Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications.
12 Jun 2005 http://www.arcticbeacon.citymaker.com/articles/article/1518131/27302.htm
By Greg Szymanski
A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush's first
term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is 'bogus,'
saying it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers
and adjacent Building No. 7.
"If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on
9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would
be compelling," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member of the Bush team
who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National
Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.
Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes it's
'next to impossible' that 19 Arab Terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty U.S.
military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may hold the
key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9/11.
"It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s)
of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7," said Reynolds about his
comments that first appeared June 9 on the web. "If the official wisdom on the
collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous
engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's
collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional
demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the
collapse of the three buildings.
"More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if
impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. Meanwhile,
the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get
the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right."
However, Reynolds said "getting it right in today's security state' remains
challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been
intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11.
From the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel caused
the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators have
disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government theory since
most of the evidence was removed by FEMA prior to independent investigation.
Critics claim the Bush administration has tried to cover-up the evidence and the
recent 9/11 Commission has failed to address the major evidence contradicting
the official version of 9/11.
Some facts demonstrating the flaws in the government jet fuel theory include:
-- Photos showing people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where
10,000 gallons of jet fuel supposedly was burning..
--When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Tower's flames had already
vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain and
control without a total collapse.
--The fire did not grow over time, probably because it quickly ran out of fuel
and was suffocating, indicating without added explosive devices the firs could
have been easily controlled.
--FDNY fire fighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not
discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw. FAA personnel are also under a
similar 9/11 gag order.
--Even the flawed 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges that "none of the [fire]
chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible."
-- Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse except for the
three buildings on 9/11, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9/11.
-- The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively small.
-- WTC-7 was unharmed by an airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and
twelfth floors of this 47-story steel building yet it collapsed in less than 10
seconds.
-- WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner
steel beams.
-- In a PBS documentary, Larry Silverstein, the WTC leaseholder, told the fire
department commander on 9/11 about WTC-7 that. "may be the smartest thing to do
is pull it," slang for demolish it.
-- It's difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet
fuel (kerosene) to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.
Despite the numerous holes in the government story, the Bush administration has
brushed aside or basically ignored any and all critics. Mainstream experts,
speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing that an
airplane impact weakened each structure and an intense fire thermally weakened
structural components, causing buckling failures while allowing the upper floors
to pancake onto the floors below.
One who supports the official account is Thomas Eager, professor of materials
engineering and engineering systems at MIT. He argues that the collapse occurred
by the extreme heat from the fires, causing the loss of loading-bearing capacity
on the structural frame.
Eagar points out the steel in the towers could have collapsed only if heated to
the point where it "lost 80 percent of its strength," or around 1,300 degrees
Fahrenheit. Critics claim his theory is flawed since the fires did not appear
to be intense and widespread enough to reach such high temperatures.
Other experts supporting the official story claim the impact of the airplanes,
not the heat, weakened the entire structural system of the towers, but critics
contend the beams on floors 94-98 did not appear severely weakened, much less
the entire structural system.
Further complicating the matter, hard evidence to fully substantiate either
theory since evidence is lacking due to FEMA's quick removal of the structural
steel before it could be analyzed. Even though the criminal code requires that
crime scene evidence be kept for forensic analysis, FEMA had it destroyed or
shipped overseas before a serious investigation could take place.
And even more doubt is cast over why FEMA acted so swiftly since coincidentally
officials had arrived the day before the 9/11 attacks at New York's Pier 29 to
conduct a war game exercise, named "Tripod II."
Besides FEMA's quick removal of the debris, authorities considered the steel
quite valuable as New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS
and even fired one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch break.
In a detailed analysis just released supporting the controlled demolition
theory, Reynolds presents a compelling case.
"First, no steel-framed skyscraper, even engulfed in flames hour after hour, had
ever collapsed before. Suddenly, three stunning collapses occur within a few
city blocks on the same day, two allegedly hit by aircraft, the third not," said
Reynolds. "These extraordinary collapses after short-duration minor fires made
it all the more important to preserve the evidence, mostly steel girders, to
study what had happened.
"On fire intensity, consider this benchmark: A 1991 FEMA report on
Philadelphia's Meridian Plaza fire said that the fire was so energetic that
'beams and girders sagged and twisted, but despite this extraordinary exposure,
the columns continued to support their loads without obvious damage.' Such an
intense fire with consequent sagging and twisting steel beams bears no
resemblance to what we observed at the WTC."
After considering both sides of the 9/11 debate and after thoroughly sifting
through all the available material, Reynolds concludes the government story
regarding all four plane crashes on 9/11 remains highly suspect.
"In fact, the government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of
the four alleged airliners that fateful day. The familiar photo of the Flight 93
crash site in Pennsylvania shows no fuselage, engine or anything recognizable as
a plane, just a smoking hole in the ground," said Reynolds. "Photographers
reportedly were not allowed near the hole. Neither the FBI nor the National
Transportation Safety Board have investigated or produced any report on the
alleged airliner crashes."
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Greg Szymanski