popular mechanics' assault on 911

8/15/2019 Popular Mechanics' Assault on 911

1/19

The eye-catching headline on the issue's

cover is "9/11 LIES", with "DEBUNKING"

and "Conspiracy Theorists" being much

smaller. Is this a subconscious appeal to

peoples' suspicions that the official story is

a lie?

9-11Research essays

NOTE: This critique served as a mockup for an print article that appeared in Issue 10 of Global Outlookmagazine.

It examines the feature article in the March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics: 'DEBUNKING 9/11 LIES'. The Global

Outlookarticle based on this is more detailed than this early version. See these related documents:

Popular MechanicsAttacks Its "9/11 LIES" Straw Man: The original critique of the Popular Mechanicsarticle, first

published on 911Research on February 7, 2005. The current critique grew out of this much shorter critiqe.

Popular Mechanics' Deceptive Smear Against 9/11 Truth: A more detailed critique of the article, including the entire

text of the original.Popular Mechanics' Assault on 9/11 Truth: Sharing the same name as this critique, this longer version served as the

final prototype ofr the Global Outlookarticle.

Popular Mechanics' Assault on 9/11 Truth

by Jim Hoffman

created 4/12/05; published 6/15/05

The Hearst-owned Popular Mechanics targeted the 9/11 Truth

Movement (without ever acknowledging it by that name) with a cover

story in its March 2005 edition. [1] Sandwiched between ads and features

for monster trucks, NASCAR paraphernalia, and off-road racing are

twelve dense and brilliantly designed pages purporting to debunk the

myths of 9/11.

The article's approach is to identify and attack a series of claims which

it asserts represent the whole of 9/11 skepticism. It gives the false

impression that these claims, several of which are clearly absurd,

represent the breadth of challenges to the official account of the flights,

the World Trade Center attack, and the Pentagon attack. Thus it purports

to debunkconspiracy theorists'physical-evidence-based claims, without

even acknowledging that there are other grounds on which to question

the official story. Indeed many 9/11 researchers don't even address the

physical evidence, preferring instead to focus on who had the the means,motive, and opportunity to carry out the attack. I summarize some of

this evidence at the end of this article.

While ignoring these and many other facts belying the official story, PM

attacks a mere 16 claims of its choosing, which it asserts are the most prevalentamong conspiracy

theorists. PMgroups these claims into four topics, each of which is given a richly illustrated two- or four

page spread. Since nearly all the physical-evidence-based challenges to the official story fall within one o

another of these topics, the article gives the impression that it addresses the breadth of these challenges.

However, for each topic, the article presents specious claims to divert the reader from understanding the


2/19

James Meigs, appointed editor

of Popular Mechanics in May

2004, trashes skeptics of the

official story of 9/11/01 as

irresponsible disgracers of thememories of victims, apart from

"we as a society."

issue. For example, the three pages devoted to attacking the Twin Towers' demolition present three red-

herring claims and avoid the dozens of points I feature in my presentations, such as The Twin Towers'

Demolition[2]

The article brackets its distortion of the issues highlighted by 9/11 skeptics with smears against the

skeptics themselves, whom it dehumanizes and accuses ofdisgracing the memories of the victims, and

repeatedly accuses of harassing individuals who responded to the attack. More important, it misrepresents

skeptics' views by implying that the skeptics' community is an undifferentiated army that wholly embrace

the article's sixteenpoisonous claims, which it asserts are at the root of virtually every 9/11 alternativescenario. In fact much of the 9/11 truth community has been working to expose many of these claims as

disinformation.

The Lies Are Out There

This article has a page of

Editor's Notes, The Lies

Are Out There, written by

James Meigs, whoseprevious columns have

praised military

technology (such as the

UAVs used in Fallujah).

Meigs places outside of

society anyone who

questions the official

version of events of

9/11/01:

We as a society accept

the basic premise that a

group of Islamist

terrorists hijacked four airplanes and turned them

into weapons against us. ... Sadly, the noble

search for truth is now being hijacked by a

growing army of conspiracy theorists.

Meigs throws a series of insults at the conspiracy

theorists, saying they ignore the facts and engage in

elaborate, shadowy theorizing, and concludes hisdiatribe by saying:

Those who peddle fantasies that this country

encouraged, permitted or actually carried out the

attacks are libeling the truth -- and disgracing the

memories of the thousands who died that day.

Besides trashing the skeptics, and conflating this

country with its corrupt leaders, Meig's attempts to

legitimate PM's investigation, saying:

We assembled a team of reporters and

researchers, including professional fact checkers

and the editors of PM, and methodically analyzed

all 16 conspiracy claims. We interviewed scoresof engineers, aviation experts, military officials,

eyewitnesses and members of the investigative

teams who have held the wreckage of the attacks

in their own hands. We pored over photography,

maps, blueprints, aviation logs and transcripts. In

every single instance, we found that the facts used

by the conspiracy theorists to support their

fantasies were mistaken, misunderstood, or

deliberately falsified.

This sounds impressive, but the article provides no

evidence to back up these claims. It provides no

footnotes to source its many assertions, and despite

the scores ofexperts listed in its final section the

article cites only a handful of them, and mostly to

refute its straw-man claims.

Moreover, bold unsubstantiated claims in the articl

-- such as PM's assertion that there was only a

single interception in the decade before 9/11/01 --don't inspire confidence in PM'sprofessional fact

checkers. It echoes the discredited assertions of

official reports such as FEMA's World Trade Cente

Building Performance Study and the 9/11

Commission Report. It provides no evidence PM

investigated the attack -- only evidence that it

investigated the 9/11 Truth movement in order to

determine how best to discredit it through

misrepresentation.


3/19

9/11: DEBUNKING the MYTHS

PMdevotes an entire page to this dramatic photograph by

Rob Howard showing Flight 175 approaching the South

Tower. Unsupported claims that the plane was not a jetliner

have been the staple of efforts to discredit the 9/11 Truthmovement for over a year. The selection of this as the

centerpiece image is one of an array of techniques Popular

Mechanicsuses to falsely identify the 9/11 Truth movement

with a campaign cleverly used to discredit it through

associating it with claims for which there is no evidence,

such as the claim that this plane carried a missile-firing

pod.

