with only air resistance, which would have taken at least 12 seconds, which, as Judy Wood has emphasized, is an astounding result that would have been impossible without extremely powerful explosives.
The towers are exploding from the top, not collapsing to the ground, where the floors do not move, a phenomenon that Judy Wood has likened to two gigantic trees turning to sawdust from the top down, which, like the pulverization of the concrete, the official account cannot possibly explain.
If the steel had melted or weakened, the affected floors would have displayed completely different behavior, with some asymmetrical sagging and tilting, which would have been gradual and slow, not the complete, abrupt, and total demolition that was observed.
In the history of structural engineering, steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been brought down due to fires either before or since 9/11,so how can fires have brought down three in one day? How is this possible?
Frank DeMartini, a project manager for the WTC, said the buildings were designed with load redistribution capabilities to withstand the impact of airliners, whose effects would be like “puncturing mosquito netting with a pencil.” Yet they completely collapsed. How is this possible?
physics research has established that only controlled demolitions are consistent with the near-gravity speed of fall and virtually symmetrical collapse of all three of the WTC buildings. While turning concrete into very fine dust, they fell straight-down into their own footprints.
An expert on demolition said that the trade centers were brought down with explosives (and see TV interview here; both in Danish)
Two structural engineers at a prestigious Swiss university said that, on 9/11, World Trade Center 7 was brought down by controlled demolition (translation here)
A Dutch demolition expert stated that WTC 7 was imploded
A U.S. professor of physics stated that the world trade centers were brought down by controlled demolition
A U.S. professor of mechanical engineering argued that the trade centers were brought down with explosives
Several U.S. structural engineers, such as this one (second interview), have concluded that the collapse of the Trade Centers on 9/11 cannot be explained by the plane crashes and fires in the buildings
An expert on why buildings collapse said controlled demolitions make buildings fall straight down (as opposed to falling over like a tree, which is what normally happens when buildings collapse) because the vertical columns are destroyed simultaneously by explosives, and “that’s exactly what it looked like and that’s what happened” on 9/11
The head of a national demolition association stated that the collapse of the towers looked like a “classic controlled demolition”
“Some engineers . . . have accused NIST of repeatedly changing its explanation of the collapse mechanism.” (Google’s cached version of the article is here)
Now you know this is hardly a flood it is just a small example that shows you are incorrect. But if you want to see a flood look at what comes next.
You said:
No serious professional engineer in a relevant field has voiced suspicions of explosives being used. No serious investigative journalist has. No serious politician has. There are hundreds of journalists and politicians that would give their right arm for this trash to be true. Such is not the case.
FIRST THAT RIGHT ARM COMMENT IS AN INSULT TO ANY AMERICAN WETHER THEY BELIVE IN THE PHONY LEFT/RIGHT PARADIGM OR NOT!!!!!!!!!!!!! THAT IS A DISGUSTING THING TO SAY!!!!!!!!!!!
I know this is 2 years old and there are more now but who cares this is enough.
911 Truth Statement
Respected Leaders and Families Launch 9/11 Truth Statement Demanding Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11
NEW YORK CITY, NY (Oct. 26, 2004) – An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11 today announced the release of the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. The Statement supports an August 31st Zogby poll that found nearly 50% of New Yorkers believe the government had foreknowledge and “consciously failed to act,” with 66% wanting a new 9/11 investigation.
Focusing on twelve questions, the Statement highlights areas of incriminating evidence that were either inadequately explored or ignored by the Kean Commission, ranging from insider trading and hijacker funding to foreign government forewarnings and inactive defenses around the Pentagon. The Statement asks for four actions: an immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Congressional hearings, media analysis, and the formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
The Statement’s list of signatories includes notables spanning the political spectrum, from Presidential candidates Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik, and David Cobb to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush administration, as well as Washington veterans like Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Other signers range from peace activists like Code Pink president Jodie Evans and Global Exchange’s Kevin Danaher to former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, Edward L. Peck; from environmentalists like Randy Hayes and John Robbins to business leaders such as Paul Hawken and Karl Schwartz, CEO of Patmos Nanotechnologies; from populist journalist Ronnie Dugger to renowned investigative reporter Kelly Patricia O’Meara.
The Statement also includes 43 noted authors, including New York Times #1 bestseller John Gray, as well as 18 eminent professors, historians, and theologians. Other notables include five-term Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, singers Michelle Shocked and Michael Franti, and actors Ed Asner and Mimi Kennedy.
The Statement was facilitated by 911truth.org, a leading coalition. The organization has also announced a press conference outside of Eliot Spitzer’s Manhattan office (corner of Cedar and Nassau) at 2:00PM on Thursday, Oct. 28th where 9/11 family members and victim group representatives will file a formal complaint demanding the first criminal investigation of 9/11 events by the New York Attorney General.
The Statement
We Want Real Answers About 9/11
On August 31, 2004, Zogby International, the official North American political polling agency for Reuters, released a poll that found nearly half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of those in New York state believe US leaders had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and “consciously failed” to act. Of the New York City residents, 66% called for a new probe of unanswered questions by Congress or the New York Attorney General.
In connection with this news, we have assembled 100 notable Americans and 40 family members of those who died to sign this 9/11 Statement, which calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.
We want truthful answers to questions such as:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven’t authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
6. Why has Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of advance warnings, been publicly silenced with a gag order requested by Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bush-appointed judge?
7. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
8. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent?
9. What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
10. Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
11. Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
12. Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
Those who are demanding deeper inquiry now number in the hundreds of thousands, including a former member of the first Bush administration, a retired Air Force colonel, a European parliamentarian, families of the victims, highly respected authors, investigative journalists, peace and justice leaders, former Pentagon staff, and the National Green Party.
As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
1. An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
2. Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
3. Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
4. The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
Given the importance of the coming election, we feel it is imperative that these questions be addressed publicly, honestly, and rigorously so that Americans may exercise their democratic rights with full awareness.
In closing, we pray and hope for the strength to approach this subject with wisdom and compassion so that we may heal from the wounds inflicted on that terrible day.
Signed,
Signatories
Note: All organizations are mentioned for identification purposes only. Individuals have signed this statement as an act of their own conscience, not to signify organizational endorsement.
1. Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics
2. Ed Asner, actor, activist
3. Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc.
4. Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration
5. Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio
6. Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President
7. Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy
8. Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania
9. Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink
10. Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA’s Flashpoints
11. Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian
12. Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty
13. Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief
14. Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies
15. John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004
16. Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley
17. Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore
18. Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University
19. Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology
20. Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
21. David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party
22. John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good
23. Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia
24. Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange
25. Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit
26. Bill Doyle, advocate for 9/11 families, father of Joseph Doyle, Cantor Fitzgerald employee
27. Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy
28. Rachel Ehrenfeld, Ph.D., Director, American Center for Democracy, author, Funding Evil
29. Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
30. Jodie Evans, president, Code Pink
31. Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University
32. Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker
33. Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire
34. Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
35. Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel
36. John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
37. Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder
38. Melvin Goodman, senior fellow, Center for International Policy, author, former Senior Analyst, CIA, professor, National War College
39. Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter
40. David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor
41. Doris “Granny D” Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate
42. Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection
43. Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist
44. Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken
45. Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation
46. Richard Heinberg, author, The Party’s Over, core faculty, New College of California
47. Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
48. Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc.
49. Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute
50. Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies
51. John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004
52. Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist
53. Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam
54. David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World
55. France Moore Lappé, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute
56. Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL
57. Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine
58. Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA
59. Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author
60. Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam
61. John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy
62. Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
63. Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia
64. Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation
65. Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University
66. Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department
67. Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner
68. Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President
69. Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader
70. Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty
71. Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization
72. Kelly Patricia O’Meara, investigative journalist, public relations
73. Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap
74. Edward L. Peck, former US Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq, former Deputy Director to the White House Task Force on Terrorism
75. Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored
76. Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation
77. Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org
78. Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives
79. John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future
80. John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party
81. John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International
82. William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group
83. Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer
84. Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist
85. Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union
86. Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon
87. Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates
88. Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC
89. Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War
90. Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations
91. Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist
92. Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant
93. J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State
94. Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University
95. Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author
96. Chuck Turner, Boston City Council
97. James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three
98. Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M
99. Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa
100. Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People’s History of the United States
Family Members
1. Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara
2. Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC
3. Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald
4. Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93
5. Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor
6. Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1
7. Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93
8. Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor
9. Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon
10. Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor
11. Ralph D’Esposito, father of Michael DÕEsposito, WTC, 96th floor
12. Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor
13. Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul “Geep” Fisher, Pentagon
14. Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor
15. Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11
16. Ilene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon
17. Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11
18. Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor
19. Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers
20. Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93
21. John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11
22. L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW
23. Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC
24. Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter
25. Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One
26. Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene
27. Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III
28. Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11
29. Christopher Longing, husband of Laura M. Longing, WTC1
30. Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch
31. Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22
32. Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor
33. Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1
34. Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11
35. James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11
36. Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber
37. Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor
38. Kathleen A. Stanton, WTC South, Injured Survivor
39. Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001
40. Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor
41. David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77
9/11 Statement Signed by 100 Prominent Americans
Senior Military, Intelligence, and Government
Critics of 9/11 Commission Report
Many well known and respected senior U.S. military officers, intelligence services veterans, and government officials have expressed significant criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report. Several even allege government complicity in the terrible acts of 9/11. This web site is a collection of their public statements. It should be made clear that none of these individuals are affiliated with this web site.
Listed below are highly critical statements about the 9/11 Commission Report and/or calls for a new 9/11 investigation publicly made by over 50 of these senior officials. Their collective voices give credibility to the claim that the 9/11 Commission Report is tragically flawed. These individuals cannot be simply dismissed as irresponsible believers in some 9/11 conspiracy theory. Their sincere concern, backed by their decades of service to their country, demonstrate that criticism of the Report is not irresponsible, illogical, nor disloyal, per se. In fact, it can be just the opposite.
9/11 is unquestionably the most important event in American history since December 7, 1941, when Japanese forces attacked Pearl Harbor. The magnitude of the impact of 9/11 on America and the rest of the world cannot be overstated. The terrible acts of 9/11 and the events leading up to them deserve a thorough, independent and unimpeachable investigation. And if some rogue element within the U.S. government is responsible for the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, as several of these individuals allege, it is critical that that be disclosed and forcefully dealt with.
FEDERAL AND STATE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Congressman Curt Weldon, “What’s the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?”
Rep. Curt Weldon
Rep. Curt Weldon – Vice Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Ten-term Republican Congressman from Pennsylvania.
* Fox News Article 8/28/05: Regarding the 9/11 Commission “There’s something very sinister going on here that really troubles me,” Weldon told FOX News on Thursday, blasting the Sept. 11 commission for not taking the claims more seriously. He said some panel members were trying to smear Shaffer and Able Danger. “What’s the Sept. 11 commission got to hide?” Weldon asked.” http://www.foxnews.com/...
* Press conference transcript 9/17/05: Regarding the 9/11 Commission Report “There’s something wrong here, something tragically wrong. The American people, the families, the country and the Congress need to know the truth, the whole truth, the complete truth. And so far we haven’t gotten it. … Somebody’s got to connect the dots and answer the questions. If the 9/11 Commission won’t do it, then Congress has to do it.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/...
* Bio: http://curtweldon.house.gov/Biography/
Max Cleland, The 9/11 Commission is a national scandal.
Senator Max Cleland
Senator Max Cleland – Former member of the 9/11 Commission, resigned in December 2003. Currently serves on the board of directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. U.S. Senator from Georgia 1996-2002. Secretary of State of Georgia 1982-1996. Administrator of the U.S. Veterans Administration 1977-1981. Captain, U.S. Army awarded Silver Star and Bronze Star for bravery in Viet Nam. Triple amputee from war injuries.
* Boston Globe Article 11/13/03: “If this decision stands [to limit access to White House documents], I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised.” http://www./...
* Salon Article 11/21/03: Regarding the 9/11 Commission “It is a national scandal.” http://dir.salon.com/...
* Resigned from the 9/11 Commission, 12/03
* Transcript of audio interview 3/23/04: “One of these days we will have to get the full story because the 9-11 issue is so important to America. But this White House wants to cover it up.” http://www.democracynow.org/...
* Bio: http://memory.loc.gov/...
Mark Dayton
Senator Mark Dayton
Senator Mark Dayton – Senate Committee on Armed Services, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Services. U.S. Senator from Minnesota.
* Senate Hearings on the 9/11 Commission Report 7/31/04: “They [NORAD] lied to the American people, they lied to Congress and they lied to your 9/11 Commission. ... For almost three years now NORAD officials and FAA officials have been able to hide their critical failures that left this country defenseless during two of the worst hours in our history.” http://www.911truth
* Editor’s note: On August 1, 2006, Thomas Kean, Chairman of the 9/11 Commission said, “We, to this day, don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us. It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.” Link Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Article: “Dayton, a former Minnesota state auditor, called the FAA’s and NORAD’s failures “the most gross incompetence and dereliction of responsibility and negligence that I’ve ever, under those extreme circumstances, witnessed in the public sector.” http://www.9111
* Bio: http://dayton.senate.gov/about/biography.cfm
Louis Freeh
Louis Freeh
Louis Freeh – Director of the FBI, 1993-2001. Former U.S. District Court Judge for the Southern District of New York, appointed by President George H.W. Bush. Former Deputy United States Attorney in New York. Former FBI agent. Former officer in the United States Army JAG Corps Reserve.
* Wall Street Journal Essay 11/17/05: “Even the most junior investigator would immediately know that the name and photo ID of Atta in 2000 is precisely the kind of tactical intelligence the FBI has many times employed to prevent attacks and arrest terrorists. Yet the 9/11 Commission inexplicably concluded that it “was not historically significant.” This astounding conclusion—in combination with the failure to investigate Able Danger and incorporate it into its findings—raises serious challenges to the commission’s credibility and, if the facts prove out, might just render the commission historically insignificant itself. … No wonder the 9/11 families were outraged by these revelations and called for a “new” commission to investigate.” http://www.opin/...
* Bio: http://www.fbi.gov/libref/directors/freeh.htm
Ambassador Edward Peck, We request an immediate re-investigation of 9/11
Edward L. Peck
Edward L. Peck – Deputy Director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism under Ronald Reagan. Former Deputy Coordinator, Covert Intelligence Programs at the State Department. U.S. Ambassador and Chief of Mission to Iraq (1977-80). 32-year veteran of the Foreign Service.
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article. ...
* Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Peck
Morton Goulder
Morton Goulder
Morton Goulder – Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Warning under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter (1973-77). Founder of Sanders Associates.
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article. ...
Morgan Reynolds, “We can prove the government’s story is false.”
Morgan Reynolds
Morgan Reynolds, PhD – Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Labor under George W. Bush 2001-2002. Former Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. Professor Emeritus, Economics, Texas A&M University.
* Video: “I first began to suspect that 9/11 was in inside job when the Bush-Cheney Administration invaded Iraq. … We can prove that the government’s story is false.” http://video.goo…
* Essay: “It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely [to] prove to be sound.” http://www.l…
* Bio: http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=bio
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts, PhD – Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury under Ronald Reagan, “Father of Reaganomics”, Former Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal. Currently Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute.
* Essay: “We know that it is strictly impossible for any building, much less steel columned buildings, to “pancake” at free fall speed. Therefore, it is a non-controversial fact that the official explanation of the collapse of the WTC buildings is false.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/...
* Essay: “There are not many editors eager for writers to explore the glaring defects of the 9/11 Commission Report. One would think that if the report could stand analysis, there would not be a taboo against calling attention to the inadequacy of its explanations.” http://www.counterpunc….
* Bio: http://www.vdare.com/roberts/bio.htm
Catherine Austin Fitts, “The Commission was a whitewash.”
Catherine Austin Fitts
Catherine Austin Fitts – Assistant Secretary of Housing under George H.W. Bush. Former Managing Director and Member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank, Dillon, Read & Co
* Audio Interview 9/9/04: Regarding 9/11 “The official story could not possibly have happened… It’s not possible. It’s not operationally feasible… The Commission was a whitewash.” (About 45 minutes into the file.) http://157….
* Essay: “The first category of people who benefited were those who are guilty and complicit in designing, implementing and financing the 9-11 operation. On such a sophisticated and successful covert operation, the people responsible would have had budgets and financing and would have organized the operation to maximize their political and financial benefits.” http://globalresearch.ca/...
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/article ...
* Bio: http://www.solari.com/about/ca_fitts.html
John Loftus
John Loftus
John Loftus - Former investigator and Federal Prosecutor, Office of Special Investigations, U.S. Department of Justice under Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. Former U.S. Army Intelligence officer. Currently author and frequent media commentator on terrorism and intelligence services.
* Article 9/6/03: “The information provided by European intelligence services prior to 9/11 was so extensive that it is no longer possible for either the CIA or FBI to assert a defence of incompetence.” http://www.guardian.co.
* Bio: http://www.harrywalker.com…
Fred Burks, “How is it possible that our military’s highly touted missile detections systems could not locate Flight 77 in the 42 minutes it was known to be lost before it crashed into the heart of the defense system of the U.S.?”
Fred Burks
Fred Burks – Former State Department Interpreter for Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, Vice Presidents Dick Cheney and Al Gore, Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Madeleine Albright. 18-year State Department career.
* Essay: “How is it possible that our military’s highly touted missile detections systems could not locate Flight 77 in the 42 minutes it was known to be lost before it crashed into the heart of the defense system of the U.S.? …
An even bigger question is why isn’t our media asking these questions? Why isn’t our military spending many millions of dollars to find out why military defense systems failed on 9/11? Why is it that the 9/11 commission budget was far less than the budget allotted to the Challenger Disaster or even the Monika Lewinsky affair?“http://www.wanttoknow.info/911star…
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/...
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg, PhD – Former Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense. Former State Department envoy to Viet Nam. While working for the government, Ellsberg attained the ultimate civil service grade of GS-18, equivalent to a Major General. Former U.S. Marine Corps officer. Former military analyst for the Rand Corporation. Most well known for leaking the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times in 1971.
* Interview 7/14/06: Regarding 9/11 “There is no question in my mind, that there is enough evidence to justify a very comprehensive and hard hitting investigation of the kind we have not seen. With subpoenas, general questioning of people, releasing a lot of documents. There’s no question that very serious questions have been raised about how much they knew before hand and how much involvement there may have been.” http://www.infowars
* Bio: http://www.ellsberg.net/bio.html
Philip Berg, “The official story of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie.”
Philip J. Berg
Philip J. Berg, Esquire – Former Deputy Attorney General, State of Pennsylvania.
* Article: “The official story of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie.” http://www.americanfreepress.net/...
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...
* Bio: http://www.911forthetruth.com/...
U.S. MILITARY OFFICERS
Albert Stubblebine
Major General Albert Stubblebine
Major General Albert Stubblebine, U.S. Army (ret) – Commanding General of the U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, 1981-84. Also commanded the U.S. Army’s Electronic Research and Development Command and the U.S. Army’s Intelligence School and Center. Former head of Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence. 32-year Army career.
* Video: “One of my experiences in the Army was being in charge of the Army’s Imagery Interpretation for Scientific and Technical Intelligence during the Cold War. I measured pieces of Soviet equipment from photographs. It was my job. I look at the hole in the Pentagon and I look at the size of an airplane that was supposed to have hit the Pentagon. And I said, ‘The plane does not fit in that hole’. So what did hit the Pentagon? What hit it? Where is it? What’s going on?” http://www.und ...
* Bio: http://www.canadiansub.com/Board….
Colonel Ronald Ray, “I’m astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that’s accurate.”
Col. Ronald D. Ray
Col. Ronald D. Ray, U.S. Marine Corps (ret) – Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense during the Reagan Administration and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran (two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart). Appointed by President George H.W. Bush to serve on the American Battle Monuments Commission (1990-1994), and on the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. From 1990 through 1994, he served as Military Historian and Deputy Director of Field Operations for the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C.
* Article: “The former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under the Reagan Administration and a highly decorated Vietnam veteran and Colonel has gone on the record to voice his doubts about the official story of 9/11 - calling it ‘the dog that doesn’t hunt.’ ‘I’m astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that’s accurate,’ he said.” http://www.pris/...
* Bio: http://www.firstprinciplespress.org/...
Colonel Robert Bowman, “A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible.”
Col. Robert Bowman
Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Ford and Carter. U.S. Air Force fighter pilot with over 100 combat missions. (PhD in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering, Cal Tech).
* Video: “A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible. … There’s a second group of facts having to do with the cover up. … Taken together these things prove that high levels of our government don’t want us to know what happened and who’s responsible. …
Who gained from 9/11? Who covered up crucial information about 9/11? And who put out the patently false stories about 9/11 in the first place? When you take those three things together, I think the case is pretty clear that it’s highly placed individuals in the administration with all roads passing through Dick Cheney. I think the very kindest thing that we can say about George W. Bush and all the people in the U.S. Government that have been involved in this massive cover-up, the very kindest thing we can say is that they were aware of impending attacks and let them happen. Now some people will say that’s much too kind, however even that is high treason and conspiracy to commit murder.” http://video.go…
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...
* Bio: http://bowman2006.com/about….
George Nelson, “With all the evidence readily available at the Pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged.”
Col. George Nelson
Col. George Nelson, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former U.S. Air Force aircraft accident investigator and airplane parts authority. 34-year Air Force career.
* Essay: “The government alleges that four wide-body airliners crashed on the morning of September 11 2001, resulting in the deaths of more than 3,000 human beings, yet not one piece of hard aircraft evidence has been produced in an attempt to positively identify any of the four aircraft. On the contrary, it seems only that all potential evidence was deliberately kept hidden from public view. …
With all the evidence readily available at the Pentagon crash site, any unbiased rational investigator could only conclude that a Boeing 757 did not fly into the Pentagon as alleged. Similarly, with all the evidence available at the Pennsylvania crash site, it was most doubtful that a passenger airliner caused the obvious hole in the ground and certainly not the Boeing 757 as alleged. …
As painful and heartbreaking as was the loss of innocent lives and the lingering health problems of thousands more, a most troublesome and nightmarish probability remains that so many Americans appear to be involved in the most heinous conspiracy in our country’s history.” http://www.physics911.net/georgenelson….
Douglas Rokke, “When you look at the whole thing, especially the crash site void of airplane parts, the size of the hole left in the building and the fact the projectile’s impact penetrated numerous concrete walls, it looks like the work of a missile. And when you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile.”
Major Douglas Rokke
Major Douglas Rokke, PhD, U.S. Army (ret) – Former Director U.S. Army Depleted Uranium Project.
* Article: Regarding the impact at the Pentagon on 9/11/2001 “When you look at the whole thing, especially the crash site void of airplane parts, the size of the hole left in the building and the fact the projectile’s impact penetrated numerous concrete walls, it looks like the work of a missile. And when you look at the damage, it was obviously a missile.” http://www.rense.com/general67/radfdf….
Russ Wittenberg
Capt. Russ Wittenberg
Capt. Russ Wittenberg, U.S. Air Force – Former Air Force fighter pilot with over 100 combat missions. Commercial pilot for Pan Am and United Airlines for 35 years, flying 707, 720, 727, 737, 747, 757, 767, and 777 ’s. Had previously flown the actual two United Airlines airplanes that were hijacked on 9/11 (Flight 93, which impacted in Pennsylvania, and Flight 175, the second plane to hit the WTC).
* Article: “The government story they handed us about 9/11 is total B.S. plain and simple.” … Wittenberg convincingly argued there was absolutely no possibility that Flight 77 could have “descended 7,000 feet in two minutes, all the while performing a steep 270 degree banked turn before crashing into the Pentagon’s first floor wall without touching the lawn.” …
“For a guy to just jump into the cockpit and fly like an ace is impossible - there is not one chance in a thousand,” said Wittenberg, recalling that when he made the jump from Boeing 727’s to the highly sophisticated computerized characteristics of the 737’s through 767’s it took him considerable time to feel comfortable flying.” http://www.arcticbeacon.com….
* Audio Interview 9/16/04: Regarding Flight 77, which allegedly hit the Pentagon. “The airplane could not have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into what they call a high speed stall. The airplane won’t go that fast if you start pulling those high G maneuvers at those bank angles. … To expect this alleged airplane to run these maneuvers with a total amateur at the controls is simply ludicrous…
It’s roughly a 100 ton airplane. And an airplane that weighs 100 tons all assembled is still going to have 100 tons of disassembled trash and parts after it hits a building. There was no wreckage from a 757 at the Pentagon. … The vehicle that hit the Pentagon was not Flight 77. We think, as you may have heard before, it was a cruise missile.” http://911underground.com/.../
Lt. Col. Stephen L. Butler
No photo available
Lt. Col. Stephen L. Butler, EdD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at the Defense Language Institute. Served as a B-52 Radar Navigator in the Gulf War. 24-year Air Force career.
* Article 6/4/02: “Of course Bush knew about the impending attacks on America. He did nothing to warn the American people because he needed this war on terrorism.” http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/06.06E.butler.bush.htm
Anthony Shaffer
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer
Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, U.S. Army (ret) – Former Chief of the Army’s Controlled HUMINT (Human Intelligence) Program, overseeing Army Intelligence and Security Command’s global controlled HUMINT efforts. A former member of the ABLE DANGER effort to target Al Qaeda’s global structure. Awarded the Bronze Star for bravery. 23-year military intelligence career.
* Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee 2/15/06 (page 18) - “After contact by two separate members of the ABLE DANGER team, … the 9-11 staff refused to perform any in-depth review of investigation of the issues that were identified to them. … It was their job to do a thorough investigation of these claims – to not simply dismiss them based on what many now believe was a “preconceived” conclusion to the 9-11 story they wished to tell. … I consider this a failure of the 9-11 staff – a failure that the 9-11 Commissioners themselves were victimized by – and continue to have perpetrated on them by the staff as is evidenced by their recent, groundless conclusion that ABLE DANGER’s findings were “urban legend”. http://www.abledan…
* Bio: http://www.c4ads.org/anthony.shaffer…
Karen Kwiatkowski, “Reading through the official 9/11 report, I quickly lost my focus – apparently emulating the 9/11 commission over the past 20 months.”
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Political-Military Affairs Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Also served on the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency. 20-year Air Force veteran.
* Book 9/11 and American Empire: Intellectuals Speak Out: “Beyond this strange absence of airliner debris, there was no sign of the kind of damage to the Pentagon structure one would expect from the impact of a large airliner. This visible evidence or lack thereof may also have been apparent to the secretary of defense, who in an unfortunate slip of the tongue referred to the aircraft that slammed into the Pentagon as a “missile”.—Karen Kwiatkowski, Pentagon employee and eyewitness (p.28) http://www.twf.org/News
* Essay: “Reading through the official 9/11 report, I quickly lost my focus – apparently emulating the 9/11 commission over the past 20 months. …One wonders if the entire commission wasn’t secretly replaced by pod people from the old Soviet Central Committee. I naively expected more constructive and useful information in the report.” http://www.lewrockwell.com/...
* Bio: http://militaryweek.com/
John Newman
Major John M. Newman
Major John M. Newman, PhD, U.S. Army (ret) – Former Executive Assistant to the Director of the National Security Agency. Former military attaché in China. 21-year career in U.S. Army Intelligence. Currently, professor of history and international relations at the University of Maryland.
* Congressional testimony 8/15/05: “It falls to me this morning to bring to your attention the story of Saeed Sheikh, whose full name is Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, and his astonishing rise to power in Al Qaeda, his crucial role in 9/11, which is completely, utterly, missing from the 9/11 Commission report…
The 9/11 Commission which studied US intelligence and law enforcement community performance in great detail, (maybe not so much great detail, but they did), neglected to cover the community’s performance during the weeks following the attacks to determine who was responsible for them, not a word about that in the Report.
The Report does discuss the immediate US responses but the immediate investigation is never addressed, and anyone who has closely studied the post-9/11 investigation knows that the first breakthrough came two weeks into the investigation when the money transfers from the United Arab Emirates to the hijackers were uncovered.
Furthermore, if you have studied that investigation, you know there is no disputing that while investigators may have struggled with the identity of the paymaster, they were clear about one thing, he was Al Qaeda’s finance chief. For this reason alone you have to ask why the 9/11 Commission Report never mentions the finance chief’s role as the 9/11 paymaster.” http://www.911readingroo
Scott Ritter
Major Scott Ritter
Major Scott Ritter, U.S. Marine Corps – Former Marine Corps Intelligence Officer and Chief Weapons Inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq 1991-1998.
* Video: “I, like the others, are frustrated by the 9/11 Commission Report, by the lack of transparency on the part of the United States government, both in terms of the executive branch and the legislative branch when it comes to putting out on the table all facts known to the 9/11 case.” http://video.go…
Barbara Honegger
Barbara Honegger
Barbara Honegger – Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy’s advanced science, technology and national security affairs university (1995 - present). White House Policy Analyst and Special Assistant to the Assistant to President Ronald Reagan (1981-83).
* Essay: “The US military, not al Qaeda, had the sustained access weeks before 9/11 to also plant controlled demolition charges throughout the superstructures of WTC 1 and WTC2, and in WTC7, which brought down all three buildings on 9/11. ... A US military plane, not one piloted by al Qaeda, performed the highly skilled, high−speed 270−degree dive towards the Pentagon that Air Traffic Controllers on 9/11 were sure was a military plane as they watched it on their screens. Only a military aircraft, not a civilian plane flown by al Qaeda, would have given off the “Friendly” signal needed to disable the Pentagon’s anti−aircraft missile batteries as it approached the building. Only the US military, not al Qaeda, had the ability to break all of its Standard Operating Procedures to paralyze its own emergency response system.” http://blog.lege…..
Gregory Zeigler
Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler
Capt. Gregory M. Zeigler, PhD, U.S. Army – Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer
* Statement: “I knew from September 18, 2001, that the official story about 9/11 was false. ... [A]nomalies poured in rapidly: the hijackers’ names appearing in none of the published flight passenger lists, BBC reports of stolen identities of the alleged hijackers or the alleged hijackers being found alive, the obvious demolitions of WTC1, 2, and 7, the lack of identifiable Boeing 757 wreckage at the Pentagon ... Link to full statement
U.S. INTELLIGENCE SERVICES VETERANS
Raymond McGovern, “The 9/11 report is a joke. The question is: What’s being covered up? Is it gross malfeasance, gross negligence, misfeasance?”
Raymond L. McGovern
Raymond L. McGovern – Former Chairman, National Intelligence Estimates, CIA, responsible for preparing the President’ Daily Brief (PDB) for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. 27-year CIA veteran. Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer.
* Video: “I think at simplest terms, there’s a cover-up. The 9/11 report is a joke. The question is: What’s being covered up? Is it gross malfeasance, gross negligence, misfeasance? … Now there are a whole bunch of unanswered questions. And the reason they’re unanswered is because this administration will not answer the questions. … I just want to reassert, what Scott [Ritter, former Major in the U.S. Marines Corps, former Chief Weapons Inspector for the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq] said and this is the bottom line for me, just as Hitler in 1933 cynically exploited the burning of the parliament building, the Reichstag, this is exactly what our President did in exploiting 9/11. The cynical way in which he played on our trauma, used it to justify attacking, making a war of aggression on a country that he knew had nothing to do with 9/11. That suffices for me, I think Scott is exactly right, that’s certainly an impeachable offense.” http://video.google…
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11. http://www.911truth.org/...
* Bio: http://faculty.schreiner.edu/...
William Christison, “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. … An airliner almost certainly did not hit The Pentagon. … The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them.”
William Christison
William Christison – Former National Intelligence Officer and Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis. 29-year CIA veteran.
* Essay: “I now think there is persuasive evidence that the events of September did not unfold as the Bush administration and the 9/11 Commission would have us believe. … An airliner almost certainly did not hit The Pentagon. … The North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them.” http://www.dissidentvoice.org…
* Article: “David Griffin believes this all was totally an inside job - I’ve got to say I think that it was too. … I have since decided that….at least some elements in this US government had contributed in some way or other to causing 9/11 to happen or at least allowing it to happen. … The reason that the two towers in New York actually collapsed and fell all the way to the ground was controlled explosions rather than just being hit by two airplanes. … All of the characteristics of these demolitions show that they almost had to have been controlled explosions.” http://www.prisonplanet.com/...
Robert Steele
Robert David Steele (Vivas)
Robert David Steele (Vivas) – U.S. Marine Corps infantry and intelligence officer for twenty years. Second-ranking civilian (GS-14) in U.S. Marine Corps Intelligence from 1988-1992 and a member of the Adjunct Faculty of Marine Corps University. Also former clandestine services case officer with the CIA. 25-year U.S. military and intelligence career. Currently Founder and CEO of OSS.net and a proponent of Open Source Intelligence.
* Essay 10/7/06: Review of Webster Tarpley’s 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in the USA. “I am forced to conclude that 9/11 was at a minimum allowed to happen as a pretext for war, and I am forced to conclude that there is sufficient evidence to indict (not necessarily convict) Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and others of a neo-conservative neo-Nazi coup d’etat and kick-off of the clash of civilizations. ...
This is, without question, the most important modern reference on state-sponsored terrorism, and also the reference that most pointedly suggests that select rogue elements within the US Government, most likely led by Dick Cheney with the assistance of George Tenet, Buzzy Kronguard, and others close to the Wall Street gangs, are the most guilty of state-sponsored terrorism….
I sit here, a 54-year old, liberally educated, two graduate degrees, war college, a life overseas, 150 IQ or so, the number #1 Amazon reviewer for non-fiction, a former Marine Corps infantry officer, a former CIA clandestine case officer, founder of the Marine Corps Intelligence Center, and I have to tell anyone who cares to read this: I believe it. I believe it enough to want a full investigation that passes the smell test of the 9/11 families as well as objective outside observers.” http://www.amazon.com
* Article: “While Steele stopped short of saying 9/11 was a complete inside job, he agreed that the evidence points to the overwhelming complicity of the Bush administration.
“The U.S. government did not properly investigate this and there are more rocks to be turned over,” said Steele adding, “I’m absolutely certain that WTC 7 was brought down by controlled demolition and that as far as I’m concerned means that this case has not been properly investigated. There’s no way that building could have come down without controlled demolition.” http://www.prisonplanet
*
Bio:http://en.wikipedia.org
Melvin Goodman, “I want to talk about the [9/11] Commission itself, about the flawed process of the Commission and finally about the conflict of interest within the Commission that is extremely important to understand the failure of the Commission.”
Melvin A. Goodman
Melvin A. Goodman – Former Division Chief and Senior Analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs, CIA,1966 - 1990. Senior Analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department, 1974-1976. Professor of International Security at the National War College 1986-2004. Currently Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author and co-author of five books on international relations.
* Congressional testimony 7/22/05: “I want to talk about the [9/11] Commission itself, about the flawed process of the Commission and finally about the conflict of interest within the Commission that is extremely important to understand the failure of the Commission.” http://www.house.gov/...
* Signatory: Petition requesting a reinvestigation of 9/11:
“We want truthful answers to question. … As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
o An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
o Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
o Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
o The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.” http://www.911truth.org/article.php?...
* Bio: http://ciponline.org/biographies….
Robert Baer
Robert Baer
Robert Baer – Former CIA Case Officer, Specialist in the Middle East, Directorate of Operations. Awarded Career Intelligence Medal. 21
Natalie
Two word clue, psikeyhackr:
Evi
dense
You said:
Again I see an abundance of writing about things that have nothing what-so-ever to do with the collapse of the towers, and a total lack of anything that could be remotely construed as credible evidence of “controlled demolition”.
Natalie it has been 5 years and the government—NIST still has no evidence to prove building seven WAS NOT A CONTROLLED DEMOLITION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And they still have not been able to prove their theory that the WTCs 1, & 2 did not collapse like every one thought with their first impression wich was they came down by or looked like a controlled demolition. They have not been able to show us any kind of replication of the collapse at all.
IF THEY CAN DO DO IT WHY HIDE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also I find it odd that even though their first impression was it looked like a controlled demolition including those who would be given the task to investigate it. THEY HAVE REFUSED TO TEST FOR EXPLOSIVE RESIDUE OR EVEN CONSIDER FOR 5 YEARS A CONTROLLED DEMOLITION!!??!! even when they have had to change their explanation of the collapse mechanism so many times (were on #7) and they cant come up with anything for building seven!!??!!
Natalie show me the evidence that proves every ones first impression was wrong!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
The proof is in the pudding.
Well where is your proof that every ones first impression was wrong!!!!!
WHERE IS THE PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Speculation and theorizing do not count!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
SHOW ME THE PROOF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They could have at least invesigated for controlled demolition to prove it wasnt so why didnt they!!??!!??!!
continued from last post sorry I got cut off:
Robert Baer
Robert Baer – Former CIA Case Officer, Specialist in the Middle East, Directorate of Operations. Awarded Career Intelligence Medal. 21-year CIA veteran. Author of two nonfiction books about CIA operations, See No Evil and Sleeping with the Devil
* Audio Interview 6/9/06: Thom Hartmann: “Are you of the opinion there was an aspect of ‘inside job’ to 9/11 within the U.S. government?”
