Senator Accuses Bush of Cover-Up

Senator Bob Graham, the Florida Democrat who is a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, accused the White House on Tuesday of covering up evidence that might have linked Saudi Arabia to the Sept. 11 hijackers..."The reason for this cover-up goes right to the White House."

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/08/politics/08graham.html?ex=1095616722&ei=1&en=0a8e31b91773cb74

This is big.

(Thanks to markbark for posting this in GD.)

Great cross-over marketing!

This shit is worse than Watergate.

:o

This criminal cabal has made Watergate look like a Boy Scout prank. The range and scope of the corruption in the Busholini Regime is staggering - a degree that itself invites denial by its sheer size. Beyond a doubt, this is the most corrupt administration in the history of the US.

I agree an analogy to Watergate would be perfect to use for this scandal. Only repubs have such secrecy and spin.

I concur. There is no doubt.. and John Dean's book is titled just that.... and then there are others who have had the nerve to speak the truth... 'course these mean nothing to the brainwashed right.

Worse Than Watergate:http://images.amazon.com/images/P/031600023X.01._PE30_PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
>>But John Dean goes further back, seeing in Bush all the secrecy and scandal of Dean's former boss, the notorious Richard Nixon. The difference, as the title of Dean's book indicates, is that Bush is a heck of a lot worse. While the book provides insightful snippets of the way Nixon used to do business, it offers them to shed light on the practices of Bush. In Dean's estimation, the secrecy with which Bush and Dick Cheney govern is not merely a preferred system of management but an obsessive strategy meant to conceal a deeply troubling agenda of corporate favoritism and a dramatic growth in unchecked power for the executive branch that put at risk the lives of American citizens, civil liberties, and the Constitution.<<

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/031600023X/qid=1094670499/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743260244/qid=1094670499/sr=8-2/ref=pd_ka_2/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375507523/qid=1094670499/sr=8-3/ref=pd_ka_3/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074325337X/qid=1094670499/sr=8-4/ref=pd_ka_4/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1400050669/qid=1094670499/sr=8-5/ref=pd_ka_5/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743255453/qid=1094670499/sr=8-6/ref=pd_ka_6/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312315600/qid=1094670499/sr=8-8/ref=pd_ka_8/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670032646/qid=1094670499/sr=8-9/ref=pd_ka_9/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/074325547X/qid=1094670499/sr=8-10/ref=pd_ka_10/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/078671378X/qid=1094670499/sr=8-11/ref=pd_ka_11/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670032735/qid=1094670499/sr=8-12/ref=pd_ka_12/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060746874/qid=1094670499/sr=8-13/ref=pd_ka_13/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0670032999/qid=1094670499/sr=8-14/ref=pd_ka_14/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060736704/qid=1094670499/sr=8-15/ref=pd_ka_15/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0812568796/qid=1094670499/sr=8-9/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i9_xgl14/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312986033/qid=1094670499/sr=8-10/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i10_xgl14/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0465001769/qid=1094670499/sr=8-8/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i8_xgl14/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0312341156/qid=1094670916/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0520224027/qid=1094670916/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-6984184-5052156?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

I just read this Book, "Worse than Watergate".

All I can say is that it is very frightening, and I feel that Dean is fearful for this country if Bush gets re-elected.

I am horrified that the media is not covering the issues brought forth by John Dean.

When their potential for mass destruction is factored in... :scared:

"These are serious allegations. There should be an investigation."

Came out really strong, dontcha think?

:eyes:

Now we all need to send LTTE's... make calls to the networks... call in to radio shows... post at message boards. Yes, we CAN help get the message out. And as someone said above, we'll have F911 DVD's soon to help us.

Let's get to work!!

Americans are only things to help him get his way

Now THAT'S a bumper sticker!

The accusation stems from the Federal Bureau of Investigation's refusal to allow investigators for a Congressional inquiry and the independent Sept. 11 commission to interview an informant, Abdussattar Shaikh, who had been the landlord in San Diego of two Sept. 11 hijackers.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20040617-9999-1n17plot.html

excerpt:

The report also referred to an unnamed San Diego resident – "an apparently law-abiding citizen with close contacts among local police and FBI personnel" – who rented the two a room in his house.

The San Diego Union-Tribune has reported that a local Muslim leader, Abdussattar Shaikh of Lemon Grove, rented a room to the two hijackers in 2000 and was a trusted FBI informant. Shaikh has denied being an informant.

The pair also rented an apartment in Clairemont and obtained driver licenses with the help of an illegal immigrant named Mohdar Abdullah. Abdullah, who was deported to Yemen last month, claimed that he had advance knowledge of the attacks, the report said.

While in San Diego, the pair "failed to make progress" in English or flight training. According to their flight instructors, they wanted to fly large jets, especially Boeing aircraft, but did not realize they first had to train on small planes. In addition, "they wanted to learn how to control an aircraft in flight, but took no interest in takeoffs or landings," the report said.