The main article consists of an introduction and four

sections, each devoted to a topic, spanning six two-

page spreads. The topics contain a total of sixteen

poisonous claims, which PMpurports to refutewhile it identifies them as the beliefs of all in the

growing army ofconspiracy theorists. The four

sections are:

THE PLANES, in which PMuses nonsensical

claims about the jet that crashed into the South

Tower to bury the incredible lack of military

response to the attack.

THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, in which PM

pretends to debunk the controlled demolition of the

Superficially, the four topics appear to address the

major physical evidence issues brought up by the

skeptics (while ignoring the mountains of evidence

of foreknowledge, motive, and unique means

possessed by insiders). However, the sixteen most

prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists

which it attacks are mostly specious claims, many

of which were probably invented to discredit

skepticism of the official story in the first place. Th

article debunks the more specious claims, and uses

distortion and falsehoods to counter serious claims.

Thus the approach of the article is to set up and

attack a straw man of claims that it pretends

represent the entirety of the skeptics' movement.

The list includes many of the same claims that wer

debunked in 2004 by the websites 911review.com,

oilempire.us, and questionsquestions.net.

PMprovides no evidence for its assertion that the

claims it attacks are representative of the army of

conspiracy theorists. It cites at least one website fo

each of its claims, but the websites are notrepresentative of the 9/11 Truth Movement. It

makes no mention of911Research.wtc7.net, the

highest-ranking 9/11 Truth website returned by a

Google search using "9/11". Several references are

anonymous posts to sites that don't exercise editori

control. To my mind, the 17 websites PMmentions

fall into four categories:

Sites with a high profile in the 9/11 TruthMovement that maintain a high standard of factual

accuracy: emperors-clothes.com, OilEmpire.us, and

StandDown.net.

Sites with a high profile in the 9/11 Truth

Movement that post a wide range of articles or

endorse positions without carefully vetting their

accuracy: Prisonplanet.com, Rense.com,

WhatReallyHappened.com, reopen911.org, and

AttackOnAmerica.net.

Sites that I've never heard of or don't focus on


4/19

Twin Towers and Building 7 by advancing a series

of red-herring claims and misrepresenting the case

for demolition.

THE PENTAGON, in which PMattacks the claim

ofconspiracy advocates that the Pentagon was hit

by an object other than a jetliner, while hiding the

position of respected 9/11 Truth activists that this

claim is a hoax.

FLIGHT 93, in which PMattacks the claim thatFlight 93 was shot down with transparently

specious arguments.

9/11: sandiego.indymedia.org, BlogD.com,

ThinkAndAsk.com, ForbiddenKnowledge.com, and

WorldNetDaily.com.

Sites that have actively promoted hoaxes:

911inplanesite.com, LetsRoll911.org,

911review.org, and PentagonStrike.co.uk.

While entirely avoiding the most prominent 9/11

Truth sites, PMrepeatedly mentions the leastcredible. For example, it repeatsLetsRoll911.org

three times.

Before proceeding to its 16 points, the article's

introduction levels more insults at the skeptics --

extremists, some of whose theories are byproducts

of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion

and animosity into public debate. It begins by

asking you to type "World Trade Center conspiracy

into Google.com, and claims thatMore than 3000books on 9/11 have been published-- an incredible

claim.

The sixteen "claims" attacked by the article are

described here under the headings taken from the

article, which indicate either the claim, the counter

claim, or a broader issue.

THE

PLANES

CLAIMS ATTACKED BY POPULAR

MECHANICS

In this section PMattacks four claims, two ofwhich are valid points about the lack of military

response, and two of which are hoaxes about the

the plane that crashed into the South Tower. The

hoaxes bracket the valid claims, which PM

dismisses with 9/11-Commission-like denials.

Intercepts Not Routine

CLAIM: It has been standard operating procedures

for decades to immediately intercept off-course

planes that do not respond to communications from

air traffic controllers. ...

PMdismisses this "claim," excerpted fromOilEmpire.us with the following sweeping 'fact':

In the decade before 9/11 NORAD intercepted only

one civilian plane over North America: golfer

Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999.

This bold assertion flies in the face of anAssociated


5/19

This image, which appears in the

article, is found (with the same red

oval) on a pod-debunking page of

QuestionsQuestions.net, yet the

article contains no mention of the

site.

Where's The

Pod

CLAIM:

Photographs and

video footage show

... an object

underneath the

fuselage at the base

of the right wing. ...

The pod-plane idea

has been used for

over a year to

discredit skepticism

of the official story.

It's not surprising

that it leads the 16 claims. The article mentions thesiteLetsRoll911.org and the videoIn Plane Site,

both of which feature the pod theory. It is absent

any mention of sites debunking the pod claims,

such as OilEmpire.us, QuestionsQuestions.net,

and 911Review.com.

No Stand-Down Order

CLAIM: No fighter jets were scrambled from anyof the 28 Air Force bases within close range of

the four hijacked flights. ... Our Air Force was

ordered to Stand Down on 9/11.

Here, the article falsely implies that emperors-

clothes.com and StandDown.net both claim that

no jets were scrambled to pursue any of the four

commandeered jets. It then attacks this straw man

by relating some details of the Commission's

timeline (without sourcing the Commission's

Report) to suggest that interceptors were

scrambled, but that ATC couldn't find the hijacked

flights because there were too many radar blips.

The article makes no mention of the many

problems with NORAD's account of the failed

intercepts, but relates the following incredible

assertion by NORAD public affairs officer Maj.

Douglas Martin that there was a hole in NORAD's

radar coverage:

It was like a doughnut. There was no coverage

Press report of scramble frequencies that quotes the

same Maj. Douglas Martin that is one ofPM's cited

experts, Maj. Douglas Martin, [3]

From Sept. 11 to June, NORAD scrambled jets or

diverted combat air patrols 462 times, almost

seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from

September 2000 to June 2001, Martin said.

It is safe to assume that a significant fraction ofscrambles lead to intercepts, so the fact that there

were 67 scrambles in a 9-month period before

9/11/01 suggests that there are dozens of intercepts

per year. To its assertion that there was only one

intercept in a decade, the article adds, without

evidence, that rules in effect ... prohibited supersoni

flight on intercepts and the suggestion that there wer

no hotlines between ATCs and NORAD.

Flight 175's Windows

CLAIM: ... [Flight 175] definitely did not look like a

commercial plane ... I didn't see any windows on th

sides.

