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Saudi government "had direct role" in 9/11 attacks?

Started by Cain, March 02, 2012, 01:07:53 PM

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Cain

Two former Senators believe this to be the case

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/us/graham-and-kerrey-see-possible-saudi-9-11-link.html?ref=ericlichtblau

QuoteFor more than a decade, questions have lingered about the possible role of the Saudi government in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even as the royal kingdom has made itself a crucial counterterrorism partner in the eyes of American diplomats.

Now, in sworn statements that seem likely to reignite the debate, two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis' activities say they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks.

"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others. Mr. Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.

His former Senate colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat who served on the separate 9/11 Commission, said in a sworn affidavit of his own in the case that "significant questions remain unanswered" about the role of Saudi institutions. "Evidence relating to the plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks has never been fully pursued," Mr. Kerrey said.

Their affidavits, which were filed on Friday and have not previously been disclosed, are part of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that has wound its way through federal courts since 2002. An appellate court, reversing an earlier decision, said in November that foreign nations were not immune to lawsuits under certain terrorism claims, clearing the way for parts of the Saudi case to be reheard in United States District Court in Manhattan.

Its long been rumoured that Al-Qaeda were being used by the Saudi government for a number of covert ops overseas, and that the major financiers of the group could be found among the Saudi elite.  This is going to be one to keep an eye on...

Q. G. Pennyworth

HEY, THE SAUDIS TOOK OUT A FULL PAGE AD IN THE NEW YORK TIMES RIGHT AFTER THE ATTACKS TO TELL US THEY LOVED US AND THEY WERE SORRY THAT IT HAPPENED. HOW DARE YOU LUMP THEM INTO THE SAME CATEGORY AS ALL THE OTHER SMUGDY BROWN PEOPLE WITH RELIGIOUS VIEWS WE DON'T AGREE WITH. JUST BECAUSE THEIR TREATMENT OF WOMEN IS ATROCIOUS, THEIR GOVERNMENT IS RUN BY A DISCONNECTED ARISTOCRACY, AND THE MAJORITY OF ACTUAL PEOPLE WHO GOT ON PLANES TO MURDER PEOPLE ON 9/11 HAPPENED TO BE ACTUAL SAUDI CITIZENS IS NO REASON TO BESMIRCH THE HONOR OF THAT PROUD NATION. THEY'RE THE GOOD BROWN PEOPLE. ADVERTISING WOULD NEVER LIE TO US.

navkat


Mesozoic Mister Nigel

So how does it reflect on Bush if it turns out that his butt-buddies were the bad guys all along? That'll certainly fuel the Truther fire...  :lulz:
"I'm guessing it was January 2007, a meeting in Bethesda, we got a bag of bees and just started smashing them on the desk," Charles Wick said. "It was very complicated."


navkat

I just watched a Frontline docu about the BAE defense contract bribing scam. It seems, at one point, the Saudis threatened to "discontinue counter-terrorism cooperation" if the whistleblowers didn't go away and the bribes keep a-crankin.

Faust

Quote from: navkat on March 02, 2012, 03:26:57 PM
Uncomfortable Topics.
Was there any point to this post?

Quote from: Cain on March 02, 2012, 01:07:53 PM
Two former Senators believe this to be the case

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/01/us/graham-and-kerrey-see-possible-saudi-9-11-link.html?ref=ericlichtblau

QuoteFor more than a decade, questions have lingered about the possible role of the Saudi government in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even as the royal kingdom has made itself a crucial counterterrorism partner in the eyes of American diplomats.

Now, in sworn statements that seem likely to reignite the debate, two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis' activities say they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks.

"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others. Mr. Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.

His former Senate colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat who served on the separate 9/11 Commission, said in a sworn affidavit of his own in the case that "significant questions remain unanswered" about the role of Saudi institutions. "Evidence relating to the plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks has never been fully pursued," Mr. Kerrey said.

