All language subtitles for 911.Press.for.Truth

This just in you are looking at obviously a very disturbing
liveshot there that is the World Trade Center

and we have unconfirmed reports this morning that a plane has
crashed into one of the towers of the World Trade Center.

There was a big impact.

[many voices over each other]

There are people jumping out of windows, over there jumping out of windows, I...

... you can see the two towers, a huge explosion, a raining debris...

[many voices over each other, people screaming]

The second building that was hit by plane has just entirely collapsed.
The entire building has just collapsed.

... at air force base, returning for the white house, getting ready to adress the nation...

Good evening.
Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack.

Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government's emergency response plans.

I've directed the full resources of our intelligence and law enforcement communities

to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.

We will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed
these acts and those who harbor them.

Thank you. Good night.

And God bless America.

My name is Lorie Van Auken.

My husband Kenneth Van Auken was killed on September 11th at the World Trade Center,

he was on the 105th floor of the North Tower,
which was the first building that was hit, and the second building to collapse.

My name is Patricia Casazza

I lost my husband, John Cazazza. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald,
on the 104th floor of the first tower.

My name is Mindy Kleinberg

and I lost my husband Allen. He worked for Cantor Fitzgerald.
On the 104th floor of the North Tower.

I got a message from him on the morning of Sept. 11th, saying that:

"I love you. I'm in the World Trade Center, the building was hit by something,
I don't know if I'm gonna get out, but I love you very much and I hope I see you later. Bye."

" And I didn't make it to the phone on time to speak with him.
I tried calling him back and I was never able to reach him. So I never spoke to him again.

I was actually doing laundry when
I got a call from my husband and he had thought that a bomb had gone off in his building

and when by the time he had called me he
had checked all those avenues and said that,

you know, the floor's already filling up with a thick black
smoke and "I don't think we're gonna make it,"

he said you know "I love you and tell John that I love him," our son.

On September 11th 2001 two thousand nine hundred and
seventy two people from more than 80 countries were killed

leaving thousands of loved ones behind.

While grieving continued for many some
began to move beyond their personal pain.

My husband's service was in October.

And then I think I went into angry mode.
And that's when I started to question everything.

I spent a lot of time on the computer.
I started reading every single article that I could get my hands on.

I mean there was no sleeping at the beginning because we were grieving;
it was hard to lay down.

So, I would spend all night just researching.

I want to meet with the NSA, the CIA and the FBI
together in one room

Out of the many who were researching on their own,
four widowed mothers found each other.

New Jersey residents, Mindy Kleinberg, Patty Casazza, Lorie Van Auken,
along with Kristen Breitweiser became known as the "Jersey Girls."

We became friends and, like-minded, we all had questions.

We all had questions and we wanted answers.

At the top of the families' growing list of questions:

why had the U.S. military defenses failed to stop
any of the four hijacked planes?

CBS News: The FAA alerted US air defense units of a
possible hijacking at 8:38 Tuesday morning.

The last plane was reported to have crashed in Pennsylvania
just after 10AM.

That's almost 2 hours, you know, where planes were flying around the skies
of the United States with no military response.

to scramble fighters to intercept planes
during suspected air emergencies.

the NEW JERSEY WIDOWS learned it had been routine for NORAD,
the military apparatus in charge of air defense,

Coming across an article in a Canadian paper,

"fatal accident involving a lear jet

?with no one in control"
The women recalled one such incident that was heavily reported in 1991

"Just 25 minutes into the flight controllers lost radio contact with the pilot.

An Airforce F-16 on a training mission was sent to take a look.

Ultimately 6 military jets gave chase...the plane was tracked by the FAA on radar.

At high level, the military, even the White House, discussed what to do."

Tell me what the difference was between those times
and the day of September 11th.

THEY WONDERED ABOUT THE LACK OF IMMEDIATE RESPONSE BY
THE PRESIDENT AND HIS SECRET SERVICE DETAIL.

PRESIDENT BUSH WAS IN A FLORIDA ELEMENTARY SCHOOL CLASSROOM THAT MORNING

WHERE HE SAT FOR MORE THAN SEVEN MINUTES AFTER
BEING INFORMED OF THE 2ND ATTACK.

/Dick Cheney/ "The Secret Service has an arrangement with the FAA.
They both had open lines after the World Trade Center

/Tim Russert/ "-Tracking it by radar."

/Dick Cheney/ "And under these circumstances they just move.

They don't say 'Sir' or ask politely. They came in and said,
'Sir, we have to leave immediately,'

and grabbed me--/Tim Russert/ "Literally grabbed you
and moved you?" /Cheney/ "Yeah."

Immediately following the first attack,
I implemented our government's emergency response plans.

If people fell down on the jobs by not informing those who
are in leadership positions who had the power to do something,

why were we not looking at what our protocols
were there so we could fix it going forward.

Our families didn't want us asking these questions.
That was painful, you know.

We should just be grieving and healing,

well, part of our healing process was finding out exactly what happened.

We really were looking for answers feverishly
at the beginning and there was very little information

being put out through the major media that answered our questions.

There was just more questions?
every time we would look into something we'd have more questions.

One article led to a question, that begat another question,
that begat another question

and when you couldn't've read them together,
when you couldn't come to an answer that made sense,

you know, we started to catalog our questions.

The families raised questions about the track record of
the FBI and the illusive search for justice after 9/11.

I've directed the full resources of our Intelligence
and law enforcement communities

to find those responsible and to bring them to justice.

Throughout the week after the attack, there were numerous accounts that
the hijackers had a large number of accomplices in the United States.

/ASHCROFT/ "75 individuals who are currently detained".

"over 480 people arrested",

"nearly one thousand individuals"

The families waited for the 9/11 trials to begin
but they never came.

After the public spectacle of round-ups,
the justice department quietly let the suspects go,

one by one.

A year later, the families would learn that only six,
of the original detainees were still in custody

and none had been charged with any terrorist act.

The FBI continuously was changing agents who were on the investigation

and when you are trying to connect the dots, you need continuity.

Journalist Gail Sheehy spent months with the four widows

"I mean they wanted to find that more was done
and was going to be done

but they kept finding that less was being done"

We printed articles, copied them

By November it had become the sense among most 9/11 families
that an independent investigation would be necessary

to do what the Justice Department and the news media seemed unwilling to do

We felt that the country was at risk from....
terrorists and from incompetence

and... maybe worse.

...They'd get a little outside Washington. They'd stop at a red light,

and they'd begin wiggling out of their capri pants and begin putting on
their nice little skirts and suits so they could go around all the offices of Congress...

...be-devil these members of Congress and say:
"What are you doing about this?"

Soon, a 9/11 Commission bill was being sponsored in Congress.

"Senator Tom Daschle said last week that you called him several times
and urged him not to investigate the events of September 11th."

/Dick Cheney/"Tom's wrong. He has, I think in this case,
well, lets say a misinterpretation."

