February 6, 2015 | 10:00 pm
Fourteen years after 9/11, the White House says it is finally considering making public 28 controversially redacted pages of a congressional investigation into the terrorist attacks that are said to detail damning evidence of Saudi government support for al Qaeda.
The Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001 was issued in December 2002. Many portions, including the entirety of a 28-page section titled "Finding, Discussions and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters," were redacted by the Bush administration on national security grounds.
Current and former members of Congress who have reviewed the classified pages say that they point to Saudi involvement in the attacks. What those ties where, and who precisely is referred to in the pages, however, remains unclear.
In December 2013, House Representatives Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-MA), introduced a resolution urging President Barack Obama to declassify them. Despite that resolution, which was reintroduced this year, as well as claims from family members of victims that Obama had privately promised to unredact the material, they remain secret.
US secrecy slammed after new claims that Saudi royals supported al Qaeda. Read more here.
Their effort, however, was given new momentum this week after the surprise release of testimony from an al Qaeda operative who described high-level support for the terror group from the Saudi royal family. The deposition of French-born Zacarias Moussaoui, jailed in federal prison on terrorism charges, was introduced as part of a lawsuit brought by relatives of 9/11 victims against the Saudi government.
In October, Moussaoui told lawyers for the plaintiffs that in the late 1990s he was charged with keeping a list of donors to al Qaeda. On it, he said, were the names of then Saudi intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal and the longtime Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar Bin Sultan. Moussaoui alleges that he encountered other high-level officials on several occasions, including Saudi Arabia's current King Salman, who was a prince at the time. While based in Afghanistan, Moussaoui said he met with an official from Bandar's office in Washington. Together, the two allegedly planed to bring down Air Force One with a stinger missile.
Though Moussaoui is seen as a wily and possible unstable witness with dubious credibility, his story, which was first reported in the New York Times, has put greater pressure on the White House, which acknowledged on Thursday that it was considering publishing the pages.
"The administration, in response to a specific congressional request, last year asked the intelligence community to conduct a classification review of that material," White House spokesperson Joshua Earnest told reporters.
He said that the review, which will determine "whether or not it's appropriate to release" the material, is ongoing.
House Representative Thomas Massie, a co-sponsor of the latest House resolution, told VICE News that both Moussaoui's testimony and the news that the White House is addressing the matter should encourage other members to read the 28 pages.
"More than ever, I think those pages should be released," Massie said.
Campaign mounts to declassify 9/11 report's references to alleged Saudi involvement. Read more here.
Massie noted that despite the recent revelations, many members of Congress haven't seen the entire report, which can only be accessed in a secure room guarded by FBI agents.
"Frankly, I'm disappointed that most of my colleagues still haven't taken the time to read the 28 pages," he said. "In spite of their blind spot, they still speak with confidence regarding the causes and enablers of Islamic terrorism."
Prince Bandar visited President George W. Bush at the White House two days after the 9/11 attacks. The two men smoked cigars on a balcony and chatted with Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The closeness of Bandar to the Bush family — he was at times referred to as "Bandar Bush" — lead some to assume that the administration had redacted the pages to avoid embarrassing one of America's closest allies in the Middle East.
Intelligence experts contend that by not releasing the redacted pages, victims' families and the American public as a whole are left only with the words of Moussaoui, a man who is alleged to have been the failed 20th 9/11 hijacker, and who was determined to be mentally unstable by a psychologist at his trial.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' Government Secrecy Project, told VICE News that he thinks keeping the pages secret has overtime imbued them with a significance perhaps greater than their contents warrant.
"I think there's a temptation to fetishize documents and to imagine that if someone wants to withhold these pages they must be incredibly valuable, and that's not necessarily true," Aftergood told VICE News.
He pointed out that Saudi Arabia's record of globally supporting the extreme and austere form of Islam known as Wahhabism — a strand favored by Osama bin Laden and other members of al Qaeda — is already well known. Nevertheless, he said, "they should have been declassified ten years ago, and they certainly should be declassified now."
The Saudi government has always denied accusations that it had any involvement in the attacks. As allegations about the contents of the pages circulated, the royal family requested that they be made public, but the Bush administration insisted on keeping them secret. In the decade since, however, a picture has emerged of what the pages contain.
Last year, former Senator Bob Graham (D-FL) told VICE News that they detailed a financial trail leading up to the attacks. Their secret status, he said, amounted to a "cover-up."
Graham was more forthcoming in a 2012 affidavit given in the 9/11 relatives' lawsuit against the Saudi government.
"I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia," he told the court.
Rep. Jones has said that releasing the material would not, as the Bush administration contended, endanger national security.
"If it steps on somebody's toes, then I'm sorry," he told VICE News last year.
Follow Samuel Oakford on Twitter: @samueloakford
Photo via Flickr
http://www.talkradioeurope.com/clients/tgosling13feb15.mp3 _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 9:37 pm Post subject:
It has been clear to me from the outset that this 'Saudi Role' is a 'Red Herring'. Most of the so-called 'highjackers' have been shown to be still alive (for instance, see video 'Zero' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XRMrMdn0NQ ). Most of them were granted ridiculous visas by US Embassy in Saudi, and when someone spoke up, they were told to 'shut up'.
The real problem has always been Russia and other Intelligence Agencies around the world, who had evidence of the REAL culprits.
And now, thanks to NWO belligerence and warlike provocations against Russia, the Genie is out of the bottle:
Pravda: Putin Threatens to Release Satellite Evidence of 9/11:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/10/pravda-putin-threatens-to-rele ase-satellite-evidence-of-911/
http://www.911forum.org.uk/board/viewtopic.php?p=169409#169409 _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 13 Sep 2006 Posts: 2568 Location: One breath from Glory
Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2015 10:21 pm Post subject:
Tend to agree with you about the red herring. IMO Its most likely that the redacted pages could just affect certain business interests rather than pointing the finger at 9/11 complicity. _________________ JO911B.
