In anticipation of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the head of the Iranian Foreign Ministry's Afghanistan headquarters, Mohsen Pakaein, published an article on the website of the Iranian news agency Fars in which he claimed that America's neocons were behind the attacks. He said they had carried them out to facilitate a number of goals, including taking the U.S. to war in foreign countries, among them Iraq and Afghanistan; boosting U.S. militarism; and bolstering U.S. military power worldwide at all costs. Pakaein claimed that the attacks were orchestrated by elements within the U.S. administration, providing as evidence quotes from French conspiracy theorist Thierry Meyssan's book The Big Lie alleging that none of the "managers" of the companies headquartered in the World Trade Center died in the attacks, since, at the time, they were all attending a "friendly breakfast" at a military base far from the site, with then-president George W. Bush in attendance.
It should be noted that in the years since 9/11, Tehran has propagated various conspiracy theories regarding the events, and has claimed that the U.S. funded the attacks, using Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which Iran deems as products of U.S. invention, as puppets to carry them out. In the past year, however, the Iranian regime has narrowed its charges, claiming that the Bush administration was directly responsible for planning and carrying out the attacks, as manifest in Pakaein's article. Such claims appeared as early as a year ago in the daily Kayhan, which is the mouthpiece of the Iranian regime and associated with Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei: "The U.S. administration's involvement in the above affair [9/11] is so obvious that there is no need to present claims in support of it... Today, [even] the U.S. citizens, who have been bombarded with false propaganda on this subject, reject Muslim involvement [in the attack] – and even reject the involvement of the infamous Al-Qaeda – and believe that 9/11 was an inside job… [9/11 was] the West's most important security project, after World War II, [serving as an excuse for the West] to ignite war in the Middle East... and to instill the theory that 'American security is as important as the security of [the entire] world...'"[1]
Khamenei himself accused the Zionists as being behind 9/11: "From day to day, there are an increasing number of independent studies that prove it is they [the Zionists] who are to be blamed for the attack on the [Twin] Towers on 9/11."[2] Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on his part, has for years called "to investigate the events" of 9/11, while hinting that the U.S. was behind them.[3] Speaking at the General Assembly of the U.N. in 2010, he said that "the majority of the American people" agreed that the U.S. government was behind 9/11.[4] On another occasion, Ahmadinejad said it was impossible that Al-Qaeda had been responsible for 9/11, and that such claims were a "fable" that the U.S. invented to justify direct military intervention in the Middle East.[5]
Following is the original English translation of Pakaein's article, which has been edited lightly for clarity:[6]
"There Is Substantial Evidence which Indicates that 9/11 Was Perpetrated by American Neoconservatives in Order to Create the Opportunity to Achieve Their Goals"
"In the name of Allah the Almighty.
"September 11 – who was behind the event[s]? In order to find out the reasons why the U.S. neoconservatives have succeeded in carrying out their plans and in moving toward their ambitious goals, it is necessary to understand the causes and motivations behind the events of 9/11.
"On 9/11, American trade, military, and political centers collapsed as a result of explosions, with enormous smoke and dust. In this event, two passenger jets slammed into the World Trade Centers [sic], and another one hit the Pentagon. Also, another jet crashed – for unknown reasons – before it hit its target. According to the latest statistics, these operations resulted in over five thousand deaths and injuries. Immediately, a state of emergency was declared all over the U.S. The sky across America was declared a no-fly zone, and the U.S. army was put on high alert. Also, European countries were informally in a state of emergency, and their security forces stepped up espionage and intelligence operations.
"The official programs of the mass media in Europe were disrupted, and crisis groups, [as well as] political and military pundits, held especial meetings in order to try to reduce the insecurity, which took hold of all the political apparatuses, and to control public unrest in the wake of this mass killing. A few hours after the operations, the then U.S. president called the above-mentioned events a national tragedy for America and stated that this is a war. It is a war on America, George Bush said, and added – this is an attack on a lifestyle, democracy, and the values of the modern world. Bush went on to say [that] America [had] entered a war, a war between the evil and the good – and we will win this war, he alleged.
"The event[s] of 9/11 set the needed stage for carrying out the radical ideas of the American neoconservatives. In declaring war and bringing out its gigantic military machine, America referred to article five of the NATO [Washington Treaty] for the first time in fifty years and prepared itself to attack targets all over the world. This measure taken by America marked a new phase in international policy and order.
"The first stage of this interaction was the attack on Afghanistan. Some researchers, by relying on lots of evidence, believe that America itself is the cause behind the event[s] of 9/11. Lyndon LaRouche, a former American presidential candidate and one of the [U.S.'s prominent] analysts of political and economic issues, claimed in an interview that the event[s] of 9/11 were planned and carried out by veteran American politicians, in order to canalize and redirect the administration of George W. Bush [along] a specific course. He said that 9/11 could [not have been] the job of an outside group or organization because, given the way the security system works, these events could have only been [orchestrated by] internal security groups and organizations. And at high level[s] of [the] security authorities, of course, there might have been cooperation with others, [albeit] in a limited way, but what is self-evident is the fact that these attacks were mainly controlled by high-ranking American security authorities and organizations.
