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 in June
from his offices at Texas A&M.
"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 fires 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 "maybe 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, there is no 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."
