Ian Henshall

A book is released in Britain called 9/11 Revealed: Challenging the Facts Behind the War on Terror, written by radical British journalists Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan. The Daily Mail calls it “a hugely provocative—many would say fantastical—yet, at times, genuinely disturbing new analysis of 9/11.” According to the London Times, the authors “have subjected the official version of what happened to intense scrutiny and found huge gaps.” The book examines the various theories suggesting the Bush administration was complicit in carrying out the 9/11 attacks, so as to give Bush the excuse to go ahead with his long-held plan to invade Iraq. They examine theories that the Twin Towers and Building 7 of the WTC were brought down deliberately with explosives; that the Pentagon was hit by a military drone aircraft and a missile; that Flight 11 and Flight 175, which supposedly hit the Twin Towers, were in fact landed and replaced by remote-controlled substitutes; that cell phone calls from the hijacked planes were faked; and that the military’s response to the hijackings was hindered by an air defense exercise taking place at the same time as the attacks. The Daily Mail concludes, “In their inquiries Henshall and Morgan may have discovered no smoking guns – but they have certainly left a whiff of something sinister in the air.” [Morgan and Henshall, 2005; Daily Mail, 8/6/2005; London Times, 9/4/2005] Only five days after the release of the book, the US State Department takes the unprecedented move of posting a response to the book on its website. The State Department is highly critical, calling it “a collection of unfounded conspiracy theories that bear no relationship to the tragic realities of September 11.” As part of a series of “conspiracy theory” debunking web pages entitled “Identifying Misinformation,” the State Department attempts to rebut each of the main points of the book. [US Department of State, 9/16/2005]