Thread by @drbairdonline, Tribunal to announce verdicts Tuesday in trial of four Hezbollah members for [...]

Tribunal to announce verdicts Tuesday in trial of four Hezbollah members for killing former Lebanese PM Rafik Hariri in Feb 2005. But analysis (once again!) reveals NO WAY Mitsubishi truck packed w/two tonnes RDX could have blasted this crater!
Thread
1/ https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1096039604359127040

https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1096039604359127040

When photos of Hariri crater first published, there were lots of doubts whether a truck bomb could have done this. Gen. Hisham Jaber sd “The bomb was placed UNDERGROUND, especially (since) the crater was so huge Even a car with 1000 kg of TNT wouldn’t create such a crater.”
2/

Gen Jaber noted the crater near middle of the road, indicating bomb likely placed under the street and not in a parked car. Chief military investigator demanded that police investigate recent road work in the area.
3/ http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6999256/ns/world_news/t/bomb-under-road-may-have-killed-hariri/#.Xzq1NOhKhPZ

Bomb under road may have killed Hariri

From traces of explosives supposedly collected off airline seats to the prospect a powerful bomb could have been planted beneath a Beirut street during recent road work, the mystery is deepening over...

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6999256/ns/world_news/t/bomb-under-road-may-have-killed-hariri/#.Xzq1NOhKhPZ

Australian journalist Joe Vialls, noting marked similarities to 2002 Bali bombing, reported Jewish “Special Forces” used a Dimona micro-nuke to assassinate Hariri, blasting crater 32 ft diameter x 12-14 ft deep & producing "characteristic white mushroom cloud"
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Vialls reported Zionist Cabal instructed western MSM to "false flag" Syria & Hezbollah for the atrocities, part of "Greater Israel" agenda
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https://web.archive.org/web/20050223022224/http://www.vialls.com/beirut/micronuke.html

June 2005 UN-mandated investigation into Hariri assassination w/experts from 14 countries & investigators from 7 others examined blast site, established 99.9% probability explosion above ground
6/
https://www.foxnews.com/story/investigator-truck-bomb-killed-hariri

Experts concluded explosives most probably placed in white Mitsubishi Canter pickup truck that may have had a gray tarp covering load, estimated 1000kg of high explosive, prelim analysis soil sample of crater shows TNT
7/
https://www.voanews.com/a/a-13-2005-10-21-voa2/293713.html

Jun 2006 Serge Brammertz, Commissioner UNIIIC, reconsidered above ground vs below ground explosion, noting two differ considerably on crater characteristics, trajectory & nature of debris, effects & characteristics of blast
8/
https://web.archive.org/web/20061026211314/http://www.al-bab.com/arab//docs/lebanon/brammertz2.htm

Jun 2006 Braumertz Report established amt of explosives needed to form Hariri crater ~500 kg TNT equiv at depth 1.7m below ground; 1200 kg if IED placed above ground; & 1800 kg if IED ~0.80 meters above ground. Thus, if Mitsubishi truck indeed used, needed at least 1200 kg.
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Jun 2006 Braumertz Report evidence collected from within the soil on the inside of the crater indicates that the IED was most likely located above the ground; the explosion having driven it downwards into the ground
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Jun 2006 Braumertz Report concluded one above-ground explosion took place on the day of the attack at 12:55:05 caused by very large lED containing minimum 1200 kg TNT equivalent comprising mix of TNT, PETN and/or RDX plastic explosive
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Nov 2006 Braumertz Report updates explosives needed closer to 1800 kg but waiting for 3D-reconstruction of crime scene, trajectory & video analysis & ID of Mitsubishi van parts to establish height above ground of IED & thus amt of explosive used in IED
12/
https://web.archive.org/web/20070113130639/https://al-bab.com/Arab/docs/lebanon/brammertz3.htm

Back in Feb 2005 Chris Bollyn of American Free Press accused US media of "yellow journalism" by repeating baseless allegations that Syria was behind Hariri "car bombing"
13/
https://web.archive.org/web/20081007005135/rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi/noframes/read/65258

