Frequently Asked Questions
Aren't those who question the events of 9/11 just "conspiracy theorists"?No. Most 9/11 sceptics do not profess to know what happened, only
that the official story cannot be true and that mainstream media refuse
to investigate. For them the "conspiracy theorist" tag is a smear that
could amount to defamation. The official 9/11 story, a simple tale of a
spectacular but tiny conspiracy run from Afghanistan, is more like a
classic conspiracy theory and is known in some circles as the Official
Conspiracy Theory.
Hasn't the 911 Commission Report proven the official story to be true?
No. The Commission assumed
the official story was true. It was starved of resources and its report
was mostly based on the original 2001 FBI probe under the control of
leading neocon Michael Chertoff, a political appointee at the
Department of Justice. The Commission did however find out some
interesting details which it failed to investigate further, notably the
Pentagon's anti-hijack exercise running on the day of the attacks, and
alleged 9/11 ringleader Khaled Sheikh Mohammed's links with the
US-allied Northern Alliance. The Commission's report is also of
interest to some researchers for its omissions. For instance there is
no clear eyewitness evidence from ground staff that the alleged 9/11
hijackers boarded the planes and no explanation for 20 minutes of total
inaction by the operational leadership in the Pentagon at the height of
the attacks.
Was the 911 Commission independent?
No. The commission was established as an arm of the executive
branch. All of its personnel were long-standing Washington political
operatives from the centre ground, with the exception of Commissioner
Cleland, who resigned in disgust calling it a "whitewash" and a
"national scandal". Several members had glaring conflicts of interest.
All investigators reported to Executive director Phillip Zelikow.
Zelikow was a consultant to the Bush White House and only months
earleir had helped with the appointments of the key security officials
under investigation. He was a close associate of Condoleeza Rice before
and after the attacks and authored the 2002 National Security strategy
outlining the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war.
If the official story was wrong the media would have told us.
History shows this is not true, there are many instances of the media parroting government lies when they should have known better. In recent years the media have become more concentrated and easier to control. There are hundreds of thousands of people in the US for whom state secrecy is part of their job - leaks are rare. The media might have been told that at a time of war they had to co-operate in hiding embarrassing mistakes made by the CIA or the Pentagon. It is possible that secrets about 9/11 are kept from the public by "superinjunctions" where courts order that even the existence of an injunction must be kept secret.
Here are some examples of massive and important media
omissions. The media were told by activists and experts before the Iraq
invasion that there were no WMD to find, but as the BBC's Nick Robinson
put it "we are not investigative reporters". Even though scores of
people from several phone companies were involved in the switch to
massive illegal phone tapping after 9/11, only the New York Times
discovered it, and they kept the news from readers for over a
year. The second set of torture photos from Abu Ghraib, said to be much
worse than the first set, has never been released and has not leaked
out. In November 2009 it emerged that the Bank of England had made a
huge loan to some big banks a year earlier - and kept the matter
entirely secret.
Doesn't the NIST report explain the collapses of the World Trade Centre buildings?
No. The NIST scientists were employees of the Commerce Department
and were not independent. Their computer models were secret and their
report has not been peer reviewed. The report into the collapse of the
Twin Towers makes no attempt to explain the most bizarre aspects: the
speed and symmetry of the collapses, and the total destruction of the
buildings' massive central cores. NIST found no evidence that the high
temperatures, necessary to make their theory work, were ever reached.
The report into the collapse of WTC7 (later in the day) admitted that
the top part of the building was in perfect free fall for over two
seconds, but offered no explanation for why there was zero resistance
from below.
For these reasons, many architects and engineers have come to think
that the only explanation for the collapses is controlled demolition,
perhaps prepared as a safety mechanism to minimise the damage from any
attack like the 1993 bombing or 9/11. Reinvestigate 911 does not
espouse any particular theory of how the Towers collapsed, but we call
for a thorough open and independent investigation.
