Vidal, Meacher and vBulow: "Air defenses might have deliberately stood down"

Conspiracy theories abound in 9/11 probe

Update: Story picked up by more U.S. papers (01/04)
Update: "Theories"? -St. Petersburgh readers demand an immediate and thorough investigation into 9/11

Photo: Gore Vidal

Cleveland.com -01/04
Kansas City Star -December 30, 2003
NJ.com -Monday, December 29, 2003

BY ROBERT COHEN

WASHINGTON -- One theory contends that the Bush administration was warned about the 9/11 attacks but did nothing to stop them. Another says an American missile fired by the U.S. military struck the Pentagon, not a hijacked jetliner. Yet another hypothesis says the Israelis orchestrated the attacks to force the United States into a war against the Arabs.

More than two years after terrorists hijacked four airliners and killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, conspiracy theories abound about what happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

A 9/11 widow recently filed a lawsuit accusing President Bush of allowing the attacks to gather support for the war on terrorism.

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Conspiracy books have become best-sellers in Europe. And earlier this month, Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean recounted in a radio interview a "most interesting theory" that Bush ignored warnings from Saudi Arabia about the attacks. Questioned afterward, he backed away from the theory, saying: "I can't imagine the president of the United States doing that." "What breeds these theories is that two years out, we have no authoritative account of how it happened and why it happened," said 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser of Middletown, a member of the Family Steering Committee, a group of survivors monitoring the national commission examining the Sept. 11 attacks. The commission is charged with providing that authoritative account. And as it heads toward a May deadline, the bipartisan panel is evaluating, and in some cases investigating, some of the many theories as it unravels the mysteries surrounding that tragic day. "All you can do is try to take every question that has been raised and see it is answered in the final report to the best of your ability," said Thomas Kean, the former New Jersey governor and chairman of the commission. "We have heard some theories that are a little unusual and some that have a possibility of being true. Some don't hold water and some require further investigation," Kean said.

... Breitweiser, whose husband Ronald died in the World Trade Center attack, said she still has many questions. "I don't know why my husband was told to stay at his desk," she said. "I don't know why fighter jets were not scrambled on time. I don't know why the national security adviser said she had no idea planes could be used as weapons when the historical record is replete with planes possibly being used as weapons. It boggles the mind." Breitweiser and the steering committee say concerns about stonewalling and a cover-up have been fueled by the government's "excessive secrecy," Bush's initial opposition to the commission, his delay in turning over White House intelligence briefings and the naming of Philip Zelikow, a friend of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, as executive director of the 9/11 panel. With many questions unanswered, a number of books, articles and postings on the Internet have offered conspiracy theories -- many with intricately woven plots filled with mind-numbing but unsubstantiated details.

...A former German cabinet minister, Andreas von Bulow, has written a best-selling book in Germany suggesting that the U.S. and Israeli intelligence services blew up the World Trade Center from the inside, then crashed two jetliners into the building by remote control to cover up their actions. He argues the attacks were mounted to justify the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Michael Meacher, a former British environmental minister, published an article suggesting American air defenses might have deliberately stood down on Sept. 11 so the United States could use the attack as a pretext to gain control of the world's oil supplies and expand American power.

Author and polemicist Gore Vidal has written widely about Sept. 11 and its aftermath. In one British newspaper, he wrote that the U.S. was warned repeatedly in advance of the attacks that there would be "unfriendly visits to our skies some time in September 2001... But the government neither informed nor protected us despite Mayday warnings from Presidents Putin (of Russia) and Mubarak (of Egypt), and even from elements of our own FBI."

French author and left-wing activist Therry Meyssan has written a best-selling book in France claiming that an American missile, not a hijacked airliner, struck the Pentagon. He argued the attack was staged by the U.S. military to promote its agenda. His theory has been promoted on numerous Web sites showing photographs of the Pentagon with no apparent evidence of a crashed airliner.

John Judge, a self-styled investigator and one of the founders of 9/11 CitizensWatch, another group monitoring the commission, said Meyssan's theory is "beyond the pale." But he said there are many unanswered questions, including why the air defense system did not react after it discovered that four jetliners were hijacked, and why no one has been called to account.

"Were people in the military and intelligence network getting signals and decided to let it come?" he asked. "It looks like a sophisticated covert operation including a cover story. It's really not broken down yet."

Letters of the week:

Is this a foreign policy we want?

St. Petersburg Times -Letters to the Editor December 26, 2003

Re: A gift for conservatives, letter, Dec. 23.

A letter in the Times reports a reader's joy at the appearance of David Brooks' ridiculous column last week (In Dean's world, evil is a strategy). This same reader must be feel like Santa Claus himself slid down the chimney to deliver the Tuesday edition, as his letter appears on the same page with a piece by Robert Kagan. How can you possibly believe Kagan has any shred of credibility to write a fair piece related to Iraq and warrants appearance in the Times? Kagan, a founding member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC,) has long clamored for a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Writers and readers who rush to defend the Iraq invasion are surely familiar with this organization, aren't they? If not, they should be, as most of the Bush administration is made up of former or current members, and PNAC's statements, letters and publications are now the foundation of official U.S. (and therefore every individual American's) national security strategy.

In 1998, Kagan and his PNAC colleagues urged President Clinton to adopt a defense strategy that "should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power." They have also aspired for the United States to "establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the (Middle East) region." Obviously, that was a pretty misguided strategy given the facts that Iraq had no involvement in 9/11 and the last traces of a potential Iraqi weapons of mass destruction program were wiped out by 1998.

Kagan can huff and puff all he wants about the "public mood" and various poll numbers, but I have serious doubts that average Americans (even self-described conservatives) would adopt PNAC policies and aspirations for global dominance as their own.

But please don't take this writer's word for it. Look them up and decide for yourself if they are truly the policies you want representing America and representing you.

-- Anthony J. Ferraro, Tampa

We still need a full investigation

Re: Terror alert rises a notch to high, Dec. 22.

Why should the the color orange concern Americans while the president and his administration continue to obstruct a thorough investigation into 9/11? While his choreographed words say one thing, these actions clearly show that George W. Bush wants to hide the truth of the full story of 9/11 at least until after the next presidential election. Is he afraid a full investigation will reveal incompetence, or worse?

All Americans should demand an immediate and thorough investigation into 9/11, and one of those Americans should be the president. Instead, Bush is showing more concern about his own ego and the 2004 election than with lives already lost and the possibility of more deaths at the hands of terrorists.

Color levels may make a good headline and may convince or scare some into believing that this administration is doing its best to protect us, but do these warnings really make any difference? Only a thorough investigation can tell us if we are really more prepared today than we were on Sept. 11, 2001.

-- Daniel Favero, St. Petersburg

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