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Blog suggests destruction of federal investigations factor in terror attacks

Was the World Trade Center brought down deliberately on Sept. 11, 2001, for the purpose of – are you ready for this? – eliminating records of government investigations into corporate fraud? That's the implication of a blog posting by Rosie O'Donnell about the worst terror attack in American history.

In her March 15 posting, titled "wtc7," on her Rosie.com blog, the controversial TV personality and co-host of ABC's popular "The View" morning show, starts off by recounting popular conspiracy "factoids" regarding the World Trade Center's Building No. 7, which collapsed after the two larger "twin towers" fell.

O'Donnell writes:

* The fires in WTC 7 were not evenly distributed, so a perfect collapse was impossible.

* Silverstein said to the fire department commander "the smartest thing to do is pull it."

* Firefighters withdrawing from the area stated the building was going to "blow up."

* The roof of WTC 7 visibly crumbled and the building collapsed perfectly into its footprint.

* Molten steel and partially evaporated steel members were found in the debris.

Like O'Donnell, 9/11 skeptics frequently cite World Trade Center 7 as proof that controlled demolition was responsible for all three buildings' collapse, since WTC7, although ravaged by fire, was not hit by airplanes as the other two towers were. However, Popular Mechanics wrote in its March 2005 cover story, "Debunking The 9/11 Myths": "The collapse of both World Trade Center towers – and the smaller WTC 7 a few hours later – initially surprised even some experts. But subsequent studies have shown that the WTC's structural integrity was destroyed by intense fire as well as the severe damage inflicted by the planes. That explanation hasn't swayed conspiracy theorists, who contend that all three buildings were wired with explosives in advance and razed in a series of controlled demolitions."

The remainder of O'Donnell's blog entry on 9/11 consists of a listing of various records supposedly destroyed in the collapse of WTC7, apparently meant to imply the building was brought down so as to eliminate records of investigations of Enron and other companies. Citing various sources at the end of each paragraph, O'Donnell writes:

[WTC 7] contained offices of the FBI, Department of Defense, IRS (which contained prodigious amounts of corporate tax fraud, including Enron’s), US Secret Service, Securities & Exchange Commission (with more stock fraud records), and Citibank’s Salomon Smith Barney, the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management and many other financial institutions. [Online Journal]

The SEC has not quantified the number of active cases in which substantial files were destroyed [by the collapse of WTC 7]. Reuters news service and the Los Angeles Times published reports estimating them at 3,000 to 4,000. They include the agency’s major inquiry into the manner in which investment banks divvied up hot shares of initial public offerings during the high-tech boom. … "Ongoing investigations at the New York SEC will be dramatically affected because so much of their work is paper-intensive," said Max Berger of New York's Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann. "This is a disaster for these cases." [New York Lawyer]

Citigroup says some information that the committee is seeking [about WorldCom] was destroyed in the Sept. 11 terror attack on the World Trade Center. Salomon had offices in 7 World Trade Center, one of the buildings that collapsed in the aftermath of the attack. The bank says that back-up tapes of corporate emails from September 1998 through December 2000 were stored at the building and destroyed in the attack. [TheStreet]

Inside [WTC 7 was] the US Secret Service’s largest field office with more than 200 employees. … "All the evidence that we stored at 7 World Trade, in all our cases, went down with the building," according to US Secret Service Special Agent David Curran. [TechTV]

O'Donnell's views on the 9/11 terror attacks are understandable in light of her defense, last week, of 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. During the March 15 broadcast of ABC's "The View," which she co-hosts, O'Donnell defended the terror kingpin, suggesting the U.S. government elicited a false confession from Mohammed by using torture, robbing him of his humanity and treating him like an animal.

A transcript of Mohammed's confession to 31 terrorist attacks had been released that day, but O'Donnell argued it came only after having a "hood on his head and being beaten to death."

The hood was a reference to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in Iraq in which U.S. military personnel were punished for humiliating prisoners.

O'Donnell echoed the sentiments of Palestinian terrorist Abu Jihad, who told WND today, "I am sure the Americans tortured Mohammad and forced him to say these untrue things. Isn't it strange it took three years since his arrest for the supposed confession?"

Pointing out Mohammed was arrested in March 2003, O'Donnell asked, "Why hasn't he admitted it until now?" according to clips posted on the weblog HotAir.com.

"They didn't allow reporters there and he hasn't had a lawyer," the talk show host stated, insinuating the confession was coerced with no accountability.

Defending U.S. handling of Mohammed, co-panelist Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked, "You don't think he had ties to any of (the terrorist acts)?"

"I think the man has been under custody in secret CIA torture prisons and Guantanamo Bay where torture is accepted and allowed – and he finally is the guy who admits to doing everything," O'Donnell said. "They finally found the guy, it's not that guy bin Laden, it's this guy they've had since March 2003."

O'Donnell added: "And look, this is the picture they release of him. Doesn't he look healthy?"

The photo of an unkempt Mohammed, however, was taken upon his arrest four years ago.

O'Donnell then argued terrorists are people too, and asserted the U.S. "robs them of their humanity."

"They've been treating them like animals … they have hoods over their heads, they torture them on a daily basis," she said.

Suggesting the U.S. is looking for a scapegoat, O'Donnell said of Mohammed, "for whatever he did or didn't do, he is not the be all, end all of terrorism in America. And our government has not found the answer in this one man."

Mohammad confessed in a U.S. military tribunal to plots that included a previously undisclosed plan to kill several former U.S. presidents, including Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

"I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z," Mohammed said in a statement read during a hearing on his status at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo.

He confessed to the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl, saying, "I decapitated with my blessed right hand the head of the American Jew, Daniel Pearl, in the city of Karachi, Pakistan."

Mohammed added: "For those who would like to confirm, there are pictures of me on the Internet holding his head."

In November, O'Donnell told Hasselbeck in an exchange on "The View" that Americans shouldn't fear terrorists.

"Faith or fear, that's your choice," she said.

"You can walk through life believing in the goodness of the world, or walk through life afraid of anyone who thinks different than you and trying to convert them to your way of thinking."