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9/11 – My own review of the entire event.

1.0 Introduction

"49.3% of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act...Despite the acute legal and political implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of those who described themselves as "very conservative" supported the claim...Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5."
- Zogby International, public opinion tracker. Poll taken before NY Republican covention from August 24 to 26 2004.

It's been quite some time since I first started gathering this data. At first, I expected to make a small list of maybe 2 pages, but at this moment it has grown to about 75 pages. (In MS Word, Times New Roman, letter size 9) Small additions and corrections will be made when new information becomes available, so it is unlikely that this article will be "finished" any time soon. In this document you will find all the flaws in the official story that are known to me. Keep in mind, that I only started adding sources after many months of gathering. I never expected the contradictions would be this immense and didn't plan on sharing it with everyone else. However, most second-hand sources known to me have been mentioned at the links-page, so you will be able to start your own research with relative ease. Most of the newer information has a link in small size text at the end of the quote and most material that has been written before this, will be updated over time. Most quotes already have detailed names and dates of the persons and/or newspapers involved.

My english grammer and my overall grasp of the picture surrounding 9/11 were in pretty bad shape at the beginning of this article, so don't be surprized to find some sections riddled with all kinds of grammatical mistakes. Every section will be updated over time. I also noticed that some of the earlier sections I wrote, have been oversimplified or have small mistakes in them. They also will be corrected over time.

1.1 Events of the day and important data:


Edited chart from media lab

The time between the events of the day:

Main 9/11 bases:

Distance between:

Maximum speed of airplanes at altitudes around 30.000 feet / 10 km:

Airliners hijacked part 1:

Airliners Hijacked part 2:

• Dimensions in meters [x 3.2811 for feet]
• Last 2 values are measured / calculated with scaled layouts of these planes from airliners.net. Very accurate, try it out.
• Height tail on the ground [wheels]. *
• Very important for the Pentagon hole.**

Dimension of buildings:

Casualty estimates:

Conversions:

1.2 Bush, Cheney, Rice: “No one would ever have imagined this, we could not have known.”

• On september 6, 1970 4 airliners were hijacked at ths same time, one failed. These planes were taken to an airport in Jordan by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. A very coordinated airline hijack carried out 31 years earlier, almost exactly to the day.
• In april of 1994 a man tried to hijack a DC-10 by hitting the pilots on the head with a hammer. After a wrestle he failed, but later in the prosecution it became known the man wanted to crash the plane on a company called Federal Express in Memphis. He had a dispute with the management.
• In december of 1994 Algerian extremist hijacked a jetliner that was leaving from Algiers to France. They directed the plane to Marseille from where they wanted to fly further to Paris, but they demanded 3 times more fuel than they needed, which worried the authorities. Hostages that were being released told that the hijackers were probably going to blow up the plane above Paris or crash it into a building, possibly the Eiffel Tower. In the end, French special forces killed the hijackers. 20 sticks of dynamite were found.
• In early 1995 Abdul Hakim Murad was arrested in his Manila apartment by the Philippine police, then questioned and tortured. He revealed that he was part of a plan in which these fundamentalist would blow up 11 US airliners and crash 2 others in the Pentagon. This plot was confirmed later that year by Ramzi Ahmed, the first WTC bomber.
• In 1996 the FBI was afraid that a plane might be crashed on the Olympic Games in Atlanta. From july 6 to the end of the games in august all airplanes were banned by the FAA to come within a 1 mile radius of the olympic village. Other sites around the olympic games had a no-fly zone of 3 miles. During that time they were mainly referring to a small aircraft.
• During the Olympic Games of 2000 authorities were worried for: “a fully loaded, fuelled airliner crashing into the opening ceremony before a worldwide television audience.” Safety measures for this kind of attack have been incorporated in the Olympic Games security plans since 1972. The main suspect for planning this kind of attack was Osama Bin Laden during that time.
• From october 24 to 26 in 2000 the Pentagon held an exercise whereby an airliner was hijacked and crashed into the Pentagon.
• An annual FAA report from 2000, the Criminal Acts Against Aviation was released early 2001. It stated: “Bin Laden’s anti-Western and anti-American attitudes make him and his followers a significant threat to civil aviation, particularly to US civil aviation.”
• During the G8 conference in Genoa, Italy, the whole airspace around the conference was closed down and anti-aircraft missiles were placed upon surrounding buildings, after Egyptian intelligences announced that there were plans to crash a hijacked airliner on the conference headed by Bin Laden. Bush slept on the carrier USS Enterprise just to be safe.
• During the trials of the Bin Laden coordinated attacks on the embassees in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi it became known the terrorists had received training (inc. airplane flying) in Oklahoma and Texas. One of these people flew a US bought military plane to Sudan to be delivered to Bin Laden.
• During 2001 internal memo’s were spreading in the Bush administration and some warnings were given to the public that a big, never seen before attack was being planned by terrorists. One of those warnings was given to Bush on August 6 2001 in his Presidential Daily Briefing. In this document it is made clear to Bush that Bin Laden might be planning a new attack in the US involving the hijacking of an airplane. Pretty strange that Bush didn’t act immediately when he heard the first plane struck the North Tower.
• February 10, 2005, Associated Press, Report: FAA Had 52 Pre-9/11 Warnings:
  "WASHINGTON - The Federal Aviation Administration received repeated warnings in the months prior to Sept. 11, 2001, about al-Qaida and its desire to attack airlines, according to a previously undisclosed report by the commission that investigated the terror attacks. The report by the Sept. 11 commission detailed 52 such warnings given to FAA leaders from April to Sept. 10, 2001, about the radical Islamic terrorist group and its leader, Osama bin Laden. The commission report, written last August, said five security warnings mentioned al-Qaida's training for hijackings and two reports concerned suicide operations not connected to aviation. However, none of the warnings pinpointed what would happen on Sept. 11. FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown on Thursday said the agency received intelligence from other agencies, which it passed on to airlines and airports. But, she said, "We had no specific information about means or methods that would have enabled us to tailor any countermeasures." Brown also said the FAA was in the process of tightening security at the time of the attacks..." (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=519&u=/ap/20050210/ap_on_re_us/sept_11_faa&printer=1)
• The pilot of the Lone Gunman, first aired march 4 2001 on FOX Television from Rupert Murdoch, was about an airliner being taken over by remote control and flown into the WTC. This was done by the ‘shadow government’ to justify a war. If the entertainment industry can come up with something like this, then the intelligence agencies have undoubtly thought about this. (Most people think this episode was written by Chris Carter but in fact, it was John Sheban’s work. Chris Carter had a ‘very minor’ role in this episode. Murdoch, Carter and Shiban were not reachable for comments.)
  Update: Januari 2005 - Alex Jones Interviews X-Files/Lone Gunmen Star Dean Haglund:
  "Yeah, that we shot in March of 2000. In that episode…it’s the pilot of the Lone-Gunman... there is a government plot where they take a computer and basicly override all the pilot’s control systems and by remote control are gonna fly it into the World Trade Center, in the series, to start a worldwide war on terror…on terrorists.

  I didn’t even put it together until I got a call of one of the writers; 'Haglund, are you watching this?'...And then it took me a while to go ‘Oh yeah, good God, the pilot..it’s exactly what they wrote! And they were really freaked out about it, the writers. So clearly, I think they were just picking up on what was already out there, all the AP wire stories and the Times...I think it was staged and I think it was eh…according to [?], it was America’s Reichstag.”

1.3 Well, we kinda knew but we didn’t tell you.

• Tatyana Koryagina, top advisor to president Putin of Russia told in July, 2001, that the US was being selected for financial destruction by a enormously rich and powerful international group and that a big terrorist attack on the US was immenent. This was not the only warning in the Russian media, people were adviced to change their dollars for other currencies fast.
  (http://www.propagandamatrix.com/true_world_order_koryagnia.html)
• Twelve times the usual amount of put-options were placed on airline industries (United Airlines, American Airlines, KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, etc) and relating companies in the days and weeks before 9/11. These trades were carried out on every major stock-market; Hong Kong, Tokio, Chicago, New York, London, Berlin, etc. The total value of these trades are estimated to be in the multiple billions of dollars. It’s is obviously very hard to find out who were responsible for these trades, since the international banking system does have the duty to keep trading information private. Most transactions went through The Deutsche Bundesbank investment wing A.B. Brown. (Michael Ruppert - Fromthewilderness.com)
  TBR News (article not dated):
  "Between August 26 and September 11, 2001, a group of speculators, identified by the American Securities and Exchange Commission as Israeli citizens, sold “short” a list of 38 stocks that could reasonably be expected to fall in value as a result of the pending attacks. These speculators operated out of the Toronto, Canada and Frankfurt, Germany, stock exchanges and their profits were specifically stated to be “in the millions of dollars."
  Adam Hamilton of Zeal LLC, a North Dakota-based private consulting company that publishes research on markets worldwide, stated that "I heard that $22 million in profits was made on these put options"...The Times said market regulators in Germany, Japan and the US all had received information concerning the short selling of insurance, airlines and arms companies stock, all of which fell sharply in the wake of the attacks... City of London broker and analyst Richard Crossley noted that someone sold shares in unusually large quantities beginning three weeks before the assault on the WTC and Pentagon. He said he took this as evidence that someone had insider foreknowledge of the attacks...It was reported by the Interdisciplinary Center, a counter-terrorism think tank involving former Israeli intelligence officers, that insiders made nearly $16 million profit by short selling shares in American and United Airlines, the two airlines that suffered hijacking, and the investment firm of Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors of the WTC... On Sept. 6, 2001, the Thursday before the tragedy, 2,075 put options were made on United Airlines and on Sept. 10, the day before the attacks, 2,282 put options were recorded for American Airlines. Given the prices at the time, this could have yielded speculators between $2 million and $4 million in profit. The matter still is under investigation and none of the government investigating bodies -including the FBI, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and DOJ -are speaking to reporters about insider trading...Investigations were initiated in a number of places including Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Luxembourg, Hong Kong, Switzerland and Spain. As in the United States, all are treating these inquiries as if they were state secrets." (http://tbrnews.org/Archives/a048.htm)
  December 18, 2001, The Toronto Star and Reuters:
  "German computer experts are working around the clock to unlock the truth behind an unexplained surge in financial transactions made just before two hijacked planes crashed into New York's World Trade Center Sept. 11...Were criminals responsible for the sharp rise in credit card transactions that moved through some computer systems at the center shortly before the planes hit the twin towers? Or was it coincidence that unusually large sums of money, perhaps more than $100 million, were rushed through the computers as the disaster unfolded?...Using a pioneering laser scanning technology to find data on damaged computer hard drives and main frames found in the rubble of the World Trade Center and other nearby collapsed buildings, Convar has recovered information from 32 computers that support assumptions of dirty doomsday dealings... It could turn out that Americans went on an absolute shopping binge on that Tuesday morning. But at this point there are many transactions that cannot be accounted for...'There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million,' [Richard] Wagner said. [data retrieval expert at Convar]"
• In the weeks and days before 9/11 intelligence agencies from England, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Israel, Egypt, Jordan and probably Morocco had warned for a large attack on the United States. They were all ignored.
• In Juli of 2001 John Ashcroft is warned to stop flying commercial airliners and to use his private jet instead.
• Salman Rushdie, a writer of the satanic verses and sentenced to death in Iran if he would ever enter that country because of this, was banned from flying in the US and Canada a week before 9/11. This ban came from the FAA and since that ban he was placed under 24 hr a day observation from MI5 and MI6 who had to approve all his flights. [tip: watch Dark secrets inside Bohemian Grove from Alex Jones]
• A group of pentagon officials had a flight planned on the morning of september 11. They cancelled it for ‘security reasons’ on september 10.
• 8 hours before the attack, mayor Willy Brown gets a telephone call from Washington DC, [supposedly from Condoleeza Rice] that it would be wise to cancel his trip. He would have left on the morning of september 11 from the Bay Area to New York City.
• 2 hours before the attack, at least 2 employees from the Israeli Instant Messaging Service Odigo get a warning of an imminent attack on the WTC. This company is located 2 blocks away from the WTC complex.
  Washington Times, September 28,2001:
  "NEW YORK -- OFFICIALS at instant-messaging firm [Israeli] Odigo confirmed today that two employees received text messages warning of an attack on the World Trade Center two hours before terrorists crashed planes into the New York landmarks...Diamandis said the sender of the instant message was not personally known to the Odigo employees...contacted Israeli security services. In turn, the FBI was informed of the instant message warning." (http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/09/WTC_Odigo.html)
  So if we know two hours before the actual attack where its going to take place, why weren't the hijackers stopped?

1.4 Smells like a standdown.

There are a couple of bases in the United States that have fighter jets on 'Quick Reaction Alert' (NATO - QRA), 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. These jets are fully armed and have warmed up engines. Pilots are standing by with their G-suits strapped on and if necessary, a vehicle is standing by to take them to the runway. The wards also are standing-bye to disconnect the planes from the warming-up equipment, take off the wheel blocks and open the hanger doors. After these QRA forces have given the get-go, these jet fighters must be airborne within 15 minutes, according to NATO protocols. However, in the US pilots always try to be up in the air within 5 minutes. Otis ANG and Langley AFB are 2 of these bases where QRA jets are stationed.

Forces who were not required to be up in the air within 15 minutes were also plentiful in the Washington area. Fighter jets were patrolling the coast and there were at least a dozen more AFB in the surrounding area of the hijacked planes. Andrews AFB, just south of Washington DC, had 2 squadrons of F-16’s and F/A 18’s. The 121th fighter squadron of the Air National Guard were stationed there who were able to respond within minutes when given the order, even though they are not on NATO QRA. (The order was given after the Pentagon was hit) It seems that at least some of the planes could have taken out Flight 77 or Flight 93 way before they reached there final destinations. It also seems no order was given to do so, until it was too late.

As soon as the FAA loses contact with a plane it notifies the National Military Command Center (NMCC) in the Pentagon which then makes contact with NORAD. NORAD knows which bases in the surrounding area have fighters on standbye (QRA), meanwhile the NMCC contacts Donald Rumsfeld to get the order to scramble the planes. (that is officially needed since july 2001) In case of a real emergency fighters might be scrambled without Rumsfeld approval but in no way will these planes be shot down. Since june 2001, that is the sole responsibility of the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. (Michael Ruppert)

Airliners and small planes are being intercepted all the time. Between september 2000 and juli 2001 this has happened 67 times and normally it is no problem to have a fighterjet looking in the cockpit of the troubled plane within 25 minutes after the FAA contacts the military through the NMCC. The FAA usually tries to contact the plane for a few minutes before calling the military. So, Flight 11 gets a few minutes to fly after 8:13 before the military gets warned. It would be quite close to intercept that plane. This is entirely different from the other 3 planes.

In the above text and map you can see for yourself that any of those last 3 planes should have been intercepted. Even Flight 175 shouldn’t be a ‘close call’, since fighter jets should already have been pursuing Flight 11 and were very close to Flight 175 when it got into trouble. Fighterjets are a lot faster than commercial airplanes as you can see in the above tables.

The failure to intercept Flight 77 is probably the strangest of all. Flight 77 had been able to fly all the way back to Washington DC, within miles of Boiling and Andrews AFB, 80 minutes after the first hijacking. After it reached the Washington suburbs, it makes a 270 degree turn around the military heart of the US and finally dives into the Pentagon.

Fighterjets also should have been much, much sooner to Flight 93. It was flying straight into at least 4 airforce bases when it was already known for about 20 minutes that it had been hijacked. Even if the airplane was shot down at 10:03 / 10:06, instead of crashing the reaction would have been much too slow. Fighter jets from every airforce base in the area should have already been swarming around Flight 93.

What happened in the armed forces on the the morning of 911 is still not known. A lot of sites dicuss this in great detail although reliable information is scarce. Here are some of the main points:

