Poll: Many New Yorkers Say Gov’t Knew 9-11 Was Coming
Straightwords E-zine, News Report, Richard Muhammad, Posted: Sep 07, 2004
“Three days after Sept. 11, I stood where Americans died, in the ruins of the Twin Towers. Workers in hard hats were shouting to me, ‘Whatever it takes.’ A fellow grabbed me by the arm and he said, ‘Do not let me down.’ Since that day, I wake up every morning thinking about how to better protect our country. I will never relent in defending America — whatever it takes,” President Bush told the party faithful assembled at his feet Sept. 2 at the Republican National Convention. Bush pushed his resolve to keep the country safe while accepting the GOP presidential nomination a few miles from where two planes plowed into the World Trade Center buildings.
But strong words and official accounts of that 2001 fall morning have not convinced significant numbers of New Yorkers – across racial, political and gender lines – that the government did all it could to prevent the attacks. A recent poll conducted by Zogby International found almost half of New York City residents believed some leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act." In addition to the 43 percent of skeptical Big Apple residents, statewide 41 percent of residents felt the same. The charge found very high support among adults under 30 (62.8 percent), African Americans (62.5 percent), Hispanics (60.1 percent), Asians (59.4 percent), and "Born Again" Evangelical Christians (47.9 percent).
“Nearly 30 percent of registered Republicans and over 38 percent of those who described themselves as ‘very conservative’ supported the claim,” according to 911 Truth.Org, the group that commissioned the poll.
911Truth.Org has scheduled hearings about the attack for Sept. 9 and Sept. 11 in New York City. The group is composed to activists, writers, journalists, those who lost loved ones and those who still feel serious questions need to be answered.
Kyle Hence, a 911Truth.Org spokesman, said the skepticism of New Yorkers, Americans closest to the tragedy, is significant. “This is not a fringe movement,” he said, speaking of those bold enough to question whether the full truth has come out. “This is built on substance, this is built on mainstream press accounts. It’s not about bashing the president. It’s telling the truth, a search for the truth, and the implications of finding a truth that is something other than what has been passed along to us as the truth. This is about seeking the truth about the mass murder of nearly 3,000 people on Sept. 11.”
The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday Aug. 24 through Thursday Aug. 26, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5. The poll was the first of its kind conducted in America that surveyed attitudes regarding U.S. government complicity in the 9-1 tragedy. The poll surveyed 800 people.
The polls also found just over half of respondents believed the president and government officials mislead the public with claims of atomic, chemical or biological weapons in Iraq. Nearly 40 percent of those polled felt the 9-11 Commission had not answered all the important questions about what actually happened on Sept. 11. Some 56 percent of respondents felt that since most of the 400 questions raised by 9-11 victims' families who lobbied to create the 9-11 Commission were unanswered, either Congress or the state attorney
general should re-open the investigation. Self-identified "very liberal" New Yorkers supported a new inquiry by a margin of three to one, but so did half (53 percent) of "very conservative" citizens across the state.
"We're familiar with high levels of 9/11 skepticism abroad where there has been open debate of the evidence for U.S. government complicity,” said W. David Kubiak, executive director of 911truth.org.
“I think these numbers show that most New Yorkers are now fed up with the silence, and that politicians trying to exploit 9-11 do so at their peril. The 9-11 case is not closed and New York's questions are not going away."
On Sept. 9 and Sept. 11, 911Truth.org will cosponsor two large successive inquiries in New York, a preliminary 9-11 Citizens Commission hearing and "Confronting the Evidence: 9/11 and the Search for Truth," a research-focused evidentiary forum. The inquiries will examine many of the 9/11 Commission-shunned questions and discuss preparation of a probable cause complaint demanding a grand jury and criminal investigation from the New York Attorney General, the group said. Possible charges range from criminal negligence and gross dereliction of duty to foreknowledge, complicity and subsequent obstruction of justice, it added.
News coverage of the poll has been spotty, though proven reports of intelligence failures, FBI field agent warnings going unheeded and even Attorney General Dick Cheney’s refusal to take commercial flights before the attacks for security reasons have emerged.
Questions have also been raised about whether the 9-11 commission empanelled by the president went far enough.
"We think these poll numbers are basically saying, 'Wait just a minute. What about the scores of still outstanding questions?” added Nicholas Levis of NY911truth.org, an advisor on the poll. “What about the unexplained collapses of WTC 7, our air defenses, official accountability, the chain of command on 9/11, the anthrax, insider trading and FBI field probes? There's so much more to this story that we need to know about.' When such a huge majority of New Yorkers want a new investigation, it will be interesting to see how quickly Attorney General Spitzer and our legislators respond."
Though 911TruthOut.Org is openly asking questions once mostly whispered, many agree questions are warranted. The president’s claims of ties between 9-11 attacks and Iraq as justification for war, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, neo-con desires to remake the Middle East and other moves by the White House have fueled "official account" skepticism.
Tanya Mayo, a Not In Our Name national organizer, noted that the 9-11 attacks allowed the president and his neo-con cronies to go to war aboard and repress dissent at home. “They needed a Pearl Harbor and they got it,” she said. Mayo pointed out quick passage of the Patriot Act, with sweeping curbs on civil liberties, came at a time of Trade Center hysteria.
“The question of the legitimacy around this administration has been raised,” said Mayo, calling the hundreds of thousands of convention protestors symbolic of the willingness of people to ask questions. How deep White House failures and any foreknowledge extends may still need to be determined, said Mayo, who is from Oakland.
The Bush administration clearly took advantage of the post-9-11 climate, said Ruth Ben, of the War Resisters League in New York. Fresh from 28 hours of jail after a pre-protest arrest at the convention, Ben admitted difficulty in thinking the government might have allowed thousands of people to die. Despite her leftist ideology and distrust of the government, she was clearly torn about such a possibility. “Many people are making the corporate-war kind of connection,” she said. Ben believes part of her hesitancy about going too far stems from instincts as an organizer trying not to sound crazy, as she tries to open eyes politically, and her experience as a White woman.
Blacks have been much more vocal and willing to raise the question of a conspiracy, she said. Ben recalled how a Jamaican woman expressed certainty that the government knew prior to 9-11 attacks following a public meeting about the war. Ben’s leeriness showed on her face and the woman said: “ 'Even people don’t believe it could happen,’ ” Ben said. “Maybe its just part of my naiveté,” she added.
The biggest sign of how American willingness to scrutinize official 9-11 accounts has changed could be embodied in Cynthia McKinney, who will participate in the upcoming 911TruthOut.Org hearings. McKinney lost her House seat in 2002 elections, stung by criticism for asking what did government officials know, when did they know it and who benefited from the attacks. Earlier this year, McKinney won a Democratic primary and appears to be on her way back to Congress. She has also not stopped asking questions.
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