Demolition Access to the WTC Towers:

Part Four - Cleanup by KEVIN RYAN February 11, 2010 See also,

in this series: Introduction by Don Paul

Part One - Tenants

Part Two - Security

Part Three - Convergence

Part Four - Cleanup

Who could have placed explosives in the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings? As a society we are faced with this question due to the growing amount of evidence that explosives were used to bring down all three buildings, and due to the enormous implications of that possibility. The evidence includes the unprecedented nature of what happened that day, the eyewitness testimonies of people present at the site, and the physical evidence demonstrated by photographs and videos. 1, 2 Evidence for explosives is also given through proof by contradiction in that seven years of ever-changing government reports could not provide a non-explosive story for destruction of the WTC buildings. 3, 4, 5 More recently, peer-reviewed scientific papers show that energetic materials were present at the WTC, as indicated by the environmental data and the dust from Ground Zero. 6, 7, 8 The forensic investigation of explosions typically aims to determine who had the means, opportunity and motive to accomplish the explosive event. 9 When that approach is taken with the WTC, we can see that those who had the greatest means and opportunity also had the greatest motive. For example, we've seen that certain tenant companies that occupied the WTC towers not only had the opportunity, but they also had the means in terms of access and expertise, to place explosives in the buildings. 10 We also know that the security companies that were responsible for planning and implementing the security plan for the towers, after the 1993 bombing, appeared to have benefited from the attacks. 11 Additionally, the companies reviewed were connected to each other through certain powerful people and organizations, and had all done major work for the Saudi Arabian government. In addition to the actual placement of explosives, those involved would need to cleanup any evidence of explosives remaining at the site. In this final essay of a multi-part series, it will be seen that certain people had the means, opportunity and motive to destroy such evidence at Ground Zero, and that something was being hidden after the buildings fell. These facts will be reviewed in light of the knowledge that the debris was considered highly sensitive and nearly all the steel evidence was quickly destroyed. 12 Additionally, although security at the site was intense, safety management was lax or nonexistent and human concerns took a back seat to the goal of rapidly disposing of the evidence. Other curious facts include that known criminal entities were hired to accomplish the debris removal, and that evidence was stolen from Fresh Kills landfill with the approval and coordination of FBI agents. With all of this in mind, we'll look at who was in charge at Ground Zero and Fresh Kills landfill, and therefore who had the opportunity to destroy evidence of explosives. We'll also look at those who benefited from the cleanup, either through profiting from the debris removal or the rebuilding of Manhattan, or through promotions and partnerships after the events. Foreknowledge Rudy Giuliani, the mayor of New York City at the time, had foreknowledge of the collapse of the WTC buildings and he described this fact in an interview immediately after the attacks. In this same interview Giuliani falsely claimed that no one had ever predicted airliner crashes into the WTC, saying -- "Oh there's no question we were all caught totally off balance. No one, no one, no one could possibly expect, uh, large airplanes to crash into the, you know, the World Trade Center, uh, the way this happened." 13, 14 Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management (OEM) staff also had foreknowledge about the fall of the buildings, and they warned some people. This was reported by Richard Zarrillo, an EMT at the scene, when he said: "OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out," and "I was just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out." 15 Fire department Captain Abdo Nahmod was with Zarrillo, just before they were warned, and both had been told to make the OEM functional in WTC7. But, Nahmod reported: "Moments thereafter we were advised by the staff at OEM that we were to vacate the building [and] that they believed there was another possible plane on its way and [we] proceeded down the stairwell of World Trade [7] all the way down to the ground floor." 16 In the lobby of Building 7, Zarillo and Nahmod apparently met with EMS Division Chief John Peruggia, OEM Deputy Director Richard Rotanz and an unidentified representative from the City's Department of Buildings. Peruggia later said, "..it was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised and they felt that the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse." 17 Richard Rotanz was later said to be the one behind the claim that a third plane was heading toward New York. Rotanz reportedly got that information from a Secret Service agent who was with him in WTC 7 at the time, and spread the information to OEM leadership. 18 Therefore Rotanz was actually behind two important claims that morning, the first was that there was a third hijacked plane headed for the area, which was presumably the reason why the OEM emergency center was closed down before either tower fell (before 9:44 AM), and the second claim was that the towers were in danger of imminent collapse. In any case, this is an incredible statement -- that "they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised" -- considering that no building had ever suffered global collapse from fire. Zarrillo learned just how incredible this information was when he tried to spread the word to the fire chiefs in other areas, none of whom had predicted any such danger. When Zarrillo told Chief Ganci about Peruggia's startling news, Ganci's response was, "who the fuck told you that?" 19 While Zarrillo was trying to warn people, Giuliani and his Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik were wandering around the WTC site after the planes had hit the towers. Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello stated -- "At that point the Mayor shows up. I was standing away from the command post, and the Mayor showed up.. I remember the Mayor being with Commissioner Kerik and himself and a lot of their aides and escorts or whatever." 20 By the time the south tower did fall, Giuliani and Kerik had already moved away from immediate danger, but were still nearby. As they were walking, they coincidentally happened upon a TV reporter who had, just the year before, published a flattering biography of Giuliani called "Rudy Giuliani: Emperor of the City." This apparent coincidence is what led to Giuliani being portrayed as the heroic leader of the response to 9/11, through a series of "walking press conferences" on that day. 21 Fire Chief Joseph Pfeifer, who was at the command post in the lobby of the North Tower, testified that -- "Right before the South Tower collapsed, I noticed a lot of people just left the lobby, and I heard we had a crew of all different people, high-level people in government, everybody was gone, almost like they had information that we didn't have." 22 Who were these high-level people in government gathering in the lobby of the north tower, that had information others did not have? Reports are that this group included Richard Sheirer, the director of the OEM. It was said that -- "He's the guy Giuliani calls the man behind the curtain." 23 Others suggested: "Since September 11, Sheirer has taken charge of the biggest cleanup effort in American history." Whether or not he helped with the cleanup, Sheirer did have significant responsibility in his role, having at various times "briefed President Bush, Tony Blair, and Henry Kissinger". 24 It was reported that Sheirer and others spent a full hour in the north tower lobby, while the towers were burning. But no one knows what they were doing there. As stated before, the OEM center in WTC 7 was shutdown early, and Sheirer himself never went there. Instead, he and his staff went to the north tower lobby and apparently did nothing but waited. Although Sheirer later claimed to have made some calls, "no steps to coordinate the response were ever discovered."25, 26 To some degree, Sheirer was officially portrayed as incompetent. John Farmer, 9/11 Commission staff member, said of Sheirer: "We [the 9/11 Commission] tried to get a sense of what Sheirer was really doing. We tried to figure it out from the videos. We couldn't tell. Everybody from OEM was with him, virtually the whole chain of command. Some of them should have been at the command center." Fire Captain Kevin Culley, who worked at OEM, later was asked why most of the OEM's top brass were with him at the scene of the incident, and he said: "I don't know what they were doing. It was Sheirer's decision to go there on his own. The command center would normally be the focus of a major event and that would be where I would expect the director to be."27 Sheirer now works at Giuliani's firm, Giuliani Partners, along with Pasquale J. (Pat) D'Amuro, the FBI agent who ran the PENTTBOM investigation and stole evidence from Ground Zero (see below), and Michael D. Hess, who was present in WTC7 with explosive witness Barry Jennings. Bernard Kerik worked at Giuliani Partners as well, from the time he left his Police Commissioner post in December 2001 until resigning from the firm in December 2004. While he worked at Giuiliani's firm, Kerik took a short leave when he was appointed by George W. Bush to be Minister of the Interior for Iraq and Senior Policy Advisor to L. Paul Bremer, then the Iraq Occupation Governor. In Iraq, Kerik was assigned to oversee the training of the Iraqi Police by contractor Dyncorp. It was claimed that -- "Mr. Kerik brings a wide array of experience to the new job, and a familiarity with the culture and political realities of the Middle East. Beginning in the 1970's, he worked in the region as a security expert, including four years in the employ of the Saudi royal family." 