Monday, March 5, 2012

9/11 Revisted: Was Saudi Arabia Involved?

9/11 REVISITED

 

Was Saudi Arabia Involved?

 

By Paul Church

Asia Times

February 11, 2012

 

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/NB11Ak03.html

 

At 9:37 Eastern Daylight Time on September 11, 2001,

American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the western

side of the Pentagon, killing all 59 passengers and 125

others in the building. News of the crash went global

within minutes; yet another symbol of American power

was ablaze. For the few still struggling to believe

that the United States was under attack, doubt

evaporated like the bodies of the many dead.

 

Conspiracists have puzzled for a decade over the

failure to intercept the aircraft - or indeed, take

even the elementary step of phoning the Pentagon to

warn them of the approach. But only recently has wider

attention been paid to the failure of the Central

Intelligence Agency's (CIA's) Bin Laden unit to tell

anyone that "muscle" hijackers, Khalid al-Midhar and

Nawaf al-Hazmi, were in the country.

 

The chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Keane, is

now on record [1] as calling this "one of the most

troubling aspects of our entire report". How is it

that, despite having known for several months about al-

Midhar and al-Hazmi, nobody at Alec Station saw fit to

mention them to the Federal Bureau of Investigation

(FBI), the counter-terrorism policy board in

Washington, Immigration or the Defense Department?

 

The Bin Laden Issue Station - codenamed Alec by

insiders such as US Army Lieutenant Colonel Anthony

Shaffer - was the CIA unit dedicated to reporting on

al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and militants in

Afghanistan. It was this unit that had called on

authorities in Malaysia to monitor the Kuala Lumpur

"terror summit" at which plans for 9/11 were probably

finalized. Both al-Midhar and al-Hazmi were at that meeting.

 

Accounts differ as to exactly when the CIA became aware

of the hijackers' presence in America. But specific

orders were issued not to share the information: Doug

Miller, an FBI agent loaned to the Bin Laden unit, was

among those who received the instructions. In his book

Pretext for War, author James Bamford quotes another

FBI agent loaned to Alec: "[T]hey didn't want the

bureau meddling in their business - that's why they

didn't tell ... that's why September 11 happened."

 

Author Lawrence Wright has speculated that, so

desperate was the CIA to get a source inside al-Qaeda,

the agency shielded the aspiring terrorists while it

tried to recruit them. In his book The Looming Tower,

Wright also suggests a more serious possibility:

lacking any domestic jurisdiction, the agency colluded

with Saudi Arabian intelligence to keep their own

fingerprints off events. According to Wright, this was

the view of a team of FBI investigators known as Squad I-49.

 

In an interview for the documentary Who Is Richard

Blee?, former counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke was

another insider to hint at possible Saudi involvement.

Sensationally, Clarke also accused Central Intelligence

Department head George Tenet of personally withholding

evidence from Washington.

 

Filmmakers John Duffy and Ray Nowosielski managed to

identify two key analysts involved in burying the

evidence. Despite legal threats from the agency [2],

the film is now available as a podcast.

 

Backtrack to January 2003: Prince Bandar bin Sultan is

head of the Saudi Embassy in Washington. Bandar was the

man at the center of the al-Yammah arms deal, a

corruption scandal involving the exchange of arms for

crude oil with Britain. A White House insider since he

arrived in Washington nearly two decades before,

Bandar's close ties with the Bush family are common

knowledge. Less widely known is that in January 2003,

the Saudi Prince sat with vice president Dick Cheney,

defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard

Myers discussing US strategy for the invasion of Iraq.

 

In his book Plan of Attack, investigative journalist

Bob Woodward claimed that when Bandar was handed a map

labeled "Top Secret Noforn" in the vice president's

office, not even the secretary of state had been

informed that his country would be at war. Colin Powell

has denied this, but the incident serves to illustrate

the prince's extraordinary access to the inner workings

of government.

 

All the more shocking, then, that between 1998 and

2002, up to US$73,000 in cashier cheques was funneled

by Bandar's wife Haifa - who once described the elder

Bushes as like "my mother and father" - to two

Californian families known to have bankrolled al-Midhar

and al-Hazmi. The very same would-be terrorists

protected by the CIA.

