Stardate 20021023.1659

(On Screen): Reuters was granted an interview with Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia. This article reports the summary of the points he made and the answers he gave to critical questions. Much of it was predictable.

It's all Israel's fault, of course. And everything would be just peachy if only the US adopted the right policy about that:

Asked what Washington should do, he said: "Stop Israeli attacks on the Palestinians, have the Israelis withdraw from Palestinian lands and start serious negotiations for peace."

Except that this has been tried, over and over, and the only result was a rising tide of terrorist attacks against Israel, along with fruitless negotiations that went nowhere.

Of course, as is always the case, there are code words, hidden meanings. In this case the code word is "serious" and what it means is that the US is supposed to apply pressure to Israel to make truly damaging concessions to the Palestinians that actually put Israel's own future in peril. But regardless of what it is he wants, there's a snowball's chance in the Saudi Arabian desert of him getting it.

Saudi Arabia has been a strategic U.S. ally for more than half a century but the relationship was severely strained by last year's September 11 attacks on the United States, in which 15 of the 19 suicide attackers were Saudis.

It is not expected actively to back a war against Iraq, but the campaign would be much more complicated if U.S. planes could not at least use Saudi airspace.

That's an interesting observation. There are several parts to that. The first is that American (and other friendly) jets operating over the Iraqi theater may, on occasion, stray across the Saudi border during maneuvers. Assuming a Saudi denial of rights to their airspace, I suspect in a case like this they'd look the other way. It's unlikely that they'll even set up any means of detecting such brief incursions.

The second point is that if one of our jets gets damaged by Iraqi air defenses and doesn't think it can safely return to a friendly air base, then its primary goal will be to get out of Iraq so that when it goes down the pilot is not at risk of capture. Best case is Kuwait or Turkey; second best is Jordan. If those are not possible, then Saudi Arabia is the third choice. Iran is last but still better than Iraqi capture. (Syria is not an issue; any aircraft in such condition could make Jordan instead.)

If one of our pilots in a damaged jet flies into Saudi Arabia and then ejects, the Saudis would not make a fuss.

The third reason Saudi airspace would be useful would be if we wanted to put a carrier into the Red Sea, then the best routes to Iraq would be right over Saudi Arabia, and if we honored a Saudi denial, then that's pretty much out of the question. We will definitely operate at least one carrier in the Gulf of Arabia, and if Jordan permits use of its airspace we'll probably operate one in the Mediterranean off the coast of Israel. It would be nice to use the Red Sea, too, but it's not fatal if we cannot. (We would not put a carrier into the Gulf itself; there's no need to do so, and it would be far less safe there.)

And there's also the issue of heavy aircraft flying from Oman and Diego Garcia; if Saudi airspace is forbidden then they'd have to take a more circuitous route over the Gulf.

We could, of course, ignore them and use their airspace without permission but I don't think we will; there's no good reason to anger them like that. (Yet.)

He denied there was any crisis in Saudi-U.S. relations. "We in the government of Saudi Arabia don't see this stress."

"The two countries remain important to each other and this is why we base our relationship on truth, transparency and facts. It would be tragic if we based our friendship on hearsay or untruths."

He said the number of Saudis among the September 11 hijackers was disproportionate to their membership in the al Qaeda network and it had been the express intention of their leader, Osama bin Laden, to sabotage Saudi-U.S. relations.

But he added: "We have managed to work through that, you needn't worry about our ability to deal with that."

I'm afraid he's being disingenuous here. (Nice word that; a polite way to say "He's lying".) He knows full well there's a crisis, and only a blind man couldn't see it happening. Why, for example, did we move our main airbase and C&C facility in the region out of Saudi Arabia into Qatar? That was expensive and surely it wasn't just because we thought the weather was nicer in Qatar.

In reference to virulent U.S. conservative attacks against Saudi Arabia and accusations that his country is the "kernel of evil," the prince said: "We hope that the United States will deal with those who are accusing Saudi Arabia of things that are not true."

Again, I think he's being disingenuous. Yes, he might hope that, but he can't actually expect it. He knows full well that those of us accusing Saudi Arabia of things that are true have a Constitutional right of Free Expression, and that the US government will not be making any attempt to suppress us.

Prince Saud said Riyadh had been combating terrorism long before September 11. Since then it had coordinated its effo