Chat Ed : Hello everyone and welcome to our webchat with the Director/Producer of The 9/11 Conspiracies Polly Morland. The 9/11 attacks on America galvanised conspiracy theorists into an unprecedented flurry of activity. This programme investigates how these various conspiracy theories got started, who is peddling them today and the hidden truths they often conceal.
Polly Morland : Hello and thanks for watching. I'm one of the two Producer/Directors on the show, myself and Frank Simmonds, so over to you…
Adi : Hello
Devross : having researched them do you believe in any of the conspiracies?
Polly Morland : I think that the conspiracy theories have raised some every interesting questions. Questions that needed to be asked and that have required the authorities to reveal the circumstances around 9/11. The work of the 9/11 Commission among many other things was to look at some of these theories and was to supply answers to people who felt their questions hadn't been answered. I think many of those questions now have been answered.
neab : Is there any HARD evidence that the American government is to blame?
Polly Morland : neab, on the basis of what the 9/11 Commission discovered - they discovered systemic failings in intelligence and in procedures...our research was to look at what the 9/11 Commission found in regards to some of those and they found outstanding failures in some areas. But this was a system that was utterly unprepared for anything like this.
camy : did u find out that the FBI confiscated video footage from nearby petrol stations and businesses which showed the '757' flying into the pentagon?
John T : Why was there only one photograph of the plane crashing into the pentagon released?
Polly Morland : The CCTV footage featured in the programme which was subsequently leaked on the internet which is widely believed and known to be authentic, that footage is from a Pentagon camera. The programme makers had no access to other security camera footage. John T, I just don't know the answer to that. I spoke with several eyewitnesses who saw an American airlines plane hit the building.
UK Tiger : Why is it that at least 7 of the original list of hijackers are still alive and no updated list has EVER been released?
Polly Morland : We found no evidence that any of the named hijackers were still alive.
spak : where do you find the info which is supposedly confidential?
Polly Morland : For all our sources we relied on eye witness testimony, the findings of investigators within the independent 9/11 Commission and other sources close to US and Israeli intelligence. And also the testimony of people who lost loved ones that day.
Mulda : I hope this doesn't in anyway come across as anti-Semitic, but have you heard of there being no jewish people killed in the 9/11 attacks or is that just a really silly rumour?
Polly Morland : That's a really silly rumour. Many, many Jewish Americans died that day at the WTC and also in Washington.
Imran : Which boo would you recommend that explains in detail the conspiracies behind 9/11?
Polly Morland : One of our contributors in the programme was David Ray Griffin whose latest book catalogues some of what he calls 'disturbing questions' surrounding 9/11 along the lines of his interview in our programme tonight.
jamie : what was the name of 'The New Pearl Harbour' author? I missed his name on the programme
Polly Morland : David Ray Griffin's book is called The New Pearl Harbour - that's the book that catalogues the conspiracy theories. The original document is from The Project for the New American Century and is called Re-Building America's Defences, published in 2000. That's where David Ray Griffin takes his book title from.
Mulda : Is this program based on a book, I remember seeing the author being interviewed by er, richard&Judy...
Polly Morland : Our programme is not based on any one particular book, no. It's based on a variety of sources.
Tartanbaron : have u looked into the fact that there was no technology in planes in 2001 2 allow cell phone calls 2 the ground
Polly Morland : We didn't investigate that particular claim in detail but we have heard recordings of telephone calls that were made from the hijacked plane.
stevie : A fourth plane crashed into a field on Sept 11th. Do you believe that this was shot down by U.S jets. I heard a rumour that eyewitnesses saw a military plane was seen in the area of the time it crashed.
Polly Morland : The findings of the 9/11 Commission with regards to the United flight 93 don't suggest this plane was shot down, rather that it was ditched by the hijackers in Pennsylvania.
Eight_Ace : Why did you not cover silverstein purchasing the towers for 100mill and then claiming insurance of 7.6 billion
Polly Morland : The events of Sept 2001 are vast. In our programme we could only look at and chose to focus on a number of the most widespread and widely believed conspiracy theories. There will inevitably be some question marks raised in other quarters that we didn't cover.
Jasper : Do you think the 9/11 commissions may have been a whitewash like Hutton?
Polly Morland : The 9/11 Commission forced some very uncomfortable truths into the open. It was a very long and detailed process as we understand it.
Rob : Did you have access to other TV company footage of each incident... Eg..ABC News, NBC, CNN.. Do they all match up? or was the film supplied from a central source?
Polly Morland : The archive footage in the programme comes from a wide variety of sources, so no we didn't get it all from one source by any means.
eileen : did you feel at any point that you were bein 'used' in any way to counter theories that may have been getting too close to something (I mean this in a general way) that the US did not want confirmed?
Polly Morland : In the course of our research and in the filming we talked to a wide variety of people who have very different political views and who believe different things about what happened on 9/11 and at no point did any of us feel that that was being hindered in any way. We feel we have spoken to both sides.
Wax : Have you been under any pressure, above and beyond normal ITC regulations, to omit any details from your program.
Polly Morland : No Wax, not at all.
Angus : Are you happy with the programme content of this evening?
Polly Morland : Yes I am, I hope we all are. I hope that we have looked at an issue that's been bubbling for some time now and perhaps have gone at least some distance to answering some people's questions. Essentially we aimed to look at a handful of the most widespread conspiracy theories: Was there some kind of stand down order that meant American air defences failed to intercept the hijacked planes? Was whatever hit the Pentagon not American airlines flight 77 but some kind of American military aircraft or missile? Did the twin towers collapse because of some kind of controlled demolition, perhaps undertaken with the help of the US authorities? Did Israeli agents know about the 9/11 attacks in advance? Why were members of the Bin Laden family flown out of America immediately after 9/11? And was there insider trading before 9/11? Those are the questions we posed. It's not a definitive list of theories by any means.
Darren Hearne : Polly is there anything you wanted to cover in more detail in the program or anything you might have missed out?
Polly Morland : The process of making TV documentaries is always a process of trying to tell the story as well as you can in the given time. There will always be things that if you add three or four hours worth of air time that you would go into in more detail, but we feel that we did justice to the conversations that we'd had.
chpper : was the media guilty of a conspiracy of silence?
Polly Morland : I think 9/11 took everyone in the media, in government, just everyone so much by surprise that I think everyone had to work at finding out how to talk about it. Those discussions have developed as time has gone on and as people to some extent have come to terms with what happened.
steamin : Will there be a follow up then Polly, with all the other questions???
pythagoras : Will there be a second documentary to cover the wider picture regarding 'The War on Terror', 'WMD' and the growing paranoia about terrorism ?
Polly Morland : At this stage, not that I know of, but that's a question for the Channel 4 Commissioning Editors.
Chat Ed : Our half hour is now up with Polly everyone…
Polly Morland : Thank you all for watching the programme and for asking such interesting questions that have been very thought provoking for me. There is lots more to talk about regarding 9/11 for everyone in the 21st century and I am sure you will all carry on doing that. Thanks for chatting tonight, all the best, Polly.
DaveK : Thanks Polly
osama : Respect!
911InPlaneSite : Yeah -thanks Polly. That was worth it.
bubbeano : Excellent documentary!!!
Polly Morland leaves the room
