This was originally broadcast by Radio Canada, CBC on October 29, 2003, please click on this link to go to the original pages of Radio Canada CBC, the fifth estate!

There is a long and tangled history between the Bush family and the elite of Saudi Arabia.

It begins in the 1970's in Houston, Texas, when George W. Bush was just starting out in his family's two businesses of politics and oil. The powerful - and very rich - Bin Laden family helped fund his first venture into oil. The cozy friendship continued for decades. After a terrorist attack at a barracks in Saudi Arabia which killed 19 Americans, the bin Laden family received a multi-billion dollar contract to re-build. And incredibly, George Bush Sr. was in a business meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington on the morning of September 11th with one of Osama Bin Laden's brothers.

Below is a timeline that details the relationship between the Bin Laden and Bush families that culminates in the tragic events of September 11th.

1968
George W. Bush joins the Texas Air National Guard, a coveted position that ensures he doesn't have to serve in Vietnam. While a member of the Guard, Bush meets and befriends Jim Bath, a former Air Force pilot and budding entrepreneur.

1976
George H. W. Bush becomes director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). During his tenure, Bush helps provide training for the Saudi royal family's palace guard, cementing a relationship that proves critical to the Bush family's fortunes. Bush also privatizes various CIA assets, with Bath considered one of the beneficiaries because of his involvement in the aircraft business. Bath will later tell a business associate he works for the CIA and was recruited by Bush Sr.

Salem Bin Laden, older brother to future al Qaeda leader Osama, enters into a trust agreement with Jim Bath, whereby Bath will act as the bin Laden family's representative in North America, investing money in various business ventures. Bath also becomes the business representative of Khalid bin Mahfouz, a member of Saudi Arabia's most powerful banking family and owners of the National Commercial Bank, the principal bank of the Saudi royal family.

1978
Charles W. "Bill" White, a former Annapolis graduate and US Navy pilot, graduates from Harvard's business school. He is then introduced to Jim Bath who is looking for someone to manage his real estate company. Bath hires White as his partner. Money from the bin Laden and bin Mahfouz families is invested in Bath's real estate company. Among other things, Bath buys the Saudis an airport, office and apartment buildings, and invests in Texas banks. Eventually, Salem Bin Laden and Khalid bin Mahfouz buy an enormous mansion in River Oaks, Houston's most affluent neighborhood. Read an interview with Bill White

George W. Bush starts up an oil company in Texas called Arbusto 78. Bath will invest money from Salem bin Laden and Khalid bin Mahfouz in this new company. Bill White is told by Bath that more than $1-million of the Saudis' money was pumped into Bush's venture.

1979
The Carter administration, through the CIA, begins to fund the fledgling mujahadeen in Afghanistan – six months before the Soviet invasion – in the hopes of drawing the USSR into its own Vietnam.

1980
George H.W. Bush runs for the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, but loses to Ronald Reagan. He becomes Reagan's running mate and eventual vice-president.

1981
Osama bin Laden, son of the founder of the Bin Laden Group, the largest construction company in Saudi Arabia, travels to Afghanistan to help the mujahadeen in their bloody war against the Soviet Union.

1986
Bill White and Jim Bath have a falling out. Bath then launches 28 frivolous lawsuits against White, leading to White's financial ruin and expulsion from Houston's business community. White fights the lawsuits, refusing to take a huge pay off to keep silent about his knowledge of Bath's relationship to the Saudis and Bush family. Read an interview with Bill White

1987
Harken Energy, a company that George W. Bush's failed oil companies have been folded into, receives $25-million stock offering underwritten by significant players connected to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), a Middle Eastern banking concern. Bush is key to Harken obtaining the money.

1989
The Soviets pull out of Afghanistan after the CIA spends (US) $3-billion on the largest covert operation in its history. Osama bin Laden returns to Saudi Arabia, angry with how the Americans abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviet retreat.