28 During Kerik's time in Saudi Arabia, starting in 1978, he worked in security at a construction site in the desert and learned from a "squad of mercenaries and disillusioned Vietnam War veterans how to carry himself." He also developed "a taste for the spoils of mercenary pay: Gucci shoes, Rolex watches, European suits, according to his memoir." 29 Kerik's work in Iraq was widely recognized as a dismal failure. By the time his remarkably short assignment was over, he had offended the US military and left the newly forming Iraqi police force in shambles. General Ricardo Sanchez, the top military leader in Iraq during that time said that Kerik focused more on "conducting raids and liberating prostitutes" than training the Iraqis. 30 It seemed that only one person was impressed with "The Baghdad Terminator," as Kerik was called during his three months in Iraq, and that one supporter was Donald Rumsfeld. "Since Bernie Kerik left," Rumsfeld complained, "I understand things have slowed down on police training."31 For some reason, Rumsfeld's perspective on Kerik's performance seemed biased. After returning from Iraq, Kerik went back to Giuliani Partners and remained there until President Bush nominated him to replace Tom Ridge as Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. That nomination was shot down quickly, as the public began to understand more about Kerik's background. Kerik had been appointed NYC Police Commissioner in August 2000, despite the fact that -- "More than half of Giuliani's cabinet opposed Kerik's appointment." 32 Giuliani later remembered having been briefed -- "on some aspects of Bernard B. Kerik's relationship with a company suspected of ties to organized crime before Mr. Kerik's appointment as New York City police commissioner". It seemed odd that Giuliani would need such a briefing, however, considering that Kerik had worked for Mr. Giuliani as a campaign bodyguard and chauffeur as early as 1993. 33 Kerik's connections to the mob were not a surprise to many people, because he was regularly embroiled in scandal. Bribery, tax fraud and document falsification are only some of the crimes for which Kerik was accused. 34 Finally, in October 2009, Kerik was sent to jail after a judge revoked his $500,000 bail and berated him publicly from the bench. The judge described Kerik as a "toxic combination of self-minded focus and arrogance." 35 But back on 9/11, the group of high-level government officials congregating in the north tower lobby also included John Odematt, the First Deputy Director of the OEM and former Executive Officer of the NYC Police Department's Intelligence Division. Odematt left the OEM in 2003 to work for Citigroup, the parent company for WTC 7 tenant Salomon Smith Barney. Regardless of who had foreknowledge or what the imminent danger was, over the next few weeks and months there were heroic efforts made to rescue survivors. But those efforts were hampered by Giuliani's drive to cleanup the site rapidly. The commonly held story is that the government wanted to re-open Wall Street, and for that reason didn't care about the health of New Yorkers and first responders or about facilitating the most careful rescue operations. 36 But what if local authorities were actually in a hurry to remove evidence? An unprecedented destruction of evidence The US House Committee on Science reported, in March 2002: "In the month that lapsed between the terrorist attacks and the deployment of the [FEMA] BPAT team, a significant amount of steel debris--including most of the steel from the upper floors--was removed from the rubble pile, cut into smaller sections, and either melted at the recycling plant or shipped out of the U.S. Some of the critical pieces of steel--including the suspension trusses from the top of the towers and the internal support columns--were gone before the first BPAT team member ever reached the site." 37 The steel evidence, "a significant amount" of which was quickly removed before investigators arrived, might have shown evidence of explosive damage, like metal "pedaling." But the steel was not the only evidence that was removed. For example, the black boxes that contain the flight data recorders and cockpit data recorders on every airliner were officially never found for either AA Flight 11 or UA Flight 175. This claim came from the FBI and was supported by the 9/11 Commission report, but was contradicted by a number of people who worked at the site. Two Ground Zero workers claimed that they helped authorities find three of the four black boxes in October of 2001. One of them, New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi, described the recovery of the devices in a book. 38 Additionally, a source from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said -- " Off the record, we had the boxes..You'd have to get the official word from the FBI as to where they are, but we worked on them here." 39 The idea that the indestructible black boxes could not be found also appears to be in contradiction to the official claim that a passport of one of the alleged hijackers was found. On September 12th, 2001, it was reported that the passport of Satam al Suqami, who was said to be aboard American Airlines Flight 11, was recovered. 40 Because Flight 11 crashed directly into the middle of the north face of the north tower, and was buried within the building, this passport would have had to stay intact throughout the crash event and then withstand the blast from the fuel fire and the ensuing fires fed by office furnishings (and thermitic materials). The rest of the spectacularly improbable path of the passport is not entirely clear, as the first reports said that it was found "in the rubble" but later 9/11 Commission staff member Susan Ginsberg testified that -- "A passerby picked it up and gave it to a NYPD detective shortly before the World Trade Center towers collapsed." 41 In other words, the passport was delivered through Bernard Kerik's department. What other evidence might have been found and eliminated? Explosive initiators, like those sold by 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman's company, Special Devices Inc., would have been an important find. 42 But in Practical Bomb Scene Investigation, author James T. Thurman explains that -- "Regardless of how efficient the initiator is, all the explosives are never entirely used or destroyed." 43 Therefore, one might expect to find the remnants of whatever explosive materials were used to bring the buildings down. This might have included components of a thermite demolition device patented in 1996 by Komatsu, a company for which Marsh & McLennan executive (and Kerik's boss in Iraq) L. Paul Bremer was a board member. 44 Thermite is a chemical mixture of aluminum powder and one or more metal oxides, that releases an enormous amount of energy when the mixture is made to react. Nanothermites, developed by US national laboratories through the Department of Energy, are high-tech energetic materials made by preparing a mixture of ultra fine grain aluminum and metal oxides, intimately mixed on the nanometer scale. The large surface area to volume ratio of the reactants causes the rate of reaction to proceed much faster, and coupled with the addition of organic compounds to produce gases, nanothermites can be made to perform like high explosives. 45 Depending on the other explosive types used at the WTC, there might have been packaging materials remaining, like dynamite wrappers, paper backing for C-4, or plastic and metal clips from slurry and emulsion explosives. 46 According to a June 2000 Department of Justice guide, investigators would also typically look for timing devices. 