The U.S. government and mainstream media are playing down the long-hidden 9/11 chapter on official Saudi connections to Al Qaeda’s hijackers, hoping most Americans won’t read it themselves, as 9/11 widow Kristen Breitweiser observes.
By Kristen Breitweiser
First and foremost, here is what you need to know when you hear any member of our government say the newly released 29-page chapter from the congressional 9/11 report contains no smoking gun — THEY ARE LYING.
Our government’s relationship to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is no different than an addict’s relationship to heroin. Much like a heroin addict who will lie, cheat and steal to feed his vice, certain members of our government will lie, cheat and steal to continue their dysfunctional and deadly relationship with the KSA — a relationship that is rotting this nation and its leaders from the inside out.
The World Trade Center’s Twin Towers burning on 9/11. (Photo credit: National Park Service)
When CIA Director John Brennan states that he believes the 29 pages prove that the government of Saudi Arabia had no involvement in the 9/11 attacks, recognize that John Brennan is not a man living in reality — he is delusional by design, feeding and protecting his Saudi vice.
When Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Anne W. Patterson, testifies — under oath — that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is an ally that does everything they can to help us fight against Islamic terrorism, recognize that her deep, steep Saudi pandering serves and protects only her Saudi vice.
Read the 29 pages yourself and know the facts. Do not let any person in our government deny the damning reality of the 29 pages. And as you read the 29 pages remember that they were written during 2002 and 2003. President George W. Bush did not want the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia investigated.
President Bush has deep ties to the KSA and its royal family and only wanted to protect the Kingdom. President Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq — not Saudi Arabia. So, a 29-page chapter that said “Saudi” and “Bandar” instead of “Hussein” and “Iraq” was a huge problem for President Bush. (The solution was to hide the information for 13 years.)
It is well documented that the Joint Inquiry received enormous push-back against its investigation into the Saudis. In fact, former FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged that much of the information implicating the Saudis that the Inquiry investigators uncovered was unknown to him. Why does Mueller say this? Mostly because Mueller and other FBI officials had purposely tried to keep any incriminating information specifically surrounding the Saudis out of the Inquiry’s investigative hands.
To repeat, there was a concerted effort by the FBI and the Bush Administration to keep incriminating Saudi evidence out of the Inquiry’s investigation. And for the exception of the 29 pages, they succeeded in their effort.
The Central Saudi Role
Notwithstanding the lack of cooperation from the FBI and the pressure from the Bush Administration to thwart any investigation of the Saudis, the Joint Inquiry was still able to write 29 pages regarding Saudi complicity in the 9/11 attacks. No other nation is given such singular prominence in the Joint Inquiry’s Final Report. Not Iraq. Not Iran. Not Syria. Not Sudan. Not even Afghanistan or Pakistan.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then Saudi ambassador to the United States, meeting with President George W. Bush in Crawford, Texas, on Aug. 27, 2002. (White House photo)
The 29 pages have been kept secret and suppressed from the American public for more than 13 years — not for matters of genuine national security — but for matters of convenience, embarrassment and cover-up. Executive Order 13526 makes that a crime.
Neither Director of National Intelligence James Clapper nor President Barack Obama wants to release a statement about that. The only thing Clapper and Obama are willing to say about the delayed release of the 29 pages is that they stand by the subsequent investigation of the 9/11 Commission.
This punt by President Obama is repulsive. His deference to the 9/11 Commission — which admitted that it was unable to fully investigate the Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks — reveals Obama’s utter lack of interest, engagement or support of the 9/11 families.
Frankly, this behavior re-victimizes the 9/11 families by not acknowledging the truth, blocking our path to justice, and the very vital assignment of accountability to those who should be held responsible.
Most alarmingly, Obama’s silence keeps us unsafe because instead of calling for an emergency session of Congress to immediately name the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism, President Obama continues to downplay, belittle and ignore the truth leaving us vulnerable to terrorist attacks that are still to this very day being funded by our “ally” – the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
To be clear, the 9/11 Commission did NOT fully investigate the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Staff Director Philip Zelikow blocked any investigation into the Saudis. Zelikow even went so far as to fire an investigator who had been brought over from the Joint Inquiry to specifically follow up on the Saudi leads and information uncovered in the Joint Inquiry. I will repeat — the investigator was fired.
