John Perrugia, the Chief of Planning for the Fire Department,

Apparently, within the New York City fire department, a professional opinion isn't worth the paper it's reported on.

How else to reconcile an important narrative element from September 11th, 2001, in which high-ranking officials hold diametrically opposite views about a matter of critical importance---whether the collapses of the World Trade Center towers were unanticipated, or a foregone conclusion given sober consideration.

The dominant meme disseminated in the mainstream media has it that structural engineers and firematics experts rightly predicted the collapses---just not in enough time to save the hundreds of first-responders who climbed the towers and were crushed when they fell.

That point of view---of a gut knowing of imminent collapse---is nicely summed up in the oral history of Division 1, Chief Peter Hayden, who played a central and early role in the lobby of the north tower. He said

"Shortly thereafter a number of the uniformed and civilian staff of the department arrived in the lobby, Commissioner Von Essen, Commissioner Fitzpatrick, Commissioner Feehan. The tour commander, who was Joseph Callan arrived on the scene."

"He [Callan] asked me at some point in time if we were thinking of collapse. I said yeah, we have to, a plane just struck the building...So the potential and reality of -- or possibility of a collapse was discussed early on."

"There were numerous discussions in the lobby. The chief of safety came in. He discussed his concern about the collapse. His advice to us was to let the building just burn, you know, get the people down and get out. We said that's exactly what we're planning to do."

But that judgment is completely contradicted in an oral history of a high-level officer, John Perrugia, who was headquarters chief, or an EMS Division Chief, in charge of planning for the Chief of Department's office. (He puts it better when asked about his role:)

"My mission at that time was not that of an EMS Chief responding to the operation. My mission was, as the Chief of Planning for the Fire Department, to respond in to handle the agency liaison stuff."

Perrugia was the liaison with the city's Office of Emergency Management, which positioned him in the vicinity of Building 7 for much of the morning. He is explicit about what he believed was the potential for the buildings to fail in the manner they did

"I was in a discussion with Mr. Rotanz and I believe it was a representative from the Department of Buildings, but I'm not sure. Some engineer type person, and several of us were huddled talking in the lobby and it was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised and they felt that the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse.

"I grabbed EMT Zarrillo, I advised him of that information. I told him he was to proceed immediately to the command post where Chief Ganci was located. Told him where it was across the street from number 1 World Trade Center. I told him "You see Chief Ganci and Chief Ganci only. Provide him with the information that the building integrity is severely compromised and they believe the building is in danger of imminent collapse." So, he left off in that direction.

Q: They felt that just the one building or both of them?

A: The information we got at that time was that they felt both buildings were significantly damaged, but they felt that the north tower, which was the first one to be struck, was going to be in imminent danger of collapse. Looking up at it, you could see that, you could see through the smoke or whatever, that there was significant structural damage to the exterior of the building. Very noticeable. Now you know, again, this is not a scene where the thought of both buildings collapsing ever entered into my mind.

"I was there in 1993, 14 minutes after the bomb went off. I operated some 16 hours at the building and with all the post-incident critiques and debriefings with various agencies. We were always told by everyone, the experts, that these buildings could withstand direct hits from airplanes. That's the way they were designed. They went through all of this architectural stuff, way beyond the scope of my knowledge.

"It was hit by an airplane. That's okay. It's made to be hit by an airplane. I mean I think everyone may have believed that. We were all told years ago it was made to be hit by an airplane."

I repeat for emphasis: "We were always told by everyone, the experts, that these buildings could withstand direct hits from airplanes. That's the way they were designed."

And: "It was hit by an airplane. That's okay. It's made to be hit by an airplane. I mean I think everyone may have believed that. We were all told years ago it was made to be hit by an airplane."

Who are we to believe? Is it possible that an honest difference of opinion could have been held that day by various senior managers? Who then is to blame for the excessive loss of life that befell the fire department? Why does Pete Hayden's opinion sound so off-the-cuff, like a vernacular shrug of the shoulders,

He asked me at some point in time if we were "thinking" of collapse.[...]The chief of safety came in. He discussed his concern about "the collapse."

while Perrugia's forceful, unambiguous view is clearly based in extensive prior experience---even in the face of a contrary opinion (and is he shielding the name of "some engineer type person" from the public record?) Could that opinion be commonly held by others in the department, members who are forced somehow to keep it a secret? As the conspiracy unravels, will they be able to come forward?

