Investigating Saudi Government 9/11 Connection

[KeenInsight]

Regarding Graham's JFK comment, I would purport that he is merely saving face as a Senator. So yeah, limited hangout, because he wants to be 'credible' or whatever.

Robert Kennedy:
"There's so much bitterness I thought they would get one of us, but Jack, after all he'd been through, never worried about it." - Brothers, by David Talbot, p. 4, quoting Justice Department spokesman Edwin Guthman, who was with RFK on the afternoon of the JFK assassination.
"One of your guys did it." - Brothers, by David Talbot, p. 10, quoting Haynes Johnson in Wash. Post of 17 Apr 1981 and personal interviews, about a comment made over the phone within hours of JFK's murder.

Arthur Schlesinger, former JFK special advisor:
"We were at war with the national security people." - told to acquaintance Wilmer Thomas when asked whom he believed was behind the assassination of President Kennedy. Quoted by Joan Mellen in How the Failure to Identify, Prosecute and Convict President Kennedy's Assassins Has Led to Today's Crisis in Democracy, and paraphrased in her A Farewell to Justice, p. 162.

H.R. "Bob" Haldeman, former Nixon chief of staff:
"After Kennedy was killed, the CIA launched a fantastic cover-up. Many of the facts about Oswald unavoidably pointed to a Cuban connection.....In a chilling parallel to their cover-up at Watergate, the CIA literally erased any connection between Kennedy's assassination and the CIA." - The Ends of Power, by H.R. Haldeman with Joseph DiMona, p. 39.

I mean, people know deep down, when they look at historical events and compare them to today, that power is absolute, and absolute power corrupts as the saying goes - its just too world or national view shattering to think about. Fear is a powerful psychological tool.

Knowing the truth, and uncovering the truth is about Reclaiming History. That is why it matters.

So that each successive generation can know the true history in order to prevent it from happening again. And it applies much in same way as any other state crime, from Watergate to 9/11, whether or not some government/position or power is directly or indirectly involved.

[seemslikeadream]

What The Hell Did The NSA Know About 9/11?




9/11 NSA + CIA : James Bamford's documentary

[stillrobertpaulsen]

9/11 Link To Saudi Arabia Is Topic Of 28 Redacted Pages In Government Report; Congressmen Push For Release
By Jamie Reno
on December 09 2013 2:09 PM

Since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, victims’ loved ones, injured survivors, and members of the media have all tried without much success to discover the true nature of the relationship between the 19 hijackers – 15 of them Saudi nationals – and the Saudi Arabian government. Many news organizations reported that some of the terrorists were linked to the Saudi royals and that they even may have received financial support from them as well as from several mysterious, moneyed Saudi men living in San Diego.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any connection, and neither President George W. Bush nor President Obama has been forthcoming on this issue.

But earlier this year, Reps. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., were given access to the 28 redacted pages of the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) of 9/11 issued in late 2002, which have been thought to hold some answers about the Saudi connection to the attack.

"I was absolutely shocked by what I read," Jones told International Business Times. "What was so surprising was that those whom we thought we could trust really disappointed me. I cannot go into it any more than that. I had to sign an oath that what I read had to remain confidential. But the information I read disappointed me greatly."

The public may soon also get to see these secret documents. Last week, Jones and Lynch introduced a resolution that urges President Obama to declassify the 28 pages, which were originally classified by President George W. Bush. It has never been fully explained why the pages were blacked out, but President Bush stated in 2003 that releasing the pages would violate national security.

While neither Jones nor Lynch would say just what is in the document, some of the information has leaked out over the years. A multitude of sources tell BTimes, and numerous press reports over the years in Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS News and other media confirm, that the 28 pages in fact clearly portray that the Saudi government had at the very least an indirect role in supporting the terrorists responsible for the 9/11 attack. In addition, these classified pages clarify somewhat the links between the hijackers and at least one Saudi government worker living in San Diego.

Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Joint Inquiry in 2002 and has been beating the drum for more disclosure about 9/11 since then, has never understood why the 28 pages were redacted. Graham told IBTimes that based on his involvement in the investigation and on the now-classified information in the document that his committee produced, he is convinced that “the Saudi government without question was supporting the hijackers who lived in San Diego…. You can't have 19 people living in the United States for, in some cases, almost two years, taking flight lessons and other preparations, without someone paying for it. But I think it goes much broader than that. The agencies from CIA and FBI have suppressed that information so American people don't have the facts."

Jones insists that releasing the 28 secret pages would not violate national security.

“It does not deal with national security per se; it is more about relationships,” he said. “The information is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American people. 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 the perpetrators."

It took Jones six weeks and several letters to the House Intelligence Committee before the classified pages from the 9/11 report were made available to him. Jones was so stunned by what he saw that he approached Rep. Lynch, asking him to look at the 28 pages as well. He knew that Lynch would be astonished by the contents of the documents and perhaps would join in a bipartisan effort to declassify the papers.

