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APPENDICES
"It's important that Bush answer the questions
raised by the events of September 11" The need for an investigation of the events surrounding September 11 is as obvious as is the need for an investigation of the Enron debacle. Certainly, if the American people deserve answers about what went wrong with Enron and why (and we do), then we deserve to know what went wrong on September 11 and why. Are we squandering our goodwill around the world with what many believe to be incoherent, warmongering policies that alienate our friends and antagonize our allies? How much of a role does our eliance on imported oil play in the military policies being put forward by the Bush Administration? And what role does the close relationship between the Bush Administration and the oil and defense industries play, if any, in the policies that are currently being pursued by this Administration? We deserve to know what went wrong on September 11 and why. After all, we hold thorough public inquiries into rail disasters, plane crashes, and even natural disasters in order to understand what happened and to prevent them from happening again or minimizing the tragic effects when they do. Why then does the Administration remain steadfast in its opposition to an investigation into the biggest terrorism attack upon our nation? News reports from Der Spiegel to the London Observer, from the Los Angeles Times to MSNBC to CNN, indicate that many different warnings were received by the Administration. In addition, it has even been reported that the United States government broke bin Laden's secure communications before September 11. Sadly, the United States government is being sued today by survivors of the Embassy bombings because, from court reports, it appears clear that the US had received prior warnings, but did little to secure and protect the staff at our embassies. Did the same thing happen to us again? I am not aware of any evidence showing that President Bush or members of his administration have personally profited from the attacks of 9-11. A complete investigation might reveal that to be the case. For example, it is known that President Bush's father, through the Carlyle Group had -- at the time of the attacks -- joint business interests with the bin Laden construction company and many defense industry holdings, the stocks of which, have soared since September 11. On the other hand, what is undeniable is that corporations close to the Administration, have directly benefited from the increased defense spending arising from the aftermath of September 11. The Carlyle Group, DynCorp, and Halliburton certainly stand out as companies close to this Administration. Secretary Rumsfeld maintained in a hearing before Congress that we can afford the new spending, even though the request for more defense spending is the highest increase in twenty years and the Pentagon has lost $2.3 trillion. All the American people are being asked to make sacrifices. Our young men and women in the military are being asked to risk their lives in our War Against Terrorism while our President's first act was to sign an executive order denying them high deployment overtime pay. The American people are being asked to make sacrifices by bearing massive budget cuts in the social welfare of our country, in the areas of health care, social security, and civil liberties for our enhanced military and security needs arising from the events of September 11; it is imperative that they know fully why we make the sacrifices. If the Secretary of Defense tells us that his new military objectives must be to occupy foreign capital cities and overthrow regimes, then the American people must know why. It should be easy for this Administration to explain fully to the American people in a thorough and methodical way why we are being asked to make these sacrifices and if, indeed, these sacrifices will make us more secure. If the Administration cannot articulate these answers to the American people, then the Congress must. This is not a time for closed-door meetings and this is not a time for secrecy. America's credibility, both with the world and with her own people, rests upon securing credible answers to these questions. The world is teetering on the brink of conflicts while the Administration's policies are vague, wavering and unclear. Major financial conflicts of interest involving the President, the Attorney General, the Vice President and others in the Administration have been and continue to be exposed. This is a time for leadership and judgment that is not compromised in any fashion. This is a time for transparency and a thorough investigation. ***
OPINION ARTICLE "I was derided by spokespersons for the
military-industrial complex
as a conspiracy theorist." Several weeks ago, I called for a congressional investigation into what warnings the Bush Administration received before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. I was derided by the White House, right wing talk radio, and spokespersons for the military-industrial complex as a conspiracy theorist. Even my patriotism was questioned because I dared to suggest that Congress should conduct a full and complete investigation into the most disastrous intelligence failure in American history. Georgia Senator Zell Miller even went so far as to characterize my call for hearings as "dangerous, loony and irresponsible." Today's revelations that the administration, and President Bush, were given months of notice that a terrorist attack was a distinct possibility points out the critical need for a full and complete congressional investigation. It now becomes clear why the Bush Administration has been vigorously opposing congressional hearings. The Bush Administration has been engaged in a conspiracy of silence. If committed and patriotic people had not been pushing for disclosure today's revelations would have been hidden by the White House. Because I love my country, because I am a patriot, and because the American people deserve the truth, I believe it would be dangerous, loony and irresponsible not to hold full congressional hearings on any warnings the Bush Administration had before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Ever since I came to Congress in 1992, there are those who have been trying to silence my voice. I've been told to "sit down and shut up" over and over again. Well, I won't sit down and I won't shut up until the full and unvarnished truth is placed before the American people. *** Ed Royce: "We are the victims" Ed Royce was not a witness of the attack that struck the Pentagon. The Republican Congressman from California is nevertheless positive -- it was in fact a Boeing 757-200. The proof: he personally knows the victims of the crash, notably the pilot, a former classmate. That's enough for him. The rest is negationism and pro-radical Islamic propaganda. "Look what he's done again," says Ed Royce handing us a transcript of Thierry Meyssan's speech before the Arab League on 8 April 2002. For the Representative of the state of California, the author of The Big Lie distorts the facts. He accuses him of playing the game