September 11, 2001 Research & Archives

https://911researcharchives.org/911/videos/Be the Next Hero- The Investigation of United Flight 93.mp4 Be the Next Hero - The Investigation of United Flight 93

Investigation of United Flight 93 After planes crashed in New York and Washington, D.C. on September 11, 2001, employees at the Pittsburgh FBI weren't sure where to respond. Then news came of a fourth plane--United Flight 93--heading their way. Video Transcript I had an assignment to report to the Pittsburgh office that morning. I happened to be listening to the radio. They had a report of a plane hitting the World Trade Center. I thought, "Wow, I wonder. A mishap of a plane going to 1 of the airports?" Didn't strike me as terror at that time, I just didn't know what was going on. 'Course everybody remembers it, that first tower seen with the smoke. We're kind of in and out, and then of course the second plane hits Just about everybody in the office, I think, had crowded into the break room at that time, and everyone was obviously concerned as to what was going on. Then there was a report about the Pentagon

Initially, we were thinking because I was on the Evidence Response Team that we would probably be going to New York to help there. Then when the plane hit the Pentagon, we weren't sure which location we'd end up at We then got a call about another plane potentially coming our way that was in distress. They believed it was coming from Cleveland and it may need to crash land at our airport here in Johnstown. now it was that this may be deliberate, that it may be acts of terrorism, it would potentially be a crime scene in our jurisdiction. Before we got to the airport though, we were told no, to divert from there, that a plane had crashed in Shanksville. And I just remember thinking, "That's our territory. That's our squad." I got back to my car, and started out of the city as quickly as I could. I think we finally arrived out at the scene between two and three o'clock that afternoon. The plane crashed shortly after 10 AM. We had an RA out near that site, and they responded initially. We would have been the first because it's 20 minutes as we drove that day. I expected to see fuselage, remnants of a plane, which I didn't see anything but pretty much smoke and some fires. I saw absolutely no signs that an airplane was present, no matter what direction I looked. You didn't know that a plane had crashed there. You had a crater and the initial crater was probably 15 feet deep but we didn't have big plane parts laying everywhere. It looked like the plane had hit but there's not a lot of evidence of the airplane. And I've described it a lot of times as, basically, a knife through hot butter. What I saw when I got out there was kind of, I'd describe it as a crater. There was a mound of dirt above it and when you stood above the mound, you could actually see the wings, the outline of the wings and the main fuselage, the center of the plane, how it went down into the ground. There was a misty smoke in the air from the jet fuel that had set the woods on fire. It was very barren, It had been a strip mine. So it was a a very barren area with some trees behind and that's what burnt. As far as the odor, it wasn't as bad as you might think. There were, obviously, certain spots that you would hit and you had the smell of death. My immediate reaction was, "There are no survivors here. This is not a rescue effort. This is a crime scene, a recovery effort." But it looked... like an organized form of chaos, if that makes any sense. Because you had o many people coming in, but all anybody wanted to do was to help. Once the perimeter was established and the next day as command posts were established, the evidence response team from Pittsburgh, Cleveland, I think Chicago, teams were called in. We had teams come in, and I thought to myself, "How are you going to have this many ERT teams from so many offices in the country come into this area and work as one unit?" It's not a natural sort of thing because you work with the same people day in and day out, and you know what to expect from them, but now you've got Knoxville, Cincinnati, Detroit, Louisville, Cleveland, working with Pittsburgh people, and West Virginia people. Anyone east of Pittsburgh went to either the Pentagon or the World Trade Center. All the teams that we brought in were west of Pittsburgh and within driving distance because all the flights had been grounded by that point. Construction Equipment. I think we had about a hundred ERT personnel come in, and that doesn't include all the support personnel that they brought in to support the mission. we had our safety officers there to check the air quality for us. Initially, they determined that we should be wearing regular tie back boots, and if we were working in the crater then we needed respiratory protection. You really can't go much beyond a 12-hour shift. People are on their hands and knees, crawling through this site, looking for debris, personal effects, and human remains. It's very physically and emotionally taxing. There were some real significant finds that they were getting very early on. I was shocked at the number of items that they were able to recover We found great evidence at Flight 93. We found the passports of the highjacks. We found the notes they had written for themselves. We found a knife that we believe was used by one of the highjacks. The other crash sites had a lot more things to deal with. They have buildings collapsing on the sites. They had a lot of recovery efforts. They had a lot of people who survived in the collapse of those buildings that they had to rescue. We didn't have a building collapse. The only people injured at this site were the forty people who were killed on that plane. Once we did start processing, there was a big push to find the black boxes so that we could out maybe what had happened on board the plane. We were pretty sure that the flight data recorder and cock pit voice recorder were going to be in the crater. They were concerned that there was a possibility that they could have landed in the pond, so we brought in divers from the Navy, because at the time only the Navy had the equipment to hear the cockpit voice recorders and flight data recorders ping when they were underwater. We actually found the first recorder in the crater five minutes before they arrived on the scene. I can't remember if it was that night or the next night, we ended up finding the other recorder in the crater as well. I was there when we discovered the black box. There was a lot of pressure from all of the sites, not just New York and the Pentagon, to locate the data recorder and the black box. It was a big deal when we did find it and I believe it was slightly over 25 feet into the crater. In the case of the flight data and voice recorders, they were taken out to Seattle because they were damaged to the point where they had to go back to the manufacturer. Agents were hand carrying those, and flying them out across country. I'm the chain-of-custody for the cockpit voice recorder. So we had had a gentleman from ERF who was an audio specialist and myself, we accompanied the evidence out to the state of Washington - Honeywell. Honeywell worked through the first day, and then midday Sunday they started up again, and they worked into the evening and they got it. There's a certain high pitch frequency which is just, you might call it white noise, but on the airplane it's this high pitch tone. During a certain struggle with, which I'll presume to be the pilot because you do hear some screaming and some 'No.' Then a winded individual gives a command. Maybe five minutes later, that same sort of speech is given. That is the only English that I hear that I presume to be coming from the person who's now in control of the airplane. There's breaking glass. I don't know if I can say there's a fight going on but clearly there's some - aggressive action. Over the copier machine - color printer - is coming out the flight data recorder output. And the pilot explained what the various printouts were. There were a number of pages that came off, and essentially it shows from on the ground, takeoff, to the crash. The pilot attempted to knock people off balance by to knock people off balance with the movement of the control stick but because you're in the center line, it's not going to do nearly as much. The FBI pilot noted that if an experienced pilot were in control of that plane, he would have dipped the plane up and down to knock people off their feet that way. Which, of course, is not what occurred. And even though it may have slowed people down the first time, in the second iteration where that person controlling the plane does this, physics ended up taking over, and towards, right before the end of the that flight, the plane actually inverts. I want to say that the final speed was near or just nexus of 600 miles an hour. if you look at the response at Shanksville, you look at the investigation that was done, you look at the recordings and the phone calls that were made, you can piece together what the passengers on that plane did. At no part of our investigation showed that anything happened other than what has been told to the public over the last 15 years - The passengers on Flight 93, in a heroic action, charged the cockpit of that airplane, and cause dthose hijackers to abort their mission, and take that plane into the ground. I think they pretty much are heroes naturally but true Americans. They did something that no one hopes to be called to do and pretty much you know your fate and to be able to do that, the belief is that plane was going to D.C,. to Washington DC. Where it went down, unfortunately the only victims were them and they saved countless numbers of lives, destruction, devastation, in a day that already had so many tragedies The site, I think it's just a great tribute to the people on the plane that they've kept it so simple. I try to get back. I try to get my family back up there to show them the history of what occurred, and to me that is solemn ground. To me it's a national cemetery. They were the first people to fight back against the forces of evil that took those planes down. You hope you're never called to do that but what they did was... They are, true heroes. True American heroes. I think the legacy of what happened at Shanksville is that we still live with the effects of 9/11 today. Nobody that was alive at that time is unaffected by it, whether you were in the bureau or not. We live in a different world now. It changed the FBI, it changed the world as to the way we look at things and we do things. It's really hard to believe that there are so many people that have come into the FBI since September 11th and really didn't live through our experiences in the FBI in that role. For so many of us that work those sites, that's what we really remember most about our career. We did a very good job and I think we hold our head high. But know that you can't let your guard down. You've got to be ready for the next time. We all just need to be vigilant and, you know, be the next hero, hopefully, if you see something.

Content obtained from FBI Website

https://911researcharchives.org/911/videos/9-11 Experiments - The Force Behind the Motion.mp4 9-11 Experiments - The Force Behind the Motion

There are many experiments and videos on the internet that show that the official story cannot be true about the collapse of these buildings, yet not one experiment or video that shows how the official story is correct. That should say volumes right there. it' like stating that the dinosaurs did not exist even though the bones of these massive creatures are found. the opposition would just say, no they are too big to have existed in the face of absolute proof. However there are those ancient ones who said the world was flat and the earth was the center of the universe; and when anyone doubted what they said they were shunned, insulted, ridiculed, imprisoned or even killed. Does this sound familiar to the 9/11 debunker's. A mind with a belief system is the most difficult to change because it is closed to anything new if it does not fit nicely into their belief system. They will ignore any and all facts that do not support their belief. How can a nerd be smarter than our government agencies and the debunker's. Read More...

