Michael. saudi's waste no time taking advantage of ant-war protests....Great friends and allies. :-(
Saudi Prince Calls Arab Troops in Iraq
By Associated Press
February 15, 2003
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Arab states should send military troops to Iraq immediately to forestall a foreign invasion, a liberal Saudi prince said Saturday.
"We call on all the Arabs to make this demand, and we call on the noble Arab leaders to make this demand a reality," Prince Sultan bin Turki said in a statement issued in Geneva and faxed to The Associated Press in Dubai.
The prince did not spell out the role an Arab force would play in Iraq, but he said it would help keep the peace and prevent civil unrest.
The United States and Britain accuse Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of concealing weapons of mass destruction and have threatened to disarm Iraq by force. Washington and London have deployed tens of thousands of troops in the Gulf in preparation for such an invasion.
"The Arabs should not wait. The Arab people should be the main player in resolving this case, rather than have the colonial solution be imposed on us," the prince said in his statement.
The prince, a nephew of Saudi King Fahd, does not hold a high-ranking position in the Saudi government. He is known for speaking his mind on foreign and domestic issues and is regarded as one of a small group of royal family members who favor bold reform.
The prince said the Iraqi government and people should accept his proposal as to do otherwise would leave the country vulnerable to "American or international" intervention, he said.
Arabs must choose "to be or not to be," he said. "The good of the Arab nation and the Iraqi people demands that its destiny be placed in its own hands to save it from the catastrophe it has been in since the 1991 Gulf War and to drive out foreign forces from the Arab region."
He also called for lifting the U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq since its invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
Saudi Arabia has been at the forefront of Arab states seeking to avoid a war in Iraq, fearing it would destabilize the region and promote Islamic militancy.
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