"We were trying to get some of the people out, but then there was secondary explosions and then subsequent collapses."

Video: http://www.911blimp.net/videos/FDNY-explosions.mov

"As we were getting our gear on and making our way to the stairway, there was a heavy duty explosion."

Video: http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/heavy.duty.explosion.wmv

"At 10:30 I tried to leave the building, but as I got outside I heard a second explosion and another rumble and more smoke and more dust. I ran inside the building and the chandelier shook and again black smoke filled the air. Within another five minutes we were covered again with more soot and more dust. And then a fire marshal came in and said we had to leave, because if there was a third explosion this building might not last.."

Video: http://www.terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.ann.thompson.intermediate.explosions.wmv

"45 minutes into the taping we were doing, there was an explosion. It was way up where the fire was and the whole building at that point bellied out in flames and everybody ran."

Video: http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.reporter.2.wmv

Video clip of Pat Dawson reporting on the comments made by Albert Turi, Chief of Safety for the New York City Fire Department, claiming there were bombs planted in the WTC:

Video: http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.reporter.1.wmv

"I spoke with some police officials moments ago Chris and they told me they have reason to believe that one of the explosions at the WTC besides the ones made with the planes, may have been caused by a van that was parked in the building that may have had an explosive device in it."

http://www.mypetgoat.tv/video/Bomb_Montage.WMV

"I was about five blocks away when I heard explosions... three thuds and turned around to see the building that we just got out of... tip over and fall in on itself."

Video: http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.witness.1.wmv

"...and then all of a sudden it started like... it sounded like gunfire... you know, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang and then all of a sudden three big explosions."

Video: http://terrorize.dk/911/witnesses/911.wtc.witness.2.wmv

quote:

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September 12, 2001, New York City, People.com

Louie Cacchioli, 51, is a firefighter assigned to Engine 47 in Harlem.

We were the first ones in the second tower after the plane struck. I was taking firefighters up in the elevator to the 24th floor to get in position to evacuate workers. On the last trip up a bomb went off. We think there was bombs set in the building...

Source:
http://prisonplanet.com/louie_cacchioli.htm

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quote:

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Terror in the City, September 12 , 2001, Notes from Robert Ivy, FAIA Editor-in-chief

...we felt a rumble like faraway thunder and turned. The impossible was happening. The south tower of the World Trade Center shook, and in what resembled an elemental act, fell to earth in a mighty shout. The entire dissolution, the changeover from solid elements to ash, took only seconds, and it was gone...

http://www.archrecord.com/news/fromTheField/archives/0109terror.asp

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quote:

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An Eye-Witness Account of the World Trade Center Attacks
from Neil deGrasse Tyson

The following is the text from an email Neil deGrasse Tyson sent to his family and friends on 12 September 2001. Neil witnessed the attacks on the twin towers from his apartment only six blocks from the World Trade Center. He is Director of the Hayden Planetarium of the American Museum of Natural History, which is located in New York City. Neil also serves as The Planetary Society's Vice President...

From: Neil deGrasse Tyson
Sent: 10AM, Wednesday, 12 September 2001
Subject: The Horror, The Horror

...4) As more and more and more and more and more emergency vehicles descended on the World Trade Center, I hear a second explosion in WTC 2, then a loud, low-frequency rumble that precipitates the unthinkable -- a collapse of all the floors above the point of explosion. First the top surface, containing the helipad, tips sideways in full view. Then the upper floors fall straight down in a demolition-style implosion, taking all lower floors with it, even those below the point of the explosion...

...6) I decide it's time to get my daughter, who was taken by the parents of a friend of hers to a small office building, six blocks farther from the WTC than my apartment. As I dress for survival: boots, flashlight, wet towels, swimming goggles, bicycle helmet, gloves, I hear another explosion followed by a now all-too familiar rumble that signaled the collapse of WTC 1, the first of the two towers to have been hit. I saw the iconic antenna on this building descend straight down in an implosion twinning the first...

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quote:

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Tuesday, 11 September, 2001, Eyewitnesses tell of horror, BBC News

"...I saw everything from my balcony in Soho. The first plane tried to veer off the tower but slammed straight into it, followed by the second plane," Nadine Keller of New York City wrote in an e-mail to BBC News Online.

"There was smoke everywhere. I heard the bomb and saw both buildings crumble like biscuits," Ms Keller said.

The BBC received more than 1,300 e-mails from witnesses and other concerned readers within the first few hours after the attack.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/1537500.stm

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quote:

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9/11 Survivor Describes Multiple Explosions

"There were explosions going off everywhere. I was convinced that there were bombs planted all over the place and someone was sitting at a control panel pushing detonator buttons. I was afraid to go down Church Street toward Broadway, but I had to do it. I ended up on Vesey Street. There was another explosion. And another. I didn't know where to run."

Source: "Teresa Veliz: A Prayer to Die Quickly and Painlessly," in September 11: An Oral History by Dean E. Murphy (Doubleday, 2002), pp 9-15. http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/veliz-bombs.htm

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quote:

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Firefighter Mag Raps 9/11 Probe,By JOE CALDERONE Daily News Chief of Investigations, Friday, January 04, 2002

A respected firefighting trade magazine with ties to the city Fire Department is calling for a "full-throttle, fully resourced" investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center.

A signed editorial in the January issue of Fire Engineering magazine says the current investigation is "a half-baked farce."

The piece by Bill Manning, editor of the 125-year-old monthly that frequently publishes technical studies of major fires, also says the steel from the site should be preserved so investigators can examine what caused the collapse. "Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the Happy Land social club fire? ... That's what they're doing at the World Trade Center," the editorial says. "The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately..."

...A growing number of fire protection engineers have theorized that "the structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers," the editorial stated.

http://www.cam.net.uk/home/Nimmann/peace/explosions.htm

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quote:

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the core of the matter

Construction photographs of the Twin Towers reveal a possible reason FEMA went to such great lengths to hide the existence of the structural cores.