Newton's laws of motion are three physical laws that, together, laid the foundation for classical mechanics. They describe the relationship between a body and the forces acting upon it, and its motion in response to those forces. More precisely, the first law defines the force qualitatively, the second law offers a quantitative measure of the force, and the third asserts that a single isolated force doesn't exist. These three laws have been expressed in several different ways, over nearly three centuries,[1] and can be summarized as follows: First law:    In an inertial reference frame, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.[2][3] Second law:    In an inertial reference frame, the vector sum of the forces F on an object is equal to the mass m of that object multiplied by the acceleration a of the object: F = ma. (It is assumed here that the mass m is constant - see below.) Third law:    When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

Laws Newton's first law Main article: Inertia Explanation of Newton's first law and reference frames (MIT Course 8.01)[11][12] The first law states that if the net force (the vector sum of all forces acting on an object) is zero, then the velocity of the object is constant. Velocity is a vector quantity which expresses both the object's speed and the direction of its motion; therefore, the statement that the object's velocity is constant is a statement that both its speed and the direction of its motion are constant. The first law can be stated mathematically when the mass is a non-zero constant, as,

Consequently,     An object that is at rest will stay at rest unless a force acts upon it.     An object that is in motion will not change its velocity unless a force acts upon it. This is known as uniform motion. An object continues to do whatever it happens to be doing unless a force is exerted upon it. If it is at rest, it continues in a state of rest (demonstrated when a tablecloth is skillfully whipped from under dishes on a tabletop and the dishes remain in their initial state of rest). If an object is moving, it continues to move without turning or changing its speed. This is evident in space probes that continuously move in outer space. Changes in motion must be imposed against the tendency of an object to retain its state of motion. In the absence of net forces, a moving object tends to move along a straight line path indefinitely. Newton placed the first law of motion to establish frames of reference for which the other laws are applicable. The first law of motion postulates the existence of at least one frame of reference called a Newtonian or inertial reference frame, relative to which the motion of a particle not subject to forces is a straight line at a constant speed.[8][13] Newton's first law is often referred to as the law of inertia. Thus, a condition necessary for the uniform motion of a particle relative to an inertial reference frame is that the total net force acting on it is zero. In this sense, the first law can be restated as:     In every material universe, the motion of a particle in a preferential reference frame Φ is determined by the action of forces whose total vanished for all times when and only when the velocity of the particle is constant in Φ. That is, a particle initially at rest or in uniform motion in the preferential frame Φ continues in that state unless compelled by forces to change it.[14] Newton's first and second laws are valid only in an inertial reference frame. Any reference frame that is in uniform motion with respect to an inertial frame is also an inertial frame, i.e. Galilean invariance or the principle of Newtonian relativity.[15]

Newton's second law Explanation of Newton's second law, using gravity as an example (MIT OCW)[16] The second law states that the rate of change of momentum of a body is directly proportional to the force applied, and this change in momentum takes place in the direction of the applied force. The second law can also be stated in terms of an object's acceleration. Since Newton's second law is valid only for constant-mass systems,[17][18][19] m can be taken outside the differentiation operator by the constant factor rule in differentiation. Thus,

where F is the net force applied, m is the mass of the body, and a is the body's acceleration. Thus, the net force applied to a body produces a proportional acceleration. In other words, if a body is accelerating, then there is a force on it. An application of this notation is the derivation of G Subscript C. Consistent with the first law, the time derivative of the momentum is non-zero when the momentum changes direction, even if there is no change in its magnitude; such is the case with uniform circular motion. The relationship also implies the conservation of momentum: when the net force on the body is zero, the momentum of the body is constant. Any net force is equal to the rate of change of the momentum. Any mass that is gained or lost by the system will cause a change in momentum that is not the result of an external force. A different equation is necessary for variable-mass systems (see below). Newton's second law requires modification if the effects of special relativity are to be taken into account, because at high speeds the approximation that momentum is the product of rest mass and velocity is not accurate. Impulse An impulse J occurs when a force F acts over an interval of time Δt, and it is given by[20][21] Since force is the time derivative of momentum, it follows that This relation between impulse and momentum is closer to Newton's wording of the second law.[22] Impulse is a concept frequently used in the analysis of collisions and impacts.[23] Variable-mass systems Main article: Variable-mass system Variable-mass systems, like a rocket burning fuel and ejecting spent gases, are not closed and cannot be directly treated by making mass a function of time in the second law;[18] that is, the following formula is wrong:[19] The falsehood of this formula can be seen by noting that it does not respect Galilean invariance: a variable-mass object with F = 0 in one frame will be seen to have F ≠ 0 in another frame.[17] The correct equation of motion for a body whose mass m varies with time by either ejecting or accreting mass is obtained by applying the second law to the entire, constant-mass system consisting of the body and its ejected/accreted mass; the result is[17] where u is the velocity of the escaping or incoming mass relative to the body. From this equation one can derive the equation of motion for a varying mass system, for example, the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation. Under some conventions, the quantity u dm/dt on the left-hand side, which represents the advection of momentum, is defined as a force (the force exerted on the body by the changing mass, such as rocket exhaust) and is included in the quantity F. Then, by substituting the definition of acceleration, the equation becomes F = ma.

Newton's third law

An illustration of Newton's third law in which two skaters push against each other. The first skater on the left exerts a normal force N12 on the second skater directed towards the right, and the second skater exerts a normal force N21 on the first skater directed towards the left. The magnitudes of both forces are equal, but they have opposite directions, as dictated by Newton's third law. A description of Newton's third law and contact forces[24] The third law states that all forces between two objects exist in equal magnitude and opposite direction: if one object A exerts a force FA on a second object B, then B simultaneously exerts a force FB on A, and the two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction: FA = −FB.[25] The third law means that all forces are interactions between different bodies,[26][27] or different regions within one body, and thus that there is no such thing as a force that is not accompanied by an equal and opposite force. In some situations, the magnitude and direction of the forces are determined entirely by one of the two bodies, say Body A; the force exerted by Body A on Body B is called the "action", and the force exerted by Body B on Body A is called the "reaction".

This law is sometimes referred to as the action-reaction law, with FA called the "action" and FB the "reaction". In other situations the magnitude and directions of the forces are determined jointly by both bodies and it isn't necessary to identify one force as the "action" and the other as the "reaction". The action and the reaction are simultaneous, and it does not matter which is called the action and which is called reaction; both forces are part of a single interaction, and neither force exists without the other.[25]

The two forces in Newton's third law are of the same type (e.g., if the road exerts a forward frictional force on an accelerating car's tires, then it is also a frictional force that Newton's third law predicts for the tires pushing backward on the road). From a conceptual standpoint, Newton's third law is seen when a person walks: they push against the floor, and the floor pushes against the person. Similarly, the tires of a car push against the road while the road pushes back on the tires—the tires and road simultaneously push against each other. In swimming, a person interacts with the water, pushing the water backward, while the water simultaneously pushes the person forward—both the person and the water push against each other. The reaction forces account for the motion in these examples. These forces depend on friction; a person or car on ice, for example, may be unable to exert the action force to produce the needed reaction force.[28]

Obtained from Wikipedia

NIST is a non-regulatory federal agency under the Department of Commerce. NIST is the United States National Measurement Institute.
Which seems to have been turned into a political podium taking away from it's history of excellence.

Obtained from 28Pages.org

The Declassified 28 Pages

The first page of the declassified 28 pages on Saudi government links to 9/11

The declassified 28 pages from the report of the congressional Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11 can be read in their originally-released PDF format by clicking the image on the right.

Below, we've posted a full transcription of the 28 pages as a service to anyone who finds this format easier to read or work with. Dotted lines represent redactions, and they do not precisely reflect the length of a redaction or the number of words or characters within it.

Page 415


20. Finding: While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individual who may be connected to the Saudi Government. There is information, primarily from FBI sources, that at least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers. The Joint Inquiry's review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which has yet to be independently verified, indicating that individuals associated with the Saudi Government in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups. The FBI and CIA have informed the Joint Inquiry that, since the September 11 attacks, they are treating the Saudi issue seriously, but both still have only a limited understanding of the Saudi Government's ties to terrorist elements. In their testimony, neither CIA nor FBI witnesses were able to identify definitively the extent to which such support, if it exists, is knowing or inadvertent in nature. The FBI's Washington Field Office created a squad devoted to ———————– ————- ————- —————- —————– ——————– ——— ————- ——— ——————– ———- ————— ———. Only recently, and at least in part due to the Joint Inquiry's focus on the issue, did the FBI and CIA establish a working group to address the Saudi issue. 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. The Intelligence Community needs to address this area of concern as aggressively and as quickly as possible.

Discussion: One reason for the limited understanding is that it was only after September 11 that the U.S. Government began to aggressively investigate this issue. Prior to September 11th, the FBI apparently did not focus investigative resources on ——– —————— Saudi nationals in the United States due to Saudi Arabia's status as an American "ally." A representative of the FBI ——————- testified that, prior to

Page 416

September 11, 2001, the FBI received "no reporting from any member of the Intelligence Community" that here was a ————- presence in the United States.