1988-92
The BCCI scandal breaks. The bank is exposed as a massive criminal enterprise, having catered, during it's history, to some of the most notorious villains of the 20th century, including Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, terrorist leaders Abu Nidal, and the Medellin drug cartel, as well as for being involved in money laundering and the Iran contra scandal and for pilfering investors' cash. Following BCCI's seizure in 1991, Khalid Bin Mahfouz (see above) was indicted in New York State on the grounds that he had withdrawn sizable investments in the bank just before it was seized. In the end, all the charges and claims were dropped after he made payments of $225 million into a Federal Reserve settlement account mainly for the benefit of depositors and creditors who had suffered losses and $245 million to BCCI's court-appointed Liquidators also for the benefit of depositors and creditors.

1991
The first Gulf War occurs, whereby George H. W. Bush is determined to push Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait to ensure the Iraqi dictator doesn't have a stranglehold on world oil markets. Osama bin Laden urges the Saudi royal family to find an Arab solution, by raising an army on their own to fight Hussein. When the royal family invites the U.S. in to do the job instead, Bin Laden becomes disenchanted with the House of al-Saud. His anger grows when after the war the US leaves 20,000 troops behind in Saudi Arabia. Soon Bin Laden makes a deal with the Saudi royal family: he is allowed to leave the kingdom with his fortune, and will receive funding for al Qaeda from various Saudi charities and banks, but in return he must not launch attacks against the royal family. Bin Laden settles in the Sudan, aiming his ire at the US.

1992
George H. W. Bush loses to Bill Clinton. Eventually the former president becomes an adviser to the Carlyle Group, a powerful Washington-based private investment firm with interests in the defense industry. Among his duties, Bush helps strengthen Carlyle's ties to the Saudi royal family. He will later visit Saudi Arabia and the bin Laden family compound. The bin Ladens eventually invest in the Carlyle Group. Carlyle buys a company called Vinnell Corp., which provides training to the Saudi palace guard. George W. Bush briefly sits on the board of directors of one of Carlyle's subsidiaries.

1993
The first attack on the World Trade Centre, which is connected to Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, occurs.

1994
George W. Bush becomes governor of Texas.

1995
Five American soldiers are killed in a car bomb in Saudi Arabia. The Saudis quickly execute the suspects they arrest, ignoring wishes from the FBI to interrogate them beforehand.

The Taliban come to power in Afghanistan with the backing of Pakistan's notorious intelligence agency, the ISI.

1996
Osama bin Laden is forced to move from the Sudan to Afghanistan under pressure from the Clinton administration. Neither the US nor the Saudis make an effort to arrest him – despite the opportunity offered up to them by the Sudanese government.

June
A truck bomb blows up the al-Khobar barracks, housing US air force personnel in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 soldiers. A group called Saudi Hezbollah claims responsibility. Eventually, the Clinton administration drops the investigation because it does not want to upset relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran – the country that funds Hezbollah.

Summer
A meeting of prominent Saudis occurs in a Paris hotel. Among the attendees is the head of Saudi intelligence, Turki bin Faisal. They meet with a representative of al Qaeda and agree to extend the earlier arrangement made between the Saudi royal family and Osama bin Laden – whereby in return for cash, al Qaeda agrees not to attack inside Saudi Arabia.

The CIA produces an internal report that documents the numerous Saudi charities that are funding terrorists. Osama bin Laden's name is mentioned.

1998
Al Qaeda makes it most audacious attack to date by blowing up US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing 224 people.

2000
January
Ziad Jarrah, pilot of Flight 93, which would crash into a field in Pennsylvania on 9/11, is stopped and interrogated at an airport in United Arab Emirates (UAE). He is returning from al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan and is carrying Islamic religious material on him. The US is informed of the interrogation but not the details.