of pro-radical Islamic propaganda. "I went to Afghanistan, and you know what I heard on the Taliban radio? They said: all that's an American plot to unjustly accuse Osama bin Laden!" And Ed Royce becomes indignant: "We are the victims." This rhetoric stems, according to him, from negationism. To call into question the reality of the attack on the Pentagon is as serious as doubting the existence of concentration camps. "My father saw Dachau, he showed me the photos [...] and yet I heard him fighting against people who claimed the Holocaust never took place or that the Jews provoked it themselves by accusing others." "Lies" When one questions Ed Royce about the lack of evidence produced by the authorities concerning the crash at the Pentagon, he satisfies himself with a few photos of debris, that are nevertheless unauthenticated as such. It can only be a radical Islamic attack organized with external assistance. "We know who committed these acts," he declares with total assurance. In contrast to Cynthia McKinney, the Democratic Congresswoman from Georgia, Ed Royce sees no interest in calling for a Congressional inquiry. "What is inexplicable" is "this book", a "tissue of lies". However, the Representative of the state of California evades certain questions. What does he make of the phone call received by the Secret Service at the White House, emanating from anonymous individuals who presented themselves with the identification and transmission codes of the Presidency? This information was reported by the Washington Post, the New York Times and the WorldNetDaily. Ed Royce carefully avoids answering us, pretending to believe this information comes from The Big Lie, and concludes that it is fraudulent in nature. They would in fact be American lies, because they have been proffered by the most serious press organs in the country. It's difficult for Ed Royce to admit that in the United States itself, one still can ask questions about the events of 9/11. The possibility of internal complicity is, on the other hand, inconceivable. According to Congressman Royce, thanks to their institutions, Americans are "well-protected" from lobbying attempts. The Constitution and the law shelter politicians from a coup d'etat. He counts enormously on bipartisanship to permit a sort of countervailing power, each party checking the other. Is this theory of the balance of political forces still applicable today? That is not the opinion of Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. In these times of war, it seems impossible to exercise any control over the Republican administration, and this is prevented in the name of national unity and the war against terrorism. Valerie Labrousse *** Cynthia McKinney: For several days now, nobody makes fun anymore of Cynthia McKinney in the corridors of Congress. Her peers were not mocking the Democratic Congresswoman from George for her colorful attire. Only a few days after the events of 9/11, McKinney was already on the warpath ... against the sudden omnipotence of the Bush administration and the restrictions of freedom imposed by the Patriot Act. "What did the Bush administration know and when did it learn about it?" asks Cynthia McKinney. At the time we interviewed her, colleagues, whether Democrats or Republicans, accompanied her interventions before Congress with jeers. Today, with the international press devoting its front pages to the "mea culpa" of the White House, the Representative of the state of Georgia is no longer on duty as Congress's anti-patriotic, conspiracy theory crank. Although Cynthia McKinney's words might be more moderate. From 21 September, she has bitterly criticized the process of restricting fundamental civil liberties unleashed by the White House in the name of the war against terrorism. But above all, she asks publicly why no security measures were taken prior to 11 September, when the CIA and the FBI were apparently informed of imminent attacks on American territory. Tony Blair, Bush's foreign minister Cynthia McKinney also wonders about the fate of an American intelligence officer detained in Canada, a certain Delmart Vreeland, who is supposed to have tried to warn the Canadian secret services of the attacks yet to come. These are not the fantastical allegations of an "imposter", but public statements of a representative of the American people. The Congresswoman's worries are equally those of 12,000 people, mostly American citizens, who signed an online petition demanding an official inquiry into the "peculiarities" of the events (see the interview with Carlos Jacinto). The prime mover behind this petition, Lori Price, has for her part told Digipresse that she would send a copy of this document to the Congresswoman from Georgia who is intent on voicing the questions of her fellow citizens. In the name of the latter, as early as 25 September she was demanding "irrefutable proof" of the culpability of Osama bin Laden and the Taliban government. She has not obtained satisfaction up to this day. Cynthia McKinney does not hesitate to accuse the Bush administration of having dispatched Tony Blair, "the real American foreign minister" on missions instead of Colin Powell, who imprudently promised a report on the events. This obstinacy in demanding a serious investigation has brought down upon her the wrath of Republicans, who see her as anti-patriotic. Now, an investigation into Republican affairs might reveal "too much information". And the Democrats, like Thomas Daschle, their Senate leader, won't take the risk, feeling constrained to submit to the consensual view: those against the war are against the United States. "In a time of national unity," McKinney says ironically in an imitation of President Bush, "we couldn't allow ourselves that [...] so let us continue our war against terrorism". It's what Cynthia McKinney calls "the conspiracy of silence". Who profits from the crime? Cynthia McKinney also wants explanations about the enormous profits generated by unusual stock market movements several days before 9/11. According to her, the amounts at stake total billions upon billions of dollars. The scandal involves insider trading that would implicate a number of holdings, "very big players", big enough to be comparable with national governments. The Congresswoman refers to Unocal, responsible for the oil pipeline project in central Asia. Unocal is said to have landed the deal thanks to support from the powerful Carlyle group. One finds this multinational group again listed as the 11th largest manufacturer of American defense equipment. George Bush senior, a member of the Carlyle group's board of directors, made several official visits to Saudi Arabia between 1998 and 2000. On these occasions, he met with representatives of the bin Laden family. And what about flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon? If Cynthia McKinney hadn't yet read Thierry Meyssan's book at the time we interviewed her, she had on the other hand learned of a document to which the author of The Big Lie also makes reference. James Bamford, investigative journalist, reproduced this document, previous classified "Top Secret", in his book, Body of Secrets. In