9/11 Weekend - New hypothesis to Explain 9/11 - Part I

[Albert Doyle]

Before I get banned, I'm starting to lean towards a controlled demolition for WTC-7. It seems obvious from these witness statements that authorities were openly saying they were going to pull the building. Obviously pulling the building in this context means bringing it down deliberately. I've seen enough government action like the Kennedy Assassination and TWA 800 to know they openly lie in contempt to the American public and this is probably another example where they could compound the effect of 9-11 by bringing a damaged building down at a convenient time. The devil is in the details but it looks like they brought it down intentionally. How they did that is beyond me in a building that was on fire.


Still though, I wish people would be honest and give me a straight answer as to why the clear area in Banfield's video fills in with smoke before the booms they show?

Anyone?

I'm just calling for objectivity here.

[Peter Lemkin]

The History of Wirt Dexter Walker: Russell & Company, the CIA and 9/11

Submitted by Kevin Ryan on Fri, 09/03/2010 - 1:30am

World Trade Center (WTC) security company Stratesec has been a topic of considerable discussion among independent 9/11 investigators. One topic discussed has been the possible familial relationship between Stratesec's CEO, Wirt Dexter Walker III, and its director Marvin Bush, whose brother was President of the United States on 9/11. Although Wirt and Marvin are distant relatives, these ties are inconsequential relative to each man's family connections to old drug money, deep state operatives, and the wealthy, powerful people who have controlled such money and operatives over the last two centuries.[1]
Stratesec was a company that provided security services for several facilities that were central to the crimes of 9/11. In the years leading up to 9/11, the company had security contracts with the organization that managed Dulles Airport, where Flight 77 took off that day, and with United Airlines, which owned two of the other three hijacked planes.[2] Stratesec had also run security for Los Alamos National Laboratories, where, at the time, scientists were developing super-thermite explosives of the type that have been found in the WTC dust.[3],[4] Stratesec worked at the WTC and was developing the security system for the buildings in the period leading up to, and including, the day of 9/11. These connections are important considering the substantial evidence that insiders were involved in the 9/11 attacks.
Investigation into this company has revealed that the Chief Operating Officer, Barry McDaniel, came to Stratesec from a subsidiary of The Carlyle Group called BDM International, which specialized in "black projects."[5] The Carlyle Group was managed by several Bush cabal insiders including James Baker and former deputy director of the CIA, Frank Carluccci. Carlyle was funded by investors that included the bin Laden family.[6] Prior to working for BDM, McDaniel had worked as a military ordnance distributor at Fort Belvoir, a facility with many links to 9/11 including the terrorist tracking program Able Danger and the terrorist trainer Ali Mohammed.[7]
McDaniel was not the only former Carlyle Group employee at Stratesec, as the company's director of information technology was also formerly with BDM.[8] Additionally, the vice president of finance at Stratesec came there from Anadac Molybdenum Corporation, a company where the chairman, Roger Taylor, was also the president of Zapata Granby, a subsidiary of Zapata Corporation. This is the same Zapata Corporation that was founded by George H.W. Bush in the 1950s. George H.W. Bush's son, Marvin, was a director at Stratesec from 1993 to 2000.
Probably the most interesting person associated with Stratesec was Wirt Dexter Walker III. Despite the "III", Wirt is actually the fourth Wirt Dexter Walker in the same line. To keep the notations clear, however, in this article we will refer to the Stratesec CEO, Wirt Dexter Walker III, as "Wirt Three." Given the remarkable connections between Wirt Three and the facilities and aircraft compromised on 9/11, a review of all the Wirts, and where they came from, is worthwhile.
Solomon Walker
Wirt Three's great-great-great grandfather, Solomon Walker, appeared in Claremont, New Hampshire in the early 1800s. Exactly where he came from, no one knows. The first reports of Solomon were that he was a selectman in Claremont and was married to an heiress named Charity Stevens. Charity was the granddaughter of Elihu Stevens, a justice of the peace who shared in large land grants given to certain people in New Hampshire by the King of England.[9] Charity's cousin, Paran Stevens, later became a famous hotel mogul in New York City and throughout New England.[10]
Nearly one hundred years after Solomon appeared in Claremont, people were still searching for answers as to his parentage and origination.[11] It is unclear how he came to Claremont and, even today, Solomon's descendants have not been able to determine where their forefather originated.[12]
Much evidence suggests, however, that Solomon Walker of Claremont was the son of Solomon Walker and Sylvia Delano, of Maine. The recorded history of their youngest son, Solomon, is vague and suggests that he married twice to women much older than him. His second marriage was said to be to Sophia Delano (16 years older), whom he supposedly married a day after his 82-year old father had married her.[13] Although Charity Stevens was 15 years older than Solomon, she was not his stepmother.
For a number of other reasons, it is likely that Solomon "Delano" Walker and/or his father, also named Solomon Walker, made the short journey from Maine to Claremont. Solomon's father's hometown was Berwick, ME, which is one hundred miles straight east of Claremont. Berwick is very near Kennebunkport, the long-time home of the Walker side of the Bush family. Coincidentally, Dick Cheney's great-grandfather, Samuel Fletcher Cheney, was born at about the same time, halfway between Berwick and Claremont, in Boscawen, NH.
Sylvia Delano, Solomon's mother, was a cousin of Warren Delano, who was a partner of Russell & Company, a China trading firm whose leaders made fortunes through the opium trade. Warren Delano was also the grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Another reason to believe that Solomon Walker was the son of a Delano is that his wife's cousin, Mathilda Stevens, married the son of Mary Delano. Mary's dad, Abisha Delano, was also a first cousin of Warren Delano. Abisha and Mary were among the many Delanos who lived in Sullivan County, New Hampshire, where Claremont is located.[14] Banker and railroad executive, Francis R. Delano (1842 to 1892), attended Kimball Union Academy in Sullivan County.
The clearest indication that Solomon Walker was a Delano is that one of his sons was treated very generously by Warren Delano and his colleagues. When their son, James Monroe Walker, was a boy, Solomon and Charity moved from Claremont to Oakland County, Michigan. James went to college at Oberlin College initially, before moving to the University of Michigan to study law. After that, James' fortunes grew exponentially.
James Monroe Walker
Solomon Walker's son, James Monroe Walker, was an attorney who was President and Solicitor for the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy (C,B&Q) Railroad, the Michigan Central Railroad, the Wilmington Coal Company, the Kansas City Stockyards, and the Union Stockyard and Transit Company.[15] James M. Walker ran these businesses for the opium traders at Russell & Company, who invested their money in these railroads and other major infrastructure in the US during the mid-1800s.[16]
Russell & Company was started in 1818 by Samuel Russell, cousin of the founder of the "secret society" called Skull & Bones at Yale University, William Huntington Russell. Samuel had gotten his start through merchant companies like Whittlesley & Alsop of Boston, MA. The Alsops were also major investors in the businesses run by James Monroe Walker, and Russell & Company partner John N. Alsop Griswold was a director of the C,B&Q as well as president of the Illinois Central railroad. Many years later, in the 1960s, Washington Post columnist Joe Alsop, a descendant of the Whittlesley & Alsop owners, convinced President Johnson to create the Warren Commission, which was a cover-up for the assassination of President Kennedy.[17]
In 1828, Russell & Company merged with another drug smuggling syndicate run by John Perkins Cushing.[18] Cushing brought in his cousins, Robert Bennet Forbes and John Murray Forbes. Robert Bennet Forbes was Senator John F. Kerry's great-grandfather. John Murray Forbes attended school at Phillips Academy in Andover, the alma mater of George H.W. Bush, and his sons Jeb and George W.
John Murray Forbes coordinated much of the US investment of the Russell & Company partners, and he was the one who hired James Monroe Walker.[19] Walker was first hired as Solicitor for the Michigan Central, and later as Solicitor and President of the C,B&Q. While running these railroads, Walker worked with Nathaniel Thayer Jr, a distant relative of George W. Bush, who was general counsel for the C,B&Q and other Russell & Company businesses that Walker was involved in. Walker worked closely with Sidney Bartlett as well, who was another legal representative for the C,B&Q.
At the same time, Bartlett and Thayer were legal representatives for the railroads owned by Edward H. Harriman, including the Union Pacific.[20] Harriman was a director of the Illinois Central, along with Russell & Co partner John N. Alsop Griswold. Harriman is well known for being the father of William Averell Harriman and Roland Harriman, two Skull & Bones members who founded the Brown Brothers Harriman, whose employees included George Herbert Walker and his son-in-law, Prescott Bush. Eugene Delano and his son, Moreau Delano, were partners in Brown Brothers Harriman as well.
The fortunes that Russell & Company invested in US railroads and other infrastructure were the spoils from The Opium Wars, among the most inhumane and socially devastating events in human history. These wars, which occurred between 1839 and 1858, were brought upon the Chinese people by the British government acting on behalf of merchants like Russell & Company, who intended to defy the Chinese government's ban on opium trading. It was Russell & Company's business partner, William Jardine of Jardine Matheson, who successfully persuaded the British Foreign Minister, Lord Palmerston, to wage war on China.[21]
As a result of these devastating attacks, the British merchants were able to force Turkish opium upon China, thereby making enormous fortunes paid in silver. By 1906, after several generations of this forced drug trade, opium victims in China were estimated to number 100 million.[22]
China ceded Hong Kong to the British in 1842 as part of an early defeat. Jardine Matheson was one of the opium trading companies that survived for much longer in Hong Kong, being taken over by Chinese tycoon Li Ka-shing in 1980. Li Ka-shing later invested in firms owned by Winston Partners, and has also employed Winston Partners cofounder Marvin Bush's brother, Neil Bush, as a consultant.[23]
As opium traders before, during and after the Opium Wars, Russell & Company were agents of merchant banks like Baring Brothers and N.M. Rothschild.[24],[25] Initially, the merchant banks funded the purchase of the opium, and Russell & Company sailed to make the purchase and subsequently smuggled the drugs into China, making tremendous fees for their work as operatives in the drug trade. The company's biggest client, Baring Brothers, was agent for the US government between 1843 and 1871, and actually sold the Louisiana Purchase to the US. Baring Brothers was later agent for the British government and had a close relationship with the British monarchy from 1891 to 1995.
The names of the partners of Russell & Company are well known in the history of US power circles. Partner Abiel Abbot Low fathered a mayor of New York City, Seth Low, who was also president of Columbia University. The descendents of the Forbes brothers, Robert Bennet and John Murray, are US powerbrokers to this day, and include the owners of Forbes magazine as well as Senator John Forbes Kerry. The Delanos fathered many powerful people including President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
President Roosevelt's grandfather, Warren Delano, was the head of Russell & Company from 1840 to 1842, after which time Russell Sturgis, another relative of John Perkins Cushing, became a partner. Sturgis later became the head of Baring Brothers. Warren's son, Frederic Adrian Delano, eventually took James Monroe Walker's position as president of the C,B&Q, and was there for twenty years. Frederic was also the first vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank.
It was at the time that James Monroe Walker was president of the C,B&Q, in the 1870s, that these drug dealing investors began to create a vast railroad network that controlled the transport of goods throughout the United States. Controlling the delivery of goods was the same as controlling the price of goods. Additional power over the country was gained through control of the stockyards that fed the masses, and the coal that drove the trains and heated homes. James Monroe Walker was right in the middle of this massive power grab, and served as a trusted operative for these merchant investors from the east.[26]
James Monroe Walker married Elia A. Marsh, of Kalamazoo, Michigan. Elia came from an old New England family as well, as a child of Ransoms and Fletchers and Meigs. Her cousin Betsey Ransom married Claghorn Robinson, who is a member of the Lathrop side of the Bush family. Elia's brother, Wells Ransom Marsh, was a member of the secret society called Alpha Delta Phi.[27], [28]
James and Elia had a son named James Ransom Walker, and a daughter named Mary Louise Walker. Mary died shortly after her marriage to John Wellborn Root, a noted architect of the time. Root's uncle was Elihu Root, attorney for prominent Skull & Bones member William Collins Whitney, and early employer of Bonesman Henry Stimson, who later became Secretary of War (twice) and Secretary of State.
The first child born to James and Elia was the original Wirt Dexter Walker, named for James' law partner Wirt Dexter, the grandson of US Secretary of the Treasury, Samuel Dexter. Since the original Wirt Dexter Walker was not the "first", in this article we will call him Wirt Zero.
Wirt Zero
It's fair to say that Wirt Zero's family was well-connected. That's a good reason why Wirt went to Yale and was a member of the University's second oldest secret society, Scroll & Key. Other notable Scroll & Key members have included the famous statesman Dean Acheson, who in 1969, as one of his final acts, passed along his sophisticated knowledge of Washington and his expertise on American policy to Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle.[29] Scroll & Key members also included a number of famous CIA agents and the founder of WTC impact zone tenant Marsh & McLennan, Donald R. McLennan. President Bush's relative, Joseph Walker Wear, was Scroll & Key in 1899.
Moreover, Wirt Zero was a member of the Yale fraternity called Delta Kappa Epsilon (DeKEs), like George W. Bush, George H.W. Bush, Dan Quayle, New York City Governor George Pataki, and former President Gerald Ford (of the Michigan Omicron chapter). When George W. Bush was president of the DeKEs, he defended the fraternity's practice of branding its pledges with a red-hot coat hanger.[30]
Delano family connections with Yale are strong. [31] Yale graduates among the Delanos include Eugene Delano Jr., William Adams Delano (Scroll & Key 1895), and Moreau Delano (Scroll & Key 1898).
When Wirt Zero was only 21 years old, and had just graduated from Yale, his father died. Young Wirt was made the executor of the estate and he suddenly became a very rich man. Wirt Zero then attended the Union College of Law in Chicago (now Northwestern), became a lawyer in 1883, and joined his father's partner's law firm. He worked in Chicago and belonged to the Union League Club, and the Chicago Club. Wirt appears to have most enjoyed traveling to the area from where his mother's family hailed, the Berkshires in western Massachusetts, and he built an estate there called Blythewood Farms.
Wirt began having trouble with his eyesight around 1887. During this time, he and his brother James Ransom Walker had the distinction of having financed the first steel-framed "skyscraper" in history, the 14-story Tacoma Building in Chicago. But by 1890, Wirt was totally blind and had to abandon much if his work. He then spent a number of years traveling to specialists in the east and in Europe. [32]
Despite being blind, Wirt married Marie Winston in December, 1894. Marie was the daughter of General Frederick Winston, an attorney and founder of the Chicago law firm Winston and Strawn. Coincidentally, this law firm is now run by 9/11 Commission member James R. Thompson, and, in a further coincidence Winston & Strawn represented Underwriters Laboratories in its recent legal battle with the author of this article. [33]
Two of Wirt Zero's bothers-in-law were members of Yale's Skull & Bones society. Both Dudley Winston and Frederick Seymour Winston were Bonesman. Dudley Winston became a banker and also served as secretary to his father when his father was US Minister to Persia. Frederick Seymour Winston and his father were both lawyers for the C,B&Q railroad and, along with Marie, they are listed as American descendants of the "Magna Charta Barons."[34]
Wirt Zero died at New York City's Waldorf Astoria Hotel on April 24, 1899, at the age of 39. He was preparing for another trip to Europe when he contracted a sudden pneumonia while traveling from Chicago to New York.
Wirt Zero's will, drawn up at the time of his marriage in 1894, became something of a national story. That's partly because Wirt was totally blind as of 1890 and, more importantly, because his fortune was to be distributed based on Marie's willingness to remain unmarried after his death. If she chose to marry again, the will said that the majority of Wirt's estate, minus a small annual allowance for Marie, would go to the creation of an art foundation in Chicago. Marie did decide to remarry a few years later, after newspaper stories decried her financial loss, and the Wirt Walker Gallery was born.[35]
Wirt Zero fathered a child that was never again mentioned other than in early discussions over his controversial will and testament.[36] The child was almost certainly Wirt Dexter Walker I (Wirt One), and we must assume the mother was Marie Winston Walker.
The commonly accepted history, however, suggests that Wirt One was the son of Wirt Zero's brother, James Ransom Walker. Apart from the never again mentioned child of Wirt Zero, there are several other reasons to believe that Wirt One was the son of Wirt Zero. First, in family documents created four years after his birth, Wirt One was not listed as one of the sons of James and Louise.[37] Secondly, the other sons of James and Louise were given the middle name "Meeker" but Wirt One was named precisely after James' brother, Wirt Dexter Walker. Additionally, Wirt One was born eleven days before the sudden and unexpected death of Wirt Zero, and it seems unlikely that James would give his son the exact name of his living brother.
Wirt One
In any case, Wirt Dexter Walker I (Wirt One) was born on April 13, 1899, eleven days before the sudden and unexpected death of Wirt Zero. Born into in a very affluent, "high society" environment that included regular travels between Chicago and the Berkshires, he was raised by Wirt Zero's brother, James Ransom Walker, and his wife Louise (Meeker) Walker. Wirt One was a boy tennis champion in the Berkshires and also played baseball with James and Louise's other sons, James Meeker Walker and Arthur Meeker Walker.
Like his brothers (or cousins), Wirt One attended Williams College.[38] Graduates of Williams College have included some of the most prominent CIA employees in history, including Director of the CIA, Richard Helms (1935), who later specifically recruited Williams graduates for the agency.[39] Another famous CIA veteran from Williams was former Bush advisor and Iran-Contra conspirator Donald Gregg (1951). CIA legend Russell Jack Smith taught at Williams until the attack on Pearl Harbor, after which he joined the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), and began a lengthy career in intelligence.
Williams College connections to the Bush family include Lucy Woodruff Walker, daughter of Williams graduate and trustee, William Perrin Walker. Lucy was the wife of Judge David Davis, who was the cousin and benefactor of David Davis Walker, George H.W. Bush's great-grandfather. Another Williams College alumnus, and close associate of George H.W. Bush, is Carlyle Group advisor and former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (from 1993 to 2001), Arthur Levitt.
Brown Brothers Harriman executive, Eugene Delano, graduated from Williams College in 1866. Delano was also a trustee of Williams College, for twenty-five years, and died two years after Wirt One entered the college.
Wirt One left Williams College to join the Army in the summer of 1918, and was located temporarily at Camp Custer. He served in "Base 14" as a private and returned in April 1919.[40] It's not clear if he ever returned to graduate from Williams, but soon after his return he married Susan Cramer Stephenson, whose guardian was her uncle Ambrose Cramer of Lake Forest, IL.[41] Susan and Wirt lived for the first two years of their marriage in Buffalo, New York and then moved back to Chicago permanently. Susan and Wirt had one son together, Wirt Dexter Walker II, before Susan sued for divorce in 1924 on grounds of "cruelty."
In 1929, Wirt One married again, this time to Gertrude Reich. While married to Wirt, Gertrude was sued for stealing the affections of another woman's husband, in a well-publicized scandal. Wirt later sued Gertrude too, for divorce, based on the claim that she deserted him.[42]
Wirt married a third time, in 1937, to Mildred Walker. They were married for twelve years until Mildred sued for divorce, accusing Wirt of cruelty again, and also of nonsupport.[43] At the time, Mildred claimed that Wirt had an income of over $100,000 per year in 1949.[44]
Aside from the ladies, Wirt One's endeavors included working for the Arcady Farms Milling company, at first as an employee of his uncle, Arthur Meeker, and eventually as president and chairman of the company. Arcady Farms Milling was a manufacturer of feedstock for turkeys and other livestock.
In 1943, Wirt One was attacked by six men after a dinner party attended by political leaders. The motive for the attack was unclear and Wirt was taken to the hospital with a broken nose, a fractured jaw, and internal injuries. No clues to the identity of the attackers were found.[45]
Like his father, Wirt One was a member of the Chicago Club which was, since its inception in 1869, a highly selective and secretive group of Chicago powerbrokers. In fact, the Chicago Tribune dubbed it the "center of power in Chicago."[46] Wirt One appears to simply have been a lucky, rich kid amongst a membership list that at one time or another included the likes of Marshall Field, George Pullman and Abraham Lincoln. But perhaps there was more to Wirt than we know.
Immediately after his divorce from Mildred, in April 1949, Wirt One married Rosalie Cohen, "former model and secretary."[47] Rosalie was twenty years younger than Wirt.
Wirt One died August 8, 1953, the week of the CIA's famous coup in Iran. His obituary lists private services and no report of how he died.
Wirt Two
Wirt Dexter Walker II (Wirt Two) was born to Wirt One and his first wife, Susan Cramer Stephenson during the two years that they lived in Buffalo.
Like his father, Wirt Two went to Williams College. He graduated and then immediately joined the Army Air Corps during World War II and became a pilot.[48] Just before leaving for duty in 1942, Wirt Two married Margaret Elizabeth Ross, of North Adams, MA.[49] They eventually had three children: Wirt Dexter Walker III (Wirt Three), Wendy Margaret Walker, and William Ross Walker. Both Wendy and William, along with their brother Wirt Three, were shareholders in Stratesec.[50]
In 1954, Wirt Two was in a legal battle with three of his father's four wives, over his father's substantial estate.[51] His daughter Wendy later remarked on Wirt One's exploits, suggesting that her grandfather's work at Arcady Farms was only one of several of his "ventures."[52]
Wirt Two became a career officer in the Army Air Corps and then the US Air Force, serving until 1962. He flew combat missions with the Eighth Air Force while stationed in England during the war, and was later stationed in Germany. After the war he was assigned to "various government agencies involved in reconnaissance intelligence."[53] The Lockheed-made U2 reconnaissance aircraft was assigned to the Eighth Air Force, a part of Strategic Air Command, where U2 operations started in 1956 and involved flights over the Soviet Union and the Middle East.[54] In May 1960, while Wirt Two was working on reconnaissance intelligence, an American U2 was shot down by the Soviets, initiating a worldwide controversy over espionage.
Wirt Two is also listed as an ex-employee of the National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC), an agency of the CIA that analyzed aerial spy photographs.[55] The significance of the NPIC to major intelligence activities during the twentieth century cannot be overstated. NPIC was the agency that was responsible for the intelligence that originated the Cuban missile crisis.[56] NPIC was also central to the analysis of the photographic evidence related to the Kennedy assassination, including the Zapruder film. Whether or not Wirt Two participated in these historic activities is not publicly known.
In his obituary, Wirt Two is listed as having been an employee of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), for which it is said he worked until 1977. He died of leukemia in 1997.
Wirt Three
Wirt Three lives in McLean, Virginia, home of the CIA. He graduated from Lafayette College in 1968 and in 1971 he married Sally Gregg White, a Washington DC debutante. Sally is a descendant of architectural ironwork magnate George White, whose son "Doc" White was a World Series winning pitcher for the Chicago White Sox. "Doc" was actually a dentist but his brother, Charles Stanley White, was a famous Washington DC surgeon and grandfather to Sally. Sally's father, Charles White Stanley Jr, was a surgeon too and, like Wirt Two, he was an officer in the Army Air Corps. [57]
Wirt was fortunate to land a position, right out of college, as a broker for an "investment" firm called Glore Forgan.[58] Originally a company called Field Glore, financed by Marshall Field III, Glore Forgan was renamed in 1937 for its new partner, James "Russ" Forgan. Russ was one of the most influential men in the history of US intelligence, having led the European division of the CIA's predecessor organization, the Office of Strategic Services (OSS). In the OSS, Forgan focused on infiltrating the German intelligence apparatus with the help of William J. Casey. Casey later became SEC chairman under Nixon and the director of CIA under Reagan. Before going back to work in the "investment" business, Forgan helped to write the documents that created the CIA.
While Wirt Three worked there, William Casey was House Counsel for Glore Forgan. It was at this time that the firm was at the center of a near collapse of Wall Street. In 1970, it began to be clear that Glore Forgan had somehow sold many millions of dollars more in securities than what its customers thought they owned. As a result, the company was expected to fail and, due to a cascading effect, its failure was projected to take down dozens of other firms causing a panic and huge losses on Wall Street. [59] These projections compelled President Nixon to ask Ross Perot, through Treasury Secretary John Connally, to intervene and save Glore Forgan. Perot suffered dramatic losses in an attempt to save the company (the only business loss of his career) and Glore Forgan went bankrupt anyway. The US government created the Securities Investor Protection Corp (SIPC) in response.[60]
A few years later, Wirt Three went from being a broker at Glore Forgan to running a series of other companies that went bankrupt. Yet somehow, Wirt Three always had cash flow. That could have been due to the fact that, by 1982, Wirt Three was a director of the Kuwaiti-American Company (or Kuwam).
Stratesec started off in 1987 as Burns & Roe Securacom, founded by Nelson Rockefeller assistant, Sebastian Cassetta. The company changed its name to Securacom when it was taken over by Kuwam in 1992, at which time Wirt Three became CEO. When Wirt Three was sued by the president of an existing company with an identical name, Wirt became abusive and told the other businessman that he "would bury him financially and take everything he had " by "filing a barrage of frivolous arguments...in multiple jurisdictions."[61] Wirt lost the case and had to change his company's name to Stratesec, but this incident suggested that Wirt Three was not only abusive, but that he had the kind of deep pockets that allowed for frivolous lawsuits.
Kuwam also owned two companies called Commander Aircraft and Aviation General, both of which had Wirt Three as CEO, and both of which went bankrupt shortly after 9/11.
As CEO of Stratesec, Wirt Three did business with some shady characters. For example, Stratesec owed money to a company called Bankest Capital, which appeared to be a money-laundering operation or similar fraud. Wirt Three transferred seven million dollars in shares of his Stratesec stock to Bankest as a way to reduce that debt ($1.75 MM).[62] Bankest s owners, brothers Eduardo and Hector Orlansky, were later convicted of conspiracy and bank fraud when $185 million went missing due to "hug overadvances."[63] Apparently $2 billion was "flowed through the Orlansky's two businesses from 1998 to 2003 to create the appearance they were healthy and growing."[64]
A company called Hanifen Imhoff was the underwriter for Wirt's company, Commander Aircraft.[65] This gives further evidence that the companies Wirt Three was running were not only bound for bankruptcy, but were probably CIA fronts all along. Hanifen Imhoff was "nailed for Correspondent's fraud" in December 2000.[66] Hanifen Imhoff also happens to be a division of Stifel Nicolaus & Company, whose long term chairman was George W. Bush's first cousin, Yale Skull & Bones member George Herbert Walker III.[67],[68]
In any case, Wirt Three has a tendency to show up when airplanes crash into tall buildings. The only other such occurrence since 9/11 led to Wirt Three being interviewed because the plane that crashed was related to his company, Aviation General. [69]
Conclusion
It appears that Wirt Three manages CIA front companies and that Stratesec was one of them. There are many ways to see this, including Wirt's shady business dealings and his tendency to run companies into bankruptcy while still maintaining cash flow. Wirt is, at a minimum, a child of the CIA (and the DIA), but he also worked with William Casey for Russ Forgan's company, making him an associate of some of the most influential deep state operatives of the last sixty years.
Wirt's family has been connected to drug money and Yale's secret societies for over 150 years, and these connections include many links to the Bush family. Of course, George H.W. Bush was a CIA director and other Bush family members were operatives, like Louis Walker (Skull & Bones 1936). Another institution with many links to prominent CIA veterans is William College, where two of the Wirts went to school.
Wirt Three is also a distant relative of the Bush family, through the intermarriage of Ransom and Robinson family members and through the Mayflower passenger Francis Cooke, who is an ancestor of both the Delanos and the Bush clan. Such distant relations are not of importance to most people today, although they are quite important for the Bush family as indicated by how that family chooses its relationships, including its business partners. For example, George H.W. Bush and his wife Barbara are distant cousins along four different lines.
Marvin Bush is but one of several Bush family links to Stratesec, in that several of Stratesec's directors and employees came from Bush-connected companies, and at least one of Wirt Three's ventures was underwritten by George Herbert Walker III's company. Add to this the fact that the COO of Stratesec , Barry McDaniel, came from a subsidiary of The Carlyle Group that conducted "black projects," and Stratesec seems worthy of a detailed investigation.
After 9/11, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recommended that Stratesec be investigated for insider trading related to the crimes of that day. Oddly enough, the FBI and SEC never followed through with the investigation, claiming it was unnecessary because the officers of Stratesec had no "ties to terrorism or other negative information." [70] That assessment does not appear to be valid for many reasons, including that The Carlyle Group was financed in part by Osama bin Laden's family and that Stratesec director James Abrahamson was the business partner of Mansoor Ijaz, who claimed on several occasions to be able to contact Osama bin Laden.[71]
Maybe the investigation didn't happen because no one wanted to embarrass the President, who was busy making tremendous political and personal profit from 9/11, and whose family was deeply connected to The Carlyle Group, and whose brother was a Stratesec director. But it's likely that Stratesec was not investigated simply because it would have resulted in discoveries that no one in a position of power wanted to make.
Ultimately though, we know that Stratesec was a security contractor for several of the facilities that were compromised on 9/11, including the WTC buildings, Dulles airport where Flight 77 took off, and also United Airlines which owned two of the ill-fated planes. We also know that the CEO of Stratesec came from a background of deep-state connected, opium-funded wealth, and that the many Wirt Dexter Walkers were thereafter steeped in a culture of power and secrecy that has ruled the United States for many years.

