The Trouble with Conspiracy Theories

[Guest Tom Scully]

If you think I care what you think about me or my views you’re mistaken just as you were mistaken in your assumption you were telling me anything about the collapses of the WTC towers I didn’t already know or that I “don't know what [i’m] talking about” concerning the subject. Since your post in no way disputed what I said you failed to demonstrate any supposed ignorance concerning the subject

I have no idea why you think this was significant, WTCs 1 & 2 were near identical buildings (hence their nickname the “Twin Towers”) hit by near identical airplanes (a 767-223ER and a 767-200ER fueled for a Boston – LA flight) which collapsed in a similar manner. The details concerning the collapse of building 7 were quite different, thus there is nothing strange in NIST making a single report about the 1st two and a 2nd about the latter. Complaining the NIST Twin Towers report didn’t include building 7 is like complaining the HSAC didn’t issue a report concerning the shooting of Malcolm X. No it would like complaining they covered that assassination in a separate report if they had investigated it.

You’re right no steel samples were recovered, when you can find a number of structural engineers approaching the number of those who signed off on the report who say this casts doubt on NIST's analysis of what happened get back to us. I don’t know why their talking 7 years is a problem for you, they prioritized the collapses of the Twin Towers. Yes it took them longer than expected but it was hardly the 1st time a government agency completed a project behind schedule.

NIST issued recommendations; no one is obliged to follow them. NIST pointed out some rather unique circumstances namely the lack of water for the sprinklers or FDNY’s firefighting efforts. You don’t think “insurance rates on any of the world's steel framed towers” went up after 9/11? When you actually have some data to back that up, let me know.

One thing that came up after the crash of flight 3407 near Buffalo is that for years the NTSB and others have recommended discontinuing the use of turbo props in wintry conditions. Apparently neither the FAA nor any airlines followed this advice, I am not aware of any airlines having their insurance rates adjusted as a result.

I have no idea what you are going on about. You go on about “post[ing] the facts” but only offer speculation. Do you have any info on lease rates? Do you think everyone who rents or rent out space such buildings is “in on it”? What are the odds of a long trussed steel frame building being struck by catastrophic fire and there being no water for sprinklers of the fire department?

And when you can cite some structural engineers whose knowledge of what happened extends beyond seeing video showing the collapse from the north (i.e. relatively undamaged) side get back to us.

As for Silverstein’s self-serving comments about the floors they prove little because they weren’t confirmed by an engineer or even and architect and NIST didn’t say the building collapsed because of floor failures but rather that the expansion of floor trusses cause column failures. Presumably if you’d bothered to have read the report you’d know that.

It was NIST's description of their initial reports as "final", and it doesn't seem to you, a curiously misleading way to present an incomplete report to the public?

http://web.archive.org/web/20060211004819/...TAR1-3index.htm

Final Reports of the Federal Building and Fire

Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster

WTC 7 wasn't just "any" building, and....why would it be the obvious choice to postpone the NIST investigation of WTC 7, in favor of investigation of the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, when structural engineers were publicly voicing concern over the unprecedented collapse of WTC 7, suspected primarily from fire damage?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

With Crisis in Mind, Center Opens

By JUDITH MILLER

Published: Tuesday, June 8, 1999

....Asked about the center's location in the World Trade Center, in a building across the street from the site of the 1993 terrorist bombing that killed six people, Mr. Hauer, who is director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said the location was chosen after a study of some 50 alternative sites. The complex now has tight security and is close to the Mayor's office, the Police and Fire Departments and the headquarters of other high city officials,...

...One of several elevators to the 23d floor, he said, has its own power supply to assure continued access during a blackout. He called security at the center excellent, with no trucks permitted to enter the building complex without being searched. The 47-story building, 7 World Trade Center, also rents space on its 9th and 10th floors to the Secret Service, another Government agency that values security. ...

Okay, Len.....clear it up for me..... we've got the pronouncements of the investigators at NIST, the odd state.gov web page featuring Larry Silverman for the purpose of clarifying his original comments in a PBS interview, and we have you posting that there were no steel samples saved from WTC 7, and that there is nothing curious about NIST not increasing it's staff to investigate the unprecedented, triple tower collapse, or taking seven years to do it, even though this type of investigation is a primary, public safety related, NIST mission. If NIST's determinations are not the primary influence in high rise building and fire codes, what are the primary influences?

If I adopt your accepting, non-curious approach, Len, which versions of events should I accept as most reliable? Can you name another instance where a state.gov web page was published as a forum for a non-government person to "clear up", what he said earlier, in a TV interview?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SITE; Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: Thursday, November 29, 2001

...''Even though Building 7 didn't get much attention in the media immediately, within the structural engineering community, it's considered to be much more important to understand,'' said William F. Baker, a partner in charge of structural engineering at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. ''They say, 'We know what happened at 1 and 2, but why did 7 come down?' ''

Engineers said that here and across the country, diesel-powered generators are used in buildings like hospitals and trading houses, where avoiding power outages is crucial. Partly for that reason, Jonathan Barnett said, a definitive answer to the question of what happened in 7 World Trade Center is perhaps the most important question facing investigators.

''It's just like when you investigate a plane crash,'' said Dr. Barnett, a professor of fire protection engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. ''If we find a weakness in the building or a deficiency in the building that causes that collapse, we then want to find that weakness in other buildings and fix it.''....