January
A high-powered meeting of al Qaeda occurs in an apartment complex in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. Attending the meeting is Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, the number three man in al Qaeda and mastermind behind the 1998 US embassy attacks, and architect of the USS Cole and 9/11 attacks to come. Also at the meeting is Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two Saudi citizens who would end up as hijackers on Flight 77, the plane that crashes into the Pentagon on 9/11.

The CIA learns about the meeting beforehand and asks the Malaysian secret police to place it under surveillance. Video footage and photographs of the dozen men in attendance are taken, though no tape recording is possible. After the meeting breaks up, Al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar fly to the US on their own passports, landing in Los Angeles. There they are met by Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who works for the Saudi civil aviation authority. Just prior to picking up the two would-be hijackers, Al-Bayoumi meets with a member of the Saudi consulate in LA – a man connected to terrorist activity.

Al-Bayoumi takes al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi to San Diego, puts them up in an apartment, signs a lease, holds a party for them, enrolls them in flight school and gives them money. Later, the FBI concludes that al-Bayoumi is likely a Saudi intelligence agent. Al-Bayoumi also passes on thousands of dollars to the hijackers that originate from Princess Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar Saudi ambassador to the US.

May-June
Members of the Hamburg cell, including ringleader Mohammed Atta, enter the US. They are traveling on Saudi visas, all of which contain errors on them.

September
Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar move into the home of a local imam in San Diego, Abdussattar Shaikh. The imam is an FBI informant. In fact, Shaikh holds meetings with his FBI handler while al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar sit in a room next door. Shaikh contends he was never told what mission the hijackers were on. His FBI handler, meanwhile, was never informed by his superiors to look out for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.

October
The USS Cole, sitting in a harbour off the coast of Yemen, is attacked by a boat laden with explosives, killing 17 sailors.

November
George W. Bush is elected president of the US in a contested election. Support for his campaign from the oil industry is generous.

2001
In the months leading up to 9/11, the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency receive a burgeoning mountain of intelligence that a terrorist attack of some magnitude, and launched by Al Qaeda, is imminent. They assume the attack will happen overseas.

January
The CIA and FBI begin to piece together the importance of the individuals who met a year earlier in Malaysia. Despite the information they have, neither al-Hazmi nor al-Mihdhar are placed on the State Department and Customs watch list.

April
Al-Hazmi is stopped for speeding in Oklahoma. He is let go because his name does not appear in the police officer's data bank as a wanted man.

May
The CIA will later determine that Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, architect of 9/11 and al Qaeda's other attacks, was entering the US as late as this month, despite the fact he is a well-known figure in the terrorist netherworld, his name first becoming known to the CIA as early as 1995.

June
CIA and FBI meet to talk about al-Mihdhar. But the CIA does not hand over critical information to the FBI. Again, the men are not placed on any watch list and a search for them is not initiated.

July
A Phoenix, Az.-based FBI counter-terrorism agent writes a lengthy memo in which he says it has been noticed that a high number of Arabs, possibly with connections to al Qaeda, are taking flying lessons in local flight schools. His memo is ignored by FBI headquarters.

August
President Bush receives a detailed and lengthy presidential daily briefing from the CIA in which Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda's aim of launching an attack against the US is discussed. To this day, the Bush White House refuses to release the contents of this briefing to Congressional inquiries into 9/11.

The CIA finally puts al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar's name on the watch lists. By then it is too late. The FBI and CIA do a limited search for the men.

Sept. 11/2001
The attack occurs. The morning of the attack George Bush Sr. is meets with members of the Carlyle Group in Washington. Bin Laden's own brother is at the meeting. Members of the Bin Laden family are allowed to leave the U.S. without questioning two days later.

NO FAILURE AT ALL?
Conspiracy theorists – or 9/11 skeptics as they prefer to be called – have pointed to the failure of the U.S. intelligence community to prevent the 9/11 attacks from occurring as proof the whole thing was a plot engineered by the U.S. government.

