Who let bin ladens leave the US?

[JoFerret]

http://www.thehill.com/news/051804/binladen.aspx

The Bush administration has refused to answer repeated requests from the Sept. 11 commission about who authorized flights of Saudi Arabian citizens, including members of Osama bin Laden’s family, from the United States immediately after the attacks of 2001.

Former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), vice chairman of the independent, bipartisan commission, disclosed the administration’s refusal to answer questions on the sensitive subject during a recent closed-door meeting with a group of Democratic senators, according to several Democratic sources.

However, former Navy Secretary John Lehman, a Republican appointee who also attended the meeting, said in an e-mail to The Hill that he told the senators the White House has been fully cooperative.

Democrats suspect President Bush, who met privately with the Saudi Arabian ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, on the morning of Sept. 13, 2001, may have personally authorized the controversial flights, several of which took place when all other U.S. commercial air travel had been halted.

<more>

[daa]

1. $hrub nt

[jdj]

17. The best article is from the Tampa Tribune

"The federal government says the flight never took place.

But the two armed bodyguards hired to chaperon their clients out of the state recall the 100-minute trip Sept. 13 quite vividly.

In the end, the son of a Saudi Arabian prince who is the nation's defense minister and the son of a Saudi army commander made it to Kentucky for a waiting 747 and a trip to their homeland.

The hastily arranged flight out of Raytheon Airport Services, a private hangar on the outskirts of Tampa International Airport, was anything but ordinary. It lifted off the tarmac at a time when every private plane in the nation was grounded due to safety concerns after the Sept. 11 attacks".

this is archived at :
http://web.archive.org/web/20011108145853/http://www.tampatrib.com/MGA3F78EFSC.html
------
The bodyguards were Dan Grossi and Manuel Perez. It's amazing they are still alive. According to the article FAA spokemsan Chris White said, when asked about this flight, "It's not in our logs...it didn't occur."

Unreal.

[SEpatriot]

2. W

Remember 15 of 19 (terrorists) came from Saudi Arabia. Who did we invade? Iraq. Perfect logic.

[PerpetualYnquisitive]

23. If the Saudis were involved in 9/11...

Does it not stand to reason that the bin Ladens would have known and made sure as hell not to be in America when the shit hit the fan. Yet the president has the leisure to sit in an unprotected building, just a few miles from a major airport, in a state where several of the hijackers lived no less.

The president not being rushed out of that school by the S.S. speaks volumes about who knew what and when. Remember that there is a man that travels with the president, who carries a package referred to as "The Football."

More on "The Football" here: http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/systems/nuclear-football.htm

[mr_hat]

3. I thought Richard Clark testified that he OK'd it?

[agingdem]

6. Clarke said...

he would not authorize it.

[mr_hat]

8. This from CNN, re his tesimony >

Clarke said he signed off on granting the special flight by the Saudi nationals, but only after the FBI had approved the flight list.

http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/03/25/saudi.hearing/

[Spazito]

15. That's only CNN's take on it, there are no closed quotes..

showing that is what Clarke actually said. The question that is not being answered is who, originally, authorized the flights. Clarke responded that he didn't have the answer. When pushed by the commission, he said he would say either White House or State Department. That is the answer the commission has yet to get: Which was it White House or State Department?

[young_at_heart]

4. "The Bush Administration has refused to answer"..........why?

Those words seem to be uttered a lot lately. I wonder how many times we've read or heard those same words since Bush came to power?

[JayS]

5. This also happened right after the Oklahoma City bombing. n/t

n/t

[goclark]

7. Who Refused To Answer?

ADo you mean that Clinton refused to answer after Oklahoma?
What did they ask him?

[JayS]

11. I don't recall Clinton being asked about it at all. I think it is...

...discussed in one of Clarke's books. I am sure it is discussed in Jayna Davis' book The Third Terrorist. I'll look for an article on it if you want.

[Imalittleteapot]

10. What do you mean by "this"? — that the bin Ladens

flew the coupe after the Oklahoma City bombing?

[JayS]

13. Yes, they left the country. n/t

n/t

[jdj]

9. Here's Powell dodging the question on Meet the Press

http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2003/23857.htm
--------------------------
MR. RUSSERT: The cover of Time Magazine tomorrow headlined, "The Saudis: Whose Side Are They On in the War on Terror?" And this release from Vanity Fair Magazine: "Former White House Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clark said that the Bush Administration decided to allow a group of Saudis to fly out of the U.S. just after September 11th at a time when access to U.S. airspace was still restricted. It required special government approval. According to other sources, at least four flights with 140 Saudis, including roughly two dozen members of the bin Laden family, flew to Saudi Arabia that week without even being interviewed or interrogated by the FBI.

Why was that allowed?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I don't know that that's accurate. I don't know the details of what happened. But my understanding is that there was no sneaking out of the country, that the flights were well known and it was coordinated within the government. But I don't have the details about what the FBI's role in it might or might not have been.

------------
I also have a snippet, probably from DU that says "the only person who could give this order was the pres. because it was a natl. emergency. Clarke refused to approve it, he passed it on to the next person"

[sniffa]

12. who Let the sauds out!?

woot woot woot woot

- which i shameLessLy stoLe from chimpsrsmarter.

[goclark]

21. I love it ..Who let the Sauds Out.."

LOL

[jdj]

14. also:

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sept-11-Saudi-Flights.html
Summary of Saudi Arabia Flight Findings
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: April 13, 2004
Filed at 3:34 p.m. ET
A summary of findings by the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks involving six flights to Saudi Arabia just after the 2001 hijackings:
National air space was closed on Sept. 11. Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country. We have not yet identified who they contacted for help. But we have found that the request came to the attention of (presidential counterterrorism adviser) Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departur

[oblivious]

16. Here the FBI says they did NOT approve the flights.

http://www.edinburghnews.com/index.cfm?id=971322003

Bin Laden family's US exit 'approved'
Wed 3 Sep 2003
BILL ANDREWS

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the US who is said to have organised the exodus, met President George Bush on September 13, 2001, two days after the terror attacks. It is not known if they discussed the repatriation plan.

