Was 9/11 an "inside job?" Proof or just more jibberish?

Question

I want the facts, just the facts. Anybody with just the facts out there?

Answer 1

fact: gibberish is the correct spelling.

Answer 2

There's a list of links below debunking (disproving) the theories.

Answer 3

...and so does the whole world, with the exception of those who contributed or benefitted from the tragic consequences of our government's manipulations and plans that that have backfired. .

Answer 4

I don't think anyone has all the facts...

Answer 5

Fact? no.

Answer 6

You should call George Bush and ask him. I'm sure he'd tell you.

Answer 7

none evidence at all
Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have emerged about the attacks which contradict the mainstream account of events that day. The theories typically include suggestions that individuals in (or associated with) the government of the United States knew of the impending attacks and refused to act on that knowledge, or that the attacks were a false flag operation carried out with the intention of stirring up the passions and buying the allegiance of its people. Some conspiracy theorists have claimed that the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition. Some also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon, and that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down. The mainstream scientific community does not support the controlled demolition hypothesis and U.S. officials, mainstream journalists, and mainstream researchers have concluded that only al-Qaeda was involved in the attacks.
Since the September 11 attacks, a number of websites, books, and films, largely promoted on and distributed through the Internet, have challenged the mainstream account of the attacks. Although al-Qaeda "conspired" to execute the attacks on the World Trade Center in the legal sense, a 9/11 conspiracy theory generally refers to a belief in a broad conspiracy, in which the attacks were executed by powerful groups often including government agencies or an alleged secret global network. Many groups and individuals challenging the official account identify as part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Initially, 9/11 conspiracy theories received little attention in the media. In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories ... that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists." Later, as media exposure of conspiracy theories of the events of 9/11 increased, US government agencies and the Bush Administration issued refutations to the theories, including a formal response by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center, a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories,and a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August 2006 speech, which declares that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."

The collapse of the World Trade Center was a surprise to the engineering community. While no skyscraper had ever before completely collapsed due to fire or other local damage, three skyscrapers collapsed on September 11, 2001. The challenge for engineers was then to explain how the local damage caused by the airplanes (or, in the case of WTC 7, falling debris) was able to occasion a global progressive collapse. After an intensive three-year investigation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology published an account that has been largely accepted in the engineering community. The official collapse mechanism refers only to the aircraft impacts and the subsequent fires, which are taken to have caused sufficient structural damage to occasion the collapses. Conspiracy theorists emphasize that the only precedents for global collapse before 9/11 are controlled demolitions, and demand a more thorough investigation of this possibility.[39][40]

The controlled demolition hypothesis plays a central, albeit not essential, role in the 9/11 conspiracy theories.[41] Jeff King and Jim Hoffman were early defenders of the controlled demolition hypothesis and published their observations online.[42] David Ray Griffin included the theory in his book The New Pearl Harbor. It received its most notable proponent to date in early 2006, when Steven E. Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, argued that a "gravity driven collapse" without demolition charges would defy the laws of physics.[43] There is a range of opinion about the most likely sort and amount of explosives, the way they were distributed, and how they were successfully brought into the building. Proponents of the hypothesis sometimes cite reports of what they believe are unusual power outages, maintenance work and emergency drills in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2001. Some conspiracy theorists propose a regular controlled demolition, in which the role of the demolition charges would have been to remove the main structural supports in order to let gravity and the weight of the building do the rest. Steven Jones believes that thermite (thermate), perhaps in combination with other devices, was likely involved.

NIST has explicitly rejected this hypothesis. Among the several reasons was that "..."a very large quantity of thermite (a mixture of powdered or granular aluminum metal and powdered iron oxide that burns at extremely high temperatures when ignited) or another incendiary compound would have had to be placed on at least the number of columns damaged by the aircraft impact and weakened by the subsequent fires to bring down a tower. Thermite burns slowly relative to explosive materials and can require several minutes in contact with a massive steel section to heat it to a temperature that would result in substantial weakening. Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially). Therefore, while a thermite reaction can cut through large steel columns, many thousands of pounds of thermite would need to have been placed inconspicuously ahead of time, remotely ignited, and somehow held in direct contact with the surface of hundreds of massive structural components to weaken the building. This makes it an unlikely substance for achieving a controlled demolition."[40]

There is widespread agreement, however, about the significance of the controlled demolition hypothesis, even among those who don't endorse it specifically or conspiracy theories in general. The necessary devices could only have been planted well in advance of the September 11 attacks and would have required extraordinary access to three highly secured buildings.