"They wanted to stage an effective coup against Bush. They didn't intend to overthrow the government, but they wanted to move the Bush administration in the direction they wanted. In his book The Big Lie, written about 9/11, Thierry Meyssan, a French researcher, says: 'After the two [World] Trade [Center] towers collapsed in a way that no one predicted, complete official investigations into the incident as to how it happened were not conducted, but the official account confirmed the idea of two jets, as well as [the identity of] the accused, without substantiating their existence or their involvement in the incident. Immediately, there was an emphasis on demolishing the damaged buildings and collecting the debris, and whatever was [left] in this place was placed under the control of the F.B.I and was declared as part of national defense secrets.
"'The rapidity with which the debris [was] collected raised suspicion with the fire officials of the Fire Department of New York, because they didn't find Washington officials convincing, and they were certain that the fuel of the two jets wasn't sufficient to melt the iron skeleton of the two towers in such a short time. And practically and chemically, it is impossible, unless the two towers were made of cardboard. For this reason, officials of the fire department requested an inquiry in order to clarify the facts as to whether an explosion occurred at the bottom of the two towers or not. However, F.B.I authorities didn't agree with this suggestion. There is another mystery here, since it is only through explosives that high rise buildings can be demolished, while in this case there isn't any other evidence or picture to show what happened at the bottom of the two towers.'
"In an interview with Franc[e] TV, Meyssan discloses secrets which can only be grasped by experts in aerospace sciences. He says: 'Following a Q&A with the experts in this field, it became clear that it is impossible for passenger jets, such as the ones that crashed into World Trade Center, to carry out such precision target[ing] without having predetermined radars from within the two towers. This is exactly what happened two hours prior to the attack, which scrambled radios and TVs within the range of that area. Thus, without these radars, it wouldn't have been possible to achieve target precision, even if several jets had carried out this task simultaneously.
"'There are other aspects which cast doubt on the involvement of foreign agents in the explosions. With regard to the writings in Arabic that show how to learn flying and [pilot] airplanes, it should be noted that aircraft terminology has never been written in Arabic, but has always been completely in English. As for the attack on the Pentagon, the U.S. administration claimed that these operations were conducted by [crashing] a Boeing 757 into the first or second floor, while the aforementioned aircraft flew so low that it touched the grass surrounding the Pentagon. However, when asked about this, experts in war aircraft ascertained that such an act couldn't be [accomplished] by non-military aircraft, such as [a] Boeing 757, because such aircraft aim at their targets vertically or fly low, but not close to the ground, and suddenly attack their target horizontally. And since the Pentagon isn't very high, but with only two floors, it is impossible for a non-military jet to hit the Pentagon horizontally, because Boeing jets can't fly so low; and even if such a thing is supposedly possible, it will damage the trees, electric posts, and other things around the area, which didn't happen. [Indeed,] no sign or traces of this kind could be seen [at] the scene of the accident.
"'What draws more attention in this regard is the fact that no one had seen the skeleton of the aircraft in the scene of the accident, and there wasn't the smallest picture of it, but just a black box, which it was said had been found [on] the scene of the accident, whereas [in] the first statements made by the officials, it was said that the attack [was carried out] by a helicopter. Furthermore, the place which was the target of the attack didn't [house] any personnel or military staff, because buildings were under construction in this place, and the only victims were workers and people who happened to be there [by chance]. This is surprising, because only one military person was killed, while they announced that many of the victims were Pentagon employees.
"'Another surprising thing is that there wasn't any follow-up on the pilots or the perpetrators of the operations. Another point is that, when an aircraft is hijacked, [its] information is conveyed in a code to the control tower, and non-military aircrafts also use identification serial number[s] which [are] sent to the control tower by transmitter disks, and, in fact, it is in this way that tracking of such aircrafts is made possible. Likewise, when an aircraft doesn't send signals, it is assumed to be an aircraft of the enemy, and warning signals are sent to it. In the case of the two jets which hit the Twin Towers, there wasn't any signal.
"'Another point worth contemplating concerning the above-mentioned incident is that none of the officials of the companies belonging to the buildings of the world trade center was a victim. At the time of the incident, most of these managers were invited for a friendly breakfast at [a] military base, which is very far from New York, and George W. Bush joined them.'
"Overall, there is substantial evidence which indicates that 9/11 was perpetrated by American neoconservatives in order to create the opportunity to achieve their goals, such as strengthening militarism, attacking countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan, and enlisting other countries [to join them in] fighting terrorism. This suggests the will and determination of the neoconservatives to consolidat[e] American power across the globe at whatever cost."