[1] Peter Dale Scott, in The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America (University of California Press, 2007) defines the "deep state" as the covert part of government that responds to wealthy private influences as those influences shape government policy outside of normal democratic processes.

[2] Margie Burns, Bush-Linked Company Handled Security for the WTC, Dulles and United, Prince George's Journal (Maryland), February 4, 2003, http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm

[3] Super-thermites are known as "nanothermites". See W.C. Danen et al, "Los Alamos Nanoenergetic Metastable Intermolecular Composite (Super Thermite) Program," 221st ACS National Meeting, San Diego, CA, April 2001.

[4] Niels H. Harrit, et al, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Volume 2, http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/co...001/7TOCPJ.SGM

[5] Dan Briody, The Iron Triangle: Inside the Secret World of The Carlyle Group, Wiley publishers, 2003, p35

[6] History Commons, Complete 911 Timeline, Bin Laden Family, http://www.historycommons.org/timeli...e_911_timeline

[7] Peter Dale Scott, 9/11, JFK, and War: Recurring Patterns in America's Deep Events, Journal of 9/11 Studies, http://www.journalof911studies.com/v...911,andWar.pdf

[8] STRATESEC Incorporated Appoints Dr. Amos Lu To Head Information/Network Security Business, Business Wire, March 29, 2000, http://findarticles.com/p/articles/m...9/ai_60865231/

[9] Otis Frederick Reed Waite, The early history of Claremont, New Hampshire: A paper read before the New Hampshire Historical Society, September 29, 1891

[10] New York Times, Mrs. Paran Stevens Dead, April 4, 1895

[11] The Washington Herald, Genealogical Department, December 23, 1906, http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lc...ALD+Washington

[12] DAWSON-L Archives, Rootsweb, Dawson DNA testing, October 23, 2004, http://listsearches.rootsweb.com/th/...-10/1098549985

[13] Dave Utzinger's Database, Entry for Solomon Walker (2nd of three), http://wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-...tti&id=I504940

[14] Genealogy Trails History Group, DELANO FAMILY of Sullivan County, NH, http://genealogytrails.com/newham/su...os_delano.html

[15] Josiah Seymour Currey, Chicago: its history and its builders, a century of marvelous growth, Volume 5, The S,J, Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, 1912

[16] Ed. By Ernest R. May and John King Fairbank, America's China trade in historical perspective: the Chinese and American Performance, President and Fellows of Harvard College, 1986

[17] Mary Ferrell Foundation, LBJ Phone Calls, http://www.maryferrell.org/wiki/inde...BJ_Phone_Calls

[18] William P. Litynski, An Illustrated History of The China Trade & The Opium Wars

[19] John N. Ingham, Biographical Dictionary of American Business Leaders, Greenwood Press, 1983

[20] New York Times, Funeral of Sidney Bartlett, March 9, 1889

[21] Wikipedia page for William Jardine, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Jar...80%931843)

[22] New York Times, China Decrees death to the Use of Opium, December 30, 1906

[23] National Corruption Index webpage for Li Ka-Shing, http://www.nationalcorruptionindex.o...?profile_id=16

[24] William C. Hunter, The 'fan kwae' at Canton before treaty days, 1825-1844, Kegan Paul, Trench & Co, 1882

[25] Robert B. Forbes's autobiography, Personal Reminiscences(1882), http://www.mail-archive.com/ctrl@lis.../msg35515.html

[26] Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad Company, Record book of trust mortgages and agreements; also, leases, conveyances, contracts, agreements, and articles of consolidation, A. Mudge & son, printers, 1882

[27] The Peninsular Chapter History, Peninsular Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi, http://peninsular.alphadeltaphi.org/...aspx?tabid=952

[28] Wikipedia page for Alpha Delta Phi, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_Delta_Phi

[29] James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans, Viking Penguin, 2004, p 31

[30] Yale Daily News, reproduced at DailyKos, Dec 10, 2005, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/12/10/233039/84

[31] Yale University. Class of 1908, History of the class of 1908, Yale College, Volume 1

[32] Chicago Daily Tribune, Wirt D. Walker's Death, April 26, 1899

[33] Website for Winston & Strawn, page for James R. Thompson, Partner and Senior Chairman, http://www.winston.com/index.cfm?con...4&itemid=10873

[34] Charles H. Browning, The Magna Charta Barons and Their American Descendants, Genealogical Publishing Co. Baltimore, 1969

[35] Bevier-Elting Family Association, The $15,000 Misunderstanding, http://www.b-efa.org/elting/misunderstanding.htm

[36] Chicago Daily Tribune, To Found Art Gallery: Will of Wirt Dexter Walker Plans a Public Collection, June 13, 1899

[37] Wyllys Cadwell Ransom, Historical outline of the Ransom family of America, The Richmond & Backus Company, 1903

[38] Williams College, Catalogue 1917-1918, Williamstown, MA

[39] Jack Davis, Improving Intelligence Analysis at CIA: Dick Heuer's Contribution to Intelligence Analysis, Central Intelligence Agancy, https://www.cia.gov/library/center-f...ysis/art3.html

[40] Chicago Daily Tribune, Many Chicagoans Who Served In Base 14 Return, April 21, 1919

[41] Chicago Daily Tribune, Marriage Announcement 1, May 56, 1918

[42] Chicago Daily Tribune, Wirt D. Walker Sues to Divorce Gertrude Reich, March 19, 1935

[43] Chicago Daily Tribune, Wife Sues W.D. Walker, Miller, For Separation, February 18, 1949

[44] Chicago Daily Tribune, Asks $3,500 a Month Temporary Alimony from Milling Head, February 24, 1949

[45] Chicago Daily Tribune, Firm President Slugged By Six At Club's Door, December 30, 1943

[46] Wikipedia page for The Chicago Club, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicago_Club

[47] Chicago Daily Tribune, Wirt D. Walker, Head of Milling Company, Married Fourth Time, April 9, 1949

[48] Chicago Daily Tribune, 89 Illinois Men Awarded Wings As Army Pilots, July 4, 1942

[49] Chicago Daily Tribune, Lieut. Wirt D. Walker Jr. Weds Eastern Girl Today, July 4, 1942

[50] Securities and Exchange Commission, FORM S-3 filing for Stratesec Incorporated, June 12, 2000, http://yahoo.brand.edgar-online.com/...d2THqRGPhOZT77

[51] Chicago Daily Tribune, Flyer's Share of Fortune to Hinge on Court, May 17, 1954

[52] Wendy Walker, Re: Wirt Dexter of Chicago History Fame, GenForum presented by Genelogy.com, October 9, 2001, http://genforum.genealogy.com/dexter/messages/444.html

[53] The Washington Post, obituary for WIRT D. WALKER - Intelligence Analyst, June 15, 1997

[54] The Citizen's Compendium, U-2 Dragon Lady, http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/U-2_Dragon_Lady

[55] NPIC Reunions Database, List of Deceased NPIC Employees, http://npicreunions.blogspot.com/

[56] Wikipedia page for Arthur C. Lundahl, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_C._Lundahl

[57] The Washington Post, Times Herald, Dr. C.S. White Jr., 48, Surgeon, Chief of Staff, April 13, 1964

[58] The Washington Post, Times Herald, White-Walker wedding announcement, April 29, 1971

[59] Alec Benn, The Unseen Wall Street, of 1969 to 1975: And Its Significance for Today, Quorum Books, 2000

[60] Donald Morrison, Ambush on Wall Street, Texas Monthly, April 1974

[61] Securacomm Consulting Inc. v. Securacom Incorporated, United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, January 20, 1999, 49 U.S.P.Q.2d 1444; 166 F.3d 182, http://altlaw.org/v1/cases/1099498

[62] SEC filing for Bankest Capital, SC 13D, March 13, 2003, http://www.secinfo.com/dV5Ff.244f.htm

[63] Reuters, Former exec to pay $165 million in fraud case, Aug 28, 2007, http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN2829063820070828

[64] Peter Zalewski, The Accounting: Indictments, receiver's report on Bankest Capital present picture of a $170 million mystery, Daily Business Review, November 22, 2004, http://lbfmiami.com/pdfs/press_accou...ndictments.pdf

[65] SEC News Digest, Issue 93-47, March 12, 1993, http://www.sec.gov/news/digest/1993/dig031293.pdf

[66] Dan Jamieson, Hanifen Imhoff/Fiserv Nailed for Correspondent's Fraud, Registered Rep., Dec 1, 2000, http://registeredrep.com/mag/finance...fiserv_nailed/

[67] St. Louis Business Journal, Webster U. names business school for Bert Walker, April 22, 2010, http://stlouis.bizjournals.com/stlou...9/daily52.html

[68] Bloomberg Businessweek, Stifel Nicolaus & Company, Incorporated Hanifen Imhoff Division, http://investing.businessweek.com/re...rivcapId=20865

[69] UK Mail Online, Plane crashes into Milan tower, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...lan-tower.html

[70] FBI Memorandum released by 9/11 Commission, "FBI Briefing on Trading", Prepared by: Doug Greenburg, 8/18/03, http://media.nara.gov/9-11/MFR/t-0148-911MFR-00269.pdf

[71] Sourcewatch webpage for Mansoor Ijaz/Sudan, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php...oor_Ijaz/Sudan

[Peter Lemkin]

9/11: The Myth and the Reality

by David Ray Griffin
(Authorized Version)

This lecture was delivered March 30, 2006, at Grand Lake Theater in Oakland for Progressive Democrats of the East Bay. Abbreviated versions of it were given in San Francisco for the Democratic World Federalists on April 2 and the Commonwealth Club on April 3.



Although I am a philosopher of religion and theologian, I have spent most of my time during the past three years on 9/11---studying it, writing about it, and speaking about it. In this lecture, I will try to make clear why I believe this issue worthy of so much time and energy. I will do this in terms of the distinction between myth and reality.

I am here using the term "myth" in two senses. In one sense, a myth is an idea that, while widely believed, is false, failing to correspond with reality.

In a deeper sense, which is employed by students of religion, a myth serves as an orienting and mobilizing story for a people, a story that reminds them who they are and why they do what they do. When a story is called as a myth in this sense---which we can call Myth with a capital M---the focus is not on the story's relation to reality but on its function. This orienting and mobilizing function is possible, moreover, only because Myths with a capital M have religious overtones. Such a Myth is a Sacred Story.

However, although to note that a story functions as a Myth in the religious sense is not necessarily to deny its truth, a story cannot function as a Sacred Myth within a community or nation unless it is believed to be true. In most cases, moreover, the truth of the Myth is taken on faith. It is not a matter of debate. If some people have the bad taste to question the truth of the Sacred Story, the keepers of the faith do not enter into debate with them. Rather, they ignore them or denounce them as blasphemers.

According to the official story about 9/11, America, because of its goodness, was attacked by fanatical Arab Muslims who hate our freedoms. This story has functioned as a Sacred Myth for the United States since that fateful day. And this function appears to have been carefully orchestrated. The very next day, President Bush announced his intention to lead "a monumental struggle of Good versus Evil."1 Then on September 13, he declared that the following day would be a National Day of Prayer and Remembrance for the Victims of the Terrorist Attacks. And on that next day, the president himself, surrounded by Billy Graham, a cardinal, a rabbi, and an imam, delivered a sermon in the national cathedral, saying:

Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of Evil. War has been waged against us by stealth and deceit and murder. This nation is peaceful, but fierce when stirred to anger. . . . In every generation, the world has produced enemies of human freedom. They have attacked America, because we are freedom's home and defender. And the commitment of our fathers is now the calling of our time. . . . [W]e ask almighty God to watch over our nation, and grant us patience and resolve in all that is to come. . . . And may He always guide our country. God bless America.2

Through this unprecedented event, in which the president of the United States issued a declaration of war from a cathedral, French author Thierry Meyssan observed in 2002, "the American government consecrated . . . its version of events. From then on, any questioning of the official truth would be seen as sacrilege."3

That attitude has remained dominant in the public sphere until this day, as the official account has continued to serve as a Sacred Story. When people raise questions about this story, they are either ignored, ridiculed as conspiracy theorists, or---as Charlie Sheen has recently experienced---attacked personally. When anyone asks what right the administration has to invade and occupy other countries, to imprison people indefinitely without due process, or even to ignore various laws, the answer is always the same: "9/11." Those who believe that US law and international law should be respected are dismissed as having "a pre-9/11 mind-set."

Given the role the official account of 9/11 has played and continues to play, the most important question before our country today is whether this account, besides being a Myth in the religious sense, is also a myth in the pejorative sense---that is, whether it is simply false.

As a philosopher of religion, I would emphasize that the fact that a story has served as a Myth in the religious sense does not necessarily mean that it fails to correspond with reality. Many religious accounts contain at least a kernel of truth that can be defended in terms of a rational examination of the relevant evidence.

In many cases, however, stories that have served as religious Myths cannot stand up to rational scrutiny. When such a story is stripped of its halo and treated simply as a theory, rather than an unquestionable dogma, it cannot be defended as the best theory to account for the relevant facts. The official account of 9/11 is such a theory. When challenges to it are not treated as blasphemy, it can easily be seen to be composed of a number of ideas that are myths in the sense of not corresponding with reality. Using the word "myth" from now on only in this pejorative sense, I will discuss nine of the major myths contained in the official story about 9/11. I will thereby show that the official account of 9/11 cannot be defended, in light of the relevant evidence, against the main alternative account, according to which 9/11 was an inside job, orchestrated by people within our own government. I will begin with a few myths that prevent many people from even looking at the evidence for this alternative account.


Myth Number 1: Our political and military leaders simply would not do such a thing.

This idea is widely believed. But it is undermined by much evidence. The United States, like many other countries, has often used deceit to begin wars---for example, the Mexican-American war, with its false claim that Mexico had "shed American blood on the American soil,"4 the Spanish-American war, with its "Remember the Maine" hoax,5 the war in the Philippines, with its false claim that the Filipinos fired first,6 and the Vietnam war, with its Tonkin Gulf hoax.7 The United States has also sometimes organized false flag terrorist attacks---killing innocent civilians, then blaming the attacks on an enemy country or group, often by planting evidence. We have even done this in allied countries. As Daniele Ganser has shown in his recent book NATO's Secret Armies, NATO, guided by the CIA and the Pentagon, arranged many such attacks in Western European countries during the Cold War. These attacks were successfully blamed on Communists and other leftists to discredit them in the eyes of the voting public.8

Finally, in case it be thought that US military leaders would not orchestrate such attacks against US citizens, one needs only to read the plan known as Operations Northwoods, which the Joint Chiefs of Staff worked up in 1962, shortly after Fidel Castro had overthrown the pro-American dictator Batista. This plan contained various "pretexts which would provide justification for US military intervention in Cuba." American citizens would have been killed in some of them, such as a "Remember the Maine" incident, in which: "We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guant�namo Bay and blame Cuba."9

At this point, some people, having seen evidence that US leaders would be morally capable of orchestrating 9/11, might avoid looking at the evidence by appeal to


Myth Number 2: Our political and military leaders would have had no motive for orchestrating the 9/11 attacks.

This myth was reinforced by The 9/11 Commission Report. While explaining why al-Qaeda had ample motives for carrying out the attacks, this report mentions no motives that US leaders might have had. But the alleged motive of al-Qaeda---that it hated Americans and their freedoms---is dwarfed by a motive held by many members of the Bush-Cheney administration: the dream of establishing a global Pax Americana, the first all-inclusive empire in history.

This dream had been articulated by many neoconservatives, or neocons, throughout the 1990s, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union made it seem possible. It was first officially articulated in the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney---a document that has been called "a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony"10 and Cheney's "Plan . . . to rule the world."11

Achieving this goal would require four things. One of these was getting control of the world's oil, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the Bush-Cheney administration came to power with plans already made to attack Afghanistan and Iraq. A second requirement was a technological transformation of the military, in which fighting from space would become central. A third requirement was an enormous increase in military spending, to pay for these new wars and for weaponizing space. A fourth need was to modify the doctrine of preemptive attack, so that America would be able to attack other countries even if they posed no imminent threat.

