Analysis Of White House Obstruction Of 911 Investigations
By Joel Skousen
jskousen@qwest.net
World Affairs Brief
5-10-3

The Bush administration, the CIA, and the FBI are all refusing to cooperate with Congress as the latter tries to release for publication its 900-page report on the 9/11 terror attack on the WTC. The report contains numerous critical comments about administration and intelligence agency mishandling of forewarnings received by agents in the field-including a warning from an FBI agent that al-Qaeda supporters might be training in US flight schools. This story, and many others that are even more damaging, has already been leaked to the public either by establishment sources or by internet news sources-and yet the administration is adamant that these same stories must remain classified and not be released as part of the report. Obviously, the administration doesn't want these reports to benefit from the increased credibility that a mention in a Congressional report would endow.
 
This particular Congressional report is unrelated to the independent 9/11 Commission [http://www.9-11commission.gov/] that was so slow in getting underway, and will be even slower at answering the questions presented by representatives of the victim's families [http://www.911commission.org/]. Given the less than comprehensive scope of the questions posed to the commission, as well as the establishment make-up of the commissions panel members, I don't expect anything revealing regarding government foreknowledge, failure to respond, and cover-up of suspicious activities to come out of its investigation. Even this commission is being stonewalled by the Bush administration. Newsweek magazine has reported that, "President Bush's chief lawyer has privately signaled that the White House may seek to invoke executive privilege over key documents relating to the attacks in order to keep them out of the hands of investigators for the National Commission on Terror Attacks Upon the United States-the independent panel created by Congress to probe all aspects of 9-11."
 
The members of the commission have all had to get security clearances to be on the panel. After the government delayed issuing the clearances for months, members are still not being given full access. As Newsweek reported, "Just two weeks ago, one commission member, Tim Roemer, a former Democratic congressman from Indiana, had sought to read transcripts of three days of closed hearings that had been held last fall by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees-hearings that Roemer, as a member of the House panel, had actually participated in. But when Roemer went down to a carefully guarded room on Capitol Hill to read the classified transcripts-he says to refresh his memory-he was stunned to learn that he couldnât have access to them. The reason, relayed by a congressional staffer, was that·administration lawyers [must] first review them to determine if the transcripts contained testimony about "privileged material." Obviously, the White House is trying to suppress something.
 
A couple of the victims' representatives did ask some crucial questions, such as why official Defense protocols were not followed, and why the NY Port Authority delayed evacuation of the second tower, but they failed to ask any of the really tough questions that point to government collusion and provocation:
 
* Why has the government refused to make public the recorded pilots conversations with Air Traffic Control, notifying them of a hijacking in progress? We know these conversations took place because the FAA has confirmed having reported the hijackings to NORAD within minutes of their commencement.
 
* Why has the government denied having intercepted Flight 93 over Pennsylvania with 2 F-16s, despite the voluminous evidence that the airliner was shot down and shadowed to its crash by an unmarked jet leased to the government?
 
* Why were most military tower operators in the area told to ground all flights from taking off, including fighter interceptors?
 
* How and why were the reported cell phone calls from passengers on the hijacked airliners faked? Recent tests have shown that cell phones at high altitudes do not communicate with antenna towers on the ground. Almost all cellular and PCS systems utilize antennas which are only oriented for horizontal reception--not vertical.
 
* How did the US so quickly develop complete profiles and dossiers on all the supposed hijackers, including their night club activities, if these individuals were not previously being tracked by government agents? There is also the question of the long trail of incriminating letters, passports and flight manuals supposedly left behind by the hijackers at the airport or, in the case of the intact passport, miraculously recovered in the WTC debris.
 
* Why has the government never amended the list of alleged hijackers given that eight of these names belong to people still living? The government has never given a rational explanation for why hijackers would use their real names in any case.
 
* Why were the alleged hijackers whose names were on terror watch lists given visas, without the proper documentation normally required?
 
* What is the relationship between Huffman Aviation (the Venice, FL company that trained two of the hijackers) and the CIA, which leases space in Huffmanâs hangar through a front company?
 
* Why did the hijackers who could barely speak English attempt (unsuccessfully) to take flying lessons for small planes when there was an Arab-speaking flight school for major aircraft in Fort Worth, Texas? [They were covering for training on major aircraft received elsewhere.]
 
* Why did certain investors know to short the stocks of American airline companies prior to 9/11? Along the same lines, why has the government never attempted to subpoena Wall Street computer records to find out who these "lucky" investors were?
 
* Why have the testimonies of New York firefighters who heard bomb-like explosions in the towers during the evacuation process been suppressed?
 
The evidence of internal explosives being associated with the bringing down of the two buildings has been compelling, yet frustrating given its often amateurish assumptions. (One of these is that burning jet fuel would have had to melt the steel structures in order to precipitate the collapse-which is false. The heat need only have been sufficient to soften the metal beams and trusses, causing them to sag and fail). Claims concerning evidence of planted charges on all floors, leading to a controlled collapse of the WTC buildings, have never been credible to me (such a scheme is too complex, involving hundreds of small charges). However, there is new evidence that charges at the bases of the towersâ 47 centralsteel columns could have precipitated the controlled vertical collapse of the buildings, and still have been consistent with the legitimate failure of the upper floor trusses reacting to the sudden collapse of central support. One crew of first responders into the first tower were shocked to see that the lobby on the main floor appeared to have been the object of an explosive blast-yet no signs of fire. On 9/11, two ABC reporters were filmed running away from the towers after seeing and hearing a ground floor explosion just prior to the collapse of the towers. There have also been reports of pools of molten metal at the base of these columns observed during debris removal. It is suspicious that the government threatened fire fighters who had heard other explosions to keep silent, and also that they ordered the tower debris removed so quickly, precluding complete forensic testing of the failed structure. The same thing happened after the Oklahoma bombing, where there was also irrefutable evidence of multiple charges and explosions.
 
World Affairs Brief c. 2003 Joel Skousen
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