Foooosh!

That's how fast witnesses said a glowing meteor streaked across Florida skies Thursday before disappearing. From Fort Lauderdale to Cape Canaveral people called the National Weather Service reporting the bright orange orb.

"We think it was a meteor that was falling through the sky and burning up," said Barry Baxter, a weather service meteorologist.

"We don't know if it was over the ocean or land. [People] just said it was over the sky, like a fireball ... with a smoke tail behind it."

That's how Bob Cooper, 48, of Dania Beach, described it, a flaming ball without the smoke tail. He was in the back yard throwing a Frisbee to Bill, his golden retriever, when something caught his attention.

"All of a sudden this thing shot from my right," said Cooper, describing the "thing" about the size of a baseball. "And it was super fast, so you know it was in a hurry."

A 911 caller reported a plane crash about 7 p.m. at the old Harris Ranch on Southeast River Lane, Martin County officials said. But air traffic controllers at Miami International Airport told Martin County authorities it was a meteor.

It was unclear what direction the glowing glob traveled or the size. Baxter said NASA would determine both.

"If it was determined by NASA not to be a piece of re-entering space debris, then it was most likely a sporadic fireball," said Jack Horkheimer, planetarium director at the Miami Museum of Science.

"It has all the determiners of a fireball."

Fireballs are extremely bright meteors about the size of a baseball or basketball that slam into the earth's atmosphere at high speeds, he said.

They are common, but often go unreported because most of the planet is uninhabited; water covers 70 percent.

Comment: Yes, water covers 70% of the planet's surface, that is why we normally never hear about these "sporadic" space rocks, but for some strange reason, there have been lots of these "wonderful phenomena" of late...we wonder why...

"They are nothing to worry about -- a wonderful phenomenon of nature," Horkheimer said.

They suddenly invaded the beach north of Fort Lauderdale on a clear, sunny, wind-free day in early March 1962 and frightened onlookers. One, Mary Swanson, now an Indialantic resident, said she'd moved to Arizona soon after the event and never knew what caused it.

She hoped our readers could tell her. We've been reporting their responses, which mostly blame the waves on far-off storms, as distant as Africa.

"Any storm powerful enough to send waves clear across the Atlantic would have affected the whole Florida coastline . . . and would also have first devastated the Bahama Islands," Gene said.

However, he added, "there was a more recent incident of 'mystery waves' that did hit Daytona Beach on an evening when the sea was flat, swamping beach-parked cars and scaring a lot of tourists at the boardwalk. Officials claimed these waves were generated by a 'sand slide' out on the continental shelf, but there was no geological activity registered by seismic sensors along the east coast.

"Some weeks later a local news channel ran a report about the operators of a shrimp boat off the coast witnessing a huge splash in the distance and then almost being swamped by massive swells.

"I believe the waves in both cases were caused by meteor impacts at sea. I also believe that safety officials play down these incidents, feeding the public any excuse but the truth.

"Why? Because we have no defense or warning systems to deal with meteor impacts. Our government justifies spending billions of tax dollars on missile defense systems, and yet a missile attack is less of a threat than the debris flying around in local space. The reality is that even if an imminent impact were predicted, there is nothing we could do about it."

A top UN public health expert warned yesterday that a new flu pandemic is expected at any time and could kill anywhere between five million and 150 million people – depending on action taken now to control the bird flu epidemic sweeping through Asia.

Dr David Nabarro of the World Health Organisation called on governments to take immediate steps to address the threat at a news conference following his appointment as the new UN co-ordinator for avian and human influenza.

“We expect the next influenza pandemic to come at any time now, and it’s likely to be caused by a mutant of the virus that is currently causing bird flu in Asia,” he said.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has swept through poultry populations in Asia since 2003, infecting humans and killing at least 65 people, mostly poultry workers, and resulting in the deaths of tens of millions of birds. The virus does not pass from person to person easily but experts believe this could change if the virus mutates.

Nabarro said with the almost certainty of another flu pandemic soon, and experts saying there is a high likelihood of the H5N1 virus mutating, it would be “extremely wrong” to ignore the serious possibility of a global outbreak.

“The avian flu epidemic has to be controlled if we are to prevent a human influenza pandemic,” Nabarro said.

The 1918 flu pandemic killed more than 40 million people, and there were subsequent pandemics in 1957 and 1968 which had lower death rates but caused great disruption, he said. [...]

The US is protecting the "Osama bin Laden of Latin America", the Venezuelan president said today.

Hugo Chavez made his remarks after a US judge ruled against deporting a Cuban militant who blew up a passenger jet in 1976.

Luis Posada Carriles - who is wanted in Venezuela for the bombing - this week told an extradition hearing that he faced torture if he was returned to the country.

An immigration judge in El Paso, Texas, upheld the claims, ruling that 77-year-old Mr Carriles could not be extradited.

Mr Chavez said the decision not to extradite Mr Carriles allowed the Bush administration to protect one of Latin America's most notorious terrorists.

"The United States is protecting the Osama bin Laden of Latin America," he said, accusing the US president, George Bush, of "double standards" in the fight against terror.

Earlier this month, Mr Bush told a UN summit that "terrorists must know that, wherever they go, they cannot escape justice".

Mr Carriles, a Cuban who also holds Venezuelan citizenship, is accused of masterminding the bombing of the Cuban passenger jet in 1976. He has denied any involvement in the attack, but has admitted to working against the Cuban president, Fidel Castro.

All 73 people on board the Cubana Airlines plane were killed when it exploded after takeoff from Barbados.

Mr Carriles escaped from a Venezuelan prison in 1985 while awaiting retrial after a military court acquitted him of the bombing. He has worked as CIA operative, and was in the US military for a year during the early 80s.

