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| UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA Civil Case No. 04-4952 You can get a copy of this article by clicking this link
Law Offices Of: PHILIP J. BERG, ESQ. Attorney for Plaintiff 706 Ridge Pike Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania 19444-1711 Telephone (610) 825-3134
******************************************** : : : WILLIAM RODRIGUEZ, : : Plaintiff, : Civil Case No. 04-4952 : : : GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, et al., : : Defendants. : : : ********************************************
AFFIDAVIT OF PHILIP J. BERG IN OPPOSITION TO MOTION TO DISMISS THE COMPLAINT OR TO TRANSFER THE CASE TO THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK
COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA } } SS.: COUNTY OF MONTGOMERY }
PHILIP J. BERG, of full age, being first duly sworn according to law, says: I am a member in good standing of the Bar of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and of this Court, and counsel of record for the Plaintiff, William Rodriguez (“Rodriguez”). I make this affidavit in opposition to the motion by certain of the defendants, U.S. government officials in their official capacities only, to dismiss the action, or to transfer the same to the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (“SDNY”) pursuant to the Air Transportation Safety and System Stabilization Act of 2001, Pub. L. No. 107-42, 114 Stat. 230, as amended by the Aviation and Transportation Security Act, Pub. L. No. 107-71, 115 Stat.597 (the “Stabilization Acts.”).
The cornerstone of the moving defendants’ motion is that, as this action is related to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, under the Stabilization Acts, this Court lacks jurisdiction, wherefore dismissal (or transfer to SDNY) is mandatory.
As argued in Rodriguez’s brief, as a preliminary matter the moving defendants do not have standing to object to the venue of so much of the complaint as is pleaded under RICO, or that is based on the 9-11 attacks, insofar as the same are pleaded against the moving defendants in their personal, individual capacities only, and not in the official capacities.
Moreover, the only case decision squarely on point (i.e., in which § 408(b)(3) of ATSSSA was the basis of a motion to dismiss, as against defendants sued not for negligence, but for participation in acts of terrorism) is directly contrary to the moving defendants’ main argument. In Burnett v. Al Baraka Investment and Development Corporation, 274 F.Supp. 2d 86, 94-95 (D.D.C. 2004) the Court stated:
Construing the ATSSSA’s exclusive language to encompass claims against the September 11 terrorists and their conspirators would bring the ATSSSA irreconcilably into conflict with the ATA. Congress did not “clearly express” an intention that Section 408(b)(3) was to render the ATA’s jurisdictional provision [18 U.S.C. § 2334(a)] ineffective . . .
There is no conflict between the ATSSSA and the ATA if both statutes are given effect. That is accomplished here by giving a narrow construction to the “exclusive jurisdiction” language of Section 408(b)(3). Thus, the government’s motion is revealed as made with complete disregard for what appears to be the only decision to date in which an action against persons alleged to have been criminally complicit in the terror attacks, as distinct against “airlines, airport security companies, airport operators, airplane manufacturers, and owners and operators of the World Trade Center . . .” who were sued for negligence. Frankly, too, the Government is attempting not only to “forum shop,” but hopefully to deny Rodriguez a forum in which his claims may be heard, as affiant is not admitted to practice in New York, and no doubt the Government is hoping that Rodriguez will be unable to secure local counsel in New York to represent him in such a controversial matter.
While acknowledging that the allegations of his complaint are no doubt shocking and even scandalous, at least to those who have not studied closely the events of 9-11 and the discrepancies in the “Official Story” promulgated by the Government, and that they present this Honorable Court with what must be the “mother of all judicial hot potatoes,” Rodriguez presents those allegations in utter good faith.
Further, given the latitude afforded this Court in determining that venue may lie in this district, or elsewhere, respectfully recent revelations make plain, or should make plain, that while the conclusions urged by plaintiff remain to be proved, defendants, including President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Rice, and others, have lied repeatedly to the American people — and, in the case at least of Secretary Rice, have lied under oath — about the extent of foreknowledge of attacks as occurred on 9-11. Rodriguez, and affiant, soberly propose to this Court that these repeated untruths, and the politically-motivated suppression of information gathered by the 9-11 Commission on what even members of that Commission have characterized as spurious “national security” grounds, show that the government has much to hide.
Whether this litigation proceeds in this forum, or counsel is found who will prosecute it in another forum, this instant motion (and the cynical nondisclosure of explosive revelations concerning fifty-two [52] advance warnings of the 9-11 attacks until after the November 2004 elections, and Dr. Rice’s confirmation to be Secretary of State) foreshadow what will surely be multiple, and equally cynical, acts to stonewall discovery, and assertions of bogus “national security” grounds as pretexts to continue to suppress the truth about 9-11. The blanket of “national security” does not cover criminal complicity in the murder of 3,000 people, most of them American citizens, on American soil, to advance an agenda of warmaking and “Patriot Act” type repressive legislation, warrantless searches, a national ID card, and other such erosions of Constitutional liberty at home.
This is not a negligence action. What Rodriguez alleges, in the alternative, is that either: (A) many of the defendants, as well as persons not known to Rodriguez, were actively complicit in the sponsorship, planning and execution of the 9-11 attacks; or (B) defendants — if not actively complicit in carrying out the attacks — had knowledge that the attacks were impending, which knowledge was sufficient for defendants to take counter-measures to prevent the attacks, but they failed to do so, not by reason of mere negligence, confusion, or ineptitude, but because they affirmatively desired such attacks to occur.