That the South Tower plane had no windows is one

of several ludicrous claims made by theIn Plane Sit

video, and, like the pod-planes claim, is dismissed b

the simplest analysis.

Like the other image in the article's pages on the flights, this one can

be found on of QuestionsQuestions.net. PMneeded look no further

than the analysis long available on the websites of "conspiracy

theorists" to attack the straw man claims it dishonestly associates with

the same researchers.


6/19

in the middle.

This absurd idea that NORAD had no radar

coverage over much of the continental US is

distilled from the 9/11 Commission Report.

Predictably, the article makes no mention of

evidence that war games were being conducted on

9/11/01 and that false radar blips were deliberately

inserted onto FAA radar screens.

FACTS IGNORED BY POPULAR

MECHANICS

The Hijacker Evidence Void

There is no known evidence placing the allegedhijackers on the planes:

Six of the alleged suicide hijackers turned up alive

after the attack -- a fact that the 9/11 Commission

failed to even acknowledge. [4][5][6][7]

There is no public evidence that the remains of any

of the alleged hijackers was recovered.

None of the flight crews on the targeted aircraft

reported hijackings to Air Traffic Control, either by

radio or the 4-digit hijacking codes.None of the contents of recovered voice data

recorder black boxes has been made public, even

though the 9/11 Commission has closed its doors.

The FBI released its list of hijacking suspects within three days of theattack. Five of the named suspects proclaimed their aliveness and

innocence after seeing their mug shots on news reports. Yet the 9/11

Commission repeated the same list of suspects without even

acknowledging that there were any problems with their identities.

Chain of Miracles

The hijacking scenario alleged by the official story is

virtually impossible:

Several of the alleged hijackers frequented strip

Failures in Depth

The official timeline of the military response to th

attack went through several revisions, all of which

are unbelievable. According to both the 2001

NORAD timeline and the 2004 9/11 Commissiontimeline:

NORAD learned of the hijackings only after long

and inexplicable delays. For example, NORAD's

timeline blames the FAA for 18 and 39-minute

delays in reporting the deviations and transponde

shut-offs of Flights 11 and 77.

Once it learned that Flights 11 and 175 were

headed to New York City, NORAD failed to

scramble interceptors from nearby Fort Dix orLaguardia, choosing instead the distant Otis base

in Falmouth, MA.

Once it learned that Flights 77 and 175 were

headed to the Captial NORAD failed to scramble

interceptors from Andrews Air Force base (just 1

miles from the Pentagon), choosing instead the

distant base in Langley, VA.

Fighters already in the air were not redeployed to

pursue the jetliners. For example, two F-15s

flying off the coast of Long Island were notordered to fly cover over Manhattan until after th

second tower was hit. [10] The F-15s from Otis

supposedly reached Manhattan a few minutes

after the second tower hit, but were not

redeployed to pursue Flight 77, which was heade

toward the capital.

F-15s and F-16s scrambled to intercept the attack

jetliners were flown at less than one-third of their

top speeds.


7/19

bars, consumed alcohol and pork, were rude in

public, and left copies of the Koran behind; yet they

supposedly committed suicide out of fanatical

devotion to Allah. [8]

The takeovers of the four jetliners were staggered

over a one-hour period; yet any rational planner

would have executed the takeovers simultaneously.[9]

The hijackers supposedly enjoyed 100% success in

taking over the flights with "box cutters" in spite of

the crews of the remaining flights having knowledge

of the first takeover.

None of the alleged hijackers had flown jets before.

Each of the four flights commandeered for the attack either originated

from airports far from their targets or flew hundreds of miles west

before turning around.

Stand-Down Implementation

PM's rehashing of the 9/11 Commission's

incompetence theory is absent any mention of the

two methods likely used to freeze the air defenses

A June 1st order consolidated intercept authority

in the Secretary of Defense, requiring its approva

for any intercepts that might involve deadly forceThis order stripped commanders in the field of

autonomy in responding to crises such as 9/11/01[11]

Multiple war games were conducted on the day o

9/11/01. While one exercise,Northern Vigilance

involved the redeployment of interceptors far

from the northeast corridor, other exercises,

Vigilant Guardian and Vigilant Warrierlikely

confused the coordination of response to the

attack.

The site OilEmpire.us provides evidence of five

war games right after the passage quoted by PM,

so the omission of this information is likely

intentional. [12]

Investigation Prevention

The crashes were not seriously investigated:

The NTSB was not allowed to study the crashes.[13]

Recordings of interviews with air traffic

controllers were destroyed. [14]

The 9/11 Commission repeated the FBI's origina

list of suicide hijackers, without even

acknowledging that six of them reported

themselves alive after the attack. [15]

THE

WORLD TRADE

CENTER


PMgoes to lengths

to explain the

"puffs". It quotes

NIST lead

investigator Shyam

Sunder saying

When you have a

significant portion


8/19

At about seven seconds after the South

Tower's top stated to plunge, the event

has become quite explosive. The red

arrow points to puffs of dustemerging

from the mechanical floor, about ten

floors below the zone of total

destruction. If those puffsare due to

the floors pancaking, then what is

producing all of the dust in the

explosion above, the floors containing

the only concrete in the tower?

MECHANICS

In this section, PMattacks five claims of which only

two are valid: that the Twin Tower collapses ejected

clouds of concrete dust, and that Building 7 was

destroyed through controlled demolition. The other

three claims are red herrings and are used to

overshadow the valid claims. PMdismisses the valid

claims -- which are only the tip of the iceberg of

evidence of controlled demolition -- withmisdirection, omissions, and hand-waving.

Widespread Damage

CLAIM: ... OTHER EXPLOSIVES (... such as

concussion bombs) HAD ALREADY BEEN

DETONATED in the lower levels of tower one at the

same time as the plane crash.

The article's lead point in the World Trade Centertopic is an obscure idea that explosives in the

basements of the towers damaged the lobbies at

about the time the planes hit. This claim is difficult

to find in 9/11 skeptics' literature, and is entirely

distinct -- in both the support that exists for it, and

the support that it provides for "conspiracy theories" -

- from the contention that explosives brought down

the towers (56 and 102 minutes after the plane

crashes).

Puffs Of Dust

CLAIM: ... The concrete clouds shooting out of the

buildings are not possible from a mere collapse.

They do occur from explosions. ...

