.
"Sean Carter, a plaintiffs' lawyer, said: "Obviously, we respectfully disagree with the court's ruling." He promised an appeal.
"Evidence
central to these claims continues to be treated as classified. The
government's decision to continue to classify that material certainly
factored into this outcome," he said....[last sentence of AP article]
Saudi Arabia was
dismissed Tuesday as a defendant in lawsuits brought by the families of
victims of the Sept. 11 attacks by a judge who said lawyers had failed
to show sufficient evidence linking the country to the attacks.
U.S.
District Judge George Daniels said in a written ruling that lawyers for
the plaintiffs had failed to show facts sufficient to overcome Saudi Arabia's sovereign immunity. He also dismissed as a defendant the Saudi
High Commission for Relief of Bosnia and Herzegovina on the grounds
that the charity is an instrument of Saudi Arabia and thus covered as
well by sovereign immunity....
Lawyers in the Sept. 11 cases have
frequently cited the report by the Sept. 11 Commission. Lawyers for the
plaintiffs have said the commission supported their argument that Saudi
Arabia had long been considered the primary source of al-Qaida funding,
while lawyers for Saudi Arabia have argued that the commission found no
evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi
officials individually funded al-Qaida."...
================
Added: Two 2013 articles about the 28 pages of 911 Commission report that remain redacted:
12/9/13, "9/11 Link To Saudi Arabia Is Topic Of 28 Redacted Pages In Government Report; Congressmen Push For Release," IB Times, Jamie Reno
"Since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001,
victims’ loved ones, injured survivors, and members of the media have
all tried without much success
to discover the true nature of the
relationship between the 19 hijackers – 15 of them Saudi nationals – and
the Saudi Arabian government. Many news organizations reported that
some of the terrorists were linked to the Saudi royals and that they
even may have received financial support from them as well as from
several mysterious, moneyed Saudi men living in San Diego.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any connection, and
neither
President George W. Bush nor President Obama has been forthcoming on
this issue.
But earlier this year, Reps. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and Stephen
Lynch, D-Mass., were given
access to the 28 redacted pages of the Joint
Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) of 9/11 issued in late 2002, which
have been thought to hold some
answers about the Saudi connection to
the attack.
..............
"I was absolutely shocked by what I read," Jones told International
Business Times. "What was so surprising was that those whom we thought
we could trust really disappointed me. I cannot go into it any more than
that.
I had to sign an oath that what I read had to remain
confidential. But the information I read disappointed me greatly."
The public may soon also get to see these secret documents. Last
week,
Jones and Lynch introduced a resolution that urges President Obama
to declassify the 28 pages, which were originally
classified by
President George W. Bush. It has never been fully explained why the
pages were blacked out, but
President Bush stated in 2003 that releasing
the pages would violate national security.
While neither Jones nor Lynch would say just what is in the document,
some of the information has leaked out over the years. A multitude of
sources tell IBTimes, and numerous press reports over the years in
Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS News and other media confirm, that the
28 pages in fact clearly portray that the Saudi government had at the
very least an indirect role in supporting the terrorists responsible for
the 9/11 attack. In addition, these classified pages clarify somewhat
the links between the hijackers
and at least one Saudi government worker
living in San Diego.
Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Joint Inquiry in 2002
and has been beating the drum for more disclosure about 9/11 since
then, has never understood why the 28 pages were redacted. Graham told
IBTimes that based on his involvement in the investigation and on the
now-classified information in the document that his committee produced,
he is convinced that “the Saudi government without question was
supporting the hijackers who lived in San Diego…. You can't have
19
people living in the United States for, in some cases, almost two years,
taking flight lessons and other preparations, without someone paying
for it. But I think it goes much broader than that.
The agencies from
CIA and FBI have suppressed that information so American people don't
have the facts."
Jones insists that releasing
the 28 secret pages would not violate national security.
“It does not deal with national security per se; it is more about
relationships,” he said. “The information is
critical to our foreign
policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American
people. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one
or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to
know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to the
perpetrators."
It took Jones six weeks and several letters to the [John Boehner controlled] House Intelligence
Committee before the classified pages from the 9/11 report were made
available to him. Jones was so stunned by what he saw that he approached
Rep. Lynch, asking him to look at the 28 pages as well. He knew that
Lynch would be astonished by the contents of the documents
and perhaps
would join in a bipartisan effort to declassify the papers.