In May, he was arrested in Miami for being in the US illegally. The Venezuelan authorities then asked for his extradition to stand trial for the bombing.

Mr Carriles says he could not return to Venezuela because he would be tortured, and also alleges that Mr Castro attempted to have him assassinated in 1990 because of his former position in the Venezuelan security forces.

Venezuela has always denied that Mr Carriles would be tortured if he was returned. The country's constitution prohibits torture, and Venezuelan officials insist his rights would be respected.

An imam slated to be sworn in Friday as the second Muslim chaplain in Fire Department history said he questioned whether 19 hijackers were responsible for the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and suggested a broader conspiracy may have brought down the Twin Towers and killed more than 2,700 people.

In a telephone interview Thursday, Imam Intikab Habib, 30, a native of Guyana who studied Islam in Saudi Arabia, said he doubted the United States government's official story blaming 19 hijackers associated with al-Quaida and Osama bin Laden.

"I as an individual don't know who did the attacks," said Habib, 30, a soft-spoken man who immigrated to New York in July 2000 after spending six years in Saudi Arabia getting a degree in Islamic theology and law. "There are so many conflicting reports about it. I don't believe it was 19 ... hijackers who did those attacks."

Asked to elaborate on his reasons for doubting that story, he talked about video and news reports widely disseminated in the Muslim community.

"I've heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone," he said. "It takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that. But it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down, or was it a conspiracy?"

Questioned about who he believed was responsible for the attacks, Habib said he didn't know. He said, however, that he did not expect to raise his doubts with rank-and-file firefighters -- nor did he share them two weeks ago when he participated in several Sept. 11 memorials on behalf of the Fire Department.

"My position as a chaplain is that whoever did it, it's a tragic incident," he said. "I feel sorrow for the families who lost loved ones and for the firefighters who died in it. Whoever did it, it was a very wrong thing. It's always wrong to take an innocent human life."

A spokesman for the Fire Department, Frank Gribbon, said that Habib was recommended by the department's Islamic Society and was hired "based on his credentials as a religious person. We don't ask new employees about their political views before we hire them."

Stephen Cassidy, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, could not be reached for comment.

Habib's remarks about the attacks came in response to questions about whether he thought firefighters would accept a chaplain who had been educated in Saudi Arabia.

He said he did not expect that to be an issue because "I come from a country where you're accustomed to living with people of different ethnic, religious and racial backgrounds."

When pressed further about whether the hijackers' backgrounds -- 15 of whom were Saudi -- might make his training an issue for still-grieving firefighters, he went on to express his own doubts about the hijacker story.

Habib was one of several imams recommended for the chaplain's job by the Islamic Society for the Fire Department, as a result of his work teaching junior high students at Al-Ihsan Academy in Ozone Park, a private Islamic school, where he worked for about five years.

"He's a good man," said Hakim Braxton, president of the Islamic Society. "Any statements he's made, he's responsible for ... But I would ask that the citizens of this city give him a chance and judge him on his actions."

Braxton also stressed that neither he nor anyone in the Islamic Society would agree with anyone who tried to justify the terror attack in any way. "I lost friends, family, co-workers," he said.

Braxton described Habib as a "humble, grounded and family man, which is a good thing in this job, because he's trying to help everyone and he's representing a very diverse community."

Habib himself said he saw his role as ministering to every member of the Fire Department, not just to Muslims.

"Being a chaplain in the Fire Department, I serve the whole Fire Department," he said.

Most people -- or certainly many people, especially in the U.S. -- believe the complete structural failure and total collapse of the World Trade Center towers was caused by the combustion of large quantities of jet fuel, dispersed and ignited after "hijacked" jets crashed into each tower on Sept. 11, 2001. That is the scenario promulgated to the far corners of the globe by official U.S. government sources.

Interestingly, jet fuel -- somewhat similar to common kerosene and not much different than charcoal lighter fluid -- burns at roughly 875 degrees. Whether a little or a lot of fuel is burned, it still burns at roughly the same temperature. Now: Think about all the kerosene burning in all those kerosene heaters (and lanterns), constructed primarily of thin, low-grade, steel sheet metal. Think about all those kerosene heaters burning merrily away, with temperatures perhaps approaching 875 degrees at the hottest. Think about how parts of all those kerosene heaters would then turn into bubbling pools of melted steel before the horrified eyes of countless poor souls who had no idea the fuel used in their heaters would actually "MELT" the heaters themselves.

Of course, this does NOT happen -- which gives us a pretty good idea that what had been sold far and wide by the U.S. government and innumerable media outlets as the "cause" of the trade center towers' collapse is in fact absolute fiction and fantasy, without the slightest shred of scientific fact or collaborative evidence and testimony to support such monstrous and utter nonsense. Hardened steel such as that used in the WTC beams and girders needs temperatures of approximately TWENTY-EIGHT HUNDRED (2,800) degrees to actually melt, and temperatures approaching 2,000 degrees to turn bright red and soften,

The official version of the collapse of the WTC towers is -- again -- that burning jet fuel eventually melted or liquefied the massive and seriously hard steel beams of the WTC tower(s), to the point where the beams all gave way, unilaterally and simultaneously throughout both the gigantic structures and causing their total and nearly instantaneous collapse. Well, if such doesn't happen with kerosene heaters, you can bet it doesn't happen to huge steel-beamed buildings -- and indeed it never has; especially when the fires which supposedly "caused" such total structural failure had in fact long since largely burned themselves out.

