Robert Fisk: Even I question the 'truth' about 9/11 Published: 25 August 2007

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Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?

Well, I still hold to that view. Any military which can claim – as the Americans did two days ago – that al-Qa'ida is on the run is not capable of carrying out anything on the scale of 9/11. "We disrupted al-Qa'ida, causing them to run," Colonel David Sutherland said of the preposterously code-named "Operation Lightning Hammer" in Iraq's Diyala province. "Their fear of facing our forces proves the terrorists know there is no safe haven for them." And more of the same, all of it untrue.

Within hours, al-Qa'ida attacked Baquba in battalion strength and slaughtered all the local sheikhs who had thrown in their hand with the Americans. It reminds me of Vietnam, the war which George Bush watched from the skies over Texas – which may account for why he this week mixed up the end of the Vietnam war with the genocide in a different country called Cambodia, whose population was eventually rescued by the same Vietnamese whom Mr Bush's more courageous colleagues had been fighting all along.

But – here we go. I am increasingly troubled at the inconsistencies in the official narrative of 9/11. It's not just the obvious non sequiturs: where are the aircraft parts (engines, etc) from the attack on the Pentagon? Why have the officials involved in the United 93 flight (which crashed in Pennsylvania) been muzzled? Why did flight 93's debris spread over miles when it was supposed to have crashed in one piece in a field? Again, I'm not talking about the crazed "research" of David Icke's Alice in Wonderland and the World Trade Center Disaster – which should send any sane man back to reading the telephone directory.

I am talking about scientific issues. If it is true, for example, that kerosene burns at 820C under optimum conditions, how come the steel beams of the twin towers – whose melting point is supposed to be about 1,480C – would snap through at the same time? (They collapsed in 8.1 and 10 seconds.) What about the third tower – the so-called World Trade Centre Building 7 (or the Salmon Brothers Building) – which collapsed in 6.6 seconds in its own footprint at 5.20pm on 11 September? Why did it so neatly fall to the ground when no aircraft had hit it? The American National Institute of Standards and Technology was instructed to analyse the cause of the destruction of all three buildings. They have not yet reported on WTC 7. Two prominent American professors of mechanical engineering – very definitely not in the "raver" bracket – are now legally challenging the terms of reference of this final report on the grounds that it could be "fraudulent or deceptive".

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Gus: One thing that should not be forgotten here is that steel heats fast and expands fast but at about 750 degrees steel experiences a dramatic change in its structure. Steel is a composite of iron and carbon in various proportion, carbon being usually in small quantities (below 10 per cent, otherwise "steel" becomes very brittle like cast iron — steel on average has about 5 per cent carbon). at 750 degree Celsius, the carbon atoms realign themselves in a different position within the steel. This is a well known process to metallurgists. As heat makes the steel expand — at 750 degrees, steel actually shrinks suddenly... then expands again. There is 99 per cent chance that this phenomenon changed the stresses of the steel beams at the most affected floors by the burning kerosene (which may not have burned at maximum efficiency but enough to reach 750 degrees, which mixed with melting pulverised aluminium alloy (magnesium and titanium) "burning" would have really been "hot"). The "shrinkage" on some beam while others may still have been "expanding" would have created some tremendous tensions and massive distortion of floor surfaces, weakening the power to support the enormous weight above, eventually leading to the collapse of the beams at that burning level(s). The weight of this falling mass would then collapse the floors below, one at at time, at specific interval as the momentum is "semi-arrested" by the floor below but unable to be fully arrested by the sheer weight falling from above... The design of the twin towers had the external walls not only as the support of the structure but also the anchoring points to tension the "suspended" floors...

As for the rest of the conspiracy theory, your guess may be better than mine... I know nothing of flight 93... Obviously if the plane debris were scattered for miles it only indicates the plane disintegrated at high altitude... was it shot down or exploded of its own accord?... who knows... Sure the Pentagon would know, but they won't tell us, will they?

Thanks always for your good insights Robert......

But the military presentations left her stunned. Schakowsky said she jotted down Petraeus's words in a small white notebook she had brought along to record her impressions. Her neat, looping handwriting filled page after page, and she flipped through to find the Petraeus section. " 'We will be in Iraq in some way for nine to 10 years,' " Schakowsky read carefully. She had added her own translation: "Keep the train running for a few months, and then stretch it out. Just enough progress to justify more time."

