With the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks quickly approaching, skepticism about the circumstances surrounding the tragedy is strong, as one in three Americans believe officials in the federal government either assisted or took no action to stop the attacks, according to a recent survey. About 36 percent of the 1,010 respondents in a national Scripps Howard/Ohio University poll said that they thought U.S. government officials were involved in the Sept. 11 atrocities because they wanted the U.S. to go to war in the Middle East. They had proof saying that bin Laden was going to attack the U.S. and that he was going to use airplanes
said Glouster resident Chris Tarantelli. I don't think (government officials) assisted but I agree that they didn't take proper immediate action. Tarantelli was not a respondent in the poll. Sixteen percent of the participants in the poll said they thought explosives secretly planted in the World Trade Center buildings aided their collapse, and about 12 percent said they thought the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile fired by the U.S. military instead of a hijacked airliner, according to the survey. Were we surprised by the results of the survey? Not much
said Guido Stempel, who developed the questionnaire and was involved in analyzing the data. President George Bush's poor popularity ratings, as well as the decreasing American support for the war in Iraq, may have factored into the results of the survey, Stempel said. Participants also expressed discontent and alienation toward the federal government. Fifty-four percent of the respondents said they were personally angrier at the federal government than they used to be. I think more Americans are angry because of the government's reactions to the situation
said junior Nina Pilacoutas, a general art major. They took advantage of the American people. They used protection as a scapegoat
where in reality their intentions were to gain economic strength
instead of fully protecting the American people. Pilacoutas was not a respondent in the poll. More than half of the respondents think America is heading in the wrong direction, and almost 60 percent of those surveyed said they disapproved of the job Bush is doing, according to the survey. The survey was conducted last month by telephone at the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University under a grant from the Scripps Howard Foundation. The margin of error for the poll is four percentage points.
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Janet Nester