it, one discovers that forty years ago certain members of the American military leadership had planned and approved the organization of attacks on the national territory. Attributed to the Cuban regime, these "plane-bombs" would have justified an American attack against Fidel Castro. " It that was conceivable forty years ago, why not today?" asks the Congresswoman. For Cynthia McKinney, the real questions thus remain: "Who are the authors of the attacks ? Why? How? Who helped them? Who knew? And who permitted this to happen? [...] The American people deserve to have the answers." Has the Representative from Georgia contributed to breaking a taboo? That's by no means certain, the discordant voice of Cynthia McKinney could well be smothered by the probable security measures following the next attacks, which we are told will be even more savage. But this time, the FBI seems to know. Valerie Labrousse *** Carlos Jacinto: " A lot of things to clear up" Carlos Jacinto, 21 years old, is one of the signatories of the online petition demanding explanations for the events of 11 September. The American Senate will soon receive the document signed by only 12,000 Internet users as of date. The interview he granted to Digipresse was prior to the latest revelations concerning the White House. A student in political science at the University of Washington, Carlos Jacinto is above all an American citizen who questions the "hidden agenda" of the September 11 attacks. "There are lot of things to clear up," he starts by saying. For example, why did "Bush grant 43 million dollars in aid to the Taliban for the war against drugs in May, only a few months before the attacks?" His unanswered questions made him decide to sign a petition asking for an inquiry into the responsibilities and circumstances surrounding the events of 11 September. For Carlos, it's not a matter of making wild accusations or formulating a full-fledged indictment, but of simply posing questions. Economic interests The "problem" according to him does not revolve around the existence of the plane. He doesn't want to express an opinion about a book he hasn't read. It's more the political and economical aspects of the attacks that interest Carlos Jacinto. He wonders about the legitimacy of the financial transactions, the possibility of insider trading and particularly about the strategy of the company Unocal to win the deal for the construction of a pipeline in Afghanistan. What he has difficulty accepting is the idea "that the taxpayers have paid to help the Taliban, then paid again to support the war effort". The silence of the Bush government angers him, as do the silences of the Democratic opposition, and of its representative in the Senate, Tom Daschle. Without formulating clearly the word "plot", Jacinto ventures as far as saying that the events of "Nine Eleven" are closely linked to economic interests. "The bankruptcy of the company Enron has something to do with all these stories." "A just war" An American citizen, Carlos Jacinto was, like many of his fellow countrymen, in favor of the war in Afghanistan. "This war was just because we had to deliver these people from the extremists, and after all, we were responding to an attack on American unlike any other since Pearl Harbor!" But like a number of other American citizens as well, he does not wish to see his country bog down in wars that remind him of Vietnam. "Before sending our troops throughout the world, we have to know why and justify it, organize it. And I don't see any planning!" A petition for an inquiry The online petition signed by Carlos Jacinto and 12,000 other Internet users, was drawn up by Lori Price, editor and webmistress of Falloutshelternews.com and Legitgov.org. These two sites gather much information about the attacks in the United States. What are questions being raised by Lori Price? In a general way, she dwelt on the financial transactions that took place just before the attacks. These transactions, principally those involving the United Airlines company, according to an article in the San Francisco Chronicle, are said to have permitted anonymous investors to make enormous profits by counting on the closure of the stock exchange during the four days following the crash, and betting on the fall in share prices. Indeed, between 6 and 10 September speculations on a drop in prices permitted the purchase of 4,744 sale options on United Airlines shares against only 395 buy options. The same scenario took place with American Airlines on 10 September (4,516 sales options against 748 buy options). Lastly, Lori Price also wonders about the role of the Carlyle group. This powerful multinational is said to have backed Unocal in its bid for a contract estimated to be worth two billion dollars, for the construction of a pipeline across Afghanistan. Lori Price's online petition has received for the moment 12,615 signatures. "I would like to submit it to the Senate and the media when have reached 20,000 signatures." The list of unresolved mysteries on "9/11" is a long one. Like that of the profits reaped. The petition, which has been posted on the Net for several months now, enumerates twelve of these mysteries. Number 11 has since taken on a particular resonance. It involves "the hypothesis" that George Bush was warned of the attacks". Valerie Labrousse *** Mike Walter: "Neither missile nor bomb, an American Airlines plane" Mike Walters is a journalist for the daily newspaper, USA Today. His testimony is crucial because he says he saw it all: the airplane, the trajectory, the impact and the debris. On the morning of 11 September, Mike Walter was on the Colombia Pike, going in the opposite direction to Steve Riskus. The Pentagon was a few hundred yards on his right when he saw an American Airlines plane pass over him on the left. The plane was headed in the opposite direction to the Pentagon, but he then saw it turn "fairly slowly". Next, once the turn was carried out, according to him the plane accelerated, crossed his route and plunged directly at the Pentagon. Mike Walters is a crucial witness because he describes all of the phases of the catastrophe: the trajectory, its relatively slow speed at the start, its final acceleration and the impact. He also says he saw the American Airlines logo when the vehicle turned towards the Pentagon. He had plenty of time to notice that the plane was low and that it hadn't deployed its landing gear. His statement confirms the other testimonies: the plane hit a lamppost, it entered straight into the building and it did not hit the ground before impact. Traffic was dense, so he was driving slowly, the place where he was had a particularly clear view. His visibility was perfect, in contrast to that of Steve Riskus. "Disintegration": an ambiguous term His testimony is much better founded. He says in fact that he stopped and got out of the car because he "knew that this would be the subject he'd be covering that day". He was thus able to see pieces of the plane. According to him, if the explosion didn't cause damage to the nearby trees and cars, it was because the violence of the impact was propagated upwards rather than in a horizontal fashion. The