Posted on 11/27/2001 3:59:13 PM PST by Shermy
Officials in Saudi Arabia are refusing to honor US requests to freeze bank accounts that Washington suspects are linked to terror groups, slowing the US-led global war on terror, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Riyadh's hesitation on the financial front has prompted the administration of US President George W. Bush to prepare to send a delegation of State Department, Treasury and National Security Council officials to resolve the matter.
A high-level Saudi official told the US daily on condition of anonymity that US requests for the freezing of assets allegedly linked to terrorist organizations had not been backed up with sufficient proof. "This is the problem between us and the Americans," he said. "When they ask us to do something, we say 'Give us the evidence.' That's when they accuse us of helping the terrorists."
The crackdown on terrorist financing is an important component of Bush's war on terror, sparked by the September 11 attacks in the United States that left some 4,000 people dead.
Top US officials have repeatedly refuted reports that Riyadh was being less than cooperative in the US-led effort to stamp out terrorism, focused on nabbing top terror suspect Osama bin Laden and dismantling his al-Qaeda network.
They say Saudi interior ministry officials have fully cooperated with US federal investigators in Saudi Arabia on the criminal front, but similar cooperation on terror financing has been slow in coming.
One US official told the New York Times that Riyadh had been asked to freeze accounts bearing the names of those identified by Washington as having links to terrorist organizations, but he did not know of funds actually being seized.
"We cannot move without evidence, and no one has given us the evidence," the senior Saudi official told the US paper.
Those expected in Riyadh as part of the US delegation include US deputy assistant secretary of state Ryan Crocker, responsible for the Persian Gulf states, and R. Richard Newcomb, director of the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control, the paper reported.
Isn't it necessary to go before a judge and show cause in America before you can freeze someone assets?
BTW. Did you see that in the past two weeks three American companies have been awarded 207 million dollars in contracts by the Saudis?
It is really is good to see that you have been taking your Saudi Kool-Aid shots.
Saudi Arabia: The Motherland of Islamic Terrorism.
""IT IS IMPERATIVE THAT EVERYONE SHOULD SPEAK HIS MIND, PROPOSING WHATEVER HE THINKS IS BENEFICIAL, AS THOROUGH DISCUSSIONS ALWAYS LEAD TO GOOD RESULTS."
King Abdulaziz bin Abdulrahman Al-Saud
Oh gag, choke....GIVE ME A BREAK!
Are you saying OUR SYSTEM of JUSTICE does not require evidence????? I guess you MISSED the OJ trial. Our system is SO JUST murderers can walk free if REAL EVIDENCE is not handled in a very specific way. GIVE ME A BREAK.
The Saudis are AFRAID of the Bin Ladins. The SAUDIS are afraid of the TERRORISTS they harbor. The Saudis are AFRAID of repercussions from the creepy extremist Muslim world (that uses SLAVES, btw, how is THAT for FAIR?). The Saudis are sniveling cowards who cannot stand up to the terrorists....many of whom bear their national heritage. In fact, NINETEEN of the cowardly jerks who grabben the planes and killed thousands of people on Sept 11 were, er, SAUDIS.
GIVE ME A BREAK!
If American justice were UNFAIR, do you think for ONE SECOND people would flock to this country like they do? It is the fairest system in the WORLD.
And btw-the SAUDIS are COWARDS for not immediately freezing assests of SUSPECTED, you got it, SUSPECTED TERRORISTS. No words or vascillations will change that. IF you remember, the TALIBAN wanted more proof of bin laden's involvment as well. How much is ENOUGH, Patria One. How much evidence is enough? About five thousand dead, innocent, unarmed, unsuspecting previously living, breathing Americans want to know.
I didn't say that our system was unfair at all. I said their system is different from ours, but the objective is justice with mercy and removing criminals from civil society.
Information helps.
"Your reason and your passion are the rudder and the sails of your seafaring soul.
If either your sails or our rudder be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas.
For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burns to its own destruction.
Therefore let your soul exalt your reason to the height of passion; that it may sing;
And let it direct your passion with reason, that your passion may live through its own daily resurrection, and like the phoenix rise above its own ashes.
