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This book review appears in the March 15, 2013 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
BOOK REVIEW
Was It Murder? Philip Marshall,
Author of 'Big Bamboozle,' Dead
by William F. Wertz, Jr.
[PDF version of this article]
The Big Bamboozle:
9/11 and the War on Terror
by Philip Marshall
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, February 2012
166 pages, paperback, $14.99
March 9—In February 2012, Philip Marshall, a veteran airline pilot, published The Big Bamboozle: 9/11 and the War on Terror,
which documents the role of Saudi Arabia in running the Sept. 11, 2001
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and of the Bush
Presidency in facilitating it by standing down. One year later, on Feb.
2, 2013, Marshall was found dead, along with his two teenage children
and his dog, at his home in California.
Local
police have called it a murder/suicide. But former National Security
Agency officer Wayne Madsen, who spent a week at the scene
investigating, says that it was a black-ops assassination, not only for
what Marshall reveals in the book, but also for what he might have
revealed in the future.
In
addition to being an experienced pilot—Marshall had captain ratings on
the Boeing 727, 737, 747, 757, and 767s—and was familiar with the
training needed to fly such planes, and to carry out such manuevers as
the 9/11 hijacker pilots did, Marshall had experience in a DEA sting
operation against Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar, and was the pilot
for Barry Seal, who participated in the George H.W. Bush/Oliver North
operation to arm the Contras in the 1980s.
The
story that Marshall tells, although failing to identify the role of the
British, corroborates in fine detail the essential features of the
assessment of 9/11/2001, presented by Lyndon LaRouche at the time that
the attack was occurring. Interviewed that morning on K-TALK radio from Salt Lake City, LaRouche said: "This
is not some dumb guy with a turban some place in the world, trying to
get revenge for what's going on in the Middle East. This is something
different." LaRouche emphasized that "this is a very systematic
operation ... to get that kind of thing, to snatch planes like that,
that's a pretty sophisticated operation." He also stressed that "Osama
bin Laden is a controlled entity. Osama bin Laden is not an independent
force." In a webcast address on Jan. 3, 2001,
LaRouche had warned that a terrorist incident could be used, as in the
case of the Reichstag Fire, to introduce a dictatorial policy in the
United States. In that webcast LaRouche said:
"Special
warfare types of the secret government, the secret police teams, will
set off provocations, which will be used to bring about dictatorial
powers and emotion, in the name of crisis management."
The possibility that Marshall was assassinated cannot be ruled out. In former Sen. Bob Graham's novel Keys to the Kingdom,
the lead character, who is a Senator investigating 9/11, is killed.
Graham was the co-chair of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. In
similar, true-life cases, Barry Seal was killed on Feb. 19, 1986, in
Baton Rouge; J.H. Hatfield, author of The Fortunate Son, in
which he reported that George W. Bush's "missing year" was spent in drug
rehab, was also found dead, allegedly by suicide, on July 18, 2001;
journalist Gary Webb, who exposed the fact that crack cocaine was being
shipped to the U.S. to fund arms for the Contras, in a newspaper series
entitled "Dark Alliance," allegedly committed suicide on Dec. 10, 2004;
and on Feb. 19, 2005, Hunter S. Thompson also allegedly committed
suicide while working on a major article on 9/11.
Bin Laden: A False Flag
In
the introduction to his book, Marshall cites the fact that in the final
version of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, the indisputable
evidence about the role of Saudi intelligence was redacted.
-
Marshall
presents evidence that bin Laden's role in 9/11 was a false flag, to
cover for the fact that the funding, logistical support, tactical
planning, and training of the 9/11 terrorist attack were all supplied by
Saudi Arabia, whose role was covered up by blaming Osama bin Laden, who
did not have the means to carry out such a sophisticated operation.
-
Secondly,
he demonstrates that the operation was effectively facilitated, and
then exploited, by the Bush family apparatus, which effectively stood
down while the attack was occurring, and ignored warnings of the
impending attack.
-
And
thirdly, he exposes the roles in the coverup of Porter Goss, the House
Chairman of the Joint Congressional Inquiry; Philip Zelikow, the
director of the 9/11 Commission; and FBI Director Robert Mueller, who
was appointed on Sept. 4, 2001. That coverup persists to this day.
Marshall
is known to have been in contact with Bob Graham, who has demanded the
declassification of the 28-page section of the 9/11 report on the Saudi
role in the attack.
The book covers material already reported by EIR
and LaRouchePAC from the report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry.
This includes the fact that Prince Bandar's wife, the daughter of Prince
Turki bin Faisal, then-head of Saudi intelligence, sent money to Saudi
Intelligence agent Omar al-Bayoumi; that Bayoumi met with a member of
the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles before meeting at a restaurant with
the first two hijackers who came to the U.S., Khalid al-Mihdhar and
Nawaf al-Hazmi, and invited them to San Diego; that Bayoumi worked for
the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority; that the two hijackers lived for a
time in the home of a longtime FBI informant, whom the Joint Inquiry was
prevented from interviewing. In fact, the FBI refused to serve the
informant a committee subpoena.
