FAQ
Q:If 9/11 was an inside job, then who would have done this, and why?
A:You are pointing to a set of highly complex questions. Who would demolish these buildings? Why? For whose benefit? At whose request? With whose help? We don’t have answers to these questions. Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth has the technical competence to affirm that these towers were demolished, but we do not have all the answers. What your question points to, though, is the need for a new investigation. AE911Truth is not made up of conspiracy theorists; we are professionals who focus on the facts. Let’s get a real investigation of these facts and then let the chips fall where they may. (from Richard)
Q:How many people would it take to carry out an operation like this?
A:Researcher Jim Hoffman says on his 911Research website that this operation would have required multiple layers of cover story. Not many people would have to have known the full truth. Some might have thought they were covering up incompetence by their bosses. We know that several war games were going on at the time of the 9/11 attacks, which caused false blips to be displayed on the FAA and NORAD radar screens, and that these exercises caused confusion about the real emergencies involving the four airliners. One of our AE911Truth volunteers, Gregg Roberts, wrote an essay called “Where Are the 9/11 Whistleblowers?” in which he answers this objection at length. He points out that since there is no serious investigation and no court case in which low-level perpetrators are facing prison, no one has any incentive to come forward. And only people who had proven their ability to commit acts of violence and to keep quiet about it would have been selected for the more delicate aspects of the operation.
Q:How could they have gotten the explosives into the buildings without anyone knowing?
A:Excellent question. In truth, we don’t know. This mystery is something for criminal investigators to figure out. There has been much speculation as to how explosives could have been brought in – perhaps it happened under cover as part of routine maintenance. Prior to 9/11, there was an elevator upgrade which had been underway for monthsin the Twin Towers, the largest operation of its kind in the world. There was also a reported power down for cable upgrades the first weekend in September. Telephone workers have access to terminal boxes throughout the entire building located in the core which could easily be used for wiring runs for detonators. The World Trade Center (WTC) had contractors in all trades working throughout the buildings who could have been placing explosives or wiring them.
You may remember that one of our surprises was to find that nano-explosives were used to bring down the towers. These explosives are very difficult to manufacture, and to date they are exclusively available within the U.S. military. Such explosives would have opened new possibilities to 9/11 demolition engineers. The literature on nanothermites says that they can be sprayed or painted onto surfaces. Such a material could have been mixed into sprayed-on fire retardant, and applied as part of a “renovation” without the workers knowing what they were really doing. One investigator, Kevin Ryan, published a paper in which he showed that the very floors where the airliners hit had undergone a recent fireproofing renovation. In fact, the entire WTC complex was scheduled for $1billion worth of upgrades to the fireproofing material which had been applied, along with now-outlawed asbestos, when the towers were built.
Q:What role did the airplanes play?
A:As architects and engineers, we can affirm that the Twin Towers buildings were designed to withstand damage caused by the direct impact of a large jetliner. The fact that they remained standing after having been struck by such planes is evidence of the safety factor used in their design and of the structural redundancy of supporting columns. NIST [the National Institute of Standards & Technology] essentially agrees with us on this point. Our disagreement with NIST is that they claim that the resulting fires weakened the remaining structure which caused the collapse, not damage from the plane strikes.
Q:Why didn’t the 9/11 Commission do a complete investigation?
A: This is a very good question. Why didn’t they invite the numerous experts who had voiced doubts about the official collapse theory? Why didn’t they see through the lies of the technical experts who talked to them? We don’t know. But this question may be part of a larger one: why did NIST, the Bush administration, its Democratic opposition, and the media all repeat the official lie? Why did they all cover up the demolition of the Twin Towers? For whose benefit? These are all excellent questions. They beg for a response. It is imperative that the WTC demolitions be investigated not only from a technical standpoint—they must be seen for the criminal acts they are, and investigated and punished appropriately. These criminal acts must be properly analyzed and understood with the assistance of detectives and criminal experts.