In the meantime, my hat's off to John Perrugia, and others like him---men and women who were able to place their honest analysis and truthful reporting into the permanent record, with their oral histories.

Really Tapped In

2001-09-11 08:58:33 Skytel [002399634] A ALPHA
Initial reports indictate that AAL11, B767, after initial hijacking on flight from BOS-LAX, has crashed into the side of the World Trade Center in NY. ATCSCC/bl

2001.09.11 08.55 to 2001.09.11 08.59 (text)

Peter Turnley and David Turnley: Photographer Twins at Ground Zero

It is becoming more evident that all the photographers who took the image record of the attacks on September 11th, 2001, in New York City and in Arlington, Virginia, were key co-conspirators to a plot---an inside job undertaken and covered up by secretive members of intelligence agencies working for a worldwide elite.

Whether professional, free-lance or amateur, every image released to the public bears hallmarks of in-authenticity, which we can begin to recognize in the dawning light of reason and truth.

For instance, understanding that an approximately 200-to-300-foot-tall central section of the South Tower's core columns stood for 31 hours after the buildings disintegrated Tuesday morning, damns any image taken of the vicinity during that time frame which lacks this 15, to 20-story element. (See yesterday's blog.)

All the images were filtered through a central office for vetting. Some passed muster after errant details were obscured by photoshopping smoke effects---or fire hoses endlessly spraying WhiteOut into the Pentagon. Any authorial distinction was discouraged, or edited out, although some people were hand-picked for special fame and fortune. This obscuring of meaningful detail further homogenized the work product into a witless gruel, which didn't do its intended job of telling us a believable story---but instead, the story has became about what was not told.

It would be a startling coincidence for such a broad cross-section of news journalists to have produced an image record nearly completely lacking in personal identification, using the standard news journalism photo captions. Instead, those captions were utilized for a repetitive drumbeat about suicidal Arab hi-jackers, with their preferred method of crashing big Boeing's.

Apparently, 9/11 was viewed conceptually as so traumatic an event that editorial boards, on down to gumshoe reporters, uniformly decided to forgo this normal operating procedure as unnecessary journalisticly to sell the story.

So far I have only found two shots from the 11th and 12th, which carry any identification. Both were published in the New York Times. In one, taken in Brooklyn by Suzanne DeChillo, a distraught young woman, Sharnise Wingate, "who witnessed the second plane flying into the tower," is depicted after the first collapse. A motive here is clear, if not her sightline.

In another image, taken by Andrea Mohin, a dazed and bloody Joseph Sylvester walks homeward across the Brooklyn Bridge. This illustrates that any photograph primarily focusing on one or two such individuals should likewise have carried their identification.



Interestingly, naming names wasn't a problem in the dozens of images showing Palestinian women and children celebrating the attacks in the West Bank and Gaza by firing guns and throwing candy in the air. This story-line went circling the globe by Tuesday, September 11th, at 10:15 a.m.

The failure to gather names and report on them is especially glaring in the images of grieving family members attending memorial services. The international news photographer Peter Turnley's images are marred by this inherent disrespect---calling someone "the wife of a slain fireman" is a generality when a specific is called for---especially when she is seen delivering a solitary John-John salute to her husband that only she can spot. No, make that especially when getting an arm assist by an unseen woman handler!

In the context of the "vicsim" research currently underway at the Reality Shack forum, categorizing a cast of characters simply as "mourners," does not legitimize and authenticate the reality of an established and individuated life. Nor does using the lump category, "funeral for a fireman killed on September 11th," suffice to do honor to anyone "real"---but that may be the point.






The very successful photojournalist Peter Turnley, (his twin brother is an equally successful one,) made an interesting professional contribution during 9/11. His 9/11 story is told mainly in an article Seeing the Horror Part II, at The Digital Journalist (Part I is good too.)

