...A few weeks later, as the only American to speak at an international conference in France on the connection between terrorism and organized crime, I described the horrors I witnessed in Manhattan, and pointed out the similarity of methods in which both terrorists and criminal organizations generate money.

I called on the few hundred academicians, jurists, bankers, law-enforcement officials, and reporters who attended the conference — mostly French — to intensify their efforts to expose and to stop funds from reaching not only al Qaeda, but all terrorists.

The next speaker, a high-ranking French official, began by saying: "I identify with bin Laden and understand his agenda!" He went on to say that, "the U.S. deserve this attack." In fact, he declared: "the U.S. brought it upon herself with her unjust attitude towards the Palestinians." But at that time bin Laden had not mentioned the Palestinians; instead, he had called for the killing of all Americans, Jews, and other infidels — including Christians — and for destroying the U.S. economy. Yet, the French official, who might have been expected to be an ally, repeated his statement while the audience encouraged him to go on. When he finished his diatribe against "America and the Jews," they cheered him. The contempt towards my country only a few weeks after thousands of people lost their lives in terror attacks was so palpable that I left before the conclusion of the conference.

As I tried to understand this French enmity, it occurred to me that the speaker might have had a personal reason to be so openly venomous. It did not take long to discover that, indeed, this French official was seated on the board of a Saudi bank that the U.S. Treasury Department had listed as supporting terrorism. It was this discovery that cemented my decision to further explore the reasons for the West's complicity in the financing of terrorism...