INTRUDERS IN THE HOUSE OF SAUD, PART II

A Nation Unto Himself
By JENNIFER SENIOR

Published: March 14, 2004

If, in the future, the war on terrorism is fought in the orderly confines of the courtroom and not just in the caves of Tora Bora, then incriminating documents could become the equivalent of smart bombs. Ronald L. Motley, who has made a career of coaxing such documents from the shadows, made this clear in our very first phone conversation, during which he could barely contain his delight. ''Have you heard of Mohammed Fakihi?'' he demanded, in a drawl rich enough to fill a doughnut. ''Investigated by the German police?''

Well, no --.

''That fella had a computer,'' he continued. ''And do you know what I did with that computer?''

He allowed a capacious pause.

''I'll tell you what I did,'' he said. ''I bought it.''


Motley built a successful legal career by winning quixotic lawsuits -- first against asbestos companies, which made him an extravagantly wealthy man, and then as a central player in the huge, 46-state case against Big Tobacco, at a time when going after cigarette manufacturers was a demonstrable route to bankruptcy. But whatever risks he took in suing multibillion-dollar corporations pale in comparison to this terrorism case. In trying to use domestic courts to redress the problem of global terror, Motley is potentially subverting, or at least opening to redefinition, the very notion of diplomacy. He and his clients are effectively acting as their own nation. This is naturally worrisome to international-relations professionals, who wonder whether profit-seeking trial lawyers have the legitimacy, expertise or proper motivations to be making foreign policy. ''That's why we have a government,'' said Sean D. Murphy, who served as a State Department lawyer from 1987 to 1998. ''It's elected to make some of the hard calls about how to handle foreign countries.''

That may be so. The problem, as Motley sees it, is that sometimes governments are not in the position to make those hard calls, whether it be for political or for commercial reasons. So instead, they make easy ones. They resort to gentle persuasion, and their pleas fall on deaf ears. ''Since 1999,'' Motley said later, ''officials at the highest levels of our government have tried repeatedly to warn the Saudis about terrorism funding. And what did they do? They ignored them.''

He took another dramatic pause.

''Which is why our defendants,'' he concluded, ''ought to be held accountable in an American court.''


''Going through the court system and trying to take their money is the only recourse I have,'' explained Deena Burnett, the first client to sign on to Motley's suit. Her husband, Thomas, was on United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed into the empty field in Shanksville, Pa. ''I can't join the military. It would be impractical for me to go abroad. But if I can put a stranglehold on their finances,'' she said, ''it assists our president in the war on terrorism.''

Whether George W. Bush is grateful for her assistance is another matter. As Motley, a generous donor to the Democratic Party, is fond of pointing out, the president's ties to the Saudi kingdom are personal as well as political: his father, George H.W. Bush, was until recently a senior adviser to the Carlyle Group, an investment firm that counted bin Laden family members among its investors until October 2001. James Baker, whom Bush recently sent abroad seeking help to reduce Iraq's debt, is still a senior counselor for the Carlyle Group, and Baker's Houston-based law firm, Baker Botts, is representing the Saudi defense minister in Motley's case.


''I think,'' Motley said, ''that we should be very angry with the Saudis.''

In order to justify his latest legal undertaking, Motley must establish that the Arabian Peninsula is the fund-raising capital for merchants of terror. Though the allegation has always drawn adamant denials from the Saudis -- their Washington embassy refuses to comment on Motley's case -- it is not, from the intelligence-community point of view, a particularly controversial point. In the months after Sept. 11, Treasury and National Security officials appeared before Congress, declaring Saudi Arabia the epicenter of terrorism financing. (This, in fact, was the precise phrase used by David Aufhauser, a former general counsel to the Bush Treasury Department who was also chairman of the National Security Council's committee on terrorist financing.) Perhaps the most scathing declaration on the subject appeared in a report from the Council on Foreign Relations, issued 17 months ago: ''It is worth stating clearly and unambiguously what official U.S. government spokespersons have not. For years, individuals and charities based in Saudi Arabia have been the most important source of funds for Al Qaeda, and for years the Saudi officials have turned a blind eye to this problem.''

