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9/11 conspiracy theories

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 Template:911tm Since the events of 9/11, a variety of conspiracy theories have challenged the official version of events that day. The content of the challenges typically include suggestions that individuals in the government of the United States knew of the impending attacks and refused to act on that knowledge, or even that they took active part in the attacks. Conspiracy theorists have claimed that the collapse of the World Trade Center was caused by demolition charges or explosives placed in the buildings. Some also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon, and that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down. The structural engineering community does not support the controlled demolition hypothesis and U.S. officials insist that only al-Qaeda was involved in the attacks.

The Official Account

In the years immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the US government explained that the attacks were carried out by members of the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden. On the morning of September 11, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes by using box cutters, mace and fake explosives. They piloted the planes themselves and crashed these in to World Trade Center and the Pentagon. According to the scientific account, the World Trade Center towers later collapsed due to the impact damage, removal of the fire protection and the intense fires. Due to the collapse of World Trade Center One and Two, all the surrounding World Trade Center buildings were heavily damaged as well, leading in turn to their complete or partial collapse. United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania later that day after passengers hearing of the previous attacks in air phone and cell phone conversations and brought the plane down. The U.S. government claimed it had no advance knowledge of the attacks.

Organizations representing the victims' families such as the Jersey Girls demanded further investigation and, after initial reluctance, the administration acceded to their request. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission was formed tasked with “not placing individual blame” but providing an explanation what happened and making recommendations to prevent a recurrence of the attacks. In 2004 the commission released its report. It revealed that there were prior warnings of varying detail that the United States would be attacked by al-Qaeda. They were ignored due to lack of communication between various law enforcement personnel. The report cited bureaucratic inertia and laws passed in the 1970’s designed to prevent abuses that resulted major scandals during that era for the lack of interagency communication. The report also faulted both the Clinton and the Bush administration with “failure of imagination”. The explanation laid out in the report has been endorsed by most members of both major political parties and news media, and is what conspiracy theorists refer to as "the official account" of the September, 2001 attacks.

Origins And Reception

File:CNN911scrn.jpg
CNN broadcast of September 11 destruction when the second plane struck the south tower of the WTC.

Since the September 11 attacks, a number of websites, books, and films, largely promoted on and distributed through the Internet, have challenged the "official account" of the attacks. Although the "official account" contends al-Qaeda "conspired" to execute the attacks on the World Trade Center in the legal sense, a 9/11 conspiracy theory normally refers to a belief in a broad conspiracy, in which the attacks were executed by powerful groups often including government agencies or an alledged secret global network. Because belief in such networks predates the September 11, 2001 attacks, it may be argued that 9/11 conspiracy theories originated before the attacks themselves. The body of groups and individuals challenging the official account often refer to themselves as the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Inititially, 9/11 conspiracy theories received little attention in the media. In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories ... that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists." Later, as media exposure of conspiracy theories of the events of 9/11 increased, US government agencies and the Bush Administration issued refutations to the theories, including a formal response by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center, a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories, and a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August 2006 speech, which declares that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."

In August 2004, a Zogby International poll indicated that 49.3% New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens "overall" say US Leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act". In July 2006, a Scripps Howard and Ohio University poll concluded that "Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them", "sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings" and "twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists". A May 2006 Zogby International poll indicated that 42% of Americans more likely agree with people who believe that "the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks, saying there has been a cover-up." A September 2006 Ipsos-Reid poll found that 22 percent of Canadians believe "the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and were actually a plot by influential Americans."

Just prior to the fifth anniversary of the attacks, a flurry of mainstream news articles on 9/11 conspiracy theories were released. In its coverage Time Magazine stated, "This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality." Mainstream coverage has generally presented these theories as a cultural phenomenon and is often very critical of their content.