When one Arabic-speaking flight instructor "informed them that, like all students, they would have to begin training on single-engine aircraft before learning to fly jets, they expressed such disappointment that the instructor thought they were either joking or dreaming," the report said.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/terror/20030725-9999_1n25report.html

Chance to foil 9/11 plot lost here, report finds

July 25, 2003

The "best chance" to uncover the Sept. 11 plot was lost in San Diego – where FBI agents were tantalizingly close to discovering two terrorists living with a government informant in Lemon Grove, according to a congressional report released yesterday.

The report, which lists mistakes and missed opportunities by intelligence agencies, found no single piece of intelligence that could have tipped off authorities and prevented the deaths of more than 3,000 people.

But, the report stated, the inability of the FBI and CIA to share information led to this scenario: Hijackers Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Midhar rented rooms in the home of an unwitting FBI informant, who passed along their first names to his FBI handler.

But the names meant nothing because the CIA – which had observed the men at an al-Qaeda meeting in Malaysia in late 1999 – hadn't put them on a watch list and didn't do so until August 2001. The FBI office in San Diego wasn't told until after Sept. 11, according to the report.

...more...

is up to #14 today... keep it going! :bounce:

:kick:

had a few things to say about this, too. Remember her letter/memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller?

remember a story that came out right after 9/11 that before Clinton left office, he had Al Queda investigators looking more closely at the role of Saudi Arabia in the terrorism against us. And that one of the first thing Bush did when he got into office was to call off that scrutiny and basically said hands-off SA?

Damn, I really want to dig that up and review it.

It's just one more piece of evidence that Bush has put his own/his cronies interest before the country's.

Hell Hath No Fury

And welcome to DU!! :hi:

it's just me, Hell Hath No fury on Mom's (Tahoe Mom's) computer. :)

:toast:

http://www1.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/articleshow?art_id=1030259305

Bush took FBI agents off Laden family trail

TIMES NEWS NETWORK< WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 07, 2001 09:05:48 PM >

LONDON: America was itself to blame for the events of September 11 because the US administration was using "kid gloves" in tracking down Osama bin Laden and "other fanatics linked to Saudi Arabia", a special BBC investigation has alleged in a damning indictment of the two presidents Bush and American foreign policy.

The report, which the BBC claimed was based on a secret FBI document, numbered 199I WF213589 and emanating out of the FBI’s Washington field office, alleged that the cynicism of the American establishment and "connections between the CIA and Saudi Arabia and the Bush men and bin Ladens" may have been the real cause of the deaths of thousands in the World Trade Centre attacks.

The investigation, which featured in the BBC’s leading current affairs programme, Newsnight , said the FBI was told to "back off" investigating one of Osama bin Laden’s brothers, Abdullah, who was linked to "the Saudi-funded World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), a suspected terrorist organisation," whose accounts have still not frozen by the US treasury despite "being banned by Pakistan some weeks ago and India claiming it was linked to an organisation involved in bombing in Kashmir".

Newsnight said there was a long history of "shadowy" American connections with Saudi Arabia, not least the two presidents Bush’s "business dealings" with the bin Ladens and another more insidious link revealed by the former head of the American visa section in Jeddah.

The official said he had been concerned about visas issued to large numbers of "unqualified" men "with no family links or any links with America or Saudi Arabia", only to find out later that it "was not visa fraud" but part of a scheme in which young men "recruited by Osama bin Laden" were being sent for "terrorist training by the CIA" after which they were sent on to Afghanistan.

...more...

http://www.nowtoronto.com/issues/2001-11-22/news_story3.html

U.S. SAUDI SCANDAL

DID FBI CALL OFF PROBE OF SAUDIS TO PROTECT OIL TIES?

observers have spilled a lot of ink lately on the delicate positioning of the Saudi regime as it tries to harmonize its support for the U.S. war with its tolerance for extremism on its own soil. Generally accepted, too, is the idea that the monarchy boosted al Qaeda through its funding of the Wahhabi movement, a militant Islamist sect.But a book written by two French intelligence experts, published by Denoel Press and not yet available in North America, takes the story further. Ben Laden: La Vérité Interdite (Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth) says the FBI was hamstrung prior to September 11 not only because U.S. officials were unwilling to make an issue of al Qaeda's connections to wealthy Saudis, but also because the U.S. didn't want to disrupt talks with the Taliban over building an oil pipeline to Central Asia.

Starting in the mid 90s, the book says, the U.S. made clumsy attempts to bribe the Taliban while at the same time threatening them with military action if they didn't make a deal. The U.S. repeatedly demanded bin Laden's extradition, not realizing until too late that the Taliban were joined at the hip to their Saudi millionaire guest.

The blundering and cynical U.S. diplomatic scheme may actually have set the stage for September 11, says co-author Jean-Claude Brisard in an interview from Paris. Talks finally collapsed in late August, and the Trade towers attack may have been bin Laden's pre-emptive response, he says. "The State Department diverged considerably from the FBI's investigators. The U.S. negotiated with the Taliban despite (their) brutality because the important thing for the U.S. was oil."

