Statement of Stephen Push

Stepeh Puch testifies to 9/11 commission. His wife, Lisa Raines, was murdered aboard American Airlines Flight 77

www.globalsecurity.org...

I am now convinced that this tragedy did not have to happen. 9/11 was foreseeable. And it could have been prevented.

I'm not advocating conspiracy theories. I don't believe that anyone in the government had specific knowledge of what would happen on 9/11. If only it were that simple, we could easily correct the problem by investigating and punishing those responsible.

But I fear that what we are up against is far more insidious. There has been a failure of leadership in this country that cuts across decades and political parties. Too many politicians put reelection above national security. Too many government mangers favor process over results and careerism over service.

reply to post by ULTIMA1


An excellent statement.

It shows that Stephen Push, a co-founder and board member of Families of September 11, which represents 1,500 family members of 9/11 victims, doesnt believe it was a conspiracy...or that the govt was involved.

He does think there were problems with the system...unable to track known terrorists, but other than that does not think there are any conspiracies.

So...in essence, he is satisfied with the official report, with the exception of prior knowledge of terrorists and terrorism.

Pretty strong statement coming from a board member representing the survivors families.

Originally posted by Disclosed
with the exception of prior knowledge of terrorists and terrorism.

But that is a very strong exception.

If the governemnt had that much prior knowledge, why was nothing done to raise security or do other things?

Originally posted by ULTIMA1
If the governemnt had that much prior knowledge, why was nothing done to raise security or do other things?

I believe that is what he was asking the commission.

What is interesting to not though, is he matter of factly stated he did not believe in conspiracy theories. That means he believes the events played out as the official reports (released so far) have stated.

So, he doesnt believe in demolitions, or missiles, or other theories. Just what has been released by the official reports.

Glad to see a person who represents the survivors agrees.

Originally posted by Disclosed
What is interesting to not though, is he matter of factly stated he did not believe in conspiracy theories.s.

Well i do not believe in a conspiracy either, i am looking for the truth of what really happend that day.

But also like many of us he would like to see another investigation and those found gulty punished.

we could easily correct the problem by investigating and punishing those responsible.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by ULTIMA1]

Originally posted by ULTIMA1

Originally posted by Disclosed
with the exception of prior knowledge of terrorists and terrorism.

But that is a very strong exception.

If the governemnt had that much prior knowledge, why was nothing done to raise security or do other things?

first of all great find!

but to the rest...'s not really that simple is it?

hell I knew more about al queda and ossama than the avg joe cuz of what i was doing for the govt on 911...we knew about him, we'd tried to kill him a couple times (which if anyone wants a conspiracy look into the clinton aide who leaked out the bit about ossamas sat phones or how ossama just happened to have left the area targeted by the cruise missiles just before they struck but thats another story)

but, this was the pre-911 world. the pre patriot act world, the pre TSA world.

had it not been for 911 do you think travellers would have tolerated the long lines caused by the screening?

had it not been for 911 would people have tolerated the restrictions of the patriot act?

hell theres enough people out there now that claim these were all NWO designs anyway...how loud would the screaming be had there NOT been an attack on US soil first?

security or freedom. the more you have of one the less you have of the other and thats just all there is to it. theres simply no way to be totally free and totally secure...so which do people really want? i know which id prefer but im not sure many other people would like living in my dream world.

but even bigger than all of that, the reason nothing was done to prevent 911 IMO was simple arrogance. we knew that the bad guys were out there and that they wanted a piece of us...but thats just it...they were OUT THERE and the though of them hitting us here at home at all, much less on the scale that they did, was just inconceivable.

yeah, we knew that OBL was training his people. we knew that they "wanted" to hijack some planes and at the time we though he was just going to blow them up in mid air (which would have been a feat had they gotten a few to blow up within minutes of each other) but thats really all we had, at least down on my level. "the bad guys are out there and they want to do something to us sometime....." how do you prevent "something" from happening "sometime"?

but more than anything...we just didnt think he had the balls to do it. not even that so much...we just didnt think he COULD do it to us here at home.

of course, this is all just my own opinions formed by what i knew to be going on at that particular time.

We've been hit since the early 90s on the Twin Towers, Khobar Towers and later in the 90s the embassy bombings and the U.S.S. Cole. How exactly do you think the Bush Adminstration would prevent the first terrorist attack after just barely a few months in power when the Clinton Adminstration practically failed to prevent any of the other attacks during their 8 years?

Having intel that informs the President that determines that Osama wanted to hit the U.S. with not specific time or place pretty much makes this intel worthless.

Originally posted by Damocles
first of all great find!

but to the rest...'s not really that simple is it?

Problem is that it is simple. How many warnings did it have to take to at least raise the security level at the airports so when the hijackers were flagged they would have been kept and not just let go, and the ones that set of the scanners would have been more closely looked at.

We had good intel on that something was going to heppen and it involved hijackingins, evne the Presidents daily brief had that in it.

Oh NSA was listening to OBLs satellite phone untill the media released a story that we could listen to it and he stopped using it the next day.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Having intel that informs the President that determines that Osama wanted to hit the U.S. with not specific time or place pretty much makes this intel worthless.

But we had some specific information, like the fact that it was going to involve hijackings.






[edit on 28-3-2008 by ULTIMA1]

Originally posted by ULTIMA1

But we had some specific information, like the fact that it was going to involve hijackings.

