Alternative scenario

[noise]

I realize much of this is speculative and am not making any assertion of fact. Debunkers constantly criticize 9/11 skeptics for failing to put forth a credible alternative to the official account. IMO, the use of guns and double agents posing as al Qaeda operatives goes a long way to make more sense of what happened on 9/11.

Some of the families that sued the airlines said they learned some new information about the attacks. They were prohibited from divulging the information due to the conditions of the settlement agreement. Perhaps this new information was related to the use of guns on the planes. If true, that would explain why the airlines want to keep the information quiet (ie...major security breach).

In Unsafe at any Altitude the authors (Joe and Susan Trento) detail the account of Eric Gill who worked a security checkpoint at Dulles. Gill said that on 9/10 he got into a confrontation with several men trying to enter an employees only door. The problem was that only a couple of the men had valid security cards. Gill told the the men without ID cards they couldn't go through the door. One man got upset and after a brief argument with Gill all the men decided to leave. Later, Gill identified the man who got upset as Nawaf al-Hazmi (alleged Flight 77 hijacker) and identified one of the other men as Marwan al-Shehhi (alleged hijacker/pilot of Flight 175 out of Logan). At the time al-Hazmi was on several government watchlists and al-Shehhi may have been as well.

This story has never gotten much attention but IF TRUE it calls into question key aspects of the 9/11 Commission account. Obviously it makes no sense for radical Islamic al Qaeda operatives posing as Dulles employees to draw attention on the night before the attacks. It also raises the question as to whether weapons were placed on the planes by al Qaeda operatives and/or intelligence officials posing as airline employees. To my knowledge, there were two accounts of possible gun use...Suqami shooting Daniel Lewin (Flight 11) and Tom Burnett (Flight 93) told his wife one of the hijackers had a gun.

One theory is that al-Hazmi was a GID agent which would explain his cavalier use of his real name despite being identified by the CIA back in January 2000. So if Gill's account is true that could mean al-Hazmi the GID agent had no intention of boarding a plane on 9/11. He could have been betrayed by his handlers, killed and then added to the Flight 77 flight manifest later.

We do have this cryptic comment by Prince Bandar that suggests the GID theory may be possible:

"Saudi security was actively following the movements of most of the terrorists with precision," Bandar, the national security advisor to Saudi King told the Arabic satellite network, Al-Arabiya, Thursday.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/11/saudi-prince-bl.html">Link

Why guns if hardly any evidence points to them?

1. The attack depended on successful cockpit breach. Relying on box cutters to fend off passengers, flight staff and pilots seems quite risky. I'm not one of those people who downplays the threat of box cutters. I can imagine that violent attacks with knives or box cutters would have been shocking. But would an operation like 9/11 depend on knives and box cutters? For example, what if the FAA had decided to put Air Marshals on some flights due to the threat level?

2. Security was not the best in areas like baggage check and cleaning crews (readying planes for the next flight). A terrorist or double agent without a criminal background could have easily evaded any security screening to attain a job with access to employees only areas.

3. The use of guns would explain why the pilots were unable to respond to air traffic control to alert them to a hijacking. I don't know what to make of the fighting on Flight 93. Nevertheless, at least three planes were unable to notify air traffic control with a specific hijacking alert.