UQ Wire: Last Chance To Ask Hard 9/11 Questions

(Washington, DC) 9/11 CitizensWatch, a public group working to monitor the national 9/11 Commission and demand transparency, accountability and a thorough investigation will hold two press events in relation to the upcoming final public hearings of the National Commission on Terrorist Acts Upon the United States ("9/11 Commission") scheduled for June 16 and 17, 2004.

-n the eve of the hearings, 9/11 victims' family members, government whistleblowers and investigative journalists will address questions and issues that remain unanswered and ill addressed, as well as their dissatisfaction with the process and progress of the 9/11 Commission's investigative efforts to date. This event will be held at 1:00 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15 at the National Press Club's Holman Lounge (14th & F Sts. NW, 13th Floor) and will include the following speakers:

April Gallop, survivor of the attack on the Pentagon will discuss Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's evasive sworn testimony regarding whether or not NORAD pilots received, acknowledged and understood -rders given them on 9/11, and why further investigation is of paramount importance.

Daniel Hopsicker, author of "Welcome to Terrorland" will present evidence of discrepancies in the official story of Mohammed Atta and -thers named as planners and perpetrators of the attacks, including new documents that link Atta to US defense contractors and questions about his training at Maxwell AFB.

Kyle Hence and John Judge, co-founders of 9/11 CitizensWatch will speak to Defense Department and other preparations and exercises simulating plane attacks before and on September 11, CIA and Pakistani intelligence support for the growth and origins of Al Qaeda, including support for the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, and recent revelations by whistleblowers concerning FBI foreknowledge of specific warnings of the plot and alleged cover-up of incompetence and corruption on a larger scale.

Following the hearings, CitizensWatch will hold a follow-on press conference to allow victims' family members and other concerned citizens to voice their response to the hearing and their options if the Commission report does not satisfy their questions about the events, or their demands for accountability. This event will take place on Friday, June 18 at the First Amendment Room of the National Press Club at 9:00 am. Press and the public are invited to attend.

"If the message of the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that bin Laden planned an attack inside the United States, and other warnings about the use of hijacked planes as weapons, had been made public the plot might have been foiled. Instead, the threat was heard behind closed doors and the response of the Bush administration seems to have been to ignore the situation until it escalated into reality," said John Judge, co-founder of the group.

"Survivors and families of the victims of 9/11 have expressed rising frustration with the Commission process, conflicts of interest on the part of staff and Commission members, and the lack of accountability on the part of agencies and individuals whose actions or inaction made the 9/11 attacks possible. We join them in their call for transparency in this investigation, a thorough evaluation of all the facts, and release -f documented evidence that leads to their final report's conclusions. There is a rising expectation that the Commission will not answer our questions and that a public inquiry that involves family members, whistleblowers and pubic testimony of witnesses the Commission has -verlooked will be necessary to any hope of finding the truth about 9/11," said co-founder Kyle Hence

While their final report has not yet been released, the Commission's staff reports, public statements, softball public investigative procedures and hearings, conflicts of interest, and admission they took testimony from their own director and one Commissioner taken together cast serious doubt on the integrity of the investigation. The upcoming hearings represent the Commission's last chance in public to demonstrate that they are willing to broach hard questions, take government agencies and officials to task, and seek honest and thorough answers to illuminate what actually led to the events of 9/11 and what made it possible for them to be carried out on the morning of September 11th 2001.

9/11 CitizensWatch, PO Box 772, Washington, DC 20004

www.911citizenswatch.org -- citizenswatch@starpower.net

Contacts:

Kyle Hence
kfh@911citizenswatch.org

John Judge
jj@911citizenswatch.org

9/11 CitizensWatch calls on the National "9/11 Commission" to:

- Ask hard questions to establish line of duty and national command response actions on September 11 that interfered with regular FAA/NORAD procedures concerning any air emergency that allowed hijackers to proceed without interception to New York and Washington, DC during a period of more than an hour from the time of the first controller alerts to the attack on the Pentagon.

- Explore multiple NORAD and government agency exercises responding to plane attacks being carried out well before the attacks and in the period just before and during the events of September 11.

- Address the remaining questions about the identities of the hijackers -n September 11, and their connections to foreign intelligence agencies -r other global networks.

- Reveal the historical and ongoing connections of US CIA and military intelligence agencies and operations abroad that supported the arming and training of militant Islamic mujaheddin through the administrations -f Carter, Reagan, Bush, Sr., Clinton and the current Bush years.

- Explain the multiple specific advance warnings and dated forewarnings from foreign and unrevealed sources, as well as the lack of response that followed the August 6 presidential briefing warnings.

- Examine the subsequent anthrax mail attacks and the role of Project Clear Vision and Operation Jefferson, the Ames University DNA trail, the FBI role in destruction of the archive of evidence, and the investigative leads that point to its weaponization at Ft. Dietrick, a biowarfare center in Maryland.

- Hold accountable those in the national command authority, the intelligence agencies, the military and Pentagon security apparatus surrounding DC, the National Military Command Center, and the current or past administrations for their historical role in supporting, and later failure to fully investigate, interdict, prepare for or respond to a terrorist threat inside the United States that had generated multiple warnings involving clear targets and methods of attack. This includes those in the current administration who failed to heed urgent warnings given by national security advisors and intelligence briefings, called -ff critical potential investigations and continued covert relationships with key figures in the global networks of militant Islamic fundamentalists and those they trained for terror.

- Release all non-classified records, recordings, photographs and films relating to the events of September 11, 2001 for public scrutiny and release all investigative records that substantiate the conclusions and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission report.

- Clarify their investigative record, including how much testimony was taken under oath, and how interviews and queries were preserved (recorded, transcribed or merely notes).

- Call for an end to secrecy in relation to security threats and rely instead on the collective security and common sense of an informed public.

- Respond to the serious questions raised by family members and CitizensWatch concerning all aspects of the investigation.

STANDARD DISCLAIMER FROM UQ.ORG: UnansweredQuestions.org does not necessarily endorse the views expressed in the above article. We present this in the interests of research -for the relevant information we believe it contains. We hope that the reader finds in it inspiration to work with us further, in helping to build bridges between our various investigative communities, towards a greater, common understanding of the unanswered questions which now lie before us.

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