America under attack: A chronicle of chaos and heroism at the Pentagon on 9/11

John N. Maclean's review of Firefight: Inside the Battle to Save the Pentagon on 9/11 misses a key fact that undercuts the authors' account of what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11.

The authors, Patrick Creed and Rick Newman, write that the aircraft that hit the Pentagon punched a hole 90 feet wide at the entry point, then compressed into a bullet-like shape and burrowed 310 feet into the building.

In the picture below, take a look at the entry point while the Pentagon fire was still raging.


And this picture of the crew of Engine 331, Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority, attempting to put out the fire.


And this picture after the fire has diminished, but before the collapse of the roof.


Do you see a 90 feet wide hole in the Pentagon wall? Or any signs of a Boeing 757? Of course not.

What you may have seen is a picture taken after the roof collapsed. Miraculously, the "Boeing 757" made it through the light poles and highway sign before striking the Pentagon.


Just minutes after the attack, standing in front of the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Jamie McIntyre, CNN's senior Pentagon correspondent since November 1992, reported: "From my close up inspection there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon. . . . . The only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you could pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage—nothing like that anywhere around which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon. . . . It wasn't till about 45 minutes later . . . that all of the floors collapsed."

Career army officer sues Rumsfeld, Cheney, saying no evacuation order given on 9/11, no sign of a crashed airplane at the Pentagon

A career Army specialist who survived the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, claims that no evacuation was ordered inside the Pentagon, despite flight controllers calling in warnings of approaching hijacked aircraft nearly 20 minutes before the building was struck. . . .

Spc. Gallop also says she heard two loud explosions, and does not believe that a Boeing 757 hit the building.

The following paragraphs are from the complaint filed in the UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF NEW YORK by APRIL GALLOP, for Herself and as Mother and Next Friend of ELISHA GALLOP, a Minor:

33. At the Pentagon, the plaintiff was at her desk, with her baby, in her office on the first floor, when large explosions occurred, walls crumbled and the ceiling fell in. Although her desk is just some forty feet from the supposed impact point, and she went out through the blown-open front of the building afterwards, she never saw any sign that an airliner crashed through. If Flight 77, or a substitute, did swoop low over the building, to create the false impression of a suicide attack, it was then flown away by its pilot, or remote control, and apparently crashed someplace else. At the building, inside or outside of the wall the plane supposedly hit, there was no wreckage, no airplane fragments, no engines, no seats, no luggage, no fuselage sections with rows of windows, and especially, no blazing quantities of burning jet fuel. The interior walls and ceilings and contents in that area were destroyed, but there was no sign of a crashed airplane. A number of those present inside the building and out have attested to this fact in published reports.

34. Instead, just when plaintiff turned on her computer — for an urgent document-clearing job she was directed by her supervisor to rush and begin, as soon as she arrived at work, without dropping her baby off at child care until she was finished — a huge explosion occurred, and at least one more that she heard and felt, and flames shot out of the computer. Walls crumbled, the ceiling fell in, and she was knocked unconscious. When she came to, terrified and in pain, she found the baby close by, picked him up, and, with other survivors caught in the area, made her way through rubble, smoke and dust towards daylight, which was showing through an open space that now gaped in the outside wall. When she reached the outside she collapsed on the grass; only to wake up in a hospital some time later.

Chaos in the 9/11 courtroom

The five defendants wanted to plead guilty, but only if it brought them their desired outcome. "If we plead guilty, can we still be sentenced to death?" Mohammed asked U.S. Army Col. Stephen Henley, the military commission judge responsible for trying the men.

No one in the courtroom knew the answer, including Col. Henley.

9/11 victims' families challenge legitimacy of Guantanamo military commissions

Gen Hamid Gul on CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS

Fareed Zakaria
CNN, Fareed Zakaria GPS

During the December 8, 2008 interview with Gen Hamid Gul, you claimed that his opinions on 9/11 were “thoroughly discredited". In fact it is "The 9/11 Commission Report" that has been thoroughly discredited.

I challenge you, or anyone else, to debate this issue. My position is stated in "9/11 Unveiled."


Enver Masud

Founder and CEO
The Wisdom Fund

Former Pakistan intel director: 'It was an inside job'

Retired Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, former director of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, says "9/11 was a bloody hoax, . . . an inside job."

This is consistent with the position Gen. Gul stated in September 2001 during an interview with Arnaud de Borchgrave — United Press International editor-at-large, and which he repeated to Fareed Zakaria of CNN on December 8, 2008 following the Mumbai attacks.

Top 9/11 suspects to plead guilty

The military tribunal may never go ahead in its current form, analysts say

Alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants have told a military judge at Guantanamo Bay they want to confess and plead guilty.

The judge at the pre-trial hearing, Col Stephen Henley, said he would question the men to ensure that was their wish.

Mr Mohammed had earlier said he wished to be executed and achieve martyrdom, but had still mounted a defence.

The five accused face the death penalty if convicted of a role in killing 2,973 people in the suicide plane attacks.

No date has been set for the five men's full military tribunal, and their appearance in court on Monday followed hearings held under a judge who resigned last month. . . .

[Editor's Note: The physical facts contradict the U.S. government's version of events on 9/11, i.e. "The 9/11 Commission Report."]