airplane, he says, continued on its course inside the Pentagon, but the wings did not enter the building. They were folded back. [7] According to Mike Walter, the explosion was such that the plane disintegrated. Not in the sense that it had disappeared, because this term is ambiguous, but in such a way that it parts were reduced to small pieces disseminated all around. He claims to have seen men gathering the debris and placing it in bags bearing the inscription "evidence". Finally, he explained about the first testimony that he gave to CNN in which he declared, "it was like a cruise missile with wings". In reality, he had resorted to using a metaphor because for him, that day, this commercial jet "was like a missile or a bomb since it was used to kill people". Mike Walter loses his temper slightly when one tries to put to the test what he saw. "It wasn't a missile, it wasn't a bomb, it was an airliner from American Airlines and I saw it plunge into the Pentagon." Mike Walter is convinced and convincing. He took the trouble of returning to the scene with us and showing us several times the trajectory of the plane. He pointed out to us the hill where the reporters stood after the tragedy to watch the rescue effort. He also indicated on which lawn the wounded were evacuated and mimed the impact with his hands ... The sole fly in the ointment is that Mike Walter is the only witness in our investigation to have mentioned seeing the debris. Was that because of his particular position during the impact, further to the southwest of the Pentagon where the crash happened? Patriotism versus freedom of the press Beyond the controversy raised by Thierry Meyssan's thesis, we profited from Mike Walter's status as a journalist to ask him about the consequences of the Patriot Act for the freedom of the American press. The restrictions of this law took effect on 11 September and are the subject of a report edited by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press (RCFP) entitled "How the War Against Terrorism Hinders Access to Information and the Public's Right to Information". The document notably evokes the difficulties encountered by reporters in Afghanistan, forbidden by the military to travel in strategic zones. Mike Walter did not deny the existence of these obstacles, but according to him this was nothing new, transparency not being -- by its essence -- a strongpoint of the military. However, he could not imagine the possibility of a plot or any sort of responsibility of military leaders or the American government in the attacks of 11 September. If it that had been the case, the scandal would already have erupted. Because according to him "nobody can keep a secret in this country, and especially not the government or the military". Valerie Labrousse *** Richard Benedetto: "That plane is going to crash into the Pentagon!" The testimony of Richard Benedetto, like Mike Walter a journalist for the daily newspaper, USA Today, mentions in detail the last moments of flight AA 77. Some of his statements, however, contradict those in other testimonies. At the time of the tragedy, Richard Benedetto was also on Colombia Pike, en route to his office. He was not far from Steve Riskus and James Ryan, the other witnesses, when the Pentagon appeared on his left. He then distinctly saw an American Airlines plane pass over him to the left, and noticed that it was headed in a direction opposed to Reagan International Airport. The aircraft was flying very low, its landing gear still tucked inside. Right away, he thought that it "seemed to be heading toward the Pentagon". He saw the aircraft accelerate and speed straight at the building. But, like James Ryan, he was unable to see the impact because the hill obstructed his view. However, as James Ryan did, he described the same ball of fire, the same dull noise at impact and the same black smoke rising above the building. A question of point of view The testimony of Richard Benedetto corroborates the stories of other witnesses (the AA logo on the tail, the lamppost hit by the plane) with some slight variations, however. He did not see the plain waggle its wings as James Ryan said, and neither did he see the debris evoked by Mike Walter, nor could he make out the plane after the tragedy. "The smoke was too black and thick to be able to see anything at all." It is particularly difficult to judge the trajectory of the Boeing he describes because if the Pentagon is on his left, one does not see very well how the plane could have come from behind him on the left (James Ryan also claims this), since Mike Walter, who saw the Pentagon to his right, also perceived flight 77 coming from the left and then performing its turn. This difference in trajectory is, however, difficult to appreciate, because the route along Colombia Pike turns several times before passing in front of the Pentagon, and if for Steve Riskus the plane cut across the road, it is possible that for Richard Benedetto it was following it. Lastly, the trajectory described by Mike Walter was the result of guesswork. It was not a reconstruction and it is difficult to say if the distance at which the plane made his turn coincided with the place where, from the other side of the road, Richard Benedetto saw it. Valerie Labrousse *** Steve Riskus: "Like in a cartoon" Steve Riskus, 24 years old is a "hotliner" in the computer industry. He was present during the crash at the Pentagon, where he was the author of the very first photos, right after the impact. He later published them on his Web site Youthenrage.com, for which on 10 September he registered a new domain name, criticalthrash.com. On 11 September, towards 9 am, Steve Riskus, 24 year old computer hotliner, was taking Colombia Pike on his way to see a friend. The Pentagon was a few hundred yards away on the left. Suddenly on the right, he saw an airplane cross his path and head directly for the Pentagon. He says he saw everything: the distinctive signs of an American Airlines jetliner, and the blue and red line along the vehicle. He noticed that the aircraft was flying very low, "at treetops level", that it was going very fast and that the landing gear had not been deployed. He saw the plane decapitate a highway lamppost and right after hit the wall of the building without touching the ground. "Like in a cartoon, it exploded immediately, there were flames and smoke, I could not see if the wings had entered the wall". He then stopped his car on Colombia Pike, where traffic became immediately blocked due to the shock of the explosion and resulting panic. On the side of the road, he took some pictures with his digital camera. After a few moments, still deeply shocked, he got back into his car and drove aimlessly around the Pentagon, but soon the rescue vehicles, the military and the police blocked off the crash scene. He then went to visit a friend and put his photos online on his site Youthenrage.com. The testimony of Steve Riskus is clear and precise. He has no doubts about the nature of the flying vehicle he saw pass before his eyes and hit the Pentagon. However, his visibility at the time was reduced, he says himself, by the trees along the road, and doubtless