Friday, April 23, 2004

After Bob Woodward's revelations, Newsday's Marie Cocco wants to know a little more about the Saudis:

...I want more pages, but not from Woodward. Twenty-eight of them, to be exact.

These are the 28 pages in the December 2002 report of the joint congressional inquiry into intelligence failures before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. They've been blacked out by the Bush White House.

The president has refused congressional pleas to declassify a chapter "suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States." The specific source of foreign support by all accounts is the Saudi government....

At the moment, federal investigators are probing Riggs Bank, an esteemed Washington institution that was, until last month, chief banker for the Embassy of Saudi Arabia. They're reportedly pursuing evidence of money laundering in the movement of Saudi funds abroad. The scrutiny touches on Saudi-sponsored charitable organizations and whether they bankroll terrorists. Among the funds looked at, according to The Washington Post, are the personal accounts of the Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan....

I do wonder what the president and vice president of the United States would be doing telling military secrets ... to an ambassador whose embassy money matters are under investigation by Congress, federal bank regulators and reportedly by the FBI....


If you're a friend of the Bushes, you're a "good man," even if you countenance (or finance) terrorism. In the president's worldview, it's that simple.

(Link via INTL-News.)

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