According to various FBI documents and at least one CIA memorandum, some of the September 11 hijackers, while in the United States, apparently had contacts with individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government. While the Joint Inquiry uncovered this material during the course of its review of FBI and CIA documents, it did not attempt to investigate and assess the accuracy and significance of this information independently, recognizing that such a task would be beyond the scope of the Joint Inquiry. Instead, the Joint Inquiry referred a detailed compilation of information uncovered by the inquiry in documents and interviews to the FBI and CIA for further investigation by the Intelligence Community and, if appropriate, law enforcement agencies. A brief summary of the available information regarding some of these individuals is illustrative for purposes of this report:
   

• Omar al-Bayoumi. The FBI had received numerous reports from individuals in the Muslim community, dating back to 1999, alleging that al-Bayoumi may be a Saudi intelligence officer. FBI files suggest that al-Bayoumi provided substantial assistance to hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they arrived in San Diego in February 2000. Al-Bayoumi met the hijackers at a public place shortly after his meeting with an individual at the Saudi consulate and there are indications in the files that his encounter with the hijackers may not have been accidental. During this same timeframe, al-Bayoumi had extensive contact with Saudi Government establishments in the United States and received financial support from a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense. According to FBI files, ——— at the company said that al-Bayoumi received a monthly salary even though he had been there on only one occasion. This support increased substantially in April 2000, two months after the hijackers arrived in San Diego, decreased slightly in December 2000, and stayed at that same level until August 2001. That company reportedly had ties to Usama Bin Ladin and al-Qa'ida. In addition, the FBI determined that al-Bayoumi was in contact with several individuals under FBI investigation and with the Holy Land Foundation, which has been under investigation as a fundraising front for Hamas;

Page 417
   

• Osama Bassnan. Bassnan may have been in contact with al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi during their time in San Diego. Bassnan was a close associate of al-Bayoumi and Omar Bakarbashat, another one of the hijackers' close associates. He also lived across the street from the hijackers, and made a comment to an FBI asset that he did more than al-Bayoumi did for the hijackers. According to an FBI document, Basnan told another individual that he met al-Hazmi through al-Bayoumi and later that he met two of the hijackers through al-Bayoumi. He also told the asset that al-Bayoumi was arrested because he knew al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar very well. The document goes on to state that Bassnan and al-Bayoumi have been "close to each other for a long time." Bassnan has many times to the Saudi Government, including past employment by the Saudi Arabian Education Mission, referred to in FBI documents as ——————– ————- —————. The FBI also received reports from individuals in the Muslim community alleging that Bassnan might be a Saudi intelligence officer. According to a CIA memo, Bassnan reportedly received funding and possibly a fake passport from Saudi Government officials. He and his wife have received financial support from the Saudi Ambassador to the United States and his wife. A CIA report also indicates that Bassnan traveled to Houston in 2002 and met with an individual who was ———————- —————— ——————————— ————- ——————–. The report states that during that trip a member of the Saudi Royal Family provided Bassnan with a significant amount of cash. FBI information indicates that Bassnan is an extremist and supporter of Usama Bin Laden, and has been connected to the Eritrean Islamic Jihad and the Blind Shaykh;
  
  
• Shaykh al-Thumairy. According to FBI documents and a CIA memorandum, al-Hazmi and al-Midhar may have been in contact with Shaykh al-Thumairy, an accredited diplomat at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and one of their "imams" at the King Fahad mosque in Culver City, California. Also according to FBI documents, the mosque was built in 1998 from funding provided by Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdulaziz. The mosque is reportedly attended by members of the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and is widely recognized for its anti-Western views;
  

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• Saleh al-Hussayen. In September 2001, Saleh al-Hussayen, reportedly a Saudi Interior Ministry official, stayed at the same hotel in Herndon, Virginia where al-Hazmi was staying. While al-Hussayen claimed after September 11 not to know the hijackers, FBI agents believed he was being deceptive. He was able to depart the United States despite FBI efforts to locate and re-interview him; and
  
  
• Abdullah Bin Laden. Abdullah Bin Ladin claims to work for the Saudi Embassy in Washington, D.C. as an administrative officer. He is identified by the FBI as Usame Bin Ladin's half brother. He is a close friend of Mohammed Quadir-Harunani, a possible associate of Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehhi prior to September 11, 2001.
  

The Joint Inquiry also found other indications that individuals connected to the Saudi Government have ties to terrorist networks, including:

   

• The CIA and FBI have identified the Ibn Tamiyah Mosque in Culver City as a site of extremist-related activity. Several subjects of FBI investigations prior to September 11 had close connections to the mosque and are believed to have laundered money through this mosque to non-profit organizations overseas affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin. In an interview, an FBI agent said he believed that Saudi Government money was being laundered through the mosque;
  
  
• Another Saudi national with close ties to the Saudi Royal Family, ———-, is the subject of FBI counterterrorism investigations and reportedly was checking security at the United States' southwest border in 1999 and discussing the possibility of infiltrating individuals into the United States;
  
  
• According to FBI documents, several of the phone numbers found in the phone book of Abu Zubaida, a senior al-Qa'ida operative captured in Pakistan in March 2002, could be linked, at least indirectly, to telephone numbers in the United States. One of those U.S. numbers is subscribed to by the ASPCOL Corporation, which is located in Aspen,

   
Page 419

   

• Colorado, and manages the affairs of the Colorado residence of the Saudi Ambassador Bandar. The FBI noted that ASPCOL has an unlisted telephone number. A November 18, 2002 FBI response to the Joint Inquiry states that "CIA traces have revealed no direct links between numbers found in Zubaida's phone book and numbers in the United States."
  
  
• According to an FBI document, the telephone number of a bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC, who some have alleged may be a  ————————- ———- was also found in Abu Zubaida's possessions; and
  
  
• According to an FBI agent in Phoenix, the FBI suspects Mohammed al-Qudhaeein of being ——————. Al-Qudhaeein was involved in a 1999 incident aboard an America West flight, which the FBI's Phoenix office now suspects may have been a "dry run" to test airline security. During the flight, al-Qudhaeein and his associate asked the flight attendants a variety of suspicious questions; al-Qudhaeein then attempted to enter the cockpit on two occasions. Al-Qudhaeein and his associate were flying to Washington, D.C. to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy. During the course of its investigations, the FBI has discovered that both al-Qudhaeein and the other individual involved in this incident had connections to terrorism.
  

   
Finally, the Committees are particularly concerned about the serious nature of allegations contained in a CIA memorandum found by the Joint Inquiry Staff in the files of the FBI's San Diego Field Office. That memorandum, which discusses alleged financial connections between the September 11 hijackers, Saudi Government officials, and members of the Saudi Royal Family, was drafted by a CIA officer ————— ————, relying primarily on information from FBI files. The CIA officer sent it to the CTC to determine whether CIA had additional information. He also provided a copy to the FIB agent responsible for the investigation of one of the individuals discussed in the memorandum. Despite the clear national implications of the CIA memorandum, the FBI agent included the memorandum in an individual case file and did not forward it to FBI headquarters. FBI headquarters, therefore, was unaware

Page 420

of statements in the memorandum until the Joint Inquiry brought the memorandum's implications to the Bureau's attention. ————— ———- ————- ———- ——-  ——

Possible Saudi Government Connections to Terrorists and Terrorist Groups

While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government. There is information, from FBI sources, that at least two of those individuals were alleged to be Saudi intelligence officers. The Joint Inquiry's review confirmed that the Intelligence Community also has information, much of which remains speculative and yet to be independently verified, indicating that Saudi Government officials in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups.

The Committees are particularly concerned about the serious nature of allegations contained in a CIA memorandum found within the files of the FBI's San Diego Field Office. That memorandum, which discusses alleged financial connections between the September 11 hijackers, Saudi Government officials, and members of the Saudi Royal Family, was drafted by a CIA officer ———- ———-, relying primarily on information from FBI files.

In their testimony before the Joint Inquiry, neither the CIA nor the FBI was able to definitively identify for these Committees the extent of Saudi support for terrorist activity globally or within the United States and the extent to which such support, if it exists, is intentional or innocent in nature. Both the FBI and CIA have indicated to the Committees that they are now aggressively pursuing Saudi-related terrorism issues.

Prior to September 11th, the FBI apparently did not focus investigative — —————————————– ——- Saudi nationals in the United States due to Saudi Arabia's status as an American "ally." ——————————————— —————————— ———————–. A representative of the FBI's ———————— testified in closed

Page 421

hearings that, prior to September 11th, the FBI received "no reporting from any member of the Intelligence Community" that there is a ————- presence in the United States.

It should be clear that this Joint Inquiry has made no final determinations as to the reliability or sufficiency of the information regarding these issues that we found contained in FBI and CIA documents. It was not the task of this Joint Inquiry to conduct the kind of extensive investigation that would be required to determined the true significance of any such alleged connections to the Saudi Government. On the one hand, it is possible that these kinds of connections could suggest, as indicated in a — ———- dated July 2, 2002, " incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi Government." On the other hand, it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations.

Given the serious national security implications of this information, however, the leadership of the Joint Inquiry is referring the staff's compilation of relevant information to both the FBI and the CIA for investigative review and appropriate investigative and intelligence action.

Possible Connections Between the September 11 Hijackers and Saudi Government Officials in the United States

In reviewing FBI documents and the CIA memorandum, the Joint Inquiry Staff has examined information suggesting that:

   

• One individual who provided assistance to Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar may be connected to the Saudi Government. A second individual who may have been in contact with al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar also has ties to the Saudi Government, including connections to the Saudi Ambassador to the United States. There is reporting in FBI files that persons have alleged that both of these individuals may be Saudi intelligence officers;

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• The September 11 hijackers may have been in contact with other Saudi Government officials in the United States prior to the September 11 attacks; and
  
  
• Saudi Government officials in the United States may have ties to Usama Bin Ladin's terrorist network.
  

Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan

Two individuals known to the FBI prior to September 11, 2001 – Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Bassnan—may have provided assistance or support to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar while the two hijackers-to-be were living in San Diego. While the documentary evidence that al-Bayoumi provided assistance to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar is solid, the files contain only limited evidence that Osama Bassnan had contacts with the two individuals.

