By RICHARD PYLE
Associated Press Writer
September 2, 2003
NEW YORK -- A top al-Qaida operative in U.S. custody has revealed that key Saudi
Arabian and Pakistani figures had prior knowledge of the Sept. 11 terrorist plot
against the United States, according to a new book.
In "Why America Slept: The Failure to Prevent 9/11," author Gerald Posner also
says three Saudi royal princes who had contacts with the terror network died
unexpectedly within a week last year, and a Pakistani military officer was
killed seven months later.
While he concedes that the deaths could be "coincidences," Posner says, they
occurred after the CIA had passed along to Saudi and Pakistani officials
information it had obtained from Abu Zubaydah, a key associate of al-Qaida
leader Osama Bin Laden.
"My gut tells me that if Zubaydah's information was accurate, our error was
telling the Saudis what we had," he said in an interview. "People did not want
them to talk, and took them out. Can I prove it? No."
Two of the subjects, Saudi Prince Ahmed bin Salman bin Abdul Aziz and Pakistani
Air Marshal Mushaf Ali Mir, "knew that an attack was scheduled for American
soil" on Sept. 11, 2001, but did not know where, when or any other details about
which to warn U.S. officials, Posner writes.
Nor could they expose Bin Laden without revealing their own ties to al-Qaida, he
adds.
"The followup question is, does that information from Zubaydah mean anything?
Did the (Saudi) government know?" Posner said in the interview.
"It's hard for me to imagine that King Fahd's nephew, who runs the largest
publishing empire in Saudi Arabia, and the air force chief in Pakistan could
operate with anybody in al-Qaida and not have higher-ups in the governments know
it."
The book says the Saudi government funneled money to al-Qaida and Afghanistan's
Taliban rulers in return for a promise not to impose Islamic fundamentalism on
the kingdom. The Saudi princes were conduits for the funds, it says.
Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002, was duped by U.S.
interrogators masquerading as Saudis and using painkillers and sodium pentathol,
sometimes called "truth serum," to befuddle him into divulging secrets, Posner
says. Zubaydah, he writes, thought he was in a Saudi prison, when in fact he was
in Afghanistan.
Posner is a lawyer and author whose previous books include "Case Closed" and
"Killing the Dream," which sparked controversy by debunking conspiracy theories
in the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.
He said his information came from a "high level source in the executive branch"
of the U.S. government, who is "absolutely in a position to know the details of
this interrogation of Zubaydah." A second, CIA source confirmed some aspects, he
said.
While he has been unable to get "independent verification" in the form of
videotapes or transcripts, Posner said, "I have to make my own judgment as to
whether the sources are credible or have an axe to grind against the Saudis. I
am convinced that this information is absolutely accurate."
Some U.S. officials have expressed suspicion that Saudi rulers, despite a
professed alliance wth the United States, have privately supported al-Qaida. The
Saudis vehemently deny the allegations.
Calls to the Saudi embassy press office on Monday were not returned. A White
House duty officer did not return calls seeking comment.
Zubaydah has been described by U.S. officials as a terrorist mastermind who
plotted millennium bombings and the 2000 boat-bomb attack on the destroyer USS
Cole.
In the book, published this month by Random House, Posner says Zubaydah,
"relieved" to find he was being quizzed by people he thought were Saudis,
provided them with phone numbers for a senior member of the Saudi royal family
who would "tell you what to do."
He says the U.S. interrogators were stunned when the numbers were traced to
Prince Ahmed, a nephew of King Fahd and publishing magnate, best known to
Americans as the owner of the 2002 Kentucky Derby winner War Emblem.
When the agents accused Zubaydah of lying, he revealed more details of Saudi and
Pakistani ties to bin Laden, the author says, and in the space of one week,
three of the four were dead.
Prince Ahmed, 43, died of a heart attack on July 22, 2002. The next day, a car
crash killed Saudi Prince Sultan bin Faisal bin Turki al-Saud, 41. A week later,
Prince Fahd bin Turki bin Saud al-Kabir, 25, reportedly died "of thirst" while
traveling east of Riyadh.
Seven months later, a plane crash "in clear weather," Posner says, killed Mushaf
Ali Mir, his wife and several aides in Pakistan.
Posner said that despite his skepticism about conspiracy theories, he was all
but convinced the deaths were planned.
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