Bush administration censors 28 pages on Saudi Arabia's role from 9/11 report
Posted on Friday, July 25 @ 10:24:30 EDT
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From Agence France-Presse
THE US Congress probe into the September 11 attacks may have prompted more questions than it answered when 28 pages on a possible role by Saudi Arabia were blacked out by the Bush administration.
The revelation has sparked the indignation of the victims' families.
For reasons of national security, the White House blacked out the entire section of the report entitled "Finding, discussion and narrative regarding certain sensitive national security matters."
"In a 900-page report, 28 blanked-out pages are being used by some to malign our country and our people," Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan said in a statement.
"Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages."
AFP was able to confirm through various sources close to the investigation that the top-secret pages are for the most part about the Saudi policy of supporting fundamentalism in the absence of repressing al-Qaeda's terror network despite US alerts to Riyadh since 1996.
The report confirms press revelations suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, an associate of two of the hijackers, could have been a Saudi government agent. The report details his ties with September 11 suicide attackers Khaled al-Mihdar and Nawaf al-Hazmi.
In January 2000, al-Bayoumi entered the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and upon leaving, he headed directly to a restaurant where he met with the two future attackers, a meeting one FBI agent said "may not have been accidental."
The two men had just arrived from Malaysia, where they had participated in a meeting with al-Qaeda officials under surveillance of Malaysian officials at the behest of the CIA.
Al-Bayoumi then helped the men rent an apartment in San Diego, paying the first month's rent and the security deposit.
The news weekly US News and World Report reported in November that the owner of the apartment was an FBI informant, a leader of the Muslim community in San Diego, Abdussatar Shaikh, 68. The FBI refused to allow the commission to question him, according to the report.
The congressional report said: "(Since September 11) the FBI has learned that al-Bayoumi has connections to terrorist elements."
"Despite the fact that he was a student, al-Bayoumi had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia. "For example, an FBI source identified al-Bayoumi as the person who delivered 400,000 dollars from Saudi Arabia for the Kurdish mosque in San Diego.
"One of the FBI's best sources in San Diego informed the FBI that he thought that al-Bayoumi must be an intelligence officer for Saudi Arabia or another foreign power."
"The report shows the significant role played by Saudi government agents in the preparations (for the attacks) which benefited from the royal financial generosity," said Jean-Charles Brisard, attorney for the victim's families.
"It would be inconceivable for the US government to refuse the victims' families the right to the whole and complete truth," he said.
Many in Congress feel sure that in the end, the blacked-out part of the report will be made public.
From Agence France-Presse:
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