Their affidavits, which were filed on Friday and have not previously been disclosed, are part of a multibillion-dollar lawsuit that has wound its way through federal courts since 2002. An appellate court, reversing an earlier decision, said in November that foreign nations were not immune to lawsuits under certain terrorism claims, clearing the way for parts of the Saudi case to be reheard in United States District Court in Manhattan.

Its long been rumoured that Al-Qaeda were being used by the Saudi government for a number of covert ops overseas, and that the major financiers of the group could be found among the Saudi elite.  This is going to be one to keep an eye on...

The Saudi wealthy are inextricably linked to U.S businesses, especially in the financial sector. Sure knowing in advance that the attacks were going to happen would have allowed them to make a lot of money off the event but if they were ever caught it would be financial suicide for them, I can't imagine the Sauidi government would gamble like that.
Sleepless nights at the chateau

Cain

That they did.  The implied threat, of course, was that they would allow Saudi-based militants and/or Al-Qaeda to attack the UK, if the corruption charges were investigated.

And Nigel, I've always believed there was alot of...well, not so much conspiracy, the classic Reichstag Fire scenario that Truthers go on about, but a lot of potential embarrassment down the line for many people who had a vested interest in portraying 9/11 as purely an attack by a non-state group.  We know for example that elements of the ISI likely had knowledge of the attack, most notably General Hamid Gul.  We know there are the Saudi connections too, the backers of Al-Qaeda and the family links cultivated between the Bushs and the Bin Ladens via the Carlyle Group, and Bush Jr's oil ventures (it is also worth noting the Saudi Ambassador to the United States acted as unofficial "foreign policy tutor" to Bush Jr during his first run for the Presidency).  Finally, it seems possible the CIA had orders not to pursue the 9/11 hijackers too hard, in hope of recruiting them, either as moles within Al-Qaeda, for some some wacky adventure or other the CIA had planned, such as in Kosovo or Chechnya, where US interests and Al-Qaeda interests were mostly aligned.

That's a lot of powerful people, being made to look really stupid or foolish.

Cain

Quote from: Faust on March 02, 2012, 03:52:09 PM
The Saudi wealthy are inextricably linked to U.S businesses, especially in the financial sector. Sure knowing in advance that the attacks were going to happen would have allowed them to make a lot of money off the event but if they were ever caught it would be financial suicide for them, I can't imagine the Sauidi government would gamble like that.

There were suspicious patterns of trading in the days leading up to 9/11.

I'd be very surprised if attacking the USA were the official Saudi policy, I must admit.  If the Saudi regime wanted, it could cosy up to China, or Russia, or both, and wage economic warfare on the US through other means.

Which suggests it is, at worst, an element within the Saudi government.  There are factions which want a more hardline position against the US, religious fundamentalists and fanatics who hold positions of relative importance, and those would be the ones I would suspect most strongly of being involved.  It could be that there were rumours among the Saudi elites of something involving terrorism and the USA going down, but they decided to protect their own fanatics (and thus their reputation as a reliable and stable country...certainly not a chaos-exporting mess like Afghanistan) rather than tip off the US authorities and have to handle the political fallout.

navkat


Precious Moments Zalgo

Quote from: Cain on March 02, 2012, 04:04:16 PM
Quote from: Faust on March 02, 2012, 03:52:09 PM
The Saudi wealthy are inextricably linked to U.S businesses, especially in the financial sector. Sure knowing in advance that the attacks were going to happen would have allowed them to make a lot of money off the event but if they were ever caught it would be financial suicide for them, I can't imagine the Sauidi government would gamble like that.

There were suspicious patterns of trading in the days leading up to 9/11.
I remember hearing a reporter mention something about an unusually high volume of put options on various airlines in the days before the attack, but that story was dropped and I never heard any more about it.

I will answer ANY prayer for $39.95.*

*Unfortunately, I cannot give refunds in the event that the answer is no.

Cain

There were investigations, and the majority of it was innocuous in explanation, it should be pointed out.

