Visibility 9-11 Exclusive

Kevin Ryan

A chemist, fired from Underwriters Laboratories for questioning their deceptive methodologies in tests of the WTC floor assemblies post-9/11, systematically critiques the changing explanations for the collapses in the four official studies to date.

Three Years Later: Another Look At Three Claims from UL

By Kevin Ryan

8/31/2007

It has been nearly three years since I wrote a letter to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), about their World Trade Center investigation.[1] Shortly after firing me for writing this letter, my former employer, Underwriters Laboratories (UL), began making some suspicious statements. These included the following three claims related to the question of whether or not UL performed fire-resistance testing of materials used in the WTC. [2]

1. UL vehemently denied last week that it ever certified the materials.
2. "UL does not certify structural steel, such as the beams, columns and trusses used in World Trade Center," said Paul M. Baker, the company's spokesman.
3. The company told The Tribune "there is no evidence" that any firm tested the materials used to build the towers.

One might wonder why UL felt the need to claim that there was “no evidence” if they simply do not do such work. But what is the truth about UL’s involvement in testing materials for the WTC, in terms of the fire resistance the buildings required, but apparently did not have according to the government’s fire-based “collapse” hypothesis?

UL’s first claim

Apart from steel column assemblies, there were several other materials used in the WTC towers that required fire-resistance testing in order to ensure the safety of those buildings in a fire. One such material was the fireproofing itself, and another was the floor assemblies.

James Verhalen, chairman of the company that manufactured the fireproofing, United States Mineral Products, said that ''There is no reason for that product in a typical commercial environment to deteriorate,'' because “He said his product had been thoroughly tested and approved by Underwriters Laboratories.” [3]

We also know that UL consulted directly with the Port Authority’s WTC construction team, on fire resistance issues, as the towers were being built. This was described in the May 2003 NIST progress report that shows that the towers were built specifically to UL standards for fire resistance.[4] In this report NIST references a letter written in 1970 by UL management, on the subject of fire resistance of the towers, that was addressed directly to the Port Authority's construction manager (ref. 33).

As for floor assemblies, those who have been following the NIST investigation, and various explanations, know that the current claim is that the floor assemblies used in the WTC were never tested for fire resistance. But the May 2003 NIST report says that, in 1970, UL actually tested a floor assembly that was "similar to the WTC floor system". It is important to note that the results produced in 1970 were the same as those from the August 2004 UL floor tests - only 3 inches of sagging after 120 minutes in the furnace.

In this 2003 progress report, NIST goes on to say that they intended to perform fire resistance tests not only on the floor models, as part of the WTC investigation, but also on "individual steel members". The latter results were never reported, and no reason was ever given. But this progress report, like NIST’s final report, focuses more on the floor assembly fire resistance, and conspicuously fails to mention the originally required fire resistance tests on steel assemblies or where these tests were performed.

UL’s second claim

Statement number two above is clearly false for several reasons. First, UL is known to be one of the few important organizations supporting codes and specifications because they "produce a Fire Resistance Index with hourly ratings for beams, columns, floors, roofs, walls and partitions tested in accordance with ASTM Standard E119." [5]

In fact, even today you can go to UL’s website and order fire-resistance testing for building components such as “floors, roofs, walls, beams and columns.” [6]

Additionally, the WTC report from the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA) said "the UL Fire Resistance Directory ...is the major reference used by architects and engineers to select designs that meet the building code requirements for fire resistance ratings." [7]

Not only that, a New York Times article about the WTC reported in April 8, 2002 that “a furnace procedure called ASTM E-119” is used to “determine if building materials will survive out-of-control blazes.” The Times went on to report “The furnace tests, conducted at places like Underwriters Laboratories here, focus on the ability of separate building components -- a steel column or a concrete roof support -- to survive temperatures as high as 2,000 degrees.”

This article was critical of the tests performed as they related to the WTC, but certainly didn’t deny that they were performed, and made it clear who it was that performed them by saying --“At the Underwriters Laboratory campus in this northern Chicago suburb, where workers carry out those blazing tests…”. [8]

But unless anyone doubted who performed such tests on the steel columns used in the WTC towers, UL made that clear a week later in a hasty response to the New York Times editor published April 15, 2002. UL's own Tom Chapin, the chemist and manager of their Fire Protection division, with whom I was in contact, admitted to UL's involvement in testing steel (i.e. that which allowed the towers to stand) for the WTC by writing -- "The World Trade Center stood for almost an hour after withstanding conditions well beyond those experienced in any typical fire. In that time, thousands of people escaped with their lives. ASTM E-119 and UL's testing procedures helped make that possible." [9]

As if this publicly available knowledge was not enough to prove UL’s involvement in testing the steel, there are also the statements made to me by top managers at UL, including their CEO. UL’s CEO, Loring Knoblauch, made verbal statements to all staff at UL in South Bend on or about September 27, 2001. These statements included reference to UL having “certified the steel used in the World Trade Center” and that, because of this, employees should be proud of how long the buildings stood.

