28 Pages of National Security:

Princess Haifa, wife of the Prince Bandar, Saudi Ambassador to Washington for two decades, donates $130,000 to some woman named Ibrahim who she's never met who's married to some guy named Basnan who it turns out is a Saudi double agent. Omar al Bayoumi, a Saudi official of the Saudi Civil Aviation Authority and Basnan's bud, befriends two evildoers, Almidhar and Alhamzi, gets them an apartment next to his and fronts them a couple month's rent with money sent by the Princess to Basnan's wife. It's worth noting that the Saudi double, Basnan, neglects to tell his FBI handlers any of this. Almidhar and Alhamzi land AA 77 on the Pentagon. Basnan meets with Saudi Interior Minister Prince Nayef in Houston in April 2002 while Crown Prince Abdullah is eating barbecue down at Crawford Texas with President Bush. While all this is old news it was awhile before anybody in the media reminded us that Princess Haifa was bankrolling al-Bayoumi and Basnan. The Weekly Standard was first but it took a few days. So this is the likely contents of the 28 page redaction by the Bush administration of the Congressional Report on 9/11. Reason given: National Security. Most everyone has decided that all this reflects negatively on Bush and the accomodation with the House of Saud and Reagan/Bush in 1982 which passed for energy policy that he inherited. He's just covering his backside, yadayadayada.

Wrong.

The revelations stricken from the Conressional Report on 9/11 are truly embarassing to all concerned. To paraphrase a colleague: They know we know, we know they know we know.... So why the concern? Fact is there's a civil war underway in Saudi Arabia that is being fought between essentially centrist Crown Prince Abdullah and fundamentalists under Interior Minister Prince Nayef. Prince Abdullah doesn't need the heat of the stricken revelations just at the moment he attempts to turn the Interior Misisters flank. Our President is inclined to support Prince Abdullah but would be unable to do so just in case the intelligence connection between the Saudi Interior Ministry and AA Flight 77 became undeniable.

Were the putch underway sub rosa in Saudi Arabia to break out into the open, financial markets here and abroad could roil sufficiently to snuff the nascent recovery underway globally.

Think Iran, 1979.