Senator Graham Drops a Bombshell « Foehammer’s Anvil

On the Tuesday, July 20th edition of MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews, Senator Bob Graham affirmed that a country other than Iran (not Afghanistan) assisted Al Qaeda in carrying out the 9/11 attack and continues to assist them today.

Senator Graham refused to specifically name the other culprit(s), but the message is clear — there are nations involved with Al Qaeda, and Iran is just one of them. When this information comes to light for the American people, how can it spell anything less than an escalation in the current War on Terror?

Here is the excerpt from the transcript released on MSNBC today:

MATTHEWS: Well, if some other country in 1941 had helped the Japanese sneak through Pacific and hit Pearl Harbor, we would have been at war within the next day. Why didn’t this administration alert us to the role of Iran? I don’t get it, unless they really wanted to us go to war with Iraq and didn’t want us to be deflected by the truth.

GRAHAM: Well, Chris…

LOTT: Well, I’m not sure what they knew or when they knew it. Some of this information, at least to me, is relatively new.

MATTHEWS: It’s new to me. Senator Graham?

GRAHAM: Chris, you’re also assuming that the only foreign government that provided assistance to al Qaeda was Iran, based on this new information. I don’t think that’s correct. There were a number of instances in which our people were put at greater risk because of the actions of foreign governments. Unfortunately, for reason that are inexplicable to me, that’s been withheld from the American people. I hope that this instance in Iran will be the basis of the government telling our people who are our friends and who our enemies really are.

MATTHEWS: Right. But Senator Graham, do you know for a fact that any other government helped the al Qaeda people hit us on 9/11?

GRAHAM: Yes.

MATTHEWS: Who?

GRAHAM: I cannot say that.

MATTHEWS: Is it among usual suspects?

GRAHAM: Well, I don’t know who your usual suspects are.

MATTHEWS: Well, how about - how about - how about the kind of governments the president lists in his “axis of evil”? How about that for a start?

GRAHAM: Well, let me say this. There is - as Senator Lott has just said, there has been some reporting in those newspapers and magazines about this, so it’s not completely withheld from the American people. And some of that has been declassified. But the government has not been forthcoming in saying, Here’s who was involved, and here’s what we’re going to do about it.

MATTHEWS: I’d love to know that list.