The Real Saudi Ties are U.S. Ties

On Monday, President Bush acted against the wishes of Saudi Arabia and a number of U.S. lawmakers, deciding not to declassify the now notorious missing 28 pages in the 9/11 Report.

"It would reveal sources and methods" (President Bush)

It is believed these pages might point to specific foreign sponsorship of the September 11th, 2001 attacks.

Bush seems to be less concerned with national security--the only legitimate reason for censorship--and more concerned with not providing lawmakers and journalists information that might lead them to a sobering question: What if the "Saudi ties" are in reality homegrown?

If Saudi ties find their knot in the U.S. then all current questions must be changed. No longer do we ask why the Saudi information is still classified, but which Saudi ties can be traced back to the United States? And who forced the classification? Who are these suspects President Bush is so scared to have mentioned?

Maybe they haven't been blacked out in the 9/11 Report, but "somewhere" else?

Here are some suggestions of which "Saudi" suspects should be asked first....


"It is important for us to hold this information close so that those who are being investigated aren’t alerted." (President Bush)

Vinnell, owned by the Carlyle Group (which has long-time ties to the Bush Family), this Virginia-based private military firm trains and advises the Saudi National Guard. Many of the 1,400 employees are ex-US Special Forces.

Vinell is working as a consultant with Advisory and Training.

The Saudi National Guard is connected with Vinnell since 1975..

In May 2003, the WP reported, said that Saudi authorities are investigating, "suspected illegal arms sales by members of the country's national guard to al Qaeda operatives in the country".

Vinnell is a subsidiary of TRW/Northrop Grumman. In 1992, Vinnell was taken over by the Carlyle Group, whose chairman was Ronald Reagan's former Defence Secretary, Frank Carlucci.

The question to the US President should be, How much does Vinnell know about these problems within the Saudi National Guard?


"There is a threat to the United States"(President Bush)

BDM (Falls Church, Virginia) provides logistics, training and intelligence to the Saudi Army and Air Force. BDM is yet another private defense contractor where the Carlyle Group had a major stake in. In 1998, Carlyle sold its controlling interest in BDM to TRW.

On the board of TRW is former CIA director Robert M. Gates and Michael H. Armacost, who served as Undersecretary of State under President Reagan and as Ambassador to Japan for former President Bush. Their influence in blocking embarrassing questions is pretty obvious.

According to a Boston Herald article from December 2001, in 1996 and 2000, BDM Federal won two contracts:

One, a $44.4 million deal to build housing at the Khamis Mushayt Military Base in Saudi Arabia, and the other, a $65 million contract to provide 845 personnel for maintenance of Saudi Arabia's fleet of U.S.-made F-15 fighter jets.


"We’re doing a better job of sharing intelligence and collecting data, so we’re able to find, you know, able to anticipate" (President Bush)

Booz-Allen Hamilton (BAH), another global leader in strategy and technology consulting, runs the Military Staff College of Saudi Arabia. But BAH has its corporate headquarters in McLean, Virginia.

On August 15th, 2002, Dale Watson, former FBIHQ, went to work for Booz. No one ever complained that it was Watson who was unwilling to connect the dots during the increased warnings on a pending attack against America in Summer, 2001, and it is clear why: Watson formerly worked for the CIA and seems to have political support from their headquarter.

Booz Allen is also supported by ex-CIA director James Woolsey, who became Vice President of BAH on July 15th, 2002.

In May 2003, Consultant News and Navy Weeks reports, that the government of Saudi Arabia, awarded Booz Allen Hamilton with a sole-source contract for naval consulting work worth $7.9 million with options that could take it to $95.3 million.

Financial interests win out over political embarrassment. Getting Booz Allen Hamiliton involved in an investigation, seems more unrealistic than ever.


"It would show people how we collect information and on whom we’re collecting information" (President Bush)

Through their website, law firm Shea & Gardner, they represented "a key United Technologies employee in a criminal investigation of alleged improper payments to members of the Saudi Arabian royal family"

Shea & Gardner was also James Woolsey's first business of choice after he left the CIA in 1995.

Current Deputy National Security Adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, was a partner there prior to joining the Bush Administration. The ties between Shea & Gardner and the US Government are strong and obvious.

Interestingly, Shea & Gardner is registered as a "Foreign Agent" for the Iraqi National Congress.

Among their current clients are Bank of America, Boeing Company, Chubb Group of Insurance Companies, CSX, Dana Corporation, Ernst & Young, General Electric, ITT Industries, Janus, Lockheed Martin, Rockwell Automation, SAKS, United States Aviation Underwriters and Veriz.


"If people are being investigated, it doesn't make sense for us to let them know who they are." (President Bush)

Akin/Gump is another US law firm, who represents Saudi businessmen. Here we find arguably the most embarrassing U.S. connection, which the Bush Administration covers up under the pretext of a “pending investigation." Bush washes this over, stating that the “enemy” need not know what is classified. But who is the enemy?