While Motley suggests that Saudi money occasionally takes a direct path into Al Qaeda's coffers -- generally via wealthy individual donors -- it more frequently takes a circuitous route, either through the clean-and-rinse cycle of quasi-legitimate businesses or, more commonly, through a highly complex web of Muslim charities, which receive a steady stream of alms from both individuals and Saudi banks. Some of the charities named in Motley's suit are already the subjects of federal criminal investigations. But others, like the Muslim World League, are highly esteemed in the Arab world.

''Here's how I would explain to a jury all this legal mumbo jumbo,'' Motley told the crowd in the hotel conference room. The graphic behind him changed to a cartoon of heaving smokestacks and tangled pipes. ''This,'' he said, ''is a terrorist factory. Let's call it Al Qaeda Inc. And those smokestacks are spewing out terror, hatred, jihad, suicide bombers. So who's liable if you've lost a loved one to Al Qaeda Inc.?'' He looked around. ''It's the bank that loaned the money. It's the architect who designed the factory, knowing it was going to be spewing out hatred. It's the suppliers who supplied the factory with ingredients to manufacture terrorist acts. They're all responsible, each and every one.'' He thumped the podium. ''That's the law of the United States.''

Don't let 9/11 suspects go

Instead of blocking needed testimony, the White House should be seeking ways to permit it that don't undercut national security.

Newsday - Editorial - March 15, 2004

The White House is faced with a stark choice: It can risk letting the only Sept. 11 conspirator convicted anywhere in the world go free, or it can allow a suspected terrorist in U.S. custody to testify in the convicted conspirator's new trial. So far, the White House has opted to risk freedom for the convicted terrorist. That's the wrong choice.

more...

Here is a listing of Media Links to keep for future reference.
Don't hesitate to let the media outlets know your opinion!

===================================

ABC News
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Phone: 212-456-7777
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20/20:
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CBS
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60 Minutes II:
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CNN
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NBC News' Today:
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Dateline NBC
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Public Broadcasting

PBS
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All Things Considered:
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Morning Edition:
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National Newspapers

Los Angeles Times
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New York Times
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USA Today
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Wall Street Journal
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Washington Post
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Associated Press
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Magazines

Newsweek
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Time
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Phone: 212-522-1212
Fax: 212-522-0323
E-mail: letters@time.com

U.S. News & World Report
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Phone: 202-955-2000
Fax: 202-955-2049
E-mail: letters@usnews.com

Law firm's database uncovers terrorist ties

Motley Rice aids in Madrid probe

BY TONY BARTELME
Of The Post and Courier Staff

Motley Rice, the Mount Pleasant law firm directing the massive 9-11 lawsuit, said Sunday it uncovered connections between al-Qaida and two Moroccans arrested in Thursday's deadly train bombings in Madrid.

Meanwhile, a court document shows that Spanish authorities believe one of the Moroccans was linked to another al-Qaida operative who allegedly helped the planners of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Jean-Charles Brisard, Motley Rice's chief investigator in Europe, told The Post and Courier Sunday that the firm's database showed that in August 2001, one of the Madrid bombing suspects had phoned the leader of the Spanish al-Qaida cell, Imad Yarkas.

Yarkas is in Spanish custody, accused of helping the planners of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings.

Brisard said the lawsuit's database also turned up connections to an Islamic radical in Bosnia, and that the Spanish al-Qaida cell had been using the same network of fraudulent phone cards reportedly used to detonate the bombs in Thursday's attacks. That information and other evidence uncovered after the bombings have made Spanish authorities "99 percent sure" that the bombs were the work of a radical Islamic group, said Brisard, a former French intelligence officer.

"These are serious signs that (the Madrid bombings) were related to a residual part of the Spanish al-Qaida cell," Brisard said.