"He said on one occasion, that the President asked him to do that, at a breakfast meeting.
Are you now saying that they weren't asking to block an investigation?"

Lorie was an independent.
Mindy was definitely a Democrat...

Actually, Kristen and myself voted for President Bush
in the first election.

and yet even though he should have been our biggest advocate,
he turned into one of our biggest adversaries.

We still don't know what happened in those buildings.

The Jersey Widows were not the only ones seeking answers
and becoming frustrated.

In New York, Sally Regenhard, who had lost her firefighter son Christian
in the building's collapse,

was forming the Skyscraper Safety Campaign.

9-1-1 emergency tapes and recordings plus 500 interviews
done with the fire department

right after 9/11. All that material has been
withheld from the public.

Sally partnered with widow Monica Gabrielle
who lost her husband Richard at the World Trade Center.

Why did the buildings fall? How could, how could skyscrapers
just like crumple to the ground in ten seconds?

Never before OR since had fire caused a steel-framed building to collapse.

World Trade Center Building number 7, never hit by an airplane,
also collapsed that evening.

"Building 7 ablaze at the moment and apparently getting
ready to collapse."

The largest structural collapse in world history,

the largest loss of life on American soil since the Civil war and not
one governmental or elected official wanted to know why and how this happened?

Realizing strength in numbers,
9/11 families rallied at the Capitol to press for answers.

"We need a full independent investigation.
We must ask the tough questions and seek out the difficult answers.

We must as a country grow and be
"made stronger and safer by the bitter lessons learned on September 11th."

"We are asking you America to stand behind us..."

I was terrified to talk in front of anybody.
This is not something that any one of us had ever done before."

The rally united once isolated families.
Bob McIlvaine, who lost his son Bobby came from Philadelphia to join the group.

Being out of Philly is like you're out of the loop.
I was floundering by myself?just talking to people?trying to find anyone.

That was the first time we all got together in a
new direction to push for the Commission.

Sharing many of the same questions and concerns, a coalition of family members
began to take form. Its goal: a formal investigation

Call your congressman.
Tell them that you want to be safe.

/CHENEY/ "An investigation must not interfere

with the on going efforts to prevent the next attack."

Frustrated with the attitude of the White House
and seeming lack of interest from the public,

the family members began actively
seeking support from the news media.

And given the persistence of the media's focus on "pain and suffering"
it was NOT difficult for the Jersey Widows to get their attention.

"You know it was my private pain and my private story
and I really did not want to share that.

But we made a conscious decision that we would start to say to them,
okay,well I will tell youabout me personally,

if you talk about the fact that there's not an investigation."

"I'm joined right now by four women who lost
heir husbands in the attacks?

Kristen Breitweiser is one of four New Jersey widows who lost... "

"These women banded together after their husbands were killed.
And now they are leading a campaign to find out exactly how did 9/11 happen."

And finally the media began to report on our activities
not just the activities of the administration.

To go on any show is not easy.

But we needed the public pressure in order to make
anything happen in Washington.

I mean they need huge public pressure to move them.

"President Bush signed legislation today creating an independent commission
to investigate the September 11th attack on America."

Buckling under pressure, the White House, was finally agreeing to a deal

but in a stunning series of revelations, it soon appeared that the White House
was stacking the odds AGAINST an investigation it had not wanted in the first place.

The President named a supporter, Dr. Henry Kissinger,
Secretary of State in the Nixon and Ford administrations, to head the panel.

He has a penchant for secrecy which is not what's needed here.
There are questions about his role in Vietnam. His role in the coup in Chile."

Several family members approached Kissinger
and requested a meeting at his office in New York.

Prior to the meeting, widow Kristen Breitweiser conducted
a thorough investigation of Kissinger's potential conflicts-of-interest.

Probably much to the chagrin of some of people in the room,
Lorie asked some very pointed questions.

"Would you have any Saudi-American clients
that you would like to tell us about?'

And he was very uncomfortable,
kind of twisting and turning on the couch.

And then she asked whether he had
any clients by the name of Bin Laden,

and he just about fell off his couch.

"Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
stepped down from the position Friday"

We thought the meeting went well.

"I wouldn't want to be in the way of some of these families.
I mean, they're..."

Kissinger was soon replaced by Tom Kean,
a former New Jersey governor...

...and former Congressman Lee Hamilton,
who had chaired the House Intelligence Committee.

...The remaining eight Commissioners were all former D.C. insiders and lawyers,
evenly split between Republicans and Democrats

Remember, in the nineties, they spent $100 million dollars investigating

Clinton's sexual exploits. A 100 million dollars...

and they first allocated only $3 million dollars to investigate
the murder of 3,000 people.

The budget was eventually raised to $14 million.
But the investigation was also given less time than they had wanted -- a year and a half.

To monitor the Commission, leading victim relatives
established the Family Steering Committee.

The group provided the Commissioners with hundreds of well-researched questions,
for which they expected answers.

"That's the official start of our first public hearing.

Of what is going to be an extraordinarily difficult and important job?

In March of 2003 441 days after the attacks
the official investigation finally began in New York.

Mindy Kleinberg from September 11th Advocates

On the morning of Sept. 11th, my 3 years-old son Sam and I walked Jacob,
10 and Lauren to the bus stop at about 8:40am.

Brad was 24 years-old and the oldest of our three sons.

Family Steering Committee members were amongst
the first to testify before the Commission.

"Hey mom it's Brad. Just wanted to call and let you know?
I'm sure that you've heard, there were, or maybe you haven't heard?

but a plane crashed into the WTC 1.

We're fine. We are in World Trade Center 2.

I'm obviously alive and well over here,

but obviously a pretty scary experience.
I saw a guy fall out of probably the 91st story?

all the way down, so.

You're welcome to give a call here.
I think

we'll be here all day.
I'm not sure if the firm's going to shut down for the day or what.

But, gimme a call back later.
I called Dad to let him know. love you."

"Welcome Mayor Michael Bloomberg, of the city of New York"

From the outset, many families were concerned by
how the investigation was being conducted.

We begged and pleaded that people should be put under oath.

At the beginning, they were not.

As the hearings progressed, the families were becoming more
and more frustrated by what they perceived as softball questioning from the Commissioners.

"Because there were questions that we, families, wrote, for each of the people that
were coming to testify today, and the questions weren't asked."

It was a complete waste of time. It was a bunch of people throwing
accolades at each other and asking the same questions one after the other.

Skirting around issues, not being defined enough in their questions.

It's a stonewall.
It's a cover up, as far as I'm concerned. I'm very bitter. I'm very angry.

Still, no one was prepared for what they then uncovered about Philip Zelikow

the Executive Director of the 911 Commission...

He who had the power to say where the investigation
was going, who would be interviewed,

what would go into the 9/11 Commission Report, what wouldn't.