Main approaches

9/11 conspiracy theories generally start with dissatisfaction with the official explanation of 9/11. But criticism of the official account does not in and of itself constitute a conspiracy theory. 9/11 conspiracy theories constitute a strong version of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

The weak version, which does not directly imply a conspiracy, merely suspects that government agencies, including the military and intelligence communities, dealt incompetently with the 9/11 attacks. It may go as far as suggesting that the 9/11 Commission covered up these alleged incompetencies and even that part of the incompetence involved inappropriate reactions to advanced warnings. While 9/11 conspiracy theories often include such claims, they go further to suggest intentional activities that either facilitated or directly caused the attacks. There are two main categories of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

  1. Key individuals within the government and defense establishment "let it happen on purpose" (LIHOP). That is, they knew the attacks were coming (though there is a range of opinion about how specific their knowledge was) and undertook to weaken America's defenses sufficiently to ensure a successful major terrorist attack on home soil.
  2. Key individuals within the government and defense establishment "made it happen on purpose" (MIHOP). That is, they planned the attacks (and here there is a range of opinion about what the plan was) and ultimately carried it into action.

Some theories go on to identify the people who had the power to either make it or let it happen purposefully. This list of suspects also varies considerably across theories.

The case for the theories is generally built on publicly available sources following a "connect the dots" approach. These sources include news reports of government actions, terrorist activities, and physical events, and a substantial amount of video footage. Part of the argument is a critique of the mainstream media for reporting individual facts without making an adequate effort to understand the connections between them. Conspiracy theories emerge from making such connections in the interpretative room left open by "unanswered questions". In some cases, conspiracy theorists will insist on the accuracy of early news reports that have since been retracted, refuted, or forgotten.

Arguments are offered to suggest both the physical possibility and circumstancial plausibility of a given conspiracy theory and, correspondingly, to demonstrate the physical impossibility and circumstancial implausibility of the official account. Since most conspiracy theorists argue for further indepedent investigations of the attacks, the basic assertion is normally only that the alternative conspiracy theory is more likely than "the official conspiracy theory". The remainder of this article provides a survey of the arguments, which are generally combined by individual theorists in overlapping and sometimes incompatible ways.

Basic argument

Unlike the official account, which suggests that the perpetrators (the terrorists) got much more than they bargained for, conspiracy theorists assume that the 9/11 attacks achieved more or less exactly their intended result. They can therefore draw conclusions about the motives for 9/11 by looking at its consequences. Among these they emphasize the powerful military presence of the US in the Middle East (including the increased control over oil reserves), the significant increase in funding for the American military (including the intelligence community), and the restrictions on civil liberties (often construed as an attack on the US constitution). 9/11, the argument goes, was a convenient opportunity for certain factions of the American establishment, and the Bush adminstration in particular, to achieve key foreign and domestic policy goals that had been determined in advance of the attacks.

Indeed, many point to the writings of neoconservative strategists to suggest that 9/11 was, at best, on their 'wish list' and, at worst, on their list of 'things to do'. The standard reference in presenting this idea has become a document titled Rebuilding America's Defenses, which was written by the Project for the New American Century. This document outlines a global strategy that is very similar in its details to the military strategy of the War on Terror. It notes, however, that "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." On this basis, David Ray Griffin and others have presented an argument that draws a parallel to a particular interpretation of the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, according to which Roosevelt both provoked the attack and allowed it to happen in order to have a pretext for American entry into the second world war. Conspiracy theorists believe that 9/11 constitutes a "new Pearl Harbor" in at least this sense (LIHOP), many also adding the element of "false flag terrorism", i.e., that the attacks were organized by at least some of its beneficiaries (MIHOP).