Three Moroccans and two Indians have been arrested in connection with the bombing of four trains during rush hour Thursday in Madrid. The attacks left 200 people dead and 1,500 wounded.

Spanish authorities apparently had been watching at least one of the Moroccans for some time.

A Sept. 17, 2003, indictment calls one of the suspects, Jamal Zougam, a "follower" of Yarkas, The indictment targets Yarkas and 34 others, including Osama bin Laden, for terrorist activities connected to al-Qaida. Zougam was not among those indicted, but said that police had searched his home at least once, turning up a video of mujaheddin fighters in Dagestan, Russia, and telephone numbers of three members of the Madrid al-Qaida cell allegedly led by Yarkas.

Spain's El Pais newspaper, citing the interior ministry, reported all three Moroccans have links to Yarkas. European intelligence agencies also were working Sunday to identify a purported al-Qaida operative who claimed in a videotape that the terror group bombed trains in Madrid to punish Spain's backing of the U.S.-led war against Iraq.

The tape was discovered in a trash bin near Madrid's largest mosque on the eve of Spain's general elections Sunday. An Arabic-speaking man called a Madrid TV station to say the tape was there, Spain's Interior Ministry said.

"You love life and we love death,'' said the man on the tape, who wore Arab dress and spoke Arabic with a Moroccan accent.

Officials at Motley Rice said they were happy to help Spanish authorities in their investigation. Since the firm began coordinating the Sept. 11 lawsuit, its investigators have collected more than 2 million pages of bank records, intelligence reports and other documents from 35 foreign countries.

Included in this cache are 40,000 documents from a Spanish investigation into al-Qaida. The firm's investigators converted those Spanish documents into digital files, allowing them to be analyzed by a powerful computer program called "Analyst's Notebook." The U.S. government reportedly is using the same program in its hunt for bin Laden.

Jack Cordray, a Charleston-based investigator working on the Sept. 11 litigation, said that the ability to analyze documents from multiple countries has helped foreign prosecutors make connections they might otherwise have missed. The information about the Madrid bombings, he said, was "a return on our investment."

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AOL is polling if people support Disney's decision to censor Michael Moore's
"9/11 Fahreheit." Vote as soon as possible.

The wording on the polling is backward.

Vote NO if you want the movie available to the american people.

Here's a petition to sign to get Disney to reconsider its blatant censorship
and distribute Moore's film "Fahreheit 911"

http://democrats.com/elandslide/petition.cfm?campaign=disney

Paying for Terror

Treasury Department documents detail the murky world of Al Qaeda’s financing

May 12 - A Bahamian bank controlled by a controversial Islamic financier in Switzerland set up a highly secretive line of credit for a top associate of Osama bin Laden as part of an elaborate scheme to finance attacks by Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, according to a newly disclosed U.S. Treasury document.

In a January 2002 letter to Swiss authorities, a senior Treasury official privately spelled out the U.S. government’s case that the Bahamian bank—one arm of an international financial network known as Al-Taqwa (Arabic for “Fear of God”)—had a lengthy history of “financing and facilitating the activities of terrorists,” including providing millions of dollars in funding for Al Qaeda and Hamas.

The Treasury letter, and another one involving Saudi businessman Yassin A. Kadi, provide a revealing new window into the murky world of terror finance—at least as viewed by U.S. counterterrorism officials. Based largely on secret intelligence sources, the Treasury documents attempt to show how Kadi and Al-Taqwa and its founder, Youssef M. Nada, used concealed bank accounts, complex land deals and other hard-to-trace methods to steer large sums of money to terrorists.

The letters were recently obtained by Ron Motley, the lead lawyer in a massive lawsuit against Saudi business figures and others accused of complicity in the financing of the September 11 attacks. In a little-noticed court filing on Monday, Motley placed the documents in the public record—a move that seemed to startle at least one defense lawyer who noted that such private “government-to-government” communications are almost never made public.

