The thing that wouldn't die

It's ridiculed, denied, attacked, ignored, labeled paranoia and conspiracy mongering, but, like the phoenix, the story of Saudi involvement with al-Qaeda and September 11 keeps rising from its own ashes.

Washington (Reuters, September 5) - U.S. Sen. Bob Graham, intelligence committee chairman in the run-up to the Iraq war, said on Sunday the Bush administration had "taken every step" to shield Saudi Arabia from links to the Sept. 11 attacks. ...

He told NBC's "Meet the Press" that his new book, "Intelligence Matters," makes the case on "the extent to which Saudi Arabia was a key part of making 9/11 happen."

"Yet this administration has taken every step to obfuscate, avoid and cover up Saudi Arabia's actions," he added. ...

Excerpts from Graham's book, which goes on sale on Tuesday, showed that at least two of the hijackers had support from Omar al-Bayoumi, whom the senator called a Saudi government spy and said was a "ghost employee" of a Saudi contracting firm, Erean. The owner of the firm, Graham said, was thought to be a supporter of Osama bin Laden.

An Agencie France Presse report, quoting the Miami Herald, adds some details.

Al-Bayoumi was receiving money from a contractor for Saudi Civil Aviation, and his monthly allowance [went] from 465 dollars to 3,700 dollars in March 2000, the book says.

His pay increased after he helped hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhdar find apartments and make contacts in San Diego before they took flying lessons, Graham wrote.

But Graham wrote that congressional staff were stopped by the White House and the FBI from conducting interviews for the investigation, according to the Herald.

"It was as if the president's loyalty lay more with Saudi Arabia than with America's safety," Graham wrote.

In his book, which is to be released Tuesday, Graham says some details of the agents' alleged financial support were part of 27 pages from the September 11 panel's final report that were blanked out by the White House, the Herald said.

The White House, of course, insists that those same 27 pages actually totally exonerate the Saudis and sneeringly referred to Graham as a "failed presidential candidate." Of course, so is John McCain and they're happy enough to have him around.

In any event, while I've never been a fan of Bob Graham, given the choice of who to believe, I'd say it's a no-brainer. But on the other hand, maybe, just maybe, making that choice won't even be necessary.

New York (Dow Jones, September 5) - Cantor Fitzgerald, the brokerage firm that lost 658 employees in the Sept. 11 attack, has sued Saudi Arabia, charging that the kingdom "provided funding and material support and substantial assistance" to Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported Saturday.

The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan this week, goes further than previous 9/11 damage suits in its accusations against the Saudi government and royal family, the paper said.

The suit singles out four Saudi officials, saying they organized and controlled a network of financial institutions and charities that aided Al Qaeda for at least seven years before Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Times. ...

The suit charges that the Saudi kingdom participated in a racketeering conspiracy by "materially supporting Al Qaeda, knowingly and intentionally employing Al Qaeda operatives, laundering money for Al Qaeda, raising and distributing financial assistance to Al Qaeda (often under false pretenses)," among other allegations, the Times said. ...

The Times said the four Saudi officials accused in the suit are Prince Nayef bin Abdel Aziz, the interior minister; Prince Sultan bin Abdel Aziz, the defense minister; Prince Salman bin Abdel Aziz, the governor of Riyadh; and Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former intelligence chief, who is now ambassador in London. The suit alleges that they licensed and exercised direct control over the institutions that provided aid to Al Qaeda, the paper said.

The suit, while it goes further and is more dramatic than similar suits, those mostly by families of 9/11 victims and insurance companies seeking to recover losses, actually has something going for it that many of the others don't: It alleges specific actions by specific people, which may make it harder to dismiss without discovery. And while I expect there's less than an even chance of it happening, if a case like this did proceed to discovery, it could be a real wow.