FEMA’S REPORT: CAUSE OF WTCCOLLAPSES UNKNOWN

The public might know more of what really happened to the WTC if the New York Police Department and New York Fire Department had been allowed to do their jobs. But, as with the JFK assassination, their work was taken from them by federal officials, who immediately closed doors and shut out the public from their consultations. People were even arrested for taking photographs of Ground Zero.

The FBI took charge of the criminal investigation while the little-understood Federal Emergency Management Agency took responsibility for determining what happened to cause the collapse of the twin towers. FEMA seemed determined to haul away the evidence, even before a full and impartial investigation could be made. Such premature destruction of evidence was called into question by Bill Manning, editor of the 125-year-old firemen's publication Fire Engineering in its January 2002 issue.

“For more than three months, structural steel from the World Trade Center has been and continues to be cut up and sold for scrap,” wrote Manning. “Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the Happyland Social Club Fire? Did they cast aside the pressure-regulating valves at the Meridian Plaza Fire? Of course not. But essentially, that's what they're doing at the World Trade Center.

“For more than three months, structural steel from the World Trade Center has been and continues to be cut up and sold for scrap. Crucial evidence that could answer many questions about high-rise building design practices and performance under fire conditions is on the slow boat to China, perhaps never to be seen again in America until you buy your next car.”

Challenging the theory that the twin towers collapsed as a result of crashed airplanes and fires, Manning added, “Fire Engineering has good reason to believe that the ‘official investigation’ blessed by FEMA and run by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure.

“Except for the marginal benefit obtained from a three-day, visual walk-through of evidence sites conducted by the ASCE investigation committee members—described by one close source as a ‘tourist trip’—no one's checking the evidence for anything.

“The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately,” Manning declared.

In that same issue, a number of fire officials, including a retired deputy chief from New York's fire department, called on FEMA to “immediately impanel a ‘World Trade Center Disaster Review Panel’ to coordinate a complete review of all aspects of the World Trade Center incident.”

These fire officials noted that the WTC disaster was the largest loss of firefighters ever at one incident; the second largest loss of life on American soil; the first total collapse of a high-rise during a fire in United States history; and the largest structural collapse in recorded history.

“Now, with that understanding, you would think we would have the largest fire investigation in world history,” they wrote. “You would be wrong. Instead, we have a series of unconnected and uncoordinated superficial inquiries…Ironically, we will probably gain more detailed information about the destruction of the planes than we will about the destruction of the towers. We are literally treating the steel removed from the site like garbage, not like crucial fire scene evidence.”

Complaints from the federal investigating team of engineers supported these accusations.

Citing delays by federal agencies and incomplete information, the twenty-six-member team of ASCE engineers that was formed to study the collapse of the WTC towers finally produced a 296-page report by early May 2002.

But even as the report was issued, team leader and structural engineer Dr. W. Gene Corley told Congress there were still many questions left unanswered by his study.

“We didn't have time and resources,” Corley complained. It should be noted that in 1995, Corley was selected to lead a Building Performance Assessment Team investigating the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a tragedy, which has also generated much controversy and speculation among conspiracy researchers.

Corley said his team didn't have enough data to create a computer model of the interior damage caused by the aircraft, nor could they model the spread of the fires. The team also griped that federal agencies feuded over funding and to whom the team should be reporting.

The team never had access to 911 emergency calls, which could have helped determine exactly what happened in the minutes prior to the collapse of the buildings, and—this can not be emphasized enough—they confirmed reports that much of the structural steel was removed from the site, cut up, and sold as scrap before they had a chance to examine it.

The team could not even obtain a complete set of building plans until early in 2002. Then they found that floor supports were attached to exterior columns by strong welds and not, as widely believed, relatively small bolts.

The hurried and superficial nature of the FEMA inquiry was evident in the conclusion of its report: “With the information and time available, the sequence of events leading to the collapse of each tower could not be definitively determined.”

Corley did say the team learned just enough to know that more answers were desperately needed to design protective measures for similar structures that might be future terrorist targets.

His quest for more answers coupled with congressional outrage over the obstacles thrown in front of the engineering team prompted President Bush to pledge $16 million for a follow-up study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

NIST’s National Construction Safety Team (NCST), after more than a year of administrative and organizational activity, finally announced in early 2004 that a draft report on the World Trade Center disaster might be “realistic and achievable” by September 2004.

A goodly portion of the NIST team's effort went to study the February 20, 2003, West Warwick, Rhode Island, nightclub fire, which claimed one hundred lives and apparently their $16 million budget was taxed. In an initial report to Congress in December 2003, the group complained of the “recurring problem” of insufficient staff for on-site inspections and subsequent research and tests. “The scale and complexity of the current World Trade Center disaster has strained NIST’s existing resources,” they reported.

