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- Coming up next, this is the 20th anniversary of 9/11.

Some of the attackers lived and trained to fly right here in Florida.

The federal government is still keeping secrets about how those hijackers funded, planned, and carried out those attacks.

We'll meet two people trying to get the government to reveal the secrets, an investigative reporter from South Florida, and a family member of one of the victims, coming up next on "Florida This Week."

(upbeat music) Welcome back.

Saturday marks the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks in which nearly 3,000 Americans were killed.

The attacks were used to justify the war in Afghanistan, a war that only just ended ten days ago.

For years, there have been questions about how the 19 hijackers were able to live in the US, pay for flight training and plot the attack and whether they had assistance.

Here's what former US Senator Bob Graham told "60 Minutes" in 2016.

- I think it is implausible to believe that 19 people, most of whom didn't speak English, most of whom had never been in the United States before, many of whom didn't have a high school education, could have carried out such a complicated task without some support from within the United States.

- Most of the 19 terrorists themselves spent time here in Florida in the months before the attack, renting a house in Nokomis, drinking in local bars, and taking pilot lessons at the Venice Airport, where three of the four 9/11 hijackers learned how to fly.

As the Miami Herald reports, they also trained on flight simulators in Miami, hung out at a restaurant in Hollywood, and lived in a hotel in Deerfield Beach.

How did they finance their lifestyles and training in the months before the murderous attacks?

And did they do it with money from Al-Qaeda or were there other sources?

One reporter in Florida has been pursuing the story and, at times, has run up against the curtain of secrecy imposed by the federal government.

He's Dan Christensen, founder of the investigative website The Florida Bulldog.

He's a former Miami Herald investigative reporter and Dan joins us now.

Dan, good to see you.

- Hey, Rob.

Good to see you.

- Let me read a letter that former US Senator Bob Graham, he sat on the joint committee investigating 9/11, sent to President Bush this week about the president's declaration a few days ago that he will allow a review of 9/11 documents and possible release.

Senator Graham said this, "There is already ample evidence available publicly that Saudi Arabia provided key assistance to the terrorists.

The documents to be released as a result of your declassification order, may shine additional light on Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

It will then be up to the US government to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its role in nearly 3,000 people being killed and more than 6,000 people being injured."

You've done so much reporting on this.

How much available evidence is there?

When Senator Graham told "60 Minutes" that they needed a support network in the US to carry it out, have you found any reason to believe that support network existed?

- Yes, there's ample evidence to believe this support network existed, both here in Florida and in Southern California, where the first of the hijackers landed back in January of 2000.

There are also indications that there were support networks in other areas where they operated, including northern New Jersey and Virginia and Arizona.

So, yes, absolutely.

There's evidence of that.

- One of the things that you uncovered was this Saudi family that disappeared just a few weeks before the 9/11 attack.

They lived in Prestancia in Sarasota, it's a gated community, and they abandoned their home there in Sarasota.

They left behind a brand new car and a couple of other cars.

They left behind all their belongings, their furniture, their computers, and this family, you reported, had links to the hijackers.

What can you tell us about the family that disappeared from Prestancia in 2001?

- Yeah, they were Saudis with connections back to the royal family and they moved out abruptly about two weeks before the assassination, excuse me, not the assassination, before 9/11 and returned to Saudi Arabia.

We know that they were there because we interviewed two sources, one of whom was a counter-terrorism officer who has asked to remain anonymous.

Another was a gentleman named Larry Berberich, who was the head of security at Prestancia.

They told us they turned over to the FBI records from the gate houses that showed that automobiles driven by some of the hijackers, including Mohamed Atta, and also log books where people had to sign in in order to get in to the development, also showed that hijackers had gone there and gone to the home of these particular Saudis whose names were Abdulazziz and Anoud al-Hijji.

- So, has anybody interviewed these people that disappeared and went back to Saudi Arabia?

- Mrs. al-Hijji, no.

She's back in Saudi Arabia.

I've made attempts to reach her but I've had no success.

About four years ago, my colleague, Anthony Summers, and a reporter for the Daily Telegraph in London found Mr. al-Hijji where he was working for Saudi Aramco, which is their huge oil company.

And Mr. al-Hijji denied any involvement in 9/11, denied knowing the hijackers, and essentially said that he felt very sorry for the United States because of what happened.

- The Saudi embassy told the New York Times Magazine that any suggestion that Saudi Arabia aided the 9/11 plot was rejected by the 9/11 Commission in 2004, by the FBI and the CIA in 2005, and by a second independent commission in 2015.