..Dr. Barnett and Mr. Baker are part of an assessment team organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to examine the performance of several buildings during the attacks. If further studies of the debris confirm the findings of extremely high temperature, Dr. Barnett said, ''the smoking gun would be the fuel.''...

....A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures, Dr. Barnett said....

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...49C8B63&scp

A Search for Clues In Towers' Collapse; Engineers Volunteer to Examine Steel Debris Taken to Scrapyards

By JAMES GLANZ and ERIC LIPTON

Published: Saturday, February 2, 2002

....From the moment the two towers collapsed on Sept. 11, engineers and other experts have been struggling to answer the monumental questions of exactly why and how the buildings, designed to sustain a jet impact, completely collapsed. But despite promises of a broad federal investigation, and after weeks of calls from victims' families and others to halt the destruction of the steel that could hold all sorts of clues, the half-heroic, half-comic scenes at the Jersey City scrapyard continue to play out.

Small teams of engineers plot slightly mad dashes, like mountain goats, into mounds of steel to claim pieces of tower columns. The engineers time their forays to avoid being crushed. Indeed, Ms. Bonilla made her find while the scrapyard workers were on their lunch break.

Through it all, the engineers profess optimism that they are catching and saving what is most useful. But they concede that there is no way of saying for sure; an unknown number of steel columns has been sent off to mills as far away as Asia without ever having been examined or saved.

''What they're doing is extremely noble, ambitious and wonderful and I'm glad somebody is doing that,'' said Dr. James G. Quintiere, a professor in fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland. But, he added, ''the steel, to me, it's almost a foregone conclusion that its gone.''.....

....Perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation involves extremely thin bits of steel collected from the trade towers and from 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high rise that also collapsed for unknown reasons. The steel apparently melted away, but no fire in any of the buildings was believed to be hot enough to melt steel outright.

A preliminary analysis of the steel at Worcester Polytechnic Institute using electron microscopes suggests that sulfur released during the fires -- no one knows from where -- may have combined with atoms in the steel to form compounds that melt at lower temperatures....

http://web.archive.org/web/20080214143807/.../16-241966.html

You Are In: USINFO > Resource Tools > Identifying Misinformation

9/11 Revealed?

New book repeats false conspiracy theories

9/11 Revealed, published in August 2005, is the latest book putting forth bizarre conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Its two British authors, Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan, give credence to a hodgepodge of sinister, unfounded allegations....

....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....

The statements of Larry Silverstein's spokesperson, featured on the state.gov web page, above, vs. the official statements. records compilations of NIST, and quoted NIST investigators' comments :

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/de...?page=5&c=y

Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report

Popular Mechanics examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.

Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. "There was no firefighting in WTC 7," Sunder says

PDF Page 164 & 165: (Chapter 5 wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-8.pdf)

http://web.archive.org/web/20070606235524/...STNCSTAR1-8.pdf

...At approximately 11:30 a.m., FDNY assigned a Chief Officer to take operations at WTC 7. The Chied was initially given orders to put the fires out in WTC 7. 382...

...A FDNY fire boat and the retired FDNY fire boat "Harvey" were located at the shore on the Hudson River near the site. They were starting to stretch lines up to the WTC.385

According to the FDNY first-person interviews, water was never an issue at WTC 7 since firefighting was never started in the building.386 When the Chief Officer in charge of WTC 7 got to Barclay Street and West Broadway, numerous firefighters and officers were coming out of WTC 7. These firefighters indicated that several blocks needed to be cleared around WTC 7 because they though the building was going to collaspe. 387

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...mp;pagewanted=2

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SITE; Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: Thursday, November 29, 2001

....With the collapse of both towers by 10:30 a.m., larger pieces of the twin towers had smashed parts of 7 World Trade and set whole clusters of floors ablaze. An hour later, the Fire Department was forced to abandon its last efforts to save the building as it burned like a giant torch....

Len, why are you here? I participate here because I am motivated by a curious nature in general, and by a tendency not to accept the statements of authorities at face value. What do you do to counter the tendency for power and authority to corrupt those who hold it?

Edited March 9, 2009 by Tom Scully

[Craig Lamson]

If you think I care what you think about me or my views you’re mistaken just as you were mistaken in your assumption you were telling me anything about the collapses of the WTC towers I didn’t already know or that I “don't know what [i’m] talking about” concerning the subject. Since your post in no way disputed what I said you failed to demonstrate any supposed ignorance concerning the subject

I have no idea why you think this was significant, WTCs 1 & 2 were near identical buildings (hence their nickname the “Twin Towers”) hit by near identical airplanes (a 767-223ER and a 767-200ER fueled for a Boston – LA flight) which collapsed in a similar manner. The details concerning the collapse of building 7 were quite different, thus there is nothing strange in NIST making a single report about the 1st two and a 2nd about the latter. Complaining the NIST Twin Towers report didn’t include building 7 is like complaining the HSAC didn’t issue a report concerning the shooting of Malcolm X. No it would like complaining they covered that assassination in a separate report if they had investigated it.

You’re right no steel samples were recovered, when you can find a number of structural engineers approaching the number of those who signed off on the report who say this casts doubt on NIST's analysis of what happened get back to us. I don’t know why their talking 7 years is a problem for you, they prioritized the collapses of the Twin Towers. Yes it took them longer than expected but it was hardly the 1st time a government agency completed a project behind schedule.

