Do the Saudis really control the terrorists they court?

In a 2003 Rose Garden press conference, a reporter asked President Bush why he was sealing a congressional report "incriminating the Saudi government when it comes to 9/11."

Bush, without denying the description of the report's contents, argued he had to seal it "so that those who are being investigated aren't alerted."

Only, the Saudi suspects named in the report weren't really "being investigated." Several months earlier, then-FBI Director Robert Mueller admitted as much during a closed hearing with the 9/11 Joint Inquiry staff on the Hill. Mueller sheepishly acknowledged the only people aggressively investigating the Saudi connections were sitting there across the table from him.

This was beyond odd. At both the FBI and CIA, there were files thick with memos and other documents detailing connections between the Saudi hijackers and Saudi officials and agents in at least seven US cities coast-to-coast. They revealed a vast Saudi support network spanning from Los Angeles and San Diego in the West to Washington, DC, Falls Church, Va., and Herndon, Va., in the East; and from Sarasota, Fla., in the South to Paterson, NJ, in the North.

Yet the only people connecting the dots were congressional staffers, as case agents and detectives assigned to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces in San Diego and Washington complained of being frustrated by brass in their attempts to run down Saudi leads, particularly ones that led back to the Saudi Embassy.

There was so much Saudi-related evidence that it took 28 pages just for Hill investigators to summarize it all.

In fact, there arguably was more evidence for the Justice Department to indict Omar al-Bayoumi, the suspected Saudi intelligence agent who aided two of the hijackers in San Diego, than there was to indict Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The attorney general could just have easily thrown material support of terrorism charges at Bayoumi. But he did not. The only real difference is Bayoumi's a Saudi.

If Bush's objective really was to avoid tipping off subjects of ongoing investigations, he could have carefully redacted the names of Bayoumi and other Saudis cited in the 28-page section. Instead, he elected to censor the entire section, scrubbing out anything and everything Saudi.

The day before he did that, he met with the Saudis in the White House to discuss that secret Saudi section, which remains classified today. Walking away from that hour-long meeting, the Saudis no doubt felt reassured their secrets were safe. Confident Bush would never release the 28 pages, Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar made a show of demanding they be released, arguing the Saudis have nothing to hide.

It was an obvious, if effective, ploy.

The congressional report safely sealed up, the Saudis had only the 9/11 Commission Report to worry about — and, lo and behold, it cleared the Saudis (even though the commission director never let investigators see the 28 pages from the earlier congressional report). Upon its release, Bandar clucked that the panel exonerated the Kingdom, not to mention himself, conveniently.

The report curiously leaves out evidence tying Bandar and his wife to the hijackers through a Saudi bag man, Osama Bassnan, who received personal checks from the Bandars while handling the hijackers in San Diego. Bandar appears a few times in footnotes, and only in passing.

The Bandars claim the checks were "welfare" for Bassnan's supposedly ill wife, and that they did not know what Bassnan was really up to.

Maybe so. The Saudis have a history of turning a blind eye to the extremists among them, funding radical mosques as a way of placating their population and keeping themselves in power.

But even if you take Bandar's ignorance at face value, as he sows the wind, we reap the whirlwind.

Last year, Bandar was promoted to chief of Saudi intelligence. Saudi Arabia very much wants to see Bashar al-Assad removed from power in Syria. Bandar, frustrated with Obama's inaction, has been letting Saudi jihadists cross the border to fight in the civil war — and has been funneling arms and support to the Islamic Front rebel group, according to the Daily Beast, weapons that can easily end up in the hands of al Qaeda.

Bandar also has pushed Russia to drop its backing of Assad. In August, according to the Telegraph, he gave President Vladimir Putin both a carrot — oil deals — and a stick:

"I can give you a guarantee to protect the Winter Olympics next year," Bandar allegedly said. "The Chechen groups that threaten the security of the games are controlled by us."

By Chechen groups, he means Islamic terrorists — just like the ones who bombed the Boston Marathon. It's a startling, shocking admission.

Which is the more scary scenario? That members of the Saudi government provide funding to al Qaeda and other terrorist groups but can't control them — or that they can?

Either way, we can't find out the full story without an investigation. And the necessary first step is declassifying those 28 pages. Let's finally connect those dots.

Paul Sperry is a Hoover Institution media fellow and author of "Infiltration" and "Muslim Mafia."