As you read David Ray Griffin's elegant and restrained text, as you read, for example, that an Air Force E-4B was caught on news video over Washington, DC during the 911 crisis and the Pentagon claims it had no planes aloft, your entire brain screams for relief: How can this be? you cry. With the eyes of the world focused on the events of 911, how could the Pentagon deny the reality of the aircraft when there is irrefutable evidence it was there, and no one in authority challenge that? How, oh how, could this be?

911 is in a category not by itself. In the post-war period, I can think of four controversies which fall in the category, defined as matters so explosive in their implications that the utterly outrageous "contradictions" which accompany them go unchallenged because the American people simply cannot bear to contemplate those implications.

The four controversies are: (1) that John Kennedy was assassinated by elements of the US government; (2) that the CIA traffics in illegal drugs; (3) that UFOs are extraterrestrial and the US government knows it; and (4) that 911 was a false flag operation carried out by elements of the US government. If criminal responsibility of the US government was established for any of these four controversies, it would shake American society to its foundations. That is why the American people do not want to know about these controversies beyond the official story.

I remarked to a friend one day, "You can load the World Trade Center with explosives, kill 3000 people and get away with it, but don't fire nine US Attorneys! Oh, they'll get you for that."

To reach a conclusion about any of the four controversies requires years of study. I have put my time in on only one of the controversies, (3) UFOs. As for (4), the 911 controversy, I try to keep up with it, which led me to Griffin's book. It is written with exceptional restraint, care, deliberateness. Griffin presents his facts with an almost plodding deliberateness; one by one they are set in front of the reader, with little comment and no hype at all. It is a manner of writing which gives the book great credibility.

Dissent from the official line on each of the four controversies has spawned a cottage industry in which the controversy scholars toil away and produce analysis of impecable quality--all ignored outside their respective cottage industry communities. In each case, the public would rather have the corruption, the depravity, the audacity, the venality implied by the controversies remain in place than face the disintegration of our institutions that would result from revelation.

Buy this book.

Buy it if you believe the cause of the collapse of three skyscrapers was a conspiracy of Arab amateur pilots who flew planes into two of them.

Buy it if you know that story can't be true, and are looking for an intelligent, objective, scientific investigation of it.

Buy it even if you've seen every video and read every book about what really happened on 9/11. You'll find it digs even deeper, looks even harder, and pins the issues down more firmly than any other 9/11 book to date.

By impartially exploring the facts of just 25 of the many contradictions in official 9/11 testimonies and alibis, Griffin exposes both the extent of U. S. Government corruption, incompetence, and complicity in the attacks, as well as the complete failure of its censored, controlled "official" reports -- more unassailably and completely than any single work has exposed it so far.

People have been asking some of the book's 25 questions for years, e.g.: "How did Rudy Giuliani know in advance that the towers were going to collapse?" (Griffin points out, "Had the [9/11] Commission investigated and reported on this issue, it could have answered, at least partially, the question as to the source of this foreknowledge. Information relevant to this question is contained in the oral histories recorded by the Fire Department of New York." Though the 9/11 Commission's report neglects it, this book does follow the trail of those oral histories to shed some light on the puzzle of Giuliani's foreknowledge that the buildings would collapse when the architecture, engineering, emergency, and firefighting experts who were there that morning believed it was impossible, and Dr. Griffin concludes "Congress and the press need to do what the 9/11 Commission failed to do: Ask Guiliani what he and his people in the OEM knew that other people did not know.")

This book also raises questions that haven't yet occurred even to most of the better-informed, e.g.: "Where was General Richard Myers that day?" Myers was the highest-ranking military officer at the Pentagon on 9/11. Griffin points out that "Dozens of people would surely know where he was that morning. And yet, we have been given two radically different accounts of his whereabouts."

Others: "Had 9/11-Type attacks been envisioned by members of the Bush Administration?" "Is there hard evidence of bin Laden's responsibility for the attacks?" "What caused the hole in the C-Ring of the Pentagon?" All followed by systematic analyses of the contradictory answers that no official report has yet addressed.

Questions this book doesn't explicitly ask, but sure makes you wonder about:

Q: How could a terrorist attack of such colossal proportions have been committed anywhere, let alone in the most militarized part of the most militarized country in the world? (A: The terrorists were not foreigners, and the attack was a crime by United States citizens rather than an act of war by enemies of the United States.)

Q: How could the people who committed these crimes have even dreamed them up, or helped cover them up, and had such confidence that they'd never be held accountable? (A: Perhaps they believe, and have been taught to believe and allowed to believe, that they're smarter and more entitled to privilege than the rest of us, who are perceived as vastly gullible, controllable, and powerless.)

