None of the important Saudis alleged to have been involved in 9/11 were bin Ladens, so this testimony about bin Laden family members is beside the point. Nor does this touch on the central implausibility, that a couple of days after 9/11 Clarke and the FBI could already be reasonably certain no future investigation of the attack would lead them back to the Saudis present in the USA at the time.
Alleged when? At that time, the only
logical suspects on those flights would have been bin Ladens, not Saudi Royal Family officials. What reasons whatsoever would the FBI have had to suspect the Saudi Royal family, or Saudi government officials?
Why all this focus on the bin Ladens?
See above.
As I said before, the idea that those who left could have been ruled out as having relevant information that fast is completely inconsistent with the time other aspects of the investigation required, and (dare I invoke it?) inconsistent with common sense.
Before you worry about ruling them out, you'd have to have some reason to have them ruled
in. There would have to be some reason to believe any of those people had knowledge of the 9/11 attacks. I don't see it as common sense that any of them would. It is no more common sense that Saudi officials would have inside knowledge of the 9/11 attacks than it is common sense that the US Government would have inside knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing.
I can't see any motive for the FBI to want them out of the country, however there's a clear motive for the Bush White House to get them out of the country - to maintain the existing friendly relations between the Bush and Saud families, and perhaps as a bonus to help insure that Saudi Arabia and 9/11 weren't linked in the public mind in any way that would make it difficult to garner support for the coming invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is some motive for the Bush White House to want them out, but again, it goes back to the fact that it was
Richard Clarke, the counterterrorism guru, along with the FBI, who made the decision, not George Bush. It seems they were the ones qualified to make that assessment, and they did. Richard Clarke approved it when he was satisfied that the FBI didn't need to question any of them. Nobody has come forward to suggest either he or the FBI were unduly pressured. As such, while the White House may have had some motive, the onus is squarely on the shoulders of Clarke and the FBI.
Plus, calling them "important witnesses" is quite begging the question. The entire point is whether they were witnesses to anything. The FBI said then, and still says, that they weren't important witnesses, and that there isn't any evidence that they were.
Claiming they could have known that at the time stretches credulity, to say the least.
For the bin Ladens, they very well might have. According to Clarke, they had been watching them closely for some time. As for the other Saudis, there would still have to be
some reason to be suspicious of them beyond the fact that, they are from Saudi Arabia and so were the hijackers. That doesn't strike me as being a particurly valid reason to be suspicious of someone. A lot of Saudis are in the U.S. Should we have held all of them in the country?
A group of people, mostly Saudis, launches a very well-organised attack on the USA that kills three thousand people. The prime suspect, Osama bin Laden, is former businessman who once had close ties to the Saudi government. It would seem to be to be entirely reasonable to ask them to stay in the country while the investigation progresses in case it turns out they were somehow linked to the conspiracy.
Osama bin Laden, who was expelled from Saudi Arabia and had his citizenship revoked, and was a major critic and enemy of the Saudi Royal Family. So because he once had connections to the Saudi Government, we should have immediately assumed that anyone involved in the Saudi Government who was in the U.S. could be a witness? Why not question everyone at the Saudi Embassy then. Diplomatic immunity notwithstanding, it would have made as much sense to be suspicious of them.
The only argument I can see for letting them leave is the good old argument from incredulity. "Surely nobody would be dumb enough to support or coordinate terrorist cells like those that carried out 9/11 and not be out of the country when an attack occurred?". However proper criminal investigations don't work by dismissing every hypothesis you can come up with an argument from incredulity against.
How about the rationale that: there was no evidence or even reason to believe they were involved, they had legitimate fears about their safety, and they were citizens of a foreign country who have every right to leave if they aren't being held in relation to a crime.
), I have a problem with Michael Moore's lies.