The letters were written by Treasury in an effort to persuade the Swiss to take legal action to shut down the operations of suspect organizations. The most significant of the letters involves Al-Taqwa and its founder, Nada, an Egyptian-born businessman based in Switzerland who has long been a prominent figure in the world of Islamic finance and who has consistently denied any involvement in the financing of terrorism.

In the letter dated Jan. 4, 2002, George B. Wolfe, then Treasury's deputy general counsel, tells Switzerland’s deputy chief federal prosecutor, Claude Nicati, that money “pours in” to branch offices of the Al-Taqwa network in Lugano and Malta from Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates for bin Laden. It alleges that, as late as September 2001, Nada and a business associate, Ali bin Mussalim, provided “indirect investment services for Al Qaeda, investing funds for bin Laden, and making cash deliveries on request to the Al Qaeda organization.”

The most startling allegation is that Nada’s Bank Al-Taqwa “appeared to be providing a clandestine line of credit for a close associate of bin Laden,” according to the Wolfe letter. “This bin Laden lieutenant had a line of credit with a Middle East financial institution that drew on an identical account number at Bank Al-Taqwa. Unlike other accounts—even accounts of private banking customers—this account was blocked by the computer system and special privileges were required to access it.” Noting that “no identifiable names were associated with the account,” the letter calls the circumstances surrounding the account “highly unusual” and suggests that they were created “to conceal the association of the bin Laden organization with Bank Al-Taqwa.”

A legal source familiar with the investigation into Al-Taqwa said that another U.S. intelligence document states that the Al-Taqwa account was originally set up for Mamdouh Mahmoud Salim, a one-time member of Al Qaeda’s governing Shura Council who was captured in Germany after the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Africa and has been awaiting trial while in prison in the United States ever since. Just last week, Salim was sentenced to 32 years in prison in a separate case stemming from charges that he stabbed a prison guard in the eye with a sharpened plastic comb as part of a failed plot with other accused Al Qaeda codefendants to break out of the Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan. (The prison guard suffered brain damage, lost an eye and is partially paralyzed as a result of the attack.) After Salim’s arrest, other Al Qaeda figures continued to access the account, the legal source said.

The Wolfe letter also reveals for the first time that the government of Jordan had accused Bank Al-Taqwa of financing a terrorist network linked to bin Laden that was involved in plotting terror attacks at Western and tourist targets in Jordan during the millennium celebrations. Jordanian authorities have recently alleged that Abu Moussab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born terrorist leader who this week apparently claimed credit for the gruesome beheading of U.S. businessman Nicholas Berg in Iraq, was a leader of the cell that plotted the Jordanian millennium attack.

In addition, the letter notes that one of Al-Taqwa’s board members, Ahmed Huber, had confirmed that he had met with members of bin Laden’s organization in Beirut and had defended the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Huber, a notorious Swiss Holocaust denier and far-right activist, is described in the Wolfe letter has having “extreme anti-Israel views.” The letter also states that another Al-Taqwa board member, Ahmed Idris Nasreddin, has supported an Islamic center in Milan that the U.S. government believes may be Al Qaeda’s “most important base in Europe” and which was linked to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, among other terror plots.

In interviews with NEWSWEEK, Nada, Huber and Swiss lawyers for both Nada and Nasreddin have adamantly denied any connection to the financing of terrorism. (Contacted by NEWSWEEK this week, Nada declined to comment on the Wolfe letter on the grounds that he had not seen it.) Their lawyers also note that, for all the U.S. allegations about their clients, none of them have been charged in any criminal case brought by the Justice Department or any other foreign government.

The same goes for Kadi, a prominent Saudi businessman who, in a Nov. 29, 2001, letter to the Swiss written by then Treasury general counsel David Aufhauser, is described as having “a long history of financing and facilitating the activities of terrorists and terrorist-related organizations, often acting through seemingly legitimate charitable enterprises and businesses." Kadi was the founder of Muwafaq (“Blessed Relief") Foundation, an Islamic charity that “employed or served as cover” for a number of Islamic extremists connected with bin Laden and other terror groups, according to the Aufhauser letter. A lawyer for Kadi, whose assets have been blocked by the Treasury Department in the United States, said that the businessman is in the process of presenting evidence to U.S. officials challenging the allegations against him.

