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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:
I only believe facts. The facts suggest that you have to be brain dead to believe the official 9/11 report. It saddens me that there aren't more people wiling to force our government to answer all the reasonable questions that have been raised over this issue. The proof of conspiracy is in front of you people. It is the blatent way the government conspires to hide the truth and will not answer legitimate questions. I do not pretend to know what really happened, but I know that the official story insults the intelligence of anyone who really takes the time to research the facts. Anyone who doesn't believe conspiracies exist, is living in a dream world. I am proud to be a truth lover and not ashamed to ask for answers that make sense. If that means I have to live with the insulting title of a conspiracy theorist, so be it. Mark Twain said it best, considering the average intelligence of man, you must realize, that 50 percent...are below that.
The reality is simple. There are a number of unanswered questions and Senator Graham sums it up nicely, while showing his conservative bias with the following statement:
“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.”
Why do I say there is a conservative bias? Because he states “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.”
Which logically means Obama White House has the same policy. i.e. "Not embarrassing the Saudis". Because the reality is Saudi Arabia is one of your strongest allies in the Middle East and has been for sometime now. And as has been proven time and time again in international politics, paraphrasing here "The devil you know and can somewhat trust is much easier to get along with then the devil you think you know and cannot trust."
Add to that the influence of the Industrial Military Complex and the dots seem fairly easy to connect.
"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.”
The inside job that was 911 is unraveling, however the government can not investigate and reveal the truth as it will destroy the country, the truth is, a small number of Neocons within the Cheney -Bush administration and some foreign intelligence agencies Saudi, Israeli, Pakistani worked to pull off the 911 lie, then covered it up. The reasons behind it were outlined by the Neocon think tank Project for a New American Century in 1998. Unlimited money for the military, domestic control thru the Patriot Act, military basing in middle east and the 'stans. The global domination is for your own good, so keep working, paying taxes and producing healthy offspring for the military. No not ask any questions! Vote? sure you can vote for the 2-3 people we present, it doesn't matter they are the same and we control them, you and your news. Remember and repeat after me, the boogie man lives in a cave in Afghanistan, has a beard, AK-47, Quran, rag on head, Camel in driveway and will kill you.
You nailed it!
Look at the sincerity in that top photo. Strong eye contact, a double bicep-clasp handshake... Those men are professional bullsh**ters.
Bush = OIL = Saudis
Maybe we went into the wrong country ? Maybe the Bush connection is real. Why would the FBI close a solid lead like this . The war was started by big oil and the saudi. They want a United arab front controlled by the Saudi figure it out. We are fighting this war for the Saudi. They have boughten DEMOCRACY ! TREASON !
"W" Bush's administration was the most corrupt and incompetent in the history of the US. Allowing the attack on the WTC, lying us into war, shadow government, spying on innocent citizens, multiple war crimes by top officials, running up the deficit more than any administration, ruining the world economy................. I guess we could just call them the party of royal F**K UPS!!!!!
The Saudi connection is plain as day, how much of a connection? probably more than the Bush Administration was comfortable with but oil and it's far reaching profits trump everything else. I doubt that the Saudi
Government was directly involved but there is no doubt that complicity ran deep. I am sure of this, Saudi
Arabia is not our true friend. They do fear surrounding nations and rely on Western support. They play both ends against the middle.
Those war mongering cretians in the middle east should just be allowed to finish each other off WITHOUT our help. Sorry, but am just sick of it all.
O-BOY! Here we go again. The fear and rumor mongers are at it again. When it comes right down to it, does it really make any difference? And many of you are the same people are the ones who think odumba is here to help us? Get your heads out the position in which you have so carefully placed it. UPPA U S!
If all the hijackers showed up at your house and the FBI had pictures and you lied what would they say ?
The connection led to the Saudi government Soooo they ended it right there...
Postings here can lead a person to only one conclusion - Americans are an f'n stupid lot. Even after all this time, people still defend the attack on Iraq as an appropriate response to 911?!
