Jonathan, you do read well! That very interesting quote was not in the NYT article on the prince's comments, as I remember.

Thanks! I may sometimes forget to put my shoes on the morning, but I do believe I read well. If all I had to do was READ about putting my shoes on, I'd be in great shape.

The most charitable assumption is that he meant 'before' rather than 'after'. Otherwise I can't make sense of it. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia were both arming the Kurds and Shi'a in 1992.

Yes, it—seemingly—only makes sense with "before." But if that's what he meant, it's an extremely weird way to phrase the whole thing.

Two possibilities:

(1) Faisal misspoke.

(2) Faisal was attempting to pressure Bush to change his policy in Iraq by subtly threatening to expose details of some sort of anti-Shiite US/Saudi operation in Iraq in 1991.

I'd say, 80% likelihood for possibility (1), 20% for (2).

Then there's always the third possibility - that there is no external reality and that the "world" is in fact a hallucination conjured up in the disembodied brain of the late Sen. Ernest Kefauver, carefully preserved in a secret medical lab at Walter Reed Medical Center. Naturally, thanks to Bush administration budget cuts the program will be phased out by the end of 2006.

"The most charitable assumption is that he meant 'before' rather than 'after'. Otherwise I can't make sense of it. The U.S. and Saudi Arabia were both arming the Kurds and Shi'a in 1992." -- Ah no. Big no. Very very big NO. Their uprising failed expressly because they did not have arms [that little footnote in the peace treaty allowing the Iraqis to fly armed helicopters didn't help them either], on several consecutive occasions different groups, both local villagers & deserted military, and ask for help, even if it was just the arms & ammunition taken confiscated from Saddams army, and they were denied and sent back.

Argh! That should say ", came to the border and asked for help,".