he had very little time, perhaps two seconds, in which to glimpse the aircraft. In that case, did he have time to see all these details, to notice that not only was it in fact a plane, but also one belonging to American Airlines, to see the eagle between the two letters AA, and to understand that it did not have the landing gear deployed? Steve Riskus had just heard about the attacks at the WTC. Did he interpret what he saw in light of that context? Several elements in his testimony tend in any case to contradict the official thesis. According to him, the aircraft entered the building straight on and not at an angle of 45°. Next, it did not strike the ground before exploding against the building. Lastly, Steve Riskus made it clear that he had not seen debris and had stood less than 200 yards from the place of the crash long enough to take many snapshots in which there does not appear any element permitting one to recognize an airplane. The case of Steve Riskus is particular. This skateboarding fan created a Web site devoted to his favorite sport in October 2000. Now, on 10 September 2001, the eve of the crash, he registered a new domain name, Criticalthrash.com. This tag makes one pause, as does the date. Steve Riskus said he thought the new name was more "cutting edge" and had copied it from an expression used by cycling fans, bicycle thrash, and registered the name on 10 September because "everybody did something on that day, I registered this name, it's pure chance". Initially, he published the photos under both domain names. That very day he placed a link on his homepage, but later decided to suppress it. Only informed people can effectively go to that page by tapping a very exact precise address that is not accessible otherwise. Why? "Because I didn't want to mix everything up. My Web site has nothing to do with this story. I told people they could see my pictures by typing this address." However, if Steve Riskus's reticence about directly posting photos on his site which have nothing to do with its subject is understandable, a few months later, he added to his page about the crash a list of witnesses. In the meantime, Steve Riskus received e-mails, certain of which alluded the deposit date of his domain name, Criticalthrash.com. "Even my friends asked me for explanations." Then he heard about Thierry Meyssan's book, and was solicited by a Web surfer seeking information. In some discussion forums, the case of Steve Riskus and his Critical-thrash appeared "suspect". To be sure, he registered this new name on 10 September. However, his site existed previously under the name Youthenrage.com. The registrations were carried out in an open fashion, his surname appears on the registry server. He does not know at what point the registration of Critical-thrash became effective. But if one considers that this question only makes sense from the moment one begins to question his motives, one supposes that for him it wasn't very important to know that because in any case his site was already accessible. What he doesn't understand, six months after the crash, is why the press has not used his photos which he offered free of charge and the most immediate ones taken of the event. Another question also remains: in this case, why hasn't the FBI, which claims to have gathered all the evidence in its investigation of the attack, thought it worthwhile to make use of these photos. A person "with good intentions" One day he received a strange phone call from France. A person who said he had "good intentions" and of whom Steve "doesn't remember the name any more" warned him against Thierry Meyssan, who he said was manipulated by the CIA. It's a curious attitude to take the trouble of telephoning from France to warn someone who is not, after all, extremely threatened. Steve Riskus does not seem excessively troubled by the French controversy or by the possibility of an American manipulation being responsible for the attacks on 11 September. The e-mails come, he's used to Internet and responds to everyone but does not become interested in the identity of his correspondents. Had he received an e-mail or a call from Thierry Meyssan or someone from the Reseau Voltaire? He doesn't recall, doesn't think that happened, but what he does know is that he's "never refused to answer whoever it may be". That is not what Thierry Meyssan told us, claiming that one of his collaborators talked on the telephone with Riskus, and that the latter hung up in the middle of the conversation. Valerie Labrousse *** James Ryan: "It was a nightmare" James Ryan had not talked previously to the media. He contacted Digipresse after having watched the interview with Thierry Meyssan on the news stream of Yahoo!/Digipresse shortly after the release of The Big Lie in France. Meyssan's comments were shocking for this former military officer, but not as shocking as the terrible spectacle of the crash of flight AA 77. James Ryan, 27 years old, works in sales for a computer company and is a former press attache for the US Navy. That day, he had to go see a mechanic whose shop was on Colombia Pike which runs past the Pentagon. He heard a plane pass over but did not pay real attention to it because there were planes flying over regularly in that area. However, he then noticed a strange noise that he interpreted as being that of the engines being suddenly cut off. He therefore raised his eyes and saw an aircraft at very low altitude that he immediately identified, he says, as an Boeing belonging to American Airlines. He made it clear that he saw the company's logo, that the aircraft was silver in color, and he also says he could distinguish the windows. He became all at once worried because he noticed that the plane was not on a normal trajectory since it wasn't headed towards Reagan International Airport, and above all because it appeared to him that the vehicle was in its landing phase, although neither the wing flaps nor the landing gear had been activated. The plane flew over his car. At that instant he saw it bank its wings as if it was gliding and had just "avoided the radio tower" in trying to stabilize itself. The next moment, the plane accelerated powerfully and sped straight ahead in the direction of the west wing of the Pentagon. James Ryan could not see the impact because in that place the ground rose above the road level, but he followed the aircraft as it disappeared behind the trees, then he heard a dull noise and saw an orange ball of fire rising in the sky, followed by thick black smoke. He's certain that it was the aircraft that he saw passing at low altitude. "A few instants before, the Pentagon was intact and then the plane did not reappear after the crash. " Emotional but convinced On certain points, James Ryan gives the same details as other witnesses. It was an American Airlines aircraft whose tail logo he recognized. He is even more precise in saying that he could see the windows. Very emotional, he admits that he still has nightmares and that he will remember that plane his entire life. He also took photos after the crash, including one of a member of the Navy, looked dazed and in a state of shock. James Ryan's fragility, however, does