These four elements would, moreover, require a fifth: an event that would make the American people ready to accept these imperialistic policies. As Zbigniew Brzezinski explained in his 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard, the American people, with their democratic instincts, are reluctant to authorize the money and human sacrifices necessary for "imperial mobilization," and this refusal "limits . . . America's . . . capacity for military intimidation."12 But this impediment could be overcome if there were "a truly massive and widely perceived direct external threat"13 ---just as the American people were willing to enter World War II only after "the shock effect of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor."15 This same idea was suggested in 2000 in a document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses, which was put out by a neocon think tank called the Project for the New American Century, many members of which---including Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz---became central members of the Bush administration. This document, referring to the goal of transforming the military, said that this "process of transformation . . . is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event---like a new Pearl Harbor."15

When the attacks of 9/11 occurred, they were treated like a new Pearl Harbor. Several members of the Bush administration spoke of 9/11 as providing opportunities. Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that 9/11 created "the kind of opportunities that World War II offered, to refashion the world."16 It created, in particular, the opportunity to attack Afghanistan and Iraq; to increase the military budget enormously; to go forward with military transformation; and to turn the new idea of preemptive warfare into official doctrine. This doctrinal change was announced in the 2002 version of the National Security Strategy, which said that America will "act against . . . emerging threats before they are fully formed."17

So, not only did the Bush administration reap huge benefits from 9/11. These were benefits that it had desired in advance. The idea that it would have had no motives for orchestrating 9/11 is a myth. But there is one more myth that keeps many people from looking at the evidence. This is


Myth Number 3: Such a big operation, involving so many people, could not have been kept a secret, because someone involved in it would have talked by now.

This claim is based on a more general myth, which is that is impossible for secret government operations to be kept secret very long, because someone always talks. But how could we know this? If some big operations have remained secret until now, we by definition do not know about them. Moreover, we do know of big some operations that were kept secret as long as necessary, such as the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb, and the war in Indonesia in 1957, which the United States government provoked, participated in, and was able to keep secret from its own people until a book about it appeared in 1995.18 Many more examples could be given.

We can understand, moreover, why those with inside knowledge of 9/11 would not talk. At least most of them would have been people with the proven ability to keep secrets. Those who were directly complicit would also be highly motivated to avoid public disgrace and the gas chamber. Those people who had knowledge without being complicit could be induced to keep quiet by means of more or less subtle threats---such as: "Joe, if you go forward with your plans to talk to the press about this, I don't know who is going to protect your wife and kids from some nutcase angered by your statement." Still another fact is that neither the government nor the mainstream press has, to say the least, shown any signs of wanting anyone to come forward.

I come now to


Myth Number 4: The 9/11 Commission, which has endorsed the official account, was an independent, impartial commission and hence can be believed.

One needs only to look at the reviews of The 9/11 Commission Report on Amazon.com to see that this assumption is widely accepted. Perhaps this is partly because in the Preface, the Commission's chairman and vice chairman tell us that the Commission sought "to be independent, impartial, thorough, and nonpartisan." But these terms do not describe the reality. The Commission's lack of impartiality can be partly explained by the fact that Chairman Thomas Kean, most of the other commissioners, and at least half of the members of the staff had conflicts of interest.19

The most serious problem, however, is that the executive director, Philip Zelikow, was essentially a member of the Bush-Cheney administration. He had worked with Condoleezza Rice on the National Security Council in the administration of the first President Bush. When the Republicans were out of office during the Clinton administration, Zelikow and Rice wrote a book together. Rice then, as National Security Advisor for the second President Bush, had Zelikow help make the transition to the new National Security Council. After that, Zelikow was appointed to the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Zelikow was, therefore, the White House's man inside the 9/11 Commission.

And yet, as executive director, he guided the staff, which did virtually all the work of the Commission.20 Zelikow was in position, therefore, to decide which topics would be investigated and which ones not. One disgruntled member reportedly said at the time, "Zelikow is calling the shots. He's skewing the investigation and running it his own way."21

Accordingly, insofar as the Commission was supposed to be investigating the failure of the Bush administration to prevent the attacks, the Commission was no more independent and impartial than if Dick Cheney had been running it. (The only difference is that no one got shot.)

Zelikow's ideological and personal closeness to the Bush administration is shown by one more fact that has until now not been widely known, even within the 9/11 truth movement. I mentioned earlier the Bush administration's National Security Strategy statement of 2002, in which the new doctrine of preemptive warfare was articulated. The primary author of this document, reports James Mann in Rise of the Vulcans, was none other than Philip Zelikow. According to Mann, after Rice saw a first draft, which had been written by Richard Haass in the State Department, she, wanting "something bolder," brought in Zelikow to completely rewrite it.22 The result was a very bellicose document that used 9/11 to justify the administration's so-called war on terror. Max Boot described it as a "quintessentially neo-conservative document."23

We can understand, therefore, why the Commission, under Zelikow's leadership, would have ignored all evidence that would point to the truth: that 9/11 was a false flag operation intended to authorize the doctrines and funds needed for a new level of imperial mobilization.

The suggestion that 9/11 was a false flag operation brings us to:


Myth Number 5: The Bush administration provided proof that the attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda terrorists under the direction of Osama bin Laden.

One of the main pieces of alleged proof involved the claim that the baggage of Mohamed Atta, called the ringleader of the hijackers, was discovered at the Boston airport, from which Flight 11 departed. This baggage, besides containing Atta's passport and driver's license, also contained various types of incriminating evidence, such as flight simulator manuals, videotapes about Boeing airliners, and a letter to other hijackers about preparing for the mission. But the bags also contained Atta's will. Why would Atta have intended to take his will on a plane that he planned to fly into the World Trade Center? There are also many other problems in this story.24 We appear to have planted evidence.

Another element of the official story about the alleged hijackers is that they were very devout Muslims. The 9/11 Commission Report said that Atta had become very religious, even "fanatically so."25 The public was thereby led to believe that these men would have had no problem going on this suicide mission, because they were ready to meet their maker. Investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker, however, discovered that Atta loved cocaine, alcohol, gambling, pork, and lap dances.26 Several of the other alleged hijackers, the Wall Street Journal reported, had similar tastes.27 The Commission pretends, however, that none of this information was available. While admitting that Atta met other members of al-Qaeda in Las Vegas shortly before 9/11, it says that it saw "no credible evidence explaining why, on this occasion and others, the operatives flew to or met in Las Vegas."28

Another problem in the official account is that, although we are told that four or five of the alleged hijackers were on each of the four flights, no proof of this claim has been provided. The story, of course, is that they did not force their way onto the planes but were regular, ticketed passengers. If so, their names should be on the flight manifests. But the flight manifests that have been released contain neither the names of the alleged hijackers nor any other Arab names.29 We have also been given no proof that the remains of any of these men were found at any of the crash sites.

One final little problem is that several of these 19 men, according to stories published by the BBC and British newspapers, are still alive. For example, The 9/11 Commission Report named Waleed al-Shehri as one of the hijackers and reproduced the FBI's photograph of him. It even suggested that al-Shehri stabbed one of the flight attendants shortly before Flight 11 crashed into the north tower.30 But as BBC News had reported 11 days after 9/11, al-Shehri, having seen his photograph in newspapers and TV programs, notified authorities and journalists in Morocco, where he works as a pilot, that he is still alive.31

But if there are various problems with the government's story about the hijackers, surely it presented proof that Osama bin Laden was behind the operation? Insofar as this belief is widely held, it also is a myth. Secretary of State Colin Powell promised to provide a white paper providing proof that the attacks had been planned by bin Laden, but this paper was never produced. British Prime Minister Tony Blair did provide such a paper, which was entitled "Responsibility for the Terrorist Atrocities in the United States." But it begins with the admission that it "does not purport to provide a prosecutable case against Usama Bin Laden in a court of law."32 (So, evidence good enough to go to war, but not good enough to go to court.) And although the Taliban said that it would hand bin Laden over if the United States presented evidence of his involvement in 9/11, Bush refused.33

This failure to provide proof was later said to be unnecessary because bin Laden, in a video allegedly found in Afghanistan, admitted responsibility for the attacks. This "confession" is now widely cited as proof. However, the man in this video has darker skin, fuller cheeks, and a broader nose than the Osama bin Laden of all the other videos.34 We again seem to have planted evidence.

There are, moreover, other problems in the official account of Osama bin Laden. For one thing, in June of 2001, when he was already America's "most wanted" criminal, he reportedly spent two weeks in the American Hospital in Dubai, at which he was treated by an American doctor and visited by the local CIA agent.35

Also, after 9/11, when America was reportedly trying to get bin Laden "dead or alive," the US military evidently allowed him to escape on at least four occasions, the last one being the "battle of Tora Bora," which the London Telegraph labeled "a grand charade."36 Shortly thereafter, Bush said: "I don't know where he [bin Laden] is. . . . I just don't spend that much time on him. . . . I truly am not that concerned about him."37 (Sometimes the truth slips out.)

In any case, the idea that the Bush administration has provided proof for its claims about Osama bin Laden and the al-Qaeda hijackers is a myth. I turn now to:


Myth Number 6: The 9/11 attacks came as a surprise to the Bush administration.

Nothing is more essential to the official story than this idea. About 10 months after 9/11, for example, FBI Director Robert Mueller said: "To this day we have found no one in the United States except the actual hijackers who knew of the plot."38 There is much evidence, however, that counts against this claim.

The Put Options: One type of evidence involves an extraordinarily high volume of "put options" purchased in the three days prior to 9/11. To buy put options for a particular company is to bet that its stock price will go down. These extraordinary purchases included two, and only two, airlines--United and American--the two airlines used in the attacks. They also included Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, which occupied 22 stories of the World Trade Center. The price of these shares did, of course, plummet after 9/11, resulting in enormous profits for the purchasers. These unusual purchases, as the San Francisco Chronicle said, raise "suspicions that the investors . . . had advance knowledge of the strikes."39 It would appear, in other words, that those who made the purchases knew that United and American airliners were going to be used in attacks on the World Trade Center.

The 9/11 Commission tried to show these suspicions to be unfounded. It claimed, for example, that the purchases for United Airlines do not show that anyone other than al-Qaeda had foreknowledge of the attacks, because 95 percent of these options were purchased by "[a] single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda."40 But the Commission thereby simply begged the question at issue, which is whether some organization other than al-Qaeda was involved in the planning.

Also, the Commission ignored the other crucial point, which is that US intelligence agencies closely monitor the stock market, looking for any anomalies that might provide clues about untoward events in the works.41 Therefore, regardless of who orchestrated the attacks, the US government would have had intelligence suggesting that United and American airliners were to be used for attacks on the World Trade Center.


Bush and the Secret Service: Further evidence of advance knowledge is shown by the behavior of President Bush and his secret service agents during the photo-op at the school in Florida that morning. According to the official story, when Bush was first told that a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers, he dismissed the incident as merely a "horrible accident," which meant that they could go ahead with the photo-op.42 News of the second strike, however, would have indicated---assuming that the strikes were unexpected---that terrorists were using planes to attack high-value targets. And what could have been a higher-value target than the president of the United States?

His location at the school had been highly publicized. The Secret Service agents should have feared, therefore, that a hijacked airliner might have been bearing down on the school at that very minute, ready to crash into it. It is standard procedure for the Secret Service to rush the president to a safe location when there is any sign that he may be in danger. And yet these agents allowed the president to remain another half hour, even permitting him to deliver an address on television, thereby announcing to the world that he was still at the school.

Would not this behavior be explainable only if the head of the Secret Service detail knew that the planned attacks did not include an attack on the president?

The 9/11 Commission, of course, did not ask this question. It was content to report that "[t]he Secret Service told us they . . . did not think it imperative for [the president] to run out the door."43 Maintaining decorum, in other words, was more important than protecting the president's life. Can anyone seriously believe that highly trained Secret Service agents would act this way in a situation of genuine danger?


Mineta's Report about Cheney: The attack on the Pentagon, as well as the attack on the World Trade Center, was said to be a surprise, even though it occurred over a half hour after the second strike on the Twin Towers. A Pentagon spokesperson, in explaining why the Pentagon was not evacuated before it was struck, claimed that "[t]he Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way."44 The 9/11 Commission claimed that there was no warning about an unidentified aircraft heading towards Washington until 9:36 and hence only "one or two minutes" before the Pentagon was struck at 9:38.45

But this claim is contradicted by Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's testimony about an episode that occurred in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center under the White House. In open testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Mineta gave this account:

During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon, there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, "The plane is 50 miles out." "The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to "the plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the Vice President, "Do the orders still stand?" And the Vice President . . . said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?"46

Mineta said that that this final exchange occurred at about 9:25 or 9:26.47 According to Mineta's account, therefore, Cheney knew about an approaching aircraft more than 12 minutes before 9:38, when the Pentagon was struck. Assuming that Cheney would not have kept this information from his good friend Donald Rumsfeld, Mineta's testimony contradicts the claim of the Pentagon and the 9/11 Commission that there was no advance knowledge, at least not sufficient advance knowledge to have evacuated the Pentagon, which would have saved 125 lives.

This example gives us one of the clearest examples of the fact that the Zelikow-led 9/11 Commission cannot be trusted. Having claimed that there was no knowledge that an aircraft was approaching the Pentagon until the last minute or so, it simply omitted Mineta's testimony to the contrary, which had been given in open testimony to the Commission itself, from its final report. Then, to rule out even the possibility that the episode reported by Mineta could have occurred, it claimed that Cheney did not even arrive in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center until almost 10:00 o'clock, hence about 20 minutes after the Pentagon was struck.48 But this claim, besides contradicting Mineta's eyewitness testimony that Cheney was already there when Mineta arrived at 9:20, also contradicts all other reports as to when Cheney had arrived there, including a report by Cheney himself.49


In light of this information about the put options, the Secret Service, and Mineta's testimony, we can reject as a myth the idea that the attacks were unexpected. However, even if the attacks had been unexpected, should they not have been intercepted? This brings us to:


Myth Number 7: US officials have explained why the hijacked airliners were not intercepted.

Actually, there is a sense in which this statement is true. US officials have explained why the US military did not prevent the attacks. The problem, however, is that they have given three explanations, each of which is contradicted by the others and none of which is a satisfactory explanation. I will explain.

According to standard operating procedures, if an FAA flight controller notices anything that suggests a possible hijacking, the controller is to contact a superior. If the problem cannot be fixed quickly (within about a minute), the superior is to ask NORAD---the North American Aerospace Defense Command---to send up, or "scramble," jet fighters to find out what is going on. NORAD then issues a scramble order to the nearest air force base with fighters on alert.

The jet fighters at NORAD's disposal could respond very quickly: According to the US Air Force website, F-15s can go from "scramble order" to 29,000 feet in only 2.5 minutes, after which they can fly over 1800 miles per hour.50 Therefore--according to General Ralph Eberhart, the head of NORAD---after the FAA senses that something is wrong, "it takes about one minute" for it to contact NORAD, after which, according to a spokesperson, NORAD can scramble fighter jets "within a matter of minutes to anywhere in the United States."51 These statements were, to be sure, made after 9/11, so we might suspect that they reflect a post-9/11 speed-up in procedures. But an Air Traffic Control document put out in 1998 warned pilots that any airplanes persisting in unusual behavior "will likely find two [jet fighters] on their tail within 10 or so minutes."52

If these procedures had been carried out on the morning of 9/11, AA Flight 11 and UA Flight 175 would have been intercepted before they could have reached Manhattan, and AA Flight 77 would have been intercepted long before it could have reached the Pentagon.

Such interceptions are routine, being carried out about 100 times a year. A month after 9/11, the Calgary Herald reported that in the year 2000, NORAD had scrambled fighters 129 times. Do these scrambles regularly result in interceptions? Just a few days after 9/11, Major Mike Snyder, a NORAD spokesperson, told the Boston Globe that "[NORAD's] fighters routinely intercept aircraft."53 Why did such interceptions not occur on 9/11?

During the first few days, the public was told that no fighter jets were sent up until after the strike on the Pentagon at 9:38. However, it was also reported that signs of Flight 11's hijacking had been observed at 8:15. That would mean that although interceptions usually occur within "10 or so" minutes after signs of trouble are observed, in this case 80 or so minutes had elapsed before fighters were even airborne. This story suggested that a "stand-down" order had been issued.

Within a few days, however, a second story was put out, according to which NORAD had sent up fighters but, because notification from the FAA had been very slow in coming, the fighters arrived too late. On September 18, NORAD made this second story official, embodying it in a timeline, which indicated when NORAD had been notified by the FAA about each airplane and when it had scrambled fighters in response.54

Critics showed, however, that even if the FAA notifications had come as late as NORAD's timeline indicated, NORAD's jets would have had time to make the interceptions.55 This second story did not, therefore, remove the suspicion that a stand-down order had been given.

Hoping to overcome this problem, The 9/11 Commission Report provided a third account, according to which, contrary to NORAD's timeline of September 18, 2001, the FAA did not notify NORAD about Flight 175 until after it had struck the south tower or about Flight 77 until after it had struck the Pentagon. But there are serious problems with this third story.

One problem is the very fact that it is the third story. Normally, when a suspect in a criminal investigation keeps changing his story, we get suspicious. Let's say that the police ask Charlie Jones where he was Saturday night. He says he was at the movie theater, but they say, "No, the movie theater has been closed all week." Then Charlie says, "Oh, that's right, I was with my girl friend." But, the police say, "No, we checked with her and she was home with her husband." If at that point Charlie says, "Oh, now I remember, I was home reading my Bible," you are probably not going to believe him. And yet that's what we have here. The military told one story right after 9/11, another story a week later, and a third story through The 9/11 Commission Report in 2004.

A second problem with this third story is that it contradicts several features of the second story, which had served as the official story for almost three years.

For example, NORAD's timeline of September 18, 2001, had indicated that the FAA had notified it about Flight 175 exactly 20 minutes before it hit its target and about Flight 77 some 14 minutes before the Pentagon was struck. The 9/11 Commission maintains that both of these statements were "incorrect"---that, really, there had been no notification about these flights until after they hit their targets. This, it claims, is why the military had failed to intercept them.56 But if NORAD's timeline was false, as the Commission now claims, NORAD must have been either lying or confused. But it is hard to believe that it could have been confused one week after 9/11. So it must have been lying. But if the military's second story was a lie, why should we believe this third one?

Further scepticism about this third story arises from the fact that it is contradicted by considerable evidence. For example, the Commission's claim that the military did not know about Flight 175 until it crashed is contradicted by a report involving Captain Michael Jellinek, a Canadian who on 9/11 was overseeing NORAD's headquarters in Colorado. According to a story in the Toronto Star, Jellinek was on the phone with NORAD as he watched Flight 175 crash into the south tower. He then asked NORAD: "Was that the hijacked aircraft you were dealing with?"--to which NORAD said "yes."57

The 9/11 Commission's claims about Flights 175 and 77 are also contradicted by a memo sent to the Commission by Laura Brown of the FAA. Her memo stated that at about 8:50 the FAA had set up a teleconference, in which it started sharing information with the military about all flights. She specifically mentioned Flight 77, indicating that the FAA had been sharing information about it even before the formal notification time of 9:24. Her memo, which is available on the Web,58 was discussed by the 9/11 Commission and read into its record on May 23, 2003.59 But Zelikow's 9/11 Commission Report fails to mention this memo.

Because of these and still more problems, which I have discussed in my book on the 9/11 Commission's report and also in a lecture called "Flights of Fancy",60 this third story does not remove the grounds for suspicion that a stand-down order had been issued.

There is, moreover, ear-witness testimony for this suspicion. An upper management official at LAX, who needs to remain anonymous, has told me that he overheard members of LAX Security--including officers from the FBI and LAPD---interacting on their walkie-talkies shortly after the attacks. In some cases, he could hear both sides of the conversation. At first, the LAX officials were told that the airplanes that attacked World Trade Center and the Pentagon had not been intercepted because the FAA had not notified NORAD about the hijackings. But later, he reports, they were told that NORAD had been notified but did not respond because it had been "ordered to stand down." When LAX security officials asked who had issued that order, they were told that it had come "from the highest level of the White House."61

Accordingly, the idea that the attacks could not have been prevented is a myth. I turn now to:


Myth Number 8: Official Reports have explained why the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapsed.

This claim suffers from the same problem as the previous one: We have had three explanations, each of which contradicts the others and none of which is anywhere close to adequate. The first explanation, widely disseminated through television specials, was that the buildings collapsed because their steel columns were melted by the jet-fuel-fed fires. But this explanation contained many problems, the most obvious of which is that steel does not begin to melt until about 2800 degrees F, while open fires based on hydrocarbons such as kerosene---which is what jet fuel is---cannot under the most ideal circumstances rise above 1700 degrees.

A second explanation, endorsed by The 9/11 Commission Report, is a "pancake" theory, according to which the fires, while not melting the steel, heated it up sufficiently to cause the floors weakened by the airplane strikes to break loose from the steel columns---both those in the core of the building and those around the outside. All the floors above the strike zone hence fell down on the floor below the strike zone, causing it to break free, and this started a chain reaction, so the floors pancaked all the way down. But this explanation also suffered from many problems, the most obvious of which was that it could not explain why the buildings collapsed into a pile of rubble only a few stories high. The core of each of the Twin Towers consisted of 47 massive steel columns. If the floors had broken loose from them, these columns would have still been sticking up a thousand feet in the air. The 9/11 Commission Report tried to cover up this problem by claiming that the core of each tower consisted of "a hollow steel shaft."62 But those massive steel columns could not be wished away.

The definitive explanation was supposed to be the third one, issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, often simply called NIST. The NIST Report claimed that when the floors collapsed, they, rather than breaking free from the columns, pulled on them, causing the perimeter columns to become unstable. This instability then increased the gravity load on the core columns, which had been weakened by tremendously hot fires in the core, which, NIST claims, reached 1832?F, and this combination of factors resulted in "global collapse."63

But, as physicists Jim Hoffman and Steven Jones have shown, this account is riddled with problems. One of these is that NIST's claim about tremendously hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by evidence. NIST's own studies found no evidence that any of the core columns had reached temperatures of even 482?F (250?C).64 A second problem is that, even if this sequence of events had occurred, NIST provided no explanation as to why it would have produced global---that is, total---collapse. The NIST Report asserts that "column failure" occurred in the core as well as the perimeter columns. But this remains a bare assertion. There is no plausible explanation of why the core columns would have broken, or even buckled, so as to produce global collapse.65

And this is only to begin to enumerate the problems in NIST's theory, all of which follow from the fact that it, like the previous two theories, is essentially a fire theory, according to which the buildings were brought down primarily by fire. In the case of the Twin Towers, of course, the impact of the airplanes is said to have played a role. But most experts who support the official theory attribute the collapses primarily to the fires. NIST, for example, says that the main contribution of the airplanes, aside from providing jet fuel, was to dislodge a lot of the fire-proofing from the steel, thereby making it vulnerable to the fires.66 But these fire-theories face several formidable problems.

First, the fires in these three buildings were not very hot, very big, or very long-lasting, compared with fires in some steel-frame high-rises that did not collapse. A 1991 fire in Philadelphia burned 18 hours, and a 2004 fire in Caracas burned 17 hours, without causing even a partial collapse.67 By contrast, the fires in the north and south towers burned only 102 and 56 minutes, respectively, before they collapsed, and neither fire, unlike the Philadelphia and Caracas fires, was hot enough to break windows.