Pattern of behavior

To establish that the United States government (which some conspiracy theorists allege to have carried out the September 11, attacks) would be willing to use a staged incident to generate support for an armed conflict (which some conspiracy theorists claim was the purpose behind the attacks) conspiracy theorists have often pointed to previous historical incidents:

  • Operation Northwoods - This plan, proposed by Lyman Lemnitzer, was to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan suggested several false flag actions, including simulated or real state sponsored acts (such as hijacked planes) on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed under the Kennedy administrationin 1963.
  • Gulf of Tonkin incident - This was an alleged pair of attacks by North Vietnamese gunboats on two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS C. Turner Joy. Later research indicated that the second attack did not occur. The incident led to the signing of Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which allowed President Johnson to escalate U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Robert J. Hanyok, a historian for the United States National Security Agency, concluded that the NSA deliberately distorted intelligence reports passed on to policy-makers regarding the August 4 incident. However, he concluded that the motive was not political but was probably to cover up honest intelligence errors.
  • United States ambassador April Glaspie told Saddam Hussein in 1990: "We have no opinion on your Arab - Arab conflicts" and "the Kuwait issue is not associated with America". Some allege Hussein interpreted this as been given free reign to handle his disputes with Kuwait as he saw fit. Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution, however, writing in the New York Times on September 21, 2003, disagrees with this analysis: "In fact, all the evidence indicates the opposite: Saddam Hussein believed it was highly likely that the United States would try to liberate Kuwait, but convinced himself that we would send only lightly armed, rapidly deployable forces that would be quickly destroyed by his 120,000-man Republican Guard. After this, he assumed, Washington would acquiesce to his conquest." Tariq Aziz claimed in a 1996 PBS interview that Iraq "had no illusions" prior to the invasion of Kuwait about the likelihood of U.S. military intervention.

Government foreknowledge

File:WTC1 on fire.jpg
The World Trade Center on fire. The plume of smoke escaping the Twin Towers is seen for miles.

One theory is that individuals within the United States government and private sector knew of the impending attacks and purposefully did not act on that knowledge. Former British Environment Minister Michael Meacher suggested this possibility. The theory does not necessarily suggest that individuals within the US Government actually conducted the operation, but rather that they had enough information to have prevented the attack.

Intelligence issues

Shortly after the attacks, David Schippers, the chief prosecutor for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, stated that the government had been warned in 1995 about a future attack on a government building and that later he was contacted by three FBI agents who mentioned uncovering a possible terrorist attack planned for lower Manhattan.

  • According to the story, as the agents informed their superiors they were briefed not to pursue the issue and threatened with prosecution. David Schippers declared, "Five weeks before the September 11 tragedy, I did my best to get a hold of Attorney General John Ashcroft with my concerns." According to Mr. Schippers, Ashcroft responded that they do not start investigations at the top.
  • Mr. Schippers has said the information dated back to a 1995 warning that indicated a possible terrorist attack planned for lower Manhattan using a nuclear device.
  • Author William Norman Grigg furthered the Schippers story in his article "Did We Know What Was Coming?" According to the article, three unnamed veteran federal law enforcement agents confirmed "the information provided to Schippers was widely known within the Bureau before September 11."

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) has asserted that over a year before the 9/11 attacks, a classified US intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" identified Mohammed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers as likely members of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the US. (Able Danger was a SOCOM exercise.)

  • The team recommended that the information be shared with the FBI, but the military's Special Operations Command rejected the recommendation. (New York Times, Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00, 8/9/2005)
  • Pentagon officials said they have found three more individuals who recall an intelligence chart identifying Mohamed Atta as a terrorist one year prior to the attacks.
  • Acting Pentegon Inspector General Thomas Gimble in a 71 page report given to Defence Department officials in September 2006 dismissed claims that an Army intelligence unit code-named Able Danger uncovered data that could have thwarted the September 11 attacks, saying the allegations could not be substantiated."Able Danger team members did not identify Mohamed Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker," "In fact, Able Danger produced no actionable intelligence information"
  • FBI agent and Al-Qaeda expert John P. O'Neill warned of an Al-Qaeda threat to the United States in the year preceding the attacks. He retired from his position in mid 2001 after an undisclosed source leaked information to the New York Times about an investigation into an incident that had occurred 13 months earlier. He was then recruited to be chief of security at the World Trade Center. His body was found in a staircase inside the south tower rubble.

