Memory Holes in the Floor

On July 7, 2005, professional dancer Bruce Lait was among the survivors of the London Tube bombings. His story, published on July 11 (and since scrubbed) by the Cambridge News, includes this paragraph:

“The policeman said ‘mind that hole, that’s where the bomb was’. The metal was pushed upwards as if the bomb was underneath the train. They seem to think the bomb was left in a bag, but I don’t remember anybody being where the bomb was, or any bag,” he said.

http://operation-mockingbird.blogspot.com/2008/05/journalists-and-7-july-london-bombs.html

Although the Cambridge News was persuaded to disappear its interview with Mr. Lait, this one for the Telegraph has been sanitized enough to allow its survival but not enough to obscure the fact that it corroborates the Cambridge News version.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1493773/How-we-escaped-death,-by-dancers-who-saw-bomb-go-off-six-feet-away.html

Rather than quoting Mr. Lait at the crucial moment in the narrative, the editor chooses this curiously vague paraphrase, stripped of incriminating detail:

Mr Lait said that he could see the spot where the bomb had exploded because it had blown apart the floor of the carriage.

The BBC compilation of survivor accounts includes this:

John was injured in the explosion in his carriage and describes how he and another passenger called Jason tried to help a man called Stan who was trapped in a hole in the floor. The metal all around it [the hole] was all jagged and bent from the explosion. Parts of the metal were covered in blood.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5050372.stm

Eyewitnesses to the Edgware Road bombing told Guardian reporter Mark Honigsbaum that “tiles, the covers on the floor of the train, suddenly flew up, raised up.”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/audio/guardian_journalist.mp3

Would backpack bombs detonated above the carriage floors result in such descriptions?

Of course, there is that brilliantly prescient operation by Visor Consultants to consider.

Understandably, the “company” Power mentions remains unnamed.

It has been suggested that the four young men identified as the “suicide bombers” of 7/7 were dupes, recruited to play the role of attackers in a terror simulation such as the exercise run that morning by Visor. But if, as Bruce Lait claims, there was not “anybody…where the bomb was, or any bag”, what became of these men? Were they sighted anywhere after the bombings?

Well, there is this report:

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10334992

A New Zealander working for Reuters in London says two colleagues witnessed the unconfirmed shooting by police of two apparent suicide bombers outside the HSBC tower at Canary Wharf in London.

The New Zealander, who did not want to be named, said the killing of the two men wearing bombs happened at 10.30am on Thursday (London time).

Following the shooting, the 8000 workers in the 44-storey tower were told to stay away from windows and remain in the building for at least six hours, the New Zealand man said.

He was not prepared to give the names of his two English colleagues, who he said witnessed the shooting from a building across the road from the tower.

So “two men wearing bombs” were shot and killed by “police” outside the HSBC tower at Canary Wharf at 10:30am–an hour after the bombings–after which the 8000 workers in the 44-storey tower were told to stay away from windows and remain in the building for at least six hours.

And Katie Rook of the Globe and Mail reported:

From the 18th floor of Canary Wharf in London, Canadian Brendan Spinks could see a “massive rush of policemen” outside the building Thursday after the city was rocked by terrorist attacks. The Internet in his office had just gone done down when Mr. Spinks, an investment banker at HSBC, saw a flurry of police cars and yellow-vested men outside. Reports of attacks carried out by suicide bombers were rife, and in one unconfirmed incident police shot a suicide bomber outside the 42-floor banking tower.

http://householdwatch.com/wp/2005/07/07/suicide-bomber-reported-outside-hsbc-canary-wharf

Just a few loose ends.

————————————————————————————————–

The July 11, 2005  Cambridge News article about Bruce Lait is here:

http://www.cambridge-news.co.uk/cn_news_royston/displayarticle.asp?id=211633

Meet the New Boss

Why does this sound familiar?
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/defense/

“Invest in a 21st Century Military

Rebuild the Military for 21st Century Tasks: As we rebuild our armed forces, we must not simply recreate the military of the Cold War era. Obama believes that we must build up our special operations forces, civil affairs, information operations, and other units and capabilities that remain in chronic short supply; invest in foreign language training, cultural awareness, and human intelligence and other needed counterinsurgency and stabilization skill sets; and create a more robust capacity to train, equip, and advise foreign security forces, so that local allies are better prepared to confront mutual threats.

Expand to Meet Military Needs on the Ground: Barack Obama supports plans to increase the size of the Army by 65,000 soldiers and the Marines by 27,000 troops. Increasing our end strength will help units retrain and re-equip properly between deployments and decrease the strain on military families.

Review Weapons Programs: We must rebalance our capabilities to ensure that our forces have the agility and lethality to succeed in both conventional wars and in stabilization and counter-insurgency operations. Obama has committed to a review of each major defense program in light of current needs, gaps in the field, and likely future threat scenarios in the post-9/11 world.

