Summary of Saudi Arabia Flight Findings

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Sept-11-Saudi-Flights.html

Summary of Saudi Arabia Flight Findings
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: April 13, 2004


Filed at 3:34 p.m. ET

A summary of findings by the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks involving six flights to Saudi Arabia just after the 2001 hijackings:

National air space was closed on Sept. 11. Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country. We have not yet identified who they contacted for help. But we have found that the request came to the attention of (presidential counterterrorism adviser) Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure
..more at AP....

The NYT site isn't recognizing my login :(

Is there another source?

Filed at 3:34 p.m. ET

A summary of findings by the panel investigating the Sept. 11 attacks involving six flights to Saudi Arabia just after the 2001 hijackings:

National air space was closed on Sept. 11. Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, the Saudi government asked for help in getting some of its citizens out of the country. We have not yet identified who they contacted for help. But we have found that the request came to the attention of (presidential counterterrorism adviser) Richard Clarke and that each of the flights we have studied was investigated by the FBI and dealt with in a professional manner prior to its departure.

No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until Sept. 13, 2001. After the air space reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between Sept. 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on Sept. 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Osama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.

The Saudi flights were screened by law enforcement officials, primarily the FBI, to ensure that people on these flights did not pose a threat to national security, and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9-11 investigation was allowed to leave the country. Thirty of the 142 people on these flights were interviewed by the FBI, including 22 of the 26 people (23 passengers and 3 private security guards) on the bin Ladin flight. Many were asked detailed questions. None of the passengers stated that they had any recent contact with Osama Bin Ladin or knew anything about terrorist activity.

The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on the bin Ladin flight passengers and searched the aircraft. It is unclear whether the TIPOFF terrorist watchlist was checked. At our request, the Terrorist Screening Center has rechecked the names of individuals on the flight manifests of these six Saudi flights against the current TIPOFF watchlist. There are no matches.

The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights who the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9-11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict this conclusion.

This is so pathetic. It completely covers up one damning fact: the domestic air ban continued into Sept. 13, and one Saudi flight in fact flew within the air ban time period on that day.

Notice how cleverly this is written to cover up that fact:

"No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until Sept. 13, 2001. After the air space reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between Sept. 14 and 24."

Fiendishly clever wording!

Secondly, it has one damning fact: only 30 of the 142 people on the flights were interviewed by the FBI! That means not even all the bin Laden relatives were interviewed by the FBI! That's scandalous, yet the thing is written in a totally "nothing to see here, move along" style.

If this is typical work of the 9/11 Commission, expect one giant whitewash.

The airspace didn't reopen on 9/13 for commercial flights. I don't remember the exact dates, but IIRC, flights were shut down for about two weeks .. or more. Would have to look that up.

We live under the landing pattern for an international airport. It was the eeriest thing to go days/weeks with no air traffic. I'm sure others in metro areas experienced the same.

I do know that my mom was vacationing in the midwest and was to catch a flight that day (a Tuesday) to come home. She remained stuck in Kansas City til Sunday.

13 Sep With limitations, air traffic resumes in the U.S.
{That is a LOT sooner than I remember .. however now I do recall that airports were reopened in stages as each cleared security checks. Maybe ours was delayed longer than others.}

{Here is something I had totally forgotten.}
{11 Sep}12:55 Taliban officials claim innocence
{OBL maintained throughout that *he* was not responsible for the atrocity. Didn't fit with his MO then. Doesn't fit now. He likes to take credit for his handiwork, doesn't he?}

{The Taliban offered to surrender OBL. *We* would have no part of it.}
18 Nov Taliban declares it will no longer protect Osama bin Laden.

.. more time lines ..
http://www.johnstonsarchive.net/terrorism/terrchron2.html

"The FBI checked a variety of databases for information on THE BIN LADIN FLIGHT passengers and searched the aircraft"

Presumably they checked the other 5 flights as well?
22 of 26 interviewed, hopefully the other 4 were babies or such.

Story says this is a summary, should be be a more detailed report as well, I'll give it a few days.

nt

:kick:

Apparently the Saudis knew full well how many of their kin were involved in this immediately after the job; why doesn't this warrant some outcry? Of course, we have to facilitate their every whim due to the Bush family connections and all that yummy, yummy oil.

What does that mean exactly? What kind of reprisals? Like being arrested if they did something wrong?

I'm sure that Paul O'Neil and Al Franken were involved too. So, if the request made it to Clark, why didn't they just ask him who he got permission from. Surely he didn't supersede the no-flight mandate on his own. You know he would have had to ask the smirking chimp himself. Of course we'll never hear that part of the story.

Knowing that the FBI checked these Saudi Nationals out really reassures me. Wait, isn't the FBI (and Clinton) being blamed for 911? Oh dear, what should I think? What should I do?


Round and round and round it goes, where it stops - nobody knows...

He came, with his boxing gloves on, to give testimony. Never saw such a nasty act in my life - really spoiling for a fight, trying to take the offensive in this. And it was, indeed, offensive. I didn't like him at all beforehand. Now, I just completely loathe and despise him! Blame anybody but themselves. I guess that's the most widely-spread republi-CON talking point at this stage of the game.

That jackass was chasing doctors for giving out prescription pot and looking at fabric samples for curtains to cover up naked statues. He's got a lot of nerve blaming Clinton when he was doing nothing except promoting his Reich-wing agenda instead of investigating real criminals.

made NO changes in policy (as they would have us believe), why the hell did he even bother stealing the election?