# Was Bush Regime complicit in 9/11 attack?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [December 18, 2008, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707 "2008-12-18T05:05:16Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 2
### Author:  [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 8:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/21 "2008-12-18T08:33:26Z")
> [@Algorithm](#):
>
> Might as well give this a shot.
> Cite for your claim, then please add an explanation as to how that would be evidence there was a controlled demolition.
>
> Saying the bomb-sniffing dogs were removed a week before the attack implies that enough explosives to fell a 110 story skyscraper were planted within a week. Controlled demolitions take far more planning and work within the building than that. [Cite](http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/kaboom/loizeaux.html).
> Small fires don’t produce [this much smoke](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-bp22B92Zc). They weren’t just on two floors, as that video clearly demonstrates. Smoke is being emitted from 10+ floors near the top. That’s just one video. There are plenty more that show the volume of smoke indicating far more than “small fires”.
> As you say in your own post, firefighters pulled out of the building hours prior to collapse, because they thought collapse was imminent. The building had suffered severe structural damage and there were significant fires. It wasn’t safe to be in.
> Deconstruction workers cut those beams to dispose of them. They were cleaning up the disaster site. In one of the previous threads we covered this, and someone linked a video actually showing a worker cutting through one of the beams.
> Cite that provides evidence there was thermite or thermate? Also, while we’re on the topic of thermite, feel free to provide me with a video demonstration of someone using thermite charge to cut through a large steel support beam at a 35 degree angle.
> [Not free fall speed](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLShZOvxVe4). Don’t believe everything you’re told.
> Over 100 people were hanging out in the basements of the WTC buildings prior to their collapses? I don’t think so. “Explosions” from eye witnesses can mean any number of things, such as collapsing floors or snapping supports, things plummeting down elevator shafts, or actual combustible material exploding.
>
> Explosions don’t mean anything unless they can be proven to be explosions of planted explosives intended to demolish a building. Feel free to provide evidence at any point.
> Not sure what this has to do with anything.
> Silverstein was relaying what a fire chief had told him. Also, cite a building demolition team that uses “pull it” to describe demolishing a building.
> Cite that they were laundering money? Cite that Silverstein made a profit, after reconstruction, on the destruction of his leased property?
> Steel buildings fall down, WTC1, 2, and 7 fell down. So a few other buildings collapsed differently. Why aren’t you asking why 3, 4, 5, and 6 _didn’t_ collapse the way 1, 2, and 7 did?
> The Windsor building was steel-reinforced concrete, 32 stories tall. It was a different building. Different buildings that are constructed differently behave differently under stress. That makes perfect sense to me.
> You’re contradicting yourself. Did the buildings fall in to their own footprints, or was debris ejected so forcefully it overtook running victims?
>
> Either way, “into their own footprint” is [wrong](http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/images/wtc-photo4.jpg). Notice damage to surrounding buildings and streets.
> Again, did the buildings fall in to their own foot print, or not? Controlled demolitions are designed to **not** forcefully eject debris in to surrounding structures.
> [Black](http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41138000/jpg/_41138284_oil_fire_pa_416.jpg) [smoke](http://www.911myths.com/assets/images/BlackSmoke1.jpg) can be generated by hot fires.
> Steel doesn’t need to melt to lose strength. Also, before you start claiming that there was molten metal, first produce evidence that any existed.
> Except a bee isn’t a jet liner, and your arm isn’t a building (nor are you). This is a meaningless comparison. The buildings were large, but we’ve figured out pretty efficient ways of demolishing them with very minimal initial damage.
> I don’t. I’ve read a lot about this topic, probably at least as much as you have, and I don’t agree with you.
This is why I hang out here. Can we do the Pentagon next?
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### Author:  [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 9:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/22 "2008-12-18T09:12:33Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> 1. The Twin Towers and Bldg 7 also were the most over-built buildings in the world and you can check that with any architect worth his salt and until you actually walk around on the floors of those buildings you cannot appreciate their enormous size. A plane crashing into Tower 1 or 2 is like an angry bee stinging me in the arm, big deal.
This [doesn’t look like an angry bee stinging someone in the arm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Story.crash.sequence.jpg) to me.
And (I am not an architect or a structural engineer), but from everything I’ve seen or read about the Twin Towers, they were _not_ “over built”; to the contrary, their construction was an innovative [tubular structure](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_(structure)) that allowed them to be (comparatively speaking) lightly built, with much more open floor space than an older design would have permitted.