NIST issued recommendations; no one is obliged to follow them. NIST pointed out some rather unique circumstances namely the lack of water for the sprinklers or FDNY’s firefighting efforts. You don’t think “insurance rates on any of the world's steel framed towers” went up after 9/11? When you actually have some data to back that up, let me know.

One thing that came up after the crash of flight 3407 near Buffalo is that for years the NTSB and others have recommended discontinuing the use of turbo props in wintry conditions. Apparently neither the FAA nor any airlines followed this advice, I am not aware of any airlines having their insurance rates adjusted as a result.

I have no idea what you are going on about. You go on about “post[ing] the facts” but only offer speculation. Do you have any info on lease rates? Do you think everyone who rents or rent out space such buildings is “in on it”? What are the odds of a long trussed steel frame building being struck by catastrophic fire and there being no water for sprinklers of the fire department?

And when you can cite some structural engineers whose knowledge of what happened extends beyond seeing video showing the collapse from the north (i.e. relatively undamaged) side get back to us.

As for Silverstein’s self-serving comments about the floors they prove little because they weren’t confirmed by an engineer or even and architect and NIST didn’t say the building collapsed because of floor failures but rather that the expansion of floor trusses cause column failures. Presumably if you’d bothered to have read the report you’d know that.

It was NIST's description of their initial reports as "final", and it doesn't seem to you, a curiously misleading way to present an incomplete report to the public?

http://web.archive.org/web/20060211004819/...TAR1-3index.htm

Final Reports of the Federal Building and Fire

Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster

WTC 7 wasn't just "any" building, and....why would it be the obvious choice to postpone the NIST investigation of WTC 7, in favor of investigation of the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, when structural engineers were publicly voicing concern over the unprecedented collapse of WTC 7, suspected primarily from fire damage?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

With Crisis in Mind, Center Opens

By JUDITH MILLER

Published: Tuesday, June 8, 1999

....Asked about the center's location in the World Trade Center, in a building across the street from the site of the 1993 terrorist bombing that killed six people, Mr. Hauer, who is director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said the location was chosen after a study of some 50 alternative sites. The complex now has tight security and is close to the Mayor's office, the Police and Fire Departments and the headquarters of other high city officials,...

...One of several elevators to the 23d floor, he said, has its own power supply to assure continued access during a blackout. He called security at the center excellent, with no trucks permitted to enter the building complex without being searched. The 47-story building, 7 World Trade Center, also rents space on its 9th and 10th floors to the Secret Service, another Government agency that values security. ...

Okay, Len.....clear it up for me..... we've got the pronouncements of the investigators at NIST, the odd state.gov web page featuring Larry Silverman for the purpose of clarifying his original comments in a PBS interview, and we have you posting that there were no steel samples saved from WTC 7, and that there is nothing curious about NIST not increasing it's staff to investigate the unprecedented, triple tower collapse, or taking seven years to do it, even though this type of investigation is a primary, public safety related, NIST mission. If NIST's determinations are not the primary influence in high rise building and fire codes, what are the primary influences?

If I adopt your accepting, non-curious approach, Len, which versions of events should I accept as most reliable? Can you name another instance where a state.gov web page was published as a forum for a non-government person to "clear up", what he said earlier, in a TV interview?

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SITE; Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: Thursday, November 29, 2001

...''Even though Building 7 didn't get much attention in the media immediately, within the structural engineering community, it's considered to be much more important to understand,'' said William F. Baker, a partner in charge of structural engineering at the architectural firm Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. ''They say, 'We know what happened at 1 and 2, but why did 7 come down?' ''

Engineers said that here and across the country, diesel-powered generators are used in buildings like hospitals and trading houses, where avoiding power outages is crucial. Partly for that reason, Jonathan Barnett said, a definitive answer to the question of what happened in 7 World Trade Center is perhaps the most important question facing investigators.

''It's just like when you investigate a plane crash,'' said Dr. Barnett, a professor of fire protection engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. ''If we find a weakness in the building or a deficiency in the building that causes that collapse, we then want to find that weakness in other buildings and fix it.''....

..Dr. Barnett and Mr. Baker are part of an assessment team organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency to examine the performance of several buildings during the attacks. If further studies of the debris confirm the findings of extremely high temperature, Dr. Barnett said, ''the smoking gun would be the fuel.''...

....A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures, Dr. Barnett said....

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...49C8B63&scp

A Search for Clues In Towers' Collapse; Engineers Volunteer to Examine Steel Debris Taken to Scrapyards

By JAMES GLANZ and ERIC LIPTON

Published: Saturday, February 2, 2002

....From the moment the two towers collapsed on Sept. 11, engineers and other experts have been struggling to answer the monumental questions of exactly why and how the buildings, designed to sustain a jet impact, completely collapsed. But despite promises of a broad federal investigation, and after weeks of calls from victims' families and others to halt the destruction of the steel that could hold all sorts of clues, the half-heroic, half-comic scenes at the Jersey City scrapyard continue to play out.

Small teams of engineers plot slightly mad dashes, like mountain goats, into mounds of steel to claim pieces of tower columns. The engineers time their forays to avoid being crushed. Indeed, Ms. Bonilla made her find while the scrapyard workers were on their lunch break.

