Barry Jennings Uncut: 20-minute interview - Really essential viewing.
[Short summary: Barry Jennings gives clear first-hand witness testimony that there were serious explosions inside WTC7 very early in the morning of 9/11 before the Twin Towers fell. (Therefore, the fires in WTC7 cannot have been started by falling debris.)
He also states that Giuliani's emergency bunker in that building was evacuated at least half an hour before Zelikow's 9/11 Commission says it was.]
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In his brief introductory text, Jason Berman explains the circumstances of this original interview. It took place during Jennings' lunchtime break, so time was presumably limited. Further details become clearer, including the timeline, and the claim that Barry Jennings later received threatening phone calls at work.
Barry Jennings looks and sounds like an honest man, and he could have had no earthly reason to make any of this up. It was and is exceptionally brave of him to have spoken out like this. (Another whistleblower.) By contrast, Mike Hess, with whom Jennings was trapped in WTC7, never responded to repeated requests for an interview.
(Haven't had the chance to listen to all of it yet.)
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Editing this in real time (listening to the tape and pressing the Pause button):
- Jennings was already on his way to work when he got a phone call telling him to go to the OEM's Command Center on Floor 23 of WTC7 because "a small Cessna had hit the WTC" (i.e. the call came sometime shortly after 08:46 am). He met Hess on the way into the building. He hadn't previously known the guy [who is a very prominent lawyer and a close friend of Giuliani - now, in 2008, a business partner].
- He was told (by someone, then or later) that Hess was there to meet with Giuliani (in WTC7). But Giuliani was nowhere to be seen by the time they arrived. The place was already deserted by around 9 am.
- Jennings says he and Hess must have arrived in the OEM just as, or very shortly before, the second plane hit (9:03 am). Did not hear or see the impact. The OEM OEC was essentially soundproof, the only connection to the outside world was through "big, huge TV screens", none of which were working. Jennings says this was "very unusual" and that it was "very unusual" to find no-one there. ("Not normal. Not normal at all.")
- Very shortly thereafter, he got a phone call from an unnamed "higher-up", who asked him where he was and then paused when he got the answer. He then told Jennings to leave the building immediately. (The call was presumably to Barry Jennings' cellphone, and not -- as depicted in the BBC's grotesque fictional adaptation -- to a landline in the OEM office.)
[QUESTIONS: Which "higher-up" phoned Jennings and told him to go to the OEM? Who called him when he got there and told him to get out? Was it the same person? Very understandably, Jennings names no names. He is undoubtedly contractually obligated not to name such names. He is already taking a big risk just by going public with his story. Hence the threats, presumably.]
- Michael Hess appeared from wherever else had been in the OEM office complex and said "We have to get out of here, there's no-one else here." They both started to leave in a hurry.
- Together, they rushed downstairs and got as far as the 6th floor; then -
- Jennings very clearly states that there was an explosion in WTC7 before the first of the Twin Towers came down. This explosion was powerful enough to damage the stairwell. ("Did it come from below, this explosion?" "It came from below, it came from below. It blew us back.") He clambered back up to the 8th floor. The building had gone dark and was becoming "very, very hot" - so hot that he smashed a window on the 8th floor with a fire-extinguisher, and he and Hess began yelling for help.
- Firemen arrived and started hosing the building. If I understood this bit correctly (it was very much abbreviated in the telling): Jennings was so distressed by the heat that [On Edit] he wanted to climb out, somehow using the firehose. The firemen said: "Don't do that, we'll hold you!" (i.e., we'll come and get you.) Then the first of the Twin Towers collapsed and the firemen "ran away". They eventually came back and then "they ran away again" when the second Tower fell.
- About 90 minutes later, Hess and Jennings are eventually led out by firemen through a hole in the wall in the wrecked foyer, which Jennings describes as "unrecognisable". (He says he had to ask where he was.) He also says he felt himself stepping over bodies in the dark, while the firemen said "Don't look down, don't look down."
- Jennings repeats, very vehemently, his assertion that the explosion that destroyed the stairwell in WTC7 (trapping him and Hess in the building for [On Edit] at least 2 hours) was before either of the Twin Towers had collapsed. Says he saw the Twin Towers, still standing, through the windows of WTC7 after he had made his way back to the 8th floor.
- The Commission interviewed him, once, "years later", and never got back to him.
- "I know what brought that building down: it was the explosions. And not no fuel tanks."
And that's it, essentially.
If I missed anything important, please feel free to add it below.
