Esoteric Scribblings

Loose Change: Second Edition is a video that attempts to demonstrate that the "official" explanation for the events of 11 September, 2001, is wrong. It presents a theory that the World Trade Center was destroyed by explosives planted weeks before the planes crashed into the towers. It also claims that the Pentagon was not struck by a large passenger jet. Well, watch the video and see for yourself.

In the course of analyzing the video, I will quote and paraphrase the narration and other parts of the audio track and title cards. Direct quotes of Loose Change will be indicated by quotation marks. And Loose Change content will be preceded by its corresponding time stamp.

[Loose Change 0:05] "Dedicated to the lives we lost on September 11th, 2001."

The video starts off on the right foot. Thousands were murdered on 9/11. Who can forget the images of people jumping from the upper floors of the World Trade Center towers? How horrific must the conditions have been that they chose to jump rather than endure any more.

[LC 0:30] "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." -National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice

Loose Change will use a short quote without indicating when it was spoken or in what context. Ms. Rice spoke those words in a press conference in May, 2002. The transcript is here.

Q: Why shouldn't this be seen as an intelligence failure, that you were unable to predict something happening here?

DR. RICE: Steve, I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile. All of this reporting about hijacking was about traditional hijacking. You take a plane -- people were worried they might blow one up, but they were mostly worried that they might try to take a plane and use it for release of the blind Sheikh or some of their own people.

But I think that there's always a fine balance, but even in retrospect, even in hindsight, there was nothing in what was briefed to the President that would suggest that you would go out and say to the American people, look, I just read that terrorists might hijack an aircraft. They talk about hijacking an aircraft once in a while, but have no specifics about when, where, under what circumstances.

In September, 2002, Rice was interviewed by PBS NewsHour and she was asked about this statement. The transcript is here.

MARGARET WARNER: Let me close by asking you a couple of questions about the joint inquiry into the pre-9/11 intelligence failures because you just referred to the attack without warning.

You had said back in May, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile."

Now, as you know, the joint inquiry found otherwise; they found there was a lot of historical evidence that, one, terrorists planned and were capable of attacks in the U.S. - and two, that they talked a lot about using airplanes as weapons. Given everything that has come out, do you still believe that the attacks were unpredictable?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Yes, I do still believe that the attacks were unpredictable. Look, the 1998 reports that apparently some intelligence analysts looked at and made an analysis that perhaps al-Qaida wanted to slam planes into buildings were simply not made available to the Bush Administration.

We weren't here in 1998, and I think you have to look at the fact that this was among a host of other intelligence analyses that suggested that car bombs and attacks against nuclear plants, and other means of terrorism were more likely.

But the fact is when I spoke in May about what was presented to the president on August 6, it is absolutely the case that what was presented to the president and what was analyzed for him and what was analyzed throughout the administration was traditional methods of hijacking - in fact that the hijacking might be to try and win release of al-Qaida prisoners or something like that.

There wasn't any mention or analysis of people slamming planes into buildings; it simply wasn't there.

MARGARET WARNER: I guess the question these hearings brought up is whether there should have been more information available to you - that there was a whole problem of coordination, there were all these disparate pieces of information out there -- that the U.S. Government was not structured in a way to really respond, that the FBI agents in the field didn't know George Tenet of the CIA declared war on al-Qaida.

I mean, you know the litany and I just wonder if you as the National Security Adviser, who's responsible for making sure that all these agencies ultimately coordinate for American security - that in retrospect you feel that perhaps you just didn't -you all didn't and the Clinton Administration before you - appreciate really the urgency of the threat and the need to change things to deal with it.

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I think people appreciated the urgency and the threat, and I think both we and the Clinton Administration were trying to deal seriously and aggressively with al-Qaida - but we have learned since September 11, that there was inadequate intelligence sharing for a host of traditional and cultural and in fact reasons going to the very nature of who we are about what the FBI and the CIA could share.

And we know that now. It's why Director Mueller - Director Tenet - the president in the creation of a Homeland Security Department - are moving to fix the stovepiping that obviously did exist. Everybody knows now that there was inadequate intelligence sharing prior to 9/11.

[LC 0:37] "There were lots of warnings." -Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld

No clue is given to when Rumsfeld said this or the context. It is from an interview with Parade Magazine. Transcript is here.

Q: This is a question that's been asked by many Americans, but especially by the widows of September 11th. How were we so asleep at the switch? How did a war targeting civilians arrive on our homeland with seemingly no warning?

Rumsfeld: There were lots of warnings. The intelligence information that we get, it sometimes runs into the hundreds of alerts or pieces of intelligence a week. One looks at the worldwide, it's thousands. And the task is to sort through it and see what you can find. And as you find things, the law enforcement officials who have the responsibility to deal with that type of thing -- the FBI at the federal level, and although it is not, it's an investigative service as opposed to a police force, it's not a federal police force, as you know. But the state and local law enforcement officials have the responsibility for dealing with those kinds of issues.

They [find a lot] and any number of terrorist efforts have been dissuaded, deterred or stopped by good intelligence gathering and good preventive work. It is a truth that a terrorist can attack any time, any place, using any technique and it's physically impossible to defend at every time and every place against every conceivable technique. Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center. The only way to deal with this problem is by taking the battle to the terrorists, wherever they are, and dealing with them.

[LC 0:42] "No warnings." -Press Secretary Ari Fleischer

Without some context it isn't even clear that it refers to 9/11. Fleischer spoke those words on 9/11 before he had even returned to the White House from Florida. Transcript is here.

MR. FLEISCHER: So [President Bush] spoke to several members of the national security team, and I mentioned Senator Schumer. And he has been receiving information -- information will continue to come in and it'll continue to be evaluated. There will be a National Security Council meeting later this afternoon, in which the President will participate via teleconference.

And, needless to say, all elements of the United States government are now doing their part, not only to help those who have been hurt, but to collect information, to analyze it and to provide it to the President.

Q Does the President now know anything more about who is responsible, the coordinated attack, and whether this is it or--

MR. FLEISCHER: That information is still being gathered and analyzed. And I anticipate that will be an ongoing process for a little while. Often, at a time like this, information comes in, it turns out not to be true. The proper procedure is to carefully, thoroughly evaluate all information and do so in a--

Q Had there been any warnings that the President knew of?

MR. FLEISCHER: No warnings.

Q Does the President -- is he concerned about the fact that this attack of this severity happened with no warning?

MR. FLEISCHER: First things first: his concern is with the safety of people who have lost their -- the health and security of the American people and with the families of those who have lost their lives. There will come an appropriate time to do all appropriate look backs. His focus is on events this morning.

Q Has he been given any estimate of what the American casualties may be?

MR. FLEISCHER: I don't believe so, Ann.

[LC 0:47] "Your government failed you, and I failed you." -White House Advisor Richard Clarke

This quote is lifted from Clarke's testimony before the 9/11 Commission. Transcript is here.

CLARKE: Because I have submitted a written statement today, and I've previously testified before this commission for 15 hours, and before the Senate-House Joint Inquiry Committee for six hours, I have only a very brief opening statement.

I welcome these hearings because of the opportunity that they provide to the American people to better understand why the tragedy of 9/11 happened and what we must do to prevent a reoccurance.

I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11.

To them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed.

And for that failure, I would ask -- once all the facts are out -- for your understanding and for your forgiveness.

[LC 0:54] 13 March, 1962, Operation Northwoods was presented to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara. Part of the plan was to destroy an unmanned drone aircraft over Cuban waters. McNamara rejected the plan.

The video wasted a minute and a half to give details of a memo that was rejected by the Secretary of Defense almost forty years before the 9/11 attack. Is the viewer supposed to think that a plan to kill several thousand Americans would be approved by the same government that rejected a memo that contained proposed pretexts, none involving loss of life, for an invasion of Cuba? The declassified Operation Northwoods memo is here (.pdf).

[LC 2:28] 1 December, 1984, a remote controlled Boeing jet took off from Edwards Air Force Base. It was crash landed for research purposes by NASA. The plane flew sixteen hours including ten take offs and thirteen landings.

How does a plane take off ten times and land thirteen times? After the tenth landing, wouldn't the plane have to take off an eleventh time before the plane could land for the eleventh time? I have flown many times and I am pretty sure I have not landed any more times than I have taken off. So, what details are withheld by Loose Change? NASA press release is here.

In 1984 NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) teamed-up in a unique flight experiment called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), to test the impact of a Boeing 720 aircraft using standard fuel with an additive designed to suppress fire. The additive FM-9, a high molecular-weight long chain polymer, when blended with Jet-A fuel had demonstrated the capability to inhibit ignition and flame propagation of the released fuel in simulated impact tests.

On the morning of December 1, 1984, a remotely controlled Boeing 720 transport took off from Edwards Air Force Base (Edwards, California), made a left-hand departure and climbed to an altitude of 2300 feet. It then began a descent-to-landing to a specially prepared runway on the east side of Rogers Dry Lake. Final approach was along the roughly 3.8-degree glide slope. The landing gear was left retracted. Passing the decision height of 150 feet above ground level (AGL), the aircraft was slightly to the right of the desired path. Just above that decision point at which the pilot was to execute a "go-around," there appeared to be enough altitude to maneuver back to the centerline of the runway. Data acquisition systems had been activated, and the aircraft was committed to impact. It contacted the ground, left wing low. The fire and smoke took over an hour to extinguish.

This flight, called the Controlled Impact Demonstration (CID), was the culmination of more than a year of preparation in a joint research project by NASA and the FAA to test the effectiveness of anti-misting kerosene (AMK) in a so-called survivable impact. Added to typical Jet A fuel, the AMK was designed to suppress the fireball that can result from an impact in which the airstream causes spilled fuel to vaporize into a mist.

The plane was also instrumented for a variety of other impact-survivability experiments, including new seat designs, flight data recorders, galley and stowage-bin attachments, cabin fire-proof materials, and burn-resistant windows. Crash forces were measured, and a full complement of instrumented crash test dummies was carried on the flight.

The aircraft was remotely flown by NASA research pilot Fitzhugh (Fitz) Fulton from the NASA Dryden Remotely Controlled Vehicle Facility. Previously, the Boeing 720 had been flown on 14 practice flights with safety pilots onboard. During the 14 flights, there were 16 hours and 22 minutes of remotely piloted vehicle control, including 10 remotely piloted takeoffs, 69 remotely piloted vehicle controlled approaches, and 13 remotely piloted vehicle landings on abort runway.