Through it all, the engineers profess optimism that they are catching and saving what is most useful. But they concede that there is no way of saying for sure; an unknown number of steel columns has been sent off to mills as far away as Asia without ever having been examined or saved.

''What they're doing is extremely noble, ambitious and wonderful and I'm glad somebody is doing that,'' said Dr. James G. Quintiere, a professor in fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland. But, he added, ''the steel, to me, it's almost a foregone conclusion that its gone.''.....

....Perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation involves extremely thin bits of steel collected from the trade towers and from 7 World Trade Center, a 47-story high rise that also collapsed for unknown reasons. The steel apparently melted away, but no fire in any of the buildings was believed to be hot enough to melt steel outright.

A preliminary analysis of the steel at Worcester Polytechnic Institute using electron microscopes suggests that sulfur released during the fires -- no one knows from where -- may have combined with atoms in the steel to form compounds that melt at lower temperatures....

http://web.archive.org/web/20080214143807/.../16-241966.html

You Are In: USINFO > Resource Tools > Identifying Misinformation

9/11 Revealed?

New book repeats false conspiracy theories

9/11 Revealed, published in August 2005, is the latest book putting forth bizarre conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States. Its two British authors, Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan, give credence to a hodgepodge of sinister, unfounded allegations....

....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....

The statements of Larry Silverstein's spokesperson, featured on the state.gov web page, above, vs. the official statements. records compilations of NIST, and quoted NIST investigators' comments :

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/de...?page=5&c=y

Debunking the 9/11 Myths: Special Report

Popular Mechanics examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.

Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. "There was no firefighting in WTC 7," Sunder says

PDF Page 164 & 165: (Chapter 5 wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-8.pdf)

http://web.archive.org/web/20070606235524/...STNCSTAR1-8.pdf

...At approximately 11:30 a.m., FDNY assigned a Chief Officer to take operations at WTC 7. The Chied was initially given orders to put the fires out in WTC 7. 382...

...A FDNY fire boat and the retired FDNY fire boat "Harvey" were located at the shore on the Hudson River near the site. They were starting to stretch lines up to the WTC.385

According to the FDNY first-person interviews, water was never an issue at WTC 7 since firefighting was never started in the building.386 When the Chief Officer in charge of WTC 7 got to Barclay Street and West Broadway, numerous firefighters and officers were coming out of WTC 7. These firefighters indicated that several blocks needed to be cleared around WTC 7 because they though the building was going to collaspe. 387

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...mp;pagewanted=2

A NATION CHALLENGED: THE SITE; Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel

By JAMES GLANZ

Published: Thursday, November 29, 2001

....With the collapse of both towers by 10:30 a.m., larger pieces of the twin towers had smashed parts of 7 World Trade and set whole clusters of floors ablaze. An hour later, the Fire Department was forced to abandon its last efforts to save the building as it burned like a giant torch....

Len, why are you here? I participate here because I am motivated by a curious nature in general, and by a tendency not to accept the statements of authorities at face value. What do you do to counter the tendency for power and authority to corrupt those who hold it?

Why not ask Josiah Thompson about the collaspe of WTC 7? He was deepley involved in the investigqation of its collaspe, in person.

[Len Colby]

If you think I care what you think about me or my views you’re mistaken just as you were mistaken in your assumption you were telling me anything about the collapses of the WTC towers I didn’t already know or that I “don't know what [i’m] talking about” concerning the subject. Since your post in no way disputed what I said you failed to demonstrate any supposed ignorance concerning the subject

I have no idea why you think this was significant, WTCs 1 & 2 were near identical buildings (hence their nickname the “Twin Towers”) hit by near identical airplanes (a 767-223ER and a 767-200ER fueled for a Boston – LA flight) which collapsed in a similar manner. The details concerning the collapse of building 7 were quite different, thus there is nothing strange in NIST making a single report about the 1st two and a 2nd about the latter. Complaining the NIST Twin Towers report didn’t include building 7 is like complaining the HSAC didn’t issue a report concerning the shooting of Malcolm X. No it would like complaining they covered that assassination in a separate report if they had investigated it.

You’re right no steel samples were recovered, when you can find a number of structural engineers approaching the number of those who signed off on the report who say this casts doubt on NIST's analysis of what happened get back to us. I don’t know why their talking 7 years is a problem for you, they prioritized the collapses of the Twin Towers. Yes it took them longer than expected but it was hardly the 1st time a government agency completed a project behind schedule.

NIST issued recommendations; no one is obliged to follow them. NIST pointed out some rather unique circumstances namely the lack of water for the sprinklers or FDNY’s firefighting efforts. You don’t think “insurance rates on any of the world's steel framed towers” went up after 9/11? When you actually have some data to back that up, let me know.

One thing that came up after the crash of flight 3407 near Buffalo is that for years the NTSB and others have recommended discontinuing the use of turbo props in wintry conditions. Apparently neither the FAA nor any airlines followed this advice, I am not aware of any airlines having their insurance rates adjusted as a result.

I have no idea what you are going on about. You go on about “post[ing] the facts” but only offer speculation. Do you have any info on lease rates? Do you think everyone who rents or rent out space such buildings is “in on it”? What are the odds of a long trussed steel frame building being struck by catastrophic fire and there being no water for sprinklers of the fire department?

