The Eleventh Day

by Anthony Summers

  18 Romero: Albuquerque Journal, 9/11/01, 9/21/01. Undeterred, skeptics resorted to innuendo. One coupled Romero’s retraction to a “rumor” that he had “since found preferment from the federal government.” Griffin has written that Romero had been “a very successful lobbyist for Pentagon contracts.” “Saying that the government got to me,” Romero has said, “is the farthest thing from the truth.” In his initial comment, he would insist, he had “only said that that’s what it looked like” (“rumor”: Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11: Synthetic Terror, Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive, 2005, 225; “very successful”: Griffin, Debunking, 255; “Saying that”/“looked”: eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 49);

  19 “Then we”: int. John Sudnik, TF, 11/7/01;

  20 “First I”: int. Timothy Julian, TF, 12/26/01;

  21 “There was”: int. Frank Cruthers, TF, 10/31/01;

  22 “The lowest”: int. Brian Dixon, TF, 10/25/01.

  23 Griffin seized: Griffin, “Explosive Testimony.” In his quote of Journal reporter Bussey, Griffin omitted the reporter’s description of the initial sounds he heard as having been “metallic.” He also left out a sentence in which the reporter, amending what he had at first assumed about the use of planted explosives, added, “In fact, the building was imploding down.” Griffin attributed the quote starting “individual floors …” to “another Wall Street Journal reporter”—as distinct from Bussey. In fact, the source makes clear, Bussey is the source of both quotes used (Griffin, “Explosive Testimony” & see source for “individual floors,” above).

  24 formal interviews: published online by the NYT at http://graphics8.nytimes.com. Griffin cited Professor Graeme MacQueen, who did study all 503 Fire Department statements, as finding that 118 of them—some 23 percent of the group—“appear to have perceived, or thought they perceived, explosions that brought down the towers.” Our reading of the actual study suggests it is flawed. For example, MacQueen acknowledged having excluded from his analysis “a host of similes and metaphors referring to freight trains, jet planes and the like.” Significantly, he has glossed over the fact that—even under his own criteria—the majority of the 503 witnesses do not claim to have heard explosions. The authors note, too, that MacQueen’s analysis wrongly suggests—and he makes a point of this—that “fire chiefs on the scene thought the collapse of the towers was impossible.” As the authors have noted, the possibility of partial collapse was discussed by fire chiefs early on, see Ch. 6 (Griffin, Debunking, 76, Graeme MacQueen, “118 Witnesses: The Firefighters’ Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers,” 8/21/06, www.journalof911studies.com).

  25 bangs: e.g., int. Julio Marrero, TF, 10/25/01;

  26 thunder: e.g., int. Mark Stone, TF, 10/12/01, int. Eric Hansen, TF, 10/10/01, int. Jody Bell, TF, 12/15/01;

  27 rumbling: e.g., int. Patricia Ondrovic, TF, 10/11/01, int. Scott Holowach, TF, 10/18/01, int. John Delendick, TF, 12/6/01, int. John Picarello, TF, 12/6/01, int. Anthony DeMaio, TF, 1/28/02;

  28 trainlike: e.g., int. Louis Giaconelli, TF, 12/6/01, int. Paul Curran, TF, 12/18/01, int. Mark Ruppert, TF, 12/4/01, int. Joseph Fortis, TF, 11/9/01, int. Dominick Muschello, TF, 12/6/01;

  29 “You heard”: int. Salvatore Torcivia cited in DiMarco, 188;

  30 “relaying”: Mackey, 75;

  31 Griffin on Kingdome: Griffin, Debunking, 188, & see U.S. News & World Report, 6/22/03, www.controlled-demolition.com/seattle-kingdome;

  32 “produced no”: Mackey, 94;

  33 “for alternative”: Executive Summary, NIST, xxxviii.

  34 “Achilles’ Heel”/“smoking gun”: Griffin, Mysterious, xi; see pp. 97–99;

  35 first known/“a mystery”: NYT, 11/29/01.

