


FRONT
PAGE STORY - 03/08/2002
September 11 - US
Government accused
A Portugal-based investigative
journalist has presented THE NEWS with version of the
September 11th attacks that has to date failed to
attract the attention of the international press. The
report, compiled by an independent inquiry into the
September 11th, World Trade Centre attack, warns the
American public that the government’s official version
of events does not stand up to scrutiny.
A
group of military and civilian US pilots, under the
chairmanship of Colonel Donn de Grand, after
deliberating non-stop for 72 hours, has concluded that
the flight crews of the four passenger airliners,
involved in the September 11th tragedy, had no control
over their aircraft.
In a detailed press communiqué the
inquiry stated: “The so-called terrorist attack was in
fact a superbly executed military operation carried out
against the USA, requiring the utmost professional
military skill in command, communications and control.
It was flawless in timing, in the choice of selected
aircraft to be used as guided missiles and in the
coordinated delivery of those missiles to their
pre-selected targets.”
The report seriously questions
whether or not the suspect hijackers, supposedly trained
on Cessna light aircraft, could have located a target
dead-on 200 miles from take off point. It further throws
into doubt their ability to master the intricacies of
the instrument flight rules (IFR) in the 45 minutes from
take off to the point of impact. Colonel de Grand said
that it would be impossible for novices to have taken
control of the four aircraft and orchestrated such a
terrible act requiring military precision of the highest
order.
A member of the inquiry team, a US
Air Force officer who flew over 100 sorties during the
Vietnam war, told the press conference: “Those birds
(commercial airliners) either had a crack fighter pilot
in the left seat, or they were being manoeuvred by
remote control.”
In evidence given to the enquiry,
Captain Kent Hill (retd.) of the US Air Force, and
friend of Chic Burlingame, the pilot of the plane that
crashed into the Pentagon, stated that the US had on
several occasions flown an unmanned aircraft, similar in
size to a Boeing 737, across the Pacific from Edwards
Air Force base in California to South Australia.
According to Hill it had flown on a pre programmed
flight path under the control of a pilot in an outside
station.
Hill also quoted Bob Ayling, former
British Airways boss, in an interview given to the
London Economist on September 20th, 2001. Ayling
admitted that it was now possible to control an aircraft
in flight from either the ground or in the air. This was
confirmed by expert witnesses at the inquiry who
testified that airliners could be controlled by
electro-magnetic pulse or radio frequency
instrumentation from command and control platforms based
either in the air or at ground level.
All members of the inquiry team
agreed that even if guns were held to their heads none
of them would fly a plane into a building. Their
reaction would be to ditch the plane into a river or a
field, thereby safeguarding the lives of those on the
ground.
A further question raised by the
inquiry was why none of the pilots concerned had alerted
ground control. It stated that all pilots are trained to
punch a four-digit code into the flight control’s
transponder to warn ground control crews of a hijacking
- but this did not happen.
During the press conference Captain
Hill maintained that the four airliners must have been
choreographed by an Airborne Warning and Control System
(AWACS). This system can engage several aircraft
simultaneously by knocking out their on-board flight
controls. He said that all the evidence points to the
fact that the pilots and their crews had not taken any
evasive action to resist the supposed hijackers. They
had not attempted any sudden changes in flight path or
nose-dive procedures - which led him to believe that
they had no control over their aircraft.
THE NEWS, in an attempt to further
substantiate the potential veracity of these findings,
spoke to an Algarve-based airline pilot, who has more
than 20 years of experience in flying passenger planes,
to seek his views. Captain Colin McHattie, currently
flying with Cathay Pacific, agreed with the independent
commission’s findings. However, he explained that while
it is possible to fly a plane from the ground, the
installation of the necessary equipment is a
time-consuming process, and needs extensive planning.
THE NEWS will publish a full interview with Captain
McHattie in next week’s edition.
The FBI also came in for criticism
for the various pieces of contradictory evidence it has
published regarding the suspects. Questions are now
being asked as to how incorrect information was given
out regarding the ID cards of the suspects, and the seat
numbers they supposedly occupied after boarding the
flights.
None of the suspects named by the FBI
appeared on any of the official passenger lists. A
further point was how the FBI had managed to retrieve
the passport of one of the suspects amid the molten and
twisted remains of thousands of tons of steel and rubble
brought about by the Twin Towers collapse.
Dr. Paul Roberts, former Assistant
Secretary of the US Treasury, and presently Senior
Research Fellow at Stamford University, has lent his
support to the independent inquiry findings. He also
claims that Osama Bin Laden was not responsible for
September 11th. The doctor has challenged President Bush
to make public the so-called “irrefutable evidence”
incriminating Bin Laden.
Colonel Donn de Grand said that if
President Bush is lying it would not be the first time
that the American people had been mislead by its
government. He cited the recently published official
government archives describing President Roosevelt’s
duplicity in deceiving Americans about the Japanese
attack on Pearl Harbour, which triggered the US entry
into WWll.
He also highlighted the role of the
country’s government in misleading its citizens in
respect of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba, and the
events that brought about the Spanish American war in
the late 19th, century. “Whilst considering who
committed this act of war on September 11th,” he said,
“albeit Russia, China, an Islamic country or NATO, we
must also consider that the enemy may well be within the
gates.
“Not for the first time the American
public might be being mislead, by those with ulterior
motives, into lending its support to a war, this time
against Iraq, that has no bearing whatsoever on the
interests of the people of the USA.”
So far the mainstream American news
media has failed to publish or broadcast any details
regarding the independent inquiry. Similarly, the White
House, whilst having received a copy of the report, has
remained silent on its findings.
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