not prevent a certain determination when he mimes the plane. And there, what is described could cause some confusion. His very sudden gesture could indeed evoke more the final approach of a missile rather than that of a civilian jet. Since his manner of testifying is indeed extremely subjective and emotional, no objective conclusion can be reasonably drawn here. But his testimony does differ from the others. He is the only person to speak of a peculiar noise equivalent to that an engine losing speed, and the one to have seen the plane pitch as it accelerated. James Ryan did not wish to return to the scene of the crime. He still has nightmares and remembers "all the details of that plane". His eyes blur with tears as he tells that a few instants after the tragedy he saw in the sky, above the black smoke rising from the Pentagon, two eagles soaring over the dramatic scene. A couple of birds who are well-known in the area, it seems. "It was like a sign that we were going to find our strength again, like the Phoenix being reborn from its ashes." Valerie Labrousse *** Ed Plaugher: Memory in Reverse Ed Plaugher, the Arlington fire chief, was with his men on the scene of the attack to take part alongside the Federal teams in rescue efforts and fighting the fire that propagated itself within the Pentagon for several days. Ed Plaugher almost laughs as he affirms: "I can assure you that it was a plane". Talkative, the fire chief of Arlington county enumerates an exhaustive list of the debris he says he saw at the site of the impact: "wings, the fuselage, seats, engines, landing gear, and the black box". On 12 September, however, he told journalists at a briefing in the Pentagon that there was only "small pieces of plane, and above all, no fuselage and no important debris". His uncertain tone almost resembles the embarrassment he betrayed when he almost refused to testify at that same press conference, where they asked him what he thought about the origin of the debris found on the highway in front of the Pentagon. At the time he indicated that he had seen nothing and preferred that journalists address themselves directly to eyewitnesses. Ed Plaugher has thus recovered his memory. But how could he have seen the seats forty minutes after the explosion if the plane had, as the authorities claim, literally disintegrated? In his testimony for Digipresse, the fire chief also explains about the use of water in a kerosene fire. Explanations that at first sight seem plausible according to the press attache of the Paris fire department. Water, Ed Plaugher tells us, is not used to fight a kerosene fire ''as long as the fuel is liquid, but once it's consumed with the objects, once it evaporates, then you can use it". To be sure, but as Ed Plaugher himself says: water was utilized as the "first agent", something which, according to the French fire department official, seems doubtful unless the water was being used away from the heart of the blaze. Another mystery is that, although Ed Plaugher claims to have seen them, according to official sources the plane's black boxes were found only on 14 September "at the very spot where the plane crashed into the Pentagon". The same day, Dick Bridges, another fire officer, said that they were damaged but the FBI thought they might be able to extract data from them. Shortly after, the FBI claimed that they provided no usable data. Six months after the attacks, however, the FBI issued a statement protesting against Thierry Meyssan's work and pointing to the existence as a crucial element of evidence the data from these black boxes ... Contradictions are thus frequent among the pieces of information given to the public over many months. Thus, at the beginning, there were no major pieces of debris, because the impact and fire had made everything disappear. Confidential evidence The FBI refused to meet with us, but nevertheless agreed to answer some questions by telephone. Its representative claimed, while releasing an official statement concerning Thierry Meyssan's book, that the FBI already had in its possession all the evidence necessary to prove the existence of a plane. So today there do in fact exist traces of flight 77 with debris authenticated by a "serial number of the airline company". However, when asked why these elements were not shown to the press and the public, thus silencing the detractors of the official thesis, the FBI spokesman, Fred Murnay declared that the investigation "isn't over" and that consequently, evidence would remain confidential. Yet, according the FBI's Web site, since 26 September, the investigation had been taken over by the DoD, the American Defense ministry. Questioned on this subject, Fred Murnay denied it. Lost in the Katkaesque meanderings of the Federal administration, we ended by obtaining the name of the prosecutor in charge of the investigation. This was prosecutor McNulty, attached to the department for Arlington county where the Pentagon is located. He refused to speak with us and his press attache concluded a conversation with the words: "this investigation is not close to being ended". Alright, but how long will it take? "No doubt, years." One can thus wonder what the FBI discovered in its investigation and its harvest of evidence, because if the elements have "all been gathered together", as Fred Murnay claims, why haven't public proceedings started? Valerie Labrousse ***
NORAD'S RESPONSE TIMES
NORTH AMERICAN DIRECTORATE OF
PUBLIC AFFAIRS, NORTH AMERICAN AEROSPACE DEFENSE COMMAND, NORAD’s Response Times
* All times are Eastern Daylight Time;
NEADS = North East Air Defense Sector, NORAD American Airlines Flight 11 – Boston
enroute to Los Angeles United Airlines Flight 175 – Boston
enroute to Los Angeles American Flight 77 –Dulles enroute to
Los Angeles United Flight 93 – Newark to San
Francisco LECTURE BY THIERRY MEYSSAN, AS GUEST SPEAKER OF THE ARAB LEAGUE [13] "Who's Behind the September 11 Attacks?" We reproduce here below a translation of the text of a lecture given by Thierry Meyssan on 8 April 2002 at the Zayed Center in Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), as a guest of the Arab League and in the presence of the diplomatic corps and the international press. In the first minutes following the first attack on the World Trade Center, officials suggested to the media that the person behind the attacks was Osama bin Laden, the epitome of Muslim fanaticism. Not long after, the recently appointed director of the FBI, Robert Mueller III, designated nineteen kamikazes by name and mobilized all the means at the disposal of his agency to track down their accomplices. The FBI thus never undertook any investigation but, instead, organized a manhunt, which, in the eyes much of the United States public, quickly took on the appearance of an Arab hunt. This reached such a pitch that people were incited to attack, even kill Arabs whom they naively considered collectively responsible for the attacks. There was no investigation by Congress, which, at the request of the White House, renounced exercising its constitutional role, supposedly in order not to adversely affect national security. Nor was there investigation by any media representatives, who had been summoned to the White House and prevailed upon to abstain from following up any leads lest such inquiries also adversely affect national security. If we analyze the attacks of September the eleventh, we notice first off that there was much more to them than the official version acknowledges. 