Pentagon Briefing: Threaten Saudis By Targeting Their Oil Fields

WASHINGTON, August 6 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - A briefing to a Pentagon defense panel described Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States and recommended that Saudi oil fields and overseas financial assets should be “targeted,” The Washington Post said Tuesday, August 6.

“The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader,” said Rand Corp. analyst Laurent Murawiec in his July 10 briefing to the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies,” Murawiec said, describing the country as “the kernel of evil, the prime mover, the most dangerous opponent” in the Middle East.

He said Washington should demand that Saudi Arabia stop funding what he claimed was “fundamentalist Islamic outlets around the world,” cease anti-U.S. and anti-Israeli statements and “prosecute or isolate those involved in the terror chain, including the Saudi intelligence services.”

If Riyadh did not comply, Saudi oil fields and overseas financial assets should be “targeted,” Murawiec added in his briefing, without specifying exactly how.

Murawiec's comments did not reflect the Pentagon panel's views or official U.S. policy, although they had “growing currency” within the administration of President George W. Bush, the daily said.

An unnamed U.S. official told the paper that opinion about Saudi Arabia was changing rapidly within the U.S. government.

“People used to rationalize Saudi behavior,” the official said. “You don't hear that any more. There's no doubt that people are recognizing reality and recognizing that Saudi Arabia is a problem.”

The paper said that 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 against Iraq.

According to the Post, 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”.

But former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger, dismissed the briefing, saying the Saudis are pro-American. “They have to operate in a difficult region, and ultimately we can manage them,” he said, quoted by the Post.

“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.”

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 told the Post. “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 bin 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 its issue last week, the U.S. weekly magazine Time questioned the U.S. reluctance to isolate Saudi Arabia and posed several questions on its strategic importance to the U.S.

Under an article titled “Do we still need the Saudis?” Time questioned the notion of oil sustaining the alliance between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia, and whether this still applies, now that the U.S. has found alternative oil sources.

“In the aftermath of September 11, it’s worth asking whether America truly still needs the Saudis. In economic and strategic terms, the U.S. can probably manage without them. Saudi Arabia today provides only 8% of the oil consumed by Americans. It accounts for 15% of the U S. crude-oil imports, less than half the amount the U.S. imports from Canada, Mexico and Venezuela.

“That’s a far cry from the 25% figure for 1973, when the Saudis… embargoed oil sales to the U.S. and prompted a 70% rise in crude prices,” said Time, in reference to the Saudi part in the Arab-Israeli war from which Egypt emerged victorious.

Other valid reasons, according to the magazine, to isolate Saudi Arabia is open loathing for the U.S. and sympathy for Saudi-born dissident Osama bin Laden’s cause.

“The kingdom’s latent anti-Americanism has been stoked in recent months by fierce opposition to the Bush Administration’s pro-Israel Middle East policies and the perceived harassment of Muslims in the U.S,” said that magazine.

The magazine added that the most important issue to consider when cutting ties with Saudi Arabia is the country’s reluctance to participate in the upcoming U.S.-led war against Iraq and prompting the U.S. military to begin planning around them.