"He came back to me about a week ago and told me that he, too, was
very shocked by what he read,” Jones said. “I told him we need to join
together and put in a resolution and get more members on both sides of
the aisle involved and demand that the White House release this
information to the public. The American people have a right to know this
information."
A decade ago, 46 senators, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.,
demanded in a letter to President Bush that he declassify the 28 pages.
The letter read, in part, "It has been widely reported in the press
that the foreign sources referred to in this portion of the Joint
Inquiry analysis reside primarily in Saudi Arabia. As a result, the
decision to classify this information sends the wrong message to the
American people about our nation's antiterror effort and makes it seem
as if there will be no penalty for foreign abettors of the hijackers.
Protecting the Saudi regime by eliminating any public penalty for the
support given to terrorists from within its borders would be a
mistake....
We respectfully urge you to declassify the 28-page section
that deals with foreign sources of support for the 9/11 hijackers."
All of the senators who signed that letter but one, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), were Democrats.
Lynch, who won the Democratic primary for his congressional seat on
that fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001, told IBTimes that he and Jones are
in the process of writing a “Dear Colleague” letter calling on all House
members to read the 28 pages and join their effort.
"Once a member reads the 28 pages, I think whether they are Democrat
or Republican they will reach the same conclusion that Walter and I
reached, which is that Americans have the right to know this
information," Lynch said. “These documents speak for themselves. We have
a situation where an
extensive investigation was conducted, but then
the Bush [administration] decided for whatever purposes to excise 28
pages from the report. I'm not passing judgment. That was a different
time. Maybe there were legitimate reasons to keep this classified. But
that time has long passed.”
Most of the allegations of links between the Saudi government and the
9/11 hijackers revolve around two enigmatic Saudi men who lived in San
Diego: Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan,
both of whom have long since
left the United States.
In early 2000, al-Bayoumi, who had previously worked for the Saudi
government in civil aviation (a part of the Saudi defense
department), invited two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf
Alhazmi, to San Diego from Los Angeles. He told authorities he met the
two men by chance when he sat next to them at a restaurant.
Newsweek reported in 2002 that al-Bayoumi’s invitation was extended
on the same day that he visited the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles for a
private meeting.
Al-Bayoumi arranged for the two future hijackers to live in an
apartment and paid $1,500 to cover their first two months of rent.
Al-Bayoumi was briefly interviewed in Britain
but was never brought back
to the United States for questioning.
As for Basnan, Newsweek reported that he received monthly checks for
several years totaling as much as $73,000 from the Saudi ambassador to
the United States, Prince Bandar, and his wife, Princess Haifa Faisal.
Although the checks were sent to pay for thyroid surgery for Basnan’s
wife, Majeda Dweikat, Dweikat signed many of the checks over to
al-Bayoumi’s wife, Manal Bajadr.
This money allegedly made its way into
the hands of hijackers, according to the 9/11 report.
Despite all this, Basnan was ultimately allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, and Dweikat was deported to Jordan.
Sources and numerous press reports also suggest that the 28 pages
include more information about Abdussattar Shaikh, an FBI asset in San
Diego who Newsweek reported was friends with al-Bayoumi and invited two
of the San Diego-based hijackers to live in his house.
Shaikh was not allowed by the FBI or the Bush administration to testify before the 9/11 Commission or the JICI.
Graham notes that there was a significant 9/11 investigation in
Sarasota, Fla., which also suggests a connection between the hijackers
and the Saudi government that most Americans don’t know about. The investigation, which occurred in 2002, focused on Saudi
millionaire Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, whose upscale home
was owned by Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to
Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the nephew of Saudi King
Fahd.
The al-Hijji family reportedly moved out of their Sarasota house and
left the country abruptly in the weeks before 9/11, leaving behind three
luxury cars and personal belongings including clothing, furniture and
fresh food. They also left the swimming-pool water circulating.
Numerous news
reports in Florida have
said that the gated community’s visitor logs and photos of license tags
showed that
vehicles driven by several of the future 9/11 hijackers had
visited the al-Hijji home.
Graham said that like the 28 pages in the 9/11 inquiry, the Sarasota
case is being “covered up” by U.S. intelligence. Graham has been
fighting to get the FBI to release the details of this investigation
with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation.
But so
far the bureau has stalled and stonewalled, he said.
Lynch said he didn’t know how the Obama administration would respond
to the congressional resolution urging declassification, if it passes
the House and Senate.
