David Ray Griffin Foreword by Richard Folk
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THE NEW PEARL HARBOR Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 by David Ray Griffin foreword by Richard Folk CONTENTS Acknowledgements vi Forword by Richard Falk vii Introduction xi PART ONE THE EVENTS OF 9 / 11 1. Flights 11 and 175: How Could the Hijackers' Missions Have Succeeded? 3 2. Flight 77: Was It Really the Aircraft that Struck the Pentagon? 25 3. Flight 93: Was It the One Flight that was Shot Down? 49 4. The Presidents Behavior. Why Did He Act as He Did? 57 PART TWO THE LARGER CONTEXT 5. Did US Officials Have Advance Information about 9/11? 67 6. Did US Officials Obstruct Investigations Prior to 9/11? 75 7. Did US Officials Have Reasons for Allowing 9/11? 89 8. Did US Officials Block Captures and Investigations after 9/11? 105 PART THREE CONCLUSION 9. Is Complicity by US Officials the Best Explanation? 127 10. The Need for a Full Investigation 147 Notes 169 Index of Names 210 Back Cover Text OLIVE BRANCH PRESS An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc. Northampton, Massachusetts First published in 2004 by OLIVE BRANCH PRESS An imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc. 46 Crosby Street, Northampton, Massachusetts 01060 www.interlinkbooks.com Text copyright © David Ray Griffin 2004 Foreword copyright © Richard Falk 2004 All rights reserved. No pan of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publisher unless National Security in endangered and education is essential for survival people and their nation . Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Griffin, David Ray The new Pearl Harbor : disturbing questions about the Bush administration and 9/11 / by David Ray Griffin. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-56656-552-9 (pbk.) 1. United States—Politics and government—2001. 2. September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001. 3. Responsibility—Political aspects—United States. 4. Governmental investigations—United States. 5. Terrorism—Government policy— United States. 6. Intelligence service—United States. I. Title. E902.G75 2004 973.931—dc22 2004001096 Cover images © AP Wide World Photos Printed and bound in Canada To request our complete 40-page full-color catalog, please call us toll free at 1-800-238-LINK, visit our website at www.interlinkbooks.com, or write to Interlink Publishing 46 Crosby Street, Northampton, MA 01060 e-mail: [email protected] Advance Praise for David Ray Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11 This is an important, extraordinarily well-reasoned and provocative book that should be widely read. Griffin raises disturbing questions that deserve thoughtful and truthful answers from our government." —Marcus Raskin, co-founder of the Institute for Policy Studies "David Ray Griffin has done admirable and painstaking research in reviewing the mysteries surrounding the 9-11 attacks. It is the most persuasive argument I have seen for further investigation of the Bush administration's relationship to that historic and troubling event." —Howard Zinn, author of A Peoples History of the United States "David Ray Griffin has written what America may most of all need — a dispassionate, balanced, and exhaustively researched and documented account of the implausible gaps and misrepresentations of the Bush administration's official story of 9/11. Sensitive to the 'conspiracy theory' mind-stop that has disconnected his fellow Americans from the facts of this history-steering event, Griffin painstakingly marshals the evidence pro and con, and follows it where it leads. A courageously impeccable work." —John McMurtry, author of Value Wars: The Global Market versus the Life Economy, Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and Professor of Philosophy, University of Guelph "It will be painful, and disturbing, to turn the pages of this thoughtful and meticulously researched book. But turn we must. For we owe the truth to those who died, and nothing less." —Colleen Kelly, sister of Bill Kelly, jr., who was killed in the North Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11, and co-founder of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows "This is a very important book, David Ray Griffin's carefully researched and documented study demonstrates a high level of probability that the Bush administration was complicit in allowing 9/11 to happen in order to further war plans that had already been made. A must-read for anyone concerned about American foreign policy under the present administration. —Rosemary Radford Ruether, Carpenter Professor of Feminist Theology, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California "This is a must-read for all who want to get past the conspiracy of silence and mystification that surrounds these events." —John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor of Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology and Claremont Graduate University "That 9/11 has become a defining moment in our history cannot