This is a
WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows.
To view this item online, visit
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38669
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
DAY OF INFAMY 2001
Clarke claims responsibility for bin Ladens' flight
Contradicts 9-11 panel testimony about departure of Osama's
relatives
Posted: May 26, 2004
5:00 p.m. Eastern
© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
Former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke says he is solely
responsible for allowing members of Osama bin Laden's family to flee the
United States immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Richard
Clarke |
"I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I'd
do it again," Clarke told The Hill newspaper yesterday.
The Hill said a political controversy has been brewing over who
approved the six controversial flights that carried 140 Saudi citizens.
At the time the members of the Saudi elite were allowed to leave, the
Bush administration was preparing to detain Muslims in the U.S. as
material witnesses to the attacks.
Democrat leaders, including Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, had been
pressing members of the 9-11 Commission to find out, "Who authorized the
flight[s] and why?"
A Democrat who attended a May 6 closed-door meeting of the panel quoted
a panel member, former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., as saying: "We don’t
know who authorized it. We've asked that question 50 times."
Most of the 26 passengers aboard a Sept. 20, 2001, fight were relatives
of Osama bin Laden, whom intelligence officials blamed for the attacks
almost immediately after they happened, The Hill said.
Clarke told the paper responsibility for the Saudis' departure "didn't
get any higher than me."
"On 9-11, 9-12 and 9-13, many things didn't get any higher than me," he
said. "I decided it in consultation with the FBI."
But this new account of the events seemed to contradict Clarke's sworn
testimony before the Sept. 11 commission at the end of March, The Hill
said.
"The request came to me, and I refused to approve it," Clarke
testified. "I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look
at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger
manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the – at the time –
No. 2 person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this
issue. The FBI then approved … the flight."
Panel member Tim Roemer said yesterday in response: "That's a little
different than saying, 'I claim sole responsibility for it now.'"
Moreover, the FBI has denied approving the flight, according to the
Capitol Hill paper.
FBI spokeswoman Donna Spiser said, "We haven't had anything to do with
arranging and clearing the flights."
"We did know who was on the flights and interviewed anyone we thought
we needed to," she said. "We didn’t interview 100 percent of the
[passengers on the] flight. We didn't think anyone on the flight was of
investigative interest."
The Hill said when Roemer asked Clarke during the commission's March
hearing, "Who gave the final approval, then, to say, 'Yes, you’re clear to
go, it's all right with the United States government,'" Clarke seemed to
suggest it came from the White House.
"I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them,
we ran it through the decision process for all these decisions that we
were making in those hours, which was the interagency Crisis Management
Group on the video conference," Clarke testified. "I was making or
coordinating a lot of the decisions on 9-11 in the days immediately after.
And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this
proposal to me, but I don't know. The two – since you press me, the two
possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State or
the White House chief of staff's office."
Clarke told the Washington newspaper yesterday the furor over the
flights is a "tempest in a teapot," arguing that since the attacks the FBI
has never said any of the passengers should not have left.
"It's very funny that people on the Hill are now trying to second-guess
the FBI investigation," Clarke said.
The 9-11 commission released a statement last month declaring the
chartered flights were handled properly by the Bush administration, the
Hill reported.