When al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar moved to San Diego, al-Bayoumi provided them with considerable assistance. Before the hijackers moved in with the long-time FBI informant, they stayed at al-Bayoumi's apartment for several days until al-Bayoumi was able to find them an apartment. Al-Bayoumi then co-signed their lease and may have paid their first month's rent and security deposit.1 After al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar moved into their own apartment, al-Bayoumi threw a party to welcome them to the San Diego community. He also tasked Modhar Abdullah, another individual from the Islamic Center of San Diego (ICSD), to help them get acclimated to the United States. Abdullah served as their translator, helped them get drivers' licenses, and assisted them in locating flight schools. —————————— ————– —————

1 The FBI notes, in its November 18, 2002 response that "financial records indicate a cash deposit of the same amount as the cashier's check into al-Bayoumi's bank account on the same day, which suggests that the hijackers reimbursed him." FBI November 18 Response, 3. However, another FBI document, dated October 14, 2002, appears to reach a slightly different conclusion. This document states that "a review of Khalid Al-Mihdhar and Nawaf Al-Hazmi's bank records indicate there is no bank documentation that supports the reimbursement of [the rent money], or monies to Omar Al-Bayoumi from al-Hazmi or Al-Midhar."

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During the post-September 11 investigation, the FBI discovered that al-Bayoumi had far more extensive ties to the Saudi Government than previously realized. In fact, according to an October 14, 2002 FBI document, al-Bayoumi has "extensive ties to the Saudi Government." The connections identified by the FBI are:
   

• Al-Bayoumi had been an accountant at the Saudi Civil Aviation Administration from 1976 to 1993, when he relocated to the United States;
  
  
• According to the FBI, al-Bayoumi was in frequent contact with the Emir at the Saudi Ministry of Defense, responsible for air traffic control;
  
  
• The FBI has also located records, indicating that al-Bayoumi received $20,000 from the Saudi Ministry of Finance at one point;
  
  
• When al-Bayoumi applied t schools in the United States in 1998, he had a letter from the Saudi Embassy, which stated that he was getting a full scholarship from the Government of Saudi Arabia; and
  
  
• While in San Diego, al-Bayoumi was receiving money from the Saudi Ministry of Defense through a Saudi company called "Ercan." ——— of that company informed the FBI after September 11, 2001 that, although al-Bayoumi only showed up at the company on one occasion, he received a monthly salary and allowances. ——– stated that, at first, he attempted to refuse to pay al-Bayoumi a monthly salary, but he was told that his company would lose their contract if the did not pay him. ———- informed the FBI that at the time, he attributed this to Saudi corruption.
  

   
Al-Bayoumi also had frequent contact with Saudi establishments in the United States. In a review of telephone toll records, the FBI learned that al-Bayoumi called Saudi Government establishments in the United States almost 100 times between January and May of 2000. According to the FBI, al-Bayoumi was in contact with at least three individuals at the Saudi

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Embassy in Washington, DC; two individuals at the Saudi Arabian Cultural Mission in Washington, DC; and three individuals at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles. In a search of Bayoumi's —— ——, they also discovered that he had the phone number for an individual at the Saudi Consulate in London.

Two former San Diego agents addressed the issue of whether al-Bayoumi was an intelligence officer at the October 9, 2002 closed hearing. The former case agent who handled Muppet testified:
   

• [Al-Bayoumi] acted like a Saudi intelligence officer, in my opinion. And if he was involved with the hijackers, which it looks like he was, if he signed leases, if he provided some sort of financing or payment of some sort, then I would say that there's a clear possibility that there might be a connection between Saudi intelligence and UBL.

A former Assistant Special Agent in Charge in San Diego testified that the FBI received "numerous, I would say half a dozen" reports from individuals who believed that al-Bayoumi was a Saudi intelligence officer. The FBI's November 18th response is inconsistent as to whether the FBI currently is designating al-Bayoumi as a suspected Suadi intelligence officer. In its response, the FBI notes that al-Bayoumi  ——– ——- ——– until after September 11th, but the response also states that "there is no evidence" to conclude that al-Bayoumi is a Saudi intelligence officer.

The FBI had received reporting from a reliable source well prior to September 11, 2001 indicating that al-Bayoumi might be a Saudi intelligence officer. Al-Bayoumi was known to have access to large amounts of money from Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that he did not appear to hold a job. On one occasion prior to September 11, the FBI received information that al-Bayoumi had received $400,000 from Saudi Arabia to help fund a new mosque in San Diego. The FBI conducted a counterterrorism investigation on al-Bayoumi in 1998 and 1999, but closed the investigation at that point.

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Since September 11, 2001 FBI investigation revealed that al-Bayoumi has some ties to terrorist elements. Pasquale J. D'Amuro, the Executive Director for Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence testified in the October 9, 2002 hearing that
   

• we've been talking with the ——- Government about collection on an individual named ——– who has ties to al Qa'ida, who has ties to Bayoumi.
  

In addition, the FBI reported the results of their search of al-Bayoumi's ——- that, "after an exhaustive translations of Bayoumi's documents, it is clear that in Bayoumi's correspondence he is providing guidance to young Muslims and some of his writings can be interpreted as jihadist."

According to information acquired by the FBI after September 11, 2001, al-Bayoumi also noted on one of his school applications that he worked for a company called "Dallah/Avco." According to the FBI, Ercan is a San Diego subcontractor of Dallah/Avco. According to a separate —- document, Dallah and Avco are under the same umbrella company, Avco Dallah Trans Arab, which is a subsidiary of Al Barakaat Investment and Development Company. Avco Dallah reportedly holds the contracts for cleaning and maintenance at the three major airports in Saudi Arabia. The — document states that ———— ————– the company has links to Usama Bin Ladin. FBI Headquarters was informed of the affiliation between Dallah/Avco and Al Barakaat in February 2001, but the San Diego Field Office apparently never got this information.

According to FBI documents, al-Bayoumi's pay increased during the time that al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar were in the United States. According to a recent — analysis of ties between the terrorist attacks and elements of the Saudi Government, before al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar arrived in the U.S., al-Bayoumi generally received approximately $465 per month in "allowances." According to the — document, in March 2000, a month after al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar arrived in San Diego, his "allowances" jumped to over $3,700 a month and stayed constant until December 2000, when al-Hazmi left San Diego. Al-Bayoumi's allowances were then decreased to approximately $3,200 a month and stayed at that rate until al-Bayoumi left the United States in August 2001, approximately one month before the September 11th attacks.

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The — memorandum dated July 2, 2002, incorrectly noted that al-Bayoumi's wife, while living in San Diego, was receiving $1200 a month from Princess Haifa Bint Sultan, the wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi Ambassador Ambassador to the United States. The FBI has now confirmed that only Osama Bassnan's wife received money directly from Prince Bandar's wife, but that al-Bayoumi's wife attempted to deposit three of the checks from Prince Bandar's wife, which were payable to Bassnan's wife, into her own accounts.

The Joint Inquiry also found, in FBI files, information suggesting that Osama Bassnan may have also been in contact with al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi, including:

   

• Bassnan was a very close associate of Omar al-Bayoumi's and was in telephone contact with al-Bayoumi several times a day while there were both in San Diego. Bassnan also has close ties to a number of other individuals connected to the hijackers, including Omar Bakarbashat, discussed below, who is referred to in FBI documents as Bassnan's brother-in-law;
  
  
• According to an October 16, 2001 FBI document, Bassnan informed an asset that he had met Nawaf al-Hazmi through Omar al-Bayoumi. According to the FBI document, he also told the asset that al-Bayoumi was arrested because he knew al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar very well. The document goes on to state that Bassnan and al-Bayoumi have been "close to each other for a long time."
  
  
• Bassnan lived in the apartment complex in San Diego across the street from al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar;
  
  
• Bassnan made a comment to an FBI source after the September 11 attacks suggesting that he did more for the hijackers than al-Bayoumi did;
  

   
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• The FBI is aware of contact between the hijackers and a close friend of Bassnan's, Khaled al-Kayed, a commercial airline pilot and certified flight instructor living in San Diego. Al-Kayed admitted to the FBI that in May 2000, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi contacted him about learning to fly Boeing jet aircraft;
  

FBI documents speculate that Osama Bassnan ———– ——– ——. The FBI's November 18, 2002 response contends that this was an early investigative theory based on asset reporting which the FBI has not been able to corroborate. However, there is also additional information tying Bassnan to ———–. In 1992, while he was living in Washington, DC, Bassnan listed his employment as the Saudi Arabian Education Mission. FBI documents state that ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.

Bassnan also has other ties to the Saudi Government. Bassnan's wife received a monthly stipend from Princess Haifa. In a recent search of Bassnan's residence, the FBI located copies of 31 cashier's checks totaling $74,000, during the period February 22, 1999 to May 30, 2002. These checks were payable to Bassnan's wife and were drawn on the Riggs Bank account of Prince Bandar's wife. The FBI has determined that there has been a standing order on Princess Haifa's account since January 1999 to send $2000 a month to Bassnan's wife. Bassnan's wife was allegedly receiving the funding for "nursing services," but, according to the — document, there is no evidence that Bassnan's wife provided nursing services.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.

On at least one occasion, Bassnan received a check directly from Prince Bandar's account. According to the FBI, on May 14, 1998, Bassnan cashed a check from Bandar in the amount of $15,000. Bassnan's wife also received at least one check directly from Bandar. She also received one additional check from Bandar's wife, which she cashed on January 8, 1998, for $10,000.

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In the October 9, 2002 hearing FBI Executive Assistant Director D'Amuro commented on this funding:
   

• I believe that we do have money going from Bandar's wife, $2,000 a month up to about $64,000. What the money was for is what we don't know."

————- —————– —————- ———- testified:

   

• ————- —————– —————- ———-. She gives money to a lot of different groups and people from around the world. We've been able to uncover a number of these...but maybe if we can discover that she gives to 20 different radical groups, well, gee, maybe there's a pattern here.