In fact, 9/11 skeptics argue there was no 'failure' at all – that the CIA, FBI and National Security Agency played a part in 9/11, or at the very least knew the attack was coming and let it occur anyway. According to the skeptics 9/11 gave the Bush administration the justification to clampdown on civil liberties and invade Afghanistan and Iraq to ensure future supplies of oil.

THE 9/11 INVESTIGATION
The intelligence community, and the Joint Inquiry investigation into the failure of intelligence, paint an entirely different view of events. While they admit they had an enormous amount of evidence and information that an attack was in the works – and even had some of the hijackers and their helpers under surveillance at various times – they say this information was lost in the general mountain of intelligence the various agencies gather on a regular basis. Moreover, they say information the FBI, CIA and NSA did collect was not shared among the agencies. Thus, the intelligence community says no one managed to piece together all the warning signs in time. (read more about the Congressional Report)

TURNING A BLIND EYE
A third view, explored by the fifth estate, suggests something different altogether: that the evidence pointing to a pending attack was not pursued vigorously (consciously or unconsciously) simply because much of it led back to Saudi Arabia. And that Saudi Arabia holds a special place in the U.S. political, business and intelligence milieu. It's a country that is not held to the same standards of accountability as are other nations. The reason, of course, is America's enormous dependence on Saudi Arabia for oil. Remember: 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

Here are some of the more significant moments of the intelligence failure that point to this thesis:

THE BOJINKA PLOT
The Bojinka plot is uncovered in the Philippines. In 1995 Filipino police raid an al Qaeda bomb-making factory. Among the belongings they find is a laptop computer, which contains a number of startling terror plots, including a plan to assassinate the Pope, and to put terrorists on a dozen American jumbo jets and blow them up in midair. Another plan was to dive-bomb a plane into the CIA headquarters.

Two of the men who got away from the raid were Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, and Khalid Shaykh Mohammed who would go on to become the architect of 9/11 itself. This is probably the first time the idea of using planes as a weapon comes to the CIA's attention.

Over the next few years, intelligence intercepts suggest this idea is gathering steam within al Qaeda. In 1998 the US intelligence community receives information that a group of unidentified Arabs planned to fly an explosive-laden plane from a foreign country into the World Trade Center. In the fall of that same year, more information was uncovered that bin Laden's next plot against U.S. involved explosive-laden aircraft and he was trying to establish a cell within the U.S.

THE INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC RELIEF ORGANIZATION
in 1996, Valerie Donahue, a special agent with the FBI in Chicago, investigates a chemical company that appears to be an investment fraud scheme. The company is owned in part by the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO), Saudi Arabia's most powerful charity that is funded by members of the Saudi royal family. The IIRO is also one of the biggest distributors of monies to terrorist groups like al Qaeda. Donahue found that large sums of money, in excess of $1.2-million, had been transferred from the IIRO to the Chicago company. Donahue's report mentions large amounts going to the IIRO from "an account maintained in the United States by the embassy of a foreign government, which has provided IIRO with approximately $400,000."

This foreign embassy is most likely the Saudi embassy, given the IIRO's close ties to the Saudi government. Chances are, if the FBI had investigated IIRO at this time, and its possible ties to the Saudi embassy, it would have had understood its support of terrorism within America. At the time, the IIRO had its U.S. offices in Falls Church, Virginia, a town where support for the 9/11 hijackers was strong, and where two of the hijackers stayed in the months leading up to 9/11.

MUSLIM YOUTH CHARITIES
The FBI open an investigation into the activities of the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), and two men involved with the organization who are cousins of Osama bin Laden in 1996. WAMY is also based in Falls Church, Va. The investigation is dropped after a few months and only restarted a few days after 9/11. WAMY is known for its support of terrorist activities.

The CIA writes a lengthy report on Islamic charities that fund terrorism. The IIRO is profiled, noting that it is "affiliated with the Muslim World League (MWL), a major international organization largely financed by the government of Saudi Arabia." Those connected to the IIRO, the report says, include Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Centre attack, and Osama bin Laden. In fact, many of the charities listed in the report are connected to Saudi Arabia.