It was planned that the aircraft would land wings-level and exactly on the centerline during the CID, thus allowing the fuselage to remain intact as the wings were sliced open by eight posts cemented into the runway. The Boeing 720 landed askew and caused a cabin fire when burning fuel was able to enter the fuselage.

It was not exactly the impact that was hoped for, but research from the CID program yielded new data on impact survivability which helped establish new FAA rules regarding fire prevention and retardant materials. Although proponents argued that AMK prevented a hotter, more catastrophic fire during the CID, FAA requirements for the additive were put on the back burner.

How far did the plane fly from Edwards AFB to Rogers Dry Lake? The dry lake is in the middle of the air base. A photo of NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center on the edge of Rogers Dry Lake is here.

[LC 2:50] August, 1997, FEMA's Ermegency Response to Terrorism booklet depicted on its cover the World Trade Center in crosshairs.

Considering that the WTC had been attacked by terrorists in 1993, it isn't shocking that the building was featured on or between the covers of a book about terrorism published in 1997.

[LC 2:58] A Global Hawk unmanned aerial vehicle was test flown over Edwards AFB in 1998.

Does this have anything to do with 9/11?

[LC 3:14] 1999, NORAD conducted exercises simulating hijacked airliners crashing into targets including the World Trade Center.

NORAD, an American-Canadian command, was created to guard against Soviet bombers. It did hold exercises before 9/11 that featured hijacked passenger jets. The original USA Today story is here.

The exercises differed from the Sept. 11 attacks in one important respect: The planes in the simulation were coming from a foreign country. Until Sept. 11, NORAD was expected to defend the United States and Canada from aircraft based elsewhere. After the attacks, that responsibility broadened to include flights that originated in the two countries.

[LC 3:23] June, 2000, the Department of Justice released a terrorism manual that depicted the World Trade Center in crosshairs on the cover.

The WTC was attacked by terrorists in 1993. It's nice to see a part of the government considered that it might be targeted again.

[LC 3:29] September, 2000, the Project for a New American Century released Rebuilding America's Defenses. "Further, 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."

What's that about a new Pearl Harbor? It helps to read the quote in context and understand what the entire report is about. PNAC called for a transformation of the American military to better handle evolving threats and ensure American military supremacy.

The Project for the New American Century is a non-profit educational organization dedicated to a few fundamental propositions: that American leadership is good both for America and for the world; and that such leadership requires military strength, diplomatic energy and commitment to moral principle.

The Project for the New American Century intends, through issue briefs, research papers, advocacy journalism, conferences, and seminars, to explain what American world leadership entails. It will also strive to rally support for a vigorous and principled policy of American international involvement and to stimulate useful public debate on foreign and defense policy and America's role in the world.

William Kristol, Chairman

What does PNAC write about Pearl Harbor?

Any serious effort at transformation must occur within the larger framework of U.S. national security strategy, military missions and defense budgets. The United States cannot simply declare a "strategic pause" while experimenting with new technologies and operational concepts. Nor can it choose to pursue a transformation strategy that would decouple American and allied interests. A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.

Further, 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. Domestic politics and industrial policy will shape the pace and content of transformation as much as the requirements of current missions. A decision to suspend or terminate aircraft carrier production, as recommended by this report and as justified by the clear direction of military technology, will cause great upheaval. Likewise, systems entering production today -- the F-22 fighter, for example -- will be in service inventories for decades to come. Wise management of this process will consist in large measure of figuring out the right moments to halt production of current-paradigm weapons and shift to radically new designs. The expense associated with some programs can make them roadblocks to the larger process of transformation -- the Joint Strike Fighter program, at a total of $200 billion, seems an unwise investment. Thus, this report advocates a two-stage process of change -- transition and transformation -- over the coming decades.

In case of insomnia, read the whole report. Rebuilding America's Defenses is here (.pdf).

[LC 3:55] October, 2000, the Pentagon conducted an exercise that simulated a plane crash at the Pentagon. Charles Burlingame participated in the exercise and on 9/11 he was the pilot of the 757 that crashed into the Pentagon.

A report about the exercises is here.

The Pentagon Mass Casualty Exercise, as the crash was called, was just one of several scenarios that emergency response teams were exposed to Oct. 24-26 in the Office of the Secretaries of Defense conference room.

On Oct. 24, there was a mock terrorist incident at the Pentagon Metro stop and a construction accident to name just some of the scenarios that were practiced to better prepare local agencies for real incidents.

Is Loose Change insinuating that Charles Burlingame is a criminal because he once participated in a fire drill? Mr. Burlingame did not participate in that Pentagon exercise. He retired from active duty in 1979 and from reserve duty in 1996. Is Loose Change dedicated to the lives lost on 9/11? Mr. Burlingame was murdered on 9/11.

[LC 4:21] April, 2001, NORAD planned an exercise simulating a plane crashing into the Pentagon. The plan was rejected as too unrealistic.

The Boston Globe news report is here. The exercise was a simulated war with North Korea and the Joint Chiefs of Staff did not want to be distracted by a simulated plane crash at the Pentagon.

[LC 4:43] June, 2001, a change was made in how to respond to hijacked aircraft.

With the exception of immediate responses, all requests for military assistance in tracking and destroying airborne objects will be forwarded to the Secretary of Defense for approval. A hijacked plane headed straight at the Pentagon or the WTC is definitely an exception. CJCSI 3610.01A is here (.pdf).

[LC 4:46] Attorney General John Ashcroft began flying on chartered jets because of an FBI threat assessment. He flew chartered jets for the remainder of his time in office.

CBS News report is here.

In response to inquiries from CBS News over why Ashcroft was traveling exclusively by leased jet aircraft instead of commercial airlines, the Justice Department cited what it called a "threat assessment" by the FBI, and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only by private jet for the remainder of his term.

John Ashcroft testified before the 9/11 Commission and was asked about the threat assessment and his flying noncommercial aircraft. Transcript is here.

BEN-VENISTE: At some point in the spring or summer of 2001, around the time of this heightened threat alert, you apparently began to use a private chartered jet plane, changing from your use of commercial aircraft on grounds, our staff is informed, of an FBI threat assessment. And, indeed, as you told us, on September 11th itself you were on a chartered jet at the time of the attack.

Can you supply the details, sir, regarding the threat which caused you to change from commercial to private leased jet?

ASHCROFT: I am very please pleased to address this issue.

BEN-VENISTE: Thank you.

ASHCROFT: Let me indicate to you that I never ceased to use commercial aircraft for my personal travel.

My wife traveled to Germany and back in August. My wife and I traveled to Washington, D.C., on the 3rd of September before the 17th -- before the 11th attack on commercial aircraft.

I have exclusively traveled on commercial aircraft for my personal travel; continued through the year 2000, through the entirety of the threat period to the nation.

The assessment made by the security team and the Department of Justice was made early in the year. It was not related to a terrorism threat as a threat to the nation. It was related to an assessment of the security for the attorney general, given his responsibilities and the job that he undertakes. And it related to the maintenance of arms and other things by individuals who travel with the attorney general. And it was their assessment that we would be best served to use government aircraft.

These were not private chartered jet aircraft. These were aircraft of the United States government. And it was on such an aircraft that I was on my way to an event in Milwaukee on the morning of September the 11th.

BEN-VENISTE: I'm pleased to have been able to give you the opportunity to clarify that issue for all who have written to this commission and communicated in other ways about their questions about that, sir.

[LC 4:52] 4 July, 2001, Osama bin Laden received medical treatment in Dubai. He met with a CIA agent while in Dubai.

The Guardian news report is here.

Two months before September 11 Osama bin Laden flew to Dubai for 10 days for treatment at the American hospital, where he was visited by the local CIA agent, according to the French newspaper Le Figaro.

The disclosures are known to come from French intelligence which is keen to reveal the ambiguous role of the CIA, and to restrain Washington from extending the war to Iraq and elsewhere.

Bin Laden is reported to have arrived in Dubai on July 4 from Quetta in Pakistan with his own personal doctor, nurse and four bodyguards, to be treated in the urology department. While there he was visited by several members of his family and Saudi personalities, and the CIA.

The CIA rejected Le Figaro's claim.

Richard Labeviere, author of The Corridors of Terror, released on Thursday, says the CIA's Dubai station chief approached bin Laden while the al Qaeda leader was being treated for a serious kidney complaint in the United Arab Emirates.

He said the meeting took place in the American Hospital in Dubai on July 12, barely eight weeks before al Qaeda militants slammed fuel-laden hijacked airliners into the Pentagon and New York's World Trade Centre, killing almost 3000 people.

"Such an allegation is sheer fantasy, no such thing occurred," CIA spokesman Mark Mansfield said, echoing an earlier rebuttal of French media reports in October 2001 about the alleged Dubai meeting.

The American Hospital in Dubai rejected Le Figaro's claim.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Wednesday flatly denied that one of its agents had contact with Osama bin Laden in July while the suspected terrorist was allegedly being treated in a Dubai hospital, as reported by two French media outlets Wednesday.

The American Hospital in Dubai also categorically denied reports that bin Laden underwent a 10-day treatment there in July for a kidney complaint.

"He was never a patient here for any days," Chief Executive Officer Bernard Koval told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "Osama bin Laden has never been here. He's never been a patient and he's never been treated here. We have no idea of his medical condition. This is too small a hospital for someone to be snuck through the backdoor."

Osama bin Laden rejected Le Figaro's claim.

HM: A French newspaper has claimed that you had kidney problem and had secretly gone to Dubai for treatment last year. Is that correct?

OSB: My kidneys are all right. I did not go to Dubai last year. One British newspaper has published an imaginary interview with Islamabad dateline with one of my sons who lives in Saudi Arabia. All this is false.

[LC 5:05] 24 July, 2001, Larry Silverstein acquired a 99 year lease of the World Trade Center for $3.2 billion. A $3.5 billion insurance policy that specifically covered terrorism was included in the transaction.

The WTC was attacked by terrorists in 1993. It would have been incredibly stupid to not insure against loss from another terrorist attack.

