AT FIRST, it seemed like a small plane had accidentally flown into the north tower of the World Trade Center. It was 8:46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, and as the news leaked out across America, no one stopped what they were doing. It was a freaky occurrence to be sure, but most of the country carried on with getting itself to work or school or back to sleep.

Seventeen minutes later, reports came in that, now, a second plane had hit the World Trade Center. Suddenly the collective thinking of a nation shifted, in one fell swoop, to one single thought: "This is no accident!"

TV sets everywhere were flipped on. It was unlike anything you had ever seen. Your brain, now confronted with an event for which it had no prior reference, was scanning itself trying to figure out what it all meant, and in particular, what it all meant for your own personal survival, whether you were watching from your rooftop in Tribeca or on CNN in Topeka.

You were in a daze, paralyzed in front of a screen or a radio, then you called everyone you knew, 290 million Americans all asking each other the same question: What the hell is going on????

This was the first of many questions that arose about the tragedy of September 11. Now, I'm not into conspiracy theories, except the ones that are true or involve dentists. I believe that all dentists must have gotten together at some point and decided that the real money was in root canals and full sets of X-rays every time you go in. No other mammal in the animal kingdom has to go through this.

The questions I have about September 11 are not about how the terrorists got past our defense system, or how they were able to live in this country and never be detected, or how all Bulgarians who worked at the WTC got a secret communiqué to not show up to work that day, or how the towers came down so easily when they were supposedly built to withstand earthquakes, tsunamis, and truck bombs in their parking garage.

These were all questions that a special commission investigating September 11 was supposed to answer. But the very formation of that commission was opposed by the Bush administration and the Republicans in Congress.Reluctantly, they finally agreed -- but then they sought to block the investigative body from doing its job by stonewalling them on the evidence that they sought.

Why wouldn't the Bush people want to find out the truth? What were they afraid of? That the American people would learn that they screwed up, that they were asleep at the wheel when it came to terrorist threats, that they belligerently ignored the warnings of the outgoing Clinton officials about Osama bin Laden simply because they hated Clinton (SEX! BAD!)?

The American people are a forgiving lot. They didn't hold it against Franklin Roosevelt when Pearl Harbor was bombed. They didn't shun John F. Kennedy over the Bay of Pigs fiasco. And they still don't care that Bill Clinton had those forty-seven people mysteriously murdered. So why, after this monumental breakdown of national security, does George W. Bush not come clean, or, at the very least, stop prohibiting the truth from coming out?

Perhaps it's because George & Co. have a lot more to hide beyond why they didn't scramble the fighter jets fast enough on the morning of September 11. And maybe we, the people, are afraid to know the whole truth because it could take us down roads where we don't want to go, roads that end with a sinking feeling because now we know too much about the people who run this country.

Though I myself was filled with the healthy skepticism that is required for a citizen in a democracy, I also shared the basic mind-set held by most Americans in the fall of 2001: Osama did it, and whoever helped him with it must be tracked down and brought to justice. I hoped that this was what Bush was doing.

And then one night in November 2001, as I lay in bed, half asleep reading The New Yorker magazine, in an article by investigative journalist Jane Mayer, I stumbled across a paragraph that made me sit up and read it again, because I couldn't believe what it said. It read:

Around two dozen other American-based members of the bin Laden family, most of them here to study in colleges and prep schools, were said to be in the United States at the time of the attacks. The New York Times reported that they were quickly called together by officials from the Saudi Embassy, which feared that they might become the victims of American reprisals. With approval from the FBI, according to a Saudi official, the bin Ladens flew by private jet from Los Angeles to Orlando, then on to Washington, and finally to Boston. Once the FAA permitted overseas flights, the jet flew to Europe. United States officials apparently needed little persuasion from the Saudi ambassador in Washington, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, that the extended bin Laden family included no material witnesses.

