Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup - New York Post
December 15, 2013 - http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the-saudi-911-coverup/
By Paul Sperry
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 Congress’ investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 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.
The 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 the attacks.)
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 “welfare” 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’s 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 Islamic 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 showed 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 itinerary 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 detained at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously 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 “coverup.”
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 convince 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.
As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more lethal attacks within the United States.”
Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating attacks today.
Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them.
Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”
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Will the people whose voice will be heard please speak up!!!
The rest of us can work our rears off to try to get the truth out and the "too bigs to jail" held accountable under the law, but until some official or group demands a new investigation with prosecutorial powers, little will be done other than diligent workers trying desperately to build the critical mass necessary to get to the truth. Long sentence, but had to get this written. Thank you to this site for all they do. If Hoover Institution fellows and 1900 architects can't get anyone's attention (anyone who has the power and the courage), we are in for another 40+ years for, for instance, the Pentagon Papers to be acknowledged as relevant. Even then, no-one was held accountable for lying our country into a brutal, deadly war. In my opinion, we absolutely can not afford to allow this to keep happening. Get on it, all you power brokers, corporate moguls, "politicians", judges, lawyers, etc. The people are starting to pay attention, thanks to this website and all the others trying to stand up for the truth.
Understated to say the least
Anyone in Congress who hasn't read it and tried to get the pages declassified should resign. What a joke.
It is important now because the entire War on Terror is based on the premise of an independent terrorist group opposed to both the US and Saudi Arabia. Sperry does not mention that US officials were aware of the hijackers well before 9/11. The cover up relates just as much to the conduct of US intelligence before 9/11 as it does to Saudi ties to the hijackers.
I thought that the Saudi
I thought that the Saudi connection was already widely known. Most of the alleged hijackers were Saudi nationals, the bin Laden family is in deep with the Saudi royals. This is just part of the official story. The fact that the wars were in Iraq and Afghanistan is just inexplicable, unless you look at natural resource reserves, and potential pipeline routes to China.
Did Saudis plant the thermite?
9/11 needs to be investigated as a crime.
Omissions but still Impressive
I'm surprised this has poked its warty little nose out into the mainstream as far as the New York Post... however, it is sanitized.
For example, there's no mention of the San Diego FBI/Bayoumi connection - the latter who was an informant agent for the former- for example...
:D
Secret information can be easily altered before public release..
Another bothersome aspect of those 28 redacted pages - is - should they are ever released to the public via official channels, will they be reproduced verbatim, and complete? Yeah. Right. In these circles, we have all become abundantly aware that government officials are unlikely to, or perhaps even unable, to tell the truth if such an action places other departments/agencies/officials in a poor light.
NIST anyone?
Reply to noise
In my opinion, the connection to people in the CIA and FBI HQ who knowingly and deliberately allowed the attacks on 9/11 to take place is more relevant then the people from Saudi Arabia to why the attacks on 9/11 were allowed to happen, for the following reasons.
First official US government documents that are now publically available directly connect people in the CIA and the FBI HQ to deliberately allowing the attacks on 9/11 to take place. At the time they did this these people in the CIA and FBI HQ knew the result would be the murder of thousands of innocent Americans. There is even evidence to show that the CIA knew that the attack on 9/11 would use hijacked aircraft flown into the two World Trade Center Towers, the Pentagon and the US Capitol building. Even the names of these people at the CIA and FBI HQ who took part in allowing the attacks on 9/11 to take place along with the actual US government documents that directly connect these people to having allowed these attacks on 9/11 has already been published in a book released in November 2006, “Prior Knowledge of 9/11”, and republished several years later in other books based on the material in “Prior Knowledge of 9/11”, specifically “Disconnection the Dots”, released in September 2011. It is now clear that the CIA was even aware of the approximate date when this attack would take place. Even if the CIA did not have the exact date for this attack, on August 22, 2001 the CIA and FBI HQ knew that both Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi were inside of the US, and even knew that were here only in order to take part in the massive and horrific al Qaeda terrorist attack the CIA and FBI HQ had been warned about since April 2001. So what did the CIA and FBI HQ do with this horrific information? They illegally shut down FBI Agent Steve Bongardt's investigation of Mihdhar and Hazmi, when even Bongardt knew these terrorists were inside of the US in order to take part in a horrific al Qaeda attack and wanted to find them before they had time to carry out this attack and even told FBI HQ personnel that people will die if they shut down his investigation.
Second the people from Saudi Arabia were never directly connected to these attacks, just connected to helping some of the terrorists that took part in these attacks, while the documents from official US government prove the CIA and FBI HQ had knowingly and deliberately allowed the terrorists to carry out the attacks on 9/11. Furthermore since most of the Saudi Arabian people connected to helping the al Qaeda terrorists prior to the attacks have already fled back to Saudi Arabia, where they cannot be extradited back to the US or even interviewed, investigating these people is essentially at this point a complete dead end.
It's all a bit confusing...
