By early in 2002, many people had come to understand what was really happening at Ground Zero: the rapid destruction of the evidence of one of the largest crimes in history. There were many calls for an immediate halt to the removal and recycling of the steel from the World Trade Center, so that the disaster could be properly studied.
In an article published on January 3 of 2002, James Quintiere, a Professor of Fire Protection Engineering at the University of Maryland, pointed out that fires could not have destroyed Twin Towers and Building 7. He lamented the recycling of the evidence, and called for a genuine investigation. 3
In the January 2002 issue of Fire Engineering Magazine, editor Bill Manning published an scathing attack on the destruction of WTC evidence, "$elling Out the Investigation", in which he called FEMA's "official investigation" a "half-baked farce". 4