New Evidence Regarding the WTC Collapses on 9/11

On Friday, August 12, 2005, the city of New York released thousands of fire department files from the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. These files included about 15 hours of radio communications, and over 12,000 pages of oral histories compiled in the months after the attacks. [BBC News, August 13, 2005]

This is a huge volume of new evidence to be sifted through. I have already been able to find though several accounts that support the theory that the Twin Towers were deliberately demolished using explosives, plus evidence of the bizarre circumstances around the collapse of WTC 7 -- the 47-storey skyscraper that collapsed at around 5:20 p.m. on 9/11, despite not being hit by an airplane.

Below are a selection of key quotes, with important points I have selected shown in bold. The full selection of oral histories released on 8/12/05 can be viewed here.

1) Explosions & Other Evidence of Controlled Demolition

The following quotes are from eyewitnesses who describe hearing explosions at the time of the WTC collapses, or whose accounts in some other way support the theory that the Twin Towers were brought down on 9/11 in controlled demolitions:

i) File No. 9110198
Battalion Chief John Sudnik
Interview Date: November 7, 2001

The best I can remember, we were just operating there, trying to help out and do the best we could. Then we heard a loud explosion or what sounded like a loud explosion and looked up and I saw tower two start coming down. (p. 4)

ii) File No. 9110386
Firefighter Timothy Julian
Interview Date: December 26, 2001

I don't know what happened, again, to 216 and 122. We came out from 90 West, made a left, headed east, and right when we got to the corner of Washington and Albany, that's when I heard the building collapse.

First I thought it was an explosion. I thought maybe there was bomb on the plane, but delayed type of thing, you know, secondary device.

Q. I was convinced for week it was secondary devices.

A. You know, and I just heard like an explosion and a then a cracking type of noise, and then it sounded like a freight train, rumbling and picking up speed, and I remember I looked up, and I saw it coming down, and I was able to make it across Washington to the very corner of Washington and Albany. I think it's the south side of Bankers Trust building. (p. 10)

iii) File No. 9110285
Lieutenant William Wall
Interview Date: December 10, 2001

So we were gonna make our way back into the collapse site and we met somebody at West and Vesey, right in the middle by the median, in the middle of West and Vesey, and it was a chief and he said, "We're gonna fall back and regroup."

At that time, we heard an explosion. We looked up and the building was coming down right on top of us, so we ran up West Street. We ran a little bit and then we were overtaken by the cloud and we hid behind a white suburban. (p. 9)

iv) File No. 9110008
Assistant Commissioner Stephen Gregory
Interview Date: October 3, 2001

No. I know I was with an officer from Ladder 146, a Lieutenant Evangelista, who ultimately called me up a couple of days later just to find out how I was. We both for whatever reason -- again, I don't know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down.

Q. Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?

A. No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me. He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too.

I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building coming down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever. But it's just strange that two people sort of say the same thing and neither one of us talked to each other about it. I mean, I don't know this guy from a hole in the wall. I was just standing next to him. I never met the man before in my life. He knew who I was I guess by my name on my coat and he called me up, you know, how are you doing? How's everything? And, oh, by the way did you ... It was just a little strange.

Q. On the television pictures it appeared as well, before the first collapse, that there was an explosion up on the upper floors.

A. I know about the explosion on the upper floors. This was like eye level. I didn't have to go like this. Because I was looking this way. I'm not going to say it was on the first floor or the second floor, but somewhere in that area I saw to me what appeared to be flashes. I don't know how far down this was already. I mean, we had heard the noise but, you know, I don't know. (pp. 14-16)

v) File No. 9110459
Lieutenant James Walsh
Interview Date: January 16, 2002

The building didn't fall the way you would think tall buildings would fall. Pretty much it looked like it imploded on itself. (p. 10)

When the north tower fell down, we were on Vesey heading towards North End Avenue, and it was like, when that building fell, watching it fall, from where we were, it looked like -- I can't tell you how the south tower fell, only from seeing it on replays. That one looked like it really came down pretty straight like it really imploded on itself. The north tower looked like, when it started to fall, it looked like the top fell more towards the north and didn't implode as straight down as the south tower is basically all I'm saying. (p. 15)

vi) File No. 9110035
Paramedic Daniel Rivera
Interview Date: October 10, 2001

Then that's when -- I kept on walking close to the south tower, and that's when that building collapsed.

