Unanswered Questions: Review & Coverage Of Event

Julie Sweeney's voice wavered on the verge of breaking as she addressed those gathered at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

"I don't want anybody to ever deal with the phone call I dealt with at 8:58 that morning from my husband from United [Flight] 175, saying goodbye."

Sweeney was one of a number of family members of the victims of 9/11, along with their lawyers, independent researchers, and members of the media who gathered on June 10 to mark the launch of UnansweredQuestions.org. The web site, co-founded by Tom Flocco and Kyle F. Hence, is dedicated to giving voice to the unanswered questions of 9/11, and demanding their answers.

The conference also gave voice to the concerns of the victims' families, concerns that have been largely ignored by the mainstream media. C-SPAN, in violation of their own policy regarding major news conferences at the National Press Club, declined to even tape the event for possible future broadcast.

The idea for the press conference was born when Hence, an independent researcher and writer, judged the timing was right following news of the Phoenix and Minneapolis FBI memos, and the disturbing warnings in the August 7th briefing of the President. Influenced also by a call by victims' families to hold a rally in D.C. in support of an Independent Commission, Hence called Flocco, for whom he had done research on insider trading and who had contact with lawyers for the victims' families.

Flocco then telephoned Catherine Austin Fitts, former Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development under the first Bush administration. Fitts is now a financial analyst and independent journalist who has written several articles related to 9/11, including "The Real Deal on 9/11: Rewarding Failure” published on New Zealand news site Scoop at:

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0205/S00173.htm

"Tom Flocco called," said Fitts, "and said 'I've had it. We're going to do something about this. There are too many questions on 9/11.'"

Flocco and Hence began making arrangements to book a number of speakers for a conference to announce the web site launch, and Fitts agreed to come to D.C. to moderate the event. One of the first speakers was Hence, who described what the site was all about.

"This is sort of the penultimate in grassroots effort at this stage, and my hope is that it will continue to be that," said Hence. "I feel that, being here, I'm exercising my freedom to ask these questions."

On the web site, questions are accepted from the readers, and then a voting system allows those who log onto the site to vote for which questions they would most like to have answered. Said Hence of the questions they have received:

"Some are general, and some are extraordinarily detailed with copious references. Some are complex; others are just straightforward. What unites them all is a deep underlying skepticism by those who pose them about the official story offered us of what happened on September 11. And they hunger to know the whole truth."

After Hence's description of the web site's purpose, Fitts began to introduce the legion of speakers who had gathered in support of the site's launch. The first of these was Sweeney, wife of Brian Sweeney, a jet pilot instructor for the Department of Defense who died when Flight 175 crashed into the South tower of the World Trade Center. Sweeney has declined to accept money from the federal fund for 9/11 victims, which stipulates that recipients take no further legal action related to 9/11.

"I am, as I was introduced, one of the few but increasing number of people that have decided to pursue litigation in this event as opposed to accepting the government fund. I want the answers, and I want the answers to lead to accountability. I want this never to happen again. Morally, this is what I feel I had to do."

Sweeney spoke passionately of her disappointment with what she saw as an attempt to buy off the victims while shielding the government and airline industry from further liability.

"I can't accept money from our government under the facade of goodness and generosity when, on the flip side, they have capped the funds available to be recovered and they have limited the liability of the airlines for the approximately 271 people on these four planes.

"They literally changed laws overnight in secret without us knowing that they were doing it. To me, immediately that just flagged 'we're hiding something.'"

Sweeney's skepticism grew as she did her own research into the 9/11 fund.

"After really researching the fund, it was blatantly obvious to me that the priority was not the victims and their families, like they were saying, but the airline industry that they were determined to save and protect."

According to Sweeney, she expects that her motives will be questioned by those who may feel she is only seeking a larger settlement from the government through a lawsuit. But Sweeney feels that litigation is her best tool to force the facts about 9/11 into the public consciousness.

"I want the information out. I want everything disclosed. I want someone to connect the dots and give the American public the big picture.

