Sunshine State Secrets

Something strange is going on in Florida. Again. The FBI is pouring over a home evidently vacated in a hurry by a Saudi family immediately before 9/11. The warrant is sealed, so facts are scarce.

But parsing what is being reported, things don't add up. The Washington Post quotes an unnamed FBI official as saying a 22-year-old who lived in the house attended the same flight school as two of the 9/11 hijackers. The Miami Herald merely says he attended a nearby flight school, quite a different thing.

The Post also quotes neighbors of the family as saying they immediately began calling the FBI after 9/11 begging them to check out the situation. They eventually gave up after getting no response. The Herald adds the wrinkle that the bureau is interested in Islamic charities the family may have given to, but makes it seem that complaints from the neighborhood association about a messy yard this past October triggered FBI action.

If the Post's version is correct, we've got yet another example of the Bureau failing to do basic investigative field work. It sure looks like the FBI only got interested in the matter after someone's name turned up in one of its dragnets of financial records.

One would think that the FBI's counter-terrorism performance would be a topic for the new 9/11 commission that gets underway next week.

Comments

[John]

During the 2002 Winter Bribefest, errrrr, Olympics here in Salt Lake City, the FBI left Dick Cheney’s schedule in a souvenir shop.

The shop owner found it & called the FBI. But the FBI would not come get it. They said they were too busy. The owner could not leave his shop during one of his biggest selling days ever.

Finally, he called the news media.

The FBI could not find a doughnut in Rosie O’Donnell’s kitchen.

[HermanYam]

I thought that was the Secret Service that left the VP’s schedule in a gift shop. Not that it makes me feel any better.

[John]

You may be right, Yam.

I’m still upset because the Secret Service did not invite me to their party in Provo that had lots of booze and underaged girls.

[Jim]

How about the Israeli agents who rented the house on the same street as Atta and the other terrorists? That must have been known by the FBI, did they not ask what the foreign intel was doing? My bet is they did and shrugged it off, which is why they are eager to disappear the story of the foreign spies.