[LC 5:26] 6 September, 2001, United Airlines put option transactions are more than four times the daily average.

The 9/11 Commission addressed allegations of unusual securities trading here (.pdf).

Almost since 9/11 itself, there have been consistent reports that massive "insider trading" preceded the attacks, enabling persons apparently affiliated with al Qaeda to reap huge profits. The Commission has found no evidence to support these reports. To the contrary, exhaustive investigation by federal law enforcement, in conjuction with the securities industry, has found no evidence that anyone with advance knowledge of the terrorist attacks profited through securities transactions.

[...]

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the FBI, with the involvement of the Deparment of Justice, conducted the investigation of the allegation that there was illicit trading in advance of 9/11; numerous other agencies played a supporting role. The SEC's chief of the Office of Market Surveillance initiated an investigation of pre-9/11 trading on September 12, 2001. At a multi-agency meeting on September 17, at FBI headquarter, the SEC agreed to lead the insider trading investigation, keeping the FBI involved as necessary. The Department of Justice assigned a white-collar crime prosecutor from the U.S. Attorney's Office in Brooklyn to work full-time on the investigation; he relocated to Washington, D.C. on September 18.

The SEC undertook a massive investigation, which at various times involved more than 40 staff members from the SEC's Division of Enforcement and Office of International Affairs. The SEC also took the lead on coordinating intensive investigations by the self-regulatory organizations (SROs) that share responsibility for monitoring the U.S. securities markets, including, among other, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange, the National Association of Securities Dealers Regulation, and the Chicago Board Options Exchange. The investigation focused on securities of companies or industries that could have been expected to suffer economically from the terrorist attacks. Thus, the investigators analyzed trading in the following sectors: airlines, insurance, financial services, defense and aerospace, security services, and travel and leisure services, as well as companies with substantial operations in the area of the World Trade Center. The investigation also included broad-based funds that could have been affected by a major shock to the U.S. economy. Ultimately, the investigators analyzed trading in 103 individual companies and 32 index or exchange-traded funds and examined more than 9.5 million securities transactions.

The investigators reviewed any trading activity that resulted in substantial profit from the terrorist attacks. Investments that profited from dropping stock prices drew great scrutiny, including short selling and the purchase of put options. The SEC has long experience in investigating insider trading violations, which can involve the use of these techniques by those who know of an impending event that will make stock prices fall. The investigators also sought to determine who profited from well-timed investments in industries that benefited from the terrorist attacks, such as the stock of defense and security companies, and who timely liquidated substantial holdings in companies like to suffer from the attacks.

The SEC investigators reviewed voluminous trading records to identify accounts that made trades that led to profits as a result of the attacks. The SEC followed up on any such trades by obtaining documents and, where appropriate, interviewing the traders to understand the rationale for the trades. The SEC also referred to the FBI any trade that resulted in substantial profit from the attacks -- a much lower threshold for a criminal referrel than it would normally employ. Consequently, the FBI conducted its own independent interviews of many of the potentially suspicious traders. The SROs, which have extensive market surveillance departments, played a key role in the SEC investigation by providing information and, in some cases, detailed reports to the commission. In addition, the SEC directly contacted 20 of the largest broker-dealers and asked them to survey their trading desks for any evidence of illicit trading activity. It also asked the Securities Industry Association -- the broker-dealer trade group -- to canvass its members for the same purpose.

The SEC investigation had built-in redundancies to ensure that any suspicious trading would be caught. For example, the SEC reviewed massive transaction records to detect any suspicious option trading and also obtained reports, known as the Large Option Position Reports and Open Interest Distribution Reports, that identified the holders of substantial amounts of options without regard to when those options were purchased. Similarly, to ensure full coverage, the SEC obtained information from a number of entities that play a role facilitating short sales. Between these effort, the work of the SROs, and the outreach to industry, the chief SEC investigator expressed great confidence the the SEC investigation had detected any potentially suspicious trade.

The U.S. government investigation unequivocally concluded that there was no evidence that of illicit trading in the U.S. markets with knowledge of the terrorist attacks. The Commission staff, after an independent review of the government investigation, has discovered no reason to doubt this conclusion.

To understand our finding, it is critical to understand the transparency of the U.S. markets. No one can make a securities trade in the U.S. markets without leaving a paper trail that the SEC can easily access through its regulatory powers. Moreover, broker-dealers must maintain certain basic information on their customers. It is, of course, entirely possible to trade through an offshore company, or a series of nominee accounts and shell companies, a strategy that can make the beneficial owner hard to determine. Still, the investigators could always detect the initial trade, even if they could not determine the beneficial owner. Any suspicious profitable trading through such accounts would be starkly visible. The investigators of the 9/11 trades never found any blind alleys caused by shell companies, offshore accounts, or anything else; they were able to investigate the suspicious trades they identified. Every suspicious trade was determined to be part of a legitimate trading strategy totally unrelated to the terrorist attacks.

Many of the public reports concerning insider trading before 9/11 focused on the two airline companies most directly involved: UAL Corp., the parent company of United Airlines, and AMR Corp., the parent company of American Airlines. Specifically, many people have correctly pointed out that unusually high volumes of put options traded in UAL on September 6-7 and AMR on September 10.

When the markets opened on September 17, AMR fell 40 percent and UAL fell 43 percent. The suspicious options trading before the attacks fueled speculation that al Qaeda had taken advantage of the U.S. markets to make massive profits from its murderous attacks. The allegations had appeal on their face -- just as al Qaeda used our sophisticated transportation system to attack us, it appeared to have used our sophisticated markets to finance itself and provide money for more attacks. But we conclude that this scenario simply did not happen.

Although this report will not discuss each of the trades that profited from the 9/11 attacks, some of the larger trades, particularly those cited in the media as troubling, are illustrative and typical both of the nature of the government investigation into the trades and of the innocent nature of the trading. The put trading in AMR and UAL is a case in point; it appeared that somebody made big money by betting UAL and AMR stock prices were going to collapse, yet closer inspection revealed that the transactions were part of an innocuous trading strategy.

The UAL trading on September 6 is a good example. On that day alone, the UAL put option volume was much higher than any surrounding day and exceeded the call option volume by more than 20 times -- highly suspicious numbers on their face. The SEC quickly discovered, however, that a single U.S. investment adviser had purchased 95 percent of the UAL put option volume for the day. The investment adviser certainly did not fit the profile of an al Qaeda operative: it was based in the United States, registered with the SEC, and managed several hedge funds with $5.3 billion under management. In interviews by the SEC, both the CEO of the adviser and the trader who executed the trade explained that they -- and not any client -- made the decision to buy the put as part of a trading strategy based on a bearish view of the ailine industry. They held bearish views for a number of reasons, including recently released on-time departure figures, which suggested the airlines were carrying fewer passengers, and recently disclosed news by AMR reflecting poor business fundamentals. In pursuit of this strategy, the adviser sold short a number of airline shares between September 6 and September 10; its transactions included the fortunate purchase of UAL puts. The adviser, however, also bought 115,000 shares of AMR on September 10, believing that their price already reflected the recently released financial information and would not fall any further. Those share dropped significantly when the markets reopened after the attacks. Looking at the totality of the adviser's circumstances, as opposed to just the purchase of the puts, convinced the SEC that it had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks or al Qaeda. Still, the SEC referred the trade to the FBI, which also conducted its own investigation and reached the same conclusion.

The AMR put trading on September 10 further reveals how trading that looks highly suspicious at first blush can prove innocuous. The put volume of AMR on September 10 was unusually high and actually exceeded the call volume by a ratio of 6:1 -- again, highly suspicious on its face. The SEC traced much of the surge in volume to a California investment advice newsletter, distributed by email and fax on Sunday, September 9, which advised its subscribers to purchase a particular type of AMR put options. The SEC interviewed 28 individuals who purchased these types of AMR puts on September 10, and found that 26 of them cited the newsletter as the reason for their transaction. Another 27 purchasers were listed as subscribers of the newsletter. The SEC interviewed the author of the newsletter, a U.S. citizen, who explained his investment strategy analysis, which had nothing to do with foreknowledge of 9/11. Other put option volume on September 10 was traced to similarly innocuous trades.

Another good example concerns a suspicious UAL put trade on September 7, 2001. A single trader bought more than one-third of the total puts purchased that day, establishing a position that proved very profitable after 9/11. Moreover, it turns out that the same trader had a short position in UAL calls -- another strategy that would pay off if the price of UAL dropped. Investigation, however, identified the purchaser as a well-established New York hedge fund with $2 billion under management. Setting aside the unlikelihood of al Qaeda having a relationship with a major New York hedge fund, these trades looked facially suspicious. But further examination showed the fund also owned 29,000 shares of UAL stock at the time -- all part of a complex, computer-driven trading strategy. As a result of these transactions, the fund actually lost $85,000 in value when the market reopened. Had the hedge fund wanted to profit from the attacks, it would not have retained the UAL shares.

These examples were typical. The SEC and FBI investigated all of the put option purchases in UAL and AMR, drawing on multiple and redundant sources of information to ensure complete coverage. All profitable option trading was investigated and resolved. There was no evidence of illicit trading and no unexplained or mysterious trading. Moreover, there was no evidence that profits from any profitable options trading went uncollected.

[...]

In sum, the investigation found absolutely no evidence that any trading occurred with foreknowledge of 9/11. The transparency of the U.S. securities markets almost ensures that any such trading would be detectable by investigators. Even if the use of some combination of offshore accounts, shell companies, and false identification obscured the identity of the traders themselves, the unexplained trade would stand out like a giant red flag. The absence of any such flags corroborates the conclusion that there is no evidence any such trading occurred. Indeed, the leaders of the SEC and FBI investigation into pre-9/11 trading expressed great confidence in this conclusion.

In addition, no evidence was found that any securities trading in foreign markets occurred with foreknowledge of 9/11. Details are here (.pdf).

[LC 5:42] Days before 9/11, a heightened security alert was lifted at the World Trade Center. Bomb sniffing dogs were removed.

Newsday report is here.

The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday.

Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed.

"Today was the first day there was not the extra security," Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground covered. We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that."

Security was at a normal level on 9/11. Guards were in place and had the ground covered.