And when you can cite some structural engineers whose knowledge of what happened extends beyond seeing video showing the collapse from the north (i.e. relatively undamaged) side get back to us.

As for Silverstein’s self-serving comments about the floors they prove little because they weren’t confirmed by an engineer or even and architect and NIST didn’t say the building collapsed because of floor failures but rather that the expansion of floor trusses cause column failures. Presumably if you’d bothered to have read the report you’d know that.

It was NIST's description of their initial reports as "final", and it doesn't seem to you, a curiously misleading way to present an incomplete report to the public?

http://web.archive.org/web/20060211004819/...TAR1-3index.htm

Final Reports of the Federal Building and Fire

Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster

WTC 7 wasn't just "any" building, and....why would it be the obvious choice to postpone the NIST investigation of WTC 7, in favor of investigation of the collapse of WTC 1 & 2, when structural engineers were publicly voicing concern over the unprecedented collapse of WTC 7, suspected primarily from fire damage?

"It was NIST's description of their initial reports as "final", and it doesn't seem to you, a curiously misleading way to present an incomplete report to the public?"

I’m not really into semantic battles but if you want to quibble yes NIST could have chosen a better title perhaps “Investigation of the Twin Towers Collapses”. They made it cleat they were going to study the buildings separately and the report about 7 would be released later. This didn’t make the first report incomplete and for those paying attention the title was not deceptive.

As for priorities there was a lot more pressure to issue the reports about the Twin Towers - they were iconic buildings and thousands of people died when they collapsed. If they had done the studies the other way round I imagine most people including most truthers would have complained “why are they investigating the collapse which only killed one person 1st?” In any case the question is moot since both reports have been released; hardly any “truthers” have read them though, apparently not even leaders of the “movement” like Gage, Griffin and Fetzer.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html...;pagewanted=all

With Crisis in Mind, Center Opens

By JUDITH MILLER

Published: Tuesday, June 8, 1999

....Asked about the center's location in the World Trade Center, in a building across the street from the site of the 1993 terrorist bombing that killed six people, Mr. Hauer, who is director of the city's Office of Emergency Management, said the location was chosen after a study of some 50 alternative sites. The complex now has tight security and is close to the Mayor's office, the Police and Fire Departments and the headquarters of other high city officials,...

...One of several elevators to the 23d floor, he said, has its own power supply to assure continued access during a blackout. He called security at the center excellent, with no trucks permitted to enter the building complex without being searched. The 47-story building, 7 World Trade Center, also rents space on its 9th and 10th floors to the Secret Service, another Government agency that values security. ...

Okay, Len.....clear it up for me..... we've got the pronouncements of the investigators at NIST, the odd state.gov web page featuring Larry Silverman for the purpose of clarifying his original comments in a PBS interview, and we have you posting that there were no steel samples saved from WTC 7, and that there is nothing curious about NIST not increasing it's staff to investigate the unprecedented, triple tower collapse, or taking seven years to do it, even though this type of investigation is a primary, public safety related, NIST mission. If NIST's determinations are not the primary influence in high rise building and fire codes, what are the primary influences?

If I adopt your accepting, non-curious approach, Len, which versions of events should I accept as most reliable? Can you name another instance where a state.gov web page was published as a forum for a non-government person to "clear up", what he said earlier, in a TV interview?

“we've got the pronouncements of the investigators at NIST”

I have no idea what you are talking about

“the odd state.gov web page featuring Larry Silverman for the purpose of clarifying his original comments in a PBS interview… Can you name another instance where a state.gov web page was published as a forum for a non-government person to "clear up", what he said earlier, in a TV interview?”

See what I mean about truthers rarely getting their fact straight and when they do misinterpreting them?

The page was rebutting tuther myths in general the section dedicated to Silverstein’s comments were only a small part of it. The subject of the collapse of 7 and Silverstein’s comments have discussed in depth over in the “Political Conspiracies” Forum if you want to further debate the topic revive one of the old threads and see if you can bring any new points. I have no interest in going over old ones again especially on this thread in this forum.

“, and that there is nothing curious about NIST not increasing it's staff to investigate the unprecedented, triple tower collapse,”

If you are so curious perhaps you should ask them, since the reports which you haven’t bothered to read have been completed the question is a bit moot. My guess is they felt the best way to go was to maintain an internal group already accustomed to working together and to use their budget to conduct studies, pay consultants, farm out parts of the research, develop computer models etc.

“or taking seven years to do it”

Let see they started 2002 and completed the Twin Towers report in 2005, was that 7 years? Let’s see, 5 minus 2 is 3, nope, not 7 years though it did take 6 for the building 7 report or 3 if you consider they only really began in 2005. These things take time.

“…even though this type of investigation is a primary, public safety related, NIST mission.”

A rushed report would do much good the ASCE/FEMA Report is an example. Fires like those seen on 9/11 with no water and in long trussed central core building are not common.

“If NIST's determinations are not the primary influence in high rise building and fire codes, what are the primary influences?”

I never said they weren’t, but are they/ should they? I have no idea ask a qualified engineer. It is my understanding the ASCE has recommended changes based on the reports but adopting them is up to those responsible in the individual jurisdictions. Since the circumstances of 9/11 are not likely to be repeated it would not surprise me if their recommendations which would make construction more expensive weren’t widely adopted. I’m not sure why you think any of this is relevant.