1. We know about only four planes, whereas at one point it was a question of eleven planes. Further, an examination of the insider-trading conducted in relation to the attacks shows put-option speculative trading in the stock of three airline companies: American Airlines, United Airlines and KLM Royal Dutch Airlines. 2. The official version does not include the attack on the White House annex, the Old Executive Office Building (called the "Eisenhower Building"). Yet, on the morning of the eleventh, ABC television broadcast, live, pictures of a fire ravaging the presidential services building. 3. Neither does the official version take into account the collapse of a third building in Manhattan World Trade Center complex, independently of the twin towers. This third building was not hit by a plane. However, it, too, was ravaged by a fire before collapsing for an unknown reason. This building contained the world's biggest secret CIA operations base, where the Agency engaged in economic intelligence gathering that the military-industrial lobby considered a waste of resources that should have been devoted to strategic intelligence gathering. If we look closely at the attack against the Pentagon, we notice that the official version amounts to an enormous lie. According to the Defense Department, a Boeing 757, all trace of which had been lost somewhere over Ohio, flew some 500 kilometers (300 miles) without being noticed. It supposedly entered Pentagon air space and descended on to the lawn surrounding the heliport, bounced off the lawn, broke a wing in collision with an electric transformer station, hit the facade at the level of the ground floor and first story, and was totally consumed by fire, leaving no other traces than two dysfunctional black boxes and pieces of passengers' bodies. It is obviously impossible that a Boeing 757 could, for some 500 kilometers, escape detection by civil and military radar, by fighter-bomber planes sent in pursuit of it and by observation satellites that had just been activated. It is also obviously impossible that a Boeing 757 could enter the Pentagon's air space without being destroyed by one or more of the five missile batteries protecting the building. When one examines the photographs of the facade, taken in the minutes following the attack (even before the Arlington civilian fire fighters had time to deploy), one sees no trace of the right wing on fire in front of the facade, nor any hole in the facade into which the plane could have been swallowed up. Apparently without the least fear of laying itself open to ridicule, the Defense Department declared that the jet engines, made out of tempered steel, had disintegrated under the shock of the impact without damaging the facade. The aluminum of the fuselage is claimed to have combusted at more than 2,500° Celsius [4,500° F] within the building and to have been transformed into gas, but the bodies of the passengers which it contained were so little burned that they were later identified from their finger prints. Responding to journalists during a press conference at the Pentagon, the fire chief claimed that "no voluminous debris from the aircraft" had remained, "nor any piece of the fuselage, nor anything of that sort". He declared that neither he nor his men knew what had become of the aircraft. Close examination of the official photographs of the scene of the attack, taken and published by the Defense Department, shows that no part of the Pentagon bears any mark of an impact that could be attributed to the crash of a Boeing 757. One must acknowledge the evidence: it is impossible that the attack against the Pentagon on September 11, killing 125 persons, was carried out by a jet airliner. The scene of the attack was thoroughly disturbed on the following day by the immediate launch of new construction work, with the result that many of the elements necessary to reconstruct what had happened are missing. The elements that do remain, however, converge in a single hypothesis that it is not possible to prove with certainty. An air traffic controller from Washington has testified seeing on radar an object flying at about 800 kilometers per hour, moving initially toward the White House, then turning sharply toward the Pentagon, where it seemed to crash. The air traffic controller has testified that the characteristics of the flight were such that it could only have been a military projectile. Several hundred witnesses have claimed that they head "a shrill noise like the noise of a fighter-bomber", but nothing like the noise of a civilian aircraft. Eye-witnesses have said that they saw "something like a cruise missile with wings" or a small flying object "like a plane carrying eight or twelve persons". The flying object penetrated the building without causing major damage to the facade. It crossed several of the building rings of the Pentagon, creating in each wall it pierced a progressively bigger hole. The final hole, perfectly circular, measured about one meter eighty in diameter. When traversing the first ring of the Pentagon, the object set off a fire, as gigantic as it was sudden. Huge flames burst from he building licking the facades, then they shrank back just as fast, leaving behind a cloud of black soot. The fire spread through a part of the first ring and along two perpendicular corridors. It was so sudden that the fire protection system could not react. All these testimonies and observations correspond to the effects of an AGM [air to ground missile]-86C of the third (most recent) generation of CALCM [conventional air launched cruise missile [12]], equipped with depleted uranium warheads and guided by GPS [global positioning system]. This type of missile, seen from the side, would easily remind one of a small civilian airplane, but it is not a plane. It produces a shrill whistle comparable to that of a fighter-bomber, can be guided with enough accuracy to be directed through a window, can pierce the most resistant armor and can set off a fire -- independent of its piercing effect -- that will generate heat of over 2,000° Celsius [3,600° F]. This type of missile was developed jointly by the Navy and the Air Force and is fired from a plane. The missile used against the Pentagon destroyed the part of the building where the new Supreme Naval Command Center was being installed. Following the attack, the Navy Chief of Staff, Admiral Vern Walters, failed to show up in the crisis room of the National Military Joint Intelligence Center when the other members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff reported there. Instead, he abruptly left the Pentagon. Who, then, could have fired such a missile on the Pentagon? The answer was given by the off-the-record revelations of Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman, and by Karl Rove, senior advisor to the president, to