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'Newsweek' Reporter Discusses Saudi Arabia
Aired December 03, 2002 - 11:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get some perspective on Saudi Arabia's terrorism report, and for that, let's turn now to Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek" magazine, who had a very interesting piece in this week's issue.
Michael, the piece about listing reports that, in fact, I guess evidence that came from a hearing on the Hill detailing how money somehow made it from the Saudi Arabian ambassador's wife into two of the -- I guess, the coffers of two of the 9/11 hijackers. And I was listening to see if there would be any news at all about that from this news conference that we heard from Mr. al-Jubeir, and we didn't hear anything on that. Were you surprised by that?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, "NEWSWEEK": No, I think they have -- Prince Bandar had given an interview last week to "The New York Times," in which he addressed some of that. But I think the purpose of the press conference today was to sort of take a step back and look at the broader issue of how money that has gone from the Saudi Arabian government to a lot of these Islamic charities have wound up in the hands and in the pockets of terrorist operations.
Now, there was not an explicit acknowledgement of that. In fact, Adel al-Jubeir said that the Saudis had no concrete evidence that that had taken place. But there was an implicit acknowledgement that there have been very loose controls over these government-funded charities, and that they can't account for where a lot of the money has gone. And that as a result, they are taking these sort of proactive steps of tightening up, auditing of the charities and putting more controls on how they conduct their operations.
HARRIS: Well, so, did you hear any news at all in some of the controls that we heard announced this morning, anything that you did not hear before or did not know about before?
ISIKOFF: Well, we reported on a lot of this in this week's issue of "Newsweek," but I think the significance here is the implicit acknowledgement that there is a problem. You know, the principal purpose of the press conference was to address the broader public relations problem that the Saudi government has, which is that in light of all of the reports about Saudi financing of terrorism, it has, you know, become an irritant in U.S.-Saudi relations, that in fact there are many people within the Bush administration who are concerned that the Saudis aren't doing enough.
The principal purpose of the press conference was to address this, to talk about how the Saudis feel themselves, that they are the victim of al Qaeda, that al Qaeda is an enemy of their regime, and that's certainly true, and that they have as much of an interest as the U.S. in fighting bin Laden's terror network.
But the secondary purpose was, I think, this sort of implicit acknowledgement that there have been problems, and that they have to take steps to address them.
HARRIS: Well, let me ask you about this, because one other statement that he made this morning that stepped out or jumped out in my mind was the comment that he made about anonymous officials that have been criticizing the Saudi Arabian government and how he's never met an anonymous official there in Washington.
What do you make of the fact that a lot of the officials who have been talking about this and have been criticizing either the Bush administration for not being stronger or tougher on the Saudi Arabian government on following up on these things, or you know, also has been critical of the Saudi Arabian government for not doing enough? What do you make about the fact these people will not come out and at least be more open about their criticisms?
ISIKOFF: Well, welcome to Washington. That's the way it works. I mean, in this, as in many other issues, the fact is that there is a division of opinion within the U.S. government and among U.S. government agencies. You have the law enforcement intelligence agencies, who tend to be very focused on the war on terror and want to press the Saudis to do more, feel that they haven't gotten sufficient cooperation.
And then, you have the diplomatic end in the National Security Council and other officials within the -- who are very concerned about courting Saudi Arabia, keeping Saudi Arabia a close ally to the United States, both for oil reasons and also for possible impending military action against Iraq in which the U.S. will be heavily dependent on Saudi cooperation.
So, you have that implicit tension there between different agencies and different officials with different agendas.
HARRIS: Michael Isikoff from "Newsweek," thank you very much, and nice work, a very good piece this week. Appreciate your time today.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
Aired December 3, 2002 - 11:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: Let's get some perspective on Saudi Arabia's terrorism report, and for that, let's turn now to Michael Isikoff of "Newsweek" magazine, who had a very interesting piece in this week's issue.
Michael, the piece about listing reports that, in fact, I guess evidence that came from a hearing on the Hill detailing how money somehow made it from the Saudi Arabian ambassador's wife into two of the -- I guess, the coffers of two of the 9/11 hijackers. And I was listening to see if there would be any news at all about that from this news conference that we heard from Mr. al-Jubeir, and we didn't hear anything on that. Were you surprised by that?
MICHAEL ISIKOFF, "NEWSWEEK": No, I think they have -- Prince Bandar had given an interview last week to "The New York Times," in which he addressed some of that. But I think the purpose of the press conference today was to sort of take a step back and look at the broader issue of how money that has gone from the Saudi Arabian government to a lot of these Islamic charities have wound up in the hands and in the pockets of terrorist operations.
Now, there was not an explicit acknowledgement of that. In fact, Adel al-Jubeir said that the Saudis had no concrete evidence that that had taken place. But there was an implicit acknowledgement that there have been very loose controls over these government-funded charities, and that they can't account for where a lot of the money has gone. And that as a result, they are taking these sort of proactive steps of tightening up, auditing of the charities and putting more controls on how they conduct their operations.
HARRIS: Well, so, did you hear any news at all in some of the controls that we heard announced this morning, anything that you did not hear before or did not know about before?
ISIKOFF: Well, we reported on a lot of this in this week's issue of "Newsweek," but I think the significance here is the implicit acknowledgement that there is a problem. You know, the principal purpose of the press conference was to address the broader public relations problem that the Saudi government has, which is that in light of all of the reports about Saudi financing of terrorism, it has, you know, become an irritant in U.S.-Saudi relations, that in fact there are many people within the Bush administration who are concerned that the Saudis aren't doing enough.
The principal purpose of the press conference was to address this, to talk about how the Saudis feel themselves, that they are the victim of al Qaeda, that al Qaeda is an enemy of their regime, and that's certainly true, and that they have as much of an interest as the U.S. in fighting bin Laden's terror network.
But the secondary purpose was, I think, this sort of implicit acknowledgement that there have been problems, and that they have to take steps to address them.
HARRIS: Well, let me ask you about this, because one other statement that he made this morning that stepped out or jumped out in my mind was the comment that he made about anonymous officials that have been criticizing the Saudi Arabian government and how he's never met an anonymous official there in Washington.
What do you make of the fact that a lot of the officials who have been talking about this and have been criticizing either the Bush administration for not being stronger or tougher on the Saudi Arabian government on following up on these things, or you know, also has been critical of the Saudi Arabian government for not doing enough? What do you make about the fact these people will not come out and at least be more open about their criticisms?
ISIKOFF: Well, welcome to Washington. That's the way it works. I mean, in this, as in many other issues, the fact is that there is a division of opinion within the U.S. government and among U.S. government agencies. You have the law enforcement intelligence agencies, who tend to be very focused on the war on terror and want to press the Saudis to do more, feel that they haven't gotten sufficient cooperation.
And then, you have the diplomatic end in the National Security Council and other officials within the -- who are very concerned about courting Saudi Arabia, keeping Saudi Arabia a close ally to the United States, both for oil reasons and also for possible impending military action against Iraq in which the U.S. will be heavily dependent on Saudi cooperation.
So, you have that implicit tension there between different agencies and different officials with different agendas.
HARRIS: Michael Isikoff from "Newsweek," thank you very much, and nice work, a very good piece this week. Appreciate your time today.
TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.
