Its Religious Affairs Ministry warns anyone thinking of converting to another religion or Islamic sect that they would be considered "an apostate and you should be killed because you have denied the Koran". Saudi influence on Muslims around the world is almost wholly negative. The extremist madrassas in Pakistan which have become schools of terror are financed by tens of millions of Saudi dollars every year, educating more than 1m Pakistanis, including, it would seem, at least two of the July 7 London bombers.

Much of the financing for the deadly Iraqi insurgency, which is daily massacring innocent Muslim civilians, is coming from Saudi Arabia, a disgrace its government has unforgivably neglected to address. The money is funnelled through pseudo-charities, tribal institutions and businesses, following a financing model similar to that which props up al-Qaeda.

Saudi money also flows into the coffers of Hamas, the Palestinian suicide bombers committed to the destruction of Israel whom the Saudi government refuses to categorise as terrorists.

The House of Saud's nurturing of terrorism has gone hand in hand with its utter failure to embrace the kind of liberal economic reforms that would allow ordinary Saudis to become richer and create jobs for its army of young people, thus reducing their hate and anger. Even though Saudi Arabia is the world's largest oil producer, with about 25% of known reserves, its citizens remain astonishingly poor.

Hundreds of billions of oil dollars have been squandered by the ruling elite, with nothing to show for them, in what must be the greatest waste of a precious resource in economic history. GDP per capita last year was a mere £5,584, far less than many countries with no natural resources.

If oil were to vanish tomorrow, Saudi Arabia would be little richer than the poorest of African nations - a devastating indictment of its ruling plutocrats, too many of whom live in obscene wealth, which they have not earned, while their fellow-countrymen live in an idle squalor tailor-made for Wahhabist exploitation.

For a brief period after 9/11, it looked as if the Bush administration was ready to face up to the truth about Saudi Arabia. No longer: America is back to kowtowing to Riyadh, symbolised by vice-president Cheney leading an all-star American cast to King Fahd's funeral last week. US dependence on Saudi oil is as bad as ever; the Congress has passed a shameful energy bill which does nothing to end US exposure to the Middle East. And Prime Minister Blair praises the root cause of today's Islamic terrorist threat. The US and Great Britain are supposed to be in the vanguard in the war on terror; no wonder thoughtful people are increasingly concerned about its outcome.