For a few short weeks, media and Intelligence Community and military personnel pursue the trail behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks relentlessly. Behind the scenes, however, the administration is putting its war plans together – not for shoring up the home defenses, but for invading the Middle East. Many companies already in the federal contract pipeline get their ducks in a row and line up for accelerated orders under ongoing contracts. Soon, the lid comes down, and investigation is displaced by the war project. Meanwhile, in another demonstration of the selectiveness of attacking pitiful Afghanistan, a number of Saudi nationals and their associates are allowed to fly out of the United States within a few days after 9/11.

Sept. 13, 2001 -- With commercial flights largely grounded throughout the U.S., the Bush administration allows a jet from Lexington, Ky., to leave the country for London, carrying 15 passengers, including eight Saudis. Four manifests from these flights have been released by Craig Unger, author of the nonfiction bestseller House of Bush, House of Saud. The passenger lists are posted online at www.houseofbush.com/files.php.

Sept. 14, 2001 -- A Las Vegas-to-Switzerland flight carries out seven Saudis.

Sept. 16, 2001 – Vice President Cheney appears on NBC’s Meet the Press with Tim Russert and tells Russert that there is “no evidence” linking Iraq to 9/11.

Signs of administration interest in Iraq have been somewhat too obvious to pass completely unnoticed. The administration is forced to backpedal somewhat, at least in public, during the first weeks after 9/11.

 
Sept. 17, 2001 – Bush signs an order authorizing war on Afghanistan. At the same time, he orders the Defense Department to begin war plans for invading Iraq, called a part of the ‘War on Terror.’

(Elizabeth de la Vega, United States v. George W. Bush et al, 99.)

Sept. 18, 2001 – Counterterrorism director Richard Clarke submits a memo to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, responding to Bush’s request for information on Iraq, summarizing weaknesses in the argument of any link between Iraq and 9/11. Clarke, who coordinated much of the White House response to 9/11 on September 11 and on days following, summarizes the Intelligence Community consensus rebutting a theory of a Saddam-al Qaeda partnership. However, this theory will keep being pushed by the administration even after being contradicted by the intelligence agencies, see below. The Clarke memo also debunks the theory of a partnership between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Sept. 20, 2001 – The ‘Project for the New American Century’ group (PNAC) sends an open letter to President Bush, endorsing the “war against terrorism” and supporting “the necessary military action in Afghanistan.” The letter, however, devotes more space to regime change in Iraq:

 
“We agree with Secretary of State Powell’s recent statement that Saddam Hussein “is one of the leading terrorists on the face of the Earth….” It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq. Failure to undertake such an effort will constitute an early and perhaps decisive surrender in the war on international terrorism. The United States must therefore provide full military and financial support to the Iraqi opposition. American military force should be used to provide a “safe zone” in Iraq from which the opposition can operate. And American forces must be prepared to back up our commitment to the Iraqi opposition by all necessary means.”

 
The letter’s 41 signers include Weekly Standard editor William Kristol, syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, PNAC and American Enterprise Institute member and Chalabi supporter Richard Perle, and PNAC and Heritage Foundation member John Lehman, later appointed to the Independent Commission investigating 9/11.

Sept. 21, 2001 – Italy’s Military Secret Services (SISMI) passes along to the U.S. information of a purported deal between Iraq and Niger for Iraqi purchase of Niger uranium. Admiral Gianfranco Battelli is SISMI chief at the time but is soon to be replaced.

Sept. 22, 2001 -- A ‘VIP flight’ from New York to Paris carries 12 passengers out of the country, including four Saudis.

Sept. 24, 2001 -- Another VIP flight, from Las Vegas to Paris, carries away 24 passengers including 11 Saudis.

Some individuals jetted away would have been ‘persons of interest’ in any traditional investigation, and others had round-the-clock knowledge of them. When former Clinton and Bush counterterrorism adviser Richard Clarke is later asked about the flights, at the April 8 hearing of the 9/11 Commission, he responds that "someone" in the Saudi embassy had requested that some persons be allowed to fly out and that he refused. Clarke testifies that the request was kicked over to the FBI, which permitted them. No statement is forthcoming as to whether the Saudis’ luggage is searched.

Questions remain. If Saudi royals feared reprisals and were allowed to leave for their personal safety, how could that rationale have applied to British citizens Jack Rusbridge and Anthony John Stafford, on the flight out of Lexington, or to U.S. citizen Dean Earl Knect (or Knecht), on the Vegas-Paris flight? Assuming that diplomatic immunity covers the 20,000-member Saud family, does it also cover family employees of other nationalities, including British and American? Why does a CEO of a Middle East bank fly out, given the importance of the ‘money trail’? If allowing the Saudis’ servants out of the country is a humanitarian gesture, why is a prize-winning Egyptian physicist also aboard? Some family members of Sept. 11 victims, through the Family Steering Committee, have also asked why Saudi royals and others are permitted to fly in commercial air space when the relatives of victims are not given that permission.

The Vegas connection is also curious. Two flights depart from Las Vegas, where at least five of the Sept. 11 suspects visited several times between May 2001 and August 2001. At least one suspect from each of the four hijacked planes stayed in Las Vegas. Suspected ringleader Mohamed Atta checked in at a Vegas hotel on June 29, checked out on July 1, and returned on Aug. 13. Marwan Al-Shehhi, Hani Hanjour, Nawaf Al-Hazmi and Ziad Jarrah all traveled there at least once. The hijackers made at least six trips to Vegas altogether. Yet a few days after 9/11, 31 passengers are allowed to fly out of Vegas, including one passenger named Al-Hazmi. Most of the Saudi royals aboard are adults; only a handful are young people born in the 1980s and 1990s. At least one of these passengers, Ahmed bin Salman, the notable horse race fan and owner of a Kentucky Derby winner, dies in somewhat suspicious circumstances a few months after his return home. Another passenger, a British citizen, is his longtime chauffeur and major domo.

The administration gives no public explanation for what the Saudi royals and the others were doing in Las Vegas, when they went to Vegas, or how long they stayed there. What reason could the hijackers have had for trips to Vegas in the first place other than to rendezvous with higher-ups, given that any extra movement increased their chances of getting caught?