In fact, nearly a year after the monumental and treacherous catastrophe which struck lower Manhattan on Sept. 11, 2001, an audio tape of firefighter communications was finally released -- which proves that the actual conditions at and near the point of impact in the north WTC tower only moments before the building's collapse were totally inconsistent with the conditions which had to have existed for the official version to be even minimally correct.

Firefighters who had reached the eightieth floor of the north tower reported they were eyewitnesses to fact much of the fire caused by burning jet fuel had by then largely burned out, although some burning and smoldering areas still remained. Not once did firefighters on site at " ground zero" of ground zero indicate the slightest concern that fires were still burning at an intensity which threatened their own or others' safety -- certainly not that conditions were so severe that the very integrity of the entire structure itself was threatened! On the contrary: they indicated that conditions were controllable: that they planned to conduct survivors safely out of the building, and to then bring in equipment and personnel to extinguish any remaining burning/smoldering areas.

And what, exactly, does all this mean? It means that the total structural failure of the two massive, superbly-engineered/designed edifices known as the WTC towers did NOT result from jet fuel flash-fires burning at under 900 degrees Fahrenheit -- when steel used in WTC construction needed temperatures over THREE TIMES HIGHER to actually "MELT."

And THIS means that the towers were in fact toppled by use of BOMBS or similar methods.

And THIS means that a stupendously far-reaching conspiracy and cover-up -- involving the highest levels of US government -- lies behind the 9-11 "attacks on America".

by Robert Anderson

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/09TOWE.
html?ex=1059105600&en=3a84112d9c0719b9&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/09TOWE.
html?ex=1059105600&en=3a84112d9c0719b9&ei=5070

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/09/nyregion/09TAPE.
html?ex=1059105600&en=dc9c7f7df4341393&ei=5070

-- 'Nowhere on the tape is there any indication that firefighters had the slightest indication that the tower had become unstable or that it could fall.' --

-- ' "Just two hose lines to attack two isolated pockets of fire. "We should be able to knock it down with two lines," he tells the firefighters of Ladder Company 15 who were following him up the stairs of the doomed tower.' --

Fire Department Tape Reveals No Awareness of Imminent Doom

By KEVIN FLYNN and JIM DWYER

The voices, captured on a tape of Fire Department radio transmissions, betray no fear. The words are matter-of-fact.

Two hose lines are needed, Chief Orio Palmer says from an upper floor of the badly damaged south tower at the World Trade Center.

Lt. Joseph G. Leavey is heard responding: "Orio, we're on 78, but we're in the B stairway. Trapped in here. We got to put some fire out to get to you."

Ladder 15 had finally found the fire after an arduous climb to the 78th floor, according to the tape. They were in the B stairwell. On the other side of the fire were hundreds of people, blocked from fleeing by smoke and flame on the stairs. Chief Palmer was facing similar fires in the A stairwell, across the floor.

"We're gonna knock down some fire here in the B Stair," Lieutenant Leavey is heard telling one of his firefighters. "We'll meet up with you. You get over to the A Stair and help out Chief Palmer."

The time was 9:56 a.m. The firefighters had just arrived at a place where, 54 minutes earlier, many people had been waiting for elevators when the second plane came crashing through the building. Now Chief Palmer and Ladder 15 were surrounded by the wounded whom they hoped to evacuate.

Like the cockpit voice recorder from a downed jetliner, this tape, discovered in an adjacent building several weeks after Sept. 11, is providing a glimpse into unseen corners of the tragedy and the resolute advance of firefighters as they encountered the largest catastrophe of their lives.

The 78-minute tape, which was found in a room at 5 World Trade Center where radio transmissions were monitored, is the only known audiotape of firefighters at the scene. In recent months, officials of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which maintained the recording system, have allowed fire officials and family members to listen to it. It was not publicly released, however, until this week. The release came after federal prosecutors, responding to a court motion by The New York Times, said that making it public would not interfere with the prosecution of terrorists.

Officials from the Port Authority and the Fire Department are still debating what the tape tells them about the breakdowns in radio communication that day. There are several long stretches of silence on the tape. Transmissions from only a few of the companies that operated in the south tower are recorded. A few additional snippets of conversation can be heard from firefighters in the north tower, where radios using the same frequency were also monitored.

But sections of the tape provide vivid images of the firefighters: the breathless voice of Chief Palmer, a marathon runner, after dashing up dozens of flights; the assurances from firefighters to him that they are coming on his heels; the effort to create a medical staging area for the wounded on the 40th floor.

At several points in the tape, fire commanders can be heard speaking with urgency. A commander alerts a colleague that he needs more companies to handle what he is facing in the south tower. The chiefs discuss the need to get more elevators into service, to carry firefighters up and to transport the injured back down.

But nowhere on the tape is there any indication that firefighters had the slightest indication that the tower had become unstable or that it could fall.

"Chief, I'm going to stop on 44," Stephen Belson, an aide to Chief Palmer, tells him at 9:25 as he ascends.

"Take your time," the chief responds.

A half-hour later, the tape reveals, firefighters from Ladder 15 had loaded 10 injured people into an elevator and begun a descent to the lobby. Down below, fire commanders were waiting, hoping to use that elevator, the only working one in the building, to ferry additional firefighters back up to the heavily damaged floors. But suddenly the elevator stopped, according to the tape.

"You're going to have to get a different elevator," a firefighter from Ladder 15 says over the radio. "We're chopping through the wall to get out."

A few seconds later, at 9:58 a.m., Chief Palmer tries to raise someone from the ladder company. "Battalion 7 to Ladder 15," he calls.

But the tape remains silent.

