With US political leaders, Democrat and Republican alike, rushing to embrace the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and an eager media receiving the Commission's 567-page report as the whole story, the history we can stand upon forevermore, everyone who cares about the fate of American democracy will want to know something about what those pages actually say.
The Commission's account, by popular reckoning, has made an impression with its heft, its footnotes, its portrayal of the confusion of that sobering day, its detail, its narrative finesse. Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian and author of The New Pearl Harbor (a book that explores questions that reporters, eyewitnesses, and political observers have raised about the 9/11 attacks), the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest: Is it possible that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has given three different stories of what he was doing the morning of September 11, and that the Commission combines two of them and ignores eyewitness reports to the contrary? Is it possible that the man in charge of the military that day, Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers, saw the first tower hit on TV, and then went into a meeting, where he remained unaware of what was happening for the next 40 minutes? Is it possible, as the Commission reports, that the FAA did not inform military that the fourth airplane appeared to have been hijacked-contrary to both common sense and the word of FAA employees? Is it possible that the Report, upon which are based recommendations for overhauling the nation's intelligence, fails to mention even in a footnote the most serious allegations made public by Coleen Rowley, FBI whistleblower and Time person of the year?
David Ray Griffin's critique of the Kean-Zelikow report makes clear that our nation's highest leaders have told tales that wear extremely thin when held up to the light of other eyewitness reports, research, and the dictates of common sense-and that the Commission charged with the task of investigating all of the facts surrounding 9/11 has succeeded in obscuring, rather than unearthing, the truth.
Media Reviews:
From Publishers Weekly:
The 9/11 commission report "simply cannot be trusted," concludes this retired Claremont School of Theology professor. Following up on his call for an official investigation in The New Pearl Harbor (2004), Griffin revisits the cataclysmic events and deconstructs the government's probe. He offers two mind-numbing versions of an "alternative conspiracy theory": that the Bush administration "deliberately" failed to prevent the attacks or, more chillingly, "was actively involved in the planning and execution of the attacks." Why? To spur the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan and the occupation of their valuable oil and natural gas resources. Embracing the complicity theory, Griffin claims the 9/11 Commission's report, labeled the Kean-Zelikow Report here to underline the White House allegiances of its Republican chairman and director, was neither thorough nor non-partisan but rather a "cover-up" designed to back up the Bush administration's view of the day's events. Among the problems Griffin says the commissioners fail to address are discrepancies in the hijackers' identities; the behavior exhibited by President Bush and his Secret Service contingent in Florida; and the charges of obstruction by higher-ups made by FBI agent Coleen Rowley and other mid-level officials. In fact, "revisionism" was the Commission's major goal, argues the author, since the report reconstructs the timelines of the hijackings, officials' teleconferences and the plane crashes to absolve the military of mishandling jet fighters' intercepts of the doomed passenger aircraft. Supported by news media reports, government documents and readily available secondary sources, Griffin's research raises valid questions about the Commission's political aims and investigative methods. But unless future Woodwards and Bernsteins dig up evidence to the contrary, the author's theories about a government role in the 9/11 plot will remain pure speculation.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
"In this masterful sequel to The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin unveils a disparity between official 9/11 "spin" and independently researched 9/11 fact so glaring as to suggest the possibility of a constitutional crisis unlike anything our country has ever known. In this new study, as in its predecessor, he simply details the hard, cold evidence that seriously--and alarmingly--challenges the independence, impartiality, and thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission. For anyone serious about combatting terrorism, let alone upholding constitutional democracy, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, is a must read."
Burns H. Weston, Bessie Dutton Murray Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, The University of Iowa
"It is rather obvious that the 9/11 commission aimed more to bring closure than to investigate the anomalies surrounding the event. For the dominant media in the US they have largely succeeded. All the more reason why it is important that its failure even to mention these anomalies not go unnoticed. For those who still seek the truth and hope for a serious investigation of the facts, Griffin's careful analysis of the report is essential reading."
John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor of Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology
"This is a painstaking and devastating demolition of the lies transmitted by The 9/11 Commission Report, and also the new lies invented by it in an effort to reconcile the government's impossible chronologies. Time after time, David Ray Griffin uses credible eyewitness accounts to refute the Report's methods and allegations, particularly with respect to the stand-down and shoot-down orders issued on that infamous September 11 and the attack on the Pentagon. Those concerned with preserving our Republic in these troubled times should pay particular attention to his focus on the disturbing behavior of the core group who appear on that day to have misdirected the defenses of our country. In the coming national debate over 9/11, Griffin's book will strengthen the cause of those who believe that the best defense for democracy is not blind fealty to leaders, but the truth."
Peter Dale Scott, author of Drugs, Oil, and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia, and Indochina |
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