Bill CARTER, the FBI spokesman, is adamant. “We were given full access to the individuals on that plane,” he says, “and we were satisfied that we did not believe any of those individuals had anything to do with the 9/11 plots.” The plane to which Carter refers was an aircraft chartered by the Saudi government in the days after the terrorist attacks. The individuals were two dozen members of Osama bin Laden’s extended family who had been living in the United States. Saying they were afraid that family members might suffer retribution in the U.S., the Saudis asked for American assistance in getting them out of the country. With the help of the FBI, the Saudis and the bin Laden family chartered an aircraft to pick up family members in Los Angeles, Orlando, and Washington, D.C. The bin Laden plane then flew the relatives to Boston, where—one week after the attacks—the group left Logan Airport bound for Jeddah.
At the time, the massive 9/11 investigation was just beginning. The government had begun detaining hundreds of people who were held for days, weeks, or months while U.S. agents performed extensive background checks and interviews. In addition, the government announced its intention to question thousands of men from Muslim countries who might simply have known something of interest to the investigation. “The Department of Justice is waging a deliberate campaign of arrest and detention to protect American lives,” Attorney General John Ashcroft said on November 27.
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