For well over a year, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey refused to release the audiotape of firefighters' communications from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks. In early November 2002, the tape was released to the New York Times, then to other unspecified "news outlets" (according to the Associated Press). To my knowledge, the NYT is the only outlet to post excerpts from the tape; no one has yet posted the entire thing.

Below are transcripts of all portions that have been released. You can listen to them at the NYT's site by going to this page. In the right hand column is a box labeled "Multimedia." Inside it, click on "Interactive Feature: The Tale of the Tape."

[read "9/11 Tape Raised Added Questions on Radio Failures" and "Fire Department Tape Reveals No Awareness of Imminent Doom"]

9:25 a.m.

Ladder 15: "Go ahead, Irons."

Ladder 15 Irons: "Just got a report from the director of Morgan Stanley. Seventy-eight seems to have taken the brunt of this stuff, there's a lot of bodies, they say the stairway is clear all the way up, though."

Ladder 15: "Alright, ten-four Scott. What, what floor are you on?"

Ladder 15 Irons: "Forty-eight right now."

Ladder 15: "Alright, we're coming up behind you."

9:31 a.m.

Battalion Seven Aide: "Battalion Seven, you want me to relay?"

Ladder 15: "Yeah, Steve tell Chief Palmer they got reports that there's more planes in the area, we may have to back down here."

Battalion Seven Aide: "Ten-four."

"Seven Alpha to Seven."

Battalion Seven: "Steve. Seven to Seven Alpha."

Ladder 15: "Fifteen to 15 Roof."

"Fifteen Roof."

Ladder 15: "We got reports of another incoming plane. We may have to take cover. Stay in the stairwell."

Ladder 15 Roof: "Ten-four."

Ladder 15: "Fifteen to 15 Roof. That plane's ours. I repeat. It's ours. What floor are you on, Scotty?"

Ladder 15 Roof: "Fifty-four."

Ladder 15: "Alright. Keep making your way up. We're behind you."

Ladder 15 Roof: "Ten-four."

9:37 a.m.

Ladder 15 Lieutenant: "Tommy, listen carefully. I'm sending all the injured down to you on 40. You're going to have to get'em down to the elevator. There's about 10 to 15 people coming down to you."

Ladder 15 Firefighter: "Okay."

Ladder 15 Lieutenant: "Ten civilians coming down. Fifteen to OV."

Ladder 15 Firefighter: "Got that, I'm on 40 right now, Lieu."

9:39 a.m.

Ladder 15 Lieutenant: "Alright Tommy, when you take people down to the lobby, try to get an EMS crew back."

Ladder 15 Firefighter: "Definitely."

9:43 a.m.

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Ladder 15 Roof, what's your progress?"

Ladder 15 Roof: "Sixty-three, Battalion."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four."

Battaltion Nine Chief: "Battalion Nine to Battalion Seven."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Go ahead Battaltion Nine."

Battalion Nine Chief: "Orio, I couldn't find a bank to bring you up any highter. I'm on the 40th floor, what can I do for you?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "We're going to have to hoof it. I'm on 69 now, but we need a higher bank, kay."

Battalion Nine Chief: "What stairway you in Orio?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "The center of the building, boy, boy."

"Tac One to Tac One Alpha."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Ladder 15 Roof, what floor?"

Battalion Nine Chief: "Battalion Nine to Battalion Seven."

Battalion Seven Chief: "...Battalion Nine."

Battalion Nine Chief: "Orio, I'm going to try and get a couple of CFRD engines on the 40th floor so send any victims down here, I'll start up a staging area."

Battalion Seven Chief: "...find a fireman service elevator close to 40, if we get some more cars in that bank, we'll be alright."

9:48 a.m.

Ladder 15: "Battalion Fifteen to Battalion Seven."

Battalion Seven: "Go Ladder 15."

Ladder 15: "What do you got up there, Chief?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "I'm still in boy stair 74th floor. No smoke or fire problems, walls are breached, so be careful."

Ladder 15: "Yeah Ten-Four, I saw that on 68. Alright, we're on 71 we're coming up behind you."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four. Six more to go."

Ladder 15: "Let me know when you see more fire."

Battalion Seven Chief: "I found a marshall on 75."

9:49 a.m.

Ladder 15: "Fifteen to 15 OV. Fifteen to 15 OV.

"Fifteen OV."

Ladder 15: "Tommy, have you made it back down to the lobbby yet?"

Ladder 15 OV: "The elevator's screwed up."

Ladder 15: "You can't move it?"

Ladder 15 OV: "I don't want to get stuck in the shaft."

9:50 a.m.

Ladder 15: "Alright Tommy. It's imperative that you go down to the lobby command post and get some people up to 40. We got injured people up here on 70. If you make it to the lobby command post see if they can somehow get elevators past the 40th floor. We got people injured all the way up here."

Battalion Seven Aide: "Battaltion Seven Alpha to Seven."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Go Steve."

Battalion Seven Aide: "Yeah Chief, I'm on 55, I got to rest. I'll try to get up there as soon as possible."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four."

9:50 a.m.

"Anybody see the highway one car? Highway one car we need it for an escort to the hospital for a fireman."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Ladder 15."

"15 Irons."

Ladder 15: "Fifteen to 15 Roof and Irons."

Battalion Six Chief: "Battalion Six to command post."

9:52 a.m.

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Battalion Seven Alpha."

"Freddie, come on over. Freddie, come on over by us."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones."

Ladder 15: "What stair are you in, Orio?"

Battalion Seven Aide: "Seven Alpha to lobby command post."

Ladder Fifteen: "Fifteen to Battalion Seven."

Battalion Seven Chief: "... Ladder 15."

Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."

Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."

Ladder 15: "Alright ten-four, we're on our way."

