SAUDI ARABIAN GOVERNMENT DIRECTLY LINKED TO 9ll AND ALSO FUNDS ISIS(L)

Investigating the Saudi Government’s 9/11 Connection and the Path to Disillusionment – Senator “Bob” Graham on Reality Asserts Itself by Paul Jay on The Real News Network

FACT: Senator Bob Graham has evidence the Saudi government and members of the royal family were directly involved in the events of 9ll.

FACT: The Petrodollar based on Middle East Oil has made the USA Banking System and therefore the USA GOV into a INTIMATE BEDFELLOWS with Saudi Arabia who agreed to process all OIL TRADES in USA Dollars after the USA dropped the GOLD standard under NIXON.

FACT: The 9ll investigation into intelligence failures and the subsequent cover-up of Saudi involvement by the Bush administration led Senator Bob Graham (R-FL) to question his life-long reverence of presidential authority.

FACT: Senator Bob Graham’s (R-FL CHAIR of 9ll Investigation) whole book is about the role of Saudi Arabia and its connection to 9ll. And according to Bob Graham, members of the Saudi government and royal family were directly connected to inspiring, funding, and helping support the organization of certain 9ll conspirators.

FACT: Today’s role of Saudi Arabia on USA Foreign Policy is important since recent history of Saudi Arabia shows they were involved in attacking the USA in 2001

FACT: Saudis, for several years, have put enormous pressure on USA government to militarily topple the Assad Government.

FACT: USA is in negotiations with Iran on their nuclear program. USA intelligence and Iranians say it’s not a weaponized program. But Israel and Gulf Oil Monarchs push fear as a TOOL for a military solution. The Saudis Prince Bandar, head of the Saudi National Security Council, recently told European diplomats that the USA was losing its credibility in the Middle East because it wouldn’t militarily intervene in Syria and Iran.

FACT: Amazing redaction of an entire 28-page chapter on Saudi Arabia financing of 9ll in the final USA 9ll Committee Report.

FACT: United States has had a special relationship with Saudi Arabia that goes back to World War II: we provide them a defense cover; they provide us a reliable source of petroleum.

FACT: A special relationship of the Saudis with the Bush family goes back to the president’s grandfather — A close family relationship between the Bushes and the House of Saud.

FACT: USA Saudi Arabia was looked at as being a source of stability in a very turbulent Middle East the USA needed to keep their credibility maintained.

FACT: Bandar said that because three-quarters of the hijackers had been Saudis, that put all persons of Saudi ancestry in the United States at some risk. So he selected who he thought were the ones that were most at risk, most prominent, probably closest to the royal family, to leave on the plane the President provided — Including members of the bin Laden family who are close to the royal family.

FACT: At the time the President allowed the 240 Saudis plane to depart, aviation in the United States was grounded. But by the time they actually executed the flight, that restriction had largely been lifted.

FACT: The investigators and President weren’t very curious as to what those people had known, or more likely there were factors beyond finding out about 9ll that trumped the normal policy of full debriefing and interrogation before people were allowed to leave the country.

FACT: Bush became president with a new administration and in his first meeting his Head of CIA George Tenet, tells Bush the number-one security threat to the United States is bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Immediately, after that meeting Richard Clarke, the antiterrorism czar, was DEMOTED right after you’ve been told this is your biggest national security threat?

FACT: This USA-Saudi issue is contemporary and has real impact and significance today. Major USA Corporate media has covered-up this critical issue worthy of in-depth investigation and dogged followthrough.

FACT: Senator Graham’s book “Intelligence Matters” describes how the 9ll committee traced the data points that connected Saudi government officials to 9ll hijackers.

FACT: Private entities, Saudi Individuals, and the public Saudi monarchy are one in the same = SAME SHIELD OF SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY is USED = A fully integrated Monarchy/Dictatorship.

FACT: Saudi Ambassador Bindar brazenly went into the private quarters of the White House within hours after 9ll attack, in which 15 of his fellow SAUDIS had been in lead positions, and demanded that USA President Bush facilitate flying 144 high-level Saudis out of the USA almost immediately. — Bush either cowered into submission or had already planned on the EXIT.

FACT: Saudi Arabia knew up front they were not going to be targeted by USA GOV for funding and supporting 9ll.

FACT: AQ Intelligence is weak and OBL operated on false premise he could suck the United States into Afghanistan like Russia — A war of attrition and USA collapse. But the USA almost immediately instituted the single most effective aerial bombardment in the history of mankind in Afghanistan against troops and military installations. We were using traditional military aircraft with laser bombs, smart bombs, bombs that were able to get into places that previously had thought to be impregnable, and just devastated the Taliban’s military ability.

FACT: USA BUSH GOV protected and covered-up the Saudis’ funding and support role in 9ll – Evidence is overwhelming.

FACT: It is implausible that 19 people did 9ll without a substantial financial and intelligence, and strategic and tactical support.

SAD FACT: Americans have been taught by MSM-GOV to believe 19 people pulled off 9ll by themselves when that is impossible = Now conventional wisdom ignoring known facts.

