Help! Were bin ladin family members questioned or not?

[Keebs]

I have someone telling me that ALL of the Saudi's/Bin Ladin family members were questioned before they left and they are quoting the 9/11 commission. I can't find -anything- anywhere on the 9/11 panel's website mentioning questioning at all. Are there some glorious links you guys might have or -anything- at all helpful in my rebuttle of this claim?

[Worst Username Ever]

1. NOT questioned

but I will see what I can find for a link. They were out of here within just a couple of days, not enough to question all the bin ladens, not to mention all the other saudis...

[Toots]

2. According to documents and Moore's investigation only 30

of the 142 Saudis that were ushered out of the country on Sept 13th were questioned at all. And according to Richard Clarke the FBI says it has no intentions or need to question any of the others. How many of those thirty were Bin Ladens I do not know.

[jjmalonejr]

They were questioned

Coffee or tea?
Would you like a magazine?
Did you enjoy the flight?

[BrotherBuzz]

9. You bad!

LOL :)

[tom_paine]

3. Deliberate Bushevik misinformation and half-truths

In Moore's movie, he even SAYS (or one of the people he was interviewing does) that they rceived "cursory interviews".

So this is a Bushevik fabrication and yes, they did receive "interviews"

"That your passport?"

"Yup."

"OK."

Something like that. Moore's FBI Expert made mention of it and also stated that he would have done more probing interviews.

once again, the Bushevik PR Lie Machine perpetuates a successful smear.

[htuttle]

4. It never happened

They were never questioned. That's why there's no mention of it. Most of the time, news organizations write about what does happen, rather than what doesn't.

For example, you won't find an article stating that Martians DIDN'T invade the Earth last month, since that didn't happen either. :shrug:

[Keebs]

5. Okay,

but I need some sort of documentation to show this woman. I can't find squat, for her side (questioned) OR mine (not questioned).

[joefree1]

6. Go here

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/f911facts/

>>These facts are based entirely on the findings contained in the 9/11 commission draft report, which states, "After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin." National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, Threats and Responses in 2001, Staff Statement No. 10, The Saudi Flights, p. 12; <<



Edit: more as I find it >> It would be one thing if Isikoff had simply made an honest error; but that clearly is not the case. When he called me, I specifically told Isikoff that the evacuation process involved brief interviews of the bin Ladens which fell far short of the kind of intense criminal investigation that should have gotten underway after the murder of nearly 3,000 people. The worst crime in American history had just taken place two days earlier, and the FBI did not even bother to check the terror watch lists. Isikoff omitted all that. Instead, he put words in my mouth that are simply not in the movie. <<

[JDPriestly]

7. The FBI has not released this information.

And why not -- because the FBI allowed the bin Ladens to leave the country before the FBI had investigated enough to know what questions to ask.

Also, by allowing the Saudis to leave, the FBI gave up a negotiating chip or leverage with which the FBI could have pressured the Saudis into allowing interviews and interrogations of the families of the terrorists and investigations of their ties in Saudi Arabia. Regardless of whether the bin Ladens were interviewed or not, allowing them and other Saudis to leave before assuring the right to intervew the terrorists families and others linked to the terrorism in Saudi Arabia was a stupid move. The FBI doesn't want the public to realize just how stupid it was.

[Spazito]

10. Here is Clarke's testimony from the 9/11 Commission on this question...

I would think it would be sufficiently credible. It seems they were not questioned the day of the flight but there is reference to Clarke and the FBI being fully aware of the bin Laden family members and what they had been doing in the US prior to 9/11.

Here is the testimony:

Now, what degree of review the FBI did of those names, I cannot tell you. How many people there are on the plane, I cannot tell you. But I have asked since, were there any individuals on that flight that in retrospect the FBI wishes they could have interviewed in this country, and the answer I've been given is no, that there was no one who left on that flight who the FBI now wants to interview.

MR. ROEMER: Despite the fact that we don't know if Dale Watson interviewed them in the first place.

MR. CLARKE: I don't think they were ever interviewed in this country.

MR. ROEMER: So they were not interviewed here. We have all their names. We don't know if there has been any follow-up to interview those people that were here and flown out of the country.

MR. CLARKE: The last time I asked that question, I was informed the FBI still had no desire to interview any of these people.

MR. ROEMER: Would you have a desire to interview some of these people that --

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know who they are.

MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are. The FBI knew who they were, because they --

MR. ROEMER: Given your confidence and your statements on the FBI, what's your level of comfort with this?

MR. CLARKE: Well, I will tell you in particular about the ones that get the most attention here in the press, and they are members of the bin Ladin family. I was aware for some time that there were members of the bin Ladin family living in the United States. And, let's see, in open session I can say that I was very well aware of the members of the bin Ladin family and what they were doing in the United States, and the FBI was extraordinarily well aware of what they were doing in the United States. And I was informed by the FBI that none of the members of the bin Ladin family, this large clan, were doing anything in this country that was illegal or that raised their suspicions. And I believe the FBI had very good information and good sources of information about what the members of the bin Ladin family were doing.

MR. ROEMER: I've been very impressed with your memory, sitting through all these interviews that the 9/11 Commission has conducted with you. I press you again to try to recall how this request originated, who might have passed this on to you at the White House Situation Room, or who might have originated that request for the United States government to fly out -- how many people on this plane?

MR. CLARKE: I don't know.

MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say "Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia"?

MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the Interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference.

I was making -- or coordinating a lot of 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 of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know.

Here is the link:

http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing8/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-03-24.htm#clarke

[Skittles]

8. yes

they were asked which flight they wanted to get on.