What? How had I missed this story in the news? I got up and went back through The New York Times, and there I found this headline: "Fearing Harm, Bin Laden Kin Fled From U.S." The story began:

In the first days after the terror attacks on New York and Washington, Saudi Arabia supervised the urgent evacuation of 24 members of Osama bin Laden's extended family from the United States . . .

So, with the approval of the FBI and the help of the Saudi government -- and even though fifteen of the nineteen hijackers had been Saudi citizens -- the relatives of the number one suspect in the terror attacks were allowed not only to just up and leave the country, but they were assisted by our own authorities! According to The London Times, "The departure of so many Saudis worried U.S. investigators, who feared that some might have information about the hijackings. FBI agents insisted on checking passports, including the royal family's."

That's all the FBI could do? Check some passports, ask a few brief questions, like, "Did you pack your own bags?" and "Have your bags been in your possession since you packed them?" Then, these potential material witnesses were sent off with a bon voyage and a kiss goodbye. As Jane Mayer wrote in The New Yorker:

When I asked a senior United States intelligence officer whether anyone had considered detaining members of the family, he replied, "That's called taking hostages. We don't do that."

Was he serious? I was dumbstruck. Had I read this correctly? Why wasn't this being reported more widely? What else had happened? What else was going on that we weren't being told or, if we were, why weren't we paying attention? Wouldn't the rest of America -- and the rest of the world -- like to know the whole truth?

I got out a big-ass legal pad and started making a list of all the questions that just didn't add up. Of course, I was never good at math, so to help me add it all up, and analyze what it all meant, I figured I needed the help of, say, a graduate of the Harvard Business School.

So, George W., how about giving me a hand? Seeing how most of the questions involve you personally, you are probably the best individual to help me -- and the nation -- sort through what I've dug up.

I have seven questions for you, Mr. Bush, and if you would be so kind, I would like you to answer them. I ask them on behalf of the 3,000 who died that September day, and I ask them on behalf of the American people. I know you share the same sorrow we all feel, and I would hope that you (or the people you know who may have accidentally contributed to this tragedy) would not be so reticent with the truth. We seek no revenge against you. We want only to know what happened, and what can be done to bring the murderers to justice, so we can prevent any future attacks on our citizens. I know you want the same, so please help me out with these seven questions . . .

Question #1: Is it true that the bin Ladens have had business relations with you and your family off and on for the past 25 years?

Mr. Bush, in 1977, when your father told you it was time to get a real job, he set you up with your first oil company, something you called "Arbusto" (Spanish for "shrub"). A year later, you received financing from a man named James A. Bath. He was an old buddy of yours from your days (the ones when you weren't AWOL) in the Texas Air National Guard. He had been hired by Salem bin Laden -- Osama's brother -- to invest the bin Ladens' money in various Texas ventures. Some $50,000 -- or 5 percent of control of Arbusto -- came from Mr. Bath.

Was he acting on behalf of the bin Ladens?

Most Americans might be surprised to learn that you and your father have known the bin Ladens for a long time. What exactly is the extent of this relationship, Mr. Bush? Are you close personal friends, or simply on-again, off-again business associates? Salem bin Laden first started coming to Texas in 1973 and later bought some land, built himself a house, and created Bin Laden Aviation at the San Antonio airfield.

The bin Ladens are one of the wealthiest families in Saudi Arabia. Their huge construction firm virtually built the country, from the roads and power plants, to the skyscrapers and government buildings. They built some of the airstrips America used in your dad's Gulf War, and they renovated the holy sites at Mecca and Medina. Billionaires many times over, they soon began investing in other ventures around the world, including in the United States. They have had extensive business dealings with Citigroup, General Electric, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, and the Fremont Group -- a spin-off of energy giant Bechtel. According to The New Yorker, the bin Laden family also owns a part of Microsoft and the airline and defense giant Boeing. They have donated $2 million to your alma mater, Harvard University, $300,000 more to Tufts University, and tens of thousands more to the Middle East Policy Council, a think tank headed by a former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Charles Freeman. In addition to the property they own in Texas, they also have real estate in Florida and Massachusetts. In short, they have their hands deep in our pants.