Q. How did you know that it was coming down?

A. That noise. It was a noise.

Q. What did you hear? What did you see?

A. It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was -- do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'? That's exactly what -- because I thought it was that. When I heard that frigging noise, that's when I saw the building coming down. (p. 9)

vii) File No. 9110253
Firefighter Richard Banaciski
Interview Date: December 6, 2001

We were there. They were getting the command structure going. I just remember we were -- initially we were out by the street and they started having jumpers, so they all kind of moved back towards the parking garage, towards the building, so nothing would come down on us.

We were there I don't know, maybe 10, 15 minutes and then I just remember there was just an explosion. It seemed like on television they blow up these buildings. It seemed like it was going all the way around like a belt, all these explosions. Everybody just said run and we all turned around and we ran into the parking garage because that's basically where we were. Running forward would be running towards it. Not thinking that this building is coming down. We just thought there was going to be a big explosion, stuff was going to come down. (pp. 3-4)

2) Foreknowledge of Twin Tower Collapses

The following remarkable quote shows how one witness was told beforehand, at the New York City Office of Emergency Management based in WTC Building 7, that the Twin Towers were going to collapse. Apparently, then, someone knew beforehand that this was going to happen, or else had incredible foresight:

File No. 9110161
EMT Richard Zarrillo
Interview Date: October 25, 2001

Debris was falling. It looked like birds. There were people falling from the towers or jumping, whatever it was they were doing. Abdo and I went into No. 7, activated OEM, placed calls to EMS Citywide, RCC, to tell them we were there and we were activated.

Maybe five, ten minutes, not even ten minutes later, a rep from OEM came into the main room and said we need to evacuate the building; there's a third plane inbound. That was the only thing I really heard because I said, Abdo, we've got to go, and we made it down to the lobby of the building, street level, met up with Chief Peruggia in the lobby of the building. He said that there was no third plane but we needed to re-establish OEM right there so we can coordinate what was going on. He had already been to the command post, so he told us, and he was trying to release people back to be operational. He was looking for the Fire guy to go back in. He was there with Captain Yakimovich. In OEM with Captain Nahmod and I was Chief Maggio, who is now retired, and another firefighter from the 1st Division. We were really trying to establish OEM and a treatment sector in the lobby of the building because there were people coming around us.

Again, times are a little fuzzy initially for me. A few minutes later, John came to me and said you need to go find Chief Ganci and relay the following message: that the buildings have been compromised, we need to evacuate, they're going to collapse. I said okay. I went down Vesey Street towards West.

Q. You were by yourself?

A. I was by myself, me and my helmet and my radio. I got to the corner of Vesey and West. I found some EMS vehicles. I think I saw Chief Gombo there. I'm not really sure. I mentioned to the EMS people there, again, not knowing who they were, I said you need to get away from here, the building might collapse, we need to leave this spot.

As I was walking towards the Fire command post, I found Steve Mosiello. I said, Steve, where's the boss? I have to give him a message. He said, well, what's the message? I said the buildings are going to collapse; we need to evac everybody out. With a very confused look he said who told you that? I said I was just with John at OEM. OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.

He escorted me over to Chief Ganci. He said, hey, Pete, we got a message that the buildings are going to collapse. His reply was who the fuck told you that? Then Steve brought me in and with Chief Ganci, Commissioner Feehan, Steve, I believe Chief Turi was initially there, I said, listen, I as just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out. At that moment, this thunderous, rolling roar came down and that's when the building came down, the first tower came down. (pp. 4-6)

3) Building 7

Finally, these three quotes deal with Building 7 of the World Trade Center. This was a 47-storey skyscraper that collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11. Yet no plane had hit this building. And photos show it having apparently experienced only a few small fires and relatively minor structural damage. Its collapse, which took place within about six seconds, looked just like a typical controlled demolition.

i) File No. 9110246
Firefighter Thomas Smith
Interview Date: December 6, 2001

They backed me off the rig because seven was in dead jeopardy, so they backed everybody off and moved us to the rear end of Vesey Street. We just stood there for a half hour, 40 minutes, because seven was in imminent collapse and finally did come down. Then we proceeded to pump another six hours. (p. 14)

ii) File No. 9110222
Firefighter Vincent Massa
Interview Date: December 4, 2001

But they weren't letting guys too close. At this point Seven World Trade Center was going heavy, and they weren't letting anybody get too close. Everybody was expecting that to come down.

