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Unanswered Questions

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Can a government investigate itself for a crime that has given it the rationale for a permanent war on others? — location: 10 ^ref-9874

beneath the headlines, are exposed…. Only 9% of [the 9/11 families] questions were satisfactorily addressed… — location: 80 ^ref-34953

9/11 families pressed for an independent investigation into the attacks against the objections of the Bush White House. — location: 155 ^ref-21238

families pressed for an independent investigation into the attacks against the objections of the Bush White House. — location: 155 ^ref-50188

Citizen inquiry into the government’s account is characterized as speculation, even as our government instructs us: “If you see something, say something.” — location: 178 ^ref-24116

The live proceedings of the Watergate conspiracy and the Iran-Contra Affair were broadcast daily. In contrast, the 9/11 Commission proceedings only achieved mainstream coverage with the appearances of Richard A. Clarke and Condoleezza Rice. Otherwise, the proceedings of the 9/11 Commission were mostly a footnote buried beneath the headlines. — location: 186 ^ref-24361

Chairman, Thomas Kean, and Vice Chairman, Lee Hamilton, said it was “set up to fail.” The Los Angeles Times called Kean and Hamilton’s book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, “A devastating account of how the Bush administration blocked the 9/11 Commission at virtually every step.” — location: 189 ^ref-64122

We didn’t know why our nation had been so vulnerable on the morning of the attacks. Why jets were not scrambled on time to intercept the four hijacked airliners. Why evacuation protocols in the Twin Towers were not followed.” She wondered how hijackers could board flights with Mace and box cutters, both prohibited weapons. Why weren’t terrorists thwarted when they had been under surveillance? — location: 259 ^ref-21003

it was standard protocol for jets to take off to intercept hijacked planes within eight minutes of notification. — location: 286 ^ref-60431

routine military response to intercepting hijacked planes failed on four occasions. — location: 312 ^ref-27090

when the Challenger Space Shuttle crashed, killing seven crew members, a report was issued within four months. But after September Eleventh, the government stonewalled and only agreed to authorize an investigation after fourteen months. — location: 323 ^ref-45275

after The 9/11 Commission Report was released, the Family Steering Committee found 70% of their questions remained unanswered. Only 9% of their questions were satisfactorily addressed. A final 21% of their questions were given incomplete answers. — location: 335 ^ref-42247

The United States was founded in reaction to the Founders’ certainty that those elected to public office were capable of plots and conspiracies. — location: 353 ^ref-53863

20 In 1976, JFK’s murder was reinvestigated, and it was concluded that there was a “probable conspiracy.” — location: 373 ^ref-801

Word of continuing communication between Philip Zelikow, Karl Rove, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice confirmed the worst suspicions about just how “independent” the 9/11 Commission was from the White House. — location: 1387 ^ref-19208

when a plane strayed from its approved flight path, or altitude assignment, it “will likely find two [jet fighters] on their tail within 10 minutes or so.” — location: 2248 ^ref-36851

“To hit something with an airplane is easy only if you have been flying for 20 years.” — location: 2292 ^ref-34346

To hit something with an airplane is easy only if you have been flying for 20 years.” — location: 2291 ^ref-16426

Two flight attendants contacted the airline to alert them that a hijacking was in progress; the emergency protocols in place dictated that NORAD should have been immediately notified that a hijacking was unfolding. But according to NORAD’s official timeline, no one was in touch with them until 8:40 a.m., and no jets were scrambled until 8:52 a.m. — location: 2322 ^ref-49829

The 9/11 Commission Report never suitably answered these questions. It only described the “inaccuracies” in NORAD’s official September Eleventh timeline. — location: 2336 ^ref-42823

the 9/11 Commission maintains that FAA headquarters chose not to give notice to NORAD fighter pilots, charged with defending US airspace, until the final flight, United Airlines Flight 93, had crashed. — location: 2480 ^ref-65258

Former CIA Director, William Colby, once bragged, “The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” — location: 2631 ^ref-7882

In 2011, a 46-page study on the question of insider trading concluded that there was evidence of abnormal trading surrounding September Eleventh that was “consistent with insiders anticipating the 9-11 attacks.” — location: 2667 ^ref-14936

for. Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that.” — location: 2709 ^ref-24503

“some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million. They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.” If Convar hadn’t developed their scanner technology to retrieve data, it would have been impossible to gather. — location: 2713 ^ref-52820

Not only the volume but the size of the transactions was far higher than usual for a day like that.” — location: 2708 ^ref-52513

some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million. They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.” If Convar hadn’t developed their scanner technology to retrieve data, it would have been impossible to gather. — location: 2712 ^ref-34900

Bremer’s omission of this detail and lack of emotion is puzzling. The number of lives lost to the attacks would later total 295 employees and 63 consultants. — location: 2740 ^ref-51702