That certain of the defendants, at present occupying prominent and influential positions in the Bush II Administration, believed a “catastrophic and catalyzing event — such as a new Pearl Harbor” to be in the national interest is a matter of public record.
Rodriguez further alleges that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, chaired by former New Jersey Governor Thomas A. Kean (the “Commission”) was established not to disclose the full truth concerning the attacks, but (with the connivance of all or most of the commissioners) to produce a “limited hang-out,” or admission of bureaucratic errors or “intelligence failures,” while accepting a priori the defendants’ “Official Story” of 9-11, and not disturbing the public perception — created and maintained by demonstrable falsehoods — that the attacks occurred without prior knowledge on the part of senior Administration figures, and without warnings sufficiently informative to have enabled defendants, in the faithful and diligent exercise of their duties, to prevent them.
IF THERE WAS NO GOVERNMENT COMPLICITY IN THE 9-11 ATTACKS, WHY DID DEFENDANTS LIE REPEATEDLY ABOUT ABUNDANT ADVANCE WARNINGS?
Many of the defendants have lied publicly, stating that they had no warning that terrorists might hijack aircraft within the United States and fly them into buildings. For example, President Bush told NATO just days after the attack (September 16, 2001) as follows:
Never did anybody’s thought process about how to protect America did we ever think that the evildoers would fly not one, but four commercial aircraft into precious U.S. targets . . . never.
The President’s then-Press Secretary, Ari Fleischer, lied when he stated as follows on May 16, 2002:
The president did not — not — receive information about the use of airplanes as missiles by suicide bombers. This was a new kind of attack that had not been foreseen.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went on “Meet the Press” on September 30, 2001, and lied to the nation as follows: Never would have crossed anyone’s mind that a commercial airline — usually a hijacker who takes an airplane, of course, wants to get someplace or wants to make a statement or wants to go on television or wants to hold hostages, but this [suicide attacks using hijacked airplanes] is a distinctly different behavior pattern than we’ve seen previously, and now, obviously, it’s something we have to be attentive to.
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta told the Commission, falsely, on May 23, 2003 that: I don’t think we ever thought of an aircraft being used as a missile. We had no information of that nature at all. Shockingly, in light of very recent revelations, is the following false testimony to the commission by FAA Administrator Jane Garvey, as reported by UPI:
I was not aware of any information about [airplanes] being used as weapons that was credible. The above lying was done, no doubt, with absolute confidence on the part of the liars in their own impunity, as the same was not done under oath. However, the brazenness of senior Administration defendants is not deterred by the penalties of perjury. Both houses of Congress are under Republican control. A majority of the United States Supreme Court has shown its partisan colors, in installing George W. Bush as President in the first place. The major media (owned by a handful of corporations, some of which like General Electric, the owner of NBC, is profiting from the war in Iraq) have shown — for example in their lack of scrutiny over false Administration claims concerning Iraq’s supposed weapons of mass destruction — that they have become little more than house propaganda organs for the regime. And the Attorney General of the United States, the nation’s top law enforcement officer, is a man deeply and personally indebted to President Bush for nearly every career advancement he has obtained, and he is on record as saying that the President is effectively a law unto himself. Who then will there be, who might call these high-level perjurers to account? Against the recent revelations of fifty-two [52] warnings received by the FAA prior to 9-11, the Court is asked to consider the sworn (and, it very much appears) perjurious testimony of Dr. Condoleeza Rice, in her reluctant testimony before the Commission. Dr. Rice testified as follows:
CHAIRMAN KEAN: Did you ever see or hear from the FBI, from the CIA, from any other intelligence agency, any memos or discussions or anything else between the time you got into office and 9-11 that talked about using planes as bombs? DR. RICE: [At a press conference] I said, "No one could have imagined them taking a plane, slamming it into the Pentagon” about the use of airplanes as weapons actually was never briefed to us. I cannot tell you that there might not have been a report here or a report there that reached somebody in our midst.