"I feel very let down by a government that I was taught from a very young age to trust, and that they do good and righteous things for us. When we put our trust in businesses that are federally regulated…the government should stand behind the common person because we have smaller voices then they do if something were to go wrong. This isn't happening, and red flags are popping up everywhere that mistakes were made."

Sweeney concluded that she felt her actions would be of benefit even to those victims' families who choose to accept the 9/11 fund.

"I'm also here in support of the McCain-Leiberman Bill which hopefully will help bring about the change and give the answers to the people that need them, that can't pursue a lawsuit or choose not to. And again, that should be everybody's choice.

"I hope that this lawsuit will help instigate change so no one has to deal with that again. I will not sit back and be bought out in order to protect an industry."

The other speakers at the conference were Lorna Brett, director of media relations for the Nolan Law Group in Chicago, which represents victims' families from the hijacked planes; attorney Mary Schiavo, lawyer for 32 passengers' families from planes hijacked on 9/11 and former Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation under the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration; former LAPD detective Michael C. Ruppert, an independent journalist who publishes the web site FromtheWilderness.com, and who spoke via satellite from a speaking tour in Canada; author/researcher John Judge, co-founder of the Coalition on Political Assassinations; attorney J. Michael Springman, former Chief of the Visa Section of the U.S. Embassy in Saudi Arabia; attorney Jennifer Van Bergen, editor and contributing writer for Truthout.org and faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York; Dr. Stephen Camerado, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies; and freelance writer and researcher Richard Ochs.

A summary of the presentations of the other speakers is upcoming in the second part of this article. RealPlayer audio of the entire press conference is available at http://www.unansweredquestions.org/audio.php and a video of the conference is available for purchase at UnansweredQuestions.org.

According to Bill Douglas, a researcher who has done an immense amount of work putting out the facts about 9/11 through his "Find Truth" email group (findtruthnow@hotmail.com), Sweeney is not alone in her decision to pursue litigation. In the most recent mailing for the Find Truth group, Douglas reprinted an article from the San Francisco Examiner which mentions the D.C. press conference, and claims 400 family members of the 9/11 victims nationwide are now involved in a suit alleging criminal negligence by the Bush administration. The full text of that article can be found here:

http://www.examiner.com/news/default.jsp?story=n.lawyer.0611w

Part II: Coverage Of 9/11 Conference At National Press Club

This is the second part of a two-part article covering the National Press Club conference announcing the launch of UnansweredQuestions.org. Part one of this article detailed the passionate presentation of Julie Sweeney, wife of 9/11 hijack victim Brian Sweeney, at a National Press Club conference in Washington, D.C. announcing the launch of the web site UnansweredQuestions.org. The conference featured an amazing array of researchers, family members of the victims, and lawyers involved with litigation related to 9/11.

Sweeney noted that she had given up $2 million in federal 9/11 funds to pursue litigation, in the hope that her actions might lead to greater accountability for the government and airlines, and greater safety for her fellow citizens. After she spoke, Lorna Brett, director of media relations for the Nolan Law Group in Chicago, which represents victims' families from the hijacked planes, praised her courage and motivation in pursuing litigation.

“It isn’t about money,” said Brett. “It’s about accountability. It’s amazing how many people say, ‘we couldn’t have stopped it. Nobody could have known.’ The truth is that there are a lot of people that should have known, that had the red flags in front of them.”

Brett pointed to the problem of undue influence from the airline industry on the regulatory Federal Aviation Administration.

“We have an agency that’s in charge of regulating airlines,” said Brett. “My question is, who is regulating that agency? Are the airlines running the FAA? Or is the FAA regulating the [airlines]?”

She concluded by decrying attempts to label those who question the government’s actions related to 9/11 as “unpatriotic.”

“I think it is ultimately the most patriotic thing we can do as a nation, to ask why and demand answers.”

Mary Schiavo, lawyer for 32 passengers' families from all four planes hijacked on 9/11, and former Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Transportation under the first Bush administration and the Clinton administration, spoke next. She commented extensively on the politicization of 9/11, but downplayed the importance of party affiliation.

