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What Was the Saudi Involvement in the 9/11 Attacks?
http://www.truthdig.com/arts_culture/item/what_was_the_saudi_involvement_in_
the_9_11_attacks_20160910/
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Posted on Sep 10, 2016
By Medea Benjamin
President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visited Saudi Arabia
in 2015 and met with King Salman bin Abdulaziz. (Pete
Souza(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saudi_Arabia%E2%80%93United_States_relat
ions#/media/File:President_Barack_Obama_and_First_Lady_Michelle_Obama_walk_w
ith_King_Salman_of_Saudi_Arabia_at_Erga_Palace_in_Riyadh,_Saudi_Arabia,_Jan.
_27,_2015.jpg) )
The following excerpt is adapted from "Kingdom of the Unjust: Behind the
U.S.-Saudi
Connection(http://www.orbooks.com/catalog/kingdom-of-the-unjust-by-medea-ben
jamin/) " from O/R Books.
To this day, there is no clarity about the role of the Saudi Arabian
government or individual Saudis with close ties to the government in the
9/11 attacks. We know that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. We know that
the bin Laden family had close ties to the family of George W. Bush. We know
that right after the attack, wealthy Saudis living in the United States
frantically contacted the Saudi Embassy in Washington asking to leave
because they feared a backlash. Just days after the attack, some 140 Saudis,
including about two dozen members of the bin Laden family, were mysteriously
spirited out of the country with little questioning by the FBI.
READ: How Little We Know About the Origins of
9/11(http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/how_little_we_know_about_the_origin
s_of_9_11_20110908)
There have been claims that Saudi Arabia's ruling elite, under the guise of
support for Islamic charities, distributed money to Sunni extremists inside
the United States in the runup to the Sept. 11 attacks. Omar al-Bayoumi, an
alleged Saudi agent living in San Diego who helped two of the hijackers,
seemed to have access to large amounts of money from Saudi Arabia. An FBI
source identified al-Bayoumi as the person who delivered $400,000 from Saudi
Arabia to a mosque in San Diego.
The allegations were bolstered when former al-Qaida operative Zacarias
Moussaoui accused prominent members of Saudi Arabia's royal family of being
major donors to the terrorist network in the late 1990s-allegations that
Saudi officials denied.
Many 9/11 family members thought that the 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry
into the terrorist attacks would provide answers. The 838-page investigation
was completed in December 2002, but the Bush administration refused to
release it until after its invasion of Iraq, and refused to declassify a
28-page
portion(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/16/us/28-pages-saudi-arabia-september
-11.html) of the report that dealt with Saudi Arabia and the financing of
the attacks.
Members of Congress were allowed to read the 28 pages in a secure,
soundproof facility in the basement of the Capitol, but they were not
allowed to take notes, bring any staff, or talk about the content. After
reading the 28 pages, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky said, "They're the most
consequential pages in the 1,000-page report." Massie said the section was
"shocking" and he had to "stop every couple pages and try to rearrange my
understanding of history."
Former Sen. Bob Graham, who chaired the investigation, fought hard to get
the section released. "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," said Graham. He suggested that the Bush and Obama
administrations refused to release the information for fear of alienating an
influential military and economic partner.
Graham also said the FBI withheld from his commission's inquiry the fact
that the bureau had investigated a Saudi family in Sarasota, Fla., and had
found multiple contacts between the Saudi family and the hijackers training
nearby, and that the family fled the country just before the attacks. "One
thing that irritates me is that the FBI has gone beyond just covering up
into what I call aggressive deception," Graham said.
Many people dispute Graham's interpretation and insist the Saudi government
had no ties to the attacks. They point to a separate congressional study in
2004 by the 9/11 Commission that found no evidence that the Saudi government
or senior Saudi officials individually funded al-Qaida.
This May, however, John Lehman, a Republican who served as U.S. Navy
secretary in the Reagan administration and was among the 10 commission
members, said there was, indeed, clear evidence that Saudi government
employees helped some of the 9/11 hijackers. He said the commission
investigated at least five Saudi government officials, including employees
of the kingdom's Ministry of Islamic Affairs, who potentially aided some of
the hijackers.
On July 15, after 14 years of pressure, a redacted version of the 28 pages
was finally declassified. Some reported that it contained no smoking gun and
the matter should be put to rest. Graham, on the other hand, said it did
indeed confirm Saudi government links to the hijackers and that it should
herald the flow of more government-withheld information. The 28 pages dealt
mostly with the three hijackers who lived in San Diego, but most of the
hijackers lived in Florida, Virginia and New Jersey. Graham contends that
there are over 80,000 pages from these investigations that should be
released.
The best way to get this information released is through litigation. For
over a decade, 9/11 widows have tried to sue Saudi Arabia in U.S. courts but
have been blocked by the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. A bill called the
Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA, would strip immunity
from countries potentially involved in acts of terrorism on U.S. soil.
READ: Gaping Holes in the 9/11
Narrative(http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/20060910_robert_scheer_holes_9_11
)
In May the Senate unanimously passed the bill, and Friday-on the eve of the
15th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks-the House followed
suit(https://www.c-span.org/video/?415030-101/us-house-legislative-business)
. President Obama vowed to veto it out of concerns over international
retribution. Congress threatened to override his veto.
Meanwhile, Saudi officials threatened that if the JASTA bill passed, their
government would withdraw $750 billion of Saudi investments in U.S. assets.
The Saudi threats unleashed a new wave of anger from 9/11 families, who
denounced Saudi blackmail and President Obama's threatened veto. "We
struggle to understand why the U.S. government, led by President Obama,
would so willingly drop to its knees and bare its neck to the shiny sword of
Saudi extortion," said an angry Kristen Breitweiser, one of the "Jersey
Girls" whose husband died on 9/11. "What has become of our country? America
needs elected officials who recognize that U.S. citizens are their
constituents-not oil-rich nations that bankroll terrorists."
No matter what happens with the 9/11 families' lawsuits, two things are
certain: One, more information will certainly come out, sooner or later,
about the extent of official Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Two, the
Wahhabist
ideology(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/03/29/what-is-wahhabism-the-re
actionary-branch-of-islam-said-to-be-the/) that defines Saudi Arabia has
spawned leaders like the late Osama bin Laden, and terrorist groups like
al-Qaida. The 9/11 attacks are a direct outgrowth of this fundamentalist
ideology, and for this alone, the Saudi regime should be held accountable.
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