SI
SI
discoversearch

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor.  We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community.  If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.
Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Skywatcher who wrote (618933)9/6/2004 9:40:57 PM
From: Gary H  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 769670
 
Sounds like AS has become a true American Politician.



To: Skywatcher who wrote (618933)9/6/2004 11:11:29 PM
From: Skywatcher  Respond to of 769670
 
More lies being exposed
White House Blocked Probe of Sept. 11-Saudi Link: Top US Senator

WASHINGTON - The White House blocked a congressional investigation into alleged links between the Saudi government and two September 11, 2001, hijackers, a top US senator wrote in a book.

Florida Senator Bob Graham, the Democrat who co-chaired Congress's probe into the September 11 attacks, wrote that Saudi government agents were part of a support network in the United States for two hijackers who took part in the devastating strikes, the Miami Herald reported Sunday.

But President George W. Bush's administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation blocked Congress's investigation into the alleged ties, Graham wrote in "Intelligence Matters," a copy of which the Herald obtained.

Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry called for an immediate "independent investigation" into the allegations "to determine if the very agencies charged with investigating the war on terror have been compromised by White House politics."

"These are serious allegations being made by a well respected and informed leader," said Kerry, who is challenging the Republican president in the November 2 election.

"If the White House and the FBI did in fact block an investigation into the ties between the Saudi government and the 9-11 hijackers, then this would be a massive abuse of power," he said in a statement.

The congressional panel's staff concluded that Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassan, two Saudis living in San Diego, California, were Saudi government agents who gave significant financial support to two hijackers, wrote Graham, a former Democratic presidential candidate.

Al-Bayoumi was receiving money from a contractor for Saudi Civil Aviation, and his monthly allowance from 465 dollars to 3,700 dollars in March 2000, the book says.

His pay increased after he helped hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhdar find apartments and make contacts in San Diego before they took flying lessons, Graham wrote.

But Graham wrote that congressional staff were stopped by the White House and the FBI from conducting interviews for the investigation, according to the Herald.

"It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety," Graham wrote.

In his book, which is to be released Tuesday, Graham says some details of the agents' alleged financial support were part of 27 pages from the September 11 panel's final report that were blanked out by the White House, the Herald said.

But Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the independent commission that investigated the September 11 attacks, told Newsweek magazine that the non-congressional panel was able to interview Al-Bayoumi and cleared him of links with the hijackers.

The independent panel released its own report in July.

© 2004 Agence France-Pre