[NYTr] A Scandal Beyond All Others: Bush, Cheney, Rummy & 9/11

[ny...@olm.blythe-systems.com]

Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit

[The Journal of Psychohistory is not in the habit of publishing tinfoil-hat
lunatic conspiracy theories. (Nor do we have any patience with the majority
of the junk that passes for analysis on the topics of conspiracies, 9/11,
weather war, vaccine plots, etc.) If you are unfamiliar with this scientific
journal or the method of psychohistory, take a look at the end notes before
you invest your time. This is very long, but well worth reading. It's great
to have any of the important material from the Journal of Psychohistory in
difital form.-NY Transfer]

The Journal of Psychohistory, Winter 2005, 32 (3): 202-238
http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/bcr911.htm

Digital Archive of PSYCHOHISTORY

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and 9/11:

A Scandal Beyond What Has Been Seen Before

by Matt Everett

If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up behind
bars.-Andreas von B|low, former German governmment minister, author of "Die
CIA und der 11. September."

At the beginning of the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, U.S. Defense
Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised: What will follow will not be a repeat
of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that has
been beyond what has been seen before. The invasion that ensued was, like
all wars, destructive and resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Yet
Baghdad fell in a mere three weeks and just six weeks after the invasion
commenced, President Bush announced: Major combat operations in Iraq have
ended. Despite the death and destruction, it was hardly a war of a force,
scope and scale beyond what had been seen before.

However, before it began, there were indications that some people wanted a
far more destructive war than that which ensued. For example, ridiculous as
it may now sound, it was suggested that Britain and America might use
nuclear weapons against Iraq. As The Guardian reported at the time:

"From last years US defence review and the testimony of the Defence
Secretary, Geoffrey Hoon, to the defence select committee last March it was
clear that a major change in the US and UK nuclear policy was taking place."

For the first time Britain and America were contemplating using nuclear
weapons against an enemy using only chemical or biological weapons.

Referring to states of concern, and Saddam Hussein in particular, Mr Hoon
told the committee: They can be absolutely confident that in the right
conditions we would be willing to use our nuclear weapons.

A month before the invasion, Hoon repeated his warning: Saddam can be
absolutely confident that in the right conditions we would be willing to use
nuclear weapons. As investigative journalist John Pilger points out: No
British minister has ever made such an outright threat.

Thankfully, the invasion passed without our resorting to nuclear weapons.
But it seemed the desire for a bigger conflict remained, with attempts
beginning almost immediately to find a new, more formidable enemy. In
particular, Iran and Syria seemed next on the list for liberation. At a
press conference in July 2003, President Bush issued a stern warning to both
countries, accusing them of harboring terrorists. This behaviour is
completely unacceptable, he said, and states that continue to harbour
terrorists will be held completely accountable. Three months later, U.S.
Under Secretary of State for Arms Control John Bolton told journalists:
There is awareness of the threat posed by Iran and consensus that threat
has to be eliminated. Yet these warnings failed to capture much public
interest.

Instead, there was a growing interest around the investigation into the
attacks of September 11, 2001. Previously, the press had largely ignored the
work of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
better known as the 9-11 Commission. When it held its second public
hearings in May 2003 on the key issue of air defense, the New York Times and
Los Angeles Times failed to write any articles about it. Suddenly though, in
March 2004 the Commission became the center of attention when former White
House security expert Richard Clarke publicly testified before it and
criticized the Bush administration for failing to address terrorism when it
first came into office. Since then, the 9/11 Commission remained a major
news story and the book of its final report became an instant bestseller.
However, the mass media were still overlooking the fact that increasing
numbers of people were seriously questioning the entire official account of
9/11. More and more books had been released around the world giving evidence
of possible U.S. government complicity in the attacks. Polls suggested that
millions of people were suspicious: A Zogby poll in late August 2004 found
49 per cent of New York City residents and 41 per cent of New York citizens
overall agreed that some leaders in the U.S. government knew in advance
that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they
consciously failed to take action. A survey three months earlier found 63
per cent of Canadians believed the U.S. government had prior knowledge of
the plans for the events of September 11th, and failed to take appropriate
action to stop them. A July 2003 poll had found almost a fifth of Germans
believed the U.S. government, or elements within it, were responsible for
organizing the attacks.

With attempts at identifying a new external enemy so far failing, I
believe it is possible that, instead, this growing suspicion around 9/11
will develop into an unprecedented public scandal. But what are these
suspicions about? Are they simply the result of rumour and urban legend,
or could some of the disturbing allegations now being made be found true in
future? In this article, I will examine some of the arguments put forward by
9/11 skeptics, along with supporting evidence. Then I will examine some of
the psychohistorical evidence that shows why we could be heading for a major
scandal over the events of 9/11. Until the controversy around 9/11 is
brought into the open and investigated properly, it is up to individuals to
draw their own conclusions. However, in my opinion, the volume of evidence
now gathered is enough to suggest a massive scandal is a real possibility.
The implications of this would be extraordinary. As one of the most
prominent 9/11 skeptics, former German government minister Andreas von
B|low, says: If what I say is right, the whole US government should end up
behind bars. THE FAA AND NORAD ON 9/11

The 9/11 Commission was established in late 2002 to provide a full and
complete accounting of the attacks of September 11, 2001, and offer
recommendations on how to prevent such attacks recurring. On June 16-17,
2004, it held its twelfth and final public hearing. Most revealing was the
hearings second day, examining the federal governments immediate response
to the attacks. This looked at the actions of the two agencies responsible
for the defense of U.S. airspace on 9/11: the Federal Aviation
Administration (FAA) and the North American Aerospace Defense Command
(NORAD). The job of the FAA is to regulate the safety and security of civil
aviation, whilst NORAD is the military organization responsible for
defending the airspace over North America. The 9/11 attacks all occurred
within NORADs Northeast Air Defense Sector, known as NEADS. Below, I have
summarised some of the new information that was revealed at this hearing:

* The New York Times had previously reported that the Boston Air Route
Traffic Control Center, in contact with American Airlines Flight 11 (the
first plane to be hijacked), knew around 8:20 a.m. on 9/11 that Flight 11
had probably been hijacked. However, the 9/11 Commission reported that
Boston did not follow the routine protocol in seeking military assistance
through the prescribed chain of command. Amongst other things, they sought
help from a former alert site in Atlantic City, not realizing it had already
been phased out. It was consequently about 18 minutes after they first
suspected a hijacking, around 8:38 a.m., that Boston finally reached the
military to ask for assistance.

* In response, NEADS ordered to battle stations two F-15 fighter jets
from Otis Air Force Base, 153 miles from New York City. These jets were in
the air by 8:53 a.m. after Flight 11 had hit the World Trade Center but 10
minutes before the second hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 175, hit
its target. However, NEADS supposedly did not know where to send them, so
they were directed towards military controlled airspace off the Long Island
coast. They were still in this holding pattern ten minutes after Flight
175 hit the World Trade Center.

* At 8:55 a.m., the controller in charge had notified a manager at the
New York Air Route Traffic Control Center that she believed Flight 175 had
been hijacked. However when this manager at New York then tried to notify
regional managers, they were told the managers were discussing a hijacked
aircraft and refused to be disturbed.

* After deviating from its flight plan around 8:54 a.m., the third
hijacked plane American Airlines Flight 77 supposedly traveled east
towards Washington, undetected for 36 minutes. When the FAA contacted NEADS
at 9:21 a.m., they reported that the plane heading towards Washington was
Flight 11, despite this plane having crashed into the WTC 35 minutes
earlier. Furthermore, NEADS never even received notice that American 77 was
hijacked. It was notified at 9:34 that American 77 was lost. Then, minutes
later, NEADS was told that an unknown plane was six miles southwest of the
White House. This left the military only one or two minutes to respond. But
its fighters were in the wrong place to be of use as they were responding to
a plane that did not exist.

* The NEADS mission crew commander had ordered fighter jets launched
from Langley Air Force Base towards the Washington area. Yet despite these
being in the air by 9:30 a.m., the commander discovered several minutes
later that, rather than going north as instructed, they had flown east over
the ocean. So when the Pentagon was hit they were 150 miles from Washington
further away from the capital than when they had taken off.16 Furthermore,
the pilots were never briefed as to why they had been scrambled, so when the
lead pilot saw the burning Pentagon, he thought it had been hit by a Russian
cruise missile.17

* During the hearing, a tape was played of a phone call between the
national Air Traffic Control System Command Center in Herndon, Virginia and
FAA headquarters in Washington, DC, that took place at 9:49 a.m. on 9/11.
They were discussing how to respond to United Airlines Flight 93 the
fourth hijacked plane. The Command Center asked: do we want to think about,
uh, scrambling aircraft? An exasperated sounding man at FAA headquarters
responded: Uh, God, I dont know. This man then mentioned: Uh, ya know
everybody just left the room.18 Why did everyone at FAA headquarters leave
him alone at such a critical time? In fact, according to the Commission, no
one at FAA headquarters requested military assistance regarding Flight 93.
Supposedly, The time of notification of the crash of United 93 was 10:15.
The NEADS air defenders never located the flight or followed it on their
radar scopes. The flight had already crashed by the time they learned it was
hijacked.19

This evidence seemed to depict an appalling level of confusion and
incompetence by the FAA. However, the 9/11 Commissions conclusion was that
this was understandable considering the unprecedented nature of the
situation. They said NORAD and the FAA were unprepared for the type of
attacks launched against the United States on September 11, 2001. They
struggled, under difficult circumstances, to improvise a homeland defense
against an unprecedented challenge they had never encountered and had never
trained to meet.20 To most, this probably seemed a fair evaluation. Yet for
people familiar with previous accounts of 9/11, this new evidence added to a
long list of contradictions and oddities in the official narrative. Amongst
other things, the Commission had failed to mention that while hijackings are
rare, the scrambling (immediate launching) of fighter aircraft to intercept
civilian planes in emergency situations is a common occurrence.

