A day to remember O'Neill

The prescient warnings of the late FBI counterterror expert John O'Neill, who died at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, were vindicated again yesterday. He tried to tell us that the U.S. government protected Saudi interests at our terrible expense, and the joint congressional committee report -- whose chapter on the kingdom was redacted at the insistence of the Bush administration -- posthumously proves O'Neill's point.

The consensus within the intelligence community during the years leading up to 9/11 was that the Saudi regime would never cooperate with the United States against Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. At least three high-ranking officials testified, according to the report, that such cooperation could not be expected because it would be "contrary to Saudi national interests," meaning the interests of the ruling dynasty. Worse yet, the report quotes at least one official who suggested that certain Saudis may have been aware of an imminent al-Qaida operation against the United States just before 9/11.