Reflections On the 24th Anniversary of 9/11 - From Twin Towers to Shock and Awe: Investigating U.S.–Israel Collusion and the Road to War

Speech to be delivered at 'Turning the Tide: 9/11 Justice in 2025' Conference

From the U.S. Twin Towers to Shock and Awe in Iraq

It has been well established that Israel and the US are partners. What is not well understood is the square-dance-like sequence, the deadly do-si-do, the back and forth of that partnership,

Involving 9/11, the US and Israel aligned in prevarication, determinedly, wrongly associating the motive, intent, and execution of the attacks with Saddam Hussein and Iraq.

Immediately after 9/11, Netanyahu, who was in America, was asked by the BBC what the attack meant for US-Israeli relations. ''It's very good,” he said. Then he caught himself: ''Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.”

On September 12, 2001, in a CNN interview, Mr. Netanyahu said: “It’s not just bin Laden. It’s not just the networks. It’s also the states that harbor and support them—Iraq, Iran, the Taliban in Afghanistan.”

A few days later, on September 16, 2001, Vice President Cheney appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press and claimed: “We also have evidence that [Saddam Hussein] has been harboring terrorists, including al-Qaeda.”

On the First Anniversary of 9/11, on the evening of September 11, 2002, President Bush, with New York’s Ellis Island as a backdrop, gave a speech which set the stage for conflating Iraq with 9/11.

The next day, September 12, 2002, in Washington, Benjamin Netanyahu appeared before the congressional committee, of which I was a member, with the unmistakable intent of influencing Congress to vote to go to war against Iraq, because of 9/11: “Do you believe that action can be taken against Saddam only after he builds nuclear bombs and uses them? And do various critics, especially overseas, believe that a clear connection between Saddam and 9/11 must be established before we have a right to prevent the next 9/11?”

“The most compelling case for preemption against Saddam’s regime, I believe, was not the President’s powerful words this morning, but by the savage action of the terrorists themselves on September 11^th,” Mr. Netanyahu said.

He went on to say: “There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons – no question whatsoever. If you take out Saddam, I guarantee that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region….After 9/11, the United States must act preemptively against terrorist regimes.”

In that Congressional hearing, I questioned Mr. Netanyahu, “What other countries would you have us bomb?” He named Iran and Libya.

A few weeks later, on October 2, 2002, as the leader of the effort against the war, I began personally distributing on the Floor of the House of Representatives a detailed written memo to hundreds of members of Congress, which stated frankly and clearly, that based on all credible and available information, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, with al-Qaeda’s role, that Iraq had neither the intention nor the capability of attacking the US, and there was no credible evidence that Iraq was either possessing or was about to use Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that America was about to enter a bloody abyss based on misinformation, disinformation and outright lies.

On October 7, 2002, President Bush spoke in Cincinnati, proclaiming: “We’ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases.”

On October 10, 2002, the House, swept up in an endless stream of government chest thumping, patriotic retribution parroting media war talk, voted 296 to 133 to wage war against Iraq; the Senate followed the next day.

On January 28, 2003, at his State of the Union Address, President Bush told Congress: “Evidence from intelligence sources indicates Saddam Hussein had…links to terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda.”

On February 5, 2003, General Colin Power, the US Secretary of State, in an appearance before the United Nations Security Council, asserted: “Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda lieutenants.”

On February 18, 2003, in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, Mr. Netanyahu said: “If we do not prevent the marriage of militant Islam with weapons of mass destruction, 9/11 will be a mere prelude.”

On March 15, Mr. Netanyahu, in an interview with the Jerusalem Post said: “The removal of Saddam Hussein is essential in the global war on terror—it’s the lesson of 9/11.”

On March 16, 2003, Vice President Cheney said on Meet the Press: “We believe Iraq has had a relationship with al-Qaeda that’s gone on for a number of years.”

On March 18, 2003, President Bush provided a Presidential Determination, a legal justification, for attacking Iraq, in a letter to Congress. “I have determined that... Iraq’s continuing threat... and links to terrorist organizations including al-Qaeda... require action,” the letter said.

