Troubled Connection

MARGARET WARNER:

There new signs of strain in the U.S.-Saudi relationship, which has been rocky since it became known that most of the September 11 hijackers were Saudis.

The latest jolt came from a Newsweek magazine report that donations from the Saudi ambassador's wife to a San Diego woman may have indirectly benefited two of the hijackers. The ambassador, Prince Bandar, is an influential Washington figure who's been close to American presidents for twenty years.

But last Sunday, Saudi officials were on the defensive. Adel al Jubeir, foreign policy adviser to the crown prince, said Bandar's wife's had no idea her donations might be going to terrorists.

ADEL AL JUBEIR:

We do this in Saudi Arabia. We help our people, whether… we have a social welfare net that covers every one of our citizens. The lady who wrote to Princess Haifa asked her for financial support, and Princess Haifa supported her like she has supported hundreds, if not thousands, of other people.

MARGARET WARNER:

But senators of both parties assailed the Riyadh government for not cracking down on wealthy Saudis who finance Islamic radicals.

SEN. JOSEPH LIEBERMAN (D-Conn.):

They've got to decide, the royal family of Saudi Arabia — a difficult position — have to decide what side they're on. For too many generations, certainly years, they have pacified and accommodated themselves to the most extreme, fanatical, violent elements of Islam, and those elements have now turned on us and the rest of the world and in time they will, of course, turn on the royal family of Saudi Arabia. It's time for them to change.

MARGARET WARNER:

They also criticized the Bush administration, particularly the FBI and CIA, for being reluctant to aggressively investigate the Saudi money trail.

SEN. JOHN McCAIN (R-NM):

I believe our government has been very lax in our efforts to make the Saudis cooperate in a broad variety of ways and I think this has got to do with the long-term relationship that was probably important during the Cold War, keeping the price of oil down, etc.

MARGARET WARNER:

And Senator Bob Graham warned that unless something is done, Saudi financing could end up funding future terrorist attacks.

SEN. BOB GRAHAM (D-Fla.):

There are many, many unanswered questions on this, which some of which point backwards. And that is, what was the potential involvement of a foreign government with some, and maybe more, of the hijackers of September 11?

Others point to the future: Is there inside the United States an infrastructure that provides support, financing, logistics, for the next generation of hijackers or other forms of terrorists who are preparing for the next wave of assaults against the United States?

MARGARET WARNER:

Today The Washington Post reported a National Security Council task force was recommending that President Bush press Saudi Arabia to crack down on its terrorist financiers or "face unilateral U.S. action to bring the suspects to justice."

White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer said no such recommendation has reached the president. Saudi Arabia has been a good partner in the war against terrorism, he said, but it could do more.

MARGARET WARNER:

For more on this latest strain and the state of the U.S.-Saudi relationship, we turn to retired Colonel Patrick Lang, who was U.S. Defense attache in Saudi Arabia during the 1980s. He is now a consultant; Walter Cutler, who was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Reagan and first Bush administrations. Mamoun Fandy, a columnist throughout the Arab world; he's also author of Saudi Arabia and the Politics of Dissent. And Evan Thomas, a correspondent for Newsweek magazine. Welcome to you all.

Evan Thomas first, you were co-author of this article that touched off this later furor. Explain briefly for us what is the chain that might have linked this money from Princess Haifa, the Saudi ambassador's wife, to the hijackers?

EVAN THOMAS:

Starting in 1999 she started giving money ostensibly for medical reasons to a woman.

The problem is that those checks, which became monthly checks, found their way to a couple of men who warmly greeted the hijackers when they came to Los Angeles, got them an apartment, helped them get pilot lessons, all suspicious seeming. Now, I think it was innocent. I don't think that she knew she was funding hijackers but it's embarrassing and kind of intriguing that the money could have made its way that way.

MARGARET WARNER:

And it was tens of thousands of dollars?

EVAN THOMAS:

All told.

MARGARET WARNER:

What do you make of the story, Ambassador?

WALTER CUTLER:

Well, if I were Princess Haifa, I probably would – I would be asking myself, why is it that no good deed goes unpunished?

I don't think for a second that she had any idea that the money would end up in the wrong hands, anybody who knows her personally, and she has been living in Washington for more than twenty years, knows that she's not that kind of person. But more than that, more than that, it makes no sense to in any way contribute to an organization — in this case al-Qaida — that has as one of its chief goals destroying the very government for whom you work.

MARGARET WARNER:

So, Col. Lang, do you think the furor over this story was entirely misplaced?