* * *
All that I can tell you is that it was not in the August 6th memo, using planes as a weapon. And I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons. In fact, there were some reports done in '98 and '99. I was certainly not aware of them at the time that I spoke. KEAN: You didn't see any memos to you or any documents to you? RICE: No, I did not. In her statement that preceded the question and answer exchange with members of the Commission, Dr. Rice stated in part as follows: DR. RICE: In this context, I want to address in some detail one of the briefing items that we did receive, since its content has been frequently mischaracterized. On August 6, 2001, the President's intelligence briefing included a response to questions that he had earlier raised about any Al Qaeda intentions to strike our homeland. The briefing team reviewed past intelligence reporting, mostly dating from the 1990s, regarding possible Al Qaeda plans to attack inside the United States. [ . . .] This briefing item was not prompted by any specific threat information. And it did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles. Despite the fact that the vast majority of the threat information we received was focused overseas, I was concerned about possible threats inside the United States. And on July 5th, Chief of Staff Andy Card and I met with Dick Clarke, and I asked Dick to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific threats to the homeland. Later that same day, Clarke convened a special meeting of his CSG, as well as representatives from the FAA, the INS, Customs and the Coast Guard. [ . . .] The FBI issued at least three [3] nationwide warnings to federal, state and law enforcement agencies and specifically stated that, although the vast majority of the information indicated overseas targets, attacks against the homeland could not be ruled out. [ . . . ] The FAA issued at least five [5] civil aviation security information circulars to all U.S. airlines and airport security personnel, including specific warnings about the possibility of hijacking. [ . . . ] This is a brief sample of our intense activity in the high threat period of the summer of 2001. Yet, as your hearings have shown, there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the 9/11 attacks. In hindsight, if anything might have helped stop 9/11, it would have been better information about threats inside the United States - something made very difficult by structural and legal impediments that prevented the collection and sharing of information by our law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Responding to questions from Commissioner Richard Ben-Veniste, Dr. Rice testified: DR. RICE: You said, it did not warn of attacks. It did not warn of attacks inside the United States. It was historical information based on old reporting. There was no new threat information. And it did not, in fact, warn of any coming attacks inside the United States. COMMR. BEN-VENISTE: There was nothing reassuring, was there, in that PDB? DR. RICE: Certainly not. There was nothing reassuring. But I can also tell you that there was nothing in this memo that suggested that an attack was coming in New York or Washington, D.C. There was nothing in this memo as to time, place, how or where this was not a threat report to the President or a threat report to me. COMMR. BEN-VENISTE: We agree that there were no specifics. Let me move on, if I may. RICE: There were no specifics, and, in fact, the country had already taken steps through the FAA to warn of potential hijackings. The country had already taken steps through the FBI to task their 56 field offices to increase their activity. The country had taken the steps that it could given that there was no threat reporting about what might happen inside the United States. DR. RICE: And on July 5th [2001], Chief of Staff Andy Card and I met with Dick Clarke, and I asked Dick to make sure that domestic agencies were aware of the heightened threat period and were taking appropriate steps to respond, even though we did not have specific threats to the homeland. I talked to Powell. I talked to Rumsfeld about what was happening with the threats and with the alerts. I talked to George [Tenet]. I asked that the attorney general be briefed, because even though there were no domestic threats, I didn’t want him to be without that briefing. All that I can tell you is that it was not in the August 6th memo, using planes as a weapon. And I do not remember any reports to us, a kind of strategic warning, that planes might be used as weapons. In fact there were some reports done in ’98 or ’99. I was certainly not aware of them that the time that I spoke. CHAIRMAN KEAN: You didn’t see any memos to you or any documents to you? DR. RICE: No, I did not. COMMR. LEHMAN: Were you told that there were numerous young Arab males in flight training, had taken flight training, were in flight training? DR. RICE: I was not. And I’m not certain that that was known at the center. COMMR. GORELICK: Dr. Rice, thank you for being here today. [ . . . ] [L]et me just give you some facts as I see them and let you comment on them. First of all, while it may be that Dick Clarke was informing you, many of the other people at the CSG-level, and the people who were brought to the table from the domestic agencies, were not telling their principals. Secretary Mineta, the Secretary of Transportation, had no idea of the threat. The administrator of the FAA, responsible for security on our airlines, had no idea. Yes, the Attorney General was briefed, but there was no evidence of any activity by him about this. [ . . .] DR. RICE: Now, I would be speculating, but if you would like, I will go ahead and speculate to say that one of the problems here was there really was nothing that looked like it was going to happen inside the United States. The threat reporting was - the specific threat reporting was about external threats: about the Persian Gulf, about Israel, about perhaps the Genoa event. DR. RICE: Mr. Roemer, let’s be very clear. The PDB does not say the United States is going to be attacked. It says bin Laden would like to attack the United States. I don’t think you, frankly, had to have that report to know that bin Laden would like to attack the United States. COMMR. ROEMER: So why aren’t you doing something about that earlier than August 6th? [APPLAUSE] DR. RICE: The threat reporting to which we could respond was in June and July about threats abroad. What we tried to do for — just because people said you cannot rule out an attack on the United States, was to have the domestic agencies and the FBI together to just pulse them and have them be on alert. COMMR. ROEMER: I agree with that. DR. RICE: But there was nothing that suggested there was going to be a threat . . . COMMR. ROEMER: I agree with that. DR. RICE: . . . to the United States. COMMR. ROEMER: I agree. DR. RICE: . . . did not raise the possibility that terrorists might use airplanes as missiles.
The revelation that there were at least 52 warnings of possible attacks like those that occurred on 9-11 ought to have been a political bombshell, but they stirred only modest interest. It should be noted, too, that this information was suppressed — and not leaked by any member of the Commission that, ostensibly, fully and fearlessly investigated the attacks — for five [5] months, and (with what Rodriguez proposes is unmistakable partisan political intent) until after: (A) the November 2, 2005 presidential election; and (B) after Dr. Rice was confirmed by the Senate to be Secretary of State.
Three [3] years and five [5] months, therefore, have elapsed since the 9-11 attacks — which were, it should be remembered, the largest mass homicides in the nation’s history. Ordinarily, jurisdiction over the investigation of crimes of homicide lies with local officials, but neither the New York Police Department, nor its counterparts in the other locales in which the attacks occurred, have investigated the attacks independently. Federal authorities announced almost immediately that the attacks were the acts of Osama bin Laden and nineteen Arabs, whose identities were supposedly confirmed, notwithstanding that all of them presumably perished in the attacks, none of their names appeared on passenger manifests released publicly by the airlines, and supposedly federal authorities lacked prior warning that any of them were or intended to be involved in terror-related activities.
