"The extremist face of Islam, which justifies violence and stirs hatred, reflects rich and powerful interests. That face is possessed by the ideology known as Wahhabism, a "death cult" that is the official religious dispensation of the Saudi kingdom and which the Saudis, utilizing the financial power they have derived from their vast oil revenues, have spent decades -- and billions of dollars -- exporting to the rest of the world."
-- Stephen Schwartz in his book, "The Two Faces of Islam: The House of Saud From Tradition to Terrorism."
Know these truths and you have an excellent grip on the forces that encouraged bin Laden and drive the worst terrorism we have experienced and still face. These are also truths the Bush Administration refuses to acknowledge.
Since Sept. 11 I have frequently used this space to write about the Saudi treachery, the Bush Administration's coddling of it and the media's general lack on interest in pursuing the obvious. Now, some bombshell reports are directly linking money from the Saudi royal family right into the hands of Sept. 11 terrorists. Stephen Schwartz knows the truth.
"Despite the proliferation of terrorist groups with diverse-sounding names and backers, the real source of our problem is the perversion of Islamic teachings by the fascistic Wahhabi cult that resides in the heart of the Saudi establishment."
That's an establishment the President of the United States and his father, the former president, personally protect. Along with other influential political and business leaders, the Bush Administration has countenanced the unimaginable and convinced a cowardly Congress and gullible public that our "real enemy" is Iraq and Saddam Hussein.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has a far more realistic grasp of what the United States and our allies ought to be doing to combat terrorism than the Bush Administration, and he had the courage to say publicly what American and Western political leaders shy away from.
Last Friday, while Bush was visiting the Russian leader in his home town of St. Petersburg, he got a candid earful he'd never get from that vastly overrated sycophant, national security advisor Condoleeza Rice.
Putin bluntly suggested to Bush that the disappearance of Osama bin Laden was a significant piece of unfinished business as the Bush Administration concentrates its attention on a possible war with Iraq.
Then, standing right next to the swaggering Texan, Putin poked at George W.'s often flawed memory. "We should not forget about those who finance terrorism," he said, and reminded the American president that most of those who committed the Sept. 11 attacks "are citizens of Saudi Arabia and we should not forget about that." Bush must have cringed when he heard those words that have never passed his lips.
A congressional committee looking into the Sept. 11 attacks has concluded that the FBI and the CIA, in their investigations, did not pursue leads that might have linked the terrorists to Saudi Arabian senior government officials.
The New York Times reports the committee has uncovered evidence that two of the hijackers got money and support from two other Saudis while they were all living in California and planning mass murder.
Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek" reports federal sources tell him they've got the goods on a money trail that goes right back to the Saudi establishment and a Bush family intimate. Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi arrived in Los Angeles after attending an al-Qaeda session in Malaysia where they got their Sept. 11 marching orders.
They arrived in Los Angeles and received a welcoming mat from Omar Al Bayoumi, another Saudi national. Bayoumi threw a party for the boys and paid the rent on the apartment they used.
"Newsweek" learned Bayoumi was getting payments at the time of $3,500 a month from an account at the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C.
When he left the United States in July, 2001 the checks kept coming and the terrorists got a new paymaster.
He was Osama Basnan, a known al-Qaeda sympathizer who threw a party the night of Sept. 11 and proclaimed, "What a wonderful, glorious day it has been."
And who was the great benefactor of these Saudi Wahhabis?
She was Princess Haifa-al Faisal, the daughter of the late Saudi King Faisel.
She is also the wife of Saudi Ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a longtime intimate friend of the Bush family.
He is always welcome at the president's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where those his grace shines most upon are invited. Prince Bandar was the only member outside the Bush family invited to George the Elder and Barbara Bush's 50th wedding anniversary celebration.
Now his wife's checks are showing up in the hands of terrorists. In the immortal words of Ricky Ricardo, the Prince and Princess have some "'splaining to do." And so does the president.
An administration spokesperson says it's not unusual for wealthy Saudis to help those from their country in need, and adds, "The facts are unclear, and there is no need to rush to judgment."
Rush to judgment! If the Bushies had found checks from Saddam Hussein's family linked to Sept. 11 terrorists, they would have bombed Baghdad and invaded Iraq long ago.
But remember these are "our friends," not just plain Saudis, but the royal family flavor.
This response fits a long pattern of the Bush Administration covering for their Saudi pals, regardless of the facts. But this time they may have gone too far.
The Bush State Department still fails to provide satisfactory explanations about why the Sept. 11 hijackers were given visitors' visas when their applications should have been denied.
No one from the administration has ever explained who lifted the post-Sept. 11 no-fly order to allow bin Laden's family members to leave the United States in private jets. My judgment is that it had to have been the president himself and he did at the behest of friendly Prince Bandar.
The FBI never got the opportunity to carefully and properly interview the bin Laden siblings and other kin. Who ordered that?
Why does the Saudi government refuse to turn over people like Bayoumi, who's believed to have returned to his native land?
Why does the Bush Administration not even protest when the Saudi government repeatedly refuses requests from our investigators to interview known terrorists?
Why does the president warmly greet and shake hands with a Wahhabi cleric who, while home in Saudi Arabia, preached in mosques that Muslim men had the right from God to rape and enslave Jewish women?
The leaders of the congressional intelligence committees are pressing hard for the release of classified reports that show the evidence of the Saudi money flow to the terrorists.
But the Bush Administration, led by Attorney General John Ashcroft, adamantly refuses to declassify the evidence.
In the Watergate scandal, we learned the valuable lesson to "follow the money." The lesson still applies, but mark my words, the president will do anything and everything in his power to protect the Wahhabi-Saudi hypocrisy and the details of that entangled connection to his administration.
He's caught in it himself, and only unrelenting pressure from the American people will make him come clean.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | November 26 2002 |