[LC 5:48] Put volume on Boeing on 7 September was more than five times its daily average. Put volume on American Airlines was more than eleven times its daily average on 10 September.

There is no evidence that these trades were made with foreknowledge of the attacks.

[LC 6:11] Newsweek reported that Pentagon officials canceled flight plans for 9/11.

The article is in the September 13, 2001, Newsweek, U.S. Edition. "We've Hit the Targets" by Michael Hirsh is available for a fee from the Newsweek archive or free here. The relevant part of the article is an unconfirmed report that some Pentagon top brass canceled travel plans because an urgent warning may have been received. Did some big shots cancel vacation plans to stay at the office? Did they cancel tee times? The article doesn't say what the nature of the travel plans was or whether flying was even involved.

NEWSWEEK has learned that while U.S. intelligence received no specific warning, the state of alert had been high during the past two weeks, and a particularly urgent warning may have been received the night before the attacks, causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel a trip.

[LC 6:18] San Francisco Mayor Brown was warned not to fly by Condoleezza Rice.

Brown was warned by his own security detail and did not cancel his plan to fly to New York. San Francisco Chronicle report is here.

Whatever the case, Brown didn't think about it again until he was up, dressed and waiting for his ride to the airport for an 8 a.m. flight to New York, where he was to attend a state retirement board meeting. That was when he turned on the TV, and like millions of other Americans, saw the twin towers of the World Trade Center crumble and the Pentagon go up in smoke.

[LC 6:34] Osama bin Laden was in a Pakistan hospital on 10 September for kidney dialysis.

The CBS News report is here.

Pakistan intelligence sources tell CBS News that bin Laden was spirited into a military hospital in Rawalpindi for kidney dialysis treatment.

Doctors at the hospital deny that bin Laden was there. No one has any evidence to support the unnamed sources of the story. Has any good information about bin Laden ever come from Pakistan's intelligence service?

[LC 6:47] 11 September, 2001, the National Reconnaissance Office in Chantilly, Virginia, prepared for an exercise that simulated a small corporate jet crashing into their building.

News report is here.

In what the government describes as a bizarre coincidence, one U.S. intelligence agency was planning an exercise last Sept. 11 in which an errant aircraft would crash into one of its buildings. But the cause wasn't terrorism -- it was to be a simulated accident.

Officials at the Chantilly, Va.-based National Reconnaissance Office had scheduled an exercise that morning in which a small corporate jet would crash into one of the four towers at the agency's headquarters building after experiencing a mechanical failure.

The agency is about four miles from the runways of Washington Dulles International Airport.

It is not unusual for large buildings near airport runways to conduct fire drills simulating a plane crash.

[LC 6:57] NORAD was conducting exercises on 11 September. "Vigilant Guardian is an exercise that would pose an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide." -Lt. Col. Dawne Deskins

Vigilant Guardian is an annual exercise. The fact that the exercise was taking place meant that NORAD was fully staffed the morning of 9/11. Dawne Deskins was on duty in Rome, NY.

[LC 7:17] Taking place at the same time was Northern Vigilance. Planned months in advance, it involved deploying fighter jets to Alaska and Canada.

Northern Vigilance was an operation that monitored Russian military exercises in the arctic.

[LC 7:20] Three F-16s based at Andrews AFB were flown 180 miles away for training.

The military conducts training all year. No surprise that training was taking place on 9/11.

[LC 7:36] There were only 14 fighter jets to protect the U.S.

After the Cold War ended, defense budget cutbacks reduced NORAD's available battle-ready fighters from about 60 to only 14. Remember Clinton's surplus?

[LC 7:50] "Is this real world or exercise?"

Military personnel needed to know if the call was part of an ongoing exercise.

[LC 8:00] First plane is shown striking the World Trade Center.

The destruction is massive. Even from the distant camera position debris can be seen blown out and raining down.

[LC 8:25] Hunter Thompson described the American media's performance as shameful.

It doesn't matter what Hunter's opinion of the media was. Opinions are like belly buttons, everyone has one.

[LC 9:11] "Some people thought they saw a missile."

Some people? How many people? When I rewind to the 8:00 mark, I clearly see that it was a large jet that crashed into the building.

[LC 9:18] A voice is heard describing the plane as not a passenger plane. It did not have windows.

Who said that? Marc Birnbach said he saw no windows. He was over two miles away from a plane traveling 500 miles per hour. A closer look at what remained of the plane reveals windows.

[LC 10:00] The first collapse is shown.

Debris is clearly falling outward and toward the ground faster than the floors of the tower are collapsing. The sound is deafening.

[LC 10:23] Stock footage of building being demolished accompanied by bad music. Mixed in with the stock footage is footage of World Trade Center 7 collapsing.

It's easy to tell the difference between the collapsing buildings. WTC-7 is the one burning out of control. The other building is brought down by explosives. Turn the music down and just watch the images. Big difference.

[LC 11:00] The second tower is shown collapsing.

Again, debris falls to the ground faster than the large mass of the building falls. The collapse gains momentum as the growing mass strikes each floor on the way down.

[LC 12:20] "Here we're talking about plastic knives, and using an American Airlines flight filled with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building, and a similar [inaudible] that damaged the World Trade Center." Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in an interview with Parade Magazine on October 12th, 2001, from inside the Pentagon.

The hijackers used the plane as a missile in order to damage the Pentagon, the headquarters of the world's most powerful military. Condoleezza Rice also referred to planes being used as missiles.

DR. RICE: Steve, I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.

[LC 12:48] Hani Hanjour allegedly executes a 330 degree turn at 530 miles per hour.

The 9-11 Commission report described it this way:

At 9:29, the autopilot on American 77 was disengaged; the aircraft was at 7,000 feet and approximately 38 miles west of the Pentagon. At 9:32, controllers at the Dulles Terminal Radar Approach Control "observed a primary radar target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed." This was later determined to have been Flight 77.

At 9:34, Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport advised the Secret Service of an unknown aircraft heading in the direction of the White House. American 77 was then 5 miles west-southwest of the Pentagon and began a 330-degree turn. At the end of the turn, it was descending through 2,200 feet, pointed toward the Pentagon and downtown Washington. The hijacker pilot then advanced the throttles to maximum power and dove toward the Pentagon.

At 9:37:46, American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, traveling at approximately 530 miles per hour.

The report doesn't say at what speed the turn was made, but indicates that it was made at less than full throttle. A good report about Hanjour's flying is here (.pdf).

[LC 13:14] "[Flight 77] could not possibly have flown at those speeds which they said it did without going into a high speed stall."

This quote is credited to Russ Wittenberg, interviewed by Wing-Nut TV.

CBS News report is here.

Eight minutes before the crash, at 9:30 a.m. EDT, radar tracked the plane as it closed to within 30 miles of Washington. Sources say the hijacked jet continued east at a high speed toward the city, but flew several miles south of the restricted airspace around the White House.

At 9:33 the plane crossed the Capitol Beltway and took aim on its military target. But the jet, flying at more than 400 mph, was too fast and too high when it neared the Pentagon at 9:35. The hijacker-pilots were then forced to execute a difficult high-speed descending turn.

Radar shows Flight 77 did a downward spiral, turning almost a complete circle and dropping the last 7,000 feet in two-and-a-half minutes.

It's true that none of the hijackers were top gun pilots, but they didn't have to be. They took over planes that were already in flight. They dropped altitude and flew by sight, using landmarks to guide the planes to their targets. How hard is it to hit the two tallest buildings on the skyline that can be seen from many miles away? The Pentagon is a massive five-sided building that is easy to identify from far away. Hani Hanjour or one of the other hijackers aboard Flight 77 made the difficult, but not impossible, maneuver because he arrived at the Pentagon at too high an altitude.

How smooth were they in the cockpit? From the 9/11 Commission report:

At 8:26, Ong reported that [American Flight 11] was "flying erratically."

[...]

At 8:38, Ong told Gonzalez that the plane was flying erratically again.

[...]

At 8:44, Gonzalez reported losing phone contact with Ong. About this same time Sweeney reported to Woodward, "Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent... we are all over the place." Woodward asked Sweeney to look out the window to see if she could determine where they were. Sweeney responded: "We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. We are flying way too low." Seconds later she said, "Oh my God we are way too low." The phone call ended.

The hijackers did no better flying United Flight 75:

At 9:00, Lee Hanson received a second call from his son Peter:

It's getting bad, Dad -- A stewardess was stabbed -- They seem to have knives and Mace -- They said they have a bomb -- It's getting very bad on the plane -- Passengers are throwing up and getting sick -- The plane is making jerky movements -- I don't think the pilot is flying the plane -- I think we are going down -- I think they intend to go to Chicago or someplace and fly into a building -- Don't worry, Dad -- If it happens, it'll be very fast -- My God, my God.

The call ended abruptly.

[LC 13:29] "It's final approach took it directly across Washington Blvd."

On screen is a computer simulation of the jet crossing a road and striking light poles. It then hits the side of the Pentagon and a huge fireball erupts. I don't see the generator or the cable spools commonly found in photographs of the crash site.

[LC 13:43] "First, let's meet Hani Hanjour."

Meet Hani Hanjour.

[LC 14:08] Marcel Bernard is interviewed about Hani Hanjour.

Hanjour is described as having poor english skills and average to below average piloting skills. Marcel Bernard also said this (.pdf):

Despite Hanjour's poor reviews, he did have some ability as a pilot, said Bernard of Freeway Airport. "There's no doubt in my mind that once that [hijacked jet] got going, he could have pointed that plane at a building and hit it," he said.

[LC 15:20] "The speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought... all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that it was a military plane."

The hijacker was reckless and didn't care if he lived or died. He beat that plane like a rented mule.

[LC 15:38] A plane crashed in Houston after hitting a single light pole.

The plane in Houston was much smaller than a 757. CNN report is here.

The cause of the crash -- just south of Hobby airport -- was not immediately known. Television station KHOU reported that the plane had apparently clipped a light pole prior to the crash.

The aircraft, a Gulfstream-II jet, departed from Love Field in Dallas and crashed on approach, one-and-a-half miles from the airport, shortly after 6 a.m. (7 a.m. ET).

The Gulfstream was miles from the runway and flying low enough to hit a light pole. There was something else going wrong with that plane before it struck the pole.

