JEDDAH, 9 August — In another attempt at damage control, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday telephoned Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation, over an explosive Pentagon briefing that branded the Kingdom a "terrorist" enemy.
Rumsfeld told Prince Sultan that he was "personally upset as was the Pentagon over what was said in a consultant report about the Kingdom," Saudi Press Agency said.
The July 10 briefing by Rand Corp. analyst Laurent Murawiec "reflects only a personal opinion, not the view of the Pentagon," Rumsfeld said.
The Bush administration was quick to distance itself from the briefing, which Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal dismissed as "pure fiction".
On Tuesday, Rumsfeld said the account of the briefing leaked to the Washington Post had left a "harmful" misimpression.
Murawiec urged a Pentagon board that Saudi Arabia be given an ultimatum to stop all support for terrorism or face the seizure of its oil fields and financial assets.
In a statement in Washington, Rand Corp. said the report presented by Murawiec "is not one of the researches of the corporation and only represents the view of its writer." David Eaginer, director of foreign relations at Rand, said: "This report represents a personal view and the corporation had not asked for such a report, nor financed it."