Preserve Global Reach in the Air: We must preserve our unparalleled airpower capabilities to deter and defeat any conventional competitors, swiftly respond to crises across the globe, and support our ground forces. We need greater investment in advanced technology ranging from the revolutionary, like Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and electronic warfare capabilities, to essential systems like the C-17 cargo and KC-X air refueling aircraft, which provide the backbone of our ability to extend global power.

Maintain Power Projection at Sea: We must recapitalize our naval forces, replacing aging ships and modernizing existing platforms, while adapting them to the 21st century. Obama will add to the Maritime Pre-Positioning Force Squadrons to support operations ashore and invest in smaller, more capable ships, providing the agility to operate close to shore and the reach to rapidly deploy Marines to global crises.

National Missile Defense: An Obama administration will support missile defense, but ensure that it is developed in a way that is pragmatic and cost-effective; and, most importantly, does not divert resources from other national security priorities until we are positive the technology will protect the American public.

Ensure Freedom of Space: An Obama administration will restore American leadership on space issues, seeking a worldwide ban on weapons that interfere with military and commercial satellites. He will thoroughly assess possible threats to U.S. space assets and the best options, military and diplomatic, for countering them, establishing contingency plans to ensure that U.S. forces can maintain or duplicate access to information from space assets and accelerating programs to harden U.S. satellites against attack.

Protect the U.S in Cyberspace: An Obama administration will work in cooperation with our allies and the private sector to identify and protect against emerging cyber-threats.”

Oh yes, now I remember.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses….

And from this magnum opus of righteousness, strawman “truth” mole Corsi is used to defame through guilt-by-association anyone who has reason to believe “the government is hiding the truth behind the attacks of September 11th”:
http://my.barackobama.com/page/-/email/Fight%20the%20Smears%20-%20Unfit%…

“And in perhaps the gravest sign that his views can’t be trusted, he alleges a government cover-up of the 9/11 attacks and denies that airplanes were to blame for the towers’ collapse.”

“Corsi is an advocate for fringe, conspiratorial arguments: that President Bush is trying to create a North American Union merging the United States, Mexico and Canada (which he blames for the Minnesota bridge collapse); that, despite scientific evidence, there is an unending supply of oil; and, perhaps most disturbingly, that the government is hiding the truth behind the attacks on September 11th, arguing that airplanes were not truly to blame for the collapse of the twin towers.”

No less authority than McCain’s “adviser” PNAC godfather Robert Kagan is invoked to give Obama “defense” cred:

“LIE: “He has pledged to reduce the size of the military and stop spending money on expensive new military systems, so we can redirect the savings to social welfare spending.”

[horrors]

REALITY: OBAMA WOULD INCREASE THE SIZE OF THE MILITARY
McCain Advisor Kagan: “Actually, Obama Wants To Increase Defense Spending.” Robert Kagan has been advising John McCain’s presidential campaign on an informal and unpaid basis. He wrote of Obama’s foreign policy speech, Okay, you say, but at least Obama is proposing all this Peace Corps-like activity as a substitute for military power. Surely he intends to cut or at least cap a defense budget soaring over $500 billion a year. Surely he understands there is no military answer to terrorism. Actually, Obama wants to increase defense spending. He wants to add 65,000 troops to the Army and recruit 27,000 more Marines. Why? To fight terrorism. He wants the American military to ‘stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar,’ and he believes that ‘the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face.’ He wants to ensure that we continue to have ‘the strongest, best-equipped military in the world.’ Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that ‘no president should ever hesitate to use force — unilaterally if necessary,’ not only ‘to protect ourselves…when we are attacked,’ but also to protect ‘our vital interests’ when they are ‘imminently threatened.’” [Washington Post, 4/29/07]

Blue Team vs. Red Team? Sounds like a wargame to me.

The Ghost in the Machines: The Mystery of the WTC Hard Drive Recoveries

Many are aware of the surge in put options purchased on American and United Airlines as well as several major tenants of the WTC in the days preceding 9/11, purchases the 9/11 Commission Report waves away in a footnote on pg. 499 as having no connection with the events of 9/11 because the unnamed “institutional investors” responsible had ”no conceivable ties to al Qaeda”. More obscure, and nowhere mentioned in the Commission Report, are the facts of the WTC computer data recovery operation undertaken in late 2001 by Convar GmbH, a German firm. Under conditions of hermetic secrecy, Convar used its proprietary technology to salvage data from the damaged hard drives of WTC tenants, as reported in December 2001 by Reuters and CNN.

http://www.rediff.com/money/2001/dec/17wtc.htm

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/TECH/industry/12/20/wtc.harddrives.idg/

From the Reuters article:

“The suspicion is that inside information about the attack was used to send financial transaction commands and authorisations in the belief that amid all the chaos the criminals would have, at the very least, a good head start,” said Convar director Peter Henschel.”

