9/11: What if they were right?
By Shizza Umer
Nearly 3,000 people were killed on September 11, 2001. Twenty-five years later, the central finding of the official investigation remains strongly supported: al-Qaeda planned the operation, and 19 hijackers seized four passenger aircraft. The 9/11 Commission reconstructed the plot, its participants and the institutional failures that preceded it.
But accepting that conclusion does not require pretending every controversy surrounding 9/11 was invented.
Some theories collapse when tested against the evidence. Others began with real events before accumulating claims the evidence could no longer sustain. And several controversies involve genuine intelligence failures, declassified investigations, disputed institutional conduct or facts that remain stranger than the simplified versions most people remember.
Here is the full Verum investigation.
The Isr*eli intelligence questions
1. The five Isr*elis detained after filming the burning towers
Status: Verified event. Broader interpretation unproven.
Five Isr*eli nationals working for Urban Moving Systems were detained after a New Jersey witness reported men filming themselves with the burning World Trade Center behind them and appearing celebratory. They remained in US custody for more than two months before being deported on immigration grounds. Contemporary reporting documented an investigation into possible intelligence connections, but no public finding established that the five knew the 9/11 att*cks were coming.
2. Were the five intelligence operatives?
Status: Investigated. 9/11 foreknowledge not established.
The episode did not end with a routine immigration arrest. Counterintelligence questions were pursued, and contemporary reporting cited US officials who suspected possible intelligence activity. Isr*el denied that the men were intelligence operatives. Even reporting most sympathetic to the espionage theory did not establish advance knowledge of the att*cks.
3. Urban Moving Systems
Status: Real company. Intelligence-front allegation unproven.
The five men worked for Urban Moving Systems. Federal investigators searched the company, and its owner, Dominik Suter, subsequently returned to Isr*el. Those events became central to claims that the company itself was an intelligence front. No publicly established finding proves that Urban Moving Systems participated in the 9/11 plot.
4. The Isr*eli “art students”
Status: Documented investigation. No established 9/11 connection.
Months before 9/11, federal personnel reported repeated encounters with young Isr*elis claiming to be art students. An internal DEA investigation compiled incidents involving approaches to federal offices, homes of government personnel and sensitive facilities. The DEA material described conduct suggestive of possible organized intelligence gathering, although other officials disputed whether an espionage operation had actually been established. Salon’s investigation into this episode remains the most detailed public account. The investigation was real. A direct operational connection to 9/11 was never established.
5. The art project inside the North Tower
Status: Verified project.
A completely separate Austrian art collective worked from the 91st floor of the North Tower in 2000. Its project involved secretly removing a window and constructing a temporary balcony outside the building. Photographs from the project showed stacks of boxes inside the workspace. Those images would become important years later for an entirely different reason.
6. Did those boxes contain explosives?
Status: Unsupported.
Online researchers later claimed the boxes contained explosive material, detonators or devices associated with demolition preparations. The art project and boxes existed. Credible evidence demonstrating that the boxes contained explosives does not. This is a textbook example of the distinction this investigation is trying to preserve: a strange photograph is evidence that something strange was photographed. It is not automatically evidence for the explanation later attached to it.
7. Ziad Jarrah’s relative and Isr*eli espionage
Status: Espionage case documented. Family relationship reported. 9/11 connection unproven.
Ali al-Jarrah was arrested in Lebanon and accused by Lebanese authorities of spying for Isr*el over many years. Reporting identified him as a relative, often described as a cousin, of Flight 93 hijacker Ziad Jarrah. Lebanese authorities reported confessions and espionage activity. What the public record does not establish is an operational connection between Ali al-Jarrah’s intelligence activity and Ziad Jarrah’s role in 9/11.
8. Did Mossad orchestrate 9/11?
Status: Unsupported.
No credible investigation has produced evidence demonstrating that Mossad planned or directed the September 11 att*cks. The evidentiary record instead traces the operation through al-Qaeda, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden and the 19 hijackers.
