Special Report from our US Correspondent P.E. Doff

As the ninth anniversary of 9/11 draws near conspiracy theories abound.

Some believe the airlines were testing a new flight-path into Kennedy Airport.

Others are convinced the attacks were organised by the owners of a building who wanted to put up the rent but couldn’t because the view was blocked by the World Trade Centre.

There’s an opinion that George W. Bush hired some Al Qaeda terrorists to destroy the UN building because he couldn’t afford to run it anymore. And they failed the navigation course at flying school.

There’s a new theory that Islamic organisations arranged the attack on the World Trade Centre, the White House and the Pentagon because they wanted to clear the sites to build mosques.

Some political aides believe it was a Democrat Party initiative to strike terror into Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney.

Sources in the intelligence services are convinced that it was a strike by the CIA against the World Trade Centre in Baghdad which lacked direction.

Me? Well I subscribe to the unfashionable theory that it was a bunch of terrorists trying to kill as many Americans as possible.

This is one of the few occasions when P.E. Doff has had a sobering thought.