<snip>

The book also reveals that a former top FBI counterterrorism official who was killed in the World Trade Center attack had complained bitterly about how U.S. oil politics had shut down FBI investigations. The former official, John O'Neill, resigned in protest as head of the FBI's national security division in August and was hired as chief of security at the twin towers. "All the answers, everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden's organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia," O'Neill is quoted as saying in the book. Agents trying to probe last year's bombing of the USS Cole constantly knocked heads with the U.S. State Department, which ended up barring O'Neill, the head of the investigation, from entering Yemen. Brisard says O'Neill told him about the problems last June and July. "He was profoundly frustrated with the situation."

...more...

He was Deputy Director of the FBI and a counter-terrorism expert. They Bush Administration so hand-cuffed his attempts to track Al-Queda back to the Saudi Royal Family that in July 2001, he quit in disgust. In an unbelievable irony, he took the job as security director of the Twin Towers and was killed on September 11th.

I think it was in the book by the French authors...

Looking for confirmation.

eom

Just wait until someone officially tells us about how after 9/11, America froze out Israel and Russia and made Saudi Arabia its primary intelligence partner in the Middle East.

America was therefore relying on Saudi Arabian intelligence to justify an invasion of Iraq in order to prevent further attacks by Saudi Arabian terrorists.

Saudi Arabia's only dangerous border is now guarded on the far side by American troops, while Bush honored Osama's demand to move American units out of Saudi Arabia itself.

Why, it's almost as if our President was manipulated.... But you could only believe that if you believe that the President is completely incompetent and totally uninformed about world affairs. It's not as if the guy had never left his own country before he was President.

Worst. President. Ever.

http://cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=complete_911_timeline&startpos=650#a091101ahmadmeeting

September 11, 2001 (H)

At the time of the attacks, ISI Director Lt. Gen. Mahmood Ahmed is at a breakfast meeting at the Capitol with the chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Senator Bob Graham (D) and Representative Porter Goss (R) (Goss is a 10-year veteran of the CIA's clandestine operations wing). The meeting is said to last at least until the second plane hits the WTC. Graham and Goss later co-head the joint House-Senate investigation into the 9/11 attacks, which has made headlines for saying there was no “smoking gun” of Bush knowledge before 9/11. Note Senator Graham should have been aware of a report made to his staff the previous month that one of Mahmood's subordinates had told a US undercover agent that the WTC would be destroyed (see Early August 2001). Evidence suggests Mahmood ordered that $100,000 be sent to hijacker Mohamed Atta (see Early August 2001 (D)). Also present at the meeting were Senator John Kyl (R) and the Pakistani ambassador to the US, Maleeha Lodhi (all or virtually all of the people in this meeting also met in Pakistan a few weeks earlier (see August 28-30, 2001)). Senator Graham says of the meeting: “We were talking about terrorism, specifically terrorism generated from Afghanistan.” The New York Times mentions bin Laden specifically was being discussed.

What's up with this? :shrug:

maybe he will include it in his interview. (Wishful thinking, I know)

Doesn't hurt to try, but I wouldn't hold my breath!

(Btw, where in CA are you? I'm in LA.)

According to the GOP, of course ...

:kick:

was in no way involved in it. They rambled on and said the 9/11 commission found no ties or something crap like that.

Maybe not official ties but unofficial.

Here's my comment from the GD thread:

Fucking ridiculous, but expected. The Times runs on pg. A18 a 5-graph AP story in the bottom right corner. If they had wanted to bury it any more than they did, they would have had to throw dirt on top of it. The weak-kneed Times, always deathly afraid of being called liberal-biased, couldn't even bother to assign one of its own reporters to this.

The former head of the Senate Intelligence Committee makes charges against the President that border on treason, and barely a peep from the paper of record. Yet when some yahoos from Arkansas accused the President of improprieties in some backwoods real estate deal more than a decade before he took office, it was always on the Times' front page. That's Liberal Bias for ya'.

You don't get a nickname like that from the Saudis for nothing, ya know.

:kick:

Bwaaahahahahahahaha!

:evilgrin:

:kick:

asking him how the ol' Gray Lady could justify burying this story. If you want to do the same, his name is Daniel Okrent and his email is public@nytimes.com.

ho-hum...

Dear xxx:

Thank you for the message. I will note your concern that this news should have been on A1 to Mr. Okrent.
Mr. Okrent has said that he will be writing about The Times's coverage of Senator Kerry and President Bush at some point between now and the election in November. I will keep your message on file for him to consider when he is ready to write.
You may be interested in guest columnist, Jack Rosenthal's last column about A1.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/weekinreview/22bott.html

Sincerely,
Arthur Bovino
Office of the Public Editor
The New York Times

I really can't fathom how this can't do real damage. It boggles the mind that this could be blown off so blithely.:shrug: