Bush's Troubling SOTU Guest

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/story/31787/

 

Bush's Troubling SOTU Guest

 

By Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet. Posted February 6, 2006.

 

 

Cindy Sheehan wasn't welcome -- but a Saudi accused of supporting al

Qaida was.

 

While Cindy Sheehan was being dragged from the House gallery moments

before President Bush delivered his State of the Union Address for

wearing a T-shirt honoring her son and the other 2,244 U.S. soldiers

killed in Iraq, Turki al-Faisal was settling into his seat inside the

gallery. Al-Faisal, a Saudi, is a man who has met Osama bin Laden and

his lieutenants on at least five occasions, describing the al Qaida

leader as " quite a pleasant man. " He met multiple times with Taliban

leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. Yet, unlike Sheehan, al-Faisal was a

welcomed guest of President Bush on Tuesday night. He is also a man

that the families of more than 600 victims of the 9/11 attacks believe

was connected to their loved ones' deaths.

 

Al-Faisal is actually Prince Turki al-Faisal, a leading member of the

Saudi royal family and the kingdom's current ambassador to the United

States. But the bulk of his career was spent at the helm of the feared

Saudi intelligence services from 1977 to 2001. Last year, the New York

Times pointed out that " he personally managed Riyadh's relations with

Osama bin Laden and Mullah Muhammad Omar of the Taliban. Anyone else

who had dealings with even a fraction of the notorious characters the

prince has worked with over the years would never make it past a U.S.

immigration counter, let alone to the most exclusive offices in

Washington. " Al-Faisal was also named in the $1 trillion lawsuit filed

by hundreds of 9/11 victims' families, who accused him of funding bin

Laden's network. Curiously, his tenure as head of Saudi intelligence

came to an abrupt and unexpected end 10 days before the 9/11 attacks.

 

" Nobody explained the circumstances under which he left, " says As'ad

AbuKhalil, author of " The Battle for Saudi Arabia: Royalty,

Fundamentalism, and Global Power. " " We know for sure that he was

tasked by the United States government back in the late 1970s and on

to assemble the kind of Arab Muslim fanatical volunteers to help the

United States and the CIA in the fight against the Soviet Communist

regime [in Afghanistan]. In the course of doing that, this man is

single-handedly most responsible for the kind of menace that these

fanatical groups now pose to world peace and security. " Yet, there

al-Faisal sat on Tuesday as President Bush spoke of his war on terror

and Cindy Sheehan was being booked. At one point, the cameras even

panned directly on al-Faisal listening intently to Bush.

 

The 9/11 families' lawsuit charged that al-Faisal secretly traveled to

the southern Afghan city of Kandahar twice in 1998, where he met with

bin Laden's representatives and Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

Based on sworn testimony from Taliban intelligence chief, Mullah

Kakshar, the lawsuit claimed that al-Faisal allegedly received

assurances that al Qaida would not use " the infrastructure in

Afghanistan to subvert the royal families' control of Saudi

government. " In return, according to the lawsuit, the Saudis promised

not to seek bin Laden's extradition or the closing of his training

bases. Al-Faisal also allegedly promised Mullah Omar financial

assistance. Shortly after the meetings, the Saudis reportedly shipped

the Taliban 400 new pickup trucks. According to the London Observer,

Kakshar also said that al-Faisal " arranged for donations to be made

directly to al-Qaida and bin Laden by a group of wealthy Saudi

businessmen. 'Mullah Kakshar's sworn statement implicates Prince Turki

as the facilitator of these money transfers in support of the Taliban,

al Qaida and international terrorism,' " according to the lawsuit.

 

Al-Faisal does not deny he traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 for

meetings with Mullah Omar, but he insists it was to " convey an

official Saudi request to extradite Osama bin Laden. " Al-Faisal has a

long history in Afghanistan. He worked closely in the 1980s with the

both the CIA and the mujahadeen that would later form both al Qaida

and the Taliban.

 

Ultimately, a judge dismissed the 9/11 families' lawsuit against

al-Faisal and his cohorts, saying U.S. courts lacked jurisdiction over

the matter. But many of those families believe firmly that al-Faisal

was connected to the attacks that killed their loved ones. The obvious

question is: How does the president justify the ejection of a Gold

Star Mother from the State of the Union, while openly welcoming a man

believed by hundreds of victims' families to be connected to the

attack Bush uses to justify every shred of his violent policies?

 

During his speech, Bush said, " It is said that prior to the attacks of

September the 11th, our government failed to connect the dots of the

conspiracy. " Perhaps he should have just looked over his wife's

shoulder up there in the gallery during the State of the Union.

 

Jeremy Scahill, a correspondent for the national radio/TV program

Democracy Now!, is a Puffin Writing Fellow at The Nation Institute.