“But if we raise the issue, and get enough members to read it, we
think we can get the current administration to revisit this issue. I am
very optimistic,” he said. “I’ve talked to some of my Democratic members
already, and there has been receptivity there. They have agreed to look
at it.”
Obama administration officials declined to comment
on the congressional resolution or on the classification of these documents."...
==================
The entire US political class runs interference for its Saudi pals:
12/15/13, "Inside the Saudi 9/11 coverup," NY Post, Paul Sperry
"After the 9/11 attacks, the public was told al Qaeda acted alone, with no state sponsors.
But the White House never let it see an entire section of Congress’
investigative report on 9/11 dealing with “specific sources of foreign
support” for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were Saudi nationals.
It was kept secret and remains so today.
President Bush inexplicably censored 28 full pages of the 800-page
report. Text isn’t just blacked-out here and there in this
critical-yet-missing middle section. The pages are completely blank,
except for dotted lines where an estimated 7,200 words once stood (this
story by comparison is about 1,000 words).
A pair of lawmakers who recently read the redacted portion say they
are “absolutely shocked” at the level of foreign state involvement in
the attacks.
Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) can’t reveal
the nation identified by it without violating federal law. So they’ve
proposed Congress pass a resolution asking President Obama to declassify
the entire 2002 report, “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community
Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11,
2001.”
Some information already has leaked from the classified section,
which is based on both CIA and FBI documents, and it points back to
Saudi Arabia, a presumed ally.
The Saudis deny any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly
found “incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials — not
just wealthy Saudi hardliners, but high-level diplomats and intelligence
officers employed by the kingdom — helped the hijackers both
financially and logistically. The intelligence files cited in the report
directly implicate the Saudi embassy in Washington and consulate in Los
Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but
an act of war.
The findings, if confirmed, would back up open-source reporting
showing the hijackers had, at a minimum, ties to several Saudi officials
and agents while they were preparing for their attacks inside the
United States. In fact, they got help from Saudi VIPs from coast to
coast:
LOS ANGELES: Saudi consulate official Fahad
al-Thumairy allegedly arranged for an advance team to receive two of the
Saudi hijackers — Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi — as they
arrived at LAX in 2000. One of the advance men, Omar al-Bayoumi, a
suspected Saudi intelligence agent, left the LA consulate and met the
hijackers at a local restaurant. (Bayoumi left the United States two
months before the attacks, while Thumairy was deported back to Saudi
Arabia after 9/11.)
SAN DIEGO: Bayoumi and another suspected Saudi
agent, Osama Bassnan, set up essentially a forward operating base in San
Diego for the hijackers after leaving LA. They were provided rooms,
rent and phones, as well as private meetings with an American al Qaeda
cleric who would later become notorious, Anwar al-Awlaki, at a
Saudi-funded mosque he ran in a nearby suburb. They were also feted at a
welcoming party. (Bassnan also fled the United States just before the
attacks.)
WASHINGTON: Then-Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar and
his wife sent checks totaling some $130,000 to Bassnan while he was
handling the hijackers. Though the Bandars claim the checks were
“welfare” for Bassnan’s supposedly ill wife, the money nonetheless made
its way into the hijackers’ hands.
Other al Qaeda funding was traced back to Bandar and his embassy— so
much so that by 2004 Riggs Bank of Washington had dropped the Saudis as
a client. The next year, as a number of embassy employees popped up in terror probes, Riyadh recalled Bandar.
“Our investigations contributed to the ambassador’s departure,” an
investigator who worked with the Joint Terrorism Task Force in
Washington told me, though Bandar says he left for “personal reasons.”
FALLS CHURCH, VA.: In 2001, Awlaki and the San Diego
hijackers turned up together again — this time at the Dar al-Hijrah
Islamic Center, a Pentagon-area mosque built with funds from the Saudi
Embassy. Awlaki was recruited 3,000 miles away to head the mosque. As
its imam, Awlaki helped the hijackers, who showed up at his doorstep as
if on cue. He tasked a handler to help them acquire apartments and IDs
before they attacked the Pentagon.
Awlaki worked closely with the Saudi Embassy. He lectured at a Saudi
Islamic think tank in Merrifield, Va., chaired by Bandar. Saudi travel
itinerary documents I’ve obtained show he also served as the official
imam on Saudi Embassy-sponsored trips to Mecca and tours of Saudi holy
sites.
Most suspiciously, though, Awlaki fled the United States on a Saudi jet about a year after 9/11.