Second, total collapses of steel-frame high-rise buildings have never---either before or after 9/11---been brought about by fire alone, or fire combined with externally produced structural damage. The collapse of Building 7 has been recognized as especially difficult to explain. It was not hit by a plane, so the explanation has to rely on fire alone, and yet, because there was no jet fuel to get a big fire started, this building had fires on only two or three floors, according to several witnesses68 and all the photographic evidence.69 FEMA admitted that the best explanation it could come up with it had "only a low probability of occurrence."70 The 9/11 Commission Report implicitly admitted that it could not explain the collapse of Building 7 by not even mentioning it. The NIST Report, which could not claim that the fire-proofing had gotten knocked off the steel of this building, has yet to offer an explanation as to why it collapsed.

And NIST, like the 9/11 Commission, evidently did not want citizens asking why Building 7 collapsed even though it was not hit by a plane. On its Website, it says that one of its objectives is to determine "why and how World Trade Center buildings 1, 2, and 7 collapsed after the initial impact of the aircraft"---thereby implying that building 7, like the Twin Towers, was hit by a plane.71

In any case, a third problem with the official account of the collapse of these three buildings is that all prior and subsequent total collapses of steel-frame high-rises have been caused by explosives in the procedure known as "controlled demolition." This problem is made even more severe by the fact that the collapses of these three buildings manifested many standard features of the most difficult type of controlled demolition, known as implosion. I will mention seven such features.

First, the collapses began suddenly. Steel, if weakened by fire, would gradually begin to sag. But as one can see from videos available on the Web,72 all three buildings are completely motionless up to the moment they begin to collapse.

Second, if these huge buildings had toppled over, they would have caused enormous death and destruction. But they came straight down. This straight-down collapse is the whole point of the type of controlled demolition called implosion, which only a few companies in the world can perform.73

Third, these buildings collapsed at virtually free-fall speed, which means that the lower floors, with all their steel and concrete, were offering no resistance to the upper floors.

Fourth, as mentioned earlier, the collapses were total collapses, resulting in piles of rubble only a few stories high. This means that the enormous steel columns in the core of each building had to be broken into rather short segments---which is what explosives do.

Fifth, great quantities of molten steel were produced, which means that the steel had been heated up to several thousand degrees. Witnesses during the clean-up reported, moreover, that sometimes when a piece of steel was lifted out of the rubble, molten metal would be dripping from the end.74

Sixth, according to many fire fighters, medical workers, journalists, and World Trade Center employees, many explosions went off before and after the collapses. For example, Fire Captain Dennis Tardio, speaking of the south tower, said: "I hear an explosion and I look up. It is as if the building is being imploded, from the top floor down, one after another, boom, boom, boom."75 Firefighter Richard Banaciski said: "It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions."76 Thanks to the release in August of 2005 of the oral histories recorded by the Fire Department of New York shortly after 9/11, dozens of testimonies of this type are now available. I have published an essay on them, which will be included---along with an essay on "The Destruction of the World Trade Center," which I am here summarizing---in a forthcoming book on 9/11 and Christian faith.77

A seventh feature of controlled implosions is the production of large quantities of dust. In the case of the Twin Towers, virtually everything except the steel---all the concrete, desks, computers---was pulverized into very tiny dust particles.78

The official theory cannot explain one, let alone all seven, of these features---at least, as Jim Hoffman and Steven Jones have pointed out, without violating several basic laws of physics.79 But the theory of controlled demolition easily explains all these features.

These facts are inconsistent with the idea that al-Qaeda terrorists were responsible. Foreign terrorists could not have obtained access to the buildings for the hours needed to plant the explosives. Terrorists working for the Bush-Cheney administration, by contrast, could have gotten such access, given the fact that Marvin Bush and Wirt Walker III---the president's brother and cousin, respectively---were principals of the company in charge of security for the World Trade Center.80 Al-Qaeda terrorists would also probably not have had the courtesy to ensure that these huge buildings came straight down, rather than falling over onto other buildings. They also would not have had the necessary expertise.

Another relevant fact is that evidence was destroyed. An examination of the buildings' steel beams and columns could have shown whether explosives had been used to slice them. But virtually all of the steel was removed before it could be properly examined,81 then put on ships to Asia to be melted down.82 It is usually a federal offense to remove anything from a crime scene. But here the removal of over 100 tons of steel, the biggest destruction of evidence in history, was carried out under the supervision of federal officials.83

Evidence was also apparently planted. The passport of one of the hijackers on Flight 11 was allegedly found in the rubble, having survived the fire caused by the crash into the north tower and also whatever caused everything else in this building except the steel to be pulverized.84 As a story in the Guardian said, "the idea that [this] passport had escaped from that inferno unsinged would [test] the credulity of the staunchest supporter of the FBI's crackdown on terrorism."85

To sum up: The idea that US officials have given a satisfactory, or even close to satisfactory, explanation of the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings is a myth. And they have implicitly admitted this by refusing to engage in rational debate about it. For example, Michael Newman, a spokesman for NIST, reportedly said during a recent interview that "none of the NIST scientists would participate in any public debate" with scientists who reject their report. When Newman was asked why NIST would avoid public debate if it had confidence in its report, Newman replied: "Because there is no winning in such debates."85 In that same interview, Newman had compared people who reject the government's account of the collapses with people who believe in Bigfoot and a flat earth.86 And yet he fears that his scientists would not be able to show up these fools in a public debate!

In any case, I come now to the final myth, which is:


Myth Number 9: There is no doubt that Flight 77, under the control of al-Qaeda hijacker Hani Hanjour, struck the Pentagon.

There are, in fact, many reasons to doubt this claim.

We have, in the first place, reasons to doubt that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was under the control of Hani Hanjour. For one thing, the aircraft, before striking the Pentagon, reportedly executed a 270-degree downward spiral, and yet Hani Hanjour was known as a terrible pilot, who could not safely fly even a small plane.87 Russ Wittenberg, who flew large commercial airliners for 35 years after serving in Vietnam as a fighter pilot, says that it would have been "totally impossible for an amateur who couldn't even fly a Cessna to maneuver the jetliner in such a highly professional manner."88

Moreover, as a result of that very difficult maneuver, the Pentagon's west wing was struck, but terrorists brilliant enough to get through the US military's defense system would have known that this was the worst place to strike, for several reasons: The west wing had been reinforced, so the damage was less severe than a strike anywhere else would have been. This wing was still being renovated, so relatively few people were there; a strike anywhere else would have killed thousands of people, rather than 125. And the secretary of defense and all the top brass, whom terrorists would presumably have wanted to kill, were in the east wing. Why would an al-Qaeda pilot have executed a very difficult maneuver to hit the west wing when he could have simply crashed into the roof of the east wing?

A second major problem with the official story: There are reasons to believe that the Pentagon was struck only because officials at the Pentagon wanted it to be struck. For one thing, Flight 77 allegedly, after making a U-turn in the mid-west, flew back to Washington undetected for 40 minutes. And yet the US military, which by then clearly knew that hijacked airliners were being used as weapons, has the best radar systems in the world, one of which, it brags, "does not miss anything occurring in North American airspace."89 The idea that a large airliner could have slipped through, especially during a time of heightened alert, is absurd.

Also, the Pentagon is surely the best defended building on the planet.90 It is not only within the P-56-A restricted air space that extends 17 miles in all directions from the Washington Monument, but also within P-56-B, the three-mile ultra-restricted zone above the White House, the Capitol, and the Pentagon. The Pentagon is only a few miles from Andrews Air Force Base, which has at least three squadrons with fighter jets on alert at all times. (The claim by The 9/11 Commission Report that no fighters were on alert the morning of 9/11 is wholly implausible, as I have explained in my critique of this report.91) The Pentagon, moreover, is reportedly protected by batteries of surface-to-air missiles, so if any aircraft without a US military transponder were to enter the Pentagon's airspace, it would be shot down.92 Even if the aircraft that hit the Pentagon had been Flight 77, therefore, it could have succeeded only because officials in the Pentagon turned off its missiles as well as ordering the fighters from Andrews to stand down.

A third major problem with the official story is that there is considerable evidence that it could not have been Flight 77 because it was not a Boeing 757. For one thing, the strike on the Pentagon, unlike the strikes on the Twin Towers, reportedly did not create a detectable seismic signal.93

Also, according to several witnesses and many people who have studied the available photographs, both the damage and the debris were inconsistent with a strike by a large airliner. That issue, however, is too complex to discuss here, as is the issue of the what should be inferred from the conflicting eyewitness testimony.

Deferring those topics to another time, I will conclude by pointing out that the suspicion that the Pentagon was not struck by a 757, as the government claims, is supported by the fact that evidence was destroyed. Shortly after the strike, government agents picked up debris and carried it off.94 Then the entire lawn was covered with dirt and gravel, so that any remaining forensic evidence was literally covered up.95

Also, the videos from security cameras on the nearby Citgo gas station and Sheraton Hotel, which would show what really hit the Pentagon, were immediately confiscated by agents of the FBI, and the Department of Justice has to this day refused to release them.96 If these videos would prove that the Pentagon was really hit by a 757, most of us would assume, the government would release them.

Conclusion

It would seem, for many reasons, that the official story of 9/11, which has served as a religious Myth in the intervening years, is a myth in the pejorative sense of a story that does not correspond to reality. One sign of a story that is a myth in this sense, I have pointed out, is that it cannot be rationally defended, and the official story has never been publicly defended against informed criticism by any member of NIST, the 9/11 Commission, or the Bush administration. An illustration: After Charlie Sheen had made public his skepticism about the official story, CNN's "Showbiz Tonight" wanted to have a debate, about the points he had raised, between a representative of the government and a representative of 9/11Truth.org. But the producers reportedly could find no member of the government willing to appear on the show. In this unwillingness of the government to appear on an entertainment show to answer questions raised by an actor, we would seem to have the clearest possible sign that the government's story is myth, not reality.

If so, we must demand that the government immediately cease implementing the policies that have been justified by this myth.

When charges were brought against some members of Duke University's lacrosse team in March of 2006, the president of the university immediately cancelled all future games until the truth of the charges could be decided. But surely, as serious as the charges were in that case, the charges against the official story of 9/11 are far more serious, for this story, serving as a national religious Myth, has been used to justify two wars, which have caused many tens of thousands of deaths; to start a more general war on Islam, in which Muslims are considered guilty until proven innocent; to annul and violate civil rights; and to increase our military spending, which was already greater than that of the rest of the world combined, by hundreds of billions of dollars, partly so that weapons can be put into space.

Congress needs to put the implementation of these policies on hold until there is a truly independent investigation, carried out by qualified individuals who are not members of the very circles that, if 9/11 truly was a false flag operation, planned it, carried it out, and then covered it up.


NOTES

1. "Remarks by the President in Photo Opportunity with the National Security Team" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/...912-4.html), quoted in Thierry Meyssan, 9:11: The Big Lie (London: Carnot, 2002), 77.

2. "President's Remarks at National Day of Prayer and Remembrance" (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/...914-2.html), quoted in Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 76-77.

3. Meyssan, 9/11: The Big Lie, 79.

4. Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States (1980; New York: HarperPerennial, 1990), 150. Richard Van Alstyne, The Rising American Empire (1960; New York, Norton, 1974), 143.

5. Stuart Creighton Miller, Benevolent Assimilation: The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899-1903 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982), 11.

6. Ibid., 57-62.

7. George McT. Kahin, Intervention: How American Became Involved in Vietnam (Garden City: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1987), 220; Marilyn B. Young, The Vietnam Wars 1945-1990 (New York: HarperCollins, 1991), 119.

8. Daniele Ganser, NATO's Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe (New York: Frank Cass, 2005).

9. This memorandum can be found at the National Security Archive, April 30, 2001 (http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430). It was revealed to US readers by James Bamford in Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-secret National Security Agency (2001: New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 82-91.

10. Andrew J. Bacevich, American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002), 44.

11. David Armstrong, "Dick Cheney's Song of America," Harper's, October, 2002.

12. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997), 35-36.

13. Ibid., 212.

14. Ibid., 212, 24-25.

15. Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century, September 2000 (http://www.newamericancentury.org), 51.

16. "Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with the New York Times," New York Times, October 12, 2001. Similar sentiments were expressed by Condoleezza Rice and President Bush. On Rice, see Nicholas Lemann, "The Next World Order: The Bush Administration May Have a Brand-New Doctrine of Power," New Yorker, April 1, 2002 (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/ar...01fa_FACT1), and Rice, "Remarks by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice on Terrorism and Foreign Policy," April 29, 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov); on Bush, see "Bush Vows to ?Whip Terrorism,'" Reuters, Sept. 14, 2001, and Bob Woodward, Bush at War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 32.

17. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, September 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/nsc/nss.html), cover letter.

18. Audrey R. Kahin and George McT. Kahin, Subversion as Foreign Policy: The Secret Eisenhower and Dulles Debacle in Indonesia (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995).

19. The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Authorized Edition [New York: W. W. Norton, 2004], xv. David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton: Interlink Books, 2005), 285-95.

20. Chairman Thomas Kean and Vice Chairman Lee Hamilton, in their Preface, say: "The professional staff, headed by Philip Zelikow, . . . conducted the exacting investigative work upon which the Commission has built" (The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, Authorized Edition [New York: W. W. Norton, 2004], xvi-xvii).

21. These statements are quoted in Peter Lance, Cover Up: What the Government is Still Hiding about the War on Terror (New York: Harper-Collins/ReganBooks, 2004), 139-40.

22. James Mann, Rise of the Vulcans: The History of Bush's War Cabinet (New York: Viking, 2004), 316, 331.

23. Max Boot, "Think Again: Neocons," Foreign Policy, January/February 2004, 18 (http://www.cfr.org/publication/7592/think_again.html).

24. See Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall, 9/11 Revealed: The Unanswered Questions (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005), 180-83.

25. The 9/11 Commission Report, 116.

26. Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta and the 9/11 Cover-up in Florida (Eugene: MacCowPress, 2004). These details from Hopsicker's book are summarized in his "Top Ten things You Never Knew about Mohamed Atta," Mad Cow Morning News, June 7, 2004 (madcowprod.com), and in an interview in the Guerrilla News Forum, June 17, 2004 (http://www.guerrillanews.com/intelligence/doc4660.html), summarized in NPH, 2nd ed., 243n1.

27. "Terrorist Stag Parties," Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2001 (http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=95001298).

28. The 9/11 Commission Report, 248.

29. The flight manifest for AA 11 that was published by CNN can be seen at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.c...ctims.html. The manifests for the other flights can be located by simply changing that part of the URL. The manifest for UA 93, for example, is at http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.c...ctims.html.

30. The 9/11 Commission Report, 19-20.

31. David Bamford, "Hijack ?Suspect' Alive in Morocco," BBC News, Sept. 22, 2001 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_...558669.stm). Several other alleged hijackers were reported to be alive in David Harrison, "Revealed: The Men with Stolen Identities," Telegraph, September 23, 2001 (http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/m...iden23.xml). At least one of these claims, that involving Ahmed al-Nami, was based on a confusion. The al-Nami contacted by Harrison was 33, whereas the man of that name who was supposedly on Flight 93, which supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania, was only 21. See Christine Lamb, "The Six Sons of Asir," Telegraph, September 15, 2002 (http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/m...oss215.xml). But no such explanation seems possible with Waleed al-Shehri, since the FBI photograph is clearly of a still-living man of that name.

32. Francis A. Boyle, "Bush, Jr., September 11th and the Rule of Law," which can be found in The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence: Could The US War On Terrorism Go Nuclear? (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2002) or at http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/CrimNukDetSI.html.

33. "White House Warns Taliban: ?We Will Defeat You'" (CNN.com, Sept. 21, 2001). Four weeks after the attacks began, a Taliban spokesman said: "We are not a province of the United States, to be issued orders to. We have asked for proof of Osama's involvement, but they have refused. Why?" (Kathy Gannon, AP, "Taliban Willing To Talk, But Wants U.S. Respect" [http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/focus...iban.html]).

34. See "The Fake bin Laden Video" (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape.html).

35. Richard Labeviere, "CIA Agent Allegedly Met Bin Laden in July," Le Figaro, Oct. 31, 2001. This story was also reported in Anthony Sampson, "CIA Agent Alleged to Have Met Bin Laden in July," Guardian, Nov. 1, and Adam Sage, "Ailing bin Laden ?Treated for Kidney Disease,'" London Times, Nov. 1.

36. Telegraph, Feb. 23, 2002; Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, 60.

37. President George W. Bush, Conference, March 13, 2002 (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/...313-8.html).

38. Philip Shenon, "FBI Gave Secret Files to Terrorist Suspect," New York Times, Sept. 28, 2002, citing Mueller's testimony to Congress on June 18, 2002.

39. San Francisco Chronicle, Sept. 29, 2001.

40. The 9/11 Commission Report, 499 n. 130.

41. Investigative journalist Michael Ruppert, a former detective for the Los Angeles Police Department, has written: "It is well documented that the CIA has long monitored such trades--in real time--as potential warnings of terrorist attacks and other economic moves contrary to U.S. interests" ("Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading Lead Directly into the CIA's Highest Ranks," From the Wilderness Publications (http://www.fromthewilderness.com or http://www.copvcia.com), Oct. 9, 2001. Nafeez Ahmed, besides quoting Ruppert's remark, points out that "UPI reported that the U.S.-sponsored ECHELON intelligence network closely monitors stock trading," citing United Press International, Feb. 13, 2001. See Nafeez Ahmed, The War on Freedom: How and Why America Was Attacked September 11, 2001 (Joshua Tree, Calif.: Tree of Life Publications, 2002), 120.

42. CNN, Dec. 4, 2001, The Daily Mail, Sept. 8, 2002, and ABC News, Sept. 11, 2002.

43. The 9/11 Commission Report, 39.

44. "Air Attack on Pentagon Indicates Weaknesses," Newsday, September 23, 2001.

45. The 9/11 Commission Report, 34.

46. "Statement of Secretary of Transportation Norman Y. Mineta before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States, May 23, 2003" (available at http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timel...052303.htm).

47. Ibid.

48. The 9/11 Commission Report, 40.

49. See the summary of evi...

[Charles Drago]

Before I get banned, I'm starting to lean towards a controlled demolition for WTC-7. It seems obvious from these witness statements that authorities were openly saying they were going to pull the building. Obviously pulling the building in this context means bringing it down deliberately. I've seen enough government action like the Kennedy Assassination and TWA 800 to know they openly lie in contempt to the American public and this is probably another example where they could compound the effect of 9-11 by bringing a damaged building down at a convenient time. The devil is in the details but it looks like they brought it down intentionally. How they did that is beyond me in a building that was on fire.


Still though, I wish people would be honest and give me a straight answer as to why the clear area in Banfield's video fills in with smoke before the booms they show?

Anyone?

I'm just calling for objectivity here.

Albert,

No one is going to ban you or anyone else for honestly offering reasonable hypotheses of deep political events that are not shared by the majority of DPF owners and correspondents.

[Peter Lemkin]

The Destruction of the World Trade Center:
Why the Official Account Cannot Be True
David Ray Griffin
Authorized Version (with references & notes)

In The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 (2004), I summarized dozens of facts and reports that cast doubt on the official story about 9/11. Then in The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (2005a), I discussed the way these various facts and reports were treated by the 9/11 Commission, namely, by distorting or simply omitting them. I have also taken this big-picture approach, with its cumulative argument, in my previous essays and lectures on 9/11 (Griffin, 2005b and 2005d).[1] This approach, which shows every aspect of the official story to be problematic, provides the most effective challenge to the official story.

But this way of presenting the evidence has one great limitation, especially when used in lectures and essays: It means that the treatment of every particular issue must be quite brief, hence superficial. People can thereby be led to suspect that a more thorough treatment of any particular issue might show the official story to be plausible after all.

In the present essay, I focus on one question: why the Twin Towers and building 7 of the World Trade Center collapsed. One advantage of this focus, besides the fact that it allows us to go into considerable detail, is that the destruction of the World Trade Center provides one of the best windows into the truth about 9/11. Another advantage of this focus is that it will allow us to look at revelations contained in the 9/11 oral histories, which were recorded by the New York Fire Department shortly after 9/11 but released to the public only in August of 2005.

I will begin with the question of why the Twin Towers collapsed, then raise the same question about building 7.





1. The Collapse of the Twin Towers



Shortly after 9/11, President Bush advised people not to tolerate "outrageous conspiracy theories about the attacks of 11 September" (Bush, 2001).[2] Philip Zelikow, who directed the work of the 9/11 Commission, has likewise warned against "outrageous conspiracy theories" (Hansen, 2005). What do these men mean by this expression? They cannot mean that we should reject all conspiracy theories about 9/11, because the government's own account is a conspiracy theory, with the conspirators all being members of al-Qaeda. They mean only that we should reject outrageous theories.

But what distinguishes an outrageous theory from a non-outrageous one? This is one of the central questions in the philosophy of science. When confronted by rival theories---let's say Neo-Darwinian Evolution and Intelligent Design---scientists and philosophers of science ask which theory is better and why. The mark of a good theory is that it can explain, in a coherent way, all or at least most of the relevant facts and is not contradicted by any of them. A bad theory is one that is contradicted by some of the relevant facts. An outrageous theory would be one that is contradicted by virtually all the relevant facts.

With this definition in mind, let us look at the official theory about the Twin Towers, which says that they collapsed because of the combined effect of the impact of the airplanes and the resulting fires. The report put out by FEMA said: "The structural damage sustained by each tower from the impact, combined with the ensuing fires, resulted in the total collapse of each building" (FEMA, 2002).[3] This theory clearly belongs in the category of outrageous theories, because is it is contradicted by virtually all the relevant facts. Although this statement may seem extreme, I will explain why it is not.



No Prior Collapse Induced by Fire

The official theory is rendered implausible by two major problems. The first is the simple fact that fire has never---prior to or after 9/11---caused steel-frame high-rise buildings to collapse. Defenders of the official story seldom if ever mention this simple fact. Indeed, the supposedly definitive report put out by NIST---the National Institute for Standards and Technology (2005)---even implies that fire-induced collapses of large steel-frame buildings are normal events (Hoffman, 2005).[4] Far from being normal, however, such collapses have never occurred, except for the alleged cases of 9/11.

Defenders of the official theory, of course, say that the collapses were caused not simply by the fire but the fire combined with the damage caused by the airliners. The towers, however, were designed to withstand the impact of airliners about the same size as Boeing 767s.[5] Hyman Brown, the construction manager of the Twin Towers, said: "They were over-designed to withstand almost anything, including hurricanes, . . . bombings and an airplane hitting [them]" (Bollyn, 2001). And even Thomas Eagar, an MIT professor of materials engineering who supports the official theory, says that the impact of the airplanes would not have been significant, because "the number of columns lost on the initial impact was not large and the loads were shifted to remaining columns in this highly redundant structure" (Eagar and Musso, 2001, pp. 8-11). Likewise, the NIST Report, in discussing how the impact of the planes contributed to the collapse, focuses primarily on the claim that the planes dislodged a lot of the fire-proofing from the steel.[6]

The official theory of the collapse, therefore, is essentially a fire theory, so it cannot be emphasized too much that fire has never caused large steel-frame buildings to collapse---never, whether before 9/11, or after 9/11, or anywhere in the world on 9/11 except allegedly New York City---never.

