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During the Republican debate Tuesday Jeb Bush took exception to Donald Trump’s assertion George W. Bush flew Saudis and members of the Bin Laden family out of the country.
Despite the corporate media insisting this is a conspiracy theory we have definitive proof Jeb’s brother gave preferential treatment to Saudis—including Saudis who were considered principle witnesses to the September 11 attacks.
NBC News reported:
The review of how the FBI dealt with and reported on the travel of the Florida-based Saudis, and their subsequent departure from the United States with other Saudis, shows that the FBI failed to interview principal witnesses; relied on erroneous second-hand information; misinterpreted the orders under which the FAA managed the closure and subsequent reopening of U.S. airspace after the 9/11 attacks; misreported the means of travel; and even got Prince Sultan’s identity wrong.
In 2005 the AFP reported that “newly released US government records show that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents gave personal airport escorts to two prominent Saudi families who fled the US, while several other Saudis were allowed to leave the country without first being interviewed.”
Remarkably the flight was one of several “that Saudi Arabian citizens took in the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001 when the rest of the country was prohibited from flying.”
Two dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s family also hurriedly departed the country, but the Saudi ambassador to Washington insisted the flights occurred when air travel was reopened.
New reports, however, counter this.
“Even though American airspace had been shut down, the Bush administration allowed a jet to fly around the US picking up family members from 10 cities, including Los Angeles, Washington DC, Boston and Houston,” Sky News reported following revelations by former White House counter-terrorism chief Richard Clarke.
“We were in the midst of the worst terrorist act in history and here we were seeing an evacuation of the bin Ladens! … I wanted to go the highest levels in Washington,” Tom Kinton, director of aviation at Boston’s Logan airport, said.
Trump was spot on with his accusation Tuesday night.
Bush may take umbrage but it is difficult to dispute history.