Maybe those careless checks signed by Princess Haifa al-Faisal, wife of the Saudi ambassador Prince Bandar, could turn out to have been useful. The well-informed Kuwaiti daily al-Watan reports that it led to an initially tense but finally cordial meeting between Prince Bandar and Condoleezza Rice, at which the White House national security adviser defined the terms on which the Americans would draw a veil over the affair. Rice asked for "a clear Saudi statement of support" against Iraq, and the use of the Prince Sultan Air Base in the event of military operations. Al-Watan concluded that the Saudis "agreed to be amenable with some reasonable adaptations of the plan."
Blackmail is such a ugly word, heh, heh, heh. |