- With special thanks to J. Beck, Boudewijn Wegerif
and Lowell Manning
-
- Did US intelligence agencies allow the attacks on
the World Trade Center to proceed through criminal conspiracy,
inexcusable complacency, or White House orders to look the other way
to avoid embarrassing influential Saudis?
-
- Corrected casualty assessments now indicate that the
only major tenant of the World Trade Center to suffer suspiciously
light losses on the morning of Sept. 11 was the FBI.
-
- In pre-hardcover editions of All Fall Down: The
Politics of Terror and Mass Persuasion I quoted a very reliable source
indicating that the Twin Towers two biggest corporate tenants went
nearly unscathed by the Sept. 11 terror attacks.
-
- Recent emails from a Morgan Stanley survivor and
others resulted in a cross check of casualty lists showing that this
big investment firm suffered hundreds of fatalities in the Sept. 11
attacks. Goldman Sachs apparently did suffer light casualties but its
offices are located in a nearby complex and not in the Twin Towers
themselves.
-
- My original source citation reads:
-
- "Morgan Stanley, the largest tenant of the WTC
complex lost none of its 3500 employees occupying some 50 floors
according to the Washington Post. Neither did Oppenheimer Funds. [It
was] also verified that at least one Goldman Sachs Vice President had
taken the day off to go surfing. This may or may not be a lucky
coincidence?"
-
- At the speed of networked news additions and
corrections, it was not my source's responsibility to update me. I
should have checked. I checked now. A quick response to my query late
last week has explained that the stories I had referenced were based
on early reports by mainstream media [including the Washington Post]
who later corrected themselves just as CBS amended its initial report
that no jet interceptors were based at Andrews Air Force Base.
-
- Removing Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs from the
low casualties equation removes the contention that these corporate
giants located on a Sept. 7 State Department worldwide warning that
Americans may be the target of a terrorist threat [from] extremist
groups with links to Osama bin Laden s al Qaeda organization.
-
- Could a fully occupied WTC have been evacuated in
time to account for the current casualty figures?
-
- Civil engineer Lowell Manning takes issue with
Eamonn O'Brien who in a recent interview calculated there should have
been 38,500 people in both Trade Towers by 8:30 that morning plus at
least 10 percent additional visitors for a total occupancy, so around
41,000 people altogether.
-
- A Canadian evacuation expert who has run unannounced
drills in government office buildings, O'Brien figures that the World
Trade Center must have been less than 30 percent occupied" to account
for fatality figures now placed at 2,940 dead..
-
- Manning has conservatively assumed the tower
population at 100 per floor on average, to give a figure of 20,000 all
told, because there were at least 4 plant floors in each building and
some unoccupied floors undergoing refit/renovation. Press reports
generally put the population at around 25,000. There is absolutely no
evidence that the buildings were substantially empty.
-
- Besides noting that Goldman Sachs was located nearby
not actually in the twin towers - Manning observes that Morgan Stanley
was spread over 21 floors (not 50 as claimed in the original
quote).
-
- The New Zealander adds, I do not for one moment
believe Eamonn O'Brien's figures of about 30 percent. occupancy. Is he
taking into account that the South tower evacuation will have started
before UA 175 hit it at 9.04 am? I think the order to evacuate would
have been given as a matter of routine disaster response pretty soon
after the north tower was hit at about 8.48 am.
-
- But it does not appear that an orderly evacuation
began in the South Tower until a second jetliner hit its upper floors.
Survivors report that security announcements in the South Tower
instructed employees to return to their desks after the North Tower
suffered a massive explosion. We appear to be all right, said
security. Office workers quoted in All Fall Down say they were
nervously discussing the word appear when the South Tower was
struck.
-
- Since the South Tower collapsed before the North
Tower, could it have been evacuated in time to account for an
estimated 660 casualties? Here is Manning s view:
-
-
- THE WTC STORY - A TALE OF TWO TOWERS By Lowell
Manning
-
- March 2002
-
-
- At the time of impact, there was nobody in the part
of the WTC South tower that UA Flight 175 crashed into. Most of the
losses in the South tower were caused when the building collapsed some
55 minutes after impact.
-
- Of an estimated 620 deaths in the south tower2,
about 590 were people who were working above level 80 and only 30 or
so below level 803. The plane crashed into the building between levels
43 and 74, occupied mainly by Morgan Stanley. Morgan Stanley was by
far the largest firm in either of the twin towers, occupying 21 floors
and employing at least 2000 staff. Of the nine staff there who lost
their lives, 5 were security guards.
-
- A general evacuation of the South tower must have
been ordered soon after Flight AA 11 struck the North tower at about
8.48 am, giving enough time for people to get into the stairwells
before UA Flight 175 hit the South tower at about 9.04am. (Given the
devastation caused by AA Flight 11 to people in the North tower, the
only other explanation would be that Morgan Stanley was forewarned of
the attack.)
-
- The 10,000 or so people in the building could only
move down the stairwells as fast as they could physically exit the
building and as fast as the stairwells themselves allow. Fire service
teams fighting their way up the stairwells against the flow of people
moving down would have slowed the evacuation and the initial rescue
effort in both towers.
