[Nasional-e] [Nasional] Charges of Saudis financing hijackers stir calls for probe

Mon Nov 25 20:12:01 2002

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Charges of Saudis financing hijackers stir calls for probe 
By Kevin Johnson
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON -- Senate leaders called on the Bush
administration Sunday to confront allegations that the
Saudi government may have indirectly provided
financial assistance to some of the Sept. 11
hijackers, even if such an inquiry means alienating a
key ally in a potential war against Iraq.

A senior federal law enforcement official said Sunday
that investigators don't believe the Saudis knowingly
aided the hijackers. But the FBI is investigating
whether charitable contributions made by the wife of
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the
United States, may have aided two of the 19 suicide
hijackers.

A Saudi official said Princess Haifa al-Faisal wrote
monthly checks in the amount of $2,000 to the family
of Osama Bassnan to pay for medical expenses. Saudi
foreign policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir said Sunday that
some of the money also may have gone to the wife of
Omar al-Bayoumi, who assisted Sept. 11 hijackers
Khalid Al-Midhar and Nawaf Alhazmi when they were
living in San Diego in 2000.

''We know that the lady who received the checks
endorsed one or more checks to Mr. Bayoumi's wife,''
al-Jubeir said on ABC's This Week program. 

Al-Jubeir said it would be ''crazy'' to think that
Princess Haifa, whose husband is the face of Saudi
Arabia in the United States, ''would write checks to
people who give it to terrorists.''

But Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., appearing Sunday on
CBS' Face the Nation, said the Bush administration has
been too quick to defend the FBI against criticism
that it wasn't aggressively investigating possible
Saudi links to terror.

''The administration ought to be demanding a full
public accounting by the FBI and the CIA about what
they know about Saudi involvement,'' said Lieberman,
who helped establish an independent commission that
will investigate the causes of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who also helped create the
commission, said he did not believe the princess was
intentionally providing funds to terrorists. But
McCain said the United States could not ignore what he
described as Saudi involvement in assisting radical
Islamic fundamentalists.

''The Saudis have been engaged in a Faustian bargain
with the radical Islamic fundamentalists for many,
many years in order to stay on the throne,'' McCain
said. ''And it is clear that huge amounts of money
have gone to these organizations'' that teach children
to hate the United States, he said. 

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said on ABC that Saudi
accountability is ''the greatest weakness'' of the
president's foreign policy.

''He refuses to tell the Saudis, 'Fess up, which side
of the fence are you on?' '' Schumer said.

A senior federal law enforcement official said Sunday
that investigators had been looking at the financial
transactions for months. 

''People who have looked at it closely don't think
(the direct link) is there,'' the official said,
adding that it would defy the prevailing theory that
the Sept. 11 plot was a closely held plan involving
very few al-Qaeda operatives. 

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