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To the Editor:

Last month lawyers for the families of 9/11 victims attempting to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for the support it provided those responsible presented video evidence of a Saudi operative discussing the plan months before the attacks occurred.

As one who began studying the threat Marine Security Guards faced in the months that followed the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, as I sought an alternative to the work I did as an Engineer with the Marine Corps, I wasn’t surprised to learn this. The study materials I relied upon were produced by officers familiar with the threat that Embassy personnel faced in the Middle East throughout the Cold War. It was distributed by the Marine Corps Institute as a correspondence course entitled ‘Terrorism Countermeasures’.

I had the opportunity to discuss this topic with my commanding officer in 1997, as I applied for a commissioning program that would pair me with a Marine Officer attending the Naval War College to determine what I’d do if commissioned.

He was confused by the fact that we didn’t assume Saudi Arabia responsible for Osama bin Laden given the fact that he so easily escaped house arrest there after we learned he intended to develop a terrorist organization that would target Americans. This is an opinion I’d hear more often when my commissioning began.

I left the Marine Corps two months before 9/11, convinced the coordinated attacks on airlines al Qaeda began to plan after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing would succeed because we had failed to deprive it of the support it received from Saudi Arabia. It was one of the reasons I chose not to commission after two years with the program.

Jamie Beaulieu

Farmington, Maine

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