Possible early warning

  • On September 12, 2001, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that San Franscisco Mayor Willie Brown may have received an early warning of the attack, because Brown had said a phone call from his airport security eight hours before the attacks advised him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel. He did not cancel his flight plans until he became aware of the attacks.
  • Of the call, Brown said it "didn't come in any alarming fashion, which is why I'm hesitant to make an alarming statement. It was not an abnormal call. I'm always concerned if my flight is going to be on time, and they always alert me when I ought to be careful."

Allegations of insider trading by people with foreknowledge

News accounts in the aftermath reported a suspicious pattern of trading in the options of United and American Airlines as well as Morgan Stanley and other unusual market activity.

"Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks. Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account."

However, according to the 9/11 Commission, the SEC and FBI examined each trade, the trades were innocuous, and no evidence of a connection was found:

A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10. Similarly, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, that recommended these trades.

  • Numerous conspiracy theorists express doubts that the Commission was actually able to explain worldwide trading patterns around the 9/11 attacks.

World Trade Center

Main article: Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center See also: Collapse of the World Trade Center

The collapse of the World Trade Center was a surprise to the engineering community, in part because no skyscraper had ever before completely collapsed due to fire. Even Osama bin Laden, in a December, 2001 video (although the translation of the video has been called into question), stated that the best he expected was that: "the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only." On September 11, 2001, three skyscrapers collapsed and the challenge for engineers has been to explain how the local damage caused by the airplanes (or, in the case of WTC 7, falling debris) was able to bring on a global progressive collapse. After a three-year investigation, and building on preliminary studies by ASCE and FEMA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology published an account that has been accepted and backed up by the engineering community.

Conspiracy theorists, however, question the NIST's report and suggest that the towers were brought down in a "controlled demolition". The discussion plays a central, albeit not essential, role in the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. However, the NIST has explicitly rejected this hypothesis and it has received no credit from structural engineering experts. Van Romero, a demolitions expert in New Mexico, was the first to suggest a demolition in public. On the day of the attacks, he said that the collapses looked "too methodical" to have been brought on by the impacts and subsequent fires and proposed explosives in the building to account for the images he saw on television. He later retracted his suggestion and insisted that he had "only said that that's what it looked like." Jeff King and Jim Hoffman were early defenders of the controlled demolition hypothesis and published their observations online. David Ray Griffin included the theory in his book The New Pearl Harbor. It received its most notable proponent to date in early 2006, when Steven E. Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, argued that a "gravity driven collapse" without demolition charges would defy the laws of physics.

There is a range of opinion about the most likely sort and amount of explosives, the way they were distributed, and how they were successfully brought into the building. Proponents of the hypothesis sometimes cite reports of what they believe are unusual power outages, maintenance work and emergency drills in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2001. Some conspiracy theorists propose a regular controlled demolition, in which the role of the demolition charges would have been to remove the main structural supports in order to let gravity and the weight of the building do the rest. Steven Jones believes that thermite (thermate), perhaps in combination with other devices, was likely involved.

There is widespread agreement, however, about the significance of the controlled demolition hypothesis, even among those who don't endorse it specifically or conspiracy theories in general. The necessary explosives could only have been planted well in advance of the September 11 attacks and would have required extraordinary access to three highly secured buildings. These housed not only some of the most important financial infrastructure in the United States, but offices of government agencies. If it were to be demonstrated that the collapses were in fact demolitions, it would give much credibility to the idea that the attacks were an "inside job".

Pentagon

Security camera footage purporting to show American Airlines Flight 77 (far right) just before impact.
File:Lawn1.jpg
The Pentagon, after collapse of the damaged section.