In a nut shell,

"I discreetly made my way through a makeshift morgue and triage center for injured victims that was established in a Brooks Brother's store at 1 Liberty Plaza, and found a dark stairway leading upstairs. I went up and found an empty floor of racks of clothes all covered by two inches of dust, and in front of me was a wall of blown out windows, looking over the destruction of ground zero. I found a small office that seemed discreet enough that I wouldn't be in anyone's way or be found there. I sat down to spend the whole night until 7:00am, mostly by myself, looking out and photographing the incredible scene in front of me. I will always remember the unique and surreal feelings of solitude and intimacy I felt with this scene that long night. Around 3:00am, I began to feel very cold and walked into the Brooks Brothers display room and borrowed a cashmere overcoat covered with two inches of dust. I carefully put it back in the morning before leaving."

If you examine the 30 images attributed to him in Peter Turnley's Photo Gallery, only eleven were taken at Ground Zero on the first evening and the morning of the 12th. Six of those are rather obvious efforts at fire department hagiography---depicting glum firemen posed sitting around, or just standing there looking blank. But Turnley does his part in constructing this bogus emotional narrative when he captions some images, "Firemen exhausted after an all-night search for victims. September 12."

Three images appear to have been taken from his elevated hide-away in Brooks Brothers. If so, in the first image we are then looking west, with 116 Liberty Street in the upper left-hand corner. The pile from stricken Building 4 should be in the cleaned-up foreground. The following image, labeled "Ground Zero -- Night of September 11, 2001" should have the towering stalactite remains of Building Two rising up in the background, but it doesn't.
These two images are clearly of the same buff-colored building at 116 Liberty Street. Directly beside the building should be the New York fire department headquarters of Ladder 10 & Engine 10, with it's bright red equipment door. The two images would appear to me to be mutually exclusive.
Taken in the morning of September 12th, well before five p.m. that Wednesday, of what we may presume to be the South Tower remains.
Having this number of "rescue workers" clambering over "the pile" at this point in time is at odds with the narrative of having the precarious remains of the Tower Two remaining standing.

But it is in the following three images that Peter Turnley reveals himself unwittingly. They are of some of the myriad displays put up throughout New York City of "missing persons" posters seeking information about relatives lost at the Trade Center.



It was over at the Reality Shack forum recently that someone had the presence of mind to question this street-art phenomena as being an illegitimate and synthetic ploy for sympathy and validation by the plotters themselves.

If you stop to think about it, the whole idea of a spontaneous, organic missing-persons poster-posting movement arising after 9/11, and covering available city wall surfaces with photocopied pleas for help and information is absolutely absurd. I certainly bought it at the time. I was only familiar with the display put up at the Armory on Lexington Avenue and 26th Street, because I stayed in an apartment nearby. That made sense since the armory was serving as a drop-in center serving the families.

But trying to put yourself in the mindset of a distraught family member living out in Queens---if your victim worked at the Trade Center and didn't come home that evening, would you really think it logical to paper Manhattan with a poorly reproduced image and your telephone number? I could understand it as a therapy for grief perhaps.

But then, in a brilliant synergy of divine intervention, I saw an image taken by Peter's brother, David Turnley. It is of a shuttered-up restaurant somewhere in the Village entirely papered over in fliers. Can you image that each of these fliers was put up by a separate individual working over time? Of course not! This appears exactly similar to the low-brow mini-memorials stocked with cut-out angels, teddy bears, American flags, and child-scribbled messages of hope and revenge. It is entirely a made-up construct. Why would one victim's family follow other victim's families to this location? What's the value in the mass display? If this was legit, why wouldn't a poster stick to telephone kiosks?

This image pleases me immensely. To see the fabricators of a narrative element so badly overplaying their hand, provides for some confirmation that this visual manipulation was not real. It also results in what I would call near-art.

Following are some images that reveal a bit of Peter Turnley's apoplectic political and racial biases.