Baer: “There is that possibility, the evidence points at it.”
Hartmann: “And why is it not being investigated?”
Baer: “Why isn’t the WMD story being investigated? Why hasn’t anybody been held accountable for 9/11? We held people accountable after Pearl Harbor. Why has there been no change in command? Why have there been no political repercussions? Why has there been no, any sort of exposure on this? It really makes you wonder.” http://www.911blogger.com/...
* Essay: “Did bin Laden act alone, through his own al-Qaida network, in launching the attacks? About that I’m far more certain and emphatic: no.” http://books.guardian.co….
* Bio: http://www.concertideas.com/...
Sibel Edmonds, “I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of.”
Sibel D. Edmonds
Sibel D. Edmonds – Former Language Translation Specialist, performing translations for counterterrorism and counterintelligence operations, FBI. Witness before the 9/11 Commission.
* Letter to 9/11 Commission: “I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I am aware of, which have been confirmed, and which as a witness to the commission, I made you aware of. Thus, I must assume that other serious issues that I am not aware of were in the same manner omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations.” http://www.com…
* Article: “My translations of the 9/11 intercepts included [terrorist] money laundering, detailed and date-specific information ... if they were to do real investigations, we would see several significant high-level criminal prosecutions in this country [the US] ... and believe me, they will do everything to cover this up.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,,1266511,00.html
Bogdan Dzakovic
Bogdan Dzakovic
Bogdan Dzakovic – 14-year Counter-terrorism expert in the Security Division of the Federal Aviation Administration. Team Leader of the FAA’s Red (Terrorism) Team, which conducted undercover tests on airport security through simulated terrorist attacks. Former Team Leader in the Federal Air Marshal program. Former Coast Guard officer. Witness before the 9/11 Commission.
* Video transcript: Regarding the 9/11 Commission “The best I could say about it is they really botched the job by not really going into the real failures. … At worst, I think the 9/11 Commission Report is treasonous.” http://www.911report.com…
Edward Costello
Edward J. Costello
John Cole
John M. Cole
David Mark Conrad
David Mark Conrad
Rosemary Dew
Rosemary N. Dew
Bogdan Dzakovic
Pictured above
Sibel D. Edmonds
Pictured above
Steve Elson
Steve Elson
David Forbes
No photo available
Melvin A. Goodman
Pictured above
Mark Graf
Mark Graf
Gilbert M. Graham
No photo available
Diane Kleiman
Diane Kleiman
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski
Pictured above
Lynne A. Larkin
No photo available
David MacMichael
David MacMichael
Raymond L. McGovern
Pictured above
Theodore J. Pahle
No photo available
Behrooz Sarshar
No photo available
Brian F. Sullivan
No photo available
Larry J. Tortorich
No photo available
Jane Turner
Jane A. Turner
John Vincent
John B. Vincent
Fred Whitehurst
Dr. Fred Whitehurst
Ann Wright
Col. Ann Wright
Matthew J. Zipoli
No photo available
Letter to Congress regarding the 9/11 Commission Report, signed by the following 25 military, intelligence, and security veterans:
“[W]e the undersigned wish to bring to the attention of the Congress and the people of the United States what we believe are serious shortcomings in the [9/11 Commission] report and its recommendations. …
Omission is one of the major flaws in the Commission’s report. We are aware of significant issues and cases that were duly reported to the commission by those of us with direct knowledge, but somehow escaped attention. …
The omission of such serious and applicable issues and information by itself renders the report flawed, and casts doubt on the validity of many of its recommendations.” http://www.pogo.org/m/hsp/...
Edward J. Costello, Jr. – Former Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI. Former Judge pro tem., Los Angeles, CA.
John M. Cole – Former Intelligence Operations Specialist, in the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division. In charge of FBI’s foreign intelligence investigations covering India, Pakistan and Afghanistan.18-year FBI career.
David “Mark” Conrad – Retired Agent in Charge, Internal Affairs, U.S. Customs, responsible for the internal integrity and security for areas encompassing nine states and two foreign locations. Former Federal Sky Marshall. 27-year U.S. Customs career. Currently Professor of Criminal Justice at Troy University.
Rosemary N. Dew – Former Supervisory Special Agent, Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence, FBI. Former member of The President’s National Security Telecommunications Advisory Committee (NSTAC) and the Electronic Commerce/Cyber Crime Working Group. 13-year FBI career.
Bogdan Dzakovic – 14-year Counter-terrorism expert in the Security Division of the Federal Aviation Administration. Team Leader of the FAA’s Red (Terrorism) Team, which conducted undercover tests on airport security through simulated terrorist attacks. Former Team Leader in the Federal Air Marshal program. Former Coast Guard officer. Witness before the 9/11 Commission. (See also individual quote above.)
Sibel D. Edmonds – Former Language Translation Specialist, performing translations for counterterrorism and
counterintelligence operations, FBI. Witness before the 9/11 Commission. (See also individual quote above.)
Steve Elson – Former Special Agent with the U.S. Navy and the FAA. Specialist in Counterterrorism, Intelligence, and Security. Twenty-two years military experience, primarily in Naval Special Warfare and nine years Federal service with the FAA and DEA. Retired Navy Seal.
David Forbes – Former head of Thames Valley Police Fraud Squad, trained at New Scotland Yard. Over 30 years experience in law enforcement, commercial and industrial security-related risk management, and service sector business management. Currently Aviation, Logistics and Govt. Security Analyst, BoydForbes, Inc.
Melvin A. Goodman – Former Division Chief and Senior Analyst at the Office of Soviet Affairs, CIA,1966 - 1990. Senior Analyst at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, State Department, 1974-1976. Professor of International Security at the National War College 1986-2004. Currently Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy and Adjunct Professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University. He is the author and co-author of five books on international relations. (See also individual quote above.)
Mark Graf – Former Security Supervisor, Planner, and Derivative Classifier, Department of Energy. Former Chairman of the Rocky Flats (DOE) Physical Security Systems Working Group from 1990 through 1995.
Gilbert M. Graham – Retired Special Agent, Counterintelligence, FBI. 24-year FBI career.
Diane Kleiman – Former Special Agent, US Customs.
Lt. Col. Karen U. Kwiatkowski, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret) – Former Political-Military Affairs Officer in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Also served on the staff of the Director of the National Security Agency. 20-year Air Force veteran. (See also individual quote above.)
Lynne A. Larkin – Former CIA Operations Officer. Served in several CIA foreign stations and in the CIA’s counter-intelligence center helping chair a multi-agency task force and seminars on coordinating intelligence among intelligence and crime prevention agencies.
David MacMichael – Former Senior Estimates Officer with special responsibility for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the CIA’s National Intelligence Council. Former Captain, U.S. Marine Corps 10-year military service.
Raymond L. McGovern – Former Chairman, National Intelligence Estimates, CIA, responsible for preparing the President’ Daily Brief (PDB) for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush. 27-year CIA veteran. Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer. (See also individual quote above.)
Theodore J. Pahle – Former Senior Intelligence Officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency. His 37-year intelligence career was exclusively as a HUMINT operations officer with DIA, Office of Naval Intelligence and U.S. Army Intelligence. He is a Middle East and Latin American operations specialist. Today, he continues to support the HUMINT effort as a contract instructor.
Behrooz Sarshar – Retired Language Translation Specialist, performing Farsi translations for counterterrorism
and counterintelligence operations dealing with Iran and Afghanistan, FBI.
Brian F. Sullivan – Retired Special Agent and Risk Management Specialist, FAA. Retired Lieutenant Colonel, Military Police.
Commander Larry J. Tortorich, U.S. Navy (ret) – Former Deputy Program Manager for Logistics – Tomahawk Cruise Missiles. 24-year Navy career in the fields of aviation and counterterrorism. Two years as a federal employee with DHS/TSA in the fields of security and counterterrorism.
Jane A. Turner – Retired Special Agent, FBI. 24-year FBI career.
John B. Vincent – Retired Special Agent, Counterterrorism, FBI. 27-year FBI career.
Dr. Fred Whitehurst – Retired Supervisory Special Agent / Laboratory Forensic Examiner, FBI. Former U.S. Army Intelligence Officer.
Col. Ann Wright, U.S. Army (ret) – Retired Army officer and former U.S. Diplomat. Served 13 years on active duty with the U.S. Army and 16 years in the U.S. Army Reserves. She was a member of the International law team in Operation Urgent Fury in Grenada and served in Panama and Somalia. She joined the Foreign Service in 1987 and served as Deputy Chief of Mission of U.S. Embassies in Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Afghanistan. She helped reopen the US Embassy in Kabul in December, 2001.
Matthew J. Zipoli – Special Response Team (SRT) Officer, DOE. Vice President, Security Police Officer’s Association, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
INTERNATIONAL MILITARY, INTELLIGENCE AND
GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS
Paul Hellyer, “I think the inquiry has been very shallow, very superficial. I would like to see a much tougher, more in-depth inquiry.”
Paul Hellyer
Paul Hellyer – Former Minister of National Defense of Canada. Former Deputy Prime Minister. Former Member of House of Commons.
* Video: Regarding 9/11 “I think the inquiry has been very shallow, very superficial. I would like to see a much tougher, more in-depth inquiry. … I would like to see someone in a position of authority ask those questions and insist on getting answers, at least to why some of the things that happened that seem to be, for an ordinary person, inexplicable. … We have to try and get the truth. … I hope that somebody has the courage and persistence to keep at it until we get it.” http://www.septembereleventh.org/...
* Bio: http://www.nationmaster.com/...
Michael Meacher
Michael Meacher
Michael Meacher – Former Under Secretary for Industry, Under Secretary for Health and Social Security, Minister for the Environment, and Member of the House of Commons (UK).
* Video: Regarding the 9/11 Commission Report “It was a 580-page avoidance of any serious explanation. … The official investigative report says the US has never been able to find the sources of financing for 9/11. And then they say this “That after all is a matter of no great importance.” I find that astonishing. It is a matter of absolutely central importance. So there was a very great deal of evidence. And it seems to me extraordinary that the United States with its stupendous military capabilities and the most technologically advanced country in the world completely and totally failed to follow up on these leads.” http://video.google…
* Essay 7/22/04: “[Omar] Sheikh is also the man who, on the instructions of General Mahmoud Ahmed, the then head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), wired $100,000 before the 9/11 attacks to Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker. It is extraordinary that neither Ahmed nor Sheikh have been charged and brought to trial on this count. Why not? ...
When Ahmed was exposed by the Wall Street Journal as having sent the money to the hijackers, he was forced to “retire” by President Pervez Musharraf. Why hasn’t the US demanded that he be questioned and tried in court?” http://www.guardian.co
* Editor’s note:Despite the Joint House-Senate Committee’s earlier finding that at least one foreign government supported the 9/11 terrorist suspects, the 9/11 Commission Report states, “Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government—or government official—supplied any funding.” (p. 172)
* Bio: http://www.epolitix.com/...
Andreas von Buelow, “The official story is so inadequate and far-fetched that there must be another one.”
Andreas von Buelow
Andreas von Buelow, PhD – Former State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Defense of West Germany. Former Minister of Research and Technology. Member of Bundestag (Parliament) 1969-1994.
* Video: “The official story is so inadequate and far-fetched that there must be another one.” http://video.google.com/...
* Article/Interview: “The planning of the attacks was technically and organizationally a master achievement. To hijack four huge airplanes within a few minutes and within one hour, to drive them into their targets, with complicated flight maneuvers! This is unthinkable, without years-long support from secret apparatuses of the state and industry.” http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/VonBuelow….
Horst Ehmke
Horst Ehmke
Horst Ehmke, - Former Minister of Justice (West Germany). Former Minister for Research and Technology. Cabinet Member under Chancellors Kurt Kiesinger and Willy Brandt 1966-1974.
* Article: “Terrorists could not have carried out such an operation with four hijacked planes without the support of a secret service.” http://www.guardian.co
* Bio: http://64.233.179.104/translate_c?hl=en&sl=d
Leonid Ivashov, “Only secret services and their current chiefs – or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations – have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude.”
General Leonid Ivashov
General Leonid Ivashov – Former Chief of Staff of the Russian armed forces on 9/11/2001, and Department Chief for General affairs in the Soviet Union’s Ministry of Defense.
* Essay: Regarding 9/11 “Only secret services and their current chiefs – or those retired but still having influence inside the state organizations – have the ability to plan, organize and conduct an operation of such magnitude.” http://www.physics911.net/ivashov….
Paul Lannoye
Paul Lannoye
Paul Lannoye – Member of European Parliament 1989-2004, (Belgium). Former Vice Chairman, Committee on Energy, Research and Technology. Former Vice Chairman, Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection
* Open Letter 5/24/04: “I implore legislators, parliamentarians, and citizens worldwide to become involved in the global 9-11 Truth Movement by signing up at www.911Visibility.org and www.911Truth.org. These organizations have worked with 9-11 family members, and citizens worldwide to lobby government, media, and the 9-11 Commission to demand truth, and to hold public actions to educate the world about the apparent 9-11 cover up.” http://www.911truth.org…
Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf
General Pervez Musharraf - President of Pakistan and Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army. Assumed power on October 12, 1999 after a coup d’état and assumed the title of President on June 20, 2001.
* New Yorker Article 8/12/02: “Musharraf told me that he was still unconvinced that bin Laden was the main figure in the attacks. “I didn’t think it possible that Osama sitting up there in the mountains could do it,” he said. “He was perhaps the sponsor, the financier, the motivating force. But those who executed it were much more modern. They knew the U.S., they knew aviation. I don’t think he has the intelligence or the minute planning. The planner was someone else.” http://www.newyorker.com/
* Bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pervez_Musharraf
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal, Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there.”
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal
Mohamed Hassanein Heikal – Former Foreign Minister of Egypt.
* Article: Regarding 9/11 “Bin Laden does not have the capabilities for an operation of this magnitude. When I hear Bush talking about al-Qaida as if it was Nazi Germany or the communist party of the Soviet Union, I laugh because I know what is there. Bin Laden has been under surveillance for years: every telephone call was monitored and al-Qaida has been penetrated by American intelligence, Pakistani intelligence, Saudi intelligence, Egyptian intelligence. They could not have kept secret an operation that required such a degree of organisation and sophistication.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
David Shayler, “The available evidence indicates that people in key positions in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA and so on were not loyal to the Constitution; that they saw an opportunity in plans laid down by genuine Islamic terrorists to carry out an operation that would shock the world and would therefore justify U.S. adventurism in the middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
David Shayler
David Shayler – Former Counter-Terrorism Officer, MI5 (Britain)
* Video: “The available evidence indicates that people in key positions in the FBI, the State Department, the CIA and so on were not loyal to the Constitution; that they saw an opportunity in plans laid down by genuine Islamic terrorists to carry out an operation that would shock the world and would therefore justify U.S. adventurism in the middle East, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq.” http://video.google.com
9/11 COMMISSIONERS AND STAFF MEMBERS WHO CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THE COMMISSION REPORT
Thomas Kean
Thomas H. Kean
Thomas H. Kean, Chairman, 9/11 Commission - Former Governor of New Jersey 1982 - 1990. Also served for 10 years in the New Jersey Assembly. Currently President of Drew University.
* Without Precedent, a book about the 9/11 Commission authored by Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice-Chairman Lee Hamilton 8/4/06: “Fog of war could explain why some people were confused on the day of 9/11, but it could not explain why all of the after-action reports, accident investigations and public testimony by FAA and NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue.” http://www.washingtonpost.com
* Washington Post Article 8/2/06 - “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. ...
“We, to this day, don’t know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us,” said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey Republican governor who led the commission. “It was just so far from the truth. . . . It’s one of those loose ends that never got tied.” http://www.washington
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_kean.htm
Lee Hamilton
Lee Hamilton
Lee Hamilton, Vice Chairman, 9/11 Commission - Former 17-term Congressman from Indiana. Former Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Currently President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and serves as a member of the President’s Homeland Security Advisory Council.
* Video interview: Lee Hamilton “So there are all kinds of reasons we thought we were set up to fail. We got started late. We had a very short timeframe. Indeed, we had to get it extended. We did not have enough money. They were afraid we were going to hang somebody, that we would point the finger.”
Interviewer: “Is one of the reasons why these guys aren’t getting funded and it’s so late is that someone’s got something to hide?”
Hamilton: “Well, a lot of people have things to hide. ...
I don’t believe for a minute that we got everything right. We wrote a first draft of history. People will be investigating 9/11 for the next 100 years in this country and they’re going to find out some things that we missed.” http://youtube.com
* Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov
Timothy Roemer
Timothy J. Roemer
Timothy J. Roemer, PhD, 9/11 Commissioner - Former 6-term Congressman from Indiana (1991-2003). Former member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Currently President of the Center for National Policy.
* New York Times Article 10/2/06: Regarding recent revelations of a July 10, 2001 meeting between Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Cofer Black “In interviews Saturday and Sunday, commission members said they were never told about the meeting despite hours of public and private questioning with Rice, Tenet and Black, much of it focused specifically on how the White House had dealt with terrorist threats in the summer of 2001.
“None of this was shared with us in hours of private interviews, including interviews under oath; nor do we have any paper on this,” said Timothy Roemer, a Democratic member of the commission and a former congressman from Indiana. “I’m deeply disturbed by this. I’m furious.” http://www.statesman
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.9-11commission.gov/about/bio_roemer
John Farmer
John J. Farmer, Jr.
John J. Farmer, Jr., Senior Counsel, 9/11 Commission - Former Attorney General of the State of New Jersey. Former Chief Counsel to former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman. Former Commissioner of the State Commission of Investigations. Former Assistant U.S. Attorney for the District of New Jersey.
* Washington Post Article 8/2/06 - “Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon’s initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. ...
“I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described,” John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. “The tapes told a radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. ... This is not spin. This is not true.” http://www.washingtonpost
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.klng.com/professionals/detail
Peter Rundlet
Peter Rundlet
Peter Rundlet, Counsel for the 9/11 Commission - Former Associate Counsel to President Clinton. Former White House Fellow, serving in the Office of the Chief of Staff to President Clinton. Currently Vice President for National Security and International Affairs, Center for American Progress.
* Essay 9/30/06: “A mixture of shock, anger, and sadness overcame me when I read about revelations in Bob Woodward’s new book about a special surprise visit that George Tenet and his counterterrorism chief Cofer Black made to Condi Rice, also on July 10, 2001 ...
If true, it is shocking that the administration failed to heed such an overwhelming alert from the two officials in the best position to know. Many, many questions need to be asked and answered about this revelation — questions that the 9/11 Commission would have asked, had the Commission been told about this significant meeting. Suspiciously, the Commissioners and the staff investigating the administration’s actions prior to 9/11 were never informed of the meeting.
The Commission interviewed Condoleezza Rice privately and during public testimony; it interviewed George Tenet three times privately and during public testimony; and Cofer Black was also interviewed privately and publicly. All of them were obligated to tell the truth. Apparently, none of them described this meeting, the purpose of which clearly was central to the Commission’s investigation. Moreover, document requests to both the White House and to the CIA should have revealed the fact that this meeting took place. Now, more than two years after the release of the Commission’s report, we learn of this meeting from Bob Woodward.
Was it covered up? It is hard to come to a different conclusion. ... At a minimum, the withholding of information about this meeting is an outrage. Very possibly, someone committed a crime. And worst of all, they failed to stop the plot.” http://think
* Editor’s note: Despite the many public statements by 9/11 Commissioners and staff members acknowledging they were repeatedly lied to, not a single person has ever been charged, tried, or even reprimanded for lying to the 9/11 Commission.
* Bio: http://www.americanprogress.orgl
For the latest please visit http://www.patriotsquestion911.com.
Natalie what about the over 400 members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth wich does not come close to the large number of scholars found in the thousands of other truth for 9/11 oganizations found around the world.
Or what about the huge number of law-enforcement for 9/11 truth or the many veterans for 9/11 truth or the fire fighters or the first responders or the pilots for 9/11 truth and ect, ect, ect…...
WAKE UP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And stop saying these people are not serious and all the other much more rude and many times more insulting comments you have repeatedly made about them!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Joe, you said I said:
That, Joe, is something that is unquestioned by anyone who actually understands the forces involved in such an event. In other words, 99.99 percent of structural engineers and even still employed physicists on the planet.
You take great exception to this statement, but then proceed to illustrate my point. You list Gordon Ross and Judy Wood, neither of whom is qualified to render judgment on matters of structural physics, and the complicated relationships between steel, heat, and load redistribution. Neither of whom has been privy to the vast amounts of detailed data, testimony and computing power that was available to NIST, and the the numerous private engineers that participated in the investigation.
You cite Charles Pegelow, who is also not qualified. He has a mere BS in engineering, and his experience has been on oil rigs, not tall building design, and certainly not in collapse forensics.
In other words, these people don’t “actually understand” the forces involved, not to mention that they constitute a tiny minority, and not to mention that they no doubt harbor extreme political biases, as does seemingly everyone in the movement. (Pegelow may merely be an uninformed innocent pawn. Has he said any more beyond his initial interview with Alex Jones?)
Then, you cite old statements by engineers involved in the building of the towers. This does give some pause, but it’s really not too surprising that these men would tend to defend their designs at the time. They did not anticipate deliberate military style attacks on the towers, and in fact it has been recently admitted that the true vulnerabilities of large buildings (especially steel truss type) to huge fires had not been sufficiently understood. It has been the mindset of the design community that fires are generally relatively slow spreading and able to be suppressed. Just like many aspects of American life, building design is being reevaluated in light of 9/11 and the unfortunate reality of terrorism.
The crucial point is that none of these people today, after the fact, support the crazy notions you put forth. I would think that they would be eager to embrace such theories, because they would support their previously held position that “these towers are perfectly safe”.
No, people like Leslie Robertson are devastated by the event and feel great guilt, although no reasonable person holds them responsible. It’s a testament to their integrity and common sense that they haven’t sought to deflect blame onto some imaginary conspiracy. These men are not happy with the “truth” movement, and regard it as irresponsible.
Let me clear something up for the apparently nuance challenged among us that can’t recognize a “botched joke” when they see it.
When I said that many journalists and politicians would give their right arm for all this baloney to be true, I certainly didn’t mean to say that they would like it to happen, or would let it happen if they knew their rivals were planning it.
But, they would rub their palms together in glee if it was discovered that their arch political enemies—the Bush administration, neocons, Pat Robertson, take you pick—were involved in such a dastardly act.
Bazant published the first quantitative mechanical analysis
explaining why the World Trade Center collapsed. Submitted
within days after the collapse, it has stood up to later scrutiny and
was translated in seven languages.
Tip of the iceberg (inverted)
Scorp
This is for you and so I dont cause another flood please let me know if you need more to back it up.
Disputatious Neocons Unload on Vanity Fair
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day In The Empire
Monday, November 6, 2006
It’s unfair, complain the neocons. Vanity Fair promised to wait until after the election to publish their remarks critical of the Bush administration.
Moreover, according to the neocons, Vanity Fair did a bit of editorial hocus-pocus, thus making the neocons out to be nearly dovish, a downright horrifying prospect for these Machiavellian warmongers. Well, not exactly dovish, but close enough to irk them. Enough to have them pile on and accuse the magazine of “dirty tricks,” according to Frank Gaffney.
“I had assumed that the interview would not be published until January, and find the timing of this release of excerpts tendentious, to say the least,” gripes Eliot Cohen, the academic fount of the demented World War IV thesis who is connected at the hip with the criminal war racketeering outfits PNAC, the American Enterprise Institute, and Committee for the Liberation of Iraq—or maybe it should be called the Committee to Kill 650,000 Iraqis. “I believed in 2003 that the war was just and appropriate, and have been deeply distressed at its conduct,” Cohen tells the National Review, the neocon clearinghouse.
“My most fundamental views on the war in Iraq remain as they were in 2003: The war was right, victory is essential, and defeat would be calamitous,” writes David Frum, “axis of evil” speech writer and AEI “scholar.” Of course, as usual, Frum does not tell us how to avoid a “calamitous” defeat, that is to say he evades any practical suggestion on how to stop an untold number of Iraqis from violently opposing the brutal occupation of their country.
Bush didn’t screw up, Frum insists, forever loyal to his old boss. Instead, it was the “National Security Council, whose counter-productive interactions produced bad results.” In other words, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, JCS Pace, Negroponte, and other hand-picked members of the NSC are at the root of the problem, that is to say conquering and subduing Iraq was not a cakewalk, as planned, thanks to these people.
Of course, Frum neglects to mention that Bush chairs the NSC. But then, as we know, Bush is a distracted and disinterested president, so I guess we can’t blame him for the mess. In short, the buck stops at Bush’s desk, but he does not see it, and if he did he probably wouldn’t know what to do with it.
According to Frum, David Rose, who wrote the Vanity Fair piece, “has earned a reputation as a truth teller,” in other words he agrees with the neocons. Rose, Frum insists, is a “British journalist well known as a critic of the Saddam Hussein regime and supporter of the Iraq war.” Frum insinuates something happened on the way from Rose’s word processor to the editors of Vanity Fair. “They have repackaged truths that a war-fighting country needs to hear into lies intended to achieve a shabby partisan purpose,” the former speech writer complains. As for partisanship, it should be obvious to even the cursory follower of current events most Democrats support the neocon war in Iraq and will also support the coming one against Iran.
Frank Gaffney, former Richard Perle flunky (also charmingly known as “Perle’s bulldog”), a PNAC co-conspirator who likes to toss about the nonsensical phrase “Islamofascist” to describe Muslims who do not take kindly to invasions and “collateral damage,” believes Rose’s article is a “bait-and-switch caper” and the magazine “deserves contempt for having made promises it had no intention of honoring, promises about facilitating a serious discussion of President Bush’s efforts to fight our Islamofascist foes in Iraq and elsewhere by some of the most adamant supporters of those efforts.” In other words, things would have been different if a midterm election was not in the way, since the idea here is to fool all the people all the time, at least in the lead-up to an election. Obviously, neocons will only speak their mind when retribution is not in the cards. Or when there is no political consequence.
Poor Gaffney. Like all neocons, he insists on repeating recycled lies over and over in weary pathological fashion. “For the record, I remain convinced that the liberation of Iraq was a necessary and laudable measure to prevent a megalomaniac from handing off to terrorists weapons of mass destruction for the purpose of attacking us and our allies. Contrary to popular belief, the U.S. government has proof that Saddam Hussein had precisely such plans ready to implement. In fact, such evidence was actually documented in the Iraq Survey Group’s final report released last year with much obscuring fanfare about the absence of recovered WMDs.”
Of course, none of this is true, and at this point only the bedrock 15% or so of Bush’s true-blue stepfordized followers believe this regularly discredited nonsense, but this does not stop Gaffney from making a fool out of himself, thus entertaining the conclusion he actually believes this Office of Special Plans drivel.
“I am also as committed as ever to the consolidation of the fully justified liberation of Iraq. I have repeatedly urged the president, both in person and through other channels, to make use of the full panoply of economic, financial, political, and military measures—a true War Footing—necessary to achieve it. Those who would have us do otherwise are deceiving us and/or themselves,” Gaffney continues.
In other words, these guys are committed to the World War IV scenario and total, interminable “war” against Muslims, who are routinely conflated into cartoonish, medieval enemies, Islamofascists—never mind fascism better describes Gaffney and his ilk—who will, we are told by these Israel First dissemblers, be killing grade schoolers on Main Street soon enough if we don’t use the “full panoply” of our deadly inventory, including more depleted uranium, destined to pollute the entire biosphere of the planet and kill those not designated as Islamofascists by the neocon fascists.
Meanwhile, Michael Ledeen, AEI and JINSA troll, tells us he is not “remorseful” because he “had and have no involvement with our Iraq policy,” a statement that is about as disingenuous as it gets, quite a feat considering the neocon track record for brazen disingenuousness. No direct involvement, that is to say he didn’t show up in the Oval Office or the Pentagon, although Ledeen appears to be involved in the Niger yellowcake forgery, bogus information Bush used as the cornerstone of his 2003 State of the Union address, even though French intelligence had repeatedly warned the Bush administration a year before his State of the Union address that the allegation could not be supported with evidence, not that evidence means squat to pathological liars.
“It appears Michael Ledeen, the ‘influential’ neocon, was involved in Gladio operations past and is also linked to the faux Niger yellowcake documents cooked up by Italian intelligence,” I wrote last October.
Now we have Laura Rozen, citing a scoop from the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, telling us Nicolo Pollari, chief of the fascist SISMI, “brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.” Pollari met with none other than Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. “Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons…. La Repubblica also quotes a Bush administration official saying, ‘I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley.’”
Let’s review: Ledeen is suspected of working on the forged Niger yellowcake documents and Nicolo Pollari, chief of the fascist SISMI, passed these off to the highest levels of the Bush administration, and these documents played a big part in the invasion of Iraq and the mass murder of more than a 100,000 Iraqis.
Since I wrote this, the number of slaughtered Iraqis has been horrifically adjusted upward, to over 650,000.
But Ledeen, of course, cares not about Iraq, except as a way to get at Iran, his primary focus, or maybe it should be characterized as fanatical obsession. “Readers of NRO know well how disappointed I have been with our failure to address Iran, which was, and remains, the central issue, and it has been particularly maddening to live through extended periods when our children were in battle zones where Iranian-supported terrorists were using Iranian-made weapons against Americans, Iraqis and Afghans. I have been expressing my discontent for more than three years.”
Never mind that “senior British military leaders” have “found nothing to support the Americans’ contention that Iran is providing weapons and training in Iraq,” according to the Washington Post. Moreover, earlier this year, JCS chairman Gen. Peter Pace, said “the United States does not have proof that Iran’s government is responsible for Iranians smuggling weapons and military personnel into Iraq.” Of course, this does not matter to the amoral dissembler Michael Ledeen, who is a student and admirer of Niccolò Machiavelli, who preached deception in the name of the state.
Finally, we have the Prince of Darkness himself, Richard Perle. “I believe it would be a catastrophic mistake to leave Iraq, as some are demanding, before the Iraqis are able to defend their elected government. As I told Mr. Rose, the terrorist threat to our country, which is real, would be made much worse if we were to make an ignominious withdrawal from Iraq.” Perle also said the “levels of brutality” in Iraq “are truly horrifying, and I have to say, I underestimated the depravity,” although he is apparently willing to allow this depravity to continue in order to allow Iraqis to defend their installed puppet government and avoid “an ignominious withdrawal,” never mind if another 650,000 Iraqis are slaughtered in the process.
“I told Mr. Rose that as a nation we had waited too long before dealing with Osama bin Laden. We could have destroyed his operation in Afghanistan before 9/11.”
In other words, Perle is either an idiot or he considers the American people idiotic. Considering the Straussian philosophy, no doubt the latter is the case.
In fact, we, that is the United States government, had plenty to do with Osama bin Laden prior to the events of nine eleven. “Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network has been active in the Balkans for years, most recently helping Kosovo rebels battle for independence from Serbia with the financial and military backing of the United States and NATO,” writes Isabel Vincent of the National Post, a fact apparently confirmed by an FBI document. In fact, NATO’s operation with “al-Qaeda,” in support of the drug-running KLA, occurred after Bin Laden supposedly masterminded the embassy bombings in the East African capital cities of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya.
“With the complicity of NATO and the US State Department… Mujahideen mercenaries from the Middle East and Central Asia were recruited to fight in the ranks of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1998-99, largely supporting NATO’s war effort,” writes Michel Chossudovsky. “Confirmed by British military sources, the task of arming and training of the KLA had been entrusted in 1998 to the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Services MI6, together with ‘former and serving members of 22 SAS [Britain’s 22nd Special Air Services Regiment], as well as three British and American private security companies,’” the Scotsman reported on August 29, 1999.
Prior to this, the Clinton administration, according to a “lengthy Congressional report by the Republican Party Committee (RPC) published in 1997… ‘helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base’ leading to the recruitment through the so-called ‘Militant Islamic Network,’ of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim worldent through the so-called “Militant Islamic Network,” of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world,” according to Chossudovsky’s research.
For the neocons, however, the fulcrum of evil in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq was not Osama bin Laden, but rather Saddam Hussein. “I believed we should not repeat that mistake with Saddam Hussein, that we could not responsibly ignore the threat that he might make weapons of mass destruction available to terrorists who would use them to kill Americans,” avers Perle. “I favored removing his regime. And despite the current difficulties, I believed, and told Mr. Rose, that ‘if we had left Saddam in place, and he had shared nerve gas with al Qaeda, or some other terrorist organization, how would we compare what we’re experiencing now with that?’”
For the ill-informed, this may seem reasonable, never mind this facile argument is easily disassembled. As former United Nations Special Commission on Iraq inspector Scott Ritter has demonstrated, between “1991 and 1998, UNSCOM achieved considerable results in disarming Iraq by dismantling the bulk of Iraq’s chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons capabilities, as well as its ballistic missiles. None of Iraq’s major biological weapons production facilities are in operation [as of early 1999], with some of them having been destroyed completely.”
Even the CIA disputed the ludicrous claim “that al Qaeda sent operatives to Iraq to acquire chemical and biological weapons—assertions that were repeated later by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell to the United Nations in making the case for the invasion of Iraq,” CNN reported in late 2005. “The CIA report appears to support a recently declassified document that revealed the Defense Intelligence Agency thought in February 2002 that the source, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, was lying to interrogators.”
None of this matters, however, as a large number of people still believe Saddam and Osama were in cahoots, and this is why Perle can get away with making such an outrageous and unsubstantiated claim, even at this late date.
Moreover, the corporate media, now set-up to report that Vanity Fair had tricked the neocons into out of context confessions in the eleventh hour before the midterm election, will not mention any of the above facts and will likely instead portray the editors of Vanity Fair as scalawags, attempting to make publication mileage out of the confessions of the neocons, who are, as they tell us on the NRO site, simply and gallantly striving to save America from venomous Islamofascists.
Natalie
You said:
You cite Charles Pegelow, who is also not qualified. He has a mere BS in engineering, and his experience has been on oil rigs, not tall building design.
If you actually listen to what he has to say, you will discover that, unlike you, he knows what he is talking about. Strictly speaking, a street bum could come up with the right analysis of what happened at the WTC. You have to evaluate an argument on its own merits. Experts can be right. Experts can be wrong. Experts can disagree. When I read non-sense like this about his degrees, it infuriates me. The guy has vast experience in the field, which goes far beyond what anyone can learn in the classroom! Give it up!
He is very knowledgeable about these things, having spent much of his career dealing with oil rigs, which are steel structures frequently exposed to fire.
Charles Pegelow has structural design experience on steel structures going back to 1972, and has specific experience with the effects of fire on them. Your arrogant dismissal of his clearly relevant credentials shows how desperate and empty your arguments are. Actually, that is far too kind, you haven’t made any arguments whatsoever, your contribution here has essentially consisted of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “Lalalalalalala!” because you refuse to believe the truth, no matter what.
He said that steel structures do not undergo pancake collapse. From a structural engineer with over 30 years experience, I don’t really need to hear much else. His discussion of how the beams were welded together (as opposed to just bolted) was also very interesting to me.
You said:
Pegelow may merely be an uninformed innocent pawn. Has he said any more beyond his initial interview with Alex Jones?
Go here for the next to latest Thu., October 5, 2006 you should here them all though so I will try to remember to link them all when I have time.
Prof James Fetzer interviewed structural engineer Charles Pegelow. 1st hr..... 2nd hr
Thanks for keeping it short and to one point, Joe. I’ll listen to Charles and give you my further thoughts…...
Why don’t you want to talk about the Pentagon?
Prof James Fetzer doesn’t think that what hit it was flight 77.
Natalie
I want to thank you for taking the time to use the links I gave and I want to let you know if you continue to do so you will see that 9/11 was an inside job.
I will work on keeping it short and to one point. I cant help but to try and show the big picture. Since I am going to make it short and to the point I am just focusing on this one comment for this post and to answer about the pentagon since that will be short.
The pentagon has many oddities that do need to be looked at and there is alot of conflicting reports and discrepancies in those reports but because I dont have enough information about it I cant say any thing other than the government needs to release all the information they have so a proper investigation can be done to explain the conflicting reports and discrepancies in those reports. That is all I can say because I really dont have enough information to make a well informed decision either way.
But the world trade centers I can say (though it hurts so much and causes me great pain) with 100% certainty were controled demolition.
You said:
Then, you cite old statements by engineers involved in the building of the towers. This does give some pause, but it’s really not too surprising that these men would tend to defend their designs at the time. They did not anticipate deliberate military style attacks on the towers, and in fact it has been recently admitted that the true vulnerabilities of large buildings (especially steel truss type) to huge fires had not been sufficiently understood. It has been the mindset of the design community that fires are generally relatively slow spreading and able to be suppressed. Just like many aspects of American life, building design is being reevaluated in light of 9/11 and the unfortunate reality of terrorism.
Natalie I am sorry to say once again you have been misled by the government myths.