Accordingly, upon information and belief, there has occurred no investigation by federal authorities concerning who, in fact, planned and carried out the attacks, or whether persons other than (or in addition to) the nineteen [19] alleged Arab perpetrators may have participated in the execution of the attacks.
So as affiant is aware, former Attorney General Ashcroft has not confirmed nor denied that threats that Al Qaeda might divert passenger aircraft within the United States, and direct such aircraft into buildings, were known to him, and were a reason why he stopped flying on commercial aircraft just weeks before 9-11. Nor has Congress, or the Commission, insisted that Mr. Ashcroft explain how it is that the government claimed a lack of specific foreknowledge, while undeniably someone had information sufficiently specific (which, moreover, was not made known to the public at large) that the nation’s top law-enforcement official stopped flying commercially.
This Court can, if it determines to do so, find that venue in this action is more appropriate in another district. However, technically speaking, venue in this district is proper, as described in more detail in the accompanying brief. Should the government’s motion be granted, although Rodriguez will, to be sure, endeavor to secure co-counsel admitted before the federal district court in the destination district as this Court may determine, again there is a short supply of attorneys willing, on a pro bono or fee-contingent basis, to go up against the most powerful group of individuals in the nation, and accuse them of kidnapping, arson, treason, and mass murder.
Rodriguez, and your affiant, respectfully implore this Court to reflect upon the implications of denying Rodriguez the possibility of seeking to prove his claims through discovery and a trial before a jury of his peers. If Rodriguez’s claims prove to be unfounded, the Republic will survive. However, three and a half years have passed since 9-11. No one has been tried for planning the attacks. Despite the much vaunted “War on Terror,” and although President Bush has openly boasted of extra-judicial murders at his orders of so-called terrorists, since 9-11, only one person has been convicted, of participation in a terror-related crime causing death or injury to any person, or damage to property, in any American Court, that being, the shoe bomber, Richard Reid.
The myriad anomalies of the “Official Story” have nowhere been put to the test of independent, impartial inquiry, with knowledgeable persons being compelled to appear, to testify under oath, and to supply physical evidence. The families of the 3,000 dead of the 9-11 attacks were “tossed a bone,” by having a panel of intelligence and oil industry-connected insiders pretend to “investigate” the attacks, but in fact the "Official Story" was accepted entirely and from the outset of this cynical, faux investigation, and today many victims’ survivors are livid that, obviously, the truth has been — and continues to be — suppressed for political reasons.
It may be that, if this Court declines to do the right and the courageous thing, and permit Rodriguez’s action to proceed in this district, there will be no genuine inquiry into the actual events of 9-11, and that decades will pass before the entire truth emerges. That, clearly, is what the Government wants.
But, whereas surely the Republic can survive the consequences of Rodriguez’s allegations being disproved, what if Rodriguez is right? What if those who are known to have lied, are known to have had an agenda that would profit them and be advanced by terror attacks that could be blamed on Al Qaeda, and are known to have benefited, politically and in many cases financially from the “War on Terror” and the wars launched in Afghanistan and Iraq — what if they are guilty of those acts as are alleged in the complaint? Can the Republic survive, if these individuals are enabled to escape disclosure and accountability, for what Rodriguez alleges they have done?
Plaintiff respectfully prays that the conscience of this Court be haunted by the question he has posed: can America survive, as the legitimate heir of what was bequeathed to us by Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, if no place will be found to establish the entire truth of 9-11, and who was truly responsible?
PROF. GRIFFIN DEMONSTRATES THE FLIMSINESS OF THE GOVERNMENT’S “OFFICIAL” CONSPIRACY, AND THAT THE 9-11 COMMISSION REPORT IS A POLITICALLY-DRIVEN FALSIFICATION
Since the complaint herein was drafted, there has appeared a work characterized by Burns H. Weston, Professor of Law Emeritus at the University of Iowa, a “must read” for “anyone serious about combating terrorism, let alone upholding constitutional democracy:” The 9-11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions by David Ray Griffin (Olive Branch Press, 2004) (hereinafter, “Griffin”). Because the merits, inescapably, will color what disposition this Court makes, and in light of the signal constitutional importance of this case, affiant takes the liberty of summarizing several sub-parts of the 9-11 Commission Report (“Report” or “Kean-Zelikow Report”) dissected by Mr. Griffin.
