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Author Ian Henshall said that a new 9/11 investigation was inevitable after the official 9/11 Commission left key questions unanswered. He mentioned the aggressive blocking by the CIA of three separate FBI investigations in the months before 9/11, and the lack of any information or explanation for the Pentagon's anti-hijack exercise which was running on the morning of the 9/11 attacks.
Dr Mahmoud Khalaf, strategic analyst, member of the Royal College of Defence Studies and a retired Major-General, said that the complexity of the 9/11 operation ruled out the theory that "Al Qaeda" carried out the attacks unaided. He stressed the huge disparity between all other Al Qaeda attacks and the 9/11 attacks.
He asked why, with military trained pilots, there had not been clear Mayday calls from all the hijacked planes. Bush's failure to return promptly to Washington, media reports that Airforce One was threatened by anonymous military officers, and the attack on the Pentagon heliport, led him to suspect that 9/11 was some sort of coup d'etat.
Even the physical evidence was still in dispute, Henshall said. Government scientists from NIST thought they could explain the rapid symmetrical collapse of the Twin Towers, but they refused to make their computer models available and could not produce any metal samples from Ground Zero showing the temperatures predicted by their theory.
Professor Maher Higazy of Benha Universiity, an expert on combustion, told the meeting that his study showed the total combustible materials in the areas affected by the fires was not enough to generate the massive amounts of heat needed to weaken the structures of the undamaged parts of the buildings.
Ragab Megahid, an associate professor and expert on the reinforcement of weakened steel structures concurred.
Publisher Adel Moallen later said he decided to publish 9/11 The New Evidence because it did not fall into the trap of claiming to know the real 9/11 story. He had been approached by a US diplomat who had urged him to read the official 9/11 Commission report, but he was so shocked at the poor quality of it that he had decided to give a platform to dissenting views.
Henshall and his charismatic translator Dr Sami Iskandarani were interviewed by The Nile Cultural Channel, a satellite TV station beamed across the Middle East. The Nasserite anti-colonialist newspaper Al Araby gave a full page to interview Henshall while the newly launched Al Shorouk gave half a page. Al Jazeera which interviewed Henshall last year as he cast doubt on the authenticity of the latest "Osama bin Laden" video, later broadcast the seminar in full on its streaming news channel Al Jazeera (Mubasher).