Were the Saudis in the know while Congress was in the dark?
From CNN's Brian Todd in Washington:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Did the Bush administration get assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would increase oil production and lower prices ahead of this year's presidential election?
Washington Post managing editor Bob Woodward says Saudi Arabia was prepared to do so -- and that Bush got a pledge from Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States and a longtime Bush family friend.
Woodward writes, "According to Prince Bandar, the Saudis hoped to fine-tune oil prices over 10 months to prime the economy for 2004. What was key, Bandar knew, were the economic conditions before a presidential election, not at the moment of the election."
This is just one of many revelations in Woodward's book, "Plan of Attack," that have put a capital and a campaign into a lather.
Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry gave his response at a town hall meeting on Monday.
"If, as Bob Woodward reports, it is true, that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, then tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people," Kerry said.
Reaction was swift Monday at the White House and in Riyadh.
From a statement by White House press secretary Scott McClellan: "Our view is markets should determine prices, and that's what we make clear to producers around the world, including our friends at OPEC."
And from a statement by the foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, Adel al-Jubeir: "We do not use oil for political purposes ... Saudi Arabia also does not interfere in elections."
Another claim in Woodward's book is that in the summer of 2002, $700 million was taken from Congress appropriation for the war in Afghanistan to develop a war plan for Iraq -- a diversion Woodward says may have been illegal. And, Woodward writes, Congress was deliberately kept in the dark about it.
"What this president has done in conducting a secretive, deceitful, highly costly war which has taken our attention off the very people who represent our greatest threat. They are not living in Iraq. They are living in the mountains between Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Florida Democratic Sen. Bob Graham at Kerry's Monday appearance.
McClellan added, "... We're confident that Congress was kept fully informed of all expenditures ... In emergency spending there is broad discretion in how those funds could be used in the war on terrorism and Iraq is part of the war on terrorism."
CNN contacted the office of Vice President Dick Cheney to get his reaction to Bob Woodward's claim that he, Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Richard Myers briefed Saudi Prince Bandar on the Iraq war plan even before Secretary of State Colin Powell was briefed.
Cheney's office declined to respond. The State Department says the book is wrong. But Gen. Myers said on CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" Sunday that he believes Woodward's account of that briefing is "basically correct."