"We have found out that he not only served
on the transition team of the Bush administration...

that he is a person who wrote a draft memo for the setup of the Bush
administration's National Security Council...

"...that he was the individual who wrote the pre-emptive
war strategy that was eventually used for the war in Iraq...

that he is a close friend of Condoleeza Rice's.

We want him to resign."

Phillip Zelikow refused to resign and Chairman Kean
dismissed the families concerns over conflicts of interest.

Nearly a year in, the Commission had only received a small amount
of the documents that they had requested

"At this point what we have is literally hundreds of boxes
of material that have come into the Commission

and we have not sorted through that?

They gave them boxes and boxes of documents,
but not, left pertinent documents out.

"A deal announced yesterday between the White House and the Commission
investigating the September 11th attacks

attacks is proving to be rather controversial.

Under the agreement, only certain members of the commission
will be allowed to view classified documents

from the White House, and their notes will be
subject to administration review."

"I mean I'm a member of the Commission.

The President has said

that only a minority of the Commission

can see a minority of the documents, and then they have to clear
what they're going to say to the rest of the Commissioners with the White House."

The only two commission members
allowed direct access to the documents?

Jamie Gorelick, the Deputy Attorney General under President Clinton,

and Philip Zelikow.

I felt that that the fix was in at that point in time.

"The majority of the Commissioners
felt that it was better to see

these documents rather than take
a chance at not seeing them at all."

"It's a scam. It's absolutely disgusting.

This is important. We cannot do our responsibilities
if we don't have all of us, access to all the documents we need

including what's in the White House."

And with the investigation nearing its deadline, the President,
Vice President, and National Security Adviser

were still refusing to testify publicly.

Yet few Americans were aware of the families plight.

Up till then, the hearings had received
only minimal coverage. Suddenly, that all changed

In testimony before the 9/11 Commission later this week,

and in a new book to be published tomorrow,
'Against All Enemies',

Clarke will tell the story of what happened behind the scenes at the White House

before,

during

and after September 11th.

"To the loved ones of the victims of 9/11
...your government failed you

...those entrusted with protecting you
..failed you,

and I
failed you.

"Mr. Clarke is the first person that has apologized to the families..."

Clarke's testimony provided the families with the timely leverage
they needed to increase public pressure on reluctant White House witnesses.

The Bush administration has agreed to allow
National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to testify before the 9/11 Commission...

For President Bush, it was a dramatic reversal.

"I've ordered this level of cooperation because
I consider it necessary to gaining a complete picture."

And even the President and Vice President
agreed to meet with the Commission

but with a catch.

they insisted on meeting together,
behind closed doors and not under oath.

"Why are you and the Vice President insisting
on meeting together before the 9/11 Commission?"

"Because the 9 Com--

the 9/11 Commission wants to ask us questions, that's why we're meeting,
and I look forward to meeting with them and answering their questions --"

"I was asking why you are appearing together rather than separately,
which was their request."

"Because it's a good chance both of us
to answer questions that the 9/11 Commission is..

looking forward to asking us and I'm
looking forward to answering them, let's see."

"We have to have one story, so I'll say a part and,
if I get it wrong, hedge a little bit, and give me the next."

"I want to thank the Chairman and Vice-chairman
for giving us the chance to

share views on, on, on different subjects.

They had a lot of good questions and it was,

I'm glad I did it. I'm glad I took the time."

"What topic did the commissioners
want to spend most of the time on?"

"I really, probably best that
I not go into the details of the conversation."

"They're the President and Vice-president of the United States.
Don't you think they should be able to stand up and

and and speak their own words?

They should go under oath. In public.

"Don't you think the families deserve
to have a transcript or be able to see...?"

"Adam, you asked me that question yesterday.

You get the same answer."

In July 2004, the Commission published its Final Report

the result, in part, of the families'
two and half year struggle for answers.

"2 1/2 million pages of documents. We've interviewed

over 1200 individuals, including experts
and officials past and present."

"and you've produced a truly bi-partisan report that

honors thousands who died on 9/11,
honors their grieving family members."

"Thank you for creating a report
that may be one of the most important

publications of our age."

The Commission members have worked hard and served our country well.

I speak for all Americans in thanking them for their fine work."

We waited for the Report to come out, and were hopeful,
I was always hopeful that we would get

a report that answered my questions.

However, the Commission Report failed to meet many of the families'
expectations, and concluded that 9/11 was merely a "failure of imagination".

The percentage of the questions
that got answered was very very low.

I'd say maybe 30% got touched upon,
70% didn't.

The stuff that's included is the stuff that they really didn't
have too much choice in including because they knew

...what we knew.

You can do an investigation, and if you don't
really want to research an area,

you just don't look at it. If you don't ask them all the questions
or you don't let them tell you the whole story,

you know, then you can write a report based on half

truths.

"Are the people who lost loved ones at 9/11 like the families of guys
who were lost in Vietnam? They just can't get over it...

Sometimes people will try to become crusaders
because they can't deal with reality."

"The families I think have to understand

that it's virtually impossible to conceive of any way in which these attacks
could have been stopped even had the best things happened."

On 9/11 the media started out by doing its job
but somehow got waylaid

and stopped doing its job. It began reporting solely
on the administration and the government's activities.

The news media, while yielding a fact here, a fact there,
failed again and again to connect the dots.

The one thing that I personally, was hoping
for was another Woodward & Bernstein

with regard to 9/11. Someone,

anyone,
that was willing to put their teeth into this.

The Families discovered a website created
by independent investigator Paul Thompson.

His Complete 9/11 Timeline, an innovative internet research tool,
stitches together information from over 7000 mainstream news stories.

It was all our binders, okay, but laid out

beautifully online...
And you had the ability to connect the dots.

and then he would back it up with mainstream media sources,
so you could understand why there were discrepancies in the timeline.

Flight 93: Crashed at 10:03
but the seismic data says 10:06.

And then he'd have a link
so you could see the seismic data.

"The whole mystique of intelligence is that you
acquire this very valuable information covertly.

If the truth be told, about 80%, 8, 0,

any of what, the information that one
needs is available in open source materials?

Thompson's work soon gained mainstream media exposure.

Paul Thompson's timeline is based on public documentation

of what we know,
what the world knows about 9/11.

James Ridgeway was among the first to bring
attention to Paul Thompson's timeline.

You know, it has to be, almost taken more seriously

than the 9/11 Commission, because I mean, it's open.
There's nothing secret here...

As I began researching I noticed
this strange phenomenon which is that,

there is a lot of explosive information that has
come out in the mainstream press, but it comes out buried.

As a casual observer of the news,
I had never noticed any of this stuff!

You might find one important bit of information, in say,
a newspaper story, and another bit of information on a news show.

And if you start to put all those rather obscure stories together,

you end up with an almost completely different narrative
for just about any area relating to 9/11,

the story is quite different if you dig deeper into the news.