FAA PROCEDURES

Quite often civilian planes stray from their pre-arranged flight course or
else lose contact with air traffic control. For situations like these, the
Federal Aviation Administration has established procedures for air traffic
controllers to follow. Regulations in force on September 11 stated that
controllers should Consider that an aircraft emergency existswhen: There
is unexpected loss of radar contact and radio communications with
anyaircraft.21 In addition: Ifyou are in doubt that a situation
constitutes an emergency or potential emergency, handle it as though it were
an emergency.22 To deal with these emergencies, fighter jets can be
launched. As MSNBC describes: If a plane deviates by 15 degrees, or two
miles from [its] course, the flight controllers will hit the panic button.
Its considered a real emergency. F-16 interceptors can fly alongside a
plane to see whos flying it. They can also try to force it off course.23
This is a routine procedure that does not require White House approval:
Between September 2000 and June 2001, the U.S. military launched fighter
jets 67 times to chase suspicious aircraft. 24

It is important that controllers follow these procedures promptly and
reliably. If it were otherwise, with thousands of planes flying over the
United States at a time, an off-course plane could easily crash into another
plane. In fact, this almost happened on 9/11 when, minutes after going off
course, the second hijacked plane Flight 175 nearly crashed into another
commercial flight.25 Paul Hellyer, the former Canadian minister of national
defense, asked in a recent interview: Why did airplanes fly around for an
hour and a half without interceptors being scrambled from Andrews [Air Force
Base]right next to the capital? He says: with a quick-reaction alert they
should have been in the air in five minutes or ten minutes. If not, as a
minister of national defense, which in the United States would be the
secretary of defense, I would want to say why not? 26

What 9/11 skeptics find suspicious is that the routine procedure of quickly
scrambling fighter jets to intercept wayward aircraft apparently failed four
times in a row on 9/11. If it was the result of incompetence, why was this
incompetence only evident on September 11? One man who addresses this point
is retired Lieutenant Colonel Robert Bowman. Bowman served in the U.S. Air
Force for 22 years. He has been Director of Advanced Space Programs
Development for the Air Force Space Division. He flew 101 combat missions
over Vietnam and has personal experience of doing intercepts. Bowman
describes the timeline for the morning of 9/11:

"We look at the fact that contact was lost with American Airlines 11 at
8:13:50 a.m. That the transponder stopped at 8:20. That the airliner went
off course at 8:20. That at 8:21 a stewardess reported the hijacking. So
its reasonable to me to think that within five minutes somebody should have
told NORAD and gotten those planes scrambled. The planes in short should
have been scrambled at 8:26. They were actually scrambled at 8:46, 20
minutes later. They got airborne in 6 minutes, which is about as good as you
can doso they could have been airborne at 8:32. Based on going
full-throttle, afterburner all the way, getting there in the shortest
possible time, they could have intercepted American Airlines Flight 11 at
8:42 and been at the World Trade Center at 8:43. The first plane didnt hit
the World Trade Center until 8:46 and a half.

"The timelines for the Pentagon, its even worse. Those planes made a U-turn
and headed directly back for Washington, DC, without radio contact, without
transponder, off their assigned course, and nothing was done. Again a
stewardess reported the hijacking and still nothing was done. Two minutes
after the stewardess reported: Yes indeed this isnt just a problem, this
is a hijacking, NORAD could have been notified. That would have allowed the
F-16s from Langley Air Force Base to be scrambled, airborne by 9:04 and they
could have been over the Pentagon at 9:18. Thats 19 minutes before American
Flight 77 if thats what it was something flew into the Pentagon at
9:37.

"The conclusion to me, as a former fighter pilot, is this. If normal
communications, common sense actions, had taken place between the airlines,
air traffic control, FAA, NORAD and the interceptor bases, the interceptors
would have arrived in time to save both the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon with many minutes to spare. So while I conclude that the fighter
pilots themselves were not culpable, somebody was. The question is who was
it?" 27

Bowman concludes: No one has been court-martialled. No one has been
reprimanded. No one has been demoted. No one is to blame. That only tells me
one thing. The ones to blame are too high up to play scapegoat. 28

WAR GAMES

The 9/11 Commission also almost totally ignored what may have been a crucial
factor in preventing the successful interception of the four hijacked
planes: On the morning of September 11, there was a series of war games
being carried out within America. One exercise called Operation Northern
Vigilance, commenced two days earlier, had U.S. fighter jets deployed to
Northern Canada and Alaska to monitor an exercise being conducted by the
Russian Air Force. 29 Another was a weeklong semi-annual training exercise
conducted by NORAD, called Vigilant Guardian, that posed an imaginary
crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide. Lieutenant Colonel
Dawne Deskins, the mission crew chief for Vigilant Guardian, reportedly
thought: It must be part of the exercise, when the FAA called at 8:40 to
report a hijacked aircraft.30 NORAD commander Larry Arnold says that when he
first heard of the hijacking, First thing that went through my mind was,
Is this part of the exercise? Is this some kind of a screw-up?31 That
morning, three F-16 fighter jets assigned to Andrews Air Force Base, 10
miles from Washington, were involved in another training mission over 200
miles away in North Carolina. They only arrived back at Andrews some time
after the Pentagon was hit.32 Furthermore, a drill was planned for 9 a.m.
based around a corporate jet plane crashing into a building. The exercise
was to be conducted by the National Reconnaissance Office, just outside
Washington, which draws its staff from the CIA and military. 33

Pioneering 9/11 researcher and former LAPD narcotics investigator Mike
Ruppert has investigated these military exercises for himself. He says they
are what caused the failure to intercept the hijacked planes:

"The wargames will tie Bush and/or Cheney and Rumsfeld directly into a
complete paralysis of fighter response on 9/11. I have gone directly to many
NORAD, DoD, NRO, and other sources and questioned them. I have knocked on
many doors and I have even obtained some documents. I have obtained an
on-the-record statement from someone in NORAD, which confirmed that on the
day of 9/11 the Joint Chiefs (Myers) and NORAD were conducting a joint,
live-fly, hijack Field Training Exercise (FTX) which involved at least one
(and almost certainly many more) aircraft under US control that was posing
as a hijacked airliner. That is just the tip of what I have uncovered." 34

Speaking at the prestigious Commonwealth Club in San Francisco, he
elaborated:

"In some cases false blips were deliberately inserted onto FAA and military
radar screens and they were present during (at least) the first attacks.
This effectively paralyzed fighter response because, with only eight
fighters available in the region, there were as many as 22 possible
hijackings taking place. Other exercises, specifically Northern Vigilance
had pulled significant fighter resources away from the northeast U.S. just
before 9/11 into northern Canada and Alaska. In addition, a close reading
of key news stories published in the spring of 2004 revealed for the first
time that some of these drills were live-fly exercises where actual
aircraft, likely flown by remote control were simulating the behavior of
hijacked airliners in real life. All of this as the real attacks began." 35

According to Ruppert, Dick Cheney is a prime suspect in planning and
carrying out the attacks, and on the morning of 9/11 he was running a
separate command, control and communications system, which superseded any
orders given by the National Military Command Center (NMCC) or the White
House situation room. He did this using a Secret Service communications
system based within or near a bunker below the White House called the
Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC). Ruppert says he has
established conclusively that in May of 2001, by presidential order,
Richard Cheney was put in direct command and control of all wargame and
field exercise training and scheduling through several agencies, especially
FEMA. This also extended to all of the conflicting and overlapping NORAD
drills on that day. 36

Is it because of these wargames that the FAA appeared so confused and
incompetent on 9/11? Is this why the standard procedure of intercepting
off-course planes failed four times in succession? What is more, a major
biological-terrorism drill called Tripod II had been scheduled for the
morning of September 12, 2001, in a huge commercial warehouse on Pier 92 of
the Hudson. As a result, an equipped and fully staffed Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA), New York City and Department of Justice command
center was conveniently ready to go into operation when the attacks
occurred. 37

Yet another oddity surfaced during the final public hearing of the 9/11
Commission: The personal statement of Navy Captain Charles J. Leidig, Jr.
revealed that from 8:30 on the morning of 9/11, he temporarily stood in as
deputy director for operations for the NMCC within the Pentagon. In this key
role, he was responsible for convening a Significant Event Conference, later
upgraded to an Air Threat Conference, in response to the attacks. What is
odd is that the regular deputy director, Brigadier General Montague
Winfield, only requested the previous day that Leidig fill in a portion of
his duty on 9/11. Even though Leidig had only qualified the previous month
to stand watch in this post, Winfield only relieved him and resumed his
duties around 10:30 a.m.38 In other words, Brigadier General Winfield
allowed a newly qualified stand-in to fill his vitally important post for
almost the entire duration of the attacks.

We also now know that six air traffic controllers at the New York Air Route
Traffic Control Center who were involved in dealing with the hijacks made a
tape recording on September 11, describing the events that had occurred,
with each controller giving a short statement. Yet, without the tape being
transcribed or listened to by any investigators, an FAA quality-assurance
manager destroyed it. Despite the FAA having sent an e-mail instructing
officials to preserve all records, the manager reportedly crushed the
cassette in his hand, cut the tape into little pieces and dropped them in
different trash cans around the building. Neither this quality-assurance
manager nor the center manager disclosed the tapes existence to their
superiors and its destruction was only revealed by coincidence when one of
the air traffic controllers asked to review it before giving testimony for a
report. 39

THE PENTAGON CRASH

One of the most bizarre of the controversies over what happened on September
11 is around what occurred at the Pentagon. According to the official story,
the Pentagon was hit by the third hijacked plane, American Airlines Flight
77: a Boeing 757-200. This departed Dulles International Airport, near
Washington, around 8:20 a.m., bound for Los Angeles. Some time shortly after
8:50 it is thought to have been hijacked. Then, around 8:54, it veered off
course over Ohio, with its transponder going off a couple of minutes later.
Around 9:30 flight controllers at Dulles Airport sounded an alert after
noticing an unidentified aircraft flying at high speed towards Washington.
Just before 9:38, this aircraft crashed into the west side of the Pentagon.
40

