Former Gov. Bob Graham goes on 60 Minutes to talk about Saudi/911 hijackers connections

[seafan]

110. Yes, most all of it has been done For Oil and Empire. Inseparable.

Many thanks, Octafish, for those articles.

Sen. Graham: Bush covered up Saudi involvement in 9/11, September 8, 2004

In this must-read interview of Senator Bob Graham by Salon:

Why do you think the White House is so intent on keeping that information (the 28 classified pages) from the public?

I think there are several possible reasons. One is that it did not want the public to be aware of the degree of Saudi involvement in supporting the 9/11 terrorists. Second, it was embarrassing that that support took place literally under the nose of the FBI, to the point where one of the terrorists in San Diego was living at the house of a paid FBI informant. Third, there has been a long-term special relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia, and that relationship has probably reached a new high under the George W. Bush administration, in part because of the long and close family relationship that the Bushes have had with the Saudi royal family.

viaSalon

In the book, you describe being furious with the FBI for blocking your committee’s attempts to interview that paid FBI informant. You write that the panel needed the bureau to deliver a congressional subpoena to the informant because he was in the FBI’s protective custody and could not be located without the bureau’s cooperation. But the FBI refused to help. What happened? And what do you think the bureau was trying to hide?

We had just finished a hearing and had asked various representatives of the FBI to come into a conference room and discuss our strong interest in being able to interview the San Diego informant. It was clear that the FBI representatives were not going to voluntarily allow that to happen, and we had already prepared a subpoena, which I had in my coat pocket. I walked over to the principal representative for the FBI, Ken Wainstein, and I was approaching him with this subpoena, he clasped his hands tightly behind his back. I tried to hand him the subpoena, but he acted as if it were radioactive. Finally he said he didn’t want to take the subpoena, but he would get back to us on the following Monday. Well, nobody ever got back to us. It was the only time in my senatorial experience that the FBI has refused to deliver a legally issued congressional subpoena.

Later, the FBI congressional affairs officer sent a letter to [co-chairman] Porter Goss and me, saying, “The administration would not sanction a staff interview with the source, nor did the administration agree to allow the FBI to serve a subpoena on the source.” What that tells me is the FBI wasn’t acting on its own but had been directed by the White House not to cooperate.

Did the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, play any role in what you describe as the support network for these two hijackers? As you know, Bandar is a great friend of the Bush family.

Most of the things that he did are, frankly, still classified. But he has clearly demonstrated that he has a close relationship with President Bush. You have no doubt seen that famous picture of the two of them together at the president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas. And then there’s the fact that within a few hours after 9/11, Prince Bandar was able to gain access to the president to make the case for why 140 or so Saudis should be given permission to leave the United States immediately.

Did the Saudi Embassy play a role?

I’m going to have to defer answering that question. Those things that still have not been made available to the public, such as this issue of what Prince Bandar’s participation was, I did not include in the book.

It sounds then as if the role of Bandar and the Saudi Embassy is addressed in those 27 classified pages of the panel’s report?

Most of it would be addressed there, yes.

Along those lines, you said that in a meeting at the U.S. Central Command in Tampa, Fla., in February 2002, Gen. Tommy Franks, who was then conducting the war in Afghanistan, told you that resources were already being shifted quietly to Iraq. Additionally, you write that Franks told you that Somalia and Yemen, not Iraq, were the next logical targets in any action to combat terrorism.

Yes. I had just received a briefing on Afghanistan when Gen. Franks invited me to come into his office, just the two of us. He told me that military and intelligence resources were being redeployed from Afghanistan to Iraq. What that suggested to me was [first] that the decision to go to war in Iraq had been made at least 14 months before we actually went to Iraq, and long before there was authorization from Congress and long before the United Nations was sought out for a resolution of support. Secondly, it suggested we couldn’t fight the two wars concurrently to victory, but that it would take redeployment of personnel from Afghanistan to Iraq to make that a successful invasion. Third, it suggested that somebody — I assume the president — had decided that Iraq was a higher priority for the United States than was completing the war in Afghanistan.

Do you believe the White House manipulated the intelligence to persuade the public to back the invasion? “Manipulate” may be too strong a word for you. But it took a request from you and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., to get the intelligence community to produce a National Intelligence Estimate on the danger posed by Iraq, a step that would seem an obvious one to take, considering the stakes to the nation.

I am comfortable with the word “manipulate.” There was a chapter that did not become known until three or four months ago that occurred in May 2002. Various leaders of the CIA were called down to the White House and told that the White House wanted to have a public document that could be released under the CIA’s label but which would make the case for going to war with Iraq. I think one of the reasons they didn’t want to do a formal National Intelligence Estimate was because it would be done not by the CIA alone but by all of the members of the intelligence community, and it was likely to reach a different conclusion. At least it would contain dissenting opinions and caveats that wouldn’t be in a CIA public document.

Much more information presented by Senator Graham in this interview.


Octafish, I don't know exactly where I was when I first figured out that we, the people, have been had, and had for many decades. Was it the Election 2000 debacle in Florida?

Was it during the duplicity, scandal, false feel-goodism and systematic deterioration of Democratic ideals during the Clinton years of the 1990s?

Was it during Poppy Bush's invasion of Iraq in the early 1990s, killing many thousands of Iraqis, and leading to Dim Son's next invasion of Iraq in 2003, followed by the primal scream of watching another Bush trying to buy his way into power in 2016?

Was it watching the snakes slither away from Iran-Contra crimes, as Poppy pardoned the bunch on Christmas Eve, 1992?

Was it during the murderous years of Reagan in the 80s?

Was it watching the textile mills close down in the South and shipping all those jobs to faraway lands, and forcing many of our southern families into abject poverty?

Was it during the darkness of the Nixon/Viet Nam era?

Was it during the horror and sorrow of losing John F. Kennedy in 1963?


I don't know any more. All I know now is that we probably have one more chance to get back onto the right path to survival into history, and that is to propel Bernie Sanders into power.


Octafish, for the past decade and a half here, you've been slicing and dicing the BFEE, and unearthing the Truth for all of us here, and your efforts to inform have spread farther than you know. 'Thank you' just seems inadequate. But, again, thank you.

You are a friend to us all.