• It is important to note that in the first newspaper and tv covers of 9/11 it had been stated repeatedly that NO airplanes had been scrambled the first hour after Flight 11 was hijacked:
  Richard Myers, vice chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff:
  “When it became clear what the threat was, we did scramble fighter aircraft, AWACS, radar aircraft and tanker aircraft to begin to establish orbits in case other aircraft showed up in the FAA system that were hijacked…That order, to the best of my knowledge, was given after the Pentagon was struck.” He has repeated this at least 3 times when questioned by the 9/11 commission. 'To the best of his knowlegde'? He's one of the few people who should know exactly when such an order was given.
  Marine Corps Major Mike Snyder, spokesman for NORAD:
  ”no U.S. fighter jets had been scrambled at all until after the Pentagon crash.”
  Boston Globe, September 15, 2001:
  ”The command did not immediately scramble any fighters even though it was alerted to a hijacking 10 minutes (actually at least 21 minutes) before the first plane… slammed into the first World Trade Center tower... The spokesman said the fighters remained on the ground until after the Pentagon was hit…The failure to act was particularly surprising since Snyder had also admitted that fighters routinely intercept aircraft.”
  NY press:
  ”Initial reports suggested that no aircraft were scrambled to intercept or shoot down the hijacked jets.”
  Vice-President Dick Cheney on 16th September in ‘Meet the Press’ at NBC:
  ”The first hijacking was confirmed at 8:20, the Pentagon was struck at 9:40, and yet, it seems we were not able to scramble fighter jets in time to protect the Pentagon and perhaps even more than that.”
  Cheney’s reaction mentiones nothing about fighters being scrambled from Otis and suggests that the president made the decision to scramble planes after the Pentagon crash.
• Only a few days after this the official story changed and 2 F-15’s were scrambled from Otis air, but they were too late to intercept Flight 11 or Flight 175. The time they were scrambled and when they were warned changes with every newspaper story.
• Since we cannot pinpoint the time these jets were scrambled let’s look at what has been said about the speed at which they were flying. An F-15 can easily reach speeds above 1600mph or 2600kmh when on high altitude.
  According to Major Gen. Paul Weaver, director of the ANG:
  “The pilots [fly] ‘like a scalded ape,’ topping 500 mph but [are] unable to catch up to the airliner.”
  ABC News:
  “The fighters are hurtling toward New York at mach 1.2, nearly 900 miles per hour.”
  NORAD commander Major General Larry Arnold:
  “..they head straight for New York City at about 1100 to 1200 mph…”
  Otis ANG spokeswoman:
  “An F-15 departing from Otis can reach New York City in 10 to 12 minutes” (Speed of flight would then average about 1200mph / 1900 kmh, with take-off included.)
• No military jets were seen on any of the dozens of camera’s pointing at the WTC even though they should have arrived around the second crash. (That's in the case they were horribly slow.)
• F-16’s on 24 hour standby modus from Langley AFB could not be in time in Washington DC to intercept 2 unknown inbound planes, while they had all the time in the world. They were finally scrambled around 9:49, after the Pentagon crash. (other sources claim 9:30) According to NORAD they were flying 650mph, according to different newspaper articles they were flying 300 to 410mph. The maximum speed is 1500mph so by flying so slow they were not able to catch Flight 93 in-time. Fortunatly, it crashed ‘on it’s own’ in a very remote region.
• Andrews AFB is just 11 miles south from Washington D.C., but no jets were ordered in the air before Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. Andrews had 2 combat-ready squadrons, consisting of F-15's and F/A 18's. But the 121th fighter squadron of the Air National Guard is/was also located there, equipped with F-16's who saw it as their task to 'stand ready to respond to the needs of the District of Columbia - and the nation - should the need arise'. (Not QRA) The incoming jetliner even circled over the White House, the Capitol and came very close to Andrews AFB before it completed it’s circle and hit the Pentagon. The minute the Pentagon was hit, fighters were sent to Washington that arrived within a few minutes. They couldn't give the order a bit sooner?
  This is what you could read at the website of Andrews AFB up to a few days after 9/11:
  ”…to provide combat units in the highest possible state of readiness.”
  That task changed into:
  ”…vision to provide peacetime command and control and administrative mission oversight to support customers, DCANG units, and NGB in achieving the highest levels of readiness.”
• The F16’s that arrived in Washington DC around 9:50 could have intercepted the last ‘disobedient’ aircraft, Flight 93 within 5 minutes, more then 22 minutes earlier than other reported interceptors. (A combined speed of at least 1600mph depending on altitude over a 128 mile distance, because the planes would be flying into each other.) The fact that there were 3 nuclear powerplants between Washington D.C. and Flight 93 might have been a good reason to go after it immediately. Since figthers from Langley and Andrews should both have been present, enough fighters could patrol DC ánd go after Flight 93.
• Former Pentagon air-traffic controller:
  "All those years ago when I was at the Pentagon, this wouldn't have happened. ATC Radar images were (and are) available in the understructures of the Pentagon, and any commercial flight within 300 miles of Washington D.C. that made an abrupt course change toward Washington D.C., or turned off their transponder and refused to communicate with ATC, would have been intercepted at supersonic speeds within minutes by fighters out of Andrews AFB. Why there were no fighters from Andrews up baffles me. If we could get fighters notified, scrambled, and airborne within about 6 minutes from Andrews AFB then, we could now."
• General Richard Myers, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (at the Pentagon):
  ”…before the crash into the Pentagon, military officials had been notified that another hijacked plane had been heading from the New York area to Washington.” (that was at least before 9:40)
  And still we waited for fighters to scramble from Andrews AFB till after the Flight 77 attack. And still the fighters from Langley were flying way below their maximum speed or may even have been on the ground.
• The supposedly scrambled fighters from Otis air should have arrived at Manhatten just after the second tower had been hit, just over 9:00AM. (worst case scenario.) If the US military had so much trouble scrambling other fighters it could have easily sent these one or two fighters to Washington DC, 211 miles away, a ride of just 7 minutes on top speed. This would mean that an F-15 would be at least 25 minutes earlier at the Pentagon than Flight 77!
• Other possibilities of fighters jets that could have been used to intercept are fighters in one of the dozens of AFB in the north-east area, one of fighters patrolling the 200 miles Air Defense Intercept Zone just out of the coast or figthers that were taking part in of the military exercises going on that morning. Vigilant Guardian was one of them, 3 F-16’s in North Carolina doing bombimg runs were a second.
• And how about anti-aircraft missiles? They should be on standbye in Washington. You would expect that a Patriot battery in the neigborhood of the Pentagon and White House could shoot an airliner right out of the sky. There were some news reports about Secret Service agents standing on the roof of the White House with Stinger missiles. 2 or 3 of those missiles could probably have taken out the airliner when it made it’s turn over the river, between the white house and the Pentagon. It was flying well below the ceiling of 3 km, the altitude that a stinger missile can reach.

1.5 The standdown explained. Everybody was confused. Military & law enforcement drills on the morning of 9/11:

On the morning of september 11 a lot of different exercises were being prepared or were already in progress. This has been thoroughly documented. NORAD officers and civilian air traffic controllers have stated in interviews that they thought it was just another exercise. Later research, mainly by Michael Ruppert and Stanley Hilton, seems to indicate that some of these exercises included fake targets that would show up on the radar screen, confusing everybody who tried to take counter-measures. Stanley Hilton says he found out through numerous interviews with airforce and CIA officials, that there had been about 35 of these exercises in the 2 months preceding September 11. He also argued that Bush reacted so calm on the morning of September 11, because he also thought it was just another exercise. Even so, a lot of information regarding the exercises remains sketchy. (Michael Ruppert - Crossing the Rubicon and numerous interviews at Rense & Coast to Coast AM) (Stanley Hilton - 2003 Alex Jones interview - 2004 Alex Jones interview)

The following exercises were being prepared or were going on at the morning of september 11:

1. Unnamed exercise carried out by the CIA and NRO: At 9 AM on the morning of September 11, a drill started at the NRO office, which is located 4 miles from the Dulles Airport. 3000 people had to be evacuated as fast as possible out of the NRO buildings after a (simulated) airplane had crashed into the complex. When it became known there was a real attack going on, the exercise was cancelled, 3000 people were sent home leaving only the essential people. (Associated Press - August 22, 2002)
2. Vigilant Guardian & Vigilant Warrior: (Probably) different sides of the same exercise coordinated by NORAD and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The plot was that at least one airliner was being hijacked on the morning of september 11 and possibly more. It had already started when the hijackings were taking place and NORAD was fully staffed because of it. On the morning of September 11 and/or in the past both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon have been simulated targets of these exercises. (Aviation Week & Space Technology, June 3, 2002, Newhouse News) (USA Today - Aril 18 2004) (CNN - April 19, 2004) (The Olympian - April 19, 2004) (Richard Clark in his book 'Against All Enemies' - March, 2004)
3. Northern Vigilance & Northern Guardian: More exercises carried out by NORAD. For this exercise a lot of fighter jets had been moved from the east coast to Canada and Alaska to counter a Russian attack coming from the poles, leaving the east coast more vulnerable.(Toronto Star, December 9, 2001)
4. Tripod II: A biowarfare exercise that was going to start on September 12 in NY city. It was being coordinated by the US justice department and the authorities of NY and located at Pier 29, below the Brooklyn Bridge, which connects Manhattan to Brooklyn. It has been a long discussion whether or not FEMA was involved in this excercise even though it was already known through an interview on CBS right after 9/11. In that interview someone from the National Urban Search & Rescue (part of FEMA) admits (freely) they came into town late monday evening, several hours before the attack on the WTC. The excercise itself was confirmed by Rudolph Giuliani during the 9/11 hearings in May of 2004. But besides these 2 testimonies it has always beeen denied by FEMA itself...why?

1.6 The standdown explained. The important people are missing.

A document introduced in June 2001, CJCSI 3610.01A by the joint chiefs of staff states that only the secretary of defense [Rumsfeld] can issue a request for “potentially lethal support “ in case of a hijacking. So, it remains a bit vague what the exact bounderies are here, but it does mean that only Rumsfeld can officially give an order to shoot down an airplane in case of a hijack. That is perfectly reflected by Bush and Cheney when asked about the slow reaction to send fighters into the air during the 9/11 hearings:

”… the Vice President stated that he called the President to discuss the rules of engagement for ordering air cover. But, [Cheney and Bush] did not order air cover because it would do no good unless pilots had instructions on whether they were authorized to shoot if the plane would not divert. The job of issuing such instructions belonged to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.”

So this basicly means: “Let’s all sit back and do nothing till Rumsfeld has turned his mobile phone back on.” Rumsfeld went conveniently missing-in-action during the first 1.5 hours of the hijacks. So even though they said they eventually gave the order to shoot down Flight 93 [which hasn’t been confirmed by the commission] it was much too late.

The 9/11 commission concluded this about the conversations between Bush and Rumsfeld:
“If a hijack was confirmed, procedure called for the President to empower the Secretary of Defense to send up a military escort, and if necessary, give pilots shoot-down orders…The president apparently spoke to Secretary Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10:00…no one can recall the content of this conversation but it was a brief call in which the subject of the shootdown authority was not discussed.”

