Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal said the U.S. military
would not be able to use Prince Sultan Air Base for any attack on Iraq
although he stressed that U.S. military forces would not be expelled from
the kingdom.
The
U.S. Air Force completed the installation of an advanced air command and
control system in
Prince Sultan more than a year ago.
It was the first time a senior Saudi official publicly ruled
out any use of the air base for U.S. forces in a campaign against Iraq, Middle East Newsline reported.
"We have told them we don't [want] them to use Saudi grounds," Prince
Saud said.
The United States has played down the Saudi kingdom's public rejection of the American
use of military bases in the kingdom for an offensive against Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged the rejection by the
Saudi foreign minister, expressed in an interview with the Associated Press.
But Rumsfeld said the Saudis were not approached with such a U.S. request
for use of Prince Sultan in any military campaign against Iraq. Rumsfeld has
repeatedly denied U.S. plans to attack the regime of Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein.
"The president has not proposed such a thing," Rumsfeld said.
"Therefore, I don't find it really something that has been engaged as such."
At the State Department, deputy spokesman Philip Reeker said he did not
read the interview with Saud. The spokesman did not acknowledge that Saudi
Arabia relayed a decision to the United States against the use of Prince
Sultan for a military campaign against Iraq.
On Thursday, the Saudi-owned A-Sharq Al Awsat daily quoted Prince Saud
as saying the kingdom is cooperating with the United States in what he
termed the war on terrorism. The foreign minister said this includes
intelligence exchanges with Washington as well as joint efforts to stop the
funding of Islamic insurgency groups.
Arab diplomatic sources said Washington relayed several requests by the
Bush administration for use of Prince Sultan in the current war in
Afghanistan. The sources said the Saudi leadership at first ignored the
requests, then imposed a range of conditions that made war operations at the
air base unfeasible.
The sources said earlier this year Riyad and Washington engaged in a
series of discussions regarding the use of Prince Sultan in military
operations in the Persian Gulf. After a delay of several months, Saudi
Arabia said it would not permit U.S. warplanes to take off or land at Prince
Sultan for any operation that is not in defense of the kingdom.
For their part, Saudi government sources and analysts acknowledged
increasing tension with Washington. They said the Bush administration
changed its policy toward Riyad after the Sept. 11 Al Qaida attacks on New
York and Washington and became much more impatient with the slow pace of
decision-making in the kingdom.
"Their [U.S.] way of handling the relations [with Saudi Arabia and other
allies] is 'My way or the highway,'"
Saudi analyst Daoud Sharian wrote in the leading Saudi-owned Al Hayat daily
on Thursday. "This principle has hurt Saudi Arabia in dealing with it [the
United States]."
Prince Saud's rejection of the U.S. use of the Saudi air base against
Iraq came after U.S. officials acknowledged a meeting at the Pentagon that
discussed deteriorating relations between Riyad and Washington. At the
meeting to the Defense Policy Board, a briefer from the Rand
Corporation urged the United States to consider freezing Saudi assets and
targeting its oil field to prevent Riyad from helping America's enemies.
"We've called and talked to some of the folks [in Saudi Arabia],"
Rumsfeld said of the July 10 meeting. "So have I. And they fully understand
that things like that happen where someone has an opinion. It has nothing
to do with this administration or the government of the United States or
anyone in this department or anyone in the Department of State. It has to
do with an
individual who had some views. And this is a free country. Everyone in the
world gets used to seeing things in the press or said in the Congress or
other places, and we'll live with it fine."
