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Thursday, Sept. 11, 2003

Al-Qaeda leaders "felt that the nationality that would not ring a bell when it came to security screening at that time would be Saudis," the Saudi official told reporters in Washington this week, on condition that he not be identified.

Fifteen of the 19 terrorists who killed more than 3,000 people on Sept. 11 by crashing hijacked planes were Saudis.

Before the attacks, the screening for Saudis requesting visas was designed only to filter out those who might try to settle in the United States after their visa expired. "If they [did] not appear on criminal or terrorist watch lists they [were] granted a visa," CIA Director George Tenet told the congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11 attacks last year.

At least two other Arabs who planned to take part in the attacks - Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni; and Zakariya Essabar, a Moroccan - were denied visas, in Binalshibh's case five times. Binalshibh is in U.S. custody, but Essabar is still at large.

A Saudi-U.S. Split

The Saudi official added that Mohammed said the plotters hoped to drive a wedge between Saudi Arabia and the United States, and turn U.S. public opinion against the kingdom.

The choice was made for "political reasons. They wanted to hit Saudi Arabia as much as the United States. They knew the ramification this could have on the relations between the two countries ... on American public opinion," the official said.

The official pointed out that, though Saudis were subject to less scrutiny than, say, Yemenis when they applied for visas pre-Sept. 11, the same was true of the citizens of other Arab nations such as Kuwait and Qatar.

"By the time the decision was made," he said, "it was too late to change the major players, hence, as you will notice, only one of the pilots was a Saudi. ... They were not happy that they did not have enough time to train Saudis to be able to fly the aircraft.

"That was what [Mohammed] told his interrogators."

Mohammed, who identified himself in an interview with al-Jazeera television as the chief operational planner for the attacks, was seized in Pakistan this year and is in U.S. custody at an undisclosed location. The Saudi official said he had learned of Mohammed's comments from U.S. officials.

No U.S. officials with knowledge of Mohammed's interrogation would confirm the Saudi's account, but a diplomat, who has direct personal knowledge of the intelligence gleaned from it, did so.

"Yes, it is true," he told UPI on condition of anonymity.

'Easy to Recruit'

He said Mohammed had also provided a third reason for the preponderance of Saudis among the hijackers.

"It was easy to recruit Saudis," he said Mohammed told his interrogators, "because of the general resentment."

U.S. officials agree that this was a factor in the choice.

"Saudi Arabia is a place where there is a reservoir of discontent and extremism," said one State Department official, "the Saudis had a terrorism problem which they've only just started to come to terms with."

Others expressed skepticism that the hijack plotters had thought through the diplomatic consequences of the composition of their team.

"I'm kind of doubtful about that," said former Defense Intelligence Agency Middle East specialist Pat Lang, of the political reasoning.

Lang, who has lived in Saudi Arabia, said that there would have been a willing pool of recruits there and that this was probably what mainly accounted for the large number of Saudis in the team.

"It strikes me as being post hoc reasoning," one terrorism analyst said. "The involvement of Saudis in previous terrorist actions had not driven a real wedge between the United States and the kingdom."

He acknowledged that Mohammed might nevertheless have told his captors that such a Machiavellian scheme was intended from the beginning.

"I see the primary reason as very practical," he said, "that they were looking for people who could get visas relatively easily."

Express Distress

Prior to Sept. 11, Saudi Arabia was one of several countries where the "Visa Express" program operated. Under this scheme, travel agencies or other middlemen would assist applicants with filling out forms and deliver documents to the embassy.

Less than one in 10 applicants were interviewed. The vast majority were nodded through.

The Visa Express program was ended in July 2002 after congressional criticism. Since then, new regulations stipulate that every Saudi adult male who wants to come to the United States must be interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed. Decisions about whether to grant a visa are now reviewed by Homeland Security officials.

Copyright 2003 by United Press International.

All rights reserved.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:
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Editor's note:
Gerald Posner reveals how Bill Clinton could have prevented 9/11 - Click here for details!