911/Bush/The Saudi Connection

[Oilwellian]

9/11
The Saudi Connection

As President Bush today squeezes in a visit to a 9/11 memorial as part of a fundraising trip, his Administration is coming under increasing pressure to explain its close relationship with a "Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups." Just yesterday, Newsday reported the family of the FBI's late counterterrorism chief who was killed in the 9/11 attacks "filed lawsuits Wednesday accusing Saudi Arabia of aiding terrorists worldwide." And today, an explosive excerpt from the new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" examines how top White House officials orchestrated the post-9/11 exodus of Osama bin Laden's relatives before U.S. law enforcement officers could ask them for critical details about the Al Qaeda leader and his terror network. Meanwhile, Time Magazine reports "the Saudis still appear to be protecting charities associated with the royal family" which funnel money to terrorists. And yet, despite all this, President Bush has continued to praise Saudi Arabia, has invited Saudi government leaders to his Crawford mansion, and in general is far "cozier than most to Riyadh." As Vanity Fair noted, "the Bush-Saudi relationship raises serious questions, if only because it is so extraordinary for two presidents to share such a long and rich personal history with any foreign power" – especially one that has been so closely implicated in the 9/11 attacks. And despite the calls to get tough, Time Magazine concludes that the Administration's all-too-close ties to the Saudi royal family makes "it seem unlikely that the Bush Administration will adopt a tougher policy toward Riyadh."

BEFORE 9/11 - WHAT WAS KNOWN ABOUT THE SAUDIS: According to U.S. News, a 1996 CIA report found that a third of the 50 Saudi-backed charities it studied "were tied to terrorist groups." Similarly, a 1998 report by the National Security Council had identified the Saudi government as "the epicenter" of terrorist financing, becoming "the single greatest force in spreading Islamic fundamentalism" and "funneling hundreds of millions of dollars to jihad groups and al Qaeda cells around the world." Over the past decade, "al Qaeda and its fellow jihadists collected between $300 million and $500 million - most of it from Saudi charities and private donors" and the very "origins of al Qaeda are intimately bound up with the Saudi charities." At the same time, these Al Qaeda-Saudi government ties were strengthening, U.S. "inquiries about bin Laden went unanswered by Riyadh. When Hezbollah terrorists killed 19 U.S. troops with a massive truck bomb at Khobar Towers in Dhahran in 1996, Saudi officials stonewalled, then shut the FBI out of the investigation."

BEFORE 9/11 – STRENGTHENED BUSH-SAUDI TIES: Despite the clear ties to terror, the Bush Administration maintained and strengthened its ties to the Saudi government upon taking office. As the Boston Herald reported, a "revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel" exists "within President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers." First and foremost, the current President's father "remains a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group" – an investment bank with deep connections to the Saudi royal family, and received $1 million for his Presidential library from the royal family. George W. Bush "himself is also linked" to the Saudi-backed Carlyle Group: he was a director of a Carlyle subsidiary called called Caterair. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice "is a former longtime member of the board of Chevron which did business in the Saudi desert." And Vice President Cheney's tenure as CEO of oil giant Halliburton was among his dealings with "firms connected to the Saudis that paid big dividends."

BEFORE 9/11 – APPOINTING A CRONY INSTEAD OF A DIPLOMAT: With the Saudis' ties to terror clear, the Administration refused to appoint a qualified diplomat or counterterrorism expert as the U.S. government's ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Instead, the President appointed his Texas crony Robert Jordan – a man with no diplomatic experience, who spoke no Arabic and who had never set foot in Saudi Arabia. Jordan's chief qualification for the post was that he had been Bush's lawyer during the SEC inquiry into the Harken energy scandal, was part of the legal team representing the president in Florida during the 2000 election. He also worked at the law firm Baker-Botts, which is headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, a man who has considerable ties to the Saudi government, and who continues to tout Saudi Arabia as "an ally and friend of the United States for as long as I can remember." Even after Jordan retired earlier this year, the Administration still refused to appoint a diplomatic/counter-terrorism expert, instead appointing Texas oil lobbyist James Oberwetter.

AFTER 9/11 – WHITE HOUSE FLIES BIN LADENS OUT OF AMERICA: In the immediate wake of 9/11, all flights in the United States were grounded. But as the new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" notes in its first excerpts on Salon.com, the flight ban had one exception: the Saudi relatives of Osama bin Laden. As Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged, members of bin Laden's family were put on flights that "were coordinated within the U.S. government" and allowed to go back to Saudi Arabia. According to the excerpt and to Gerald Posner's "Why America Slept," the White House-authorized flights out of the United States also included Saudi Prince Ahmed, who a top Al Qaeda terrorist said "knew beforehand that an attack was scheduled for American soil" on 9/11. The White House's decision to allow the Saudis to leave came at the same time Vanity Fair notes "Arabs were being rounded up and interrogated" all over the country and Attorney General John Ashcroft was asserting that the government had "a responsibility to use every legal means at our disposal to prevent further terrorist activity by taking people into custody who have violated the law and who may pose a threat to America." Law enforcement officers were asking why these family members – some of whom had direct ties to Osama bin Laden – were allowed to leave and wondered "how could officials bypass such an elemental and routine part of an investigation during an unprecedented national-security catastrophe? At the very least, wouldn't relatives have been able to provide some information about Osama's finances, associates, or supporters?"

AFTER 9/11 – WHITE HOUSE ASSAILED FOR GIVING PASS TO SAUDIS: In the year following the 9/11 attacks, Fox News reported lawmakers investigating the Sept. 11 attacks believe the Administration "has not aggressively pursued the possibility that the Saudi government provided money to students who helped two of the hijackers." Congressional committees also "accused the Saudi government of not fully cooperating with American investigators" but faced a strong defense from the White House. Bush Communications Director Dan Bartlett "disputed congressional critics" saying "As anyone who knows this issue will tell you, it's very difficult to track financing of terrorist networks because most of it is done in cash."

AFTER 9/11 – CLASSIFYING INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE: In 2003, more and more evidence began to appear tying the Saudi royal family to the attacks. For instance, Newsweek reported that thousands of dollars in charitable gifts from Princess Haifa, the wife of Prince Bandar, "ended up in the hands of two of the September 11 hijackers." Yet, as congressional committees prepared to release a bipartisan report on the 9/11 attacks, the Bush Administration swiftly moved to classify a section of the report which dealt with the Saudi ties to the attack. According to CBS News, that section "examined interactions between Saudi businessmen and the royal family that may have intentionally or unwittingly aided al Qaeda or the suicide hijackers." Not surprisingly, months after 9/11 Vice President Cheney went on Fox News to announce the Administration's full opposition to an independent 9/11 commission.

AFTER 9/11 - STILL PRAISING THE SAUDIS WHILE THEY REFUSE TO COOPERATE: President Bush has simultaneously repeated a mantra that "if you aid a terrorist, if you hide terrorists, you're just as guilty as the terrorists" while also going "out of his way to compliment the Saudis." While the President says the Saudis are an "important friend" to the United States, the royal family "refuses to permit United States investigators to interrogate one of bin Laden's key financial aides-Sidi Tayyib" a man who "probably knows as much as anyone else about bin Laden's intricate financial empire." Meanwhile, officials at the Treasury and Justice departments have privately expressed deep frustration over the failure of the Saudi government to impose stricter controls over their Islamic charities and turn over crucial evidence about the murky flow of money to Al Qaeda.

(Many great links within the text)
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=6228

[grannylib]

1. Kerry had it right on ....crooked bunch of liars was mild, to say the

least...
evil money-grubbing chickenshit bastards would have been more like it...