This would seem fairly straightforward. Yet what have aroused suspicion are
the photographs taken soon after the Pentagon was hit. Skeptics say these
pictures show that damage before the Pentagons west block collapsed about
35 minutes after being hit was way too small to have been made by a Boeing
757. The main damage was a hole at most just 13 feet wide and 26 feet
high.41 Steve DeChiaro, the president of a New Jersey technology firm who
was arriving at the Pentagon when it was hit, ran towards the impact point.
He has said: when I looked at the site, my brain could not resolve the fact
that it was a plane because it only seemed like a small hole in the
building. No tail. No wings. No nothing.42 Photos clearly show that windows
beside this main hole were unbroken. There is some additional damage across
the buildings first floor, but this covers an area at most 90 feet in
width. How was this possible? Research scientist and software engineer Jim
Hoffman points out that a 757 is over 44 feet high; its wingspan is over 124
feet; and as the aircraft that hit the Pentagon approached at a 45-degree
angle, he calculates that the damage a 757 would have made would be about
177 feet in width.43 According to air crash investigator Frangois Grangier:
What is certain when one looks at the photo of [the Pentagon] fagade that
remains intact is that its obvious the plane did not go through there. Its
like imagining that a plane of this size could pass through a window and
leave the frame still standing. 44

The damage was so low in the building that, for Flight 77 to have caused it,
it would need to have flown perfectly horizontally, barely inches above the
lawn in front of the Pentagon. Yet photos clearly show this lawn was left
perfectly intact, with no scorch marks or signs of gouging from a Boeing.
Nor do any photographs show large pieces of debris recognizable as belonging
to Flight 77.45 Apparently 60 tons of aluminum simply disappeared. April
Gallop was working in the west block of the Pentagon on 9/11, preparing to
take her infant son to the day-care center there. After the building was
hit, she managed to locate her son, then crawled out of the wreckage and was
driven to hospital. However, whilst there she was visited more than once by
some men in suits. These men never identified themselves nor said which
agency they worked for. Yet, says Gallop, they told her what to do, which
was to take the [Victim Compensation Fund] money and shut up. They also kept
insisting that a plane hit the building. They repeated this over and over.
But I was there and I never saw a plane or even debris from a plane. 46

According to the FBI, the man who piloted Flight 77 was a 29-year-old Saudi
called Hani Hanjour. The 9/11 Commission claims Hanjour was perhaps the
most experienced and highly trained pilot among the 9/11 hijackers.47 Yet
descriptions from those who met him contradict this. Months before the
attacks, staff at an Arizona flight school Hanjour was attending reported
him to the FAA at least five times, concerned that his English and flying
skills were so poor that he should not be allowed to keep his pilots
license. The manager of the school has said: I couldnt believe he had a
commercial license of any kind with the skills that he had. She says his
English was so poor that it took him five hours to complete a section of an
oral exam meant to last just two hours.48 A former employee of the school
has said: Im still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the
Pentagon. He could not fly at all.49 Newsday describes what happened when
Hanjour tried to rent a small plane one month before 9/11: [H]e had trouble
controlling and landing the single-engine Cessna 172. Even though Hanjour
showed a federal pilots license and a log book cataloging 600 hours of
flying experience, chief flight instructor Marcel Bernard declined to rent
him a plane without more lessons.50

How could this man who had never before flown a jet plane successfully
navigate a Boeing across America without any assistance from air traffic
control, then fly it into the side of the Pentagon? Here is how CBS News
describes the final maneuver Hanjour supposedly performed:

"Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete
circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes.

"The steep turn was so smooth, the sources say, its clear there was no
fight for control going on. And the complex maneuver suggests the hijackers
had better flying skills than many investigators first believed.

"The jetliner disappeared from radar at 9:37 and less than a minute later it
clipped the tops of street lights and plowed into the Pentagon at 460 mph."
51

According to Gary Eitel, an experienced military pilot, this maneuver would
be beyond the capabilities of 90 per cent of the best, most experienced
military pilots in the world. 52

Furthermore, video footage that would show the Pentagon being hit was
promptly seized by the FBI and has never been made public. The security
cameras of a nearby gas station and hotel caught the attack. But, says the
gas station supervisor: Ive never seen what the pictures looked like. The
FBI was here within minutes and took the film.53 The Washington Times
reported how the nearby hotel similarly had its security film quickly seized
by the FBI.54

On the basis of this evidence and more, skeptics say the physical evidence
of the Pentagon crash is more consistent with it having been hit by
something smaller, like a missile or unmanned military aircraft such as a
Global Hawk. Yet if this was so, why did many individuals claim they saw a
Boeing 757 flying at the Pentagon that morning? There are two main theories
attempting to explain this. The first takes a psychological perspective,
examining the problems of eyewitness testimony: If an event happens very
rapidly such that a persons senses are unable to capture all its details,
to make their perception more complete and coherent their brain might
replace a poorly received sensation with another from acquired memory. Thus,
if Pentagon witnesses heard on the news about Boeings hitting the WTC and
later heard that it was a 757 that hit the Pentagon, they might then report
that they did indeed see Flight 77 there, when in fact what they saw
occurred too fast for them to say with certainty that it was a Boeing rather
than a smaller aircraft.55 The second theory is that there were two aircraft
flying towards the Pentagon on 9/11. One of them, an American Airlines 757,
was used to divert peoples attention. It flew towards the Pentagon then
veered off, landing unnoticed at Reagan National Airport just a mile away.
Approaching the Pentagon at the same time, but much lower, was a smaller
aircraft, maybe a missile. It was this that crashed into the Pentagon whilst
the 757 flew over the top. 56

Outlandish as it may at first sound to suggest a missile hit the Pentagon,
this appears something that could well capture the public interest should
there be a 9/11 scandal. For example, this suggestion featured prominently
in two recent major articles in British publications about the controversy
over 9/11. One of these was in Britains second most popular daily
newspaper, the Daily Mail; the other, in a popular weekly magazine for young
men.57 It was also a key subject of a book that became a record-breaking
bestseller in France in 2002.58 If it were ever found that the Pentagon was
indeed hit by something other than Flight 77, this would certainly ruin the
official account of 9/11. Furthermore, we would be left with new and
baffling questions. For example, if Flight 77 didnt hit the Pentagon, what
happened to it? What happened to the passengers? Who was behind this
outrageous act? And why fly something like a missile into the Pentagon then
claim it was a Boeing?

Let us next consider how probably the three most important people within the
Bush administration behaved during the course of the 9/11 attacks and what
they have done since in relation to the events that day. I am focusing on
these three Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush because they
are well known and therefore, I believe, were they ever found to be in any
way complicit in 9/11 it would be particularly shocking to the general
public.

DONALD RUMSFELD ON 9/11

As U.S. secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld was on 9/11 second in the
military chain-of-command behind the president. Yet details of what he did
during the attacks are sketchy and from what we currently know, he did
nothing in response to the crisis until it was too late to make a
difference.

According to Rumsfeld, on the morning of September 11 he was hosting a
breakfast meeting at the Pentagon for some members of Congress. He told them
that sometime in the next two, four, six, eight, ten, twelve months there
would be an event that would occur in the world that would be sufficiently
shocking that it would remind people again how important it is to have a
strong healthy defense department.59 Soon after, someone walked in and gave
him a note saying a plane had hit the World Trade Center. Yet Rumsfeld
apparently was not moved to take action. [W]e adjourned the meeting, and I
went in to get my CIA briefing,60 he has said. Whilst in his office with
the CIA briefer, Rumsfeld says he was told of the second plane hitting the
WTC. Yet he went ahead with a meeting in his private dining room at the
Pentagon with his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz and U.S. Representative Christopher
Cox, to discuss how to win votes for Bushs defense plan.

During this meeting, Rumsfeld was apparently oblivious to the fact that an
airplane was heading towards Washington. However, he made another
prediction: let me tell you, Ive been around the block a few times, he
told Representative Cox. There will be another event. For emphasis, he
repeated: There will be another event.61 Just minutes later the Pentagon
was hit. Rumsfeld says: I went outside to determine what had happened. I
was not there long because I was back in the Pentagon with a crisis action
team shortly before or after 10:00 a.m. On my return from the crash site and
before going to the executive support center, I had one or more calls in my
office, one of which was with the president.62 Rumsfeld didnt enter the
National Military Command Center within the Pentagon though until 10.30.
Brigadier General Montague Winfield says: For 30 minutes we couldnt find
him. And just as we began to worry, he walked into the door of the National
Military Command Center.63 As the 9/11 Commission conclude: The Secretary
of Defense did not enter the chain of command until the mornings key events
were over.64 Nor is Rumsfeld on the record as having given any orders that
morning.

Yet, according to military procedure, if the Federal Aviation Administration
were to notify the National Military Command Center of a hijacking, with the
exception of immediate responses the NMCC was required to forward
requests for DOD assistance to the Secretary of Defense for approval.65 Of
course, 9/11 would easily come under the heading of immediate responses.
All the same, Rumsfeld has yet to be asked whether he was contacted in line
with this military procedure and, if so, what did he do in response?

