My statement was "All Osama bin Laden was, was a middleman between operational units and the money-men in the Golden Chain".
Are you asserting that Osama has the ability to issue orders to the money men, who operate at the highest levels of Middle Eastern society? I don't think so.
The Golden Chain operates as the venture capital group to Osama's start-up, al Queda. In order to receive funding, he needs to convince them that his operational ideas are sound, and will accomplish the objectives that the money men may desire.
The money men were comfortable dealing with Osama because he was one of them, a son of the wealthy and connected bin Laden family. His tour of duty in Afghanistan made him accepted among the operational people he had met. He was thus an acceptable conduit for the money, making sure that it went to people who would actually do things, rather than stash it away in bank accounts.
But he's in a subordinate relationship to the money men, without whose funding al Queda dries up. He may have had a hand in getting them together in a group, but he does not issue orders to its members.
The Golden Chain, created in 1988, was basically closed down with the discovery of Al Qaeda material in the Bosanska Idealna charity office in Sarajevo prior to 9/11. In fact, the Chain was basically out of business when Al Qaeda called a meeting of allies that met at a Paris Hotel in 1995 at which Bin Laden principles begged for funds.
The publication of the Golden Chain memorandum scared the hell out of the Bin Mahfouz, Rajhi, Amoudi and other wealthy families. Then, the United States sent treasury officials to confer with the Saudis, and though the royals did nothing obvious to attack support for Islamist mujahideen, they warned the names listed on the Chain that the US would monitor their banking activity forever. Most Gulf plutocrats who admitted privately that they had supported the Bin Laden effort in the Balkans, Chechnya and Tajikistan, had already ended their support following the destruction of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Next, the trial transcript on the embassy bombers was available online and circultated widely in Saudi Arabia, and the information provided also scared friends of Bin Laden. It was another indication that it was very dangerous to support Bin Laden and the other Islamists. And so it remains to this day. E.g., a minor Saudi prince disappeared earlier this year; he was rumored to have funded the Al Qaeda in Iraq.