"that clearly,

something yesterday took place in New York that was not foreseen,

that we had no specific information about..."

Like most Americans, Thompson, initially didn't question the Bush Administration's
first statements about the attacks.

The administration consistently maintained that

"there were no warnings" or "specific threats".

"No specific threat?"
/Dick Cheney/ "No specific threat involving really a domestic operation or involving

what happened obviously with
cities, airliner, and so forth."

"There were no warning signs that I'm aware of that would
indicate this type of operation in the country."

I first became interested in 9/11 around mid 2002

right around the time that President Bush's
now famous August 6th PDB became leaked to the press.

"President Bush was told in August that Osama bin Laden
might be planning an attack involving the hijacking of U.S. aircraft."

"Dan,it was a revelation the White House had no intention of making public,
and officials spent the entire day in full damage control."

"I don't think anybody could have predicted... that they would try
to use a plane as a missile, a hijacked plane as a missile."

"Nobody in our government at least, and I think the prior
government could envision flying airplanes into buildings

on such a massive scale."

His interest piqued,

Thompson began to search for news stories that might help him
determine exactly how aware the White House had been of Al-Qeada's desire

to use planes as weapons.

He was quickly able to compile a wealth of examples
that any journalist should have been able to find.

One of the earliest dates back to 1995.

It was code named Operation Bojinka,
a terrorist plot to use commercial planes to attack U.S. targets...

"Ramzi Yousef, the bombmaker responsible for the 1993
World Trade Center bombing, had fled to the Phillippines,

where police discovered his bomb factory...
Yousef again escaped,

but his accomplice was arrested,
and spilled the chilling plot."

Operation Bojinka, a plan to blow up multiple
airliners over the Pacific,

was heavily reported, But Thompson noted most journalists failed
to mention the second aspect of the plot.

Only CNN International dug deeper into this story.

"In confidential documents from the Philippines
obtained by CNN the plan was clear:

He will board any American commercial aircraft,
control it's cockpit, and dive it at the CIA headquarters.

Other buildings targeted--
the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

And the FBI using the Philippine documents did check the four flight schools named
there but found no evidence of any other planned terror attacks."

Only NBC reported a stunning confession
by a man alledgedly trained by bin Laden.

"It was over a year before 9/11, a Pakistani-British man
told the FBI an incredible tale:

that he had been trained by followers
of Osama bin Laden to hijack airplanes

and he confessed that he was now in America
to carry out an attack...."

Kahn was recruited into al Qaeda at a British mosque, then flown to Lahore,
Pakistan for hijack training in a mock 767 cockpit

before being sent to America where he was told
he would "hijack a plane from JFK and fly it into a building."

"I told them before the 9/11, about more than year, be?
hijacking in America or on American airline."

"Khan claims he got cold feet.
Instead of meeting his contact,

he slipped away, gambled away all his money,
and in fear, turned himself in and confessed"

"I've been to Pakistan I know about these hijacking,
something going on"

"NBC News has learned Khan passed not one but two polygraphs.

A former FBI official says Newark agents believed him,
but word came from headquarters, quote,

'Return him to London and forget about it."

Access to this exclusive footage from NBC
is now restricted.

July 2001, According to 60 Minutes,

Eyptian Intelligence received a report that 20 Al Qeada
had slipped into the U.S. and four of them had trained on Cessnas...

Now to the Egyptians, pilots of small planes
didn't sound terribly alarming

but they passed on the message to the CIA anyway,
fully expecting Washington to request more information.

The request never came."

In fact Thompson compiled stories about 14 different nations
that had warned the U.S. prior to 9/11.

You could have one story that comes out on the front page,
and another story that comes out on page B12.

And what I've found is that many times the story that comes out on B12 is more
important than the story that comes out on the front page.

March. Italian intelligence gave information to the U.S. based
on their wiretap of an al Qaeda cell in Milan.

The LA Times and The Washington Post said the wiretaps warned of brothers going
to the United States and a massive strike involving aircraft.

August. According to Moroccan and French newspapers
an intelligence agent reported that "bin Laden's men

were preparing large scale operations
in New York in the summer or fall of 2001."

The agent was then called to the US
to report this information directly.

August,
Britain warned three times of an al Qaeda attack in the U.S.,

The final warning specifying multiple airplane hijackings.

According to Britain's Sunday Herald, the warning was passed
on to President Bush a short time later.

It's unknown how many of these warnings, reported but buried in back pages,
reached the White House through official channels.

But one threat assessment is well-known
to have reached President Bush directly:

It was known as the Presidential Daily Briefing
or "PDB" of August 6.

The Bush administration kept it from the public for months
until it was revealed in part by the CBS News in May 2002

putting the White House on the defensive.

All of these reported on hijacking
was about traditional hijacking.

You take a plane?
people were worried you might blow one up.

"I'd like to ask you about
the August 6th PDB? You mentioned that?

Two years later, president Bush responded to questions
about what led him to request the August 6th Briefing.

"Umm,

Ed, I asked for the

briefing

and the reason I did is because there had been a lot of threat...

eee gheee
(Blablabla-Gigi D�Agostino:) )

intelligence from overseas.

And so I hegeeheee...

part of it had to do with the Genoa G8
conference that I was going to attend."

/G8 SUMMIT/ "Eight of the world's most powerful leaders
have gathered here to discuss the global problems,

and yet the threat of violence means
they're having to keep the world at bay.

Just prior to G8 Summit CNN.com reported
"the head of Russia's Federal Bodyguard Service

has warned of a plot by terrorist
Osama bin Laden to assassinate George W. Bush".

The LA Times reported U.S. officials were warned of a threat
posed from the air by commercial airliners.

"It's terrorists as well as protesters that the Italian government
fears so anti-aircraft batteries were on stand-by at the airport ?"

Condoleeza Rice was present there.

President Bush,

Ari Fleischer, Karl Rove,

President's Bush's own family.

"They were going to sleep on a boat
so that a plane couldn't go into a building."

"This floating resort will be home for three days
for the G8 leaders, necessary for their safety."

If the August 6th PDB was prompted
by the threat from the air in Genoa,

clearly President Bush, his spokesperson Ari Fleischer and his National Security Advisor
Condi Rice were more than aware of the threat of planes as weapons?

but the news media appeared to miss the lead.

You have information about simultaneous hijackings...

"No specific threat"

...planes being used as weapons...

I don't think anybody could have predicted"

..specific targets including mentions of the Pentagon,
World Trade Center.

"Nobody in our government at least and I don't the prior government
could envision flying airplanes into buildings?

Dr. Rice, would you please rise and raise your right hand.

Slubujete, ze budete hovorit pravdu, nic ine, len pravdu?

PRAVDA

In April 2004 public pressure finally forced the White House
to allow Dr. Rice to testify before the 9/11 Commission

to answer questions about the PDB and the nature
of warnings given the Administration.