The Empire State Building–obviously a much older design–_is_ “over-built” compared to the Twin Towers; and in 1945 the Empire State Building survived an impact by a (much lighter, much slower) aircraft without failing.
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### Author:  [@Sevastopol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sevastopol)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 9:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/23 "2008-12-18T09:25:04Z")
On reflection, it doesn’t matter what the OP’s motives were. Like the previous post, it’s reassuring to see an even keel of reason come in to guide the thread.
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/24 "2008-12-18T12:20:24Z")
> [@MEBuckner](#):
>
> This [doesn’t look like an angry bee stinging someone in the arm](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Story.crash.sequence.jpg) to me.
Yes, but if the bee was stuffed with thousands of gallons of explosive jet fuel… (I agree, it’s a nonsense comparison. A more apt comparison might be a smallish car crashing into your spine at high speed.)
Good posts by **MEBucker** and **Algorithm** here. It would be nice to see one of these conspiracy theorists show an open mind to the facts, but I’m not holding my breath.
I hadn’t heard the OP’s point about Marvin Bush before, but it appears to be wildly inaccurate. [Bush was on the board of a company called Securacom](http://www.washingtonspectator.com/articles/20050215bushes_1.cfm), which provided some security to companies in the WTC. But he was no longer a director after 1999 and by 2000 he had sold his stock. Securacom was far from the only security company that had tenants at the trade center, but more importantly, _this is not even CLOSE to the same thing as being the superintendent of the WTC and being in charge of a decision like removing bomb-sniffing dogs_! Bush was on Securacom’s audit committee, not the evil league of evil committee. If the WTC had a single superintendent, I am not sure who it was.
I’m also trying to imagine what bomb-sniffing dogs could have done to stop jetliners from crashing into a skyscraper.
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### Author:  [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 12:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/25 "2008-12-18T12:54:11Z")
Exceptional claims require exceptional proof. The evidence has been looked at from every angle and it all converges on the conventional explanation.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 1:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/26 "2008-12-18T13:06:42Z")
“Exceptional claims require exceptional proof.”
Hmmm…I wonder who came up with that one? No way would it have been a professional skeptic!
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### Author:  [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 1:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/27 "2008-12-18T13:07:47Z")
> [@Marley23](#):
>
> I’m also trying to imagine what bomb-sniffing dogs could have done to stop jetliners from crashing into a skyscraper.
You don’t get it - he’s implying the super sent the sniffing dogs away so that his shadowy men could plant demolition explosives without his \*regular \*men knowing. That’s what conspirators do you know ? Wheels within wheels, man. Why have only 20 henchmen when you can have 40 working against each other ? Think, goddamnit, THINK ! 😛
I thought it kinda sad and rolleyes-worthy to have that tired list of clichés on the Dope but hey, if 9/11 conspiracies aren’t ignorance, I don’t know what it. Fight away, architecture experts.
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### Author:  [@42fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/42fish)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/28 "2008-12-18T14:38:15Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> 1. I have seen buildings collapse, and never never do they fall into their own footprint, nevver, unless demolitioned of course (that’s what this is all about although i have not been stating it) and never do crumble to dust even Before they hit the ground which is exactly what happened at the WTC, dust BEFORE they landed, my God, the torrents of debris particles were so forceful they overtook running victims;
>
> 2. How did 600 ton 30 foot long pieces of steel columns fly over 400 feet and lodge well into the 30th floor of buildings up the street, this from a building that is “collapsing”? Beams and large debris landing almost clear across the river to Hoboken;
So the WTC mysteriously collapsed into its own footprint, except for the parts that didn’t collapse into the footprint and landed away by as much as a 400 feet? A hint for the future: when parts of your “evidence” directly contradict each other, you might want to avoid putting them directly next to each other.
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### Author:  [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/29 "2008-12-18T14:42:34Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> I believe yes, I’m sorry to say. But it seems there is more evidence suggesting complicitous behavior on US part than there is suggesting Arabs did it.
>
> I gave many reasons in another thread but my rebuttals are always the same: get outta here, you’re crazy, another whacko conspiracy nut, but no one offers intelligent reasons as to why my reasoning is wrong. Is it fear that keeps people silent or do we need to forget about this like we did with Kennedy assassination?
