OK, question of the day: Who did give the order to allow the Saudis to

[aprilgirl]

fly out of the US right after 9/11? They never followed up on this at the hearings. Or did I miss it?

[Octafish]

1. If my memory serves: Clarke said it was the Chief of Staff ...

...of the pretzeldunce or someone at the Department of Justice. He did not know who gave the OK, even though the rest of the nation's commercial airplanes were grounded.

[napi21]

2. There was no answer.

That question was asked several times, and the answer was "I don't know." It was supposed to have come from the FBI to the general WH discussion group.

Clarke said he received the initial request, but turned it over to the FBI.

[yardwork]

3. Someone followed up and pressed Clarke to remember.

He said he could not remember, but that logically the request would have come from either the State Department or the Chief of Staff.

Clarke said that he did not approve the request. He forwarded it to FBI, who approved it and kicked it back to the crisis team, who approved it as a group.

[alcuno]

4. I saw an interesting interview with Kristen Breitweiser yesterday

She said that she had spoken with Tom Keane yesterday morning and he told her that "they" had said that there were questions that could not be asked by the commission that day. I'm sure the WH has given them a list citing "national security."

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

5. Poppy/Prince Bandar is my bet. nt

[FloridaPat]

6. Had to be the White House. The bin Ladin's were and probably

still are business partners of the Bushes'. It was also the White House that pulled out those 27 pages of the 9-11 report last year which we believe dealt with Saudi Arabia. Hard to invade Iraq if people get the idea Saudi Arabia had anything to do with terrorism.