From the February 29, 2012 New York Times:
Now, in sworn statements that seem likely to reignite the debate, two former senators who were privy to top secret information on the Saudis’ activities say they believe that the Saudi government might have played a direct role in the terrorist attacks.
“I am convinced that there was a direct line between at least some of the terrorists who carried out the September 11th attacks and the government of Saudi Arabia,” former Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, said in an affidavit filed as part of a lawsuit brought against the Saudi government and dozens of institutions in the country by families of Sept. 11 victims and others. Mr. Graham led a joint 2002 Congressional inquiry into the attacks.
His former Senate colleague, Bob Kerrey of Nebraska, a Democrat who served on the separate 9/11 Commission, said in a sworn affidavit of his own in the case that “significant questions remain unanswered” about the role of Saudi institutions. “Evidence relating to the plausible involvement of possible Saudi government agents in the September 11th attacks has never been fully pursued,” Mr. Kerrey said.Steve Clemmons at The Atlantic thinks this is bizarre conspiracy theory stuff, because it would not be in the Saudi interest to attack the United States. That's true. The Saudis had an interest in seeing Saddam Hussein knocked out, but if the Saudis arranged 9/11 to get us to destroy Iraq, would they not have arranged a false trail back to Iraq? Afghanistan was not in their interest to knock over. The Saudis were one of a small number of countries to recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Eventually, 9/11 led to invading Iraq, but by a very indirect and circuitous path. If the Saudi government did actually play a part in making 9/11 happen, it would be an extraordinary piece of Byzantine manipulation.
I wasn't under the impression that the "Saudi government" was that monolithic or coherent. There are Saudi princes that sure appear to like us (I'm think of the Saudi prince investor who among other things helped save Citibank a while ago, although I suppose some could label helping such a reliable loser a hostile act :-) and I'm sure some who hate us with a burning passion.
ReplyDeleteSo I don't think any cunning Byzantine schemes were required. As it was, at the time Sadam was "contained", the no fly zones and all that, the restrictions on what he could buy with oil revenue (circumvented by the corrupt UN), etc. etc. One reason to take him and his dime store Nazi (Bathist) regime down was that containing him was a constant and expensive drain.
(Which of course says nothing about the wisdom of attempting nation building afterwords.)