  36 “fire-induced”: “Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7,” Federal Building & Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington, D.C., 11/08, ES-3, xxxvi. Author Griffin wrote off that finding as “scientific fraud,” claiming that the institute’s experts ignored numerous items of physical evidence, fabricated and falsified evidence, and ignored a recommendation that their documentation should be peer-reviewed. Evidence ignored, the professor asserted, included in particular the evidence in dust of thermitic material—Griffin thought the “most likely explanation” was that WTC 7, like the Twin Towers, was brought down by explosives (“scientific fraud,” etc.: Griffin, Mysterious, 245–; “most likely”: ibid., xii).

  37 “When it fell”: int. Frank Fellini, TF, 12/3/01;

  38 Hayden: Firehouse, 4/02, Smith, 31–, 159–, int. Ray Goldback, TF, 10/24/01, int. Richard Banaciski, TF, 12/6/01, int. Robert Sohmer, TF, 1/17/02, int. Frank Cruthers, TF, 10/31/01.

  39 Nigro: int. Daniel Nigro, TF, 10/24/01, “Chief of Department FDNY (ret.) Daniel Nigro Addresses Conspiracy Theories,” http://guide.googlepages.com/danielnigro. Brent Blanchard, a senior writer on ImplosionWorld, an online magazine for the demolition industry, has written, “Any detonation of explosives within WTC 7 would likely have been detected by seismographs monitoring ground vibration.… To our knowledge, no such telltale ‘spike’ or vibratory anomaly was recorded.… Several demolition teams had reached Ground Zero by 3:00 P.M. on 9/11, and these individuals witnessed the collapse of WTC 7 from within a few hundred feet.… We have spoken with several who possess extensive experience in explosive demolition, and all reported hearing or seeing nothing to indicate an explosive detonation precipitating the collapse.” Readers who wish to delve deeper could consult Blanchard’s paper; Ryan Mackey’s paper, at p. 112–; the BBC documentary film The Conspiracy Files: 9/11—The Third Tower, July 6, 2008; and of course Dr. Griffin’s book The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7. (Brent Blanchard, “A Critical Analysis of the Collapse of WTC Towers 1, 2 and 7 from an Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint,” www.implosionworld.com).

  40 photos: credited to Corporal Jason Ingersoll, USMC; Goldberg et al., 159, 245n30, & see photo section, photos also at http://911research.wtc7.net;

  41 18 feet/“How could”: David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Arris, 2005, 34;

  42 wingspan/tail: Goldberg et al., 17fn;

  43 “fits”: Griffin, Omissions, 38.

  44 Eyewitnesses: e.g., see p. 44. Many more such witnesses are on record.

  45 evidence/opinions: Paul Mlakar et al., “The Pentagon Building Performance Report,” Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 1/03, 1–;

  46 removed/FBI warehouse: ibid., 24, Libération, 3/30/02, “Arlington County After-Action Report,” www.co.arlington.va.us/fire/edu/about/pdf/after_report.pdf, Annex C, 53–;

  47 report concluded: Mlakar et al., 58;

  48 “hogwash”/“To look”: corr. Mete Sozen, 2010;

  49 Empire State: “B-25 Empire State Building Collision,” www.aerospaceweb.org, “Ask the Pilot,” Salon, 5/19/06;

  50 photos: Goldberg et al., photo section;

  51 “planted”: Griffin, Debunking,

  52 “Don’t be taken in”: “New Study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing Hit the Pentagon, Global Research, 6/24/07. Fetzer was impressed by the suggestion from James Hanson, a retired attorney, who claimed that he had traced the debris that was found at the Pentagon to an American Airlines 757 that crashed in Colombia in 1995! (ibid. & Idaho Observer, 2/8/05);

  53 aircraft remains: “Photos of Flt 77 Wreckage Inside the Pentagon,” by Sarah Roberts, www.rense.com (referred to the authors by Sarandis Papadopoulos, an editor of Pentagon 9/11, whom Roberts consulted), “Pentagon & Boeing 757 Engine Investigation,” www.aerospace.org, “Airplane Fragment in Patriotic Box,” exhibit description, http://americanhistory.si.edu, Libération, 3/30/02.