The FBI has also developed additional information clearly indicating that Bassnan is an extremist and supporter of Usama Bin Ladin. In 1993, the FBI became aware that Bassnan had hosted a party for the Blind Shaykh at his house in Washington, DC in October 1992. Bassnan has made many laudatory remarks to FBI assets about Bin Ladin, referring to Bin Ladin as the official Khalifate and the ruler of the Islamic world. According to an FBI asset, Bassnan spoke of Bin Ladin "as if he were a god." Bassnan also stated to an FBI asset that he heard that the U.S. Government had stopped approving visas for foreign students. He considered such measures to be insufficient as there are already enough Muslims in the United States to destroy the United States and make it an Islamic state within ten to fifteen years. According to FBI documents, Bassnan also knew Bin Ladin's family in Saudi Arabia and speaks on his mobile telephone with members of the family who are living in the United States.

Phone Numbers Linking Abu Zubaida to a Company in the United States and a Saudi Diplomat in Washington

On March 28, 2002 U.S. and coalition forces retrieved the telephone book of Abu Zubaida, whom the U.S. Government has identified as a senior al-Qa'ida operational coordinator. According to an FBI document, "a review of toll records has linked several of the numbers found in Zubaida's phonebook with U.S. phone numbers." One of the numbers is unlisted and subscribed to by the ASPCOL Corporation in Aspen, Colorado. On July 15, 2002,

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FBI Headquarters sent a lead to the Denver Field Office requesting that it investigate this connection. On September 19, 2002 agents of the Denver Field Office responded, stating that they had completed their initial investigation.

According to the FBI's Denver Office, ASPCOL is the umbrella corporation that manages the affairs of the Colorado residence of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States. The facility is protected by Scimitar Security. Agents of the Denver Field Office noted that neither ASPCOL nor Scimitar Security is listed in the phone book or is easily locatable. In addition, the Colorado Secretary of State's office has no record of ASPCOL. The Denver office did not attempt to make any local inquiries about ASPCOL, as they believed that any inquiries regarding ASPCOL would be quickly known by Prince Bandar's employees. Due to the sensitivity of this matter, they decided to hold their investigation of ASPCOL in abeyance until they received additional guidance from FBI Headquarters.According to the FBI, the phone number of an individual named ——– ——— of McLean, Virginia was found within the effects of Abu Zubaida. ——– is reportedly a bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC. The FBI now suspects that he may be a ———— ————. In a September 17, 2002 document, the FBI notes that the Bureau is opening an investigation on ——- due to the size and value of his residence and his suspicious activity in approaching U.S. Intelligence Community personnel. It also appears that ———- has been in contact with ———- ———— ———-, which is located at ————–, in McLean Virginia. The FBI has identified this address as the address of Prince Bandar. According to the FBI, ——- is officially a driver for the Saudi Embassy. ——– number was also linked to ASPCOL, Prince Bandar's umbrella company located in Colorado.

It should be noted that the FBI's November 18, 2002 response states that "CIA traces have revealed no direct (emphasis added) links between numbers found in Zubaida's phone book and numbers in the United States."

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The U.S. Government also located another Virginia number at an Usama Bin Ladin safehouse in Pakistan. The number is subscribed to by an individual named —————- ———— ————- was interviewed by the FBI in June 2002. He could not explain why his number ended up at a safe house in Pakistan, but stated that he regularly provides services to a couple who are personal assistants to Prince Bandar. This couple's driver is an individual named ———– ——, who is assigned to the Saudi Embassy  in Washington, DC. According to ——— regularly called —————- business and frequently travels back and forth to Pakistan.

Other Saudi Government Officials in the United States Who May Have Been in Contact with the September 11 Hijackers

Among the individuals who may have been associates of the al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar was Shaykh al-Thumairy. According to the — memorandum reviewed by the Joint Inquiry Staff, "initial indications are that al-Thumairy may have had a physical or financial connection to al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar, but we are still looking at this possibility." Al-Thumairy is an accredited diplomat at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and is also considered one of the "imams" at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City, California. ———– ————— ———– ————— ———– ————— ———– ————— .

According to FBI documents, the King Fahad mosque was built in 1998 from funding from the Saudi Arabian Crown Prince Abdulaziz. The mosque is attended by members of the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles and is widely known for its anti-Western views. FBI documents indicate that Mohdhar Abdullah drove al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar to the King Fahad Mosque, before al-Mihdhar returned to Saudi Arabia.

Several individuals on the East Coast whom the hijackers may have met may also had connections to the Saudi Government. After the terrorist attacks, the FBI discovered that, during September 2001, and individual named Saleh al-Hussayen stayed at the same hotel in Herndon, Virginia where al-Hazmi was staying at the time. According to FBI documents al-Hussayen is apparently a "Saudi Interior Ministry employee/official." He claimed not to know the hijackers,

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but agents in the FBI's Washington Field Office believed he was being deceptive. The interview was terminated when al-Hussayen either passed out or feigned a seizure requiring medical treatment. He was released from the hospital several days later and managed to depart the United States despite law enforcement efforts to locate and re-interview him.

Saleh al-Hussayen is the uncle of Sami Omar al-Hussayen. Sami al-Hussayen is connected to the Islamic Assembly of North America (IANA) and is the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation. The FBI has also discovered that Saleh al-Hussayen is a major contributor to  the IANA, a non-profit organization based in Michigan that is dedicated to the spread of Islam worldwide. According to the FBI, the IANA's mission is actually to spread Islamic fundamentalism and Salafist doctrine throughout the United States and the world at large. The IANA solicits funds from wealthy Saudi benefactors, extremist Islamic Shaykhs, and suspect non-governmental organizations. According to FBI documents, IANA has solicited money from Prince Bandar, but the documents are unclear as to whether Bandar actually contributed money to this organization.

FBI documents also indicate that several Saudi Naval officers were in contact with the September 11 hijackers. FBI documents state that the San Diego Field Office opened a counterterrorism investigation of an individual named Osama Nooh, a Saudi Naval officer, due to his association with Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar. In addition, Lafi al-Harbi, another Saudi Naval officer, was in telephone contact with flight 77 hijackers Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi on nine occasions from March 11, 2000 to March 27, 2000.

The Jacksonville FBI Field Office is conducting an investigation to determine whether Saleh Ahmed Bedaiwi, a Saudi Naval officer within its territory was in contact with any of the hijackers. ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————————– —————– —————- ———-
   

• ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.

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• ————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.————- —————– —————- ———- —————- ——————– ————-.

The FBI has also discovered some more tenuous connections between Saudi Government personnel and the hijackers during the course of the PENTTBOM  investigation. For example, according to the FBI, an individual named Fahad Abdullah Saleh Bakala was close friends with September 11 hijackers Ahmed al-Ghamdi and Hamza al-Ghamdi. Bakala previously "worked as a pilot for the Saudi Royal faily, flying Usama Bin Ladin between Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia during UBL's exile." In addition, an FBI source stated that after September 11 that he/she was 50% sure that al-Midhar was a visitor at an apartment in McLean, Virginia that was occupied in July and August 2001 by Hamad Alotaibi of the Saudi Embassy Military Division. FBI documents also note that September 11 hijacker Saeed Alghamdi may have also visited the address.

Connections Between Saudi Government Officials in the United States and Other Possible Terrorist Operatives

The Joint Inquiry also reviewed information in FBI files, suggesting other possible connections between Saudi Government officials and terrorist operatives.

For example, according to FBI documents, there is evidence that hijackers Marwan al-Shehhi and Mohammed Atta were in contact with Mohammed Rafique Quadir Harunani, the subject of an FBI counterterrorism investigation since 1999 and a close associate of Abdullah Bin Ladin, who is referred to in FBI documents as Usama Bin Ladin's half brother. Abdullah Bin Ladin, who is the subject of several FBI investigations, is currently in the United States ————- —————– —————- ———- —————-. He claims to work for the Saudi Arabian Embassy in Washington, DC as an administrative officer. Abdullah Bin Ladin has financed Quadir's company and is listed by Quadir as the emergency contact for Quadir's children. They are in frequent email and phone contact as well.

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According to the FBI, Abdullah Bin Ladin has a number of connections to terrorist organizations. He is the President and Director of the World Arab Muslim Youth Association (WAMY) and the Institute of Islamic and Arabic Sciences in America. Both organizations are local branches of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) based in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. According to the FBI, there is reason to believe that WAMY is "closely associated with the funding and financing of international terrorist activities and in the past has provided logistical support to individuals wishing to fight in the Afghan War." In 1998, the CIA published a paper characterizing WAMY as a NGO that provides funding, logistical support and training with possible connections to the Arab Afghans network, Hamas, Algerian extremists, and Philippine militants.2

Also of potential interest, at least in retrospect, is the 1999 incident involving Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi. Al-Qudhaeein and al-Shalawi were flying from Phoenix to Washington, DC to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy. After they boarded the plane in Phoenix, they began asking the flight attendants technical questions about the flight that the flight attendants found suspicious. When the plane was in flight, al-Qudhaeein asked where the bathroom was; one of the flight attendants pointed him to the back of the plane. Nevertheless, al-Qudhaeein went to the front of the plane and attempted on two occasions to enter the cockpit The plane made an emergency landing and the FBI investigated the incident, but decided not to pursue a prosecution. At the time, al-Qudhaeein and al-Shalawi claimed that the Saudi Embassy paid for their airplane tickets.