Is that true?

Has the federal government put a stop to all this talk that Saudi Arabia might be involved?

- No, that's not true.

What the 9/11 Commission did was said that they found no evidence at that time, which was back in 2004.

There was evidence provided to them, but however, they made the statement that they had found no evidence of Saudi government involvement.

The 9/11 Review Commission, which was formed by the FBI, its members were paid by the FBI, and it was spoon fed information by the FBI, it declared that they had found no new evidence either.

And in particular, they looked at what we did and what we found, regarding the Saudis who were living in Sarasota.

And what we ultimately found on that was that, despite the FBI's statements to the contrary where they said they found nothing, we got an internal FBI document released to us during Freedom of Information Act litigation that stated there were in fact many connections, and that's their words in the report, between those family members and people involved in 9/11.

Now, the document was highly redacted, so we don't know exactly what it had to say, but it obviously was completely contrary to the public statements that were being put out by the FBI.

The FBI went so far in the 9/11 Commission Report, 9/11 Review Commission Report, to say that the agent who wrote it had no basis for doing so but they didn't tell us who the agent was and they didn't explain it any further.

That's why we filed a subsequent FOIA request and had to sue them because they ignored it, for documents relating to that.

And that's when we got the document that disclosed the existence of what is called Operation Encore.

- And this is the FBI's own investigation, even after all these commissions, its own investigation up to 2016 about possible material support for the Saudis, given by somebody unknown in the US.

- That's correct.

In the litigation in 2016, this particular document had been mentioned in a footnote in that report, so I requested it.

It was released, again highly redacted form, but it stated clearly that as of October 2012, and remember that's eight years after the 9/11 Commission went out of business, it stated that prosecutors and FBI agents in New York were actively looking to charge someone with providing material support to the two hijackers who entered into the United States in Los Angeles back in 2000.

Now, those were two hijackers that were aboard flight 77, an an American Airlines jet that crashed into the Pentagon.

- Dan, I'm wondering about the motive.

Could it be that these were independent rich people within Saudi Arabia, maybe funding the operation, as opposed to the Saudi government or the Royal family?

Could it have been just people that wanted to do destruction on the US and if it was the Saudi government or the Royal family, what would their motive be?

- Well, the motive would be apparently to keep Al-Qaeda from attacking them.

They were providing financial support, and that's been well-established, to Al Qaeda in exchange for a deal that you leave us alone.

Now, I don't think that anybody in the Saudi government knew precisely what they were up to and didn't know that they were going to be flying jets into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.

But I think what they certainly would have known is that by providing this support to an organization, an NGO, that had sworn to do jihad and war against the United States, that something serious could happen as a result.

And that, I believe, is that the crux of what the family members are trying to establish up in New York.

- And Dan, one more question.

We only have 30 seconds but tell me, President Biden ordered a review of these documents and previous presidents didn't allow those documents to become public.

Why do you think President Biden chose to do this now where previous presidents of both parties decided not to do it?

- Well, I think there was a lot of political pressure that was brought to bear by the families.

They, in fact, had dis-invited him to September 11th commemorations, if he didn't do something significant and he has done something extremely significant and the first documents could be released as soon as tomorrow.

- Dan Christensen, thanks a lot.

Thanks for coming on "Florida This Week."

- Hey, thanks for having me, Rob.

- In a moment, we'll speak with a 9/11 widow who says the US should prosecute the conspirators behind the attack.

(upbeat music) Kristin Breitweiser is a 9/11 widow, an activist and a lawyer.

Her husband, Ron, was in the south tower and was killed 20 years ago.

At the time, she was a stay at home mom in New Jersey.

Breitweiser and the other so-called Jersey Girls were transformed by their grief and are widely credited with forcing the creation of the 9/11 Commission.

Even after the commission's report, she's convinced that the public only knows the partial truth about 9/11 and Kristin Breitweiser, welcome to "Florida This Week."

- Thank you.

- I know it's a somber anniversary.

I wanna start by asking you about your husband, Ron, and what are you thinking about him on this anniversary?

- You know, it's just striking to think that it's been 20 years, that I've walked this Earth without him at my side, that I've raised his daughter, our daughter, Caroline, without him there to enjoy all of the amazing moments that every parent gets to see when they raise a child.