After being later asked for formal confirmation of such tests, Knoblauch repeated his statements again, this time in writing.[10]

“We tested the steel with all the required fireproofing on, and it did beautifully.”

“As we do not do follow-up service on this kind of product, we can give an opinion only on the test sample which was indeed properly coated.”

“We test to the code requirements, and the steel clearly met [the NYC code] requirements and exceeded them.”

After two lies, what should we make of the third claim?

Since UL is the primary company that performs fire-resistance tests of building components, and it is obvious that they were deeply involved in establishing the fire resistance of the WTC towers, why would they make the claim of “no evidence” with regard to the steel column assemblies?

One reason might be that the fact that the UL tests performed in August 2004, on models of WTC floor assemblies, roundly disproved the long-standing pancake theory. This meant that the steel column assemblies would have to take center stage in any fire-induced failure scenario and, in fact, NIST did finally decide to build their latest story around failure of the perimeter columns.

Another reason UL might have suddenly became evasive is that the draft report from NIST, that I was fired for questioning in October 2004, repeatedly stated that the WTC steel had “softened”, leading to collapse. [11] But after my letter became public, and everyone was made aware that the low steel temperatures found would not support such a claim, NIST delayed their report another seven months, and then removed all reference to the word “soften”. This suggests that the influence of public statements by a UL employee, including that UL tested the steel, changed the results of the NIST report with respect to effects of fire on the steel.

In conclusion, there is no question that Underwriters Laboratories was the central player in providing fire-resistance information for the WTC towers. This glaring fact, along with UL’s evasive and misleading behavior, indicates that discovering the details about those original tests could go a long way toward ending the debate about how the towers fell. Alternatively, continued evasion and deception by Underwriters Laboratories provides yet another reason why the fire-induced “collapse” hypothesis for the WTC towers is completely unbelievable.

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Featured Contributor

Arabesque

A 9/11 Blogger, Researcher, and Activist, Arabesque is a frequent contributor to 911blogger.com and has had articles published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies. [1]

The World Trade Center Building Designers: Pre-9/11 claims strongly implicate that the Towers should have remained standing on 9/11

By Arabesque

5/3/2007

The World Trade Center (WTC) Towers[2] were the largest buildings ever conceived in 1960.[3] This meant that there was a considerable amount of planning:

“The structural analysis carried out by the firm of Worthington, Skilling, Helle & Jackson is the most complete and detailed of any ever made for any building structure. The preliminary calculations alone cover 1, 200 pages and involve over 100 detailed drawings… The building as designed is sixteen times stiffer than a conventional structure. The design concept is so sound that the structural engineer has been able to be ultra-conservative in his design without adversely affecting the economics of the structure.”[4]

In July of 1971, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) presented a national award judging the WTC Towers to be “the engineering project that demonstrates the greatest engineering skills and represents the greatest contribution to engineering progress and mankind.”[5]

Like many modern structures and buildings, the WTC Towers were over-designed to withstand weight distribution in the event of structural damage. According to calculations made by the engineers who helped with the design of the Twin Towers, “all the columns on one side of a Tower could be cut, as well as the two corners and some of the columns on each adjacent side, and the building would still be strong enough to withstand a 100-mile-per-hour wind.”[6] As well, “Live loads on these columns can be increased more than 2,000% before failure occurs.”[7]

In the planning of the buildings the designers considered potential attacks, and the WTC towers were designed to survive them. Between Early 1984 and October 1985 it was reported that:

“The Office of Special Planning (OSP), a unit set up by the New York Port Authority to assess the security of its facilities against terrorist attacks, spends four to six months studying the World Trade Center. It examines the center’s design through looking at photographs, blueprints, and plans. It brings in experts such as the builders of the center, plus experts in sabotage and explosives, and has them walk through the WTC to identify any areas of vulnerability…”O’Sullivan consults ‘one of the trade center’s original structural engineers, Les Robertson, on whether the towers would collapse because of a bomb or a collision with a slow-moving airplane.’ He is told there is ‘little likelihood of a collapse no matter how the building was attacked.’”[8]

