FBI AND US SPY AGENTS SAY BUSH SPIKED BIN LADEN PROBES BEFORE 11 SEPTEMBER
The Guardian (London)
Wednesday, November 7, 2001
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Officials told to 'back off' on Saudis before September 11
by Greg Palast and David Pallister
FBI
and military intelligence officials in Washington say they were prevented
for political reasons from carrying out full investigations into members
of the Bin Laden family in the US before the terrorist attacks of September
11.
US intelligence agencies have come under criticism for their
wholesale failure to predict the catastrophe at the World Trade Centre. But
some are complaining that their hands were tied.
FBI documents shown
on BBC Newsnight last night and obtained by the Guardian show that they had
earlier sought to investigate two of Osama bin Laden's relatives in Washington
and a Muslim organisation, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), with
which they were linked.
The FBI file, marked Secret and coded 199,
which means a case involving national security, records that Abdullah bin
Laden, who lived in Washington, had originally had a file opened on him "because
of his relationship with the World Assembly of Muslim Youth - a suspected
terrorist organisation".
WAMY members deny they have been involved
with terrorist activities, and WAMY has not been placed on the latest list
of terrorist organisations whose assets are being frozen.
Abdullah,
who lived with his brother Omar at the time in Falls Church, a town just
outside Washington, was the US director of WAMY, whose offices were in a
basement nearby.
But the FBI files were closed in 1996 apparently
before any conclusions could be reached on either the Bin Laden brothers
or the organisation itself. High-placed intelligence sources in Washington
told the Guardian this week: "There were always constraints on investigating
the Saudis".
They said the restrictions became worse after the Bush
administration took over this year. The intelligence agencies had been told
to "back off" from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden
family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of
nuclear weapons by Pakistan.
"There were particular investigations that were effectively killed."
Only
after the September 11 attacks was the stance of political and commercial
closeness reversed towards the other members of the large Bin Laden clan,
who have classed Osama bin Laden as their "black sheep".
Yesterday,
the head of the Saudi-based WAMY's London office, Nouredine Miladi, said
the charity was totally against Bin Laden's violent methods. "We seek social
change through education and cooperation, not force."
He said Abdullah bin Laden had ceased to run WAMY's US operation a year ago.
Neither Abdullah nor Omar bin Laden could be contacted in Saudi Arabia for comment.
WAMY
was founded in 1972 in a Saudi effort to prevent the "corrupting" ideas of
the west ern world influencing young Muslims. With official backing it grew
to embrace 450 youth and student organisations with 34 offices worldwide.
Its aim was to encourage "concerned Muslims to take up the challenge
by arming the youth with sound understanding of Islam, guarding them against
destructive ideologies, and instilling in them level-headed wisdom".
In Britain it has 20 associated organisations, many highly respectable.
But
as long as 10 years ago it was named as a discreet channel for public and
private Saudi donations to hardline Islamic organisations. One of the recipients
of its largesse has been the militant Students Islamic Movement of India,
which has lent support to Pakistani-backed terrorists in Kashmir and seeks
to set up an Islamic state in India.
Since September 11 WAMY has
been investigated in the US along with a number of other Muslim charities.
There have been several grand jury investigations but no findings have been
made against any of them.
Current FBI interest in WAMY is shown in
their agents' interrogation of a radiologist from San Antonio, Texas, Dr
Al Badr al-Hazmi, who was arrested on September 12 and released without charge
two weeks later. He had the same surname as two of the plane hijackers.
He was also questioned about his contacts with Abdullah bin Laden at the US WAMY office.
Mr
Al-Hazmi said that he had made phone calls to Abdullah bin Laden in 1999
trying to obtain books and videotapes about Islamic teachings for the Islamic
Centre of San Antonio.
To view the BBC television broadcast of the Palast investigation, go to http://www.GregPalast.com