AL-KOBAR
In July 1996, a truck bomb destroys a U.S. air force barracks in al-Khobar in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 US air force personnel. In their investigation, the FBI is soon stonewalled by the Saudi government. The Clinton administration eventually stops pursuing the investigation because they don't want to upset relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran – the country alleged to have carried out the bombing.

OSAMA'S EXPULSION FROM SUDAN
After Al-Kobar and under pressure from the U.S., the Sudanese government expels Osama bin Laden from the Sudan, where he has been living for five years. However, the U.S. decides not to arrest bin Laden and rejects an offer from the Sudanese government to provide the CIA with their own intelligence files on the al Qaeda leader. The Saudis are not interested in arresting bin Laden either. He is allowed to travel to Afghanistan in a plane that flies over Saudi Arabia.

ROBERT BAER (read his interview with the fifth estate)
CIA field officer Robert Baer quits the Agency in 1997. He has grown disenchanted with his superiors' lack of interest in keeping an eye on events in the Middle East. Prior to his departure, Baer checks the CIA computers and finds no evidence the Agency is collecting information on Saudi Arabia. While stationed in the Middle East and Caspian region, Baer had seen growing evidence of the financial and ideological support Saudi Arabia was giving to various radical Muslim groups, in particular the Muslim Brotherhood. However, the CIA was never tasked to investigate Saudi Arabia or draw up National Intelligence Estimates (NIE) – a report that evaluates the security threat posed by a country. Baer concludes that oil and other economic interests – including major defense and aerospace contracts – have swayed Washington to turn a blind eye to what the Saudis are doing.

GERMAN PHONE TAP SURVEILLANCE
German intelligence begins to conduct surveillance, including phone taps, on Arab students studying in Hamburg in 1998. This German city has a large Arab and Muslim student attending local technical colleges. In fact, many of the key 9/11 hijackers are recruited into the plot while attending schools in Hamburg, becoming known as the "Hamburg cell".

German wiretaps pick up the name of key players in the 9/11 plot, including Marwan al-Shehi, the eventual pilot of Flight 175, the plane that hits the south tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. The Germans pass on this information to the CIA. Later it is learned the Hamburg cell is in contact with an official from the Saudi embassy in Berlin and is in phone contact with a number of sheiks in Saudi Arabia.

FLIGHT SCHOOL TRAINING
As early as 1998 an agent with the FBI's Oklahoma office informs an agent with the office's counter-terrorism squad that he's observed many men of Middle Eastern origin taking flight school training. The FBI received also reports that a terrorist organization might be planning to bring students to the US for flight training.

Much later, a Phoenix, Az.-based FBI counter-terrorism agent writes a lengthy memo in which he says it has been noticed that a high number of Arabs, possibly with connections to al Qaeda, are taking flying lessons in local flight schools. His memo is ignored by FBI headquarters.

AL-HAZMI AND AL-MIHDHAR
In April 1999, Nawif al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar – two of the 9/11 hijackers – obtain U.S. visas from the U.S. consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. They then travel back to Afghanistan for special training. At this time, Al-Hazmi's name comes up in NSA intercepts connecting him to a suspected terrorist facility in the Middle East.

Both Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar's names come up in NSA intercepts linked to a safe house in Yemen used by Al Qaeda as clearing house of information. This information is passed onto the FBI and CIA that same year. Al-Mihdhar had a US visa allowing to come and go as he pleased. These intercepts inform the CIA of an important al Qaeda meeting to take place in Malaysia in 2000.

Despite being known to U.S. authorities both Al-Hazmi and Al-Mindhar are not placed on a government watch list until August 2001.

