Florida Bulldog Points to Yet Another Classified U.S. Intelligence Report on Saudi Royal Family Ties to Terrorism

PRESS RELEASE

Florida Bulldog Points to Yet Another Classified U.S. Intelligence Report on Saudi Royal Family Ties to Terrorism

July 19, 2016 (EIRNS)—Florida Sen. Bob Graham summed up the situation after the public release last Friday of the long-classified 28 pages of the report by the Congressional Joint Inquiry into 9/11, in an admonition reported by Florida Public Radio station WFSU yesterday evening:

"I’ve described it as being like pulling the cork out of the bottle. You’re happy that you’ve opened the bottle, but we’ve got a lot of work to do with the liquid that’s inside that bottle."

Florida Bulldog intrepid editor Dan Christensen today published a new article, pointing to yet more "liquid inside that bottle." Christensen draws attention to a one-page "Executive Summary" of a September 2005 "joint FBI-CIA intelligence report assessing the nature and extent of Saudi government support of terrorism," which Director of National Intelligence James Clapper released last Friday, along with the redacted 28 pages.

According to Christensen, the existence of the 2005 assessment was previously unknown; Congress had required it be produced in a classified annex of the Intelligence Authorization Act for fiscal year 2004. Not only were significant sections of the released one-page summary blacked out, but so was half of the one-paragraph, accompanying transmittal letter for the annex signed by FBI’s Robert Mueller and CIA director Porter Gross!

The Executive Summary’s attempted whitewash of the Saudis

("there is no evidence that either the Saudi government or members of the Saudi royal family knowingly provided support for the attacks of 11 September 2001 or that they had foreknowledge of terrorist operations in the Kingdom or elsewhere"

(emphasis added), is followed by the admission that:

"There is evidence that official Saudi entities, [blacked out] and associated nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), provide financial and logistical support to individuals in the United States and around the world, some of whom are associated with terrorism-related activity.... The Saudi government and many of its agencies have been infiltrated and exploited by individuals associated with or sympathetic to Al-Qaida."

Christensen’s article, "28 Pages Connect Saudi Prince To Al Qaeda Leader, Supporters Of 9/11 Hijackers," otherwise features new leads to Florida contained in the 28 pages, and rubs in the Saudi Royal Family to the Bush family.

"The Saudi ambassador who met with President George W. Bush at the White House two days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001 had connections to a major al-Qaeda figure and other Saudis suspected of helping two of the suicide hijackers while they were in the United States,"

the Bulldog story opens, illustrated by a picture of Dick Cheney, Prince Bandar, Condi Rice, and G.W. Bush sitting—appropriately—on the Truman Balcony of the White House on Sept. 13, 2001.