Claims that the Pentagon was hit by something significantly smaller than a Boeing 757 (typically a missile or smaller aircraft) have been raised by some conspiracy theorists based on photographs in which there appears to be a lack of expected debris or pieces of a commercial aircraft within the immediate impact area, and what some believe is a lack of damage to the building and the lawn. One of the first proponents of this conspiracy theory was Thierry Meyssan in his book 9/11: The Big Lie, the idea was also put advanced by the website Hunt the Boeing! and the popular internet video Loose Change. A likely cause of these ideas was the initial scarcity of documentation of the attack. The only evidence available consisted of long-distance photographs taken after the attack, eyewitness testimony from individuals at the scene, and five video frames captured by a security camera and released on March 8, 2002. Some of the evidence was not released until after the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and several Freedom of Information Act requests.

Suspicions were additionally fueled by a lack of video footage of the impact of the jetliner, since many assume that the Pentagon must be subject to intense camera surveillance for security reasons. In addition to the Pentagon's own security cameras, these people also noted that security camera footage from a nearby Citgo gas station and from the Virginia Department of Transportation was confiscated by the US government. On May 16, 2006 the security camera footage was released as part of a Judicial Watch's FOIA request. However, due to a low number of frames per second, the videos do not clearly show the impact of the plane, only the approach of the plane (at an angle) and the explosion cloud, thus keeping "no Boeing" theory popular. In addition to the security cam footage, the Citgo footage was released on 15 September, 2006, but did not show the attacks. The FBI is to release the Doubletree Hotel by November 9, 2006. Others are trying to obtain the over eighty other tapes confiscated in the Pentagon area after the attacks.

The Pentagon "no Boeing" theory constitutes a controversial issue, even among conspiracy theorists. Several researchers have shown that the wings would cause less damage than the plane's main body, that photographs of large amounts of wreckage and debris matching a 757 is available, that the appearance of the size of the hole is typically misrepresented; and that the actual fuselage diameter of 12 feet is a much more relevant dimension for the deepest parts of the hole than the overall 44 foot height of the 757's tail. Purdue University also released a study with results that recreated the attack. According to Purdue, the plane was like a "sausage skin" because of the speed of impact. Moreover, hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw the aircraft close up as it approached the Pentagon describe it as an American Airlines Boeing 757.

War games and training exercises

See also: United States military exercises scheduled for September 11, 2001

Some conspiracy theorists assert that government and military exercises point to a cover-up. There were a number of drills being performed on the morning of 9-11. US Rep. Cynthia McKinney, economist Michel Chossudovsky, and publisher/editor Michael Ruppert of From the Wilderness are a few of the individuals who have questioned these exercises.

The following war games and training events were being conducted by USAF, NORAD, CIA, NRO, FAA and FEMA:

  • Northern Vigilance: a yearly Air Force drill simulating a Russian attack, in which defense aircraft normally patrolling the Northeast are re-deployed to Canada and Alaska.
  • Vigilant Guardian: a NORAD exercise posing an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide with a simulated air war and an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States.
  • On the morning of 9/11, 50 minutes before Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the National Reconnaissance Office, who are responsible for operating US reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, four miles from Dulles airport.
  • Tripod II, a FEMA drill simulating a biowarfare attack in New York City, was to take place on September 12th. FEMA set up a command post for this exercise at Pier 29 on September 10th.

It is theorized that with these multiple training scenarios being carried out that NORAD, FAA and other military personnel would have been confused in the event of a real attack. McKinney has twice questioned Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about these 9/11 war games during his testimony before Congress.

The single greatest question that remains over the attack on the pentagon, is how come after over 40 years of cold war with the USSR, is the head quarters of the largest and most sophisticated military on earth is completely undefended from air attack? How is it possible that an instrument as blunt as a Boeing, essentially a low speed flying bus, is all that is required to hit the single most strategically important military target on the planet?

