NEW BOOK - Bush-Saudi Ties: The Billion Dollar Question

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Bush-Saudi Ties: The Billion Dollar Question

http://www.mediachannel.org/views/dissector/affalert160.shtml

NEW YORK, March 22, 2004 -- With the media, timing is everything," says Craig Unger, whose book "House of Bush, House of Saud" is just out. "And now is the time to get to bottom of the events leading to 9-11." snip

"Without the Saudis, there is no 9-11," he says. "That's the ugly truth. When we delve into it, we begin unraveling a thread that is central to American political culture."

Questions raised in Unger's book have never been asked in a White House press conference -- but should be.

Questions like: Why did the Bush Administration authorize the airlift of 140 Saudis out of the United States immediately after 9-11, when airspace was so restricted that, as recounted in the book's dramatic opening, a plane carrying a heart transplant for a desperately ill man was forced from the air?

Those flown out included 24 members of Osama bin Laden's family -- and one Saudi prince with reported links to Al Qaeda.

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The Sauds and the Bushes


http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/living/8235572.htm

Journalist explores whether ruling families are too close for comfort

By J.R. Labbe

Star-Telegram Staff Writer


With a spate of books critical of the current administration arriving in stores in the months leading up to the presidential election, Craig Unger's House of Bush, House of Saud runs the risk of being dismissed by George W. Bush supporters as one more example of ideological spleen-venting. snip

Much of the information Unger has amassed from a variety of sources and personal interviews is not new. Take, for example, information about 140 Saudis, including dozens of relatives of Osama bin Laden, being flown out of the United States in the days immediately following Sept. 11 -- a time when almost all other air traffic was grounded.

Astoundingly, at a time when "Arabs all over the country were being rounded up and interrogated," these Saudis were allowed to leave without being so much as interviewed by federal law-enforcement officials.

That nugget and others in Unger's investigation have been scattered among newspapers and magazines in unconnected bites for months -- and, in some cases, years. But Unger has skillfully packaged declassified government documents, reports from congressional investigations and media accounts to construct a jarring picture of money, power and privilege that raises as many questions as it answers.

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[redqueen]

1. Beauty

Thanks for posting! Star Telegram is a great paper. :)

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