Sept. 11 Tragedy a Bonanza for Opportunistic Lawyers

 

Since Sept. 11, 2001, a wave of lawsuits’some valid, some specious?has been filed against anyone and anything even remotely connected to the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
 

Exclusive to American Free Press

By John Tiffany

Lawsuits on behalf of the victims of 9-11 against the terrorists, alleged terrorist states and the sponsors of terrorism as well as civil actions on behalf of the victims against the airlines, their security companies and others are under way.

The first known suit brought against American Air lines and Globe Aviation Services on behalf of a worker in the World Trade Center (WTC) was by Thomas Smith wick, whose wife Bonnie Shihadeh Smithwick perished after surviving the initial “hit.” Mrs. Smithwick used her mobile telephone to call her husband during the attack.

The suit alleged that the defendants failed to screen passengers boarding Flight 11 at Logan International Airport on the fatal day.

Mrs. Smithwick worked for Fred Alger Management on the 93rd floor of the North Tower, which was apparently hit by Flight 11.

This suit, a wrongful death action, was for $50 million, according to Airwise News.

Several other suits have been filed by families of the passengers of the jets used in the attacks; other victims? families have sued Osama bin Laden’s terrorist network, al Qaeda, which conventional thinking holds responsible for the attacks.

On Dec. 4, 2001, Judicial Watch (JW), established in 1994 to serve as a legal “watchdog? over our government, legal and judicial systems, announced the filing of a lawsuit on behalf of an anonymous widower-victim of the Sept. 11 attacks, against Iraq, bin Laden, al Qaeda, Afghanistan and the Taliban for the murder of his wife at the WTC.

The lawsuit, said to have been “based on a compilation of compelling evidence,” describes an alleged conspiracy between Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government and al Qaeda.

JW has also asked the U.S. government to consider Saudi Arabia an “enemy” because many of the alleged hijackers came from there. It has also demanded to know why the government has treated Pakistan with kid gloves: “Evidence indicates that Pakistan is now providing a safe haven for Osama bin Laden, the terrorist President Bush wanted “dead or alive”,” says JW.

According to ABC News, some 600 family members of the Sept. 11, 2001 victims have filed a $116 trillion lawsuit against the Sudanese government and Saudi officials, banks and charities, charging that they financed bin Laden’s network and the 9-11 attacks.

SAUDI PRINCES

The lawsuit, modeled on the lines of the suit filed against Libya by relatives of the victims of the Pam Am Flight 103 disaster in 1988, seeks to “cripple these banks and charities and the Saudi princes as a deterrent to future terrorist-funding activities.”

According to Sierra Times, an Internet news site: ?[A] hefty cash settlement, called a Victims Compensation Fund, [was] offered by the U.S. government for the surviving families of the Sept. 11 attacks on the WTC. However, there was a catch: to get the money: the families had to surrender the right to file other lawsuits. Some of them refused, instead choosing to sue the airlines.”

All this is interesting but the important news is that approximately 33 families of 9-11 victims have filed suits against the Bush administration to learn the truth about the government “negligence” that led to 9-11, and to hold accountable those whose “negligence? led to the deaths.

But on June 20, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft’s Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Alvin Hellerstein that the Transportation Security Agency (TSA) must review all evidence before it goes to the families and will remove any evidence it deems “sensitive.”

It was TSA Director John McGaw who led the investigations of the Oklahoma City bombing, TWA Flight 800, the Olympics bombing and the church arson task force. Those investigations are widely viewed as nothing more than cover-ups. The government is arguing that the legal discovery of documents raises “grave national security concerns.”

Some people are starting to question just what the Bush administration is so concerned about hiding. Congress has also passed a law making it difficult for relatives of the 9-11 incident to sue anyone but the alleged terrorists.

Given the many warnings that came before 9-11, the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NOR AD), which is responsible for protecting the airspace of Alaska, Canada and the United States, deserves blame for the utter failure to defend the skies on 9-11. So do many others in the federal government, including powerful figures at the highest levels.

Thousands of lives could have been saved if standard procedures had been properly followed. At a minimum, those not in the WTC?s North Tower need not have died, if the Federal Aviation Administration, the federal agency tasked with monitoring air traffic, and NORAD had done their job properly, according to the Center for Co operative Research (CCR), a web-based alternative news site.

Says CCR: “Many unanswered questions remain and are likely to remain unanswered until people put pressure on the media and government to finally stop covering up what happened on 9-11.”

Many Americans are starting to ask, “Should President Bush and some of those who surround him be impeached for failing to take action on 9-11 warnings and for assisting the terrorists? And was it only negligence, or was it something far worse”? Several web sites have been set up for those who want Congress to impeach the president. Among these are http://petitiontoimpeach.com and http://www.democrats.com/elandslide/petition.cfm?campaign=911.

 

For more information order AFP?s 50 Unanswered Questions About 9-11. One copy is $5; six copies are $10 and 40 or more are 80