9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions: Part 1

9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions is a 9/11 conspiracy theory book written in 2005 by theologian David Ray Griffin.  Even though the book is now a decade old, and most, if not all, of the claims made in this book have been debunked/rationally explained, truthers still like to tout this book as concrete facts.  I will try and go through each chapter and point out the several fallacies made.  Since there are so many to address, this will be going in multiple parts.

CHAPTER I: THE ALLEGED HIJACKERS

SIX HIJACKERS STILL KICKING IT?

This chapter, though brief, brings out a lot of information for the reader.  The first claim made is that six of the hijackers are actually still alive.  Griffin claims that one of the hijackers on AA11, Waleed al-Sheri, was interviewed after 9/11 vy a London based newspaper, and the AP reported that he has said he lives in Casablanca working as, get this, a pilot, for Royal Air Maroc.  Sounds pretty intriguing, yes?  Not when you look at the actual facts.  First of all, here is American Airlines Flight 11 manifest, which shows Waleed al-Shehri's name:

He is the second passenger named on the manifest.  So who is this other dude?  Let's quite literally spell it out for you.

The man Griffin is referring to is Waleed Ahmed al-Shehri.  The person the FBI have named as a hijacker was Waleed Mohammad al-Shehri.  Here is his visa application.  

Note how laxed the government was pre-9/11 on issuing visas.  Not so much anymore.

Also of note, his father thinks he and his brother are both dead, and he hadn't seen them in months.  https://web.archive.org/web/20020929001039/www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=9424&ArY=2001&ArM=9&ArD=17

Also sounds like Shehri is a fairly common name in Saudi Arabia.  One Saudi diplomat, when asked if they were his sons, replied "How do I know? We have a half million Shehris in Saudi Arabia."

http://www.boston.com/news/packages/underattack/globe_stories/0915/Hijackers_may_have_taken_Saudi_identities+.shtml

The next names mentioned are Ahmed al-Nami and Saeed al-Ghamdi, both hijackers from United Airlines Flight 93.  He references this Telegraph article: http://web.archive.org/web/20011222042847/http://www.portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/09/23/widen23.xml

Let's start with al-Ghamdi.  The article states before his quotes that their names and photographs were shown around the world.  But, when al-Ghamdi talks, he said he first heard about being on the list from a colleague of his. If only he had seen the picture used by the FBI, he would understand it was a different person.  Here is the alive al-Ghamdi, and the hijacker al-Ghamdi side by side for comparison.  Notice the brow is different, as is the nose.

Yet another case of mistaken identity with the same/similar names.  Now for al-Nami.  He states in the article that he fears that his identity was stolen by one of the hijackers.  Never mind that the article states the alive al-Nami is 33 years old at the time the article was published, and the hijacker al-Nami was 24.  Yet again, more mistaken identity.

Griffin then states that the Saudi embassy in Washington DC reported that six alleged hijackers were still alive, which is where this claim comes from.  His source for this is a book called 9/11: The Big Lie.  Another conspiracy theory book.  However, in 2002, the Saudi Arabian government acknowledged that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/world/2002/02/06/saudi.htm

This article was published in 2002, a full three years before Griffin published this book.  So either he is blatantly lying about this claim, or is showing a willful ignorance to the real facts.  He closes this section by stating that the 9/11 Commission simply ignored these media reports and agreed with the FBI hijacker lists, again, ignoring the fact that Saudi Arabia acknowledged that 15 of the hijackers, all of which he claims are still alive, were indeed the terrorists that crashed the planes.

ATTA THE PARTY ANIMAL

He then goes into a new topic: Mohammed Atta and his fetish for booze, drugs, and prostitutes.  First, let's start with his claim that Atta lived with a prostitute in Florida.  The claims are believed to come from Amanda Keller, who she claims lived with Atta for a few months in 2001.  Some problems with this?  Her landlords don't recall anyone looking like Atta living with her at that time.  Her parents don't recall anyone looking like Atta.  And oh yeah, she denies it in a September 23, 2001 edition of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune.  She then denies it again in 2006:  http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060910/NEWS/609100466/1007/BUSINESS

What Griffin cites is a time when she decided to lie about it, apparently.  Why?  Who knows.  Attention?  Some gross feeling of fame?  She says this, showing clear remorse: "It was my bad for lying.  I really didn't think about it until after I did it."