MALAYSIA MEETING
A high level planning meeting of Al Qaeda takes place in an apartment building in Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia in January of 2000. Among the participants are Khalid al-Mihdhar, Nawif al-Hazmi and Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attack. The CIA asks the Malaysian secret police to place the meeting under surveillance. Many photos and videotape of the meeting's attendees are taken, which are passed on to the CIA. The FBI is also aware of the al Qaeda meeting in Malaysia. This get-together is where it is believed the details of the 9/11 attack is sketched out.

AL-BAYOUMI
Shortly after the Malaysia meeting, al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi are met my Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who works for the Saudi civil aviation authority. Just prior to picking up the two would-be hijackers, Al-Bayoumi meets with a member of the Saudi consulate in LA – a man later connected to terrorist activity. Al-Bayoumi takes al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi to San Diego, puts them up in an apartment, signs a lease, holds a party for them, enrolls them in flight school and gives them money. Later, the FBI concludes that al-Bayoumi is likely a Saudi intelligence agent. Al-Bayoumi also passes on thousands of dollars to the hijackers that originate from Princess Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar Saudi ambassador to the US.

Later that year, Al-Hazmi and Al-Mihdhar move into the home of a local imam in San Diego, Abdussattar Shaikh. The imam is an FBI informant. In fact, Shaikh holds meetings with his FBI handler while al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar sit in a room next door. Shaikh contends he was never told what mission the hijackers were on. His FBI handler, meanwhile, was never informed by his superiors to look out for al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar.

INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY REPORTS
In February 2000, the Intelligence Community obtained information that Osama Bin Laden was making plans to assassinate U.S. intelligence officials, including the Director of the FBI.

In March 2000, the Intelligence Community obtained information regarding the types of targets that operatives in Bin Ladin's network might strike. The Statue of Liberty was specifically mentioned, as were skyscrapers, ports, airports, and nuclear power plants. The intelligence community also obtained information indicating Bin Ladin was planning attacks in specific West Coast areas, possibly involving the assassination of several public officials.

THE USS COLE
The USS Cole, sitting in a harbor off the coast of Yemen, is attacked by a boat laden with explosives, killing 17 sailors in October 2000. The FBI arrive in Yemen to investigate the attack, which they conclude is an al Qaeda operation. Eventually the U.S. State Department kicks out the FBI to prevent hurting relations with Yemen. The FBI again sees evidence of links to the USS Cole attack with Saudi Arabia but cannot pursue them.

ISRAELI INTELLIGENCE
In early 2001, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) notices evidence of an Israeli art student spy ring operating in the U.S. Working in small groups, the students go door-to-door selling art. When the DEA interview some of the students, they discover they are often the sons and daughters of high officials in the Israeli military and many have intelligence training.

One of these Israeli cells is located near the home of Mohammed Atta in Florida during the time that Atta – the pilot of Flight 11 on 9/11 – is receiving his flight training. The DEA orders the students back to Israel. In August of 2001, the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad gives the CIA the names of 200 people they consider to be terrorist threats. The Mossad were apparently interested in Atta and his accomplice, Marwan al-Shehi.

TERRORIST SOURCE
In April 2001, the Intelligence Community obtained information from a source with terrorist connections who speculated that Bin Ladin would be interested in commercial pilots as potential terrorists. The source warned that the United States should not focus only on embassy bombings, that terrorists sought "spectacular and traumatic" attacks, and that the first World Trade Center bombing would be the type of attack that would be appealing. The source did not mention a timeframe for any attack. Because the source was offering personal speculation, the information was not disseminated within the intelligence community.

MASTERMIND ENTERS THE U.S.
The CIA will later determine that they had information that Khalid Shaykh Mohammed, architect of 9/11 and al Qaeda's other attacks, was entering the U.S. as late as May 2001, despite the fact he is a well-known figure in the terrorist netherworld, his name first becoming known to the CIA as early as 1995.

