Jerome Hauer and the 9/11 bomb makers II:
Hratch Semerjian, long-time director of NIST’s chemical division, was promoted to acting director of NIST in November 2004, and took over the WTC investigation until the completion of the report on the towers. Semerjian is closely linked to former NIST employee Michael Zachariah, perhaps the world’s most prominent expert on nano-thermites (Zachariah 2008). In fact, Semerjian and Zachariah co-authored ten papers that focus on nano-particles made of silica, ceramics and refractory particles. Zachariah was a major player in the Defense University Research Initiative on Nanotechnology (DURINT), a groundbreaking research effort for nano-thermites.
NIST has a long-standing partnership with NASA for the development of new nano-thermites and other nano-technological materials. In fact, Michael Zachariah coordinates this partnership (CNMM 2008).
In 2003, two years before the NIST WTC report was issued, the University of Maryland College Park (UMCP) and NIST signed a memorandum of understanding to develop nano-technologies like nano-thermites (NIST 2003). Together, NIST and UMCP have done much work on nano-thermites (NM2 2008).
NIST has their own Center for Nanoscale Science and Technology (CNST 2008). Additionally, NIST’s Reactive Flows Group did research on nanostructured materials and high temperature reactions in the mid-nineties (NRFG 1996).
Richard Gann, who did the final editing of the NIST WTC report, managed a project called “Next-Generation Fire Suppression Technology Program”, both before and after 9/11. Andrzej Miziolek, another of the world’s leading experts on nano-thermites (Amptiac 2002), is the author of “Defense Applications of Nanomaterials”, and also worked on Richard Gann’s fire suppression project (Gann 2002). Gann’s project was sponsored by DOD’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP), an organization that sponsored a number of LLNL’s nano-thermite projects (Simpson 2002, Gash et al 2003).
As part of the Federal Laboratory Consortium for Technology Transfer, NIST partners with the Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head (NSWC-IH) on Chemical Science and Technology (FLCTT 2008). NSWC-IH is probably the most prominent US center for nano-thermite technology (NSWC 2008). In 1999, Jan Puszynski, a scientist working for the DURINT program, helped NSWC-IH design a pilot plant to produce nano-size aluminum powder. It was reported that “At that time, this was [the] only reliable source of aluminum nanopowders in the United States” (SDSMT 2001), however, private companies like Argonide and Technanogy were also known to have such capabilities.
Among an interesting group of contractors that NSWC-IH hired in 1999 were SAIC, Applied Ordnance, Battelle, Booz Allen Hamilton, Mantech, Titan, Pacific Scientific Energetic (see below), and R Stresau Laboratories for “demolition materials” (NSWC 2000).
The presence of Pacific Scientific Energetics (PSE) in this list of 1999 NSWC-IH contractors is interesting because PSE was the parent company of Special Devices, Inc (SDI). SDI specializes in explosives for defense, aerospace and mining applications, and was acquired in 1998 by John Lehman, 9/11 Commissioner, member of the Project for a New American Century, and former Secretary of the Navy (SDI 2008). Lehman divested in 2001
A tragic coincidence left William Caswell, an employee of NSWC-IH, dead on the plane said to have hit the Pentagon (Flight 77). He had for many years worked on “deep-black” projects at NSWC-IH (Leaf 2007).
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Too late for William Caswell to get into protective custody...or a straight jacket in a padded room. |