Akin/Gump represents at least two suspects mentioned in pending lawsuits filed by family members of the victims of 9/11:

Former director of BCCI, Khalid bin Mahfouz, and Mohammed Hussein Al-Amoudi .

Khalid bin Mahfouz’s’ sister, Kaleda, is one of Osama bin Laden's wives.

More embarrassingly, bin Mahfouz (formerly connected with Bush’s first company, Arbusto) also had stakes in Tom Kean’s company Amarada Hess. Kean is current head of the 9/11 Commission.

In addition, Akin/Gump represents the largest Islamic charity in the United States, Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, based in Richmond, Texas. The FBI had been investigating this charity, when its efforts were suddenly blocked by an as yet undisclosed governmental power.

Partners at Akin Gump include one of President Bush's closest Texas friends, James C. Langdon, and George R. Salem, a Bush fundraiser.


"It would help the enemy if they knew our sources"(President Bush)

SAIC is the nation's largest employee-owned research and engineering company, providing information technology, systems integration and eBusiness products and services to commercial and government customers. SAIC is not only working as a private military contractor for the Pentagon, but also for the CIA. SAIC supports the navy and air defenses of Saudi Arabia (C4 systems for the Royal Saudi Naval Forces program).

SAIC and its subsidiaries, including Telcordia Technologies, have more than 41,000 employees at offices in more than 150 cities worldwide.


"Perhaps we can put out the document" (President Bush)

According to J. Michael Springmann , former chief of the visa section at the US Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the Consulate was mainly controlled by the CIA. Springmann complained about intelligence officers, who regularly expedited U.S. visa applications from Saudi applicants. It is now public knowledge that 15 of the 19 hijackers obtained their visas from Saudi Arabia, most of them in Jeddah, yet the 9/11 Report remains silent on this issue.

Regardless, the original visa applications are available online and have been featured in the pages of the conservative paper, National Review.


The 9/11 Report mentions that two of the official hijackers, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi received money from Saudi Arabia's royal family through two Saudis: Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan. What the report fails to point out is that Al-Bayoumi was assistant to the Director of Finance for Dallah Avco, a US company that worked with the Saudi aviation authority. This is relevant because Al-Bayoumi was accused of being an agent for Saudi Intelligence.

As for Osama Basnan, he was living in California when the Saudi Embassy sent him $15,000 to pay a “surgical bill” for his wife.

The terrorist financial ties tracing back to United States are countless. But since we’re here, we might as well keep counting….


Kroll O’ Gara Eisenhardt is one of the oldest security companies in the United States and, some say, responsible for every U.S. President since the end of WW2. What does an upstanding, powerful company like Kroll do in its spare time? Why it trains local forces in Saudi Arabia, of course!

One partner of Kroll, Cable & Wireless provides training in Counter-Terrorism and Urban Warfare in Saudi Arabia. In August 2001, former Kroll employee, Jerome Hauer, arranged a security job in the Twin Towers for FBI Agent John O’Neill. At the time, O’Neill had been investigating ENRON’s business deals with the Taliban and was subsequently pulled from that investigation. Neither Kroll nor Hauer was asked to testify about this coincidence.


Former Saudi Intelligence Head, Prince Turki al Faisal, who resigned only a few days before September 11th, is another shady character who has yet to testify. Al Faisal is known for having had close relations with Osama bin Laden.

It is interesting to note the endless conflict within the Saudi family. The family breaks down into two general factions:

1) The al-Sudairy faction led by King Fahd and Defense Minister Sultan. It is they who profit and gain power from the Saudi alliance with the United States.

2) The religious coalition of half-brothers led by the aging Crown Prince Abdullah, whose piety is backed by alliances with Wahhabi religious leaders.

Prince Turki worked with the Argentine oil company Bridas, while Prince Abdullah worked with the Saudi company Delta Oil, part of the US-backed consortium headed up by Unocal.


Finally, the involvement of private U.S. military contractors (passively or actively) with terrorists can no longer be ignored. The most popular private military contractors are MPRI, Halliburton Brown + Root, L3, and DynCorp, all of which had contracts with Saudi Arabia.

All of the preceding information can be found in the news archives of various internet sites. It is public knowledge and none of it risks national security. In a move that would make Monty Python blush, President Bush decided not to declassify information that is already available to the average sleuth. The result is, the mainstream media will not pick up on any of this “classified” information and the majority of Americans not inclined to research anything on their own will eat the spoon-fed spin of their favorite networks. You can look for that spin to go something like this:

Saudi Arabia is a base for Al-Quaeda. We thought they were our friends but they said one thing in our language and another thing in their own. The major financiers of terrorism reside in Saudi Arabia.

Once this becomes doctrine, the PNAC cabal headed by Douglas Feith, Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz will start promoting their biggest dream: a winner-takes-all invasion of Saudi Arabia. This is a dream wet in oil and blood.

http://new.globalfreepress.com/article.pl?sid=03/07/30/229223

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Last updated 03/08/2003

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