Twenty-five years after the Sept. 11, 2001 jihad attacks killed nearly 3,000 people, we still don’t have full knowledge of the nature and extent of the involvement of our friend and ally Saudi Arabia in those attacks. Now, that’s understandable under the present circumstances: during the ongoing conflict with the Shi’ite Islamic Republic of Iran, we don’t want to antagonize Sunni Saudi Arabia and thereby weaken our position against Iran when it can scarcely afford to be weakened. But at some point, the American people deserve to have answers on this, and one 9/11 widow has just called for them again.
Axios reported Friday that Terry Strada, whose husband, Tom Strada, was killed on that fateful day, “used the annual reading of the names of those killed to plead with the Trump administration about Saudi Arabian officials' alleged ties to the terror attack, which the kingdom has dismissed.”
Strada said: "For 25 years, administration after administration, including leaders in front of us here today, chose to protect the Saudis instead of standing with the 9/11 families. It has been one betrayal after another. President Trump can still change that. Tell the Saudis to stop lying. Tell them that if they want to be friends with the USA, they cannot continue to deny all of this, all of the pain, all of the destruction that we have all been suffering through."
That’s good advice. This has gone on long enough. The 28-page section of the 9/11 report detailing Saudi involvement in the attacks was finally released ten years ago (albeit with substantial portions still redacted), and it became clear why one president who held hands with the Saudi King and another who bowed to him worked so hard all these years to keep these pages secret: They showed that it was highly likely that the 9/11 jihad murderers received significant help from people at the highest levels of the Saudi government.
The report stated that Omar al-Bayoumi, who “may be a Saudi intelligence officer,” gave “substantial assistance to hijackers Khalid al-Mindhar and Nawaf al-Hamzi 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.”
Around the same time, 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.” That company “reportedly had ties to Usama bin Ladin and al-Qa’ida.”
Another possible Saudi agent, Osama Bassnan, who “has many ties to the Saudi government” and was also a supporter of Osama bin Laden, boasted that he did more for al-Mindhar and al-Hamzi than al-Bayoumi did. He also “reportedly received funding and possibly a fake passport from Saudi government officials.” The report says that at one point, “a member of the Saudi Royal Family provided Bassnan with a significant amount of cash,” and that “he and his wife have received financial support from the Saudi ambassador to the United States and his wife.”
That ambassador was Prince Bandar, about whom the New York Times later noted: “No foreign diplomat has been closer or had more access to President Bush, his family and his administration than the magnetic and fabulously wealthy Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia.”
Then there was Shaykh al-Thumairy, “an accredited diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and one of the ‘imams’ at the King Fahad mosque in Culver City, California,” who also “may have been in contact” with al-Mindhar and al-Hamzi.
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.” Who got him out of the country?
There was much more. The report redacts the name of “another Saudi national with close ties to the Saudi Royal Family,” but notes that he “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.”
Related: Could At Least This One Leftist Politician Actually Face Justice?
There is no telling who this could have been, but Prince Bandar’s unlisted phone number turned up in a phone book of Abu Zubaida, “a senior al-Qa’ida operative captured in Pakistan in March 2002.” Abu Zubaida also had the number of “a bodyguard at the Saudi Embassy in Washington, DC.”
The report also mentions a CIA memorandum that “discusses alleged financial connections between the September 11 hijackers, Saudi Government officials, and members of the Saudi Royal Family.” This memorandum was passed on to an FBI investigator; yet “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.” Why?
With this much smoke, there is almost certainly fire, but it has smoldered for a decade now since all that came out. Strada is correct that this information needs to be fully released, and there needs to be a further investigation as well: Why has this been covered up for so long? How can we trust the Saudis to be reliable allies now?
Editor’s Note: Every single day, here at PJ Media, we stand up and FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT against the radical Left and deliver the conservative reporting our readers deserve.
Help us continue to tell the truth about the Trump administration and its successes. Join PJ Media VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member