be gainsaid. But its exact significance is an exceedingly contentious question notwithstanding the seeming clarity of prevailing accounts. David Ray Griffin deconstructs those accounts with a host of unresolved puzzles strongly suggestive of some sort of culpable complicity by US officials in the event. His book presents an incontrovertible argument of the need for a genuinely full and independent investigation of that infamous day." —Douglas Sturm, Presidential Professor of Religion and Political Science, Emeritus, Bucknell University "David Griffin's book is an excellent exposé of so many of the deeply troubling questions that must still be answered fully and transparently if democratic control over political and military leaders is to mean anything at all." —Michael Meacher, British member of Parliament, and former Minister of the Environment "This book is as full of research and authoritative notes as a field full of springtime daisies. The author raises frightening questions, and the questions beg for answers. One thing we can conclude for certain. The events surrounding 9/11, both before and after, cannot be simply swept under the rug of conventional wisdom.... This book gives us a foundation to discover the truth, one that we may not wish to hear." —Gerry Spence, trial lawyer and author of How to Argue and Win Every Time "David Griffins The New Pearl Harbour belongs on the book shelves of all those who, in any way, doubt the veracity of the accounts presented to the public by the Bush administration concerning the worst terrorist attack in America's history. The facts presented in this book are disturbing — and they should be. Griffin's book goes a long way in answering the age-old question inherent in American political scandals: What did the President know, and when did he know it?" —Wayne Madsen, author, journalist, syndicated columnist "Griffin's The New Pearl Harbor ought to be read by any American who values our democracy and understands the importance of retaining the basic trust of the people for any such democracy to survive over time." —Joseph C. Hough, President, Union Theological Seminary in New York ACKNOWLEDGMENTS In writing this book, I received an enormous amount of help and support. The greatest help came, of course, from the authors upon whose work I drew. Without the work of Nafeez Ahmed and Paul Thompson, this book would not have even been begun, and without the books by Thierry Meyssan and Michel Chossudovsky, it would have been far less complete. And then there are all those reporters and researchers who have published relevant material in newspapers and magazines, on television shows, or on the Web, some of whom were labouring away long before Ahmed and Thompson began their work. To some of these reporters and researchers I am indebted only indirectly, through their influence on my primary sources; to others, I am directly indebted. I have acknowledged the work of at least many of them in the notes. The attempt to discover the truth about 9/11 and bring it to light has been a very cooperative enterprise, one involving hundreds of intensely dedicated, mostly unpaid, investigators. I have received help from many other people, including Tal Avitzur, John Cobb, Michael Dietrick, Hilal Elver, Richard Falk, Allison Jaqua, Gianluigi Gugliermetto, Colleen Kelly, John McMurtry, Pat Patterson, Rosemary Ruether, Pamela Thompson, and Sarah Wright. I wish also to thank all those who took time to express in writing their support for this book. I am indebted to Richard Falk for reasons that go far beyond his gracious willingness to write the Foreword. It was through his influence that I first began working on global political matters. He has been my main discussion partner about these matters. And it was through him that I became connected with Olive Branch Press of Interlink Publishing. I am especially grateful for this connection. The two people with whom I have worked at Olive Branch — Pamela Thompson and Michel Moushabeck — have not only been delightful collaborators. They have also manifested the kind of commitment to this book that authors usually only dream about. I am appreciative of my institution, the Claremont School of Theology, and especially its president, Philip Amerson, and its dean, Jack Fitzmier, for their unstinting support of academic freedom and their recognition of the need for the schools faculty to write about vital public issues of the day. Finally, I am, as usual, most indebted to the ongoing support from my wife, Ann Jaqua. FOREWORD David Ray Griffin has written an extraordinary book. If carefully read with even just a 30-percent open mind, it is almost certain to change the way we understand the workings of constitutional democracy in the United States at the highest levels of government. As such, this is a disturbing book, depicting a profound crisis of political legitimacy for the most powerful sovereign state in the history of the world — a country, furthermore, embarked on the first borderless war, with no markers of victory and defeat.