Both Iraq and Iran sit on major oil fields, both are (were) seen as a possible threat to Israel's military hegemony in the region, and both had decided to move off of the US oil-dollar system that had replaced the gold backing of the US dollar. Now its Iran's turn to be put down - but at least be honest as to why and not get suckered in by the propaganda like they used for the Iraq war. Saudi Wahhabism is the real enemy of the US - educate yourselves on this topic please and support conservation and alternate energy.
The conspiracy from hell exists and the american people continue to have hell to pay in maintaining the oil trade in dollars. Moving away from fossil fuels and all the destruction and conflict associated with them would remove a major tool of evil. But that will remain unrecognizable to allot if not most people as they pump hundreds of dollars into their golden calves.
We never hear anything about the crooked Saudi government. The super rich now buying our military support so they can control the middle east. How stupid are we ? The Plan !
So much for all those 9/11 conspiracy theories.
I thought the invasion of Iraq was a mistake. If there is one thing all Arabs and Iran agree on it is that they don't like Israel being there and they don't like our interference. They are not crazy about each other either. If there were any weapons of "mass destruction" found it had to be gas. I have heard nothing of any perceived Iraqi desire to own or owning of nuclear weapons. They had just had a war with Iran (who is our sworn enemy) so if they had the ability to develop gas to hold off an invading army they would certainly do it. When we leave Iraq and Afghanistan will go right back to the way they were because that is what they want. Whether or not Hussein killed innocents I don't know. He was our ally for many years. If he did he deserved what he got but that is not our call. I did not vote for Obama but he has been smarter than Bush in handling this threat. We should have always targeted the people who want to destroy us with Navy Seals and drones rather than invade a country. Now we are going to pay. I can understand wanting to keep Saudi Arabia happy if we must but what does that have to do with blaming someone else?
For those playing the 9/11 conspiracy homegame; In what city and state was GW Bush on the morning of September 11th?
Consider the fact that the FBI had informants in the same apt bld in San Diego and missed everything about the hijackers, consider they missed everything about these muslims taking flight training, and of course the cameras at this gated compound don't lie. This muslim from Saudi of course knew the hijackers and of course he helped, and then this muslim slime slipped away to the UK. The enemy here is islam, doesn't matter a lot which of these muslim countries they came from, it's still the same enemy.
Informants are mostly drawn from criminal groups. Local law enforcement uses drug abuser and supplier informants to rat out other drug abuser suppliers. At the national law enforcement level informants are terrorists informing on other terrorists and drug cartels informing on their competition. Attempts to keep some information secret simply stems from embarrassment or fear of compromising ongoing investigations as well as past convictions. Law enforcement at all levels is subject to manipulation by the criminal and terrorists they are investigating. It is the nature of the beast.
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.// They knew the connection existed plus they lied and tried to cover it up ?????
"Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information."
US official quoted in Carl Cameron's Fox News report on the Israeli spy ring.
Did the Saudi's use us to take out their competition in the oil markets? Do they want/keep us at odds with Iran for the same reasons? Who was last seen bowing to Saudi Royalty? Is there an OPEC reason why the world remains at war and we get to carry the weight? Who do the Suadi's need military protection from? The sooner we don't need what they have, the less influence they will have on us.
it is the same thing all over again nothing but LIES, and COVER-UPS, ever since the Nixon eara, if you know too much about it all, you mysteriously die from a Mammoth Bite!!!!!!.
He lived in a house with a paid FBI informant on top of this. The FBI is connected to the Saudi . The solid lead was ignored I wonder why ? Connected to the same Saudi before they blew the Towers on 9/11. In a court of law how would you vote after hearing this info guilty or not ?
Headline: "Ex-GOP Sen. Bob Graham says classified information is at odds with the bureau’s public statements about the hijackers and Saudis then living in Florida."
Bob Graham is a democrat..
Don't start confusing the theorists with facts.