House of Saud: a house of sand: as internal dissension festers in the kingdom of Arabia, the Saudi royal family straddles the fence between Osama bin Laden/al-Qaeda and the U.S. war on terror

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Dec 24, 2001 | by Tony Hays

What happens to the munitions after that is supposed to be spelled out in the EUC, but EUCs are notoriously ignored and countries often divert such shipments for their own purposes and (sometimes) profits.

According to a confidential source close to the arms industry, the Saudis have been stockpiling ammunition as if preparing for war on three continents. But, the source tells INSIGHT, "I don't see them fighting any wars at all." Defense businesses involved refuse -- for security reasons of course -- to reveal their customers. But a European-based U.S. company announced 1999 sales of some $12 million worth of munitions to a "long-term international customer," and recorded a backlog of related sales amounting to $93 million. INSIGHT's sources say that client was Saudi Arabia. And, more to the point, the EUCs were not "completely accurate."

The munitions never were intended for Saudi Arabia, say these sources, but were funneled to other groups. Where? "I wouldn't be surprised," one source says, "if those bullets came out of Muslim guns in Bosnia, Chechnya and even Afghanistan" What about the Saudi government? "They initiated the documents," says Tony Batista, a former staffer at the House Armed Services Committee who specialized in arms-export issues. "Simply put: Those EUCs are initiated by the Saudi government and reviewed by our State Department and the country of manufacture before export licenses are issued. Period."

What about governments faking or altering EUCs and diverting munitions to illegal destinations? "I'd be surprised if it didn't happen at some stage," says Batista. "But somebody in the Clinton administration would have had to sign off on it, and the Saudi government would have had to know." A Capitol Hill source claims to have seen EUCs approved by high-ranking government officials that actually transferred equipment to U.S. enemies.

The abuse of EUCs has been well-documented over the years by human-rights groups. In an address to the U.N. Conference on Small Arms Trafficking last July 9, Joost R. Hiltermann of Human Rights Watch used a case from the Ukraine to point out some of the problems inherent in this dirty business, noting that the Ukrainians claimed publicly that they never had violated or been investigated for abusing arms-trafficking laws. "The fact is," Hiltermann told the world body, "that a U.N. panel on Sierra Leone last year deplored the fact that the Ukraine had shown neither restraint nor due care and diligence in its arms dealing, making Ukraine a point of origin for illegally trafficked weapons. Moreover, Ukrainian nationals and private firms have been linked repeatedly to illicit arms trading."

Amnesty International cites the major problem as a deplorable lack of oversight on EUCs. No one pays a lot of attention to the arms once they get where they're going, so it's not that difficult for the Saudis to ferry munitions anywhere they deem necessary, especially with faked or altered EUCs.

Although it is a widely held belief in Western-intelligence circles that Saudis channeled large sums and equipment to the Taliban and the al-Qaeda network, this is the first substantive allegation that the Saudi government knew, approved and was complicit in diverting supplies of ammunition to U.S. enemies and terrorist organizations.