Here PMtakes its claim -- the only valid one among

the four relating to the Twin Tower collapses -- from

an advertisement in theNew York Times for the book

Painful Questions. By titling this section Puffs Of

Dustrather than "Explosions of Concrete", and by

showing only a photograph of the early part of a

collapse, the article minimizes the explosiveness of

the event.

of of a floor

collapsing it's

going to shoot air

and concrete dust

out the window

without explaining

where the concrete

dust came from, or

even attempting to

quantify the amount

of dust that should

be expected in the

absence of

explosives.

PMfails to acknowledge any of the global collaps

features that researchers often cite as proving

demolition, such as verticallity, explosiveness,

pulverization and rapidity -- features abundantlydocumented in the extensive body of surviving

photographs and videos. [16][17] Instead it implies

that conspiracy theorists rely on the opinion of

expert Van Romero:

Numerous conspiracy theorists cite Van Romero

an explosives expert and vice president of the

New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology,

who was quoted on 9/11 by the Albuquerque

Journal as saying "there were some explosive

devices inside the buildings that caused the

towers to collapse."

"I was misquoted in saying that I thought it was

explosives that brought down the building," he

tells PM. "I only said that that's what it looked

like."

The following excerpts from theAlbuquerque

Journal article make it difficult to accept the

explanation that Romero was misquoted.

The collapse of the buildings appears "too

methodical" to be a chance result of airplanes

colliding with the structures. ... "My opinion is,

based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes


9/19

The article features this image of the South Tower's collapse, taken

about 2.5 seconds after the top started to plunge. It was taken by

Gulnara Samoilova, who risked her life to take the photograph from a

vantage point that would be engulfed by thick toxic dust in under 20

seconds.

t t e or ra e enter t ere were some

explosive devices inside the buildings that

caused the towers to collapse." ... "It would be

difficult for something from the plane to trigger

an event like that." [18]

PMquotes Romero denying that his retraction wa

bought:

"Conspiracy theorists came out saying that thegovernment got to me. That is the farthest thing

from the truth. This has been an albatross around

my neck for three years."

PMfails to mention that Van Romero was named

chairman of the Domestic Preparedness

Consortium in January 2001, that his Institute

received $15 million for an anti-terrorism program

in 2002, or thatInfluence Magazine tapped him as

one of six top lobbyists in 2003, having secured$56 million for New Mexico Tech. [19][20][21][22

"Melted Steel"

CLAIM: ... The first lie was that the load of fuel

from the aircraft was the cause of structural

failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough tomelt steel. ...

The article implies that skeptics' criticism of the

official account that fires weakened the towers'

structures is based on the erroneous assumption that

the official story requires that the fires melted the

steel.

In fact, the fire-melts-steel claim was first

introduced by apologists for the official story within

days of the attack. On September 13, the BBC

quoted "structural engineer" Chris Wise as saying:

It was the fire that killed the buildings. There's

nothing on earth that could survive those

temperatures with that amount of fuel burning.

The columns would have melted, the floors would

have melted and eventually they would have

collapsed one on top of each other. [23]

The more sophisticated column failure and truss

PMreproduced two sets of charts from the Palisade

station with different time scales, falsely accusing

revisionists of misleading by showing only the

charts with the compressed time scales:

On that graph, the 8- and 10-second collapses

appear--misleadingly--as a pair of sudden spikes.

Lamont-Doherty's 40-second plot of the same

data (Graph 2, above) gives a much more

detailed picture: ...

Incidentally, the claim that that the towers collapse

in 8 and 10 seconds is contradicted by video

recordings, which show that both collapses took

between 14 and 16 seconds. [27]

PMreproduces these two different charts of the same events. The

graph on the left represents 30-minute time spans, whereas the

graph on the right represents 40-second time spans. PMaccuses

WhatReallyHappened.com of selectively displaying only the chart

on the left to falsely imply that the seismic signals were sudden

spikes. In fact, that website reproduced the following graphic from


10/19

failure theories, advanced in subsequent days and

weeks, are the subject of detailed analysis and

debunking in my talkThe World Trade Center

Demolition. [24]

Even in attacking this straw-man claim, PM

misrepresents the physics of fires, claimingJet fuel

burns at 800to 1500F ... Steel loses about 50

percent of its strength at 1100F ... And at 1800it isprobably at less than 10 percent. Here the article

implies that flame temperatures and steel

temperatures are synonymous, ignoring the thermal

conductivity and thermal mass of steel, which wicks

away heat. In actual tests of uninsulated steel

structures subjected to prolonged hydrocarbon-

fueled fires conducted by Corus Construction Co.

the highest recorded steel temperatures were 680F.[25]

Seismic Spikes

CLAIM: ... The strongest jolts were all registered

at the beginning of the collapses, well before

falling debris struck the earth. ...

This claim -- widespread among websites attacking

the official story -- was refuted in 2003 by

911Research.wtc7.net. [26] Instead of simply

refuting this straw-man claim, PMmakes its ownspecious claim that the seismic records prove that

the towers were not destroyed with explosives:

The seismic waves--blue for the South Tower, red

for the North Tower--start small and then

escalate as the buildings rumble to the ground.

Translation: no bombs.

That the strongest spikes recorded the rubble hitting

the ground proves nothing about the presence or

absence of explosives, whose seismic signaturewould be minimal.

The collapse of each of the Twin Towers on 9/11/01

generated small earthquakes which were observed

by seismologists up to 265 miles away from Lower

Manhattan, and recorded by half a dozen seismic

recording stations within 25 miles. The most widely

referenced seismic charts were produced by the

Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Palisades.

Lamont-Doherty that combined charts with both time scales.

[28]PMfraudulently accuses

WhatReallyHappened.com of misleadingly

displaying a chart that it does not. However, that si

is nonetheless incorrect in asserting that the

strongest signals were at the beginning of thecollapses. If one magnifies the amplitude scales of

the charts, as in the graphics below, it becomes

apparent that a signal several times the magnitude o

the baseline signal begins about ten seconds before

the large spikes in each case.

Here are zoomed-up portions of the Palisades charts for the South

and North Tower collapses, showing 20-second intervals during

which the collapses started.


11/19

WTC 7 Collapse

CLAIM: ... the video clearly shows that it was not

a collapse subsequent to fire, but rather a

controlled demolition. ...