FACT: Senator Bob Graham – In his book calls “the Bush administration’s hindrance of 9ll investigation disgraceful…orchestrated by the White House to protect not only the agencies that had failed, but also America’s relationship with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

FACT: Senator Bob Graham calls for a new 9ll inquiry on how 19 hijackers acted alone, the extent of Saudi involvement in the attacks, why the US concealed evidence of a support network for the hijackers, and why the Bush administration failed to seriously respond to a Presidential Daily Brief on August 6, 2001 that contained a section titled “bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US”…“It was a fairly stark and specific call. The president, from all evidence, basically ignored that warning and no steps were taken to try to dig deeper or to disrupt the plot.” — Senator Bob Graham

FACT: The FBI withheld information about the support networks for several of the 9ll hijackers located through the United States and prevented the Congress from serving of a subpoena to a key witness.

FACT: When asked if Bush Administration created a deliberate culture to suppress information about possible terrorist attacks, Graham admitted that “virtually all of the agencies of the federal government were moving in the same direction, from a customs agent at an airport in Orlando who was chastised when he denied entry into the United States to a Saudi, to the president of the United States authorizing large numbers of Saudis to leave the country. You don’t have everybody moving in the same direction without there being a head coach somewhere who was giving them instructions as to where he wants them to move.” — Senator Bob Graham

FACT: BUSH and RICE never asked the intelligence agencies to make August 2001 warning the absolute number-one priority and alerted the federal aviation agency that planes may be used in an attack against the USA and to upgrade your security standards.

FACT: All 19 hijackers on all four planes were not delayed or detected getting onto their flights — Same procedures as January to Sept 10, 2001.

FACT: BUSH and RICE never alerted the military that airplanes may be used to attack USA and to scramble aircraft to intercept commercial planes off track that may be used for a terrorist attack — Based on the August 2001 warnings.

FACT: These two future hijackers had a meeting, sitting in a restaurant close enough to hear each other talk with a Saudi agent dispatched to that restaurant by a Saudi consular official who was the consul of Saudi Arabia in Los Angeles. The Saudi agent, overheard these men speaking Arabic in a Saudi accent and sits and engages them, and then invites them to come to San Diego.

FACT: SENATOR BOB GRAHAM, “Although it’s been more than a decade ago (since 9ll) when this horrific event occurred, I think there remain real consequences to U.S. actions today.”

Click for Source Video and Text of Senator Bob Graham interview by Paul Jay on THE REAL NEWS NETWORK

Senator “Bob” Graham was born in 1936 as Daniel Robert “Bob” Graham is also an American author. He served as the 38th Governor of Florida (1979 to 1987) and as US Senator (1987 to 2005). The Bob Graham Center for Public Service at his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Florida was recently established.

Senator Graham co-chaired the 9ll investigation of intelligence failures leading to 9ll report which had an entire 28-page chapter redacted on the Saudi connection to USA intelligence 9ll. “I was stunned that the intelligence community would feel that it was a threat to national security for the American people to know who had made 9ll financially possible. And I am sad to report that today, some 12 years after we submitted our report, that those 28 pages continue to be withheld from the public.” — Senator Bob Graham

Senator “Bob” Graham (R-FL) also served as Chairman of the Commission on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism. Graham was co-chair of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill.

2011 Graham published his first novel, “The Keys to the Kingdom” and 3 non-fiction books.

Senator Bob Graham = Greater awareness of Saudi Arabia as “essentially a co-conspirator in 9ll…would change the way in which, particularly in the current milieu of events in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia is being viewed” by the USA public.

Saudi Arabia, a USA ally, recently put significant pressure on the Obama administration to militarily intervene in Syria, and attempted to derail USA-Iran talks.

FACT: The 9ll investigation into intelligence failures and the subsequent cover-up of Saudi involvement by the Bush administration led Senator Graham to question his life-long reverence of presidential authority.

Senator “Bob” Graham (R-FL), “I grew up with the idea that the president was almost a divine figure, that he was the literally the father of the country and always acted in a way that was beneficial to the mass of people in America. You may have disagreements with the current occupant of the office, but the presidency itself was a beknighted position deserving of your respect and worthy of your confidence.”

“So when I got involved particularly at the national level in the U.S. Senate and saw some of the things that were happening—which were not theoretical; they were things that I was dealing with on a very day-to-day hands-on basis that were contrary to that view of what was the presidency—it was a very disillusioning experience. And maybe some of the comments that I make in the book Intelligence Matters reflect that path to disillusionment,” said Graham.

PAUL JAY, SENIOR EDITOR, TRNN: We’re going to deal with the role of Saudi Arabia and its effect or influence on USA foreign policy. Saudi Arabia has been a driving force in what’s unfolding in Syria by arming the AQ an ISIS(L).

FACT: Saudis, for several years, have put enormous pressure on USA government to militarily topple the Assad Government.

At public dinners Saudi and other Gulf Oil Monarch leaders talk constantly about USA to attack Syria and Iran.

