Check out my new story in the latest issue of Vanity Fair, August, 2006 issue, with Hillary Swank lookin’ swanky on the cover. It’s called “Click Here For Conspiracy,” and I’ll give you the deck which reads: “With $6,000 and a laptop computer, three kids from upstate New York made a documentary about 9/11 that spread across the Internet and threw millions for a loop.” The documentary, called Loose Change, can be viewed on Google Video, where it has been riding the Top 100 for months. The editors of Vanity Fair continue to amaze with their airing of issues which others have found too controversial for coverage. Things I couldn't get into the story due to space constraints: questions around the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7, which fell at 5:20 p.m. on September 11th, after suffering only a few containable fires on the upper floors (the building also housed the New York offices of the FBI, CIA, the SEC, and the Department of Defense); questions around the numerous Pentagon-sponsored war games going on, on that day, which took the elaborate air defense system of the United States away from the attacks, confusing air traffic controllers and Air Force pilots alike. ("Is this real world or an exercise?" one distraught flight controller infamously asked after being told that hijacked planes were hurtling toward New York.) Everybody who's interested should read The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, by David Ray Griffin, a Professor of Religion and Theology at the Claremont School of Theology; it's a well-researched book. As we approach the 5th anniversary of September 11th, I remember Scott Saber, who died in the attacks at age 36 (he was an Executive Director of Equities at UBS Warburg in WTC 1); I went to high school with Scott at Exeter and can't think of him without remembering how he made me laugh, and made academy life infinitely more fun. His mother, Elaine Saber, is a signatory to the 12 questions in the "9/11 Truth Statement" published by 9/11truth.org on October 26, 2004 (other signatories include authors, politicians, and military officials along with more than 50 victims' family members; "9/11 truth" debunkers have taken to attacking the signers of the statement themselves, but still no one has provided satisfactory answers to all of their questions):

1. Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
2. Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
3. Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
4. Why hasn't a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
5. Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
6. Why has Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of advance warnings, been publicly silenced with a gag order requested by Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bush-appointed judge?
7. How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA's radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
8. How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent?
9. What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
10. Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
11. Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
12. Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?

I hope you enjoy my piece and also the other great articles in the August issue of Vanity Fair (the best: Christopher Hitchens' devastating piece on the victims of Agent Orange, "The Vietnam Syndrome," with unforgettable photographs by James Nachtwey).