THE REPORT AND THE NINETEEN ALLEGED ARAB HIJACKERS
First, the Kean-Zelikow Report fails to address serious issues concerning the 19 alleged hijackers. They include, among other things, the following:
Flight manifests showing any of these 19 men to have been on the planes have never been produced, and none of their names appear on those manifests released by the airlines to the public;
We are not told how, apart from proof such as would appear from flight manifests, the 19 alleged hijackers could have been so speedily identified, and their names and pictures posted to the internet; The Report does not refute (nor even mention) reports that at least six [6] of the 19 accused hijackers are alive; While the hijackers are depicted as devout, even fanatical Muslims, willing to commit suicide for their faith, the Report does not address reports that Mohamed Atta (the alleged ringleader) and others drank alcohol, purchased lap dances, ate pork, and otherwise behaved quite unlike devout Muslims; While the Report notes that Hani Hanjour, allegedly the hijacker pilot who steered Flight 77 into the Pentagon, was reputed to be a “terrible” pilot, it fails to explain how he supposedly performed acrobatic maneuvers in a less-than-nimble passenger aircraft, executing a 330-degree turn while descending through 2,200 feet, and then managing to bring the aircraft into the West Wing of the Pentagon, almost horizontally, at tree-top level;
There is, astonishingly, no publicly-available evidence that any of the nineteen accused terrorists were on any of the doomed flights.
THE REPORT FAILS TO ANSWER QUESTIONS CONCERNING THE UNPRECEDENTED COLLAPSES OF THREE SKYSCRAPERS AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER COMPLEX IN NEW YORK
The Report fails to address, or it falsifies or distorts, the following matters in respect of the collapse of World Trade Center Buildings 1 and 2 (respectively, the North Tower and the South Tower) and Building 7: The collapse of all three [3] WTC buildings was attributed to fire, but fire has never (before or since) brought down steel-frame high rise buildings anywhere in the world;
While media reports depicted the WTC fires as “infernos,” in reality the fires (especially those in the South Tower and Building 7) were not very extensive, hot, or long-lasting;
It is incongruous, to say the least, that the South Tower, struck obliquely by an aircraft (with the result that much of the plane’s fuel exploded in a fireball outside of the building) collapsed well in advance of the North Tower, which was struck first, hit dead-on by the airplane, and had what appeared to be a larger fire, but this is not explained in the Report;
The Report, astonishingly, describes the interior core of each of the Twin Towers as “a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped,” whereas in truth each of the Towers’ cores had 47 massive steel columns; Although FEMA published a report that opined that Building 7 collapsed due to fire, the Report makes no mention that the principal of the leaseholder on the entire WTC complex (and, moreover, a friend of rightwing publishing titan Rupert Murdoch), Larry Silverstein, stated on television in 2002 that the FDNY “pulled” (demolished - controlled demolition) Building 7 in the afternoon of 9-11, after consulting with him; Although it mentions two aspects of the Twin Tower collapses that are typical of pre-planned, controlled demolitions (viz., that each Tower fell almost straight down, and that the collapse of each skyscraper was nearly at free-fall speed, a physical impossibility in the absence of explosives to take out the supporting columns) the Report essentially ignores that each collapse exhibited not fewer than ten characteristics associated with controlled demolitions;
Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who has become wealthy as a result of anti-terrorism consulting since 9-11, told ABC News reporter Peter Jennings that he was told that the WTC Towers were going to fall before they actually did. Such advice requires an explanation, as it strongly suggests foreknowledge that the Towers would be demolished, as the collapse of steel-frame high rises due to fire was unprecedented. The Report makes no mention of this highly telling information.
Both President Bush’s brother, Marvin Bush, and their cousin, Wirt Walker III, were principals (indeed, Walker was the CEO) of the company that was in charge of security for the World Trade Center, matters reported in Craig Unger’s House of Bush, House of Saud. Investors in this company included Kuwaitis who had aided George H. W. Bush become wealthy forty years before in Zapata Off-Shore Oil Co. Its clients also included two other entities connected to the 9-11 attacks, namely Dulles Airport near Washing- ton, D.C. (from which Flight 77 is said to have departed) and United Airlines. The report contains no mention of Stratesec (the security firm), Securacom (its prior name), Marvin Bush, or Wirt Walker III.
The Report fails also to justify or to question FEMA’s immediate takeover of the WTC site, and the hasty removal to points overseas (in disregard of protests by …..) of the steel beams and columns — even though FEMA is not a law-enforcement agency, and the removal of crime scene evidence is ordinarily a crime.
THE DOG THAT DIDN’T BARK: THE COMMISSION GIVES NO ANSWER TO THE QUESTION OF WHY PRESIDENT BUSH AND HIS SECURITY DETAIL DAWDLED AT A PUBLICLY-ANNOUNCED PHOTO-OP
A widely-remarked anomaly concerning 9-11, and one prominently featured in Michael Moore’s film, Fahrenheit 911, was the inexplicable, even bizarre conduct of the President himself, lingering at an elementary school in Sarasota for approximately a half hour following the second strike at the World Trade Center. It is difficult to conceive of a fully satisfactory explanation of why the President, the Commander-in-Chief and an obvious target for terrorists, was permitted to tarry in a well-publicized location, except if he and his security detail knew enough concerning the unfolding attacks to be confident that the President was not to be a target. Certainly, no satisfactory explanation is proffered in the Report.
While the Report does parrot the White House’s risible explanation that the President was “projecting strength” by sitting numbly in the schoolroom long after being told of the second strike at the WTC at about 9:07 A.M. on 9-11, and cites this “projection of strength” in support of the Report’s attempt to discount fear as the reason wherefore the President did not return at once to Washington, it deals superficially at best with the true question — namely, that neither the President, nor his security detail, exhibited any concern for their own safety whereas — unless the attacks were an “inside job,” or the attackers’ plans sufficiently known that a strike directed against the President could be ruled out — there was every reason to take immediate precautions.