> Conspiracy nut
I always refer folks like you to[this site](http://zapatopi.net/afdb/). It has all the answers you need.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 2:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/30 "2008-12-18T14:55:45Z")
Bush is only “complicit” insofar as he was mostly asleep at the wheel as regarded worrying about terrorism on American soil and trying to be in anyway proactive in preventing it prior to 9/11.
The conspiracy theories are just that. You have to think to yourself what would be required to pull off such a stupendous attack as detailed in the conspiracy theories and it becomes immediately apparent such a thing would be impossible to pull off and keep the conspiracy itself a secret.
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### Author:  [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/31 "2008-12-18T14:56:24Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> 1. The BBC reporter on tv stated that bldg 7 had just collapsed 20 minutes or more before the building actually fell (which I believe was their “sign of allegiance” to the Bush conspirators); why wasn’t the reporter interrogated and beaten mercilessly?
>
> .
Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for beating journalists mercilessly, but do you seriously believe an effective conspiracy would encompass pretty much all the news media of the English speaking world? Any journalist who came up with a smoking gun on 9/11 would not only make his career but go down in the history books. Any journalist involved in such a setup would have a huge incentive to blab.
You see, that’s the problem not only with 9/11 conspiracy theories but with all conspiracy theories. They postulate a secret organization so huge and complex and requiring absolute trustworthiness and secrecy from so many people that the whole thing quickly becomes too silly to take seriously.
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### Author:  [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/32 "2008-12-18T15:21:34Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> In Madrid a steel skyscraper totally engulfed in flames for over 20 hours did not fall down and while it was burnt to a cinder and almost nothing remained except the steel frame…
No, the Madrid Windsor building was a hybrid - the lower section was framed with reinforced concrete; the upper section had its central core framed in concrete, but the outer part was framed in steel. The steel-framed part of the structure completely collapsed, leaving only the concrete-framed portions standing.
Take a look at [this page](http://www.concretecentre.com/main.asp?page=1095), and compare the before-fire picture at the upper right, with post-fire pictures on the rest of the page.
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### Author:  [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/33 "2008-12-18T15:37:09Z")
**trumpsahead** - if you come back - and if you’re an intellectually honest person genuinely seeking to separate the wheat from the chaff, as opposed to one of Dylan Avery’s foot soldiers spreading the “gospel”, you will - please answer my response to you from the other thread.
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### Author:  [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 3:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/34 "2008-12-18T15:48:09Z")
> [@CurtC](#):
>
> No, the Madrid Windsor building was a hybrid - the lower section was framed with reinforced concrete; the upper section had its central core framed in concrete, but the outer part was framed in steel. The steel-framed part of the structure completely collapsed, leaving only the concrete-framed portions standing.
Not to mention the WTC suffered significant structural damage prior to the fires by having a plane plow in to it and blow out a whole side of the building. The Madrid Windsor did not have that rather big issue to contend with as well. Not to mention the WTC was a helluva lot bigger (so more weight and loads to contend with).
IIRC there were three separate analysis of how well the WTC behaved structurally and all three agreed it did rather well staying up as long as it did considering the beating it took and given its design. Could you have built it more strongly? Sure. Are there lessons to be learned for future buildings to be more resilient? Sure. But there was nothing “wrong” with the WTC building design given what people knew when they built it.
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### Author:  [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/35 "2008-12-18T16:24:46Z")
But…but…what about the “Dancing Israelis”? The Mossad was surely in on this most inside of jobs. They’d have to be, after all, the Jews rule the world.
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### Author:  [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/36 "2008-12-18T16:33:57Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> 1. Who was superintendent of WTC buildings? Marvin Bush was, and he took away patroling dogs a week before attack;
Just to look at this claim, it’s not true. Marvin Bush was a member of the board of directors (never "superintendent of WTC buildings) of the security company Stratesec from 1993-2000. He was no longer a member of the board in September of 2001. The board of directors of a company doesn’t handle day to day operations, either. They hire and fire executives, decide on executive compensation, declare stock dividends, and things like that. But no director would be able to say, for instance, “don’t patrol this building” or something.