Q: What were the people who committed these crimes thinking? How could the conscience of any human being justify planning and carrying out such evil? (A: Maybe the prospect of increasing personal riches and power, and belief that gullible, controllable, powerless people and institutions would fail to detect or contain them.)

Q: How could one of the most advanced and respected justice systems in the world have failed to prosecute even one person responsible for an attack on the citizens of the United States in crimes of such colossal proportions? How could they remain in power and go unpunished for so long after committing them? (A: There's still time; no statute of limitations on many of the crimes.)

Q: How could our military, elected representatives, media, courts, and other institutions have so completely failed to serve us in preventing, reporting, investigating, prosecuting, and responding to crimes of such colossal proportions? (A: Maybe because this is all a more challenging problem than any republic has ever had to contend with. And how many people ever work as hard and conscientiously as we're going to have to work to get this job done? Other than Dr. David Ray Griffin?)

What would we do, what would the 9/11 truth movement be, if we didn't have Dr. Griffin writing and speaking with such integrity, honesty, and impeccable credibility? I know without him, I'd have far less hope for the future, and the present, and the fate of the U.S. Constitution, and the possibility of justice here or anywhere, and the condition of the world, than I do.

To protect yourself, your future, and your children's future, buy this book. Better: buy several copies and put them in the hands of your elected representatives and local journalists. That's who it's addressed to. Law enforcement professionals, educators, clergy, and anyone with any influence in every community needs to read this book too.

P.S. If you live in New York, be sure to register to vote, and then sign the 9/11 Ballot Initiative before June 30, 2008 (nyc911initiative.org).

The mind of David Ray Griffin is refreshingly clear and logical. His meticulous research and critical analysis of documentary evidence is astute and compelling. In "9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press," Dr. Griffin presents a logical sequence of irrefutable facts drawn from actual documents and testimony that demonstrate twenty five internal contradictions in the official 9/11 story. As each contradiction is presented, the author juxtaposes documented timelines and official memos, eye-witness testimony, television broadcasts and news articles that are logically inconsistent with the narrative contrived by the 9/11 Commission. Griffin objectively questions these contradictory narratives, some of them inherent within individual alibis, and observes that the Commission avoided confronting these inconsistencies by eliminating all mention of them in its report. Facts that could not be logically refuted were strategically omitted, thereby erasing from the historical record all evidence of possible perjury and complicity. Each chapter is devoted to one of these contradictions and ends with the request that Congress and the media investigate this inconsistency.

One of the most fascinating contradictions involves the whereabouts of principals on the morning of 9/11 during the critical hours between 9:00 -10:00 am. Refraining from subjective suppositions, Griffin presents public and internal records that suggest that the timeline of critical events was adjusted by the Commission to place the principals at their command posts too late to protect the nation, too late to orchestrate a military response, too late to give stand-down orders, too late to give shootdown orders or to be otherwise guilty of collusion. Thanks to this revised timeline, principals were thus relieved of all evidence indicating their complicity. The conflicting testimony of eye-witnesses such as Richard Clarke, Norman Mineta and FAA officials, who placed the principals and military liaisons at their command posts well before the Commission's timeline did, was simply omitted from the 9/11 Commission Report. The Commission's systematic timeline alteration and omission of incriminating evidence thereby suggest that its mission was damage control, a deliberate cover-up of government complicity in the crime. Griffin, however, does not make this charge; he simply presents the contradictions.

The Commission claimed that Vice President Cheney did not arrive in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center until 9:58. That claim was contradicted by the testimony of Norman Mineta, Secretary of Transportation, who arrived at the PEOC around 9:20 where shortly thereafter he witnessed Cheney confirm an order that is most naturally interpreted as an order not to shoot down an incoming object shortly before the Pentagon was struck. Richard Clarke's account in his book, "Against All Enemies," corroborates Mineta's testimony, which was evidently so threatening to the official story that it was deleted from the 9/11 Commission video archives.

General Richard Myers contradicted his own story in several incarnations of his alibi as did Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom claimed to be unaware of unfolding events when, according to Richard Clarke, they were both participating in a live video teleconference initiated by Clarke at about 9:10. Griffin analyzes these contradictory versions of events, asking Congress and the press to find out the truth.

The Commission's claim that the FAA did not notify the military early enough to scramble jets was contradicted by the FAA's assertion that not only was a military liaison present throughout its nationwide alert but "within minutes after the first aircraft hit the World Trade Center it immediately established several phone bridges that included FAA field facilities, the FAA Command Center, FAA headquarters, DOD, the Secret Service, and other government agencies." NORAD's original (September 18, 2001) timeline corroborated FAA statements as did military officers, such as the National Military Command Center's Brigadier General Montague Winfield and NORAD's Captain Michael Jellinek. One also learns from Richard Clarke that the "Secret Service had a system that allowed them to see what FAA's radar was seeing." The 9/11 Commission's claim, therefore, would be laughable had the consequences of this lie not been so tragic.

Griffin has compiled extensive eye-witness accounts by firefighters, police officers, journalists and building workers who gave vivid reports of hearing and seeing powerful sequential explosions within all three of the World Trade Center skyscrapers prior to their collapse. Building 7, which was not hit by a plane, also collapsed symmetrically into its own footprint around 5:20 pm - an event that was anticipated and communicated to firefighters by Mayor Giuliani's Office of Emergency Management around noon. Griffin poses the question to NIST, the agency tasked by the Commission with explaining the destruction of the Twin Towers and WTC7, how OEM could have known so many hours in advance that the building would collapse.

Further evidence of controlled demolition is suggested by three professors at Worcester Polytechnic Institute who noted the peculiar characteristics of oxidation and sulfidation on salvaged WTC steel beams. NIST admitted that the temperature of the fires was insufficient (by at least 1000°F) to melt steel. However, if thermate cutter charges (thermite plus sulfur) were used to slice the steel framework, that would explain the molten steel. How did NIST and the 9/11 Commission deal with all the eyewitness testimony that steel had melted? By simply not mentioning it.

Several chapters are devoted to exposing contradictions concerning the alleged hijackers. The assertion that Hani Hanjour could have flown American Airlines Flight 77 into the Pentagon after making a spectacular 330° turn over prohibited airspace is demonstrably preposterous given his record of total incompetence as a pilot. The profile of Mohamed Atta as a devout Muslim on a sacred suicide mission is contradicted by numerous eye-witnesses who described his drinking and sexual activity in detail. The FBI's assertion that Atta's personal belongings provided a treasure trove of incriminating evidence (a Koran, his Will and a list of the 19 hijackers) is dubious, given two inconsistent FBI versions of where this miraculous proof was found. It was first reportedly found in a white Mitsubishi at Boston's Logan airport. But then another FBI claim ~ that two men named Bukhari had driven a blue Nissan to Portland, Maine, and then taken a commuter flight back to Boston on the morning of 9/11 ~ fell apart when it was discovered that one Bukhari had died the previous year and the other was still alive. This problem was clumsily "resolved" by a new FBI story, according to which Atta drove the blue Nissan to Portland and then took the commuter flight back. In this new story, the incriminating evidence was found in his luggage, which failed to get transferred to Flight 11. The 9/11 Commission simply repeated this new story as fact, with no mention of the FBI's earlier story.

Numerous media reports of phone calls from hijacked passengers played a central role in reinforcing vivid imagery in the public mind about Middle Eastern hijackers. One source of this picture was the Justice Department's Solicitor General, Ted Olson, who told CNN that his wife (Barbara) had called him twice from American Flight 77. That story was contradicted at the Zacarias Moussaoui trial in 2006 by the FBI's report on phone calls from the four planes, none of which, according to the report, were made by Barbara Olson. The belief that hijackers took over the planes was also based heavily on reports of over 15 cell phone calls from passengers to relatives, even though high-altitude cell phone calls were not possible in 2001. The FBI phone report resolved that conflict by saying that there were only two cell phone calls, these being both from United Flight 93 when it was down to 5,000 feet. This claim, however, contradicted the reports of many family members, including Deena Burnett, who reported that she knew that the four calls she received from her husband were made from his cell phone because she saw the name on her Caller ID.

Why do these contradictions matter? The story of al-Qaeda, Osama bin Laden and nineteen Muslim hijackers is based entirely on claims that have never been verified. Despite promises of forthcoming evidence, the US government has yet to deliver any hard evidence. To this day, the FBI's web page concerning Osama bin Laden does not accuse him of involvement with the 9/11 attacks because, an FBI official has admitted, "the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11." What, then, is the justification for attacking two sovereign nations and killing over one million civilians?

Although Griffin refrains from making direct accusations, he methodically presents objective evidence that leads the reader to an inevitable conclusion ~ that the purpose of the 9/11 Commission was to assign guilt where it did not exist and to cover up guilt where it did. The Commission's many omissions of contradictory evidence appear to this reader as desperate attempts to protect the principals from criminal indictments for treason, mass murder, war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against the earth.

David Ray Griffin's impeccable research documents a multitude of significant contradictions, too many to review in this short summary. The enormous public service he has provided in preparing this meticulous archive cannot be over-stated. This brilliant work should inspire diligent investigation. Any investigative journalist worthy of that title would need only to validate this extensive research. Dr. Griffin has documented and analyzed the evidence with the precision and skill of a seasoned District Attorney. The logical sequence of objective evidence that raises significant questions presents a case that is so well organized it could be used intact by any prosecutor devoted to uncovering the truth.