This construction photograph of the North Tower shows that the core structures consisted of bundles of columns cross-linked by horizontal and diagonal members.


Each tower's core contained 47 continuous box columns which ran from the bedrock foundations seven stories below street level to near the tops of the Towers, where they transitioned to I-beams. These box-columns measured 36 inches by 16 inches and were fabricated of steel four inches thick near the Towers' bases.

FEMA's report hides and minimizes the core structures whose their existence made the symmetric total collapses of the Towers due to gravity impossible. Even if the collision and fire damage could have induced collapse events, they would have caused the Towers to topple like trees, pivoting about the cores at the impact zones.

Destroying the core columns is key to achieving total building collapse, yet FEMA's long report has only one short passage explaining how the cores self-destructed.

quote:

---

Originally posted by FEMA
As the floors collapsed, this left tall freestanding portions of the exterior wall and possibly central core columns. As the unsupported height of these freestanding exterior wall elements increased, they buckled at the bolted column splice connections, and also collapsed.

---

Note the legalistic language of ‘ possibly central core columns ’. The authors knew the core columns were not free-standing and would not instantly self-destruct if the floors fell away. Nor were the perimeter columns, stitched together by horizontal spandrell plates, free-standing as the passage implies. By qualifying this key assertion, FEMA's team might have been protecting themselves from possible future prosecution for obstruction of justice.

http://www.wtc7.net/store/books/wakingup/samples/page29.html

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Waking Up From Our Nightmare
The 9/11/01 Crimes In New York City:

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quote:

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the killer fires theory

The first Official Explanation to be broadcast was that fires ignited by the jetliners' fuel had melted steel beams and columns within the Towers and thus caused the skyscrapers to ‘collapse’.

The British Broadcasting Company quoted ‘structural engineer’ Chris Wise in its September 13, 2001 piece How the World Trade Center Fell. Wise spoke with cinematic emphasis:

quote:

---

Originally posted by BBC
It was the fire that killed the buildings. There's nothing on earth that could survive those temperatures with that amount of fuel burning ... The columns would have melted, the floors would have melted and eventually they would have collapsed one on top of each other.

---

The BBC online news story of 9/13/01 also quoted another expert. The buildings' construction manager, Hyman Brown, agreed that nothing could have saved them from the inferno.

quote:

---

Originally posted by BBC
The buildings would have stood had a plane or a force caused by a plane smashed into it, But steel melts, and 24,000 gallons of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire.

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This graphic from the BBC is thoroughly inaccurate:



* It describes the columns as steel-reinforced concrete when in fact they were 100% steel.
* It depicts the core as a being a fraction of its actual dimensions.
* It states that 800ºC temperatures can melt steel, when steel's melting point is 1535ºC.



The fundamental problem with the jet-fuel-melting-steel explanation is that its premise contradicts the laws of physics. No amount of ‘ “aviation fluid” ’ burning in the open flames of a building fire could even begin to melt steel. 1535ºCelsius is the melting point of structural steel, whereas 825ºCelsius is around the maximum temperature attainable with hydrocarbon-fueled fires without systematic pre-heating or pressurization of the air.

http://www.wtc7.net/store/books/wakingup/samples/page26.html

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Radio interview: Jim Hoffman's scientific analysis of the WTC collapses:
part 1
http://tinyurl.com/98ydb
part 2
http://tinyurl.com/blc7n

From the website WhatReallyHappened.com:

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quote:

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The 9/11 WTC Fires: Where's the Inferno?

The official reason given for the collapse of the twin towers is structural failures occurred on the impacted floors due to infernos of 800ºC+.


Image Source: BBC

Not everyone is convinced by the official story of the towers collapse...

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quote:

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The laboratory director from a South Bend firm has been fired for attempting to cast doubt on the federal investigation into what caused the World Trade Center's twin towers to collapse on Sept. 11, 2001. Kevin R. Ryan was terminated Tuesday from his job at Environmental Health Laboratories Inc., a subsidiary of Underwriters Laboratories Inc., the consumer-product safety testing giant.

Ryan wrote that the institute's preliminary reports suggest the WTC's supports were probably exposed to fires no hotter than 500 degrees -- only half the 1,100-degree temperature needed to forge steel, Ryan said. That's also much cooler, he wrote, than the 3,000 degrees needed to melt bare steel with no fire-proofing.

[i]"This story just does not add up," Ryan wrote in his e-mail to Frank Gayle, deputy chief of the institute's metallurgy division, who is playing a prominent role in the agency investigation. "If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I'm sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers." [Salt Bend Tribune]

---

Let's take a closer look at the WTC fires...

WTC 1
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc1_fire.html

Eyewitness testimony and video evidence document no inferno at the aircraft impact level

WTC 2
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc2_fire.html

Survivor testimony and firefighters transmissions document no inferno at the aircraft impact level.

........................................................

"It was noticeable that with the South Tower, the one that fell first, the ensuing ash was white and grey, whereas with the second tower that fell, the North Tower, it was black. Now, if that was because it burned longer or what I don't know, but it was a noticeable difference." [Nova Online]

This observation along with the above indicates two things:

1. There was little fire in WTC 2 prior to its collapse.
2. The black ash from WTC 1 indicates the presence of large amounts of soot. Soot is a byproduct of inefficient combustion, therefore the fires in WTC 1 did not burn at extreme temperatures.


9/11 Comparison Fires

October 2004
Venezuela
Fire duration:
17 hours


February 2005
Spain
Fire duration:
20+ hours


Both of the above buildings were of inferior build quality to the WTC, yet they burned hotter & far longer than the twin towers & WTC 7 AND REMAINED STANDING.

