The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie -- Part 1
By Dr. David Ray Griffin
July 17, 2005
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| Dr. David Ray Griffin Credit: Independent.com |
In this article, theologian, professor and author Dr. David Ray Griffin identifies more than 100 lies included in the official 9/11 Commission report. This article is an excellent summary/companion to Dr. Griffin's newest book, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions.
The entire 9/11 Commission Report is constructed in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is true. The 9/11 Commission Report tells many lies about particular issues. This point is implied by my critique's subtitle, "Omissions and Distortions."
It is better to understand the two terms as referring to two types of lies: implicit and explicit. We have an explicit lie when the Report claims that the core of each of the Twin Towers consisted of a hollow steel shaft or when it claims that Vice President Cheney did not give the shoot-down order until after 10:10 that morning.
But we have an implicit lie when the Commission, in its discussion of the 19 alleged suicide hijackers, omits the fact that at least six of them have credibly been reported to be still alive, or when it fails to mention the fact that Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapsed. Such omissions are implicit lies partly because they show that the Commission did not honor its stated intention "to provide the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11." They are also lies insofar as the Commission could avoid telling an explicit lie about the issue in question only by not mentioning it, which, I believe, was the case in at least most instances.
How many lies are contained in The 9/11 Commission Report? I do not know. But, deciding to see how many lies I had discussed in my book, I found that I had identified over 100 of them. Once I had made the list, it occurred to me that others might find this summary helpful. Hence this article.
One caveat: Although in some of the cases it is obvious that the Commission has lied, in other cases it appears that the Commission has lied. However, in the interests of simply giving a brief listing of claims that I consider to be lies, I will ignore this distinction between obvious and probable lies, leaving it to readers, if they wish, to look up the discussion in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions. For ease in doing this, I have parenthetically indicated the pages of the book on which the various issues are discussed.
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| The September 11 attack still stirs controversy. Credit: AP photo |
Given this clarification, I now list the omissions and claims of The 9/11 Commission Report that I, in my critique of that report, portrayed as lies:
1. The omission of evidence that at least six of the alleged hijackers -- including Waleed al-Shehri, said by the Commission probably to have stabbed a flight attendant on Flight 11 before it crashed into the North Tower of the WTC -- are still alive (19-20).
2. The omission of evidence about Mohamed Atta -- such as his reported fondness for alcohol, pork, and lap dances -- that is in tension with the Commission's claim that he had become fanatically religious (20-21).
3. The obfuscation of the evidence that Hani Hanjour was too poor a pilot to have flown an airliner into the Pentagon (21-22).
4. The omission of the fact that the publicly released flight manifests contain no Arab names (23).
5. The omission of the fact that fire has never, before or after 9/11, caused steel-frame buildings to collapse (25).
6. The omission of the fact that the fires in the Twin Towers were not very big, very hot, or very long-lasting compared with fires in several steel-frame buildings that did not collapse (25-26).
7. The omission of the fact that, given the hypothesis that the collapses were caused by fire, the South Tower, which was struck later than the North Tower and also had smaller fires, should not have collapsed first (26).
8. The omission of the fact that WTC 7 (which was not hit by an airplane and which had only small, localized fires) also collapsed -- an occurrence that FEMA admitted it could not explain (26).
9. The omission of the fact that the collapse of the Twin Towers (like that of Building 7) exemplified at least 10 features suggestive of controlled demolition (26-27).
10. The claim that the core of each of the Twin Towers was "a hollow steel shaft" -- a claim that denied the existence of the 47 massive steel columns that in reality constituted the core of each tower and that, given the "pancake theory" of the collapses, should have still been sticking up many hundreds of feet in the air (27-28).
11. The omission of Larry Silverstein's statement that he and the fire department commander decided to "pull" Building 7 (28).
12. The omission of the fact that the steel from the WTC buildings was quickly removed from the crime scene and shipped overseas before it could be analyzed for evidence of explosives (30).
13. The omission of the fact that because Building 7 had been evacuated before it collapsed, the official reason for the rapid removal of the steel -- that some people might still be alive in the rubble under the steel -- made no sense in this case (30).
14. The omission of Mayor Giuliani's statement that he had received word that the World Trade Center was going to collapse (30-31).
15. The omission of the fact that President Bush's brother Marvin and his cousin Wirt Walker III were both principals in the company in charge of security for the WTC (31-32).
16. The omission of the fact that the west wing of the Pentagon would have been the least likely spot to be targeted by al-Qaeda terrorists, for several reasons (33-34).
17. The omission of any discussion of whether the damage done to the Pentagon was consistent with the impact of a Boeing 757 going several hundred miles per hour (34).
18. The omission of the fact that there are photos showing that the west wing's façade did not collapse until 30 minutes after the strike and also that the entrance hole appears too small for a Boeing 757 to have entered (34).
19. The omission of all testimony that has been used to cast doubt on whether remains of a Boeing 757 were visible either inside or outside the Pentagon (34-36).