Let the trials begin. Indictments are long overdue.

Dr. Griffin's newest book is a good reminder of the many contradictions invoving the events of September 11th. "Official" lies feed to us by the Coporate Media. It is easy to read and understand. I gave each of my sisters a copy to read, hopefully to begin a dialog with them. Not easy when you have been raised to never question your government or the nightly newshour. "9/11 Contradicitions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press" could be an important tool to bring forward a courageous Journalist or Congressperson to question the Bush administration. To stand up and speak out before we experience another false-flag attack and blame it on Iran. Seven years is too long to wait for the truth.

Griffin's previous books have successfully aimed at dissecting and disproving the official 9/11 story. With this book, he takes direct aim at the corporate media, chopping their own conspicuous failures into small, easily digestible pieces the same way one might cut up steak for a child. This work leaves the members of our media no further excuses, and allows their continued silence to speak even more loudly for their guilt. And isn't that the beauty of watching a superior intellect spar with a lesser foe-to see an opponent tied down with their own hands? Unfortunately, the majority of Americans will never read this book, and thus the official story continues to serve its purpose, like a Hollywood set painted just good enough to show well onscreen.

Nevertheless, we in the 9/11 Truth Movement shall persevere in our efforts to expose the truth, and this book gives us a valuable tool in that process. Without addressing the complicity of the corporate media, the idea that the operation could be kept secret seems ludicrous. Once people understand the degree of sophistication and manipulation that goes into their misinformation, perhaps it will also dawn on them just what that power is capable of, and just how much trouble we're in.

David Ray Griffin is your original gentleman and
scholar.

His first book on 9/11, "The New Pearl Harbor"
carefully documents why we were lied to. This
volume presents the evidence in a new way. Dr.
Griffin uses the government's own information
to make the case against them.

This is an effective and strong way to present it.
This book is a little drier than most, with facts
presented over a period of time while the story
changes internally. The government version of
the 9/11 events is untenable. And Dr. Griffin
proves it. Again.

-John Austin

In a clean and clear scolarly way Dr. Griffin defines contradictions that should not exist 7 years after. No matter the consequenses the people of America and the peoples of the world have a right to learn the truth.
These 25 questions are a good start to begin with. Yes, to begin with, because besides these contradictions there are many unsolved and unexplained mysteries. If 9/11 is not thoroughly investigated it will grow into a cancer of enormous proportions in the american society and in world relations.

David Ray Griffin succeeds once again to destroy the official Bush administration's version of the events of 9/11. Mr. Griffin provides irrefutable evidence of the Bush administrations complicity in the cover-up and framing of the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. This is a must read and a perfect follow up to "Debunking 9/11 Debunking".

If you are one of those who believe that people who question the official story of 9/11 are "conspiracy nuts" you need to read this book.

It is a very concise, easy to understand and easy to read series of questions about the very public contradictions that our own government and the main stream media have themselves made concerning the events of 9/11.

It doesn't try to analyze the technical aspects of falling buildings or melting steel it only deals with the things that our leaders have said.

Check it out. At least you'll have some idea what the conspiracy nuts are talking about.

9/11 Contradictions is the seventh book by David Ray Griffin on the "9/11 event." It brings together in one place many of the facts which have been elucidated in his earlier books and those of others. One fact stands out over all: The 9/11 Commission did not do the job it promised to do: to investigate and report on all the facts surrounding the 9/11 event.

This book details 25 contradictions not resolved by the Commission. At one point Professor Griffin compiled a list of 115 questions not answered by the Commission. All of these unresolved issues underscore an urgent need for a new investigation by a body not beholden to the Bush Administration nor anyone else - perhaps an international investigation under the auspices of the United Nations, as has been suggested recently.

No one has been more diligent and thorough in investigating the events of 9/11 and those leading up to the attacks than David Griffin. He is not an investigative reporter, but he is an internationally renowned scholar, and the skills of the two professions are remarkably similar. It is his detailed scouring of sources, his searching out sources that are not readily available, and his painstaking analysis of what he has learned that distinguishes Griffin's works - both in his primary field of theology and in understanding the 9/11 event. Read any of his books and you'll see the depth of his attention to detail in ferreting out contradictions and discrepancies.

This book is directed at Congress and the press, institutions which Griffin charges with not doing their jobs. Journalistic and Congressional oversight have been sorely lacking during the Bush administration and before - not only with respect to the 9/11 event but with all aspects of the drip-by-drip loss of freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, the establishment of pre-emptive war and torture as United States policy, the unprecedented secrecy under which this administration has operated, the "signing statements" which provide unprecedented scope for a "unitary presidency" which considers itself above the law, and more. I hope the press and Congress will take the message of this book to heart.

