Posted on 12/03/2002 8:49:45 AM PST by Nix 2
by Daniel Pipes
New York Post
December 3, 2002
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/980
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/63398.htm
Bush administration officials and leading U.S. senators responded very differently to the news that Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States, had given many thousands of dollars to a person connected to two of the 9/11 suicide hijackers.
Their difference highlights a problem that needs addressing through congressional legislation; ways to prevent undue Saudi influence through the spread of its money.
Senators spoke out forthrightly and honestly on the issue raised by the princesss donations.
* Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.): "Either [the Saudis] have to change or the relationship that we have with Saudi Arabia is going to change dramatically. For too many generations, certainly years, they have pacified and accommodated themselves to the most extreme fanatical elements of Islam."
* John McCain (R-Ariz.): "The list goes on and on of Saudi failures and the central role that they have played in one way or another in the rise of Islamic fundamentalism all over the world."
* Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.): "The Saudis are on all sides of every issue. We, in some ways, have had a good relationship with them over the years, and in other ways, it appears as if they're funding our enemies.
* Richard Shelby (R-Ala.): "The Saudis have got a lot of answering to do in my judgment."
The senators also criticized U.S. law enforcement's reluctance to deal with the problem of Saudi financing of terrorism. Lieberman noted, "The FBI and maybe other parts of our government have seemed to want to almost defend the Saudis, or not be as aggressive as they should be about the Saudis." Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) concurred: "It seems every time the Saudis are involved, we stop [doing a proper investigation]."
In contrast, the Bush administration offered excuses for the couple and glossed over the problems of law enforcement. Secretary of State Colin Powell poured cold water on the revelations: "I think it's unlikely that Prince Bandar or Her Royal Highness would do anything that would support terrorist activity" - a most unusual endorsement, given that the FBI is actively investigating this matter.
The State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher, praised Saudi efforts to prevent the financing of terrorism as very strong, though he did concede that there is always more to be done.
The president's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, promoted the self-serving Saudi line that Osama bin Laden specifically recruited Saudi hijackers for the 9/11 attacks to "drive a wedge" between the United States and Saudi Arabia. (This idea is palpably false: That 15 out of 19 hijackers were Saudi was not a political ploy but the result of the fact, as Stephen Schwartz explains, that "Saudis are the largest national contingent by far in al Qaeda.")
*****[The most embarrassing display by the administration, however, came from the distaff side. Colin Powell's wife Alma and the president's mother Barbara - both of whom have a history of socializing with the princess - called Haifa al-Faisal on the telephone to express what the New York Times delicately termed their "support and sympathy."]*****
Why this undue solicitude for Saudi feelings? This hedging by the executive branch fits a pattern going back almost 60 years, to when President Franklin D. Roosevelt met the Saudi king in 1945.
Since then, U.S. politicians, diplomats, flag officers and lobbyists have enjoyed a cozy relationship with their counterparts on the Saudi side. The tie is premised on Americans - Democrats and Republicans alike -accommodating the kingdom's wishes and in return, being plied with substantial sums of money, either at the time or after they leave government service.
A culture of corruption, in other words, pervades the upper reaches of the White House and several departments; it does not, however, extend to Congress, perhaps because the Saudis do not understand the workings or importance of an elected body and so have not tried to buy it.
Effectively fighting the war on terror urgently requires the passing of legislation that breaks up the cozy power-money nexus in the executive branch by making sure that U.S. officials cannot tap into Saudi funds after they retire from government service.
Such laws should be high on the new Congress agenda when it convenes in January.
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George W. Bond meets Prince Supervillain
BY MARK STEYN
I always like the bit in the Bond movie where 007 and the supervillain meet face to face - usually at the supervillain's marine research facility or golf course or, in this latest picture, his Icelandic diamond mine. Bond knows the alleged marine biologist is, in fact, an evil mastermind bent on world domination. The evil mastermind knows Bond is a British agent. But both men go along with the pretence that the other fellow's what he's claiming to be, and the exquisitely polite encounter invariably ends with the mastermind purring his regrets about being unable to be more helpful.
"But perhaps we shall meet again, Mr. Bond," he says, as the Oriental manservant shows 007 to the door.
It must have been a bit like that when Prince Bandar and his family dropped by the Bush ranch at Crawford three months ago. Bush must have known for the best part of a year that in the run-up to September 11, Bandar's wife, Princess Haifa, had been making regular transfers from her Washington bank account to a couple of known associates of the terrorists. Bandar must have known Bush knew.
Each party knows the other party knows he's engaged in a charade, but both observe the niceties, with Laura showing Princess Haifa the ranch, Bush hailing the "eternal friendship" between the Saudi and American people, and Bandar regretting, as the Saudis always do, that they're unable to be more helpful.
It would be nice if George W. Bond would kick over the cocktails and lob a grenade into Oilfinger's refinery, but instead the charade continues. Thus, this week, Barbara Bush personally called Princess Haifa to commiserate over the latest "misunderstanding."
The official explanation, if I can type it without giggling, goes something like this: the Princess, the wife of the Saudi Ambassador to America, gets a letter from a woman in Virginia she's never heard of complaining about steep medical bills.
Being a friendly sort of princess, she immediately authorizes her bank to make payment by cashier's check of several thousand dollars per month to this woman, no questions asked.