Hamas Militants Gaza 1993

Peter Turnley at the West Bank 1993

Jew Praying on the West Bank 1993

"The war in Iraq was conceived by 25 neoconservatives, most of them Jewish, who are pushing President Bush to change the course of history."
-Ari Shavit Ha'aretz News Service (Israel) April 5, 2003

Below is some bibliography. Most interesting, is Peter Turnley's authorship of a stunning series of photos taken of the Iraqi "Highway to Hell," or "Mile of Death," a murderous "turkey shoot" on Iraqis retreating from Kuwait on a single ribbon of road that was utterly vulnerable to American bombers and fighters in 1993. While Turnley would appear to have been a good guy for getting the images out into the public record somehow, I think his delay of over a decade marks him as an establishment insider---how else to account for his access in the first place? This would make him a peace-loving liberal poseur hiding his longtime agency death-cult connections, and that would account for his splendid career advancements. Always in the right place at the right time---right Peter?

PeterTurnley.com His professional page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Turnley

Peter Turnley photographs the Highway to Hell

Peter Turnley - The Unseen Gulf War

Highway of Death American War Crime Gulf War
by EuroYank On Tuesday, February 24, 2009 At 1:20 AM

Photojournalism and Foreign Affairs By David D. Perlmutter January 27, 2005
Foreign Policy Research Institute

In the Perlmutter link above:

"...in My American Journey, Secretary of State Colin Powell explained his reasons for advising an end to hostilities in the 1991 Gulf War. Saddam had ordered his forces to withdraw from Kuwait, and their escape route out of Kuwait City had turned into a shooting gallery for U.S. fliers. Reporters began referring to this road as the Highway of Death. “The television coverage,” Powell wrote, “was starting to make it look as if we were engaged in slaughter for slaughter’s sake.”

Jennifer Steinhauer, Peter Duveen, Chief Tom Vallebuona & Captain Chris Boyle: Pancake Theory or Domino Effect?

Several pieces of evidence in the written record of the 9/11 attacks in New York and Arlington support a version of reality at odds with what it would appear to be in the limited and stylized photographic record of the event.

For instance, a little-known article by Jennifer Steinhauer published in the New York Times on September 13, 2001, As Remnants Collapse, Workers Run For Cover, describes "the steel and concrete wreckage of the south tower" falling about 5 p.m. on Wednesday the 12th---32 hours after the buildings were struck, This caused a "rolling pillar of smoke" similar to the three pyroclastic dust clouds on September 11th. Although Steinhauer quotes an unnamed firefighter as yelling, ''[t]hat part will go! We are waiting for it to collapse,'' only moments before it did so, she attributes the timing to "seeming aftershocks"---while limiting her description of the ruin, calling it only the "remaining floors of the south tower."

This single-source reference to a dramatic "stampede" by rescue workers "fleeing" danger 24 hours after the already delayed destruction of Building 7, was effectively unknown until December 2008, when Peter Duveen posted hard copies of five articles from the Times, and three from the New York Post into digital existence online. Since all eight contain information which calls into question details of the official narrative of the attacks, it seems plausible that an effort was made to suppress the journalism, an effort which was entirely successful for eight years.

It would not be surprising perhaps, given the tumult in the days following the attacks that even a significant occurrence could fail to be reported on. What is surprising however, is reconciling this newly perceived physical reality with seemingly deliberate lacuna in the homogenized image record---what has been perversely touted as being the most heavily photographed event in world history.

A larger implication here is the ability of thousands of responders to Ground Zero to keep this encore dust cloud a secret---although several oral histories allude to the matter.

In one of them, that of Battalion Chief Tom Vallebuona, we can also see the subsequent efforts of government operatives posing as 9/11 truth seekers who attempt to cover-up the truth with disinformation. Vallebuona is quoted in full by both Killtown and The Web Fairy,

"We thought 7 World Trade Center was going to fall and push the side of the World Trade Center that was still standing, and then it was going to go into 90 and I thought the scaffold was going to fall and cover the block and kill another 30 people." Cached

although they don't draw any significance from the statement. While a poster on an abovetopsecret thread, 186000, Swampfox46_1999, truncated the quote, and nips potential nagging doubts in the bud with a bald-faced lie.

"We thought 7 World Trade Center was going to fall and push the side of the World Trade Center that was still standing." (Before you jump on this one, this refers to the five story piece of exterior metalwork from WTC1) Cached

Quoting Battalion Chief Tom Vallebuona in a fuller context, and referencing his remarks to a site plan, makes it plain he feared Building 7 could have a domino effect on the South Tower, which could then impact 90 West Street.

