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But the tighter restrictions required security reviews and sometimes long waits. Saudi businessmen whined about the inconvenience, and after a few of them were denied visas, they went to the prince. He carried their complaints to the president, who listened.
In a remarkably under-reported story, the Arab News carried an announcement from James C. Oberwetter, the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, declaring that visa restrictions for Saudi visitors would be eased.
"Last week's visit by Crown Prince Abdullah to the United States has given a major boost to bilateral relations," the ambassador said.
The Saudis were surely miffed when one of the members of their own delegation was denied a U.S. visa because his name appeared on a watch list for alleged terrorists. Both the Dallas Morning News and the Agence France-Press (AFP) wire service reported the incident, in which the name of one of Prince Abdullah's minions popped up on a government no-fly list.
"The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a routine check of the delegation passenger manifest, found that one traveler was on a government list meant to screen out possible terrorists," an official said on condition of anonymity to the AFP.
The Dallas Morning News confirmed the report and quoted an administration official saying, "We're not going to discuss the individual because the information is classified."
So let's get this straight. We're going to make it harder for Mexicans to drive cabs in Los Angeles and send them packing if they're caught without a driver's license and make it easier for Saudis -- proven producers of mass murderers -- to enter the country. That's just what George W. Bush is doing. The more ignorant and oblivious the American people are, the more the Busheviks and their lies thrive.
The horrible carnage in Iraq is getting worse. The insurgents are hitting targets in most areas of the country and over the last 10 days more than 300 people have died in bombings and ambushes. But we're being offered the lie that the violence is sputtering out and the new government will bring stability.
Marine Corps Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff and former commander in Iraq, says the insurgent forces are desperate and they can't sustain these attacks.
"We do know that some of the insurgent Web sites have called this the jihad Super Bowl, if you will, and now's the time to come fight and try to kick the Americans out of the region," Conway told reporters. "How much people are responding to that, we're just not certain at this point, but we continue to seek that answer." The answer is bloody obvious.
Two years after the chicken-hawk in chief made his cocky flight-deck strut and proclaimed victory under the Mission Accomplished banner, Iraq is in turmoil and the continued U.S. occupation there is a terrorist recruiter's dream.
The two supreme lies about the war of choice in Iraq that future historians will marvel at are:
Saddam was a serious and imminent threat to the United States because he had or planned to build terrible weapons.
George W. Bush sought peace and did everything he could to prevent war that would only happen "as a last resort."
The weapons of mass destruction lies are thoroughly documented. UN weapons inspectors came up empty-handed and our own multibillion dollar search yielded nothing. It's abundantly clear intelligence was shaped and distorted to create the myth of Saddam's weapons. No serious person believes otherwise.
Now, we have the first document proving Bush had Iraq in his crosshairs and was committed to "regime change" removed from any factual findings. His public posture that he longed for peace was a damnable lie.
The most important item coming from Britain in recent days was not Tony Blair's re-election but the publication of a "smoking gun" memo proving the Bush administration had no intention of dealing with Iraq peacefully and diplomatically.
The Sunday Times of London got hold of the minutes of a 2002 meeting Blair had with members of his cabinet to discuss consultations with the Bush people on U.S. intentions toward Iraq.
A Blair foreign police adviser, Matthew Rycroft, incorporated the minutes of the meeting in a memorandum described as
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