Feb 2005 Prof Keith Holsapple based on crater size 30-50 ft wide x 9-10 ft deep told Bollyn "no doubt at least a several ton bomb would be required if it were delivered by a vehicle & detonated above the surface" but Bollyn noted no evidence of such a large vehicle
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Since Feb 2005 Bollyn has argued that Hariri was killed by Israeli 1-ton precision guided missile (akin to BLU-109/B pictured), silent & unseen, that struck Hariri's car, penetrated the road & exploded, explaining huge crater
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Bollyn ridiculed Joe Viall's buried micro-nuke theory as "pure fairy tale" b/c he had never seen evidence of micro-nukes being used, would be difficult to time & very obvious radioactive trail. "It smells like dis-info to me."
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Nov 2006 Bollyn doubled down on his Israeli air-launched precision-guided missile theory, called 1800 kg estimate in Brammertz report "ridiculously low" & claimed photo Vialls called "mushroom cloud" actually just sand thrown up by the missile
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Despite genl consensus of 2005 UN Rpt & 2006 Brammertz Rpt, in 2010 five yrs after Hariri's death there were enough doubts abt whether explosion actually came from truck bomb that Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) decided to reconstruct the site of the explosion - in France!
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In order to validate the "experts" that a truck bomb had killed Hariri, STL spent untold millions of euros to reconstruct as completely as they could the site of the explosion on Captieux military base in SW France, even importing earth from Beirut!
19/ http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2010/10/19/01003-20101019ARTFIG00560-l-assassinat-d-hariri-reconstitue-en-secret.php

L'assassinat d'Hariri reconstitué en secret

EXCLUSIF - L'attentat contre l'ancien premier ministre libanais a été reproduit mardi, près de Bordeaux, par la justice internationale.

http://www.lefigaro.fr/international/2010/10/19/01003-20101019ARTFIG00560-l-assassinat-d-hariri-reconstitue-en-secret.php

On 19 Oct 2010 under highest security & greatest secrecy, a hundred intl experts observed this scientific reconstruction of Hariri assassination except instead of 1800 kg TNT they used 2.5 tonnes. When detonated at 17:05, locals reported seeing "an enormous blackish mushroom"
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Oct 2010 Voltaire Net reported "The STL wanted to demonstrate that, CONTRARY TO THE NEAR-UNANIMOUS OPINION OF EXPLOSIVES EXPERTS, it is possible for an explosive-packed truck to cause the material damage observed in Beirut."
21/ https://www.voltairenet.org/article167402.html

The STL tries to reconstruct official version of Rafik Hariri's assassination

On 19 October 2010, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), based near The Hague, attempted to re-enact the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, five years after the event....

https://www.voltairenet.org/article167402.html

Aug 2011 STL issued 47-page indictment agst the four Hezbollah members, stating that "forensic examination has established the quantity of explosives" approximately 2500 kg TNT equiv
22/
http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/13053 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-14557594

Trial ordered for Hariri suspects

A UN-backed tribunal publishes charges against four suspects in the assassination of Lebanon's Rafik Hariri, saying it has enough evidence to try them.

http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/13053

In 2013 Dimitri Khalezov in his book 9/11thology picked up where Joe Vialls (who died July 2005) & Chris Bollyn had left off in questioning the "official" story. In a nutshell, "Car-bombs do not make any craters."
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July 2014 Expert gave evidence at trial, used photos to determine crater dimensions 11.4m for diameter of top circle, 8.3m for lowest circle & height of 1.9m (although the witness admitted that there were definitely lower points in the crater)
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http://lebanontribunal.blogspot.com/2014/07/second-week-of-july-forensic-expert.html

At the trial, the prosecution argued the Mitsubishi Canter van w/2500 kg TNT equivalent was responsible for the blast while the defense would suggest "a bomb planted underground or even an aerial strike may have been responsible for the blast"
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http://www.rightsobserver.org/blog/mitsubishi-canter-van-takes-center-stage-at-stl

Feb 2015 "international explosion experts" Profs Daniel Ambrosini & Bibiano Luccioni from Argentina gave testimony about how they used computer models to determine that an above-ground bomb was responsible for the explosion
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http://lebanontribunal.blogspot.com/2015/04/international-explosion-experts.html

