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Shaun Heasley / Getty Images file
Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, left, greets former Sen. Bob Graham in a Dec. 17, 2004 file photo. Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional investigation of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, says the FBI did not inform his panel or a separate investigation co-chaired by Keane, about suspicious contacts between Saudi citizens living in Florida and some of the 9/11 hijackers.
Former 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.
More than a decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, former Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and Bob Kerrey of Nebraska have filed affidavits in a lawsuit filed by victims' family members saying they believe the Saudi government may have played a role in the plot.
Graham said the two classified FBI documents that he saw, dated 2002 and 2003, were prepared by an agent who participated in the Sarasota investigation. He said the agent suggested that another federal agency be asked to join the investigation, but that the idea was “rejected.”
Graham attempted in recent weeks to contact the agent, he said, only to find the man had been instructed by FBI headquarters not to talk.
FBI: 'No credible evidence'
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.
Broward Bulldog
Abdulazziz al-Hijji in a photo taken when he lived in Sarasota, Fla.
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. If that did occur, it will feed into suspicions that the hijackers had Saudi support -- a suspicion held by some official investigators but played down by the 9/11 Commission.
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.”
“At no time during the course of its investigation of the attacks, known as the PENTTBOM investigation, did the FBI develop credible evidence that connected the address at 4224 Escondito Circle, Sarasota, Florida, to any of the 9/11 hijackers,” wrote records section chief David M. Hardy.
Hillsborough County Jail
Booking photo of Wissam Hammoud.
Newly released Florida Department of Law Enforcement documents, however, state that an informant told the FBI in 2004 that al-Hijji had considered Osama bin Laden a “hero” and may have known some of the hijackers. The informant, Wissam Hammoud, also said al-Hijji once introduced him to Adnan El Shukrijumah, an ex-Broward County resident and suspected al-Qaida operative on the FBI’s Most Wanted list.
Last September, FBI spokesmen also disputed Graham’s assertion that Congress was never told about the Sarasota investigation.
That prompted Graham to ask the FBI for assistance in locating in the National Archives the Sarasota-related files that were allegedly turned over to Congress. Instead, after what Graham said were two months in which the FBI was “either unwilling or unable” to help find the records, the bureau suddenly turned over two documents to the Senate Intelligence Committee, which Graham once headed and where he still has access. It is those documents that Graham has said are inconsistent with the FBI denials.
Meeting abruptly canceled
Graham shared this development with the Obama White House, which responded by setting up a meeting between Graham and FBI Deputy Director Sean Joyce. According to the former senator, Joyce told Graham he “didn’t want to talk” about the Sarasota episode. Graham said he was assured, however, that he would shortly be shown material that supported the FBI’s denials, and a further meeting was arranged with an FBI aide.
In December, Graham said, the scheduled meeting was abruptly canceled and he was told he would be allowed no further access to FBI information about Sarasota.
Graham believes the joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks was not the only national investigative body kept in the dark about Sarasota. He said the co-chairs of the later 9/11 Commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have told him they also were unaware of it.
Kean, a former New Jersey governor, told Graham the commission would have “worked it hard,” because the hypothesis that the hijackers completed the planning alone was “implausible,” the former senator said.
Kean did not return several phone messages seeking comment. But Hamilton, a former Indiana congressman, confirmed this month that he learned nothing about the Sarasota matter while serving as vice-chair of the 9/11 commission.
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.
Later, when 9/11 Commission staff gained limited access to these individuals in Saudi Arabia, the aides’ reaction was caustic. One memo described the testimony of one of them as “deceptive ... inconsistent ... implausible.” The testimony of another displayed an “utter lack of credibility,” it said.
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.
Graham sees what he believes to be the suppression of evidence pointing to Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers as arising from the perceived advantages to the West, at the time and now, of keeping Saudi Arabia happy.
In late December, the U.S. announced a new $30 billion defense deal with the Saudis.
“This agreement serves to reinforce the strong enduring relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia,” said U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro. “It demonstrates the U.S. commitment to a strong Saudi defense capability as a key component to regional security.”
Graham said he was taken aback by that announcement.
“I think that in the period immediately after 9/11 the FBI was under instructions from the Bush White House not to discuss anything that could be embarrassing to the Saudis,” he said. “It is more inexplicable why the Obama administration has been reticent to pursue the question of Saudi involvement. For both administrations, there was and continues to be an obligation to inform the American people through truthful information.”
Anthony Summers is co-author, with Robbyn Swan, of “The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 & Osama bin Laden.” Dan Christensen edits the Miami-area investigative Website Broward Bulldog, in which this article first appeared.
Leave a Comment:
It's the powers to be to set up an attack on the U.S. and americans lose half their freedoms. Go figure.
U do not need to be an FBI agent to know that if any SAUDI left the country in a hurry something aint right.
Cars, belongings, medicines? It smells like a load of camel 5hit!
Any questions?
Anyone who believes the bush family (New World Neocons) was not involved is a fool.
Don't take this report seriously. From the read, it appears the entire "investigation" was a complete debacle.
