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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (58523)	11/23/2002 1:47:00 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Why does the obvious continue to be overlooked? 9/11 Report Says Saudi Arabia Links Went Unexamined By DAVID JOHNSTON and JAMES RISEN WASHINGTON, Nov. 22 — A draft report by the joint Congressional committee looking into the Sept. 11 attacks has concluded that the F.B.I. and the C.I.A, in their investigations, did not aggressively pursue leads that might have linked the terrorists to Saudi Arabia, senior government officials said today. The report charged among other things that the authorities had failed to investigate the possibility that two of the hijackers, Saudis named Khalid al-Midhar and Nawaq Alhazmi, received Saudi money from two Saudi men they met with in California in the year before the attacks. The committee's preliminary findings, which also accuse the Saudi government of a lack of cooperation with American investigators, have caused a bitter behind-the-scenes dispute between the panel's staff and officials at the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. At each agency, officials have disagreed with the draft findings, saying investigators vigorously pursued all available information related to Saudi Arabia. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, but little is known about their backgrounds and how they were recruited for the attacks. Most of the Saudis were part of a group that investigators refer to as the "muscle." These were men recruited late in the planning for the operation, not as pilots, but as an unskilled security force for the hijacking operation. Their job was to keep passengers at bay as the planes were commandeered and flown to their intended targets. In a rebuttal report sent to the committee in recent days, the F.B.I. has tried to disprove several specific allegations by the committee. One of them was about Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi, who lived in San Diego a year before the attacks. While in California, the two met with Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan, each of whom was receiving financial support from the Saudi government. The men were receiving stipends, although officials said it was not exactly clear what kind. The committee staff concluded in its draft findings that investigators should have followed up on the meetings of the four men to determine whether there might have been a Saudi link to the hijacking plot. The F.B.I. is still investigating how much financial support, if any, was provided by Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan to the two men who later turned out to be hijackers. The bureau is also looking into whether senior Saudi officials in the United States may have played some role in distributing funds to Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan. Today, the F.B.I. said in a statement that it had "aggressively pursued investigative leads regarding terrorist support and activity." It added that Mr. Bayoumi and Mr. Bassnan had both been charged with visa fraud after the attacks. But by that time, Mr. Bayoumi was already in Britain, where he was temporarily detained and then released because visa fraud was not an extraditable offense. The F.B.I. statement did not say where the two men were now or clarify the status of the cases against them. Although the disagreement has not been publicly disclosed until now, the debate over possible Saudi connections raises a very sensitive political issue for the Bush administration. Saudi Arabia is the largest oil producer in the world and one of the United States' closest and most important allies in the Persian Gulf at a time when the administration is preparing for a possible war with Iraq. In its report to the committee, the F.B.I. said that it was not uncommon for Saudis in the United States to receive financial support from their government and that an inquiry into the two men after the attacks had failed to produce evidence that they had any link to the Sept. 11 plot. A C.I.A. spokesman declined to comment about the joint inquiry's investigation of the Saudi matter. Counterterrorism officials have said Mr. Midhar and Mr. Alhazmi had paid for most of their expenses with cash, which has made the investigation more difficult. They have also denied finding any evidence that funds for the attacks were channeled through Saudi Arabia or that the Riyadh government had any connection to the hijackers.