The 9 11 Commission Report Omissions And Distortions By: David Ray Griffin ISBN: 1566565847 See detail of this book on Amazon.com Book served by AMAZON NOIR (www.amazon-noir.com) project by: PAOLO CIRIO paolocirio.net UBERMORGEN.COM ubermorgen.com ALESSANDRO LUDOVICO neural.it Page 1 Page 2 Page 3 Page 4 Page 5 Page 6 Page 7 Page 8 Page 9 Page 10 Page 11 Page 12 Page 13 Page 14 Page 15 Page 16 Page 17 Page 18 Page 19 CHAPTER ONE The Alleged Hijackers As I explained in the Introduction, the 9/11 Commission for the A most part simply omits evidence that would cast doubt on the official account of 9/11. When it does refer to evidence of this type, it typically mentions only part of it accurately, omitting or distorting the remainder. The present chapter illustrates this criticism in relation to the Commission's response to problems that have emerged with respect to the alleged hijackers. Six ALLEGED HIJACKERS STILL ALIVE One problem is that at least six of the nineteen men officially identified as the suicide hijackers reportedly showed up alive after 9/11. For example, Waleed al-Shehri-said to have been on American Airlines Flight 11, which hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center-was interviewed after 9/11 by a London-based newspaper.' He also, the Associated Press reported, spoke on September 22 to the US embassy in Morocco, explaining that he lives in Casablanca, working as a pilot for Royal Air Maroc. Likewise, Ahmed al-Nami and Saeed al-Ghamdi-both said to have been on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania-were shocked, they told Telegraph reporter David Harrison, to hear that they had died in this crash. Al-Nami, who was working as an administrative supervisor with Saudi Arabian Airlines at the time, added: "I had never even heard of Pennsylvania." Al-Ghamdi said he had been in Tunis the previous ten months learning to fly an Airbus.3 According to the BBC, Asharq AlAwsat, a London-based Arabic newspaper, also reported having interviewed al-Ghamdi.4 The Saudi embassy in Washington reported that three other alleged hijackers-Mohand al-Shehri, Salem al-Hazmi, and Abdulaziz al- Omari-were all alive and living in Saudi Arabia.5 Salem al-Hazmi, who was accused of hijacking Flight 77, "had just returned to work at a petrochemical complex in the industrial eastern city of Yanbou after a Page 20 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: OMISSIONS ANI) DISTORTIONS holiday in Saudi Arabia when the hijackers struck," David Harrison reported.6 Al-Omari, supposedly the pilot of Flight 11 but in reality working as a pilot for Saudi Airlines, "visited the US consulate in Jeddah to demand an explanation" for the US claim that he was a hijacker, and a dead one at that.? In spite of these revelations by mainstream news sources, however, The 9/11 Commission Report simply repeats, in the first few pages (1-5), the FBI's original list of nineteen names, then later gives their photographs (238-39). The Commission's report fails to mention the fact that at least six of the identifications have been shown to be incorrect. The report goes into considerable detail about these six men (231-42, 524-525nn91,98,105,106), even speculating that Waleed al-Shehri was probably responsible for stabbing one of the flight attendants on AA Flight 11 (5). How can we believe that the Commission's report was based on "exacting investigative work," as we were told by Kean and Hamilton in the Preface, if the staff did not even learn, from sources such as the Associated Press, the Telegraph, and the BBC, that six of the men originally identified as the hijackers were still alive? Of course, it is possible that the Commission did know this but simply failed to tell us. But would that not be worse yet? OMISSIONS ABOUT MOHAMED ATTA The results of the research with regard to Mohamed Atta, said to be the ringleader of the hijackers, are also inadequate. As I pointed out in The New Pearl Harbor, stories in the mainstream press, including Newsweek and the San Francisco Chronicle, had reported that Atta had engaged in behavior-such as gambling, drinking alcohol, and having lap dances performed for him-that seemed to undermine the portrayal of him as a devout Muslim, ready to meet his Maker.8 In the meantime, investigative reporter Daniel Hopsicker has reported that while Atta was in Florida, he lived with a prostitute, drank heavily, used cocaine, and ate pork chops.9 The 9/11 Commission Report, however, fails to mention any of these reports. It instead portrays Atta as not only religious but as having become "fanatically so" (161). Although the Commission mentions that Atta met other operatives in