America Wakes up to Threat of Saudi Terrorism

[Guest guest]

Briefing depicted Saudis as enemies

 

RAND analyst urges rethinking of Saudi Arabia as U.S. ally

 

By Thomas E. Ricks

THE WASHINGTON POST

 

Aug. 6 — A briefing given last month to a top Pentagon advisory

board described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States, and

recommended that U.S. officials give it an ultimatum to stop backing

terrorism or face seizure of its oil fields and its financial assets

invested in the United States.

 

"THE SAUDIS are active at every level of the terror chain, from

planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist

to cheerleader," stated the explosive briefing. It was presented on

July 10 to the Defense Policy Board, a group of prominent

intellectuals and former senior officials that advises the Pentagon

on defense policy.

"Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies,"

said the briefing prepared by Laurent Murawiec, a Rand Corporation

analyst. A talking point attached to the last of 24 briefing slides

went even further, describing Saudi Arabia as "the kernel of evil,

the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent" in the Middle East.

• U.S. limits visa services at Saudi travel agencies

• Ties binding U.S. to Arab world are weakening

The briefing did not represent the views of the board or official

government policy, and in fact runs counter to the present stance of

the U.S. government that Saudi Arabia is a major ally in the region.

Yet it also represents a point of view that has growing currency

within the Bush administration — especially on the staff of Vice

President Cheney and in the Pentagon's civilian leadership — and

among neoconservative writers and thinkers closely allied with

administration policymakers.

One administration official said opinion about Saudi Arabia

is changing rapidly within the U.S. government. "People used to

rationalize Saudi behavior," he said. "You don't hear that anymore.

There's no doubt that people are recognizing reality and recognizing

that Saudi Arabia is a problem."

Advertisement

 

 

 

The decision to bring the anti-Saudi analysis before the

Defense Policy Board also appears tied to the growing debate over

whether to launch a U.S. military attack to remove Saddam Hussein

from power in Iraq. The chairman of the board is former Pentagon

official Richard N. Perle, one of the most prominent advocates in

Washington of just such an invasion. The briefing argued that

removing Hussein would spur change in Saudi Arabia — which, it

maintained, is the larger problem because of its role in financing

and supporting radical Islamic movements.

Perle did not return calls to comment. A Rand spokesman said

Murawiec, a former adviser to the French Ministry of Defense who now

analyzes international security affairs for Rand, would not be

available to comment.

"Neither the presentations nor the Defense Policy Board

members' comments reflect the official views of the Department of

Defense," Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said in a written

statement issued last night. "Saudi Arabia is a long-standing friend

and ally of the United States. The Saudis cooperate fully in the

global war on terrorism and have the Department's and the

Administration's deep appreciation."

 

OIL FIELDS `TARGETED'?

`Once you have a democratic regime in Iraq, like the ones we helped

establish in Germany and Japan after World War II, there are a lot

of possibilities.'

— BUSH ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL

Murawiec said in his briefing that the United States should

demand that Riyadh stop funding fundamentalist Islamic outlets

around the world, stop all anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements in

the country, and "prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror

chain, including in the Saudi intelligence services."

If the Saudis refused to comply, the briefing continued,

Saudi oil fields and overseas financial assets should be "targeted,"

although exactly how was not specified.

The report concludes by linking regime change in Iraq to

altering Saudi behavior. This view, popular among some

neoconservative thinkers, is that once a U.S. invasion has removed

Hussein from power, a friendly successor regime would become a major

exporter of oil to the West. That oil would diminish U.S. dependence

on Saudi energy exports, and so — in this view — permit the U.S.

government finally to confront the House of Saud for supporting

terrorism.

"The road to the entire Middle East goes through Baghdad,"

said the administration official, who is hawkish on Iraq. "Once you

have a democratic regime in Iraq, like the ones we helped establish

in Germany and Japan after World War II, there are a lot of

possibilities."

 

KISSINGER OBJECTS

Of the two dozen people who attended the Defense Policy Board

meeting, only one, former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger,

spoke up to object to the anti-Saudi conclusions of the briefing,

according to sources who were there. Some members of the board

clearly agreed with Kissinger's dismissal of the briefing and others

did not.

One source summarized Kissinger's remarks as, "The Saudis are

pro-American, they have to operate in a difficult region, and

ultimately we can manage them."

Kissinger declined to comment on the meeting. He said his

consulting business does not advise the Saudi government and has no

clients that do large amounts of business in Saudi Arabia.

"I don't consider Saudi Arabia to be a strategic adversary of

the United States," Kissinger said. "They are doing some things I

don't approve of, but I don't consider them a strategic adversary."

Other members of the board include former vice president Dan

Quayle; former defense secretaries James Schlesinger and Harold

Brown; former House speakers Newt Gingrich and Thomas Foley; and

several retired senior military officers, including two former vice

chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired admirals David

Jeremiah and William Owens.

 

`A MISGUIDED EFFORT'

`Repeating lies will never make them facts.'

— PRINCE BANDAR BIN SULTAN

Saudi ambassador to the United States Asked for reaction,

Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to the United States,

said he did not take the briefing seriously. "I think that it is a

misguided effort that is shallow, and not honest about the facts,"

he said. "Repeating lies will never make them facts."

"I think this view defies reality," added Adel al-Jubeir, a

foreign policy adviser to Saudi leader Crown Prince Abdullah ibn

Abdulaziz. "The two countries have been friends and allies for over

60 years. Their relationship has seen the coming and breaking of

many storms in the region, and if anything it goes from strength to

strength."

In the 1980s, the United States and Saudi Arabia played major

roles in supporting the Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion of

Afghanistan, pouring billions of dollars into procuring weapons and

other logistical support for the mujaheddin.

At the end of the decade, the relationship became even closer

when the U.S. military stationed a half-million troops on Saudi

territory to repel Hussein's invasions of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Several thousand U.S. troops have remained on Saudi soil, mainly to

run air operations in the region. Their presence has been cited by

Osama bin Laden as a major reason for his attacks on the United

States.

 

POPULAR IN NEOCON CADRE

The anti-Saudi views expressed in the briefing appear

especially popular among neoconservative foreign policy thinkers,

which is a relatively small but influential group within the Bush

administration.

"I think it is a mistake to consider Saudi Arabia a friendly

country," said Kenneth Adelman, a former aide to Defense Secretary

Donald H. Rumsfeld, who is a member of the Defense Policy Board but

didn't attend the July 10 meeting. He said the view that Saudi

Arabia is an adversary of the United States "is certainly a more

prevalent view that it was a year ago."

In recent weeks, two neoconservative magazines have run

articles similar in tone to the Pentagon briefing. The July 15 issue

of the Weekly Standard, which is edited by William Kristol, a former

chief of staff to Quayle, predicted "The Coming Saudi Showdown." The

current issue of Commentary, which is published by the American

Jewish Committee, contains an article titled, "Our Enemies, the

Saudis."

"More and more people are making parts of this argument, and

a few all of it," said Eliot Cohen, a Johns Hopkins University

expert on military strategy. "Saudi Arabia used to have lots of

apologists in this country. . . . Now there are very few, and most

of those with substantial economic interests or long-standing ties

there."

 

`A HUGE PROBLEM FOR US'

Cohen, a member of the Defense Policy Board, declined to

discuss its deliberations. But he did say that he views Saudi Arabia

more as a problem than an enemy. "The deal that they cut with

fundamentalism is most definitely a threat, [so] I would say that

Saudi Arabia is a huge problem for us," he said.

But that view is far from dominant in the U.S. government,

others said. "The drums are beginning to beat on Saudi Arabia," said

Robert Oakley, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan who consults

frequently with the U.S. military.

He said the best approach isn't to confront Saudi Arabia but

to support its reform efforts. "Our best hope is change through

reform, and that can only come from within," he said.

 

© 2002 The Washington Post Company