Loose Change ILLUSTRATED CRITIQUE Published by 911Research.com

[graphixtech]

911Research has published a new illustrated Loose Change critique
which presents a visually creative interface and unique tone.


Sifting Through Loose Change
The 9-11Research Companion to
LOOSE CHANGE 2ND EDITION
A detailed point-by-point critique of the film
using an illustrated transcript


http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/loose_change/introduction.html

[Shoestring]

1. A critique of the critique

I'm just looking down the first page of this critique, and have already found a problem with it.

Under the quote from Loose Change about Vigilant Guardian and Northern Vigilance, it says: "Our compilation of war games shows what Loose Change misses." However, this then links to the following page:
http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/defense/wargames.html

Yet this list in itself misses numerous significant wargames, and has errors.

There is no mention of the major exercise held by Stratcom, called Global Guardian, which was taking place on 9/11.

There is no mention of Timely Alert II, the terrorism drill taking place at Fort Monmouth, NJ, the morning of 9/11.

There is no mention of the anti-terrorism training exercise taking place at Fort Belvoir, an army base 10 miles south of the Pentagon, on the morning of 9/11.

There is no mention of Operation Northern Guardian, which deployed fighters from Langley AFB to Iceland just a few weeks before 9/11.

It also calls "Operation Northern Vigilance" an exercise, when in fact this appears to have been a real-world military operation, NOT a training exercise.

It also refers to Vigilant Warrior and Vigilant Guardian as "Operations." Yet these were training exercises, NOT operations. There is a big difference! See the relevant definitions in the Defense Department's Dictionary of Military Terms:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/e/01959.html
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/o/03853.html

In fact, the military document active on 9/11 that described how to assign names to training exercises -- CJCSM 3150.29A -- points out that military exercises must not include the word "operation" in their name. See:
http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/dod/cjcsm3150_29a.pdf

The reasoning behind this is that one of the purposes of exercise terms is to distinguish exercises from real-world operations. See:
http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/data/e/01967.html

There is also quite strong evidence that "Vigilant Warrior" -- the exercise Richard Clarke refers to in his book -- was in fact Amalgam Warrior.

For a much more comprehensive list of 9/11-related training exercises, see the list at the Complete 9/11 Timeline:
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&before_9/11=militaryExercises

[KJF]

2. Best critique I've seen so far

Thanks for posting this.

However, Shoestring is right, there are a few problems with it. For example, the "hijackers still alive" story is meaningless.

[petgoat]

4. The "hijackers still alive" story is not meaningless. The fact that

the 9/11 Commission and the History Channel (and A&E and United 93, for all I know)
validate this insupportable hasty FBI story is significant.

[KJF]

5. It depends on the hijacker

We can go through them if you want.

To start with:
Adnad Bukhari, Abdulrahman Al Omari and Amer Kamfer are all alive, but are no longer on the list of FBI suspects.

Amer Bukhari died exactly one year before 9/11 and the FBI have taken his name off the list of suspects.

Their inclusion on the list may represent something more than simple confusion by the FBI in the initial stages of the investigation (for example some stories say that ID belonging to the Bukhari "brothers" was found in the Blue Nissan at Portland), but that's not really important now. The FBI initially suspected them, found they had nothing to do with 9/11 and took their names off the list.

Agreed?

Which one next?

[petgoat]

6. Mt point is that the 9/11 Commission uncritically accepted the

FBI list, and that cable TV channels in the USA (A&E, History Channel) uncritically
dramatize this list as the truth.

[mirandapriestly]

7. Yes, early reports were never followed up on

that al Ghamdi was a Saudi Airlines pilot and Al Omari a Saudi engineer and they were really angry their names were being used. Then...nothing. It pisses me off. Maybe someone stole their identity, but then why not make an effort to find out who the hijackers really were. So much information is passed off as real that isn't in this thing. I don't like it when that is dismissed either and it's not like we can exactly snoop around in Saudi Arabia to find out the truth.

[KJF]

8. I wouldn't say that

In my opinion, the FBI list may well be accurate.

We don't really know whether the 9/11 Commission accepted the list critically or uncritically. Many of the hijackers' families were (allegedly) interviewed for the 9/11 Commission Report, but this was done by the Saudi authorities, not the Commission's staff. Also, the Commission only seems to have obtained general biographical details (some of which it managed to mix up - for example they seem to be confusing the two Saeed Al Ghamdis involved in the plot) about the hijackers, whereas really they should have tried to get a more detailed account of their movements. In addition, only one of the Saudi hijackers' recruiters was mentioned in the 9/11 CR and no action appears to have been taken against him - perhaps his wrist should be slapped or his government funding reduced.

