Posted on 01/09/2002 5:23:57 AM PST by a_witness
Former CIA director:Saudis partially to blame for 9/11
By George Gedda, The Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Saudi Arabia, says former
CIA Director James Woolsey, "deserves a
very large part of the blame for Sept. 11. I do
not think we should do anything more with
them right now than be cordial."
Woolsey's is a minority view. It certainly is at
odds with that of the Bush administration and
of other outside experts, several of whom
believe the United States has no choice but to
enhance cooperation with the reclusive but
strategically placed oil-rich kingdom.
Woolsey's biting comment about Saudi Arabia
refers in part to the Saudi practice, both at the
government and private levels, of financing
true-believing Muslim activists in distant
lands, including Central and South Asia.
In some cases, their militancy has been
transformed into support for terrorism, and the
Saudis' lack of internal controls to keep tabs
on these radicals has come back to haunt them.
American diplomats report that the Saudis
were horrified to learn that 15 of the 19
al-Qaida terror network operatives who
participated in the Sept. 11 suicide hijackings
were Saudi nationals.
Woolsey, who served as CIA director from
1993 to 1995, says the United States should
hold the Saudis accountable.
"The Saudis have exported an extreme form of
Islamist philosophy," he says. "Much of the
money for al-Qaida has come from Saudi
Arabia."
James Philips of the Heritage Foundation
agrees that the Saudis acted irresponsibly in
"allowing their money to slosh around in
volatile parts of the world."
But he says the Bush administration is right to
look at the big picture, pointing to the Saudi
role as the world's single largest oil exporter
and as a voice of moderation in the Arab
world.
Phillips adds that if the Saudi monarchy were
to fall, th successor regime almost certainly
would be far more hostile to the United States.
The Bush administration has been unswerving
in defense of Saudi cooperation in the war on
terrorism, insisting that the Saudis have
willingly done all that has been asked of them.
This has not prevented a slew of media
accounts suggesting that the Saudis have been
less than fully cooperative.
A recently retired US diplomat who is a
veteran Saudi-watcher says Saudi cooperation
has been grudging.
The Saudis have been engaged in a delicate
balancing act, taking steps to preserve their
long-standing alliance with Washington in a
way that doesn't alienate local Islamic
militants long opposed to the United States for
its support of Israel, the former diplomat said.
The most notorious Saudi militant, of course,
is Osama bin Laden, purported mastermind of
the Sept. 11 attacks. One of his chief
grievances is the presence of US forces -
"infidels," as he sees them - on Saudi territory.
Many of bin Laden's compatriots share his
outrage.
Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic
and International Studies said the Saudis
thought they were buying stability by financing
Islamic emissaries, but the strategy backfired.
It was the United States, he said, that
persuaded the Saudis to carry out these
activities in Afghanistan during the 1980s to
counter the Soviet military presence there.
After the Soviet withdrawal and the breakup
of the Soviet Union, he said, many Americans
urged the Saudis to continue their operations
as a hedge against Russian expansion into the
former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
Cordesman proposes increased cooperation
with the Saudis, including data sharing on
terrorist finances, on Saudis who leave their
homeland and on those who live in the United
States.
He added that the Saudis must also do a better
job of monitoring Islamic radicals operating
inside their own country.
"If you want to get results, you need
partnership," he said.
Cordesman has little patience with what he
calls the lobby in Washington trying to blame
the Saudis for the events of Sept. 11.
The Saudis have been engaged in a delicate balancing act, taking steps to preserve their long-standing alliance with Washington in a way that doesn't alienate local Islamic militants terrorists long opposed to the United States for its support of Israel, the former diplomat said.
The most notorious Saudi militant terrorist, of course, is Osama bin Laden, purported mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. One of his chief grievances is the presence of US forces - "infidels," as he sees them - on Saudi territory. Many of bin Laden's compatriots share his outrage.
Purported ? purported ??!!!
"Many Americans," or the Clinton administration?
By the way, what was the reason for such hostility to the post-Communist Russians? Why regard them as a greater threat than Islamists who continually denounced this country and had already carried out the first WTC bombing in '93?
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