“what you have to work with … is motivations and capabilities. You have to start with what you know about the past and which groups have motives … We have to identify the perpetrators.” — location: 2744 ^ref-35855

what you have to work with … is motivations and capabilities. You have to start with what you know about the past and which groups have motives … We have to identify the perpetrators.” — location: 2743 ^ref-17935

a fire raged in Seven World Trade Center (WTC7), floors 11 to 13. These housed Security & Exchange Commission records relating to multi-billion-dollar investigations. — location: 2749 ^ref-59460

Starting on September 11, 2001, Silverstein sought to have the attacks construed as two attacks and not one. This way, his company could be awarded up to $7.5 billion.436 Luckily for him, Silverstein Properties had written into the agreement six weeks previous that they would have insurance coverage for any terrorist attacks. — location: 2762 ^ref-9505

After he won the insurance claims for the attacks, Silverstein sued United Airlines and American Airlines for more insurance money. — location: 2768 ^ref-1808

before he made the purchase, did Larry Silverstein have information the World Trade Center had been targeted for a terrorist attack? — location: 2772 ^ref-44811

There was no lobby. So I believe a bomb hit the lobby. And in a couple of seconds the first plane hit [the North Tower].” — location: 3165 ^ref-13469

“How is it that people were directed to remain in a 110-story building supposedly ‘safe and secure’ when its twin tower is billowing in smoke and people choosing to jump to their death in order to avoid a high-rise fire? — location: 3188 ^ref-61412

“just by the nature of all the events going on,” the order being referred to was a shootdown order. But as the young man kept asking if the orders still were in effect, Cheney’s order may have been to not shoot down the Flight 77 which proceeded to hit the Pentagon, but to stand down.537 Mineta’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission was omitted from its Report. — location: 3339 ^ref-37585

How is it that people were directed to remain in a 110-story building supposedly ‘safe and secure’ when its twin tower is billowing in smoke and people choosing to jump to their death in order to avoid a high-rise fire? — location: 3188 ^ref-43492

just by the nature of all the events going on,” the order being referred to was a shootdown order. But as the young man kept asking if the orders still were in effect, Cheney’s order may have been to not shoot down the Flight 77 which proceeded to hit the Pentagon, but to stand down.537 Mineta’s testimony to the 9/11 Commission was omitted from its Report. — location: 3340 ^ref-19665

people who do not use the term “pull” at all are fire marshals in the Fire Department of New York City. — location: 3852 ^ref-45219

“we have no term that says pulling buildings. That is not an area of expertise. We’ve never done that. We don’t do that. — location: 3859 ^ref-16917

we have no term that says pulling buildings. That is not an area of expertise. We’ve never done that. We don’t do that. — location: 3860 ^ref-64277

What we had in the World Trade Center, and I saw myself, was molten lava-like steel. I spent the night on the pile searching for bodies and saw that with my own eyes. — location: 3865 ^ref-43619

firefighters know steel disperses heat evenly and does not catch fire. — location: 3870 ^ref-53573

The purchase took place just after “the New York Port Authority lost an asbestos lawsuit and was ordered to remove all asbestos from the Twin Towers,” which would have cost between $2 and $10 billion to achieve. — location: 3877 ^ref-62297

“I questioned as to what the nature of the evacuation was. I was told it was not because of what was occurring across the street. No one feared that the building was in any danger as a result of two airplane attacks and subsequent fires, but that there were reports of a third plane that had been hijacked.” Peruggia was told this was the basis for evacuating the building. — location: 3894 ^ref-57625

I questioned as to what the nature of the evacuation was. I was told it was not because of what was occurring across the street. No one feared that the building was in any danger as a result of two airplane attacks and subsequent fires, but that there were reports of a third plane that had been hijacked.” Peruggia was told this was the basis for evacuating the building. — location: 3894 ^ref-39705

there were constant explosions going on inside WTC 7. The explosions occurred after 9:00 a.m. and before 1:00 p.m. — location: 3907 ^ref-17077

When he was rescued and saw the lobby, Jennings recalls, “It was totally destroyed, it looked like King Kong had been through it and stepped on it … It was so destroyed that they had to take me out through a hole in the wall, a makeshift hole … the fire department made to get me out.” — location: 3908 ^ref-11973

“They were waiting for 7 World Trade to come down … They had … fire on three separate floors … just burning merrily. It was pretty amazing, you know, it’s the afternoon in lower Manhattan, a major high-rise building is burning, and they said ‘we know.’” — location: 3937 ^ref-3527

They were waiting for 7 World Trade to come down … They had … fire on three separate floors … just burning merrily. It was pretty amazing, you know, it’s the afternoon in lower Manhattan, a major high-rise building is burning, and they said ‘we know.’” — location: 3938 ^ref-50887