A review of the table of contents will give the reader a list of the 25 discrepancies covered in the book. For the average reader, many of the discrepancies will not be gripping reading, yet they point to the heart of important questions about what really happened on 9/11. For example, most people won't care how long President Bush remained in the Florida classroom after learning about the first plane strike - until they realize that this means the Secret Service was sure that the President wasn't under threat of attack!

The most compelling issue of 9/11 for me is the collapse of the three World Trade Center towers at free fall speed (less than 10 seconds each) and the complete pulverization of most of the buildings. One rescue worker said they found nothing larger than half a telephone dial. Could a jet fuel fire possibly have caused all that? Jet fuel, after all, burns at about 1,000º cooler than is needed to soften steel. And wasn't it convenient that all the hundred-plus-foot-long steel beams were cut to just the right lengths to be carted away? And why were they sent off to Japan so quickly? Wasn't this a crime scene? Those collapses certainly looked like controlled demolition to me! Griffin's chapters 22-25 cover those issues.

Another compelling issue is the crash into the Pentagon, the most highly defended building in the world. How could that have happened? Where were the building's defenses? The Pentagon issue is covered in Chapters 19-21.

This review just scratches the surface of the issues surrounding the 9/11 event. Your best guide to them is Professor Griffin. And in this book he skips all the conjecture and speculation, just relaying the facts. But the facts call out for serious probing. Anyone with even a mild curiosity about the truth about the 9/11 event will find this book an excellent introduction to the facts.

Patriotism has been defined during the Bush administration as standing by idly as the government pursues a "war on terrorism." A Patriot, according to Cheney & Bush, does not question anything under the guise of "national security." And under the facade of "support the troops," we are to understand that all we do is good and everything "over there" is evil or an "axis of evil."

But what if the terrorist attack that gave Cheney & Bush the cover for these wars was not what we thought it was? Explain molten metal for weeks under WTC 1, 2, & 7. Explain the free fall speed of the collapse of all three buildings. Explain how any building has a full, catastrophic, symmetrical collapse when damage is not symmetrical, and (especially with WTC 7), not catastrophic. After reading and understanding these and many other inconsistencies regarding the "official 9/11 story," you will understand that the corporate controlled mainstream media cannot be relied upon for critical analysis of today's most critical issues. Thankfully, we have real patriots like David Ray Griffin questioning our government.

It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from his government.
-Thomas Paine

David Ray Griffin, with his 5th book on the subject has made lying about one of the most tragic events in modern history a cottage industry. In this book the retired theologian continues to use dishonesty and misrepresentation to make his case. Once again he shows how he can not be taken seriously as an historian or scientist, in fact he has even bragged about how this book is science free, on a recent radio show:

"Uhh, we can't arbitrate that, say politicians and journalists and we don't have time to do the research ourselves, so we just have to accept the official account. Uhh, well this book has no science in it either."

Griffin has repeatedly refused to adhere to any type of scientific or academic standard, and in fact has vigorously opposed any attempt in his so-called truth movement to advance any sort of hypothesis as to what happened on September 11th, ignoring the conventional academic process of advancing and defending a thesis.

Why he is doing this is apparent, because although he seeks to point out contradictions in the so-called "official story" which in reality is just pointing out the obvious fact that in major events involving thousands of participants and media throughout the world, there will be contradictory accounts, his own theories are far more inconsistent and contradictory.

The most prominent example from this book is the chapter on flight 77, where he argues that there were no airfones on board, even though he personally admitted that this argument was invalid several months ago.

http://911blogger.com/node/8408#comment-139890

"My mistake, like that of Henshall and Rowland before me, was to assume that the AA spokesperson and this website were talking about AA 757s as they had always been, not simply about 757s at the time of the query, in 2004.

But the latter was evidently the meaning. Elias Davidsson, an Icelandic member of the 9/11 truth movement, sent me a story from February 6, 2002, which said: "American Airlines will discontinue its AT&T in-flight phone service by March 31, a spokesman for the airline said Wednesday." (5) Davidsson also reported a 1998 photograph of the inside of an AA 757 showing that it did have seat-back phones. (6)"

In an act of stunning dishonesty, the fact that he had already rejected this theory was completely left out of this book. Talk about contradictions...

Another example, he writes a chapter on Hani Hanjour where he argues that he could not have piloted flight 77, as he was not a great pilot. In this argument he cites Marcel Bernard, a flight instructor who flew with Hanjour in a Cessna. He portrays Bernard as supporting the view that Hanjour could not have flown the plane, but leaves out the fact that when Bernard was specifically asked whether Hanjour could fly the plane he responded:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/17/se.18.html

"We believe that even though he didn't necessarily have experience in jets, that once the airplane was airborne, that he could have easily pointed it in any direction he wanted to, and crashed it into a building or whatever would be a real feasibility, real possibility. "


It appears that one could write a book on the contradictions and dishonesty of David Ray Griffin.