“Richard Wagner, a data retrieval expert at the company, said illegal transfers of more than $100 million might have been made immediately before and during the disaster.”

“There is a suspicion that some people had advance knowledge of the approximate time of the plane crashes in order to move out amounts exceeding $100 million,” Wagner said. “They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.”

“Henschel said the companies in the United States were working together with the FBI to piece together what happened on September 11 and that he was confident the destination of the dubious transactions would one day be tracked down.”

Convar’s website features two videos confirming that Convar GmbH did in fact process the WTC hard drives. http://www.datarecovery-europe.com/ The second examines the disk recovery process in detail, and explicitly acknowleges the transactions in question as “secret, controversial data”.

In the 9/10/2006 episode of the Dutch program Zembla, a Convar representative confirms again the incriminating nature of this data, and does so in a manner that makes clear he has recently been warned against such confirmation.

The widely disseminated claim that Kroll Associates–the powerful private-intelligence firm responsible for some elements of WTC security on 9/11–acquired Convar in June 2002 remains unsubstantiated. What can be verified is that Kroll purchased Ontrack Data Recovery, a US-based rival of Convar with offices in Germany.

After the CNN article of December 20, the US media were stricken mute on the Convar investigation. Of the media blackouts shrouding 9/11, none has been more absolute.

Notice that Convar, its unnamed WTC clients and the FBI possessed these data, and that the FBI would have no reason to withhold the results of its investigation had they proven benign or consistent with the Commission’s account of the attacks.

It is worth remembering what Sibel Edmonds told Jim Hogue: “I can tell you that the issue, on one side, boils down to money–a lot of money. and it boils down to people and their connections with this money…” http://baltimorechronicle.com/050704SibelEdmonds.shtml

Consider again Wagner’s inference: “They thought that the records of their transactions could not be traced after the main frames were destroyed.” The locations of the computers in question within the towers is unknown, but if Wagner is correct, two possibilities emerge: (1) either the “insiders” had foreknowledge of the precise impact points of the aircraft (otherwise why assume that the main frames would be destroyed?) or (2) they had foreknowledge of the total destruction of the towers. Upon reflection, for numerous reasons the first possibility recedes into remote improbability. But why would “insiders” assume the total collapse of the towers when there was no historical precedent for such an event and the towers had been designed to survive the impact of fuel-laden 707s at 600mph? http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html

If in fact the WTC towers were demolished by explosives, incendiaries or other means, whoever initiated these transactions should be considered suspect for complicity in those acts.

No legitimate reason–in fact no reason whatsoever–for withholding the Convar data has to date been offered.

Movers and Shakers

As John Doraemi makes clear in this excellent analysis
http://crimesofthestate.blogspot.com/2007/09/corroborating-orwell-van-fu…
there were at least two “vans” stopped, searched and seized in New Jersey on 9/11, resulting in the apprehension of at least seven suspects.

The first van, associated with Israeli employees of Urban Moving Systems seen filming the North Tower strike in Liberty State Park, was stopped “on Route 3 in East Rutherford around 4:30 p.m.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20011108025936/http://www.bergen.com/news/2bo…

A second van was stopped on or near the George Washington Bridge several hours later. CNN’s Deborah Feyerick cited “two sources” claiming that “law enforcers found tons of explosives” inside this vehicle. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/11/se.04.html

Dan Rather at CBS and John Miller at ABC echoed this report.

Two events, miles and hours apart.

Now consider the Port Authority Police Department Reports, Group 2, pg. 52.
http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/pa-transcripts/pa-police-reports02.pdf
Officer John Noble records: “After the collapses I remember reports of a…white van filled with explosives in the Jersey City/Hoboken area”. Noble is describing Police transmissions, not media reports. If nothing else, Noble’s recollection further corroborates the seizure of at least one explosives-laden vehicle in New Jersey on 9/11. His description of a “white van” coincides with the Urban Moving Systems white 2000 Chevrolet van in the BOLO alert, but cannot be found in any reports of the GWB vehicle. According to the Bergen Record article (online version), “bomb-sniffing dogs reacted as if they had detected explosives” in the East Rutherford van, but “officers were unable to find anything”. Of course, Noble may be conflating reports of the first vehicle with reports of the second later that night. But Noble refers to the “Jersey City/Hoboken area”, describing the vicinity of the Holland Tunnel–a third site miles from either East Rutherford or the George Washington Bridge.

Of interest in context of these reports of bomb-laden vehicles on 9/11 is this amateur video clearly capturing an explosion in Lower Manhattan or New Jersey as WTC2 comes down:

This explosive event may or may not be related to this unexplained FDNY radio exchange in which a “van” featuring an oddly prophetic “mural” is abandoned by two men and then “explodes”:

officer: “I got a message on that uh plane, it’s a big truck with a mural painted of a of a airplane diving into New York City and exploding [inaudible] know what’s in the truck, the truck is in between 6th and 7th on King Street“

officer: [inaudible] are you holding those two guys [inaudible] (kay?)

multiple voices/commotion: [inaudible] fucking beat the shit out of him.

