[Kabar-indonesia] WP: 9/11 Panel Suspected Pentagon Lied, Secretly Debated Criminal Probe

[JoyoNews at aol.com]

also: Scripps Howard News Service: Third of Americans suspect 
9-11 government conspiracy; and NYT: A Skeptic on 9/11 Prompts 
Questions on Academic Freedom  

The Washington Post
Wednesday, August 2, 2006

9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon

Allegations Brought to Inspectors General

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer

Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the 
Pentagon's initial story of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may 
have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public 
rather than a reflection of the fog of events on that day, according to 
sources involved in the debate.

Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a 
secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the 
matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation, according to several 
commission sources. Staff members and some commissioners thought that e-mails 
and other evidence provided enough probable cause to believe that military and 
aviation officials violated the law by making false statements to Congress and 
to the commission, hoping to hide the bungled response to the hijackings, 
these sources said.

In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to 
the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who 
can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted, officials said.

"We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] 
told us what they told us," said Thomas H. Kean, the former New Jersey 
Republican governor who led the commission. "It was just so far from the truth. . . . 
It's one of those loose ends that never got tied."

Although the commission's landmark report made it clear that the Defense 
Department's early versions of events on the day of the attacks were inaccurate, 
the revelation that it considered criminal referrals reveals how skeptically 
those reports were viewed by the panel and provides a glimpse of the tension 
between it and the Bush administration.

A Pentagon spokesman said yesterday that the inspector general's office will 
soon release a report addressing whether testimony delivered to the commission 
was "knowingly false." A separate report, delivered secretly to Congress in 
May 2005, blamed inaccuracies in part on problems with the way the Defense 
Department kept its records, according to a summary released yesterday.

A spokesman for the Transportation Department's inspector general's office 
said its investigation is complete and that a final report is being drafted. 
Laura Brown, a spokeswoman for the Federal Aviation Administration, said she 
could not comment on the inspector general's inquiry.

In an article scheduled to be on newsstands today, Vanity Fair magazine 
reports aspects of the commission debate -- though it does not mention the possible 
criminal referrals -- and publishes lengthy excerpts from military audiotapes 
recorded on Sept. 11. ABC News aired excerpts last night.

For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA 
provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in 
testimony and media appearances. Authorities suggested that U.S. air defenses had 
reacted quickly, that jets had been scrambled in response to the last two 
hijackings and that fighters were prepared to shoot down United Airlines Flight 93 if 
it threatened Washington.

In fact, the commission reported a year later, audiotapes from NORAD's 
Northeast headquarters and other evidence showed clearly that the military never had 
any of the hijacked airliners in its sights and at one point chased a phantom 
aircraft -- American Airlines Flight 11 -- long after it had crashed into the 
World Trade Center.

Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold and Col. Alan Scott told the commission that NORAD had 
begun tracking United 93 at 9:16 a.m., but the commission determined that the 
airliner was not hijacked until 12 minutes later. The military was not aware 
of the flight until after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.

These and other discrepancies did not become clear until the commission, 
forced to use subpoenas, obtained audiotapes from the FAA and NORAD, officials 
said. The agencies' reluctance to release the tapes -- along with e-mails, 
erroneous public statements and other evidence -- led some of the panel's staff 
members and commissioners to believe that authorities sought to mislead the 
commission and the public about what happened on Sept. 11.

"I was shocked at how different the truth was from the way it was described," 
John Farmer, a former New Jersey attorney general who led the staff inquiry 
into events on Sept. 11, said in a recent interview. "The tapes told a 
radically different story from what had been told to us and the public for two years. 
. . . This is not spin. This is not true."

Arnold, who could not be reached for comment yesterday, told the commission 
in 2004 that he did not have all the information unearthed by the panel when he 
testified earlier. Other military officials also denied any intent to mislead 
the panel.

John F. Lehman, a Republican commission member and former Navy secretary, 
said in a recent interview that he believed the panel may have been lied to but 
that he did not believe the evidence was sufficient to support a criminal 
referral.

