“The most startling finding in this report [Staff Statement #1 of the 9/11 Commission, on January 26, 2004] is that [9/11 mastermind] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was indicted in 1996, got a legal visa to enter the United States on July 23, 2001, about six weeks prior to 9/11. ‘Although he is not a Saudi citizen,’ said the staff, ‘and we do not believe he was in Saudi Arabia at the time, he applied for a visa using a Saudi passport and an alias, Abdulrahman al Ghamdi.’ The visa was granted under the program known as Visa Express, designed to expedite the entry of Saudis into America. A number of the 9/11 hijackers took advantage of the program: Beginning in 1997 they submitted a total of twenty-four applications, and received twenty-four visas.”
– Peter Lance, Cover Up, Pages 160-161