lina writes "For starters, in the Pentagon crash site photos, there's little or no evidence of the plane that struck the Pentagon. (I live about one-half mile from the Pentagon. The first question that I asked other onlookers as we viewed the crash site was, "Where's the plane?")

Shouldn't its engines have survived in some recognizable form? An engine from one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center was shown lying on the sidewalk on network television. So was an engine from American Airlines Flight 587 which crashed shortly after takeoff in New York on November 12, 2001.
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2002/0427-Mystery.html

What Really Happened on September 11 Remains a Mystery
by Enver Masud


WASHINGTON, DC (April 27, 2002)--The 110-story towers of the World Trade Center
were obliterated. The Pentagon suffered massive damage. This much is clear.
Much else remains a mystery.

On September 11, 2001, American Airlines Flight 11, a Boeing 767 out of Boston
for Los Angeles, crashed into the north tower of the World Trade Center in New
York at 8:48 a.m. Eighteen minutes later, United Airlines Flight 175, also
headed from Boston to Los Angeles, crashed into the south tower. American
Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 from Washington's Dulles International Airport
bound for Los Angeles, crashed into the western wall of the Pentagon at 9:40
a.m. United Airlines Flight 93, a Boeing 757 flying from Newark to San
Francisco, crashed near Pittsburgh.

While Europol, according to its director Jurgen Storbeck (London, Telegraph,
September 15, 2001), "was giving serious consideration to claims that there was
some form of state-sponsorship involved," President Bush named Osama bin Laden,
and Al Qaeda as the perpetrators. He reneged on Secretary of State Colin
Powell's pledge to provide evidence.

But many insist that the U.S. government's version of events is either
incomplete, or inaccurate. A best-selling French book, The Frightening Fraud,
by Thierry Meyssan, claims that the "U.S. invented air attack on Pentagon."

Indeed, before one accepts the official version of the events of September 11,
several relevant questions should be answered.

For starters, in the Pentagon crash site photos, there's little or no evidence
of the plane that struck the Pentagon. (I live about one-half mile from the
Pentagon. The first question that I asked other onlookers as we viewed the
crash site was, "Where's the plane?")

Shouldn't its engines have survived in some recognizable form? An engine from
one of the planes that struck the World Trade Center was shown lying on the
sidewalk on network television. So was an engine from American Airlines Flight
587 which crashed shortly after takeoff in New York on November 12, 2001.

Arlington County Fire Chief, Ed Plaugher, at a press conference held by
Assistant Defense Secretary, Victoria Clarke, on September 12, 2001, at the
Pentagon, when asked by a journalist: "Is there anything left of the aircraft
at all?" is reported to have said: "First of all, the question about the
aircraft, there are some small pieces of aircraft visible from the interior
during this fire-fighting operation I'm talking about, but not large sections.
In other words, there's no fuselage sections and that sort of thing."

Furthermore, the damage to the Pentagon seems inconsistent with what a Boeing
757 would have caused. The hole in the Pentagon wall appears too small to have
been caused by a Boeing 757, and the satellite photos show that the plane has
not penetrated as far into the Pentagon as reported. Indeed, early reports
claimed that a truck bomb had exploded, and the damage was similar to that
inflicted on the USS Cole in Yemen. The gash in the hull of the USS Cole was
reported to be about 30 feet by 40 feet.

And there are many more troubling questions. For example:

- What are the odds that all the "black box" flight recorders were damaged
beyond use?

- Why did the south tower of the World Trade Center collapse first, when it was
not as extensively damaged as the North Tower which burned for almost an hour
and a half before collapsing?

- Why did the destruction of the towers appear like a controlled implosion?

- Why did many witnesses claim to hear other explosions within the buildings?

- Why were the alleged hijackers' names not on the passenger lists?

- Why are several alleged hijackers reported to be still alive?

- Why did one of the alleged hijackers take luggage on a suicide flight, then
leave the luggage and an incriminating note in his car at the airport?

- Why did the seat numbers of the hijackers, given in a cell phone call from
Flight Attendant Madeline Amy Sweeney to Boston Air Traffic Control, not match
the seats occupied by the men the FBI claims were responsible?

- Why were none of the attacking planes intercepted?

- How did the terrorists obtain top-secret White House and Air Force One codes
and signals--the stated reason for not returning President Bush promptly to
Washington on September 11?

- Finally, and very significantly, why does the U.S. not hold hearings on these
questions, when it would serve the U.S. objective of keeping Americans focused
on the "war on terrorism?"
Besides the alleged hijackers, others may have had the means, motive, and
opportunity to carry out the attacks of September 11. Indeed, reports indicate
that the Israel, and possibly, the U.S. armed forces could have played a role.

On the day of the attack on America, the Washington Times quoted a paper by the
Army School of Advanced Military Studies which said that the MOSSAD, the
Israeli intelligence service, "Has capability to target U.S. forces and make it
look like a Palestinian/Arab act." Dozens of Israelis were reported to have
been arrested, but the role played by this "huge Israeli spy ring that may have
trailed suspected al Qaeda members in the United States without informing
federal authorities" remains unclear, and "it is no longer tenable to dismiss
the possibility of an Israeli angle in this story."

Field reports by the Drug Enforcement Administration agents, and other U.S. law
enforcement officials, on the alleged Israeli spy ring have been compiled in a
60-page document.

