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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KLP who wrote (41873)	9/4/2002 2:32:23 AM
From: LindyBill	Respond to of 281500

"State" is still "On their Knees" to the House of Saud. From "National Review" September 3, 2002, 9:10 a.m. Working for the Saudis The State Department undermines a congressional delegation's freedom mission. Although the bipartisan congressional delegation led by Rep. Dan Burton (R., Ind.) can claim some modest success in its just-completed trip to Saudi Arabia, our own State Department surreptitiously undermined one of the group's top goals of rescuing abducted children; two American citizens, in particular, remain trapped in the desert prison as a result. House Government Reform Committee Chairman Burton arrived in Saudi Arabia last week with a primary focus on rescuing 15 American children (some now adults) taken there in violation of court orders awarding custody to parents in the United States. The Saudi foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, assured Burton and the delegation that any adult women American citizens in Saudi Arabia would be given exit visas to leave the country, bypassing Saudi law that demands that women receive the permission of their husbands or fathers before leaving the kingdom. Al-Faisal did not mention exit visas for younger children and no American has yet left as a result of this new arrangement, but this is still more progress than State can claim over the past decade and a half. The abduction cases date back to 1986, when the daughters of Patricia Roush, Alia and Aisha, were taken from their suburban Chicago home by their Saudi national father. In the intervening 16 years, State has done little to help ensure the safe return of Roush's now-adult daughters. Roush's ordeal has become well-known to millions, thanks to Burton's June 12 hearing, press coverage, and media appearances by Roush to plead her family's case. Because of the publicity, the Roush story threatens to upset the "stability" of the U.S.-Saudi relationship ? something that does not sit well with top officials at State or their Saudi friends. Unfortunately, the Roush girls had little chance of being helped by the Burton delegation; just as the delegation arrived in Saudi Arabia, the Saudis shuttled Alia and Aisha to London to have them sign a "statement" renouncing their mother and the United States, where they were born. The most disturbing aspect of the London shuffle is not that the young women (who are now 20 and 23) were surrounded by Saudis, most likely including government officials, while cooped up in a London hotel that accordingly resembled a mini-Saudi Arabia. The worst part is that the U.S. State Department played a key role in aiding the Saudi scheme. Despite asking for ? and being denied ? Roush's permission to take a statement from her daughters, a consular officer with State willingly took the "statement" made by Alia and Aisha on Saturday anyway. Any benefit of the doubt State might have deserved evaporated in its own official take on the girls' "statement." The State Department claims that Alia and Aisha were "on vacation." A quick look at the facts ? with which State is already familiar ? suggests otherwise. For nearly 17 years, Alia and Aisha had been denied exit visas because of "Saudi law." As far as anyone knows, this is the first time since being abducted in 1986 that either girl has left the desert prison. And State actually expects people to believe the girls freely decide to go "on vacation" on the very same weekend that a congressional delegation travels to Saudi Arabia to rescue them? State further alleges that Alia and Aisha, and not the Saudi government, requested the meeting with the United States consular officer ? an unlikely scenario. But State wasn't content with merely spouting the official Saudi line about the girls requesting the meeting while "on vacation." State did the Saudis' bidding, telling the press not that Alia and Aisha did not want to move to the United States, but that they didn't even want to "travel" here. Aside from doing personal injury to Pat Roush, State's decision to take the "statement" had real consequences. It came less than a day before Burton was to ask the Saudi foreign minister for acceptable conditions under which Roush could meet with her daughters ? which State knew all about. After a month of painstaking planning and coordination with both the Saudi government and State, Burton expected ? at a minimum ? honest dealing from the respective parties, but sadly, he did not even get that. At the last minute, the Saudis temporarily exported their largest headache so that the girls would be outside the reach of Burton and the rest of the delegation. But the action would have been for naught without the stamp of legitimacy placed on it by State. The Saudis' duplicity only succeeded because of State's complicity ? and two innocent young women have been sacrificed at the altar of that unholy alliance. nationalreview.com