Interestingly, since 9/11 Donald Rumsfeld has made statements suggesting why
he may have wanted an event like 9/11 to occur. For example, in a televised
interview two years after the attacks, he described how he thinks about what
a senior leader in the Gulf told him, that maybe 9/11 was a blessing in
disguise, and a wake-up call for the world to deal with the growing
threat of terrorism. Rumsfeld said he agreed with this, that 9/11 was indeed
a wake-up call.66 He wrote a similar thing in his prepared testimony to
the 9/11 Commission:

"Think about what has been done since the September 11th attacks: two state
sponsors of terrorism have been removed from power, a 90-nation coalition
has been formed which is cooperating on a number of levels All of these
actions are putting pressure on terrorist networks. Taken together, they
represent a collective effort that is unprecedented which has undoubtedly
saved lives, and made us safer than before September 11th."67

DICK CHENEY ON 9/11

Based upon mainstream accounts, Vice President Cheneys actions during the
attacks appear less suspicious than those of Bush and Rumsfeld. However,
there are some odd contradictions in the reports of what he did. On the
morning of September 11, before learning about the attacks, Dick Cheney was
in his office in the White House. According to the 9/11 Commission, just
before 9 a.m. he was preparing for a meeting when his assistant told him to
turn on his television because a plane had struck the North Tower of the
World Trade Center.68 Cheney subsequently saw the second aircraft hitting
the South Tower. Then, just before 9:36, the Secret Service ordered the
evacuation of the vice president and agents took him down to the
Presidential Emergency Operations Center, the bunker below the East Wing of
the White House. The Vice President entered the underground tunnel leading
to the shelter at 9:37. 69

However, according to White House photographer David Bohrer who was present
at the time, this evacuation occurred just after 9 a.m.70 Furthermore,
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta described before the 9/11 Commission
how a young man had come into the PEOC to inform the vice president of the
approach towards Washington of the aircraft that hit the Pentagon. According
to Mineta, this occurred around 9:25 or 9:26.71 This suggests that the
report of Cheney only reaching the underground tunnel leading to the shelter
at 9:37 is incorrect. If Cheney were in fact evacuated soon after 9, why
would it later be claimed this took place about half an hour later? One
possibility is that it was to make the failure of the Secret Service to
evacuate President Bush from his location that morning appear less
suspicious. (See below.) Alternatively, if Michael Rupperts allegations
about the vice presidents involvement in the attacks are correct, then this
claim could simply be an attempt to conceal his complicity.

Soon after 9:15, Cheney spoke over the phone with the president, who was at
a school in Florida that morning. Also, sometime before 10:10 to 10:15, he
reportedly phoned the president to discuss the rules of engagement for the
combat air patrol above Washington. Supposedly, he recommended the president
authorize the military to shoot down any civilian airliners that might be
under the control of hijackers. Bush later recalled his response being You
bet.72 The president also emphasized in his private meeting with the 9/11
Commission that he had authorized the shootdown of hijacked aircraft.73 This
is an important point, because the shooting down of a wayward aircraft
before it crashed into a populated area could save many lives. Yet,
according to the 9/11 Commission, there is no documentary evidence for this
call.74 Newsweek adds: Nor did the real-time notes taken by two others in
the room, Cheneys chief of staff, Scooter Libby who is known for his
meticulous record-keeping or Cheneys wife, Lynne, reflect that such a
phone call between Bush and Cheney occurred or that such a major decision as
shooting down a U.S. airliner was discussed.75 According to Newsweek, some
of the Commissions staff were highly skeptical of Cheneys account, with
one well-informed source claiming some of them flat out didnt believe the
call ever took place.76 All the same, whether or not Bush authorized him to
do so, by the time Cheney issued his shoot-down order, between 10:10 and
10:15 a.m., United Flight 93, the last plane-turned-missile on 9/11, had
already crashed in Pennsylvania (at 10:03 a.m.). 77

Furthermore, it appears that Cheney along with Bush was reluctant for
9/11 to be investigated: When then Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle
appeared on NBCs Meet the Press in May 2002, he said Cheney had, on January
24 that year, urged him not to investigate the events of September 11.
Daschle added that four days later Bush made the same request. When the
programs moderator Tim Russert asked: It wasnt, Lets not have a
national commission, but lets have the intelligence committees look into
this, it was No investigation by anyone, period? Daschle replied:
Thats correct. He added that the request had been repeated on other
dates following. 78 GEORGE W. BUSH ON 9/11

September 11, 2001 was the most important day of George W. Bushs life. As
American president he was commander in chief of the U.S armed forces. His
actions were crucial. According to the 9/11 Commission, the only people that
day with authority to order the shooting down of a civilian plane if, say,
it were heading towards a populated area (like the World Trade Center or the
Pentagon) were the president or the secretary of defense.79 I have already
shown that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was apparently out of the loop
during the attacks. What then did Commander in Chief Bush do?

Before examining this question, it is important to recognise that the U.S.
president does not travel alone. He takes with him an entire staff,
including members of the Secret Service, who are responsible for his safety.
The presidents travelling entourage have the best communications equipment
in the world. They have contact with, or can easily reach, the cabinet, the
National Military Command Center in the Pentagon, the FAA and other Secret
Service agents.80 We might therefore assume George Bush would have been one
of the first people informed of the extraordinary chain of events unfolding
on September 11.

Furthermore, Bushs location for that morning was made public four days
previously, on September 7: He would be in Sarasota, Florida, to continue
his focus on reading and education.81 We might assume then that once it was
recognised that America was under attack, the president would have been
considered a potential target and immediate action would have been taken to
protect him and ensure the safety of all around him. Yet, despite the
horrifying sequence of events in progress, Bush continued with his
pre-planned visit to the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, where
he listened to a class full of children reading. He remained at the school
until around 9:35 a.m.81 nearly 50 minutes after the first plane hit the
WTC and over half an hour after the second plane hit. Incredibly, the
presidents support team, including the Secret Service, allowed this.

According to Philip Melanson, an expert on the Secret Service, Bush should
have been removed from the school immediately after Flight 175 hit the
second WTC tower. Melanson says: With an unfolding terrorist attack, the
procedure should have been to get the president to the closest secure
location as quickly as possible, which clearly is not a school. Youre safer
in that presidential limo, which is bombproof and blastproof and
bulletproof.83 Furthermore, considering the presidents responsibilities as
commander in chief, Melanson adds that Bushs limousine had key advantages:
In the presidential limo, the communications system is almost duplicative
of the White House he can do almost anything from there but he cant do
much sitting in a school. 84

Bush was informed of the second plane hitting the WTC when, around 9:05, his
Chief of Staff Andrew Card came across the classroom and reportedly
whispered to him: A second plane hit the second tower. America is under
attack.85 According to the 9/11 Commission: The President told us his
instinct was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited
reaction at a moment of crisis.86 Furthermore, The Secret Service told us
they were anxious to move the President to a safer location, but did not
think it imperative for him to run out the door.87 Yet this inaction could
have had disastrous consequences. In the words of 9/11 researchers Allan
Wood and Paul Thompson: Why hasnt Bushs security staff been criticized
for their completely inexplicable decision to stay at the school? And why
didnt Bushs concern for the children extend to not making them and the
rest of the 200 or so people at the school terrorist targets?88 As the
reporter Gail Sheehy concludes, the final report of the 9/11 Commission
shows that on the morning of September 11, the president and the other top
officials in charge of the systems to defend the country from attack were,
in essence, missing in action: They did not communicate, did not coordinate
a response to the catastrophe, and in some cases did not even get involved
in discussions about the attacks until after all of the hijacked planes had
crashed. 89

With the best communications in the world available to him, we might assume
Bush would have been one of the first people informed of the hijackings and
the first plane hitting the WTC. Yet according to official accounts, he
remained oblivious even whilst millions of people saw what had happened on
television. Strangely, there have been at least seven different accounts of
when and from whom Bush first heard of Flight 11 crashing into the WTC.90 As
Allan Wood and Paul Thompson note, Bushs own recollections only add to the
confusion:

"Less than two months after the attacks, Bush made the preposterous claim
that he had watched the first attack as it happened on live television. On
December 4, 2001, Bush was asked: How did you feel when you heard about the
terrorist attack? Bush replied, I was sitting outside the classroom
waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower the TV was obviously
on. I said, it must have been a horrible accident."91

Yet, as Wood and Thompson point out, There was no film footage of the first
attack until at least the following day. They continue:

"Its doubly strange why his advisors didnt correct him or at the very
least stop him from repeating the same story only four weeks later. On
January 5, 2002, Bush stated: Well, I was sitting in a schoolhouse in
Floridaand my Chief of Staff well, first of all, when we walked into the
classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV
set on."92

On the morning of 9/11, Bush promised that he had ordered that the full
resources of the federal government goto conduct a full-scale investigation
to hunt down and to find those folks who committed this act.93 Yet it
appears more like he has tried to hinder investigations. As Salon reported
in June 2003:

"The White House long opposed the formation of a blue-ribbon Sept. 11
commission, some say, and even now that panel is underfunded and struggling
to build momentum. And, they say, the administration is suppressing a
900-page congressional study, possibly out of fear that the findings will be
politically damaging to Bush.

"Weve been fighting for nearly 21 months fighting the administration,
the White House, says Monica Gabrielle. Her husband, Richard, an insurance
broker who worked for Aon Corp. on the 103rd floor of the World Trade
Centers Tower 2, died during the attacks. As soon as we started looking
for answers we were blocked, put off and ignored at every stop of the way.
We were shocked. The White House is just blocking everything.

"Another 9/11 family advocatewas more blunt: Bush has done everything in
his power to squelch this [9/11] commission and prevent it from
happening."94

After opposing the creation of the 9/11 Commission, the White House wanted
to limit any appearance by the president to just one hour spent with two of
the commissioners. A compromise was met such that George Bush did eventually
meet with the Commission on April 29, 2004, but only under stringent
conditions. Bush had to have Dick Cheney at his side, testifying at the same
time; testimony was given in private and not under oath; no press coverage
was allowed; and no recordings or transcripts were made of what they said.95
Further suspicion had been raised just over two weeks earlier, when the
White House was forced to release a daily intelligence briefing given to the
president whilst on vacation at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, five weeks
before 9/11. The briefing was titled Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US,
and stated: FBI informationindicates patterns of suspicious activity in
this country consistent with preparations for hijackings or other types of
attacks, including recent surveillance of federal buildings in New York.
CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May
saying that a group of Bin Laden supporters was in the US planning attacks
with explosives.96 Despite receiving this, according to the New York Times,
Bush broke off from work early and spent most of that day fishing. 97

What is also interesting is that several key members of the Bush
administration, including Cheney, Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz, had been
members of a neoconservative think-tank called the Project for the New
American Century (PNAC). In September 2000, PNAC wrote a report called
Rebuilding Americas Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New
Century, which they hoped would be a road map for the nations immediate
and future defense plans. In it they complained: The post-Cold War world
will not remain a relatively peaceful place if we continue to neglect
foreign and defense matters. However, they added: serious attention,
careful thought, and the willingness to devote adequate resources to
maintaining Americas military strength can make the world safer and
American strategic interests more secure now and in the future.98 They
stated that to preserve American military preeminence in the coming
decades America would need to undergo a military transformation.99
However, they wrote, this transformation would be a long one, absent some
catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.100 [Italics
mine] One year later, 9/11 happened. As George W. Bush wrote in his diary
that night: The Pearl Harbor of the 21st century took place today. 101

After this catastrophic, catalyzing event, actions proposed by the Project
for the New American Century soon came into force. As John Pilger wrote of
PNAC:

"[In 2000] it recommended an increase in arms-spending by $48bn so that
Washington could fight and win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars.
This has happened. It said the United States should develop bunker-buster
nuclear weapons and make star wars a national priority. This is happening.
It said that, in the event of Bush taking power, Iraq should be a target.
And so it is."102

Furthermore, during his 2000 election campaign and after, Bush repeatedly
promised a budget surplus, except in the event of a recession, war or a
national emergency. In the days after 9/11, he said to his budget director:
Lucky me. I hit the trifecta. 103 (A trifecta is a kind of bet that
requires picking the top three finishers in a race.)