"He came back to me about a week ago and told me that he, too, was very shocked by what he read,” Jones said. “I told him we need to join together and put in a resolution and get more members on both sides of the aisle involved and demand that the White House release this information to the public. The American people have a right to know this information."

A decade ago, 46 senators, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded in a letter to President Bush that he declassify the 28 pages.

The letter read, in part, "It has been widely reported in the press that the foreign sources referred to in this portion of the Joint Inquiry analysis reside primarily in Saudi Arabia. As a result, the decision to classify this information sends the wrong message to the American people about our nation's antiterror effort and makes it seem as if there will be no penalty for foreign abettors of the hijackers. Protecting the Saudi regime by eliminating any public penalty for the support given to terrorists from within its borders would be a mistake.... We respectfully urge you to declassify the 28-page section that deals with foreign sources of support for the 9/11 hijackers."

All of the senators who signed that letter but one, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), were Democrats.

Lynch, who won the Democratic primary for his congressional seat on that fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001, told IBTimes that he and Jones are in the process of writing a “Dear Colleague” letter calling on all House members to read the 28 pages and join their effort.

"Once a member reads the 28 pages, I think whether they are Democrat or Republican they will reach the same conclusion that Walter and I reached, which is that Americans have the right to know this information," Lynch said. “These documents speak for themselves. We have a situation where an extensive investigation was conducted, but then the Bush [administration] decided for whatever purposes to excise 28 pages from the report. I'm not passing judgment. That was a different time. Maybe there were legitimate reasons to keep this classified. But that time has long passed.”

Most of the allegations of links between the Saudi government and the 9/11 hijackers revolve around two enigmatic Saudi men who lived in San Diego: Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, both of whom have long since left the United States.

In early 2000, al-Bayoumi, who had previously worked for the Saudi government in civil aviation (a part of the Saudi defense department), invited two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, to San Diego from Los Angeles. He told authorities he met the two men by chance when he sat next to them at a restaurant.

Newsweek reported in 2002 that al-Bayoumi’s invitation was extended on the same day that he visited the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles for a private meeting.

Al-Bayoumi arranged for the two future hijackers to live in an apartment and paid $1,500 to cover their first two months of rent. Al-Bayoumi was briefly interviewed in Britain but was never brought back to the United States for questioning.

As for Basnan, Newsweek reported that he received monthly checks for several years totaling as much as $73,000 from the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar, and his wife, Princess Haifa Faisal. Although the checks were sent to pay for thyroid surgery for Basnan’s wife, Majeda Dweikat, Dweikat signed many of the checks over to al-Bayoumi’s wife, Manal Bajadr. This money allegedly made its way into the hands of hijackers, according to the 9/11 report.

Despite all this, Basnan was ultimately allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, and Dweikat was deported to Jordan.

Sources and numerous press reports also suggest that the 28 pages include more information about Abdussattar Shaikh, an FBI asset in San Diego who Newsweek reported was friends with al-Bayoumi and invited two of the San Diego-based hijackers to live in his house.

Shaikh was not allowed by the FBI or the Bush administration to testify before the 9/11 Commission or the JICI.

Graham notes that there was a significant 9/11 investigation in Sarasota, Fla., which also suggests a connection between the hijackers and the Saudi government that most Americans don’t know about.

The investigation, which occurred in 2002, focused on Saudi millionaire Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, whose upscale home was owned by Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the nephew of Saudi King Fahd.

The al-Hijji family reportedly moved out of their Sarasota house and left the country abruptly in the weeks before 9/11, leaving behind three luxury cars and personal belongings including clothing, furniture and fresh food. They also left the swimming-pool water circulating.

Numerous news reports in Florida have said that the gated community’s visitor logs and photos of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future 9/11 hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home.

Graham said that like the 28 pages in the 9/11 inquiry, the Sarasota case is being “covered up” by U.S. intelligence. Graham has been fighting to get the FBI to release the details of this investigation with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation. But so far the bureau has stalled and stonewalled, he said.

Lynch said he didn’t know how the Obama administration would respond to the congressional resolution urging declassification, if it passes the House and Senate.

“But if we raise the issue, and get enough members to read it, we think we can get the current administration to revisit this issue. I am very optimistic,” he said. “I’ve talked to some of my Democratic members already, and there has been receptivity there. They have agreed to look at it.”

Obama administration officials declined to comment on the congressional resolution or on the classification of these documents.

The 9/11 Families United for Justice Against Terrorism (JASTA), an activist group comprised of the attack victims, has been calling for the declassification of the 28 pages for more than a decade. The group plans to contact Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, this week to urge her to introduce a similar resolution in the Senate.

Sharon Premoli, a 9/11 survivor who was on the North Tower's 80th floor when the plane hit and is a JASTA member, says Jones and Lynch “share our objectives of seeking the truth behind 9/11 and bringing to justice those who bankrolled the attacks.”

Premoli said it was a “miracle” that she survived 9/11. “I found myself buried under dust and on top of a dead body,” she said. “It makes me angry that I still don’t know what happened or who was supporting these hijackers. The veil of secrecy must be lifted for the families, the survivors and for the American people.

