9/11 News Articles

Excerpts of key news articles on

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Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on dozens of engaging topics. And read excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.

The federal commission that probed the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was told twice about "Able Danger," a military intelligence unit that had identified Mohamed Atta and other hijackers a year before the attacks. Rep. Curt Weldon, R-Pa.,...wrote to the former chairman and vice-chairman of the Sept. 11 commission late Wednesday, telling them that their staff had received two briefings on the military intelligence unit -- once in October 2003 and again in July 2004. Weldon...wrote to former Chairman Gov. Thomas Kean and Vice-Chairman Rep. Lee Hamilton. "The 9/11 commission staff received not one but two briefings on Able Danger from former team members, yet did not pursue the matter. "The commission's refusal to investigate Able Danger after being notified of its existence, and its recent efforts to feign ignorance of the project while blaming others for supposedly withholding information on it, brings shame on the commissioners"

Note: For an abundance of excellent, incriminating information on this, see our Able Danger Information Center.

A society of experts and scholars has now joined with Judicial Watch in calling for release of videos that are being held by the Department of Defense, which are essential to understanding events at the Pentagon that transpired on September 11, 2001. Scholars for 9/11 Truth, which is dedicated to exposing falsehoods and establishing truths about the events of 9/11, has gone beyond Judicial Watch by calling for the release of other films and evidence that, its officers maintain, are essential to understanding 9/11. "It is outrageous that the government is withholding this vital information", said James H. Fetzer, founder and co-chair of the society. They are calling for immediate release of the full Pentagon surveillance tape as well as video tapes seized by FBI agents minutes after the Pentagon hit; a complete inventory of the plane wreckage and debris from Flights 11, 77, 93, 175 or any other aircraft that crashed or was destroyed on September 11, 2001.

Note: Though Yahoo! News picked up this important article, no major media found it newsworthy until many months later.

According to a poll by Ohio University and Scripps Howard News Service, 36 percent of Americans believe that government officials "either assisted in the 9/ 11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks." Sixteen percent of Americans, the survey indicates, believe that "secret explosives"...brought down the World Trade Center towers. Robert Bowman, who directed the "Star Wars" defense program under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, reached his own conclusion after questioning...why the American military hadn't intercepted the hijacked planes before they hit the Pentagon and the World Trade Center [and] why the Pentagon didn't release surveillance tapes of American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the military complex. A former U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel with a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology...Bowman theorizes that Cheney and other officials stood to benefit financially. Bowman says they had a long-standing desire to control Iraq's oil and to use the country as a strategic hub for controlling the entire Middle East. The Sept. 11 commission, he says, neglected to investigate these possible connections, leaving a huge gap in the official account. Scholars for 9/11 Truth [is] an organization that believes the U.S. government "permitted 9/11 to occur." Among the group's members are Paul W. Rea, a humanities lecturer at St. Mary's College in Moraga; Tracy Belvins, a research scientist in bioengineering at Rice University; Kevin Barrett, a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin-Madison...and Stephen LeRoy, an economics professor at UC Santa Barbara who has been a visiting economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

A disaster relief company that took supplies that were supposed to go to Sept. 11 rescuers at the World Trade Center escaped punishment after the government discovered its own employees had stolen artifacts from ground zero, once-secret federal documents show. Dan L'Allier...told The Associated Press he witnessed 45 tons of the New York loot being unloaded in Minnesota at his company's headquarters. He and a colleague...complained to a company executive but were ordered to keep quiet. They went instead to the FBI. The two whistleblowers eventually lost their jobs, received death threats and were blackballed in the disaster relief industry. But they remained convinced their sacrifice was worth it to make sure justice was done. They were wrong. Federal prosecutors eventually charged KEI...but excluded the Sept. 11 thefts. The lead investigators for the FBI and [FEMA] told AP that the plan to prosecute...stopped as soon as it became clear in late summer 2002 that an FBI agent in Minnesota had stolen a crystal globe from ground zero. That prompted a broader review that ultimately found 16 government employees, including a top FBI executive and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, had such artifacts from New York or the Pentagon. "It's a sad indictment of our justice system that they would let people go in order to cover up misconduct by federal employees," said Jane Turner, the lead FBI agent. She too became a whistleblower alleging the bureau tried to fire her for bringing the stolen artifacts to light.

