The main conspiracy points put forward are outlined below. (This list is not comprehensive, we have chosen what we believe to be the most believable. It will be updated.)

One of the most popular conspiracy arguments on the internet today is made by the impressive documentary Loose Change. We have a complete copy of the second edition of this movie on the site, indexed. To see the index go here.

Conspiracy 1) The smoking gun: The George W Bush administration conspired to either organize the attacks or, at the very least, allowed them to take place. The evidence for this, conspiracy supporters argue, comes in the form of a policy document - Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century (pdf, size: 852KB) (external link to newamericancentury.org) - which was written a year before 9/11. The report was authored by leading members of the Bush administration under the name of The Project for the New American Century (Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush were contributors to this report, according to UK Channel 4 documentary 'The 9/11 Conspiracies', broadcast 9/9/2004). The report says that it would only be possible to fully secure America's defenses in the world if there was a 'catastrophic' or 'catalyzing event', 'such as a Pearl Harbor'.

Michael Moore's movie Fahrenheit 911 argues that the Bush presidency used 911 to radically increase powers at home and to increase a climate of fear, so that it could wage wars which will increase America's influence in other areas - American business has much to gain from the reconstruction and oil in Iraq. In a meeting after 11th September, Bush was keen to find a connection with Iraq so that it could be attacked. [Loose Change - Chapter 1]

Possible Counter: There is a report, and it does say these things (page 63), but does it mean that these people therefore engineered 9/11? This is seen as a smoking gun by many conspiracy supporters, and, even for skeptics, this is quite a strange report. The counter must be that the George W Bush administration would be absolute monsters to do it (which is what the conspiracy supporters are, indeed, saying). After 9/11 the Bush administration pretty much did react in the way set out in the report.

Iraq never had anything to do with 9/11. Would the Bush administration have been empowered to embark on this foreign policy they did do after 911 had 911 not happened? It seems unlikely to us.

Conspiracy 2) The collapse of the World Trade Center building 7, which was not hit by a plane at all. Conspiracy experts say that it had to be destroyed because it housed a secret government bunker used to coordinate the attacks. The NY emergency unit is in this building.

WTC7 was not hit by a plane, it stood 300 yards away from the WTC 1 and 2. But it fell neatly as if under controlled demolition on the evening of the attacks.

Official explanation: The initial report into this says that the WTC7 building collapsed because of fire, but admitted that this explanation was not likely. A second report is still not finished (as at 9th March 2007), but it is expected to confirm the initial findings. [Loose Change - Chapter 6].

Conspiracy 3) The World Trade Center buildings were supposedly brought down by intense heat of the engine fuel burning. However if that is true, then how come this woman is standing by the impact hole in the World Trade Center?

Conspiracy 4) The World Trade Center buildings were brought down by a controlled demolition, they fell at free fall speeds which is simply impossible (conspiracy experts say) without other explosives pulling the building down. Even if this was possible only parts of the building would have fallen, not the whole building.

Conspiracy supporters say that a steel framed high rise building has never collapsed before just because of fire. The collapse is consistent with a controlled demolition. Did US agents plant explosive charges to maximize the death toll?

An interesting conspiracy point from Loose Change 2nd Edition is the observance of plumes of smoke coming from underneath the fall of the building [Chapter 9]. There are also claims of secondary and other explosions, and an intriguing conversation between NYPD men suggesting that the floors had been blown out 'one by one'. [Loose Change - Chapters 7, 8 and 9.]

Counter: The Twin Towers of the World Trade Center were designed in the 1960's to withstand either a hit from an airplane or fire, but this attack was both together. Leslie Robertson, Structural Engineer of the World Trade Center: "There is no evidence there was a bomb inside." The planes were filled with fuel and this set off a chain reaction in the buildings which caused the damage.

Conspiracy 5) The Pentagon attack. Conspiracy experts say that there is some confusion what actually hit the Pentagon. Could the hole in the side of the building have been made by a Boeing 757 which has a soft, crushable, nose, and in any case where are the engines? Conspiracy experts say that the engines could not possibly have vaporized as the temperatures required were much higher than those possible... or could they?

The conspiracy line is that the damage was done by a cruise missile. [Loose Change - Chapters 3, 4 and 5].

Counter: This is an interesting point because what actually hit the Pentagon can be answered simply by the release of a number of other security camera footage which was apparently collected up by FBI agents soon after the attack. Until that time the conspiracy arguments can go on. Loose Change argues that this is evidence of a cover up. Until that time all we have are these intriguing pictures that don't show what hit the building.

Conspiracy 6) Fox TV shows The Lone Gunman 6 months before 9-11. In this fictional show a government conspiracy leads to a hijack of a passenger airline in order to crash it into the Twin Towers as a pretext for war against a dictator. The final crash is averted in the show.

On Conspiracy Files 911, BBC TV, the creator of the series denied any conspiracy, it was a simple creative venture he said. The official version of 911 says that the terrorists planned the attacks 2 years before 9/11.

Conspiracy 7) Osama bin Laden didn't organize 911, he was just a convenient patsy. The conspiracy argument claims that Osama bin Laden is now dead and that the CIA are continuing to bring out new videos and audio because Osama acts as a focus of hate justifying, in part, the continuance of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Digitally altering video and audio is very possible, as the spoof video at the bottom of this section shows.

Remember the Osama Bin Laden video released just before the 2004 US presidential elections? This undeniably gave Bush a boost in the polls.

But senior government experts all claim that the videos are genuine. This is what we have found:

This is a confirmed picture of Osama Bin Laden:

And so is this:

Much is made of the confession tape found in 2001 in which Osama bin Laden seemingly admits to organizing the Twin Towers attacks in New York. Loose Change, amongst others, say this tape is a fake and that this is the only link between Osama bin Laden and the 911 attacks. They argue the images of bin Laden don't even look like him...

This is a picture from the confession tape used by Loose Change as evidence that the man in the confession video doesn't look like Osama Bin Laden:

Here is another picture from the same tape that we took from the confession video on YouTube, below (we think this looks like him):

Youtube - Clip from 'Confession Video' in which OBL seems to admit being behind the Twin Tower attacks

Below is a brilliant spoof of a recent (2007) Osama Bin Laden video in which he has a black beard which, if nothing else, proves how good a faked OBL video can be...

Youtube Argument: Interesting arguments from Noam Chomsky, who essentially says that the Bush administration would have been insane to organize 911, that too many things could have gone wrong and had it gone wrong or there was a leak they would have faced the firing squad, that there are always convergent arguments in any experiment, and takes note that there is a large industry surrounding the conspiracy arguments:

Web site links you might like to look at:

911 Commission: The report of the commission is here (pdf size 7.2MB)