"My view of that was that whether it was willful or just the fog of stupid 
bureaucracy, I don't know," Lehman said. "But in the order of magnitude of 
things, going after bureaucrats because they misled the commission didn't seem to 
make sense to me."

-------------------------------------

Scripps Howard News Service
August 2, 2006

Third of Americans suspect 9-11 government conspiracy

By THOMAS HARGROVE
Scripps Howard News Service

More than a third of the American public suspects that federal officials 
assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop them so the 
United States could go to war in the Middle East, according to a new Scripps 
Howard/Ohio University poll. 

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger against the federal 
government is at record levels, with 54 percent saying they "personally are 
more angry" at the government than they used to be. 

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears 
to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were "an inside job" -- the common phrase 
used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet -- quickly have become nearly as 
popular as decades-old conspiracy theories that the federal government was 
responsible for President John F. Kennedy's assassination and that it has covered 
up proof of space aliens.

Seventy percent of people who give credence to these theories also say 
they've become angrier with the federal government than they used to be.

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or 
"somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the 
World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they 
wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."

"One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right," said Lee 
Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks 
Upon the United States (also called the 9/11 commission.) His congressionally 
appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts 
to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al Qaeda five years ago.

"A lot of people I've encountered believe the U.S. government was involved," 
Hamilton said. "Many say the government planned the whole thing. Of course, we 
don't think the evidence leads that way at all."

The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that secretly 
planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the real reason the massive 
twin towers of the World Trade Center collapsed.

Conspiracy groups for at least two years have also questioned why the World 
Trade Center collapsed when fires that heavily damaged similar skyscrapers 
around the world did not cause such destruction. Sixteen percent said it's "very 
likely" or "somewhat likely" that "the collapse of the twin towers in New York 
was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings."

Twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile 
in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists.

That lower percentage may result from an effort by the conservative 
Washington-based Judicial Watch advocacy group to debunk the claim. The group filed 
claims under the Freedom of Information Act and got two fill loops released from 
Pentagon security cameras.

"Some people claim they can't see anything, but I see a plane hitting the 
Pentagon at incredibly high speed," said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. "I 
see the nose of the plane clearly entering the frame of one video and the tail 
of the plane entering the Pentagon in the other video."

Many conspiracy Web sites have posted the video loops and report the films 
are inconclusive or were manipulated by the government.

"Some folks will never be convinced," Fitton said. "But I'm hoping that these 
videos will dissuade reasonable people from falling into a trap with these 
conspiracy theories."

University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster, author of the book 
"Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture," said the poll's findings 
reflect public anger at the unpopular Iraq war, realization that Saddam 
Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction and growing doubts of the veracity 
of the Bush administration.

"What has amazed me is not that there are conspiracy theories, but that they 
didn't seem to be getting any purchase among the American public until the 
last year or so," Fenster said. "Although the Iraq war was not directly related 
to the 9/11 attacks, people are now looking back at 9/11 with much more 
skepticism than they used to."

Conspiracy-believing participants in the poll agree their suspicions are 
recent.

"I certainly didn't think of conspiracies when 9/11 first happened," said 
Elaine Tripp, 62, of Tabernacle, N.J. "I don't know if President Bush was aware 
of the exact time it was going to happen. But he certainly didn't do enough to 
stop it. Bush was so intent on having his own little war."

Garrett Johnson, 19, of Manassas, Va., said it was "well after the fact" 
before he started questioning the official explanation of the attacks. "But then 
people I know started talking about it. And the Internet had a lot to do with 
this. After reading all of the different articles there, I started to think we 
weren't being told the truth."

The Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University has tracked the level 
of resentment people feel toward the federal government since 1995, starting 
shortly after Timothy McVeigh bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. 
Forty-seven percent then said they, personally, feel "more angry at the federal 
government" than they used to. That percentage dropped to 42 percent in 1997, 34 
percent in 1998 and only 12 percent shortly after 9/11 during the groundswell 
of patriotism and support for the government after the attacks.