PMexcerpts this claim from 911review.org, a

website that promoted pod-plane and other no-plane

hoaxes before vanishing about the time the PM

article was published. The article simply repeats the

site's claim without directing the reader to where

they can see videos, such as on wtc7.net. [29]

"progressive collapse" of Building 7:

What our preliminary analysis has shown is that

if you take out just one column on one of the

lower floors, it could cause a vertical

progression of collapse so that the entire section

comes down.

Note the guarded language Sunder uses to describe

the extent of the collapse. The reader is led to

believe that the collapse of a "section" could lead to

the total collapse of the building, when in fact there

are no examples of total progressive collapse of

steel-framed buildings outside of the alleged cases

of the Twin Towers and Building 7. [30]


MECHANICS

The (Short) History of Fires Downing

Steel-Frame Buildings

Fires have never

caused the total

collapse of a steel-

framed high-rise

building. There are a

number of examples

of severe fires in

high-rise buildings,

and none caused total

collapses. Several of

these fires were

apparently more

Features of the Twin Towers' Collapses

Beyond

Puffs of Dust

The collapses of the Twin Towers exhibited many

features that can be explained only by controlled

demolition:

The towers fell straight down through themselves

maintaining radial symmetry,

The towers' tops mushroomed into vast clouds of

pulverized concrete and shattered steel.

The collapses exhibited demolition squibs shootin

out of the towers well below the zones of total

destruction.

The collapses generated vast dust clouds that

expanded to many times the towers' volumes --

more than occurs in typical controlled demolitions

The towers came down suddenly and completely,

a rate only slightly slower than free fall in a

vacuum. The flat top of the North Tower's rubble

cloud revealed in the above photo show the rubble

falling at the same speed inside and outside the

former building's profile, an impossibility unless

demolition charges were removing the building's

structure ahead of the falling rubble.The explosions of the towers were characterized b

intense blast waves that shattered windows in

buildings 400 feet away.

The steel skeletons were consistently shredded into

short pieces which could be carried easily by the

equipment used to dispose of the evidence.

Eyewitnesses reported explosions before and at the

outset of the collapses.

Features of WTC 7's Collapse Avoided byPM

PMmentions none of the physical features of

WTC7's collapse that are signatures of controlled

demolition:

The building collapsed in a precisely vertical

fashion.

The building collapsed at almost the rate of free-


12/19

This photo shows the First Interstate

Bank Building fire in Los Angeles.

severe than the fires

in the three World

Trade Center

buildings on 9/11/01,

exhibiting ongoing

window-breakage, large emergent flames, light

smoke, and spreading areas of fire. In contrast the

fires in the South Tower did not spread, and

showed diminishing flames and black smoke. Thefires in Building Seven remained limited to small

portions of single floors.

The following table gives a rundown on the extent

and duration of other high-rise fires compared to

the 9/11/01 fires.

building year duration floors burned

One Meridian Plaza 1991 18 hours 8

First Interstate Bank 1988 4 hours 4

Caracas Tower 2004 17 hours 26

North Tower 2001 1.8 hours ~6

South Tower 2001 0.9 hours ~3

Building 7 2001 3 hours ?

fall.

The building collapsed into a tidy pile of rubble.

These photos show the verticality of Building 7's collapse -- a

signature feature of controlled demolition. The skyscraper was

transformed from an erect structure to a tidy pile of rubble in about

6.2 seconds -- only a fraction of a second slower than the speed of

free-fall in a vacuum.

Who Controlled the World Trade Center?

Facts about the ownership, insurance, and securityof the World Trade Center show that insiders had

the means, motive, and opportunity to demolish the

buildings:

The World Trade Center passed into private contro

on July 24, 2001 via a 99-year lease to a consortiu

headed by Silverstein Properties. [31]

Silverstein promptly secured an insurance policy

covering "terrorist attacks". [32]

In the wake of the attack, Silverstein sued theinsurance companies to obtain twice the value of

the policies, based on the two jet impacts being

"two occurrences", and eventually won. [33]

Security for the WTC was provided by Securacom

a company with ties to the Bush family. [34]

Bomb-sniffing dogs were pulled from the WTC th

week before the attack. [35]


13/19

THE

PENTAGON


MECHANICS

In this section, PMattacks three often-repeated

claims by proponents of the theory that no jetliner

crashed into the Pentagon. Like other mainstream

media attacks on 9/11 Truth, the article gives no

hint that many skeptics consider this theory a hoax,

and avoids the persuasive arguments against it. [36]

Instead, PMbackhandedly promotes the theory

thorough sloppy and implausible refutations of the

three claims. Meanwhile, PMtotally ignores the

many facts about the Pentagon attack that point to

an inside job.

Big Plane, Small Holes

CLAIM: ... How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155

ft. long fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. across?

...

Here the article cites the claim on reopen911.org

that the hole in the Pentagon was "only 16ft.

across", and mentions French author Thierry

Meyssan, who asserted that a truck bomb ormissile -- not an aircraft -- hit the Pentagon. The

article again implies that this idea is gospel among

9/11 skeptics, giving no clue that there is

controversy about the issue in 9/11 skeptics'

circles. [37] The errors section of911review.com

and pages on other 9/11 skeptics' sites have long

debunked Meyssan's wildly inaccurate description

of a 16-foot-diameter entry hole. [38]

PMcites the ACSE's estimate of the entry hole's

width as 75 ft based on analysis of column

damage, while avoiding the more accessible

photographic evidence that a 90-foot expanse of

the facade was breached. [39]

Intact Windows

CLAIM: ... photographs showing "intact

windows" directly above the crash site prove "a

It is counterintuitive to think that an aircraft could be reduced to

confetti by an impact with a reinforced barrier, but that is exactly what

this crash test demonstrated.


MECHANICS

The Undefended Pentagon

The Pentagon is the headquarters of the most

powerful military machine in world history:

The Pentagon was hit at around 9:40 AM, over an

hour into the attack and over a half hour after the

second tower was hit. [40]

The Pentagon is surrounded by restricted airspace,and presumably has missile batteries that would fire

on any approaching aircraft failing to identify itself

as friendly.

The Pentagon is 11 miles from Andrews Air Force

Base, which housed two combat-ready fighter

wings. The website of the D.C. Air National Guard

had boasted that its mission was "To provide

combat units in the highest possible state of

readiness." Despite scramble times of under five

minutes, we are told no interceptors made it into thair before the attack. [41]

If You Have to Hit Us ...