-
- Assuming the buildings were designed to be evacuated
in an hour, (any longer, in my view, would be irresponsible) the
stairwells would "pass" about 200 people a minute. So if there are
about 100 people employed on each floor on average, the crowd in the
stairwells moves down about two floors each minute. People from around
level 80 would have been near the impact zone when UA Flight 175
crashed into it. Even without severe structural damage to the
building, heat and smoke in the stairwells at and above the impact
zone would make the descent more difficult. Firms that were relatively
slow to evacuate (like Eurobrokers Inc [level 84] who lost about 60
people, AON Corporation [levels 99,100] who lost about 175 people and
Sandler O'Neill [level 104] who lost about 50 people) would have been
at the top of the queue unable to speed up their exit. Feeding into
already choked stairwells would be difficult. Until UA Flight 175 hit
the building, there was no obvious need to panic, and many people
would have waited in the stairwell lobbies.
-
- Following the South tower attack, some people would
be panicking, while others would be injured in the crush on the
stairs. An hour does not seem to have been enough to clear the South
tower and the end of the queue was trapped when the building
collapsed.
-
- The story with the North tower is different. It
collapsed at about 10.28am, roughly one hour and forty minutes after
impact. AA Flight 11 crashed near level 100 towards the top of the
building. Of some 1640 deaths in the north tower, just 50 or so were
below level 92, (assuming the 76 deaths among employees of the
building owners, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, are
distributed in proportion to the deaths elsewhere). Thirteen of those
50 were General Telecom staff (level 84) who may have evacuated very
late.
-
- The largest tenant was rumoured to be the FBI
(occupying levels 64-76), followed by Marsh USA (levels 94-100). There
are just 2 FBI deaths acknowledged in the victim list, including
former FBI chief John O'Neill who had recently been appointed WTC head
of security.
-
- Windows on the World (levels 106-107) contributed an
estimated 450 deaths, made up of roughly 100 staff, all those on the
victim list whose firms were not on the list of tenants, and those on
the list for whom no employer is given. Cantor Fitzgerald was, like
Windows on the World, practically annihilated, suffering 660
casualties (levels 101-105). Marsh US had 300 deaths (levels 94-100).
Fred Alger Management had 30 or so deaths at Level 93 and Carr Futures
about 70 deaths at Level 92. The remainder are mainly the Port
Authority employees who died.
-
- The Nishi-Nippon bank had an office on level 102,
losing just 2 staff, and Kidder Peabody & Co an office on level
101 also losing just 2 staff. These offices must have been shielded
from the crash impact by the core of the building. This suggests the
stairwells were usable up to level 102, even if they were not usable
further up.
-
- The Fire Service had to deal with dense billowing
smoke, fire, rescue and injuries as well as coordinate evacuation.
While the crash no doubt caused many deaths, and smoke inhalation many
more, most of the deaths occurred when the building collapsed.
Rescuers didn't have enough time to complete their work. The injured
could not be quickly evacuated. The top levels were apparently closed
off by damage and heat, trapping over 1000 people, preventing the
emergency services from getting to them. Given more time, some of them
might have been saved.
-
- Fortunately, the South tower behaved better in an
engineering sense while it stood. If what happened in the North tower
had happened in the South tower, the final September 11th toll would
have been more like 6000 instead of 3000 because everyone still in the
south tower stairwells above the impact point would probably have been
trapped. If AA Flight 11 had struck lower down the North tower at a
similar level to UA Flight 175, and caused the same damage it did
further up, the toll would have been twice as much again. On balance,
given the nature of the attacks and the building design, luck and luck
alone kept the casualty figures down.
-
- About 90 percent. of those in the towers at the time
of the WTC attacks got out safely. The Fire Service paid dearly for
its efforts, losing some 347 men. Given the enormity of the event,
some will argue the loss of life was not that bad. My point is that
most of the 10 percent. who did lose their lives could have been saved
by applying tighter standards for egress from such buildings and by
building lower longer buildings instead of such massive towers. The
WTC tragedy is a very poor advertisement for skyscrapers.
-
- While the rapid collapse of the South tower, and the
chaos of the North tower are both extreme design cases, the events
show that providing nominal egress capacity, (as with the South tower)
is insufficient for the design of such high rise buildings. Instead,
building heights should be chosen so that even in such extreme cases
the buildings can be properly evacuated within an hour, maybe less,
using completely independent stairwell systems. This includes
evacuating injured people. Failure to do this cost up to 2000 innocent
lives in the WTC attack. Unless there are design changes, the next
time, if there is a next time, is likely to be much worse.
-
- The widespread official overstating of victim
numbers long after the number of victims was quite accurately known,
suggests the Bush Administration has been more intent upon boosting
support for its so-called "war on terror" than engaging in a public
debate about what really happened in the WTC towers. Perhaps we
shouldn't be surprised that so little has been publicly acknowledged.
In "war", heroes count while the truth often hurts.
