David Ray Griffin - 9/11 Unmasked: An International Review Panel Investigation

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

I. The Destruction of the Twin Towers 1

II. The Destruction of WTC 7

III. The Attack on the Pentagon

IV. The 9/11 Flights

V. US Military Exercises on and before 9/11

VI. Claims About Military and Political Leaders

VII. Osama bin Laden and the Hijackers

VIII. The Phone Calls from the 9/11 Flights

IX. The Question of Insider Trading

Conclusion

Notes

As co-founders of the 9/11 Consensus Panel, we would first like to extend our great thanks to the 23 expert reviewers who accepted our invitation to join an exacting review project in 2011, most of whom have served it each year until the present.

They are: Dr. Robert Bowman (1934-2013) (former Director of Advanced Space Programs Development, [Star Wars]); David S. Chandler (physics and mathematics teacher); Giulietto Chiesa (Italian journalist, former member, European Parliament); Jonathan Cole (professional civil engineer); Dwain Deets (former aerospace research director, NASA); Tod Fletcher (1952-2014) (former geography and environmental science instructor at Berkeley); Dr. Daniele Ganser (Swiss historian); Lt. Col. David Gapp (US Air Force retired pilot and aircraft accident investigator); Dr. Niels Harrit (Associate Professor Emeritus of Chemistry, Copenhagen); Dr. Steven E. Jones (Professor Emeritus of Physics, Brigham Young University); Commander Ralph Kolstad (retired US Navy fighter pilot, airline pilot); Dr. Graeme MacQueen, Professor Emeritus Peace Studies, McMaster University, Canada); Massimo Mazzucco (award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter, journalist); P. Dennis McMahon (attorney for 9/11 families); Aidan Monaghan (B. S. in electronic engineering); Rowland Morgan (former journalist, The Guardian and The Independent ); Frances Shure (Licensed Professional Counselor); Lou Stolzenberg (retired physical therapist); Daniel Sunjata (American actor in film, television and theater); Tony Szamboti (B. S. Mechanical Engineering); William Veale (attorney, retired instructor at UC Berkeley School of Law); Dr. Matthew Witt (Professor of Public Administration, University of La Verne, CA); Dr. Jonathan B. Weisbuch, M. D. (former senior public health officer in Arizona and Wyoming).

We further wish to thank the seven Honorary Members who lent their considerable weight to supporting this project: James W. Douglass, Christian theologian, author, and peace activist; Mathieu Kassovitz, French director, screenwriter, producer, and actor; William F. Pepper, former barrister for the Martin Luther King family; Andreas von Billow, German writer, lawyer, and politician; the late Ferdinando Imposimato, Honorary President of the Italian Supreme Court; the late National Medal of Science-winner Lynn Margulis; and the late Hon. Michael Meacher, who had been the longest-sitting member of the British House of Commons.

We extend special thanks posthumously to Dr. Timothy E. Johnstone (1939-2018), former provincial epidemiologist of British (Columbia, who recommended the Delphi Method as a model for achieving best-evidence consensus.

Finally, we thank our wonderful publisher, Michel Moushabeck, for once again supporting ongoing research into the events of 9/11; his most helpful assistant, Pamela FontesMay, who brought the book to completion; and David Klein, who conscientiously did the first edit of the manuscript in a surprisingly short time.

Both of our lives have been impacted for seven years by the time requirements of this project, and we wish to thank our families and friends for their patience and support.

The 9/11 attacks of 2001 have had powerfully destructive global effects. The nature of these effects is shown by ongoing headlines in the mainstream press:

The 9/11 Decade and the Decline of U. S. Democracy1

9/11 Used to Demonize Muslim World, Justify NSA Spying of US Citizens.2

The Tyranny of 9/11: The Building Blocks of the American Police State from A-Z.3

Since 9/11, Weve Had 4 Wars in the Middle East. Theyve All Been Disasters.4

Given these disastrous effects, and the many people who have raised questions about the attacks, one would suppose that the press would have thoroughly explored the question of how they were carried out and who organized them. But this did not happen. Rather, the press for the most part simply repeated the official account and attacked those who questioned it. But deep and pervasive contradictions in the official reports made questioning necessary.5

According to the official account, the attacks were engineered by al-Qaeda under the inspiration of Osama bin Laden. As researchers outside the mainstream press began studying the evidence, they discovered more and more facts that seemed to conflict with the official account.

As a result, a movement evolvedwhich came to be called the 9/11 Truth Movement. The main focus of this movement has been to investigate evidence that' does not square with the official story. But some of this evidence has, beyond showing problems in the official account, also suggested that the attacks were organized by people within the US government, specifically the Bush-Cheney administration and its Pentagon.

Under this interpretation, 9/11 was a false-flag attack, in which a government attacks itself while providing evidence implicating some other government or group, thereby providing a basis for attacking it. And there were certainly motives to organize attacks. For example, the neoconservatives, led by Dick Cheney, had in the 1990s expressed their desire to attack Iraq.6 Moreover, in 2001, at the first meeting of the Bush-Cheney administrations National Security Council, the focus was on how (not whether) to eliminate Iraqs president, Saddam Hussein.7

However, although 9/11 scholars pointed to possible motives for a false flag attack, in addition to reasons why the official account of 9/11 cannot be true, the mainstream press dismissed these arguments as irrational, unsupported conspiracy theories, and instead suggested personal shortcomings that make people susceptible to conspiracy theories. Rather than investigating the claims of the 9/11 research community, a writer for Accuracy in Media wrote, What needs to be investigated is the 9/11 truth movement, its members, and those abroad who continue to promote it.8 *

The public debates about the credibility of the claims of the 9/11 Truth Movement have been generally dismissive, and superficial at best. One of the main reasons for this has been the lack of any basis for saying what the movements beliefs are. Reporters sometimes take statements by various people claiming that 9/11 was an inside job as summarizing what 9/11 truthers believe. Using that basis, they have often portrayed people who question 9/11 as ignorant and irrational.

This portrayal has blocked public access to solid investigative research into the defining political event of this century.

The two of us, therefore, decided to offer the media and the public a body of scientific information constituting best evidence that contradicts the official position about 9/11.

Forming the 9/11 Consensus Panel

The best way to do this, we decided, would be to form a panel of twenty-some independent researchers well-versed on 9/11 with a broad spectrum of expertise. Dubious claims embedded in the official account of 9/11 would be presented to the panelists separately to see if they, with no consultation among themselves, would reach consensus on whether there was sufficient basis to declare the claim false.