Free Republic

Khobar Towers The Clinton administration left many stones unturnd. BY LOUIS J. FREEH Sunday, June 25, 2006 12:01 a.m. Ten years ago today, acting under direct orders from senior Iranian government leaders, the Saudi Hezbollah detonated a 25,000-pound TNT bomb that killed 19 U.S. airmen in their dormitory at Khobar Towers in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. The blast wave destroyed Building 131 and grievously wounded hundreds of additional Air Force personnel. It also killed an unknown number of Saudi civilians in a nearby park. The 19 Americans murdered were members of the 4,404th Wing, who were risking their lives to enforce...

Former US president Barack Obama lied to Saudi Arabia when violating the redlines he famously declared regarding Syria’s use of chemical weapons and then not acting when they were used, a former senior Saudi official said in an interview with Independent Arabia. Bandar bin Sultan served for years as head of Saudi intelligence as well as the Saudi ambassador to the United States. In the interview, he recalled a last phone call between the late Saudi King Abdullah and Obama, during which the Saudi leader told the US president: “I did not expect that [after] this long life, I would...

Saudi Prince Bandar bin Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al Saud passed away on Monday, March 12, the Royal Court announced in a statement. His funeral prayers will be performed at the Grand Mosque in Makkah following Asr (afternoon) regular prayer on Tuesday, March 13, the official Saudi News Agency (SPA) reported.UAE President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan has sent a cable of condolences to Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Prince Bandar bin Khalid’s death, official news agency WAM reported. Similar cables were also dispatched by the UAE’s Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed...

Syrians in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta say Saudi Arabia provided chemical weapons for an Al-Qaeda linked terrorist group which they blame for the August 21 chemical attack in the region, a Mint Press News report says. The article co-authored by a veteran AP reporter, said interviews with doctors, residents, anti-government forces and their families in Ghouta suggest the terrorists in question received chemical weapons via Saudi spymaster Saudi Arabia's intelligence chief Prince Bandar bin Sultan Al Saud. The report quoted the father of a militant as saying that his son and 12 others were killed inside a tunnel used...

at a tennis match this evening per Greta

Syria decided on Tuesday to postpone releasing the findings of its investigation into the Feb. 12 assassination of Hezbollah operations chief Imad Mughniyah just as Iranian media outlet, Fars News Agency, reported through its Persian language service that Syrian authorities had detained a Saudi Arabian intelligence official for allegedly participating in the assassination. According to the Fars report, the Saudi official’s Syrian girlfriend bought the two vehicles used in the bombing that killed Mughniyah. We are also told that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, a top Saudi national security official, masterminded the operation. While Damascus is refraining from officially implicating Riyadh...

The US Department of Justice has launched a formal investigation into allegations that BAE Systems, Europe's largest defence firm, paid hundreds of millions of pounds in bribes to a Saudi prince. The allegations of illegal payments by BAE relate to the £43bn Al Yamamah deal, under which Saudi Arabia was sold Tornado jets and a range of other military equipment and services. News of the US probe sent BAE shares tumbling by 9pc in early trading. The BBC and The Guardian newspapers claimed earlier this month that Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador in Washington, received up to...

Saudi scandal takes off again over prince's birthday plane By Agence France Presse (AFP) Saturday, June 16, 2007 LONDON: British defense giant BAE bought Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan an Airbus plane under a multi-billion pound arms deal and is still paying the costs of flying it, The Guardian newspaper said Friday. The latest allegation met with renewed denials of wrongdoing from BAE, which said it does not pay or receive bribes or "offer other improper inducements," although a spokesman declined to comment on the specific plane charge. The newspaper last week alleged that BAE transferred secret payments totaling more...

MUST READ - James Baker Works to Establish Direct Diplomatic USA - Iran Ties Former US Secretary of State Baker Attempts to Bypass Bush White House on Iran Defense & Foreign Affairs Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS. Former US Secretary of State James Baker, who co-chaired the recent US Iraq Study Group — the main recommendations of which were rejected by the George W. Bush Administration — is working indirectly and behind the scenes to bring about direct diplomatic ties between the US and Iran. This is in defiance of Bush White House policy which essentially has said...

Saudi Arabia has given Britain 10 days to halt a fraud investigation into the country's arms trade - or lose a £10 billion Eurofighter contract. The contract supports up to 50,000 British jobs and there are now fears that the deal may go to France. The Saudi government is on the verge of cancelling the contract - an extension of one brokered by Margaret Thatcher 20 year ago - because of a Serious Fraud Office investigation into allegations of a slush fund for members of the Saudi royal family, according to authoritative sources. Tony Blair has been told that the...

