Posted on 03/07/2002 11:06:46 PM PST by JohnHuang2
Former U.S. diplomats say the Saudi Arabia government helped "sustain" the al-Qaida network inside the kingdom as well as in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Somalia, and that the U.S. Mission there "failed" to provide information to Washington about the Saudi role.
"The level of involvement of the Saudi government was wholehearted and enthusiastic. It was Saudi government policy to keep the Americans at bay and deceived with one arm while aiding and encouraging the international groups involved in conquest and terror with the other arm," Tim Hunter, a former military intelligence officer and diplomat in Saudi Arabia, told WorldNetDaily.
"All U.S. intelligence gathered in the U.S. Mission was turned over to the CIA station, which generally did not send the information on to Washington," he said. The mission "consequently failed to provide information about the widespread role of Saudi Arabia – actually elements in certain ministries – in sustaining al-Qaida," the terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden and blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, inside the kingdom and elsewhere.
Hunter also says that "a number of U.S. officials" received funds for "special projects" from Saudi sources, including sources "in the palace." The diplomat described corruption between U.S. and Saudi officials as "massive," adding the dishonesty is likely what permitted al-Qaida to thrive.
The corruption, as well as "loss of independence and [a] general lethargy of activity on behalf of the American cause, is the major reason that al-Qaida was able to exist, operate on a broad scale and carry out a series of highly successful terrorist acts in which the Saudi government flatly refused to assist U.S. officials in Washington," he said.
Worse, he asserted, "U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia generally undermined U.S. efforts to track down al-Qaida killers and effectively acted as advocates for a range of Saudi interests and personalities."
Recent reports have detailed rifts between Washington and Riyadh, as the Saudi government balked at demands made by the U.S. last year following the attacks that it help identify, track down and destroy suspected al-Qaida cells and operatives inside the kingdom.
A former Air Force officer and civilian contractor who served from 1983-91 in Saudi Arabia agreed that anti-U.S. sentiment grew steadily over the years.
"Back then we didn't know them as 'al-Qaida,' but you'd hear stories about some of the preaching in the mosques and so forth that was very anti-American," said the officer, who requested anonymity.
"There was little overt hostility then," he said, but it became clear that Americans were not welcome in the kingdom.
"I told one of my students one day it was unfortunate that I didn't know more Arabic, as we taught [civilian air adviser courses] in English and there was no need for it," the officer said. "My student replied, 'It's probably better you don't understand Arabic, because you'd hear things you wouldn't like.'"
Other foreign-service officers recall "special" circumstances where U.S. officials were likely aiding bin Laden's growing al-Qaida network.
Michael Springmann, a former State Department official stationed in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, from 1987-89, told WorldNetDaily that he believes the CIA was running a liquor-for-profit scam in the kingdom more than a decade ago to help finance an effort to train bin Laden operatives fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan.
In Jeddah – the historic Saudi capital – on his first assignment abroad for the State Department, Springmann said that, as consular officer in charge of approving visas, "I repeatedly objected to being told by high-ranking [State Department] officials to issue visas for unqualified applicants."
Essentially, he said, "these were people who … had no ties either to their own country or to Saudi Arabia, where they were applying for the visa."
Upon leaving the State Department a few years later, Springmann said he discovered "that I wasn't objecting to visa fraud – I was objecting to a CIA program to recruit people for the Afghan war, using [CIA] asset Osama bin Laden, and get them visas to come to the [United States] for terrorist training."
Springmann said such stories were confirmed by program participants – a journalist, a Palestinian and an Afghan – who "were tied to the U.S. government. …"
The State Department vet said part of the "screaming" he was doing at the time was related to the sale of "fantastic amounts" of bootleg liquor at the U.S. Consulate. "Nobody would come clean where the money was going," he said.
Springmann said U.S. officials told him the money raised went to charities and "family support funds." But he believes the profits "fueled 'off-the-books' operations, including shipping these guys to the States for training, then getting them back to Afghanistan."