The attack targeted the nearly empty portion of the

Pentagon:

The west wing of the Pentagon was undergoing

renovation, and was sparsely occupied. [42]

Most of those killed in the attack were in the Naval


14/19

missile" or "a craft much smaller than a 757"

struck the Pentagon.

Here the article misrepresents an argument by

skeptics of the official account of Flight 77's crash

by stating that the issue is intact windows "near the

impact area," when the skeptics point to unbroken

windows in the trajectory of portions of the Boeing

757.

PMuses this part to backhandedly promote the

Pentagon Strike flash animation, which appears to

serve the same function as this article: discrediting

skepticism by associating it with sloppy research

and easily disproven ideas.

Flight 77 Debris

CLAIM: ... In reality, a Boeing 757 was neverfound ...

Here the article drops a URL for Pentagon Strike a

second time, in case the reader missed the first one.

The lack of aircraft debris following the Pentagon

crash has been noted by many people as

suspicious, but it is not surprising, considering the

nature of the crash. In 1988 Sandia National

Laboratories conducted a crash test in which an F-

4 Phantom was crashed into a concrete barrier at

480 mph -- similar to the estimated speed of the

Pentagon attack plane. The test impact resulted the

entire aircraft being reduced to small pieces no

more than a few inches long. PMavoids any

evidence as compelling as the Sandia crash test to

explain the lack of large debris, but cites the

incredible statement of blast expert Allyn E.

Kilsheimer that "I held in my hand the tail section

of the plane, and I found the black box."

Operations Center, which housed the Office of

Naval intelligence, a rival of the CIA. [43]

The attack killed only one general and no admirals.

The top brass, including Donald Rumsfeld, occupie

the opposite side of the sprawling building.

Top-Gun Piloting by an Incompetent

The attack plane executed extreme maneuvers toattack the west wing:

The plane made a spiral dive, turning 270 degrees

and losing 7000 feet in two minutes, to crash into

the west wing.

The plane flew in at such a shallow angle that it

clipped lamp posts on the highway over 500 feet

from the building, and plowed into the first floor of

the facade.

The alleged pilot of Flight 77, Hani Hanjour, was sincompetent that he was refused rental of a single-

engine Cessna, yet he supposedly executed

maneuvers that many pilots think are beyond the

skill of any human pilot. [44]

FLIGHT

93


MECHANICS

In this section, PMattacks four claims pointing to

This explanation for

the far-flung debris

has the same problem

as PM's explanation

for the roving engine:

a jetliner flying

straight into the

ground fast enough to


15/19

Whereas PMdisplays a map showing

only a corner of Indian Lake to claim

it is less than 1.5 miles from the

crash site, this map shows the entire

lake, which is up to three miles away

the shoot-down of Flight 93. In contrast to the

previous section, most of these claims are valid, yet

PM's refutations are once again unconvincing. Why

does Chertoff backhandedly validate the skeptics on

this issue when he demonstrates such masterful use

of the straw-man technique in the first two sections?

Perhaps because this section is designed as a

distraction from the core facts that prove that the

attack was an inside job: the shoot-down of Flight93 is entirely consistent with the rest of the official

story, and is thus a safe "limited hangout".

The White Jet

CLAIM: ... [Flight 93] was downed by "either a

missile fired from an Air Force jet, or via an

electronic assault made by a U.S. Customs airplane

reported to have been seen near the site minutesafter Flight 93 crashed. ...

Here the article counters the idea that a small white

jet reported by eyewitnesses had anything to do with

the crash by relating a detailed account by the

aviation director of the company that owned the

business jet, David Newell. According to Newell,

the co-pilot of the jet, Yates Gladwell, was

contacted by FAA's Cleveland Center to investigate

the crash immediately after it happened. According

to PM:

Gladwell confirmed the account but, concerned

about ongoing harassment by conspiracy

theorists, asked not to be quoted directly.

Roving Engine

CLAIM ... The main body of the engine ... was

found miles away from the main wreckage site withdamage comparable to that which a heat-seeking

missile would do to an airliner.

Here PMcites an exaggeration found in a story on

Rense.com, a site that specializes in UFOs. The far-

flung debris field of the Flight 93 crash site along

with the eyewitness accounts make a strong case

that the plane was shot down. PMargues that

engine parts being found 300 yards from the main

site is reasonable for a simple crash, because airline

accident expert Michael K. Hynes, who investigated

bury itself in a large

impact crater would

not be likely to fling

debris skyward. Even

if it did, a light breeze

would have to transport the debris through the air

two miles to Indian Lake Marina, and more than six

miles to New Baltimore, where eyewitnesses

reported descending confetti, according to the Post

Gazette. [45]

F-16 Pilot

CLAIM ... Major Rick Gibney fired two Sidewinder

missiles at the aircraft and destroyed it in midfligh

at precisely 0958

In the final point, the article takes on the allegation

by retired Army Col. Donn de Grand-Pre that thepilot who shot down Flight 93 was Major Rick

Gibney. The article states that Gibney was flying a

F-16 that day, but it was not on an intercept

mission; rather it was to pick up Ed Jacoby Jr., the

director of the New York State's Emergency

Management Office, and fly him from Montana to

Albany, NY.

PMdelivers its closing ad hominem attack on

skeptics in the voice of Ed Jacoby:

I summarily dismiss [allegations that Gibney shot

down Flight 93] because Lt. Col. Gibney was

with me at the time. It disgusts me to see this

because the public is being misled. More than

anything else it disgusts me because it brings up

fears. It brings up hopes -- it brings up all sorts

of feelings, not only to the victims' families but to

all individuals throughout the country, and the

world for that matter. I get angry at themisinformation out there.


MECHANICS

PMcompletely ignores eyewitness accounts that

describe the trajectory of the plane into the ground

unnamed witness: Says he hears two loud bangs

before watching the plane take a downward turn


16/19

the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, states parts

could bounce that far "when you have high

velocities, 500 mph or more." This theory is at odds

with the eyewitness reports that the plane

plummeted almost straight down.

Indian Lake

CLAIM ... [Residents] reported what appeared to

be crash debris floating in Indian Lake, nearly 6

miles from the immediate crash scene. ...

