BadGimp

Whatever Happened to Bin Laden? While US Storms Baghdad, Saudi Ties to Al Qaeda Are Unprobed
The Progressive Populist
Saturday, March 8, 2003

Greg Palast

On my BBC television show, Newsnight, an American journalist confessed that, since the 9/11 attacks, US reporters are simply too afraid to ask the uncomfortable questions that could kill careers: "It's an obscene comparison, but there was a time in South Africa when people would put flaming tires around people's necks if they dissented. In some ways, the fear is that you will be necklaced here, you will have a flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck," Dan Rather said. Without his makeup, Rather looked drawn, old and defeated in confessing that he too had given in. "It's that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore in on the tough questions so often."

Investigators were ordered to "back off" from any inquiries into Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks.

FBI Document 199I

What we did discover was serious enough. To begin with, from less-than-happy FBI agents we obtained an interesting document, some 30 pages long, marked "SECRET." I've reproduced a couple of pages in The Best Democracy Money Can Buy [recently reissued in a paperback US edition by Plume]. Note the designation "199I" -- that's FBI-speak for "national security matter." According to insiders, FBI agents had wanted to check into two members of the bin Laden family, Abdullah and Omar, but were told to stay away by superiors -- until September 13, 2001. By then, Abdullah and Omar were long gone from the United States.

Why no investigation of the brothers bin Laden? The Bush administration's line is the Binladdins (a more common spelling of the Arabic name) are good folk. Osama's the Black Sheep, supposedly cut off from his Saudi kin. But the official line notwithstanding, some FBI agents believed the family had some gray sheep worth questioning -- especially these two working with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which the file labels "a suspected terrorist organization." ....

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I can't wait for Michael Moore's upcomming movie on this subject.

BadGimp

posted by BadGimp @ 6:46 PM