"for we wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of the darkness of this world, against wicked spirits in high places " Eph.6 v 12
Additional documents which must be released to clarify hidden finance connections to Saudi funding of 911 include: Moussaoui laptop database of Saudi Funders of Al Qaeda/ISIS; Swiss Bank testimony delivered to Congress (Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Chairman Carl Levin D-MI) by Brad Birkenfeld, Union Bank of Switzerland whistleblower and intelligence source to 2LT Scott Bennett, U.S. Army Special Operations, Terrorist Finance Analyst; 2LT Bennett military whistleblowing report to U.S. Civil Affairs-Psychological Operations Command and Congress concerning Swiss Bank-Terrorist finance cover up by CIA-NSA and Edward Snowden revelations about CIA targeting Birkenfeld in Geneva, Switzerland; and finally the release of the intelligence (computers, databases, Swiss Bank accounts, donor lists, etc.) allegedly obtained by Navy SEALS in their assasignation of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, and taken by CIA. Only by combining all of these reports will the information be obtained which exposes the most salient issues, problems, contradictions, and cover-ups of the 911 attacks upon the Pentagon and World Trade Center, and the Solomon Building (building 7). Combined, all of these materials will expose the financial proof of a false flag operation engineered by traitors in the U.S. Congress, military, and intelligence apparatus, as well as within foreign nations who participated in the event.
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Thu Feb 19, 2015 3:43 pm Post subject:
'allegedly obtained by Navy SEALS in their assasignation of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, and taken by CIA' - as we're generally sure OBL was not 'killed' in Pakistan 'Seal raid', makes you wonder what the Yanks are trying to pull with this stuff... _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Just 15 days before the 9/11 attacks, a well-connected Saudi family suddenly abandoned their luxury home in Sarasota, Fla., leaving behind jewelry, clothes, opulent furniture, a driveway full of cars — including a brand new Chrysler PT Cruiser — and even a refrigerator full of food.
About the only thing not left behind was a forwarding address. The occupants simply vanished without notifying their neighbors, realtor or even mail carrier.
The 3,300-square-foot home on Escondito Circle belonged to Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of then-King Fahd. But at the time, it was occupied by his daughter and son-in-law, who beat a hasty retreat back to Saudi Arabia just two weeks before the attacks after nearly a six-year stay here.
Neighbors took note of the troubling coincidence and called the FBI, which opened an investigation that led to the startling discovery that at least one “family member” trained at the same flight school as some of the 9/11 hijackers in nearby Venice, Fla.
The investigation into the prominent Saudi family’s ties to the hijackers started on Sept. 19, 2001, and remained active for several years. It was led by the FBI’s Tampa field office but also involved the bureau’s field offices in New York and Washington, and also the Southwest Florida Domestic Security Task Force.
Agents identified persons of interest in the case, establishing their ties to other terrorists, sympathies with Osama bin Laden and anti-American remarks. They looked into their bank accounts, colleges and places of employment. They tracked at least one suspect’s re-entry into the US.
The Saudi-9/11 connection in Florida was no small part of the overall 9/11 investigation. Yet it was never shared with Congress. Nor was it mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Tue Apr 14, 2015 10:26 am Post subject:
Gee, another 'Red Herring'! Trained at the same flight school, 'anti-American', 'pro-OBL'! Bit like our vodka-drinking, cocaine-snorting 'Muslim Martyrs'! Don't look at us Neo-Cons, folks, look over there - disappearing into the sunset, on their camels! Those darned Saudis, never did trust 'em! _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
June 13, 2015 | 1:40 am
A newly declassified CIA watchdog report that probed the agency's intelligence failures leading up to the 9/11 attacks reveals that investigators on the CIA's 9/11 review team "encountered no evidence" that the government of Saudi Arabia "knowingly and willingly supported" al Qaeda terrorists.
Moreover, the June 2005 CIA Inspector General report's, released Friday, said the Senate Intelligence Committee's Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities before and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 "'had made no final determinations as to the reliability or sufficiency' regarding Saudi issues raised by its inquiry." (A separate report released in 2004 by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, commonly known as the 9/11 Commission, found no evidence that the government of Saudi Arabia or Saudi officials individually provided funding to al-Qaeda.)
CIA inspector general John Helgerson launched the internal review in response to a request from the Joint Inquiry and "focused exclusively on the issues identified" by panel. The CIA's 9/11 review team reached the "same overall conclusions on most of the important issues" identified by the Joint Inquiry, the watchdog's report says.
The conclusions related to Saudi Arabia in the unredacted portion of the report, and the reference to the Joint Inquiry's own finding, appears to contrast with longstanding claims of Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Suspicions about Saudi Arabia's role have centered on a 28-page section of the Joint Inquiry, which was ordered classified by President George W. Bush prior to its public release in 2002. For years, victims' families, members of Congress, and former Senator Bob Graham, the co-chair of the inquiry, have called for the release of the pages, which are said to refer to FBI investigations into the attacks. Those investigations, according to individuals who have seen the pages, highlight elements of the financing that went into the orchestration of the attacks.
On June 1, Senator Rand Paul introduced a bill in the Senate that would require President Obama to declassify the 28 pages.
The 30-page section on Saudi Arabia in the CIA inspector general's report, which includes discussions about "implications," and "accountability," is completely redacted with the exception of three paragraphs. Still, the information left intact appears to be the first new details to surface in more than a decade about Saudi Arabia's support for al Qaeda and connection to the 9/11 attacks. The release of the report comes on the heels of a renewed pressure from US lawmakers to get the Obama administration to declassify the infamous the 28 pages from the Joint Inquiry that many believe will resolve lingering questions about the Saudi connection to al Qaeda. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers in the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia.
Helgerson, in a subhead of the 466 page report titled "Assessment of the finding," which is an analysis of the Joint Inquiry's finding on "issues related to Saudi Arabia," noted that much of the investigative material related to the Joint Inquiry's finding as to whether the government of Saudi Arabia funded al Qaeda before 9/11 is in possession of the FBI, and the inspector general's staff could not gain access to it.
Related: The CIA Just Released Declassified Documents Related to the 9/11 Attacks
"Many of the points of this finding relate to the FBI's investigative efforts on the Saudi intelligence presence in the United States and of Saudi officials' contacts with terrorists in the country, and, as such, the [CIA's] Office of Inspector General (OIG) 9/11 Review Team defers consideration of these to the Department of Justice and FBI," the declassified inspector general's report says. "The Team lacks access to the fill range of investigative materials in FBI possession and is therefor unable to either concur or dissent on those points."
