9/11 bait

false leads to distract from investigations

Investigators of these sorts of crimes have to contend with numerous false leads being offered to distract those with the interest and stamina to stay focused on the details.

"A honey pot, in intelligence jargon, is a tempting source of information or 'dangle' that is set out to lure intended victims into a trap. Ultimately the honey pot is violently and maliciously discredited so as to destroy the credibility of anything stuck to it by association."
-- Michael Ruppert, "Crossing the Rubicon," p. 184

Gaeton Fonzi was an investigator for the House Select Committee on Assassinations, the only Congressional effort to get toward the truth of what was done to President Kennedy. Here is his description of how this strategy was used to reduce his effectiveness:

http://cuban-exile.com/doc_001-025/doc0019a.html
The Last Investigation
by
GAETON FONZI
.... I discovered there are a lot of Cubans in Miami named Julio Fernandez. There are more than a dozen lawyers named Fernandez. Many Cubans, like Americans, are commonly known by their middle name, not their first, and some Cubans are commonly known not by their by father's family name by their matrinomy. Nevertheless, selecting them by their age and word of their anti-Castro activism, I spent weeks talking with scores of Cubans named Julio Fernandez. Schweiker particularly interested in the Julio Fernandez whose name did turn up in an FBI report buried in the Warren Commissions' volume of evidence.  I finally tracked him down in upstate New York. He wasn't the Julio Fernandez who had called Clair Boothe Luce. It wasn't until more than a year later, with the broadened access to information I had with the House Assassinations Committee, I discovered that there was no Julio Fernandez who called Luce.  She had simply concocted the name for Schweiker.
What was interesting about the Luce story was that it had a couple of the characteristics common to so many of the other leads which were fed to Schweiker and, later, the House Assassinations Committee and, when checked out, went no where.  One such characteristic was that the leads usually could not be dismissed outright because they always contained hard kernels of truth mixed in the fluff. [emphasis added]

On October 12, 2001, War Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was the first person to say that a "missile" hit the Pentagon. The Complete No Planes on 9/11 Timeline documents that this was probably just bait to set up the "no plane" hoax. His interview, conducted with Parade magazine, was followed three years later by an article by the same reporter who said that this alleged misstatement was what motivated conspiracy theorists to post this false claim all over the internet.


from Mike Ruppert:

www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060706_questions_grave.shtml

Not long before "Loose Change" was released, a recently retired high-ranking US Naval officer approached me and tried to sell me on the claim that no plane hit the Pentagon. He even claimed that he had been inside the Pentagon on 9-11 and had seen no aircraft wreckage. He kept pushing but could not persuade me, because (as I told him) I was aware of more than 130 independent, non-military eyewitnesses who had been traveling on nearby I-395 who swore that they did see an airliner hit the Pentagon. Having driven on I-395 many times, I know that they had a perfect view.
My last correspondence with the retired Navy Captain was on May 3rd and in my message I made it very clear that I would not endorse the no-plane hypothesis and that I believed "Loose Change" to be (in impact) a CIA propaganda film, whether by design, trick or device, or the sheer gullibility of its makers.
On May 16th the Pentagon released what it claims was new video showing a Boeing 757 striking the building. It was clear that, realizing I would not fall for the "dangle," the powers that be had decided that they would discredit the rest of the 9-11 movement who had accepted "no plane."]

The State Department website about World Trade Center Building 7 verifies how inferential evidence of physical anamolies are unlikely to accomplish needed political changes. Two discussions about “physical evidence” and 9/11 complicity are worth reading to see how their predictions have been shown to be correct.

“The case of 9/11, now being tried in our metaphorical court of the corporate media and public perception, leaves no doubt as to who could produce more expert witness testimony or present them in the most impressive manner. ... It is something else to analyze the temperature at which steel is weakened and determining whether or not an unproven amount of burning jet fuel, in unspecified concentrations and unknown locations could have weakened steel supports in the World Trade Center to the point where an unspecified amount of weight might cause them to buckle.
-- Michael Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon, pp. 13-14

www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/112603_kennedy.html
The Kennedys, Physical Evidence, and 9/11
by Michael C. Ruppert

 

Most 9/11 skeptics are now familiar with the statement by Larry Silverstein, who leased the WTC shortly before 9/11, that he decided “pull it” regarding Building 7 (the building that collapsed but was not hit by a plane). Some in the 9/11 truth movement made this comment a “smoking gun” for demolition claims, even though the case for demolition of WTC 7 was made long before his comment was publicized, most notably at the website www.wtc7.net

http://wtc7.net/pullit.html
A review of the numerous websites that assert that Silverstein's remark constituted an admission of demolishing WTC 7 is revealing. Few such sites note that the physical characteristics of the collapse exactly match conventional demolitions, or that fires have never before or since felled steel-framed high-rise buildings -- two facts that constitute an overwhelming case for the controlled demolition of WTC 7. Instead, the pull-it controversy seems to have created a distraction, eclipsing the case for controlled demolition.

