Book Review - Worse Than Watergate

Worse than Watergate takes a less thoroughgoing approach to the 9/11 conspiracy; still Dean lists several questions that need to be answered by the government (in order to prevent what Dean calls wild speculations that an agency of the US government was behind the attacks):

1. Is it true many governments (Germany, Israel, Morocco, Russia, Jordan, Egypt, and France among them) had advance knowledge and warned the United States that the 9/11 attack was imminent?
2. Is it true Bush personally intervened to block an investigation of the bin Laden family’s investments and activities in the US before 9/11?
3. Why were no military fighter jets scrambled until over an hour and a quarter after the FAA became aware of the first hijacking (whereas the FAA had fighters alongside golfer—a stalwart Republican and friend of Bush—Payne Stewart’s private jet within 20 minutes of loss of radio contact)?
4. Who purchased (and made all that money on) put options (betting that the stock price would go down) for companies that would be most affected by 9/11 attacks, such as United Airlines, American airlines, and tenants at the World Trade Center Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley? 
5. Why were so many of these put options traded through an investment firm with executives who have ties to the CIA?  Why did the president of the firm abruptly resign after 9/11? 
6. Is there any basis to the many stories in the British press about the financial rewards from 9/11 accruing to the Carlyle Group (for whom Bush once worked and his father worked until recently)?
7. Who authorized Saudi businessmen and their families to be picked up throughout the United States by a private airplane right after the 9/11 attacks, when all other private and commercial aircraft were grounded in the United States, and then fly off to Europe?  Who was on the airplane?  And why were they so anxious to get out of the United States? 
8. Is it true that two senior intelligence and terror experts from Israel’s Mossad visited Washington in August 2001 to warn the CIA and FBI that a cell of two hundred terrorists (including four who would be among the 9/11 teams) was planning a major operation? 

These are eight of the questions from the book, to which I’ll add five of my own:

9. Where is the evidence of the Boeing 757-200 aircraft (and its passengers and crew) that was American flight 77 that left Washington Dulles airport at 0810 and supposedly struck the Pentagon at 0938? 
10. What is the nature of the "pod" seen in video footage on the lower fuselage of both aircraft (allegedly 767s American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175) that struck the World Trade Center, and what were the flashes of light that occurred between these aircraft and the building immediately before impact?
11. If United Flight 93 simply crashed intact (flight controls having been taken over by passengers who elected to fly it into the ground) in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, why did debris from that flight scatter as much as eight miles away? 
12. Were semiannual war game exercises in effect for September 11, 2001, conducted by various agencies, including the FAA, NORAD, the Canadian Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office, and possibly the Pentagon?  Did some of these drills consist of live-fly exercises where actual aircraft were simulating the behavior of hijacked airliners?  How many aircraft took part in these exercises, and approximately what area of North American skies were they flying? 
13. Why has all the actual physical evidence of the crimes of 9/11—this was clearly a crime of mass murder—been bulldozed, destroyed, removed, and/or classified?  What is the identity of the public servant(s) who authorized the destruction of 9/11 evidence and/or contravened any legitimate government agency investigation of these crimes? 

There are literally hundreds of discrepancies and deficiencies in the government’s official story of events.

{Dear reader, please do, today, write your Congress people, asking them to initiate impeachment proceedings against George Bush for lying to Congress and to launch an internal investigation of the government to answer the above questions of 9/11.  In particular, the government criminals behind 9/11 must be brought to justice.  I hereby authorize all readers to copy and paste the contents of this book review at will into any letter they write to public officials.}

Worse than Watergate ends with a discussion of potential scandals in the Cheney-Bush copresidency.  Dean defines a scandal as "a transgression sufficiently serious to elicit the disapproval of others but falling short of a ‘heinous crime.’"  The misconduct must be concealed and then revealed, by the media—a key characteristic of a political scandal.  He identifies the Cheney-Bush potential scandals as:

1. Bush’ character issues
2. Bush’ prior business conduct (much worse than the Clintons’)
3. Cheney’s failure to provide complete and truthful medical information
4. Cheney’s past business conduct (active SEC investigation)
5. Squelching dissent at presidential and vice-presidential appearances (ACLU lawsuit filed)
6. Bush’ executive order dismantling the Presidential Records Act
7. Extraordinary secrecy in energy policy and other public issues for the benefit of special interests
8. Cheney’s stall in addressing terrorism before 9/11
9. Cheney’s failure to update existing continuation of government planning
10. Bush’ misleading Congress and the people into war in Iraq
11. Leaking of Valerie Plame’s covert CIA identity (being investigated by Justice)

Sample letter: back to text

{if this is a hard copy, insert your inside address here:
{street
{city, state, zip
{date}

Honorable {insert the name of your representative or senator here}
{if this is a hard copy letter, complete inside address:
{House or Senate Office Building
{Washington, D.C.}

Dear {insert Mr. or Ms. and their last names}

Subject: Impeachment of George Bush and People’s Criminal Investigation of 9/11

The current presidency has lied to the American people and to Congress.  It is guilty of a wide variety of improprieties, the most serious being George Bush lying to justify the war in Iraq and the US government orchestrating and/or criminally enabling the attacks of 9/11.

The following table shows the deceptions George Bush offered to Congress in his State of the Union address of January 28, 2003:

{copy contents of Table 1 above}

In addition George Bush did not satisfy the terms of the Congressional resolution for going to war by a proper presidential determination that a) there continued to be a threat that could not be handled by diplomacy and b) any such action be consistent with the war against those involved in 9/11.

I therefore insist that you perform your Constitutional duty to impeach President of the United States for lying to Congress.

Second,

Please cooperate with others in Congress to authorize a citizen’s commission with subpoena power to answer the following questions about the attacks of 9/11.

{list the questions from Dean and myself from above}

From any common sense perspective, it is clear that the "official" government story of what happened in the 9/11 attacks is blatantly untruthful.  The American people want to know what happened and which officials—either elected or behind-the-scenes—were the fundamental cause of that horror… which was also erroneously used to justify the war in Iraq.

Please, {insert Mr. or Ms. and their last names}, you owe it to our descendants to track down and criminally prosecute those responsible for the war in Iraq and for the events of 9/11.  Americans want a government that doesn’t lie to them.  You can help make a positive change by working with others in Congress to get to the bottom of these high crimes.  Make this your top priority for the remainder of your term.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Sincerely,

{insert your signature if this is a hard copy}
{write out your name to follow the signature}