20. The omission of any discussion of whether the Pentagon has a anti-missile defense system that would have brought down a commercial airliner -- even though the Commission suggested that the al-Qaeda terrorists did not attack a nuclear power plant because they assumed that it would be thus defended (36).
21. The omission of the fact that pictures from various security cameras -- including the camera at the gas station across from the Pentagon, the film from which was reportedly confiscated by the FBI immediately after the strike -- could presumably answer the question of what really hit the Pentagon (37-38).
22. The omission of Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's reference to "the missile [used] to damage [the Pentagon]" (39).
23. The apparent endorsement of a wholly unsatisfactory answer to the question of why the Secret Service agents allowed President Bush to remain at the Sarasota school at a time when, given the official story, they should have assumed that a hijacked airliner might be about to crash into the school (41-44).
24. The failure to explore why the Secret Service did not summon fighter jets to provide air cover for Air Force One (43-46).
25. The claims that when the presidential party arrived at the school, no one in the party knew that several planes had been hijacked (47-48).
26. The omission of the report that Attorney General Ashcroft was warned to stop using commercial airlines prior to 9/11 (50).
27. The omission of David Schippers' claim that he had, on the basis of information provided by FBI agents about upcoming attacks in lower Manhattan, tried unsuccessfully to convey this information to Attorney General Ashcroft during the six weeks prior to 9/11 (51).
28. The omission of any mention of the FBI agents who reportedly claimed to have known the targets and dates of the attacks well in advance (51-52).
29. The claim, by means of a circular, question-begging rebuttal, that the unusual purchases of put options prior to 9/11 did not imply advance knowledge of the attacks on the part of the buyers (52-57).
30. The omission of reports that both Mayor Willie Brown and some Pentagon officials received warnings about flying on 9/11 (57).
31. The omission of the report that Osama bin Laden, who already was America's "most wanted" criminal, was treated in July 2001 by an American doctor in the American Hospital in Dubai and visited by the local CIA agent (59).
32. The omission of news stories suggesting that after 9/11 the US military in Afghanistan deliberately allowed Osama bin Laden to escape (60).
33. The omission of reports, including the report of a visit to Osama bin Laden at the hospital in Dubai by the head of Saudi intelligence, that were in tension with the official portrayal of Osama as disowned by his family and his country (60-61).
34. The omission of Gerald Posner's account of Abu Zubaydah's testimony, according to which three members of the Saudi royal family -- all of whom later died mysteriously within an eight-day period -- were funding al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (61-65).
35. The Commission's denial that it found any evidence of Saudi funding of al-Qaeda (65-68).
36. The Commission's denial in particular that it found any evidence that money from Prince Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, went to al-Qaeda operatives (69-70).
37. The denial, by means of simply ignoring the distinction between private and commercial flights, that the private flight carrying Saudis from Tampa to Lexington on September 13 violated the rules for US airspace in effect at the time (71-76).
38. The denial that any Saudis were allowed to leave the United States shortly after 9/11 without being adequately investigated (76-82).
39. The omission of evidence that Prince Bandar obtained special permission from the White House for the Saudi flights (82-86).
40. The omission of Coleen Rowley's claim that some officials at FBI headquarters did see the memo from Phoenix agent Kenneth Williams (89-90).
41. The omission of Chicago FBI agent Robert Wright's charge that FBI headquarters closed his case on a terrorist cell, then used intimidation to prevent him from publishing a book reporting his experiences (91).
42. The omission of evidence that FBI headquarters sabotaged the attempt by Coleen Rowley and other Minneapolis agents to obtain a warrant to search Zacarias Moussaoui's computer (91-94).
43. The omission of the 3.5 hours of testimony to the Commission by former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds' testimony that, according to her later public letter to Chairman Kean, revealed serious 9/11-related cover-ups by officials at FBI headquarters (94-101).
44. The omission of the fact that General Mahmoud Ahmad, the head of Pakistan's intelligence agency (the ISI), was in Washington the week prior to 9/11, meeting with CIA chief George Tenet and other US officials (103-04).
45. The omission of evidence that ISI chief Ahmad had ordered $100,000 to be sent to Mohamed Atta prior to 9/11 (104-07).
46. The Commission's claim that it found no evidence that any foreign government, including Pakistan, had provided funding for the al-Qaeda operatives (106).
47. The omission of the report that the Bush administration pressured Pakistan to dismiss Ahmad as ISI chief after the appearance of the story that he had ordered ISI money sent to Atta (107-09).
48. The omission of evidence that the ISI (and not merely al-Qaeda) was behind the assassination of Ahmad Shah Masood (the leader of Afghanistan's Northern Alliance), which occurred just after the week-long meeting between the heads of the CIA and the ISI (110-112).
49. The omission of evidence of ISI involvement in the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Reporter Daniel Pearl (113).
50. The omission of Gerald Posner's report that Abu Zubaydah claimed that a Pakistani military officer, Mushaf Ali Mir, was closely connected to both the ISI and al-Qaeda and had advance knowledge of the 9/11 attacks (114).
51. The omission of the 1999 prediction by ISI agent Rajaa Gulum Abbas that the Twin Towers would be "coming down" (114).
Continued to Part 2
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