COL. PATRICK LANG:

Well, I think this reflects the fact that the general deterioration in the attitude on the part of Americans towards Saudi Arabia over the last year, we can try obfuscate that any way we like, but in fact it is the case, and I think it's gotten so bad that people in the Arab community in Washington and other places have become very sensitive to any kind of critical marks whatever, and so it's difficult to even talk about these things but, in fact, there has been this decline in the way Americans look at Saudis and so this is why a story like this one all of a sudden seizes the imagination and people look on it and start to reproduce in their minds the channel, channels of passing clandestine funds to a covert operation when in fact it probably was an innocent thing but I think it shows just how far down we have gone in the state of U.S. -Saudi relations.

MARGARET WARNER:

Mamoun Fandy, let's turn though to how much Saudi money does go into supporting terrorist organizations.

The Council on Foreign Relations had a report just last month saying that the bulk of al-Qaida's money comes from either Saudi charities or Saudi financiers. Do you think that's the case?

MAMOUN FANDY:

I think probably that's the wrong focus on this — the story of the princess in particular and all of that is if you look at — this is very much al-Qaida implicating itself. All these are transnational organizations. They are not state based. Some of them are in Saudi Arabia; some of them are in Kuwait; some of them are in Jordan and other places…

MARGARET WARNER:

I'm sorry. Are you talking about charities, or are you talking about terrorist organizations?

MAMOUN FANDY:

No. No. I'm talking about charities also. This is the sort of — there are charities and front businesses for al-Qaida themselves that are also transnational. They are not really fixed in one country.

And the Saudis themselves had trouble with that before 9/11. Before that, they could not control bin Laden when he was after them. It needs regional cooperation rather than one country at a time. When people miss the point — when they discuss one country, the Saudis alone cannot do it; the Egyptians alone cannot do it; the Kuwaitis alone cannot do it, because they don't know, and that requires a great deal of cooperation. And there has been a lot of research on this.

And it is very much there are innocent charities — that you've seen in Bosnia and other places here in the Bosnian war — but in the midst of all of this there are charities that are not innocent.

How do you sort this out? You really need to follow the trail transnationally in the same way you are following al-Qaida itself. You cannot just act – there are certain things that they cannot do.

MARGARET WARNER:

Before we solve the problem, let's analyze it further, though, Colonel Lang. How much Saudi money — I'm not talking about dollar figures – but do you think is going into terrorist organizations and why is that the case?

COL. PATRICK LANG:

Well, I think a lot of Saudi money. The estimate said that probably the bulk of the money supporting these organizations comes out of Saudi Arabia and perhaps some of the other states in Gulf as well — is pretty close to correct because that's where the money is.

There is also the adherence to the cult of Wahabism, which is a peculiar form of Islam, which in fact teaches people in the schools which they maintain there that the unbeliever is not your friend and that he is not to be supported and you are to take action against him. Having done that, the government of Saudi Arabia — in supporting that scheme and not doing anything about it — has created a situation which directly leads to the export of money through the network of illegal charities and things like that, that our friend is talking about.

MARGARET WARNER:

What would you add to that, Ambassador Cutler?

WALTER CUTLER:

Well, I would agree with Pat, and I think this is one reason that it's very difficult for the Saudi government to now get on top of this. There has been this re-flowing of capital, be it to charities or just part of their overall economy. We're talking about billions and billions of dollars. This is the world's largest producer of oil.

And to start exercising the kinds of controls that we want to see exercised is not on overnight process. Psychologically and institutionally, the Saudis have been pretty ill prepared to do it. So they have had a lot of catching up to do. Now, I happen to believer our own government when it repeatedly says that we think the Saudis are cooperating well.

Are they doing enough; are they doing it fast enough? Probably not, but nevertheless they have a long way to go. They have no IRS; they have no other institutions that we have. They have to put all that in place and so that — this is going to be a long, ongoing process.

MARGARET WARNER:

Evan Thomas, from your reporting, what do you find this administration feels really sort of behind the public words — which of course they say Saudi Arabia has been a good partner — is there a level of frustration or do they feel they are doing a lot?

EVAN THOMAS:

I think there are layers and layers here. The Saudis are to some degree cooperating and helping us catch al-Qaida people so that is happening.

But I think there's also a concern in the intelligence community that the Saudis are holding their enemies close and buying protection if you will, that some Saudis are funding al-Qaida as a way of keeping them from attacking them.

And then there's this whole gray world in espionage where you have double agents who are working for a lot different of people; where you're paying money to people and they're giving you some information but they're also giving al-Qaida some information; they may be giving some other countries information. There are lots of shades of gray in this whole world, and it's hard to sort out who's on whose side.

MARGARET WARNER:

What would you add?

MAMOUN FANDY:

I think what I would add is probably focusing on the Saudis and Wahabism and all of that; this is really missing the point.

This administration doesn't know terrorism. Terrorism is really about – the Muslim brotherhood organization, the oldest in the Middle East – that hijacked the Saudi system – that took over charities. It ran through Egypt, through Kuwait, through different countries.