9. Did Isr*eli intelligence know beforehand?
Status: General warning activity documented. Specific foreknowledge unproven.
Various foreign intelligence services warned the United States about al-Qaeda thre*ts before September 2001. That is materially different from possessing advance knowledge of the date, targets and operational plan for 9/11. No publicly established evidence demonstrates that Isr*eli intelligence possessed that level of specific foreknowledge.
10. The Odigo warning
Status: Reported warning. 9/11 connection unproven.
Employees of Isr*eli messaging company Odigo reportedly received a threatening message shortly before the att*cks. The episode was investigated, but contemporary accounts said the message did not identify the World Trade Center or provide information specific enough to prevent the operation. No established link between its sender and the hijackers emerged publicly.
WTC 7, the towers and controlled-demolition claims
11. Was WTC 7 deliberately demolished?
Status: Not established.
No aircraft struck World Trade Center 7. The 47-story building burned for hours before collapsing late that afternoon. NIST concluded that uncontrolled fires produced progressive structural failure. Its investigation considered the possibility of explosions and reported finding no evidence supporting a blast capable of initiating the collapse.
12. Did WTC 7 enter free fall?
Status: Yes.
This widely repeated claim is substantially correct. NIST divided the visible descent into stages and found that during one stage the north face underwent approximately 2.25 seconds of essentially gravitational acceleration, meaning negligible structural resistance was visible during that interval. NIST argues this occurred after internal failures had already removed support below the façade.
13. Did BBC announce WTC 7’s collapse before it occurred?
Status: Yes.
BBC reported the collapse prematurely while WTC 7 was still standing. That extraordinary broadcasting error genuinely occurred and understandably became one of the most enduring pieces of 9/11 conspiracy material. A premature report demonstrates that BBC received incorrect information before the collapse. By itself, it does not demonstrate foreknowledge of a planned demolition.
14. Did Larry Silverstein say “pull it”?
Status: Authentic remark. Interpretation disputed.
World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein later recalled a conversation in which he used the phrase “pull it.” Controlled-demolition advocates interpreted this as an instruction to demolish WTC 7. Silverstein’s explanation was that he meant withdrawing firefighting personnel because of the danger around the building. No independent evidence has established that the remark was an order to demolish WTC 7.
15. Were the Twin Towers brought down by controlled demolition?
Status: Unsupported by the official structural evidence.
NIST concluded that aircraft impacts, damaged fireproofing, fires and subsequent structural failure initiated the collapses. Its investigation reported finding no corroborating evidence that explosives caused the towers to fall.
16. Was thermitic material found in World Trade Center dust?
Status: Published claim. Heavily disputed.
A 2009 paper claimed that red-gray chips recovered from WTC dust contained active thermitic material. That paper became one of the most frequently cited pieces of scientific evidence among demolition advocates. Its methodology, samples and interpretation have been challenged, and its conclusion has not displaced the mainstream engineering explanation of the collapses.
17. Did NIST test the recovered tower steel for thermite or explosive residue?
Status: No.
This point is frequently misstated, but NIST itself is explicit: it did not test the steel for residues of those compounds. NIST argues that the physical evidence did not indicate controlled demolition and that thermite would have required enormous quantities placed directly on structural components. Critics argue residue testing should nevertheless have been performed. Both positions should be reported rather than pretending the testing occurred.
18. Did witnesses report explosions?
Status: Yes.
Survivors, firefighters and others described explosions, bangs and explosion-like sounds. Those accounts are real. What they establish is more limited. Structural failures, transformers, fuel, elevator systems, collapsing floors and other violent events can also generate explosive sounds. Witness testimony establishes that explosive sounds were heard, not what caused every one of them.
19. Was molten or intensely hot material present at Ground Zero?
Status: Reports documented. Composition disputed.
Witnesses reported intensely hot, glowing or molten-looking material in the debris. The critical evidentiary leap comes afterward. “Hot or molten material existed” does not automatically become “structural steel was melted by thermite,” and that in turn does not automatically become proof of demolition. Those are separate propositions requiring separate evidence.
