commission. The question that remains, the key question is who originally made the request to have the Bin Laden family and the Saudis flown out while commercial flights were still grounded.
Relevant section of testimony:
MR. CLARKE: You're absolutely right that the Saudi Arabian government did not cooperate with us significantly in the fight against terrorism prior to 9/11. Indeed, it didn't really cooperate until after bombs blew up in Riyadh.
Now, as to this controversy about the Saudi evacuation aircraft, let me -- let me tell you everything I know, which is that some -- in the days following 9/11, whether it was on 9/12 or 9/15 I can't tell you, we were in a constant crisis management meeting that had started the morning of 9/11 and ran for days on end. We were making lots of decisions, but we were coordinating them with all the agencies through the video teleconference procedure. Someone -- and I wish I could tell you who, but I don't know who -- someone brought to that group a proposal that we authorize a request from the Saudi embassy. The Saudi embassy had apparently said that they feared for the lives of Saudi citizens, because they thought there would be retribution against Saudis in the United States as it became obvious to Americans that this attack was essentially done by Saudis, and that there were even Saudi citizens in the United States who were part of the bin Ladin family, which is a very large family -- very large family.
The Saudi embassy, therefore, asked for these people to be evacuated; the same sort of thing that we do all the time in similar crises, evacuating Americans.
The request came to me and I refused to approve it. I suggested that it be routed to the FBI and that the FBI look at the names of the individuals who were going to be on the passenger manifest and that they approve it or not. I spoke with the at that time the number-two person in the FBI, Dale Watson, and asked him to deal with this issue. The FBI then approved -- after some period of time, and I can't tell you how long -- approved the flight.
Now, what degree of review the FBI did of those names, I cannot tell you. How many people there are on the plane, I cannot tell you. But I have asked since, were there any individuals on that flight that in retrospect the FBI wishes they could have interviewed in this country, and the answer I've been given is no, that there was no one who left on that flight who the FBI now wants to interview.
MR. ROEMER: Despite the fact that we don't know if Dale Watson interviewed them in the first place.
MR. CLARKE: I don't think they were ever interviewed in this country.
MR. ROEMER: So they were not interviewed here. We have all their names. We don't know if there has been any follow-up to interview those people that were here and flown out of the country.
MR. CLARKE: The last time I asked that question, I was informed the FBI still had no desire to interview any of these people.
MR. ROEMER: Would you have a desire to interview some of these people that --
MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are.
MR. ROEMER: We don't know who they are.
MR. CLARKE: I don't know who they are. The FBI knew who they were, because they --
MR. ROEMER: Given your confidence and your statements on the FBI, what's your level of comfort with this?
MR. CLARKE: Well, I will tell you in particular about the ones that get the most attention here in the press, and they are members of the bin Ladin family. I was aware for some time that there were members of the bin Ladin family living in the United States. And, let's see, in open session I can say that I was very well aware of the members of the bin Ladin family and what they were doing in the United States, and the FBI was extraordinarily well aware of what they were doing in the United States. And I was informed by the FBI that none of the members of the bin Ladin family, this large clan, were doing anything in this country that was illegal or that raised their suspicions. And I believe the FBI had very good information and good sources of information about what the members of the bin Ladin family were doing.
MR. ROEMER: I've been very impressed with your memory, sitting through all these interviews that the 9/11 Commission has conducted with you. I press you again to try to recall how this request originated, who might have passed this on to you at the White House Situation Room, or who might have originated that request for the United States government to fly out -- how many people on this plane?
MR. CLARKE: I don't know.
MR. ROEMER: We don't know how many people were on a plane that flew out of this country. Who gave the final approval, then, to say "Yes, you're clear to go, it's all right with the United States government to go to Saudi Arabia"?
MR. CLARKE: I believe after the FBI came back and said it was all right with them, we ran it through the decision process for all of these decisions that we were making in those hours, which was the Interagency Crisis Management Group on the video conference.
I was making -- or coordinating a lot of decisions on 9/11 in the days immediately after. And I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State of the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know.
MR. ROEMER: Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Here is the link to his testimony:
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing8/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-03-24.htm#clarke
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