The threat reporting that we received the Spring and Summer 2001
was not specific as to time, nor place nor manner of attack.

Almost all of the reports focused on
Al-Qeada activity outside the United States.

This sat in stark contrast to the warnings
well documented in Thompson's timeline.

"What the August 6th PDB said, and perhaps
I should read it to you..."

"We would be happy to have it declassified in full."

When she was testifying, one Ben Veniste
was really trying to get at the nitty gritty.

"Did you, at any time prior to August 6th, tell the President about the existence
of al Qaeda cells in the United States?"

"first let me just make certain--"
"If you could just answer that question because I only have a very limited amount of time."

"I understand, Commissioner,
but it's important, it's important that I also--"

It wasn't like a trial.
You couldn't grill these people 'til you got the answer.

"I really don't remember, Commissioner,
whether I discussed this with the President."

"Let me move on, if I may."

What about August 6th? What did August 6th memo say?

And then she would start going off...

"It was historical information,

based on old reporting, there was no new threat information,
and it did not in fact warn of any coming attacks inside the United States."

And what was the title of the memo?!

"I believe the title was 'Bin Laden Determined
to Attack Inside the United States."

The PDB...

Two weeks later, the White House finally declassified the PDB.

There's lots of examples where it's a domestic threat.

"Bin Laden told followers he wanted to retaliate in Washington."

"you know, Bin Laden..was planning to exploit the operatives
access to the U.S. to mount a terrorist strike..."

"...Abu Zubayduh was planning his own U.S. attack."

"FBI information since that time indicates
patterns of suspicious activity in this country

consistent with preparations for hijackings
or other types of attacks,

including recent surveillance of federal
buildings in New York."

That's present tense and domestic.

Ari Fleischer came out right after September 11th
and said, 'There were no warnings.'

I watched him tell me
"there were no warnings, okay"

I want to know why nobody has not gone back
and said, "What did he mean?"

"Howard Dean recently seemed to muse aloud
whether you had advance knowledge of 9/11."

Yeah.
There's time for politics, and you know.

eeeee eegeeeheeee
(... and this ass-hole got weapons of mass destruction)

It's just time for Politics, and I uh..
it's an absurd insinuation.

"The press has reported this one, and that one,

but they haven't really put it all together and said

'God, how many different warnings did you get?
How many different ways was this information coming at you?

And why wasn't anything done about all these warnings?'

"Why is the Attorney General doing
all his air travel by specially chartered jet?"

"the Justice Department cited what it called
a "threat assessment" by the FBI,

and said Ashcroft has been advised to travel only
by private jet for the remainder of his term."

And on the night before the attacks
the President may have slept more soundly

knowing surface-to-air missiles were placed on the roof
of the Sarasota Florida resort where he was staying --

not a typical security procedure at the time.

That same night quote

"a particularly urgent warning may have been received?
causing some top Pentagon brass to cancel their scheduled flights the morning of 9/11."

"Why that same information was not available to the 266 people
who died aboard the 4 hijacked aircraft

may become a hot topic on the Hill."

It never did.

"We took an oath not to talk about it during
the campaign and I think correctly so

to increase the capacity of
that Commission's Report to be heard

by the people's Congress and now it's beyond the Campaign
so the promise to keep it out of the campaign is over."

Mr. President, you knew they were in the United States,

you were warned by the CIA, you knew in July they were
inside the United States. You were told again by briefing officers in August

that it was a dire threat.

You didn't do anything to harden our border security,
didn't do anything to harden airport security,

didn't do anything to engage local law enforcement, didn't do anything
to round up INS and Consular offices and say we have to shut this down

and didn't warn the American people.

What did you do?
Nothing so far as we could see...

The Government first said "there were no warnings."

There were?

then the White House insisted
the warnings were not specific as to �where,

�when �or how.

The 9/11 families and the Timeline connected
the dots where the media didn't.

There many warnings,

most were detailed, some were urgent. And yet, little or no defensive
action was taken by responsible officials,

except for their own personal protection.

"the public was better informed in the summer of 2001,

lives would have been saved.
Maybe the attacks wouldn't have been prevented,

lives would have been saved.
My husband was in Tower 2.

If he knew that it was a terrorist attack,
he wouldn't have stayed in the building."

When they were told that the building
was secure and to stay at their desks,

maybe they would have left? Maybe you know those who thought
the first attack was an errant plane

would have thought differently and responded differently?

But, again, we weren't given the information
to make any of these decisions for ourselves.

Even as the first tower burned on every channel that morning,

no one on the Federal level who had received warnings
all summer called New York to order an evacuation of Tower 2.

No one ordered fighters to perform any timely defensive
action against the remaining hijacked planes.

No one responded adequately to the crisis.

"It has been said the intelligence agencies
have to be right 100% of the time,

and the terrorists only have to get lucky once.

This explanation for the devastating attacks of September 11th,

simple on it's face, is wrong in it's value.

Because the 9/11 terrorists were not just lucky once.
They were lucky over and over again.

When you have this repeated pattern of broken protocols,
broken laws, broken communication,

one cannot still call it luck.

If at some point we don't look to hold the individuals
accountable for not doing their jobs,

properly, then how can we ever expect
the terrorists to not get lucky again?"

"Mr. Speaker, President of the United States."

"On September the 11th, enemies of freedom committed
an act of war against our country.

And tonight, the United States of America
makes the following demands on the Taliban.

Deliver to United States authorities
all the leaders of al Qaeda who hide in your land.

The Taliban must act, and act immediately.
They will hand over the terrorists,

or they will share in their fate."

"We have a live picture that we're showing from Kabul."

"...American ground forces, at this hour, are penetrating Afghanistan."

"Mazir-e-Sharif apparently has been taken..."

We have reached to the outskirts of Kabul."

"One of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants has been killed."

"one of the infamous al Qaeda caves. Plenty of room for some
fighters to hide when the American bombs start to fall."

"...unbroken military activity attacking the White Mountains..."

"Despite the crushing defeat of al Qaeda forces at Tora Bora,
U.S. military officials still don't know where to find Osama bin Laden"

"This is Tora Bora, the remains.

The rest of the Afghan fighters are headed home.

The caves of Tora Bora conquered.
A terrorist shelter now just a hole in the ground."

"The distinguished interim leader of a liberated Afghanistan,

Chariman Hamid Karzai."

America's apparently clear military victory in Afghanistan
was not so clear-cut to Paul Thompson

The war ended very quickly. But in the end, the U.S. was only able to
capture or kill one major al Qaeda figure...and no Taliban figures.

"The fact is, right now, today, we don't have any high ranking
al Qaeda or Taliban figures. One or 2 on the fringe."

His understanding of the government's actions
before 9/11 now fundamentally changed,

Thompson decided to take a similar
look into what happened in Afghanistan

"The press never looked very closely at how
so many of these leaders were able to escape.

However, if you piece together a number of different news accounts,
you can begin to understand the story."