ANew York Times reporter, Philip Shenon, wrote a book on the subject of the 9/11 Commission.He found that a key memberof the Commission was its Executive Secretary, Philip Zelikow. As an insider at the White House, Zelikow had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice. He took total control. It has recently come out that he wrote an outline for the final report before the Commission even started, and withheld it from the staff.
Q:I understand the perimeter columns provided most all of the support in the Twin Towers. Why didn’t the airplanes striking the towers seriously compromise this structural support?
A:This idea that the perimeter columns provided the main structural support is not true. The core structural support was provided by 47 massive core columns which surrounded the elevator shafts. The perimeter columns provided the lateral support for the buildings. This idea that the Twin Towers were hollow tubes has been pushed on the public by Popular Mechanicsand the PBS program Nova which did a show on the “collapse” of the Towers.
Q:What role did the airplanes play?
A: There is no evidence they played any role in bringing about controlled demolition. It appears that they were used to create a cover story.
Q:Thermite is more of an incendiary, not an explosive. How can you say thermite or thermate was the cause of those explosions?
A:Wehave to be careful to keep separate the difference between nanothermite and thermite. Presumably, both were used in different ways. Nanothermite composites can be designed to be explosive (by adding gas releasing substances to the composite material). However, we don’t know precisely how it was used. We might as well mention, since we are getting into details, that demolition engineers use many types of explosives other than thermite, and that they probably did so at the World Trade Center.
Q:If everything you say is found to be true, and a new investigation is initiated, who do you think will be found to be the guilty party or parties?
A:As a group of professionals who are trying to establish the necessity for a new and independent investigation of 9/11, we do not speculate on these matters. This question is not a technical one and the focus for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth has always been on the forensic and scientific evidence for explosive controlled demolition of the three WTC high-rise buildings on 9/11.
Q:What could the motive have been?
A:Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth does not speculate on possible motives for what happened on 9/11. If you are interested in pursuing this further you can search on the internet for sources of information and speculation on the causes and motives for the events of 9/11.
Q:Can you recommend a book that addresses the probable motive?
A:At Architects & Engineers for 911Truth, we try to stick to the technical aspects of the WTC demolitions. Besides, before thinking of finding the motives, we need to spread the knowledge that the Twin Towers were demolished and that government and media outlets either ignored or covered this up. Once enough people are aware of this fact, maybe the call to find out what really happened and why it was covered up will be strong enough to be heeded. With a new investigation we may have a good shot at understanding the motive.
Q:How do we reconcile the demolitions with the story of the 19 fanatics who flew planes into the towers?
A:This story would explain the local damage in the Twin Towers. As architects and engineers, we cannot add to that debate. But we can affirm that whatever happened there was technically independent from the structural failures of the Twin Towers.
Q:How long would it take to rig the buildings with explosives?
A:The most challenging part of this job would not have been the engineering side—putting a team of engineers and technicians together and preparing the buildings—but the conspiratorial side: how to put explosives in place under the nose of the tenants, the security personnel, and the owners. What if a tenant was a law enforcement agency? We should expect the answer to this question when a criminal investigation into the demolitions takes place.
Q:Is it true that several tenants were law enforcement agencies?
A:Yes, that is true and it gives us an idea of the depth of the 9/11 conspiracy. How could they get law enforcement agents to suspect nothing? Or to get on board? As architects and engineers, we don’t know. But we know that they got the technical experts on board. We also know that it is much easier to corrupt a law enforcement agency than to violate the laws of physics. Again, we get back to the need for a real criminal investigation.
Q: What happened at the Pentagon?
A: This is a recurring question in 9/11. It is very valid. But at AE911Truth, we have made a decision to focus on the controlled demolition of the three WTC buildings. This strategy has the dual advantage that not only can we demonstrate that the official story is a lie, but we also propose a theory consistent with all the available data. To our knowledge, this approach is unique within the community of 9/11 investigators. And—what a coincidence!—the demolitions were by far the most significant events of 9/11.
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