But the new survey found that 77 percent say their friends and acquaintances 
have become angrier with government recently and 54 percent say they, 
themselves, have become angrier _ both record levels.

The survey also found that people who regularly use the Internet but who do 
not regularly use so-called "mainstream" media are significantly more likely to 
believe in 9/11 conspiracies. People who regularly read daily newspapers or 
listen to radio newscasts were especially unlikely to believe in the 
conspiracies.

"We know that there are a lot of people now asking questions," said Janice 
Matthews, executive director of 911Truth.org, one of the most sophisticated 
Internet sites raising doubts about official explanations of the attacks. "We 
didn't have the Internet after Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin or the Kennedy 
assassination. But we live in different times now."

Matthews' Web site averaged 4,000 "hits" a day last year, but currently has 
at least 12,000 visits every 24 hours. The site, according to its online policy 
statement, is dedicated to showing the public that "elements within the U.S. 
government must have orchestrated or participated in the execution of the 
attacks for these to have happened the way in which they did."

Participants in the poll were asked to respond to "several serious 
accusations that some people have made against the federal government in recent years." 
Five conspiracy theories were described and participants were asked if each 
was "very likely, somewhat likely or unlikely."

The level of suspicion of U.S. official involvement in a 9/11 conspiracy was 
only slightly behind the 40 percent who suspect "officials in the federal 
government were directly responsible for the assassination of President Kennedy" 
and the 38 percent who believe "the federal government is withholding proof of 
the existence of intelligent life from other planets."

The poll found that a majority of young adults give at least some credence to 
a 9/11 conspiracy compared to less than a fourth of people 65 or older. 
Members of racial and ethnic minorities, people with only a high school education 
and Democrats were especially likely to suspect federal involvement in 9/11. 

The survey was conducted by telephone from July 6-24 at the Scripps Survey 
Research Center at the University of Ohio under a grant from the Scripps Howard 
Foundation. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

(Thomas Hargrove is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service. Guido H. 
Stempel III is director of the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University.)

----------------------------------------

The New York Times
August 1, 2006

A Skeptic on 9/11 Prompts Questions on Academic Freedom 

By GRETCHEN RUETHLING

Correction Appended 

MADISON, Wis., July 26 -- Sipping on a bottle of water and holding a book 
about the history and future of Islam, Kevin Barrett ticked off a few examples of 
what he saw as evidence that the Sept. 11 attacks had been an "inside job."

As children zoomed by on tricycles and shot basketballs at a community center 
near his home, Mr. Barrett, 47, described how some news orgainzations (the 
French daily newspaper Figaro and Radio France International, in fact) had 
reported that an agent from the Central Intelligence Agency visited with Osama bin 
Laden two months before the attacks. He also said fires could not have caused 
the collapse of the World Trade Center towers at free-fall speed, as reported 
by the special Sept. 11 commission. "The 9/11 report will be universally 
reviled as a sham and a cover-up very soon," said Mr. Barrett, who has been a 
teacher's assistant or lecturer on Islam, African literature and other subjects at 
the University of Wisconsin, Madison, since 1996. "The 9/11 commission has its 
conspiracy theory, and we have ours." 

Mr. Barrett's views, which he described on a conservative radio talk show in 
June, have outraged some Wisconsin legislators and generated a fierce debate 
about academic freedom on a campus long known as a haven for progressive 
ideologies and student activism.

"They apparently have no limits to what can be taught in the classroom," 
Representative Steve Nass said of the university's decision to allow Mr. Barrett 
to teach a class this fall titled "Islam: Religion and Culture." 

"Barrett has got to go,'' Mr. Nass, a Whitewater Republican, said. "It is an 
embarrassment for the state of Wisconsin. It is an embarrassment for the 
university."

The week of July 24, Mr. Nass, who is up for re-election this year, sent a 
resolution signed by 61 state legislators - all but one of them Republican - to 
Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat, and university officials condemning Mr. 
Barrett's "academically dishonest views" and demanding that his one-semester 
contract to teach the class for a salary of $8,247 be terminated. 

