by Alan Miller
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December 4, 2007 – Eight former senior Republican administration appointees have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and several have called for a new investigation. "I find the facts against the official story of the [WTC] buildings' collapse more compelling than the case that has been made in behalf of the official story. I would like to see the issue debated by independent scientists and engineers," wrote Paul Craig Roberts, PhD, Assistant Secretary of the Treasury under President Ronald Reagan. "A real investigation is needed to find an explanation consistent with the evidence, even if it doesn't reassure the public," said Dr. Roberts [1], frequently referred to as the "Father of Reagonomics."
Paul Craig Roberts, PhD
"Over the past six years, the ranks of distinguished skeptics of the 9-11 storyline have grown enormously. The ranks include distinguished scientists, engineers and architects, intelligence officers, air traffic controllers, military officers and generals, including the former commanding general of U.S. Army Intelligence and Security Command, former presidential appointees and members of the White House staff in Republican administrations, Top Gun fighter pilots and career airline pilots who say that the flying attributed to the 9-11 hijackers is beyond the skills of America's best pilots, and foreign dignitaries." [2]
Dr. Roberts currently serves as Chairman of the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. Previously he was the William E. Simon Chair in Political Economy, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Georgetown University. He also served as a Senior Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and as Associate Editor of The Wall Street Journal.
In a 2004 interview by Dennis Bernstein on the Flashpoints radio show, Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing under President George H.W. Bush (41) said "The official story could not possibly have happened. In other words, what the administration has put forward is essentially a conspiracy theory that does not conform to the facts. It's not possible. It's not operationally feasible ... The Commission was a whitewash." [3]
Catherine Austin Fitts Prior to her appointment to the first Bush administration, Ms. Fitts served as Managing Director and Member of the Board of Wall Street investment bank, Dillon, Read & Co. She previously was President of The Hamilton Securities Group.
In a 2004 essay, Ms. Fitts wrote, "Much has transpired since September 11, 2001. ... We have emerged deeply disturbing unanswered questions of 9-11 through global Internet media. We have worked with [Paul Thompson's Complete] 911 Timeline and realized that the official explanation of events is conspiracy theory, not conforming to documented fact.
We have watched the U.S. government suppress facts and restrict of the 9-11 Commission's access to information. We have watched the 9-11 Commission fail to answer the unanswered questions and concede to official suppression of information. We have watched the leaders of the national security infrastructure richly rewarded for their failure to protect America on 9-11. We have noted the material omissions of the corporate media. Something does not add up. Someone has something to hide. ... The Administration has something to hide. Rather than lose time and resources getting lost in the White House fog, let's follow the alleged advice of one of the 9-11 Commissioners, Fred Fielding ..."Follow the Money." [4]
Morgan Reynolds, PhD In a 2006 video interview with Alex Jones, Morgan Reynolds, PhD, former Chief Economist of the U.S. Department of Labor under current President George W. Bush said, "I first began to suspect that 9/11 was in inside job when the Bush-Cheney Administration invaded Iraq. ... We can prove that the government's story is false." [5] Prior to his appointment to the Bush administration, Dr. Reynolds was Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He is also Professor Emeritus of Economics, Texas A&M University. And in a 2005 essay, Dr. Reynolds wrote, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the Twin Towers [each 1300+ feet tall, 110 stories] and Building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely [to] prove to be sound." [6]
WTC Building 7 was 610 feet tall, 47 stories. It would have been the tallest building in 33 states. Although it was not hit by an airplane, it completely collapsed into a pile of rubble in less than 7 seconds at 5:20 p.m. on 9/11. However, no mention of its collapse appears in the 9/11 Commission's "full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks." Watch the collapse video here. And six years after 9/11, the Federal government has yet to publish its promised final report that explains the cause of its collapse.
Another senior Republican appointee who has questioned the official account of 9/11 is Col. Ronald D. Ray, U.S. Marine Corps (ret), who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Ronald Reagan. He's a highly decorated Vietnam veteran (two Silver Stars, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart). He was also appointed by President George H. W. Bush to serve on the American Battle Monuments Commission (1990 – 1994), and on the 1992 Presidential Commission on the Assignment of Women in the Armed Forces. He was Military Historian and Deputy Director of Field Operations for the U.S. Marine Corps Historical Center, Washington, D.C. (1990 – 1994).