Graham has publicly said he believes the FBI is covering up Saudi links to the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
In a 2012 affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought by victims' families against the Saudi government, Graham said, "I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11 attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia."
"Follow the money," Graham told VICE News last year, when he repeated his call for the 28 pages to be declassified. "That will illuminate the other significant aspects of 9/11."
VICE News reached out to Graham for comment on Friday, but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
CIA spokesman Dean Boyd declined to comment about whether the redacted portions of the inspector general report relates to the 28 pages.
"The redacted portions of the 2005 OIG report remain properly classified," Boyd told VICE News. "As a general matter, we do not comment on redacted portions of reports."
In the years before the 9/11 attacks, the CIA had received sporadic reports of possible Saudi support for al Qaeda, but the agency had not been able to corroborate the intelligence.
A 1999 CIA intelligence report on Osama bin Laden's finances cited in the inspector general's report said "limited" reporting suggested that "a few Saudi Government officials may support" Bin Laden," but added that the intelligence reporting was "too sparse to determine with any accuracy" if such support occurred.
Years later, "individuals in both [the CIA's] Near East Division and Counterterrorist Center [redacted] told the [CIA's 9/11 review team] they had not seen any reliable reporting confirming Saudi Government involvement with and financial support for terrorism prior to 9/11, athough a few also speculated that dissident sympathizers within the government may have aided al-Qai'da," the report said.
The Joint Inquiry's report into intelligence failures leading up to the attacks said "it was clear from about 1996," according to a US government official, "that the Saudi Government would not cooperate with the United States on matters relating to Usama Bin Ladin."
The inspector general's report said the CIA's counterterrorism center established "a virtual station" that year — "UBL Station — to "target Islamic terrorist financier Usama Bin Ladin."
Related: White House Considers Declassifying 28 Pages on Alleged Saudi Government Role in 9/11
Last October, French-born al Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui, the suspected 20th 9/11 hijacker, made an explosive claim. He told lawyers for families of 9/11 victims suing the Saudi government that he had met with high-ranking members of the royal family who financed al Qaeda in the 1990s, including Saudi Arabia's then intelligence chief Prince Turki al-Faisal, as well as longtime ambassador to the US Prince Bandar Bin Sulan, and Prince Salman, who became king earlier this year. Speaking to the families' lawyers at the Federal Supermax Prison in Colorado, Moussaoui said that while in Afghanistan, he met with an official from the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC. The two, said Moussaoui, discussed, among other things, "the feasibility of shooting down Air Force One."
While experts said some parts of Moussaoui's account sounded farfetched, Saudi — and American — support for the mujahideen that fought the Soviets in Afghanistan and morphed into al Qaeda is well known. It is widely believed that the Saudi government for years paid off Saudi-born bin Laden and al Qaeda to prevent attacks on its own soil.
The Saudi government, in a statement released through its embassy in Washington, DC last February, said Moussaoui is a "deranged criminal" whose goal is to "undermine Saudi-U.S. relations."
"There is no evidence to support Zacarias Moussaoui's claim. The September 11 attack has been the most intensely investigated crime in history and the findings show no involvement by the Saudi government or Saudi officials. As confirmed by the 9/11 Commission, there is 'no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization [al Qaeda].'"
Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 480 Location: the beano
Posted: Sun Jun 21, 2015 5:04 pm Post subject: Bill to Force Release of 28 Redacted 9/11 Commission Pages
Rand Paul leads bipartisan effort to declassify 28 pages of 9/11 Report.
New bill aims to make public classified pages widely believed to detail ties between Saudi Arabian funders and Al Qaida and 'establish chain of liabllity' for 9/11 attacks.
Joined: 30 Jul 2006 Posts: 6060 Location: East London
Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 5:12 am Post subject:
More 'Red Herrings'. At least, they could pickle them before distribution. Mouth-watering thought! _________________ 'And he (the devil) said to him: To thee will I give all this power, and the glory of them; for to me they are delivered, and to whom I will, I give them'. Luke IV 5-7.
Joined: 05 Oct 2005 Posts: 480 Location: the beano
Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2015 4:40 pm Post subject: Saudi Links to 9/11 - Not straight Forward
Re: "Red Herrings"
In the days/months/ ealry years lttle was said by the mainstream media about Saudi links except minor paragraphs buried on inside pages of the paper.
Why the interest now? we ask. Political and Economic Reasons: it may be politically expedient to ensure most of the media focus is on Saudi involvement as an attempt to turn attention away from possible involvement of the US intelligence agencies and people in the Bush administration and their policy advisers.
Another factor could be that the US no longer feels as dependent on Saudi oil to meet US energy demands as it did before, so the US can risk annoying their long term ally, Saudi Arabia.
Of course we can note that other countries possible involvement with the 9/11 attacks are sidelined by focussing on Saudia Arabia such as intelligence agencies of Israel (Mossad) and Pakistans ISI re: Atta receiving money from Pakistani ISI chief. Other facts that those focussing on Saudi involvement are: the evidence of explosives in the Towers, the strange collapse of WTC7 and NIST's refusal to explain how it reached its findings based on secret computer simulations, etc etc .
However, even as a "red herring" we still need to uncover the facts of the Saudi links but at the same time, analysing and contextualising these facts, and not to ignore other facts as a consequence.
Although Saudi complicity is in no way surprising, facts that are often overlooked suggest that Graham’s actions may not be entirely straightforward. Graham never calls for release of other documents collected by the government’s 9/11 investigators, most of which are still held secret. That includes the majority of 9/11 Commission documents, of which only a fraction have been released—with much of the content redacted. The release of Commission documents is hindered by claims that they are exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) because they are congressional records. Graham shows no interest in the many alarming facts about 9/11 that have been uncovered through released documents and videos. Some things that have been released via FOIA request are far more compelling than claims of Saudi financing. These include numerous testimonies to explosives being used to bring down the World Trade Center (WTC) buildings. After a lawsuit by 9/11 victims’ families, the oral histories of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) were released in August 2005. At least 23% of those eyewitnesses gave testimony to explosions in the Twin Towers. About 60 FDNY members reported hearing warnings of the unpredictable “collapse” of WTC Building 7.