[seemslikeadream]

Mass murder in the Middle East is funded by our friends the Saudis
World View: Everyone knows where al-Qa'ida gets its money, but while the violence is sectarian, the West does nothing

Donors in Saudi Arabia have notoriously played a pivotal role in creating and maintaining Sunni jihadist groups over the past 30 years. But, for all the supposed determination of the United States and its allies since 9/11 to fight "the war on terror", they have showed astonishing restraint when it comes to pressuring Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies to turn off the financial tap that keeps the jihadists in business.
Compare two US pronouncements stressing the significance of these donations and basing their conclusions on the best intelligence available to the US government. The first is in the 9/11 Commission Report which found that Osama bin Laden did not fund al-Qa'ida because from 1994 he had little money of his own but relied on his ties to wealthy Saudi individuals established during the Afghan war in the 1980s. Quoting, among other sources, a CIA analytic report dated 14 November 2002, the commission concluded that "al-Qa'ida appears to have relied on a core group of financial facilitators who raised money from a variety of donors and other fund-raisers primarily in the Gulf countries and particularly in Saudi Arabia".

Seven years pass after the CIA report was written during which the US invades Iraq fighting, among others, the newly established Iraq franchise of al-Qa'ida, and becomes engaged in a bloody war in Afghanistan with the resurgent Taliban. American drones are fired at supposed al-Qa'ida-linked targets located everywhere from Waziristan in north-west Pakistan to the hill villages of Yemen. But during this time Washington can manage no more than a few gentle reproofs to Saudi Arabia on its promotion of fanatical and sectarian Sunni militancy outside its own borders.

Evidence for this is a fascinating telegram on "terrorist finance" from US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to US embassies, dated 30 December 2009 and released by WikiLeaks the following year. She says firmly that "donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide". Eight years after 9/11, when 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, Mrs Clinton reiterates in the same message that "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support for al-Qa'ida, the Taliban, LeT [Lashkar-e-Taiba in Pakistan] and other terrorist groups". Saudi Arabia was most important in sustaining these groups, but it was not quite alone since "al-Qa'ida and other groups continue to exploit Kuwait both as a source of funds and as a key transit point".

Why did the US and its European allies treat Saudi Arabia with such restraint when the kingdom was so central to al-Qa'ida and other even more sectarian Sunni jihadist organisations? An obvious explanation is that the US, Britain and others did not want to offend a close ally and that the Saudi royal family had judiciously used its money to buy its way into the international ruling class. Unconvincing attempts were made to link Iran and Iraq to al-Qa'ida when the real culprits were in plain sight.

But there is another compelling reason why the Western powers have been so laggard in denouncing Saudi Arabia and the Sunni rulers of the Gulf for spreading bigotry and religious hate. Al-Qa'ida members or al-Qa'ida-influenced groups have always held two very different views about who is their main opponent. For Osama bin Laden the chief enemy was the Americans, but for the great majority of Sunni jihadists, including the al-Qa'ida franchises in Iraq and Syria, the target is the Shia. It is the Shia who have been dying in their thousands in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan and even in countries where there are few of them to kill, such as Egypt.

Pakistani papers no longer pay much attention to hundreds of Shia butchered from Quetta to Lahore. In Iraq, most of the 7,000 or more people killed this year are Shia civilians killed by the bombs of al-Qa'ida in Iraq, part of an umbrella organisation called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil), which also encompasses Syria. In overwhelmingly Sunni Libya, militants in the eastern town of Derna killed an Iraqi professor who admitted on video to being a Shia before being executed by his captors.

Suppose a hundredth part of this merciless onslaught had been directed against Western targets rather than against Shia Muslims, would the Americans and the British be so accommodating to the Saudis, Kuwaitis and Emiratis? It is this that gives a sense of phoniness to boasts by the vastly expanded security bureaucracies in Washington and London about their success in combating terror justifying vast budgets for themselves and restricted civil liberties for everybody else. All the drones in the world fired into Pashtun villages in Pakistan or their counterparts in Yemen or Somalia are not going to make much difference if the Sunni jihadists in Iraq and Syria ever decide – as Osama bin Laden did before them – that their main enemies are to be found not among the Shia but in the United States and Britain.

Instead of the fumbling amateur efforts of the shoe and underpants bombers, security services would have to face jihadist movements in Iraq, Syria and Libya fielding hundreds of bomb-makers and suicide bombers. Only gradually this year, videos from Syria of non-Sunnis being decapitated for sectarian motives alone have begun to shake the basic indifference of the Western powers to Sunni jihadism so long as it is not directed against themselves.

Saudi Arabia as a government for a long time took a back seat to Qatar in funding rebels in Syria, and it is only since this summer that they have taken over the file. They wish to marginalise the al-Qa'ida franchisees such as Isil and the al-Nusra Front while buying up and arming enough Sunni war-bands to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad.