“which versions of events should I accept as most reliable?”

Where do you perceive contradictions between different versions? Some were preliminary and thus were superseded by later ones. You do understand how the scientific method works, don’t you?

[Guest Tom Scully]

Why not ask Josiah Thompson about the collaspe of WTC 7? He was deepley involved in the investigqation of its collaspe, in person.

The last posted word from Mr. Thompson, in this and several other posts on this thread, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=149042

or from what I can find, anywhere available online, pre-dates NIST's release of it's WTC 7 collapse investigation.

This link contains the list of links to publicly submitted reaction to NIST's August, 2008, draft report of it's investigation of the collapse of WTC 7.

http://wtc.nist.gov/comments08/

Tenth (From the top of the page) "Comments Received" link....is comprised of challenges to NIST's August, 2008 draft report that together, are troubling to anyone

who expected integrity and reliability from NIST in it's report on it's investigation of the collapse of WTC 7:

http://wtc.nist.gov/comments08/jamesGourleywtc7comments.pdf

NIST's December, 2008 Q&A to it's WTC 7 report can be viewed here:

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factshe..._qa_082108.html

Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation (Updated 12/18/2008)

The December, 2008 NIST Q&A seems to ignore the many thoughtful and well documented questions contained in the middle linked pages....

Again, I cannot see how anyone could be motivated to present defenses for the official reaction, investigation, and findings related to the collapse of WTC 7. Unless you are an official,

or depend on official favor, why would anyone bother? As the questions, observations and documentation in http://wtc.nist.gov/comments08/jamesGourleywtc7comments.pdf simply and thoroughly show, what this is about is a failure to secure a well demarked (across the street from the rest of the WTC) crime scene where there were no expectations of finding remains of

rescuers or others, or of trapped or imjured parties, then a failure to gather evidence from structural debris and to analyze it, a failure to conduct a thorough and timely investigation, and finally a failure to issue a concise, difficult to impeach report determining the cause of the collapse. "We don't know why," would have been much more credible and within the mission of NIST to perform a public service.

[Craig Lamson]

Why not ask Josiah Thompson about the collaspe of WTC 7? He was deepley involved in the investigqation of its collaspe, in person.

The last posted word from Mr. Thompson, in this and several other posts on this thread, http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...st&p=149042

or from what I can find, anywhere available online, pre-dates NIST's release of it's WTC 7 collapse investigation.

This link contains the list of links to publicly submitted reaction to NIST's August, 2008, draft report of it's investigation of the collapse of WTC 7.

http://wtc.nist.gov/comments08/

Tenth (From the top of the page) "Comments Received" link....is comprised of challenges to NIST's August, 2008 draft report that together, are troubling to anyone

who expected integrity and reliability from NIST in it's report on it's investigation of the collapse of WTC 7:

http://wtc.nist.gov/comments08/jamesGourleywtc7comments.pdf

NIST's December, 2008 Q&A to it's WTC 7 report can be viewed here:

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factshe..._qa_082108.html

Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation (Updated 12/18/2008)

The December, 2008 NIST Q&A seems to ignore the many thoughtful and well documented questions contained in the middle linked pages....

Again, I cannot see how anyone could be motivated to present defenses for the official reaction, investigation, and findings related to the collapse of WTC 7. Unless you are an official,

or depend on official favor, why would anyone bother? As the questions, observations and documentation in http://wtc.nist.gov/comments08/jamesGourleywtc7comments.pdf simply and thoroughly show, what this is about is a failure to secure a well demarked (across the street from the rest of the WTC) crime scene where there were no expectations of finding remains of

rescuers or others, or of trapped or imjured parties, then a failure to gather evidence from structural debris and to analyze it, a failure to conduct a thorough and timely investigation, and finally a failure to issue a concise, difficult to impeach report determining the cause of the collapse. "We don't know why," would have been much more credible and within the mission of NIST to perform a public service.

In other words, the results don't meet your expectations. Thats all well and good, but who are you exaclty that we should take your failed expectations to be anything other than just another truther with an axe to grind?

Edited March 10, 2009 by Craig Lamson

[Cliff Varnell]

26. Some people say that so many unanswered questions about 9/11 remain that Congress or an International Tribunal should re-investigate the attacks, including whether any US government officials consciously allowed or helped facilitate their success. Other people say the 9/11 attacks were thoroughly investigated and that any speculation about US government involvement is nonsense. Who are you more likely to agree with?

The attacks were thoroughly investigated

47%

Reinvestigate the attacks

45

Not sure

8

If it were common knowledge that the FBI has found no hard evidence

that Usama bin Laden was involved in the crimes of Nine One One -- the

"re-investigate the attacks" response would be in the 90-percentile.

Let's take a closer look at the FBI "Wanted" poster for Usama bin Laden

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

Emphasis mine:

MURDER OF U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; CONSPIRACY TO MURDER U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; ATTACK ON A FEDERAL FACILITY RESULTING IN DEATH

The last I looked New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania were inside

the United States.

Look at the dates the poster was created and revised:

June 1999

Poster Revised November 2001

The poster was created after the Justice Department indicted bin Laden

for the '98 Embassy attacks.

The poster was revised in November 2001 after both the '00 attack on the

USS Cole and the 9/11 attacks.