On March 19-20, 2003, the US initiated the so-called “Shock and Awe,” a massive military attack on Iraq.

On March 21, the President formally notified Congress, under the War Powers Resolution, that combat operations had begun: “I have also determined that the use of armed force against Iraq is consistent with …actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those... who aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.”

Benjamin Netanyahu, the once and future leader of Israel, and President George Bush each conflated Iraq with 9/11 synchronously, at key moments, each with the same purpose, a deadly orchestration towards a premeditated war against Iraq, which 9/11 was used to falsely justify.

We know now that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, but at least one million innocent Iraqis died because of that war. Five thousand of our brave servicemen and women lost their lives in that war. Our economy suffered greatly, costing five trillion dollars. Our national honor was tarnished. And no one has ever been held to account. Several presidential candidacies were even proudly based on voting for war against Iraq. The United States was misled into a war based on lies about 9/11, and, despite or perhaps because of the report of the 9/11 Commission, many questions remain unanswered.

For the next eight years, I gave over 300 presentations in Congress, pointing out, over and over, the lies, the loss of life, the cost, calling not just for the end to the war, but for a new direction in US policy in the region. I introduced legislation for the creation of a cabinet-level Department of Peace, to begin a new effort to shift the consciousness of the nation away from violence as a means of settling conflict, to avert deadly violence at home and war abroad.

Prime Minister Netanyahu, notwithstanding his twisting of facts, conflation of Iraq with 9/11 and his cheerleading for the US to go to war with Iraq, at such a horrible cost of blood and treasure, has nevertheless ascended in the estimation of Washington. Bereft of any credibility on what constitutes US National Security, in the ensuing years, the Israeli Prime Minister has been successful in gaining US weapons to bomb Lebanon, Syria, Yemen, Gaza, the West Bank, and, most recently, Qatar.

The US pursued Israel’s interests in bombing Libya, murdering Gaddafi, and then murdering Iran’s General Soleimani.

Netanyahu gave a speech to Congress last year during which he received an astonishing 55 standing ovations as he called for America and Israel to stand together, this time against Iran “When we stand together, we win and they lose,” urging a US attack on Iran, which occurred less than a year later, with the US bombing three of Iran’s nuclear sites. We stood with Netanyahu and his country in Iraq, and we lost. A second attack on Iran looms, which could well precipitate WWIII. When we stand together in illegal aggression, we all lose.

Israel has often complained that it has no one to negotiate with to bring an end to conflicts or fend off future wars. They make sure of it. For those interested in peaceful negotiations, meetings arranged by the US, supposedly to reach an agreement with Iran, or with Hamas in Qatar, ended up being traps—opportunities for Israel to kill the negotiators.

Venezuela was more likely the target of an attack on its boat in international waters, killing 11 people, not because of a new US interest in anti-illegal drug efforts, but probably because Venezuela does not support the genocide happening in Gaza under the Netanyahu government.

It is noteworthy that the US imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court and Francesca Albanese, Special UN Rapporteur on the rights in the Palestinian territory, for calling out Israel for its inhumanity.

We have forgotten the lessons of 9/11 as to who we can and can’t trust with respect to international policy, and it is affecting us here at home.

Domestically, our Constitutionally guaranteed right, under the First Amendment for. Freedom of Speech is under attack. Academia has been punished for dissent about Genocide; Universities dealt heavy fines, and students expelled, all in the name of enforcing a narrowly redefined antisemitism as a way to deflect protests against the Israeli government’s policies of theft of Palestinian land, and ethnic cleaning, and starvation, and genocide, all with the tacit approval and funding of the United States of America.

In the United States ,our social reality has been reconstructed to support genocide and to support the policies of a nation and its leaders who lead us from one bloody conflict to another.

The US may protect Israel with its veto in the Security Council, but it cannot protect it from the hundreds of millions of people worldwide who are not misled, who know wrong when they see it and condemn murder for what it is.

