GRAHAM Well, thank you very much. I'm looking forward to this conversation. JON Excellent. OK, I'm going to read your bio for everyone. Senator Bob Graham is the former two-term governor of Florida and served for 18 years in the United States Senate. This, combined with 12 years in the Florida legislature, for a total of 38 years of public service. As governor and Senator, Bob Graham was a centrist committed to bringing his colleagues together behind programs that serve the broadest public interest. He was recognized by the people of Florida when he received an 83 percent approval ranking as he concluded eight years as Governor. Bob Graham retired from public service in January 2005, following his Presidential campaign in 2003. He has written four books, including a nonfiction book Intelligence Matters, a novel Keys to the Kingdom, drawing on his experiences as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and America the Owner's Manual: A Guide to Effective Citizenship, written while he was a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Since leaving the Senate in 2005, Graham has been chair of the Congressional Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction, a member of the Congressional Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, and co-chair of the Presidential Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of Florida and Harvard Law School, he established the Center for Public Service at the University of Florida to enhance civic engagement and prepare the next generation of public and civic leaders. Graham and the former Adele Khoury have been married for 55 years. Congratulations. They have four daughters and the oldest of which, Gwen Graham, was elected to the U.S. Congress in 2014. Senator Graham has 11 grandchildren. Congratulations on that, as well. And on that subject, I'd just like to say I recently became an uncle to my little niece Maya who was born on March 11th. So, welcome to the world, Maya. GRAHAM Congratulations! JON Thank you very much. OK, so I'm going to get into the questions. What was the day of 9/11 like for you? !701 Table of Contents GRAHAM With Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl, I had just returned from a trip visiting a number of places identified by the CIA as being hot spots for terrorism. The last of those was Pakistan where we were hosted by the Pakistani central intelligence, which is referred to as ISI. The head of ISI was a General Ahmed. He was particularly gracious. We extended an invitation to him to reciprocate, should he be in Washington. It turned out that he was in Washington on September the 11th 2001. We were having breakfast with Porter Goss, Chair of the House Intelligence Committee's office, talking about motivations behind Al-Qaeda when we got the first notification of an airplane hitting one of the World Trade Centers. A few minutes later, a second airplane hitting the other World Trade Center tower. At that point we knew that it wasn't just coincidental accidents. And, for the first time in many decades, the U.S. Capitol was cleared, and we all sought refuge while the rest of September the 11th was playing out. JON That's very interesting and it's a little funny to me because I've kind of known your story for several years now on the day of 9/11, but it's very interesting to hear it from your perspective. What was the first thing that you questioned about the attacks? GRAHAM Well, I guess the first question was what we were talking about when the attacks were occurring, which was: "What is it that motivates Al- Qaeda to the level and violence of its activities?" General Ahmed, who had had a long experience with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, said that most people live in three phases of life. They have memories of the past, dreams of a future, but their primary concentration is on what's happening today. In the case of Al-Qaeda, the past and the present are irrelevant. The only thing that counts is the future. And, therefore, they are unhinged from the kinds of mores and cultural considerations that operate for most human beings. September the 11th was a tragic example of that philosophy. JON Right. I have a quote from an article entitled "Further Delay in U.S. Congressional Investigation into September 11th Attacks" from WSWS.org and it's dated March 6, 2002, and the quote is: "Graham and Goss rebuts calls for an inquiry in the weeks immediately following September 11. Siding with White House suggestions that Congressional hearings into the greatest security failure in U.S. history would detract from the efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks and conduct a war in Afghanistan." !702 Table of Contents Is this true? Because I could not find any references to substantiate that claim. GRAHAM Yes, we did not want to take any actions with our inquiry that would have increased the vulnerability of the United States to a second or third attack. The White House requested, therefore, that we defer the initiation of our inquiry until they felt that the potential of a further attack had passed. We agreed to that and used that period in the fall of 2001, to prepare for the inquiry which would begin early in 2002. JON Now, from what I understand, both Bush and Cheney asked Tom Daschle not to investigate the attacks at all. So, you're saying that in early 2002, when you started—when did the Congressional inquiry start? I'm sorry. GRAHAM I believe our first hearings were held in February of 2002. JON OK. So, you're saying that in February 2002, the White House gave the go ahead? GRAHAM No, we weren't under the direction of the White House, but the White House had made a request that in light of the potential of further attacks and that the people who were involved in trying to ferret that possibility out and respond, if in fact it occurred, were some of the same people that we would want to be involved in our inquiry and that they felt that there could be a conflict having the inquiry going on during that immediate post-9/11 period. We felt that was a reasonable request. We also recognized that we were going to need some time to put together our staff, begin securing documents, identifying future witnesses. And that the inquiry would not be adversely affected by delaying it until about 2002. JON OK. I have always found it odd, and several other people have always found it odd, that the administration did not want the Congress to investigate the attacks. If anybody— GRAHAM On that, the issue of the White House asking Tom Daschle not to initiate the inquiry, I am not aware that that, in fact, occurred, but I can say that Tom Daschle and the other Congressional leaders were very supportive of our inquiry and gave us full assistance throughout. !703 Table of Contents JON OK, just so everybody knows there's a video of Tom Daschle saying as such on my YouTube channel which is Gold9472. OK, the next question. Obviously, you are familiar with the story about Randy Glass—I've heard you talk about it before—giving your office a warning in the months prior to 9/11. Could you please tell us about this? GRAHAM Frankly, I am not aware as of March 2015, about the Randy Glass issue. If it were, in fact, been brought to my attention at the time, apparently, it wasn't considered to be a significant part of our inquiry responsibility. JON OK, it's just one of those things that people have always questioned and so I wanted to get your point of view on the subject. OK. Now, could you tell us what the 28-redacted pages of the Joint Congressional Inquiry are? GRAHAM No, because they are classified and therefore (Laughs) we are limited in discussion. What's been publicly said, and I would concur, those—that chapter refers primarily to the issue of who financed 9/11. And it points a very strong finger of suspicion at Saudi Arabia. JON OK, I'm sorry, I didn't mean for you to tell us what's in it. I just wanted you to tell everybody what they are. Just so everybody knows, the Joint Congressional Inquiry report was released with 28-redacted pages and, as Senator Graham has just pointed out, some of the information within those pages talks about Saudi support, Saudi Government support I guess, for the hijackers and— GRAHAM Actually, I might say, that issue goes to one of the remaining areas of lack of consensus and that is, did the 19 hijackers operate alone? Or, did they have support from some external source? The official position of the United States executive, including the intelligence community and the FBI, the White House, is that they acted alone. It is the position of the leadership of both the Congressional inquiry and the 9/11 citizen's commission that it was highly implausible that the 19 hijackers, given their lack of linguistic familiarity and the fact that most of them had never been to the United States before they came for the purpose of 9/11, that they could have carried out such a complex plot over a long period of time, maintaining !704 Table of Contents their anonymity, being able to practice to the point that they carried out the plot with such devastating effect.