"90 West St. also had next to it a scaffold covering the whole building and with everything we've been through with scaffolds, I mean that scaffold would have covered the whole block. We were very concerned about the scaffolding, so we tried to knock down the fire.
snip...
"I couldn't get rid of that feeling like everything is going to collapse. 7 World Trade Center---I couldn't even watch that. I said that's enough. I refused to watch that. I took R-and-R. I said you guys can watch that one.
snip...
"We thought 7 World Trade Center was going to fall and push the side of the World Trade Center that was still standing, and then it was going to go into 90 and I thought the scaffold was going to fall and cover the block and kill another 30 people."

The South Tower was 208-feet square in plan and it sat about 300 feet from 90 West Street. That is about the height of a thirty-story building. Another fire department oral history is explicit about the height of the South Tower remains:
Captain Chris Boyle:

"First, we went to Liberty and Church and that was the big pile from the south tower that came down. There was a pile there, had to be 15, 20 stories high with guys roaming around on the pile."

This would be a good point to remember that before Ground Zero became known in the public imagination as "the pile," it was referenced in the media as "the pit." Sending out the right signals about the amount, nature and composition of the debris is one thing. Inventing a "pancake" demolition theory that could incorporate standing sentinels of massive steel core columns is something else. Like the total absence of any images showing fire in the south face of Building 7, the motive for the cover-up is very clear.

Another reference from Perrugia, John, the EMS Division Chief in charge of planning for
the Chief of Department's office.

"I looked up and saw this big gaping hole where the south tower used to be. That's the first point that I realized that the south tower had collapsed. Maybe ten or 15 stories high left of it. Probably most of it being a pile of rubble."

A partial list of photo-journalists active in the southeast quadrant of Ground Zero on 9/11, would include Todd Maisel, Ricky Flores, Lori Grinkler, James Nachwey, Thomas E. Franklin, Glen Petit, while publisher Kevin Sutavee, was also located there late in the day with his video camera. (Here's a bunch more. I have a very special blog coming up on the Turnley twins. David Swanson Carolina Salguero, Klaus Reisinger, Rick Falco, Aristede Economopoulos, Mary Altaffer, Peter Turnley, David Turnley) None of them captured a landscape overview that included the South Tower. Most of these professionals only have only a few images in the public record each. We should ask their editors to share the full sequence of any images they took that day as a context---even if utterly banal, the public would benefit.

In his oral history, Battalion Chief Tom Vallebuona, offered up a bit of wry sarcasm, which was spared the blackout marker:

"I walked by where they had the landing gear or whatever in the street, I mean I'm looking, I'm saying what are you kidding me?

On Edit, December 13: I just found the first official mention of the event in the record. From the Office of Emergency Preparedness, Situation Report #7, dated September 15, 2001 1200 Eastern, maintained in a pdf found in the "old" 911digitalarchive.org site

"Shortly after 1000 hours the south tower of the World Center collapsed. Within the next half-hour, the northern tower of the World Trade Center also collapsed.

"At approximately 1730 hours a third tower in the World Trade Center complex, Building #7, also collapsed.

"Wednesday evening, September 12, another building within the World Trade Center Complex collapsed. No additional casualties are expected due to this. However, it may make recovery more difficult."

On Edit, Dec. 14: I just found the first mention of official disinformation concerning this subsequent collapse on September 12---in the Police Commissioner, City of New York, Bernard B. Kerik's September 27, 2001 memorandum to Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, titled, "Weekly Report."

NY B33 NYPD Weekly Reports to Giuliani Fdr- 9-27-01 Report

[Somebody posted the document to Scribe, but the Cached version is the only one working at the moment, it seems.]

"Because of known suspected or potential structural damage to other buildings, most mass transit service was suspended south of 14th Street at 9:03 a.m. on September 11. This precaution proved prudent when on Tuesday, September 12, 1 Liberty Plaza experienced a partial collapse In addition to the total destruction of 1 and 2 World Trade Center, and the partial collapse'of 1 Liberty Plaza, buildings 3, 5 and 7 World Trade Center were also destroyed."

