ARROGANCE AND FEAR

Wiesława Lewandowska talks with the MP Antoni Macierewicz about the astonishing openness of the military prosecution, attack on science and a new ‘dictatorship of a dimwit’

WIESŁAWA LEWANDOWSKA: - The word ‘attack’ in relation to the air crash at Smoleńsk has been considered as politically incorrect or at least embarrassing for a long time. Now it appears as a definition for work of scientists investigating the causes of the catastrophe within the Parliamentary Team supervised by you; the education minister, Prof. Barbara Kudrycka says about the ‘attack on science’.

MP ANTONI MACIEREWICZ: - So, let’s recall what Mrs. minister Kudrycka calls ‘attack on science’ – it concerns a proposition of Prof. Michał Kleiber, the chairman of the Polish Academy of Science, organizing a scientific debate between experts of the government of Donald Tusk. Here, there are attacks on the very principle of the scientific debate about the causes of the Smoleńsk air crash. We accepted this proposition at once, because we want to get to know the arguments of Maciej Lasek who repeats till today that gen. Andrzej Błasik was in a cockpit and was giving commands, although the expertise of the Institute of Judicial Expertise in Cracow does not confirm this finding. We would like to get to know the first data indicating the vertical trajectory of the flight of Tu-154M, and evidence for breaking of the birch by the airplane wing. Experts of Donald Tusk do not have any evidence for these thesis and, therefore, they are afraid of this debate. This fear orders the governmental propagandists to define the very project of the debate as ‘attack on science’.

– You responded to the battue and allegations against incompetence against the experts of the Parliamentary Team with a strong comparison to the atmosphere which was in the world of the Polish science after the year 1968. It raised indignation among today’s scientific elites….

– The formula of Władysław Gomułka is being used towards scientists of the Parliamentary Team, which was tried and tested in the year 1968: ‘Writers to a pen, students to education and workers to a spade…’ Because if Mr. Miller and Mr. Tusk decided that Polish pilots are to be blamed for the Smoleńsk air crash, then scientists are not allowed to investigate its causes. And the fact that experts of Miller and Lasek did not investigate the birch, wreckage, the scene, does not matter. And the fact, that their report contains bullshit and lies, like, for example, about the altitude of breaking the birch or trouble-free operation of engines till the hit of the airplane on the ground. And because the prime minister Tusk gave the whole investigation and all evidence to the Russians – it is not allowed to do investigations which might undermine official findings and indicate the Russian responsibility!

– Scientists of the Parliamentary Team are alleged of incompetence. Whereas, as there was a belief, ‘the best experts for air crashes and pilots’ had worked for Miller’s commission.

– So, let’s have a look at this incompetence. In the team of Maciej Lasek there is no expert who investigated catastrophes of big passenger airplanes of the size of Tupolew. There is no expert of explosions, there is no specialist for thin-walled structures, such as the hull of Tu-154M, there is no military controller of the flight, there is no specialist for simulation with the method of finite elements, and , certainly, there is no expert for special services. And, in fact, this is only an exemplary enumeration…One of publicists was trying to compare scientific competences of both teams and he noticed that most experts of the Parliamentary Team have many publications in a professional international newspaper. No experts of Donald Tusk have such achievements. No competence of the governmental team caused that pyrotechnic research was given to the Military Institute of Chemistry and Radiometry – this institute has not go any suitable attests giving eligibility to investigate the signs of the explosion, and no scientists working on this issue, had nothing in common with aviation…Edmund Klich, a Polish accredited by MAK, confirmed honestly in his publication about Smoleńsk, that his commission had not investigated the wreckage, because there was no expert for this kind of analysis! Indeed, a list of mistakes and methodological incompetence in expertise and the selection of members of Miller’s commission is very long!

– You think that governmental commission did not have a more interdisciplinary attitude, don’t you?

– It is obvious. Investigation of the causes of the Smoleńsk catastrophe is a big and complicated operation, in which not only aviation experts should be engaged. Those who are trying to disqualify aviation specialists, do not understand that they restrict investigation possibilities, or maybe, it is on purpose! Do pathologists, whose expertise is essential, have to be experts in aviation? And safety and special services specialists, without whom we do not understand why there was not the Polish Government Protection Bureau? Pyrotechnics experts? Specialists for material strength? Lawyers? Doctors? The parliamentary team is constituted by nearly thirty prominent scientists, and their work is coordinated by dr. engineer Bogdan Gajewski, a member of ISASI (International Society of Air Safety Investigators) – an association of experts investigating air crashes all over the world, also working in the Canadian governmental agency National Aircraft Certification.

