Nine years on from the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, doubts persist as to the true nature of what took place on that fateful day in September. While there's no shortage of conspiracy theories on just about anything these days — Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes sees even a municipal bike-sharing scheme as a communist plot that will "threaten our personal freedoms" — there's also no question that a close look at 9/11 reveals some strange inconsistencies with the official version of events.
"Zero: An Investigation of 9/11" is an Italian documentary that interviews any number of sober, noncrackpot experts who painstakingly detail the questions they feel are unanswered. The film seeks mostly to raise doubts — primarily about how the Twin Towers could have collapsed, and what exactly hit the Pentagon — rather than resolve them, though there is a finger pointed at the United States' own military and intelligence community.
Reasonable voices include Michael Springman, the former chief of the Visa Section at the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, who describes how visas to the U.S. were provided (with no questions asked) to many al-Qaida fighters in the late 1980s and '90s; and the North Tower janitor, William Rodriguez, a hero who rescued many from the building, who insists that he and others heard and witnessed explosions in the basement prior to the aircraft striking the building.