Marshall
points out that the 9/11 Commission never heard testimony from a civil
aviation expert. As an expert himself, he writes that, "The flight
profiles revealed that a tailored operating procedure was used to fly
directly to predetermined targets, followed by a series of advanced
hand-flown maneuvers that included rapid descents, steep turns and
coordinated roll outs." None of this could have been done without
"critical inside help from aviation and tactical experts." As a 20-year
Boeing pilot and captain, he writes that he would have been "challenged
to duplicate this performance without several practice flights." The
pilots could not have done this on the basis of the training they
received in single-engine airplanes. Moreover, their civilian flight
instructors all said afterwards, that in early 2001, none of the pilots
was competent to fly Boeing airliners.
His conclusion is that they received advanced training in the final phase from Saudi instructors.
The Saudis and the Pilots
Marshall presents the following evidence:
In
the six months leading up to 9/11, four of the eventual hijackers
travelled to Las Vegas. These hijackers were the pilots of the four
planes that were used on 9/11. None of the other hijackeres went to Las
Vegas. Marshall concludes that they must have received training at a
site somewhere between Las Vegas and Tucson, Ariz. One possible location
he identifes as Pinal Airpark, which had 757 and 747 Boeing planes on
site at that time, and which is known to have been used by the CIA and
the private mercenary company Blackwater.
Many
sources have reported that after 9/11, a number of Saudi nationals, who
were in the U.S. at the time, including members of the bin Laden
family, were allowed to fly out of the country after the attacks.
Marshall
also reports that a large entourage of Prince Turki was also in the
United States prior to and on Sept. 11, 2001: "Tucked in the back of the
commission's report (and later removed) was an account of three
separate chartered airliners carrying about 100 Arab men (mostly Saudis)
from Las Vegas on midnight transatlantic flights beginning on September
19." Marshall reports that Turki "was near Las Vegas during the time
that the 9/11 Commission 'could not explain' why all the hijackers had
made trips to Las Vegas in the months leading up to 9/11."
In
the week after the attack, there were at least five chartered flights
with high-ranking Saudi officials that flew out of Las Vegas, Newark,
Boston, and Washington. Three of these were from Las Vegas.
"The
chartered departures from Las Vegas were a four-engine DC-8 for Geneva
on September 19, 2001, with 69 passengers, including 46 Saudis; a Boeing
727 for England with 18 Saudis on September 20; and on September 23, a
jumbo Lockheed L-1011 for Paris. Only 34 passengers were listed on that
plane, which has a capacity of nearly 400. On that flight was Prince
Turki."
Marshall
makes the point that the presence of Turki's entourage in the U.S. in
the Summer of 2001 "entailed a perfect opportunity to get the needed
Saudi Boeing flight instructors into the country and out after the
attacks without anyone interviewing them."
To
support this, Marshall points out that Prince Bandar—now the head of
Saudi intelligence—is, himself, a pilot. He was Top Gun for his unit in
the Royal Saudi Air Force, and the two Saudi intelligence operatives in
San Diego, Bayoumi and Bassan, were associated with the Saudi Civil
Aviation Authority.
The Saudi-Bush Connection
The
role of Prince Bandar, and his relationship to the Bush family, are
key. Marshall does not report on the money Bandar had at his disposal as
a result of the (British) BAE-Saudi Al-Yamamah arms deal. But he does
demonstrate that Bandar has a decades-long close relationship with the
Bush family, and with dirty covert operations. For instance, during the
Iran-Contra affair, when George H.W. Bush was Vice President, Bandar
agreed to fund the Contra operation in 1984 when the Congress had banned
U.S. funds for Nicaraguan Contra rebels. Oliver North testified that
Bandar "had sought to keep under wraps his role in funneling millions
through a Swiss bank account."
Thus
Bandar has been the Bush family connection to Saudi Arabia for decades.
As Marshall points out, in the past two decades, the Prince "has spent
time with the President's family at their Texas ranch, their
Kennebunkport home, at Camp David and of course the White House. He has
had visits to the Pentagon and has been flown on Air Force One." George
H.W. Bush celebrated his 80th birthday on Bandar's A-340. At one point,
the Vice President proclaimed that Bandar was an official member of the
Bush family. His new name in Kennebunkport was announced as Bandar Bush.
In
less than 48 hours after 9/11/2001, Prince Bandar and George W. Bush
would be smoking cigars together on the White House balcony. In his book
State of Denial, Bob Woodward reports that when George W. Bush
was planning to run for the Presidency, Bush Sr. told him to visit
Bandar. According to Woodward, Bush Jr. said to the prince, "My dad told
me before I make up my mind, go and talk to Bandar."
Although
Marshall does not make this point, Prince Bandar, now, as head of Saudi
intelligence, continues to do the bidding of the British, in arming
al-Qaeda in Syria. The only difference is that today his partner in
crime is President Barack Obama who, in following the Bush family
tradition, has continued to cover up the Saudi role, both in the
original 9/11, and also in 9/11/2012 in Benghazi.
