How to “expose a cover-up”

Despite innumerable claims of solid evidence of the existence of the New World Order, it always turns out that the evidence is of more or less doubtful nature. One such example is this “exposure” from June 13, 2011, published on the blog Truth-out.org ⁰: The main character is supposedly a former top analyst in the american military secret service. He insists on being anonymous using the pseudonym “Iron Man” after the american comic book superhero¹. The secret service organization in question, Joint Forces Intelligence Command, is criticized by “Iron Man” for not passing on material that could be relevant for the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, which was set up in 2002 to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks. These new documents should prove that the authorities knew about impending terror attacks against the World Trade Center 1 and 2 and the Pentagon but did nothing to prevent them. The attacks should be carried out using hijacked planes². “Iron Man” claims that the material was deliberately not passed on and thus is a cover-up of a conspiracy.

Sequence of events

• May 2006: “Iron Man” sends two written complaints to the Defense Intelligence Agency. The complaints describe “Iron Man”‘s perception of some internal briefings in 2000 about possible terror attacks on the United States.
• April 2011: “Iron Man” requests under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to see his own complaints.
• June 2011: “Iron Man” contacts Truth-out.org with the story that new documents show that intelligence information about the terror attack on September 11, 2001, was held back from the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.

This clever maneuver makes it look like “Iron Man” has forced the authorities, through a court order, to hand over damaging material that reveal prior knowledge of the terror attack. In reality, he has written two complaints 4½ years after the terror attack where he plants the rumor that there was prior knowledge of concrete threats about the upcoming terror attack. Five years later, he contacts the authorities to have his own complaints sent to him.

Was there prior knowledge of the attack?

“Iron Man” rattles off a number of reports, briefings, and conversations as evidence:

• A number of intelligence reports identifying likely and possible residences of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, the leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan.
• A number of reports on possible terror targets in the United States and the rest of the world by terrorists inside the country or internationally. The reports also list additional targets in case of conventional war. The most sensitive information in these reports deals with possible scenarios within the borders of the United States and analyses and suggestions on how to prevent such attacks. The reports are from the summer of 2000.The first version was titled “The WMD Threat to the U.S.” and was probably published on July 16, 2000. The report pointed to New York City as the area with the biggest challenges.”Iron Man” then points to the oral part of the briefing where the World Trade Center 1 and 2 were named as the most likely terror targets closely followed by the Pentagon. The plan was to make one of the towers fall into the other, precisely as with the terror attack on the World Trade Center 1 in 1993³.”Iron Man claims that the possible use of planes might have been discussed during the briefing. This possibility was, according to “Iron Man”, certainly discussed by others before the briefing. During this pre-briefing, it was discussed if security at the World Trade Center should be contacted but this option was rejected, because it was argued that contact to non-military functions should be avoided.“Iron Man” then claims that the annual terror exercise for the fiscal year of 2002 should take place in New York for a worst case scenario. It had already been decided that the exercise for the fiscal year of 2001 should be a different one, namely the hijacking of a cruise ship⁴. The written briefing was lated re-edited to “The Chemical and Biological Threat to the U.S.” and probably was published on September 14, 2000. This briefing should have comprised of some likely terror targets, New York (e.g. Wall Street), Washington D.C. (e.g. the Pentagon) and Los Angeles. “Iron Man” refers again to the oral part of this other briefing where the World Trade Center 1 and 2 and the Pentagon were named as the most likely terror targets.
• The rest of the complaint is comprised of a number of general intelligence initiatives, one being an analysis of the 120 cities in the United States that had been deemed to have the highest risk of becoming a terror target. A later memo recommended that an additional 15 cities were added to the list.

Thus, we have only the word of an anonymous person’s word that the World Trade Center 1 and 2 and the Pentagon should have been named as the most likely terror targets. “Iron Man” refers specifically not to written documentation for this but only to what he believes to have heard.

Conclusion

Obviously, this approach is highly criticizable. It is quite unacceptable to plant rumors of an event several years after it happened, wait a while, and then have the authorities have the rumors sent to you with the intention of “exposing” previous knowledge about concrete acts of terror. It is a bit difficult to see how oral information should have been presented to a committee 2 years after. There will always be a lot of oral information given at any meeting where only the most important things are written down. Since no written account of any of the briefings exist, it can reasonably be concluded that the possibility of an attack by hijacked planes against the World Trade Center 1 and 2 and the Pentagon have been a purely theoretical discussion, if it was discussed at all. We only have the word of “Iron Man” that the issues have been touched upon. On the other hand, “Iron Man” has not been able to present a single concrete piece of evidence that the terror attack would happen as it happened. The written documentation referred to by “Iron Man” deals with general evaluations of different forms of possible terror threats: It is not a question of specific threats of specific locations at specific times. It is thus manipulative to claim that the authoritites knew the terror attack would happen. Naturally, it cannot be rejected out of hand that the conversations could have happened with the alleged content. But we also need to look critically at the fashion by which this “evidence” has surfaced and the conspiratorical context the “evidence” has been presented in. There is little doubt that this “expose” will enter the lexicon of conspiracy theories. But that does not make it more true. As a curiosity, the claim is also in conflict with the many other claims about the planes not having been hijacked by terrorists. If this story from “Iron Man” is regarded as true, it necessarily follows that the official account provides an accurate description of the terror attack on September 11, 2001.

Sources

0. EXCLUSIVE: New Documents Claim Intelligence on Bin Laden, al-Qaeda Targets Withheld From Congress’ 9/11 Probe, Truth-out.org
1. Iron Man, Wikipedia
2. “Iron Man” klager, Defense Intelligence Agency
3. 1993 World Trade Center bombing, Wikipedia
4. Dette havde præcedens, da krydstogtskibet Achille Lauro i 1985 blev kapret af terrorister. MS Achille Lauro, Wikipedia

Q & A