The building designers made claims about their performance in jetliner crashes that were highly relevant to NIST’s investigation. NIST avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—were missing. The design claims by Skilling’s team included the following:
Original design claims
* “... inherent capacity to resist unforeseen calamities.”
* For the perimeter columns ... “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”
* One “could cut away all the first story columns on one side of the building, and partway from the corners of the perpendicular sides, and the building could still withstand design live loads and a 100 mph wind from any direction.”
—All quotes from Engineering News-Record, 1964
NIST states that it found no documents about fire resistance testing, yet it also states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, which requires such testing. If the assemblies were tested they would have been using the standard ASTM E119. A floor assembly is tested to that standard by by placing a furnace under it and measuring the time it takes a certain temperature to be reached on its top side.
Evidence that the steel was tested include:
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o Kevin Ryan asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
In August of 2004, UL performed tests of WTC floor models, but the floors were barely affected and didn’t collapse. Loring Knoblauch resigned suddenly.
In October of 2004, a NIST report update showed contradictions.
In November of 2004 Ryan’s letter to Frank Gayle went public, causing UL to quickly backtrack, saying there was “no evidence” that any firm tested the steel, and that they played a “limited” role in the investigation.
B. Interviews with Eyewitnesses
B. NIST’s performance on interviews
* NIST started planning for eyewitness interviews in April 2003 (7 months after start of investigation, 19 after 9/11)
* By October, still no NIST interviews and on NIST access to NYC interviews
* NYC finally agreed to allow NIST acccess to original interviews by December 2003
... but only in NYC offices
NIST’s limited access to the interviews is reminiscent of testimony given the 9/11 Commission, in which notes or recordings were prohibited. Ryan presents a few excerpts of the interviews released to the public in mid-2005—excerpts such as these that reflect perceptions of explosive demolition.
The eyewitness interviews were not used in the final report.
C. Analysis of steel
* Most of the steel evidence destroyed
o Tomasetti decision (Thornton’s partner)
o 236 samples saved for testing (0.3%)
* NIST tests
o Paint tests indicated low steel temps (480 F) “despite pre-collapse exposure to fire”
o Microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values (600 C)
Having failed to find any samples that showed exposures to temperatures that would have produced critical weakening of steel, NIST stated “None of the samples were from zones where [high] heating was predicted”
D. Laboratory Tests
Laboratory tests conducted by NIST included:
* Tests to prove loss of fireproofing
* Workstation burn tests
* Tests by UL to test failure in floor assemblies
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. The tests showed:
* Minimal floor sagging
* No floor collapse
* “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”
E. Computer Simulations
* Input parameters could be tweaked
* “Realistic” parameters tossed in favor of “More severe” parameters
* Animations generated to “compare with observed events”
NIST created animations of events such as the fires and plane crashes, but has not published any animations of the falls of the Towers—the events it was supposed to investigate.
Natalie I am under the impression you think the building was not well built. That is far from the truth and I do not know of any one who is trying to pass that lie off any more. For just as the other lies they (the government=NIST) after being proven wrong had to change their story.
The WTCs were over engineered and if you have any doubts please let me know I will be glad to show you much, much, much, more in regaurds to the constuction of the WTCs.
Natalie you had brought up the letter that Kevin Ryan had e-mailed from him to Dr Frank Gayle of NIST. I must say Natalie I do not see at all any of the things you had told me about. Such as the gross misrepresentations that should be abundant in his letter but in fact are not.
Ryan unquestionably qualifies as a whistleblower. Having been promoted to the top manager of Underwriter’s Laboratories water testing division, Ryan was dismissed on November of 2004 after an e-mail from him to Dr Frank Gayle of NIST became public.
Text of E-mail Letter from Kevin Ryan to Frank Gayle
NOTES:
* The text copied here is taken from an e-mail forward, from Kevin R. Ryan to David Ray Griffin, and reported by 911Truth.org.
* Kevin Ryan was Site Manager of the Environmental Health Laboratories at South Bend, Indiana (www.ehl.cc) at the time he wrote the letter. He was fired shortly after writing the letter.
* EHL is a division of Underwriters Laboratories, Inc. (www.ul.com).
* Frank Gayle is Deputy Chief of the Metallurgy Division, Material Science and Engineering Laboratory, at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Gayle heads the “NIST and the World Trade Center” project. see wtc.nist.gov.
* Dr. Gayle’s biography is at wtc.nist.gov/pi/wtc_profiles.asp?lastname=gayle.
From: Kevin R Ryan/SBN/ULI
To: frank.gayle@nist.gov
Date: 11/11/2004
Dr. Gayle,
Having recently reviewed your team’s report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly.
As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I’m aware of UL’s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.
There continues to be a number of “experts” making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states “What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel. . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts.” Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory.”
We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.
The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team’s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to “rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse”. The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building’s steel core to “soften and buckle”(5). Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that “most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C”. To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above 1100C (6). However,
this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.
This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be of great concern to my company.
There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and “chatter”.
Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I’ve copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.
1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html
2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187
3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3MechanicalandMetAnalysisofSteel.pdf
4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php
5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf (pg 11)
6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf
Kevin Ryan
Site Manager
Environmental Health Laboratories
A Division of Underwriters Laboratories
South Bend
Natalie
Democrats won the house. Like I said before I think the elites WANT (now wanted) democrats to win this election.
It will make people think they have “demanded change” when democrats instead give us the status quo. The media will no doubt be falling all over telling the world how the “people have spoken” as the dems “take back” the house and/or senate.
Democrats winning will put lots of people back to sleep, thinking that they’ve “done all they can and we’ll just have to “wait for congress to do something”.
In the next few weeks the phony left/right paradigm will be exploited in the media like you’ve never seen before. Then we will get nothing, not a peep, out of the democrats for the next two years and beyond!
Besides if they do act like they are going to stand up and get some justice done it was made sure that tools like Lieberman is kept in power by any means neccasary. His sole purpose is to be the casting vote splitting a possibly 51 - 49 Democratically controlled senate. He’ll be the extra vote needed to keep the Administration out of jail.
Natalie
I will make this as short as I can so you will find it easy to comment.
You had made some damning comments about Kevin Ryan I would like you to please explain them.
You said:
When a manager of a health laboratory poses as a fire expert and a structural engineer, and writes an unauthorized and error-filled letter to a govt. agency on company time and letterhead without the approval of his superiors, he loses a lot of credibility and even his job.
Well he never posed as a fire expert and/or a structural engineer. His letter was shown to be correct by NIST a few months back and it most certainty was not writen on company time. Do you know anything about this at all?
What do you mean by letterhead?
Have you read the letter of dismissal? The reason was “poor judgment” wich has been been shown to be not true because he was promoted not long before the letter and if they want to say its because of the letter he wrote well then their saying NIST is wrong for now agreeing with the points Kevin Ryan made in his letter.
SO WHAT IN THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??!!??!!??!!??!!??!!
You said:
When he takes quotes of genuine experts like Ronald Hamburger and Mike Taylor out of context to mislead people into thinking that they agree with him, his credibility is pretty much in the crapper.
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
He only showed the quotes when talking about their first impression.
He found it odd that given their first impression wouldnt they want to test so they can know for certain that they where wrong?
Please! I beg you to show me where he mislead people into thinking that they agree with him! Please! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
P.S. You asked about building seven the bunker I cant find your comment right now but where you joking?
If not please let me know and I will post the info. Im sure you do know that the collumns in it where not like the collumns in WTC 1, 2 for the colloumns in seven where SOLID STEEL. Not hollow box collumns!
Joe,
If you don’t understand how blatantly inappropriate it was for Ryan to write that letter in the way that he did, I barely quite know how to proceed. But I’ll try.
First of all, whether or not he wrote the letter on his own time is not really important. However, I’d tend to think he probably did do it on company time. I’ve seen plenty of people do plenty of extra-curricular stuff on company time, and I assume you have as well.
My reference to letterhead was meant to be colorful, but important to illustrate the fact that he represented himself as a manager at UL, and obviously sought to use that position to gain influence and stature.
Surely you know that you don’t go around writing stuff like that to another agency your company’s involved with absent authority and approval of final copy, especially if you’re not even in that division. The fact that he was fired was a no-brainer for seemingly everyone but him.
Now, if he would have stated clearly that he was writing as a private citizen, and his views don’t represent in any way that of UL’s, I guess that would have been more acceptable. But even that would likely be considered unethical. He needed to quit his job first if he wanted to do it right. Then everything’s cool.
Getting beyond all this, the content of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns, and who knows what all else. He seems completely ignorant of the fact that UL was not attempting to duplicate what happened in the towers, but that they were merely performing baseline tests to insure that the trusses performed as they should have in ordinary fire situations. They did, and it wasn’t.
He describes the tests as having been done on “steel components”. No, they were done on truss/sheet metal/concrete/fireproofed assemblies. He obviously doesn’t know quite what he’s talking about, as even I can discern. It looks to me like he was simply going from what he’d interpreted from news reports on the Internet, and maybe some rumors from within his company.
He appears to have no concept at all that without fireproofing intact, the trusses would be doomed in short order. No, he apparently doesn’t “qualify” as a whistle-blower, or much else beyond being a somewhat clever disinformationalist.
Then of course, he exposes his true motivations, and brings up world politics. He copies his letter to another psycho-propagandist named David Griffin. If this looks to you like an appropriate communication given the players involved, you need some business or even some common-sense training.
I certainly don’t agree that NIST later “confirmed” what he said. I think it’s more likely they were rolling on the floor laughing when they received the email. They probably were on the phone asking “who is this goof-ball you’ve got working in your company, and are you aware that he knows just about enough to be dangerous”?
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him. Just like Jones using Manning’s editorial selectively to do the same thing. Far from ethical, and far from professional, but a common tactic of propagandists posing as genuine experts. (Yes, Ryan presented himself authoritatively talking about steel, testing, melting points, failure, etc etc. He wasn’t talking about bacteria in water, which was his JOB.)
Now, if he would have said that Ronald and Mike thought it looked like a demolition at first, like millions of people did, but certainly don’t hold that view today, fine. But of course, why in the world would he include all that? What is he, a scientist or a politician? Was it a “botched joke”? ;~)
Natalie borders on psychotic
First of all I am shocked that you belive that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel. Jet fuel can not get that hot. Your ignorance amazes me. Don’t you know that is absolutely and utterly impossible? Natalie it defies the laws of physics. Not even NIST says the fires reached any where close to those temperatures. Even if they did which they didn’t cant and couldnt it still would not be hot enough to melt the steel. You would need another 1,000F more to do it.
And don’t forget even if you were able to obtain that impossible temperature there’s still was not sufficient enough time to heat the steel because steel and gas temperatures are different in that steel temperatures lag way behind that of gas temperatures.
Also the building would act like a giant heat sink so you would need even longer. But all this doesnt matter besause no one except you not even the government is saying it could happen.
So once again you do not belive NIST. Do you have any idea how many times you have gone against what NIST says? This time you are saying NIST is wrong about the temperatures of the fires.
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.” NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.” NIST, p. 181
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires—590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F
* Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat and did not act as a heat sink.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
Hahahahaha First of all the columns would be the last thing to fail so who is talking about the columns? What would be the first thing to fail according to NIST to cause the chain of events bringing about global collapse? The weakest link Duh!
NIST says it was FAILURE FROM SAGGING FLOORS that caused global collapse. I belive you know the details so dont play dumb.
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
Natalie if you have not read the letter from Loring Knoblauch let me know.
In August of 2004, UL performed tests of WTC floor models, but the floors were barely affected and didn’t collapse. Loring Knoblauch resigned suddenly.
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
I agree with you Natalie any one who could make such gross, enormous errors and belives that magic had suspended the laws of physics in order to allow the impossible to happen needs immediate psychiatric help. Could you please be more specific about what NIST says on this post that you disagree with. From what you said I belive it is all of it. Please correct me if I am wrong and there is on here one quote from NIST you belive.
NIST states that it found no documents about fire resistance testing, yet it also states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
Natalie
You said:
He seems completely ignorant of the fact that UL was not attempting to duplicate what happened in the towers, but that they were merely performing baseline tests to insure that the trusses performed as they should have in ordinary fire situations. They did, and it wasn’t.
It wasnt even close to a ordinary tests!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. Then they
NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
Let me put it this way Natalie NIST had to throw out the absurd pancake theory just like all the other proven incorrect and absurd theorys.
So then who was right and who was wrong!!??!! Can you at least answer that correctly. Children can figure that one out.
You said:
I certainly don’t agree that NIST later “confirmed†what he said. I think it’s more likely they were rolling on the floor laughing when they received the email. They probably were on the phone asking “who is this goof-ball you’ve got working in your company, and are you aware that he knows just about enough to be dangerous�
Were they laughing when they had to admit that no one was going to fall for (at that time) there latest bulls**t so they had to admit they were wrong?
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him. Just like Jones using Manning’s editorial selectively to do the same thing. Far from ethical, and far from professional, but a common tactic of propagandists posing as genuine experts. (Yes, Ryan presented himself authoritatively talking about steel, testing, melting points, failure, etc etc. He wasn’t talking about bacteria in water, which was his JOB.)
You obviously have not heard his presentation where he starts it off by saying what his job and position at UL was and goes over his letter and other correspondence that he had sent and received at that time. Wow again you make me blush for your ignorance. How can you keep talking trash about something you know nothing about?
He says quite clearly “I am not an engineer” he says he has no theory about what happend to the WTC. I’ll just show you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Natalie
Here it is for you so you will know what you are talking about!!!!!!!!
In an information-packed presentation of 58 minutes Kevin Ryan delivers a damning indictment of the official investigations of the total collapses of the Twin Towers and Building 7. Contrary to Ryan’s introductory comment that his lecture will be “very detailed and unfortunately a little bit dry,” I found his sober, professional, just-the-facts approach riveting and easy to follow despite its richness of technical detail.
Having created most of the 9-11 Research website, including its extensive reviews of the official investigations (such as my critique of NIST’s Report) I was surprised to learn so many things from Ryan’s talk. He provides an abundance of revealing details about the history and conduct of those investigations, complementing the more summary approach of 9-11 Research.
Apologists for the official story have attempted to redirect attention away from Ryan’s critique by suggesting that since Ryan isn’t a structural engineer he has nothing worthwhile to say. One need only listen to Ryan to see the disingenuity of this claim. Ryan’s solid scholarship and application of the scientific method stands in stark contrast to the official investigations, whose dishonesty and corrupt anti-scientific methods Ryan exposes in abundance.
Ryan unquestionably qualifies as a whistleblower. Having been promoted to the top manager of Underwriter’s Laboratories water testing division, Ryan was dismissed on November of 2004 after an e-mail from him to Dr Frank Gayle of NIST became public.
00:55
So I’m not an engineer, I’m a chemist. I got involved with this because of communications made to me both verbally and in writing about UL’s involvement in testing the materials related to the World Trade Center buildings.
Contents
* Introduction
* Bush Science
* The ‘Collapses’ in Perspective
* Origins of the Steel-Melting Fire Claims
* Where are the Real Experts?
* Pre-Determined Conclusions, Obstruction
* WTC Designers Contemplated Plane Crashes and Fires
* The Pancake Theory
* NIST’s Methods
o A. Review of documents
o B. Interviews with eyewitnesses
o C. Analysis of steel
o D. Laboratory tests
o E. Computer simulations
o NIST methods summary
* NIST’s Story
o 1. How many columns were severed?
o 2. How much were loads redistributed?
o 3. Fireproofing widely dislodged?
o 4. How hot could the Steel have become?
o 5. Some floors began to sag?
o 6. How did floors pull columns inward causing them to buckle?
o 7. Instability spread around entire building perimeter
o NIST theory summary
* Summary of NIST’s Report
* WTC 7
* Audience Questions
* Conclusion
Bush Science
Ryan begins by describing “Bush Science”—a corruption of allegedly scientific investigations by the Bush administration policy goals, citing condemnations by prominent scientists and Nobel lauretes, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the House Committee on Government Reform. Ryan notes that the NIST and the Department of Commerce to which it reports are both headed by Bush appointees.
The ‘Collapses’ In Perspective
Ryan provides some context for the official investigation, noting that 99.7 percent of the steel was recycled, and that the first full investigation—NIST’s—did not start for more than a year after the attack.
As David Griffin has pointed out in definitive detail, the destruction of the WTC towers showed numerous characteristic features of controlled demolition. Ryan quotes Griffin:
03:05
No building exhibiting all the characteristics of controlled demolition has never not been a controlled demolition.
Ryan signifies this argument with a slide of Demo, the elephant that remembers.
Among the many interesting quotes in the presentation are two by individuals later involved in the investigation—Mike Taylor and Ronald Hamburger—saying that the falls of the Twin Towers looked like demolitions.
Origins of the Steel-Melting Fire Claims
Ryan begins his examination of the official investigations by showing the source of the claim that jet fuel melted structural steel: a number of “experts” including:
04:40
* BBC (Chris Wise, etc.)
* Scientific American (Eduardo Kausel)
* NOVA video (Matthys Levy)
* Henry Koffman from USC
* Tom Mackin from Univ. of Illinois
* The New Scientist
Ryan also notes that National Geographic Today and the History Channel asserted fire temperatures of 2,900 and 2,700 F.
Since jet fuel fires burn at a maximum of around 1,500 F (unless in a special combustion chamber) and the melting point of steel is around 2,800 F, the claim that jet fuel fires melted structural steel is absurd. Although the official reports do not hold that the WTC fires melted steel, the origins of this idea is important, since it has been used as a straw-man attack by official story defenders such as Popular Mechanics.
Ryan notes that steel temperatures lag behind gas temperatures in both time and magnitude, and that none of the official reports have performed thermodynamic calculations about the probable steel temperatures. Ryan’s own calculations show that steel temperatures in the impact zones probably did not exceed 600 F.
Where are the Real Experts?
Having demonstrated the blatant disregard for facts by supposed experts, Ryan asks, where are the real experts? There are no experts who can explain the events of 9/11/01, Ryan explains, because the attack involved such a long string of unique events. Since no tall steel building has ever collapsed from fire, or a combination of fire and other damage, there are clearly no experts who can explain how it happened three times in one day.
Yet, as Ryan notes, there is always an official explanation for terrorist events. Ryan reviews anomalies in the official account of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, and notes that in that case, as in the case of the World Trade Center, a small group of engineers produced reports supporting the official story.
Ryan shows that the same principals headed the various government investigations of the WTC collapses, the Pentagon crash, and Oklahoma City bombing, despite the fact that the investigations involved assessments of entirely different kinds of structures inflicted with different kinds of damage. Why do the same five or so individuals turn up in investigations relating to terrorist attack, when, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), there are 1.5 million engineers in the US? The authors of the official report on the Murrah Federal Building—Gene Corley, Charles Thornton, Paul Mlaker, and Mete Sozeny—were all among the initial team of the ASCE WTC investigation. Several of these individuals have strong connections to industries that benefited from the attack, such as armaments makers and oil and gas producers.
Pre-Determined Conclusions, Obstruction
The guiding of an investigation by pre-determined conclusions is antithetical to good science. Ryan uses the words of the investigations themselves to show that they started with the conclusion that the collapses of the three skyscrapers were entirely the result of the plane crashes and subsequent fires. Gene Corley stated that he knew that the towers were going to collapse before they did, which is interesting because no tall steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fires. Charles Thornton stated to Karl Koch, “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” Shankar Nair, a contributor to the NIST investigation, stated on September 19, 2001, “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of event that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.” Ryan, surmises with wry irony:
09:42
So these guys knew apparently what happened, and I don’t doubt it.
New York City put Thornton-Tomasetti in charge of the site, and Charles Thronton’s partner, Richard Tomasetti cleared the decision to recycle the steel. Ryan lists a series of debilitating restrictions on the ASCE investigation that can best be understood as efforts to subvert and sabotage the investigation.
10:30
* No access to blueprints
* Not allowed to ask for help from public
* Team members threatened with dismissal for speaking with press
* No access to steel until first week in October
* FEMA obstruction
One way to solve that is to allow FEMA to take over the investigation.
FEMA took over the ASCE investigation and expanded it, adding John Gross, Therese McAllister, and other contractors. By December 2001, only $100,000 had been spent on the investigation.
11:52
We had spent, by the end of the year, 30,000 times more on the wars than we had spent finding why we were fighting the wars.
WTC Designers Contemplated Plane Crashes and Fires
Ryan shows statements by official investigators suggesting that the building designers had forgotten to consider jet fuel fires in their considerations of jet crashes.
11:52
* Eduardo Kausel - “never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next—a key design omission.”
* Loring Knoblauch (CEO of UL) - the jet fuel fires
were not “reasonably foreseeable.”
* What? How would the planes get to the buildings?
So who would do this—who would design these buildings for aircraft impacts but no jet fuel fires? ... Well, the answer is not the World Trade Center’s design engineer.
Ryan shows that the design engineers had contemplated jetliner crashes and the fires that would result. Lead engineer John Skilling said in 1993, five years before his death:
13:50
“our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there.”
—City in the Sky
These statements are not disclosed by a number of post-9/11 documentaries that feature Leslie Robertson, (a junior partner to Skilling at the time the Towers were designed) implying that fires were someone else’s job.
Ryan provides an illustrated tour of the Tower’s construction, describing the huge core structures, and noting that steel used in the perimeter columns was super-strong steel: much of it rated to 1,000,000 PSI.
The Pancake Theory
Ryan briefly reviews the April 2002 NOVA documentary, which featured commentators Corley and Thornton, and the floor pancaking theory. The same theory is endorsed in the May 2002 FEMA report as a “a pancake-type of collapse of successive floors”
In June of 2002 NIST drafted its plans, and its first “public meeting” meeting included comments by Corley, Tomasetti, Nair, and other contributors to the official reports.
17:22
FEMA authors became NIST authors
* FEMA Chapter 1 authors:
o Therese McAllister: co-write NIST report 1-6 and 1-7
o John Gross: co-wrote NIST report 1-6 and 1-7
o Ronald Hamburger: NIST contributor
* FEMA Chapter 2 authors:
o Ronald Hamburger: see above
o William Baker: NIST contributor, Freedom Tower
o Harold Nelson: co-wrote NIST report 1-5 and 1-7
* FEMA Chapter 5 authors (WTC7):
o Ramon Gilsanz: co-wrote NIST report 1-6F
o Harold Nelson: see above
Although the authors of the official reports are very similar, the collapse explanations offered by the reports are quite different. Corley and Thornton-Tomasetti were also involved in the Weidlinger study, released in October, 2002, just five months after FEMA’s. That study, commissed by Silverstein for his insurance claim, exclusively blames column failure for the collapses. It thus stands in stark contrast to the FEMA Report, whose pancake theory blames floor truss failures. Why would the same individuals endorse two contradictory theories in their different roles? Apparently for political and economic reasons. Ryan ventues that failures of truss supports could indicate a design fault, and therefore fail to support the “two occurrances” claimed by Silverstein. I suggest that clearly implausible aspects of the column failure theory required the invention of the more sophisticated and truss-failure theory to sell the collapse theory.
Ryan summarizes the “official” theories to date:
19:02
They know from the start what happened?
* “experts” Towering Inferno
o Steel melted
* FEMA
o Floor failure: “A pancake-type collapse of successive floors”
* Silverstein/Weidlinger
o Column failure only
* NIST
o External column failure from sagging floors and softened core columns, etc ... leading to pile driver collapse
(TNRAT - They’ll Never Read All This theory)
I describe NIST’s Report as a mountain of distracting detail. Ryan more succinctly describes their theory as a ‘tin rat’—They’ll Never Read All This—theory. The Report on the Twin Towers is 42 sub-reports totaling more than 10,000 pages.
NIST’s Methods
Here Ryan starts his detailed analysis of NIST’s final report released in September 2005, which he calls “Part 2 of the official conspiracy theory” because of its departure from the first theory—the pancake theory. Ryan asks whether NIST used the national standard for fire investigation: NFPA 921. He shows that NIST violated at least two of the standard’s guidelines:
20:50
* Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided
o NIST used specialists/contractors who were dependent on government contracts or on the official story itself
* Sec 12-4: Unusual residues ...could arise from thermite, magnesium or other pyrotechnic materials
o NIST report does not mention FEMA’s puzzling sulfur residue
Ryan enumerates the five methods used by NIST, and proceeds to examine NIST’s performance on each one, using two of NIST’s own stated goals:
Goal 1 - Why and How three buildings collapsed
Goal 3 - What design factors should have prevented this?
21:40
5 methods:
A. Review of documents
B. Interviews with eyewitnesses
C. Analysis of steel
D. Laboratory tests
E. Computer simulations
A. Review of Documents
The review of documents was important because the building designers made claims about their performance in jetliner crashes that were highly relevant to NIST’s investigation. NIST avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—were missing. The design claims by Skilling’s team included the following:
22:52
Original design claims
* “... inherent capacity to resist unforeseen calamities.”
* For the perimeter columns ... “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”
* One “could cut away all the first story columns on one side of the building, and partway from the corners of the perpendicular sides, and the building could still withstand design live loads and a 100 mph wind from any direction.”
—All quotes from Engineering News-Record, 1964
NIST states that it found no documents about fire resistance testing, yet it also states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, which requires such testing. If the assemblies were tested they would have been using the standard ASTM E119. A floor assembly is tested to that standard by by placing a furnace under it and measuring the time it takes a certain temperature to be reached on its top side.
Evidence that the steel was tested include:
24:50
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
In August of 2004, UL performed tests of WTC floor models, but the floors were barely affected and didn’t collapse. Loring Knoblauch resigned suddenly.
In October of 2004, a NIST report update showed contradictions.
In November of 2004 Ryan’s letter to Frank Gayle went public, causing UL to quickly backtrack, saying there was “no evidence” that any firm tested the steel, and that they played a “limited” role in the investigation.
B. Interviews with Eyewitnesses
27:30
B. NIST’s performance on interviews
* NIST started planning for eyewitness interviews in April 2003 (7 months after start of investigation, 19 after 9/11)
* By October, still no NIST interviews and on NIST access to NYC interviews
* NYC finally agreed to allow NIST acccess to original interviews by December 2003
... but only in NYC offices
NIST’s limited access to the interviews is reminiscent of testimony given the 9/11 Commission, in which notes or recordings were prohibited. Ryan presents a few excerpts of the interviews released to the public in mid-2005—excerpts such as these that reflect perceptions of explosive demolition.
The eyewitness interviews were not used in the final report.
C. Analysis of Steel
29:40
C. Analysis of steel
* Most of the steel evidence destroyed
o Tomasetti decision (Thornton’s partner)
o 236 samples saved for testing (0.3%)
* NIST tests
o Paint tests indicated low steel temps (480 F) “despite pre-collapse exposure to fire”
o Microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values (600 C)
Having failed to find any samples that showed exposures to temperatures that would have produced critical weakening of steel, NIST stated “None of the samples were from zones where [high] heating was predicted”
D. Laboratory Tests
Laboratory tests conducted by NIST included:
* Tests to prove loss of fireproofing
* Workstation burn tests
* Tests by UL to test failure in floor assemblies
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. The tests showed:
34:00
* Minimal floor sagging
* No floor collapse
* “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”
E. Computer Simulations
34:45
* Input parameters could be tweaked
* “Realistic” parameters tossed in favor of “More severe” parameters
* Animations generated to “compare with observed events”
In my essay on NIST’s Report, I point out that NIST created animations of events such as the fires and plane crashes, but has not published any animations of the falls of the Towers—the events it was supposed to investigate. Ryan makes essentially the same point in his characteristic understated manner, showing some images from NIST computer animations and asking:
35:30
Does your future depend on these pictures?
NIST methods summary
35:35
NIST’s investigative practices were deceptive and unscientific
* Documents needed just happened to be missing
* Eyewitnesses to demolition characteristics were ignored
* Physical tests that disproved pre-determined conclusions were downplayed or ignored
* Entire theory is built on fudged, inaccessible computer simulations
NIST’s Story
Having exposed the blatantly unscientific conduct of NIST’s investigation, Ryan proceeds to dismantle their theory, which consists of seven steps:
36.06
What is their story?
1. The aircraft severed “a number of columns”
2. Loads were redistributed (from -20% to +25%)
3. Insulation (fireproofing) was widely dislodged
4. High temperatures softened columns and floors
5. Some floors began to sag
6. Sagging floors pulled exterior columns inward causing them to buckle
7. Instability spread around entire building
Ryan examines these steps in detail, showing that each either makes drastically unrealistic assumptions or otherwise fails to support the collapse theory.
1. How many columns were severed?
NIST admits that only a small percentage of columns were severed: 14% in WTC 1 and 15% WTC 2. This is nowhere near the the number of columns that the designers claimed could have been removed without causing a problem.
2. How much were loads redistributed?
NIST admits that the web of steel formed by interlocking perimeter columns and spandrel plates were efficient at redistributing loads around the impact punctures. It estimates that loads on some columns increased by up to 35% while loads on other columns decreased by 20%. The increased loads are nowhere near those the designers claimed the columns could handle: increases of 2000% above the design live loads.
3. Fireproofing widely dislodged?
The idea that fireproofing was removed from most of the structural steel surfaces of the impact zones is essential to NIST’s theory. NIST sought to “prove” that the plane crashes could do this by shooting shotguns at surfaces coated with spray-on foam insulation. Contrary to the popular notion that the jolts of the plane crashes could knocked off large amounts of spray-on insulation from steel not directly in the line of fire, the tests showed that it took being sprayed with shotgun pellets to remove the insulation. In addition to the fact that there is no evidence that a crashing Boeing 757 could have been transformed into the equivalent of the thousands of shotgun blasts it would take to blast the 6,000 square meters of surface area of structural steel in the fire areas, Ryan makes another argument based on the available energy.
40:00
* NIST says 2500 MJ of kinetic energy from plane that hit WTC1
o Calculations show that all this energy was consumed in crushing aircraft and breaking columns and floors *
o Shotgun tests found that 1 MJ per sq meter was needed to dislodge fireproofing
o For the areas in question, intact floors and columns had 6000 sq meters of surface area
* Calculations by Tomasz Wierzbicki of MIT
4. How hot Could the Steel have become?
Here Ryan fills in another gap in NIST’s theory by doing a calculation they neglected to, that to determine how much heat energy was available and how much it could have raised steel temperatures. Ryan and others have done the calculation using only assumptions favorable to the collapse theory:
41:00
* NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires—590,000 MJ of energy
* Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
* Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
* The result is less than 600 degrees F
o Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat
Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it.
5. Some floors began to sag?
Step five in NIST’s collapse theory is that floors began to sag. The idea that fires could have caused floors to sag is not unreasonable, since it has been observed in fire tests and in cases of severe fires in steel-framed buildings, such as the One Meridian Plaza fire.
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches.
6. How did floors pull columns inward causing them to buckle?
of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
47:00
* “An exterior wall section (9 columns wide and 9 floors high) was found to bow inward when floor connections applied an inward force.” (computer result for one case out of nine)
* Same report says sagging area only 5 floors high!
* NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
7. Instability spread around entire building perimeter
NIST claims that “column instability” spread from core columns to the perimeter columns and vice-versa, leading to “global collapse” in the case of both Towers. This vague claim occupies only a few paragraphs of NIST’s Final Report, despite its being critical to the collapse theory.
Ryan asks how fast the “instability spread” would have to propagate to produce the sudden-onset telescoping collapses. Noting that the perimeter of each Tower measured 832 feet, for “column instability” to spread to all the perimeter columns in half a second would require a supersonic rate of propagation. This idea is entirely contrary to all experience with steel structures, and pre-9/11 literature on the subject.
47:00
“A steel structure, generally speaking, does not collapse suddenly when attacked by fire. There are unmistakable warning signs, namely, large deformations”
—Hart, Multi-storey Buildings in Steel
NIST theory summary
48:40
What would objective scientists have found?
1 Relatively few columns lost on impact
2 Remaining columns had considerable extra capacity
3 Fireproofing could not have been widely dislodged
4 Steel could not have softened at the temps found
5 Even higher temps and longer periods tests showed minimal sagging
6 Forces were not sufficient to pull columns inward
7 “instability spread” would have taken longer
Summary of NIST’s Report
50:47
NIST WTC report is false because ..
* They did not explain why and how the buildings collapsed and their investigation was deceptive and unscientific at every step
* They reported findings that were in direct contradiction to their physical testing
* They omitted or distorted many important facts:
o Original design claims and John Skilling’s analysis
o Resistance from building structure below
o WTC 1 antenna moving first
o Pools of molten metal lingering for weeks
o Numerous eyewitness testimonies about explosions
o Sulfur residue on steel
WTC 7
Ryan concludes with a brief look at the fall of WTC 7, noting that NIST still hasn’t produced their final report on the incident. WTC 7 would have been the tallest building in 33 states and it collapsed in 6.6 seconds. Showing a video of the collapse, Ryan states:
52:34
I understand that a representative of MSNBC still needs to see this. And he’s also said that if he was faced with the knowledge that all of us have been faced with now that he would leave the country, that he would run far away. But we’re here to tell him that not everyone would run.
Ryan’s comment refers to the interview of Steven Jones by Tucker Carlson in which the producers apparently refused to play the collapse footage of WTC 7 that Jones had earlier arranged to be played. Addressing feedback on the interview, Carlson said the next day: “If you really thought this - or even considered it a possibility - how could you continue to live here? You couldn’t. You’d leave the United States on the next available flight and not come back.”
Top 10 reasons why the NIST report is absurd:
In 2005, NIST released the results of a 20 million dollar investigation that attempted to explain why the World Trade Center towers completely collapsed.[1]
Many blindly point to this report (without reading a word of it) as rock solid proof that the official story is true. I am writing this list In order to help remedy this situation. All of my claims are documented—-I am not making this up. Some of these claims may sound too outrageous to be true, but they are. I have provided the footnotes to prove it.
This is for anyone who still takes the NIST report seriously.
I present my top 10 reasons why the 10,000 page NIST report is absurd:
#10. Their theory is that “widely-dislodged fireproofing” was the primary reason the towers collapsed.[2]
#9. This theory ignores the fact that no steel framed building had ever completely collapsed due to fire in history.[3]
#8. They disproved their own “widely-dislodged fireproofing” theory with a shotgun experiment.[4]
#7. They ignore massive eyewitness testimony.[5]
#6. Their theory ignores a foundational law of physics.[6]
#5. Their steel tests contradicted their own theory and showed that the towers should not have collapsed.[7]
#4. They “proved” their theory with computer models that they refuse to release.[8]
#3. Their computer simulations used exaggerated data.[9]
#2. Their 10,000 page, 43 volume report explains (only in a footnote!), that their theory is a pre-collapse theory—-they do not attempt to explain the “structural behaviour of the tower” after the collapse began![10]
NIST’s most absurd blunder of all?
#1. Their 10,000 page, 43 volume report can’t find the space to discuss molten and evaporated steel; outrageously claiming that it was “irrelevant to the investigation”![11]
This statement is stunning evidence that there needs to be a criminal investigation, as well as a new investigation.
Most of this information is in an essay I wrote about the NIST report. For a more complete examination of the NIST report, read:
9/11, NIST, and “Bush Science”: A New Standard for Absurdity
http://www.911blogger.com/node/4324
[1] www.nist.gov/
[2] This is NIST’s theory in their own words: “The two aircraft hit the towers at high speed and did considerable damage to principal structural components: core columns, floors, and perimeter columns. However, the towers withstood the impacts and would have remained standing were it not for the dislodged insulation (fireproofing) and the subsequent multifloor fires.”
Taken from: NIST: “Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers” page 4.
Therefore, the NIST theory is a “fireproofing theory”. If the fireproofing was not removed the buildings would not have collapsed according to NIST.
Plane damage was therefore insignificant:
Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering who supports the official theory, says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because “the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure” (Eagar and Musso, 2001, pp. 8-11).
Professor Astaneh-Asl of University of California:said “The [plane] impact did nothing to this building,’ he said with admiration.” CNN News, Oct 5, 2001.
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/05/inv.attacks.steel/index.html
See also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=718236659434732032 Kevin Ryan, 9-11 Revealing the Truth: Reclaiming our future conference. June 4, 2006.
[3] No steel framed buildings had ever collapsed due to fire in history according to the New York Times:
Glanz, James, and Lipton, Eric (2002). “Towers Withstood Impact, but Fell to Fire, Report Says,” Fri March 29, 2002, New York Times.
[4] Kevin Ryan shows it actually disproved their theory:
“It took being sprayed with shotgun pellets to remove the insulation…. there is no evidence that a crashing Boeing 757 could have been…. [like] thousands of shotgun blasts [to cover] the 6,000 square meters of surface area of structural steel.”
In other words, the shotgun blasts only removed the fireproofing where they were struck with the shotgun blast. Their own photos clearly show that the shotgun blasts removed little fireproofing, disproving their theory.
taken from: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html#dislodged
See also: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=718236659434732032
Kevin Ryan, 9-11 Revealing the Truth: Reclaiming our future conference. June 4, 2006. at 36:06, and the NIST study that has photos of the shotgun blast tests.