  54 Carter: address at Coalition on Political Assassinations conference, 2002. The ashes given to May’s fiancé are interred in Maryland.

  55 Flight 77 crew remains: Submission by Toni Knisley, American Airlines flight service administration manager, Na
tional September 11 Memorial & Museum, http://ns11makehistory.appspot.com, Burlingame bio. at www.arlingtoncemetery.net. Forensic work on the Pentagon victims was done by the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Dover, Delaware. Remains of five individuals also found at the crash scene, and believed to be those of the hijackers, were eventually handed over to the FBI (Goldberg et al., 183, 178).

  56 remains identified: Goldberg et al., 177–, 183, 204, “Attack on the Pentagon,” www.arlingtoncemetery.net;

  57 photos: Exhibits P200042, P200045, P200047, P200048, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui, www.vaed.uscourts.gov;

  58 “A stillness”: Goldberg et al., 195;

  59 “the bodies”/“For all we know”: Griffin, Debunking, 268–.

  60 “cell phone calls”: “Operation Pearl,” 8/03, www.serendipity.li. Wireless and cell phone industry sources have said cell phone calls from planes were possible—even from high altitudes—at the time of 9/11, though connections were sporadic (e.g., NYT, 9/14/01, “Final Contact,” 11/1/01, www.connectedplanet.com, eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 83–, David Aaronovitch, Voodoo Histories, London: Jonathan Cape, 2009, 224).

  61 seatback not cell phone: In May’s case, the skeptics’ claims grew out of early news reports that the attendant used her cell phone to call home—the record shows she did not. Solicitor General Theodore Olson, for his part, made it clear in a Fox News interview after 9/11 that he simply did not know what sort of phone his wife had used to call. The records now available show that only seatback phone calls, or attempted calls, were made from Flight 77.

  The skeptics have claimed flatly that American Airlines 757s “were not equipped with seatback phones.” Though the airline had apparently decided to discontinue seatback phone service prior to 9/11, analysis indicates that such phones were still in use on some flights as late as March 2002. That they were still in use on 9/11 is evident from the phone records alone.

  The skeptics have also claimed that the reports of passengers’ calls from Flight 93—see Ch. 7—are suspect. Griffin even suggests that Todd Beamer’s long call to operator Lisa Jefferson did not occur. Beamer’s call, however, is listed in the telephone company records now available. As in the case of Flight 77, early reports of “cell phone calls” made from Flight 93 sowed confusion. Deena Burnett, widow of Flight 93 passenger Tom Burnett, told the FBI that her husband made a series of three to five calls home on his cell phone. The records show that Burnett made three calls on a seatback phone. There is no way of knowing whether Mrs. Burnett simply misremembered the exact number of calls she got from her husband, or whether he did use his cell phone to make some of the calls. The records show that many Flight 93 calls, initially described as being by cell phone, in fact originated from seatback phones (early news: Las Vegas Review Journal, 9/13/01; made it clear: Olson, Fox News, 9/14/01; only seatback phone: DOJ “Briefing on Cell and Phone Calls from AA77,” 5/20/04, in “Flight 93 Calls” folder [inc. details on other flights], B12, T7, CF, & Moschella to Marcus [& attachments], 4/26/04, in “Flight 11 Calls folder—Calls from AA11, AA77, UA175, & UA93, ATT Wireless & GTE Airphones,” B13, T7, CF; “were not equipped”: Griffin, Debunking, 266–; discontinue/analysis: “Airline Grounds In-Flight Phone Service,” 2/6/02, www.news.cnet.com, Business Week, 9/30/02, AA spokesman John Hotard cited at “American Airlines Flight 77 Calls,” www.911myths.com; suspect: e.g., Griffin, Debunking, 86–, 292–; Griffin re. Beamer: “The Ultimate 9/11 Truth Showdown,” 10/6/08, www.alternet.org; Burnett: FBI 302 of int. Deena Burnett, 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, Moschella to Marcus [& attachments], 4/26/04, records show: MFR 04020029, 5/13/04, CF, FBI 302 of int. Mark Rugg, 7/1/02, “Key 302s,” B19, T7, CF).