One might say, of course, that there is a first time for everything, and that a truly extraordinary fire might induce a collapse. Let us examine this idea. What would count as an extraordinary fire? Given the properties of steel, a fire would need to be very hot, very big, and very long-lasting. But the fires in the towers did not have even one of these characteristics, let alone all three.

There have been claims, to be sure, that the fires were very hot. Some television specials claimed that the towers collapsed because the fire was hot enough to melt the steel. For example, an early BBC News special quoted Hyman Brown as saying: "steel melts, and 24,000 gallons of aviation fluid melted the steel." Another man, presented as a structural engineer, said: "It was the fire that killed the buildings. There's nothing on earth that could survive those temperatures with that amount of fuel burning. . . . The columns would have melted" (Barter, 2001).[7]

These claims, however, are absurd. Steel does not even begin to melt until it reaches almost 2800° Fahrenheit.[8] And yet open fires fueled by hydrocarbons, such as kerosene---which is what jet fuel is---can at most rise to 1700°F, which is almost 1100 degrees below the melting point of steel.[9] We can, accordingly, dismiss the claim that the towers collapsed because their steel columns melted.[10]

Most defenders of the official theory, in fact, do not make this absurd claim. They say merely that the fire heated the steel up to the point where it lost so much of its strength that it buckled.[11] For example, Thomas Eagar, saying that steel loses 80 percent of its strength when it is heated to 1,300ËšF, argues that this is what happened. But for even this claim to plausible, the fires would have still had to be pretty hot.

But they were not. Claims have been made, as we have seen, about the jet fuel. But much of it burned up very quickly in the enormous fireballs produced when the planes hit the buildings, and rest was gone within 10 minutes,[12] after which the flames died down. Photographs of the towers 15 minutes after they were struck show few flames and lots of black smoke, a sign that the fires were oxygen-starved. Thomas Eagar, recognizing this fact, says that the fires were "probably only about 1,200 or 1,300ËšF" (Eagar, 2002).

There are reasons to believe, moreover, that the fires were not even that hot. As photographs show, the fires did not break windows or even spread much beyond their points of origin (Hufschmid, 2002, p. 40). This photographic evidence is supported by scientific studies carried out by NIST, which found that of the 16 perimeter columns examined, "only three columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250ËšC [482ËšF]," and no evidence that any of the core columns had reached even those temperatures (2005, p. 88).

NIST (2005) says that it "did not generalize these results, since the examined columns represented only 3 percent of the perimeter columns and 1 percent of the core columns from the fire floors". That only such a tiny percent of the columns was available was due, of course, to the fact that government officials had most of the steel immediately sold and shipped off. In any case, NIST's findings on the basis of this tiny percent of the columns are not irrelevant: They mean that any speculations that some of the core columns reached much higher temperatures would be just that---pure speculation not backed up by any empirical evidence.

Moreover, even if the fire had reached 1,300ËšF, as Eagar supposes, that does not mean that any of the steel would have reached that temperature. Steel is an excellent conductor of heat. Put a fire to one part of a long bar of steel and the heat will quickly diffuse to the other parts and to any other pieces of steel to which that bar is connected.[13]

For fires to have heated up some of the steel columns to anywhere close to their own temperature, they would have needed to be very big, relative to the size of the buildings and the amount of steel in them. The towers, of course, were huge and had an enormous amount of steel. A small, localized fire of 1,300ËšF would never have heated any of the steel columns even close to that temperature, because the heat would have been quickly dispersed throughout the building.

Some defenders of the official story have claimed that the fires were indeed very big, turning the buildings into "towering infernos." But all the evidence counts against this claim, especially with regard to the south tower, which collapsed first. This tower was struck between floors 78 and 84, so that region is where the fire would have been the biggest. And yet Brian Clark, a survivor, said that when he got down to the 80th floor: "You could see through the wall and the cracks and see flames . . . just licking up, not a roaring inferno, just quiet flames licking up and smoke sort of eking through the wall."[14] Likewise, one of the fire chiefs who had reached the 78th floor found only "two isolated pockets of fire."[15]

The north tower, to be sure, did have fires that were big enough and hot enough to cause many people to jump to their deaths. But as anyone with a fireplace grate or a pot-belly stove knows, fire that will not harm steel or even iron will burn human flesh. Also in many cases it may have been more the smoke than the heat that led people to jump.

In any case, the fires, to weaken the steel columns, would have needed to be not only very big and very hot but also very long-lasting.[16] The public was told that the towers had such fires, with CNN saying that "very intense" fires "burned for a long time."[17] But they did not. The north tower collapsed an hour and 42 minutes after it was struck; the south tower collapsed after only 56 minutes.

To see how ludicrous is the claim that the short-lived fires in the towers could have induced structural collapse, we can compare them with some other fires. In 1988, a fire in the First Interstate Bank Building in Los Angeles raged for 3.5 hours and gutted 5 of this building's 62 floors, but there was no significant structural damage (FEMA, 1988). In 1991, a huge fire in Philadelphia's One Meridian Plaza lasted for 18 hours and gutted 8 of the building's 38 floors, but, said the FEMA report, although "[b]eams and girders sagged and twisted . . . under severe fire exposures. . . , the columns continued to support their loads without obvious damage" (FEMA, 1991). In Caracas in 2004, a fire in a 50-story building raged for 17 hours, completely gutting the building's top 20 floors, and yet it did not collapse (Nieto, 2004). And yet we are supposed to believe that a 56-minute fire caused the south tower to collapse.

Unlike the fires in the towers, moreover, the fires in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Caracas were hot enough to break windows.

Another important comparison is afforded by a series of experiments run in Great Britain in the mid-1990s to see what kind of damage could be done to steel-frame buildings by subjecting them to extremely hot, all-consuming fires that lasted for many hours. FEMA, having reviewed those experiments, said: "Despite the temperature of the steel beams reaching 800-900°C (1,500-1,700°F) in three of the tests. . . , no collapse was observed in any of the six experiments" (1988, Appendix A).

These comparisons bring out the absurdity of NIST's claim that the towers collapsed because the planes knocked the fireproofing off the steel columns. Fireproofing provides protection for only a few hours, so the steel in the buildings in Philadelphia and Caracas would have been directly exposed to raging fires for 14 or more hours, and yet this steel did not buckle. NIST claims, nevertheless, that the steel in the south tower buckled because it was directly exposed to flames for 56 minutes.[18]

A claim made by some defenders of the official theory is to speculate that there was something about the Twin Towers that made them uniquely vulnerable to fire. But these speculations are not backed up by any evidence. And, as Norman Glover, has pointed out: "[A]lmost all large buildings will be the location for a major fire in their useful life. No major high-rise building has ever collapsed from fire. The WTC was the location for such a fire in 1975; however, the building survived with minor damage and was repaired and returned to service" (Glover, 2002).



Multiple Evidence of Controlled Demolition

There is a reverse truth to the fact that, aside from the alleged cases of 9/11, fire has never caused large steel-frame buildings to collapse. This reverse truth is that every previous total collapse has been caused by the procedure known as "controlled demolition," in which explosives capable of cutting steel have been placed in crucial places throughout the building and then set off in a particular order. Just from knowing that the towers collapsed, therefore, the natural assumption would be that they were brought down by explosives.

This a priori assumption is, moreover, supported by an empirical examination of the particular nature of the collapses. Here we come to the second major problem with the official theory, namely, that the collapses had at least eleven features that would be expected if, and only if, explosives were used. I will briefly describe these eleven features.



Sudden Onset: In controlled demolition, the onset of the collapse is sudden. One moment, the building is perfectly motionless; the next moment, it suddenly begins to collapse. But steel, when heated, does not suddenly buckle or break. So in fire-induced collapses---if we had any examples of such---the onset would be gradual. Horizontal beams and trusses would begin to sag; vertical columns, if subjected to strong forces, would begin to bend. But as videos of the towers show,[19] there were no signs of bending or sagging, even on the floors just above the damage caused by the impact of the planes. The buildings were perfectly motionless up to the moment they began their collapse.



Straight Down: The most important thing in a controlled demolition of a tall building close to other buildings is that it come straight down, into, or at least close to, its own footprint, so that it does not harm the other buildings. The whole art or science of controlled demolition is oriented primarily around this goal. As Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained, "to bring [a building] down as we want, so . . . no other structure is harmed," the demolition must be "completely planned," using "the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges" (Else, 2004).[20] If the 110-story Twin Towers had fallen over, they would have caused an enormous amount of damage to buildings covering many city blocks. But the towers came straight down. Accordingly, the official theory, by implying that fire produced collapses that perfectly mimicked the collapses that have otherwise been produced only by precisely placed explosives, requires a miracle.[21]



Almost Free-Fall Speed: Buildings brought down by controlled demolition collapse at almost free-fall speed. This can occur because the supports for the lower floors are destroyed, so that when the upper floors come down, they encounter no resistance. The fact that the collapses of the towers mimicked this feature of controlled demolition was mentioned indirectly by The 9/11 Commission Report, which said that the "South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds" (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, p. 305).[22] The authors of the report evidently thought that the rapidity of this collapse did not conflict with the official theory, known as the "pancake" theory. According to this theory, the floors above the floors that were weakened by the impact of the airliner fell on the floor below, which started a chain reaction, so that the floors "pancaked" all the way down.

But if that is what happened, the lower floors, with all their steel and concrete, would have provided resistance. The upper floors could not have fallen through them at the same speed as they would fall through air. However, the videos of the collapses show that the rubble falling inside the building's profile falls at the same speed as the rubble outside[23] (Jones, 2006). As Dave Heller, a builder with degrees in physics and architecture, explains:

the floors could not have been pancaking. The buildings fell too quickly. The floors must all have been falling simultaneously to reach the ground in such a short amount of time. But how?. . . In [the method known as controlled demolition], each floor of a building is destroyed at just the moment the floor above is about to strike it. Thus, the floors fall simultaneously, and in virtual freefall. (Garlic and Glass 6)



Total Collapse: The official theory is even more decisively ruled out by the fact that the collapses were total: These 110-story buildings collapsed into piles of rubble only a few stories high. How was that possible? The core of each tower contained 47 massive steel box columns.[24] According to the pancake theory, the horizontal steel supports broke free from the vertical columns. But if that is what had happened, the 47 core columns would have still been standing. The 9/11 Commission came up with a bold solution to this problem. It simply denied the existence of the 47 core columns, saying: "The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped" (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, 541 note 1). Voila! With no 47 core columns, the main problem is removed.

The NIST Report handled this most difficult problem by claiming that when the floors collapsed, they pulled on the columns, causing the perimeter columns to become unstable. This instability then increased the gravity load on the core columns, which had been weakened by tremendously hot fires in the core, which, NIST claims, reached 1832°F, and this combination of factors somehow produced "global collapse" (NIST, 2005, pp. 28, 143).

This theory faces two problems. First, NIST's claim about tremendously hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by evidence. As we saw earlier, its own studies found no evidence that any of the core columns had reached temperatures of even 482°F (250˚C), so its theory involves a purely speculative addition of over 1350°F.[25] Second, even if this sequence of events had occurred, NIST provides no explanation as to why it would have produced global-that is, total--collapse. The NIST Report asserts that "column failure" occurred in the core as well as the perimeter columns. But this remains a bare assertion. There is no plausible explanation of why the columns would have broken or even buckled, so as to produce global collapse at virtually free-fall speed, even if they had reached such temperatures.[26]



Sliced Steel: In controlled demolitions of steel-frame buildings, explosives are used to slice the steel columns and beams into pieces. A representative from Controlled Demolition, Inc., has said of RDX, one of the commonly used high explosives, that it slices steel like a "razor blade through a tomato." The steel is, moreover, not merely sliced; it is sliced into manageable lengths. As Controlled Demolition, Inc., says in its publicity: "Our DREXSTM systems . . . segment steel components into pieces matching the lifting capacity of the available equipment."[27]

The collapses of the Twin Towers, it seems, somehow managed to mimic this feature of controlled demolitions as well. Jim Hoffman (2004), after studying various photos of the collapse site, said that much of the steel seemed to be "chopped up into . . . sections that could be easily loaded onto the equipment that was cleaning up Ground Zero."[28]



Pulverization of Concrete and Other Materials: Another feature of controlled demolition is the production of a lot of dust, because explosives powerful enough to slice steel will pulverize concrete and most other non-metallic substances into tiny particles. And, Hoffman (2003) reports, "nearly all of the non-metallic constituents of the towers were pulverized into fine power."[29] That observation was also made by Colonel John O'Dowd of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. "At the World Trade Center sites," he told the History Channel, "it seemed like everything was pulverized" (History Channel, 2002).

This fact creates a problem for the official theory, according to which the only energy available was the gravitational energy. This energy would have been sufficient to break most of the concrete into fairly small pieces. But it would not have been anywhere close to the amount of energy needed to turn the concrete and virtually all the non-metallic contents of the buildings into tiny particles of dust.



Dust Clouds: Yet another common feature of controlled demolitions is the production of dust clouds, which result when explosions eject the dust from the building with great energy. And, as one can see by comparing videos on the Web, the collapses of the towers produced clouds that are very similar to those produced by controlled demolitions of other structures, such as Seattle's Kingdome. The only difference is that the clouds produced during the collapses of the towers were proportionally much bigger.[30]

The question of the source of the needed energy again arises. Hoffman (2003), focusing on the expansion of the North Tower's dust cloud, calculates that the energy required simply for this expansion---ignoring the energy needed to slice the steel and pulverize the concrete and other materials---exceeded by at least 10 times the gravitational energy available.

The official account, therefore, involves a huge violation of the laws of physics---a violation that becomes even more enormous once we factor in the energy required to pulverize the concrete (let alone the energy required to break the steel).

Besides the sheer quantity of energy needed, another problem with the official theory is that gravitational energy is wholly unsuited to explain the production of these dust clouds. This is most obviously the case in the first few seconds. In Hoffman's words: "You can see thick clouds of pulverized concrete being ejected within the first two seconds. That's when the relative motion of the top of the tower to the intact portion was only a few feet per second."[31] Jeff King (2003), in the same vein, says: "[A great amount of] very fine concrete dust is ejected from the top of the building very early in the collapse. . . [when] concrete slabs [would have been] bumping into each other at [only] 20 or 30 mph."

The importance of King's point can be appreciated by juxtaposing it with the claim by Shyam Sunder, NIST's lead investigator, that although the clouds of dust created during the collapses of the Twin Towers may create the impression of a controlled demolition, "it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception" (Popular Mechanics, 2005). The pancaking, according to the official theory being defended by Sunder, began at the floor beneath the holes created by the impact of the airliners. As King points out, this theory cannot handle the fact, as revealed by the photographs and videos, that dust clouds were created far above the impact zones.



Horizontal Ejections: Another common feature of controlled demolition is the horizontal ejection of other materials, besides dust, from those areas of the building in which explosives are set off. In the case of the Twin Towers, photos and videos reveal that "[h]eavy pieces of steel were ejected in all directions for distances up to 500 feet, while aluminum cladding was blown up to 700 feet away from the towers" (Paul and Hoffman, 2004, p. 7). But gravitational energy is, of course, vertical, so it cannot even begin to explain these horizontal ejections.



Demolition Rings: Still another common feature of collapses induced by explosions are demolition rings, in which series of small explosions run rapidly around a building. This feature was also manifested by the collapses of the towers.[32]



Sounds Produced by Explosions: The use of explosives to induce collapses produces, of course, sounds caused by the explosions. Like all the previous features except the slicing of the steel columns inside the building, this one could be observed by witnesses. And, as we will see below, there is abundant testimony to the existence of such sounds before and during the collapses of the towers.



Molten Steel: An eleventh feature that would be expected only if explosives were used to slice the steel columns would be molten steel, and its existence at the WTC site was indeed reported by several witnesses, including the two main figures involved in the clean up, Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction, and Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Incorporated. Tully said that he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at the site. Loizeaux said that several weeks after 9/11, when the rubble was being removed, "hot spots of molten steel" were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels" (both statements quoted in Bollyn, 2004).[33]

Leslie Robertson, a member of the engineering firm that designed the Twin Towers, said: "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running" (Williams, 2001). Knight-Ridder journalist Jennifer Lin, discussing Joe "Toolie" O'Toole, a Bronx firefighter who worked for many months on the rescue and clean-up efforts, wrote: "Underground fires raged for months. O'Toole remembers in February seeing a crane lift a steel beam vertically from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero. 'It was dripping from the molten steel," he said'" (Lin, 2002). Greg Fuchek, vice president of sales for LinksPoint, Inc., which supplied some of the computer equipment used to identify human remains at the site, described the working conditions as "hellish," partly because for six months, the ground temperature varied between 600 degrees Fahrenheit and 1,500 degrees or higher. Fuchek added that "sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel" (Walsh, 2002). And still more witnesses spoke of molten steel.[34]

This testimony is of great significance, since it would be hard to imagine what, other than high explosives, could have caused some of the steel to melt.



The importance of the nature of the collapses, as summarized in these 11 features, is shown by the fact that attempts to defend the official theory typically ignore most of them. For example, an article in Popular Mechanics (2005), seeking to debunk what it calls some of the most prevalent myths about 9/11 fabricated by "conspiracy theorists," completely ignores the suddenness, verticality, rapidity, and totality of the collapses and also fails to mention the testimonies about molten steel, demolition rings, and the sounds of explosions.[35]



2. Testimonies about Explosions and Related Phenomena

in the 9/11 Oral Histories



Most of these 11 features---all but the slicing of the core columns and the molten steel in the basements---are features that, if they occurred before or during the collapses of the towers, could have been observed by people in the area. And, in fact, testimonies about some of these phenomena have been available, since shortly after 9/11, from reporters,[36] fire fighters,[37] police officers,[38] people who worked in the towers,[39] and one prominent explosives expert, Van Romero, [40] who said on that very day after viewing the videotapes, that the collapses not only resembled those produced by controlled implosions but must, in fact, have been caused by "some explosive devices inside the buildings" because they were "too methodical" to have been chance results of the airplane strikes (Uyttebrouck, 2001).[41] Some of these testimonies were very impressive. There were, however, only a few of them and they were scattered here and there. No big body of testimony was readily accessible.

But this situation has dramatically changed. Shortly after 9/11, the New York Fire Department recorded over 500 oral histories, in which firefighters and emergency medical workers recounted their experiences of that day. [Emergency Medical Services had become a division within the Fire Department(Dwyer, 2005a).] Mayor Bloomberg's administration, however, refused to release them. But then the New York Times, joined by several families of 9/11 victims, filed suit and, after a long process, the New York Court of Appeals ordered the city to release the bulk of these oral histories, which it did in August 2005[42] (Dwyer, 2005b). The Times then made them publicly available (NYT, 2005).[43]

These oral histories contain many dozens of testimonies that speak of explosions and related phenomena characteristic of controlled demolition. I will give some examples.



Explosions

Several individuals reported that they witnessed an explosion just before one of the towers collapsed. Battalion Chief John Sudnik said: "we heard . . . what sounded like a loud explosion and looked up and I saw tower two start coming down" (NYT, Sudnick, p. 4).

Several people reported multiple explosions. Paramedic Kevin Darnowski said: "I heard three explosions, and then . . . tower two started to come down" (NYT, Darnowski, p. 8).

Firefighter Thomas Turilli said, "it almost sounded like bombs going off, like boom, boom, boom, like seven or eight" (NYT, Turilli, p. 4).

Craig Carlsen said that he and other firefighters "heard explosions coming from . . . the south tower. . . . There were about ten explosions. . . . We then realized the building started to come down" (NYT, Carlsen, pp. 5-6).

Firefighter Joseph Meola said, "it looked like the building was blowing out on all four sides. We actually heard the pops" (NYT, Meola, p. 5).

Paramedic Daniel Rivera also mentioned "pops." Asked how he knew that the south tower was coming down, he said:

It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was---do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'? . . . I thought it was that. (NYT, Rivera, p. 9)


Collapse Beginning below the Strike Zone and Fire

According to the official account, the "pancaking" began when the floors above the hole caused by the airplane fell on the floors below. Some witnesses reported, however, that the collapse of the south tower began somewhat lower.

Timothy Burke said that "the building popped, lower than the fire. . . . I was going oh, my god, there is a secondary device because the way the building popped. I thought it was an explosion" (NYT, Burke, pp. 8-9).

Firefighter Edward Cachia said: "It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit. . . . [W]e originally had thought there was like an internal detonation, explosives, because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down" (NYT, Cachia, p. 5).

The importance of these observations is reinforced by the fact that the authors of the NIST Report, after having released a draft to the public, felt the need to add the following statement to the Executive Summary:

NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001. . . . Instead, photos and videos from several angles clearly showed that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward.

Firefighters Burke and Cachia presumably now need to ask themselves: What are you going to believe, your own eyes or an official government report?



Flashes and Demolition Rings

Some of the witnesses spoke of flashes and of phenomena suggestive of demolition rings. Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory said: "I thought . . . before . . . No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. . . . I . . . saw a flash flash flash . . . [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?" (NYT, Gregory, pp. 14-16).

Captain Karin Deshore said: "Somewhere around the middle . . . there was this orange and red flash coming out. Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. . . . [W]ith each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building" (NYT, Deshore, p. 15).

Firefighter Richard Banaciski said: "[T]here was just an explosion. It seemed like on television [when] they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions" (NYT, Banaciski, pp. 3-4).

Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fitzpatrick said: "It looked like sparkling around one specific layer of the building. . . . My initial reaction was that this was exactly the way it looks when they show you those implosions on TV" (NYT, Fitzpatrick, pp. 13-14).



Horizontal Ejections

A few witnesses spoke of horizontal ejections. Chief Frank Cruthers said: "There was what appeared to be . . . an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse" (NYT, Cruthers, p. 4).

This testimony is important, because the official theory holds that the ejections were produced by the floors collapsing. So listen to firefighter James Curran, who said: "I looked back and . . . I heard like every floor went chu-chu-chu. I looked back and from the pressure everything was getting blown out of the floors before it actually collapsed" (NYT, Curran, pp. 10-11).

Battalion Chief Brian Dixon said, "the lowest floor of fire in the south tower actually looked like someone had planted explosives around it because . . . everything blew out on the one floor" (NYT, Dixon, p. 15).[44]



Synchronized Explosions

Some witnesses said that the explosions seemed to be synchronized. For example, firefighter Kenneth Rogers said, "there was an explosion in the south tower. . . . I kept watching. Floor after floor after floor. One floor under another after another . . . t looked like a synchronized deliberate kind of thing" (NYT, Rogers, pp. 3-4).[45]


Why Does the Public Not Know of These Reports?

