and what ABOUT THIS!
Why was the Fired Head of Saudi Intell in the US
while 15 Saudis were Carrying Out their 9/11
Mission?
by Margie Burns
baltimorechronicle.com
APRIL 9, 2004--Days after September 11, 2001, with commercial flights grounded throughout the
United States, the Bush administration allowed select commercial jets to fly out of the country. Four
manifests from these flights have been released by Craig Unger, author of the nonfiction bestseller
House of Bush, House of Saud. The passenger lists are posted online
at houseofbush.com
A September 13 flight from Lexington KY to London carried 15 passengers including eight Saudis; a
Las Vegas-to-Switzerland flight the next day carried seven Saudis; a "VIP flight" from New York to
Paris on September 22 carried 12 passengers including four Saudis; and another Las Vegas-to-Paris
VIP flight on September 24 carried 24 passengers including 11 Saudis. Some individuals who jetted
away would have been "persons of interest" in any traditional investigation, and others had
round-the-clock knowledge of them.
Former Clinton and Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke was asked about the flights at the
April 8 hearing of the 9-11 Commission. Clarke responded that "someone" in the Saudi embassy had
requested that some persons be allowed to fly out and that he refused, kicking the request over to the
FBI, which permitted them.
Questions abound. If Saudi royals and other Muslims feared reprisals, and were allowed to leave for their personal safety, how
could that rationale have applied to British citizens Jack Rusbridge and Anthony John Stafford, on the flight out of Lexington, or to
US citizen Dean Earl Knect, on the Vegas-Paris flight? Assuming that diplomatic immunity covers the 20,000-member Saud
family, does it also cover family employees of other nationalities, including British and American? Why was a CEO of a Middle
East bank flown out, given the importance of the "money trail" in investigating terrorism? If allowing the Saudis' servants out of the
country was a humanitarian gesture, why was a prize-winning Egyptian physicist also aboard? Some family members of
September 11 victims, through the Family Steering Committee, have also asked why Saudi royals and others were permitted to fly
in commercial air space, when victims’ relatives were not given that permission.
Two of the flights departed from Las Vegas, where at least five of the September 11 suspects visited several times between May
2001 and August 2001. At least one suspect from each of the four planes hijacked stayed in Las Vegas. Suspected ringleader
Mohamed Atta checked in at a Vegas hotel on June 29, checked out on July 1, and returned on August 13. Marwan Al-Shehhi,
Hani Hanjour, Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Ziad Jarrah all traveled there at least once. All together, the hijackers made at least six trips to
Vegas. Yet, a few days after 9-11, 31 passengers were allowed to fly out of Vegas, including one passenger named Al-Hazmi.
One Saudi royal aboard was Prince Turki bin Faisal, famous as the head of Saudi Arabia's bloodstained and much feared
intelligence service from 1977 until he was abruptly fired in August 2001.
Whoa; time out. What, exactly, was the longtime head of Saudi Arabia's secret police doing in the United States, while15 young
Saudis were carrying out their attacks? Prince Turki's brother was also on board the Vegas flight; another of their brothers is Saudi
Arabia's foreign minister.
Why, exactly, did the fired head of Saudi intelligence hotfoot it over to this country, right after getting the boot? Or was he in the
US when he was fired? His replacement was officially announced on August 31, 2001. Did National Security Adviser Condoleezza
Rice, or anyone in the White House national security office, even know that these persons were in the United States? Given
Prince Turki's documented contacts with Osama bin Laden and Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence, which propped up the
Taliban, why did the White House let these persons leave? While Prince Turki was in this country, did he at any time meet with
the head of Pakistan's secret intelligence, Lieutenant-General Mahmoud Ahmad, also in the US at the time? Mahmoud Ahmed,
then the director of the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), had several meetings with high-level US officials, including some
on September 11; Mahmoud had also been part of the Taliban's support system.
What were the Saudi royals and those with them doing in Las Vegas? When did these officials and those connected with them go
to Las Vegas, and how long did they stay there? What reason could the hijackers have had for trips to Vegas in the first place
other than to rendezvous with higher-ups, given that any extra movement increased their chances of getting caught? Is the White
House really going to pretend that five skyjackers including the fervently devout Atta went to Vegas--separately and together at
different times--only to fit in a little gambling?
A bit of follow-up: in late 2002, Prince Turki became Saudi Arabia's ambassador to Great Britain, succeeding a cultured and
scholarly diplomat whose avocations include writing poetry. Why did our ally, Great Britain, accept him as Saudi ambassador?
Did the US government oppose his appointment, which gave him another layer of diplomatic immunity?
Theoretically the Commission should be able to raise these and related questions. The next hearings, on "Law Enforcement and
the Intelligence Committee," will be held on April 13 and 14, and "The 9-11 Plot" on June 8 and 9. But if the Commission does not
ask, someone else must. |