In addition, Zelikow re-wrote the 9/11 Commission’s entire section regarding the Saudis and their connection to the 9/11 attacks. Former 9/11 Commissioners John Lehman, Bob Kerrey and Tim Roemer have all acknowledged that the Saudis were not adequately investigated by the 9/11 Commission. Thus, for any government official to hang his or her hat on the 9/11 Commission’s Final Report when Commissioners themselves have admitted that the Saudis were not fully investigated is absurd and disgraceful.
Ignored Evidence
For example, one glaring piece of information not mentioned in either the 9/11 Commission or the Joint Inquiry’s 29 pages is the information regarding Fahad Thumairy and Khallad bin Attash found in both an FBI report and a CIA report that are now declassified.
King Salman of Saudi Arabia and his entourage arrive to greet President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama at King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Jan. 27, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
Both reports indicate that Fahad Thumairy — a Saudi Consulate official — helped bring Khallad bin Attash into the United States in June of 2000 so he could meet with two of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi. Thumairy escorted bin Attash — a known Al Qaeda operative — through INS and Customs at Los Angeles International Airport evading security and any possible alarm bells. Again, this information is found in both a CIA and FBI report.
Four months after Khallad bin Attash met with the two 9/11 hijackers in Los Angeles, the USS Cole was bombed and 17 U.S. sailors were killed. Khallad bin Attash, Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi were all named as co-conspirators in the bombing of the USS Cole. Where is the information regarding bin Attash and Thumairy? Has it ever been investigated?
Had our intelligence agencies capitalized on the known connection between Thumairy and bin Attash, they would have been able to thwart the bombing of the USS Cole. In addition, they would have had access and the ability to weave together nearly all the pieces of the 9/11 attacks — more than nine months before the 9/11 attacks happened. But as history shows, Saudi Consulate official Fahad Thumairy was not investigated and 17 sailors in addition to 3,000 others were killed.
I’m sure that Barack Obama, John Brennan, Anne Patterson, and Philip Zelikow would all consider Thumairy’s operational and financial support of Attash, Mihdhar and Hazmi as within the threshold of being an “ally” of the United States. I, and the rest of America, would not.
I know summer is a busy time. I know that next week is the Republican Convention. I know that Congress is out of session for two months. And I know that ISIS attacks continue in Nice, Orlando, San Bernardino, Belgium, Paris and more. Just like I know that Donald Trump picked Mike Pence as his running mate and that there was a coup in Turkey.
For an Administration looking to dump some insanely incriminating evidence and have nobody take notice — doing it on Friday when Congress was leaving for their two-month summer recess was probably the best day anyone could have imagined.
The Long Stonewall
But the world is an unstable, crazy place. And, while I used to think I was safe because my government was looking out for me and making decisions that were in my best interests and that of other citizens, I now know better. For 15 long years, I have fought to get information regarding the killing of my husband from the U.S. government.
King Salman greets the President and First Lady during a state visit to Saudi Arabia on Jan. 27, 2015. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
I have fought, pleaded and begged for the truth, transparency, justice and accountability because my husband and 3,000 others were brutally slaughtered in broad daylight. And our government has done nothing but block, thwart, impede and obstruct that path to truth, transparency, accountability and justice.
Even going so far as to gaslight us to this very day by denying the plain truth written on the plain paper of the 29 pages. Please read the 29 pages. Look at the facts and evidence. And then watch the venal way various members of our government and media play spin-master on those facts — telling you to deny the very harsh, sobering reality found within those 29 pages. I hope their gaslighting disgusts you as much as it disgusts me.
Note that these 29 pages merely detail the Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks in San Diego. They briefly touch on the Phoenix information, as well. Though more notably, the 29 pages do not include information found in the more than 80,000 documents that are currently being reviewed by a federal judge in Florida — 80,000 documents that not the 9/11 Commission, not the Joint Inquiry, not the White House (from Clinton to Bush to Obama), and not the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia want us to know about.
More than anything, please know this: The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia provided operational and financial support to the 9/11 hijackers. That is a fact. And, the U.S. government has been covering up that fact for 15 years — even to this very day. And that is a crime.
Corruption, greed, and vice, specifically as it pertains to protecting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is not a one-party problem. It spans both Democratic and Republican administrations. Blame President Bill Clinton, President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama — as well as, all of their officials and appointees.
They are ALL to blame — before and after the fact — for failing to prevent the 9/11 attacks, helping to facilitate the 9/11 attacks through their own abject negligence, using the 9/11 attacks to further ill-begotten gains and goals, and covering-up the 9/11 attacks by not coming clean with the American public for 15 years.
