FBI
agents in the United States probing relatives of Saudi-born terror
suspect Osama Bin Laden before September 11 were told to back off soon
after George W Bush became president, the BBC has reported.
The BBC's Newsnight
current affairs programme on Tuesday said that Bush at one point had a
number of connections with Saudi Arabia's prominent Bin Laden family.
It added there was a
suspicion that the US strategic interest in Saudi Arabia, which has the world's
biggest oil reserve, blunted its inquiries into individuals with
suspected terrorist connections -- so long as the US was safe.
Newsnight reported
it had seen secret documents from an FBI probe into the September 11
terror attacks that showed that at least two other US-based members of
the Bin Laden family are suspected to have links with a possible
terrorist organisation.
The programme said
it had obtained evidence that the FBI was on the trail of Bin Laden
family members living in United States before, as well as after, the
terrorist attacks.
Newsnight said Bush
made his first million 20 years ago with an oil company partly funded by
the chief US representative of Salem Bin Laden, Osama's brother.
Bush also received
fees as director of a subsidiary of Carlyle Corporation, a little-known
private company which in just a few years since its founding has become
one of America's biggest defence contractors, and his father, George Bush
Sr, is also a paid advisor, the programme said.
The connection became
embarrassing when it was revealed that the Bin Ladens held a stake in
Carlyle, sold just after September 11, it added.
