Are The Saudi's Bluffing?

An article in the American Thinker posits that the leverage that Saudi Arabia is trying to use isn't quite what it appears to be.

The role of Saudis in the 9/11 attack on the U.S. has hardly been completely hidden: 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis, trained in Wahhabi schools. More than that, there is evidence that Saudi officials in the U.S. aided and abetted them once they were here -- people like Omar al-Bayoumi, who met with some of the hijackers on the very same day he met with someone (as yet not publicly identified) in the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.

The Saudis are allegedly implicated in the 2001 WTC outrage in 28 pages of redacted material contained in the 2003 Congressional report that some senators have tried to make public; there is also a Senate bill that would annul a 1976 law and allow the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Saudis.

While these damning 28 pages were redacted, they are accessible to Congress members, and persons who have served on the committee itself have revealed in general terms their content. Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Committee, indicates the report, “outlines a network of people that supported the hijackers while they were on the West Coast and helped them to enroll in flight school.”

Important persons *cough* Saudis *cough* associated in that "network of people" fled the US after 9/11. None of them were interviewed by federal law enforcement officials. Perhaps they were only worried about a few outstanding parking tickets, eh?

In any event, the Saudis have threatened to sell off three quarters of a trillion dollars of US assets if this bill is passed. This will prevent those assets from being frozen or seized by those families suing the sand princes.

WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill’s passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.

Just my ramblings, I am not sure what kind of economic impact the Saudis could wield with the sale of those assets but after Obama gets through with our economy the Saudis will be lucky to get 15 cents on the dollar.

The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United States soil. If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.