Investigators Blow Whistle On Constrained Non-Investigation
Compare these two items, reprinted below.
The first is a compilation of recent articles from the New York Times and New York Daily News, which report on major criticisms of the currently ongoing "official" investigation into the WTC collapse, from the INVESTIGATORS themselves!
MASSIVE complaints have been made by the VERY INVESTIGATORS hired by FEMA to INVESTIGATE the twin towers' destruction; to the effect that they (investigators) were being deliberately obstructed on nearly EVERY FRONT in efforts to determine conclusively -- NOT SPECULATE - precisely why the buildings collapsed. Major amounts of KEY EVIDENCE have ALREADY been destroyed; investigators are being PREVENTED from actually EXAMINING any remaining evidence; and they're receiving THREATS saying to back off from probing too deeply.
These serious professionals are very distressed over attempts being made RIGHT NOW, to manipulate and maneuver them into RUBBER-STAMPING the speculative "assessment" propagated to the ends of the Earth by Feds and their countless mouthpieces (like Sci Am) within hours of the WTC collapse -- that burning jet fuel caused it. MANY of the investigators who are supposed to examine the actual EVIDENCE and figure out for SURE what brought the towers down HAVE SAID they consider it unlikely that structural damage from burning jet fuel was sufficient to have caused the collapse of the buildings.
The second item is a total government con job article, promulgated only WEEKS after 911 by nattering nabobs on government payrolls at MIT and Scientific American; who new -- at THAT point in time -- probably only just as MUCH about the WTC attack/collapse as YOU OR ME and EVERYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.
They hadn't so much as touched, or looked at, a single piece of debris.
_______________________
1.05.02
Investigators: Burning fuel damage 'NOT ENOUGH' to have crumbled WTC **
Explosives involved as well
** Experts charge official cover-up/destruction of evidence
-- 'A growing number of fire protection engineers have theorized that "the structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers...' -- NY
Daily News
Firefighter Mag Raps 9/11 Probe
By Joe Calderone
NY Daily News Chief of Investigations
A respected firefighting trade magazine with ties to the city Fire Department is calling for a "full-throttle, fully resourced" investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center.
A signed editorial in the January issue of Fire Engineering magazine says the current investigation is "a half-baked farce."
The piece by Bill Manning, editor of the 125-year-old monthly that frequently publishes technical studies of major fires, also says the steel from the site should be preserved so investigators can examine what caused the collapse.
"Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the Happy Land social club fire?... That's what they're doing at the World Trade Center," the editorial says. "The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately."
Fire Engineering counted FDNY Deputy Chief Raymond Downey, the department's chief structural expert, among its senior advisers. Downey was killed in the Sept. 11 attack. John Jay College's fire engineering expert, Prof. Glenn Corbett, serves as the magazine's technical editor.
A group of engineers from the American Society of Civil Engineers, with backing from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, has been studying some aspects of the collapse. But Manning and others say that probe has not looked at all aspects of the disaster and has had limited access to documents and other evidence.
A growing number of fire protection engineers have theorized that "the structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers," the editorial stated.
A FEMA spokesman, John Czwartacki, said agency officials had not yet seen the editorial and declined to comment. Norida Torriente, a spokeswoman for the American Society of Civil Engineers, described her group's study as a "beginning" and "not a definitive work."
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has joined a group of relatives of firefighters who died in the attack in calling for a blue-ribbon panel to study the collapse.
"We have to learn from incidents through investigation to determine what types of codes should be in place and what are the best practices for high-rise construction," Manning told the Daily News. "The World Trade Center is not the only lightweight, core construction high-rise in the U.S. It's a typical method of construction."
http://www.rense.com/general18/firefighter.htm
NY TIMES
December 25, 2001 THE TOWERS
Experts Urging Broader Inquiry in Towers' Fall
...In calling for a new investigation, some structural engineers have said that one serious mistake has already been made in the chaotic aftermath of the collapses: the decision to rapidly recycle the steel columns, beams and trusses that held up the buildings. That may have cost investigators some of their most direct physical evidence with which to try to piece together an answer.
Officials in the mayor's office declined to reply to written and oral requests for comment over a three-day period about who decided to recycle the steel and the concern that the decision might be handicapping the investigation...
Interviews with a handful of members of the team, which includes some of the nation's most respected engineers, also uncovered complaints that they had at various times been shackled with bureaucratic restrictions that prevented them from interviewing witnesses, examining the disaster site and requesting crucial information like recorded distress calls to the police and fire departments...
"This is almost the dream team of engineers in the country working on this, and our hands are tied," said one team member who asked not to be identified. Members have been threatened with dismissal for speaking to the press. "FEMA is controlling everything," the team member said…
Dr. Frederick W. Mowrer, an associate professor in the fire protection engineering department at the University of Maryland, said he believed the decision could ultimately compromise any investigation of the collapses. "I find the speed with which potentially important evidence has been removed and recycled to be appalling," Dr. Mowrer said.
-------------------------------------------
To: jmcm5@lycos.com
Subject: Re: Firefighter Magazine Raps 9/11 Probe
These articles were brought to my attention by a friend [xxxxx]:
1. The New York Daily News paraphrase and interview with Bill Manning, editor of Fire Engineering
2. Manning's original Fire Engineering editorial, January 2001.
3. Another Fire Engineering editorial, same issue.
The third article affirms the plane wrecks by suicide hijackers, affirms the collapse of the WTC by fire -- but most compelling, observes that WTC is "[t]he first total collapse of a high-rise during a fire in United States history."
