Saudis examine alleged money link to Sept. 11

WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers pressed for answers Sunday on a possible Saudi money trail in the Sept. 11 hijackings and said regardless of whether one exists, the kingdom must stop its "duplicitous" coddling of terrorists.

Saudi officials spent the weekend having bankers pore over the records of Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of their ambassador to the United States, to see how thousands of dollars from her account might have ended up in the wrong hands, said Saudi foreign policy adviser Adel al-Jubeir.

But he said it was "crazy" to suggest she had done anything intentionally to support terrorism.

Lawmakers said the FBI's investigation should pull no punches, and the Bush administration should be open about the findings, despite the risk of offending an important ally with whom relations already have been strained.

'Duplicitous game'

In a harsh turn bound to be uncomfortable for administration officials as they seek Saudi assistance in a possible war with Iraq, senators upbraided the Saudi government for what they see as years of complicity in anti-American radicalism.

Saudis "have played a duplicitous game, and that is, they say to the terrorists, 'We'll do everything you want, just leave us alone,'" said Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. "That game has got to stop."

Still, none of the lawmakers knew whether the princess had meant for her money to go to Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan. U.S. officials believe those men provided financial support to two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers while the terrorists lived in the United States.

Al-Jubeir said the princess sent $2,000 monthly checks to a Saudi woman living in the U.S. who asked her for help paying for medical treatment, and it came out only now that the woman was Basnan's wife and some money ended up with al-Bayoumi's family as well.

The adviser said Basnan is believed to be back in Saudi Arabia after his deportation and al-Bayoumi is either there or in Britain. Saudi officials will probably question them, he said, but he noted pointedly that U.S. and British officials already interrogated them months ago.

Al-Jubeir said Saudis had bank officials in Washington, starting at 3 a.m. Saturday, begin going through the princess' electronic transactions, which include hundreds or thousands of payments to expatriate Saudi charities and citizens.

"That's when we discovered that some of the checks were endorsed to third parties," he said on ABC's "This Week."

A legitimate explanation is possible, a senior White House official said.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, credited the Saudis with helping in the anti-terror war, in quiet ways that bring them no credit in the West but also do not attract the attention of fundamentalist elements at home.

Some senators said the allegations of official Saudi support for the hijackers, if true, mean a well-financed terrorist structure still could be in place.

Such a network could "facilitate the next wave of terror," said Democratic Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, outgoing chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Al-Jabeir said Saudi officials discovered only on the weekend that Basnan was the husband of the woman who had been receiving monthly checks from the princess before the attacks. He said the princess gave $2,000 a month; other accounts have put the figure higher.

U.S. officials think the men helped Khalif al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi after they came to America from an al-Qaida planning conference in Malaysia. Al-Mihdhar and al-Hazmi were on the plane that crashed into the Pentagon.