20. Was the World Trade Center steel removed unusually quickly?
Status: Rapid removal documented. Cover-up inference unproven.
Huge quantities of structural material were cleared, processed and recycled after the disaster. Critics, including engineers, raised concerns about preservation of evidence. Those concerns are legitimate subjects of forensic debate. What has not been established is that the steel was deliberately destroyed specifically to conceal evidence of explosives.
The money before 9/11
21. Were unusual put options placed against United and American Airlines?
Status: Yes.
Unusual bearish trading occurred shortly before the att*cks involving United and American Airlines, the carriers whose aircraft would be hijacked. The timing was suspicious enough to trigger extensive investigation.
22. Did somebody trade with advance knowledge of 9/11?
Status: Investigated. No connection established.
The 9/11 Commission reported that investigators traced apparently suspicious transactions and found explanations unconnected to the plot. One institutional investor accounted for the overwhelming majority of one highly cited United Airlines put-option transaction. Other potentially suspicious financial activity was also examined. Investigators ultimately reported finding no evidence that the trades were executed using advance knowledge of the att*cks. The anomaly existed. The alleged insider connection was not established.
America’s air def*nces and the events of that morning
23. Was there a deliberate “stand-down”?
Status: Unsupported.
US air def*nces failed catastrophically. That fact is distinct from the allegation that officials deliberately ordered fighters not to intercept the hijacked aircraft. No evidence establishing such an intentional stand-down has emerged.
24. Was a m*litary exercise running on 9/11?
Status: Yes.
NORAD was conducting the Vigilant Guardian exercise on September 11. Its coincidence with the real hijackings understandably became a focal point for theories that the exercise confused or paralysed the response. Official investigations concluded that the exercise itself did not delay the response and may actually have increased staffing.
25. Were early official accounts of the air-def*nce response inaccurate?
Status: Yes.
This is one of the more consequential confirmed controversies. The 9/11 Commission found discrepancies between early official descriptions of the FAA/NORAD response and the timeline reconstructed from records. That demonstrates confusion and inaccurate institutional accounts. It does not by itself demonstrate intentional complicity.
26. Was Flight 93 shot down?
Status: Unsupported.
Passenger calls, cockpit evidence, radar data and the reconstructed timeline support the conclusion that Flight 93 crashed as passengers attempted to retake the aircraft. The evidence has not established a US fighter shoot-down.
27. Did a missile hit the Pentagon instead of Flight 77?
Status: False.
Radar data, air-traffic records, eyewitness evidence, wreckage, passenger identities and recovered human remains establish that American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon. The missile theory requires dismissing multiple independent forms of evidence.
28. Why was there so little clear Pentagon impact footage?
Status: Real source of suspicion. Not evidence that the aircraft was absent.
The publicly available surveillance footage was limited and visually poor. That helped the missile theory spread. But bad video evidence does not nullify stronger radar, forensic, passenger and eyewitness evidence.
29. Did a hijacker’s passport survive near the World Trade Center?
Status: Yes.
A passport belonging to hijacker Satam al-Suqami was reportedly recovered near the World Trade Center before the towers collapsed and handed to police. Its survival appears remarkable. Remarkable events, however, are not automatically fabricated events.
30. Were some of the hijackers reported alive afterward?
Status: Early reports were wrong.
In the chaotic aftermath, people sharing names or identifying details with some hijackers were reported alive. Subsequent investigation clarified those mistaken identities. The early reporting errors do not establish that the 19 identified hijackers survived.
Foreknowledge and warnings
31. Did PNAC write about a “new Pearl Harbor” before 9/11?
Status: Yes. Foreknowledge interpretation unsupported.
A 2000 Project for the New American Century report discussed US m*litary transformation and stated that change would likely proceed slowly absent a catastrophic and catalysing event comparable to a new Pearl Harbor. The wording is authentic. What the document does not contain is evidence that its authors knew September 11 was going to happen.