Out of these words from the the 9/11 commisssion / Bush & Cheney testimony it seems like the president, the Commander in Chief doesn’t have the authority to shoot down a plane if it is not approved by Rumsfeld? OK…why then have surfaced so many other stories that Bush & Cheney had given orders [after 10:00AM] to shoot down the plane after the Pentagon crash. If they could do it at that moment, why not sooner? [there’s no proof these orders have been given]

At the time of the attacks Donald Rumsfeld was in the Pentagon. As soon as he heard about the attacks he should have gone to the National Military Command Center [also in the Pentagon] where the nerve center of the military apparatus is found. At the NMCC you can speak to and coordinate between agencies such as the FBI, CIA, Secret Service, NORAD, FAA, Airforce Force One, the White House, etc. Since half of the Pentagon was watching the attacks live on TV it is highly questionable that Rumsfeld would not have known, especially since he’s an essential character in coordinating the counter-attacks. Doesn’t he have a mobile phone?

The head of the NMCC was Brigadier General Montague Winfield. He should have given the request of the FAA for fighter support immediately to NORAD. Meanwhile he should have contacted Donald Rumsfeld. But Donald Rumsfeld isn’t there and wait a minute…the Brigadier General went missing during the attack! Better yet, he went missing after the first hijack had already started. What the...?! What are all these people doing? Let’s check it out:

• George Bush went to his brother Jeb Bush in Florida on september 10 2001. On the morning of september 11 he was notified that a plane had hit the World Trade Center just before he went into the elementary school in Sarasota. When he was inside, sitting in front of the class he was notified that a second plane had struck the southern tower and that America was under attack. But without doing anything he just sat their another 7 minutes doing nothing, while he should be out giving orders. After those 7 minutes he supposedly talked to Dick Cheney and left the school eventually around 9:30. What Bush and Cheney did discuss is still not clear, not even after the 9/11 hearing. But they didn’t order any jets to be scrambled after these 2 attacks and 1 new hijacked plane in the air. They waited for the missing Rumsfeld to do something.
  After this, Bush was flown to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana , in the afternoon he went to Offutt AFB in Omaha, Nebraska were a group of very influential businessmen coincidentally were having a ‘charity’ event on the morning of september 11, including Warren Buffett. After 90 minutes he leaves again and heads for Washington preparing his speech to the nation.
  During one of his later speeches Bush even claimes to have seen the first attack live on television even though that video wouldn’t surface till the next day. That was after the people were let to believe that Bush was notified of the first plane when he was sitting in the classroom being informed by one of his man, on camera. This man must be the worst liar in the world.
• Warren Buffett, someone very close to the Rothschilds and the elite of the international bankers and business world was holding an annual charity meeting for tennis and golf sports at Offutt AFB and was sitting at US Strategic Command right after the first attack. A known participant of the meeting who was flying-in that morning was Ann Tatlock, the luckiest business woman in the world because her offices of Fudiciary Trust were located high up in the World Trade Center Towers. (She is also a trustee of HHMI together with Carlyle's James Baker III) She heard of the attack on her way in and was just in time to watch the second attack on CNN as she walked in US Strategic Command. Warren Buffett organising a charity is in itself very interesting but what makes it so importatnt is that A: The charity is at US Strategic Command or at least on the same AFB. [He does live in the town of this in-the-middle-of-nowhere-base] and B: Why is George Bush coming here for a short time, before adressing the nation? (Forbes 10/15/01, San Francisco Business Times, week of 2/04/02, Broadway To Vegas 9/09/01)
• Dick Cheney's location has always been a point of speculation but now it seems that he was at the Alternate Joint Communications Center, a highly secured complex of buildings inside Raven Rock Mountain, about seven miles north of Camp David. It is an alternate command center in case of a nuclear war or another national disaster. Later in the day several helicopters with officials landed at this site, one of them carrying Paul Wolfowitz. There is speculation that the attack was coordinated from this bunker, although it cannot be stated as a fact. Again, we need an investigation into this. (Philadelphia Daily News)
• Donald Rumsfeld was somewhere in the Pentagon during the attack.
  According to the 9/11 commission:
  “He was having breakfast with Congressional leaders, and they hear a plane has hit the Pentagon, and he runs out.”
  Christopher Cox, chairman House Policy Makers of California confirms this on his website. He told how he was having breakfast with not only Rumsfeld but also Paul Wolfowitz. Rumsfeld was discussing the threat of terrorism and that we could be ‘hit any moment.’ ‘What a coincidence’ were his words. I guess none of these people in the room had a mobile phone. So, he runs out, starts helping people, all very noble, but in the meantime another plane is heading for Washington…Shouldn’t he contact General Montague of the NMCC first…or at the very least Cheney and Bush?
• Not that Brigadier General Montague Winfield would know a lot, he had left his post around 8:30 it now turns out. In the 9/11 hearings Charles Leidig, Jr wrote down that Brigadier General Montague Winfield had asked him on september 10 2001 if he would take over his spot as Deputy Director of Operations in the NMCC for a few hours the next day. Charles Leidig, Jr just had passed his exame for that position 30 days earlier and did not have any experience in that position.
  Charles Leidzig jr.’s own written account:
  ”On 10 September 2001, Brigadier General Winfield, U.S. Army, asked that I stand a portion of his duty as Deputy Director for Operations, NMCC, on the following day. [September 11] I agreed and relieved Brigadier General Winfield at 0830 on 11 September 2001.”
  This was 15 minutes into the first hijacking. Needles to say that communication was further troubled by this decision to put a rookie on one of the most important spots of the country. At around 10:00 the brigadier General returned, about the same time that Rumsfeld was reachable again. A few minutes later the crisis would be over.
• Another very important place had a weakness. The director of the White House Situation Room, Deborah Loewer was travelling with Bush in Florida. The Situation Room is the place in the White House where 24 hours a day all national and international developments are being monitered and transferred to the necessary agencies. The minute a plane was hijacked the situation room should have known about it. [They only called Loewer after the first impact instead of at the time of the hijacking] From there they could contact the NMCC and the President. The fact that the director wasn’t there didn’t mean that everything should come to a halt, but it was definetly not a desirable position. There hasn’t been given a reason publicly why the director had to travel with the president. This is highly unlikely and it might even have been the first time since Bush was in office.

The essence of the story is that every agency had to be [and normally is] in very close contact with each other through the NMCC, but that because of a sequence of 'mistakes' everything went wrong. There were so many mistakes that almost 1.5 hours after the first signs of an attack, an unindentified hijacked airliner could fly past the Pentagon, over the White House with the Situation Room in it, over Capitol Hill, along Andrews AFB, back to Pentagon and finally crash into it. And all that in the most heavely defended airspace of the most powerful nation on earth. Automaticly believing that all this was just a ‘screwup’ is quite amazing to me.

2.1.1 WTC 1&2. People sent back up the towers.

• The planes hit and the towers shake for some seconds. A lot of people in the tower are worried that it is going to come down, but after the initial shaking everything seems fine. A cloud of small metallic particles is raining over the streets, which could have been part of the fuselage and wings of the airliner. (hint to Pentagon) A few larger parts of the airplane have been found, including pieces of the landing gear, at least one engine and part of the fuselage. That last part is easily recognized by the windows.
• Ivillage UK, Tiffany Keeling (north tower):
  “We saw fire engines on the street below, ran to the stairwell and got down two floors when someone came onto the speaker system and told us we weren’t in imminent danger. At that moment a lot of people went back upstairs, but I kept trudging down.” (http://www.ivillage.co.uk/newspol/newspolfeatures/newsviews/articles/0,10233,164564_180647-1,00.html)
  LA Times, September 12, Tiffany Kneeling (north tower):
  ”Keeling and the other trainees headed for the stairs. When they were between the 59th and 58th floors, a voice on the building's public address system said the north tower was the only structure in danger and that everyone could return upstairs. Half of her group went back up.”
  The globe and mail:
  ”Ms. Chedel told her husband that he had to get out of Tower 2, which hadn't yet been hit, any way he could. She heard a muffled sound, like someone talking in the background, and her husband told her it was the speaker system…He told me the speaker said to not go down..”
  Mercurycenter:
  ”After about 15 minutes, Seeling, Winn and their colleagues neared the bottom. A voice came over the loudspeaker, warning of an isolated fire in the North Tower. The safest place to be was back in their offices, it said…But no one seemed to take the advice.”
  Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2001:
  ”Then, as they reached the 70th floor,[came from 103 of the South Tower] they heard an announcement: The building was secure. No one needed to evacuate. [they descended anyway]… They had descended three more floors when United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into their own south tower [between the 78th and 84th floor]… first he and those around him thought an explosion had come from below. An incredible noise - he calls it an "exploding sound" - shook the building, and a tornado of hot air and smoke and ceiling tiles and bits of drywall came flying up the stairwell…In a flash of panic, people began fleeing higher into the building. Then a few men began working on the crowd, calming people down, saying that downstairs was the only way out…As they descended, a few other survivors stumbled into the corridor. A construction painter, his white T-shirt covered in blood, was helped downstairs by others. But the stairwell was still far from jammed with evacuees…Elliott assumed his was one of the final groups descending. They saw only two firemen going up. They told them there had been an explosion near the 60th floor.”
• So people were told to go back into their offices after the first plane had hit and right up until the second one smashed into the south tower. This is very interesting because it seems that the assumption was that you will be safe from the falling debris in these towers . The design of buildings make sure that the burning areas are closed off and that the steel, as always, will not succumb to fire, seemingly even when an airplane had struck it. You will see later in this article that nobody expected the towers to come down.