The article devotes this point to the confetti seen

over Indian Lake, which it asserts is less than 1.5

miles southeast of the impact crater, explaining that

this distance is easily within range of debris blasted

skyward by the heat of the explosion from the blast.

of nearly 90 degrees. [46]

Terry Butler: "It dropped out of the clouds." The

plane rose slightly, trying to gain altitude, then

"it just went flip to the right and then straight

down." [47]

unnamed witness: It makes a high-pitched,

screeching sound. The plane then makes a sharp,

90-degree downward turn and crashes. [48]

Tim Thornsberg "It came in low over the treesand started wobbling. Then it just rolled over

and was flying upside down for a few seconds ...

and then it kind of stalled and did a nose dive

over the trees." [49]

Tom Fritz: He hears a sound that "wasn't quite

right" and looks up in the sky. "It dropped all of

a sudden, like a stone." [50]

9/11 MYTHS DEBUNKED

Having slain the conspiracy theory army's poison-spewing 16-headed dragon of9/11 LIES -- PMdeclares

the enemy vanquished, titling its final section 9/11 MYTHS DEBUNKED. On page 128, PMreveals its su

of armor -- a list of over 70 experts that it foundparticularly helpful. The titles and names on this page ar

supposed to back the many assertions the article makes in the main section, but the article gives no

indication of what experts or reports back up many of its key assertions. In fact, only two of PM's expertsattempt to directly refute claims I consider valid:

Maj. Douglas Martin defends the incompetence theory of the failure of military response.

Shyam Sunder attempts to explain the "puffs of dust" shooting out of the South Tower as the result of

floor "pancaking", and attempts to explain the collapse of Building 7 by likening it like a house of cards.

PMcites other experts to counter valid claims without it being clear that they are addressing the issue at

hand. For example PMcites airline accident expert Michael K. Hynes as asserting that aircraft parts can

bounce over 300 yards in high-speed crashes, without clarifying whether he is addressing the crash of

Flight 93: a vertical plunge into soft ground.

MORE FACTS IGNORED BY POPULAR MECHANICS

Foreknowledge

A privileged group acted as if they had

foreknowledge of the attack.

Several people received warnings not to fly

canceled plans to fly on 9/11/01, including John

Investigation Obstruction

The Bush administration thwarted any genuine

investigation of the attack.

Not a single official was demoted or reprimanded

for the failure of the military to defend New York


17/19

Ashcroft then-San-Francisco-mayor Willie Brown,

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, author Salman

Rushdie, and a group of top Pentagon officials.

Over tenfold increases in put options on the stocks

of the two airlines used in the attack -- American

Airlines and United Airlines -- were recorded in

the week before the attack. [51]

CEOs from the World Trade Center attended a

breakfast meeting hosted by billionaire WarrenBuffett at Ofutt Air Force Base in Nebraska on the

day of the attack.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld disclosed on

the eve of the attack that $2.3 trillion in

transactions was unaccounted for, burying the

scandal in the shadow of 9/11.

Complicit Behavior

Top officials behaved in a complicit manner duringthe attack.

President Bush remained seated in a televised,

known location (reading "My Pet Goat" with

second-graders) long after being informed that the

country was under attack.

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers

remained in a meeting with Max Cleland as the

attack unfolded. [52]

Brig. Gen. Montague Winfield reported that "For30 minutes we couldn't find" Defense Secretary

Donald Rumsfeld. [53]

Montague Winfield, National Military Command

Center commander, arranged for Capt. Leidig, a

rookie on the job, to relieve him of duty at 8:30

AM on 9/11/01. Winfield returned to his command

post after the attack was over.

City and Washington DC on 9/11/01.

NORAD head Richard Eberhart and JCS Chairma

Myers were promoted after the attack.

The Bush administration stalled the creation of a

special commission for over 400 days. [54]

George W. Bush initially named as head of the

commission coup and cover-up architect Henry

Kissinger, but he declined to serve to maintain the

secrecy of his client list.[55]

The figurehead chairof the commission would be Thomas Kean and Le

Hamilton, both with ties to the Dept. of Homeland

Security, but the actual work of the Commission

was directed by Philip Zelikow, a Bush

administration insider.

No Evidence Against Suspects

Officials have produced no evidence linking the

supposed perpetrators to the attack.

The December 2001 bin Laden confession video i

an obvious fraud. [56]

Not a single suspect has been convicted for

involvement in the attack either in the United

States or abroad. [57] FBI director Mueller admitte

that "not a single piece of paper" linked the

officially named suspects to the attack. [58]

The Osama in the video released on 12/7/01 by the

Pentagon (left) has a different facial structure that

the Osama pictured in earlier media reports (right).

Conclusion

Others have pointed out that the Popular Mechanics article is full of errors and sloppy analysis. While I

agree, I believe that the article's shoddiness is engineered to achieve certain ends -- such as drawing

attention toward red-herring issues. For example, PMis unpersuasive in debunking the Pentagon no-

jetliner theories and the Flight 93 shoot-down claim. The sloppiness is apparently part ofPM's strategy o

setting up and attacking straw-man arguments: It leaves some its straw men relatively unmolested,


18/19

presumably because they have value in distracting from the facts that conclusively refute the official story

Popular Mechanics may have elevated the straw-man argument to a sophistication never before seen,

wherein specious arguments are nested within specious claims. The entire article is a kind of straw man

because it addresses only physical evidence topics while ignoring other bodies of evidence. Of the four

topics, one is a likely a hoax, and the other is incidential to the falsity of the official story. The other two

topics contain a mix of valid and specious claims, and the valid claims are attacked with false, deceptive,

and straw-man arguments.