THE FLIGHTS OF 9-11: THE COMMISSION’S NEW, DIFFERENT, AND SANITIZED VERSIONS OF EVENTS
Central, of course, to any discussion of 9-11 is the story of each of the four [4] doomed flights. The Court, and indeed (thanks to a virtual media blackout on the subject) most Americans might be astonished to learn that, from 9-11 to the present, there have been three [3] successive versions of the “Official Story” concerning each of the four [4] flights. Timelines and claims concerning the military’s response (or lack thereof) have been changed appreciably, and the Commission discards versions of the flight histories that had stood as the “Official Story” for nearly three [3] years, without discussing, much less satisfactorily explaining, how and why facts accepted earlier as true impliedly must have been discovered to be false, or sufficiently establishing the new, improved accounts. As will appear below, Griffin concludes, and I propose correctly, that the only reasonable explanation for the Commission’s “revisionism” is the political necessity to disprove the allegation (not openly acknowledged in the Report) that the military “stood down” and permitted the 9-11 attacks to proceed, and insofar as possible to thrust as much blame as possible on the Federal Aviation Agency (“FAA”) while protecting the military and senior Bush II Administration actors.
Although the Report’s “revisionism” in respect of Flight 11 is less drastic than for any of the three [3] other flights, even this account should be profoundly troubling. The means the Commission employs to exculpate the military for its failure to intercept Flight 11 are essentially threefold. First, although Version #3 moves up by two minutes (from 8:40 A.M. to 8:38) the hour at which NORAD was notified of the apparent hijacking, it persists in alleging failure by the FAA to follow established procedures, and an implausible delay from 8:14 A.M. (when radio contact with Flight 11 was lost) until about 8:25 A.M. (when controllers heard someone on Flight 11 say, “Nobody move . . . If you try to make any moves, you’ll endanger yourselves and the airplane”) to begin the process of notifying NORAD. Supposedly, controllers did nothing until they felt certain a hijacking was in progress. Established procedures were to “hit the panic button” at signs such as the flight veering off course, and the loss of radio contact and the transponder signal.
The second, dubious means employed by the Commission to insulate the military from blame concerning Flight 11 is to depict a cumbersome, time-consuming process whereby word of a hijacking from flight controllers had first to ascend a civilian chain of command, before NORAD received any notice, followed by orders descending a military chain of command, before any planes could be scrambled.
The third, similarly difficult-to-believe “fact” relied upon by the Commission is that, for the entire Northeast quadrant of the country (more than half a million square miles of airspace) supposedly only four [4] fighter jets at only two [2] air bases (Otis on Cape Cod, and Langley in Virginia) were available to respond to the 9-11 attacks.
If true, NORAD’s claim that it had only four [4] planes available on 9-11 could only rest on a technicality, i.e., that whereas there were additional assets that might have been called upon, strictly speaking only four [4] aircraft were part of NORAD’s complement. Griffin reports a telephone conversation between independent 9-11 researcher Kyle Hence and Donald Arias, a NORAD public affairs officer. Reportedly, when Hence asked Arias whether there were assets and Andrews AFB as NORAD could have called upon, Arias hung up on him.
Moreover, planes were scrambled from Andrews AFB later on the morning of 9-11, and reportedly were aloft within minutes of orders to scramble. Perhaps the most damning proof that refutes the Commission’s “only four [4] planes, and none at Andrews” assertions is that Government websites trumpeted the presence at Andrews of the 121st Fighter Squadron of the 113th Fighter Wing, equipped with F-16s, the Marine Fighter Attack Squadron 321, with the F/A-18 Hornet plus a reserve squadron providing “maintenance and supply functions necessary to maintain a force in readiness,” and the District of Columbia Air National Guard, charged with “provid[ing] combat units in the highest possible state of readiness.” Apparently, these websites were “scrubbed” or went down not long after 9-11 that, unless one of too many coincidences as the "Official Story" demands that we believe, was part of an attempt to obfuscate the truth.
That there were no fighters available from Andrews AFB is also contradicted by Richard Clarke’s account of a telephone conference call on the morning of 9-11, in which Gen. Myers reportedly told him that “Andrews is launching fighters from the D.C. Air National Guard.
As Griffin points out, even with all of these exertions, the Commission has not quite managed to clear the military of failure to intercept Flight 11 before the North Tower impact. Assuming notice to NORAD at 9:38 A.M., allowing 2.5 minutes for planes to be scrambled from Otis, and transit from Cape Cod at the F-15s’ maximum, 1,850 MPH speed, planes could have been at the WTC about 40 seconds before the impact — if narrowly, still possibly sufficient time to intercept and down the hijacked plane.
What the Commission has to do to explain this timeline away is to report that, supposedly, fighters reaching the scene barely before Flight 11 would have had no opportunity to shoot down the hijacked airliner, because the radar system in use was thwarted by the hijackers’ act in turning off the plane’s transponder:
Because the hijackers had turned off the plane’s transponder, NEADS personnel spent the next minutes searching their radar scopes for the primary radar return. American 11 struck the North Tower at 8:46. Shortly after 8:50, while NEADS personnel were still trying to locate the flight, word reached them that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.
