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Title: Bin Laden May Have Arranged Family's US Exit: FBI Docs
Source:
AFP / Judicial Watch
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/article.ph ... 200413.fd64rwmy&show_article=1
Published: Jun 20, 2007
Author: AFP / Judicial Watch
Post Date: 2007-06-20 19:17:20 by Brian S
Keywords: None
Views: 232
Comments: 6
Jun 20 04:08 PM US/Eastern Osama bin Laden may have chartered a plane that carried his family members and Saudi nationals out of the United States after the September 11, 2001 attacks, said FBI documents released Wednesday. The papers, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, were made public by Judicial Watch, a Washington-based group that investigates government corruption. One FBI document referred to a Ryan Air 727 airplane that departed Los Angeles International Airport on September 19, 2001, and was said to have carried Saudi nationals out of the United States. "The plane was chartered either by the Saudi Arabian royal family or Osama bin Laden," according to the document, which was among 224 pages posted online. The flight made stops in Orlando, Florida; Washington, DC; and Boston, Massachusetts and eventually left its passengers in Paris the following day. In all, the documents detail six flights between September 14 and September 24 that evacuated Saudi nationals and bin Laden family members, Judicial Watch said in a statement. "Incredibly, not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value," Judicial Watch said. "These documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI's investigation of the Saudi flights. "For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight ... on another document the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 to 22 passengers on the same flight." Asked about the documents' assertion that either bin Laden or the Saudi royals ordered the flight, an FBI spokesman said the information was inaccurate. "There is no new information here. Osama bin Laden did not charter a flight out of the US," FBI special agent Richard Kolko said. "This is just an inflammatory headline by Judicial Watch to catch people's attention. This was thoroughly investigated by the FBI." Kolko pointed to the 9-11 Commission Report, which was the book-length result of an official probe into the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington that killed nearly 3,000 people. "No political intervention was found. And most important, the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals that left on chartered flights. This is all available in the report," Kolko said. On the issue of flights of Saudi nationals leaving the United States, the 9-11 report said: "We found no evidence of political intervention" to facilitate the departure of Saudi nationals. The commission also said: "Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights." Meredith Diliberto, an attorney with Judicial Watch, said that her group had seen a first version of the documents in 2005, although the FBI had heavily redacted the texts to black out names, including all references to bin Laden. Nevertheless, unedited footnotes in the texts allowed lawyers to determine that bin Laden's name had been redacted. They pressed the issue in court and in November 2006, the FBI was ordered to re-release the documents. Diliberto said mention that "either" bin Laden or Saudi royals had chartered the flight "really threw us for a loop." "When you combine that with some of the family members not being interviewed, we found it very disturbing."
Poster Comment: Link to the Documents. http://www.judicialwatch.org/archive/2007/Saudi%20Docs%...
Judicial Watch Release:
The document states: “ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND.” The plane was allowed to depart the United States after making four stops to pick up passengers, ultimately landing in Paris where all passengers disembarked on 9/20/01, according to the document.
Overall, the FBI’s most recent document production includes details of the six flights between 9/14 and 9/24 that evacuated Saudi royals and bin Laden family members. The documents also contain brief interview summaries and occasional notes from intelligence analysts concerning the cursory screening performed prior to the departures. According to the FBI documents, incredibly not a single Saudi national nor any of the bin Laden family members possessed any information of investigative value.
Moreover, the documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI’s investigation of the Saudi flights. For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight (commonly referred to as the “Bin Laden Family Flight”). On another document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 of 22 passengers on the same flight.
“Eight days after the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Osama bin Laden possibly charters a flight to whisk his family out of the country, and it’s not worth more than a luggage search and a few brief interviews?” asked Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Clearly these documents prove the FBI conducted a slapdash investigation of these Saudi flights. We’ll never know how many investigative leads were lost due to the FBI’s lack of diligence.”
http://judicialwatch.org/6322.shtml
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#6. To: Brian S (#0)
President Bush and Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the US, hold a private meeting in the White House. No aides or translators are present. Bandar is so close to the Bush family that he is nicknamed “Bandar Bush.” Sen. Bob Graham (D) later will note that while neither Bush nor Bandar have disclosed what they discussed in the meeting, mere hours later, the first flights transporting Saudi royals and members of the bin Laden family are in the air (see September 13, 2001). Over the next week, they will be taken to several gathering points, and then flown back to Saudi Arabia, apparently without first being properly interviewed by the FBI (see September 14-19, 2001). Graham will say, “Richard Clarke, then the White House’s counterterrorism tsar, told me that he was approached by someone in the White House seeking approval for the departures. He did not remember who made the request… The remaining question is where in the White House the request originated, and how.” Graham will imply that, ultimately, the request originated from this meeting between Bush and Bandar. [Graham and Nussbaum, 2004, pp. 105-107] Others also will later suggest that it was Bandar who pushed for and helped arrange the flights. [Vanity Fair, 10/2003; Fifth Estate, 10/29/2003 Entity Tags: Richard A. Clarke, George W. Bush, Bob Graham, Bandar bin Sultan, Bin Laden Family Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestSeptember 13, 2001: Bush and Saudi Ambassador Hold Private Meeting
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