– You say that the Parliamentary Team understands the complexity of this issue better?

– Yes. The criteria of selection of our experts is professionalism and suitability to investigate particular phenomena, which decided about the catastrophe. We also use the scientific works of scientists who are not formally connected with us, are investigating the issue. For example, Prof. Chris Ciszewski from University of Georgia, whose experiments we consider, is a dendrology expert, a specialist for forest biometrics and is not an aviation expert, but he knows a lot about birches and he would never make such mistakes as they were made by experts from Miller’s team and prosecution. Prof. Jan Obrębski is not an expert in flight trajectory but he knows a lot about thin-walled structures after an explosion.

– However, he has never investigated the airplane wreckage and he only had a look at its small fragment – critics say.

– Miller’s commission did not even carry out such limited investigations, like the ones which had been done by Prof. Obrębski. Why are there attempts to replace science with brainwash in the issue of the biggest tragedy which happened to the Polish Nation at the time of independence? Governmental propagandists use the methods defined by Stefan Kisielewski as ‘dictatorship of a dimwit’. The society, under the pressure of the omnipresent overbearing propaganda is to accept uncritically what is enforced by ‘the best and the only righteous experts’ – that is, they tell us not to think, not investigate and humbly agree to all lies and absurd. So that the issue of Smoleńsk would only remain in the exclusive jurisdiction of Russia.

– The Polish newspaper ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ informed with satisfaction that experts of the Parliamentary Team admitted their incompetence to the prosecution.

– It is better not to get knowledge from denunciations. I suggest reading the whole or protocols of experts’ testimonies. None of them undermined his investigations, but all of them maintained the opinion presented at the meetings of the Parliamentary Team.

– When you filed a notice about a possibility of the committed crime by military prosecutors through giving journalists secret information from the investigation, prosecution decided to publish the whole of testimonies. And does it mean that the cat’s out of the bag?

– It turned out that Prof. Wiesław Binienda is a prominent expert in his sphere, that Prof. Jacek Rońda – which was concealed by ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’ – is one of the most prominent Polish ballistic expert, whereas Prof. Jan Obrębski is an expert on metallurgical analysis- he has received an honourable membership of the international organization recently, investigating these issues. By the way, this ‘openness’ of the military prosecution is astonishing. Why does it publish testimonies of witnesses so selectively and why only of these three indicated by ‘Gazeta Wyborcza’? I am very interested in testimonies of governmental experts and I would like to get to know their competences, professionalism and their reports of their examination of the scene better.

– Having read the testimonies, Dr. engineer Lasek commented that experts from the Parliamentary Team did not show their willingness to support the investigation or present everything what they know. Why, in your opinion did experts show such an aversion to prosecution? Because of their lack of trustfulness to it?

– I would not trust the opinion of Maciej Lasek about the experts from the Parliamentary Team! I will compare the testimonies of experts of the prime minister Tusk with what Prof. Binienda said to the prosecution. I will remind that Prof. Binienda has been encouraging the procurators for a long time to get acquainted with the scientific competences of him and his team with technical possibilities of the university laboratory here in Akron. Unfortunately, prosecutors do not want to use this invitation. And I will not be astonished if in the future, experts appointed as witnesses will limit their testimonies for fear of using them for a political game, as it has just been done.

– One of the cardinal arguments in the critics of works done by experts of the Team is their absence in the scene, and also their incapability of carrying more thorough investigations.

– Recently, in one of the hangars, unexamined remnants of the wreckage have been found, which were in mud – there were about 25 per cent of the airplane! When asked why he could have signed the final report without a thorough analysis of the whole wreckage, Maciej Lasek said: ‘We have never investigated the wreckage, because it was not necessary…’ – this is high incompetence and arrogance! He also said that it was not him or his colleagues who had been in Smoleńsk, because they were appointed to the commission not earlier than on 5 May 2010, when all investigations had already been finished. Our experts carried out at least basic investigations – simulations in the laboratory in Akron, expertise of the birch in the University of Georgia, reconstruction of scattering of remains of the airplane, analysis of its maintained fragments, they reconstructed vertical and horizontal trajectory of flight on the basis of the system TAWS and FMS and, finally, they reconstructed the collapse of the airplane on the basis of photos of a thousand of its remnants. As far as I know, members of the governmental team have not done any of these actions.