One of these hypothetical examples was put to the test in the 1993 WTC bombing. This attack prompted more discussions about the safety of the WTC towers. In response to these concerns, WTC building designer John Skilling explained that they “looked at every possible thing we could think of that could happen to the buildings, even to the extent of an airplane hitting the side… A previous analysis carried out early in 1964, calculated that the towers would handle the impact of a 707 traveling at 600 mph without collapsing.”[9]

This indicates that the building designers considered Boeing 707 airplane impact speeds of 600 mph. It is likely that the designers considered this speed of impact for the reason that the cruse speed of a Boeing 707 is 607 mph.[10] Both of the planes that hit the WTC Towers on 9/11 were Boeing 767’s. The FEMA report indicates that Flight 11 flew at a speed of 470 mph into the North Tower, and that the second plane flew at a speed of 590 mph into the South Tower.[11] Not only were these speeds anticipated by the building designers, the Boeing 707 is similar in size to the ones flown into the towers on 9/11. According to Jim Hoffman, the planes used on 9/11 were “only slightly larger than 707s and DC 8s, the types of jetliners whose impacts the World Trade Center's designers anticipated.”[12] This statement is supported by the following chart:

In fact, Hoffman observes that “a 707 in normal flight would actually have more kinetic energy than a 767, despite the slightly smaller size.”[14]

Commercial airliners typically fly with jet fuel, so it is not surprising that the designers would consider this. In 1993, Skilling explained that they performed an analysis that concluded that the WTC towers would survive the impact and jet fuel fires from a Boeing 707:

“Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed… The building structure would still be there.”[15]

In fact, no steel-framed building structures had ever collapsed due to fire before or since 9/11.[16] This further supports Skilling’s analysis about the possibility of jet fuel destroying the WTC towers. According to Paul Thompson, “the analysis Skilling is referring to is likely one done in early 1964, during the design phase of the towers. A three-page white paper, dated February 3, 1964.”[17] This ‘white paper’ concluded that:

“The buildings have been investigated and found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner (Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour. Analysis indicates that such collision would result in only local damage which could not cause collapse or substantial damage to the building and would not endanger the lives and safety of occupants not in the immediate area of impact.”[18]

Thompson explains that “besides this paper, no documents are known detailing how this analysis was made.”[19] In fact, many of the building documents are unavailable because “the building owners, designers and insurers, prevented independent researchers from gaining access—and delayed the BPAT team in gaining access—to pertinent building documents largely because of liability concerns.”[20]

The lack of access to WTC building documents remains a problem to this day. Indeed, in March of 2007, Steven Jones and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice finally obtained the WTC blueprints from a ‘whistle-blower’.[21]

Although the WTC was “over-designed to withstand almost anything including hurricanes, high winds, bombings and an airplane hitting it,” [22] the designers did not apparently consider controlled demolition:

“Skilling—a recognized expert in tall buildings—doesn't think a single 200-pound car bomb would topple or do major structural damage to a Trade Center tower. The supporting columns are closely spaced and even if several were disabled, the others would carry the load. ‘However,’ he added, ‘I'm not saying that properly applied explosives—shaped explosives—of that magnitude could not do a tremendous amount of damage.’ Although Skilling is not an explosives expert, he says there are people who do know enough about building demolition to bring a structure like the Trade Center down. ‘I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that he could do it.’”[23]

One week before 9/11, WTC building designer Leslie Robertson reiterated the fact that the towers were designed to survive plane crashes:

“Leslie Robertson, one of the two original structural engineers for the World Trade Center, is asked at a conference in Frankfurt, Germany what he had done to protect the twin towers from terrorist attacks. He replies, ‘I designed it for a 707 to smash into it,’ though does not elaborate further.”[24]

Also according to Robertson, the WTC towers were “in fact the first structures outside the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airplane.”[25]

Not only were the towers designed to survive plane crashes, they were designed to potentially survive multiple plane crashes. This fact is supported by Frank A. Demartini, the on-site construction manager for the World Trade Center, who said on January 25, 2001:

“The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it. That was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door—this intense grid—and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing to the screen netting.” [26]

Demartini appeared to be so confident that the towers would not collapse that he stayed behind to help save at least 50 people.[27] As a result of his actions, he lost his life on 9/11.