 

Princess Haifa sent regular monthly payments of between

$2,000 and $3,500 to Majeda Dweikat, wife of Osama

Basnan, believed by various investigators to be a spy

for the Saudi government. Many of the cheques were

signed over to Manal Bajadr, wife of Omar al-Bayoumi,

himself suspected of covertly working for the kingdom.

 

The Basnans, the al-Bayoumis and the two 9/11 hijackers

once shared the same apartment block in San Diego. It

was al-Bayoumi who greeted the killers when they first

arrived in America, and provided them, among other

assistance, with an apartment and social security

cards. He even helped the men enroll at flight schools

in Florida.

 

When al-Bayoumi moved to England just days before the

attacks, his apartment was raided by Scotland Yard.

Beneath the floorboards were discovered the phone

numbers of several officials at the Saudi Embassy.

 

Bandar and his wife deny any links to terrorism, but

both former co-chairs of the US Senate Intelligence

Committee, Richard Shelby and Bob Graham, think

otherwise. They claim the FBI refused to allow the

committee to interview investigators who had followed

the money from the embassy. Other sources allege that

the 9/11 Commission similarly failed to fully

investigate leads, partly because commissioner Phillip

Zelikow removed or relegated to footnotes any findings

which cast doubt on the Saudis. A 28-page section of

the Congressional Joint Inquiry report exploring

possible foreign government involvement remains classified.

 

Then there is the suppressed testimony of Special Agent

Steven Butler, described by officials familiar with his

account as "explosive". [3] Butler had been monitoring

a flow of Saudi money to the would-be hijackers. After

he testified, staff director for the 9/11 Committee

Eleanor Hill sent a memo to the Justice Department

detailing Butler's allegations. When reporters quizzed

the Justice Department about the content of Butler's

testimony, they were told it was classified.

 

If possible Saudi Arabian involvement in 9/11 raised

eyebrows at the Justice Department, what would they

have made of mysterious but little publicized meetings

between the Saudi ambassador and George Tenet? In his

book State of War, author James Risen recounts how

Tenet "set the tone for the CIA's Saudi relationship by

relying heavily on developing close relationships with

top Saudi officials, including Prince Bandar bin Sultan

..."

 

Around once a month, Tenet would slip away to Bandar's

estate in McLean, Virginia, for talks so secretive he

refused to tell officers working under him what they

were discussing. Colleagues would complain that it was

difficult for them to tell what deals were being made

with the Saudis. Were al-Midhar or al-Hazmi ever

mentioned?

 

"Bandar and Tenet had a very close relationship,"

confirmed one CIA officer.

 

The frantic rush to get Saudi Arabian nationals -

including members of the Bin Laden family - out of

America in the days after the 2001 attacks led to

public outrage, and was featured in Michael Moore's

seminal but flawed documentary, Fahrenheit 911. Less

was made of a return trip by Crown Prince Abdullah,

then de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, in 2002. The Crown

Prince, Prince Saud al-Faisal and Prince Bandar bin

Sultan were scheduled to meet president George W Bush,

Dick Cheney, Colin Powell and national security advisor

Condoleezza Rice at the president's ranch in Texas.

 

No fewer than eight airliners arrived from Saudi

Arabia, and as the planes landed, US intelligence

learned that two members of the royal entourage were on

a terrorist watchlist. The next day, Osama Basnan

reported his passport stolen to Houston police -

proving he was in Texas the same day as the crown

prince. Were the wanted men on the planes Basnan and

al-Bayoumi?

 

According to the Wall Street Journal, the FBI planned

to "storm the plane and pull those guys off" until,

evidently fearing an international incident, the State

Department intervened.

 

Notes 1. Insiders voice doubts about CIA's 9/11 story

Salon, October 14, 2011.

 

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/14/insiders_voice_doubts_ca_911/

 

2. See CIA's Maneuver: A Case of Bluffing? Buying Time?

Or Something More? September 13, 2011.

 

http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2011/09/15/the-still-developing-story-of-the-recently-issued-cia-threats-to-producers-nowosielski-duffy/

 

3. The road to Riyadh US News, November 29, 2002.

 

http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/features/saudi_021129.htm

 

Paul Church is an independent journalist reporting on

geopolitics, warfare and counter-terrorism.

 

(Copyright 2012 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd.

 

___________________________________________

 

No comments: