Do you ever try to deal with facts, or do you merely believe anything some fat slob filmmaker tells you? ============================================ Saudi royal family lambasts Michael Moore for twisting the truth in his 9-11 film (Filed: 01-08-2004)
In an exclusive interview, Prince Turki al-Faisal tells Con Coughlin why the US film-maker is so wrong
The Saudi royal family has launched a bitter attack on the American film-maker Michael Moore over his claims that the Bush administration secretly smuggled a number of high-ranking Saudi nationals out of the US in the immediate aftermath of the September 11 attacks.
In the first official comment by the Saudi royal family on Moore's controversial film Fahrenheit 9-11, a leading member of the family said his country has been fully exonerated of any complicity in the attacks by the report of the 9-11 commission.
Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi Arabian ambbuttador to London and a half-brother of Crown Prince Abdullah, was in charge of Saudi intelligence at the time of the 2001 terror attacks. He said that Moore had failed to carry out adequate research into his controversial claims that the Saudis were involved with Osama bin Laden, the al-Qa'eda leader, in the build-up to the 9-11 atrocity.
'It would have been far better if Michael Moore had been able to read the 9-11 report before he made his film. It shows that all the protocols were strictly observed.' Because Moore had not thoroughly researched the allegations levelled against Saudi Arabia, Prince Turki said that Fahrenheit 9-11 is 'grossly unfair' to the Saudis.
In his film, Moore claims that the Bush administration helped a number of Saudi princes and members of the bin Laden family to flee the United States immediately after the attacks at a time when American air space had been closed to all commercial air traffic. Moore implies that the Saudis were smuggled out of the country to cover up their involvement in the terror attacks.
Prince Turki said these claims have now been completely refuted in the report compiled by the US commission of inquiry into the 9-11 attacks, which was published at the end of last month.
In a section headed 'Flights of Saudi Nationals Leaving the United States', the report found 'no evidence that any flights of Saudi nationals, domestic or international, took place before the reopening of national airspace on the morning of September 13, 2001'. The report also concludes that it found no evidence of political interference by the White House, and states that those Saudis who did leave the US on charter flights in the days following the attacks had been thoroughly vetted by FBI agents.
Prince Turki said Moore could have found this out for himself before he made the film, but he 'chose to speculate' rather than establish what really happened.
'Michael Moore made a request to visit Saudi Arabia and we granted him a visa, but he never came,' said Prince Turki in an interview with The Telegraph. 'He missed an important opportunity to find out key facts. In my opinion he should have made every effort to go to a country he has taken to task so heavily in his film.'
Prince Turki said there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for the decision to fly home a number of prominent Saudis in the days following the attacks.
'They were allowed to leave because everyone recognised that anyone with the name bin Laden might have a hard time with the American public after the terror attacks,' he said.