BUSH BRIEFING
In August, President Bush receives a detailed and lengthy presidential daily briefing from the CIA in which Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda's aim of launching an attack against the US is mentioned. To this day, the Bush White House refuses to release the contents of this briefing to Congressional inquiries into 9/11.

ZACARIAS MOUSSAOUI ARRESTED
Zacarias Moussaoui is arrested by the FBI for his suspicious behavior at a flight school in Chicago just weeks prior to 9/11. He is considered the 20th hijacker who was sent over from Germany after another member of the Hamburg cell is denied entry into the U.S. Two days after Moussaoui's arrest, an FBI agent in Chicago sends a note to his superiors noting that Moussaoui seemed to be part of a plot to seize control of an airplane. The agent asks for permission to get a warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings. The FBI headquarters argues against this. Later a laptop is found among Moussaoui's possessions which gives details about the 9/11 plot.

THE CONGRESSIONAL REPORT
Hearings about the intelligence failure began on Capitol Hill several months after 9/11. A Congressional Committee was formed to investigate just what happened and why. The focus was to be on what U.S. intelligence agencies knew - or should have known - prior to the bombings.

The much anticipated 800 page report was released in the summer of 2003. (go to the web site for the report)

THE MISSING PAGES
Most of the attention has been focused on 28 pages that have been ordered classified and blacked-out to the public.

People familiar with the missing pages claim that they deal with the Saudi government's relationship with the 9/11 hijackers.

In an interview with the fifth estate, Eleanor Hill, chief investigator for the Committee, would only confirm that those files dealt with sources of foreign support for the hijackers.

"Because they're classified I can't tell you what's in those pages. I can tell you that the chapter deals with some information that our committee found in the FBI and CIA files that was very disturbing. It had to do with sources of foreign support for the hijackers."

This summer, U.S. Senators held a hearing on the financial support of terrorism.

The Bush Administration had refused to place Saudi several charities and individuals on the terror watch list. The senators asked the U.S. government to release the names of Saudi charities and individuals who were being investigated for funding Al-Qaeda.

By the next day, the names were classified by the Bush Adminstration and could not be made public.

But other sections of the Congressional Report reveal more about what the Bush administration would prefer the public didn't know about 9/11.

THE AL-BAYOUMI CONNECTION
According to the report one of the FBI's best sources in San Diego suggested that Omar Al-Bayoumi, a Saudi government employee based there, helped and assisted two of the hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Al-Hasmi. They were among the first of the 19 hijackers to enter the U.S.

Bayoumi put them up in an apartment, held a party for them, enrolled them in flight school and gave them money.

The report also details how much American intelligence
knew about these two hijackers well before September 11th. They'd been under surveillance at a high-level Al Qaeda meeting abroad where U.S. agents suspected future terror attacks were being planned. (see more below)

The CIA knew their names, birth dates, passport numbers – even that Khalid Almihdhar had a visa to enter the United States, which indicated they'd likely be traveling to the U.S.

But despite it all, the CIA neglected to warn Washington about them. So Almihdhar and al-Hasmi were not only able to enter the U.S. with no problem – but they also could renew their U.S. visas and stay in the country legally.

They were finally put on a watch list in August 2001, but only three weeks later they participated in the destruction of the World Trade Center.

THE PHOENIX MEMO
The report also outlines that prior to 9/11, the CIA and FBI were well aware that the idea of using planes as a weapon was being contemplated by al Qaeda. As early as 1995, when the "Bojinka plot" was uncovered in the Philippines it was discovered al Qaeda was planning to hijack airliners and crash them into important US sites like the CIA headquarters. (more on this below)

On July 10/01, Kenneth Williams, an FBI counter-terrorism
agent in a field office in Phoenix, AZ, sent an e-mail memo FBI offices in Washington and New York.

The memo raised concerns about Osama bin Laden sending students to train at civil aircraft training schools and universities. (see the memo online)

The memo said Williams had observed an inordinate amount of activity of individuals taking such courses in Arizona. "These individuals will be in a position in the future to conduct terror activity against civil aviation targets," writes the FBI agent.