In summary, the World Trade Center designers not only contemplated jet fuel fires—they considered the plane crashes that would have caused them. They anticipated impact speeds of 600 mph as well as aircraft similar in size to the planes used on 9/11. The towers were designed to survive substantial column loss along with 100 mph winds. They were intended to survive bombings, earthquakes, and hurricanes. If the designers were sufficiently competent in the planning and realization of their award-winning WTC Towers as intended, they should have remained standing. Tragically, they did not. From this irreconcilable fact there can only be two conclusions; either the designers were inadequate in their designs, or there is an alternate explanation for their destruction on 9/11.

However, these are not all of the facts. After 9/11, WTC building designer Leslie Robertson has made statements which directly contradict previous comments by other building designers—including himself.

According to Paul Thomspon, it was reported on Sept 3-7, 2001 “the Boeing 707 was the largest in use when the towers were designed. [Leslie] Robertson conducted a study in late 1964, to calculate the effect of a 707 weighing 263,000 pounds and traveling at 180 mph crashing into one of the towers. [Robertson] concluded that the tower would remain standing. However, no official report of his study has ever surfaced publicly.”[28]

Surprisingly, Robertson claimed that the WTC Towers were designed to survive plane crashes at speeds of 180 mph.[29] He also repeated this claim in an interview with Steven Jones in October 2006.[30] However, these statements are contradicted by Skilling, who indicated that “a previous analysis, carried out early in 1964, calculated that the towers would handle the impact of a 707 traveling at 600 mph without collapsing.”[31] Robertson is also somewhat contradicted by his own statement in 1984-5 that there was “little likelihood of a collapse no matter how the building was attacked.”[32]

Immediately after 9/11 it was reported that “the engineer who said after the 1993 bombing that the towers could withstand a Boeing 707, Leslie Robertson, was not available for comment yesterday, a partner at his Manhattan firm said. ‘We're going to hold off on speaking to the media,’ said the partner, Rick Zottola, at Leslie E. Robertson Associates. ‘We'd like to reserve our first comments to our national security systems, F.B.I. and so on.’”[33]

Later, in 2002, Robertson said: “to the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance.”[34] In 2005, NIST also claimed that they had been “unable to locate any evidence to indicate consideration of the extent of impact-induced structural damage or the size of a fire that could be created by thousands of gallons of jet fuel.”[35]

These statements ignore the fact that Skilling claimed in 1993 that “Our analysis [in 1964] indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire… The building structure would still be there.”[36]

As well, Robertson said the following in an interview with Steven Jones in October 2006:

“I support the general conclusions of the NIST report… The [WTC] was designed for the impact of a low flying slow flying Boeing 707. We envisioned it [to be like] the aircraft that struck the Empire State building [during] WW II. It was not designed for a high speed impact from the jets that actually hit it… Yes there was a red hot metal seen [in the WTC rubble] by engineers. Molten—Molten means flowing—I’ve never run across anyone who has said that they had in fact seen molten metal, or by the way if they had seen it, if they had performed some kind of an analysis to determine what that metal was.”[37]

Three of these claims are demonstrably problematic. The claim about “slow flying” aircraft has already been discussed.[38] The statement about molten metal is also contradicted by many eyewitness statements.[39] In fact, it is possible that Robertson himself saw this molten steel, but this fact is not confirmed at the present time.[40]

Not only had many witnesses claimed to have seen this molten metal, FEMA had performed an analysis of it. Their observations were recorded in Appendix C of their WTC Building Performance Study.[41] Ironically, Robertson stated that he was not aware if anyone had performed an analysis on the molten steel in an interview with Jones—who had also performed an analysis of previously molten metal samples from Ground zero.[42] Jones’ findings appear to be corroborated by the FEMA report which described “a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused ‘intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.’”[43] The New York Times described this as “perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.”[44] NIST did not even mention the presence of molten steel and called it “irrelevant to the investigation.”[45] Amazingly, NIST’s 10 000 page, $20 million report couldn’t find the space to mention the earlier findings about the molten steel analyzed in the FEMA report. There have even been reports of evaporated steel.[46]

The presence of molten steel would be very surprising because jet fuel fires are incapable of melting steel.[47] In fact, NIST reported that the highest recorded temperatures of the jet fuel fires from the WTC were not even enough to weaken the steel.[48]

Conclusions

It is demonstrable that the WTC building designers claimed that the Twin Towers would survive an event similar to 9/11. Either the WTC building designers were tragically wrong in their calculations and designs, or there is another explanation for the destruction of the WTC Towers. After 9/11, WTC building designer Leslie Robertson has made claims that are contradicted by statements and documents from as many as 40 years ago. These contradictions must be resolved through the release of all of the pertinent WTC documents that have been withheld since 9/11.

