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It is obvious that there will be many inquiries into the September 11, 2001, attacks but, unfortunately, they will not be coordinated. - The first official technical inquiry in the collapse of the World Trade Centre towers in New York City concluded, at the beginning of 2002, that the impact of the planes, fully loaded with fuel, created very strong fires while the water pipes were cut, cutting off the sprinkler system, and making the fire fighters' hoses useless. It was the effect of the fires burning out of control, rather than the force of the impact, that caused the towers to collapse. The temperature reached 1,100 degrees Celsius when the 10,000 gallons of fuel contained in each plane burned. The south tower fell before the north tower -that had been hit first- because the heat insulation in the later one had been improved recently. - In the first days of June 2002, while the US Congress launched a close-doors hearings to try to find what went wrong in the intelligence world, the FBI and the CIA were doing their best to accuse each other for failing to prevent the September 11, 2001, attack. It seems that the CIA knew about two al-Qaida suspects -who later were aboard American Airlines flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon- but failed to inform the FBI when they moved into the US, where the FBI is competent. President Bush went as far as agreeing that the CIA and the FBI made some mistakes, but he also said that this had been taken care off and corrected. According to him, nothing could have prevented the attack given the information available. Not many people, and certainly not the media, agree with him. The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, claimed that his government had told Washington of an imminent attack the week before September 11. An Egyptian secret agent who was in touch with Osama bin Laden?s organisation obtained this information that did not include any details of the plot. Nothing was done with it. - Obviously the accusations that the CIA, FBI, Coast Guards, Immigration Service, etc. did not do a good job to prevent the September 11 attacks could be true. Everyday more information is given to the public, including an open letter written by a woman working for the FBI stating that she tried to investigate some of the future terrorists responsible for the attacks, and was told not to do anything. - On November 27, 2002, President Bush put Henry Kissinger in charge of a commission of enquiry. The main question was "why the FBI and the CIA did not know anything about it in advance?" The commission was given 18 months to complete its work. It was composed of Republican and democrat politicians, and has the full backing of President Bush. Ex-Democrat Senator George Mitchell is the vice chairman. However both men resigned around December 13, 2002. Kissinger was not a very popular choice because of his involvement with President Nixon's illegal behaviour in the past. Both him and George Mitchell said that there were some conflicts of interest between their job and this enquiry. - On Monday December 16, 2002, President Bush replaced Kissinger and Mitchell as chairman and vice-chairman of the committee with the Ex-governor of New Jersey, Thomas Kean (Republican, chairman), and Lee Hamilton a former US representative from Indiana (Democrat) as his deputy. The other members are: . The Republicans Jim Thompson (former governor of Illinois), Fred Fielding (Former counsel to President Reagan), John Lehman (former Navy secretary) and Slade Gorton (former US senator from Washington). . The Democrats Cleland (outgoing US senator from Georgia), Timothy Roemer (Outgoing representative from Indiana), Jamie Gorelick (former deputy attorney general) and Richard Ben-Veniste (former minority chief counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee). - The worst possible news about what really happened during the rescue operations was made public by the commission of the US Congress. They revealed -May 18, 2004- that rivalry between New York's police and firemen, as well as bad communication between them, prevented to save lives. - On August 27, 2003, an US court of law decided that the last words of the September 11, 2001, victims must be released to the public. Some families are strongly opposed while others agree to it. There is about 260 hours of recording, some of it very personal. The documents show the police force coming to grip with the enormity of the situation, as well as the call for help of people trapped in the buildings. The people in the south tower were told, 15 minutes before it was hit, to stay there after a plane flew into the north tower. On September 17, 2003, President Bush declared that there was no evidence to link Iraq with the September 11, 2001, attacks on the USA even if, according to him, Saddam Hussein was linked in some way to al-Qaida. On the other hand, Vice President Dick Cheney and 69% of the Americans believe that Iraq was somehow involved. All this without any proof. On September 22, 2003, the man the US believes played a major role in the organisation of the September 11, 2001, attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, said that the original plans foresaw using 10 planes, and not only 4 as it happened and, at the same time, hijacking or bombing aircrafts in south-east Asia. He added that the plans were changed in 1996 when he proposed them to Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden believed that would-be hijackers' problems getting visas to enter the USA, and doubts about the possibility to coordinate attacks in the US and Asia, led him to change the plans. The hijackers should have been from many countries but, in the end, the majority were Saudi because it was easier for them to get entrance visas in the US. Mr Mohammed was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan in March 2003.
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