If all these firefighters and medical workers witnessed all these phenomena suggestive of controlled demolition, it might be wondered why the public does not know this. Part of the answer is provided by Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman Paul Isaac. Having said that "there were definitely bombs in those buildings," Isaac added that "many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they're afraid for their jobs to admit it because the higher-ups' forbid discussion of this fact" (Lavello, n.d.). Another part of the answer is that when a few people, like Isaac and William Rodriguez, have spoken out, the mainstream press has failed to report their statements.





3. Implications



The official theory about the collapse of the towers, I have suggested, is rendered extremely implausible by two main facts. First, aside from the alleged exception of 9/11, steel-frame high-rise buildings have never been caused to collapse by fire; all such collapses have all been produced by carefully placed explosives. Second, the collapses of the Twin Towers manifested at least 11 characteristic features of controlled demolitions. The probability that any of these features would occur in the absence of explosives is extremely low. The probability that all 11 of them would occur is essentially zero.[46]

We can say, therefore, that the official theory about the towers is disproved about as thoroughly as such a theory possibly could be, whereas all the evidence can be explained by the alternative theory, according to which the towers were brought down by explosives. The official theory is, accordingly, an outrageous theory, whereas the alternative theory is, from a scientific point of view, the only reasonable theory available.[47]





4. Other Suspicious Facts



Moreover, although we have already considered sufficient evidence for the theory that the towers were brought down by explosives, there is still more.



Removal of the Steel: For one thing, the steel from the buildings was quickly removed before it could be properly examined,[48] with virtually all of it being sold to scrap dealers, who put most of it on ships to Asia.[49] Generally, removing any evidence from the scene of a crime is a federal offense. But in this case, federal officials facilitated the removal.[50]

This removal evoked protest. On Christmas day, 2001, the New York Times said: "The decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses from the WTC in the days immediately after 9/11 means definitive answers may never be known."[51] The next week, Fire Engineering magazine said: "We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence (Brannigan, Corbett, and Dunn, 2002). . . . The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately" (Manning, 2002).

However, Mayor Bloomberg, defending the decision to dispose of the steel, said: "If you want to take a look at the construction methods and the design, that's in this day and age what computers do.[52] Just looking at a piece of metal generally doesn't tell you anything."[53] But that is not true. An examination of the steel could have revealed whether it had been cut by explosives.

This removal of an unprecedented amount of material from a crime scene suggests that an unprecedented crime was being covered up.[54]

Evidence that this cover-up was continued by NIST is provided by its treatment of a provocative finding reported by FEMA, which was that some of the specimens of steel were "rapidly corroded by sulfidation" (FEMA 2002, Appendix C). This report is significant, because sulfidation is an effect of explosives. FEMA appropriately called for further investigation of this finding, which the New York Times called "perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation" (Killough-Miller, 2002). A closely related problem, expressed shortly after 9/11 by Dr. Jonathan Barnett, Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, is that "[f]ire and the structural damage . . . would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated" (Glanz, 2001). But the NIST report, in its section headed "Learning from the Recovered Steel," fails even to mention either evaporation or sulfidation.[55] Why would the NIST scientists apparently share Mayor Bloomberg's disdain for empirical studies of recovered steel?



North Tower Antenna Drop: Another problem noted by FEMA is that videos show that, in the words of the FEMA Report, "the transmission tower on top of the [north tower] began to move downward and laterally slightly before movement was evident at the exterior wall. This suggests that collapse began with one or more failures in the central core area of the building" (FEMA 2002, ch. 2).[56] This drop was also mentioned in a New York Times story by James Glanz and Eric Lipton, which said: "Videos of the north tower's collapse appear to show that its television antenna began to drop a fraction of a second before the rest of the building. The observations suggest that the building's steel core somehow gave way first" (Glanz and Lipton, 2002). In the supposedly definitive NIST Report, however, we find no mention of this fact. This is another convenient omission, since the most plausible, and perhaps only possible, explanation would be that the core columns were cut by explosives---an explanation that would fit with the testimony of several witnesses.



South Tower Tipping and Disintegration: If the north tower's antenna drop was anomalous (from the perspective of the official theory), the south tower's collapse contained an even stranger anomaly. The uppermost floors---above the level struck by the airplane---began tipping toward the corner most damaged by the impact. According to conservation-of-momentum laws, this block of approximately 34 floors should have fallen to the ground far outside the building's footprint. "However," observe Paul and Hoffman, "as the top then began to fall, the rotation decelerated. Then it reversed direction [even though the] law of conservation of angular momentum states that a solid object in rotation will continue to rotate at the same speed unless acted on by a torque" (Paul and Hoffman, 2004, p. 34).

And then, in the words of Steven Jones, a physics professor at BYU, "this block turned mostly to powder in mid-air!" This disintegration stopped the tipping and allowed the uppermost floors to fall straight down into, or at least close to, the building's footprint. As Jones notes, this extremely strange behavior was one of many things that NIST was able to ignore by virtue of the fact that its analysis, in its own words, "does not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached" (NIST 2005, p. 80, n. 12). This is convenient because it means that NIST did not have to answer Jones's question: "How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives?" (Jones, 2006).

This behavior is, however, not strange to experts in controlled demolition. Mark Loizeaux, the head of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has said:



[B]y differentially controlling the velocity of failure in different parts of the structure, you can make it walk, you can make it spin, you can make it dance . . . . We'll have structures start facing north and end up going to the north-west. (Else, 2004)



Once again, something that is inexplicable in terms of the official theory becomes a matter of course if the theory of controlled demolition is adopted.



WTC Security: The suggestion that explosives might have been used raises the question of how anyone wanting to place explosives in the towers could have gotten through the security checks. This question brings us to a possibly relevant fact about a company---now called Stratesec but then called Securacom---that was in charge of security for the World Trade Center. From 1993 to 2000, during which Securacom installed a new security system, Marvin Bush, the president's brother, was one of the company's directors. And from 1999 until January of 2002, their cousin Wirt Walker III was the CEO (Burns, 2003).[57] One would think these facts should have made the evening news---or at least The 9/11 Commission Report.

These facts, in any case, may be relevant to some reports given by people who had worked in the World Trade Center. Some of them reportedly said that although in the weeks before 9/11 there had been a security alert that mandated the use of bomb-sniffing dogs, that alert was lifted five days before 9/11 (Taylor and Gardiner, 2001).

Also, a man named Scott Forbes, who worked for Fiduciary Trust---the company for which Kristen Breitweiser's husband worked---has written:



On the weekend of [September 8-9, 2001], there was a "power down" condition in . . . the south tower. This power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approximately 36 hours from floor 50 up. . . . The reason given by the WTC for the power down was that cabling in the tower was being upgraded . . . . Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors [while] many, many "engineers" [were] coming in and out of the tower.[58]

Also, a man named Ben Fountain, who was a financial analyst with Fireman's Fund in the south tower, was quoted in People Magazine as saying that during the weeks before 9/11, the towers were evacuated "a number of times" (People Magazine, 2001).



Foreknowledge of the Collapse: One more possibly relevant fact is that then Mayor Rudy Giuliani, talking on ABC News about his temporary emergency command center at 75 Barkley Street, said:



We were operating out of there when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse, and it did collapse before we could get out of the building.[59]



This is an amazing statement. Prior to 9/11, fire had never brought down a steel-frame high-rise. The firemen who reached the 78th floor of the south tower certainly did not believe it was going to collapse. Even the 9/11 Commission reported that to its knowledge, "none of the [fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible" (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, p. 302). So why would anyone have told Giuliani that at least one of the towers was about to collapse?

The most reasonable answer, especially in light of the new evidence, is that someone knew that explosives had been set in the south tower and were about to be discharged. It is even possible that the explosives were going to be discharged earlier than originally planned because the fires in the south tower were dying down more quickly than expected, because so much of the plane's jet fuel had burned up in the fireball outside the building.[60] This could explain why although the south tower was struck second, suffered less structural damage, and had smaller fires, it collapsed first---after only 56 minutes. That is, if the official story was going to be that the fire caused the collapse, the building had to be brought down before the fire went completely out.[61]

We now learn from the oral histories, moreover, that Giuliani is not the only one who was told that a collapse was coming. At least four of the testimonies indicate that shortly before the collapse of the south tower, the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) had predicted the collapse of at least one tower.[62] The director of OEM reported directly to Giuliani.[63] So although Giuliani said that he and others "were told" that the towers were going to collapse, it was his own people who were doing the telling.


As New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer has pointed out, the 9/11 Commission had access to the oral histories.[64] It should have discussed these facts, but it did not.

The neglect of most of the relevant facts about the collapses, manifested by The 9/11 Commission Report, was continued by the NIST Report, which said, amazingly:

The focus of the Investigation was on the sequence of events from the instant of aircraft impact to the initiation of collapse for each tower. For brevity in this report, this sequence is referred to as the "probable collapse sequence," although it does not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for collapse initiation were reached. . . . [Our simulation treats only] the structural deterioration of each tower from the time of aircraft impact to the time at which the building . . . was poised for collapse (80n, 140).

Steven Jones comments, appropriately:

What about the subsequent complete, rapid and symmetrical collapse of the buildings? . . . What about the antenna dropping first in the North Tower? What about the molten metal observed in the basement areas . . . ? Never mind all that: NIST did not discuss at all any data after the buildings were "poised for collapse." Well, some of us want to look at all the data, without computer simulations that are "adjusted" to make them fit the desired outcome. (Jones, 2006)



Summary: When we add these five additional suspicious facts to the eleven features that that the collapses of the Twin Towers had in common with controlled demolitions, we have a total of sixteen facts about the collapses of these buildings that, while being inexplicable in terms of the official theory, are fully understandable on the theory that the destruction of the towers was an inside job.





5. The Collapse of Building 7



As we have seen, the 9/11 Commission simply ignored the facts discussed above. Still another matter not discussed by the Commission was the collapse of building 7. And yet the official story about it is, if anything, even more problematic than the official story about the towersas suggested by the title of a New York Times story, "Engineers Are Baffled over the Collapse of 7 WTC" (Glanz, 2001).[65]



Even More Difficult to Explain

The collapse of building 7 is even more difficult to explain than the collapse of the towers in part because it was not struck by an airliner, so none of the theories about how the impacts of the airliners contributed to the collapses of the towers can be employed in relation to it.

Also, all the photographic evidence suggests that the fires in this building were small, not very hot, and limited to a few floors. Photographs of the north side of the building show fires only on the 7th and 12th floors of this 47-floor building. So if the south side, which faced the towers, had fires on many other floors, as defenders of the official account claim, they were not big enough to be seen from the other side of the building.[66]

It would not be surprising, of course, if the fires in this building were even smaller than those in the towers, because there was no jet fuel to get a big fire started. Some defenders of the official story have claimed, to be sure, that the diesel fuel stored in this building somehow caught fire and created a towering inferno. But if building 7 had become engulfed in flames, why did none of the many photographers and TV camera crews on the scene capture this sight?

The extreme difficulty of explaining the collapse of building 7-assuming that it is not permissible to mention controlled demolition---has been recognized by the official bodies. The report prepared under FEMA's supervision came up with a scenario employing the diesel fuel, then admitted that this scenario had "only a low probability of occurrence."[67] Even that statement is generous, because the probability that some version of the official story of building 7 is true is the same as it is for the towers, essentially zero, because it would violate several laws of physics. In any case, the 9/11 Commission, perhaps because of this admission by FEMA, avoided the problem by simply not even mentioning the fact that this building collapsed.

This was one of the Commission's most amazing omissions. According to the official theory, building 7 demonstrated, contrary to the universal conviction prior to 9/11, that large steel-frame buildings could collapse from fire alone, even without having been hit by an airplane. This demonstration should have meant that building codes and insurance premiums for all steel-frame buildings in the world needed to be changed. And yet the 9/11 Commission, in preparing its 571-page report, did not devote a single sentence to this historic event.



Even More Similar to Controlled Implosions

Yet another reason why the collapse of building 7 is especially problematic is that it was even more like the best-known type of conventional demolition-namely, an implosion, which begins at the bottom (whereas the collapse of each tower originated high up, near the region struck by the plane). As Eric Hufschmid has written:



Building 7 collapsed at its bottom. . . . [T]he interior fell first. . . . The result was a very tiny pile of rubble, with the outside of the building collapsing on top of the pile.[68]



Implosion World.com, a website about the demolition industry, states that an implosion is "by far the trickiest type of explosive project, and there are only a handful of blasting companies in the world that possess enough experience . . . to perform these true building implosions."[69] Can anyone really believe that fire would have just happened to produce the kind of collapse that can be reliably produced by only a few demolition companies in the world? The building had 24 core columns and 57 perimeter columns. To hold that fire caused this building to collapse straight down would mean believing that the fire caused all 81 columns to fail at exactly the same time. To accept the official story is, in other words, to accept a miracle. Physicist Steven Jones agrees, saying:

The likelihood of near-symmetrical collapse of WTC7 due to random fires (the "official" theory)---requiring as it does near-simultaneous failure of many support columns---is infinitesimal. I conclude that the evidence for the 9/11 use of pre-positioned explosives in WTC 7 (also in Towers 1 and 2) is truly compelling.[70]



Much More Extensive Foreknowledge

Another reason why the collapse of building 7 creates special problems involves foreknowledge of its collapse. We know of only a few people with advance knowledge that the Twin Towers were going to collapse, and the information we have would be consistent with the supposition that this knowledge was acquired only a few minutes before the south tower collapsed. People can imagine, therefore, that someone saw something suggesting that the building was going to collapse. But the foreknowledge of building 7's collapse was more widespread and of longer duration. This has been known for a long time, at least by people who read firefighters' magazines.[71] But now the oral histories have provided a fuller picture.



Widespread Notification: At least 25 of the firefighters and medical workers reported that, at some time that day, they learned that building 7 was going to collapse. Firefighters who had been fighting the fires in the building said they were ordered to leave the building, after which a collapse zone was established. As medical worker Decosta Wright put it: "they measured out how far the building was going to come, so we knew exactly where we could stand," which was "5 blocks away" (NYT, Wright, pp. 11-12).



Early Warning: As to exactly when the expectation of the collapse began circulating, the testimonies differ. But most of the evidence suggests that the expectation of collapse was communicated 4 or 5 hours in advance.[72]



The Alleged Reason for the Expectation: But why would this expectation have arisen? The fires in building 7 were, according to all the photographic evidence, few and small. So why would the decision-makers in the department have decided to pull firefighters out of building 7 and have them simply stand around waiting for it to collapse?

The chiefs gave a twofold explanation: damage plus fire. Chief Frank Fellini said: "When [the north tower] fell, it ripped steel out from between the third and sixth floors across the facade on Vesey Street. We were concerned that the fires on several floors and the missing steel would result in the building collapsing" (NYT, Fellini, p. 3).

There are at least two problems with each part of this explanation. One problem with the accounts of the structural damage is that they vary greatly. According to Fellini's testimony, there was a four-floor hole between the third and sixth floors. In the telling of Captain Chris Boyle, however, the hole was "20 stories tall" (2002). It would appear that Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator for NIST, settled on somewhat of a compromise between these two views, telling Popular Mechanics that, "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out" (Popular Mechanics, March 2005).

The different accounts of the problem on the building's south side are not, moreover, limited to the issue of the size of the hole. According to Deputy Chief Peter Hayden, the problem was not a hole at all but a "bulge," and it was "between floors 10 and 13" (Hayden, 2002).

The second problem with these accounts of the damage is if there was a hole that was 10 or 20 floors high, or even a hole (or a budge) that was 4 floors high, why was this fact not captured on film by any of the photographers or videographers in the area that day?

With regard to the claims about the fire, the accounts again vary greatly. Chief Daniel Nigro spoke of "very heavy fire on many floors" (NYT, Nigro, p. 10). According to Harry Meyers, an assistant chief, "When the building came down it was completely involved in fire, all forty-seven stories" (quoted in Smith, 2002, p. 160). That obvious exaggeration was also stated by a firefighter who said: "[Building 7] was fully engulfed. . . . [Y]ou could see the flames going straight through from one side of the building to the other" (NYT, Cassidy, p. 22).

Several of the testimonies, however, did not support the official line. For example, medical technician Decosta Wright said: "I think the fourth floor was on fire. . . . [W]e were like, are you guys going to put that fire out?" (NYT, Wright, p. 11). Chief Thomas McCarthy said: "[T]hey were waiting for 7 World Trade to come down. . . . They had . . . fire on three separate floors . . . , just burning merrily. It was pretty amazing, you know, it's the afternoon in lower Manhattan, a major high-rise is burning, and they said we know'" (NYT, McCarthy, pp. 10-11).

The second problem with the official account here is that if there was "very heavy fire on many floors," why is this fact not captured on any film? The photograph that we have of the north side of the building supports Chief McCarthy's view that there was fire on three floors. Even if there were fires on additional floors on the south side of the building, there is no photographic support for the claim that "the flames [on these additional floors went] straight through from one side of the building to the other."

Moreover, even if the department's official story about the collapse of building 7 were not contradicted by physical evidence and some of the oral histories, it would not explain why the building collapsed, because no amount of fire and structural damage, unless caused by explosives, had ever caused the total collapse of a large steel-frame building.[73] And it certainly would not explain the particular nature of the collapse---that the building imploded and fell straight down rather than falling over in some direction, as purportedly expected by those who gave the order to create a large collapse zone. Battalion Chief John Norman, for example, said: "We expected it to fall to the south" (Norman 2002). Nor would the damage-plus-fire theory explain this building's collapse at virtually free-fall speed or the creation of an enormous amount of dustadditional features of the collapses that are typically ignored by defenders of the official account.

The great difficulty presented to the official theory about the WTC by the collapse of building 7 is illustrated by a recent book, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, one of the authors of which is New York Times reporter Jim Dwyer, who wrote the stories in the Times about the release of the 9/11 oral histories. With regard to the Twin Towers, Dwyer and his co-author, Kevin Flynn, support the theory put out by NIST, according to which the towers collapsed because the airplanes knocked the fire-proofing off the steel columns, making them vulnerable to the "intense heat" of the ensuing fires.[74] When they come to building 7, however, Dwyer and Flynn do not ask why it collapsed, given the fact that it was not hit by a plane. They simply say: "The firefighters had decided to let the fire there burn itself out" (Dwyer and Flynn, 2005, p. 258). But that, of course, is not what happened. Rather, shortly after 5:20 that day, building 7 suddenly collapsed, in essentially the same way as did the Twin Towers.

Should this fact not have led Dryer and Flynn to question NIST's theory that the Twin Towers collapsed because their fireproofing had been knocked loose? I would especially think that Dwyer, who reported on the release of the 9/11 oral histories, should re-assess NIST's theory in light of the abundant evidence of explosions in the towers provided in those testimonies.[75]



Another Explanation: There is, in any case, only one theory that explains both the nature and the expectation of the collapse of building 7: Explosives had been set, and someone who knew this spread the word to the fire chiefs.

Amazingly enough, a version of this theory was publicly stated by an insider, Larry Silverstein, who owned building 7. In a PBS documentary aired in September of 2002, Silverstein, discussing building 7, said:



I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it."[76] And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse. (PBS, 2002) [77]



It is very puzzling, to be sure, that Silverstein, who was ready to receive billions of dollars in insurance payments for building 7 and the rest of the World Trade Center complex, on the assumption that they had been destroyed by acts of terrorism, would have made such a statement in public, especially with TV cameras running. But his assertion that building 7 was brought down by explosives, whatever the motive behind it, explains why and how it collapsed.

We still, however, have the question of why the fire department came to expect the building to collapse. It would be interesting, of course, if that information came from the same agency, the Office of Emergency Management, that had earlier informed the department that one of the towers was going to collapse. And we have

[Albert Doyle]

Albert,

No one is going to ban you or anyone else for honestly offering reasonable hypotheses of deep political events that are not shared by the majority of DPF owners and correspondents.

Thank you Charles.


My kimono is best kept closed for everyone's sake!:lol:

[Peter Lemkin]

The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2, 7-31 7

Open Access

Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade
Center Catastrophe

Niels H. Harrit*,1, Jeffrey Farrer2, Steven E. Jones*,3, Kevin R. Ryan4, Frank M. Legge5, Daniel Farnsworth2, Gregg Roberts6, James R. Gourley7 and Bradley R. Larsen3


1Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
2Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84602, USA
3S&J Scientific Co., Provo, UT, 84606, USA
49/11 Working Group of Bloomington, Bloomington, IN 47401, USA
5Logical Systems Consulting, Perth, Western Australia
6Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Berkeley, CA 94704, USA
7International Center for 9/11 Studies, Dallas, TX 75231, USA

Abstract: We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approxi- mately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms oc- curring at approximately 430 ËšC, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.
Keywords: Scanning electron microscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, Differential scanning calorimetry, DSC analysis, World Trade Center, WTC dust, 9/11, Iron-rich microspheres, Thermite, Super-thermite, Energetic nanocomposites, Nano-thermite.

INTRODUCTION

The destruction of three skyscrapers (WTC 1, 2 and 7) on September 11, 2001 was an immensely tragic catastrophe that not only impacted thousands of people and families di- rectly, due to injury and loss of life, but also provided the motivation for numerous expensive and radical changes in domestic and foreign policy. For these and other reasons, knowing what really happened that fateful day is of grave importance.

A great deal of effort has been put forth by various gov- ernment-sponsored and -funded investigations, which led, in large part, to the reports released by FEMA [1] and NIST [2]. Other studies of the destruction have been less well

*Address correspondence to these authors (NH) Department of Chemistry, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, DK-2100, Denmark;
Tel: (+45)35321846; Fax: (+45)35320460; E-mail: harrit@nano.ku.dk,
(SEJ) at S&J Scientific Co., Provo, UT, 84606, USA; Tel: 801-735-5885; E-mail: Hardevidence@gmail.com
publicized but are no less important to the outstanding obliga- tion that remains to the victims of that tragedy, to determine the whole truth of the events of that day [3-10]. A number of these studies have appropriately focused attention on the re- maining physical material, and on available photographs and video footage, as sources of evidence still in public hands, relating to the method of destruction of the three skyscrapers.
The collapses of the three tallest WTC buildings were remarkable for their completeness, their near free-fall speed [11] their striking radial symmetry [1, 12] and the surpris- ingly large volume of fine toxic dust [13] that was generated. In order to better understand these features of the destruc- tion, the authors initiated an examination of this dust. In June
2007, Dr. Steven Jones observed distinctive bi-layered chips, with both a red and a gray layer, in a sample of the WTC dust. Initially, it was suspected these might be dried paint chips, but after closer inspection and testing, it was shown that this was not the case. Further testing was then performed on the red/gray chips in an attempt to ascertain their compo-

1874-4125/09 2009 Bentham Open
8 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

sition and properties. The authors also obtained and exam- ined additional samples of WTC dust which had been col- lected by independent observers on, or very soon after, 9/11. All of the samples examined contained these very small, peculiar red/gray chips. Previous studies discussing observa- tions of the WTC dust include reports by the RJ Lee Com- pany [14], the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) [15], McGee et al. [13] and Lioy et al. [16] Some of these studies con- firmed the finding of iron-rich microspheres, which are also peculiar [5, 8, 11, 13-15] but the red/gray chips analyzed in this study have apparently not been discussed in previously published reports. It is worth emphasizing that one sample was collected about ten minutes after the collapse of the sec- ond Tower, so it cannot possibly have been contaminated by clean-up operations [17].

