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The Great Escape : How did assorted bin Ladens get out of America after September 11? - Cont

National Review, Sept 29, 2003 by Byron York

Last year, on the first anniversary of September 11, there were serious, unanswered questions about the Bush administration's decision to allow members of the bin Laden family living in the United States to leave the country in the days after the terrorist attacks. Now, on the second anniversary of September 11, there are still serious, unanswered questions. But ever so slowly, new information is emerging.

The basic story has been known for quite a while. Not long after the attacks, the Saudi government, saying it feared retribution against Saudi citizens, worked with the bin Laden family to gather up more than 100 family members and other prominent Saudis for a flight to Jeddah. A chartered jet made pickups in Los Angeles, Orlando, and Washington, D.C., before making a final stop at Boston's Logan Airport, from which it departed for Saudi Arabia.

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But the Saudis required permission to leave the country, and it has never been clear who in the U.S. government gave it to them. In interviews with National Review last year (see "The Great Escape," Sept. 30, 2002), a State Department source said Foggy Bottom "played no role" in the matter; an FBI spokesman said the Bureau did not have the authority to make that decision; and the White House declined to answer questions.

Recently, however, Richard Clarke, the former head of anti-terrorism at the National Security Council, gave some answers while testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee's subcommittee on terrorism. "I do recall the State Department coming to us that week [after September 11]," Clarke testified,

saying that the Saudi Embassy felt that in the wake of the terrorist attacks, Arabs in this country, particularly Saudis, might be victims of retribution attacks, and they wanted therefore to take some Saudi students and the Saudi citizens back to their kingdom for safety, and could they be given permission to fly, even though we had grounded all flights. Now, what I recall is that I asked for flight manifests of everyone on board and all of those names need to be directly and individually vetted by the FBI before they were allowed to leave the country. And I also wanted the FBI to sign off even on the concept of Saudis being allowed to leave the country. And as I recall, all of that was done. It is true that members of the bin Laden family were among those who left. We knew that at the time. I can't say much more in open session, but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House.

What Clarke could not testify to was the thoroughness with which the FBI questioned the departing Saudis. Last year, National Review reported that the FBI conducted brief, day-of-departure interviews with the Saudis -- in the words of an FBI spokesman, "at the airport, as they were about to leave." Experts interviewed by National Review called the FBI's actions "highly unusual" given the fact that those departing were actually members of Osama bin Laden's family. "They [the FBI] could not have done a thorough and complete interview," said John L. Martin, the former head of internal security at the Justice Department.

At the Judiciary subcommittee hearing, New York Democratic senator Charles Schumer asked Clarke how closely the Saudis were questioned. "Sir, all I can tell you is that I asked the FBI to do that," Clarke replied. "I asked the director and the assistant director of the FBI to do that. They told me they did it." End of story.

Clarke's statement -- and Schumer's questions -- came as a result of an article in Vanity Fair that questioned some aspects of the Saudi exodus. Author Craig Unger reported that the Saudis made an additional pickup flight, on an eight-passenger Learjet that flew from Tampa to Lexington, Ky., on the afternoon of September 13, 2001. That flight, Unger said, occurred at a time when the Federal Aviation Administration had banned all private flights (commercial planes had just resumed flying). "Three private planes violated the ban that day, and in each case a pair of jet fighters quickly forced the aircraft down," writes Unger. Yet the Saudi flight, he says, was allowed to travel undisturbed.

Vanity Fair suggests that that was the result of some sort of intervention by the Bush White House. But administration sources tell National Review they have looked into the matter and found no record of such a flight receiving any special permission to fly. The sources also say that charter aviation was allowed to resume on the morning of September 13, several hours before the Tampa-to-Lexington flight is said to have departed, which would mean that the plane, which Vanity Fair says was chartered, did not need any clearance to fly. Overall, it appears that all flights -- the ones gathering up Saudis domestically and the one from Boston to Jedda -- took place after the government allowed aviation to resume.

Yet the big question -- Who decided to allow the bin Ladens to leave the country and why? -- remains.

The Great Escape : How did assorted bin Ladens get out of America after September 11? - Cont

National Review, Sept 29, 2003 by Byron York

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