SAUDI-AMERICAN RELATIONS

There were indications that the Israel lobby in the United States will exert pressure on the Kingdom by pressuring the U.S. government to oppose Saudi Arabia's application to the World Trade Organization. That lobby accuses the Kingdom of still being active on the Arab boycott of Israel, and of companies that transact business with that country.

Tension between the two countries' governments continued to be in evidence.  In late November, The Washington Post revealed that a National Security Council task force was recommending an action plan for the President to force Saudi Arabia to crack down on terror financiers within ninety days, or force the United States to bring the suspects to justice in this country.  Of the nine financiers, seven were Saudis.  Capitol Hill weighed in:  U.S. Senator Richard C. Shelby (R-Ala) was quoted as saying that the Saudis had "a lot of answering to do." 

There was frustration in Washington at the less-than-total responsiveness of the Saudis to agreed upon joint plans to rein in terror financing.  The Post reported that shortly after September 9, the two governments had agreed to designate one Saudi citizen as terror financier and move to freeze his assets.  But no more than 48 hours later, senior Saudi officials publicly disowned the designation of said Saudi subject.  Reacting to the wavering, a senior U.S. official described Saudi Arabia as "one of the epicenters of terrorist financing." 

As SPC had noted in its previous issues--one of which assessed that Saudi foreign policy may have been taken over by the United States--blackmail was one weapon at the disposal of the American national security establishment to subdue the Saudi royal family.  (Again, not Abdallah; the Crown Prince has a stellar reputation, but he could not ignore blackmail against other members of the royal family.)    That establishment owns a wealth of information about princes and the corruption of some. In addition,  it now has at its disposal the one-trillion dollar law suit brought in U.S. courts by the families of the September 11 victims.  The Post's article made it clear that the Bush administration is allowing the law suit to weigh in on the Kingdom, without interference by the Executive, until such time as that Kingdom is fully subjugated to American demands on fighting terror.  Unstated in the article was that the law suit could also serve to blackmail the princes on other matters, as well, including the use of bases.

The lawsuit is preoccupying Saudi officials; the Post's article revealed that they had expressed their concern repeatedly to the administration.

American officials estimate that as much as one hundred million dollars have been given by Saudis to terrorist organizations.  But it is not clear how much of this flow was sent to Palestine (for legitimate humanitarian assistance in that nation's struggle to free itself from foreign occupation and colonization) and how much to organizations associated with Osama bin Laden, or to groups is Europe or Russia--groups which may or may not have us on their target list.

Saudi Arabia continued its diplomacy cum public relations effort to mend relations with Washington, and checkmate the right-wing Israeli campaign against the Kingdom

In early December, the Saudi Ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, revealed that the Saudi government was instrumental in supplying the Central Intelligence Service (CIA) with information on three of al-Qaeda's leaders, and that this intelligence led to the arrest of Abdel-Rahim al-Nashiri, responsible for al-Qaeda's operations in the Gulf.  Prince Bandar's revelation came in the aftermath of the Washington-made scandal--made so apparently by a vindictive bureaucracy--implicating his wife in sending money to a needy Saudi family on the west coast, which money found its way into the hands of Saudi terrorists.  Obviously, the Ambassador's wife didn't know about the re-routing of the money, and it was clear that she had sent the money for purely humanitarian reasons.

January 28, 2003