With so much suspicious evidence, one lawyer, Stanley Hilton a former aide
to Senator Bob Dole has filed a $7 billion suit on behalf of the families
of 14 victims of the 9/11 attacks, alleging that Bush, along with Cheney,
Rumsfeld and others, actually ordered 9/11 to happen for political gain.
Hilton says he has incriminating documents and witnesses showing this.
Calling it the biggest act of treason and mass murder in American history,
he claims that 9/11 was a decoy operation: You make the people focus on
the decoy to avoid looking at the real criminals. So they are focusing on
these so-called nineteen hijackers and saying, Oh, it must have been these
Arabs. When, in fact, the guilty person is at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
sitting in the Oval Office. 104

I have already discussed White House attempts to prevent or hinder any
official inquiry into 9/11. But another less known example, where there has
been a lack of investigation and a suppression of important evidence
relating to 9/11, is in the unlikely situation of the retirement community
that is Venice, in southwestern Florida.

THE MOHAMED ATTA MYTH

Of the four alleged 9/11 suicide-pilots, three had been in attendance at two
flight schools at the tiny airport in Venice, Florida: Huffman Aviation and
Florida Flight Training. Both were owned by Dutch men who purchased the
schools within months of each other, in 1999. Soon after they took over, the
schools began training unprecedented numbers of Arab flight students.105 Yet
Huffman Aviation and Florida Flight Training, along with the dubious
characters who ran them, have so far avoided any serious investigation or
media attention. One man who has tried to make up for this is investigative
reporter Daniel Hopsicker, who spent two years following the attacks in
Venice, examining the training of the alleged hijackers. He reports his
findings in his book Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11 Cover-up
in Florida. As well as describing evidence of large-scale illegal activity
going on in and around the Venice Airport, this book casts serious doubt
upon the official account of who the hijackers really were.

We have all heard how these 19 alleged hijackers were Islamic extremists.
Yet evidence uncovered by Hopsicker, particularly regarding alleged
ringleader Mohamed Atta, depicts unlikely personalities and lifestyles for a
bunch of religious fanatics. For example, almost totally ignored by the
mainstream press is that Atta had an American girlfriend for over two months
whilst in Venice, with whom he would go out clubbing almost every night. At
the time, this attractive young woman Amanda Keller had spiky pink hair
and was working as a lingerie model for an escort service called Fantasies
& Lace. Atta is known to have been a heavy drinker who snorted cocaine.
Local newspapers reported how in February 2001, along with Keller, he went
on a three-day binge of drinking and drug taking in Key West. 106

Just days before 9/11, Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi (another of the alleged
suicide-pilots) spent the evening drinking heavily at a bar in Fort
Lauderdale. The bars manager later told reporters that the men got
wasted,107 drinking Stolichnaya and orange juice, and Captain Morgans
spiced rum and Coke. Bartender Patricia Idrissi concurred, saying: Atta
drank Stoli vodka for three straight hours. They were wasted. Amanda
Keller describes a typical night out at a club with Atta: Marwan
[al-Shehhi] was in the reggae room drinking with a bunch of women at the
bar, there were a lot of women around him, and he was just flaunting money.
As Hopsicker points out: Its one thing to hear Atta described as living it
up with wine, women and song. But Marwan flaunting money at the bar pretty
much puts the lie to the Islamic fundamentalist tag.10

Hopsicker suggests that, rather than being a fundamentalist Muslim, Mohamed
Atta better fits the profile of a member of Arab societys privileged elite
and also a spy. Amongst many oddities contradicting the fundamentalist
label is the fact that his e-mail list included the names of several
employees of U.S. defense contractors.109 More alarming, he and as many as
six of the other alleged 9/11 hijackers appear to have trained at U.S.
military bases. Hopsicker writes:

On the Saturday following the Tuesday attack, the Los Angeles Times broke
the story in a long article on their front page.

"A defense official said two of the hijackers were former Saudi fighter
pilots, reported the paper, who had studied in exchange programs at the
Defense Language School at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas and the Air War
College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama.

"The story went wide the next day, Sunday, September 15th. Newsweek, the
Washington Post and the Miami Herald all reported as many as seven of the
terrorist hijackers in the September 11th attacks received training at
secure U.S. military installations.

"Two of 19 suspects named by the FBI, Saeed Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi,
have the same names as men listed at a housing facility for foreign military
trainees at Pensacola. Two others, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alnami, have
names similar to individuals listed in public records as using the same
address inside the base, the Washington Post reported.

"In addition, a man named Saeed Alghamdi graduated from the Defense
Language Institute at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, while men with
the same names as two other hijackers, Mohamed Atta and Abdulaziz Alomari,
appear as graduates of the U.S. International Officers School at Maxwell Air
Force Base, Alabama, and the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks Air Force
Base in San Antonio, respectively, the Post said. 110

Newsweek detailed how U.S. military facilities routinely trained pilots for
other countries: A former Navy pilot told NEWSWEEK that during his years on
the base, we always, always, always trained other countries pilots.
Whoever the country du jour is, thats whose pilots we train. Candidates
begin with an officers equivalent of boot camp, he said. Then they would
put them through flight training."111

Hopsicker explains how this crucial story came to be dismissed:

"Someone was going to have to answer for a lot.

"But Atta is a fairly common surname in the Middle East, the Post quoted
Laila Alquatami of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee as
saying, and the suspected hijackers first name is probably the No. 1 name
that is given to babies, in honor of the prophet Mohamed.

"The Boston Globe reported the Pentagons denial: Some of the FBI suspects
had names similar to those used by foreign alumni of U.S. military courses,
said the Air Force in a statement. Discrepancies in their biographical
dataindicate we are probably not talking about the same people.

"How easy was it to tell the Pentagon was lying? Think about it. It is
neither plausible nor logical that the reports were false because of seven
separate cases of mistaken identity. One or two, maybe. But seven? No
way."112

None of the newspapers retracted the story, yet it disappeared. One person
who sought answers was Senator Bill Nelson, who faxed Attorney General John
Ashcroft, demanding to know if the story was really true. However:

"The Senator has still not received a reply, we heard from his spokesman,
when we called his office eleven months later.

"In the wake of those reports, we asked about the Pensacola Naval Air
Station but we never got a definitive answer from the Justice Department,
stated the Senators press spokesman.

"So we asked the FBI for an answer if and when they could provide us one.
Their response to date has been that they are trying to sort through
something complicated and difficult."113

Deciding to investigate for himself, Hopsicker phoned the Pentagon and spoke
with the public information officer who helped write and disseminate their
original denial of the story:

"Biographically, theyre not the same people, she explained patiently,
using the same language contained in the Air Forces press release. Some of
the ages are twenty years off.

"Was she saying that the age of the Mohamed Atta who had attended the Air
Forces International Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base was
different than that of terrorist ringleader Mohamed Atta?

"Not exactly, she admitted. She could not confirm that in this specific
instance they had different ages. What she could do was once again deny
that the International Officers School attendee named Mohamed Atta had been
the Mohamed Atta who piloted a passenger plane into the World Trade Center.

"However, she could offer no specifics for her assertion, and repeatedly
declined requests for biographical details about the Mohamed Atta who had
trained at Maxwell Air Force Base."114

After Hopsickers persistent questioning, she finally said in exasperation:
I do not have the authority to tell you who attended which schools.
Hopsicker reflects: It was hard to read this as anything other than a
back-handed confirmation. When she said that she didnt have the authority,
the clear implication was that someone else does Somewhere in the Defense
Dept. a list exists with the names of Sept. 11 terrorists who received
training at U.S. military facilities. She just didnt have the authority to
release it. 115 Furthermore, Hopsicker spoke to a woman who works at the
Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama:

"I have a girlfriend who recognized Mohamed Atta. She met him at a party at
the Officers Club, she told us.

"The reason she swears it was him here is because she didnt just meet him
and say hello. After she met him she went around and introduced him to the
people that were with her. So she knows it was him.

"Saudis were a highly visible presence at Maxwell Air Force Base, she said.
There were a lot of them living in an upscale complex in Montgomery. They
had to get all of them out of here.

"They were all gone the day after the attack."116

Despite it being a key 9/11 crime scene, there has been a surprising absence
of investigations into the goings on in Venice, Florida. In fact, to the
contrary, the FBIs full attention seemed to have been engaged not in
investigating what had happened but in suppressing evidence and even
intimidating the witnesses who had seen and heard things that fly in the
face of the official story.117 For example, Mohamed Attas former
girlfriend Amanda Keller says that even after she left Venice, the FBI
called on her every other day for several months, telling her not to talk to
anybody. Similarly, a woman called Stephanie Frederickson who lived
next-door to Atta and Keller in Venice reported how she and other residents
at the same apartment building were harassed and intimidated by FBI agents,
to prevent them from talking to reporters. According to Frederickson:

"The question [the FBI] asked was always the same. You arent saying
anything to anybody, are you?