It is a bright and hopeful morning that greeted Americans on Sept. 11, 2001. Then it starts. By lunchtime, both buildings are gone, having crumbled to the ground, neatly compacting themselves in the descent. In the ensuing hours we begin to learn the names of those involved in the tragedy. Their passports sitting atop the smoldering rubble prove easier to find than virtually indestructible black-box data recorders that vanish without a trace. We are told that Osama bin Laden -- a known terrorist who had been trained in war tactics by the United States -- is to blame. The destruction of a third Manhattan skyscraper -- the 47-story Building #7 -- also collapsed, although no plane struck it. It's owner, Larry Silverstein, insured the building for $7 billion shortly before the disaster. "You have to ask yourself some simple questions, like how is it that Morgan Bush, the president's younger brother, owned the company that was in charge of security for the World Trade Center, yet it has never appeared in The New York Times?"

Note: This article largely seeks to debunk the 9/11 cover-up, yet it does give some good information.

Panelists talked about the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Among the issues they addressed were various theories concerning the origins of the attacks, charges of a government and media cover-up of key facts, the results of investigations into the attacks, and public perceptions of the events of September 11, 2001. Participants...called on citizens to question official versions of the terrorist attacks, examine independent sources of information, and conduct grassroots education campaigns to change public opinion. Following their presentations they answered questions from the audience. The two-day event, "American Scholars Symposium: 9/11 and The Neo-Con Agenda," was held in the ballroom of the Sheraton Los Angeles Downtown.

Note: This 105-minute program was aired on C-SPAN four times over the course of four days! Click on the links to see the schedule: July 29th, 8:00 PM, July 29th 11:00 PM, July 30th, 3:18 PM, and Aug. 1st, 6:11 PM. To view the program on C-SPAN's website as broadcast, see rtsp://video.c-span.org/60days/ap072906_theories.rm or see http://www.911blogger.com/2006/07/cspans-coverage-of-american-scholars.html. We express gratitude to C-SPAN for their courage in broadcasting this program and helping people to question what really happened on that fateful day.

The sentencing trial of Zacarias Moussaoui was supposed to have been the government's best opportunity to hold someone accountable for the deaths on Sept. 11, 2001. But after federal prosecutors finished laying out their case this week, even those who strongly supported an aggressive prosecution may wonder whether the trial has shed as much light on Mr. Moussaoui's culpability as it has on the missteps and mistakes by law enforcement agencies. The testimony of two prosecution witnesses, in particular, has brought renewed and unwelcome attention to how the [FBI] dealt with early warning signs. Mr. Moussaoui is the sole person to go to trial in an American courtroom for the attacks. Under cross-examination...Mr. Samit acknowledged that after the attacks he had written strongly worded reports saying his superiors had improperly blocked his efforts to investigate Mr. Moussaoui. He added that he was convinced that Mr. Moussaoui was a terrorist involved in an imminent hijacking plot. He offered a devastating comment from a supervisor who said pressing too hard to obtain a warrant for Mr. Moussaoui would hurt his career. Mr. Samit also wrote that his superiors did not act because they were guilty of "criminal negligence" and they were gambling that Mr. Moussaoui had little to offer. The lost wager, Mr. Samit said, was paid in many lives.

A state lawmaker is calling on the University of Wisconsin-Madison to fire a part-time instructor who has spoken out on his beliefs that figures in the U.S. government, not al-Qaida, were behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Kevin Barrett is scheduled to teach a class in the fall in the UW-Madison Department of Languages and Cultures of Asia. During his appearance Wednesday night on Jessica McBride's show on WTMJ, Barrett disputed most of the widely accepted information about the attacks that brought down the World Trade Center. Among other things, he claimed the group believed to have carried out the attacks was "a bunch of losers who couldn't even fly planes," and that evidence indicates the buildings were brought down by controlled demolitions. He acknowledged discussing Sept. 11 in teaching classes, but said it was only to give both sides of the issue, not to convert anyone to his point of view. State Rep. Stephen Nass...issued a statement demanding Barrett be fired immediately, calling him an embarrassment and accusing him of spewing "garbage." Barrett received his doctorate from UW-Madison in 2004 in African languages and literature and folklore

Note: Vote in a website poll on this issue at http://www.channel3000.com/news/9457154/detail.html. Kevin Barrett is the courageous director of a 9/11 website at http://www.mujca.com and a member of the influential group of professors and scholars who make up Scholars For 9/11 Truth: http://www.st911.org

Already the world's largest producer of opium, Afghanistan's 2006 output has soared a staggering 59 percent, according to a survey by the U.N.'s drug control program. So this year, the country that the United States invaded five years ago to stabilize will produce 16,000 tons of opium. Drugs now make up more than half of gross domestic product. Top government officials are tied to the drug trade. Corruption runs rampant. Addiction rates in Afghanistan and neighboring Central Asia, Iran and Pakistan are skyrocketing.

