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"The instability of the Saudi regime is 'the most immediate threat to American economic and political interests in the Middle East'."
MID-EAST REALITIES © - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 10/13: The following information is about to come out in THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE on Monday and is being leaked in Washington this weekend to stir up interest and try to get publicity for the magazine and author on the Sunday talk shows tomorrow.
The recent slights and insults to the Saudi Royal family are not accidental. Rather they are is in fact payback and warning to the Saudis -- now under the leadership of Crown Prince Abdullah who has been waiting for years at his chance to "redirect" Saudi policies -- for refusal to allow use of the tens of billions of dollars worth of military command facilities build by and for the Americans in the past decade.
Yesterday the U.S. froze bank accounts of top Saudi businessmen and foundations known to have close links to senior persons in the Saudi Royal family -- and the Saudis were not even notified in advance this was going to happen as was the case with General Musharraf in Pakistan who was able just in time to remove his name from the Board of a major Pakistani foundation that suffered the same fate.
A few days ago in New York the leading Saudi Royal businessman, Prince Talal, nephew of the King, was publicly insulted when his check for $10 million was returned by the Mayor of New York because he called for a Palestinian State suggesting he was in fact supporting the American President!
The Saudi Ambassador in Washington -- Prince Bandar bin Sultan, son of the Saudi Defense Minister -- has been on major American TV programs using ridiculous language and quacking duck analogies, thoroughly embarrassing the Royal family in public more than can ever be remembered happening before. Now that Abdullah has essentially taken over from a dying Fahd some analysts are predicting that Bandar's days of actually working behind-the-scenes with the U.S. and Israeli governments often in opposition to policies other Royals back in Arabia have championed are finally numbered. After twenty years he may be "rewarded and retired" at any point now according to one long-time Saudi analyst.
The U.S. military failed to kill Taliban leader Mullah Omar when he was in its sights during the first night of the war, the NEW YORKER is planning to report on Monday. According to publishing sources, Seymour Hersh has filed a story quoting top intelligence-community members claiming to be 'crestfallen' about the incident.
Reaction in Washington to the failure to strike immediately was fierce, Hersh reports.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was "kicking a lot of glass and breaking doors," one military official said.
An unmanned Predator reconnaissance aircraft operating in the Kabul area identified a convoy carrying Mullah Omar as he fled the capital.
The Predator is armed with two anti-tank missiles, but under the rules of engagement in effect Sunday night the C.I.A. could not order such a strike. Although the precise sequence of events could not be fully learned, Hersh reports, General Tommy R. Franks, the commander in charge at the United States Central Command in Florida reported that 'Judge Advocate General, a legal officer', doesn't like this, so we're not going to fire.'
It was decided to target a few cars in front of the building to perhaps scare Mullah Omar out of the building to take a look. Omar did leave the building, but not immediately. Soon after he left, Hersh reports, the building was targeted and destroyed by F-18s, too late to kill Omar.
Hersh also reports that a number of conversations between members of the Saudi Arabian royal family that were electronically intercepted by the National Security Agency, beginning as early as 1994, "demonstrated to analysts that by 1996 Saudi money was supporting Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda and other extremist groups."
The intercepts, Hersh writes, "depict a regime increasingly corrupt, alienated from the country's religious rank and file, and so weakened and frightened that it has brokered its future by channelling hundreds of millions of dollars in what amounts to protection money to fundamentalist groups that wish to overthrow it."
By 1996, Hersh reports, Saudi money was supporting Al Qaeda and similar extremist groups in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Yemen, and throughout both Central Asia and the Persian Gulf region.
"Ninety-six is the key year," one American intelligence official tells Hersh in the October 22, 2001 issue of the NEW YORKER . Hersh reports that the intercepts have provided several important insights into political and economic affairs in the kingdom, including the extent of the physical incapacitation of King Fahd, the corruption of specific royal-family members, and the funding of fundamentalist groups through charities. The intelligence official tells Hersh that asfar as bankrolling fundamentalist groups goes, the Saudis had "gone to the dark side."
| Mid-East Realities | www.middleeast.org |
| Source: http://www.middleeast.org/articles/2001/10/460.htm |