Much of the 9/11 Commission Report was based on torture testimony, the records of which were destroyed by the CIA. Since that time, the government has produced documents stating that the first alleged al Qaeda leader tortured for information was never related to al Qaeda in any way. This means that all of his torture testimony, upon which the 9/11 Commission Report was based, was false. Yet Graham and his supporters say nothing about it. _________________ "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere" Martin Luther king
The setup is underway. The media are making much of a claimed spat between the families of the 9/11 victims and the Obama administration; 28 redacted pages of a 9/11 Congressional report allegedly contain details implicating Saudi Arabian nationals in the 9/11 plot.
9/11 families hit Obama for ‘siding with Saudi Arabia,’ want secret report declassified
Over the past week, families of 9/11 victims have criticized President Obama because of reports stating that his administration is lobbying Congress to block a bill that would allow terror victims to sue foreign governments connected to attacks on American soil. The criticism comes as Obama prepares to travel to Riyadh for the fourth time in his presidency.
The sudden change of heart over Saudi involvement is unlikely to be by chance. The Saudi connection was exposed at the time of the attacks by the claim that the planes were hijacked by 19 Saudi nationals armed with box-cutters. Furthermore, a number of Saudi nationals were secretly flown out of the country during the total ban on commercial flights in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
Saudi Arabia may well have been complicit in the 9/11 plot along with Pakistan and perhaps other countries' intelligence services but that doesn't alter the fact that the plot originated within, and was orchestrated by elements of, the US government and establishment - the deep, dark state. Connections between Saudi Arabia and westerners who were in one way or another related to the 9/11 attacks are the real issue here. This sudden demonisation of Saudi Arabia may indicate a falling out with the Al Saud regime and the US may be about to play the "get into Saudi Arabia free card".
Playing the “Get into Saudi Arabia free card” by Kevin Ryan
Recent developments among supporters of the US government’s version of events indicate that they plan to begin blaming Saudi Arabia for the attacks of September 11, 2001. There is, in fact, much evidence suggesting complicity by some elements within the Saudi government. But that fact only further implicates western powers due to the close relationship between the Saudi royal family, which runs the Saudi government, and deep state controlling interests that have partnered with and manipulated the Saudi royal family for many decades. Blaming Saudi Arabia would, however, make a lot of sense if seizing resources, including the world’s greatest oil reserves, was what the war on terror has always been about.
Kevin describes a new book [NB: Book published in 2011 so hardly new development linked to 28 pages, Ian] called The Eleventh Day, claimed to be “the definitive work, to date, on 9/11”, as a malevolent piece of propaganda that attempts to persuade the ill-informed of three things.
- malign the 9/11 truth movement;
- propose that the partial release of documents by the 9/11 Commission in the last few years has answered all the unanswered questions about the attacks;
- to blaze a new trail for Saudi complicity in the attacks of 9/11.
Regime change in Saudi Arabia is by no means a certainty, not least because of the symbiotic relationship between Zionism and Wahhabism (Israel and Saudi Arabia) but it wouldn't be the first time the Structural Elite have turned on "their own" (puppets of convenience). History is peppered with instances of broken promises and severed alliances. The Al Saud family were the lucky beneficiaries of the betrayal of commitments made to the Hashemite king, Hussein bin Ali. Saddam Hussein was another US/UK ally betrayed by the West when it became convenient; Muammar Gadaffi, Bashar al Assad, Hosni Mubarak.... the list goes on. Just because you're a "friend" of the Structural Elite today, doesn't mean you will remain so tomorrow.
It is the people of these countries (Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Egypt) and the rest of us who suffer the consequences of these geopolitical games. We must recognise that rulers (claimed to be democratically elected or not) are the problem; we need to dispense with hierarchy and make peace between peoples. These wars are neither in our interests nor of our making.
The real culprits behind 9/11 remain in power, hidden by the layers of complexity created within the political economy - we need to remove the veil.
President Obama on Monday said the director of national intelligence will soon complete a review of 28 pages of a redacted congressional report on 9/11 that a number of current and former lawmakers, U.S. officials and victims' families want declassified.
In an interview with CBS News' Charlie Rose, the president was asked if he has read the 28 pages.
"I have a sense of what's in there. But this has been a process which we generally deal with through the intelligence community and Jim Clapper, our director of national intelligence, has been going through to make sure that whatever it is that is released is not gonna compromise some major national security interest of the United States. My understanding is that he's about to complete that process," Mr. Obama told Rose.
CBS' "60 Minutes" recently aired a story highlighting the 28 pages and it also featured interviews with current and former members of Congress, U.S. officials, members of the 9/11 Commission and families of the terrorist attacks. Former Sen. Bob Graham helped author the report that the 28 pages appears in and while he declined to detail that section, he told "60 Minutes" that that portion could highlight possible Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers. He also suggested that it sheds light on a network of people he believes supported the hijackers in the U.S.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-California, is among a number of lawmakers who wants the 28 pages declassified.
The president on Monday also weighed in on bipartisan legislation that is pending in the Senate that would allow victims of terror attacks on U.S. soil to sue foreign countries that might have provided support.
Mr. Obama warned that it could have consequences that would, for instance, allow people in other countries to continually sue the U.S.
"This is a matter of how generally the United States approaches our interactions with other countries. If we open up the possibility that individuals and the United States can routinely start suing other governments, then we are also opening up the United States to being continually sued by individuals in other countries."
Bernie Sanders, a presidential candidate and senator, told "CBS This Morning" on Monday that he supports the legislation and Hillary Clinton also expressed support for it. Sanders also revealed that even though he has access to viewing the 28 pages, he hasn't read them.
According to the report, Ghassan Al-Sharbi, a Saudi who became an al-Qa’ida bomb maker, is believed to have taken flying lessons with some of the 9/11 hijackers in Arizona but did not take part in the attacks on New York and the Pentagon that killed 3,000 people in 2001
.
MSM are now telling us the Saudis financed and helped 9/11. Why?
If they reveal the Saudi role then quickly following will be that it was an inside job. This is the US 'nuclear bomb'.