I recommend this book to everybody. Everybody needs to take the time and look at reality, as we're being deceived on a daily basis. The 9/11 myth/hoax/fraud is what gave us the 'war on terror'. The problem is the 9/11 accounting is false, a huge lie and cover-up with the media spewing out whatever they're told to make us look the other way. A cocktail of lies/spin/dis-info and propaganda. This is easy to read and very well documented. Also read The 9/11 Commission's report, Ommissions and Distortion's. proof of the cover-up.

Very factual points of reference as what the contradictions are in the 9/11 Report. Just as good as his previous works.

Dr. Griffin's work on 9/11 is brilliant as well as courageous. His first book on 9/11, The New Pearl Harbor (2004), is an excellent, comprehensive introduction to the questions posed by the US government's 'official story' about 9/11. Dr. Griffin applies rigorous standards of scholarship in all of his work and seldom, if ever, theorizes. He lays out evidence, leaving others to try to resolve and explain it.

But I had trouble with 9/11 Contradictions. Other reviewers have described its content and purpose well, and I agree that it fills a niche. But I suggest that it is NOT a good introduction to 9/11 questions, mostly because of its intense focus. It defines the contradictions between the 9/11 Commission report and other reports very precisely, indeed so precisely that new readers could find its arguments pedantic and even trivial. One must understand the context in which these questions arise, and context is absent from this book.

Indeed, I have a few faults to find with the book, most of which, I believe, are the result of its narrow focus and, perhaps, insufficient editing. Repetition is useful in making strong arguments, but I believe that it's overdone here. Dr. Griffin could have made his points in about half the space. Also, I question whether the 9/11 Commission, as incredibly irresponsible as its report was, should have been required to respond to 9/11 contradictions appearing in newspaper accounts and on TV shows, as Dr. Griffin maintains. Finally, I do think that a very few of his arguments ARE trivial, in the greater scheme of things.

In the past, he has set forth 9/11 issues in an elegant and unimpeachable manner. This book is a useful tool for 9/11 researchers (and I WOULD like to see Congress and the press investigate these contradictions). But please read The New Pearl Harbor if you need or want context.

This latest book by David Ray Griffin is perhaps his best work because it avoids all the conspiracy theories that skeptics ridicule. By documenting contradictions from official sources, the obvious need for a new investigation becomes apparent.

This book is an easy read and doesn't have to be read from start to finish. The reader can pick the topic and chapters that most interest them. This book and the film 9/11: Press for Truth are the best introductions to understanding the 9/11 Truth Movement.

This is the fifth of David Griffin's books on the events of 9/11. Despite the overwhelming evidence against the official account, Dr Griffin has been criticised on the grounds that as a theologian rather than a physicist, architect or engineer, he is not qualified to question the government account. Using a similar defence, many people in Congress and the press duck and run for cover when confronted with the issue, claiming inability to comment because of a lack of the necessary technical expertise.

In his latest, incisive polemic, Dr Griffin focuses on the welter of contradictions and inconsistencies of the official story. By adopting this approach, he shows that the only way to cling to the official story is to believe that it is possible for two mutually contradictory statements to both be true.

Griffin has thus placed members of Congress and the press in an extremely awkward position. If they accept that mutually contradictory statements are consistent with the official story, they demonstrate that they are intellectually unfit for duty. On the other hand, if they continue to ignore the contradictions they show that they are morally unfit, by underlining their complicity in the coverup of the greatest mass murder in United States history.

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R25SU5GLCFXMP3 An excellent introduction to a host of problems with the 9/11 narrative. Well worth buying for people new to this area of research. Also a good reference for those with a lot of research under their belts.

In his book, Breakpoint (2007), Richard A. Clarke (President Bush's former top anti-terrorist adviser and now a novelist), tells a tale, set in the near future, about an attack on America's cyber-infrastructure. All the authorities immediately assume that China is behind the attack and proceed to find evidence supporting this view. (This aspect of the plot is reminiscent of Clarke's report that, after the 9/11 attacks, President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld asked Clarke to find evidence to support the view that Iraq was behind these attacks.) The heroes of the novel are a small band of investigators, under the guidance of a wise-old counter-terrorist expert, who are cautioned on two occasions to ignore the common wisdom and stick to the facts. The group is told: "facts, gaps, theories, analysis," in that order, and warned that this might be a "false flag operation"--a domestic act of terrorism designed to look as if it was coming from outside the United States. As America's foremost expert on terrorism, Clarke knows all too well that things are often not as they seem and that large agencies, including the press, tend to engage in group- think. And if one is theory-driven, then one will find the facts to support that theory, and facts that do not fit that theory are overlooked.