“I believe it is not a Republican/Democrat thing,” said Schiavo. “I served President [George H.W.] Bush and I served President Clinton. I was the Inspector General in both administrations. I saw things that were terrible. I saw protectionism of the aviation and airline industry by both parties.

“So I really do not think if you really search and look for the facts that it will break along party lines. It might break along money and power lines, but it will never break along party lines. I fought the same battles whether I was in a Republican administration or a Democrat administration.”

Schiavo echoed and reinforced Sweeney’s comments about the questionable actions of the airline industry after the 9/11 attacks. According to Schiavo, the industry didn’t wait long to seek help from Congress in limiting their liability.

“I learned that the airlines approached members of Congress and the Senate to get their bailout and their immunity and their protection starting on 9/11,” said Schiavo. “This has been confirmed to me personally by senators and members of Congress. Why did they have to rush to the hill to change the laws?”

Armed with vast research on past hijackings and their subsequent investigations, Schiavo eviscerated the idea that an event such as 9/11 was unforeseeable by the industry or government.

“In the wake of September 11, 2001,” said Schiavo, “we heard the carriers and government alike saying ‘no one could have foreseen this, no one knew that this was coming, no one knew that there were any risks like this in the world.’ It’s absolutely false, and we knew that even before Condoleezza Rice made the shocking announcement a couple weeks ago that the carriers and the FAA were warned repeatedly.

“I love this language that ‘it wasn’t a specific warning.’ Let me tell you, Middle Eastern terrorists hell-bent on a hijacking is pretty darn specific.”

Next up was Michael C. Ruppert, a former LAPD detective, researcher and publisher of FromtheWilderness.com. Ruppert spoke by phone from Canada where he was in the midst of a highly successful speaking tour. Ruppert methodically laid out how researchers have taken advantage of the internet to develop and disseminate analysis about 9/11.

“Just a few short years ago, the world was accustomed to not learning the real historical truth about an event for many decades and perhaps centuries,” said Ruppert. “But since September 11, the internet and an increasingly skeptical world population have dramatically shortened history’s learning curve.

“Rather than relying on unsupported theory, it’s possible to expose and focus attention on major discrepancies in the Bush administration’s characterization and handling of events by using the internet as a vehicle to widely disseminate and analyze reports from respected mainstream media from all over the world, and to then compare and contrast those reports with official government statements, official records and other unquestionable documents and undisputed conduct.”

Having established his methodology, Ruppert then employed it to rip apart statements from the Bush administration.

“In this manner it’s possible, for example, to establish that the statements by President Bush, Ari Fleischer and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, claming that they had absolutely no idea that aircraft would be used as weapons, are absolutely false,” said Ruppert. “It becomes clear that foreign intelligence services, not random callers or anonymous tipsters, were making direct and urgent pleadings to U.S. intelligence agencies that, when compared side-by-side, clearly establish that al Queda had trained as many as 25 suicide pilots who were planning to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in the week of September the 9th. Is that specific enough?

“Are we to assume that a direct warning from Russian President [Vladamir] Putin to the highest levels of the U.S. government - that’s George W. Bush - somehow fell through the cracks? The U.S. government has not denied a single one of these press reports. Neither have any of the intelligence services mentioned.”

Ruppert then brought up the revelations from FBI Special Agents Coleen Rowley and Robert Wright concerning obstruction by the FBI hierarchy of terrorism investigations.

“In light of what the world is now seeing was done with reports of possible hijackings from the FBI in Arizona and Minnesota, and the utterly disingenuous and unpersuasive proffering of the administration and its managers,” said Ruppert, “we’re now being asked to believe in some kind of a grand and colossally-contageous incompetence that any sentient being is not even capable of.

“As I read through Rowley’s memo or watch the Wright conference, I see words that tell me negligence or stupidity are not the issue. The words are obstruct, block, thwart, threaten, intimidate, rewrite, harass, punish, dishonest and integrity. These are not words describing ignorant or careless behavior. They are words describing intentional and malicious behavior. And that is ultimately what must be addressed before the families and the victims of 9/11, the American people and the world will be satisfied.”