 

“Pull it” is a deliberately ambiguous statement that could have been a form of bait, and now has been discredited by its utterer, probably in an effort to discredit its promoters just as the Rumsfeld “missile” quote was floated and then withdrawn.

The best website that discussed the “pull it” controversy was by Dutch author Joël v.d. Reijden, who has unfortunately “pulled” his excellent analysis from the web (he evidently grew tired of the abusive emails from promoters of the “no planes” hoaxes). Here is his analysis of “pull it”

http://home.planet.nl/~reijd050/911_my_own_review.htm [no longer on line]
9/11 – My own review of the entire event.
Apparently Larry Silverstein tries to explain something to us in the 2002 PBS documentary ‘America Rebuilds’:

“I remember getting a call from the, uh, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, "You know, we've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is, is pull it. And they made that decision to pull and then we watched the building collapse.”

I mailed Jowenko BV and asked if 'pull' was an industry term for 'demolish'. They said it wasn't. Implosionworld said the same thing. I run into the same problem when looking into different dictionaries. There is always a distinction made between 'pull down', 'pull away' and 'pull back'. And I have not been able to find one person on the internet who uses this word as a substitute for 'demolish'. So I think it's safe to assume that Larry needs to clarify what he meant, but unfortunately he refuses to do that.
In the same PBS documentary this is said by one of the construction workers:

"[narrator]The department of design and construction had leveled World Trade Center buildings 4 and 5...[telephone rings] Hello?...ow, we're getting ready to pull building six....[The documentary moves on to the next person] We had to be very careful how we demolished building six..."

Now, lets see what implosionworld told me:

"There is no such phrase in explo-demo. Most likely he meant "pull out" as in have people evacuate. Conventionally, "pull a building" can mean to pre-burn holes in steel beams near the top floor and affix long cables to heavy machinery, which then backs up and causes the structure to lean off its center of gravity and eventually collapse. But this is only possible with buildings about 6-7 stories or smaller. This activity was performed to bring down WTC 6 (Customs) after 9/11 because of the danger in demolishing conventionally."

Of course these companies are not going to adhere to any conspiracy theories, but they did help in dispelling another possible red herring. The fact that it is very likely that 7 WTC has been blown up doesn't change at all, but I wonder why Silverstein made this strange statement and especially why PBS conveniently put that 'ready to pull building six' sentence in. Maybe someone is messing with our heads. I don't know.

and from the same author:

http://home.planet.nl/~reijd050/911_summary.htm
Were there explosives in WTC I, II and/or VII? If I had to guess, I would say it's likely, but this theory sounds so ridiculous, that we need more eyewitness accounts and videos. Something that makes me very uncomfortable is that all the prominent 'researchers' I do not trust are peddling the explosives-at-the-WTC-theory.

Update: General Benton K. Partin doesn't seem to agree with this theory. Read that article here

[note: retired General Partin publicized his beliefs that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing involved multiple explosions, and therefore was more than merely a crime involving just Tim McVeigh]

 

It is hard to say whether the Silverstein "pull it" quote is (1) bait, (2) boasting or (3) greatly misinterpreted. Any attorney or public relations representative would state that the context is "the firefighter team had such a terrible loss of life, so therefore they made the decision to pull it (the firefighters)."

The State Department discussion of “pull it” shows that this prediction has been verified.

In September 2005, Silverstein's office issued a "clarification" that shows the futility of relying on this sort of "evidence" to make political change.