Yeah, I'm sure the families of the victims on board AA11 and the North Tower appreciate this.  She apparently gets hounded by conspiracy theorists, because why else would she move from Florida to Ohio and change her name?

So there goes one notion of Griffin's narrative.  As for the alcohol, drugs, etc., just because your a religious fanatic doesn't mean you do not have vices.  Look at the numerous GOP politicians that thump their Bibles and admonish homosexuality, only to be found getting their dicks waxed in some seedy bathroom stall at some restaurant or gas station.

For Muslim examples, General Reza Zarei, who was Tehran's chief of police, was arrested after being caught with six prostitutes in a brothel.  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-police-chief-incarcerated-prostitute-scandal-rattles-tehran-government-a-550156.html

The Madrid train bombers fancied themselves smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and also talks about another sect of Islam called Takfir, which loosens up on Islamic law and, shocker, attracts drug addicts and criminals.  http://www.cannabis.net/articles/assass.html

American born cleric Anwar Awlaki was arrested TWICE in San Diego for soliciting prostitutes.  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/09/anwar-awlaki-the-american-born-cleric-and-jihadist-killed-by-a-us-backed-drone-strike-in-yemen-spent-several-years-in-san.html

Even Osama bin Laden himself, who I already talked about previously with the whole gold rings stuff, was found to have a vast pornography collection when his compound was raided by Navy SEALs, which ultimately led to his death.  http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/porn-found-osama-bin-laden-evidence-trove/story?id=13599025

File this all under: Fanatics do not always practice what they preach, or find some other sect to wiggle around religious laws.  In other news, the sky is blue.  More at 11.

HANNI HANJOUR THE AMAZING, THE FANTASTIC, THE MOST INTERESTING PILOT IN THE WORLD!

I believe I have already addressed Hani Hanjour and his, as truthers hilariously put it, impossible maneuver.  To view the video of an amateur pilot duplication this maneuver multiple times and hitting the Petagon, please view my Flight 77 page.

Anyways, Griffin find it troubling that the Commission did not find fault that AA77 doing a 330 degree turn to hit the Pentagon was out of the ordinary.  He doesn't seem to understand that the Commission's job is to take all of the data, testimonies, etc, and fairly robotically produce a narrative of the day, and then make recommendations on helping to prevent a repeat.  He believes this maneuver to finish by hitting the Pentagon would have taken a highly skilled pilot.  He references a Washington Post article stating that many believe that a trained pilot must have been at the helm.

Well, Hanjour was trained, after all.  He had a federal pilots license and a log book with over 600 hours of flight time.  In fact, the Report does mention Hanjour's troubles in flight training, but also mentions that he perseveres and obtains all of his licenses and certificates.  From page 242 of the Report:

Jarrah and Hanjour also received additional training and practice flights in the early summer.  A few days before departing on his cross-country test flight, Jarrah flew from Fort Lauderdale to Philadelphia, where he trained at Hortman Aviation and asked to fly the Hudson Corridor, a low-altitude "hallways" along the Hudson Rover that passes New York landmarks like the World Trade Center.  Heavy traffic in the area can make the corridor a dangerous route for an inexperienced pilot.  Because Hortman deemed Jarrah unfit to fly solo, he could fly his route with an instructor.  Hanjour, too, requested to fly the Hudson Corridor about this same time, at Air Fleet Training Systems in Teterboro, New Jersey, where he started receiving ground instruction soon after settling in the area with Hazmi.  Hanjour flew the Hudson Corridor, but his instructor declined a second request because of what he considered Hanjour's poor piloting skills.  Shortly thereafter, Hanjour switched to Caldwell Flight Academy in Fairfield, New Jersey, where he rented a small aircraft on several occasions during June and July.  In one such instance on July 20, Hanjour-likely accompanied by Hazmi-rented a plane from Caldwell and took a practice flight from Fairfield to Gaithersburg, Maryland, a route that would have allowed them to fly near Washington D.C.