We hung out for hours. We went into the American Express building. We looked around there. We searched around for a while, but you could see guys were already in there. We pretty much did that on our own because we were right there and the door was there and we just walked in.

I remember later on in the day it was getting close that they were more concerned about seven coming down. We had no idea what was going on on the east side. We were all on our side. On the west side it was pretty clear. The wind was blowing from west to east, I believe.

I remember later on in the day as we were waiting for seven to come down, they kept backing us up Vesey, almost like full block. They were concerned about seven coming down, and they kept changing us, establishing a collapse zone and backing us up. (pp. 17-18)

iii) File No.9110413
Firefighter Tiernach Cassidy
Interview Date: December 30, 2001

Then, like I said, building seven was in eminent collapse. They blew the horns. They said everyone clear the area until we got that last civilian out. We tried to give another quick search while we could, but then they wouldn't let us stay anymore.

So we cleared the area. Our staging area at that point was on Vesey. It was down on Vesey, Vesey off West. We were probably a block up West on North End and Vesey, because I remember Marine 1 was docked right up here, and they were pumping water. They were pumping lines of water. (p. 17)


So yeah, then we just stayed on Vesey until building seven came down. There was nothing we could do. The flames were coming out of every window of that building from the explosion of the south tower. So then building seven down. When that started coming down, you heard that pancaking sound again. (p. 19)


Not to say we weren't waiting, but we weren't. We had other things on our minds.

Q. Why was building seven on fire? Was that flaming debris from tower two --

A. From tower two.

Q. -- that fell onto that building and lit it on fire?

A. Correct.

Q. Because it really got going, that building seven. I saw it late in the day, and like the first seven floors were on fire. It looked like heavy fire on seven floors.

A. It was fully engulfed. That whole building -- there were pieces of tower two in building seven and the corners of the building missing and whatnot. But just looking up at it from ground level, however many stories it was, 40-some-odd, you could see the flames going straight through from one side of the building to the other. That's an entire block.

Q. I wonder what was burning in there. What do you think was burning? It's an office building. There's not a lot of wood in there.

A. You figure, that jet fuel, that explosion that hit, everything just came out. Remember that explosion? It was massive, that fireball. That jet fuel just –

Q. It was jet fuel, yeah. That must have been where it landed. That's probably where a lot of the jet fuel went.

A. A 25,000 gallon tank think it had?

Q. It had to go somewhere. All right. Is that about it?

A. Yeah.

Q. That's good. (pp. 21-23)

What is remarkable about this final account is that it is so obviously false. Photos clearly show that there was no "heavy fire," like Cassidy describes. How then could he claim this? Was he mistaking another building--one that really did suffer major fires--for WTC 7? Or could he possibly have been ordered to lie?

Is the "Mastermind" of the London Bombings an MI6 Agent?

The Observer, on Sunday July 31, 2005, reported that Haroon Rashid Aswat--a man originally named as the mastermind of the 7/7 London bombings--had been arrested in Zambia about ten days previously. The 30-year-old, who is of Indian origin, grew up in Dewsbury, Yorkshire--the hometown of alleged Edgware Road bomber Mohammed Sidique Khan.