Col. Ronald D. Ray In an interview on Alex Jones' radio show on June 30, 2006 [7], Col. Ray described the official account of 9/11 as "the dog that doesn't hunt", meaning it doesn't stand up to scrutiny. In response to Alex Jones' question, "Is it safe to say or is the statement accurate that you smell something rotten in the state of Denmark when it comes to 9/11?" Col. Ray replied, "I'm astounded that the conspiracy theory advanced by the administration could in fact be true and the evidence does not seem to suggest that that's accurate. That's true."
Another senior Republican appointee who has questioned the official account of 9/11 is Mary Schiavo. Appointed under the administration of President George H. W. Bush, Ms. Schiavo served as the Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation from 1990 - 1996. Ms. Schiavo and her staff secured more than 1,000 criminal convictions and uncovered billions in waste and abuse at the U.S. DOT. Since leaving the Transportation Department, Ms. Schiavo has represented passenger and crew families in every major U.S. air crash, as well as pilots and passengers on private planes.
Mary Schiavo In an article written by Gail Sheehy that appeared in the New York Observer on Feb. 16, 2004, Ms. Sheehy wrote, "Ms. Schiavo sat in on the commission's hearing on aviation security on 9/11 and was disgusted by what it left out. 'In any other situation, it would be unthinkable to withhold investigative material from an independent commission,' she told this writer. 'There are usually grave consequences. But the commission is clearly not talking to everybody or not telling us everything.' " [8]
In a press conference on June 10, 2002 regarding the events of 9/11, Ms. Schiavo stated, "First of all, the question is not 'What they [the U.S. government] should have known?' And I believe I can show you in just a few seconds the question is, 'What did they know?' And believe me, they knew a lot. The second thing to emphasize is that in every single aviation disaster, whether there was intervening criminal activity or not, in every single one in the course of modern aviation history it has been followed by, not only were it necessary, a criminal investigation, but also a National Transportation Safety investigation into what went wrong in the aviation system. And the reason for that is so that it never happens again."
Ms. Schiavo continued, "This is the first time, and this is the worst disaster, but this is the first time that families have been attempted to be silenced through a special fund, which I believe is about silence more so than about money. Why? ... And from my rounds on the Hill to find these facts and others, I found that the airlines approached members of Congress and the Senate to get their bailout and their immunity and their protection starting on 9/11. They sent their first lobbyist up to the Hill on 9/11. And this has been confirmed to me personally by Senators and members of Congress. Now to me that's very shocking but to me it raises another question, Why? Why did they have to rush to the Hill to change the law? ... So in the wake of September 11, 2001, when we heard the carriers and governments alike saying, 'Oh, no one could have foreseen this. No one knew that this was coming. No one knew that there was any risk like this in the world,' is absolutely false. ... In the last thirty years we have had 682 hijackings. 682. Here's an interesting statistic. When we had the United States saying, 'Oh, we couldn't have known this.' " [9]
Barbara Honegger Another critic of the official account of 9/11 is Barbara Honegger, who served as Special Assistant to the Chief Domestic Policy Adviser to President Ronald Reagan and as a White House Policy Analyst. "The US military and intelligence community, not al Qaeda, had the sustained access weeks before 9/11 to also plant controlled demolition charges throughout the superstructures of WTC 1 and WTC 2, and in WTC 7, which brought down all three buildings on 9/11," she wrote. [10]
"A US military plane, not one piloted by al Qaeda, performed the highly skilled, steep, high-speed 270- to 330-degree dive towards the Pentagon that Dulles Air Traffic Controllers were sure was a military plane as they watched it on their screens that morning. Only a military aircraft, not a civilian plane flown by al Qaeda, would have given off the "Friendly" signal needed to disable the Pentagon's anti-aircraft missile batteries as it approached the building. Only the US military, not al Qaeda, had the ability to break all of its Standard Operating Procedures to paralyze its own emergency response systems on 9/11."
Ms. Honegger also served as Project Director of the Attorney General's Anti-Discrimination Federal Law Review at the U.S. Department of Justice in Reagan's administration. She is a graduate of the Naval War College master's program in National Security Decision Making and for over 12 years has served as Senior Military Affairs Journalist at the Naval Postgraduate School, the U.S. Navy's and the Defense Department's premier science, technology and national security affairs university.
Ms. Honegger has become a prominent critic of the official account of 9/11 as a private researcher, author and speaker at conferences. This is not Ms. Honegger's first experience with allegations of serious executive branch misconduct. In 1983, she resigned from the Reagan administration in protest to planned domestic policy decisions. In 1989, she authored the pioneering Irangate expose October Surprise, which led to a full-subpoena-power U.S. House of Representatives investigation. Her book alleged that prior to the 1980 Presidential election, members of the Reagan campaign cut a secret deal with Iran to delay the release of the 52 American hostages, in order to prevent President Jimmy Carter from arranging their release and prevent him from winning the November election. The hostages were released on the day of Ronald Reagan's inauguration, after 444 days in captivity.