Besides, it’s a moot point. in 1996, Stratesec accepted a contract with the World Trade Center to provide electronic security (things like keycards and alarm monitoring). They never handled the WTC’s physical security, so they had no control over security guards and dogs. What’s more, the WTC cancelled the contract in 1998, on the grounds that Stratesec was unable to adequately perform its duties, and gave the job to someone else.
So, in fact, when the WTC attacks occured, Marvin Bush was formerly associated with a company that had formerly provided them security.
The only other Marvin Bush association with the WTC was that he was, at the time of the attack, a member of the board of directors (remember, no day to day control, just executive hiring and payment of dividends) at HCC Insurance, which had some of the insurance coverage for the WTC. So, of course, it was in HCC Insurance’s interest to make sure the building stayed up and wasn’t attacked, so that it could continue to pay its insurance premiums and the owners wouldn’t be able to collect on the policy.
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### Author:  [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/37 "2008-12-18T16:39:57Z")
> [@Richard\_Parker](#):
>
> Bwwwaaaaiiiiinnnnnnns!
Now I have a mental image of an undead Elmer Fudd.
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### Author:  [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 4:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/38 "2008-12-18T16:42:44Z")
> [@trumpsahead](#):
>
> 1. The Twin Towers and Bldg 7 also were the most over-built buildings in the world and you can check that with any architect worth his salt and until you actually walk around on the floors of those buildings you cannot appreciate their enormous size. A plane crashing into Tower 1 or 2 is like an angry bee stinging me in the arm, big deal.
I’ll just tackle the towers with this one:
The towers, as noted above by others, were constructed as basically big steel tubes. Most skyscrapers are interlocking skeletons of steel, with the outer stone/concrete skin being less a support structure than a “curtain” concealing the inner framework. Not so with the WTC towers; their skin was their support. Each tower has a solid steel outer skin and an additional solid inner core that housed the elevators and other apparatus.
The outer skin was connected to this inner core by the floor panels. Large open floor sections were bracketed between the steel outer skin and the inner core, connected with what were essentially L-brackets. These L-brackets and their support structure were protected by blown-on insulation, which would protect them from most typical fires and keep temperatures low enough to prevent their failure. These floor panels kept things in alignment so that the upper floors were positioned properly for their weight to be supported by the lower floors. So, you got a mental picture of what we’re working with here? Very important before proceeding to the next section.
Now, a plane hits each of the towers. When each plane hits, the force of the strike plus the ensuing explosion causes damage to the outer steel skin, obviously. More importantly, the concussive force of the collision and the explosion was sufficient to completely knock loose most if not all of the insulation from the L-brackets and floor support structures of nearby floor panels, the ones that weren’t outright destroyed by the collision. This left the L-brackets and floor supports exposed to a jet-fuel fire, which burned unchecked. The brackets weakened, bent, and failed, causing the collapse of even more floor panels as the fire continued to burn.
So, each tower by this point was a hollow steel tube that was losing the floor panels that kept it aligned with the heavy upper floors. Imagine if you will a set of four steel stilts, about fifty feet tall, arranged in a square, with a platform on top. The platform holds, for illustrative purposes, 100 tons of rock. Now, if you have horizontal supports between those stilts every vertical ten feet or so, keeping each stilt aligned with its mates, the structure will hold, even as the weight shifts. Remove those aligning braces, however, and you have a very unstable structure. A slight shift in weight will cause the structure to twist, overbalance, and collapse. This is what the towers became: tons and tons of upper floors supported by fifty foot stilts. At this point, collapse was inevitable. Once the structure twisted and the hundreds of tons of upper floors came crashing down, the lower floors didn’t stand a chance.
There’s no mystery or conspiracy here. The WTC towers’ design wasn’t flawed, it was just uniquely vulnerable to this type of attack, in ways even the attackers didn’t understand.
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### Author:  [@flight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flight)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/39 "2008-12-18T16:44:39Z")
The Onion had a member of Al Quaeda on to [talk about this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OIXfkXEj0&feature=channel).
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [December 18, 2008, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-bush-regime-complicit-in-9-11-attack/477707/40 "2008-12-18T16:46:31Z")
Thanks for the detail/corrections, **Captain Amazing**. It’s a shame the OP won’t read it, since I’m betting he’s gone for good.
> [@Steve\_MB](#):
>
> Now I have a mental image of an undead Elmer Fudd.
Be vewwy, vewwy quiet… I’m hunting human fwesh…
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