According to the Times (July 21, 2005), Haroon Rashid Aswat "arrived in Britain a fortnight before the attacks to orchestrate final planning for the atrocity. He spoke to the suicide team on his mobile phone a few hours before the four men blew themselves up and killed fifty-two other people." Aswat "is thought to have stayed in the madrassa [Pakistani religious school] with two of the British suicide bombers." Furthermore, according to intelligence sources, "during his stay [in Britain, prior to 7/7] Aswat visited the home towns of all four bombers as well as selecting targets in London." The Times said that intelligence sources claim there were "up to twenty calls between Aswat and two of the bombers" in the days leading up to the bombings, with one of the alleged 7/7 bombers--Mohammad Sidique Khan--allegedly having telephoned Aswat on the morning of the attacks. According to other reports, Aswat left the UK on a flight from Heathrow just hours before the 7/7 bombings.

As well as his possible involvement with the London bombings, according to the Los Angeles Times, Aswat was close to Abu Hamza al Masri--the Egypt-born imam of the Finsbury Park mosque in northeast London, which is a well-known focal point for extremists. What is more, Zambian security officials have said that Aswat has revealed during questioning that he was once a personal guard for Osama bin Laden. (Daily Mail, July 29, 2005)

Yet, according to terrorism expert and former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus, Haroon Rashid Aswat is not the man he appears to be. When interviewed by Mike Jerrick on Fox News on July 29, 2005, Loftus made some startling claims about Aswat:

LOFTUS: This is the guy, and what's really embarrassing is that the entire British police are out chasing him, and one wing of the British government, MI6 or the British Secret Service, has been hiding him. And this has been a real source of contention between the CIA, the Justice Department, and Britain.

JERRICK: MI6 has been hiding him. Are you saying that he has been working for them?

LOFTUS: Oh I'm not saying it. This is what the Muslim sheik said in an interview in a British newspaper back in 2001.

JERRICK: So he's a double agent, or was?

LOFTUS: He's a double agent.

Loftus elaborated on this claim later on in the interview:

LOFTUS: Now we knew about this guy Aswat. Back in 1999 he came to America. The Justice Department wanted to indict him in Seattle because him and his buddy were trying to set up a terrorist training school in Oregon.

JERRICK: So they indicted his buddy, right? But why didn't they indict him?

LOFTUS: Well it comes out, we've just learned that the headquarters of the U.S. Justice Department ordered the Seattle prosecutors not to touch Aswat.

JERRICK: Hello? Now hold on, why?

LOFTUS: Well, apparently Aswat was working for British intelligence. Now Aswat's boss, the one-armed Captain Hook, he gets indicted two years later. So the guy above him and below him get indicted, but not Aswat. Now there's a split of opinion within U.S. intelligence. Some people say that the British intelligence fibbed to us. They told us that Aswat was dead, and that's why the New York group dropped the case. That's not what most of the Justice Department thinks. They think that it was just again covering up for this very publicly affiliated guy with Al-Muhajiroun. He was a British intelligence plant. So all of a sudden he disappears. He's in South Africa. We think he's dead; we don't know he's down there. Last month the South African Secret Service come across the guy. He's alive.

JERRICK: Yeah, now the CIA says, oh he's alive. Our CIA says OK let's arrest him. But the Brits say no again?

LOFTUS: The Brits say no. Now at this point, two weeks ago, the Brits know that the CIA wants to get a hold of Haroon. So what happens? He takes off again, goes right to London. He isn't arrested when he lands, he isn't arrested when he leaves.

JERRICK: Even though he's on a watch list.

LOFTUS: He's on the watch list. The only reason he could get away with that was if he was working for British intelligence. He was a wanted man.

You can watch the video clip of this interview here.

If Loftus is correct then the man who was thought to be the mastermind of the London bombings was a British agent!

As Loftus mentioned, British authorities were unwilling for Aswat to be apprehended by U.S. authorities just weeks before the London bombings. CNN described (July 28, 2005) that about a month before 7/7:

U.S. authorities wanted to capture Aswat, who was then in South Africa, and question him about a 1999 plot to establish a "jihad training camp" in Bly, Oregon.

According to the sources, U.S. officials had located Aswat in South Africa weeks before the July 7 attacks that killed 52 bus and subway travelers and the four bombers.

U.S. authorities had asked South Africa if they could take Aswat into custody. South Africa relayed the request to Britain, but authorities there balked because he was a British citizen, the sources said. While the debate was ongoing, Aswat slipped away.

Could this again be because he is an MI6 agent?