Edward Peck Shortly after the release of the 9/11 Commission Report, a group of over 100 prominent Americans signed a petition [11] urging Congress to immediately reinvestigate 9/11. In addition to four prominent former CIA officials [12], the signers included Catherine Austin Fitts (mentioned above), Edward Peck, and Morton Goulder.
Edward Peck served as Deputy Director of the White House Task Force on Terrorism under President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Peck, a 32-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service also served as Deputy Coordinator, Covert Intelligence Programs at the State Department and as U.S. Ambassador and Chief of Mission in Iraq (1977 - 1980).
Morton Goulder Morton Goulder was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Warning under President Richard Nixon and continued in that capacity under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter. In World War II, he served as a Lt. Commander in the U.S. Navy. He is a co-founder of Sanders Associates, a billion dollar defense contractor, now a division of BEA Systems.
The petition stated, in part, "We want truthful answers to questions such as:
1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?"
These questions and many others still remain unanswered three years after the petition was submitted and six years after the terrible events of 9/11. As the statements of these eight senior Republican Administration appointees show, the need for a new thorough, and independent investigation of 9/11 is not a matter of partisan politics, nor the demand of irresponsible, mentally ill, or disloyal Americans. It is instead a matter of the utmost importance for America's security and the future of the entire world.
Statements questioning the official account of 9/11 and calls for a new investigation by more than 800 credible individuals can be found at
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Additional information on skeptics of the official account of 9/11 can be found in the author's other articles on this subject.
Sept. 23, 2007 - Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report - Official Account of 9/11 a "Joke" and a "Cover-up" featured statements by CIA veterans Raymond McGovern, William Christison, Melvin Goodman, Robert Baer, Robert David Steele, Lynne Larkin, and David MacMichael.
Sept. 5, 2007 - U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' Pilot Questions 9/11, featured the statement of Commander Ralph Kolstad, U.S. Navy 'Top Gun' pilot.
Sept. 4, 2007 - Former Congressional Office of Technology Assessment Senior Staff Member Calls for New Investigation of 9/11 featured the statement of Joel S. Hirschhorn, Ph.D., who served for 12 years as a Senior Staff Member of the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment and later as Director of Environment, Energy and Natural Resources for the National Governors Association.
Aug. 27, 2007 - National Academy of Sciences Member Calls for New 9/11 Investigation featured the statment of Lynn Margulis, Ph.D., world renowned scientist.
Aug. 21, 2007 - Former Chief of NIST's Fire Science Division Calls for Independent Review of World Trade Center Investigation featured the statement of James Quintiere, Ph.D., one of the world's leading fire science researchers.
July 16, 2007 - Former California Seismic Safety Commissioner Endorses 9/11 Truth Movement featured the statement of J. Marx Ayres, former member of the National Institute of Sciences Building Safety Council and former member of the California Seismic Safety Commission.
Endnotes
[1] Is American Democracy Too Feeble to Deal with 9/11? By Paul Craig Roberts, PhD on VDare.com Sept. 10, 2006
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[2] 9/11, Six Years Later by Paul Craig Roberts, PhD on VDare.com Sept. 10, 2007
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[3] Interview of Catherine Austin Fitts by Dennis Bernstein on the Flashpoints radio show Sept. 9, 2004
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[4] 9/11 Profiteering by Catherine Austin Fitts on March 22, 2004 on GlobalResearch.ca
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[5] Video interview of Morgan Reynolds, PhD, by Alex Jones June 2, 2006
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[6] Why Did the Trade Center Skyscrapers Collapse? by Morgan Reynolds, PhD on LewRockwell.com June 9, 2005
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[7] Radio interview of Col. Ronald D. Ray by Alex Jones, June 30, 2006 (Subscription required.) Summarized in July 1, 2006 article on propagandamatrix.com
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[8] Stewardess ID'd Hijackers Early, Transcripts Show by Gail Sheehy, New York Observer, Feb. 15, 2004
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[9] Press conference with Mary Schiavo June 10, 2002 Video:
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[10] "The Pentagon Attack Papers" by Barbara Honegger, published in The Terror Conspiracy by Jim Marrs 2006
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[11] Petition to Reinvestigate 9/11 Signed by Over 100 Prominent Americans Oct. 26, 2004
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[12] Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report by Alan Miller, Sept. 23, 2007
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