9:52 a.m.

Battalion Seven Aide: "Seven Alpha for Battalion Seven."

Battalion Seven Chief: "South tower, Steve, south tower, tell them...Tower one. Battalion Seven to Ladder 15.

"Fifteen."

Battalion Seven Chief: "I'm going to need two of your firefighters Adam stairway to knock down two fires. We have a house line stretched we could use some water on it, knock it down, kay."

Ladder 15: "Alright ten-four, we're coming up the stairs. We're on 77 now in the B stair, I'll be right to you."

Ladder 15 Roof: "Fifteen Roof to 15. We're on 71. We're coming right up."

9:57 a.m.

"Division 3 ... lobby command, to the Fieldcom command post."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Operations Tower One to floor above Battalion Nine."

Battalion Nine Chief: "Battalion Nine to command post."

Battalion Seven Operations Tower One: "Battalion Seven Operations Tower One to Battalion Nine, need you on floor above 79. We have access stairs going up to 79, kay."

Battalion Nine: "Alright, I'm on my way up Orio."

Ladder 15 OV: "Fifteen OV to Fifteen."

Ladder 15: "Go ahead Fifteen OV, Battalion Seven Operations Tower One."

Ladder 15 OV: "Stuck in the elevator, in the elevator shaft, you're going to have to get a difference elevator. We're chopping through the wall to get out."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Radio lobby command with that Tower One."

9:58 a.m.

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Ladder 15."

(END OF TAPE)

Experts charge official obstruction/cover-up in WTC collapse probe; say threats received, KEY evidence destroyed New York Times

-- 'In calling for a new investigation, some structural engineers have said that one serious mistake has already been made in the chaotic aftermath of the collapses: the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that held up the buildings. That may have cost investigators some of their most direct physical evidence with which to try to piece together an answer.' -- NY Times

-- '"I find the speed with which potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be appalling" -- Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer; fire protection engineering department, University of Maryland and WTC collapse probe member quoted in NY Times - The New York Times December 25, 2001

THE TOWERS

Experts Urging Broader Inquiry in Towers' Fall By JAMES GLANZ and ERIC LIPTON

Saying that the current investigation into how and why the twin towers fell on Sept. 11 is inadequate, some of the nation's leading structural engineers and fire-safety experts are calling for a new, independent and better-financed inquiry that could produce the kinds of conclusions vital for skyscrapers and future buildings nationwide.

Senator Charles E. Schumer and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, both of New York, have joined the call for a wider look into the collapses. In an interview on Friday, Mr. Schumer said he supported a new investigation "not so much to find blame" for the collapse of the buildings under extraordinary circumstances, "but rather so that we can prepare better for the future."

"It could affect building practices," he said. "It could affect evacuation practices. We live in a new world and everything has to be recalibrated."

Experts critical of the current effort, including some of those people who are actually conducting it, cite the lack of meaningful financial support and poor coordination with the agencies cleaning up the disaster site. They point out that the current team of 20 or so investigators has no subpoena power and little staff support and has even been unable to obtain basic information like detailed blueprints of the buildings that collapsed.

While agreeing that any building hit by a jetliner would suffer potentially devastating damage, experts want to examine whether the twin towers may have had hidden vulnerabilities that contributed to their collapse.

The lightweight steel trusses that supported the tower's individual floors, the connections between the trusses and the buildings' vertical structural columns, as well as possible flaws in the fireproofing have been drawing scrutiny from fire safety consultants and engineers in recent weeks.

"Two buildings came down," said Joseph F. Russo, director of the Center for Fire Safety Engineering at Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, referring to the twin towers. "That suggests some degree of predictability."

"And if it was predictable," Mr. Russo said, "was it preventable?"

Family members of some victims have added their voices to the calls for a wider investigation.

The exact scope of an expanded inquiry has not been defined. But the central desire is to learn any lessons that might be hidden in the rubble and to pinpoint the exact sequence and cause of the collapse, regardless of whether it was inevitable from the moment the planes struck, members of the investigative team and others said.

In calling for a new investigation, some structural engineers have said that one serious mistake has already been made in the chaotic aftermath of the collapses: the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that held up the buildings. That may have cost investigators some of their most direct physical evidence with which to try to piece together an answer.

Officials in the mayor's office declined to reply to written and oral requests for comment over a three- day period about who decided to recycle the steel and the concern that the decision might be handicapping the investigation.

"The city considered it reasonable to have recovered structural steel recycled," said Matthew G. Monahan, a spokesman for the city's Department of Design and Construction, which is in charge of debris removal at the site.

"Hindsight is always 20-20, but this was a calamity like no other," said Mr. Monahan, who was designated by the mayor's office to respond to questions about the investigation. "And I'm not trying to backpedal from the decision."

Interviews with a handful of members of the team, which includes some of the nation's most respected engineers, also uncovered complaints that they had at various times been shackled with bureaucratic restrictions that prevented them from interviewing witnesses, examining the disaster site and requesting crucial information like recorded distress calls to the police and fire departments.

The investigation, organized immediately after Sept. 11 by the American Society of Civil Engineers, the field's leading professional organization, has been financed and administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. A mismatch between the federal agency and senior engineers accustomed to bypassing protocol in favor of quick answers has been identified as a clear point of friction.

"This is almost the dream team of engineers in the country working on this, and our hands are tied," said one team member who asked not to be identified. Members have been threatened with dismissal for speaking to the press.

"FEMA is controlling everything," the team member said. "It sounds funny, but just give us the money and let us do it, and get the politics out of it."

A spokesman for FEMA, John Czwartacki, said the agency's primary mission was to help victims, emergency workers and to speed the city's recovery, and added, "We are not an investigative agency."