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html
The Collapse of World Trade Center 7
Allegation:  9/11 Revealed suggests that the 47-story World Trade Center 7 building, which collapsed at 5:20 pm on September 11, was intentionally demolished.  The primary piece of evidence for this is a comment that Mr. Larry Silverstein, who owned the World Trade Center complex, made on the September 2002 television documentary American Rebuilds.  Mr. Silverstein said:

I remember getting a call from the Fire Department commander, telling me they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire.  I said, you know, “We've had such terrible loss of life that the smartest thing to do is just pull it.”  And they made that decision to pull it and we watched the [World Trade Center 7] building collapse.

9/11 Revealed and other conspiracy theorists put forward the notion that Mr. Silverstein’s suggestion to “pull it” is slang for intentionally demolishing the WTC 7 building.
Facts:  On September 9, 2005, Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesman for Silverstein Properties, issued the following statement on this issue:

Seven World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11, 2001, after burning for seven hours. There were no casualties, thanks to the heroism of the Fire Department and the work of Silverstein Properties employees who evacuated tenants from the building.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted a thorough investigation of the collapse of all the World Trade Center buildings.  The FEMA report concluded that the collapse of Seven World Trade Center was a direct result of fires triggered by debris from the collapse of WTC Tower 1.
In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center.  The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires.  Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.
Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed.  No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

As noted above, when Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we've had such terrible loss of life.  Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.”  Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building.


another debunking of "Pull It"

http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/2007/02/tales-of-911-truthiness.html
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 02, 2007
Tales of 9/11 Truthiness

George W. Bush reported after 9/11 that he had seen the first plane hit the WTC, thinking that it was an accident caused by a "terrible pilot." This astounding comment is one of those seemingly incriminating pieces of evidence that doesn't go anywhere.

If Bush was confused, which is plausible, then his garbling of the timeline of his behavior that morning means nothing (other than his incoherence, which the world already knows about).

If Bush was telling the truth, then the White House was monitoring the situation before the first plane crash and that would be proof of damning foreknowledge. Unfortunately, even if this facet of the story is true it cannot be proven without some sort of insider revelation or Congressional subpeona. There's already sufficient knowledge that there were extensive warnings that the attacks were coming and that the Secret Service did not follow standard operating procedures to protect Bush while he was in the elementary school reading to second graders.

In Plane Site, the first major "no plane" film, floated the idea that the plane that hit the South Tower did not have windows, and therefore was a substitute for the actual hijacked plane (Flight 175) and therefore some sort of plane swapping happened proving 9/11 was an inside job. This allegation - of no windows - was supposedly made by a reporter for Fox TV, the ultra-right wing government propaganda network, who was allegedly in Brooklyn (ie. not close by) when the crash happened.

The "no windows" nonsense was given a prominent debunking in the famous March 2005 Popular Mechanics attack, further discrediting the various strawmen arguments floated by In Plane Site (and by association, the rest of the 9/11 truth movement). Popular Mechanics even had the gall to claim that this was "one of the most widely referenced 9/11 conspiracy theories" even though it was solely sourced to "In Plane Site" and a few of its fans (or co-conspirators). Of the mix of fake and real claims trashed in Popular Mechanics, this one was probably the most obscure, not the most widespread.

Skeptical minds were not surprised to read that Fox TV denounced this claim as nonsense or that some gullible people wanted to believe that THIS TIME Fox TV was a trustworthy witness to the truth. It would be surprising if the "no window" claim was not invented in order to discredit it later.

It is hard to prove the motivation of those who made this film, but the motivation of Fox television seems transparent. It is similar to a Fox affiliate highlighting the Loose Change no-plane film while ignoring credible investigations.

www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/09/20060915-2.html
"For example, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described the design of planned attacks of buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out."
"That is valuable information for those of us who have the responsibility to protect the American people. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a high -- a point that was high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping."


http://rigint.blogspot.com/2006/09/secret-agent-man.html
Saturday, September 16, 2006
Secret Agent Man