If Saudi Arabia’s having so much influence on U.S. foreign policy, shouldn’t we pay attention to the words of Senator Bob Graham, who wrote a book, “Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War on Terror?” Graham’s wrote in his book on Saudi Arabia, “there is a state-sponsored terrorist support network that still exists, largely undamaged, within the United States.”

FACT: Bob Graham’s (CHAIR of 9ll Investigation) whole book is about the role of Saudi Arabia and its connection to 9ll. And according to Bob Graham, members of the Saudi government and royal family were directly connected to inspiring, funding, and helping support the organization of certain 9ll conspirators.

FACT: Today’s role of Saudi Arabia on USA Foreign Policy is important since recent history of Saudi Arabia shows they were involved in attacking the USA in 2001

JAY: This Saudi link to 9ll is strangely underreported in NATO Countries. Given that this piece of history has set USA Policy for 13+ Years it should be CENTER STAGE as the USA starts TWO MORE WARS in Iraq and Syria.

Today, we’re talking about the active role of Saudi Arabia today, not just in terms of affecting U.S. foreign-policy, but on issues related to ongoing terrorist networks like those funded during 9ll.

BOB GRAHAM, FMR. U.S. SENATOR: The Saudi role in these NEW ISIS(L) WARS would be very different if there was an acceptance of the fact that Saudi Arabia was essentially a co-conspirator in 9ll. The way Saudi Arabia is viewed would change dramatically.

JAY: It would change everything, given USA policy is based on Saudi Arabia being our primary ally in the Middle East.

GRAHAM: The perception that Saudi Arabia since WW II is a very special ally has contributed to why the USA MSM HAS NEVER examined the Saudi-USA RELATIONSHIP.

GRAHAM: My father became a state senator because in the mid-1930s there was a great deal of corruption in South Florida. Al Capone had moved much of his operation from Chicago to Miami. My father was offended by that. And although he never had been in politics before, he thought one way that he might make a contribution would be to be elected to the Florida State Senate at a time when the state exercised almost total control over cities and counties in Florida.

He was elected. In fact, one of the first things he did was abolish the city of Hialeah, which was somewhat at the center of the corruption in Dade County, and then reestablished the city of Hialeah, naming the mayor and all the members of the City Council. Those new members in turn fired the police chief, brought in some honest people. Then Hialeah for a period of time was a very clean city. And I think that influence has continued to today.

JAY: When you grew up you become a senator, a very vocal opponent of the war in Iraq. And in your book you’re pretty clear that you think that the Bush-Cheney administration essentially lied about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But while growing up, could you imagine such a thing? You’re seeing corruption, but can you believe the president would lie America into war?

GRAHAM: No. I grew up with the idea that the president was almost a divine figure, that he was literally the father of the country and always acted in a way that was beneficial to the mass of people in America. I had very high reverence that you may have disagreements with the current occupant of the office, but the presidency itself was a benighted position deserving of your respect and worthy of your confidence.

When I got involved in the U.S. Senate and saw some of the things that were happening that were contrary to my view of what was the presidency–it was a very disillusioning experience. There were things I observed in public office that caused me to adopt a more pragmatic and a less I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt approach.

JAY: When do you get onto the Intelligence Committee?

GRAHAM: In 1993, but the circumstances surrounding 9ll and the run-up to the Iraq War were the epiphany events in my full appreciation that hardened my pragmatic reasoning.

JAY: You pursue stuff with your committee on 9ll and your book that it would be a lot easier politically to avoid and be quiet about. But you even wrote a book about it. You wrote a novel, because some of the stuff was classified, and the only way to get a sense of it was through fiction. And you write a nonfiction book, where you really come out with some bold statements. So what makes you that person.

GRAHAM: My growing up with the influence of my father, an unvarnished patriot. As a 50-year-old I saw some of the realities of activities that fell short of my expectations of how people in the highest office should perform.

FACT: Amazing redaction of an entire 28-page chapter on Saudi Arabia financing of 9ll in the final USA 9ll Committee Report.

GRAHAM: There were 28 pages in the final report, out of over 800 total, which were totally censored from — All pages of chapter that largely dealt with the financing of 9ll, on who paid for these very complex and in many instances expensive activities that were the predicate for 9ll. I was stunned that the intelligence community would feel that it was a threat to national security for the American people to know who had made 9ll financially possible. And I am sad to report that today, some 12 years after we submitted our report, that those 28 pages continue to be withheld from the public.

JAY: Fortunately, it’s fairly clear from your book what’s in the 28 pages, in general terms. The Times did a report on those 28 pages. A journalist for The Times spoke with someone who’d actually seen the 28 pages–didn’t reveal the name. But apparently it’s the actual names of the people in the Saudi government and Saudi royal family that are in on financing 9/11 conspirators. And your book makes it pretty clear that that’s what it’s about. Who ordered the redaction?

GRAHAM: I’m must withhold my comment as I am under the strictures of classification. Although it was written in 2002, I still have a reasonably good remembrance of what was in those 28 pages, but I’m frustrated because I can’t talk about it.

