The 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Lives

Is it possible for someone who has witnessed the carnage of the attack on the World Trade Center up close to be so ignorant about who was responsible for it? I am afraid that the answer may be in the affirmative.

Bus riders in New York City have developed the annoying habit of speaking loudly while sharing their personal conversations. Consequently, I do not feel guilty about overhearing what an ex-WTC maintenance worker said to his companion on the No. 6 bus. The man was complaining that he now had to work two jobs to make up for the salary he lost after the September 11 attack on the Twin Towers.

As the bus passed Ground Zero, he launched into this graphic account of the early days of cleanup. "The smell was terrible and we only had those little white masks covering our faces," the passenger said. “The big bosses all wore their Hazmat gear. They told us we were wearing 'the Giuliani mask,' because he was wearing a white mask too."

At this the man laughed. A woman across from him looked at me and rolled her eyes as he continued his lurid description of Ground Zero.

The man seemed to be enjoying being the center of attention and again spoke in a booming voice: "I was working there the day that they found the fire truck. There must have been about 250 bodies all burned so badly that some of them had fused to the truck itself."

His companion was a man with a heavy accent and an ax of his own to grind, bringing up the subject of the Middle East. He said: "As long as Israel and the Palestinians are having this conflict, there will never be peace anywhere in the world."

At that the maintenance worker lowered his voice a decibel or two and said cryptically, "You know, Silverstein was supposed to be at a Windows on the World business breakfast and canceled eight minutes before the attack." The reference was to Larry Silverstein, the developer who had the lease on the World Trade Center. The bus rider's friend nodded in agreement and said it looked as if somebody knew something.

It's absolutely amazing the nonsense that some people, to confirm their biases, accept as the truth. No doubt the maintenance worker had listened to rumors stirred by Amiri Baraka, then poet laureate of New Jersey, who wrote in his poem "Somebody Blew Up America" the lines:

"Who told 4000 Israeli workers at the Twin Towers

"To stay home that day

"Why did Sharon stay away?"

I have difficulty understanding why some people find it easy to blame anyone but the terrorists for September 11. There were 19 hijackers who flew on the four aircraft that plunged this nation into an all-out war against terrorism. Very few Americans can remember their names, because they are seldom mentioned in our mainstream press. It becomes clearer every day that the major newspapers and networks are more determined to unseat President Bush than they are to report the truth.

It's not the Dan Rather debacle, with those phony National Guard documents that CBS tried to pass off as genuine, that makes this charge plausible. It's not even that memo that the political director of ABC News, Mark Halperin, wrote to remind members of the network staff of their responsibility not to let Mr. Bush get away with distortions about Senator Kerry, even though Mr. Kerry himself "distorts, takes things out of context," and makes "mistakes all the time."

These network biases that have been exposed are likely to be swept under the rug simply because the networks can do so. What all Americans need to do is to carefully read for themselves the recently released report by the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Charles Duelfer.

The mainstream press and the networks are hyping the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. What they are not mentioning are the startling details within the report that not only did Saddam Hussein retain the capability to manufacture WMDs, he was systematically rebuilding his military arsenal through the oil-for-food program by bribing officials of the United Nations and certain countries. He was actively seeking missile technology from North Korea as late as November 2002. Read the report carefully and discover that the world, especially Israel, is safer with Mr. Hussein in prison.

There are some other things to consider. We would never have gone into Iraq if 9/11 had not occurred. A President Gore would probably not have gone to war. Mr. Hussein would still be amassing weapons, and Libya would still be developing a nuclear program. We have a lot to be thankful for.

And that maintenance man should quit whining and feel grateful he was off that Tuesday morning.