Wikileaks: Muhamad bin Nayef: "We did not save Abqaiq... God did!... "

"... "We did not save Abqaiq, God did," Prince Muhammad bin Naif is quoted as saying in a secret cable that the U.S. embassy in Riyadh, the Saudi capital, sent to the State Department in Washington on Aug. 11, 2008.

After the attempted attacks in Abqaiq, the State Department cables show, the U.S. and the Saudi government set up a joint working group to find ways to improve security. The U.S. even drafted a team from the Energy Department's prestigious Sandia National Laboratories to conduct a wide ranging assessment of design and safety weaknesses throughout the Saudi oil industry.

U.S. officials soon found, however, that infighting between the Saudi state oil company Aramco — the kingdom's cash cow_ and the security-minded Ministry of Interior made improvements in security difficult.

A Dec. 4, 2006, cable from the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh recounts how a top Ministry of Interior adviser plotted to have the Americans exclude Aramco officials from decisions involving infrastructure protection because "the company does not pay enough attention to security issues."

Months later, an April 25, 2007, document highlights concerns about sabotage voiced by the Interior Ministry's chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Saad al Jabri. "He stated there were Saudi Aramco employees known by MOI to be members of extremist groups," the cable said.

Two years later, Aramco fired back, complaining to U.S. officials in the summer of 2009 that Ministry of Interior personnel acted carelessly around combustible materials. Aramco handed a secret $1 billion contract to U.S. defense firm Northrop Grumman to design and install a perimeter surveillance system that the Americans suspected was intended to keep Saudi security forces away from Aramco facilities.

A secret June 17, 2009, cable sent from the U.S. consulate in Dharan described a meeting between Ambassador Ford Fraker and Aramco CEO Khalid al Falih, in which Falih complains about the way Interior Ministry forces behaved. "He noted that after the terrorist attack on Abqaiq in 2005 (sic), Saudi soldiers deployed to protect the infrastructure were smoking cigarettes, driving their vehicles perilously close to equipment," the cable said (continue, here).."