The controversy over who actually blew up the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001 took a fresh turn with French actress Marion Cotillard, winner of this year'sOscar, telling French television that America blew up the World Trade Center.
The actress, who is now unlikely to find work in Hollywood which has been notoriously intimate with the Central Intelligence Agency since at least the Second World War, said in an interview: ?I think we?re lied to about a number of things. We see other towers of the same kind being hit by planes. Are they burned? There was a tower, I believe it was in Spain, which burnt for 24 hours. It never collapsed. None of these towers collapsed. And there (in New York), in a few minutes, the whole thing collapsed.?
The interview, to French TV program, Paris Premiere – Paris Derniere, was broadcast last year but revived by American media after she arrived in the country to collect her Oscar. Marion even gave her theory for the attacks, namely, that America chose to blow up the towers to save time and money, as they had become obsolete and too expensive to renovate: ?It was a money sucker because they were finished, it seems to me, by 1973, and to re-cable all that, to bring up-to-date all the technology and everything, it was a lot more expensive, that work, than destroying them.? American media predict she will never get a movie role with a major Hollywood studio after this statement.
Meanwhile, the controversy refuses to die. Writer David Ray Griffin, who has devoted himself to unravelling the mystery of the attacks, has demanded that the Bush Administration explain the palpable contradictions in the story, a view supported by Mr. Paul Craig Roberts, former associate editor, Wall Street Journal, and assistant secretary of the US Treasury during the Reagan administration, among others.
In his latest book, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress & the Press, Mr. Griffin poses a set of 25 relevant questions that deserve honest answers. No matter who is actually responsible for Nine Eleven, many respectable Americans feel there is a case for a thorough, independent, and unbiased investigation. Griffin'sbook, which specifically targets the members of the US Congress and media, uncovers 25 major contradictions in the Bush administration'saccounts of the disaster. His scrupulous research shatters the illusion that The 9/11 Commission Report is an accurate account of what happened that day, according to former CIA official Bill Christison.
In Part I, ?Questions about Bush Administration and Pentagon Leaders,? Mr. Griffin asks:- how long did George Bush remain in the classroom; when did Dick Cheney enter the underground bunker; was Cheney observed confirming a stand-down order; did Cheney observe the land-all-planes order; when did Cheney issue shoot-down authorization; where was General Richard Myers; where was Donald Rumsfeld; and did Ted Olson receive calls from Barbara Olson?
Part II, ?Questions about the US Military? asks:- when was the military alerted about flight 11; when was the military alerted about flight 175; when was the military alerted about flight 77; when was the military alerted about flight 93; could the military have shot down flight 93; and had 9/11-type attacks been envisioned? Part III on ?Questions about Osama bin Laden and the Hijackers? queries:- were Mohammed Atta and the other hijackers devout Muslims; where did authorities find Atta'streasure trove of information; were hijackers reported on cell phone calls; and is there hard evidence of bin Ladin'sresponsibility?
Part IV, ?Questions about the Pentagon? asks:- could Hani Hanjour have flown American 77 into the Pentagon; what caused the hole in the C ring; and did a military plane fly over Washington during the Pentagon attack? Finally, Part V, ?Questions about the World Trade Center? questions:- how did Rudy Giuliani know the towers were going to collapse; were there explosions in the Twin Towers; were there explosions in WTC 7; and did the WTC rubble contain evidence that steel had melted?
These are pertinent questions steadily avoided by the Bush Administration since September 11, 2001. But the voices demanding answers are getting louder and increasing in number. Mrs. Lorie Van Auken, widow of Kenneth Van Auken who died in WTC 1, and member of the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission, says the rubble of that fateful day left a host of burning questions which were not answered by the 9/11 Commission, notwithstanding its huge mandate. The challenge is to find the answers to the questions so carefully framed by Mr. David Ray Griffin.
Former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, mocked the 9/11 Commission for believing that Vice President Dick Cheney did not enter the White House bunker until ?shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58,? twenty minutes after the strike on the Pentagon, when several eyewitnesses, including transportation secretary Norman Mineta testified that he joined Cheney in the bunker at about 9:20 and heard Cheney reaffirm an apparent stand-down order just before the Pentagon was struck. McGovern says there is need for a truly independent investigation to put both Dick Cheney and Norman Mineta under oath, along with an as yet unidentified ?young man? who, according to Mineta, kept coming into the bunker. On one occasion he told Cheney ?the plane is ten miles out,? asked if ?the orders still stand?, which is roughly 12 minutes before 125 people in the Pentagon were killed.
It is imperative that the world be told exactly what those orders were as the Twin Towers tragedy became the excuse for several disastrous foreign policy initiatives by President Bush. Most notable are the bombing of Afghanistan and the American invasion of Iraq. Too many Americans feel that the 9/11 Commission covered up evidence. Last year, the Italian Prime Minister expressed a similar view, and the chorus of responsible voices is getting louder.