JAY: But The Times said they had talked to someone and the report has actual names of who’s who, and that all got redacted.

GRAHAM: Yes.

FACT: Senator Bob Graham has evidence the Saudi government and members of the royal family were directly involved in the events of 9ll.

Click for Video and Text of Interview of Senator Bob Graham by Paul Jay on The Real News Network

JAY: It’s been reported that Prince Bandar, who was then the Saudi ambassador to the United States, within hours of 9ll, contacts what we now know must have been President Bush. Your 9ll Commission asked the heads of all the USA Government agencies including the head of the FBI and CIA: “did you authorize these flights to get Saudis out of the country?” They all said NO. But I think it’s fairly well known now it was the White House. But Prince Bandar, within hours of the attack, wants to get leading Saudis out of the country because 15 of the 19 conspirators on the planes are Saudis. Well, how does he know within hours of the attack that there are so many Saudis involved in this?

GRAHAM: It doesn’t surprise me that he knew that. At the worst, you can say he knew it because he was aware that this plot was developing before 9ll. At the best, his press people had access to the wire services, which quickly did identify that 15 of the 19 people were Saudis. The press quickly found out who the people were because they had their names on the manifest of the four airplanes which they had entered. And some of these people, once their names popped up, were well known to the intelligence agencies. Two of them had participated in what was referred to as “the summit of terrorists” that took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in January 2000. Others were not as well known. But it didn’t take long to determine something as basic as what were the nationalities of these 19 people. So that doesn’t surprise me

GRAHAM: What does surprise me is the reaction of the United States at the highest level–the president of the United States, how they reacted to this request. Here you have a mass murder, mainly U.S. citizens killed. Here you’ve got people who might have information about this mass murder that law enforcement would like to fully interrogate before they were out of our jurisdiction. And yet the president of the United States agreed, at the request of the Saudi ambassador, to allow a chartered plane to fly from Lexington, Kentucky, back to the Middle East with 144 persons who had not been prescreened, interviewed, or in any meaningful manner debriefed in terms of what they knew about this situation. After the flight, the FBI said, had we known who these people were, we would in fact have interviewed a number of them. They were people of interest.

JAY: So how do you explain it?

GRAHAM: The explanations are murky and there are many.

FACT: United States has had a special relationship with Saudi Arabia that goes back to World War II: we provide them a defense cover; they provide us a reliable source of petroleum.

FACT: A special relationship of the Saudis with the Bush family goes back to the president’s grandfather — A close family relationship between the Bushes and the House of Saud.

FACT: USA Saudi Arabia was looked at as being a source of stability in a very turbulent Middle East the USA needed to keep their credibility maintained.

JAY: I big issue is how did they let a plane fly with people that might have been involved in the 9ll events.

JAY: In your book you outline a dozen points at which the 9ll attacks could have been prevented. Does there not seem to have been almost a culture that’s almost deliberately created not–that goes beyond lack of curiosity?

JAY: If you don’t like Clarke, fine. You get somebody else. But why would you reduce his level, which was more or less cabinet level access? Clarke testified on 9ll that he couldn’t get anyone’s attention. He said our hair was on fire; there was so much going on that summer, and we could not get anyone’s attention. It goes beyond a lack of curiosity.

GRAHAM: Yes! This culture of protecting the Saudis ran up and down the ranks of the federal government. At the Orlando airport in early 2001 a man arrived from Saudi Arabia and was seen by the customs agents, as being suspicious, and they interviewed him to find out why would a person have flown all the way from Saudi Arabia to Orlando for what appeared to be just a few days, maybe even hours, before he turned around and flew back. There had been instances of professional hitmen brought into USA to carry out a murder and then quickly leave, and the customs agent was suspicious that that might be such a person. So he refused the man the right to enter the United States. He was severely chastised by other customs agents, who said, your career is now over, because we’re supposed to treat Saudis differently than we treat other people. But he persisted. And, in fact, the man was returned without ever gaining legal access to the United States. That probably was the 20th hijacker who would have filled out the ranks of the five people on each of the four planes. So, even at the level of a US airport customs agent, the idea that Saudis were get special treatment was an accepted — imagine what it was like at higher ranks of the federal government.

JAY: Clearly a message was sent throughout the police to the FBI, to the intelligence agencies, that we’re not very interested terrorism anymore. Coleen Rowley, FBI agent in Minneapolis, tried to get a warrant for Moussaoui, the guy learning to take off and not land, and they cannot get the warrant from FBI headquarters won’t give them the warrant to get the computer. The detailed story and interview with Coleen can be watched in our interview with Coleen Rowley. Coleen said there just seemed to be coming from the top a culture: don’t follow terrorism; we’re not interested in it.

GRAHAM: There were a number of instances like that — Very suspicious. A central figure in the Saudi relationship to the hijackers was an elderly man, a retired university professor, who invited young Saudis to live in his house as boarders — two of the boarders that this man invited to live in his house were future hijackers. We very much wanted to interview that former professor to find out about these two hijackers, but we were denied access — DENIED the joint intelligence committees of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives — you cannot talk to this man — The FBI said we could not even send questions to him. FBI said no, we won’t present the questions to him.