Unfortunately, as you know, Mr. Bush, Salem bin Laden died in a plane crash in Texas in 1988 (his father, Mohammad, also died in a plane crash in 1967). Salem's brothers -- there are around 50 of them, including Osama -- continued to run the family companies and investments.

After leaving office, your father became a highly paid consultant for a company known as the Carlyle Group. One of the investors in the Carlyle Group was none other than the bin Laden family. The bin Ladens put a minimum of $2 million into the Carlyle Group.

Until 1994, you headed a company called CaterAir, which was owned by the Carlyle Group. The same year you left the soon-to-be-bankrupt CaterAir, you became governor and quickly oversaw the University of Texas -- a state institution -- make an investment of $10 million in the Carlyle Group. The bin Laden family had also gotten on the Carlyle gravy train in 1994.

The Carlyle Group is one of the nation's largest defense contractors, among their many other lines of work. They don't actually build weapons themselves. Rather, they buy up failing defense companies, turn them around by making them profitable, and then sell them for huge sums of money.

The people who run the Carlyle Group are a Who's Who of past movers and shakers, everyone from Ronald Reagan's defense secretary, Frank Carlucci, to your dad's secretary of state, James Baker, to former British Prime Minister John Major. Carlucci, the head of Carlyle, also happens to sit on the board of directors of the Middle East Policy Council along with a representative of the bin Laden family business.

After September 11, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal both ran stories pointing out this strange coincidence. Your first response, Mr. Bush, was to ignore it, hoping, I guess, that the story would just go away. Your father and his buddies at Carlyle did not renounce the bin Laden investment. Your army of pundits went into spin control. They said, we can't paint these bin Ladens with the same brush we use for Osama. They have disowned Osama! They have nothing to do with him! They hate and despise what he has done! These are the good bin Ladens.

And then the video footage came out. It showed a number of those "good" bin Ladens -- including Osama's mother, a sister and two brothers -- with Osama at his son's wedding just six and a half months before September 11. It has been reported in The New Yorker that not only has the family not cut ties to Osama, but they have continued to fund him as they have been doing for years. It was no secret to the CIA that Osama bin Laden had access to his family fortune (his share is estimated to be at least $30 millionpp), and the bin Ladens, as well as other Saudis, kept Osama and his group, al Qaeda, well funded.

Mr. Bush, weeks went by after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, yet your father and his friends at the Carlyle Group refused to buckle in their support for the bin Laden empire.

Finally, nearly two months after the attacks, with more and more people questioning the propriety of the Bush family being in bed with the bin Ladens, your father and the Carlyle Group were pressured into giving the bin Ladens their millions back and asked them to leave the company as investors.

Why did this take so long?

To make matters worse, it turned out that one of bin Laden's brothers -- Shafiq -- was actually at a Carlyle Group business conference in Washington, D.C., the morning of September 11. The day before, at the same conference, your father and Shafiq had been chatting it up with all the other ex-government Carlyle bigwigs.

Mr. Bush, what is going on here?

You've gotten a free ride from the media, though they know everything I have just written to be the truth (and, in fact, I have taken it from the very same mainstream news sources they work for). They seem unwilling or afraid to ask you a simple question: WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

In case you don't understand just how bizarre the media's silence is regarding the Bush-bin Laden connections, let me draw an analogy to how the press or Congress may have handled something like this if the same shoe had been on the Clinton foot. If, after the terrorist attack on the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, it was revealed that President Bill Clinton and his family had financial dealings with Timothy McVeigh's family, what do you think your Republican Party and the media would have done with that one? Do you think at least a couple of questions might have been asked, like, "What is THAT all about?" Be honest, you know the answer. They would have asked more than a couple of questions. They would have skinned Clinton alive and thrown what was left of his carcass in Gitmo.

So, what is this all about, Mr. Bush? We have a right to know.

Question #2: What is the "special relationship" between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family?

Mr. Bush, the bin Ladens are not the only Saudis with whom you and your family have a close personal relationship. The entire royal family seems to be indebted to you -- or is it the other way around?

