Is the U.S. helping Saudi Arabia cover up for 9/11?
Shortly after 9/11, it was reported that the U.S. hastily flew several Saudi nationals out of the country (a report later confirmed). It was never really clear why this happened - the official explanation cited their personal security - but it sure did smell bad. Now comes this striking report in the Miami Herald:
Just two weeks before the 9/11 hijackers slammed into the Pentagon and World Trade Center, members of a Saudi family abruptly vacated their luxury home near Sarasota, leaving a brand new car in the driveway, a refrigerator full of food, fruit on the counter â?? and an open safe in a master bedroom.In the weeks to follow, law enforcement agents not only discovered the home was visited by vehicles used by the hijackers, but phone calls were linked between the home and those who carried out the death flights â?? including leader Mohamed Atta â?? in discoveries never before revealed to the public.
Ten years after the deadliest attack of terrorism on U.S. soil, new information has emerged that shows the FBI found troubling ties between the hijackers and residents in the upscale community in southwest Florida, but the investigation wasnâ??t reported to Congress or mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report....
The fact that the FBI did not tell the Inquiry about the Florida discoveries, Graham says, is similar to the agencyâ??s failure to provide information linking members of the 9/11 terrorist team to other Saudis in California until congressional investigators discovered it themselves.
The Inquiry did nevertheless accumulate a â??very largeâ? file on the hijackers in the United States, and later turned it over to the 9/11 Commission. â??They did very little with it,â? Graham said, â??and their reference to Saudi Arabia is almost cryptic sometimes. â?¦ I never got a good answer as to why they did not pursue that.â?
The final 28-page section of the Inquiryâ??s report, which deals with â??sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers,â? was entirely blanked out. It was kept secret from the public on the orders of former President George W. Bush and is still withheld to this day, Graham said.
There are three possible things at work here. The first is that what's being reported by the Herald may look damning but is incomplete and, if all the facts were known, wouldn't actually be damning. One newspaper report does not an indictment make. The second possibility is that the U.S. and Saudi Arabia were using some U.S.-based Saudis as moles in al-Qaeda and subsequently tried to cover those tracks after 9/11. The third possibility is that the U.S. is simply helping Saudi Arabia cover up their role in 9/11. I think the last possibility is the least likely, but most outrageous. In any event, this is a line of inquiry that should be pursued. Is there another possibility I'm missing?
