Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal, an influential member of the Saudi royal family and former head of its intelligence service, says the U.S. should kill Osama Bin Laden and then " get the hell out" of Afghanistan.

Turki, who was also Saudi ambassador to the United States from 2005 to April 2009, likened al Qaeda to a "cult"  and its leader to a  "hydra head with venomous snakes."

To destroy the cult, he said, "you have to cut off the head."

"After that," he advised, "declare victory...then get the hell out of  Afghanistan."

California Democrat Jane Harman, battling a controversy over her interactions with a suspected Israeli spy, was overheard on a 2005  wiretap discussing a failed fundraising ploy designed to get her named chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, according to a former national security official who has read the transcript.

Harman was heard lamenting to the suspected Israeli agent how the tactics of a major Jewish fundraiser to use the threat of withholding political donations to California Democrat Nancy Pelosi to win Harman the gavel of the House Select Committee on Intelligence had badly backfired, the former official said.