"At first, right after the attack, they told me I must have been mistaken in
my identification. Or they would insinuate that I was lying. Finally they
stopped trying to get me to change my story, and just stopped by once a week
to make sure I hadnt been talking to anyone."118

What is more, the FBI arrived in Venice just hours after the 9/11 attacks. A
former manager from Huffman Aviation said: They were outside my house four
hours after the attack. He added: My phones have been bugged, they still
are. How did the FBI get here so soon? Ask yourself: Howd they got here so
soon?119 Within 24 hours of the attacks, records from Huffman Aviation,
where Atta and al-Shehhi attended, were escorted aboard a C-130 cargo plane
to Washington by Florida governor and brother of the president Jeb Bush.
Similarly, according to a sergeant with the Venice police, the FBI took all
their files and flew them to Washington with Jeb Bush aboard. (Presumably
this was on the same flight as the Huffman records.) Hopsicker notes: The
important point was that taking files was a lot different than copying them.
The FBI wasnt taking any chances.120 He concludes: There is a
demonstrable, provable, and massive federally-supervised cover-up in place
in Florida. 121

As this and my previous evidence shows, there are countless unanswered
questions about 9/11 that at some point are going to have to be properly
examined. Even an investigation into just a few of these questions, such as
those around the war games on 9/11, could be enough to start a major
scandal. However, as numerous writers and independent researchers have
found, there are so many suspicious circumstances that the truth could be
very different to what we have been led to believe. The human rights lawyer
Richard Falk has written: There are so many gaping holes in the official
accounts of 9/11 that no plausible coherent narrative remains, and until now
we have been staggering forward as if the truth about these traumatic events
no longer mattered.122 But if the mainstream press start investigating
properly, it could lead to a completely unprecedented 9/11 scandal.

PSYCHOHISTORICAL REASONS FOR A 9/11 SCANDAL

There are in fact specific psychohistorical reasons I have identified why
there could be a major 9/11 scandal in future. I detail some of these in my
previous article, Killer Women Group-Fantasies and the 9/11 Controversy,
in which I examined signs of the current public mood in Britain and
America.123 My evidence suggested both countries are in a state of
particularly high anxiety and will need some kind of large crisis to make us
all feel better. But with no new external enemy having been found, I
suggested we might instead be veering towards regicidal solution where
we somehow sacrifice our own leaders. For Britain this might mean Prime
Minister Tony Blair at some point being forced to resign, perhaps if the
situation in Iraq deteriorates further. And for the U.S., I suggested a
scandal around possible complicity by some within the Bush administration,
U.S. military and intelligence services in the events of 9/11. But what is
the cause of the current public anxiety? And why have our leaders been
unable to find a new external enemy to invade?

Lloyd deMause describes how wars have generally occurred after periods of
increased prosperity and social progress, especially when accompanied by
more personal freedom. He has found that increased wealth and social change
causes many individuals anxiety and discomfort:

"That personal achievement and prosperity often make individuals feel sinful
and unworthy of their success is a commonplace observation of psychotherapy
ever since Freuds first case studies of people ruined by success. Yet no
one seems to have noticed that feelings of sinfulness are usually prominent
in the shared emotional life of nations after long periods of peace,
prosperity, and social progress, particularly if they are accompanied by
more personal and sexual freedom."124

As deMause points out: wars between great powers occur during periods of
economic expansion, while stagnation hinders their outbreak.125
Furthermore, Wars not only occurred far more frequently after prosperous
periods, but were longer and bigger after prosperity, six to twenty times
bigger as indicated by battle fatalities. 126

DeMause has found recurrent images of guilt and poison blood in the media,
following periods of prosperity and progress. The progress and increased
wealth are felt to have polluted the national blood-stream with sinful
excess, making men soft and feminine, a frightful condition that can
only be cleansed by a blood-shedding purification.127 DeMause continues:

"Wars have often been thought of as purifying the nations polluted blood by
virtue of a sacrificial rite identical to the rites of human sacrifice so
common in early historical periods, when the blood of those sacrificed was
believed to renew all the people. War, said those preparing for the bloody
Finnish Civil War, purges guilt-producing material prosperity through the
blood of soldiers sacrificed on the battlefield."128

So, in the case of the 1991 Gulf War, once it was over:

"The sacrificial ritual had been carried out exactly as planned: by a
genocide of women and children. The nation had been cleansed of its
emotional pollution. The Presidents popularity rating rose to 91 percent,
the highest of any American leader in history. The stock market soared. The
country had been united by slaughter as it had never been by any positive
achievement. We felt cleansed, purified, as though we had been reborn."129

To summarize then, periods of growth and prosperity cause much discomfort to
many people: feelings of guilt, sinfulness, being soft or feminine, etc.
And one way that nations frequently relieve these unpleasant feelings is by
going to war.

The 1990s and the beginning of the new millennium certainly rank as a period
of prosperity and change. Along with increasing wealth and social change, we
have experienced a technological revolution, with cheaper and increasingly
powerful home computers, DVD players, digital cameras, and many other
previously unavailable gadgets. For example, between 1991 and 2001, the
number of UK households with a home computer increased from 21 to 50 per
cent;131 between 1998 and 2003, the number of UK households with Internet
access rose from 9 to 48 per cent; whereas just 16 per cent of UK households
had a mobile phone in the 1996-97 period, by 2001-02 this was up to 65 per
cent.132 One writer recently concluded: We live in the freest, happiest,
least bigoted, healthiest, most peaceful and longest-lived era in human
history. [W]e are richer and have the power to alter and control our
environment in ways that would have seemed like magic 200 years ago. 133

Considering deMauses observations about wars correlating with change and
economic growth, it seems the conditions have been right for a particularly
large war to occur. Although we have had recent wars in Afghanistan (2001)
and Iraq (2003), these have been small in comparison to some key wars of the
20th century. For example, the Vietnam War lasted many years, from the 1960s
through to the early 70s. During this conflict, the U.S. used weapons of
mass destruction, spraying South Vietnam with a deadly chemical called
Agent Orange, which causes fetal death, congenital defects and cancer.134
Several million Southeast Asians were killed, along with around 58,000
American soldiers. The recent attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq pale in
comparison. So surely well need a bigger war than either of these,
considering all the prosperity and change of the last decade. However, as I
said at the start of this article, following the 2003 Iraq invasion attempts
by Britain and America to find a new, more formidable enemy to attack have
so far failed.

I believe the reason for this is because there are now larger than ever
numbers of people opposing war. This in turn, I believe, is thanks to
improvements in childrearing during the latter half of the 20th century. For
years, psychohistorians have observed a steady evolution in childrearing
that is now more rapid than ever before. Lloyd deMause writes:

"Progress in childrearing evolution may be extremely uneven, but the trends
are nonetheless unmistakable. The overall direction is from projection to
empathy, from discipline to self-regulation, from hitting to explaining,
from incest to love, from rejection to overcontrol and then to independence.

"Just the sheer cost of raising a child in dollars has been going up so
fast that it now costs a middle-class American family $1.5 million for each
child over 22 years, up 20 percent in the past three decades. The families I
know in my section of Manhattan easily devote over half of their spare time
and half their income to their children. Compare this to the small fraction
of parents time and money given over to children in earlier centuries with
children even spending most of their lives working for adults in various
ways and one can begin to comprehend the overall direction of childrearing
evolution."135

Similarly, in 1998 psychohistorian Robert McFarland wrote: Improvements in
parenting practices can now be measured in decades rather than in centuries.
Since Sweden banned hitting children in 1979, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and
Austria have followed.136 And whereas in 1992 over 90 per cent of American
parents hit their young children, by 1999 this had dropped to 57 per cent.
137

Due to this steady evolution of childhood, the average level of
childrearing experienced by todays young adults in developed countries will
have been better than that experienced by previous generations. Consequently
there are now more and more people in the higher psychoclasses:
individuals who, due to their more loving childhoods, have a higher level of
psychological health. These individuals will be more able to enjoy their
increased prosperity and the new technology that has become available over
recent years, along with any increased personal freedoms. As a result, they
will have less, if any, desire for war.

This relationship between childhood experience and support for, or
opposition to war, has been found by, amongst others, political psychologist
Michael Milburn. Milburn says:

"We found that, particularly for males who had never had any psychotherapy,
when they reported a high level of childhood punishment, they were
significantly more likely to endorse a range of punitive public policies
likesupport for the use of military force.

"[T]he higher level of punitiveness among political conservatives is really
strongly associated with experiences, generally, of harsh punishment from
childhood. Its not just going to be that they were spanked; theres a whole
family climate, and punishment is just going to be one of those indicators
of that."138

If a person who experiences a severe and punitive childhood is likely to
grow up into the kind of adult who favours the use of military force, we
might logically assume the opposite is also true: Individuals who had better
childhoods will be less supportive of wars. Lloyd deMause confirms this,
describing his observations of young adults today who have experienced far
more loving childhoods:

"[These individuals] are far more empathic and therefore more concerned
about others than we ever were, and this has made them far more activist in
their lives in trying to make a difference and change the world for the
better, mostly involving themselves in local activities rather than global
political changes. They lack all need for nationalism, wars, and other
grandiose projects, and in the organizations they start are genuinely
nonauthoritarian. There is no question that if the world could treat
children with helping-mode parenting, wars and all the other
self-destructive social conditions we still suffer from in the twenty-first
century will be cured."139

With the gradual improvement in the average level of childrearing over
recent decades (in developed countries at least), we would expect a
corresponding decrease in support for war. This was clearly evidenced by the
unprecedented level of opposition to the 2003 Iraq invasion. In London, for
example, on Saturday February 15, 2003, an estimated one to two million
people marched in protest against the imminent invasion: the largest public
demonstration ever to occur in Britain. The following month, 400,000 marched
through London, the biggest protest in Britain against a war during
wartime.140 Weeks before the war started, Tony Blair suffered the biggest
Commons revolt of his premiership when 199 MPs rejected his direction over
Iraq. As the leader of the Liberal Democrats, Charles Kennedy, observed:
Despite investing masses of political and parliamentary capital, the
government has still failed to persuade a third of the House of Commons.
141

According to leading political scholar and critic of American foreign policy
Noam Chomsky, in an interview around this time:

"Theres never been a time that I can think of when theres been such
massive opposition to a war before it was even started. Even in the United
States there is overwhelming opposition to the war and that corresponding
decline in trust in the leadership that is driving the war. If you compare
it with the Vietnam war, the current stage of the war with Iraq is
approximately like that of 1961 that is, before the war actually was
launched, as it was in 1962 with the US bombing of South Vietnam and driving
millions of people into concentration camps and chemical warfare and so on,
but there was no protest. In fact, so little protest that few people even
remember."142

Chomsky points out how even our governments are aware of this new reluctance
towards war and have had to modify their actions accordingly:

"[W]hen any administration comes into office the first thing it does is have
a worldwide intelligence assessment Whats the state of the world?
provided by the intelligence services. When the first Bush administration
came in 1989 parts of their intelligence assessment were leaked, and theyre
very revealing about what happened in the subsequent 10 years about
precisely these questions.

