"Saudis reportedly funding Iraqi Sunni insurgents"

[SOS]

As President Cheney and the corporate media obsess about Iran, setting the stage for wider war,
this article in USA Today went completely unnoticed. In case you missed it:

CAIRO (AP) — Private Saudi citizens are giving millions of dollars to Sunni insurgents in Iraq and much of the money is used to buy weapons, including shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles, according to key Iraqi officials and others familiar with the flow of cash.
Saudi government officials deny that any money from their country is being sent to Iraqis fighting the government and the U.S.-led coalition. But the U.S. Iraq Study Group report said Saudis are a source of funding for Sunni Arab insurgents. Several truck drivers interviewed by The Associated Press described carrying boxes of cash from Saudi Arabia into Iraq, money they said was headed for insurgents.

In one recent case, an Iraqi official said $25 million in Saudi money went to a top Iraqi Sunni cleric and was used to buy weapons, including Strela, a Russian shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile. The missiles were purchased from someone in Romania, apparently through the black market, he said.
Overall, the Iraqi officials said, money has been pouring into Iraq from oil-rich Saudi Arabia, a Sunni bastion, since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq toppled the Sunni-controlled regime of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

"They sent boxes full of dollars and asked me to deliver them to certain addresses in Iraq," said one driver, who gave his name only as Hussein, out of fear of reprisal. "I know it is being sent to the resistance, and if I don't take it with me, they will kill me."
He was told what was in the boxes, he said, to ensure he hid the money from authorities at the border.

Allegations the insurgents have purchased shoulder-fired Strela missiles raise concerns that they are obtaining increasingly sophisticated weapons. On Nov. 27, a U.S. Air Force F-16 jet crashed while flying in support of American soldiers fighting Anbar province, a Sunni insurgent hotbed. The U.S. military said it had no information about the cause of the crash. Gen. William Caldwell, a U.S. military spokesman, said he would be surprised if the jet was shot down because F-16's have not encountered weapons capable of taking them down in Iraq."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2006-12-08-saudis-sunnis_x.htm

[Larkspur]

1. The Saudis funded Al Queda for a long time too

I'm not surprised that they are funding the Sunni insurgency. The Saudis are Sunni and certainly don't want the Shiites to have more power or power (oil) equal to them.

[Kolesar]

5. You with "Guernica" in your sig line

You just *must* go to New York and see this exhibition. It just closed in Cleveland:

Also in the works at the Cleveland Museum is an unprecedented examination of modernist art from Barcelona. "Barcelona & Modernity: Picasso, Gaudí, Miró, Dalí" features over 300 works that date from the September Revolution of 1868 to the fall of the Spanish Republic in 1939. The exhibition premieres in Cleveland, Oct. 15, 2006-Jan. 7, 2007, and subsequently appears at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Mar. 5-June 3, 2007. The show is co-organized by the two U.S. museums with the Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya in Barcelona.

http://www.clevelandart.org/exhibit/exhibitDetails.asp?eID=106

It sounded like an exhibition not to be missed on account of my favorite artist. However, the chronological development leading up to the Spanish Pavilion was done brilliantly.

[Larkspur]

6. Thanks for the info, but I'm closer to Boston, MA and Providence, RI

Do you know if it is going to those cities?

[Kolesar]

7. Only NYC, sorry.

But you could read the link my first post, it tells a lot.

I was aware that Guernica was about the Spanish Civil War, but I did not realize that the Spanish Pavilion at the Expo in France was designed to bring attention to the fascist takeover of the Spanish Republic. The museum exhibition did a great job of developing a feel for who the people were. The exhibition presented the evolving styles of the artists, leading to surrealism, but the great moment was dealing with the war.

A creative, open culture was being attacked by fascists on the grounds that the Barclonans were indulgent, atheist, and accomodating of homosexuality. Sound familiar?

It was a great message of peace.

[dos pelos]

2. A Saudi vs. Iranian conflict with the US as a Saudi proxy force...

The general Islamic Civil War is underway.Sunni vs. Shia.We think we are orchestrating things,but we are increasingly just in the way,when we are not being used.We think we are using religious tensions to facilitate an oil grab.The Saudis think they are using us.Who is using who?

[donco6]

3. Gasp! Color me shocked.

They supplied Al Qaeda for years. They're in it for their own best interests, just like Bush is in it for his own (not the country's).

[pwb]

4. no mention of Saudi Arabia helping insurgents in the news.

makes you wonder who the real enemy is in the middle east. didn't 19 Saudis attack us on 911 too?. and bush kisses them on the cheek.