2.1.2 The possible use of explosives at the time the planes impacted the building to right before the first collapse.

• Some pictures of what is talked about can be seen here.
• On the moment each of the two planes fly into their building multiple witnesses are hearing more than one explosion. These explosions also happen later on between the impact of both planes and the collapse of the towers:
  Steve Adams from the BBC tells:
  “There was an explosion—I didn’t think it was an explosion—but the base of the building shook. I felt it shake . . . then when we were outside, the second explosion happened and then there was a series of explosions. . . . We can only wonder at the kind of damage—the kind of human damage—which was caused by those explosions—those series of explosions”
  "There was a huge bang and the building physically shook...Seconds later there were two or three similar huge explosions and the building literally shook again."
  Stephen McArdle was making an audio recording that morning. We can hear:
  "That was an explosion"…[then we hear another explosion on the tape]… "Let's get out of here!"[everybody is running out of the building. Some time later the tape stops]. The tape has been confiscated by the FBI only to be heard from never again.
  Kim White, 32, employee on the 80th floor:
  "All of a sudden the building shook, then it started to sway. We didn't know what was going on," she told People. "We got all our people on the floor into the stairwell . . . at that time we all thought it was a fire . . .We got down as far as the 74th floor . . . then there was another explosion."
  Edmund McNally of Fiduciary Trust, somewhere about the 97th floor and some time before the building came down:
  "Liz, this was a terrorist attack. I can hear explosions below me."
  Christian Science Monitor, September 17, 2001:
  ”Then, as they reached the 70th floor,[came from 103 of the South Tower] they heard an announcement: The building was secure. No one needed to evacuate. [they descended anyway]… They had descended three more floors when United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into their own south tower [between the 78th and 84th floor]… first he and those around him thought an explosion had come from below. An incredible noise - he calls it an "exploding sound" - shook the building, and a tornado of hot air and smoke and ceiling tiles and bits of drywall came flying up the stairwell…In a flash of panic, people began fleeing higher into the building. Then a few men began working on the crowd, calming people down, saying that downstairs was the only way out…As they descended, a few other survivors stumbled into the corridor. A construction painter, his white T-shirt covered in blood, was helped downstairs by others. But the stairwell was still far from jammed with evacuees…Elliott assumed his was one of the final groups descending. They saw only two firemen going up. They told them there had been an explosion near the 60th floor.”
  Teresa Veliz:
  Teresa Veliz was a manager for a software development firm. She was on the 47th floor of the North Tower when American 11 struck. Veliz was able to reach the ground level at about the same time that the South Tower collapsed. Flung to the ground in total darkness, Veliz and a colleague followed another person who happened to have a flashlight. As she narrated later: “The flashlight led us into Borders bookstore, up an escalator, and out to Church Street. The explosions were going off everywhere. I was convinced that there were bombs planted all over the place and someone was sitting at a control panel pushing detonator buttons. I was afraid to go down Church Street towards Broadway, but I had to do it. I ended up on Vesey Street. There was another explosion. And another. I didn’t know which way to run.” (September 11: An Oral History by Dean E. Murphy Doubleday Books, 2002)
• As the planes hit the towers something goes terribly wrong in the subbasements of both of the buildings, close to a hundred levels below the impact:
  Stationary Engineer Mike Pecoraro, who is working 6 basement levels underneath the north tower (1 floor below the car garage), is being interrupted from his work by a co-worker. His co-worker notifies him that the lights flickered:
  "...By this time, however, the room they were working in began to fill with a white smoke. “We smelled kerosene....The two decided to ascend the stairs to the C level, to a small machine shop where Vito Deleo and David Williams were supposed to be working. When the two arrived at the C level, they found the machine shop gone...“There was nothing there but rubble, “Mike said. “We’re talking about a 50 ton hydraulic press – gone!” The two began yelling for their co-workers, but there was no answer...We couldn’t see through the smoke...The two made their way to the parking garage, but found that it, too, was gone. “There were no walls, there was rubble on the floor, and you can’t see anything” he said...They decided to ascend two more levels to the building’s lobby. As they ascended to the B Level, one floor above, they were astonished to see a steel and concrete fire door that weighed about 300 pounds, wrinkled up “like a piece of aluminum foil” and lying on the floor. “They got us again,” Mike told his co-worker, referring to the terrorist attack at the center in 1993. Having been through that bombing, Mike recalled seeing similar things happen to the building’s structure. He was convinced a bomb had gone off in the building." (Chief engineer Magazine - http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029)
  Construction worker Phillip Morelli describes being thrown to the ground by two explosions while in the fourth subbasement (B4) of the north tower. This is at the time of the plane impact 90 some floors above him:
  "I go downstairs, the foreman tells me to go remove the containers. As I am walking by the main freight corridor building, in the corridor, that's when I got blown. I mean, the impact of the explosion of whatever happened threw me to the floor and that's when everything started happening. It knocked me right to the floor, you didn't know what it was of course. You're assuming something just fell over in the loading dock, something very heavy, something very big. You don't know what happened and all of a sudden you just felt the floor moving and get up and the walls...and then...now I'm hearing that the main freight car, the elevator fell down. I was right near the main freight car, so I'm assuming what that was. Then...you know...you heard that coming towards you. I was racing, I was going towards the bathroom...all of a sudden..I opened up the door...I didn't know it was the bathroom and all of sudden a big impact happening again and all of the ceiling tiles were falling down, the light fixtures were falling down, swinging out of the ceiling. And I come running out the door and everything...the walls were down and now I start running towards the parking lots...I just assumed a car or something exploded on B1 or something big or heavy thing fell over...when the floor is moving underneath you...there was a lot of smoke down there, a lot of people screaming...and were running up the ramps...you gotta go clear across the whole from one to two world trade center... and then, all of a sudden, it happened all over again; building 2 gets hit. And again, I don't know that, I just know that something else hit us to floor. Right in the basement you felt it, walls were caving in, everything that was going on. I mean, I know people that got killed in the basement, I know people who got broken legs in there in the basement, people got surgery, because the walls hit them in the face." (NY1 News - http://ny1.com/pages/RRR/911special_survivors.html)
• As the second plane, flight 175, hits the south tower 2 very obvious flashes can be seen at the top section of the north tower. The first one is at the lower right corner of the floor that will collapse 1.5 hours later, another one is a few milliseconds later and happens closer near the top, again on a corner of the building. It looks like a few more possible explosives were caught on camra during that time, because of smoke puffs that arise at the same time, one of them at the same time during the first flash on the same corner, but the other wall. Also, it is possible that smoke puffs on another corner are pushed away in two circles because of explosives, but this is hard to say since the video is too short.
  Update: After seeing a higher quality video, these 'flashes' turned out to be gusts of wind, which blew fire and smoke out of the building. But premise that explosives were responsible remains.
• A short time after the attack (about 9:07) a huge smoke plume rises off the ground around WTC 6. Some time later we learn from witnesses that an explosion had devastated WTC 6 only minutes after the people in that building had been evacuated. (I witnessed this smoke plume live on CNN, heard the rumors about a bomb and wondered why nobody came back on it afterwards) Photo's taken after the attack show a huge round hole from top to bottom right in the middle of WTC 6. The rest of the building stands strong.
  Update: This is something different than the misleading smoke plume Dave von Kleist has shown us. That actually turned out to be smoke rising up after the south tower had collapsed.
• According to the head of security he and a NY firemen had to dig out a few people from the Port Authority on the 22th to 24th floor of the north tower which housed the FBI office, because they were devastated by explosions. The men were busy digging through the rubble at about the same time that the south tower collapsed. They managed to save the 2 or 3 men trapped on these floors. This devastation took place 73 floors below the impact of the plane and were very convenient for some people. (For the details of this destruction you can search this document for Greenspan, Morgan, Goldman Sachs or Mobil Oil)
• The 36 year-old Assistant Chief Engineer Joe Shearin was walking on the 38th floor of the north tower during the impact (about 55 floors up):
  "On the 38th floor, Joe Shearin exited the elevator and began his walk down the hallway to meet with the tenant who had requested to see him. About 50 feet down the hallway, he heard a loud explosion and was lifted into the air. "I can't even tell you how far I traveled," he recalled. When he landed, people were already coming out of their offices into the hallway... What Joe first believed was that an equipment room on the 43rd floor, which had an electrical substation, had blown up...Upon reaching the 43rd floor, "there were patches of ceiling that was just down on the floor, water pipes were broken, water was gushing like a brook or river that was just running down the corridor of the machine room". (Chief Engineer Magazine - http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029)

