(Photo: Reuters/Jason Reed)

Bush and the Saudis Sittin' in a Tree...

by Greg Palast

Well, well, well. President George was in one hell of bind when it turned that that Saudi Arabia funded Al Qaeda, not Iraq. Realizing we'd invaded the wrong country, Bush did the honorable thing: he's come out against gay marriages.

This caused some real confusion in my staff where a gay member of our investigations team announced he was changing his allegiance from Howard Dean to George Bush. "Bush Saves Gays from Marriage! Bush Saves Gays!" he rushed around the office beaming. "Gay people exempt from going to in-laws for Thanksgiving dinner! Gay-mericans exempt from PTA meetings and hiring divorce lawyers!"

But then I had to bring him down to earth. ('Had to' because, while Bush announced last month that our conquest of Iraq had made 'the world a safer place', our President mentioned there's now a 'real threat' of new Al Qaeda hijackings. So is America safer ? As long as one stays indoors.)

But here's the real kick in the head. Turns out that unlike the 18 minutes missing from the Nixon tape, the 28 pages missing from Congress' publicly released report on the September 11 attack has been found. And it turns out to be a summary of Saudi Arabia's financing of terrorist fronts including the 'charities' supporting Al Qaeda.

(Photo: AP/Charles Dharapak)

And now, the New York Times tells us, the Senate has been embarrassed into holding hearings on those Saudi charity fronts including one named WAMY. Of course, this is ancient news to those who watched my report on WAMY and Saudi funding of terror -- broadcast on BBC's evening news on November 9, 2001. (In the USA, that report earned me the title of 'conspiracy nut.' In America, a 'conspiracy nut' is defined as a journalist who reports the news two years before the New York Times.) And here's the ugly little punch line to the story you WON'T read in the Times. Why has the Bush Administration covered up for WAMY and the Saudi's other blood-soaked 'charity' operations?

For the answer, let me take you back to Midland, Texas, 1986. A young old man, George W. Bush, seems to have trouble finding oil. But he strikes it rich when his failing drilling partnership is bought out by Harken Oil. Despite the addition of the business acumen of Bush Jr., Harken faces collapse; but it's pulled from the brink by a cash infusion from a Saudi, Sheik Bakhsh. The money from Arabia has nothing to do, we must assume, with Dubya's daddy at the time holding the post of Vice-President of the Free World.

The Bakhsh booty continued a pattern of the young Bush being saved from his dire business decisions by a line of Sheik angels. His first oil company, Arbusto, going bust-o, was aided by the American financial representative of the bin Laden family. And on BBC TV last month, I reported this: following the bombing of our embassies, the Clinton Administration sent two delegations to Saudi Arabia to tell their royal highnesses to stop giving money to the guys who are killing us. But Mr. Bush, once in office, put the kibosh on unfriendly words to the Saudis.

Furthermore, in the summer of 2001, Bush disbanded the US intelligence unit tracking funding of Al Qaeda. What is it our G-men were uncovering? According to two separate sources speaking to BBC, the funders of Al Qaeda fronts, including those who have previously funded Bush family business and political ventures. Now that's a wee bit embarrassing. Something you wouldn't want in a congressional report. Something you may not want the FBI to dwell on. (And you can unlock the women and children: the BBC reports will NOT be broadcast on US television.)

(Photo: AP/Charles Dharapak)

And there's this: a document marked "Secret" and "199I" (meaning 'national security') which found its way out of the offices of the FBI in into the office of our BBC/Guardian newspaper team. It indicates (and whistleblowers confirmed) that, prior to the September 11 attack, the Bush Administration held back agents of the FBI from tracking two members of the bin Laden family. According to the buried FBI report, the bin Laden lads were operating in the USA for "a suspected terrorist organization", WAMY.

But we mustn’t ask too many questions of the Bush Administration's blindfolding the FBI, nor, Heaven forbid, discomfit the Saudis over their contributions to Terror-R-Us. After all, in BushWorld, Saudi Arabia and America have shared values: we want our boys to kill, not to kiss.

04 August 03

Greg Palast is author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: The Truth About Corporate Cons, Globalization, and High-Finance Fraudsters. Subscribe to his writings for Britain's Observer and Guardian newspapers, and view his investigative reports for BBC Television's Newsnight, at www.GregPalast.com.

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