47 Other clues normally sought include bomb components like external or internal containers, fragmented lengths of wire, batteries, or switches, or fully intact unexploded explosive devices. Due to the fact that nanothermite has been discovered in the WTC dust, any unexploded nanothermite would be important. But to remove such state-of-the-art evidence, one would need the experience to recognize it. One such experienced organization was Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). As mentioned in an earlier essay, SAIC was "the DOD and Homeland Security contractor that supplied the largest contingent of non-governmental investigators to the NIST WTC investigation. SAIC has extensive links to nanothermites, developing and judging nanothermite research proposals for the military and other military contractors, and developing and formulating nano-thermites directly. SAIC's subsidiary Applied Ordnance Technology has done research on the ignition of nanothermites with lasers." 48 SAIC, founded by a scientist from Los Alamos National Laboratory, had a long history at the WTC, having evaluated the basement levels of the buildings as a potential terrorist target in 1986. 49 Interestingly, the company was hired to investigate the 1993 bombing of the WTC, an event that was "remarkably like the one which" they had foreseen in 1986. 50 In fact, SAIC later boasted that -- "After the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, our blast analyses produced tangible results that helped identify those responsible." 51 It turns out that SAIC was one of the first organizations to show up at Ground Zero. The company claimed in its 2004 shareholder report that -- "Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, we responded rapidly to assist a number of customers near ground zero in New York City and in Washington, D.C." 52 In one of these instances, "SAIC technicians raced to Ground Zero within hours to install an ad hoc communications network for first responders and local financial companies." 53 Therefore, SAIC was in control of at least some of the communications at Ground Zero. Perhaps the most interesting SAIC connection to the cleanup was John Blitch, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army's Special Forces, who was said to have retired from the Army just the day before 9/11. It was reported that Blitch was "filling out the paperwork in an out-processing office of the Pentagon on the morning of September 10, 2001," and that after "three years at the helm of the Defense Department's Tactical Mobile Robots Program," he was "leaving to direct the Center for Intelligent Robotics and Unmanned Systems at the Science Applications International Corporation." 54 Instead of traveling to his new job at SAIC on 9/11, "Blitch scrapped the trip . . . and headed for New York. On the road, Blitch donned his fatigues, dug out his military id, and worked his cell phone, summoning colleagues from Florida to Boston to pack up their finest tactical robots and rendezvous at Ground Zero." And "Over the next 11 days, the group's 17 robots squeezed into spaces too narrow for humans, dug through heaps of scalding rubble, and found seven bodies trapped beneath the mountains of twisted steel and shattered concrete." 55 An award presentation for Blitch stated that -- "Within 15 minutes of the second plane crash into the WTC, Blitch called roboticists and manufacturers with field-ready robots to supplement robots donated by the federal government's Defense Applied Research Projects Agency (DARPA). He drove to New York from Washington, DC, and within six hours was met by teams from nearby companies. Eighteen hours after the attacks, robots were on the rubble pile." 56 Lieutenant Colonel Blitch was experienced at such search missions, and had done "ground-breaking research in robot assisted search and rescue conducted during the Oklahoma City Bombing response". 57 Blitch was also the former chief of unmanned systems at the U.S. Special Operations Command (US SOCOM), which conducts covert and clandestine missions. As an expert on unmanned aircraft, including Predator 2 and other drones, Blitch has stated: "Our airplanes are small and even look like birds -- so much so that other birds attack them and make mating advances on our aircraft". 58 Blitch developed his knowledge when he led the DARPA Tactical Mobile Robots program from 1998 to 2001. During this time, Blitch worked with NIST, the Commerce Department agency that wrote the final report on what happened at the WTC.59 In 1999, a report submitted to Blitch described laser technology being developed by the US Army in partnership with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and TRW. 60 By May 2001, laser technology was being used by Blitch's robot program. It was reported that -- "Robots are performing quite successfully in the field of explosive ordnance disposal (EOD)".. and "EOD units [include] a laser weapon for ordnance neutralization..[used to] burn unexploded ordnance." 61 Therefore, Lieutenant Colonel Blitch of SOCOM and SAIC had the means and opportunity to neutralize any unwanted explosives that might have been buried in the pile at Ground Zero. And his employer had done research on the laser ignition of nanothermites as stated before. The environmental data generated by EPA and the University of California Davis are supportive of the hypothesis that unexplained explosive and/or incendiary events were occurring at the site during the cleanup efforts. 62 Could it be that SAIC, a company that benefited tremendously from 9/11 through increased defense and intelligence spending, was working to eliminate unexploded nanothermite and/or other energetic materials at Ground Zero? If that were the case, SAIC might have been helped by experts in such explosive technology who were present at the site. In fact, representatives of the national laboratories run by the US Department of Energy (DOE) were present at Ground Zero. It was reported that -- "facilities providing staff and expertise included Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Savannah River Technology Center [SRTC], and Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory." 63 SRTC personnel assisted "by providing much needed on-the-spot fabrication of unique technologies for use by the search and rescue teams at the World Trade Center." 64 SRTC technical support during the search and rescue efforts was "primarily in the area of custom video systems." 65 What LLNL staff were doing at Ground Zero is not entirely clear. But it is important to note that LLNL was among the first national laboratories to develop nanothermites, working in conjunction with NIST. Other laboratories like Los Alamos also developed nanothermites at about the same time, in the mid to late 1990s. Also at Ground Zero, in the early days after 9/11, was Bechtel (Bechtel Environmental Safety & Health). Bechtel is in partnership with SAIC through a venture called Bechtel SAIC Company, LLC. It was said that the City "subcontracted Bechtel Corporation to assess [environmental hazards].. After the first week, Bechtel's involvement at the site was minimized by the City." Bechtel officially left the WTC site in November 2001. The Cleanup Operation During the five-month cleanup effort, there were unprecedented measures taken to control access to the site. The site was restricted, and photographs were banned, by order of Rudy Giuliani. 66 Anthony Mann of E.J. Electric, one of the primary security companies for the WTC towers, said that -- "Security is unbelievable. It's really on a need-to-be-down-there basis." 67 Despite the high security, a number of people found their way onto the site, and some of them just happened to find themselves in charge of the cleanup operations. An example of this was David H. Griffin, a demolition contractor from North Carolina. Hearing about the attacks, Griffin set off immediately for Manhattan. Apparently, on Friday the 14th he walked directly into the Ground Zero site with little trouble. "Griffin quickly became known as 'Carolina' to then-Mayor Rudolph Guliani, who let Griffin have complete control of the clean-up of the site despite the fact that Griffin had no ties to New York and had never worked there." 68 It's unclear why Giuliani would have placed an unknown contractor, with no ties to New York City, in charge of demolition at the WTC site. But it's interesting to note that the D.H. Griffin company had worked closely with the US DOE and the Department of Defense, as early as 1994, according to Mr. Griffin. 69 There were several other people who claimed to be in charge of the cleanup operation at Ground Zero. As stated earlier, it was said that OEM was in charge, and that Richard Sheirer was the point person for the cleanup efforts. Others believed that Mike Burton, the executive deputy commissioner of the New York City Department of Design and Construction (DDC), was in charge. But Jim Abadie, who was the leader of one of four companies hired by the City to cleanup the debris, indicated that he didn't believe Burton was in charge. In a formal deposition, Abadie "smiled when [he] said, if you listen to Michael, it was him." 70 Most reports indicated that officials of the City of New York were in charge of the site, primarily through DDC. But the claim that Giuliani specifically put DDC in charge was downplayed by Burton, who said that the DDC just fell into its role as leader at the site. That DDC would be in charge of the construction response was never an official charge from Coles or Mayor Rudolph Giuliani," Burton remembered, adding that: " In early January, I realized that no one ever asked me to manage the effort at Ground Zero. I just did what I thought had to be done, and it just happened." DDC Commissioner Kenneth Holden also said: " We were there, no one said 'no,' so we went ahead." 