As I first reported in my book, “Infiltration,” quoting from
classified US documents, the Saudi-sponsored cleric was briefly detained
at JFK before being released into the custody of a “Saudi
representative.” A federal warrant for Awlaki’s arrest had mysteriously
been withdrawn the previous day. A US drone killed Awlaki in Yemen in
2011.
HERNDON, VA.: On the eve of the attacks, top Saudi
government official Saleh Hussayen checked into the same Marriott
Residence Inn near Dulles Airport as three of the Saudi hijackers who
targeted the Pentagon. Hussayen had left a nearby hotel to move into the
hijackers’ hotel. Did he meet with them? The FBI never found out. They
let him go after he “feigned a seizure,” one agent recalled. (Hussayen’s
name doesn’t appear in the separate 9/11 Commission Report, which
clears the Saudis.)
SARASOTA, FLA.: 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta and
other hijackers visited a home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser
to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in
2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of
license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks
before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three
cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway.
Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.
Democrat Bob Graham, the former Florida senator who chaired the Joint
Inquiry, has asked the FBI for the Sarasota case files, but can’t get a
single, even heavily redacted, page released. He says it’s a “coverup.”
Is the federal government protecting the Saudis? Case agents tell me
they were repeatedly called off pursuing 9/11 leads back to the Saudi
Embassy, which had curious sway over White House and FBI responses to
the attacks.
Just days after Bush met with the Saudi ambassador in the White
House, the FBI evacuated from the United States dozens of Saudi
officials, as well as Osama bin Laden family members. Bandar made the
request for escorts directly to FBI headquarters on Sept. 13, 2001 —
just hours after he met with the president. The two old family friends
shared cigars on the Truman Balcony while discussing the attacks.
Bill Doyle, who lost his son in the World Trade Center attacks and
heads the Coalition of 9/11 Families, calls the suppression of Saudi
evidence a “coverup beyond belief.” Last week, he sent out an e-mail to
relatives urging them to phone their representatives in Congress to
support the resolution and read for themselves the censored 28 pages.
Astonishing as that sounds, few lawmakers in fact have bothered to
read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation
in US history.
Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing
campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the House intelligence panel to
give them access to the material.
But it’s critical they take the time to read it and pressure the
White House to let all Americans read it. This isn’t water under the
bridge. The information is still relevant today. Pursuing leads
further, getting to the bottom of the foreign support, could help head
off another 9/11.
As the frustrated Joint Inquiry authors warned, in an overlooked
addendum to their heavily redacted 2002 report, “State-sponsored
terrorism substantially increases the likelihood of successful and more
lethal attacks within the United States.”
Their findings must be released, even if they forever change US-Saudi
relations. If an oil-rich foreign power was capable of orchestrating
simultaneous bulls-eye hits on our centers of commerce and defense a
dozen years ago, it may be able to pull off similarly devastating
attacks today.
Members of Congress reluctant to read the full report ought to remember that the 9/11 assault missed its fourth target: them."
"Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of “Infiltration” and “Muslim Mafia.”"
====================
...............
The US political class has long enabled Islamic terrorism:
10/20/11, "The Lost Decade," [2001-2011] Angelo M. Codevilla, Claremont Institute
............
"Our ruling class justified its ever-larger role in America’s domestic life by redefining war as a never-ending struggle against unspecified enemies for abstract objectives, and by asserting expertise far above that of ordinary Americans. (parag. 9)...It failed to ask the classic headwaters question:
what is the problem?...
That would have pointed to Middle East’s regimes, and to our ruling class’ relationship with them, as the problem’s ultimate source. The rulers of Iran, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the Palestinian Authority had run (and continue to run) educational and media systems that demonize America.
Under all of them, the Muslim Brotherhood or the Wahhabi sect
spread that message in religious terms to Muslims in the West as well as at home.
That message indicts America, among other things,
for being weak. .
........
And indeed, ever since the 1970s U.S. policy had responded to acts of war and terrorism from the Muslim world
by absolving the regimes for their subjects’ actions.
................
For example, when Yasser Arafat's PLO murdered U.S. ambassador Cleo Noel, our government continued building friendly relations with Arafat, and romancing the Saudi regime that was financing him. Since then the U.S. government has given $2.5 billion to the PLO. Part of the reason was unwarranted hope, part was fear, and part was the fact that
..............
many influential Americans were making money in the Arab world."... (subhead, 'Whatever it takes')
.