On the subject of the Saudis and 9/11, one thing that bothers me is the myth that members of the royal family, the bin Laden family, and other well-connected Saudis were allowed to leave the US "when all other flights were grounded."
In reality there was one flight with some princes that took off on September 13 AFTER the 48-hour nationwide ban on air traffic (other than US military aircraft) was lifted. The other flights were in the days and week or two after that.
The al-Saud and bin Laden families are rich and well-connected, and they were obviously terrified of all of the atmosphere in the immediate aftermath of the attacks after it emerged that Osama bin Laden was behind them and that most of the hijackers were Saudi nationals. That's why, with the help of the Saudi Embassy in Washington and the authorization of the US government, they wanted and were able to get out of the US as soon as they could after 9/11. None of this means that they had anything to do with the attacks, even if a lot of Saudi money has gone indirectly to al-Qaeda or that there were many "fellow travelers" in the Kingdom at the time.