One of the people named in the memo was later to be discovered as an associate of Hani Hanjour, pilot of Flight 77, the plane that hit the Pentagon on 9/11. FBI showed that on five occasions this individual and Hanjour were at the flight school on the same day and they might have carpooled together. In 1999, logs showed they used the same plane together.

Another individual mentioned in the Phoenix memo is also connected to the al Qaeda network. He was apparently arrested in Pakistan at a safe house in 2002. The names of both of these people were deleted from the report.

The FBI personnel failed to act.

THE "BRAIN" BEHIND THE ATTACK
Also known as "Mukhtar" (The Brain), Khalid Shaykh Mohammad (KSM) was the mastermind behind the 9/11 attack.

He first comes to the attention of the U.S. intelligence community in early 1995 when he is linked to Ramzi Yousef's "Bojinka Plot" in the Philippines. (Yousef was responsible for carrying out the World Trade Center bombing in 1993) The Philippine police discover Yousef's bomb-making factory and his plan was to kill the Pope, bomb the U.S. and Israeli embassies in Manila, blow up 12 U.S. airliners over the Pacific Ocean, and crash a plane into CIA headquarters.

In 1995, investigations connect KSM to the first WTC bombing. Federal prosecutors gave CIA a copy of a wire transaction for $660 (US) between Qatar and the U.S., dated several days before the blast, sent by KSM.

In January of 2000, KSM attended the high-level meeting al Qaeda in Malaysia to plot a number of terrorist attacks. He is photographed and videotaped there by the Malaysian secret police, who pass the photos and video onto the CIA.

KSM begins to travel to and from the U.S. In June 2001, a U.S. intelligence operative disseminates a report to all intelligence agencies, military commanders and the Treasury and Justice department saying that KSM was recruiting people to travel from Afghanistan to the U.S., and that these persons would be "expected to establish contacts with colleagues already living there". The report says KSM was traveling to the States as late as May of 2001.

Both the CIA and FBI received this report but it was ignored and not seen as entirely credible.

Originally Broadcast on October 29, 2003 Robert Baer: Robert Baer served with the CIA for 21 years and has spent much of that time in the Middle East. He believes that the close relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi elite led to an intelligence failure that culminated in the attack of 9/11. He has recently published a book called See No Evil. In his interview with the fifth estate he tells us how U.S. intelligence agencies were blinded by assurances from the Saudis that Bin Laden was not a threat in a 'conspiracy of silence'. Read an edited transcript of his interview   Jean-Charles Brisard: Brisard has investigated Al Qaeda's finances for the French Intelligence Service, even before 9/11. He's followed the relationship between Osama Bin Laden and Saudi Arabia and uncovered proof that the Saudis were funding the Al Qaeda's terrorist networks long after the war with the Soviets ended and his campaign with the U.S. began. He's published a book, The Forbidden Truth. He tells us how the Saudi government has been funding the terrorists for over a decade and why. Read an edited transcript of his interview   Charles W. "Bill" White: In 1978, White graduated from Harvard's business school with an MBA. He is introduced to a Houston-based businessman, Jim Bath who had become the North American business representative of Salem bin Laden, brother of Osama, and Khalid bin Mahfouz, a member of the most powerful banking family in Saudi Arabia. White is hired to run his real estate company, which is used to invest the two Saudis' money in various ventures in Texas including George W. Bush's oil company, Arbusto. When White has a falling out with Bath in 1986, Bath launches 28 lawsuits against White to drive him into financial ruin. The lawsuits disappear when the BCCI scandal breaks in the late '80s. White talks about his personal knowledge of the relationship between the Bush family and the Bin Ladens. Read an edited transcript of his interview This was originally broadcast by Radio Canada, CBC on October 29, 2003, please click on this link to go to the original pages of Radio Canada CBC, the fifth estate!