May 28, 2002
Michael Barone: Our Enemies the

Michael Barone: Our Enemies the Saudis - "Fifteen of the 19 September 11 hijackers were Saudis. Perhaps as many as 80 percent of the prisoners held at Guantánamo are Saudis. Osama bin Laden is a Saudi, and al Qaeda was supported by large contributions from Saudis, including members of the Saudi royal family. The Saudis' cooperation with our efforts to track down the financing of al Qaeda appears to be somewhere between minimal and zero. They got us to let members of the bin Laden family scamper out of the United States on a private jet shortly after September 11. They refuse to provide–as almost every other country has–manifests of plane passengers flying to the United States."