FINALLY a mainstream newspaper questions 9/11 truth!!

Monday, 08 September 2008 | 03:16 PM

A MAINSTREAM NEWSPAPER QUESTIONS 9/11!!!

An inconvenient truth?

8th September 2008, 6:00 WST

How many buildings in the World Trade Center collapsed after the terrorist attack on September 11, 2001?

The minority of readers who correctly guess three either have good memories or are tapped into some of the conspiracy theories that surround 9/11.

At first glance, 9/11 would not seem a good candidate for hardcore conspiracy theorists — there was no shortage of witnesses to the events, the world watched them happen live on TV. But the astonishment we all felt when first one and then the other of the Twin Towers collapsed is still felt by some people — they cannot believe the planes and resulting fires caused the towers to collapse.

This week, the ABC and pay-TV’s History Channel will each air documentaries on the three buildings that fell. There were seven buildings in the World Trade Center complex — those destroyed were the two towers and the 47-storey building known as No. 7.

Videos questioning the events of 9/11 have been on the internet almost since the day it happened, the most famous being Loose Change, which is said to have been viewed 100 million times. But both these new documentaries are from more authoritative sources.

The ABC’s 9/11: The Third Tower is on Four Corners and was made by the BBC. History’s Investigation Zero: 9/11 is Italian-made and some of those who have put their names to it include a member of the European Parliament, Giuiletto Chiesa, and Dario Fo, who has a Nobel Prize for literature.

Some of the questions raised by The Third Tower deserve answers. Why is it the only steel-framed building of its size in the world to have ever collapsed because of a fire and why was its fall not investigated by the Twin Towers inquiry?

A similar building in Madrid burnt for 20 hours but stayed up.

No. 7 was not hit by either of the planes that smashed into the towers. Film of the collapse of the towers shows it being struck on one side by falling debris, which apparently started fires. Yet when the building falls, there is no smoke pouring from it — it drops in place in the same way a building does during a controlled demolition.

And to spice up the conspiracy argument, No. 7 housed the offices of the CIA, US Secret Service, Department of Defence and the city’s Emergency Operations Center.

Investigation Zero includes the story of No. 7 but also raises questions about the collapse of the towers and the crashing of a third plane into the Pentagon. Many people, including air force experts, insist that it was not a Boeing 757 that hit the Pentagon.

Given the size of the hole in the building and the lack of debris normally associated with a plane crash — wheels, engines, strewn luggage — you would have to say it is a good question but a better one might be, if they are correct what happened to Flight 77 and the 64 people on board?

Both documentaries interview people who were in either the towers or No. 7 before they came down and they report hearing explosions.

Janitor Willie Rodriguez was in the north tower and was declared a national hero for helping rescue people. He refuses to accept the official line that what he heard were gas cylinders in the kitchens because he says the equipment was electric.

Barry Jennings has an even spookier tale. He did not realise No. 7 had been evacuated as soon as the second plane hit and went up to the offices of the Emergency Operations Centre, assuming they would be doing what they were set up to do and co-ordinating the response to the terrorist attack. Finding the office empty, he called someone and was told to get out immediately. He managed to do that but found when he did that someone had already rung his family to tell them he was dead.

BEN O’SHEA

www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=24&ContentID=96689