WTCs 1 & 2
WTC 2 fire duration:
56 minutes
WTC 1 fire duration:
85 minutes


WTC 7
No aircraft impact
Fire duration:
6 hours


The "truss theory" relies on the assumption that 800ºC+ infernos started a catastrophic chain of events which led to the collapse of the twin towers. There were fires in both buildings following the aircraft impacts, but no infernos - "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperatures above 250ºC."

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quote:

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Engineers say heavy insulation protected the steel frames of the buildings [...]. They say that automatic sprinklers and firefighters probably could have extinguished the fires had they been fed by typical office contents ­ desks, carpets and paper. [Birmingham Business Journal]

---

The fires were indeed fed by typical office contents, so the buildings should have remained standing.

They didn't.

Why?

source: http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc_fire.htm

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quote:

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Massive Blaze Destroys Madrid High-Rise
LA TIMES | February 14, 2005
Firefighters struggled for nearly 24 hours before controlling one of Madrid's worst blazes, which reduced a 32-story office building to a blackened hulk of twisted wreckage.

Thick smoke and temperatures up to nearly 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit prevented firefighters from entering the Windsor building until late Sunday.

The fire, which slightly injured seven people, erupted Saturday night. Though badly damaged, the tower didn't collapse.

---

Video of the Madrid fire from the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/news_web/video/40823000/nb/40823471_nb_16x9.ram

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quote:

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Interstate Bank Building Fire Los Angeles, California (May 4, 1988)



On Wednesday, May 4 and continuing in to May 5, 1988, the Los Angeles City Fire Department responded to and extinguished the most challenging and difficult high-rise fire in the city's history. The fire destroyed four floors and damaged a fifth floor of the modern 62 story First Interstate Bank building in downtwon L.A., claimed one life, injured approximately 35 occupants and 14 fire personnel, and resulted in a property loss of over $50 million...

More: http://www.iklimnet.com/hotelfires/interstatebank.html

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1975 WTC fire burned six floors for three hours
http://www.total911.info/2005/04/1975-wtc-fire-burned-six-floors-for.html

Here are a few examples of what collapsed buildings look like:

quote:

---

Introduction

What was Building 7?

What was in Building 7?
Building 7's position relative to the Twin Towers

September 11th

the fires in Building 7
the vertical collapse of Building 7
videos of the collapse
Building 7's tidy rubble pile

The Aftermath

the destruction of the steel
the failure to investigate Building 7's collapse
FEMA's official report of Building 7's collapse
the media's silence about Building 7

What Made Building 7 Collapse?

the cause of the collapse
fires and building collapses
controlled demolition

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quote:

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Fires Versus Steel Buildings

The official explanation that fires caused the collapse of Building 7 is incredible in light of the fact that fires have never caused a steel frame building to collapse, before or after September 11th.

Steel-frame highrises (buildings of fifteen stories or more) have been widespread for over 100 years. There have been hundreds of incidents involving severe fires in such buildings, and none have led to complete collapse, or even partial collapse of support columns.

Recent examples of highrise fires include the 1991 One Meridian Plaza fire in Philadelphia, which raged for 18 hours and gutted 8 floors of the 38 floor building; 1 and the 1988 First Interstate Bank Building fire in Los Angeles, which burned out of control for 3 1/2 hours and gutted 4 floors of the 64 floor tower. Both of these fires were far more severe than any fires seen in Building 7, but those buildings did not collapse. The Los Angeles fire was described as producing "no damage to the main structural members"

More: http://www.wtc7.net/buildingfires.html#ref3

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quote:

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Radio host Bonnie Falkner: How long did you work as an emergency medical technician and exactly what is it that you were doing (at ground zero)?

Indira Singh: ...when I got there we were setting up triage sites (at ground zero), close, very close to the area. The triage site that I was setting up was behind, well, to the east of Building 7 where Building 7 came down. And what we were expecting as an EMT… you're trained for live survivors and there were people on the pile digging and looking for survivors and what happened is they would bring someone out to the nearest triage center… we would stabilize them put them in an ambulance and send them further uptown… so we were setting up triages as close to the pile as possible… so what we were doing was setting up different kinds of stations… IV stations, cardiac stations, wound stations, burn stations ...just trying to have an organized space. What happened with that particular triage site is that pretty soon afternoon, after mid-day on 9/11 we had to evacuate that because they told us Building 7 was coming down. If you had been there, not being able to see very much... just flames everywhere and dark smoke... it is entirely possible... I do believe that they brought Building 7 down, because I heard that they were going to bring it down because it was unstable, because of the collateral damage. That I don't know. I can't attest to the validity of that. All I can attest to is that by noon or one o'clock they told us we had to move from that triage site up to Pace University a little further away because Building 7 was going to come down or being brought down.

Bonnie Falkner: Did they actually use the word "brought" down and who was it that was telling you this?

Indira Singh: The fire department... the fire department and they did use the word "we're going to have to bring it down."

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quote:

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The SEC has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed [in the collapse of WTC 7]. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency's major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. ..."Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases." [New York Lawyer]

Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center, one of the buildings that collapsed in the aftermath of the attack. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack. [TheStreet]

Inside [WTC 7 was] the US Secret Service's largest field office with more than 200 employees. ..."All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran. [TechTV]

Silverstein: WTC Leaseholder May Collect Up To $4.6B, Greg Levine, 12.06.04
http://www.forbes.com/2004/12/06/1206autofacescan06.html

Source:
Larry Silverstein, WTC 7, and the 9/11 Demolition
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/cutter.html

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quote:

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People magazine - United in Courage
September 12, 2001

Ben Fountain, 42, a financial analyst with Fireman's Fund, was coming out of the Chambers Street Station, headed for his office on the 47th floor of the south tower.

"How could they let this happen? They knew this building was a target. Over the past few weeks we'd been evacuated a number of times, which is unusual. I think they had an inkling something was going on."