Ambrosini discussed his participation in 2010 reconstruction. "A series of pressure sensors were put in positions around the vehicle to locate & identify blast overpressures. The results of this experiment came back as very close to the numerical model designed beforehand."
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Profs Ambrosini & Luccioni explained how they conducted a series of explosion experiments, which included experiments aboveground, on the ground & underground in Argentina. The differences in craters were used as one of sources for calibrations of computer simulations.
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Prof Ambrosini said when reviewing the initial explosion info he had also thought that the explosion had been underground, but after carrying out the study, they were able to demonstrate that it was in fact not. Prof Luccioni agreed.
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Profs Ambrosini & Luccioni concluded that a "distributed explosive load with a TNT equivalence of between 2.500 to 3.000 kg, located above ground, at a height between 50 & 80 cm from the pavement surface, is compatible with the observed crater and structural damage."
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Thus Profs Ambrosini & Luccioni [A&L] provided ultimate "expert opinion" that an ABOVEGROUND explosion - like what would happen if a Mitsubishi Canter van packed w/2500 kg TNT equiv exploded - could have blasted the 1.9-m deep Hariri crater as well as all other damage
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So WHO is right? A&L who insist an ABOVEGROUND explosion blasted the Hariri crater? Or Gen Hisham Jaber, Joe Vialls, Chris Bollyn, Prof Keith Holsapple & Dimitri Khalezov who categorically DENY that any ABOVEGROUND EXPLOSION could have caused the crater? There is no gray!
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Well fairly simple empirical analysis reveals NEITHER claim is accurate. Luckily US Army Engineers back in the 1960s made the job easy by compiling all depth results of cratering tests in NTS desert alluvium & similar media in now declassified Fig 4.3
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https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/a995371.pdf

Fig 4.3 shows that the plot of "Scaled Crater Depth" (ft/kt^(1/3/4)) vs "Scaled Height/Depth of Burst" produces a nice smooth curve at all depths & yields in similar media. So given 2 of 3 parameters (yield, apparent crater depth, HOB/DOB) it is easy to calculate the third!
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Although the concrete & earth in Beirut may not be identical to desert alluvium, US Army Engineers have studied cratering by explosions extensively & have found comparable numbers in all kinds of media
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https://apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/b024657.pdf

And contrary to A&L conclusion that an ABOVEGROUND 2500-3000 kg (2.76-3.31 tons) TNT explosion at Height of Burst (HOB) 50-80 cm blasted the 1.9-m deep Hariri crater, Fig 4.3 actually shows it would have taken 70 tons TNT @ HOB=50cm & 140 tons @ HOB=80 cm!!
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If the actual explosive was RDX as one trial witness concluded, that would have still come to 44-88 tons of RDX, NOT the TWO tons (or tonnes) NYTimes & other newspapers have often reported. There is no physical way a Mitsubishi Canter van could have carried so much RDX!
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You can use Fig 4.3 to calculate that A&L’s range of yields (2500-3000 kg TNT) & HOB (50-80 cm) would NOT blast "conventional craters" (right) anywhere near 1.9-m (6.2-ft) Hariri crater. They would ONLY compress the earth into shallow “compression craters” (left) depth <1 ft.
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There are lots of examples showing such low "airburst" explosions don't blast craters. Even the Mk-54 warhead w/18-ton yield fired by the Davy Crockett & detonated at HOB=3 ft left only a 1.5-ft deep compression crater (Point 2 on lower left Fig 4.3)!
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A "truck bomb" is essentially an “airburst bomb”. US Special Forces loaded these two light trucks with 1000 lb ANFO each & then filmed detonation w/high-speed cameras showing a clear air gap between vehicle chassis & the road in both cases
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So how did A&L get airburst bombs so wrong? Something faulty in their inscrutable computer modeling? Trouble is it isn't just A&L, e.g., Jun 2006 Braumertz Rpt wrongly stated 1800kg HOB=0.8 m could have blasted Hariri crater but would only create compression crater .75ft deep
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Indeed I found that, in contrast to solid Fig 4.3 data, cratering analyses from 1980s on were increasingly "corrupted", inflating the size of craters formed by aboveground explosions as if determined, like A&L, to make us think that "truck bombs" really DO blast huge craters!
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How else other than the absolute corruption of science can we explain how experts & investigators from 21 countries could have established 99.9% probability that the explosion was aboveground in June 2005 UN-mandated investigation?
42/ https://www.foxnews.com/story/investigator-truck-bomb-killed-hariri

Investigator: Truck Bomb Killed Hariri

The leader of an international investigation into the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri has concluded that a truck bomb was to blame.