[5] Eyewitness testimony: http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/eyewitnesses.html
[6] As Seen from in NIST’s FAQ: http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
“How could the WTC towers collapse in only 11 seconds (WTC 1) and 9 seconds (WTC 2)—-speeds that approximate that of a ball dropped from similar height in a vacuum (with no air resistance)?”[6]
NIST responds:
“....the momentum…. of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. [Note: this claim contradicts a basic law of physics] The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.”[6]
Jim Hoffman explains why this is impossible:
“NIST’s assertion that the Tower’s intact structure was “unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass” is absurd. It:
* Requires us to believe that the massive steel frames of the towers provided no more resistance to falling rubble than air.
* Ignores the fact that the majority of rubble fell outside the towers’ footprints, and hence could not contribute to crushing.
* Is unsupported by any calculation or logical argument.”[6]
Physicist Steven Jones, who has written over 40 peer reviewed scientific papers, agrees [see page 28]:
“Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum—-one of the foundational Laws of Physics? That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors—-and intact steel support columns—-the fall must be significantly impeded [i.e. slowed down] by the impacted mass.”[6]
[7] Here are NIST’s own test results:
* Paint tests indicated low steel temps (480 F) “despite pre-collapse exposure to fire”
* Microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values (600 C)
* Lab tests showed: Minimal floor sagging.
* NIST found that there was no floor collapse.
* “The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11th.”
See here: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html#steelanalysis
and here: http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html#labtests
[8] “World Trade Center disaster investigators [at NIST] are refusing to show computer visualizations of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers, NCE has learned. Visualisations of collapse mechanisms are routinely used to validate the type of finite element analysis model used by the [NIST] investigators.”
Parker, Dave. “WTC investigators resist call for collapse visualisation,” New Civil Engineer, October 6, 2005.
[9] What data did NIST use for these computer models? We don’t know exactly, but they did reveal:
“The Investigation Team then defined three cases for each building by combining the middle, less severe, and more severe values of the influential variables. Upon a preliminary examination of the middle cases, it became clear that the towers would likely remain standing. The less severe cases were discarded after the aircraft impact results were compared to observed events. The middle cases….were discarded after the structural response analysis of major subsystems were compared to observed events.”
NIST, 2005, p. 142; emphasis added.
This does not prove their predetermined conclusion so they change their data until they get the desired result—-building collapse:
“The more severe case… was used for the global analysis of each tower… To the extent that the simulations deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness reports [e.g., complete collapse occurred], the investigators adjusted the input, but only within the range of physical reality. Thus, for instance… the pulling forces on the perimeter columns by the sagging floors were adjusted…”
NIST, 2005, p. 142; emphasis added.
NIST’s theory couldn’t be proved with the original data, so they changed the data, which was different from the eyewitness reports. Does this “evidence” prove anything besides the fact computer simulations are fun to fool around with?
NIST also revealed:
“The software used [by NIST] has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgment calls.”
Parker, Dave. “WTC investigators resist call for collapse visualisation,” New Civil Engineer, October 6, 2005.
[10] NIST: “The focus of the Investigation was on the sequence of events from the instant of aircraft impact to the initiation of collapse for each tower. For brevity in this report, this sequence is referred to as the “probable collapse sequence,” although [the investigation] does not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached.” NIST, 2005, p. 80, fn. 12; emphasis added.
The report is irrelevant if it can’t explain the “structural behavior of the tower” after the collapse began. Essentially, the only focus of the report is to prove that the collapse started, not what happened after it started.
[11] I can’t believe they actually stated this on the record! NIST truly sets a new standard for absurdity.
NIST: “The condition of the steel in the wreckage of the WTC towers (i.e., whether it was in a molten state or not) was irrelevant to the investigation of the collapse since it does not provide any conclusive information on the condition of the steel when the WTC towers were standing.” Read it here! http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html#13
NIST is trying to say that the molten steel was created after the building collapse. How do they know that? If so, why isn’t it mentioned in a 10, 000 page report to show this? This statement defies belief.
by Arabesque
Natalie
STOP YOUR LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
When a manager of a health laboratory poses as a fire expert and a structural engineer,
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
Yous said:
and writes an unauthorized and error-filled letter to a govt. agency on company time and letterhead without the approval of his superiors, he loses a lot of credibility and even his job.
It turns out every thing he stated in his report was confirmed by NIST.
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.” NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.” NIST, p. 181
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires—590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F
* Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat and did not act as a heat sink.
You said:
When he takes quotes of genuine experts like Ronald Hamburger and Mike Taylor out of context to mislead people into thinking that they agree with him, his credibility is pretty much in the crapper.
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
He only showed the quotes when talking about their first impression.
He found it odd that given their first impression wouldnt they want to test so they can know for certain that they where wrong? Yet NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
You said:
My reference to letterhead was meant to be colorful, but important to illustrate the fact that he represented himself as a manager at UL, and obviously sought to use that position to gain influence and stature.
You colorfuly forgot that he earned his promotion to a position of influence and stature. You also forgot he was following up on the letter he recieved from “UL’s CEO”. He was concerned about the errors for they could put UL in a position of blame. As it turned out he was correct and the errors that he pointed out have since been fixed / retracted.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
You said:
He seems completely ignorant of the fact that UL was not attempting to duplicate what happened in the towers, but that they were merely performing baseline tests to insure that the trusses performed as they should have in ordinary fire situations. They did, and it wasn’t.
It wasnt even close to ordinary tests and that he points out they were nothing like the Towers!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse. Then they
NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
You said:
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him. Just like Jones using Manning’s editorial selectively to do the same thing. Far from ethical, and far from professional, but a common tactic of propagandists posing as genuine experts. (Yes, Ryan presented himself authoritatively talking about steel, testing, melting points, failure, etc etc. He wasn’t talking about bacteria in water, which was his JOB.)
Kevin Ryan said; “So I’m not an engineer, I’m a chemist. I got involved with this because of communications made to me both verbally and in writing about UL’s involvement in testing the materials related to the World Trade Center buildings.”
You said:
As for Hamburger and Taylor, yes, their quotes were used to mislead the uninformed into thinking that some real experts agreed with him.
He never ever has said any such thing at all!!!!!!!!!! That is a lie!!!!!!!!!!
He only showed the quotes when talking about their first impression.
He found it odd that given their first impression wouldnt they want to test so they can know for certain that they where wrong? NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
Please! I beg you to show me where he mislead people into thinking that they agree with him! Please! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
Now, if he would have said that Ronald and Mike thought it looked like a demolition at first, like millions of people did, but certainly don’t hold that view today, fine. But of course, why in the world would he include all that? What is he, a scientist or a politician? Was it a “botched joke”? ;~)
For an hour he talked about that they think their first impression is wrong even though they never did any test to make sure!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
Please! I beg you to show me where he mislead people into thinking that they agree with him! Please! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!!
PROVE YOU ARE NOT A LIAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
First of all I am shocked that you belive that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel. Jet fuel can not get that hot. Your ignorance amazes me. Don’t you know that is absolutely and utterly impossible? Natalie it defies the laws of physics. Not even NIST says the fires reached any where close to those temperatures.
Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that temperatures were anything other than what NIST concluded that they were after extensive investigation? Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that steel melted?
You’re repeating yourself, Joe. The “rebuttals” you worship have no more credibility the second time than they did the first.
The problem with all this gibberish, Joe, is that each and every tidbit of it has been submitted by people that have no business doing so.
There is not a single solitary sole among them that could pass a professional structural engineering exam, with perhaps a tiny fraction being able to answer the first question.
Kevin Ryan, Steven Jones, Jim Hoffman and the rest at 9/11review simply do not have the expertise, experience or detailed knowledge needed to mount a proper rebuttal of the NIST reports. And, more importantly, few among the thousands of those world-wide that do have these qualities have raised any substantial objections to the report. Any that have, either conclude that the fire alone, or the damage alone were nearly enough to cause collapse. Not exactly supportive of the CD theory, is it? We’ve got a fringe on each side of the legitimate and relevant scientific community, with the rest falling somewhere in between, with NOBODY feeling the need to entertain wacky theories about something there’s absolutely no evidence for.
Nobody in the truth movement is a credible structural engineer, and nobody is experienced in any kind of fire engineering or fire science. They don’t have the ability to do anything more than cruise the Internet, take things out of context, demonstrate their bias, make unsupported assertions and accuse genuine professionals who actually operate under a strict code of ethics of having no integrity. That takes a special kind of arrogance.
Why is it Joe, that you find it reasonable to accept the conclusions of unqualified, misleading and in many cases deliberately dishonest individuals over those of highly educated and experienced professional engineers and scientists in fields that are actually relevant to the situation?
Are you really comfortable with this mindset, Joe?
“In an information-packed presentation of 58 minutes Kevin Ryan delivers a damning indictment of the official investigations of the total collapses of the Twin Towers and Building 7. Contrary to Ryan’s introductory comment that his lecture will be “very detailed and unfortunately a little bit dry,” I found his sober, professional, just-the-facts approach riveting and easy to follow despite its richness of technical detail.”
No Joe, that’s not technical detail. It’s an exercise in propaganda, and that which is obvious to most apparently sails right over your head. It’s the same dishonest technique employed by Jones, Griffin, Fetzer, Loose Change, “9/11 witness” etc., etc.
Out of context “factoids” and no effort to provide the more realistic and reasonable explanations for all these supposedly strange occurances. If you want technical detail, you’re going to have to look somewhere other than the “truth” movement.
BTW, my research indicates that Loring Knoblauch simply retired at around the age of 65, not “suddenly resigned” from UL. Can’t a person retire anymore without being a suspected criminal or conspirator?
Natalie
At this point I have yet to hear definitive support or skepticism from the engineering community but I can tell you that ARUP in the UK has taken issue with the report (they do not model expansion due to heating) as well as the New Civil Engineer. The primary problem is that NIST is unwilling to debate its report, even with engineers who support the fire theory but have taken issue with NIST’s particular theory. Need I remind you that the track record of the explanations for the collapses has not exactly been stellar:
1. (FALSE) Tower Meltdown (Bazant and Zhou, various “experts” in the days after) - 800C+ temperatures in core - No WTC7 explanation
2. (FALSE) Pancake theory (ASCE, FEMA BPAT, MIT) - Never a full collapse theory (the use of the phrase “possibly free standing columns” failing) and now disproven by physical tests and NIST, very improbable WTC7 explanation (by FEMA’s own account)
3. (FALSE) Weidlinger report - Low temperature column failure with fire proofing loss - Similiar to NIST but contradicted by NIST’s temperature estimates and collapse theory (role of floors) - No WTC7 explanation
4. (Yet to be determined) NIST report - Latest report on collapses, currently excludes WTC7
We’ve had a myriad of “explanations” that have are all mutually exclusive and promulgated by largely the same set of people. Now, as I recall many 9/11 truth researchers criticized these reports and at the the time proponents of each of these theories claimed large scale agreement among engineers and, similiar to your tact, that these researchers were merely talking out of their ass. Unfortunately for the “engineers” (and yourself), the truthers are batting 1.000 to their 0.000 so far. Does this mean that NIST is thus wrong? No, but it means that the blanket acceptance of the latest theory promulagated by “experts” should be taken as just that, a theory. Appealing to authority here is really laughable considering the appaling track record of these theories and anyone who chooses to merely restate NIST’s conclusions without verifying their data and analysis is engaging in the worst form of doublethink and intellectual dishonesty.
You’re right, Joe, everyone isn’t in lock-step agreement with exactly what mechanisms initiated the collapse. This is perfectly normal in these types of situations.
But why does this understandable and wholly expected debate about the precise cause of the collapse have to mean that there were explosives planted in the towers? If one camp believes that fire alone would have doomed the towers, and the other believes that the structural damage brought them to the brink, why in the world is there a need to invoke other things there are no evidence for? NIST comes down somewhat in the middle. And, there is absolutely no debate in the non-truthie world that I’m aware of regarding what did/should happen after collapse started.
I can understand NIST’s reluctance to debate truthies, but somehow I doubt that they aren’t perfectly willing to share their knowledge and data and evidence with qualified researchers. (they wrote a huge stack of friggin reports, if that means anything at all) What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
Thanks for the audio of Fetzer and Pegelow. I was waiting and waiting for some indication that Pegalow possessed any kind of advanced understanding of structural physics, or the properties and behaviors of unprotected steel in even a moderately hot fire. I got no such indication. He does sound generally pretty well informed, as in “Yeah, I read something about that somewhere”, and is kind enough to share his political biases with us.
At the end, he was real enthusiastic about the theory that nuclear devices were used. Fetzer tried to politely hint that even Jones doesn’t go along with that particular form of creative thinking.
Truthies batting a thousand? No, please, we’ve had theories ranging from holographic planes, to missiles at the Pentagon, to nuclear weapons being used that apparently don’t give off radiation, to thermite, to perfectly timed progressive explosions from top to bottom to a hundred more I can’t think of right now. If I were you, I wouldn’t be criticizing anyone for not being able to agree on a theory!! Perhaps get your own house in order first.
Upon doing another five or ten seconds of Internet research, it seems that the former head of UL retired a little prematurely due to prostate cancer at around the age of 63. Perhaps this is why it was perceived by some as “sudden”.
Natalie
You said:
Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that temperatures were anything other than what NIST concluded that they were after extensive investigation? Where in the world do you get the idea that I think that steel melted?
They said:
“What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel. . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts.” Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory.”
Kevin Ryan said:
We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
A. UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
* September 2001
o Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC
* November 2003
o I asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he responded in December confirming details.
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
Kevin Ryan said:
As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I’m aware of UL’s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.
They said:
“All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing”...NIST, p. 143
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.”... NIST, p. 143
Kevin Ryan said:
The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team’s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to “rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse”. The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
They said:
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.”.... NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.”... NIST, p. 181
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires=590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F
I thought you DID NOT agree with Kevin Ryan’s letter and because I thought you did not agree with what he was saying ment you agreed with what Kevin Ryan was arguing against. I am sorry for the confusion but I think you can understand and agree that Both the first 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST report leave one confused because they declared their own findings inconclusive.
At that time Kevin Ryan’s letter was arguing against the Pancake theory because of physical tests that he was aware of and now 2 years later NIST says thier pancake theory has been disproven by physical tests.
THE SAME PHYSICAL TESTS Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about over two years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
The problem with all this gibberish, Joe, is that each and every tidbit of it has been submitted by people that have no business doing so.
What Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about over two years ago was very easy to understand so how is it the government “owned” experts could not figure it out for over two years before they agreed with him and said thier pancake theory has been disproven by the physical tests Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about!!??!!
How is it that every one just excepts this as simple mistake made by the government “owned” experts?
You dont really belive that do you?
Simple mistakes my ass!
Why are you not mad about being lied to when the government “owned” experts said jet fuel melted the steel? Doesnt that alone make you realise they have NO CREDIBILITY?!?!?!?!?!?!
*BBC (Chris Wise, ect.)
*Scentific American (Eduardo Kausel)
*NOVA video (Matthys levy)
*Henry Koffman from USC
*Tom Mackin from the Univ. of Illionis
*The New Scientiest
*And many more Government “owned” experts of “deception”
They exaggerated the Temperatures and then there lies where repeted
*National Geographic Today - 2,900F
*A&E - 2,500F
*History Channel - 2,500F
Each of these theories claimed large scale agreement among scientist and engineers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Large scale agreement among scientist and engineers my ass!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
Why is it Joe, that you find it reasonable to accept the conclusions of unqualified, misleading and in many cases deliberately dishonest individuals over those of highly educated and experienced professional engineers and scientists in fields that are actually relevant to the situation?
Who are the misleading and in many cases deliberately dishonest individuals? It cant be the ones you were told to ignore and that have been proven correct. Instead its the same small group of government “owned” experts who made these false claims.
As soon as the government propaganda came out with that bulls**t many people were saying that the thermodynamic analysis of the twin tower collapses show that the temp of the steel could not reach more that 600F and that was in 2001 before any tests were done of the steel and if you can remember they were called unqualified to make such calculations and the same small group of government “owned” experts said through the MSM they should be ignored.
That is bulls**t the calculations needed for a thermodynamic analysis are learned in high school. Also they are required in a fire investigation and often the insurance companies want to see it done. So why wasnt it done by the government “owned” experts who said every one else is unqualified to do the calculations.
Although the authors of the official reports are very similar, the collapse explanations offered by the reports are quite different. Corley and Thornton-Tomasetti were also involved in the Weidlinger study, released in October, 2002, just five months after FEMA’s. That study, commissed by Silverstein for his insurance claim, exclusively blames column failure for the collapses. It thus stands in stark contrast to the FEMA Report, whose pancake theory blames floor truss failures. Why would the same individuals endorse two contradictory theories in their different roles? Apparently for political and economic reasons. Ryan ventues that failures of truss supports could indicate a design fault, and therefore fail to support the “two occurrances” claimed by Silverstein. I suggest that clearly implausible aspects of the column failure theory required the invention of the more sophisticated and truss-failure theory to sell the collapse theory.
It’s always the same small group of government “owned” experts who made these false claims and that headed the various government investigations of the WTC collapses, the Pentagon crash, and Oklahoma City bombing, despite the fact that the investigations involved assessments of entirely different kinds of structures inflicted with different kinds of damage. Why do the same five or so individuals turn up in investigations relating to terrorist attack, when, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), there are 1.5 million engineers in the US? The authors of the official report on the Murrah Federal Building “Gene Corley, Charles Thornton, Paul Mlaker, and Mete Sozeny” were all among the initial team of the ASCE WTC investigation. Several of these individuals have strong connections to industries that benefited from the attack, such as armaments makers and oil and gas producers.
Professionals who actually operate under a strict code of ethics??????
Gene Corley stated that he knew that the towers were going to collapse before they did, which is interesting because no tall steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fires. Charles Thornton stated to Karl Koch, “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” Shankar Nair, a contributor to the NIST investigation, stated on September 19, 2001, “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of event that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.”
The guiding of an investigation by pre-determined conclusions is antithetical to good science!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And dont you even try to tell me that those government “owned” experts did not lie but were ignorent about the tempature that steel melts at 2,800F or that the government “owned” experts didnt know that jet fuel fires burn at a maximum of 1,500F or that the steel in the towers is a huge natural heat sink and that steel temps are different than gas temps because steel temps lag way behind. Trust me They knew. Its their job to know.
You said:
It’s an exercise in propaganda, and that which is obvious to most apparently sails right over your head.
You must also remember that this task had it’s overseers… just like the 9/11 commission… the investigation was guided…. and the results were skewed. (NIST and the Department of Commerce to which it reports are both headed by Bush appointees!)
I dont remember an apology from those lying traitors do you?
* Eduardo Kausel - “never designed for the massive explosions nor the intense jet fuel fires that came next—-a key design omission.”
* Loring Knoblauch (CEO of UL) - the jet fuel fires
were not “reasonably foreseeable.”
* What? How would the planes get to the buildings?
The design engineers had contemplated jetliner crashes and the fires that would result. Lead engineer John Skilling said in 1993, five years before his death:
“our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there.”
—City in the Sky
You said:
(they wrote a huge stack of friggin reports, if that means anything at all)
I describe NIST’s Report as a mountain of distracting detail. Ryan more succinctly describes their theory as a ‘tin rat’—They’ll Never Read All This—theory. The Report on the Twin Towers is 42 sub-reports totaling more than 10,000 pages.
NIST’s Methods
Their 10,000 page, 43 volume report can’t find the space to discuss molten and evaporated steel; outrageously claiming that it was “irrelevant to the investigation”!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST in thier OWN document state that they DID NOT investigate the use of CD! They NEVER tested for residue from explosives because they did not investigate the possibility of it!
NIST does not explain how the Antena on WTC1 fell first, when it was ATTACHED to the cores???? The cores could not have collapsed until the OUTER parts started to fall! Yet the Antena, which was supported by the cores, and connected to them, fell moments before the collapse. What caused the Antena to sink before the sides started to collapse?????? The core could not, would not, collapse in that fashion without an EXTERNAL force (and no the plane is not an external force in this case).
Please! Tell us all here how that Antena, supported by the Core, started sinking before the impact part collapsed!
PHYSICS says it’s IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Statistically well over 100 TRILLION to ONE!
NIST: “The condition of the steel in the wreckage of the WTC towers (i.e., whether it was in a molten state or not) was irrelevant to the investigation of the collapse since it does not provide any conclusive information on the condition of the steel when the WTC towers were standing.” Read it here! http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html#13
You said:
What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
Perhaps if NIST would provide the computer simulations for the scientific community to evalulate, they might be taken seriously??? How about providing a 1/100 model to demonstrate the collapse is possible in the way that NIST states? How about something other than them just saying so and providing PROOF?????
It’s pretty funny that if the NIST information is so ROCK SOLID that they won’t debate scientists that have refuted MUCH of NIST’s work. They absolutely will not debate them on the so called facts!
Thats because all that NIST has is speculation!! It has not been PROVEN as fact!!! every one of their FALSE claims were only excepted as fact by idiots who fall for the propaganda pushed by the same small group of “government owned” scientist!!!!!!
Oh, and by the way…... There are plenty of Structural Engineers that question NIST’s accounts of things!
How about providing ONE steel framed building that fell into pieces of dust from either fire, damage, or both in the history of man….. JUST ONE EXAMPLE!
I really recommend that everyone read the NIST report, on both sides, to see what it really does say and if NIST actually proved any of its Summary of Conclusions. A very careful reading of the report reveals that it does not indeed support the assertion of global collapse.
NIST failed to make the case for their probable collapse sequence. I fail to see the point in blithely accepting NIST’s conclusions without first verifying the data to support it. If you didn’t notice, most reports, essays, papers, etc. in academicia, economics, science, or business have something called a “body”, that usually provides analysis and evidence to support the “conclusions”. I guess you would advocate that we do away with that and merely state conclusions, since they must always be “true”. Oh I forgot, that’s the bias of the political method and has no place in the investigation of the murder of 3000 people.
OSS CEO Shares Information About 9/11 Truth Seminar at George Mason University (Arlington Campus) 10-5 Saturday 11 November 2006
WASHINGTON, Nov. 9 /PRNewswire/—Robert David Steele (Vivas), CEO of
OSS.Net, Inc., is sharing information about a 9/11 Truth Seminar taking
place at the Arlington Campus of George Mason University from 10-5 on
Saturday 11 November 2006.
“This Nation can neither win wars, nor govern itself ably, if our
politicians lie to us and to one another. It is in this context that I have
agreed to introduce Webster Tarpley, author of ‘9/11: Synthetic Terror Made
in the USA,’ and that I strongly recommend this local ‘truth seminar’ to
one and all, but especially to young intelligence analysts who have not yet
been corrupted by the politicization and bureaucratization of intelligence.
Over 350 people can be accommodated this Saturday.
“The 9/11 Commission was a white-wash. In my view, there is ample
evidence with which to indict George Bush and Dick Cheney for high crimes
and misdemeanors not yet properly investigated.
“America has forgotten how to find, discuss, and share the truth about
anything. We have become a cheating culture, one that tolerates corruption
at all levels. All of our institutions have failed us including Congress
and the media.
“The 9/11 Truth Seminars, and the bloggers for truth, represent an
opportunity to re-engage with reality. There are no absolute truths, but in
the absence of sustained efforts to perceive the truth, there can be
absolute lies—for example, that we live in an informed democracy that
nurtures moral capitalism.
“George Soros has it right when he suggests that Wall Street and the
central banks must made massive compromises with the people or lose it all.
The people are now armed with the Internet, with cell phones, with a
digital memory, and with the ability to follow the money around the globe.
“The 9/11 Truth Movement is not a threat, it is an overture.”
Robert Steele is a career intelligence professional, and the author of
four books on intelligence reform including ‘THE SMART NATION ACT: Public
Intelligence in the Public Interest,’ with a Foreword by Congressman Rob
Simmons (R-CT-02).
For information about the Saturday seminar, view
http://9eleven.info/Color911Symposiumflyer.pdf and
http://www.9eleven.info/911 Press Release 10.16.pdf.
For additional information about reality visit http://www.oss.net; for
a coalition option to save our dying democracy, visit
http://www.citizens-party.org.
SOURCE OSS.Net, Inc.
Related links:
# http://9eleven.info/Color911Symposiumflyer.pdf
# http://www.9eleven.info/911
# http://www.oss.net
# http://www.citizens-party.org
Do you believe President Bush’s actions justify impeachment? * 313183 responses
Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.
86%
No, like any president, he has made a few missteps, but nothing approaching “high crimes and misdemeanors.”
4.4%
No, the man has done absolutely nothing wrong. Impeachment would just be a political lynching.
7.3%
I don’t know.
1.8%
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10562904/
Germany Puts The Democrats To Shame By Bringing Charges Against Rumsfeld, John Yoo, Alberto Gonzales and Others
Exclusive: Charges Sought Against Rumsfeld Over Prison Abuse
A lawsuit in Germany will seek a criminal prosecution of the outgoing Defense Secretary and other U.S. officials for their alleged role in abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo
http://www.time.com/time/nation/printout/0,8816,1557842,00.html
Germany was chosen for the court filing because German law provides “universal jurisdiction” allowing for the prosecution of war crimes and related offenses that take place anywhere in the world.
I may have made a mistatement. I was under the impression that UL had tested the truss assemblies at the time of construction of the WTC towers. However, it appears that they did not, and in fact, it would appear that nobody did.
I think that the confusion caused by Ryan’s letter must be based on some kind of miscommunication or misunderstanding in relaying the fact that UL had done recent tests, and that the trusses had performed according to expectations, with fireproofing intact, that is. Other references to fire ratings on columns and trusses are based on the fact that the designers/builders obtained ratings for their construction based on tables produced by UL, which were in turn based on tests of different sizes and types of steel coated with different types/amounts of fireproofing. These tests and tables were not related to the tower construction itself, just generic information for use by the general public. This is my basic conclusion, anyway. If you have any direct evidence that UL did indeed do tests specifically on materials for use in the WTC in the 60’s, Joe, please present it.
From the NIST December 2003 Public Update, pg. 11:
Fire Endurance Testing of the WTC Floor System
The interim findings contained in the May 2003 progress report stated that from the documents reviewed <u>NIST had not been able to determine the technical basis for the selection of fireproofing material for the WTC floor system or how the specified fireproofing thickness would achieve the required 2 hr fire rating</u>.
In addition, <u>NIST found no documentary evidence indicating that a test based on ASTM E 119 had been conducted to determine the fire rating of the WTC floor system.</u> The Port Authority stated that “<u>there are no test records in our files</u>” in response to a NIST question asking “Were tests performed on the fire resistance of the composite floor system during the design or construction phase of the project.”
While the benefits of conducting a full-scale fire endurance test were realized, <u>apparently no tests were conducted on the specific floor system used in the WTC towers. Such project-specific testing was and is not normal practice</u> but may be conducted when circumstances warrant it, for example, in a new or unique application.
A composite bar joist floor system with spray-applied fireproofing represented an innovative application in the 1960s. Four additional factors contributed to the uniqueness of the system: (1) the use of bar joists in the floor system of high-rise buildings such as the WTC towers; (2) the long unsupported span of the floor system (about 60 ft in the long direction, about 35 ft in the short direction) (3) the role of the floor system in ensuring stability of the WTC structural system; and (4) the floor diaphragm action required to transfer lateral (wind) loads to the columns.
NIST engineers are working with experienced engineers from Underwriter’s Laboratories, Inc. (http://wtc.nist.gov/solicitations/wtc_awardQ0281.htm) to determine the fire endurance rating of <u>typical WTC floor systems under both as-built and specified conditions under the fire conditions prescribed in ASTM E 119.</u> In addition, NIST is using the tests to study the effects of fireproofing thickness, scale, or size of the tested assembly, and thermal restraint at the ends of the assemblies.
The tested composite floor assemblies include the concrete slab on metal deck, two pairs of main joists integrated with the concrete slab to provide composite action, two bridging joists, <u>and fireproofing applied</u> on steel with primer paint. Four tests are being conducted:
A 17 ft span with ends of the assembly restrained from thermal expansion in a typical furnace representing current U.S. practice. <u>This test will use the 1/2 in. fireproofing thickness specified by the Port Authority when the towers were built.</u>
A 17 ft span with ends of the assembly restrained from thermal expansion in a typical furnace representing current U.S. practice. This test will use the <u>3/4 in. fireproofing thickness</u> representing the <u>as-built condition</u> of the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
A 35 ft span with ends of the assembly restrained from thermal expansion in a furnace twice the typical size and representing a full-scale 35 ft assembly. This test will use the <u>3/4 in. fireproofing thickness</u> representing the <u>as-built condition</u> in the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
A 35 ft span with ends of the assembly not restrained from thermal expansion in a furnace twice the typical size and representing a full-scale 35 ft assembly. This test will use the <u>3/4 in. fireproofing thickness</u> representing the <u>as-built condition</u> in the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
<i>You said:
What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
Perhaps if NIST would provide the computer simulations for the scientific community to evalulate, they might be taken seriously???
How about providing a 1/100 model to demonstrate the collapse is possible in the way that NIST states? How about something other than them just saying so and providing PROOF?????
It
Natalie good morning
You said:
What is your evidence for saying, or at least implying that they have some kind of adversarial or selfish attitude toward other research organizations?
You said:
Again, what is your evidence for the above assertions? Keep in mind that it may not be in NIST’s mandate, charter or budget to go around debating people.
You said:
There is simply no practical way to physically model the event, however they have done so with computers. That is far, far more accurate and reliable. What exactly is your evidence for claiming that they won’t “share” their simulations with other researchers?
“World Trade Center disaster investigators are refusing to show computer visualizations [i.e. models] of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers”.
“a leading U.S. structural engineer said ‘By comparison [to the modeling of fires] the global structural model is not as sophisticated’ . . . The software used has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgement calls . . . it would be hard to produce a definitive visualization from the analysis so far.’ (free subscription required; copy posted here)(in other words, the government refused to release a visual model of the collapses, and even the non-visual computer models which the government used to examine why the trade centers collapsed are faulty).
“Some engineers . . . have accused NIST of repeatedly changing its explanation of the collapse mechanism.” (Google’s cached version of the article is here)
Moreover, a leading firefighters’ trade publication called the investigation concerning the world trade center a “half-baked farce”. In addition, the official investigators themselves were largely denied funding, access to the site and the evidence contained there, or even access to such basic information as the blueprints for the world trade center. Similarly, a professor of fire protection engineering, and the former chief of the fire science and engineering division of the agency now investigating the world trade center disaster, wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
The blueprints to the Twin Towers and Building 7 remain off-limits to the public three years after the attack, despite the fact that the buildings were built with public money and that the engineering drawings of public buildings are supposed to be public information. Incredibly, FEMA’s team that investigated the collapses lacked access to the buildings’ blueprints—access which has been the subject of legal battles.
While detailed engineering drawings of the World Trade Center remain unavailable, 9-11 Research has been able to obtain drawings of the MASTER PLAN, dated December 16, 1963.
—————————————WAKE UP!!!——————————————-
In the Fire Endurance Testing of the WTC Floor System they admit that they in all cases used half or less the amount of fireproofing that was used in the WTC on the floors that were impacted by fire!!!!!!
They said:
This test will use the 3/4 in. fireproofing thickness representing the as-built condition in the buildings before the process, still under way on September 11, 2001, was initiated to upgrade the thickness to 1-1/2 in.
They dont let you know the fact that on the floors where there was fire it had already been upgraded to the thickness of 1-1/2 in!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse.
Also they dont mention at all that the first 8 + 6 = 14 stories, and the 41st, 42nd, 75th and 76th floors, used solid steel beams in place of trusses. Also, the top stories had special steel reinforcing diagonals called outrigger trusses!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!SCREAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wait it gets much worse!!!
NIST had to exaggerate temperatures (1300 F), apply these temperatures for 90 minutes, strip all the fireproofing, and then double the height of the inward pull zone to produce even a hint of bowing from fire
You said:
There is simply no practical way to physically model the event, however they have done so with computers. That is far, far more accurate and reliable.
What is not reasonable is the degree of sagging NIST used in its computer models compared with the amounts its physical tests showed. Whereas the 35-foot floor model sagged only a few inches in the middle after two hours in a high-temperature furnace, NIST’s computer model showed a sagging of 54 inches of floor-sag-induced inward bowing of perimeter columns the “triple double bare steel computer result.” He is referring to the fact that NIST’s computer model doubled the height of the unsupported wall sections, doubled the temperatures, doubled the duration of the stress, and ignored the effect of insulation.
WAIT IT EVEN GETS MUCH WORSE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at “2,000 F” for 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
You said:
NIST found no documentary evidence indicating that a test based on ASTM E 119 had been conducted to determine the fire rating of the WTC floor system.
Natalie Its not just one test that was done on any building materials or componets but hundreds for a building that size. During the entire cunstruction phase random picks of materials (such as concrete ect,) and componets are made by the NY building inspectors to be tested. The building inspector signs his/her name and in many places also puts a seal or stamp on each document that shows the sample was aproved. If one fails the building department will make you tear out any that were used from the failing batch/lot/group. Even if that means the whole floor/level of a building. So you want to be sure and not use or install to much of an uninspected batch/lot/group just in case it fails. Some tests can be done on site and some cant. But even those that cant be done on site are still picked out to be tested radomly through out the entire construction phase to of course insure that the quality and safety standards are met throughout the entire building. So you can be sure the tests were done.
Of course that is just for NY code and It does not mean it was also certified by some place like UL at “2,000 F” for 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors which is required to have a building rated as Class 1 B but is not required to pass NY building code.
Natalie
I have to go back to the big picture PLEASE READ!!
“SCO= de Shanghai Coorperation Organisation
see the URL to wikipedia below to see a map of all members of SCO:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organization
The counterpart of the NATO. Not long ago the SCO renewed its military doctrine, in which the US and the NATO are considered as hostile. This as a result of the extensions of the NATO, and the expansion drive of the US.
THE SCO are a result of the increasing threat of the US and NATO, making preparations for months now for a long-term conflict with the US and NATO. The rising oil prices, but also that of many resources, is partly the result of a natural increase of the demand, but mainly because the US, the NATO and the SCO stocked raw materials on a huge scale as a component of de’War Praperations’ stage. (Peak Oil is therefore partly a cover)
The Fifth Fleet and the Third Far East Fleet of the US, is currently on its way to the gulf. They will arrive on 21 October and will be the largest Navy Battle Group ever when they link up with ships already in the region.
Note:
For weeks now, and finally admitted by the white house, the US is no longer able to receive satelite images of large parts of the area of the SCO members. They admitted that China posseses exceptionally heavy and precise laserequipment to blind satelites.
Although getting the truth up concerning 911 is important, there is much more going on in the world right now and the possible danger of escalation is looming on the horizon, waiting for the right time. If the US decides to attack Iran it might very well become its Stalingrad.
The Emerging Russian Giant Plays its Cards Strategically
by F. William Engdahl
The September 2006 summit in Paris between Russia’s Vladimir Putin, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, underscored the re-emerging of Russia as a major global power. The new Russia is gaining in influence through a series of strategic moves revolving around its geopolitical assets in energy—-most notably its oil and natural gas. It’s doing so by shrewdly taking advantage of the strategic follies and major political blunders of Washington. The new Russia also realizes that if it does not act decisively, it soon will be encircled and trumped by a military rival, USA, for which it has little defenses left. The battle, largely unspoken, is the highest stakes battle in world politics today. Iran and Syria are seen by Washington strategists as mere steps to this great Russian End Game.
The formal Paris summit agenda included French investment in Russia and the issue of Iran’s (Russian-built) nuclear program. Notably, however, it also included the question of future Russian energy supplies to the European Union, notably, Germany. It was an indication of the new strength of Putin’s Russia. Putin told the German Chancellor that Russia would ‘possibly’ redirect some of the future natural gas from its giant Shtokman field in the Barents Sea. The $20 billion project is due to come online 2010 and had been slated to provide liquified natural gas to United States terminals.
Since the devastating setbacks two years ago from the US-sponsored ‘color revolutions’ in Georgia, and then Ukraine, Russia has begun to play its strategic energy cards extremely carefully, from nuclear reactors in Iran to military sales to Venezuela and other Latin American states, to strategic market cooperation deals in natural gas with Algeria.
At the same time, the Bush Administration has dug itself deeper into a geopolitical morass, through a foreign policy agenda which has reckless disregard for its allies as well as its foes. That reckless policy has been associated with former Halliburton CEO, Dick Cheney, more than any other figure in Washington.
The ‘Cheney Presidency,’ which is what historians will no doubt dub the George W. Bush years, has been based on a clear strategy. It has often been misunderstood by critics who had overly focussed on its most visible component, namely, Iraq, the Middle East and the strident war-hawks around the Vice President and his old crony, Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld.
