Testimony of Steven Emerson
Before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee
"Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror"
November 8, 2005

Steven Emerson
Executive Director
The Investigative Project on Terrorism
5505 Conn. Ave NW #341
Washington DC 20015
Email:stopterror@aol.com
phone 202-363-8602
fax 202 966 5191

Executive Summary

At the Investigative Project on Terrorism, we have been investigating and tracking radical Islamic organizations and funding for 10 years. We have now compiled one of the largest intelligence archives on radical Islam in the world today. We work closely with law enforcement, the intelligence community, Congress and the media. In tracking Al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist movements, I have been specifically monitoring and investigating Saudi funding and linkages since the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. My interest in how Saudi Arabia has used its petrodollar revenues to promote and legitimize radical views actually goes back to the mid-1980’s when I authored my first book, The American House of Saud: the Secret Petrodollar Connection (Franklin and Watts, 1985). The book exposed the political strings attached to Saudi funding of academic centers in the United States. Now, 20 years later, I have found myself returning over and over again to the same problem.

In the years prior to 9-11, the U.S. government paid little attention to the flow of money and religious propaganda exported worldwide from Saudi Arabia. During that period, an elaborate network of Saudi-funded and directed charities, foundations and Islamic propagation centers were created, which in turn funded Islamic organizations, schools and radical movements around the world. Because of its vast petrodollar riches, Saudi Arabia’s version of Islam -- a puritanical interpretation often described in short hand as Wahabism -- succeeded in indoctrinating young Muslims, controlling the religious direction of major Islamic religious institutions and in extending the Wahabist doctrine to the four corners of the Earth. The paper trail of Saudi money, funneled through a vast network of charities and religious organizations, has led to some of the most violent terrorist groups in the world, including Al-Qaeda and Hamas.

Saudi officials have long asserted publicly and in private discussions with U.S. officials that the government cannot be held responsible for the actions of non-governmental groups, private donors and corporations, the media and religious leaders. But in fact, much of the non-governmental network in Saudi Arabia was created by Saudi government officials to provide an arm’s length relationship and has long been funded by Saudi government line items or by members of the Royal Family. The Wahabist-dominated religious hierarchy in Saudi Arabia was and is tightly controlled by the Saudi regime and Royal Family.

Terrorism requires three primary ingredients: Indoctrination, recruitment and financing. Often, the connections are not neatly compartmentalized, largely because of the intricate and complex ways employed to launder funding to terrorist groups and the larger extremist social-religious organizations from which terrorists recruit. Other times, the evidence shows that non-governmental organizations carry out, to a large degree, activities that are totally legitimate and legal; indeed it is the very external legitimacy of these groups that provide the perfect cover to siphon off, divert or launder financial support or provide cover to terrorist cells. Sometimes the Saudi donors were unaware of where their funds were being applied or how they were ultimately used. And in many cases, the Saudi-generated funding and direction for Islamic “humanitarian” or “religious” activities abroad was given in the noble Islamic tradition of Zakat or charity. Some of the recipients, in turn, used the funds to empower and extend the influence of militant Islam through the carrying out of humanitarian services that Arab governments had failed to provide.

Since 9-11, Saudi officials repeatedly have maintained that they have curtailed any support to terrorist groups by Saudi charitable foundations, that they have embarked on an effort to rein in extremist religious ideology, that they have institutionalized new rules of transparency, and that they are as adamant in condemning terrorism as the United States. Towards that end the Saudis have announced several high profile actions, including the alleged shut-down of the Al-Haramain Foundation (“AHF”), the creation of a new U.S.-Saudi commission to monitor terrorist financing, the establishment of a centralized Saudi clearinghouse for all charities, the hosting of an international counter-terror conference, the curbing of extremist propaganda, and a host of other initiatives to stop the spread of terrorism.

But the question that must be asked is whether there is any significant substance to these declarations and announcements. One of the problems for US officials is how to independently determine the true extent to which these announcements have been translated into action. There is a justified skepticism at taking these declarations at face value. While there have been some positive steps taken by Saudi Arabia that can be independently confirmed, a review of other Saudi pronouncements in the past two years strongly suggests that Saudi Arabia has failed to carry out some of the publicly-proclaimed reforms, while in other cases, there is not enough independent evidence to determine whether Saudi Arabia has followed up on its pledges.

There is no doubt that as the result of the Al Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia in 2003, the regime itself has declared war on the internal Saudi terrorist infrastructure, killing some two dozen Al Qaeda terrorists and arresting scores of others. And to give credit where it is due, there have also been credible efforts to begin sanitizing some of the publications, websites and religious dogma published by the regime or Saudi charities but in general, the Saudi war against the Al-Qaeda network in Saudi Arabia has not been translated into systematic corollary measures against Islamic terror networks outside the Kingdom.

Defenders of the current Administration policy of not publicly confronting the Saudis point to the fact that Saudi Arabia has engaged in an aggressive campaign to root out Al Qaeda cells in the Kingdom, an effort largely triggered by the series of attacks launched by those cells beginning in 2003. To be sure, Saudi Arabia engaged in a systematic effort to destroy the Al Qaeda infrastructure on Saudi home soil. And the country has cooperated with the U.S. in some other areas, including the extradition of accused terrorist suspect Abu Ali and in starting to impose some central authority on some of the previously untracked “private” funding from Saudis going to radical Islamic causes. Indeed, some U.S. officials with whom I have spoken say they have met Saudi counterparts who are genuinely committed to stopping the spread of Islamic extremist propaganda.

Still other arguments for not pushing the Saudis too far revolve around the fear that such pressure could destabilize the regime and ultimately lead to a takeover by even more radical forces, such as those aligned with Osama bin Laden.

• Saudi organizations and leaders operating with the permission or acquiescence of the Saudi regime continue to spout virulent anti-Western propaganda and thereby raise serious questions as to whether Saudi Arabia is trying to comprehensively crack down on the sources and support for Islamist terrorism.

• While there have been some efforts to sanitize Saudi websites, publications and textbooks of religious hatred, the record of demonstrable and provable changes is spotty at best and at worst devoid of any substance. Publications from Saudi Arabia and Saudi websites, either officially operated by the regime or those of non-government organizations, continue to spread an extremist view of Islam throughout the world.

• Although there have been some constraints imposed by the Saudi government, Saudi Arabian religious charities and non-governmental organizations (“NGOs”) still disseminate or propagate intolerance and anti-Semitic and anti-Christian dogma.

• Revised banking regulations designed to control the flow of charities have not been applied to three of the most prominent and radical organizations, the Muslim World League (“MWL”), the World Assembly of Muslim Youth (“WAMY”) and the International Islamic Relief Organization (“IIRO”).

• Saudi funding of Hamas has continued as new conduits have been created.

• Saudi government officials, religious leaders and members of the Royal Family continue to level anti-Semitic allegations of conspiracies. Persecution of Christians has not abated.

• Senior Saudi religious figures have continued to call for jihad against the United States.

• Saudi officials in the United States and American recipients of Saudi funds continue to detract attention from the extremists’ actions by alleging that the campaign against Saudi extremism is “racist” and that it has led to “hate crimes” against American Muslims.

Appendices:

http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1669&wit_id=4791

Source: US Senate Judiciary Committee