Ruppert hammered home the contention that Bush must be called to account for what was allowed to happen on 9/11.

“The Bush administration must be forced to admit that they knew hijacked planes were going to be used as weapons. Why else would terrorists take flight training lessons? You can’t crop dust with a 757 that you don’t know how to land or even take off. Why else would the G8 Conference in Genoa less than a year ago have had extensive preparations to prevent hijacked aircraft from being used as weapons? President Bush was there, surrounded by anti-aircraft weapons. Was he not briefed on it?”

And in concluding, Ruppert endorsed the use of litigation as a primary tool to force the facts out into the open.

“I’m one who believes that the last true vestige of an uncompromised rule of law in this country is in the civil courts,” said Ruppert. “It is only there where discovery can compel the release of documents and the production of evidence which newly formed congressional committees, operating partly in secret and party in the open, will only try to hide.”

John Judge, an author, researcher and co-founder of the Coalition on Political Assassinations, spoke next. He related how his parents served as civilians in the Pentagon for 30 years, and this gave him a unique perspective on the Pentagon attack.

“A Pentagon spokesperson said we had no mechanism to respond,” said Judge. “I would suggest if you’re an investigative reporter, that they have a very extensive mechanism to respond.”

Judge said that once, while having lunch in the Pentagon courtyard with his father, he pointed out a structure and asked what it was. His father told him that it was a surface-to-air missile battery. Judge also related the story of how he led a peace march to the Pentagon as an activist in his adult life, and had an interesting conversation with the head of Pentagon security.

Judge said that he was told that the Pentagon was receiving bomb threats from Muslims daily. When pointing out the defensive precautions taken by the Pentagon, Judge said the security head pointed to the roof of the Pentagon and said “we have radar up there to see if any planes are coming.”

The lack of response from Andrews Air Force Base, 10 miles from the Pentagon, was one of Judge’s main points of contention, along with the strange path of Flight 77 before it slammed into the side of the Pentagon. Instead of heading directly for the building, the plane did a 270-degree turn as it descended 5000 feet, and struck the side of the Pentagon that was being refurbished.

“The simplest thing to do would be to go to the closest side,” said Judge. “It went out of its way to hit the empty side of the Pentagon.”

UnansweredQuestions.org co-founder Tom Flocco was the next to speak, and he used the occasion to speak forcefully on his own topic of research, criminal insider trading on airline and other stock in the days leading up to 9/11.

“Congress is currently conducting a soft insider trading probe with growing evidence that the FBI and the government intelligence entities are more closely linked to the documented accumulation of 9/11 insider trading profits than was originally thought,” said Flocco.

“But thus far the joint congressional intelligence committee has not publicly referred to prior knowledge of the attacks as it relates to stock transaction profits,” continued Flocco, “while also failing after nine months to publicize the critical Securities and Exchange Commission control list report that is tracing what in effect were stock trading ‘profits of death.’”

Flocco made reference to the recent criminal indictments of FBI agents in a separate insider-trading scam, but said that case was not entirely unrelated to 9/11. Citing open court documents in his possession and mainstream news reports, he said that a stock advisor also indicted in the case dumped $300,000 in stock on September 10 after he was warned of an upcoming drop in the Dow.

“If you knew that the stock market was going to crash, you’d just sell your stocks,” said Flocco. “How many people sold huge chunks? Well, we don’t know, but that’s out there.”

Flocco also stays in contact with others who are passionate on this issue.

“I did an interview about a month ago with former Washington D.C. U.S. Attorney Joe de Genova,” said Flocco. “He said if the Congress does not want to get answers to these critical questions regarding who profited from prior knowledge of these attacks, then it needs to be litigated, period.”

Concluded Flocco, “but even if Congress comes out of its secret, soundproof Capitol bunker into the light of open hearings, the question still remains as to whether the members of Congress have the courage to forcibly seek answers to the real unanswered questions.”

