What next, Saudi Arabia...?

I have been struck in recent days by the increasingly critical tone adopted by U.S. media and the Bush administration toward Saudi Arabia.

According to This Modern World, (here), CNN has finally been emphasizing that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. (About time!)

Then there's this disapproving tone (echoed throughout the nation's media) in today's N.Y. Times:

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, May 14 — The United States Ambassador to Saudi Arabia charged today that some weeks before the car bombs of Monday night, American intelligence operatives picked up signs of an imminent terrorist attack and urged the Saudi government to improve security at foreign compounds here, but got little or no response.

Reflecting what some officials said was increasing American frustration with the Saudi efforts against terrorism, the ambassador, Robert W. Jordan, praised Crown Prince Abdullah and Prince Saud al-Faisal, the foreign minister, for their "sincere" vows of a crackdown on military groups. But he also said that "executing the plan to provide additional security is another matter, and I think there's some ways to go on that, quite frankly."

[...]

Even the White House, which has tried in recent months to repair relations with the kingdom, said today that Saudi efforts to combat terrorism remain inadequate, despite some recent improvements.

"Repair relations with the kingdom"?

Since when? Is this not the same Bush administration that facilitated the evacuation of bin Laden's family by air out of the United States in the days following 9/11 when all civilian aircraft were supposedly grounded? The same administration that has been bedding down with the Saudi royal family since before the time of G.W.'s daddy?!

Have I missed something? Or is "repair relations with the kingdom" yet another White House phrase slipped manipulatively into press releases to re-write reality in preparation for another Machiavellian twist?

I would worry if I were a member of the Saudi royal family--who, by the way, are denying that the kingdom failed to heed U.S. requests for greater security. The U.S. has decided to close its Saudi military bases. And now, nonessential American personnel have been ordered out of the country because, again from the Times:

"Saudi Arabia is now one of the fronts in the battle against terrorism," an aide quoted the [American Ambassador Robert Jordan] as telling them. "Innocent civilians and children don't belong on battlefields."

That's damned right, they don't. And just where, by definition, do terrorists' battlefields lie?

Eight Americans were killed in Monday's attack, out of a total of 29 - 34 victims--depending on the news source. (Breaking news, as reported here yesterday, erroneously placed the death toll in the 90's.) As tragic as 8 violent deaths are, they are negligible compared to the nearly 6,000 slain on 9/11 by Saudi hijackers. And we didn't tell Americans to leave Saudi Arabia then.

Just what exactly does the Bush regime have in store for the Saudi Kingdom?

Complete N.Y. Times story on the administration's irritation here.