And if I were President Obama, I wouldn't have used one sentence from any of it to do anything.
River man ,I think the answer to that very good question is NO ONE IN GOVERNMENT whether it be ours or any one elses,that include churches,cooperations ,news casters ,the weatherman,eye witnesses,ect.I on a personal note dont understand why anyone who has any knowledge of history,not revisinists history but actual continues to buy into anything they hear or any body who speaks in the political forum(candidatesect.)My only conclusion has become to believe in your self,not to look outside yourself for a leader,a decision maker and the best way to live your life
Fart, Barf and Itch---Big Brother's good right hand.
So when do we find out that.... .BUSH WAS BEHIND THE WHOLE THING WITH CHENEY? As my Dad told me many years ago..Never trust any politician, they are like banks, your best interest in not in their game plan. Remember, Prescott Bush, Bush's grandfather, was a Hitler backer.
Joseph Kennedy( Ambassador to UK) supported Hitler, so did Charles Lindbergh.What's your point?
SprtstrXLCH...What do you think my point is Mr motorcycle? Might just be trying to get people to think,with all 900cc's, eh........... P.S. Ladies Bike!
Your girl friend didn't think so! If you want to go fast, lose the saddle bags. AHDRA
Love the avatar...figured you for a pit bull
If we knew the whole truth about 9/11 Ex-President Bush and all of the cabinet would have been arrested and thrown into prison for life.
ABC, should show "the path to 9/11" again. You have your presidents mixed up! Clinton's inaction led to these attacks. The first WTC bombing, Khobar Towers, USS Cole and two African embassies!
Sprtstr-needs a big v-Twin...
You need a refreshed brain along with a real BIG-TWIN Harley.
My reply to you is the same as above..If it don't GO...CHROME it
9/11 Investigation starts 9/11/2001 ends July 2003 after about 20 MONTHS. ISRAELI Attack on the USS LIBERTY Investigation is FINISHED in ONLY 10 DAYS??? Lets reopen both and check for Mossad involvement!
Will the current congress and appropriate committees have the guts to open a new inquiry into this and subpoena F.B.I. personnel and force them to be truthful? Was 911 simply a Saudi cynical effort to manipulate the U.S. to aid it policy ends in the MidEast???
Umm, the current congress couldnt open their way out of a wet paper sack.
Just in case any of you have forgotten, not one of those Arab nations like Americans. We are tolerated by the Saudi's because we serve a purpose to them! We keep them safe from people like Saddam Hussien. Plain and simple. Even the Kuwait people don't like us, and we saved their collective arses the first time around. There will be new dictators at every turn.Please don't waste your time wondering why. They will never come into the 21st century. They like being the way they are, and is it really up to us to police the world? Hmmmm....who do you call? The biggest kid on the block. "AMERICA"
Use some sense. We will never be thier best friend, and that is ok. Time to bring our troops home so no more life is wasted. We don't need to kill them, they will do it to themselves. Unfortunately, the innocent will still die.
This stopped being religious and political a long time ago. This is true hate on the part of those people. Yet we are asked every day to accept them as they are. Sorry...time to move on. I don't like or accept their religion, or their political power. They simply do not value human life, and I am so over it.
Do not confuse Saudis with the Saudi royal family; they are in power solely as a result of American hegemony, going back to FDR. What is genuinely troubling--no infuriating--is this issue is not screaming from the front page of every daily paper and consuming every minute of airtime on every "news" network. Undoubtedly those complicit are banking on the notoriously-short attention span Americans are renowned for having. If the thread begins to unravel, it just may lead to the real reason Iraq was the target of American military action, when obviously the real need for regime change lies in the kingdom of the two holy cities. But that would really be a bad day for "extended" members of the Bush family. Inshallah that day will come.
When GW Bush based his information on using 9/11 for the attack on Iraq and the number of times the Saudi Prince visited Crawford, Texas there is no doubt the Bush administration had to keep the FBI under wraps. The American people will never find out the real truth until GW Bush dies or someone talks, which means putting their life on the line for talking. This goes beyond the normal conspiracy of the planes that never happened, this is a inside government cover up, after all Bush 41 ran the CIA what better teacher to go covert..........
So...
...If President Bush arbitrarily used the power of his office to shield the family members of his Saudi dons, then had a pertinent agency report censored, and stopped other potentially inconvenient investigations in their tracks, on top of the other (unanswered) charges that still linger around his administration...
...then why do people in the US still feel that they can somehow hold their elected officials (not to mention their wealthy cronies) to any sort of standard of conduct (other than the ban on BJs), when it should be patently clear by now that such is simply not the case (and lest I be accused of partisanship, there is no shortage of similar examples from any administration in recent memory - they vary only by degree)?
My vote is that continued self-delusion is less painful than admitting (even to oneself) that one has been a dupe all their life. Yet...wouldn't it be better to wake from the dream if only to survey the range of possible alternatives, rather than simply continue to feign slumber?
Just a thought, albeit tantamount to sedition in this country. Don't flame me for applying logic, please.