This is the original link, but it's been scrubbed:
http://people.aol.com/people/special/0,11859,174592-3,00.html

Here's an archived link:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/people.html

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quote:

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Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted
September 12, 2001

Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed.

http://www.nynewsday.com/news/local/manhattan/wtc/ny-nyaler122362178sep12,0,6794009.story

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quote:

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San Francisco Indy Media

WE RECEIVED THE FOLLOWING from someone who worked for Fiduciary Trust on the 90th, 94-97th floors of the South Tower:

"On the weekend of 9/8,9/9 there was a 'power down' condition in WTC tower 2, the south tower. This power down condition meant there was no electrical supply for approx 36 hrs from floor 50 up. I am aware of this situation since I work in IT and had to work with many others that weekend to ensure that all systems were cleanly shutdown beforehand ... and then brought back up afterwards. The reason given by the WTC for the power down was that cabling in the tower was being upgraded ...

"Of course without power there were no security cameras, no security locks on doors and many, many 'engineers' coming in and out of the tower. I was at home on the morning of 9/11 on the shore of Jersey City, right opposite the Towers, and watching events unfold I was convinced immediately that something was happening related to the weekend work."
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/04/1691636.php

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quote:

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WORLD TRADE CENTER RESCUE HERO (William Rodriguez) SUES BUSH AND OTHERS UNDER RICO STATUTE, ALLEGES WILLFUL COMPLICITY IN ATTACKS THAT KILLED 3,000 (Press Release)

The full RICO lawsuit can be downloaded here (pdf file)

Excerpt from the lawsuit:

99. Plaintiff notes also that there was a "power down"� condition in the South Tower, ostensibly due to the need to carry out a "cabling upgrade"� on the weekend of September 8-9, 2001. This could have afforded Enterprise demolition agents the opportunity to implant explosives in the South Tower, without being recorded on security cameras. Plaintiff notes further that Stratesec, a company of which Marvin Bush, the President's brother, was formerly a director, provided security in the WTC Complex.
http://www.911forthetruth.com/pages/RodriguezComplaint6.htm

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quote:

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Bush-Linked Company Handled Security for the WTC, Dulles and United

George W. Bush's brother was on the board of directors of a company providing electronic security for the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport and United Airlines, according to public records. The company was backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corp., also linked for years to the Bush family.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0204-06.htm

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quote:

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SECRECY SURROUNDS A BUSH BROTHER'S ROLE IN 9/11 SECURITY

Two planes hijacked on Sept. 11, 2001 were United Airlines planes, and another took off from Dulles International Airport; two, of course, slammed into the World Trade Center. But the Bush Administration has never disclosed the ties of a presidential brother (Marvin Bush) and the Bush family with the firm that intersected the weapons and targets on a day of national tragedy.
http://anderson.ath.cx:8000/911/hj05.html

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quote:

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Secrecy Surrounds 9/11 Investigation

...Such an investigation could reveal some embarrassing Bush family connections with a company “that intersected the weapons and targets on a day of national tragedy.” As Margie Burns reports in The American Reporter, an electronic daily newspaper, Marvin P. Bush, the president’s younger brother, was a principal in a company called Securacom (aka Stratesec) that provided security for the World Trade Center, United Airlines, and Dulles International Airport...
http://www.utne.com/web_special/web_specials_2003-02/articles/10292-1.html

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quote:

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Town Hall Meeting, Aired December 4, 2001

QUESTION: ... how did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?

BUSH: Well... (APPLAUSE) Thank you, Jordan (ph).

Well, Jordan (ph), you're not going to believe what state I was in when I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida.

And my chief of staff, Andy Card – actually I was in a classroom talking about a reading program that works.

And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower – the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, "There's one terrible pilot." And I said, "It must have been a horrible accident."

But I was whisked off there – I didn't have much time to think about it, and I was sitting in the classroom, and Andy Card, my chief who was sitting over here walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower."

CNN Transcript: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0112/04/se.04.html
Video clip: http://whatreallyhappened.com/IMAGES/bushsawfirstplane1.ram

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January 5, 2001, Remarks by the President in Town Hall Meeting, Ontario, California

Q: What was the first thing that went through your head when you heard that a plane crashed into the first building?

THE PRESIDENT ...I was sitting there, and my Chief of Staff -- well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. And you know, I thought it was pilot error and I was amazed that anybody could make such a terrible mistake. And something was wrong with the plane, or -- anyway, I'm sitting there, listening to the briefing, and Andy Card came and said, "America is under attack."

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020105-3.html

audio clip: http://www.911blimp.net/sounds/BushAgainSayingHeSaw1stPlaneHitWTConTVthatMorning.mp3

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quote:

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I had the opportunity to talk with Principal Gwen Rigell of Booker Elementary school for about twenty minutes. ... I asked her if in fact the President had been watching the events of 9-11 unfold on TV before he went into that classroom and she told me "Absolutely not". There was no TV in the corridor or anywhere near that classroom

Source: http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=10

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quote:

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New York Post, September 12th 2002
Teacher relives moment Bush- and her kids- got the news

"...at Emma E. Booker Elementary School, teacher Sandra Daniels recalled yesterday how she and her class learned of the terror attacks- when a Secret Service agent rushed into the room to inform the president of United States.

President Bush had been presiding over her reading class last 9/11, when a Secret Service agent interrupted the lesson and asked, "where can we get a television?".

"The President bolted right out of here and told me: "take over", Daniels told the Post yesterday...

...a short while later he came back and said, 'What we thought was an accident turned out to be a terrorist hijack."

The New York Post: http://www.nypost.com/09112002/56883.htm

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quote:

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“I thought it was an accident,” says Mr. Bush. “I thought it was a pilot error. I thought that some foolish soul had gotten lost and - and made a terrible mistake.”