The directors of Saudi policy in Syria – the Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal, the head of the Saudi intelligence agency Prince Bandar bin Sultan and the Deputy Defence Minister Prince Salman bin Sultan – plan to spend billions raising a militant Sunni army some 40,000 to 50,000 strong. Already local warlords are uniting to share in Saudi largesse for which their enthusiasm is probably greater than their willingness to fight.

The Saudi initiative is partly fuelled by rage in Riyadh at President Obama's decision not to go to war with Syria after Assad used chemical weapons on 21 August. Nothing but an all-out air attack by the US similar to that of Nato in Libya in 2011 would overthrow Assad, so the US has essentially decided he will stay for the moment. Saudi anger has been further exacerbated by the successful US-led negotiations on an interim deal with Iran over its nuclear programme.

By stepping out of the shadows in Syria, the Saudis are probably making a mistake. Their money will only buy them so much. The artificial unity of rebel groups with their hands out for Saudi money is not going to last. They will be discredited in the eyes of more fanatical jihadis as well as Syrians in general as pawns of Saudi and other intelligence services.

A divided opposition will be even more fragmented. Jordan may accommodate the Saudis and a multitude of foreign intelligence services, but it will not want to be the rallying point for an anti-Assad army.

The Saudi plan looks doomed from the start, though it could get a lot more Syrians killed before it fails. Yazid Sayegh of the Carnegie Middle East Centre highlights succinctly the risks involved in the venture: "Saudi Arabia could find itself replicating its experience in Afghanistan, where it built up disparate mujahedin groups that lacked a unifying political framework. The forces were left unable to govern Kabul once they took it, paving the way for the Taliban to take over. Al-Qa'ida followed, and the blowback subsequently reached Saudi Arabia."

[redsock]

http://nypost.com/2013/12/15/inside-the ... 1-coverup/

Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup
By Paul Sperry
December 15, 2013 | 5:13am

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.

Modal Trigger

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.”

[seemslikeadream]

Bob Graham On HuffPo To Talk About Saudi Arabia And 9/11 - 12/16/2013

[8bitagent]

Its the one theory that still holds more weight than ever before. The globalists trojaned the bulk of the visible strings of 9/11 via the Saudis. Yet here we are, tripping over goofy 2006 era "Truther" shenanigans. Gah, its so frustrating. Yeah maybe one day we will stumble upon Richard Cheney rifling through stand down orders and Acme demolition charges in the E wing of the pentagon....totally....ugh

[seemslikeadream]

Piers Morgan Talks To Rep. Stephen Lynch About Saudi Arabia And 9/11 - 12/16/2003

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Its the one theory that still holds more weight than ever before. The globalists trojaned the bulk of the visible strings of 9/11 via the Saudis. Yet here we are, tripping over goofy 2006 era "Truther" shenanigans. Gah, its so frustrating. Yeah maybe one day we will stumble upon Richard Cheney rifling through stand down orders and Acme demolition charges in the E wing of the pentagon....totally....ugh

My understanding of how Cheney operated in the White House underground bunker on 9/11, according to Michael Ruppert's Crossing the Rubicon, negated the need for a stand down order. I mean, I know there are the allegations there was, primarily via the Norman Mineta testimony, but I find the documented research on Cheney's separate chain of command parallel with multiple wargames running simultaneously on 9/11 more compelling.

Just curious, 8bitagent, what's your opinion of Crossing the Rubicon?

ON EDIT: I found this paragraph on the Rubicon simplification link interesting regarding a Saudi/Cheney connection:

Crossing the Rubicon also looks into the evolution of PROMIS software, a well-documented artificial intelligence and datamining program whose current descendants played an integral role in the crimes of 9/11. As Dick Cheney was running a separate chain of command via the Secret Service, he also had the capability to intervene in the functions of the FAA through an evolution of PROMIS software developed and sold by Ptech, Inc. - a company funded by Saudi terrorist financier Yassin Al Qadi. Al Qadi claims he met Dick Cheney in Jeddah before he was Vice President, a claim Cheney hasn't publicly refuted. FTW will soon be releasing an in-depth report on Ptech and its role in the crimes of 9/11.

[Luther Blissett]

Big debate about this on /r/conspiracy today. A few interesting points if anyone is interested. Mostly naïve takes on what defines evidence.

[thatsmystory]

Browsing the web I learned that Erik Larson got some key OIG interview summaries (Dina Corsi, Robert Fuller and Craig Donnache) declassified by way of a MDR request.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/188016054/T4-B13-Hazmi-Mihdhar-Search-Fdr-Corsi-Fuller-Donnache-Intvws

Why did the FBI UBLU go out of its way to obstruct the Cole investigation? One theory is that US intelligence agents were ordered to stand down on any al Qaeda links to Saudis. I believe Greg Palast reported this allegation.