Note: How is it possible that the opium production continues to skyrocket in Afghanistan, when it was decimated the year before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan? For a possible answer, click here.

The Transportation Department's inspector general urged the Federal Aviation Administration on Friday to consider disciplinary action against two executives who failed to correct false information provided to the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The acting inspector general, Todd J. Zinser, whose office acts as the department's internal watchdog, found in a new report that the F.A.A. executives...learned after the fact that false information was given to the commission in May 2003 about the F.A.A.'s contacts with the Air Force on the morning of Sept. 11. The inspector general's report, prepared in response to complaints from the independent Sept. 11 commission, found that the three F.A.A. executives failed to act on an "obligation" to correct the false information provided to the commission, which found widespread confusion within the aviation agency and the military on the morning of the attacks. The F.A.A., part of the Transportation Department, declined to identify the three executives, whose names and titles were not revealed in the inspector general's report. Nor did the agency say whether it would consider disciplinary action. Richard Ben Veniste, a commission member, said in an interview on Friday that he was troubled that it had taken the inspector general two years to complete his investigation -- more time than it took the 9/11 commission to complete all of its work -- and that he released the report "on the Friday afternoon before the Labor Day weekend."

An active-duty Navy captain has become the second military officer to come forward publicly to say that a secret defense intelligence program tagged the ringleader of the Sept. 11 attacks as a possible terrorist more than a year before the attacks. The officer, Capt. Scott Phillpott, said in a statement Monday that he could not discuss details of the military program, which was called Able Danger, but confirmed that its analysts had identified the Sept. 11 ringleader, Mohamed Atta, by name by early 2000. His comments came on the same day that the Pentagon's chief spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, told reporters that the Defense Department had been unable to validate the assertions made by an Army intelligence veteran, Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer, and now backed up by Phillpott, about the early identification of Atta. Shaffer went public with his assertions last week, saying that analysts in the intelligence project had been overruled by military lawyers when they tried to share the program's findings with the FBI in 2000 in hopes of tracking down terrorist suspects tied to al Qaeda.

More than a year before the Sept. 11 attacks, a small, highly classified military intelligence unit identified Mohammed Atta and three other future hijackers as likely members of a cell of Al Qaeda operating in the United States, according to a former defense intelligence official and a Republican member of Congress. In the summer of 2000, the military team, known as Able Danger, prepared a chart that included visa photographs of the four men and recommended to the military's Special Operations Command that the information be shared with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the congressman, Representative Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, and the former intelligence official said Monday. The recommendation was rejected and the information was not shared, they said, apparently at least in part because Mr. Atta, and the others were in the United States on valid entry visas.

Operation Northwoods. This 1962 white paper from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff suggested possible justifications for a war against Cuba, including a never executed idea in which the CIA would detonate a drone aircraft to make it look like Fidel Castro had shot down an American passenger plane. Project for the New American Century [PNAC]. As evidence of the motives behind a government-planned 9-11, theorists point to one 28-word passage in a September 2000 [PNAC] report written with help from the likes of Scooter Libby and Paul Wolfowitz: "The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor. "Theorists point to Attorney General John Ashcroft's decision to stop flying commercial [planes] in the summer of 2001, as well as a San Francisco Chronicle report that Mayor Willie Brown received a warning of 9-11, as evidence that some people had foreknowledge of the attack. World Trade Center 7. This building -- the last to fall on 9-11 -- is key to all controlled-demolition theories. Its sudden fall onto its own footprint, and developer Larry Silverstein's reference on TV to telling the FDNY to "pull it," are seen as evidence that WTC7 was rigged to fall. Meanwhile, a convincing official explanation hasn't exactly been forthcoming.

