Cynthia McKinney Brings 9/11 Back to Congress

By Michael Kane
www.fromthewilderness.com

July, 2005 1300 PST (FTW): July 22, 2005 marked one year since the Kean Commission published its final report. On this day in the Cannon House Congressional Office Building - where the Kean Commission first gathered - Representative Cynthia McKinney convened an all-day briefing focusing on the truth and lies of 9/11, and how that event has impacted the world we find ourselves in today.


Front row l to r: Peter Dale Scott, Loretta Napolione, Nafeez Ahmed. Back row, Cynthia McKinney and 9/11 victim Bob McIlvaine who lost a son. Where are the other members of congress? (photo: Michael Kane)

The very same day, Congress renewed the USA Patriot Act.

The event was originally co-sponsored by Representative Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), but according to Jenna Orkin who lobbied Grijalva's office three days later to thank him for his support, the co-sponsorship has been withdrawn for "many reasons" without specifying any details. The only sitting Congressperson to attend besides McKinney was Representative Carolyn C. Kilpatrick (D-MI), who stayed for half an hour. Also in attendance were staff members from the offices of Rick Larsen (D-WA), Christopher Shays (R-CT), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Michael Honda (D-CA), and Marcy Kaptur (D-OH).1

FTW's Michael Ruppert, Wayne Madsen, and Ray McGovern made up the panel of experts assembled by Cynthia McKinney's staff to ask questions of the panelists giving testimony. The entire briefing has been placed in the Congressional Record.


The three questioners: l to r, Michael Ruppert, Wayne Madsen and Ray McGovern. (photo: Michael Kane)

Being the anniversary of the commission report, it was fitting for the event to open with a report card issued by those responsible for the creation of the commission in the first place - the "Jersey Girls." These women all lost their husbands in the attacks of 9/11.

But only two of the Jersey Girls were present, Lorie Van Auken and Mindy Kleinberg, together with Monica Gabrielle, who co-founded the Skyscraper Safety Campaign. Van Auken stated she was speaking for the women seated beside her as she proceeded to tear the report's findings to shreds. Her extremely well researched and accurate account hit many facts that FTW's readers are very familiar with, but Van Auken referenced two issues in a way the Jersey Girls had never done before.

"Intentional" FBI Failure and 9/11 War Games
First on Van Auken's list of complaints was the history of FBI Supervisory Special Agent David Frasca - the man promoted after having blocked and thwarted Cowleen Rowley's investigation into Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called "20th hijacker." When Van Auken spoke to this she detailed the intentional falsification of a FISA warrant request by the FBI. The warrant was subsequently denied. Had it been granted, it would have allowed the FBI to search Moussaoui's laptop, which would have revealed information whose proper use may have prevented 9/11 from happening.

It almost sounded as if she was reading from chapter 12 of Crossing the Rubicon. From her testimony and the responses to it, it was apparent that all the panel members had read the book. Van Auken then went on to list the other 9/11-related investigations where Frasca acted as a deliberate and monumental roadblock. "FBI Headquarters thwarted their own agents instead of thwarting the terrorists."

The second issue raised by Van Auken and others was the multiple war game exercises being conducted on 9/11.

The Jersey Girls had never publicly commented on this issue before this briefing. Last year, this reporter communicated with Van Auken regarding the 9/11 war games. She had read The Final Fraud when it was published by FTW2 and she stated in a private communication at the time that it was "important work." This is where it was first reported that General Eberhart, who headed NORAD on 9/11, refused to comment as to who was coordinating the multiple (now six confirmed)3 war game exercises occurring on the morning of September 11, 2001.

One year after the Kean Commission report was published, the Jersey Girls did have something to say.

Van Auken opened by referring to the report's one and only mention of any 9/11 war game exercise, which occurs in a footnote referring to "Vigilant Guardian." She then read an exchange between the Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) and FAA published in the report regarding the hijacking of Flight 11:

NEADS: Is this real-world or exercise?
FAA: No, this is not an exercise, not a test.

