'House of Bush, House of Saud,' Interview with Author

Liberal Oasis - In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, rather than wage a real war on terrorism, [Bush] was very accommodating to the Saudis.

And I focus specifically on what I call “The Great Escape”, this massive operation in which eight airplanes stop in 12 American cities and took 140 Saudis out of the United States, when I believe we should have been interrogating them and seeing what role they would have played…

…You have a time in which no one in the United States can fly. Our skies are completely shut down.

You have Prince Bandar meeting with President Bush on the Truman Balcony in the White House on September 13. And then suddenly all these planes start flying…

…And on the passenger lists, I think the most important name I found was Prince Ahmed bin Salman who…is alleged to have ties to Al Qaeda and advance knowledge of 9/11.

…I’d love to see the 9/11 Commission investigate why and how…those planes left the country. How did they get White House authorization?

The Bush Administration denies that these flights took place.

I got the passenger list. I got photos of the interiors. I believe they did.

I don’t like to speculate as a rule, but all I can suggest is that…Prince Bandar’s been a friend of the family for 30 years. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that they could be complicit, even inadvertently, with terrorism.

The Saudis clearly made this request and they acceded without thinking about it.

House of Bush, House of Saud : The Secret Relationship Between the World's Two Most Powerful Dynasties