The ‘Cheney strategy’ has been a US foreign policy based on securing direct global energy control, control by the Big Four US or US-tied private oil giants—ChevronTexaco or ExxonMobil, BP or Royal Dutch Shell. Above all, it has aimed at control of all the world’s major oil regions, along with the major natural gas fields. That control has moved in tandem with a growing bid by the United States for total military primacy over the one potential threat to its global ambitions—-Russia. Cheney is perhaps the ideal person to weave the US military and energy policies together into a coherent strategy of dominance. During the early 1990’s under father Bush, Cheney was also Secretary of Defense.
The Cheney-Bush administration has been dominated by a coalition of interests between Big Oil and the top industries of the American military-industrial complex. These private corporate interests exercise their power through control of the government policy of the United States. An aggressive militaristic agenda has been essential to it. It is epitomized by Cheney’s former company, Halliburton Inc., at one and the same time the world’s largest energy and geophysical services company, and the world’s largest constructor of military bases.
To comprehend the policy it’s important to look at how Cheney, as Halliburton CEO, viewed the problem of future oil supply on the eve of his becoming Vice President.
‘Where the Prize Ultimately Lies’: Cheney’s 1999 London speech
Back in September 1999, a full year before the US elections which made him the most powerful Vice President in history, Cheney gave a revealing speech before his oil industry peers at the London Institute of Petroleum.. In a global review of the outlook for Big Oil, Cheney made the following comment:
“By some estimates there will be an average of two per cent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead along with conservatively a three per cent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional fifty million barrels a day. So where is the oil going to come from? Governments and the national oil companies are obviously controlling about ninety per cent of the assets. Oil remains fundamentally a government business. While many regions of the world offer great oil opportunities, the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies. Even though companies are anxious for greater access there, progress continues to be slow. It is true that technology, privatisation and the opening up of a number of countries have created many new opportunities in areas around the world for various oil companies, but looking back to the early 1990’s, expectations were that significant amounts of the world’s new resources would come from such areas as the former Soviet Union and from China. Of course that didn’t turn out quite as expected. Instead it turned out to be deep water successes that yielded the bonanza of the 1990’s.”
The Cheney remarks are worth a careful reading. He posits a conservative rise in global demand for oil by the end of the present decade, i.e. in about 4 years. He estimates the world will need to find an added 50 million barrels of daily output. Total daily oil production at present hovers around the level of some 83 million barrels oil equivalent. This means that to avert catastrophic shortages and the resultant devastating impact on global economic growth, by Cheney’s 1999 estimate, the world must find new oil production equal to more than 50% of the 1999 daily global output, and that, by about 2010. That is the equivalent of five new oil regions equal to today’s Saudi Arabian size. That is a whopping amount of new oil.
Given that it can take up to seven years or more to bring a new major oilfield into full production, that’s also not much time if a horrendous energy crunch and sky-high oil and gas prices are to be averted. Cheney’s estimate was also based on an overly conservative estimate of future oil import demand in China and India, today the two fastest growing oil consumers on the planet.
A second notable point of Cheney’s 1999 London comments was his remark that, ‘the Middle East with two thirds of the world’s oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies.’ However, as he revealingly remarked, the oil ‘prize’ of the Middle East was in national or government hands, not open to exploitation by the private market, and thus, hard for Cheney’s Halliburton and his friends in ExxonMobil or Chevron or Shell or BP to get their hands on.
At that time, Iraq, with the second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, was under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Iran, which has the world’s second largest reserves of natural gas, in addition to its huge oil reserves, was ruled by a nationalist theocracy which was not open to US private company oil tenders. The Caspian Sea oil reserves were a subject of bitter geopolitical battle between Washington and Russia.
Cheney’s remark that ‘Oil remains fundamentally a government business,’ and not private, takes on a new significance when we do a fast forward to September 2000, in the heat of the 2000 Bush-Cheney election campaign. That month Cheney, along with Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and many others who went on to join the new Bush Administration, issued a policy report titled, ‘Re-building America’s Defenses.’ The paper was issued by an entity named Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Cheney’s PNAC group called on the new US President-to-be to find a suitable pretext to declare war on Iraq, in order to occupy it and take direct control over the second largest oil reserves in the Middle East. Their report stated bluntly, ‘While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification (sic), the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein ...’
Cheney signed on to a policy document in September 2000 which declared that the key issue was ‘American force presence in the Gulf,’ and regime change in Iraq, regardless whether Saddam Hussein was good, bad or ugly. It was the first step in moving the US military to ‘where the prize ultimately lies.’
No coincidence that Cheney immediately got the task of heading a Presidential Energy Task Force review in early 2001, where he worked closely with his friends in Big Oil, including the late Ken Lay of Enron, with whom Cheney earlier had been involved in an Afghan gas pipeline project, as well as with James Baker III.
FOR THE REST GO TO GlobalResearch.ca
Ashland Daily Tidings
Here’s the editorial:
“In honor or our veterans, we call for truth
Anniversaries cause us to instinctively pause and reflect, just as our leg jolts forward after a well-positioned tap on the knee. In honor of our veterans—- to whom we owe a debt we can never repay—- the least we can do on this Veteran’s Day is look back at the decisions made that sent our troops into battle, and the roles we played in those decisions. Perhaps upon reflection, our reaction may change.
The fifth anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001 served as the reflex hammer touch to the knee of American conscience. As the country attended memorials and revisited painful memories of 9/11, the reflection also opened our collective mind once again to the many unanswered questions, legitimate concerns and conflicting evidence in the official description of those events.
For us at the Daily Tidings the event served to open discussion among us about this complex subject, about the conspiracy theories that abound in Internet chats, blogs and so-called investigative reports and most importantly, the questions regarding the media’s role in this ongoing issue.
A month later we have found very little we all agreed on. We especially disagree on the role of the media. Since the Tidings doesn’t cover New York City, Washington, D.C. or the federal government, the ambiguity is shaded with absolution.
Nevertheless we are each members of the fourth estate, an essential conglomeration of individuals who adhere to professional guidelines, and who care passionately about this demanding and often thankless opus. With that membership—- we can all agree on some level—- comes a responsibility to giving the public the accurate information it needs to make informed decisions. Thus, somewhere in all the banter, we stumbled on one thing we at the Tidings’ truly can agree on.
Apparently, we are not alone. Based on the results of this hallmark 2006 election, the American people are finally asking for change. They don’t like our involvement in Iraq. They voted out many members of the party that put us there. Perhaps they are also ready to question the events and decisions that put us there as well. Perhaps they are ready to ask what really happened on Sept. 11.
We think so. And we call on our colleagues to join us in asking questions.
Every single American daily newspaper must demand of our congressional leaders and those in the executive branch that an independent council be formed to completely and thoroughly investigate the deaths of nearly 3,000 American citizens in the attack of 9/11—- an attack that took place on American soil.
Forget the conspiracy theories for a minute and set aside the political gamesmanship. We are a country that spent five years and $100 million investigating President Clinton. We probed the depths of the Iran-Contra scandal—- a debacle that would have never come fully into the public eye had a special investigator not been appointed.
This administration has spent far more energy and time seeking the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity and Barry Bonds’ use of steroids than it has in fully explaining how three skyscrapers crumbled in an instant and nearly 3,000 people were killed. While an independent investigation may never fully answer every question, it will help to heal the wounds of this nation and widespread distrust of our leaders this attack has caused.
This historic tragedy ranks among the worst days in American history. We owe it to every American—- but especially those who do battle on our behalf at the behest of our leaders—- to spare no expense and allow no party loyalty to dissuade us. The government works for us. If it failed us, either in malfeasance or incompetence, then we must know that. If our current actions around the world are shaped by misinformation, we must know that too. Finally, if what we now believe to be true is only further proven, we would do well to hear the evidence that confirms it. If the government’s version of the events of that day are absolutely true, then scrutiny will amplify that truth and lay to rest the skepticism that remains to this day.
If, however, the questions that remain serve to shed light on new information, that too serves the public. And it is the responsibility of this trusted media industry to dig, probe, investigate and uncover the truth behind government events and decisions that impact the public. On this Veterans Day, we can do no less on behalf of the brave men and women who have been sent to the Middle East based upon rationale that stems directly from the events of 9/11. While we pay homage to all veterans of the Armed Forces today, we are reminded of our duty to watch closely those leaders in the White House and Congress who make the decisions to send our troops to war.
We invite every single American daily newspaper to join us in our demand for an independent council to completely and thoroughly investigate the deaths of nearly 3,000 American citizens in the attacks of 9/11.
America will be better informed, and this is our job.
Hmmm…... it would appear that truthies are far better creative writers, copiers and pasters than they are scientists and engineers. It would appear that they have endless enthusiasm for cherry-picking quotes and warping the context that’s been the result of countless hours of honest and thorough investigation.
Truthies seem perfectly willing to use certain information and test results from the NIST investigation, but they then make an inexplicable leap of logic and declare that the conclusions of NIST are all wrong. They apparently think that these guys are so stupid that they would publish all sorts of obvious contradictory evidence and then proceed to form conclusions that don’t match up with it.
They seem to think that nobody in the world-wide professional engineering community is smart enough to point out all these obvious contradictions, but somehow they, with no expertise in such matters, are.
It’s pretty comical when you stop and think about it.
It’s really kind of pitiful when you think about it a little more.
It’s still not clear to me, Joe. Do you agree or disagree that UL certified the steel components used in the construction ot the towers?
“As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings.”—Kevin Ryan
Or, do you suppose the context is rather more complex than how it’s been portrayed by Mr. Ryan, the water tester?
Natalie
Cant you try to debate on the facts if you still think there is some thing left to debate?
You said:
They seem to think that nobody in the world-wide professional engineering community is smart enough to point out all these obvious contradictions, but somehow they, with no expertise in such matters, are.
That is your argument? That is all you have and you are willing to use it? What an obvious and desperate attempt at defending what is not defendable. Your lack of any evidence to support the myth leaves you with no choice but to cling to the “Holy” word of the same small group of government “owned” experts that have pushed their false claims through the MSM propaganda machine.
Appealing to authority here is really laughable considering the appaling track record of these theories and anyone who chooses to merely restate NIST’s conclusions without verifying their data and analysis is engaging in the worst form of doublethink and intellectual dishonesty.
That is the exact government propaganda that came out when “truthies” were saying that the thermodynamic analysis of the twin tower collapses show that the temp of the steel could not reach more that 600F. That was in 2001 before any tests were done of the steel! If you can remember they were called unqualified to make such calculations and the same small group of government “owned” experts said through the MSM they should be ignored.
Anyone but a fool can see the contradictions but many are not aware of them because of the propaganda. The majority still do not know about building seven! Why do you think that is?
Perhaps you would like to explain why the government resists so strongly toward people questioning 9/11and then accuse us as conspiracy theorists. I read the “Official 9/11 commision report” and end up with many questions unanswered along with the many ommissions in the report.
Lets have a debate…You go right ahead and have the report as your guide and I will shoot you down with the same report.
Now tell Me why the Patriot Act was the first action taken after 9/11. Considering,for instance, that the Patriot Act is supposedly used for “terrorists” walking around in the USA.
Considering that the “hijackers” spent a considerable time training here how to fly. Atta spent a few years here, in Florida, Venice to be exact. If I know this information, you can be sure the government knew it before I did. Which means they had the knowledge and numerous warnings about possible attacks.
But why resist people who want to know about obvious flaws in the report? We want answers and We deserve answers. Resisting us and lying along with covering up tends to point guilt rather than trust. Any investigator will tell you that, anyone with common sense will tell you that.
If you don’t realize that, or just trust this government totally, then you have no idea what being a true American is all about.
You said:
Truthies seem perfectly willing to use certain information and test results from the NIST investigation, but they then make an inexplicable leap of logic and declare that the conclusions of NIST are all wrong.
When presented with facts that support the obvious explanation, even from official sources you can’t contest, you say there COULD be some other explanation, without offering up what it might be.
You really only end up convincing people who are either incapable of rational thought or more likely people who do not want to understand the truth because it will force them to accept that they have been suckered and that they will actually have a responsibility to make things right as a result.
You are losing adherents to the fantasy daily, shill. Your days are numbered, and you well know it. No amount of posturing here and feigning certitude is going to change the fact that people, like the girl at starbucks who saw my button and asked me for more information, know there’s something werid going on. And you know Americans—they LOVE a good scandal. As tragic as 9/11 was, we have healed. The trauma is over, and the reality is now becoming clear. The truth is coming for you—do NOT think that you or any of your co-conspirators will be anonymous for long!
Everyone knows—police, military, academics, young people, old people, white people, black people, rich people, and poor people. We’ve been divided for so long by lies, do you know what that means? That the unity that will come out of this movement won’t be fake like the one the media proclaimed after 9/11. It will be real. Americans will soon be setting aside all their differences in pursuit of justice.
A giant has been roused, one that neither you and I can control. I realize you are beyond redemption, but those many others reading this are not. To them I say think through these things—they are more important than anything else you will ever live through. And try your very best to pick the correct side, because there are always consequences for anyone who aids criminals.
P.S. NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
Perhaps if they hadn’t stopped publishing the books that described the construction and the engineering of the Towers perhaps we would have more reference material
Why do you think they did that?....I wonder? Especially at time when sells would of gone through the roof!!!!
Cant you try to debate on the facts if you still think there is some thing left to debate?
The fact , Joe, is that you’ve managed to ignore my fact-based question just above about UL certifying steel, and then accuse me of not debating on the facts. The fact is that Ryan made an erroneous implication, one that’s been promulgated all through the web. Type the phrases “certified the steel” and “world trade center” into a search engine and you’ll see what I mean. You’ll get stuff back like this:
“Underwriters Laboratories is the company that certified the steel components used in the construction of the World Trade Center towers. ...”
Surely you don’t endorse the building of a case on a false premise. Where would I get that idea, anyway?
That is your argument? That is all you have and you are willing to use it? What an obvious and desperate attempt at defending what is not defendable. Your lack of any evidence to support the myth leaves you with no choice but to cling to the “Holy” word of the same small group of government “owned” experts…...
Speaking of false claims, we’re not talking about a small group of experts. We’re talking about the world-wide engineering and scientific community. It’s a rather huge group. And surely even you know that they all can’t be “government owned”. Hmmmm….more false premises.
And speaking of a lack of evidence, all I’ve asked here from the very start is for a single shred of actual physical or even direct testimonial evidence to prove what you claim. So far, in all these massive posts you’ve made, you’ve not provided any. About the only thing you’ve done is proven the obvious once again—that strange and sometimes unexplained things happen each and every time a large disaster occurs, whether man-made or natural.
Who’s really being unreasonable here? The person who maintains that the position held by the vast, vast majority of the world’s professional engineers, scientists, demolitionists, and even journalists is quite likely correct, or the person who maintains that the position held by a small percentage of largely uneducated people, and an even smaller percentage of educated people, and a practically nonexistent percentage of people who are educated in the relevant fields is correct?
Appealing to authority here is really laughable considering the appaling track record of these theories…...
Yes, I’m laughing alright. You and the rest of the truthies regularly attempt to “appeal to authority” yourself. Jones, Wood, Pegelow, Hoffman, Fetzer. You guys treat these “scholars” like Gods. Speaking tours, DVDs, radio interviews, oh my!
And speaking of track record. Jones thinks Wood is nuts for believing that a microwave laser weapon destroyed the towers, and Wood thinks Jones is crazy for thinking that some wacky substance like thermite was used. I assume both think Pegalow is crazy for thinking that micro-nukes were used. Hoffman thinks he can solve the whole mystery by measuring dust clouds, and Fetzer thinks something else besides the American and United jets hit the targets.
Now maybe I’ve snorted too much DU, but somehow I think these differing views are orders of magnitude less consistent than are disagreements on the degree of separation between the trusses and the columns. (pancake vs pull-in)
Anyone but a fool can see the contradictions but many are not aware of them because of the propaganda. The majority still do not know about building seven!.....
Only a fool would maintain that explosives were used to bring down seven after reading the complete and in-context testimony of the fire and rescue personnel warning of imminent collapse hours before, and learning about the unique and rather unwise design of the foundational support of the building, and about the damage done by WTC1, and about the diesel fuel tanks present in the building.
P.S. NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at “2,000 F” for 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
Perhaps if they hadn’t stopped publishing the books that described the construction and the engineering of the Towers perhaps we would have more reference material
Why do you think they did that?....I wonder? Especially at time when sells would of gone through the roof!!!!
Natalie
You said:
Speaking of false claims, we
Natalie
You said:
Only a fool would maintain that explosives were used to bring down seven after reading the complete and in-context testimony of the fire and rescue personnel warning of imminent collapse hours before, and learning about the unique and rather unwise design of the foundational support of the building, and about the damage done by WTC1, and about the diesel fuel tanks present in the building.
Eyewitness evidence can be used in a court of law. So get yours in person!!
you need more then someone said. You need the person to testify!!!!!
WE GOT OURS WHERES YOURS!!!!!!!!!!????????!!!!!!!!??????!!!!!!!
Plane damage insignificant
Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering who supports the official theory, says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because “the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure” (Eagar and Musso, 2001, pp. 8-11).
Therefore the NIST theory is only a fire theory. No steel framed building ever completely collapsed due to fire. This is enough to prove that their theory is wrong. I didn’t cherry pick any eyewitness testimony. Read it for yourself, there is plenty.
“You have two hundred and ten story office buildings. You don’t find a desk. You don’t find a chair. You don’t find a telephone, a computer. The biggest piece of a telephone I found was half of the keypad. The building collapsed to dust.”[1]
“You have 10-story buildings that leave more debris than these two 100-story towers, Where the f***is everything? A serious week-long search and we’ve found 200 [bodies] in a pile of 5,000? What’s going on? Where is everyone? Why aren’t we finding more bodies? Cause it’s all vaporized—turned to dust. We’re breathing people in that dust.”[2]
Where did the building go? If it collapsed at free fall speed, where is all the heavy material that crushed the building so impressively? Obviously there was still steel left, but they couldn’t find much else. You can’t explain these observations without explosives.
[1] http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc2_cutter.html
[2] http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/contents.html see original source here: http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2001/09/19/dust/index.html
Here’s that Molten steel you keep “denying”
See here for pictures and comments from FEMA’s report mentioning the melted steel:
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html
“Although virtually all of the structural steel from the Twin Towers and Building 7 was removed and destroyed, preventing forensic analysis, FEMA’s volunteer investigators did manage to perform “limited metallurgical examination” of some of the steel before it was recycled. Their observations, including numerous micrographs, are recorded in Appendix C of the WTC Building Performance Study. Prior to the release of FEMA’s report, a fire protection engineer and two science professors published a brief report in JOM disclosing some of this evidence.” #1!!
“The results of the examination are striking. They reveal a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused “intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.” The New York Times described this as “perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.” 2 WPI provides a graphic summary of the phenomenon.”
see also
“The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified. The rate of corrosion is also unknown. It is possible that this is the result of long-term heating in the ground following the collapse of the buildings. It is also possible that the phenomenon started prior to collapse and accelerated the weakening of the steel structure. A detailed study into the mechanisms of this phenomenon is needed to determine what risk, if any, is presented to existing steel structures exposed to severe and long-burning fires.”
See here for pictures and comments:
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html
Evidence of evaporated steel as reported by the New York Times:
Engineers have been trying to figure out exactly what happened…. ‘Fire and the structural damage…. would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated’”[50]
Eyewitness:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-was-there-molten-metal-under.html
You can pretend all you want that this doesn’t exist (i.e. “denial”): It must upset you to know that the truth is coming out.
P.S. NIST says that the melted steel came after the building collapse. If they knew that then why didn’t they mention it in their report? How could it get oxygen if it is under the rubble? How could it continue for 3 weeks or more? How could it create molten pools?—-even the mayor of NY has described this stuff. I guess we should ignore his words too? How could all of this happen when normal fires can’t melt steel?
P.P.S. Not just melted but evaporated!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So what is it, Joe?
Star Wars Beam Weapon? (Wood—don’t miss the mp3s!!)
Thermite? (Jones)
Mini-Nukes? (Pegelow)
Holograms? (perhaps it was that LSD guy)
Remote control planes? (Fetzer)
Missiles? (everyone at one time or another)
Or could it possibly be that what we all saw that day, and what people on the ground in contact with the flights heard, is actually correct? 19 hate-filled bigoted muslim murderers planned, practiced and finally after several years executed a clever, but not terribly sophisticated operation that was largely, but not completely successful. It depended not so much on technical skill as it did on pure nerve.
Could it possibly be, even though the geniuses who have put forth the rather creative theories above disagree, that the towers collapsed due to some combination of structural damage and heat from fire, as virtually every relevant professional on the planet agrees?
Could it possibly be that planted explosives are actually the least likely explanation for all the strange anomalies, like those that occur in every major event, such as the conflicting accounts of “molten metal”?
I seriously think that it’s the “truth” movement that needs an independent investigation. They appear to have LIED to us about thermite, when come to find out it was actually a Star Wars Beam Weapon!!!!
LIARS!!!
Seems that Judge Judy also believes in levee bombs!!
Couldn’t find any hint of political bias here at all. Nothing but boring mechanical engineering stuff.
Natalie
We don’t need any theories to prove that under no circumstances could the alleged events cause those buildings collapse.
The controlled demolition is a fact. The collapses of the WTC Buildings exhibited all the characteristics of a controlled demolition. The official theory cannot account for one of them. This was confirmed by NIST who did not address the structural behavior after the moment the buildings were poised for collapse. There’s really no sense arguing about this anymore.
the key issues are the obvious deficiencies in the official accounts of the THREE buildings that collapsed—and make sure you understand the case. Building 7, molten steel, rapid collapses, multiple explosions, and pulverized concrete are all prime physical evidence.
Circumstancially, we have Silverstein, Bush family security, the missing trillions reported on 9/10/01, the dancing Israelis, PNAC, the Zelikow commission and its many problems and omissions, and Sibel Edmonds’ gag order ect, ect.
So now we have to go to phase two - the muddying of the waters.
Now Steven Jones is working on finishing and getting published his findings on the evidence from the analysis of the samples of WTC dust samples and samples from the materials found on the WTC Steel samples. All evidence points to and at this point is consistent with the thermite/thermate hypothesis. Except for the fact that WTC 1, 2 should have left more debris.
WTC7 and the towers appear to have been blown up differently there was NO debris other than dust from most of the towers and thermite, as fires, should have left more debris.
The impact of rubble falling to the ground would have created too much of a seismic event, which would cause the “tub” protecting the area from flooding from the river waters. The explosion of concrete into fine dust had created less of an impact of rubble falling to the ground and so saved the “tub”. The hard part is figuring out how.
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b108/janedoe444/present/WTC1_redLines….
Greening says that the top block of floors fell down through the intact structure below. Stage A.
Then, says Greening, the top block, now sitting on top of the pile of rubble, collapses floor by floor from the bottom up. Stage B.
Clearly, as shown in the gif, the top block begins collapsing from the bottom up. This is what Greening says happens, only he says this process begins after it pummeled all the way down though the intact structure to the ground.
If that were even remotely possible (which clearly it’s not) the tub would have been compromised and without a doubt would have failed therefore flooding the area.
But as we know he (Greening) is so obviously wrong. Not only because the “Tub” is still intact but because it is absurd to think that the top block remained intact until it hit the bottom.
Why he even tries to suggest such a ridiculous theory is because he needs the mass to accumulate on the way down in order to continue the collapse. Once you admit the obvious, it becomes clear that the mass is not accumulating, it is disintegrating. By the time the “collapse” is half-over, the top block is obliterated.
This is true of both towers. Greening’s notion that the top block remained intact until it hit the bottom is utterly and completely divorced from reality.
So now we have to try and explain how the towers were turned to dust and people where vaporized. What we do not have to explain is the obvious and that is the WTC buildings did not come down from a combination of structural damage and heat from fire caused by a plane impacting the building.
We all know the buildings were designed to withstand a plane impact and we all know that they were confident that it could withstand not just one but multiple plane crashes. We also know they considerd a jet with more fuel than what was on 9/11 and they were again confident there would be fires but the building would still be there.
———————————————END OF STORY—————————————————-
You said:
Could it possibly be, even though the geniuses who have put forth the rather creative theories above disagree, that the towers collapsed due to some combination of structural damage and heat from fire, as virtually every relevant professional on the planet agrees?
Yeah Natalie sure they do. Keep lying to your self if it makes you feel better. Many scientists and experts from all around the world are saying the World Trade Centers were a controlled demolition. The only problem is figuring out how they were pulverized into dust and how people were vaporized and how steel became so hot that it evaporated and ect, ect.
Come on, Joe,
Everything you say is tainted by the fact that you and the people you cite simply aren’t qualified to say it.
That’s the bottom line. THAT’s the end of story. You have no more business trying to dissect the collapses than I have trying to calculate the trajectory for the space shuttle’s re-entry. We both crash and burn.
If there is anyone qualified and credible that has disagreed with the NIST report to the point of suspecting supplementary explosives, please point them out.
So far, everyone who’s had even a thin veneer of qualification and credibility has turned out to be a complete kook.
You stubbornly cling to the notion that several hundred vocal web surfers thumbing through the electronic equivalent of the National Enquirer, Star and Globe, and a handful of MIS-qualified, ridiculously biased “scholars” constitutes a legitimate point of view on a rather complex engineering subject.
That’s just plain dumb.
Natalie
You said;
So far, everyone who’s had even a thin veneer of qualification and credibility has turned out to be a complete kook.
You say that about anyone who does not agree with the government myth. Even the engineers, demolition experts, physicists, scientists and scholars who have nothing to gain by exposing the lie and who are not compromised with ties to the government you call kooks. I guess even the engineers, demolition experts, physicists, scientists and scholars who are not in this country you would call kooks as well.
So for you it does not matter to you how much their education, experience and expertise relates to the WTC buildings and or what happend to them for If they dont agree with the government myth they just dont matter because you say so.
THAT’S JUST PLAIN DUMB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again,
If there is anyone <u>qualified</u> and <u>credible</u> who disagrees with the NIST report to the point of suspecting supplementary explosives, please point them out.
Names, titles, education, experience.
It’s not too late, Joe.
Resist. Come away from the dark side.
Use the force, Joe.
So what do we do in this country with all of these nitwits that can’t figure out the obvious and will believe a government reprot that is nearly to stupid to study to figure out how stupid it is? What does arguing forever accomplish but provide some people with entertainment.
Can people that can’t understand a airliner can’t knock down a skyscraper in 56 minutes figure out that planned obsolescence is going on in automobiles?
http://discussions.pbs.org/viewtopic.pbs?t=28529
9/11 is now part of geopolitical-economics.
psik
One could also ask how someone unable to write a coherent sentence or even spell correctly could possibly be in a position to so confidently contradict the opinion of every sane engineering professional on the planet.
psik is intent on relating the events of 9/11 to economics. There might be something to this.
The PV of the R of the fireproofing on the floor trusses in the WTC towers was depreciated by forces imparted upon it during a turbulent period. This caused an overheating, and subsequently a dip which was felt outward in surrounding areas. A crash ensued and the whole country adopted a gloomy outlook.
Later analysis determined that this event was unrelated to the automobile industry, except in the short term when alternate methods of transportation became temporarily unusable or highly inconvenient.
Terry Allen, the author of our subject article, said this about David Ray Griffin in July:
<i>When David Ray Griffin, a theologian by trade, said it was
Yes, the situation is extremely curious. Because I was constantly running across mentions of MIT in my sci-fi books, which I started reading at 9, I decided to apply there after I won a National Merit Scholarship. I got an interview which lasted about 20 minutes. 3 minutes into the interview I was sure I was not getting in.. This man was lecturing me about the kinds of kids that went there, sons of doctors and lawyers etc.
Considering that Lester Thurow at MIT hasn’t said anything about the planned obsolescence of automobiles that I have ever heard about, one has to wonder what kind of conformist thinking our educational system produces. I understood planned obsolescence was going on in cars before I graduated from grammar school and haven’t been to an auto show since 1965.
How much money have defense companies made because of Iraq? Would we be in Iraq without 9/11?
psik
Natalie
You posted
........The statement said “the conspiracy theory is spurious and based on questionable research.”
Hahahaaha Funny article. Yeah, the church better be careful they don’t wind up endorsing a book they feel is based on fanciful fabrications and mythical beliefs.
Clearly, this statement, by the Presbyterian Publishing Corp’s board of directors, regarding David Ray Griffin’s book “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11”, is mainly the result of pressure from critics rather than any introspection on the board’s part.
Presbyterian Publishing Corp “has long been known for publishing specialized books on theology and church life as well as books on religion for the general public”—but lets face it, these topics are things to be taken on faith—and are not fact based on research. It wouldn’t be in their interest to attack books that they publish, based on fact and legitimate research alone.
Therefore, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp board’s statement which said “the conspiracy theory is spurious and based on questionable research” and they making comment on “whether it meets our publishing standards.” The irony is that David Ray Griffin’s book “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11” might actually be one of the more fact-based books that Presbyterian Publishing Corp publishes!
Further, as Griffin noted, Presbyterian Publishing Corp did not specify what they found to be lacking. Griffin said. “This is something I’ve worked on almost daily for years. I doubt any of the ... members of the board have spent nearly the time on it I have. They were really not in the position to make such a statement.” The only clear indication of shortcomings was given by Kenneth Godshall, chairman of its board of directors who said in an interview that “Griffin failed to take into account rebuttals of his theories, such as one published by Popular Mechanics.” However, Griffin has more than adequately rebutted Popular Mechanics theories elsewhere which is something Godshall has either ignored or is unaware of (as Griffin points out may be the case). So, this reinforces the idea that the board made their statement based on pressure from critics rather than their own convictions based on facts.
So, who are the critics and what are they saying that has pressured the board to make single out Griffin’s book for such unusual criticism?
From the article above, we learn “One of the book’s critics, Alan Wisdom of the Institute on Religion and Democracy in Washington, welcomed the corporation board’s statement saying “Let us hope that the (corporation) editors will learn a lesson and refrain from future dalliances with the loony left.” This is clearly vehement, intense and very partisan pressure, with its references to the “loony left”. If this is what Wisdom expresses in public, one can imagine the private comments made to Godshall. It is not hard to imagine organized and sustained pressure from this group. So, the fact that the board addressed this pressure is not that unusual especially as it may have been annoying or hard to avoid and making the statement is a way to make the noise stop!
There is also another line of criticism from Presbyterian church members who say “the corporation was undercutting the denomination’s credibility by publishing conspiracy theories under its name and that of its long-respected imprint, Westminster John Knox.” This is a more legitimate line of criticism, if it was made by earnest church members concerned with the Church’s reputation and is something the board had to address. Fair enough, earnest people deserve a response - and they got one.
In the end though, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp “will continue selling the controversial book, “Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11.” In fact, the Presbyterian Publishing Corp board goes out of its way to note that Griffin is “a distinguished theologian” who has published a number of books with the corporation,” and that they “are not recalling the book or renouncing it,” but are “just expressing the point of view of whether it meets our publishing standards. I think we’ll just let the book find its own way.”
I don’t know about you, but that tells me that the board may actually have found a way to have their cake and eat it too. They have acted to get the critics off their collective backs but to also allow an important book to have its day in the court of public opinion.
Wich is good because the public needs to look at the extensive background information on the whereabouts, actions and relationships of Mohammed Atta in the year(s) before 9.11. Atta was affiliated with unsavory characters like Wally Hilliard, Rudy Dekkers, and Makram Chams.
According to Atta’s former girlfriend (an interview that you can watch at Madcowprod.com), he was always flushed with cash, cocaine and booze. She described how he would routinely cross the street from their apartment to his “flight school” where he “trained” and return with large amounts of cocaine. Hilliard’s fight school, “Huffman Aviation”, was no more than a sham business fronting for some sort of international narco trafficking outfit that has since gone out of business. Huffman Aviation, in its hey-day, was even given superlative acknowledgment by reputable people like Jeb Bush and Katty Harris. One unresolved story that highlights these lowlight human beings occurred when Hilliard’s personal jet was seized by Florida police and found to contain 43 pounds of heroin, ranking as the biggest heroin bust in central Florida history. But Hilliard was never indicted; he is free to this day. He has some type of everlasting immunity from legal protection. The heroin bust happened while Atta was his registered flight student. Amazing.
Also be sure to check out the back-stories of Makram Chams and Rudi Dekkers. These guys are real creeps and have not been fingered by the law.
Natalie you think the Bushies would boldfaced lie about WMDs in Iraq, kill our soldiers & a 1/2 million innocent people over it, but they should be trusted about all the inexplicable evidence regarding 9/11???
Dont you find it odd how on the one day that the air defense system for the worlds most powerful military establishment (pentagon) failed, buildings had a sudden tendancy to collapse symetrically at rates that show no resistance. And all of this while the moneyman (ISI) for the lead hijacker is in DC meeting with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, and simluation exercises of very similar events are taking place?
Natalie how in the world do you think its all just a coincidence?
Wake up, you’re a coincidence theorist.
All logical evidence points to 9/11 being an inside job. The bullying is just part of the elite’s pathetic attempt to keep the sham going. No researcher or person with a reading comprehension level past the third grade believes the government’s version of 9/11 unless they have been paid off or bullied into towing the government’s lies.
A form of bullying is of course an ad hominem attack:
Latin.
1. appealing to one’s prejudices, emotions, or special interests rather than to one’s intellect or reason.
2. attacking an opponent’s character rather than answering his argument
This is another hollow attack.
Griffin’s book is attacked but there is not one logical argument stated against it.
Did they even read it ?
And then they accuse Griffin of being from the “looney left”.
The 911 issue has nothing to do with the left or right, its about the truth.
So, hopefully more Americans are not taking the “ad hominem” “argument” anymore.
Everyone do your own research.
Natalie
Your “news” if you want to call it that has once again proven to be worthless!!!!!!!!!
For at least the past three years, news accounts published in the MadCowMorningNews and in my book “Welcome to TERRORLAND” have asserted, through evidence developed from interviews with Amanda Keller, an eyewitness the Sarasota Herald Tribune has gone to great lengths to discredit, that while he was in Venice and Southwest Florida, several of terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta’s closest associates were, surprisingly, not Arab nationals, but German or Swiss.
Today the Associated Press is reporting that the FBI has a terror alert in the South Pacific for one of these men, Wolfgang Bohringer, a German pilot with whom Atta was “inseparable” during his frequent visits to Southwest Florida.
It is Amanda Keller, who lived for several months with terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta at the Sandpiper apartments in Venice—-despite what amounts to a campaign by the Sarasota Herald Tribune to deny it—-who ultimately deserves the credit for identifying an individual who may pose a serious threat to this country.
It was she who stated that “Wolfgang,” whose last name she did not know, but which our investigation discovered to be “Wolfgang Bohringer,” as someone who had known, and been close to, Mohamed Atta for what she said appeared to have been, based on their familiarity with each other, a long time.
Paper has proven history of getting it wrong
In recent denigrating, demeaning, and most of all UNTRUE stories about the terrorist presence which flourished in the Sarasota Herald Tribune local coverage area, the newspaper, which is owned by the New York Times, has repeatedly referred to me, insultingly, as a “conspiracy theorist,” which might come as a shock to the New York Time’s own eminent and august William Safire, who for the past few years has been receiving, at his own request, notices on our latest stories as soon as they appear.
I have identified numerous previously unknown individuals who were involved with the terrorist conspiracy, through the simple expedient of interviewing eyewitnesses who were there, and then verifying their accounts.
The result is a portrait of the terrorists which is much different, and far more accurate, than that which has been presented to the American people so far.
The Sarasota Herald Tribune has, so far, identified none.
So the truth is that, instead of being a “conspiracy theorist,” I am a better investigative reporter than the entire staff of the Sarasota Herald Tribune… combined.
Demand for Retraction… and more.
Today we call on the paper publicly to retract what was (even then) ridiculous; the so-called “Fifth Pilot” story published two weeks after the 9/11 attack; and also their several recent attempts to discredit the truth by attacking me.
Moreover, more than just failing the American people by completely falling down on the job of providing an accurate account of a terrorist presence which flourished right under its nose, the paper has made it a priority to attempt to discredit my efforts by dismissing the eyewitnesses whose accounts I have faithfully relayed.
I have every right to feel I have been personally insulted, not by a single reporter, but by the Sarasota Herald Tribune itself as a matter of editorial policy.
But there is a much larger issue involved, which goes to the heart of the matter. Had the Sarasota Herald Tribune only investigated and thoroughly examined the terrorist presence, this country’s citizens would have been far better informed than they were about the nature of what happened, and our nation’s conduct would have been changed.
WHY NO REPORT OF FLIGHT SCHOOL OWNERS HEROIN BUST?
Finally, the Sarasota Herald Tribune has yet to report—-more than five years later—-the fact, not conspiracy theory, but fact, that during the same month Mohamed Atta arrived to attend his flight school in Venice, Huffman Aviation, the owner of that flight school, Wallace J. Hilliard, had his Lear jet confiscated on a runway at Orlando Executive Airport by DEA agents who found 43 pound of heroin onboard.
