Inside the Saudi 9
After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.
But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congpatagonia fleece reviews3ress investigative report on 9/11 dealing with specific sources of foreign support for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of tpatagonia better sweater birch whitehe 800 page report. Text isn t just blacked out here and there in this critical yet missing middle section. The pages are completely blank, except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this story by comparison is about 1,000 words).
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they are absolutely shocked at the level of foreign state involvement in the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R NC) and Stephen Lynch (D Mass.) can t reveal the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they ve proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify the entire 2002 report, Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.
Some information already has leaked from the classified section, which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found incontrovertible evidence that Saudi government officials not just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high level diplomats and intelligence officers employed by the kingdom helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war.
Thpatagonia coats cheape findings, if confirmed, would back up open source reporting showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to coast:
LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad al Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the Saudi hijackers Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi as they arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al Bayoumi, a suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi Arabia after 9/11.)
SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms, rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al Awlaki, at a Saudi funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before tpatagonia fleece reviewshe attacks.)
patagonia fiona parka best price
WASHINGTON: Then Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were welfpatagonia simple guide pantsare for Bassnan s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made its way into the hijackers hands.
Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy so much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as a client.
The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.
Our investigations contributed to the ambassador find patagonia jackets outlet sale store waiting for yous departure, an investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for personal reasons.
FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego hijackers turned up together again this time at the Dar al Hijrah womens patagonia trail running shoes size 9 new in the boxIslamic Center, a Pentagon area mosque built with funds from the Saudi Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showpatagonia fleece reviews1ed up at his doorstep as if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs before they attacked the Pentagon.
Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel itinpatagonia better sweater coat womenerary documents I ve obtained show he also served as the official imam on Saudi Embassy sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy sites.
Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.
As I first reported in my book, Infiltration, quoting from classified US documents, the Saudi sponsored cleric was briefly detaipatagonia discount code cartersned at JFK before being released into the custody of a Saudi representative. A federal warrant for Awlaki s arrest had mpatagonia fleece reviews0ysteriously been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.
HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the hijackers hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They let him go after he feigned a seizure, one agent recalled. (Hussayen s name doesn t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which clears the Saudis.)
SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.
Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can t get a single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it s a covepatagonia fleece reviews2rup.
Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to the attacks.
Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.
Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi evidence a coverup beyond belief. Last week, he sent out an e mail to relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.
Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history.
Granted, it s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convpatagonia guide pants 44x28ince the House intelligence panel to give them access to the material.
But it s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the White House to let all Americans read it. This isn t water under the bridge. The information is still relevant today. Pursuing leads further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head off another 9/11.