Exclusive: Saudi Arabia will host Israel boycott event MICHAEL FREUND, THE JERUSALEM POST Mar. 7, 2006 Despite a promise made to Washington last November to drop its economic boycott of Israel, Saudi Arabia plans to host a major international conference next week aimed at promoting a continued trade embargo on the Jewish state, The Jerusalem Post has learned. The Post also found that the kingdom continues to prohibit entry to products made in Israel or to foreign-made goods containing Israeli components, in violation of pledges made by senior Saudi officials to the Bush administration last year. "Next week, we will...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia - King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia appointed his half-brother on Saturday to head his Gulf country's general intelligence forces, the official Saudi Press Agency reported. The post has been vacant since King Fahd, before his death in August, accepted the resignation of the former chief of the intelligence, Prince Nawaf bin Abdel Aziz, for health reasons. The new intelligence chief, Prince Mogrin bin Abdel Aziz, 60, has served as a Saudi Air Force pilot and governor of the holy city of Medina. Last week, Abdullah signed a decree forming the National Security Council, which will be in...

Commentary: Saudi Bond and George Smiley WASHINGTON, (UPI) July 25, 2005 By ARNAUD DE BORCHGRAVE They are brothers-in-law who have known more secrets and embarked on more secret missions than anyone else in the world during the past quarter of a century. One is Saudi Arabia's outgoing ambassador to the United States, the other, his successor in Washington, who was head of Saudi intelligence for 24 years. Prince Bandar bin Sultan was a fighter pilot, then squadron commander in Dhahran when this reporter first met him in 1971. The son of Saudi Defense Minister Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, and...

BYE-BYE, BANDAR By STEPHEN SCHWARTZ WITH the departure, announced this week, of the dean of Washington's diplomatic corps, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, from his post as Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, an epoch has ended. Unfortunately, regardless of praise heaped upon him by the cadre of professional American apologists for the desert kingdom, the 22-year tenure of Ambassador Bandar has seen little more than deceit, corruption and horror in U.S.-Saudi relations.

Wesley Clark the other day blamed the Bush administration for the intelligence failures leading to the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. And Hillary Clinton said, darkly, that the administration's refusal to hand over documents to a 9/11 commission "unnecessarily raises suspicions that it has something to hide." Meanwhile, Condi Rice in a speech last week pointed to the failure to take terrorism seriously during the 1990s — in other words, she pointed to Clinton administration failures. The war over the war on terror has just begun. In this battle, it's useful to stick to specifics. Let's take,...

Sean says, he will comment on Woodwar's book.

Former US President Jimmy Carter unleashed a fierce attack against the Israeli and American governments in his speech at the Geneva Initiative's ceremony in Switzerland. Carter, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, blamed US President George W. Bush for anti-American sentiment and worldwide terror. "Bush's inordinate support for Israel allows the Palestinians to suffer," Carter said. "This is a source of anti-American sentiment in the world and encourages terror." Carter said Israel's settlements in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the security fence are the main obstacles to peace. He called repeatedly for the return of Palestinian refugees to the...

Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Prince Bandar bin Sultan said Monday that ex-President Clinton sought a secret deal to keep oil prices low before the 2000 election, explaining that the request was nothing unusual. "President Clinton asked us to keep the prices down in the year 2000," Bin Sultan told CNN's "Larry King Live," responding to a claim by Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward that the Bush administration made a similar request this year. Bin Sultan said President Carter also made a request for lower oil prices to save his reelection bid in 1979, explaining that he did so "to...

<p>Updated: 9:22 a.m. ET April 20, 2004NEW YORK - Journalist Bob Woodward was on the defensive Tuesday, rebutting denials by Bush administration officials and the Saudi ambassador about who knew what and when they knew it when it came to planning the war against Saddam Hussein.</p>

Powell denies Saudis knew Iraq war plan before him WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Who knew what, and when did they know it? U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, Saudi ambassador to Washington Prince Bandar bin Sultan and journalist Bob Woodward argued on Monday over whether Bandar was told of the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq two days before Powell was. Woodward sparked the controversy in his book "Plan of Attack" which said Powell was out of the loop when President George W. Bush made the decision to invade. The Washington Post journalist said Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and...