Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are among the supposed U.S. allies with longstanding links to terrorism that the White House has seemed reluctant to explore.

No matter how it is explained away, the inconvenient fact remains that the wife of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's longtime ambassador to the United States, sent thousands of dollars to a Saudi family in San Diego that was befriending two men who later were among the Sept. 11 hijackers.

There is no reason to believe that the Saudi royal family would have knowingly supported the most horrific terrorist acts in U.S. history. Those crimes damaged the Saudi government's political and economic interests, too. However, the embarrassing -- and potentially explosive -- revelation is further evidence of the complex, morally ambiguous relationship between the Saudi regime and Islamic terrorism.

The Saudi dictatorship made a deal with the devil long ago, choosing to tolerate -- and in many cases encourage and subsidize -- Islamic extremism, as long as the extremists' anger remained focused on Washington or Jerusalem instead of Riyadh.

The revelation also sheds further light on the Bush administration's curious reluctance to give the Saudis' double-dealing the scrutiny it deserves.

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin startled international journalists when he said more attention should be paid to "those who finance terrorism" and reminded his audience that 15 of the 19 Sept. 11 terrorists were Saudis.

Putin's blunt comments were startling not because they were incorrect or inappropriate; everything Putin said is true and important. Instead, the words were startling because they were so much more candid than anything that has been said on the subject by the man standing next to Putin at the time: President Bush.

U.S. authorities have complained quietly for more than a year that the Saudi government has not cooperated with their efforts to investigate the backgrounds of the hijackers who were Saudi citizens. The Saudis also have not been entirely helpful in investigators' efforts to track the trail of money and other assistance that sustained the Sept. 11 terrorists while they were in this country.

The Saudis' reluctance is understandable. Osama bin Laden himself is the product of a wealthy and influential Saudi family, and the ties between the royal family and groups associated with terrorism were documented long before last week's revelation. For example, a suit filed by the families of hundreds of victims of the Sept. 11 attacks gives details of millions of dollars in payments from Prince Sultan, the Saudi defense minister, to four supposed charities linked to al-Qaida.

The Saudi government is hardly the only nominally pro-American regime with deep ties to terrorists. While the White House hails Pakistan's military ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, as a staunch ally in the war against terrorism, elements of the Pakistani government continue to protect members of al-Qaida, Afghanistan's deposed Taliban regime and other Islamic extremist groups. U.S. intelligence also has determined that Pakistan's crucial support for North Korea's nuclear weapons program has continued since President Bush included Pyongyang in his "axis of evil."

Since Sept. 11, the president's rhetoric has tended to divide the world neatly into allies and evildoers, but reality is much more complicated than that. Iraq is an undemocratic state with troubling ties to terrorism -- but so are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. Iran and Syria are benefactors of Hezbollah and other Islamic terrorist groups -- but both governments have given the United States important covert help in some antiterrorist operations.

The global war against terrorism will be long and costly, and it is important that our government help to protect the truth from becoming another casualty of that war. While the Bush administration has exaggerated the immediate threat posed by Iraq, it has downplayed friendlier governments' ties to terrorism.

Our oil dependency should not shelter Saudi Arabia's royal family from honest scrutiny. The help Musharraf has provided us on one level cannot erase the deeper links to terrorism that pervade Pakistan's government.

Several Republican and Democratic members of Congress are pressing for a full investigation of the money that went from the wife of Prince Bandar to the friends of two Sept. 11 hijackers. That investigation should be pursued, but it shouldn't end there. A much more complex and disturbing story -- one detailing the links between the Sept. 11 murderers and governments that supposedly are our allies in the war against terrorism -- still has not been fully told.

Back to Opinion

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy
Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

From the Times
Opinion page