After Flocco’s rousing call to action, the conference took a dark turn toward discussion of our government’s most questionable actions before and after 9/11. Next to speak was attorney J. Michael Springman, former chief of the visa section at the U.S. Embassy in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and veteran of 20 years in the U.S. Foreign Service. Springman went into great detail about how his decisions to deny visas to questionable applicants were consistently overridden by his superiors.

“At the time I basically thought it was visa fraud… that somebody was paying $2500 bribes to State Department officials,” related Springman. “I was ordered by these same high State Department officials to issue the visas, to shut up, to do my job and to ask no questions.”

Later, Springman’s own research would lead him to fear that something far worse than simple fraud had been perpetrated by officials from the CIA and State Department in Jeddah.

“From what I read in the Los Angeles Times, 15 of the 19 people who allegedly flew airplanes into buildings in the United States got their visas from the same CIA consulate in Jeddah.”

Dr. Stephen Camerota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, also spoke on the subject of immigration enforcement. His main contention was that enforcement was lax in most immigration cases, and thus terrorists were able to slip through gaping holes created by systematic incompetence.

“The large number of terrorists who violate immigration laws both in [the case of] 9/11 and in the past is important because it suggests that if we enforced immigration, we might well trip up a lot of terrorists.”

Jennifer Van Bergen, an editor and contributing writer for Truthout.org, faculty member at the New School for Social Research in New York and graduate of the distinguished Cardozo School of Law, introduced the topic of post-9/11 legislation into the discourse. Van Bergen has extensively researched the abrogation of civil rights contained within the Patriot Bill. She contended that the bill not only does grave violence to the Bill of Rights, but that it has the opposite of the effect it was intended to have on terrorism.

“The Patriot Act does not… help us to fight terrorism better,” said Van Bergen. “But what it does do is it increases the administrative burden on already overburdened intelligence agencies, making terrorism even harder for them to fight.

“It intrudes upon many of our hard-won civil liberties, liberties which many of our ancestors fought and died for; and it affects the balance of powers in our government. It puts unnecessarily greater power in the hands of the executive, and brings us one step closer to what a colleague of mine called the National Security States of America.”

Many will have undoubtedly grown tired of hearing the concerns about the Patriot Bill that have been voiced over and over again in the media. But Van Bergen’s intensive research of the law allowed her to voice the contention that the dangers posed to civil liberties by the bill are far worse than commonly thought.

“Section 802 creates the crime of domestic terrorism,” said Van Bergen. “This criminalizes acts that ‘appear to be intended to influence the policy of the government by intimidation or coercion, or to intimidate or coerce the civil population.’”

Observed Van Bergen, “this section would make just about any act of civil disobedience in protest against government policy into an act of domestic terrorism.”

Last, and perhaps most frightening of all, came the presentation of freelance writer, researcher and activist Richard Ochs. As an activist, Ochs has served as a watchdog over military installations in the District and Maryland. His concern over the environmental danger posed by chemical and biological weapons lead him to ask a lot of questions about the anthrax scare.

“A friend of mine told me that right after Sen. [Patrick] Leahy called for hearings on military tribunals he got an anthrax threat,” said Ochs. “The timing and targeting of the anthrax letters suggests that the motivation of the perpetrator was to promote legislation, namely the USA Patriot Act.”

Ochs’ evidence is circumstantial by his own admission, but he nevertheless produced a frightening narrative of the scene in D.C. while the bill was being rammed through Congress.

“Anthrax letters were mailed to the Democratic Senate leadership on the same day that they blocked an attempt to rush the bill through without debate or amendments,” said Ochs. “These threats frightened Congress in general and intimidated certain opponents of the Patriot Bill in particular. No Republican received an anthrax letter.”

The anthrax scare had the further affect of making critical analysis of the bill’s contents all but impossible.

“The closing of the House and Senate office buildings made it difficult for members to read the bill,” said Ochs. “Many members didn’t even get a chance to read most of the bill, and it’s like 350 pages. After the letters were received, the Democrats gave up their insistence on a two-year ‘sunset clause.’”

The event concluded with a question and answer period, during which members of the press and family members of 9/11 victims addressed further questions to the panelists. Ruppert had stayed on the line from Canada throughout, and responded to the question of a mother who had lost her son on 9/11, who wanted to know how to go about actually getting answers to all these questions.