It was, said the Orlando Sentinel, the “biggest drug bust in Central Florida history,” which is a distinction that I’m sure the editors of the Sarasota Herald Tribune appreciate was gained against formidable competition.
I am urging everyone who read this to demand an answer—-through email, letters, and/or phone calls—-to this question:
How much heroin would Mohamed Atta’s flight school owner’s plane have had to be carrying before the Sarasota Herald Tribune deemed it worthy of mention?
If you agree with this demand for retraction, as well as a demand that this New York Times-owned newspaper begin to accurately inform the citizens of this country the real news of what happens every day in its coverage area, please take a moment and email one, or several, or all of the individuals whose emails are listed below.
For our part, we feel a certain quiet satisfaction. We knew all along that Amanda Keller was telling the truth about Atta; for one reason, there were a good half-dozen other witnesses who said the same thing.
But we aren’t gloating. Nor do we plan to engage in any I-told-you-so finger wagging.
Not because we’re better than that. We’d like to think we are… But we do sometimes have our suspicions.)
But because there’s 3000 people dead. And more than five years on we’re still far from having anything like a coherent narrative to explain how it was they came to die on a sunny September morning when, in the blink of an eye… everything changed.
MadCowMorningNews
Joe, welcome back. From the dark side, I mean. Your new website is literally a breath of fresh air for all those truthies laboring under the anxiety of knowing deep down that there just isn’t a dang thing to all these nutty theories, and have been hoping for a low hanging branch to grab just before their quickly sinking truth floatie was about to go over the falls. I sensed a fresh new spring in your type, and I’m usually not wrong about such things.
These same people used to proclaim themselves utterly fascinated with speculation that no plane hit the Pentagon; before that they were utterly fascinated with speculation that the hijacked planes had been flown by remote control; with the thought that it all might have been a hologram; with the idea that there weren’t any Arab hijackers on the planes; or, with the supposition that if there were—perish the thought!—Arabs onboard, they must have been patsies…...
...... Because of the presence of an absurdly-large contingent of people belonging to truly bizarre cults, one researcher has suggested the 9.11 “Truth Movement” might more accurately be called the 9.11 UFO Cult.
Put to music, it could be called “The March of the Shills.”.....
...... Ay there’s the rub… You see, the 9.11 Truth Movement is stocked with true believers, in everything from Jesus to Urantia, and its leading light David Griffin is a divinity professor, of all things, whose books have been touted endlessly in spam email from the well-organized group.
Does anyone begin to smell a rat?
Dr. Griffin, we learned, recently gave an address entitled “9.11 and Demonic Consciousness.”
“My thesis is that the attacks of 9/11 were products of demonic consciousness, with “the demonic” understood as an emergent reality that is diametrically opposed to the creative power of the universe and strong enough to threaten its purposes,” he offered helpfully.
We usually refer people spouting off about “demonic consciousness” to the nearest emergency room. We figure they’ve either been taking the brown acid, or drinking the Kool-Aid…..
.......And then there’s the Brigham Young University physicist, Steven Jones, who said he believes an incendiary substance called Thermite, bolstered by sulfur (Aha! Evidence of the demonic!) to generate exceptionally hot fires at the World Trade Center, causing the structural steel to fail and the buildings to collapse.
In addition to his research in scientific areas, Jones is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and has also published papers like “Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ’s Visit in Ancient America,” on archeological clues he has found supporting the belief that Jesus Christ visited Latin America after his resurrection, as chronicled in the Book of Mormon.
Anyone who can find Jesus in South America 2000 years ago, we feel sure, is capable of finding pretty much anything he wants to, anytime at all. Maybe cold fusion. Maybe Thermite. Who knows?......
......And then there’s the ever-present—at least since Ruppert absconded-—Alex Jones, a second-stringer and also a budding plagiarist, we recently learned, when someone sent us a link to a Google video entitled “Alex Jones’ Flying Circus.”
Imagine my surprise when we learned the current Truth Movement spokesman has slapped his name on “Mohamed Atta & the Venice Flying Circus,” one of my documentaries, a show he didn’t have a thing to do with.
We checked with Google, to be sure, and its not as if some over-eager fan just made a mistake. The video was placed there by Jones website, “Prison Planet.”
We think Jones needs 30 Days in the Hole…....
...... “Elvis and Area 51—we’re sort of lumped together,” said an attendee at a recent 9.11 Truth event.
And for very good reason.
This is Daniel Hopsicker signing off.
Natalie
You said:
Joe, welcome back. From the dark side, I mean. Your new website is literally a breath of fresh air for all those truthies laboring under the anxiety of knowing deep down that there just isn’t a dang thing to all these nutty theories, and have been hoping for a low hanging branch to grab just before their quickly sinking truth floatie was about to go over the falls. I sensed a fresh new spring in your type, and I’m usually not wrong about such things.
My new website???? What are you talking about?
I read that the day it came out and I know all about LIHOP-only researcher Daniel Hopsicker who has lashed out at the controlled demolition evidence, calling it ‘disinfo’.
I understand he’s willing to bash MIHOP instead of admitting the failure of having researched a dead end road with focusing on “Atta” -a patsy- alone.
But his work in that area is great and even though he wont look up to see the whole picture I still find his research very informative.
Natalie
What I am complaining about is how it should be obvious by now that the laps in security, intelligence, and in our air defense shows that it was all a cordinated effort by a criminal group within our gov. That not only allowed but aided a false flag operation to take place within our country in order to draw our country into a war in the mid eastern countrys just as stated in the PNAC papers.
#1 The fact that the only money traced to the patsies came from Pakistani ISI wich is controlled by the CIA., and a consultant for an amarican defense contractor.
#2 Two of the patsies lived with a FBI informent in counter-terrorism specializing in arabic terrorist.
#3 Some of the patsies where trained by our military specialised training at that.
#4 The fact that the consultant for the defense contractor also was the owner of the quick check used to wire the money to the patsies and was partners with the guy who leased the planes the patsies trained with, partners on a casino boat.
#5 A casino boat that some of the patsies had been identified as haveing visited owned also by Jack Abramoff
#6 The fact that the CEO of the firm in partnership was a Tom Delay appointee and that the firm claims to specialise in counter-terrorism
This is just a few of hundreds.
United States Posted by honestjoe on Aug 21, 2006 at 9:48 PM
Scorp, Natalie
Do you feel that Atta was in any way working for the pakistani ISI, and or the Saudis, and or involved with drug runing? Also I was wondering why you think three listed one of the U.S. military bases as an address and what do you think was his involvment with Able Danger?
Do you think it odd that Omar sheikh Saeed was the guy that did the actual wiring using the alias Mustafa Muhammad Ahmad over a period of time to accounts controlled by Atta. You seem informed about all of this so I think you know that Omar was convicted for the murder of Daniel Pearl and you are aware of all the conections established by that conviction. I just was thinking in my opinion it seems hard to just say its all a coincidence.
United States Posted by honestjoe on Aug 29, 2006 at 11:38 PM
I could go on but I just wanted to let you know I have been using MadCowMorningNews in my research of 9/11 for some time now. So it is not new at all. (At least to me its not.)
The obvious truth visible to almost everyone after the 9.11 attack was that the U.S. Government immediately began feverishly covering up and withholding from the public as much information as they dared.
The Heroin Connection to 9/11 is a compelling explanation for this cover-up.
Moreover, the drug connection was uncovered independently in two different places: by our investigation in Venice, FL., and by FBI translator Sibel Edmonds in Washington D.C.
“The 9/11 terror plot intersected with the activities of a drug trafficking network of international scope, in ways that form a “crystal clear” picture of what was going on,” said Edmonds.
Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft went to the Supreme Court to silence FBI translator Sibel Edmonds, to keep her from revealing what she had learned in translated documents, which, as she has stated, indicate that the State Department was covering up a drug trafficking network associated with the 9.11 attack.
As for the rest of what you said. Hahahaha I only see it growing every day!!!!!
A Lebanese man whose convenience store in Venice Florida was used by Mohamed Atta and his cadre of terrorist hijackers to receive overseas wire transfers, and from whose apartment Atta and Marwan took taxis to Orlando Airport to pick up visiting Saudis has filed a defamation lawsuit against the MadCowMorningNews alleging unspecified “false statements.”
Chams is asking for $15,000 in damages. He also has a second defamation suit going, this one in Saudi Arabia, for a whopping $21 million, against Titan Corporation of San Diego.
In addition to owning a convenience store, the peripatetic Chams’ recent resume includes having been a partner in a Jack Abramoff-style gambling boat which operated for two years in Venice without permits, working for the FBI in San Diego, and pulling down multi-million dollar contracts in Saudi Arabia, one of which suspected of being with the Saudi Bin Laden Group, for controversial U.S. defense firm Titan Corp.
Strangely (or not) the FBI apparently never bothered to mention anything at all to the 9/11 Commission about Makram Chams.
A story Monday in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune reported the lawsuit:
“A former Venice convenience store owner has filed a defamation lawsuit against local author Daniel Hopsicker, who published reports that the mini-market owner assisted the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists in Venice,”
“The lawsuit refers to Hopsicker as a ‘conspiracy fanatic’ who ‘published and disseminated ... false statements’ that Chams “was associated with the 9/11 terrorists.”“
“Hopsicker… author of a book about Venice’s role in the 9/11 attacks called “Welcome to TERRORLAND,” termed Chams’ lawsuit “false charges.” Hopsicker said he has an attorney and plans to “vigorously defend” himself. He said Monday that “numerous local witnesses have stated that several of the terrorists basically hung out at (Chams’) Kwik Check.”
“I’m not particularly concerned with Makram Chams’ lawsuit; I see it as an opportunity to get testimony under oath from an individual which should enlighten all of us about aspects of the situation in Venice, Florida, before the Sept. 11 attack.”
A Kwik Check on the Kwik Check
The FBI’s testimony before the 9/11 Commission revealed that the largest overseas money transfer the terrorists received had come from the UAE, for $70,000.
A copy of the money transfer was projected overhead.
What the FBI didn’t point out to the Commission was the significance of the address where the money was wired to: 201 Nokomis in Venice, the address of the Kwik-Check owned by Makram Chams, the Lebanese man who shortly thereafter would be in Saudi Arabia procuring multi-million dollar contracts from the Saudi Bin Laden Group.
Atta and his fellow terrorists also availed themselves of a second floor apartment Chams rented in a building across the street from the convenience store. The apartment was occupied by his sister, May Chams, and her husband, an Indian Muslim named “Khal” who disappeared from Venice in the aftermath of the 9/11 attack.
Local Venice Yellow Cab driver Bob Simpson (whose testimony about Atta’s local associates was used by the FBI to apprehend a half-dozen Saudi nationals in Venice after the attack) says he picked up Mohamed Atta and his bodyguard Marwan at the apartment in his cab on several occasions, and taken them to the Orlando Airport.
Even Zacharias Moussaoui, whose presence in Venice, was exclusively reported by MadCowMorningNews (and later confirmed by other sources) was seen at Chams’ apartment.
Rich Saudis in “Armani and shades”
“The FBI was especially interested in a rich Saudi guy, dressed in Armani, shades, manicure, and a gold Rolex, that I was sent to pick up at the Orlando Executive Airport,” said Simpson.
“They (the FBI) knew he’d ridden in my cab because they’d gotten my cab number from a surveillance camera there.”
Six weeks later, when Simpson received a call to go to the apartment to pick up the “rich Saudi in Armani and shades” and return him to the Orlando Airport, the cabbie was asked to help carry a chest, the kind kept at the bottom of a bed, down from the apartment and load it into the trunk of the cab.
“It was so heavy it took two people to carry it. I could not believe anything that small could weigh that much! It must have weighed at least 150 pounds.”
Carrying the other end of the chest was someone Simpson recognized much later. “A big bald guy who I later identified as Zacharias Moussaoui helped me carry it down to the cab.”
Simpson’s obvious amazement while telling the story about how heavy the chest had been made us curious. We contacted a former intelligence operative, and asked: “What could have made the chest so heavy?”
His reply was immediate. “Gold.”
Convenience store owner-turned-defense contractor
At some point after the attack Chams abandoned the mini-market (it has stood vacant since) and left Venice.
A story in the Sarasota Herald Tribune called the abandoned convenience store, “A pocket of urban blight in the otherwise smartly tailored suit of downtown Venice.
Chams went to San Diego, said his sister, who worked at Barclay’s Pharmacy in Venice (the same pharmacy visited by Mohamed Atta and his Cairo lawyer father two weeks before the 9/1 attack.
Asked what he was doing in San Diego, she’d replied, “Helping out the FBI.”
Then recently we learned Chams had been working as a contractor in Saudi Arabia for controversial San Diego defense firm Titan Corp a 23-year old company which sells information and communication services to military and spy agencies, and has about 12,000 employees and revenues of about $2 billion a year.
An SEC filing last year Titan reported that Makram Chams had filed a $21 million lawsuit against them in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Goodwill said take them to the dump yourself
Apparently Titan didn’t hold the lawsuit against Chams, because he recently received a six-figure payout from Surebeam, a bankrupt Titan subsidiary which, in the aftermath of the anthrax scare had been the lucky recipient of a big windfall from the U.S. Post Office.
Surebeam announced in a press release that the post office “would use Surebeam’s electron beam systems to eliminate the threat of anthrax in the U.S. mail system.”
Despite there being not the slightest hint of scientific evidence that the company could perform as advertised, the firm was awarded a $40 million contract to set up machines to detect and kill anthrax spores,
Some people (and companies) have all the luck, right? That is…unless there was some other unknown factor in play.
Predictably, Surebeam’s machines didn’t work. Instead, a U.S. Congressional investigation blamed them for causing headaches, nose bleeds, nausea, rashes, and eye irritation suffered by more than 200 Congressional staff members.
Presumably to spare the Post Office the embarrassment of having their donation turned down by Goodwill, the machines were quietly given away to U.S. universities for what Titan called “research.”
“The bin Laden Group been berry berry good to me”
We were curious how a Lebanese convenience store owner in Venice had come to merit a six-figure payout from a company purporting to irradiate and kill anthrax spores.
So we phoned Chams’ attorney in San Diego to ask several months ago, he told us Chams was planning on suing us, saying “I know who you are,” before declining to reply.
A little sleuthing was in order. It revealed that Makram Chams had apparently landed a $5 million contract in Riyadh for Surebeam with the Saudi Bin Laden Group.
Surebeam, in a curious press release, had boasted of winning a $5 million contract in Saudi Arabia, “to build a network of Surebeam facilities within the Kingdom for pathogen and environmental pest control.”
Oddly, the company which gave Surebeam the $5 million contract went unnamed in the press release, identified only as “a private Saudi Arabian conglomerate headquartered in Riyadh;” and as “a leading Saudi company whose business dealings involve high rise construction, large living compound construction, hotel design and construction, oil and gas projects, defense and security contracts.”
Only one company fits this description, while at the same time being a firm Surebeam would have wanted to keep quiet about having as a business partner…The Saudi Bin Laden Group.
More ‘conspiratorial’ musings
Makram Chams curious curriculum vitae includes having been a partner in a gambling boat called Vegas-in-Venice, owned by a Philadelphia man alleged to have ties to organized crime. The gambling vessel somehow managed to operate for almost two years in Venice, despite having no approval to do so from the city of Venice, County of Sarasota, or State of Florida.
The only other local partner in the gambling venture, Max Burge, also did business with Skyway Aircraft/Royal Son principal Frederick Geffon.
In addition the well-connected Burge owned the light planes used by the terrorists in their flight training at Huffman Aviation; we recently learned from a local attorney that Burge once owned the Sandpiper Apartments across the street the airport where Mohamed Atta spent several months living with Amanda Keller.
Questions posed by the mysterious Makram Chams have significant relevance in explaining the background, and sometimes the foreground) of events leading to the 9/11 attack.
How did a Lebanese convenience store owner with unexplained links to Abramoff-style gambling boat interests connected with organized crime, and unexplained links with the terrorists in Venice, end up working for a well-connected defense contractor embroiled in numerous major controversies?
Answers (or may not) be forthcoming, depending on our financial ability to learn never-before-revealed details about the activities of Mohamed Atta and his fellow terrorists in the United States by deposing individuals under oath with knowledge of what was going on.
So the great Daniel Hopsicker is wrong when it comes to bombs, and lil ol Joe knows better. And you’ve created some cute clubs—MIHOP and LIHOP.
I’ve got new for ya, Joe. Neither you or Danny has any solid proof of what you claim. At least Hopsicker has sense enough not to believe in blatant fairy tales. There might be a few grains of truth in his reporting, but it looks to me like his overall analysis is likely off the mark.
It’s like all the Clinton murder/drug running CT’s and all the Murrah Federal Building more than one bomb talk. It sounded good to me at the time, and I wanted to believe it. I did for a while. At least it kinda make sense, what with Clinton being a big coke head and having a pretty damn vicious private disposition. It made sense that there might have been some middle eastern involvement in O. City.
Turns out it was just a bunch of hogwash, a lot of people jumping to erroneous conclusions, focusing on parts that supported their pre-conceived theories, and ignoring evidence that made them impossible.
It’s true of every conspiracy out there. Unbiased science and responsible investigative reporting need not apply.
A federal judge has told the FBI that its disclosures about evacuating Saudis after 9/11 is inadequate.
Is this the first drop in what will eventually be a dam-bursting flood of information about 9/11 itself? Given that a federal judge is challenging the feds’ hollow claims for non-disclosure of vital information, let’s hope so.
“U.S. District Court Judge Richard W. Roberts of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has ordered the Federal Bureau of Investigation to submit ‘proper disclosures’ to the Court and Judicial Watch by December 15, 2006 concerning the U.S. government’s evacuation of Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family from the United States immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks,” the group said in a press release obtained by RAW STORY.
Judicial Watch notes that Judge Roberts criticized “the adequacy of redaction descriptions, the accuracy of the sworn statement submitted with the documents, the validity of exemption claims, and other errors in the FBI
Joe,
Yes, we have complicated relationships with other governments and a myriad of diplomatic entanglements to deal with.
Yes, we sometimes might actually work with terrorists in order to further the goal of stopping terrorism.
Yes, terrorists had relationships with Americans, Germans, and probably countless others.
Unfortunately, the fact that our intelligence agencies are huge govt. bureaucracies and until recently were precluded by law and pride not to share information, leads to the erroneous conclusion that their bungling is somehow an indication of being purposefully harmful to their own country. This is the basic fallacy of conspiratorial thinking. It colors everything, and distorts reality.
For some reason, be it an emotional need or just too much TV and movies, people think that our govt and our military are capable of far more than they actually are. They’re capable of a lot, but their best talent is that of screwing up and missing stuff, just like every other govt. enterprise. To conclude malice may be sexy and interesting, but it simply is not reality.
Things are never as they seem. However, it’s a mistake to automatically jump to evil intent as a reason for things not making sense to you. The reality of the situation would more than likely bore the pants off you. That is not what is in Daniel Hopsicker’s best bottom line interest to do.
Natalie
You said:
Yes, we have complicated relationships with other governments and a myriad of diplomatic entanglements to deal with.
Yes, we sometimes might actually work with terrorists in order to further the goal of stopping terrorism.
Yes, terrorists had relationships with Americans, Germans, and probably countless others.
Based at the Clearwater-St. Petersburg International Airport, both “Cocaine One,” and its twin, a second DC9 (N120NE) were being used by an operation which includes the former head of the CIA proprietary airline used to ferry TOW missiles to the Ayatollah Khomeini’s regime in Iran, as part of the Iran Contra Scandal.
Adnan Khashoggi lieutenant Ramy El-Batrawi, who supplied one of the two DC9’s, is the former President of an admitted CIA subsidiary airline.
Jetborne International, a company supposedly owned by El-Batrawi’s long-time boss, Saudi billionaire Adnan Khashoggi, folded after being indicted for illegally ferrying TOW missiles to Iran, an “enterprise” which netted someone—though not the U.S. Government or the Contras it was supposedly funding—a tidy bit of change a U.S. Senate investigation estimated to be $16 million dollars.
The Tower Commission Report into the Iran-Contra Scandal first exposedJetborne as a CIA proprietary. When it came time to begin shipping the missiles, said the report, Oliver North had asked a CIA official for the name of a “reliable” charter airline.
“CIA’s Air Branch suggested the use of a proprietary, the proprietary was told to await a call, and “the airline was assured that the caller (North) had sufficient funds for the charter,” stated the report.
The public commercial charter airline North called was Jetborne International. By the time the firm was “outed” as a CIA airline, it had already gone bankrupt.
Six degrees of deviated septums
But none of this does anything to explain Ramy El-Batrawi and Adnan Khashoggi’s other major connection with the founder of SkyWay Aircraft, Miami attorney Michael Farkas. Their hidden connections may reveal a larger, previously secret organization.
Last month the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Khashoggi and Ramy Al Batrawi, his lieutenant for the past 20 years, with stock fraud in U.S. District Court for Central California. Both men are both currently on the lam after being accused of orchestrating a $130 million fraud, called the “Stockwalk case,” involving the stock price of another firm headed by el-Batrawi called GenesisIntermedia.
GenesisIntermedia was incorporated by the long-time attorney of the man once reckoned by the U.S. Government to be the biggest drug smuggler in American history…CIA pilot Barry Seal.
Seal was assassinated in 1986 at the reported behest of then-Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush, the father of our current President.
Hey. Is it a small world, or what?
The DEA was even worse. They deliberately undervalued the amount seized by a whopping $400 million dollars. Asked if they were investigating the American side of the 5.5 ton bust, the Tampa DEA office issued a terse no comment.
The DEA website has press release’s issued at about the same time as the cocaine bust… “7 Arrested and Thousands of Marijuana Plants Seized in East Bay Area,” heralds one.
“38 Members of a Palm Beach County Crack Gang Face Federal Charges,” another announced. A third release headlines this less-than-amazing fact:
“Meth Sold For Sex On Wind River Indian Reservation.”
In a world where they’re already re-making Miami Vice, this seems a little tame. We wondered: did the DEA have to go undercover to see the “Meth Sold for Sex!” Were there secretly-recorded video of the transactions?
“Half a billion here, half a billion there, and pretty soon you got a Congressional Majority”
But there is nothing from the DEA—not one peep—about an American registered plane carrying more than a half billion dollars worth of product destined for the U.S.
In the lobby of the CIA there’s an inscription on the wall which reads: “Ye Shall Know the Truth, and the Truth Will Set You Free.”
If the DEA puts one up in their lobby it should say: “Mum’s the word.”
How can you hide the daily workings of an industry shipping 5.5 tons of cocaine at a crack from a government that can read the make of your golf ball from outer space?
The answer is: you can’t. The police chief of every good-sized American city knows the name of the wholesale distributor selling product to street-level dealers to retail in his town.
And—this is a mini-editorial—that’s why voters should take every opportunity to defeat hypocrites like Asa Hutchinson, now running for Governor in Arkansas.
Hutchinson served as the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Arkansas, where he specialized in looking the other way while the biggest cocaine smuggling operation in recorded history hummed along right outside his office window.
As a reward for Asia’s lack of effort, he became George W. Bush’s choice to become the head of America’s DEA. But that’s the U.S. side.
This series has illustrated the complicity of agencies of the U.S. Government in the case. The owner of the airplane in question, for example, today walks the streets a free man.
The DEA appears unconcerned.
Before going bankrupt, the company which painted the plane to look like it belonged to the U.S. Government, SkyWay Aircraft, was clearly up to no good. They had no use for one DC9. Yet they controlled two. The Chairman of SkyWay was a former employee of the U.S. Forest Service who claims to have been a long-time CIA agent.
He has not been taken in for questioning.
Perhaps government complicity in the protected drug trade may be easier to spot in Mexico, not because its more prevalent, but because its easier to imagine the worst when dealing with foreigners.
But we have plenty of drug lords of our own.
In May of 2004 Titan Corp. announced in a press release a major purchase from SkyWay, a penny stock fraud company about to go bankrupt amid accusations by investors of fraud after they discovered the firm had nothing but non-existent products to show for its two year cash burn of almost $40 million.
Somebody’s doing damage control, because on Titan’s page of press releases on its website, this release, curiously enough, is the only one missing.
Try clicking the link.
Im sure you know it has since been revealed that Titan trains mercenaries, and provides mercenaries for operations. Current operations. Ongoing operations…
Disclosures in the Duke Cunningham scandal lead directly to Titan.
In a scenario reminiscent of the Tom DeLay scandal, who company President Brent Kovar boasted had appointed him to a national Republican Business Council, the money was spent on an array of executive perks which included a half-dozen identical black Hummers equipped with police lights on their roofs, as well as to pay for a skybox at a Tampa stadium housing baseball’s Devil Rays.
Titan officials did not return phone calls seeking comment on why a billion dollar defense contractor with sensitive government defense and intelligence contracts had loaned its name and prestige to a soon-to-be-bankrupt firm whose owners were at that moment said to be stripping it of everything not nailed down.
One thing the two firms did have in common was that both were major contributors to the Republican Party. In addition to padding the Duke-ster’s pockets for those late-night poker cum hooker-fests at the Watergate Hotel, Titan was a major contributor to House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, who returned the favor in a mock-heroic defense of Titan’s employees accused of torture and rape at Abu Ghraib prison.
A cursory look at SkyWay cash which found its way into Republican pockets includes major contributions to Florida Republicans like U.S. Senator Mel Martinez, who visited the firm during Homeland Security Week, and pronounced the firm’s “vaporware” technology “awesome.”
SkyWay Chairman Glenn Kovar gave $5000 to the DEFEND AMERICA PAC, $5000 to SENATE VICTORY FUND PAC, and more than $6000 to the REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE.
It was originally German software from a company called VPMAX which became a fountain of spendable cash. John Karpovich was VPMAX’s U.S. distributor.
“John Karpovich, who helped run the document conversion program at the Defense Department before his retirement, said Wilkes infuriated Pentagon staff by claiming that the document conversion money belonged to him,” reported the Washington Post.
“Brent came in and said, ‘That’s our money,”’ Karpovich recalled. “He said, ‘The congressmen put the money in there for us.”’
Karpovich was reluctant to talk with us, but conceded he’d watched the deal being put together by Bent Wilkes, House Armed Services Chairman Duncan Hunter, and the just-deposed No. 3 man at the CIA, Dusty Foggo.
“Brent called me said he heard the product was great, and asked me to meet him in Washington. He had a suite at the Watergate. We met there and went to dinner with Dusty Foggo. He seemed like a sharp guy, at least he knew the inside of the government pretty well. We went to dinner with Dusty, and he and Brent talked about old times.”
Karpovich had been castigated by Hunter, Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, he told us, for trying to sell the software to the Pentagon too cheaply.
“In the meeting Duncan Hunter pointed to me and said to Wilkes, ‘Your boy doesn’t know how to play the game,’” said Karpovich.
“They took a $6000 product, gave it another name, and sold it to the defense department for $32000 a pop. Later on we began to get calls from military bases around the country,” Karpovich stated. “They were saying, hey, we just got this expensive software. What are we supposed to do with it?”
The deal now worked for everyone… except maybe U.S. taxpayers, and dead U.S. servicemen in Iraq whose Humvee’s didn’t get armor plating until it was too late because there wasn’t enough money for it in the Pentagon budget.
Titan Corp, recently purchased by an entity called the L3 Corporation, bills itself as “a leading provider of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance systems to the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, selected U.S. Government intelligence agencies and aerospace prime contractors.”
The allegations of corporate lawlessness being leveled against Titan Corp. are unprecedented for a mid-sized defense contractor, on a scale not seen since the Lockheed bribery scandals of the 1970’s.
Ironically, Lockheed aborted a $2 billion buy-out of Titan a year ago, after the magnitude of the firm’s exposure to sanction caused the company to have second thoughts.
Skyway Communication’s principal Kovar must have been looking well forward to justify the purchase; the company was then in the middle of losing $40 million in less than three years, between 2002 and its last annual report before bankruptcy in January 2005.
Not that Tom DeLay seemed to mind. He and buddy Brent Kovar’s press release deserves special mention.
“Congressman Tom Delay, Majority Leader, has appointed Brent C Kovar to serve as the Honorary Chairman, Business Advisory Council,” read the headline of an August 7, 2003 release from PrimeZone Media newswire and press release service.
The Business Advisory Council, explained the release, was part of the National Republican Congressional Committee, “dedicated to making sure that small business has a voice in Washington.”
Kovar was appointed “in recognition of his valuable contributions and dedication to the Republican Party,” and was “expected to play a crucial role in the party’s efforts to involve top businesspeople in the process of government reform both at the state and federal levels.”
While the release left the specific nature of Kovar’s “crucial role in the GOP’ efforts” a bit vague, a look at the other owner of the DC9, dubbed “Cocaine One,” offers clues which help fill in the blanks.
The Seal and paint job made the planes look like they belong to Homeland Security, specifically the TSA (Transportation Security Administration.)
The tricked-out airliners were supposedly used to perform in-flight demonstrations of the spiffy new technology of SKYWAY AIRCRAFT and its corporate parent SKYWAY COMMUNICATIONS HOLDING CORP.
That could not, however, have been the true purpose of the planes.
SkyWay said it’s patented technology promised to protect airplanes from terrorism, and provide high-speed Internet at 30,000 feet. To the shock and anger of investors who lost 30-40 million dollars, it did nothing of the kind.
Even a cursory inspection of the company and its principals quickly reveals that SkyWay had no products, no prospects, and nothing to demonstrate.
What they did have, though… were a couple of airliners masquerading as official U.S. Government planes.
Imagine the possibilities.
Glenn and Brent Kovar, a father-and-son pair of scamsters and penny stock fraud specialists, “ran” (we used the word advisedly) SkyWay. They had run the same scam several years earlier with similarly gratifying (for them) results.
The firm was called Satellite Access Systems, (SAS) which, as best we can figure, ended up being worth about three one-thousands of a penny per share.
The Vancouver Sun linked them to a Vancouver stock promoter who was kicked off the Vancouver Stock Exchange, Rene Hamouth, and a U.S. promoter described by Forbes magazine as a “persuasive scoundrel” found guilty of “awarding himself millions in excessive compensation, siphoning off company funds to cover personal expenses, and diverting company assets.”
But, as they say in TV-land: Here’s the beauty part…Chairman Glenn Kovar liked to boast about his long-standing ties to the CIA.
While SkyWay was running out of money, its executive cadre was busy cashing out. The heavy lifting involved nothing more serious than issuing increasingly rosy press releases. In late December 2004, SkyWay announced a new $24 million dollar loan from Lantax, Ltd, described as “a Private Investment Group consisting of four Western European and Northern African families.”
Worried investors must have breathes a sigh of relief. Nobody goes belly up right after getting a $24 million dollar loan, right?
Apparently not, because less than a month later the Manager of Aviation Systems and Support for Jeb Bush’s Florida Department of Transportation issued a press release praising the “esteemed Sirs” at SkyWay, stating, “This is a great accomplishment for the FDOT’s Aviation Test Center. The FDOT wants to make Florida’s airports safe and secure with the use of the latest technology available. We are looking forward to working with SkyWay.”
Two weeks after this ringing public endorsement SkyWay’s biggest stockholders sued the firm’s management for fraud. Bankruptcy was just around the corner. And while this might look like a mid-level government bureaucrat’s executive boner having nothing whatever to do with Governor Bush, that’s sadly not the case…
The Florida Governor himself had provided a celebrity endorsement to terror flight school owner Wally Hilliard’s operation well after the company’s Lear (N351WB) had been busted by DEA agents armed with machine guns, who, during the same month Atta arrive at his school, found 43 pounds of heroin onboard.
What are the odds that a harried state government is going to unknowingly heap praise and pass out state contracts to two aviation companies serving as fronts for drug trafficking?
Hilliard’s air charter service was even being utilized at virtually no cost––despite the fact that rentals for Lear jets can run as high as $1,800 an hour––by Florida Governor Jeb Bush… at the same time their planes were flying back and forth from Venezuela loaded with smack…
A sitting Governor would seem well-advised to steer clear of heroin trafficking front companies that also train terrorist, no?
Yet Governor Jeb Bush honored Hilliard’s operation with a personal visit, even posing for photos.
And Michael Farkas, a Miami attorney who founded and was a major stockholder of SkyWay Communications Holding Company, the last registered owner of the Cocaine One DC9. Farkas serves double duty as the American representative of an ultra-nationalist Zionist party in Israel; hr is as well a sales agent for anti-missile technology developed by Israel Aircraft Industries’ for the Israeli Defense Force.
And we mustn’t forget Al Ali Al Sabah, Chief of the National Guard of Kuwait as well as the oldest member of the ruling Kuwaiti Royal Family, one of the dozen Saudi and Kuwaiti “investors” in SkyWay brought to the deal by Nazar Talib, a native of Baghdad Iraq who is today a securities trader in Arkansas.
Finally let’s take a quick peek at what the disgraced owners of SkyWay are doing today. Sweating out indictments, perhaps?
Hardly. They’re already waist-deep in their next big score. Check out SkyWay President Bernie Kovar’s old business card, above.
Then his—Mon Dieu!—his new business card, just below it, from his new company.
La plus ca change!
There used to be a saying: “Crime doesn’t pay.”
You don’t hear it much anymore.
The registration records reveal that the past ‘owners’ of “Cocaine One’s” identical twin are well-known ‘front’ companies of America’s Central Intelligence Agency.
The twin to the DC9 bursting with 5.5 tons of cocaine is a CIA plane.
The plane’s owners over the past two decades, in fact, comprise a virtual Who’s Who of aviation companies known to serve as “fronts” for the CIA, whose true identities came to light during the Iran Contra Scandal.
At least three companies to which “Cocaine One’s” twin was registered have been looted, to the overall tune of almost $300 million dollars. The plane’s owners have left a trail of tears for investors, engaging in massive financial fraud, of a particular kind…
Sociologists call it “state-sponsored crime.”
Innocent investors and shareholders get swindled, the bad guys get away, and newspapers go silent. There is clearly something about these particular DC9’s which give their owners a license to treat shareholders and investors like marks, and steal millions from ordinary citizens.
The DC9 has also been “owned” by Finova Capital, revealed in the early 90’s as a CIA front which also “owned” the C123 military cargo plane used by notorious drug smuggler and CIA pilot Barry Seal, which was later shot down over Nicaragua with Eugene Hasenfus onboard.
The crash cracked open the Iran Contra Scandal, and inspired an ambitious burst of emergency damage control by Lt. Colonel Oliver North, who embarked on a three-day shredding spree reportedly designed to remove any trace of Barry Seal’s name from his files.
U.S. officials vehemently denied the plane belonged to the CIA.
At the time the plane was registered to General John Singlaub’s Southern Air Transport. Much later, Southern Air Transport went bankrupt, and the proceedings revealed that the company had been owned by an entity called Finova Capital, a CIA front company set up in Arizona and headquartered in Canada to escape American financial disclosure requirements.
By that time, in 1998, no one was paying any attention, so the CIA’s use of front companies had once again been successful.
Before Finova, the DC9 belonged, or, to use the spook phrase, “been parked” with a company called Greyhound Leasing of Phoenix, AZ.
Greyhound during this time period also “owned” a Beech King Air used by CIA pilot and drug smuggler Barry Seal. After his death it became the favorite plane of then Texas-Governor George W. Bush.
But no good deed goes unpunished, and Greyhound Leasing soon came up a little short. The company had somehow “misplaced” $120 million dollars.
The company’s accountants wrote that “fraudulent and dishonest acts . . . resulted directly in a loss of $119,684,598.”
That’s just a few bribes short of $120 million dollars.
The company’s chairman, lucky fellow, never went to prison. Instead he resigned his position at Greyhound and had soon been appointed as the new president and chief executive officer of Finalco, an equipment finance and brokerage company based in Mclean, Virginia, the home of the CIA.
The company which owned the seized “Cocaine One” DC9, SkyWay Aircraft of St. Petersburg FL, leased a 70,000 square foot “repair” facility at DFW Airport in Dallas for more than $20,000 a month…in a building owned by a man called “George W. Bush’s biggest supporter” and “the power behind the throne” during Bush’s first Presidential campaign.
Court documents in the SkyWay’s Federal bankruptcy proceedings in Tampa reveal that SkyWay signed a lease costing $21,000 a month in base rent and operating expenses.
Why would a start-up company which doesn’t (and never will) have any products, spend $20 grand a month to rent a facility to “repair” them?
SkyWay shared the facility with another firm, Airbase Services Inc. A month after the DC9 was seized in Mexico, Airbase filed for bankruptcy.
Also last week, a second group of investors, mostly from Kentucky, have filed a lawsuit against Sky Way in in Hillsborough County court, accusing the company and its principals of fraud, civil theft and conspiracy to defraud, among other charges.
The company “shamelessly used the tragedy of 9/11 to concoct an elaborate scheme of fraud designed to prey upon the vulnerable mind set of the American public,” the lawsuit states.
Natalie that sounds just like what Bush did to get his war!!!!!!!