Haven't leading experts spoken in support of the official story?
No. There are a few vocal experts who seem to appear on most
mainstream media documentaries, and they mostly have close links to the
Washington establishment. Most genuinely independent experts are
reluctant to state an opinion because the evidence is not available.
For instance the FBI "failures" which many suspect were the intended
result of meddling by the CIA, are covered by routine secrecy,
reaffirmed by a policy of refusing, even 8 years later, to give any
information to the public. In the case of the WTC collapses, most of
the steel sections were recycled soon after 9/11 and the few samples
that were retained have been withheld from independent scientists.
Although they said at the time that the samples were adquate, NIST
admitted in 2008 that they did not
corroborate its theory of how the Towers collapsed. Similarly, the
damage at the Pentagon was inspected by scientists from Purdoe
University, which receives massive volumes of research funding from the
Pentagon. Nonethless these scientists were described by the BBC as
independent.
Can't the mistakes or changes in the official story be explained as the
result of "the fog of war"?
Conceivably, but the facts point to deliberate cover-up and
deception. For instance the 9/11 commission determined that Pentagon
officials probably committed criminal offences when they gave false
information to the commission. Official documents show that when people
like Bush Blair and Rice said the 9/11 attacks were "unthinkable" they
were lying: officials had been warning of the possibility of hijackings
within the US in summer 2001, and were aware that planes might be used
as missiles.
They are probably just covering up for incompetence
Conceivably, but again the facts seem to point to something more proactive than pure incompetence. For instance some 9/11 sceptics suspect that the CIA actively blocked the FBI to protect an operation which has not yet come to light. Others argue that amateur pilot Hani Hanjour could not have flown Flight 77 into the Pentagon at top speed at ground level, and ask who did.
Covering up for incompetence would be serious enough though and in
itself warrants a new investigation, because it distorts the judgement
about going to war to deal with terrorism. Thomas Kean, the 911
Commission chair, told the media the attacks "could and should have
been prevented". In that case why invade Afghanistan and Iraq?
The FBI was not structured to deal with Al Qaeda.
This plausible sounding idea has been put to journalists by CIA-linked officials, but the FBI has many decades of experience in long term infiltration of criminal organisations. For instance the FBI recognised the threat from the mafia at a time when journalists were still calling it a "conspiracy theory". John O'Neal, the FBI's top expert on Al Qaeda, was forced to resign in summer 2001 and died in the collapse of the World Trade centre buildings. There are multiple documented instances of FBI field officers being aggressively blocked by the CIA in the months before 9/11.
Aren't those who question the official story further distressing the families of 9/11 victims?
This may be true for some of the victims' families. However many of
them are distressed by the failure of the authorities properly to
investigate the murder of their loved ones. A large proportion of the
victims and relatives do not believe the official story and are
demanding a genuine enquiry, but the media normally report comments
from those who do. Misleading statements in the media cause a great
deal of pain to victims and relatives who doubt the official story.
Aren't 9/11 "conspiracy theorists" a small minority?
Opinion polls show that only a small minority of people in the US
believe the official 9/11 story is accurate. A larger proportion
believe the official story to be "mostly lies". In many parts of the
world it is taken for granted that the 9/11 attacks were some sort of
an inside job.
The truth will never be known
Some cynics say that if 9/11 was an inside job "they" will never
admit it. They argue that activists wasted their time trying to
discover the truth about the Kennedy assassination. However in this
case there is a far greater evidence field, ranging from dust samples
and steel from the World Trade Centre to the CIA officers who blocked
the FBI and the immigration officials who allowed known terrorists to
enter the US. In addition the balance of power is tilting away from
London and Washington and with it their control of the global media.
They may be forced by public opinion to address the huge gaps in the
official 9/11 story as awareness seeps in from abroad and from the
internet. Already sections of the media have "defected" in key
countries like Russia, Venezuela and across the Middle East.
