Excuse me while I pick up my jaw off the floor

Headline that makes one gape: Ex-Saudi ambassador: Kingdom could have helped U.S. prevent 9/11.

Really? How about keeping 15 of the 9/11 hijackers at home?

Speaking to the Arabic satellite network Al-Arabiya on Thursday, Bandar -- now Abdullah's national security adviser -- said Saudi intelligence was "actively following" most of the September 11, 2001, plotters "with precision." "If U.S. security authorities had engaged their Saudi counterparts in a serious and credible manner, in my opinion, we would have avoided what happened," he said.

And from here, a listing of recent Saudi Arabian terrorists:

Table A: The Saudi Killers

The actual car bombers, suicide bombers and hijackers from the last twelve years of major terrorist attacks on the U.S. who have hailed from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Saudi National Guard Bombers
Abdul Aziz Bin Fahd Bin Nasser Al-Mothem
Khalid Bin Ahmed Bin Ibrahim Al-Sa’eed
Riyadh Bin Suleiman Bin Is’haq Al-Hajeri
Muslih Bin Ali Bin Ayedh Al-Shemrani400

Khobar Towers Bombers
Ahmed al-Mughassil
Ali al-Houri
Hani al-Sayegh
Abdallah al-Jarash
Hussein al-Mughis401

African Embassy Bombers
Jihad Mohammad Ali al-Makki
Mohamed Rashed Daoud al-‘Owhali402

USS Cole Bombers
Hassan al-Khamri
Ibrahim al-Thawar403

September 11 Hijackers
American Airlines Flight 11
Waleed al-Shehri
Wail al-Shehri
Satam al-Suqami
Abdulaziz al-Omari
United Airlines Flight 175
Ahmed al-Ghamdi
Hamza al-Ghamdi
Mohand al-Shehri
American Airlines Flight 77
Hani Hanjour (pilot-hijacker)
Nawaf al-Hazmi
Khalid al-Mihdhar
Majed Moqed
Salem al-Hazmi
United Airlines Flight 93
Saeed al-Ghamdi
Ahmad al-Haznawi
Ahmed al-Nami404

Riyadh Residential Compound Bombers
Khaled Mohammad bin Muslim
Al-Juhani
Mohammed Othman Abdullah Al-Walidi
Al-Shehri
Hani Saeed Ahmad Al Abdul-Karim
Al-Ghamdi
Jubran Ali Ahmad Hakami Khabrani
Mohammed bin Shadhaf Ali Al-Mahzoum
Al-Shehri
Abdul-Karim Mohammed Jubran Yazji
Majed Abdullah Sa'ad bin Okail.405

Mosul Mess Tent Bomber
Ahmed Said Ahmed al-Ghamdi406



Table B: Suicide Bombings in Iraq
“Most of those who blow themselves up in Iraq are Saudi nationals.”
Mowaffak Rubaie, National Security Adviser, Iraq
· The August 29, 2003, car bomb outside Iraq’s holiest Shiite shrine,
the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, which killed leading Shiite cleric
Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim and more than 80 other
people.407
· The March 2, 2004, suicide bombings of crowds near Shiite
shrines in Baghdad and Karbala, which killed 181 people.408
· The February 28, 2005, car bomb detonated outside a medical
clinic in Hillah, which killed 125 people, the vast majority of
whom were Shiite police and National Guard recruits who were
waiting to take a physical.409
· The July 16, 2005, fuel tanker bomb detonated outside a Shiite
mosque in Musayyib, which killed 90 people.410
· The September 14, 2005, car bomb in which the driver lured a
crowd of Shiite day laborers to his van before detonating his
explosives, killing 114.411
· The September 29, 2005, car bombs detonated in the mostly Shiite
town of Balad, which killed at least 102 people.412
· The November 18, 2005, suicide bombs detonated at two Shiite
mosques in the town of Khanaqin, which killed 74 people.413
· The January 5, 2006, suicide bomb outside the Imam Hussein
shrine in Karbala, which killed 63 people.414
· The April 7, 2006, suicide bombings of the Buratha Mosque in
Baghdad, which killed 79 Shiite worshipers.415
· The January 16, 2007, suicide bombing/car bombing of the Shiite
Mustansiriya University in Baghdad which killed at least 70.416
· The February 3, 2007, suicide truck bombing in an outdoor market
in a Shiite section of Baghdad, which killed 135 people.417
Note that these are just the major attacks targeting Iraqi Shiites, in
addition to countless smaller ones.

What will Bush do about this? Nothing.