I've always wondered about the terrorist organization "al Qaeda" and who makes the decisions within that organization about what targets to hit, who (multiple parties?) funds it and who actually created it.
We're talking about some kind of LIHOP scenario here, US intelligence knew and did nothing. What's the connection between the people who run AQ and the people who decided that NY and Washington should be targeted on 9/11? Are these the same people?
Were these hijackers aware that they were gonna be set up? Did Mihdhar and Hazmi know that they received help from FBI-agents? If so, what does that say about the hijackers and al-Qaeda? Did the hijackings really take place (I think they did) and if so, did they really control the aircraft (I have my doubts, serious doubts, on that one)?
All this talk about AQ setting up the 9/11 attacks, while there must've been lots of help from the inside, I don't get it, it boggles my mind. Who controls who and what, who owns who, who decides and who the hell takes care of all the information that flows to the media regarding this subject? Who writes these stories, who controls the core of those newsitems?
Possible answers
"Did the hijackings really take place?"
The towers came down by CD (assertion with very strong evidence) which means that the planes HAD to hit them. Therefore, if I were planning this operation I would NOT count on the official narrative of the hijackings taking place nor that the 'hijackers' would follow through on their suicide (commitment) mission (technically complex flying). There is scant (none) hard evidence that these 19 were even on the planes: no photos at hijack airports, no authenticated flight manifests and no positive DNA ID that I know of.
I liken 9/11 to seeing the circus as a kid where they 'saw the woman in half'. One doesn't need to know how the illusion was accomplished, only that the woman WAS NOT sawed in half and sewn back together during the show.
Michael Moore is covering this on his website today.
Here are some links from his front page today:
http://www.ibtimes.com/911-link-saudi-arabia-topic-28-redacted-pages-government-report-congressmen-push-release-1501202
http://www.showbiz411.com/2013/12/15/murdochs-nypost-today-backs-michael-moore-bush-saudi-claims-from-fahrenheit-911
Suspicious that the New York Post, Michael Moore, and Russ Baker are all covering this Saudi angle, but no other facts or aspects of the truth about 9/11.
Ben Swann
Ben is also covering this. Many awake and astute remarks in the comments section.
http://benswann.com/congressmen-absolutely-shocked-of-foreign-state-involvement-behind-911-attacks-video/
OIG interviews were declassified
by way of Erik Larson's MDR request. Interview summaries are for Dina Corsi, Robert Fuller and Craig Donnache.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/188016054/T4-B13-Hazmi-Mihdhar-Search-Fdr-Corsi-Fuller-Donnache-Intvws
Walter Jones is my Rep
Rep. Jones states: “Twelve years after the United States suffered a horrendous attack on our own soil, the families of the victims deserve to know all the facts concerning that tragic day,” said Congressman Jones. “Furthermore, the information contained in the redacted pages is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American public. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to all of the perpetrators.”
This issue at least helps to open the door to greater truth. Walter Jones has received information packets from me and read numerous letters to the editor and knows the official 9/11 story is bogus. At least he's trying to do something here.
NY court restores Saudi Arabia in Sept. 11 lawsuit - 12/19/13
NEW YORK (AP) — A federal appeals court reinstated Saudi Arabia as a defendant Thursday in lawsuits claiming it had provided support to al-Qaida prior to the Sept. 11 attacks.
http://news.yahoo.com/ny-court-restores-saudi-arabia-sept-11-lawsuit-003353192.html
Roseanne Breaks the Set on the Vatican, 9/11, House of Saud & Ge
Roseanne Breaks the Set on the Vatican, 9/11, House of Saud & Geriatric Porn
Saudi-Sized Cracks in the 9/11 Wall of Silence
Finally, the cracks in the official 9/11 story are beginning to widen. Two congressmen— alarmed by what they have read about financial and logistical support of top Saudi officials for the purported 9/11 hijackers—are demanding that President Obama declassify a report that would tell us much more about what the US government knows.
http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/12/19/saudi-sized-cracks-in-the-911-wall-of-silence/
Court of Appeals: 9/11 Suit Can Proceed Against Saudi Arabia. Will State Sponsors of Terror Finally Be Brought to Justice?
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2013/12/court-appeals-911-suit-can-proceed-saudi-arabia.html
Wayne Madsen discusse Saudi/Israeli cooperation in 9/11
On Kevin Barrett's truth jihad radio, former NSA officer Madsen refers to prior research showing the supposed hijackers lived in close proximity to or even on the same street as the Israeli "art student" spies and used the same commercial mailbox facility. He claims Dominic Suter, the Israeli head of Urban Moving Systems who fled to Israel shortly after 9/11, was actually placed on a US Treasury Dept compiled list of 9/11 hijackers and their support team which was later leaked. Claims that there has been a long history of publicly unacknowledged, behind the scenes cooperation between Saudi and Israeli intelligence services and that a contact of his who was now retired from the CIA assured him that if he kept digging he would be able to link Saudi and Israeli intelligence services together in staging the 9/11 attacks. You can listen to the interview here: http://noliesradio.org/archives/74199