Mr. Barrett, a co-founder of a group called Muslim-Jewish-Christian Alliance 
for 9/11 Truth, argued that he had never presented his personal opinions in 
class and that he was free to offer those opinions on his own time outside the 
classroom.

"Why is liberal Wisconsin going bananas over an $8,000-a-year lecturer who's 
not even teaching his own views in the course?" Mr. Barrett asked. "I go out 
of my way to bring in diverse interpretations for students to look at."

The university's chancellor, John D. Wiley, said that he was baffled by Mr. 
Barrett's beliefs but that they were irrelevant in the classroom, where he must 
stick to a syllabus that has been approved by the department. That syllabus 
includes a week devoted to the war on terror.

A 10-day university review had determined that Mr. Barrett presented a 
variety of viewpoints and that he had not discussed his personal opinions in the 
classroom, Mr. Wiley said.

"I think it would be a serious mistake for legislators to try to get in and 
micromanage curriculum," said Mr. Wiley, who added that university officials 
would keep an eye on Mr. Barrett by meeting with him throughout the semester. 
"We don't go around and question all our instructors to find out what all their 
views are."

At the University of Colorado, a committee voted in June to fire Ward L. 
Churchill, an ethnic studies professor who had compared some victims of the Sept. 
11 attacks to a Nazi official. Professor Churchill appealed this month to keep 
his job.

And early this year at Northwestern University, Arthur R. Butz, a tenured 
professor of engineering, drew strong criticism after saying he agreed with the 
belief of the president of Iran that the Holocaust was a myth.

Patrick V. Farrell, the provost of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, said 
the university was not focusing on Mr. Barrett's political views but on the 
teaching and learning experience in the classroom. 

"I want to avoid as much as we can creating some kind of a political test for 
instructors or faculty, to say that only those whose thinking fits within 
some predetermined mold are well equipped to teach our students," Mr. Farrell 
said. "I think that creates a dangerous precedent."

Some Wisconsin students said they thought it was a crucial part of a college 
education to learn about a variety of theories, including radical ones, before 
forming opinions on a topic.

"It's a student's decision in a class whether they believe what a professor 
is saying," said Jillian Alpire, 22, who graduated this year. "Just because he 
said his opinions on a radio station does not mean that's what the course is 
going to be about."

Ben Kopish, 20, a junior, said that such a controversial discourse should be 
welcomed at a public university that is known for fostering outspoken academic 
debate.

"If it doesn't happen somewhere like the Madison campus," Mr. Kopish said, 
"then I don't know where else it would happen."

But Katherine Brown, 20, who had finished a summer course on Islam, 
questioned the role of such a political discussion in a religion class.

"I just feel like it isn't relevant because Islam is a religion," said Ms. 
Brown, who added that she agreed with her own professor's decision not to 
discuss the war on terror. "It's not about what's going on currently in politics so 
much."

Mr. Barrett's ideas place him squarely within a loose confederation of 
skeptics who think the American government had a role in the Sept. 11 attacks and 
whose theories are spread through the Internet and other means.

Mr. Barrett and Chancellor Wiley both said the controversy might actually be 
helping provide Mr. Barrett with a larger platform to voice his ideas. It has 
sparked curiosity in students like Ms. Brown, who said she was interested in 
finding out more about why Mr. Barrett believes what he does.

Although Ms. Brown said she did not believe that the government could have 
been involved in the Sept. 11 attacks, she added, "So many very important things 
that we know now were considered radical when they were first presented as 
ideas."

Correction: Aug. 2, 2006 

A picture caption with an article yesterday about Kevin Barrett, an 
instructor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, who has disputed official findings 
on the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, referred imprecisely to his 
teaching on the attacks. A university review determined that although Mr. Barrett 
presented a variety of viewpoints, he had not discussed his personal opinions 
in the classroom. 

-----------------------------------------
Joyo Indonesia News Service
------------------------------------------