Former Senator Bob Graham Urges Obama to Reopen Investigation into Saudi Role in 9/11 Attacks

[marmar]

from Democracy Now!:




.....(snip).....

AMY GOODMAN: .......Senator Bob Graham, welcome to Democracy Now! Let’s start with this new information that we have learned. It may not be new information to the government, but talk about this Saudi couple in Sarasota, Florida.

BOB GRAHAM: Thank you, Amy, and good morning.

One of the questions around 9/11 is whether these 19 hijackers were operating alone or whether they had a support network that assisted them and gave them anonymity. It’s been my feeling that it was very unlikely that they could have been successful without such a network. We know a great deal about the network component that existed in San Diego. What we’ve just learned is about another pod of this network in Sarasota. What we know to date is that there was a wealthy Saudi family living in a gated community near Sarasota, which had numerous contacts with Atta, the leader of the hijackers, and two others who were doing their pilot training near Sarasota. We also know that this family left the United States under what appear to be very urgent circumstances on August the 30th, 2001, just before 9/11.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And is there any indication why this information was never revealed to the September 11th Commission?

BOB GRAHAM: No, but the same was true in San Diego. The FBI, although they were asked to provide the congressional inquiry all the information they had about 9/11, did not tell us about these extensive contacts—contacts in San Diego. It was because we had a very curious and effective investigative team, which went to San Diego and was able to uncover the relationship between, particularly, a key Saudi agent living in San Diego and the first two hijackers to have entered the United States. ........(more)

The complete piece (in audio, video and transcript formats) is at: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/9/15/former_senator_bob_graham_urges_obama

[rhett o rick]

1. R&K

[DesertFlower]

2. K&R. nt

[Cirque du So-What]

3. '...any indication why this information was never revealed to the September 11th Commission?'

The $64,000 question, and I'd bet the whole wad that the trail leads right to BushCo and the neocons. On second thought, I'll split my bet, putting half on the likelihood that some info, as it becomes 'uncovered,' has been discussed already on this board, but will be treated as 'new.'

[yurbud]

8. read the Vanity Fair article on the 9/11 Commission and Saudis

they were forced to cut their section on it at the last minute, probably to avoid prevent Bush from being embarrassed by having to censor it like he did the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11's Saudi section, that CIA agent Bob Baer said would change our relationship with them overnight if the public found out what it said.

[Enthusiast]

4. Kicked and recommended! nt

[Uncle Joe]

5. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[yurbud]

6. so the former chair of the intelligence committee isn't going to be called a crank?

The only thing the MSM can do to keep this down is not discuss it since it would be tough to discredit Graham.

[Fuddnik]

7. Yep

Graham is one of the good guys. A bit too conservative for my tastes, but he's the kind of guy, you can never question his motivations. He's just real. Nothing phony about him.

Yeah, they'll just ignore him.

They had a lot of fun, laughing about his obsessive note taking. Who he met. What they talked about. Even what kind of jelly he put on his toast. But, when he came up with stories about how the Generals were lying about the wars, and had notes from previous interviews to back him up, they forgot all about that.

[tropicanarose]

9. Why is it that the mainstream media isn't all over this? It wasn't picked up in Chicago at all. rop

This whole revelation is very important. There must be a reason.

[Doctor_J]

10. That wouldn't be very "forward-looking" or "bipartisan"

so I expect nothing from the Obama WH