I agree that the media should be more critical of the 9/11 Commission Report, but I don't think the hijackers' identities are a good place to start, or even go to.

[petgoat]

11. The 9/11 Commission published pictures of the wrong guys and,

as you tell it, took the Saudis word for it about the investigations
of the identities.

I don't see why you regard fingering the wrong guys in the official
report as an unimportant issue. Where did the Commission get that
list? Do you think it came from the Mossad?

[KJF]

12. Identities

"The 9/11 Commission published pictures of the wrong guys"
I don't think it did. I don't see any reason to doubt that the pictures it published were the people who actually hijacked the planes. Please specify which pictures you think are wrong. Obviously, identification of the 12 sets of hijacker DNA would be nice. If I thought the Commission fingered the wrong guys, I would think it was an important issue. However, as I think the Commission fingered the right guys, their identities are not a big issue for me. A timeline of their movements, that would be a big issue. What they said in their NSA-monitored calls, that would be a big issue too. I'd also be interested to learn the name of the consular official who issued them with 11 visas.

"took the Saudis word for it about the investigations of the identities."
Some of what the Commission wrote can be corroborated from media sources, both original English reporting and summaries of the Arabic press. Alternatively, some of what the Commission wrote can be shown to be probably inaccurate when compared to the media reporting.

The Commission seems to have got the list from the FBI. The FBI made some initial mistakes, but had cleared them (or at least most of them) up by the time the list was passed by the Commission.

[RedSock]

9. Bukharis

One of the initial FBI statements said that both of the Bukharis were on the flight manifests of one of the WTC planes (11 or 175). I don't recall if it was stated if both of them were on one plane or one on each plane.

Once the facts about these men were known, they were never mentioned again -- and two new names made the list.

Where did these two new names come from? They were obviously not on the manifest.

(Maybe this has been explained and I'm forgetting.)

***

Also, some men have said that the FBI is using (not solely their names) but their photos in the list of hijackers! Were there ever photos published of the men who said their identities had been stolen?

I've never seen any photos with the online versions of those stories. Maybe they were in the hard copies of the newspapers. I'm surprised a researcher has not tried to find them again. Having even one photo of one of those men would be key.

[KJF]

10. Hijackers

Bukharis
I can offer two possible explanations as to how they got involved:
(1) Their IDs were stolen/faked by the hijackers and were found in the Blue Nissan. CNN says:
"Their names had been tied to a car found at an airport in Portland, Maine, but Adnan Bukhari's attorney said it appeared their identifications were stolen and said Bukhari had no role in the hijackings. A federal law enforcement official said Bukhari passed an FBI polygraph test and is not considered a suspect."
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/13/flight.schools/
Why their IDs would be in the car is a mystery to me, though.

(2) The FBI found them through their connection to Abdulrahman Al Omari. The name on the manifest (or some such lower order document) is just supposed to be Abdul Al Omari. So the FBI searched for Abdul Al Omaris, turned up Abdulrahman in some sort of pilot database and connected him to the Bukhari "brothers". He definitely knew Adnan Bukhari, but I have no idea whether he knew Amer Bukhari.

I prefer number (1).

Photos
A couple are available:

Salem Al Hazmi

The hijacker is on the left, the oil company worker is on the right. AFAIK the oil company worker has a similar name and got jumpy.

Saeed Al Ghamdi

The pilot is on the left, the hijacker is on the right. AFAIK they both lived in Delray Beach, but not at the same time, which is why the pilot got worried.

Abdul Aziz Al Omari

I think this is the telecom engineer who studied in Denver, although I see Wikipedia is now claiming it is Abdul Rahman Al Omari.


This is the hijacker.


This is another guy who got confused with the hijacker because he has a similar name.

There is no photo of the person who allegedly got confused with hijacker Wail Al Shehri, neither is there an interview with him. I don't think he ever existed, whereas the hijacker clearly did exist.

There are interviews with pilot Waleed A. Al Shehri, who the FBI really did think was on the plane initially (they told Embry-Riddle it was him when they searched their records). However, I can't find a photo of him and believe me I've looked.

[JackRiddler]

13. Living hijackers is one of the biggest red herrings

You have ably taken it apart. One might add that Alomari was going to protest at the US embassy in Saudi. Did he? Has anyone bothered to call either him or the embassy to find out the result? (YES, this would be incumbent on the skeptic as much as any other reporter paid or unpaid. Confirm your own statements - when you can - or shut up.)