This appears scandalous. British authorities, however, are now trying to play down the significance of Aswat in relation to the London bombings. As The Guardian reported (August 1, 2005), "Counter-terrorism officials said Mr Aswat was 'of interest' to them, but there was no evidence linking him either to the July 7 or July 21 attacks. They are irritated by repeated suggestions in the US that he was connected to the bombings. They described Mr Aswat as 'a separate individual of interest in his own right'."

I guess the reports of him being the possible "mastermind" of the London bombings, and speaking by phone to two of the alleged bombers as many as twenty times in the days leading up to July 7, must simply be mistaken. Right?

The Ever-Changing Story of 7/7

Writing in the Times, Matthew Parris gives a perceptive account of the increasing number of apparently erroneous stories that have been reported by the media, as to the truth behind the 7/7 London bombings. He says, "The media betray a sort of sheepish wish to 'move on' from an erroneous report, hoping that their audience will not notice. Rather than acknowledge this, they publish a new report, leaving us to compare it with what had previously been said -- and draw our own conclusions."

For example:

Immediately after July 7 it was prominently reported that the explosions "bore all the hallmarks" of the use of a type of high-grade military explosive whose presence would indicate a sophisticated international dimension to the bombings. We were alerted to a likely al-Qaeda link. Then the news went silent. Then it was announced that tests showed the explosive to be of a home-made (or home-makeable) kind that al-Qaeda were known to know about from the internet. Then that story, too, seemed to fizzle out.

What was going on here? Parris comments, "I have seen no explanation of how the initial assessment of the type of explosive could have been the reverse of the truth, and no acknowledgement of error from those who made it. Nor has the al-Qaeda/internet angle been followed up." He goes on to list yet more of these stories that we have all heard, about who and what was behind the attacks, that are quickly found to be incorrect, yet no explanation is given for the error:

• Immediately after the first bombing, a report was splashed that two people had been arrested trying to leave Heathrow. The later report that they had been released without charge appeared as little more than a footnote.
• A few days after that, much was made of the arrest in Egypt of a British Muslim whom the less-scrupulous news reports called a "chemist" (he is a biochemist). There was talk of British agents attending (or joining) his interrogation in Cairo. A statement from the Egyptian authorities denying that they had linked him to the bombing or that he was on their list of al-Qaeda suspects, did receive momentary attention -- and then the story seemed to die. I do not know what has happened to it, or him.
• Then there were some big headlines about an alleged "al-Qaeda operative" who had "slipped" into Britain, and slipped out -- just before the bombings. But it transpired that he was low on our counter-terrorist services' lists of security threats -- and that story, too, has disappeared.
• Then there was an arrest in Pakistan of an alleged "al-Qaeda mastermind", about which reports have become increasingly confused, dropping from their early position as leading news items. I do not know where we are now on these reports. If I understood them correctly, what helped to trace this mastermind were records of calls made to him by all, or some, of the four July 7 bombers from their mobile phones.

Herein lies a crucial question, though. As Matthew Parris asks, "why did the bombers not take the elementary precaution of phoning the mastermind from a telephone box? Just how master was this mind? Is it not a curious way of operating a terrorist network, if the terrorists are to call their mastermind on their mobile phones, then take the phones with them on their bombing spree?" One might wonder whether these supposed "bombers" really were members of a terrorist network. Could it be that they were somehow being set up to leave a trail of evidence that, in retrospect, would make it appear as if they had been members of such a network?

What is also noticeable is that "[e]ach report, when first we read it, accentuated the impression that we face a formidable, capable, extensive and well-organised terrorist movement, with important links abroad, and that is almost certainly being masterminded from abroad." Then the report turns out to be untrue, and is quickly and discreetly forgotten.

Is it just me, or does anybody else feel that we are being subjected to a propaganda operation ... and a cover-up?

Survivor Account Casts Doubt Upon Official 7/7 Story

What seems at first like just another eyewitness account by a survivor of the 7/7 London bombings actually calls into question the entire official story.