71 Mike Burton did coordinate the demolition and cleanup operations, but later testified that -- "Everything was coordinated through his boss Holden, deputy mayors and the mayor." 72 After his WTC work was done, DDC's Burton was hired as Senior Vice President of URS Corporation. URS is the same company that bought The Washington Group (Morrison-Knudsen), the south tower tenant that had so many connections to the DOE and that had been hired by the Army Corps of Engineers to demolish over 200 buildings. Today, the Washington Division of URS still helps manage and operate several national laboratories, including LLNL, through a partnership with Battelle. At URS, Burton is responsible for construction projects and is also involved in the company's Security Services Group. 73 At Ground Zero, DDC handed over the most important of its decision-making responsibility to LZA/Thornton-Tomasetti, whose leaders were Charles Thornton, later a member of the advisory board for the NIST WTC investigation, and Richard Tomasetti. The fact that LZA/Thornton-Tomasetti was really in charge became clear when someone needed to take responsibility for the decision to recycle all the steel evidence. It was finally said that Richard Tomasetti made that decision, despite the outrage from the public, fire engineering experts and the victim's family members. When asked why he did it, Tomasetti claimed that -- "had he known the direction that investigations into the collapses would take, he would have taken a different stand." 74 The recycling of the most important steel evidence was done in a hurry, as indicated by the US House Committee on Science report mentioned earlier. It was done so fast, in fact, that the City took much less than market value for the scrap metal. At the time, steel scrap was selling for $150 per ton, but those in charge of the WTC cleanup took just $120 per ton for the WTC steel. 75 It's not difficult to see that the $9 million lost in that transaction would have been useful to the many 9/11 first responders who have since become sick and are dying from their exposure to toxins at Ground Zero. Tomasetti's extremely unpopular, and probably criminal, decision was supported by the new mayor of NYC, Michael Bloomberg. Using a strange, diversionary excuse, Bloomberg said: "If you want to take a look at the construction methods and the design, that's in this day and age what computers do. Just looking at a piece of metal generally doesn't tell you anything." Bloomberg's claim was not at all true, as forensic investigators will confirm. Other than the supervisory firm LZA/Thornton-Tomasetti, the City also hired five construction companies to handle the majority of the debris removal, and the site was divided up among them. These five companies were AMEC Construction Management, Bovis Lend Lease, Turner Construction, Tully Construction and Tishman Construction. Charlie Vitchers, who worked for Jim Abadie at Bovis, and was a leader at Ground Zero, said the site was then broken up "into basically five segments. Building 7 debris was given to Tishman. The northwest corner of the site was given to AMEC. The northeast section of the site was given to Tully. And the southwest corner of the site and Tower 2 debris removal was given to Bovis." 76 Turner Construction was assigned to a central location between building 5 and building 6. The five construction companies hired other sub-contractors to complete most of the actual debris removal. Most of the sub-contractors hired were suspected of being associated with organized crime. Some sub-contractors were reportedly linked to the Colombo crime family, including Civetta Cousins, and Yonkers Contracting. Others were associated with the Luchese crime family. An interesting sidebar to this story is that, in October 1990, Louis DiBono, an associate of the Gambino crime family, was murdered in the basement levels of the WTC. DiBono claimed to have a contract worth millions of dollars to re-fireproof the WTC buildings. Sammy "The Bull" Gravano was charged with the murder but was apparently acting on the orders of John Gotti, the Gambino boss at the time. DiBono's body was found three days after he was murdered, in the parking garage of the WTC near where a bomb-laden van would be set-off three years later. 77 After 9/11, a contractor with one of the biggest presences at Ground Zero was Seasons Contracting Corp., owned by Salvatore Carucci, a reputed Luchese associate. "We were called in by AMEC, one of the team of general contractors managing the cleanup," said Bill Singley, a Seasons project manager. AMEC also hired Big Apple Wrecking, owned by Harold Greenberg, a reputed mob associate whose firm was barred from government work because of his convictions in bid-rigging and bribery conspiracies. Another firm that investigators allege was controlled by Greenberg, Safeway Environmental, also was hired to work at Ground Zero. One of the first firms on the scene was Mazzocchi Wrecking, brought in by the New York City Housing Preservation Department, but then hired by AMEC. A few months after 9/11, the N.J. Division of Gaming Enforcement "charged that three members of the DeCavalcante crime family worked for Mazzocchi." 78 Other AMEC contractors that were linked to the mob were Peter Scalamandre & Sons, and Breeze National, both linked to the Luchese crime family. AMEC's lead person on the ground was Vice President Leo DiRubbo, a reputed associate of the Luchese crime family. Rudy Giuliani also had connections to the organized crime, other than just Bernard Kerik. Rudy's father, Harold Giuliani (alias Joseph Starrett), was a convicted hold-up man who served time in Sing Sing prison, and was later employed as an enforcer for a Mafia loan shark operation. Rudy's uncle (his mother's brother), Leo D'Avanzo, ran a loan-sharking and gambling operation with Jimmy Dano, "who was a made man." 79 Additionally, Rudy's cousin Lewis D'Avanzo "was a stone cold gangster who was shot to death in 1977 by FBI agents when he tried to run them down with his car." 80 Of course, the sins of Rudy's father, and his uncle, and his cousin, and his appointed Police Commissioner should not be used to judge Rudy himself. But these facts are worth considering in that Rudy and his staff hired mafia--connected companies to cleanup Ground Zero. These companies all made a lot of money at the WTC site. Of the $458 million in federal 9/11 aid spent on debris removal, AMEC took $65.8 million, Bovis hauled in $277.2 million, Tully got $76 million and Turner got $39 million. Subcontractors Breeze National, Peter Scalamandre & Sons, Civetta Cousins, Safeway Environmental and Yonkers Contracting made millions of dollars from their work at the site. Subcontractors Mazzocchi Wrecking and Seasons Contracting made tens of millions of dollars. Another company that was "all over ground zero" was Laquila Construction, run by mob boss Dino Tomassetti. 81 It's not clear if Richard Tomasetti is related to Dino Tomassetti or his family, although the surnames are often interchangeable. The name Tomasetti (or Tomassetti) comes from L'Aquila, Italy, hence the company name. Turner Construction, one of the primary contractors at Ground Zero, occupied the 38th floor of the north tower, and was involved in performing the fireproofing upgrades in the towers. It has been noted that these upgrades were completed, in the three years before 9/11, on floors that match up almost identically to the floors of impact and failure on 9/11. 82 In any case, since 1999 Turner has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Hochtief AG, and its CEO is Thomas C. Leppert, who later became mayor of Dallas. President George W. Bush appointed Mayor Leppert to the President's Commission on White House Fellows, and Bush now lives in Dallas, about a mile away from Leppert. 83 Of the other primary contractors, Tishman Construction Corporation oversaw the construction of the new WTC 7, as well as the "Freedom Tower." Primary contractor Tully Construction retained Controlled Demolition Inc. (CDI), a company that had been involved in the demolition of the bombed Murrah Building in Oklahoma in 1995. CDI was led by Mark Loizeaux, who later became a major defender of the government's story about 9/11. Like some other experts with large government contracts, Loizeaux was at first uncertain about what had happened at the WTC, then changed his story, apparently in order to harmonize with the official story. 