The Saudis have complained for years about how their nation is portrayed in the West; this is not the first time that a member of the Bush family was quoted in the Saudi press as apologizing for the Western media.

On Oct. 25, amid reports that the administration was unhappy with the lack of Saudi cooperation in the investigations of the Sept. 11 attack and the war on terrorism (Saudi Arabia had balked on tracking down possible funding ties to al-Qaida, expressed reluctance to help the U.S. militarily and, unlike 40 other countries, had yet to make one arrest, despite the fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals), White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said President Bush had reached out to Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. The president wanted "to thank the kingdom for its support in the international war against terrorism. The president noted that he is very pleased with the kingdom's contributions to the efforts, and he said that press articles citing differences between the United States and Saudi Arabia are simply incorrect."

The ties between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family are deep. After the Gulf War in 1992, Prince Bandar had bonded with then-President George H.W. Bush to the point that New York Times columnist William Safire morphed them into "Bandarbush" and wrote: "When Prince Bandar says 'jump,' George Bush asks 'how high?'" The prince donated at least $1 million to the former president's presidential library at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. In June 2000, he attended Barbara Bush's 75th birthday party in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Following reports that the Saudi royal family was chagrined with the U.S. support for Israel, on July 15 the New York Times reported that President George H.W. Bush called Crown Prince Abdullah to assure him that his son the president would "do the right thing" because "his heart is in the right place."

That seemed to be the message delivered to Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz -- essentially the Saudi ruler, with King Fahd reportedly in poor health -- who on Nov. 4 took to Saudi state television to report that "President Bush phoned me. He began the conversation by saying that he was sorry" about U.S. media stories in which Saudi Arabia was criticized. According to Abdullah, President Bush said: "'We will not accept this and I will not accept it, and most American people will not accept it.'"

A day later, Abdullah alluded to the Zionist conspiracy alleged to be behind the media criticisms. "Newspapers which criticized the kingdom are driven by people you know and are aware who stands behind them ... God willing these will be defeated." In December, the third-ranking Saudi official, Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, blamed the "Zionist and Jewish" lobby for "the campaign by some American and Western newspapers ... launched against us because of the kingdom's position on the Palestinian issue."

Complaints against the Saudi government for a lack of cooperation in the U.S. war against terrorism is no new development. The U.S. government has for years sought Imad Fayez Mugniyah -- one of the top 22 "most wanted terrorists" who in 1983 led the bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, which killed 16, and the U.S. Marine barracks, which killed 241. In 1995, the FBI learned that Mugniyah was on a commercial airliner scheduled for a layover in Saudi Arabia. But at the last minute, the Saudi government -- against U.S. wishes -- denied the plane permission to land, and Mugniyah thus avoided capture. A couple years later, before U.S. officials could interrogate four individuals responsible for the 1997 truck-bombing of the Khobar Towers housing complex in Dhahran -- in which 19 American soldiers were killed -- the Saudi authorities had the four men beheaded. Eleven others are wanted for extradition, but the Saudi government has refused those requests.

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