Two hijackers had help in the U.S., Graham says in new book

[gldstwmn]

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm

By FRANK DAVIES

WASHINGTON - Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.

The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote.

And in Graham's book, Intelligence Matters, obtained by The Herald Saturday, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry's final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Graham also revealed that Gen. Tommy Franks told him on Feb. 19, 2002, just four months after the invasion of Afghanistan, that many important resources -- including the Predator drone aircraft crucial to the search for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda leaders -- were being shifted to prepare for a war against Iraq.

Graham recalled this conversation at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa with Franks, then head of Central Command, who was ``looking troubled'':

``Senator, we are not engaged in a war in Afghanistan.''

''Excuse me?'' I asked.

''Military and intelligence personnel are being redeployed to prepare for an action in Iraq,'' he continued.

Graham concluded: 'Gen. Franks' mission -- which, as a good soldier, he was loyally carrying out -- was being downgraded from a war to a manhunt.''

Graham, who was chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee from June 2001 through the buildup to the Iraq war, voted against the war resolution in October 2002 because he saw Iraq as a diversion that would hinder the fight against al Qaeda terrorism.

He oversaw the Sept. 11 investigation on Capitol Hill with Rep. Porter Goss, nominated last month to be the next CIA director. According to Graham, the FBI and the White House blocked efforts to investigate the extent of official Saudi connections to two hijackers.

Graham wrote that the staff of the congressional inquiry concluded that two Saudis in the San Diego area, Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassan, who gave significant financial support to two hijackers, were working for the Saudi government.

Al-Bayoumi received a monthly allowance from a contractor for Saudi Civil Aviation that jumped from $465 to $3,700 in March 2000, after he helped Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhdar -- two of the Sept. 11 hijackers -- find apartments and make contacts in San Diego, just before they began pilot training.

When the staff tried to conduct interviews in that investigation, and with an FBI informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who also helped the eventual hijackers, they were blocked by the FBI and the administration, Graham wrote.

The administration and CIA also insisted that the details about the Saudi support network that benefited two hijackers be left out of the final congressional report, Graham complained.

Bush had concluded that ''a nation-state that had aided the terrorists should not be held publicly to account,'' Graham wrote. ``It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety.''

Saudi officials have vociferously denied any ties to the hijackers or al Qaeda plots to attack the United States.

Graham ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic presidential nomination and then decided not to seek reelection to the Senate this year. He has said he hopes his book will illuminate FBI and CIA failures in the war on terrorism and he also offers recommendations on ways to reform the intelligence community.

On Iraq, Graham said the administration and CIA consistently overplayed its estimates of Saddam Hussein's threat in its public statements and declassified reports, while its secret reports contained warnings that the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction was not conclusive.

In October 2002, Tenet told Graham that ''there were 550 sites where weapons of mass destruction were either produced or stored'' in Iraq.

''It was, in short, a vivid and terrifying case for war. The problem was it did not accurately represent the classified estimate we had received just days earlier,'' Graham wrote. ``It was two different messages, directed at two different audiences. I was outraged.''

In his book, Graham is especially critical of the FBI for its inability to track al Qaeda operatives in the United States and blasts the CIA for ``politicizing intelligence.''

He reserves his harshest criticism for Bush.

Graham found the president had ''an unforgivable level of intellectual -- and even common sense -- indifference'' toward analyzing the comparative threats posed by Iraq and al Qaeda and other terrorist groups.

When the weapons were not found, one year after the invasion of Iraq, Bush attended a black-tie dinner in Washington, Graham recalled. Bush gave a humorous speech with slides, showing him looking under White House furniture and joking, ``Nope, no WMDs there.''

Graham wrote: ``It was one of the most offensive things I have witnessed. Having recently attended the funeral of an American soldier killed in Iraq, who left behind a young wife and two preschool-age children, I found nothing funny about a deceitful justification for war.''

[dissention]

Looks like the bounce won't last very long.

[irishgrl]

This is just more confirmation that W's shady stealing of the White House, the manipulation of info, the capitalization of national grief over 9/11, the rush to war, using Afghanistan as a stepping stone ALL point to the fact that getting Dumbya into the White House was part and parcel of a long range plan to get Saddam Hussein because he, along with Bill Clinton is an eternal enemy of the Bush camp because he dared to try to have Bush Sr. assasinated. It is NO accident that Jeb was governor of Florida, a key electoral state. It is NO accident that the Shrub relied on Daddy's appointees to the Supreme Court.

this whole thing makes me vomit.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

This is just more confirmation that W's shady stealing of the White House, the manipulation of info, the capitalization of national grief over 9/11, the rush to war, using Afghanistan as a stepping stone ALL point to the fact that getting Dumbya into the White House was part and parcel of a long range plan to get Saddam Hussein because he, along with Bill Clinton is an eternal enemy of the Bush camp because he dared to try to have Bush Sr. assasinated. It is NO accident that Jeb was governor of Florida, a key electoral state. It is NO accident that the Shrub relied on Daddy's appointees to the Supreme Court.

this whole thing makes me vomit.

Agree with everything that you said with one small exception. I can't remember where I read/heard this, so I am going to Google it but supposedly the Bush assasination attempt is bull****.

[irishgrl]

I thought this was common knowledge but that's ok, I will get you links/info
and I remember many people recalling Shrubya saying: He tried to assasinate my daddy!......anyway, just give me a bit of time, and I will provide you proof of this.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

I thought this was common knowledge but that's ok, I will get you links/info
and I remember many people recalling Shrubya saying: He tried to assasinate my daddy!......anyway, just give me a bit of time, and I will provide you proof of this.

See, I just have to wonder if it was part of the cover story in the grand scheme of all things PNAC. Especially now that we are hearing of Israeli spies in the Pentagon. Makes you wonder.