An article in the Cambridge Evening News describes how Bruce Lait--a dance teacher from Cambridge--and his dance partner Crystal Main, were sitting nearest to the bomb that exploded in a train near Aldgate East station at the time it went off. Lait recalls that the carriage he was in had about 20-25 people in it. He says, "I remember an Asian guy, there was a white guy with tracksuit trousers and a baseball cap, and there were two old ladies sitting opposite me." However, no description of any Arab with a rucksack.

What is most interesting is Lait's description of being helped out of the carriage after the blast. A police man pointed out to him where the bomb had been: "The policeman said 'mind that hole, that's where the bomb was'. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag."

To summarize, then:

• The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train.
• They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don't remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag.

Now, if Bruce Lait is being honest and his memory serves him correctly, then this account pretty much disproves the official theory about Arab suicide bombers. So what really happened?

Multiple Bombings in London on 7 July, 2005

On Thursday 7 July, 2005, four bombs were detonated across London, three of them going off almost simultaneously on underground trains at around 8.51 a.m. The fourth exploded on a double-decker bus at around 9.47 a.m. At least 55 people were killed and 700 injured in the attacks. The attacks are being blamed on al-Qaeda.

However, within a few days of the attacks, several oddities about the events of that morning had already been identified by various websites and blogs. Questions were already being asked about who was really responsible for the attacks. Was it al-Qaeda, or was it something more sinister?

At shortly after 5 p.m. on the day of the attacks, BBC Radio 5 Live interviewed a man named Peter Power, who is a former senior Scotland Yard official and now the managing director of a security firm called Visor Consultants. Here is what Power said:

POWER: At half past nine this morning we were actually running an exercise for a company of over a thousand people in London based on simultaneous bombs going off precisely at the railway stations where it happened this morning, so I still have the hairs on the back of my neck standing upright.
HOST: To get this quite straight, you were running an exercise to see how you would cope with this and it happened while you were running the exercise?
POWER: Precisely, and it was about half past nine this morning, we planned this for a company and for obvious reasons I don't want to reveal their name but they're listening and they'll know it. And we had a room full of crisis managers for the first time they'd met and so within five minutes we made a pretty rapid decision that this is the real one and so we went through the correct drills of activating crisis management procedures to jump from slow time to quick time thinking and so on.

You can listen to a clip of this interview here.

Peter Power also discussed the training exercise that day on ITV. You can watch the clip here.

And a couple of days later, he again mentioned it when he appeared on Canadian television. (Clip here.)

This is certainly an extraordinary coincidence, to say the very least.

Furthermore, it has been reported that just three months ago, at the start of April 2005, a massive international training exercise was held, called "Atlantic Blue." On the day of the bombings, the Scotsman reported one official saying, "One small positive is that we ran a scenario almost exactly like this one just a few months back." The article continued: "That exercise, codenamed Atlantic Blue, involved planning for terrorist attacks on transport networks that coincided with a major international summit."

As it happens, the London bombings coincided with a major international summit: the G8, which was taking place in Gleneagles Scotland.

The Observer describes more details of Atlantic Blue: "A massive anti-terror exercise [was] carried out last April to find out how safe London's transport systems were from attack." Amongst other situations, this exercise included "'bombs' being placed on buses and explosives left on the London underground."

Another remarkable coincidence.

In his book 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, Webster Tarpley makes the following claim:

Staff exercises or command exercises are perfect for a rogue network which is forced to conduct its operations using the same communications and computer systems used by other officers who are not necessarily party to the illegal operation, coup or provocation as it may be. A putschist officer may be working at a console next to another officer who is not in on the coup, and who might indeed oppose it if he knew about it. The putschist’s behavior is suspicious: what the hell is he doing? The loyal officer looks over and asks the putschist about it. The putschist cites a staff maneuver for which he is preparing. The loyal officer concludes that the putschist’s activities are part of an officially sanctioned drill, and his suspicions are allayed. The putschist may even explain that participation in the staff exercise requires a special security clearance which the loyal officer does not have. The conversation ends, and the putschist can go on with his treasonous work.

(Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA. Joshua Tree: Progressive Press, 2005, pp. 204-205.)

Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson make a similar allegation:

The exercise fulfils several different goals. It acts as a cover for the small compartamentalized government terrorists to carry out their operation without the larger security services becoming aware of what they're doing, and, more importantly, if they get caught during the attack or after with any incriminating evidence they can just claim that they were just taking part in the exercise.

Anyone who has researched the events of 9/11 will also know that there were a number of military training exercises taking place over the northeast U.S. at the exact same time as the attacks occurred. What a coincidence that such a similar thing appears to have happened in the UK when it too suffered an "al-Qaeda" terrorist attack.

There are other oddities about the 7/7 bombings. For example, early on in the day, the Associated Press reported:

British police told the Israeli Embassy in London minutes before Thursday's explosions that they had received warnings of possible terror attacks in the city, a senior Israeli official said. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had planned to attend an economic conference in a hotel over the subway stop where one of the blasts occurred, and the warning prompted him to stay in his hotel room instead, government officials said. Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom said he wasn't aware of any Israeli casualties. Just before the blasts, Scotland Yard called the security officer at the Israeli Embassy to say they had received warnings of possible attacks, the official said.

Unsurprisingly, this was quickly denied. According to the Jerusalem Post:

The Foreign Ministry, and Israeli embassy officials at the highest levels, totally rejected the report. What one source did note, however, was that Finance Minister Binyamin Netanyahu received a call from British police soon after the first explosion, but before the full extent of the attacks was known, because it had occurred by the site of a conference at which he was to speak and for which he was about to depart. After the call from the police to his security staff, Netanyahu stayed put.

Interestingly though, this report also states: "In the aftermath of the attacks, The Prime Minister's Office instructed Israeli officials not to give interviews to the foreign media." Supposedly the reason was, according to an Israeli government source, that "It's not a story with anything to do with Israel. It's a story of international terrorism in Britain and therefore we should be quiet."

Despite the official denials, another news report had similarly stated:

Terrorism expert Tommy Preston of Preston Global in Frankfort, Kentucky, said sources in the intelligence community reported that at least one person in London, England was warned of Thursday morning's terrorist attacks moments before the initial blast. Preston, citing sources in the intelligence community, said former Israeli Prime Minister and current Finance Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was in London this morning for an economic forum. 'Just before the first blast, Netanyahu got a call from the Israeli Embassy telling him to stay in his hotel room. The hotel is located next to the subway station where the first attack occurred and he did stay put and shortly after that, there was the explosion,' Preston said.

Furthermore, the Stratfor Consulting Intelligence Agency reported:

[U]nconfirmed rumors in intelligence circles indicate that the Israeli government actually warned London of the attacks 'a couple of days' previous. Israel has apparently given other warnings about possible attacks that turned out to be aborted operations. The British government did not want to disrupt the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland, or call off visits by foreign dignitaries to London, hoping this would be another false alarm. The British government sat on this information for days and failed to respond. Though the Israeli government is playing along publicly, it may not stay quiet for long.

So was 7/7 really a "terrorist attack," or were the real culprits behind it all a network of rogue individuals working within our own governments, militaries, and intelligence services? It is time for us all to start asking this difficult question and investigating the truth about what happened on 7/7, wherever this may take us.

The war against Iraqi children

An article in the Philadelphia Inquirer (June 2, 2005) describes how, "More than two years after the start of the war in Iraq, children continue to be its main victims."

Written by César Chelala, an international health consultant, the article describes the disastrous consequences of our invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq, which have followed on from 13 years of genocidal U.N. sanctions. So, for example:

In 1991, there were 1,800 health-care centers in Iraq. More than a decade later, that number is almost half, and almost a third of them require major rehabilitation. On the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Index, the country has fallen from 96 to 127, one of the most dramatic declines in human welfare in recent history.

The article goes on to describe:

According to one estimate, 60 percent of rural residents and 20 percent of urban dwellers have access only to contaminated water. In the hardest hit regions, more than 70 percent of primary-school buildings lack potable water. (According to World Bank statistics, 25 percent of primary school-age children in Iraq do not go to school. Ministry of Education statistics state that 80 percent of the schools need repair and 9 percent are in need of demolition.)