32. Did senior US figures want regime change in Iraq before 9/11?
Status: Yes.
Prominent American policymakers supported removing Saddam Hussein before September 2001. That becomes highly relevant when examining how Iraq entered the post-9/11 political agenda. But a pre-existing desire for regime change is not evidence that those policymakers engineered the att*cks.
33. Did Washington deliberately “let it happen”?
Status: Unsupported.
The LIHOP theory argues that senior officials knew enough to stop 9/11 but intentionally chose not to intervene. What the record establishes is an accumulation of warnings, fragmented intelligence and institutional failures. It does not establish deliberate non-intervention.
34. Was the intelligence system “blinking red”?
Status: Yes.
CIA Director George Tenet used that phrase to describe the thre*t environment before 9/11. The Commission documented a summer of intense al-Qaeda warning traffic and a failure to integrate different pieces of intelligence effectively.
35. Did Bush receive a briefing titled “Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”?
Status: Yes.
President George W. Bush received the Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001. Its title remains one of the most arresting facts in the pre-9/11 record. The briefing discussed al-Qaeda’s interest in striking inside the United States. It did not provide the date, targets or complete operational plan for September 11.
36. Had anyone imagined aircraft being used as weapons before 9/11?
Status: Yes.
Scenarios involving hijacked or suicidal aircraft existed in security planning before September 2001. Therefore, the sweeping claim that such an idea was literally unimaginable before 9/11 is inaccurate. That is still very different from possessing intelligence revealing the actual plot.
The Saudi connection
37. Did future hijackers receive assistance after arriving in California?
Status: Yes.
Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar received practical help after reaching Southern California. Omar al-Bayoumi assisted them with settling into the area. The dispute concerns why he helped them and whether anyone connected to Saudi official structures knew what the men were preparing to do.
38. Did Saudi government-linked individuals knowingly assist the hijackers?
Status: Seriously investigated and contested.
Later FBI material examined possible links involving Bayoumi, Saudi-linked religious or governmental figures and individuals including Fahad al-Thumairy. The original Commission did not establish that the Saudi government knowingly supported the 9/11 plot. But the question did not disappear with the Commission’s report. Victims’ litigation continued, and in 2025 a US judge allowed litigation against Saudi Arabia to proceed past a major dismissal attempt after concluding plaintiffs had plausibly alleged relevant connections. Saudi Arabia continues to deny state responsibility.
39. What were the “28 pages”?
Status: Real classified material. Not proof that Saudi leadership ordered 9/11.
Twenty-eight pages from a congressional inquiry examining possible Saudi connections were withheld from the public for years before being declassified. Their existence was not a conspiracy theory. They documented investigative leads and possible connections serious enough to be examined by Congress. But they did not establish that Saudi leadership ordered or knowingly approved the 9/11 att*cks.
The 9/11 Commission itself
40. Was the entire Commission a cover-up?
Status: Unsupported as a blanket claim.
The independent bipartisan Commission conducted more than 1,000 interviews and reviewed huge quantities of evidence. Its ten commissioners, five Republicans and five Democrats, issued their report without dissent. That does not make every conclusion immune from criticism. But alleging that the entire investigation was fabricated requires considerably more evidence than showing that the process had limitations.
41. Did the Bush administration resist aspects of the investigation?
Status: Yes.
The White House resisted or negotiated over several aspects of the independent inquiry. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney ultimately appeared together before the Commission in private. They were not under oath, and there was no official recording or transcript of the session. The administration had also initially sought tighter limitations on questioning before later conceding ground. This does not prove a cover-up. It does mean claims that the investigation proceeded without institutional resistance are incorrect.
Iraq and what followed
42. Did Iraq carry out 9/11?
Status: No.
The September 11 operation was carried out by al-Qaeda. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not carry out the att*cks. Yet 9/11 fundamentally altered the political environment in which the United States subsequently invaded Iraq in 2003. The distinction between who carried out 9/11 and which countries were later invaded in the response era is essential.