[seemslikeadream]

The Logic of 9/11
US-Saudi-Pakistani connections
by Eric Walberg / December 14th, 2013

Last week, Congressmen Walter Jones and Stephen Lynch introduced a resolution urging President Obama to declassify the legendary “28 redacted pages of the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry of 9/11” issued in late 2002, which point to official Saudi involvement in 9/11. After much lobbying, and under an oath of secrecy, Jones was allowed to read the censored document: “I was absolutely shocked by what I read. What was so surprising was that those whom we thought we could trust really disappointed me.”

PNAC (Project for a New American Century) published a “grand strategy” in 2000 calling for the US to maintain its unrivaled superpower status, though this might require a “new Pearl Harbor” to justify launching preemptive wars against suspect nations. 9/11 happened as if on cue the next year, suggesting to many not so much a ‘grand strategy’ as a ‘grand conspiracy’. As Bush told the 9/11 Commission, to justify invading Afghanistan and get Bin Laden, it was necessary to await “another attack on America”.

So who ‘did’ 9/11?

As the West invaded the Muslim world in the 19th–20th cc, local Muslims naturally resisted the occupation—both physical and cultural—of their world. One can only admire the heroic resistance in Aceh (present-day Indonesia) to the Portuguese in the 16th century and Abd al-Qadir’s guerrilla movement against the French in Algeria in the 19th century. Even the Saudi tribe’s Wahhab-inspired resistance to the distant Ottoman court, already decadent and aping the imperialists, deserves respect, though the Saudi Bedouin were notorious for their cruelty and killing of captives. The PLO hijackings of the late 1960s–early 1970s (recall Leila Khaled) and the ongoing intifadas by Palestinian youth are classic jihad: individual duty (fard ayn) in defense of one’s home and religion, heroic and justified given Israeli aggression and unwillingness to negotiate the return of Palestinian lands.

From the 1970s, however, there arose a very different movement of resistance—terrorists, who use indiscriminate violence intended to provoke the imperialists and their local Muslim representatives into even greater repression, in the hope of sparking revolutionary war. They are the product of the imperial times, aping 19th European anarchists who threw bombs at monarchs, eventually launching WWI, and 20th century groups such as Baader Meinhof who robbed banks and bombed buildings to protest the Vietnam war. Now it was the humiliation of the Arab defeat by Israel in 1967, and the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

Most of the terrorists were/are understandably Saudis, rich on oil wealth, educated at western universities (or unemployed), and disgusted by the Saudi alliance with imperialism (and by implication, Israel). As such, these terrorists have been dubbed neo-Wahhabis by Seyyed Nasr, author of Islam in the Modern World: Challenged by the West, Threatened by Fundamentalism, Keeping Faith with Tradition (2010). They are the bitter fruits (for us all, Muslim and non-Muslim) now being reaped in the so-called Global War on Terror. The problem is that this ‘war’ targets all Islamists, including teenage Palestinian rock-throwers, Hizbullah resistance fighters, elected Hamas, Iranian and Egyptian politicians, conveniently lumping them all together with the neo-Wahhabi terrorists.

The culmination of this terrorism, the high point (or low point, depending on your point of view) is 9/11, though it is still not clear who carried it out and how. Officially, it was by 19 Arab youth (15 of them Saudi), operating under their al-Qaeda mentors (notably, Osama bin Laden, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh).

The 9/11 Commission Report has been widely criticized as having gaping holes and ignoring or suppressing important evidence. However, it carefully documents the movements of the 19 highjackers leading up to their suicide missions, and hard evidence pointing at real conspirators other than the 19 highjackers remains elusive.

Whistleblowers point to ignored FBI and CIA warnings, but this evidence, and memoirs by such as CIA head George Tenet and White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, tend to undermine claims of wilful conspiracy by US government leaders.

The Pakistani general

The one clear thread from the start suggesting higher level involvement pointed not to US officials, but to Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Director General Mahmud Ahmed. He was ‘retired’ on 8 October 2001 by Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, and the next day, The Times of India reported that, “US authorities [FBI] sought his removal after confirming the fact that $100,000 were wired to WTC hijacker Mohamed Atta from Pakistan [in fact, the UAE] by Ahmed Omar Sheikh at the insistence of General Mahmud”. He is now a missionary with the Tablighi Jamaat society.

Ahmed Omar Sheikh was arrested by Pakistani police in February 2002 for the Daniel Pearl kidnapping, sentenced to death, and has spent the subsequent 11 years incommunicado. Pakistan refuses to extradite him to the US.

Saudi intelligence agents

The legendary “28 redacted pages” have been the object of attention ever since they were redacted. In 2003, 46 senators demanded that Bush declassify them. Ex-Senator Bob Graham, who chaired the Joint Inquiry in 2002, told IBTimes: “The Saudi government without question was supporting the hijackers who lived in San Diego. You can’t have 19 people living in the United States for, in some cases, almost two years, taking flight lessons and other preparations, without someone paying for it. But I think it goes much broader than that. The agencies from CIA and FBI have suppressed that information so American people don’t have the facts.”

Two of the Saudi men in question are Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan. Bayoumi worked for the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Aviation, moved to the US in 1994, and in 2000—after a visit to the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles—invited two of the hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, to San Diego. Bayoumi found the two future hijackers an apartment and paid their first and last months rent ($1,500). Bayoumi left the US in July 2001, was briefly interviewed in Britain by the FBI after 9/11, but released and never brought back to the US for questioning.

As for Basnan, Newsweek reported that he received $73,000 over several years from Princess Haifa, wife of Saudi US ambassador Prince Bandar (now Saudi intelligence chief). Basnan apparently took over Bayoumi’s responsibilities with the highjackers—whatever they were—but remained at large after 9/11, was never questioned, and was finally deported to Saudi Arabia in November 2002 on a visa-violation charge.

Abdussattar Shaikh, a long-time FBI asset in San Diego, was friends with Bayoumi and invited two of the San Diego-based hijackers to live in his house, but seems to have been unaware of what was really happening. He was not allowed to testify before the 2002 Joint Inquiry or the 9/11 Commission.

Then there is the Floridian Saudi millionaire Abdulaziz al-Hijji. The Hijji family fled their Sarasota mansion and the country just weeks before 9/11, leaving behind three luxury cars, clothing, furniture and fresh food in the frig. The gated community’s visitor logs and photos of car license tags showed that future 9/11 hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi, Walid al-Shehri and Ziad Jarrah visited the Hijji home, which was only a few miles from their flight school. Abdulaziz returned to wrap up his affairs in 2005 but was not detained or questioned.

Saudi patsy

Yet more evidence pointing to Saudi involvement is related by Gerald Posner in Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11 (2003), based on testimony by Abu Zubaydah, #3 on the US list of terrorists, a Saudi who was arrested 2002 in Pakistan and handed over to the US. He was duped by US interrogators masquerading as Saudis, injected with sodium pentathol (truth serum), and told his interrogators that he was “relieved” to find he was being quizzed by Saudis, providing them with phone numbers for a senior member of the Saudi royal family who would “tell you what to do.” The numbers were traced to Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, a nephew of King Fahd. He revealed more details of Saudi and Pakistani ties to Bin Laden, which the CIA passed on to the related governments.

The Saudi connection ran through the then intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal bin Abdulaziz, who agreed to let Bin Laden leave Saudi Arabia in 1991 and to provide him with secret funds as long as al-Qaeda refrained from promoting jihad in the kingdom. Clearly the Saudi leadership feared/ respected/ encouraged Bin Laden in his self-styled jihad as long as he left the them alone, as he was merely doing what they should have been doing as followers of Wahhab. In Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 10, 2001 (2004), Steve Coll writes that the CIA realized and admitted this.

Zubaydah told of a 1996 meeting where Pakistani air force officer Mushaf Ali Mir also promised Bin Laden protection, arms and supplies for al-Qaeda.

In the space of one week in July 2002, three of the four persons named by Zubaydah were dead:

*Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, 43, of a heart attack,

*Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki bin Abdullah, 41, of a heart attack,

*Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, 25, “of thirst”.

Seven months later, a plane crash killed Pakistani Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, his wife and several aides in Pakistan.

Information ‘wall’

There is sharp criticism in the 9/11 Commission Report of the Pentagon, CIA, FBI and Federal Aviation Administration for blatant lying and obstruction, though it seems that they were more concerned with covering up their incompetence, their refusal to share vital information, and the fact that their agents among the conspirators were really double agents. Bayoumi and Basnan may even have been triple agents, working for the FBI, the Saudis and al-Qaeda.

Ahmed Omar Sheikh seems to have been another (much more hands-on) triple agent, working with MI6, ISI and al-Qaeda. In his memoirs In the Line of Fire (2006), Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf said, “At some point, he probably became a rogue or double agent.” Ha, ha. We will never know exactly who Omar Sheikh was working for, as he will most likely die in Pakistani custody, just as the US government preferred to kill Bin Laden rather than to capture him alive.

Chickens come home to roost

Whether or not the legendary 28 redacted pages are made public, the pieces of the puzzle are falling into place. Pakistan’s ISI and rogue (?) Saudis were directly involved in planning and financing 9/11.

The idea was/is a Saudi-led hegemony in the Muslim world, where Pakistan would preside in Central Asia. The Pentagon, CIA and FBI lied to 9/11 Commission, not only to protect their links to their own duplicitous agents, but—more importantly—to prevent the whole Saudi/ Pakistani/ US alliance from collapsing in a real Islamic revolution, a la Iran. (This is what was beginning to happen with the rise to power of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which the Saudis sabotaged with US support.)

The US State Department was encouraging Unocal in its Afghan gas fantasy right up until 2001, gambling that the Taliban would bow to Saudi-Pakistani pressure to conform to this “grand strategy”. But the US, by undermining Afghan society in the 1980s using Islam’s Baader Meinhofs, had created a vacuum, a breeding ground for further terrorism. Hence, the dilemma: either the Taliban would have to buckle or the US would have to invade Afghanistan (and anywhere else it deemed a terrorist haven) after a “new Pearl Harbor”.