Cain

http://openchannel.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/03/13/10656262-classified-documents-contradict-fbi-on-post-911-probe-of-saudis-ex-senator-says

QuoteFormer Florida Sen. Bob Graham, who co-chaired Congress' Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has seen two classified FBI documents that he says are at odds with the bureau's public statements that there was no connection between the hijackers and Saudis then living in Sarasota, Fla.

"There are significant inconsistencies between the public statements of the FBI in September and what I read in the classified documents," Graham said.

"One document adds to the evidence that the investigation was not the robust inquiry claimed by the FBI," Graham said. "An important investigative lead was not pursued and unsubstantiated statements were accepted as truth."

Whether the 9/11 hijackers acted alone, or whether they had support within the U.S., remains an unanswered question — one that began to be asked as soon as it became known that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens. It was underlined when Congress's bipartisan inquiry released its public report in July 2003. The final 28 pages, regarding possible foreign support for the terrorists, were censored in their entirety — on President George W. Bush's instructions.

...

The FBI-led investigation a decade ago focused on Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, who moved out of their home in the upscale, gated community of Prestancia, near Sarasota, and left the country in the weeks before 9/11. The couple left behind three cars and numerous personal belongings, such as furnishings, clothes, medicine and food, according to law enforcement records. After the 9/11 attacks, a concerned neighbor contacted the FBI.

Analysis of Prestancia gatehouse visitor logs and photographs of license tags showed that vehicles driven by several of the future hijackers had visited the al-Hijji home at 4224 Escondito Circle, according to a counterterrorism officer and former Prestancia administrator Larry Berberich.

Al-Hijji, who now lives and works in London, recently called 9/11 "a crime against the USA and all humankind" and said he was "saddened and oppressed by these false allegations." He also said it was "not true" that Mohamed Atta and other 9/11 hijackers visited him at his Sarasota home.

The FBI has backed up al-Hijji. After initially declining to comment, the bureau confirmed that it did investigate but said it found nothing sinister. Agents, however, have refused to answer reporters' specific questions about its investigation or its findings about the Prestancia gate records.

The FBI reiterated its position in a Feb. 7 letter that denied a Freedom of Information Act request seeking records from its Sarasota probe. The denial said their release "could constitute an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

...

Graham sees the information now emerging about Sarasota as ominously similar to discoveries his inquiry made in California. Leads there indicated that the first two hijackers to reach the U.S., Saudis Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, received help first from a diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and then from two other Saudis, one of whom helped al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi find a place to live. Multiple sources told investigators they believed both the latter Saudis had been Saudi government agents.

...

Graham is troubled by what he sees as FBI headquarters' apparent effort to conceal information, including the fact that al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi lived for months in California in the home of a paid FBI informant. Even when that emerged, the FBI denied his inquiry access to the informant. Graham wonders if that was merely because of the bureau's embarrassment, or because the informant knew something that "would be even more damaging were it revealed."

The newly surfaced FDLE documents containing informant Hammoud's troubling 2004 information about al-Hijji have reinforced Graham's concerns because they conflict with the FBI's public statements.

Hammoud's statement that al-Hijji introduced him to Saudi terror suspect Shukrijumah is consistent with the report that Prestancia gate logs showed Shukrijumah had visited the al-Hijji house – and buttresses longstanding official suspicion that he was linked to the hijackers. When Mohamed Atta visited a federal immigration office in Miami to discuss a visa problem in May 2001, a 9/11 Commission footnote reports, a man who closely resembled Shukrijumah accompanied him.

Q. G. Pennyworth

I really wish we were not in the time zone situation that we happen to be, Cain, because you put up these awesome dense posts about how goddamn fucked the government is and they come up when I'm way too sleepy to comprehend them.

Nephew Twiddleton

Strange and Terrible Organ Laminator of Yesterday's Heavy Scene
Sentence or sentence fragment pending

Soy El Vaquero Peludo de Oro

TIM AM I, PRIMARY OF THE EXTRA-ATMOSPHERIC SIMIANS

LMNO

This somewhat makes sense.  However, I'm not convinced that everyone involved in giving aid and assistance knew precisely what was going to happen.