Larry Silverstein, the controller of the destroyed WTC complex, stated plainly in a PBS documentary that he and the FDNY decided jointly to demolish WTC 7 late in the afternoon of 9/11.
In the documentary “America Rebuilds”, aired September 2002, Silverstein makes the following statement;
I’m a retired firefighter that served for over 20 years with a Midwestern FD and I’m here to tell you that Fire Departments don’t have the knowledge, training, equipment or ability to “pull” a 47 story tall structure deemed unsafe.
When interior firefighting is deemed too dangerous, you pull the crews out and establish a collapse zone perimeter around the building 1.5 times the height and let no one enter.
Fire Command then contacts the proper city agencies and depending on SOP’s, companies that have a track record for demolishing buildings, all the while maintaining perimeter security.
BTW, ‘Lucky Larry’ now is part owner of Chicago’s Sears Tower, which is now named Willis Tower.
Think ‘Lucky Larry’ will get lucky again?
Another angle to this story is that John O’Neill, the FBI agent that had been investigating the USS Cole attack, was hired by Kroll Associates shortly before 9/11 and was working that day and was killed.
Kroll had been providing ‘security’ to the WTC complex.
O’Neill had developed leads in the Cole case that pointed to Israeli involvement and passed that onto our Yemeni ambassador, Barb Bodine.
Bodine became alarmed and tried to have O’Neill’s security detail yanked and when that didn’t work, she appealed to “Bloody Maddy” Albright, then Secretary of State to remove O’Neill from the case.
O’Neill was yanked from the investigation and ordered to return to New York, where he got disgusted with the FBI’s handling of the Cole case and retired, only to be hired by Jerome Hauer of Kroll.
Nice way to tie up loose ends, huh?