The Commission report is out... You can find a lot of commentary on it here (I will probably point to certain things later), but what hasn't been noted is the complete and utter devastation of the Mikey/Unger claims about the Saudi flights. Scroll down to page 329 (and read the footnotes) to see... Will try to include quotes later...
Some highlights for now:
- Clarke is confirmed as the highest ranking person involved in putting the flights together...
- There were no matches between those on the flights and people under investigation...
- Two had been under investigation but their cases had been closed...
- No evidence found that the State Department hampered the FBI...
- No evidence of any "political intervention"...
- The way it was handled made it easier for the FBI to check up on and interview the people on the flights...
- The "bin Laden flight" was about a week after airports were reopened...
- The so-called "phantom flight" has a perfectly plausible explanation (in the footnotes) and it took place hours after both airports were opened...
STEPHANOPOULOS: You said you have one retired FBI agent in the movie, Jack Cloonan, I think his name is. But here's the 9/11 commission report. It says, "The FBI has concluded that nobody was allowed to depart on these six flights that the FBI wanted to interview in connection with the 9/11 attacks, or who the FBI later concluded had any involvement in those attacks. To date, we have uncovered no evidence to contradict those conclusions." Do you have any reason to doubt the credibility of the 9/11 commission?Flashback 2:MOORE: Well, first of all, that's their preliminary report. This is not the final report.
Moore: "They were asked for their passports. They were asked a couple of questions and that's it."I suggest this is nearly as (if not just as) devastating to Mikey and Unger as the Senate Intelligence/Butler reports were to Smoke-Blowin' Joe...Lauer: "The 9/11 Commission perhaps disputes that."
Moore: "No they don't."
Lauer: "They say 22 of 26 people on those flights were interviewed."
Moore: "They have not issued a final report on that."
UPDATE: Some quotes:
Three questions have arisen with respect to the departure of Saudi nationals from the United States in the immediate aftermath of 9/11: (1) Did any flights of Saudi nationals take place before national airspace reopened on September 13, 2001? (2) Was there any political intervention to facilitate the departure of Saudi nationals? (3) Did the FBI screen Saudi nationals thoroughly before their departure? First, we found no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001.24 To the contrary, every flight we have identified occurred after national airspace reopened.[...]UPDATE II: No mas for Mikey on the pipeline either...Second, we found no evidence of political intervention.We found no evidence that anyone at the White House above the level of Richard Clarke participated in a decision on the departure of Saudi nationals. The issue came up in one of the many video teleconferences of the interagency group Clarke chaired, and Clarke said he approved of how the FBI was dealing with the matter when it came up for interagency discussion at his level. Clarke told us,“I asked the FBI, Dale Watson . . . to handle that, to check to see if that was all right with them, to see if they wanted access to any of these people, and to get back to me.And if they had no objections, it would be fine with me.” Clarke added,“I have no recollection of clearing it with anybody at the White House.” Although White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card remembered someone telling him about the Saudi request shortly after 9/11, he said he had not talked to the Saudis and did not ask anyone to do anything about it. The President and Vice President told us they were not aware of the issue at all until it surfaced much later in the media. None of the officials we interviewed recalled any intervention or direction on this matter from any political appointee.[...]
Third, we believe that the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights. The Saudi government was advised of and agreed to the FBI’s requirements that passengers be identified and checked against various databases before the flights departed. The Federal Aviation Administration representative working in the FBI operations center made sure that the FBI was aware of the flights of Saudi nationals and was able to screen the passengers before they were allowed to depart.[...]
The FBI interviewed all persons of interest on these flights prior to their departures.They concluded that none of the passengers was connected to the 9/11 attacks and have since found no evidence to change that conclusion. Our own independent review of the Saudi nationals involved confirms that no one with known links to terrorism departed on these flights.
UPDATE III: Lautenberg misleads...
Posted by Henry Hanks at July 22, 2004 04:23 PM | TrackBack