A third of U.S. public believes 9/11 conspiracy theory

The national survey of 1,010 adults also found that anger
against the federal government is at record levels, with 54 percent
saying they “personally are more angry” at the government than they
used to be.

Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national
government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy
theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon.

Suspicions that the 9/11 attacks were “an inside job” – the
common phrase used by conspiracy theorists on the Internet –
quickly have become nearly as popular as decades-old conspiracy
theories that the federal government was responsible for President
John F. Kennedy’s assassination and that it has covered up proof of
space aliens.

Seventy percent of people who give credence to these theories
also say they’ve become angrier with the federal government than
they used to be.

Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is “very
likely” or “somewhat likely” that federal officials either
participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon or took no action to stop them “because they wanted the
United States to go to war in the Middle East.”

“One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right,”
said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission
on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also called the 9/11
commission.) His congressionally appointed investigation concluded
that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did
not participate in, the attacks by al Qaeda five years ago.

“A lot of people I’ve encountered believe the U.S. government
was involved,” Hamilton said. “Many say the government planned the
whole thing. Of course, we don’t think the evidence leads that way
at all.”

The poll also found that 16 percent of Americans speculate that
secretly planted explosives, not burning passenger jets, were the
real reason the massive twin towers of the World Trade Center
collapsed.

Conspiracy groups for at least two years have also questioned
why the World Trade Center collapsed when fires that heavily
damaged similar skyscrapers around the world did not cause such
destruction. Sixteen percent said it’s “very likely” or “somewhat
likely” that “the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided
by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings.”

Twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military
cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by
terrorists.

That lower percentage may result from an effort by the
conservative Washington-based Judicial Watch advocacy group to
debunk the claim. The group filed claims under the Freedom of
Information Act and got two fill loops released from Pentagon
security cameras.

“Some people claim they can’t see anything, but I see a plane
hitting the Pentagon at incredibly high speed,” said Judicial Watch
President Tom Fitton. “I see the nose of the plane clearly entering
the frame of one video and the tail of the plane entering the
Pentagon in the other video.”

Many conspiracy Web sites have posted the video loops and report
the films are inconclusive or were manipulated by the
government.

“Some folks will never be convinced,” Fitton said. “But I’m
hoping that these videos will dissuade reasonable people from
falling into a trap with these conspiracy theories.”

University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster, author of the
book “Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture,”
said the poll’s findings reflect public anger at the unpopular Iraq
war, realization that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass
destruction and growing doubts of the veracity of the Bush
administration.

“What has amazed me is not that there are conspiracy theories,
but that they didn’t seem to be getting any purchase among the
American public until the last year or so,” Fenster said. “Although
the Iraq war was not directly related to the 9/11 attacks, people
are now looking back at 9/11 with much more skepticism than they
used to.”

Conspiracy-believing participants in the poll agree their
suspicions are recent.

“I certainly didn’t think of conspiracies when 9/11 first
happened,” said Elaine Tripp, 62, of Tabernacle, N.J. “I don’t know
if President Bush was aware of the exact time it was going to
happen. But he certainly didn’t do enough to stop it. Bush was so
intent on having his own little war.”

Garrett Johnson, 19, of Manassas, Va., said it was “well after
the fact” before he started questioning the official explanation of
the attacks. “But then people I know started talking about it. And
the Internet had a lot to do with this. After reading all of the
different articles there, I started to think we weren’t being told
the truth.”

The Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University has
tracked the level of resentment people feel toward the federal
government since 1995, starting shortly after Timothy McVeigh
bombed the federal building in Oklahoma City. Forty-seven percent
then said they, personally, feel “more angry at the federal
government” than they used to. That percentage dropped to 42
percent in 1997, 34 percent in 1998 and only 12 percent shortly
after 9/11 during the groundswell of patriotism and support for the
government after the attacks.

But the new survey found that 77 percent say their friends and
acquaintances have become angrier with government recently and 54
percent say they, themselves, have become angrier – both record
levels.

The survey also found that people who regularly use the Internet
but who do not regularly use so-called “mainstream” media are
significantly more likely to believe in 9/11 conspiracies. People
who regularly read daily newspapers or listen to radio newscasts
were especially unlikely to believe in the conspiracies.

“We know that there are a lot of people now asking questions,”
said Janice Matthews, executive director of 911Truth.org, one of
the most sophisticated Internet sites raising doubts about official
explanations of the attacks. “We didn’t have the Internet after
Pearl Harbor, the Gulf of Tonkin or the Kennedy assassination. But
we live in different times now.”

Matthews’ Web site averaged 4,000 “hits” a day last year, but
currently has at least 12,000 visits every 24 hours. The site,
according to its online policy statement, is dedicated to showing
the public that “elements within the U.S. government must have
orchestrated or participated in the execution of the attacks for
these to have happened the way in which they did.”

Participants in the poll were asked to respond to “several
serious accusations that some people have made against the federal
government in recent years.” Five conspiracy theories were
described and participants were asked if each was “very likely,
somewhat likely or unlikely.”

The level of suspicion of U.S. official involvement in a 9/11
conspiracy was only slightly behind the 40 percent who suspect
“officials in the federal government were directly responsible for
the assassination of President Kennedy” and the 38 percent who
believe “the federal government is withholding proof of the
existence of intelligent life from other planets.”

The poll found that a majority of young adults give at least
some credence to a 9/11 conspiracy compared to less than a fourth
of people 65 or older. Members of racial and ethnic minorities,
people with only a high school education and Democrats were
especially likely to suspect federal involvement in 9/11.

The survey was conducted by telephone from July 6-24 at the
Scripps Survey Research Center at the University of Ohio under a
grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The poll has a margin of
error of 4 percentage points.

Thomas Hargrove is a reporter for Scripps Howard News Service.
Guido H. Stempel III is director of the Scripps Survey Research
Center at Ohio University.