Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D. -- Why The 28-Page Gap?

On July 24, 2003, a joint committee of the U.S. House and Senate intelligence panels released a report relevant to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The New York Times on the day the report was released characterized its findings as follows: �While saying the attacks could have been stopped, the report does not blame either agency (FBI or CIA) for overlooking specific information that would have thwarted the terrorism.� Isn�t this contradictory?

Especially noteworthy about the report are 28 pages that are blank because they contain "classified" material about the possible relationship between the terrorists and foreign governments, particularly one rumored to be Saudi Arabia. Supposedly this was done because the Bush administration did not want to compromise ongoing investigations. However, the question has been raised as to whether there are other reasons for the administration wanting this information kept from the public. While no accusation is made, the following are some questions that one might ponder as to their possible relevance in this regard:

1.      Is former Secretary of State James Baker III a senior partner in Baker & Botts law firm?
2.      Is Baker & Botts representing Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia against a lawsuit seeking $1 trillion in damages on behalf of the victims of the 9/11 attacks?
3.      Did Prince Sultan for 16 years approve regular payments to the International Islamic Relief Organization and two additional grants to the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, both groups being suspected of aiding the terrorists?
4.      Is not Prince Naif Ibn Abd Al-Aziz another Saudi defendant in the lawsuit, and didn�t he claim the "Zionist-controlled media" in the U.S. is manipulating the terror war to create a backlash against Muslims?
5.      Isn't U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Robert Jordan the former personal lawyer for President Bush and a founding member of Baker & Botts?
6.      Doesn't Baker & Botts represent a number of major transnational corporations in Saudi Arabia, and with interests in natural gas, petroleum, banking, etc.? And doesn't Baker & Botts claim that it is "the leading international law firm involved in the re-emergence of the oil, gas and hydrocarbon transportation industries in the Caspian region," with the successful war against the Taliban in Afghanistan opening up more secure routes?
7.      Doesn't President George W. Bush owe James Baker a lot for heading up his effort in the disputed Florida election results of the presidential campaign of 2000 A.D.?
8.      Toward the end of July 2003, isn't the Bush administration considering placing James Baker in charge of part of the reconstruction efforts in Iraq?
9.      Didn't James Baker as Secretary of State under President George H.W. Bush in 1991 say at that time that the Gulf War against Iraq was about "jobs, jobs, jobs"?
10.    Isn't James Baker senior counselor to The Carlyle Group, a merchant banking firm involved with defense contractors, telecommunications, aerospace, etc.?
11.     Didn't The Carlyle Group receive $50 million to train the Saudi National Guard, which protects the monarchy there?
12.     Isn't former President Bush a consultant and marketer for The Carlyle Group, and didn't the current President Bush receive fees as director of a subsidiary of Carlyle?
13.     Weren't members of the bin Laden family investors in Carlyle prior to 9/11?
14.     Didn't former President Bush stay with members of the bin Laden family when he visited Saudi Arabia?
15.     Didn't the FBI hurriedly escort members of the bin Laden family out of the U.S. after 9/11 at the same time it was detaining hundreds of Middle Eastern males in the U.S. for many months?
16.     Were Frank Carlucci, who has been chairman of The Carlyle Group, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld former wrestling partners at Princeton University? And wasn�t James Baker a student at Princeton University at the same time as Carlucci and Rumsfeld?
17.     Have not Carlucci and Rumsfeld been members of the Project for the New American Century, which was a leading force behind the movement to go to war against Iraq?
18.     Didn't the James Baker III Institute for Public Policy and the Council on Foreign Relations sponsor an independent task force, including Enron chairman Kenneth Lay and a number of top oil company executives, which issued a report a year before 9/11 stating that "the exports from some oil discoveries in the Caspian Basin could be hastened if a secure, economical export route could be identified swiftly," such as via Afghanistan? And didn�t the task force also refer to the threat that Saddam Hussein posed to oil markets and recommend that "the United States should conduct an immediate policy review toward Iraq, including military, energy, economic, and political/diplomatic assessments"?
19.     Relevant to the Congressional report's omissions regarding Saudi Arabia, hasn't U.S. Senator Charles Schumer said on ABC's This Week that "it seems that every time the Saudis are involved, we stop. For months and months, the Saudis didn�t give us flight manifests of who was on their planes � the only country [Saudi Arabia] that was allowed to do that. The Saudis always seem to get a special exception. The administration has to stop this."?
20.     Didn't even Republican Senator Richard Shelby say that most of the "classified" material in the Congressional report should have been released?
21.     Hasn't former Middle East CIA agent Robert Baer said on NBC�s Dateline that "no one in the White House is ready to take on the Saudi royal family. The deliberate blindness came from the top, because the orders were, and they're implicit, do not collect information on Saudi Arabia, because you're going to risk annoying the royal family. Don't even look at it as a conspiracy. It's a consent of silence. The fundamentalists get what they want. The royal family gets what they want. American contractors and business get what they want."?
22.     Didn't Kai Bird (who has written for The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and The Nation) write an essay years ago titled, "Co-opting the Third World Elites: Trilateralism and Saudi Arabia," in which one reads that "the major strategy, according to the trilateralists, is to entangle the Saudis with the Americans and assure them a stake in the established economic order"? And didn't Bird further state that ARAMCO (representing Mobil, Exxon, Texaco and Standard Oil of California) �has created a company state in Saudi Arabia," working with "the Saudi elite," and "thus unknown to the American people � and without any real public debate � quiet alliances are being negotiated (supposedly on their behalf) to secure necessary natural resources, and oil in particular, that are controlled by the autocratic elites of a few regional Third World powers"?
23.     Hasn't James Baker been a co-chairman of Mikhail Gorbachev's State of the World Forum, where the first director of the Trilateral Commission, Zbigniew Brzezinski, proclaimed we "cannot leap into world government through one quick step, but rather via progressive regionalization"? And isn�t a stable Middle Eastern region necessary before it can be linked to American, European and Asian regions? And could this be the ultimate goal?

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Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education. He has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited seventeen books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.