2.1.3 The possible use of explosives just before and during the collapse of both of the towers

• A clip from the 2002 documentary 'Why the Towers Fell', confirms the statements that a loud boom initiated the collapse. A clip from the 2002 CNN documentary 'America Remembers' show a large amount of what seem to be small local detonations as the tower progresses downward. More details can be found on this page.
• Explosions are heard before each tower comes down and also during their collapse:
  American Society of Newspaper Editors, By N. R. Kleinfield (NY Times writer):
  Police officers warned people in the vicinity to move north, that the buildings could fall, but most people found that unthinkable. They stayed put or gravitated closer. Abruptly, there was an ear-splitting noise. The south tower shook, seemed to list in one direction and them began to come down, imploding upon itself. It looked like a demolition,” said Andy Pollock. It started exploding,” said Ross Milanytch, 57, who works at nearby Chase Manhattan Bank. “It was about the 70th floor. And each second another floor exploded out for about eight floors, before the cloud obscured it all...People started walking briskly north until the premonition became real — another horrifying eruption, as one floor after another seemed to detonate...Ross Milanytch: 'The dust was about an inch and a half thick on the ground.'" (http://www.asne.org/index.cfm?ID=3423)
  Elaboration on Ross Milanytch, who was witnessing the collapse from the 22th floor of Chase Manhatten Bank:
  "[I saw] small explosions on each floor [as the tower came down]" (Jim Marrs - The War on Freedom: The 9/11 Conspiracies. His source: A magazine America at War article entitled, "They Saw It Happen: Eyewitness accounts to the World Trade Center Attack.")
  Nadine Keller:
  "There was smoke everywhere. I heard the bomb and saw both buildings crumble like biscuits"
  Anonymous to American Free Press:
  "a number of brief light sources being emitted from inside the building between floors 10 and 15." He saw about six of these brief flashes, accompanied by "a crackling sound" before the tower collapsed.”
  Neil deGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History and vice-president of The Planetary Society's described what he saw in an email of 12 september 2001:
  ”I hear a second explosion in WTC2, then a loud, low-frequency rumble that precipitates the unthinkable -- a collapse of all the floors above the point of explosion.”…..
  ”I hear another explosion followed by a now all-too familiar rumble that signaled the collapse of WTC1…..I saw the iconic antenna on this building descend straight down in an implosion twinning the first.”
  Unknown survivor:
  "So they escorted us thru the exit of World Trade 2 and I had just reached the revolving door of the building that I heard a loud explosion and the whole building collapsed."
  Geronimo Jones from letsroll911:
  ”Seconds before the South Tower crumbled to its doom, I heard/felt a series of explosions. Same with the North Tower. There was no denying it, I could feel the vibrations of them like a small earthquake. Yet when I turned on the news none of the other eyewitnesses commented on this.”
  AP reporter Dunstan Prial:
  "I heard a sucking sound just before the first building collapsed."
  Witness live on CNN just after the second collapse:
  "The entire top of the building just blew up..."
  Reporter just after the Pentagon has collapsed CNN mentiones this at around 10:15:
  "We have a report now of a fourth explosion at the Trade Center."
  Live on CNN a reporter says this just after the first collapse:
  "There has just been a huge explosion..."
  Breakingnews newsflash:
  "Third explosion at World Trade Centre...A huge explosion has occurred at the second of the two twin towers hit by planes in New York. The tower is now covered in smoke...[newsflash of 3 minutes later]...There are reports that a part of the second tower has collapsed after the new explosion." (actually, it's gone)
  FOX news anchor live at 10 AM as the first tower collapses:
  "There is an explosion at the base of the building . . . white smoke from the bottom . . . something has happened at the base of the building." (I have seen this giant smoke column and the speculation on CNN if it might have been a carbomb...always wondered why it wasn't brought up again, especially since it was maybe 10 seconds before the collapse...)
  Update: It could be that this was the south tower that had already collapsed. There were camera viewpoints in which one building was blocked by the other.
  An emotional witness on FOX television:
  "We just heard a very loud blast...explosion."
  Emotional reporter or witness on FOX television:
  "It's not clear now is why this explosion took place..."
  FOX reporter questiones a policeman who clearly had to run for his life:
  reporter: "Do...do you know if it was an explosion or a building collapse?"
  policeman: "To me it sounded like an explosion..."
  Witness on FOX television just after the collapse:
  "But it was a huge explosion...a huge [inaudible because videocut]"
  Hispanic man on FOX just after the collapse:
  "...I saw the tall building..that thing was a bomb because..,two of them..."
  FOX reporter who walks on the street, just after one of the collapses:
  "This is actually, we believe debris from one of the planes that hit one of the towers of the World Trade Center. The FBI is here as you can see, they have roped the area off, they were taking photographs, securing this area, just prior to that huge explosion that we all heard...and felt."
  September 2, 2004, Alex Jones is interviewing a witness of 9/11, Andrea Ptsores during the huge demonstations as the republican convention in New York City:
  "Actually, I was working in the World Trade Center complex the day of september 11th. I was in the building the night before, I am a member of a professional association on the 44th floor of 1 World Trade...some of the key points are that there were explosives up through 6 World Trade that I heard before either tower came down."
  Mr. Beller's Neighborhood (Manhattan) - survivor from the 81th floor of WTC 2:
  "I was almost out. I got down to the lobby, right near the Border's book store. And then there was this explosion. I don't know, I just got thrown to the ground and all this stuff fell on top of me."
  London Guardian:
  "In New York, police and fire officials were carrying out the first wave of evacuations when the first of the World Trade Centre towers collapsed. Some eyewitnesses reported hearing another explosion just before the structure crumbled. Police said that it looked almost like a "planned implosion" designed to catch bystanders watching from the street. "
  ABC news Don Dahler en Peter Jennings live:
  DD: ”As if a demolition set it off”…PJ:.”if anyone has ever witnessed a controlled demolition…you need to be at the base of the building” (a few seconds after he made these comments, Don Dahler makes it very clear that certainly fires must have destroyed the buildings)
  CNN live:
  “It almost looks like one of those planned implosions...but of course nothing is planned here…”
  Dan Rather from CBS seems to have made similar live comments on 911. Unfortunatly I have no quote.
  Some newspapers were writing the same reports:
  LA times, September 12, 2001:
  ”There were reports of an explosion right before the tower fell, then a strange sucking sound, and finally the sound of floors collapsing. Then came a huge surge of air, followed by a vast cloud of dirt, smoke, dust, paper and debris. Windows shattered. People screamed and dived for cover...Not long afterward, at 10:30 a.m., the second tower of the World Trade Center collapsed. The top of the building exploded with smoke and dust. There were no flames, just an explosion of debris, and then more vast clouds swept down to the streets. People were knocked to the ground on their faces as they ran from the building. "
  But of course not everyone heard of the explosions:
  JoeValiquette of the FBI:
  "...told AFP that he had not “heard anything” about reports of explosions in the building and that he had “never heard any discussion of it” in the FBI’s New York office”.

2.1.4 Reports from witnesses who seemed to have felt the effects of explosives

• Some people felt the direct results of explosives, just like the FOX reporter said: "that huge explosion that we all heard...and felt":
  Ronald DiFrancesco, one of the 4 known survivors who were above the 78th floor of the south tower:
  ”As he left the building, he saw a fireball rolling toward him. He put his arms in front of his face. He woke up three days later at St. Vincent's hospital. His arms were burned. Some bones were broken. His lungs were singed.”
  Don Halasy:
  "As I turned to run, a wall of warm air came barrelling toward me. I tried to outrace it, but it swept me up and literally blew me into the wall of a building. By the time I regained my footing, a hailstorm of debris was falling from the sky."
  David Handschuh, a photojournalist close to ground zero:
  ”…Handschuh got down to the end of the block and turned the corner when a wave – a hot, solid, black wave of heat threw me down the block. It literally picked me up off my feet, and I wound up about a block away.”
  March 18, 2002 issue of New York Magazine, Richard Polatchek:
  "That's when I saw all these firemen come running out of Tower Two, screaming to get away, the building was imploding. When the building came down, it wasn't a "cloud of dust," it was just this wave of debris -- concrete, wire. It was knocking people off their feet." (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/5788/index1.html)
  March 18, 2002 issue of New York Magazine, Amy Ting:
  "...One of the fireman came running in through the revolving door, yelling, "The building's coming down!" And it did; I flew from the middle of the lobby to the corner. It lifted me up in the air." (http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/5788/index1.html)
  The French documentary makers who produced '9/11 the filmmakers' videotaped this wave as they were running from the north tower. It also shows the air rushing (a sucking sound) back to fill the vacuum.