The President's behavior

President Bush was promoting the passage of his education plan at Emma E. Booker Elementary School on the morning of September 11. Two aspects of his behaviour have been offered as indications that he had privileged access to the planning and execution of the events of 9/11. First, neither Bush nor his security personnel responded to the terrorist attacks in a manner that indicated that the President might be in danger, though he would presumably be among the targets of a coordinated terrorist attack. His continuing to read The Pet Goat to a classroom of schoolchildren, which was criticized in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, would be understandable if he knew what the plan was in advance. Second, Bush made statements on two separate occasions, in late 2001 and early 2002, that suggested he had seen the first plane hit the World Trade Center. But unless he had some special access to the events of that day, he could not have seen the first plane hit the tower live on commercial television, since no television stations were covering that area when the first plane hit. The White House explained his remarks as "a mistaken recollection"

Allegations of cover-up

Conspiracy theorists believe that officials investigating the September 11 attacks are all involved in a "cover-up" meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict the "official account".

News stories they associate with that pattern include:

  • "Bush asks Daschle to limit Sept. 11 probes"
  • "Bush Opposes 9/11 Query Panel"
  • "The Battle Back Home"
  • "Whistleblower Complains of FBI Obstruction"
  • "9-11 Commission Funding Woes"
  • "Bush: Documents sought by 9/11 commission 'very sensitive'"
  • "9/11 commission finishes Bush, Cheney session"
  • "An Incomplete Investigation - Why did the 9/11 Commission ignore "Able Danger"?""

Other points of interest

  • Former US Representative Cynthia McKinney led a Capitol Hill hearing on July 23, 2005, into "what warnings the Bush administration received before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001." Panelist and former CIA official Melvin Goodman was quoted as saying "Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as a contrarian and I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom." Many 9/11 conspiracy theorists testified at the hearing, including Michael Ruppert, Peter Dale Scott, David Ray Griffin, Wayne Madsen and several others.
  • Between 1993 and 2000, Marvin Bush, President Bush's brother was a principal in a company that provided security for both the World Trade Center and United Airlines. According to an article by David Ray Griffin "from 1999 to January of 2002 their cousin Wirt Walker III was the CEO." According to its president CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down". This last statement has been used by some conspiracy theorists to say that the contract "expired" on September 11, 2001. Barbara Bush allegedly confirmed this theory in her book Reflections (ISBN 0-7432-2359-4) also stating 9/11 was the day the contract expired. However, no specific quote is provided to support this allegation, and a search for the words "contract" or "expired" yields no results. Mr. Bush was also a former director and now is an advisor to the board of directors to a firm HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc that had what it called a small participation in the World Trade Center property insurance coverage and some of the surrounding buildings. Marvin Bush was on a subway under Wall Street when the attacks happened.
  • The day before the 9/11 attacks, President Bush's father - former President George H.W. Bush - had been present at a Carlyle Business Conference with a brother of Osama bin Laden. The New York Times reported that members of the bin Laden family were driven or flown under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas and then to Washington from where they left the country on a private charter plane when airports reopened three days after the attacks.. The official 9/11 commission later concluded that "the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United State on charter flights."
  • Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a letter to President Bush said, “September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren’t those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?” He also wrote, “Some believe that the hype paved the way-- and was the justification-- for an attack on Afghanistan”.
  • Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in remarks delivered on September 12th 2006 said that it was plausable the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks and that "The hypothesis is not absurd ... that those towers could have been dynamited". The motive might have been "To justify the aggressions that immediately were unleashed on Afghanistan, on Iraq"
  • Although it had distanced itself from their brother and former company employee, The Saudi Binladin Group's corporate website, expired on September 11, 2001, the same day as the attacks in the United States. Several websites cited in this article use this fact to suggest foreknowledge of the attacks.
  • The Washington Post reported in its August 3, 2006 edition that "For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances" and that "Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial account of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public" and that "Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted". Sources told the Post this was done to hide a bungled Pentagon response.

Claims that some of the hijackers are still alive

Initial news reports shortly after 9/11 indicated that some of the hijackers were alive, fueling speculation that others were responsible.

The BBC News reported on September 23, 2001, that some of the people named by the FBI as hijackers, killed on the crashes, were actually alive and well.

One of the hijackers was Waleed al-Shehri, and according to the BBC report he was found in Casablanca, Morocco.