They did, however, recommend the creation of a NIST Building and Fire Research Laboratory with a permanent staff funded for $2 million, the establishment of a safety team investigation reserve fund for another $2 million, the establishment of a program to “familiarize local and state investigating authorities about the NCST Act, and a “research program investigating the factors affecting human decision making and evacuation behavior during emergencies in buildings.”

The report echoed complaints from the FEMA engineering team by stating the group's major challenges were lack of data (“through most of 2003, significant gaps existed in the data collection related to almost all of the project areas.”) and the future need to deploy safety teams immediately to an incident for the collection of physical evidence and witness testimony.

The NIST inquiry also declined to hear testimony from New York firemen or building engineers despite repeated efforts on their part to contact the panel.

In light of the time lapsed and lack of hard evidence as well as considering the track record of such investigatory panels in the past, many researchers are not holding their breath in expectation of real answers.

As we have seen, the large gaps left by the dismal official record of reporting on the WTC collapses has been filled by others. Perhaps the best information that we now have about the collapses of the towers comes from independent researchers—most notably from a growing list of courageous scientists and academics noted earlier, whose names can be found listed at the website scholarsfor911truth.org.

Observers have long noted that the physical characteristics of the collapses of the two towers were almost identical. That has permitted one physicist and pioneer critic of the official story, Jim Hoffman, of 911research.wtc7.net, to compile the list below that describes principal features of the destruction of both towers. These observations are based on intensive independent study of the surviving evidence, as contrasted with the “official” explanation—although, as we have seen, in truth there is none—of a gravity collapse caused by fire. One can easily see that critical mysteries about the towers’ collapse remain unsolved, in large part due to the destruction of evidence and the underfunded investigations earlier noted.

1. The cores of the towers were obliterated and the perimeter walls were shredded. According to Hoffman, “there is no gravity collapse scenario” or probable explanation by fire that can account for the complete leveling of the massive columns that comprised the towers’ cores, or the ripping apart of their sturdy perimeter walls. But if not, what scenario does explain this?

2. Nearly all the concrete was pulverized in the air, so finely that it blanketed parts of lower Manhattan with inches of dust. In a gravity collapse, according to Hoffman, “there would not have been enough energy to pulverize the concrete until it hit the ground, if then.” With regard to this observation, the crucial unanswered question becomes: How then was it possible for the non-metallic components of the buildings to turn to dust as fine as flour—and further, to begin to appear so massively at the very outset of the collapse? Independent scientists cited by Hoffman in a highly technical paper have shown that the energy required for the pulverization of this much concrete and for the stupendous expansion of the dust clouds is as much as “100 times greater than could have been produced from each tower's gravitational potential energy” (i.e., mass times gravitational acceleration times height).

3. Parts of the towers were thrown up to 500 feet laterally (as discussed earlier). Hoffman: “The downward forces of a gravity collapse cannot account for the energetic lateral ejection of pieces.” But what forces caused these lateral explosions?

4. Explosions were visible before many floors had collapsed. “But in the South Tower collapse,” writes Hoffman, “energetic dust ejections are first seen while the top is only slightly tipping, not falling.” There is no known source of the dense powder in these clouds of ejected dust. We have also cited numerous eye-witness reports of explosions in the buildings.

5. The towers’ tops mushroomed into thick dust clouds much larger than the original volumes of the buildings. “Without the addition of large sources of pressure beyond the collapse itself,” claims Hoffman, “the falling building and its debris should have occupied about the same volume as the intact building.”

6. The tops fell at nearly the rate of free fall, in less than fifteen seconds. We've examined this previously. These astounding rates of fall, according to Hoffman's technical explanation, “indicate that nearly all resistance to the downward acceleration of the tops had been eliminated ahead of them. The forms of resistance, had the collapses been gravity-driven, would include: the destruction of the structural integrity of each storey; the pulverization of the concrete in the floor slabs of each storey, and other non-metallic objects; and the acceleration of the remains of each storey encountered either outward or downward. There would have to be enough energy to overcome all of these forms of resistance and do it rapidly enough to keep up with the near free-fall acceleration of the top.”

The issue of the cause of the collapse of the towers has become so salient that one wealthy American activist, Jimmy Walter, has offered a one million dollar reward to anyone who can prove that explosives were not used in the World Trade Center. Walter has gained notoriety and headlines by his efforts—costing him millions—to educate ordinary Americans and Europeans about the possibility that 9/11 is an inside job. Details of his work can be found at reopen911.org.

