By Michael Steven Smith

From Covert Action Magazine | Original Article

September 11 will mark the 21st anniversary of the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by 19 hijackers. They provided a pretext for the U.S.’s 20-year war in Afghanistan and its subsequent invasion of Iraq, an illegal U.S. war of aggression which was based on a lie that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That war killed more than 1 million people.

My radio show Law And Disorder interviewed retired Florida Senator, the courageous Bob Graham. Graham did more than anyone to expose the connection between the horrific criminal attacks and the complicity of the Saudi government.

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been a U.S. ally in the Middle East for decades. Twenty-one years ago, Saudi officials gave financial, logistical, and other support to the alleged 9/11 hijackers. Fifteen of the 19 men were Saudis.

This explosive history was documented in 2002 in the 28-page final section of the report of The Joint Commission of Inquiry of the Senate and the House, which Senator Graham chaired.

These 28 pages were hidden and not declassified and released until July 15, 2016. They were released because of the efforts of Senator Graham and the families of the 9/11 victims.

By blocking the release of these pages, Senator Graham states, the U.S. government sent a message to the Saudi government that “they can do anything.”

Graham’s prediction was borne out by the 2018 assassination of the journalist and Saudi citizen Jamal Khashoggi who was murdered and dismembered in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey, by order of Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Read the full report here.

Nevertheless, last month, President Joe Biden traveled to Saudi Arabia to meet with Mohammed bin Salman and greeted him not with a customary handshake but with a collegial fist bump. This occurred despite Biden’s earlier declaration that “Khashoggi was in fact murdered and dismembered and I believe at the order of this crown prince.”

Oil and arm sales are the reasons why the United States continues to embrace Saudi Arabia as a close ally. Saudi Arabia has the second largest supply of reserve oil in the world. The U.S. needs it now because the war in Ukraine. According to the U.S. State Department statement of May 11, 2022, “Saudi Arabia is the United States‘ largest foreign military sales (FMS) customer with more than $100 billion in FMS cases.”

Law and Disorder co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and the author of this article, Michael Smith, interviewed Senator Bob Graham before the missing 28 pages of the 9/11 report were finally released. These pages confirmed Senator Graham‘s belief that the hijackers could not have pulled off the operation alone. It reveals that the hijackers were part of a support network involving the Saudi monarchy and government which helped plan, pay for, and execute the complicated 9/11 plot.

Senator Graham has written the book “Intelligence Matters: the CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s war on Terror.” It provides a candid insight into U.S. and Saudi relations.

Senator Bob Graham is the former two-term governor of Florida and served for 18 years in the U.S. Senate in addition to 12 years in the Florida Legislature for a total of 38 years of public service.

Michael Stephen Smith and his co-author Michael Ratner wrote the book “Who Killed Che? How the CIA Got Away With Murder” (OR Books). He is the cohost of Law and Disorder Radio on the net at lawanddisorder.org.