[LC 16:04] A photo of firefighting at the Pentagon is shown.

The white spray from the truck obscures the size of the hole in the outer wall. The narrator claims the plane did not bounce off the lawn. The official story does not claim that the plane bounced or skidded off the lawn.

[LC 16:13] A photo of a plane crash in a field is shown. "If Flight 77 had crash-landed and skidded into the Pentagon, it would have looked like this."

Flight 77 crashed into a building, not an open field.

[LC 16:19] A photo of the Pentagon still burning and partially collapsed.

How can the narrator be sure the lawn doesn't have a single scratch from that photo?

[LC 16:28] The narrator claims there is no trace of the plane.

I'll get back to this point. The makers of Loose Change use images later that show more than a trace of a plane. Stay tuned.

[LC 16:46] "You know, it might have appeared that way, but from my close-up inspection there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. The only site is the actual side of the building that's crashed in. And as I said, the only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you can pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage -- nothing like that anywhere around, which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon."

So, the CNN reporter says that there are traces of a plane, all small enough that you can pick them up in your hand.

[LC 17:04] "The official explanation is that the intense heat from the jet fuel vaporized the entire plane."

But that CNN reporter just said that he saw small pieces of the aircraft. Stay tuned for images of the plane that did not vaporize. And nowhere in the official story is the plane said to have been vaporized.

[LC 17:12] Photo of Pentagon wall and lawn with cable spools.

Look through the smoke at that huge hole that the plane left when it crashed into the outer wall.

[LC 17:18] How did investigators identify 184 out of 189 victims if the fire was hot enough to incinerate a jumbo jet?

The jet was not incinerated or vaporized. Loose Change will show many parts of the plane. Stay tuned.

A report detailing how the victims were identified is here.

[LC 17:37] "So, what is a Boeing 757 made of?"

The makers of Loose Change are not awe-inspiring researchers. Jane's 757 report is here.

Aluminium alloy two-spar fail-safe wing box; centre-section continuous through fuselage; ailerons, flaps and spoilers extensively of honeycomb, graphite composites and laminates; tailplane has full-span light alloy torque boxes; fin has three-spar, dual-cell light alloy torque box; elevators and rudder have graphite/epoxy honeycomb skins supported by honeycomb and laminated spar and rib assemblies; CFRP wing/fuselage and flap track fairings. All landing gear doors of CFRP/Kevlar.

[LC 17:50] "But what we do know is that a 757 has two Pratt and Whitney engines made of steel and titanium alloy which are nine feet in diameter, twelve feet long and weighs six tons each."

According to Jane's, these engines are installed in a 757:

Two 162.8 kN (36,600 lb st) Pratt & Whitney PW2037, 178.4 kN (40,100 lb st) PW2040, 178.8 kN (40,200 lb st) Rolls-Royce RB211-535E4, 189.5 kN (42,600 lb st) PW2043 or 193.5 kN (43,500 lb st) RB211-535E4-B turbofans, mounted in underwing pods.

The FAA registration states that Flight 77 was equipped with Rolls-Royce RB211 series engines.

[LC 18:29] "Therefore, it is scientifically impossible that twelve tons of steel and titanium was vaporized by kerosene."

The engines were not vaporized. Loose Change is about to show us engine parts in the Pentagon.

[LC 18:40] "Instead, there was a single turbojet engine approximately three feet in diameter found inside the building."

No, that's not a complete engine. That is a part of an engine.

[LC 18:44] American Free Press screenshot is shown.

Loose Change gets its info from the nutters at the AFP? I'm sure they're also experts at identifying aircraft engine parts.

[LC 19:37] Karl Schwarz writes that the part is from a JT8D turbojet.

Karl Schwarz, CEO of Patmos Nanotechnologies, is not an expert on jet engines. He is an expert of sorts. He is wrong about the jet engine part.

[LC 20:20] Photo of plane wreckage is shown.

Wait a minute, didn't someone claim that there is no trace of a plane? Isn't the "official explanation" that the plane was vaporized? Not only is there is a sizable piece of debris in the foreground of this photo, there are many other pieces of the plane in the background.

[LC 20:25] A different photo of wreckage is shown.

There are hundreds of small pieces of the wings and tail that were shredded on impact.

[LC 20:41] A photo of part of a 757's engine is shown.

I guess that engine didn't vaporize after all.

[LC 20:45] A diagram of a jet engine is shown.

Compare that diagram to a diagram of the Rolls-Royce engines installed in the 757 that crashed into the Pentagon.

[LC 20:55] Another photo of plane wreckage outside the Pentagon is shown.

Men are picking up pieces of shredded wing and fuselage. I think we can safely say the earlier report that the plane was vaporized without a trace is thoroughly debunked by Loose Change itself.

[LC 21:00] Pentagon employees are carrying a large "box."

It's a tent.

[LC 21:09] "If Flight 77 was vaporized on impact, it would be the first time in aviation history."

It was not vaporized. Loose Change just showed photos of men picking up pieces of the wings and fuselage. It showed photos of engine parts.

[LC 21:26] Photos of a plane crash in Greece are shown. "Fire. Tail sections. Wing sections. Engines. Cockpit. Bodies. Catch my drift?"

You've already shown the fire and many parts of the 757 that crashed into the Pentagon? Do you need to see a body to complete the picture?

[LC 22:28] A 757 is shown superimposed over a photo of the Pentagon.

The plane is superimposed over the wrong area. The plane hit lower than where Loose Change shows. The narrator also asks how the plane could disappear into the hole without leaving any debris outside the Pentagon. I guess the narrator has no short term memory. We were just shown photos of debris outside the building.

[LC 22:58] A photo is shown of intact windows beside the left edge of the huge hole the 757 punched in the side of the Pentagon. There is also debris outside the Pentagon.

Those are blast resistant windows next to the large hole.

[LC 23:04] "Why are the cable spools directly in front of the hole completely untouched?"

How can you tell they're untouched? I'm not sure that's where the construction crew left them.

[LC 23:11] A hole is shown in the other side of the Pentagon.

This photo was not taken moments after the crash. Look at the spray painted words around the hole. Here is an earlier photo of the hole.

[LC 23:26] "The nose of a commercial airliner is composed of lightweight carbon."

The nose is not what punched the hole in the other side. The hole was made by the landing gear.

[LC 23:53] Footage of a shoulder fired rocket is shown.

There seems to be no point in showing this other than fascination with explosions.

[LC 23:57] Slobodan Milosevic's house is shown with damage caused by a missile.

Slobodan's house suffered much less damage even when viewing that photograph that shows only a small portion of the damage to the Pentagon. Funny how Loose Change uses a photo of firefighting foam obscuring the damage. Why not use this photo or this photo?

[LC 24:09] Some eyewitnesses were unsure of what hit the Pentagon.

The farther away the more difficult it was to identify. But those closest to the Pentagon agreed that a large jet struck the Pentagon.

Richard Benedetto: "It was an American Airlines airplane, I could see it very clearly."

Omar Campo, a Salvadorean: "It was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways plane. I was cutting grass and it came in screaming over my head."

Joseph Candelario: "I noticed a large aircraft flying low towards the White House. This aircraft then made a sharp turn and flew towards the Pentagon and seconds later crashed into it."

James Cissell: "I saw this plane coming in and it was low - and getting lower. ... Then I saw the faces of some of the passengers on board."

Dennis Clem: "There was a commercial airliner that said American Airliners over the side of it flying at just above treetop height at full speed headed for the Pentagon."

Michael Dobbs: "It was an American airlines airliner. I was looking out the window and saw it come right over the Navy annex at a low angle."

Penny Elgas: "... the plane was directly over the cars in front of my car .... I remember recognizing it as an American Airlines plane -- I could see the windows and the color stripes."

Cheryl Hammond: "We saw the big American Airlines plane and started running."

Joe Harrington: "... one of my guys pointed to an American Airlines airplane 20 feet high over Washington Blvd."

Albert Hemphill: "The aircraft, look[ed] to be either a 757 or Airbus."

Terrance Kean: "I saw this very, very large passenger jet. It just plowed right into the side of the Pentagon."

William Lagasse: "It was close enough that I could see the windows and the blinds had been pulled down. I read American Airlines on it. ... I saw the aircraft above my head about 80 feet above the ground."

Robert Leonard: "I ... saw a large commercial aircraft aiming for the Pentagon."

Lincoln Liebner: "I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet coming in fast and low."

Elaine McCusker: "I saw a very low-flying American Airlines plane that seemed to be accelerating."

Mitch Mitchell: "I ... saw, coming straight down the road at us, a huge jet plane clearly with American Airlines written on it .... It crossed about 100 feet in front of us and at about 20 feet altitude and we watched it go in. It struck the Pentagon."

Terry Morin: "The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage. I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines."

Christopher Munsey: "I couldn't believe what I was now seeing to my right: a silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly over the Navy Annex, fast, low and straight toward the Pentagon ...."

Vin Narayanan: "I looked up to my left and saw an American Airlines jet flying right at me. The jet roared over my head, clearing my car by about 25 feet."

John O'Keefe: "I don't know whether I saw or heard it first -- this silver plane; I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet ...."

Steve Riskus: "I was close enough (about 100 feet or so) that I could see the ‘American Airlines' logo on the tail as it headed towards the building .... I clearly saw the ‘AA' logo with the eagle in the middle."

James Ryan: "I see an American Airlines plane, silver plane, I could see AA on the tail. ... The plane was low enough that I could see the windows of the plane. I could see every detail of the plane. In my head I have ingrained forever this image of every detail of that plane. It was a silver plane, American Airlines plane, and I recognized it immediately as a passenger plane."

Joel Sucherman: "... looking straight ahead there was a jet, what looked to be an American Airlines jet, probably a 757, and it came screaming across the highway ... [and] hit the west side of the Pentagon."

Donald "Tim" Timmerman, a pilot: "I live on the 16th floor, overlooking the Pentagon ... and so I have quite a panorama. ... It was a Boeing 757, American Airlines, no question."

Mike Walter: "I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. ... It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon. I saw the big ‘AA' on the side."

Ian Wyatt: "I duck, I look up, it looks like a silver American Airlines, twin-engine plane and then boom."