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George Washington

Aside from being a patriot and leader, George Washington runs a blog at George Washington's Blog.

What Is a "False Flag"?

By George Washington

2007

"False flag terrorism" is defined as a government attacking its own people, then blaming others in order to justify going to war against the people it blames. Or as Wikipedia defines it:

False flag operations are covert operations conducted by governments, corporations, or other organizations, which are designed to appear as if they are being carried out by other entities. The name is derived from the military concept of flying false colors; that is, flying the flag of a country other than one's own. False flag operations are not limited to war and counter-insurgency operations, and have been used in peace-time; for example, during Italy's strategy of tension.

The term comes from the old days of wooden ships, when one ship would hang the flag of its enemy before attacking another ship in its own navy. Because the enemy's flag, instead of the flag of the real country of the attacking ship, was hung, it was called a "false flag" attack.

There are many examples of false flag attacks through history. For example, it is widely known that the Nazis, in Operation Himmler, faked attacks on their own people and resources which they blamed on the Poles, to justify the invasion of Poland. And it has now been persuasively argued — as shown, for example, in this History Channel video — that Nazis set fire to their own government building and blamed that fire on others (if you have trouble playing the clip, it is because the website hosting the clip requires you to download the clip before playing it). The fire was the event which justified Hitler's seizure of power and suspension of liberties.

And in the early 1950s, agents of an Israeli terrorist cell operating in Egypt planted bombs in several buildings, including U.S. diplomatic facilities, then left behind "evidence" implicating the Arabs as the culprits (one of the bombs detonated prematurely, allowing the Egyptians to identify the bombers). Israel's Defense Minister was brought down by the scandal, along with the entire Israeli government. See also this confirmation.

And the Russian KGB apparently conducted a wave of bombings in Russia in order to justify war against Chechnya and put Vladimir Putin into power (see also this short essay and this report).

And the Turkish government has been caught bombing its own and blaming it on a rebel group in order to justify a crackdown on that group.

Indeed, even Muslim governments appear to play this game. For example, the well-respected former Indonesian president said that the government had a role in the Bali bombings.

This sounds nuts, right?  You've never heard of this "false flag terrorism", where a government attacks its own people then blames others in order to justify its goals, right?  And you are cynical of the statements discussed above? 

Please take a look at these historical quotes:

"This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector." - Plato

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." - U.S. President James Madison

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death". - Adolph Hitler

"Why of course the people don't want war ... But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship ... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country." - Hermann Goering, Nazi leader.

"The easiest way to gain control of a population is to carry out acts of terror. [The public] will clamor for such laws if their personal security is threatened". - Josef Stalin

But NOT the U.S.

It is logical to assume that, even if other countries have carried out false flag operations (especially horrible regimes such as, say, the Nazis or Stalin), the U.S. has never done so.

Well, as documented by the New York Times, Iranians working for the C.I.A. in the 1950's posed as Communists and staged bombings in Iran in order to turn the country against its democratically-elected president (see also this essay).

And, as confirmed by a former Italian Prime Minister, an Italian judge, and the former head of Italian counterintelligence, NATO, with the help of the Pentagon and CIA, carried out terror bombings in Italy and blamed the communists, in order to rally people’s support for their governments in Europe in their fight against communism. As one participant in this formerly-secret program stated: "You had to attack civilians, people, women, children, innocent people, unknown people far removed from any political game. The reason was quite simple. They were supposed to force these people, the Italian public, to turn to the state to ask for greater security."

Moreover, recently declassified documents show that in the 1960's, the American Joint Chiefs of Staff signed off on a plan to blow up AMERICAN airplanes (using an elaborate plan involving the switching of airplanes), and also to commit terrorist acts on American soil, and then to blame it on the Cubans in order to justify an invasion of Cuba. If you view no other links in this article, please read the following ABC news report; the official documents; and watch this interview with the former Washington Investigative Producer for ABC's World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.

But Al-Qaeda is Different

You might say "But Al-Qaeda is different -- powerful, organized, and out to get us", right? Maybe, but take a look at this Los Angeles Times Article, reviewing a BBC documentary entitled "The Power of Nightmares", which shows that the threat from Al Qaeda has been vastly overblown (and see this article on who is behind the hype). And a former National Security Adviser told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative".