84 Once the cleanup was fully coordinated, the operations were consolidated under the control of two of the five primary contractors: AMEC Construction Management and Bovis Lend Lease. These are the two companies that were originally assigned the areas of Ground Zero that included the north tower (AMEC) and the south tower (Bovis). A truly surprising fact is that, at the time of the attacks on 9/11, AMEC had just completed a $258 million refurbishment of Wedge 1 of the Pentagon, which is exactly where AA Flight 77 impacted that building. 85 At Ground Zero AMEC was led by its Vice Chairman, John Cavanagh, who had previously been the President and COO of Morse Diesel International, the predecessor to AMEC. Morse Diesel had retrofitted WTC building 7 for Salomon Brothers in 1989. In January 2002, Rudy Guiliani issued a Certificate of Recognition to Cavanagh for his dedication to the City of New York. Cavanagh had described the Ground Zero worksite as "the longest commercial fire that has ever occurred at a site." What kept the fire burning, he said, was a huge volume of "plastic, carpet and furniture below the rubble," which the New York Fire Department was "constantly wetting down." 86 Cavanagh is now President of American Fire Suppressant Products. AMEC was a subsidiary of the British conglomerate AMEC, a company that provides "engineering and project management services to the world's energy, power and process industries." 87 The company is a major international player in the oil and gas industry, as well as in other natural resource industries. AMEC had a significant presence in Saudi Arabia dating back to the late 1970s, providing support to the national oil company Saudi Aramco, which is by far the richest company in the world. 88, 89 Executives and board members at AMEC include former directors of NM Rothschild, Kellogg, Brown and Root (now Halliburton), and SG Warburg. Bovis Lend Lease was another British construction giant, and was founded by Sir Frank Lampl, a Czech holocaust survivor who worked in the Middle East in the 1970s. 90 The company built the Abu Dhabi Chamber of Commerce and the Riyadh Olympic stadium in Saudi Arabia. The US operations were led by Luther Cochrane, who was President and Chief Executive Officer of the holding company for the group's US operations, since September 1995. 91 Bovis' representatives in charge of the WTC site were Jim Abadie and his assistant Charlie Vitchers. In a videotaped deposition for a lawsuit related to health issues, Abadie mentioned that the Bovis project managers for the WTC cleanup project were Mike Biliewa and Jack Masagna. No information is readily available for either of these men. Years later, Abadie was also in charge of the Deutsche Bank demolition and the September 11th memorial before he resigned in the midst of an investigation into billing and payroll practices at five Bovis projects in New York, including the memorial and Deutsche Bank. 92 For the Deutsche Bank demolition, in 2004, Abadie hired a previously non-existent and highly suspect company called John Galt Construction. 93 After the deaths of two firefighters during the demolition project, John Galt was found to be in the middle of a multi-million dollar "check-cashing" scandal led by two characters named Riad Khalil and Neil Goldstein. Apparently Mr. Khalil had bank records indicating that he had $2.4 million in a bank account in Zurich. 94 Also involved in the Deutsche Bank demolition was Charles Schwab, an associate of Harold Greenberg, who "once controlled seven banks, a casino in Reno and a big chunk of Hilton Head Island [and] the largest demolition company in the country." 95 Schwab was also associated with Phoenix Wrecking, a demolition and abatement company. It's not clear if this is the same company as the Phoenix Fireproofing listed in FOIA-obtained documents related to the WTC fireproofing upgrades. 96 But it is clear that mayor Bloomberg's office and the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation (LMDC) were aware of the suspicious companies involved in the Deutsche Bank fiasco. 97 LMDC was mandated to "alleviate existing conditions that pose a serious and immediate threat to the health or welfare of New York City or meet community development needs resulting from Sept. 11, 2001." In practice, this meant that LMDC made a lot of the decisions about what happened at Ground Zero after the cleanup and perhaps even before it was completed. LMDC was created by Governor Pataki and Mayor Giuliani without approval from the state legislature, in November 2001. 98 They appointed as chairman John C. Whitehead, the former Deputy Secretary of State under George Shultz. Whitehead was formerly chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, an organization that has more recently played an integral role in the bailout of large institutions like AIG and has been referred to as "a black-ops outfit for the nation's central bank." 99 Whitehead was also a member of The Pilgrims Society, a British-American association. Other members of The Pilgrims Society have included some of the most powerful un-elected officials in history, like Shultz, several Rockefellers, James Baker, and Henry Kissinger. The federal government promised $21.4 billion in aid in order to rebuild Manhattan, and LMDC was in charge of spending a great deal of that money. Unfortunately, much of it was doled out in pork projects that benefited friends of LMDC, including the Alliance for Downtown New York (ADNY), a business interest group whose members were on the LMDC board. Carl B. Weisbrod was President of ADNY as well as a director of LMDC. Weisbrod was also a previous member of Giuliani's staff and a member of the board at the Ford Foundation. A good friend of George W. Bush was a director of LMDC. This was Roland Betts, who once owned the Texas Rangers with Bush and Bush's relative, Marsh & McClennan's Craig Stapleton. Betts was also a "heavy contributor to the Bush election campaign in 2000." 100 Another LMDC director was Frank G. Zarb, who was one of the first US Energy Czars, appointed by President Ford. 101 Debris removal and theft The debris removed from Ground Zero was either hauled away on trucks or shipped away on barges. Despite the effort to rapidly dispose of the steel and sell it at a bargain price, the WTC debris was considered highly sensitive. At first the trucks were tracked using a paper-based system, and later GPS devices were fixed to each truck with "antennas to monitor location, cellular wireless antennas to communicate, and multiple I/Os to track vehicle signals from engine systems." 102 Apparently it was important for officials to know not only where the trucks were at any given time, but also the status of the engine. As for the barges, the process was setup "in record time," in order to "transport debris to the city's Fresh Kills landfill and to recycling sites, all scrutinized by the Corps of Engineers." 103 As the debris was received at Fresh Kills landfill, it was sorted carefully. This sorting process was supervised by federal agents, and described in this way: "Teams of officers and agents watch as the rubble is sifted down to a fine ashy silt that they then rake through by hand." 104 More than a year later, honest FBI agents reported the theft of some of this debris at the Fresh Kills site. It was then discovered that Evidence Recovery Teams (ERTs) involved in the sorting process stole pieces of debris, and kept or disposed of them. This removal of debris was condoned and encouraged by the FBI agents in charge. Richard Marx, the FBI Special Agent from Philadelphia who was the site manager for the Fresh Kills site, was the one blamed for encouraging others to take materials from the debris. When the theft was reported to the public, there was an investigation by FBI authorities and a report was generated for director Robert Mueller. It was found that Marx made a number of false statements during investigative interviews, and then failed a polygraph on the issues related to his role. Marx first said that he didn't allow debris to be taken, then he said it was New York FBI agent Kevin Donovan who told him to take things, then he later said it was another FBI agent, Edwin Cogswell, who approved the theft. Marx also admitted that he took things specifically for FBI Assistant Director in Charge, Barry Mawn. Donovan, Mawn and Jerome Hauer were all close associates of John O'Neill, the retired FBI al Qaeda expert and security director for Silverstein Properties who reportedly died at the WTC on his second day in the office. 105 The report on debris theft concluded that -- "many FBI agents took rubble as souvenirs from Fresh Kills." An example given was that one Oklahoma City ERT member took 80 pounds of various debris materials, including things like an "electrical outlet." More commonly, building pieces were taken, including "red granite building faÃ§ade." The claim that these were merely souvenirs seemed unlikely considering the volume of materials stolen, and considering that WTC building 7 was the focus of much of the theft. In fact, pieces of the building "were stacked in a designated location of the Building 7 inspection area" in order for Secret Service agents to retrieve. 