PENTAGON RESEARCH

Photo by U.S. Army, Staff Sgt. Carmen L. Burgess 9/11/01

WHO WAS IN CHARGE?

Several quotes on this website will be from Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI. Pay special attention to his statement under the "Flight Recorders" section of this page in relation to the data on the cockpit voice recorder. He was appointed by Bush 7 days before 9/11.

"Robert Mueller was nominated by President George W. Bush and became the sixth Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on September 4, 2001". (Source)

"After spending 1988 and 1989 in private practice, he joined the staff of Attorney-General Richard Thornburgh, and his star rose at the Justice Department as the head of the criminal division under President George Bush's father from 1990 to 1993.

And he led the investigations of the 1991 collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International banking and the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103."
(Source)

Here is a link about Pan Am 103 - note the part about the Intelligence Officers on board.

I tried to find out more at the George Bush Sr. Presidential Library since Pan Am sued the US government and, "In its suit, Pan Am alleged that the United States Government had prior knowledge of an impending terrorist attack on a Pan Am airliner". But as luck would have it the, ".....court transcripts, affidavits, depositions, motions, objections, reports, and news clippings.....in addition [to] the remaining NSC files deal[ing] specifically with the Lockerbie bombing and the subsequent investigation which led to the indictment of two Libyan nationals..... are closed because of various security classifications". (Source)

PENTAGON INVESTIGATION

“The Washington field office of the FBI was given charge of the investigation of the Pentagon crash, …”
(Stephen Dinan The Washington Times Sept 12, 2001 Wednesday Final Pg. A1 “D.C. Area Thrown Into Chaos”)

“… the FBI’s NCRS had arrived within 5 minutes of impact.”
(Arlington County After-Action report)

“… The Pentagon and its surrounding grounds were immediately rendered a Federal crime scene, the exclusive domain of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under the terms of Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-39."
(Arlington County After-Action report)

“The FBI had more than one role. It was responsible for the entire crime scene operation, including evidence gathering and body recovery. That operation engaged more than 700 FBI agents at the Pentagon…”
(Arlington County After-Action report)

MEDIA?

"The media also wanted access beyond the Citgo site. The FBI adamantly opposed access inside the inner perimeter, and all I could arrange was a photography pool to the edge of the inner perimeter for an hour on the second day." (Source)

"Reporter Question: 'The only reason I say this is the FBI was just—granted they have a job to do, but they were a bit overzealous yesterday I think, …….'”
(Federal News Service Sept. 12, 2001 Special Briefing “Yesterday’s Attack on the Pentagon”)

"Details about who was on Flight 77, when it took off and what happened on board were tightly held by airline, airport and security officials last night. All said that the FBI had asked them not to divulge details." Washington Post

"'There weren't seats or luggage or things you find in a plane. There was nothing left -- it was obliterated or fireballed,' she said. 'And there was a foot of water on the lawn. We are running around in the water, not even thinking of the jet fuel in the water. We were just doing our job.' Safety officers allowed only two FETN members inside the Pentagon impact site, so DeWolf and DeWeese went inside, while Rothschadl continued filming the outside activities. A line of about 30 FBI agents swept the lawn back and forth, collecting evidence. FBI agents confronted Rothschadl, noting the ban on media coverage and demanding to know the reason for her presence. 'I was a little bit nervous that the tapes would be confiscated, especially being alone on the outside,' she said." (Source)
Local copy - original switched to registration only.

DEBRIS?

“Even before the fires were extinguished, FBI agents lined up five abreast on Washington Boulevard west of the building and began gathering up debris in paper 'evidence' bags."
(www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-091201pentagon,1,465975.story - Copy & paste)
(Local Copy)

“……and with the FBI moving plane wreckage and building debris to the building’s north parking lot for examination.”
(Katherine M. Skiba Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Sept. 17, 2001 Monday Final page 7A “Soldiers Nightmare”.)

“The FBI area in front of the Pentagon is an eerie site. There are hundreds of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs lined up to be packed with evidence. Large and small pieces of the airplane are laying there on the ground waiting to be sorted.”
(Lori Lewis – Personal Account - Link broken)

FLIGHT RECORDERS?

"Somewhere in that massive pile of rubble lay two mangled metal containers that might reveal what happened aboard American Airlines Flight 77 in the minutes before terrorists crashed it into America's military headquarters. As a cockpit voice recorder analyst for the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), it was Cushman's job to help locate the airplane's black boxes, as the voice and data recorders that all airliners carry are known informally. It was the first crash site she'd visited.

