After officially disbanding, the 9/11 commission Saturday released two lengthy staff reports on its Web site on terrorist financing and travel that go beyond what was published in its "final" report issued July 22.The reports offer new details about how the 19 hijackers and other alleged conspirators received or brought money to the United States and posts pictures of their visas and other officials documents not previously released.
In the first report on financing, the general conclusions are the same: the September 11, 2001 attacks cost somewhere between $400,000 and $500,000 -- not including the cost of terrorist camp training -- of which approximately $300,000 was spent in the United States.
Al Qaeda, which spent an estimated $30 million a year according to the CIA, was funded primarily by fundraising from donors and corrupt charities, not Osama bin Laden's personal wealth or bin Laden-owned business fronts.Bin Laden received only $1 million a year from his family and was cut off in 1994. The origin of 9/11 funds is unknown but no money for the attacks was raised in the United States. The hijackers did not self-finance or have jobs.
The first "monograph" reveals in detail how the hijackers received money from wire transfers, cash and traveler's checks carried in, and credit or debit cards for overseas bank accounts.
The report says the bulk of the funds was sent by Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, a nephew of 9/11 architect Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was captured in March 2003 and is being held in secret.
The second "monograph" details how all of the 9/11 hijackers violated some aspect of U.S. immigration laws while gaining entry to, or remaining in, the United States.
It also explains that the al Qaeda terrorist network favored using Saudi passports for its operatives because irregularities in the country's passport issuance system made the passports more readily available. For example, reporting a Saudi passport stolen that later turned up in someone else's possession was not a crime.
The second monograph also details 11 flights that left the United States between September 13 and September 24, 2001 carrying Saudi nationals, including members of bin Laden's family.
"Fearing reprisals against Saudi nationals, Rihab Massoud, deputy chief of mission of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., called Dale Watson, the FBI's assistant director for counterterrorism, shortly after the attack and asked for help in getting some of the Kingdom's citizens out of the country," the document states.
The commission says White House Counterterrorism Security Coordinator Richard Clarke appears to be the most senior official involved in approving the flights.
"President Bush and Vice President Cheney told the Commission that they did not speak with Saudi government officials about the flights before their departure," the document states. "The President told the Commission that the first he knew about the issue was when he read about it in the newspaper."
The commission states that all the Saudi nationals had been screened by the FBI to make sure they were not a threat to national security and no terrorists escaped from the U.S. on any of the Saudi flights.