Note: We generally avoid partisan sources, but as so few are reporting the vital questions around 9-11, we've included this article. You can find another informative article from the same newspaper on the same day at http://villagevoice.com/news/0608,murphy,72254,6.html. For our highly reliable, verifiable information on the 9-11 cover-up, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/911information. For an amazing free video with testimony from dozens of survivors on all of this, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=psP_9RE0V2I

There was a time when "Coast to Coast AM," the late-night syndicated talk radio show dedicated to paranormal activities and political conspiracies, didn't get much respect. That all changed when millions from the mainstream met up with the after-midnight fringe folks to make "Coast to Coast AM" a top-rated radio show. George Noory...has hosted the program on weeknights from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. PST full time since 2003. The show...was taking calls about Sept. 11 conspiracy theories just two weeks after the terrorist attacks. "Coast to Coast AM"...can now reach upward of 3 million listeners through 500 stations each week. "There's absolutely a growing conspiracy climate," said Noory. "People are tired of being misled and confused from taking information directly from a government official." Noory, 56, took over "Coast to Coast AM" when the show's founder, Art Bell, retired. Bell, who has come in and out of retirement several times over the years, now hosts the program on weekends from his new home in the Philippines. Judging by the 300-plus phone calls and 1,000 e-mails the show receives on an average night...listeners include liberals, conservatives, senior citizens in San Francisco, college students in South Carolina and even soldiers in Iraq. Talkers magazine, the trade publication that tracks radio ratings, has Noory in the top 10 of its "Top Talk Radio Audiences," alongside Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly [and] Sean Hannity. "Coast to Coast" has on occasion scooped major media outlets like the New York Times and CNN, according to Noory. "We broke the story on the Dubai ports," said Noory. "We broke the story on SARS, and we were the first to report on the bird flu pandemic."

Striding into Washington Square Park with a fistful of photocopied circulars and an earnest expression, Eric Williams could have been an environmental canvasser or a hip missionary. In fact, he is a pastry chef — or was until last week, when he quit his job to devote himself full time to proving that the World Trade Center attack was ordered not by terrorists but by officials in the U.S. government. As New York readied for another anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, conspiracy theorists and researchers who belong to a group known as the 9/11 Truth Movement gathered in Greenwich Village. Among them were proponents of the "LIHOP" theory, who believe that members of the government "let it happen on purpose," and the "MIHOP" theory, who hold that government officials "made it happen on purpose." A Zogby International poll taken in May found that 42% believed the government concealed evidence that contradicts official accounts. Last week, Brigham Young University announced that physics professor Steven E. Jones, co-chairman of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth, would be put on indefinite leave while authorities investigated his claims that the buildings were intentionally demolished using explosives. For Williams, the former chef...his fascination with the events of Sept. 11 grew so intense over the last two years that making pastries seemed pointless. He...now devotes six to eight hours a day to researching and writing, and hosts an Internet radio show and website. He has just sold the German and Turkish rights to two of his books, "The Puzzle of 9/11" and "9/11 101." Europeans are always interested, he said. Engaging New Yorkers is more challenging.

Kevin Barrett ticked off a few examples of what he saw as evidence that the Sept. 11 attacks had been an "inside job." Mr. Barrett, 47, described how some news orgainzations...had reported that an agent from the Central Intelligence Agency visited with Osama bin Laden two months before the attacks. He also said fires could not have caused the collapse of the World Trade Center towers at free-fall speed, as reported by the special Sept. 11 commission. "The 9/11 report will be universally reviled as a sham and a cover-up very soon," said Mr. Barrett, who has been a teacher's assistant or lecturer on Islam, African literature and other subjects at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 1996. "The 9/11 commission has its conspiracy theory, and we have ours." Mr. Barrett's views, which he described on a conservative radio talk show in June, have outraged some Wisconsin legislators and generated a fierce debate about academic freedom on a campus long known as a haven for progressive ideologies and student activism. Mr. Barrett, a co-founder of a group called Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance for 9/11 Truth, argued that he had never presented his personal opinions in class and that he was free to offer those opinions on his own time outside the classroom. Mr. Barrett and [University of Wisconsin] Chancellor Wiley both said the controversy might actually be helping provide Mr. Barrett with a larger platform to voice his ideas.

KEVIN BARRETT, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN: I know that 9/11 was an inside job. Professor Steven Jones has found residue on the steel samples from the World Trade Center. We now know that it was taken down in a controlled demolition. (END VIDEO CLIP) SEAN HANNITY, CO-HOST: That was a clip from our exclusive interview Monday night with University of Wisconsin Islamic studies professor Kevin Barrett. Now the university, in fact, says they will allow him to teach his class on Islam, in spite of his controversial theories about 9/11. But Professor Barrett isn't alone in his beliefs. One of his supporters joins us now. Dr. Bob Bowman is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, currently a Florida Democratic congressional candidate. So you believe this is an inside job. You believe this was a controlled demolition as he does? BOWMAN: I don't know who did it, and neither do you. We have a right to know who did it. And so do the families of the victims. We need a truly independent investigation to find out the truth. The most unbelievable of all the wild conspiracy theories is the one that our government has told us. COLMES: You believe the United States government itself is putting forth a conspiracy theory when it talks about 19 people with box cutters in an airplane and Usama bin Laden being the mastermind? BOWMAN: Absolutely. There [were] 20 people involved, right? That makes it a conspiracy. More than one person plans a crime. That's a conspiracy.

