|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: C. G. Estabrook
||
||
|| There was a story that, while all US flights were grounded
|| after 9/11, the
|| US government arranged to have some Saudi nationals, perhaps including
|| members of the bin Laden family, flown out of the US. Is that true, and
|| does anyone have a source for the story? Thanks, CGE
||
||
The first report I saw was a BBC Newsnight transcript posted by Jared Israel. Then I saw the same thing in a Jimmy Breslin column.
Here's part of the transcript, dated Nov. 12: http://emperors-clothes.com/news/probetrans.htm -------------------------------------------------------- Has someone been sitting on the FBI?
GREG PALAST: The CIA and Saudi Arabia, the Bushes and the Bin Ladens. Did their connections cause America to turn a blind eye to terrorism?
UNNAMED MAN: There is a hidden agenda at the very highest levels of our government.
JOE TRENTO, (AUTHOR, "SECRET HISTORY OF THE CIA"): The sad thing is that thousands of Americans had to die needlessly.
PETER ELSNER: How can it be that the former President of the US and the current President of the US have business dealings with characters that need to be investigated? (3)
PALAST: In the eight weeks since the attacks, over 1,000 suspects and potential witnesses have been detained. Yet, just days after the hijackers took off from Boston aiming for the Twin Towers, a special charter flight out of the same airport whisked 11 members of Osama Bin Laden's family off to Saudi Arabia. That did not concern the White House.
Their official line is that the Bin Ladens are above suspicion - apart from Osama, the black sheep, who they say hijacked the family name. That's fortunate for the Bush family and the Saudi royal household, whose links with the Bin Ladens could otherwise prove embarrassing. But Newsnight has obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of other members of the] Bin Laden family for links to terrorist organisations before and after September 11th.
This document is marked "Secret". Case ID - 199-Eye WF 213 589. 199 is FBI code for case type. 9 would be murder. 65 would be espionage. 199 means national security. WF indicates Washington field office special agents were investigating ABL - because of it's relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, WAMY - a suspected terrorist organisation. ABL is Abdullah Bin Laden, president and treasurer of WAMY.
This is the sleepy Washington suburb of Falls Church, Virginia where almost every home displays the Stars and Stripes. On this unremarkable street, at 3411 Silver Maple Place, we located the former home of Abdullah and another brother, Omar, also an FBI suspect. It's conveniently close to WAMY. The World Assembly of Muslim Youth is in this building, in a little room in the basement at 5613 Leesburg Pike. And here, just a couple blocks down the road at 5913 Leesburg, is where four of the hijackers that attacked New York and Washington are listed as having lived.
The US Treasury has not frozen WAMY's assets, and when we talked to them, they insisted they are a charity. Yet, just weeks ago, Pakistan expelled WAMY operatives. And India claimed that WAMY was funding an organisation linked to bombings in Kashmir. And the Philippines military has accused WAMY of funding Muslim insurgency. The FBI did look into WAMY, but, for some reason, agents were pulled off the trail.
TRENTO: The FBI wanted to investigate these guys. This is not something that they didn't want to do - they wanted to, they weren't permitted to. (...) -------------------------------------------------------- Here's part of the Breslin column at Newsday. You can only find it in the Google cache: http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:FDeDIZKZv1oC:www.newsday.com/news/opini on/columnists/ny-nybresvr2474450nov22.column%3Fcoll%3Dny-opinion-columnists+ %22bin+laden+family%22+Logan+charter&hl=en
Jimmy Breslin Money Buys Everything, Even Death November 22, 2001 (...) Eleven of these mass murderers who were on the planes that attacked this city came from Saudi Arabia. This has not disturbed Saudi Arabia in the least. If people from New York ever were in on a bombing of Jeddah, the United States would be wailing apologies and sending reparations. George Steinbrenner would run a memorial service for Jeddah victims in Yankee Stadium.
None of the trade center bombers were from Afghanistan. We bomb Afghanistan and let the Saudi Arabians sit and drink coffee in their flowing robes.
A few days after the attack, a Saudi Arabian charter with five members of the bin Laden family left Harvard and Logan Airport to return home. FBI agents assisted them in leaving. Soon, Saudi Arabians from Los Angeles and Orlando were being flown home.
The FBI was letting them go without a hello in the midst of the single solitary largest investigation in the history of American crime.
It is a monstrous scandal. Those planes and those people could not possibly have taken off without the collusion of people scattered through the administration in Washington. (...)