After the FBI discovered that an individual in Phoenix who was the subject of a counterterrorism investigation was driving al-Shalawi's car, the Bureau opened a counterterrorism investigation on al-Shalawi. In November 2000, the FBI received reporting from ———- that al-Shalawi had trained at the terrorist camps in Afghanistan and had received explosives training to perform "Khobar Towers"-type attacks. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Phoenix Field Office attached even potentially greater significance to that 1999 incident. A Phoenix FBI communication explained the theory behind this: "Phoenix FBI now

2According to the FBI's November 18, 2002 response, although several officials in WAMY support al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups, the intelligence is insufficient to show whether the organization as a whole and its senior leadership support terrorism.

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believes both men were specifically attempting to test the security procedures of America West Airlines in preparation for and in furtherance of UBL/Al Qaeda operations."

•     In testimony before the Joint Inquiry, the agent who drafted the Phoenix EC" stated:
      In a post 9/11 world, I went back and looked at that as possibly being some sort of dry run. It is currently under investigation.
  

After September 11, 2001, al-Qudhaeein ————- —————– —————- ———- ————- —————- —————– —————- ———- —————————– —————– —————- ———- ————– ————— —————– —————- ———- —————- ————- —————– —————- ———- —————-.

In interviews, a Phoenix FBI agent stated that Phoenix ————- —————– —————- believed that al-Qudhaeein might be ————- —————– ——–. His profile is similar to that of al-Bayoumi and Bassnan. He is in the United States as a student and does not have a visible means of income. He is in frequent contact with Saudi Government establishments in the United States and appears to be very involved in the affairs of the local Saudi community. He runs a "Saudi Club" in Phoenix, and assists Saudi students in the area. The FBI has also developed information that al-Qudhaeein was receiving money from the Saudi Government but, as of August 2002, had not obtained the relevant bank records for review. The FBI's Phoenix Field Office has speculated that al-Qudhaeein and others may be ————- —————– —————- ———- —————-.

There are other indications in FBI files that elements of the Saudi Government may have provided support to terrorist networks. For example, the FBI had identified the Ibn Tamiyah Mosque in Culver City as a site of extremist-related activity both before and after September 11. Several subjects of San Diego investigation prior to September 11 had close connections to the mosque. Based on interviews and review of FBI files, San Diego FBI agents believed at the time that these subjects were laundering money through this mosque first to Somali non-profit organizations and then to other entities affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin.

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In approximately 1998, the FBI became aware of millions of dollars in wire transfers from the Somali community in San Diego to Al Barakaat Trading Company and other businesses affiliated with Usama Bin Ladin. At the time, the funding appeared to be originating from the local Somali community in the form of donations to various Somali non-profits. However, the FBI now believes that the some of the funding actually originated from Saudi Arabia and that both the Ibn Tamiyah Mosque in Los Angeles and the Islamic Center of San Diego were involved in laundering the money.

According to the former FBI agent in San Diego who was involved in this investigation, this scheme may allow the Saudi Government to provide al-Qa'ida with funding through covert or indirect means. In his October 9, 2002 testimony the former agent commented on the possible money laundering:
   

• My guess Saudi—it's connected somehow with the Saudis. And knowing that probably 70-80 percent of the population of Saudi Arabia support Usama Bin Ladin, it might be an indication.

There are also indications of Saudi governmental support for terrorist activity though charitable organizations. The Saudi-based Umm al-Qura Islamic Charitable Foundation (UQ) is an Islamic non-governmental organization linked to terrorist support activities. According to a May 2002 Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary, the UQ's activities in support of terrorism include: suspicious money transfers, document forgery, providing jobs to wanted terrorist suspects, and financing travel for youths to attend jihad training. The Defense communication notes that since September 2001, UQ couriers have transported over $330,000 in cash, most of which they received from Saudi Embassies in the Far East. In January 2002, UQ administrator Yassir El-Sayid Mohammed traveled to Thailand to pick up approximately $200,000 from the Saudi Embassy in Bangkok. In early November 2001, the personal assistant to the UQ administrator traveled to Kuala Lumpur for a meeting at the Saudi Arabian Embassy. he returned with tens of thousands of dollars, according to the Department of Defense.

CIA, Treasury, and FBI officials have all expressed their concern about the al-Haramain Foundation's ties to both the Saudi Government and terrorist activity. According to the FBI's

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November 18, 2002 response, the al-Haramain Islamic Foundation (HIF) has clear ties to the Saudi Government, and intelligence reporting suggests it is providing financial and logistical support to al-Qa'ida. In 1993, HIF established its U.S.-based office in Ashland, Oregon, and that office has since received approximately $700,000 from the parent offices in Saudi Arabia. The FBI has a pending investigation of HIF and the activities of the Portland HIF Office. As discussed above, the FBI has located correspondence between al-Bayoumi and the HIF. From the documents, it is clear that HIF was interested in appointing the imam of the mosque in Cajon, California, that al-Bayoumi managed.

The Treasury General Counsel testified about his agency's concern about the foundation:
   

• MR. AUFHAUSER: Second, and this is important point, it also rises out of Rick's testimony, on al-Haramain, the two branch offices that we took a  public and joint action against, al-Haramain really does represent a significant issue for the PCC and for terrorist financing and for the United States policy. It is, of course, the largest, I think the largest Islamic charity in the world. Its name is synonymous with charity in the Islamic world. Its direct overseers are member of the Royal Family; significant contributors are members of the Royal Family. We don't have a great dal of intelligence on the headquarters, about whether they are knowingly assisting people in al-Qa'ida and others; but in significant branch offices yet to be designated and under current investigation, we have ample evidence that large cash amounts are being couriered to those branch offices, that large wire transfers of money are being sent to those offices, that a great deal of the money is being dissipated through misspending, unaccounted for, and finally, that those offices have significant contacts with extremists, Islamic extremists.

CIA officials recently testified that hey are making progress on their investigations of al-Haramain:

   

• A year ago we had a lot of reporting suggesting branch offices were tied to al-Qa'ida...Over the last year we developed a lot of intelligence and law enforcement information and we prepared a paper about a month, six weeks ago which assembled all of that...That paper gave us the first clear indication that the head of the central office is complicit in supporting terrorism, and it also raised questions about Prince Nayef.

Finally, ————-, the subject of Phoenix and Portland FBI counterterrorism investigations, also has close ties to a member of the Saudi royal family. ———- no longer resides in the United States, but is still the subject of an FBI investigation. The FBI opened an

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investigation of ——– an employee of Saudi Arabian airlines, in 1999 after receiving information ———— ————- that Bin Ladin lieutenant Abu Zubaida had ben in contact with a telephone number associated with ——- in Portland. In May 2001, two individuals were arrested in Bahrain and later admitted they were on their way to blow up U.S. facilities in Saudi Arabia. One of them had a passport that had been issued to one of ———- ——–. The FBI's Phoenix Field Office also received source reporting in 1999 that ———- was checking security at the Southwest border and discussing the possibility of infiltrating individuals into the United States.

The FBI has developed information that ——— has close ties with one of the Saudi princes and accompanies him on many trips, including travel to the United States. According to the FBI, —————– was recently interrogated at the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. He informed the FBI that —— got the job at Saudi Arabian Airlines through his contacts. He said that —— did not earn much money in this job, but that he "had another source of income through a Saudi prince" named Khalid al-Bandar. According to ———– ———- performed miscellaneous tasks for the Prince, such as handling real estate matters and assisting the Prince's grandmother. —— traveled many places with the Prince, including Europe, and often to the United Arab Emirates. ——– ———– made the cryptic comment that nobody "knew everything about ———." Although is name was on the State Department's watchlist, ———– was apparently able to circumvent the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service because he was traveling with the Saudi prince. The FBI only learned of the trip after the fact. Agents in the FBI's Portland Field Office expressed their concern that —- and others were using their status as Saudi Arabian Airlines employees as a cover to enable them to transport weapons in and out of the United States.

Lack of Saudi Cooperation in Counterterrorism Investigations

In testimony and interviews, a number of FBI agents and CIA officers complained to the Joint Inquiry about a lack of Saudi cooperation in terrorism investigations both before and after the September 11 attacks. For example, a veteran New York FBI agent stated that from his

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point of view, the Saudis have been useless and obstructionist for years. In this agent's opinion, the Saudis will only act when it is in their self-interest.

When a high-level — officer was asked how the September 11 attacks might have been prevented, he cited greater Saudi cooperation, pointing to an example from the summer of 2001, when the U.S. Government requested Saudi assistance, with no success. In May 2001, the U.S. Government became aware that an individual in Saudi Arabia was in contact with Abu Zubaida and was most likely aware of an upcoming al-Qa'ida operation. The U.S. Government pressured the Saudi Government to locate him. The Saudis informed the U.S government that they required additional information to do so. The U.S. Government agency that had originally learned of this individual's knowledge refused to provide the Saudis with additional information because it would reveal sources and methods. The National Security Council also tried to pressure the Saudis, but the Saudis would not cooperate without the additional information.

According to some FBI personnel, this type of response is typical from the Saudis. For example, one FBI agent described one investigation after September 11 in which he provided the Saudi Government with copies of the subjects' Saudi passports. The Saudi Government maintained that they had no record of the subjects.

According to the former Chief of Alec Station, the unit in the DCI's Counterterrorist Center established in 1996 to focus specifically on Usama Bin Ladin, it was clear from about 1996 that the Saudi Government would not cooperate with the United States on maters relating to Usama Bin Ladin. There is a May 1996 memo from the DCI's Counterterrorist Center ———- stating that the Saudis had stopped providing background information or other assistance on Bin Ladin because Bin Ladin had "too much information about official Saudi dealings with Islamic extremists in the 1980s for Riyadh to deliver him into U.S. hands." In a June 1997 memo to the DCI, Alec Station reemphasized the lack of Saudi cooperation and stated that there was little prospect of future cooperation regarding Bin Ladin. The former Chief of Alec Station thought that the U.S. Government's hope of eventually obtaining Saudi cooperation was unrealistic because Saudi assistance to the U.S. Government on this matter was contrary to Saudi national interests.