[LC 24:54] "Take the case of April Gallop, who was at work inside the Pentagon's west side when it was struck on 9/11."

Washington Post report is here.

Little Elisha was in the stroller beside her. Gallop had just pushed the button to start her computer when the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon, blowing her across the room.

For a moment, Gallop said, she thought she had died and gone to hell. Then she heard her son crying. She couldn't imagine babies condemned to hell, so she realized they were alive.

When Elisha cries these days the same way he did when he was trapped under the debris, it all comes back. If she drives past an airport and smells jet fuel, it all comes back. She hears her injured co-workers calling for help. She sees the shards of metal, the broken furniture and shattered lights jutting dangerously every which way. It feels . . . so real.

CNN transcript is here.

WALLACE: September 11th, 2001, it is your first day back from maternity leave. You're getting ready to take your newborn son, Elijah, to child care. Then what happens?

GALLOP: Again, it wasn't anything expected. I was just going to turn on the computer to do a letter. And I never got to do that. As soon as I touched the computer, boom, and I actually thought it was a bomb. And to leave out graphic details, you know, all of a sudden, due to the impact of the plane, we were blown away from the location we were at and covered under four floors of debris, walls, office equipment, et cetera.

WALLACE: You describe, as you talked to officers, you know, normally you'd be sort of panicking, but some adrenaline rush to find your son.

GALLOP: Exactly. Again, what caused me to really come back to reality and say, hey, we are alive, is that I heard my son crying. But what caused me to try to move was the fact that he stopped. And I thought, oh, my God, I've got to do something. And adrenaline just came up as -- I learned later that's what he described it as -- I felt this strength come up in me and it caused me to just get the will and the power to crawl out from under the debris. I low crawled out from under the debris and I was looking frantically for my son. And there were others who were trapped in between the floors and trapped under debris and you could just hear "Help me, save me, help me, save me." And you could hear "Aah," all types of noises in there.

And I -- the people who were closest to me that I could do something, I helped them with the thought that, OK, I helped you, help me find my son. And of course, they were in shock. I don't hold anything against them. They were thinking about getting out. And so, they ran to try and find a way. And I was thinking about my son. And there was no science to it on our way out of the hole. I just reached down and I just thought it was a body. I had no sense that it was actually my son until I pulled it, and it was my son. And I checked to see if he was breathing. He wasn't and then I just put him on my shoulder and that's when we began to try to climb over the debris to get out to the big gaping hole.

April Gallop's suggestions to reporters are here.

Don't manipulate the words of the victim or misquote them or use partial statements that indicate a certain stance.

[...]

Seek to determine what is and what isn't the truth in the aftermath of a disaster.

[LC 24:59] Jim Marrs wrote about April Gallop.

Jim Marrs's 9/11 book is not a reliable source. He writes about UFO and other similar subjects.

[LC 25:28] "So, if a Boeing 757 didn't hit the Pentagon, then what did?"

Loose Change has already shown plenty of evidence that a 757 did hit the Pentagon, but if you're still not convinced, this is a good place to continue investigating.

[LC 26:16] Don Perkal smelled cordite.

Don Perkal also wrote this:

An attorney I've known for fifteen years was killed instantly when the plane went into the building. He had retired two weeks ago and went to work for a government contractor. He was in the Pentagon to pitch a contract to a Lieutenant General. Everyone in the room died from the explosion of jet fuel.

[LC 27:12] A C-130 was seen flying over the Pentagon.

From the 9/11 Commission report:

The Command Center kept looking for American 77. At 9:21, it advised the Dulles terminal control facility, and Dulles urged its controllers to look for primary targets. At 9:32, they found one. Several of the Dulles controllers "observed a primary radar target tracking eastbound at a high rate of speed" and notified Reagan National Airport. FAA personnel at both Reagan National and Dulles airports notified the Secret Service. The aircraft's identity or type was unknown.

Reagan National controllers then vectored an unarmed National Guard C-130H cargo aircraft, which had just taken off en route to Minnesota, to identify and follow the suspicious aircraft. The C-130H pilot spotted it, identified it as a Boeing 757, attempted to follow its path, and at 9:38, seconds after impact, reported to the control tower: "looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir."

[LC 27:30] Witnesses saw another plane high above Washington.

The nationwide ground stop was ordered at 9:25, but it took a while to land all the planes already airborne. Military aircraft, including large tankers for refueling fighters, were being sent aloft to patrol the skies for more hijacked jetliners.

[LC 28:36] Fox News reported unconfirmed second explosion at the Pentagon.

Secondary explosions are common to raging fires in buildings.

[LC 29:14] The FBI took possession of surveillance videos.

That's what investigators do.

[LC 29:34] Surveillance video from Pentagon parking lot is shown.

The tape only recorded two frames per second in order to record for a very long time on a single cassette. This is good enough to record cars in a parking lot but poor at recording a jetliner traveling hundreds of miles per hour.

[LC 29:49] A light colored strip is visible on the Pentagon's lawn in an aerial photo.

Could that be from digging and then filling in a trench where cable was laid?

[LC 30:44] The outer wall of the South Tower is bending inward as floor trusses fail.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology investigated the collapse.

Some 200 technical experts—including about 85 career NIST experts and 125 leading experts from the private sector and academia—reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1,000 people, reviewed 7,000 segments of video footage and 7,000 photographs, analyzed 236 pieces of steel from the wreckage, performed laboratory tests and sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they began to collapse.

Based on this comprehensive investigation, NIST concluded that the WTC towers collapsed because: (1) the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns, dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, and widely dispersed jet fuel over multiple floors; and (2) the subsequent unusually large jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires (which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius) significantly weakened the floors and columns with dislodged fireproofing to the point where floors sagged and pulled inward on the perimeter columns. This led to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns and failure of the south face of WTC 1 and the east face of WTC 2, initiating the collapse of each of the towers. Both photographic and video evidence—as well as accounts from the New York Police Department aviation unit during a half-hour period prior to collapse—support this sequence for each tower.

[LC 30:50]"The South Tower of the World Trade Center collapses to the ground in approximately ten seconds."

The NIST considered the elapsed time of collapse.

NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A).

As documented in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, these collapse times show that:

"...the structure below the level of collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass at and above the impact zone. The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation.

Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos. As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass."

In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass.

From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely.

[LC 31:00] The North Tower is shown collapsing. Then, World Trade Center 7 is shown collapsing.

Loose Change claims that WTC 7 collapsed in only six seconds. It takes longer. Watch the upper left side of the building to see the beginning of the collapse.

[LC 32:00] On July 28, 1945, a B-52 bomber lost in the fog crashed into the 79th floor of the Empire State Building.

Actually, it was a B-25 that struck the Empire State Building. A B-25 is much smaller and slower than a 757, and has a much lighter fuel load.

[LC 32:20] The WTC had a large fire in 1975.

The fire was not preceded by a jetliner crashing into the building, stripping fire protection from beams and trusses and severely damaging many load bearing columns.

[LC 33:00] Skyscapers are shown burning but not collapsing.

How many of these fires were preceded by jetliners smashing into the side of the buildings?

[LC 35:12] Plane is shown crashing into WTC.

Uh, do you see any trace of a plane after the crash? Tail sections? Wing sections? Engines? Cockpit? Catch my drift?

How does the narrator know that the majority of the jet fuel burned outside the building? He doesn't.

[LC 35:25] The second tower to be hit is shown collapsing first.

Could it be that the second plane hit lower, causing a larger mass to press down on the remaining colums? The second plane also hit toward the corner of the building, and was traveling faster than the first plane. There are many factors that led to the second strike causing the first collapse.

[LC 35:31] Debris from the collapsing tower is falling outward and far away from the base.

The falling debris caused extensive damage (.pdf) to surrounding buildings.

[LC 35:54] The collapse is timed.

The very beginning of the collapse is not seen due to an editing trick. The end of the collapse is obscured by the massive cloud of dust and debris.

[LC 36:33] "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."

Van Romero made the Fristian mistake of diagnosing using only videotape. After some time to think over the day's events and speak with structural engineers, he realized his mistake.

Subsequent conversations with structural engineers and more detailed looks at the tape have led Romero to a different conclusion. Romero supports other experts, who have said the intense heat of the jet fuel fires weakened the skyscrapers' steel structural beams to the point that they gave way under the weight of the floors above.

[...]

Conspiracy theorists have seized on Romero's comments as evidence for their argument that someone else, possibly the U.S. government, was behind the attack on the Trade Center. Romero said he has been bombarded with electronic mail from the conspiracy theorists. "I'm very upset about that," he said. "I'm not trying to say anything did or didn't happen."

[LC 37:04] "Although the buildings were designed to withstand a 150 year storm, and the impact of a Boeing 707, jet fuel burning at 2000 degrees weakened the steel." - Hyman Brown

At the time the towers were designed, computer technology was not advanced enough to allow for modeling the impact of a 707 on the proposed design. The designers were just guessing.

[LC 37:24] "We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications." - Kevin Ryan, UL

Kevin Ryan did not test steel. He was a worker at Environmental Health Laboratories, a water testing company that is a subsidiary of UL.

"UL does not certify structural steel, such as the beams, columns and trusses used in World Trade Center," said Paul M. Baker, the company's spokesman.

Ryan was fired, Baker said, because he "expressed his own opinions as though they were institutional opinions and beliefs of UL."

"The contents of the argument itself are spurious at best, and frankly, they're just wrong," Baker said.

[LC 37:45] "Additionally, I think we can all agree that even unfireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F. Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all." - Kevin Ryan

Mr. Ryan should have stuck to testing water. Hyman Brown said that the steel was weakened, he did not say that it melted. The NIST addressed the issue of weakened steel.

In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires. The melting point of steel is about 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36).

However, when bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius, it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value. Steel that is unprotected (e.g., if the fireproofing is dislodged) can reach the air temperature within the time period that the fires burned within the towers. Thus, yielding and buckling of the steel members (floor trusses, beams, and both core and exterior columns) with missing fireproofing were expected under the fire intensity and duration determined by NIST for the WTC towers.

UL did not certify any steel as suggested. In fact, in U.S. practice, steel is not certified at all; rather structural assemblies are tested for their fire resistance rating in accordance with a standard procedure such as ASTM E 119 (see NCSTAR 1-6B). That the steel was "certified ... to 2000 degrees Fahrenheit for six hours" is simply not true.