U.S. counterterrorism officials have privately acknowledged their frustration in pursuing cases against both Al-Taqwa members and Kadi as well as numerous other targets in terror-finance investigations. “Intelligence is one thing, but gathering the evidence to support these allegations is another story,” said one former top U.S. law-enforcement official who worked on terror-finance cases. Still, the Justice Department is not done trying. In a recent court hearing, Gordon Kromberg, the senior federal prosecutor in charge of a long-running probe into Islamic charities based in Northern Virginia—including some whose directors have been associated with Nada and Kadi—said that his case was proceeding. “We expect them to be charged,” Kromberg said in a court hearing, referring to the Islamic charities that have been targets of the investigation. “There will be indictments coming.”

In December of 2002 the House and Senate Intelligence committee issued a joint report on the investigation of what and who caused 9/11. There were 28 pages that were classified identifying the source of funding to the terroists.Almost every Senator And Congressman that have read the declassified version have stated there is no reason to have the 28 pages identifying the financiers of the murder of close to 3000 not be known.

Prince Bandhar of Saudi Arabia agreed.

To date they are still being withheld from the 9/11 commission and Al Felzenberg, a spokesman for the panel states "The commission does not have the authority to declassify,""That rests with the White House and the Congress."

Perhaps a call or email to your Senator or Congressman would help get these 28 pages released so we can identify the people that aided in the murder of our loved ones.

To locate your Senator go to http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_info...enators_cfm.cfm

To locate your Congressman go to http://clerk.house.gov/members/index.html


Senators want 9/11 report declassified

Thursday, May 13, 2004
By TERENCE J. KIVLAN

WASHINGTON -- Two members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are backing calls by relatives of Sept. 11 victims for complete declassification of the report from the independent commission investigating the 2001 attacks, due for release this summer. "The 9/11 families deserve no less than full access to all the information regarding the murders of their loved ones," said Sens. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), in a letter yesterday to the commission.

The declassification campaign is being led in part by Bill Doyle of Annadale, a Sept. 11 family support group leader and father of Joseph Doyle, who died at the World Trade Center. "We are going to keep the pressure on," said Doyle yesterday. "We don't want to see anything hidden."

He and other relatives are determined to prevent key portions of the report from being blacked out -- as were parts of the Sept. 11 report issued last year by House and Senate intelligence committees.

A 28-page section of that report -- dealing with foreign support for the 2001 attacks -- was blacked out at the insistence of the White House.

The deleted section was believed to contain information about financial aid to al-Qaida from Saudi Arabians and Pakistani intelligence officials.

A commission spokesman said members want as much of their report as possible to be made public, but don't have final say on the matter.

"The commission does not have the authority to declassify," said Al Felzenberg, a spokesman for the panel.

"That rests with the White House and the Congress."

WHITE HOUSE NOTIFIED

Aides said the two senators had conveyed their support for disclosure of all the report's contents to the White House.

In their letter to the commission, Lott and Wyden urged that all elements of the panel's report -- including any appendices or annexes -- be made public in their entirety. The release of the commission's full report is not expected to be held up by the declassification process. The current due date is July 27.

A team of intelligence experts in the White House has been reviewing chapters of the report as they have been completed over the last months, Felzenberg said yesterday.

He indicated that members of the commission recognized that not everything in their report could be declassified. "We don't want to compromise national security information and its sources," he said. "The nation is still at war."

The redaction of 28 pages in the intelligence committees' report infuriated Sept. 11 victims' survivors, like Doyle, who believe al-Qaida received financial backing from the Saudis.

Doyle is one of about 7,000 victims' relatives, several hundred of them Staten Islanders, who are plaintiffs in a $1 trillion-plus damage suit filed two years ago against alleged Saudi bankrollers of al-Qaida.

"I know one thing -- the money for Sept. 11 didn't come from some goat herder," Doyle said yesterday.

The effort for full declassification is also being supported by the Family Steering Committee, a Sept. 11 family support group based in New Jersey.

Terence J. Kivlan is the Washington correspondent for the Advance. He may be reached at terence.kivlan@newhouse.com.


Bill Doyle -Father of Joseph
Wtc tower1 101st fl.Cantor
http://www.joeydoyle.com

17189482538
17189486284 phone/Fax
3472360885 Mobile
http://www.tuesdayschildren.org
http://www.911fsa.org
9/11 Families United to Bankrupt Terrorism

Lawsuit exposes Federal cover-up of Saudi-funded terrorist net

John Loftus, who is the President of the Florida Holocaust Museum has instituted a lawsuit to expose the Saudi-funded terrorist network in Florida and elsewhere.
The Loftus press release about his lawsuit follows below. It is so incredible, that it is almost unbelievable.

Sinclaire Scala: For Immediate Release:
Lawsuit exposes Federal cover-up of Saudi-funded terrorist net in Florida from John Loftus*

*John Loftus is a former federal prosecutor and author of several books, including The Secret War Against the Jews
He is an Irish Catholic.

For twenty years I have served without compensation as a lawyer for federal whistleblowers within the US intelligence community. In the last year, I have received highly classified information from several of my confidential clients concerning a Saudi covert operation. The Saudi relationship is so sensitive that, for more than a decade, federal prosecutors and counter-terrorist agents have been ordered to shut down their investigations for reasons of foreign policy.

I am filing a lawsuit in Hillsborough County Court to expose the manner in which Florida charities were used as a money laundry for tax-deductible terrorism. The complaint cites specific testimony including highly classified information which has never been released before. Simply put, the Saudi Government was laundering money through Florida charities run by USF Professor Sami Al Arian for the support of terrorist groups in the Middle East. Through the Al Arian network and others, the Saudi Government secretly funded Al Qaida, Hamas and Islamic Jihad.

The Saudi purpose was twofold: the destruction of the State of Israel and the prevention of the formation of an independent Palestinian State. Two particular terrorist groups, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were specifically chosen and funded by the Saudis for their willingness to undermine Arafat's Palestinian Authority. The secret Saudi goal was to create such animosity between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that it would wreck any chance for the creation of an independent Palestinian State. Their tactics specifically called for the intimidation or murder of those Palestinians who were willing to work with Israel for peace. To put it bluntly, the covert Saudi network in Florida funded the murders of fellow Muslims for the crime of wanting to create the first democratic Arab State.

Whatever harm the Israelis may have done, they did build an excellent public education system, including several universities, for the benefit of their Palestinian neighbors. That was the problem. While literacy in the Arab world is below 50%, in Israel it is 97%. Israel is the only place in the Middle East where an Arab woman can vote. After 50 years, Israel has created the first Arab class exposed to democracy, literacy and western values. To the Saudis, a democratic Palestinian nation would be a cancer in Arab world, a destabilizing example of freedom that would threaten Arab dictators everywhere. As King Fahd said, "Next to the Jews, we hate the

>Palestinians the most." The harder the Israelis and Palestinians worked for peace, the more money King Fahd poured into his murder for hire program.

The Saudi Government has already begun its spin operations, claiming that this terror network was a rogue operation financed by a radical Saudi businessman without the support or knowledge of the Saudi Government. The truth is that many of the Saudi Princes, notably Prince Bandahar and Prince Alwaheed, are good and loyal friends of America who want to lead Saudi Arabia into the modern world. Unfortunately, they are now in the minority in their own country. King Fahd is on his death bed, and his nephew and heir apparent, Crown Prince Abdullah depends on the most radical southern and eastern clans for his political base. The southern faction is the center of popular support for Al Qaida and the Taliban because it is the home of the most extreme Muslim sect, the Wahabbis. Ninety-nine percent of the Muslim world rejects the Wahabbi religious tenets as utterly repugnant to the teachings and examples of the Prophet as written down in the Hadith. Since most Wahabbis are functionally illiterate, they cannot read about this conflict on their own.