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———- ———- ———- ——————– testified on this issue on October 9, 2002:
   

• On the issue of al-Qa'ida and Saudi intelligence, that goes back to our efforts to interact with the Saudi to get them to help us on investigating al-Qa'ida...for the most part it was a very troubled relationship where the Saudis were not providing us quickly or very vigorously with response to it. Sometimes, they did, many times they didn't. It was just very slow in coming.

Both FBI and CIA personnel cited an individual named Madani al-Tayyib as a specific case in which the Saudis were uncooperative. The CIA and FBI had been pressuring the Saudis for years for permission to talk to al-Tayyib. According to the former head of ALEC station, al-Tayyib managed all of Bin Ladin's finances when Bin Ladin was in Sudan, and any expense ofer $1,000 had to be approved by al-Tayyib. Al-Tayyib oved to London in 1996 to work with Khalid al-Fawwaz, another important al-Qa'ida figure who has since been arrested. In the summer of 1996, al-Tayyab returned to Saudi Arabia. The Saudis continuously refused the FBI's and the CIA's requests to talk to al-Tayyib, stating, in the words of an FBI agent that al-Tayyib was "just a poor man who lost his leg. He doesn't know anything."

The former chief of Alec Station also cited the example of Mohammed Jamal Khalifa. Khalifa is Bin Ladin's brother-in-law and an important figure in al-Qa'ida. The U.S. Government arrested Khalifa in the United States in 1994. Khalifa had been sentenced t death in absentia by the Jordanian Government for his role in a bombing in Jordan. The Jordanians then returned him to Saudi Arabia. In the opinion of the CIA officer, the Saudis "bought off" the Jordanians for the return of Khalifa. According to the CIA officer, when Khalifa subsequently arrived in Saudi Arabia, he was met by at least one important government official. Khalifa now works for a Riyadh-based NGO and travels and operates freely.

The General Counsel of the U.S. Treasury Department testified at the July 23, 2002 hearing about the lack of Saudi cooperation with the U.S.:

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There is an almost intuitive sense, however, that things are not being volunteered. So I want to fully inform you about it, that we have to ask and we have to seek and we have to strive. I will give you one-and-a-half examples. The first is, after some period, the Saudis have agreed to the designation of a man named Julaydin, who is notoriously involved in all of this; and his designation will be public within the next 10 days. They came forward to us 2 weeks ago and said, okay, we think we should go forward with the designation and a freeze order against Mr. Julaydin. We asked, what do you have on him? Because they certainly know what we have on him, because we shared it as we tried to convince them that they ought to join us. The answer back was, nothing new.

MR. BEREUTER: Do you believe that?

MR. AUFHAUSER: No, I think that taxes credulity, or there is another motive we are not being told.

Status of the U.S. Intelligence Community's Investigations into Connections Between Terrorism and Saudi Government Officials

Both the FBI and the CIA have informed the Committees that they are treating the Saudi issue seriously. According to the November 18, 2002 FBI response, the FBI and CIA have established a working group to look into the Saudi issue. The FBI formed a squad at the Washington Field Office ———- ——— to investigate this issue and ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———.

———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———
   

• ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———

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However, both the FBI and the CIA still have only a limited understanding of the Saudi Government's ties to terrorist elements. In the October 9, 2002 closed hearing Director Mueller stated:
   

• If I have one preliminary note of caution, it is that at this point there are more questions than answers, and I would caution against jumping to conclusions before we know a lot more.

A document located by the Joint Inquiry Staff confirms that the FBI's Washington Field Office is still in the early stages of focusing on these investigations. In an August 15, 2002, communication, a field office agent stated that —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———-. In that same document, the Washington Field Office asked —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———.

—- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— —— acknowledged in his testimony that the — understanding of this issue is limited as well.
   

• With regard to the specific question of have we seen the Saudi intelligence services supporting terror groups, I think the record is not clear at all on that.

Both the FBI and CIA recognized the possibility that individuals connected to the Saudi Government may be providing support to terrorists.

• 
  —- ———- —— testified:

    So there's certainly a good, good chance that there are sympathizers or extremists, sympathizers possibly for al-Qa'ida within the security services.

• —- ———— also noted that:

    Abu Zubaydah said he's confident that al-Qa'ida must have contact certainly with Saudis in the United States and that al-Qa'ida and Usama Bin Ladin are particularly—they

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• invest significant energy in cultivating what Abu Zubaydah called good relationships with Saudis of all standing...He said bin Ladin is very pleased when Saudis in the military, those successful in business and those close to the royal family to lend active support to his cause. he said bin Ladin actively seeks out such relationships.

—- ———— stated:

   

• What we find troubling about the cases we learned about from FBI, both the Los Angeles cases and some of the cases that the Washington Field Office has looked at, in which you're seeing Saudi money going to people, is that it fits sort of a pattern that we've seen in terms of direct payments from the Saudis, the Saudi Government's longstanding support for very fundamentalist Wahabi and Salafi charities and movements around the world, which in a sense you see the money is going to fundamentalists and you would be very surprised if some of it doesn't bleed over into terrorist support...We've had a lot of suspicions before September 11 which we documented in a number of different papers, and again it's a lot of smoke and the issues that come up are who knows about the payments, on whose behalf are the payments being made, are they being made on behalf of the central government or are they bing made by a local official or person. Do the people who are making the payments know what's happening to the money? If they do know what's happening, why are they making the payments? Is it a form of blackmail? Do they recognize the terrorist support? There's the issue of are they regulating themselves as well as are they doing the due diligence that they ought to.

FBI Executive Assistant Director Pasquale D'Amato testified at that same hearing:
   

• To date I can't sit here and tell you that those ties go back, that we can prove that the Saudi royal family is sponsoring terrorism. But there's enough smoke that we are conducting several investigations to try to determine what other information is out there.

What is clear is that the FBI did not treat the Saudis as a counterterrorism — —————— threat prior to September 11, 2001.

—- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———-

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Michael Rolince, the former head of the International Terrorism Operations Section at FBI testified:
   

• The answer to your question is pre-9/11 there were not any significant preliminary inquiry or full investigations, with relatively few exceptions, conducted by the FBI looking at Saudi —- ———- ——— or support for terrorism...I'm not going to stand here, Ms. Hill, and tell you in any way, shape or form —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ——— ———-.

The former Assistant Special Agent in Charge in San Diego confirmed this in his testimony:
   

• Basically, —- ———- ——— ———- ——— ———- ———. They were not a country identified by the State Department as a state sponsor of terrorism. And the theme or the common modus operandi that we saw in San Diego was that if there were —– ——– there, their primary objective was to monitor dissidents in the interest of protecting the royal family. So they were not viewed as an inimical threat to national security.

In the October 9, 2002 closed hearing, Director Mueller acknowledged that he became aware of some of the facts regarding the Saudi issue only as a result of the investigative work of the Joint Inquiry Staff:
   

• I'm saying the sequence of events here, I think the staff probed and, as a result of the probing, some facts came to light here and to me, frankly, that had not come to light before, and perhaps would not have come to light had the staff not probed. That's what I'm telling you. So I'm agreeing with you that the staff probing brought out facts that may not have come to this Committee.
  
      Senator Dewine: But what you're also saying thought is that probing then brought facts to your attention.
  
      Director Mueller: Yes.

By Rick Wiles
American Freedom News.com
c. 2001 American Freedom News
10-3-1

President Bush recently signed an executive order to freeze the US financial assets of corporations doing business with Osama bin Laden. He described the order as a "strike on the financial foundation of the global terror network."

"If you do business with terrorists, if you support or succor them, you will not do business with the United States," said President Bush.

He didn't say anything about doing business with a terrorist's brother - or his wealthy financier.

When President George W. Bush froze assets connected to Osama bin Laden, he didn't tell the American people that the terrorist mastermind's late brother was an investor in the president's former oil business in Texas. He also hasn't leveled with the American public about his financial connections to a host of shady Saudi characters involved in drug cartels, gun smuggling, and terrorist networks.

Doing business with the enemy is nothing new to the Bush family. Much of the Bush family wealth came from supplying needed raw materials and credit to Adolf Hitler's Third Reich. Several business operations managed by Prescott Bush - the president's grandfather - were seized by the US government during World War II under the Trading with the Enemy Act.

On October 20, 1942, the federal government seized the Union Banking Corporation in New York City as a front operation for the Nazis. Prescott Bush was a director. Bush, E. Roland Harriman, two Bush associates, and three Nazi executives owned the bank's shares. Eight days later, the Roosevelt administration seized two other corporations managed by Prescott Bush. The Holland-American Trading Corporation and the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, both managed by the Bush-Harriman bank, were accused by the US federal government of being front organizations for Hitler's Third Reich. Again, on November 8, 1942, the federal government seized Nazi-controlled assets of Silesian-American Corporation, another Bush-Harriman company doing business with Hitler.

Doing business with the bin Laden empire, therefore, is only the latest extension of the Bush family's financial ties to unsavory individuals and organizations. Now that thousands of American citizens have died in terrorist attacks and the nation is going to war, the American people should know about George W. Bush's relationship with the family of Osama bin Laden.

Salem bin Laden, Osama's older brother, was an investor in Arbusto Energy. - the Texas oil company started by George W. Bush. Arbusto means "Bush" in Spanish. Salem bin Laden died in an airplane crash in Texas in 1988.