Ahem. Quite a landmark event. Most remarkable, given the statements in NYDN editorial that: "The World Trade Center is not the only lightweight, core construction high-rise in the U.S. It's a typical method of construction."
But the US Government (FEMA etc.) is moving rapidly to destroy the evidence, cutting it up and selling it for scrap without serious investigation -- eerily reminiscent of the Murrah Building (OKC) destruction and cleanup, and of the quarantine and excavation of the site where scores of Branch Davidians died in Waco.
Row, row, row your boat ... truth is whatever they tell us it is.
J
-------------------------------------------
[This is the preamble to the Manning article-- CV.]
"Burning Questions...Need Answers": FE's Bill Manning Calls for Comprehensive Investigation of WTC Collapse
Fair Lawn, NJ, January 4, 2002 - Bill Manning, Fire Engineering's editor in chief, is summoning members of the fire service to "A Call to Action." In his January 2002 Editor's Opinion, "$elling Out the Investigation" (below), he warns that unless there is a full-blown investigation by an independent panel established solely for that purpose, "the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer-generated hypotheticals." Manning explained: "Clearly, there are burning questions that need answers.... The lessons about the buildings' design and behavior in this extraordinary event must be learned and applied in the real world."
In an interview with the New York Daily News today, Manning reiterated his call for a "full-throttle, fully resourced" investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center. He is asking members of the fire service to read "WTC 'Investigation'? A Call to Action" in the January 2002 issue of Fire Engineering and at fireengineering.com and to contact their representatives in Congress and officials in Washington to ask that a blue ribbon panel be convened to thoroughly investigate the WTC collapse.
Among those also calling for the investigation are Sally Regenhard, the mother of Christian Regenhard, the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) probationary firefighter killed in the World Trade Center (WTC) attack, and founder of the Campaign for Skyscraper Safety; Give Your Voice, a civilian relatives' group headed by Michael Cartier, who lost his brother in the collapse; prominent structural engineers and fire-safety experts, and New York State Senators Charles Schumer and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
[Continuing text from the Fire Engineering page]
$elling Out the Investigation
By Bill Manning
Did they throw away the locked doors from the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire? Did they throw away the gas can used at the Happyland Social Club Fire? Did they cast aside the pressure-regulating valves at the Meridian Plaza Fire? Of course not. But essentially, that's what they're doing at the World Trade Center.
For more than three months, structural steel from the World Trade Center has been and continues to be cut up and sold for scrap. Crucial evidence that could answer many questions about high-rise building design practices and performance under fire conditions is on the slow boat to China, perhaps never to be seen again in America until you buy your next car.
Such destruction of evidence shows the astounding ignorance of government officials to the value of a thorough, scientific investigation of the largest fire-induced collapse in world history. I have combed through our national standard for fire investigation, NFPA 921, but nowhere in it does one find an exemption allowing the destruction of evidence for buildings over 10 stories tall.
Hoping beyond hope, I have called experts to ask if the towers were the only high-rise buildings in America of lightweight, center-core construction. No such luck. I made other calls asking if these were the only buildings in America with light-density, sprayed-on fireproofing. Again, no luck-they were two of thousands that fit the description.
Comprehensive disaster investigations mean increased safety. They mean positive change. NASA knows it. The NTSB knows it. Does FEMA know it?
No. Fire Engineering has good reason to believe that the "official investigation" blessed by FEMA and run by the American Society of Civil Engineers is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure. Except for the marginal benefit obtained from a three-day, visual walk-through of evidence sites conducted by ASCE investigation committee members- described by one close source as a "tourist trip"-no one's checking the evidence for anything.
Maybe we should live and work in planes. That way, if disaster strikes, we will at least be sure that a thorough investigation will help find ways to increase safety for our survivors.
As things now stand and if they continue in such fashion, the investigation into the World Trade Center fire and collapse will amount to paper- and computer generated hypotheticals.
However, respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers. Rather, theory has it, the subsequent contents fires attacking the questionably fireproofed lightweight trusses and load-bearing columns directly caused the collapses in an alarmingly short time. Of course, in light of there being no real evidence thus far produced, this could remain just unexplored theory.
The frequency of published and unpublished reports raising questions about the steel fireproofing and other fire protection elements in the buildings, as well as their design and construction, is on the rise. The builders and owners of the World Trade Center property, the Port Authority of New York-New Jersey, a governmental agency that operates in an accountability vacuum beyond the reach of local fire and building codes, has denied charges that the buildings' fire protection or construction components were substandard but has refused to cooperate with requests for documentation supporting its contentions.
Some citizens are taking to the streets to protest the investigation sellout. Sally Regenhard, for one, wants to know why and how the building fell as it did upon her unfortunate son Christian, an FDNY probationary firefighter. And so do we.
Clearly, there are burning questions that need answers. Based on the incident's magnitude alone, a full-throttle, fully resourced, forensic investigation is imperative. More important, from a moral standpoint, for the safety of present and future generations who live and work in tall buildings-and for firefighters, always first in and last out-the lessons about the buildings' design and behavior in this extraordinary event must be learned and applied in the real world.
To treat the September 11 incident any differently would be the height of stupidity and ignorance.
The destruction and removal of evidence must stop immediately.
The federal government must scrap the current setup and commission a fully resourced blue ribbon panel to conduct a clean and thorough investigation of the fire and collapse, leaving no stones unturned.
Firefighters, this is your call to action. Visit WTC "Investigation"?: A Call to Action, then contact your representatives in Congress and officials in Washington and help us correct this problem immediately.
Click Here
For Fire Engineering Magazine Article
8 January 2002
Information forwarded by Dick Eastman
eastman@wolfenet.com
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