Kristen Breitweiser is a 9/11 widow and activist who – working with other 9/11 widows known collectively as the “Jersey Girls” – pressured the U.S. government to conduct a formal investigation into the terror attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Follow Kristen Breitweiser on Twitter: www.twitter.com/kdbreitweiser. [This article originally appeared as a blog post at HuffingtonPost. 9/11 widows Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, Lorie Van Auken, and Patty Casazza also sign their names to this blog.]
the real problem with the “28 pages” is they only describe part of the smokescreen story/fable where 19 people “hijacked” some “airliners”.After viewing countless videos I have seen no proof that any commercial jets were hijacked on 9/11. If you watch the socalled “2nd impact” you will see a dark plane with no airline lettering disappearing into the wtc while leaving NO DEBRIS to fall onto the street. There were NO hijack signals triggered,the black box info shows the pilots doors were closed at all times,the pilots were over six ft tall ex soldiers with martial arts experience and outweighed the no-jackers by about 70 lbs etc etc etc. the Saudi involvement was to fund and provide bodies for the cover story only (with help from the cia station in Jedda s.a. who provided most of the no-jackers with visas). there is not a shred of doubt that the cia, fbi et al knew about these plans as they were the ones who made the event (and its accompanying smokescreen/sideshow) happen. on top of all this, every participant got PROMOTED after 9/11 despite the govts sob story about how its failures and incompetence made this possible.if that were true then wouldnt these people have been fired?
I appreciate the writers efforts but the real enemies are to be found in the Carlyle Group,the Trilateral Commission(nice research a few comments back), the Project for a New American Century and others. note the same names show up in each group – these are the ones who killed their fellow Americans and they have the bank accounts to prove it.
Kristen Breitweiser has written an article which is historic. Readers of the article might find it impossible to deny or debate the fact that human beings responsible for the murder of over 3,000 on September 11, 2001 – and measuring in the hundreds of thousands afterward, up to and including the present moment – are today free, armed, dangerous and still committing war crimes. The logical response to Ms. Breitweiser’s thorough, important, morally righteous writing is one’s recognizing 9/11 as the yet unsolved crime of mass murder, that the criminals are yet to become identified and prosecuted, and that failure in exposing the 100% truth of this matter is clearly one more crime against humanity. For the sake of this and future generations, may God/Creator grant the wisdom required for right action.
governments and ruling classes lie – duh? – but left out of all these charges and speculations is the question of why the saudi ruling government, receiving billions in military aid and more billions for its oil, would want to attack the usa? even assuming there was a case of wide ranging familial dementia among the ruling despots which led them to believe an act of terror against the usa would give them some advantage at a psycho ward, might not a less genetically related and slightly more secular employee with knowledge of book keeping and finance not have pointed out that they’d suffer massive financial, if not nuclear destruction as a result of acting on such dementia?
please note that communication, even of an intimate nature, between a later hijacker and a saudi government official no more means government involvement than the fact that american veterans of the iraqi war have committed terrorist acts in america means that since they were employed by the american government they were necessarily in league with that government when they murdered some police officers or blew up a building .
what is far more than likely is that the 19 saudis who took part in the terror attack were not very fond of the saudi regime and in fact hated it but just hated america more because it was destroying their lands and cultures while making the regime they hated stronger..the fact that someone inside the government may have felt the same way should not send us off to the inside job conspiracy adventures that allow us to continue blowing the middle east to bits, slaughtering its people,creating refugees, and when one or another of them blows his top and kills us, go looking for another “inside” job.
the problem is inside america, indeed, and we’d better solve it before one of the people we drive crazy is able to nuke us while we sit around trying to figure out which conspiracy is causing all our problems
Philip Zelikow (head of the 9/11 Commission) and Condi Rice (National Security Advisor) were both members of the David Rockefeller founded Trilateral Commission. David Rockefeller also built the Twin Towers, with his brother Nelson, the Governor of New York at that time.
From PBS:
From the Trilateral Commission Membership List of Jan. 2013:
Americans are intellectually lazy. We have a pigeon hole for everything, and when it doesn’t fit, we condemn the truth teller for conspiracy theory.
Ignorance is strength, and “good” Americans ignore truth the way a child ignores strangers.
I am fascinated by the simile “Americans ignore truth the way a child ignores strangers”. Of course to ignore something is at the same time to know it is there. So the idea is that some people know the truth is something other than what they are willing to acknowledge, so they ignore it. I guess cognitive dissonance can be difficult to handle.