Mr. Bush was told about the first plane just before sitting down with a class of second graders. He was watching a reading drill when, just after nine, United Flight 175 exploded into the second tower. There was the sudden realization that what had seemed like a terrible mistake was a coordinated attack.

Back in the Florida classroom, press secretary Ari Fleischer got the news on his pager. The president’s chief-of-staff, Andy Card stepped in.

“A second plane hit the second tower; America is under attack,” Card told the president

CBS News:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/09/11/60II/main521718.shtml

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quote:

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Suddenly, a time to lead, By Bill Sammon, THE WASHINGTON TIMES

...[Bush] climbed into a Cadillac limousine and set out at 8:39 a.m. on the nine-mile trip to Emma E. Booker Elementary in Sarasota...

...What could possibly go wrong on a day such as this? It was 8:46 a.m.
Mr. Bush and his aides, including Mr. Card, arrived nine minutes later at the elementary school on Martin Luther King Jr. Way...

..."We're on time," the president remembered. "I like to stay on time; I like to be crisp."

Personal assistant Blake Gottesman gave him some final stage directions.
"'Here's what you're going to be doing; you're going to meet so-and-so, such-and-such,'" Mr. Bush recalled being told. "And Andy Card says, 'By the way, an aircraft flew into the World Trade Center.'

"And my first reaction was — as an old pilot — how could the guy have gotten so off course to hit the towers? What a terrible accident that is. The first report I heard was a light airplane, twin-engine airplane."

The president entered a holding room at the school and picked up a secure telephone to speak with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice at the White House. She was sitting in her office, watching live coverage of the stricken north tower as it belched black smoke into a cloudless sky.

"There's one terrible pilot," Mr. Bush muttered.

Turning to Mr. Card, he speculated that the pilot must have suffered a heart attack. Mr. Bush, who had yet to see the TV images, drafted a statement pledging federal assistance...

Source: http://newsmine.org/archive/9-11/questions/bush-on-911/ari-dont-say-anything-google-cache.htm

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quote:

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'ABC News' Special Report:
"Planes crash into World Trade Center", Tuesday 11 September 2001

JENNINGS: ...Want to check in very quickly with the president of the United States. John Cochran with the president in Florida. John:

JOHN COCHRAN reporting:

Peter, as you know, the president's down in Florida talking about education. He got out of his hotel suite this morning, was about to leave, reporters saw the White House chief of staff, Andy Card, whisper into his ear. The reporter said to the president, 'Do you know what's going on in New York?' He said he did, and he said he will have something about it later. His first event is about half an hour at an elementary school in Sarasota, Florida.

JENNINGS: Thanks, John. John Cochran with the president...

ABC Transcript: http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/abc911.htm

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CIA Director George Tenet warned Congressmen of “an imminent attack on the United States of this nature.”

From National Public Radio’s on-the-scene reporting during the attacks: “I spoke with Congressman Ike Skelton—a Democrat from Missouri and a member of the Armed Services Committee—who said that just recently the Director of the CIA warned that there could be an attack—an imminent attack—on the United States of this nature. So this is not entirely unexpected.” Listen to the audio clip: http://www.thememoryhole.org/tenet-911.mp3

On September 10, 2001, San Francisco’s mayor was warned against flying to New York the next morning.

Around 10:00 PM on September 10--not exactly business hours--San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown was advised to use extreme caution if flying the next morning to New York City. Brown refuses to say exactly who gave him the prescient warning, citing only “my security people at the airport.” Source: San Francisco Chronicle.

On September 10, 2001, high-ranking Pentagon officials canceled travel plans for the morning of September 11.

From Newsweek: “On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns.”

Attorney General John Ashcroft stopped flying on commercial aircraft in July 2001.

Attorneys General fly in commercial airplanes. Janet Reno did. John Ashcroft did. That is, he did up until July 2001. When asked why Ashcroft had suddenly started flying in leased private jets, an FBI spokesman said, “There was a threat assessment and there are guidelines. He is acting under the guidelines.” The FBI, the Justice Department, and Ashcroft himself all refused to say what the threat was. Source: CBS News.

source:
http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id2672/pg1/

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9/11 Victim Ellen Mariani's Suit Against Bush et al.

[SNIP]

(2) 1996-2001. The FBI was investigating suspected terrorists enrolled in flight schools

In 1996, after the Philippine police had discovered the 'Bojinka' plot (see above), US officials began investigating al Qaeda terrorist suspects who were training in U.S. flight schools. "Since 1996, the FBI had been developing evidence that international terrorists were using US flight schools to learn to fly jumbo jets. A foiled plot in Manila to blow up U.S. airliners and later court testimony by an associate of bin Laden had touched off FBI inquiries at several schools, officials say." (cited in Fairnaru and Grimaldi 9-23-2001; Martin 1-16-2002; Shelon 5-18-2002)

(3) 1996 or 1997. FBI Counter terrorist specialist John O'Neil warned of terrorist capabilities

Soon after the late John O'Neil had become head of the FBI's New York unit, he warned, "A lot of these groups now have the capability and the support infrastructure in the United States to attack us here if they choose to." (Loeb 9-12-2002) John O'Neil, who was described as one of the FBI's 'most pugnacious' agents, resigned from the FBI shortly before 9-11. He subsequently took a position as head of the WTC security, where he is believed to have died on the day of the attacks while attempting to rescue other people in the towers. September 11 had been his first day on the job. (Loeb 9-12-2002) John O'Neil had complained that the Bush administration had impeded his investigations into suspected Saudi terrorists. (Brisard and Dasquie 2001in Godoy 11-16-2001; Marlowe 11-19-2001)

(4) 1997. FBI was investigating Middle Eastern flight school students in Phoenix

Summarizing a letter written by former FBI Special Agent James Hauswirth, the Los Angeles Times wrote: "In 1998, the office's international terrorism squad investigated a possible Middle Eastern extremist taking flight lessons at a Phoenix airport, wrote Hauswirth, who retired from the FBI in 1999."