"Over the next few days, working the 3 p.m. to morning shift, she and several other NTSB experts struggled to separate airplane parts from office parts. Early on the morning of Sept.14, while Cushman was at the site, the cockpit voice recorder, or CVR, was found. It was quickly transported across the Potomac to the NTSB lab in Washington, D.C., where Cushman works with three other analysts, and its data was downloaded.

"Ordinarily, that would have been just the start of Cushman's association with the device, but this time, it was the end. The events of Sept. 11 had already been classified as criminal acts, rather than accidents, so the FBI, which has its own forensic audio lab, took charge of the box and its data.

That's also why Cushman can't say much more about her role in that investigation, or about the work she did on the recorders recovered from Flight 93, which plowed into a field in Pennsylvania after passengers apparently thwarted another hijacking. Like the Pentagon CVR, the black box from that plane came to NTSB only for the extraction of its data before being turned over to the FBI". (Source)

"FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday that the agency has gotten information from the flight data recorder recovered in the crash of American Airlines Flight 77, which slammed into the Pentagon. He declined to say what information the FBI received from the recorder, which tracks an airplane's flight movements for the last 25 hours. He said the agency had not gotten any information from the voice data recorder from Flight 77". (Source)

HUMAN REMAINS?

“On the afternoon of September 11, Dr. Marcella Fierro, the Virginia Chief Medical Examiner, met with ASAC Blecksmith and asserted the responsibility of her office regarding the autopsies of victims of the terrorist attack. The FBI felt strongly that the Armed Forces Institute of pathology (AFIP), with which the FBI has long-standing working relations, should perform the autopsies. Dr. Fierro requested and received a letter from Attorney General Ashcroft transferring responsibility for the medical examinations to the FBI.

“She informed them that Virginia forensic laboratory and mortuary resources were prepared to go to work in support of the response. The FBI and DOD officials declined the offer, preferring to conduct forensic and mortuary activities at DOD facilities.

…..Army helicopters flew them (the remains) to the AFIP at Dover Air Force Base (AFB), DE. FBI agents rode in the trucks, participated in the escort, and accompanied the remains during the flight to preserve the chain of custody.”
(Arlington County After-Action Report)

See the "Autopsy FOIA Request" in the sidebar to view the report from the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and note that there are no Arab names on it.

CRASH REPORT?

"Please note: information regarding the investigation into the events of September 11, 2001 will be released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is the lead investigative agency. The Safety Board is providing technical assistance to the FBI, as described in the September 13 Press Advisory." NTSB Website

NTSB Advisory National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594
September 13, 2001
NTSB PROVIDING TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE TO FBI INVESTIGATION
WASHINGTON, D.C. - The National Transportation Safety Board is providing technical assistance to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is the lead agency investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11. At the request of the FBI, the Safety Board has sent investigators with knowledge of aircraft structures and flight recorders to the crash sites in New York, Pennsylvania and at the Pentagon. They are assisting in the search for the cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders - the so-called “black boxes” - and helping to identify aircraft parts. The NTSB has offered the use of its laboratories to read out any recorders the FBI may find. The Safety Board also dispatched its family affairs specialists to New York and Pennsylvania to advise the FBI and the airlines on providing federal services to the families of the victims of these crimes. Similar assistance is being provided for the crash at the Pentagon. As the crashes of the four airliners on Tuesday are criminal acts, the FBI is the lead investigative agency and will release all information on the progress of the investigation. News media should direct questions on this investigation to the FBI’s press office at (202) 324-3691.
NTSB Media Contact: Ted Lopatkiewicz (202) 314-6100
NTSB Press Release

CONCLUSION: The FBI controlled every aspect of the Pentagon incident from start to finish. They still control it with total secrecy. What about the media and free speech? Why no accident report on the crash? Why did Director Robert Mueller apparently lie about the data on the cockpit voice recorder after the NTSB downloaded the data? I believe the answer may lie in the fact that the director's "star rose" under Bush Sr. and he already had Pan Am 103 under his belt. Maybe that's why the evidence was snapped up and secured so quickly.

FBI FLIGHT 77 PAGE: You can see everything the FBI has released about Flight 77 on this page. It is worth a look just to prove a point. FBI Flight 77 Page