Aug. 21, 2007: Former Chief of NIST's Fire Science Division Calls for Independent Review of World Trade Center Investigation
PDF Version Article on OpEdNews
Summary: James Quintiere, Ph.D., former Chief of NIST's Fire Science Division, called for an independent review of the World Trade Center Twin Tower collapse investigation. "I wish that there would be a peer review of this," he said, referring to the NIST investigation. "I think all the records that NIST has assembled should be archived. I would really like to see someone else take a look at what they've done; both structurally and from a fire point of view. ... I think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at is questionable."
Daniel Marcus – General Counsel of the 9-11 Commission. Former Partner in the Washington law firm of Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. Deputy General Counsel of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, and General Counsel of the Department of Agriculture under President Jimmy Carter. Senior Counsel in the White House Counsel's office under President William Clinton. From 1999 to 2001 he held several senior positions at the Department of Justice, including Associate Attorney General. Former Visiting Professor at Georgetown University Law Center. Currently Fellow in Law and Government, Washington College of Law at American University.
Article New York Times 12/6/07: "The Central Intelligence Agency in 2005 destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the interrogation of two Al Qaeda operatives in the agency’s custody, a step it took in the midst of Congressional and legal scrutiny about the C.I.A’s secret detention program, according to current and former government officials. ...
Staff members of the Sept. 11 commission, which completed its work in 2004, expressed surprise when they were told that interrogation videotapes existed until 2005.
“The commission did formally request material of this kind from all relevant agencies, and the commission was assured that we had received all the material responsive to our request,” said Philip D. Zelikow, who served as executive director of the Sept. 11 commission and later as a senior counselor to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
“No tapes were acknowledged or turned over, nor was the commission provided with any transcript prepared from recordings,” he said.
Daniel Marcus, a law professor at American University who served as general counsel for the Sept. 11 commission and was involved in the discussions about interviews with Al Qaeda leaders, said he had heard nothing about any tapes being destroyed.
If tapes were destroyed, he said, “it’s a big deal, it’s a very big deal,” because it could amount to
obstruction of justice to
withhold evidence being sought in criminal or fact-finding investigations."
J
ohn F. Lehman, Jr., PhD – 9/11 Commissioner. Former Secretary of the Navy 1981 - 1987. Former staff member to Henry Kissinger on the National Security Council. Member, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Article Washington Post 8/2/06: "Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a
deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to sources involved in the debate. ...
"My view of that was that whether it was willful or just the fog of stupid bureaucracy, I don't know," Lehman said. "But in the order of magnitude of things, going after bureaucrats because they
misled the commission didn't seem to make sense to me."
Lee Hamilton, Vice Chairman, 9/11 Commission – Former 17-term Congressman from Indiana. Former Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Currently President and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and serves as a member of the President's Homeland Security Advisory Council.
Stonewalled by the CIA by Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton New York Times article 1/2/08: "More than five years ago, Congress and President Bush created the 9/11 commission. The goal was to provide the American people with the fullest possible account of the “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001” — and to offer recommendations to prevent future attacks. Soon after its creation, the president’s chief of staff directed all executive branch agencies to cooperate with the commission.
The commission’s mandate was sweeping and it explicitly included the intelligence agencies. But the recent revelations that the C.I.A. destroyed videotaped interrogations of Qaeda operatives leads us to conclude that the agency failed to respond to our lawful requests for information about the 9/11 plot. Those who knew about those videotapes — and did not tell us about them — obstructed our investigation.
There could have been absolutely no doubt in the mind of anyone at the C.I.A. — or the White House — of the commission’s interest in any and all information related to Qaeda detainees involved in the 9/11 plot. Yet no one in the administration ever told the commission of the existence of videotapes of detainee interrogations. ...
As a legal matter, it is not up to us to examine the C.I.A.’s failure to disclose the existence of these tapes. That is for others. What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country.
We call that obstruction." J.
Terrence "Terry" Brunner – Former prosecutor in the Organized Crime and Racketeering Section of the U.S. Justice Department and a key member of Attorney General Bobby Kennedy’s anti-corruption task force. Former assistant U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois. Former Executive Director of the Better Government Association 1971 - 2000. Currently Director, Aviation Integrity Project.
Article CBS News 3/5/03: "Here we've got the most important event in America in the past 50 years, the most horrible thing that's happened to Americans, and yet we pick a bunch of people who are connected to the very people who are at the center of the question of who's at fault," says Terry Brunner, a former federal prosecutor who now runs the Aviation Integrity Project in Chicago. "It's ridiculous."
Brunner checked out the commissioners and discovered that out of 10, at least six represent the very companies they're now investigating.
He says they are: "Fred Fielding, Spirit Airlines, United Airlines; Slade Gordon represents Delta Airlines; Sen. Max Cleland – $300,000 from the airline industry; Jim Thompson represents American Airlines; Richard Ben-Veniste represents Boeing and United Airlines; and Rep. Tim Roemer - Boeing and Lockheed Martin."
"They're all up to here, with either being connected to the airlines or to the manufacturer of the airplane," says Brunner.
One of the commissioners, former Illinois Gov. Jim Thompson, once represented United and still counsels American - the very airlines involved in the Sept. 11 attack.
"The issue of my firm's representing American shouldn't be taken too far," says Thompson. "I don't think the commission as a whole is conflicted."
"When you've got six out of the ten people, a majority of the group, are connected in that way, how can they make an honest call?" asks Brunner."
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Morgan Reynolds, PhD – Chief Economist, U.S. Department of Labor under George W. Bush 2001 - 2002. Former Director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. Professor Emeritus, Economics, Texas A&M University.
Contributing author to 9/11 and American Empire (Vol I) – Intellectuals Speak Out (2006).
Video interview with Alex Jones 6/2/06: "I first began to suspect that 9/11 was in inside job when the Bush-Cheney Administration invaded Iraq. … We can prove that the government’s story is false."
http://video.goo
Essay 6/9/05: "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers [each 1300+ feet tall, 110 stories] and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely [to] prove to be sound."
http://www.l...
Patriots Question 9/11 - Responsible Criticism of the 9/11 Commission Report