GRAHAM: So we went to a federal judge and got a subpoena to require this man’s arrival. I had the subpoena in my hand and tried to hand it to the FBI agent in charge. The FBI agent backed up against the wall and said, we don’t like to have “our people” subpoenaed. The old professor was also was paid by the FBI to allegedly oversee the actions of young Saudis. He was an FBI informant. FBI DELAYED THE subpoena seventy-two hours. BUT FBI LIED TO ME AND NEVER PROVIDED THE OLD PROFESSOR AS A WITNESS. From that point forward, they just ran the clock out until the session of Congress that we had legal authority to conduct our investigation ran out. And to my knowledge nobody has ever interviewed that man, who I think has a lot to say and to contribute to our understanding of the Saudi role in 9ll. He was last heard of in San Diego three or four years ago.

JAY: This must frustrate you — unable to finish your work and now it has left the public discourse. There’s no further inquiries.

GRAHAM: Reflecting on the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy–never solved. But My question is: what difference does it make? How is that relevant to any decision that we would be making today? In contrast, 9ll and 15 Saudis of the 19 hijackers had a financial and related support network and that has enormous current consequences, since the Saudi government was the source of financial, logistical support, provision of anonymity that allowed these people to stay in the country such a long time and go undiscovered. What does that mean to current USA-Saudi relations and USA Policies today?

Revealing the Saudi instigation of 9ll would completely overturn the premises upon which in our dealings with Saudi Arabia. — End the concept of the Saudis being a loyal ally of the United States. Instead the Saudis should be seen as prepared an enemy. USA GOV sold its soul to the worst Terrorists in the world causing the USA to lose the life of 3,000 people on 9ll.

NOTE: Recently we observed the 10 year anniversary of the TRUTH coming out about NO WMD’S in Iraq…….Bush and Cheney and NEOCONS LIED TO AMERICANS and the WORLD. On October 6, 2004, the head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), Charles Duelfer, announced they found no evidence that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had produced and stockpiled any weapons of mass destruction since 1991, when UN sanctions were imposed.

Click for Interview Video and Text of Interview of Senator Bob Graham by Paul Jay on The Real News Network

“Everything that the federal government has done since 9ll has had as one of its outcomes, if not its objectives—and I believe it was both outcome and objective—that the Saudis’ role has been covered (up).”

— Senator Bob Graham

“All three of them (co-chair of 9ll Congressional Joint Inquiry and two chairs of the citizen’s 9ll Commission) used almost the same word—implausible—that it is implausible that that could have been the case. Yet that has now become the conventional wisdom to the aggressive exclusion of other alternatives.”

— Senator Bob Graham — the Saudis likely financially supported Osama bin Laden’s operations to stop him from launching a campaign of civil unrest within Saudi Arabia as retaliation for allowing U.S. troops occupying the country during the first Gulf War.

Saudis’ “confidence in the fact the United States would not react, or that the United States would not go to the extremes that in fact it has to cover up their involvement, were sufficient to outweigh the reality that bin Laden had the capability and the will to topple the monarchy.”

— Senator Bob Graham

JAY: The media provided practically no discourse or debate on issues raised by your commission and published books on Saudi 9ll involvement. What do you make of that?

BOB GRAHAM, FMR U.S. SENATOR: It’s an mystery to me why something so important of justice for the historical record of Saudi involvement in 9ll and 3,000 American deaths was covered-up.

GRAHAM: 3,000 families and survivors of the victims of 9ll have been trying to get justice in a federal court for their losses. And in each instance, they have been turned away under the shield of sovereign immunity. You cannot sue Saudi Arabia. And the United States government has gone into the courthouse on the side of the Saudis, not on the side of the U.S. citizens who have lost so grievously.

GRAHAM: This Saudi issue is contemporary and has real impact and significance today. Major USA Corporate media has covered-up this critical issue worthy of in-depth investigation and dogged followthrough.

JAY: When the Saudis are asked about 9ll, former head of Saudi intelligence Turki says that the Saudi intelligence actually tried to warn the Bush administration that an attack was coming. They claim they told the Bush administration that they had specific information that something was coming and they were ignored, that there seemed to be no interest on the part of the Bush administration in what they had to say.

GRAHAM: I wouldn’t be surprised as the 9ll Commission called it a lack of imagination that something of this scale could occur in the USA, and therefore people sounding alarms that we were on the verge of it happening, they were largely ignored.

JAY: So when you say the Saudi state is involved, it’s somewhat contradictory if the head of intelligence is trying to warn the United States that it’s coming. Or do you see this as individuals in the government were involved and was this Saudi policy at the Highest levels? Or were these individuals involved in the government and royal family that are doing something sort of on their own?

FACT: Private entities, Saudi Individuals, and the public Saudi monarchy are one in the same = SAME SHIELD OF SOVEREIGN IMMUNITY is USED = A fully integrated Monarchy/Dictatorship.

