In establishing how the government failed to prevent the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, the 9/11 Commission Report is excellent. Its grasp of some details, however, is less than reassuring - particularly details about Saudi Arabia, which it calls, in a gross understatement, "a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism." Perhaps even more startling is the report's conclusion that the panel has "found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually" helped to finance Al Qaeda.
| "No, no! The Emperor's not nekkid! The fabric's just too fine for the common folks to make out!" |
It does say that unnamed wealthy Saudi sympathizers, and leading Saudi charities, sent money to the terror group. But the report fails to mine any of the widely available reporting and research that establishes the degree to which many of the suspect charities cited by the United States are controlled directly by the Saudi government or some of its ministers. The 9/11 panel misses an opportunity, for example, to more fully explore an intelligence coup in 2002, when American agents in Bosnia retrieved computer files of the so-called Golden Chain, a group of Osama bin Laden's early financial supporters.
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