FBI
Accused of Whitewashing Saudi Connections to 9/11 Attacks
The
US Federal Bureau of Investigation is facing accusations that it has
constantly whitewashed Saudi Arabian connections to the 9/11 attacks
in the wake a new update report on the Bureau's investigations.
14
April, 2015
Just
days offer the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks the FBI began to look into a
Saudi family residing in Florida who had fled precipitously —
abandoning their luxury home, cars, and valuables — just days
before the attacks.
But
after years of investigation and an initial agent's report citing the
family's “many connections” to “individuals associated with the
terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001,” the new 128-page
report from The
9/11 Review Commission dismisses the initial investigation as a
dead-end without thorough explanation, the New York Post reports.
The
Review Commission was tasked with assessing the FBI's performance
since the original investigation and to examine “any evidence now
known to the FBI that was not considered by the 9/11 Commission.”
The panel consisted of three members, appointed by FBI Director James
Comey.
Abdulaziz
and Anoud al-Hijji were living in a house belonging to Anoud's father
— Esam Ghazzawi — a nephew of then-King Fahd. Just two weeks
before the 9/11 attacks, and after six years in the Sarasota, Fla.
home, the couple fled to Saudi Arabia, notifying no one and leaving
behind almost all their belongings.
Neighbors
noticed the coincidence and alerted federal agents, who found that at
least one of the family's members had attended the same flight school
in Venice, Fla. as some of the 9/11 hijackers. There were also
reports of visitor logs and photos showing that hijackers had visited
the gated community where the al-Hijji's lived.
The
FBI’s increased focus on surveilling the Internet has officials
worried they've created a bureau of couch potatoes, so for the first
time in 16 years, they're bringing back the fitness test, the New
York Times reports.
But
the Florida investigation - active for years — was never shared
with Congress or included in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Local
journalists at the Florida Bulldog first published a story about the
2002 agent report in April of 2013, after receiving the document as
part of a still-ongoing Freedom of Information Act request.
“The
FBI told the Review Commission that the communication was ‘poorly
written’ and wholly unsubstantiated," the review panel says of
the original 2002 agent report on the Saudi connections. “When
questioned later by others in the FBI, the special agent who wrote
(it) was unable to provide any basis for the contents of the document
or explain why he wrote it as he did.”
FBI
Agent "Just Made Stuff Up?"
For
local journalists, this has raised more questions than it has
answered.
“The
report provides no plausible explanation for the contradiction
between the FBI’s current claim that it found nothing and its 2002
memo finding ‘many connections’ between the Sarasota family and
the 9/11 terrorists,” says Thomas Julin, the Bulldog's attorney, in
that outlet's published response to the Review Commission report
The
Sarasota Herald Tribune also questioned the "FBI's suspiciousbehavior".
"We
are not inclined to believe in, or write about, wild conspiracy
theories," the paper wrote in an editorial, before describing a
history of obstruction on the part of federal authorities.
The
editors said they could accept the latest report "if the FBI had
not repeatedly tried to prevent judicial, media and public review of
key documents involving the family and its departure two weeks before
9/11.
In
2008, the FBI assumed the authority to review email accounts the NSA
collected through its “PRISM” system, which collects emails of
foreigners.
They
also pressed the lack of an explanation for the origins of the
agent's dismissed report.
"So,
the unnamed agent — working locally on one of the worst crimes
committed on American soil — just made stuff up?" the editors
asked. "Or the agent accepted unsubstantiated information and
put it in official communications?"
The
agent in question has never been name.
Paul
Wysopal, special agent in charge of the FBI's Tampa field office
responded in a guest column in the Herald-Tribune, maintaining that
the original report was simply a single bad lead.
"While
it is unfortunate that unsubstantiated conclusions regarding the
Sarasota family were included in one document, this information was
thoroughly investigated and determined to be unfounded," Wysopal
wrote.
He
also said that the local media coverage based on that document
"represents the inherent danger of relying on raw Freedom of
Information Act documents to assert the knowledge of the totality of
information known to investigators."
Former
Senator To Push for Transparency
Bob
Graham, the former Democratic Senator who, in 2002, chaired the
joint congressional inquiry into the attacks insists the FBI is
suppressing evidence of Saudi Arabian support for the 9/11 hijackers.
He has stated that the FBI withheld from his inquiry any information
on the Sarasota family, which directly contradicts the FBI's claims
that all information was released to the Inquiry and the 9/11
Commission.
He
has been working with a group of other congress members to pressure
the government to release 28 pages of the original report that were
redacted in their entirety by President George W. Bush.
"The
28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very
strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,"
he told the New York Post, clarifying that he meant the "kingdom"
or government itself, not just wealthy Saudi nationals providing
financing individually.
A
federal judge is currently reviewing 80,000 documents relating to the
Florida investigation to decide what to reveal in the ongoing
processing of the FOIA request. Those documents could include the
visitor logs or photos linking 9/11 hijackers to the al-Hijji's,
Graham told the New York Times.
"That
will be a real smoking gun."
The FBI Is Using "Aggressive Deception" To Cover Up Saudi Links To 9/11 Attack
14
April, 2015
Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, maintains the FBI is covering up a Saudi support cell in Sarasota for the hijackers. He says the al-Hijjis’ “urgent” pre-9/11 exit suggests “someone may have tipped them off” about the coming attacks.
Graham has been working with a 14-member group in Congress to urge President Obama to declassify 28 pages of the final report of his inquiry which were originally redacted, wholesale, by President George W. Bush.
“The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,” he said, adding, “I am speaking of the kingdom,” or government, of Saudi Arabia, not just wealthy individual Saudi donors.
Sources who have read the censored Saudi section say it cites CIA and FBI case files that directly implicate officials of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks — which, if true, would make 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war by a foreign government.