“I for one am convinced,” said Ruppert, “that no tangible results will be achieved without public activity, including mass demonstrations.”

ENDS

The main site address is:

http://www.unansweredquestions.org

Audio Links
Part 1
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/nyc/2002-06-11-part1.ram
Part 2
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/nyc/2002-06-11-part2.ram
Part 3
http://clients.loudeye.com/imc/nyc/2002-06-11-part3.ram

[SCOOP EDITOR’S NOTE: See also…
Unanswered Questions: Listen To Press Conference]

The link to Part 2 will take you to the most interesting part of the briefing.

You will hear an excellent summary of the key questions, and a detailed explanation of evidence suggesting that the destruction of the Pentagon was deliberately permitted.

I found the evidence overwhelming.

Stand down orders. Orders to return to base. The fact that Andrews Air Force Base (ten miles from DC) took no action, while Langley Air Force Base (over 100 miles from DC), scrambled jets which flew at SUB SONIC speeds to get to DC, arriving too late.

If they had flown at supersonic speeds, they could easily have intercepted. The destruction of the Pentagon took place a full 40 minutes after the destruction of the second tower in NY. Yet no planes were scrambled above DC during the forty minute period.

Local DC news spoke of planes off course coming toward DC. Radar contact was made with the off course planes. But standard intercept procedures were ignored. Pilots of military aircraft who wanted to intercept the terrorists planes were told to return to base. Since 1997, the Pentagon and White House have had contingency plans and elaborate systems to prevent planes from crashing into either building.

Ordinarily, if any plane strays into DC airspace, it is met by US military aircraft within minutes, to be escorted or “wagged” off. This is standard procedure.

THE AIRSPACE OVER DC IS THE MOST PROTECTED IN THE WORLD.!

Yet nothing was done during the forty minute period, during which our officials knew an attack was imminent.

The notion that using planes as missiles could not anticipated is debunked. Last year, during the Genoa summit, the perimeter was surrounded with anti air craft guns, for the express purpose of preventing planes from crashing into the summit. US and NATO military commands were involved in plans to prevent such a disaster.

Bush, Ari Fleisher, and Condoleeza Rice are lying to the public, when they pretend that 9-11 type attacks were not anticipated at the highest level, and by the Pentagon. The Pentagon attack was permitted. The evidence is overwhelming. Its Pearl Harbor all over again.

The idea that the military could be caught unaware by a plane - which had been off course for over one hour, with specific knowledge of the terrorist attacks in New Yorks, and a clear 40 minute window (with several squadrons of aircraft within two or three minutes of the Pentagon) - is on its face absurd.

The exact plan regarding the 9-11 attacks is unknown. Whether the attacks were allowed, or were planned and orchestrated with advanced knowledge of US government officials, is uncertain.

Investigations must be pursued to determine the whole truth.

This is the function of the Unanswered Questions web site.

The testimonies of Agent Rowley, Agent Robert Wright, and Agent Powers are just the beginning. They show a pattern, not of incompetence, but of deliberate obstruction, corruption, stonewalling, coverups, threats, and intimidation of those who would blow the whistle.

I STRONGLY URGE PEOPLE TO LISTEN TO THE PRESS BRIEFING.

So far it has been censored by the mainstream media, and even C-Span has refused to broadcast it.

Michael Ruppert is just one individual giving us valuable insights into the type of investigation which needs to be pursued.

According to Ruppert, the Information Age allows the truths to be revealed to larger and larger numbers within a matter of weeks.

During previous scandals, Teapot Dome, Watergate, Iran Contra, the truth took months, years, and even decades to be fully revealed.

The Internet has changed all this. Foreign News coverage can be consulted and analyzed almost instantaneously. French, German, English, Russian, and Canadian newspapers give us all sorts of details which would have taken months to compile in previous eras. As much as the US media establishment would like to censor, to filter out knowledge, and keep it from the American people, true isolation is impossible.

LISTEN TO THIS BRIEFING !!!

ENDS

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