No Defense
Marshall
argues that on 9/11, all four of the planes were supposed to hit their
targets at the same time, but the hijackers of two of the planes that
targeted Washington, D.C., were delayed in taking over the cockpits,
which resulted in those planes flying further west than intended, and
thus delaying the operation. Marshall's point is that this delay exposed
the fact that the Bush White House stalled in responding to the attack.
Two military jets were sent up after it became clear that the first
plane had been hijacked. However, no additional planes were deployed.
Not
a single airplane was send out to defend Washington. Vice President
Dick Cheney claimed afterwards that he recommended to Bush that orders
be given to shoot down any incoming plane, but there is no record of any
such orders being given, even two hours after the attack began. And
even if such orders had been given, there were no planes in the air to
follow the orders.
The Coverup
The
coverup of 9/11 is well documented by Marshall, and echoes the coverup
of the Kennedy assassination by the Warren Commission. Just as Allen
Dulles was appointed to the Warren Commission to control it, similar
appointments were made to obstruct the investigation of both the 9/11
Commission and the Joint Congressional Inquiry.
The
person appointed as Executive Director of the 9/11 Commission was
Philip Zelikow, a former member of the National Security Council for
Bush Sr., and co-author of the 1995 book, Germany United, Europe Transformed,
which he co-authored with Condoleezza Rice. Zelikow was a member of the
G.W. Bush transition team, and the author of the policy paper that the
White House used to justify a pre-emptive invasion of Iraq. The 9/11
Commission staff would describe him as a "White House mole." He was in
daily contact with Bush senior advisor Karl Rove and with National
Security Advisor Rice. Evidence against Bandar was hidden in the final
report, because Zelikow argued that it was not conclusive.
In
respect to the Joint Congressional Inquiry, Marshall asserts that the
mole was former Rep. Porter Goss, the co-chair from the House. He was
named by President George W. Bush in 2004 as Director of National
Intelligence and Director of Central Intelligence. As to Goss's
background, Marshall presents a photo taken in Mexico City on Jan. 22,
1963, which includes Felix Rodriguez of Contra fame, Barry Seal, and
Porter Goss, 20 years before the Iran-Contra affair. Goss was a CIA
agent at the time of the the Bay of Pigs. According to Marshall, "some
independent investigators believe that this [photo] was the
assassination team, nicknamed Operation 40," that was responsible for
the Kennedy assassination.
Marshall
also reports that Cheney tried to intimidate Senator Graham. Mueller,
who was appointed FBI director one week before 9/11, also launched an
investigation of the Joint Congressional Inquiry staff itself during
their investigation, as a means of intimidation.
A Ploy for War
Marshall's
overall thesis is that to bring about the change which has occurred
since 9/11, a Pearl Harbor-style attack on the U.S. would be necessary.
He quotes a document published by the Project for a New American Century
(PNAC), "Rebuilding America's Defenses," which states: "the
transformation would be a long one—absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor." Moreover, by blaming the
attack on Osama bin Laden, it could be used to justify a policy of
pre-emptive warfare, which was then carried out against Iraq, and
eventually Syria and Iran.
Marshall
argues that such a false flag operation was run to cover up the Saudi
involvement and the true intention of the plotters of 9/11.
To
support this, Marshall quotes from Steve Pieczenik, who served as the
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under the Nixon, Ford, and Carter
administrations, worked under Reagan and Bush Sr., and now works as a
consultant for the Department of Defense. Pieczenik, who is also a
physician, stated on May 3, 2011, in two radio broadcasts shortly after
it was announced that Osama bin Laden had been killed, that he knew that
bin Laden had died in 2001. Back in April 2002, Pieczenik said that bin
Laden had already been "dead for months."
Pieczenik
had met bin Laden, and worked with him during the proxy war against the
Soviets in Afghanistan. According to Pieczenik, bin Laden died in 2001,
"not because Special Forces had killed him, but because as a physician,
I had known that the CIA physicians had treated him and it was on the
intelligence roster that he had marfan syndrome. He died of marfan
syndrome, Bush junior knew about it, the intelligence community knew
about it." Pieczenik reported that CIA physicians had visited bin Laden
in July 2001 at the American Hospital in Dubai. "He was already very
sick from marfan syndrome and he was already dying, so nobody had to
kill him."
Pieczenik
also said that he was prepared to tell a Federal grand jury the name of
a top general who told him directly that 9/11 was a false flag attack.
Marshall
also argues that key to the false flag operation was producing the
torture-induced confession of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the so-called
mastermind of 9/11.
Time for the Truth
Unfortunately,
Marshall will not write his next book. It is certainly reassuring that
Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA Director-designate John Brennan
have finally stated, on behalf of President Obama, that it is
unconstitutional to kill an American who is a noncombatant on American
soil ... with drones.
Marshall
does not mention that Obama, along with Brennan, has continued the Bush
policy of covering up the Saudi involvement in 9/11 by refusing to
declassify the Joint Congressional Inquiry 28-page chapter on Saudi
involvement in 9/11, which he promised the families of 9/11 victims he
would do.
Given the explosive nature of his revelations, the time is now overripe to push for that chapter finally to be declassified. The truth must now come out. |
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