Saturday, June 04, 2005

Keeping the truth away

June 4 2005

Keeping the truth away

New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer is being accused of stonewalling an effort by a group of American citizens who are demanding a criminal investigation against the Bush administration for alleged complicity in the Sept.11, 2001 attacks.
The group of citizens submitted a petition to Spitzer on Oct.28, 2004 presenting what is described as a compelling case against the government version of the circumstances of the attack. The petition says the government version lacks credibility, has too many loopholes and raises more questions that it answers.
The basis for the petition is indications that senior officials in the government had known beforehand about the Sept.11 attacks but did nothing to prevent them.
The petition given to Spitzer is only one of many expressions of rejection of the Bush administration's "conclusions" about the attacks. Hundreds of websites are carrying different explanations but all pointing to one thing — the government knew in advance about the attacks but did nothing to prevent them because the attacks themselves were part of an American military strategy. The strategy aimed at consolidating American military supremacy around the world and helping Israel's quest for regional domination. It meant eliminating regimes that are deemed to be a challenge to the US, including countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea and Libya (which, incidentally, has mended fences with the US since then, with Muammar Qadhafi abandoning his quest for weapons of mass destruction and handing over vital information about militant groups to American intelligence agencies).
According to those who favour this theory, the implementation of the strategy needed an incident that would justify American military action, and the Sept. 11 attacks offered the perfect justification.
According to a spokesman for Spitzer, the Oct.28 petition is still under investigation. However, other sourcs say that Sptizer has no intention to actively investigate it since it may disrupt his plans to run for governor in 2006 and he is under pressure from Washington against doing anything to follow up on the 27-page petition.
Signatories to the petition include victims and families of victims and first responders to the attacks on the World Trade Centre towers in New York, They wanted Spitzer toc conduct an investigation and present its findings to a grand jury, leading to criminal charges being filed against senior Bush administration officials.
The petition rejects findings of previous investigations, including the inquiry conducted by the official 9/11 Commission, and says that none of these addressed the key charge of possibility of government foreknowledge or complicity in the attacks.
Now that it seems that Spitzer would not initiate an inquiry, the petitioners are exploring the possibility of forming an independent citizen grand juries in order to get at the truth.
The petition says that the attacks were an inside job and that administration officials should be investigated for a series of crimes, including murder, enterprise corruption and obstruction of justice.
It says there was a massive government-supported conspiracy and cover-up concerning the attacks.
A recent Zogby Poll has found that more than two-thirds of residents of New York are unsatisfied with the official findings of investigations and want a fresh and independent investigation into the attacks.
The survery found that 49 per cent of those polled believed high-ranking government officials knew about the impending attacks and did nothing to stop them.
Activists have prepared a massive databank of
information, including specific facts about US government complicity with those who carried out the attacks, detailed timelines of the failure of defence systems, data on the explosions and structural demise of the WTC towers and the Pentagon and Flight 93 as well as a thorough analysis of the government agencies to destroy evidence.
Among the outstanding contradictions between the official version of the 9/11 attacks and other accounts is the revelation that several of the 19 "suicide hijackers" named by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) are still alive.
Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Center.
Shehri, whose photograph appeared in newspapers and on television around the world, was in Morocco at the time of the attack.
In a report carried by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on Sept.23, 2001, Shehri admited that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.
However, he says, left the US in September 2000, joined the Saudia airlines and was in Morocco in September 2001 on a trainng course.
Abdul Aziz Al Omari, another Saud whose name appears in the list of 19, was working as an engineer with Saudi Telcoms in Saudi Arabia in September 2001. The FBI has his passport, which he says he had lost while studying in Denver.
He says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver.
Two other "9/11 suicide hijackers," Saeed Alghamdi and Khalid Al Midhar, have also surfaced, refuting the FBI contention that they were among those who died in the attacks.
These are the four known "suicide hijackers" still alive.
At that time, the FBI did concede that the identity of some of the hijackers were not established beyond doubt.
However, nothing has been done further in this regard, and this is taken by critics as a sign that the FBI had "fabricated" the first list itself and why bother with investigating lies.
A statement made in December 2001 by US President George W Bush takes the cake.
He said he had actually watched the first plane hitting the World Trade Center tower as he was sitting outside a classroom in a Florida school which he was visiting on the morning of Sept.11.
"Atually, I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works," Bush said.  "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on.  And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot.  I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there, I didn't have much time to think about it.  And I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my chief of staff, who is sitting over here, walked in and said, 'A second plane has hit the tower, America is under attack'."
The clinch here is that the first footage of the first plane hittting the tower came at least 45 minutes after the actual incident. No television channel broadcast the attack alive (it is illogical to expect it either). Bush was "sitting outside the classroom" at the time of the attack and there was no way whatsover that he or anyone else could have seen it real-time live on television.
Indeed, it does not mean much except that Bush might have had a memory lapse.
But many Americans remember that the official version of the 9/11 attacks is full of loopholes and inconsistencies and they are demanding answers.
David Ray Griffin,