Exclusive: New Questions About Saudi Money—and Bandar [Saudi Embassy in DC funds terrorism]

Newsweek ^ | April 4 2004 | Michael Isikoff

[yonif]

April 12 issue - A federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington has identified more than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions—including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Muslim charities, and to clerics and Saudi students who are being scrutinized for possible links to terrorist activity, according to government documents obtained by NEWSWEEK. The probe also has uncovered large wire transfers overseas by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The transactions recently prompted the Saudi Embassy's longtime bank, the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C., to drop the Saudis as a client after embassy officials were "unable to provide an explanation that was satisfying," says a source familiar with the discussions.

[yonif]

Saudi Arabia is a terrorist state which funds international terrorism against America and Israel. It also incites terrorists to committ murder through its militant Islamic ideology present in its country, as well as it is present throughout the Arab world. What will it take for us to treat the Saudis as a terrorist government? Another 9/11?

[yonif]

Ping.

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[A CA Guy]

They will eventually require the attention of our war on terror IMO!

[Cicero]

What will it take for us to treat the Saudis as a terrorist government?

I think Bush intends to act.

We probably need to do two things first, before we can deal with the Saudis: Get the Iraqi oil fields pumping large volumes of crude, and get the election out of the way. Our worst enemies in the War on Terror are the Democrats and the Media.

[Diogenesis]

[b4its2late]

Saudi Arabia will make a great parking lot someday. Though, there will be plenty of oil pumping rigs to maneuver around while parking......

[DoughtyOne]

I hear what you're saying Yonif, but I'm not sure you or I have an answer. Yes Saudi Arabia has been on the wrong side all too often recently. The question is, what do we do about it?

If we took out the leadership of Saudi Arabia and installed another government with free elections, the result would probably be far worse than what we have now.

We're seeing how difficult it is to set Iraq up with a good government.

I'm not saying I'd never sign on to this, but for right now, I think it would be best to finish the job in Afghanistan and Iraq, expand it to Iran and Syria, then clean out Saudi Arabis. Perhaps Africa should be next.

During this process the oil supply needs to be kept flowing because we still haven't pursued an alternative energy supply. Until we do obtain an alternative energy supply, we'll be prostrate over an oil barrel.

There's a lot of work to be done. We're doing part of it.

[yonif]

We need to isolate Saudi Arabia economically. Sure the US can keep going to other regimes, but the main financier of the terrorists will continue to send people to murder Americans.

[oceanview]

the saudis provide many "retirement packages" for career bureaucrats at state, cia, many other agencies. how do you think that plane on 9/12 got clearance to fly.

[DoughtyOne]

Well Yonif you touch on another sticky issue. Saudi Arabia can send 'em, but only we can let them in. And as a matter of fact, we do.

It's a mystery to me why we do, but we do. All, I mean every last stinking bit of' immigration and travel from terrorist states, or people originating from terrorist states, should have been frozen on 09/12/01. It wasn't. Why the hell not?

[Nachum]

I hear what you're saying Yonif, but I'm not sure you or I have an answer.

While the west may not have an answer to the "Royals" in Saud, we can take concrete measures to stop the outward expansion of Wahabbism. Since Wahabbism is a creature of the Saudis and we know exactly where their money is spent we can stop that. It does absolutely nothing to their base of power in Saudi Arabia and they can mistreat their own people as much as their Wahabbist hearts desire.

We can stop the flow of money to all the terrorist organizations that receive it abroad and we can arm those countries in the region who can stem any warlike activities of the terrorist states the Saudis fund.

In addition, we can stop giving them covet and honor here in America which is only to curry favor with them to keep their filthy oil flowing. They have no choice but to sell it to us, and we are too stupid to stop buying.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

There's a lot of work to be done. We're doing part of it.

Right!

This may be the work of the next century!

[DoughtyOne]

I agree with you on the funding issue. Freeze those accounts or give them two weeks to move those funds back home, then freeze whatever's left.

As for alternative energy sources so that we can tell the idiots in the middle east to go pound sand, I think we should launch a "Manhatten' level effort to create alternative energy producing products that will see us energy self-sufficient within ten years maximum, 70 to 80% or so within five or six years.

[tessalu]

First of all, USA needs to act immediately on alternative
fuel sources. We need to do this before a big crisis comes. NOW! We should not be driven by the huge oil companies.

[DoughtyOne]

We're in complete agreement on that. Check out my #14 response.

[Syncro]

We have the alternative fuel source.

In Anwar, and off the coast of California.

The oil is so plentiful there that it is leaking into the ocean floor and washing up on shore in chunks.When I was a kid playing on California beaches, I always came home with "tar" on my feet. That tar is oil leaking into the ocean.

Drilling for oil off the coast will stop that pollution, but try to tell that to the Politicians and so called environmentalists.

Anwar can be drilled in such a small area and with virtually no damage to the ecology of the region.

Also, Canada has one of the largest reserves of oil offshore in the world.

Plus there is still plenty underneath Beverly Hills High School, 90210...

D1, post 11: Yea, why not?????

[Selene]

Sounds like a good plan on the surface.

Think about this:

If in 5 - 6 years the world had no need for oil, what are the 1/2 billion people in the middle east going to do without any "income". Their only industries are terrorism and oil.

[DoughtyOne]

On the surface you raise a valid point. However, when one looks at the middle-east, there are just a few nations where the citizens see any of the oil money.

Saudi Arabia has actually been one of the best as far as that goes, behind Quwait. Qatar and a few other nations in it's vicinity have also been pretty good from what I understand.

For the most part, we're not going to target those nations. I support continuing to purchase oil from the nations that are willing to respect us and continue a positive relationship.

[AdmSmith]

The Wahhabis killed and tortured their competitors i.e. other brands of Muslims since they entered a joint venture with the House of Saud in 1747. If it was not for the oil-dollars from Saudi Arabia that the "royal" family is stealing from the country and using as their own pocket money for spreading the sectarian views of Wahhabi/salafist Islam we would not have this problem with the Muslims.


Actually it is a fight between the Iranian distorted version of Shia and the Saudi distorted version of Sunni. It all began to spread after the Iranian revolution in 1979 when Khomeini tried to stir up trouble and as a countermeasure the Saudis started to take over the Mosques around the World to stop any Shia advance.

Unfortunately we can not let these two bastards fight each other as their war will not stop at their palaces, they will kill each other including their innocent population. The Iranian nuke is not primarily directed against us, it is against Saudi, and to a lesser degree against the other Sunni Arabs. That is why you see the former Egyptian foreign Minister ElBaradei working so hard to stop the bomb. Iran is now fed up with the Mullahs and it is just a matter of time until we have a regime change in Tehran. Hopefully the transformation will be relatively peaceful, but it is up to the clerics to decide the level of violence. In a few years time we will be confronting the fall of the House of Saud. It will take a lot of work to make sure that the present corrupt regime will be transformed into a better one. The problem is that more than 50 % of their population are followers of the crazy version of Wahhabi.



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