  62 “have had a little”: “Comments on the Pentagon Strike,” www.cassiopaea.org;

  63 “transformers”/“morphing”: Griffin, Debunking, 89, 86;

  64 “Either Ted”/“is based on”: “The Ultimate 9/11 Truth Showdown, www.alternet.org;

  65 scattered in three: Exhibit P200318, U.S. v. Zacarias Moussaoui.

  66 “It took”: transcript, Larry King Weekend, CNN, 1/6/02; Mrs. Olson is indeed interred in Door County, at Ellison Bay Cemetery. Had Dr. Griffin cared to check, he could have established this long before he made his most recent suggestion, in 2008, that she might be alive. (Ellison Bay Cemetery: int. Mayor’s Office, Liberty Grove, WI, Barbara K. Olson listing, www.findagrave.com).

  67 “cannot ignore”: Griffin, Debunking, 266, & see Griffin, New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11, Moreton-in-March, U.K.: Arris, 2009, 28;

  68 “overwhelming”/“an inside”: Griffin, Debunking, 1, 309, & see Griffin & Scott, Empire, 12;

  69 “a prima facie”: Griffin, New Pearl Harbor, 2009, 131.

  70 Project: “Rebuilding America’s Defenses,” Washington, D.C.: Project for the New American Century, Sept. 2000, 10, 4, 51, “Statement of Principles,” www.newamericancentury.org.

  71 “the Pearl Harbor”: WP, 1/27/02; This part of the passage echoed almost word for word testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in 1999. The then–executive director of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, Andrew Krepinevich, spoke of the difficulties in transforming the U.S. military, “in the absence of a strong external shock to the United States—a latter-day ‘Pearl Harbor’ of sorts” (testimony of Andrew Krepinevich, 3/5/99).

  72 in public: Sammon, 205, 316;

  73 “Who benefits?”: Griffin & Scott, Empire, 103;

  74 precedents: e.g., Zwicker, multiple refs. to false flag ops., & Griffin in ed. Ian Woods, 9/11, Vol. 2, Ontario: Global Outlook, 2006, 15;

  75 Roosevelt: Zwicker, 273, & see “FDR Knew Pearl Harbor Was Coming,” New York Press, 6/14/01.

  76 false flag/pounced: “11 September 2001—Another Operation Northwoods?,” 9/17/01, www.blythe.org, & see “Operation 911: No Suicide Pilots,” 10/6/01, www.public-action.com. The reference was to Operation Northwoods, which was revealed in the book Body of Secrets by the author James Bamford (NY: Doubleday, 2001—see 82–, 300–).

  77 “We must”: “11 September 2001—Another Operation Northwoods?”;

  78 Corn objected: LAT, 7/3/02, “Van Jones & the 9/11 Conspiracy,” http://motherjones.com;

  79 “I won’t”: “When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad,” by David Corn, 3/1/02, www.zcommunications.org;

  80 howl of rage: Nation, 5/31/02.