But given the assignment to examine the structural failures at the World Trade Center, the agency has so far spent roughly $100,000 and Mr. Czwartacki said that more financing could be expected after the group produced what he called an "interim document" in the spring.

"I've heard the calls for the N.T.S.B.-style investigation," Mr. Czwartacki said, referring to appeals by engineers and some families of trade center victim for an exhaustive examination like those done by the National Transportation Safety Board when a plane crashes. "I don't think this study will do it for them."

Mr. Czwartacki added that it was premature to comment on whether team members were receiving necessary information because the study has not been completed. Regardless of what any investigation might find, it is unclear how many civilian lives would have been saved if the buildings had not collapsed, because so many died on the burning upper floors.

Despite the universe of unknowns, the calls for more extensive investigations of various kinds are coming from engineers, fire experts and professional organizations in New York and across the nation.

"What some of us are calling for is a probe or reassessment," said Loring A. Wyllie Jr., a member of the National Academy of Engineering and chairman emeritus and senior principal at Degenkolb Engineers in San Francisco. Mr. Wyllie, who has investigated many building collapses after earthquakes, said the work would involve "a critique of our building practices" in search of greater safety after Sept. 11.

He added that intensive studies of building failures in disasters like the Northridge earthquake near Los Angeles in 1994 had led to important structural advances.

Calling an intensive new investigation "absolutely necessary," Mr. Russo, of Polytechnic University in Brooklyn, said the expense could be justified by the payoff of better safety in high-rises of the future. Other experts take a still wider view, favoring a study that would look at the implications of the collapses -- a nearby, 47-story building, 7 World Trade Center, also fell on Sept. 11 after burning for most of the day -- for fire codes, building standards and engineering practices across the board.

National organizations charged with addressing building and fire safety issues have sent letters urging the federal government to invest as much as $15 million a year to study the vulnerability of buildings to terrorist attacks and possible changes to fire and safety standards.

"There is an urgent and critical need to determine the lessons to be learned from these events," reads a letter from the American Society of Civil Engineers, dated Nov. 15.

In other disasters, FEMA, the Army Corps of Engineers and other federal agencies have played a more central role in making decisions about cleanup and investigations. But from the start, they found that New York had a degree of engineering and construction expertise unlike any they had encountered.

"They wanted to do a lot of things on their own," said Charles Hess, who is in charge of civil emergency management for the Army Corps. "Which they're very capable of doing."

But during a recovery effort that received worldwide praise, the city made one decision that has been endlessly second-guessed. To deal with nearly 300,000 tons of crumpled steel, the city quickly decided to ship it to scrap recyclers.

Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the fire protection engineering department at the University of Maryland, said he believed the decision could ultimately compromise any investigation of the collapses. "I find the speed with which potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be appalling," Dr. Mowrer said.

But Mr. Monahan, the City Department of Design and Construction spokesman, pointed out that members of the investigation team were eventually allowed to visit the site and inspect steel at the scrapyards and continue doing so.

Some experts have suggested that the only way to definitively determine the sequence and cause of the collapse is to recover large amounts of steel from the areas near where the planes struck, and possibly reassemble sections of the towers.

Others say such a reconstruction of an entire section might be impractical, but also expressed discomfort with the impediments they said they have faced in their investigation.

For example, three months after the disaster, Ronald Hamburger, an expert in structural analysis at A.B.S. Consulting in Oakland, Calif., and a director of the National Council of Structural Engineers Associations, said he had not even been given access to basic blueprints describing where the steel and other structural elements had been when the World Trade Center was whole.

"I'd like to be able to have a set of the drawings for all of the affected buildings," Mr. Hamburger said. "I don't have that."

http://www.ecologynews.com/cuenews43updates3.html

"Why are "America's Mayor" and FEMA obstructing the investigation of the WTC disaster? Why have they worked so hard to destroy the evidence? Why are they threatening the investigators and preventing them from talking to the media? If you read between the lines of the cautiously-worded NY Times article below and factor in the material at http://baltech.org/lederman/bush-conspiracy-11-23-01.html

You'll see yet another huge government cover-up unfolding.

"Not mentioned in the Times article below but previously reported on by the Times and other NYC media is that allegedly Mafia-connected demolition companies who were contracted by the Giuliani administration for the clean-up stole thousands of tons of the steel beams from the WTC disaster site. Did they really need to take such a risk to sell the steel as scrap or were they doing exactly what they'd been ordered to do? Also see NY TIMES 12/20/2001 "City Had Been Warned of Fuel Tank at 7 World Trade Center" for info on how 6,000 gallons of fuel illegally stored in the building to supply Giuliani's supposedly bomb-proof "bunker" was directly responsible for the collapse of WTC building #7.

Burning Jet Fuel 'NOT ENOUGH' to Have Crumbled WTC:

Investigators//NYDailyNews

-- '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.' --


Firefighter Mag Raps 9/11 Probe By Joe Calderone NY Daily News Chief of Investigations


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."

Fire Engineering counted FDNY Deputy Chief Raymond Downey, the department's chief structural expert, among its senior advisers. Downey was killed in the Sept. 11 attack. John Jay College's fire engineering expert, Prof. Glenn Corbett, serves as the magazine's technical editor.

A group of engineers from the American Society of Civil Engineers, with backing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been studying some aspects of the collapse. But Manning and others say that probe has not looked at all aspects of the disaster and has had limited access to documents and other evidence.

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.

A FEMA spokesman, John Czwartacki, said agency officials had not yet seen the editorial and declined to comment. Norida Torriente, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Civil Engineers, described her group's study as a "beginning" and "not a definitive work."