journalists from the New York Times and the Washington Post. Eighteen days later, these men discounted the veracity of the information they had given the journalists, claiming that they had been speaking under the stress of great emotion. According to those close to George W. Bush, in the course of the morning, the Secret Service received a telephone call from those behind the attacks, apparently in order to make demands. To give credence to their demands, the masterminds revealed the secret codes giving access to the secure telephone lines available to the president for secure communication with the various intelligence agencies and services as well as for access to the nuclear arsenal. In fact, only a very few persons with the highest security clearances, in the top ranks of the government, could have had these codes. It follows that at least one of the persons behind the attacks of September 11 has a top government post, either civilian or military. To give credence to the fable of Islamic terrorists, the United States authorities invented kamikazes. Although it would have been possible for a well organized group of persons to bring fire arms into commercial air liners, the kamikazes apparently used cardboard cutters as their only weapons. They are said to have learned to pilot Boeing 757s and 767s in the space of several hours of simulator training, becoming better pilots than professionals. This mastery allowed them to carry out complex in-flight approach maneuvers. The Justice Department has never explained how it established the list of the kamikazes. The airline companies have furnished the exact number of passengers in each plane, and the passenger lists, incomplete, do not mention the persons who boarded at the last minute. In checking the these lists, one notices that names of the kamikazes are not on them and that only three passengers are not identified for flight 11 and only two for flight 93. It is thus impossible that 19 kamikazes boarded. Further, several of those listed as kamikazes have turned up, alive. The FBI nonetheless maintains that the hijackers have all been definitively identified and that complementary information such as birth dates makes it improbable that they could be confused with persons of the same name. For those who might doubt this, the FBI has a ridiculous proof: whereas the planes burned and the twin towers collapsed, the passport of Mohammed Atta was miraculously found intact on the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center. The existence of hijackers, whether these or others, is confirmed by telephone calls made by several passengers to members of their families. Unfortunately, these conversations are known to us only by hearsay and have not been published, even in the case of those that were recorded. Thus, it has been impossible to verify that they were actually made from a particular cell phone of from a telephone on board. Here, too, we are asked to take the FBI at its word. Further, it was not indispensable to have hijackers to carry out the attacks. The Global Hawk technology, developed by the Air Force, makes it possible to take control of a commercial airliner regardless of the intentions of its pilot(s) and to direct it by remote control. There remains the case of Osama bin Laden. If it is generally admitted that he was a CIA agent or collaborator during the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, the current version of events claims that he turned coat and became public enemy number one of the United States. This story does not bear up under scrutiny either. The French daily le Figaro revealed that last July, Osama bin Laden was a patient at the American hospital in Dubai, where he was visited by the head of CIA regional office. CBS television in the United States has revealed that, on September 10, Osama bin Laden was undergoing dialysis at the Rawalpindi military hospital, under the protection of the Pakistani army. And the renown French journalist Michel Peyrard, who was a prisoner of the Taliban, has recounted how, last November, Osama bin Laden was living openly in Jalalabad while the United States was bombing other regions of the country. It is difficult to believe that the greatest army in the world, come to Afghanistan to arrest him, was unable to do so, while the mollah Omar was able to escape from United States military force on a moped. In view of the elements that I have just presented, it appears that the attacks of September cannot be attributed to foreign terrorists from the Arab-Muslim world -- even if some of those involved might have been Muslim -- but to United States terrorists. The day after the attacks of September 11, United Nations Security Council Resolution 1368 acknowledged "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense in accordance with the Charter", calling on "all States to work together urgently to bring to justice the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these terrorist attacks and stresses that those responsible for aiding, supporting or harboring the perpetrators, organizers and sponsors of these acts will be held accountable". If one wishes to heed the call of the Security Council, to enforce Resolution 1368 and to punish those who really are guilty, the only way to accurately identify the guilty parties is to set up a commission of inquiry whose independence and objectivity are guaranteed by the United Nations. This would also be the only way to preserve international peace. In the meantime, Your Highness, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, the foreign military interventions of the United States of America are devoid of any basis in international law, whether it be their recent intervention in Afghanistan or their announced interventions in Iran, Iraq and in numerous other countries. ______________ [1] Cynthia
McKinney is the Congresswoman (Democrat) for the 4th district of Georgia. [2] Cynthia
McKinney is the Congresswoman (Democrat) for the 4th district of Georgia. [3] Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: Official Web site of Congressman Ed Royce: http://www.house.gov/royce [4] Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: [5] Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: 6. Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: 7. On 21 March 2002, on LCI (French TV news). Mike Walter had another version of the facts: "I saw the jet crash into the building. It was folded like an accordion. There was an explosion, a ball of fire. I got out of my car. I moved forward. There was debris on the ground. I saw it with my own eyes. I can't believe that one can write a book claiming otherwise. There is no doubt in my mind that a plane plunged into the Pentagon. I saw it." 8. Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: 9. Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: 10. Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: 11. Interview available on video at the following
Internet address: 12. See picture at: http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/agm-86c.htm 13.
Web site of the Zayed Center:
http://www.zccf.org.ae
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