To use the language of Clarke's novel, Griffin's new book, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press, sticks mainly to "facts" and "gaps," or more precisely, facts and contradictory facts. Anyone who reads this book will see that the facts do not add up and do not support the dominant theory. For example, high-ranking government officials have explained that the reason that these attacks were successful is because prior to 9/11, no one could have imagined that civilian aircraft could be used to strike domestic targets. There is abundant evidence to the contrary. In October 2000, Pentagon officials carried out an emergency drill to prepare for the possibility that a commercial airliner might crash into the Pentagon. In May 2002, two medical clinics in the Pentagon held training exercises involving a scenario in which an aircraft was crashed into the Pentagon and in July of that year, just two months prior to the actual attacks, NORAD planned an exercise called Amalgam Virgo 02 that would simulate a scenario in which airliners hijacked within the United States would be used as weapons. So there is a "gap" between these facts and the statement of many high ranking officials, including President Bush. These facts do not support the theory that the attacks succeeded because the military had not foreseen the possibility of such attacks.

There are also discrepancies regarding the claims about when NORAD was alerted to the hijackings. For three years, NORAD officials said that they had been notified about United flight 175 at 8:43 a.m. In the 9/11 Commission report that time stands as 9:03--a twenty minute gap that is the difference between having enough time or not to intercept the flight. The dominant theory is that fighter planes were not scrambled to intercept flight 175 because they did not know it was hijacked until 9:03, but the facts do not support this.

And then there is Ted Olson's claim, made on at least two occasions, that he received two phone calls from his wife, Barbara, who was aboard the hijacked plane that flew into the Pentagon. The 9/11 Commission Report states that, in all probability, he received four calls, not just two, while the FBI testified in a court of law that phone records show that Barbara Olson made one unsuccessful attempt to call her husband. The records, they say, show that her call lasted zero seconds. Who are we to believe, Ted Olson, the 9/11 Commission Report, or the FBI? Certainly they cannot all be correct. Insofar as the dominant theory is that of the 9/11 Commission's, then Ted Olson and the FBI must be lying. Or perhaps the FBI is correct and the 9/11 Commission got it wrong.

Griffin outlines twenty-two other instances of facts and contradictions that are in direct opposition with each other. In order for a theory to be credible it must internally consistent and explain known occurrences. The dominant theory is inadequate on both accounts.

Some will say that although Griffin does not spend much time developing theories in this book, he has in previous books, and therefore this book is already theory-laden even if it is hidden. Be that as it may, the facts remain. There are sworn testimonies, eye-witness accounts, pictures, videos, and reports, and if the dominant theory cannot explain these, then there is a need for a new theory that does.

It would be interesting for Richard Clarke to write a review of Griffin's book and to see what he makes of all the facts that contradict the theory developed in the 9/11 Commission Report.

As is announced with the promotion of this book, 9/11 Contradictions does not delve into possible alternative scenarios with respect to 9/11. It deals purely with internal contradictions within the official account of 9/11. This is already a quintessentially important point. Many people think, in simple black and white terms, of "official story" versus "conspiracy theories." This very thinking numbs the average mind into believing, if having not done the research, that there is "one" official story versus the "many" conspiracy theories. This in of itself is a fallacy, because though there is indeed one official story in the generic sense ("19 Muslim extremists attacked us because they hate our freedoms"), this story comes apart at the seams because the official accounts and testimonies contradict each other (and sometimes themselves) in so many ways. As this text deals only with internal contradictions within the official story, congress and the press can not be excused for not asking these questions out of fear of being tarnished with the "conspiracy theorist" tag in the pejorative sense of the term.

When a child lies to avoid getting in trouble, he often has to change his story in order to cover for himself. This is often because he didn't see a logistical problem with the first lie. Sometimes, the child doesn't even realize he's not keeping his story straight until the adult points out the inconsistencies in the story, at which time the child thinks (or says aloud) "Uhhh-ohh. I didn't think of that..."

With the 9/11 official account, the sources who endorse the official narrative have changed their story time and again. Perhaps they are confident that these inconsistencies will be erased down history's memory hole, but they are wrong; the internet is the greatest invention since the printing press when it comes to the exchange and rapid flow of information. For example, when Bush was notified of the second plane strike, we all know that he stayed in the classroom for at least 7 minutes and at the school for another half hour; however, on the one-year anniversary of 9/11, the White House issued a revisionist account, according to which Bush got up and left the room only seconds later. This revisionist account was clearly an attempt to squash uncomfortable questions about why the Secret Service did not whisk the President away, as indeed was the case with Dick Cheney, who was in the White House. The hard question, which journalists should be asking, is why the head of Bush's Secret Service did not whisk Bush away unless he somehow know that the Florida school was not a target. Perhaps in putting out their revisionist account about the Florida classroom, the White House never anticipated someone like Michael Moore to break through into the mainstream and make Bush's true behavior widely known.