Someone in the FDNY had instructed firefighters on hand not to put out the fire in WTC 7, even though it was only burning on a few of its 47 floors. — location: 3940 ^ref-4578

The BBC’s Jane Standley reported WTC 7 had fallen as early as 10:45 a.m., six hours and 35 minutes prior to its collapse. — location: 3949 ^ref-50800

Why were networks telling viewers WTC Building 7 had collapsed over six hours prior to its actual collapse? — location: 3959 ^ref-27687

video footage of the sprinkler systems spraying water on floors where fire had broken out confirmed that water was getting to the sprinklers in WTC 7, calling into question NIST’s assessment that the sprinklers were out of commission. — location: 4017 ^ref-55187

video footage of the sprinkler systems spraying water on floors where fire had broken out confirmed that water was getting to the sprinklers in WTC 7, calling into question NIST’s assessment that the sprinklers were out of commission. “Architects — location: 4018 ^ref-38625

Franklin Square & Munson Fire Department on Long Island to pass a resolution in July 2019, asking for a new investigation given “overwhelming evidence … that pre-planted explosives and/or incendiaries … caused the destruction of the three World Trade Center buildings.” — location: 4029 ^ref-32029

“at least sixty firefighters were told WTC 7 was coming down. Some were told this, hours in advance.” — location: 4041 ^ref-20501

“fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11.” Instead, they posited it was the result of something that caused “near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building,” which could be achieved by a controlled demolition. — location: 4057 ^ref-1672

at least sixty firefighters were told WTC 7 was coming down. Some were told this, hours in advance.” — location: 4041 ^ref-2581

fire did not cause the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11.” Instead, they posited it was the result of something that caused “near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building,” which could be achieved by a controlled demolition. — location: 4058 ^ref-49032

Countless national security whistleblowers were either prevented from testifying by their agency or had their calls left unreturned by the Commission. — location: 4355 ^ref-9353

Many of these accounts included descriptions of explosions—heard, felt, or the after-effects seen—before the towers collapsed. — location: 4622 ^ref-30137

This statement implied that the only first responders who thought bombs had gone off in the Twin Towers were mistaken due to their view of the South Tower being obscured. — location: 4626 ^ref-58223

outside, Captain Karin DeShore saw a sequence of orange and red flashes coming from the North Tower. DeShore noted that concussive blasts followed immediately after these flashes. — location: 4635 ^ref-4319

“Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash … kept popping all the way around the building and that building started to explode … These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.” — location: 4637 ^ref-39134

“I saw low-level flashes … [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?” — location: 4652 ^ref-54739

Initially it was just one flash. Then this flash … kept popping all the way around the building and that building started to explode … These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building.” — location: 4637 ^ref-21214

I saw low-level flashes … [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?” — location: 4653 ^ref-36819

the dominant explanation reporters gave to their viewers about the collapse of the Twin Towers was as a result of explosions and demolition. — location: 4668 ^ref-59591

there was no mention of my statements and the other evidence of a basement explosion when they decided only airliners brought down the towers — location: 4781 ^ref-46817

How could anybody not believe there was a massive explosion below ground level after talking with me and the other 14 people who witnessed the very same thing?” — location: 4782 ^ref-3508

Edelman recalled Cheney immediately insisted that what people were seeing were not explosives but the floors of the towers “pancaked” one on top of the next, causing the lower floors to collapse. — location: 4808 ^ref-40429

As the tower began to collapse, the top 30 floors tilted, broke off from the rest of the building, began to rotate and then reverse itself as it was tipping. — location: 4812 ^ref-13125

of the top 30 floors of the South Tower, “They begin to topple over, not fall straight down — location: 4813 ^ref-64883

In their radio communications, they were tracking numerous explosions in the twin towers. They reported bombs going off at 9:18 a.m., 9:24 a.m. and 9:32 a.m. — location: 4841 ^ref-36203

“The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes.” — location: 4880 ^ref-9431

The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes.” — location: 4881 ^ref-56791

fires in the Twin Towers didn’t extend far beyond either crash site, and the windows outside the crash zones didn’t break. — location: 4894 ^ref-30024

Officially, the fire was hot enough to melt steel, yet it was not too hot for an employee in the North Tower to stand on a beam. — location: 4898 ^ref-7148

of the 19 alleged hijackers, many were reported as alive variously in the Washington Post, New York Times, BBC, Los Angeles Times, and elsewhere, in late September of 2001.891 — location: 5393 ^ref-15569

the phenomenon where a journalist presents their beliefs as “hard truths,” while anything they distrust is a characterized as “conspiracy theory.” — location: 5551 ^ref-57294

prior to the first public hearings, Executive Director Philip Zelikow co-wrote a chapter-by-chapter outline of what the Report would find. — location: 5561 ^ref-10164

