User:Cs32en/911/Sources/Mole/2006a/content

"Not surprisingly, their collapse is also a central issue for the 9/11 Truth Movement. [...]

Why do they think this? A primary reason seems to be that the collapse of the towers looks like the result of a controlled demolition. Since there is no structural resistance to gravity in a controlled demolition, the building collapses straight into its own footprint, with each floor “pancaking” onto the floors below at or near the speed of a free fall. Many of the presenters at the Hyatt Conference compared videos of the collapse of the towers with videos of known controlled demolitions, noting the similarity in both the appearance and speed of collapse. 911truth.org maintains that if actually hit by an airplane, the steel structure of the WTC buildings should have provided at least some resistance to the weight of the floors above, causing the falling structure to pitch over to one side rather than pancake straight down. They further argue that fires caused by burning jet fuel from the crashed planes could not have caused the collapse, since jet fuel burns at a temperature of no more than 1500° Fahrenheit,1 while a temperature of approximately 2800° is needed to melt steel. [...]

Finally, many of the leaders of the movement claim that demolition “squibs” can be seen in videos of the WTC collapse just before and during the time the towers began to fall. In professional demolition lingo, a “squib” is an explosive device used to weaken building structure during a controlled demolition. [...]

What about the “melted steel” that 9/11 conspiracy theorists claim was at Ground Zero? Dr. Steven Jones’ popular article cites several anecdotal sources speaking about flowing or pooled samples of melted steel found at Ground Zero.[8] However, the sources in question are informal observations of “steel” at Ground Zero, not laboratory results.[9] [...]

The conspiracy theorists assume that damage sustained by WTC 7 during the attack was not sufficient to trigger its collapse. The site wtc7.net claims that “fires were observed in Building 7 prior to its collapse, but they were isolated in small parts of the building, and were puny by comparison to other building fires.” They further claim that any damage from falling debris from WTC 1 and WTC 2 would have needed to be symmetrical to trigger the pancaking collapse of WTC 7.[10]

For those who believe that Building 7 fell due to controlled demolition, some of the most powerful “evidence” seemingly comes from WTC leaseholder Larry Silverstein’s alleged “confession” that he authorized the tower’s destruction. The quote in question comes from a September, 2002 PBS Special called America Rebuilds, in which Silverstein says:

"I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, “We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.” And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.[14]"

To conspiracy theorists such as Alex Jones at prisonplanet.com, this quote seems to be a “smoking gun” because they interpret the phrase “pull it” to be “industry jargon for taking a building down with explosives.”[15] [...]

But if Silverstein wasn’t describing a decision to destroy WTC 7, what could the words “pull it” mean? A good place to seek the answer is this September 9, 2005 statement by Mr. Dara McQuillan, a spokesperson for Larry Silverstein:

In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.

Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed. No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

As noted above, when Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we’ve had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.” Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building [emphasis added].[17] [...]

Many people in the 9/11 Truth Movement believe that the Pentagon was not actually struck by Flight 77, as the “official story” claims. Instead, they believe that the United States government somehow staged the damage, perhaps through the use of a bomb or strategically fired missile. This claim first attracted attention in French author Thierry Meyssan’s book, Pentagate, which claims that the damage done to the Pentagon was too limited to have resulted from the crash of a Boeing 757.[22] The documentary “Loose Change” claims that the hole left in the Pentagon by the alleged airplane was “a single hole, no more than 16 feet in diameter,” and that no remains whatsoever of Flight 77 were found at the crash site.[23] To dramatically support this last point, conspiracy theorists cite CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre’s report from the crash site on 9/11, which says, “From my close-up inspection, there’s no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon.”[24] [...]

In an excellent article about 9/11 conspiracy theories in Popular Mechanics, blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer describes his own observations as the first structural engineer to arrive at the Pentagon after Flight 77 crashed [...]

On April 5, 2006, the creators of the 9/11 conspiracy documentary “Loose Change” and their supporters decided to attend the premiere of the film “United 93,” about the hijacked airplane that crashed on 9/11. [...]

References & Notes 1. 2005. “9/11: Debunking the Myths.” Popular Mechanics. March, 2005. 2. Heller, David. 2005. “Taking a Closer Look: Hard Science and the Collapse of the World Trade Center.” Garlic & Grass, Issue 6. Available at www.garlicandgrass.org/issue6/Dave_Heller.cfm 3. This is clearly visible in the PBS NOVA Documentary Why The Towers Fell. 4. 2005. “9/11: Debunking the Myths.” Popular Mechanics. March, 2005. 5. Eager, Thomas and Musso, Christopher. 2001. “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse: Science, Engineering and Speculation.” JOM, 53(12), 8–11. 6. Ibid. 7. Ibid. 8. Jones, Steven. 2006. “Why Indeed did the WTC Buildings Collapse?” Available at www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html 9. A good discussion of this issue can be found at http://911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html 10. This claim can be found at http://wtc7.net/b7fires.html 11. “World Trade Center Task Force Interview: Richard Banaciski.” Interview conducted on December 6, 2001. Transcribed by Elisabeth F. Nason. Available at graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/ 20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110253.PDF 12. Ibid. 13. www.loosechangeguide.com 14. “America Rebuilds,” PBS Home Video, ISBN 0-7806-4006-3, is available from shop.pbs.org/products/AREB901/ 15. www.prisonplanet.com/011904wtc7.html 16. A discussion of the “pull it” phrase by professional demolition workers is at web.archive.org/web/ 20050327052408/http://home.planet.nl/~reijd050/ 911_my_own_review.htm#222 17. See “9/11 Revealed? A New Book Repeats False Con-spiracy Theories.” At usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html 18. “World Trade Center Task Force Interview: Daniel Nigrois.” Interview conducted on October 24, 2001. The text of the interview is available at www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/ 20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/ Nigro_Daniel.txt 19. “World Trade Center Task Force Interview: Richard Banaciski.” Interview conducted on December 6, 2001. Transcribed by Elisabeth F. Nason. Available at graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/ 20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/ 9110253.PDF 20. Read almost anything at www.prisonplanet.com for this idea 21. The FEMA report on WTC 7 is available at usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Sep/16-241966.html 22. Meyssan, Thierry. 2002. Pentagate. New York: USA Books. 23. www.loosechangeguide.com 24. The transcript: transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/bn.35.html 25. 2005. “9/11: Debunking the Myths.” Popular Mechanics. March, 2005. 26. transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/bn.35.html 27. Ibid. 28. www.loosechangeguide.com 29. The claim that Flight 93 landed safely is at www.rense.com/general56/flfight.htm. The claim that it was shot by a missile can be found at www.serendipity.li/wot/pop_mech/shanksville.htm 30. A description of the confusion between the planes is in Kropko, M.R. 2002. “September 11 Tension Vivid to Controller.” Associated Press, August 15, 2002. The story is also available online at www.enquirer.com/editions/2002/08/15/loc_sept_11_tension.html 31. 2005. “9/11: Debunking the Myths.” Popular Mechanics. March, 2005. 32. One such claim can be found at 911research.wtc7.net/essays/pm/ 33. 2005. “9/11: Debunking the Myths.” Popular Mechanics. March, 2005. 34. See “AMR Corp Issues 3Q’ 2001 Profit Warning.” Airline Industry Information, September 11, 2001. Available at www.highbeam.com/library/docFree.asp?DOCID=1G1:78127985. For a general contemporary assessment of the viability of airline industry in the months before 9/11, see Hamilton, Adam. 2001. “Plummeting Profits.” Zeal Speculation and Investment. June 22, 2001, available at www.zealllc.com/2001/plummet.htm 35. Schorow, Stephanie. 2002. “Independent Research.” Boston Herald. 5 September (Arts & Life). A sound recording of Kenney’s statement can be heard at www.snopes.com/rumors/sound/kenney.ram 36. Ibid. 37. This list is based on information in Strasser, Steven (ed.). 2004. The 9/11 Investigations: Staff Reports of the 9/11 Commission. New York: Public Affairs Books. More information about radical Islam can be found in Rashid, Ahmed. 2001. Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia. New York: Yale University Press. 38. This quote can be found in many sources, including Strasser, Steven (ed.). 2004. The 9/11 Investigations: Staff Reports of the 9/11 Commission. New York: Public Affairs Books. 39. Bamer, David. 2001. “Bin Laden: Yes, I Did It.” The Telegraph. November 11. 40. One source among many possible for this information is Alterman, Eric and Green, Mark. 2004. The Book on Bush: How George W. (Mis)leads America. New York: Penguin. 41. This hilarious article is at www.theonion.com/content/node/28079 42. Pynchon, Thomas. 1973. Gravity’s Rainbow. New York: Viking Press. 43. See, for instance, “Absent Without Leave” at the Urban Legends Reference Pages: www.snopes.com/rumors/israel.htm"