Of the $130,000 she receives from the benevolent ambassadress, Majeda Ibrahin signs at least some of the checks over to a friend of hers, who's married to a guy in San Diego who's helping two of the September 11 plotters. Pure coincidence, say the smooth-talking Saud princelings put up on the talk-show circuit this last week. Could happen to any good-hearted princess.
How did Omar al Bayoumi, the penultimate recipient of the Royal largesse, get to hook up with the two terrorists anyway? Well, there's another amazing coincidence. Omar happened to be at LAX, heard a couple of fellows speaking Arabic, struck up a conversation with them, one thing led to another, and before you know it he's throwing 'em a big welcome party in San Diego and paying the first couple of months' rent for them on the apartment next door. How was he to know Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhamzi had just jetted in from an al-Qaida training camp and would go on to hijack Flight 77 and plough it into the Pentagon? Just one of those things, coulda happened to any guy who wanders round airport concourses looking for perfect strangers to cover the accommodation expenses of.
Meanwhile, Majeda Ibrahin's husband, another buddy of the al-Qaida duo and one who subsequently celebrated September 11 as a "wonderful, glorious day," turns out to have been in Texas in April when Crown Prince Abdullah and his entourage flew in to see Bush at the ranch. Just another coincidence? Well, sorta: he's supposed to have had a meeting in Houston with some big-time Saudi prince who deals with "intelligence matters." This seems an unusual degree of access for some schlub from San Diego who's in the US illegally, as it transpires.
THE REACTION of the government-controlled Saudi press is that this is all a lot of "lies" put about by "circles linked to the Zionist lobby." The huffing Haifa declares any suggestion that she's done anything that might warrant anything so impertinent as an investigation to be simply "outrageous." The official line is that it's just one of those cultural differences: It's very common, we're told, for House of Saud bigshots to help out their financially strapped subjects. It's also very common for Islamic terrorists to use charitable giving as a front. As things stand, intentionally or not, there's a reasonable probability that funds from the Ambassador's wife helped pay for the scheme that murdered thousands of Americans.
The Saudi Embassy say they've only received queries about this matter from the media, not from the FBI. Odd. The federal government claims it needs vast new powers to track every single credit-card transaction and every single e-mail of every single American, yet a prima facie link between the terrorists and Prince Bandar's wife isn't worth going over to the embassy to have a little chat about. I doubt whether Princess Haifa is deliberately bankrolling al-Qaida, but I'm not so sure one could make the same confident claims of those embassy staffers running the begging letters past her. And, even if their hands are clean, the widespread support for Osama among Saudis at home and abroad means it's only a degree or two of separation from hardcore terrorists via their supporters to the Saudi Royal Family.
But the US-Saudi relationship is now so unmoored from reality it's impervious to anything so humdrum as facts. Seven of the nine biggest backers of al-Qaida are Saudi and Riyadh has no intention of doing a thing about it, but the White House insists, as it did on Monday, that the Kingdom remains - all together now - "a good partner in the war on terrorism."
The overwhelming majority of the detainees at Guantanamo are Saudi, but the new rules requiring fingerprinting of Arab male visitors to the US apply to Iraqis, Libyans, Syrians, Sudanese, Lebanese, Algerians, Tunisians, Yemenis, Bahrainis, Moroccans, Omanis, Quataris, but not Saudis. You can pretty much bet they'll be fingerprinting British and Australians before the Saudis.
Asked in a recent interview why so many Saudis were among the 9/11 killers, my old friend Ghazi Algosaibi, the former ambassador to London, replied with disarming candor: "The answer is easy," he said. "It was much easier to get a visa for a Saudi." In other words, the murderers took advantage of the privileged access Saudis have to the United States. Given that Muslims from Eritrea to Afghanistan now have even more onerous entry requirements, come the next atrocity the Saudis are likely to score a perfect 19 out of 19.
This privileged access to America begins with Prince Bandar. If the Pakistani Ambassador's wife - or even the Swedish - had been funneling money to al-Qaida supporters, they'd both be on the plane home. The day Bandar is, we'll know Bush is serious about this war.
The writer is senior contributing editor for Hollinger Inc.
Wow! Pipes is starting to hit hard.
Protecting you, me, and the U.S.A., regardless of how he may feel about Saudi duplicity. In time these desert snakes will get their turn, but not just yet.
PLease explain how excusing and allowing Saudi funding for terrorists protects us? This should be interesting.
"In time these desert snakes will get their turn, but not just yet",?I>
Heard that one before. Whats Bush waiting for? For the Saudis to get nukes? They are trying. Right now they could be taken out easy. Wait around and it only gets harder and more dangerous.
I don't know the real reason the White House is protecting the Saudis, but unless they explain it to us, I guess I will have to assume it is because they have been bought.
I think you're right. It's not even necessary to be in the oil business, because the Saudis have "diversified" over the years; but wherever they go, they have lots and lots of money, and lots and lots of clout.
In theory, Billy the Clown would have been free of oil connections and able to take on the Saudis - but did he? No, and I think we're going to have a long wait before we see any activity from any US administration on the Saudis. (Although I was heartened to see this week's raid on a Massachusetts defense software company secretly owned by a Saudi biggie.)
Or maybe, as you suggest, it will take another terrible attack on Americans to get our officials moving.
I will stop by Rizzoli's in Manhattan and see if they have the Italian version as well. Though some of the flavor of her rage comes out in the english version, I know it will be even better in the original. The smoke will be comingnext couple of days when time permits. off the pages.
I will post a thread with excerpts from the book in the
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