With US political leaders Democrat and Republican alike rushing to embrace the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, and an eager media receiving the Commission’s 567-page report as the whole story, the history we can stand upon forevermore, everyone who cares about the fate of American democracy will want to know something about what those pages actually say.
The Commission’s account, by popular reckoning, has made an impression with its heft, its footnotes, its portrayal of the confusion of that sobering day, its detail, its narrative finesse. Yet under the magnifying glass of David Ray Griffin, eminent theologian and author of The New Pearl Harbor (a book that explores questions that reporters, eyewitnesses, and political observers have raised about the 9/11 attacks), the report appears much shabbier. In fact, there are holes in the places where detail ought to be thickest: Is it possible that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has given three different stories of what he was doing the morning of September 11, and that the Commission combines two of them and ignores eyewitness reports to the contrary? Is it possible that the man in charge of the military that day, Acting Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Myers, saw the first tower hit on TV, and then went into a meeting, where he remained unaware of what was happening for the next 40 minutes? Is it possible, as the Commission reports, that the FAA did not inform military that the fourth airplane appeared to have been hijacked—contrary to both common sense and the word of FAA employees? Is it possible that the Report, upon which are based recommendations for overhauling the nation’s intelligence, fails to mention even in a footnote the most serious allegations made public by Coleen Rowley, FBI whistleblower and Time person of the year?
David Ray Griffin’s critique of the Kean-Zelikow report makes clear that our nation’s highest leaders have told tales that wear extremely thin when held up to the light of other eyewitness reports, research, and the dictates of common sense—and that the Commission charged with the task of investigating all of the facts surrounding 9/11 has succeeded in obscuring, rather than unearthing, the truth.
David Ray Griffin is Professor of Philosophy of Religion and Theology, Emeritus, at the Claremont School of Theology (California) and the author of twenty-five books, most recently The New Pearl Harbor: Distrurbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11 and Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith.
6” x 9” • 352 pages • ISBN 1-56656-584-7
“With this new book, David Ray Griffin establishes himself, alongside Seymour Hersh, as America’s number one bearer of unpleasant, yet necessary, public truths.”
–Richard Falk, professor emeritus, Princeton
Advance Praise for David Ray Griffin’s
The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
“Through an incisive and carefully documented review, David Ray Griffin skillfully refutes the findings of the 9/11 Commission. . . .”
— Michel Chossudovsky, Professor of Economics, University of Ottawa
“This is a painstaking and devastating demolition of the lies transmitted by The 9/11 Commission Report. . . . Griffin’s book will strengthen the cause of those who believe that the best defense for democracy is not blind fealty to leaders, but the truth.”
— Peter Dale Scott, author of Drugs, Oil, and War
“In this masterful sequel to The New Pearl Harbor, David Ray Griffin unveils a disparity between official 9/11 “spin” and independently researched 9/11 fact so glaring as to suggest the possibility of a constitutional crisis unlike anything our country has ever known.[This book] seriously—and alarmingly—challenges the independence, impartiality, and thoroughness of the 9/11 Commission.”
—Burns H. Weston, Professor of Law Emeritus, University of Iowa
“David Ray Griffin’s latest book amply explains why the 9/11 Commission can now be placed in the same category as the Warren and Tower Commissions as dissemblers and varnishers of the truth.”
— Wayne Madsen, syndicated columnist, investigative journalist
“This careful deconstruction of what many have called The 9/11 Omission Commission skewers, with academic rigor, both the official 9/11 story and its associated cover-up. David Ray Griffin’s is one of the finest minds at work in the pursuit of truth about 9/11.”
— Barrie Zwicker, Canadian Media Critic and Commentator
“David is a national treasure. His first book The New Pearl Harbor was great.
This book . . . is even better.”
— Meria Heller (www.Meria.net)
“[T]he 9/11 commission aimed more to bring closure than to investigate the anomalies surrounding the event. . . . For those who still seek the truth and hope for a serious investigation of the facts, Griffin’s careful analysis of the report is essential reading.”
— John B. Cobb, Jr., Professor of Theology, Emeritus, Claremont School of Theology