(5) 1998. The FAA issued a warning that al Qaeda may attempt to hijack commercial airlines

In 1998, Federal Aviation Administration warned airlines to be on a 'high degree of alertness' against possible hijackings by members of Osama bin Laden's organizations. (AP 5-26-2002). May 18, 1998. FBI memo observed that an 'unusually' large number of Middle Eastern men were attending flight schools. The memo revealed that an Oklahoma FBI pilot had warned his supervisor "that he has observed large numbers of Middle Eastern males receiving flight training at Oklahoma airports in recent months." The FBI pilot further observed, "This is a recent phenomena and may be related to planned terrorist activity." Washington 5-30-2002)


(6) 199? – 2001. According to anonymous sources it was widely known that important warnings were being ignored

The New American magazine interviewed three federal law enforcement agents who confirmed that the FBI had foreknowledge of the attacks. They spoke only on conditions of anonymity, although two of them told the magazine that they would be willing to testify to Congress. One agent stated that it was widely known "all over the Bureau, how these [warnings] were ignored by Washington... All indications are that this information came from some of [the Bureau's] most experienced guys, people who have devoted their lives to this kind of work. But their warnings were placed in a pile in someone's office in Washington...In some cases, these field agents predicted, almost precisely, what happened on September 11th. So we were all holding our breath…hoping that the situation would be remedied." [Emphasis added] (cited in Grigg 3-11-2002)

[SNIP]

(8) Early 2001. Court proceedings revealed that al Qaeda operatives were training in
American flight schools

In early 2001, the trial of four men accused of being involved in the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania revealed that members of bin Laden's network had received flying lessons in Texas and Oklahoma. (USA vs. Usama bin Laden et al.; Foden 9-13-2001; Martin 1-16-2002)


(9) January-February 2001. Case of Hani Hanjour

During his attendance at an Arizona flight school, Hani Hanjour arose the suspicion of flight instructor Peggy Chevrette, who felt that Hani both lacked the skill and English for the pilot license he already had. She repeatedly called FAA authorities, who sent one of their inspectors, John Anthony, to look into her concerns. In spite of the fact that FAA guidelines clearly stipulate that fluency in English is required for a U.S. commercial pilot's license, the FAA inspector, according to Chevrette, suggested Hanjour be provided with a translator. Even after Anthony had visited the school, the flight instructor continued calling the FAA twice more with concerns that he didn't have the skills needed to have a license. Hani Hanjour left the school before completing the program. (MSNBC 5-10-2002) The flight school, JetTech, closed after September 11. Sources did not explain why. In addition to the suspicion that he arose at the flight school, he also caught the attention of an FBI informant. Aukai Collins told ABC news that he was an FBI informant for four years. He claims that in 1996, he provided the FBI with very specific information about Hani, including "his exact address, his phone number and even what car he drove." While the FBI admitted that Collins had been an informant, they 'emphatically denied' that he had tipped the agency off to Hani Hanjour. (ABC News 5-23-2002)


(10) February 2001. Warning from George Tenet: bin Laden and al Qaeda are the most serious threat to the U.S. and they intend to inflict mass casualties

In February of 2001, CIA Director George Tenet warned that bin Laden should be considered the "most immediate and serious threat" to the U.S and added, "As we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out 'softer' targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties." (cited in CNN 5-16-2002 "Timeline: Events leading up to September 11"; Cornwell 5-25-2002)


(11) Summer 2001. Former chief investigative counsel warned U.S. Justice Department that FBI believed terrorists were planning to attack lower Manhattan

(a) David Shippers, a Chicago attorney who had been the chief investigative counsel in the attempted impeachment of Clinton, warned the U.S. Justice Department that a massive terrorist attack had been planned for lower Manhattanbased on what FBI agents from Chicago and Minnesota had told him. His warning was shunned by officials, one of which stated, "We don't start our investigations at the top." (cited in Grigg 3-11-2002)

(b) During an October 10, 2001 radio interview, he revealed that he had warned "Attorney General John Ashcroft and Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert that he had proof from a credible source (that he has still not revealed) about a plot to use hijacked commercial airliners to ram the White House and Capitol." (Chin 5-19-2002)

(d) On May 30 2002, one of Shipper’s sources in the FBI, Special Agent Robert Wright disclosed in a testimony broadcasted on C-SPAN that FBI officials and other agents had 'stymied’ his own investigations into suspected terrorists. (Horrock 5-30-2002)

(12) Summer 2001. The 'threat assessment’

On July 26 2001, CBS News reported that Attorney General John Ashcroft was no longer using commercial airliners to travel – even for personal business – because of a "threat assessment" issued by the FBI. Instead Ashcroft was using a chartered jet that cost taxpayers $1,600/hr to fly. The news network further reported: "Neither the FBI nor the Justice Department, however, would identify what the threat was, when it was detected or who made it." (CBS News 7-26-2001)


(13) June 2001. A Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) June circular

According to ABC sources the FAA distributed a circular in June of 2001 that stated, "Although we have no specific information that this threat is directed at civil aviation, the potential for terrorist operations, such as an airline hijacking to free terrorists incarcerated in the U.S. remains a concern." (ABC 5-17-2002; Hersh and Isikoff 5-27-2002) According to Newsweek’s sources, 10-12 such circulars were issued to U.S. airports between June 11 and September 11 (Hersh and Isikoff 5-27-2002). One of the circulars reportedly warned of possible hijackings on flights originating from East Coast airports. (Salant 5-26-2002)