GRAHAM: In cases where Americans have tried to sue SAUDI entities, including the government and private sector for alleged involvement in 9ll, the same shield of sovereign immunity has been raised by the Saudi government to protect everything that is of a Saudi origin — This is a fully integrated Monarchy/Dictatorship. It is therefore, legally impossible to say that everything that happens is an action of the government.

FACT: Senator Graham’s book “Intelligence Matters” describes how the 9ll committee traced the data points that connected Saudi government officials to 9ll hijackers.

JAY: Assuming you’re right about the Saudis, what’s was in 9ll for them?

GRAHAM: I wrote a novel called “Keys to the Kingdom” out of frustration that much of what I knew CANNOT be released to the American people. Every time it was suggested, it was immediately classified and rendered out-of-bounds. Another former high-ranking government official facing the same frustration, overcame it by writing a “novel” on it, and it got by the censors.

GRAHAM: In the novel I suggest answers that realistic. For example, we know in 1991 that bin Laden was very angry at the royal family for allowing USA troops on Saudi Arabian soil. His anger deepened by the fact he had offered to come to the defense of the kingdom using several tens of thousands of war-hardened troops he fought with him in Afghanistan against the Russians. OBL’s anger upset the royal family. So I wrote in the novel OBL said to the royal family, we will deal forcefully with the Americans, but we need your help in terms of assistance and support to maintain our operatives going to America. If you refuse to give us that support, then I’m going to launch civil unrest inside the kingdom of Saudi Arabia and your monarchy will be under the same threat that the former Shah of Iran was when he was toppled from power?

JAY: We know the Saudis took OBL’s threat pretty seriously, ’cause they actually made the American base move to Qatar.

GRAHAM: Yes. I’m suggesting something like that may have been the rational motivation for the Saudis funding the 19 hijackers to avoid OBL’s credible threat of civil unrest — Possible Toppling of the Saudi Monarchy/Dictatorship.

JAY: But the Saudis are no fools and know that whatever OBL might be able to throw at them is NOTHING compared to what USA could throw at Saudi Arabia. If the truth came out to Americans that the Saudi funded and supported 9ll — The Saudis must have known the USA GOV and MSM was going to protect the Saudis with a COVER-UP — should Americans became aware of SAUDIS funding the 3,000 DEATHS in 9ll.

GRAHAM: Would a country that had that kind of Power and Attitude towards the President of the USA to stand up for Saudi interests and protection NOT also have had that attitude towards the USA versus OBL and therefore felt the USA risk was Minimal inn comparison.

FACT: Saudi Arabia knew up front they were not going to be targeted by USA GOV for funding and supporting 9ll.

JAY: If instead of Saudi Arabia, it were Afghanistan then regime change would be quick and certain.

GRAHAM: Saudi level of confidence was great that the Bush Gov would not react and would not go to the extremes, but would instead cover up Saudi involvement were sufficient to outweigh the reality that OBL had the capability and the will to topple the monarchy.

JAY: OBL is quoted — That the plan was to suck the United States into a war in Afghanistan and, kind of Russian style, wear the United States out. And I think bin Laden apparently was a little disappointed that in fact the emphasis got moved to Iraq.

JAY: OBL wanted to tie American troops down in much bigger numbers on a massive scale in Afghanistan for decades and decades to bleed the American economy. The Saudis have to understand that’s his logic

GRAHAM: We talk a lot about the intelligence capabilities of al-Qaeda, but it is not very good. But the NSA uses that as an excuse to engage data mining of Americans and other high-tech intelligence gathering operations.

JAY: Assuming OBL’s intelligence and his math was wrong but the Saudis are in on this – Then the Saudis have to know the USA is going to come after somebody to pay for these 9ll murders. And the Saudis know the USA isn’t going to attack the Saudis — Since thee USA GOV protected and covered-up Saudis role. Saudis were confidence their role was going to be hidden and covered-up by the Bush Government. Whether they were told to be confident or not, their role was hidden; that much is a fact.

FACT: USA BUSH GOV protected and covered-up the Saudis’ funding and support role in 9ll – Evidence is overwhelming.

JAY: OBL and Saudis knew the next USA steps were a tie-down in Afghanistan, or understood the real target was Saddam in Iraq and they like both.

GRAHAM: Saudis know they are immune, and the USA is going to take its vengeance out someplace else.

JAY: Yes. More or less on Saddam Hussein.

GRAHAM: Yes. Saudis had a credible expectation from USA GOV that their role in 9ll would not be exposed. Everything the federal government has done since 9ll has had this as one of its outcomes or objectives — that the Saudis’ role has been covered.

GRAHAM: So Saudis calculated OBL was the much greater risk to the Monarchy’s Dictatorship than the USA attacking Saudi Arabia. Therefore the Saudi King took actions to avoid bin Laden attacking them — Saudis knew they were immune from the USA GOV attacking them.

JAY: Did Saudis share the objective of drawing the USA into endless wars, was NOT just out of fear of bin Laden — that they shared the NEOCON agenda? We know President Bush soon after his becoming President issued instructions to get ready for a war with Iraq. Since Prince Bandar is so close to President Bush that he sits in the living room smoking cigars; Would he be unaware of that’s where this would all lead?

