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THE LONG-DELAYED
900-page report also contains potentially explosive new evidence
suggesting that Omar al-Bayoumi, a key associate of two of the hijackers,
may have been a Saudi-government agent, sources tell NEWSWEEK. The report
documents extensive ties between al-Bayoumi and the hijackers. But the
bureau never kept tabs on al-Bayoumi—despite receiving prior information
he was a secret Saudi agent, the report says. In January 2000, al-Bayoumi
had a meeting at the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles—and then went directly
to a restaurant where he met future hijackers Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf
Alhazmi, whom he took back with him to San Diego. (Al-Bayoumi later
arranged for the men to get an apartment next to his and fronted them
their first two months rent.) The report is sure to reignite questions
about whether some Saudi officials were secretly monitoring the
hijackers—or even facilitating their conduct. Questions about the Saudi
role arose repeatedly during last year’s joint House-Senate
intelligence-committees inquiry. But the Bush administration has refused
to declassify many key passages of the committees’ findings. A 28-page
section of the report dealing with the Saudis and other foreign
governments will be deleted. “They are protecting a foreign government,”
charged Sen. Bob Graham, who oversaw the inquiry.
The report criticizes the Pentagon for resisting military strikes
against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan prior to 9-11, and the CIA for
failing to pass along crucial information about Almihdhar and Alhazmi at a
terrorists’ summit in Malaysia. But the FBI gets the toughest treatment. A
few months after al-Bayoumi took them to San Diego, Almihdhar and Alhazmi
moved into the house of a local professor who was a longtime FBI “asset.”
The prof also had earlier contact with another hijacker, Hani Hanjour. But
even though the informant was in regular touch with his FBI handler, the
bureau never pieced together that he was living with terrorists. The
bureau also failed to pursue other leads, including a local imam who dealt
with several key 9-11 figures. The report, one congressional investigator
said, “is a scathing indictment of the FBI as an agency that doesn’t have
a clue about terrorism.” Furious bureau officials say the report misstates
the evidence. They say the bureau checked out al-Bayoumi—now back in Saudi
Arabia—and concluded he had not given the hijackers “material support.” As
for Almihdhar and Alhazmi, “there was nothing there that gave us any
suspicion about these guys,” said one FBI official.
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