Still standing: Grenfell Tower a week after the inferno killed 72 of its London residents in June 2017
The images of Grenfell Tower we saw when the Inquiry chairman recently published his coruscating report into the tragic fate of its residents prompt serious questions as we remember what happened when three much bigger World Trade Center (WTC) buildings in New York City disintegrated in seconds on September 11 2001.
For seven years after the London inferno claimed 72 lives, Grenfell still stands, its fire-ravaged wreckage available for the forensic examination that formed a key part of Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s recent indictment. But within hours of the Manhattan tragedy – a crime scene of gigantic proportions – the evidence was being removed, with much of it quickly shipped to Asia for recycling.
In the United Kingdom we have what seems to be detailed scrutiny of Grenfell with a Metropolitan Police investigation already under way. In the United States we have an unsolved crime whose worldwide repercussions through the “war on terror” are still leading to death and suffering through wars and conflict.
The findings of the US official 9/11 inquiry, belatedly set up by the White House under pressure from the bereaved, were promptly rubbished by its own Bush-appointed joint chairmen. Yet the latest anniversary of September 11 has passed with the same lack of mainstream curiosity I saw on previous ones.
But there are signs that this is changing.
More 9/11 campaign groups, politicians, journalists and show hosts are using social media to reach a public much more sceptical about official pronouncements than they were in the years immediately following the events of September 2001.
Instant devastation: The pulverised remains of the Manhattan World Trade Center in September 2001
Prominent in that campaigning demand for democratic disclosure are thousands of architects and engineers. Outraged by the refusal of government agencies to answer their detailed technical questions on the three WTC buildings, they are now proposing legislation to ensure scientific integrity in government reports
Working on similar questioning lines is the International Center for 9/11 Justice. On this year’s anniversary they focused on the behaviour of aircraft and the failure of US defences on that day 23 years ago.
They supplement the work of many American whistleblowers who have courageously revealed what they know. James Corbett has featured some of them as I have done in earlier work and summarised in this interview.
There is far to go in bringing justice to the Grenfell bereaved and those still living in dangerous buildings.
But perhaps the United States, with ever more of its citizens asking questions as it approaches November elections, may for once follow a British example – the forensic work on Grenfell Tower of Sir Martin Moore-Bick and those questioning campaigners for real change.
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