– Experts from the Parliamentary Team do not have an access to source materials and it is not convenient for them, is it?

– Luckily, the present state of science and investigating methods allow for carrying out analysis without a necessity of touching an investigated airplane. After all, we will not publish a final report till the time when the wreckage and black boxes are not in Poland! It is obvious that what is called ‘a final report’ of Miller’s commission, is only a kind of a political concept created onto a governmental ordering. Maybe this is the reason why every attempt of a dispute with the conclusions of this work is considered as nearly sacrilege.

– So, will a substantial debate of scientists be possible in this situation, like about ways of investigating the causes of the Smoleńsk catastrophe?

– Experts from the Parliamentary Team are ready for this kind of a debate at every moment. Certainly, the conference should be led by scientists from both parties and it is not possible to do a selection of the participants or criticize speeches of another party. But the open debate of equal rights is essential and we are willing to accept suggestions of the chairman of the Polish Academy of Science Prof. Kleiber.

– Dr. Lasek suggests that scientists of both parties should prepare their report for half a year, which will be later evaluated by a suitable competent commission and it would be good if it consisted of deacons of Polish aviation schools…

– Maciej Lasek is not going to decide about the procedures but the Scientific Committee established by representatives of both parties, to which Prof. Kleiber made his speech. We will suggest three members among our experts. If Maciej Lasek wants to suggest three deacons of aviation departments, then we acknowledge that it is his sovereign right. Moreover, we will not protest if he does not to take a part in the debate, although it is obvious that he cannot be scientifically impartial. After all, he receives money from the prime minister Tusk for promoting this government. So, it is difficult to say that he might be objective or independent in his scientific investigations. But if the prime minister Tusk delegates just him, we will accept it humbly because it is important for us to have a discussion with official representatives of the government. The purpose of the debate is approaching the truth and establishment of a state commission anew, for investigating air crashes of the state aviation. And it lies in the competence of the Chairman of Ministers’ Council. Therefore, we want the governmental party to show arguments finally and listen to competent scientists.

– Isn’t it odd that dr. Maciej Lasek, as a chief of a special team, whose mission was to explain conclusions from the investigations of the governmental Commission of Miller, is refusing so definitely to participate in the open scientific debate? After all, it is him who should care the most about revealing incompetence of ‘these fanatics of Macierewicz’….

– That’s it! Why did Mr. Lasek declare publicly that he would not join the scientific debate with Prof. Binienda or Prof. Rońda? What is he avoiding? I think that this battue at our experts is to justify the avoidance from the public discussion. I also think that the present attack is not accidental. Please note that it appeared when the whole Smoleńsk tactics of Tusk failed: the prosecutor Seremet made a decision last month, that the thread of the assassination and explosion would be investigated by procurators, he also stated publicly in Moscow that the black boxes and the wreckage had to return to us at once, because they are the main evidence, without which the Polish investigation would not be finished. And now the proposition of Prof. Kleiber of an open and public discussion among experts reveals the lack of knowledge and incompetence of Miller and Tusk’s people. This is the genesis of hysteria of Donald Tusk’s government.

– So, it can be supposed that governmental experts are simply afraid of an open confrontation with the experts of the Parliamentary Team?

– I think so.

– Therefore, the former accredited by the investigation of MAK is keeping silent now? It looks as if everybody was afraid of something or somebody.

– How long can one believe in lies of Tatiana Anodina, if even Edmund Klich’s report informs that the Russian party bears the responsibility for the catastrophe, as well as the decision-making centre in Moscow, which had taken over directing the Tu-154M illegally, making it impossible to close the airport in the last minutes and send the airport to a spare airport. It was the insistence of this centre because of which flight controllers misled our pilots and, finally, they gave a command of departing onto another circle – then, as Klich writes, there was not any chance to do this maneuver. These words of Edmund Klich from the report, written on 30 November 2010 and concealed by the government. What else can be added…

(AA)

"Niedziela" 40/2013

Editor: Tygodnik Katolicki "Niedziela", ul. 3 Maja 12, 42-200 Czestochowa, Polska
Editor-in-chief: Fr Jaroslaw Grabowski • E-mail: redakcja@niedziela.pl