[..]

multiple voices/commotion: [inaudible] fucking shit out of him [inaudible]

officer: all right listen you need any [inaudible] on those two guys over there? you all right over there kay?

officer: “we got both suspects under kay, we have the suspects who drive…drove in the van and that exploded we have both of them under kay let’s get some help over here”

There exists not a single media report of this event, but corroboration that it did happen on the morning of 9/11 is found in this February 2006 report by the Mineta Transportation Institute.

http://culhavoc.blogsome.com/go.php?http://transweb.sjsu.edu/mtiportal/research/publications/documents/Sept11.book.htm

http://transweb.sjsu.edu/mtiportal/research/publications/documents/Sept11.book.htm#pgfId-1010356

There were continuing moments of alarm. A panel truck with a painting of a plane flying into the World Trade Center was stopped near the temporary command post. It proved to be rented to a group of ethnic Middle Eastern people who did not speak English. Fearing that it might be a truck bomb, the NYPD immediately evacuated the area, called out the bomb squad, and detained the occupants until a thorough search was made. The vehicle was found to be an innocent delivery truck.

The absurdity of this explanation is well articulated by Culhavoc.

http://culhavoc.blogsome.com/2006/05/03/confirming-the-exploding-mural-van-coverup/

“The MTI quote makes absolutely no mention of the truck exploding.

This report states that the truck was rented. Doesn’t the MTI find it interesting that middle eastern men rented a truck and painted it with a mural depicting an attack currently taking place blocks away? Why would someone paint a mural of WTC being attacked by planes on a rented van?”

Another interesting departure from the original radio transmission in the MTI report is the detail that the mural depicted “a plane flying into the World Trade Center”, not just “New York City”.  What are the odds?

How many vans were seized? Precisely what and whom did they contain? What became of the evidence? What became of the suspects? Any true investigation of the events of 9/11 must answer these questions.

Signs and Wonders

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/…

In her WTC Task Force interview of October 11, 2001, EMT Patricia Ondrovic details her harrowing experience in lower Manhattan on 9/11. Her narrative includes on pg. 7 this curious passage:

“As I was running north in this park, and then I could start seeing again a little bit, and I just kept looking in the sky. Cause the captain was saying there’s another plane heading in our direction, I was looking for another plane. I saw something in the sky, it was a plane, but it was way out. It looked like it was over Jersey or something, then it wasn’t there anymore. I saw a small fireball, and it was gone. I saw two other planes. One came in one way, and the other came in the other way, and there was a plane in the middle that was way far off in the distance. Then the plane in the middle just disappeared into a little fire ball. It looked like the size of a golf ball from where I could see it. And the other two planes veered off into opposite directions. I just kept on running north. About fifteen blocks later, I had no idea that that was just the first tower that had come down.”

The South Tower came down at 9:59 a.m.

According to the 9/11 Commission, F-15s were finally over New York by 9:25 a.m. Ondrovic’s description of “two planes” that “veered off into opposite directions” suggests the agility of jet fighters. But what about the “plane in the middle” that “disappeared into a little fireball”?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4286114691834200608&q=target+drone&total=43&start=0&num=10&so=0&type=search&plindex=6#

Ondrovic’s testimony is unique among the Oral Histories. Did she alone witness this wonder? Are there others?

“…how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the plowman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.”
–W.H. Auden

Dan Rather lets the black box out of the bag

“The CVRs and FDRs from American 11 and United 175 were not found.”
- 9/11 Commission Report

Observations:

- Rather indicates he has knowledge of a video clip in custody of CBS News in which Giuliani “holds up” what he claims is a “flight recorder box” from the WTC wreckage.

- Rather introduces this clip, but immediately a BBC-style “technical problem” prevents its being aired.

- Giuliani would not make such an announcement to the national media casually–much less “hold up” the object in question–without confirmation that what had been found was indeed a “flight recorder box” and not the remains of some other electronic appliance from the debris.

This episode supports claims by FDNY personnel and an NTSB “insider” that the WTC “black boxes” were in fact found, and suggests the actual moment the blackout curtain descends on this matter in the corporate media.

http://www.counterpunch.org/lindorff12202005.html

Like his brief echo of the George Washington Bridge “truck full of explosives”, this appears to be another telling, quickly muted, never-corrected departure from the official narrative by Rather, giving further context to his ominous comments about the “flaming necklace” of “lack of patriotism” inflicted upon free-thinking journalists after 9/11.

So exactly what was or was not recorded in those ”black boxes” that so violates the official legend they had to be made to disappear?