WASHINGTON, 4 February — The United States should maintain its military presence in Saudi Arabia because it promotes stability in the Gulf region, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has said.

"We think the military arrangements between us and the Saudi government are good for stability in the region," Rice told Asharq Al-Awsat daily, in an exclusive interview published yesterday.

"We are friends and strategic partners and we can obviously discuss our presence any time. But this presence has served us well, and we believe it will continue to be in our joint interest," she said.

Around 5,000 US troops and an unknown number of US warplanes have remained in Saudi Arabia after the 1991 Gulf War, from where they patrol an air exclusion zone over southern Iraq.

Washington and Riyadh last month denied US media reports that the United States may be asked to pull its troops from the Kingdom.

Rice said US-Saudi ties, which have been strained by a spate of attacks on the Kingdom by American media and Congressmen since the Sept. 11 bombings in New York and Washington, remained "very good."

"Saudi Arabia and the United States have been friends for a very long time. We are strategic partners and share many interests," she said.

"During this war on terror, we have been able to rely on this close friendship to cooperate in an excellent way," Rice said, noting that "American media are free to say what they like."

Rice said the United States wanted to discuss with Saudi Arabia the fate of some 100 Saudi prisoners from the war in Afghanistan held at a US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"We have not yet made a decision with regard to those held in Guantanamo, and it is an issue we want to discuss with the Saudi and other governments," she said.

"We are trying to get as much information as possible from these people... which could prevent a new attack... After all, the next attack might not occur in the United States," said the official.

Asked about US policy on Saddam Hussein, Rice said: "The Iraqi people deserve better than what they have. We’re very clear about this." However, she said President George W. Bush "has not decided on a specific way of dealing with Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime, but he has made clear that this regime is bent on acquiring mass destruction weapons and we can’t allow that."

The Baghdad regime "boasts of defying the desire of the international community that it should behave in a way that does not threaten its people," she charged.

Rice said the United States did not plan to enlist the Iraqi opposition in an effort to topple Saddam, as it helped Afghan opposition forces topple the Taleban militia. "We will not try to apply the Afghan model to other countries. It would be wrong to follow such a logic," she said. "But we do support those who oppose him (Saddam), and there are many who oppose him in various parts of the country."

Asked what Saddam should do to avoid war, Rice said: "Saddam knows what he must do. He must stop threatening his neighbors, repressing his people and pursuing mass destruction weapons."

"We will see" what happens if he continues to reject these demands, the US official added.

Bush revived speculation that Baghdad might be a target of a future phase of Washington’s "war on terror" when he described Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil" in his State of the Union address last Tuesday.