There's a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger

Parsing the statements of George Bush is of course handicapped by the man's uncommon illiteracy, though when he sticks to his prepared texts we can get some indication of what his keepers want us to hear, even if Bush himself doesn't know what he's saying. Take, for one bizarre instance, the opening remarks to his Rose Garden news conference last Friday.
In defence of torture and secret prisons he boasted of the "valuable information" obtained by the CIA from waterboarding "men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed" (whose telephone conversations with Mohammed Atta, including final approval for the attacks on September 10, are known to have been monitored and translated by the NSA, but apparently not acted upon).
Much like Atta's unacknowledged Florida life of strippers, booze and cocaine, the supposed mastermind of September 11 was a high-living womanizer who loved clubbing and lavish hotels, and who once impressed a girlfriend by flying a helicopter past her office window trailing a banner that read "I love you."
There remains the mystery of his arrest, which even today can only be called an alleged arrest, not least because he was confidently reported killed in a shootout on 9/11's first anniversary. ("Now it has emerged that Kuwaiti national Khalid Shaikh Mohammed did indeed perish in the raid," said Asia Times.)
A witness present in the house when Khalid was said to have finally been seized was adament that "the only people in the house were my brother, his wife and their kids.... I have absolutely no idea why the police came here." For The Guardian, Isobel Hilton wrote that in Pakistan, the story of his arrest "appears to be almost entirely fictional." And there's the famous photo of Khalid, fat and unshaven against a wall of peeling paint. But according to The Sunday Times a "thorough search of the house shows there is no such wall."
To allay doubts of Khalid's capture, Pakistan's ISI held a first-ever press briefing and screened a laughable eight minutes of footage purportedly taken during the raid. "Broken doors, blood-stained walls and wrists in handcuffs were all shown but curiously, no face shots...not even the well publicized 'arrest' photo of Mohammed that has been widely circulated and questioned. When one CNN reporter, Tom Minter asked why, the ISI said the tape had been edited but that the actual footage did record his face but had been edited out for the presentation." Pakistani intelligence had its own good reasons to attempt deception as, like 9/11 paymaster Omar Saeed Sheikh, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was not only an al Qaeda commander but also an ISI operative. Which is why both men wanted Daniel Pearl dead.
If Khalid actually is in custody, he has remained out-of-sight from all but his CIA minders. The Kean Commission relied heavily upon Khalid's account of 9/11 to construct their own story - he's mentioned in 272 paragraphs of the report - but no commission representative was permitted to meet him or take his testimony: there is no corroboration that the account given was actually his own. The commission supplied questions to his captors, and his captors returned transcripts of interrogations that allegedly contained Khalid's answers. Its claim of authenticity rests solely upon the goodwill of the Agency.
But back to Bush and his Friday remarks:
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed described the design of planned attacks of buildings inside the U.S. and how operatives were directed to carry them out. That is valuable information for those of us who have the responsibility to protect the American people. He told us the operatives had been instructed to ensure that the explosives went off at a high -- a point that was high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping.
Even allowing for the bell curve of his usual nonsense, what sense does this make?
The Guardian transcript has Bush saying that Khalid "described the design of plane attacks," rather than the official "planned attacks." The video, available from the White House website, confirms "planned." Perhaps the Guardian couldn't quite believe what it was hearing. Because Bush went on to say that the operatives of the planned attacks were instructed in the placement of explosives. Adding, as though it's the clearest thing in the world, that Khalid disclosed the explosives were to detonate at "a point high enough to prevent people trapped above from escaping."
Before we rush to judgement, believing Bush is letting it slip that the towers were demolished, watch the video. Bush isn't riffing here; he isn't straying from the prepared text. His remarks were crafted with care. So why would he be given such lines, which could so easily be construed by 9/11 skeptics as an inadvertant admission of controlled demolition? Perhaps because, as I believe was Rumsfeld's intention when he "misspoke" of a "missile" striking the Pentagon the very week Thierry Meyssan launched his "no plane" website, that's precisely where they want our attention, whether or not demolition is a fact. (And it will only be our attention, as the corporate press either don't have the ears or the stomach for it.)
So here's the scene: the White House invoking invisible man Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to excite our imagination with an oddly-worded statement strongly suggestive of demolition, when our attention would be better rewarded by considering Khalid himself, his service to the ISI and the ISI's service to US intelligence. But Bush will never be written the words to encourage such thoughts.

The only thing that a flight manifesto lacking the (ostensible) names of the hijackers proves is that airlines are willing to cooperate with the government to keep names off of a list. And most of the lists released by the airlines were of VICTIMS, so presumably the airlines and government do not consider the hijackers to have been victims.

A few "researchers" promoting "no planes" and similar debunked claims also state that a Department of Transportation database does not list the 9/11 flights. Since this is a database of completed flights, it does not make sense to include those four doomed flights in it. Entries on a computer do not necessarily correlate to reality. (Some of the people promoting this story also claim that some of the crashed planes are still in service despite the fact that the black boxes were found at all three crash sites.)