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has joined a group of relatives of firefighters who died in the attack in calling for a blue-ribbon panel to study the collapse.

"We have to learn from incidents through investigation to determine what types of codes should be in place and what are the best practices for high-rise construction," Manning told the Daily News. "The World Trade Center is not the only lightweight, core construction high-rise in the U.S. It's a typical method of construction."

http://www.rense.com/general18/firefighter.htm - - - - NY TIMES December 25, 2001 THE TOWERS

Experts Urging Broader Inquiry in Towers' Fall

...In calling for a new investigation, some structural engineers have said that one serious mistake has already been made in the chaotic aftermath of the collapses: the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that held up the buildings. That may have cost investigators some of their most direct physical evidence with which to try to piece together an answer.

Officials in the mayor's office declined to reply to written and oral requests for comment over a three-day period about who decided to recycle the steel and the concern that the decision might be handicapping the investigation...

Interviews with a handful of members of the team, which includes some of the nation's most respected engineers, also uncovered complaints that they had at various times been shackled with bureaucratic restrictions that prevented them from interviewing witnesses, examining the disaster site and requesting crucial information like recorded distress calls to the police and fire departments...

"This is almost the dream team of engineers in the country working on this, and our hands are tied," said one team member who asked not to be identified. Members have been threatened with dismissal for speaking to the press. "FEMA is controlling everything," the team member said...

Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the fire protection engineering department at the University of Maryland, said he believed the decision could ultimately compromise any investigation of the collapses. "I find the speed with which potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be appalling," Dr. Mowrer said.

You would not want to be George W. Bush right now.

Not that you ever would anyhow, but especially not now. Indeed, there are indications that not even George W. Bush wants to be George W. Bush right now.

That second term in office, the one that just a year or two ago seemed so precious that he was willing to launch a war just to obtain it, now feels like a life sentence. Plans for four years spending political capital now look a lot more like endless months of capital punishment.

The Bush Administration has nowhere to go but down, and that is precisely where it is headed. Poll data show that even members of his solid-to-the-point-of-twelve-step-eligibility base are now deserting him as his job approval ratings plunge like so much Enron stock, lately crashing southward through the forty percent threshold. With almost his entire second term still in front of him, Bush is poised to set new records for presidential unpopularity. That scraping noise you hear? It's the sound of sheepish voters creeping out to the garage late at night, furtively removing "Bush-Cheney 2004" bumperstickers from the back of their SUVs when no one is looking.

Meanwhile, as the scales fall from the eyes of the hoi polloi, even the one constituency which could plausibly make the claim that Bush has been good for America (read: their wallets), is speaking the unspeakable as well. Robert Novak, of all people, wrote a column last week chronicling his experience watching rich Republicans at an Aspen retreat bash the idiocy of Bush administration policies on Iraq, Hurricane Katrina, stem-cell research and more. Perhaps these folks realized when they saw Trent Lott's house go under that Mother Nature doesn't care whether you're rich and well-connected any more than does al Qaeda. You may be on Karl Rove's Rolodex, but now Bush is taking you down and your yacht too, not just forgotten kids from the ghetto who enlisted in the Army as the only alternative to a life of poverty.

Even conservative columnists like David Brooks (though not Novak) are writing articles nowadays accurately describing the changed mood of the American public. Where those powerful currents are heading is unclear, but given the radical right experiment of the present as their point of departure, there would seem to be only two choices. We can either go completely off the deep-end and finally constitute the Fascist Republic of Cheney, or we can turn to the left, toward some semblance of rational policymaking. The latter seems far more likely, especially as America increasingly regains its senses after a long bout of temporary insanity. These are bad bits of news for poor George, but worse yet is that they are only the first signs of the coming apocalypse. The real fun stuff is just around the corner. I'll confess to more than a little schadenfreude as I contemplate the ugly situation staring Republicans officeholders in the face right now. They are tethered to a sinking ship, and have only two lousy options to choose from as November 2006 approaches. One is to stay the course and drown. The other is to start renouncing Bush and his policies, appear to voters as the complete hypocrites and political whores many will prove to be, and then still drown anyhow. Nobody could be more deserving of such a fate, with the possible exception of Democrats like Hillary Clinton and John Kerry who have been even more hypocritical yet in facilitating many of the president's disastrous policies.

Comment: From what we have seen of Bush lately - including the beginning of the end of the Supreme Court in terms of its ability to dispense impartial justice (see below) - it would seem that a turn to the left is the last thing that will happen in Washington.

The author hits the nail on the head when he comments that if lawmakers stay with Bush, they may drown, but they will surely be crucified politically if they turn against him. The assumption is that Bush will drown - but what if his political support could be convinced to stay the course? Elections for many US politicians are right around the corner. It is highly unlikely that they will all commit political suicide at this crucial time.

The problem is that Rove and the Bush gang are most certainly keenly aware of this rather unfortunate situation. There is one way that all such lawmakers can keep their jobs and expand their power: back Bush. Sure, they may be "complete hypocrites and political whores", but the fix in which they find themselves is perfect for Bush as reality begins to intrude upon his wishful thinking.

The fact is that in the aftermath of the twin hurricanes, Bush has hardly missed a beat even amidst all the harsh talk. At this point, it is all talk and no action - at least among the politicians. The people are another story entirely.

Bush's backers in the government fell into a trap. Once they started following him, they could never turn back. In true psychopathic fashion, we suspect most of them will continue to back the Bush administration, since their primary concern is not their constituents, but themselves and their lust for even more power. On the other hand, with broad support from the people, government leaders might take a stand together against Bush. But the question then is: would the people want such "fair weather fans" representing them? Thus, the president's lapdogs choose the easiest and best solution for themselves, and they continue to support him.