2.1.5 Explosives have also been reported by firemen

• Firemen Louie Cacchioli:
  "I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the 24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On the last trip up a bomb went off. We think there were bombs set in the building." (notice the 'we')
  A group of firemen in the documentary ‘911 – the filmmakers’:
  Fireman one: "We made it at least two blocks and we started running. Floor by floor it started popping out." Fireman two: (makes sound and hand gentures to show how the floors popped out) "It is if they had detonators..."
  Fireman one: "Yeah! detonators..."
  Fireman two: "It is if they had planned to take down the building…boom…boom …boom…boom”
  Fireman one: "Yeah...detonators...all the way down, I watching it and running."
  Fireman three: "Right, just ran up west."
  Fireman one: "And then you saw this cloud of shit chasing you down the road."
  In june of 2002 some transcipts of the firemen at the scene were released:
  ”Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've just had another explosion.”
  “Official: Battalion 3 to dispatch, we've had additional explosion.”
  “Dispatcher: Received battalion command. Additional explosion.”
  Fireman communicating live during the collapse of the second tower:
  "...We got another explosion on the tower..."
  Another live transcript:
  "We have numerous people covered in dust because of the secondary explosion..."
  NBC reporter Pat Dawson at the morning of 911:
  ”...The Chief of Safety of the Fire Department of New York told me that...er...he thinks that there were actually devices that were planted in the building. One of the secondary devices he thinks that took place after the initial impact was, he thinks, may have been on the plane that crashed into one of the towers. The second device, he thinks, he speculates, was probably planted in the building…
  Randy Lavello article:
  "Before beginning this article, I met Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman and former Auxiliary Police Officer, Paul Isaac Jr. at the World Trade Center Memorial. Paul, along with many other firemen, is very upset about the obvious cover-up and he is on a crusade for answers and justice. He was stationed at Engine 10, across the street from the World Trade Center in 1998 and 99; Engine 10 was entirely wiped out in the destruction of the towers. He explained to me that, “many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.” Paul further elaborated that former CIA director Robert [James] Woolsey, as the Fire Department’s Anti-terrorism Consultant, is sending a gag order down the ranks. “There were definitely bombs in those buildings,” he told me. He explained to me that, if the building had ‘pancaked’ as it’s been called, the falling floors would have met great resistance from the steel support columns, which would have sent debris flying outward into the surrounding blocks. I asked him about the trusses, and quoted the history channel’s ‘don’t trust a truss’ explanation for the collapses. He responded in disbelief, and told me, “You could never build a truss building that high. A slight wind would knock it over! Those buildings were supported by reinforced steel. Building don’t just implode like that; this was a demolition.” (http://www.prisonplanet.com/analysis_lavello_050503_bombs.html - May5, 2003)
• Some pictures of what is talked about can be seen here.

2.1.6 What demolition experts have said and the evidence for the use of explosives

• People that were watching tv also noticed the peculiar way the buildings came down. (including me)
  The Albuquerque Journal, hours after attack quotes Van Romero, an explosives expert and former director of a demolition company:
  “My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse…too methodical to be a chance result of airplanes colliding with the structures."
  10 days later he demanded a retraction of the article and on September 22 this was printed in the same magazine:
  ”Certainly the fire is what caused the building to fail”
  In the March 2005 Popular Mechanics article that refutes the 9/11 conspiracies selectively:
  "Romero responds: "Conspiracy theorists came out saying that the government got to me. That is the farthest thing from the truth. This has been an albatross around my neck for three years." (http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/defense/1227842.html?page=4&c=y)
  September 12 , Danish "Bomb expert" Mr. Bent Lund in the Daily (Copenhagen) Newspaper "BT":
  "...an estimated amount of circa 1 tons of Extra high-explosives Bombs must have been detonated inside the World Trade Center complex in order to make the Towers collapse in the manner they did." (Also changed his mind)
• A television camera located at the top of one of the surrounding buildings overlooked the north tower. 11.7 seconds before the sudden collapse it is shaking violently for 2.1 seconds. It is very hard to hear if there is an explosion because a helicopter is hovering nearby but there is a possibility that you hear a very deep rumble at this moment. (I cannot say it for sure though) On the moment the camera shakes a big chuck of debris is falling of the towers what indicates that it is not just someone bumping against the camera.
  It is also very important to note that te same thing happened with the south tower. Around 8 seconds before the collapse debris can be seen falling off 2 different sides. Then everything is ok again till the actual collapse.
• The antenna of the north tower went at the very beginning of the collapse straight down, indicating that the central support columns had failed together with the rest of the structure. (didn't swing sideways) Some say the central antenna is the first part to move but in either case, it is at the very first millisecond of the collapse that the antenna went through the floor. The central part of the building did collapse at the same side which was weakened by the airplane impact, even though some claim the opposite.
• A movie circulating on the internet shows the inside of the helicopters at the moment of one of the collapses. It looks like it is hit by a shockwave, people are screaming, the camera shakes violently. The movie is a little bit too short though to tell for sure.
• A French cameraman is filming firemen working in the shadow of the north tower. This cameraman and some of these firemen had to run for their life when they were inside the south tower when it collapsed. Again, they just didn't expect the north tower to come down when a huge thunder comes up....however, this thunder, including a little shaking of the ground, occurs at least 5 or 6 seconds before the tower actually starts collapsing. Only 11 seconds after the rumble starts the firemen at the base of the tower start running away. Where does the sound come from? If the sound initiated the collapse everyone had already been buried in rubble by the time they looked up.
  In this movie you can see very clearly how a huge vacuum has been created sucking the air with great force back to the building, just as some nearby witnesses have reported.
• Mark Loizeaux during the excavation of the site (president of Controlled Demolitions Inc, the main company to clear the WTC site):
  ”If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure.” (American Free Press)
• There were rumors that pools of molten steel had been found beneath the WTC towers. These were confirmed.
  Mark Loizeaux, president van Controlled Demolitions Inc (the main company that cleared the WTC rubble):
  "yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels” (American Free Press)
  Peter Tully, president van Tully Construction of Flushing (a company that helped to clean up the WTC sites):
  ”I saw pools of literally molten steel” [I presume “molten-but-not-any-more”] (American Free Press)
  Everyone who thinks kerosine could do something like that needs a basic chemistry course. With or without enough oxygen, it’s just not gonna work.
• A picture taken by a NASA satellite 5 days after the attack, registered temperatures of 680 ºC to 740 ºC (1250ºF to 1360ºF) below the pile of rubble where WTC 1&2 (and 7 to a lesser degree) once stood. That's enough to keep aluminium melted. Should it have been so hot in the first place so deep down? Smoke came out of WTC complex for 3 months, even though it was non-stop sprayed with water.
• The whole inside of the buildings was completely blown to pieces. The staircases, the elevator shafts, the concrete floors, the aluminium covering, the furniture and the people….everything is reduced to tiny pieces or even smaller.
  A (seemingly) frustrated NY fireman confirms in the 9/11 documentary by two French cameramen:
  ”You have 2 110 story office buildings, you don’t find a desk, you don’t find a chair, you don’t find a telephone, a computer, the biggest piece of a telephone I found was half the size of a keypad and it was about this big…the building collapsed to dust.”
• Only the steel beams had survived the collapse. For the most part they were shattered in just the right size to be loaded on the available trucks and be hauled away within days. The outside portion of the building was (as you could see on regular footage) still partly standing after the collapse and fell over the inside. Whatever caused the buildings to fall down, explosives could hardly have done a better job.
• Controlled Demolitions Inc did also clean up the site of another controversial event, the Oklahoma bombing. (where live television reported many times that there were 2 other bombs in the building, that were being removed) They have a patent on what they call DREXS [Directional Remote Explosive Severance] what basicly means something like ‘remote-controlled-shaped-charge-device-to-sever-steel/concrete’. I have not been able to find much about it besides that for some reason they seem to be able to do demolition jobs faster than other companies. Remote controlled devices tied to a computer sure is faster and more convenient then laying a couple of kilometers of wire and/or detonating cord. Is this so special in the demolition industry? I don’t know. All I know is that remote controlled devices could have been placed in the towers to bring it down.
  They also advertize they can sever any building in just the right size as the available equipment allows it to be dragged away. Is this something special? I don’t know either.
• A lot of people like to point to the huge spike that was registered by one of the seismic centers. My problem with it, is that a 'further collapse' also showed a similar spike, only smaller. There is also some seismic activity before the huge spike, which could have easily been the first part of the collapse of the building. Only when the first large pieces started hitting the ground, the huge spike appeared. But interpretating seismic data is something only experts can do, so I won't touch it. I have seen no expert who have been quoted as saying the seismic spike indicated explosives were used. (at least not in a clear, direct way) Here's a good piece which shows both sides of the story. (http://911review.com/errors/wtc/seismic.html)
• The floors of the WTC consisted of a layer of concrete. These were all pulverized and covered the area of the WTC with up to 10 centimeters of concrete dust. I personally would expect the concrete to break into many pieces during the collapse, not to pulverize.
• A very thorough and mathematic piece is written by a guy named Jim Hoffman (engineer, physisist and graphics artist) who tries to shows that the expansion (and temperature) of the pyroclastic cloud and the pulverization of all non-metals in the tower is way too big to have been caused by gravity alone. His conclusion:
  ”The amount of energy required to expand the North Tower's dust cloud was many times the entire potential energy of the tower's elevated mass due to gravity. The over 10-fold disparity between the most conservative estimate and the gravitational energy is not easily dismissed as reflecting uncertainties in quantitative assessments.The official explanation that the Twin Tower collapses were gravity-driven events appears insufficient to account for the documented energy flows.”
  

