NYCCAN Press Conference at City Hall

Today I attended the press conference that NYCCAN (NYC Coalition for Accountability Now) held on the steps of City Hall in Manhattan. Press were there from 1010 WINS, WOR, NY1 and WFUV. I don’t know if what we had to say will make it past the phlanx of mainstream media editors, but we’ll see.

NYCCAN has collected 68,000 signatures from the citizenry of New York City on a petition to request a new, impartial and scientific investigation of the events on 9/11. The petition has been presented to the City Council and it is very likely to be approved for addition to the November 3rd ballot. If you are a resident of New York City, it is not too late to add your signature to the petition. If you are someone who lost a family member or friend; a first responder who assisted at the sites; or a survivor of the attacks you can also sign a different petition to show your support for a new investigation.

As a survivor of the attacks with an unique perspective on the whole thing due to my military background, I was one of the people asked to present a statement to the press. It’s below the fold for those who care.

The 9/11 Truth movement has picked up an enormous amount of steam and is becoming more legitimized due to a peer-reviewed paper that was published in April by an international team of scientists which reveals that nanothermite particles were found in four different samples of dust from the World Trade Center. In this interview for Russia Today, one of the team members, Danish chemistry professor Niels Harrit, explains what was found and the questions this raises about the credibility of the official story.

In parallel with NYCCAN, Richard Gage of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, is presenting this evidence at the National Convention of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in Washington DC this week. He and other members of AE911Truth have also brought this testimony to members of Congress.

NYCCAN and AE911Truth are not wild-eyed conspiracy theorists. The objective is to point out the fallacies and gaping holes in the logic of the official story, and to demand an application of the scientific method to answer the many questions that never have been answered concerning 9/11.

Given the sheer amount of prevarication and dishonorable behavior the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have engendered, it is only common sense to also closely scrutinize the events of 9/11 which served as the impetus for these invasions. The focus of NYCCAN is on asking questions in a scientific and methodical fashion and obtaining the answers to those questions. Their ultimate goal is to establish a new commission with subpoena power and the ability to place people under oath.

Many activists here and elsewhere are concerned with the long list of war crimes committed by the Bush administration: torture of prisoners of war; abductions, renditions, “disappearances” and “suicides”; warrantless wiretapping and illegal surveillance; the deliberate outing of a CIA agent; no-bid contracts; legal contractor loopholes that allow them to get away with rape and murder; the CIA flooding our streets with heroin and cocaine and illegal handguns in order to foster the artificial continued need for a police state; the extortionate cost of prioritizing military and “security” objectives at the expense of our growing numbers of homeless, jobless, sick and hungry people; the list could go on but I am sure the reader gets the point.

Should it come to light that it was a conscious subversion of our intelligence community which contributed to the deaths of innocent civilians and noncombatants on 9/11/01; last I noticed that too is a war crime according to the Geneva Convention, and it would be that war crime which led to many of the others. The people responsible for this war crime MUST be brought to justice if we are to restore full faith in the ability of our government to truly protect it’s citizens.

From a personal perspective, working with NYCCAN is difficult, although this is hardly a reflection on the friendly, eminently sane and compassionate people I met today. While I am a pretty tough cookie, 9/11 was not a walk in the park. It’s not easy to deal with the memories and the emotions. It really is the hardest thing I’ve ever done. However I am mindful that I am not alone in what I have to face as I work for this goal, and it is as much a duty to those who share my burden and to the country I originally oathed myself to serve as anything I ever had to do during my enlistment.

Those of you who are in a position and of a mind to do so, I hope that you will join me in support of NYCCAN.

My statement to the press follows.

My name is Eileen Coles. I am the third generation of my family to serve in the American military.  I am a US Air Force Desert Storm veteran and served as the administrator of the US Air Force’s Top Secret/SCI intelligence message handling system at HQ USAFE, Ramstein Germany as my first duty assignment. I hold an honorable discharge and my rank when I left was Sergeant.

In September of 2001 I was working for Sun Microsystems, which had it’s offices in Tower 2 of the WTC. I saw the collapse of the towers that morning.

While at that time not much was known about the nature of the attack,  due to my military background, one thing I did know was that there was no way the United States intelligence community did not see this coming.

When I was in the service 20 years ago it was my job to maintain the top secret system that was used by our Air Force major command in Europe to do exactly this type of terrorist threat assessment. 20 years ago the intelligence community had the full capability to anticipate and successfully defend against an attack such as this.  I worked directly with the people and the data, and I know that what we had would have caught this.

The certain knowledge that there had been an unexplainable subversion of our intelligence community resulting in the death of thousands of innocent people, and the sheer horror associated with that knowledge made me sick to my stomach. For three days, I could not eat and spent most of the time in bed, in shock.

There are still far too many unanswered questions about the events of 9/11. We have been left with an official story that entire sections of the government, academic community and press refuse to hold up to the light and question despite the presence of gaping holes in logic and a severe lack of scientific evidence. So long as this situation remains it must be assumed that the United States government, in particular the military and intelligence communities are either incapable of performing this duty, or unwilling to do so.



The stature of our nation as a leader in liberty and democracy, paid for with the precious blood of millions of honorable American veterans, has been shamefully diminished.

Our only way forward to restore our national honor is to answer the questions and demand accountability. This will not happen without a truly impartial and scientific examination of the evidence.

Thank you.