The 5 Unanswered Questions About 9/11

December 1, 2005
Ridgeway, Washington correspondent for the " Village Voice," finds no hidden plot behind the 9/11 terrorist attack. Instead, he cites the open secret of a general and long-standing tendency to put American corporate interest ahead of the interest of citizens. Ridgeway focuses on five key questions: why the government couldn't stop the attack, why it didn't protect us, why we were unaware of plans for the attack, how U.S. "allies" abetted the attack, and why the 9/11 Commission couldn't get at the truth. In separate chapters, Ridgeway examines the political and economic issues behind the questions and offers a grim look at the actions and inactions of the Bush administration, which left the nation vulnerable to the terrorist attack, unwilling or unable to act on intelligence that raised the possibility of such an attack, and still vulnerable to troubling policies and attitudes. The placing of airline profitability above public safety, the coziness existing between regulators and the airlines, and U.S and Middle Eastern funding of Islamic extremists are all elements inadequately explored by the 9/11 Commission, according to Ridgeway.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)