AZ Senator Karen Johnson Op Ed On 911

Karen S. Johnson
East Valley Tribune
The Arizona Republic
May 4, 2008

A recent letter to the editor asked for evidence of my claims regarding the tragedy of 9/11. Below I present some points that are presently known. I won’t be able to convince anyone who doesn’t want to be convinced, but for those who are willing to deal with factual evidence, consider the following:

• 37 different people reported explosions in the basement of the World Trade Center Towers before the first plane hit, and seismic equipment recorded both the explosions and the impacts. In addition, people were injured by the explosions in the basement, providing well-documented evidence. Yet this evidence is ignored.

•The media and government have promoted the “pancake theory” as the cause of the collapse of the Twin Towers — that is, fire weakened the steel support beams, causing the upper floors to collapse. Then the weight of the collapsing floors above caused the floors below to collapse. This theory is not consistent with scientific principles or the facts. Frank Legge, who has a doctorate in chemistry, and Tony Szamboti, a mechanical engineer, reported in December in the Journal of 9/11 Studies: “It appears therefore that the official concept of a free-fall collapse of the upper portion through the initiation story, due to heat effects from fire, is a fantasy. If the temperature did become high enough for collapse to occur” — and everyone agrees that it did not — “it could not have happened in the observed manner. In particular it could not have been sudden and thus could not have produced the velocity, and hence the momentum and kinetic energy, upon which the official story depends for the second stage of collapse.”

• The theory that the buildings collapsed due to controlled-demolition explosives, however, is consistent with scientific principles and the facts. The “demolition” theory, in fact, is the only one which scientists have been able to corroborate. That is, “… all observations are in accord with the use of explosives in a time sequence.” (Legge and Szamboti, December, Journal of 9/11 Studies.)

• Peer-reviewed reports indicate that the masses of dust particles created by the disaster contained tiny pieces of metal that had been exposed to both extreme temperatures (higher than could have been produced by a burning office or burning airplane fuel) and extreme pressure (such as an explosion) that would fragment material into minute particles. Official reports ignore this.

• In December, physicist Steven Jones announced the discovery of thermite chips in World Trade Center dust samples. The chemical composition of these chips are an exact match to known thermite samples used in controlled demolitions — further corroboration that explosive devices were involved.

• Steel support beams recovered from the site of the World Trade Center exhibit cut edges that are characteristic of thermite used to slice steel support beams in building demolitions but are not characteristic of steel beams that have been burned in a fire.

When the 9/11 Commission Report was finally released, it was woefully inadequate. It never even addressed the collapse of Building 7, for example. Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has stated that there are inaccuracies in the report and unanswered questions. Even the two chairmen of the 9/11 Commission — Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton — have accused the CIA of “obstructing” the commission, and one commissioner, U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, resigned, stating that the commission was “compromised.”

Private individuals with specialized knowledge — scientists, engineers, architects, demolitions experts, and the firefighters and police officers who were on the scene on Sept. 11, 2001, have tested theories, constructed models, provided testimony, and dug for the truth about what really happened on 9/11. They have been ignored by media and the government.

The mainstream media parrot the less-than-credible conclusions of the 9/11 Commission without giving any thought to the many omissions and inconsistencies. In a truly free country, the press would ask hard questions and do real investigating, but this is not happening. Only the alternative media, such as Internet news sites, have done any solid investigating.

The events of 9/11 led immediately to the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and passage of the Patriot Act (what double-speak), both of which deprive us of Constitutional rights and have brought us to the brink of becoming a police state. Homeland Security is currently trying to force a national ID card down our throats, although some governors have politely (or not so politely) told Secretary Michael Chertoff where he can go.

If we’re going to sacrifice our freedom, there ought to be a very good reason, and we have a right to know what that is. It isn’t enough for government to say, “Trust me.” It’s way past time for Congress to authorize an independent investigation of 9/11 that will consider the mass of new evidence that has been gathered in the past seven years. The longer they stall, the more suspicions grow.

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May. 3, 2008 12:00 AM

Regarding "Drinking the 9/11 Kool-Aid" (Editorial, April 24):

After three government investigations and more than six years, we still don’t have answers on 9/11.

Why, for example, did Building 7 collapse? It wasn’t hit by a plane, as the towers were. The 9/11 Commission Report completely ignores Building 7. The Federal Emergency Management Agency report discounts fire as a cause and concludes that the reasons for the collapse of Building 7 are unknown and require further research. But when FEMA issued this report, it already cleared the site and disposed of the dust and steel (evidence from a crime scene), thus possibly committing a felony and complicating any "further research."

The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a federal agency, which evaluated the collapse of the towers, has yet to issue its report on Building 7. "We’ve had trouble getting a handle on Building 7," said the acting director of their Building and Fire Research Lab.

Yet a number of private-sector engineers, architects, and demolition experts have not had that problem. They think Building 7 came down by controlled demolition. The building collapsed suddenly, straight down, at nearly free-fall speed. People heard the explosions, and saw the squibs and the characteristic billowing clouds of pulverized concrete so unique to demolitions. There is no reason to think that Building 7 came down for any other reason than explosive demolition.

And speaking of pulverized concrete, fire does not pulverize concrete. Even the collapse of one floor upon another wouldn’t pulverize concrete the way the Twin Towers disintegrated.

Think back to that day: Those towers didn’t just fall down. If they had, we would have had huge chunks of concrete breaking apart and falling into a massive pile of rubble. The buildings likely would have toppled erratically sideways and left a much larger pile of debris.

But that’s not what we witnessed. The towers didn’t collapse - they disintegrated.

We watched them explode into dust, not knowing exactly what we were seeing. Very little intact concrete was found in the rubble. The sheer energy required to pulverize that much concrete into dust can only come from an explosive process.

Reputable scientists, engineers, architects and firemen with no political angle dispute the 9/11 Commission report and say that the evidence indicates the Twin Towers and Building 7 came down due to controlled-demolition explosions. Tests corroborate the presence of thermite, an explosive used in building demolitions, at the site of the Twin Towers and Building 7.

Thermite also explains the pools of molten steel in the basement, which no one has been able to otherwise explain and which the National Institute of Standards and Technology simply denies. Why is the government refusing to even consider demolition as a possibility? What are they afraid of?

Time magazine reported in September 2006 that 36 percent of Americans believe the government was complicit in 9/11. A Zogby poll reported that 51 percent of Americans want Congress to investigate 9/11 further.

Even the co-chairmen of the 9/11 Commission are upset with the commission report. They have accused the CIA and the military of "obstructing" the investigation. Former Commissioner Max Cleland resigned, stating that the Commission was "compromised." Former FBI Director Louis Freeh has criticized the report for its inaccuracies and unanswered questions.

The events of 9/11 have never been properly investigated. It’s about time they were.

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