(14) June 9, 2001. Internal FBI memo

Special Agent Robert Wright wrote a memo on June 9 warning the FBI that the Bureau’s failure to take decisive action against known terrorist suspects operating within the country would likely result in the loss of American lives. Parts of the memo read, "Knowing what I know, I can confidently say that until the investigative responsibilities for terrorism are transferred from the FBI, I will not feel safe. The FBI has proven for the past decade it cannot identify and prevent acts of terrorism against the United States and its citizens at home and abroad. Even worse, there is virtually no effort on the part of the FBI's International Terrorism Unit to neutralize known and suspected international terrorists living in the United States. Unfortunately, more terrorist attacks against American interests - coupled with the loss of American lives - will have to occur before those in power give this matter the urgent attention it deserves." (cited in Johnson 5-30-2002)



(15) July 2, 2001. FBI memo

FBI issued a memo stating, "There are threats to be worried about overseas. While we cannot foresee attacks domestically, we cannot rule them out." (cited in CNN 5-16-2002 "Timeline: Events leading up to September 11")


(16) July 3, 2001. Federal investigators learned significant intelligence from Ahmed Ressam, and al Qaeda operative who had planned to bomb Los Angeles Airport

Newsweek reported, "After he was convicted in the spring of 2001, Ressam started giving investigators detailed information on Al Qaeda’s designs in the United States. He left no doubt that U.S. airports were a prime target "because an airport is sensitive politically and economically," as Ressam said in Court on July 3. (Hirsh and Isikoff 5-27-2002)


(17) July 10, 2001. Internal FBI memo warned that men with suspected ties to terrorist groups were training in Arizona flight schools

(a) On July 10 of 2001, FBI agent Kenneth Williams in Arizona sent a memo from the Phoenix FBI office to the radical fundamentalist anti-terrorism unit (which was aware of the Moussaoui case -see below) in the Bureau’s Washington headquarters warning that several Arab men with suspected ties to terrorist groups were training at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona. (Solomon 5-3-2002; Risen 5-4-2002; Johnston 5-15-2002; Hersh and Isikoff 5-27-2002; Johnston and van Natta 5-21-2002; Cornwell 5-25-2002; Lumkin 5-25-2002)

[SNIP]

(18) July 18, 2001. FBI memo

The memo stated, "We’re concerned about threats as a result of the millennium plot conviction....There’s no specific target, no credible info of attacks to U.S. civil aviation interests, but terror groups are known to be planning and training for hijackings, and we ask you therefore to use caution." (cited in CNN 5-16-2002 "Timeline: Events leading up to September 11")


(19) August 6, 2001. Memo ("The Smoking Gun RICO Act Obstruction of Justice Claim")(emphasis added).


(a) On August 6, President George Bush received an intelligence briefing, titled "BIN LADEN DETERMINED TO STRIKE IN THE U.S." that warned that bin Laden may attempt to hijack airplanes and that the Saudi millionaire’s terrorist organization wanted "to bring the fight to America." This information was relayed to Bush after he had previously been supplied with intelligence of a more generalized quality that had indicated that al Qaeda was planning to attack the U.S or U.S. interests abroad. (Eggen and Woodward 5-18-2002; CBS News 5-16-2002; Boncombe 5-19-2002).

(b) An intelligence officer told CBS News (5-16-2002) that a hijacking "was among the many things that we talked about all the time as a potential terrorist threat. But when we talked about hijackings, we talked about that in the traditional sense of hijackings, not in the sense of somebody hijacking an aircraft and flying it into a building. We talked about concern about the general noise level about al Qaeda planning and we were trying to figure out what they would do. We never had specifics about time, place, MO (method of operation)."

(c) Dan Eggen and Bob Woodward (5-18-2002; see also Buncombe 5-19-2002) of The Washington Post revealed that according to their sources, the August 6 briefing had been a result of Bush’s request for "an intelligence analysis of possible al Qaeda attacks within the United States, because most of the information presented to him over the summer about al Qaeda focused on threats against U.S. targets overseas." Furthermore they noted that the content of the memo, as described by their sources, "was focused primarily on a discussion of possible domestic targets." This stands in stark contrast with what Condoleezza Rice had told reporters when she said that the memo had focused primarily on threats to U.S. interests abroad. Additionally, the two reporters questioned the truthfulness of a statement given by Ari Fleischer. Whereas The Washington Post’s sources insisted that the title of the memo was "Bin Laden determined to strike in America," Fleischer had stated that the title was "Bin Laden determined to strike America." The source of the terrorist threats contained in the August 6 memo reportedly came from British intelligence. (Bennetto and Gumbel 5-18-2002)

(d) Commenting on the disturbing revelation, The New York Times pondered, "It was not clear this evening why the White House waited eight months after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington to reveal what Mr. Bush had been told." (Sanger 5-16-2002)


[SNIP]

The full lawsuit can be read here:
http://www.nancho.net/911/mariani.html

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Bill O'Reilly: ...Last August, Mr. Woods found himself on a plane going from Boston to Los Angeles. Surrounding him in first class were four men who appeared to be of Middle Eastern origin. Later, Mr. Woods told the FBI it was very suspicious. And they interviewed him after 9/11.

James Woods: ... I have not talked about this in the press until this day because there was a lot of misinformation that came out about it.

I was on a flight, without going into the details of what made me suspicious of these four men, although it would have been blatantly obvious to the most casual observer, I took it upon myself to go to the flight attendant and ask to speak to the pilot of the plane. The first officer came out. I reported to him that I felt that the four men, and I said, "Can you look over my shoulder and see who I'm talking about?" And he said, "Yeah." I said I think they're going to hijack this plane. I mean, everything they're doing, and I explained to him these details, which I've been asked to keep private, until whatever jurisdiction, you know -- whatever trials may take place, their behavior was such that I felt that they were going to hijack the plane.

I also said I'm very much aware of how serious it is to say on an American aircraft in flight the word hijack...

...So I'm saying this because I really have reason to believe it's true. I found out later that not only was -- did he make a report, but the flight attendant also made a report of my suspicions to the FAA.