Is this a threat to the Saudis because they want to move away from the US dollar? Is it more than that?
I have mixed feelings. The story puts 9/11 truth front and centre in the MSM and one thing (the Saudi connection) could lead to another ... the real 9/11 truth questions ... which is good
But given the friendly coverage from MSM and the lack of sneering about 9/11 conspiracy theorists and failure to raise wider 9/11 questions ...
then my spider senses are screaming limited handout, pysops
Here is James Corbett who shares my scepticism of the 28pages
Andrew Buncombe New York | @AndrewBuncombe | Monday 18 April 2016
Officials in Saudi Arabia have reportedly told the Obama administration they will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars of American assets if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible for any role in the September 11 assaults.
On the eve of President Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia, the New York Times said the White House had been lobbying Congress to block the bill’s passage and that the threat from Saudi Arabia had been the subject of intense talks.
It said that Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom’s message last month during a trip to Washington, telling legislators that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750bn in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.
A 28-page section of the report was never made public (AP)
Fifteen of the nineteen men who hijacked four planes and flew them into targets in New York and Washington in 2001 were Saudi citizens, though Riyadh has always denied having any role in the attacks.
A US commission established in the aftermath of the attacks also concluded there was no evidence of official Saudi connivance. However, the White House has been under pressure to declassify a 28-page section of the report that was never published on the grounds of national security.
New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who has read the report, and Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry, have said the victims’ families deserved to read the report before Mr Obama visits the Middle East next week.
The families have been trying to use the courts to hold responsible members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities. Yet these efforts have been largely blocked because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.
The newspaper said the Senate bill was intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terror attacks that kill Americans on United States soil.
If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the September 11 lawsuits.
President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials and attend a summit with other leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) on Thursday. It is unclear whether the dispute over the September 11 legislation will be on the agenda for the talks.
Read more
Thanks to UK and US intervention, al-Qaeda now has a mini-state in Yemen. It's Iraq and Isis all over again
Earlier this week, US officials briefing reporters on the president's visit, said Saudi Arabia was a key regional ally despite the relationship coming under pressure in recent years as the US has sought to reset its interaction with Iran
“As you’ll hear more coming out of the summit, there’s been agreements reached to increase our cooperation on counterterrorism, streamlining the transfer of critical defense capabilities to our GCC partners, bolstering GCC ballistic defense…systems, and defending against the cyber threat,” said Rob Malley, a senior adviser to Mr Obama on the Middle East.
Not long ago, RT published "Saudi Arabia was legally cleared from paying billions in damages to families of 9/11 victims last year, after Judge Daniels dismissed claims that the country provided material support to the terrorists and ruled that Riyadh had sovereign immunity. Saudi attorneys argued in court that there was no evidence directly linking the country to 9/11."
A former Republican member of the 9/11 commission, breaking dramatically with the commission’s leaders, said Wednesday he believes there was clear evidence that Saudi government employees were part of a support network for the 9/11 hijackers and that the Obama administration should move quickly to declassify a long-secret congressional report on Saudi ties to the 2001 terrorist attack.
The comments by John F Lehman, an investment banker in New York who was Navy secretary in the Reagan administration, signal the first serious public split among the 10 commissioners since they issued a 2004 final report that was largely read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11.
“There was an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in the Saudi government,” Lehman said in an interview, suggesting that the commission may have made a mistake by not stating that explicitly in its final report. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia.”
Gordon Bennett!
FBI Holds 80,000 Pages of Secret Documents on Saudi-9/11 Links
http://ow.ly/WH6Q300fjwf _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 12:40 am Post subject:
9/11 report: Secret 28 pages showing possible Saudi links 'to be released in days'
Victims' families and congressional lawmakers have been pushing for the documents' release
US Congress is expected to release 28 pages of classified information that contains information about alleged ties between the Saudi government and the September 11 terror attacks.
The 28 pages, which have been kept secret since the 2002 congressional investigation into the attacks that killed nearly 3,000, could be released as early as Friday, CNN reports.
The top secret documents are said to contain information about "specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers”.
READ MORE
What the secret pages from the 9/11 investigation say
President Barack Obama announced in April that the pages would be declassified during his administration. National Intelligence director James Clapper had originally aimed for a mid-June release.
Former Democratic senator Bob Graham, who chaired the commission, first received word from a source close to the Obama administration for the summer release back in April.
“I hope that decision is to honour the American people and make it available,” Mr Graham told NBC. “The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?”
The 12 never-before-seen photos show George W. Bush’s response to 9/11
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show all
However, Mr Graham told CNN that administration officials stopped returning his calls when the mid-June date approached.
“I was told onn 12 April that the decision as to whether to release the pages would be made before 12 June,” he explained to CNN. “Well, we're now well beyond that date and no decision as to whether a decision is going to made has been released.”
But CNN reports that State Department officials have reviewed the 28 pages and plan to release them with "minimal redactions".
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White House Criticises Senate Bill Allowing 9/11 Victims to Sue Saudi Arabia
According to Tim Roemer, who took part in both the bipartisan Congression inquiry and the 9/11 Commission, described the 28 pages as a "preliminary police report".
“There were clues. There were allegations. There were witness reports. There was evidence about the hijackers, about people they met with – all kinds of different things that the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with reviewing and investigating,” Mr Roemer, a former Democratic congressman, told the Associated Press.
READ MORE
CIA director John Brennan expects release of 9/11 documents to clear Saudi Arabia
9/11 bill: Woman wants to sue Saudi Arabia over daughter's death in September 11 attacks
Donald Trump still does business in Saudi Arabia, despite blaming the country for 9/11
Pressure mounted on the Obama administration to declassify the documents, as both Democratic and Republican members of Congress said they would pass legislation to compel the release of the documents if the President does not.
“If the Obama administration does not move forward then we need to pass [the legislation] to have the House Intelligence Committee publish the pages,” Massachusetts Rep Stephen Lynch said last week, according to CNN.