[LC 39:19] An unidentified man says that federal agencies believe that there was an explosive device other than the planes.

I don't who that guy is. He didn't say what federal agencies believed that there was an explosive device. At least he didn't shout, "Baba Booey!"

NIST’s findings also do not support the "controlled demolition" theory since there is conclusive evidence that: the collapse was initiated in the impact and fire floors of the WTC towers and nowhere else, and; the time it took for the collapse to initiate (56 minutes for WTC 2 and 102 minutes for WTC 1) was dictated by (1) the extent of damage caused by the aircraft impact, and (2) the time it took for the fires to reach critical locations and weaken the structure to the point that the towers could not resist the tremendous energy released by the downward movement of the massive top section of the building at and above the fire and impact floors.

Video evidence also showed unambiguously that the collapse progressed from the top to the bottom, and there was no evidence (collected by NIST, or by the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation.

In summary, NIST found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to Sept. 11, 2001. NIST also did not find any evidence that missiles were fired at or hit the towers. Instead, photographs and videos from several angles clearly show that the collapse initiated at the fire and impact floors and that the collapse progressed from the initiating floors downward until the dust clouds obscured the view.

[LC 42:58] An unnamed eyewitness claims he saw a number of brief light sources emitted from inside the building between floors 10 and 15

The building collapsed from the top down. The source of the lights, no matter what the cause, did not contribute to the collapse. The story is from American Free Press, 'nough said.

[LC 45:35] The narrator says that the elevators were hermetically sealed.

This is a ludicrous claim. Hermetically sealed, really? How did passengers enter and exit? The elevators were not air-tight. Passengers would run out of oxygen in hermetically sealed eleavators.

[LC 47:40] A firefighter describes the freight elevator as blown.

When the plane crashed into the building, the force knocked the doors open and aerosolized jet fuel entered the shafts and burned at a high rate. Flames and concussive forces in the elevator shafts caused significant damage on other floors.

ZAHN: Take us back to that dreadful day. Where were you at the time the first plane hit?

DHINGRA: I had just gotten out of elevator. I was just a little late to work, so I don't know.

ZAHN: Thank God, right? Earlier you think ...

DHINGRA: Well, actually, I probably might have been safer, I don't know. But I had just gotten out of elevator and just made a right turn into a hallway going towards my office, and that is when the first plane hit, and I believe, not exactly sure, but the flames went through elevator shaft, engulfed me.

ZAHN: Had you been in the elevator you might not have been killed instantly?

DHINGRA: I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't be here, because I know a gentleman named David I was in hospital with, he was on ground floor, and he was in front of elevator door, and when that opened, it just engulfed him, and he is a lot worse off than I was in the hospital, and he was on the ground floor.

Every day since September 11, 2001, has been a milestone for Lauren Manning. Burned over 82 percent of her body in the World Trade Center attack, she was given just a 15 percent chance of surviving. Now, a little more than two years later, she is planning a third-birthday party for her son, Tyler. "I just visited the Children's Zoo in Central Park where we're going to have it," she says. "I didn't grow up with parties like this, but he's our only child and it brings us great pleasure."

"What's great," says Greg, "is that Lauren will be there. There was a time when we couldn't be sure ..."

Lauren still remembers lying in the brilliant sunshine on the grass median outside the World Trade Center in unspeakable pain -- yet "seeing every blade of grass with razor precision," she says. Walking into the north tower, unaware that a plane had struck, she had been engulfed by a fireball as jet fuel poured down an elevator shaft and exploded. On her back in the midst of the horror, debris raining down around her, Lauren made the decision to live -- for Greg and for Tyler, then 10 months old.

Early on the morning of September 11, 2001, Lauren Manning-a wife, the mother of a ten-month-old son, and a senior vice president and partner at Cantor Fitzgerald-came to work, as always, at One World Trade Center. As she stepped into the lobby, a fireball exploded from the elevator shaft, and in that split second her life was changed forever.

Lauren was burned over 82.5 percent of her body. As he watched his wife lie in a drug-induced coma in the ICU of the Burn Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Greg Manning began writing a daily journal. In the form of e-mails to family, friends, and colleagues, he recorded Lauren's harrowing struggle-and his own tormented efforts to make sense of an act that defies all understanding. This book is that e-mail diary: detailed, intimate, inspiring messages that end, always, as if a prayer for a happy outcome: Love, Greg and Lauren

[LC 48:14] Firefighters reached the crash zone in the south tower.

There is strong evidence that at least two firefighters did reach the 78th floor. Fires were still burning when the firefighters reached the crash zone. And the crash zone was far larger than just the 78th floor. The plane hit between the 78th and 84th floors.

[LC 51:05] Arthur Lerner-Lam said, "During the collapse, most of the energy of the falling debris was absorbed by the towers and the neighboring structures, converting them into rubble and dust or causing other damage -- but not causing significant ground shaking."

The falling debris caused extensive damage to surrounding buildings including WTC 7. The ground shaking was slight compared to a major earthquake. But nothing from the seismograph indicates that the collapse of either tower was a controlled demolition.

[LC 51:18] In the basements of the collapsed towers, hot spots of "literally molten steel" were discovered more than a month after 9/11.

Loose Change offers no evidence that it was molten steel because it wasn't molten steel. The temperature was not high enough to melt steel even after the pile of rubble burned for weeks. The substance seen by workers was most likely aluminum, but could have been some other metal with a low melting point.

[LC 52:35] Puffs of debris are shown being expelled from the towers as they collapse.

These puffs were observed at many locations as the towers collapsed. In all cases, they had the appearance of jets of gas being pushed from the building through windows or between columns on the mechanical floors. Such jets are expected since the air inside the building is compressed as the tower falls and must flow somewhere as the pressure builds. It is significant that similar “puffs” were observed numerous times on the fire floors in both towers prior to their collapses, perhaps due to falling walls or portions of a floor. Puffs from WTC 1 were even observed when WTC 2 was struck by the aircraft. These observations confirm that even minor overpressures were transmitted through the towers and forced smoke and debris from the building.

[LC 53:21] A videographer recorded the collapses of the towers. The tripod shakes 12 seconds before the North Tower collapses.

Wow. Could the videographer have inadvertently shaken the camera and tripod? Was the tripod anchored to the bedrock? A shaking camera far from the building means nothing.

[LC 53:46] Ben Fountain said that in the weeks before 9/11 there were numerous evacuations for "security reasons."

Ben Fountain, 42, a financial analyst with Fireman's Fund, was coming out of the Chambers Street Station, headed for his office on the 47th floor of the south tower.

How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on.

Could the fire drills have been related to the phoned in bomb threats? Because of those bomb threats, security was higher than normal before the attack. Bomb sniffing dogs were patrolling the WTC. That would make it that much harder to sneak explosives into the building.

[LC 54:34] President Bush's brother, Marvin, served as a director at Securacom, a company that provided security at the WTC.

Marvin left that position long before the attack.

[LC 55:00] Mayor Giuliani began shipping the WTC's steel off to foreign scrapyards before investigators could examine it. FEMA was not allowed into Ground Zero.

FEMA was all over Ground Zero documenting the destruction (.pdf) and participating in the clean up. Investigators examined (.pdf) the steel at length.

WTC steel data collection efforts were undertaken by the Building Performance Study (BPS) Team and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY) to identify significant steel pieces from WTC 1, 2, 5, and 7 for further study.

[...]

Of the estimated 1.5 million tons of WTC concrete, steel, and other debris, more than 350,000 tons of steel have been extracted from Ground Zero and barged or trucked to salvage yards where it cut up for recycling.

[...]

SEAoNY appealed to its membership for experienced senior engineers to visit the salvage yards on a volunteer basis, and identify and set aside promising steel pieces for further evaluation. Seventeen volunteer SEAoNY engineers started going to the yards in November 2001.

[...]

Specifically, the engineers looked for the following types of steel members:

Exterior column trees and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were exposed to fire and/or impacted by the aircraft.

Exterior column trees and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were above the impact zone.

Badly burnt pieces from WTC 7.

Connections from WTC 1, 2, and 7, such as seat connections, single shear plates, and column splices.

Bolts from WTC 1, 2, and 7 that were exposed to fire, fractured, and/or that appeared undamaged.

Floor trusses, including stiffeners, seats, and other components.

Any piece that, in the engineer's professional opinion, might be useful for evaluation. When there was any doubt about a particular piece, the piece was kept while more information was gathered. A conservative approach was taken to avoid having important pieces processed in salvage yard operations.

[LC 55:40] The World Trade Center "was brought down in a carefully planned controlled demolition."

After offering up easily verified lies and nonsense, you conclude that people slipped into the WTC and planted explosives that would destroy the building in a way that would make people think that the building was brought down by a plane crash and subsequent fire. That's the best conspiracy theory ever, ever.

[LC 55:56] "[Mayor] White said the plane had been moved to a secure area of [Hopkins] Airport, and was evacuated. United identified the plane as Flight 93." WCPO

WCPO explained that this was a mistake.

I thought it was time to set the record straight on a website error that's gotten out of hand.

I've been getting calls and e-mails for several years, all from folks who have seen my byline on a story (Plane Lands In Cleveland; Bomb Feared Aboard) about Flight 93, the plane that crashed in a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001.

The story in question, an Associated Press bulletin, was posted on WCPO.com during the morning of September 11, 2001. The story stated that Flight 93 landed in Cleveland. This was not true.

Once the AP issued a retraction a few minutes later, we removed the link.

There were two problems:

1)I only removed the link TO the story. We did not remove the story itself. This was my error probably due to the busy nature of the day -- I was the only person updating the website until about noon that day, and things were crazier than they’d ever been.

2) The byline was incorrect. In my haste, I pasted the "Reported by: 9News Staff" byline from a previous story, but this was actually an Associated Press story.

Sometime in 2003 I received an e-mail inquiring about the story. I quickly removed the story, and wrote back to the person, thanking them for the heads up about the incorrect story.

Things didn't stop there.

Messages and phone calls started coming in about "Why did the government make me remove the story?" As is the nature of the net, folks had gotten a hold of the old story and posted it on their own blogs, fueling even more interest in the situation.

