Scholars Question Cheney's Role in 9/11

Press Release | March 13, 2006

Experts conclude Vice President possessed foreknowledge and suggest Moussaoui trial a "distraction".

Duluth, MN (PRWEB) March 13, 2006 - A society of experts and scholars contends that the prosecution of Zacarias Moussaoui - for willfully concealing advance knowledge of the events of 9/11 - has the status of a Soviet-style "show trial" and functions as a diversion from the real culprits. The nonpartisan group, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, asserts that the evidence implicating Vice President Dick Cheney of that very offense is more obvious and compelling. If they are even remotely correct, then the alleged terrorists appear to have been cast in the role of "patsies."

The experts base their conclusion on testimony presented to the 9/11 Commission by U.S. Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta on May 23, 2003, which was omitted from its final report, and on related events at the Pentagon. Members of the society will present their findings during a press conference to be held at 1 PM on Tuesday at the United States Courthouse in Alexandria, VA, the location of a trial to determine whether Moussaoui, who is called "the 20th hijacker", should serve a life term or receive the death sentence.

"Mineta's testimony is devastating," observed James H. Fetzer, Ph.D., McKnight Professor at the University of Minnesota. Fetzer is the founder and co-chair of the scholars' society, which recently joined with Judicial Watch in calling for release of documents, films and videos, and physical evidence withheld from the public by the administration. "It pulls the plug on the Commission's contention there was no advance warning that the Pentagon was going to be hit."

According to Secretary Mineta's testimony, which is in the public domain, when he (Mineta) arrived at an underground bunker at the White House (known as the Presidential Emergency Operations Center), the Vice President was in charge. "During the time that the airplane was coming in to the Pentagon", he stated, "there was a young man who would come in and say to the Vice President, 'The plane is 50 miles out.' 'The plane is 30 miles out.'

"And when it got down to, 'The plane is 10 miles out,'" Mineta continued, "the young man also said to the Vice President, 'Do the orders still stand?' And the Vice President turned and whipped his neck around and said, 'Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?'" One way to construe these remarks could be that the orders were to shoot down the plane.

The scholars suggest that that is an implausible interpretation. The Pentagon, they observe, may be the most heavily defended building in the world. If the orders had been to "shoot it down," then no doubt it would have been shot down. Moreover, there would have been no apparent reason for the young man to have expressed concern over whether or not "the orders still stand." Shooting it down, under the circumstances, would have been the thing to do.

"The only reasonable interpretation of the orders," Fetzer observed, "is that the incoming aircraft should not be shot down, which would have been an obvious source of anxiety for an aide. Since it contradicts the official story about the Pentagon," he added, "it had to be suppressed and was not even included in The 9/11 Commission Report." And other scholars, including Professor David Ray Griffin of Claremont Graduate University, have drawn the same conclusion.

Philip J. Berg, Esq., Former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania and a past candidate for Governor, Lt. Governor, and U.S. Senate from Pennsylvania, who is a member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, added, "Those who made it happen were obviously in the position to know that it was going to happen and therefore could have sounded a warning alarm. The case against Cheney is more powerful than the case against Moussaoui. No one is more culpable than the perpetrators. If Moussaoui deserves the death penalty, what does our Vice President deserve?"

Berg also represents William Rodriguez, a WTC witness, in a RICO lawsuit against officials in the administration for complicity in the events of 9/11, being U.S. District Court (Philadelphia) Case Number 04CV4952. Other members of the society include Robert Bowman, head of the "Star Wars" program in both Democratic and Republican administrations; Morgan Reynolds, former Chief Economist for the Department of Labor in the Bush administration; Andreas von Buelow, former assistant defense minister of Germany; and Griffin, a noted theologian and author of The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions.

Members of the society point to other indications of advance knowledge, which include volumes of put-options placed by betting that the stock value of United and American Airlines would drop. The SEC has detailed information about those who placed the options, which it has not released to the public. "Time and time again," Fetzer remarked, "evidence that would expose the official account to be a deception and a hoax intended to manipulate the nation has been concealed."

According to Fetzer, experts in the society of scholars, including pilots and aeronautical engineers, physicists and mechanical engineers, have established that flying these planes would have been beyond the "hijackers" capabilities, that it would have been virtually impossible for cell phone calls to have been placed during those flights, and that even the Saudi Arabian Embassy has long confirmed that several of the accused "hijackers" did not die on 9/11.

"It does not take rocket science to infer that, if these guys were killed in the crash of these aircraft, then they cannot be alive and well and living in Saudi Arabia," he remarked, "yet the FBI has not bothered to revise its list of suspects." Other studies available on the society's web site at www.st911.org indicate that the passenger manifests for the four flights did not include the names of the hijackers nor were autopsies conducted on them.

"A growing body of evidence supports the inference that these 19 men were patsies for forces within the United States government," Fetzer concluded. "This trial appears to be yet one more illustration of Karl Rove's policy of 'creating our own reality' to serve the political goals of the administration, even when it comes at the cost of the lives and the security of the American people. The idea that Bush is 'the security president' is just a cruel joke!"

Documentary support for the conclusions reported here may be found at the Scholars for 9/11 Truth web site at www.st911.org.