"I felt that was a stretch and really part of a PR strategy -- just like the PR strategy that initially led up to the war in the first place," Schakowsky said. Petraeus, she said, "acknowledged that if the policymakers decide that we need to withdraw, that, you know, that's what he would have to do. But he felt that in order to win, we'd have to be there nine or 10 years."

As a war opponent, Schakowsky has always taken extra care to do her homework, and she can recite facts and figures on the conflict with agility. But after Democrats won control of the House, Schakowsky -- a member of the leadership -- joined the intelligence committee and found herself squirming when people asked how many times she had visited Iraq. None, she had to confess. So when she learned of a trip that House Armed Services Committee members had scheduled for the August recess, she invited herself along, becoming one of about two dozen members of Congress to travel to Iraq this month.

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Gus:  When Rep. Jan Schakowsky made this first trip to Iraq this month, she could have seen that the plan by the US administration is to stay in Iraq no matter what... and the Bushits knew that before going in the war. Sure they mumbled stuff about going in, removing Saddam, and then let Iraq sort itself in an eternal springtime bathing in the glory of the liberation from the tyrant.

Any Tom, Dick, Harry and myself knew that was not going to be the case... Soon things would degenerate into massive chaos. Some engendered deliberately by the Bushits... But the administration knew what it wanted... Chaos gives it the leverage to stay in Iraq and enforce its pilfering of the Iraqi oil resources. People die, US soldier die, excuses are spun like a Taiwanese made fan out of control, but the carrot is still dangling... O-I-L... O-I-L...

Bruce Riedel: My fellow Americans should not blame the Brits Published: 26 August 2007

 

Now is the time for Bush and Brown to say explicitly that they intend to fully and completely withdraw all foreign forces from Iraq, that we neither desire any permanent military bases in the country, nor any special privileges in its oil industry. Again, we should have said that from the start rather than engage in a blame game. Then we should proceed to exit together in an orderly manner.

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Gus: fat chance, Bruce, for this to happen... see blog above... and read the last word: O-I-L... 

9/11 demolition theory challenged

An analysis of the World Trade Center collapse has challenged a conspiracy theory surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

The study by a Cambridge University, UK, engineer demonstrates that once the collapse of the twin towers began, it was destined to be rapid and total.

One of many conspiracy theories proposes that the buildings came down in a manner consistent with a "controlled demolition".

The new data shows this is not needed to explain the way the towers fell.

Over 2,800 people were killed in the devastating attacks on New York.

After reviewing television footage of the Trade Center's destruction, engineers had proposed the idea of "progressive collapse" to explain the way the twin towers disintegrated on 11 September 2001.

This mode of structural failure describes the way the building fell straight down rather than toppling, with each successive floor crushing the one beneath (an effect called "pancaking").

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Gus: my feeling already explained on this site (see above blog: to Robert Fisk) exactly...

Bush 'to announce Iraq troop cut'

President George W Bush will this week announce he plans to reduce US troops in Iraq by about 30,000 by next summer [a whole 9 months away — gus' note], White House officials say.

They say the cuts, with conditions attached, will be announced by the president in a major TV address.

The move would bring the number of US troops in Iraq to "pre-surge" levels.

The US top military commander in Iraq and the US envoy in Baghdad have told Congress that the surge, launched in February, is working.

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Gus: Working? —"my Arse" as "bender" the robot in Futurama would say...

Bush: Don't know what's wrong with yoo guys, Gus... Yoo ask for cuts and I give yoo cuts... Sure there's cundishuns attach'd and we're only guing back to pre-surge levels — mind you in stages over the next hum-ish years, but cuts are cuts are cuts... And the Iraqi peepol are grinning already at the suxsess of the US. "Mishun accumplish'd"... The Iraqi peepol are safer and free behind the barb'd wire... especially those in Syria...

US surge has failed - Iraqi poll

About 70% of Iraqis believe security has deteriorated in the area covered by the US military "surge" of the past six months, an opinion poll suggests.

The survey for the BBC, ABC News and NHK of more than 2,000 people across Iraq also suggests that nearly 60% see attacks on US-led forces as justified.

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Syria struggles with Iraqi influx
By Andrew North
BBC News, Sayyida Zeinab, Syria

It is after midnight in a dimly lit square in the Damascus suburb of Sayyida Zeinab.