106 Pat D'Amuro, who was mentioned earlier as an employee of Giuliani Partners, was also involved in the theft of WTC debris materials from the Fresh Kills site. D'Amuro had specifically requested that certain kinds of items be kept for his retrieval, ostensibly so that he could give them away as mementos to various dignitaries. What is odd about that is that D'Amuro was not in charge of the Fresh Kills operation, but he had been the counterterrorism chief in the FBI's New York City office since 1997, which meant that his responsibilities included oversight of the Joint Terrorism Task Force. As the FBI's lead person in terms of investigating and preventing terrorist acts before 9/11, D'Amuro had also been appointed to lead the investigations of the 1993 WTC bombing and other al Qaeda-attributed crimes. The 1993 bombing investigation was claimed to be fraudulent by one of FBI's own employees, in a then famous incident of whistle blowing. Frederick Whitehurst, of the FBI crime laboratory that was analyzing the evidence from the bombing, claimed that "attempts had been made to alter his lab reports to exclude scientific interpretations other than" the official explantion. Whitehurst went on to claim that FBI leadership had been altering evidence and test results for a number of years, in order to support pre-determined conclusions. 107 Despite failing to follow-up on any of the leads that could have prevented the attacks of 9/11, D'Amuro was placed in charge of the miraculous PENTTBOM investigation just after those attacks. 108 PENTTBOM was miraculous not only for its name, which stood for Pentagon/Twin Towers Bombing (yes, bombing), but also for the rapidity in which the case was solved. That is, although US authorities claimed to have had no knowledge of or ability to stop the 9/11 attacks, the FBI was able to identify all nineteen alleged hijackers within 72 hours. 109 To date, no connections have been established between the nineteen alleged hijackers and people who had the means and opportunity to place explosives in the WTC buildings. However, there are some interesting links between the alleged conspirators and those who were involved in the cover-up investigations. For example, the Joint House and Senate Inquiry into 9/11 was led by Representative Porter Goss and Senator Bob Graham, both of whom were among those who met with Pakistani ISI General Mahmoud Ahmed in the week before 9/11. 110 That Ahmed had ordered the wiring of $100,000 to Mohamed Atta, and had numerous contacts with alleged "9/11 paymaster" Saeed Sheikh in the weeks before 9/11, did not appear to warrant mention in Goss and Graham's report. 111 Other surprising links have been identified between those who ran the security companies, those who were tenants in the three buildings, those who financed of terrorism, and those who had the power to control an operation such as the destruction of the WTC. 112 Conclusion During the cleanup of Ground Zero there were many indications that the public was being deceived. These included the discovery of foreknowledge about the destruction that originated with Rudy Giuliani, his OEM staff, and perhaps the US Secret Service. Additionally, the steel was destroyed in an unprecedented manner and the black boxes were officially reported as not being found when it was clear that they had been. The restrictions on FEMA investigators and on photographers, and the extensive site security are all indications that something was being hidden. Not the least of the indications of deception was the fact that the health of the people working at the site was not considered a major concern, but expedited removal of the debris was of paramount importance. Therefore we have additional reasons to suspect that explosive materials were being hidden or destroyed during the cleanup. Those who were in control of Ground Zero did have the means and opportunity to dispose of any evidence of explosives. The opportunity came in the form of access to the highly secure site, as well as the authority to hire suspected crime syndicate companies to perform the actual cleanup. Theft of evidence by FBI agents at Fresh Kills landfill provides yet more suspicion that remnants of explosive devices were being removed. In addition to removal of evidence-containing debris, evidence could have been eliminated by neutralization of explosives within the pile, through the use of the robotic equipment operated at the site by people like John Blitch of SAIC. These same robotic devices had previously been used with lasers for the purpose of eliminating unexploded ordnance, and SAIC had done research in the ignition of nanothermite via lasers. Additional expertise might have been provided by the DOE, which had developed nanothermite materials similar to those found in WTC dust and whose staff were present at Ground Zero. DOE contractors like David H. Griffin, who just showed up and yet was placed in charge of the demolition operations at Ground Zero, might have also played a role in recognizing or eliminating explosive evidence. As for motive, it's not difficult to understand that the War on Terror has been focused on areas within the Middle East where the last remaining vast petroleum reserves are located. The US departments of Energy and Defense have vital long-term interests in those regions, as do the many people mentioned in relation to those departments in this essay series. Those who were involved in Ground Zero activities appear to have gone on to profitable partnerships with each other, with WTC tenant company representatives, and in the Middle East. Examples included Giuliani Partners like Bernard Kerik, who was promoted to work with L. Paul Bremer in Iraq, and also Mike Burton, who was hired as a Vice President at URS (Washington Group). URS and its Washington Group division are among the companies that have been awarded major contracts in Iraq and that depend largely on military contracts in general. 113 Perhaps not surprisingly, those involved with the cleanup had strong links to Saudi Arabia. This included Kerik, SAIC, and the British construction companies AMEC and Bovis. Kerik worked for the Saudi royal family for four years and SAIC, AMEC and Bovis had all done significant work for the Kingdom. SAIC later profited handsomely from the War on Terror, and AMEC also went on to win enormous contracts in Iraq to renovate buildings, rebuild water and sewage networks, restore power, "and improve operations and security at military bases for the new Iraqi Armed Forces." 114 The companies that designed and built the security systems for the WTC complex had strong connections to Saudi Arabia too. For example, Kroll Associates board member Raymond Mabus was the US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, and all four of the WTC security implementation companies had completed major projects in Saudi Arabia. Former FBI director Louis Freeh, whose agency investigated al Qaeda-attributed terrorism from 1993 to 2001, is now the personal attorney for Saudi ambassador "Bandar Bush." 115 The Saudi government has been sued by thousands of 9/11 victim's family members due to the suspicion that Saudi Arabia helped to finance al Qaeda. 116 The Saudis hired the law firm of Bush Administration insider James Baker to defend them in that lawsuit. In conclusion, this essay series has presented an idea of what organizations and individuals had the needed access to place explosives in the WTC buildings, and a picture of who had the ability to destroy evidence related to those explosive materials. It has also provided more information about who profited from the attacks of 9/11, and therefore who might have been motivated to destroy the buildings and induce the trauma that led to the War on Terror. With this information, a more plausible explanation for what happened at the WTC can be considered, one that better fits the known facts than does the current official explanation. By necessity, any explanation will involve a conspiracy. But perhaps we can now propose a conspiracy "we can believe in." ************* Endnotes and references: 1 Graeme MacQueen, 118 Witnesses: The Firefighter's Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers, Journal of 9/11 Studies, August 21, 2006, http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Article_5_118Witnesses_WorldTradeCenter.pdf 2 Jim Hoffman, WTC Attack Photos: Surviving Photographic Evidence of the World Trade Center Attack, http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/photos/index.html 3 Steven E. Jones, et al, Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction, The Open Civil Engineering Journal Volume 2, doi: 10.2174/1874149500802010035 http://www.bentham.org/open/tociej/openaccess2.htm 4 Eric Douglas, R.A., The NIST WTC Investigation--How Real Was The Simulation?, Journal of 9/11 Studies, December 2006, http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200612/NIST-WTC-Investigation.pdf 5 Jim Hoffman, Review of 'A New Standard For Deception: The NIST WTC Report' A Presentation by Kevin Ryan, 911research.wtc7.net, 10/15/06, http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/kevin_ryan/newstandard.html 6 Steven E. Jones, et al, Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction, Journal