Accusations in America of a former Saudi ambassador to cover up the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks

The Florida Bulldog website discussed some of the details of a secret September 11 interview with former Saudi ambassador to Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, and kept it secret for years until it was revealed last month.

In their article, Anthony Summers and Robin Swan cite Prince Bandar as saying during the interview that people in Saudi Arabia chose not to see extremists among themselves, but there was no reason to believe their way of life would hurt anyone.

The writers say this statement is stunning, pointing out that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was born in Saudi Arabia, and that 15 of the attackers were also Saudis.

Prince Bandar appears to have been questioned no further by the commission's staff, especially when he says that "radical" fundamentalists will not harm anyone.

Security reasons
The website notes that the interview was conducted on 7 October 2003 at the home of Ambassador Bandar in McLean, Virginia, by Commission Director Philip Zelikow and three of his staff. It was kept secret for security reasons, until it was revealed a month ago by the US National Archives.

The article cites Zelikow as saying that the committee did not record its interviews, so there is no transcript of the interview with the Saudi ambassador.

The interview took place at a time when the commission was preparing to make a trip to Saudi Arabia to interview witnesses and other government officials.

The authors point out that they told the representative of the families of the victims Terry Strada about the content of the interview with the Saudi ambassador, which, for her part, saw Prince Bandar as a form of recognition of his prior knowledge of the attacks.

Declaration and recognition
Strada points out that Prince Bandar's statement in this regard is an acknowledgment that the Saudis knew about the attacks in advance and that they did nothing to prevent them.

In the interview, Bandar criticized the United States for creating fertile ground for extremists in countries such as Afghanistan.

The Saudi ambassador is considered an important member of the committee, according to the two writers, referring to his wife's remittances sent to Osama Basnan, a Saudi national living in the United States who is suspected of being part of the hijacker support service.

The article points out that Basnan was close to another Saudi, Omar al-Bayoumi, who was a friend of Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi when they arrived in the United States in early 2000.

other details
The authors say that although the committee knows other details in the same context, Bandar did not question them during the interview.

The website points out that the prince was so close to President George W. Bush and his family that he was given the nickname "Bandar Bush." He says he was filmed just two days after the attacks on a White House balcony with President and Vice President Dick Cheney and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

The writers say it is worrying that Ambassador Bandar and his team members appeared elsewhere in the work of the September 11 investigators, but no questions about any of this intelligence were asked in the interview.