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PART FOUR

9/11

43

A NEW PEARL HARBOUR

A Think Tank’s Anticipation of 9/11

In case you’ve never heard of the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), it was a D.C. think tank that existed for less than ten years (1997–2006) but had probably more influence on American lives than any similar organization before or since. The founders were two neo-cons, William Kristol and Robert Kagan, and from the get-go they were pushing for “regime change” in Iraq. They argued in an open letter to President Clinton that Saddam Hussein was out to stockpile Weapons of Mass Destruction and that an invasion of Iraq would be justified by his defiance of the UN’s “containment” policy.

Then, in September 2000, a few months before George W. Bush became president, the PNAC published a ninety-page report called Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies and Resources for a New Century. It makes for instructive reading, given what’s happened since 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq. I’ve excerpted four pages, and I’d ask you to pay particular attention to a statement made on the last one, which says: “…the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor.” Anybody think September 11th might just have been that?

The PNAC report seems like a complete game plan for the next decade, because for the most part it was followed. It should have been mandatory

44

9/11 WARNING I,

FBI Knowledge of Terrorists Training at Flight Schools

Two months before the events of September 11th, 2001, an FBI agent in Phoenix named Kenneth Williams sent a memo to the bureau brass in D.C. and New York. The agent was warning about an unusually high number of Muslims being trained at American flight schools, perhaps part of “a coordinated effort” by Osama bin Laden. His memo was ignored at the higher levels.

45

9/11 WARNING II

“Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.,” Bush Was Told

A little more than a month before 9/11, the Bush White House received an intelligence digest from the CIA with a two-page section titled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” The president headed off for a month’s vacation to his ranch in Crawford, Texas, right after that.

What these warnings—and there were others—tell me is that (a) either the Bush Administration allowed 9/11 to happen; (b) took part in it happening, or (c) were the most inept administration we’ve ever had. These warnings were so plain and simple that, if you didn’t “get” them, you’d never win on Jeff Foxworthy’s show Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

46

A CHANGE OF POLICY

The Pentagon’s “Stand Down Order” on 9/11

The question that’s haunted me from day one is how come the world’s biggest military superpower was somehow oblivious to rogue airliners in American air space for more than an hour, and our top brass seemed so befuddled in terms of dealing with hijackers apparently using these four planes as flying bombs. Why couldn’t our fighter jets intercept at least one of them?!

Well, here’s one possible explanation: Donald Rumsfeld, our Secretary of Defense, never gave the go-ahead. Why? On June 1, 2001, the Joint Chiefs of Staff issued a new Instruction—superseding one from 1997—that required approval by the Secretary of Defense for any “potentially lethal support…in the event of an aircraft piracy (hijacking).”

I sure would like to know why the question of Rumsfeld doing this never came up with the 9/11 Commission. Doesn’t it seem important to have asked why that critical policy got changed only four months beforehand?

47

CONTROLLED DEMOLITION

The “Free Fall” of Building 7

The third skyscraper that got reduced to rubble on 9/11 was the 47-story World Trade Center Building 7, which went down late that afternoon. According to the government, the reason was fires caused by the collapse of the Twin Towers. What I wondered about from the front was, how come fires had never before destroyed a steel skyscraper?

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