Typically, they memorize a few passages of the Koran taken out of context, and never read the accompanying Hadith for explanation. For example, the Wahabbis are taught by rote that Jews are subhumans who should be killed as a religious duty. In contrast, the Hadith explains that the prophet Mohammed honored Jews, married a Jewish wife, forbade forced conversions of Jews, always bowed in respect when a Jewish funeral passed, and promised that good and faithful Jews would go to Paradise just as good Muslims and Christians would, and that the Jews would have their Holy Place in the West (meaning Jerusalem) while Muslims would have their Holy Place in the East (meaning Mecca). Illiteracy is a weapon of oppression. The Saudis, and their Wahabbis, the Taliban, have decreed that women cannot work or even sit in the front seat of a car.

In contrast, the Hadith records that the Prophet worked for his wife, and that she drove her own caravans in international commerce. The Prophet forbade racism, the Wahabbis practice it, especially against their non-Arab Shiite minority. The Wahabbis (both in Saudi Arabia and the Taliban) discriminate viciously against women. The Prophet, who lovingly raised three daughters, insisted that women should have substantially equal rights in contract, ownership, and divorce. The Muslim faith envisioned by the Prophet in the Koran and recorded by his contemporaries in the Hadith is a religion that practices tolerance towards all races and religions, stresses the extreme importance of literacy and education, and elevates the status of women to unprecedented levels in many societies. This is the gentle, peaceful Muslim faith practiced everywhere in the world, except in Saudi Arabia and the Taliban provinces of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Muslim scholars speak derisively about the primitive Wahabbi apostasy, but rarely in public. The reason for this deafening silence is simple, most Mosques in the world are impoverished and depend upon Saudi subsidies for their operation. In return, however, the Saudis have gained a foothold for proselytizing and radicalizing the Muslim youth through religious education in the form of militant Wahabbism. Children learn to hate because they are being taught that way.

The Saudi purpose was twofold: the destruction of the State of Israel and the prevention of the formation of an independent Palestinian State. Two particular terrorist groups, Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were specifically chosen and funded by the Saudis for their willingness to undermine Arafats Palestinian Authority. The secret Saudi goal was to create such animosity between Israel and the Palestinian Authority that it would wreck any chance for the creation of an independent Palestinian State. Their tactics specifically called for the intimidation or murder of those Palestinians who were willing to work with Israel for peace. To put it bluntly, the covert Saudi network in Florida funded the murders of fellow Muslims for the crime of wanting to create the first democratic Arab State.

The Saudi charitable network in America that began with religious education evolved into other areas over the decades. The Saudis dabbled with funding anti-Semitic hate groups as a means of breaking down American support for Israel. After the fall of communism, the Saudis took over funding the most militant terror organizations for direct attacks against Jewish and Palestinian supporters of the peace process. Year after year, members of the intelligence community warned that a rising wave of terror was coming. Oliver North wrote in his autobiography that every time he tried to do something about terrorism, he was told to stop because it would embarrass the Saudi Government. John O'Neill quit his job as head of FBI counter-terrorism for the same reason. Jonathan Pollard went to jail.

Federal agents in Tampa, who had known about the Saudi-Sami Al Arian connection since 1990, were ordered to drop the investigation in 1995. The Saudi influence-buying machine had effectively shut down any threat of criminal prosecution. Those Americans, including a former President, who lobbied for the Saudis have a lot to answer for. So do the Saudis. With the explosive growth of Al Qaida and their Taliban allies, the Saudis finally recognized that they had gone too far. As Osama Bin Laden laughingly related on videotape, he was approached prior to the attack on the twin Trade Towers by his relatives, who offered him $300,000,000 to cancel the operation. Apparently, the Bin Laden family really had not broken off all ties and knew exactly what was coming. So, my clients say, did the Saudis.

