Will Doubletree Hotel Video Show Pentagon Impact?

Conflicting stories make it unclear, yet there are certainly more tapes to come
By Steve Watson
Infowars
Nov. 03, 2006

Rumours have begun circulating today that a video due to be released in one week's time, just prior to the midterm elections, will show clear and crisp footage of American Airlines flight 77 hitting the Pentagon on September 11th 2001.

Such a release may sway uncertain voters into sticking with the devils they know rather than the devils they don't as far as the "protection" of America against Al Qaeda goes.

The video in question is the Doubletree hotel video, which government watchdog/ sometime propaganda outlet Judicial Watch says has been promised to them on November 9th.

9/11 Blog site Killtown states:

"So how much do you want to bet that this Doubletree Hotel security video will be released before this Tuesday (election day) to ’shock & awe’ the voters in hopes to sway the elections, especially if this video finally shows a plane hitting the Pentagon?”

In answer to this question, prolific Blogger Kurt Nimmo states:

"If I was a betting man, I’d bet the farm on it."

I wouldn't be so sure.

There are conflicting and confusing stories as to whether the Doubletree video shows anything at all. The FBI, in response to a FOIA request to release all tapes of the Pentagon on 9/11, has stated to attorney Scott Hodes, representative of Mr Scott Bingham who runs the website www.flight77.info, that the Doubletree hotel video did not capture the impact:



The same statement also made it clear that the Citgo gas station tape also did not capture anything. This statement was apparently proven to be true last month when that video was released.

It remains a mystery why the FBI confiscated the gas station and hotel security videos within minutes of the crash and why they did not release these videos for five years, given that they say they show nothing.

Two conflicting stories muddy the waters on this issue however.

According to a CNN FOIA request of 2002, a nearby hotel's video DID capture the impact. The following exchange is from a CNN transcript of a report on the 2002 release of the original "parking lot" footage, the four grainy video frames:

MCINTYRE (on camera): These pictures are the first to be made public, but they are not the only images of the plane hitting the Pentagon. Sources tell CNN that the FBI on September 11th confiscated a nearby hotel's security camera videotape, which also captured the attack. So far, the Justice Department has refused to release that videotape. Aaron.

BROWN: Why? Do we have any idea why they won't release it?

MCINTYRE: Well, the claim - we have filed a freedom of information request for it. They claim that it might provide some intelligence to somebody else who might want to do harm to the United States. But officials I talked to here at the Pentagon say they don't see any national security or criminal value to that tape. The FBI tends to hold on to things. But the government may eventually release that tape, and if they do, we'll bring it to you.

Furthermore, a story by Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough that appeared in the Washington Times 10 days after 9/11 backed up this claim, pointing out that hotel staff had sat watching the video surveillance in horror before the FBI arrived and shut down the scene:

A security camera atop a hotel close to the Pentagon may have captured dramatic footage of the hijacked Boeing 757 airliner as it slammed into the western wall of the Pentagon. Hotel employees sat watching the film in shock and horror several times before the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation. It may be the only video available of the attack. The Pentagon has told broadcast news reporters that its security cameras did not capture the crash. The attack occurred close to the Pentagon’s heliport, an area that normally would be under 24-hour security surveillance, including video monitoring.

The confusion mounts as there are suggestions that this video may not be the Doubletree video but a tape taken from cameras at the Sheraton National Hotel which overlooks I395 and the Pentagon, and has a clear view of the impact zone.



The FBI says, however, that there is no Sheraton video in existence. So which is it to be? Does a hotel video capture the impact or doesn't it? Was Gertz simply making his story up about the hotel staff seeing the video? And if the FBI is telling the truth about the Sheraton Hotel then why did the Sheraton, a major building in the area, not have any cameras in operation?

Whichever story you believe, whether the footage does or does not show the impact, the fact that the footage exists is not denied. So something does not tally up here.

The FBI further admits that it has a total of 85 video tapes seized on 9/11 from businesses and traffic poles in the area. It is maintained that only the previously released parking lot footage shows the impact. How unlikely is it that out of another 84 confirmed surveillance tapes directed at the building, none of them captured anything?

I predict that if the Doubletree video shows anything at all it will only serve to bolster the straw man argument and further hype up the debate over what actually hit the Pentagon on 9/11.



As Killtown points out:

"if this video does indeed show a plane flying into the Pentagon, it will not actually show the plane hit, but in fact will show it disappear behind the Pentagon’s west wall (see aerial photo above) and then a fireball will obviously be seen coming up over the roof. This will be very similar to what was seen with the first video of the 2nd WTC crash shown “live” on TV which shows a plane (with no discernible markings) come across the screen and disappear behind the North Tower (which is blocking the view of the South Tower) and then a fireball is seen erupting from the other side.

In this sense the video would fit right into the ludicrous "no planer" theories which suggests that planes hitting the WTC towers were CGI edited into TV footage. This would then further stir debates about no plane hitting the Pentagon.

Unanswered questions need to be explored, but the Pentagon issue must not become the core focus of the 9/11 truth movement. There is evidence that suggests a 757 hit the Pentagon, there is evidence that suggests something else hit the Pentagon. What is not in doubt, however, is that whatever it was, it was not flown by a man who didn't know his way around the inside of single engine cessna and was described by his former flight instructors as "A weak student who was wasting resources."

The danger is clearly that the government will use its media mouthpieces in particular Fox News to hype the Pentagon issue until it becomes the de facto keystone of alternative explanations behind 9/11. At the point when that crescendo reaches its peak crystal clear footage of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon (whether real or faked) will be released, knocking down the straw man argument that the establishment itself erected.

The media obsession with this one facet of an entire smorgasbord of 9/11 questions, and their refusal to address more hardcore 9/11 evidence, leads us to fear that this is the case.

We need to concentrate on the concrete facts that point towards a cover up of complicity and not on wild speculation that will only hinder the movement as a whole.












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