The number-one supplier of oil to the U.S. is the nation of Saudi Arabia, possessor of the largest-known reserves of oil in the world. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, it was really the Saudis next door who felt threatened, and it was your father, George Bush I, who came to their rescue. The Saudis have never forgotten this and, according to a March 2003 article in The New Yorker, some members of the royal family consider your family to be part of their extended family. Haifa, wife of Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, says that your mother and father "are like my mother and father. I know if ever I needed anything I could go to them."pp And as Robert Baer -- who was a case officer in the CIA's Directorate of Operations from 1967 to 1997 -- revealed in his book Sleeping with the Devil, your dad even has a special name for the Saudi prince -- he calls him "Bandar Bush."

This relationship, as you know (but have never revealed to the American people), was forged over many years. Through his stints in the CIA and as vice president and president, your father learned that whenever the dirty work needed to be done, the United States could always turn to Saudi Arabia. When White House aide Oliver North needed money to buy arms for Iran in the Iran-Contra Affair, it was the Saudis who provided the $30 million in secret cash. When the CIA needed funds to help destroy the Italian Communist Party in 1985 and finance its opponents in elections, it was your good friends the Saudis who happily put $10 million in an Italian bank. This was all while dad was V.P., and he was having the Saudi ambassador over for frequent lunches.

It is no surprise then that the Saudi ambassador is the only diplomat in Washington who receives his own personal State Department security detail, compliments of the U.S. taxpayers. Robert Baer reported that Prince Bandar donated $1 million to the George Bush Presidential Library and Museum in Texas and a million dollars more to Barbara Bush's literacy program.

Even though Poppy was defeated by Clinton in 1992, the ties remained just as strong. Your father's Carlyle Group did a lot of business with the Saudis when it came to weapons procurement. The Saudis spent more than $170 billion on armaments in the 1990s, and a chunk of the business went through the Carlyle Group. Your dad has met with the Saudi royals on many occasions and has traveled to the Arabian peninsula at least twice since leaving office and stayed in the royal palaces of the House of Saud, both times on behalf of the Carlyle Group. Prince Bandar is also an investor in the Carlyle Group, and he attended your mother's seventy-fifth birthday party in Kennebunkport. It has been a fruitful relationship all around.

When there was all that nasty stress surrounding the hanging chads in the Florida ballot boxes in the late fall of 2000, your close friend Prince Bandar was there for your family, offering his support. He took your father on a pheasant hunting trip to England, to help take his mind off all the chaos, while the royal family's lawyer -- your lawyer, James Baker -- went to Florida to direct the battle for the ballots. (Baker's firm would later represent the Saudi royals in the lawsuits against them by the families of the September 11 victims.)

To be fair, Mr. Bush, it's not just your family members who are the recipients of the Saudis' largesse. A major chunk of the American economy is built on Saudi money. They have a trillion dollars invested in our stock market and another trillion dollars sitting in our banks. If one day they chose to suddenly remove that money, our corporations and financial institutions would be sent into a tailspin, causing an economic crisis the likes of which has never been seen. That threat looms every day over our heads, and it is something no one ever wants to talk about. Couple that with the fact that the one and a half million barrels of oil we need daily from the Saudis also could vanish on a mere royal whim, and we begin to see how not only you, but all of us, are dependent on the House of Saud. George, is this good for our national security, our homeland security? Who is it good for? You? Pops?

Not us.

Here's what I don't get: Why have you and your father chosen to align yourselves with a country that is considered by most human rights groups to be among the worst and most brutal dictatorships in the world?

Amnesty International had this to say in its 2003 report on Saudi Arabia:

Gross human rights violations continued and were exacerbated by the government policy of "combating terrorism" in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks in the USA. The violations were perpetuated by the strictly secretive criminal justice system and the prohibition of political parties, trade unions and independent human rights organizations. Hundreds of suspected religious activists and critics of the state were arrested, and the legal status of most of those held from previous years remained shrouded in secrecy. Women continued to suffer severe discrimination. Torture and ill-treatment remained rife.