GRAHAM: We’re now into the outer ranges of speculation. What we do know is the full extent of the Saudi role. We know some of the 19 hijackers were protected in San Diego by people who were employees of the Saudi government. And in Sarasota Florida three of the pilots of the planes were doing their flight training and at the same time were closely connected to a family of Saudis, very close to the royal family. We don’t know what was going on in Falls Church, Virginia and other places in New Jersey and Florida, where substantial numbers of hijackers were supported and housed. We do know the FBI has blocked the American people from knowing and understanding these incriminating facts.

JAY: Your main point is these 19 guys can’t do this without a support network, and you have evidence the support network was at least in part linked to the Saudi government and fully protected by the USA government.

GRAHAM: Yes. Confirmed by the other cochair (later Director of CIA) of the 9ll Congressional Joint Inquiry and the two chairs of the citizens’ 9ll Commission — Who agree it is IMPOSSIBLE that 19 people were able to plan, practice, and execute the complicated plot that was 9ll without any external support. All three experts used the same word, implausible.

FACT: It is implausible that 19 people did 9ll without a substantial financial and intelligence, and strategic and tactical support.

SAD FACT: Americans have been taught by MSM-GOV to believe 19 people pulled off 9ll by themselves when that is impossible = Now conventional wisdom ignoring known facts.

TOPIC: The role of the Bush administration after 9ll and before.

Click for Video and Text of Interview of Senator Bob Graham by Paul Jay on The Real News Network

FACT: The FBI withheld information about the support networks for several of the 9ll hijackers located through the United States and prevented the Congress from serving of a subpoena to a key witness.

JAY: There’s a lot of discussion and debate about what happened prior to 9ll and why more wasn’t done. In your book, you suggest–I think it’s a dozen points where if the intelligence agencies and the White House had worked better or more effectively, that this whole 9ll conspiracy might not have been successful. You write about the August 2001 presidential daily brief that became very well known during the 9ll committee hearings. Why is that so significant?

GRAHAM: During August 2001, the president took a vacation to his farm in Texas. But he continued to be briefed. One of those August daily briefings he was told that intelligence was sensing something serious occurring which could have dramatically adverse effects against the United States that could involve the use of airplanes in some attack — Title: “bin Laden plans to attack the United States.”

GRAHAM: Yes. It was a fairly stark and specific call. President Bush, from all evidence, ignored the warning and no steps were taken to try to dig deeper or to disrupt the plot that the intelligence agency warned was coming.

JAY: Condoleezza Rice sees the same memo and briefing, and apparently also does nothing. In your book, you lay out several things they could have done. For example?

FACT: All 19 hijackers on all four planes were not delayed or detected getting onto their flights — Same procedures as January to Sept 10, 2001.

JAY: At the 9ll hearings, Condoleezza Rice is asked about this presidential briefing, and she says, we didn’t think it had anything to do with anything specific; it seemed to be just some general thing that we already knew, that bin Laden had some plans to attack the United States; and we didn’t consider it all that significant.

JAY: You point out in your book something called the SEIB, the senior executive intelligence brief the President gets, but goes out to many more people. So the memo on bin Laden was ODDLY taken out of that distribution. Why on earth would they take it out?

GRAHAM: One explanation is they didn’t want a broadcast of the possibility that we might be under specific threat of terrorists using airplanes — Part of the broader strategy of reducing the knowledge to Americans about what might be occurring. Or it could have just been a judgment by the people who convert the presidential daily briefing, which goes to a very small group, and to the executive briefing, which goes to several hundred if not thousand people, that this was not an appropriate item to make as broadly available.

JAY: There seems to be a pattern of a culture created to stop inquiry into possible terrorist attacks. A documentary made about Richard Clarke, has Clarke saying he knew nothing about the two al-Qaeda operatives living in a San Diego house with an elderly Saudi man, an FBI informant — Clarke said he didn’t know anything about this at the time and he should have, because both the FBI knew and the CIA knew, and nobody told him. = “You have to intentionally stop it, you have to intervene and say, no, I don’t want that report to go. And I never got a report to that effect….If there was a decision made to stop normal distribution with regard to this case, then people like Tom Wilshire would have known that.”

JAY: It’s an alarming thing for Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism czar, to say that critical information is deliberately kept from him.

GRAHAM: He wasn’t the only one it was kept from. Our congressional investigation in late 2001 asked all the agencies to hold any information materials they had relevant to 9ll attack. We assumed that the agencies had complied with that. Summer of 2002, more than halfway through our investigation, we discovered information in the office of the San Diego FBI about the two hijackers who started in January 2000 in Kuala Lumpur, where some of the basic planning for what became 9ll was undertaken. They came into USA undistrubed.

The FBI says its just a coincidence out of the over 100 Middle Eastern restaurants in Los Angeles, they both ended up, on the same day, the same hour, in the same section of the restaurant. I find that to be incredible. These two men end up accepting the offer, come to San Diego. And that’s where they begin the process of preparing for 9ll.