“if there are conspiracy theories out there then it is the government’s fault, because they did not ever really explain, or show, or want us to know what happened.” — location: 5579 ^ref-42773

if there are conspiracy theories out there then it is the government’s fault, because they did not ever really explain, or show, or want us to know what happened.” — location: 5580 ^ref-24853

The events related to the day of the attacks involved an ever-growing list of coincidences. — location: 5623 ^ref-19891

multiple sources who saw him at the Presidential Emergency Operations Center over a half an hour before he claimed to have arrived. — location: 5628 ^ref-62635

the major area destroyed when the Pentagon was struck was the accounting/audit area, killing most of the auditors who were investigating the missing $2.3 trillion from the Pentagon’s budget. — location: 5631 ^ref-33527

the United States military was engaged in five separate war game exercises on the morning of 9/11, with simulated phantom planes on live radar screens confusing radar operators. — location: 5633 ^ref-65107

the United States military was unable to follow any of its standard protocols to intercept hijacked planes for 109 minutes, even though it routinely intercepts any flight two miles off its approved flight path hundreds of times a year with military precision. — location: 5638 ^ref-3259

Rudy Giuliani told the press 15 minutes before the South Tower collapsed that he was informed steel-frame skyscrapers were going to catastrophically collapse for the first time in history, but made no effort to inform first responders of his foreknowledge. — location: 5652 ^ref-11479

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ordered the speedy removal of the debris from the fallen towers before sufficient samples could be obtained to determine the reason for the towers’ collapses. — location: 5658 ^ref-37263

the prime suspect for the attacks, Osama bin Laden, was reported in numerous books and articles to be a CIA asset, as a Le Monde headline declared: “The Most Dreaded Man of the United States, Controlled for a Long Time by the CIA.” — location: 5666 ^ref-45343

New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani ordered the speedy removal of the debris from the fallen towers before sufficient samples could be obtained to determine the reason for the towers’ — location: 5658 ^ref-22903

the prime suspect for the attacks, Osama bin Laden, was reported in numerous books and articles to be a CIA asset, as a Le Monde headline declared: “The Most Dreaded Man of the United States, Controlled — location: 5666 ^ref-8374

was reported on the BBC and CNN to have already collapsed over six hours prior to its actual collapse. — location: 5669 ^ref-13447

over one hundred FDNY first responders reported they witnessed explosions in the Twin Towers, which they later testified to their superiors. But the 9/11 Commission omitted their testimony from its Report — location: 5671 ^ref-64249

“To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck.” — location: 5676 ^ref-65250

To me luck is something that happens once. When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols, broken laws, broken communication, one cannot still call it luck.” — location: 5676 ^ref-47330

society has, by default, agreed that no questions can be asked when a crisis occurs. It is as if we are all frozen in time, back in the White House Press Room listening to press secretary Ari Fleischer tell us to “watch what we say” and “trust us.” — location: 5692 ^ref-33583

“perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” — location: 5708 ^ref-21313

perhaps it is a universal truth that the loss of liberty at home is to be charged to provisions against danger, real or pretended, from abroad.” — location: 5709 ^ref-3393

for many Americans this conclusion was unspeakable. — location: 5712 ^ref-3195

he said that he only needed a couple of hoses to put out the small isolated fires in the South Tower. If Orio had thought what he was encountering was going to be a danger, he would have gotten word to the other firefighters behind him to pull back and regroup.” — location: 5743 ^ref-19363

it doesn’t make sense that we are “being told that steel columns melted from the fire, but a firefighter could reach the 78th floor and be unharmed,” by the heat. — location: 5746 ^ref-26611

Minutes before the South Tower collapsed, Palmer observed nothing to suggest that the building was weakening. Palmer was on a mission to rescue people. He only conveyed a sense that he was equipped to do whatever was needed. He expected other firefighters could reach him, and together they could put out the “small pockets of isolated fires.” — location: 5748 ^ref-33533

The markings of a cover-up beg for further investigation, including plausible complicity on the part of some government officials. — location: 5783 ^ref-39125

The chances of a new inquiry twenty years after the attacks remain remote, with truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, its chief casualty. — location: 5791 ^ref-5405

The possibility that evil, which we do not wish to see or acknowledge, may be enmeshed in the events of September Eleventh is something many do not wish to contemplate. — location: 5798 ^ref-28363

Instead, 9/11 Commission staff constructed a narrative for how the attacks happened and who was responsible prior to starting the inquiry. — location: 5801 ^ref-20020

History teaches us that the rush to reach conclusions about the story of record, usually based on assurances from those in authority, has not served democracy well. — location: 5811 ^ref-58960