As Griffin rightly notes, what the Commission is proposing is that the loss of transponder signals will make it virtually impossible for the U.S. military to track airplanes. As Griffin further notes, Pentagon websites imply sophisticated radar systems incomparable with civilian systems, it strains credulity that systems, ostensibly able to simultaneously track dozens of attacking missiles, were somehow incapable of tracking one [1] airliner headed for New York City, and it is far-fetched that (as the Commission impliedly wants us to believe) that throughout the Cold War, incoming Soviet airplanes could have avoided detection, simply by switching off their transponders.
As the first of the four [4] planes to strike a target or to come to ground, Flight 11 by definition presents the least difficult of the four to craft a sufficient excuse for the military. Yet, although Version #3 regarding Flight 11 is the least drastically reconstructed by the Commission, it still has given us a chain of events that is far-fetched as to every single link. To credit this newly-revised part of the "Official Story," we must believe the FAA ignored its own protocols, and was guilty of shocking incompetence (for which no one, apparently, has been fired). We must accept an implausibly cumbersome chain-of-command, that made an effective response virtually impossible. We must further believe that the most populous and heavily-traveled fourth of the nation had been provided, as of 9-11, with only four [4] fighter jets, and that Andrews AFB, just ten [10] miles from the capital, and boasting three [3] fighter squadrons in the “highest degree of readiness” on government websites, had no planes at the ready. We must further believe that the military was relying on civilian radar systems, and that the latter had no means to track aircraft with their transponders turned off.
While this account in the Report is the least far-fetched of those concerning the four [4] doomed aircraft, it is hardly credible. Standing alone, the cutting back of air defenses to four [4] standby fighters, and with radar as crude as we are asked to believe was the only system available, ought to have resulted in courts-martial or mass resignations. Yet, there have been none.
FLIGHT 175: THE COMMISSION’S REVISIONIST HISTORY “DISAPPEARS” THE “SCALDED APES”
The Commission’s “historical revisionism” in respect of Flight 175 passes from the barely plausible to the bizarre. In their exertions to refute a charge they cannot squarely acknowledge — that the U.S. military “stood down” on 9-11, and permitted the attacks to proceed — the military, and later the Commission, first had to get rid of General Myers’ embarrassing admission that no jets were scrambled until after 9:38 A.M.
Thus, just days after 9-11, Version #2 (which stood as the “Official Story” until the Report was released nearly three [3] years later) had fighters scrambled from Otis ANG Base on Cape Cod, but — despite flying “like scalded apes” — approaching to only 71 miles of Manhattan when the South Tower was struck at 9:02.
Version #2 of the "Official Story" of Flight 175 had, to be sure, multiple problems, not the least of which the generous 9-minute lapse from the FAA’s notice to NORAD’S Northeast Air Defense Sector that Flight 175 had apparently been hijacked [at 9:43 A.M.] until the planes scrambled from Otis ANG Base were aloft [assertedly, at 8:52 A.M.]. This account suffered, also, from the same infirmity as that concerning Flight 11, i.e., that it strains credulity that fighters could not be scrambled to defend New York, e.g. from McGuire AFB in New Jersey, or other bases at a distance less than 153 miles from New York.
Although America’s major, corporate-owned media have been considerate enough not to worry the public over the myriad discrepancies in the Official Account, and although the Commission could not bring itself to address openly charges of a military “stand-down” — with its implications of possible treason by top officials — it had to try, if only obliquely, to discredit such charges, by closing one particularly massive hole in Version #2. Namely, as skeptics (including Rodriguez, in his complaint in this action) pointed out, Version #2 falls far short of proving that the military did all it could to intercept Flight 175 before it struck the South Tower.
The reason for this is that, if F-15s departed Otis ANG Base on Cape Cod at 8:52 A.M., and was still 71 miles distant from New York City when the South Tower was hit at 9:02 A.M., as the distance from Otis to Manhattan is about 153 miles, that means the fighters covered only about 82 miles during the ten minutes they flew before the strike occurred. That translates to an average speed of only about 492 MPH, a distinctly leisurely pace (and certainly far short of “full blower”) for aircraft rated for speeds up to 1,850 MPH.
Thus, as the Report was intended to be the definitive, and indeed the only, investigation into 9-11, to disprove a military stand-down (and top-level Government complicity) it was necessary to refashion Version #2, although the latter had stood as the "Official Story" for almost three years. That the rewrite has not excited a great clamor for a further (and truly independent) inquiry, is a certain sign of a public narcotized for fear, and by media that ask exacting questions of the powerful only when consensual sex with White House interns is involved.
How then does the Commission “spin” the story of Flight 175, to make it look that it could not have been intercepted? First, in an attempt to paper over the 9-minute interval that preceded the planes’ alleged takeoff, the Commission reports that the two [2] jets sat on the ground, because the pilots had not been told where to go. Version #3 has it that Colonel Robert Marr, the NEADS Battle Commander, spending eight [8] minutes on the telephone with the commanding general of NORAD’S U.S. Continental Region, Major General Larry Arnold, from 8:38 A.M. until 8:46 A.M. The Boston Air Traffic Control Center had told NEADS that it had “a hijacked aircraft headed towards New York.” Is it plausible that Col. Marr’s and Gen. Arnold’s 8-minute conversation, plus the report of a hijacked airliner headed towards New York, were not sufficient to supply the Otis fighters with a direction?
