Litigant in chief (continued) BY ALEX IRVINE

Phoenix: There’s a big difference between suing the government for negligence and alleging a criminal conspiracy.

Mariani: Well, number one, Feinberg was conspiring with my attorney. How do I know this? I’ve got a letter. He didn’t know I had it. I will not tell you how I got it.

Berg: RICO, the Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organizations act, was created by Congress to go after the Mafia or the mob. It’s our strong position that there’s a mob in the White House. For a RICO lawsuit, you have to have an ongoing pattern of conduct before, during, and after an event. We have that. On our amended complaint, we have 100 notices that this government had of the events of 9/11 before it occurred, and it’s our position that the government failed to prevent it or warn the American public. Afterwards we have the coverup, which is apparent in Condoleezza Rice not wanting to take sworn testimony, George Bush reluctantly forming the 9/11 commission and then not giving them the PDBs [presidential daily briefings], not releasing other government documentation. We’ve told many radio stations that if George Bush will release the PDBs, the FAA documents, the NORAD documents, and we look at it and we’re wrong, we’ll withdraw our lawsuit. We know they won’t; they can’t because they’re involved.

If you look back in history, now we’re finding out that President Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor two weeks before, but he wanted to get the US into World War 2. It’s very sad that we had to lose men and women, ships and planes, to get us into the war. But more in line with what people can identify with is the Northwoods Doctrine from 1962, whereby the Joint Chiefs of Staff had a plan whereby they would cause death and destruction to American citizens and property, to blame it on Cuba. President Kennedy stopped that. Unfortunately that was probably one of the steps that led to his assassination. He was doing things that didn’t make certain people happy.

Now the question is: What could Bush get out of it? Millions of dollars. There’s a new pipeline in Afghanistan, the opium fields are open again now. Just look at Halliburton, which is Cheney. That’s only the tip of the iceberg. These are people who are supposedly doing honest business with our government, but these are all no-bid contracts that were given out to Bush’s friends.

We’ve got a petition on our Web site demanding that people cover this story. We’re asking people to stand shoulder to shoulder and demand that what’s occurred here stop. This administration has taken away more rights than anyone else. After 9/11 they created the Stabilization Act, under which Kenneth Feinberg could determine how much a person’s life was worth and take a check right out of the US Treasury. This was never done before in US history. It wasn’t done after Oklahoma City, it wasn’t done in any wars. Why was it done here? For the purpose of hushing up people. If you take money from the fund, you’re prevented from pursuing lawsuits.

People have called Ellen and said, ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t with you, but I had children and I had to go to the fund.’ People gave millions of dollars to the Red Cross which was supposed to go to families, but they gave it to FEMA workers in New York and forced people into the fund. Ellen didn’t go to the fund, but in a way she should have because she’s on Social Security and is having trouble making ends meet.

One unanswered question is that FEMA went to New York City on September 10. How did they know to be there? On September 7, Jeb Bush declared martial law in Florida. What did he know that we didn’t know? The unanswered questions are there.

Phoenix: Why couldn’t coincidence, or simple incompetence, explain all this? It’s not difficult to believe that this administration is incompetent. It’s a little more difficult to believe that they would deliberately allow the murder of nearly 3000 people.

Berg: One hundred and sixteen government agencies and failsafe systems would have had to fail on that one day. The odds of that are one in four million. Let’s assume we had no foreknowledge of 9/11 — which is an out-and-out lie, because in 1993 we knew al Qaeda had plans to use planes to go into the World Trade Center and the Sears Tower. But at 8:20 a.m. on 9/11 when the first plane goes off course, nothing happened. When Payne Stewart’s plane went off course a few years ago, jets were scrambled to go up and see what was happening, and they ended up escorting that plane until it ultimately crashed. Why didn’t this happen on 9/11?

At 8:48, when it was announced that a plane had "accidentally" hit the World Trade Center, the government knew we were under attack. Every fighter jet in the US should have been scrambled. At that point there were one or two other planes off course. If planes had been scrambled from all bases, we submit regretfully that Ellen’s husband Louis Neil Mariani would not have survived, but that second plane never would have hit the World Trade Center. But instead of scrambling every jet in the country, they scrambled planes from Cape Cod — instead of Long Island — coming in at something like one-third throttle.

Why didn’t the Secret Service just come in and jump on the president and take him out of that room? Vice President Cheney was in the White House, and the Secret Service came in, picked him up, and carried him off to some secret location; but George Bush was allowed to sit in a classroom with a goat story for 18 minutes after being told that the second plane had hit the WTC. Not only was he jeopardizing his own life, he was jeopardizing the lives of those children, unless he knew nothing was going to happen there.

Mariani: Can I say something? Mr. Bush showed more reaction when he thought he’d lost the election than he did when he was told about the second plane.

Berg: The nonreaction from him when we were under attack made me think something was wrong. And I remember seeing debris from the plane in western Pennsylvania, I think five miles from the site of the crash, and after the first couple hours you never saw the story again. Now I’m not trying to take away from the heroes, because as far as I’m concerned every person who died on 9/11 was a hero, but there’s no way that plane in western Pennsylvania was not shot down. If a plane crashes, the debris does not bounce five miles. Now if they could shoot down that plane, why couldn’t they shoot down the second plane before it hit the World Trade Center? Why were San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown and others told not to fly on 9/11? Why weren’t Ellen Mariani and the American public told not to fly on 9/11? Why did John Ashcroft stop flying commercial aircraft in July 2001 and use military charters? What about the supposed cell-phone calls about boxcutters? Cell phones don’t work on airplanes. European intelligence agencies are quoted in Time magazine as saying they’d warned us, and the administration could have stopped 9/11 if they’d wanted to.

There’s been no investigation. The 9/11 commission made a deal that two members could look at some documents in the White House, make notes, and then leave those notes in the White House. And both of the people they’ve agreed to let see the notes are in bed with the administration. Max Cleland, they obviously had something on him. He was the most outspoken member of the 9/11 commission, but they gave him a nice promotion up to the Import-Export Bank. It was a shock to the administration that the chair of the commission, Governor Kean of New Jersey — a Republican — said that 9/11 was preventable.

We’ve started to become the focal point for a lot of groups looking for information. A lot of people felt it smelled bad from day one. Everyone should be asking these questions. The Democratic candidates, everyone. Even Bush, but he can’t because he was involved.

Phoenix: Will any court actually let this lawsuit go ahead?

Berg: What we’re trying to do right now is spread the word around the country and around the world. Hits on our Web site are growing by leaps and bounds. Most people do not believe we’ve been told the whole truth about 9/11. Fifty percent believe we’ve been lied to about the administration being involved with it. We feel that we’re going in the right direction.

Mariani: My gut feeling is the truth will come out and justice will be served. We want a better world, we want a better country. We do not want history repeating this ever again.

Berg: I really feel that with Congress turning up the pressure after [Treasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill’s comments, and now with our lawsuit, by June of 2004 Bush will be forced to resign.

Alex Irvine can be reached at airvine@phx.com