Oh. Just the usual stench coming out of the White House. Nothing to see here. Move along...
Saudi Government Provided Aid to 9/11 Hijackers, Sources Say
By Josh Meyer
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 2, 2003
WASHINGTON -- The 27 classified pages of a congressional report about Sept. 11 depict a Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups through suspect charities and other fronts, according to sources familiar with the document.
One U.S. official who has read the classified section said it describes "very direct, very specific links" between Saudi officials, two of the San Diego-based hijackers and other potential co-conspirators "that cannot be passed off as rogue, isolated or coincidental."
Said another official: "It's really damning. What it says is that not only Saudi entities or nationals are implicated in 9/11, but the [Saudi] government" as well.
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Some U.S. officials disagree sharply over whether key members of the Saudi royal family knowingly took action to support terrorist activity or simply showed a pattern of what one official called "willful ignorance."
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However one interprets the 27 pages, all who have read them agreed on one thing: If they are made public, they will prove extremely embarrassing not only to the Saudi government but also to the U.S. government, particularly to the FBI for missing so many clues pointing to Riyadh and for not aggressively investigating them, sources said.
"If this comes out, it will blow the top off the relations with [the Saudi] government because the American people will just be outraged," said one source familiar with the report.
"People don't know how much is in there and how specific it is," the source said. "The public hasn't gotten anywhere near the meat of it."