The White House has declined to comment on the claims, but sources said the Bush administration was confident no secret flights took place.

Mr Clarke said he did not recall who requested approval for the flights, but believes it was either the FBI or the State Department.

But FBI spokesman John Iannarelli said: "I can say unequivocally that the FBI had no role in facilitating these flights."

[Spazito]

18. Here is Clarke's testimony from the 9/11 Commission's transcripts...

MR. CLARKE: You're absolutely right that the Saudi Arabian government did not cooperate with us significantly in the fight against terrorism prior to 9/11. Indeed, it didn't really cooperate until after bombs blew up in Riyadh.

Now, as to this controversy about the Saudi evacuation aircraft, let me -- let me tell you everything I know, which is that some -- in the days following 9/11, whether it was on 9/12 or 9/15 I can't tell you, we were in a constant crisis management meeting that had started the morning of 9/11 and ran for days on end. We were making lots of decisions, but we were coordinating them with all the agencies through the video teleconference procedure. Someone -- and I wish I could tell you who, but I don't know who -- someone brought to that group a proposal that we authorize a request from the Saudi embassy. The Saudi embassy had apparently said that they feared for the lives of Saudi citizens, because they thought there would be retribution against Saudis in the United States as it became obvious to Americans that this attack was essentially done by Saudis, and that there were even Saudi citizens in the United States who were part of the bin Ladin family, which is a very large family -- very large family.

The Saudi embassy, therefore, asked for these people to be evacuated; the same sort of thing that we do all the time in similar crises, evacuating Americans.

The request came to me and I refused to approve it. I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the at that time the number-two person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved -- after some period of time, and I can't tell you how long -- approved the flight.

Now, what degree of review the FBI did of those names, I cannot tell you. How many people there are on the plane, I cannot tell you. But I have asked since, were there any individuals on that flight that in retrospect the FBI wishes they could have interviewed in this country, and the answer I've been given is no, that there was no one who left on that flight who the FBI now wants to interview.

MR. ROEMER: Despite the fact that we don't know if Dale Watson interviewed them in the first place.

MR. CLARKE: I don't think they were ever interviewed in this country.

MR. ROEMER: So they were not interviewed here. We have all their names. We don't know if there has been any follow-up to interview those people that were here and flown out of the country.

MR. CLARKE: The last time I asked that question, I was informed the FBI still had no desire to interview any of these people.

MR. ROEMER: Would you have a desire to interview some of these people that --

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know who they are.

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are. The FBI knew who they were, because they --

MR. ROEMER: Given your confidence and your statements on the FBI, what's your level of comfort with this?

MR. CLARKE: Well, I will tell you in particular about the ones that get the most attention here in the press, and they are members of the bin Ladin family. I was aware for some time that there were members of the bin Ladin family living in the United States. And, let's see, in open session I can say that I was very well aware of the members of the bin Ladin family and what they were doing in the United States, and the FBI was extraordinarily well aware of what they were doing in the United States. And I was informed by the FBI that none of the members of the bin Ladin family, this large clan, were doing anything in this country that was illegal or that raised their suspicions. And I believe the FBI had very good information and good sources of information about what the members of the bin Ladin family were doing.

MR. ROEMER: I've been very impressed with your memory, sitting through all these interviews that the 9/11 Commission has conducted with you. I press you again to try to recall how this request originated, who might have passed this on to you at the White House Situation Room, or who might have originated that request for the United States government to fly out -- how many people on this plane?

MR. CLARKE: I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say "Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia"?

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the Interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference.

I was making -- or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: Thank you.

[maddezmom]

19. "... Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. "

one of those let the Saud's out, I'd bet on Chief of Staff...Andy Card.

[oblivious]

20. According to this, they were interviewed at the airport.

...While FBI agents looked into bin Laden family members in the Boston area immediately after September 11, it appears that the agents' first chance to interview them ? or other family members who lived elsewhere in the country ? came on the day they left the U.S. Each family member was given the all-clear on the basis of a single, day-of-departure interview ? conducted, in Bill Carter's words, "at the airport, as they were about to leave."

Asked by National Review whether the FBI had conducted a full and thorough investigation of all the family members before allowing them to go, Carter repeated his earlier statement: "The FBI had an opportunity to interview the individuals on that plane, and we were satisfied with the information they provided." Asked again, he said the same thing. "Unless you have evidence to stop them from leaving the country, they have every right to do that," Carter explained.....

But some law-enforcement experts found the abbreviated investigation puzzling. "That's highly unusual, and they could not have done a thorough and complete interview," said John L. Martin, the former chief of internal security for the Justice Department. "It was obvious at the time that the Bureau did not have the kind of intelligence to know who was behind , how they were financed, and what the U.S. connections might have been."

http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york091102.asp

[John Doe II]

22. Only 30 passengers were interviewed

See:

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/orl-asecoiabinladen19061904jun19,0,5594641.story?coll=orl-home-headlines

Remark: It's standard procedure in a murder case to interview all family members.
http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york091102.asp

Remark: How can you know on September 14, 2001 which questions to ask

Remark: Remember the two bin Laden relatives involved in WAMY? Remember that Bush forbad any further FBI investigation?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/events/newsnight/1645527.stm

So how can the White House possibly allow theses flights to happen?