The release of new video pictures of the Pentagon being attacked on 9/11 will not quell the endless claims in the world of conspiracy theorists that a missile or military aircraft hit the building instead. If you look closely, you do see what could be a plane, flying very low and then hitting the building, causing a huge fireball. It is consistent with the official account. However, the new frames do not absolutely without doubt show that this was American Airlines 77 in its final moments, so hope will spring eternal for the conspiracists that they have not been knocked out. To understand the conspiracy theory, it is worth considering a film called "Loose Change: 2nd edition". Available on the internet, it reveals the full alternative version of what happened to the Pentagon in all its glory. It states AA 77 did not crash into the building. And if there was no AA 77, it must have been a missile, a military aircraft or a drone that did it. The alleged pilot Hani Hanjour was not skilled enough to execute the manoeuvre and the plane would have stalled in the tight turn alleged. The film is quite professionally done on a technical level, with sinister music and fast cutting. It is proving popular on the internet in reinforcing beliefs that 9/11 might not have been all it seems.

Note: Thank you BBC for having the courage to recommend this amazing 9/11 documentary! To see an engaging, recent BBC News video clip on 9/11 conspiracies in which they also mention the powerful five-minute video "Pentagon Strike" and the longer video "In Plane Site" (which has its weaknesses), click here. And why won't the government release several other videotapes of the alleged plane hitting the Pentagon on 9/11?

Could the attacks of September 11 have been planned by someone other than terrorists? Some people are blaming our own government. The booming conspiracy theory movement claims the point was to launch wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. There are thousands of Web pages that talk about a cover up. The theorists believe it was an inside job. "There isn't a single word of truth in [the 9/11 Commission Report]," begins Kevin Barrett. Barrett is a lecturer at UW Madison. He's part of a group that calls itself the 9-11 Truth Movement. "I'm sure that the official story that we've been given about what happened is a lie," he says. The 9-11 Truth Movement also believes a tape of Osama Bin Ladin confessing to the attacks... is a fake. They compare the tape to other pictures, and believe the "fake" Osama is too fat. They say the guys is obviously an imposter - a guy that weighs fifty pounds more than Osama ever did - and who has a completely different facial structure and looks about as much like Osama as Laurel looks like Hardy is in this video claiming responsibility for 9-11. Barrett has caught a lot of heat for his ideas because he teaches at UW Madison. The UW Provost says despite complaints against Barrett, he will be allowed to continue teaching.

Note: For an hour-long interview on Wisconsin Public Radio with Kevin Barrett, click here. The most interesting thing about this interview is that at least half of the listeners who called in to the program supported Barrett's position that there was a major cover-up of what really happened on 9/11.

The Defense Department's inspector general has concluded that a top secret intelligence-gathering program did not identify Mohamed Atta or any other hijacker before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, determining that there is no evidence to substantiate claims that Atta's name and photograph were on charts collected by military officials before the strikes. Pentagon officials said that the recollections of several officials involved in the "Able Danger" data-mining operation "were not accurate" and that a chart they said included a blurry image of Atta and his name never existed. The report concluded that there were no efforts to prevent contact between the Pentagon group and the FBI. The investigation began after members of Congress raised concerns over reports that Navy Capt. Scott Philpott and Army Reserve Lt. Col. Anthony Shaffer remembered seeing Atta's photograph on documents collected by the intelligence program, and that the commission investigating the attacks had ignored their assertions. The assertions gained considerable steam when Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.) said...that, two weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, he presented White House officials with a chart that depicted people affiliated with al-Qaeda, including lead hijacker Atta. "I am appalled that the DoD IG would expect the American people to actually consider this a full and thorough investigation," Weldon said. "I question their motives and the content of the report, and I reject the conclusions they have drawn." Shaffer has consistently maintained that he believes he saw Atta's image.

Note: This article is a prime example of how the media at times is seriously biased to support the official story of 9/11. I invite you to read the article and then read our summary of information gathered from highly respected media at http://www.WantToKnow.info/abledanger911. When a prominent Republican congressman and several military officers have clearly stated the opposite, is it really possible to conclude that "there is no evidence to substantiate claims that Atta's name and photograph were on charts collected by military officials before the strikes." Were these military and government representatives all lying, and if so, why?

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.