The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie Distribution via the Unanswered Questions Wire
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The 9/11 Commission Report: A 571-Page Lie
by Dr. David Ray Griffin
9/11 Visibility Project
Sunday, May 22, 2005
From: www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2005-05-22-571pglie.phpIn discussing my second 9/11 book, The 9/11 Commission Report:
Omissions and Distortions, I have often said, only half in jest,
that a better title might have been 'a 571-page lie.' (Actually,
I was saying 'a 567-page lie,' because I was forgetting to count
the four pages of the Preface.) In making this statement, one
of my points has been that the entire Report is constructed in
support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is
true.
Another point, however, is that in the process of telling this overall lie,
the 9/11 Commission Report tells many lies about
particular issues. This point is implied by my critique's subtitle,
'Omissions and Distortions.' It might be thought, to be sure,
that of the two types of problems signaled by those two terms,
only those designated 'distortions' can be considered lies.
It is better, however, to understand the two terms as referring
to two types of lies: implicit and explicit. We have an explicit
lie when the Report claims that the core of each of the Twin
Towers consisted of a hollow steel shaft or when it claims that
Vice President Cheney did not give the shoot-down order until
after 10:10 that morning. But we have an implicit lie when the
Commission, in its discussion of the 19 alleged suicide hijackers,
omits the fact that at least six of them have credibly been reported
to be still alive, or when it fails to mention the fact that
Building 7 of the World Trade Center collapsed. Such omissions
are implicit lies partly because they show that the Commission
did not honor its stated intention 'to provide the fullest possible
account of the events surrounding 9/11.' They are also lies insofar
as the Commission could avoid telling an explicit lie about the
issue in question only by not mentioning it, which, I believe,
was the case in at least most instances.
Given these two types of lies, it might be wondered how many
lies are contained in The 9/11 Commission Report. I do not know.
But, deciding to see how many lies I had discussed in my book,
I found that I had identified over 100 of them. Once I had made
the list, it occurred to me that others might find this summary
helpful. Hence this article.
One caveat: Although in some of the cases it is obvious that
the Commission has lied, in other cases I would say, as I make
clear in the book, that it appears that the Commission has lied.
However, in the interests of simply giving a brief listing of
claims that I consider to be lies, I will ignore this distinction
between obvious and probable lies, leaving it to readers, if
they wish, to look up the discussion in The 9/11 Commission
Report: Omissions and Distortions. For ease in doing this, I
have parenthetically indicated the pages of the book on which
the various issues are discussed.
Given this clarification, I now list the omissions and claims
of The 9/11 Commission Report that I, in my critique of that
report, portrayed as lies:
1. The omission of evidence that at least six of the alleged
hijackers---including Waleed al-Shehri, said by the Commission
probably to have stabbed a flight attendant on Flight 11 before
it crashed into the North Tower of the WTC---are still alive
(19-20).
2. The omission of evidence about Mohamed Atta---such as his
reported fondness for alcohol, pork, and lap dances---that is
in tension with the Commission's claim that he had become fanatically
religious (20-21).
3. The obfuscation of the evidence that Hani Hanjour was too
poor a pilot to have flown an airliner into the Pentagon (21-22).
4. The omission of the fact that the publicly released flight
manifests contain no Arab names (23).
5. The omission of the fact that fire has never, before or after
9/11, caused steel-frame buildings to collapse (25).
6. The omission of the fact that the fires in the Twin Towers
were not very big, very hot, or very long-lasting compared with
fires in several steel-frame buildings that did not collapse
(25-26).
7. The omission of the fact that, given the hypothesis that the
collapses were caused by fire, the South Tower, which was struck
later than the North Tower and also had smaller fires, should
not have collapsed first (26).
8. The omission of the fact that WTC 7 (which was not hit by
an airplane and which had only small, localized fires) also collapsed---an
occurrence that FEMA admitted it could not explain (26).
9. The omission of the fact that the collapse of the Twin Towers
(like that of Building 7) exemplified at least 10 features suggestive
of controlled demolition (26-27).
10. The claim that the core of each of the Twin Towers was 'a
hollow steel shaft'---a claim that denied the existence of the
47 massive steel columns that in reality constituted the core
of each tower and that, given the 'pancake theory' of the collapses,
should have still been sticking up many hundreds of feet in the
air (27-28).
11. The omission of Larry Silverstein's statement that he and
the fire department commander decided to 'pull' Building 7 (28).
12. The omission of the fact that the steel from the WTC buildings
was quickly removed from the crime scene and shipped overseas
before it could be analyzed for evidence of explosives (30).
13. The omission of the fact that because Building 7 had been
evacuated before it collapsed, the official reason for the rapid
removal of the steel---that some people might still be alive
in the rubble under the steel---made no sense in this case (30).
14. The omission of Mayor Giuliani's statement that he had received
word that the World Trade Center was going to collapse (30-31).
15. The omission of the fact that President Bush's brother Marvin
and his cousin Wirt Walker III were both principals in the company
in charge of security for the WTC (31-32).
16. The omission of the fact that the west wing of the Pentagon
would have been the least likely spot to be targeted by al-Qaeda
terrorists, for several reasons (33-34).
17. The omission of any discussion of whether the damage done
to the Pentagon was consistent with the impact of a Boeing 757
going several hundred miles per hour (34).
18. The omission of the fact that there are photos showing that
the west wing's façade did not collapse until 30 minutes after
the strike and also that the entrance hole appears too small
for a Boeing 757 to have entered (34).
19. The omission of all testimony that has been used to cast
doubt on whether remains of a Boeing 757 were visible either
inside or outside the Pentagon (34-36).