Six months later, a much chagrined Prince Abdullah belatedly announced that the Saudis would release the names of the terrorists which their charities had unwittingly funded, but only in Somalia and Asia. The main Saudi charities in Herndon, Virginia, and the Al Arian network in Florida are still untouched. My clients are betting that the American influence peddlers hired by the Saudis will succeed once again in derailing a federal investigation. They came to me for help in exposing the cover-up. That is why I am filing this lawsuit. In the months to come, the American public may finally begin to learn why the Saudi-Sami Al Arian terror networks went untouched for so long. It wasn't an intelligence failure, it was a foreign policy failure. The orders were not to embarrass the Saudi Government. Year after year, the cover-up orders came from the State Department and the White House. The CIA, the FBI, and the Justice Department just did what they were told. No one intended the harsh consequences of letting the Saudis get away with it again and again. Only after September 11, when the Treasury Department found the financial transactions linking the Saudi charities directly to Osama bin Laden, did American officials realize the extent of their betrayal. We are not alone in our grief and anger. Saudi money sabotaged every Israeli initiative to make peace. The bewildered Palestinians may finally realize that they have been stabbed in the back by an Arab brother. The rules have changed after September 11, but the bottom line remains the same: if we want to stop terrorism, we have to tell the Saudis to stop funding it.

John Loftus
Sherman
Sherman Titens
Principal Consultant/
The Titens Consulting Group

The Complete Saudi Primer

9/11
The Saudi Connection

As President Bush today squeezes in a visit to a 9/11 memorial as part of a fundraising trip, his Administration is coming under increasing pressure to explain its close relationship with a "Saudi government that not only provided significant money and aid to the suicide hijackers but also allowed potentially hundreds of millions of dollars to flow to Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups." Just yesterday, Newsday reported the family of the FBI's late counterterrorism chief who was killed in the 9/11 attacks "filed lawsuits Wednesday accusing Saudi Arabia of aiding terrorists worldwide." And today, an explosive excerpt from the new book "House of Bush, House of Saud" examines how top White House officials orchestrated the post-9/11 exodus of Osama bin Laden's relatives before U.S. law enforcement officers could ask them for critical details about the Al Qaeda leader and his terror network. Meanwhile, Time Magazine reports "the Saudis still appear to be protecting charities associated with the royal family" which funnel money to terrorists. And yet, despite all this, President Bush has continued to praise Saudi Arabia, has invited Saudi government leaders to his Crawford mansion, and in general is far "cozier than most [Presidents] to Riyadh." As Vanity Fair noted, "the Bush-Saudi relationship raises serious questions, if only because it is so extraordinary for two presidents to share such a long and rich personal history with any foreign power" - especially one that has been so closely implicated in the 9/11 attacks. And despite the calls to get tough, Time Magazine concludes that the Administration's all-too-close ties to the Saudi royal family makes "it seem unlikely that the Bush Administration will adopt a tougher policy toward Riyadh."

U.S. Eyes Money Trails of Saudi-Backed Charities

Follow the Money

How John Kerry busted the terrorists' favorite bank.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/...409.sirota.html

This also plays a significant part.

Bush Nazi

Graham book: Inquiry into 9/11, Saudi ties blocked

By FRANK DAVIES

fdavies@herald.com


WASHINGTON - Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.

The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote.

Full story: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/9584265.htm

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/v...6p-196894c.html

New York Daily News

9/11 Saudi-Qaeda link censored, Dem claims

Monday, September 6th, 2004

WASHINGTON - President Bush's aides censored a congressional report on the 9/11 attacks to shield Saudi allies implicated in the Al Qaeda hijack plot, a former Senate Intelligence Committee chairman charges in a new book.
Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democratic presidential hopeful who bombed out before this year's primaries, claimed on NBC's "Meet the Press" yesterday that the White House blacked out 28 pages of the 2003 House and Senate joint-inquiry final report to protect Saudi Arabia.

Officials on the 9/11 commission, which concluded no Saudi royals financed the terror plot, have scoffed at Graham's allegations.