Early November.

The London Times reported bin Laden's closest advisers
all escaped in a late night convoy from the Afghan Capitol of Kabul

An eyewitness reported, "We don't understand how
they weren't all killed the night before,

because they came in a convoy of at least a thousand cars and trucks.
�it must have been easy for American pilots to see the headlights."

By the 10th, Bin Laden had joined the convoy in Jalalabad.

An intelligence official told Knight-Ridder newspapers,
"It was obvious that this area was to be the base for an exodus to Pakistan.

We were amazed that nothing was done to prepare for it."

On November 14 the Northern Alliance captured Jalalabad.

That night, 1,000 fighters in a convoy
of several hundred vehicles escaped again

-- this time with bin Laden --
driving hours to the fortress in Tora Bora.

The US bombed the nearby Jalalabad
airport but apparently did not attack the convoy.

November 15,

at the cave complexes of Tora Bora an estimated
1600 of Bin Laden's fighters are now surrounded.

The most important battle of the war begins.

"U.S.war planes are keeping a close eye on mountain passes, and U.S. special forces
are working with Pakistani troops on the border to block possible escape routes."

While there were two main escape routes,
Newsweek reported that the U.S. bombed only one.

Using the other route, hundreds al Qaeda and Taliban,
including senior leaders, escaped.

In the wake of the attacks, eyewitnesses told Britain's The Daily Telegraph
that they were "shocked" that the U.S. had surrounded Tora Bora

only on three sides.

Bin Laden walked out of the Tora Bora cave complex
and into Pakistan with a number of loyal followers.

Of course we are after Sadam Hussein?
I mean Bin Laden, he's isolated.

In August 2005, a story broke that gave
Paul Thompson a missing piece of the puzzle

In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, the CIA field commander
in Tora Bora during the invasion, Gary Berntsen, broke his silence.

He explained that his intelligence operatives
had tracked bin Laden to Tora Bora

Mr. Berntsen feels so strongly about getting this story out

and getting his book published that he actually
resigned two years short of retirement

from the CIA in order to publish his book

At the time of this interview he was required to speak through
his attorney until the CIA cleared his book for publication...

"At various points in time, they did have, to my understanding,
'definitive intelligence' as to his general location within Tora Bora.

detail as to the actual sources of the intelligence
and collection methods because those remain classified.

However, we had Osama bin Laden essentially cornered in Tora Bora,

and for whatever reasons we did not do what was necessary
in order to insure that he did not escape."

"...The goal has never been to get bin Laden.
Obviously, that's desirable.

Interesting, I just read a piece by some analysts that said

you may not want to go after the top people

in these organizations. You may have more effect by going after
the middlemen, because they're harder to replace."

Toward the end of the war, when all eyes were on Tora Bora,
the news media missed another major story:

Again thousands of Taliban and Al-Qeada
escaped without drawing U.S fire,

this time from the northern city of Kunduz.

Once again the door was left open for escape.

"Our side in that battle had the enemy surrounded. There were,
a reported, perhaps, 8,000 enemy forces in there"

"well they had the cream of the crop of al Qaeda caught."

Journalist Seymour Hersh later broke
this story in the New Yorker Magazine

briefly sparking TV news coverage.

"and from there all of sudden, one night around Thanksgiving

in the middle of the seige, an air corridor was set
up between Kunduz and Northern Pakistan

and at night Pakistani relief
planes regularly flew through that corridor..."

"It was a very orderly, organized thing, that armed men would stand on
the tarmacwaiting for a flight that would come in, and then they would be taken out."

There are as many as 4 or 5,000.
They were not only al Qaeda,

but maybe even some of bin Laden's immediate
family were flown out on this evacuation."

"It had to be done with the blessing of Musharraf, didn't it?"
"Exactly, and, of the United States"

"When I tell you it comes from
the level of Donald Rumsfeld, it has to."

"What we're describing here is something which
would clearly be noticed by the United States?

One or two maybe not, okay,
an airlift of these proportions certainly would."

"This is the most secure base of the face of the Earth right now.
If someone's moving over Afghanistan right now, the US knows about it, clearly."

"No plane could fly from Kunduz to Pakistan
without being shot down unless we let it happen.

And we let it happen, and I think
there Is no other way to explain It"

"my take on it basicly?
there is some sort of a deal in place,

between the government
of the Pakistan and The United States."

Intrigued, Thompson looked deeper into Pakistan.

His timeline showed Osama Bin Laden was reportedly
last seen in Pakistan after escaping from Tora Bora.

But thanks to an in-depth investigation by CBS, he also learned
Bin Laden was in Pakistan on the eve of 9/11.

"Bin Laden was spirited into this military hospital
in Rawapendi for kidney dialasis treatment.

The military had him surrounded says this hospital
employee who also wanted his identity masked.

They were saying that Osama bin Laden
had to be watched carefully and looked after."

We will make no distinction between the terrorists
who committed these acts and those who harbor them.

To better understand the ties
between Bin Laden and Pakistan,

Thompson followed a timeline thread that began with covert Pakistan
involvement in the Soviet-Afghan war two decades ago.

In 1979, in the midst of the Cold War,
the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

Throughout the 80s, the Soviets battled the mujahideen,
a group of anti-soviet fighters that included Bin Laden.

The mujahadeen were backed by the Central Intelligence Agency,
who hoped to give the Soviets their own costly Vietnam-type war.

Rather than fund the mujahideen directly, the CIA covertly
channelled money through the Pakitani intelligence agency, the ISI.

The Washington Post has published
some of the definitive accounts of the conflicts.

They helped create bin Laden and the roots of al Qaeda
during the Russian occupation of Afghanistan

when the American CIA and the intelligence
services of Pakistan and Saudi Arabia...

...created this group of people
to fight the Russians, in Afghanistan.

Billions of dollars from the CIA and the Saudi
were funded through the ISI to support the war.

The strategy worked and the Soviets were defeated.

"The Taliban, a widely alleged to be the creation
of Pakistan's military intelligence the ISI

Experts say that explains the Taliban's
swift military successes."

Emboldened by their victory
and the influx of weapons and cash,

the ISI helped to install the Taliban and deepened
their ties to Bin Laden and his terror network.

Because there's no difference between an ISI training camp, for terrorism,
and an al Qaeda training camp for terrorism.

You would have some people working for al Qaeda
and they would go off to an al Qaeda mission.

And other people working for the ISI,
and they would go off to Kashmir on one of their missions.

Thompson wondered if ISI involvement
in terrorism included the attacks of 9/11.

"Uh. Uhh..

We will give the Pakistani government
a chance to cooperate and to participate

..as we..

hunt down those people who committed
this unbelievable, despicable act on America."

"�Pakistanian government
has promised to quote fully cooperate?

Within days of the attacks, Pakistan was
hailed as a major ally in the new War on Terror.

