Joel Mowbray points out a glaring omission in the much-flawed but elephantine 9/11 report. From the Washington Times, with thanks to Jeffrey Imm:
In an epic-sized 567-page report, the September 11 commission glossed over one of the most important aspects of the attack: All 19 of the hijackers entered the United States on legal visas, even though at least 15 of them didn't qualify under the law. And the panel mostly shrugged off the U.S. policy that Saudis were granted easier access to visas than any other Arab country.The commission's latest interim report emphasizes, perhaps unintentionally, the importance of easy visas to the September 11 plot. The panel revealed that one of the biggest difficulties faced by al Qaeda was getting Osama bin Laden's hand-picked hijackers into the United States — unless they were Saudis.
So easy visa access for Saudis cleared a major obstacle: Had al Qaeda had even one more hijacker, the White House or the Capitol might have met a different fate that day.
Three non-Saudis identified by the commission tried and failed to receive visas, including the would-be fifth pilot, Ramzi bin al Shieb, a Yemeni national. September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed didn't even bother having two other Qaeda operatives selected by bin Laden to apply for visas.
Why? Because, as an earlier staff statement noted, "It soon became clear to KSM [Khalid Sheikh Mohammed] that the other two operatives, Khallad bin Attash and Abu Bara al Taizi — both of whom had Yemeni, not Saudi, documentation — would not be able to obtain U.S. visas."
Afforded only a brief mention — buried in a footnote on page 492 — was a reference to what Mr. Mohammed reportedly told U.S. interrogators last year: that 15 of the hijackers were Saudis because they had the easiest time getting visas.
The Saudi visa policy was the natural result of the "courtesy culture," an effort spearheaded by the head of Consular Affairs, Mary Ryan, which started with her appointment in 1993. The goal was simple: make "customer" service and satisfaction the top priority in visa policy, where the "customer" was not American national security.
When will we wake up, stop kissing their back side and realize that they hate us. The only thing they want from us is our money. I would rather not get anymore oil from them, pay more for it and let them drink what we were purchasing.
Should hope Mary Ryan is taking the Consular rap for this glaring blunder or is it another case of
a light tap on the wrist!!To hell with Saudi oil money and influence.They may smile at the Infidels in public while they gloat over 9/11
in private. Saudi Arabia funds the plotters and terrorists still, despite Princely denials. Serve them right if Osama B. did bring down this rotten
Kingdom. They're neither friends nor true allies of
America and the West.
If R&D money is made available to inventors, auto companies given money to change the way engines work, more emphasis placed on the hydrogen engine, diesel fuel, hemp fuel, etc., they would be drinking their oil. Both parties are to blame for the "lack of imagination" that has become the norm.
ANother example of how everything SAUDI is fastracked in the US.
This has been a shameful scandal of all administrations.
How can Saudi Arabia NOT be on the 'axis of evil' after all the harm it has created for Anericans everywhere!!
They will never stop until America becomes al-merica.
Why are the Medina clerics allowed to flood in on saudi passports?
When is this issue going to be addressed by an administration?
One decent item that comes from all of this is the fact that the American public is becoming more and more aware of the fork tongued, lying, back biting Saudis and the fact that they've been behind the 7th century terrorist plague that infests the world now.
Are Americans waking up to the fact that we are nothing more than Oil Whores to the Middle Eastern Oil Barons? "OH Lord" We should be saying, What are we doing? Sacrificing (read this as SELLING) our security, honor and strength to a bunch of Oil Brokering Middle Eastern Trolls that hate our guts and wish to see us dead (in obedience to their Troll God)?
How could we have sunk to this level? Why have we allowed our lust for bigger cars, better services and faster transport of goods to bring us to this point? What point? The Point where we need to bow and scrape before rank barbarians and deny the reality that they are slowly but surely plotting to kill us?
Let's all gather around the campfire and sing Kum Byah and decide to park our SUVs, Tighten our belts, Take carpooling seriously and dig in for the long haul...Lets choose to Boycott Middle Eastern OIL. Let's choose close our borders to all Middle Easterers and to withdraw ALL Americans, military and civilian from the entire Middle East Starting YESTERDAY...
Oil? Who needs it? We can be inconvenienced if it means cutting the golden ties that the Middle East has wrapped around our "nether regions" and that they use to lead us to the place where we are nothing more than oil junkies, whoring ourselves, so we can "live large"?
It is time to take America BACK...To show the Middle east what happens when we choose NOT to be whores any more...Let them scramble for a place to store their "black gold"...Let them Fill their swimming pools with it! Let them figure out how to build more storage tanks WITHOUT American Materials, Workers or Engineers!!
When no one wants to buy what they sell perhaps this will illustrate for them the result of being a hate and death motivated society and they will put a gag on their Crazy radical Imams??
$40.00 a barrel My foot! Let this play out for 6 months and we will either be paying $10.00 a barrel or Detroit and Academia will be coming up with some alternate energy and transport sources that WORK...Sometimes it takes REAL Motivation to spur creativity and invention.
