WASHINGTON, 2 August 2003 — On the heels of the Saudi foreign minister’s visit to Washington, the Senate Government Affairs Committee held a hearing Thursday to investigate Saudi Arabia’s alleged links financing terrorism through charity organizations. On one side was former Israeli Likud ambassador, Dore Gold, author of “Hatred’s Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism,” and so-called “terrorist expert” Steven Emerson, whose books include “American Jihad — The Terrorists Living Among Us,” and “The American House of Saud: The Secret Petro-dollar Connection.” On the other side... well, there was no one. The Saudi Embassy declined to provide someone to sit on the panel, and no one else — say, a former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia or some local Mideast expert — was present.
Senators present were Arlen Specter, D-Pa., who chaired the panel; co-panel chairwoman Susan Collins, R-Maine; Norm Coleman, R-Minnesota; Frank Lautenberg, D-New Jersey; Carl Levin, D-Michigan; Mark Pryor, D-Arizona; and Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii.
Sen. Lautenberg set the tone by making it clear he had an ax to grind with the Saudis.
“In 1991, after the first Gulf War, I wanted to go to Saudi Arabia and was told that if a US senator or congressman had an Israeli stamp in their passport they were prohibited entry. I got that changed, but I think if you’re an ordinary US citizen, you’re still denied entry if you have an Israeli stamp. It’s outrageous.
“When [the Saudis] dialed 911, we were there to save them,” he said. “The ingratitude of the Saudi government is obvious by not presenting a witness here today.”
Lautenberg suspected that there had been an arrangement over the 28 pages censored in the recently released Sept. 11 report.
“Forgive my suspicion that a routine was set up where the Saudi government would claim they wanted the pages to be made public, while someone in the Bush administration would just say it’s being held up.”
Representatives from the FBI and Treasury were also called to speak on their working relations with Saudi counterparts on the ongoing terrorism investigation.
John Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, told the senators that Saudi cooperation had “radically changed with the FBI since the Riyadh bombings on May 12.”
“The Saudis have allowed us to go through evidence, do forensic tests and even gave us access to Saudi citizens,” he said. “May 12 was a defining moment for the Saudis. We were frustrated beyond imagination after the 1996 Alkhobar bombings, but post-May 12 the Saudis have had a wake-up call and we’ve had unprecedented cooperation with them in virtually every area.”
Richard Newcomb, director of Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, also spoke of recent cooperation, but added that an interagency national security committee, made up of representatives from the State Department, Justice Department and other agencies, had rejected his office’s recommendation that certain Saudi charities be subject to sanctions for ties to terrorism. These did not include, he said, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY) or the International Islamic Relief Organization (IIRO).
Speaking on Saudi cooperation, Pistole said: “There is a clear delineation prior to May 12 and after May 12. Now there is unprecedented cooperation. They’re holding some things back, just as we would if they were here — because of national security concerns. But we now have direct access to evidence and witnesses, this is unprecedented.”
Following the Treasury and FBI presentations, Dore Gold said “it was true Saudi Arabia has taken a few steps [in the right direction], but a hundred more steps need to be made by them.”
Treasury’s Newcomb said the cooperation is “an ongoing process,” and repeated the signs of a successful new partnership: “We’re able to get into things where we were never allowed before.”
Gold, who said he was speaking on his own behalf, and not representing the government of Israel, tried to link alleged Saudi cooperation with financial support for global terrorism. He spoke of alleged Saudi links to funding terrorism and their support for Hamas.
“In Palestine, many of the clerics who support Hamas are linked to the Saudis. And these clerics’ ideological support for suicide attacks are not just confined to Israelis.”
He said three of the largest Saudi NGOs — IIRO, WAMY and the Charitable Foundations of Al-Haramain — were suspected of funding terrorists. These are not NGOs, he said, but government organizations.
“Look at the head of IIRO, which is a branch of the Muslim World League. The head is the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, who is a member of the Saudi Cabinet.
“The WAMY and Al-Haramain both are headed by the minister of Islamic affairs,” Gold said. “I can report with full authority, and I have this from Israel, that 50 to 60 percent of financial support comes from Saudi Arabia, and this is growing.”
The three-hour hearing ended on an ominous note by Sen. Spector: “We must look at the toughest line of economic and criminal sanctions, or whatever it takes. Stay tuned.”
Meanwhile, the Arab League yesterday rejected the findings of a US Congress report into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks which suggested that Saudi Arabia bore part of the responsibility for the devastating strikes.
“The league rejects any attempt to throw accusations of terrorism at Arab states,” spokesman Hisham Yusef said in a statement. Yusef said the Cairo-based body was “following closely the development of false accusations made against Saudi Arabia in the report”.
The Gulf Cooperation Council also rejected the Sept. 11 congressional report that accuses Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorism. “The GCC confirms the true role of Saudi Arabia in the fight against terrorism and also supports the Saudi demand to release the 28 pages missing in the report so Saudi Arabia could respond to them,” the GCC said.