A broader 9/11 conspiracy would be a big-budget production and they wouldn't skimp on making sure that the patsies were either reliable to not come forward and yell that they are still alive, or definitely dead.

Meanwhile, this is distracting from:
1) alleged hijackers under surveillance for years as suspected terror plotters by multiple US and allied agencies
2) timelines of their supposed movements contradictory (FBI Atta vs. Able Danger Atta and Hopsicker Atta especially dramatic & relevant & bizarrely discordant, suggesting an Atta double is setting up a trail to incriminate).
3) Much evidence appears to be obviously planted (the two bags with the whole plot on board, the vans, the motel rooms, the magic passport) and even Mueller still wanted to cover his ass by claiming no paper trail late as Apr. 2002.
4) how the fuck was foreknowledge in detail so widespread, if this was a hermetic and perfectly under-the-radar cell of disciplined non-entities?

[KJF]

14. Two points

(1) The claim that the hijackers flew under the radar is an urban myth that was debunked by the 9/11 Commission. This passage, taken from an MSNBC hardball show broadcast on 21 July 2004, is particularly revealing:

MYERS (on camera): It's become urban legend that the 9/11 hijackers kept to themselves and shied away from other extremists. But 9/11 investigators now know that some of the hijackers met frequently with other U.S.-based Islamic extremists. In fact, the hijackers had contact with 14 people known to the FBI because of counterterror investigations prior to 9/11.

ELEANOR HILL, STAFF DIRECTOR, 9/11 COMMISSION: Rather than the hijackers being invisible to the FBI, they were, in fact, right in the middle of the FBI's counterterrorism coverage. And yet, the FBI didn't detect them.

MYERS: Case in point. Two of the hijackers were living in San Diego with an undercover informant for the FBI."

I'd just like to repeat that the 9/11 Commission's staff director said that the hijackers were "right in the middle of the FBI's counterterrorism coverage."

I'm not quite sure, but I think the figure of 14 the presenter mentions is inaccurate. As far as I can tell it includes the people Hani knew in Pheonix (8 named in the Pheonix memo + Lofti Raissi), the people Al Mihdhar and Nawaf Al Hazmi knew in LA and San Diego (like the gas station owner and manager) and Nabil Al Marabh and his associates. In addition, they also knew other people being investigated by the FBI, such as Fahad Al Quso (arrested in autumn 2000 for the Cole), Khallad, Adnan El Shukrijumah and Moussaoui (if we include Bin Al Shibh with the hijackers). In addition, Ould Slahi, Zammer, Bahaji, Darkanzali and others were being monitored by other intelligence agencies in co-operation with the CIA. Last but not least, the FBI were actually investigating Al Mihdhar himself and the NSA was listening to some of his calls. His father-in-law was a notorious Al Qaeda operative whose phone had been bugged for years. It would be reasonable to claim that the hijackers had contact with about two dozen known or suspected terrorists.

(2) It came to light during the Moussaoui trial that many more of the hijackers' documents than previously known were actually recovered after 9/11 (what a terrible sentence!).
In addition to the previously known:
(1) Al Suqami's passport;
(2), (3) and (4) ID of Moqed, Salem Al Hazmi and Nawaf Al Hazmi recovered at the Pentagon;
(5), (6) and (7) Jarrah's passport and his relative's business card and work permit; and
(8) The hijacker preparation instructions recovered in Shanksville;
They also recovered from the crash sites, as revealed in the Moussaoui trial (at least I'd never heard of it before):
(9) Ahmed Al Ghamdi's Saudi driver's licence (from the WTC rubble);
(10) An arabic ID card for Al Nami;
(11) Al Nami's Saudi youth hostelling card;
(12) Two photgraphs of Al Nami;
(13) Saeed Al Ghamdi's passport;
(14) Al Nami's Florida ID, although according to the 9/11 Commission he had a Florida driving licence, not an ID card.

Moussaoui trial transcripts thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=125x93176#93259

That's a lot of documents.

[mirandapriestly]

3. That is really good

a lot better than the other one. A good general fact checker.

[Woody Box]

15. What have Jim Hoffman, Mike Ruppert and Eric Hufschmid in common?

They exude massive jealousy. :P

Just look at the poor comment to the Cleveland Airport Mystery: "More theorizing based on erroneous reports."

How does Hoffman (or whoever wrote this stuff) know that the reports are erroneous?