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Fri Jul 15, 2016 8:31 pm Post subject:
The Missing 28 Pages
The formerly classified pages of the congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks say some of the hijackers “were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected in the Saudi Government.”
http://www.theatlantic.com/news/archive/2016/07/28-pages-saudi/491552/
J. WESTON PHIPPEN AND MATT VASILOGAMBROS 2:57 PM ET NEWS
Some 9/11 hijackers had links to officials in the Saudi government, according to 28 formerly classified pages released Friday from the joint congressional investigation into the attack.
NOTE 1 (p. 6)
Selected portion of a source document hosted by DocumentCloud
View entire document with DocumentCloud
In 2002 a joint congressional investigation looked into possible intelligence failures that led to the attacks, but these 28 pages were kept classified, leading to speculation that they possessed details about Saudi links to the hijackers.
U.S. lawmakers had wanted to release the documents, but the FBI wanted the pages to remain classified—and indeed many details in the pages are redacted. As our colleague David Graham reported, former Senator Bob Graham of Florida, who chaired the Senate side of the congressional investigation, has tried to get the pages released for years. He has said there is no security reason for the U.S. government to keep them secret. And while he hasn’t been able to discuss what is in the pages because they were classified, he had promised “a real smoking gun.”
The pages that were released Friday appear to fall short of that promise—though they do raise questions about senior Saudi officials and their connections, sometimes tenuous, to some of the hijackers. The pages allege that while some of the hijackers were in the U.S., they were in contact with, and at times received assistance from, people in the Saudi government, including two Saudi intelligence officers. Officials in the Saudi government, including members of the royal family and embassy staff, at times provided large sums of money, fake passports, and information to people assisting the hijackers while they were in the U.S., the pages allege.
Here’s an example:
BANDAR (p. 18)
Selected portion of a source document hosted by DocumentCloud
View entire document with DocumentCloud
Bandar, a close family friend of the Bushes, was Saudi ambassador to U.S. from 1983 to 2005.
The pages also criticize the intelligence shortfalls on the Saudi issue, saying:
In the view of the Joint Inquiry, this gap in U.S. intelligence coverage is unacceptable, given the magnitude and immediacy of the potential risk to U.S. national security.
Here’s more:
NOTE 3 (p. 11)
Selected portion of a source document hosted by DocumentCloud
View entire document with DocumentCloud
One reason for this, the report explains, may relate to Saudi Arabia’s status as a U.S. ally. Indeed, Josh Earnest, the White House spokesman, said Friday the Obama administration does not think the release of the 28 pages “change conclusions about the 9/11 attacks.”
In a statement, the Saudi Embassy in Washington, said:
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia welcomes the release of the redacted pages from the 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry. Since 2002, the 9/11 Commission and several government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, have investigated the contents of the ‘28 Pages’ and have confirmed that neither the Saudi government, nor senior Saudi officials, nor any person acting on behalf of the Saudi government provided any support or encouragement for these attacks.
But the 9/11 Families in response said: “The Saudis are exerting extreme pressure on the Administration to protect themselves and to cajole Congress in hopes of avoiding the restoration of the long-held understanding of our law and setting good policy. And this very exercise of unacceptable leverage by the Saudis over our Government is precisely what the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act was meant to prevent.”
James Jesus Angleton, head of CIA counterintelligence for three decades, long ago explained to me that intelligence services create stories inside stories, each with its carefully constructed trail of evidence, in order to create false trails as diversions. Such painstaking work can serve a variety of purposes. It can be used to embarrass or discredit an innocent person or organization that has an unhelpful position on an important issue and is in the way of an agenda. It can be used as a red herring to draw attention away from a failing explanation of an event by producing an alternative false explanation. I forget what Angleton called them, but the strategy is to have within a false story other stories that are there but withheld because of “national security” or “politically sensitive issues” or some such. Then if the official story gets into trouble, the backup story can be released in order to deflect attention into a new false story or to support the original story. Angleton said that intelligence services protect their necessary misdeeds by burying the misdeed in competing explanations.
Watching the expert craftsmanship of the “Saudis did 9/11” story, I have been wondering if the Saudi story is what Angleton described as a story within a story.
The official 9/11 story has taken too many hits to remain standing. The collapse of Building 7, which, if memory serves, was not mentioned at all in the 9/11 Commission Report, has been proven to have been a controlled demolition. Building 7 collapsed at free fall acceleration, which can only be achieved with controlled demolition.
Over 100 firemen, policemen, and building maintenance personnel who were inside the two towers prior to their collapse report hearing and experiencing multiple explosions. According to William Rodriguez, a maintenance employee in the north tower, there were explosions in the sub-basements of the tower prior to the time airplanes are said to have hit the towers.
An international team of scientists found in the dust of the towers both reacted and unreacted residues of explosives and substances capable of instantly producing the extreme temperatures that cut steel.
A large number of pilots, both commercial and military, have questioned the ability of alleged hijackers with substandard flight skills to conduct the maneuvers required by the flight paths.
2,500 architects and engineers have called for an independent investigation of the failure of the towers that were certified to be capable of withstanding a hit by airplanes.
The revelation that the 9/11 attack was financed by the Saudi government has the effect of bolstering the sagging official story while simultaneously satisfying the growing recognition that something is wrong with the official story.
Commentators and media are treating the story of Saudi financing of 9/11 as a major revelation that damns the Bush regime, but the revelation not only leaves in place but also strengthens the official story that Osama bin Laden carried out the attack with precisely the hijackers identified in the original story. The Bush regime is damned merely for protecting its Saudi friends and withholding evidence of Saudi financing.
The evidence of Saudi financing is what restores the credibility of the original story. Nothing changes in the story of the collapse of the three WTC buildings, the attack on the Pentagon, and the crashed airliner in Pennsylvania. American anger is now directed at the Saudis for financing the successful attacks.
To hype the Saudi story is to support the official story. A number of commentators who are usually suspicious of government are practically jumping up and down for joy that now they have something to pin on Bush. They haven’t noticed that what they are pinning on him supports the official 9/11 story.
Moreover, they have not explained why the Saudi government would finance an attack on the country that protects it. Saudi Arabia is a long-time partner. They accept pieces of paper for their oil and then use the paper to finance the US Treasury’s debt and to purchase US weapons systems, purchases that lead to larger weapons sales, thus spreading R&D costs over larger volume.
