Reply #69: Unocal, etc.

[Kevin Fenton]

"And I also disagree with you when you say that Bush didn't want to invade Afghanistan. They had plans for that long before 9-11, and it was important to them because they wanted the Unocal pipeline deal to go through."
There were no plans to invade Afghanistan, just plans to step up covert action there, plus more assistance to the Northern Alliance. No oil pipeline has been built in Afghanistan and it never will be. The deal died years before 9/11 and Unocal is now a partner (10% stake) in another Caspain oil pipeline (Baku - Tiblisi - Ceyhan). They got involved in that when Afghanistan fell through in the late 1990s.

Minetta
It could just as easily refer to a shootdown order or order to demolish the WTC. You want me to dig the staffer's account out?

"I would assume that the likelihood of the towers toppling over horizontally (or coming down at all in the absence of explosives) would have been considered to be so low that it wouldn't have been worth even considering."
I wouldn't assume that. If the bomb is big and powerful enough and in the right place, then it can be done. The 1993 bomb cost a few hundred dollars. If Yousef had spent more on the bomb and less on first-class travel, he might have been successful.

"And how many additional people would have died had they toppled over horizontally."
It's not just the people (who had a valuable set of skills), or even the value of the property that would be destroyed, but the value of the information (none of which was backed up offsite in 1993) that would have been lost. How much is the information stored in Lower Manhattan worth? For example, the NYSE was damaged by the collapses anyway, think what would have happened if the South Tower had fallen towards it. If Yousef had been successful, he would have completely destroyed the US economy. That must have scared the hell out of them.