And did you know that the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had -- at the last minute -- cancelled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake powder for real explosives, against the infiltrator's strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view)? See also this TV news report.

And did you know that the CIA is alleged to have met with Bin Laden two months before 9/11?

And did you know that, many years after the FBI first stated that it did not have sufficient evidence to prosecute Bin Laden for 9/11, the agency apparently still does not have any hard evidence linking Bin Laden to the crime (see also this partial confirmation by the Washington Post)?

And did you see the statement by the CIA commander in charge of the capture that the U.S. LET Bin Laden escape from Afghanistan?

And have you heard that the anthrax attacks -- which were sent along with notes purportedly written by Islamic terrorists -- used a weaponized anthrax strain from the top U.S. bioweapons facility, the Fort Detrick military base? Indeed, top bioweapons experts have stated that the anthrax attack may have been a CIA test "gone wrong"; and see this article by a former NSA and naval intelligence officer; and this statement by a distinguished law professor and bioterror expert (and this one). It is also interesting that the only congress people mailed anthrax-containing letters were key democrats, and that the attacks occurred one week before passage of the freedom-curtailing Patriot Act, which seems to have scared them and the rest of congress into passing that act without even reading it. And it might be coincidence, but White House staff began taking the anti-anthrax medicine before the Anthrax attacks occurred.

Even the former director of the National Security Agency said "By any measure the US has long used terrorism. In ‘78-79 the Senate was trying to pass a law against international terrorism - in every version they produced, the lawyers said the US would be in violation"(the audio is here)

Why Does This Matter?

Please read what the following very smart people are saying:

A former prominent republican U.S. congressman stated that the U.S. is close to becoming a totalitarian society and that the current administration is using fear to try to ensure that this happens.

Current republican U.S. congressman Ron Paul stated that the government "is determined to have martial law", and that the government is hoping to get the people "fearful enough that they will accept the man on the white horse". He also said "a contrived Gulf of Tonkin-type incident may occur to gain popular support for an attack on Iran".

A former National Security Adviser told the Senate that a terrorist act might be carried out in the U.S. and falsely blamed on Iran to justify war against that nation.

The former assistant secretary of treasury in the Reagan administration, called the "Father of Reaganomics", who is a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service, has said:

"Ask yourself: Would a government that has lied us into two wars and is working to lie us into an attack on Iran shrink from staging "terrorist" attacks in order to remove opposition to its agenda?"

"If the Bush administration wants to continue its wars in the Middle East and to entrench the "unitary executive" at home, it will have to conduct some false flag operations that will both frighten and anger the American people and make them accept Bush's declaration of "national emergency" and the return of the draft. Alternatively, the administration could simply allow any real terrorist plot to proceed without hindrance."

(see also this even stronger statement).

A retired 27-year CIA analyst who prepared and presented Presidential Daily Briefs and served as a high-level analyst for several presidents stated that if there was another major attack in the U.S., it would lead to martial law. He went on to say:

"We have to be careful, if somebody does this kind of provocation, big violent explosions of some kind, we have to not take the word of the masters there in Washington that this was some terrorist event because it could well be a provocation allowing them, or seemingly to allow them to get what they want."

The former CIA analyst would not put it past the government to "play fast and loose" with terror alerts and warnings and even events themselves in order to rally people behind the flag.

General Tommy Franks stated that if another terrorist attack occurs in the United States "the Constitution will likely be discarded in favor of a military form of government".

Daniel Ellsberg, the famous Pentagon Papers whistleblower, said "if there is another terror attack, "I believe the president will get what he wants", which will include a dictatorship.

The former UN Weapons Inspector, an American, who stated before the Iraq war started that there were no weapons of mass destruction is now saying that he would not rule out staged government terror by the U.S. government.

And a member of the British Parliament stated that "there is a very real danger" that the American government will stage a false flag terror attack in order to justify war against Iran and to gain complete control domestically.

