Fact Sheet : 911 - The Coverup

We firmly believe (a pdf file) there is probable cause for such an investigation. The case for investigation is based on three pillars:
1) evidence of cover-up and a lack of serious investigation after the fact;
2) evidence of misconduct on the day of 9/11
3) evidence of foreknowledge and preparation before September 11th.

Undertaking a full-scale, truly independent investigation is imperative, not only because there must be justice for the victims, but also because of the role 9/11 has played in justifying policies of aggression supposedly justifed by 9/11 must be halted, and a shattered public trust must be repaired.

During their 2002 inquiry, the Congressional joint intelligence committees(who redacted 1/4 of their report) were scrutinized by an FBI counter-investigation, which invaded the Senate in search of an alleged leak. It was widely believed that the FBI investigation may have been intended to have a chilling effect on the conduct of the Congressional Joint Inquiry.

• The Congressional investigation failed to pursue solid evidence of a money trail to the alleged hijackers from the US-allied Pakistani intelligence agency (ISI). The ISI chief was removed from his post when strong evidence of his connection to the plot surfaced in early October 2001, but no serious punitive action was taken against him.
  
• Evidence was destroyed or withheld, including suppression of the discovery of black boxes from the two flights at Ground Zero and the destruction of tapes made by the air traffic controllers who handled the same flights.2
  
• Whistle blowers such as FBI translator Sibel Edmonds and Anthony Shaffer of “Able Danger” were disciplined or fired, even as FBI, CIA, and military officials who were blamed for failures received promotions and medals.
  
• The September 11th relatives who lobbied for the 9/11 Commission (after 14 months of White House resistance) submitted 400 questions that Commissioners accepted as a “roadmap.” 70 percent of the questions were fully ignored in The 9/11 Commission Report. Many of the relatives later declared the Report a whitewash.3
  
• 9/11 Commissioner Max Cleland resigned in late 2003, calling the panel a whitewash and saying, “Bush is scamming America.” There was no significant response or inquiry from anyone else in government, or the major media.4
  
• Philip Zelikow, the 9/11 Commission executive director who over saw the panel’s activities, refused to step down after the September11th families called for his resignation due to grave conflicts of interest (close association with Condoleezza Rice, member of White House national security staff both before 9/11 and in 2002, member of Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board).
  
• Rice may have committed perjury in her April 2004 Commission testimony that an August 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing to Bush was only of “historical significance,” when in fact it detailed current intelligence.
  
• The 9/11 Commission Report claimed the financial background of the attacks was unknown, but dismissed the question as being of “little practical significance” (page 172). Since when doesn’t an investigation “follow the money”?
  
• Large sections of the report are based on the confessions of “enemy combatants” such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, as provided in the form of transcripts by the government. The 9/11 Commission staff was not allowed to see or interview any of these “enemy combatants.”
  
• Over a period of several years, NORAD, FAA, White House and military officials gave widely divergent and conflicting accounts of the air defense response to 9/11, but no one was ever held accountable for upholding falsehoods. The 9/11 Commission chairs later admitted they considered a criminal investigation of NORAD’s statements, but preferred instead to present a unanimous report.
  
• The focus of the Commission will be on the future. We’re not interested in trying to assess blame. We do not consider that part of the Commission’s responsibility. – Lee Hamilton, 9/11 Commission vice-chairman.
  

The above is only a sampling of a large body of official misconduct after the fact. What is being hidden?

Read further here ( Note : All in Pdf format)

1. Whitewash as Public Service
2. Millions of New Yorkers Question the Official Story of 9/11
3. Connecting the Dots
4. Scamming America: The Official 9/11 Coverup Guide

Other Links Top 40 Reasons to Doubt the Official Story of September 11th, 2001

Read further Tags on 911 in this blog.

Fears of strike on Iran rise as Admiral Fallon quits and the latest UN Sanction

The head of the US forces in the Middle East abruptly resigned last night after a magazine claimed he was at odds with the Bush administration over its hardline policy on Iran.

In a move likely to sharpen concern that America may be planning military action against Tehran, Admiral William Fallon, head of central command, quit with immediate effect.

Last night he denied he was out of step with the White House, but said the "embarrassment" from the article made it impossible to do his job.

Along with that, the passage of the third United Nations Security Council sanctions resolution against Iran makes a war between the United States and Iran more likely. The Bush administration has been pressing the United Nations Security Council for months to pass a third set of sanctions against Iran, which the council passed as resolution 1803 on March 3, 2008. As part of this effort, the United States delegation has shown uncharacteristic flexibility regarding various provisions of the draft resolution, as Secretary of State Rice and other administration officials have repeatedly called for swift passage of the resolution.

There is reason to suspect the Bush administration’s push for passage is actually focused on a single item: Provision (11), which calls upon member states to inspection of cargo bound to or from Iran. This is based on two fundamental assessments: 1) the Bush administrations has long planned to attack Iran; and, 2) the rationales for these attacks have shifted from nuclear weapons development to direct responsibility for US casualties in Iraq. And now it is likely a new shift in rationale is underway, claiming hostile actions against US vessels and using Provision (11) to create the pretext.

Provision (11) of Resolution 1803 (2008) reads as follows:

Calls upon all States, in accordance with their national legal authorities and legislation and consistent with international law, in particular the law of the sea and relevant international civil aviation agreements, to inspect the cargoes to and from Iran, of aircraft and vessels, at their airports and seaports, owned or operated by Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line, provided there are reasonable grounds to believe that the aircraft or vessel is transporting goods prohibited under this resolution or resolution 1737 (2006) or resolution 1747 (2007);

It is likely that the Bush administration will now move swiftly, within the next few weeks, to use this authority to create a casus belli for attacking Iran. While the resolution limits inspections to air craft and vessels owned or operated by Iran Air Cargo and Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Line as well as only at air and sea ports, these restrictions represent fine print issues to the Bush administration that it can circumvent or ignore, perhaps by claims that interceptions at sea are only in pursuit of refused authorized inspections at some port or intelligence about the cargo only arose after a vessel left port.

