The Fuel For Fahrenheit 9/11

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http://www.sundayherald.com/44026

 

The Fuel For Fahrenheit 9/11

 

 

Michael Moore turned Bush’s links with the Saudi royal

family into box-office success, but it was American

journalist Craig Unger who uncovered the whole story.

Torcuil Crichton hears how he battled right-wing

censorship to tell it

 

 

Thanks to the First Amendment of the United States

constitution, some robust laws that defend writers

against libel and principles that enshrine freedom of

expression and an open system of government, respected

American journalist Craig Unger has been able to write

an explosive book about President George Bush and his

links to the Saudi royal family.

 

It’s called House Of Bush House Of Saud and in it

Unger details the connections between a leading member

of the Saudi royal family and the fundamentalist

terrorist groups determined to destroy the US. It was

this book that formed the backbone of Michael Moore’s

much-hyped documentary Fahrenheit 9/11.

 

The Jeddah-based Saudi billionaire, Khalid bin

Mahfouz, has been publicly linked to funding received

by Osama bin Laden in America before but the new

dimension to House Of Bush House Of Saud is that Unger

also peels away the business links between the Texas

oil circle of the Bush family and the families of Bin

Mahfouz and other rich Saudis.

 

In Britain, where Saudis prefer to take their libel

actions to court, Unger has had to be more circumspect

than in his homeland. His first publisher, Random

House, refused to take the risk with the book and

Amazon, the internet bookseller, declined to sell it

online from its UK website. There have been forced

amendments too, taken on with some fanfare by Gibson

Square Publishing. But the book, he assures me, is 95%

there. And it is there in astonishing and explosive

detail.

 

Unger’s book details the $1.4 billion that the Bush

family circle has made out of the Saudi Royal

connection in a 30-year relationship, how these close

business and personal links may have clouded the US

war on terror and how the Saudi investment in the

Texan political dynasty was repaid in spades in the

immediate aftermath of 9/11.

 

In the days after the attack on the World Trade Centre

and the Pentagon, when US air traffic was tightly

restricted, 140 Saudis, many immediate relatives of

Osama bin Laden, were permitted to leave the country

without being questioned by US intelligence. From

locations around the US, the Saudis were collected and

flown across the Atlantic to London, Europe and

beyond.

 

“The disturbing thing is that two dozen members of the

bin Laden family were shepherded out of the country

with White House approval,” says Unger. “They should

have been detained as material witnesses. This is not

to suggest that they were guilty of anything but in

the most basic criminal investigation you’d want to

question the innocent family members of the accused

too. Instead they were whisked away.”

 

In Britain, Unger’s accusations would be taken very

seriously, but in America the material is either

wilfully ignored by the media or dismissed as

conspiracy theory.

 

It’s hard to dismiss Unger as a conspiracy theorist.

He is a soberly dressed, adroit, American liberal

journalist with years of reporting and editing

experience. His book is meticulously researched,

assiduously foot-noted, impeccably sourced and is not

just a revealing account of the Bush White House, it

is also an exposé of the failure of American

journalism after 9/11.

 

That is a theme Unger constantly touches on as he

talks about his battle with the right-wing media.

“There are an enormous number of foreign sources in

the book. It drives me crazy how inept American

journalism is.”

 

For a European, it is hard to fathom just how

self-censored the US media is. Most Americans remain

blissfully unaware of what is going on in the war on

terror. Last October, for instance, a viewers survey

for Fox News, the Rupert Murdoch-owned cheerleader for

the Republican administration, found that 33% of

Americans thought the US had found weapons of mass

destruction in Iraq when it had not. Moreover, 67%

thought that Saddam Hussein had ties with al-Qaeda.

 

“The facts are outside the comfort zone of the

right-wing US press,” says Unger. “The flights were

corroborated by the 9/11 commission but they are still

dismissed by mainstream American media. While the 9/11

Commission corroborates my material, it does not get

to the heart of what happened.”

 

In the US, writing about things like the right-wing

Project For A New American Century will hurt the

career of a journalist but, as numerous hits on the

Sunday Herald website demonstrates, there is a huge

hunger among US citizens for information on what is

being done in their name.

 

It is in the oldest form of communication, the book,

and in the newest, the internet, that the truth about

American politics has been written in the past three

years. Documentary film has helped too. Michael Moore

took the core of Unger’s book and turned it into a

hard- hitting propaganda film which the comedian and

commentator claims will swing the November election

away from Bush.

 

“A book sells 200,000 copies and is a huge success but

in a nation of 300 million people it doesn’t really

change the national conversation,” Unger acknowledges.

“Moore has introduced it into the national

consciousness in a way the best book marketing could

not do. You need someone like Moore to catapult this

into the public arena but at the same time in a film

he can’t be as nuanced as a book is.”

 

And the book is extraordinary in recording the detail

of the relationship between the Texas oil family and

the Arabian princes who wooed their way into the heart

of American politics. In the course of the 30-year

relationship, which has blossomed into personal

friendship between the Bush family and many members of

the Saudi household, the two Bush presidents and their

extended clan of friends and business associates have

made $1.4 billion of trade with the Saudis.

 

The relationship began in the 1970s, when the oil-rich

House of Saud began courting American politicians in a

bid for military protection, influence, and investment

opportunity. By investing in the Bush family, the

Saudis gained direct access to presidents Reagan,

George HW Bush, and George W Bush. To trace the

amazing weave of Saud-Bush connections, Unger

interviewed three former directors of the CIA, top

Saudi and Israeli intelligence officials, and more

than 100 other sources. This is a man who is sure of

his facts.

 

The problem, Unger says, is that after 30 years of

cronyism and money making Bush was too close to the

House of Saud to ask the tough questions. “I don’t

think Bush sees the difference between family business

and the interests of the nation.”

 

As for the future, Unger fears the worst of both

worlds, with Bush having to harden his attitude to

Saudi sponsorship of terrorism and the Saudi leaders

turning away from America because no Arab leader can

be seen as pro-American. “The White House don’t see

Iraq as a failure, they see it as a success, which is

scary,” says Unger.

 

“Now we have other threats emerging, the ascendancy of

China and its energy needs and the succession in the

House of Saud to more fundamentalist princes. If

America loses access to the Saudi oilfields you have

to ask: what will Bush do?”

 

According to Unger, all this plays into the hands of

America’s nemesis. “Bin Laden has had great success

since 9/11. He’s done far better than the

administration would admit. He demanded the removal of

US troops from Saudi Arabia and that’s been done. He

called for a Holy War and the US delivered it to him

in Iraq and set the stage for bigger things.”

 

And from the view of bin Laden the tactics that

succeeded in destroying a superpower in Afghanistan

can also succeed in the Middle East. Effectively the

Soviet Union was lured into a land war with Muslim

fundamentalists which was futile, expensive and went

on forever. “Now,” says Unger, “we are the Soviet

Union.”

 

House Of Bush House Of Saud by Craig Unger is out now

(Gibson Square Publishing, £17.99)

 

l Carmen bin Ladin: Magazine

 

15 August 2004