[Mb-civic] NYTimes.com Article: Scrutinizing the Saudi Connection

Tue Jul 27 20:03:32 PDT 2004

The article below from NYTimes.com 
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Scrutinizing the Saudi Connection

July 27, 2004
 By GERALD POSNER 

In establishing how the government failed to prevent the
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the 9/11
Commission Report is excellent. Its grasp of some details,
however, is less than reassuring - particularly details
about Saudi Arabia, which it calls, in a gross
understatement, "a problematic ally in combating Islamic
extremism." 

Perhaps even more startling is the report's conclusion that
the panel has "found no evidence that the Saudi government
as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually"
helped to finance Al Qaeda. It does say that unnamed
wealthy Saudi sympathizers, and leading Saudi charities,
sent money to the terror group. But the report fails to
mine any of the widely available reporting and research
that establishes the degree to which many of the suspect
charities cited by the United States are controlled
directly by the Saudi government or some of its ministers. 

The report makes no mention, for example, of an October
2002 study by the Council of Foreign Relations that draws
opposite conclusions about the role of Saudi charities and
how "Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this
problem." The 9/11 panel also misses an opportunity to more
fully explore an intelligence coup in 2002, when American
agents in Bosnia retrieved computer files of the so-called
Golden Chain, a group of Mr. bin Laden's early financial
supporters. 

Reported to be among the 20 names on this list were a
former government minister in Saudi Arabia, three
billionaire banking tycoons and several top industrialists.
Yet the report neither confirms nor denies this. Nor does
it address what, if anything, the Saudis did with the
information, or whether the men were ever arrested by Saudi
authorities. 

These failures are ones of omission, but the questions are
of vital significance. Less important, perhaps, but more
well known is the story of how many prominent Saudis,
including members of the bin Laden family, were able to fly
out of the United States within days of 9/11. 

On Sept. 13, 2001, a private jet flew from Tampa, Fla., to
Lexington, Ky., before leaving the country later that same
day. On board were top Saudi businessmen and members of the
royal family. The assertion is that they were afforded
extraordinary treatment since they flew out after the most
cursory F.B.I. checks and at a time when American airspace
was still closed to private aviation. 

For a long time, the White House, the Federal Aviation
Administration and the F.B.I. denied that any such flights
had taken place on the 13th, and the first day of travel
was the 14th. Now the report of the 9/11 Commission finally
admits the flight was on the 13th - but it fails to quell
the controversy. Rather, the report says the flight only
took off "after national airspace was open" and quotes the
pilot saying there was "nothing unusual whatsoever" about
that flight. 

The report fails, however, to note that when the flights
occurred, airspace was open only to a limited number of
commercial - not private - planes. And it attributes
incorrect positions maintained for months by the federal
government, particularly the F.B.I., to a
"misunderstanding" between federal and local law
enforcement. 

Moreover, the report makes no effort to determine whether
the question of the special repatriation of high-ranking
Saudis from the United States was discussed on the same day
as the first flight in a private meeting - no aides
permitted - between President Bush and the Saudi ambassador
to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The
ambassador has denied that the subject was discussed in his
conversation with the president. But did the commission ask
the president about it when it had the opportunity to
question him? If so, there is no indication in the report. 

The report makes no mention that one of the Saudis on the
flight that left Kentucky for Saudi Arabia was Prince Ahmed
bin Salman. Nephew to King Fahd, Prince Ahmed was later
mentioned to American interrogators in March 2002 by none
other than Abu Zubaydah, a top Qaeda official captured that
same month. The connection, if any, between a top operative
of Al Qaeda and a leading member of the royal family has
remained unresolved despite Saudi denials. Prince Ahmed
cannot be asked: he died in 2002, at the age of 43, from
complications from stomach surgery in a Riyadh hospital. 

Not only does the 9/11 report fail to resolve the matter of
whether Mr. Zubaydah - who featured prominently in the now
infamous Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001 - was
telling the truth when he named Prince Ahmed and several
other princes as his contacts, but they do not even mention
the prince in the entire report. The report does have seven
references to Mr. Zubaydah's interrogations, yet not a
single one is from March, the month of his capture, and the
time he made his startling and still unproven accusations
about high-ranking Saudi royals. 

Of course, none of these matters undermine the report's
central conclusions about what went wrong inside the United
States leading up to 9/11. And satisfying answers to
questions about the relationship between the Saudis and Al
Qaeda might not be available yet. But the commission could
have at least asked them. By failing to address adequately
how Saudi leaders helped Al Qaeda flourish, the commission
has risked damaging its otherwise good work. 

Gerald Posner, the author of "Why America Slept: The
Failure to Prevent 9/11," is writing a book about the Saudi
royal family. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/07/27/opinion/27posn.html?ex=1091983812&ei=1&en=be6b7c6f516900c2

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