of 9/11 Studies, Volume 19, January 2008, http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf 7 Kevin R. Ryan, et al, Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials, The Environmentalist, Volume 29, Number 1 / March, 2009, http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/ 8 Niels H. Harrit, et al, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol 2, 2009, doi: 10.2174/1874412500902010007, http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM 9 Alexander Beveridge (ed.), Forensic Investigation of Explosions, chapter 4, General Protocols at the scene of an Explosion, by Jean-Yves Vermette 10 Kevin R. Ryan, Demolition access to the World Trade Center towers: Part one -- Tenants, 7-09-09, Distributed via the Unanswered Questions Wire and found at 911Truth.org, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090713033854249 11 Kevin R. Ryan, Demolition Access To The WTC Towers: Part Two -- Security, Scoop Independent News, August 13, 2009, found at 911Truth.org, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090813150853871 12 Sourcewatch page on Destruction of Evidence from Ground Zero at the World Trade Center, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Destruction_of_Evidence_from_Ground_Zero_at_the_World_Trade_Center 13 Peter Jennings of ABC intervew with Rudy Giuliani, 9/11/01 Rudy Giuliani warned of WTC collapse beforehand - Interview with Peter Jennings, Youtube, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ou4MakVHCYc 14 Jim Hoffman, Giuliani Warned: Mayor Giuliani Had Privileged Warning of Unprecedented Collapse, 911Research.WTC7.net, http://lege.net/blog.lege.net/911research.wtc7.net/wtc/attack/giuliani.html 15 World Trade Center Task Force Interview, EMT Richard Zarrillo, October 25, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110161.PDF?scp=1&sq=OEM%20wtc&st=cse 16 World Trade Center Task Force Interview, Abdo Nahmod, October 11, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110061.PDF 17 Graeme MacQueen, Waiting for Seven: WTC 7 Collapse Warnings in the FDNY Oral Histories, Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 11, 2008, http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200701/MacQueenWaitingforSeven.pdf 18 History Commons Profile for Richard Rotanz, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=richard_rotanz 19 Graeme MacQueen, Waiting for Seven 20 World Trade Center Task Force Interview, Fire Marshal Steven Mosiello, October 23, 2001, http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110141.PDF?scp=3&sq=OEM%20wtc&st=cse 21 Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, Grand Illusion: The Untold Story of Rudy Giuliani and 9/11, Harper Collins, 2006, p12 22 World Trade Center Task Force Interview, Chief Joseph Pfeifer, October 23, 2001, http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110138.PDF 23 Testimony of Richard Sheirer to the 9/1 Commission, May 18, 2004 http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/911/hearings/hearing11/sheirer_statement.pdf 24 History Commons profile for John Odermatt, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=john_odermatt_1 25 Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, Grand Illusion, p 33-35 26 History Commons profile for John Odermatt 27 History Commons profile for John Odermatt 28 Christopher Marquis, Ex-Top Cop Gets Iraq Post, May 16, 2003, http://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/16/international/worldspecial/16PENT.html 29 Russ Buettner, Tough Guy With Charm, Often Living on the Edge, November 10, 2007, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/10/nyregion/10man.html?scp=16&sq=%22Bernard%20kerik%22%20saudi&st=cse 30 Stephanie Gaskell, Former Iraq Commander: Bernard Kerik was 'a waste of time' in Iraq, New York Daily News, May 5th 2008, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/05/05/2008-05-05_former_iraq_commander_bernard_kerik_was_.html 31 Memo from Donald Rumsfeld to Jerry Bremer and Gen. John Abizaid, CC: Gen. Dick Myers, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith, "Subject: Training Iraqi Police," September 29, 2003. See also Memo from Donald Rumsfeld to Jerry Bremer, CC: Paul Wolfowitz, October 2, 2003. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2009/RAND_MG847.pdf 32 Wikipedia page for Bernard Kerik, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernard_Kerik 33 William K. Rashbaum, Giuliani Testified He Was Briefed on Kerik in '00, The New York Times, March 30, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/us/politics/30rudy.html?_r=1&scp=6&sq=%22Bernard%20kerik%22%20saudi&st=cse 34 Paul Kiel, TPM's Ultimate Kerik Scandal List!, TPM Muckraker, November 9, 2007, http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/004683.php 35 The New York Times, Times Topics -- People, Bernard B. Kerik, Nov. 5, 2009, http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/k/bernard_b_kerik/index.html 36 Suzanne Mattei, Pollution and Deception at Ground Zero: How the Bush Administration's Reckless Disregard of 9/11 Toxic Hazards Poses Long-Term Threats for New York City and the Nation, Sierra Club, http://www.gothamgazette.com/rebuilding_nyc/sierraclub_report.pdf 37 Report from the Committee on Science, US House of Representatives, March 6,2002, http://web.archive.org/web/20021128021952/http://commdocs.house.gov/committees/science/hsy77747.000/hsy77747_0.htm 38 Gail Swanson, Behind-the-Scenes: Ground Zero, A Collection of Personal Accounts, available at this link: http://www.summeroftruth.org/groundzero.html 39 Jim Hoffman, Black Boxes: Contents of Flight Data and Cockpit Voice Recorders Are Missing, 911Research.com, http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/blackboxes.html 40 ABC News, Terrorist Hunt: Suspects id'd; Rescue Efforts Go On; White House Originally Targeted, September 12, 2001, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/deceptions/abc_hunt.html 41 Susan Ginsberg testimony to National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Public Hearing, Monday, January 26, 2004, http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing7/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-01-26.htm 42 Webpage for Special Devices, Inc, http://www.specialdevices.com/mining/products.htm 43 James T. Thurman, Practical bomb scene investigation, CRC taylor & Francis, 2006, p 197 44 US Patent 5532449 - Using plasma ARC and thermite to demolish concrete, Issued on July 2, 1996, http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/5532449/description.html 45 Kevin R. Ryan, The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nanothermites, Journal of 9/11 Studies, July 2008, http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/Ryan_NIST_and_Nano-1.pdf 46 Alexander Beveridge, Forensic investigation of explosions, Taylor & Francis, 1998, p 96 47 U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, Fire and Arson Scene Evidence: A Guide for Public Safety Personnel, June 2000, NCJ 181584, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181584.pdf 48 Kevin R. Ryan, The Top Ten Connections Between NIST and Nanothermites 49 History Commons, Context of '(Mid-1986): Report Rates Vulnerability of Public Areas of WTC to Terrorist Attack as 'Very High'', http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a86saicreport 50 New York State Law Reporting Bureau, In The Matter of World Trade Center Bombing Litigation, 2004 NY Slip Op 24030 [3 Misc 3d 440], January 20, 2004, http://www.courts.state.ny.us/reporter/3dseries/2004/2004_24030.htm 51 Science Applications International Corporation, Annual Report 2004 http://www.saic.com/news/pdf/Annual-Report2004.pdf 52 SAIC shareholder report, 2004, http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/SAIC/0x0x208149/64117BC7-5895-497E-A8EB-158A6E57012C/AR_2004.pdf 53 William Launder, Homeland Security Goes Public, Forbes.com, 08.03.06, http://www.forbes.com/2006/08/02/saic-homeland-security-ipo-cx_wl_0803saic.html 54 Michael Behar, The New Mobile Infantry: Battle-ready robots are rolling out of the research lab and into harm's way, Wired, Issue 10.05 | May 2002, http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/10.05/robots.html 55 Ibid 56 Developer of Robots Used in World Trade Center Rescue Efforts Honored by ACM, March 11, 2002, http://www.acm.org/announcements/lawler_2001.html 57 American Android Corp webpage, About Us, http://www.americanandroid.com/about.jb.html 58 Del Quentin Wilber, Drones Raise Safety Issues as Service Roles Multiply, Washington Post, July 20, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/19/AR2007071902347.html 59 Sylvia PagÃ¡n Westphal, Robots join search and rescue teams, The New Scientist, 19 September 2001, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn1321 60 Elli Angelopoulou and John R. Wright Jr., Laser Scanner Technology, University of Pennsylvania Department of Computer & Information Science Technical Reports (CIS), 1999, http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1083&context=cis_reports 61 Sandra I. Erwin, Battlefield Robots: Not Just 'Entertainment', National