The next problem is Al Qaeda. They used their considerable resources to run background checks on their key operatives before they would be allowed to advance within the organization. The whole purpose of their camps in Afghanistan was to have a place for incoming volunteers to be housed while they were investigated. If they didn't trust an applicant they sent him on his way, and if they felt he was linked to foreign intelligence then they had the option of killing him or using him to spread disinformation.
I’m curious...do you find it plausible that bin Laden and his confederates had plenty of “friendly faces” directly or indirectly connected to Saudi intelligence whom they could count on to turn a blind eye to al Qaeda fundraising and even (in some cases) operations?
The Saudis have a massive and bloated government bureaucracy, after all - most
Saudis who aren’t “on the dole” are in government jobs, and a lot of those Saudis are “ghost employees” who sit at home and collect state paychecks -, which would total millions of people. I find if hard to believe, especially before 9/11 when bin Laden was getting more aggressive and influential in his campaigns and especially before the 2003-onward al Qaeda attacks in Saudi Arabia itself, that there wasn’t a somewhat significant level of support, even if mostly from more junior levels. Not sure if the highest levels of the House of Saud could have policed this stuff even if they wanted to - and I’m not convinced that they had the stomach to pick a fight with bin Laden’s followers (a personality and ideological cult that the Saudi government had sponsored and arguably helped create in the 1980s as part of the anti-Soviet effort in Afghanistan and Pakistan) - certainly not before 9/11.
If the intelligence and law enforcement agencies of the United States weren’t really willing to take serious action against al Qaeda before 9/11, as you argue, how much more in denial about the threat do you reckon the Saudis and other Gulf monarchies were? What about our old ally and conduit in the 1980s anti-Soviet effort Pakistan, whose military and intelligence services outright created the Taliban, sponsor the Haqqani network, and have trained jihadists whom have promptly gone on to attack targets in India and elsewhere?
I think governments across the world were in denial about al-Qaeda, if not outright dismissive of them. Even after 9/11, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and their advisors were pushing the narrative that it couldn’t have been “one guy and his motley crew in Afghanistan.” Ie. the Butcher of Baghdad that Bush 41 had given a massive black eye a decade prior but was still very much in power had to be involved
somehow.
Even now, some members of the Trump administration are trying to use the 2001 AUMF against al-Qaeda and their allies to justify potential military action against Iran, of all countries - based on murky and frankly dubious alleged connections.
It’s hard for America the Exceptional to accept that a small, dedicated core of people could sneak by our national security and law enforcement agencies and destroy the World Trade Center, damage the Pentagon, and kill thousands of people in the process without there being some much grander, master plot behind them. Yes, I find it very plausible that there were people in or connected to several governments who helped al-Qaeda, however wittingly or directly (often not either). No, I don’t think any government had command and control over Osama bin Laden’s show.
Even the Taliban - even most of bin Laden’s top advisers! - were opposed to “The Planes Operation.” Bin Laden overruled them regardless and cut them out of the loop as he blessed and directed Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s operation to accomplish what KSM’s nephew had failed to do in February 1993 - in addition to the targets in Washington ie, the Pentagon and Capitol building.
