Saudi suck-ups

September 27, 2002

WASHINGTON – You should be outraged that your government has to sneak around to protect you.

U.S. intelligence has known for a year that Saudi Arabia was a state accomplice to Sept. 11, yet it took this administration that long to agree to just keep tabs on Saudis entering the U.S. on visas.

It is begrudgingly acknowledging, albeit secretly, a security threat from Saudi Arabia by adding it to the Justice Department’s immigration blacklist.

Starting Oct. 1, young Saudi men will be fingerprinted, photographed and monitored when they step off planes or cross land borders. Just like Iraqis, Iranians and other terrorist risks.

It’s a baby step in the right direction. But at least through tracking, authorities may be able to stop another 15 Saudis from slaughtering thousands.

Only, the Bush officials are pretending they’re not even going to do that. Heaven forbid it get out that they’re subjecting Saudis to the same registration European countries already subject them to. They still seem more worried about offending their friends in the House of Saud than protecting American citizens.

Earth to President Bush: We are at war. Polls show most Americans wonder why we’re still letting Saudis and other Middle Easterners in the country at all. Members of Congress like Rep. Dave Weldon, R-Fla., are proposing moratoriums on Saudi and other Middle Eastern visas.

Either Saudi Arabia is our friend, or it isn’t. If we’re concerned the kingdom is sending terrorists here – as the expanded screening policy plainly indicates – then Saudi Arabia is not our ally in the war on terrorism. It’s nothing but a foe, and an extremely dangerous one at that.

But then, Bush knows this. The bill of indictment against the Saudi government, as much as he wants to ignore it, grows longer by the day. Here are some of the facts:

Three-fourths of the Sept. 11 mass murderers came here on visas rubberstamped in Saudi Arabia.
They were Saudi nationals, just like their wealthy terrorist overlord, Osama bin Laden.
A Saudi national helped bomb the U.S. Embassy in Nairobi.
Another Saudi, Tawfiq al-Atash, masterminded the USS Cole bombing.
Five Americans were blown up in the Saudi capital of Riyadh in 1995.
The next year, 19 American airmen were blown up in the Khobar Towers apartment compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia.
Right up to Sept. 11, Saudi Arabia knowingly exported hundreds of young jihadi warriors to Afghanistan.
Saudi Arabia is said to have bankrolled al-Qaida operations through charities like the Muslim World League and the International Islamic Relief Organization.
Saudi Arabia continues to spread Wahhabism, the militant Islamic supremacy practiced by bin Laden, throughout the world through the mosques and schools it finances.
Many operate right here in the U.S., training young Muslims through lessons and textbooks to hate their American “infidel” hosts.
The Saudi government-controlled press blames Israel’s Mossad for 9-11.
Saudi telethons reward relatives of Palestinian suicide bombers with fat checks.

So why does Bush continue the charade that Saudi Arabia is our “friend” and “partner”? Why does he entertain the crown prince at his ranch? Why does his secretary of state practically genuflect before the royals? Why would his attorney general agree to negotiate U.S. law-enforcement policy with the prince’s foreign-policy adviser? Why does his top cop feel the need to release a separate press statement declaring: “The Department of Justice considers Saudi Arabia an ally in the war on terrorism”? Why does his father call “ridiculous” any notion Saudi Arabia is America’s enemy, and scold those who “demonize” a country so easy to demonize?

Because the Saudi royals – all 30,000 of them – are filthy rich. And they have lucrative contracts to dispense. Contracts for oil and gas development, defense, construction, money management, consulting – contracts of which the Bush family and friends have availed themselves handsomely over the years.

This personal pull has withstood not only the overwhelming evidence of Saudi duplicity, but even the crushing emotion of watching the grieving relatives of the 3,000 victims of the hate merchants the royal family catalyzed.

Bush is so conflicted over how to deal with Saudi’s lack of cooperation in the war on terror precisely because he himself has a personal conflict of interest.

On the one hand, he wants to protect the American people from Saudi-sponsored terrorists. But on the other, he wants to protect his family’s and friends’ business interests in Saudi Arabia. And in doing so, he’s actually aiding the Saudi government’s public deception campaign that it’s a friend of the West.

Did you know that, within days of Sept. 11, this administration arranged for Saudi Arabia to charter a jet to whisk out of the country bin Laden relatives in Los Angeles, Orlando, Washington and Boston? They were only briefly questioned on the plane, escaping FBI investigation.

If ever there were a time when a commander in chief should recuse himself from a war, this might be it.

Bush, in his many speeches, has asserted that any nation that harbors, sponsors, finances, trains or aids terrorists is America’s sworn enemy.

Saudi Arabia has done all of these things. Yet Bush continues to make an exception in its case.

The crosscurrents in this administration regarding Saudi Arabia are starting to grow violent, as evidenced by the Justice memo this newssite brought to light last week and the administration’s tap-dancing around it.

Good patriots in U.S. law enforcement, intelligence and defense are sounding the alarm over the Saudi threat. Hopefully, they will soon overwhelm Bush and State Department suck-ups who want to continue the charade that Saudi Arabia is benign and has America’s best interests at heart.