( I must admit, that I was not fully prepared for my "historical overview," lack of sleep, the craziness of the preceding days, the Press Conference which immediately preceded the Inquiry- which I had just left , the inevitable march of time which brought March 26th into being when I needed another month to prepare for it, meant that I neither had notes, nor an outline, of what to say, and winged it, leaving out far too much, but this is what I would have liked to say, had I a bit more time to think coherently.)

Welcome. Thank-you all for coming! I'd especially like to thank the volunteers, endorsers, sponsors, speakers without whose efforts- we certainly wouldn't be gathered here today.

We are all here because we want to know the truth about 9-11. There is a huge disparity between the "official narrative" of the events of that day and our understanding of those events. The official account of 9-11 has been used to launch multiple wars against people in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Phillipines, Colombia... and in the U.S. against our Constitution, our Bill of Rights and people of color, bearing unAmerican names, who do not have the right papers. The event has been used to bloat an already obscene military budget and deprive libraries, schools, hospitals, cities, states the funds they need to provide the most basic sevices to the most needy.

We are here to shatter the "Big Lie" with the most obvious truths, truths that the mainstream corporate press, and timid or co-opted alternative press have failed to articulate.

It is true that we don't know all the answers, which is why this is "An Inquiry," but we do have some very good questions, questions which need to be raised, particularly now when the so called "Independent Commission" needs to be exposed for what it is, a farcical "Cover-Up Commission" hell bent on avoiding the biggest questions and issues. Usually, it is the 'victors" who write the histories, or rewrite history, to justify their behaviour, and solidify their legitimacy, and claim to power. In addition to examining a bit of history prior to 9-11, to understand that day's events, and the events which followed, and to change the trajectory which we are on; I think it is important to recognize the history of the 9-11 Truth Movement which, surprizingly enough was not born on 9-11...

I must admit that I had never even heard of Bin Laden prior to 9-11, and I was shocked and horrified, like most Americans, though perhaps more frightened by the media spin which followed the events, than by the events themselves.

I do want to applaud and acknowledge the work of one man who not only foresaw 9-11, but actively tried to prevent the attacks in the summer of 2001, Alex Jones. (I also did all I could to persuade him to come, but he just was overwhelmed at home, and couldn't make it this weekend.) On July 25th, 2001, however, Alex Jones was putting two and two together, and asking people to call Washington, D.C. and tell them that "if they staged any terrorist attacks, like slamming planes into buildings like the World Trade Center, we would know who was behind it." He was trying to stop an "American Reichstag Fire," a staged terrorist event which would give the government a chance to axe our liberties and further their plans for global domination. The video clip is in his "Masters of Terror" video, and it is very clear. Many on the "Right" were aware of the Government's role in Waco, and in Oklahoma City, and in the first World Trade Center bombing, but few on the "Left" took the time to investigate those incidents. There were others who also tried to prevent the attacks by notifying government officials, but sadly they were unable to make enough noise and draw enough attention to their concerns.

In the wake of 9-11, Alex Jones and others were very quick to figure out that 9-11 was an inside job, from other parts of the political spectrum analysis and information was posted quickly on the internet, and began to circulate widely electronically.

Personally, I had some suspicions, but it wasn't until I was in Washington D.C., marching against an impending war upon Afghanistan that I realized that the war wasn't about fighting terrorists, but was about oil, and gaining access to resources.

Only in November did the "smoking gun" articles sent to me via the internet, prompt me to do something about 9-11, and I organized a meeting with my Senator's staffs to "Demand a Congressional Investigation of 9-11." Key articles were those by Professor Michel Chossudovsky about Bin Laden and Al Qaeda being CIA assets, the meetings between the money man of 9-11, Lt. General Mahmoud Ahmed (who sent $100,000 to Mohammed Atta) and top U.S. government officials between September 3rd and September 13th, 2001; Jared Israel's articles on the Stand-Down; and Michael Ruppert's "Four Years in the Planning" which provided the intellectual planning for a catalyzing event "like a new Pearl Harbour" to get American support for the "imperial mobilization" needed to control Asia as outlined in "THE GRAND CHESSBOARD – American Primacy and It’s Geostrategic Imperatives,” by Zbigniew Brzezinski.