Page 225:

In 1996, Hanjour returned to the United States to pursue flight training after being rejected by a Saudi flight school.  He checked out flight schools in Florida, California, and Arizona; and he briefly started at a couple of them before returning to Saudi Arabia.  In 1997, he returned to Florida and then, along with two friends, went back to Arizona and began flight training there in earnest.  After about three months, Hanjour was able to obtain his private pilot's license.  Several moremonths of training yielded him a commercial pilot certificate, issued by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in April 1999.

Page 227:

Settling in Mesa, Hanjour began refresher training at his old school, Arizona Aviation.  He wanted to train on multi-engine planes, but had difficulties because his English was not good enough.  The instructor advised him to discontinue but Hanjour said he could not go home without completing the training.  In early 2001, he started training on a Boeing 737 simulator at Pan Am International Flight Academy in Mesa.  An instructor there found his work well below standard and discouraged him from continuing.  Again, Hanjour persevered; he completed the initial training by the end of March 2001.

Marcel Bernard, one of Hanjour's flight instructors, and also interviewed on the Loose Change video, believes he hit the Pentagon.  He however quips with "He may have been aiming for the White House when he hit the Pentagon." http://www.dcdave.com/article5/150406.htm

Also, the FDR lines up with the official flight path that American Airlines Flight 77 did indeed make that maneuver, and hit the Pentagon.

Also, several pilots have come forward to state that this maneuver really isn't that hard to pull off, especially when you have no remorse for the well being of the plane or the passengers.

Ronald D. Bull, a retired United Airlines pilot: It's not that difficult, and certainly not impossible.  If you're doing a suicide run, like these guys were doing, you'd just keep the nose down and push like the devil."

George Williams of Waxhaw, NC, who has piloted 707s, 727s, DC-10s, 747s for Northwest Airlines: I don't see any merit to these arguments [that the maneuver was impossible] what so ever.  The Pentagon is a pretty big target and I'd say hitting it was a fairly easy thing to do."

http://web.archive.org/web/20050422030553/http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_1253.shtml

And another pilot, this one with Italian Air Frce pilot experience as well:  http://www.911myths.com/images/7/73/Another_Expert.pdf

DID ANY OF THE HIJACKERS REALLY EXIST?!

Griffin closes this chapter by asking this question: Do we have any publicly available proof that any of the 19 men named by the FBI and 9/11 Commission were on any of the four planes?  

His answer: No. We have been told that their names were on the flight manifests.  But the flight manifests have been released and have no Arab names on them.

Hoooooooooo boy.  He gives a citation of a CNN link.  Let's have a looksy shall we?  Here is the link for yourselves: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html

Now, before even clicking the link, what stands out to you about this citation that Griffin claims is AA11's flight manifest?  The link no longer works, oddly enough, but the main page for all of it does here: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/main.html

At the top of the page in big bold lettering states: LIST OF VICTIMS.

The URL states victims in them multiple times.  David Ray Griffin uses webpages that lists the victims of each flight and states it is the manifests.  How unbelievably stupid and/or manipulative can you be?  This pisses me off to the point that I will, again, post the manifests of every flight.

American Airlines Flight 11

United Airlines Flight 175

American Airlines Flight 77

United Airlines Flight 93

Every single hijacker is listed.  Every.  Single.  One.  The fact that he knowingly uses a link that clearly states it is listing the victims is both irresponsible as a researcher and, to put it bluntly, absolutely disgusting.

He finishes this chapter by stating that the "Commission's treatment of the alleged hijackers-a central feature of the official conspiracy theory presupposed by the Commission-does not bode well for the rest of the report."