Okay we have intel that involves hijacking planes, what next? What are you going to do about it? What does it require? How long will this last?

Originally posted by ULTIMA1
But we had some specific information, like the fact that it was going to involve hijackings.

i wouldnt deny that for a second. but when was he going to do "something" with hijackings? how long to we raise the security level before travellers start to bitch and people start raising hell with their congresspeople cuz you KNOW there are people out there that the first thing they do when they get a parking ticket is call their senator.

did we know WHO the hijackers were going to be? what they looked like? what country they were from?

without clamping down on everyones civil liberties a bit, theres no way to be totally safe...so again...'s not so simple. what do we want? security or freedom?

but yeah about the sat phones, ive said for years that the tool that leaked that tidbit was the one really responsible for 911 by default. act of treason in my book but i sometimes have a narrow view of things.

Originally posted by deltaboy
Okay we have intel that involves hijacking planes, what next? What are you going to do about it? What does it require? How long will this last?

At a minimun we raise the secuirity level at the airports and focus on getting more intell. Pretty simple really.

Originally posted by Damocles
i wouldnt deny that for a second. but when was he going to do "something" with hijackings?

Well i believe we did have a some sort of timeline. But it should have been enough to raise security.

How long was it between the time we had good intel on the hijackings and 9/11 ?

reply to post by ULTIMA1


We raise security level (in what way?) and supposedly hopefully get more intel. What next? Time is of an essence.

Originally posted by deltaboy
We raise security level (in what way?) and supposedly hopefully get more intel. What next? Time is of an essence.

If the airport had rasied the security level then the hijackers that were flagged by the CAPPS system woiuld have been held and questioned longer and not just released.

9/11 Commission report, notes

CAPPS was an FAA-approved automated system run by the airlines that scored each passenger’s profile to identify those who might pose a threat to civil aviation.The system also chose passengers at random to receive additional security scrutiny.Ten out of the 19 hijackers (including 9 out of 10 on the two American Airlines flights) were identified via the CAPPS system.

[edit on 28-3-2008 by ULTIMA1]

reply to post by ULTIMA1



yeah i could only speculate on that one. hell by the time i got some of that intel it was pretty old already as it wasnt directly related to my job. stuff like that i got JUST before CNN did lol.

where i was kept closer to "in the loop" was more on the WMD side of things and we know how good some of our intel in that area was

Originally posted by Damocles
yeah i could only speculate on that one. hell by the time i got some of that intel it was pretty old already as it wasnt directly related to my job. stuff like that i got JUST before CNN did lol.

where i was kept closer to "in the loop" was more on the WMD side of things and we know how good some of our intel in that area was

Well i have access to more of terrorist event stuff.

Well we know they did have WMDs, they used them on their neighbors and own people.

We found the burried and hidden MIGs with the banned imported equipment on them and a chemical trailer or 2.

But from what i hear from defectors most of the WMDs and material to make them was moved. There is even a report of Russians helping move the WMDs.

reply to post by ULTIMA1


yeah i still get some of those tidbits from time to time (yer never really all the way out once you get in so far as im sure you know)

i was more referring to lebennon. our first indication they had a WMD program was when they came out and said "oh, by the way...we have this chem/bio program we'd like to declare and decommission" while our intel community was going "uh........."

Originally posted by Damocles
yeah i still get some of those tidbits from time to time (yer never really all the way out once you get in so far as im sure you know)

I was looking at the MIGs. They was an old MIG-25 that was completly buried that they said no one had ever seen the mods and equipment on it.

battle.netgate.net...

The Russian-made MiG-25 Foxbat being recovered by U.S. Air Force troops in the photos is an advanced reconnaissance version never before seen in the West and is equipped with sophisticated electronic warfare devices. U.S. Air Force recovery teams had to use large earth-moving equipment to uncover the MiG, which is over 70 feet long and weighs nearly 25 tons. The Foxbat is known to be one of Iraq's top jet fighters. The advanced electronic reconnaissance version found by the U.S. Air Force is currently in service with the Russian air force. The MiG is capable of flying at speeds of over 2,000 miles an hour, or three times the speed of sound, and at altitudes of over 75,000 feet.

The recovery of the advanced MiG fighter is considered to be an intelligence coup by the U.S. Air Force.. The Foxbat may also be equipped with advanced Russian- and French-made electronics that were sold to Iraq during the 1990s in violation of a U..N. ban on arms sales to Baghdad. The buried aircraft at Al Taqqadum were covered in camouflage netting, sealed and, in many cases, had their wings removed before being buried more than 10 feet beneath the Iraqi desert. The discovery of the buried Iraqi jet fighters illustrates the problem faced by U.S. inspection teams searching Iraq for weapons of mass destruction. Iraq is larger in size than California, and the massive deserts south and west of Baghdad were used by Saddam Hussein to hide weapons during the first Gulf war.

not suprised in the least.

i still say history will decide the iraqi wmd issue fully. some of his people claimed "oh we just dumped the stuff in the dessert"

so when i was still doing what i was doing we sat in our ready room going "ok...send us over. have him take us out where they dumped the stuff 6 years ago...we'll find proof if it was ever there"

we had really cool toys lol

but alas....

reply to post by ULTIMA1


They were flagged but not going to be questioned whether the security level was raised or not? Wow what was the point of being flagged in the first place.