The liquor – illegal in the kingdom – came from U.S. military warehouses in Germany, Insight Magazine reported Feb. 11, brought into the country in 40-foot maritime containers.
Springmann estimated he was forced to approve "about 100" illicit visas while at his post. He told WND he kept a file on each one he was ordered to issue by senior consulate officials.
"I made a photocopy of their visa application with a notation that it was rejected but the consulate general had ordered it to be issued," he said. "I learned after I departed Jeddah that these files had been destroyed."
"Several U.S. foreign-service officers repeatedly called attention to these and other problems," Hunter says. But "by not correcting these problems, by squashing dissent, the U.S. became a sort of accomplice in its own injuries," a reference to 9-11 and other attacks against U.S. interests.
He added that it's "difficult to document" how senior U.S. officials "failed to curb the activities of al-Qaida." But, he observed, "one notices that events and sequences that took place over many years … occurred because of decisions which can only be made at a high level," adding that some "5,000 Saudi nationals were trained by al-Qaida."
The former diplomat said funds for the terrorist group were openly collected in the streets and shops of the kingdom around 1992, intended for "international fraternal Islamic fighters," a phrase he says refers to al-Qaida.
"Solicitors went to workplaces and mosques and sought contributions, and these funds flowed to the Balkans – where al-Qaida operated," he told WND.
The State Department was contacted but did not immediately return phone calls seeking comment.
Other critics say it may be time for Washington to end its "special relationship" with Riyadh.
"The common wisdom is that we must turn the other cheek and stay on friendly terms with the Saudi autocrats because we need their oil. Nonsense," writes Jerry Taylor and Ted Galen Carpenter, analysts for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank in Washington, D.C.
"They need our money more than we need their oil," Taylor and Carpenter wrote in a Nov. 16 commentary. "Repeat after us: 'There is no "oil weapon."'"
But, "all that could change if bin Laden's political agents seize control of the [OPEC] oil kingdoms," the Cato analysts said – a point of view shared by Ivan Eland, director of defense policy studies at Cato.
"The worst possible case is Saudi fundamentalist radicals torching the oil wells to undermine the Saudi government – a scenario made more likely by public resentment of the U.S. military presence," Eland wrote in a recent study. "After all, that is Osama bin Laden's chief reason for waging a worldwide jihad against U.S. targets."
"If there's a case for turning the other cheek when it comes to the Saudis, it's that any regime replacing the House of Saud would probably be worse than the one we're dealing with now," Taylor and Carpenter said.
"Saudi Arabia is an oppressive regime that mocks everything this nation stands for. They helped to create and sustain the terror network that now threatens our existence. Saudi Arabia is not a reliable member of the international coalition against terrorism," the pair wrote. "In fact, when it comes to terrorism, the Saudi regime is part of the problem, not part of the solution. American foreign policy should react accordingly."
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THis article claims that the CIA did send the info about the Saudis back to Washington. Was it being sent somewhere else or being sat upon/ Why isn't George Tenet in the hot seat for this? Or was Tenet ordered by Clinton and then Bush not to have the info sent to Washington?
The Saudis call Hamas freedom fighters and not terrorists. The Saudis heavily support Hamas terror operations in Israel AND in the US. Hams is currently working closely with AlQaeda and Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad and helped in the 9/11 attacks and in the OKC bombing.
The Saudis paid for the huge arms cache on board an Iranina frieghter intecepted by Israel on its way to Arafat and the PLO (Arafat AND the Saudis lied to Bush about this)
Prince Abdullah's peace plan is not to be trusted and is the same plan that Bush hattched and Colin Powell was to have proposed to the UN on 9/11 without having consulted the Israels! The plan also gives the PLO control over Christian Holy sites in Jersusalem.
