22 July 2005                                                                                                    SENT VIA FEDEX SHIPPER # 8508-7786-4263

   (Receipt Signature Required)

 

Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld

Secretary of Defense

1000 Defense Pentagon

Washington, DC 20301

 

Subject:            Request for a Letter of Confirmation

Reference:        September 11, 2001 and the Events at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C.

 

Dear Secretary Rumsfeld:

 

I was pleased by your recent rejection of a suggestion by Senator Edward Kennedy that you tender your resignation as Secretary of the Department of Defense.  We, the taxpayers, need you to remain in your current post for the duration of the current administration.

 

Regarding us taxpayers, we sometimes internalize the impression that U.S. government employees, especially those >inside the beltway=, feel that we, the taxpayers, work for them.  I have never felt that you engender that impression, but I would like to emphasize that one context of the subject is the fact that you work for me, a taxpayer.  Again, I do not believe you have forgotten that fundamental fact.

 

Background

 

I am from New York, New York.  I am a >New Yorker= and always will be a >New Yorker.= Family members reside in the New York metropolitan area.  Indeed, a close relative is a high ranking official in the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), and previously reported directly to then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. (On the morning of September 11, 2001 we temporarily lost cell phone contact with this relative, but all was/is Awell.@).  For these and all other obvious reasons, the events of September 11, 2001 will remain, for me, a permanent issue of deep patriotic and personal grief.

 

Current Discussion

 

As you are aware, the taxpayers are constantly being bombarded with direct and indirect discussions regarding the events of September 11, 2001.  A prominent recent discussion which reemphasized the ongoing relevance of September 11, 2001 came from President George Bush on June 28, 2005 during the address to his (and your) subordinates at Fort Bragg.  By not-later-than the third paragraph of his talk, which mostly dealt with the war in Iraq, President Bush exclaimed:

 

AThe war reached our shores on September the 11th, 2001. The terrorists who attacked us -- and the terrorists we face -- murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance, and despises all dissent.@

 

   Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld

July 22, 2005

Page 2 of 3

 

 

The carnage in Madrid of March 11, 2004, and the recent catastrophe in London of July 7, 2005 again prompted a bombardment of the taxpayer which specified the ongoing relevance of September 11, 2001.  As the Fort Bragg audience was told,  September 11, 2001 is not Abehind us.@

 

Paraphrasing President Bush, we are very fortunate to live in a country that loves freedom, encourages tolerance and has, as a pretext to its very existence, dissent.  Indeed, President Bush=s nominee for 109^th Supreme Court Justice, Judge John Roberts, refers to our nation as a Aconstitutional democracy.@

 

September 11, 2001 and the Events at the Pentagon in Washington, D. C.

 

On November 10, 2001 President George Bush made the following statement to the United Nations:

 

ALet us never tolerate outrageous conspiracy theories concerning the attacks of September the 11th, malicious lies that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.@

 

It is by the grace of God that you were both present at the Pentagon and not killed by the event there on September 11, 2001.  You demonstrated a patriotic integrity, for all to see, by walking to that area of the Pentagon that had been struck by an aircraft.  In the effort to assist in any way possible, you personally were at the crash site within minutes of the event. 

 

Certainly, from your first-hand witnessing, there are no Aconspiracy theories@ about what crashed into the Pentagon. The official rendition was that American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, killing all crew  and 58 passengers.  The DOD Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP) issued a report on November 16, 2001 which states that, by use of bodily remains, all Flight 77 crash victims were positively identified.  Given that separable, individual bodily remains survived the conflagration of Flight 77, to such an extent as to allow positive identification of the victims, certainly the 60 tons of Boeing 757 aircraft components also survived at the Pentagon; a scene that you personally observed on September 11, 2001.   It is in this context that I make a simple but specific request.

 

Request for a Letter of Confirmation - Background

 

The aforementioned taxpayer bombardment includes the allegation that a Boeing 757 did not crash into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  This allegation is the central issue of my request.  Clearly this allegation is designed to Ashift the blame away from the terrorists themselves, away from the guilty.@ 

I have read innumerable documents and reports on the events of September 11, 2001.  This readership includes the >National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States= which was closed on August 21, 2004.  I noted that all ten 9/11 Commission Members signed their names to the report.  As public servants working for the taxpayer, the Commission Members believe what is stated in their report.  Ironically, unlike yourself, the Commission Members were not present at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001.  And yet despite that lack of direct personal witnessing of the Pentagon event, the Commission Members unabashedly signed the report, doing so in the patriotic spirit of the proverbial John Hancock.  My request involves similar behavior on your part.