Las Vegas shortly before 9/11, it says that it saw "no credible evidence explaining why, on this occasion and others, the operatives flew to or met in Las Vegas" (248). However, according to a Wall Street Journal editorial: Page 21 CHAPTER ONE 21 In Florida, several of the hijackers-including reputed ringleader Mohamed Atta-spent $200 to $300 each on lap dances in the Pink Pony strip club.... [I]n Las Vegas, at least six of the hijackers spent time living it up on the Strip on various occasions between May and August. I" Are we to conclude that the 9/ 11 Commissioners knew of this report but did not mention it simply because they did not consider it "credible"? Or did the staff, in spite of its reputed extensive research, not learn of this and the similar reports in Newsweek and the San Francisco Chronicle? Or did the Commissioners deliberately fail to mention reports that would cast doubt on the official portrayal of Atta and the other alleged hijackers as devout Muslims? The official story about Atta is thrown even further into question by indications that materials pointing to his role in the hijacking were intended to be found. Two of Atta's bags, which failed to get loaded onto Flight 11, contained flight simulation manuals for Boeing airplanes, a copy of the Koran, a religious cassette tape, a note to other hijackers about mental preparation, and Atta's will, passport, and international driver's license. I I But why would Atta have intended to take such things on a plane he expected to he totally destroyed? Seymour Hersh later wrote in the New Yorker that many of the investigators believe that some of the initial clues that were uncovered about the terrorists' identities and preparations, such as flight manuals, were meant to be found. A former high-level intelligence official told me, "Whatever trail was left was left deliberately-for the FBI to chase.""2 The 9/ 11 Commissioners, however, do not even mention the strangeness of all this. Did they simply assume that it would not have occurred to Atta that a plane headed for self-destruction in a fiery inferno would be the worst possible place for his will? RANI HANJOUR: THE BEST PILOT OR THE WORST? Also problematic is the Commission's discussion of Hani Hanjour, supposedly the pilot of AA Flight 77, which is said to have crashed into the Pentagon. As I reported in The New Pearl Harbor, people at flight schools attended by Hanjour had described him as a horrible pilot, and yet the aircraft that crashed into the Pentagon's west wing was shown by Page 22 2 THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT: OMISSIONS AND DISIORTIONS neither Cheney, his Secret Service agents, nor the military liaison in the PEOC reported this information to the Pentagon. But that, of course, would not do. So the contradiction stands. Moreover, besides the fact that the Commission's account contradicts press reports from the time and the testimony of the Bush administration's secretary of transportation, it contains an even more serious problem: It contradicts itself. On the one hand, the Kean-Zelikow Commission tells us that the one or two minutes" gave the Pentagon only sufficient time to get the previously unidentified aircraft identified. After the Pentagon learned about this unidentified aircraft at 9:36, it reportedly ordered an unarmed military C-130H cargo airplane that was already in the air "to identify and follow the suspicious aircraft." After which: The C-130H pilot spotted it, identified it as a Boeing 757, attempted to follow its path, and at 9:38, seconds after impact, reported to the control tower: `looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon sir."' (25-26) This element of its narrative is important, of course, because it, if true, would refute the allegation that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was not a Boeing 757. Useful as it may be, however, this account seems difficult to reconcile with what we had been told earlier. As saw in Chapter 1, the Commission repeated the well-known report about the amazing maneuver made by the aircraft before it struck the Pentagon. In this account, it was at 9:34-not 9:36-that the Secret Service got word from the airport about an unidentified aircraft. 330-degree turn. At the end of the turn, it was descending through 2,200 feet" (9). The report does underplay the difficulty of the maneuver somewhat by saying that the pilot "then advanced the throttles to maximum power and dove towards the Pentagon" (9) In reality, the aircraft, rather than hitting the Pentagon from above, as it would had it "dove," came in almost horizontally, having approached the west wing from tree-top level.