Dear Kevin,
I took the time to listen to your March 15, 2006 lecture “A 9-11 Whistleblower Examines the Official Conspiracy Theory“ to gain an appreciation of your point of view. Let me say at the outset that your lecture of that date is not debatable at any level. I would be interested in viewing an updated version to see if your vision has matured, especially now that the files of the 9-11 Commission are becoming available. Absent an update, let me address a few points.
Your Response
Here I will address some of the topics you mention and, for convenience, in the order you introduce them.
First, I did not work on the New York issue except as it concerned FAA and NEADS. However, I have read enough of the NIST report to know that it is not “dismally weak, highly inconsistent, and complete false,” as you have it. Further, I know of no verification of the “independent discovery of explosive residues in the WTC dust.” I find that supposition tenuous, misleading, and scientifically ungrounded.
Second, let me clarify a point. You site my “stated appreciation for Joel Hirschhorn.” I mentioned Joel Hirschhorn for one reason and one reason only. He is trying, within your movement, to point out some essential issues and to move you out of a “do loop.” I hope you see that and understand what he is telling you. I don’t subscribe to his basic point of view any more than I do yours.
Third, you mention that you have met with your own Congressman. Ironically, it was such a Congressman, Representative Burton, who directed the DoD IG to investigate the Cuban shoot down of two Brothers to the Rescue aircraft. Either your Congressman–perhaps it is Burton–or Lee Hamilton could compel a similar inquiry for you were your issue sufficient. As you are also aware Hamilton has a new public platform for action, the National Security Preparedness Group. You might consider approaching that group.
Fourth, since you have not read Dean John Farmer’s new book I suggest you do so and verify in your own mind that Ekonomou’s characterization of “flat-out misrepresentation” is valid. I am confident you will find differently.
Fifth, I gather from your site logo and your statement “we know it was a terrorist attack” that you accept the fact that four planes were hijacked and used to attack New York City and Washington D.C., and that you distance yourself from any suggestion to the contrary. Your hypothetical statement/question “What we don’t know is: Who were the terrorists?” does in fact beg a question. If not Atta and company, then who?
Sixth, you speak to FOIA, a lack of transparency and the extreme redaction that is involved. I share your concern and do what I can to pry more out into the public domain. I archived my work files so that I could get at them and continue to explore the events of the day. The lack of some information is frustrating. What we do know is that NARA has second and third levels of effort in the offing, but that will take time. By their own accounting they have released about 35% of the holdings. Still to come are the master paper files, the audio files of recorded interviews, and the electronic files on the two servers, one classified and one unclassified. NARA does have a mechanism for requesting release of redacted information if a case can be made; you might want to selectively pursue that. I understand that approach was successful in obtaining the redacted phone number concerning the Olson call, for example.
Finally, let me speak briefly to a non-issue, “we have some planes.” The convergence of evidence, a term with which I am sure you are familiar, is that the term from air traffic control primary sources correlates to American Air 11 and Mohammed Atta. There is no credible evidence to suggest otherwise. I am puzzled that a simple analytical problem such as this causes you any degree of consternation.
Additional Comments
Independent of the construct of your letter and considering your 2006 presentation, let me address a few other things that caught my eye.
First, there is no such thing as an ‘Official Conspiracy Theory.” As I said in my initial letter the facts of the day are straight forward and tell a consistent story. If it is your purpose to tell a different story then you are obligated to establish what that story is and provide a body of evidence—pre-event, event, and post-event—that supports your story. You have not done that.
Second, your presentation is wrong on so many levels that it defies analysis. For example, the facts are compelling, conclusive, and definitive that American Airlines flight 77 impacted the Pentagon. To argue otherwise does a disservice to the men, women and children who died there that day. Visit the Pentagon Memorial and sit on the bench of the youngest victim. Look around and ask yourself why the Memorial is constructed as it is and reflect on the story the Memorial tells you.
Third, ask yourself one simple question. Why is it that you have not been successful in the media, the courts, and the Congress? If your postulation has any credibility at all it would gain some traction, somewhere. You can endlessly speak about the need for a new investigation as a mantra but without Congressional will, jointly or individually, that won’t happen. It will be helpful if you can gain a Senate sponsor, but the work of Dan Burton shows that you can also work at the Representative level.
Last, on the subject of your position and your perspective, I take your letter to be a singular voice and not necessarily the consensus voice of the Bloomington Group. I would be very much interested in hearing other voices; surely there is diversity of view, exposition and discussion. I cannot believe that all members take, for example, your 2006 presentation as gospel. Having said that let me shift gears back to my own perspective.
My Perspective
First, read my Welcome and my page on Becoming a Commission Member. It was my pleasure to associate with two hard working and dedicated staffs during my tenure with the Congressional Joint Inquiry and the 9-11 Commission. Both endeavors and their final reports were fact-based, verifiable, and definitive. Both staffs wrote the reports, by the way.
Can more be learned? Certainly. Will finer-grained and more complete analysis be done? Inevitably. One example is the Creed/Newman work on Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11. I paraphrase the authors here, but one key point they made was once AA 77 touched the Pentagon the laws of physics and chemistry took over. We can extend that statement to the World Trade Center complex. Once AA 11 and UA 175, separately, touched the Towers, the laws of physics and chemistry took over. And those laws explain everything that happened subsequently, including the collapse of buildings one, two, and seven.
Second, as I said before, I am beyond debate and Q&A in my own continuing work. I have expanded on specific subjects such as Delta 1989 and the Bobcats as the occasion warranted and, based on my work files, will place other things in perspective on request, such as the Otis Scramble. Further, it remains my intention to set the Scott Trilogy in context. That Trilogy is a primary source for the public record concerning events of the day as the Commission Staff understood it when we began work. I am two-thirds done and am now looking at the rules of engagement issue which is the subject of Scott’s third article.
Third, and most important to me, I am continuing to look at events of 9-11 through the lens of Chaos Theory and that is where I try to devote the most time. That focus has led me, for now, squarely back to the final episode in the Scott Trilogy.
Finally, the facts of the day and events leading up to that day have been credibly established by the Congressional Joint Inquiry and the 9-11 Commission. Nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners and flew them to a grim fate. n the process the World Trade Center was destroyed, the Pentagon damaged, and a final target saved by the only people that day, ultimately, who could make a difference, the passengers and crew aboard UA 93.
Amicably,
Miles Kara