U.S. Says Diplomats in Saudi Confined to Base

[pinto]

http:/www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=3949333

RIYADH (Reuters)
U.S diplomats and their families in Saudi Arabia have been confined to the diplomatic quarter of Riyadh because of continued security concerns in the kingdom, the embassy said on Saturday.

The announcement comes one month after suicide bombers killed 18 people in a Riyadh resdential compound and follows embassy warnings that militants could be planning further attacks, possibly against Western targets.

"The embassy continues to be concerned about the current security situation in Saudi Arabia," the mission said in a warden's notice to the 35,000 U.S. nationals in the Gulf state.

"Effective immediately, travel of embassy personnel and dependents off the Riyadh diplomatic quarter is restricted to essential business only," it said.

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[opihimoimoi]

1. I guess we winning the war on terror but you wouldn't know it from these

kinds of news dispatches.

Seems we going backwards. Soon, we will all be in Montana

[JM]

2. History has a habit of repeating.

How soon until the gunships are evacuating personnel from Saudi just like Saigon. I hope that doesn't happen.

I can only hope it repeats in such a way that Bush waves from Marine One yelling "I am nomt a crook"...

Wishful thinking

JM

[pinto]

3. Saudi Arabia's where it all began,

I remind myself. Our military presence in the kingdom originally fueled bin Laden's fire against America. He gives a rat's ass about Iraq, especially the former secular regime. It was bin Laden and Saudi money that developed al Qaeda, blew up the WTC and continue to shake the base of the House of Saud. We are sooooo far off the mark in our "war on terror", it seems from what I can glean, that it would be funny if not so tragic.

'Course there's the idea that the war in Iraq has nothing to do with democracy OR Iraqi oil, but it's about Saudi oil.....