43. Did the post-9/11 w*rs result in 4.5–4.7 million deaths?
Status: Serious research estimate, with an important qualification.
Brown University’s Costs of War project estimates that direct and indirect deaths across major post-9/11 w*r zones total at least 4.5–4.7 million. Approximately 905,000–940,000 were estimated to have died through direct w*r violence, while another 3.6–3.8 million are estimated indirect deaths arising from consequences including disease, malnutrition, destruction of healthcare systems and economic collapse. This does not mean “America killed 4.7 million people.” Multiple combatants contributed to direct deaths, while the indirect estimate concerns the broader reverberating effects of the w*rs.
44. Were more than 38 million people displaced?
Status: Yes, according to Costs of War research.
Brown estimates that more than 38 million people were displaced from Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, the Philippines, Libya and Syria during post-9/11 conflicts.
45. Did the burden fall disproportionately on Muslim-majority countries?
Status: Geographically yes. Religious death total cannot be calculated from these studies.
Many of the principal post-9/11 w*r zones, including Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Libya, are Muslim-majority countries. It is therefore accurate to say much of the destruction fell on Muslim-majority societies. It is not accurate to convert Brown’s 4.5–4.7 million estimate into “4.7 million Muslims killed.” The research measures deaths by conflict geography and causation, not religion.
46. Did the post-9/11 w*rs cost only $8 trillion?
Status: The $8 trillion figure is narrower than the global economic cost.
Brown estimates that US post-9/11 w*r spending and obligations total around $8 trillion. That is not a comprehensive estimate of everything the conflicts cost humanity. It does not capture every loss suffered by foreign governments, businesses, families and infrastructure, nor the complete economic opportunity costs and all future borrowing costs. The system also became global. Brown reports US counter-terrorism activity in 78 countries, a category encompassing different forms of activity including combat, security assistance and other operations. That does not mean America “att*cked 78 countries.”
Twenty-five years later
47. Trump’s 25th-anniversary 9/11 commemoration
Status: Event verified. Characterisations of the speech are interpretive.
On September 8, 2026, President Donald Trump joined a Tunnel to Towers event on the Ellipse commemorating the 25th anniversary, per AP’s coverage of the event. He honoured victims and first responders and posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Welles Crowther, the “Man in the Red Bandana.” Trump also discussed his own experiences and recollections surrounding September 11. Some critics interpreted self-referential elements of Trump’s 9/11 remarks negatively. Whether those passages were “self-congratulatory” is a judgement, not an independently measurable fact.
48. Did Cantor Fitzgerald lose 658 employees?
Status: Yes.
Cantor Fitzgerald lost 658 employees in the World Trade Center att*cks. That established number matters because alternative figures have circulated online.
49. Was Mayor Zohran Mamdani pressured not to attend the 25th-anniversary commemoration?
Status: Yes.
A petition urging New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani not to attend the official 9/11 commemoration surpassed 100,000 signatures by the anniversary period, per AP’s coverage of the controversy. Mamdani nevertheless participated in remembrance activities.
50. Was opposition to Mamdani simply Islamophobia?
Status: Mixed motives. Explicit Islamophobic rhetoric also documented.
Some relatives of victims and political opponents cited Mamdani’s policies, appointments and political positions. Those objections cannot automatically be reduced to religious prejudice. At the same time, openly anti-Muslim rhetoric surrounded the controversy. Rudy Giuliani, for example, argued against Mamdani’s participation during remarks that included sweeping claims about Islam, while September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows defended Mamdani and condemned Islamophobic efforts to exclude him. Both realities can exist simultaneously.
51. Were Muslims among those killed on 9/11?
Status: Yes.
Muslims were among the nearly 3,000 people killed in the World Trade Center, Pentagon and aircraft. The historical shorthand that positioned “Muslims” on one side of 9/11 and “Americans” on another erased Muslim victims, Muslim Americans and the enormous diversity of the people caught inside the att*cks.
