Saudi Arabia's defense minister cast doubts in remarks published Monday on whether Saudi-born Osama bin Laden's al Quaeda network could have single-handedly carried out last month's attacks on U.S. cities.

Prince Sultan hinted in an interview published in Kuwait's as-Seyassah newspaper that some other "power" might have been involved, because the United States was not any "easy or feasible target."

"Osama bin Laden and those with him have said what indicates that they stand behind this carefully planned act. We, in turn, ask: Are bin Laden and his supporters the only ones behind what happened or is there another power with advanced technical expertise that acted with them?" he asked.

Who, exactly, did he have in mind? The only obvious candidate would be Iraq, but Saudi Arabia has already said that they'd stand with any Arab nation if the US attacks, which presumably would include Iraq. If he's proposing that Israel is behind it, I can think of no more improbable alliance than between bin Laden and the Mossad.

This was actually a fairly low-tech attack. It did indeed take a long time to organize and plan, and it required the assets of a major industrialized nation. But the assets were American; the men who flew those planes into their targets learned to fly in the US. What it mainly required was the ability to recruit zealots willing to die for the cause, and the ruthlessness to carry out the attack. The monetary resources involved were not immense; the total operation probably cost less than half a million dollars in outright cash. It was easily within the capability of al Qaeda, given that al Qaeda had training centers on the ground in Afghanistan. It seems as if the Saudi Defense Minister has someone else in mind, but I can't imagine who. One very strange possibility is that it's the Taliban that he has in mind, and he's trying to build up to justifying our attacks on Afghanistan to the people of Saudi Arabia. (discuss)