Oh contraire my manipulative asshole of a (not really)friend!  I have shown that you are defending known terrorists and have willingly used manipulative "evidence" to back up your already established conclusion.  This, is the opposite of conducting research.  This does not bode well for the rest of your book, nor my liver while I keep reading it.

American Airlines Flight 77 and the Pentagon

I'll start with one of the biggest theories that the 9/11 Truth Movement.  The theory that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, but in fact, a missile did.

Conspiracy theorists make numerous claims on the event.

1. There was no recognizable plane wreckage.

2. There is no video footage of AA77 from any of the security cameras at or around the Pentagon.

3. The hole in the Pentagon is too small for a plane of that size.

4. There was no damage to the foundation of the Pentagon.

5. The plane shot the missile, and then flew over the Pentagon to Reagan International Airport (often cited as "Pentacon") and was on a different flight path from what the official story says.


AA77 CAUGHT ON CAMERA

Many truthers try to claim that there is no footage in known existence that has American Airlines Flight 77 on it.  To that I quote the popular football analyst Lee Corso "NOT SO FAST MY FRIEND!"

In the first videos released by the group Judicial Watch from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the government about said tapes, shows one frame on each of them with what looks like a large plane.  The cameras were a fish bowl lens variety, and were more of a photographic camera rather than a video camera, taking a picture once ever second.  They both get part or all of the object that struck the Pentagon.

Here is the scene with no object in it.

And now here is the shot with the "object" in it.

A closer look of said object, pointing out the characteristics of a plane.

Notice the color on it, the shape (clearly visible on the back what looks like a large tail fin), and the smoke billowing out of it, which is consistent wit the official account of one of the engines getting damaged when it clipped one of the light poles.  None of it looks to have characteristics of a cruise missile.

The other released footage, the Doubletree Hotel, and the Citgo gas station (more on that with Pentacon) have cameras that either were not pointing at the Pentagon (gas station) or had the highway obstructing the view (Doubletree).

PENTAGON IMPACT HOLE

This is a picture that truthers will often cite for their claim that a plane couldn't possibly have hit the Pentagon.

Notice that this picture is from sometime after the portion hit had collapsed.  Notice immediately to the right of the collapsed area more damage, however.

Now, here is a picture of the Pentagon damage BEFORE the area collapsed.

Notice how it looks like the shape of a plane, and not a missile.

Truthers also like to claim that the lawn was undamaged, and no damage to the Pentagon foundation occurred.  Though it is true that precious green grass was unhurt (until all of the debris splatters all over it), the foundation was indeed damaged:

Notice the round shape of the damage, indicating it was struck by one of the plane engines.


BONUS:

Here is the overhead view of what AA77 looked like flying in via the official flightpath in regards to the light poles.

Notice how AA77 would just have to go straight to clip those light poles, where as a missile would have to bob and weave like Floyd Mayweather avoiding Pacquiao like the plague.  A cruise missile cannot do this.

As a counter argument, truthers claim that the light poles, in front of hundreds of witnesses on the interstate that day, popped off each pole from the base.

That wiley government will stop at nothing!  However, there is one more part to the story of damage before Pentagon impact.  That would be the Pentagon generator.

So what 9/11 truthers would like for you to believe is that a cruise missile zig zagged back and forth to knock over light poles (or the government agents popped them off), hit a fairly large generator without exploding, THEN hit the Pentagon, and blew up.  Seems pretty far fetched, doesn't it?

But bring this up to them and they will then rebuttal with a lack of...

AA77 DEBRIS

Yes, they believe that there are little, or many of them will say, no, debris at the Pentagon that looks like it would have come from American Airlines flight 77.  They will often cite this photograph as proof:

Why would they cite this, you ask?  They believe that this shows little to no debris on the Pentagon lawn.  Loose Change I believe was the first to make this claim.

They seem to ignore the red lettering on the piece of debris closest to the camera having red lettering on it, which is consistent with American Airlines.  You can also see in the background closer to the Pentagon a whole heaping lot of debris on the lawn.

