Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Ever since 9/11, investigative reporter Peter Lance has been leading the fight to expose the intelligence gaps that led to 9/11. Now, in the follow-up to his bestselling 1000 Years for Revenge, he returns with devastating new evidence that the government has been covering up its own counterterror failures since the mid-1990s -- and continues today.

In Cover Up, Lance shows how the government chose again and again to sacrifice America's national security for personal motives and political convenience. In its first half, he unveils shattering new evidence that terror mastermind Ramzi Yousef ordered the bombing of TWA 800 from his prison cell in order to effect a mistrial in his own terror bombing case. Astonishingly, the FBI was alerted to Yousef's plans in advance by a prison informant who even passed along his detailed sketch of a bomb-trigger device -- a document seen here for the first time. And Lance reveals the shocking reason the Justice Department suddenly ruled the crash an accident despite overwhelming evidence of the bombing -- throwing away its best chance to penetrate the cell that was already planning 9/11.

And the outrage doesn't stop there. In Part II, Lance offers an unofficial "minority report" on the 9/11 Commission, critiquing it as the incomplete, highly politicized "Warren Commission of our time." He explores potential conflicts of interest among its members, from the staff director who wrote a book with Condoleezza Rice, to the former Clinton deputy attorney general who participated in a critical meeting that upended the TWA probe. He exposes the report's false contention that the 9/11 plan was conceived in 1996, when the FBI had knowledge that the plot was in motion as early as 1994. And, in a heart-stopping, minute-by-minute chronicle of the attacks, he asks dozens of unanswered questions about the defense failures of that day -- from why fighter jets weren't scrambled for almost an hour after the hijackings, to why the president and several of his top military advisers remained virtually incommunicado for more than half an hour after it was clear that America was under attack.

At a time when America feels no safer than ever, Cover Up will lend new eyes to readers who want the full story behind the 9/11 attacks -- and inspire us all to keep demanding the truth.

About the Author

Peter Lance is a five-time Emmy-winning investigative reporter and author of the bestselling 1000 Years for Revenge: International Terrorism and the FBI -- The Untold Story. A former correspondent for ABC News, he has covered hundreds of stories worldwide for 20/20, Nightline, and World News Tonight. Also a recipient of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Prize, Lance lives on the West Coast.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition edition (September 7, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060543558
• ISBN-13: 978-0060543556
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #615,730 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good research, interesting, but doesn't go far enough, July 26, 2005

By	S. A. Felton (southern OR USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I read "Cover Up" because I heard the author (PL) on a very popular
nationally-syndicated radio show. He was part of a panel discussing
9-11, of course. I really couldn't decide whether PL thought that 9-11
was a govt. conspiracy, but he was very critical of a very "strident"
conspiracy radio host/film maker. PL claimed that he wrote only what
he could prove, and that the "powers that be" actually want people to
believe in vague, high-level conspiracies rather than getting at the "real"
facts. Having read many books on 9/11 that indeed point to a high-level
govt. conspiracy, I wanted to read "Cover Up" to get another point of
view about 9-11, this despite the scoffs from my friends!

I found "Cover Up" interesting for the most part, also quite
informative, as if a short primer on domestic terrorism (I will assume
that PL got his facts straight), though as I'll discuss below, I am still
not certain what PL really thinks about 9-11.

"Cover Up" depicts shocking, outrageous corruption, perhaps the most
egregious corruption is the FBI/Justice Dept.'s cover up of the relationship
between a fairly high-level agent and a Mafia hitman who killed many people
in a war among "families." While a large element of organized crime is
apparently eliminated, laws are broken at every turn, and when the FBI
man is prosecuted, he answers "I can't remember" 44 times, and is allowed
to retire on full pension, and to make sure the corruption is never revealed,
an honest cop's reputation is ruined, and he is stripped of his pension.

If you read "Cover Up," and I recommend that you do, you will get the
tie-in between the son of the Mafia hitman and Ramzi Yousef, whom PL
claims devised the bomb that killed a young engineer in the so-called
"Bojinka" plane bombing, which the author connects to the TWA 800 disaster,
in a convincing way. PL also connects all of this, along with incredible
negligence on the FBI's part, with terrorism and 9-11, and the details are
quite Interesting.

PL clearly spent a great deal of time interviewing the wives of the
9-11 victims, who pressed for a very long time before the govt. agreed to
have a commission, and he shows many aspects of blatant, deliberate
suppression of evidence by the commission, many members of which were very
compromised, and had much to lose by getting at the real truth.

Yet I found the book lacking in certain aspects of 9-11, esp.
the lack of a deeper analysis of what exactly happened on 9-11. PL asks
exactly the same questions that those who think that the govt. at the very
least knew in advance of the attacks, yet he makes no attempt to answer
them, and cites not one of the "conspiracy" books that do try to answer
the difficult questions.

A very key part of 9-11, as discussed in "Cover Up," is simply reported
and nothing more. Repeatedly we are told that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Yousef's
uncle, is the mastermind beind 9-11, yet I remember no evidence or further
details in the book, just a reference to PL's prior book on 9-11. Also KSM's
arrest and interrogation are kept secret, yet again we are not told anything
beyond this, and conspiracy researchers would obviously wonder what the real
story is?!

So what we get is an interesting read but I was left wondering if what
is presented in "Cover Up" is just a shadow of the deeper truth. Still, I
recommend reading the book.

38 of 45 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Analysis of TWA 800, Good on 9/11, October 26, 2004

By	John Matlock "Gunny" (Winnemucca, NV) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I'd say that we live in a time of conspiracy theories, except that they have been around seemingly forever. Certainly there were a bunch of them surrounding Lincoln's death, and Kennedy and Roswell. In this book, Peter Lance an award winning investigative reporter looks carefully into the TWA 800 case and the 9/11 incident.

He brings up a lot of interesting points. But I'm not sure just what to believe. For instance, he asks the question 'Why wasn't NORAD (the Air Force) alerted to the hijackings until eighteen minutes after air traffic controllers realized a hijacking was in progress.' I think that's pretty easy to answer. The controllers weren't sure it was a hijacking, they are government employees, they had to get permission first. And the boss was probably in the bathroom, in a meeting, on the phone. There are all kinds of reasons to use up 18 minutes. You don't want to charge conspiracy when simple incompetance may account for it.

You may accept, or reject his conclusions, (or like me, admit you don't know) but if you don't have the information, you can't even make that decision. Mr. Lynch has exhaustively researched the files, studies and news reports. The resulting book is an excellent summary of what happened. I was particularly impressed with the TWA 800 information as this has been less available than 9/11 information.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Work , February 6, 2006

By	Brendan Buschi (Dover, DE USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Cover Up: What the Government Is Still Hiding About the War on Terror (Paperback)

Since 9/11, I have watched our leaders expend human and material resources in an obviously wasteful and non-productive manner. It is clear that they did not take adequate measures to insure our national security. We have and continue to pay a dear price for their negligence. Appropriate, necessary action can only be taken if we know the truth about what happened and who the players were and are. Official government channels have not been forthcoming with this information. We have been left misinformed and vulnerable. We must know the truth in order to plan intelligently. Peter Lance has provided us with a great resource. He has presented us with chilling new information in a well documented, dispationate, non-partisan manner. We are all in his debt. I urge you to read this book and become active in getting you elected leaders to do the same.