[irishgrl]

here ya go:
Clarke is straightforward that he suspected an Iraq-Bin Laden link in the very early 1990s in Khartoum. He also admits that Saddam tried to have Bush senior assassinated in Kuwait in 1993.

this will give you a starting point for searches. but it did happen, and it proves Dumbya had an agenda.

[irishgrl]

article from New Yorker: New Yorker: from the Archives read carefully.

another, and MORE IMPORTANT LINK:
why did the Bush Administration really decide to invade Iraq?

hopefully these will give you a place to start. NOTE: in the course of my search, I found links that suggested the Bush family was behind the Reagan Assassination attempt by Hinkley....Bush/Hinkley connections at the very least, it makes for interesting reading...

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

here ya go:
Clarke is straightforward that he suspected an Iraq-Bin Laden link in the very early 1990s in Khartoum. He also admits that Saddam tried to have Bush senior assassinated in Kuwait in 1993.

this will give you a starting point for searches. but it did happen, and it proves Dumbya had an agenda.

Oh, they definitely had an agenda for him. We have no disagreement there. Here is what I found on my end. It's long but a good read.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/con...30fr_archive02

A Case Not Closed
by Seymour M. Hersh
Issue of 1993-11-01
Posted 2002-09-27
The confrontation between the United States and Iraq has revived interest in a decade-old charge—that Saddam Hussein ordered the assassination of President George H. W. Bush. This alleged plot has been cited in recent days by the current President Bush as one of the U.S.'s grievances against Hussein. In this article, from 1993, Seymour M. Hersh investigates the assassination story.
President Clinton and those aides who supported his decision may have been right: the Iraqi intelligence service may have developed and put in motion a plot to assassinate George Bush during his triumphant visit to Kuwait to celebrate the Gulf War victory over Iraq. And if such a plot did exist Saddam Hussein may have known of it, or should have known, and thus would have been personally responsible for not preventing it. But my own investigations have uncovered circumstantial evidence, at least as compelling as the Administration's, that suggests that the American government's case against Iraq—as it has been outlined in public, anyway—is seriously flawed.



The Administration, with its well-meaning but floundering leadership, spent two months investigating and debating the alleged assassination attempt, and then ordered the bombing just one day after receiving a written intelligence report on it. That report, delivered on June 24th by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, provided what the President and his advisers concluded was compelling evidence of Iraqi complicity at the top.

A senior White House official recently told me that one of the seemingly most persuasive elements of the report had been overstated and was essentially incorrect. And none of the Clinton Administration officials I interviewed over a ten-week period this summer claimed that there was any empirical evidence—a "smoking gun"—directly linking Saddam or any of his senior advisers to the alleged assassination attempt. The case against Iraq was, and remains, circumstantial. Nonetheless, on June 24th the F.B.I.'s intelligence report was accepted at face value by the President and his senior aides, and some of those aides told me that the mere existence of the report and the expectation that it would be leaked to the press were what drove the President to act. "We had to move quickly," one diplomat said, with rancor. "Bill Safire obviously would have the report for a weekend column." Safire, the Times columnist and a frequent critic of Clinton policy, had bedevilled the White House that spring with his ability to obtain restricted information from the Justice Department.


Click the link for the full article.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

article from New Yorker: New Yorker: from the Archives read carefully.

another, and MORE IMPORTANT LINK:
why did the Bush Administration really decide to invade Iraq?

hopefully these will give you a place to start. NOTE: in the course of my search, I found links that suggested the Bush family was behind the Reagan Assassination attempt by Hinkley....Bush/Hinkley connections at the very least, it makes for interesting reading...

Your New Yorker link is broken, hon. Is it the same article that I posted?
The Bush/Reagan/Hinkley connection certainly dose raise eyebrows, doesn't it?

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

here ya go:
Clarke is straightforward that he suspected an Iraq-Bin Laden link in the very early 1990s in Khartoum. He also admits that Saddam tried to have Bush senior assassinated in Kuwait in 1993.

Richard was working for the State Department then, if I remeber correctly and they were pretty pissed at Iraq/Saddam over some things they had "been getting away with" according to the New Yorker article. State also wrote the definitive brief standing by the assasination attempt and ensuing bombing. So while I admit to liking Mr. Clarke, his motives do seem circumspect here.

[irishgrl]

yes, its the same article...
but I think we are getting different points from it. I am saying that it is proof that Bush Sr. was the target of a Saddam Plot to have him assassinated...

that said, I think the second article is even more significant.

[gldstwmn]

Originally Posted by irishgrl

that said, I think the second article is even more significant.

I didn't find anything conclusive in it. In fact, I found it disturbing that the author seems to be in favor of military intervention in Iran. This is the PNAC plan all the way. Iran will take care of itself, if given enough time. He does make a good point with respect to Korea.

[irishgrl]

"He tried to kill my daddy!"

Bush calls Saddam 'the guy who tried to kill my dad'

From John King (CNN)
Friday, September 27, 2002 Posted: 1:48 AM EDT (0548 GMT)

HOUSTON, Texas (CNN) -- President Bush leveled harsh criticism Thursday at the Senate on homeland security issues, but he revised his stump speech to make clear "there are fine senators from both parties who care deeply about our country."

And, in discussing the threat posed by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Bush said: "After all, this is the guy who tried to kill my dad."
**********************************
so, Dumbya believes it, even if others dont. And because he believes it, I see it as part of his "get Saddam whatever the cost" agenda. As I said before, this has been a LONG RANGE plan by camp Bush. Getting Jeb into position in FL, appointing Supreme court justices, rigging the FL (s)election, and on and on...

[irishgrl]

Still another link for Saddam/Bush Sr. assassination scheme

Clinton points to Saddam/Bush Sr. assassination plot as reason for Military action