The Justice Department has indicted bin Laden for "attack on a federal facility

resulting in death" -- the USS Cole.

But according to this account, the FBI admits what their poster obviously

shows: there is no hard evidence bin Laden was involved in 9/11.

http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Here's some background on the report:

http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/fbi-sa...in-laden-to-911

Here's an updated backgrounder:

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/...-bin-laden.html

The lack of hard evidence tying bin Laden to 9/11 should give any decent,

reasonable person pause before buying the "official version" of 9/11.

Edited March 10, 2009 by Cliff Varnell

[Don Jeffries]

I don't understand how anyone can believe that the most powerful forces in our society conspired to kill a sitting president of the United States in 1963, but other than that, have remained pretty well behaved since then (and apparently before that as well). Why would you place any trust in a mainstream media that has never told the truth about this event, and is still actively lying about it 45 years afterwards?

I readily admit to being predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories. Not every theory, but many. This is for a very logical reason; I believe that power corrupts people, and that the political leadership we've had in my lifetime has left a lot to be desired, to put it kindly. I don't trust the motives of any politician, or any corporate executive, or anyone else with a great deal of money and influence. This is not out of ignorant prejudice, but based on a lifetime of observation and personal experience. Just as people like Len and Craig tend to instinctively accept the "official" story behind significant political events, I tend to instinctively doubt them.

There is virtually nothing that I would put past our corrupt leaders. I believe them to be almost completely unprincipled and immoral.

Yes, Virginia, there are conspiracies.

[Craig Lamson]

I don't understand how anyone can believe that the most powerful forces in our society conspired to kill a sitting president of the United States in 1963, but other than that, have remained pretty well behaved since then (and apparently before that as well). Why would you place any trust in a mainstream media that has never told the truth about this event, and is still actively lying about it 45 years afterwards?

I readily admit to being predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories. Not every theory, but many. This is for a very logical reason; I believe that power corrupts people, and that the political leadership we've had in my lifetime has left a lot to be desired, to put it kindly. I don't trust the motives of any politician, or any corporate executive, or anyone else with a great deal of money and influence. This is not out of ignorant prejudice, but based on a lifetime of observation and personal experience. Just as people like Len and Craig tend to instinctively accept the "official" story behind significant political events, I tend to instinctively doubt them.

There is virtually nothing that I would put past our corrupt leaders. I believe them to be almost completely unprincipled and immoral.

Yes, Virginia, there are conspiracies.

Instinct has nothing to do with it. CT's on the other hand.....

[Len Colby]

Let's take a closer look at the FBI "Wanted" poster for Usama bin Laden

http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/fugitives/laden.htm

Emphasis mine:

MURDER OF U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; CONSPIRACY TO MURDER U.S. NATIONALS OUTSIDE THE UNITED STATES; ATTACK ON A FEDERAL FACILITY RESULTING IN DEATH

The last I looked New York City, Washington DC, and Pennsylvania were inside

the United States.

Look at the dates the poster was created and revised:

June 1999

Poster Revised November 2001

The poster was created after the Justice Department indicted bin Laden

for the '98 Embassy attacks.

The poster was revised in November 2001 after both the '00 attack on the

USS Cole and the 9/11 attacks.

The Justice Department has indicted bin Laden for "attack on a federal facility

resulting in death" -- the USS Cole.

But according to this account, the FBI admits what their poster obviously

shows: there is no hard evidence bin Laden was involved in 9/11.

http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Here's some background on the report:

http://www.rinf.com/columnists/news/fbi-sa...in-laden-to-911

Here's an updated backgrounder:

http://aconstantineblacklist.blogspot.com/...-bin-laden.html

The lack of hard evidence tying bin Laden to 9/11 should give any decent,

reasonable person pause before buying the "official version" of 9/11.

Do you think repetition transforms nonsense in to significant facts? Your 2nd post added nothing to the first which was already responded to [1]. There still is no confirmation Tomb said what Haas claims and even if did so misspeak there was more than enough evidence for an indictment. But indicting OBL would have been pointless since he was already wanted but had yet to be captured. As the FBI’s “Most Wanted Terrorists” page (probably written by Tomb) explained since BEFORE the Hass article, “The indictments currently listed on the posters allow them to be arrested and brought to justice. Future indictments may be handed down as various investigations proceed in connection to other terrorist incidents, for example, the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001” [2] This was echoed by Tomb and other for a latter Washington Post article [3] and fits with what he said about 2 weeks after the attacks (emphasis mine), “There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged. To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.” [4]

1] Post 144 on the previous page of this thread

2] http://web.archive.org/web/20060407164027/...s/fugitives.htm

3] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...6082700687.html

4] http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/09/47109

[Cliff Varnell]

Pot...

Do you think repetition transforms nonsense in to significant facts?

...meet Kettle:

But indicting OBL would have been pointless since he was already wanted but had

yet to be captured.

Emphasis mine:

“There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged. To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.”

Indicted for participation in the crimes of 9/11:

Zacarias Moussaoui

Khalid Sheik Mohammad

Walid bin Attash

Ramzi bin al Shibh

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali

Mustafa al Hawsawi

NOT indicted (albeit suspected) for participation in the crimes of 9/11:

Usama bin Laden

The United States invaded Iraq on the basis of a "suspicion" -- ditto Afghanistan.

