Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS |CounterPunch.org

Many Americans are content with the 9/11 Commission Report, but the two chairmen of the commission, Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton are not. Neither was commission member Max Cleland, a US Senator who resigned from the 9/11 Commission, telling the Boston Globe (November 13, 2003): “This investigation is now compromised.” Even former FBI director Louis Freeh wrote in the Wall Street Journal (Nov. 17, 2005) that there are inaccuracies in the commission’s report and “questions that need answers.”

Both Kean and Hamilton have twice stated publicly, once in their 2006 book, Without Precedent: The Inside Story of the 9/11 Commission, and again in the January 2, 2008, New York Times, that there are inaccuracies in their report and unanswered–or mis-answered–questions.

On the second day of this new year, Kean and Hamilton accused the CIA of obstructing their investigation: “What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the President, to investigate one of the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction.”

In their book, Kean and Hamilton wrote that they were unable to obtain “access to star witnesses in custody who were the only possible source for inside information about the 9/11 plot.”

The only information the commission was permitted to have about what was learned from interrogations of alleged plot ringleaders, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, came from “thirdhand” sources. The commission was not permitted to question the alleged plotters in custody or even to meet with those who interrogated the alleged plotters. Consequently, write Kean and Hamilton, “We had no way of evaluating the credibility of detainee information” that was fed to them by third party hands. “How could we tell if someone such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was telling us the truth?”

The fact that video tapes of the interrogations existed was kept secret from the 9/11 Commission.

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Ken
November 8, 2007
WeAreChangeSeattle.org

For an hour today, Thom Hatmann had a productive and well represented debate about the generalized two major different conspiracy hypotheses:

• al-Qaeda (aka the Mujahadeen) planned and executed all events of the attacks of 9/11 and our military and federal agencies all failed in their duties.
• al-Qaeda (aka the Mujahadeen) played some unknown measure of a role in the attacks of 9/11 along with some unknown measure of a role also being enacted by elements within the U.S. federal government and possibly other national government(s).

Mr. Ryan was patient and tried to keep on pertinent points and often times took Mr. Shermer by surprise at the direction of the discussion. Why is this? In past debates, where Mr. Shermer was involved, he or others who are supportive of “the official story” get to both setup/frame the direction of the debate and then typically get the last response, enabling them to end each point of discussion further framing it and often smearing or scoffing at the other side of the debate. Mr. Shermer also seemed specifically surprised that the discussion went to non-strawman and non-hypothetical discussion. In fact, Mr. Shermer often made unfounded hypothetical judgements, theoretical statements and strawman arguments, a fact which he was called on once or twice by Mr. Ryan.

It quickly became clear that this pillar supporter of “the official story”, Mr. Shermer, has built his entire set of arguments around assertions no serious person in the Truth Movement asserts, though he (and others) pretend they do, and that he cannot counter simple logic, simple science and physics nor address geo-political and economic issues surrounding the 9/11 cover-up. Mr. Shermer has officially been discredited. Who ever has the next 9/11 debate, please get a stronger debater to parrot “the official story”, someone with some intelligence who can actually debate coherently when not allowed to steer the debate to his strawman talking points.

Following are two mp3s, the first hour is the debate and the second hour includes many callers to the show with their responses to the debate from the previous hour.

The Debate mp3

The Callers mp3

It is interesting that, as mentioned in Rep. Kucinich’s impeachment documents for bringing justice to VP Cheney (refer to video at 22:53 in), apparently our government is currently supporting the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan enabling them to launch attacks on Iranian police and military troops along the border (a proxy war). So, if our creation turned against us on 9/11, why are we still working with them?