Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of 9-11

On the eve of a Republican National Convention invoking 9/11 symbols, sound bytes and imagery, half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens overall say that some of our leaders “knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act,” according to the poll conducted by Zogby International. The poll of New York residents was conducted from Tuesday August 24 through Thursday August 26, 2004. Overall results have a margin of sampling error of +/-3.5.

The poll is the first of its kind conducted in America that surveys attitudes regarding US government complicity in the 9/11 tragedy. Despite the acute legal and political implications of this accusation, nearly 30% of registered Republicans and over 38% of those who described themselves as “very conservative” supported the claim.

The charge found very high support among adults under 30 (62.8%), African-Americans (62.5%), Hispanics (60.1%), Asians (59.4%), and “Born Again” Evangelical Christians (47.9%).

Less than two in five (36%) believe that the 9/11 Commission had “answered all the important questions about what actually happened on September 11th,” and two in three (66%) New Yorkers (and 56.2% overall) called for another full investigation of the “still unanswered questions” by Congress or Elliot Spitzer, New York’s Attorney General. Self-identified “very liberal” New Yorkers supported a new inquiry by a margin of three to one, but so did half (53%) of “very conservative” citizens across the state. The call for a deeper probe was especially strong from Hispanics (75.6%), African-Americans (75.3%) citizens with income from $15-25K (74.3%), women (62%) and Evangelicals (59.9%).

W. David Kubiak, executive director of 911truth.org, the group that commissioned the poll, expressed genuine surprise that New Yorkers’ belief in the administration’s complicity is as high or higher than that seen overseas. “We’re familiar with high levels of 9/11 skepticism abroad where there has been open debate of the evidence for US government complicity. On May 26th the Toronto Star reported a national poll showing that 63% of Canadians are also convinced US leaders had ‘prior knowledge’ of the attacks yet declined to act. There was no US coverage of this startling poll or the facts supporting the Canadians’ conclusions, and there has been virtually no debate on the victim families’ scores of still unanswered questions. I think these numbers show that most New Yorkers are now fed up with the silence, and that politicians trying to exploit 9/11 do so at their peril. The 9/11 case is not closed and New York’s questions are not going away.”

Nicholas Levis of NY911truth.org, an advisor on the poll, agrees, “The 9/11 Commission gave us a plenty of ‘recommendations’, but far more plentiful were the discrepancies, gaps and omissions in their supposedly ‘final’ report. How can proposals based on such deficient findings ever make us safe? We think these poll numbers are basically saying, ‘Wait just a minute. What about the scores of still outstanding questions? What about the unexplained collapses of WTC 7, our air defenses, official accountability, the chain of command on 9/11, the anthrax, insider trading & FBI field probes? There’s so much more to this story that we need to know about.’ When such a huge majority of New Yorkers want a new investigation, it will be interesting to see how quickly Attorney General Spitzer and our legislators respond.”

SCOPE: The poll covered five areas of related interest: 1) Iraq — do New Yorkers think that our leaders “deliberately misled” us before the war (51.2% do); 2) the 9/11 Commission — did it answer all the “important questions” (only 36% said yes); 3) the inexplicable and largely unreported collapse of the third WTC skyscraper on 9/11 — what was its number (28% of NYC area residents knew); 4) the question on complicity; and 5) how many wanted a new 9/11 probe. All inquiries about questions, responses and demographics should be directed to Zogby International.