In 2000, 125 people were publicly beheaded, many of them in the city of Riyadh at a place popularly known as "Chop-Chop Square."

After meeting with the Saudi crown prince in April 2002, you happily told us that the two of you had "established a strong personal bond" and that you "spent a lot of time alone." Were you trying to reassure us? Or just flaunt your friendship with a group of rulers who rival the Taliban in their suppression of human rights? Why the double standard?

Question #3: Who attacked the United States on September 11 -- a guy on dialysis from a cave in Afghanistan, or your friends, Saudi Arabia?

I'm sorry, Mr. Bush, but something doesn't make sense.

You got us all repeating by rote that it was Osama bin Laden who was responsible for the attack on the United States on September 11. Even I was doing it. But then I started hearing strange stories about Osama's kidneys.

It turns out that there have been reports on Osama's health problems for years. For example, in 2000 The Associated Press reported, ". . . a Western intelligence official said [Osama] is suffering from kidney and liver disease. Bin Laden has kidney failure and 'his liver is going,' the official said. . . . He said bin Laden's followers were trying to find a kidney dialysis machine for their ailing leader."

After September 11, these reports escalated. I was watching Hardball with Chris Matthews one night on MSNBC, and one of the guests -- a Taliban expert -- said, ". . . Osama bin Laden appears to need dialysis treatment for his kidney problem, so he's got to be close to some dialysis. He really can't travel far."

Did he just say "dialysis"? The world's biggest monster, the most sinister, evil man on all of planet Earth -- and he can't even piss in a pot without help? I don't know about you, but if I'm told to be seriously frightened by an evildoer, especially the top evildoer, I want that evildoer to have all his bodily functions working at 110 percent! I want him strong, scary, and omnipresent -- and the possessor of two working kidneys. How am I supposed to be supporting all these Homeland Security measures when the lead bad guy is flat out on a table somewhere hooked up to a kidney machine?

Suddenly, I don't know who or what to trust. I started to ask other questions. How could a guy sitting in a cave in Afghanistan, hooked up to dialysis, have directed and overseen the actions of nineteen terrorists for two years in the United States and then plotted so perfectly the hijacking of four planes and then guaranteed that three of them would end up precisely on their targets? How did Osama do this? I mean, I can't get this computer to stop crashing every time I type the word "gingivitis." I can't get a cell signal from here to Queens! And he's supposed to have pulled off all of September 11 from his little cave, 10,000 miles away? What was he doing, then, when we started the bombing over there? Was he running from cave to cave in Afghanistan with his tubes and dialysis machine trailing behind him? Or, um, maybe there was a dialysis machine in every third cave in Afghanistan. Yeah, that's it! A real modern country, Afghanistan! It has about fifteen miles of railroad track. And lots of dialysis machines, I guess.

None of this is to say that Osama isn't a baddie or even that he didn't have something to do with the attacks. But it seems that maybe a few journalists might want to ask a few commonsense questions, like how could he have really pulled this off while his skin was turning green and he was living in a country with no Kinko's, no FedEx, no ATMs. How did he organize, communicate, control and supervise this kind of massive attack? With two cans and a string?

Yet, we're told by you to believe it. The headlines blared it the first day and they blare it the same way now two years later: "Terrorists Attack United States." Terrorists. I have wondered about this word for some time, so, George, let me ask you a question: If fifteen of the nineteen hijackers had been North Korean, and they killed 3,000 people, do you think the headline the next day might read, "NORTH KOREA ATTACKS UNITED STATES"?

Of course it would. Or if it had been fifteen Iranians or fifteen Libyans or fifteen Cubans, I think the conventional wisdom would have been, "IRAN (or LIBYA or CUBA) ATTACKS AMERICA!"

Yet, when it comes to September 11, have you ever seen the headline, have you ever heard a newscaster, has one of your appointees ever uttered these words: "Saudi Arabia attacked the United States"?