Prince Bandar and the arms dealer

Via Bryan at Why Now?, BBC reports:

A Saudi prince who negotiated a £40bn arms deal between Britain and Saudi Arabia received secret payments for over a decade, a BBC probe has found.

The UK's biggest arms dealer, BAE Systems, paid hundreds of millions of pounds to the ex-Saudi ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan.

The payments were made with the full knowledge of the Ministry of Defence.

Prince Bandar "categorically" denied receiving any improper payments and BAE said it acted lawfully at all times.

The MoD said information about the Al Yamamah deal was confidential.

Sir Raymond Lygo, a former chief executive of BAE, told the BBC's World Business Report that there had been "nothing untoward" about the arms deal.

"You smell like money."
"Thanks!"

BFF no longer?

After all that tiptoeing through the tulips?

WASHINGTON, April 29 Bush administration officials wonder whether the U.S. president can continue his deep reliance on a key Saudi prince, it was reported Sunday.

Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia is close to President George W. Bush. But recent events show that Prince Bandar may no longer serve as a beacon of Saudi intent, the New York Times reported.

In February, Bandar's uncle, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, effectively killed plans by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for a summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Then, threes week ago, Bush was caught off guard, and infuriated, when King Abdullah condemned the U.S. invasion of Iraq as an "an illegal foreign occupation," the Times reported. Since then, the administration has found Prince Bandar hard to reach since, the Times said. Bandar had been pursuing policy that was "music to the ears of the Bush administration, but was not what King Abdullah had in mind at all," said Martin S. Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel. Gordon D. Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said none of the current issues threaten the relationship between Bush, Bandar and Abdullah.

"We may have differences on issues now and then," Johndroe said, "but we remain close allies."

It's not convenient

We'll just stand back here and watch you circle the drain, thank you. Guess Cheney's frantic visit to Saudi Arabia didn't patch things.

Via Eli at Multi Medium, Jim Hoagland of the Washington Post:

Now the White House ponders what Abdullah's sudden and sparsely explained cancellation of the dinner signifies. Nothing good -- especially for Condoleezza Rice's most important Middle East initiatives -- is the clearest available answer.

Abdullah's bowing out of the April 17 event is, in fact, one more warning sign that the Bush administration's downward spiral at home is undermining its ability to achieve its policy objectives abroad. Friends as well as foes see the need, or the chance, to distance themselves from the politically besieged Bush.

Official versions discount that possibility, of course. Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national security adviser, flew to Washington last week to explain to Bush that April 17 posed a scheduling problem. " 'It is not convenient' was the way it was put," says one official.

But administration sources report that Bush and his senior advisers were not convinced by Bandar's vagueness -- especially since it followed Saudi decisions to seek common ground with Iran and the radicals of Hezbollah and Hamas instead of confronting them as part of Rice's proposed "realignment" of the Middle East into moderates and extremists.

Abdullah's reluctance to be seen socializing at the White House this spring reflects two related dynamics: a scampering back by the Saudis to their traditional caution in trying to balance regional forces, and their displeasure with negative U.S. reaction to their decision to return to co-opting or placating foes.

Abdullah gave a warm welcome to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Riyadh in early March, not long after the Saudis pressured Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas into accepting a political accord that entrenches Hamas in an unwieldy coalition government with Abbas's Fatah movement.

"The Saudis surprised us by going that far," explained one White House official in a comment that reached -- and irritated -- Saudi officials. So don't count on Abdullah to put new force behind his long-stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace initiative at the Arab summit scheduled this week in Riyadh.

So the romping in the flowers and the hand-holding means nothing?

The reason for Ambassador Turki's sudden resignation

could have been a brewing feud between Prince Turki and Prince Bandar.

"Turki's predecessor in his job, Prince Bandar, who was Saudi Ambassador to the US for 22 years, is reportedly jealous of the rave reviews Turki was getting in Washington -- and has been jockeying with Turki in Washington power circles by continuing to manage his own White House relations and contacts throughout Bush world without consulting and coordinating with Ambassador Turki.

Whereas Ambassador Turki has been forthright with the Bush White House about Saudi views of what America needed to be doing in the Middle East -- particularly with regard to checking Iran's growing power, dealing with Israel's flamboyant response to Hamas and Hezbollah incursions earlier this year, moving Israel-Palestine negotiations from pathetic illusion to reality, and getting the calculus in Iraq on a more constructive course -- Bandar is perceived to be somewhat of a "good old boy" by the Bush crowd and somewhat sycophantic when around Bush and Cheney."

So guess who Georgie would want to listen to?