  	energy, KWH	source or sink
  	+ 111,000	falling of mass (1.97e11 g falling average of 207 m)
  	- 135,000	crushing of concrete (9e10 g to 60 micron powder)
  	ignoring water vaporization
  	- 400,000	heating of gasses (2e9 g air from 300 to 1020 K)
  	- 11,300,000	heating of suspended concrete (9e10 g from 300 to 1020 K)
  	assuming water vaporization sink was not supply-limited
  	- 1,496,000	vaporization of water (2.38e9 g water)
  	- 41,000	heating of gasses (2e9 g air from 300 to 373 K)
  	- 1,145,000	heating of suspended concrete (9e10 g from 300 to 373 K)

  
  Some unknown person has commented on this piece (version 3.0 instead of the final 3.1). This person agreed for the most part but calculated about 14 tons of Amatol (or similar) would have accounted for the rapid increase in temperature/ expansion for the pyroclastic cloud, where Jim Hoffman didn't want to contemplate the usage of explosives. (probably so that no one would attack him for being a conspiracy theorist)
• Multiple videos of the collapses show rapidly expanding debris clouds (and even a couple of flashes) that are located 2-3 floors below the collapsing floors or even as much as 30 or more.
• At least one video shows a flash, which is followed by a debris cloud. At that moment, the toppling upper part of the south tower breaks in two, exactly at the spot the flash appeared only milliseconds before. The event is preceeded and followed-up by more rapidly expanding smoke puffs, 1 or 2 a second before the tower starts to collapse.
• Especially with the south tower some good footage is available where you will notice the very violent collapse of the building. After a few floors have been completely blown out, it looks like multiple firecracker strings are going off, ripping apart the floors of the building from top to bottom….very violent, very loud. Halfway the collapse the dust clouds cover the entire building so you cannot really see what happens at the bottom part.
• Both of the buildings collapsed in 10 to 12 seconds. You can calculate this by watching the video with a stopwatch, or by counting the amount of frames that have passed between the start and the end of the collapse. 10 to 12 seconds means there wasn't that much resistance from the all-steel building, which a lot of people find peculiar. Just as the fact the collapse was so methodolical and so complete. I don't really have an opinion on the first issue.
• Some pictures of what is talked about can be seen here.

2.1.7 The towers were built to resist a 757 or 767

• According to numerous statements I heard on TV, the towers were not built to withstand an airplane attack of the magnitude of a 757 & 767. They were only build to withstand a 707. Unfortunatly, if you look at any aviator website you can see that a 707 is just as big and heavy as a 767 and a 707 is even larger then a 757. The fuel capacity is roughly the same. The architects of the WTC towers and other expert on this area had this to say:
  Lee Robertson, WTC project's structural engineer:
  ”I designed it for a 707 to hit it. The Boeing 707 has a fuel capacity of more than 23,000 gallons, comparable to the 767's 23,980-gallon fuel capacity.” (767-400 he’s talking about, at the WTC we were dealing with a smaller 767-200)
  Aaron Swirski, a shocked WTC architect on september 11 from Israel:
  "That it collapsed is a really, really incredible thing…..It was designed around that eventuality to survive this kind of attack. It was designed like a pipe, if you make a hole in a pipe it doesn’t collapse…fireproof doors should have contained the fires" (The fire didn’t seem to spread and people talking through mobile phones have said they were trapped between fireproof doors, so I suppose that part worked)
  And why didn’t the the terrorists hijack a 747? This plane is about 7% faster, takes 4 times more much fuel with it and has a 50% greater wingspan, making it much heavier and a far more lethal weapon.
  January 25, 2001, Frank A. DeMartini, World Trade Center Construction & Project Manager, had this to say about a plane impact into one of the towers:
  "The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it, that was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the musquito netting on your screen door, this intense grid. And the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting, it really does nothing to the screen netting."
  Professor Wilem Frischmann of the Pell Frischmann Group and the City University of London had examined flaws in building construction before. On october 1, 2001, the BBC wrote about an interview with him:
  "'Prior to 11 September, I scarcely believed that this icon was vulnerable'... He added that the impact of the Boeings, puncturing the outer steel shell of the towers would not in itself have caused the towers to fall. 'My current analysis of the collapse sequence [suggests that] damage caused to the outside would not have triggered collapse.' Although the explosion caused by the fuel-laden aircraft would have been intense, the lack of available oxygen inside the towers would, according to Professor Frischmann, have limited the fireball's temperature to less than 1,000 Celsius. This was within the design limits that the towers were supposed to withstand." (He's talking about the temperature of the fireball, it takes considerable time before so much steel also gets close to the same temperature) (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1579092.stm)
  Scripps Howard News Service, September 11 and September 12, 2001:
  "Hyman Brown, a University of Colorado civil engineering professor and the World Trade Center's construction manager, watched in confusion as the towers came down. "It was over-designed to withstand almost anything including hurricanes, high winds, bombings and an airplane hitting it," he said." But:
  Los Angeles Times, September 12, 2001:
  "Hyman Brown, a University of Colorado civil engineering professor and the construction manager for the World Trade Center, said that flames fueled by thousands of gallons of aviation fuel melted the towers' steel supports. This building would have stood had a plane or a force caused by a plane smashed into it," he said. "But steel melts, and 24,000 gallons of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire."
  Well, as you will read below, steel doesn't melt steel, although it might weaken it. Anyway, if someone wants to hear mr. Brown's opinion he needs to call to Israel now:
  July 4, 2003, Intermountain Jewish News:
  "For Hyman Brown, construction manager for New York's World Trade Center in 1965, the Twin Towers' awful falling on Sept. 11 convinced him to "go up" and make aliyah...Global terrorism "is all connected. You can't separate Palestinian terrorism from the terrorism shown to us here in the US." While the US seems to have a post-Sept. 11 grip on terrorism, Israel continues fighting a daily war against terrorist attacks. Brown felt he could best contribute to Israel's struggle by becoming one of her citizens...Twelve years ago he married his second wife, a doctoral candidate in Holocaust studies. A Christian, she decided to convert -- to Orthodox Judaism." (http://www.ijn.com/archive/2003%20arch/070403.htm)
  Bob Halvorson of architects Halvorson and Kaye:
  "There is going to be a debate about whether or not the World Trade Center Towers should have collapsed in the way that they did." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1579092.stm) (A truly prophetic statement)

2.1.8 How intense was the fire? And why did the firemen established their commandpost inside the towers?

• At least one person who survived the initial crash and fires of flight 11 (north tower), was standing inside the big black hole the airplane had made, waiting to be rescued. This person didn't seem to have any burned or dirty clothing. The all-consuming inferno, that supposedly was the reason for the sudden collapse, was in reality quite limited. But the collapse still happened. No sagging, no warning, no partial collapse….just out of the blue with no one really expecting it.
  And when we're talking about 7 WTC, there was no real damage done to that building at all, since no plane or airplane pieces hit it. Even FEMA in 2002 could only guess how the fire started in the first place.
• Brian Clark, survivor from the south tower who was above the area of impact:
  "You could see through the wall and the cracks and see flames just, just licking up, not a roaring inferno, just quiet flames licking up and smoke sort of eking through the wall."
  Stanley Praimnath, survivor from the 81th floor of the south tower:
  "...walls flattened into dusty heaps, office equipment strewn violently, flames flickering about and rubble everywhere."
• Firemen who reached the 78th floor of the south tower stated they could see only two isolated pockets of fire. It would be easy to control them. Firemen were coordinating everything from inside the lobby of the south tower up to the moment it collapsed. By reading the transcripts and seeing the documentary from the two French cameramen it is very obvious that the firemen didn’t have the slightest clue the building was going to come down, which is not at all that strange since steel buildings are supposed to withstand what happened on 911. Never before 911 has the steel core of such a building collapsed because of fire. (FEMA's own words) The WTC towers were very, very strong. The firemen knew that:
  9:25AM, firemen are going up the tower:
  Stephen Belson: “Chief, I'm going to stop on 44 [floor]”
  Chief Palmer: “Take your time”
  Firemen who reached the fire at the south tower just before it collapsed:
  Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones.
  Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"
  Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."
• Firemen didn't seem to expect at all that the towers were about to collapse.
  Fireman 1 from French documentary '9/11 - the filmmakers':
  "It just came down....and it wasn't supposed to come down."
  Firemen 2 from French documentary '9/11 - the filmmakers':
  "You know, kinda walking at this point. Felt we were safe..." (after the first collapse, just below the north tower)
  Firemen 3 from French documentary '9/11 - the filmmakers':
  " I thought...[can't hear it]...then come up with a plan and then we go back in...that's what I thought it would be like..." (after the first collapse, just below the north tower)
• But someone knew the buildings would come down, even though the experts on site had no clue.
  Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in an interview with Peter Jennings on CBS News:
  ”We were operating out of there [WTC 7 bunker] when we were told that the World Trade Center was gonna collapse …and it did collapse before we could get out of the building.”
  Absolutely no one, including the firemen who had sat up a command post in the building didn’t have the slightest clue the building was gonna come down, so why would the Mayor know it? He’s got some explaning to do. (I’m not saying he knew persé what was going to happen. But someone knew and told him.) Unfortunatly, the 2004 9/11 commission has not asked him any questions about his statement.

2.1.9 More on the temperature inside the World Trade Center towers

• Unproofed steel melts at about 1500 ºC / 2700 ºF and i