More debris that was outside of the Pentagon:

Quite a bit of debris from a plane that hit at over 500 mph, right?  There's more on the inside:

I'll talk about the flight data recorder and the data it holds a little later.

Now, here is another portion of the landing gear assembly.  Note the area in the yellow circle:

And now here is an undamaged landing gear assemble.  Notice the area inside the yellow circle.  Also, notice the wheel design and then look at the wheel in the debris above:

How much of this debris looks like it came from an airplane?  All of it.  How much of it looks like it came from a cruise missile?  None of it.

Ya'lls Just a Bunch of Puppets!

Now comes to the weird theory of the event.  A duo that calls themselves the Citizen Investigative Team (CIT for short) came up with a theory that is often ridiculed by debunkers and truthers alike.  I elected to include it because a lot of people surprisingly believe in it.  This theory is called the "North of the gas station" theory.

They interviewed a 13 eyewitnesses that claimed they saw American Airlines Flight 77 fly over the Citgo gas station.  They all believe that the plane did in fact hit the Pentagon.  The main argument made here?  It disagrees with what has been deemed as the official flightpath.

Here are all of the eyewitnesses' accounts of how the plane flew in.  The red line is the botched reading of the flight data recorder data, and the light teal line is the official flight path:

Notice how almost all of these witnesses disagree with how AA77 got to the gas station.  Some claimed it came in from the Naval Annez in the lower left corner.  One said it came in from Arlington Cemetary.  However, they all agree that it flew by on the left )north) side of the Citgo gas station.

CIT takes these accounts and makes a theory of their own: that the plane may have indeed existed.  And it shot a missile from its underbelly and then flew over the Pentagon and landed at Reagan International Airport.

There are a few problems with this so-called theory, to put it bluntly.

First, they use the botched reading of the flight data recorder from the group Pilots for 9/11 Truth as proof that the plane did indeed fly over the Pentagon.  The data Pilots revealed ended before impact and showed an elevation too high to strike the Pentagon.

The problem with this?  That isn't what the FDR displays.  In a paper by Warren Stutt and frank Legge, To make it a TL;DR (though I highly recommend you read it), they read it wrong.  

Note that this paper was published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, which is run by another CT nutter Kevin Ryan.  Seems to me that even they have accepted that AA77 did indeed impact the Pentagon.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2010/Calibration%20of%20altimeter_92.pdf

Another problem with their gas station theory? The security footage shows no evidence of AA77 coming anywhere close to it.  No shadows, no nothing.

Also, AA77 was tracked on Radar all the way to it's crash at the Pentagon.  Here is the footage from Reagan:

BONUS:

HANI HANJOUR

The last thing I will davel on when it comes to the Pentagon is the belief by truthers that Hani Hanjour could not make a certain maneuver before he made his final approach to the Pentagon.  

The maneuver:

Same maneuver from an altitude point of view:

Hanjour was 2500 feet above the ground when he started the maneuver.  He was around 1000 feet above the ground when he B-lined it for the Pentagon.  Notice that he apparently had enough knowledge to know he should probably go up more altitude to begin the maneuver.

I really don't see how hard it is for someone who doesn't really care about the safety of the plane or the passengers on board to pull a maneuver like this off.  In fact, it really isn't even that hard, because amateurs have duplicated in in a Boeing flight simulator (pretty much the very same that the hijackers used to flight train, mind you):

He manages to duplicate, the very same maneuver that truthers deem only military professionals could pull off, three times.

CONCLUSION

So here are the pieces of evidence I lay out to counter the truther argument that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon:

There is a large plane shaped hole in the side of the Pentagon that is seen before the area collapses.

There are several pieces of debris that are consistent with an American Airlines commercial jet crashing there.

The maneuver that AA77 hijacker pilot Hani Hanjour pulled off was not nearly as difficult as you think.

The flight data recorder shows that AA77 hit the Pentagon.

There is zero evidence of a cruise missile hitting the Pentagon.

There is zero evidence for, and serveral amounts of contradictory evidence against the north of the gas station/Pentagon flyover theory.