WASHINGTON, 7 August — The Pentagon and the State Department yesterday distanced themselves from a briefing to a Pentagon board of advisers that portrayed Saudi Arabia as an enemy of the United States active at every level of terrorism.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell telephoned Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal to assure him President George W. Bush did not view his country as an emerging enemy, a State Department spokesman said. The telephone call followed media coverage of a briefing by the private Rand Corporation last month for a top Pentagon advisory panel depicting the Kingdom as a supporter of terrorism.
“The views expressed by private individuals...do not reflect the views of the president of the United States or of the US government,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told a news briefing.
“Secretary Powell assured the Saudi foreign minister of this in a telephone conversation this morning,” he added. Describing relations as “excellent,” Reeker acknowledged there were “differences” as in any relationship.
“But certainly these views that have (been) bantered about by certain individuals do not reflect the views of the president, nor of the US government, and the secretary made that quite clear in his telephone conversation,” Reeker said.
Reeker said the two countries shared a “vision of peace, stability and prosperity in the region.”
The spokesman added: “We’re pleased that we’ve been able to expand this relationship to include common efforts against the threat of international terrorism.”
“The Saudi government has cooperated in the international campaign against terrorism, and we welcome steps taken by Saudi Arabia to help combat the problem of terrorism financing, an important aspect of our war on terrorism globally,” Reeker said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the July 10 briefing by a Rand Corp. analyst to the Defense Policy Board, a Pentagon advisory group, “did not represent the views of the government, it did not represent the views of the Defense Policy Board.”
Rumsfeld said the account of the briefing leaked to the Washington Post had left a “harmful” misimpression, though he did acknowledge US differences with the Kingdom.
“It has broad spectrum of activities and things, some of which — just like our country — we agree with and some of which we may not,” he said.
“And yes, it is correct — as somebody said in the briefing — that a number of the people who were involved in Sept. 11 happened to be Saudi individuals, and that there are those issues that Saudi Arabia is wrestling with just as other countries of the world are wrestling with them.”
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was the lone Defense Policy Board participant to object to the anti-Saudi conclusions of the briefing, the Post said.
Briefer Laurent Murawiec urged that the Kingdom be given an ultimatum to stop all support for terrorism or face the seizure of its oil fields and financial assets. “Saudi Arabia supports our enemies and attacks our allies,” slides prepared by Murawiec said.
The Defense Policy Board, currently chaired by senior Reagan administration defense official Richard Perle, consists of former top officials and experts who advise the Pentagon on a wide variety of defense policy matters. Perle is a leading hawk in the debate whether to invade Iraq.