This is an odd and weak attempt to disguise the truth. In her article written on September 13th, Steinhauer directly references the building at 1 Liberty Plaza as being not in danger of collapse

"Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen said last night at a news conference that engineers were busy inspecting neighboring buildings in response to reports of a crack in 1 Liberty Plaza, the 64-story high rise. That plaza has sustained structural damage, but officials said last night that although they had not determined the extent of the damage to that building or others on Liberty Street, they did not believe that it was in imminent danger of collapse."

Writing Five Days After the Event, Why Did the Washington Post Get Two AA Pilot's Names Wrong?

Correction to This Article
David Charlebois, an Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University graduate and American Airlines first officer who died in the American Airlines Flight 77 crash, was incorrectly identified in a Sept. 16 article.
A Sept. 16 article recounting the events of Sept. 11 incorrectly reported the first name of John Ogonowski, the pilot of the American Airlines plane that crashed into the World Trade Center.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38407-2001Sep15

For All My Really, Really Terrific New Friends Over at Reality Shack 9/11

First is the Getty image from February 2002---and it comes fully identified (anybody who makes a joke about a "high-speed ferry" will get a quick, spasmodic cream pie in the eye.)

401354 04: (L to R) Christine Lategano-Nicholas, Rev. Patrick Fitzgerald, New York City Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, Dympna Jessich, twin sister of Father Mychal Judge, and New York Waterway President Arthur E. Imperatore Jr. christen "The Father Mychal Judge" high-speed ferry February 20, 2002 in New York City. Judge was the New York City Fire Department chaplain who died along with 342 firefighters in the September 11th World Trade Center attacks. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images) Dateline: New York, NY, United States

[Christine Lategano was the assistant with whom Mayor Rudi Giuliani was having an affair. She should be hung upside down beside Il Duce after the tribunals, so I hope she's wearing some nice underwear.] For the dense crew of 9/11 researchers over at Reality Shack (or should that be Reality Hytten? Har, har: Heightened Reality!!!!) who must research their way out of a wet paper bag, I offer the following images.

Consider this an artistic response to a thread, 9/11 And September Clues, Q & A with Simon Shack, which along with a thread dedicated to Father Judge, means to discuss the "reality" of Father Mychal Judge---victim, or vicsim, depending on who you talk to, number one in the 9/11 psy-op.

The images are off my hard drive, downloaded at some distant point in time. They would appear to be from a book published in 2006 called, 'The Saint of 9/11: Father Mychal Judge'. (Available for purchase, I should think, guys.)

Most come with apparent documented publishing history and authorship.

2006_saint_of_911_004 Al Paglione, 1974, The Record, Bergen County, N.J.

2006_saint_of_911_002 Al Paglione, 1974, The Record, Bergen County, N.J.

2006_saint_of_911_005 Rich Gigli , 1982, The Record, Bergen

2006_saint_of_911_010by Ozier Muhammad, courtesy of Newsday

2006_saint_of_911_003 Photo by Michael Goldman

2006_saint_of_911_007 Photo by Michael Goldman

2006_saint_of_911_006 Father Mychal Judge

2006_saint_of_911_001 Fr. Mychal with FDNY Commissioner Thomas Von Essen

This doesn't necessarily mean they are "real," in the sense that they have been verified as having indeed been published in The New Jersey Bergen County Record in 1974 and 1982; with the Ozier Muhammad photo published in Newsday at an unknown date. But they would indicate a "back story" of some rather extreme effort at the very least.

Father Judge was famously involved in ministering in the aftermath of the TWA Flight 800 disaster, and that should have some documentation too. He appears to have been quite the publicity hound---and certainly not shy. The rather tacky detail about his stopping to comb his hair in the mirror and apply hair spray after he had gotten the call to go down to the WTC site says more than a 1000 pictures could.

I suppose these images might not have been available for some reason on Google image search. I can think of no other reason why the great assortment of clairvoyant depth researchers at Reality Shack could have missed them. What else are they missing I wonder?

If you have an hour-and-a-half to spare, why don't you watch the movie? There is not one sincere, authentic moment in the entire work.