An equally detailed and shocking analysis of the collapses of all three buildings came recently from an unexpected quarter—Brigham Young University, in the heart of the conservative state of Utah.

Professor Steven E. Jones of the department of physics and astronomy at Brigham Young University, in a paper accepted for peer review, stated, “It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes—which were actually a diversion tactic. Muslims are (probably) not to blame for bringing down the WTC buildings after all.”

Jones acknowledged that there have been many “junk science” conspiracy theories about what happened on 9/11, but concluded, “I have called attention to glaring inadequacies in the ‘final’ reports funded by the US government. I have also presented multiple evidences for an alternative hypothesis. In particular, the official theory lacks repeatability in that no actual models or buildings (before or since 9-11-01) have been observed to completely collapse due to the proposed fire-based mechanisms. On the other hand, dozens of buildings have been completely and symmetrically demolished through the use of pre-positioned explosives. And high-temperature chemical reactions can account for the observed large pools of molten metal, under both Towers and WTC7, and the sulfidation of structural steel. The controlled-demolition hypothesis cannot be dismissed as “junk science” because it better satisfies tests of repeatability and parsimony. It ought to be seriously (scientifically) investigated and debated.”

Asked by one news reporter, “Who set the explosives?” Jones replied, “I try not to go there because we have to answer the first question first—the scientific issue first. We need to consider all options for the collapse of these buildings. Let the chips fall where they may.”

As noted earlier, in 2006, Jones teamed with James H. Fetzer, the Distinguished McKnight University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, a former Marine Corps officer, to found the organization scholarsfor911truth.org. The two co-chairs and their nationwide membership have brought a new credibility to the rapidly expanding movement for the truth about 9/11.

Concerns over the validity of the free-fall scenario based on fires in the buildings were echoed by former Bush I administration official Morgan Reynolds, a Texas A & M Professor Emeritus of Economics who was also former chief economist for the Department of Labor and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. Reynolds is also a leading member of scholarsfor911truth.org.

“Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapses of WTC 1 (North Tower), WTC 2 (South Tower), and the much-overlooked collapse of the 47-story WTC building 7 at 5:21 pm on that fateful day,” wrote Reynolds.

He added, “Controlled demolition would have required unimpeded access to the WTC, access to explosives, avoiding detection, and the expertise to orchestrate the deadly destruction from a nearby secure location. Such access before 9/11 likely depended on complicity by one or more WTC security companies.”

His detailed analysis of both the World Trade Center collapses and the Pentagon strike may be found at www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds12.html.

Reynolds also speculated on why WTC7 was brought down later on 9/11. “Why would the killers destroy WTC7, especially since a collapse would arouse suspicion in some quarters?” he asked. “A logical if unproven theory is that the perpetrators used Mayor Giuliani's sealed OEM ‘bunker’ on the 23rd story of WTC7 to conduct the twin tower implosions and then destroyed the building and evidence to cover up their crimes, just as a murderer might set his victim's dwelling ablaze to cover up the crime (one in four fires is arson). Giuliani's ‘undisclosed secret location’ was perfect because it had been evacuated by 9:45 am on 9/11, it enabled unmolested work, provided a ringside seat, was bullet- and bomb-resistant, had its own secure air and water supply, and could withstand winds of 160 mph, necessary protection from the wind blasts generated by collapsing skyscrapers.”

The professor also joined the chorus of criticism leveled at FEMA officials for the rapid removal of WTC debris, which prevented later study. “The criminal code requires that crime scene evidence be saved for forensic analysis but FEMA had it destroyed before anyone could seriously investigate it,” stated Reynolds. “FEMA was in position to take command because it had arrived the day before the attacks at New York's Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise, ‘Tripod II,’ quite a coincidence. The authorities apparently considered the rubble quite valuable: New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS and had one truck driver who took an unauthorized 1 ½ hour lunch fired.”

Responding to the question of why controlled demolitions have never been considered by the official government investigations of 9/11, Reynolds said, “If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an ‘inside job’ and a government attack on America would be compelling.”

Military affairs journalist Barbara Honegger honed this argument to an even sharper point by offering the chilling conclusion that if bombs were planted inside both the Pentagon and the WTC buildings, it would have been difficult—if not impossible—for foreign terrorists to have the opportunity to plant and detonate such bombs.

“…[B]ecause the true modus operandi of the WTC and Pentagon attacks are so similar, a single group of US/domestic conspirators almost certainly planned both the WTC and Pentagon attacks and controlled both the approaching planes and inside-the-building explosions in real time on 9/11 and, thus, neither attack could have been executed by al Qaeda.” (See Appendix for details.)