JAY: It is well known the NSA’s been listening to foreign conversations for a long time. And given that bin Laden was number one on the FBI’s most wanted list, given that al-Qaeda had already attacked the Trade Center, and US embassy and the USS Cole, I mean, you’ve got to assume the NSA was doing everything they could to listen to anything to do with bin Laden, which would include the Saudis. Did you have any access to NSA? And did you try to get access to NSA logs or regulations for someone to come tell you what they might have heard?

GRAHAM: Yes. We found out that immediately after the two bombings in Africa, a person who’d survived that was interrogated, and tipped off the CIA that there was a listening station in Yemen which was sort of the hub of communications for the al-Qaeda network. We immediately started listening to that station. That’s how we found out that there was this meeting of terrorists in Kuala Lumpur. This is how we found out that al-Qaeda was going to attack a U.S. naval ship in the port of Aden. We learned a lot, in fact. We apparently did not learn about the big plot that became 9ll. Maybe bin Laden had a back channel form of communication and didn’t use his main hub to discuss that particular case.

JAY: Did you ask to see records of conversations by Saudis that might have been involved in this? Would that not be something one would want to see? If the Saudis were involved, they might be talking about it. Did you have access to NSA records from prior too 9ll. Did the NSA ever turn you down?

GRAHAM: Prior to 9ll, communications that took place in the planning and execution of the plot involving Saudis network was not evaluated by our committee. The only agency to my knowledge that withheld information was the FBI.

JAY: So you didn’t ask to see everything the NSA had?

GRAHAM: We asked them to hold everything. Our staff was organized around the major intelligence agencies. One group was assigned to the NSA, I feel comfortable that had they found something that would have been relevant to the question of the plot and who was involved and were there external forces, that we would have known about it.

JAY: You’re not concerned this same culture of protecting the Saudis might have acted like a filter there as well. If the NSA did have anything that implicated the Saudis, if there was a culture had been created not to implicate the Saudis, then maybe they wouldn’t have been so forthcoming.

GRAHAM: That question causes me to wish that we could turn the clock back to 2001 and 2002 and go into that issue. I assume, the NSA has maintained the records from that time period. And maybe even 12 years after the fact, there would still be the opportunity to find out what was known through intercepts about the plot.

JAY: So that leads me back to reopening a New 9ll inquiry — What are a few of the most pressing questions or lines of inquiry that should be followed?

GRAHAM:

Was there one or more entities that were assisting the 19 hijackers?
Most questions about support focus on the Saudis
What do we know or can we learn about the extent of Saudi involvement?
Was it limited to San Diego and Florida?
Was Virginia and New Jersey and others involved?
Why did the Saudis take this action?
Why did the USA GOV go to such lengths to disguise, to conceal Saudi involvement?
What other outside forces assisted the 19 hijackers?
What was the U.S. interest in withholding this from the American people?

JAY: The logic of what you’re saying leads to someone at the level of Prince Bandar knowing about 9ll. He is Saudi Ambassador to USA and its on his watch. Do you have any evidence that links Bandar to all of this?

GRAHAM: Some of that evidence I can’t talk about.

JAY: This is in the redacted pages.

GRAHAM: The fact he exercised as aggressively his special entrée at the White House raises questions on why he got 144 people of interest out of USA intelligence reach and law enforcement reach — And out of the USA before they could be interviewed.

JAY: I’m going to take what you said a little further — Bandar knew 9ll was going on, and he’s sitting and meeting with his friend President Bush regularly in the days leading up to 9ll and either not saying anything or somehow does. I think there is a lot of evidence that would at least require a New 9lll Inquiry.

JAY: Or is there a deliberate attempt not to know. It’s not just incompetency of the Keystone Cops intelligence agencies tripping all over each other. That is hard to believe.

GRAHAM: Fact is it was so pervasive across all USA intelligence agencies moving in the same direction, from a customs agent to the president of the USA authorizing large numbers of Saudis to leave the country, possibly denying us forever important insights and information on what happened. You don’t have everybody moving in the same direction without there being a head coach somewhere who was giving them instructions as to where he wants them to move.

JAY: That includes before and after the 9ll events.

GRAHAM: Primarily before the event. After the event, it shifts from being an action that supports the activities of the Saudis to actions that cover up the results of that permission given to the Saudis to act.

JAY: Would this new commission inquiry into whether President Bush and/or Vice President Cheney knew something might be coming and didn’t do anything about it, in fact may have actually taken action in the sense of creating a culture of not wanting to know?

GRAHAM: If there were evidence that they did in fact have reason to believe that this attack was about to occur and made a conscious decision to suppress that information –to my knowledge there is none–of course that would be a line of inquiry that would be central to answering the question of what was the Saudis’ role and why did the United States cover it up.

FACT: SENATOR BOB GRAHAM, “Although it’s been more than a decade ago (since 9ll) when this horrific event occurred, I think there remain real consequences to U.S. actions today.”