U.S. Officials: Saudis Ignored Warnings
May 15 -- The Saudi government failed to act on urgent requests last week for increased security at residential compounds where Americans live, including one of the complexes attacked in Monday's deadly car bombings, U.S. officials told ABCNEWS.
In fact, a top White House official, Deputy National Security Adviser Steven Hadley, was sent last week to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, on a secret mission to warn that an attack was imminent. Hadley took details of specific intelligence picked up by U.S. agencies, officials told ABCNEWS.
By last Saturday, May 10, a U.S. government security team had identified the Jedawal compound as a specific target of an expected attack.
But officials told ABCNEWS that requests to have vehicles with machine guns mounted on them at the gate and a reaction team inside the complex were denied by an unidentified brigadier general in the Saudi air force, which guards the facility.
Jedawal and two other compounds housing Westerners in Riyadh were targeted Monday night by suicide bombers. At least 34 people were killed, among them at least seven Americans.
Behind the scenes, U.S. Ambassador Robert Jordan has been described as livid over the Saudi inaction, according to officials in Washington. He even suggested at one point that the United States should cut off diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia, officials said.
On ABCNEWS' Good Morning America on Wednesday, Jordan said all nonessential U.S. personnel should leave the country. "We're hoping they can start leaving immediately," he said.
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States, responded to the accusations that security measures Jordan asked for did not take place.
"There is no 100 percent security," Bandar told ABCNEWS. "The problem is when success takes place in anti-terrorist activities, people don't know about it. It is the number of attempts that we have foiled, directly or indirectly, that people don't know. But we cannot, nor can you in the United States of America, guarantee 100 percent nothing will happen when a determined, crazy, evil person is determined to die."
Popular Reads
ABC News Live