And it's so poignant and painful as well, because of all the other times that, there's a void in my life and in Caroline's life, that he would have filled, obviously, if he was with us sharing our lives.

- And for so many people, 3,000 other people, 3,000 other families in your same position, it's unfathomable.

You wrote an op-ed this week for The Intercept and you say that the co-conspirators of 9/11 have not been held accountable and I just wonder, who do you think the co-conspirators are?

- I think the co-conspirators are obviously the people that logistically and financially supported the hijackers in the lead up to the 9/11 attacks.

And, you know, the US government has an awful lot of information about those people, about the entities that provided support to the hijackers, and in some cases, the foreign sovereigns that supported the hijackers.

And after 20 years, the US government has really impeded the 9/11 families' processing in trying to hold those co-conspirators accountable.

I would have hoped that my government would have been my greatest ally in prosecuting terrorists.

Unfortunately, after 20 years, what I've learned is that the government has stonewalled the 9/11 families and at the same time, the government has not sought fit to fully prosecute any of the terrorists or the co-conspirators and at the end of the day, what you have is 3,000 homicides in broad daylight in Lower Manhattan that took place 20 years ago and there has not been one full prosecution by this country who considers itself and calls itself a shining example of a democracy based upon a rule of law.

And apparently what you take away when you look at the 9/11 attacks and the 3,000 homicides, is that apparently it's okay for terrorists to come into this country and murder 3,000 people and get away with it.

- So, who do you blame though?

Who do you think those co-conspirators are?

And are you alleging that the government is covering up what it really knows about those co-conspirators?

- 100% the government is covering it up.

They have thousands and thousands, if not millions, of pages of FBI 302 reports and documentation, wire tap surveillance of the co-conspirators of the hijackers.

And they also have their own failures that contributed to the devastation brought to this country by the terrorists and in many ways, those government failures, the failures on behalf of our intelligence agencies, like the CIA, the FBI and the NSA, contributed to the success of the terrorists.

And even when you look at the failures that took place in the US government and the intelligence agencies, none of those people were held accountable either.

In many cases, they stayed in their positions.

They were given promotions and/or Medals of Freedom and people who tried to speak out, who tried to get the information out about failures, you know, the failure to watchlist hijackers that were known Al-Qaeda operatives, the failure to share information amongst intelligence agencies to prevent the 9/11 attacks, people who tried to get that information out, they were punished for that.

And I think that that in and of itself is scary, it's disturbing, and, to me, it's frankly un-American.

- We're frequently told that what happened in the intelligence community in the US is that various agencies saw what was happening but they didn't communicate with each other.

They didn't connect the dots.

That's the phrase that's often used.

When you hear that phrase, what do you say?

- You know, it's malarkey.

You know, the reality is they like to, they being the government and the intelligence agencies themselves, like to put out the narrative that they were caught flat-footed on the morning of September 11th.

Reality and the facts speak otherwise.

The truth is that the intelligence agencies of this country were patently aware of the hijackers, the operatives, the Al-Qaeda operatives that were inside this country that were moving in and out of the country over the course of almost two years prior to the 9/11 attacks.

These guys were known Al-Qaeda operatives.

They had participated in the planning and the carrying out of the USS Cole bombing that killed 17 sailors.

So, you know, you have an intelligence apparatus that, in my opinion, very knowingly failed to share information that, had it been shared and had it been capitalized upon within the intelligence community, the 9/11 attacks would not have happened.

And, you know, even the 9/11 Commission chairs say that, that all of the information needed to prevent the attacks was readily available inside the intelligence community and it was not used to prevent the attacks.

- Well, Kristin Breitweiser, I wish we had more time, but thank you very much for joining us on this very somber occasion.

- Thank you.

- Coming up, vaccine mandates and rationing healthcare.

We'll talk with the chief medical officer of a local health care chain in a moment.

(upbeat music) BayCare, the largest provider of healthcare in Southwest Florida, says it will follow President Biden's call for mandatory vaccines for all employees at healthcare agencies which receive Medicare or Medicaid, and joining us now is Dr. Nishant Anand, the executive vice president and chief medical officer at BayCare.

Dr. Anand, welcome to "Florida This Week."

- Thank you.

I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today.

- The hospital doesn't have much choice because you take Medicare and Medicaid, but as a physician, do you think that the vaccine mandate is gonna help stop the spread of COVID?

- I think, in general, the vaccine has just proven to be incredibly helpful in helping people stay safe.

And so any things that we can do as a healthcare provider to inform the public is always helpful.