References

[1] 9/11: Debunking the Myths, Popular Mechanics,http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page

[2] The Twin Towers' Demolition, 911research.wtc7.net,http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/towers/index.html

[3] Military Now Notified Immediately of Unusual Air TrafficEvents,AP, 8/12/02, http://www.wanttoknow.info/020812ap

[4] Revealed: the men with stolen identities, telegraph.co.uk,9/23/01

[5] Hijack 'suspects' alive and well,BBC, 9/23/01,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/1559151.stm

[6] Dead Saudi Hijack Suspect Resurfaces, Denies Involvement,AllAfrica.com, 9/24/01, http://allafrica.com/stories/200109240325.html

[7] 'Suicide hijacker' is an airline pilot alive and well in Jeddah,Independent.co.uk, 9/17/01,http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story

[8] Manager: Men spewed anti-American sentiments,AP, 9/14/01,http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/14/miami-club.htm

[9] Timeline in Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, WashingtonPost, 9/12/01, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/nation/articles/timeline.html

[10] 'I Thought It Was the Start of World War III',Cape Cod

Times, 8/21/02,http://www.capecodonline.com/cctimes/archives/2002/aug/21/ithought21.htm

[11] CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFFINSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A, 6/1/01,http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/cjcsd/cjcsi/3610_01a.pdf

[12] The 9/11 Stand-Down Why there was NOT a 'stand down'order, OilEmpire.us, http://www.oilempire.us/standdown.html

[13] CITIZENS' COMPLAINT AND PETITION TO ATTORNEYGENERAL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK FOR

INDEPENDENT GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION,JusticeFor911/org , 10/28/04,http://www.justicefor911.org/Original_Complaint_10-28-04NY.php

[14] FAA Managers Destroyed 9/11 Tape, the Washington Post,5/6/04, p www.washingtonpost.com,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6632-2004May6.html

[15] The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions,Olive Branch Press, 2004, p 20

[16] Photographic Evidence of the Twin Tower Collapses,911Research.wtc7.net,http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/index.html

[17] Video Evidence of the Twin Tower Collapses,911Research.wtc7.net,http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/index.html

[18] Explosives Planted In Towers, N.M. Tech Expert Says,

9/11/01, http://www.911truth.org/readingroom/whole_document.php?

[28] Video Evidence of an Explosion at the Base of WTC 1,WhatReallyHappened.com ,http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/shake.html

[29] Videos Show Building 7's Vertical Collapse, wtc7.net,http://www.wtc7.net/videos.html

[30] Progressive Collapse, 911research.wtc7.net,http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/collapse/progressive.html

[31] Governor Pataki, Acting Governor DiFrancesco LaudHistoric Port Authority Agreement to Privatize World

Trade Center, Port Authority on NY & NJ, 7/24/01,http://www.panynj.gov/pr/pressrelease.php3?id

[32] Reinsurance Companies Wait to Sort Out Cost ofDamage,New York Times , 9/12/01, p C6

[33] Double Indemnity, law.com, 9/3/02,http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id

[34] Secrecy surrounds a Bush brother's role in 9/11 securitySmirkingChimp.com , 1/20/03,http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid

[35] Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted,NYNewsday.com, 9/12/01,http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/wtc/ny-

nyaler122362178sep12,0,6794009.story

[36] The Pentagon attack, http://oilempire.us/pentagon.html/>

[37] The Pentagon No-757-Crash Theory: Booby Trap for9/11 Skeptics, 911research.wtc7.net,http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pentagontrap.html

[38] Pentagon Attack Errors, 911review.com ,http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/index.html

[39] Pentagon Plane Crash Photos, GeofMetcalf.com,http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/pentagon_20020316.html

[40] Timeline in Terrorist Attacks of Sept. 11, 2001,Washington Post, 9/12/01, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpsrv/nation/articles/timeline.html

[41] DCANG Yanks its Mission Statement,http://911review.com/coverup/dcang.html

[42] Pentagon, a Vulnerable Building, Was Hit in LeastVulnerable Spot,Los Angeles Times, 9/16/01,http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-

091601pentagon,0,2818328.story

[43] Navy Command Center, The Washington Post

[44] A Trainee Noted for Incompetence,New York Times , p10, http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res

[45] Investigators locate 'black box' from Flight 93; widensearch area in Somerset crash,post-gazette.com , 9/13/01http://post-gazette.com/headlines/20010913somersetp3.asp

46 Cleveland Newschannel 5, 9/11/01


19/19

article_id

[19] VP Van Romero Named Chairman of Domestic PreparednessConsortium,NMT,http://infohost.nmt.edu/mainpage/news/2002/11jan05.html

[20] Wall Street Journal Names Tech 'Hot School', NMT,http://infohost.nmt.edu/mainpage/news/2001/wsj.html

[21] New Mexico Tech Vice President Romero Named a TopLobbyist,NMT,http://infohost.nmt.edu/mainpage/news/2003/18dec01.html

[22] Tech Receives $15 M for Anti-Terrorism Program,NMT,http://infohost.nmt.edu/mainpage/news/2002/25sept03.html

[23] How the World Trade Center fell,BBC, 9/13/01,http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1540044.stm

[24] The World Trade Center Demolition, 911research.wtc7.net,http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/index.html

[25] Fire Resistance of Steel Framed Car Parks,corusconstruction.com ,http://www.corusconstruction.com/carparks/cp006.htm

[26] Speed of Fall:Meaning of the Seismic Records,911Research.wtc7.net,http://911Research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/collapses/freefall.html#seismic

[27] North Tower Collapse Video Frames, 911Research.wtc7.net,http://911Research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/videos/ntc_frames.html

[47] Pittsburgh Post Gazette, 9/12/01

[48] Cleveland Newschannel 5, 9/11/01

[49] WPXI Channel 11, 9/13/01

[50] St. Petersberg Times, 9/12/01

[51] Suppressed Details of Criminal Insider Trading LeadDirectly Into the CIA's Highest Ranks,

FromTheWilderness.com ,http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/10_09_01_krongard.ht

[52] US Armed Forces Radio and Television Service,

10/17/01, http://www.dtic.mil/jcs/chairman/AFRTS_Interview.htm[53] Rumsfeld and Bush Failed Us on Sept. 11,Los Angeles

Times, 8/13/04,http://www.gailsheehy.com/9_11/9_11_art8_13.html

[54] The Great Conspiracy, 2004

[55] Thomas Kean named to 9/11 panel, 12/16/2002,http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2002-12-16-kean_x.htm

[56] Waking Up From Our Nightmare: The 9/11/01 Crimes iNew York City,I/R Press, p i,http://www.wtc7.net/store/books/wakingup/

[57] 9/11 suspect in Germany released,MSNBC.com , 4/7/04ttp://msnbc.msn.com/id/4683144/

[58] Robert S. Mueller, III, Director, FBI, CommonwealthClub of California, FBI.gov,http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/speeches/speech041902.htm

popular mechanics' assault on 911

Documents