A bit of America’s history with bin-Laden, our policies that fuel the Islamic revolution, and the reasons for American fear of the Saudi royal family.

VOICEOVER: In 1995, the investigation into the attack on the World Trade Center led to the al-Quaeda organization and to Osama bin-Laden, a Saudi born in Riad. Nicknamed the “banker of the Holy War,” they estimated his fortune at two billion dollars. The Washington Post recalled the close links that always united the royal family of Saudi Arabia to bin-Laden and told how he was recruited, trained and armed by the CIA during the war in Afghanistan. During that period he benefitted from the total support of the Americans and of Saudi Arabia, which together had offered bin-Laden all the means for his ambitions.

ROBERT STEELE: For many long years the Americans absolutely did not realize that the royal family of Saudi Arabia financed terrorism in exchange for a certain internal stability.

JOSEPH TRENTO: But when Clinton left the Presidency, he knew that some money had been paid to bin-Laden by the royal family. He had proof of it.

ROBERT STEELE: The two parties, Democratic and Republican, decided to tolerate state terrorism financed by a state because the Saudis owned the oil.

ROBERT BAER: That’s the only reason that they shut their eyes, that they refuse to investigate Saudi Arabia and that they don’t ask them a single question about human rights. They still stone women accused of adultery. Have you heard anyone protest here?

JOSEPH TRENTO: What we set off, by applying that policy of support for an extremely repressive regime and by giving them all the money necessary to bleed the vital forces of Saudi Arabia dry, in reality only served to feed the Islamic revolution.

ROBERT STEELE: I think that in this matter it is a geostrategic error of the first order. We can’t permit ourselves to leave all moral sense behind and grow stupid for oil.

ROBERT BAER: Because if you take the risk of provoking a revolution in Saudi Arabia, oil production drops by 25%, the barrel goes up to $150, and the United States collapses.

JOSEPH TRENTO: We’re gutless in the face of the royal family because we’re terrified by the idea that they can cut us off from the oil.

Who gets paid—and how—for looking the other way.

VOICEOVER: The officials in charge, the successive presidents, closed their eyes to that petromonarchy that applies the law of the Koran to the letter but that anted up for the United States the $55 million that the Gulf War cost. The powerful American oil-producing groups shared among themselves the royal favors and a cake of $150 billion a year. Several members of the board of directors of the Saudi Aramco Company are Americans.

JOSEPH TRENTO: And the majority of the people in charge of the foreign policy of the United States are financially dependent on the royal family.

ROBERT BAER: We just have to get used to the idea that their lot is linked to that of the American oil-producing companies, that they directly receive ready money or stocks. It’s impossible, for example, to challenge the position that Exxon occupies today in Saudi Arabia.

ROBERT STEELE: They buy the politicians then supply them with the news so that all decisions are taken in favor of the companies that are looting the country.

ROBERT BAER: The diplomats, when they quit their posts and take their retirement, leave to work for Saudi Arabia or another country of the Gulf.

ALEXANDER HAIG: And if at the end of their career they choose to join up with the oil-producing groups, they should be forbidden, in my opinion, to take a post in the Middle East.

ROBERT BAER: If you are a well-known politician and are obliging to Saudi Arabia, you can fly off to Riad and get a million dollars to do a conference.

JOSEPH TRENTO: When Clinton says something nice about Saudi Arabia, don’t forget that he’s paid to give conferences there.

ROBERT BAER: That’s the way it works. Those who leave the White House take off to work for the Saudi banks as advisors.

JOSEPH TRENTO: The weight of the companies’ money, of the oil money, on American foreign policy is enormous. That’s the heart of it all.

And which group is sucking the hardest on the Saudi teat?

ROBERT BAER: The oil lobbies, and I know that it’s difficult to admit, are a lot more powerful than the CIA. There’s a hierarchy here in Washington. If the oil is there (raising his hand to eye-level), the CIA is here (lowering his hand to hip-level), far below. Next you have the State Department then the corporate lobbyists and next the advisors, the oil, the White House and finally the Congress (raising his hand gradually upward).