So, for everyone who is still wondering about this story, here are some frequently asked questions. I'm hoping this clears everything up once and for all!


FAQ

1. Where did the original story come from?
The story was an Associated Press bulletin that came across the news wires. Associated Press is a news service that many news organizations subscribe to for non-local news. The idea is that a local news organization can’t possibly have reporters everywhere in the world, so for that reason, we publish stories written by Associated Press journalists.

2. So you didn’t report the story yourself?
No, I work at the website in Cincinnati. I generally do not do any reporting out in the field. Also, I was not in Cleveland, nor does WCPO-TV have a Cleveland-based reporter. If you’re not familiar with the geography of Ohio, Cleveland is a good four hours away from us.

There were two problems:

1. I only removed the link TO the story. We did not remove the story itself. This was my error probably due to the busy nature of the day -- I was the only person updating the website until about noon that day, and things were crazier than they'd ever been.

2. The byline was incorrect. In my haste, I pasted the "Reported by: 9News Staff" byline from a previous story, but this was actually an Associated Press story.

3. Why didn’t you remove the problem story page from the outset?
My mistake, that’s why. I removed the link TO the story, but didn’t remove the actual story. Then, the story page was indexed by the major search engines. I didn’t even know the story hadn’t been removed until after I was contacted by a member of the public.

4. Why DID you remove the page?
Because it was in error.

5. Why did you create this FAQ page? Isn’t that just fueling the fire?
I’ve been getting a ton of phone calls and e-mails about this recently and answering everyone would make it hard for me to get my day job –- running the website –- accomplished. Also, unlike the old media paradigm, which is "ignore it and it’ll go away," the Internet means a two-way conversation with our website users. So, in the interest of media transparency, this is my attempt to clear the air.

Posted by Liz Foreman on February 8, 2006 05:22 PM

[LC 56:58] It looks like there's nothing there but a hole in the ground.

Yes, if you stand far enough away it does look like just a hole in the ground.

[LC 58:09] "I stopped being coroner after about 20 minutes, because there were no bodies there."

No bodies were recovered here, at least not as we normally think of bodies. In the cataclysmic violence of the crash, the people on Flight 93 literally disintegrated. Searchers found fragments of bones, small pieces of flesh, a hand. But no bodies.

In the grisly accounting of a jetliner crash, it comes down to pounds: The people on Flight 93 weighed a total of about 7,500 pounds. Miller supervised an intensive effort to gather their remains, some flung hundreds of yards. In the end, just 600 pounds of remains were collected; of these, 250 pounds could be identified by DNA testing and returned to the families of the passengers and crew.

Forty families, wanting to bury their loved ones. Two hundred fifty pounds of identifiable remains.

[LC 58:58] So if Flight 93 didn't go down in Shanksville, then where? You ready for this? Cleveland.

Then which plane crashed in Shanksville and left the human remains?

[LC 1:01:19] We can assume that the passengers from Delta 1989 are safe somewhere.

I guess the idiots who created this video are incapable of finding out.

[LC 1:01:31] The combined number of all the passengers from the four flights is 198 or 243 depending on who you ask.

Who did you ask? There were a total of 265 people on board the planes.

Nineteen hijackers took over four airliners carrying another 213 passengers, 25 flight attendants, and eight pilots.

[LC 1:04:48] Osama denied responsibility for the attacks.

In a statement issued to the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, based in Qatar, bin Laden said, "The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it.

"I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons," bin Laden's statement said.

"I have been living in the Islamic emirate of Afghanistan and following its leaders' rules. The current leader does not allow me to exercise such operations," bin Laden said.

Technically, he's probably right that he didn't plan the operation because he delegated that responsibility to underlings. Of course when a low ranking employee runs aground and spills a massive quantity of oil, we nail Exxon. That's the nature of being the owner and CEO, Osama.

[LC 1:03:28] The black boxes from Flights 11 and 175 were not found.

Quite a few things were destroyed when the towers collapsed and burned. Black boxes are not indestructible.

[LC 1:03:37] Satam al-Suqami's passport was found on the street.

Loose Change showed the planes striking the towers. There was quite a lot of debris falling to the ground after the impact. The planes obviously shattered and spilled their contents upon impact. A passport that flew out of a tower window and landed on the street was more likely to be recovered than a black box that had thousands of tons of debris crush it.

Four of the hijackers’ passports (.pdf) have survived in whole or in part. Two were recovered from the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. One belonged to a hijacker on American Airlines Flight 11. A passerby picked it up and gave it to an NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed. A fourth passport was recovered from luggage that did not make it from a Portland flight to Boston onto the connecting flight, which was American Airlines Flight 11. In addition to these four, some digital copies of the hijackers’ passports were recovered in post-9/11 operations.

Two of the passports that have survived, those of Satam al Suqami and Abdul Aziz al Omari, were clearly doctored. To avoid getting into the classified details, we will just state that these were "manipulated in a fraudulent manner," in ways that have been associated with al Qaeda. Since the passports of 15 of the hijackers did not survive, we cannot make firm factual statements about their documents. But from what we know about al Qaeda passport practices and other information, we believe it is possible that six more of the hijackers presented passports that had some of these same clues to their association with al Qaeda.

Other kinds of passport markings can be highly suspicious. To avoid getting into the classified details, we will just call these "suspicious indicators." Two of the hijackers, Khalid al Mihdhar and Salem al Hazmi, presented passports that had such suspicious indicators. We know now that each of these two hijackers possessed at least two passports. All of their known passports had these suspicious indicators. We have evidence that three other hijackers, Nawaf al Hazmi, Ahmed al Nami, and Ahmad al Haznawi may have presented passports containing these suspicious indicators. But their passports did not survive the attacks, so we cannot be sure.

[LC 1:04:29] Nicholas DeMasi found three black boxes at the WTC.

Sure he did. It was reported by the American Free Press, the Holocaust denier's paper of record.

[LC 1:05:22] The last three minutes of Flight 93's cockpit voice recorder tape is missing.

So, Flight 93 crashed after all, or was the CVR recovered in Cleveland? The tape is not missing the last three minutes. It shows that the pilot intentionally crashed the plane because the passengers were fighting back.

[LC 1:06:11] What about the cell phone calls?

Most of the calls were definitely made with Airphones not cell phones.

[LC 1:06:33] Flight Attendant Betty Ong allegedly placed a call from Flight 11.

Allegedly? Are you kidding me? Part of the conversation was recorded when the operator pushed an emergency button alerting his supervisor.

[LC 1:07:23] Does she sound like a woman on a hijacked plane who just saw three people murdered?

She was in the back of the plane. She may not have realized how bad the situation was in the front of the plane.

[LC 1:07:46] "I see water and buildings. Oh my God! Oh my God!"

At 8:44, Gonzalez reported losing phone contact with Ong. About this same time Sweeney reported to Woodward, "Something is wrong. We are in a rapid descent ... we are all over the place." Woodward asked Sweeney to look out the window to see if she could determine where they were. Sweeney responded: "We are flying low. We are flying very, very low. We are flying way too low." Seconds later she said, "Oh my God we are way too low." The phone call ended.

At 8:46:40, American 11 crashed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City. All on board, along with an unknown number of people in the tower, were killed instantly.

[LC 1:07:55] A man claiming to be Mark Bingham called his mother, Alice, who was visiting his sister-in-law. "Mom, this is Mark Bingham."

His mother never said it wasn't him. If it wasn't Mark, then how did he know to call his sister-in-law to reach his mother?

[LC 1:08:53] None of these calls could have taken place.

All the calls Loose Change ridiculed so far were made with Airphones. It doesn't matter what Project Achilles says. These calls were possible because the technology of Airphones has been around for awhile. Mark Bingham used an Airphone. So what if he was nervous and frightened and used his full name, the phone call took place.

[LC 1:10:51] The BBC reported that an alleged hijacker was still alive.

It was a case of mistaken identity. Two men had very similar names. One is a dead hijacker, the other is still alive. A lot of time has passed, but I have yet to see Mohammed Atta or any other hijacker alive.

[LC 1:13:08] Bin Laden is shown wearing a gold ring.

You can't tell from a video what substance the ring is made of. It is not unusual for bin Laden to wear a ring.

The video runs for a few more minutes but doesn't reveal anything important, so I'm going to jump ahead to the good part.

[LC 1:19:30] Ask questions. Demand answers.

I would like to ask some questions of the young men who created this video. Why did you make this video? Are you just in it for the money? Do you really believe the nonsense in your video?


Addendum


In the time since I began researching and writing a review of Loose Change, a revised edition of the video has been released. Loose Change: 2nd Edition Recut has only a few differences from the video I dissected, so I will highlight several of those changes.

Fifty seconds of disclaimers has been added to the beginning. Then it picks up where the old version started, and sticks to the old script until it reaches the segment about Charles Burlingame. The dates of Mr. Burlingame's Navy service have been changed, but the video still implies that he is involved in a conspiracy. That's not really an improvement. The Pratt & Whitney mistake has been fixed. Rolls-Royce RB211 engines are now described as the equipment aboard the 757 that struck the Pentagon, but a diagram of a GE jet engine is still compared to the wreckage of the Rolls-Royces. The shoulder fired rocket has been replaced by a more substantial missile fired from an aircraft, but it doesn't have anything to do with a jetliner crashing into the Pentagon. The segment featuring the ramblings of Jim Marrs has been excised, perhaps at the request of April Gallop or her attorney. The B-52 mistake has been fixed. This is a very small change to insert B-25. No longer is the number of passengers on board the four hijacked jets a major concern of the video producers. Now the narrator just describes the number as being about 200. The video documents that the cockpit voice recorder was recovered from Flight 77 seconds before stating that Flight 93's cockpit voice recorder was the only one recovered. Short term memory is not the strong point of the Loose Change kids.

Overall, the few changes made to this edition hardly matter to the final judgement of the entire video. It is so full of lies and half-truths that it is useless in any meaningful discussion of 9/11. While there is great disagreement in America about the government's actions both before and after 9/11, Loose Change does not devote any time to those matters, instead preferring to focus on paper thin conspiracy theories. I suspect, although I have no definitive proof, that the Loose Change kids are intellectually incapable of addressing anything more substantial than the nonsense in their video.