This article is an indication of the US
intentions to seize the oil fields of the Middle East, starting with Iraq and
moving on to Saudi Arabia, using its so-called "war on terrorism" as a
pretext. That hundreds of thousands may die is, apparently, of no consequence to
proponents. See highlighted text
below. My comments in [ ]'s.
--Dan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, August 6, 2002; Page A01
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 Corp. 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.
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. [The
US, it has been said, doesn't have friends, it has interests.]
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."
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."
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 [puppet] 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 [i.e., grab their old fields, too?].
"The road to the entire Middle East goes through Baghdad," said the
administration official, who is hawkish on Iraq. "Once you have a
democratic [puppet] regime in Iraq, like the ones we helped establish in Germany
and Japan after World War II, there are a lot of possibilities." [Indeed!]
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.
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.
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."
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.