If we, the bewildered herd, ignore the truth, maybe it will just go away……
When I first heard a few days afterward that 15 of the 19 9/11 hijackers were Saudi Arabian, I immediately suspected that country and have ever since, and now the smoking gun comes out……interesting…..
Where do you get that? I don’t think WSJ ever blamed KSA. There was some speculation in the days after 9/11, which disappeared, and then was denounced. After that, and throughout the Iraq War II, not the least squeak from mass media on KSA involvement in anything, despite its long border with the Sunni Anbar province.
This article rightly points out a lot of horrid facts that “our” government does not care about. But I think the more interesting question is “what do they care about?” … and why?
U. S. historical memory is saturated with the lies of government and politicians. The list is too lengthy to develop but extends from the Gulf of Tonkin lies that led to the Vietnam War to the lies that produced the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan which left 1.3 million dead . Not to mention the lies about Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Libya, Syria, Korea and the Ukraine. What hasn’t the government lied about? Ms. Breitweiser’s courageous and valid commentary exposes once again the decline of the democratic state.
Added to this list of government lies and cover ups should be the death of our beloved President in Dallas on November 22, 1963, by the CIA. Sources: Douglas, JFK AND THE UNSPEAKABLE, and Talbot, THE DEVIL’S CHESSBOARD.
This is the most articulate, accurate and courageous article I have ever read. The writer challenges me and all citizens of this planet to step up, stop wallowing in our addictions and appetites, get busy and start studying and then follow up with action that will probably require some spine and sacrifice.
Thank you ms. Breitweiser.
“And then watch the venal way various members of our government and media play spin-master on those facts.”
Can there be anyone more venal than Hillbillious Clinton? The Saudis contributed $10 million to the Clinton Foundation before she became Secretary of State. FBI Director James Comey would never investigate the Clinton Foundation corruption,as there is no way he could rationalize a decision not to recommend prosecution.
Ms. Breitweiser, truly, I will read the pages, this is a topic I just can’t ignore.
The arrant corruption unfolding in stages disquiets the soul and enrages the mind,
Before this event there were other transgressions, smaller in scale, but equally vile,
The list would require perplexing digressions, the tales are complex, the facts intertwined.
While I know I could tell them I fear I would fail – should the evil I speak of dissolve in detail-
Dens of assassins and treacherous teams, colluding in secret and boiling schemes,
Pale riders intent on nefarious acts for the power or lucre that treachery seeds-
Comrades betrayed by concealment of facts when the lie was much harder to sell…
Creeds glorified in the words taken lightly, hypocrisy’s triumph defiles the oath,
Smug and pretentious they offer politely to denigrate loyalty comrades would heed.
Both craven and spiteful, mendacity serves to enhance the ambition deception refines.
Justice exceeds what the traitor deserves leaving victims to pay the unspeakable debt.
Lines were once written in tragic detail, but the story is one few have courage to tell.
The author grew old and his death would prevail, but the crime of the century begs to be told.
Well calculated, the lies would endure, the journalist’s words are now almost forgotten.
Traitors evaded with plots to obscure, you’d recognize names, that’s a wager secure,
Misbegotten reward paid a glorified knight, a hero applauded in spite of the fraud.
Schanberg would write it and fight the good fight, but no paper would print it, afraid of the scorn.
Flawed by the infamy Schanberg describes, the nation may choose to pretend it’s a lie,
Embittered and hardened by false diatribes, the truth is a threat to the fearful and jaded.
Try, if you will, to return me this pledge, It’s a less daunting task than the twenty eight pages.
It may serve to bolster the truth they allege, the tale Schanberg told hits as hard as a sledge.
Rage is a powerful cure for inaction, it passes then yields to encouraging trends.
If you find that the story inspires reaction, then please pass it on to your friends.
http://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-the-legacy-of-sydney-schanberg/
American Pravda: The Legacy of Sydney Schanberg, Ron Unz July 13, 2016
http://www.unz.com
Schanberg and Unz spread the lie that Vietnam never released “hundreds” of American POWs after 1973. Schanberg also concocted the “Kmer Rouge Killing Fields” lie to cover 1,000,000 Cambodian civilians murdered by USAF area bombing of rural Cambodia(2.8 million TONS of bombs 1969-1973).
Thank you Kristen for your perseverance, courage, and sense for truth and justice. I am sorry that painful realizations and conclusions have resulted in the writing of this essay for you.