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Footnotes

Kevin Ryan's References:
1. Kevin Ryan, "The Collapse of the WTC," 911 Visibility Project, November 11, 2004 (http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchive/2004-11-11-ryan.php).
2. John Dobberstein, "Area Man Stirs Debate on WTC Collapse," South Bend Tribune, November 22, 2004 (http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041124095100856).
3. James Glanz And Michael Moss, A Nation Challenged: The Towers; Since the Beginning, Questions Dogged the Trade Center's Fireproofing, New York Times, December 14, 2001
4. NIST, May 2003 Progress Report on the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/MediaUpdate%20_FINAL_ProgressReport051303.pdf
5. Samuel H. Marcus, Basics of Structural Steel (Reston, Va.: Reston Publishing 1977), 20.
6. Underwriters Laboratories website, Fire-Resistive Assemblies, http://www.ul.com/fire/resistive.html
7. Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), "World Trade Center Building Performance Study," May 2005, Appendix A
8. Eric Lipton and James Glanz, “A Nation Challenged: The Trade Center; Tower's Collapse Raises New Doubts About Fire Tests”, New York Times, April 8, 2002.
9. J. Thomas Chapin, General Mgr., Fire Protection Div. Underwriters Laboratories, Letter to the editor entitled “Fire Test is Sound”, New York Times, April 15, 2002.
10. Underwriters Laboratories email correspondence, December 1, 2003.
11. NIST, Latest Findings from NIST World Trade Center Investigation Released, Leading Collapse Sequence for Each WTC Tower Defined, October 19, 2004 http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_latest_findings_1004.htm

