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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gao seng who wrote (201929)	11/11/2001 11:48:43 AM
From: gao seng	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Saudi Threat Pushed Bush Into Israeli-Palestinian Peace Initiative Halted by Sept. 11 Jump to first matched term Prince Bandar on Hearing that Hijackers Were Suspected to be From Saudi Arabia: 'I Felt As if the Twin Towers Has Just Fallen on My Head' NEW YORK, Nov. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- President Bush made his peace proposal for Israel and Palestine at the end of August after he had received a threat from Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah that if the U.S. continued to permit Israel to wage war on Palestine, Saudi Arabia would have to heed Arab public opinion, riled by the violence, Newsweek reports in the current issue. Some diplomats suspected that the Saudis may terminate America's military presence in their country. Bush responded by promising to try to create a Palestinian state and protect the rights of all religions in Jerusalem. (Photo: newscom.com ) Abdullah became impatient with the Bush administration's unwillingness to step in and so he sent Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Ambassador to the U.S., to deliver the message to National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, report Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and Middle East Regional Editor Christopher Dickey in the November 19 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, November 12). Until this time, the Saudis had not been deeply involved in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Though the Saudis pay Arafat's bills at the Ritz Carlton Hotel when the comes to Washington, Abdullah "disdains" the Palestinan Authority leader because of his indecision and ingratitude, a high former U.S. official tells Newsweek. In the Newsweek report, Dickey and Thomas examine the tight relationship between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia and how the Sept. 11 attacks and subsequent investigation have affected that relationship. On Sept. 12, a high-ranking CIA official phoned Bandar who told him that American intelligence believed that possibly as many as 16 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia. "I felt as if the Twin Towers had just fallen on my head," Bandar tells Newsweek. Saudi Foreign Minister Saudi al-Faisal tells Newsweek that recent allegations in opinion columns in newspapers across the country that the Saudis secretly channeled funds to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda terror network are "totally ridiculous. From the beginning we have tried to track the money and gotten very little cooperation." He blamed western banks for hobbling the investigation. The Saudis have been more forthcoming on helping to investigate the hijackers themselves. A senior U.S. intelligence official tells Newsweek that after Sept. 11, the Saudis quickly confirmed the identities of the hijackers, interviewed family and neighbors, and shared the information with the CIA and FBI. The Saudis did not advertise their cooperation, however. The royal family cannot afford to be perceived by the restless Arab "street" as being too cozy with the U.S. In the view of some Saudi insiders, the perception of friction between Riyadh and Washington could turn out to be useful disinformation. "Saudi Arabia is going to be the key" to tracking down terrorists, says a close adviser to the royal family, "and the fact that we're being criticized may actually make the job easier." After Sept. 11, Bandar gave interviews to newspapers and appeared on news programs to extol the fact that Saudi Arabia had cut its diplomatic ties to the Taliban. But then Bandar seemed to disappear and the Saudi voice was silent in Washington. Then last week, the Saudi royal family's foreign affairs adviser, Adel al-Jubeir, in a public relations offensive, made the rounds in Washington and on Capitol Hill. He said contrary to reports, the Saudis have detained hundreds of suspects in the attack. He also said a couple of the hijackers were "mentally unstable." He scoffed at the notion that the strict fundamentalist curriculum of Saudi schools had made its graduates want to die for Allah. The schools had produced from 300,00 graduates. The fact that 15 of them (mostly well-educated members of the middle class) went on to become terrorists is "an accounting error," he said dismissively, adding, "The Unabomber went to Harvard." (Read Newsweek's news releases at newsweek.msnbc.com. Click "Pressroom.") SOURCE Newsweek