It is remarkable that Philip Zelikow, the Bush Administration, and the F.B.I. blocked investigation into Saudi involvement. Really!? Simply to cover against embarrassment? Covering tracks that intertwine with and lead back to where, I wonder?
It would have been remarkable had Saudi officials been running a heavy operation without Bandar Bush knowing. It was remarkable that Bandar Bush had the pull to get his connections out of the country when no one else could fly and questions needed to be asked and answered.
So the Saudis run intelligence assets. So does the C.I.A.
Yes, but remarkable, if the Saudis were persuaded that they should attack the US on behalf of the US right wing, that they could be assured that they would get away with it. Right after 9/11 it was known that the 9/11 attackers were all Saudi nationals, that Usama bin Laden was a Saudi national, that many Saudis including several Bin Laden family members fled the US under Bush protection that same day, and that the US had all but created Al Qaeda by sponsoring Bin Laden against the USSR in Afghanistan. But the oligarchy media completely ignored all of that.
Yet when the oligarchy decided to attack Iraq, there was no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in 9/11, nor any one of the oligarchy claims against it. Yet the Bushites and their mass media went ahead with nothing but more lies.
If anyone should be in Guantanamo, it is the entire right wing clan of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perl, Feith, and many others. Execution for treason would most likely be quite appropriate.
Mrs. Breitweiser, you are so right!
left unsaid, is that this leads to the obvious next question : ‘we’ HAD to have known of this, THEREFORE it is inescapable that some portion of govt actors/leaders WERE orchestrating the whole thing as a false flag attack…
looked at from that perspective, a LOT of the otherwise inexplicable actions of supposed super-patriots guiding the investigation, etc make ‘sense’ from a cover up perspective, but NON SENSE from a sincere and earnest investigation perspective…
yeah- what more could be obvious? we have competitive truthers, like 911/truth, a and e truth, and now Judy Wood and dustification. all this, no matter which group you prefer is screaming “inside job” clearly the cooperation with the Saudis had to be part of the plan, as the whole idea was to sell it as “planes hit the towers and they fell” and those planes had to be somehow linked to terrorists. Our leaders did not “fail to prevent” the attacks, they orchestrated them
“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia provided operational and financial support to the 9/11 hijackers. That is a fact. And, the U.S. government has been covering up that fact for 15 years — even to this very day. And that is a crime.
“Corruption, greed, and vice, specifically as it pertains to protecting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, is not a one-party problem. It spans both Democratic and Republican administrations.”
And the leaders of both parties, including our presidents, members of Congress and corporate CEOs have no problem sending others to do their fighting for them while they stay safely at home, away from the battle; enjoying life, eating well, staying cool in the summer, warm and dry in the winter, making more money and sleeping and having sex with their wives and girlfriends while the blood of “our fine American men and women” flows out of their wounded and dead bodies in some foreign land.
Your point is especially apt as it cannot be coincidence that Congress was just leaving for a luxurious vacation when:
1. the US attempted a regime change in Turkey to prevent a Turkey-Russia deal; and
2. the 29 pages were released to distract attention from the regime change or its failure.
Now Congress can have quiet vacation and let the media tire out those issues before they return.
Perhaps we can suppose that Saudi campaign bribes were not keeping up with the Israelis. They will have to get busy before the election to avoid calls for an inquisition.
Thank you, Kristen, for your persistence and ultimate success in exposing the lies.
The 29 pages redacted are very incriminating indeed, but not really conclusive against the Saudi regime itself (although anyone else would be in Guantanamo). There are calls for more investigation, and the evidence certainly calls for that.
So what happened? If the admin wanted further investigation, and at last the redaction is released, the people will want to know. Were the results of subsequent investigation also released? Apparently no investigation was conclusive; but was there even an investigation?
If not, what does this tell us about the relationship between the US, Suaudi Arabia, and Israel?
You articulate exactly the most important question here: was there any follow up by the FBI or CIA?
This is what the report says: “It was not the task of the 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 …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.
Did the FBI or CIA do an “investigative review” and conduct “appropriate investigative and intelligence action”? I have not seen any indication that this happened. Basically, the information can be labelled as “not independently verified” because no one actually followed up.
Fifteen years of non-stop war and the steady dissolution of the Constitution, and major information regarding a true understanding of the 9-11 attacks has been buried and apparently deliberately ignored. No one is accountable. There needs to be huge public pressure on Congress to get to the bottom of this.