LONDON, 29 August — Saudi Arabia has helped stop funds worth between $70 million and $90 million from reaching Al-Qaeda network in the past few months, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal announced yesterday. Speaking to the BBC radio, Prince Saud said he thought there was still a "very serious" threat from Al-Qaeda, Osama Bin Laden’s organization blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We expect the worst and work for the worst and this is why we are so active in the pursuit of everything that allows us to find information, provide it to our friends and allies and work together to dissipate any threat and danger," he said. "Saudi Arabia has cooperated completely with the US and this stems not from the friendship between the two countries alone but because this terrorism is as much targeting Saudi Arabia as it is targeting the US," he added.
In his BBC interview, the Saudi chief diplomat also stated that it would be unwise for the international community to try to force Saddam Hussein from power in Baghdad and install its own replacement. He said it was up to the Iraqi people to oust Saddam and it was gullible of people to think they knew better than the Iraqis what would be best for their country.
US President George W. Bush has named Iraq as part of an "axis of evil" for allegedly developing weapons of mass destruction. He has also called for a "regime change" to oust Saddam, possibly through military force. "Whether Saddam Hussein remains or is removed from power is up to the Iraqi people. It has never been proved in history ... that anybody removed from the outside and another person put in instead would serve the region’s stability," he told the BBC in the interview recorded for the World at One radio program in the Kingdom on Tuesday.
When asked if Saudi Arabia would let the United States use its military bases in the country to launch an operation to overthrow Saddam, Prince Saud did not answer the question, saying instead: "There is a chance for diplomacy to work."
He said his country was anxious about the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq, home to a large Shiite population in the south and a Kurdish minority in the north. Prince Saud also said pressure from the United States on Saddam could strengthen the resolve of ordinary Iraqis. "If they don’t have the option (of choosing their own leader), squeezing them and attacking them will force them into backing their government, rather than the reverse," he said. "What makes us so gullible as to think we know what is better for the Iraqi people than the Iraqi people themselves?"
Prince Saud said that Saudi Arabia had suffered at the hands of Saddam in the past. "He attacked Saudi Arabia with Scud missiles. One of them exploded right on top of my home in Riyadh. So the threat was very real," he said. "No one can say that Saudi Arabia in its policy does not give due consideration to what the threat of Saddam Hussein has for the region."
