by Michael Arvey
Undoubtedly the 2005 edition of Project Censored will include a chapter on 9-11 widow Ellen Mariani's RICO Act lawsuit filed against President George Bush and his cabinet on November 26, 2003, in Pennsylvania, charging Bush with foreknowledge of 9-11 and failing to act accordingly. Other than scattered reports throughout Internet news sites, little or no information about this has appeared in the national media.
Since 9-11, the Bush administration has essayed to curtail, cover-up, stonewall and underfund serious 9-11 investigation beyond ascertaining the depth and reach of intelligence lapses. What has evolved into the current 9-11 federal commission remains a token inquiry, considering the attacks were a major crime and presumably should require a criminal and forensics examination.
After all, isn't it remarkable that all the WTC rubble was carted off without study? Or that no jet fuel could have caused the fire at the base of the towers to have burned for so long? Or that WTC7 collapsed although it was not hit by a plane? Or that fire fighters in the main towers had radioed the fires there were under control, and yet the towers collapsed as if in a controlled demolition (see www.WTC7.net)? Or that the U.S. Air Force stood down? And why are 9-11 families who accept the Federal Compensation Fund made to promise not to sue the government for 9-11 evidence? Or that on 9-11 at the elementary school, President Bush claimed he saw a plane fly into the first building on a television, but the videotape of this didn't premiere until the next day? And why the shredding of liberties and the quick creation of a police state? To pre-emptively crush and discourage dissent and questions as the administration continues its wars both abroad and at home?
Some of the 9-11 widows have found the administration's post-911 stonewalling unacceptable. For instance, Ellen Mariani, whose husband Louis Neil Mariani died on United flight 175, is voicing what many Americans and others around the globe have been suspecting: 9-11 was an inside job and that Bush was, at minimum, aware of an impending attack and yet let it happen without offering any warning to the public, which enabled his administration to pursue political and financial objectives. If true, President Bush and his cabinet would be guilty of treason and high crimes against his own people. The implications of Mariani's lawsuit are simple: It could drive a wedge into the Bush administration's warehouse of secrets hidden under a cloaking device called national security.
Worth quoting is part of Mariani's open letter to Bush: "Mr. Bush the time has come for you to stop your control over us. Stop blocking the release of certain evidence and documents that were discovered by the 9-11 Investigation Commission if you have nothing to hide...Your reason for not releasing the material is that it is your personal credibility/security that you are concerned with."
She further asserts that Bush et. al. had knowledge/warnings of 911 and failed to warn or take steps to prevent; have been covering up the truth of 911; and have therefore violated the laws of the United States. Heady stuff, but the air needs to be cleared.
Among pertinent questions she poses in her letter to Bush are: "Where were 29 pages of the 9/11 committee report personally censored at your request? Where are the 'black boxes' from Flight 11 and Flight 175? Where are the voice recorders [from same]? Where are the airport surveillance tapes that show the passengers boarding the the doomed flights? Why did your brother Jeb (the Governor of Florida) go to the offices of Hoffman Aviation School and order that flight records and files be removed? These files were then put on a C130 government cargo plane and flown out of the country. Where were they taken and who ordered it done?"
The Bush administration has claimed that no one could have foreseen planes being used as weapons on 9-11, but another 9-11 widow turned sleuth, Kristen Breistweiser, has flipped this claim on its head. Testifying at the Sept. 2002 Joint Intelligence Commission Inquiry (JICI), she posited some facts: "In 1993, a $150,000 study was commissioned by the Pentagon to investigate the possibility of an airplane being used to bomb national landmarks. A draft document of this was circulated throughout the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)." And, "In September 1999, a report, 'The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism,' was prepared for U.S. intelligence by the Federal Research Division...stated,'Suicide bombers belonging to al Qaeda's Martyrdom Battalion could crash-land an aircraft...into the Pentagon...the CIA, or the White House.'" She also informs, "Throughout the spring and early summer of 2001, intelligence agencies flood ed the government with warnings of possible terrorist attacks against American targets, including commercial aircraft, by al Qaeda and other groups."
Other reports corroborate the warnings. For example, according to www.News.telegraph.co.uk, 9/16/2001, "ISRAELI intelligence officials say that they warned their counterparts in the United States last month that large-scale terrorist attacks on highly visible targets on the American mainland were imminent." And Newsweek reported that on Sept. 10 a group of high-ranking Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, presumably for security reasons.
Moreover, President Bush apparently was briefed (PDB, Aug 6, 2001) that "a group of bin Laden supporters was planning attacks in the U.S. with explosives." Surely someone could have connected the dots: Explosives, airplanes, buildings.
Innumerable anomalies surround the 9-11 attacks that will never be satisfactorily explained without a fully-fledged criminal inquiry. Thanks to the courageous and relentless dedication of some of the widows, a few answers might be forthcoming as a result of Mariani's lawsuit.
Interestingly, New Yorkers themselves want answers. On Jan. 4 the NYC Truth Movement unveiled a banner at Ground Zero, which read, "The Bush Regime Engineered 9-11." The simple fact is that President Bush could settle the whole issue tomorrow by fully disclosing all 911-related information. He should have demanded a criminal investigation from the outset--why didn't he?
Considering how this administration cheated its way into the White House, how it planned invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq prior to 9-11, and how it has barefacedly lied to the American public regarding Iraq and Hussein, how could its possible dark complicity in 9-11 not draw suspicions? As the old saying goes, if it looks, quacks and walks like a duck, then it probably is one. Certainly the politically far-right Bush administration got what it needed and what it wanted most in this world out of 9-11: War and a host of other items on its wish list.
Michael Arvey writes from Colorado.