Sure we will have to suffer a bit...But then isn't paying $3.00 a gal for Gas and wondering if the train or plane you are riding on is going to be your coffin a form of suffering we are already doing?? What is wrong with slowing down a bit to take back the Honor and Pride that were the foundations of America in the first place….
Sure this is a radical solution…But It takes radical actions to counter radical nations.
PS: Off Topic but, mark these words: the French are going to RUE the day they allowed their people to spit on Lance Armstrong!
BTW Get More like Lance and we can seriously cut back on our saudi addiction
I believe the spitters were Germans but still where was inspector Cluseau?
Lance should go straight back to Texas and tell the french to piss OFF!In fact US should boycott the bloody tour next year!
Back On T: this from israpundit
re Saudi money trail on 911
http://israpundit.com/archives/007709.html#more
Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek" reports federal sources tell him they've got the goods on a money trail that goes right back to the Saudi establishment and a Bush family intimate. Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi arrived in Los Angeles after attending an al-Qaeda session in Malaysia where they got their Sept. 11 marching orders. They arrived in Los Angeles and received a welcoming mat from Omar Al Bayoumi, another Saudi national. Bayoumi threw a party for the boys and paid the rent on the apartment they used.
"Newsweek" learned Bayoumi was getting payments at the time of $3,500 a month from an account at the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. When he left the United States in July, 2001 the checks kept coming and the terrorists got a new paymaster. He was Osama Basnan, a known al-Qaeda sympathizer who threw a party the night of Sept. 11 and proclaimed, "What a wonderful, glorious day it has been."
Folks,
I’d like to make a comment, due to the “conventional wisdom” that if we use alternative fuels, that we’ll somehow inhibit Islamic terrorism. Like most simplistic ideas, it sounds great in theory, but fails miserably in application.
Just to make a rough estimate, there are at least a half billion vehicles in the United States that burn oil-based fuels. Buildings alone burned over 1.3 billion gallons of fuel oil in 1999. Oil-based fuel light-duty vehicles are going to be on the road in significant quantities for at least another 15-20 years, and I’ve seen scant evidence of fuels that can be used as a fuel source for heavy vehicles that currently burn diesel, fuel oil, and bunker oil. So to phase out significant quantities of oil consumption just here in the United States, we’re talking a 15-20 year horizon, though we might become self-sufficient within that time period.
But even if we were able to switch the entire US oil-based economy to hydrogen tomorrow, it wouldn’t shut down the Middle East. While it is true that the United States is the largest single consumer of oil by a wide margin, 14 other nations use a minimum of a million barrels, per day. The international market for oil would hardly dry up, nor would the Islamic capacity for hatred.
People making the oil argument also forget that Middle Eastern nations are also sitting on top of other important energy resources, most notably natural gas. Iran, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia rank 1-2-3 in natural gas reserves, and 8 of the top 15 are Islamic countries.
So to recap: our dependence on oil will not end any time soon, and even as we phase oil out, the oil-based economies of Middle Eastern countries will not be radically affected because of the oil needs of other countries. In addition, the import/export of oil has nothing to do with the export of Muslim hate; that has been going on for well over 1200 years before oil made any difference.
In short, oil is a red herring. Move on.
eneri -- diesel is made from oil. Quit spending so much time researching hemp-based fuels, if you catch my drift.
BOB owens
the source of hate has nothing to do with oil agreed. or rather very little.
it is the revenues that enable the spread of jihadism and disinformation and the intake of islamic immigrants who will seek to conquer through demographic change.
The revenues are the instrument by which the hatred is implimented.
Until they became available Islam made little advance in its aim for global domination.
chevalier de st george,
I agree that these oil revenues are used to finance some of the terrorism (though a large part comes from opium), but I'm simply holding out the verifiable truth that a US transition to oter fuel sources will not dry up their markets, nor revenues from both legal and illegal products.
Bob Owens:
Thank you for your intelligent and thought-provoking information regarding U.S. oil consumption. Seasoned JihadWatchers like you provide immeasurable insight and education for neophyte Watchers such as myself.
The 911 report is white washed garbage!!!
PS: Eneri, don't you know that smoking dope damges brain cells.
Let oil go to 100$ a barrel and you will see Americans find the Answer and then the mulsums will starve ? Because there book says they can not farm!!!
We Americans will no longer pay the Dimmi tax!!!
This has been a war tactic for ?
Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give them Strength and Courage to stay the course to Victory Amen
PS Still LOL James Brown Drunk!!
Chevalier de St George
Read your very interesting and informative article. Yes, follow that money trail.Believe it goes to the White House and the Bushes' Saudi contacts. Moore might be the original 'ugly American' who bad mouthes his country but he has a point about the Bin Laden family being flown out
immediately after 9/11...Why would anyone do that?? Because Bush has some kind of money connection to them.And the safety and security of millions of Americans shouldn't be jeopardised because Bush wants to get re-elected.Come clean,Mr President! A shame Bush hasn't got Putin's brain, U.S.A needs an intelligent incumbent at this critical time in history.
