UQ Wire: 911 Revealed's 1st, A State Dept Critique

The explosive book 911 Revealed has achieved another first: it has been allocated a special page [ http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html ], the leading topic in The US State Department's global "misinformation" section, where an unknown writer denounces the book as "putting forth bizarre conspiracy theories about the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States" and giving "credence to a hodgepodge of sinister, unfounded allegations".

But the book's authors say that the State Department's allegations against the book are themselves misinformation.

In September the book was first in the Independent on Sunday's political Book chart (18 September, chart supplied by Amazon UK) and in August number 6 in the Daily Telegraph/Nielsen top ten non-fiction best-sellers (August 27). It even reached Amazon UK's top 30 titles, beating mass pulp fiction books and hyped TV tie-ins. The top selling national mid market Daily Mail gave the book a massive 3 page spread in August, the top national quality seller the Sunday Times gave it a headline review.

911 Revealed is published by Constable and Robinson in the UK and Carol and Graf in the USA and Canada. It examines a range of theories about the 911 attacks, which fall into three areas: the official story, a US government false flag operation based on the Pentagon's Operation Northwoods plan, or an Al Qaeda plan that was allowed to go ahead and embellished with events like the anthrax attacks.

Co-author Ian Henshall said today:

"The Bush administration is unable to understand the difference between a book which examines sceptic theories and a book which espouses such theories. We hope that the lies and distortions in this review are not having the effect of persuading TV studios to operate an embargo on an important book.

A more accurate description of 911 Revealed was expressed by terrorism writer Nick Fielding in the Sunday Times. He wrote that we "have subjected the official version of what happened to intense scrutiny and found huge gaps". Is this what the US administration finds objectionable?

No-one has signed the State Department's highly misleading review, no-one has asked us for a comment and of course no-one has given us the opportunity to make a rebuttal.

In the book we take pains to present the evidence for readers to make up their own minds, and endorse no theories ourselves, only calling for a genuinely independent criminal inquiry to clear up the many questions that remain unanswered. These include allegations that a culture of "just let the next attack happen" shaded into outright complicity in the attacks and possibly spawned add-ons, like the anthrax attacks which purported to come from Islamic terrorists, or the suspected demolition of WTC7 which was neither hit by a plane nor destroyed by a major fire.

Ex-Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill has revealed that the Bush "gang" (as he put it in The Price of Loyalty) intended to occupy Iraq, not after but before 911. It is legitimate to ask if the 911 attacks somehow fitted into this plan. Broadcast editors should have the courage to ask whether they were fooled, not once over the WMD affair, but twice.

The State website ignores these important strategic issues. It also offers no justification for the failure of the Kean/Zelikow 911 Commission to release the evidence that should - if the official story is true - be able to scotch widespread "conspiracy theories".

Instead, the State website selects five specific elements of our material for unconvincing denunciation based mainlly on the assumed bona fides of the US government. After the WMD fiasco, this is not good enough for many people.

They ignore dozens of other issues that we raise, including the almost complete silence of eight hijacked pilots on the day, the failure of the USAF to intervene in any effective way, the suspicious nature of Atta's connecting flight from Portland, Maine, the contradictory reports of Mrs Olson's apparent phone call from Flight 77, the assertion that air traffic controllers failed to consider the possibility that Flight 77 was hijacked, and the FBI's claim refuted by pictures we publish that negligible amounts of plane debris were recovered from the Twin Towers site.

Given the refusal of the US government to release even the most basic evidence (eg the photos that sould prove that Flight 77 indeed hit the Pentagon) no-one can be sure of what really lay behind the 911 attacks, and it is a cheap smear to suggest that we claim to know.

The evidence so far produced is consistent with government complicity in the attacks and indeed 48% of New Yorkers polled in 2004 said that they thought that the Bush White House "consciously allowed" the attacks to take place (Zogby). It amounts to disinformation for the State Department to pick on a few of the questions raised in the book in order to try to discredit us.

The US government's refusal to allow an open and independent criminal inquiry, with all possibilities considered, has encouraged an atmosphere of distrust. Rather than misrepresenting us, the Bush administration ought to accept that it has a serious case to answer, release files and video evidence it has unaccountably kept secret, and stop acting as if it had something to hide.

Some of the individual claims of skeptics might be wrong, but the State Department's clumsy attempt to frighten editors and destroy our reputation only underlines the central issue. The official story is not adequately supported by the evidence and depends on the uncritical acceptance of claims made by an administration that, since the Iraq WMD falsehoods, is widely distrusted.

A more detailed rebuttal of the State Department's review of our book is available at http://www.911dossier.co.uk/rebuttal.html from 12.00 Thursday UK time.

The State Department's view is at http://usinfo.state.gov/media/misinformation.html

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. Authors Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan have been well-received on local radio and in the UK national press with a three page splash in the Daily Mail and radio interviews extending well beyond the time planned. The book sold out in September but is now back in the shops.

2. They insist that mainstream TV and national radio editors have nothing to fear from airing the contents of the book, which ignores the wilder theories. "This is not a book that is going to blow up in your face" as one US radio host remarked.

3. The Able Danger revelations in the mainstream Washington media, which appeared after our book went to press, have challenged the competence and the veracity of the Kean/Zelikow Commission. Some, including conservative writer Mark Steyn, are calling for a reopening of the 911 investigation.

http://www.washtimes.com/commentary/20050815-101642-7197r.htm

contacts:
Anne Sullivan Publicity Manager Nation Books anne.sullivan@avalonpub.com 00 646-437-1222
Ian Henshall can be reached through his shop Coffee Plant in London's Portobello Road 00 44 7221 8137

STANDARD DISCLAIMER FROM UQ.ORG: UnansweredQuestions.org does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the above article. We present this in the interests of research -for the relevant information we believe it contains. We hope that the reader finds in it inspiration to work with us further, in helping to build bridges between our various investigative communities, towards a greater, common understanding of the unanswered questions which now lie before us.

© Scoop Media