6 Signs the U.S. May Be Headed for War in Iran

Is the United States moving toward military action with Iran?

by Terry Atlas

Global Research, March 12, 2008

The resignation of the top U.S. military commander for the Middle East is setting off alarms that the Bush administration is intent on using military force to stop Iran's moves toward gaining nuclear weapons. In announcing his sudden resignation today following a report on his views in Esquire, Adm. William Fallon didn't directly deny that he differs with President Bush over at least some aspects of the president's policy on Iran. For his part, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said it is "ridiculous" to think that the departure of Fallon -- whose Central Command has been working on contingency plans for strikes on Iran as well as overseeing Iraq -- signals that the United States is planning to go to war with Iran.

Fallon's resignation, ending a 41-year Navy career, has reignited the buzz of speculation over what the Bush administration intends to do given that its troubled, sluggish diplomatic effort has failed to slow Iran's nuclear advances. Those activities include the advancing process of uranium enrichment, a key step to producing the material necessary to fuel a bomb, though the Iranians assert the work is to produce nuclear fuel for civilian power reactors, not weapons.

Here are six developments that may have Iran as a common thread. And, if it comes to war, they may be seen as clues as to what was planned. None of them is conclusive, and each has a credible non-Iran related explanation:

1. Fallon's resignation: With the Army fully engaged in Iraq, much of the contingency planning for possible military action has fallen to the Navy, which has looked at the use of carrier-based warplanes and sea-launched missiles as the weapons to destroy Iran's air defenses and nuclear infrastructure. Centcom commands the U.S. naval forces in and near the Persian Gulf. In the aftermath of the problems with the Iraq war, there has been much discussion within the military that senior military officers should have resigned at the time when they disagreed with the White House.

2. Vice President Cheney's peace trip: Cheney, who is seen as a leading hawk on Iran, is going on what is described as a Mideast trip to try to give a boost to stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. But he has also scheduled two other stops: One, Oman, is a key military ally and logistics hub for military operations in the Persian Gulf. It also faces Iran across the narrow, vital Strait of Hormuz, the vulnerable oil transit chokepoint into and out of the Persian Gulf that Iran has threatened to blockade in the event of war. Cheney is also going to Saudi Arabia, whose support would be sought before any military action given its ability to increase oil supplies if Iran's oil is cut off. Back in March 2002, Cheney made a high-profile Mideast trip to Saudi Arabia and other nations that officials said at the time was about diplomacy toward Iraq and not war, which began a year later.

3. Israeli airstrike on Syria: Israel's airstrike deep in Syria last October was reported to have targeted a nuclear-related facility, but details have remained sketchy and some experts have been skeptical that Syria had a covert nuclear program. An alternative scenario floating in Israel and Lebanon is that the real purpose of the strike was to force Syria to switch on the targeting electronics for newly received Russian anti-aircraft defenses. The location of the strike is seen as on a likely flight path to Iran (also crossing the friendly Kurdish-controlled Northern Iraq), and knowing the electronic signatures of the defensive systems is necessary to reduce the risks for warplanes heading to targets in Iran.

4. Warships off Lebanon: Two U.S. warships took up positions off Lebanon earlier this month, replacing the USS Cole. The deployment was said to signal U.S. concern over the political stalemate in Lebanon and the influence of Syria in that country. But the United States also would want its warships in the eastern Mediterranean in the event of military action against Iran to keep Iranian ally Syria in check and to help provide air cover to Israel against Iranian missile reprisals. One of the newly deployed ships, the USS Ross, is an Aegis guided missile destroyer, a top system for defense against air attacks.

5. Israeli comments: Israeli President Shimon Peres said earlier this month that Israel will not consider unilateral action to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. In the past, though, Israeli officials have quite consistently said they were prepared to act alone -- if that becomes necessary -- to ensure that Iran does not cross a nuclear weapons threshold. Was Peres speaking for himself, or has President Bush given the Israelis an assurance that they won't have to act alone?

6.Israel's war with Hezbollah: While this seems a bit old, Israel's July 2006 war in Lebanon against Iranian-backed Hezbollah forces was seen at the time as a step that Israel would want to take if it anticipated a clash with Iran. The radical Shiite group is seen not only as a threat on it own but also as a possible Iranian surrogate force in the event of war with Iran. So it was important for Israel to push Hezbollah forces back from their positions on Lebanon's border with Israel and to do enough damage to Hezbollah's Iranian-supplied arsenals to reduce its capabilities. Since then, Hezbollah has been able to rearm, though a United Nations force polices a border area buffer zone in southern Lebanon.

Defense Secretary Gates said that Fallon, 63, asked for permission to retire. Gates said that the decision, effective March 31, was entirely Fallon's and that Gates believed it was "the right thing to do." In Esquire, an article on Fallon portrayed him as opposed to President Bush's Iran policy and said he was a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program. In his statement, Fallon said he agreed with the president's "policy objectives" but was silent on whether he opposed aspects of the president's plans. "Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president's policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region," Fallon, said in the statement issued by Centcom headquarters in Tampa, Fla. "And although I don't believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America's interests there," he said. Gates announced that Fallon's top deputy, Army Lt. Gen. Martin Dempsey, will take over temporarily when Fallon leaves. A permanent successor, requiring nomination by the president and confirmation by the Senate, might not be designated in the near term.