[Congressional Bills 110th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[S. 2243 Introduced in Senate (IS)]







110th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                S. 2243

To strongly encourage the Government of Saudi Arabia to end its support 
 for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other 
  way aid and abet terrorism, to secure full Saudi cooperation in the 
investigation of terrorist incidents, to denounce Saudi sponsorship of 
          extremist Wahhabi ideology, and for other purposes.


_______________________________________________________________________


                   IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

                            October 25, 2007

Mr. Specter (for himself and Mr. Wyden) introduced the following bill; 
which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Foreign Relations

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To strongly encourage the Government of Saudi Arabia to end its support 
 for institutions that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in any other 
  way aid and abet terrorism, to secure full Saudi cooperation in the 
investigation of terrorist incidents, to denounce Saudi sponsorship of 
          extremist Wahhabi ideology, and for other purposes.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Saudi Arabia Accountability Act of 
2007''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress makes the following findings:
            (1) United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001) 
        mandates that all states ``refrain from providing any form of 
        support, active or passive, to entities or persons involved in 
        terrorist acts'', take ``the necessary steps to prevent the 
        commission of terrorist acts'', and ``deny safe haven to those 
        who finance, plan, support, or commit terrorist acts''.
            (2) In 2004, the Council on Foreign Relations reported that 
        it knew of ``not a single Saudi donor of funds to terrorist 
        groups who has been publicly punished''.
            (3) In his July 2005 testimony to the Committee on Banking, 
        Housing, and Urban Affairs of the Senate, Stewart Levey, the 
        Undersecretary for the Office of Terrorism and Financing 
        Intelligence of the Department of the Treasury, reported that 
        ``even today, we believe that Saudi donors may still be a 
        significant source of terrorist financing, including for the 
        insurgency in Iraq''. He added that Saudi financiers and 
        charities ``remain a key source for the promotion of ideologies 
        used by terrorists and violent extremists''.
            (4) According to a July 27, 2007 New York Times article, 
        ``Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each 
        month, American military and intelligence officials say that 
        nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis 
        have not done enough to stem the flow.''.
            (5) According to a July 15, 2007 Los Angeles Times article, 
        ``About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and 
        Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia ... 
        according to official U.S. military figures made available to 
        The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 
        foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he 
        said. Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried 
        out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, 
        said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of 
        anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity.''.
            (6) The Center for Religious Freedom, formerly affiliated 
        with Freedom House, in a 2006 report entitled ``Saudi Arabia's 
        Curriculum of Intolerance'', stated that despite 2005 
        statements by the Saudi Foreign Minister that their educational 
        curricula have been reformed, this is ``simply not the case''. 
        Contrarily, religious textbooks continue to advocate the 
        destruction of any non-Wahhabi Muslim. Saudi Arabia has 
        established Wahhabism, an extreme form of Islam, as the 
        official state doctrine, and about 5,000,000 children are 
        instructed each year in Islamic studies using Saudi Ministry of 
        Education textbooks.
            (7) A Fall 2007 United States Commission on International 
        Religious Freedom report stated ``Due to insufficient 
        information provided by the Saudi government, the Commission 
        could not verify that a formal mechanism exists within the 
        Saudi government to review thoroughly and revise educational 
        texts and other materials sent outside of Saudi Arabia. It 
        appears that the Saudi government has made little or no 
        progress on efforts to halt the exportation of extremist 
        ideology outside the Kingdom.''.
            (8) A September 2005 Government Accountability Office 
        report stated that ``Saudi Arabia's multibillion-dollar 
        petroleum industry, although largely owned by the government, 
        has fostered the creation of large private fortunes, enabling 
        many wealthy Saudis to sponsor charities and educational 
        foundations whose operations extend to many countries. United 
        States Government and other expert reports have linked some 
        Saudi donations to the global propagation of religious 
        intolerance, hatred of Western values, and support of terrorist 
        activities''.
            (9) A June 2004 press release on the website of the Saudi 
        embassy, www.saudiembassy.net, discussed the creation of the 
        Saudi National Commission for Relief and Charity Work Abroad, a 
        nongovernmental body designed to ``take over all aspects of 
        private overseas aid operations and assume responsibility for 
        the distribution of private charitable donations from Saudi 
        Arabia'' in order to ``guard against money laundering and the 
        financing of terrorism''. As of late 2007, this Commission had 
        not been created.
            (10) In a February 2006 open Senate Select Committee on 
        Intelligence hearing on the ``World Wide Threat'', former 
        Director of National Intelligence and current Deputy Secretary 
        of State John Negroponte, stated that ``there are private Saudi 
        citizens who still engage in these kinds of donations [in which 
        money is transferred back door to terrorists]''.
            (11) A March 2005 report by the Congressional Research 
        Service stated that at least 5 persons listed as beneficiaries 
        of the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Al Quds Intifada 
        were suspected suicide bombers.
            (12) During November 8, 2005 testimony on Saudi Arabia 
        before the Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Homeland 
        Security of the Committee on the Judiciary of the Senate, Steve 
        Emerson, terrorism expert and Executive Director of the 
        Investigative Project on Terrorism, stated that despite 
        repeated declarations by Saudi officials that there has been 
        substantial reform in education, progress against terrorism, 
        and movement toward transparency, a review of other Saudi 
        announcements shows that they have either specifically failed 
        to follow through or cannot be proven to have followed through 
        on their pledges. He also noted that the Saudi government 
        established the Saudi Committee for the Support of the Al Quds 
        Intifada, which was proven to provide aid to Palestinian 
        terrorist groups. During an Israeli raid on a Hamas 
        institution, they discovered a spreadsheet from the 
        aforementioned committee giving a detailed account about how 
        they received $545,000 from the committee to allocate to 102 
        families of so-called martyrs. The spreadsheet included the 
        names of 8 suicide bombers.
            (13) A January 2007 Congressional Research Service Report 
        on Saudi Arabia's terrorist-financing activities indicated that 
        although the records portion of the Committee for the Support 
        of the Al Quds Intifada was deactivated in March 2005, of the 
        1,300 listed beneficiaries, over 60 matched or closely 
        resembled the names of known Palestinian militants who carried 
        out attacks against Israel between October 2000 and March 2002.
            (14) The final report of the Presidentially-appointed Iraq 
        Study Group stated that ``funding for the Sunni insurgency in 
        Iraq comes from private donors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf 
        states''.
            (15) A January 2005 report by the Center for Religious 
        Freedom found that Saudi Arabia was creating and distributing, 
        through its embassy in Washington, D.C., material promoting 
        hatred, intolerance, and violence at mosques and Islamic 
        centers in the United States.
            (16) On December 14, 2005, R. James Woolsey, former 
        Director of Central Intelligence wrote, ``Over the long run, 
        this movement [Wahhabism] is in many ways the most dangerous of 
        the ideological enemies we face.'' Mr. Woolsey also explained 
        that ``al Qaeda and the Wahhabis share essentially the same 
        underlying totalitarian theocratic ideology. It is this common 
        Salafist ideology that the Wahhabis have been spreading widely 
        -- financed by $3-4 billion/year from the Saudi government and 
        wealthy individuals in the Middle East over the last quarter 
        century -- to the madrassas of Pakistan, the textbooks of 
        Turkish children in Germany, and the mosques of Europe and the 
        U.S.''.
            (17) According to a May 2006 report by the Center for 
        Religious Freedom, official Saudi religious textbooks continue 
        to teach hatred of those who do not follow Wahhabi Muslim 
        doctrine and encourage jihad against such ``infidels'' and 
        ``the Saudi public school religious curriculum continues to 
        propagate an ideology of hate toward the unbeliever ... [A] 
        text instructs students that it is a religious obligation to do 
        `battle' against infidels in order to spread the faith''.
            (18) In May 2006, the Congressional Research Service 
        reported that ``Saudi Arabia has discussed increasing boycott 
        efforts against Israel, despite their WTO [World Trade 
        Organization] obligations''.

