Memo to Bandar: Shut Your Yap Hole

RUMMY AND BANDY

It is difficult to know where to begin in describing all the things that are wrong with Saudi Arabia, let alone its favored-nation relationship with the U.S., so we'll leave it at the fact that this oil-rich and profoundly constipated kingdom has been a fertile breeding ground for terrorists. In fact, all but four of the 9/11 hijacker were Saudis.

That seems to have been lost of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to Washington, who says in a new documentary that Saudi Arabia could have helped the U.S. prevent the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington if American officials had consulted Saudi authorities in a "credible" way.

The comments by Bandar are similar to those earlier this week by Saudi King Abdullah, who suggested Britain could have prevented the July 2005 train bombings in London if it had heeded warnings from Riyadh.

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 9/11 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.

Now it is no secret that the CIA and FBI also had a pretty good idea about what several of the hijackers were up to whom already were in country, but because of the overweaning dysfunctionality of the agencies – as well as a White House national security advisor who had her head where the sun don't shine – warnings were ignored.

Nevertheless, Bandar’s imprecation rankles – and in fact is deeply offensive.