So now, after they brought Nazis here and hid them in the U. S. we are supposed to believe that the FBI isn't in this up to its eyeballs. The White House ushered all the Ben Laudins out of the country in the days after 9/11 so that they couldn't be compelled to testify. The FBI was telling its own agents to shut up as they reported on the terrorists learning to fly but not land airplanes. In 2000 the FBI was all tied up investigating a prostitute in New Orleans and didn't have the manpower needed to investigate a bunch of Saudis that were acting strange. Welcome to Oz. Now the White House "doesn't want this to distract us?" OK, now you really have my attention. All you have to do is pay off the 9/11 survivors so that they won't sue and investigate how this happened. Wait, wait, we did that also.
Pay no attention to those men behind the curtain. :)
All of this is not at all surprising. Our corrupt government at work. Oil. 'Nuf said.
Oh c'mon, you don't think the government would lie to us, do you? This story is a big surprise...let's hear it for conspiracy theorists...they're not crazy after all...if Jr. Bush were to be found out as covering up the 9/11 incident, could we try him as a terrorist? Not going to happen.
Remember, the FBI was behind the FIRST attack on the world trade center. Why would it be different the 2nd time around?
Unlike a Liberal blabbing to every one, or to Journalist's who enjoy informing the enemy of all that we are doing which I consider to be treason I support the former President Bush in all he did...
Why tell anyone especially the Media anything about who what and where which if given to the Media would have tipped off the enemy to everything...Duh!
Few of the posters here have NOT thought that far or are so blinded by the Kool Ade, and I surely would not want them on my Team for anything or any kind of Sport or in my Squad in the Marines...They'd lose the game for our team by giving them our Game Plan or get men in my Squad killed by giving them our attack Plans...I've never seen so many actual dumb stupid comments made as I have seen here today by people who obviously have no clue on how to catch the enemy other than the rarely accurate portrayals on Television where the good guys always win...Has nothing to due with reality......
Yes most of the Hijackers were Saudis but, they were recruited and trained by Bin Laden in other Countries. Remember weenie Clinton tentatively sent in a few Tomahawk missiles to scare them and then didn't follow up on it...And one of our special forces teams had Bin Laden in their sights at 200 yards and yellow back Bill was too busy or to chicken to give the go ahead signal......
Heck Bin Laden came from a Rich Elite Millionaire Liberal Saudi Family,,,sound familiar,,,He'd fit right in the family's of the majority of the Elite Rich Millionaire Liberal Demoncrats in Washington at this very moment..Pelosi, Kerry, Reid, etc. etc.
So instead of making a judgement based on the this bit of a tid bit story take all the facts into account, it might enlighten you.....geez....what dumb people there are out there....
So I guess none of the Repukes in DC come from "Rich Elite Millionaire" families, right? I can think of one, though no longer in DC, Bush II, who also happens to be close to Bin Bungholes family, and share a common interest, OIL.
There is so much swept under the rug about the 'bad' Saudis, that the pile is as high as the Dubai Tower. Maybe the media should earn their keep and report real news instead of reporting on who eats what kind of grits.
OIL.....
Sen Graham the next time you guys are questioning the FBI don't forget to ask them about the meetings they had in lower Manhatten between them and the IMF months before 9/11 in which after they finished their meal this informant pointed directly at the Twin Towers and said "Those two will come down.."
Do any of you people think we will ever know the whole story?
OK, so the last 28 pages of the report were never released. Talk about a smoking gun. These "civilian" Saudis are living high off the hog in a ritzy, gated community in Florida, and right before 9/11 they take off leaving everything behind. Pictures of license plates directly connected to terrorists taken at this gated community. Um...I aint' no rocket scientist, but if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck. Our involvement in the Middle East is a sham. We left Iraq, now we need to leave Afghanistan. Americans killing Afghanistans and Afhanistans killing Americans....aren't we supposed to be helping these people? I hope President Obama makes the decision to leave soon...today would be good.
we have the sneakiest government in the world.they have (for the most part)kept us safe and one step ahead of the rest of the world.i say"keep on keeping on big brother !!"
The MOST DANGEROUS PEOPLE in the world are those who scoff at so called CONSPIRACY THEORIES!
The enemy knows that the BIGGER THE LIE the more people will reject conspiracy as if it is only "theory."
God knows our own government will never LIE or do evil things for gain...right?
Our politicians will never LIE...right?
I don't blame those who scoff CONSPIRACY THEORIES because they are only protecting themselves from being labelled as NUTs...I blame MEL GIBSON & the role he played in his movie CONSPIRACY THEORY because after that movie it became popular for frightened people to simply crap on those who spoke-out against the huge number of LIES.
Now more than ever conspiracies are being perpetrated and the evil ones know that the majority of our citizens will excuse it away...while others only care about sports & a paycheck & can careless...others think someone else will fix it.
Well now that Validar Putin is back in power USA will pay...how's that for CONSPIRACY THEORY...USA is goin down...our enemy is in country by the millions they do not have to get here...they are here. RED CHINA has it's own port in & out of this country.