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CONFRONTING THE EVIDENCE -- A CALL TO REOPEN THE 9-11 INVESTIGATION -- TRANSCRIPT AND SCREENCAP GALLERY |
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PROFESSOR DAVID RAY GRIFFIN, AUTHOR "THE NEW PEARL HARBOR" AND "THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT -- OMISSIONS AND DISTORTIONS"
Good evening. I'm glad to be part of this very important event which is made possible by Nico's invitation, and Jimmy's Video. I would like to use my time to talk about the 9/11 Commission Report which is the present subject of my research. Many people have asked me, "How good is the report?" Well, that depends on your perspective. If you're one of the average Americans who get their news about 9/11 from the mainstream media, you will probably think the 9/11 Commission Report is excellent. This seems to be the opinion of people who write customer reviews on Amazon.com, almost all of them giving it five stars. Some of it praise it by saying, "It reads like a novel." Well, that's true. I myself would give it five stars if it were correctly categorized, that is, as a work of fiction. We are told in the preface that it was an attempt to give the fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11. Now of course they can't quite mean that. There were trillions of events surrounding 9/11. They meant they were going to give an account of those that seemed relevant to understanding 9/11. So that means there had to be a principle of selection. That principle of selection would be based upon your perspective. That is, your basic theory about what happened on 9/11.
There are of course two basic competing theories of 9/11, both of them are "conspiracy theories." One of them is the official conspiracy theory put out by the Bush administration, according to which the attacks were planned and carried out entirely by Al Qaeda inspired by Osama Bin Laden. The other account, which is the alternative conspiracy theory, suggests that the attacks were made possible by the complicity of the Bush Administration itself. In the preface we read that the report is intended to be impartial. But it is definitely not impartial as between these two theories. The Commission began its work simply by assuming the truth of the official theory. It did not argue for that theory. It simply assumed its truth from the outset and throughout its work. And it uses this theory to decide which events are relevant: "The Guiding Theory, that Al-Qaeda was Solely Responsible for 9/11, Framed the Entire Investigation."
We are also told in the preface that they intended their work to be independent and non-partisan. Now, by non-partisan, they meant that the committee was made up equally of Democrats and Republicans. Even this claim isn't quite true, because the Chairman of the Commission is a Republican, and even more importantly, the Executive Director is a Republican. And this Executive Director, Philip Zelikow, is not just any old Republican, he was a member of the National Security Council of the Bush 1 administration, where he worked with Condoleeza Rice. Then, during the Clinton years, when the Republicans were out of office, he and Condoleeza Rice co-authored a book. And I have co-authored a book with somebody, and I know you have to be very good friends and you have to share almost all beliefs in common. He then worked for the transition team for the National Security Council for the transition between the Clinton and Bush administration. And finally, he was appointed to Bush's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. So the Commission is definitely not independent, if you mean independent from The White House, because the Executive Director represents the perspective of The White House.
Now why is this important? The Executive Director directed the work of the staff and the staff of the commission, not the commissioners, did almost all the work. And as director of the staff, he decided which lines of inquiry were worthy to be looked into, which subjects should be subject to research and which ones should not. Therefore, as Executive Director, Zelikow could direct the staff to investigate those events that were relevant to the official conspiracy theory and simply ignore all events that would be supportive of the alternative conspiracy theory.
Some critics, having read the 9/11 Commission report from the perspective of the alternative theory, have called it The 9/11 Omission Report. Well this is a good name, because it systematically excludes virtually every fact supporting the alternative theory. But given Zelikow's role, this should be no surprise to us.
Some people have also called it a Whitewash, and it is. But this term assumes that the Commission should have investigated the White House, that is, various kinds of evidence suggesting that there was complicity by The White House. But given Zelikow's position in the investigation of the White House would have been carried out by essentially The White House itself.
A more accurate way to put it was that as The White House's inside man on the Commission, Zelikow was in position to make sure that the White House, along with the CIA, the FBI, the Pentagon and the Justice Department, was not investigated. Once we understand this, we will not be surprised by the Commissions omissions. |