By Sibel Edmonds
11/15/2006
In his farewell address in 1796, George Washington warned that America must be constantly awake against “the insidious wiles of foreign influence…since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.â€
Today, foreign influence, that most baneful foe of our republican government, has its tentacles entrenched in almost all major decision making and policy producing bodies of the U.S. government machine. It does so not secretly, since its self-serving activities are advocated and legitimized by highly positioned parties that reap the benefits that come in the form of financial gain and positions of power.
Foreign governments and foreign-owned private interests have long sought to influence U.S. public policy. Several have accomplished this goal; those who are able and willing to pay what it takes. Those who buy themselves a few strategic middlemen, commonly known as pimps, while in DC circles referred to as foreign registered agents and lobbyists, who facilitate and bring about desired transactions. These successful foreign entities have mastered the art of ‘covering all the bases’ when it comes to buying influence in Washington DC. They have the required recipe down pat: get yourself a few ‘Dime a Dozen Generals,’ bid high in the ‘former statesmen lobby auction’, and put in your pocket one or two ‘ex-congressmen turned lobbyists’ who know the ropes when it comes to pocketing a few dozen who still serve.
The most important facet of this influence to consider is what happens when the active and powerful foreign entities’ objectives are in direct conflict with our nation’s objectives and its interests and security; and when this is the case, who pays the ultimate price and how. There is no need for assumptions of hypothetical situations to answer these questions, since throughout recent history we have repeatedly faced the dire consequences of the highjacking of our foreign and domestic policies by these so-called foreign agents of foreign influence.
Let’s illustrate this with the most important recent case, the catastrophe endured by our people; the September Eleven terrorist attacks. Let’s observe how certain foreign interests, combined with their U.S. agents and benefactors, overrode the interests and security of the entire nation; how thousands of victims and their loved ones were kicked aside to serve the interests of a few; foreign influence and its agents.
Senator Graham’s Revelation
It has been established that two of the 9/11 hijackers had a support network in the U.S. that included agents of the Saudi government, and that the Bush administration and the FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship.
In his book, “Intelligence Matters,” Senator Bob Graham made clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry’s final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties in the House and Senate intelligence committees.
Here is an excerpt from Senator Graham’s statement from the July 24, 2003 congressional record on the classified 27 pages of the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11: “The most serious omission, in my view, is part 4 of the report, which is entitled Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters. Those 27 pages have almost been entirely censured….The declassified version of this finding tells the American people that our investigation developed information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States. In other words, officials of a foreign government are alleged to have aided and abetted the terrorist attacks on our country on September 11, which took over 3,000 lives.â€
In his book Graham reveals, “Our investigators found a CIA memo dated August 2, 2002, whose author concluded that there is incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi government. On September 11, America was not attacked by a nation-state, but we had just discovered that the attackers were actively supported by one, and that state was our supposed friend and ally Saudi Arabia.†He then cites another case, “We had discovered an FBI asset who had a close relationship with two of the terrorists; a terrorist support network that went through the Saudi Embassy; and a funding network that went through the Saudi Royal family.â€
The most explosive revelation in Graham’s book is the following statement with regard to the administration’s attitude on page 216: “It was as if the President’s loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America’s safety.†Further, he states that he asked the FBI to undertake a review of the Riggs Bank records on the terrorists’ money trail, to look at other Saudi companies with ties to al-Qaeda, to plan for monitoring suspect Saudi interests in the United States; however, Graham adds: “To my knowledge, none of these investigations have been completed…Nor do we know anything else about what I believe to be a state-sponsored terrorist support network that still exists, largely undamaged, within the United States.â€
What Graham is trying to establish in his book and previous public statements in this regard, and doing so under state imposed ‘secrecy and classification’, is that the classification and cover up of those 27 pages is not about protecting ‘U.S. national security, methods of intelligence collection, or ongoing investigations,’ but to protect certain U.S. allies. Meaning, our government put the interests of certain foreign nations and their U.S. beneficiaries far above its own people and their interests. While Saudi Arabia has been specifically pointed to by Graham, other countries involved have yet to be identified.
In covering up Saudi Arabia’s direct role in supporting Al Qaeda, the 9/11 Commission goes even a few steps further than the congress and the Executive Branch. The report claims “there is no convincing evidence that any government financially supported al-Qaeda before 9/11.” Their report ignores all the information provided by government officials to Congress, as well as volumes of published reports and investigations by other nations, regarding Muslim and Arab regimes that have supported al Qaeda. It completely disregards the terrorist lists of the Treasury and State Departments, which have catalogued the Saudi government’s decades of support for Bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
Why in the world would the United States government go so far to protect Saudi Arabia in the face of what itself declares to be the biggest security threat facing our nation and the world today?
Why is the United States willing to set aside its own security and interests in order to advance the interests of another state?
How can a government that’s been intent upon using the terrorist attacks to carry out many unjustifiable atrocities, prevent bringing to justice those who’ve been established as being directly responsible for it?
More importantly, how is this done in a nation that prides itself as one that operates under governance of the people, by the people, for the people?
How did our government bodies, those involved in drafting and implementing our nation’s policies, evolve into this foreign influence-peddling operation?
In order to answer these questions one must first establish who stands to lose and who stands to gain by protecting Saudi Arabia from being exposed and facing consequences of its involvement in terrorist networks activities. In addition to identifying the nations in question, we must identify the interests as well as the actors; their agents. Let’s look at Saudi Arabia as one of the successful foreign nations that have mastered the art of ‘covering all the bases’ when it comes to buying and peddling influence in Washington DC, and identify its hired ‘agents’ and ‘agents by default.’
Foreign Agents by Default
Although when it comes to our complex diplomatic threading with Saudi Arabia the easiest answer appears to be the ‘oil factor,’ upon further inspection the Saudi’s influence and role extends into other areas, such as the Military Industrial Complex and the too familiar Lobbying Games.
According to the report published by the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), Saudi Arabia is America’s top customer. Since 1990 the U.S. government, through the Pentagon’s arms export program, has arranged for the delivery of more than $39.6 billion in foreign military sales to Saudi Arabia, and an additional $394 million worth of arms were delivered to the Saudi regime through the State Department’s direct commercial sales program. Oil rich Saudi Arabia is a cash-paying customer; a compulsive buyer of our weaponry. The list of U.S. sellers includes almost all the major players such as Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Boeing.
The report by FAS establishes that despite the show of U.S. support demonstrated by this astounding quantity of arms sales, Saudi Arabia’s human rights record is extremely poor; see the U.S. State Department’s 2000 Human Rights Report. Saudi Arabia’s position as a strategic Gulf ally has blinded U.S. officials into approving a level and quality of arms exports that should never have been allowed to a non-democratic country with such a poor human rights record.
Further, there are indications of Saudi’s active role as a player in the nuclear black-market. According to Mohammed Khilewi, first secretary at the Saudi mission to the United Nations until July 1994, the Saudis have sought a bomb since 1975; they sought to buy nuclear reactors from China, supported Pakistan’s nuclear program, and contributed $5 billion to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program between 1985 and 1990. While the U.S. government vocally opposes the development or procurement of ballistic missiles by non-allies, it has been very quiet in Saudi Arabia’s case, considering the fact that it possesses the longest-range ballistic missiles of any developing country.
The Military Industrial Complex certainly seems to be a winner in having the congressional report pertaining to the Saudi government’s role in supporting the 9/11 terrorist activities being classified. The exposure would have meant grounds for U.S. sanctions and retributions; it would have risked the loss of billions of dollars in revenue from its ‘top customer.’ These companies don’t even have to officially register as foreign agents; after all, their strong loyalty and unbreakable bond with foreign elements exists by default; it is called mutual benefit. They are ‘Foreign Agents by Default.’
This holds true for other parties and players involved within the MIC network; the contractors and the investors. Let’s look at one of these famous and influential players; another foreign agent even if only by default; a man who defended the Saudis against a lawsuit brought by the 9/11 victims’ family members; a man who happens to be the senior counsel for the Carlyle Group, which invests heavily in defense companies and is the nation’s 10th largest defense contractor with ties to the Saudi Royal Family, Enron, Global Crossing, among others; James Baker; Papa Bush’s Secretary of State. On the morning of September 11th, 2001, Baker was reportedly at a Carlyle investor conference with members of the Bin Laden family in the Ritz Carlton in Washington DC, while Bush Sr. was on the payroll of the Carlyle group.
The Carlyle Group, a Washington, DC based private equity firm that employs numerous former high-ranking government officials with ties to both political parties, was the ninth largest Pentagon contractor between 1998 and 2003, an ongoing Center for Public Integrity investigation into Department of Defense contracts found. According to this report, overall, six private investment firms, including Carlyle, received nearly $14 billion in Pentagon deals between 1998 and 2003. Considering the fact that Saudi Arabia is the top buyer of the U.S. weapons industry, Carlyle’s investment and its stake, and of course Jimmy Baker’s far reaching influence within the Pentagon and congress, everything seems to come together and fit perfectly to shield this foreign interest no matter the price to be paid by the American public.
The political action committees (PACs) of the biggest defense companies have given $14.2 million directly to federal candidates since Clinton’s first presidential bid, according to the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP). In 1997 alone the defense industry spent $49.5 million to lobby the nation’s decision-makers.
Between 1998 and 2004, for the six-year period, Boeing Company spent more than $57 million in lobbying. For the same period of time, Lockheed Martin poured over $55 million into lobbying activities. Northrop Grumman exceeded both by investing $83 million in lobbying, and based on a report issued by POGO, it contributed over $4 million to individuals and PACs.
With ‘dime a dozen’ generals on their boards of directors, numerous high-powered ex congressmen and senators at their disposal in the ‘K Street Lobby Quarter,’ tens of millions of dollars in campaign donations, and billions of dollars at stake, the Military Industrial Complex surely had all the incentives to act just as foreign agents would, and fight for their highly valued client; the Saudi Government. They appear to have had all the reasons to ensure that the report would not see the light of the day; no matter what the effect on the country, its security, and its interests.
K Street Lobby Quarter
The fact that Saudi Arabia pours large sums into lobbying firms and public relations companies with close ties to congress does not come as a big surprise. The FARA database under the DOJ website lists Qorvis Communications as one of Saudi Arabia’s registered foreign agents. In 2003, for only a six months period, Qorvis received more than $11 million from the Saudi government. Another firm, Loeffler Tuggey Pauerstein Rosenthal LLP, another registered foreign agent, received more than $840,000 for the same six-month period, and the list goes on. Just for this six month period the government of Saudi Arabia paid a total of more than $14 million to 13 lobbying and public relations companies; all registered as foreign agents.
Why do the Saudis spend nearly $20 million per year in lobbying activities in the U.S. via their hired agents? What kind of return on investment are they getting out of the United States Congress?
Let’s take Loeffler’s group and examine its value for the Saudi government, since it was paid over $3 million in three years between 2003 and 2005. The firm was founded by former Republican Congressman Tom Loeffler of Texas. Loeffler served in the Republican Leadership as Deputy Whip, and as Chief Deputy Whip during his third and fourth term. He was a member of the powerful Appropriations Committee, Energy and Commerce Committee and Budget Committee. In the two Bush campaigns for governor, Loeffler, who contributed $141,000, was the largest donor. In 1998, he served as national co-chair of the Republican National Committee’s “Team 100” program for donors of $100,000 or more, and afterwards held the same title during George W. Bush’s presidential campaign. Loeffler’s generosity extends to the members of congress as well. In 6 years, he has given more than $185,000 to members of congress, 97% of it going to only Republican members. During the same six-year period, Loeffler’s firm received more than $18 million in lobbying fees.
The firm’s managing director happens to be William L. Ball. Ball served as Chief of Staff to Senators John Tower (R-TX) and Herman Talmadge (D-GA). In 1985, he joined the Reagan Administration as Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs. Later he was assigned to the White House to serve President Reagan as his chief liaison to the Congress. Wallace Henderson is also a Partner; he was Chief Counsel and Chief of Staff to Representative W. J. Tauzin (R-LA), Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator John Breaux (D-LA).
By having foreign agents such as the Loeffler Group, in addition to their foreign agents by default, the MIC, the Saudis seem to have all their bases covered. Former secretaries and deputy secretaries with open access to the current ones, former congressmen and senators who used to be positioned on strategically valuable committees and know the rules of the congressional game, and millions of dollars available to be spent and channeled and re-channeled to various PACs go a long way toward ensuring results. Money counts. Money is needed to bring in votes. Professional skills and discretion are required to get this money to various final destinations. The registered foreign agents, the lobby groups, are geared for this task. The client is happy in the end; so are the foreign agents and the congressional actors.
Other Savvy Nations
Of course, the sanction and legitimization of far reaching foreign influence and strongholds in the U.S., despite the many dire consequences endured by its citizens, is not limited to the government of Saudi Arabia. Numerous well-documented cases can be cited for others such as Turkey, Pakistan, and Israel, to name a few.
I won’t get into the details and history of my own case, where the government invoked the state secrets privilege to gag my case and the congress in order to ‘protect certain sensitive diplomatic relations.’ The country, the foreign influence, in this case was the Republic of Turkey. The U.S. government did so despite the far reaching consequences of burying the facts involved, and disregarded the interests and security of the nation; all to protect a quasi ally engaged in numerous illegitimate activities within the global terrorist networks, nuclear black-market and narcotics activities; an ally who happens to be another compulsive and loyal buyer of the Military Industrial Complex; an ally who happens to be another savvy player in recruiting top U.S. players as its foreign agents and spending million of dollars per year to the lobbying groups headed by many ‘formers.’ Turkey’s agent list includes generals such as Joseph Ralston and Brent Scowcroft, former statesmen such as William Cohen and Marc Grossman, and of course famous ex-congressmen such as Bob Livingston and Stephen Solarz. Turkey too seems to have all its bases covered.
Another well-known and documented case involves Pakistan. Over two decades ago Richard Barlow, an intelligence analyst working for then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney issued a startling report. After reviewing classified information from field agents, he had determined that Pakistan, despite official denials, had built a nuclear bomb. In the March 29, 1993 issue of New Yorker, Seymour Hersh noted that “even as Barlow began his digging, some senior State Department officials were worried that too much investigation would create what Barlow called embarrassment for Pakistan.†Barlow’s conclusion was politically inconvenient. A finding that Pakistan possessed a nuclear bomb would have triggered a congressionally mandated cutoff of aid to the country, and it would have killed a $1.4-billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Islamabad. A few months later a Pentagon official downplayed Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities in his testimony to Congress. When Barlow protested to his superiors, he was fired. A few years later, the Executive Branch would slap Barlow with the State Secrets Privilege.
As we all now know, Pakistan provided direct nuclear assistance to Iran and Libya. During the Cold War, the U.S. put up with Pakistani lies and deception about their nuclear activities, it did not enforce its restrictions on Pakistan’s nuclear program when it counted, and as a result Pakistan ended up with a U.S.-made nuclear weapons system. Yet again, after 9/11, the Bush administration issued a waiver ending the implementation of almost all sanctions on Pakistan because of the perceived need for Pakistani assistance in the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who ironically were brought to power by direct U.S. support in the 1980s in the first place.
Weiss, in the May-June 2004 issue of the Bulletin states: “We are essentially back where we were with Pakistan in the 1980s. It is apparent that it has engaged in dangerous nuclear mischief with North Korea, Iran, and Libya (and perhaps others), but thus far without consequences to its relationship with the United States because of other, overriding foreign policy considerations—not the Cold War this time, but the war on terrorism.†He continues: “But now there is a major political difference. It was one thing for Pakistan, a country with which the United States has had good relations generally, to follow India and produce the bomb for itself. It is quite another for Pakistan to help two-thirds of the “axis of evil†to get the bomb as well.â€
FARA & LDA
An agent of a ‘foreign principal’ is defined as any individual or organization which acts at the order, request, or under the direction or control of a foreign principal, or whose activities are directed by a foreign principal who engages in political activities, or acts in a public relations capacity for a foreign principal, or solicits or dispenses any thing of value within the United States for a foreign principal, or represents the interests of a foreign principal before any agency or official of the U.S. government.
In 1938, in response to the large number of German propaganda agents in the pre-WWII U.S., Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) was established to insure that the American public and its lawmakers know the source of propaganda intended to sway public opinion, policy, and laws. The Act requires every agent of a foreign principal to register with the Department of Justice and file forms outlining its agreements with, income from, and expenditures on behalf of the foreign principal. Any agent testifying before a committee of Congress must furnish the committee with a copy of his most recent registration statement. The agent must keep records of all his activities and permit the Attorney General to inspect them. However, as is the case with many laws, the Act is filled with exemptions and loopholes that allow minimization of, and in some cases complete escape from, warranted scrutiny.
There are a number of exemptions. For example, persons whose activities are of a purely commercial nature or of a religious, academic, and charitable nature are exempt. Any agent who is engaged in lobbying activities and is registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act (LDA) is exempt. The LDA of 1995 was passed after decades of effort to make the regulation and disclosure of lobbying the federal government more effective. However, LDA also has serious and important loopholes and limitations that can be summed up as: Inadequate Disclosure, Inadequate Enforcement, and Inadequate Regulation of Conduct. The recent congressional scandals make this point very clear.
In addition, neither act deals with an important issue: Conflict of Interest. Many of these agents, with their loyalty to the foreign hand that feeds them, end up being appointed to various positions, commissions and special envoys by our government. Recall Kissinger and his appointment to head the 9/11 Commission, and of course the recent revelation by Woodward on his advisory position to the current White House. Take a look at Jimmy Baker’s current appointment on the Iraq commission. Same goes for the father of all the ‘dime a dozen generals’, Brent Scowcroft, and one of his new protégés, General Joseph Ralston. In short, neither FARA nor LDA creates meaningful oversight, control, or enforcement; neither deals with conflict of interest issues, and neither provides any deterrence or consequences for unethical or illegal conduct.
It used to be congressional ‘pork projects’ and ‘corporate influence’ that raised eyebrows now and then; here and there. Gone are those days. Today the unrestricted and uncontrollable money game and influence peddling tricks within the major decision-making and policy producing bodies of the U.S. government have reached new heights; yet, no raised eyebrows are registered. Sadly, today, a new version of ‘The Manchurian Candidate’ would have to be produced as a documentary.
The other day I received a request to sign on to a petition put forth by a group of 9/11 family members urging the congress to reopen the investigations of 9/11 and declassify the infamous 28-pages which deal with foreign governments, U.S. allies, that provided support for those who carried out the attacks on our nation. My heart goes out to them. I do sympathize with them. I am known to take on similar propositions and methods of activism myself. However, looking at the realities, seeing what it takes to get things done in Washington, realizing how this beast works in the Real Sin City, I would encourage them to look at the root cause, rather than the symptoms. There are only two ways I can see that can bring about what they have been fighting for and what the majority of us desire to see in terms of bringing about Truth, Oversight, and Accountability; Justice.
The family members, and their supporters, us, either have to tackle the major cause; the corruption of our government officials via unrestricted and undisciplined ‘revolving doors’ and ‘foreign influence & lobby’ practices, and push for expedient meaningful reforms by the new ambitious congress, and have them prove to us their worth. Or, they may as well give up their long-held integrity, go bid high for one or two former statesmen, hire a few dime a dozen generals, and buy themselves a couple of ex-congressmen turned lobbyists; that will do the job.
© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
http://www.nswbc.org/Op Ed/Op-ed-Part1-Nov15-06.htm
First of all Joe, cite the source of your all too complete, and unattributed reproduction of someone else’s intellectual property.
© Copyright 2006, National Security Whistleblowers Coalition. Information in this release may be freely distributed and published provided that all such distributions make appropriate attribution to the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition.
Secondly, your continuing to prattle on without any semblance of context or continuity doesn’t prove anything, except that you have absolutely no credible evidence of an “inside job”.
Context. That is what is missing from <u>all</u> of your posts.
Natalie
Prior knowledge & money trail! That sounds like key evidence to me!
YOU ARE TO SCARED OR PROUD TO ALLOW FOR THE POSSIBILITY THAT “YOUR” COUNTRY WOULD DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS!!!!!!!!!
THE ONLY REASON THE TRUTH MOVEMENT EXISTS IS THAT THE PROOF OF GOVT INVOLVEMENT IS SO EXPLICICT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
“Once you start to think of it like an international drug ring, it all starts to make sense.”
What do you think about the US restoring the poppy crop in Afghanistan since this cabal’s invasion (now 92% of the world’s supply after being nearly wiped out by the Taliban) and massive prior documentation of CIA involvement in the drug trade?
Bringing back the opium crop and the resulting off-the-books money laundering was one of the under-examined motives for 9/11. Just one of many motives, to be sure, but not to be largely ignored, since Ruppert talked about it in Crossing The Rubicon, like it has been.
The War of Drugs (where has that gone?) is among the biggest hypocrisies of America’s government (and that takes in some territory).
Currency Transaction Report, and was created specifically for fighting Money Laundering. If you try to deposit more than $10,000 in cash into any bank, you have to fill one out. The organizations that do not have to fill one out are:
Companies that trade on the stock exchange (Pepsi, Ford, IBM, etc…)
Banks
Government agencies (FBI, CIA, etc…)
“senior officials knew of al-Qa’ida’s plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened”
‘I Saw Papers That Show US Knew Al-Qa’ida Would Attack Cities With Airplanes’
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
by Andrew Buncombe in Washington
Published on Friday, April 2, 2004 by the lndependent/UK
A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa’ida’s plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.
She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was “an outrageous lie”.
Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission’s investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used “state secrets privilege”.
She told The Independent yesterday: “I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily. She added: “There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used but not specifically about how they would be used and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities with skyscrapers.”
The accusations from Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English, will reignite the controversy over whether the administration ignored warnings about al-Qa’ida. That controversy was sparked most recently by Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official, who has accused the administration of ignoring his warnings.
The issue what the administration knew and when is central to the investigation by the 9/11 Commission, which has been hearing testimony in public and private from government officials, intelligence officials and secret sources. Earlier this week, the White House made a U-turn when it said that Ms Rice would appear in public before the commission to answer questions. Mr Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, will also be questioned in a closed-door session.
Mrs Edmonds, 33, says she gave her evidence to the commission in a specially constructed “secure” room at its offices in Washington on 11 February. She was hired as a translator for the FBI’s Washington field office on 13 September 2001, just two days after the al-Qa’ida attacks. Her job was to translate documents and recordings from FBI wire-taps.
She said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. “Most of what I told the commission 90 per cent of it related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well.”
“President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September,” she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.
To try to refute Mr Clarke’s accusations, Ms Rice said the administration did take steps to counter al-Qa’ida. But in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: “Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists.”
Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word “we”, Ms Rice told an “outrageous lie”. She said: “Rice says ‘we’ not ‘I’. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible.”
It is impossible at this stage to verify Mrs Edmonds’ claims. However, some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI’s translation department.
© 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
This a reposting especially relevant in light of the recently divulged 9/11 Commission ‘Monograph’ discussing the multitude of detailed warnings recieved by multiple agencies.
No Joe, you’ve provided no evidence, other than for what everybody already knows. Our intelligence agencies are big lumbering sloths, and they’re hog-tied by incompetence, political correctness, ass-covering and territorialism. This is an unassailable reality.
In fact, Sibel Edmonds is an excellent illustration of my points from a couple posts ago. She and others have been trying to draw attention to this kind of malfeasance, and the powers that be are working hard to maintain their status quo.
But, not because they are covering up or participated in some grand scheme to bomb the WTC, or allow 9/11 to happen. That is where the fantasy kicks in.
Sibel Edmonds doesn’t believe in controlled demolition. Search her site for any mention of anything 9/11 truth and you’ll come up empty.
Listen to this mp3 of an interview of Edmonds and another former FBI agent. You’ll hopefully get a feel for the context and the reasoning for why the things Edmonds is complaining about have occurred. This is something that goes way back.
Natalie
This is old.
Alex Jones: You wouldn’t be surprised if elements or criminal elements or private contractors were involved in 9/11?
Sibel Edmonds: No, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Alex Jones: So you wouldn’t be surprised like many others, because of the evidence and the cover-up you’ve seen, if 9/11 was an inside job?
Sibel Edmonds: At this point, I’d have to say no, I wouldn’t be surprised.
Alex Jones: Do you think the evidence is leaning towards that?
Sibel Edmonds: Well, again, considering the level of cover-up and the length at which they have gone to gag people and prevent information—this information from coming out, I would say yes.”
P.S. Guess how she feels now!!!
NATALIE 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB!!!!!!! SO WAKE UP NATALIE!!!!!!!
“Dear Congressman Cannon [and assistant]:
Thank you for your letter and for your attention to these important issues, about which I have written the Congressman before. It is heartening to hear a response promising some action.
Yes, I do have some questions that I ask of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and I appreciate your offer for assistance in getting answers.
1. Quoting from the NIST fact sheet (August 2006):
Q: “Was the steel tested for explosives or thermite residues? The combination of thermite and sulfur (called thermate) “slices through steel like a hot knife through butter.”
A: “NIST did not test for the residue of these compounds in the steel.”
NIST qualifies the statement saying they “did not test for the residue of these compounds IN THE STEEL.”
Did they test for residues of aluminothermic (thermite-family)
reactions anywhere? Solidified slag? WTC dust? If so, what did they find? If they did not test for such residues anywhere, why not?
2. Quoting again from the NIST fact sheet:
“NIST concluded that the source of the molten material [observed flowing out of WTC2 before its collapse] was aluminum alloys from the aircraft, since these are known to melt between 475 degrees Celsius and 640 degrees Celsius (depending on the particular alloy), well below the expected temperatures (about 1,000 degrees Celsius) in the vicinity of the fires.
“Aluminum is not expected to ignite at normal fire temperatures and there is no visual indication that the material flowing from the tower was burning.
“Pure liquid aluminum would be expected to appear silvery.
“However, the molten metal was very likely mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture, carpets, partitions and computers) which can display an orange glow, much like logs burning in a fireplace. The apparent color also would have been affected by slag formation on the surface.”
The day after reading the NIST fact sheet on-line, on 8/31/06, a group of us performed experiments to test this hypothesis—that molten aluminum “mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture, carpets, partitions and computers) ... can display an orange glow,”—and we could NOT see any such orange glow in actual tests.
So we ask NIST to tell us how to do this trick—how to get molten aluminum when poured out in daylight conditions, as at WTC2, to “display an orange glow.”
(Even with organics mixed in with aluminum—we did actual
experiments to test the NIST statement, and the experiments
demonstrated a silvery (not “orange”) flow of liquid material. We observed that the organics tend to separate out from the aluminum, like oil separating from water).
A related question—did NIST do any ACTUAL TESTS before issuing their Fact Sheet in August 2006, to determine whether molten aluminum “mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials” will actually display an orange glow?
3. In the same fact sheet, NIST writes: ““Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite
would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled demolition.”
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
But this discussion totally ignores what I say in my paper (see www. Journalof911Studies.com) regarding SUPERthermites,
which are explosive (not just incendiary) and which have high energy density. With the use of ultra-fine aluminum and metal-oxide powders, superthermite-class explosives are made. Can NIST at least acknowledge the existence of explosive superthermites, and that with these explosives much LESS material would be required than with ordinary thermites?
4. Finally, I note from an earlier NIST report that NIST obtained “6,899 photographs” and over 300 hours of video recordings - acquired mostly by private parties - which it admits to holding (NIST, 2005, p. 81). I call for the immediate release of these and all relevant data
for scrutiny by the international community of scientists and
engineers. If there is nothing to hide, why hide these data? There certainly will be no justification for requiring non-disclosure agreements as we look at these photos and videos obtained largely from the public using taxpayer moneys. Evidence relating to WTC 7 (which was NOT hit by a jet) and its mysterious complete collapse must not be held back. I call for the immediate and full release of ALL these videos and photographs.
I would appreciate your forwarding these requests to Utah Senators Bob Bennett and Orrin Hatch so that they may be aware of the actions being taken to resolve these important issues.
Sincerely,
Steven E. Jones, Ph.D.
Physicist”
Natalie
The September 24 KPFA event from Berkeley, CA, will air on C-Span
Featured speakers:
David Ray Griffin
Kevin Ryan
Peter Dale Scott
Peter Phillips
Ray McGovern
EST PST
Friday Nov 24th: 4:00pm 1:00pm
Saturday Nov 25th: 3:30am 12:30am
10:00pm 7:00pm
You can watch it now here!!!!!!!!!
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=3195658770053494633
Joe,
Apparently Sibel’s not fond enough of the “inside job” theory to make mention of it on her site. And answering Alex Jones’ leading questions with “I wouldn’t be surprised” is a far cry from her actively believing in an inside job, and an even farther cry from believing in nutty theories like controlled demolition.
But, now that you have provided evidence that she has collaborated with a charlatan such as Alex Jones, I’ll know better than to take anything else she says seriously. It’s a pretty reliable barometer.
You know what I find a little strange and suspicious? That she talks and talks like she knows absolutely everything, but was only with the FBI for five or six months. Pretty doggone strange.
Nice fair and balanced presentation there on C-Span. How nice it must be for the “truth” movement that nobody of any actual knowledge and authority takes them seriously enough to join them in a debate.
Maybe….if they keep pushing it…..they will.
In the mean time, it’s certain to be good for some laughs, thanks!
P.S. I guess you didn’t hear that Steven Jones is wack. I heard it from Uncle Fetzer and Judge Judy.
Natalie
Here is Steven Jones’ presentation from the Lifting the Fog conference held on the campus of UC Berkeley.
I think you will like to here about some of the LATEST structural engineers who have come to agree with the other structural engineers (that I have posted on this thread a few times) that had already said the WTC was a CD. Also you may want to know about the tests and experiments that have been done around the world by scientists that support Steven Jones’ theory.
There is alot of new information.
Hhahahhahah the part were the NIST scientist tries again and again to get aluminum to glow orange/red/yellow any color but silver and cant is great. The NIST scientist finaly admits you cant do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is realy shocking is NIST has not fired him but agreed. That must be because no one else who has tried could do it either and there has been many who have tried around the world.
Also some more explosive new evidence you must see!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9210704017463126290
But I must say that the Scholars for 9/11 Truth are falling behind the huge amount of research and work that is being done by scientists in regards to CD around the world. So far from what I can find there are 7 western countries with much larger truth movements than our own and 3 tied. That is a major embarrassement for “US”. I am ashamed of our falling behind. Even with the huge amount of growth we have we still cant keep up and that hurts and makes me feel so upset.
It will take this country that I love even longer to regain the trust and respect it once held around the world if we are not the first to expose the lie to the masses where it will affect change.
<i>I think you will like to here about some of the LATEST structural engineers who have come to agree with the other structural engineers (that I have posted on this thread a few times) that had already said the WTC was a CD. Also you may want to know about the tests and experiments that have been done around the world by scientists that support Steven Jones
Natalie
I feel I can be lazy because I have posted this many times!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! These are from THIS PAGE!!!!!! Thats why I didnt bother to post them again until now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HERE IT IS AGAIN FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! With links to over 400 scholars, scientists, engineers and physicists who say the government myth defies the laws of physics!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This has four structural engineers in it as well that say it was a CD. Wich is not even close to the current number who now say the WTC was a CD!!!!!!!!
Please watch the video to see more structural engineers!!!!!!
Jorg Schneider, Professor emeritus for structural engineering. “WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by explosives”.
Heavy steel construction buildings like the Twin Towers, built with more than 100,000 tons of steel, are not even capable of “pancake collapse”, which normally only occurs with concrete structures of “lift slab” construction and could not occur in “redundant” welded-steel buildings, such as the towers, unless every supporting column were removed at the same time, as the Structural Engineer Charles Pegelow has pointed out.
Hugo Bachmann, Professor emeritus for structural engineering. “In my opinion WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by controlled demolition done by experts”
Joseph M. Phelps, MS, PE. Structural Dynamicist (ret.), Charter Member, Structural Engineering Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers “Air planes couldnt cause this. Something is cutting the collumns, its called cotrolled demolitions”
“World Trade Center disaster investigators are refusing to show computer visualizations [i.e. models] of the collapse of the Twin Towers despite calls from leading structural and fire engineers”.
“a leading U.S. structural engineer said ‘By comparison [to the modeling of fires] the global structural model is not as sophisticated’ . . . The software used has been pushed to new limits, and there have been a lot of simplifications, extrapolations and judgement calls . . . it would be hard to produce a definitive visualization from the analysis so far.’ (free subscription required; copy posted here)(in other words, the government refused to release a visual model of the collapses, and even the non-visual computer models which the government used to examine why the trade centers collapsed are faulty).
“Some engineers . . . have accused NIST of repeatedly changing its explanation of the collapse mechanism.” (Google’s cached version of the article is here)
Moreover, a leading firefighters’ trade publication called the investigation concerning the world trade center a “half-baked farce”. In addition, the official investigators themselves were largely denied funding, access to the site and the evidence contained there, or even access to such basic information as the blueprints for the world trade center. Similarly, a professor of fire protection engineering, and the former chief of the fire science and engineering division of the agency now investigating the world trade center disaster, wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
Natalie
You said:
You cite Charles Pegelow, who is also not qualified. He has a mere BS in engineering, and his experience has been on oil rigs, not tall building design.
If you actually listen to what he has to say, you will discover that, unlike you, he knows what he is talking about. Strictly speaking, a street bum could come up with the right analysis of what happened at the WTC. You have to evaluate an argument on its own merits. Experts can be right. Experts can be wrong. Experts can disagree. When I read non-sense like this about his degrees, it infuriates me. The guy has vast experience in the field, which goes far beyond what anyone can learn in the classroom! Give it up!
He is very knowledgeable about these things, having spent much of his career dealing with oil rigs, which are steel structures frequently exposed to fire.
Charles Pegelow has structural design experience on steel structures going back to 1972, and has specific experience with the effects of fire on them. Your arrogant dismissal of his clearly relevant credentials shows how desperate and empty your arguments are. Actually, that is far too kind, you haven’t made any arguments whatsoever, your contribution here has essentially consisted of sticking your fingers in your ears and going “Lalalalalalala!” because you refuse to believe the truth, no matter what.
He said that steel structures do not undergo pancake collapse. From a structural engineer with over 30 years experience, I don’t really need to hear much else. His discussion of how the beams were welded together (as opposed to just bolted) was also very interesting to me.
For every one you try to slam I will replace with two more!!!!!!!! So please I beg you try!!! NO!! I DEMAND YOU DO IT FOR EACH AND EVERY ONE!!
I have only given you what I have posted before (to be fare to you) but there are much more!!!
Do you want Civil Engineers? I have those as well and Fire and Safety and Demolition Engineers. Which ones do you want? I also have Architects if you prefer. All of them say it was controlled demolitions!!!!
On top of that I have some institutes of Engineers who do not say it was a cotrolled demolition but do say NIST’s explanation is impossible!!!!
I feel it is fare for me to also use the structural engineers who do not think 9/11 was an inside job but do agree that WTC 7 was a CD!!!!!!
And if you can not come up with a reason why I cant then you will have to try to discredit a vast number of structural engineers!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
You said:
Jones has a unique talent for appearing credible on the surface, but there’s a reason that he no longer works at BYU.
He was charged with using code language to make anti-Semitic allegations and authorities at BYU caved to organized Jewish pressure and put Jones on paid leave.
The American Association of University Professors criticized BYU’s decision to place Jones on paid leave for his comments on the radio program.
AAUP general secretary Roger Bowen called BYU’s decision “distressing” and said Jones shouldn’t be removed from teaching classes for statements made outside the classroom.
Bowen told the Deseret Morning News. “It’s very clear there never should be official retribution for faculty who exercise their rights as citizens, with the very careful disclaimer they are not speaking on behalf of the university.”
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education joined the criticism of the BYU decision against Jones.
“BYU is literally the example we use of a university that does not promise strong free speech or academic freedom protections,” FIRE president Greg Lukianoff said.
After administrators reviewed his statements and (by Jones request) his research. They came to a mutual agreement with Jones. They agreed he can continue in his research on 9/11 issues at BYU using the money he was granted last year (with his prestigious teaching award that he also received last year) to fund his experiments on themite/thermate and ect.
This also comes with the agreement that he will retire and by BYU’s request that he continue to do research at BYU on his cold fussion work that he has now been proven correct AGAIN in several scientific papers printed in journals of science. By the way during his administrative review he has now had 4 more Ph.D’s added to the list of peer review for his paper about the WTC buildings and thermite/thermate!!!!!!!!!!!
So he is retiring in order to relieve the political pressure placed on BYU but will continue to do research there at BYU’s request for cold fussion and his for 9/11 research.
Oh that prestigious teaching award that he received last year is far from his first for teaching and of course does not count the many other achievement awards he has received as well.
YOU WERE SAYING???????
Oh yeah I almost forgot!!! You said:
However, his presentations are always good for some laughs!!