Of course you haven't. And so the question must -- must -- be asked: WHY NOT? Why, when Congress releases its own investigation into September 11, did you, Mr. Bush, censor out twenty-eight pages that deal with the Saudis' role in the attack? What is behind your apparent refusal to look at the one country that seems to be producing the "terrorists" that have killed our citizens?

I would like to throw out a possibility here: What if September 11 was not a "terrorist" attack but, rather, a military attack against the United States? What if the nineteen were well-trained soldiers, the elite of the elite, unquestioning in their duty to obey their commander's orders? That they lived in this country for nearly two years and were not discovered -- that takes a certain amount of discipline, the discipline of a soldier, not the erratic behavior of some wild-eyed terrorist.

George, apparently you were a pilot once -- how hard is it to hit a five-story building at more than 500 miles an hour? The Pentagon is only five stories high. At 500 miles an hour, had the pilots been off by just a hair, they'd have been in the river. You do not get this skilled at learning how to fly jumbo jets by being taught on a video game machine at some dipshit flight training school in Arizona. You learn to do this in the air force. Someone's air force.

The Saudi Air Force?

What if these weren't wacko terrorists, but military pilots who signed on to a suicide mission? What if they were doing this at the behest of either the Saudi government or certain disgruntled members of the Saudi royal family? The House of Saud, according to Robert Baer's book, is full of them, and the royal family -- and the country -- is in incredible turmoil. There is much dissension over how things are being run, and with the king incapacitated by a stroke he suffered in 1995, his brothers and numerous sons have been in a serious power struggle. Some favor cutting off all ties to the West. Some want the country to go the more fundamentalist route. After all, this was Osama's originally stated goal. His first beef wasn't with America, it was with the way Saudi Arabia was being run -- by Muslims who weren't true Muslims. There are now thousands of princes in the royal family, and many observers have commented that Saudi Arabia is on the brink of civil war, or perhaps a people's revolution. You can only behead so many of your citizens and then, before long, they lose their heads and go crazy and overthrow your ass. That is what is on the "To Do" list for many Saudi citizens these days, and the royals are circling the wagons.

A 1999 article in the political journal Foreign Affairs pretty much spelled out why: "Like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia would like to leave bin Laden in Afghanistan. His arrest and trial in the United States could be highly embarrassing, exposing his continuing relationship with sympathetic members of the ruling elites and intelligence services of both countries."

So, did certain factions within the Saudi royal family execute the attack on September 11? Were these pilots trained by the Saudis? One thing we do know: Nearly all the hijackers were Saudis and they were apparently able to enter the United States legally, thanks, in part, to the special arrangement set up by our State Department and the Saudi government that allowed Saudis to get quickie visas without going through the normal vetting process.

Mr. Bush, why have the Saudis received red-carpet treatment? Sure, we need their oil. And, yes, they received the same kissy-face welcome from all the presidents before you.

But why have you blocked attempts to dig deeper into the Saudi connections? Why do you refuse to say, "Saudi Arabia attacked the United States!"?

Mr. Bush, does this have anything to do with your family's close personal relationship with the ruling family of Saudi Arabia? I would like to think that's not possible. But what is your explanation? That it was just some nut in a cave (who just happened to be on dialysis)? And, after you couldn't find this nut, why did you try to convince us that Saddam Hussein had something to do with September 11 and al Qaeda, when you were specifically told by your intelligence people that there was no connection?

Why are you so busy protecting the Saudis when you should be protecting us?

Question #4: Why did you allow a private Saudi jet to fly around the U.S. in the days after September 11 and pick up members of the bin Laden family and then fly them out of the country without a proper investigation by the FBI?

Mr. Bush, not that this is personal or anything, but I was stranded in Los Angeles on the morning of September 11. I scrambled to find a rental car, and then drove 3,000 miles to get back home -- all because traveling by air was forbidden in the days following the attack.Yet, members of the bin Laden family were allowed to fly in private jets, crisscrossing America as they prepared to leave the country -- can you explain that to me?