She again quoted the commission's report showing NEADS did not know the correct locations to which fighter aircraft should be scrambled. There was discussion of "Phantom Flight 11," the off-course flight headed to the Pentagon which the FAA repeatedly referred to as Flight 11 in their communications with NORAD. But Flight 11 had already crashed into the first Tower much earlier.

Van Auken noted General Eberhart's statements to the commission in which he claimed that it took only 30 seconds for NORAD to realize the events unfolding on 9/11 were not a test, and that the exercises helped NORAD respond quicker that day. The Jersey Girls rightly dismissed Eberhart's statement as entirely unsupported. Van Auken stated:

"General Eberhart's claim that the military exercises somehow made the military better prepared on 9/11 does not ring true. Instead, it appears that the concurrent military exercises completely confused everyone."

This is precisely FTW's position.

Ruppert asked the first question of the day to the Jersey Girls. He made note of the fact that the commission report refers only to one exercise, Vigilant Guardian, leaving out (at least) four other confirmed, named, and concurrent Air Force exercises running that day. He also pointed out that Vigilant Guardian was not a Cold War exercise as the report states, but rather a hijack drill and reminded everyone that the official NOARD web site posting for an exercise named Northern Vigilance flatly contradicted the Commission's findings. Then he mentioned Vigilant Warrior, which was named in Richard Clarke's book Against All Enemies and pointed out that it had been confirmed as a live-fly hijack drill4 which, again, was not mentioned in the commission's final report.

Ruppert commented on the Jersey Girls' choice of words, which has changed considerably since last year. They have gone just a little bit further. Where they used to leave the question as to the intent of government officials who they said "failed us" on 9/11, they now used the words "intentional" and "deliberate" in describing actions of the FBI and CIA, and in describing the misleading public statements of Condoleezza Rice.

Ruppert asked what brought about these changes.

There was a long pause as Van Auken cleared her throat, then said, "We didn't want to jump to any conclusions. It took a long time to read the report."

She was aware that Clarke's book mentioned the Vigilant Warrior exercise and that the Kean report did not, which she said was "upsetting." If the Kean Commission couldn't get such a basic point of fact correct, what did that suggest about the entirety of their findings?

This was a huge difference from what the American people heard almost a year ago, when the Jersey Girls endorsed the 9/11 commission's recommendations including the creation of a National Director of Intelligence position now held by John Negroponte.

Mindy Kleinberg gave us all a glimpse into the turmoil the Jersey Girls (and likely most 9/11 survivors and family members) are now grappling with when she described their passage through each successive round in their search for truth through official channels by stating, "We've learned to lower our expectations."

Monica Gabrielle later left the conference room with a copy of Crossing the Rubicon under her arm. This reporter has since learned the Jersey Girls are currently very interested in renewable energy. When asked what she thought of Peak Oil, Lorie Van Auken responded by email saying:

"I think that peak oil is probably a dangerous reality."

Thompson, Ahmed, Newman
Critical presentations were given by Paul Thompson, author of The Terror Timeline, Nafeez Ahmed, author of The War on Freedom and The War on Truth, and John Newman, professor at the University of West Virginia and former NSA analyst.

Paul Thompson provided a detailed account of Air Force response to the hijacking of Flight 77. When questioned by Ruppert about the war games happening simultaneously with the real hijackings, Thompson revealed new research confirming that there was yet another war game occurring called "Global Guardian."

This was a scenario imagining "world-wide Armageddon." According to Paul Thompson, this exercise was normally scheduled for October or November, but for some unknown reason it was moved up to September.

Ruppert asked Thompson if it made any sense to reschedule war games to a time that ended up diverting air assets across the continent and the globe when the Summer of 2001 has come to be known as "the Summer of threat." This is when DCI George Tenet was running around "with his hair on fire" due to incoming threats of terrorists hijacking aircraft to use as weapons against American targets. Thompson said that this was a good question that needed to be further examined.