-
-
- * * * End Notes:
-
- 1. A victims map was constructed to prepare this
article. The information used to create the map is available at
www.september11victims.com, to which I was originally linked from the
NY Police Department website.
-
- 2. The September 11 casualty list as of 23/3/02,
currently stands at 3020, of which 81 are missing and the rest
confirmed dead or reported dead, is:
-
- North Tower:............about 1640
- South Tower::............about 620
- Firefighters::............:............:......347
- Police::............:............:............:.....22
-
- Subtotal WTC::............:.........2629
-
- Pentagon::............:............:.........125
- Planes::............:............:............,,
266
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- Total::............:............:............,...3020
- (Nurses and paramedic casualties are included in the
tower figures.)
-
- 3. The exact location of everyone in the buildings
can never be known. For example, some of the 30 deaths below level 80
in the South Tower and the 50 deaths below level 92 in the North Tower
may have occurred at Windows on the World, where many died. I could
only list them against their given firms. Similarly, some of those
whose given firms are not tenants or for whom no firm is given, may
have been visiting other areas where casualties occurred. Including
them as visitors to Windows on the World, as I have done, is a
practical rather than exact analysis. Likewise, I assigned nearly 50
construction and service workers to the empty upper levels of the
South Tower, assuming them to be part of the WTC Project
Renewal.
-
-
- PART II
-
-
- So where are we now? If the WTC occupancy on Sept.
11 was closer to 25,000 souls, an evacuation in the time allotted
would have left the pattern we see: those caught above the crash sites
in each building mostly died; those working below those floors mostly
survived. It now appears that early media reports of 40,000 to 50,000
occupancy included the entire WTC complex.
-
- Corrected corporate casualty figures at the World
Trade Center do not mean that no prior warnings were given. On the
contrary, key questions remain:
-
- 1. Despite repeated warnings of imminent attack by
European news and intelligence agencies, the CIA, FBI, State Dept.,
Mossad, Bronx high school students and the FAA in the weeks leading up
to Sept. 11 - why weren t airport ticket agents and security personnel
put on heightened alert to watch out for fit young men of Middle
Eastern extraction attempting to board commercial flights? Two planes
diverted to Canada were found with box cutters left onboard. This
indicates that some 25 terrorists fitting the standard hijacker
profile card posted at every airline registration desk managed to
board six target aircraft some waving bright red flags by carrying no
luggage and buying last-minute tickets with cash.
-
- 2. Why did the terrorists who hijacked Flight 93 fly
past an unopposed shot at the White House and hit the Pentagon wing
under renovation instead?
-
- 3. How could Sept. 11 planners assume they would
have up to an hour to fly unopposed to their targets when newspapers
reports revealed that air force interceptors routinely swoop alongside
off-course planes within 21 minutes of receiving a scramble
order?
-
- 4. Why were two ready alert fighters routinely
launched from Andrews within minutes of receiving FAA requests to
intercept errant aircraft kept on the runway for one hour after air
traffic controllers alerted NORAD air defenses to a series of
hijackings? Why was all mention of its two air defense squadrons
stricken from the Andrews AFB website on Sept. 11? If the surprise
achieved by the terrorists was the result of catastrophic military
incompetence, why wasn t NORAD head Gen. Richard Myers court-martialed
like the Pearl Harbor commanders, or at least severely reprimanded for
launching distant interceptors too late to fly 129 miles to the
Pentagon - while keeping Andrews alert fighters on a runway just 12
miles from this key facility? On Oct. 2, Gen. Myers was promoted to
head the entire US military as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff.
-
- 5. Why did extensive FBI offices in the Twin Towers
reportedly account for only one casualty on Sept. 11? (John O Neill,
who died while serving as security head of the WTC, had resigned from
the FBI in protest over blocked probes into the bin Ladens..)
-
-
- Only a full investigation into US security
shortcomings can prevent a repeat attack. But Bush and Cheney
intervened to delay scheduled Congressional probes for another year. [
Bush halts inquiry of FBI and stirs up a firestorm Boston Globe Dec.
14, 2001]
-
- Earlier FBI investigations into the Bush s
longstanding relationship with the bin Laden family and the bin Laden
s many donations to Arab charities known to funnel funds to terrorist
organizations were also repeatedly halted by the White House. August
probes by FBI agents into known al Qaeda terrorists taking unusual
flight training in the United States were blocked by senior FBI
officials and the Attorney General. According to Washington
bureaucrats, a terrorist assault on the US mainland seemed less risky
than offending Saudi royalty and businessmen who control desert oil
spigots and military bases vital to US interests. [ Clinton White
House axed terror-fund probe The Washington Times April 2, 2002; FBI
and US spy agents say Bush spiked bin Laden probes before 11 September
The Guardian Nov. 7, 2001; The White House connection: Saudi `agents
close Bush friends Boston Herald Dec. 11, 2001]
-
- At least, that s their explanation for actions
bordering on treason.
-
- We still have many more questions than
answers.
-
- -William Thomas April 8, 2002
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