As Griffin points out, the 8:52 A.M. takeoff time is of itself suspicious, as earlier news accounts had the planes up about six [6] minutes sooner, at 8:46 A.M., and the putative pilots, Nash and Duffy, being told “Your contact’s over Kennedy.” As Griffin notes, if Version #3 is true, not only is Version #2 false, but also we are owed an explanation regarding how the stories comprising Version #2 arose. The Report gives us none. The claim newly asserted in Version #3, almost three [3] years after the events in question, that the fighters sat on the tarmac at Otis after 8:46 A.M. because they had no place to go, simply makes no sense.
As Version #3 still has fighters airborne by 8:52 A.M., with about ten [10] minutes to cover just 153 miles, the problem remains that there was plenty of time for the F-15s to reach the World Trade Center before the South Tower was struck at 9:02. Having accounted, however implausibly, for seven [7] minutes’ delay by asserting that the planes lacked a destination, the Commission compounds the unbelievability of its account by next claiming that, even after they were aloft, the planes had a general direction only, and no target. Thus, the Report has it that the Otis fighters, “. . . lacking a target, were vectored towards military-controlled airspace off the Long Island coast,” where they remained until ten [10] minutes after the South Tower was hit. The Report maintains that at 8:53 A.M. the Otis F-15s lacked a target, because: (1) Flight 11 had already hit the North Tower, and (2) the military remained in the dark about the hijacking of Flight 175, of which it now, for the first time, claims it learned only after that plane had struck the South Tower.
Version #3 jettisons, without explanation, long-standing elements of the "Official Story," and the Report makes no attempt to explain away inconsistencies between Version #3, and various statements attributed to military personnel. Duffy, one of the pilots, and General Arnold both were reported by ABC News, MSNBC, and Slate as stating that the F-15s were headed to New York. Duffy’s colorful remark that the fighters were going “full blower all the way” is also inconsistent with Version #3’s new claim, that the pilots, previously claimed to have been barreling toward New York City like “scalded apes,” were relegated to a tame, holding pattern off Long Island.
Version #3’s new claim, that NORAD learned that Flight 175 was hijacked only after that plane had struck the South Tower, is flatly contradictory to Version #2’s official NORAD timeline (which admits notice as of 8:43 A.M.) It is also belied by a Toronto Star account of a conversation between Captain Michael Jellinek, a Canadian officer who, on 9-11, was overseeing NORAD’s headquarters in Colorado, and NEADS. According to the Star, Jellinek was on the telephone with NEADS when he saw Flight 175 on television, crashing into the South Tower. Reportedly, Jellinek asked, “Was that [Flight 175] the hijacked aircraft you were dealing with?” and the person at NEADS with whom Jellinek was speaking replied that it was.
Here again, what the Report displays is that, as expedient to rebut charges it does not openly admit it is addressing (here, that the U.S. military “stood down” on 9-11, and allowed the attacks to proceed) the Commission has simply tossed overboard prior reports (from government and military sources and respected media outlets), rewriting history while simply ignoring the facts it finds inconvenient. Such brazenness is incomprehensible, unless the same is founded on the Commission’s calculation that discrepancies so striking as to discredit the Report will be under-reported (or unreported) by the media, that the public at large is too stunned by ongoing wars and by threats of an influenza pandemic or a “dirty bomb” attack, and that the raw power of the government will quell any skeptics who might gain a toehold in challenging the new, much revised, but still transparently mendacious "Official Story."
As Griffin acidly observes, Version #3 of the "Official Story’s" account of Flight 175 ends up by asking, and expecting, the public to trust one set of suspects in the crime of mass murder. The example Griffin notes is in respect of the planes’ being “vectored” off of the Long Island coast, where they stayed in a holding pattern, according to the report, from 9:09 A.M. until 9:13. Griffin assumes that only about four [4] minutes of flying time was needed to travel from Cape Cod to this airspace off of Long Island, and notes the lack of any explanation regarding what became of the planes during the twelve [12] minutes between 8:57 A.M. and 9:09 A.M., an interval of obvious interest (as it included the time that Flight 175 is alleged to have struck the South Tower).
Griffin notes yet another “hole” in the Commission’s bizarre revisionist history of Flight 175. According to the Report, at 9:13 A.M., the two [2] Otis jets were about 115 miles from New York City, flying in a holding pattern off the coast of Long Island. Setting a “course direct for Manhattan,” the Commission tells us, they “arrived at 9:25 and established a combat air patrol (CAP) over the city.” While intended, no doubt, to assure the public that the Air National Guard was “on the job,” twelve [12] minutes to traverse 115 miles in an F-15 implies a speed somewhat less than one-third of the F-15’s maximum. By 9:13 A.M., Manhattan had suffered two [2] unprecedented terror strikes, but unless the Government knew that no more terror attacks were scheduled for the nation’s largest city on 9-11, the fighters appear to have established their combat air patrol with greatly less than “scalded ape” urgency.
Lest, perhaps, the most yawning hole in Version #3 of the response to Flight 175 go unnoticed, we quote at length Griffin’s telling remarks (at p. 178):
Even if we ignore the question of whether the entire account prov |