Saudi billionaire Khalid Mahfouz bankrolled the Holy Land Foundation and InfoCom who supported Hamas, AlQaeda and Iraqi terrorists out of Dallas for over 9 years. Mahfouz was implicated in the attacks on the USS Cole. Mahfouz was involved in corrupt business deals with GW Bush and Jackson Stephens at Harken Energy.
Bush ordered the FBI to back off investigating Saudi Royal Family business operations in the US one month before the 9/11 attacks.
Also the Saudis persecute Christians in Saudi Arabia. The penalty for converting from Islam to Chrisianity to Islam in Saudi Arabia is death. There is a story about Saudi persecution of Christians on the WorldNet Daily Web site today.
Islam is not a religion of peace. It is a religon of conquest. The Saudis are the leading backers of Islam. They are extreme AntiChristians.
"All U.S. intelligence gathered in the U.S. Mission was turned over to the CIA station, which generally did not send the information on to Washington," he said. The mission "consequently failed to provide information about the widespread role of Saudi Arabia – actually elements in certain ministries – in sustaining al-Qaida," the terrorist group founded by Osama bin Laden and blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks, inside the kingdom and elsewhere.
You intended to write "did Not", correct?
This article claims that the CIA did NOT send the info about the Saudis back to Washington.
See reply #12 for the correction.
Very troubling issues:
WHY has the CIA been covering for the Saudis? WHO has really been pulling the strings?
WHY have Clinton (understandably so), and now Bush been laying off the Saudis in light of overwhelming evidence of an overtly HUGE hand in sponsoring terrorism? Such evidence suggests the Saudis are THE ring-leaders of world-terrorism.
WHY is the Bush State Department still playing nerf-ball with the Saudis?
Is that part of the world so genetically insane, unreasonable, and vile that the Saudis, according to the know-it-alls at the think-tank at the St. Dept., are considered the best and most dependable hope for Arab stability and "friendship"?
Dammit -- they have declared war -- what are we waiting for??
I'd like to see more follow ups on this, this and the insider stock trading. They've only had 6 months now to cover their tracks, and that story is deader'n a dodo in the shamestream press. That's a lot of time to shred documents, wipe hard drives, and reinsert "innocent' stuff, and possibly create believable legends for some patsies to take the fall if it ever is forced out. The stock trading should have been by far one of the bigger stories pursued, and that it hasn't been, almost universally, just goes to show how much total raw control these "they" guys have over all the media.
U. S. Intelligence under Clinton sold out to Al Queda through Saudi influence
Here is a higly significant reply from that thread:
To: boston_liberty
I work for the Dept. of Defense and have been overseas working in U.S. embassies and consulates since 1988. I can well believe Hunter's ordeal - he sounds like a real rarity among the hundreds of State Department officers I've known. Of the hundreds I've known I could count on the fingers of one hand those who would have been worth the powder it would take to blow them up. The vast, vast majority are corrupt at worst and merely incompetent and/or inept at best. I know of two U.S. Ambassadors who skimmed hundreds of thousands of dollars out of embassy operating funds (one was a Reagan appointee, the other a Clinton appointee - the Reagan appointee was required to pay the funds back and banned from the Foreign Service, the Clinton appointee retired with honors and - this is the truth - bought a villa in Italy).
I know of another U.S. Ambassador who was involved with Central American narco-traffickers (Clinton appointee) and yet one more who was involved in money-laundering (also a Clinton appointee). The involvement of these Ambassadors in crime was not rumor but substantiated fact - and also a fact that while the knowledge of their crimes was "common", each had/has powerful friends in high places. I'm still overseas and currently at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City... nothing has changed under our current president. (But then I didn't expect any changes.)
24 posted on 3/8/02 2:27 PM Pacific by waxhaw
Check out this Freepers' profile on FR . He is in Mexico and is a strong,courageous Christian.
Please See replies #15, #16.
The real questions in my mind are why wasn't the information acted on, and who is really in control?
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