the administration said that one of the reasons why the us attacked iraq was ties to al qaeda. lets see how the administration deals with this story.
Say report connects dots
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Classified sections of Congress' Sept. 11 report lay out a series of connections among Saudi businessmen, royal family, charities and banks that may have aided Al Qaeda or the suicide hijackers, according to people who have seen the report.
The report raises the possibility that one or more Saudi men connected to some of the hijackers or their acquaintances were tied to Saudi intelligence.
It also suggests a Muslim imam in the U.S. may have been a facilitator for some hijackers, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. investigators are setting out anew to determine whether the connections are innocent coincidences in an Islamic culture that urges charitable support, or a pattern of pro-terror money and patronage flowing from the wealthy kingdom that's been a longtime U.S. ally, according to government officials familiar with those efforts.
Some of the most sensitive details in a 28-page classified section of the report involve what U.S. agencies are doing to investigate Saudi businesspeople and organizations, officials said.
The congressional investigators, however, warned that the leads dug up for the FBI and CIA to pursue are at times contradictory or circumstantial.
And U.S. intelligence and FBI investigators view the evidence of ties to Saudi intelligence as unclear, the officials said.
"It is possible that these kinds of connections could suggest, as indicated in a CIA memorandum, 'incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists,'" a passage from the unclassified section of the report states. "On the other hand," it adds, "it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations."
Saudi officials have called for the release of the secret sections of the report that deal with possible Saudi terror connections, and said it is ridiculous to suggest the royal family would deliberately fund an Al Qaeda movement dedicated to its overthrow.
Adel al-Jubeir, a Saudi foreign policy adviser, said his government hasn't seen the classified sections, but based on the Saudis' own terrorism investigation believes much of the evidence is likely uncorroborated.
"One of the reasons we believe the intelligence community insisted on classification of that section is it could not confirm or agree with what the joint inquiry report says," al-Jubeir said.
Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi by birth, was ex-communicated from his homeland in the mid-1990s for his advocacy of violence against America and his threats to overthrow the Saudi royal family for allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil during the 1991 Gulf War.
Say report connects dots
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON - Classified sections of Congress' Sept. 11 report lay out a series of connections among Saudi businessmen, royal family, charities and banks that may have aided Al Qaeda or the suicide hijackers, according to people who have seen the report.
The report raises the possibility that one or more Saudi men connected to some of the hijackers or their acquaintances were tied to Saudi intelligence.
It also suggests a Muslim imam in the U.S. may have been a facilitator for some hijackers, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
U.S. investigators are setting out anew to determine whether the connections are innocent coincidences in an Islamic culture that urges charitable support, or a pattern of pro-terror money and patronage flowing from the wealthy kingdom that's been a longtime U.S. ally, according to government officials familiar with those efforts.
Some of the most sensitive details in a 28-page classified section of the report involve what U.S. agencies are doing to investigate Saudi businesspeople and organizations, officials said.
The congressional investigators, however, warned that the leads dug up for the FBI and CIA to pursue are at times contradictory or circumstantial.
And U.S. intelligence and FBI investigators view the evidence of ties to Saudi intelligence as unclear, the officials said.
"It is possible that these kinds of connections could suggest, as indicated in a CIA memorandum, 'incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists,'" a passage from the unclassified section of the report states. "On the other hand," it adds, "it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations."
Saudi officials have called for the release of the secret sections of the report that deal with possible Saudi terror connections, and said it is ridiculous to suggest the royal family would deliberately fund an Al Qaeda movement dedicated to its overthrow.
Adel al-Jubeir, a Saudi foreign policy adviser, said his government hasn't seen the classified sections, but based on the Saudis' own terrorism investigation believes much of the evidence is likely uncorroborated.
"One of the reasons we believe the intelligence community insisted on classification of that section is it could not confirm or agree with what the joint inquiry report says," al-Jubeir said.
Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, a Saudi by birth, was ex-communicated from his homeland in the mid-1990s for his advocacy of violence against America and his threats to overthrow the Saudi royal family for allowing U.S. troops on Saudi soil during the 1991 Gulf War.