What do the Saudis have to gain from embarrassing the US by demonstrating the total failure of US national security? Really, if a few hijackers can outfox the NSA, the CIA, and the national security state, we clearly aren’t getting out money’s worth and are giving up our civil liberties for nothing.
Saudi financing does not explain who had access to wire the buildings for demolition, or to schedule on 9/11 a simulated attack that the actual attack modeled, thus causing confusion among some authorities about what was real and what was not.
Saudi financing does not explain the dancing Israelis who were apprehended filming the attacks on the towers and who later said on Israeli TV that they were sent to New York to film the attack. How did the Israelis know? Did Prince Bandar tell them? Bush didn’t tell us about the Saudis, and the Israelis didn’t tell us about the attack. Which is worse?
This Saudi revelation is too convenient for the official story. How do we know that it was not devised as a story inside the story to be used when the story got into trouble? The Saudis would be a logical choice to be put in such a position as the original neoconservative plan for overthrowing Middle Eastern governments included overthrowing Saudi Arabia. Now we have an excuse.
I have doubts that the alleged hijackers played any role other than cover for bringing down buildings by controlled demolition. Possibly the hijackers and the Saudis who financed them, if the evidence is real and not concocted, were not aware of their role and thought they were participating in a different deception.
Are we being deceived again with a story inside a story? Will it succeed along the lines that Angleton explained? Or will it possibly backfire? If the US government will hide some of the truth from us for 13 years, why not all of the truth? What else in the official story is false?
Congress rejects Obama veto of 9/11 bill; first override of his presidency
Donovan Slack and Brian J. Tumulty, USA TODAY 6:20 p.m. EDT September 28, 2016
In a 97-1 vote, the Senate acted decisively Wednesday to override President Barack Obama's veto of Sept. 11 legislation that would allow families of victims to sue Saudi Arabia for the kingdom's alleged backing of the hijackers. (Sept. 2 AP
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/28/senate-poised-o verride-obama-veto-911-bill-allowing-saudi-suits/91184976/
WASHINGTON — The House and Senate voted Wednesday to reject President Obama's veto of legislation allowing lawsuits against foreign sponsors of terrorism — the first successful override of a presidential veto since Obama took office.
The president had vetoed the legislation Friday because he said the bill — known as the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act, or JASTA — would infringe on the president’s ability to conduct foreign policy. It was the 12th veto of his presidency.
USA TODAY
Why Obama doesn't want 9/11 families suing Saudi Arabia
But after an intense push by 9/11 survivors and families of victims who want to sue Saudi Arabia based on claims the country played a role in the 2001 terror attacks, even Obama’s Democratic allies on Capitol Hill voted to override his veto.
The House voted 348-77, well above the two-thirds majority needed. The final vote tally in the Senate was 97-1. Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., cast the lone dissenting vote.
"In our polarized politics of today, this is pretty much close to a miraculous occurrence," Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, said. Democrats and Republicans in both chambers agreed, he said, that the bill "gives the victims of the terrorist attack on our own soil an opportunity to seek the justice they deserve."
The top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said he shared some of Obama's concerns but said the victims' rights outweighed them.
"We cannot in good conscience close the courthouse door to those families who have suffered unimaginable losses," Sen. Ben Cardin, D-Md., said.
Obama told CNN on Wednesday that he thinks overriding his veto was a "mistake" and "basically a political vote." But he said he understood why Congress voted the way it did, despite what he suggested were private misgivings among some lawmakers.
“If you're perceived as voting against 9/11 families right before an election, not surprisingly, that's a hard vote for people to take," he said. "But it would have been the right thing to do."
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest decried the override as the "single most embarrassing thing the United States Senate has done possibly since 1983."
"Ultimately these senators are going to have to answer their own conscience and their constituents as they account for their actions today," he said, adding that Reid showed "courage" in opposing it.
The measure essentially creates an exception to sovereign immunity, the doctrine that holds one country can’t be sued in another country’s courts. It allows plaintiffs to sue other nations in U.S. federal courts for monetary damages in cases of injury, death or property damage caused by acts of international terrorism in the United States.
The White House has argued that the legislation will prompt other nations to retaliate, stripping the immunity the United States enjoys in other parts of the world. Obama said in a letter to Reid before Wednesday's vote that lawsuits already are allowed against countries designated as state sponsors of terrorism by the U.S. government.
The president warned the law could be "devastating" to the U.S. military, diplomatic and intelligence communities.
"The United States relies on principles of immunity to prevent foreign litigants and foreign courts from second-guessing our counter-terrorism operations and other actions that we take every day," he wrote.
Former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and former U.S. Attorney Michael Mukasey, both of whom served under President George W. Bush, have echoed similar concerns in recent weeks.
“An errant drone strike that kills non-combatants in Afghanistan could easily trigger lawsuits demanding that U.S. military or intelligence personnel be hauled into foreign courts,” Bolton and Mukasey wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this month.
But proponents of the law maintain that it is narrowly tailored, and some lawmakers who said they still had doubts before Wednesday's vote said they would monitor any possible fallout and pass new legislation fixing any problems that arise.
Two dozen 9/11 families gathered in the Senate and House public galleries Wednesday to watch the override votes.
“This is what we have been fighting for over a decade,’’ said Terry Strada, national chairwoman of the 9/11 Families & Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism.
The legislation provides the green light to several lawsuits — consolidated into one case on behalf of 9/11 victims and several insurance companies — as lawyers attempt to prove Saudi government involvement in the terrorist plot. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who flew planes into the World Trade Center, Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on 9/11 were Saudi nationals.
The 9/11 commission did not find any proof of Saudi government involvement, but the families still want to examine any possible links not yet uncovered.
“I don’t think anybody should ever have any immunity for what happened on 9/11," said Lorie Van Auken, whose husband worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died in the attack on the World Trade Center. "It’s about justice. It’s about where this will lead us. It’s not about money."
In his unusual three-page veto message to Congress last week, Obama said he has "deep sympathy" for the families of victims of terrorism.
The first lawsuit has been filed against Saudi Arabia for allegedly providing material support to Osama bin Laden and his team of terrorist hijackers prior to the 9/11 attacks. The filing comes days after Congress passed a law that allows US citizens to sue terror-supporting states.