You have to follow this trail; you cannot just — somebody tells you Wahabism, and you says this is where it is. The story is much more complex. I've followed the story. It's painful to me to say that people missed the story. The story is out there. It's not the princess; it's not the sensationalism. The story is there but very few people are following it.

MARGARET WARNER:

But do you think the Saudi government — and I understand your point that it's that larger than that, but we're here actually discussing the Saudis tonight.. Do you think they're doing everything they can, or do you think there is an element as some, as Evan just reported, some in the administration think that there are private individuals who may or may not be members of the royal family who are knowingly supporting terrorists and the government is reluctant to crack down.

MAMOUN FANDY:

I think — Saudi Arabia is very big and they probably have to look very hard into the whole patron system as a way of distributing wealth and all of that – there's that work involved — or should they bring this country into the modern world.

This exposes Saudi Arabia; it has lots of loopholes. The governing authority of Saudi Arabia has tremendous control of Riyadh but it might not in eastern province, it might not in the western area. It's very complex. It needs a sort of real overhaul of the whole system to think about it, to tighten it up and bring it to the modern world.

MARGARET WARNER:

Ambassador, you heard some of the senators say they are very critical of the FBI and CIA, saying they are not really aggressively following all the investigative leads or trails here. What is your felling about that? I know you are not on the inside now but there's been a history of U.S. Government perhaps not wanting to confront this when the Saudis are involved?

WALTER CUTLER:

To an extent I think that's right.

MARGARET WARNER:

And explain why.

WALTER CUTLER:

It's a matter of how you deal, you do you actually get your interlocutor to have your way, if you put it that way. And there are many way of doing this in a world of diplomacy.

And when you're dealing with a country that has such a different culture that is really so sensitive, we Americans, we come right out with it and get it done, as I said get it done yesterday. This is not the way people in that part of world and particularly in Saudi Arabia operate. So you have to go at it in a very subtle way. Sometimes it works, sometimes you have to take other tactics but I think that is part of it.

MARGARET WARNER:

Certainly, Colonel, 9/11 has contributed to a greater sense of impatience on this stuff.

COL. PATRICK LANG:

Well, I think so, yes. One thing that gets lost sometimes is the fact that this is a two-sided process. This is not just a matter of Americans accommodating Saudis; the thing has to work the other way around as well.

And there have, in fact, been many instances in which the United States government has appealed to Saudi Arabia for investigative assistance and things of that kind in which they have not been very forthcoming, and you can understand in some ways if you understand their culture why they have not, because to surrender these people to us is a very big step for them. But, nevertheless, if we were to go to proceed forward into the future as allies, they're going to have meet us halfway.

MARGARET WARNER:

Briefly from the rest of you, would you agree with Col. Lang's earlier point, though, that the furor over your story, Evan, really shows the distrust that has grown between these two allies?

EVAN THOMAS:

Yeah, I think the story really just opened a door. I mean, I think it probably was an innocent mistake but it suddenly opens a door for people to say what they have been thinking for a long time, which is that the Saudis have not been careful enough about this problem, that too much Saudi money has gone to terrorism.

MARGARET WARNER:

Would you agree in terms of the distrust; do you think it's growing?

MAMOUN FANDY:

I think there is a growing distrust and there is — absolutely I think we're targeting the wrong guy.

I think we need to tip the balance in the Middle East, as a whole in Saudi Arabia, in favor of the good guys rather than really targeting them. We have to target the terrorist organizations, the illegal charitable organizations. Thus, the princess would be the person who has been living throughout her life here – that's the wrong target. It's the people in other places who are actually doing that illegal funding.

MARGARET WARNER:

But would you say that in Saudi circles too there's a sort of anger and resentment of the United States and its attitudes right now?

MAMOUN FANDY:

There is anger because there is also sometimes dishonesty. I think the colonel mentioned something about, you know, the whole idea of Saudi Arabia did not cooperate. I remember in the Khobars Tower issue — both Saudi Arabia and in the United States agreed that Iran is involved and they don't want to break the story.

MARGARET WARNER:

And, Mr. Ambassador, the distrust?

WALTER CUTLER:

The distrust concerns me and I think a lot of it is based on a disconnect — a lack of communication — just in a time when we should be having more. In the name of security– and I understand this, however we're throwing up barriers, be it more difficult to get visa.

You heard this story as thousands of Saudis and other students who can't come back for your junior or senior year this college because they can't get a visa, and they are going to Australia and they're going to England. I'm concerned about a diminishing dialogue just at a point when we need it because we are different cultures. We have common problems and this is the time we should be talking and for a variety of reasons I'm concerned about our not talking enough.

MARGARET WARNER:

And I'm afraid we've talked enough but thank you all four.