Arabesque's References:
[1] Arabesque, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice Member and 9/11 Researcher: http://www.911blogger.com/blog/877.
[2] Research based on Paul Thompson’s Complete 9/11 Timeline and other sources. http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=leslie_robertson
[3] James Glanz and Eric Lipton, The Height of Ambition, New York Times, September 8, 2002.
[4] James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The rise and fall of the World Trade Center, Times Books, Henry Hold and Company, LLC, 2003, pages 134-136.
[5] Angus K. Gillespie, Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press 1999), 117
[6] Glanz and Lipton, City in the Sky, page 133.
[7] How Columns Will Be Designed for 110-Story Buildings, Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1964: 48-49.
[8] Glanz and Lipton, City in the Sky, Page 227. See also Paul Thompson’s Complete 9/11 Timeline.
[9] Ibid. pages 131-132.
[10] Jim Hoffman, Towers' Design Parameters: Twin Towers' Designers Anticipated Jet Impacts Like September 11th's, http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html.
[11] World Trade Center Building Performance Study: Data Collection, Preliminary Observations, and Recommendations, FEMA Report 403, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Federal Insurance and Mitigation Administration, Washington, DC, 2002. Page 31.
[12] Hoffman, Towers' Design Parameters.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Eric Nalder, Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision, Seattle Times, February 27, 1993.
[16] James Glanz, and Eric Lipton, Towers Withstood Impact, but Fell to Fire, Report Says, Fri March 29, 2002, New York Times.
“Experts said no building like it [WTC7], a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire.”
Norman Glover, Fire Engineering, Fire Engineering journal, October 2002.
“Almost all large buildings will be the location for a major fire in their useful life. No major high-rise building has ever collapsed from fire…”
[17] Thompson, Complete 9/11 Timeline. February 27, 1993: WTC Engineer Says Building Would Survive Jumbo Jet Hitting It
[18] Glanz and Lipton, City in the Sky, pages 131-2.
[19] Thompson, Complete 9/11 Timeline. February 27, 1993: WTC Engineer Says Building Would Survive Jumbo Jet Hitting It
[20] Hearing before the Committee on Science, House of Representatives, One Hundred Seventh Congress, Second Session, March 6, 2002, Serial No. 107–46.
[21] Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Independent Investigators Release Suppressed Blueprints of Destroyed World Trade Center Tower, March 27, 2007. http://www.stj911.org/.
[22] Christopher Bollyn, Some Survivors Say ‘Bombs Exploded Inside WTC’, American Free Press, October 22, 2001.
[23] Nalder, Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision
[24] Towers Built to Withstand Jet Impact, The Chicago Tribune, September 12, 2001.
[25] Leslie E. Robertson, Reflections on the World Trade Center. National Academy of Engineering, Volume 32, Number 1 - Spring 2002.
[26] Prisonplanet.com, WTC Construction Manager: Towers Were Designed to Take Numerous Plane Crashes, http://www.prisonplanet.com/, November 14, 2004.
[27] “DeMartini will be in his office on the 88th floor of the north tower when it is hit on 9/11. He will die when the tower collapses, after helping more than 50 people escape.” [Associated Press, 8/29/2003; New York Times, 8/29/2003]
[28] Glanz and Lipton, City in the Sky, pages 138-9, 366.
[29] Nalder, Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision
[29] Towers Built to Withstand Jet Impact. See also: Thompson, Complete 9/11 Timeline, Between September 3, 2001 and September 7, 2001: WTC Structural Engineer Says Trade Center Designed for 707 Crashing Into It. These articles from the day after 9/11 make clear the fact that this statement was made before 9/11: “Les Robertson, the Trade Center's structural engineer, spoke last week at a conference on tall buildings in Frankfurt, Germany.”
[30] See a partial transcript of this interview included below.
[31] Thompson, Complete 9/11 Timeline, February 27, 1993: WTC Engineer Says Building Would Survive Jumbo Jet Hitting It
[32] Glanz and Lipton, City in the Sky, Page 227. See also Paul Thompson’s Complete 9/11 Timeline.
[33] James Glanz, Believed to Be Safe, the Towers Proved Vulnerable to Jet Fuel Fire, The New York Times, September 12, 2001
[34] Robertson, Reflections on the World Trade Center
[35] National Institute of Standards and Technology, 9/2005, page. 13
[36] Nalder, Twin Towers Engineered To Withstand Jet Collision
[37] Steven Jones in discussion With Leslie Robertson, by KGNU Radio, Denver, CO, Oct 26, 2006.
See also: Gregg Roberts, Jones v. Robertson: A physicist and a structural engineer debate the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center, Journalof911Studies.com
[38] See another statement by Robertson here: “The buildings survived the impact of the Boeing 767 aircraft, an impact very much greater than had been contemplated in our design (a slow-flying Boeing 707 lost in the fog and seeking a landing field).” Taken from: Robertson, Reflections on the World Trade Center
[39] ‘George Washington,’ Why was there Molten Metal Under Ground Zero for Months after 9/11? December 06, 2005. http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/
[40] James Williams, SEAUNEWS, The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah, October 2001.
Someone, quite possibly Leslie Robertson “describes fires still burning and molten steel still running 21 days after the attacks.”
See also:
Gregg Roberts, Jones v. Robertson: A physicist and a structural engineer debate the controlled demolition of the World Trade Center “It is possible that Robertson himself said this.
This was one of points listed by SEAU president Williams, after stating that Robertson ‘was a guest of SEAU’ and presented to them ‘a number of interesting facts’ including ‘some you might not have heard.’ ‘As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running.’ page 3, http://www.seau.org/SEAUNews-2001-10.pdf. An email sent to the Seau.org contact email address to clarify this point went unanswered.”
[41] See here for pictures and comments in FEMA’s report mentioning the melted steel:
http://www.911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/index.html
“Although virtually all of the structural steel from the Twin Towers and Building 7 was removed and destroyed, preventing forensic analysis, FEMA's volunteer investigators did manage to perform "limited metallurgical examination" of some of the steel before it was recycled. Their observations, including numerous micrographs, are recorded in Appendix C of the WTC Building Performance Study. Prior to the release of FEMA's report, a fire protection engineer and two science professors published a brief report in JOM disclosing some of this evidence.”
“The results of the examination are striking. They reveal a phenomenon never before observed in building fires: eutectic reactions, which caused "intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese." The New York Times described this as "perhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.” WPI provides a graphic summary of the phenomenon.”
[42] Paul Watson, Scientific Analysis Proves Towers Brought Down By Incendiaries, June 20, 2006. http://www.prisonplanet.com/ “using advanced techniques we're finding out what's in these samples [of iron taken from Ground Zero]—we're finding iron, sulphur, potassium and manganese—these are characteristic of a variation of thermite which is used to cut through steel very rapidly, it's called thermate.” See also: Griffin, The Destruction of the World Trade Center and Jones, Why Indeed Did the World Trade Center Buildings Completely Collapse?
[43] Joan Killough-Miller, The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel, WPI Transformations, Spring 2002.
[44] Ibid.
[45] Jim Hoffman, NIST's World Trade Center FAQ A Reply to the National Institute for Standards and Technology's ‘Answers to Frequently Asked Questions’. August 30, 2006.
[46] “Engineers have been trying to figure out exactly what happened… ‘Fire and the structural damage… would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated’” from: James Glanz, Engineers are baffled over the collapse of 7 WTC; Steel members have been partly evaporated, New York Times, November 29. 2001.
[47] “The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1000 °C -- hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1500 °C.” Taken from: Eagar, T. W. and Musso, C. (2001). “Why Did the World Trade Center Collapse?” Science, Engineering, and Speculation”, Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 53/12:8-11 (2001).
[48] Kevin Ryan, A New Standard for Deception, June 4, 2006. See also: NIST and the World Trade Center.

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