– From the New York Post article: How the FBI is Whitewashing the Saudi Connection to 9/11
One
of the strangest aspects of the post 9/11 period has been the number
of very intelligent people who intimately appreciate and fight
against the innumerable crimes and thefts committed by the
American oligarchy, yet simply can’t comes to terms with the fact
that the official story of September 11, 2001 is a heaping pile of
bullshit. At the end of the day, I think it’s just a function of
managing career risk.
Having already achieved some level of public
success, not many people will want to give the mainstream media the
opportunity to attach “9/11 truther” to their name,
thus tarnishing all the other work they do in the mind of the
general public.
I’ve
never claimed to know exactly what happened on that day. The
only thing I’ve said is that we aren’t being told anything close
to the whole story, and without the real story, the entire “war on
terror” becomes a gigantic scam. I simply don’t believe that
a few guys pulled off these attacks and brought down the World Trade
Center without state backing. Once state backing enters the equation,
the entire thing does indeed become a very real conspiracy. One that
takes on special significance if the state sponsor is one of
America’s closest allies in the Middle East. An ally that is
unquestionably a ruthless, medieval-style monarchy that was
itching to rid itself of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.
Over
the past few years, it has become increasingly obvious that elements
within the Saudi government were directly responsible for 9/11. I
suggest familiarizing yourself with the following:
Moving
along, the New
York Post reports that
the FBI is going out of its way to cover up this involvement, despite
extremely suspicious events that were called into question
immediately after 9/11. For example:
Just 15 days before the 9/11 attacks, a well-connected Saudi family suddenly abandoned their luxury home in Sarasota, Fla., leaving behind jewelry, clothes, opulent furniture, a driveway full of cars — including a brand new Chrysler PT Cruiser — and even a refrigerator full of food.
About the only thing not left behind was a forwarding address. The occupants simply vanished without notifying their neighbors, realtor or even mail carrier.
Perfectly
normal, particularly when you combine it with the fact that 15 of the
18 hijackers were Saudi citizens.
The 3,300-square-foot home on Escondito Circle belonged to Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of then-King Fahd. But at the time, it was occupied by his daughter and son-in-law, who beat a hasty retreat back to Saudi Arabia just two weeks before the attacks after nearly a six-year stay here.
Neighbors took note of the troubling coincidence and called the FBI, which opened an investigation that led to the startling discovery that at least one “family member” trained at the same flight school as some of the 9/11 hijackers in nearby Venice, Fla.
The Saudi-9/11 connection in Florida was no small part of the overall 9/11 investigation. Yet it was never shared with Congress. Nor was it mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Some
report…
Now it’s being whitewashed again, in a newly released report by the 9/11 Review Commission, set up last year by Congress to assess “any evidence now known to the FBI that was not considered by the 9/11 Commission.” Though the FBI acknowledges the Saudi family was investigated, it maintains the probe was a dead end.
The review panel highlighted one local FBI report generated from the investigation that said Abdulaziz and Anoud al-Hijji, the prominent Saudi couple who “fled” their home, had “many connections” to “individuals associated with the terrorist attacks on 9/11/2001.”
But: “The FBI told the Review Commission that the communication was ‘poorly written’ and wholly unsubstantiated,” the panel noted in its 128-page report. “When questioned later by others in the FBI, the special agent who wrote (it) was unable to provide any basis for the contents of the document or explain why he wrote it as he did.”
How strange. Yet panelists did not interview the unidentified agent for themselves. They just accepted headquarters’ impeachment of his work.
The panel’s report also doesn’t explain why visitor security logs for the gated Sarasota community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers, including 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta.
Former Democratic Sen. Bob Graham, who in 2002 chaired the congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, maintains the FBI is covering up a Saudi support cell in Sarasota for the hijackers. He says the al-Hijjis’ “urgent” pre-9/11 exit suggests “someone may have tipped them off” about the coming attacks.
Graham has been working with a 14-member group in Congress to urge President Obama to declassify 28 pages of the final report of his inquiry which were originally redacted, wholesale, by President George W. Bush.
“The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,” he said, adding, “I am speaking of the kingdom,” or government, of Saudi Arabia, not just wealthy individual Saudi donors.
Sources who have read the censored Saudi section say it cites CIA and FBI case files that directly implicate officials of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks — which, if true, would make 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an act of war by a foreign government. The section allegedly identifies high-level Saudi officials and intelligence agents by name, and details their financial transactions and other dealings with the San Diego hijackers. It zeroes in on the Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi Embassy, among other Saudi entities.
The review commission, however, concludes there is “no evidence” that any Saudi official provided assistance to the hijackers, even though the panel failed to interview Graham or his two key investigators — former Justice Department attorney Dana Lesemann and FBI investigator Michael Jacobson — who ran down FBI leads tying Saudi officials to the San Diego hijackers and documented their findings in the 28 pages.
Graham smells a rat: “This is a pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11 by all of the agencies of the federal government which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”
If
the 9/11 attacks were indeed orchestrated by Saudi Arabia, then it’s
not a stretch to ask who else may have been involved or aware of it
ahead of time considering the extremely close relationship between
the U.S. and the desert monarchy. The apparent cover-up makes
everything look even more suspicious.
Oh, and in the event that the New York Post isn’t sophisticated enough for you, this was also covered the by theNew York Times in the article, Florida Ex-Senator Pursues Claims of Saudi Ties to Sept. 11 Attacks. Here’s an excerpt:
“One
thing that irritates me is that the F.B.I. has gone beyond just
covering up, trying to avoid disclosure, into what I call aggressive
deception,” Mr. Graham said during an interview in a family office
in this Miami suburb, which rose on what was a sprawling dairy farm
operated by Mr. Graham’s father, also political leader in Florida.
“Conspiracy
theory” indeed.
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