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Politics : America Under Siege: The End of Innocence -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lorne who wrote (20018)	11/23/2002 11:31:27 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Respond to of 27666

madness

To: lorne who wrote (20018)	11/23/2002 11:33:31 AM
From: DeplorableIrredeemableRedneck	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 27666

FBI Probes Possible Saudi-9/11 Link AP/Hasan Jamali [29K] NOVEMBER 23, 10:05 ET WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department is investigating whether the Saudi government funneled money to two students who assisted two of the Sept. 11 hijackers, the White House said Saturday. ``The FBI has been investigating this and I'm not going to prejudge the conclusion of that investigation,'' said Dan Bartlett, a spokesman for the Bush administration. Bartlett, who accompanied President Bush to a NATO summit in Europe, disputed congressional critics of the probe. ``As anyone who knows this issue will tell you, it's very difficult to track financing of terrorist networks because most of it is done in cash,'' he said. ``I don't agree with the assessment it's not been aggressively pursued.'' A draft report by a joint congressional committee looking into the terrorist attacks says the CIA and FBI ignored the possibility that two of the hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, both Saudis, were given Saudi money from two Saudi men they met in California in the year before the attacks, The New York Times reported in its Saturday editions. Almidhar and Alhazmi were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. The committee also accused the Saudi government of not fully cooperating with American investigators. The two hijackers met with Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, who were receiving financial support from the Saudi government, the Times said. Officials were not sure what kind of stipends they were receiving, the newspaper said. Newsweek said, however, the FBI uncovered financial records showing payments to the family of al-Bayoumi from a Washington bank account held in the name of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi ambassador to the United States and daughter of the late King Faisal. Sources said the payments amounted to about $3,500 a month. The money filtered into the al-Bayoumi family's bank account in early 2000, just a few months after Almidhar and Alhazmi arrived in Los Angeles from an al-Qaida planning summit, Newsweek said in a report posted on its Web site Friday night. Payments for roughly the same amount began flowing every month to Basnan. Administration officials told Newsweek they did do not know the purpose of the payments from Princess Haifa's account. They also were uncertain whether the money was given to the hijackers by al-Bayoumi or Basnan. The princess' office said ``she will cooperate fully with the United States.'' The debate over possible Saudi link raises a sensitive political issue for the Bush administration as it is one of the United States' closest and most important allies in the Persian Gulf at a time when the administration is considering war with Iraq. In its draft report, the joint congressional committee staff said investigators should have followed up on the meetings of the four men to determine whether there was a Saudi connection to the hijacking plot. The FBI said in a statement Friday it had ``aggressively pursued investigative leads regarding terrorist support and activity.'' It noted that both al-Bayoumi an Basnan had been charged with visa fraud. The joint committee's final report is to be completed in December in classified form.