Newsweek says MICHAEL MOORE WRONG. No Correction from us.

[LittleApple81]

This appeared in the letter/corrections in the last issue. NON-CORRECTION IN THIS CASE. I clipped Craig Unger's letter and the response in their entirety because they are just part of a much larger section.
Craig Unger is the author of "House of Bush, House of Saud" and he appeared in F/911. He talked about the BinLaden's exiting the USA after 9/11.

Debating 'Fahrenheit 9/11'

In "Under The Hot Lights" (June 28), Michael Isikoff attacks Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" by asserting that "Craig Unger appears, claiming that bin Laden family members were never interviewed by the FBI." The article then goes on to say that this assertion is false. Unfortunately for Isikoff, I make no such statement in the movie. I do report—accurately—that the bin Ladens and other Saudis were whisked out of the country without being subjected to a serious investigation. But that sequence ends with Moore's summing up my account of the bin Laden evacuation. "So a little interview, check the passport, what else?" he asks. "Nothing," I respond. It would be one thing if Isikoff had simply made an honest error, but clearly that is not the case. When Isikoff called me for his article, I specifically told him 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 attributes claims to me that are simply not in the movie. Isikoff also wrongly asserts that the Saudi "flights didn't begin until Sept. 14—after airspace reopened." In fact, as I report in my book, "House of Bush, House of Saud," the first flight took place on Sept. 13, when restrictions on private planes were still in place. According to the St. Petersburg Times, that flight has since been corroborated by authorities at Tampa International Airport.
Craig Unger
New York, N.Y.

Editors' note: NEWSWEEK regrets that we did not include Michael Moore's reference to "little interviews" in our report. But we stand by our account that Unger's claims about the Saudi flights, as portrayed in "Fahrenheit 9/11," are contradicted by the findings of the 9-11 Commission. The commission's interim report states that of the Saudis interviewed by the FBI, "many were asked detailed questions." The commission wrote that the FBI took other steps to screen the departing Saudis—including running their names through federal databases—and that "nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9-11 investigation was allowed to leave the country." On the questioning of timing, the commission states that the flights taking Saudis out of the country began on Sept. 14. The Tampa flight in question was a domestic flight to Lexington, Ky., that took off late on Sept. 13 after restrictions on flying had already been lifted and Tampa International Airport had reopened for business.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5304901/site/newsweek/

[quinnox]

1. The truth is slowly spreading

Good for Newsweek for sticking by their guns.

[LittleApple81]

2. I think they are actually saying Moore is wrong, Newsweek's Isikoff is

right.

[quinnox]

4. Oh, I misread it

It is kinda confusingly worded.

[Stephanie]

12. Really?

How so?

[LittleApple81]

14. It was my fault. My previous heading was not very clear. Sorry. n/t

[NewYorkerfromMass]

5. But we have to confront an assumption here

and that is that 'president' Bush (the Bush family) would have juristiction and authority over the FBI.
I doubt it.

[booksenkatz]

3. They're quibbling over flight ARR/DEP times

while many of us continue to be stunned that such a flight ever took place at all.

"Look over there! See how wrong Craig Unger is on this tiny point! It means that his entire book is lies!"

Weapons of Media Distraction.

[Aries]

6. This seems to be a distraction...

What I think is really interesting is this point:

"...The commission wrote that the FBI took other steps to screen the departing Saudis—including running their names through federal databases—and that nobody of interest to the FBI with regard to the 9-11 investigation was allowed to leave the country."

One would think that tracking the money trail back to Osama would involve more than onboard interviews of the departing Bin Ladens. And remember (Time Person of the Year) Colleen Rowley's experience trying to get FBI headquarters to follow up on Zacarias Moussaui? I think the FBI has a LOT of questions to answer.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. Does anyone seriously believe that, other than Osama, ANY member of...

...the Bin Laden family would be in ANY computerized Federal database?

[Corgigal]

7. Newsweek huh

I wish they took a much time working on WMD's in Iraq as they are going over this issue. Of course wars can make journalists superstars and their kids don't go so it's a win-win for them.
Assholes.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. As thoroughly as Moore researched the info for this movie, knowing....

...that he would be viciously attacked by the rightwingers, I'll stick with Moore's FACTUAL version of the events.

[The Zanti Regent]

10. We say New$peak Lies just like I$ikoff!

Boycott New$peak Magazine.