The White House seemed confident
that al Qaeda, alone, was behind 9/11

"Will you release publicly a white paper which links him
and his organization to this attack, put people at ease?"

"We are hard at work bringing all the information together.
Intelligence information, law enforcement information,

and I think in the near future,
we will be able to put out a paper,

a document, that will describe quite clearly
the evidence that we have ."

"No I think there was just a misinterpretation of the exact words
the Secretary used on the Sunday show...

I'm not aware of anybody who said 'white paper', and
the Secretary didn't say anything about a white paper yesterday."

"you know, you are talking about
actions in other parts of the World

and certainly you want the support
of as many people around the world as possible?

you know, I guess, it seems as though you
are asking everyone to trust you?

I mean logic tells you that they couldn't have
done it alone. This was a sophisticated plot.

Bin Laden was not capable of doing this
by himself and his group.

So who was capable?
Obviously there has to be much more of an investigation in Pakistan.

But on October 1st, the FBI discovered evidence
linking the alleged hijackers and al-Qaeda

by following a money trail
that ended at Mohamed Atta in Florida

"Suspected hijacker
Mohammed Atta received wire transfers via Pakistan

and then distributed the cash
via money orders bought here in Florida.

Senior law enforcement source tells CNN the man sending
the money to Atta is believed to be Omar Saeed Sheikh..."

"He reportedly is controlling certain aspect
of the financial transaction of the al Qaeda network."

"Once a standout student of the London School of Economics,
the British born son of Pakistani parents speaks five languages."

The story made news in every major paper.

With 9/11 paymaster identified as an alleged Al-Qaeda moneyman
it seemed that the U.S. finally had its proof that the al-Qaeda was involved.

The US war on terror could now move ahead.

But what most of his post-9/11 reports about Omar Saeed Sheikh

had failed to mention was that at the same time Sheikh
dropped out of the London School of Economics to presumably join Al-Qeada,

he had also joined... the ISI.

"arresting officer A. K. Jain says that under-question

Omar Sheikh admitted he was supported by the Pakistan
government Intelligence Service, the ISI.

He had told me that?
"He admitted to you?" "Oh�yes...yes"

And after his release, it was very clear that he
was provided protection and safe haven in Pakistan

with the direct support, with the knowledge, and obviously
with the connivance of the Pakistani Intelligence."

Only two days after the invasion of Afghanistan, the Times of India
reported the FBI discovered 'credible evidence'

that $100,000 was wired
to alleged hijacker Mohammad Atta

by 9/11 paymaster Omar Saeed Sheikh on the orders of...
the ISI Director, Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed.

Had that been the head of the Iraqi intelligence
agency, do you think we would have heard of it?

"You have to understand that
Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed was the key player"

William Pepper is an international lawyer
and consultant to the Pakistani government.

"Indian state intelligence came upon this transfer.

It was then that the Times of India
was able to get this information.

The FBI got involved in this whole situation because this was now
becoming very public as a result of the Indian investigation."

Though the evidence was never publicly disclosed, Indian intelligence
claimed that the FBI had privately confirmed the story to them,

and it soon made every major Indian newspaper

In the U.S., only a single news
outlet even mentioned the allegation.

The information was reported as an Internet-only story on
the Editorial section of the Wall St. Journal web site.

It had this cutesy title and it contained
this completely explosive information!

After the Times of India story broke,

pay-master Omar Saeed Sheikh was no longer the apparent
proof that al Qaeda was the sole sponsor of the attacks.

Instead, Saeed Sheikh, acting on the orders of the ISI,
appeared to be the smoking gun of Pakistani involvement in 9/11

"And instantly, within that day basically,
Saeed Sheik becomes persona non grata,

and then a whole bunch of other people
being put forward as the paymaster."

Over the next several months, authorities began confusing
the news media with a bewildering variety of alternate names for the paymaster,

each sounding similar to Omar Saeed Sheikh.

No it's this guy. No it's this guy.
They keep changing their story about who the guy is, and it becomes hard to keep track.

By the one-year anniversary of 9/11, Newsweek had concluded
that the paymaster "remains almost a total mystery.

The 9/11 Commission would ultimately conclude
that the question of who financed the attacks

is of little practical significance.

And in my opinion it seems to be a bunch of smoke and mirrors

to really hide the fact that there is money
coming from the ISI, going to the hijackers.

"If we were really going after the people who sponsored Al-Qaeda,
wouldn't we be bombing Pakistan?"

Seymour Hersh says, "Are we're better
off in Pakistan or in Iraq

in terms of beating terrorism? I would say,
if you asked me that question, I would say..

'No question!
Let's forget about Iraq, and let's focus on Pakistan."

"There is no reason for the
administration to continue to shield

make believe allies who are supporting either directly
or indirectly terrorists whose goal is to kill Americans."

"And do you think that will ever become
public which countries you're talking about"

"I think it will become public at some point
when it's turned over to the archives

but that's 20 or 30 years from now, we need
to have this information now because it's relevant

to the threat that the people
of the United States are facing today"

And here the story took another unexpected turn.

Several top news sources had all reported that the Pakistani
ISI director had actually been in Washington

for rare visit during the week of Sept. 11th

"Are you aware of the reports at the time
that the ISI chief was in Washington on Sept 11th,

and on Sept 10th, $100,000 was wired
from Pakistan to these groups here in this area?

And while he was here, was he meeting with you
or anybody in the administration?"

"I have not seen that report,
and he was certainly not meeting with me."

'L.A. Weekly' reported that
on the very evening of September 11th

U.S. State department officials began negotiating
the terms of the U.S.-Pakistani partnership

with ISI Director Mahmood Ahmed,

the very man who was alleged to have
ordered the wire transfer to Mohammed Atta.

The talks continued over the next several days before the Lt. General
returned to Pakistan on September 14th.

But an under-cover operative named Randy Glass

says he can prove that USA officials knew about the ISI
role in 9/11 even as they chose to partner with Pakistan.

The revelation came in yet another largely
overlooked story...this one... reported by Dateline NBC.

Conman turned undercover operative, Randy Glass was infiltrating
a terrorist arms buying network layer by layer...

Former conman Glass was part of a 1999
government sting called Operation Diamondback,

a two and a half year investigation by the FBI
and the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms.

"On July 22, 1999, Glass flew to New York for
a meeting here at the trendy Tribeca Grill.

It was dinner for 4.
Glass, his original contact, Diaa Mohsen,

the Jersey City businessman Mike Malick,
and the mystery man, R.G. Abbas."

"Do you know who supplies him with money guy?"
"Who?" "Osama bin Laden."

"Glass was wearing a wire. Mixed in with the dinner crowd
were agents from the FBI's Terrorism Task Force."

"Basically, what he told me was,
that they were interested in purchasing

a large amount of sophisticated
weapons systems."

"And who was Abbas representing in this?"

"Abbas was represented to me
as being an ISI agent."