When I got home that night, it had been a very turbulent flight, I had said to this woman I'm dating, and my girlfriend and my best friend, she said, "How was the flight?" And I said, "Well aside from the terrorists and the turbulence, it was fine," which was now in retrospect not such a very funny joke, but it was August 1 and nobody was thinking along those lines...

...And when 9/11 happened, we were all stunned. And we all happened to be at my house that evening. And my friend Scott said to me, "You know, remember that flight you took in August?" I said, "Yes, I've been thinking about it all day." He said, "Well, maybe you should call the FBI." And I said, "I'm sure they're being inundated."

But I thought it over and I called the local office. And within two minutes got ahold of a very intelligent young man, a special agent there, who took the report. And I said, "I hope I'm not wasting your time." He said, "Well, we have so many reports coming in." And he said, "And by the way, even if this leads to something, we don't like to backwash information to people, because in case they have to go to a trial and be witnesses or whatever, so you won't hear from us."

I said, "Well, great." And he said, "But we appreciate your calling." Quarter to 7:00 the next morning, I get a phone call that actually wakes me up. And I say, "Hi." And they say, "Hi, this is -- I won't use their name, but the special agent, who's now been my contact and his partner." And they said, "We want to talk to you about the flight that you took in August. I said, "Oh, did the manifest match of any of the flights yesterday and my flight?" He said we can't tell you that. I said, "Well, look, I'll get ready and you know, I'll come down to the federal building." He said, "That's OK, we're outside your house. We'll just wait for you here."

O'REILLY: Wow, 7:15. So this is serious.

WOODS: Quarter to seven in the morning. And said -- and I -- and this is the only funny part of any of this. I said, "How did you know where I lived?" And there was a pause. He said, "We're the FBI, thank you."

...So they came in. And I said, "Look, I'm dying to know, were these the guys? And he said, "Well, we've had 36,000 tips in one day. And there's two of us and we're going to be at your house all this morning. So you can do the math, but we can't tell you." You know, so since then, I have identified for sure two of them as two of the terrorists.

O'REILLY: Really?

WOODS: Who actually were not on Flight 11, but one was on flight 175 and one was on flight 77. And I've been told unofficially, not by the FBI, but by someone else in a -- actually a higher level of government, believe it or not, just through a coincidence, through a mutual friend, that all four of them were terrorists involved.

O'REILLY: That is -- so it was basically a rehearsal, what these guys were doing?

WOODS: Right. But what's significant about this is that it was a rehearsal with four men. And I can't say it as a fact that they were the four, but I've been led to believe without going into the details of how, that they were on different flights. So the notion that they were separate cells when -- and this is tricky territory, but I think in the Moussaoui trial, there's going to be some contention that, you know, he was a soldier and didn't know what was going to happen...

...until he stepped on the plane and then decided in a fit of good conscience not to be a terrorist anymore. In fact, the fact that these two people were identified by myself and other people, and were on the Boston-L.A. flight, and ended up dying on two other flights of the four flights on September 11 shows that they were...

O'REILLY: What an amazing story.

WOODS: There was...

O'REILLY: And this is the first time I've ever heard this. This is the first time you're telling the story.

WOODS: Yes.

O'REILLY: Was Moussaoui one of those guys?

WOODS: No. Not that I know of.

I mean, I don't remember him as such. I remember two of the guys so specifically...

...because one was that guy with the pointed hair.

...I mean, you'll see him -- I can't remember the name now, but he was so specifically clear because he actually looked like an actor.

O'REILLY: Now are you a type of guy -- so it was just you and these four guys in First Class. Nobody else else?

WOODS: No, no.

O'REILLY: There were a couple other guys?

WOODS: Yes.

O'REILLY: Were they nervous, too or was it just you picking these guys out?

WOODS: You know, as I explained to the FBI, they said what was your first instinct? And aside from certain things, like four guys getting on to a transcontinental flight without any hand luggage, who -- it's funny. I notice behavior because I guess I'm an actor and it's kind of what I...

I just kind of observe people.

It's something I've always been fascinated by. Sort of like that scene in "Annie Hall," where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton sit and watch people and sort of talk about who they might be.

And there were four guys. When the flight attendant, who was a woman, came up to them, they literally ignored her like she didn't exist, which is sort of a kind of Taliban, you know, idea of womanhood, as you know, not even a human being. I mean, it seems their disrespect for women is so extraordinary.

And they didn't order alcohol. And they just -- and -- I can't go into the details, but it just -- it was -- as I explained to the FBI, as if you were at a nightclub and everybody's enjoying an act on the stage. And the camera behind that act on the stage and sort of panning the audience. And everybody's focused on the singer, except four people sort of in the room kind of doing something else and connected to each other...

...Well, so -- they said to me, you know, "What made -- what did you think these guys were?" I said, well, I thought they were either four law enforcement officers or four terrorists in that they had that thing that -- guys who are undercover or on a mission have between each other. And it's impossible to explain.

O'REILLY: Well, you were lucky. You're absolutely lucky that they didn't decide to do it a month before.

WOODS: By the way, one thing I must clear up...

...that has been sort of misreported in the press. I did not report this to the FBI before September 11.

O'REILLY: Right, just the FAA.

WOODS: And it was only done by, as I understand it, the flight crew, which I had been told later...

Read the full transcript here: http://prisonplanet.com/transcript_actor_james_woods.html

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Exercise naming conventions:
The terms used for NORAD exercises have specific meanings. Per NORAD Instruction 33-7:

“Nicknames: A combination of two separate unclassified words which is assigned an unclassified meaning and is employed for unclassified administration, morale or public information. The first word must begin with the combination of letters of the alphabet allocated to the using agency.” A nickname is used exclusively to designate a drill, or exercise. Exercise terms are used to prevent confusion between exercise directives with actual operations.”

● Vigilant or Amalgam means it is a HQ NORAD