I would have you consider your judgment and your appetite even as you would two loved guests in your house.
Surely you would not honour one guest above the other; for he who is more mindful of one loses the love and the faith of both.
Among the hills, when you sit in the cool shade of the white poplars, sharing the peace and serenity of distant fields and meadows - then let your heart say in silence, "God rests in reason."
And when the storm comes, and the mighty wind shakes the forest, and thunder and lightning proclaim the majesty of the sky, - then let your heart say in awe, "God moves in passion."
And since you are a breath In God's sphere, and a leaf in God's forest, you too should rest in reason and move in passion."
But my passion towards their inaction regarding the freezing of accounts suspected of FEEDING terrorists stands. And my passion is my rudder.....good men, good women, good PEOPLE all over the world do everything possible to tighten down and stop terrorism, especially if those people are leaders. The Saudis need to freeze the assests of suspected terrorists-now. Timing is critical. Without trampling on rights....this could be done in a just way. And more importantly, it NEEDS to be down as an example to those who would hurt innocents. Should ANY account later be shown to be free of terrorist motive, amends could be made. This is not injustice-this is the RIGHT THING TO DO. I doubt our nation has asked for certain accounts to be frozen without a high suspicion of said accounts. I trust our government.
And I think we all know where many of the terrorists came from....that is a consideration too.
If the Saudis are SERIOUS-they need to get off their cloth covered you know whats and get moving. Either they are cowards, or they are not cowards.
The Saudis are cooperating with the US in lots of ways and we are using their bases despite what has been made public and they are dealing with their terrorists and radicals. Freezing bank accounts willy-nilly is not a wise move. It is presumptive that Saudis MUST be funding terrorism which is an egregious lie and makes absolutely no sense at all when you consider their 60 year track record and the huge investments in America.. Huge investments in New York.
Don't believe 80% of what you read in the media. Check everything. Look for the facts. There are opportunists who want war in the ME and they will say ANYTHING to accomplish their objectives.
Why on earth would you think they are cowards or more cowardly than other populations?
Do Saudi Muslims own slaves? Do you know?
Did bin laden receive ANY of his inheritance before the so called family disownment ten years or so ago?
SO many banking facilities around the WORLD have frozen accounts of suspected terrorist usage....are you saying the Saudi is the ONE country that does NOT have any terrorist banking activity going on? Oh please. Come one. The Saudis need to put their MONEY where their mouths are and make a genuine, public show of fighting terrorism. They are HIDING to prevent angering Muslim factions and in order to keep their king happy....because there are those who do not like the Saudi ruling family.
Come on Saudi Arabia. Either you are for the terrorists or you are AGAINST the terrorists and willing to let the WORLD KNOW YOUR STANCE.
One wonders, are Arabian men just naturally cowardly?
Agence France-Presse Prince Walid bin Talal wants the consultative council to be elected.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, Nov. 27 — A prominent member of Saudi Arabia's royal family called today for a transformation that would bring elections, "the faster the better," to a kingdom whose only bow to democracy has been the establishment of an appointed advisory council.
Prince Walid bin Talal, a billionaire investor, said in an interview here that he was addressing the politically taboo subject to augment what he called intensive discussions within the royal family about what Saudi Arabia could be doing better to address domestic discontent — particularly in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, in which 15 of 19 hijackers were Saudis.
"If people speak more freely and get involved more in the political process, you can really contain them and make them part of the process," Prince Walid said.
The remarks were unusually candid in a kingdom that almost always maintains a guarded public face, particularly on questions of internal decisions and any kind of political liberalization.
They echoed loud but private calls by Saudi liberals, who have begun to speculate that the widespread Saudi participation in the Sept. 11 attacks was at least in part a consequence of a closed political system that allows little room for political expression.
For most of his career, Prince Walid, 47, has shunned a political role, focusing on a career in investing that has made him one of the world's richest businessmen. But he waded into political controversy last month, when he offered $10 million to the City of New York for victims of the World Trade Center disaster but also issued a press release saying American policy in the Middle East had helped to fan extremism.