Sheik Mohammed bin Laden, the family patriarch and founder of its construction empire, also died in a plane crash. Upon his death in 1968, he left behind 57 sons and daughters - the offspring he sired with 12 wives in Saudi Arabia, Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan. About a dozen brothers manage Bin Laden Brothers Construction - one of the largest construction firms in the Middle East.

Fresh out of Harvard Business School, young George W. Bush returned to Midland, TX, in the late 1970s to follow his father's footsteps in the oil business. Beginning in 1978, he set up a series of limited partnerships - Arbusto '78, Arbusto '79, and so on - to drill for oil.

One of President Bush's earliest financial backers was James Bath, a Houston aircraft broker. Bath served with President Bush in the Texas Air National Guard. Bath has a mysterious connection to the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to a 1976 trust agreement, Salem bin Laden appointed James Bath as his business representative in Houston. Revelation about Bath's relationship with the bin Laden financial empire and the CIA was made public in 1992 by Bill White, a former real estate business partner with Bath. White informed federal investigators in 1992 that Bath told him that he had assisted the CIA in a liaison role since 1976 - the same year former President George Herbert Walker Bush served as director of the CIA.

During a bitter legal fight between White and Bath, the real estate partner disclosed that Bath managed a portfolio worth millions of dollars for Sheik Khalid bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis. Among the investments made by Bath with Mahfouz's money was the Houston Gulf Airport.

A powerful banker in Saudi Arabia, Mahfouz was one of the largest stockholders in the Bank of Credit and Commerce International. BCCI was a corrupt global banking empire operating in 73 nations and was a major financial and political force in Washington, Paris, Geneva, London, and Hong Kong. Despite the appearance of a normal banking operation, BCCI was actually an international crime syndicate providing "banking services" to the Medellin drug cartel, Pamama dictator Manuel Noriega, Saddam Hussein, terrorist mastermind Abu Nidal, and Khun Sa, the heroin kingpin in Asia's Golden Triangle.

The BCCI scandal implicated some of the biggest political names in Washington - both Democrats and Republicans - during the first Bush White House. The bank was accused of laundering money for drug cartels, smuggling weapons to terrorists, and using Middle Eastern oil money to influence American politicians.

The chief of the Justice Department's criminal division under former President Bush was Robert Mueller. Because the major players came out of the scandal with slaps on the wrists, many critics accused Mueller of botching the investigation. Mr. Mueller was recently appointed by President George W. Bush as the new Director of the FBI, replacing Louis Freeh who did nothing while William Jefferson Clinton allowed the Red Chinese to loot our national security secrets.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a division of the Justice Department, reviewed allegations by Bill White in 1992 that James Bath funneled money from wealthy Middle Eastern businessmen to American companies to influence the policies of the Reagan and Bush administrations. Robert Mueller, the new FBI chief, was in a senior position at the Justice Department at the time of the review.

White told a Texas court in 1992 that Bath and the Justice Department had "blackballed" him professionally and financially because he refused to keep quiet about his knowledge of an Arabic conspiracy to launder Middle Eastern money into the bank accounts of American businesses and politicians.

In sworn depositions, Bath admitted he represented four wealthy Saudi Arabian businessmen as a trustee. He also admitted he used his name on their investments and received, in return, a five- percent stake in their business deals.

Indeed, Texas tax documents revealed that Bath owned five percent of Arbusto '79 Ltd., and Arbusto '80 Ltd. Bush Exploration Company controlled the limited partnerships, the general partnership firm owned by young George W. Bush.

Although George W. Bush's Texas oil ventures were financial failures, his financial backers recovered their investments through a series of mergers and stock swaps. He changed Arbusto's name to Bush Exploration, then merged the new firm into Spectrum 7 Energy Corporation in 1984.

The Bush-controlled oil business eventually ended up being folded into Harken Energy Corp., a Dallas-based corporation. Mr. Bush joined Harken as a director in 1986 and was given 212,000 shares of Harken stock. Bush used his White House connections to land a lucrative contract for the obscure Harken Energy Corp. with the Middle Eastern government of Bahrain. On June 20, 1990, George W. Bush sold his Harken stock for $848,000 and paid off his loan he took out to buy his small share in the Texas Rangers. The Bahrain deal was brokered by David Edwards, a close pal to Bill Clinton and a former employee of Stephens Inc. Shortly after Bush sold his stock, Harken's fortunes nose-dived when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. Some critics claim young George was tipped off in advance by his father about the soon-coming Gulf War.

George W. Bush, however, worked wonders for Harken Energy Corp. before the stock collapse. Using the Bush family name, he managed to bring much-needed capital investment to the struggling firm. George W. Bush traveled to Little Rock, AR, to attend a meeting with Jackson Stephens - a powerful Arkansas tycoon who help bankroll the state campaigns of young Bill Clinton. He first gained political prominence as a fund-raiser for President Jimmy Carter. Stephens was also deeply involved in the BCCI scandal by helping the corrupt bank take control of First American Bank in Washington, DC.

Jack Stephens didn't need an introduction to young George W. Bush. Mary Anne Stephens, his wife, managed Vice President George Bush's 1988 presidential campaign in Arkansas. Stephens Inc., the well connected brokerage firm owned by Jack Stephens, donated $100,000 to a Bush campaign fundraising dinner in 1991. When George W. Bush won the contested Florida election in 2000, Jack Stephens made a substantial contribution to the Bush inauguration. Recently, former President Bush played golf on April 11, 2001, with Jack Stephens at the Jack Stephens Youth Golf Academy in Little Rock. The former president told Stephens, "Jack, we love you and we are very, very grateful for what you have done."

Perhaps the former president was thanking him for the money Stephens provided young George W. Bush. Stephens arranged for a $25 million investment from the Union des Banques Suisses. The Swiss Bank held the minority interest in the Banque de Commerce et de Placements, a Geneva-based subsidiary of BCCI.

Both Stephens and Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, a wealthy and well-connected Saudi real estate investor, signed the financial transaction. The Geneva transaction was paid through a joint venture between the Union Bank of Switzerland and its Geneva branch of BCCI.

The BCCI connection, therefore, linked George W. Bush with Saudi banker Khaled bin Mahfouz. Known in Arab circles as the "king's treasurer," Mahfouz held a 20 percent take in BCCI between 1986 and 1990. Mahfouz is no stranger to the Bush family. He was a big investor in the Carlyle Group, a defense-industry investment group with deep connections to the Republican Party establishment. Former President Bush is a former member of the company's board of directors. George W. Bush also held shares in Caterair, a Carlyle subsidiary. Sami Baarma, a powerful player in the Mahfouz-owned Prime Commercial Bank of Pakistan, is a member of the Carlyle Group's international advisory board.

President Bush certainly is aware of that his former Saudi sugar daddy is still financing Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. USA Today newspaper reported in 1999 that a year after bin Laden's attacks on US embassies in Africa, Khaled bin Mahfouz and other wealthy Saudis were funneling tens of millions of dollars each year into bin Laden's bank accounts. Five top Saudi businessmen ordered the National Commercial Bank to transfer personal funds and $3 million pilfered from a Saudi pension fund to the Capitol Trust Bank in New York City. The money was deposited into the Islamic Relief and Bless Relief - Islamic charities operating in the US and Great Britain as fronts for Osama bin Laden.

The Capitol Trust Bank is run by Mohammad Hussein al-Amoudi. His lawyer is Democratic Party bigwig Vernon Jordan, close friend of former President Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

Abdullah Taha Bakhsh, the Arab who cosigned the $25 million cash infusion into George W. Bush's Harken Energy Corporation, appointed Talat Othman to manage his 17.6 percent share in Harken Energy Corp. Othman, a native Palestinian, is president and CEO of Dearborn Financial Inc. - an investment firm in Arlington Heights, IL.

Bakhsh also bought a 9.6 percent stake in Worthen Banking Corporation, the Arkansas bank controlled by Jack Stephens. Abdullah Bakhsh's share was the identical percentage as the amount of shares sold by Mochtar Riady, the godfather of the wealthy Indonesian family with close ties to the Chinese communists, Bill Clinton and evangelist Pat Robertson. Bakhsh is represented by Rogers & Wells, a well-connected Republican law firm in New York whose partners include former Secretary of State William P. Rogers.

Independent investigator reporter David Twersky reported in the early 1990s that Othman had a seat on Harken's board of directors and met three times in the White House with President George Herbert Walker Bush. Organized by Chief of Staff John Sununu, Othman's first meeting with President Bush at the White House was in August 1990, just days after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.

There exist to this day an Arab-Texas connection. Khalid bin Mahfouz, financier of both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden, still maintains a palatial estate in Houston, TX. Former President George Bush also lives in Houston. James Bath, Texas political confidant of George W. Bush, managed to obtain a $1.4 million loan from Mahfouz in 1990. Bath and Mahfouz, along with former Secretary of Treasury John Connally, were also co-investors in Houston's Main Bank. Bath was also president of Skyway Aircraft Leasing Ltd, a Texas air charter company registered in the Cayman Islands. According to published reports in the early 1990s, the real owner was bin Mahfouz. When Salem bin Laden, Osama' brother, died in 1988, his interest in the Houston Gulf Airport was transferred to bin Mahfouz.

Since Osama bin Laden's bloody attack on America on September 11, the federal government has moved quickly to freeze bank accounts connected to Osama bin Laden, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and a host of Islamic charities.

Perhaps federal agents should freeze the financial assets of the Bush family too. It would not be the first time Bush-family assets were seized by the US government for trading with the enemy.


Copyright 2001 American Freedom News