[edit] Building Seven
Conspiracy theorists frequently emphasise the collapse of Seven World Trade Center in discussing the controlled demolition theory. They cite several reasons for this. First, they believe the collapse displayed especially clear features of a controlled demolition. Second, they claim that since no plane hit the building, its collapse is even more difficult to explain than that of the two towers. Flaming debris did fall onto the building as a result of the collapse of the twin towers, but World Trade Center buildings 4, 5 and 6 remained standing despite also being damaged. [44] Third, in a PBS documentary on the collapse, Larry Silverstein, the owner of the building, said the fire department had decided to "pull it".[45] Although his spokesperson later said Silverstein meant that firefighters had decided to withdraw from the building and the surrounding area for their own safety[46], many conspiracy theorists insist that "pull it" is technical slang in the demolition industry for demolish a building. (Whether or not this is what the phrase means has become a point of dispute.)[47] The official investigation into the collapse is still ongoing (a draft of the NIST report will be released in early 2007). NIST said they had to prioritize their investigations and chose to investigate the collapse of WTC buildings 1 and 2 first, and then building 7.[40] The fact that the building housed the offices of government agencies like the CIA[48], the FBI, and the SEC, along with the City of New York's emergency command bunker has also fueled conspiracy theories.

Claims that the Pentagon was hit by something significantly smaller than a Boeing 757 (typically a missile or smaller aircraft) have been raised by some conspiracy theorists based on photographs in which there appears to be a lack of expected debris or pieces of a commercial aircraft within the immediate impact area, and what some believe is a lack of damage to the building and the lawn. One of the first proponents of this conspiracy theory was Thierry Meyssan in his book 9/11: The Big Lie. The idea was also advanced by the website Hunt the Boeing![49] and the popular internet video Loose Change. A likely cause of these ideas, some say, was the initial scarcity of documentation of the attack. At first the only evidence available consisted of long distance photographs and video footage[50] taken after the attack, eyewitness testimony from individuals at the scene, and five video frames captured by a security camera which were released on March 8, 2002. A large amount of evidence was later released after the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and several Freedom of Information Act requests.

Suspicions were additionally fueled by a lack of video footage of the impact of the jetliner, since many assume that the Pentagon must be subject to intense camera surveillance for security reasons. In addition to the Pentagon's own security cameras, these people also noted that security camera footage from a nearby Citgo gas station and from the Virginia Department of Transportation was swiftly confiscated by the US government. On May 16, 2006 the security camera footage was released as part of a Judicial Watch's FOIA request.[51][52] However, due to a low number of frames per second, the videos do not clearly show the impact of the plane, only the approach of the plane (at an angle) and the explosion cloud, thus keeping the "no Boeing" theory popular. In addition to the security cam footage, the Citgo footage was released on 15 September 2006, but did not show the attacks.[53] The FBI is to release the Doubletree Hotel video by December 22, 2006.[54] The video was originally to be released in November 2006, but it has been delayed with the FBI in the process of moving its FOIA operations to Winchester, Virginia.[55] The Doubletree Hotel is located on the other side of an elevated highway, which obstructs the view of the Pentagon.[56][57] Others are trying to obtain the over eighty other tapes confiscated in the Pentagon area after the attacks.[58]

The Pentagon "no Boeing" theory constitutes a controversial issue, even among conspiracy theorists.[59][60][61] Several researchers have shown that the wings would cause less damage than the plane's main body, that photographs of large amounts of wreckage and debris matching a 757 have become available, that the appearance of the size of the hole is typically misrepresented; and that the actual fuselage diameter of 12 feet is a much more relevant dimension for the deepest parts of the hole than the overall 44 foot height of the 757's tail.[62][63] Purdue University also released a study with results that recreated the attack. According to Purdue, the plane was like a "sausage skin" because of the speed of impact.[64] Moreover, hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw the aircraft close up as it approached the Pentagon describe it as an American Airlines Boeing 757.[
There are several conspiracy theories surrounding the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

Jim Hoffman claims there is a three-minute discrepancy in the cockpit voice recording immediately prior to the flight's crash[68]. The cockpit voice recorder transcripts end at 10:03 a.m., [69] but Cleveland Air Traffic Control reported that Flight 93 went out of radar contact at 10:06 a.m., and FAA radar records note a time of 10:06 a.m.[68] Seismologists record an impact at 10:06:05 a.m., +/- a couple of seconds.[70]

Some conspiracy theorists believe there is a cover up of evidence as the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder from Flight 93 have not been released to the general public. However, a 1990 Congressional Law prohibits the “public disclosure [of the] cockpit voice recorder recordings and transcriptions, in whole or in part, of oral communications by and between flight crew members and ground stations…” [71] And on April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings.[72] This was made possible because the FBI controlled the investigation, as opposed to the NTSB as in typical air disasters.[73]


[edit] Claims that Flight 93 was shot down
Some conspiracy theorists who question the common account of United Airlines Flight 93 crashing as a result of an attempted cockpit invasion, have speculated that it was shot down by US fighter jets.[74]

This idea was promoted by author David Ray Griffin in his book The New Pearl Harbor, who cited Paul Thompson. Thompson examined a number of mainstream media reports and claims that fighter jets were actually much closer to Flight 93 at the time of the crash than stated in the official record.[75] He mentions witnesses who noticed a small white jet near the impact site soon after the crash.[76] However, some say this was likely a business jet the ATC asked to investigate the crash area and that descended to an altitude of around 1500 ft to survey the impact. Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, claims no military aircraft were near Flight 93.[77]

Thompson and other conspiracy theorists note that pieces of Flight 93 were found far from the crash site and suggest that this may be evidence of a shoot-down[78]. Although NTSB investigators claim to have found no evidence the plane was shot down, 9/11 conspiracy theorists point to:

The existence of multiple debris fields located miles away from the crash site[79]
Eyewitness accounts that debris fell out of the sky like confetti [80]
Popular Mechanics, however, argued that debris exploding away and landing far from the crash scene is not a unique occurrence in commercial airline accidents.[81]


[edit] Claims Flight 93 landed safely
Some conspiracy theorists speculate that Flight 93 landed safely in Ohio. The website Physics911 claims that the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was actually not United 93 and that the flights involved in the 9/11 attacks were landed and substituted with other aircraft [82]. Often cited is a preliminary AP story on Flight 93’s safe landing at a Cleveland airport by WCPO, a local Cincinnati ABC news affiliate.[83] It was later learned Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93. WCPO has since retracted the story noting its earlier factual inaccuracies.[84].


[edit] Claims cell phone calls were impossible
During the flight of Flight 93 passengers made a number of calls to both family and emergency personnel. It is argued by some that connecting a cell phone to a tower's signal would have been near to impossible from the air. Based on this information, economist Michel Chossudovsky suggests the calls were fabricated or never made at all[85].

In 2003 a Canadian team conducted experiments to determine if cell phones could be used from civilian aircraft flying at cruising speeds and altitudes.[86]
Carnegie Mellon researchers published results of a study in which they monitored spectrum frequencies generated by cell phone use during commercial passenger flights. They concluded that one to four cell phone calls are made during each average passenger flight, contrary to FCC and FAA regulations.[87] The study makes no mention of the length of the calls or whether a successful air-ground connection was actually made during the monitored transmissions.
According to official accounts, at 9:58 a.m.,[88] moments before Flight 93 crashed, Edward Felt dialed 9-1-1 from his cell phone from the lavatory of the aircraft and his call was answered by dispatcher John Shaw. Felt was able to tell the dispatcher about the hijacking before the call was out of range and subsequently disconnected.[89] At the time of the call, the aircraft had descended to 5,000 feet, over Westmoreland County,[90] which together with Somerset County has the highest summits in Pennsylvania, at ~3,000 feet in elevation.[91]
Aside from Ed Felt's call, and another made by flight attendant CeeCee Lyles also at 9:58 a.m, all the other calls were made with onboard airphones and not cell phones
Initial news reports shortly after 9/11 indicated that some of the hijackers were alive, fueling speculation that others were responsible.

