Oil For State Secrets?

Among the more interesting parts of Woodward's book:

But, it turns out, two days before the president told Powell [about his plan to go to war with Iraq], Cheney and Rumsfeld had already briefed Prince Bandar, the Saudi ambassador.

”Saturday, Jan. 11, with the president's permission, Cheney and Rumsfeld call Bandar to Cheney's West Wing office, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Gen. Myers, is there with a top-secret map of the war plan. And it says, ‘Top secret. No foreign.’ No foreign means no foreigners are supposed to see this,” says Woodward.

“They describe in detail the war plan for Bandar. And so Bandar, who's skeptical because he knows in the first Gulf War we didn't get Saddam out, so he says to Cheney and Rumsfeld, ‘So Saddam this time is gonna be out, period?’ And Cheney - who has said nothing - says the following: ‘Prince Bandar, once we start, Saddam is toast.’"

After Bandar left, according to Woodward, Cheney said, “I wanted him to know that this is for real. We're really doing it."

But this wasn’t enough for Prince Bandar, who Woodward says wanted confirmation from the president. “Then, two days later, Bandar is called to meet with the president and the president says, ‘Their message is my message,’” says Woodward.

Prince Bandar enjoys easy access to the Oval Office. His family and the Bush family are close. And Woodward told 60 Minutes that Bandar has promised the president that Saudi Arabia will lower oil prices in the months before the election - to ensure the U.S. economy is strong on election day.

Woodward says that Bandar understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: “They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production.

Well, at least we know one foreign leader that isn't supporting John Kerry. And in return for access to state secrets-- after all, what are a few state secrets between old friends?-- he's manipulating oil prices to help keep Bush in office.

Bandar's been in the news lately for another reason-- the disturbing possibility that he or his associates may have been financing terrorism:

A federal investigation into the bank accounts of the Saudi Embassy in Washington has identified more than $27 million in "suspicious" transactions—including hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to Muslim charities, and to clerics and Saudi students who are being scrutinized for possible links to terrorist activity, according to government documents obtained by NEWSWEEK. The probe also has uncovered large wire transfers overseas by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince Bandar bin Sultan. The transactions recently prompted the Saudi Embassy's longtime bank, the Riggs Bank of Washington, D.C., to drop the Saudis as a client after embassy officials were "unable to provide an explanation that was satisfying," says a source familiar with the discussions.

A Saudi spokesman strongly denied that any embassy funds were used to support terrorism and said Bandar chose to pull the embassy's accounts out of Riggs. The Saudis point out that an earlier FBI probe into embassy funds that were moved to alleged associates of the 9/11 hijackers has not led to any charges. The current probe, by the FBI and Treasury Department, is one of the most sensitive financial inquiries now being conducted by the government and is being closely monitored by the White House. The federal commission investigating 9/11 was also recently briefed on developments, sources say. U.S. officials stress that they have identified no evidence of any knowing Saudi aid to terrorist groups. But they express frustration at their inability to penetrate a number of large and seemingly irregular transactions. "There's a lot of money moving in a lot of directions—maybe not all that carefully," said one senior law-enforcement official. "Everyone wants to get to the bottom of it."

One would think that President Bush, who has pledged to do everything in his power to keep America safe from terrorism, would be sounding the alarm. After all, the Administration has thrown Muslims in jail and kept them incommunicado on much less evidence than this. Instead, the President is keeping mum, and his old family friend-- the one who had access to top secret war plans-- is making sure that the President will have oil prices low enough to keep him in power.

This doesn't smell good at all.