Bush and the Saudi princess

New Hampshire

I always like the bit in the Bond movie where 007 and the supervillain meet face to face – usually at the supervillain’s marine research facility or golf course or, in this latest picture, his Icelandic diamond mine. Bond knows the alleged marine biologist is, in fact, an evil mastermind bent on world domination. The evil mastermind knows Bond is a British agent. But both men go along with the pretence that the other fellow is what he’s claiming to be, and the exquisitely polite encounter invariably ends with the mastermind purring his regrets about being unable to be more helpful. ‘But perhaps we shall meet again, Mr Bond,’ he says, as the Oriental manservant shows 007 to the door.

It must have been a bit like that when Prince Bandar and his family dropped by the Bush ranch at Crawford a couple of months ago. Bush must have known for the best part of a year that in the run-up to 11 September Bandar’s wife, Princess Haifa, had been making regular transfers from her Washington bank account to a couple of known associates of the terrorists. Bandar must have known Bush knew. Each party knows the other party knows they’re engaged in a charade, but they observe the niceties, with Laura showing Princess Haifa the ranch, Bush hailing the ‘eternal friendship’ between the Saudi and American people, and Bandar regretting, as the Saudis always do, that they’re unable to be more helpful.

It would be nice if George W. Bond would kick over the cocktails and lob a grenade into Oilfingers refinery, but instead he and the sheikhs are still teasing each other. In this latest curious episode, the official explanation, if I can type it without giggling, goes something like this: Princess Haifa, the wife of the Saudi ambassador to Washington, gets a letter from a woman in Virginia she’s never heard of complaining about steep medical bills.