"The parts that were leaked said that it was about military confrontations
with much weaker enemies, recognising they were the only kind we were going
to be willing to face, or even exist. So in confrontations with much weaker
enemies the United States must win decisively and rapidly because
otherwise popular support will erode, because its understood to be very
thin. Not like the 1960s when the government could fight a long, brutal war
for years and years practically destroying a country without any protest.
Not now."143

Although the peace movement failed to prevent the Iraq invasion, when the
war began it seemed they had made a significant difference. As Jonathan
Freedland wrote in The Guardian:

"The campaign began not with shock and awe but a subtler knife, aimed at
the surgical decapitation of Saddam Hussein and his regime. One nights
bombing of Baghdad lasted no more than an hour.

"There could be a stack of explanations for that initial deployment of the
short, sharp blow. But there may be another motive for the initial
preference for short-and-sweet over shock-and-awe. The US might have wanted
to avoid a wave of worldwide revulsion. A series of tight, well-aimed
strikes at the regime would have confounded the global fear of colossal
Iraqi civilian casualties. Its as if Washington had heard the peace
movements objection to this war that too many innocents would die and
was attempting to heed it."144

Freedland continues:

"[P]erhaps the clearest proof of the anti-war camps efforts came from our
own prime minister: I know this course of action has produced deep
divisions of opinion in our country, he said, just seconds into his own TV
message to the nation. No leader wants to go into a war admitting such a
thing. But Blair had no choice. As with much else, the peace movement has
changed the landscape for this conflict and the men of war are having to
deal with it."145

What peace activists may well have achieved is the prevention of further
invasions of axis of evil countries. As Lindsey German of the Stop the War
Coalition said: does anyone think Tony Blair can ever stand up in
parliament again and say the words trust me? As they talk up targeting
Iran and Syria, do you think anyone will ever believe this government when
they say weve got the intelligence to prove it? 146

Maybe the improvements in childrearing over recent decades that account for
this unprecedented opposition to war, will also mean there are now enough
people less afraid to challenge authority and face unpleasant truths, so as
to help bring about a 9/11 scandal. Compare this to, say, the truth about
the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. We now know that President
Franklin Roosevelt and his top military advisers knew in advance that Japan
was planning a surprise attack on America. Japanese radio messages had
been intercepted and it was known when and where they would attack the U.S.
Despite this foreknowledge, Roosevelt allowed the attack to go ahead so as
to create a pretext for America to join World War II. Yet these facts only
became more widely known in 2000, with the release of Robert B. Stinnetts
book Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl Harbor. 147 Robert
McFarland points out: While it was 58 years before Stinnetts book made the
facts about Pearl Harbor widely known, two important books about 9/11 came
out within a year Since these books came out quickly, we are apparently
more willing to look at bad news than we were in 1941. 148

While a 9/11 scandal would be a sufficiently large public crisis to help
ease the particularly high level of public anxiety (growth panic) among
the lower psychoclasses, unlike a massive war it ought also be acceptable to
the more peaceful higher psychoclass individuals. If we do have such a
scandal, the emotional effect will undoubtedly be intense. Consider how the
general public would feel if people start openly accusing some within the
Bush administration of complicity in the 9/11 attacks. How would Americans
feel who had voted for these men, trusted and respected them? I can imagine
many people finding such events devastating. What if security camera footage
of the attack on the Pentagon had to be made public at some point and it
showed something other than a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon? Surely
millions of people would feel horrified. The full implications of a 9/11
scandal would be colossal. It would be the emotional equivalent of a massive
war. So maybe instead of the war of a force and scope and scale that has
been beyond what has been seen before, that Donald Rumsfeld promised back
in 2003, there is going to be a scandal of a scope and scale that is
beyond what has been seen before.

ENDNOTES

1. David Hearst, Nato directionless on nuclear policy. The Guardian,
January 19, 2003.

2. UK restates nuclear threat. BBC News, February 2, 2003.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2717939.stm.

3. John Pilger, John Pilger investigates US plans for mini-nukes. New
Statesman, August 18, 2003.

4. Duncan Campbell, Bush in new threat to Iran and Syria. The Guardian,
July 22, 2003.

5. Richard Norton-Taylor, US hawk warns Iran threat must be eliminated.
The Guardian, October 10, 2003.

6. From Paul Thompson, The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11. Center
for Cooperative Research.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayairdefense.

7. Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending
9-11 Attacks and Consciously Failed To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of
Unanswered Questions by Congress or New Yorks Attorney General, New Zogby
International Poll Reveals. Zogby International, August 30, 2004. Online
at: http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855.

8. Antonia Zerbisias, Poking holes in the official story of 9/11.
Toronto Star, May 26, 2004.

9. Michael Gavin, September 11 conspiracy claims find large readership.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, September 5, 2003.

10. Quoted in Kate Connolly, German Sept 11 theory stokes anti-US
feeling. The Telegraph, November 20, 2003.

11. Matthew L. Wald, Pentagon Tracked Deadly Jet But Found No Way to Stop
It. New York Times, September 15, 2001.

12. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
Improvising a Homeland Defense: Staff Statement No. 17. June 17, 2004, p.
5.

13. Ibid., p. 6.

14. Ibid., p. 7.

15. Ibid., p. 19.

16. Ibid., pp. 13-14.

17. Ibid., p. 28.

18. Ibid., p. 16.

19. Ibid., pp. 17-18.

20. Ibid., p. 29.

21. Federal Aviation Administration regulations, quoted in Paul Thompson,
The Failure to Defend the Skies on 9/11.

22. Ibid.

23. Dr Bob Arnot, What Was Needed to Halt the Attacks? MSNBC, September
12, 2001.

24. Scrambling to Prevent Another 9/11. Associated Press, August 14,
2002.

25. From Paul Thompson, The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day,
Minute by Minute: A Comprehensive Chronicle of the Road to 9/11 and
Americas Response. New York: Regan Books, 2004, p. 372.

26. Interview with Paul Hellyer, former defense minister of Canada. May
27, 2004. Online at: http://www.digitalstylecreations.com.

27. Dr Robert Bowman A Fighter Pilot Looks Back at 9/11 and Forward to a
Resurrected America. Speech at the International Citizens Inquiry Into 9/11
in Toronto, Canada, May 30, 2004. Online at: http://www.snowshoefilms.com.

28. Ibid.

29. From: NORAD Retains Northern Vigilance. NORAD, September 9, 2001.
http://www.norad.mil/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.news_rel_09_09_01 ; Scott
Simmie, The scene at NORAD on Sept. 11: Playing Russian war gamesand then
someone shouted to look at the monitor. Toronto Star, December 9, 2001.

30. Hart Seely, Amid Crisis Simulation, We Were Suddenly No-Kidding
Under Attack. Newhouse News, January 25, 2002.

31. Quoted in Terror Hits the Towers. ABC News, September 14, 2001.
http://abcnews.go.com/onair/DailyNews/sept11_moments_1.html.

32. Paul Thompson, The Terror Timeline, p. 372.

33. John J. Lumpkin, Agency planned exercise on Sept. 11 built around a
plane crashing into a building. Associated Press, August 21, 2002.

34. Michael C. Ruppert, Tripod II and FEMA: Lack of NORAD Response on
>9/11 Explained. From the Wilderness, June 5, 2004.
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060704_tripod_fema.html.

35. Address of Michael C. Ruppert for the Commonwealth Club San
Francisco. August 31, 2004. Transcript at:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/PDF/Commonwealth.pdf.

36. Ibid. The full details of Rupperts investigation of 9/11 are in
Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire
at the End of the Age of Oil. Vancouver: New Society Publishers, 2004.

37. See National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
Eleventh Public Hearing. May 19, 2004. Transcript at:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing11/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-05-19.htm;
also Amanda Griscom, Man Behind the Mayor. New York Magazine, October 15,
2001.

38. See Statement of Capt Charles J. Leidig, Jr. Commandant of Midshipmen
United States Naval Academy Before the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks Upon the United States. June 17, 2004. Online at:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing12/leidig_statement.pdf ;
Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearings for June 17, 2004. Washington Post,
June 17, 2004. Online at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A49429-2004Jun17?language=printer.

39. Matthew L. Wald, F.A.A. Official Scrapped Tape of 9/11 Controllers
Statements. New York Times, May 06, 2004.

40. From Paul Thompson, Complete 911 Timeline: American Airlines Flight
77. Center for Cooperative Research.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_911=aa77.

41. From Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, 9/11 Great Crimes/ A Greater
Cover-up. San Francisco: Irresistible/Revolutionary, 2003, p. 7.

42. Quoted in Ryan Alessi and M. E. Sprengelmeyer, 9-11 One Year Later:
An anniversary of agony at the Pentagon. Scripps Howard News Service,
September 11, 2002.

43. From Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, 9/11 Great Crimes/ A Greater
Cover-up, p. 7. Boeing 757-200 dimensions also available at:
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/757family/technical.html.

44. Quoted in Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate. London: Carnot, 2002,
p. 36.

45. For more information and to see photos of the Pentagon crash on
September 11, see Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate; Eric Hufschmid,
Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack. Goleta:
Endpoint Software, 2002, pp. 97-106. There are also numerous Internet sites
examining the Pentagon attack. E.g. Killtowns Did Flight 77 really crash
into the Pentagon? http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/flight77.html; The
Pentagon Attack Frame-Up. 9-11 Research.
http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/pentagon/index.html.