https://www.foxnews.com/story/investigator-truck-bomb-killed-hariri

When previous reports were questioned, all the “experts” did was simply kept slightly bumping up the size of the “truck bomb” from 1000 to 1200 to 1800 to 2500 kg TNT equivalent
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However critics who assert that an aboveground explosion CANNOT blast a large conventional crater are also WRONG. Quite a few aboveground (HOB>0) bombs have blasted conventional craters if they are big enough and/or low enough! (See Table 2.)
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https://www.osti.gov/biblio/6696719

The explosion most comparable to a "truck bomb" - the Jangle Sugar test (Nov 1951) w/uranium Mk-6 fission device sitting on the surface of NTS desert alluvium (HOB=3.5 ft) w/yield 1.2 kt TNT - blasted a crater 17 ft deep & 90 ft wide.
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However the critics are quite correct that it would be impossible for any truck to hold the amount of high explosives (HE) necessary to blast a conventional crater. If a “truck bomb” blasts a conventional crater, then it is a NUCLEAR truck bomb!
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Of course, a nuclear truck bomb would NOT have been necessary to blast the 1.9-m deep Hariri crater. An underground high explosives bomb could easily have blasted that crater. One thinks immediately of the explosion that killed PM Luis Carrero Blanco in Madrid in Dec 1973.
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Spanish Wikipedia has an excellent article on the Carrero Blanco assassination describing how members of Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) dug a tunnel to the center of the street & placed three antitank charges equivalent to 50 kg of "dynamite" [TNT?]
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https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asesinato_de_Carrero_Blanco

ETA detonated the explosives just as Carrero Blanco's car passed over, sending the Dodge 3700 Gt weighing almost 1800 kg flying up & over 5-story building, instantly killing the PM
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The Carrero Blanco explosion blasted a huge crater as can be readily seen. As to how BIG, I have yet to find any official measurements. FWIW I have found a sentence (sans source) on online translation sites stating "a crater in the middle of the road 8 meters wide and 4 deep"
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However reliable the Carrero Blanco details, could an underground bomb have blasted the 1.9-m deep Hariri crater? Surely! For starters let's just assume Depth of Burst = 10 ft. Using Fig 4.3 @ DOB=10ft, I calculate the crater would have only required a yield of 240 lbs TNT!
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The similarities btwn 1973 Madrid & 2005 Beirut craters may well be what Gen. Hisham Jaber had in mind when he said the Hariri crater was so large only a bomb placed UNDER the street could have done it
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http://www.nbcnews.com/id/6999256/ns/world_news/t/bomb-under-road-may-have-killed-hariri/#.Xz1y--hKhPa

However there is much evidence to suggest the 2005 Beirut explosion was FAR GREATER than the 1973 Madrid explosion. Despite the huge crater & car aerobatics, extant photos of 1973 Madrid actually show quite little damage to surrounding buildings & cars
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Contrast 1973 Madrid to the TREMENDOUS destruction wreaked on downtown Beirut in 2005. The question then becomes how could the MASSIVE explosion that caused such extensive damage to Beirut ONLY have left a MEASLY 1.9-m deep crater?
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Assuming the bomb wasn't aboveground (HOB>0) - which would demand a much bigger bomb to blast the crater - we should begin by asking what is the LARGEST bomb that could be hidden underground and still ONLY leave a 1.9-m (6.2-ft) deep crater?
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As the upper limit to the size of the bomb, I will assume Height of Burst (HOB) = 0 which means that the device is actually half-buried. Again using Fig 4.3 @ HOB=0, I calculate that a device w/yield 19 tons TNT equivalent would blast a 1.9-m crater.
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If the explosive device was, as one might expect, fully buried just below the surface, the yield would have to be less else the crater would be deeper. But in the range of 10-20 tons TNT equiv, we are clearly talking about a NUCLEAR device akin to SADM
57/ https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1293900886586953729

https://twitter.com/drbairdonline/status/1293900886586953729

Beside the extensive blast damage, other evidence suggestive of a SADM-like device are all the fires & car damage, characteristic of NYC on 9/11 wch physicist Heinz Pommer attributes to nuclear electromagnetic pulse (EMP)
58/
http://www.911history.de/aaannxyz_ch07_en.html

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