Saudis Play a Major Role in Al-Qaeda's Iraq Network

[ECH1969]

WASHINGTON -- Saudi security officers have been determined to play a major role in Al Qaida's network in Iraq.

U.S. officials said Saudi nationals, including members of the kingdom's security forces, have played a major role in Sunni insurgency attacks in Iraq. They said hundreds of Saudi nationals accused of participating in Al Qaida-aligned attacks have been arrested in Iraq over the last year.

In all, about 2,000 Saudi nationals have been recruited into the Sunni insurgency, many of them in the network led by Abu Mussib Al Zarqawi. They were said to have included hundreds of members of the Saudi National Guard, commanded by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, who met President George Bush in Crawford, Texas in April.

Officials said Saudi nationals comprise a leading element in the foreign insurgency presence in Iraq. They said the majority of the foreign fighters come from Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria and their numbers are growing.

http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2005/may/05_04_1.html
----------------------------------------------------------------

But, they are are pals aren't they?

[fertilizeonarbusto]

1. Yup

we hold hands with them...

[Roland99]

2. MIHOP/LIHOP and all that. No surprise. Oil is thicker than blood.

[BlueEyedSon]

3. And GWB is pals with the Saudis......

[applegrove]

4. Why would they want democracy to bloom in the ME? They are

an embedded elite just like the Bushites. Tribalism works for them to keep the people busy not asking for democratic reform.

Rumsfield alluded to this in his press conference last week - just as the Saudi Prince reached out and started hand holding with Bush.

Neocons desire to see democracy in the ME is 1) to make sure that Saudi Petro dollars do not continue to corrupt the US economy 2) kill off the Islamists that Saudi Elites encourage so that they can maintaining power & unlimited wealth. That is until all the oil is gone and the Saudi Families will then move out of the ME.

Just like with the religious right.. the neocons played the Saudis.

[FreedomAngel82]

7. They don't want democracy

They want another Saddam puppet they can control and get all the oil from.

[applegrove]

9. By 'they' in my title, I meant the Saudis. The way to control Oil is to

have Oil Companies that are bigger than the average democracy in the ME. And to keep the UN out of the 'war on human rights' by calling it a 'pre-emptive war'. Therefore it is Haliburton that makes the inroads.

Democracies are slow. And if you encourage democracies you get rid of tribalism (islamism) and the elites (Saudi money skews the American economy and makes for a credit crunch the US has suffered from for 30 years). Of course neocons want the islamists to be killed off. Of course big oil can get a good deal out of a democracy... if they are the biggest kids on the block and dominate.

In the late 1990s they did a study and 51 of the world's largest economies were corporations.

And if you have a democracy like "iraq" and the democracy of "Saudiland votes to join with part of the democracy of "Iraq".. then you can run in, start a war and say "this is anti-democratic!".

The Islamist Arabs want to join all the Arab ME countries into one.

[htuttle]

5. I believe the story, but don't trust the source

MENewsline is neocon to the core.

Given the propensity of the Bush administration to not know what its neocon hand is doing, I wonder if there is a new attempt from some of them to put the Saudis on the defensive.

Not that they SHOULDN'T be on the defensive for the financial support of fundamentalist terrorism, but that's been long known, though long denied, by the various powers-that-be.

[stillcool]

6. The whole Saudi thing...

seems to me a mirror of our own country. Like our leaders, the party-boys in Saudi Arabia spend like drunken fools and only look out for themselves. Their 'religous-right' is not so easy placated as ours seems to be, and their general populace has had longer to simmer than we have. Our only friends in the Middle-East are those whose coffers we have filled. No money...no honey.

[Frederik]

8. Some neo-cons want to

invade Saudi Arabia and partition it into small bantustans, just like they want to do with Iraq. I don't think the Bushes would be in favour of that solution, though. But, one never knows. Anyways, the neo-cons want a new war. Against whom appears to be of secondary importance.

[Teaser]

10. You're shittin' me, right?

The Saudis? Our friends? Our asshole buddies?

I'm sorry, but I just can't take this at face value. It looks like a frame-up job to me.

[mmonk]

11. no no no

They're Saddam "loyalists" like the ones that did 9/11.

[MasonJar]

12. Who would bail Stump out of his next fiasco if something happen-

ed to the Saudis? If old Georgie ever had to legitimately work, he would be in the poor house within a very short time.