2.5.0 The official investigations

It is often stated that the alternative account of 9/11 must be false, because the events surrounding 9/11 have already been thoroughly investigated by an independent, bipartisan commission. The official investigation of the 9/11 attacks was the 9/11 Commission, which published its report in 2004. But the behaviour of the Bush Administration with regard to the formation and operations of this Commission, and other investigations of 9/11, reveals an obsessive need to conceal the truth.

Congress called for an inquiry soon after the events of 9/11. The Bush Administration limited it’s scope to only examine security and intelligence failures. The FBI, after quickly identifying the hijackers as Al Qaeda and ruling out all other possibilities, carried out it’s own investigation into its counterterrorism strategies pre-9/11. FEMA produced the initial reports into building performance at the WTC and Pentagon.

Alarmingly, the Bush Administration were reluctant to set up a full investigation into all the events relating to 9/11, claiming it would divert energy away from the war on terrorism. Only after a considerable struggle on the part of the 9/11 Family Committee did the 9/11 Commission get set up (in November 2002). In the public hearings, witnesses were given ‘soft-ball’ questioning which skirted the issues and avoided asking many of the key questions. Less than 30% of the Committee’s questions were asked by the Commission.

The initial head of the 9/11 Commission was Henry Kissinger, a man under deep suspicion for his role in the Chilean coup in 1973 and the Vietnam War. He was forced to resign rather than disclose his business connections, which reportedly included trading with the Saudi Bin Laden Group. He was replaced by Thomas Kean, co-chairman of the Homeland Security Project and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Kean also is a director of an oil company and has business connections to Saudi Arabia. All other members of the commission were also “insiders” with questionable impartiality.

But the real leader of the commission was it’s Executive Director Philip Zelikow. He was charged with the actual investigations, the choice of witnesses and the directions that questions would take. Phillip Zelikow is a member of the Bush Administration; he was…

• A member of the National Security Council of the Bush I administration
• Aid to National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft under Bush I
• Co-Author of a book with Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor for Bush II
• Director of Aspen Strategy Group, to which Rice, Scowcroft, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz belonged
• Member of Clinton to Bush II transition team
• Member of Bush II's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, until being appointed to 9/11 Commission.

Despite calls for his resignation, and complaints from Commissioners and staff, Zelikow remained Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission, and the report of the Commission was edited personally by Zelikow and his staff.

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