Hhahahhahah the part were the NIST scientist tries again and again to get aluminum to glow orange/red/yellow any color but silver and cant is great. The NIST scientist finaly admits you cant do it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! What is realy shocking is NIST has not fired him but agreed. That must be because no one else who has tried could do it either and there has been many who have tried around the world.
Let’s take these one by one.
First of all, Jones:
Pros:
* By some accounts has done credible work in the area of cold fusion. (haven’t researched completely what other physicists think about this)
* Has published several papers in relevant journals related to this work, and perhaps some other physics work.
* Has earned several teaching awards.
* Comes across as likable and credible.
Cons:
* Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.
* Definitely has a political/ideological agenda, which he demonstrated in the first public talk he gave on the subject of 9/11.
* Has no expertise in engineering, structural or fire.
* He has been caught distorting the color and resolution of photographs contained in his paper, apparently for purposes of being able to then mischaracterize the photographs.
* He has manipulated quotes and misrepresented attitudes of others in his paper.
* He has cited holocaust revisionists/deniers in his paper. (That’s what the ADL should really be concerned about, and perhaps that was a factor taken into account by BYU. Is Jones really this naive about the nature of his sources, or is he of a like mind?)
* He has included politically tinged rants by discredited individuals such as Kevin Ryan, which obviously have no place in a science paper.
* His paper has undergone almost weekly revisions, something that shouldn’t have to be done if one has a plausible hypothesis.
* He has been unable to get his paper published in any relevant journal, something BYU has been concerned about from the start.
* Even worse, he tries to pretend he has, by creating his own panel of peers and creating his own journal. Unfortunately, the panel is not composed of relevant experts, and the journal is solely devoted to 9/11 propaganda. I’m sure this situation was on the agenda of the review board, before they aborted the review.
* His peers in the relevant fields at his own university disavow him:
Chairman of the BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Miller, is on record stating in an e-mail, “I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don’t think there is accuracy and validity to these claims”.
The BYU physics department has also issued a statement: “The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones’ hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU’s own faculty members. Professor Jones’ department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review.” The College of Engineering and Technology department has also added, “The structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones.”
cont…..
pg. 2
* And, a Professor emeritus at BYU, who’s field is actually relevant, had this to say about Jones:
Dear Editor,
After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his “Conspiracy Theory” relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).
I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones’ (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones’ thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.
The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet’s fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.
Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones’ presentations are very disturbing.
D. Allan Firmage
Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU
So is Jones credible? Perhaps when it comes to cold fusion, but when it comes to structural failure questions, and Jesus in South America…...not so much.
Similarly, a professor of fire protection engineering, and the former chief of the fire science and engineering division of the agency now investigating the world trade center disaster, wrote that the world trade center buildings could not have collapsed due to jet fuel fires, that evidence was being destroyed, and that there was no real investigation into the collapses.
You mean this professor of fire protection engineering?:
<u>A suggested cause of the fire-induced collapse of the World Trade Towers</u>
J. G. Quintiere, , a, M. di Marzoa and R. Beckerb
Department of Fire Protection Engineering, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742, USA
Faculty of Civil Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Israel
Received 24 May 2002; revised 3 June 2002; accepted 5 June 2002.
Abstract
An analysis is presented that calculates the temperature of the steel truss rods in the World Trade Center towers subject to a fire based on the building ventilation factor. The CIB correlation is used for the fire. Conduction analyses are made taking into account variable properties for the steel and the insulation. A structural failure model is described based on compression buckling of the truss rods due to a reduction in the Young’s modulus. The computed times for the estimated failure or incipient collapse of the floors in both towers <u>has been computed as 105±20 min for WTC 1 (north) and 51±9 min for WTC 2 (south), compared to the collapse times from the aircraft impact of 104 and 56 min, respectively. The insulation thickness and the difference of 19.1 mm and 38.1 mm between the two towers appear to have been the root cause of the collapses.</u>
Of course, J. G. Quintiere never suspected that bombs were planted in the buildings. Like William Manning, he was concerned about what he perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be an insufficient effort to preserve the steel for study. He may have had a point—I’m not sure if these guys were just not in the loop on the investigation, or if they were in fact instrumental in improving the investigation.
In any event, not a very good witness for the prosecution. Dismissed.
Natalie
“Let’s take these one by one.”
You said:
* Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.
So a scientist is not credible in your opinion if he is a Mormon? Can a scientist be considered credible if he is a Buddhist. Are scientists considered credible if their Hindu? Is an atheist scientists considered credible? In your opinion anyone who “Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.” are not considered credible!!! You have suggested throughout this forum that you do not consider the Muslims to be credible and now your saying you do not consider Mormons to be credible!!! Where does your bigotry and prejudice end? So what about scientists who are African American, Asian, or Arabic? What if the scientist is homosexual or female? Does this mean they would not be considered credible?
Natalie throughout this thread you have continued to show your ignorance, bigotry and prejudice toward anything or anyone that does not agree with you or your party line.
You said:
* Definitely has a political/ideological agenda, which he demonstrated in the first public talk he gave on the subject of 9/11.
I have seen no economic/political/ideological agenda from Steven Jones other than to look at “ALL” the evidence no matter where it leads and what it will show!!!!! But if he does than I will toss Jones from the growing list of scientist who are exposing the lie and I expect you to do the same of any and all scientist who may have an agenda, political ties or conflict of interest!!! Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
Will you please point out to me where he has shown to have, and what his agenda is other than to look at “ALL” the evidence for it is not as clear to me like this is down below
“Bush Science”—a corruption of allegedly scientific investigations by the Bush administration policy goals, citing condemnations by prominent scientists and Nobel lauretes, the Union of Concerned Scientists, and the House Committee on Government Reform. the Bush adminisration has been criticized heavily for their disdane of science. The House Committee on Government Reform found “numerous instances where the administration has manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings.” Also a group of leading scientists, now including 49 Nobel Laureates, 63 National Medal of Science recipients, and 175 members of the National Academics, has said that the Bush administration engages in “distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends.” Now members of Congress calling for investigations into the suppression and manipulation of government science. There is also hundreds of scientists who reported significant interference with scientific work by the Bush administration!!! Unfortunately, the Bush administration’s unprecedented suppression and distortion of scientific analysis on a wide range of issues has continued unabated.
political appointees have distorted and censored scientific findings that contradict established policies. In some cases, they have manipulated the underlying science to align results with predetermined political decisions.
NIST and the Department of Commerce to which it reports are both headed by Bush appointees.
The guiding of an investigation by pre-determined conclusions is antithetical to good science.
The words of the investigations themselves show that they started with the conclusion that the collapses of the three skyscrapers were entirely the result of the plane crashes and subsequent fires. Gene Corley stated that he knew that the towers were going to collapse before they did, which is interesting because no tall steel-framed building had ever collapsed from fires. Charles Thornton stated to Karl Koch, “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” Shankar Nair, a contributor to the NIST investigation, stated on September 19, 2001, “Already there is near-consensus as to the sequence of event that led to the collapse of the World Trade Center.”
Again political appointees have distorted and censored scientific findings that contradict established policies.
NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FIRE INVESTIGATION: NFPA 921.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST used specialists/contractors who were dependent on government contracts or on the official story itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This second report done by NIST inorder to tie up the loose ends is a direct product of the Bush adminastration, with cabinet member Carlos Gutierrez’ name emblazoned on page one. Of course NIST itself is a government agency whos directors are also presidential appointees. Those relying on this report always fail to note the fact that the leaders of NIST’ WTC investigation were appointed directly by George W. Bush.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Shankar Nair, was one of those “experts” on whom the government depended to support what turned out to be an ever-changing, but always flimsy, story. Not surprisingly, many of the contractors who contributed to the NIST investigation, like the company for which Nair works, just happen to depend on good relationships with the government in order to earn their living. Nair’s company, Teng & Associates, boasts of Indefinite Quantity Contracts, long-term relationships with federal government agencies, and federal projects worth in excess of $40 million.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Others who worked so hard to maintain the official story included Gene Corley, a concrete construction expert listed by the National Directory of Expert Witnesses as a source for litigation testimony. Corley was more than just a witness, however. He had led the Oklahoma City bombing investigation and then was asked to lead the initial ASCE investigation into the WTC disaster.Corley himself ended up being a very versatile resource, however, providing testimony supporting the pre-determined conclusions many times, and even posing as a reporter during an NIST media session.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another expert who served on NIST’s advisory committee was Charles Thornton, of the engineering firm Thornton and Tomasetti. Thornton’s partner, Richard Tomasetti, was reported to be behind the unprecedented and widely criticized decision to destroy most of the steel evidence.11Early on Thornton said: “Karl, we all know what caused the collapse.” He was talking to Karl Koch, whose company erected the WTC steel. Also see James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center (New York: Times Books, 2003), 330.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Again obvious and unprecedented suppression and distortion of scientific analysis for political and economic reasons.
Although the authors of the official reports are very similar, the collapse explanations offered by the reports are quite different. Corley and Thornton-Tomasetti were also involved in the Weidlinger study, released in October, 2002, just five months after FEMA’s. That study, commissed by Silverstein for his insurance claim, exclusively blames column failure for the collapses. It thus stands in stark contrast to the FEMA Report, whose pancake theory blames floor truss failures. Why would the same individuals endorse two contradictory theories in their different roles? Apparently for political and economic reasons. The fact that failures of truss supports could indicate a design fault, and therefore fail to support the “two occurrances” claimed by Silverstein. That is why clearly implausible aspects of the column failure theory required the invention of the more sophisticated and truss-failure theory to sell the collapse theory.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The same principals headed the various government investigations of the WTC collapses, the Pentagon crash, and Oklahoma City bombing, despite the fact that the investigations involved assessments of entirely different kinds of structures inflicted with different kinds of damage. Why do the same five or so individuals turn up in investigations relating to terrorist attack, when, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), there are 1.5 million engineers in the US? The authors of the official report on the Murrah Federal Building—Gene Corley, Charles Thornton, Paul Mlaker, and Mete Sozeny—were all among the initial team of the ASCE WTC investigation. Several of these individuals have strong connections to industries that benefited from the attack, such as armaments makers and oil and gas producers!!!!!!!!
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Will you please point out to me where he has shown to have an economic/political/ideological agenda and what his agenda is other than to look at “ALL” the evidence for it is not clear to me.
Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
Be brave enough to be honest and not a hypocrite!!!!!!
NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FIRE INVESTIGATION: NFPA 921.
Sec 6-5: Important to remember that conflict of interest should be avoided!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST used specialists/contractors who were dependent on government contracts or on the official story itself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have seen no economic/political/ideological agenda from Steven Jones other than to look at “ALL” the evidence no matter where it leads and what it will show!!!!!
But if he does than I will toss Jones from the growing list of scientist who are exposing the lie and I expect you to do the same of any and all scientist who may have an agenda, political ties or conflicts of interest!!! Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all scientists!!!
You said:
* Has no expertise in engineering, structural or fire.
He is NOT talking about structural engineering!!! He is talking about physics and the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum—-one of the foundational Laws of Physics!!! That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors—-and intact steel support columns—-the fall must be significantly impeded [i.e. slowed down] by the impacted mass!!! Duh!!!
He also is talking about the evidence that has been ignored!!!!!
NATIONAL STANDARD FOR FIRE INVESTIGATION: NFPA 921.
Sec 12-4: Unusual residues ...could arise from thermite, magnesium or other pyrotechnic materials!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NIST report does not mention FEMA’s puzzling sulfur residue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This evidence is exactly in the area of his expertise for he has done more study and research in metallurgy wich is in relation to this evidence (the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements) as a physicist/archaeometrist than he has to cold fusion/Muon-catalyzed fusion!!!!!!!!
As a matter of FACT the majority of the over 40 peer reviewed scientific papers that he has written are related to the evidence (dealing with the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements) NOT cold fusion or cool fusion or Muon-catalyzed fusion!!! Though he does end up combining the two (Muon-catalyzed fusion from the chemical behavior of metallic elements) but that is another subject.
You cannot find a more qualified expert in the scientific field related to this evidence IN THE WORLD!!!! Please look it up there is no one who has more experience or who has more published peer reviewed scientific papers in relation to this evidence as a physicist/archaeometrist who has been dealing with the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements IN THE WORLD!!!!
It was actually through his study and research in this field that he got into cold fusion/Muon-catalyzed fusion!!!!!!! And guess what because of government propaganda and the purposeful suppression of this science no one belived him then either!!!!!
I have been reading his papers and what he has discoverd is huge!!! Its bigger than 9/11!!!! It will change the world!!!! Please, please read his papers!!!!! What he has discovered will ruin the energy oil empire and is a bigger threat to the elite than his research into 9/11!!!!! It will be a huge benefit to the world unless of course it was ever turned into a weapon.
What luck and what a huge coincidence that we have the the worlds leading expert…... can you imagine how enormous the odds are…......?
Natalie this guy really knows his stuff. While Jones was researching for Los Alamos departments on “Sonoluminescence” he even played around with something that might produce a method for achieving thermonuclear fusion…........!?! Not just cold/Muon-catalyzed fusion
Fusion reactions like those that occur in the Sun…............
Seems to indicate a temperature in excess of one megakelvin…........
Most likely a temperature of one gigakelvin…............
One thing is for sure he knows alot about hot stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I can see why people find it hard to belive.
.....measurements of TRITIUM consistent with fusion…....?
Thats exactly what Jones points out in the elevated Tritium values measured in the WTC area but not elsewhere in New York in his thermite/thermate hypothesis. So see he has experience with this exact same effect.
........ionized oxygen, sulfur monoxide are present…...plasma…....causing an intergranular attack…...easily reaching eutectic temperatures…....?
Wow the work he did for the U.S. Department of Energy (what Im able to see anyway) is EXACTLY what he is finding now except now it would be caused by thermite/thermate instead of thermonuclear fusion not that it was his main focus but he did play around with the idea!!!!
So tell me who could be more qualified to examine this evidence than someone who has studied something that causes the EXACT same effects!!??!!
But I should mention that his thermite/thermate evidence might be used aginst him because it is possible with some kinds of plasma to leave a sulfur residue after causing the same kind of effects to steel like what was found by FEMA. I know there are plasma cutters but Im not sure if they have the same kind of (ionized gas) plasma. But it could be that they do so that might explain what FEMA found. But you would have to run the plasma cutter up and down the full length of the beam and I cant see why anyone would do that.
I know Im getting off subject but about Jones discovery that will ruin the energy oil empire and is a bigger threat to the elite than his research into 9/11!!!!! I dont mean that it by itself will do it but with the other technology that’s been around for long, time it will.
OIL IS OBSOLETE - WAKE UP - YOU’VE BEEN LIED TO, AGAIN!
http://www.waterfuelcell.org/
You said:
* He has been caught distorting the color and resolution of photographs contained in his paper,
If you cannot refute any of his specific claims with any specific evidence then you are very uncredible as a source of information. Stick to the facts, even of you have to take time to learn them first.
Why dont you go to Journal of 9/11 Studies and look!!! He has added so much more evidence to support his hypothesis that it has become total overkill for the government myth!!!!!! Look at the NEW witnesses who are rescue workers and firefighters that came forward to verify his photos and gave him some new ones. All the first responders have come forward flooding Jones with so much evidence that he can barely keep up with it all and is having to update his site every week just to show a small portion of the vast amount of evidence he has been receiving EVERY DAY from police officers, firefighters, steel workers and all the other first responders.
Of course thats not counting all the updates from experiments that he has been doing!!!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14789146/
“We next enter a room containing a form that’s difficult to describe. In any other museum, it could be passed off as a meteorite. And while this was born of intense heat, this is altogether different. This formation is really four separate stories of the World Trade Center, compressed, compacted, incinerated… exposed to temperatures as hot as the inner earth.”
“Here is the meteorite - molten iron fused with concrete.”
You can watch a small video clip of the ‘meteorite’ here.
Game over for the government myth!!!!!!!!!!!
The American welding Society says and shows you cant get aluminum to glow orange/red/yellow any color but silver!!!!!!!! And dont forget NIST now agrees!!!!!!!!!!!!
This video shows a firefighter describing molten metal flowing at ground zero, and says it was like a “foundry”.
You said:
apparently for purposes of being able to then mischaracterize the photographs.
Number one we know it is NOT Aluminum!!!!!!!!!
We know it was glowing red/orange hot and that is was positively metal.
whether it was steel or whatever other metal is really a moot point, fact remains that there is no way ANY metal would be glowing red hot for days because of a carbon based fire PERIOD.
Obviously to anyone not delusional, Aluminum can not possibly stay molten for weeks as any child knows it cools off extremely quick and it does not glow orange/red in daylight.
There is no possible way that office fires fueled by fire retardant furniture various office supplies and Kerosene could even remotely get to any 3000 degrees F, that is complete bulls**t.
Carbon based fires can not attain over 1800 degrees F MAX and that is WITH force fed oxygen at just the right amounts which obviously did not happen here, these fires were clearly oxygen starved and mostly extinguished from the 1000s of gallons of water dumped on it from the sprinkler system as can be seen without any doubt by the thick black smoke, soot.
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/docs/wp_wtc4.jpg
Even NIST report admitted they found no evidence the fires reached much over 600 degrees C, not to mention they only burned for less than an hour.
So burning that short a duration it really would not have mattered even IF the fires reached OVER 3000 F.
Fire temp does not translate to STEEL TEMP by any stretch of the imagination.
500 Tons of thick construction grade steel all interconnected is a huge heat sink/radiator means the steel would dissipate heat very well.
In order for ANY fire to produce molten steel that remains molten for weeks it would have to be well in excess of 4000 degrees F AND have a catalyst to keep the heat generating, that catalyst is obviously Thermate.
In 1975 the WTC had a fire that burned MUCH longer (over 3 hours)and MUCH hotter that started on the 11th floor, spread down to the 9th and up to the 19th!!!!!!!!!!!!
The reason that fire burned longer and hotter is because at the time WTC had no sprinkler system and it started in the middle of the night. It burned at least 65% of the 11th floor.
There was ZERO structural damage to the building, no trusses or anything else steel wise needed to be replaced and this was with a fire that burned hotter as was seen by fire fighters as most all the windows on the 11th floor BLEW OUT which means the fire attained at least 1300 degrees F!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On 9/11 this did not happen thus the fire never reached 1300 F.
The 1975 fire also burned 3X longer, there was no water to slow it down or put it out and no fire stopper material in several gaps around the areas all the buildings cables ran through!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
On 9/11/01 there was a sprinkler system, improved insulation, fire proofing material filling those gaps and even the office furniture itself was more fire retardant and the fires did not burn hot enough to break any windows and burned less than an hour!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We also know that 1000s of gallons of water was dumped on the fire, when water hits fire it vaporizes, the volume of water vapor is 1700 times greater than liquid water thus for every 1 gallon of water 1700 gals of vapor was created to displace oxygen, this creates soot and even the soot itself displaces oxygen and helps put the fire out.
This is “Empirical Evidence” and irrefutable!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is real evidence and there’s mounds of it. They did a sloppy job and they’re going to get crucified for it, because people will stop believing in fairy tale bulls**t.
Another source for this is the book Aftermath, which is a big officially sanctioned book of pictures of the cleanup. it talks about the workers pulling out a beam from the pile and then having the pile explode with ash and dust from below because of the oxygen that seeped in. In other words, what you had was pockets of molten steel that were smoldering there with no need for oxygen since the metal was already melted by thermite which even works underwater, fyi, since it is a self sustaining reaction (the oxygen is provided by the iron-oxide) When air was let in by pulling a beam out the oxygen in the air would ignite from the extreme temperature suddenly exposed to it. Kind of like when you blow or use a bellows on a log that is glowing orange and make a flame appear.
Also in that book you see that when they cut the steel as part of the clean up, they used regular little torches, NOT thermite to cut it!!!!
Steel is made from iron, and iron melts at 2500 degrees fahrenheit. Aluminum on the other hand, melts at 1200. At this temperature aluminum is silvery. You can hear the firefighters comparing the metal to lava, which is red hot, like molten steel, not molten aluminum.
It’s funny you talk about our “theories”. What do you have on your side? Not even a theory. None of you shills can point to anyone, engineer, physicist—anyone—who can explain how your version of the collapse is possible. You all, without exception, say something like—the collapse began and nothing could stop it. You never bother to explain why nothing could stop it, because you can’t. What would have stopped the collapse is the enitre undamaged structure under the collapsing top. But you use faith based science to explain away the presence of the massive undamaged core that somehow self-destructed under an amount of weight that it had borne with no problem for almost 40 years.
You falsely claim that the red hot liquid metal could be aluminum. you try to explain away multiple witnesses testimony to explosions going off all over the towers including the basements. You ignore completely the fact that a 300 ton set of beams from the outer structure of the north tower was flung almost 400 feet—that’s farther than a football field, to embed itself in the AmEx building across the way with only gravity propelling it.
In other words, nothing about your story makes sense, and given the fact that building 7 ALSO collapsed, when no plane ever hit it, you would have us swallow a VERY tall tale. You are the one who is grasping at straws so as to prevent people from becoming informed about the obvious fallacies in the official explanation of the collapses, or in the case of building 7, the ABSENCE of an official explanation.
Just how long do you think you can keep these facts a secret? Everybody outside America knows, and more Americans are finfing out each day. Why do you persist in hanging on to a discredited and quite frankly abhorrent lie about the cause of the death of over 2000 of your fellow human beings? What possesses you to do that, day in day out?
You said:
* He has manipulated quotes and misrepresented attitudes of others in his paper.
Please list examples!!!!!!!!!!!! SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!! He just publishes what he finds, how is that anything but honest? If you cannot refute any of his specific claims with any specific evidence then you are very uncredible as a source of information!!!!!!!!!!! Again I say SHOW ME!!!!!!!!!!!
You say:
* He has cited holocaust revisionists/deniers in his paper. (That’s what the ADL should really be concerned about, and perhaps that was a factor taken into account by BYU. Is Jones really this naive about the nature of his sources, or is he of a like mind?)
Notice what a rascist hypocrite you are!!!!!!
In your opinion anyone who “Has some extremely obscure and controversial views on religion.” are not considered credible!!!!!!
Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!!
The anti-semetic charge is hollow and callus in the case of Jones, and
you know it. HOW DARE YOU suggest Jones is anti-semitic, in fact people need to
start filing libel suits against hypocrites like yourself and pathetic sniveling little worms like the ADL for it’s constant mudsligning at anyone about anything with the charge of anti-semitism.
Dr. Jones will not be surpressed by a bunch hypocrticical governmental minions like you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
In the majority of his research and papers look at the people he chose to team up with, JEWS!
Since you can’t win on facts your going to try the desperate anti-semitism route!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WITH LIES LIKE:
Jones is a holocaust denier (which then becomes jones refers to a holocaust denier, which then becomes he referenced a holocaust denier)
Here’s what the article said:
A particularly interesting 9-11 Denier is Rick Rajter. Rajter is a student member of the “Scholars” for 9-11 Denial. He is cited in a new paper (PDF file, see Page 24) by Professor Stephen Jones, as being in the process of preparing a rebuttal of 9-11 Myths. He has also collaborated with “Scholar” full member Morgan Reynolds on Reynold’s website.
AND OF COURSE HE HAS NO FACTS ABOUT THE PROFESSORS RESEARCH, JUST SLANDEROUS ACCUSTIONS PROMOTED BY GOVERNMENT SHILLS, GEE, HOW ORIGINAL, HAVEN’T SEEN THIS TRASH BEFORE, EXCEPT ON…...............................
FOX NEWS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It is so obvious that since you can’t win on facts you have to try the desperate anti-semitism route even though you are a rascist hypocrite yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
How do you feel about the Bush family considering it was Prescott Bush who, through Brown brothers Harrimen, was principle financier of Hitler and his war machine!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
RESEARCH the congressional archives!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Prescott Bush DEFINETLY fuded Hitler:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1312540,00.html
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/06/1616437.php
http://www.georgewalkerbush.net/bushfamilyfunde
Someone should call the ADL on all the holocaust finance deniers!!!!!!!!
Do NOT be a coward and hypocrite who chooses not to hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!! Again Natalie do NOT be a coward + hypocrite and not hold the same standards to all people and scientists!!!
Resources to deal with Natalies racist agenda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-brkmfrxrQY&eurl=http://www.infow…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gct84oE5DEE
http://www.supportthetruth.com/fullAudio/028mcLambZion.mp3
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/
You said:
He has included politically tinged rants by discredited individuals such as Kevin Ryan, which obviously have no place in a science paper.
First of all Kevin Ryan was proven correct and it was because of the evidence that he (a brave whistle-blower and Patriot) exposed over two years ago that NIST had to drop thier ridiculously absurd and impossible pancake bulls**t!!!!!!!!
They said:
“What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel. . . burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts.” Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says “Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory.”
Kevin Ryan said:
We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.
You said:
Now, the contents of his letter borders on psychotic, in my opinion. He throws around the idea that UL certified “the steel” used in the construction of the towers, putting forth the implication that UL certified the columns.
NIST states that the buildings were rated as Class 1B, wich requires such testing and means it had to be certified by some place like UL at 3 hours for columns and 2 hours for floors at 2000 F. Also according to NY code at the time of construction it had to be tested to a standerd called ASTM E119 for testing both steel componets and floor assembilies.
How did NIST decide the buildings were rated as class 1B, when in the original design claims it was rated 1A or built to class 1A standerds?
They (NIST) avoided mentioning the historic claims, and claimed that documents supporting them—-such as the UL fire resistance test data and Skilling’s fire resistance analysis—-were missing.
UL’s comments on testing WTC steel
September 2001 Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, told staff that UL had certified the steel used in the WTC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 2003 Kevin Ryan asked Knoblauch in writing about UL’s involvement, and he (Loring Knoblauch) responded in December confirming details.
Loring Knoblauch, UL’s CEO, said in writing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
* “We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”
* “As we did not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can given an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”
* “We test the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”
Kevin Ryan said:
As I’m sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I’m aware of UL’s attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.
They said:
“All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing”...NIST, p. 143
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.”... NIST, p. 143
Kevin Ryan said:
The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team’s August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to “rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse”. The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.
They said:
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.”.... NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.”... NIST, p. 181
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires=590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat
Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
At that time Kevin Ryan’s letter was arguing against the Pancake theory because of physical tests that he was aware of and now 2 years later NIST says thier pancake theory has been disproven by physical tests.
THE SAME PHYSICAL TESTS Kevin Ryan’s letter was talking about over two years ago!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Ha!! So there it is Kevin Ryan brought NIST to its knees!!! Either he was far more intelligent than NIST or they were just playing/acting stupid and therefore lying!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wich ever one it is it does not look good for NIST.
You said:
His paper has undergone almost weekly revisions, something that shouldn’t have to be done if one has a plausible hypothesis.
The only revisions he has made is just adding more and more evidence that supports his hypothesis!!!!!!!!! He has gone much further in proving his hypothesis than is needed and it is overkill I admit.
He has not gone this far to prove his hypothesis on any of the over 40 peer reviewed scientific papers he has done!!!!!!!!!! This is total OVERKILL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The government myth is dead!!!!!!
You said:
He has been unable to get his paper published in any relevant journal, something BYU has been concerned about from the start.
You said:
Even worse, he tries to pretend he has, by creating his own panel of peers and creating his own journal. Unfortunately, the panel is not composed of relevant experts, and the journal is solely devoted to 9/11 propaganda. I’m sure this situation was on the agenda of the review board, before they aborted the review.
As much as they dont want to let his research get out…......
Well let me just say I have some bad news for you and GREAT NEWS for the rest of the world Dr. Jones paper is on the way to being published for a 3rd time!!!!!!!!!!!! I will not give out the name and details so government shills like you wont try to apply pressure and stop it from happening.
By they way even though it has only been published 2 times it has undergone 4 sets of peer reviews and only one of those was by the Journal of 9/11 Studies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 was because of BYU and 1 of those should never of had to been done
and the fact that it was shows IMO that BYU was dissloyal to one of their professors and long-term colleague. I understand BYU being afraid but damn to say they needed another set of peer review is the same as saying we can’t trust any of our own staff and colleagues to be able to properly peer review a paper!!!!!
Then you bring up D. Allan Firmage who is arguing against NIST!!!!!!!!!!!
D. Allan Firmage Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU, said:
“The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube.”
That leaves out the steel core!!!! It was the core that supported the load. One “could cut away all the FIRST story columns on one side of the building, and partway from the corners of the perpendicular sides, and the building could still withstand design live loads and a 100 mph wind from any direction.” That is because of the massive redundant steel CORE!!!! That D. Allan Firmage happens to leave out!!!!!!!!!
D. Allan Firmage, said:
“When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires.”
For the perimeter columns ... “live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”
NIST admits that only a small percentage of columns were severed: 14% in WTC 1 and 15% WTC 2. This is nowhere near the the number of columns that the designers claimed could have been removed without causing a problem.
NIST admits that the web of steel formed by interlocking perimeter columns and spandrel plates were efficient at redistributing loads around the impact punctures. It estimates that loads on some columns increased by up to 35% while loads on other columns decreased by 20%. The increased loads are nowhere near those the designers claimed the columns could handle: increases of 2000% above the design live loads.
Also the buildings were designed to withstand a plane impact and they were confident that it could withstand not just one but multiple plane crashes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
the design engineers had contemplated jetliner crashes by a jet with a larger fuel load than what was on 9/11 and the fires that would result!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lead engineer John Skilling said in 1993, five years before his death:
“our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel would dump into the building. [But] the building structure would still be there.”
—City in the Sky
D. Allan Firmage, said:
The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.
But what makes him think the steel got any where near that temp.?
“None of the recovered steel samples showed evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600 degrees C for as long as 15 minutes.”.... NIST, p. 180
“Only three of the recovered samples of exterior panels reached temperatures in excess of 250 degrees C during the fires or after the collapse. This was based on a method developed by NIST to characterize maximum temperatures experienced by steel members through observations of paint cracking.”... NIST, p. 181
# NIST now says about 4,500 gallons of jet fuel were available to feed fires=590,000 MJ of energy
# Office furnishings in the impact zone would have provided 490,000 MJ of energy
# Using masses and specific heats for materials heated, a maximum temp in the impact zone can be calculated.
# The result is less than 600 degrees F Assuming fuel bruned with perfect efficiency, that no hot gases left the impact zone, no heat escaped by conduction, steel and concrete had unlimited amount of time to absorb all the heat
Thus, the maximum temperatures that could have been attained by the steel were much too low to soften it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Here is the part where he totaly reveals NIST’s new myth as bulls**t!!!!
D. Allan Firmage, said:
Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit.
They dont do that with any fire they use a blow tourch and apply directed heat hence “spot heating”!
But for his sake we will pretend that the steel temp. was able to get that high and lets see what happens.
Now all you shills would use this part of his letter to support the pancake crap because for it to work (the pancake collapse) the hangers holding the floor had to give way so the floor would fall on the next and so on.
It has been shoved in my face for years now that the hangers were much weaker than the floors ect. So the tests about the floors did not matter because the pancake collapse started because the hangers (the weakest link) had given out causing the entire and still intact floor to fall.
Now NIST is saying that the hangers are so strong that the supposedly sagging floors are pulling the perimeter columns in causing them to buckle and then initiating the total collapse of the buildings.
But the steel used in the perimeter columns was super-strong steel: much of it rated to 1,000,000 PSI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So how is the weakest link suppose to be strong enough to:
#1 manage to resist bending and warping from this same high heat that caused the floors to warp and sag enough to pull the columns in?
#2 Not give before the much stronger perimeter columns made out of 1,000,000 PSI super-strong steel does?
NIST still has not explained this incredible feat done by the weakest link of the WTC.
Cont….
Sorry guys Im just trying to see if I can get all the links that disappeared from the above post to…Well appear.
It did not work at all. I wonder were they all go?
Ok. I found A few of them. I’ll try to figure it out for the rest. Sorry for the mess.
Even though many links did not appear and many of my words are gone as well it is still readable and gets the basic points across.
I have noticed that if I remove some of the links then some of the words that did not show up reappear.?.
Natalie
Cont…
So as you can see D. Allan Firmage points out that if the floor trusses did slump and fail….. the clips (hangers) holding the trusses to the vertical exterior and core columns would have failed long before they mustered enough strength to pull the steel box columns anywhere near far enough to buckle…
Not just buckle…. but to simultaniously and symmetrically fail…. no matter how hot these fires were.
The thickness of these clips were nowhere near that of the columns…. and if these columns were so affected by the intense fires…. then the truss clips were experiencing the same conditions.
you can not tell me that the coulmns wer superheated… the trusses were super heated…. but the clips holding the floor trusses to the coulmns were in a safe environment.
The reason NIST changed their story to this new one is (besides the other obvious flaws) because they realized that if the floors pancaked like they had said the CORE would still be there. So they had to come up with a way that the core would be pulled down! Without explosives!
The clips (Hangers) that held the floor trusses were designed solely for that… to hold up the floors….. not to handle any of the structural issues of the exterior columns or the interior core columns…. there were other structural members built into the framework to handle those stresses….. there were additional beams joining the exterior to the core where needed.
The floor trusses were supported by angle clips which had a sole purpose of supporting those trusses….you could remove the floor trusses and not see any major effect on the structural calculations…
note: floor trusses are vastly different from the Hat Trusses.
Natalie you the use J. G. Quintiere, , a, M. di Marzoa and R. Beckerb suggested cause of the fire-induced collapse of the World Trade Towers.
J. G. Quintiere said:
A structural failure model is described based on compression buckling of the truss rods.
This has been proven to be false!!!!!!!!!!!! BY NIST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
They said:
“All four test specimens sustained the maximum design load for approximately 2 hours without collapsing”...NIST, p. 143
“The results established that this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load, without collapsing, for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11.” NIST, p. 143
In the Fire Endurance Testing of the WTC Floor System they admit that they in all cases used half or less the amount of fireproofing that was used in the WTC on the floors that were impacted by fire!!!!!!
The floor assemblies tests were important because they were supposed to prove the pancake theory. Yet, despite NIST using less fireproofing on the assemblies than was known to be on the steel in the Twin Towers, and despite their loading the floors with double the weight known to have been on the actual floors, it could not get an assembly to collapse.
So we all agree including NIST that the truss rods or floors did not fail but remember NIST still said it was a pancake collapse for over 2 years by claiming that the floors did not need to fail because the much weaker and much less thick clips (hangers) holding the trusses to the vertical exterior and core columns had failed initiating the pancake collapse.
But the reason NIST changed their story to this new one is (besides the other obvious flaws) because they realized that if the floors pancaked like they had said the CORE would still be there. So they had to come up with a way that the core would be pulled down! Without explosives!
But we will just forget all that evidence that exposes the LIE and move on to the other huge flaw that is pointed out by J. G. Quintiere.
J. G. Quintiere said:
has been computed as 105±20 min for WTC 1 (north) and 51±9 min for WTC 2 (south), compared to the collapse times from the aircraft impact of 104 and 56 min, respectively. The insulation thickness and the difference of 19.1 mm and 38.1 mm between the two towers appear to have been the root cause of the collapses.
So as you see what he and D. Allan Firmage points out is that the thickness of these (not the insulation because NIST tested with much less or in some cases without any but the steel) clips were nowhere near that of the columns…. and if these columns were so affected by the intense fires…. then the truss clips were experiencing the same conditions.
you can not tell me that the coulmns wer superheated… the trusses were super heated…. but the clips holding the floor trusses to the coulmns were in a safe environment.
If the floor trusses did slump and fail….. the clips (hangers) holding the trusses to the vertical exterior and core columns would have failed long before they mustered enough strength to pull the steel box columns anywhere near far enough to buckle…
Not just buckle…. but to simultaniously and symmetrically fail??!!??!!??!!
Natalie you had questions about Sibel Edmonds and what she belives.
*Good* translators, especially the type that picks up multiple languages very quickly, do have much more in their brains than just the ability to map turkish words to english ones, and combine them into sentences that make sense.
These people are bordering to be geniuses They need to pick up context quickly, they need to memorize fast and much.
But Sibel Edmonds, by all accounts, is special even amongst the breed of good multi-language translators. Just look at her history, and what she had to put up with. Look at how she handles public appearances. She’s unique. A great personality.
Can’t you imagine that she….
...a) learned even more about all that stuff *after* she was fired, because she was (confidentially) contacted by other people “in the know”
...b) learned even more about all that stuff *after* she was fired, because she on her own knows how to use a library, a computer, the Internet, Google, and research techniques?
She’s gagged—and look what she still is able to come out with, working around the gag orders. Look at all the activities she initiates with NSWBC!!!!!!!!
NOW READ HER RESPONSE TO A LETTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Thank you for your support; kind words.
I usually don’t respond to inquiries via e-mail; I don’t grant interviews in writing either.
However,
Quote #1- Accurate: “once this issue [9/11] gets to be…investigated, you will be seeing certain [American] people that we know from this country standing trial; and they will be prosecuted criminally”
Quote#2- Accurate: “There is direct evidence involving no more than ten American names that I recognized”
Have a nice holiday