http://www.spinsanity.org/post.html?2003_09_14_archive.html
Bin Laden family evacuation distorted (9/16)
By Brendan Nyhan
A new Vanity Fair article by Craig Unger on the evacuation of Bin Laden family members from the US in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks is being misinterpreted by a number of pundits, reporters and politicians.
Based on reporting by Unger and other journalists, it appears that one or more planes were allowed to enter US airspace and fly within the country to gather family members while commercial and civil aviation was grounded. Reportedly fearing retaliation, the Bin Ladens were then allowed to leave after apparently minimal questioning from the FBI. While controversy continues to surround the extent (or existence) of such questioning (see our previous post on the matter), another dispute surrounds the precise date that the Bin Ladens were allowed to leave the country and whether flights were still grounded at the time.
As the Snopes.com article on the controversy recounts, almost all investigative reports in the press, including Unger's, place the flights out of the country after the resumption of limited commercial and private aviation. Unger's article documents two flights leaving the US - from Boston's Logan International Airport on September 18th and 19th. Also, the New York Times reported one flight left on September 14. While the FBI has called the Times report "erroneous," such a date would still place the flight after the resumption of limited commercial and private traffic.
Unger clarified the issue during a Sept. 4 interview on CNN with Paula Zahn:
UNGER: In this case, they were spirited out of the country. And they were also given an extraordinary privilege, that is, this was a time in which American airspace was locked down. This required White House approval. This was a time in which the skies were as empty as they had been in 100 years since the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk.
FBI counterintelligence agents were not allowed to fly during this period, yet the Saudis were.
ZAHN: Well, help me with the timeline here, because it was on September 18, was one of the first flights out of the country, right?
UNGER: Right.
ZAHN: And we are told that there were other private planes that took off that day and there was other commercial traffic.
UNGER: Oh, they did. But the key is not when they left the country. The key is when they got into American airspace, which was locked down. And the first flight I was able to document was on September 13. At 10:57 a.m. on that day, the FAA put out a notice saying all private planes could not fly. And yet a Learjet took off from Tampa just a couple hours later and landed in Lexington, Kentucky. I spoke to two people who were on that plane.
ZAHN: But, once again, you don't have as big of a problem with the flight on September 18, when these family members finally left the country.
UNGER: The point isn't really when they left the country. It was that the entire process required White House approval...
This point has been pervasively mischaracterized. A September 2 UPI report based on Unger's article stated the following:
The Bin Laden family were granted extraordinary White House privileges to fly out of U.S. airspace following the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001.
Former White House counter terrorism expert Richard Clarke told Vanity Fair the bin Laden family were granted extraordinary White House privileges to fly out of U.S. airspace following the attacks of Sept. 11th, 2001" (emphasis mine).
Clarke is quoted in the article as saying "I asked them [the FBI] if they had any objection to the entire event -- to Saudis leaving the country at a time when aircraft were banned from flying." However, the rest of the article does not support this phrasing, nor have other reports provided substantial evidence supporting it. As such, asserting it to be true without substantial qualification is incorrect.
The next day, attributing his statements to a summary of the article from Vanity Fair, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) said in a committee hearing that "The basic thrust of the article is that right after 9/11 when no one was allowed to fly that some special planes were able to spirit Saudis out of the country."
The quotation may have been originally mischaracterized in the Vanity Fair release Schumer drew on. During the Sept. 7 edition of NBC's "Meet the Press," host Tim Russert quoted the release as saying that "Former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke tells Vanity Fair that the Bush administration decided to allow a group of Saudis to fly out of the U.S. just after September 11 - at a time when access to US airspace was still restricted and required special government approval." This phrasing misleadingly implies that the Saudis flew out of the country "when access to US airspace was still restricted."
Liberal opinion journalists quickly picked up the torch, with both Salon's Joe Conason [Salon Premium subscription or viewing of ad required] and Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer repeating Schumer's inaccurate charge on September 4 and 9, respectively.
Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) also repeated it on September 10 during a committee hearing, saying the piece described how "Saudis, including members of the Bin Laden family to leave the United States at a time when virtually all air flights had been shut down after September 11, 2001."
And finally, on Sunday's edition of "Meet the Press," Russert further misstated reporting in the article, which is now on newsstands, in a question to Vice President Dick Cheney:
Vanity Fair magazine reports that about 140 Saudis were allowed to leave the United States the day after the 11th, allowed to leave our airspace and were never investigated by the FBI and that departure was approved by high-level administration figures. Do you know anything about that?
Again, Unger never documents that any Saudis were allowed to leave on the 11th, nor that all 140 did so by then. The earliest flight he documents took place within the US on the 13th, but the two he documents actually leaving the country took place on the 18th and 19th.
Our understanding of the evacuation of the Bin Laden family members is incomplete. However, the lack of available information increases the burden on journalists to be precise about what we do know, which currently does not include any flights leaving the country while commercial and private aviation were grounded on Sept. 11-13.