Any remaining pretences about our invasion of Iraq having been about "liberation" and rescuing the Iraqis from the clutches of Saddam Hussein must surely now be completely forgotten. The attack was--and still is--a simple act of premeditated mass-murder. And the main victims, rather than being evil 'bad guys,' are children. As Chelala concludes in his article: "Adults play their perverse war games, and children suffer. This is a severe indictment of any war - and of those who orchestrate war without assessing its potential consequences on the most vulnerable of civilian populations."

The full article is available here.

9/11 questions essential audio links

I'm listening to a series of excellent, short radio shows from last year, by a radio host called Scott Ledger, from Tampa, Florida. Ledger devotes one show each to the key questions relating to 9/11. He begins asking Did flight 77 really hit the Pentagon? then goes on to cover questions like Why didn't the Secret Service remove the President From that school? Why didn't our air defense (jet fighters) respond? Reports of explosions at WTC and The science of the Towers collapse.

For anyone unfamiliar with the explosive controversy over 9/11 and whether individuals within the U.S. government were complicit in helping perpetrate the attacks, this is a superb introduction. Anyone already familiar with this issue would also be sure to benefit also from Ledger's evidence and his intelligent, down-to-earth discussion.

You can listen to all eleven radio shows at www.scottledger.com. There are also links at this sight to various related articles and Web sites. Check it out now!

Two years of "liberation" in Iraq

It is two years ago today that our TV screens were saturated with the footage of a statue of Saddam Hussein being toppled in the middle of Baghdad: supposedly a great day for Iraq. Yet who were this crowd of jubilant Iraqis? According to Anton Antonowicz of the Daily Mirror newspaper, "fundamentally, I think there were only about 40 or 50 Iraqis baying for Saddam's statuesque blood as it were, and then the rest were journalists." A shot of the scene from a different camera angle to that we had originally seen clearly confirmed this. ("The War We Never Saw: the True Face of War." Channel 4, June 6, 2003.) You can see a long-distance photo of the statue being pulled over, which also confirms this observation, here.

Neville Watson, an Australian peace activist also witnessed this 'historic' event. He says: "it happened at only about 300m from where I was and it was a very small crowd. The rest of the square was almost empty, and when we inquired as to where the crowd came from, it was from Saddam City. In other words, it was a rent-a-crowd." (SBS TV Australia: April 17, 2003.)

An article today in The Times assesses how life in Iraq has progressed since that day. The article describes: "The lack of progress is obvious. Two million dirt-poor Shia live in Sadr City, surrounded by rubbish and pools of sewage. Residents say that the Americans who fought a Shia militia there last summer have reneged on their promise to rebuild the area." The wife of Naim Gumar--a former political prisoner in Abu Ghraib under Saddam Hussein--says: "I never imagined things could get worse but, since the war, they have." She complains that her children are underfed and small for their age. This is unsurprising, since according to Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's special expert on the right to food, the war and its aftermath have almost doubled malnutrition rates among Iraqi children. Acute malnutrition among under-fives rose late last year to 7.7 per cent from around 4 per cent in April 2003.

The Times article says that electricity in Baghdad is currently two hours on, four hours off; food prices are double their prewar level and rents have often quadrupled; in sidestreets, flocks of goats graze on piles of stinking rubbish; sewage leaks into drinking water and people cannot afford fuel to boil it clean.

If we cast our minds back two years to the day of the 'toppling' of the Saddam statue, the response of the media at the time now seems absurd. MediaLens describe how British reporters reacted:

The BBC's Nicholas Witchell declared of the US drive into central Baghdad: "It is absolutely, without a doubt, a vindication of the strategy." (BBC News at Six, April 9) The BBC's breakfast news presenter, Natasha Kaplinsky, beamed as she described how Blair "has become, again, Teflon Tony". The BBC's Mark Mardell agreed: "It +has+ been a vindication for him." (BBC1, Breakfast News, April 10) "This war has been a major success", ITN's Tom Bradby said (ITN, Evening News, April 10). ITN's John Irvine also saw vindication in the arrival of the marines: "A war of three weeks has brought an end to decades of Iraqi misery." (ITN Evening News, April 9)

Talk about poor judgement.