CIA head Tenet and Richard Clarke both supported Bush’s pre-9/11 plan to invade Afghanistan, and were just waiting for the go-ahead. In a White House memo a week before 9/11, Clarke wrote that he could not understand, “why we continue to allow the existence of large-scale al-Qaeda bases where we know people are being trained to kill Americans. You are left waiting for the big attack, with lots of casualties, after which some major US retaliation will be in order.”

9/11 skeptics call this scenario LHOP (let it happen on purpose). Whether it was 100% LHOP or 50% LHOP, it just required letting the logic of history take its course.

[seemslikeadream]

Saudi Arabia Will Go It Alone
By MOHAMMED BIN NAWAF BIN ABDULAZIZ AL SAUD
Published: December 17, 2013

London — Saudi Arabia has been friends with our Western partners for decades; for some, like the United Kingdom where I serve as ambassador, for almost a century. These are strategic alliances that benefit us both. Recently, these relationships have been tested — principally because of differences over Iran and Syria.

For Op-Ed, follow @nytopinion and to hear from the editorial page editor, Andrew Rosenthal, follow @andyrNYT.
We believe that many of the West’s policies on both Iran and Syria risk the stability and security of the Middle East. This is a dangerous gamble, about which we cannot remain silent, and will not stand idly by.

The crisis in Syria continues unabated. There have been over 100,000 civilian deaths. Most shockingly of all, the Oxford Research Group reports that of the 11,000 victims under 17 and under, more than 70 percent were killed by air strikes and artillery shells deliberately targeting civilian areas.

While international efforts have been taken to remove the weapons of mass destruction used by the murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad, surely the West must see that the regime itself remains the greatest weapon of mass destruction of all? Chemical weapons are but a small cog in Mr. Assad’s killing machine. While he may appear to be going along with every international initiative to end the conflict, his regime will continue to do everything in its power to frustrate any serious solution.

The Assad regime is bolstered by the presence of Iranian forces in Syria. These soldiers did not enter Syria to protect it from a hostile external occupation; they are there to support an evil regime that is hurting and harming the Syrian people. It is a familiar pattern for Iran, which has financed and trained militias in Iraq, Hezbollah terrorists in Lebanon and militants in Yemen and Bahrain.

And yet rather than challenging the Syrian and Iranian governments, some of our Western partners have refused to take much-needed action against them. The West has allowed one regime to survive and the other to continue its program for uranium enrichment, with all the consequent dangers of weaponization.

This year’s talks with Iran may dilute the West’s determination to deal with both governments. What price is “peace” though, when it is made with such regimes?

The foreign policy choices being made in some Western capitals risk the stability of the region and, potentially, the security of the whole Arab world. This means the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no choice but to become more assertive in international affairs: more determined than ever to stand up for the genuine stability our region so desperately needs.

Saudi Arabia has enormous responsibilities within the region, as the cradle of Islam and one of the Arab world’s most significant political powers. We have global responsibilities — economic and political — as the world’s de facto central banker for energy. And we have a humanitarian responsibility to do what we can to end the suffering in Syria.

We will act to fulfill these responsibilities, with or without the support of our Western partners. Nothing is ruled out in our pursuit of sustainable peace and stability in the Arab World as King Abdullah — then Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince — showed with his leadership of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We showed our preparedness to act independently with our decision to reject a seat on the United Nations Security Council. What point was there in serving in an international talking shop when so many lives are threatened, and so many opportunities for peace and security are being thwarted by the U.N.’s inability to act?

We continue to show our determination through our support for the Free Syrian Army and the Syrian opposition. It is too easy for some in the West to use the threat of Al Qaeda’s terrorist operations in Syria as an excuse for hesitation and inaction. Al Qaeda’s activities are a symptom of the international community’s failure to intervene. They should not become a justification for inaction. The way to prevent the rise of extremism in Syria — and elsewhere — is to support the champions of moderation: financially, materially and yes, militarily, if necessary. To do otherwise is to walk on by, while a humanitarian disaster and strategic failure continue to fester.

Saudi Arabia will continue on this new track for as long as proves necessary. We expected to be standing shoulder to shoulder with our friends and partners who have previously talked so much about the importance of moral values in foreign policy. But this year, for all their talk of “red lines,” when it counted, our partners have seemed all too ready to concede our safety and risk our region’s stability.

Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz al Saud is Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Britain.