If truth equals antisemitism, it's time to examine what antisemitism really is. The facts are that countless Gazans have died. Gazans are being starved. The reality is that a large-scale program of ethnic cleansing is ongoing. If we allow this bleak reality to be dismissed as merely politically motivated antisemitism, then we've all been reduced to moral ignorance.

Six million Jews perished in the Holocaust. Never again means never again, for Jews, and for Gazans. Israel cannot survive the contradiction of having a history of such immense suffering and inhumanity inflicted upon Jews by the Nazis, only to see its own country stand accused before the world of murderous crimes which recall the Nazi era.

We are all warned in the Book of Matthew: “…every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.”

We should want all hostages brought home. We should mourn the deaths of every innocent Israeli. If we mourned the deaths of every innocent Palestinian in Gaza, we might drown in our tears. The death of truth, however, is beyond mourning. It is the final knell for the American Republic.

Why is it that we in America, who pride ourselves on freedom of thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of inquiry, are not permitted to ask questions about the apparent destructive, symbiotic relationship between the US and Israel? About the constant strategic deception? About the billions that go for mass murder. About the undue influence that Israeli interests have on our own government.

Why can’t we probe further into the advisability of having the leaders of a nation of ten million people influence the most important national security decisions of our nation of 350 million?

It is time for the US to assert our own hard-won sovereignty, not through escalatory rhetoric and illusions of world dominance, but by thoroughly examining the premise not only of US-Israeli relations, but of all our foreign entanglements.

I do not believe that the people of the United States support stealing people’s homes. I do not believe today’s Americans support the theft of people’s lands. I do not believe Americans want to starve people, want to murder children, or want to see their tax dollars support genocide.

We have serious political differences in America, which outside elements have exploited. The polarization and the partisanship cause us to lose sight of what unites us. At such a time, we must remember those things that help hold us together. What binds us as a people is a sense of common decency, a desire to do the right thing, a desire to see our families flourish and our communities thrive, a belief in goodness and God, and a hope for something we used to call The America Dream: A home, hearth, health, education, jobs, decent wages, retirement security.

We cannot hope to attain this unless we are truly a free and independent nation with no permanent friends or foes, just the permanent social and economic interests of the American people as our first commitment and our highest fiduciary responsibility.

As we strive, we must remember who misled us into war against Iraq over 9/11 and be thoroughly cautious.

We must not fear asking the deeper questions that followed the events of September 11, 2001, twenty-four years ago.

Everything we were told about 9/11, which was instrumental in leading us to attack Iraq, has been proven to be a lie. Accordingly, we have a clear right and an obligation to search for answers to the fundamental questions about the planning of 9/11, its execution, and the physical effects, the structural consequences when the planes hit the World Trade Center.

I believe we have the capacity to learn the truth about 9/11, about the motivations, about whose interests were being served, about phenomena like the collapse of Building Seven in New York City, about the lies that took us into war, about the lies which kept us in war, about the lies which keep us in war, about the lies which even now build a war consciousness so ubiquitous, that for the first time since the Civil War, an American city has been threatened by our own government with…. war!

Serious, unanswered questions will not go away. The conspiracy, if there was one, was against the truth and against the American people.

Let us continue with a limitless quest for answers. Fear not drawing conclusions that shake the foundations of this country because truth is the path to national reconciliation, truth is the path to bind up our wounds.

Never has there been a time in the modern history of America where the quest for defining truth is of such importance; truth rescued from our deepest, darkest recesses, truth facing our deepest fears, truth liberating a nation tired of being told lies by people in high places with low motives. The Bible says: You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”

So let us fearlessly march through the fog of disinformation, misinformation, manufactured intelligence and psy-ops. We move forward, dauntlessly, toward an unlit path.

Turning the Tide Conference link : https://911truth.org/turning-the-tide-9-11-justice-2025-washington-dc/

Tickets: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/turning-the-tide-911-justice-in-2025-tickets-1560031398909