Defense, May 2001, http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/archive/2001/May/Pages/Battlefield_Robots4252.aspx 62 Kevin R. Ryan, et al, Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center 63 DOE This Month, US Department of Energy newsletter, October 2001, http://www.p2pays.org/ref/18/17889.pdf 64 News from the Savannah River National Laboratory, September 20, 2001, http://srnl.doe.gov/newsroom/2001news/nyc_911.pdf 65 Savannah River National Laboratory, Urban Search and Rescue Technology Needs, June 2004, http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/207771.pdf 66 Jim Hoffman, Access Restrictions: The Closure of Ground Zero to Investigators, 911Research.WTC7.net, http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/restrictions.html 67 http://september11.ceenews.com/ar/electric_ej_electric_workers_3/index.htm 68 Kerry Kesler, Conscience called him to help lead clean-up effort at WTC, The Courier-Tribune, 2002, accessed at DH Griffin website, http://www.dhgriffin.com/utility/news/courier-tribune-2002.asp 69 Anne Claire Broughton, Demolishing and Recycling, Recycling Today, January 1994, accessed at the DH Griffin website, http://www.dhgriffin.com/utility/news/recyclingToday.asp 70 Videotaped Deposition of James Abadie taken by Plaintiffs, United States District Court, SDNY, July 15, 2005, http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC%20DEPOS/ASCI/Abadie,%20James%207-15-05/050715abadiefinal.txt 71 Debra K. Rubin, Creating order from chaos in leading the public-private construction team that responded to the Sept. 11 devastation at Ground Zero, Engineering News-Record, 4/22/2002, http://enr.construction.com/people/people/archives/020422a.asp 72 Wayne Barrett and Dan Collins, Grand Illusion, p 257 73 PBS, America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero, web page for Mike Burton, http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/profiles/profiles_burton_2.html 74 History Commons profile for Richard Tomasetti, http://www.historycommons.org/entity.jsp?entity=richard_tomasetti_1 75 China.org.cn, Baosteel Will Recycle World Trade Center Debris, http://china.org.cn/english/2002/Jan/25776.htm 76 PBS, Interview with Charlie Vitchers for the film "America Rebuilds: A Year at Ground Zero", http://www.pbs.org/americarebuilds/profiles/profiles_vitchers_t.html 77 J. R. de Szigethy, Replacing Robert Morgenthau, AmericanMafia.com, September 2009, http://americanmafia.com/Feature_Articles_442.html 78 New York Daily News, Exposed: Map of Ground Zerp spoils: Where the money went to clear Trade Center debris, cached at AsthmaMoms 9/11 WTC Environmental Health News, http://www.asthmamoms.com/worldtradecenter2005.htm 79 Wayne Barrett, Thug Life: The Shocking Secret History of Harold Giuliani, the Mayor's Ex-Convict Dad, The Village Voice, July 4th 2000, http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-07-04/news/thug-life/1 80 The Smoking Gun, Guiliani: The Hits Keep on Comin', http://www.thesmokinggun.com/rudy/rudy.html 81 Charles V. Bagli, US: At Ground Zero, Builder Is Barred but Not His Kin, The New York Times, July 21st, 2006, accessed at CorpWatch, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=13922 82 Kevin R. Ryan, Another amazing coincidence related to the WTC, 911Blogger, January 6, 2008, http://www.911blogger.com/node/13272 83 Aidan Monaghan, Pre-9/11 WTC Steel Fireproofing/Post-9/11 Ground Zero Clean-Up Contractor, Planned 2000 Seattle Kingdome Demolition, 911Blogger.com, March 4, 2009, http://www.911blogger.com/node/19516 84 Jim Hoffman, Notable Retractions: Experts Change Their Tune to Harmonize with the Official Story, 911Research.WTC7.net, http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/retractions/index.html 85 U.S. Department of Defense, News Transcript, Mr. Lee Evey, Pentagon Renovation Manager, September 15, 2001, http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=1636 86 Francesca Lyman, Messages in the Dust, The National Environmental Health Association, September 2003, http://www.neha.org/pdf/messages_in_the_dust.pdf 87 Website for AMEC, http://www.amec.com/ 88 Ibid 89 Nicholas A. Vardy, The World's Most Valuable Companies, The Global Guru, December 2009, http://www.theglobalguru.com/article.php?id=83&offer=GURU001 90 Wikipedia page for Frank Lampl, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lampl 91 Bovis Construction news release, http://www.prnewswire.co.uk/cgi/news/release?id=15089 92 Douglas Feiden and Greg B. Smith, James Abadie, executive at Bovis Lend Lease in charge of Sept. 11 Memorial, resigns amid probe, New York Daily News, June 15th 2009, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/ny_crime/2009/06/15/2009-06-15_james_abadie_executive_at_b_in_charge_of_sept_11_memorial_resigns_in_the_wake_of.html 93 Charles V. Bagli, David W. Dunlap and William K. Rashbaum, Obscure Company Is Behind 9/11 Demolition Work, The New York Times, August 23, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/nyregion/23company.html?_r=1 94 Colin Moynihan, 2 Charged in Check Scheme Uncovered After Bank Fire, The New York Times, July 28, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/nyregion/29checks.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=%22john%20galt%22%20zero&st=cse 95 William K. Rashbaum and Charles V. Bagli, Demolition Man, The New York Times, July 31, 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/02/nyregion/02demo.html?scp=4&sq=%22john%20galt%22%20&st=cse 96See WTC Fireproofing Documents obtained by James Gourley via FOIA, 911blogger.com, 2/2/2009, http://www.911blogger.com/node/19271 97 Charles V. Bagli and William K. Rashbaum, Questions on City's Role in Demolition Near 9/11 Site, The New York Times, August 29, 2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/29/nyregion/29deutsche.html?_r=1&scp=7&sq=%22john+galt%22+trade+center&st=nyt 98 The New York Daily News Investigative Team: Russ Buettner, Heidi Evans, Robert Gearty, Brian Kates, Greg B. Smith and Assistant Managing Editor Richard T. Pienciak, Ground Zero: $2.7B money pot, December 6, 2005, http://listserv.fsl.com/pipermail/wtcrc/2005-December/000032.html 99 David Reilly, Secret Banking Cabal Emerges From AIG Shadows, Bloomberg, 1/29/2010, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&sid=aaIuE.W8RAuU 100 Wikipedia page for Roland Betts, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_W._Betts 101 The initial directors of LMDC are listed in documents obtained via FOAI request by Cryptome, http://cryptome.org/wtc-foia.htm 102 Jacqueline Emigh, GPS on the Job in Massive World Trade Center Clean-up, Access Control & Security Systems, Jul 1, 2002, http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/groundzero/security_gps.html 103 Debra K. Rubin 104 NPR News, Sifting Through the WTC Rubble: 'Ground Zero' Effort Nears End, Search Continues at Fresh Kills, May 30, 2002, http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/may/freshkills/ 105 Glenn A. Fine, Memorandum for Robert S. Mueller III, U. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, December 17, 2003, http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/ssi/giuliani_damuroigeport.pdf , also available in html, http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0403a/index.htm 106 Ibid 107 John Kelly and Phillip Wearne, Tainting Evidence: Inside The Scandals At The Fbi Crime Lab, The Free Press, 1998, pp 162-167 108 Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bios of James T. Caruso and Pasquale J. D'Amuro, January 31, 2002, http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel02/mueller013102.htm 109 Federal Bureau of Investigation, FBI Announces List of 19 Hijackers, September 14, 2001, http://www.fbi.gov/pressrel/pressrel01/091401hj.htm 110 Kevin Ryan, Mahmud Ahmed's itinerary from his Washington DC visit the week of 9/11, 911Blogger.com, 11/27/2009, http://www.911blogger.com/node/21978 111 History Commons Profile for ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed, http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?the_isi:_a_more_detailed_look=mahmoodAhmed&timeline=complete_911_timeline 112 Kevin R. Ryan, Carlyle, Kissinger, SAIC and Halliburton: A 9/11 Convergence, 911Blogger, December 12, 2009, http://www.911blogger.com/node/22120 113 David R. Baker, US: SF Firm Awarded Contract in Iraq, San Francisco Chronicle, March 12th, 2004, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11123 114 See AMEC website, Iraq webpage, http://www.amec.com/page.aspx?pointerid=67767fe56a8e4ed3829ce3167b365d46,and see AMEC description of just one of these contracts, worth $500 million, http://www.amec.com/page.aspx?pointerid=726e2a91da094026b46e1f3239f623b1 115 David Knowles, Why Is Former FBI Director Louis Freeh Now Saudi Prince Bandar's Lawyer?, Politics Daily, April 6, 2009, http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/04/08/why-is-former-fbi-director-louis-freeh-now-saudi-prince-bandars/ 116 Jon Gold, A Rundown Of The 9/11 Saudi Lawsuit, June 24, 2009, 911Truth.org, http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20090625025435190