The BBC News reported on September 23, 2001, that some of the people named by the FBI as hijackers, killed on the crashes, were actually alive and well. [125]

One of the hijackers was Waleed al-Shehri, and according to the BBC report he was found in Casablanca, Morocco.

However, the al-Shehri's father says he hadn't heard from his sons in ten months prior to September 2001.[126] An ABC News story in March 2002 repeated this, and during a report entitled "A Saudi Apology" for Dateline NBC on Aug 25, 2002, NBC's reporter John Hockenberry traveled to 'Asir, where he interviewed the third brother Salah who agreed that his two brothers were dead and said they had been "brainwashed".
Furthermore, another article explains that the pilot who lives in Casablanca was named Walid al-Shri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) and that much of the BBC information regarding "alive" hijackers was incorrect according to the same sources used by BBC.[127]
According to the BBC report, Abdulaziz Al Omari, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khalid al-Midhar, three other hijackers, were also living in the Middle East.

A man with the same name as Abdulaziz Al Omari turned up alive in Saudi Arabia, saying that he had studied at the University of Denver and his passport was stolen there in 1995. The name, origin, birth date, and occupation were released by the FBI, but the picture was not of him. "I couldn't believe it when the FBI put me on their list", he said. "They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this."[128][129][130] This individual was not the same person as the hijacker whose identity was later confirmed by Saudi government interviews with his family, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.
On 23 September 2001, the BBC and The Telegraph[131] reported that a person named Saeed al-Ghamdi was alive and well. His name, birth date, origin, and occupation were the same as those released by the FBI, but his picture was different. He says that he studied flight training in Florida flight schools from 1998 to 2001. The journalist involved with the story later admitted "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time."[132]
After the attacks, reports began emerging saying that al-Mihdhar was still alive. On September 19, the FDIC distributed a "special alert" which listed al-Mihdhar as alive. The Justice Department says that this was a typo.[133][134]
The BBC and The Guardian have since reported that there was evidence al-Mihdhar was still alive and that some of the other hijackers identities were in doubt. This was commented on by FBI director Robert Mueller.[135] Der Spiegel later investigated the claims of "living" hijackers by the BBC and discovered them to be cases of mistaken identities. [136] In 2002, Saudi Arabia admitted that the names of the hijackers were in fact correct.[137] None of the hijackers have turned up alive since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

[edit] 4,000 Jewish employees did not attend work at the WTC on September 11
This unsubstantiated and widely debunked claim made by Al-Manar, the television station of Hezbollah, a sworn enemy of Israel, has been repeated by a wide variety of other sources, such as Amiri Baraka. The original Al-Manar claim, posted September 17, 2001 on the English language version of the website of Al-Manar website, was:

"With the announcement of the attacks at the World Trade Center in New York, the international media, particularly the Israeli one, hurried to take advantage of the incident and started mourning 4,000 Israelis who work at the two towers. Then suddenly, no one ever mentioned anything about those Israelis and later it became clear that they remarkably did not show up in their jobs the day the incident took place. No one talked about any Israeli being killed or wounded in the attacks."[148]

Al-Manar further claimed that "Arab diplomatic sources revealed to the Jordanian al-Watan newspaper that those Israelis remained absent that day based on hints from the Israeli General Security apparatus, the Shabak".[148] It is unclear whether al-Watan (a minor Jordanian newspaper with no website) made these claims or who (if anyone) the alleged "Arab diplomatic sources" were. No independent confirmation has been produced for this claim.

