DAMMAM, 22 January 2004 — A former US ambassador to Saudi Arabia and an expert on Middle East politics, Chas W. Freeman, Jr., has said that there are members of the Bush administration who are prejudiced against Saudi Arabia and are therefore detrimental to Saudi-US relations.

Freeman was ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War of 1990-91. He is currently president of the Middle East Policy Council and also heads Projects International which is a business group.

The former ambassador, who was in Saudi Arabia and who met Crown Prince Abdullah, Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal and Riyadh Governor Prince Salman, said Saudi Arabia should adopt a long-term strategy to end doubts about its credibility in the minds of the American public. “There is no short cut to this course,” he said.

In an interview with Arab News, the former ambassador discussed current US-Saudi relations, the war in Iraq, global terrorism, Saudi society and the reforms introduced by Prince Abdullah.

Concerning Saudi-US relations, Freeman said there were those in the Bush administration who were anti-Saudi Arabia. Without hesitation, he named US Attorney General John Ashcroft as one. “He is my friend and was my classmate but what I say is true and I am speaking on the record.” Such individuals with their prejudices, he said, were not serving the cause of the United States. At the same time, Freeman said President George W. Bush had no kind of “grudge against the Kingdom. In fact, Bush and the crown prince have an “excellent working relationship.”

The former ambassador said the vast majority of Americans have no understanding of Islam or Saudi Arabia. “They believe what they read and a section of the US media is anti-Islamic and anti-Saudi and this is reflected in the slant of their stories.”

Freeman said Sept. 11 had done very serious damage to Saudi Arabia’s image in the US. To the ordinary American what matters is that of the 19 Al-Qaeda members who attacked New York and the Pentagon, 15 were Saudi. “They ask one simple question: ‘What wrong did we do to Saudi Arabia that they should do such a thing to us?’”

He said it was up to Saudi Arabia to clarify its position in such a way that the message reached ordinary people in the US. “Someone has to tell Americans that Saudis are suffering as much at the hands of terrorists as Americans as the May and November bombings of compounds in Riyadh show.”

Freeman suggested that Saudi Arabia should also set up an endowment to finance image-improving campaigns. He said there should be more people-to-people contacts. “It is a long process but it will yield concrete results.”

He suggested a dialogue between Islam, Christianity and Judaism so that the elements of misunderstanding and mistrust among them could be eliminated.

When asked about Iraq, Freeman said the situation there was very volatile and that allied forces must not stay in Iraq. He admitted, however, that withdrawing American troops from Iraq would not be easy. “The US could not leave the country without giving it some kind of political system.”