We marched on Senator Feinstein's office on January 8, 2002, raising key questions, only to have Bush and Cheney ask Daschle to limit the investigation, and have the investigation headed by the very men who should have been investigated for their role in 9-11.

While some of us took to the streets, made banners, spoke publicly, organized events. Others wrote books and began working on films, pamphlets, artwork, songs to burst through the media censorship and get our message out to people directly. Global Outlook, the 9-11 expose magazine, was first published. In June 2002, Kyle Hence, Tom Flocco and Catherine Austin Fitts put on a Press Conference in Washington D.C. on 9-11 and Public Safety, which helped the 9-11 Truth Movement begin to organize and seeded the film- Aftermath-Unanswered Questions from 9-11 which Guerrilla News Network began. Then a series of books- Nafeez Ahmed's The War on Freedom, Michel Chossudovsky's War and Globalization, America's Autopsy Report by John Kaminski, ALL FALL DOWN: THE POLITICS OF TERROR AND MASS PERSUASION by William Thomas, Everything You Know Is Wrong- The Disinformation Guide to Secrets and Lies, Edited by Russ Kick, Painful Questions- An Analysis of the September 11th Attack, by Eric Hufschmid " '9/11' " facing our fascist state & what a plot!, by Don Paul were published and more voices, more websites raised the visibility of the failure of the official narrative. In September 2002, the first "Bush Did It!" rallies and marches were held in San Francisco and Oakland, California organized by The All People's Coalition.

What really gave credibility to the movement were the brave voices of the victim's families, particularly four widows, who sifted through much of the research, the books, the videos produced by researchers, and seriously studied them, and used them to pressure for an Independent Commission, and subsequently to pressure the Commission to handle the tough questions that they were failing to address. The 23 questions they put forward for Bush to answer has enormously helped to raise questions in the public mind about 9-11.

The first Deception Dollars made their debut at the October 26th anti-war march; their popularity was so great that the artist, Blaine Machan, and I slowly realized that by actually selling them by the case we could help fund the 9-11 movement, as well as promote the best 9-11 websites to the general public. We gave or sold the deception Dollars to various websites which used them to get donations from their visitors, and helped them pay their bills and continue their work.

Kissinger's appointment to head the Independent Commission was perhaps a gift to the movement, by a guilt ridden man who wished to be caught and stopped. Although the Commission's parameters have nothing to do with exposing the truth about 9-11 and everything to do with justifying "Homeland Security" and the rise of a police state, the blatant conflict of interests of its members does help us to expose the "Great Deception" that it seeks to perpetuate.

In December the first meetings of the 9-11 Truth Alliance were held in New York and San Francisco, born out of conference calls and the linking of the various 9-11 websites into nurturing a genuine social movement.

In San Francisco, we saw GNN's Aftermath as one of our major organizing tools, and worked towards using it to raise the visibility of the 9-11 issue, while we also made banners, marched and tabled at the frequent anti-war marches. While we had hoped to stop the war against Iraq, by exposing 9-11 and preventing Bush from committing worse crimes, the efforts to stop the war generated so many donations for the 9-11 materials and Deception Dollars, that we were able to fund a major premiere of "Aftermath-Unanswered Questions from 9-11." That premiere with the presence of Barrie Zwicker, Michael, Ruppert, Riva Enteen, Peter Dale Scott, and Richard Heinberg (at the Palo Alto screening), generated a lot of publicity, and posters, which helped other groups to hold subsequent events, including the major 9-11 Conference held in Berlin, September 2003, which I will let Nicholas Levis, the organizer, tell you about.

I do want to publicly acknowledge, however, the creative talents of the Deception Dollar artist, Blaine Machan, who has also made innumerable other flyers, posters, cartoons, images to help all of us capture the attention of the public. His website DeceptionDollar.com has also chronicled the movement, and helped channel funds and attention to the various websites doing great 9-11 work, and certainly the Inquiry would not have been possible without his artistic skills, efforts, and generosity, in permitting our entire Deception Dollar printing fund into financing the Inquiry, which is truly a grassroots effort, utterly dependent upon the volunteer efforts, and the generous donations of time, money, talents of all of us here. Thank-you again, for being part of this effort.

Return to- Final Program of the International Inquiry into 9-11