SEC. 3. SENSE OF CONGRESS.

    It is the sense of Congress that--
            (1) it is imperative that the Government of Saudi Arabia 
        immediately and unconditionally--
                    (A) permanently close all charities, schools, or 
                other organizations or institutions in the Kingdom of 
                Saudi Arabia that fund, train, incite, encourage, or in 
                any other way aid and abet terrorism anywhere in the 
                world (referred to in this Act as ``Saudi-based terror 
                organizations''), including by means of providing 
                support for the families of individuals who have 
                committed acts of terrorism;
                    (B) end funding or other support by the Government 
                of Saudi Arabia for charities, schools, and any other 
                organizations or institutions outside the Kingdom of 
                Saudi Arabia that train, incite, encourage, or in any 
                other way aid and abet terrorism anywhere in the world 
                (referred to in this Act as ``offshore terror 
                organizations''), including by means of providing 
                support for the families of individuals who have 
                committed acts of terrorism;
                    (C) block all funding from private Saudi citizens 
                and entities to any Saudi-based terror organization or 
                offshore terrorism organization; and
                    (D) provide complete, unrestricted, and 
                unobstructed cooperation to the United States, 
                including the unsolicited sharing of relevant 
                intelligence in a consistent and timely fashion, in the 
                investigation of groups and individuals that are 
                suspected of financing, supporting, plotting, or 
                committing an act of terror against United States 
                citizens anywhere in the world, including within the 
                Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; and
            (2) the President, in determining whether to make the 
        certification described in section 4, should judge whether the 
        Government of Saudi Arabia has continued and sufficiently 
        expanded its efforts to combat terrorism since the May 12, 2003 
        bombing in Riyadh.

SEC. 4. PRESIDENTIAL CERTIFICATION.

    The President shall certify to the appropriate congressional 
committees when the President determines that the Government of Saudi 
Arabia--
            (1) is fully cooperating with the United States in 
        investigating and preventing terrorist attacks;
            (2) has permanently closed all Saudi-based Wahhabbist 
        organizations that fund Islamic extremism, internally and 
        abroad;
            (3) has exercised maximum efforts to block all funding from 
        private Saudi citizens, corporations, and entities, to foreign 
        Islamic extremist and terrorist movements; and
            (4) has stopped financing and disseminating materials, and 
        other forms of support, that encourage the spread of radical 
        Wahhabi ideology.

SEC. 5. STATUS REPORT.

    (a) Requirement for Report.--Not later than 6 months after the date 
of the enactment of this Act, and every 12 months thereafter until the 
President makes the certification described in section 4, the Secretary 
of State shall submit a report to the appropriate congressional 
committees that describes the progress made by the Government of Saudi 
Arabia toward meeting the conditions described in paragraphs (1) 
through (4) of section 4.
    (b) Form.--The report submitted under subsection (a) shall be in 
unclassified form and may include a classified annex.

SEC. 6. APPROPRIATE CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES DEFINED.

    In this Act, the term ``appropriate congressional committees'' 
means the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate and the 
Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives.
                                 <all>