I always leave requirements and mandates to the policy makers but from my perspective, what I'm seeing on a hospital by hospital basis is that people who have been vaccinated, they're not ending up in the hospital with the same frequency.

They're not ending up in ICU and they're not ending up on a ventilator.

And so, the vaccine has shown for almost eight, nine months now, that it's been beneficial for individuals.

- So what impact is misinformation having on your hospital chain?

For instance, are you seeing side effects from people taking some of these other drugs, like ivermectin?

Are you seeing people come into your hospital with side effects from drugs that are not approved for use for COVID?

- You know, unfortunately we are.

As physicians, we're all trained to first do no harm and unfortunately what happens, there's so much misinformation out there that well-intentioned individuals, very intelligent folks, are reading about things such as hydroxychloroquine, they're reading about ivermectin, these medications have not proven in the medical literature to provide any benefit to people.

With ivermectin in particular, people may have seen that there is actually individuals who have taken it, they've taken veterinary medications, horse pills, so to speak, and they've ended up with complications such as vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain from that medication.

So, you really need to be careful.

Please, before you take anything, there's a lot of information on the internet, but please check with a healthcare provider before you take anything.

- So, I know that elective surgeries have been paused in some BayCare hospitals.

Is that because we're seeing an influx of COVID-19 patients and in essence, are you having to ration care because of the influx of COVID-19 patients?

- From our perspective, we actually did cancel elective surgery.

So, elective surgeries are cases that could be postponed a couple of weeks and we did that several weeks ago.

Now, that was a very intentional decision that we made because we wanted to make sure that we have enough beds to take care of patients with COVID and emergencies that needed care, such as heart attack, stroke, and so we decided it was in the best interest of the community to do that.

So those cases were canceled.

We apologize.

I know it's not easy for anyone who is hoping to have an elective procedure done, but we are starting to slowly open up in certain hospitals where the COVID census has actually decreased.

We're starting to open up to elective procedures.

Not anywhere back to normal.

Now, your second question about rationing care, we thankfully, as being the largest healthcare provider in the Tampa Bay area, we have a lot of resources to be able to pull individuals from the outpatient world, to move nurses and staff across different hospitals.

That's allowed us to take care of that.

Certain things such as ECMO, which is extracorporal membrane oxygenation, very simply, it's a complicated term, but it's lung bypass.

In the state of Florida, that became something that was really hard to get access to a couple weeks ago.

So, in that situation, there was more people that qualified for it than there actually machines available for it.

In general though, we're not rationing care.

We are taking the same high level quality of care that we'd all want of our individuals and that's because we can shift resources around the health system.

- We just have 30 seconds left but I wonder about morale among the frontline workers, among the nurses and the respiratory therapists and the doctors that work at your hospitals.

What is the morale situation there with the COVID crisis ongoing?

- I'm proud of our team and the compassion that they've shown throughout this whole pandemic.

I mean, keep in mind, we've been doing this for a year and a half.

It seems like it's just these waves come and go, but we haven't seen that decrease in that hospital census and it seems to be this last wave was incredible.

The morale, people are tired, they're fatigued, but they know that they're doing really important work to help the community.

So, they're inspired by that but they're tired.

- Well, Dr. Anand, thank you very much for coming on "Florida This Week."

- Yeah, it was my pleasure.

Thank you for your time.

- Thanks for joining us.

This and past shows are available online at wedu.org or on the PBS app.

"Florida This Week" is now available as a podcast.

You can subscribe to it on our website or wherever you get your podcasts.

Finally, here are members of the West Point band.

Master Sergeant Brian Broelmann on guitar and Staff Sergeant Jeremy Gaynor with vocals, performing this tribute to first responders.

Please stay safe.

Take care of each other.

We'll see you next week.

(mellow guitar music) ♪ Well I won't back down ♪ ♪ No I won't back down ♪ ♪ You can stand me up at the gates of hell ♪ ♪ But I won't back down ♪ ♪ Gonna stand my ground ♪ ♪ Won't be turned around ♪ ♪ And I'll keep this world from dragging me down ♪ ♪ Gonna stand my ground ♪ ♪ And I won't back down ♪ ♪ Hey baby ♪ ♪ There ain't no easy way out ♪ ♪ Hey, I will stand my ground ♪ ♪ And I won't back down ♪ (upbeat music) - [Announcer] "Florida This Week" is a production of WEDU who is solely responsible for its content.

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