Edited March 13, 2009 by Cliff Varnell

[Len Colby]

Pot...

Do you think repetition transforms nonsense in to significant facts?

...meet Kettle:

But indicting OBL would have been pointless since he was already wanted but had yet to be captured.

When you can point out an example of me being pointlessly repetitive get back to me with that cliché.

Emphasis mine:

“There’s going to be a considerable amount of time before anyone associated with the attacks is actually charged. To be charged with a crime, this means we have found evidence to confirm our suspicions, and a prosecutor has said we will pursue this case in court.”

He stipulated 2 conditions for indicting anyone for 9/11

1) having sufficient evidence

2) a prosecutor being willing to “pursue [the] case”.

The 2nd was very unlikely to be met, why would a prosecutor divert time and money indicting a suspect not in custody already wanted for crimes that could result in the death penalty or life imprisonment? If one did he (or she) would justifiably be accused of grand standing.

Indicted for participation in the crimes of 9/11:

Zacarias Moussaoui

Khalid Sheik Mohammad

Walid bin Attash

Ramzi bin al Shibh

Ali Abdul Aziz Ali

Mustafa al Hawsawi

And all in custody at the time and IIRC except for the first two previously unindicted, thanks for making my point and since all of the above were OBL underlings it follows if that if they were involved so was he. Can you cite an example of an already indicted terrorist suspect, where-abouts (far outside the US) unknown, indicted on additional charges

NOT indicted (albeit suspected) for participation in the crimes of 9/11:

Usama bin Laden

Explained

The United States invaded Iraq on the basis of a "suspicion" -- ditto Afghanistan.

I agree with you about Iraq but in the latter case it was obvious that the Taliban, besides miserably oppressing their own people were sheltering a group that attacked the US and other nation's targets repeatedly since 1992 which is why even countries not known for towing the US’s line like Russia [1], Switzerland [2] and Sweden [3] labeled AQ a terrorist group and why Muslim nations like Albania, Azerbaijan, Bosnia, Turkey, Singapore, Jordan and the UAE [4] are participating (or participated) in the occupation of Afghanistan.

1] http://web.archive.org/web/20061114154904/...errorlist.shtml

2] http://www.efv.admin.ch/d/dokumentation/do...rror_1201_e.pdf

3] http://www.sweden.gov.se/content/1/c6/06/12/67/01b99143.pdf

4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International...ibuting_nations

[Cliff Varnell]

Pot...

Do you think repetition transforms nonsense in to significant facts?

...meet Kettle:

But indicting OBL would have been pointless since he was already wanted but had yet to be captured.

Rinse idiocy, and repeat...

Can you cite an example of an already indicted terrorist suspect, where-abouts (far outside the US) unknown, indicted on additional charges?

For the slower kids in class who haven't been paying attention, bin Laden

was indicted in '99 for the '98 Embassy bombings, and then indicted in '01

on additional charges relating to the attack on the Cole in '00.

The Justice Department routinely piles on indictments whenever the evidence

warrants.

[Len Colby]

I see you are we well versed in the fine art of fetzering (yes derived from the name of one of the forum’s more infamous members), defined in an online dictionary as “1 : to make unfounded and unsubstantiated claims 2 : to rebut criticism of ones ideas with insults or irrelevant or unreliable information”

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=fetzer

Lets see

- insults

Pot...

Do you think repetition transforms nonsense in to significant facts?

...meet Kettle:

But indicting OBL would have been pointless since he was already wanted but had yet to be captured.

Rinse idiocy, and repeat...

- unreliable (false) information/ unsubstantiated claims 1

Can you cite an example of an already indicted terrorist suspect, where-abouts (far outside the US) unknown, indicted on additional charges?

For the slower kids in class who haven't been paying attention, bin Laden

was indicted in '99 for the '98 Embassy bombings, and then indicted in '01

on additional charges relating to the attack on the Cole in '00.

Wrong again, as the Wired article made clear “There is no mention [on OBL’s wanted poster] of…the attacks on the USS Cole in October 2000”. I.E. - Thus far he has only been indicted for the embassy attacks

http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/09/47109

- unsubstantiated claims 2

The Justice Department routinely piles on indictments whenever the evidence

warrants.

If they do this routinely then you should have no trouble citing several examples that meet my criteria “an already indicted terrorist suspect, where-abouts (far outside the US) unknown, indicted on additional charges” I’ll make it easier for you the fugitive doesn’t have to be a terrorist.

[Cliff Varnell]

I stand corrected on the Cole. My turn as slow kid...

From the 9/11 Commission report:

On 25 January [2--1], Tenet briefed the President on the Cole investigation. The written briefing repeated for top officials of the new administration what the CIA had told the Clinton White House in November. This included the "preliminary judgment" that al Qaeda was responsible, with the caveat that no evidence had yet been found that Bin Ladin himself ordered the attack... in March 2001, the CIA's briefing slides for Rice were still describing the CIA's "preliminary judgment" that a "strong circumstantial case" could be made against al Qaeda but noting that the CIA continued to lack "conclusive information on external command and control" of the attack.

Edited March 14, 2009 by Cliff Varnell

[John Dolva]

When the CIA dpesn't have what they need they make it. SOP.

Wasn't ole' Bin trained by them in the first place?