Top Saudi Arabian Official to Meet With Bush
July 29, 2003
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
WASHINGTON, July 28 - Saudi Arabia has sent its foreign
minister to Washington to meet with President Bush on
Tuesday, an administration official said tonight.
The foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, is expected to
raise with Mr. Bush and other administration officials his
country's concern about reports that classified sections of
a Congressional study about the terrorist attacks on Sept.
11, 2001, found that senior Saudi officials had funneled
hundreds of millions of dollars to organizations that might
have helped pay for them.
The foreign minister's hurriedly arranged visit reflects
sensitivity in Saudi Arabia to the suggestions that,
knowingly or unknowingly, it might have aided the
terrorists who attacked the United States. Saudi officials
have denounced any suggestions that they helped pay for the
attacks.
The visit could also add to the pressure on the
administration to declassify a 28-page section of the
report, which was deleted from the nearly 900-page
declassified version released Thursday by a joint committee
of the House and Senate intelligence committees. People who
saw the section have said it focuses on the role foreign
governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost
entirely on Saudi Arabia.
Senator Bob Graham, Democrat of Florida, a co-chairman of
the investigation into the intelligence failures behind the
attacks, called on the White House earlier today to make
the classified section public.
Releasing it, said Mr. Graham, a candidate for his party's
presidential nomination, would "permit the Saudi government
to deal with any questions which may be raised in the
currently censored pages, and allow the American people to
make their own judgment about who are our true friends and
allies in the war on terrorism."
The Saudis have made it clear that they intend to fight
back against any assertion that they were involved in the
attacks. Some Saudi officials have said the organization
behind them, Al Qaeda, is as hostile to Saudi Arabia's
rulers as it is to the United States, or nearly so.
After the Congressional report was released last week, the
Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin
Sultan, called the accusation that his country had helped
pay the terrorists "outrageous" and added, "The idea that
the Saudi government funded, organized or even knew about
Sept. 11 is malicious and blatantly false."
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company