Kushner himself owns The New York Observer (NYO).
In April last year an article was published in the NYO which completely ignored the Israeli angle and tried to pin the blame for 9/11 on Iran.
Moreover, focusing solely on Saudi tactical support to the Planes Operation obscures the bigger question of possible strategic support to 9/11. In other words, did any governments secretly aid al-Qa’ida in even more substantial ways than Riyadh did? Regrettably this question was always considered even more off-limits inside the Beltway than talking about Saudi involvement in 9/11—and it still remains explosive today.
That Iran had some sort of hand in the Planes Operation has long been suspected by many insiders. Contrary to what “terrorism experts” may say, Tehran was always willing to aid Sunni extremists like al-Qa’ida, while Osama bin Laden and his ilk were equally willing to accept secret help from the Shia they despise. Iranian intelligence has enjoyed a clandestine relationship with al-Qa’ida going back to the early 1990s, and U.S. intelligence has known of meetings between their leadership and top Tehran spies since 1996.
As I exposed in my 2007 book Unholy Terror, it was this toxic secret brew of Saudi cash and Iranian know-how that enabled al-Qa’ida in the 1990s to transform from a regional terrorist group into a global movement and threat. The real road to 9/11 was paved by Riyadh’s moneymen and Tehran’s spies, who despite their mutual antipathy were both eager to help bin Laden and his movement in their jihad against the West.
Despite these facts, the 9/11 Commission demonstrated little interest in Iranian ties to the Planes Operation. While admitting that several of the hijackers had transited Iran, and that Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the notorious KSM, the jihadist entrepreneur who came up with the Planes Operation, had stashed his family in Iran for years, it went no further. Why Tehran would want to help Sunni radicals was left essentially unexplored. In particular, the 9/11 Commission punted on the obvious lines of inquiry that such information opened up to anyone with eyes wanting to see, lamely noting that the issue of Iran’s role “requires further investigation by the U.S. Government.”
That additional inquiry never came. In fairness to the 9/11 Commission, they were not allowed to see important information that might have changed their minds. In particular, they did not see NSA signals intelligence that shed significant light on Iran’s clandestine role supporting al-Qa’ida generally and the Planes Operation particularly. SIGINT from NSA makes up the lion’s share of intelligence in our government, and the fact that the 9/11 Commission was never shown the impressive full NSA archive of reports, many highly classified, on the very topic they were investigating seems incomprehensible.
Since the U.S. Government did not do its job, the task of unraveling Iran’s links to 9/11 has fallen to private citizens who have filed suit against Tehran, with some success. At a minimum, they have marshaled impressive evidence that Iran’s secret role was important and something that needs serious examination. Recently a Federal judge agreed, ordering Tehran to pay more than $10.5 billion in damages to the families of 9/11 victims on the basis of Iran’s role in that criminal conspiracy.
Nearly six years ago, I implored our government to at last deal with the knotty issue of foreign ties to 9/11, in particular to release any and all intelligence that bears on this vital question, to no avail. The same questions remain: What foreign governments had any operational impact on 9/11? What was Saudi Arabia’s role? How many hijackers spent time in Iran and what were they doing there? Were any al-Qa’ida officials involved in the Planes Operation, especially KSM, assessed as Iranian agents? What about Imad Mughniyeh, Iran’s arch-terrorist, who before his 2008 death is believed to have enjoyed a close relationship with certain top Sunni jihadists? Did Mughniyeh have anything to do with 9/11?
Answering these questions will finally bring the real backstory of 9/11 into focus. By all means our government ought to release the 28 Pages, the public should demand no less. Yet there is no point in unmasking Saudi Arabia’s role in the murder of nearly 3,000 Americans while ignoring the equally important, and possibly far greater role of Iran behind 9/11. It’s time for the truth to be revealed. The victims and the American public deserve nothing less than the full story of September 11, 2001.
[source : Uncovering the Hidden Truths of 9/11, New York Observer, http://observer.com/2016/04/uncovering-the-hidden-truths-of-911/, 18th April 2017]
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