Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely 'Inside Job'

Subject: Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely 'Inside Job'


Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely A Controlled Demolition And
'Inside Job'
Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts
official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up
indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications.
June 12, 2005
By Greg Szymanski

A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush's
first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is
'bogus,' saying it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the
Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

"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," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member
of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center
at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.

Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes
it's 'next to impossible' that 19 Arab Terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty
U.S. military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may
hold the key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9/11.

"It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the
cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7," said Reynolds
about his comments that first appeared June 9 on the web. "If the official
wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on
such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The
government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only
professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts
associated with the collapse of the three buildings.

"More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow
if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC.
Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers
everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right."

However, Reynolds said "getting it right in today's security state' remains
challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been
intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11.

From the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel
caused the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators
have disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government
theory since most of the evidence was removed by FEMA prior to independent
investigation.

Critics claim the Bush administration has tried to cover-up the evidence and
the recent 9/11 Commission has failed to address the major evidence
contradicting the official version of 9/11.

Some facts demonstrating the flaws in the government jet fuel theory
include:

– Photos showing people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where
10,000 gallons of jet fuel supposedly was burning..

–When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Tower's flames had already
vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain
and control without a total collapse.

–The fire did not grow over time, probably because it quickly ran out of
fuel and was suffocating, indicating without added explosive devices the
firs could have been easily controlled.

–FDNY fire fighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not
discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw. FAA personnel are also
under a similar 9/11 gag order.

–Even the flawed 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges that "none of the
[fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was
possible."


– Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse except for
the three buildings on 9/11, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise
since 9/11.

– The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively
small.

– WTC-7 was unharmed by an airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh
and twelfth floors of this 47-story steel building yet it collapsed in less
than 10 seconds.

– WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much
thinner steel beams.

– In a PBS documentary, Larry Silverstein, the WTC leaseholder, told the
fire department commander on 9/11 about WTC-7 that. "may be the smartest
thing to do is pull it," slang for demolish it.

– It's difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by
jet fuel (kerosene) to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.

Despite the numerous holes in the government story, the Bush administration
has brushed aside or basically ignored any and all critics. Mainstream
experts, speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing
that an airplane impact weakened each structure and an intense fire
thermally weakened structural components, causing buckling failures while
allowing the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below.

One who supports the official account is Thomas Eager, professor of
materials engineering and engineering systems at MIT. He argues that the
collapse occurred by the extreme heat from the fires, causing the loss of
loading-bearing capacity on the structural frame.

Eagar points out the steel in the towers could have collapsed only if heated
to the point where it "lost 80 percent of its strength," or around 1,300
degrees Fahrenheit. Critics claim his theory is flawed since the fires did
not appear to be intense and widespread enough to reach such high
temperatures.

Other experts supporting the official story claim the impact of the
airplanes, not the heat, weakened the entire structural system of the
towers, but critics contend the beams on floors 94-98 did not appear
severely weakened, much less the entire structural system.

Further complicating the matter, hard evidence to fully substantiate either
theory since evidence is lacking due to FEMA's quick removal of the
structural steel before it could be analyzed. Even though the criminal code
requires that crime scene evidence be kept for forensic analysis, FEMA had
it destroyed or shipped overseas before a serious investigation could take
place.

And even more doubt is cast over why FEMA acted so swiftly since
coincidentally officials had arrived the day before the 9/11 attacks at New
York's Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise, named "Tripod II."

Besides FEMA's quick removal of the debris, authorities considered the steel
quite valuable as New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on
GPS and even fired one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch break.

In a detailed analysis just released supporting the controlled demolition
theory, Reynolds presents a compelling case.


"First, no steel-framed skyscraper, even engulfed in flames hour after hour,
had ever collapsed before. Suddenly, three stunning collapses occur within a
few city blocks on the same day, two allegedly hit by aircraft, the third
not," said Reynolds. "These extraordinary collapses after short-duration
minor fires made it all the more important to preserve the evidence, mostly
steel girders, to study what had happened.

"On fire intensity, consider this benchmark: A 1991 FEMA report on
Philadelphia's Meridian Plaza fire said that the fire was so energetic that
'beams and girders sagged and twisted, but despite this extraordinary
exposure, the columns continued to support their loads without obvious
damage.' Such an intense fire with consequent sagging and twisting steel
beams bears no resemblance to what we observed at the WTC."


After considering both sides of the 9/11 debate and after thoroughly sifting
through all the available material, Reynolds concludes the government story
regarding all four plane crashes on 9/11 remains highly suspect.

"In fact, the government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any
of the four alleged airliners that fateful day. The familiar photo of the
Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania shows no fuselage, engine or anything
recognizable as a plane, just a smoking hole in the ground," said Reynolds.
"Photographers reportedly were not allowed near the hole. Neither the FBI
nor the National Transportation Safety Board have investigated or produced
any report on the alleged airliner crashes."

Greg Szymanski

http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/27302.htm