The suggestion that United States policy might have been partly to blame for the attack inflamed anger among some Americans, including Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who rejected Prince Walid's gift.
In the interview, Prince Walid defended Saudi Arabia's monarchy as popular and resilient, and said he had quietly favored an eventual shift toward some democracy long before Sept. 11. But he also made clear his view that terrorism and its roots remained a subject of deep concern within the ruling Saud family.
"What I'm saying could be too much for Saudi Arabia," he said, "but I'm speaking my mind."
As laid down by King Fahd and his predecessors, the official Saudi line has long shunned democracy as an unwelcome imposition. It was not until 1992 that King Fahd even formed the consultative council, whose members are appointed in a mechanism that its chairman, Sheik Muhammad al-Jubeir, defended in an interview this week as far superior to popular elections.
In calling for change, Prince Walid made clear that what he had in mind was limited. He said the 120-member council should be chosen in elections that would be open, at least at first, to men only. The approach would be roughly similar to the one in place in Kuwait, which has had an elected Parliament since 1961.
Two of Saudi Arabia's other neighbors, Bahrain and Qatar, have also promised to hold elections by the end of next year. It is a sign of growing democratic experimentation in the Persian Gulf region, in which almost all power still lies in the hands of kings, emirs, sheiks and sultans.
But Prince Walid's remarks were extraordinarily bold by the standards of Saudi Arabia, where criticism of the royal family is prohibited — and where some officials have continued to dismiss as unproven the idea of Saudi involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, for which the United States holds the Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden responsible.
"We should not take this matter for granted, the loyalty of our people," Prince Walid said. "People are very loyal as Saudis, very loyal. For sure they don't want bin Laden and the Taliban types to rule here, because they see how backward they are in Afghanistan. Advocates of greater political openness have argued that it would force Saudi Arabia to deal more quickly with internal problems, including a high rate of unemployment, while allowing moderates to drown out extremist voices like those of Mr. bin Laden, which they say thrive in a closed society.
Prince Walid has defended the remarks in his news release accompanying the offer of a donation to New York, which accused the United States of a lack of evenhandedness in the Middle East peace efforts. Spurned by Mr. Giuliani, he said he had divided the $10 million into donations in equal parts to Afghan refugees and "the Palestinian cause."
At the same time, he said his calls for changes in Saudi Arabia were a second step in trying to call attention to what both countries might do better.
A nephew of King Fahd, and also of Crown Prince Abdullah, the country's day-to-day ruler, Prince Walid is one of scores of grandsons of Saudi Arabia's founder, King Abdel Aziz. His own father, Prince Talal, who is widely regarded as one of the family's more liberal members, has long been sidelined from any role in government, but he has said that Prince Walid ought not to be excluded from the line of royal succession.
In the interview today, Prince Walid sounded another populist note by saying he favored an end to the system of royal allowances that provide even the youngest newborn prince with thousands of dollars a month. He said he donates his family's own relatively modest allowance of $180,000 a year to charity.
He said the idea of moving toward limited democracy was being "openly discussed" within the royal family, even though it was almost never mentioned in Saudi Arabia's government-owned or monitored newspapers and television.
"We're still in the process of saying yes or no," he said. He did not say what positions were being taken by other members of the family. The orthodox view was expressed this week by Sheik Jubeir, the chairman of the appointive council, in a separate interview. "In our opinion the people who would elect the members would not choose the right people," he said. "So therefore we prefer to appoint and to choose, but within certain specifications and the rules."
In a conversation, another grandson of King Abdel Aziz also referred to intense discussions about what if any changes within the royal family Saudi Arabia ought to consider in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"You'd be surprised at the issues that are discussed," said Prince Bandar bin Khalid, 36, an investment manager, "and obviously debate increases in times of crisis, like now and the gulf war."
But Prince Bandar told a visitor to his home late one recent evening, "It's something for us, the leadership, to discuss and for society to discuss, but it is not something for outsiders to impose on us or to tell us what we should be thinking."
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