This is where the stakes really get hot

because if Abbas was telling the truth, Randy Glass
and the Feds were about to cut an illegal weapons deals

with a Pakistani Intelligence
operative linked to terrorists."

The story of Randy Glass
never seemed to quite catch on

If you ask most people
"Have you ever heard about this?

Have you heard about Randy Glass"?
They haven't heard about it.

Perhaps the story failed
to spark the public imagination

because the most dramatic revelation
ended up on Dateline's cutting room floor.

I had been threatened by FBI agent
Steve Bernowski that if I mencioned any of that

I would be charged with obstruction of justice...

Two months later,The Palm Beach Post ran the story

During the course of the conversation,
I asked him what exactly his intentions were?

After dinner, as we walked outside...

...he pointed in the directions
of the World Trade Center

and said,
'Those towers are coming down.'

I'm not suggesting from this that Pakistan
is the quote-unquote "solution" to 9/11, because it's not.

Pakistan is one part in a very complicated story...

The question to me is,
'Who else was involved, with al Qaeda?'

Was al Qaeda used, as a tool,

just as in the 1980s the mujahadeen were basically
used by the U.S. government?

In August 2004, after the 9/11 Commission had
disappointed so many of the families with its Report,

Paul Thompson's completed timeline
was published as a book by HarperCollins.

The recurring themes of
Paul Thompson's timeline are clear:

No accountability,
few answers and many missed leads.

The sponsors of the attack yet to be confronted

"the fact that there is some sort of a deal in place between
the government of Pakistan and the United States."

The men named as the culprits allowed to escape

We haven't really captured anybody,
one or two on the fringe

And the government officials who ignored warnings before 9/11
-- still in their positions.

"I don't remember the al Qaeda cells as being something
that we were told were something we needed to do something about."

Still, despite years of investigation
and advocacy by the families and others,

the "official story" of what really happened
on September 11th remains little changed.

What is democracy?

Government by the people.
It's a simple equation, OKAY.

The biggest part of the democracy is the Media.
They have to hold everyone accountable.

You know, it would be impossible,
as a citizen,

to be up and informed on every single topic,
because it took us thousands of hours of research

in order to be informed enough to ask the right questions here.
And that's where you need media, because you know what,

somebody has to be out there connecting the dots.

And we don't have that.

I think new reporting has
drastically changed since 9/11?

Rebecca Abrahams,
an Assignment Editor with ABC News:

The reporting now,
there is always a use of caution

in how we cover a story...

For those tuning to the Internet
rather than network news,

online buzz about President Bush in the Florida classroom
had started within weeks of the attacks.

But most Americans remained unaware...

for nearly three years the footage gathered dust
on newsroom shelves as the networks avoided the issue

in their anniversary retrospectives.

"ABC News is gonna be with you all day long, bringing you
the events of the day, starting with the memorial..."

They seemed to go out of their way to avoid
exposing the president's lack of response.

"The President thought for a second or two about walking out of
the room, but he didn't want to scare the children."

"Instead, Bush pauses, thanks the children,
and heads for the empty classroom next door."

Finally, into the void created by the news media
glossing over the discomforting issues came filmmaker

Michael Moore with his record-breaking
film 'Fahrenheit 9/11'

Sharply critical of the Administration,
the film sparked controversy and fiery attacks on Moore himself,

including during primetime
at the Republican National Convention

"please my friends, he's certainly
not a disingenuous filmmaker."

Michael Moore

Why had it been left to McCain's "disingenuous filmmaker"
to bring these questions to the American public?

'Fahrenheit 911', which was based a lot on
our reports at BBC television and on my book...

ABC News has free access
to everything we do at BBC television.

We say go ahead, 'Run it! Run the story.
You don't like the way Michael Moore does it?

You think it's too polemical or biased?
Fine. Run the hard news, buddy!"

We are every day kicking
and screaming in the newsroom

trying to get these stories out there.
But we could do a story, and it might not make air.

You have someone from the corporations
making the editorial decisions. These are not journalists.

With the stifling of dissent on the rise in America after 9/11,
the tough questions were not asked, much less answered.

"There was a time in South Africa that would
put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented.

And in some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here.
You will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism

put around your neck. Now it's that fear that keeps journalists
from asking the toughest of the tough questions.

So all this information
keeps popping here and there,

but what happens is that no
one wants to take the ball and run with it

because all the information's there. If we could put it
together and get it into the Washington Post

as a 10-day series and have
people are saying, "Unbelievable."

The facts were dribbled out and over
such an extended period of time that,

I think, the effect was lost
on the American public.

The press should have been doing a
better job of putting those "conflicts", if you will,

you know side by side?
in a cumulative report.

But that's not the job of reporting.
That's the job of editorial pages and politicians and others

to make those kinds of judgments --
and the public itself, and the 9/11 relatives themselves --

to make those kinds of assertions.
All we can do in our reporting is report facts.

And we have reported those facts, and we have held
those facts up against public statements at the time...

which is why they know that's what took place,
from our reporting.

This is a scandal of tremendous proportions.
It makes Watergate look small.

There's a strange lack of interest by people
both on the left and on the right.

Nobody seems to want to just uncover
the truth and follow leads wherever they may go,

because I think they go to some
really damaging places.

Maybe we shouldn't have questioned whether
Nixon had any involvement in Watergate.

Maybe we should have just accepted that story.
Maybe we should have accepted the story that President Clinton

had no involvement, had never had
sex with "that woman", Ms. Lewinsky.

So just because it's the official story of record doesn't mean
that we should not delve further to see if that is the actual story.

Yes they lied, they all lied,
whether consciously or unconsciously,

it happened.

Now we need to look into?
why they lied

and what was the result of those lies?

We can't have these wars,
reorganize our way of life,

based on a false understanding of what 9/11 was.

We have to go beyond the myth and get to the truth.

We have to know.

We have to.

9/11 was the biggest 'don't ask, don't tell'...
And if it wasn't for the families, we wouldn't have anything.

And that's very frightening.

We had to take this tragedy
and do the best we could with our lives

and with our country,
to try and make

the people that are supposed
to protect us do the right thing.

What I really wanted to happen
here is for my children to feel safe.

I could have cared less who was in office!
I wanted the truth and I wanted what was wrong to be fixed.

What we're left with at the end of our journey is no answers,
no accountability, and I wasted 4 years of my life

trying my damnedest, along with the other family members,
to make sure this never happens again.

Let me just say something real quickly about my son...

On the wall in his room,
it said:

"Knowledge is Power"

I am only doing this for
one reason and one reason only:

to carry on his legacy.

I'm so pissed off at the American people.
I'm so pissed off at this government, because of this cover up.

John Gerard Caughlin,
Timothy J. Caughlin,

Anne Marie Cramer,
Christopher Seton Cramer,

And my big brother Wade Brian Green,
we miss you, we love you and you are always in our hearts.