PRINCE SULTAN AIR BASE, 30 April 2003 — The United States has decided to withdraw its forces from the Kingdom, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters here yesterday at a joint press conference with Prince Sultan, second deputy premier and minister of defense and aviation.

Rumsfeld is on a tour of the Gulf to thank regional leaders for their support in the US-led war on Iraq and to discuss a possible US military redeployment in the region now the threat from Saddam Hussein has been removed.

The Pentagon is considering moving its combined Air Operations Center from the Prince Sultan Air Base to Qatar. The ambitious transfer involves shifting about 400 US military personnel and control of day-to-day operations for Iraq and Afghanistan from the Prince Sultan Air Base, 80 km south of Riyadh, to the new $1 billion Al-Udeid Air Base in Qatar.

“They will leave, grateful for the cooperation and support Saudi Arabia has provided,” Rumsfeld said. “Over time we anticipate our forces in the region will be reduced. Needless to say that will be done in a manner that I hope will reflect the close cooperation and friendship between our countries.”

The Voice of America quoted Rear Adm. Dave Nichols as saying that one air operations center has already been moved to Qatar and that nearly all US Air Force personnel will leave Saudi Arabia by the end of the summer.

Asked how many aircraft would remain at the base by the end of the summer, US Air Force spokesman Maj. Gen. Ronald Rand replied: “US airplanes, zero.”

About 100 “coalition” aircraft are still at the Prince Sultan base, compared to a peak of 200.

“Our future relationship is in very robust exercise, training and engagement,” Rand added.

Rumsfeld said a small number of military personnel will stay back to train the Saudi military.

Prince Sultan said that following the end of aerial monitoring of Iraq under Operation Southern Watch, “there’s no need for them to be here.” “This does not mean we have requested them to move. The cooperation between our two countries was going on even before Desert Storm and it will continue even after the end of the war in Iraq,” the defense minister said.

He said Saudi Arabia, which provided a launchpad for coalition forces during Operation Desert Storm to oust Iraq from Kuwait in 1991, was looking to the United States now for training and technology.

In response to speculation that the move was a sign of differences between the two countries over the Kingdom’s refusal to let US aircraft based in the Prince Sultan Air Base take part in strikes against Iraq, Rumsfeld said on Monday that the Bush administration and Saudi Arabia had a “good and close relationship.”

At the joint press conference, Rumsfeld also addressed the issue of Syria.

“I think it’s a mischaracterization that we threatened Syria. We are not in the business of threatening,” Rumsfeld said. “It was a fact, not a threat, and that’s all I have to say.”

He repeated the charge that Syria had allowed into the country senior Iraqi officials. But he did not repeat earlier US accusations that Syria was developing chemical weapons.