Did the Saudis know about 9/11?

A new book claims that Saudi princes and a Pakistani official knew Osama bin Laden would strike America that day. But some critics say the whole story could be a neoconservative fabrication.

By Mark Follman

Oct 18, 2003 | When U.S. and Pakistani special forces raided a house on the outskirts of Faisalabad, Pakistan, on March 28, 2002, and successfully nabbed top al-Qaida operative Abu Zubaydah, the mood at CIA headquarters was upbeat. Langley watched the early morning raid via satellite, and once a Pakistani intelligence officer and some quick voiceprints confirmed Zubaydah's identity, the CIA knew it had captured one of its most sought-after adversaries, a figure who could potentially reveal the full story of the 9/11 terrorist plot. Shot several times in the raid, Zubaydah was given enough medical treatment to ensure his survival and hauled away for questioning. According to a new book, what Zubaydah said -- after being subjected to highly controversial interrogation methods -- stunned intelligence officials.

In his book "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11," Gerald Posner makes an explosive allegation: Top figures in the Saudi and Pakistani governments had been directly assisting Osama bin Laden for years and knew al-Qaida was going to strike America on Sept. 11. Posner cites two unnamed U.S. government sources, both of whom he asserts are "in a position to know," who he said gave him separate, corroborating reports. One source is from the CIA and the other is a senior Bush administration official "inside the executive branch," he told Salon in an interview.

According to Posner's account, four Saudi princes and the head of Pakistan's air force were deeply involved with Osama bin Laden for years, some of them meeting with him well after al-Qaida began its terror attacks on U.S. targets overseas in the mid-1990s. The fact that some of the figures were so highly placed makes it hard to dismiss the possibility, if the allegations are true, that the heads of the Saudi and Pakistani governments signed off on the policy.

Saudi, Pakistani and U.S. government officials (the latter off the record) have dismissed the story as false. Zubaydah himself subsequently recanted his claims, saying he lied to avoid torture, according to Posner. But Posner thinks the allegations are credible -- not least because four of the five supposed conspirators died under strange circumstances -- and believes the U.S. wants to downplay them for an obvious reason: They're too hot to handle, painting as they do two crucial allies as working hand-in-hand with America's Public Enemy No. 1.

But several intelligence analysts and experts on Saudi Arabia doubt the story's authenticity. While acknowledging that Saudi Arabia has supported fiery proponents of militant Islam and took an early see-no-evil approach to bin Laden, they say it would be highly unlikely that top members of the Saudi royal family would be so deeply involved with a global terrorist organization -- one that seeks to destroy the Saudi regime itself as part of a worldwide jihad against infidels and their allies. They also point to contradictory evidence drawn from separate classified intelligence reports. And some are suspicious of Posner's unnamed sources -- suspicions they say have been heightened by the Bush administration's manipulation of intelligence before the Iraq invasion. Indeed, one analyst suggests the Zubaydah charges could be part of a disinformation campaign launched by neoconservatives who believe that the U.S. should decisively break with Saudi Arabia, which they regard as a corrupt, terrorist-supporting state.

Posner says his two sources told him that U.S. officers used highly unorthodox, coercive methods -- what many would label torture -- to interrogate Zubaydah. For three days they manipulated his medical treatment, withholding full access to painkillers, using a quick "on-and-off" narcotic and giving him sodium pentothal (popularly called "truth serum") to extract information. When Zubaydah didn't talk, they set up a so-called false flag operation, transporting him to a secret location in Afghanistan mocked up to look like a Saudi Arabian jail. Fear of the Saudis' harsh interrogation techniques might make Zubaydah talk, they reasoned.

On March 8, 2003, the New York Times published an account similar to Posner's of the methods used on Zubaydah, also citing unnamed "American officials" as the source. But to date, only Posner has reported what Zubaydah allegedly said.

According to Posner's account, two Arab-American special forces personnel posed as Saudis and took over the questioning of Zubaydah at the secret location in Afghanistan. CIA officials observing from another room watched Zubaydah's reaction with amazement: He was visibly relieved to be in "Saudi" hands, and started talking. He named three Saudi princes, recited their private phone numbers, and told his interrogators to call one prince, saying, "He will tell you what to do." That man was King Fahd's nephew Prince Ahmed bin Salman, a London publishing magnate and horse racing aficionado whose thoroughbred War Emblem won the 2002 Kentucky Derby. Zubaydah made clear he was under the protection -- and direction -- of the princes. During the questioning, Zubaydah also fingered Pakistani air force chief Mushaf Ali Mir, suspected to have close ties with some of the most pro-Islamist elements within Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI.

Zubaydah's "Saudi" interrogators later pressed him on his story, writes Posner, telling Zubaydah that Prince Ahmed had "credibly denied any knowledge of him" and that "he would be executed for disparaging the reputation of a member of the royal family." At that point Zubaydah unleashed a monologue "which one [U.S.] investigator refers to as the Rosetta stone of 9/11."

Zubaydah told his interrogators that he had attended a 1996 meeting in Pakistan where Mushaf Ali Mir struck a deal with Osama bin Laden that provided al-Qaida with protection, arms and supplies. The arrangement was blessed by the Saudis, Zubaydah said. He named a fourth Saudi prince, the kingdom's then intelligence chief, Prince Turki bin Faisal, as the nexus of the Saudi-Pakistani-al-Qaida axis. Zubaydah said Turki attended several meetings with bin Laden in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the 1990's, including one in Kandahar in 1998 at which Taliban members were present, where Turki pledged steady Saudi aid to al-Qaida as long as the terrorist group promised not to attack the kingdom.

Prince Turki, who is now the Saudi ambassador to London, told an Arab newspaper in September, "This information is totally false and groundless. I have had no contacts with bin Laden since 1990, and have never had contacts with al-Qaida, which is a satanic terrorist organization." He also pointed out that Saudi Arabia revoked Osama's citizenship in 1994.

According to Posner, about a month after the interrogation CIA officials, who had found no evidence to discredit the story, cautiously raised the Zubaydah information with their counterparts in Saudi and Pakistani intelligence. Here, the story line veers from le Carré to "The Godfather." Shortly after the U.S. inquiry, on July 22, 2002, Prince Ahmed, age 43, died unexpectedly of a heart attack. On the way to Ahmed's funeral the next day, Prince Sultan al-Saud was killed in a single-car crash. A week later the third prince Zubaydah had fingered, Fahd al-Kabir , was found dead 55 miles east of Riyadh -- according to the Saudi royal court he'd "died of thirst" while traveling in the summer heat. Seven months later Pakistani air force chief Mir, his wife and 15 of his closest associates died in a plane crash near Islamabad. The plane had recently passed maintenance inspection, and the weather was clear. According to the Asia Times, "Reports at the time said that the pilot had been changed just minutes before takeoff."

Next Page: Were the deaths mere coincidence -- or part of a high-level coverup?

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