[Eric J in MN]

11. Why did the Bush Administration lie about the Tampa flight for

Why did the Bush Administration lie about the Tampa flight for years, if it took place when flying was allowed?

[Tansy_Gold]

18. Govt. admission per St. Pete Times, 6/9/04

http://www.sptimes.com/2004/06/09/Tampabay/TIA_now_verifies_flig.shtml

Tampabay: TIA now verifies flight of Saudis


<snip>
TAMPA - Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation's air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left.
The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky.

<snip>

For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose.

<snip>

The plane first entered the airspace from the south, possibly from the Fort Lauderdale area, sometime after 3 p.m. and landed for the first time at 3:34 p.m. It took off at 4:37 p.m., headed north. It returned to Tampa at 8:23 p.m. and took off again at 8:48 p.m., headed south.

<snip>

The FAA is still not talking about the flights, referring all questions to the FBI, which isn't answering anything, either. Nor is the 9/11 Commission.

<snip>

Most of the aircraft allowed to fly in U.S. airspace on Sept. 13 were empty airliners being ferried from the airports where they made quick landings on Sept. 11. The reopening of the airspace included paid charter flights, but not private, nonrevenue flights.
"Whether such a (LearJet) flight would have been legal hinges on whether somebody paid for it," said FAA spokesman William Shumann. "That's the key."

<end snips>

Unger is quoted extensively in this article. The question is also raised about the identities of the Saudis listed on the flights, whether any of them was a member of the royal family.

[lostnfound]

22. "Possibly from Lauderdale" -- Flight 93 hijackers were there on 9/10

Probably just a coincidence.

Flight 93 was the PA crash that reportedly had only 4 (not 5) hijackers on board.

[Eric J in MN]

13. the investigation was just starting on Sept. 13-14, so it's

The investigation was just starting on Sept. 13-14, so it's meaningless to say that the bin Laden family members and the Saudi royals weren't on a watch-list. So what?

They should still have been thoroughly questioned.

[skooooo]

15. BS like this doesn't take away from the film's impact...

Let them quibble away. The fact remains that Bush is a corrupt leader and Moore proved that quite eloquently.

[truthspeaker]

16. So they're just taking the commission's word for it?

Here's a thought, Newsweek. How about you investigate it yourselves instead of just reporting what other people say?

What the FUCK has happened to journalism in this country?

"We stand by our report that the emperor is wearing clothes. We asked the emperor's tailors and they said he was. End of story."

[dennis4868]

17. What the FUCK has happened to journalism in this country?

The journalist are way too busy looking at a blown up picture of Clinton's penis with Ken Starr...they must be so proud of their tough investigative work for 8 years during the 1990s...it was such important work for this country's national security...now they can go to sleep (at least until Kerry is in the WH....then it is back to work!)

[Sparkly]

19. Unbelievable.

Talk about having an agenda!!!

[gratuitous]

20. Wow, the interim commission report is sure a malleable document

The interim report issued by the commission morphs into whatever someone wants to say it is. If the report says there was no working relationship between Al Qaeda and the Saddam regime, then it's a preliminary document, written by a runaway minority of the commission members. But if the report makes an ambiguous statement ("nobody of interest to the FBI"* was on those flights), then it's the gospel truth and proves that the entirety of F911 is a pack of seditious lies.

It's certainly good to see "journalists" scrutinizing every frame of a documentary for misleading statements or seeming contradictions. I would have settled for one-tenth this amount of skepticism during the run-up to the invasion of Iraq from August 2002 to March 2003. And at that, it would have been about a thousand times greater than the amount evinced by the popular media, which snoozed right through all the Bush administration lies, and continues to do so to this day.

*This statement is ambiguous because it doesn't indicate when the parties on those planes out of the country might have been of no interest to the FBI, or if they've become of interest at this time, now that the investigation is a little further along than it was 48 hours after the shocking events of September 11. Just in case you were wondering why I called the statement "ambiguous."

[gbwarming]

21. The Saudi access to the highest level of the administration is undeniable

Whatever the final determination of flight times and airspace restictions, it is undeniable that the Saudis had exceptional access to the highest levels of the White House. Why, in the first couple of days of a national emergency, should Clarke or the security council have been bothered by a routine sort of request that should have been handled through state department channels?