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Senator: Saudis must do more
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. ties with Saudi Arabia are at a "crisis stage," strained by the showdown over Iraq and reports that a Saudi princess may have been the source of funds that went to two of the September 11 suicide hijackers, Sen. Joseph Lieberman said Sunday. An inquiry by the joint House-Senate Intelligence Committee has suggested there is evidence that money from the Saudi government made its way to two Saudi students in the United States and from them to two of the hijackers -- Khalid al Midhar and Nawaf al Hazmi. Lieberman, D-Connecticut, and other prominent senators said the report raises hard questions about Saudi cooperation with the war on terrorism. They said Saudi officials have failed to crack down on funding that goes to terrorists and fuels Islamic radicalism. "The Saudi-American relationship is at a crisis stage," Lieberman said. "They've been good allies, and they've depended on us to protect them, and we've depended on them for military locations and oil." But the Saudis must do more to clamp down on support for al Qaeda among their citizens, he said. Lieberman also called Saudi reluctance to allow U.S. forces to use bases on its territory in a possible military confrontation with Iraq "unacceptable." "President Bush has taken a lot of abuse in the last two years because of the connections of this administration with Saudi Arabia," he said. "I think it's time for the president to blow the whistle and remember what he said after September 11 -- you're either with us or you're with the terrorists." Sen. Joseph Biden, outgoing chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told CNN that Saudi officials have not been "nearly conscientious enough" in determining where its citizens' charitable contributions end up. In an appearance on CNN's "Late Edition," the Delaware Democrat said the Saudis cannot continue to defuse domestic opposition by supporting Islamic movements even as they resist democratic reforms. "They're finding out now that a significant portion of those people to whom they dole these things out are not good people -- they're bad people. They mean them harm and they mean us harm," he said. Republicans too lambasted the second-largest supplier of crude oil to the United States. "The list goes on and on of Saudi failures, and their central role that they have played in one way or another in this rise of Islamic fundamentalism all over the world," said Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, on ABC's "This Week." Support for such groups has proved to be a "Faustian bargain" that may one day bring down the House of Saud, he said.
"Like any other Faustian bargain, it comes time to pay up," he said. "Unless the Saudis change this, then I believe they will meet the fate of the Shah of Iran." Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi was driven from power in 1979 and replaced by an Islamic fundamentalist regime led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. The funds questioned by the congressional committee originated with Princess Haifa al Faisal -- the wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi ambassador to the United States. But sources told CNN there was no proof the Saudi government intentionally funded terror activities against the United States. Adel al-Jubeir, an aide to Crown Prince Abdullah on international affairs, said Saudi officials cooperated with a U.S. investigation into the matter six months ago and believed the case was closed. He said the princess was unaware the money would end up going to people linked to al Qaeda. "Al Qaeda's objective is to come after Saudi Arabia as much as the U.S., and the last thing we would do is to fund people who want to murder us," al-Jubeir told CNN. "What you have here is a situation that is being exaggerated for political purposes, and the evidence does just not bear this out."
Al-Jubeir said the princess gave money to the family of Osama Basnan to help defray medical expenses. The princess, daughter of the late King Faisal, has a long list of charitable contributions she makes to Saudis in the United States, The Washington Post quoted Saudi officials as saying. Basnan, a student in California at the time, was a friend of Omar Al Bayoumi, who gave a party and helped al Midhar and al Hazmi with rent payments when they arrived in San Diego in 2000, according to the Post. "But under no circumstance did any money go from Princess Haifa to Mr. Basnan or to Bayoumi," al-Jubeir told ABC. Al-Jubeir said the FBI questioned both men and released them after charging them with visa violations. They are now back in Saudi Arabia, the FBI said. "Do you think for a moment that if these people had given money to terrorists the FBI would have let them go?" he asked. U.S.-Saudi ties date to the 1930s. Washington has kept troops and aircraft in the desert kingdom since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but the Saudis have balked at allowing U.S. forces to launch a possible attack on Iraq from Saudi territory, though al-Jubeir said no final decision has been made. The stationing of U.S. troops in the ancestral home of Islam upset Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, whose al Qaeda network killed more than 3,000 people in the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Of the 19 suicide hijackers in those attacks, 15 were from Saudi Arabia. Sen. Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the Senate Intelligence Committee, described Saudi Arabia as a "transactional" ally. "I would like for them to be our ally, but you can't have it both ways," Shelby, R-Alabama, told NBC's "Meet the Press." "You can't finance terrorists, you can't finance charities that you have reason to believe that will finance terrorism around the world and even abet it, and say, 'Oh, we're great friends of the United States.'" But Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska, said U.S. officials must "look at the big picture here." "The Saudis have been an important ally to the United States over the years," said Hagel, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "They will continue to play a critical role here in the Middle East, and we'll find out what we need to find out."
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