“As Julian Borger wrote in The Guardian [on August 6, 2003, regarding the government’s redaction of 28 pages from the final report of the Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks on July 24, 2003], ‘The reason pages about the Saudi link to the hijackers (15 out of 19 of whom were Saudi nationals) are blanked out, while Al Qaeda’s questionable ties to Iraq and Iran are taken to the UN, is an old but crucial story.’ The U.S.-Saudi connection ‘is the mutual dependency of two wealthy junkies dragging each other even deeper into squalor. The U.S. is addicted to cheap oil, and shows no inclination to wean itself off it. Washington officialdom is hooked on the easy money Riyadh offers in the world of consultancies and think tanks when they retire. The Saudi royal family, meanwhile, has its own addictions. It depends on the U.S. arms industry, of which it is the biggest foreign customer.’ ”
– Amy Goodman with David Goodman, The Exception to the Rulers, Page 48