  • However, the al-Shehri's father says he hadn't heard from his sons in ten months prior to September 2001. An ABC News story in March 2002 repeated this, and during a report entitled "A Saudi Apology" for Dateline NBC on Aug 25, 2002, NBC's reporter John Hockenberry traveled to 'Asir, where he interviewed the third brother Salah who agreed that his two brothers were dead and said they had been "brainwashed".
  • Furthermore, another article explains that the pilot who lives in Casablanca was named Walid al-Shri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) and that much of the BBC information regarding "alive" hijackers was incorrect according to the same sources used by BBC.

According to the BBC report, Abdulaziz Al Omari, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khalid al-Midhar, three other hijackers, were also living in the Middle East.

  • A man with the same name as Abdulaziz Al Omari turned up alive in Saudi Arabia, saying that he had studied at the University of Denver and his passport was stolen there in 1995. The name, origin, birth date, and occupation were released by the FBI, but the picture was not of him. "I couldn't believe it when the FBI put me on their list", he said. "They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this." This individual was not the same person as the hijacker whose identity was later confirmed by Saudi government interviews with his family, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.
  • On 23 September, 2001, the BBC and The Telegraph reported that a person named Saeed al-Ghamdi was alive and well. His name, birth date, origin, and occupation were the same as those released by the FBI, but his picture was different. He says that he studied flight training in Florida flight schools from 1998 to 2001. The journalist involved with the story later admitted "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time."
  • After the attacks, reports began emerging saying that al-Mihdhar was still alive. On September 19, the FDIC distributed a "special alert" which listed al-Mihdhar as alive. The Justice Department says that this was a typo.

The BBC and The Guardian have since reported that there was evidence al-Mihdhar was still alive and that some of the other hijackers identities were in doubt. This was commented on by FBI director Robert Mueller. Der Spiegel later investigated the claims of "living" hijackers by the BBC and discovered them to be cases of mistaken identities. In 2002, Saudi Arabia admitted that the names of the hijackers were in fact correct. None of the hijackers have turned up alive since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Motives

Theories as to why members of the US government would have allowed the attacks to occur, perpetrated the attacks, and/or obstructed the investigation generally involve one or more of the following:

  • Michel Chossudovsky in an article entitled "The Criminalization of the State" suggests a simple motive in a plan for a New World Order. This particular theory takes root in a David Rockefeller Statement to the United Nations Business Council in September 1994: We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.
  • An article on whatreallyhappened.com entitled "The 9/11 Reichstag Fire" suggests that the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have been responsible. It cites as evidence a statement from page 51 of a document titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century' published by PNAC: Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.
  • The Web site OilEmpire.us proposed that 9/11 was arranged by the U.S. government in order to benefit the arms manufacturing and oil industries.
  • The Web site 9-11 Review listed several other benefits of the attacks as possible motives, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President Bush's surge in popularity, Halliburton's defense contracts for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a $2.2 billion insurance payout to the owner of the World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein.

Less common theories

  • NewsMax.com reported that people within and outside the U.S. government believed that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein conspired in the 9/11 attacks and the Oklahoma City Bombing. The theory extended from the one advanced by investigative journalist Jayna Davis in her book The Third Terrorist linking Hussein to the Oklahoma City Bombing. It was discussed in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.
  • Judi McLeod of Canada Free Press suggested the possible involvement of the mafia.
  • Some 9/11 conspiracy theories lead into the more general landscape of conspiracy theories where the US government is seen as dominated by powerful hidden groups such as Jews("Zionist Occupation Government"), the United Nations, the Freemasons or even Satanic reptiles from outer space.

Media reaction

File:LeMond-9-11FrontPage.png
Le Monde Diplo Norway July 2006

While discussion and coverage of these theories is mainly confined to internet chat sites, a number of mainstream news outlets around the world have covered the issue, many of them focusing on the absence of structural engineering experts among the 9/11 conspiracy theorists, and the plethora of philosophers and theologians.