52. Did anti-Muslim hate crime surge after 9/11?
Status: Yes. Dramatically.
FBI-reported anti-Islamic hate-crime incidents rose from 28 in 2000 to 481 in 2001, an increase of more than sixteen-fold. Twenty-five years later, reported incidents have never returned to the pre-9/11 level.
The surveillance state
53. Did the PATRIOT Act transform government powers?
Status: Yes.
President George W. Bush signed the USA PATRIOT Act on October 26, 2001, just weeks after 9/11. The legislation expanded tools available for intelligence gathering, criminal investigations, information sharing and immigration enforcement. Supporters argued those powers were needed to stop another catastrophic att*ck. Civil-liberties advocates argued they weakened privacy protections and enabled excessive surveillance. Whatever one’s judgement of those policies, the factual conclusion is difficult to dispute: September 11 permanently changed the legal and institutional architecture of American security.
54. Afghanistan, Iraq and the final question
The United States invaded Afghanistan after 9/11 to target al-Qaeda and remove the Taliban government that had sheltered its leadership.
Two years later came Iraq, a country that did not carry out the September 11 att*cks.
What followed grew far beyond two conventional w*rs.
It became an international architecture of m*litary deployments, intelligence programmes, detention systems, drone campaigns, surveillance, counter-terrorism partnerships and domestic security powers.
The evidence does not support one simple conclusion in which every 9/11 conspiracy theory was secretly correct.
It supports something more complicated.
The al-Qaeda plot is extensively documented.
So are extraordinary intelligence failures.
The five Isr*elis were really detained.
The Isr*eli “art student” investigation really existed.
A separate art collective really worked high inside the North Tower, although the explosives theory attached to its boxes remains unsupported.
Ali al-Jarrah really became the subject of an Isr*eli espionage case and was reported to be related to Ziad Jarrah, without evidence connecting that espionage to 9/11.
WTC 7 really experienced a period of free fall.
BBC really reported its collapse prematurely.
NIST really did not test the recovered tower steel specifically for thermite or explosive residue, while maintaining that the structural evidence did not support demolition.
Unusual airline trades really happened, and investigators said they found no connection to advance knowledge.
The US intelligence system really was described as “blinking red.”
Bush really received a briefing warning that Bin Laden wanted to strike inside America.
A m*litary exercise really was taking place as the hijackings began, but investigators did not establish a deliberate stand-down.
Saudi-linked assistance to future hijackers became the subject of years of investigation and litigation, without proof that Saudi leadership ordered the att*cks.
And the Bush White House really imposed conditions on its cooperation with the independent Commission, including a joint, private, unsworn Bush-Cheney session.
Those facts do not add up to proof of one hidden master conspiracy.
But neither should real anomalies be erased simply because unreliable theories grew around them.
Twenty-five years later, the better question is not:
“Were the conspiracy theories right?”
It is:
Which claims were false? Which distorted genuine evidence? Which were eventually explained? And which questions still deserve scrutiny?
Because the consequences that followed September 11 require no theory at all.
Nearly 3,000 people were killed that morning.
The w*rs that followed are associated with an estimated 4.5–4.7 million direct and indirect deaths across major w*r zones. More than 38 million people were displaced. US federal costs alone reached roughly $8 trillion, while the broader global economic damage extends beyond that figure.
Surveillance expanded.
Governments fell.
W*rs crossed borders.
Entire generations inherited decisions made in the shadow of one morning.
And twenty-five years later, separating what is proven from what is merely believed may matter more than ever.
By Shizza Umer
Sources
NIST World Trade Center Towers Investigation
Brown University Costs of War: Overview
Brown University Costs of War: 4.5 Million Deaths Study
Pew Research Center: Anti-Muslim Hate Crimes After 9/11
US Department of Justice: PATRIOT Act Implementation, October 26, 2001
Salon investigation into the Isr*eli “art students”
