Saudis Warning Against Attack by U.S. on Iraq
The New York Times
March 17, 2002
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
RIDDA, Saudi Arabia, March 16
- Even before Air Force Two
touched down in Saudi Arabia
today, Vice President Dick
Cheney received an unusual
public warning from the Saudi
leadership that the Bush
administration should put aside
any plans for a military campaign
against Iraq.
"I do not believe it is in the
United States' interests, or the
interest of the region, or the
world's interest, to do so," Crown
Prince Abdullah told ABC News.
"And I don't believe it will achieve
the desired result."
With his latest remarks, Prince
Abdullah joined the chorus of
Arab complaints about the Bush
administration's talk of taking
military action to oust Saddam
Hussein and put an end to his
programs to develop weapons of
mass destruction. At virtually
every stop in the Arab world, Mr.
Cheney has been told that an
American military strike would
destabilize the region. The
warnings have been made in
news conferences, government
statements and, in the case of
Saudi Arabia, television
interviews.
At one stop on Mr. Cheney's
Middle East trip, his alert about
the threat of weapons of mass
destruction struck a chord. But
that stop was on the aircraft
carrier John C. Stennis, prowling
the Arabian sea, where Mr.
Cheney was preaching to the
converted.
American officials said before Mr.
Cheney's trip to the Middle East
that they thought Arab leaders
would eventually acquiesce in an
American military campaign
against Iraq, even if they made a
public show of disapproving of it.
But the persistence and
calculated nature of Arab
response show how Middle East
politics has intruded in Mr.
Cheney's mission.
Mr. Cheney met this evening with King Fahd and later
with Prince Abdullah, who became the de facto ruler of
the country after King Fahd had a stroke in 1995. Neither
Mr. Cheney nor any of his senior aides spoke to
journalists today about the Arab reaction to American
concerns about Iraq.
Arab leaders were generally making two points.
First, they were stating their strong preference that the
Bush administration drop its campaign against Iraq for
fear that it would stir Arab public opinion not only against
the United States but also against the Arab governments
that cooperate with Washington.
Second, they were sending Washington a signal that Arab
concerns should be addressed first to make public opinion
at home easier to manage if Washington moves forward
nonetheless with its top priority in the region: removing
Mr. Hussein from power.
"Their greatest fear is that the U.S. will invade Iraq to
topple Saddam Hussein at the same time as Ariel Sharon
reoccupies the West Bank," Martin S. Indyk, the former
American ambassador to Israel, said in a telephone
interview. "They are afraid that the street will rise up in
anger and that this will affect their own longevity.
"From their point of view there is a clear sequence," Mr.
Indyk added. "If we want them to go along with our efforts
on Saddam Hussein they want us to at least get the Israel-
Palestinian situation under some kind of control."
Dennis B. Ross, the former American special envoy to the
Middle East, said Arab leaders were likely to be less
categorical in private in opposing American action against
the Hussein regime.
"In private they will not be enthusiastic about us taking
on Iraq and will be making arguments against it, but they
will want to hear from us what approach we have that
might actually succeed," Mr. Ross said. "In the end, if they
see we are really going to do it, they would like it to be
done in an environment that creates the least problems
for them, which is another way of saying they want us to
defuse the situation between the Israelis and the
Palestinians."
In addition to trying to make a visible effort to quell the
Israeli- Palestinian fighting and establish a Palestinian
homeland, many observers say, the Bush administration
will need to make a separate push through the United
Nations to persuade Iraq to allow the return of United
Nations weapons inspectors.
For much of Europe as well as the Arab world, it seems
that any support for military action against Iraq can come
only after a determined effort to secure the admission of
the weapons inspectors has failed.
"We need the most extensive political pressure to allow
the United Nations to let military inspectors back into
Iraq," the German defense minister, Rudolf Scharping,
said. He told the newspaper Tagesspiegel that an
American military strike should be "the last solution."
Mr. Cheney's meetings here come during a period of
strain in American-Saudi relations. The American public
is well aware that 15 of the 19 hijackers involved in the
Sept. 11 attacks were Saudis. There have also been
concerns that the Saudi authorities have not done enough
to stem fund-raising for militants like Osama bin Laden.
The very notion that the crown prince would grant
television interviews on the eve of Mr. Cheney's arrival was
unusual. In them, Prince Abdullah sought to address
some American concerns.
He reaffirmed the Saudi peace proposal, under which
Israel would trade the territories it occupied in the 1967
war for normal relations with Arab nations. Over the last
week, some Saudi officials discussed a trade in which the
Israelis would be granted "full peace" instead of normal
relations, leading to a concern that the Saudis might be
backtracking on their offer.
Prince Abdullah, however, said he envisioned normal
relations with Israel, including the exchange of
ambassadors and trade. He said most Arab leaders had
agreed to his proposal, including Syria.
"What I said was normal relations, just as we have with
other countries," he told ABC.
In his interview, the crown prince condemned terrorism
and suggested that Mr. bin Laden had been financing
terrorist operations by dealing in narcotics. That claim
seemed to be an attempt to deflect criticism of Saudi
Arabia after reports that funds from groups based in the
kingdom have been funneled to Islamic militants and
terrorists.
But the crown prince had another message as well. It may
not be the Saudi's last word, but it was clear. An American
campaign against Saddam Hussein's regime, he repeated,
"would not serve America's interests or the interests of the
world."
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