Private jets, under the supervision of the Saudi government -- and with your approval -- were allowed to fly around the skies of America and pick up twenty-four members of the bin Laden family and take them first to a "secret assembly point in Texas." They then flew to Washington, D.C., and then on to Boston. Finally, on September 18, they were all flown to Paris, out of the reach of any U.S. officials. They never went through any serious interrogation, other than a few questions that the FBI asked them and a request to check each of their passports before leaving. One FBI agent I spoke to told me that the FBI was "furious" that they were not allowed to keep the bin Ladens in the country to conduct a real investigation -- the kind police like to do when they are trying to track down a murderer. Usually, the police like to talk to the family members of the suspect to learn what they know, who they know, how they might help capture the fugitive.

None of the normal procedures were followed.

This is mind-boggling. Here you have two dozen bin Ladens on American soil, Mr. Bush, and you come up with some lame excuse that you were worried about "their safety." Might it have been possible that at least one of the twenty-four bin Ladens would have possibly known something? Or maybe just one of them could have been "convinced" to help track Osama down?

Nope. None of that. So while thousands were stranded and could not fly, if you could prove you were a close relative of the biggest mass murderer in U.S. history, you got a free tip to gay Paree!

Of course, the bin Ladens have been your business associates. Why wouldn't you do a little favor for some old family friends? But, to use the Clinton analogy again, imagine, in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombing, Bill Clinton suddenly started worrying about the "safety" of the McVeigh family up in Buffalo -- and then arranged a free trip for them out of the country. What would you and the Republicans have said about that? Suddenly, a stain on a blue dress probably wouldn't have been the top priority for a witch hunt, would it?

With all that was happening in the days after September 11, how did you find the time to even begin thinking about protecting people named bin Laden? I'm amazed at your ability to multi-task.

As if bin Ladens Over America ("Air Laden?") wasn't enough, The Tampa Tribune reported that the authorities also found the time to help even more Saudis. Apparently, another Saudi jet, this one a private Lear jet (arranged by a private hangar owned by defense contractor Raytheon, which also happens to be a hefty GOP donor), was allowed to fly from Tampa on September 13 (during the air-travel lockdown) to Lexington, Kentucky, to drop off some members of the Saudi royal family to be with other Saudi royals who had been in Kentucky looking at horses. Two bodyguards for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers were hired to travel along on the flight and they told their story to the Tribune about how the pilot revealed to them upon returning to Tampa that he had still another run to make to Louisiana.

Why, Mr. Bush, was this allowed to happen?

A frightened nation struggled to get through those days after September 11. Yet, in the sky above us, the bin Ladens and Saudi royals jetted home.

I think we deserve an explanation.

Question #5: Why are you protecting the "Second Amendment rights" of potential terrorists?

Mr. Bush, in the days after September 11, the FBI began running a check to see if any of the 186 "suspects" the feds had rounded up in the first five days after the attack had purchased any guns in the months leading up to September 11. Using the instant background check files for gun purchases created under the Brady Bill, the FBI immediately found two of the suspects had indeed purchased weapons.

When your attorney general, John Ashcroft, heard about this, he immediately shut the search down. He told the FBI that the background check files could not be used for such a search and these files were only to be used at the time of a purchase of a gun, not to find out information on law-abiding gun-toting citizens.

So, the FBI was prohibited by Ashcroft from doing any further investigation as to whether those detained -- because they were possible associates of the hijackers -- had procured any weapons in the ninety days leading up to that fateful day. Why? Because even though all their other rights had been thrown out the window, your administration insisted that they still had one constitutional right that you were willing to protect: their sacred Second Amendment rights to bear arms and for the government not to know about it.

Mr. Bush, you can't be serious! Is your administration so gun nutty and in the pocket of the National Rifle Association that, even though you have not given a nanosecond of thought to protecting the rights of any of the Arab-Americans you have arrested, detained, and harassed in the past two years, when it comes to their GUN rights, then all of a sudden you are the biggest defender of constitutional rights and civil liberties that the nation has ever seen?