Stephanie Ross DeSimone was pregnant with Navy Commander Patrick Dunn’s daughter when he was killed by American Airlines Flight 77, which was deliberately steered into the Pentagon building on the morning of September 11, 2001.
The hijackers at the wheel of that plane were Saudi nationals, as were 15 of the 19 who took control of the four planes, the crashing of which resulted in the deaths of almost 3,000 people in what remains the worst-ever terrorist attack on US soil.
DeSimone is suing Saudi Arabia for wrongful death and intentional infliction of emotional distress, on behalf of herself and her now-teenaged child through a DC district court.
While DeSimone’s is nominally the first lawsuit filed, James Kreindler, a New York attorney who represents hundreds of victims’ families, which have attempted to gain compensation from Riyadh for over a decade, told the Wall Street Journal that his firm would also submit similar documents to a New York-based federal court by Monday at the latest.
The legal process has been made possible by a highly-controversial bill passed by both houses of Congress earlier this week.
The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA) originally submitted in 2009, before being reintroduced last year, allows US citizens to sue not only states that are officially considered by the State Department to be State Sponsors of Terrorism – currently Sudan, Syria and Iran – but any government adjudged to have aided an attack, even if the country is an ally or an economic partner of the US.
Barack Obama vehemently opposed the bill, but his veto was overwhelmingly overruled in both chambers, thanks to a bipartisan effort from lawmakers – marking the first time in 12 occasions the current US President has had a veto overridden by Congress.
JASTA impinges on the long-standing principle of sovereign immunity, where states are protected from individual lawsuits in US courts. President Obama warned that the legislation could leave the United States vulnerable to retaliatory measures from countries all over the world, and accused Congress of pandering to popular opinion ahead of an election. Critics predict that JASTA could result in Washington having to defend itself from hundreds of lawsuits for controversial practices such as drone strikes all over world, to endangerment of US personnel and companies working abroad, and the worsening of ties with potential allies, which will now be subject to vagaries of legal systems all over the globe.
Saudi Arabia itself immediately expressed “great concern” about the bill and warned of “serious unintended consequences.” Indeed, Senate leader majority leader Mitch McConnell himself admitted on Thursday that “nobody had really focused on the potential downside in terms of our international relationships, and I think it was just a ball dropped,” and Congress has now said it could still dilute the contents of the bill, or restrict its scope.
Whether DeSimone and other victim families are likely to be successful is also not clear cut. A 2004 US report on the attacks “found no evidence that the Saudi government, as an institution, or senior officials within the Saudi government funded Al-Qaeda.” But classified US documents opened to public scrutiny this summer showed that “while in the United States, some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government.” Even if top Saudi officials are implicated, it is also uncertain by what means Riyadh can be made to pay any damages. _________________ --
'Suppression of truth, human spirit and the holy chord of justice never works long-term. Something the suppressors never get.' David Southwell
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com http://aanirfan.blogspot.com
Martin Van Creveld: Let me quote General Moshe Dayan: "Israel must be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Martin Van Creveld: I'll quote Henry Kissinger: "In campaigns like this the antiterror forces lose, because they don't win, and the rebels win by not losing."
Joined: 25 Jul 2005 Posts: 18335 Location: St. Pauls, Bristol, England
Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 10:46 pm Post subject:
Saudi government may have funded 9/11 'dry run,' attorneys say: Report
#SaudiStruggle
New evidence submitted in lawsuit on behalf of families of 1,400 victims who died in terrorist attacks 16 years ago
http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/saudi-government-may-have-funded-911 -dry-run-report-1357837380
Saturday 9 September 2017 20:51 UTC
New evidence submitted in a lawsuit against the Saudi Arabian government shows that its embassy in Washington may have funded a 9/11 "dry run" by two Saudis, possibly reinforcing the claim that employees and agents of the kingdom directed and aided the 9/11 hijackers, the New York Post reported on Saturday.
Two years before the airliner attacks, the Saudi Embassy paid for two nationals living in the US as students to fly from Phoenix to Washington "in a dry run for the 9/11 attacks," alleges the amended complaint filed on behalf of the families of some 1,400 victims who died in the terrorist attacks 16 years ago, the Post said.
The court filing provides new details that paint "a pattern of both financial and operational support" for the 9/11 conspiracy from official Saudi sources, lawyers for the plaintiffs say. They add that the Saudi government may have been involved in underwriting the attacks from the earliest stages, including testing cockpit security.
Motion to dismiss
"We've long asserted that there were longstanding and close relationships between al-Qaeda and the religious components of the Saudi government," said Sean Carter, the lead attorney for the 9/11 plaintiffs. "This is further evidence of that."
Lawyers representing Saudi Arabia last month filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which may finally be headed towards trial now that Congress has cleared diplomatic-immunity hurdles, the Post said. A Manhattan federal judge has asked the 9/11 plaintiffs, represented by lead law firm Cozen O'Connor, to respond to the motion by November.
Saudi Arabia had called on the United States last year to "correct" the bill that allows 9/11 victims' families to sue Saudi Arabia in US courts to avoid its "dangerous" consequences.
An unidentified Saudi foreign ministry official told Saudi news agency SPA at the time that he hoped wisdom would prevail in Congress to amend the Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA).
READ MORE ►
Saudi Arabia asks to be dropped from 9/11 lawsuit
Congress voted overwhelmingly last September to override a presidential veto of the bill by then-president Barack Obama.
Families of 9/11 victims campaigned for the law, alleging that the Saudi government had a hand in the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens, but no link to the government has been proven. The Saudi government denies any links to the plotters.
Declassified documents showed US intelligence had multiple suspicions about links between the Saudi government and the attackers.
Riyadh lobbied
"While in the United States, some of the 9/11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi government," a finding read.
Behind the scenes, Riyadh has lobbied furiously for the bill to be scrapped.
A senior Saudi prince reportedly threatened to pull billions of dollars out of US assets if it became law, but Saudi officials later distanced themselves from that.
In a diplomatic protest note obtained by AFP, the European Union warned the rules would be "in conflict with fundamental principles of international law".
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