The Eleventh Day_ The History and Legacy of 9_11 - Anthony Summers [325]
50 “It doesn’t look”: BG, 3/3/02;
51 few fluent Arabic: Report, JI, 59, 245, 255, 336, 358;
52 men believed to have helped: For information not particularly cited here, see Ch. 25 and its related Notes;
53 Thumairy diplomat: Kean & Hamilton, 308;
54 “in a Western”: MFR 04019254, 4/20/04;
55 “uncertain”: MFR of int. Omar al-Bayoumi, 10/18/03, CF;
56 Bayoumi’s income: Graham with Nussbaum, 167, int. Bob Graham;
57 three-page section; Report, JI, 175–;
58 Graham re payments: Graham with Nussbaum, 24–, 167–, 224–, int. Bob Graham.
59 payments originated embassy?: The 9/11 Commission was to report that it found no evidence that Mihdhar and Hazmi received money from Basnan—or Bayoumi. The public furor around the Basnan money centered on reports that it came to the Basnans in cashier’s checks in the name of Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa. The royal couple were predictably outraged by the notion that there could have been a link between the princess and terrorists. Such payments would have been in line, a Saudi embassy spokesman said, with her normal contributions to the needy. 9/11 Commissioner John Lehman surmised that the princess simply signed checks put in front of her by radicals working in the embassy’s Islamic Affairs office. Newsweek has reported that Saudi wire transfers amounting to $20,000 were made to an individual who was featured in another terrorist case, also in connection with medical treatment for the individual’s wife. Newsweek made no mention of Princess Haifa in that regard (Commission: CR, 516n24; furor: e.g., Newsweek, 11/22/02, 12/9/02, Washington Times, 11/26/02; outraged: Fox News, 11/27/02, LAT, 11/24/02, CounterPunch, 12/3/02, Lehman: Shenon, 185; $20,000: Newsweek, 4/7/04, Daily Times [Pakistan], 8/8/08).
60 Thumairy “might be”: CR, 217;
61 Bayoumi attracted/“connections”/left country: FBI IG, Report, JI, 173;
62 Basnan came up: Report, JI, 176;
63 party: ibid., 177;
64 did more for Islam: MFR 04017541A, 11/17/03, CF;
65 “wonderful”: Newsweek, 11/22/02;
66 contact with Binalshibh: MFR 04017541A, 11/17/03, CF.
67 agent or spy: Graham with Nussbaum, 11, 24–, 168–, 224–. At least five people told the FBI they considered Bayoumi to be some sort of government agent. According to Dr. Abdussattar Shaikh, in whose San Diego home future hijackers Hazmi and Mihdhar eventually rented accommodations, one of those who expressed that view was none other than Hazmi himself. In an early interview with The New York Times after 9/11, Shaikh said Hazmi and Midhar had been his friends, that their identification as hijackers was perhaps a case of stolen identities. Congressional investigators would later be startled to discover something Sheikh had certainly not revealed to the Times—and that the FBI initially sought to conceal from the investigators. Shaikh had long been an FBI informant, and had regularly shared information with a Bureau agent named Steven Butler. Butler had on occasion talked with Shaikh at home while Hazmi and Mihdhar were in a room nearby. According to the agent, Shaikh had mentioned the pair by their first names, saying that they were Saudis. That rang no alarm bells for him, Butler recalled, because “Saudi Arabia was considered an ally.” The FBI, backed up by Bush officials, refused to allow Joint Committee staff to interview Shaikh. A 9/11 Commission memorandum, identifying Shaikh only as Dr. Xxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxx, makes it clear that 9/11 Commission staff did talk to Shaikh. The memorandum does not say whether Shaikh shared with Agent Butler his belief that Bayoumi, the man who had introduced the hijackers to San Diego, was a Saudi agent. Nor is there evidence that Commission staff queried Shaikh about inconsistencies in his story of how he first met the