John F. Sugg of the Weekly Planet (Tampa, Florida, April 22, 2002) reported
that "DEA agents say that the 60-page document was a draft intended as the base
for a 250-page report. The larger report has not been produced because of the
volatile nature of suggesting that Israel spies on America's deepest secrets.

James Bamford, formerly Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News
Tonight with Peter Jennings, and who has written investigative cover stories
for the New York Times Magazine, the Washington Post Magazine, and the Los
Angeles Times Magazine, describes an operation which suggests that even the
U.S. armed forces may be suspect.

Mr. Bamford's book, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National
Security Agency from the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century, reveals
that the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) drew up and approved plans for
"launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in
order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they
intended to launch against Cuba."

Mr. Bamford writes: "Codenamed Operation Northwoods, the plan . . . called for
innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees
fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be
launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for
bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence,
all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer [Chairman JCS] and
his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they
needed to launch their war."

September 11 was a godsend for the U.S. military-industrial complex. A $48
billion increase in the "defense" budget sailed through both houses of
Congress, bringing U.S. military spending to $379 billion.

This, according to the Washington Post (January 27, 2002), represents "the
biggest one-year rise since the Reagan buildup two decades ago and a suspension
of 'the peace dividend.'" . . . It matches the combined military spending of
the 15 countries with the next biggest defense budgets. (The proposed increase
alone is about the same as the entire defense budget of the next biggest
spender--Japan.) . . . It would roughly match, in inflation adjusted terms, the
U.S. defense budget in 1967, at the height of the Vietnam War.

U.S. energy companies may also be about to receive a dividend.

The events of September 11, led to the U.S. war on Afghanistan--a war
apparently planned prior to September 11, and possibly after U.S. negotiations
with the Taliban for a pipeline broke down. According to the BBC (September 18,
2001), Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani Foreign Secretary, was told by senior
American officials in mid-July that military action against Afghanistan would
go ahead by the middle of October.

The events of September 11 also led to an open-ended "war on terrorism," which
helped justify enormous increases in "defense" and "security" spending, and the
passage of "anti-terrorism" legislation long desired by some in the Justice
Department.

According to The Irish Times (February 11, 2002), "The Pakistani President,
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, and the Afghan interim leader, Mr. Hamid Karzai, agreed
yesterday that their two countries should develop 'mutual brotherly relations
and cooperate in all spheres of activity' -- including a proposed gas pipeline
from Central Asia to Pakistan via Afghanistan."

It's curious that these two leaders, who only later vowed to "bury the recent
history of poisonous relations" between their nations (Washington Post, April
3), could agree so quickly to the pipeline. Zalmay Khalilzad, the
Bush-appointed special envoy to Afghanistan, may have facilitated the
agreement.

Khalilzad's previous place of employment was Unocal. He drew up Unocal's risk
analysis on its proposed trans-Afghan gas pipeline according to the Irish
Times. The Taliban, after initially negotiating with Unocal, had begun showing
a preference for Bridas Corporation of Argentina--could this possibly be the
reason why the Bush administration has let Argentina's financial crisis spiral
out of control?

While relevant questions regarding the September 11 attack went unanswered,
without the benefit of UN resolutions, and despite the fact that the Taliban
stated their willingness to give up Osama bin Laden for trial to an
international court, the U.S. launched it's war on Afghanistan--one of the
world's poorest countries, already devastated by 23 years of war and civil
strife following the Russian invasion of 1979.

Irwin Arieff of Reuters reported (October 8, 2001) that U.S. Ambassador John
Negroponte said, in a letter to the 15-nation Security Council, that the
investigation into September 11 attacks on his country "has obtained clear and
compelling information that the al-Qaeda organization, which is supported by
the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, had a central role in the attacks." The
letter added, "there is still much we do not know. Our inquiry is in its early
stages."

Negroponte added, however, that "U.S. military raids on Afghanistan, joined by
Britain, were launched Sunday under the authority of Article 51 of the UN
charter, which allows nations under attack to defend themselves." This despite
U.S. statements that 15 of the 19 alleged hijackers were citizens of Saudi
Arabia.

The war in Afghanistan created a million new refugees (adding to the existing
five or six million), caused the death of 4000 civilians (about 2800 civilians
were killed in the September 11 attack), and President Bush seemed intent on
continuing his father's Crusade.

Former president Bush is reported to have told the U.S. troops in Kuwait (AFP,
Janurary 19, 2000) that they were "doing the Lord's work."

Begun as Operation Infinite Justice, President Bush has expanded his Crusade to
the brutally repressed Moros of the Philippines. Israel's attack on Palestine
has delayed the U.S. attack on Iraq. Vowing to save our freedom, Mr. Bush
rushed through legislation designed to curtail our freedom.

The British, in building their empire, sought to civilize the natives. Mr.
Bush, in building the new American empire, has vowed to save civilization
itself.


[Enver Masud is an engineering management consultant, and was recently
presented a Gold Award by the Human Rights Foundation for his book The War on
Islam.]

Copyright © 2002 The Wisdom Fund - Provided that it is not edited, and author
name, organization, and web address (www.twf.org) are included, this article
may be printed in newspapers and magazines, and displayed on the Internet.

"