Nafeez Ahmed gave an excellent presentation on the fact that Mohammad Atta and the Hamburg cell of terrorists did not exhibit the behavior of radical Islamic fundamentalists. Rather there were multiple reports of them drinking heavily, using cocaine, gambling in Las Vegas, and frequenting strip clubs. None of this accords with the behavior of genuine Islamists, allied with Al Qaeda, who believe in the strictest interpretation of the Koran as to how a Muslim should live his life.

Further, Ahmed referenced multiple published reports indicating that the alleged hijackers had trained in secure military installations in the United States. While Ahmed remained reserved about the implications of the documentation he was referencing, the truth of the matter is that this information shakes the very foundation of everything we've been told about what happened on 9/11 and why.

John Newman's testimony was a detailed account of Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who is reported to be a trusted paymaster of the Al Qaeda network as well as an agent of Pakistan's ISI. Newman said Saeed Sheikh made the now infamous $100,000 wire transfer to Mohammad Atta just before the 9/11 attacks at the order of General Mahmoud Ahmad - then head of Pakistan's ISI. Newman raised the question as to whether Saeed Sheikh was a British informant since he was inexplicably allowed to roam free in Britain even as a wanted man. He stated that Saeed was likely a triple agent.

After complimenting Newman's past research into the assassination of President Kennedy, Mike Ruppert credited Ottawa University's Michel Chossudovsky with the discovery that the Director of Central Intelligence personally approves the head of Pakistan's ISI. This has led both Chossudovsky and Ruppert to conclude that the $100,000 wire transfer could only have occurred with the approval of DCI Tenent. Ruppert asked what Newman's "feel" of that was.

"I don't know," responded Newman.

Since questions were limited to one per questioner, Ruppert didn't get to point out that General Ahmad was having breakfast with congressional leaders in Washington on the morning of September 11th.

Mel Goodman and Mike Ruppert - Showdown!
Mel Goodman, a professor of International Studies at the National War College and former CIA and State Department analyst, opened his testimony on a high note, and closed on a low note. In his opening remarks he stated, "Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as contrarian, but I hope that someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom."

It went downhill from there.

Goodman noted that the 9/11 Commission did not have a single person familiar with the intelligence community. When mentioning people he felt should have been appointed to the commission, Goodman asked, "Where was Brent Scowcroft, or Gary Hart?"

Ruppert could be seen trying to conceal his laughter.

Goodman went on to claim that the one exception was the commission's co-chair, Lee Hamilton. He praised Hamilton's past work, including his membership on the infamous Iran Contra Commission that investigated the illegal exchanges of arms, drugs, and hostages during the 1980's. Goodman stated that Hamilton "didn't show up" to make the 9/11 Commission what it should've been, though he had done "great work" investigating the Iran Contra affair. Goodman spoke to the fact that there was no accountability, and that the failures of 9/11 were the personal failures - the incompetence - of those in power whom the commission never sought to expose.

Wayne Madsen asked Goodman why the commission didn't "follow the money." Why did they first put up Henry Kissinger to chair the commission, then Hamilton (picked as co-chair), choices which led to a conscious decision to avoid investigating the origins of the Mujahideen, the milieu of BCCI, or any of several highly relevant areas whose proper examination might have uncovered the truth. Such an approach would constitute "following the money."

Madsen recounted his public confrontation of Lee Hamilton about the mysterious put options purchased on United and American Airlines just prior to 9/11. He had asked Hamilton about the possibility that those puts were purchased by individuals - outside the Al Qaida network - who had foreknowledge of the attacks. Hamilton objected to the premise of this question, even though Chairman Kean had said the put options were still "on the table." In Madsen's view, the commission was intentionally set up to fail from the beginning.

Goodman largely agreed, but he completely avoided Madsen's portrayal of Hamilton, which starkly contrasted with Goodman's earlier praise for this man. He also avoided Madsen's direct reference to the incriminating put options that were never thoroughly addressed in the commission's report.

End Part I