46. Quoted in Jim Marrs, Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies. San
Rafael: Origin Press, 2004, p. 26.

47. National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States,
Staff Statement No. 4: The Four Flights. January 27, 2004, p. 5.

48. FAA Was Alerted To Sept. 11 Hijacker. CBS News, May 10, 2002.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/10/attack/main508656.shtml.

49. Jim Yardley, A Trainee Noted for Incompetence. New York Times, May
4, 2002.

50. Thomas Frank, Tracing Trail Of Hijackers. Newsday, September 23,
2001.

51. Primary Target. CBS News, September 21, 2001.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/11/national/main310721.shtml.

52. Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, p. 350.

53. Bill McKelway, Three Months On, Tension Lingers Near the Pentagon.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 11, 2001.

54. Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, Inside the Ring. Washington Times,
September 21, 2001.

55. See David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor. Northampton: Olive Branch
Press, 2004, pp. 36-37; Thierry Meyssan (Editor), Pentagate, pp. 42-44.

56. See David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, pp. 38-39.

57. See Sue Reid, The 9/11 X-Files. Daily Mail, June 5, 2004; Why Bush
let 9/11 happen. Zoo, July 9-15, 2004.

58. Thierry Meyssan, 11 Septembre 2001: lEffroyable Imposture. Chatou:
Carnot, 2002.

59. From Secretary Rumsfeld Interview with Larry King. Larry King Live,
CNN, December 5, 2001. Transcript at:
http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2001/t12062001_t1205sd.html.

60. Ibid.

61. From Chairman Coxs Statement on the Terrorist Attack on America.
September 11, 2001. Online at: http://cox.house.gov/html/release.cfm?id=33.

62. From Day One Transcript: 9/11 Commission Hearing. Washington Post,
March 23, 2004. Online at:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17798-2004Mar23.

63. From The Pentagon Goes to War: National Military Command Center: A
look at 9/11 at the Pentagons National Military Command Center. American
Morning With Paula Zahn, CNN, September 4, 2002. Transcript at:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/cnn090402.html ; 9/11 :
Interviews by Peter Jennings. ABC News, September 11, 2002. Transcript at:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2002/abcnews091102.html.

64. The 9/11 Commission Report: The Full Final Report of the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Executive Summary.
2004, p. 15. Online at:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911ReportExec.pdf.

65. See Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CJCSI 3610.01A, June 1,
2001. Online at http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf .
Due to the fact that this new procedure was introduced just three months
before 9/11, several individuals have questioned whether this new
instruction, requiring secretary of defense approval in responding to
hijackings, was introduced deliberately so as to hinder the interception of
the hijacked planes on 9/11. However, this requirement was not new: The
previous instruction for dealing with hijackings, dated July 31, 1997, also
required approval from the defense secretary. See:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01.pdf.

66. The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, PBS, September 10, 2003. Transcript at:
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec03/rumsfeld_09-10.html .

67. Testimony of U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Prepared
for Delivery to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United
States. March 23, 2004, p. 21. Online at:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/hearings/hearing8/rumsfeld_statement.pdf .

68. The 9/11 Commission Report: The Full Final Report of the National
Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W.
Norton, 2004, p. 35.

69. The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 39-40.

70. Sept. 11 Scramble. ABC News, September 14,
2002.http://abcnews.go.com/onair/DailyNews/sept11_moments_2.html .

71. 9/11 Commission Hearing. May 23, 2003. Transcript at:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.pdf
.

72. Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, Americas Chaotic Road to War. Washington
Post, January 27, 2002.

73. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 40.

74. Ibid., p. 41.

75. Daniel Klaidman and Michael Hirsh, Who Was Really In Charge?
Newsweek, June 28, 2004.

76. Ibid.

77. Ibid.

78. Meet the Press, NBC, May 26, 2002. Transcript online at:
http://www.dashpac.com/home/agenda/speeches.cfm?SpeechID=12 .

79. The 9/11 Commission states: Prior to 9/11, it was understood that an
order to shoot down a commercial aircraft would have to be issued by the
National Command Authority (a phrase used to describe the president and
secretary of defense). From The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 17. Previous
news reports had said the president was the only person with the authority
to order the shooting down of a civilian plane. See Jamie McIntyre,
Pentagon never considered downing Stewarts Learjet. CNN, October 26,
1999. http://edition.cnn.com/US/9910/26/shootdown/; Kevin Dennehy, I
Thought It Was the Start of World War III. Cape Cod Times, August 21,
2002.

80. From Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel, Guilty for 9-11, Part 3: Bush
in the Open. The Emperors New Clothes, January 18, 2002, revised September
12, 2003. http://www.emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-3.htm.

81. Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer. September 7, 2001. Online at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010907-1.html#week .

82. From Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, An Interesting Day: President
Bushs Movements and Actions on 9/11. Center for Cooperative Research, May
9, 2003.
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/essay.jsp?article=essayaninterestingday .

83. Quoted in Susan Taylor Martin, Of fact, fiction: Bush on 9/11. St.
Petersburg Times, July 4, 2004.

84. Ibid.

85. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 38.

86. Ibid., p. 38.

87. Ibid., p. 39.

88. From Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, An Interesting Day.

89. Gail Sheehy, Whos in Charge Here? Mother Jones, July 22, 2004.

90. See Allan Wood and Paul Thompson, An Interesting Day.

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid.

93. Remarks by the President After Two Planes Crash Into World Trade
Center. September 11, 2001. Online at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911.html .

94. Eric Boehlert, Bushs 9/11 coverup? Salon, June 18, 2003.

95. From Julian Borger, Bush to face tough questions on 9/11. The
Guardian, April 29, 2004; Hiding in the White House. The Boston Globe,
April 30, 2004.

96. This briefing is available online at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2004/images/04/10/whitehouse.pdf .

97. Frank Rich, Thanks for the Heads-Up. New York Times, May 25, 2002.

98. The Project for the New American Century, Rebuilding Americas
Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century. September 2000,
p. iii.

99. Ibid., p. 50.

100. Ibid., p. 51.

101. Dan Balz and Bob Woodward, Americas Chaotic Road to War.

102. John Pilger, Two years ago a project set up by the men who now
surround George W. Bush said what America needed was a new Pearl Harbor.
Its published aims have come alarmingly true. New Statesman, December 16,
2002.

103. Remarks By Office Of Management And Budget Director Mitchell E.
Daniels, Jr. At Conference Board Annual Meeting. October 16, 2001. Online
at:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/pubpress/daniels_conference_board_speech10-16-01.html
.

104. From Alex Jones Interviews Stanley Hilton. The Alex Jones Show,
September 10, 2004. Transcript at:
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/hilton_interview.htm .

105. From: Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland: Mohamed Atta & the 9-11
Cover-up in Florida. Eugene: The MadCow Press, 2004, pp. 171-182.

106. Ibid., pp. 68-69.

107. Ibid., p. 81.

108. Ibid., p. 284.

109. Ibid., p. 105.

110. Ibid., pp. 135-136.

111. George Wehrfritz, Catharine Skipp and John Barry, Alleged Hijackers
May Have Trained at U.S. Bases. Newsweek, September 15, 2001.

112. Daniel Hopsicker, Welcome to Terrorland, pp. 136-137.

113. Ibid., p. 138.

114. Ibid., p. 139.

115. Ibid., p. 140.

116. Ibid., p. 141.

117. Ibid., p. 301.

118. Ibid., pp. 62-63.

119. Ibid., p. 150.

120. Ibid., p. 31.

121. Ibid., p. 301.

122. From his forward to David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor, p. vii.

123. Matt Everett, Killer Women Group-Fantasies and the 9/11 Controversy.
Journal of Psychohistory 32(1): 2-39.

124. Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations. New York: Karnac, 2002,
p.17.

125. Ibid., p. 159.

126. Ibid., p. 141.

127. Ibid., p. 51.

128. Ibid., p. 52.

129. Ibid., p. 38.

130. Office for National Statistics, Living in Britain No. 31: Results from
the 2002 General Household Survey. Norwich: HMSO, 2004, p. 49.

131. Office for National Statistics, Internet access: Individuals and
Households, Norwich: HMSO, December 16, 2003.

132. Office for National Statistics, Percentage of households with durable
goods 1970 to 2001-02: Expenditure and Food Survey. September 2003.

133. Michael Hanlon, Theres no time like the present. The Spectator,
August 7, 2004.

134. See John Pilger, Nuclear war, courtesy of Nato. The Guardian, May 4,
1999; John Pilger, Blair is a coward. Daily Mirror, January 29, 2003.

135. From Lloyd deMause, Childhood and Cultural Evolution. Psychohistory
Web site. http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/eln07_evolution.html .

136. Robert B. McFarland, Improvements in Parenting are Real. Journal of
Psychohistory 25 (3): 237.

137. Tracy L. Dietz, Disciplining Children: Characteristics Associated
With the Use of Corporal Punishment. Child Abuse & Neglect 24(2000): 1529,
1536. Quoted in Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p. 339.

138. Brian Braiker, See No Evil: A political psychologist explains the
roles denial, emotion and childhood punishment play in politics. Newsweek
Web site, May 13, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4972441/site/newsweek/

139. Lloyd deMause, The Emotional Life of Nations, p.430.

140. Carmel Brown, Weapon of mass democracy. The Guardian, September 26,
2003.

141. Matthew Tempest, Labour MPs revolt over Iraq. The Guardian, February
26, 2003.

142. Matthew Tempest, Full transcript: Noam Chomksy on the anti-war
movement. The Guardian, February 4, 2003.

143. Ibid.

144. Jonathan Freedland, Peaceniks lost the war but changed the shape of
battle. The Guardian, March 22, 2003.

145. Ibid.

146. Quoted in Carmel Brown, Weapon of mass democracy.

147. Robert B. Stinnett, Day of Deceit: The Truth About FDR and Pearl
Harbor. London: The Free Press, 2000.

148. Robert B. McFarland, A Psychohistorical Comparison of the Pearl
Harbor and September 11 Attacks. Journal of Psychohistory 31(1): 75.

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