Watching these GOP opportunists jump ship will certainly be fun, but the greatest fun awaits the president himself. Bush has now lost everything that once sustained him. That includes 9/11, now safely in the rearview mirror for most Americans. That includes his wartime rally-around-the-flag free pass, as he has failed to capture America's real enemy, while lying about bogus ones to justify an invasion pinning our defense forces down in an endless quagmire. That includes, post-Katrina, the ridiculous frame of Bush as competent leader, and the former reality of the press as frightened presidential waterboys.

And that's the good news for W. The bad news is all the chickens coming home to roost. The economy is anemic and fragile, and yet Bush has played the one card in his deck ostensibly (but never really) intended to remedy the country's economic woes. (Remember during the 2000 campaign when times were flush and tax cuts were the prescription? Remember in 2001 when the economy was in a recession and tax cuts were still the prescription?). In any case, Bush's one-note economic symphony has succeeded in producing precisely the cacophony of disaster that progressive commentators have predicted all along: massive deficits, little or no economic boost, a hemorrhaging of jobs overseas, and a vastly more polarized America of rich, poor and a disappearing middle class. [...]

Comment: The economy is most definitely in dire straits. What remains to be seen is if the economic crash can be successfully spun into an event that ends up generating even more "patriotism" and support for the fearless Commander-in-Chief...

The other demons awaiting George W. Bush just around the bend are multiple and grim. One of these days (right?), Patrick Fitzgerald is actually going to move on the Treasongate story, and signs suggest that multiple heads will roll within the White House. The political damage will be even worse than the legal, though, as Bush's clean and patriotic image will be smashed beyond repair, as no one will believe that he himself didn't know all along who committed treason by outing an American spy, and as he will likely lose the key magicians who have kept him afloat for five years and more. Oh well. W's loss will be Leavenworth's gain.

And there is more. The Jack Abramoff investigation has now been tied to the White House. There are also presumably an infinite number of other scandals waiting to explode (can you say 'Halliburton'?) should the Democrats capture either branch of Congress next year, not least of which being those concerning the Downing Street Memo revelations. Gas prices are off the charts and home heating bills are supposed to soar this winter. Jobs are disappearing, along with pensions and healthcare coverage, inflation is likely to rise, and voters are surly already.

Comment: The Bush gang has mastered the art of rigging and stealing elections. Unless the Democrats learn some new tricks, it seems unlikely they will capture either branch of Congress next year, with or without the support of the people.

But, of course, the biggest cross for Bush to bear is the one he built for himself, and thus the most richly deserved. In Iraq, simply put, there are no good options. None for America, that is, but even fewer for George W. Bush.

What can he do?

He can't win. America (or, more accurately, America's oligarchy) is clearly losing the war as it is. It is a fantasy to imagine that, at this late date, more troops could pacify the resistance. But even if that were so the political consequences to Bush, especially given his promise of no draft on his watch, would be devastating and rapid. American public opinion has already turned decisively against the war. Imagine if there were a draft and all the bumper-sticker patriots across the land had to actually make a sacrifice for their president's transparent lies. All hell would break loose, and the Republican Party would be dead for a generation. [...]

Thus does a new possible ending to the Bush administration suddenly emerge as a real possibility. Previously, I had assumed that our long national nightmare would be over in one of three ways, either with Bush somehow managing to finish his term, with him being impeached, convicted and run out of Washington, or with him being impeached, convicted and then refusing to leave, precipitating a constitutional crisis and even, possibly, a civil war. Now I see a fourth very real possibility.

It was all fun and games when everybody loved him. When the guy who had failed at everything in life except having the right last name all of a sudden was showing those elitist snobs who was tops after all. When the man with a Texas size inferiority complex got to be adored by millions as if he were some kind of religious icon.

But what if that all changes? What if Diminutive George, just like LBJ before him, can't leave the completely scripted bubble his staff manufactures, just as such set-pieces become increasingly difficult to sustain? What if the Peevish President can't escape - even by going to Crawford or Camp David - the mothers of dead children, the baby-killer taunts, the stinging-because-they're-so-accurate chickenhawk accusations, the calls for his own daughters to go to Iraq, the possibility that everyone was right about him all along when they dismissed him as the family clown? What if all of a sudden, it sucks being president? Why bother, then?

Comment: Since their representatives obviously don't plan on making Georgie's life miserable, the US would need a lot more Cindy Sheehan's to bring this possibility into being...

It is clear now that one way the Bush administration might end would be with the president's resignation, in order for him to duck into more tranquil quarters. Who knows, maybe he could spend his days getting tanked in Crawford, not writing another book, or going into exile, perhaps in the south of France.

Of course, a pardon deal would have to be prearranged with Cheney, if they haven't convicted him yet, or with Hastert if they have. And, equally certainly, the resignation would be put down to "the president wanting to spend more time with his family", or some such ludicrous McClellanism, no more or less plausible than the rest of his daily fare. But the truth would be plain for all to see. The frat-boy party-time president who condemns kids less than half his age to the hell of futile battle in support of his lies would himself be deserting as commander-in-chief when the fun part ended. Kinda like he did last time he wore a uniform.

History, it would seem, all too rarely delivers justice. The privileged few go out of this life richer than they came into it, while the poor often leave even poorer, not to mention sooner. Those who commit unspeakable crimes sometimes become presidents or prime ministers, while those who dare speak truthfully of those deeds are crushed owing to the threat posed by their honesty. [...]

A sea of humanity descended upon the nation's capital yesterday to voice its opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. My wife and I, along with