  81 thousands of pages: see refs in sourcing for Chs. 1–9; Some skeptics suggest that the absence of formal NTSB investigations on Flights 11 and 175—as well as the other two hijacked flights—is suspicious. From the outset, however, these crashes were deemed to have been “criminal acts,” which meant jurisdiction fell not to the NTSB but to the FBI. Within two days of the attacks, though, the FBI requested technical assistance from the NTSB. According to the NTSB’s chairman, some sixty NTSB experts worked “around the clock in Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, and at our headquarters in Washington, D.C., assisting with aircraft parts identification, searching for and analyzing flight recorders.” Some of the research done by NTSB experts has emerged in recent years, especially with the 2009 opening of 9/11 Commission files and absence of reports: e.g., notation on NTSB DCA01MA060 [Flight 11], www.ntsb.gov; (suspicious: e.g., “A Little Known Fact About the 9/11 Planes,” http://sabbah.biz, “Flight 77 Black Boxes,” http://911review.org; “criminal acts”/FBI requested: NTSB Advisory, 9/13/01, www.ntsb.gov; “around the clock”: Testimony of NTSB Chairman Marion C. Blakey, 6/25/01, Committee on Commerce, Science & Transportaion, U.S. Senate, www.ntsb.gov, corr. NTSB’s Ted Lopatkiewicz, 2009).

  82 300,000: corr. NARA’s Kristen Wilhelm, 2011;

  83 “distracts people”: Nation, 7/12/02.

  CHAPTER 12

  1 memo/“How,” etc.: Philip to Tom & Lee, 9/6/04, “Farmer Memo re False Statements,” B4, Dana Hyde files, CF;

  2 chairman/vice chairman: Kean & Hamilton, 25;

  3 Roemer/“false”: int. Roemer on American Morning, CNN, 8/2/06;

 
; 4 shocked: WP, 8/2/06;

  5 “deception”: Farmer, 4;

  6 Farmer questioned: Farmer, 4–, 227–;

  7 Meyers confused/had launched: Testimony of General Richard Myers, Hearings, U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee, 107th Cong., 1st Ses., 9/13/01;

  8 “We responded awfully”: transcript, OnLine NewsHour, 9/14/01, www.pbs.org;

  9 Weaver timeline/“There was no”: Dallas Morning News, 9/15/01, Seattle Times, 9/16/01;

  10 Cheney/“toughest decision”: transcript, Meet the Press, 9/16/01, www.msnbc.msn.com;

  11 “Did we shoot”: cited by Bob Woodward and Dan Balz in “10 Days in September,” a series of articles based on interviews with Bush, Cheney, and other official sources, WP, 1/27/02;

  12 “It’s my understanding”: CR, 43, 465n233;

  13 “Oh, my God”: Testimony of Norman Mineta, 5/23/03, CO;

  14 never missiles: Spencer, 277;

  15 report incorrect: Cape Cod Times, 8/21/02.

  16 Rumors circulating: A retired Army colonel, Donn de Grand-Pre, claimed in 2004 that Flight 93 was shot down by a pilot flying for the North Dakota National Guard. He named the pilot supposedly responsible and said he had sent a report on the matter to a named general. Flight records reportedly show that the alleged pilot was on other duties at the relevant time—and the general denied even knowing de Grand-Pre. A contributor to a 2008 blog, posted by a person identifying himself only as a former Langley Air Force Base mechanic, quotes a colleague at second hand as having said, “They shot one down … One of those 16s came back with one less missile than it left with.” The claim has no value as information—it is anonymous, and the supposed veteran did not himself speak with the original source of the quote. Conspiracy theorists, meanwhile, seized on the alleged content of a 911 call made from Flight 93 by passenger Edward Felt shortly before the airliner crashed. According to a staffer at the emergency center that took the call, Felt mentioned that there been an explosion on board, and “white smoke.” The dispatcher who actually took the call, however, denied that Felt said anything about an explosion. The call was recorded, and there is no such reference in the transcript. David Griffin refers in his books to “considerable evidence” that 93 was shot down—yet cites none of substance (De Grand-Pre: eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 77–; blog: “The US Air Force Shot Down Flight 93,” 4/11/08, http://georgewashington.blogspot.com; Felt: FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/19/01, Pittsburgh to Counterterrorism, New York, 9/17/01, & FBI 302 of [name redacted], 9/11/01, INTELWIRE, transcript of call 9/11/01, “Flight 93 Calls,” B12, T8, CF; Griffin: e.g., Debunking, 70, & David Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, Northampton, MA: Olive Branch Press, 2008, 127–).