MATERIALS AND METHODS

1. Provenance of the Samples Analyzed for this Report

In a paper presented first online in autumn 2006 regard- ing anomalies observed in the World Trade Center destruc-
tion [6], a general request was issued for samples of the WTC dust. The expectation at that time was that a careful examination of the dust might yield evidence to support the hypothesis that explosive materials other than jet fuel caused the extraordinarily rapid and essentially total destruction of the WTC buildings.

It was learned that a number of people had saved samples of the copious, dense dust, which spread and settled across Manhattan. Several of these people sent portions of their samples to members of this research group. This paper dis- cusses four separate dust samples collected on or shortly after 9/11/2001. Each sample was found to contain red/gray chips. All four samples were originally collected by private citizens who lived in New York City at the time of the trag- edy. These citizens came forward and provided samples for analysis in the public interest, allowing study of the 9/11 dust for whatever facts about the day might be learned from the dust. A map showing the locations where the four sam- ples were collected is presented as Fig. (1).

Fig. (1). Map showing collection locations of dust samples analyzed in this study with respect to the location of the WTC complex (marked area near location 1). 1: MacKinlay (113 Cedar St./110 Liberty St); 2: Delessio/Breidenbach (Brooklyn Bridge); 3: Intermont (16 Hudson St); 4: White (1 Hudson St). (Base map courtesy of http://www.openstreetmap.org; copyright terms at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by-sa/2.0/).
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 9

The earliest-collected sample came from Mr. Frank De- lessio who, according to his videotaped testimony [17], was on the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge about the time the second tower, the North Tower, fell to the ground. He saw the tower fall and was enveloped by the resulting thick dust which settled throughout the area. He swept a handful of the dust from a rail on the pedestrian walkway near the end of the bridge, about ten minutes after the fall of the North Tower. He then went to visit his friend, Mr. Tom Breidenbach, carrying the dust in his hand, and the two of them discussed the dust and decided to save it in a plastic bag. On 11/15/2007, Breidenbach sent a portion of this dust to Dr. Jones for analysis. Breidenbach has also recorded his testimony about the collection of this dust sample on video- tape [17]. Thus, the Delessio/Breidenbach sample was col- lected about ten minutes after the second tower collapsed. It was, therefore, definitely not contaminated by the steel- cutting or clean-up operations at Ground Zero, which began later. Furthermore, it is not mixed with dust from WTC 7, which fell hours later.
On the morning of 9/12/2001, Mr. Stephen White of New
York City entered a room in his apartment on the 8th floor of
1 Hudson Street, about five blocks from the WTC. He found a layer of dust about an inch thick on a stack of folded laun- dry near a window which was open about 4 inches (10 cm). Evidently the open window had allowed a significant amount of dust from the WTC destruction the day before to enter the room and cover the laundry. He saved some of the dust and, on 2/02/2008, sent a sample directly to Dr. Jones for analy- sis.
Another sample was collected from the apartment build- ing at 16 Hudson Street by Mr. Jody Intermont at about 2 pm on 9/12/2001. Two small samples of this dust were simulta- neously sent to Dr. Jones and to Kevin Ryan on 2/02/2008 for analysis. Intermont sent a signed affidavit with each sample verifying that he had personally collected the (now- split) sample; he wrote:

"This dust, which came from the collapsed' World Trade Center Towers, was collected from my loft at the corner of Reade Street and Hud- son Street on September 12, 2001. I give per- mission to use my name in connection to this evidence". [Signed 31 January 2008 in the pres- ence of a witness who also signed his name].
On the morning of 9/11/2001, Ms. Janette MacKinlay was in her fourth-floor apartment at 113 Cedar St./110 Lib- erty St. in New York City, across the street from the WTC plaza. As the South Tower collapsed, the flowing cloud of dust and debris caused windows of her apartment to break inward and dust filled her apartment. She escaped by quickly wrapping a wet towel around her head and exiting the build- ing. The building was closed for entry for about a week. As soon as Ms. MacKinlay was allowed to re-enter her apart- ment, she did so and began cleaning up. There was a thick layer of dust on the floor. She collected some of it into a large sealable plastic bag for possible later use in an art piece. Ms. MacKinlay responded to the request in the 2006 paper by Dr. Jones by sending him a dust sample. In No-
vember 2006, Dr. Jones traveled to California to visit Ms. MacKinlay at her new location, and in the company of sev- eral witnesses collected a second sample of the WTC dust directly from her large plastic bag where the dust was stored. She has also sent samples directly to Dr. Jeffrey Farrer and Kevin Ryan. Results from their studies form part of this re- port.
Another dust sample was collected by an individual from a window sill of a building on Potter Street in NYC. He has not given permission for his name to be disclosed, therefore his material is not included in this study. That sample, how- ever, contained red/gray chips of the same general composi- tion as the samples described here.

2. Chip Size, Isolation, and Examination

For clarification, the dust samples collected and sent to the authors by Ms. Janette MacKinlay will be sample 1; the sample collected by Mr. Frank Delassio, or the Delas- sio/Breidenbach sample, will be sample 2; the sample col- lected by Mr. Jody Intermont will be sample 3; and the sam- ple collected by Mr. Stephen White will be sample 4. The red/gray chips are attracted by a magnet, which facilitates collection and separation of the chips from the bulk of the dust. A small permanent magnet in its own plastic bag was used to attract and collect the chips from dust samples. The chips are typically small but readily discernible by eye due to their distinctive color. They are of variable size with major dimensions of roughly 0.2 to 3 mm. Thicknesses vary from roughly 10 to 100 microns for each layer (red and gray). Samples of WTC dust from these and other collectors have been sent directly from collectors to various scientists (in- cluding some not on this research team) who have also found such red/gray chips in the dust from the World Trade Center destruction.

An FEI XL30-SFEG scanning electron microscope (SEM) was used to perform secondary-electron (SE) imag- ing and backscattered electron (BSE) imaging. The SE imag- ing was used to look at the surface topography and porosity of the red/gray chips, while the BSE imaging was used to distinguish variations in average atomic number, Z. The mi- croscope was also equipped with an EDAX X-ray energy dispersive spectrometry (XEDS) system. The XEDS system uses a silicon detector (SiLi) with resolution better than 135 eV. The spectrum resolution was set to 10 eV per channel. Operating conditions for the acquired XEDS spectra were 20 keV beam energy (unless otherwise specified) and 40-120 second acquisition time (livetime). XEDS maps were ac- quired using the same system at a beam energy of 10 keV.

For general surface analysis in the SEM, dust samples were mounted to carbon conductive tabs. The samples were left unwashed and uncoated unless otherwise specified. In order to more closely observe the characteristics of the red and gray layers, and to eliminate the possibility of surface contamination from other dust particles, several red/gray chips from each of the four WTC dust samples were frac- tured. The clean, cross-section surfaces were then studied by BSE imaging and XEDS.
10 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

Some samples were also tested in a differential scanning calorimeter (Netzsch DSC 404C) to measure heat flow into or out of the red/gray chips. The DSC tests were conducted with a linear heating rate of 10 ËšC per minute up to a tem- perature of 700 ËšC. During heating, the samples were con- tained in alumina pans and air was allowed to flow at 55 milliliters per minute during the heating. The plots were gen- erated by acquiring data points at a rate of 20 points per ËšC or 200 points per minute. The equipment was calibrated to display the data in watts per gram. The plots were set to dis- play positive heat flow out of the sample such that exother- mic behavior of the sample would yield a peak and endo- thermic behavior a trough.

The dust samples were also examined by visible-light microscopy (VLM) through a Nikon Epiphot 200 stereomi- croscope, an Olympus BX60 stereomicroscope and a Nikon Labophot microscope and camera.

RESULTS

1. Characterization of the Red/Gray Chips

Red/gray chips were found in all of the dust samples col- lected. An analysis of the chips was performed to assess the similarity of the chips and to determine the chemistry and materials that make up the chips. Fig. (2) displays photomi-
crographs of red/gray chips from each of the four WTC dust samples. Note the scale marker in each image as they were acquired at different magnifications. At approximately
2.5 mm in length, the chip in Fig. (2a) was one of the larger chips collected. The mass of this chip was approximately 0.7 mg. All of the chips used in the study had a gray layer and a red layer and were attracted by a magnet. The inset image in Fig. (2d) shows the chip in cross section, which reveals the gray layer. The gray layer is also partially visible in Fig. (2b). Similarities between the samples are already evident from these photographs.

Fig. (3) shows three images for comparison of views of the same set of chips using different methods. Fig. (3a) is a VLM photomicrograph of a group of particles, which shows the red material and in some cases the adhering gray mate- rial. Fig. (3b, c) are, respectively, a secondary electron (SE) image and a backscattered electron (BSE) image of the same group of particles, using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) without a conductive coating over the sample. It can be seen in the SE image that the red layer of the particles has very bright regions caused by a slight accumulation of charge under the electron beam, owing to the relatively poor conductivity of the red layer (see Discussion section). The BSE image shows the red layer darker than the gray layer,


Fig. (2). Photomicrographs of red/gray chips from samples 1-4 of the WTC dust involved in this study, shown in (a)-(d) respectively. The inset in (d) shows the chip edge on, which reveals the gray layer. The red/gray chips are mounted on an aluminum pedestal, using a carbon conductive tab, for viewing in the scanning electron microscope (SEM).
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 11


Fig. (3). A series of images of the same group of particles extracted by magnet from sample 2. The color photomicrograph in (a), obtained by VLM, locates and identifies the red/gray particles. An SE image (b) acquired by SEM gives a better indication of size and shape of the parti- cles, and a BSE image © shows, by grayscale intensity, the difference in average atomic number between the red layer, gray layer and other dust particles.

indicating that the red layer is composed of material that has a relatively lower average atomic number than the gray layer.

A higher-magnification BSE image of the corner of one of the chips, shown in Fig. (4), allows for closer examination of the difference in grayscale intensity of the two layers and confirms the higher average atomic number of the gray layer. The red material also shows specks and other heterogene- ities, in marked contrast to the smooth gray layer.
Newly fractured cross sections of red/gray chips from the four different dust samples are shown by BSE imaging in Fig. (5). These four cross sections are representative of all the red/gray chips studied from the dust samples. The BSE images illustrate the finding that all of the red layers studied contained small bright particles or grains characterized by a high average atomic number. The size and presence of the particles was found to be consistent throughout the layers, but the concentration of the particles was found to vary lo- cally, as can be seen from the images.

Fig. (5). BSE images of cross sections of red/gray chips from samples 1-4 shown in (a)-(d) respectively. The cross sections from sample 2 (b) and 4 (d) also show the adhering gray layer.

X-ray energy-dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS) analyses of both the red and gray layers from cross sections prepared from the four dust samples were performed and representa- tive spectra are shown in Figs. (6, 7). The four spectra in Fig. (6) indicate that the gray layers are consistently characterized by high iron and oxygen content including a smaller amount of carbon. The chemical signatures found in the red layers are also quite consistent (Fig. 7), each showing the presence of aluminum (Al), silicon (Si), iron (Fe) and oxygen (O), and a significant carbon © peak as well.

At still higher magnifications, BSE imaging of the red layer illustrates the similarity between the different dust samples. BSE images of small but representative portions of each red-layer cross section are shown in Fig. (8). The re- sults indicate that the small particles with very high BSE intensity (brightness) are consistently 100 nm in size and have a faceted appearance. These bright particles are seen intermixed with plate-like particles that have intermediate BSE intensity and are approximately 40 nm thick and up to about 1 micron across. Furthermore, by comparing the BSE image in Fig. (8a) to the SE image in Fig. (9), it can be seen that all of the particles are embedded in an unstructured ma- trix which gives a dark BSE intensity.
XEDS maps of the cross-section surface of the red layer were acquired at a beam energy of 10 kV. The acquisition area of the maps is shown by the BSE image in Fig. (10a). The XEDS maps, several of which are shown in Fig. (10b-f), indicate by color, the degree to which the particular element is present at or near the surface from point to point across the area. The results indicate that the smaller particles with very bright BSE intensity are associated with the regions of high Fe and O. The plate-like particles with intermediate BSE intensity appear to be associated with the regions of high Al and Si. The O map (d) also indicates oxygen present, to a lesser degree, in the location of the Al and Si. However, it is inconclusive from these data whether the O is associated with Si or Al or both. The carbon map appears less defini- tive, that is, it does not appear to be associated with a par- ticular particle or group of particles, but rather with the ma- trix material.
In order to learn more from these findings, a focused electron beam was placed directly onto the different parti- cles, and the XEDS data were collected. By placing the beam on a cluster of plate-like particles, the spectrum in Fig. (11a) was generated. The spectrum in Fig. (11b) was acquired
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 13

Fig. (6). XEDS spectra obtained from the gray layers from each of the four WTC dust samples, with (a) corresponding to sample 1, and so on (b-d).
14 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

Fig. (7). XEDS spectra obtained from the red layers from each of the four WTC dust samples, with (a) corresponding to sample 1 and so on
(b-d).
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 15

Fig. (8). BSE images of cross sections of the red layer from each of the dust samples 1-4 shown in (a)-(d) respectively.

spectra display significant carbon and oxygen, which may be partially due to the beam spreading and receiving an over- lapping X-ray signal from the matrix material as well as par- ticles below the surface. The beam energy (20 keV) is such that the volume of material from which the X-ray signal is generated is larger than the particles. Hence, some Al and Si are seen in Fig. (11b) which may not be inherent in the fac- eted grains, and some Fe is seen in Fig. (11a), which may not be inherent in the plate-like particles.

The consistently rhombic-shaped, faceted appearance of the iron-rich grains strongly suggests that they are crystal- line. From these data, it is determined that the red/gray chips from different WTC dust samples are extremely similar in their chemical and structural makeup. It is also shown that within the red layer there is an intimate mixing of the Fe-rich
grains and Al/Si plate-like particles and that these particles
are embedded in a carbon-rich matrix.

Fig. (9). SE image of the cross section shown in Fig. (8a).

from a cluster of the smaller bright faceted grains. Again it was observed that the thin sheet-like particles are rich in Al and Si whereas the bright faceted grains are rich in Fe. Both

2. Test Using Methyl Ethyl Ketone Solvent

By employing some means to separate the different components of the material, the chemical compositions of the different particles in the red layer were more accurately
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Fig. (10). This shows a BSE image (a) and XEDS maps (b-f) of the red-layer cross section of a red/gray chip from dust sample 1. The ele- ments displayed are: (b) Fe, © Al, (d) O, (e) Si, and (f) C.

Fig. (11). XEDS spectra showing the elemental compositions of a grouping of thin platelets (a) and of a grouping of whitish particles (b), as seen in the high-magnification images of red layers (see Fig. (8)).
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 17

determined. The initial objective was to compare the behav- ior of the red layer with paint when soaked in a strong or- ganic solvent known to soften and dissolve paint. Red/gray chips were soaked in methyl ethyl ketone (MEK) for 55 hours with frequent agitation and subsequently dried in air over several days. The chips showed significant swelling of the red layer, but with no apparent dissolution. In marked contrast, paint chips softened and partly dissolved when similarly soaked in MEK. It was discovered in this process that a significant migration and segregation of aluminum had occurred in the red-chip material. This allowed us to assess whether some of the aluminum was in elemental form.

The chip that was used for this experiment was extracted from dust sample 2 and is shown in the images below. Fig. (12a) shows an SE image of the chip prior to the MEK treatment. It is positioned with the interface between the red and gray layers nearly parallel to the plane of the image. Fig. (12b) shows a BSE image of the chip after the MEK soak. Note that the chip fractured during the MEK treatment and handling. In this image the red layer and gray layer are side by side so that the interface between the layers is edge-on (perpendicular to the plane of the image) with the gray layer on the right. The red layer of the chip was found, by visual inspection, to have swelled out from the gray layer by a fac-


tor of roughly 5 times its original thickness. The photomi- crograph shown in Fig. (13) also shows the chip after the MEK soak. The red layer can be seen extending out from the gray layer.

Fig. (13). Photomicrograph of the MEK treated chip.

Prior to soaking the chip in MEK an XEDS spectrum was acquired from an area of the red-layer surface. The resulting spectrum, shown in Fig. (14), produced the expected peaks for Fe, Si, Al, O, and C. Other peaks included calcium, sul- fur, zinc, chromium and potassium. The occurrence of these elements could be attributed to surface contamination due to the fact that the analysis was performed on the as-collected surface of the red layer. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to contamination with gypsum from the pulverized wall- board material in the buildings.

Fig. (14). XEDS spectrum of red side before soaking in MEK. No- tice the presence of Zn and Cr, which are sometimes seen in the red layers. The large Ca and S peaks may be due to surface contamina- tion with wallboard material.

XEDS maps were acquired from the swollen red material at a beam energy of 10 kV, in order to determine the loca- tions of various elements following the MEK treatment. The data shown in Fig. (15) illustrate regions where iron, alumi-
num and silicon are concentrated. Furthermore, the data in- dicate that wherever silicon or iron is concentrated, oxygen
Fig. (12). SE images of the red/gray chip that was soaked in methyl
ethyl ketone for 55 hours, (a) prior to and (b) after MEK soaking.
is also concentrated. On the other hand, there also exist re- gions where the aluminum is concentrated but where the
18 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.


Fig. (15). (a) BSE image and (b)-(f) accompanying XEDS maps from the red layer of the chip which was soaked in methyl ethyl ketone for
55 hours. The maps for (b) Fe, © Al, (d) O, (e) Si, and (f) C are shown.

oxygen may not accompany it commensurately. To confirm and to quantify these observations, XEDS spectra (subse- quent plots) were acquired from specific regions of high Si, Al and Fe concentrations.

Focusing the electron beam on a region rich in silicon, located in Fig. (15e), we find silicon and oxygen and very little else (Fig. 16). Evidently the solvent has disrupted the matrix holding the various particles, allowing some migra- tion and separation of the components. This is a significant result for it means that the aluminum and silicon are not bound chemically.
The next XEDS spectrum (Fig. 17) was acquired from a region that showed a high concentration of aluminum. Using a conventional quantification routine, it was found that the aluminum significantly exceeded the oxygen present (ap- proximately a 3:1 ratio). Thus, while some of the aluminum may be oxidized, there is insufficient oxygen present to ac- count for all of the aluminum; some of the aluminum must therefore exist in elemental form in the red material. This is an important result. Aluminum particles are covered with a layer of aluminum oxide irrespective of size, thus it is rea- sonable to find a significant oxygen content with the alumi- num, given the very high surface area to volume ratio of these very fine particles.
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 19

spectra, and after accounting for oxygen fractions to trace ele- ments, it is found that the Fe:O ratio for the spectrum in Fig. (18) is approximately 2:3. This indicates that the iron is oxidized and apparently in oxidation state III, indicating that Fe2O3, or perhaps an iron (III) oxo-bridged polymer, is present.

To check the quantification method, tests were performed with the known chemical, iron (III) oxide, and the elemental- quantification was found to yield consistent and repeatable results for iron and oxygen. In particular we made eight 50- second measurements on Fe2O3 samples and found consis- tency for iron (± 6.2%, 1 sigma) and for oxygen (± 3.4%, 1 sigma) with the O/Fe ratio consistently near 1.5 as expected.


Fig. (16). XEDS spectrum from a silicon-rich region on the porous red matrix of the MEK-treated red material.

Fig. (17). XEDS spectrum obtained at 10 kV from a probe of the region of high aluminum concentration on the MEK-soaked red chip.

Next a region of particularly high iron concentration was analyzed, yielding the XEDS spectrum shown in Fig. (18).

The existence of elemental aluminum and iron oxide leads to the obvious hypothesis that the material may contain ther- mite. However, before concluding that the red material found in the WTC dust is thermitic, further testing would be required. For example, how does the material behave when heated in a sensitive calorimeter? If the material does not react vigorously it may be argued that although ingredients of thermite are present, the material may not really be thermitic.

3. Thermal Analysis using Differential Scanning
Calorimetry

Red/gray chips were subjected to heating using a differ- ential scanning calorimeter (DSC). The data shown in Fig. (19) demonstrate that the red/gray chips from different WTC samples all ignited in the range 415-435 ËšC. The energy re- lease for each exotherm can be estimated by integrating with respect to time under the narrow peak. Proceeding from the smallest to largest peaks, the yields are estimated to be ap- proximately 1.5, 3, 6 and 7.5 kJ/g respectively. Variations in peak height as well as yield estimates are not surprising, since the mass used to determine the scale of the signal, shown in the DSC traces, included the mass of the gray layer. The gray layer was found to consist mostly of iron oxide so that it probably does not contribute to the exotherm, and yet this layer varies greatly in mass from chip to chip.

4. Observation of Iron-Rich Sphere Formation Upon
Ignition of Chips in a Differential Scanning Calorimeter

In the post-DSC residue, charred-porous material and numerous microspheres and spheroids were observed. Many of these were analyzed, and it was found that some were iron-rich, which appear shiny and silvery in the optical mi- croscope, and some were silicon-rich, which appear trans- parent or translucent when viewed with white light; see pho- tographs taken using a Nikon microscope (Fig. 20).
The abundant iron-rich spheres are of particular interest

in this study; none were observed in these particular chips prior to DSC-heating. Spheres rich in iron already demon- strate the occurrence of very high temperatures, well above
6 : 9 < = > ;
Fig. (18). XEDS spectrum obtained from a probe of the region of high iron concentration on the MEK-soaked red chip, acquired with a 15 kV beam.

Oxygen is very consistently found in high concentration with the iron in the red material even after soaking in MEK solvent (Fig. 15), and in Fig. (18) an abundance of oxygen is found relative to iron. Based on quantification of the XEDS
the 700 ËšC temperature reached in the DSC, in view of the high melting point of iron and iron oxide [5]. Such high tem- peratures indicate that a chemical reaction occurred.

Using back-scattered electron (BSE) imaging, spheres were selected in the post-DSC residue which appeared to be rich in iron. An example is shown in Fig. (21) along with the corresponding XEDS spectrum for this sphere.
20 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

Fig. (19). Differential Scanning Calorimeter (DSC) traces for four red/gray chip samples found in World Trade Center dust collections.

Fig. (20). Photomicrographs of residues from red/gray chips ignited in the DSC. Notice the shiny-metallic spheres and also the translucent spheres. Each blue scale-marker represents 50 microns.
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 21

Fig. (21). Spheroid found in post-DSC residue showing iron-rich sphere and the corresponding XEDS spectrum. The carbon peak must be considered indeterminate here since this sample was flashed with a thin carbon layer in order to preclude charging under the electron beam.