Saudi envoy: West’s policies on Syria and Iran dangerous gamble

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE
Published — Thursday 19 December 2013
Last update 19 December 2013 4:40 am

WASHINGTON: Saudi Arabia is prepared to act on its own to safeguard security in the region, the Saudi ambassador to Britain has said in a commentary published in the New York Times.
Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf termed the West’s policies on Iran and Syria as a dangerous gamble. “We believe that many of the West’s policies on both Iran and Syria risk the stability and security of the Middle East,” the ambassador wrote. “This is a dangerous gamble, about which we cannot remain silent, and will not stand idly by,” he stated.
Citing Iran’s backing for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, he said “rather than challenging the Syrian and Iranian governments, some of our Western partners have refused to take much-needed action against them.
“The West has allowed one regime to survive and the other to continue its program for uranium enrichment, with all the consequent dangers of weaponization,” he wrote. Diplomatic talks with Iran may “dilute” the West’s will to confront both Damascus and Tehran, he said.
As a result, Saudi Arabia “has no choice but to become more assertive in international affairs: More determined than ever to stand up for the genuine stability our region so desperately needs.”
Saudi Arabia had “global responsibilities,” both political and economic, and he said: “We will act to fulfill these responsibilities, with or without the support of our Western partners.”
The Saudi ambassador said that “for all their talk of ‘red lines,’ when it counted, our partners have seemed all too ready to concede our safety and risk our region’s stability.”
The Saudi ambassador slammed the West for its reluctance to offer decisive help to Syrian rebels, vowing to continue support for the Free Syrian Army and the “Syrian opposition.”
Acknowledging the threat of Al-Qaeda-linked groups in Syria, he argued the best way to counter the rise of extremists among the rebels was to support the “champions of moderation.”

[82_28]

The Saudis are interesting because it creates a viable "middle option". And that is the point, I believe. The "middle option" essentially says "fuck you". Yeah, we did it and there's nothing you can do about it. Have fun with these toys while you think you're figuring it out. When in truth, we know it was powerful members of the occult.

We did not do this in order to be discovered, we did it as an announcement that we can do anything the fuck we want at any time. While we appreciate your racism and appeals to nationalism. We did it. Why, you ask? To control you all. You were not just a test, but a statement that even if shit is obvious, we are, indeed, and forever will be, hidden and in control.

There is a very much so "deeper meaning", however I am inclined to take the approach of this being something shallow to demonstrate how deep we THINK "THEY" are as opposed to deep they want us to think "they" are. It was a test of how shallow is too shallow. In fact, it wasn't even a "test". It was a motherfucking display. A fireworks show. A parade. A public execution. The way in which "they" can fucking install explosives under your very own eye and you just thought that guy was the 84th story cafeteria manager. This shit had to have been totally vetted. An operation this large did not just occur on a whim.

I would love to see the secret flow charts that obviously must have at least existed at some point. There were meetings.

[8bitagent]

The Saudis are interesting because it creates a viable "middle option". And that is the point, I believe. The "middle option" essentially says "fuck you". Yeah, we did it and there's nothing you can do about it. Have fun with these toys while you think you're figuring it out. When in truth, we know it was powerful members of the occult.

We did not do this in order to be discovered, we did it as an announcement that we can do anything the fuck we want at any time. While we appreciate your racism and appeals to nationalism. We did it. Why, you ask? To control you all. You were not just a test, but a statement that even if shit is obvious, we are, indeed, and forever will be, hidden and in control.

There is a very much so "deeper meaning", however I am inclined to take the approach of this being something shallow to demonstrate how deep we THINK "THEY" are as opposed to deep they want us to think "they" are. It was a test of how shallow is too shallow. In fact, it wasn't even a "test". It was a motherfucking display. A fireworks show. A parade. A public execution. The way in which "they" can fucking install explosives under your very own eye and you just thought that guy was the 84th story cafeteria manager. This shit had to have been totally vetted. An operation this large did not just occur on a whim.

I would love to see the secret flow charts that obviously must have at least existed at some point. There were meetings.

I find it interesting people searching for "TRUTH(TM)" completely remove Islam out of the narrative. Why talking about Arabs or Muslims having anything to do with 9/11 is racist right wing pro government story core! It was all Cheney, CIA and Larry Silverstein in a secret bunker. But it's missing the bigger picture...and one I find really interesting.

The World Trade Center's architect, Minoru Yamasaki, was a favorite designer of the Binladin family's patrons—the Saudi royal family—and a leading practitioner of an architectural style that merged modernism with Islamic influences. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/cult ... merce.html

Well ain't that a sync? There was this website called "Terror-illuminati.com"(yes, even I cringe at the title) but it was seriously well researched historycommons style, regarding long standing ties
between Western oligarchs/elites/secret societies and elites in the Islamic world. From Arab assassins during the Templar times to the Salafist creation out of the Egyptian Grand Orient lodge,
there is this strange sort of link. But I see deeper...the beauty of architecture and design. From Solomon's Temple to the Kabaa in Mecca, pointed out by an old Jake Kotze youtube video.
Twin buddha giants destroyed six months before twin pillars of pseudo Islamic design representing Western commerce.

The thing I don't get though, re: 9/11, as I 100% agree about your take on "The Saudi role"...is why do these creatures like Cheney, Rumsfeld and virtually everyone in the CIA seem convinced of the "al Qaeda threat".
Ive said it before, but I can almost imagine Cheney in his addict with a magnifying glass going over old Dubya era newspaper clippings still obsessed about "al Qaeda". I mean if ya really pull the perfect plan,
best to convince these knuckleheads theres an "uncontrollable jihadist threat".