| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front |
| FBI Follows the Money from Riyadh |
| 2003-11-23 |
| The FBI, in an unprecedented move that has strained relations with a close ally in the war on terrorism, has subpoenaed records for dozens of bank accounts belonging to the Saudi Embassy, part of an investigation into whether any of the hundreds of millions of dollars Riyadh spends in the United States each year end up in the hands of Muslim extremists. The wide-ranging investigation into the $300 million a year the Saudi Embassy spends here was launched this summer, just as the U.S. and Saudi governments were hailing a new era of cooperation in the fight against Muslim terrorism. Earlier this year, U.S. and Saudi officials established the first-ever joint task force to track terrorist financing in Saudi Arabia. U.S. officials said the FBI’s Washington field office subpoenaed the records of dozens of Saudi bank accounts to determine whether Saudi government money knowingly or unknowingly helped fund extremists in the United States. Although many Saudi entities have been investigated in the past, U.S. officials said this was the first investigation to directly probe Saudi government funds. Senior U.S. officials said they do not recall any other time when the bank records of an embassy were subpoenaed. The probe, U.S. officials said, was approved by the National Security Council working group on terrorist financing at the request of several congressional leaders. The investigation focuses on the financial activities of the Islamic and cultural affairs office of the embassy as well as the activities of Saudi consulates around the United States, officials said. The subpoenas outraged Saudi officials, who believe they were unnecessary. "We became aware of the subpoenas in August, and we immediately said to the American authorities, ’if you want this information, why didn’t you just ask us? We would have given it to you,’ " one senior official said. In fact, the official said, the Saudi government subsequently turned over embassy spending records for the past 20 years, including records of Saudi payments for educational expenses and medical attention for Saudi nationals here. "We have nothing to hide," the official said. "If there is something suspicious, we want to know. But if there is nothing, they owe it to us to say publicly they found nothing." Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, authorities also have stepped up their interest in the Saudi government’s support for the puritanical brand of Islam known as Wahhabism. Wahhabism eschews what it considers the West’s corrupting influence on Islam and often advocates violence against Christians, Jews and the West. Its principles have been embraced by al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. The basic tenet of Wahhabism is to welcome all converts, but to SUBDUE those who do not convert. The connection between the Wahhabs and the House of Saud goes back almost 300 years. U.S. and foreign intelligence agencies have documented the flow of money to terrorist groups from organizations affiliated with charities that received funds from wealthy Saudis and the Saudi government. Money for such charities often flows through the embassy’s Islamic and cultural affairs bureau. The subpoenas were issued several weeks after the May deportation of Fahad al Thumairy, who had worked for the Islamic and cultural affairs section of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles since 1996. Thumairy’s visa was revoked, and he was deported because of suspected ties to terrorists, according to officials from the Department of Homeland Security. If there’s smoke look for the smoldering embers. A senior official with direct knowledge of the probe said the FBI was still doing a "preliminary analysis" of the documents. "It is mostly legitimate stuff as far as we can tell so far," the official said, "but there are some things we are following up on." The Saudi official said that, while large sums of money passed through the embassy, most of it was for scholarships for thousands of Saudi students and government-paid medical treatment for Saudi subjects. In all, the official said, about $17 million over the course of 20 years, less than $1 million a year, went to supporting Islamic institutions and religious work in the United States. In contrast, he said, each of the estimated 4,000 Saudi students studying here receives about $40,000 a year, a total of $160 million a year. "The notion that we can send money here and not account for it is preposterous," the official said. "We are not a banana republic." In fact they’re not a republic at all. And that’s worrisome. |
| Posted by:Gasse katze |
| #5 Slowly filling the Stone Bucket... |
| Posted by: mojo 2003-11-23 8:24:18 PM |
| #4 Robert, I think the Saudi criminal that the FBI was going to seize until the State Department negotiated a settlement was the last straw for the FBI. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-11-23 7:22:53 PM |
| #3 Super Hose -- anyone who trusts the State Department is asking for a serious disappointment. Sometimes I think it would be easier to find an honest man in Congress than a loyal American at State. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2003-11-23 2:11:57 PM |
| #2 I think this speaks to how little the FBI trusts our own state department to support US interests over those of Saudi Arabia. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-11-23 10:43:45 AM |
| #1 The title links to page two of the WPO article. Sorry, page one is linked here. |
| Posted by: Gasse Katze 2003-11-23 9:41:35 AM |