In some versions of the story circulated on the Internet, the title was changed to "4,000 Jewish Employees in WTC Absent the Day of the Attack" from its original "4000 Israeli Employees in WTC Absent the Day of the Attack", spawning a further rumor that not only Israeli but all Jewish employees stayed away. On September 12 an American Web site called "Information Times" published an article with the headline "4,000 Jews Did Not Go To Work At WTC On Sept. 11," which it credited to "AL-MANAR Television Special Investigative Report." According to Slate.com, "The '4,000 Jews' page is easily forwarded as e-mail, and this may explain the message's rapid dissemination."[149] The rumor was also published; according to the United States Department of State "Syria's government-owned Al Thawra newspaper may have been the first newspaper to make the "4,000 Jews" claim... its September 15th edition falsely claimed 'four thousand Jews were absent from their work on the day of the explosions.'"[150]

The figure "4,000" was probably taken by Al-Manar from a Jerusalem Post article of September 12 (p. 3) which said "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attack." This number was obviously not (as Al-Manar claimed) restricted to employees; in fact, Tsviya Shimon, minister of administrative affairs for the Israeli consulate and mission in New York, said on September 14 "that there might have been up to 100 Israeli citizens working in the World Trade Center".[151]


[edit] Actual Israeli and Jewish deaths
There were a total of 5 Israeli deaths in the attack (Alona Avraham, Leon Lebor, Shay Levinhar, Daniel Lewin, Haggai Sheffi), of which 3 were in the World Trade Center and 2 were on the planes (4 are listed as American on most lists, presumably having dual citizenship.)[152]

Early estimates of Israeli deaths, as of the total death toll and the death toll for other countries' citizens (e.g. India) proved substantially overestimated. George W. Bush cited the figure of 130 in his speech on September 20th.[153]

The number of Jewish victims was considerably higher, typically estimated at around 400;[154][155] according to the United States Department of State

A total of 2,071 occupants of the World Trade Center died on September 11, among the 2,749 victims of the WTC attacks. According to an article in the October 11, 2001, Wall Street Journal, roughly 1,700 people had listed the religion of a person missing in the WTC attacks; approximately 10% were Jewish. A later article, in the September 5, 2002, Jewish Week, states, "based on the list of names, biographical information compiled by The New York Times, and information from records at the Medical Examiner's Office, there were at least 400 victims either confirmed or strongly believed to be Jewish." This would be approximately 15% of the total victims of the WTC attacks. A partial list of 390 Cantor Fitzgerald employees who died (out of 658 in the company) lists 49 Jewish memorial services, which is between 12% and 13%. This 10-15% estimate of Jewish fatalities tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area. According to the 2002 American Jewish Year Book, 9% of the population of New York State, where 64% of the WTC victims lived, is Jewish. A 2002 study estimated that New York City's population was 12% Jewish. Forty-three percent of the WTC victims lived in New York City. Thus, the number of Jewish victims correlates very closely with the number of Jewish residents in New York. If 4,000 Jews had not reported for work on September 11, the number of Jewish victims would have been much lower than 10-15%.[156]

Furthermore, many Orthodox Jews left for work later than usual that day due to Selichot (additional prayers recited around the time of Rosh Hashanah
Critics of these alternative theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation (Barkun, 2003). A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion."[176] Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if (the argument) gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." This, he continues, happened when Steve Jones took up the issue. The basic assumption is that conspiracy theories emerge a set of previously held or quickly assembled beliefs about how society works, which are then legitimized by further "research". Taking such beliefs seriously, even if only to criticize them, it is argued, merely grants them further legitimacy.

Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific American, said: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (as well as creationism, Holocaust denial and the various crank theories of physics). All the "evidence" for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."[177]

There are also behavioristic objections to these conspiracy theories, arguing that the conspiracy theorists behave in an irrational or unscholarly way. One objection is that the conspiracy theorists tend to connect unrelated information. Another is that they will often expand the conspiracy to include those who debunk their original theories (Loose Change claims that Popular Mechanics is working for the government, or is in league with members of the conspiracy in some way). Finally there is the tendency of the conspiracy theorists to quote only other conspiracy theorists and provide little if any expert verification of any of their claims.


Scientific American,[178] Popular Mechanics,[179] and The Skeptic's Dictionary[180] have published articles that challenge and discredit various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists have jumped on the contribution to the Popular Mechanics article by "senior researcher" Ben Chertoff, who they claim is cousin of Michael Chertoff - current head of Homeland Security.[181] However, no indication of an actual connection has been revealed and Ben Chertoff has denied the allegation.[182] Popular Mechanics has published a book entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths that expands upon the research first presented in the article.[183] Der Spiegel dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theories as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons."[184] 9/11 conspiracy theories were satirized and criticized in "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", an episode of the animated televisio