Do you realize that when most Americans figure out you have protected potential terrorists by stymieing a legitimate police investigation, they are going to run you and Dick and Reverend John out of Dodge with their own six-shooters of ballot boxes a-blazing?

I guess none of this should come as a surprise, considering what Mr. Ashcroft was up to in the summer of 2001. Instead of protecting the country from events like the one that was about to take place, the attorney general was busy trying to dismantle the National Instant Criminal Background Check System. He said that the government should not be keeping a database on gun owners and wanted the law changed so that the files were kept for only twenty-four hours!

The Senate (and the public) did not find out about Ashcroft's orders to stop the search for the terrorists' gun files until December 2001, when Ashcroft not only proudly admitted to doing this in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee, but went on to attack anyone who would question his actions to protect the hijackers' gun rights. He told the panel that critics of his anti-terror practices were "providing ammunition to America's enemies. . . . To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of 'lost liberty,' my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorists."

But who was the one aiding the terrorists, Mr. Bush? An attorney general who won't let the FBI do its job? An attorney general who won't let the police thoroughly investigate what the terrorists were up to, including the purchasing of weapons?

At that same Senate hearing, Mr. Ashcroft held up what he said was an al Qaeda training manual.

"In this manual," he warned, "al Qaeda terrorists are told how to use America's freedom as a weapon against us."

On this point he was correct. One of the freedoms al Qaeda apparently really likes is our Second Amendment.

Another al Qaeda pamphlet that was originally found in terrorist safe houses in Afghanistan heaps praise on the United States. Obviously, Ashcroft missed all of the beautiful irony.

Here's what this al Qaeda training manual says:

• In some countries of the world, especially the USA, firearms training is available to the general public. One should try to join a shooting club if possible and make regular visits to the firing range. There are many firearms courses available to the public in the USA, ranging from one day to two weeks or more.

• Useful courses to learn are sniping, general shooting, and other rifle courses. Handgun courses are useful but only after you have mastered rifles.

• In other countries, e.g. some states of the USA and South Africa, it is perfectly legal for members of the public to own certain types of firearms. If you live in such a country, obtain an assault rifle legally, preferably an AK-47 or variations, learn how to use it properly and go and practice in the areas allowed for such training.

• Respect the laws of the country you are in and avoid dealing in illegal firearms. One can learn to operate many arms legally, so there is no need to spend years in prison for dealing in small, illegal firearms. Learn the most you can according to your circumstances and leave the rest to when you actually go for jihad.

So, Mr. Bush, al Qaeda is apparently plotting to use one of our "freedoms" -- the right to bear arms -- against us.

I truly love how you have rounded up hundreds of people, grabbing them off the streets without notice, throwing them in prison cells, unable to contact lawyers or family and then, for the most part, shipping them out of the country on mere immigration charges. You can waive their Fourth Amendment protection from unlawful search and seizure, their Sixth Amendment rights to an open trial by a jury of their peers and the right to counsel, and their First Amendment rights to speak, assemble, dissent and practice their religion. You believe you have the right to just trash all these rights, but when it comes to the Second Amendment right to own an AK-47 -- oh no! THAT right they can have -- and you will defend their right to have it, even after they've flown a plane into a building and killed a bunch of people.

When this story first broke, you naturally got worried that it wouldn't spin the right way to the public (the vast majority of whom want stronger gun laws), so you trotted out a Justice Department spokeswoman to explain to us that the decision had been reached by "senior Justice officials" after they had done an exhaustive study of "the law." Among those spinmeisters was Mr. Viet Dinh -- the assistant attorney general for legal policy. Dinh's justification for blocking the background checks? According to The New York Times, "Mr. Dinh ruled that these checks were improper, reasoning that they would violate the privacy of these foreigners" (my emphasis).

Yes, when it comes to guns, finally the rights of foreigners count for something.

Copyright © 2003 by Michael Moore