"Newsweek" learned Bayoumi was getting payments at the time of $3,500 a month from an account at the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. When he left the United States in July, 2001 the checks kept coming and the terrorists got a new paymaster. He was Osama Basnan, a known al-Qaeda sympathizer who threw a party the night of Sept. 11 and proclaimed, "What a wonderful, glorious day it has been."
Posted by: chevalier de st george at July 23, 2004 09:52 AM
old news the FBI found out within monthes after that one of the s.a. princes wife gave the terrorist 70,000$ something about medical bills think it was the one who had a turk girlfriend ?
Moore does not work here look what happened to linda in Las V.
And read the book that the tax payers paid 15mil for and you will find that is B.S. they flew out as soon as the flight ban was lifted
What did Sandy Berger stuff in his pants ??? Why did he steal papers? what Papers did he steal??? Why did clinton sell chips to china????
We are at war either get on the boat or get Flushed!!!
Part of the American Tribe
God Bless the USA and her Fighting Forces and All who Fight with her give her Strength and Courage to stay the course to Victory Amen
To me libs are like terrorist that need to be taken out as well and the libs who defend the terrorist who burn farms and down buildings are terrorist don't care if they were born in the USA!!
Berger the theif!! What did he steal stuff in his pants??
No more blue dresses please kerry FLIP FLOP
This is only sorta off topic, but I was listening to a radio talk show a few hours ago with Annie Jacobsen as a guest. She had an added tidbit.
A journalist friend of hers followed up on her story and found out that many of the Syrian musicians had expired visas.
And I don't know about the rest of you guys but just because their story checked out does not bring me any comfort. Being a musician whould be great cover for a terrorist.
Crusader,
You need to start working on your typing and spelling.......
Bob Owen
yes i agree with your comments entirely.
Susan talks of 100 bucks a barrel, but bear in mind we are already paying more than that if you add in the cost of fighting terrorism spawned by the wahabbism invested Saudi oil revenues.
The real problem is the source and of course it is ideological/religious.
Can you fight ideology with weapons?
perhaps only another ideology can do that.
but unfortunately we no longer have one.
it used to be called Christianity and Judaism.
it has been replaced by hedonism which is to weak to defend itself against anything
Morgane
America needs a strong, no nonsense leader to show the Islamists that it no pushover. Any compassion, undue tolerance, etc is just another weakness to be exploited. Americas worst enemy is its own press and left wing, who would see it destroyed for the sake of blind twisted self blaming doctrines.
Unfortunately Bush is no Winston Churchill and along with Clinton failed to recognise the huge threat of islamic Jihad.
CHurchill would have seen it miles ahead as he did with nazi ideology. When he spotted it he had no qualms and called it for what it was! To the disgust and rantings of the Nazi Sympathisers in the aristocracy and upper classes.
That did not divert him form his cause and he showed them up to be vile moral nobodies eventually.
But Bush cannot bring himself to do the same as churchill!
If the NAZIS had blown up the Empire Sate Building, Churchill would have bombed Berlin.
Bush would have bombed some little town in Bavaria! and would have said that nazism is a philosophy of peace, which has been usurped by a few fanatics.
Still Bush is half way between Chamberlain and Churchill which is already one hundred times better than the democrats , who would be returning homa from meetings with OBL , with bits of paper shouting "peace in our time".
America must not shy from showing the world that it is the most powerful nation in the world and that it is fighting tyrants and islamofascist states to install democracy for all.
chevalier,
Bush is indeed no Churchill, as he will never be as articulate an orator as Chruchill was. To be honest, I don't Churchill would be allowed to lead in this day of doubletalk and weakness. We live in different times.
Thank said, at least one British historian, Paul Johnson has seen comparisons between Bush and Thatcher, and Reagan and Bush. Pretty good company, if you ask me.
More than one person has favorable compared Reagan/Thatcher to Bush/Blair.
I can live with that.
In Canada,the system is a joke.During a interview of the security measures in Canada the
then minister Elinor Caplin defended Ahmed Rassam
being in the Country on welfare while being a career criminal. Rassam was the LAX bomber that got caught in Port Angeles with bomb material in the trunk of his car.
Minister Caplin defended our system of not deporting refugee's that have a history of crime here,seems a Judge ruled it's cruel to sent someone to a country where they might be harmed.
Forget he was to drive a fuel truk into a Jewish area and blow himself up attempting to kill about 4000 Jews. Caplin also stated that "we can tell the real refugee's by their forged documents",the Red Cross claims that refugee's cant get real exit papers and must use fake documents,that's how you validate the claim. Canada still has 36,000 failed refugee's that are un-accounted for
and some were determined to have criminal pasts in their previous Country of residency.
Caplin went on to explain that we don't check
people exiting Canada so we assume they followed
the deportation order and left without telling us.
Hezbolah and Hamas are still allowed to raise funds in Canada,when the Liberals got tough on terrorism they revoked the charity status of Hamas and Hezbolah,so there!
The current Immigration Minister approved the entry of 400 Aids victims and most will be from African Islamic based Countries coming in as refugee's. To get into Canada you don't even need a McVisa,the Charter protects 6.4 billion people outside of Canada and all they need to do is step on our soil and say the magic word Refugee.