A conventional quantitative analysis routine was used to estimate the elemental contents. In the case of this iron-rich spheroid, the iron content exceeds the oxygen content by approximately a factor of two, so substantial elemental iron must be present. This result was repeated in other iron-rich spheroids in the post-DSC sample as well as in spots in the residue which did not form into spheres. Spheroids were observed with Fe:O ratios up to approximately 4:1. Other iron-rich spheres were found in the post-DSC residue which contained iron along with aluminum and oxygen (see Dis- cussion section).

That thermitic reactions from the red/gray chips have indeed occurred in the DSC (rising temperature method of ignition) is confirmed by the combined observation of 1) highly energetic reactions occurring at approximately
430 ËšC, 2) iron-rich sphere formation so that the product must have been sufficiently hot to be molten (over 1400 ËšC for iron and iron oxide), 3) spheres, spheroids and non- spheroidal residues in which the iron content exceeds the oxygen content. Significant elemental iron is now present as expected from the thermitic reduction-oxidation reaction of aluminum and iron oxide.

The evidence for active, highly energetic thermitic mate- rial in the WTC dust is compelling.

5. Flame/Ignition Tests

The DSC used in our studies does not allow for visual in- spection of the energetic reaction. Therefore tests were also performed with a small oxyacetylene flame applied to red/gray chips. Samples were either heated on a graphite block (Fig. 22)
22 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.


Fig. (22). Applying a small torch to a minute red chip (left), followed a few seconds later by ejection of material, producing a horizontal orange streak running toward the operator's hand (right). (Frames from video of this flame/ignition test).

or held with tweezers in the flame. Several paint samples were also tested and in each case, the paint sample was immediately reduced to fragile ashes by the hot flame. This was not the case, however, with any of the red/gray chips from the World Trade Center dust.

The first WTC red/gray chip so tested was approximately
1mm 1mm. After a few seconds of heating, the high-speed ejection of a hot particle was observed under the hand of the person holding the torch (Fig. 22). The intense light and bright orange color of the particle attest to its high tempera- ture. In this case, the attempt to recover the diminutive end- product of the reaction was unsuccessful. A short video clip of the test (including slow-motion) is available here: http://journalof911studies.com/volume/20...redchip_sl ow.mov
In a later flame-ignition test, the end product was recov- ered and is shown in the photomicrograph and SEM image in Fig. (23). Once again, the formation of iron-rich semi- spherical shapes shows that the residue had been melted, enabling surface tension of the liquid to pull it into spherical shapes. However, the evidence obtained in the DSC analyses is more compelling that a thermitic reaction actually occurs as in that case ignition is observed when the red material is heated to no more than 430 ËšC.

DISCUSSION

All of the dust samples that were inspected were found to contain red/gray chips. The chips are characterized by a red layer in which XEDS analysis identifies carbon, oxygen, aluminum, silicon, and iron, and a gray layer in which mainly iron and oxygen are found. The ratios of these ele-


Fig. (23). Silvery-gray spheroids (left) are seen after the ignition test of red/gray chip from sample 1; some of the porous red material re- mains; both can be seen in the corresponding SEM image (right).
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 23

ments appear to be similar especially when this analysis is performed on a clean cross-section of the layers. The BSE imaging also shows the consistency of the red layers by re- vealing the size and morphology of the particles that are con- tained in the bulk of the layers. The results clearly show the similarities of the red/gray chips from the different dust samples from all four sites.
There are a number of questions raised by our results.

1. How Much of the Energetic Red Material Survived
During the WTC Destruction?

In the sample provided by collector J. MacKinlay the fraction of red/gray chips was roughly estimated. Fifteen small chips having a total mass of 1.74 mg were extracted from a 1.6 g sample of dust from which readily identifiable glass and concrete fragments had been removed by hand. Thus the fraction of red/gray chips was approximately
0.1% by weight in the separated dust Another sampling showed 69 small red/gray chips in a 4.9 g sample of sepa- rated dust. Further samples are being analyzed to refine this estimate. The fall of the WTC Towers produced enormous clouds of dust whose total mass is difficult to ascertain; but clearly the total mass of red/gray chips in the WTC dust must be substantial given the fraction observed in these sam- plings.

2. Is the Red Material Thermitic in Nature?

Our observations show that the red material contains sub- stantial amounts of aluminum, iron and oxygen, mixed to- gether very finely. In the sample soaked in MEK, we ob- served a clear migration and aggregation of the aluminum away from other elements and determined that elemental aluminum and iron oxide must be present. In the product collected after DSC ignition, we found spheres which were not initially present. Many of these spheres were iron rich and elemental iron was found in the post-ignition debris. Further, the DSC traces demonstrate that the red/gray chips react vigorously at a temperature below the melting point of aluminum and below the ignition (oxidation) point of ultra-
fine grain (UFG) aluminum in air [18]. These observations reminded us of nano-thermite fabricated at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and elsewhere; available papers describe this material as an intimate mixture of UFG aluminum and iron oxide in nano-thermite composites to form pyrotechnics or explosives [19-21]. The thermite reac- tion involves aluminum and a metal oxide, as in this typical reaction with iron oxide:

2Al + Fe2O3 Al2O3 + 2Fe (molten iron), H = 853.5 kJ/mole.

Commercially available thermite behaves as an incendi- ary when ignited [6], but when the ingredients are ultra-fine grain (UFG) and are intimately mixed, this "nano-thermite" reacts very rapidly, even explosively, and is sometimes re- ferred to as "super-thermite" [20, 22].

We would like to make detailed comparisons of the red chips with known super-thermite composites, along with comparisons of the products following ignition, but there are many forms of this high-tech thermite, and this comparison must wait for a future study. Meanwhile, we compare with products of commercially available (macro-) thermite. Dur- ing ignition of thermite, we have observed that many spheres and spheroids are formed as part of the molten product of the reaction is vigorously scattered. These particles tend to be- come spherical due to surface tension and, being small, are rapidly cooled and solidify as they fall through the air, thus their spherical shape is preserved.

To facilitate comparisons between the products of red/gray chip ignition and commercial thermite ignition, we juxtapose the respective images and XEDS spectra.

We observe that the spheroidal residues from ignition of red chips (Figs. 25, 26) possess a strikingly similar chemical signature to a typical XEDS spectrum from a spheroid gen- erated by commercial thermite (Fig. 24). This similarity sup- ports our hypothesis that the red chips are indeed a form of thermite.

Images of spheroids XEDS spectra of spheroids

Fig. (24). Spheres formed during ignition of commercial thermite, with corresponding typical XEDS spectrum.
24 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

Fig. (25). Spheres formed during ignition of red/gray chip in DSC, with corresponding typical XEDS spectrum (although spheres with pre- dominately iron and some oxygen are also seen in the post-ignition residue).


Fig. (26). Residue of red chip subjected to flame test; XEDS spectrum of left-most microsphere.

Fig. (27). Spheres extracted from WTC dust. Fig. (28). XEDS spectrum from a sphere found in the WTC dust.
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 25

In addition to the red/gray chips, many small spheres have been found by our group in the WTC dust. These con- tain the same elements as the residue of thermite, as noted in a previous paper [5]. We show spheres found in the WTC dust (Fig. 27) and a representative XEDS spectrum from such a sphere (Fig. 28); we invite the reader to compare these results with those found for ignition of commercial thermite and for ignition of red/gray chips (above).

3. Could the Red Material Be Unreacted "Super- Thermite"?

We have noted that ordinary thermite acts as an incendi- ary when ignited. However, when the ingredients are ultra- fine-grain and are intimately mixed, the mixture reacts very rapidly, even explosively [20]. Thus, there is a highly ener- getic form of thermite known as an energetic nanocomposite or "super-thermite," composed of aluminum and iron oxide with at least one component being approximately 100 nm or less, often along with silicon and carbon [19-28]

"Reaction rates between nanosize aluminum and metal oxides can be significantly greater than those observed with traditional micron-size thermite powders. Reactions occurring between metal and metal oxide powders are accompa- nied by the generation of high temperatures (>3000 K). Super-thermites, formed by mixing of aluminum and metal oxide nanopowders re- sult in energy release rate by two orders of magnitude higher than similar mixtures consist- ing of micron size reactants" [22].
The red layer of the red/gray chips is most interesting in that it contains aluminum, iron and oxygen components
which are intimately mixed at a scale of approximately 100 nanometers (nm) or less. Now we compare a DSC trace ob- tained for a WTC red/gray chip with a DSC trace obtained for known super-thermite (see Fig. (29)).

Ordinary thermite ignites at a much higher temperature (about 900 ËšC or above) and gives a significantly broader trace than super-thermite [21]. All these data suggest that the thermitic material found in the WTC dust is a form of nano- thermite, not ordinary (macro-) thermite. We make no at- tempt to specify the particular form of nano-thermite present until more is learned about the red material and especially about the nature of the organic material it contains.

4. Did the Technology to Make Highly Exothermic Nano- composites Exist Prior to 9/11/2001?

We find the answer in a report by Gash et al. dated April
2000, seventeen months before the tragedy:

"Nanostructured composites are multicompo- nent materials in which at least one of the com- ponent phases has one or more dimensions (length, width, or thickness) in the nanometer size range, defined as 1 to 100 nm. Energetic nanocomposites are a class of material that have both a fuel and oxidizer component intimately mixed and where at least one of the component phases meets the size definition. A sol-gel de- rived pyrotechnic is an example of an energetic nanocomposite, in which metal-oxide nanopar- ticles react with metals or other fuels in very exothermic reactions. The fuel resides within the pores of the solid matrix while the oxidizer comprises at least a portion of the skeletal ma-

Fig. (29). DSC trace of sample 1 (blue line) compared with DSC of xerogel Fe2O3/UFG Al nanocomposite (from Tillotson et al. [28]). Both
DSC traces show completion of reaction at temperatures below 560 ËšC.
26 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

trix." "As an example, energetic nanocompo- sites of FexOy and metallic aluminum are easily synthesized. The compositions are stable, safe and can be readily ignited" [19].
We gather that the technology to make materials re- markably fitting the characterization of the red chips was available by April 2000. In the same report, the scientists noted that "polymers" can be added to the nanocomposite:

"This sol-gel method allows for the addition of insoluble materials (e.g., metals or polymers) to the viscous sol, just before gelation, to produce a uniformly distributed and energetic nanocom- posite upon gelation. Al metal (as a fine pow- der, ~6μm diameter) was added to some FexOy gel syntheses just before gelation to produce FexOy /Al(s) pyrotechnic nanocomposites…. These nanocomposites were subsequently proc- essed to make both a xerogel and aerogel of the material…. The pyrotechnic nanocomposite can be ignited using a propane torch" [19].
Indeed, the red chips can be ignited using a torch and they have properties of a pyrotechnic nanocomposite. All the required ingredients are present aluminum, iron, oxygen, silicon, and carbon and they are incorporated in such a way that the chip forms (and sometimes ejects) very hot material when ignited. The Gash report describes FTIR spectra which characterize this energetic material. We have performed these same tests and will report the results elsewhere. We note that polymers in the matrix may be responsible for ab- sorption of MEK and the subsequent swelling which we ob- served [29].

A report on an April 2001 conference discloses who was known to be working on such explosives at that time:

The 221st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society held during April 2001 in San Diego featured a symposium on Defense Appli- cations of Nanomaterials. One of the 4 sessions was titled nanoenergetics…. This session pro- vided a good representation of the breadth of work ongoing in this field, which is roughly 10 years old.… At this point in time, all of the military services and some DOE and academic laboratories have active R&D programs aimed at exploiting the unique properties of nano- materials that have potential to be used in energetic formulations for advanced explo- sives…. nanoenergetics hold promise as use- ful ingredients for the thermobaric (TBX) and TBX-like weapons, particularly due to their high degree of tailorability with regards to energy release and impulse management [20].
The feature of "impulse management" may be signifi- cant. It is possible that formulations may be chosen to have just sufficient percussive effect to achieve the desired frag- mentation while minimizing the noise level.

5. Can Super-Thermite be Handled Safely?

The April 2000 report by Gash et al. states:
"The nature of the wet nanocomposites also af- fords an additional degree of safety. In our hands, the wet pyrotechnic nanocomposites cannot be ignited until the drying process is complete. This property should allow the pro- duction of a large quantity of the pyrotechnics that can be stored safely for some time and dried shortly before its use" [19].
Safe handling of the malleable sol-gel material allows easy coating of surfaces (such as steel), which the same group, in a subsequent report, says they have achieved.

"The sol-gel process is very amenable to dip-, spin-, and spray-coating technologies to coat surfaces. We have utilized this property to dip- coat various substrates to make sol-gel Fe2O3/Al/Viton coatings. The energetic coating dries to give a nice adherent film." "We have
prepared fine powders, pressed pellets, cast monoliths, and thin films of the hybrid inor- ganic/organic energetic nanocomposite" [25].
Thus, the energetic nano-composite can be sprayed or even "painted" onto surfaces, effectively forming an ener- getic or even explosive paint. The red chips we found in the WTC dust conform to their description of "thin films" of "hybrid inorganic/organic energetic nanocomposite". Indeed, the descriptive terms "energetic coating" and "nice adherent film" fit very well with our observations of the red-chips which survived the WTC destruction. We cannot determine at this time, however, whether the thinness of the chips re- sulted from the application method or the manner of reac- tion. While the application of a thin film might have suited specific desired outcomes, it is also possible that the quench- ing effect of the steel the material was in contact with may have prevented a thin film of a larger mass from reacting. The fact that most of the chips have a distinctive gray layer suggests that the unreacted material was in close contact with something else, either its target, a container, or an adhe- sive.

Clapsaddle et al. further noted in their report:

"These results indicate that under ambient con- ditions the hybrid inorganic/organic energetic composite is very stable to impact, is spark in- sensitive, and only very slightly friction sensi- tive. As noted in the Experimental section of this report, in our hands wet hybrid nanocompo- sites are safe to handle and difficult to thermal [sic] ignite. However, once dry the material burns very vigorously and rapidly with the evo- lution of significant amounts of gaseous spe- cies" [24].
The organic component contributes to the rapid gas evo- lution and explosive nature of these energetic super- thermites when dry [24].

"Super-thermite electric matches" have been developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory for which "applications include triggering explosives for ... demolition" [30]. It is indeed possible that such matches, which are designed to be ignited by a simple electric pulse, could contain material
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 27

similar to the red material we have found in the WTC dust. With regard to the safety of super-thermite matches, the Los Alamos announcement notes:

"Unfortunately, conventional electric matches use lead containing compounds that are ex- tremely sensitive to impact, friction, static, and heat stimuli, thereby making them dangerous to handle. In addition, these compounds produce toxic smoke. The Super-Thermite electric matches produce no toxic lead smoke and are safer to use because they resist friction, im- pact, heat, and static discharge through the composition, thereby minimizing accidental ig- nition. They can be designed to create various thermal-initiating outputssimple sparks, hot slag, droplets, or flamesdepending on the needs of different applications" [30].

6. What is the Energy Release of Super-Thermite Com- pared to Conventional Explosives?

A graph in an article on nanostructured energetic materi- als [21] shows that the energy/volume yield for Al/Fe2O3 composite material exceeds that of TNT, HMX and TATB explosives commonly used in demolitions (see Fig. (30)).

It is striking that some of the red/gray chips release more energy in kJ/g than does ordinary thermite, as shown in the blue bar graphs above. The theoretical maximum for ther- mite is 3.9 kJ/g [27]. We suggest that the organic material in evidence in the red/gray chips is also highly energetic, most likely producing gas to provide explosive pressure. Again, conventional thermite is regarded as an incendiary whereas super-thermite, which may include organic ingredients for rapid gas generation, is considered a pyrotechnic or explo- sive [6, 24]. As this test was done in air it is possible that
some of the enhancement of energy output may have come from air oxidation of the organic component.

7. Could the Red Chip Material be Ordinary Paint?

We measured the resistivity of the red material (with very little gray adhering to one side) using a Fluke 8842A mul- timeter in order to compare with ordinary paints, using the formula:
Specific resistivity = RA / L
where R = resistance (ohms); A = cross-sectional area (m2); L
= thickness (m).

Given the small size of the red chip, about 0.5 mm x 0.5 mm, we used two probes and obtained a rough value of ap- proximately 10 ohm-m. This is several orders of magnitude less than paint coatings we found tabulated which are typi-
cally over 1010 ohm-m [31].

Another test, described above, involved subjection of red chips to methyl ethyl ketone solvent for tens of hours, with agitation. The red material did swell but did not dissolve, and a hard silicon-rich matrix remained after this procedure. On the other hand, paint samples in the same exposure to MEK solvent became limp and showed significant dissolution, as expected since MEK is a paint solvent.

Further, we have shown that the red material contains both elemental aluminum and iron oxide, the ingredients of thermite, in interesting configuration and intimate mixing in the surviving chips (see Results, section 1). The species are small (e.g., the iron oxide grains are roughly 100 nm across) in a matrix including silicon and carbon, suggesting a super- thermite composite. Red chips when ignited produce very high temperatures even now, several years after the 9/11 tragedy, as shown by the bright flash observed and the pro-

Fig. (30). Energy release for monomolecular explosives HMX, TNT and TATB, for energetic composite Al/Fe2O3, [21] and energy release by mass for four red/gray chips found in the WTC dust as measured in a Differential Scanning Calorimeter.
28 The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 Harrit et al.

duction of molten iron-rich spheres (see photomicrographs in Fig. (20) above). Correspondingly, the DSC tests demon- strate the release of high enthalpy, actually exceeding that of pure thermite. Furthermore, the energy is released over a short period of time, shown by the narrowness of the peak in Fig. (29). The post-DSC-test residue contains microspheres in which the iron exceeds the oxygen content, implying that at least some of the iron oxide has been reduced in the reac- tion. If a paint were devised that incorporated these very energetic materials, it would be highly dangerous when dry and most unlikely to receive regulatory approval for building use. To merit consideration, any assertion that a prosaic sub- stance such as paint could match the characteristics we have described would have to be accompanied by empirical dem- onstration using a sample of the proposed material, including SEM/XEDS and DSC analyses.

8. What Future Studies are Contemplated?

We observe that the total energy released from some of the red chips exceeds the theoretical limit for thermite alone (3.9 kJ/g). One possibility is that the organic material in the red layer is itself energetic. Determination of the chemical compound(s) involved in the organic component of the red material would promote understanding. Further studies of the red material (separated from the gray material) compared to known super-thermite variants using DSC, TGA, FTIR (etc.) analyses would certainly be in order. In particular, NMR and GC-mass spectroscopy and related studies are urged to iden- tify the organic material.

We have observed that some chips have additional ele- ments such as potassium, lead, barium and copper. Are these significant, and why do such elements appear in some red chips and not others? An example is shown in Fig. (31) which shows significant Pb along with C, O, Fe, and Al and displays multiple red and gray layers.

In addition, the gray-layer material demands further study. What is its purpose? Sometimes the gray material ap- pears in multiple layers, as seen in Fig. (32).

Fig. (31). Photomicrograph of a red/gray chip found in sample 3, showing multiple layers and an unusual light-gray layer between the red layers.
The red-mesoporous material is on the left in this view, with the touching dark-gray layer next and a lighter-gray material on the right as seen in a photograph of the same chip (right hand image in Fig. (32)). The gray layer in con- tact with the red layer has the XEDS spectrum shown in Fig. (33) in which iron is not seen, while the outer gray material had an XEDS spectrum just like those displayed in Fig. (6).
Thus, the middle-layer gray material contains carbon and oxygen and presumably also contains hydrogen, too light to be seen using this method. Since the gray inner layer appears between two other layers, it may be a type of adhesive, bind- ing a red porous thermitic material to another, iron-rich ma- terial. One might speculate that the red thermitic material has been attached to rusty iron by an adhesive. The cooling ef- fect of the iron in such close proximity, acting as a heat sink, might quench the reaction and explain the fact that unreacted red thermitic material, always found by us in thin layers, remains in the dust. These hypotheses invite further experi- ments.

Fig. (32). Close-up SEM image of the chip pictured on the right, the same chip but not precisely the same spot. This chip had been treated in
MEK solvent so that the red layer has expanded and porosity is evident.
Active Thermitic Material Found in WTC Dust The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, Volume 2 29

4. Iron oxide appears in faceted grains roughly 100 nm across whereas the aluminum appears in thin plate- like structures. The small size of the iron oxide parti- cles qualifies the material to be characterized as nano- thermite or super-thermite.

5. Analysis shows that iron and oxygen are present in a ratio consistent with Fe2O3. The red material in all four WTC dust samples was similar in this way. Iron oxide was found in the pre-ignition material whereas elemental iron was not.

6. From the presence of elemental aluminum and iron oxide in the red material, we conclude that it contains the ingredients of thermite.

7. As measured using DSC, the material ignites and re-
Fig. (33). XEDS spectrum for gray layer which touches the red
layer of the chip shown above.

No red/gray chips having the characteristics delineated here were found in dust generated by controlled demolition using conventional explosives and methods, for the Stardust Resort & Casino in Las Vegas (demolished 13 March 2007) and the Key Bank in Salt Lake City (demolished 18 August
2007). Of course, we do not assume that the destruction of the WTC skyscrapers occurred conventionally.

The red material does burn quickly as shown in the DSC, and we have observed a bright flash on ignition, but determi- nation of the burn rate of the red material may help to classify this as a slow or fast explosive. It may be that this material is used not as a cutter-charge itself, but rather as a means to ig- nite high explosives, as in super-thermite matches [30]. Hav- ing observed unignited thermitic material in the WTC residue, we suggest that other energetic materials suitable for cutter charges or explosives should also be looked for in the WTC dust. NIST has admitted that they have not yet looked for such residues [11].

CONCLUSIONS

We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in signifi- cant numbers in dust associated with the World Trade Center destruction. We have applied SEM...

[Greg Burnham]

Before I get banned, I'm starting to lean towards a controlled demolition for WTC-7. It seems obvious from these witness statements that authorities were openly saying they were going to pull the building. Obviously pulling the building in this context means bringing it down deliberately. I've seen enough government action like the Kennedy Assassination and TWA 800 to know they openly lie in contempt to the American public and this is probably another example where they could compound the effect of 9-11 by bringing a damaged building down at a convenient time. The devil is in the details but it looks like they brought it down intentionally. How they did that is beyond me in a building that was on fire.


Still though, I wish people would be honest and give me a straight answer as to why the clear area in Banfield's video fills in with smoke before the booms they show?

Anyone?

I'm just calling for objectivity here.

Albert,

No one is going to ban you or anyone else for honestly offering reasonable hypotheses of deep political events that are not shared by the majority of DPF owners and correspondents.

Yeah, but what about the un-reasonable ones? :loco:

[Charles Drago]

I'll be the judge of that!

[Lauren Johnson]

JO, I was looking for schematics of WTC7. Mind providing that link?

Also, referring to your stuff on the Vancouver conference, I never thought anyone would be crazier than Fetzer. A chrononaut?!!