June 21, 2002 (FTW) -- Just a few short years ago the world was accustomed to not learning the real historical truth about an event for many decades and perhaps centuries. But since Sept. 11th the Inernet, and an increasingly skeptical world population, have dramatically shortened history's learning curve.

Rather than relying on unsupported theory, it is possible to expose and focus attention on major discrepancies in the Bush administration's characterization and handling of events by using the internet as a vehicle to widely disseminate and analyze reports from respected mainstream media from all over the world and to then compare and contrast those reports with official government statements, official records and other unquestionable documents and undisputed conduct.

In this manner it is possible, for example, to establish that statements by President Bush, Ari Fleischer and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice claiming they had absolutely no idea that aircraft would be used as weapons, are absolutely false.

As established by reports in the Frankfurter Algemeine Zeitung, Izvestia, online.ie, MS-NBC, Agence France Presse and the International Herald Tribune, it becomes clear that foreign intelligence services -- not random callers or anonymous tipsters -- were making direct and urgent pleadings to U.S. intelligence agencies that, when compared side-by-side, clearly establish that Al Qaeda had trained as many as 25 suicide pilots who were planning to crash hijacked airliners into the World Trade Center in the week of September 9th.

Is that specific enough?

Are we to assume that a direct warning from Russian President Putin to the highest levels of the U.S. government somehow fell through the cracks?

The U.S. government has not denied a single one of these press reports. Neither have any of the intelligence services mentioned. In light of what the world has now seen was done with reports of possible hijackings from the FBI in Arizona and Minnesota, and the utterly disingenuous and unpersuasive profferings of the administration and its managers, we are now being asked to believe in some kind of grand and colossally contagious incompetence that any sentient being is not capable of.

And here we have to look at the brave actions of three FBI agents: Colleen Rowley, Robert Wright and Tyrone Powers. Colleen Rowley is now a legend and her 13-page letter to FBI Director Mueller should be mandatory reading for every journalist and politician in the country. Robert Wright's compelling press conference -- I believe in the very room where this conference is being held -- should be viewed by every member of Congress. And former FBI agent, law professor and author Tyrone Powers' statement that he believes the Bush administration deliberately allowed the attacks all bear just a moment's comment before this conference moves on.

As I read through the Rowley memo, or watch the Wright conference, I see words that tell me negligence or stupidity are not the issue. The words are -- "obstruct", "block", "thwart", "threaten", "intimidate", "rewrite", "harass", "punish", "dishonest", and "integrity".

These are not words describing ignorant or careless behavior. They are words describing intentional and malicious behavior.

And that is what ultimately must be addressed before the families of the victims of 9-11, the American people, and the world will be satisfied.

The Bush Administration must be forced to admit that they knew hijacked planes were going to be used as weapons. Why else would terrorists take flight training lessons? You can't crop dust with a 757 that you don't know how to land or take-off.

Why else would the G-8 conference in Genoa less than a year earlier have had extensive preparations to prevent hijacked aircraft from being used as weapons. President Bush was there, surrounded by anti-aircraft weapons. Was he not briefed on it?

Just a few of the questions that MUST be answered are going to be discussed today and we have been asking them at From The Wilderness since Septmeber 12th. Now many more are asking:

- Why did U.S. State Department officials Karl Inderfurth, Tom Simmons and Lee Coldren travel to Berlin in July 2001 to tell the Taliban that the U.S. government was going to "bury them in a carpet of bombs" in October 2001?

- Why were no fighters scrambled for 50 minutes after the first two planes had hit the World Trade Center towers?

- Why did Andrews Air Force Base alter its web site on 9-13 to hide the fact that it had scramble-ready fighters?

- Why were massive numbers of U.S., British and NATO forces pre-positioned off the Pakistani coast, in Oman and Egypt before the 9-11 attacks?

- Why has no one forcefully demanded an explanation from the administration as to why the head of the Pakistani intelligence service, the ISI, wired $100,000 to Mohammed Atta before the attacks and then was happily in Washington, D.C. meeting with the heads of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees on Septmeber 11th?

- Why has the Wall Street Journal or any other major paper not investigated the fact that the aide to the head of the ISI who wired the money to Atta, Ahamad Umar Sheik, is also the lead suspect in the muder of reporter Daniel Pearl?

- Why did the National Security Council convene a Dabhol working group in the summer of 2001 to help a beleaguered Enron try to find a way to salvage a $3 billion investment in a power generating plant that could only operate if there was a natural gas pipeline across Afghanistan?

- Why has John Ashcroft not recused himself from two sitting federal grand juries looking at Exxon-Mobil and BP/Amoco's frantic and desperate attempts to get oil out of Central Asia, when those two companies donated more money to Ashcroft when he was a senator than Enron did?

- Why has the White House broken laws to hide the records of the Vice President's Energy Task Force when targets of grand jury probes looking at Kazak oil corruption (Exxon and BP Amoco) were granted access? That's the same as having Manuel Noriega advise the White House in the war on drugs. Is it because the Vice President himself was a sitting member of the Kazakh government's oil advisory board when bribes were given and an illegal oil swap with Iran completed?

- Why has the government not disclosed the results of massive insider trading in the financial markets before September 11th that was so widely and urgently commented on by the likes of 60 Minutes, ABC, Bloomberg, and a multitude of respected media outlets?

- Why has no one told the American people about the results of massive numbers of put options on United Airlines that were placed through a firm that was headed until 1998 by a man, A.B. Krongard, who is today in the number-three position at the CIA?

I am one who believes that the last true vestige of an uncompromised rule of law in this country is in the civil courts. It is only there where the rules of discovery can compel the release of documents and the production of evidence that newly formed congressional committees, operating partly in secret and partly in the open, will only try to hide.

The public is rightfully skeptical about a White House that has lied to them about the events of September 11th. And I for one am proud to be a part of the vanguard of courageous independent journalists and researchers who are continuing to bring these shocking -- yet utterly verifiable -- facts to light.

We have also demonstrated that personal attacks on many of us, though draining, are ineffective when we demonstrate that we can read and use official records and undisputed maintstream media reports to arrive at an accurate and more proudctive picture of reality in a way that actually serves the interests of the people rather than protecting the interests of a government of questionable legitimacy that is asking for more money and more power after having both betrayed us and allowed the deaths of thousands of people.

The stars today are the families of the victims and their brave lawyers. But they are symbolic of a vicitimization that is national and indeed, global.

Unmitigated and fearless accountability is the standard for all of us here today. And I can assure you that as far as September 11th goes, time is on our side, and this government knows it.

Anyone wishing to see documentation for what I have described here can find it on my web site at www.copvcia.com.

Michael C. Ruppert, Publisher/Editor From The Wilderness