ICYMI: Former CIA Deputy Director on Saudi Government Agent’s Pre-9/11 “Casing” Video of U.S. Capitol:
“No doubt in my mind that al-Qaeda tasked him to do this casing video.”
In case you missed it, former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell was among several key voices who weighed in this weekend on the never-before-seen “casing” video of the U.S. Capitol shot before the 9/11 attacks by a Saudi national identified by the FBI as an intelligence operative of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Omar Al-Bayoumi. The FBI determined that Al-Bayoumi was on the payroll of the Saudi Embassy and that he “provided substantial assistance” to the September 11th hijackers, but the FBI never analyzed or exploited the videos.
The London Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) provided the video to the FBI years ago, but it was also never made available to the 9/11 Commission or the CIA, according to Morell, who said, “I’m 99.9% confident that we did not have this video. I was the president’s briefer at the time. If somebody had shown me this video, I would have shown it to the president.”
Appearing on CBS’ Face the Nation Sunday, Morell said, “No doubt in my mind that it is a casing video – a casing video for some sort of terrorist attack….it’s pretty clear to me that al-Bayoumi was either working for al-Qaeda or was al-Qaeda. No doubt in my mind that al-Qaeda tasked him to do this casing video. The video is chilling. It’s chilling in terms of what he was videotaping, his narration over the top of it, which is part of what tells you it was a casing video, and his extremist comments.”
As the New York Post reports, “[T]he disturbing footage highlights al-Bayoumi’s trip to Washington, DC, with the Saudi national addressing his “brothers” as he promises to survey the capitol. ‘I will go over there, and I will report,’ al-Bayoumi says as he pans to the monuments. ‘I will report to you in detail what is there.’”
In an interview with CBS News last week, which first reported on the video, retired FBI Agent Ken Williams, who worked on the 9/11 investigation, questioned why it has taken more than 20 years for the video to surface after it was provided to the U.S. following a British raid on Al-Bayoumi’s UK residence in 2001. The tape was obtained by the 9/11 families and survivors through their civil lawsuit and unsealed last week in federal court after it was introduced as evidence by the 9/11 community as it pursues accountability from the Kingdom for its role in the murder of thousands of innocent Americans.
However, at the request of both the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the U.S. Department of Justice, the vast bulk of the evidence in the 9/11 case remains under seal and hidden from public view, including from the thousands of 9/11 family members and survivors.
In several TV interviews over the last 72 hours, National Chair of 9/11 Families United, Terry Strada, slammed the lack of transparency by our government over the last 20-plus years regarding the worst terrorist attack in American history, saying:
“The Kingdom has a very powerful hold on the Department of Justice, and they put so much pressure to keep everything buried because they do not want to take responsibility for what their countrymen did on 9/11. It’s all about the Kingdom pulling the strings and burying the evidence and our Department of Justice caving to their threats….there is a defense pact going on right now that I’m sure we (the 9/11 families) are being used as pawns…they are talking about putting our U.S. military on Saudi soil if they are attacked. All of this is extremely egregious when they so brutally attacked us on September 11th.”
About 9/11 Families United:
9/11 Families United is an organization consisting of family members of those murdered in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, as well as many of those who survived, were injured or sickened from the attacks. More information is at www.911familiesunited.org.
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