Some information I was not previously aware of involves multiple changes of story by the Florida classroom teacher, Sandra Kay Daniels. Clearly she knew the truth, but in conjunction with the White House's 2002 revisionist account of Bush's behavior, Mrs. Daniels also supported the story that the President left almost immediately. Even more interestingly suspicious, she presented two different accounts, within two days, to support this revisionist history. According to an LA Times story on the one-year anniversary, Mrs. Daniels said: "I knew something was up when President Bush didn't pick the book up and participate in the lesson... He said, 'Mrs. Daniels, I have to leave now. I am going to leave Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan to do the speech for me.' Looking at his face, you knew something was wrong. He shook my hand and left." However, the next day, a NY Times article told a very different story, based on a 9/11/02 interview with Mrs. Daniels. In this account, it was a Secret Service agent, not Andy Card, who informed Bush of the second strike, and this agent said "Where can we get to a television?" Mrs. Daniels then reportedly said: "The President bolted right out of here and told me, 'Take over.' I knew something serious had happened, and then a short while later he came back and said, 'What we thought was an airline accident turned out to be a terrorist hijack.'" Mrs. Daniels even elaborated on the suddenness of Bush's disappearance: "My kids were so happy that morning - imagine the President sitting there shooting the breeze, and then poof, suddenly, he's gone." So even in support of Bush leaving the room quickly, Mrs. Daniels gives two contrasting scenarios. Why the multiple revisionism? Who is telling Mrs. Daniels what to say? What is being covered up?

Another point which for me is not new is the issue of Barbara Olson's calls to then solicitor-general Ted Olson. Mrs. Olson's supposed call is among the foundational cement in the definitiveness of the official account of 9/11, whereby airliners were hijacked by terrorists. Mr. Olson first claimed, on 9/11 itself, that Barbara phoned him twice, from a cell phone. On Sept. 14, however, Olson told FOX's Hannity & Colmes program that she called the department of justice, collect. He then speculated that this was because she did not have her credit cards with her and therefore couldn't make a normal-way call. This scenario, of course, would be consistent with not a cell phone call but a seatback airphone. Astonishingly enough, Mr. Olson changed his story again later that same night on Larry King, reverting back to cell phone. He said that the second call went dead because "signals coming from cell phones from airplanes don't work that well." Two months later, at a memorial service, Mr. Olson flip-flopped AGAIN, settling with airphone. Why so many self-contradictions on Mr. Olson's part? Not only does Olson contradict himself, he is contradicted by other sources, one of whom is the FBI. The FBI acknowledged, via documents released after the Moussaoui trial, that there were only two on-board phone call attempts by Barbara Olson, and these were unable to connect and therefore lasted "zero seconds." This SHOULD be front page news around the world. Where are our investigative journalists?

9/11 Contradictions lays out literally hundreds of internal contradictions within the official account of 9/11, some blatant, some subtle; but every one of these contradictions is important in that each undermines the credibility of the whole story, and journalists, as our "Fourth Estate," have an obligation, a responsibility, to look into these inconsistencies. Unfortunately, the First Amendment seems to only be alive and well on the internet and alternative media, for the corporate-controlled media has not looked into even one of these inconsistencies. Indeed when Michael Moore exposed Bush's classroom behavior to the mainstream, many pundits in the corporate media hopped onto the "Michael Moore is un-American!" bandwagon. The corporate media has clearly lost the trust of much of the American people for not asking the tough questions leading into the Iraq war; questions which, had they been vigorously addressed, might have averted the war from the get go. For this, hard 9/11 questions notwithstanding, they are already going to be remembered in history as the generation of media that failed its citizens. Whereas we look back to the days of Edward R. Murrow as an era of journalistic integrity, we will look back on this era's journalism with shame. Indeed, TV news commentators who spew forth the idea that 9/11 Truthers should be tased and kept in secret prisons will be viewed, in a couple decades, the way we now view Dr. Goebbels. However, the media just might begin to redeem themselves if they wake up and begin asking the hard questions about 9/11, and should they choose to take this red pill, Griffin's works are the perfect arsenal toward restoring true democracy in the United States.

Griffin uses rationality's purest tools to throw light on to the fraught territory of 9/11: clarity and reason.

His contradictions are undeniable, and cry out for responses from the corporate colossus of the mass media and the vast miasma of the military-industrial-banking consortium.

Those who call for 9/11 researchers to forget it and move on are precisely those who prevent the world moving on. The whole affair has to be reopened and the hideous secrets of the war machine revealed.