In the July 2006 edition of the Norwegian version of Le Monde diplomatique, the headline story asked, "11 September : An Inside Job?" and surveyed the various theories discussing the official US version of 9/11, withholding any truth judgment on them.

An article in the September 11th 2006 edition of the United States newsweekly Time Magazine titled “Why The 9/11 Conspiracies Won't Go Away” states that the major 9/11 conspiracy theories “depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses” and the continued popularity of these theories are due to “the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting”. It concludes that “conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events like Sept. 11. Conspiracy theories form around them like scar tissue. In a curious way, they're an American form of national mourning.”

Criticism

Critics of these alternative theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation (Barkun, 2003). A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, has suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Eagar's criticisms also exempflify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if (the argument) gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." This, he continues, happened when Steve Jones took up the issue. The basic assumption is that conspiracy theories emerge a set of previously held or quickly assembled beliefs about how society works, which are then legitimized by further "research". Taking such beliefs seriously, even if only to criticize them, it is argued, merely grants them further legitimacy.

The German magazine Der Spiegel summarily dismissed all skeptical accounts of the 9/11 attacks as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons."

Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and The Skeptic's Dictionary published articles that challenge and discredit various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Popular Mechanics published a book length version of their article. Scientific American described 9/11 conspiracy theory scholarly rigor as "he mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (as well as Holocaust denial and the various crank theories of physics)."

See also

Videos

References

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  4. "Strategy for Winning the War on Terror". White House. September 2006.
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  15. This basic argument can be found a variety of forms in the work of David Ray Griffin, Webster Griffin Tarpley, Michael C. Ruppert and Ahmed M. Afeez.
  16. This document is available in its entirety online.
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  28. http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/europe/09/24/gen.europe.shortselling/
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  31. page 51 of the Commission Report, PDF
  32. http://911research.wtc7.net/sept11/stockputs.html
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  47. CITGO Gas Station Cameras Near Pentagon Evidently Did Not Capture Attack
  48. flight 77.info - documenting the legal process to obtain government-held video recordings related to flight 77 on 9/11
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  50. Pentagon missile hoax: the "no Boeing" theories discredit 9/11 skepticism and distract from proven evidence of complicity
  51. Evidence That A Boeing 757 Really Did Impact the Pentagon on 9/11
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  53. Snopes - Hunt the Boeing!
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Books

  • The 9/11 Commission Report
  • The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions - David Ray Griffin
  • 9/11: The Big Lie - Thierry Meyssan
  • 9/11 Revealed : The Unanswered Questions - Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall
  • Crossing the Rubicon - Michael Ruppert
  • Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center
  • The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11 - James Ridgeway
  • Inside 9-11 : What Really Happened - Der Spiegel Magazine
  • Pentagate - Thierry Meyssan
  • Waking up from our Nightmare: The 9/11 Crimes in New York City - Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, ISBN 0943096103
  • Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23805-2.
  • Laurent, Eric (2004). La face cachée du 11 septembre. Plon. ISBN 2-259-20030-3.
  • 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, by Webster Griffin Tarpley
  • The New Pearl Harbor - David Ray Griffin
  • Der Spiegel (2002). Inside 9-11: What Really Happened. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-30621-0.
  • Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts - The Editors of Popular Mechanics. ISBN 1-58816-635-X

External links

Final report of the "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States" (9-11 Commission), chaired by Thomas H. Kean
Cynthia McKinney's July 2005 Congressional Briefing on 9/11
June 1, 2001, directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff changing rules on intercepting hijacked planes

Conspiracy theories

Descriptions of and evidence for various conspiracy theories

Mainstream news organizations

Webpages

Flight 93

Videos

Blogs

  • "911blogger". 911Blogger.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30. Latest news and research
  • "American-Freedom.org". Retrieved 2006-07-30. News, research, information, blog, links, and a vast video library

Debunking conspiracy claims

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